Is it really about being transparent?

Posted on June 18, 2009 by marc meyer

In Business, I don’t really have a hard time saying “I’m sorry”, I just don’t like saying it, because it constitutes either failure or the inability to “do” something. It conveys that perhaps you did not hold up your end of the bargain. And yet, a lot of people cannot say it or do not say it, or, do everything in their power to avoid it. That makes things worse.

I don’t like saying “No”, because it means I can’t or won’t do something for you. I am refusing to do something for you. Some people do not like to hear No, or in some cases won’t take No as an answer. Others, instead of saying No, agree or say yes, when they really shouldn’t. That’s not a smart thing to do.

I don’t like saying ‘Goodbye”, because it signifies that our current engagement is ending or over and sometimes you don’t want it to end. Other times saying goodbye is exactly what’s needed a “good” bye. Sometimes, it’s just time.

In life, and in business, some things are painful to do. We don’t want to do them because they hurt or we fear that we will lose business. The three things that I mentioned above are all communications issues aren’t they? But in each scenario, its a form of communication that is often times necessary but avoided. Which again, makes things worse.

Sometimes we do have to say No.

Sometimes we do have to say I’m sorry.

and Sometimes we do have to say Goodbye.

What happens to the marketing person, the social media specialist, or the PR pro that decides to incorporate those three words into their lexicon?

They get Respect. Street Cred. and probably more business. Is this about being transparent?

Share this Post

The role of social media in the Iranian election

Posted on June 16, 2009 by marc meyer

As you are all aware of by now, assuming that you are somewhat wired, there was a presidential election in Iran. When the news surfaced globally that current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election with 65% of the vote, it set in motion the wheels that power social media. While the outrage over a seemingly rigged election simmered to a boil, demonstrators numbered in the hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Iran in massive protests…Something else happened as well.

Those same elements however, took to the power of social media to document in real time the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s violent reaction to the people’s protests of a seemingly rigged election. That’s right, the power of social media was literally the first to let the world know about the displeasure that Iranian citizens had over the election results and the fallout from that election.

Much of this activity was covered by Iranian citizens on social networking sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr, Facebook and personal blogs; and though the Iranian government did their best to try and stop the rising flood of information flowing out of the country via social media, ultimately theres not a thing the Iranian government can do to suppress the massive amount of citizen journalism taking place before our eyes.

Consider the following:

According to BNET Media, as of last night, there were almost 12,000 videos available on YouTube under the search term, “Iranian election.”

Consider that the top trending topics on Twitter are #Iranelection, #Tehran, #Mousavi, and #Iranians. That’s right. People are not only talking here in the U.S. about what is going on in Iran, the people of Iran are letting the WORLD know about what is happening via social media.

If you go to Flickr and type in any type of search term that is related to the Iranian election you get a stunning amount of results and images that we can all assume that the current Iranian regime would prefer that the world did not see.

Other social media sources that are doing their best to keep the feeds coming are the following:

Others:

A slew of Twitter Accounts:
@alirezasha
@Change_for_Iran
@cnnsaeed
@Gita
@iran09
@iranbaan
@IranNewsNow
@IranRiggedElect
@laraabcnews
@mohamadreza
@mousavi1388
@octavianasrCNN
@Shahrzadmo
@StopAhmadi
@tehranbureau
@tehranelection
@TwitPersia

This list will continue to grow over the next few days and weeks, feel free to share it and add to it. But know this. We all constantly talk about some of the best case uses of social media every day, and in this situation we are seeing the power of social media being utilized to not only enlighten the world, but also empower its citizens in ways that I’m sure were never envisioned by its progenitors.

Share this Post

What exactly does adding value mean? 7 simple examples.

Posted on June 11, 2009 by marc meyer

That was the question asked of me via Twitter and I thought, “Wow, apparently value is still the jello we’re trying to nail to the wall.”

In it’s most simple of terms, value is not:

“I just ate a salad”.

Value is:

“This salad was so good I’m sharing the recipe..”

