Social Networks | Professional Blog Service

Social Media Fans Use Email More, Not Less

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

Funny story.

A lot of social media pundits have tried to make some headlines by predicting the demise of email at the hands of texting, Twitter, and other social media networks. (So said Dan Applequist in November 2008, Shakespeare the Engineer said it in July 2008).

Turns out they got it backward.

According to a recent study by the Nielsen company (yeah, the TV people), social media junkies are actually using email more, not less.

They wanted to test the hypothesis that heavy social media users had cut back on their email usage, but it turns out that hypothesis was incorrect.

Now, when I was in graduate school, they taught us that if your research didn’t fit your hypothesis, you rewrote your hypothesis, rather than redoing your research.

Nielsen didn’t do either. They took it on the chin, and said that the research didn’t back up their hypothesis, and published what they did learn.

The researchers did state that the increased email usage might be because “social media sites like Facebook (that) send messages to your in-box every time someone comments on your posting or something you’ve participated in, and depending on your settings, can send updates on almost every activity.”

So while email may be on the way out, it’s not going to die anytime soon. It’s become too firmly entrenched in the business community, it’s an easy way to transfer large files, and a great way to communicate when it needs to be read later without being missed. And while the Millennials may shudder everytime they think about it, their parents and grandparents are still using email.

So until everyone over 30 is dead, email is going to be here to stay.

About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

Tags: email, Social Media, social networks, twitter
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter | No Comments »

Twitter Will NOT Kill Blogging, Unless You’re Just Not That Articulate

Monday, October 5th, 2009

We keep hearing from some so-called social media “experts” that Twitter will ultimately kill blogging as a form of communication. That somehow, the firmly entrenched method of communicating complex ideas will be replaced by the 140-character text message.

ShinyShiny.TV said that Twitter could kill blogging back in June 2009, James Joyner said it in April 2009, and Andrew Wee speculated that Twitter would kill all of social media in April 2009.

Here’s the deal:

1) They all said this on their blogs. If they really thought Twitter should/could/would kill blogging, why didn’t they say it somewhere else?

2) I’ve said it before: if you can sum up your most complex, worthwhile and thoughtful ideas in 140 characters, then they weren’t that complex, worthwhile, or thoughtful to begin with. If you want to promote your best ideas, they’re going to take a whoooole lot more development than 140 characters. In fact, 140 words won’t even be enough.

Your blog needs to be the center of your social media campaign, not some long-forgotten tool, like the foot-powered lathe or brace-and-bit. It needs to be the hub, the central location of your biggest and best ideas. The way you work out new theories, demonstrate knowledge, or expound on your beliefs. Because “hey tweeps, I think social media is a g8t way 2 reach nu cstmrs!” doesn’t demonstrate anything more emotionally complex or in-depth than a high school prom.

If you’re relying solely on Twitter to carry your deep thoughts and grand ideas to the masses — or at least your potential clients — just make sure you keep your résumé up-to-date. Or plan on having a client base that has the same intellectual depth and short attention span as you do.

Better yet, dust off your old blog, and put it at the center of your social media marketing. Make it the hub, and turn Twitter, Facebook, and other social media tools the spokes.

Tags: blogging, Social Media, social networks, twitter
Posted in Business Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Should We Stop Calling it “Social Media?”

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Jason Falls is all a-Twitter. And not the social media kind either.

Dave Breznau, author of s.m.o.g. talk, recently left a comment on Jason’s blog that caused him a little angst over the definition of social media.

is the term “social media” the problem? not only is it redundant, it is also currently inclusive of both “social” and “commercial” interest. truly “social” conversational participants will be put off by any “commercial” interruption. which is why, as you have stated, that we’ve all started gathering here in the first place. this has always held true, but also to degrees of personal and individual tolerance(s), which (to me) makes trying to establish rules… useless. social networks in all forms will continue to be about personal control (preferences) which will allows us as individuals to determine the degree of “commercial” interaction we’ll accept within our “social” space.

Although Jason says he won’t support getting rid of the term, he did see Dave’s point:

If it is true, as I pointed out in the post, that what we call “social media” evolved because consumers ran away from other mediums due to the overabundance of marketing messages, then this “medium” is inherently different than others, perhaps so much so that “medium” isn’t an apt qualifier.

Add to that a growing sense of tiredness of the term “social media” from some who practice it, not to mention Shannon Paul’s accurate insistence that having the term in one’s title is limiting, and we have to ask ourselves if “social media” is wearing out its welcome. At least as the term used to describe this new genre of communications.

