Social Media RoundUp

I put a request out on Twitter earlier today asking for recommendations of the ‘must read’ articles that have been penned over the last week that focused on the use of Social Media tools.

You fine folks answered with the following:

• 5 ways to use Social Media to reach people who don’t use Social Media: by Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web 
• 50 ways to take your blog to the next level: by Chris Brogan
• Are you conversationally tone deaf: by Connie Reece
• Disruption of cascading conversation: by Jay Deragon
• Growing use of Social Media Technologies in Businesses: by peopleperhour.com
• How Barack Obama Is Using Web 2.0 to Run for President, by Daniel Nations at About.com
• How to Use Yahoo Answers for your Social Media Campaign, by Vine at primaryeffect.com
  
• IBM’s Beehive social networking community: by Toby at Communitelligence
• Limiting, and watching, what children watch: by Lisa Guernsey at New York Times
• Twits on Twitter: by Rob Sellen
• Using Twitter for business: by John Jantsch
  
• You can do your job without Twitter: by Chris Brogan
  

Interesting tool found: flibfarb

Other: Collection of live streams by loremcast

Thank you to everyone who submitted an article to share with the community. We greatly appreciate your input and will start collecting these regularly to help spread the word about interesting conversations happening around the world.

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Seeking Case Studies: Social Media Successes

We would like to put together a list of ‘case studies’ of companies around the world (large and small) who have adopted a Social Media strategy and, here’s the kicker, successfully taken action on their plan.

It may not have been a completely smooth path for them to walk down, but they are making strides and their internal and external communities are all the better for it.

Who should we make sure is included in this list and why (short summary please)? And feel free to toot your own horn if you are proud of what you are doing.

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Vote for your favorite SXSW panel!

The SXSW panel selection process opened this morning, and several of the Social Media Club Advisory Group members have pitched presentation ideas in the hopes of sharing their experiences with you. If any of these topics move you, feel free to cast your vote for one, two or all of them (listed in alphabetical order):

• Against All Odds-A Media Literate World: The new “Media Literacy” means understanding the facts, context and perspective of content. When you share, modify, or comment, this shows who you are online and in society. The public record of your search and attention stream will define how you’re perceived. How do we increase media literacy?  Presenters: Chris Heuer, Howard Greenstein, Alex De Carvalho, Brian Solis (with possibly Howard Reingold too)
• Beyond Social Media: Introducing Social Communications: Who really “owns” social media? Is it PR, Marketing, Branding? This panel will demonstrate that it’s all of the above and more. Thus the new category “Social Communications,” which we can think of as a hybrid of PR, marketing, branding, WOM, customer service, product development and more.  Presenters: Jackie Peters, Kristie Wells, Connie Reece, Chuck Hester, Todd Van Hoosear
• Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling: Are you a woman (or a man) who loves to tech out but is tired of sexism, ageism, and the lack of diversity? Women in tech and social media experts identify strategies for breaking through the digital ceiling. The panel will discuss topics such as getting heard by upper management, how to effectively advocate for your work and expertise, what men can do to help promote women in technology as well as how to break through the barriers of being too young or too old in the tech sector.  Presenters: Allyson Kapin, Charlene Li, Connie Reece, Susan Mernit, Lynne Johnson
• Climbing the Corporate Ladder in a Mini Skirt (or pant suit?): Powerful tech women share their secrets regarding kicking ass, moving up the ladder, dealing with jerks, and helping other girls reach the top. Presenters: Mel Kirk, Sally Strebel, Kristie Wells, Bronwyn Jones, Aubrey Sabalas
• Corporate Reputation Management in the 2.0 World: For too long reputation management has involved cheap Google tricks and seat-of-the-pants tactics. Lee Odden and Rob Key, two prominent experts in search and corporate reputation management, will outline a strategic approach to reputation, based on a sophisticated understanding of conversation mining data and new media engagement. Presenters: Rob Key, Lee Odden
• Discussion on the Pervasiveness of Streams: The emergence of streams in our digital lives is, in many ways, aligning our thinking in a way that we are only subtly appreciating. Streams represent the end of top-down broadcast and the beginning of a confluence of information and communication exchange patterns that function multi dimensionally. Presenters: Greg Narain, Jackie Peters, Brian Solis
• Everything you know about Social Media is Wrong!: Everyone knows that social media has created a revolution in marketing. But aren’t most marketers missing the point about what social media can or cannot do for them? This panel will expose the horrible lies and deceptions surrounding social media marketing. You will know what social media is and isn’t. Presenters: Hugh MacLeod, Tara Hunt, Deb Schultz, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Heuer and Brian Oberkirch (possibly).
• Fire Your PR Firm and Brand it Yourself: Social Media Club interim board members will give advice and anecdotes about how PR and branding have changed because of social media and how, as an entrepreneur, you sre empowered. You can now market your own product or company better than any PR firm. And you should. This is for technical people, to teach them the DIY of social media as a branding tool. You would be surprised how many engineers don’t know this.  Presenters: Francine Hardaway and a cast to be announced shortly
• 5 Common Misperceptions of Technological Creativity: Drinking the creation koolaid can sometimes be deceiving. It’s like trying to acclimate your taste buds to dog crap.  5 successful panelists share with you the ways to tell the difference between koolaid (the purple stuff) and Sunny D. to get results rather than reaching into a risky over populated grab bag. Presenters: Sally Strebel, Mel Kirk, iJustine, Kristie Wells, Laura Fitton
• Let’s Get Social! Moving from me to we: The Web 2.0 evolution has enabled companies to connect with their constituents in transparent and impactful ways, achieving a greater competitive edge. In order to take full advantage of this movement, companies must embrace open dialogue through community and fully understand the implications of becoming a more “social” organization. Presenters: Aaron Strout and a cast to be announced shortly
• Love Your Customers, They Love You Back: Relationships are the new currency in social media. They need cultivation and value from both sides in order to grow into something of value and longevity. Explore engagement as the only way to earn customer respect, business, loyalty, and referrals as we do what matters to earn their friendship. Presenters: Becky Carroll, Brian Solis, 2 Special Guests
• SEO for startups: Does your startup have a plan for SEO? Millions of searches are performed daily on the internet and there is an enormous amount of ROI that comes from ranking for targeted keywords and phrases. This panel will give you an understanding, dispel any myths, and provide tips on how to approach SEO for a Startup, just like yours! Presenters: Tony Adam, Todd Friesen, Lee Odden 
• Walking the tech runway in stilettos: Being a girl in a boys world. And succeeding. Similar to the panel above. But different. It’s a fun and lighthearted discussion that prepares females for greater success by helping them get comfortable in their own shoes. 5 panelists share the lessons learned on their journey toward success. Presenters: Mel Kirk, Sally Strebel, Kristie Wells, Bronwyn Jones, Aubrey Sabalas or Tara Hunt (I think)
• What does a community manager do: We will discuss and answer just what an online community manager is and what they do. How do you measure what a CM does? How do I know if I need one? How does a company evangelist differ from this? What skill set does my CM need? Where do I find a CM? What personality traits does a CM need? These and many other questions will be answered about this up and coming position. Presenters: David Peck, Jake McKee, Bill Johnston, Connie Benson.

