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Four Online Predictions for 2012

December 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Okay, I’m going to jump on the trends bandwagon and offer yet another online predictions blog post where I polish my crystal ball and predict the future of social media. I think I have a decent track record going for me. In 2010, I predicted that Android sales were going to outpace iPhones, and I was only six months late on that (it finally happened earlier this year). Of course, I also said SMS would become obsolete, and that ain’t happening any time soon, so I’m batting .500.

Emboldened by my previous success — and with a promise to Allison Carter (@allisonlcarter) that this list will not mention mobile or geo-location networks — here are my four predictions for 2012.Crystal ball

1. An even bigger focus on quality of written content.

Thanks to Google Panda, the traditional SEO techniques of on-site optimization and backlinking is not as effective or important as it once was. Now, Panda measures things like bounce rate and time on site. In other words, if your site sucks, your rankings will drop. If your site is good, your rankings will rise.

Want to improve your rankings? Improve the quality of your content, especially your writing. The better your writing is, the longer people will stick around.

We’ll see a bigger push for web designers and bloggers to have better writing, not just a bunch of schlocky writing. So for anyone who has been in the quantity-over-quality camp of blog writing, you’re going to have a tough time of it in 2012.

2. Disruption will be the watchword, and the way to make money.

We’re already seeing how social media, broadband, and mobile phones are disrupting some middle men businesses. People are canceling their cable and satellite TV, and instead watching videos on Netflix and Hulu. We’re getting local news from local bloggers, or national news from each other, instead of TV news and newspapers. I even quit listening to local commercial radio, choosing instead to listen to an awesome public radio station out of Louisville, KY. Traditional media has been disrupted, but that’s not all.

We’ll continue to see more middle men being disrupted by fast phones and social media — look for advertising and PR agencies, publishers, banks, and credit card companies to take a big hit as people figure out how to circumvent these gatekeepers. Look for other people who figure it out to make a buttload of money being the disruptions, or taking advantage of the new disruptions.

(Case in point, Dwolla, which only charges $.25 per transaction for anything over $10 (under $10 is free), and is currently on course to move about $350 million per year.)

3. Citizen journalism will continue to grow and become more important.

Newspapers have taken a big hit in the last 10 years, thanks to online media — a disruption that’s been years in the making — but people still want local news. The newspapers that will survive and thrive will be the dailies in smaller cities, and the weeklies in small towns. In the big cities, we’ll see more citizen journalism as people report on their local stories. More Twitpics, more cell phone videos, more stories that are pieced together through people acting like their own journalists.

I would love to see some news-minded entrepreneur figure out a way to gather all of this content and monetize it. While that may not happen in 2012, look for online-only newspapers like The American Reporter to pick up the slack of the big city papers, and local news outlets like Patch to become more widespread and easier to use.

We’re going to see more news, commentary, sports, etc. covered up by real people, not professional journalists. I also think we’ll see smaller print newspapers get smarter about their online efforts, and even TV stations to continue to embrace the web. Could we also see someone start an Internet-only TV news style of website?

4. Teenagers will begin to leave Facebook in droves.

Their moms and dads are on Facebook. Their grandparents are on Facebook. The whole point behind Facebook was it was a place to go where you could be cool. And as everyone knows, it’s impossible to be cool when your parents are around. They’re moving to other networks where their parents are not. Even Ben Bajarin (@benbajarin) of Time Magazine is questioning whether it’s the beginning of the end for Facebook. (Hint: No, not yet. But don’t be surprised if it happens one day far off into the future.)

Where they’re all going is still unknown. MySpace is still popular among teenagers. YouTube is actually the second biggest network among teenagers (Facebook is still first). And the gaming console networks are seeing a big uptick. But when all the stats are showing that 1 in 5 teenagers are leaving Facebook, it’s time for marketers to stop with this “social media is for young people” nonsense and recognize that the parents and grandparents are embracing it more easily now.

Photo credit: JasonLangheine (Flickr)

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    About : Online predictions  •  Accountable Person : Erik Deckers  •  Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Content Rating : G  •  Copyright Holder : Professional Blog Service  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Creator : Erik Deckers  •  Editor : Erik Deckers  •  Genre : Non-fiction  •  Headline : Four Online Predictions for 2012  •  Keywords : predictions, social media, citizen journalism, Facebook, disruption, marketing  •  Mentions : Facebook, blogging, social media, citizen journalism  •  Publisher : Professional Blog Service  •  Source Organization : Professional Blog Service  •  Version : 1.0  • 
    Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Citizen Journalism, Corporate Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Newspapers, Radio, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks, Television, Traditional Media, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Calling Out Bad Behavior via Social Media

    November 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment
    Table 1

    We tend to be pretty passive-aggressive as a society. And social media seems to have made it worse, in some ways. Social media has made it possible for us to point out bad behavior, and we’ll often do it to a complete stranger, but we won’t do it to our friends.