As someone who has witnessed this kind of “we-need-to-define-ourselves-accurately” discussion before, let me offer this advice:

Don’t do it. Leave it alone. It’s not worth it. Focus on something else, like, uh… my car keys! Ooh, shiny! Deedle deedle deedle!

People in their particular industry always want to be as descriptive and technically accurate as they can. Needless to say, they make things much, much worse. As a writer, it kills me whenever one of the so-called industry experts — who doesn’t know squat about effective writing — gets ahold of my text. They manage to turn 100 words of tightly-written copy into 500 words of drivel and gobbledygook.

These same people will write mission statements before committee meetings, they try to cram as much knowledge into a beginner’s head as possible, and create 10-word job titles to encapsulate every minute detail their job entails.

Don’t do it.

Several years ago, as a radio theater playwright and member of an online radio theater group, I participated in more than one email discussion about why we should/should not call our favorite art form “audio theater,” instead of the more commonly-known “radio theater.”

“We’re not heard on the radio anymore. People can get us on CDs, MP3s, and on the Internet. So it should be audio,” said the audio camp.

“Yes, but no one knows what ‘audio theater’ is. We’ll have to explain to everyone what audio theater means,” said the brilliant, noble, erstwhile radio proponents said. So, I kept explaining over and over what audio theater meant over and over. Finally, I just gave up and just kept calling it radio theater, and let the audio theater people think they won.

I’ve seen this happen over and over. People who are burdened with the curse of knowledge think everyone should share that burden, and so try to be complete, thorough, and technically correct. The problem is the other 99.999% of the world just doesn’t care, and you’re just going to waste time trying to explain it to people who never will.

So while “social media” has the problem of ALL media being social, and containing too much commercial crap now, we still need to call it social media.

But if you think you can come up with something better, let me hear your ideas. We’ll have a contest. Whoever comes up with a better term, we’ll start using it to see if it catches on.

The rules: It has to be two words or fewer, 13 characters or fewer, and five syllables or fewer. Good luck.

Tags: Jason Falls, networking, Social Media, social networks
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Writing | No Comments »

Three Different Kinds of Online Communities

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Something hit me several weeks ago as I was preparing to speak to the Women Business Owners of Michiana. There is an easy way to understand social media sites without getting technical and using a lot of buzzwords like “microblog.” Social media sites fall into three simple categories:

Connection Centric

Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace all focus on who you know. The goal is to connect with friends and business contacts. Conversations happen because members of these sites have common interests or histories.

Conversation Centric

Places like Twitter, Identi.ca and even old school discussion forums and mailing lists are where the community is all about the conversation. People connect for one simple reason: they want to talk about what is being talked about.

Sharing Centric

Sites where you share talent or expertise like Flickr, YouTube, Scribd and SlideShare. Sharing centric networks let you share what you do or what you know and the networking and conversation happens because of what you share.

What drives success on each of these kinds of networks is directly related to the the category they fall in:

Connection Centric: Quantity and quality of your contacts drive network growth. Want to get the little 500 icon on LinkedIn? Invite more people with common ground to connect.
Conversation Centric: Quality and quantity of your contribution to the conversation drive network growth. Growing your followers on Twitter is easy: just tweet more often about things that people like.
Sharing Centric: Again, quality and quantity of what you share drives your network’s growth. Want more followers on Digg? Either post more interesting links or post more often.

About the Author: Mike Seidle
Mike Seidle is a leading Internet marketing strategist and has been helping companies with search engine optimization and developing cost effective Internet marketing strategies since 1998. Mike is a one of the founders of Professional Blog Service and currently serves on Professional Blog Service's board of directors.

Tags: social networking, social networks
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Tools | 2 Comments »

Why 1 Social Network is Always Better Than 10

Monday, April 6th, 2009

How many social networks can one person really actively work? The answer is one, maybe two, if they want to do it right. If you’re doing more than three or four, you’re either unemployed or lying about the “actively working” part.

The Definition of “Actively Working”

If you’re going to use a social network as part of your marketing arsenal, you have to develop that network, and that takes time.

That means actively working each and every social network you’re a part of, which in turn means participating. Sure, you can fire up some ping.fm feeds to auto-update all of your social networks at once, but that’s not really actively working a network?

You’re posting, but are you reading the posts of others? Are you engaging in conversation? If not, then you’re not working anything.

