#SMCQ16 How do you measure influence?

Metrics, popularity, comment counts, network buzz or simple word-of-mouth credibility? There are a huge number of factors that go into determining the influence of a blogger or online platform, but how can you tell who or what truly influences both individual and community behavior. What does true influence even mean?  On this week’s Social Media Question of the Week call, our Editorial board discussed how we rank influence in an ever-more-vocal online environment. When do you listen and when do you tune out a blogger’s opinion or other online source of information? How do you choose and rate your sources? We want to know:

#SMCQ16 How do you measure social media influencers and/or influential online communities?

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

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#SMCQ15 On truth-finding

This week’s SMCQ15: How do you know who to trust within the social media environment? was especially pertinent given the dramatic impact Social Media had amidst the election and protests in Iran.  The online conversation and direct responses we received pointed out the need for self responsibility and incorporating a journalistic standard for fact checking.

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

Some notes from the online conversation:

“Is Twitter The CNN Of The New Media Generation?,” by Brian Solis, TechCrunch,  June 17, 2009

“Fact checking is a vital part of the news business and is ultimately what separates amateurs from experts. But researching fact from hearsay or even opinion is almost impossible on Twitter for most users. Keen believed that citizen media is corrupting the very institution of news media because most of the individuals publishing information using social tools, he argues in his book, are “grossly misinformed.” While Morris didn’t make the sweeping assertion that Keen expressed, his point is noteworthy and deserves further examination”

“How Not To Be A Social Media Sucker (aka who to trust online),” by Kimberly Turner, Regator, June 25, 2009

“You can guarantee fast or you can guarantee accurate, but you can’t guarantee both. We want things instantly. If a plane landed in the Hudson 30 seconds ago, we want details NOW. Fair enough. But remember, the faster you get your news, the less likely it is to have undergone a fact-checking process. Monthly magazines, for example, often have teams of fact-checkers who verify everything from the spellings of names to the color of a source’s hair if it’s mentioned. This is because monthly publications work several weeks out. There is time for due diligence.”

Iran + Twitter = Trust, But Don’t Verify, by Farel Chideya, The Huffington Post

“So, how do you verify? Well… some people say, just… don’t. It’s a cul-de-sac you can go around again and again. I am not saying don’t follow Twitter (again, that would be useless). I do want to follow Twitter, on #IranElections and all else. What I don’t want to do is give up the idea of verifying information.”

“How Do You Know What Tweets are True? Exactly the Same Way You Source Everything Else” by Sarah Delman, Corporate Memo

“Social media isn’t some separate sphere: it’s similar, in fact, to all other source building. If you don’t know who to trust, online or off, then you’re not doing your job. It’s what reporters do: they figure out who to trust before they need to. You should have built social media sources beforehand in exactly the same way you build offline sources.”

“Twitter and Social Media in Iran,” By Anthony Caruana, Hydrapinion, June 24, 2009

“solely relying on Twitter where particularly poignant or inflammatory Tweets are heavily retweeted doesn’t equate with accuracy.”

Highlights from The Twitter Stream:

@rustytanton There’s nothing in the question to imply that mainstream media or what you hear on the street is superior in any way 

@dwiggins: How different from other sources? Same question. Most folks think answers found on Google correct! Info literacy a core need here.

@znmeb posted twice on the question: I don’t think “social media” are any different regarding trust than any other communication channel”
and, noting need for self responsibility, @znmeb: #SMCQ15 fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me

@ baurecom: nowadays you can’t really trust anybody. You have to thoroughly check the validity of the source b4 you broadcast it.

Further Reading

Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned, by Naomi Cohen, New York Times, June 20, 2009

“Crisis Communications Online: Social Media Usage during a Crisis with Leysia Palen,” by Eric Schwartzman, On the Record, June 4, 2009

“Thumbs To The News: Public Turns To Twitter,” by Wendy Kaufman, NPR, April 20, 2009

“Finding Truth on the Internet,” Wired, by Louise Witt, September 4, 2004

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

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A new social media song and music video by Pete Codella

A couple months ago, as I was returning home after presenting at a social media conference in Las Vegas, I had an idea: what if I took a fun, popular song and changed the words to tell a story about social media?

