It has become clear to me that some people are becoming way to dependent on various social media tools. They seem to be forgetting that we were connecting, sharing and interacting with people long before we had all these shiny new toys.
This past weekend Twitter had an outtage. I found out about this after reading several angry blog posts about it on Monday morning. I had no idea it was going on because I was outside most of the weekend with my family. I’d twitter from my mobile phone, talked to a few contacts on the phone and e-mailed back and forth with friends over Sunday coffee. But, in that whole time I had no idea that Twitter was down and honestly I didn’t care.
Many of these tools are part of my life and business, but at the same time I think we shouldn’t forget our basic human nature of conversation one on one with people. Just a couple of years ago how did you stay in touch with people? You sent them an instant message, dropped them an e-mail, picked up the phone or even perhaps wrote a good old fashion letter. Remember those things? I actually wrote one last week because it had been so long.
I’m not slamming any of the social media tools and toys. They are fun and help me connect with people that I’d never be able to without them. But, at the same time I can’t say I’m dependent on any of them to get through the day. Sure, I might not know what a friend is having for breakfast or be able to see what another contact is thinking about a conference they are at, but I can live without that. I can go about my day without stressing over missing something. I’ve always said that if something is important enough and interesting enough that it’ll eventually get on my radar in some fashion.
The next time something like Twitter or Facebook goes down don’t freak out, bitch and copmplain. Take it as a sign to turn off the computer and do something else. Read a book. Get some fresh air. Catch up on all the other tasks that I know are on your to do list somewhere. There is always something else that we could be doing.
I’m watching as people get more and more glued to their screens and seem to be forgetting the rest of the world around them. Try not to do that. There is a lot of great stuff your missing.
There isn’t some hidden viral message or agenda here. It is about letting the community know about good-natured souls. Vaynerchuk’s hope is that people will use whatever medium they are into to do this. I personally think I’m going to blog and video podcast something later this morning after I get the kids off to school.
So take a moment out of your busy day and be part of this sudden community. Share the people who fall into that “good people” category. Highlight some who are off the grid and whom people should know about. I can’t wait to read, listen and watch what everyone comes up with.
When you create something, please be sure to tag it with GPD08
Readers of this blog know that I was filled with excitement anticipating my first time at SXSW in Austin, Texas, last week. I even took this newness and used it to do a campaign for one of my clients around a video series we called SXSW For Newbies. My time there was full of lots of things, but for the sake of this entry I want to focus on the community that is the South By Southwest Conference.
I go to conferences all the time. Many times I’m speaking. Sometimes I’m just there for the sessions and to see old friends. But whatever the reason, one constant is that most conferences attract a certain vertical of interest. If I’m at PodCamp Boston, then most likely the people there are into podcasting and new media. When I spoke earlier this year at the Educational Travelers Conference, everyone had something to do with the travel or educational markets. It is the nature of conferences that you narrow the focus to attract a certain group of people.
What was amazing about SXSW is that people from around the world with various areas of interest and different passions attend. When you roll it up there are three parts to the conference: music, film and interactive. Those are extremely broad topics that different people are interested in. I often found myself in the middle of a hallway conversation between a CEO, a musician, a social media fan and perhaps a marketing executive. What I’m trying to highlight is that, unlike other conferences, the community of SXSW was made up of much more variety then most.
The veterans seem to know this and embrace it. Once you’ve been, it’s almost as if you are part of a tribe. You are let in on secrets that not everyone knows about. Events that are off the grid suddenly open their doors to you. The events happening that are not listed on the official schedule have their own followers and communities formed around them. As I entered The Fray Cafe for the first time, I saw people I had not seen the rest of the time there. As I took a seat and played in my first game of Werewolf, I found myself welcomed with open arms to a group of fresh faces. Being a newbie is not something that causes you to be an outcast but rather makes you even more welcome because most want to make you feel welcomed.
SXSW is certainly what you make it. But don’t ever be afraid of going because you don’t know anyone. The people that make up the community of South By Southwest are a loving bunch who welcome newcomers like myself with open arms, and I miss them dearly already. Next week I’m going to talk more about some of the events and happenings that made it so special for me.
