Category Archives: social media

What Does it Mean When Social Media Companies Can’t Survive?

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In recent weeks I’ve received emails from Xmarks and 12seconds.tv announcing that both were ceasing operations by the end of the month. I was bummed. With Xmarks, I actually used it every day to keep all my bookmarks synced across multiple machines. With 12seconds.tv, I had used a dozen times or so and I could see an application or a place for it in the crowded world of social applications and services. So why did they both decide to shut the doors?

No revenues. Simple as that. They could not make any money. Both companies had traffic and users, and both applications were free, but the problem was, they could not figure out how to make a living off of a social utility. I’ve said for a long time that I can’t stand the traditional internet business model that’s predicated on traffic. I hate that model; and yet as we speak in 2010, we have 2 companies that needed traffic to grab advertisers, and to a certain degree had half of that equation, and yet still couldn’t survive.

What does that mean?

Sure we’ve had a ton of companies that have gone belly up, but what does it mean today? Back in the day, when your internet startup wasn’t tied to a transactional product, your best bet for survival was predicated on a mix of lots of traffic, word of mouth, and great service which attracted advertisers. But that still was no guarantee of survival. Especially when it basically was relying on traffic fueled ad dollars.

This morning Jay Baer wrote a post about how social media behemoth Facebook was basically suffocating the rest of the web 2.0 world. Frankly I have to agree with him. Not only is Facebook swallowing up our time, but it’s redefining our choices and driving our preferences-which means that companies that are trying to go it alone in the social media landscape, now have to compete for attention and eyeballs of people that prefer to play inside the walls of Facebook only!

Forget ad revenue from traffic as a major concern for new social startups. They now have to compete with Facebook right out of the blocks. It reminds me of the halcyon days of first Microsoft’s dominance and then Google’s. Everyone was always wondering what they were going to do next. This is Facebook’s world and we’re just living in it.

That’s what that means.

What Are the New Defaults of Social Media?

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Before this post got  accidentally erased, I was waxing poetic about we really need to do to get past the current defaults of social media. It all started with a podcast I was on last week with Geoff Livingston, Toby Bloomberg and Nancy Pekala of the AMA, and we were discussing social media and the enterprise, and I was asking out loud, what it would take to get us to the next level. You see, in the last ohhh… 3-5 years much has been written about these defaults of social media and more has been said, but you probably know them better as:

  • Transparency
  • Authenticity
  • Openness
  • Being real

But, before we can move ahead though, what we really need to do is educate people on not the old defaults, but what the new defaults might be. Or better yet, what happens when we are:

  • Too transparent
  • Too authentic
  • Too open
  • Too real

For a lot of people, they can readily see what social media can do and what effect and impact it can have on their immediate social circle. But what they don’t see, is what the effect can be on people they don’t know. They find that out the hard way. Am I wrong?

The Enterprise Conundrum-Adapt, Adopt or Do Nothing?

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Recently I had the pleasure to do 2 things that I enjoyed tremendously: One, I got to participate in a podcast with Geoff Livingston and Toby Bloomberg on Social Media and the Enterprise and Two, I got to speak to a bunch of relative neophytes with regards to Social Media. What struck me about this group, was how little they knew and how little really had an impact on their day to day jobs. Social media either did not figure into their day to day activities or was restricted so much-what was the point?

What struck me about Toby and Geoff? Just how smart they are and how they both see the big picture of social here. Now back to the other group.

For them, social media activities consisted of basically going on to Facebook and either doing a status update or reading others. Social media from a channel usage standpoint within their organizations had nothing really to do with marketing activities, recruiting and vetting of candidates in HR, addressing the needs of customers or monitoring the activities of competitors.

Social Media within the walls of their companies was viewed as something “we know about” but we don’t know enough about to figure out how it can positively affect our company, let alone how it can be used in a positive way on an individual basis to move the dial for our company.”

This dove tailed nicely into my podcast with Toby and Geoff.

Where does the Enterprise start?

Does your organization adapt by just becoming social? Or does the enterprise merely adopt certain social media practices into certain elements or departments within the company?

Am I splitting hairs here? Is this just semantics? Or are adaption and adoption just so large and time consuming that it’s just easier to say-“No social media in the organization, do your Facebooking at home!” Is there a win for stakeholders who do not necessarily move the needle?