My idea came to reality with the help of my wife and some great friends these past few weeks.

I debuted my new social media music video, Crazy Little Thing the Web, today at a presentation I gave in Denver for the America’s Blood Centers annual conference.

The reason I choose this outlet is because it brings some of my musical theater training into my practice as a digital public relations counselor and practitioner. It combines something fun and creative with the world of social media and communication.

Other Applications

Are there ways your company or organization can utilize multimedia sharing sites like YouTube to tell your message in a new, engaging and creative way?

If so, what will be the end result? In other words, why would you want to tell something in a different way?

Are you looking for greater awareness, for more members, to sell products?

Perhaps an indirect, creative message — one that demonstrates your expertise without a blatant sales pitch — will produce increased engagement and enhance your communication efforts. At least it’ll show you’re creative and willing to step out and do something different.

We all know the definition of insanity: repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.

Challenge

Social Media Club: what do you bring to the table? How have you engaged constituents in new and creative ways? What will you be known for? What makes you unique and different from everyone else?

Enjoy Crazy Little Thing the Web

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor with this new entree into the world of songs about social media.

Please feel free to take this new social media song and share it, tweak it, edit it, revise it, improve upon it, etc.

It’s all about the creative process and collectively creating something better than the sum of its parts.

Published on the Codella Marketing YouTube channel on June 24, 2009.

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SMCLA Panel Recap: Improve Your Search Engine Optimization Using Social Media

The panelists included (listed by order of personal page rank):

• Sean Percival (PR5): Sean Percival is an online content producer from Los Angeles, California. For work Sean is the Director of Content for Tsavo, for play the founder of lalawag.
• Jeffrey Henderson (PR4): Jeff is an Internet entrepreneur and founder/CEO of Adept Marketing Concepts, a firm offering SEO, reputation management, website design, domaining and sales outsourcing.
• Tony Adam (PR3): works for Yahoo! as an SEO Manager for it’s Audience Marketing group. His “About Tony Adam” page is worth visiting.
• Barbara Boser (PR3):Barbara Boser is a “Social media consultant, wife, mom, marketer.”

Moderating her final SMCLA event as club director/founder was Jackie Peters: founding partner of Heavy Bag Media, a communication strategy firm based in Los Angeles.

What are some of the myths surrounding SEO and social media?

• Barbara: SEO and Social Media are not one in the same. They absolutely do not equal each other.
• Tony: There is no secret sauce. There is no one trick. It’s a holistic process.
• Jeffrey: Search is constant traffic. Spikes occur from Social Media. Search is where they find you, SM is where they hear about you.
• Sean: A big misconception is that you need to be ranked #1. You can still get a lot of traffic by ranking anywhere on the first page. Google is using a “freshness” rule to see who continually hits the keyword. Social Media is not a replacement for search. Search will always be #1 driver.

How important are social bookmarking sites to your SEO strategy?

• Barbara: The goal is to get your content picked up and passed along via shared links. Driving comments and bookmarks to your site gives your page “authority”. It feeds upon itself with scrapers and reposters.
• Tony: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit are not for ALL of your content. Be selective and have a strategy.
• Jeffrey: Digg/Reddit-write a sensational headline. Use IM to ask people for Diggs and be sure to build out a good network of Digg friends (using social media, in-life events, good old fashioned friendships). Be authentic or else you’ll get trashed.

Are there certain social bookmarking sites for certain content?

• Sean: The female demographic stuff will not make it to Digg. There’s actually a female-targeted social bookmarking site called Kirtsy for that. Reddit is the “smart” version of Digg and focuses more political and analytical. StumbleUpon is for your aunt who has an AOL address and sends you random sites.
• Jackie: StumbleUpon delivers the largest spikes for her sites.
• Sean: StumbleUpon may deliver traffic, but it’s all NoFollow links, so don’t expect to get any authority along with your traffic spikes. Digg is for male sites & new sites (Monolith content hits Digg homepage 2-3 times a week). StumbleUpon is basically for random, unfocused, one-off posts.
• Jeffrey: StumbleUpon is the gift that keeps on giving…very long tail for traffic with random spikes

What is link juice (and why does it make me feel so dirty) ?

