‘Coopetition’ in Action: Responses to SMC Question of the Week 1

Social Media Club’s Question of the Week kicked of 3/15/09 with the question “How can we best support our social media community and our peers knowing full well we’re often competing for the same clients and client money?”

We were pleased to have our social media community respond with a variety of comments, tweets and posts. True to form, members called for a combination of professionalism, collaboration and social innovation. We’ve highlighted some of the responses below.   

“Sharing what has worked and admitting where strategies have been punked is invaluable to our collective knowledge base,” @mollyrobben

“The only way to advance the profession is through collaborative efforts by social media professionals.”  — Pete Codella, http://www.petecodella.com

“If you look for a natural fit; a totally symbiotic relationship - it isn’t competition so much as finding what’s right.” @hhotelconsut

“So, if we are to pursue our individual passions and interests we need to know who else is doing neat things. The active use of social media in this regard leaves the other options in the dust. Without interaction we’re only as good as our individual thinking,” wrote Anthony Power at http://apowerpoint.blogspot.com. “Social media has one confounding problem,” he also noted. “it’s not only a tactic we can apply to client, it’s also the vehicle by which we communicate with one another.”

“After all, social media is a set of tools. I use them. I may help others learn to use them. Why should I even think of myself as competing with my colleagues? There are about 25 million small businesses in the United States alone, all of whom can benefit by learning to use social media. I will never reach them all.” —Francine Hardaway, http://blog.stealthmode.com 

Listen in Sunday, March 22, to hear the Social Media Club Editorial Board refine the second Question of the Week and check infor a post on the call so you can comment, blog and tweet your thoughts. After all, as Leslie Hawk at Life is Better with Lipstick wrote:

“Sometimes I find that if I am in a project too long, I only see what I want to see. I might miss a new angle or new avenue that we could explore that would benefit our clients. If I ignore what is being said about my project, client etc in the social media world, I am limiting myself as to the heights I can reach. I would say then that cooperation fosters competition - it breeds success!” —http://lifeisbetterwithlipstick.blogspot.com/

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Insights from B5Media: Social Media Buyers Guide

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Buyer Be Heard! Social Media Buyers Guide on Blog Talk Radio March 4, 2009

**Updated: The Service Providers and Technology Vendors podcasts are rescheduled for the week of March 9. See below for details.**

Social Media Club is hosting three podcasts next Wednesday, March 4, 2009 for the purpose of gathering supporting research for the Social Media Buyers Guide Project.

Join SMC Founder Chris Heuer and E-Storm CEO William Gaultier as we interview several leading social media technology vendors, services providers and organizational buyers. We will be talking about their lessons learned and the most important advice they have for other organizations evaluating and purchasing social media. Guests will also be asked to share the three most important questions they recommend asking any social media consultant, agency, vendor or solutions provider before signing a contract.

Visit the show pages linked below to listen in on the web. If you have relevant experiences you would like to share or questions you would like answered, please feel free to join the call via the phone numbers below. We would also ask that you take some time to help us with the project, by completing the Social Media Buyers Guide Survey. Of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t ask for your help in spreading the word, by pointing your colleagues to this post.

The podcasts are on Wednesday, March 4 at the following times (PST):

• Social Media Buyers Guide: Insights from Technology Vendors, UPDATED: Due to technical difficulties, the show is rescheduled to Monday, March 9, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM (PST). [was 9:00 - 9:45AM March 4]. You can listen on the web or call: (347) 308-8038
  • Special guests to be announced
• Social Media Buyers Guide: Insights from Service Providers, UPDATED: Due to technical difficulties, the show is rescheduled to Thursday, March 12, 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM (PST). [was 10:00 - 10:45AM March 4]. You can listen on the web or call: (347) 308-8038
  • Special guests to be announced
• Social Media Buyers Guide: Insights from Organizational Buyers, 11:00 - 11:45AM You can listen on the web or call: (347) 308-8038
  • Special guests include Christopher Barger from GM and others to be announced

Other guests are being confirmed as we write this, so this page and the show pages will be updated as they confirm.

Project Background

The Social Media Buyers Guide is a project of Social Media Club, a nonprofit working to improve media literacy and the sharing of lessons learned amongst social media practitioners. The project was developed to help organizational buyers of social media services and technologies make better decisions. For more details, check out the blog post announcing the project, contribute your thoughts on the project wiki, and complete the survey. It is our desire to ultimately serve the individuals in large corporations, small businesses, nonprofits and government agencies who are tasked with being social media champions inside of their organizations.