Or value isn’t:

“I’m at the Expo all week”.

Value is:

“Anyone who would like to go to the Expo, here are some passes”:

But even more, value isn’t:

“I’m too busy to work with this client”.

Value is:

“Hey @bethharte I have a client that could really benefit from your knowledge, here is their name and number and email.”

Value is not: “I’m reading about 10 superb social media presentations.”

Value is: Here is a link to 10 superb social media presentations

Value isn’t, ‘Thanks Sonny.”

Value is: ” If it wasn’t for @sonnygill, I’m not sure what I would have done”.

Value isn’t reading about an Amber alert.. Value is Retweeting an Amber Alert

Value isn’t about applauding someone for giving money to a good cause. Value is about stepping up and coming together as a community to help someone out because it’s the right thing to do.

The reality is you knew all along how to add value. You didn’t need me to tell you, but just in case, perhaps these 7 examples helped you out.

ROI-Return On Influence

Posted on May 28, 2009 by marc meyer

Earlier this week on Twitter I got into a back and forth discussion on whether Influence could be measured with Niall Cook. Niall essentially says that:

I am reaching the conclusion that influence cannot be measured, and thus is a futile metric for exploration.

Though this may end up being a chicken versus the egg type of discussion, I decided to throw up some visual representations of my thoughts on the matter and have some fun with it. Here are Niall’s thoughts on the topic: Social Media influence cannot be measured. One issue- there is a bit of a difference between social media influence and influence… Or is there? What are your thoughts?

Engagement, Influence and User Experience

Posted on May 27, 2009 by marc meyer

I was sitting this morning with a client having a breakfast meeting when I started to use what was on the table for props. I was explaining the different marketing channels like this…

Each of the above “tools” has a certain marketing function within your organization. You use them everyday for engaging your users and customers and even your prospects. Good, bad, or indifferent, you use them. It’s what we all have been programmed to use.

They can, however, be influenced by what you bring to the table.

But at the end of the day, you are still going to use the same tools pretty much the same way.

You might enhance them. Or influence them.

But the tools are still the same. Regardless of look and feel, they still function the same way.

But what if we could add something to the dynamic? That enhanced the whole experience? That wasn’t there before? That perhaps no one else was doing?

Or…

Now the experience has been changed for the user. You’ve upgraded the experience by adding 2 elements that were not there before. If you don’t add them, nothing really changes. If you do add them, aren’t you better off now than you were before?

Once they are in place, you see how much the user enjoys them, and how they told their friends and what it did for your business and your organization… the feedback has been tremendous versus no feedback before. Customers are talking about you and to you.

Now, would you ever consider removing the OJ or the table cloth? Is this better or worse than prior to your 2 new additions?

Lastly, your new customer, user, client comes up to you and says, ” We love what you have done with your OJ and your table cloths and it’s why we come here now, but you know what would be nice…?”

You listen and you now have enhanced the customer experience. You listened! and they appreciate it and tell others.

Now, would you ever consider removing the flowers?

Say hello to the most basic elements of social media.

Crowdsourcing-Social Media Listening Grids

Posted on May 24, 2009 by marc meyer

Over the last 8 weeks @jasonbreed and I have had some tremendous #socialmedia Unpanels at Hashtagsocialmedia.com. Last Tuesday, David Alston of Radian 6, hosted a session titled Developing Corporate Listening Grids. the comments and the discussion was at such a high level, that developing a deck from it was a no-brainer. But obviously it doesn’t happen without the participation of the attendees and their voices.

Share this Post

Searching for social media experts

Posted on May 18, 2009 by marc meyer

Lets say I’m a business owner and I want to get into this social media thing and I want to hire someone to handle my social media marketing. I don’t know anything about anything so I’m going to go straight to Google to find one.

If you do a search on “social media experts”, the first organic result in Google is for a post by Chris Brogan If I saw Chris’s site, I’m not sure he would be the best fit for me since I might not know any better. I might not know Chris Brogan from Mary Brogan, so I’m going to keep searching.

