Social Media Club

#SMCQ16 On Measuring Influence

Deborah Crooks — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:43:10 +0000

Earlier this week, the SMC Editorial Board posed the question “How do you measure influencers and/or influential social media platforms?” having wondered aloud which combination of measurement and know-how equaled influence. As the community response demonstrated, influence is equal parts quantitative and qualitative. From ‘listening platforms’ such as Radian6, eCairn and ScoutLabs which track and calculate conversation volume, page rank, comments and frequency as well as a host of other data garnered from Sales Force and CRM tools, to good old intuition, influence is subject to the eye of the beholder. Some notes from the online response field:

“I look for the number of followers and the number of participants who add comments. Equally important is the quality of the content and the comments. They should be well-written, intelligent, supported by references to sources, focus on the positive, succinct, and not reflect a strongly biased opinion.” — James O’Connor, Owner, Clutter Control, O’Connor Communications,

“So effective, efficient messages are key. Regularly is another. Transparent, non-promotional communications essential. Self-effacing humor is nice. But the most important aspect is just to be a part of the conversation and thought stream. One person with one comment at the exact right moment in time who we never hear from again can be a profound influencer.” —How Do You Measure Influencers,” by Bob Stewart,

@the_sophist: #SMCQ16 The act of measuriing influence, influences. Especially in the state of social consciousness. u can’t measure u can only approximate

Suggested Reading:

“How to Measure Influence Online,” Mashable, by Micah Baldwin, March 2, 2009

“Do You Know Jack About Social Media Measurement,” MetricsMan, June 15, 2009

“Is PageRank the Ultimate Measure of Online Influence?” Nine By Blue, October 8, 2008

“Social Media Metrics Superlist,” Interactive Insights Group, by Robin Broitman, February 2nd, 2009

The SMC Editorial Board will be reviewing the responses and talking more about measuring influence, this Friday 10am PST on BlogTalk Radio Social Media Club. We welcome your participation.

#SMCQ16 How do you measure influence?

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:55:25 +0000

Metrics, popularity, comment counts, network buzz or simple word-of-mouth credibility? There are a huge number of factors that go into determining the influence of a blogger or online platform, but how can you tell who or what truly influences both individual and community behavior. What does true influence even mean? On this week’s Social Media Question of the Week call, our Editorial board discussed how we rank influence in an ever-more-vocal online environment. When do you listen and when do you tune out a blogger’s opinion or other online source of information? How do you choose and rate your sources? We want to know:

#SMCQ16 How do you measure social media influencers and/or influential online communities?

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

#SMCQ15 On truth-finding

Deborah Crooks — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:56:34 +0000

This week’s SMCQ15: How do you know who to trust within the social media environment? was especially pertinent given the dramatic impact Social Media had amidst the election and protests in Iran. The online conversation and direct responses we received pointed out the need for self responsibility and incorporating a journalistic standard for fact checking.

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

Some notes from the online conversation:

“Is Twitter The CNN Of The New Media Generation?,” by Brian Solis, TechCrunch, June 17, 2009

“Fact checking is a vital part of the news business and is ultimately what separates amateurs from experts. But researching fact from hearsay or even opinion is almost impossible on Twitter for most users. Keen believed that citizen media is corrupting the very institution of news media because most of the individuals publishing information using social tools, he argues in his book, are “grossly misinformed.” While Morris didn’t make the sweeping assertion that Keen expressed, his point is noteworthy and deserves further examination”

“How Not To Be A Social Media Sucker (aka who to trust online),” by Kimberly Turner, Regator, June 25, 2009

“You can guarantee fast or you can guarantee accurate, but you can’t guarantee both. We want things instantly. If a plane landed in the Hudson 30 seconds ago, we want details NOW. Fair enough. But remember, the faster you get your news, the less likely it is to have undergone a fact-checking process. Monthly magazines, for example, often have teams of fact-checkers who verify everything from the spellings of names to the color of a source’s hair if it’s mentioned. This is because monthly publications work several weeks out. There is time for due diligence.”

Iran + Twitter = Trust, But Don’t Verify, by Farel Chideya, The Huffington Post

“So, how do you verify? Well… some people say, just… don’t. It’s a cul-de-sac you can go around again and again. I am not saying don’t follow Twitter (again, that would be useless). I do want to follow Twitter, on #IranElections and all else. What I don’t want to do is give up the idea of verifying information.”

“How Do You Know What Tweets are True? Exactly the Same Way You Source Everything Else” by Sarah Delman, Corporate Memo

“Social media isn’t some separate sphere: it’s similar, in fact, to all other source building. If you don’t know who to trust, online or off, then you’re not doing your job. It’s what reporters do: they figure out who to trust before they need to. You should have built social media sources beforehand in exactly the same way you build offline sources.”

“Twitter and Social Media in Iran,” By Anthony Caruana, Hydrapinion, June 24, 2009

“solely relying on Twitter where particularly poignant or inflammatory Tweets are heavily retweeted doesn’t equate with accuracy.”

Highlights from The Twitter Stream:

@rustytanton There’s nothing in the question to imply that mainstream media or what you hear on the street is superior in any way

@dwiggins: How different from other sources? Same question. Most folks think answers found on Google correct! Info literacy a core need here.

@znmeb posted twice on the question: I don’t think “social media” are any different regarding trust than any other communication channel”
and, noting need for self responsibility, @znmeb: #SMCQ15 fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me

@ baurecom: nowadays you can’t really trust anybody. You have to thoroughly check the validity of the source b4 you broadcast it.

Further Reading

Twitter on the Barricades: Six Lessons Learned, by Naomi Cohen, New York Times, June 20, 2009

“Crisis Communications Online: Social Media Usage during a Crisis with Leysia Palen,” by Eric Schwartzman, On the Record, June 4, 2009

“Thumbs To The News: Public Turns To Twitter,” by Wendy Kaufman, NPR, April 20, 2009

“Finding Truth on the Internet,” Wired, by Louise Witt, September 4, 2004

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday, June 26 @ 10am PST as the Social Media Club Editorial Board reviews the conversation. We welcome your input.

A new social media song and music video by Pete Codella

Pete Codella, APR — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:14:20 +0000

A couple months ago, as I was returning home after presenting at a social media conference in Las Vegas, I had an idea: what if I took a fun, popular song and changed the words to tell a story about social media?

My idea came to reality with the help of my wife and some great friends these past few weeks.

I debuted my new social media music video, Crazy Little Thing the Web, today at a presentation I gave in Denver for the America’s Blood Centers annual conference.

The reason I choose this outlet is because it brings some of my musical theater training into my practice as a digital public relations counselor and practitioner. It combines something fun and creative with the world of social media and communication.

Other Applications

Are there ways your company or organization can utilize multimedia sharing sites like YouTube to tell your message in a new, engaging and creative way?

If so, what will be the end result? In other words, why would you want to tell something in a different way?

