Should bloggers be held to journalistic standards?

Posted on by

head1

Yes they should. But they’re not and that gets them in trouble.  remember the old saying, Measure twice cut once? That means you’ve only got one shot at cutting the piece of wood. The point being “make sure” you have the right measurement. Be sure about your post, before you hit publish.

Back in September I remember asking Brian Solis the exact same question at Web 2.0 expo in New York, “Should Bloggers be held to journalistic standards?” and he answered yes. Bloggers need to be held to some type of standard.Why did I ask Brian? Because he has a unique perspective, he’s a content creating machine and he cranks out volumes of noteworthy and spot on commentary about the social media and PR space and he is accutely aware of what he writes and says.

But a larger point is this.

Bloggers need to hold THEMSELVES to some sort of standard.

Why? Because when they start writing about people and companies and events- and if they have any type of influence, and they get it wrong-the backlash can be brutal for all parties involved.

Which leads me to the reason I’m writing this post. Yesterday Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang wrote a post about the social media company, Mzinga. It did not go over very well.  Suffice it to say that regardless of whether Jeremiah was correct in what he asserted or speculated, what happened next was nothing short of a shit storm.

Yes the mob mentality reared it’s ugly head again and yes Jeremiah was wrong in his approach. But at some point, 2 things need to occur. One, the Mob mentality needs to back off. and Two, Jeremiah needs to apologize.

After comment #19 Jeremiah realized he screwed up and he ultimately apologized and posted a retraction of sorts. However the mob continues to vent some 60 comments later. At last count there were 2 posts that were sympathetic.

So what do we learn from this?

Interestigly enough, even a Forrester analyst has room for improvement. It’s a simple as this for Jeremiah and actually speaks to a vlog I did prior to this post. One of the things we must do, as hard as it is, we must:

Practice a sense of patience.

Instead of rushing to break a story, perhaps it might make better sense to feel the situation out or better yet..”Measure twice, cut once”.

Ultimately, since we do not want to be policed by the mob mentality, we have to police ourselves, and hold ourselves to some type of journalistic standard. No one else will-unless of course you count the blog mob and twitterati.

Lastly, for the mob mentality. Ok  so you’re pissed. And you let Jeremiah know about it. Ok he got that. I get that.  But reiterating over and over again, virtually the same thing, gets tiresome, boring and lacks any type of  originality or constructive criticism.  Maybe the mob needs realize that pitchforks and torches never really worked that well anyway.

simpsons-mob-torches

Social Media best practices. Part 1.

Posted on by

Awhile back, Ari Herzog who writes a wonderful blog over at AriWriter.com  asked me to do a guest post on his blog for a series he’s doing on social media best practices. Rather than give him the usual written 500 words on the 7 things, 5 tips, or 4 factors that you absolutely must do in social media, I decided to mail it in and do a 3 part V-log instead. I hope he doesn’t mind! I’d also be curious as to what you might think of my 2 assertions here as well.

Twitter Bios Cloud

Posted on by

This is a word cloud generated from the bios of my Twitter followers brought to you by Twittersheep

Check out the underlying themes of the word cloud. It’s pretty obvious what my followers and I focus on wouldn’t you say? What does yours say about you and your followers?

twittersheep

My Twitter Mosaic

Posted on by

This is pretty cool. Check out my followers, my pal Toby Bloomberg tweeted this. What’s scary is that I can associate a lot of names with avatars. I think in the future- we all should carry around  sandwich boards with our Twitter avatars at conferences.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

People are the engines in social media

Posted on by

Its not the technology that drives the train, its people. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Linkedin are nothing without them and their participation. Don’t ever forget that.

Sometimes we become so enamored with technology that we overlook what makes technology “work”. What do you think?

10 quotable quotes from Twitter

Posted on by

People inspire us, at least they do for me. The beauty of that statement is that the platform for inspiration is there to be used for FREE. It’s Twitter. You don’t think so?  Well,  last week I tweeted the following 10 thoughts. They originated from and during conversations or threads of conversations that emanated from Twitter.

Now you might be thinking, “damn, this guy is full of himself.” On the contrary- Actually I see these thoughts on paper, and amazed to a certain degree that came from me! The cool thing is-they came with the help of the brilliant minds of the people I talk with every day in 140 character bursts. Check it out.

