We 2.0 is better than Me 2.0

Posted on April 16, 2009 by marc meyer

I was just reading a blog post by Paul Dunay in which he waxes on about Dan Schawbel’s new book Me 2.0 Paul recommends it to anyone who is looking to build a personal brand.

I think that the onset of social media and social networks has allowed people to certainly increase their levels of exposure and their personal brand awareness, but it only works if others care to notice or pay attention to you. In other words-Your personal brand needs other people. That’s not a “me” issue, that’s a “we” issue.

I think my personal brand would grow and does grow more when I give more, share more, and basically act in a selfless manner towards others. I feel better about myself. Again though, even my attitude about my “personal brand” doesn’t fly unless there are others present. Others need to be there. Wherever there might actually be at that moment. Could be Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, my Blog, a Seesmic or You Tube video, doesn’t matter.

Rather than doing things that made me look good and position me better. I feel better about myself when I’m able to give of myself instead of giving to myself.

In fact did you know that Altruistic acts can improve your quality of life in several ways, and are absolutely worth the effort? Here’s another great question for you: What makes Chris Brogan more happy? and what does he do better than anyone else? He gives, he shares and provides for his readers and followers- tips, pointers, guides, e-books, links and resources that can make them better at what they do. He doesn’t sell it. He gives it away, every day!

And why is Chris in the position he is in today? Is it because he took from others, because he was more concerned about his personal brand? Because he’s makin’ bank on others? No. Actually Chris is, where he is, because of what he shares and because of the people that it has affected, and has impacted. Chris will be the first to tell you that without the people that read his blog or follow his tweets or watch his vids, he’s just another hack. Actually he might tell you that anyways.

But my point is this, if you pay it forward. Or if you think of others more than yourself that that can have just as much of an impact on your personal brand as it would be if you solely concentrated on your personal brand.

I like what Dan is doing, don’t get me wrong. He has picked a niche and has cornered the market on personal brands; and right now social media, in all of its wonderous technicolor glory, can do amazing things for you and your personal brand. I’m merely saying that you might also want to think about the why, the how and most importantly, “the We”.

The Microcosm of social networks

Posted on March 24, 2009 by marc meyer

One of things I love so much about what I do is how fluid it is. Not only personally, but as a whole, the industry and space I swim in, is very fluid. But within that fluidity are small pockets of conversations, networks and silos of brewing relationships that enhance one’s ability to “be fluid”. As of late, I have noticed a lot of really interesting discussions that have bubbled up based on these principles of micro-networks and our ability to flow in and out of them.

David Armano who is all about micro-interactions, adds to his growing volume of work, which I respect very much, with this preso titled, “The Micro-Sociology of Networks.”

Slide#36 struck a nerve for me in which David says that Micro-social economics are Niche. For me, I picture the relationships I have in social networks, the relationships I have offline and the one’s I might have in a large stadium, Each has it’s own dynamic and niche quality.

Valeria Maltoni, another person who brings fresh thinking to everything that she touches, did the following post a while back titled Micro Interactions in PR In which she states that:

Public relations is the discipline that gets to the single interactions, the relationships, more closely.

The single interactions and or the relationships. It’s as simple as this-Is it easier to develop a more intimate relationship with one person or 2 or 3 or 40? Every time you add another person to the conversation, divide the conversation, the relationships and the signal exponentially.

This exponential division reminded me of a tweeted conversation I had awhile back with Robert Scoble, in which I asked him, “Now that you have 70,000 followers, what is the percentage of “actual” conversations you have with your followers/or those he followed?” His answer? When he was only being followed by 20,000, he spoke to 25-35% of them-meaning more than one tweet. Conversations. As the number has risen, it is now less than 10%. In Scoble’s case, I believe it’s always been more of a macro-interaction, but it works for him. But I think he would be the first to admit, that any value that he derives from Twitter, would still be on a personal micro-interactive level.

Recently, I was reading a post by Bernie Borges titled… The Lifecycle of Interaction in Social Media in which he discusses the collective wisdom and influence of communities, and I started to think about the “microcosm of a community” no matter how large or small.

On the one hand one might not think of a community as a microcosm, yet niche communities are in essence, reflections of larger less fluid communities, aren’t they? There is the chance that you are in this or that niche community, because of the rigidity of the larger network. You are, in a sense, a microcosm of a larger group. And because of the possible lack of micro-interactions, you chose to find one that met your needs.