Are you looking for greater awareness, for more members, to sell products?

Perhaps an indirect, creative message — one that demonstrates your expertise without a blatant sales pitch — will produce increased engagement and enhance your communication efforts. At least it’ll show you’re creative and willing to step out and do something different.

We all know the definition of insanity: repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.

Challenge

Social Media Club: what do you bring to the table? How have you engaged constituents in new and creative ways? What will you be known for? What makes you unique and different from everyone else?

Enjoy Crazy Little Thing the Web

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor with this new entree into the world of songs about social media.

Please feel free to take this new social media song and share it, tweak it, edit it, revise it, improve upon it, etc.

It’s all about the creative process and collectively creating something better than the sum of its parts.

Published on the Codella Marketing YouTube channel on June 24, 2009.

#SMCQ15 Who to trust? Verifying social media information

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:30:26 +0000

Receiving retweeted information that doesn’t have a clear source, mail from hijacked email accounts and coming across yet another poorly fact-checked blog post represent the down side of the instant information age. How does one determine the accuracy of information found online? And how do you verify sources to ensure that you’re getting the truth, be it business, personal or political? During last Friday’s Question of the Week call, the Social Media Club Editorial Board discussed the conundrum of finding the most accurate sources of news amid a vast ocean of information. Now we want to hear from you. We welcome your thoughts on this week’s question:

#SMCQ15 How do you know who to trust within the social media environment?

Please tag your response, posts and tweets #SMCQ15.

The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem

David Libby — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:23:52 +0000

It’s an interactive evening at the Social Media Club, San Francisco / Silicon Valley, at Citizen Space. HP alum Ravit Lichtenberg of Ustrategy ignited the event presenting before dozens of the social media digerati on “The Corporate Social Media Ecosystem.”

“What are you?,” she asks. An expert, agency, first timer? Now, let’s get started. Companies have become collaborative with multiple customers, and those customers are interacting with other customers. One to one marketing from company to customer is a thing of the past.

The social media corporate ecosystem has also changed. What used to be a discrete relationship between companies and their customers; companies and their partners, has become a much more pliable system. Corporations now count on customers to inform other customers, and often partner with startups—not just established companies. The corporation, customer and partner are all together having a ‘conversation.’ Corporations want to create relationships; customers want the interaction; and start-ups want the money. The “glue” between them all is marketing, business development, and capabilities.

Recap: What is social media again? The desktop solutions (and previous web apps) have changed the conversation – and people are overwhelmed. The focus used to be on the customers as eyeballs, but now those same customers have a face, an actual “voice that’s being heard.”

Over 60 percent of Americans regularly use social media (RWW/Cone research from Compete.com). Ninety-three percent of consumers believe a company should have a presence on social media sites. According to Forrester Research, people are open to most social tools from brand they like. Online discussion forums are on the rise, so are online videos while blogs and podcasts are coming down in popularity.

“Corporations care about social media!,” Ravit stresses. Cisco, Google, HP, Intel, Pepsico, Microsoft, eBay, and others are marking budget for social media, and making it part of their products, online and off-line.

The “gold standard” for social media use is marketing and collaboration – offline integration with online. And, brands are trying to get that right. HP spends 50 percent of its budget on marketing, and brands who use social media spend 10-25 percent of their marketing dollars.

“Lots of money being spent on social media and some are getting it right…” Remember how Burger King asked you to sacrifice your friends? Burger King got 20,000 people to each sacrifice 10 of their friends for a total of 200,000 people engaging with the brand. Procter & Gamble’s “BeingGirl” is a location for what it’s like to be a young girl. And, then those girls go to the store for the first time and, it’s a Procter & Gamble product they’re looking at first, of course.

But, most brands don’t get it… More than 50 percent of brand campaigns fail. Worst ad campaigns were HP Pay Per Post, Subway, Walmart Across America, as outlined at SXSW this year (SXSW blog and Forrester Research). These brands were unable to articulate and show ROI.

Startups know there’s a need. Facebook created a global need. Yammer’s another good example. Some succeed and others don’t. Some are generic or too customized, can’t get a handle on the business model, don’t share consistency or dependability, need integration and a quality interaction, need to show better understanding of customer benefits, and have to reach the right decision makers.

“So now what?”

Each player in the ecosystem cares about different things. How to measure ROI, what tools are best, how to get IT’s buy in, are the old ways best? Customers want to know what they get out of all of this: What do I get, why should I spend time here, will I have control over privacy? Start-up / partners are asking will we get a deal, will we beat our competition, are we creating a need to fill?

To turn the corporation social…

They need to move from “selling to caring!” Focus on relationships, get to know the customers, go to where the customers are, develop meaningful communication, make it easy for them, give tools to the advocates, reward the enthusiasts, turn boring into excitement, enlist the right subject matter experts, and bring on board the right solutions.

And, of course, corporations must have a STRATEGY!

Agree on the business objectives, understand customers’ objectives, identify the relevant channels, establish relevant metrics, have right people on board, align with ongoing marketing strategy, prioritize, develop a plan, identify the right tools, then…IMPLEMENT!

AND NOW (DRUM ROLL)

Ravit mobilizes the audience with an exercise. We’ve got to develop a strategy that we can take to a corporation. We break into groups and start to work..

Here’s what Ravit’s tasked us to do…

1.    Choose a sector: technology, financial, or retail
2.    Identity a product you’re passionate about
3.    Identify a set of customer needs
a.    What’s important to these customers?
b.    Where do these customers spend time?
c.    How do they like to get information?
d.    What do they like to talk about? With whom?
4.    Identify corporate objectives
a.    What does the corporation want to achieve?
b.    Determine the decision maker in the organization
c.    They’re looking for a solution…what’s important to them?
5.    Envision a social media strategy
6.    Propose it to the organization

To see the rest of the photos from this event, please check our Flickr album.

Ravit’s perspective?

I wanted people to leave with two key takeaways. First, that Social Media is about much more than getting on facebook, twitter, or having a blog. Just like traditional marketing, for Social Media efforts to succeed, it needs to be treated as strategy with objectives, metrics, and implementation plan. Second, for a Social Media strategy to succeed, it needs to speak to the corporate ecosystem and to the needs of each of the ecosystem players. Without this holistic perspective, any Social Media initiative will face significant barriers to success.

I greatly enjoyed seeing how people took to these concepts and worked together to create Social Media strategies. We went from a strategy for a local bank focused on small business lending, to a Social Media strategy for the Flip camera, to cloud storage, to turning the boring Dr. Scholl insoles to a sexy Executive-in-Hills campaign. It’s not hard…but it does require a shift in the way people think of Social Media. With sessions like the ones the Social Media Club organizes we are getting closer by the day.

RE: SMCQ14 Dumbing Down or Getting Smart?