    I did a short (unscientific) survey last month to find out whether people would call out bad behavior on the part of strangers versus friends. I wasn’t surprised by some of the results, partly because most of the people I know are pretty nice people and not prone to being online jerks. But mostly because many respondents are from the Midwest, and we’re annoyingly nice about a lot of things.

    Summary

    Basically what I found is, we are more likely to forgive friends, but we will stick it to a complete stranger.

    • If we are wronged by a friend, we’ll point it out privately rather than call it out.
    • 40% of us will hang a stranger out to dry publicly; nearly all of us will tell someone else about it.
    • Only a very few people will say or do nothing, either about a friend or a stranger’s bad behavior.

    The Survey

    This was a four question survey, with a series of answers that asks about responses that range from very direct (and rather jerky) to very passive (being a doormat).

    For example, question #1 asked: When a friend — who uses social media — wrongs me in some way, I am more likely to:

    1. Call them out BY NAME on a social network. “I can’t believe @edeckers stood me up for our meeting this morning.”
    2. Point out my annoyance, but don’t mention their name. “Got stood up for a 7:30 am meeting.”
    3. Send them a private message pointing out the problem. “Did you forget we had a meeting this morning?”
    4. Absolutely nothing.

    The Results

    So would you @reply someone or set your Facebook status to call them out by name? Or would you passive-aggressively point out to the whole world that some unnamed jerkface missed your morning meeting?

    I wasn’t that surprised by the results. Most people are nice enough to keep our gripes private, and to not air our grievances in public, and the numbers bore this out. Out of 107 responses to Question 1:

    • 80 people (74.7%) said they would email their friend privately to point out their problems.
    • 12 people (11.2%) would call out the incident, but not name the person.
    • 11 people (10.2%) would do absolutely nothing at all.
    • 4 people (3%) would call that person out by name.

    I was intrigued that the number of people who would do absolutely nothing to tell the other person what they had done was nearly the same as the number of people who would point out the bad behavior but not name any names.

    When I’m in public, and someone does something annoying, I am more likely to:

    Friends vs. Strangers

    Question #2 was about whether people would point out something annoying that someone else did, but not to them: When I’m in public, and someone does something annoying, I am more likely to:

    1. Point out their bad behavior on a social network, including pictures or video. “Check out this jerkwad being an ass to his wife.”
    2. Point out their bad behavior, but give them their anonymity. “Some guy next to me is being an ass to his wife.”
    3. Email a friend privately and relay the story to them.
    4. Absolutely nothing.

    The results were a little more dramatic this time compared to what people would say to their friends. Out of 106 responses (someone missed this one):

    • 57 people (53.8%) said they would email a friend privately to tell them about the stranger’s behavior.
    • 32 people (30.2%) said they would call out this stranger’s behavior, and include pictures or videos
    • 11 people (10.3%) would call out the behavior, but not include any identifying information.
    • 6 people (5.7%) would do absolutely nothing.

    When a stranger does something annoying in public, I am more likely to:

    Observations

    This is the stuff that intrigues me, and really makes me wish I had paid better attention in stats class in grad school. Because there are some interesting correlations between what we consider acceptable behavior toward friends versus complete strangers.

    • Most people (nearly 75%) will tell friends privately about their own bad behavior, but 40.5% of these people will publicly call out bad behavior from a stranger.
    • Compare that to 3% of people who would call out a friend by name on Twitter or Facebook. This tells me that most people are nice, and a few can be rather cut-throat and nasty.
    • Surprisingly, more people — 30.2% vs. 10.3% — will point an accusing finger at a stranger by including evidence of their bad behavior than will give them anonymity.
    • 94.3% of people will tell someone about a stranger’s bad behavior, whether it’s publicly or via email.
    • The number of people who would point out bad behavior but protect the person’s identity in either situation is nearly the same: 10.3% will talk about a stranger versus 11.2% who will call out, but not identify, friends (11 people vs. 12 people).
    • The percentage of people who will do nothing when a friend wrongs them versus a stranger nearly doubled — 10.2% versus 5.7% respectively, or 11 versus 6 people.

    Conclusion

    So what does all of this mean? Are we people with a strong sense of moral outrage who will point out the failings of other people, but only when they’re not anyone we know? And do we hold back out of fear of retribution or respect for our friends’ feelings? Or do we have an overwhelming sense of schadenfreude, but refrain from doing it at inappropriate moments?

    What about you? What do you think? What conclusions can you draw from this study? What do you think this tells us about ourselves, as it relates to social media?

    The rest of the questions:

    Question #3: When I am having an argument with a friend or family member, I will start/continue the discussion on a social network.

    • Yes (2 people)
    • No (105 people)

    Question #4: Which social network do you use the most?