Concentrating Your Efforts

And every social network is different, each with its own nuances and quirks. For example, the kind of post that flies on Twitter may be frowned upon at LinkedIn while the audience you can expect on Tumblr is significantly different than the one on Facebook. That means you not only need to spend time maintaining a presence, but even more time on learning and understanding the platform.

Get Out of the Kiddie Pool

Your efforts are better spent working the deep well of one or two social networks than simply dipping your toe in the shallow waters of 10 or 20. So get out of the kiddie pool and dive into the deep end. Make a real splash.

Tags: Social Media, social networking, social networks
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Tools | 1 Comment »

Hey, Social Media Experts – Get a JOB

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

There are a lot of people betting their careers on social media. They’re granting themselves fancy titles like social media expert, social marketing gurus, or social media optimizers. SMEs and SMOs. Here’s some stark advice to most of these so-called experts.

Give up while you can.

I’m not trying to be a jerk or to get rid of the competition. I’m pointing out a reality. The career choice of most social media experts is going to be short-lived. Why? because, there’s only so much they can contribute.

Let Me Explain

Anything that you can know well enough to be an expert at in 1,000 hours or less is simply not worth pursuing as a career. For those counting, that’s the equivalent of about one year of school. That’s not very deep. In fact, most of the intern level people I interview have at least 2,000 hours of MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn experience under their belt just from being in school and looking for a job. That makes most recent high school graduates bona fide social media experts (not like this guy).

Would you entrust your corporate social media campaign to an 18-year-old? Didn’t think so.

You Can’t Hire the Real Thought Leaders

For those looking at social media in a PR, marketing or brand monitoring role, here’s some advice: look for people who can get things done, and shy away from “thought leaders.” Why? Because the self-proclaimed social media experts are not the real thought leaders. The real thought leaders in social media have names like Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook), Evan Williams (founder of Blogger and Twitter), and Reid Hoffman (of LinkedIn fame).

With all due respect to our local social media experts (including us), guys like Evan Williams clearly are not the ones that are showing up, hat in hand, to sell you that blogging boot camp or the “how to use” LinkedIn consulting. They’re a little busy changing the world at the moment. If a person calls themselves a thought leader, they either really are, or they have a lot of time on their hands to do lots of thinking and not a lot of working.

Here’s the second issue with most SMEs: They know enough to be able to help the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. They generally can help small business find local customers on Twitter and even set up effective profiles on Facebook or LinkedIn. But that’s about it.

But larger corporations need to move beyond the local push. They need to reach people in their industry or demographic profile. They need to be able to measure the ROI of their efforts. They need to know immediately when one tweak or tiny misstep could result in a half-point shift in their market share, because that could translate into millions of dollars.

Your run-of-the-mill SME doesn’t have the skills, tools, or wherewithal to handle that. PR professionals and marketing companies with a part-time social media intern aren’t going to be able to turn on a dime like that.

There’s a lot more to social media than setting up a couple of profiles, tossing up a blog, and twittering. You need to strategize, develop an entire campaign, and then be able to measure the results. (Hey, even TV advertising and PR can’t adequately measure their results.)

Work With a Team Instead of a Talking Head

If you should shy away from the SMEs, then who should you trust? Social media agencies. Why? Because most social media agencies have been busy working instead of talking. Nothing is new to them (blogs have been around since the 90s, MySpace started in 2000). They’re not distracted by the latest shiny object or hopping on the latest craze. And they’re able to pull from an entire staff of experts, not just whatever they read on Search Engine Watch last week.

Most of us agency types see social media for what it is: a lot of work, that, if done right, has a high return on investment. We see it as a component of a larger program, be it advertising, public relations, marketing, or even creating shifts in public opinion. And we’ve got years of experience in advertising, public relations, marketing, and creating shifts in public opinion.

The question corporations should be asking of your social media partner is simple: “Can you get us where we need to go?”

That means a lot more than, “Can you create a YouNoodle profile for my new startup?” (And if they say, “huh?”, you don’t want them anyway).

It means, “Have you ever run an online grass roots campaign before?”

It means, “Do you know how to build a reader base for my blog?”

It means, “Do you actually have a clue about marketing, sales and PR that extends beyond Twitter?”

It also means, “Do you have the right capabilities to help us get this done?” More often than not, that last question is the show stopper for SMEs. Social media is a lot of work and often is too much work for a do-it-yourself approach, especially if they have more than one client. Because this job is more than just “First, you need a Facebook page.” And if that’s all an SME is telling you, run away. Very fast.

In short, many social media initiatives fail because they’re a lot more work than anyone expected. Especially the expert.

