Lets Focus

Posted on December 1, 2008 by marc meyer

When thinking of writing another blog post, it’s often about social media, or marketing, or web 2.0. All really big topics, and all with champions and thought leaders in each. But chances are if you come here to my blog, you’re looking for something. I want to give it to you. But today what I’m going to give you is some advice. It’s advice I need to heed but don’t from time to time.

It goes something like this.

How many blogs are in your feed reader? Mine? Somewhere between 150 and 200. I would love to read them every day but I don’t. Maybe I should focus on about 10 per day and rotate them from time to time? Want some suggestions? Instead of the obvious, here are some with some variety in the content like Valeria Maltoni, Mark Story, Peter Kim, Toby Bloomberg, B.L. Ochman, Paul McEnany and Beth Harte

How many social networking sites or groups do you participate in? Me? At least a half a dozen, maybe more. How many can I actively participate in? That’s a good question. Maybe 3, maybe 6 and not much more. I’d rather be really active in 3 instead of marginal in 6-10. How bout just Linkedin, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and your blog? 2 of those are somewhat passive so you could manage them all fairly effectively.

How often do you read email? Me? Too often to really even narrow down. But it least 2-3 times per hour. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to get, but surely it can wait an hour or 2 before I respond. I believe Tim Ferris says read it twice a day?

How often do you use Twitter? What actions during your day revolve around the usage and participation of Twitter? Me? I have Tweetdeck running from the moment I step in my office. Not sure if that is wise. Does Mr. Tweet enhance or hinder this?

I think you see where I’m going, but let’s continue.

What amount of your day is spent reading about what is going on in our country right now? I admit that my day revolves around what is happening on a local level (Naples, Florida) a national level, an economic level, and globally. Does it consume me? No, but It concerns me, so I read a lot. Should I reduce that amount like I should email?

What am I doing about IT? and what can I do about IT? What can you do about IT?

You see the challenge here is that we have a tremendous amount of tool sets and new web sites at hand right now, from social media tools to web 2.0 tools, and we can use them to improve what we do. We can also use aspects of them to improve our companies, our clients and our prospects, but we need to focus on which tools will work best for whom. We need to focus on doing what we do better. We need to refine it. Hone our skills, if you will. We need to better manage our time, our focus and our ability to cut through the clutter of filling up our day with a lot of social media bullshit apps and web 2.0 alpha and beta sites. Focus on what you know and do it better. I know I’m going to try. I need to. We need to. I don’t have a choice and neither do you.

Sports and Social Media

Posted on November 30, 2008 by marc meyer

We talk a lot about the fabric that is sports and how it is weaved throughout the daily routine of our lives. Whether we like it or not, we all have some type of passing interest in sports and our communities. Either on a local, regional, national, or international level. Face it, if sports didn’t mean anything it wouldn’t be a section of the newspaper. It wouldn’t have it’s own segment on the local nightly news and it wouldn’t dominate our attention every four years, or every sunday in the fall.

But how has social media changed the landscape of how we view or participate in sports? Here are some sites and examples that have already or seem to be elevating how we use social media with sports.

Ballhype is a social news site that’s sole focus is on sports, but it uses sports content/news as an entry point to encourage more interaction amongst its users.

Sports-focused social media company Citizen Sports recently acquired a few social media application developers: Sportacular, Sport Interactiva, and FantasyBook. Citizen Sports launched its first fantasy football app on Facebook in July, and the acquisitions of Sport Interactiva and FantasyBook add new fantasy sports content to the roster, as well as securing Citizen Sports a coveted spot in mobile, as Sportacular has a leading sports application of the same name for the iPhone.

Yardbarker breaks down traditional barriers, allowing fans and athletes to debate sports, read and write articles, and watch videos. It also features thousands of sports websites and blogs,

Pat Coyle runs a site called sports marketing 2.o that is related to all things web 2.0 and sports. Pat is obviously understand the effect that social media is having on sports, as he also created the NING group, Sports Marketing 2.0

The Sports Business Journal recently mentioned the 5 people that you need to know in social media-

Open Sports Led by Mike Levy, the founder of CBS SportsLine.com this site is a comprehensive platform of products and services that brings together breaking sports news, social media tools, user generated content, fantasy sports games and multimedia applications.