Deborah Crooks — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:40:54 +0000

“Now along comes Twitter, which totally reduces our collective thought leadership to 140 characters or less and in doing so, belittles and minimizes every big thought into a punch line or social limerick. It’s premature articulation if you ask me and it’s very unsatisfying.” — Joseph Jaffe, “Blogging is Dying, Twitter is to Blame,”

In this week’s question, the editorial board asked “What are the consequences of exposure to a constant high-volume stream of info?”#SMCQ14

A quick tour of the blogosphere (I picked up one actual book this week, a novel, which give you a hint of how much information I get online), revealed many pundits, theories and postulations on how hyperconnectivity may be damaging our ability to pay attention as much as it opens up a door of infinite knowledge. We’ll be summarizing the comments we received, but in the meantime, here are some notes from the field:

“I learned that instant feedback from the web had caused me to change the “voice” of my writing. Over time I had learned how to post messages and content that maximized chances of “retweets” “blog postings” , blah, blah, blah.Instead of saying what I believed - I was writing based on what I thought the audience wanted. The result was a “dumbing down” of my messages. And, a lack of authenticity.“ —Doug Hall, “Why Instant Feedback on the Internet Can be Bad,” Communty Marketing Blog

“In the digital age, with its overabundance of information, the modern newsweekly is in a particularly poignant position. Designed nearly a century ago to be all things to all people, it Chaplin-esquely tries to straddle thousands of rapidly fragmenting micro-niches, a mainframe in an iTouch world. The audience it was created to serve—middlebrow; curious, but not too curious; engaged, but only to a point—no longer exists.”—Michael Hirschorn, “The Newsweekly’s Last Stand,” The Atlantic

“Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires—the constant switching and pivoting—energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on. ” —by Walter Kirn, “The Autumn of Multitaskers,” The Atlantic

“The sheer volume of information which many of us are exposed to every day may actually impair our performance and add stress to our lives.” Data Smog (thanks @matt_klein)

Have thoughts to share on the subject? Please add your comments or tune into BlogTalkRadio this Friday @ 10am PST.

#SMCQ14

SMCLA Panel Recap: Improve Your Search Engine Optimization Using Social Media

geoffbrown — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:57:49 +0000

Combine a panel of SEO experts and a roomful of Social Media Club Los Angeles members and what do you get?

A mountain of amazing tips and tricks to immediately apply to your own website’s inbound marketing strategy
25 of the top SEO tools and links used by proven experts who have multiple top ranking sites for keywords
Tactics to use if you want to get to the front page of Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit
How to research Google keywords and apply them to create the highest ranking blog posts with maximum SEO
And so much more…

: SEO Cat Wantz Yer Link Juis

The panelists included (listed by order of personal page rank):

Sean Percival (PR5): Sean Percival is an online content producer from Los Angeles, California. For work Sean is the Director of Content for Tsavo, for play the founder of lalawag.
Jeffrey Henderson (PR4): Jeff is an Internet entrepreneur and founder/CEO of Adept Marketing Concepts, a firm offering SEO, reputation management, website design, domaining and sales outsourcing.
Tony Adam (PR3): works for Yahoo! as an SEO Manager for it’s Audience Marketing group. His “About Tony Adam” page is worth visiting.
Barbara Boser (PR3):Barbara Boser is a “Social media consultant, wife, mom, marketer.”

Moderating her final SMCLA event as club director/founder was Jackie Peters: founding partner of Heavy Bag Media, a communication strategy firm based in Los Angeles.

What are some of the myths surrounding SEO and social media?

Barbara: SEO and Social Media are not one in the same. They absolutely do not equal each other.
Tony: There is no secret sauce. There is no one trick. It’s a holistic process.
Jeffrey: Search is constant traffic. Spikes occur from Social Media. Search is where they find you, SM is where they hear about you.
Sean: A big misconception is that you need to be ranked #1. You can still get a lot of traffic by ranking anywhere on the first page. Google is using a “freshness” rule to see who continually hits the keyword. Social Media is not a replacement for search. Search will always be #1 driver.

How important are social bookmarking sites to your SEO strategy?

Barbara: The goal is to get your content picked up and passed along via shared links. Driving comments and bookmarks to your site gives your page “authority”. It feeds upon itself with scrapers and reposters.
Tony: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit are not for ALL of your content. Be selective and have a strategy.
Jeffrey: Digg/Reddit-write a sensational headline. Use IM to ask people for Diggs and be sure to build out a good network of Digg friends (using social media, in-life events, good old fashioned friendships). Be authentic or else you’ll get trashed.

Are there certain social bookmarking sites for certain content?

Sean: The female demographic stuff will not make it to Digg. There’s actually a female-targeted social bookmarking site called Kirtsy for that. Reddit is the “smart” version of Digg and focuses more political and analytical. StumbleUpon is for your aunt who has an AOL address and sends you random sites.
Jackie: StumbleUpon delivers the largest spikes for her sites.
Sean: StumbleUpon may deliver traffic, but it’s all NoFollow links, so don’t expect to get any authority along with your traffic spikes. Digg is for male sites & new sites (Monolith content hits Digg homepage 2-3 times a week). StumbleUpon is basically for random, unfocused, one-off posts.
Jeffrey: StumbleUpon is the gift that keeps on giving…very long tail for traffic with random spikes

What is link juice (and why does it make me feel so dirty) ?

Tony: Described the history of Page Ranking and how things have evolved from HTML Meta tagging to # of linkbacks (inbound links from other sites to yours), and how things are now evolving into needing to do all of the on-page SEO stuff but also having a strategy to get to the front of Digg so that you get picked up by authority passing sites like TechCrunch or Read Write Web to give you the bump you really need. That passed “authority” is basically what “link juice refers to”. Think of it as a vote from one site to another…only not all votes are created equal.
Sean: The more inbound links to your site the better. There is a new emphasis on relevancy and freshness. Google will add more emphasis to a relevant backlink. Anchor text needs to be varied or else it raises flags (so be careful if you send out specific HTML for people to include in their posts)
Barbara: Backlinking relevance is very important. For example, if you’re an automotive site, a backlink from a site with high relevance to toys (but no relevance to automotive) is not really worth much

Top SEO Tips

Sean: For relevance, use the tilde character (”~”) before a search term on Google to perform a search. The resulting page will show you synonyms to the term you’re looking at in bold. For example, if you’re searching for “wave”, you’d type “~wave” and the results page would show terms like “surf, ocean, beach” in bold and bring back those results as well.
Sean: See the backlinks to your site using the Google search box. Type “link:yoursite.com” to see who links to your site. You can filter it down to the page if you’d like. (Ex: http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Asocialmediaclub.la Hey! How come we don’t have more?)
Barbara: Tip: Know who the groups are who push things to the front page. Look at posts that go to the front quickly and see who the usernames are who are pushing these things forward. It’s kind of an insider community, but see what you can do to get into it or to figure out how to do something similar with a group of your own.
Sean: There is an art to writing a post for your blog/site that is positioned well to capitalize on trends, but also relates the trend itself to the subject of your site. Trends can be a very powerful tool to grabbing traffic (and subsequently authority and ranking).
Tony: .GOV and .EDU sites pass more backlink authority than regular sites. Consider engaging a university on a project, donation, sponsorship to get your logo with a high authority backlink to your site as a tactic to increase page ranking
Barbara: Don’t be greedy with only internal links. Link outward and you’ll get some reciprocal links from friendly people. Play in a “safe neighborhood” by linking to other sites with relevance. Writing a post on a trending topic can get good inbound links with authority, but spin it so it’s relevant to your keywords.