So if you’re one of those newly-minted SMEs, ask yourself: do you have the knowledge, experience, and tools to create a professional campaign that meets your client’s expectations? Are you willing to put in the hours and hours beyond a Twitter profile? Or are you going to risk your client’s money and your professional reputation to find out the hard way that you can’t?

Tags: Social Media, Social Media Analytics, social media experts, social networks
Posted in Opinion, ProBlogService, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, Social Networks | 7 Comments »

Don’t Miss The Point of Each Social Network

Monday, March 9th, 2009

There are three major types of social networks – business, personal and communication. Notice I didn’t say “marketing?” Some may combine aspects of all three (Twitter) while others are more singular (LinkedIn).

And even though you may call yourself a social media marketing guru, that doesn’t mean you can “market” your way across all three types in the same way. In fact, every network has a point or a purpose and if you’re missing it, then you’re missing out.

Business

Social networks that focus on business are your LinkedIn’s, your Biznik’s and all of those local listservs and forums that people participate in as part of their online business networking.

The purpose here is to do business, not to share pictures of your kitten or that fantastic dancing robot video you found on YouTube. It’s also not the place for relentless marketing. In other words, don’t spam people.

Personal

I would describe Facebook as an example of a personal network. Some people may use it for business networking, but that’s not the point of it or the purpose.

Instead, it’s private and most people create Facebook accounts as individuals, not businesses. Basically, it’s your space to be yourself, talk to your friends and family and share those kitten photos. If you’re using Facebook to bombard your “friends” with product announcements and sales pushes, you’re going to find yourself very friendless, very fast.

Communication

This is where it’s all about sharing what you know and your take on what you know and what other people you know know (have I lost you yet?). By definition, Twitter would fall into this category though the micro-blogging platform has evolved to embrace aspects of all three. Blogging would be another example.

Remember, the onus here is on the communication. So, if you don’t have anything valuable to share or you waste your audience’s screen time with pitches and spam, you’ll lose them quickly. Go ahead, make a post about your new product, but also share that interesting industry-specific article you read last week.

Social networks weren’t designed for marketing. They were designed for networking and each designed for a specific type of networking. Approaching all of them with the same marketing strategy is like trying to build a house with a Leatherman – sure, all of the tools are there, but that doesn’t mean it can be done.

Tags: biznik, facebook, linkedin, Social Media, social networks, youtube
Posted in Business Blogging, Opinion, Social Networks | No Comments »

Graduating From Twitter’s Freshman Class

Friday, February 27th, 2009

When I was in college, you could always tell the freshmen at a party because they’d be the ones hanging around the stairs talking about how cool the party was. Meanwhile, the upper-year students would be heading for the keg and, well, actually enjoying the party.

Twitter can be very similar. You’ve got a rush of new people hanging out, talking about how Twitter is such a great tool and sharing news stories on how many more millions have joined the feed. And then, over there in the back, there are a few people who are actually using it as a tool.

Unlike Diamonds, Twitter Isn’t Forever
The thing is, Twitter won’t be around forever. True, it may seem like everybody’s on it and it’s the place to be, but guess what? So was Friendster. Three years ago, Twitter didn’t exist. Five years ago, Facebook was a burgeoning idea on a Harvard campus and six years ago, everybody had a MySpace. The point is, things move fast and tastes can change even faster.

Which is exactly why though Twitter can be a useful part of a comprehensive marketing plan, it’s not the be all and end all.

So, What’s Next?
If I knew, I’d be calling my broker. Seriously though, if you were to pin me to the mat, I’d have to say niche communities.

Sure there are big providers out there like Facebook and LinkedIn, but there are also a lot of smaller, more niche-focused social networks popping up. For example, Identi.ca, which is a Twitter clone. That particular community is made of predominantly open source software developers and fans and, as a result, has a distinctly technical feel to it along with a great tech sense of humor.

As messageboards and listservs grow up and enter the social realm, you’ll see more niche-focused networks appearing. Then again, maybe not.

In the meantime, party with us on Twitter:
Mike Seidle
Paul Lorenczi
Tom Deeter
Erik Deckers

Tags: networking, social networks, twitter
Posted in Social Networks | No Comments »

Mixing Charity with Social Networking: SocialVibe

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, SocialVibe secured $8 million in financing. Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? Who’s SocialVibe? It’s okay, I didn’t know either.

According to their market speak…

“SocialVibe is a social media monetization platform that mobilizes millions of social media consumers to simply promote, distribute and support brands and charities.”

