#MySMCStory: Social Media Club Boston

I have been involved in some form with the Social Media Club Boston Chapter since its founding in 2006, and remain so to this day, currently serving as a member of the board. This year, the parent organization is raising operational funds and asking people, past and present members and friends, to submit their stories with the “#MySMCStory” hashtag. Here’s mine.

Why is 2006 important? As much as there are great social media events, programs and professional successes with or without SMC, its establishment was one of the original beachheads in social media’s invasion of the communications disciplines. 2006 was a big year for me in that regard. Although I had been using social media extensively for about two years at the time of the first Boston Chapter gathering, getting something formal together was a big undertaking. Right around this time I also got involved in the very first PodCamp and first logged on to Twitter, but this is about Social Media Club.

Led by my then-colleague (at Topaz Partners) and friend Todd Van Hoosear along with others (I don;t want to leave people out, but Todd was definitely my entry point), Social Media Club Boston debuted with a large gathering that piggybacked on the presence of the Society for New Communications Research Symposium- another organization I have been supportive of since then.

The inaugural meeting is my “story” because it involved so many world’s within social media for me. The Boston contingent, including Todd, Steve Garfield, David Meerman Scott et al. Also there were folks who would later leave Boston, like Bryan Person (Austin) and Scott Monty (Detroit). Last, aside from a fellow school parent I have only come to know well recently, we’re two people who would hire me over the next few years. Yes, my professional life was more or less laid out for me that night. That’s my Social Media Club story. What’s yours?

Posted in social media | No Comments »

Social Media Top 5; Pinterest Copyright, PR Defined, More Infographic Atrocity

Pinterest and the Copyright Bogeyman

Pinterest has captured the hearts and minds of social media shiny-object navel-gazers. It’s great, it’s simple, it’s visual.. but back in January, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were copyright issues. Boy howdy were there. While I now wonder if the current hysteria over copyright protection on Pinterest is a bit overblown, it is worth considering for both individual and corporate users.

Individuals now worry about being sued, and even being responsible for legal fees incurred by Pinterest (according to their Terms of Service). Companies need to worry not only about inappropriate use of their trademarks in sharing images, but in being liable themselves (and being bigger targets for suits) even if they merely “repin” something a fan put on the site.

A bigger issue- will companies see Pinterest “pinning” as flattery, fans liking their things and even linking back to their sites and shops, or as a violation of their marks? There will be cases for both all over. The question for Pinterest is, will this scare off users? Not sure about that.

For now, the real force behind copyright issues seems to be photographers, who are historically aggressive over their online intellectual property rights- hence Flickr introducing Pinterest-disabling code. It will be interesting to see if this gets hotter or melts away.

Defining PR- Pinch Me, Am I Dreaming?

I have had a complicated relationship over my career with industry associations. Hence my ambivalence towards the entire process of trying to define public relations. The attempt to “crowdsource”  a new definition for the industry skirted the fine line between listening and letting the inmates run the asylum. Further, it’s not really clear it was an open process more than it was a “mad-libs” exercise, as some friends have described it. Whatever the faults or favors, here is the new, unveiled definition:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

I am…whelmed. It’s vague, pretty, and hopeful. Everything a guy could want in a sweetheart. To be honest, I’m not sure PR needs a definition. We need to do better work to prevent being defined by our worst actors: the apologists for ethical villains, the liars and loudmouths. I’m not going to knock this definition, but I’m not celebrating in the streets either. Back to work, people.

Zynga Tries to Show it Can Breathe without Facebook Life Support 

I hate Farmville, and all Zynga games are prohibited from loitering on my Facebook lawn (dagnabit), but I thought it was refreshing to see Zynga launch its own independent platform. The doubters that didn’t see a long-term value in a Facebook-bound platform (or any company dependent on a third party platform for sustenance) are right. And investors should be happy that Zynga has been smart enough to realize it. I’m assuming this has been in their thinking for a long time. So, here’s to long-term thinking.