• Tony: Described the history of Page Ranking and how things have evolved from HTML Meta tagging to # of linkbacks (inbound links from other sites to yours), and how things are now evolving into needing to do all of the on-page SEO stuff but also having a strategy to get to the front of Digg so that you get picked up by authority passing sites like TechCrunch or Read Write Web to give you the bump you really need. That passed “authority” is basically what “link juice refers to”. Think of it as a vote from one site to another…only not all votes are created equal.
• Sean: The more inbound links to your site the better. There is a new emphasis on relevancy and freshness. Google will add more emphasis to a relevant backlink. Anchor text needs to be varied or else it raises flags (so be careful if you send out specific HTML for people to include in their posts)
• Barbara: Backlinking relevance is very important. For example, if you’re an automotive site, a backlink from a site with high relevance to toys (but no relevance to automotive) is not really worth much

Top SEO Tips

• Sean: For relevance, use the tilde character (”~”) before a search term on Google to perform a search. The resulting page will show you synonyms to the term you’re looking at in bold. For example, if you’re searching for “wave”, you’d type “~wave” and the results page would show terms like “surf, ocean, beach” in bold and bring back those results as well.
• Sean: See the backlinks to your site using the Google search box. Type “link:yoursite.com” to see who links to your site. You can filter it down to the page if you’d like. (Ex: http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Asocialmediaclub.la Hey! How come we don’t have more?)
• Barbara: Tip: Know who the groups are who push things to the front page. Look at posts that go to the front quickly and see who the usernames are who are pushing these things forward. It’s kind of an insider community, but see what you can do to get into it or to figure out how to do something similar with a group of your own.
• Sean: There is an art to writing a post for your blog/site that is positioned well to capitalize on trends, but also relates the trend itself to the subject of your site. Trends can be a very powerful tool to grabbing traffic (and subsequently authority and ranking).
• Tony: .GOV and .EDU sites pass more backlink authority than regular sites. Consider engaging a university on a project, donation, sponsorship to get your logo with a high authority backlink to your site as a tactic to increase page ranking
• Barbara: Don’t be greedy with only internal links. Link outward and you’ll get some reciprocal links from friendly people. Play in a “safe neighborhood” by linking to other sites with relevance. Writing a post on a trending topic can get good inbound links with authority, but spin it so it’s relevant to your keywords.

15 Useful SEO Tools

• Trellian SEO Toolkit: includes everything you need to optimize and promote your web pages, to increase your web site traffic and search engine visibility.
• StumbleUpon Toolbar”>StumbleUpon Toolbar (Firefox): discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
• Instant Messaging: To communicate to people that it’s time to spread the link love and get busy with the social bookmarking, tweeting and re-tweeting.
• Majestic SEO is a company that offers a service for SEO that Barbara recommends for competitive link intelligence.
• SEO Toolbar by SEOBook.com: The SEO Toolbar pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.
• Yahoo Site Explorer: Use this tool to see who is linking to you. Or, better yet, use it to see who is linking to your competitors! Pages here are listed by rank, so pay close attention to those that show up first and learn from them.
• Del.icio.us Toolbar (Firefox): Quick and easy access to save sites into your del.icio.us social bookmarking stream.
• Digg.com/tools/firefox”>Digg Toolbar (Firefox)
• Google Keyword Tool: type in a keyword and get back tons of information about volume of searches, trends related to that term, local and global data about that keyword and synonymous words.
• Google Keyword Search-Related Keyword Tool: similar to the keyword tool, but adds what Google thinks is related based on search patterns
• SEO Quake (Firefox or IE): allows user to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly.
• Google Webmaster Tools: a one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
• WordTracker: a must have resource for any search engine marketing professional. It combines both a respectable search term database with tools that make mining the information easy.
• Google AdWords: Once you have an account, you have access to key information about keywords, the cost of keywords, related keywords and more…
• Google Trends: understanding trends and predicting user behavior is more than half the battle when it comes to creating compelling content that gets picked up.

