If You have not visited the blog site for the agency, We are Social, make sure you do. It’s a great resource of information. In particular, I was struck by an infograph that was up recently titled, Social Business-Social Media Integration. Within that infograph, I found this:
Which one do you think is the hardest? Which is the easiest? Which takes the least amount of time?
I was reading an article today titled, Behind the Wheels: An all-too-real Cinderella story it had 12 comments. The piece was beautifully written and it was interesting to see what those 12 people had to say. Which got me to wondering:
How come useless throw away blog posts and articles have tons and tons of comments and the good stuff gets next to nothing?
Part of the question also emenated from this post, Why Your Networking Sucks — And the Secret to Doing it Right which had 30 comments, but also sucked people in, including me, because it held the promise of revealing a…secret.
I felt like a sucker. I knew that the post wouldn’t really reveal a secret that I had not read countless times before. So why did I click on it?
I have narrowed it down to these five things:
But the next component after you have read the post is, what do you do? Do you share it, save it, or comment? Why should you comment? Here’s a couple of ideas or thoughts.
Social media has changed the game for journalists, for newspapers, for magazines, for bloggers and readers. It’s created a two way mechanism to have a conversation. When you write a blog post or an article, do you write it for the purpose of being heard, to offer up your two cents, to share your perspective, or to have conversations, or for SEO purposes?
As a reader, should we all be obligated to comment on a blog post? What would our world be like if we all were required to provide an educated, thoughtful comment to anything we read? I know some of us barely have time to respond to emails let alone a blog post, but I take solace in the fact that we all now have the opportunity to be heard should we so choose. Though we have an obligation to comment thoughtfully, it just doesn’t happen that way. As a reader or “blog commenter”, have you ever thought about what you wanted the outcome of your comment to be? Think about that.
The static website is dead long live the static website
According to a study from Accenture, comScore, and dunnhumbyUSA aimed at helping consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers, visitors to CPG brand websites buy 37% more in retail stores than non-visitors to the brand site. The study also concluded, that to maximize impact, website content needs to be updated regularly and contain brand value messaging that both engages visitors while also providing compelling reasons for them to purchase the brand at retail. Without sounding too much like Captain Obvious, here’s what retailers need to remember:
The study found that visitors to CPG brand websites are valuable and frequent buyers of the brand in retail stores, completing 41% more transactions than non-visitors. So it goes without saying, incent and enrich the online experience and tie it into the store experience and sales go up and buyers return.
The difference between a friend, an acquaintance and the friends and acquaintances we have met online is blurring…Social media would seem to dictate or would assume that I’m supposed to develop or have developed these deep online, networked, connections, i.e. That I have met them. Jay Baer calls it false intimacy. Does it matter that I have not met them? Absolutely not. Or maybe it does…
But maybe we should quickly look at what the definition of “connected” is. Check this out:
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The tug-o-war for your time when you participate on multiple social networks can be difficult. Who get’s it and who doesn’t? Who get’s the honor of your participation can also affect your impact because THAT will be where you spend the bulk of your time. Where should you spend your time? On the networks that matter to you or on the networks where you HAVE to participate?
Does it matter if you create content or if you lurk? It might, though either exercise require an investment of your time. The fact is, the more networks you’re in, the more likely that your content is going to suck in some of them. It’s the law of averages. You’re going to devote more time and effort to the networks that matter. For those that are of less importance, the content you create, should you even bother, will be diluted. So does the internal corporate network win then?
It Depends
You see,time, your precious time, is the primary commodity here regardless of where you spend the bulk of it and what you specifically do with it. The less time you have, the more likely you are to mail in your participation in networks that matter less. Your day is already full and now companies want you to participate in and contribute to these new growing internal networks. But what about your Facebook page, Twitter account and your blog?
If you are part of the 70% who just read and watch stuff, though your time is still sacrificed, it won’t really move the needle on the quality of your limited contact with others in any network. So who get’s it? The benefit of your quality time that is. For those that are part of internal corporate networks, it can be an issue. There might be the sense of obligation to participate. Even though the reality might be that you’re just going through the motions of participation, because it’s… work stuff. It really depends on what type of social media consumer or influencer you want to be, how you want to move the needle and who wins in the competition for your attention and time.
It almost seems like in the end, it’s a push and no one’s get the benefit of the best of what you might have to offer.
Thanks to the folks at imediaconnection, I give you 15 social tools you should know about
I coach. I’ve coached for a number of years spanning every sport from basketball to baseball and I have to say with utmost confidence that most of my teams have had winning records and most of my players have learned something and have had fun along the way. But…There are always those teams and those players that either don’t get it, didn’t get it, or don’t want to get it. “It” being the magic that is winning, learning, growing and having fun. Success.
It happens in sports. It also happens in the business world. I for one love sports and business analogies, so for the sake of this post I’m going to draw some quick parallels between the success of a team and the success of a business, but I’m going to let you connect the dots.
Why do teams do well?
1) Constant communication with everyone. Whether they were the worst player on the team or the best, players need to know that you know them. One on one is critical. Believe it or not, you will have players who think that you don’t care about them, don’t like them, or that you don’t even know who they are, all because you have not talked to them in any capacity one on one.