Basically, social networking users can post sponsored badges (read: ads) for their favorite charities or causes on their profiles and then earn points for those charities along with a few perks for themselves.

They have over 500,000 members and have clocked over 100 million impressions for the likes of Coca Cola, Kraft, Sprint, Sony Pictures and even Colgate-Palmolive. All of these impressions add up to benefit 30 non-profit organizations (think World Wildlife Fund or PETA) and, of course, Social Vibe.

You see, SocialVibe takes a certain percentage to cover their costs and a small profit and then allocates, according to their website, “a sizable majority” of their monthly income to charitable donations. They don’t say what “a sizable majority” is, but as of December 2008, they’ve donated $200,000 to partner charities.

It’s an interesting concept that seems to combine viral interest with advertising revenue and all to benefit a good cause. But, I’d be hesitant to get behind anything so closely connected to charitable causes and donations? Why? Because they’re going to be held to a much higher level of scrutiny.

If Coca-Cola asks MySpace users to install an application that happens to advertise Coca Cola, we all know that’s advertising and accept it. But, if that advertising starts cloaking itself with charitable donations and just causes, people are going to put the whole process under a microscope.

I’m also curious to see if SocialVibe ends up getting in trouble for violating any terms of service. According to their site, they abide by the TOS’s of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and MyYearbook, but there are hundreds of other social networking sites out there who may not take too kindly to someone else advertising on their space.

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing?

How do you feel about big brands using charities to push ads into social networks? Imagine, you are browsing & you see a chance to support your favorite charity, and are then treated to advertising by a big brand.

Is that a problem?

Well, my guess is that unless the social networks are financially cut in on this little plan, they will come down hard on the application publisher. Because, when you look past the veneer of charity, these brands are simply using their application to front run someone else’s ads onto Facebook without paying for the ad.

What do you think?

Tags: non-profits, social networks, socialvibe, strategy
Posted in All Posts | No Comments »

LinkedIn From a True Power Networker

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

LinkedIn is absolutely the best social network for making business connections. To clear up a lot of misconceptions, we recently asked Vincent Wright, founder of MyLinkedInPowerForum (now called MyLinkingPowerForum) a few questions to see how a true power networker uses LinkedIn:

1. How do you use LinkedIn?

VW: Carefully! :-) More seriously: I’ve used Linkedin both for
extending my professional network and making introductions for my
friends. I’ve also used it for a bit of research and branding, as
well.

2. Do you go for quantity or quality in your connections?

VW: It cannot be just quantity OR quality, Mike. It MUST be both:
Quantity AND Quality. If it’s not both, you don’t need Linkedin.
For me, the QvQ concept strangles the very joy out of networking. QvQ
just isn’t sufficient. Asking the QvQ question is not much better
than asking if you prefer having just your Left Arm or your Right Arm?
You want BOTH arms, right? Personally, I think QvQ needs to be
re-argued towards Specificity/Generality (or something along the lines
of my C.I.A. Concept (Confluence -> Influence -> Affluence)

3. Do you ask or answer questions?

VW: I tend to ask more questions than I answer. I expect that may
change a bit once I have more time…

4. Is LinkedIn gaining or losing relevance for you?

VW: Though Linkedin has gained incredibly in power and membership size
since I was first fell in love with it about 5 years ago, it’s not
quite as relevant to me as it was 2-3 years ago. There’s an
extraordinary range of competing sites where you can meet business
professionals – Some of these sites are quite interesting, useful, and
beneficial in their own rights. (FriendFeed, Twitter, Ning,
CollectiveX, Xing, Google Friend Connect, My Blog Log, Yahoo Groups,
Facebook, etc. I think the more astute online networkers are now
using these these sites in conjunction WITH Linkedin.)

About the Interviewee:
Vincent Wright is an entreprenueral recruiter and leading LinkedIn Evangelist and a fixture in the LinkedIn community. Vincent’s MyLinkingPowerForum and MyVirtualPowerForum Yahoo Group are ground zero for many highly influential LinkedIn members.

Connect With Vincent
Twitter.com/VincentWright
Linkedin.com/in/VincentWright

Tags: linkedin, networkgin, social networks
Posted in Social Networks | 1 Comment »

Posts Tagged: social networks

Connection Centric

Conversation Centric

Sharing Centric

The Definition of “Actively Working”

Concentrating Your Efforts

Get Out of the Kiddie Pool

Let Me Explain

You Can’t Hire the Real Thought Leaders

Work With a Team Instead of a Talking Head

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing?

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