Is that flawed myopic thinking on the part of the enterprise? Or reality?

What or Who will Continue to Shape our Social Media World?

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It’s cool to think about the future. especially when it comes to digital, social media, and marketing. With that being said, I started to think of who or what will continue to astound me in regards to pushing the social media envelope. Here are 10 things or people that will continue to move the dial for us. These are not in any particular order.

  1. Video-The number of videos viewed on YouTube every day is 2 billion. Let’s just say that people would rather watch video then read or write. Video continues to be the ties that bind us beyond our borders and generational and demographic differences. It’s social messaging at it’s finest.
  2. Smart phones-As we continue to move away from the desktop, and as the cost continues to drop and functionality rises, pretty soon, everyone will be armed with a device that will replace the television, the theater, the land line, the desk top computer and email. The smart phone is and will be the ultimate connector.
  3. Facebook-500 million users and still growing? Facebook continues to astound the doubters and envelope the adopters. To have a Facebook account is akin to having a cell phone-it raises eyebrows when you declare that you do not have either one. Enter the age of hyper connectivity and hyper communicating. Does it have a shelf life though?
  4. Apple-Apple continues to set the standard on how we “should”  and do consume our media, though don’t be amazed at their seemingly disinterest in applying branded social tools and functionality to their devices, just be patient. They may be Apple, but they aren’t stupid!
  5. Google-Though Google insists on trying to tap into our “social” lives with it’s ill fated attempts with Buzz, Sidewiki, and Wave- they still are the standard bearer in search. Search still dominates our everyday online activity and that will never cease. Stay tuned as to how Google starts and continues to weave social elements into our search results. They know that social and search is the NBT, (next big thing) they just seem to have trouble convincing others at the moment.
  6. Lady Gaga– 6,132,774 Twitter followers. That might be all you need to know. She is the #1 person on Twitter. As of August 2010, Gaga had sold more than 15 million albums and 51 million singles worldwide. In May 2010, Time magazine included her in its annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.  In June 2010, Forbes listed her fourth on its list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world; she is also ranked as the second most powerful musician in the world. Now think what she can do with that power and notoriety?
  7. Entertainment– To justify Lady Gaga, did you know that the average American consumer spends over $2,700 per year on entertainment? As social continues to evolve and weave us more into the fabric of “participating” and interacting with entertainment, look for this number to continue to grow. We want to be part of the entertainment as much as we want to watch it! The power of community is built into every facet, nook and cranny of the entertainment industry. They know this and they will continue to build this out.
  8. Social Media for social causes or social change-This area could see the biggest impact on the collective conscience of future generations. Why? Because of the ability to tell a digital social story both visually and textually. As well, having the ability to quickly appeal for immediate action has added a dimension to fund raising and “acting now” that has never existed before. Think Haiti. Think Iran.
  9. Millenials– The trail blazers, the digital natives and the connected. All of these terms define the 18-28 demographic that will be shaping and determining our digital, social  habits for years to come. They might not necessarily be the one’s creating the platforms, but they will determine usage habits. According to the Pew Research Center, Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site and One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online.
  10. This one is yours. What do you think will continue to move the dial for social media? Will it be LBS? Social commerce? Augmented reality?

Conversations? Now They’re Just Sound Bites

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When you get a chance go read Jay Baer’s post titled, Is social  conversation a myth? It’s a quick read, well worth it, and got me thinking. You know what’s cool in a weird, sorta, karma like way? Sometimes in the social media bubble, there’s  a confluence of thoughts on the same topic at the same time. This is one of those moments. And it revolves around social media and drum roll please…Conversations. Or the lack thereof.

Joe Jaffe is right. Mitch Joel is right and Jay Baer is right.

Call it the short cut of social media, or the “new reality” of social media,  but it’s as simple as this.

People would rather reap the benefits of social media without putting the effort in.

