The cult of social media celebrityism

Posted on April 12, 2010 by marc meyer

I’m starting to become acutely aware of the extreme amounts of entertainment vehicles, media outlets, media devices, content consumption and content creation that are being produced at massive levels all around me. Social media can do that. It can expose you to a lot.

But I’m also coming to a conclusion too.

From a media/content standpoint, what we consume and how we consume it for some of us, is in direct proportion to what we create and why we create it. Social media seems to be central to this theme that we need to be and can be validated through this “instant recognition”. We see it and we want it too.

Call it “social media celebrityism” if you will. In other words, we the content producers, want to be noticed, we want the attention that we see the “others” getting.

Why do you write? Why do you create vlogs? Why do you tweet? Why do you share your content? Are our motives altruistic? What is the bottom line reason? I don’t know your motives but I would guess that most of you don’t create content out of a vacuum.

What this really means is that all of us content producers have one goal in mind whether we care to admit it or not. We want to be noticed. We won’t shun it if it comes our way. In fact, on the contrary. We’ll embrace it in a heartbeat. I don’t turn down many opportunities, do you?

It’s like we all want, at the least, the 15 minutes that has been afforded us. Most of us would take more if we could too. We laughed when Warhol first said it, but the more I continue to sit back and watch how our wired world is evolving, I see a public that obsesses over being famous and in turn obsesses over the famous.

Social media has made us vain. Social media has made us want more. Social media has lowered the bar and social media has lowered the barrier of entry into this world.

Social media has made us conscious of the attention we can get and it makes us want it all the more. Most won’t admit that, but most won’t turn away from the recognition if it is somehow bestowed upon them by accident either.

There’s nothing wrong with it. but my concern is that as we become more desensitized to and inundated with UGC, either our desire for better quality will increase-which would be OK, or our expectations for more outrageous, salacious content will need to be met, or we will feel the pressure of sacrificing quality over sensationalism. Sadly, that may have already happened…

Being digitally shallow and outrageous will take on new meaning thanks to social media and search. Our 15 minutes of fame will be compressed and zipped to 7 1/2 minutes…

This isn’t happening to everyone but I dare someone to say that they have never written something that didn’t possess a certain amount of link bait. Who’s to blame? Me, you, our readers, new media, old media, technology..We’re all to blame and yet there’s not a thing we can really do about it. It is the world in which we live in now.

10 social sites you might have missed

Posted on April 9, 2010 by marc meyer

I haven’t supplied you with a post that directs you to some cool social sites lately, for that I apologize. So here we go.

1) Check out Tagxedo. It’s Wordle, but on steroids. Though you will have to download Microsoft’s Silverlight to really see it in all of its glory.

2) Start selling in 60 seconds with Tinypay. You want to see micropayments in a down n’ dirty fashion? This is it!

3) I love this deck, The Tipping Points of Social Media

4) If your not a fan of Social Media Today, you should be. Pay attention to this post by Coree Silvera titled 36 Twitter Resources: Advanced Twitter Search for Business, It’s loaded with advanced Twitter search tips you probably don’t know about..

5) Check out the funky named Goomzee. Goomzee helps increase sales through innovative solutions, specifically designed to connect buyers and sellers. It’s essentially a mobile advertising and lead generation tool for real estate sales and marketing professionals.

6) You knew something like this was going to be created didn’t you? Teneros has created a product called Social Sentry which provides corporations the ability to monitor the social networking communications of their employees. Delivered as a SaaS offering, Social Sentry enables businesses to monitor employee activity on all major social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

7) Tungle is cool. Get your personal profile and custom URL to display your availability, and let others schedule meetings with you (without having to sign up). Choose your availability, who you share your page with and when meetings get booked.

8. Though we all read a lot every day, Mitch Joel compiled a nice list of 20 books that you should read. The Digital Marketing Essential Reader

9) This is hilarious. The PPC Blooper pay per click humor blog, with the appropriate URL of…Yourppcsucks

10) Sign up for this and keep your eye out for Nebul.us

Lastly I want to give a quick shout out to the folks over at Junta42 they just released their eighth installment of the Junta42 Top Content Marketing blogs list. I was honored to place #7 on that list! Thanks guys!

