The Double Lives Of Your Digital & Social Media Content Team

May 25, 2011 By Jeremiah Staes 1 Comment

With a headline like that, you might think I’m going to tell some salacious tale of scandal, where your team is having completely inappropriate conversations and tearing your brand down left and right.

But I’m not. Because in general, they’re not.

The problem, however, is just as critical, if not worse. It’s apathy.

Take a look. Is your communications team leading a double online life? It’s a strong sign your strategy and content isn’t really strong enough and that you don’t have buy in from your team.

Dear Chief marketing/PR/head muckety muck of all things digital, before you go mandating they turn off their second accounts, please take a moment and listen. It’s not their fault. This is hard medicine, but the reason is probably because your content isn’t worth sharing yet. If someone’s heart is behind something, they’re willing to stand behind their work personally. You’re not in the sweet spot yet.

The bar of your content should be high – because in general, people tune out pure marketing messages in social media. They generally don’t go to Facebook to interact with ads, they go to interact with people. With all of this talk that digital and social are supposed to be different, I rarely see that “different” talk put into practice.

For instance, although people may “like” your page on Facebook, the reality is EdgeRank (their system for showing posts to users) can be really difficult to bust through and get visible. Facebook is generally non-linear and algorithmically curated content. In short, just because you posted the update, it doesn’t mean all of your fans (or even a majority) are seeing it. You need to create content that is “likable” to folks for it to start appearing (even if they hit most recent news, Facebook curates that and brands usually lose out in that curation).

The best way to break through that challenge is to be compelling, so that people in diverse yet somewhat connected social circles actually enjoy your stuff and share it themselves. Facebook knows it’s pretty easy to get a ton of junk “likes” to fan pages – so they’ve made it more than just about the raw numbers of “likes” your page has.

But if your own team has personal followers or friends, and then you end up making them (through mandate or content that is mundane) have some rarely used secondary account to fulfill the quota, you’re just eviscerating your efficacy, because those secondary accounts do not have the pull or interest that their “actual” accounts do.

Your team should be excited and proud enough about your content, many times content they created, to occasionally share without prompting or mandate. Additionally, you can’t ever expect them to blast their stream constantly and keep authenticity. The public can tell when there’s no soul – if the people involved are simply punching a clock – and that mandated share doesn’t really accomplish anything other than making that Tweet or Facebook Like button number go up one notch. If it’s forced, it’ll much less likely be the firestarter that jumps it ten or twenty.

So do a quick gutcheck. Review if you’re making content for yourself – or are you making it for the people you want to engage? Because when I’m doing reviews of things that aren’t working, the sad truth is that what’s being put out just isn’t good enough or it’s completely targeted wrong.

Many times music applies to life in other ways.. and here, I quote Stevie Wonder, “Just because a record has a groove don’t make it in the groove.”

Filed Under: blogging, Business, Social Media, Tips Tagged With: communications, content strategy, facebook, Social Media

Robocop, revolutions and retweets: 5 tips for you

February 21, 2011 By Jeremiah Staes Leave a Comment

There was a time when one could, to some degree, ignore the power of the people who use online tools. Now, it seems, there is more power in them than ever. In recent weeks, that power has helped grease the wheels to overthrow an Egyptian government. Locally, it’s funded an oft-discussed statue of Robocop, which has opened a passionate Pandora’s box of feelings on both sides of the issue here.

Things are different now. This small group of influencers (for instance, in the case of Egypt, only 5 million of their 80 million population use Facebook) have outsized power because they’re willing to be vocal. There are visible doers, as I would call them, around the world.

“If you ever doubted the power of the people on Twitter, don’t. You could end up with a revolution or a big ‘ol statue in your backyard.” – A status update of mine

The game has changed.

In some ways, our president, Barack Obama, was the bellwether for this change. His election out of virtual political obscurity and against long initial odds was due to the fact he was able to capture interest and, in some ways most importantly, harness the monetary power of his online supporters.

In short, if you’re an advocate of anything (be it a brand, a presidential candidate, a cause, a musical sound) you have to be listening to and participating in the conversation happening (what we might call “engaged”) or your desires may well be ignored. There is simply no choice because the pendulum of power is quickly moving in that direction.

Personally, in the case of Robocop, I don’t like the symbolism. But I do think the marketing was brilliant. Many people didn’t like what Barack Obama stands for, but they sure are taking his success strategies to heart. This post isn’t meant as a debate about the merits of the causes themselves; this is about how they were effective and how YOU can be effective in your endeavors using the tools at hand.

Five quick mobilization tips:

1) Keep it simple. People like to rally around things they can quickly grasp and understand. Ask your mom. If she gets what you’re trying to do, you have a shot.