    • Twitter (51 people)
    • Facebook (50)
    • LinkedIn (5)
    • Google+ (1)
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        Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Headline : Calling Out Bad Behavior via Social Media  •  Keywords : social media, bad behavior, survey, study, Twitter, Facebook  • 
      Filed Under: Communication, Facebook, Research Desk, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

      People Who Don’t Use Social Media Shouldn’t Dismiss Social Media

      October 4, 2011 By 7 Comments

      “I don’t use social media because I don’t want to tell people what I had for breakfast,” declare social media haters.

      “I don’t use Facebook because I don’t care enough about the minutiae of other people’s lives to bother reading it,” they say with the dismissive snottiness of people who refuse to own a TV.

      I’m always annoyed by people who just outright dismiss social media as a place where people talk about breakfast, bathroom habits, and life’s inanities, despite the fact that they have never used it.

      I read a recent article — Academics and Colleges Split Their Personalities for Social Media — where several commenters proudly crowed about their dislike for social media, and declared it inane and useless. (Hat tip to my friend Anthony Juliano for a great response.)

      One of the comments by “transparentopaque” caught Anthony’s and my attention:

      I do not have a Facebook or Twitter account. So, I have nothing to worry about. I have yet to figure out what anybody could possibly have to say via Twitter that I absolutely need to read. Is anyone’s life really that interesting? Yes, but only those people who do not waste their time posting on social media networks. Life is happening, and many people today are wasting it away talking about it. Instead of living in the moment, people are analyzing every aspect of their life to determine its suitability as a Facebook status update.

      I’ve determined that it isn’t really the “sharing” that drives people to social media, it is the sense that they have a captive audience. But that is only an illusion. Few people participate in order to read what others have to say; they participate in order to have a forum in which they can hear themselves speak. Narcissism has finally found its place in this world.

      The problem with “transparentopaque’s” attitude and practice is that as someone who does not use social media, he/she has no way of knowing how other people are using it.

      We see this with business owners all the time. “Our customers don’t use social media.” But they have no way of knowing this for certain, since they never use it.

      It’s like saying “no one visits that restaurant because I’ve never been there.”

      And yes, I was struck by the irony of someone asking whether anyone’s life is interesting, and then declaring social media to be “a forum in which they can hear themselves speak,” in the comments section of a website — another form of social networking.

      I always get agitated by people who say they’ll never do something, eat something, watch something, or participate in something without ever having tried it. (Although to be fair, I won’t eat mussels after reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. And yes, I have eaten them before. But if the guy who has an entire TV show about eating nearly anything on the planet won’t eat them, it’s probably a good idea to avoid them.)

      If you don’t try something, how do you know you won’t like it. If you don’t use Twitter or Facebook, how do you know what people are using it for?

      Of course, there are always those people who say “I don’t need to try heroin to know it’s bad for me.”

      True, but Facebook isn’t heroin. One is an addictive experience that will open up new worlds to you while at the same time isolating you from friends and family, and the other is an illegal narcotic.

      But unless you’ve tried Facebook or Twitter for a while (at least a month, for 20 minutes a day), you don’t know enough about it to dismiss it without looking like a myopic, close-minded curmudgeon who still thinks TV is a passing fad.

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        Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Headline : People Who Don't Use Social Media Shouldn't Dismiss Social Media  •  Keywords : social media, Twitter, Facebook, television  • 
        Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

        Dear Social Media Haters: Social Networking Isn’t Going Anywhere

        October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

        Business blogging and social media can be effective in helping products or services find an audience to generate conversations. Business blogging is the hub of any social media campaign. Yet, how do you move large segments of the population to evangelize your product or service like a preacher can move a congregation?

        Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. 

        This has played out recently with the events that have happened in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia. By accounts, small segments of the population were able to use Facebook and Twitter to steer their ideas into a majority which resulted in what has become known as the “Arab Spring”.

        Who says that cannot be done for a product or service? Look at Facebook, which is used by nearly half of the US population (170 million US users), or Twitter, which is used by 14% of the US’ adult Internet users.

        But to be a part of this trend, you have to participate in social media first. If you are not even engaging in conversation online, then your brand or competitor could be eating your lunch.

        As one of our clients said, “If you’re not tracking Twitter or Facebook, your brand could get destroyed. People can be really mean.” So participation is key. Because the 10% rule can go both ways. It can work for you or against you.

        Why? Consider this, Generation Y has now surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest population in the United States. They don’t watch television like Baby Boomers still do. Generation Y is online, texting and watching Youtube. If you want to reach Generation Y, television and newspapers will not do it.

        If you want to move them and become a majority product in their circles, you will have to participate in social media to make it happen. It’s scientifically proven that it only takes 10% for a movement to move like fire.

        Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

        Paul Lorinczi is the President of Professional Blog Service. The goal of the company is the help clients use Blogging and Social Media to expand their business online through planning, execution, and measurement.

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          Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Headline : Dear Social Media Haters: Social Networking Isn't Going Anywhere  •  Keywords : social media, social networking  • 
          Filed Under: Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

          Is Facebook On Its Way Out? The Folly of Calling Things Dead

          September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

          Given some social media pundits’ “premature speculation” of calling things dead, I’m surprised no one started sounding the “Facebook is dead!” knells after we learned that StumbleUpon surpassed Facebook as the top source of social media traffic. (Also see this post on ReadWriteWeb.)

          Zombie girl in the water

          She was declared dead too. Now look what you've done.

          Sure, no one believes Facebook is suffering, because 1) we’re only talking about social media traffic, 2) there are still questions about the methodology, and 3) Facebook is f—ing huge.

          But after hearing that Facebook was going to kill Google, that Twitter was going to kill email, or that social media is going to make corporate websites irrelevant, I’ve decided that people who declare things dead are only doing it to get attention (this post’s headline notwithstanding).

          Is Facebook going to die, just because it got surpassed in one small category? Hardly. Yet, I heard someone declare “nobody Googles” because Facebook had just surpassed Google in number of minutes on site, by a total of 2 million minutes, based on worldwide usage. But Facebook and Google do two different things. Besides, being a 799-pound gorilla doesn’t make you irrelevant.

          Is Twitter going to kill blogging? Never. Because if you can sum up your deepest thoughts about life, the universe, and everything in 140 characters, you’ve got all the emotional depth of a high school prom.

          Is email dead just because some jegging-wearing hipster carrying a 60-year-old camera would rather send a text on her smartphone? Hell no. How else is Facebook and Twitter going to notify her that she’s got new friends and followers?

          I truly am surprised that no one tried to declare Facebook dead after the StumbleUpon news last month. I figured every Wrongway Feldman-praying Internet pundit would have been all over that news, declaring that the days of social media were at an end, and that we were all going back to rotary phones and typewriters.

          Or maybe that’s finally dead.

          Photo credit: rodolpho.reis (Flickr)

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            Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Copyright Year : 2011  •  Headline : Is Facebook On Its Way Out? The Folly of Calling Things Dead  •  Keywords : social media, Facebook, StumbleUpon, dead  • 
            Filed Under: Facebook, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

            15 Social Media Tactics to Promote Your Upcoming Theatrical Show

            August 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

            We just finished the 10-day festival of independent theatre and weirdness known as the Indianapolis Fringe Theatre Festival, and I had a chance to see a few shows, including a couple of old favorites.

            I also had a chance to talk social media — because I’m an annoying geek that way — with a couple performers, and decided to write a blog post based on what I told a couple of them.

            Didi Panache and Wayburn Sassy of the Screw You Revue

            Didi Panache and Wayburn Sassy of the Screw You Revue

            This post is written for any musician or performer, especially the independent theatrical types who depend on ticket sales to make their living. For some of these performers, they bounce from festival to festival and make a good portion of their income from their take. Some even use one festival to pay for the next one.

            This is a strategy they can use to improve their take next year.

            What You’ll Need

            • A laptop computer
            • A digital camera with video capabilities. If not, your laptop’s camera will do.
            • A Twitter account.
            • A blog (WordPress.com or Blogger.com are great free platforms, as is Posterous.com and Tumblr.com)
            • A YouTube account.
            • A Facebook page. (This is different from a personal profile. You want an Artist’s page.)

            What You’ll Do

            These are in a general chronological order, but not in a do-one-then-the-next lockstep order. I’m using the Indianapolis Fringe (#IndyFringe) as an example, but this will work for any concert, performance, show, or festival.

          • First, make sure your Twitter bio includes a line about the name of your show, or your most famous character’s name. If you only performed in one festival, put the name of that in the bio too. “You may have seen me at the #IndyFringe Festival!” You can always change your bio, especially as you move from festival to festival, or follow specific groups of people.
          • Start following people on Twitter. People will follow you back, especially once they see that you’re a performer at the festival they went to, and even moreso if they were at your show. To find people who were at the festival, do these steps:
            • Go to FollowBlast.com and do a search for #indyfringe, and follow anyone using that term. Keep in mind that these hashtags only work for about 30 minutes, so it’s actually a good idea to access this site while you’ve got some downtime at next year’s show.
            • Build a hashtag archive at TwapperKeeper.com. I’m still trying this out, but I’m hoping it will collect old hashtags, unlike FollowBlast.com. However, it only goes back 7 – 10 days, and back for 1,500 tweets. It will then go forward and continue to save tweets. You should set this up before your next festival starts. Work in conjunction with the festival organizers, because they may want to use your archive as well. Also, before you start, search to see if anyone else set up an archive before you so you don’t duplicate efforts.
            • Go to search.twitter.com as another way to search for #hashtags. Put in #indyfringe and see what you can find. Search results are somewhat limited, but you may be able to find older tweets that FollowBlast and Twapper Keeper couldn’t, especially if you’re seeing this now, and are scrambling to recover those old tweets.
            • If all else fails, try Topsy. It’s not 100% accurate, but it gives you more than you might get if you’re looking for a festival that ended three weeks ago.
          • Check out the festival organizer’s Twitter page and follow everyone they follow (not everyone who follows them). If they have been good Twitter stewards, they have vetted the people they’re following. Those people will include other performers, supporters, festival-goers, and other people in the industry or festival business. (This last group could be a good connection to getting into other festivals!) Do this with any festivals you plan on going to next year as well.
          • Use Twellow.com and Twellowhood.com as a way to find other people who are in the cities where you’ll be next year.