Cast your vote and we hope to see you in Austin at SXSW!

UPDATED: Added SEO for Startups, Corporate Reputation Management and Everything you know about Social Media is Wrong!, What does a community manager do

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Help a research project - Facebook Groups in Business

Social Media Club NY member and Organizational Development consultant Jenny Ambrozek asks for help on the following issue:

21st Century Organization: Facebook Groups in Business: Call for Best Cases

Should Businesses Be Friends with Facebook?

While our investigation provided insight into the dynamics of 10 Facebook Groups by tracking activity data over a 10 week period, we realize thousands of organizations are using Facebook Groups every day.

Jenny and her team are seeking best practice case studies regarding using FB “externally to build brands and market products, and ii. Internally, to bring employees together and share work, while at the same time allowing them to connect to their external networks.”

Check the site for how you can help them in their research.

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CommonCraft Paperwork: RSS in Plain English

Great video from Lee and Sachi LeFever working to craft a better explanation of RSS for everyday folks. Good idea, and something we want to see more people trying to do - coming up with their own stories explaining the real value they get from their tools and how they use them. It is in their new ‘paperwork’ format and the first in what I imagine will be many such episodes, Video: RSS in Plain English.

The important thing to note here is that just because it has been done, doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it by trying your own creative explanation, but do give them some good feedback and love over on their blog. I think the one thing missing really was a good podsafe music background. I kept getting a Mr Bill vibe, was a little worried for the little guy sitting at this computer really… I really miss those great clay figure shows - perhaps Lee was channeling a bit…

I tried to embed the video here, but it is not cooperating with WordPress, so check it out over on their site… Video: RSS in Plain English.