10 little things SMB’s might be missing when launching social media

Posted on April 5, 2010 by marc meyer

I use SMB’s as an example here, but when reading Todd Defren’s latest blog post, apparently it is something that permeates organizations both large and small. What is it?

What are companies (SMB’s) usually missing when jumping into the social media waters?

They’re missing the point.
They’re misunderstanding the commitment
They think you can outsource it
They think it’s a switch
They don’t try as hard as they could
They don’t measure it or…
They measure the wrong things
They lack knowledge
They’re expectations are unrealistic
They don’t give it enough time

That’s it.

But you know what the great thing is about all of the above bullet points? They all can be fixed.

How?

Education. Education will help them get the point, but they need to know where to get that education. You can help them.
Understanding the hard work involved will address a lot of the unknowns. We can all relate to what happens with hard work. But there needs to be an emphasis and a complete understanding of how labor intensive social media can be.
You can outsource it, but it’s easier to understand when you don’t, the more you understand, perhaps the more capable you are of knowing what you can and cannot do internally.
It is a switch but when you treat social media as such, others can tell, they see your lack of commitment-they see the half ass effort.
If you don’t try, then what should you expect? I’ve always said, if you give 100%, then no-one can ever say that you didn’t try. You can take it out of the equation. But make sure you’re working smart.
You measure your efforts when you sell, when you advertise, when you hire, when you buy etc. etc. so this is no different. You just need the right tools to measure the right things.
Look up the definition of social media ROI and that will tell you what you should measure with social media.
Social media changes daily; the tools, the sites and the cool things, they change daily. Stay current. Pick 10 sites and dump them into a reader and read it every day.
Create reachable goals. Teams and coaches create goals-you should be no different.
Set up your expectations tied into your goals and give it all a legitimate time frame. But know it is a long term deal.

Now go get it done!

Social Media thought leader infographs

Posted on April 1, 2010 by marc meyer

I see social media folks who have, or don’t have the chops, called everything from guru, ninja, and thought leader, to strategist, heavy hitter, expert and beyond. With that being said, I’d like to keep this light on words and more on the visual of what some of those labels or designations mean to me.

I guess first and foremost, when I hear the word Ninja, this is what comes to mind..

So I’m not really feelin’ the whole “Social Media Ninja” thing..Do you know people who work like that? or go to client meetings dressed like that? I just don’t know if I ever would want to be called a Social Media Ninja, what about you? I can see it now, “This is Marc, he’s a social media ninja, he carves people up and destroys them with lethal precision…” uhh sweet, you’re hired.

Next up is the Social Media Guru

Is this the image that comes to mind when someone is referred to you as a Social Media Guru? Do you want to be a Guru? Do you know what the definition of a guru is?

A guru (Sanskrit: गुरु) is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others (teacher). (wikipedia) Ironically, look at this “other” definition:

In Western usage, the meaning of guru has been extended to cover anyone who acquires followers, though not necessarily in an established school of philosophy or religion.

Is it me or does that sound like a traditional definition of Twitter… which would mean that perhaps a social media guru might look something like this:

What’s the word, smarmy? The above Guru, may even have some sort of social media certification..Who knows? I know of one person who I could slap the tag of social media guru on, and it would fit, but for a myriad of reasons.

What about thought leader, what does that really mean to you? To mean when I think of a true thought leader this is what comes to mind.

But ironically if you do an image search on the term “thought leader”, all you get is a bunch nameless, obscure, people you’ve never seen before, trying to self promote themselves as a..you guessed it…thought leaders.

There are just a few, true, social media thought leaders, but I think my problem with the term lies in the fact that there are too many. We slap the label on people too quick. and the label is affixed based on false numbers. The problem lies in the fact that we have diluted it.

What about heavy hitter? Here is what immediately comes to mind for a heavy hitter.

Yep, The Bambino was a heavy hitter, because he was heavy and he could hit. I will let you at this point, come up with your own list of social media heavy hitters.

Then there’s the social media expert. I’ll leave it at this which I got off of Brian Cuban’s website:

Here’s a quick “Universal search” exercise for you, go do image searches for all of these terms mentioned above to see what comes up when you add the word social media to the front of them. You get some interesting results. Essentially, you get nothing, which means, Universal search aside, the labels mean nothing..Call yourself a social media unicorn if you want, just bring the results.

