As a relative newbie to Twitter, and as a student in a graduate level social media course this summer, I’ve been reading a lot of posts from “experts” who purport to explain the best practices of Twittering. It seems like almost all of these folks agree on at least two things:
1) Don’t use the automated function of your blog to post the exact same thing on Twitter, Facebook and every other social media channel you subscribe to…it’s just plain annoying to people if they happen to be following you on more than one channel.
2) Post useful and timely information, but sometimes it’s good to think of the theater axiom, “less is more.” With quite a few Twitter feeds people follow, do they really need to get something from you every hour during the day? And, don’t people want to get fresh content from you, not recycled stuff that some bot has been programmed to regurgitate automatically?
Well, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been following one of these “experts” on Twitter who doesn’t seem to believe in any part of #2 above. I’m not going to name him, but I’ll bet you’ve maybe run into one or two of these folks yourself.
I’m writing this post at about 11am. Since midnight last night, just the last 11 hours, this particular Twitterer has tweeted 68 times. That’s right, 68! That’s almost a tweet every 10 minutes! As of today, I’ve stopped following him.
In addition, many, if not all of his Tweets are done by an automated system that send out OLD content of his, although there is an occasional re-Tweet of someone else’s OLD content. Sorry, I kind of expect to see FRESH content on Twitter, unless you specifically tell me what I’m going to see is “an oldie but a goodie.”
I sent an email to this guy, asking his thoughts about his tactics. He says his research shows that people don’t mind getting so many tweets from him, and just because it’s old content doesn’t mean it’s bad content. And, he even told me he purposely removes the dates from his old content so people don’t immediately notice it’s old. What gives him away, however, are the comments on his posts, which are sometimes many months old.
What do you think about this? Does it bother you?
The other day, I attended The Social Media Marketing Conference put on in Omaha Nebraska by SkillPath Seminars. Having done some of what I’ll naively call “considerable work” in the area of social media, I’ll admit I was somewhat skeptical about what I might learn at this conference. On top of that, my previous exposure to Skillpath Seminars had been only that I kept seeing their direct mail pieces that seemed to inundate my mailbox about seminars on just about every possible topic. How could they possibly have all that expertise? Won’t they just make a big push for me to purchase additional books on the topic at inflated prices? Isn’t this just an easy way for this company to make some money off unsuspecting people like me who manage to get our employers to foot the bill?
OK, I confess…I WAS WRONG. It was definitely worth the money and the drive to Omaha for the seminar.
I had investigated SkillPath Seminars a little to find out how they get their presenters/trainers. According to their website, the company provides all the content and the trainers just present the material. Plus, you get a “generous commission” on the sale of books, CD’s, and annual “seminar memberships.” Ah-ha! Maybe I was right? This whole seminar was just a front for selling more books and “stuff.”
Once again…I WAS WRONG. Yes, the trainers once mentioned books that were available, but never in a pushy way, and there was only one casual mention of their “total access” membership program.
And the trainers were good! Both of them, Kristy Vetter and Caryn Colgan, had considerable personal experience with social media, and did much more than just present prepackaged content…although there certainly was a good amount of that, also.
Of course, the quality of any seminar is going to be directly proportional to the presenter/trainer. If you happen to get Kristy and/or Caryn, you’ll be in luck!
Social Media Bible, Chapter 22–Let the Conversation Begin (Interpersonal)
So, how many ways are there to use all this new social media “stuff” to communicate. Too many to list here. But, this final chapter of the “Tactics” section of Lon Safko’s Social Media Bible attempts to begin such a list, divided into categories like one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to-many. I won’t regurgitate all of the apps and websites mentioned in the chapter, but I will comment on a few of them.
There’s a sentence on the first page of this chapter that is especially appropriate: “As with all of the other chapters’ content, useful tools, and applications, the players are continuously changing. Many are being added, and some are becoming extinct.” (p. 421) I applaud the author for even trying to put together a book of this magnitude, knowing full well that at the great speed with which technology changes, you’d “gain a few, lose a few.”