10 Useful Sites for SEOs of All Levels

• Search Engine Land: Search Engine Land is the industry’s leading online publication for the latest search news, research and anaylsis, commentary and expert advice. Led by search authorities Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, an experienced editorial staff and wide range of contributors produce the most comprehensive coverage in the industry.
• SEOMoz: SEOmoz serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide, providing education, tools, resources and paid services to help every SEO to be the best they can be.
• Alltop’s SEO Page: Alltop aggregates RSS headlines from all of the top search engine optimization news and headlines from across the web.
• Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) Blog: Matt is the head of Google Webspam and provides an inside view on Google’s search engine. This is his personal page, and isn’t primarily focused on SEO, but if you dig a bit you’ll get some good info.
• Google’s YouTube Videos for Webmasters: This is the official YouTube channel for Google Webmaster Central, your one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
• SEOChat: Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - SEO Chat
• SEOBook: SEO Book.com is a leading SEO blog by Aaron Wall covering the search space. It offers marketing tips, search analysis, and whatever random rants come to mind.
• Sphinn: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.
• Brent Csutoras
• 10e20: 10e20, LLC is THE Global Internet Marketing & Web Solutions Company® dedicated to helping small and mid-size companies meet and exceed their Internet marketing goals. Each day we strive to deliver a strong return on your investment.

Q&A from SMCLA Crowd

Question: “I have a client with 300 company acquisitions (each has a website in a relatively similar and relevant field)…should their sites link to each other?

• Sean: There is an extreme power in having a network of sites. Be careful going overboard on it and use “no follow” with some moderation to keep the quality of cross-pollination high. For highly advanced users, people use different IP blocks, data centers, load blanceers, etc… to really randomize the source of authority building links. The more random the source, the less likely it is that Google will nerf them.

Are there any strategies that apply to image galleries?

• Jeffrey: You definitely want to use filenames that are “human readable”. A picture with a filename of “best-golf-clubs.jpg” is a LOT better than “1234.jpg”.
• Sean: ALT tags are important too. Since search engine bots can’t see your picture, make sure that the picture has machine readable tags to describe what the picture depicts.
• Sean: I once saw a massive spike from a post I did with a picture of Megan Fox. It was a perfect confluence of filename, alt tag, page title, etc…coupled with an extremely popular female celebrity.
• Tony: That brings up a great point: “universal search” (searching across images, videos, text, and other media) does have a vast reach. Be sure to populate your content across sites like Flickr and YouTube to take advantage of those search sites as well.

What about measuring the success and results of your SEO efforts? Tools?

• Jeffrey: To measure success, you must have good baseline stats and well defined goals for what you want to achieve. This could be anything from just traffic stats to very specific conversion goals like opt-in email list joins, ad banner clicks, or filling out a survey. Define your goals, and have a strategy for what your site is supposed to do and then use the tools to measure your conversion rates. Use Google Webmaster Tools, Website Analytics, Rank Checker, Excel
• Sean: Tons of ranking tools are available. Google has a bunch of “ranking tools”. I use custom Excel sheets in-house to track these things (example: weekly Google positioning for specific keywords). I track growth based on ranking on certain terms and # of pages indexed as a metric. Google Webmaster Tools has “diagnostics” for your site that provide most of these metrics.
• Barbara: Look at analytics - 90% bounce rate is bad. Do your research on the topic and find competitors who rank higher. See if you can make changes to switch up your bounce rate so your site is stickier.

More Tools: SEO Goal Conversion & Ranking Measurement

• Web Position: WebPosition® 4 offers all of the tools necessary to improve your web site’s search engine rankings and increase revenue. WebPosition 4 now includes a summary dashboard, trend graphs, essential off-site metrics (link popularity and search engine saturation reporting) and 200+ new search engines.
• Rank Checker by SEOBook (Firefox):Want to know where your website ranks in the search results? Our Firefox Rank Checker extension allows you to easily check your website rankings in Google (US and international), Yahoo, and Microsoft Live search.
• Web CEO: Complete SEO Toolkit offering a whole suite of features and services all centered around optimizing your site for search.
• SEO Tools on SEO Moz: The SEOmoz toolset includes over twenty SEO tools designed to help with every aspect of search engine optimization, including on-page targeting, site crawlability, competitive analysis, rank checking and keyword difficulty.
• Google Analytics Goal Tracking & Funnels: Google Analytics offers a number of conversion measurement tools to help you define and assess whether or not you’re accomplishing your goals with your website.