2) Be authentic and funny. Like the Red Cross recently showed, even an accidental tweet about getting drunk after work can turn into positivity. Your listeners stay engaged.

3) Be involved with the community before you need it. This is one of the most key parts. It’s almost impossible to voice criticism, answer it, drive action, or much of anything, if you’re starting cold. It’s hard to garner respect when you’re showing up late to the discussion.

4) Make the tools a part of your life. However you use Twitter or Facebook, make it a part of your life. There’s not a “wrong” or “right” way; just ways that accomplish certain goals better. It’s different strokes for different folks. Some use Twitter and Facebook as a news feed that lets them keep up with things of interest; some are more conversational, and others use it as a platform to share their ideas.

5) Shine the spotlight on others. There always needs to be an element of people getting recognition; this concept is ancient. As Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “It is clear to me that men will die for ribbons.” Nothing has changed since then, except the less dying and more tweeting part. :)

Filed Under: blogging, Social Media, Social Media Fundamentals, Tips Tagged With: Detroit, how social media works, retweet, revolution, Robocop, Twitter tips, visible doers

GetGlue: Making It Real

January 6, 2011 By Jeremiah Staes 3 Comments

Making it real is the holy grail of making great experiences online. There’s only so much you can do with bits and bites. The magic occurs when you take it from 140 characters to 14, or 140 or 1400 people with a shared experience.

That’s the power of all these conferences, weekly get-togethers like Tweetea, and what I think will be the stratospheric rise of sites like GetGlue.com. Making it real. Because it’s made real, these in-person get togethers are an almost religious experience for some. What is GetGlue.com? It’s a service that helps you find new favorite TV shows, movies, music, and more based on your friends tastes. It also allows you to “check in” when experiencing media, creating a joined social experience, without the uncomfortable (to some) element of a check-in saying where your location is (i.e. Gowalla, Foursquare).

I’m no prognosticator, and I don’t have a list of predictions. But GetGlue.com is blowing up from all appearances for a few key reasons:

1) It makes it dead easy to post Facebook and Twitter updates. People will always look for shortcuts, and since it’s a shared experience, it’s even more powerful. The only suggestion I’d have for them is to automatically include the commonly accepted hashtag for items when you tweet when checking in from the site or your mobile app.

The power tip? The more others use shortcuts, the more original, thoughtful content becomes important and noteworthy.

2) It is a different kind of community of shared knowledge. It gives people something easy to talk about — their interests. Facebook is built around your friends, and GetGlue is built around your topics of interest. It found a different spin on connection. It didn’t try to reinvent Facebook; it’s doing something different.

The power tip? Don’t try to outdo the big dogs in their yard. Setup your own yard and be the big dog there.

3) They “make it real.” When you get 20 stickers, they physically send them in the mail them to you. There are all kinds of possibility for interaction. After all, music promoters will tell you that stickers are a must-have for any artist. But what would make it even better? Give us the option to pay to get badges that people can stitch in. Stickers are easy and cool, but even better if I could sew them on my backpack as badges of honor, which fits in with the quirky internet culture.

The power tip? Build community in a variety of ways, online and off. The web is a merely a tool for the real action… people connecting to each other.

What are your thoughts? Are you stuck on GetGlue?

Filed Under: Business, Foursquare, Location Services, Online Marketing Fundamentals, Social Media, Tips Tagged With: Better online experiences, Get Glue, Making It Real, Social Media, why is getglue gaining traction

Tips On How To Make A Good Twitter Hashtag

December 28, 2010 By Jeremiah Staes Leave a Comment

You and your marketing team come up with what you think is a killer hashtag to try to spread the word about something. (Not sure what a hashtag is? It’s a way that you can, by putting the # sign before a word, make it easy for people see the entire public conversation about a topic on Twitter).

But the Twitterbirds and Tweeple responded with a resounding… silence.

What to do?

Here are a few tips on making hashtags. As one of the originators of #detdateline (with thousands of tweets) and others, I can tell you that the hashtag isn’t about you.

Great Hashtags Are About Shared Experiences

Twitter is a real-time medium, and if there was a “really real-time” online social tool Twitter would be it. It is anchored in random observations, life happenings, links, and humor.

What pulls Twitter out of the default “random” mode is shared experiences. Conferences (#140conf, for example), television shows (#dwts, which stands for “Dancing With The Stars,” movies (#inception, for instance), topics (#urbanism, which is about supporting city-style living and usually walkability) or even the weather (#snowtorious is one of my latest favorites, by Onion editor @Baratunde Thurston in regards to the recent snowstorm on the east coast) create group bonds. Sometimes, people use it for humor, but it’s still shared (#thebrokefriend is where folks share stories about that friend most of us have who is always broke).