In conclusion, I would like for us all to go lighter on the labels and heavy on the results. Sort of like this last image. He might be the exception. He had the label and the results.

The Social Media Self Assessment Checklist-22 questions

Posted on March 29, 2010 by marc meyer

For the last few weeks I’ve started to compile a social media abilities list. Namely the skills and strengths that you would need in any high level position within an organization to carry out the social media duties and responsibilities required to be successful. Consider this the reverse RFP for social media consultants and companies. I know there are more questions that could be added, so feel free to add to it. If you can answer in the affirmative to the majority of these questions, then you are well on your way and uniquely positioned to help a lot of organizations.

1. Do you understand how social media fits into the overall marketing plans and goals of any organization regardless of industry?

2. Could you build a sound business strategy for a client around social media?

3. Will you be accountable for the quality of all social media plans/strategies/services delivered to clients as well as their overall client satisfaction?

4. Could you establish social media programs that actually drive revenue?

5. Can you drive social media work for clients? Including strategy development, tactical expertise and execution, and measurement of all their social programs?

6. Can you develop a methodology that includes resources, team structure, core processes, and best practices that can be scalable across the board with media and marketing teams?

7. Could you identify and define social media opportunities for clients as they align with their overall digital marketing goals and strategies?

8. Could you collaborate across all departments and disciplines to identify and implement social training needs?

9. Could you identify and act on opportunities to attract, market, and recruit top social media talent?

10. Can you manage the recruitment, hiring, retention, and professional development of a social media team? Do you know what to look for?

11. Can you determine the correct roles, responsibilities, and expertise needed on your team to scale and grow a social media practice?

12. Do you know how to monitor trends in any industry and collaborate with upper management to ensure preparation for potential changes within a market segment? and then position the company or division for success as an industry leader?

13. Could you work with global practice leads and other social media managers to develop, document, and share social media strategies and successes?

14. Can you facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and encourage participation for social media across teams and offices?

15. Can you act or be the central resource for information related to social media? Would you want to be?

16. Could you be a credible spokesperson of social media at industry events?

17. Could you increase and raise the awareness of your organization’s credentials on social media both internally and externally?

18. Could you advise client teams and other internal executives on the execution of social media programs and new business opportunities?

19. Can you determine the right solutions for technology and measurement of social media? Including evaluation of current resources as well as social media vendors and develop partnerships with those vendors?

20. Can you collaborate closely across all departments and teams within an organization to provide complete solutions for clients?

21. Can you contribute to new business development by representing social media strategies and services? Could you sell social media to a client?

22. Do you have the ability to build relationships with senior executives within key client accounts? Is schmoozing part of your DNA?

As I said before, this list is by no means the end all be all, and is definitely a work in progress. It at least gives those within an organization looking for talent some talking points, or talent on the outside looking in, a starting point in which to evaluate themselves in regards to the social media big picture.

8 mistakes you can avoid making in social media

Posted on March 26, 2010 by marc meyer

I must admit that I was inspired to write this post based on the Social Media club of Orlando. They had tweeted me an invite to an event titled, “Mistakes and Lessons Learned in Social Media. It’s a great topic and thus I was inspired. I was going to title this post, “The biggest mistake I made in social media” but that would mean that it’s in the past tense, and at this point I got it down cold. No no no… That is certainly not the case. On the contrary, I still make mistakes. I learn from them and grow from them, but I still make new ones every week because the landscape keeps changing every week.

But what about you? You might be either just getting started in social media as a consultant, as a marketer for your company, or perhaps, you are a more seasoned individual. Either way, the assumption is that you are immersed in the culture and dynamics of social media integration in some way, shape, or form. And lets assume you’re going to make some mistakes. With that said, let’s look at what some of those mistakes might be and how you can avoid them.

Note* I have made all or some variance of these mistakes at some point in the past.

1) You assume Never assume you understand the consumer of your client. You know what they say? Never assume because it makes an ass out of u and me… Before you submit or create a social media proposal you really should try and get a full understanding of the clients customers, their online and offline consumption patterns, their behaviors and their preferences.

