Here's a short video from the panel that I participated in at StartupCamp the other day, at Moscone Center. The panel was moderated by Neil Vineberg, and it deals with the things that startups need to do to succeed in social media.
The panel at Startupcamp ("Notes From Mission Control: Rules For A Successful Media Launch") went really well yesterday. Mashable's Kristen Nicole even wrote an article about it. The blurry photo of me's on the far left. Great questions from the audience, too!
Here's a quick heads-up. I'll be speaking on a panel tomorrow at San Francisco's Moscone Conference Center South alongside Jaiku founder Jyri Engestrom, Fleishman Hillard's Matt Dickman, and Christina Kerley, who's a marketing specialist at ckEpiphany, Inc.
Our panel, moderated by Neil Vineberg, is called "Notes From Mission Control: Rules For A Successful Media Launch". It runs from 11:50-12:30.
They even made me a custom wiki page over at the Startupcamp wiki. How cool is that?
Come on down, and if you get there when I get there around 9, we can grab a cup of coffee together. DM me on Twitter or text me to find me during the conference.
It's that time of month again, and April was a light month in terms of technical development, or de facto product releases, but there were many little iterations on the social web that will likely make a big difference, as the year goes on. Per the usual MetzMash format, each development is addressed in terms of its business value, and the actionable that you can take in response.
(If you can't tell, I'm going to see Rush for the second time on Sunday night, and the accompanying graphic represents the first Rush album I purchased, in 1989, the futuristic masterpiece Farewell To Kings, which is also for sale in the MetzMash Canteen in the sidebar).
1. Twitter monitoring and search tools become highly differentiated and super-freakin' effective
In the last month, Tweetscan, Quotably and Summize have come into their own as top-notch Twitter (micro-blog) monitoring tools, and the size of the platform has grown steadily.
Business Value: Although you could fork out a ton of cash for a robust monitoring solution, you could also garner much of the same data by using these tools.
Actionable: Use the free tools to set up queries for your brand, your top execs (and possibly your competitors); read them in your RSS feeds.
2. Podcast advertising found to be effective, shady study says
Much to the surprise of radio and big media execs, a study published by (big surprise) podcast evangelist brand Podtrac (along with eMarketer and TNS) shows that podcast advertising was highly effective in that they bring "highly unaided ad recall," according to Doug Keith, president of Future Research Consulting (from Mashable).
Business Value: This study (even though its source is a bit questionable) validates a four-year-old theory: podcast ads work for brand recall, but they don't do so hot if you're trying to obtain an impulse purchase.
Actionable: Assess how much of your audio advertising spend is in the podcast space, and see if you can work up any ROI/ROP numbers, or if you can isolate any results to try to determine CPA (cost per action) based on a recent podcast campaign. A recent example would be an engagement by Adagio Tea on the Diggnation podcast.
3.Yahoo "Opens" its network
Although many advertisers and brands greeted this move with measured optimism, Yahoo's vow to "open" its platform has amazing potential for developers to get in front of, potentially, the largest consumer audience ever. (Yes, this is like Facebook times something like 100x, in terms of the number of actual social connections that could plausibly be made on the Yahoo platform.)
For a deeper read, check out Forrester analyst Charlene Li's excellent debrief.
Business Value: This could be the largest open software platform, in terms of users, anywhere. Lots of people, lots of real estate, lots of money to be made.
Actionable: Assess any existing partnerships your company may have with Yahoo or your Yahoo ad spend. Brainstorm the points of convergence between your existing social application infrastructure and your current Yahoo ad/marketing/social media collateral.
4. Facebook green-lights "low-key" Flash integration
Nobody wants Facebook to begin looking like MySpace's Las Vegas flash, but it seems that the platform has made some minor concessions. It's now possible to use Flash on Facebook Pages. Heck, I didn't even realize this until I saw a Guy Kawasaki post about Jessie Stay's Facebook tome, "I'm On Facebook, Now What."