A few highlights from this chapter, organized into categories:
One-to-One: Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, iChat all fall in this category, as does the newly launched Facebook “videocalling” feature. By the way, if you haven’t tried that new FB function (which is a joint venture of FB and Skype), you should check it out. Very easy to use from within FB.(As mentioned in my blog for the previous chapter, the service from Jott.com is unfortunately no longer available. But, it is still worth reading the “Expert Insight” section of this chapter (p. 440) which is an interview with the founder of Jott)
One-to-Many: This category includes Twitter, Yahoo! Messenger, Microsoft Live Messenger, and Doodle. I was intrigued by Doodle, because its functionality sounded a lot like another very useful service I use for scheduling meetings, “Meeting Wizard.” Upon further investigation, I realized other people have used Doodle for scheduling meetings with me. Both programs look very similar, are easy to use…and they’re free!
Many-to-Many: This section includes software which makes it possible for business meetings and training seminars to be held across the miles without having to worry about hotel and travel costs.Included are GoToMeeting, WebEx, and Adobe Connect. I’ve used all of these services for various meetings in the past couple of years. In fact, Adobe Connect is the software used for synchronous distance learning courses for UNL. I can sit in my office in Sioux City, Iowa and see all of the students in a classroom in Lincoln, and they can see me and we can interact in real time.
The chapter includes with the ROI of Social Media section (p. 438) giving a very good example of what it takes to set up a social media plan for a company. It shows how many of the tactics we’ve discussed in our class can be used in such a plan.
What can we take away from the Tactics portion of Safko’s book? As the author says, “go explore…unless you investigate and try out the various services that you’ve read about here, you won’t know what incredible tools are available to help grow your business, build your community, and develop trust within that community.” (p. 443)
Well said, Mr. Safko.
Social Media Bible, Chapter 21–The Formidable Fourth Screen (Mobile)
Cell phones have changed just a little over the years…
I
‘m guessing there are some students in our class who can’t understand what Lon Safko means when he says mobile phones used to be “awkward and heavy.” I can certainly remember them. It was so exciting to have one, even though it was the size of a small loaf of bread! But wow, those bag phones (left) were amazing. Just find a place on the seat for the “bag,” plug it into the cigarette lighter in the car and hold that huge headset up to your ear and you could talk on the phone while in your car. That’s it…talk. No texting, no movies, no music, no Internet, no camera, no GPS, no email…just talk. But look how cool it was, with the dialpad on the back of the phone. Made us feel like 007!
Then, the technology just had to improve a little to allow for a slightly larger battery so it didn’t have to be physically connected to a power source in the car. That meant you could carry it around in your pocket (if you had a big pocket). Wasn’t that hot?! (right)
Look how cool it made you look…well, OK, it helped if you were Michael Douglas.
The rest of this chapter talks about features of phones, apps for phones, and even the idea that our smartphones have now become the “remote control for our lives.” For many of us, it certainly is a question of ‘where would we be without our phone?’
The newest thing on phones is mobile marketing, in which companies can push info to your phone, with coupons, “hot deal” text messages and more. This is an area that media outlets are especially getting into, with radio and TV stations and newspapers all having special mobile-optimized apps and websites.
A new term mentioned in this chapter is advergaming or ad-funded mobile gaming, in which large brands can deliver advertising messages actually within mobile games. Once again, I had no idea this existed. This is probably not a place where most local clients will be spending their money, but as with much of the information in this book, it’s good to know about it.
On a sad note: After reading this chapter, I was excited to learn more about the service called Jott. It seems like I’m always in the car when I want to write myself a note so I don’t forget something, and that’s exactly what this service would allow you to do through your phone. Unfortunately, as of May 3, 2011, that service no longer exists. Guess I’ll just have to continue putting my phone under my chin, driving with my knee and writing notes on old McDonald’s drive-thru napkins.