2) You Don’t Define Your KPI’s . KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator and it’s a key part of your measurable objectives with the client. They can be made up of benchmarks, targets, and time frames. Look, if you were a coach and you had a team, you would set goals right? They might be win x amount of games, make the playoffs, win the conference etc. etc. On a business level with social media in mind, they take on a different tone and level, but the outcomes are still measured in the same way. Coaches and teams don’t fly blind, and neither should you and your clients. Define your targets, benchmarks and outcomes that can be measured to determine performance and success. Define them and you’ll spare yourself some grief down the line.

3) You Didn’t Do Your Homework. Make sure you understand completely a) what the client is selling b) what their messaging is c) how they get their clients and…d) where those clients typically are i.e. where they hang out. Not all networks are the same and as social networks mature, new networks are cropping up daily that are more niche specific. In simple terms, this means that selling brooms on MySpace might not work.

4) No Value. What you produce for the client digitally, or what the client produces digitally, needs to have value. There is an assumption that if one just creates content that that is enough to drive traffic to the client. No, it doesn’t work like that. There has to be a level of quality that tells consumers that your social presence is worth tracking. Quality and value take on many forms, depending on the company and the client, but the bottom line is never short you, the client or the customer on either. They’ll leave before they even get there. And you know what? You know the difference, don’t kid yourself.

5) You Ignore The Rest of the Company. We talk about enterprise wide integration of social media but that takes on different forms. This means that HR is going to use social media in a completely different way than IT and or your PR department. We sometimes stick to what we know best and oftentimes say that integration of social media should occur in marketing; but that’s a short sighted attack. Every channel in an organization can benefit from social media, it’s up to you to make it happen.

6) You Made it Complicated. If you can’t understand it, or you can’t articulate it properly to your clients, peers, or bosses, then don’t talk about it yet, and definitely don’t go trying to implement it. Do you think the people you’re talking to are going to get what you don’t understand? It being the many different aspects of social media integration. You need to understand nuance which is something that doesn’t happen overnight with social media. With that being said, never assume you know everything, and sometimes you just can’t know everything, but don’t pretend you do. Keep it simple for yourself and for others. Think about it from the user’s perspective.

7) Set Them Free. Don’t let clients bamboozle you into doing all of the heavy lifting for them. One of the important aspects of social media is that we’re asking people, clients and companies to be more transparent and authentic. It’s their chance to connect with their customers and prospects in ways that they never thought of. If you’re doing all the social media work for them, then you might as well call yourself a PR company instead. It’s not authentic. You need to help them integrate social media into their company, you then need to teach them how to use the tools of social media, and then you need to hand it off to them. Take the training wheels off. You can still monitor from afar-it’s what consultants are for.

8. Understand the Digital Big Picture. This last one is more of a philosophical mistake to avoid.. As a company, consultant, marketer or whatever, it’s important for you to understand that things will be changing. Rapidly. Don’t ever assume that the space that you operate in, is static. It’s not. Yesterday does not look like tomorrow. Always keep one eye on the prize and another on what’s on the horizon. Like? Mobile, Mobile social, Mobile search, and social search…

Why Twitter Still Matters

Posted on March 23, 2010 by marc meyer

Recently I read somewhere that the demise of Twitter is imminent and all anyone wants to talk about anymore is Foursquare and Gowalla, 2 shiny new LBS based companies that are reeling in new users by the bushel.

Sure I’ll talk about and use Gowalla and Foursquare, but that doesn’t mean that Twitter is no longer relevant though. In fact what this simply means is that those 2 aforementioned companies have merely carved out a niche for themselves in a space that Twitter doesn’t necessarily play in, though they have added an LBS type feature as of late.

But let me cut to the chase. let me tell you why Twitter still matters. It occurred yesterday and I’ll break it down for you. Watch this quick clip and we’ll talk about it after the jump.

First of all, this is NOT the first time this has happened where Moore has stepped up and “helped” someone via Twitter, but it’s magnified because it was Demi Moore and Nia Vardalos (another actress), but it could have been anyone who stepped up.

The point is, a life was saved because someone sensed that someone needed help and they took action, and they used Twitter to do it.

In today’s society a lot of us have become spectators to everything; and we prefer to keep it that way. Rubber necking our way through life and content not to get involved. Couple this with a general sense of apathy and what we have become is… a nation of desensitized onlookers.