If The Community Created It, Go With It

If you have a devoted enough (or interested enough) following in the topic, you’ll find that people may already be referring to what you want to talk about in a hashtag. If they made it, go with it. Don’t try to shove your brand name in the middle of it or change it; once momentum has started, all you’re going to do is slow it and hurt yourself by trying to change things.

Sometimes, if you’re the sponsor or organizer of an event or happening, you may get the opportunity to suggest the hashtag everyone goes with, especially if you’re already on Twitter and vocal. Make it simple, as few as characters as possible to get the point across, and try to be unique to avoid confusion with others.

Quick hashtag tips:

  • Use only one or two words
  • If you use an abbreviation, makes sure it’s common (DET for Detroit, for example)
  • Do not try to shove your brand name in there, especially if it feels awkward
  • Do not use hard to spell words

There is only 140 characters.. errr, 120. So leave room for the people.
Why do you need to be brief? Because people only have 140 characters per message on Twitter. And with people using old-style retweets or wanting to add their commentary, you really want to shoot for messages that are 120 characters. If you burn 15-20 additional characters with your bad hashtag, few will want to use it and they will naturally shorten it because you’re limiting them (notice a theme here? It’s not about you, it’s about the people).

The brand benefit will be the people seeing the hashtag being used and clicking on it. Then they’ll see an entire conversation and probably want to join. It definitely may be appropriate your brand name is in there, but not always. And the people, not you, will be the judge of whether it’s appropriate or not.

Don’t use special characters

The hashtag dies at the first special character (!,@,+, etc) or space. It’s especially a bad hashtag if you add the character immediately after the #. Why?

Because Twitter will not recognize and link the hashtag after the special character or space. Almost all Twitter users use the web interface on the Twitter site, and hashtags are clickable. If you sabotage your hashtag you’re making for bad usability for over 85% of Twitter users. Why would you want to make it a step harder when you don’t have to? After all, every step you add to user’s experience means you will lose people.

Caveat for my nerd readers: Sure, for high-end power users it may work. Those power users using tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck can easily search for the term. But that’s a VERY small percentage of the Twitter population. I’ve watched usability tests, and people don’t like to copy and paste. Most regular (non-power user) people will ignore the tag. By definition, if you’re using a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you are a power user.

So there are some tips for you for when you have the need or want to make a hashtag. What tips do you have? What are your experiences?

Filed Under: Love Your User, Social Media, Tips Tagged With: Hashtags, How To Make Hashtag, Make a Hashtag for Your Business, Twitter

The 0.04% Foursquare Question – Is It Worth It?

November 3, 2010 By Jeremiah Staes 6 Comments

The Foursquare elections checkin map gave some very interesting data, and I’m glad they shared it – as it put Foursquare in perspective for me.

Here in Michigan, with a state as large as ours, we had 1713 checkins as of 11:30pm. At first, that sounds great.

But then let’s contrast that with an estimated voter turnout of 3,800,000 Michiganders.

That’s 0.044% of the electorate who checked in. Not even a tenth of a percentage point of Michigan (or any state for that matter – I don’t mean to pick on Michigan, their turnout was better than much of the country) voters checked in. In some states, there were 200 or 300 people, total, who checked in to vote.

This gives me a lot of pause when recommending strategies. Sure, there’s different applications, different markets, people aren’t always political, etc.

But the total number of checkins across the whole state being the same amount as go through one decent-sized polling station?

This raises a LOT of questions in my mind, even though Foursquare is growing fast.

Sure, Foursquare has 2.4 million US users – but let’s look deeper.

If that’s true as an actionable number (something we can use), why is it that only 49,421 (as of 11:30pm election day) people checked in to vote? That means Foursquare voter turnout (within the userbase) would be about 2%. Sure, we’re lackadaisical in our country about voting, but our voter turnout rate (about 37% nationally last mid-term election, so we’ll use that number) is way higher than the foursquare user turnout of 2%.

If Foursquare reflected the country, you’d get a number along the lines of 37% of the total (which is the midterm election turnout last time around), which would then be represented in about 888,000 checkins across the country. Let’s give Foursquare the benefit of the doubt and base it off of young voter turnout – some estimate that between 20%-24% depending on who you talk to. Still, the numbers aren’t adding up – after all, not all foursquare users are under 30.

There’s just something not right;  you’d think with how much the social media crowd talked about check-ins and Foursquare it’d be something of major importance you might need to throw major resources at – but the numbers show that is not true, at least right now.

Don’t get me wrong - location as a concept is very important, and will become more so. But I’m starting to think it won’t be in the context of the check-in, but in the enhanced delivery of information or in other ways.

Filed Under: Business, Location Services, Online Marketing Fundamentals, Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, hype, location, location services, michigan election, Social Media
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