Want to see a professional athlete who has leveraged his blog to a degree that journalists and fans use it for his latest sound bite? Look no further than the baseball player Curt Schilling

Then we have XOS technologies a leading technology partner for maximizing the value of content, commerce and services for sports organizations and fans.Whether it’s a coach assessing recruiting content, a video coordinator creating game-video highlights, a team streaming a press conference online or a fan engaging in interactive content.

Jason Peck uses his blog as a platform for sports, business and social media. In fact, Jason provides a great resource in his 50 sports social networking sites, which is a must bookmark blog post. Along the lines of citizen journalism in sports, look no further than Deadspin.

Mashable, the great provider of all things social media list related chimes in with it’s own 20 sports social networks, though it is a year old.

MVP Spot is an online community that provides amateur athletes the ability to showcase their talents to the world.

And SportMates is a global sports social network founded by a group of passionate sports fans who have created and managed some of the largest sports communities on the Internet over the last eight years. They have created an environment where fans and athletes from all cultures and geographical locations can share their passion for sports with likeminded fans.

The point of this post was really to show you that sports is permeating every thing at every level, related to sports. From fan blog sites, to communities devoted to teams and activities, to Facebook groups devoted to teams and athletes, to teams reaching out by creating social networks devoted to their most ardent of fans. and to professional athletes themselves blogging.

Sports and social media are at the cross roads of fan participation like we have not seen at any other point in time sports. Look for it to continue to escalate with even more user generated content and platforms created to showcase that content. With that being said, look for the voice of the fan to become more and more prominent in the industry of sports.

What has been your “Ah-Ha” moment for 2008?

Posted on November 28, 2008 by marc meyer

As we fall forward and 2009 approaches, I was reading a blog post in which the reader talked about her Ah-Ha moment in twitter and I started thinking about what was my “Ah-Ha” moment for 2008. Was it a connection? Was it one of those seminal moments with a client? A conversation? A conference? An e-mail? A tweet? A blog post that took the conversation to another level?

I’m curious as to what it might have been for you.

Given that 2008 might have been lean for some on certain levels, I’m sure you can still point to some thing or some moment in 2008 that might have either helped make the light bulb above your head brighter or just enriched you on a level that you never thought possible. What was it?

I’ve had many moments that were game changers this year but the one that stands out is the effect that Twitter has had on me professionally. In short, not only has it allowed me to connect with my peers but it has connected me to information and resources quicker than if I would have done the search myself. It has kept me dialed in to what matters in my industry and from a networking standpoint, there is no comparison. So to the 500 or so people that I follow, I want to thank you for providing me with my “Ah-Ha” moment in 2008.

We need social media mentors not evangelists

Posted on November 24, 2008 by marc meyer

Be a mentor. this thought occurred to me while watching a vid on Todd Adrilik’s blog titled, The dumbest generation, don’t trust anyone under 30. While it was a compelling piece about how anyone under 30 might be more inclined to be lazy and check on their social networks and do nothing else- I would like to think that there is a tremendous opportunity not only for them to lead us even further into the digital age but also for us, as digital marketers, to do the same. Lead them, and show them now, how to do it right.

You see, at some point all of that digital knowledge you have, those social media experiences in your head, needs to be transferred to others. Just telling people about how great it is, is one thing, but showing them, and taking people under your wing to guide and mentor, and to teach and explain, is something completely different and much more valuable.

Ok, so for those of us in the social media bubble, we get it. Now go out and instead of telling people how great social media is, show them how great it can be.

Put your social media mentor hat on and make an even bigger difference.

I don’t wanna be..Yes, yet another social media mantra

Posted on November 23, 2008 by marc meyer

Gavin Degrew has a song that I’m sure you have heard before, if you haven’t, then I suggest you go to Youtube and check it out and listen to it. It’s called, “I don’t wanna be”. Not only is it a good song, but it has a stanza that you should adopt as your social media mantra. Here it is.