15 Useful SEO Tools

Trellian SEO Toolkit: includes everything you need to optimize and promote your web pages, to increase your web site traffic and search engine visibility.
StumbleUpon Toolbar”>StumbleUpon Toolbar (Firefox): discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.
Instant Messaging: To communicate to people that it’s time to spread the link love and get busy with the social bookmarking, tweeting and re-tweeting.
Majestic SEO is a company that offers a service for SEO that Barbara recommends for competitive link intelligence.
SEO Toolbar by SEOBook.com: The SEO Toolbar pulls in many useful marketing data points to make it easy get a holistic view of the competitive landscape of a market directly in the search results.
Yahoo Site Explorer: Use this tool to see who is linking to you. Or, better yet, use it to see who is linking to your competitors! Pages here are listed by rank, so pay close attention to those that show up first and learn from them.
Del.icio.us Toolbar (Firefox): Quick and easy access to save sites into your del.icio.us social bookmarking stream.
Digg.com/tools/firefox”>Digg Toolbar (Firefox)
Google Keyword Tool: type in a keyword and get back tons of information about volume of searches, trends related to that term, local and global data about that keyword and synonymous words.
Google Keyword Search-Related Keyword Tool: similar to the keyword tool, but adds what Google thinks is related based on search patterns
SEO Quake (Firefox or IE): allows user to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly.
Google Webmaster Tools: a one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
WordTracker: a must have resource for any search engine marketing professional. It combines both a respectable search term database with tools that make mining the information easy.
Google AdWords: Once you have an account, you have access to key information about keywords, the cost of keywords, related keywords and more…
Google Trends: understanding trends and predicting user behavior is more than half the battle when it comes to creating compelling content that gets picked up.

10 Useful Sites for SEOs of All Levels

Search Engine Land: Search Engine Land is the industry’s leading online publication for the latest search news, research and anaylsis, commentary and expert advice. Led by search authorities Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman, an experienced editorial staff and wide range of contributors produce the most comprehensive coverage in the industry.
SEOMoz: SEOmoz serves as a hub for search marketers worldwide, providing education, tools, resources and paid services to help every SEO to be the best they can be.
Alltop’s SEO Page: Alltop aggregates RSS headlines from all of the top search engine optimization news and headlines from across the web.
Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) Blog: Matt is the head of Google Webspam and provides an inside view on Google’s search engine. This is his personal page, and isn’t primarily focused on SEO, but if you dig a bit you’ll get some good info.
Google’s YouTube Videos for Webmasters: This is the official YouTube channel for Google Webmaster Central, your one-stop shop for webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions, introduce you to offerings that can enhance and increase traffic to your site, and connect you with your visitors.
SEOChat: Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - SEO Chat
SEOBook: SEO Book.com is a leading SEO blog by Aaron Wall covering the search space. It offers marketing tips, search analysis, and whatever random rants come to mind.
Sphinn: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.
Brent Csutoras
10e20: 10e20, LLC is THE Global Internet Marketing & Web Solutions Company® dedicated to helping small and mid-size companies meet and exceed their Internet marketing goals. Each day we strive to deliver a strong return on your investment.

Q&A from SMCLA Crowd

Question: “I have a client with 300 company acquisitions (each has a website in a relatively similar and relevant field)…should their sites link to each other?

Sean: There is an extreme power in having a network of sites. Be careful going overboard on it and use “no follow” with some moderation to keep the quality of cross-pollination high. For highly advanced users, people use different IP blocks, data centers, load blanceers, etc… to really randomize the source of authority building links. The more random the source, the less likely it is that Google will nerf them.

Are there any strategies that apply to image galleries?

Jeffrey: You definitely want to use filenames that are “human readable”. A picture with a filename of “best-golf-clubs.jpg” is a LOT better than “1234.jpg”.
Sean: ALT tags are important too. Since search engine bots can’t see your picture, make sure that the picture has machine readable tags to describe what the picture depicts.
Sean: I once saw a massive spike from a post I did with a picture of Megan Fox. It was a perfect confluence of filename, alt tag, page title, etc…coupled with an extremely popular female celebrity.
Tony: That brings up a great point: “universal search” (searching across images, videos, text, and other media) does have a vast reach. Be sure to populate your content across sites like Flickr and YouTube to take advantage of those search sites as well.

What about measuring the success and results of your SEO efforts? Tools?

Jeffrey: To measure success, you must have good baseline stats and well defined goals for what you want to achieve. This could be anything from just traffic stats to very specific conversion goals like opt-in email list joins, ad banner clicks, or filling out a survey. Define your goals, and have a strategy for what your site is supposed to do and then use the tools to measure your conversion rates. Use Google Webmaster Tools, Website Analytics, Rank Checker, Excel
Sean: Tons of ranking tools are available. Google has a bunch of “ranking tools”. I use custom Excel sheets in-house to track these things (example: weekly Google positioning for specific keywords). I track growth based on ranking on certain terms and # of pages indexed as a metric. Google Webmaster Tools has “diagnostics” for your site that provide most of these metrics.
Barbara: Look at analytics - 90% bounce rate is bad. Do your research on the topic and find competitors who rank higher. See if you can make changes to switch up your bounce rate so your site is stickier.

More Tools: SEO Goal Conversion & Ranking Measurement

Web Position: WebPosition® 4 offers all of the tools necessary to improve your web site’s search engine rankings and increase revenue. WebPosition 4 now includes a summary dashboard, trend graphs, essential off-site metrics (link popularity and search engine saturation reporting) and 200+ new search engines.
Rank Checker by SEOBook (Firefox):Want to know where your website ranks in the search results? Our Firefox Rank Checker extension allows you to easily check your website rankings in Google (US and international), Yahoo, and Microsoft Live search.
Web CEO: Complete SEO Toolkit offering a whole suite of features and services all centered around optimizing your site for search.
SEO Tools on SEO Moz: The SEOmoz toolset includes over twenty SEO tools designed to help with every aspect of search engine optimization, including on-page targeting, site crawlability, competitive analysis, rank checking and keyword difficulty.
Google Analytics Goal Tracking & Funnels: Google Analytics offers a number of conversion measurement tools to help you define and assess whether or not you’re accomplishing your goals with your website.

Ways to optimize your content to rank within the social networks.