Social Media Bible, Chapter 20–Marketing Yourself (Search Engine Marketing)
This is a relatively short chapter because its point is fairly simple: Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a way to market your website by paying a fee to the various search engines each time your company shows up in the search results and also when you get a “click through.” A click through, the holy grail of website searches, is when somebody clicks on the link to your site and goes to your site. SEM results are called “sponsored results” when you see them come up on a search engine. My question is: how often do people click on those sponsored results? I sometimes purposely avoid those results, knowing that a company is paying for them to show up, rather than that they may have the most relevance to what I’m looking for. But if this form of SEM didn’t work, I suppose firms wouldn’t use it, would they?
The author explains the process of signing up for the SEM service on several search engine sites, which is actually really simple, and he offers several tips, including a key word macro that is available on The Social Media Bible website to help determine which keywords are the most important on your site.
The “Commandments” at the end of this chapter do a great job of summarizing the important points here, and bringing readers back to important points from previous chapters, such as “Thou Shalt Focus on the WIIFM.” (p. 388)
It’s interesting to see how many Search Engine Marketing firms show up in the “sponsored searches” area when you do a search for Search Engine Marketing. I wonder how much they paid for the “Search Engine Marketing” term to apply to their company?
Social Media Bible, Chapter 19–Spotlight on Search (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization is a popular topic among online pundits. Do a Google search and up comes 106 MILLION matches…that’s because everybody and his brother seems to be a “guru” in this area, willing to help you make your website more inviting to the masses…for a fee, of course! Want your head to spin? Look at the Wikipedia entry for SEO. But, for an interesting take on why there seems to be a lot of negative chatter about SEO and the people who do it, check out this link: Why people hate SEO. When you go to that page, be sure to watch the video clip (or find it on YouTube here) of a guy who seems just a little bit sleezy offering his SEO services to you. (I hope he’s not somebody’s brother who is in our class!) There’s an appropriate reference used online (and in the text) for people like this: black hat SEO guys…compared to white hat…you get the picture.
What’s wrong with just making sure you have great content on your page? How about carefully selecting key words to describe the content of your website and putting those in properly formatted meta tags on your site? (p. 362). This chapter of the book highlights some of these fairly simple, effective and ethical ways to get better search results for your webpages. There are too many specifics to explain here, but the author‘s list includes using meta tags, fresh content, title tags and accurate page titles. He also mentions a practice called a link exchange campaign, in which you actually ask other sites to link back to yours to increase the number of “external reputable links” for your site.
I think many of these techniques will be over the head of the usual business owner, so he/she will need to rely on someone on the staff or in a PR/Marketing/Advertising firm to help make the company’s site more accessible to search engines, without resorting to some of the “black hat” tactics. The chapter has an extensive list of tips on page 367. Even if a business paid attention to just some of those, it would probably get a better search engine response.
Why is Search Engine Optimization so important? The conclusion of the chapter puts it best …”it’s about being found exactly when your customers are looking for you.” (p. 376).
Social Media Bible, Chapter 18–RSS: Really Simple Syndication Made Simple
There is no way I’ll get to the required number of words for the blog for this chapter, because yes, RSS really IS that simple.
You don’t have to understand all the history of this tactic or the technology behind it to know how to use it. If you find something on the web that interests you, and you’d like to see more of that same thing from the same author, look for the little orange RSS icon and you’ll be set to automatically get updates to that website, blog, whatever. Similar “follow” icons are often placed on sites for many of the social networking sites. In fact, sometimes under a “share” button, there are so many choices, it’s mind-boggling. Here’s an example of a small popup I saw (some are much bigger, with more icons)…how many of these icons do you even recognize?–
But the bottom line of this chapter IS simple…if you are doing a website or blog and you want other people to see it, be sure to make it easy for them to continually follow you by including an RSS feed icon on your page. And, if you want to be slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of doing this, check out the huge list of providers in this chapter (p. 345-347).