Infographic Naughtiness: I Think You Meant “Exhausting”

With all due respect to my friends at Hubspot, who do a lot of great things, this infographic made me cry. Forget whether or not this is truly an “exhaustive history of marketing,” I’m not going to get into factual accuracy or point of view. As a visual, is this comprehensible? Do you get the entire thesis at a glance? Are the minute details optional, or better yet, elsewhere? This is the sort of indigestible infographic that makes it rain dead kittens even on a sunny day. I sized it to fit on this page, just to the right. Tell me what you think:

Grammar Nit of the Week

Saw someone use the phrase “good common sense.” I could only think, “what’s bad common sense?” What would that look lke? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

Image credit: “babau” by skesis on Flickr

Posted in rant, social media, Social Media Top 5 | 1 Comment »

Focus Panel : Discussion on Content Marketing

I’m always tickled to be included among smart people on a panel to discuss social media, communications, and other issues. Earlier this month, I was honored to be included in the following group for an online panel on Content Marketing moderated by Steve Farnsworth of Jolt Social Media and hosted by Focus.com:

Joining me were:

•  John McTigue EVP, Co-owner , Kuno Creative; and
• Joe Pulizzi Founder , Content Marketing Institute

You can hear the audio (approx. 1 hour) from the panel at the archive page, or play it directly from this link:

https://www.hidefcorporate.com/wav/rec/30/conf50230_11323448.mp3

Rather than try to recap the conversation, I did want to pull out some of the more interesting bits we covered. If you have any comments, feel free to leave them here or at the archive page.

• When starting a content marketing program- what are your content assets?
• Create expectations with your content by being consistent
• Write in a way that’s engaging without sacrificing the marketing goals of your content
• Think about metrics in terms of program tracking but also in terms of what the C-suite wants (and needs) to hear
• Think about where talent comes from for content marketing programs- perhaps not from the marketing and PR industries, but from traditional content creating roles like journalism
• Topics I never touch on (like marketing automation) were brought up, underscoring the need for PR, Marketing and other communications departments to be aligned in content marketing efforts
• The shrinking world of effective free tools for managing online content, with some input from the audience to tools they use. (I have been hearing a lot about Crowdbooster lately, for example)
• Ways to get contact from reluctant executives, such as Q&As and short videos
• Whom and how many to follow on your social media accounts (and how much does that matter)? Relevancy and reciprocation matter
• I was surprised and pleased to note the panel’s collective attitudes towards infographics (think “visual” not “infographic” as there are so many bad ones out there) and Klout as an influence measure (no thanks)
• Plus: I got to throw in two of my favorite themes:
• “No message control” in social media is a myth
• “Data lies, trends don’t”
• “Make me scroll, I’m gonna troll” (re: infographics)

I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic as well

Photo Credit: yourdoku on Flickr

Posted in social media | No Comments »

Deleted Posts? Lemur-Burgers? Kneejerk Responses Make Social Media Marketers Look Like Idiots

I am a huge fan of pointing out mistakes social media marketers make, not to show up people who may be acting poorly or simply showing bad form (heavens!). More to the point, we should call out “worst practices” lest people think such things are OK and get the actors to answer questions about the questionable (sometimes the answers are pretty good). All considered, we ought to like to learn from and teach each other.

On the other hand, I note that there is a rush to judgment at times. We’re all guilty about it. In the scramble to write up a “lessons learned” post (can we please find another way to say that?), we take what scant info we bothered to half-read and offer our categorical condemnation.

What’s the motivation? Being the first to “thought-leader” the issue? Bragging rights for being a smarty? When did we need online proof to go swaggering and boasting? Bah humbug. Let’s put the journalistic skills most of us never learned to good use.

Komen

The  case of the Susan G. Komen Fondation’s controversy about pulling funds from Planned Parenthood is a week old already as I type this, but it’s still worth talking about. Kneejerk reaction abound, obviously in the political (or was it?) reactions to the Komen Foundation’s actions, and the subsequent retraction (or was it?). even on the facts of the story it’s not easy to pass correct judgment.

More to my point, there was a reaction to the perceived deleting of comments and posts on the Facebook wall of Nancy Brinker, head of the Komen Foundation. I heard complaints, many from friends, that posts were disappearing. When I went to the page, I found the posts in question easily; the default view on Brinker’s wall showed her posts only, but a simple click on the “Everyone” tab showed the missing posts (see screenshots for what I mean).

Does this mean no posts were deleted? I have no way of knowing that, and some friends still insist there were. But the fact remains that hundreds (OK I didn’t count) of critical posts remain on the wall, among less-frequent calls of support and posts by Sprinker et al. Our gut often tells us to expect the worst, even if we disagree- but in this case, many people forgot a simple function of the Facebook wall, which is frankly embarrassing. My biggest fear is that social media keynoters start loading this up into their “These Companies Don’t Get It” presentation decks without checking all the facts.