If you’ve ever thought about attending, I can’t encourage you enough. I heard several people call it “spring break for geeks,” which really did not capture the energy properly for me. It was about so much more than the parties and fun times. It was about new friendships. Potential business leads. Being stimulated by speakers that you’d never see at another conference together. It isn’t as strange as Fight Club, where the first rule is you don’t talk about Fight Club. In this case I think you do talk about SXSW–and you talk about it to everyone you possibly can so everyone can get in on the energy and passion that will power you through the next year until it comes around again. Is it March 2009 yet?
Are any of you readers on the way to SXSW in Austin, Texas, next week?
I’m headed out and also speaking on a panel called How to Rawk After SWSW: Staying Inspired in which we are going to be discussing how to take all that you learn and are inspired by while at SXSW and bring that back to work and home and keep it moving foward. Based on the calls I’ve had with the other panelists, I’m very excited about it.
This is my first time going to the conference. What has been fun to realize is that I’m entering into a close-knit family of people who go year after year. The minute I mentioned that I was going, I began to get advice from friends and strangers on where to stay, the best little-known places to eat and the must-not-miss parties. I had no idea that while the conference itself is huge and full of great opportunities to connect with interesting people, outside the conference there is just as much (if not more) going on.
If you look at the upcoming list of events, you can see that there is plenty happening. But there are many other, smaller gatherings happening off the grid where old friends and like-minded individuals will come together over a meal, drinks or a park bench on the street.
As part of some work I’m doing with one of my clients, I’m going to be documenting my trip under the banner of SXSW For Newbies. My goal is to collect the pearls of wisdom from this growing community so that next year it won’t be as scary for newcomers as it is for me this year. Scary isn’t really the right word. I think a better one would be overwhelming.
If you are attending or just want to find out more, I reccomend checking out the SXSW Insiders Guide, which currently has more than 700 members and was independently set up using Ning. If you go there, you’ll see how a community can come together to help out one another.
All this feels like a powerful community, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts when I get back about whether the reality lived up to my expectations.
Most mornings, I sit down at my computer with the first cup of coffee, open up my browser and begin what I call my morning surf. This morning that included several great links from friends on Twitter, including a link to Jason Falls’ post, “What is Most Important in Online Community Building?”
Not only are the points he makes correct, but I love that he used his theory of leveraging your already existing community to get answers by doing just that with his Twitter followers. Read the article and you’ll see he posed the question for the blog post to members of his community to gather their opinions.
He raises a point that I try to make to everyone who asks me, and that is that you must be flexible. When a brand does a print campaign, it is pretty much locked down and there is nothing you can do about it once it is out there. It’s in the magazines, newspapers and hanging on bus stops, and short of ripping it down and starting over, there is not much you can do if you need to change.
Online campaigns have to be flexible and organic. While you may have planned everything out and have really pretty storyboards around how you think everything will flow, you have to be ready to evolve the campaign if needed. The tools that people use. The sites they spend time on. The reactions they give you. Any of these can change mid-campaign, and you have to be ready and comfortable to change with them. This is just as true if you are building a community around your brand. You must listen to the reactions of your community and act accordingly.
Before this morning, I wasn’t really part of Jason’s community. I had seen the name, but I didn’t know much about the guy. But this single blog post got my attention, and now I’m watching to see what he does next. I see that he has a YouTube channel called Social Media Explorer TV. I just watched a couple of episodes, and I’m looking forward to more. I’ve subsribed to his blog and plan to read older posts later today. I see he is going to SXSW like I am, so I hope we’ll get to meet in person.
The point I’m trying to make is that communities happen. We are each members of ones big and small, and sometimes we are rather passive members of them. But you never know when you might join a new one. I know this morning when I woke up I didn’t think that was in the cards, and look what happened. *grin*
One thing I love about this digitially connected word we live in is that people love to pull together and rally around a cause. Sometimes it is something big like a political candidate, a major charity or the latest disaster relief effort. But sometimes it is on a much smaller scale. On the scale of one guy and a bunch of wood, in this particular case.