Sean: Include the social network badges to encourage social sharing. I recommend that you don’t go overboard with the badges because people develop a blind spot to a noisy area of logos/icons. Choose the ones you want to target (ex: Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter). I especially like TweetMeme buttons to encourage Re-tweeting of content.
Jeffrey: WordPress is your friend here. There are so many plugins you can use to faciliate the optimization around your content. I use All in One SEO and Google XML Sitemap Generator to name a few.
Barbara: Get on those Instant Messaging channels and get your network of friends to boost you up. Ask for favors saying, “can you Digg this?” or Ccan you please tweet about this or post it into your Facebook wall?”. That groundswell of popularity and passed link sharing is worth its weight in gold.

This was such a great panel and we’d like to thank everyone who assisted with the event. Special thanks goes out to Jackie Peters for her year of service to the club as a founder and a director. We’d also like to thank our sponsors: Rubicon Project and EasyTweets for making it all possible. Congrats to our 4 winners on their fully licensed copies of EasyTweets!

Go get you some.

SMCQ14 Media overload? Consequences of the stream

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:00:13 +0000

At the same time social media has created a wealth of opportunities to create, consume, interact and react to information, the diversity of media can be staggering as quantity and immediacy often overshadow quality. The Social Media Editorial board discussed how this ‘web of now’ is trumping deeper context and how exposure to a constant stream of information may be shaping our behavior for better or for worse.

We’d love to hear how you are making meaning in an increasingly shallow media landscape. What have we lost, if anything, and what are we gaining? Do you have any strategies for negotiating media overload? We’d love your comments on our 14th Question of the week:

SMCQ14 What are the consequences of exposure to a constant, high-volume stream of media and information?

How to join the Social Media Clubs Question of the Week discussion: Our goal with the Question of the Week initiative is to create a truly collaborative conversation within and around the most up-to-the-minute issues affecting Social Media. Each week, the Social Media Club editorial board looks at trends, topics and news affecting social media during a Blogtalk Radio broadcast. During the call, the editorial board forms the question. This is where YOU come in: we’d love for you to post your thoughts on your blog, via Twitter or by commenting on the Social Media Club site. Please tag your blogs and posts with a hash tag, ‘#’, so we can track the conversation. For example, if you wrote a response to Social Media Club Question of the Week 13, please tag your post ‘#SMCQ13’ and we’ll be able to find it, track back, and link the post to the original post. Your answers will all be included in the weekly Conversation post & Blogtalk Radio broadcast review of the answers we received. We also invite you to call in to the shows to share your viewpoint. Instructions about how to call in will be given on this site by the end of each week. Thanks for joining the club!

Conversation SCMQ13: Social or Socialism

Deborah Crooks — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:51:34 +0000

“When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it’s not unreasonable to call that socialism.” — “The New Socialism,” by Kevin Kelly, Wired.

This article prompted much conversation when it was published in May, which led the editorial board to this week’s question. However, when we asked point-blank whether Social Media was indeed the new Socialism, most SMC readers noted more differences than true parallels:

“It isn’t the new socialism. If anything, it’s the new expression of liberty — commented Allen Taylor on our blog.

“I think that politics of the internet are - and have always been - closer to pure Anarchism than anything else. Socialism is mandatory, and based on coercion. Therefore, the analogy to the Net instantly falls apart.” —Alex

“Socialism’s hallmark is government control of industry and other aspects of society. Our government would have to be in control of our activities and dictate them to some extent. In fact, social media’s ability to connect people for collaboration outside of the reach of government’s tentacles makes social media anti-socialist,” —Shaine Mata

@keeling: true socialism has never existed (all of the communist states have had a ruling elite), so maybe it’s the first

@matt_j_kendall: “With no allegiance to state or market, could it b a 3rd way? ”

And some posed that it perhaps wasn’t completely relevant to even bring political labels into the conversation:

“If my research showed me anything, it’s that the word itself—no matter how accurate or inaccurate—is too charged to be of much use to us in this context.” — Kimberly Turner wrote on Regator. Kimberly also conducted a slew of research tagged on Delicious that you may want to read. We’ll be fielding calls to further discuss Social-or-Socialism, this Saturday, June 13, 10am PST on BlogTalk Radio. We invite you to listen, and call in, and share your thoughts.

Social Media Club SFSV: Sonoma Bound on July 11, 2009!

Chris Heuer — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 03:10:09 +0000

Come join the Social Media Club for their FIRST ever wine adventure!

We know you’ve been slaving away all year, so isn’t it time to kick back and relax a little? We thought so too, so we got together with Barbara Drady (@WineEvangelist) from Affairs of the Vine to put together a Social Media Club road trip to Sonoma wine country!

Here are the details:

July 11 - we’ll meet up at the Presido Bowl Parking lot in the Presidio, San Francisco, board the bus and leave at 9:30 AM sharp.
First stop is Keller Estate Winery. We’ll have a tour of the winery, a guided tasting and a light lunch provided by the winery.
Next is Baletto Vineyards for a guided tasting and also enjoy some cheese and snacks with Dutton-Goldfield’s wines in their shared tasting room.
We’ll wind up the tour at Owl Ridge, where we will taste more wonderful wines, learn about wine blending and blend our own bottle to take home.

After the blending party, it’s back on the bus to San Francisco. We are expecting to be back in the city by approximately 5:30 PM.

The cost of this event is $65.00, and there are only 40 spots available. Tickets will be on sale until July 10 at 5 PM - assuming they don’t sell out. Book your tickets today to avoid being left out! http://sfsvjul09.eventbrite.com

Want to Join the Question of the Week Editorial Board?

Deborah Crooks — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:56:55 +0000

Love, appreciate and use Social Media for both work and personal use as well as talking and blogging about it? Interested in trends affecting the social media industry? Want to help shape the Social Media Club Question of the Week initiative? We’re looking for a few new members to round out our Editorial Board and that could be you.
Launched at SXSW ‘09, the goal of the Social Media Club Question of the Week is to create a hub of conversation for best practices regarding New & Social Media around the globe. As you’ll see if you visit the SMCQ Archive, the blog features links to board and reader posts, comments, polls, presentations and Tweets in response to the questions we pose each week. The goal is to create a real-time archive of the discourse surrounding new media as it evolves. SMC Editorial Board members participate in a weekly call and are strongly encouraged to do research and post on topic during the week. If you’re interested in being considered, please write deborah@socialmediaclub.org and include information about your participation in social media thus far, links to your sites and any questions you may have.

Social Media Camp #IWNY Wrap-Up

Chris Heuer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:38:54 +0000

Social Media Club’s Social Media Camp was a great success thanks to the over 120 people who participated! Social media Camp was held in the Roger Smith hotel last Thursday, June 4 2009 during Internet Week New York. The camp had over two dozen sessions throughout an eight hour day, with well known social media professionals, small business folks, professionals and corporate communications teams learning from and teaching each other. There has been some great feedback from those who attended and a good amount of sharing from the people at the camp too.