I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think of me and have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking ’round rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me

Man that’s powerful. Pretty clear too, isn’t it? The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately, is I’ve been noticing Twitter becoming this personal marketing platform of late. The bio’s are becoming more “sales-ey” and the tweets more self serving. It’s not like I’m saying quit sending me the killer blog post you’ve just written, I’m merely saying that social media and twitter is as much about others as it is about you.

So even though I might be generalizing on the one hand when referring to a “social media” mantra, specifically, I’m referring, to a certain degree about Twitter. So let’s keep the personal branding to a minimum or at least on the back channel of Twitter and Gavins Lyrics in mind as you maneuver through your social networks.

Apologies to the social media community

Posted on November 14, 2008 by marc meyer

Here’s the thing, yesterday I posted a snarky, bitter, pessimistic post about how I didn’t want to talk about marketing in a bad economy using social media. And that was wrong. really wrong. In fact you know sometimes when you think you nailed a post and you feel all happy and proud. Well I actually did feel that way yesterday, and man that was wrong too. I used the wrong language, the wrong approach and the wrong forum. I even engaged some of my peers in the social media community on Twitter to read my greatest latest post. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I’m so very sorry.

You see the deal is we need to fail forward right now. we need to try anything and everything right now and we need to share it, we need to keep trying and tweaking how we utilize social media marketing in a bad economy. Its funny, all it took was a simple question for me to see the light and to that I want to thank Jim Storer of Mzinga for asking me-“Do you want us to wait till it’s figured out before using social media”? Touche Jim, and thanks for helping me see the light. I also want to apologize to Adam Cohen. I value Adams opinion and went to him like a proud puppy happy because of the crap I just produced. I’m sorry Adam, that was not something I should have shown you. It was poorly written, and It ignored the spirirt of social media and social media marketing. The spirit to try and communicate and take chances and be willing to share those experiences with the community. If we preach about the conversation, and about being transparent and authentic- in a bad economy you do ALL of that and more, and you keep trying and you listen. In my previous post, I basically said, stop listening. and that couldn’t be more wrong. We need to be listening now, more than ever before. And that my friends is how we use social media marketing in a bad economy.

Social media marketing in a bad economy-this ought to be good.

Posted on November 13, 2008 by marc meyer

A) Don’t trust a single article about marketing in a bad economy, unless the writer has concrete proof. and B) If someone writes an article about marketing in a bad economy using social media- read it and then run the other way.

Puff pieces notwithstanding. Unless the person is making up the rules as they muddle through these ridiculously bad economic times, there is no template on how to use social media marketing correctly to market a business, product or otherwise, right now.

Why, you might ask? Because social media has not been around long enough. Sure there are case studies and examples of how companies and corporations are using social media right now to extend their product and brand, but that was then-this is now. We are in the motherfuckin moment. Excuse my language but… THESE ARE NOT NORMAL TIMES!. So anything that you knew or know about how to use social media and marketing to drive traffic and eyeballs and users and adopters to your site/product, all of it, is not as it seems.

The Rules are changing before your eyes. So I don’t want to see anymore of the “How to use social media marketing in a bad economy” blog posts or articles or stories yet. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW YET. You cannot sit here and tell me that the mindset of the online user and consumer is the same now as it was last year at this time. I dare someone to say that it is. And if you’re pitching to companies and business’s in that vein, that’s bullshit, shame on you.

I do know that they are starved for answers and solutions and business- And SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIGHT BE A VIABLE SOLUTION, I’m just not sure that social media and social media marketing don’t need to be tweaked and morphed and melded into something that is creatively different right now. Just don’t promise social media as the cure-all for what is ailing businesses right now. But you can still pitch it.

We all need to figure it out (and we are) as we go. Please let’s document what we do, how we did it, what worked, and what didn’t. Then we can write all the posts we want on how to market and use social media in bad economy. Hopefully though, we won’t need to refer to them anytime soon in the not too distant future.