Keith Burtis lives outside of Buffalo, NY. It’s not exactly a hotbed for social media activies, but where you live doesn’t mean as much as it used to. He likes to turn wood. He turns out bowls, wine stoppers and other beautiful pieces of functional art through his company, Magic Woodworks.
Now, I’ve never met Burtis, but he listens to my podcast, and we’ve exchanged e-mails. Later I started following him on Twitter, and we’ve connected and chatted several times.
Last weekend I got an e-mail from him asking for some help to make his miracle happen. He wants to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend and wondered about putting out a call on Valentine’s Day to see if the community would help him raise the funds by purchasing his art. I and several others posted news of this on Twitter and our blogs, and the most amazing thing happened. People bought his bowls. He couldn’t turn them out fast enough. He raised the money and is still taking offers for his bowls to help make the miracle happen.
Calling this a miracle is an awfully bold statement. I’m just glad I could be part of it by spreading the word and buying a bowl. Call it whatever you want, but it is just another great example of how we can all help each other out when the time comes. This is how complete strangers can connect online and gather to help a fellow online friend. It is little happenings like this that remind me why I love this space.
I live and breathe social media. Every day I’m connected with people all over the world who keep me up to date on the latest trends, fun videos and news of what is of interest to me. If I need a recommendation about anything, I just throw out the question on Twitter and have a list of answers in no time.
But last week, when the owner of a local spa here in the Metrowest Boston area asked me how she could leverage social media on a local scale to bring in more business, I had to stop and think about that for a moment. Sure, there are communities of social media folks in every major city. But what about outside of those major areas? On the internet your location isn’t as important to me as your information. If you have good things to say, it doesn’t matter where you live.
Because of this one conversation, I’ve been thinking a lot about how important it is for everyone to get to know the local community. I’ve lived in my town now for a little more than five years and, while I know where to get the best pizza and which fields are the best to fly a kite in, I don’t necessarily know all the people, groups and gatherings happening in town. I’m sure there are bloggers, podcasters and other people playing on social media sites who are my neighbors and parents of the kids who come over to play. But how do I find that out?
I don’t have the answers. I wish I did, but I’m hoping you can help me find some of them.
From a business standpoint, the first thing I pointed that spa owner to was to advertise on Facebook because it allows you to target very accurately based on the network(s) you are associated with. It was fun to log in the next day and to see an advertisement from her. I hope it worked well for her. We haven’t had a chance to connect since then so I don’t know for sure, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’ve also begun to play a lot with Yelp. It is a recommendation engine that allows anyone to rate everything on a local level. My hope is that as I watch places get recommended in the area around me, I can contact those users and find out where else they are hanging online. That way I can start connecting with other people in my area who don’t play in the deep end of the fishbowl where I hang out a lot.
Hyper local content is going to become more and more important in the near future. We all want it, but we don’t quite have it yet.
How else would you recommend finding (and of course then building on) the community around you?
Remember a few weeks back when everyone was blogging and talking about how this year was going to be different for them? They were going to try new things, work hard at being better at others and all around turn a corner they didn’t turn in 2007.
Now that all that crazy New Year’s talk is over, let’s all focus and get down to business to make 2008 a great year for everyone.
You want to build up your product, service, company or self, right? You want to raise sales, exposure or brand recognition? All great things and great goals. None of it is going to be handed to you, so get to work and start figuring out where the people you want to reach are.
Here are some easy, quick hits you can try to get exposed to the new media community and begin to figure out where you fit into the whole puzzle.
Set up a micro blogging account
I have accounts on both Jaiku and Pownce, but the only one I really use is Twitter. For me, that is where my community is and where I can connect with the most people with whom I want to chat. If you’ve only got time for one, my personal opinion would be to give Twitter a try, as it has the most adoption at this point. That is not based on hard and fast numbers because companies don’t tend to share those these days. It is based on what I have seen and experienced.