Ways to optimize your content to rank within the social networks.

• Sean: Include the social network badges to encourage social sharing. I recommend that you don’t go overboard with the badges because people develop a blind spot to a noisy area of logos/icons. Choose the ones you want to target (ex: Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter). I especially like TweetMeme buttons to encourage Re-tweeting of content.
• Jeffrey: WordPress is your friend here. There are so many plugins you can use to faciliate the optimization around your content. I use All in One SEO and Google XML Sitemap Generator to name a few.
• Barbara: Get on those Instant Messaging channels and get your network of friends to boost you up. Ask for favors saying, “can you Digg this?” or Ccan you please tweet about this or post it into your Facebook wall?”. That groundswell of popularity and passed link sharing is worth its weight in gold.

This was such a great panel and we’d like to thank everyone who assisted with the event. Special thanks goes out to Jackie Peters for her year of service to the club as a founder and a director. We’d also like to thank our sponsors: Rubicon Project and EasyTweets for making it all possible. Congrats to our 4 winners on their fully licensed copies of EasyTweets!

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Want to Join the Question of the Week Editorial Board?

Love, appreciate and use Social Media for both work and personal use as well as talking and blogging about it? Interested in trends affecting the social media industry? Want to help shape the Social Media Club Question of the Week initiative? We’re looking for a few new members to round out our Editorial Board and that could be you.
Launched at SXSW ‘09, the goal of the Social Media Club Question of the Week is to create a hub of conversation for best practices regarding New & Social Media around the globe. As you’ll see if you visit the SMCQ Archive, the blog features links to board and reader posts, comments, polls, presentations and Tweets in response to the questions we pose each week. The goal is to create a real-time archive of the discourse surrounding new media as it evolves. SMC Editorial Board members participate in a weekly call and are strongly encouraged to do research and post on topic during the week. If you’re interested in being considered, please write deborah@socialmediaclub.org and include information about your participation in social media thus far, links to your sites and any questions you may have.

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Social Media Camp #IWNY Wrap-Up

Social Media Club’s Social Media Camp was a great success thanks to the over 120 people who participated! Social media Camp was held in the Roger Smith hotel last Thursday, June 4 2009 during Internet Week New York. The camp had over two dozen sessions throughout an eight hour day, with well known social media professionals, small business folks, professionals and corporate communications teams learning from and teaching each other. There has been some great feedback from those who attended and a good amount of sharing from the people at the camp too.

Some of the comments on Twitter

• VegasBill @pepsico The info packed sessions @ #smcamp 4 #iwny look amazing. @ChrisHeuer is a dynamic social media role model. Have a great time:)
• stevecherches RT @MellieBe: Check out our top social media marketing tips from Social Media Camp#smcamp http://tinyurl.com/l7dqm3 (Great post)
• deanmeistr @danzarella bummed I couldn’t do graphic recording of your talk at #smcamp - I dig the concepts/content of your talk–maybe next time!
• LesBlatt Smart idea seen at #smcamp yesterday: some attendees put their Twitter names on their conf name badges. Made it easy to follow them.
• chttrbx99 please retweet - Thanks to @howardgr & @chrisheuer for a great day at #smcamp NYC yesterday some great conversations
• SocialSteve @chrisheurer and @howardgr did a great job on #smcamp (Social Media Camp) at #iwny. Check them out at socialmeadiacamp.org
• Amver @chrisheuer Not only did I find #smcamp valuable I would love to join SMC. Hopefully our paths will cross again.
• SocialSteve Last week’s participation in #smcamp (Social Media Camp) and #iwny (Internet Week NY) has spawned tons of activity.
• craige @chrisheuer et al: Thanks for a fabulous event! I feel so inspired after attending #smcamp.

Differing slightly from a typical BarCamp, Social Media Camp not only offered open space for participants to create their day together, but also a “Social Media 101″ series planned out in advance to allow for those who are new to Social Media to learn some of the basics. These sessions were all streamed live and are available as an on demand episode from Livestream, a partner for Social Media Camp. This 5 session series was lead by Howard Greenstein and myself, Chris Heuer.  The links below take you to the blog post about each session, along with the SlideShare presentations used during each session.