Some of the comments on Twitter

VegasBill @pepsico The info packed sessions @ #smcamp 4 #iwny look amazing. @ChrisHeuer is a dynamic social media role model. Have a great time:)
stevecherches RT @MellieBe: Check out our top social media marketing tips from Social Media Camp#smcamp http://tinyurl.com/l7dqm3 (Great post)
deanmeistr @danzarella bummed I couldn’t do graphic recording of your talk at #smcamp - I dig the concepts/content of your talk–maybe next time!
LesBlatt Smart idea seen at #smcamp yesterday: some attendees put their Twitter names on their conf name badges. Made it easy to follow them.
chttrbx99 please retweet - Thanks to @howardgr & @chrisheuer for a great day at #smcamp NYC yesterday some great conversations
SocialSteve @chrisheurer and @howardgr did a great job on #smcamp (Social Media Camp) at #iwny. Check them out at socialmeadiacamp.org
Amver @chrisheuer Not only did I find #smcamp valuable I would love to join SMC. Hopefully our paths will cross again.
SocialSteve Last week’s participation in #smcamp (Social Media Camp) and #iwny (Internet Week NY) has spawned tons of activity.
craige @chrisheuer et al: Thanks for a fabulous event! I feel so inspired after attending #smcamp.

Differing slightly from a typical BarCamp, Social Media Camp not only offered open space for participants to create their day together, but also a “Social Media 101″ series planned out in advance to allow for those who are new to Social Media to learn some of the basics. These sessions were all streamed live and are available as an on demand episode from Livestream, a partner for Social Media Camp. This 5 session series was lead by Howard Greenstein and myself, Chris Heuer. The links below take you to the blog post about each session, along with the SlideShare presentations used during each session.

: Image by deanmeyersnet via Flickr

Dean Meyers did some great visual notes, capturing the concepts and resources from the Social Media 101 Sessions. It was a lot of fun. More importantly, it seems we help many and created more questions in a few, so overall a success, but definitely just the beginning of the conversation and the process of learning how to use social media. The complete schedule for the day from the Open Space sessions is available on the blog.

Some of the other topics that were discussed were power of suggestion on Twitter, basics of strategy in social media marketing for businesses, social media tools, measurability, and marketing through social media. One session in particular struck a lot of conversation. Social Media Marketing triggered thoughts upon building relationships with the market, the importance of trust in marketing/branding and how companies are using social media to market their businesses products and services.

“Companies in general don’t value social media marketing as much as they should. They’re afraid of it; they don’t understand it; and therefore, they just don’t do it. Yet it’s the most cost-efficient way of marketing there is.” - Ayelet Noff, Blonde 2.0.

Many different tools and tactics were taught, then they were put into play. One of the most compelling part of the sessions was the group involvement and peer to peer knowledge exchange. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and were not scared to interact with one another. Among the ideas and information exchanged, relationships were built.

“I just love social media and Web 2.0…. I really want to thank the Social Media Club folks for having such a great event: Howard Greenstein, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells…. The last session was really interesting. The topic was retweets on Twitter. Dan Zarrella from Hubspot crunched some numbers that gave a bit of insight on how people are behaving on Twitter.” - Regina, Volunteer at SMCamp

Well, we love doing it too, and Howard and Kristie and I are blessed to be able to do this sort of work and so happy to help people.

Other blog posts and photos from the event are below, please share yours in the comments:

Social Media Camp Photos:

#SMCQ13 Is social media the new socialism?

Deborah Crooks — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:23:38 +0000

“Just like the ant-communist Red Scares of the early part of the century, Republicans today are throwing about ’socialism’ as the great ‘Blue Scare,’” noted Chris Heuer, during the Social Media Club Editorial Board’s weekly discussion.
The comment was inspired by one of the more compelling surveys of Social Media published in the most recent issue of Wired, called “The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online,” by Kevin Kelly, May 22, 2009. Given the heavy baggage that the term holds, we wonder if such a tag will help or hinder all that social media has to offer society. That said, if Social Media — with its distributed power, collaborative, communal aspects — isn’t socialism, what is it? And if it is the new socialism, how do we leave the worst of socialism’s reputation behind?

So we’re curious to know how you answer this weeks Question of the Week:

#SMCQ13 Is social media the new socialism?

We welcome your comments, posts & tweets. Tag: #SMCQ13

Conversation 12: Empowering the workforce with social media

Deborah Crooks — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:18:00 +0000

Last week, the board asked for examples of companies using social media to empower its workforce. While it’s ever more common for companies to fold social media marketing tools into their customer communications kit, how transparent the workplace is in terms of its use of Social Media by employees is a little stickier. A survey of the blogosphere yielded some opinions of whose making it work…and where in-house social media runs into issues:

Setting Limits

JacksonMG: @socialmediaclub internal train. for individ, corp strategy to define limitations, get employees excited FIRST so they will join in. #smcq12

“Employee Involvement: An Unreachable Utopia?” by
Kieron Shaw, portrays the often unspoken fear about full internal use
of social media, with some solutions from the business world: ‘WAKE-UP, CEO: Your employees expect to tell you how to run the business’

“”It’s a matter of degree,” says Monika Stafford, head of group
internal communication for LloydsTSB. “In terms of shaping the company
strategy, there have to be clear limits and specific focus around who
gets involved on what. But, equally, if you’re involving everyone in
what goes on the canteen menu, it would be a waste of everybody’s time.
So structure and limitations are essential.”

In Practice:

Sales: “Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales: Fast Facts” by Nicki Jameson

“While smaller business focus their social media efforts outwards,
according to Aberdeen’s research [Aberdeen Group Report on Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration], larger companies are first of all
focusing inwards, on the (internal) collaborative power of social
media. What’s constant is that it is driven by the business challenges.Thus, obtaining more leads doesn’t necessarily translate to having
10,000 “followers” on Twitter, or 5,00 “Friends” on Facebook (if at all
they are on Facebook), rather, it may in fact begin with understanding
the customer’s unique challenges then meeting them, then connecting
with more customers through collaboration tools with a shared outcome.”

Engineering:

“Should Engineers be Social or Not?” By Jim Cahil “I believe engineers, on their plant intranet networks, outside the firewalls and DMZ,
which separates this network from the plant’s control network, should
have access to these social media applications…I also believe there is benefit in experience sharing with some
of these social media applications like wikis, blogs, and microblogs
hosted internally, inside the firewall, but also not connected to the
control network….My thoughts in summary… keep that pressure on the IT folks to
open up the plant networks to social media applications, but not the
plant control networks.”