McDonald’s

Another recent episode was McDonald’s who paid for a “Promoted Trend” on Twitter called “McD’s Stories.” Anyone could tell you such a big brand would attract trolls and haters, especially as not everyone is a fan of fast food. I’ll call myself out here, as I initially knee-jerked some statements that I thought McDonald’s screwed up. I quickly was corrected (for the record, by some friends and colleagues who were screaming about the Komen deletions); more importantly, was reminded that a big brand will always get the haters (I see this every day), but that does not mean the bad posts are the norm (but face it, we love to see fantastic stories about people finding lemur paws in their Big Macs*)

Also, we tend to judge these situations without talking to the principals involved- in this case, a problem alleviated by Realtime Report with this interview of McDonald’s Rick Wion. In fact, those of us who blog, speak or otherwise opine about these situations often do so without really knowing what went on behind the scenes- I have seen enough people do these far-from-complete “this company doesn’t get it” case studies that I hope I don’t ever do such a thing myself (we’ll see about that).

For Pete’s sake- take a breath before popping off about something. Maybe run out for a sack of lemur-burger’s from McD’s. I’ll try to do the same (no promises).

*I made that up

Photo credit: wallygrom on Flickr

Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

PR Doesn’t Need To Be Objective – Just Ethical

There has been a lot of talk, much of it oblique, about public relations and objectivity- or the lack of it. Much of the most recent talk has stemmed from an active effort to relieve the long-time ban on corporate and agency PR agent participation in wikipedia edits, leading to a Facebook group started by Phil Gomes with much active participation from both sides. A fascinating discussion that I have been honored to be a (very) small part of and more so to simply watch it take place. Perhaps it will lead to some practical conclusions and changes.

At part of the heart of the Wikipedia matter is the notion that public relations people are not, by profession, objective, and therefore cannot be trusted to act ethically. Aside from that being a rather fantastic conclusion (lack of ethics) to draw from what is really a more mundane fact (lack of objectivity), I have always found the line of thought puzzling.

I was reminded again of this topic thanks to a discussion with CustomScoop’s Jen Zingsheim during my regular guest stint on the Media Bullseye Roundtable podcast. At the center was a post by Richard Bailey on objectivity and neutrality. Referencing the Wikipedia fight, he goes on to make a broader appeal to forgive PR’s lack of neutrality on the grounds that PR can still be objective.

I understand that thinking, if you define objectivity as the presentation of facts that cannot be denied. Certainly this is at the heart of the Wikipedia struggle- the ability of partisans who hold first-hand knowledge to be able to correct simple factual errors. However, I think we should take a step back and say: why apologize for not being neutral, for being biased?

The fact is, even journalists, as objective or neutral (I have a harder time than Bailey distinguishing between these two terms) as they try to be, always have a point of view. It can’t be helped. It behooves the audience to know what they can about the author, editor, contributor, correspondent or publisher and make determinations about the trustworthiness of content by considering the source and adjusting to that.

Public relations? No need to be neutral, objective or whatever you want to label it. PR is partisan. Ethical is good enough.

Photo Credit: joelogon (Flickr)

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Why Aren’t We Experimenting More?

If you bother to check out my blog regularly (thank you), you’ll notice a couple of odd posts recently. The first was in some ways an accident. Being a smartass, I decided to react to some random subscriptions to both of my Posterous blogs with a post telling people not to subscribe there. There’s no point. Of course, my hope was that some people would subscribe anyway, despite the complete lack of any benefit- in fact, the explicit promise of no benefit at all. Why? Because it would amuse me. What surprised me was that the post all of a sudden showed up in my RSS feed; for this blog. I forgot I had set up automatic cross-posting, but was reminded of my penchant for experimentation.

The more recent post was a Storify experiment that I decided to demonstrate live in front of colleagues as an easy way to post to your blog. By George, it was in fact quite easy!

I feel that someone doing social media for a living should experiment. Often. Most of us who do this (come on, admit it) have blogs and other social media channels that are not meant to be polished business honey pots, but are repositories for our thoughts which are brilliant at best, a strange hash of trails at most times, and only a failure when it lies empty. Too many of us either do very little in social media because we either don’t want to be public (there are ways around that), or feel too much pressure to make our blogs look professional all the time, because, damn it, we are potential book authors or professionals.