            • Why You’ll Do It

            Okay so far? You’ve built your Twitter list for a very important reason: Promoting stuff! You’re going to promote next year’s show through videos, your blog, and even email newsletters. Here’s how.

            Zan Aufderheide of Welcome to Zanland

            Zan Aufderheide of Welcome to Zanland

            • Now you need your camera. Start shooting some short videos. Update us on what you’re doing, where you’ll be, thoughts on stuff you did this year. Treat it like a diary. If you’re an actor playing a part, do it in character, especially if that character is going to be back at the festivals next year. Shoot the videos in character, or tell some jokes, or give people a preview of what you’ve been working on. Shoot some rehearsals, some special messages to individuals, or perform a new song.
            • Post those on YouTube.com (make them public), and make sure you fill out all the details, like Title, Description, etc. (all this stuff is indexed by Google, which makes your videos found more easily by people searching for you or the festival).
            • Share these videos on Twitter and your Facebook page, and post them to your blog (do the same with any photos you take). This will accomplish a lot of pre-show promo before you ever set foot in the city. And if you can get people buzzing about the show before you start, you’ll be selling out more shows.

            You can get a Flip camera for as low as $170 now, and if you think that’s still high, use the money you were going to spend on fancy-schmancy postcards and spend it on the camera instead. The postcards are immediately dated once the festival ends, and you can’t reuse them. The video camera will pay for itself with all the videos you shoot and the postcards you don’t buy.

            Finally, there are a few things you want to do next year, to get ready for the next off-season.

            • Build a mailing list of all your attendees. Send around a clipboard before your show begins, or have them sign up before they leave. Ask people for their HOME email, not their work email — especially if your show is laden with profanities and cross-dressers. Guard this with your life. Promise to never, ever spam them. Use it only for newsletters and occasional social media communication.
            • Load that list into a Gmail account (here’s why you should use Gmail), and then either use the Rapportive.com Gmail plugin, or upload the email list to Gist.com, to start finding where your list members can be found on the different social media networks. Follow them on Twitter, and connect with them on Facebook.
            • Send out an occasional newsletter — no more than once a month — and email it to them. Let them know what you’re working on for next year so they get excited about your upcoming visit. Give them an opportunity to unsubscribe, but try to give them useful information so they won’t want to.
            • Use your video camera to shoot post-show testimonials and get them up on your blog as soon as a show ends. Tweet the new blog posts to your Twitter network during the show, so you can continue to remind people you’re there and you’ve got an awesome show. Ask your Twitter network to retweet your show information, so they can help you spread the word.

              • There is so much more you can do with social media. Believe it or not, this is just scratching the surface of what can be done. But while it seems overwhelming, keep in mind two things:

              1. This will get easier as you do it more often.
              2. It beats the hell out of busking and handing out postcards in 90 degree heat.

              Photo credit: Erik Deckers

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              Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, Marketing, Personal Branding, Public Relations, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tools, Twitter, Video Tagged With: , , , , , ,

              Why Companies are Afraid of Social Media

              August 4, 2011 By 2 Comments

              “We don’t do social media, because people might say bad things about us,” the executive said. “If we have a Facebook page, people might leave negative comments on it.”

              “They’re already saying bad things about you,” I said. “Whether you’re on it or not, people are complaining about you, and they’re telling as many of their friends as they can.”

              The rest of the conversation went as expected. Reason after reason. Excuse after excuse. We’re not on social media because. . .  we don’t do social media because we. . . it’s only for young people. . .

              In No Bullshit Social Media, we listed 28 different reasons companies are afraid of using social media: no money, no experience, no guaranteed results, we’ve never done it that way before, yada yada yada.

              There are any number of reasons why companies are afraid, and there are only a few reasons why they shouldn’t be. But these reasons trump all the excuses any business can ever come up with.