Business Value: You can now build really robust branded content on your Facebook page.
Actionable: If you currently use the feature for your branded social network assets, explore the possibility of porting over existing Flash-enabled content from other social network platforms.
5.Groundswell continues to release free technographic data
The Groundswell blog continues to give away bits and bobs (thanks, Jesse) from sundry Forrester research studies that include really relevant social technographic data.
Business Value: This is the best data you're going to get on how your customers and prospects use the social web without paying $1k-5k per report for it, period.
Actionable: Make sure everyone on your marketing team reads this blog. Indispensable. Like Rush's Farewell To Kings. People on your team will rock out to this.
6.Ning fully integrates blogs and external websites
Business Value: Branded social networks can now include non-network web properties, tying your web property ever closer together, and making for a fairly coherent brand experience. It's certainly worked for Saturn on Ning, who recently created a robust ImSaturn network on the platform.
Actionable: Integrate your blogs with your social network, if your brand has one on Ning.
7. Outbrain launches a blog rating widget
Let's face it: passive engagement rules. Only a tiny percentage of people are actually going to leave a comment on your blog. The rest will *maybe* give you a "star rating," if they even have the time to do that. Are you ready to interact with the other 99% (the folks who don't comment)?
Business Value: You can get a better read on (1) whether your readers actually like your brand's blogging and (2) what other posts these people tend to like.
Actionable: Install the widget.
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One more thing on social media: If you're interested in getting a deeper read on the social gaming space, be sure to be on the lookout for the InterPlay Conference on social gaming, coming up in less than three weeks at the Hotel Kabuki, San Francisco, on May 22. It's being put on by Room Full of People and theMIX Agency (disclosure: my firm), and is the first-ever conference on social gaming.
I don't know how many of my readers are Springsteen fans, but the E Street Band's Danny Federici passed away late last week. There's a truly touching video on the Boss' website, containing what looks like his last performance with the group, from 3/20/08. Awesome stuff; the bond between Springsteen and Federici is amazing. This is a real loss; he was a great musician, and a real influence on my growth.
I altered a lot of my daily media diet recently. When I moved to Oakland almost two years ago, the local paper offered my wife and I a free subscription. We turned it down. Aside from books, I haven't consumed that much "tree-based media" (thanks, Dan Kaplan) since 2006. And a few weeks ago, I severely trimmed down my newsfeeds to stuff that I truly consider actionable.
I figure it this way; if what I'm reading during the workday isn't actionable, then I should be reading it for leisure, not during the workday.I've thought of setting up a leisure-reading RSS for all of the fun blogs I like to read in my spare time (Pitchfork, Jack & Jill Politics and Huffington Post all come to mind.) Set that stuff up as the "Sunday Morning" feed. Read it whenever you're not on the clock. That feed's not generally going to help your social web strategy unless you have some time and space to think about it.
So, here's how I do it for the day-to-day feeds: I've got my RSS cut up into the following actionable categories:
If you'd like a copy of my OPML feed (the combination of the few hundred blogs and feeds that I follow), leave a comment on this post. Per my usual "advice", this post was composed according to my one drink, one album-side rule (WL Weller 12 Year Bourbon, Fleetwood Mac's 'Mirage'). And yes, I wrote it last night, not at 6 a.m. this morning.
Well, I never thought that a social web strategy blog would get featured in PR Week, but I guess stranger things have happened. The team at PR Week was cool enough to run an article about some of the things I picked up while writing "There Is No Secret Sauce."
The article is an op-ed piece entitled, "Social media is crucial for an agency," and PR Week has agreed to run a fee-free version of it, so anyone can read it.
Here's a little taste:
I spent much of the summer and fall of 2007 assembling my first electronic book on social-media strategy, There Is No Secret Sauce. I wrote the book because while there are thousands of brands that can afford to work with agencies like mine to devise its social-media strategy, there are others that either lack the budget or manpower to engage an agency. I wanted to provide a blueprint for getting started and getting to the point where the organization understands the value and potential of social media. Without tangibly seeing that promise, no organization will care enough to want to take it to the next level.