Get a Facebook profile
It is impossible to miss hearing someone talk about this these days. That is because everyone is jumping in to see where he or she fits in this space. I’ve had my account for years from my days working at Babson College, when Facebook was locked down to only people with .edu e-mail addresses. Every day more and more companies are setting up shop and trying to figure out how best to interact with this diverse community. Just be warned that it could get a little weird when old friends from high school and college start sending you vampire and zombie requests. Don’t worry, you’ll understand soon enough what that means.
Start reading blogs
If you are here reading this, then you are already into blogs. But I want to encourage you to read more of them. If you go out to Technorati and search on any given topic of interest, you can see what some of the bigger blogs in that arena are and figure out which ones work for you. I currently subscribe to roughly 300 different blogs and, thanks to tools such as Bloglines and Google Reader, you can keep these organized and updated so it is not impossible to keep up with the ones that are most important to you.
Start listening to podcasts
As many of you know, I do two podcasts. One is on marketing and new media, called Managing the Gray. The other focuses on independent music, and it’s called Accident Hash. But these are only two of the thousands out there. Every day people are creating new audio and video content that you can subscribe to and watch/listen on your device of choice. I guarantee that someone has created something in your field of interest. If they haven’t, then this could be a perfect opportunity for you to grow by starting a podcast about it. To find great content, I’d recommend iTunes, Podcast Alley and Podcast Pickle.
The key is to get out there and try these. If you are ever going to market in these spaces, you need to first be familiar with them. Don’t worry about completely comprehending and understanding them. You can hire agencies and others to help you with that, but you must have at least played with a tool before you start debunking it or deciding you want to bet your business on it.
2008 still has 11 months in it. That is time to get a lot done. Stay focused and keep playing with the new tools to figure out which ones work for you and which ones don’t. As I find ones that I think will help build up communities, I’ll be sure to share them here.
I have clients all the time come to me and say they want to build a community around their brand. Of course this gets me excited, but then I hear the dreaded, “how long till we can have it?”
Right now, put down your schedules, your timetables and your thoughts about how fast you can grow a community because the honest truth is that you have zero control on how fast or how big it grows. You might get lucky and capture lightning in a jar and have a magic community pop up, but don’t plan on it. That has more to do with luck then anything else.
What you need to be focusing on is having the best product, service and support. Ensure that you’ve got a clear message of who you are and what you do. Then find the people out there who are in the space you want to be in. Perhaps your competition already has a thriving community. Maybe you are looking to target a social group of people who are your perfect demographic.
Then be sure you listen! Listen to what both your fans and your haters are saying about you. With tools such as Technorati Watchlists and Google News Alerts, you have no excuse not to be up to date on what is being said about you online. But, don’t just listen to what they are saying, talk back to them as well.
Go out to the blog that is talking about you and join in the comments. Even if it is a simple thank you type of note for them writing about you, it shows them that you are paying attention, and that goes a long way. If it is something negative, then get involved but don’t pick a fight. Open, honest conversations are always better then a dragged out fight for no reason. You want to turn these people into advocates rather then making them angrier. You won’t always be able to do this, but you never know, so try.
Community is a strange and wonderful thing. Just like a small town as it grows into a city, as your community grows so can the growing pains. Just be aware of them and don’t just watch, but be part of the solutions.
What are you doing to build your community right now? What problems are you facing? What advice could you use?
I couldn’t just do the standard “hello world” that we’ve all seen a million times. But, at the same time I had to put something up here to welcome you to the new site.
When Entrepreneur first approached me about doing this, they asked me what I was passionate about. We talked about a variety of things, but we kept coming back to community. They even joked that I could be the Mr. Rogers of social media around this neighborhood. We got a good laugh out of that since all I could say was that I don’t look good in cardigans.
I want to talk about things focusing on the community of social media. I hope to do interviews with people in the space that I think you should know more about. I also want to make sure to highlight when someone is leveraging and building the community wisely and of course speak my mind when I find someone who is not doing it that well.
Of course I want to make sure you the reader gets something out of this as well, so please let me know if there are topics you would like to see covered by leaving a comment here on the blog.
I promise a real, true post shortly. I just wanted to say hello world first. *grin*