              1) Social media is not going away. It’s not a fad. It’s not something we’ll forget about. Social media has been brewing for the last 30 years, when Compuserve and Prodigy started as community bulletin boards. Or even before that when real computer bulletin boards were introduced in the 1970s. Companies may come and go, but real-time communication isn’t going anywhere.

              2) Social media has gained wide acceptance faster than any other medium. It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners; television took 13 years to get 50 million viewers. Facebook, on the other hand, added 100 million users in 9 months. Social media is only going to grow and get a stronger foothold in the way we communicate and receive information and news.

              3) Social media is inexpensive. Facebook is free, Twitter is free, blogging is free, assuming you’ve got the time and knowledge to use it. If you don’t, you can hire people to manage it for you. It’s no different from hiring in-house or outsourced professionals to manage your TV ads, your websites, and your trade shows. The only difference is once you hire social media people, your overhead is mostly finished; the tools don’t cost anything to operate.

              If you hire someone to produce your TV ads, there’s still the costs of actually creating them, and then buying the airtime. You can hire people to manage your trade shows, but you still have to pay the added costs of booth space and rentals, going there, working it, and coming home. Plus expenses.

              4) Social media marketing can be measured. One big difference between social media marketing and regular marketing is that we can measure social media marketing through tools like Google Analytics and SocialMention.com (both free) and Radian6 and Vocus (both paid services).

              How do you measure a billboard? How do you know how many people drove by, read it, and bought your product? How do you measure a TV commercial? How do you know how many people actually sat through the entire commercial and bought as a direct result? How many walked away after 20 seconds? 10 seconds? How many people never even saw it because they changed the channels?

              With social media, we can tell who read a blog post, clicked a link, and then made a purchase. Mainstream media can give you estimates and guesses, but they can’t actually count. Social media can tell you how long someone watched a video or visited a website, when they clicked away, and where they went. Mainstream media can only guess at the numbers of viewers, listeners, and readers.

              Social media marketing isn’t going away. And while it seems like everybody is using it, there are still hundreds of thousands of businesses that haven’t even considered it. It’s not too late to start. It’s not too late to create a Twitter account or a blog, and then talk directly to, and hear directly from, your customers. There’s nothing to be afraid of, and there are plenty of people to help you get through the rough spots.

              Erik Deckers is the co-author of Branding Yourself: Using Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself, and most recently, the co-author of No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. He is co-owner of Professional Blog Service, a ghost blogging and social media consulting agency in Indianapolis.

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                Filed Under: Billboards, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Corporate Blogging, Marketing, No Bullshit Social Media, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Television, Traditional Media Tagged With: , , , ,

                Import Your LinkedIn Contacts to Google+

                July 11, 2011 By 8 Comments
                Export your LinkedIn Connections to sync them with your Gmail Contacts.

                Everyone is so worried about getting their Facebook contacts into Google+. That’s the wrong way to go about Google+.

                Given that most of us who are on Google+ are social media power users, chances are we’re looking for another social networking tool that will benefit us professionally. And while we may be Facebook friends with our professional contacts, LinkedIn is the real professional social network. LinkedIn also keeps any contact information like cell phones and websites, so this is going to be valuable anyway.

                So, why not instead import your LinkedIn contacts into your Google+ contacts? Here’s an easy way to do it.

                1. Most importantly, you should have a Gmail account. If you don’t, get one. Google+ will delve into your Gmail contacts to see who you interact with the most, and suggest those people for your Circles.
                  2. Export your LinkedIn Connections to sync them with your Gmail Contacts.

                  Export your LinkedIn Connections as a .csv file to import into your Gmail Contacts.

                2. Log in to your LinkedIn account, go to your Connections page, and Export your connections.
                3. Choose any format you’d like, but the .csv (comma separated value) is your best bet. Save this file to your desktop.
                4. Go to your Gmail Contacts window, and select Import from the More Actions menu. Locate your .csv file, and import it.
                5. Google will merge any contacts that already match, saving you some duplicated matches. However, Google isn’t perfect, so you will need to go through and find/merge a lot of your contacts by hand. It may be tedious, but it will be worth it in the end.
                6. As an added bonus, export your Gmail contacts and reimport them into your LinkedIn account. This will then sync up your two networks. And since Gmail is the one email program that most social networks use to “find your friends who are on this network,” having your professional LinkedIn contacts can help you build any new networks you join quickly and without all the fluff and unnecessary crap that Facebook brings with it, like your Farmville and Pirate Clan friends.
                7. Jump back over to Google+ and start adding people to your circles. Start with the ones that Google+ recommends, and then begin searching for the people you want to add to your Circles.
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                  Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

                  Why Is Klout Important?

                  April 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
                  Screenshot of a Klout.com score

                  My post about three secrets to improve your Klout score generated a lot of discussion, partly about other techniques, but also wondering why Klout is even important.