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Social Media Club Editoral Team Kickoff

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Social Media Club Salt Lake City Kickoff

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Who Owns Social Media? SF/SV Panel

We had a great conversation tonight about the question, Who Owns Social Media? When I asked it originally, I had meant to ask it within the context of ‘within the enterprise’, but in twitterland, had to shorten it a bit - as we discussed, it was also the question I was being asked by many different clients.  We found some very interesting insights along the way.  I have much more to add, but not enough time to do so tonight.

Thankfully, these folks already did manage to write some more…

• Andrew Mager liveblogged the event over on ZDNet
• Kenneth Yeung posted a ‘rebuttal’
• Ashley Messick furthers the conversation
• Daniela Barbosa gets a chance to ask her question (panel was too short, yes, so we continue here)

Well, I have to do a little more work before getting to the airport in the morning (heading over to facilitate Social Media Workshop Hawaii and then speaking at PodCampHawaii), so will need to pick this up later THUR… will hopefully see your thoughts here.

[display_podcast]

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Organizing a Local Social Media Club

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Appropriate Corporate Blogging SMC Miami

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Podcast Highlights: Be the Voice and Marketing Voices

• Be The Voice: August 17, 2008 - David Spark talks with Chris Heuer, Social Media Club’s CoFounder and a Senior Partner with The Conversation Group and Peter Hirshberg, also of The Conversation Group and chairman of Technorati about engaging with your community. Heuer and Hirshberg offer some amazing insight with regard to developing your voice, caring about what your audience cares about, and NOT just being an agent to deliver a message for a brand or company.
• Marketing Voices: August 11, 2008 - Chris Heuer talks to Jennifer Jones about how Social Media Club got started, what should be most important to marketers today and explains what he means by ‘gisting’.

If you have a podcast that covers Social Media Marketing, Tools and/or Practices and think our members would find the topic of interest, please send a summary and the link to socialmediaclub [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Join us Today for Social Media Club Hour - a Show on Blog Talk Radio

After speaking with Lisa Padilla from Blog Talk Radio and Mike McGrath from Tacit Partners (also one of of the Silicon Valley chapter leaders) at last week’s Silicon Valley gathering, we decided to move forward with a new show for Social Media Club on Blog Talk Radio. In a short while, at 10am PST today on Friday August 31, we will be doing the first episode, with Robert Scoble as our special guest.

This show’s focus is Authenticity, Credibility and Authority in Social Media. From my personal perspective, I was thinking that the blessings of our tool’s capabilities for instant publishing have the potential to be a curse. Of course, I experienced a somewhat funnier (and slightly different) version of this double edged sword last week, showing up on Valleywag for a short video interview I did which was dubbed “Geeks Gone Wild“. In agreeing to do an on camera interview for a topic I was not prepared to really discuss, I ended up looking a bit silly, requiring me to do several hours of research and writing to clearly illuminate what I was trying to say. Of course video is completely different from writing, but it is an interesting parallel in some ways, especially in light of the need to do so much research in forming a coherent explanation of my point.

In the early days of the Web, when email was just going mainstream, we used to talk about the need to walk away for a bit after writing something important to consider what was written and come back to it with fresh eyes. I don’t hear that discussion all that often around Blogging - whether it is reporting, opinion or deeper thought pieces. While everyone is different, there are clearly many who think that the key to success in Blogging is publishing first and fast to “just get it out there”. I have had several discussions with Robert Scoble about this over the last couple years and I think this is going to be a great talk today, delving into the deeper issues surrounding the importance of “how we approach our use of social media tools”.

While we still need to figure things out with regards to the show’s format, I think this is going to be a great experiment and ongoing effort of the club. It begins to move forward one of my original visions for the club - finding ways for those of us who care about Social Media to collaborate globally in an effort to share best practices and learn from one another. We are approaching this show differently than others you may have seen out there - each episode will be hosted by a different person from one of our many Social Media Club chapters around the world… So in essence, the members of the club will be creating this show together!

So join us today for the Social Media Club Hour on Blog Talk Radio, and call in even to share your thoughts, we would love to hear from you!