1. What is Social Media Session
   
2. Creating a Digital Identity
3. Social Media Tools, Services and Networks Session 
4. Using Social Media for Job Searches Session
5. Marketing Through Social Media Session

Dean Meyers did some great visual notes, capturing the concepts and resources from the Social Media 101 Sessions. It was a lot of fun. More importantly, it seems we help many and created more questions in a few, so overall a success, but definitely just the beginning of the conversation and the process of learning how to use social media. The complete schedule for the day from the Open Space sessions is available on the blog.

 

Some of the other topics that were discussed were power of suggestion on Twitter, basics of strategy in social media marketing for businesses, social media tools, measurability, and marketing through social media. One session in particular struck a lot of conversation. Social Media Marketing triggered thoughts upon building relationships with the market, the importance of trust in marketing/branding and how companies are using social media to market their businesses products and services. 

“Companies in general don’t value social media marketing as much as they should. They’re afraid of it; they don’t understand it; and therefore, they just don’t do it. Yet it’s the most cost-efficient way of marketing there is.” - Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0.

Many different tools and tactics were taught, then they were put into play. One of the most compelling part of the sessions was the group involvement and peer to peer knowledge exchange. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and were not scared to interact with one another. Among the ideas and information exchanged, relationships were built.

“I just love social media and Web 2.0…. I really want to thank the Social Media Club folks for having such a great event: Howard Greenstein, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells…. The last session was really interesting. The topic was retweets on Twitter. Dan Zarrella from Hubspot crunched some numbers that gave a bit of insight on how people are behaving on Twitter.” - Regina, Volunteer at SMCamp

Well, we love doing it too, and Howard and Kristie and I are blessed to be able to do this sort of work and so happy to help people.

Other blog posts and photos from the event are below, please share yours in the comments:

• PepsiCo Blog
• expatJane’s Blog (Volunteer)
• Les Blatt’s Rambles
• SMC New Haven Blog Post
• DMDInsight
• ReadWriteWeb

Social Media Camp Photos:

• SMCamp room kickoff
• Social Voice from Livewworld
• Flickr from Courtney Crosslin
• Flickr from Howard Greenstein
• Flickr from Chris Heuer

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#SMCQ13 Is social media the new socialism?

“Just like the ant-communist Red Scares of the early part of the century,  Republicans today are throwing about ’socialism’ as the great ‘Blue Scare,’” noted Chris Heuer, during the Social Media Club Editorial Board’s weekly discussion.
The comment was inspired by one of the more compelling surveys of Social Media published in the most recent issue of Wired, called “The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online,” by Kevin Kelly, May 22, 2009. Given the heavy baggage that the term holds, we wonder if such a tag will help or hinder all that social media has to offer society. That said, if Social Media — with its distributed power, collaborative, communal aspects  — isn’t socialism, what is it? And if it is the new socialism, how do we leave the worst of socialism’s reputation behind?

So we’re curious to know how you answer this weeks Question of the Week:

#SMCQ13 Is social media the new socialism?

We welcome your comments, posts & tweets. Tag: #SMCQ13

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

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Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change

This is a can’t miss interview with some of the best insights on what is happening in the world right now and why this is perhaps one of the most important times to be alive. I met Toby Moores (aka sleepydog ) at Amplified 09 Cambridge in May and knew right away we were kindred spirits. In this interview he shows why, teaching me a thing or two, and you too! Hear more about how the economic crisis, the shift in management focus from efficiency to innovation and the rise of social media as an amplifier are colliding to create a perfect storm of change… This is 7 minutes well spent!

Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change from Social Media Club on Vimeo.

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It takes all of us…

 

 

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SMCQ12 How are companies using social media to empower their workforce

Last week, the SMC Editorial board focused on how to best provide education toward preparing for the workplace of the future. This week, we realized, much of that future workplace is happening NOW. And many companies, comprised of employees representing several different generations of the education system, are slow to embrace (or are simply having a hard time getting their arms around) social media tools. At the same time some companies are stymied by fear of the new, weariness about getting too much information or concern that the use of social media at work will cut into productivity, others can’t imagine a desktop without several browser tabs opened displaying common social media URLs.  Is there a sweet spot for using social media at work?  If so, we’d love for you to share your tips. Which leads to our Social Media Question of the week #12:

#SMCQ12 Find examples of how organizations are empowering their workforce with [using] social media?