Are either of you types of folks kidding? This is the place to experiment, to go out and  figure out the possibilities of tools and of raw content. What types of posts/topics/titles/words/calls to action, for example, get people to respond to your blog over other types? We should be doing more, not less, shouldn’t we? Why are some of us polishing our blogs into tepidity (though I do understand that some folks are in business for themselves and use them to show their polished, professional sides), and others letting their blogs and other channels lie empty?

Empty, you say? In 2011, I published about half as often here (42 posts) as I did in 2010 (85 posts). That disappoints me.

My publishing on this blog has been less frequent for a number of reasons:

• Work keeps me busy. Though I absolutely hate the “I don’t work on my personal brand because I’m doing billable client work” excuse- it is true from a “note enough hours in the day” standpoint.
• My most interesting thoughts are too closely attached to current client work, and there’s no way I’m going to reveal the inner workings of things, especially when that would require permission (and might better reside on the Voce Nation blog anyway)
• I write for other blogs (primarily Voce Nation), but not really that much. That’s pretty weak.
• I can’t write the same opinions about the same social media topics as everyone else. That’s kind of weak too, but I do get topic fatigue and have no desire to be a “me too” social media marketing blogger any more.
• I can’t write the abstract “advice” or “state of mind” posts about strategy and how to live your life or think or blog or whatever. At this stage in my life they come off as the blatherings of someone trying be sound smart or inspirational, rather than actually just being smart (and it looks like that in all the other blogs I read- is that mean? Too bad). Also, admit it; the title of this blog post made you throw up in your mouth.
• I took part more voraciously in private discussion groups rather than publishing longer, more one-sided screeds like this.

So, why not more experimentation on this blog rather than feeling a need to be controversial, relevant, brilliant, or topical every time out, or failing to do so because I don’t want to tread water in my writing?

Why not indeed. Far from a promise to do things, it’s a thought I would like to follow up on. I may need a few more kickses in the pantses.

Or should I just pile on and write about whatever, like I used to? Feel free to yell at me in comments. 2012 is a new year.

Photo Credit: Mavis (Flickr)

Posted in rant, social media | 1 Comment »

TEST POST I’m the Mayor of Voce’s Winter Haven Office

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Don’t subscribe to my Posterous

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Social Media: From Status to Stories, We’re Entering a Whole New World of Shiny

I am newly tempted to rename this blog “The Long View” because I find it painful to see people get whiplash as they turn to see the new shiny objects of social media whip by. I wonder if I get tagged as an angry nerd (ok, I have) for not being too quick to embrace the latest and greatest. The truth is, I am aways suspicious of new platforms being declared “The Next XXX ” before it has had a chance to mature a little and give users enough chance to figure out how the platform is going to work for them. Google Plus has been a prime example, making some folks giddy before most people – especially businesses – we’re able to use it, a direct before it was even complete. Not that I don’t think it will make a huge impact, but if the train is leaving the station, say, in eight months, don’t line us up on the platform today.

I have seen several tools vying for “next big thing” status lately, but rather than fitting these for crowns, I see them – and others – fitting into a larger trend, whether they succeed or not.

Pinterest: Wowie-wow-wow has Pinterest gotten a lot of buzz lately. It’s very compelling in that it provides a simple visual way to organize links, visuals, products, or other items. You can see my first Pinboard here (photos of my son playing sports) and there have been several wonderful examples of organizations and companies putting up some nice Pinterest pages; the most recent I caught was the Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market in New York City. Many of my friends are caught up in and addicted to various Pinterest pages. Frustratingly, many more can’t interact with Pinboards the way they ought, as Pinterest is an ivite-only beta product. That will pass, but it shows how quickly people will jump on a bandwagon – before it has all its wheels. The question is for brands is, is this something good they can’t already build easily on their existing websites and blogs? It’s worth asking.

Path: this was presented to me as a new way to separate your closer group of friends from the rabble on Facebook. But can’t you tier friends online, Facebook? Certainly you can using Circles on Google Plus. Also, it focuses on “journaling,” to my main point buried below. Yet, Path gains users, so it’s worth watching.

Instagram: As an Android user, this one mystifies me. How can an iPhone/iPad only app be haied as a next big thing? Love Apple all you want, but that app environment hardly constitutes Everyone. Sure, my making fun of Instagram photos as people purposely denigrating their photography to resemble 40-year-old Polaroids is probably missing the point. Also, the Android problem will be solved shortly. I’ll be eager to see what the fuss is about, as that fuss seems to be centered on the interactions among the network of photo sharers.