Doing Social Media Right:

Mari Smith opined in an interview on “Most Valuable Tweeps” that many companies are getting it right, with online shoe store Zappos leading the pack: “Zappos is among my top pick for social media role models. CEO, Tony Hsieh, has a wonderful attitude and culture that empowers his entire workforce to utilize Twitter with the simple directive of a) be authentic and b) use your best judgment. Zappos’ use of social media helps augment their exemplary customer experience, which is at the very heart of their brand.Other brands I give the two thumbs up to are Ford’s @ScottMonty and Comcast’s Frank Eliason @ComcastCares.”

SMCNYC Meeting on ROI for Social Media 6/17/09

Howard Greenstein — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:40:15 +0000

Title: SMC New York
Location: PR Newswire, 350 Hudson, NYC
Link out: Click here
Description: Social Media Return on Investment
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-06-17
End Time: 20:30

Social Media’s Return On Investment - When will we get buy-in?

On June 17^th, members of the Social Media Club of NYC will take on the thorny question of how and when companies and brands are going to monetize their investment in Social Media.

Our meeting will be guided by the insights of presenters Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer, comScore, Inc. and David Binkowski, Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at MS&L.

Binkowski will weigh in from the practitioners POV, and Chasin from the analytical.

We’ll explore the most current definitions and metrics. Look forward to a lively discussion on adapting current standards (driving targeted traffic) and making a case for new ones (level of audience engagement).

The evening event will be moderated by Donald Schwartz, Technology Writer Imagelink Productions & Technology Coordinator for Fast Company.com.

Agenda:

6:00-6:30 Registration and Networking

6:30-6:45 Welcome and introductions

6:45-7:00 Open discussion: members pressing Social Media questions

7:00-7:45 Featured presentation: When and How the Buy-In Will Come for Social Media’s Return On Investment with Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer, comScore, Inc. and David Binkowski, Director of Word of Mouth Marketing at MS&L

7:45-8:00 Wrap: Closing thoughts from members. Suggested new social media tools from club members. Upcoming event announcements. Then networking

Registration required for entry to the building. Photo ID may be required to enter the building.

Special Acknowledgement: The Social Media Club of New York City wishes to express their gratitude to PR Newswire for their support of this meeting.

NOTE: This event will be recorded. By purchasing a ticket or attending, you agree to be captured via video, audio, and photo. All media will be released under a (CC)Attribute-Non-commercial-share-Alike license.

Snacks, Drinks, Wine and Beer will be served.

Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change

Chris Heuer — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:47:56 +0000

This is a can’t miss interview with some of the best insights on what is happening in the world right now and why this is perhaps one of the most important times to be alive. I met Toby Moores (aka sleepydog ) at Amplified 09 Cambridge in May and knew right away we were kindred spirits. In this interview he shows why, teaching me a thing or two, and you too! Hear more about how the economic crisis, the shift in management focus from efficiency to innovation and the rise of social media as an amplifier are colliding to create a perfect storm of change… This is 7 minutes well spent!

Toby Moores on the Perfect Storm for Change from Social Media Club on Vimeo.

It takes all of us…

Chris Heuer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:58:19 +0000

According to Ghandi, In order to bring about the change we all desire in the world, “we must be the change we want to see.” Each individual, acting on their own accord can create change, and we can do so one person, one moment at a time, but to create the change we really need, it takes all of us, working together.

Should we wait till everyone is ready? of course not, we need to start now and be persistent in order to create a real crescendo of change that will rise up over time. But we also need to better understand the conditions necessary and our responsibilities in the greater scheme of things.

As the infamous airline safety line goes, “put on your oxygen mask first before assisting others.” This is so true and so deep it is hard to really comprehend the nuanced subtlety that lies beneath the surface. I learned this the hard way, and indeed am still learning it through our work withSocial Media Club. Far too often I ignore this important advice, sacrificing myself and my time for others and it leaves me without the all important oxygen (and dollars) needed to stay energized, positive and secure.

But what it is really saying is that we are all responsible for taking care of ourselves so that we may then assist others. IMHO it implies that we are not only responsible for ourselves, but also for one another. Sometimes by taking care of ourselves, we are taking care of others. Sometimes we need help ourselves and can’t help others, but this doesnt abdicate the need for being responsible for taking actions that will help ourselves and hopefully others too.

This is perhaps the biggest ideological schism between the Republican and Democratic parties. Though I think the modern Democratic party is more aware of the fact that this is not an either/or proposition but an AND proposition. We are responsible for ourselves, and being supportive of others is actually to our own benefit as well. It is one of the reasons I switched from the Republican party to being an independent some time ago.

My mother, who had Cerebral Palsy, taught me this when I was young in a positive lift yourself up sort of way and when I was older in the negative, helpless go through life as an alcholoic sort of way. She was an incredible woman and its hard to write these words without crying, thinking about what a beautiful soul she was and how tragic the end of her life was. Its really hard to lift yourself up when you FEEL depressed, hurt, ignored, worthless, helpless and/or disadvantaged. Changing your state of mind is not as easy as changing clothes, or perhaps it is, but it takes a lot of practice and a lot more awareness then most people have in their lives. But it is what is required of us, of all of us.

Striking the right balance between serving people by helping them and not teaching them a learned helplessness is really tough. There are many wonderful people with great intentions out there helping those who need real help, and I am grateful for it - and indeed as a child, we benefitted from their generosity. I am writing this from my direct experience as much as my ideological view of the world. The help provided should be accompanied by a helping hand to lead people in the direction of finding their personal responsibility within the broader community.

In my mind, BarCamp is the pinnacle of the Do It Yourself (DIY) culture (and for us geekier folks, Maker Faire too). It’s a space where everyone is responsible for creating their own good experience (the law of two feet) and where everyone is responsible for contributing to the good experience of others (all participants are encouraged to contribute as much if not more then they take). A while back, I had been proposing we create a DIO culture (do it ourselves) which was more of a community focused variant on the theme, which better encapsultates my thinking on this subject.

Now more then ever I am convinced that it takes all of us, responsible for ourselves, considering the welfare of the community, seeking out long term prosperity over short term profits and moving beyond the grasp of our own egoic minds and our current conditions. The human spirit is infinite in its potential regardless of its physical constraints and conditions. Not just on the spiritual level, but on an emotional level, a physical level and even a financial level.

We just need to be willing to give up our dreams of our life path being an easy one and embrace the fact that we will have to overcome obstacles, most especially our own internal demons. For if we all make a commitment to doing the work necessary on ourselves first and then our communities, we can certainly create the change we seek in the world. But, it takes all of us to change the world, we have to do this together.

As Chevy Chase said long ago, “be the ball“…

SMCQ12 How are companies using social media to empower their workforce

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:29:04 +0000

Last week, the SMC Editorial board focused on how to best provide education toward preparing for the workplace of the future. This week, we realized, much of that future workplace is happening NOW. And many companies, comprised of employees representing several different generations of the education system, are slow to embrace (or are simply having a hard time getting their arms around) social media tools. At the same time some companies are stymied by fear of the new, weariness about getting too much information or concern that the use of social media at work will cut into productivity, others can’t imagine a desktop without several browser tabs opened displaying common social media URLs. Is there a sweet spot for using social media at work? If so, we’d love for you to share your tips. Which leads to our Social Media Question of the week #12:

#SMCQ12 Find examples of how organizations are empowering their workforce with [using] social media?