                  Billy Kirsch asked how it would influence him on Twitter. Brooke Randolph wanted to know how it would help her, and why she would want to improve her score beyond bragging rights. And Ivan Torres said it was just an artificial number that didn’t affect the experience.Screenshot of a Klout.com score

                  To answer these questions, let’s take a look at what your Klout score means.

                  Your Klout score is basically the best way we have to quantify whether you’re doing a good job on social media. While it measures mostly Twitter, it also looks at your activity on Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s a measurement of your social media influence — your clout — and whether people like and trust you enough to respond to the things you do. In other words, if your social media footprint were a sales letter, would your readers respond to your call to action?

                  Your Twitter “call to action” includes things like:

                  • Do people click on the links you send out. If it’s to a new blog post or an interesting article, do they follow the link, or ignore it? If you typically write and tweet interesting stuff, they’re more likely to follow it.
                  • Do people retweet the interesting tweets you send out? Do they respond and share it with their networks, or do they just go “meh” and let it rot at the bottom of their Twitter barrel? If you’re engaging, witty, or really smart, then you’re probably tweeting interesting stuff that other people want to share.
                  • Are people talking to or about you directly? Are they asking you questions, pointing out interesting articles to you, or inviting you to stuff? Or are you an unknown quantity like that weird kid in high school no one really paid attention to? If people know who you are, you’ll be top-of-mind when it comes time to write original tweets to specific people.

                  Klout measures things like this and compiles your score, based on a scale of 1 – 100. However, it’s different from your traditional grading scale: 60 is not a D, and you have to be an international star to get 100. Chris Brogan has one of the highest Twitter scores, and he has a 81. Ashton Kutcher has 81, and Justin Bieber has 100. (I also have a higher score than Helio Castroneves, even though he has more followers and more Indy 500 wins than I do, so being a celebrity is no guarantee you have a high Klout score.)

                  So what does a good Klout score do for you?

                  Truthfully, not much. You don’t win prizes, you don’t gain fame or fortune, and you don’t get book deals. Beyond bragging rights, there’s not a lot that Klout will do for you.

                  Except…

                  Except people with higher Klout scores are considered influencers. People with high Klout scores have worked hard to grow and polish their reputation, and become the kind of person other people want to click through, retweet, and talk to. And these people get some benefits from marketers who want to reach people with good reputations.

                  • I received some swag and DVDs from the makers of the TV shows Lone Star and Southland. Lone Star sent me a t-shirt, some beer and martini glasses, a cooler, and a tin of popcorn. Southland sent me similar stuff. Both shows wanted me to watch their show and tell all my followers about it in the hopes that they would watch it to. (Sadly, Lone Star was canceled after two episodes.)
                  • Audi asked influential designers, technology pros, and luxury lifestyle thinkers with high Klout scores to test drive their new A8 model at an exclusive San Francisco event. The hope, other than finding that Klout influencer with 100,000 bucks laying around, was that people would talk about the A8 to their friends via Twitter, their blog, YouTube, and Flickr. For the price of a what is normally an automotive journalists’ trip, Audi was able to get some word of mouth advertising and reaching a non-automotive audience who might not normally consider an Audi.
                  • Bottlenotes Chicago offered tickets to the Around the World in 8 Sips Chicago free wine and cheese tasting to wine influencers. Restaurants and special events always give away free meals or passes, but by reaching out to Klout influencers, they are able to get some digital ink from the social media influencers for their food costs, without spending any more money on print advertising, or TV or radio commercials.
                  • Movie studios have offered free passes to fans in the hopes that they’ll tell their friends about the movie, again providing word of mouth marketing for a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing and advertising. Rather than putting together a special screening for people, they give away free passes and reap the same benefit as the screening.

                  So what is the benefit to you to having a decent Klout score? Right now, not much. Free movies, free swag from TV shows, free meals, and a chance to drive a car that costs more than the average national salary. Plus, you get to dog on your friends who may have a score lower than yours.

                  But, and this is what’s most important, you’re getting a good indication of how your social media efforts are working out. Think of this as analytics for your social media influence. It may be an artificial number, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a quantitative indication about how well we’re doing. And while people are still debating the efficacy of the Klout score, it’s the best indicator out there.

                  So use it, take it with a grain of salt, but don’t ignore it or dismiss it out of hand. If you care about whether you’re actually making progress in your social media efforts — or you just want some cool swag — pay attention to Klout until something better comes along, or until they improve.

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                    Filed Under: LinkedIn, Personal Branding, Reputation Management, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

                    Five Tools Every Crisis Communications Professional Needs

                    April 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

                    Crisis communications professionals, especially those dealing with environmental and man-made disasters, will often find themselves in a position where they need to relay information to the public fast. The great thing about social media is that it lets us communicate a lot of information immediately. And for the crisis communications pro, speed is often of the essence.

