Five Simple Questions, No Easy Answers

1. Aggregation
2. Self-expression, connection, and networking tools
3. Pony Express wasn’t broken either
4. Persistence. And you want to ride the oncoming wave, not be buried under it.
5. Tribe creation

Steve Woodruffs last blog post..Five in the Morning 012309

1. Unified logins so I can maintain one profile across a wider variety of services.
2. Sharing, Connecting, Recommending
3. It’s no longer just what you say about yourself, it’s what others say about you that matters. This is more evident online than ever.
4. Find ways to contribute to a conversation, not just monitor or market within it. Develop a thick skin. It’s a dialogue, not a soapbox.
5. Use the insights gained to improve other aspects of your business and inform others in your organization what people really think about you. If it’s not good, fix it!

I like the questions, Amber. A lot. I’ll come back. I have some thinking to do.

Amber, These are all good questions! I couldn’t begin to answer them all, but they do make wheels start turning in my head.

I’ll take a stab at the social media definition:
2. human interaction, aided by tech

– though I do also like the word connection that the previous commenters mentioned.

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Amber,
they are great questions. Let me only dig in on one of them, #3.

The difference in social media from prior media types is that money does not equate to time. Whereas in Television, if you were late to the party, you could still hire an agency, buy a media placement, and you would be right at the same point that everyone else was.

Social media is about networks, influencers, relationships, content, and credibility. These grow with time and effort, not with cash.

I wrote a post on this concept here: http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-cant-build-your-own-television.html

Unless you fundamentally believe that social media will never be important, it’s critical to begin investing in it now. This allows time for your network and community of influencers to grow at its natural pace.

Steven Woodss last blog post..Looking for an Outcome – Testing in B2B

I’m game on #2.

Social Media is like a dinner party where you only know some of the people.

You walk into a room and everyone is at a table, having a conversation.

You would never sit down and say, “hi, I sell Presto (or whatever). Want to buy some?”

No, you’d listen to the conversation and figure out a way to add a relevant insight, based on your expertise.

After a while, when people get the feeling that you are a person of substance, they will turn to you and say, “so, tell me about what you do…”

Participating in the blogs and forums of others is like being an invited guest to their party.

Earn their trust (yes, it takes time). Then, you will have an opportunity to share your story.

Covey’s principle applies here: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Copied from my blog post
http://www.jer979.com/igniting-the-revolution/social-media-calls-for-social-behavior/

5 cents from a newbie’s perspective:

1. Simplify.
2. Cultivating relationships with the help of online communication tools.
3. Do you want to be the one left out of the conversation?
4. Cultivating relationships takes time. Keep at it because cultivating relationships is sustainable marketing.
5. Community building.

Peter Korchnaks last blog post..RSS feed transfer

it’s Saturday morning and you’re asking me questions – what the deuce?

1. Filter all the faux self-proclaimed social media gurus. A blog and Twitter account does not a guru make. Nor does self-proclamation. Earn that status and then we’ll talk.

2. It’s the relationships you have offline every day in a nice online family.

3. Because no-one can ever stand still. Success can be fleeting; use EVERY tool to expand that fleet.

4. Finding what ones suit your niche best. Much is market research but a lot can also be trial and error. Be prepared to make some wrong early decisions, accept that and then learn from them and move on.

5. It shows customers (old and new) that your forward-thinking and keeping up-to-date with what they’re doing as well. No-one likes safe and boring (no matter what they say) – risk-taking shows spirit and leadership; businesses with that leadership will attract the crowd.

Danny Browns last blog post..Still Not Convinced? Check Out Twitter’s FollowFriday

What great questions, Amber – and some great answers too. Here are my $0.02:

1. Integrate platforms more, so that one’s reach can be wider without costing one more time. This will make it easier for newbies to jump in – many, many people perceive SM as a time hog and, as a result, I think we’re missing out on potentially very rich conversations.

2. I like Danny’s answer, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel.

3. Ditto Steve’s answer.

4. You’re going to have to figure it out – there isn’t a one-stop, turnkey solution you can apply. What are your goals and measurable objectives? Work backwards from there.

5. It opens up your world, exposing you to audiences you may not have realized were listening to, or have the potential to impact, you. Grow your audience, and grow your business.

Shonali Burke, ABCs last blog post..Is Your PR Better Than Broccoli?

Love Steve Woodruff’s pithy but potent answers. I am still working on brevity…

1. one profile, one login, one dashboard to access my “whole world”

2. the opportunity to build a network of world wide relationships that transcends the barriers of physical presence;

3. Maybe you are now, but you are about to get run over (or worse, become invisible!)

4. Overwhelm – so much to learn and it is a different paradigm so you may feel dazed and confused a lot; finding your “voice” out here – the context is different so you need to adapt your communication style and it can be hard, time consuming work. (Although I can say it is like learning to ride a bike – once you learn balance you’re off and running!)

Why bother? not sure it’s really a choice if you want to succeed in the future. The tools will ultimately make people and companies far more effective and you won’t keep up.