Initially I wanted to title this post- “SMB’s don’t care about long term strategy in social media”. My thinking and experience has been that SMB’s would prefer the shoot first, aim later methodology. Conversations? Not part of their mix. Frankly, I can’t blame them. My experience is that social media is hard work and has long term benefits that you only start to see after a minimum of 6 months. So why can’t SMB’s or anyone for that matter use social media as an ice breaker or as a warm call, instead of a cold call? They can. You can, in theory use it any way you want. It’s the purist in us that longs for those not so long ago days when we used to talk face to face, use Twitter the “right way”, comment on blogs, and read newspapers…:)

Case in point Erika Napoletano aka Redheadwriting and I were passing each other in the hallways of Twitter and we were both like, “Hey, whats been going on?” It was a quick (of course) long time no talk kind of conversation . You see, Erika and I used to “chat” all the time in the halcyon days of Twitter. We even reminisced about that fact as well. In 140 characters of course. Now we barely have time. Or do we?

Do conversations happen on Twitter? Yes but it’s like trying to have one in a bar during happy hour-Eventually you get tired of trying to yell above all the noise-so you just reduce it to sound bites.

Beth Harte is another “old schooler”. We used to chat it up all the time on a few social platforms but with a twist…We would take the conversations off line and call each other too. For a few of us, its still about the conversation, or it used to be about the conversation, but now its about remembering what it used to be and adapting to what it is now.

We’re an evolutionary type of species and we’re evolving just like everyone else is in the social media world.  It’s all about utility now.

Crowdsourcing the Impact of Social Media on Non Profit Organizations

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Last week we had the pleasure to have Beth Kanter host our weekly tweetchat over at Hashtag social media. The subject was obviously about Non Profit Organizations and how social media can play favorably with them. This is the sweet spot for Beth and as a host, I have to say she was beyond amazing. She embodied all of the qualities you would want in someone engaged with their audience. Below is a summary deck of what occurred in this one hour tweetchat.

Social Media Conundrum #19 How to Mitigate Loss of Control

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You do everything at your company. You wear lots of different hats. Enter social media. You’ve been reading a lot about Social Media and it has invaded your ecosystem.Blogs are your in reader but your involvement in it is marginal at best. Consultants and evangelists are outside your door.

You’ve been hearing that you should do it.  You don’t know what to do.

Every day you keep hearing more and more about social media. You’re freaking out. OMG.

Do you think that if you and your company “do” social media, you’re going to lose control? That the customer will own you? That you won’t be able to handle it? or hire for it?

Don’t worry, you are from alone.

What do you want to do?

You want to bail and shut it down, don’t you? you’re thinking, “I’ll worry about it in 6 months.” or maybe you’re thinking, “I’ll just get a Twitter and Facebook account, that should please the C suite”.

That won’t get it done.

You know that.

Let’s think about it.

The “Other” Missing Link Between Brands and Consumers-The Foot Soldier

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As I was glancing at my other machine, I saw this post tweeted by Tom Cummings from Dachis Group-Social Media Middlemen: The Missing link between brands and Consumers. If you get a chance to read it, do it, because Tom brings up a really good point and it’s this: If you are truly a social company or business, then that “socialness” needs to extend all the way down to your frontline, people facing, employees.

I’ve said for quite some time that in order to really be social, you have got to start from within, as soon as you have a firm base of knowledge that all of your employees can stand on, then you, as an organization, can do some really exciting things externally.

Why?

Wouldn’t it be great if your employees not only knew what Twitter was, but also knew what a Twitter discount code was so that they could also explain the benefits of following your organization on Twitter to anyone who walked into the business?

Thus the need to find those conduits between the brand and the consumers who use your brand. The “Middlemen” as Tom puts it. But maybe they’re not as much middlemen as they are foot soldiers? They may or may not do the heavy lifting as much as say a “middleman” but they are the “face” of your company. I think of middlemen being a little bit higher up the food chain.

I can’t tell you how many times I encountered frontline employees who knew nothing about a brands online or offline initiatives. Some might not even be able to tell you what the web address is of the company!

Employees in some cases, find out about web initiatives, much less online social efforts, when a customer asks them about it for the first time. At which point they go and ask someone else about it. You don’t have to fully indoctrinate your employees into the world of social media, they just need to know enough to help customers and clients. The more they know however, the better off you organization will be in the long run.

So, the question is this…Is everyone in your company on the same page when it comes to what your company’s social media presence is? Can they easily explain and or direct someone to become social with your company?