                    When I was the Risk Communications Director for the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH), we needed to communicate a lot of our information as quickly as possible. But the technology — at least the technology we had access to — meant being tethered down to a desk or finding a coffee shop that had passable wifi. And in 2006 – 2007, those were harder to find than they are now.

                    But the technology has caught up with the citizen journalists, surpassed the traditional media, and lets many crisis communicators become the direct source of the news, rather than waiting for the mainstream news people to catch up.

                    Here are five tools, both online and offline, that crisis communications professionals need to communicate quickly:

                    1. A smartphone

                    If you said “duh!” you’ve obviously never worked in government. In 2006, I was handed a Blackberry with the thumbwheel and keyboard. That was five years ago, and most of the agency people I know are still using them. The ones who have upgraded have upgraded to another Blackberry. The problem is, the good communication apps are being developed for the iPhone and Android. The Droid will let you take photos, videos, send tweets, and tap directly into your blog with apps from Posterous or WordPress, and they often cost as much or even less than Blackberry. Yes, the Blackberry will do all of that too, but it has fallen behind in the mobile communication arena, and may soon go the way of the dodo.

                    Mobile phones are now mini-computers that can make a phone call, not a phone that takes pictures and sends text messages. Sticking your crisis communications pros with flip phones or less-than-current technology hampers your crisis communications efforts severely.

                    2. Twitter & Facebook accounts

                    The problem with mainstream media is that you’re bound to their schedule and their filters. Not only do you have to wait until the 5:00 and/or 11:00 news to get your message out, they only spent 60 seconds on your story, and they missed three important points. Meanwhile, people are on Facebook and Twitter talking about the big emergency, and are asking questions that are either going unanswered, or being answered with bad information.

                    On the other hand, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are updated constantly. People ask questions, and you answer them. You provide people links to the most up-to-date news and numbers, shoot down rumors and misinformation, and get news out to the public without waiting until the media airs it several hours later.

                    3. A Posterous blog

                    This may not be your “official” blog, but Posterous is a great distribution channel. You can email photos, videos, and critical information to your Posterous blog, and have it automatically create a new blog post from all the content. Plus everything gets distributed to Flickr or Picasa (photos), YouTube or Vimeo (video), and your official blog. It can automatically notify Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn when there’s a new post up (or you can shut that off, and let your regular blog do that for you).

                    Writing a new blog post is a snap. Just open up Gmail or your smartphone’s email program, type in the subject line (that becomes the headline), attach the photos or videos, type in a few lines of text and you’ve got a blog post. Rather than waiting until you can get to your laptop and spending several minutes getting it up and running, you can do this on your smartphone in five minutes or less.

                    4. A WordPress blog on an external server

                    If you’re in a crisis communications position, you need a blog that is never, ever subjected to the whims, downtimes, and issues that a 3rd-party provider like WordPress.com or Blogger.com would face. It’s also important that your blog’s server exist outside your city, or even state. When I was at ISDH, one of the things we trained for was a nuclear attack aimed at the center of downtown Indianapolis, less than 50 yards from my office. If that happened, our subsequent replacements would need a way to continue to share information, since the melted slag of metal that was once our server was not an option. So our emergency backup was somewhere else far, far away.

                    I recommend a WordPress.org blog on your server because there are so many plugins and add-ons to increase the functionality of your blog — functionality that WordPress.com and Blogger.com just don’t have. Of course, you need someone who knows how to do all this, or at least an IT department who won’t insist that the blog needs to reside on the server in their building, just down the hall from your office (see Attack, Nuclear: Devastating Effects of). If they won’t help you, then go with WordPress.com or Blogger.com (or even your Posterous blog), until you get someone helpful in IT. Don’t let a bottleneck delay you; find a way to work around them until the bottleneck clears.

                    5. Mi-fi

                    Mi-fi is the portable wifi hotspot that fits in your pocket. It’s smaller than a deck of cards, and will support up to 5 users. It’s always on, and extremely secure. For crisis communications pros who rely on their laptops, but don’t always have access to a coffee shop or McDonald’s, this is a must. It’s also easy to recharge, and can plug into any wall or car’s cigarette lighter, which means you can communicate while you’re on the road.

                    A Mi-fi is also useful when combined with a digital camera and an Eye-Fi card, a wifi-equipped photo storage card. Set it up to automatically upload all photos to your agency’s Flickr or Picasa account, and you can keep people up to date with what’s happening via these two photo sharing sites.

                    There are a lot of other online and offline tools a crisis communications professional should have, but these are the five I wish I’d had when I was in state government. They would have made life so much easier, and we could have gotten information out a lot more quickly.

                    Now, if someone can only find a cure for bureaucracy, then life would be perfect, and I would even consider going back in to public service.

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                      Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Communication, Crisis Communication, Facebook, Newspapers, Social Media, Social Networks, Television, Tools, Traditional Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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