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Podcast Highlights: The Mediasphere and The Buzz Bin

• Tris Hussey and Jim Turner from One By One Media talk with Chris Heuer about the idea around Social Media Club and the difference between a for-profit and a not-for-loss. There were a few technical hiccups to start, so the actual interview starts at around 5 minutes in. Listen here.
• Geoff Livingston interviews Chris Heuer on The Buzz Bin, covering the participation is marketing concept, providing proper attribution, the Social Media Club as well as the concept of Thinking Liquid.

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Chris Heuer on RSS Ray Today (May 23)

I am really excited about being on RSS Ray’s show tomorrow, and glad to focus my attention on the fun parts of my work - helping more people learn and understand how communications is changing as a profession to be effective in a world where the company is no longer in control (or holding onto the illusion of control). Of course, we will talk a little bit about Social Media Club as well, but I hope to focus the talk on those trends and transformations that are of ‘greater significance’ here more so than myself and the club. Lee Hopkins wrote about a portion of my perspective on this the other day, but the original post was removed - and there is a bit more you can read about on my old consulting company site (not updated for a long, long time). I have been thinking about “The Communications Strategy” for a long time, and many of the things I only envisioned when forming these ideas are actually now a part of the toolbox. Wiki’s, blogs, tools for measring influence, better distribution and so much more are a part of our everyday lives now…

From my few conversations with Ray and listening to a few of the archived shows you can download, Ray is a really sharp guy and has a great team working with him on his show. (I wish I could get a producer like Stacey!)

So tune in tomorrow, or if you can’t be there live, go back and download the podcast - I love this stuff and can’t wait to do more of it…

PS - this is my first real radio interview in about 10 years…

PPS - no, I won’t be talking about that other story, we are going to focus on marketing and how it is changing and more importantly, how communicators need to change with it. [blatant_plug] I will be revealing a bit about “Listen. Join. Start.” The Social Media Playbook for Professional Communicators which is at the heart of our Social Media Workshop on June 11 [/blatant_plug]

Update: My Interview with RSS Ray Segment 3 — My Interview with RSS Ray Segment 4

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Don’t write off Podcasting

My colleage Jason made a comment at the end of his Web 2.0 for Adults article regarding Podcasting. He noted the Pew survey data indcate 7% have “ever done this” - meaning downloaded a podcast. He suggested if podcasting were a stock, he’d “short it.”

But this Pew data is contradicted by Pew’s August 2006 data (published in November 2006), which indicates 12% of Internet users have tried podcasts. If you look at these two data sets and see growth from 7% to 12% over a few months, that looks a little more rosy. Talking with Mary Madden of Pew for my article at the NY Enterprise Report on Web 2.0, we agreed that this translated into >17MM people (based on number of Internet users as a percentage of current census data) who had tried podcasting. 13% of users with more than 6 years of online experience had tried listening, as well as 13% of those making more than $75k a year (up from 7% in February 2006). Those are pretty good demographics if you’re an advertiser looking for an audience.

And while it’s not a perfect metric, I believe its more than the number of Sirius users and XM users according to this Motley Fool analysis. And, unlike satellite, you only need a computer, not an ipod, to get podcasts - (see this video from my Canadian friends Uncle Seth to learn more.)

Podcasts are still hard to get, find, and take with you, except if you have an Ipod and are using iTunes. Even then, you have to search, subscribe, and reguarly sync and remove old content. Microsoft hasn’t build podcast-catching functionality into Windows Media Player or the Zune (not that we should judge by what’s in the Zune.) But I can listen to audio podcasts or watch video podcasts on my Tivo (some are pre-loaded, others must be tediously typed in). Still not a wonderful overall experience, but Rocketboom looks great on TV.

If we think of podcasts as just an easy way to subscribe to a regular program,
I believe we’ll see podcasts as part of Joost, IPTV or Internet TV offerings (think cable radio like I get now - channels like Broadway show tunes, etc), and soon, ipod like devices that will grab podcasts off wifi like this one from SanDisk grabs songs from Yahoo music.

No, Jason, I’ll keep my mental investment in podcasting for now (I don’t have any stock in podcasting or podcast companies). And I’ll even use this article to chide you for a lack of podcasts of your own - yours was the kind of high quality content that could actually drive people to listen.

UPDATE: In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I’m on the organizing committee of PodcampNYC, which is a podcasting unconference, and that I occasionally do a podcast for friends at A Chat and a Song as well as Social Media Club’s “They Get It.”