The “ROI” section of this chapter (p. 347) has an interesting study of an experiment by a company to evaluate how well Twitter could be used in a traditional promotional plan. And the “Expert Insight” section (p. 349) is a good introduction to LinkedIn. However, I’m not sure what either of those have to do with the topic of RSS feeds.
Social Media Bible, Chapter 17–Gaming the System: Virtual Gaming
I hesitate to quote an entire paragraph here, but this section from the beginning of this chapter says it all:
On average, [online gamers] spend 22 hours per week playing these games, and there is no correlation between hours spent playing and age. Sixty percent of all players report that they have played for 10 continuous hours at one time or another. Eighty percent of MMORPG players also play on a regular basis with someone they know in real life such as a romantic partner, family member of friend. In fact, MMORPGs provide highly social environments where new relationships are forged and existing relationships are reinforced. Many players report feeling strong emotions while playing, and a recent statistical study showed that 8.7 percent of male and 23.3 percent of female players have even had online weddings. The average MMORPG player is by no means average. (p. 322)
Well, when you read that you’d wonder why WOULDN’T someone get involved in virtual gaming, either from a participant as a player or from a company hoping to capitalize on this apparently large, relatively captive audience, with revenues exceeding a billion dollars. I appreciated the author’s explanation of basically three MMORPG business revenue models: “pay-to-play, free-to-play with in-game advertising and merchandising, and buy-to-play.” (p. 326)
Prior to reading this chapter, I had never heard the term MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) or of most of the games mentioned, including the most popular (according to Wikipedia) online subscription game, World of Warcraft. But then I did a little nonscientific research on the subject, asking friends about their use of online gaming. Surprisingly, the responses I got absolutely confirm most of the information in that first paragraph…coming from high school boys, college students, recently graduated college students and men and women over 50. I had people specifically mentioning the term MMORPG (as if I should already have known what that meant!) to saying that World of Warcraft is their favorite (the 50+ guy) to telling me how to find their avatar in Second Life (woman 50+) to saying they had stayed awake almost all night playing these games (the high school boys). This is a world I really knew nothing about, in which I’d have to agree with a couple of my survey respondents in saying “I’m too busy with my first life to worry about a Second Life!”
Listen to this response from a college sophomore, explaining his attraction to Halo:
“Halo attracted a bunch of players because it had a great campaign story line and it was a very well-balanced first person shooter. All the weapons had distinct advantages, making the game play pretty fair. The multiplayer runs very smoothly…it was one of the most advertised video games…Burger King even displayed it…it’s a classic good vs. bad guy to save the world…the Halo series is my all time favorite game…it was definitely a groundbreaking game.”
And I got an interesting bit of feedback from a recently graduated college student who agreed with the author that online gaming could be considered social media, but with a big difference…most people playing online virtual games are playing anonymously…as opposed to using Facebook when you usually know a lot about the person you’re chatting with.
(Aside: here’s a fun spoof of Halo and Burger King by comedian Dane Cook. Be forewarned there is a little bit of raw language in this.)
I am fascinated by the idea of virtual economies explained in the text, with the blurry lines between real and virtual world currency. I have just recently been discussing this issue in terms of a new online currency, Bitcoin. It’s really over my head, but suffice it say people are making money in the online world by trading in this new currency. But, a revenue stream I do understand is Adscape, (p. 333), a video game advertising company that lets developers place dynamic ads right inside a video game. Even watching my son play Grand Theft Auto when he was younger, you could see billboards and other ads from real companies. The same is true in Second Life.
With all this being said, for most companies, I think virtual gaming is probably not going to be a place where they will want to spend their marketing/advertising dollars, but it’s not a bad idea to be informed about it.
Social Media Bible, Chapter 16: Virtual Worlds–Real Impact
UPDATE: The blog below was originally written with quite a bit of frustration about trying to understand the whole virtual world thing, but I just got off the phone with Lon Safko, who gave me a personal tour of his Social Media Bible “island” in Second Life. The link has changed from what was in the textbook…here’s the correct SLURL… http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pinastri/215/8/21.