Interestingly enough the only ppc result for that search term is for Pandemic Labs, but their site is dark and too techy and makes me think Nintendo or Xbox, so I’m out. I’m frustrated already.

The second organic result is for giovanni gallucci, who I am familiar with, and ironically enough of the top 10 search results, this is or his site is the only one actually touting himself and his services as a social media expert. Why is this ironic? Because of the other results, the majority of them are blog posts essentially slamming people who call themselves social media experts.

What am I saying? I’m saying, if I do a search for a social media expert, I may not be able to find one. Funny isn’t it, given the amount of blog posts about people claiming to be a social media expert?

I better change my tactic. How about social media companies?

The results are a little different but no less confusing. Your top 10 results are the following:

CrunchBase company profile on Social Media.com
An blog post from Jeremiah Owyang from 2006
A post from David Meerman Scott’s blog on Social media company entrepreneur official garb.
A post by Lee Odden from Top Rang Blog on How Big Companies Use Social Media @ BlogWell
An article from Inc titled, Inc. 500 Companies Fast Adopters of Social Media
A blog post titled, Valuing social media companies and Facebook apps
The management team results from Pluck
Tech Links piece titled, Social Media Companies See Increased Demand for Internet Marketing Services
This next one is actually not too bad, though as a n00b, it might all just fly right over my head. 12 social media companies that kick ass
This last result is actually a pretty good one too though again, not for the noob, it’s by Peter Kim-It’s a list of social media marketing examples

So at this point I’m striking out, big time. I’m going to try one more thing, maybe two. One is, lets do a search on social media marketing companies and the other is lets do a search on social media consultants. Waddya say?

First 2 organic results for social media marketing companies? Izea and socialmediasystems.com, the 2nd result is scary. It might be the streaming talking head in the right hand corner; but companies like this may hinder more than they help. Though, they do rank #2 for the term “social media companies”, the used car sales approach doesn’t fly with me, and shouldn’t with you.

Further down the page, we finally get to some results that may benefit me. one note though that the PPC results on this page are a little more condusive to the search term we’re using at the moment, but lets continue.

In the #6 spot we have a post by marketing pilgrim titled Social Media Marketing Beginner’s Guide Which I would most definitely read. Why? Before I go and hire and expert, here is a chance to know what I’m looking for and know what I’m talking about..

In the #7 spot, I like this article simply because it’s arming me with some more solid info, that in the long run will help me, even if I’m not the one doing any of the work. It’s titled, How to Leverage Web 2.0 & Social Media Sites to Market Your Brand & Control Your Message has over 30 sites for you to check out on social media marketing tactics.

In the #8 spot we have 11 Marketing, which I, the business owner, might click through some and check out, it sort of talks the talk at least. In spots 9 and 10, we have blog posts from Mashable and Peter Kim and thats it.

So the results were spotty at best and if we adhere to “people only search the first page” theory, we’re done; and we have maybe 3-4 “leads” to pursue. Interesting.

Onto our last search and then some conclusions.

Wow… the results for “social media consultants” are 9 blog post results dissing anyone who calls themselves a social media consultant, and one search result for Dan Zarrella who actually is a social media consultant!

The conclusion? If you are in the social media space, then what you hear (and read apparently) are a lot of people complaining about other people calling themselves social media experts and consultants. The truth is, they(the experts and consultants that is) must be just telling themselves and anyone else who is willing to listen. Fact is, not too many are actually doing a very good job at marketing themselves and their companies and what they do, to the masses. Or maybe they just don’t understand the importance od SEO?

Either way-by the looks of the search results, if you are looking for a social media expert, social media consultant, or social media company, or social media marketing company, good luck weeding through all the people that are pissed about the people who are claiming to be one of those. Sour grapes? Perhaps, but what it looks like is that not only does the cobbler not make shoes for his own children but his competition spends more time watching him, than they do doing their own job!