A big thank-you to Jason Mandell of LaunchSquad who helped me edit the article. If you want to check out more, hop on to the PR Week website.
My cousin called me from Boston yesterday; he's in the middle of long job hunt; he's looking for a basic I.T. position (network manager, desktop support), and he's having a lot of trouble. We talked about having him use the strategic method to job hunting and working with a job coach.
Then it hit me - he has no personal brand online. While following all of the steps from "What Color Is Your Parachute" may have been totally adequate for a strategic job hunt back in, say, 2005, the book doesn't totally cover what's needed right now.
A quick scroll through the table of contents of the 2008 edition shows a "How Much Help Is The Internet" chapter, which, undoubtedly, was ten years in the making - good stuff.
On page 11, the author actually puts "Using The Internet" at the top of the list for "Worst Ways To Find A Job." And, as far as I can tell, there's no reference to creating a personal brand online anywhere in the book. And I really hope that Richard Nelson Bolles, the book's author, fixes that next year, because his book has helped millions of people find great jobs, myself included.
So, here's what I would propose including in the chapter, if you're searching for a job in the United States. Setting this stuff up would probably take ten hours, and an ongoing commitment of about two to four hours per week. But if you've read "What Color Is Your Parachute," you know that a 12-week, full-time job hunt is par for the course; that means that if you started today, you'd have about an 86% change of success by July 4.
I'd stack on the following items to Bolles' advice:
By the way, if you're noticing that the information on my LinkedIn profile is intentionally vague, that's because I'm in the middle of a transition myself. More news on that in the coming weeks.
Business Social is a roundup that I write once a month to chronicle actionable developments on the social web for brands. No pranks here, folks.
From my stats, I can tell that these wrap-ups are my most popular posts, and I've learned that the shortest ones do the best, so, without further ado, let's get into the most actionable developments on the social web in March 2008.
Development #1: Non-profit OpenSocial Foundation announced
Business Value: CNET's Caroline McCarthy calls it the "Justice League of social media," but I see the board, which should be formed by late June, as more of a "NATO", going beyond stabilizing the influence of Facebook (not an Open Social partner) on the social web, but acting to keep any one corporate partner (e.g. Google) from dominating the OpenSocial platform.
Actionable: Know which parts of your company's social web collateral are OpenSocial compatible, and what is not. Develop an action plan to get crucial widgets and helper applications ready to be cross-platform. Don't let your entire social web strategy rest in one tiny social network (i.e. Facebook). Diversify.
Development #2: Groundswell Data Tool released
Business Value: Using this tool may be able to save you time in determining which social web tools your current customers and prospects (and employees) prefer to use. This could save you a ton of money in conventional marketing spend (surveys and focus groups)
Actionable:If you have a demographic profile of your current customer base, use this solid tool to begin to get a read on the types of tools that they might be using, at this point in time. Caveat: Not combining this aggregate data with your own to make some sort of blended assessment is just plain stupid.
Development #3: Eric Goldman Releases Social Media Slides
Business Value: Eric Goldman is a top-notch social web legal blogger. While his blog is not offered as legal advice, he has sharp opinions on cyberlaw and digital intellectual property. Seeing the presentation of a great communicator like Eric can galvanize your team into understanding, and possibly, action.
Actionable: Make a presentation as succinct and visual as Eric's for your team so they know what they social web looks like and feels like, even if they are unfamiliar with it.
Development #4: H&R Block Models A Totally Transparent Social Web Strategy
Business Value: It really is blatant advertising using social web tools, but it's pretty well done. And proves that your company can (maybe) do it too.
Actionable: Write a debrief of a social media marketing effort from your company's recent past, and see if it was indeed (1) transparent, (2) engaging, (3) human and (4) fun. Thanks to Jason Falls at Social Media Explorer for a solid case study of that campaign.
Things to look forward to in April:
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