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Storytelling and the Blogospehere -Third Thursday April 2007

This is the recording from Third Thursday’s monthly meetup in Silicon Valley on April 19, 2007. This month’s discussion featured a great presentation from Elisa Camahort and Kathy Klotz-Guest called “How Storytelling is (Still) Critical to Communications in the Blogosphere”. There are really some wonderful insights here that get at the heart of branding, engagement and blogging’s role facilitating both. From the event’s description:

As companies try to figure out how to use blogs and other social media tools to engage with customers, successfully participating in the blogosphere remains a bit of mystery to many marketing and PR professionals. Social media initiatives can’t be spin, but companies must have a compelling story to tell about their brand, culture, products, and customers in their online activities. At the heart of every communications effort must be a story. Storytelling can be an organic process that comes from open dialog with customers.

More feedback on the Meetup from attendees and a full description of the event is available on the group’s Meetup page.

Many thanks to Jen McClure and the Society of New Communications Research for sponsoring this month’s Meetup.

Download MP3 File

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Social Media Now: Climbing the Social Ladder

The blogosphere is full of cynics. And there’s plenty of cynical response on the Net to Forrester’s report on adult social media behavior. The report, which is geared to helping marketers integrate social media into business strategies, proposes a “participation ladder” as a metaphor, with six rungs stepping up from “inactives” at the bottom to “creators” at the top.

Pramit Singh criticizes the report, and all off the meme-making blogosphere punditry, for over hyping recycled information:

If you look at the above graphic, do you see anything new? To me, this looks like they have taken Jason Calacanis’ observation about social networking/web 2.0, namely ‘80% consume, 19% comment, 1% contribute”, added up known observations taken by the Pew Research and voila!, a new report is born.

But there IS new and interesting information in the Forrester report. Most importantly Li and her colleagues have tried to slice online social behavior into narrower segments that the traditional ones of contributor, participant, and tagger. In doing so they challenge the conventional thinking about social segmentation most recently reiterated at Web 2.0 Expo last week by Bill Tacer, general manager of Hitwise, who said:

It’s not the 80-20 rule anymore. It’s 1-9-90.” Spread across the Web, generally 1 percent of visitors are creators and producers, 9 percent are “highly involved participators”,… and 90 percent are consumers or viewers.

Li splits the universe of social media participants into the following categories:

• Creators, who publish blogs, web pages, etc, comprise 13% of users
• Critics, who comment and review, comprise 19%
• Collectors, who tag and bookmark, comprise 15%
• Joiners, who uses social networking sites, comprise 19%
• Spectators, who passively engage with social media content, comprise 33%
• Inactives, who use the Net but not social media, comprise 52%

Obviously the user classes overlap since the percentages add up to well over 100%.
I’m not crazy about Forrester’s metaphor. The ladder is bad because it implies that users climb from the bottom to the top–that “spectating” is a gateway drug on the way to creating. This isn’t true. Also the ladder fails to convey the truth these strata are not discrete–creators are also joiners, for example.

And I would quibble with Forrester’s nomenclature. Collector is the wrong word for someone who shares tags and bookmarks since collectors typically acquire rare stuff and hold it close.

The study also comes up short when it examines the reasons for which people become engaged in social media, slicing those into only three categories–entertainment, career, and family–so broad as to be utterly useless.

But I applaud Forrester for trying to look at the universe of social media through a finer sieve than is typical and I’m particularly interested in a table that Li et al have complied about different behaviors in each of these categories according to age. The table reveals that 18-21 year olds are way more deeply involved in joining social networks than people a little older and those a little younger. Could social the MySpace/Facebook business have peaked with this demographic?

At Skype Journal Phil Wolff proposes an additional ladder, a Ladder of Disclosure–a way of thinking about social media behavior based on how much personal information participants are willing to reveal from live webcam living Twitter addicts at the top to folks off the grid at the bottom. It’s a very interesting way of thinking about the social media universe although Wolff has no survey data to work with. Wolff also notes that Forrester’s ladder misses the mobile Net and live communications systems like IM or Skype.

In other survey news, Liz Gannes at GigaOM reports on a survey that MySpace commissioned of its users, which found, perhaps self-servingly, that there is an exponential increase in brand awareness that comes from social networking campaigns.
Widget Peace: Terms of the armistice have not been announced but MySpace has lifted its ban on video links from photo and video hosting widget maker Photobucket.
Funding News: Mountainview-based Podbridge, a podcasting analytics firm, has raised $8.5 million in second round financing led by new investor Sutter Hill Ventures and joined by first round investors Mayfield Fund and Worldview Technology Partners.

 

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