2) Provide feedback on how they can get better. There’s a reason we all practice every day. It’s so we can get better. But in order to get better, we have to know where we can get better.
3) Put people in a position to succeed. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you see it happen. Give everyone a chance, they will appreciate it and you’ll gain insight from the experience.
4) Reward simple behavior. Sometimes it’s an encouraging word, a pat on the back, a simple thank you, increased playing time or just letting them know that you see that they are trying. But acknowledging to your players that you see them, that you are aware of what they are doing, can sometimes be the catalyst for excellence.
With this simple formula, your teams thrive and there are never any mysteries. In sports and in the business world, things are earned and hard work is rewarded, but employees and players still need to managed and coached. Believe it or not, most coaches(the good ones) see everything. They see who works hard and they also see who does not. But players are also watching the coaches. Coaches are held to standards just as managers should be and thus the same holds true in business. Treat your employees with respect and your organization will reap the benefits.
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How important is content to marketing professionals? Back in October, Coca-Cola’s Jonathan Mildenhall, The VP of Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, was speaking at the Guardian Changing Advertising Summit when he stated:
“All advertisers need a lot more content so that they can keep the engagement with consumers fresh and relevant, because of the 24/7 connectivity. If you’re going to be successful around the world, you have to have fat and fertile ideas at the core.”
Fat and fertile ideas. The company’s Content 2020 advertising strategy is to “move from creative excellence to content excellence”.
About 4 months ago I was talking with a colleague of mine who was told in so many words by a client that, “content and or the creation of content can be done by a monkey”. Ouch. He essentially was dismissing the value of creating content and saying that it can be done by anyone-even a monkey.
If Coke, one of the great purveyors of creative excellence thinks that content will be the centerpiece of their marketing strategy going forward, where does that put the status of the monkey?
Maybe the better question for that client is, Really? You really think that?
As 2011 winds down, it’s time for me to reflect on the state of my social media world in 2011.
Things that I thought I knew about social media in 2011:
1) That I knew what I was talking about
Just because I might know more about social media than the average person, it didn’t preclude most corporate heads to assume that they knew just as much about social, if not more, than I did. Can you say bite your tongue?
2) That the whole ROI thing would have sorted itself out by now
We’re getting closer, more and more corporations seem to now understand that you need to associate some type of KPI to a social initiative, which is a start in the direction of measurement; but you still had the camps of “you can’t make money from social media” to “let’s just grow our audiences across all social platforms and call it a win”. Ugh!
3) People would trust what I know and do as I advise
I found out in 2011 that although people would nod their heads in agreement when we’re in the conference room, once I was gone- the silos reemerged, the battle lines were redrawn, the skeptics reappeared and the notion that a consultant was not necessary reared its ugly head-and thus the follow up discussions were slow to evolve. Can you say self doubt?
4) We had gotten over being enamored with the quantity of friends, followers, fans and likes
Some have and some have not and we’ll leave it at that. It’s a blog post in and of itself.
5) Corporations were ready to be transparent in 2011
They’re ready as long as they have their social media policies in place. Even then, after the policies are in place, there’s transparency and then there’s “their” definition of being transparent-on their terms, and not the terms of the masses. It’s actually a start.
6) That the “new guard” would be saying something different
New social media faces and new social media names talking and preaching about things we talked about 4 years ago. Where is the disconnect? Is the customer not getting it? Or is the consultant not listening? Or are we still not there yet? Do we want them to repeat what we have been preaching? Maybe so.
7) That the “old guard” would have evolved
Old faces and familiar names talking about the same things we talked about 4 years ago. Is nothing new? Or do people just not get it? Or is it uncorrelated wisdom? Do we need to start teaching SM 201 and 301?
8) That FB would get to 1billion users in 2011
This is going to happen but I am starting to see little tiny micro-cracks in the Facebook brand. Can you say Facebook Burnout, Blowback or Billion?
9) That Twitter would be making money by now
Well they sorta are making money and they are rolling out custom pages for brands. Does that count as truly making money? No. The problem? Would you pay 5 bucks a month to use Twitter? No. Would you pay to advertise on Twitter? No. That’s my point. I think I might have predicted in 2009 that Twitter would be making money by now as well…Le Sigh
10) That 2011 would be the year that corporations would be ready to adopt social media both internally and externally
Ha! Just because I got in to the boardroom and we were talking about it, didn’t mean it was going to be happening anytime soon. Of course I thought 2010 was going to be the year as well. Can you say mad silos?
11) Brands knew what they were doing on Twitter.
Last time I checked, brands are still using Twitter as a push style vehicle for marketing and selling product. Some have gotten creative, but most are of the Tweet with a link with no conversation camp….Does it work? Let’s ask them? Oh wait we can’t because all they do is tweet links and sales. Is there an alternative? Sure there is, don’t do it in 2012.
12) Google Buzz would be around.
Silly me to think that Google Buzz was viable. Actually it wasn’t. Neither was Sidewiki or Wave either. What’s the over/under on Google Plus survival? 2 years?
How do my “things I thought I knew compare with yours? Let’s share.