Please tag your posts, Tweets & comments #SMCQ12. On Friday, the board will reconvene to review your responses.

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SMCQ11 Preparing for the workplace of the future

SMC members and readers had far ranging responses to the topic of educating toward a future workplace we can only begin to imagine. From teamwork to new media tools, online training to new models of socializing youth, its clearly a topic ripe for discussion and innovation. One common denominator among our respondents: a need to listen to the student as much as instruct.

Notes from the field:

On what we need to to:

“What do we need to teach kids? How to solve problems, work in teams, and access information to succeed. At present, that’s not what schools teach.” — Francine Hardaway

“…the real question is to ask how can we get the younger generation to teach educators and businesses about using social media” — Peter Williams

“We need to shift managerial thinking from a “sage on the stage” mentality to a “guide on the side” where we actively learn from our newest employees and find ways to incorporate their communication styles and approaches into “older” ways of thinking.” — Amy Smith

“Only by identifying what products and services will be in demand in the future, can we anticipate the type of goods that will need to be produced and the type of employee that will be needed to supply businesses who will produce things to meet society’s needs going forward. — David Ligon , http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/

What some are already doing:

“At Laguna Playhouse, I use college interns and empower them with the responsibility of monitoring and updating all of our social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, etc), so they have first hand experience of how to incorporate social media into the workplace.” — Christopher Trela

“Has anyone heard of Skoodat? It’s a brand new application using Salesforce.com and their software which will allow schools to provide leadership training to staff and monitor individual students skill sets before stepping foot in the classroom.” — Jessica Murray

More than one Twitter respondent pointed out a recent post on Business Week by  Jim Goodnight and Keith Krueger that took a deeper look at the issue as well as government involvement and support:

“Why Obama Can’t Ignore Education Tech“ Business Week, 12/25/2008

“School technology investments enable 21st-century learning and provide our current and future workforce with the tools they need to compete and succeed in our globally integrated world. To accomplish this goal, Obama’s reported $850 billion Economic Recovery Plan should include two critical components: 1. Investments in school technology and broadband; and 2. Investments in home-to-school technology targeted at low-income families. Specifically, the federal stimulus package should cover expenses for schools to install or upgrade Internet connections to broadband; hire technical and instructional technology support; and purchase or upgrade hardware, software, and services.”

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Noded! The Way We Work

This is an interview with Jaan Orvet from Noded about his book and the model behind their Noded business network. Rather than working in hierarchically driven organizations or in a distributed team, Jaan and his colleagues each work as nodes within a trusted network. Each are free to bring work in, turn work down or do what they want. In looking at preparing students for the modern workforce this week with our Social Media Club Question of the Week, I thought it important to take a look at this modern way of working. #SMCQ11

This model is very similar to what I have been doing with AdHocnium, except they have no central entity at the heart of the organization. This is small pieces, barely joined (except by trust) as opposed to our approach of pieces loosely joined. (small semantical difference, but important).

Please check them out, and check out the book if you are interested in working the Noded lifestyle too! Social Media Club members can buy the e-book for only $15.

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SMCQ11: How do we educate the younger generation to prepare for the modern workforce?

Not so long ago, Social Media didn’t register as a factor in the professional world. Fast forward to today, and social media has become a valid sector of the communications industry. Marketing, business and how we interact across and within our various personal and professional communities have undergone a huge overhaul, but whether education is keeping up is subject to debate. The Social Media Club editorial board convened last week to mull the current educational landscape for social media. How would you go about developing a curriculum to teach social media business and communications practices? And given that the field is so recent, who is qualified to teach and mentor students? Do you have any ideas on how to educate our youth? We gladly welcome your thoughts, creativity and considerations on this weeks question:

#SMCQ11 How do we educate the younger generation to be ready for the modern workforce?

Please tag your comments, posts and Tweets on the matter as #SMCQ11 and stay tuned for a report later in the week.

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“SOLD” In 50 Hours using Social Media!