  • Relevance is all about adapting, about reinventing ourselves, the brands and the companies we work with. You know who’s good at that? U2
  • I’m wondering if social media allows you to cut to the chase, I’m thinking maybe not.
  • Can the terms value and quality be interlinked? What about value and quantity?
  • You know there’s a distinct possibility that a) U talk 2 less than 10% of your Twitter network & b) Even less are listening 2 u @ any given time
  • Tough to consider ROI when no one has any cash. Perhaps weaving the barter system into the mix might work ROB?
  • I don’t think its about ROI anymore in social media, I think it’s a return on belief, trust and hope..
  • I think a lot of co.’s would love to utilize a lot of the skills that people possess here, but some are wary, and reticent to ask or admit they need help.
  • Coined/used a term today, now i just need to define it…Tangible Relevance…
  • Twitter… there is no right way to use it, but there are plenty of wrong ways to use it…
  • Twitter is a filter for opinionated relevancy

Some of these I restored for the benefit of this post, whereas they were truncated tweets. I look at these and each would actually make good blog post titles. Hmmm.. not a bad idea which emanated from…

I’m worried about the client

Posted on by

chinese

It pains you to read what’s going on. You hate watching the news. Prospecting and looking for new clients is becoming more difficult. The clients or prospects you are able to talk with are all giving you the same story.

  • We’re pulling back on spending
  • We’ve had to let people go
  • We are not doing anything this year
  • We plan on doing it in house
  • We have your proposal, we’ll let you know

Sound familiar? So what can you do? Maybe you need to change your focus, change your tact, change the way you are thinking? Perhaps rather than thinking about you and your company, you should think about the company you’re going after and THEIR customer.  Or that companies employees? What can make them more productive? How can they do what they do better? How can they talk to THEIR customers and prospects better? Don’t think of you business process, think of theirs! Think about the client. They need your help, they just might not admit it.

These are not normal times. Thinking in a conventional Web 1.0 manner is not going to get it done.

You get it and I get it, but do they?

Posted on by

kid

In social media circles, we’re all guilty of back slapping and having a good ole’ time hanging with our peeps. But don’t we want to have clients? Of course we do!  But if you get it, and I get it, and we both are always agreeing with each other, has anyone bothered to ask, “Do they get it?”  If we are constantly talking to each other, then a few things are happening.

1) We don’t know if your  prospective clients are there in the room listening

2) They might be too intimidated to ask a question, or scared to ask a dumb question

3) They might not even be there

4) You are talking to people who are of like mind. Peers not potential clients.

Go Find people who don’t understand and who don’t know, but want to. They are the one’s that will benefit the most.

Monologues to Dialogues

Posted on by

How many people sell first and then try and get to know the customer later? Not many. In the halls of social media, the same holds true. If we look at Twitter and Blogging as 2 very prime and very visible examples-the best way to market yourself or a product is to get to know the people that you might want to sell or market to FIRST.

But there’s one catch, actually two…

First, If you are blogging- sure you could write a great post with a great hook, but unless you are doing some serious social posting of that post-no one is going to read it unless..You make and take the time to visit other blogs and get to know the writer and comment on that writer’s post, and develop a dialogue and a relationship with that blogger. As a blogger- You need to change your monologue to a dialogue.

Second, If you are on Twitter, the following occurs whether you realize it or not. This is how your relationships start. They start with you and your effort.

1-person3

But it ultimately  will end up like this.

lotsofconvos2

You, in the middle of a whole lot of conversations. What you need to decide is how are you going to “manage” that noise. Why? If we have a one on one conversation, you have my undivided attention. Add another person, and now my attention has been divided, add another, divide again, and so on and so forth. Until ultimately you are essentially having conversations with 10%-20% of the people you either follow or that follow you.

Think about that. If I follow 100 and 100 follow me- At any point in time I may have conversations with only 10-15% of those people. Conversations consisting of more than one tweet between us. If that’s the number I have to work with- shouldn’t I try to make the best of those interactions? Shouldn’t you? Quit tweeting about nothing.

Monologues to Dialogues.

Twitter Help: 3 Simple Take Away’s.

Posted on by

For those of you who are tired of reading “another” blog post about Twitter, move on. For those of us who realize the power of the platform and want to leverage it as another tool, another means or another way to enhance communications and the relationships that may bubble up from them, Keep reading.

Real quickly, understand this:

With Twitter

1) There is no perfect way to use it.

2) There is no absolute “right” way to use it.

3) There are plenty of wrong ways to use it.

Rather than go into a lengthy discourse on each of these points, lets leave it at this. If the way that you are currently using Twitter is working for you, then I applaud you and for the most part I would not suggest you change anything. Keep it going and keep enjoying it. However, if you are seeing nothing from your foray into Twitter, then perhaps you need to “change what you are doing”.

It’s real simple.

If you are NOT having conversations,  NOT exchanging opinion, NOT having great discussions, or NOT sharing links, and  NOT meeting people and NOT networking and NOT taking 140 characters to the next level-Then you may be using it in the wrong way. What do you think?

So decide right now. Do I want to continue to get nothing out of this? If you want to continue to waste your time and everyone else’s, then keep doing what you are doing. I’m not sure why you would, but hey, we still get SPAM right?

If you want to change the way you are currently using Twitter, there are tons upon tons of solid links on the proper use of it and the benefits associated with it. They are not hard to find, but these should get you going.

Twitter Tips

ProBlogger Twitter tips

I have to add perspective So I include Guy’s post about Twitter

17 ways you can use Twitter