I think maybe I understand this better now, but unfortunately, that means I’ll probably want to spend more time visiting Second Life! Just what I need! I’ve also talked to a couple of friends about virtual gaming, but I’ll save those remarks for the next chapter.
Here’s the original post:
For this chapter to make sense to me, I decided I needed to experience first hand the ‘mother of all virtual worlds,’ Second Life. So, this blog will review my venture into this world…stay tuned…
OK, I’m back. Wow, was that a waste of time! In the textbook, author Lon Safko says:
“in addition to being a fun, entertaining way to pass the time, virtual worlds give you the opportunity to browse new and unexplored domains, visualize and participate in imaginary communites, and do business in a virtual marketplace with real customers and colleagues.”
Sorry, I don’t get it. I’ve spent almost a half hour trying to understand who I was, where I was, where I was going, why I was going there, the meaning of life in Second Life…and so on. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time, but if it takes me longer than that to understand something, I’m not sure I want to be a part of it, either as a participant (avatar) or as a company.
To be fair, I’m going to ask some acquaintances why they enjoy playing Halo 3…there must be something that attracts people to these worlds. Once again, please stand by…
still working on it…I’ve even sent a message to author Safko asking about his section of Second Life…which doesn’t appear to still exist…
While I’m waiting to hear back on my query about virtual worlds in general, let me say that I’m fascinated by the huge list of companies in the textbook that are apparently participating to some extent in Second Life, especially the idea that some of them have a paid staffer responsible 24/7/365 for representing the company in Second Life!
Still waiting….
So, Mark Kingdon, CEO of the company that created Second Life, says he spends anywhere from one to four hours a day in Second Life. (p. 316) What?!!!!
I’ll come back and update this blog when (IF) I get some more info…when (IF) somebody can explain it all to me…
Social Media Bible, Chapter 15: Live From Anywhere–It’s Livecasting
In the 1998 Jim Carrey movie “The Truman Show,” the main character’s life is broadcast 24/7 without his knowledge. The broadcast is a huge audience favorite, with people watching his every move, all day, every day. But, in our real world, you can’t imagine that would be of any interest to people, right? Well….
This chapter examines the world of livecasting…distributing a stream of content on the Internet, allowing people to, “for the first time in history…actually produce your own radio or television show and distribute it to everyone around the world–live–for free!” (p. 279) However, when the content is simply a camera following “an ordinary Joe” around all day, in my mind, this comes under the heading of “do we really care?” and the subheading of “how will this help my company?”
I should have known better. One of the examples in the book, “The DotComGuy Project,” which had a guy trying to live under the watchful eye of cameras without leaving his home, actually had some major sponsors! Major companies lining up to PAY for making this voyeuristic video available to the world…really? Couldn’t happen more than once, right? How about JenniCam, HereandNow.net, We Live in Public, Justin.TV, Justine.tv…OK, I was wrong. What can you expect from a guy who doesn’t like to watch “Big Brother?” How did we ever live in the “dark ages” without the advantages of a Wearable Wireless Webcam as mentioned on page 282?
All of that “watch me, watch me” stuff aside, this chapter does have a good, although short, historical section talking about the beginnings of Internet delivered commercial radio, followed by Internet-Only radio stations. A side note is that in the beginnings of Internet delivered commercial radio (and TV) there were concerns about whether a station’s regular music licensing agreements would allow them to broadcast music over the Internet. In many cases, the answer was no, and stations had to pull back on their plans for such delivery of their station until changes could be made in their music licenses.
So, as mentioned above, everybody can have their own radio or TV station. Using sites such as BlogTalkRadio or Ustream.tv, it’s a simple matter of deciding what you want to say, and then putting it out there for the world to hear/see.
As much as I may seem to be denigrating the idea of livecasting, one really useful tool that has come from all this new technology is web conferencing or webinars… the ability to have online meetings with people in varied distant locations. From business meetings to online college classes to bringing a group of people together online to learn a new piece of software, this technology has proven to be very valuable.
Madsen Media 