IN 50 HOURS using Social Media? – What? How? Are You Kidding?

Is your home NOT selling?  It’s no surprise that the majority would answer “yes” to all of those questions.  One would have to be living literally under a rock down by the river not to realize that the economy has impacted a homeowner’s ability to sell ones home.  It’s all about supply and demand.  We have too much supply and not enough demand.  Homes are staying on the market longer.  People are being forced to re-locate as a result of losing jobs & of course the sad eventuality of some –having to foreclose on their home and even declare bankruptcy.  Selling your home may seem impossible. Or is it?

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Obviously, more is needed to supplement traditional selling in today’s changed market, world and economy.  Just using traditional (“old”) ways of doing business are proving to be less and less effective and more is needed to reach targeted buyers.  How? Well, that’s where my experience comes in. Selling my house this past week will hopefully help you expand your efforts using social elements and assist you in selling your property.

Read the full story with the details on how here.

With every good wish,

Tim Moore
Social Media Club Wilmington
@TimMoore

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Requesting the end of Auto DMs

This is a post I have been trying to write for two months. Typical me wanted to do some research, poll our community, do more research and then write this really thoughtful piece about the pros and cons of auto DMs, and I finally realized today…I just need to get it out there. It won’t be perfect, but at least I will have said my peace.

I am not a fan of the auto DM and I want people to stop sending them out. Please.

What was once a feature being used to tell people a little more about you has now become nothing but a promotional tool and a total annoyance. On any given day, the Social Media Club account sees 50-75 auto DMs that range from ‘get rich quick’ to ‘get 18,000 followers in two days’ to someone simply saying ‘thanks for following me!’.  None of these have value to me.

The first two are spam, the latter is sweet, but honestly – I would rather you not send that auto DM as it doesn’t tell me anything about you. I understand your desire to recognize the follow, but all it did was cause me to spend an extra minute in the day hitting the delete button. Multiply that by 50 tweets a day with the same message and it has suddenly become a big annoyance. I don’t like it and it seems I am not the only one feeling this way based on the feedback we got when we asked our community in February (just a little sampling):

• Jason Finch: I treat auto-DMs to follows as spam, the spammer then has to do a lot more to get my further respect and trust.
• Anthony Stevens: If social media is about conversation, how can bots take your place? They can’t.
• Jens Schroeter: Since I believe in Social Media as a great opportunity to foster meaningful conversations I don’t believe in any tool to do so. I love tools to search and analyze, but I don’t see any value in auto-responding.
• Andrea: As I see it, the primary issue with auto-responders is that they are impersonal, highly subject to misuse and can be easily turned into another spam tool.
• Kimberly: I think a lot of people using them miss out on opportunities to legitimately connect with new followers through a sincere, personalized hello message. They tend to think that the automated response has made that connection on their behalf, which is just untrue.
• Sue James: When I follow you it’s because I’ve taken the time to browse your tweets, Twitter page and website or blog and appreciated something in particular that I’ve read there. So unless you are prepared to do the same and actually engage with me in some way, don’t send me an auto DM! And also don’t feel you have to follow me back.

As the Twitter community grows so does the number of auto DMs we receive. What was once manageable, now requires 10-15 minutes a day culling through our DM ‘spam’ trying to find the real messages someone actually took the time to pen PERSONALLY.

It makes me wonder if there is some secret ‘getting started with Twitter’ handbook being passed around to everyone signing up for a new account that says the auto DM is a good idea. Trust us, it might have once served its purpose, but it is nothing but an irritant to most people now (see above bullet points and the related post that has more great feedback).

So please, I beg of you. Turn the auto DMs off.

If you are really interested in getting to know me/us, how about we go a little ‘old school’ and do the following:

• Reach out personally 1:1 and let me know a little about you.
• Learn a little about me before you reach out. If you do, you will know that I don’t like to receive ‘get rich quick’ DMs (and I am starting to block people who send those out).
• Understand I am not going to promote something you did just because you asked me to.
• I am not going to click on a random link from someone I don’t know – no matter how enticing the tiny url looks.

And please know I do appreciate the thought of you thanking me for following you, but let’s both just do this telepathically and save me wearing down of my delete key.

Please.

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