Quick definition here from dictionary.com

mi⋅cro⋅cosm

human beings, humanity, society, or the like, viewed as an epitome or miniature of the world or universe

The fluidness of online networks now allows us to be a part of many networks and create many realtionships. Sounds very reflective of the offline world doesn’t it? So it begs the question: Aren’t all online social networks, microcosm’s? Subsets of society played out online?

In conclusion, as I’ve said, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and the thoughts might be disjointed but as my friend Mack Collier mentions, I’m removing the perfect filter from this post and throwing it up.

Should bloggers be held to journalistic standards?

Posted on March 17, 2009 by marc meyer

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.

Social Media best practices. Part 1.

Posted on March 16, 2009 by marc meyer

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.

As social networks increase so does your margin for error

Posted on February 2, 2009 by marc meyer

This is a cautionary tale that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. Having noticed how much social networks and communities have grown exponentially recently, I’ve noticed that people do things within the context of what we consider New Media, i.e. social networks, and then ultimately regret it later.

The evidence is everywhere. We see the demise of relationships, axes to grind, pure anger, mob mentalities, bruised egos, bitterness, love, hate, and fraud all played out in glorious real time and beyond, thanks to digital footprints.

Some groups seem to be more comfortable with this aspect of Web 2.0 than others. Gen Y and millenials are used to, and comfortable with leaving their mark. They’re comfortable with the ability to express free form raw emotion on their social nets of choice. So much so that they take on the characteristics of an animal marking its territory. They do not care about the repercussion of what they do online. It’s all they know and it’s almost expected and assumed by their peers

Why do they continue to push the envelope? Why do they do “it” knowing that there could be major reverb from it? Some do not care and they are looking for the desired reaction and effect.

Maybe for others, they have no idea? I don’t think they do. At least Gen Y and Millenials don’t, nor do they really care at the present moment.

But that’s just one segment, what about the rest of us?

Some of us do it specifically for that purpose, to get under someone’s skin, to challenge and and to poke and prod what people say. Yet they regret nothing and apologize less. But for them, that’s their schtick.

Others do it and have no idea of the ripple effect it may have online. They have zero clue that their actions, their written word, their audio, that video, once it’s online, that content… ceases to be in their control anymore.

You see online, you lose that buffer of physicality. You lose the ability to “take it back”. Your margin to screw up is increasing and you know what? The statement, “Once it’s done it’s done” isn’t true. It ain’t done. You now not only have to deal with “it” when it happens, but you also have to deal with it every time someone finds it. For years to come.

My advice to you is if you want to use social networks as your primary means of communication, be prepared for any and all repercussions stemming from your interactions…. to now be public fodder.

3 things to do when getting started with social media

Posted on December 5, 2008 by marc meyer

I have a new scribe and I need to get him up to speed fast with social media. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he is not alone. I talked to him for 2 hours yesterday and felt like I dumped wayyy too much info on him. With that being said, I decided to quickly enlist the Twitter nation for the 3 things that they would suggest when first jumping into social media. Here are 7 responses I received in the span of 10 minutes:

@portentint: Learn Google Reader, Sign up for Twitter, Use LinkedIn

@spartanvikas: start a blog and learn to link, read a lot about the sub from net, and self brand online and see for urself

@leahjones: find a few blogs that matter to them personally and add to rss reader. Personal interests draw you in.

@mhames: join Facebook, then join a group, do a Twitter search for their brand/keyword, join LinkedIn, answer a question.

@kenburbary: 1) Listen first to what you care about (keywords – you, your company, etc) using blogsearch, technorati, G alerts, twtter search 2) start to talk – tools depend on the situation/person. Could lead w/blogging, or twitter for example. pick the 1 that works 4 u

@Adgenius: 1) Goals: what do you want to accomplish 2) Target group: who do you want to reach 3) Start listening.. Without 1&2, don’t start then I’d say: 1) Listen 2) Trial 3) Engage

@AmberCadabra: 1) Read blogs in their area of interest, comment often 2) Get on Twitter and play 3) Read the Cluetrain to understand the “why” A big part of getting “feet wet” in social media is about understanding what makes it unique.

Great advice here, don’t you think? So if you’re just starting out, don’t be intimidated. Take it slow, and most of all…Listen! Any other suggestions? Feel free to chime on in!

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.