5. Human systems are complex adaptive systems, not machines, but until now all our communication tools forced us to operate in machine like ways. What started out as tools that increased our reach and efficiency of communication has resulted in a level of control that impedes effectiveness, innovation, free thinking, etc. Social media tools enable us to transcend artificial control – just look at what is happening to journalism if you want an example. (btw Mikela Tarlow’s book Digital Aborginal explores this beautifully – published in 2002 but still totally relevant re: the social implications)

P.S. I am a real newbie – Twitter in Nov 08 and my first blog this year.

Susan Mazzas last blog post..“It’s Them” is the Costliest Conversation in Life and Business

2. Social media is listening to others without because you want to.

1. Finding some kind of way to filter the truly useful from the time-wasters
2. A way to talk to many people all over the world.
3. You won’t stay successful unless you change.
4. It’s the same as when you started your business in the first place and went to chamber mixers and began handing out business cards – determine your online market and begin handing out your virtual business cards and building relationships…and being transparent.
5. It will show a whole new generation of possible customers that you care about where they receive information.

Linda Smiths last blog post..What my parrot’s nutrition has to do with my business

2. Give me an definition of social media for a newbie, and you can’t use the words “community”, “evangelist”, “conversation” or “engage”.

Social media is about people using technology to communicate.

3. I’m a successful company, and I’m not yet exploring social media. Why should it matter to me if what I’m doing isn’t broken?

Social media is fundamentally changing people’s expectations of information gathering. They expect information more quickly, they have the ability to ‘publish’ themselves, and they expect their voices to be heard. A company is affected by social media whether or not they know it, so they’re better off learning how to stay relevant in light of these changes. Engaging in social media doesn’t mean starting a blog or a twitter account, but it does mean being aware that what served as PR and communications 5 years ago isn’t enough anymore.

4. Tell me the real challenges I’ll encounter as a business when I’m starting social media efforts. Now tell me why I should bother overcoming those when I have enough issues to deal with already.

Social media offers both challenges and opportunities. You can’t afford not to be aware of how your potential clients expect to engage with you. Some people see social media as “free promotion”, which isn’t quite accurate, but it’s true that there are some benefits to incorporating social media early in your business planning and forecasting.

5. Take social media out of the communications sandbox. Tell me how else it moves business forward, operationally, culturally, otherwise.

I believe I touched on this a bit earlier: PEOPLE are changing. Businesses need to keep up. An example: I used to work for LexisNexis, an online information provider for lawyers. Law firms were learning that recent graduates no longer performed the same type of structured research their predecessors did: they googled. Our system wasn’t a direct competitor to google in terms of content, but users came to demand a certain user experience as a result of what they saw elsewhere.

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Amber:

I’ve been thinking about number 3 lately. What is the appeal for successful companies to move into social media, if their “formulas” are already working?

I’ve come up with two reasons so far: (1) because the current is moving in that direction, and just because your bridge is holding up right now doesn’t mean it will when the inevitable flood comes; and (2) if you’re not monitoring and participating in social media, a groundswell of negative publicity could easily catch you off guard.

What answer have you been thinking of?

Caleb Gardners last blog post..Messy is the new neat

1. Put it in context, market it in ways that are meaningful to a larger “community.” Define benefits not features. When I hear that a CEO is Twittering I ask myself, if they are twittering all day who’s running the company. If this doesn’t get fixed and we change the “conversation” there’s going to be a backlash from 40 and 50 year old CMOs and CEOs who are being told told they need it and they know they want it but just don’t get it enough to make a full blown commitment to it.

2. Digital, multimedia bulletinboard.
Project collaboration tool.
A tool that enables employees, investors, suppliers and and customers to connect anytime, anywhere. (Is it cheating to change conversation to connection?)

3. What is broken now may not remain so, companies that don’t evolve the way they connect with others risk being left out of the conversation. As new and younger generations join the work force it’s important (if you want to remian viable) to adopt and adapt to the tools and platforms they use to communicate. Remember when you stopped typing letters and faxing and began to communicate by email. Scary at first, second nature now.

4. Adaption and adoption. You will need to train, market and incentivise (sp). You must ensure that this is a top down deployment. It must roll out in increments to create a buzz and the velvet rope effect. Don’t expect if you turn it on, they will come.
5. Project management, brand reinforcement, culture building, innovation.

1. I would concur on MB’s point about putting social media in context. We spend alot of time talking about the latest tool or the 101 ways to do social media and not enough the best way to put the whole thing together.

2. Social Media is about people sharing information through technology.

3. Using social media is not a marketing imperative, it is a company imperative. The effect on new product/service development and the addition of virtual salespeople and customer service reps for minimal cost will a massive strategic advantage.

4. Dealing with factions in your company that will objective to any perceived hiccups in your roll out.

5. Innovation at your company can become energized by setting up a conversation channel with your community.

Olivier Sartors last blog post..Social Media and Technology Events in 2009

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