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What is Web 2.0 (in 5 minutes)

This YouTube video from Assistant Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University is an excellent 5 minute exploration. I don’t think it explains “Web 2.0,” but I think does a good job at describing the way the web is changing.
To me, Web 2.0 technologies enable Social Media applications. That is, the ability to separate data from its markup container (thus allowing RSS feeds of the text of a site without having to drag the layout around with it) allows many of the things we take for granted - news feeds, podcasts, rss readers, mashups, and more.
That said, the video is worth watching for its intelligent use of web pages, code and the reoccuring theme of typing and retyping that makes the viewer stop and think.
My mom and step-dad keep asking what we’re doing here at Social Media Club. Well guys, watch the video. We want to help people do that, easier, faster, with standards, in an ethical and community-caring fashion.

powered by performancing firefox

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Chris Heuer Presentation at Search Insider Summit

This morning I gave a presentation on Social Media to some of the smartest people in Search Marketing and Search Engine Optimization at the Search Insider Summit hosted by Mediapost. Many thanks to my co-panelist Sally Falkow from Press Feed and our moderator Bill Flitter from Pheedo. I think it went pretty well, and considering this was my 3rd and final PowerPoint I am allowing myself to give in 2006, I am also very happy to be done with it.

As many of you know, I detest panels and podiums, but this felt a little different thanks to Bill jumping into the audience to get things going with some audience participation. Despite the low energy level of the room on the first early morning session of the last day of the conference, it seems that many of the people in the audience did actially ‘get it’.

One of the reasons for agreeing to do a Powerpoint (which I started preparing yesterday afternoon), was that I really do need a presentation I can use on an ongoing basis to give to similar audiences on the ‘conference circuit’. I am sure you can find many ways to improve this presentation, so please do let me know your suggestions. The Powerpoint Presentation is available as a 4.8MB Zip file called “It’s Time to Get Real: Why Social Media might be able to improve your SEO, but you will never reap the full benefits until you really ‘get it’”

Rather than talking forever about the presentation, I wanted to close now with all the links that I did not get to include in the PowerPoint.

• Slide 2 - Definition of Social Media on Wikipedia
• Slide 10 - Definition of Truthiness from Wikipedia; Truthiness is 2005 Word of the Year
• Slide 11 - Cluetrain Manifesto
• Slide 13 - Technorati
• Slide 14 - BlogLines
• Slide 15 - The Influentials by Ed Keller; Buzzlogic (I am on their advisory board)
• Slide 17 - Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog with SEC Chairman Comment
• Slide 19 - Campbell’s Kitchen
• Slide 20 - Delicious; Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
• Slide 21 - Tom Foremski
• Slide 22 - Personal Bee
• Slide 23 - Walmarting Across America; Talking About Disclosure
• Slide 25 - Delicious; FURL; Digg; Technorati; You Tube; Blip.TV; Flickr
• Slide 26 - Proactive Customer Relations by David Churbuck; Rick Klau on his Lenovo Support Experience ; Dave Coustan, Earthlink Blogger
• Slide 27 - Diet Coke and Mentos Video; Compensation for Typepad Outage (mistakenly attributed to LiveJournal, also owned by Six Apart)
• After Presentation - Social Media Release

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Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and RSS - The 4 R’s

We don’t always need to reinvent the wheel, sometimes we just need to give it a fresh coat of paint and a new story. The other day while trying to answer the question of what was the most important skills that a Social Media Literate person should have, I saw the traditional 3 R’s in a new light. Rather than thinking of just the simple definition that each word represented (ala the act of writing, being able to read and undersand basic math), I realized the depth of meaning behind each word.

The 3 R’s are inherently necessary for basic media literacy, but I think the addition of RSS as the 4th R is what is really required for Social Media Literacy. By this I mean to say that an understanding of the nature of RSS is important, not the technical nuances. Rather than pontificating endlessly on this, let me briefly explain how I see the 4 R’s and ask you for some feedback to see what sticks.

• Reading - While a modern update to this would also take into account reading, listening, viewing and perhaps even researching, the important skill here is understanding what other people are trying to communicate - the comprehension of what is experienced.
• Writing - Here of course we can move beyond the act of writing and include speaking, shooting video and other forms of self expression, what we are really talking about is the ability to communicate effectively so that others can understand what we are thinking.
• Arithmetic - While you could argue that the math is an interesting aspect of good design (how many pixels wide can it be?), it seems the simplest understanding here is best - from my perspective this just means being able to add up the score on a given issue and understand which choice is better - objective decision making.
• RSS - This is one of the key elements that makes Social Media literacy different. I could describe it in many other ways, but within this context the important aspect for me is that understanding how RSS and by extension tags, work. It enables any individual to step into the conversational flow - to not only follow what other people are communicating, but ensuring what the individual has to communicate is heard by other people who care about the topic.

I like thinking about what is old being new again - I think it makes it easier for a wider variety of people to grasp what we are discussing. Greg Narain suggested that ‘Reach’ might be a better term for the 4th R and while I am inclined to agree with the idea of making it a simple, more common word, I dont think it has the impact it should as a fundamental skill. Maybe we need a different metaphor? So am I off base here or is this an interesting (and simple) way of explaining Social Media Literacy?

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