So why does Twitter still matter? because without it, this person might have ended their life if not for 2 people that cared to listen, got involved, and called the authorities. Oh and by the way, they just so happened to be celebrities. Twitter still matters because of it’s reach, it’d depth, it’s breadth and the potential of hitting it’s designated audience.

So what other ways is Twitter making an impact on people’s lives?

Oklahoma City uses Twitter to notify people of impending Tornadoes

The Red Cross uses its Twitter page for disaster and preparedness updates

The American Cancer Society tweets about cancer research, specific types of cancer news, and information.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society provides information about blood cancer, research and events that readers can get involved in.

Share Our Strength is a national organization that works hard to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry.

Without Twitter, these causes continue to struggle for visibility. But now, because of social networks, in this case Twitter, they’re able to have an impact and make a difference on the lives of thousands of people. I know this is just a handful of examples, but I wanted to point out to those that think that Twitter might not be relevant anymore, you may want to think again.

5 simple ways SMB’s can readily adopt social media and get rolling in one day

Posted on March 18, 2010 by marc meyer

I recently spoke at a little breakfast meeting of a 100 people or so and I knew that the economy was still being unkind to small business owners. I knew they were still trying to wrestle with the alternative options that social media might provide. But coupled with wrestling whether to make the leap or not, was the notion that commitment to social media is labor intensive. They already wear a lot of hats and now they have to somehow integrate social media?

So I thought it might be prudent to provide 5 simple suggestions on what an SMB can do right now to become part of that conversation. Yes, there will always be a learning curve, but we have to start somewhere and then build from that.

1) Get a Twitter account. Beyond just having a Twitter account that’s not doing much, learn how to use it to your advantage. Why? because you want to be able to monitor and listen to conversations about you, your product, your company, your industry, your customers and your competition. You can listen for opportunity and you can use Twitter as an ad hoc arm of customer service and reputation management.

How do you do all that- You use a 3rd party application like Tweetdeck which allows you set up individual columns for each of the above mentioned. The good news? In theory if you don’t want to have conversations, that will not prevent you from mining valuable data. The other good news? You don’t have to sit there and wait for it to unfold. You can peel back the tweets to your hearts content! This might take less than an hour to set up. Even less if you already an account.

2) Create a Facebook page. I know, you’re probably thinking, “you’ve got to be kidding me”? Well you know what? I bet you already have a Facebook page anyway right? So what makes this any different? What…? That it’s for work? Given that businesses can now create vanity URL’s on Facebook you have a great opportunity to grow your business using basic Facebook features for as little as an hour a day. Most of you have a customer base and there is a good chance that some of them are loyal. Facebook allows for you to connect with your customers. At the least it allows you to promote offers, ask questions and engage your customers. Setup is minimal. About an hour.

3) Create a Linkedin profile. Again, you should have one of these anyway but there are some cool little features buried in Linkedin that can help you network with like minded professionals, look for new resources and partners, connect with current and past work colleagues and if need be, look for a new job. Pay particular attention though, to the Question/Answer section of Linkedin. There is some gold in that thar section. Set up time 2 hours but once it’s done, you’re done.

4) Now link your Twitter account to Facebook and link you Twitter updates to LinkedIn so that all of your twitter updates, if you do them, will flow across all of your networks. If you ever feel so compelled to contribute, converse, share or become part of the conversation, you’ll only have to do it once and everyone in those 3 networks that are part of “your network” will see it. This might seem a but complicated, but it’s not, you just need to check out those links. Time it takes? An hour

5) Now go to your website and put these 3 links or icons to these social sites on your website. Make sure that they are prominent so that people that may be looking for you and what you may offer can find them. The point is we want to make sure that we are providing as many ways as we can for customers and prospects to talk to us. They are your lifeblood and THEY are using social networks with or without you. Get in the game. It may take you an hour.

Now here’s the last thing. Even if you are not an “A” personality and you’re somewhat passive. You still have relationships with your close friends and relatives, right? What do those conversations and relationships consist of? Are they about what you had for breakfast? Perhaps, but there is so much more to them. And the reason they are your friend in the first place, is because you are interesting and you have something in common with that person. You both are exchanging and sharing value. Guess what? the same holds true in social networks. Value begets value. Even if your not a content machine like a Chris Brogan, you can still carve out a niche for you and your company.

Now go get ’em.

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