Storify: This one seems to be more of a slam-dunk. The ability to curate other sources easily and assemble them into a story is attractive. If you can insert that into your own platform, into your own site or blog, all the better. Makes sense, it’s just a matter of how many people or companies catch on.

Overall, what I do see? Storytelling is the new focus of social media apps. We see this in Facebook’s new Timeline. We saw it in Gowalla attempt to differentiate as a location-based service before it got sold. We saw it in the much-hyped Color (is that one still happening?). Social tools are moving beyond status updates, what we are doing, and towards telling stories, filling get in the gaps of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we want to do. My main question is, did social network users ask for this? As for the overall community, I’m not sure. Facebook seems to have forced Timeline on us rather than asking. This change to “stories” rather than “status” is far from complete, but has been openly attempted numerous times. It’s where we’re going right now, like it or not.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Finding Influencers and Collecting Data? Tools Help, But It’s Nothing Without Hard Work

Cross-posted from Voce Nation

Recently, I had a discussion with a local (Boston) technology professional about finding influencers via social media. Additionally, I constantly have discussions with clients, colleagues and peers about measurement. Why mention these two facts together? These two topics have a lot more in common than they might seem to on the surface, at least when it comes to the practical applications in social media programs.

Photo by Martijn vdS on Flickr

First, both “influence” and measurement come with a variety of tools designed to help us find and analyze. These tools, whether they be Klout, PeerIndex or Traackr on the influence side, or Radian6, Sysomos, Spredfast and any number of tools on the monitoring/metrics/analytics side, all have their plusses. They all have their minuses too. Are they too unsophisticated or broad, too complicated to use, missing pieces, too expensive, lacking tech support? There’s always something.

Which tool a given program uses isn’t all that important, it turns out. However, let’s assume that having some tools to help you harvest information is necessary. The reality is that most social media professionals have to have at least some familiarity with a variety of the tools, as different clients, or even departments within a company (probably a separate discussion there), use different tools.

OK- we have established that we need tools, but we are limited. That sounds like a nightmare, no?

Well, yes and no. I believe it’s healthy to believe that the “magic bullet” tool that finds the best influencers for any specific program, or covers all your metrics needs, will never exist. It’s also healthy to believe that just about any tool, despite any public criticism, will help you in some way.

Great; so what?  

Even as these tools become simultaneously more sophisticated and easier to use (good luck with that) the need for what I like to call spade work does not go away. The spade work is divided into two categories:

• Figuring out what to ignore: Good tools mine everything. That’s almost as bad as having nothing, as a large chunk of the work in analyzing info is figuring out what not to include. How do you sort for the things that only affect your goals? How do you find people who are not merely “influential,” but are specifically relevant to your program? How do you filter monitoring data only for the things you need to see- and how do you determine which metrics are the one you need to see? Great tools filter further. Klout does offer some categories of influence, for example, and most monitoring tools allow you to tweak and adjust search terms. However no matter how good or great the tool manual sorting is necessary; not just due to a lack of complete trust in tools (Klout categories, to keep using that example, can yield some head-scratching results, such as the marketing expert who was, hilariously, deemed to be influential about “sheep”), but because every program, every campaign- and every data source- is unique
• Goals: Actually that should be first, but I’m being counter-intuitive. I was also tempted to write “Program goals” to distinguish from campaign oriented goals, but it is important to find influencers for and measure campaigns as well as the ongoing program. As hinted at in the previous paragraph, your goals determine which of the endless metrics and influencer types you need to focus on, to the exclusion of all else that lacks relevance, beyond the limited extent of any tools.
• Analysis: The value any social media professional brings to a program is in the analysis- I don’t mean sifting and sorting data, as anyone can learn to do with the tools, but in figuring out what it all means. At the beginning, it’s applying thought to the types of influencers that matter and what criteria count most. In the end, it’s applying meaning to the program data. For example, what does that decline in Facebook Page comments mean? Why were there fewer clicks to the Website from Twitter vs Facebook? How did a surge in blog publishing frequency this month affect subscriber numbers- or even product sales?

Tools are necessary. But making them worthwhile is hard work. Anyone who thinks differently is not using them (or their social media team’s brainpower) to their full capabilities.

Posted in Public Relations, social media | 1 Comment »