Please tag your posts, Tweets & comments #SMCQ12. On Friday, the board will reconvene to review your responses.

SMCQ11 Preparing for the workplace of the future

Deborah Crooks — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:33:22 +0000

SMC members and readers had far ranging responses to the topic of educating toward a future workplace we can only begin to imagine. From teamwork to new media tools, online training to new models of socializing youth, its clearly a topic ripe for discussion and innovation. One common denominator among our respondents: a need to listen to the student as much as instruct.

Notes from the field:

On what we need to to:

“What do we need to teach kids? How to solve problems, work in teams, and access information to succeed. At present, that’s not what schools teach.” — Francine Hardaway

“…the real question is to ask how can we get the younger generation to teach educators and businesses about using social media” — Peter Williams

julesac: @davepeck Sometimes I wonder if we will educate them or they will educate us. I think it will be a 2 way street of enlightenment.

kim_hollenshead: I think we need to help the younger generation understand the importance of connections and networking in social media outlets

“We need to shift managerial thinking from a “sage on the stage” mentality to a “guide on the side” where we actively learn from our newest employees and find ways to incorporate their communication styles and approaches into “older” ways of thinking.” — Amy Smith

“Only by identifying what products and services will be in demand in the future, can we anticipate the type of goods that will need to be produced and the type of employee that will be needed to supply businesses who will produce things to meet society’s needs going forward. — David Ligon , http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/

What some are already doing:

“At Laguna Playhouse, I use college interns and empower them with the responsibility of monitoring and updating all of our social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Myspace, etc), so they have first hand experience of how to incorporate social media into the workplace.” — Christopher Trela

“Has anyone heard of Skoodat? It’s a brand new application using Salesforce.com and their software which will allow schools to provide leadership training to staff and monitor individual students skill sets before stepping foot in the classroom.” — Jessica Murray

More than one Twitter respondent pointed out a recent post on Business Week by Jim Goodnight and Keith Krueger that took a deeper look at the issue as well as government involvement and support:

“Why Obama Can’t Ignore Education Tech“ Business Week, 12/25/2008

“School technology investments enable 21st-century learning and provide our current and future workforce with the tools they need to compete and succeed in our globally integrated world. To accomplish this goal, Obama’s reported $850 billion Economic Recovery Plan should include two critical components: 1. Investments in school technology and broadband; and 2. Investments in home-to-school technology targeted at low-income families. Specifically, the federal stimulus package should cover expenses for schools to install or upgrade Internet connections to broadband; hire technical and instructional technology support; and purchase or upgrade hardware, software, and services.”

Noded! The Way We Work

Chris Heuer — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:31:52 +0000

This is an interview with Jaan Orvet from Noded about his book and the model behind their Noded business network. Rather than working in hierarchically driven organizations or in a distributed team, Jaan and his colleagues each work as nodes within a trusted network. Each are free to bring work in, turn work down or do what they want. In looking at preparing students for the modern workforce this week with our Social Media Club Question of the Week, I thought it important to take a look at this modern way of working. #SMCQ11

This model is very similar to what I have been doing with AdHocnium, except they have no central entity at the heart of the organization. This is small pieces, barely joined (except by trust) as opposed to our approach of pieces loosely joined. (small semantical difference, but important).

Please check them out, and check out the book if you are interested in working the Noded lifestyle too! Social Media Club members can buy the e-book for only $15.

Social Media Coverage Opportunity in Amsterdam

Luis Sandoval — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:30:24 +0000

I am curently seeking two online content creators (blogging, video, audio, photo) to cover an event in Amsterdam. Locals only, and two tickets are provided for two people to cover the event utilizing as many coverage tools as possible to include:

interviews with panelists
photos of the event and the expo
live blogging
video coverage of as much as possible

Not requirements above need to be met, but candidates that can provide as many of those mentioned will be considered first.

The event is June 2nd, WiMAX Forum Global Congress 2009

Send your information HERE for consideration. Please include equipment you have to cover the event, availability, and links to blogs and other content you’ve created that highlight the work you’ve done.

How Can We Use Social Media To Foster Voter Education?

Kristie Wells — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:12:55 +0000

Educating yourself on the various initiatives hitting our ballots today can be a daunting task as you try and cut through the emotion and muddied language around each issue. The standard voting guides do a decent job trying to share the pros/cons of each initiative, but more times than not, I find myself asking people around me - in my online and offline network - what their opinions are, to help bring more light to what that initiative actually means TO ME and to those I care about most.

It begs the question - what else we can do with the technology of today to capture those conversations and help inform others asking the same questions?

Join California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, on Wednesday, May 27th at 7pm in San Francisco, CA for a brainstorming session where we dig into this topic in an effort to find new ways of engaging and informing voters using Social Media.

Contribute your thoughts ahead of time on socialvoter.org (use the form on the right sidebar to contribute), or you can tweet/blog your thoughts using the #socialvoter tag.

There is no fee to attend but they would like you to register so they know you are coming. Simply click ‘Attending‘ on the Facebook event. We plan to live stream the event for those who cannot participate in person. We will also be capturing some of the conversation on our SMC San Francisco Twitter account if you would like to follow along that way.

Agenda

45 minutes - Feed the Wall and Feed the Participants. Get some nosh and write ideas on sticky notes on the wall
5 minutes - Introduction with Debra Bowen
60 minutes - Open moderated discussion
10 minutes - Debra Bowen response
30 minutes - Debra Bowen and group - how can we citizens help make these ideas real?

I am happy Social Media Club can play an active role in government 2.0 discussions. Earlier this month, our San Antonio chapter was asked to participate in covering the mayoral race using the Social Media tools at hand. There are several programs in the works, locally and nationally, where we will be extending this dialogue - so stay tuned!

SMCQ11: How do we educate the younger generation to prepare for the modern workforce?

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:08:32 +0000

Not so long ago, Social Media didn’t register as a factor in the professional world. Fast forward to today, and social media has become a valid sector of the communications industry. Marketing, business and how we interact across and within our various personal and professional communities have undergone a huge overhaul, but whether education is keeping up is subject to debate. The Social Media Club editorial board convened last week to mull the current educational landscape for social media. How would you go about developing a curriculum to teach social media business and communications practices? And given that the field is so recent, who is qualified to teach and mentor students? Do you have any ideas on how to educate our youth? We gladly welcome your thoughts, creativity and considerations on this weeks question:

#SMCQ11 How do we educate the younger generation to be ready for the modern workforce?

Please tag your comments, posts and Tweets on the matter as #SMCQ11 and stay tuned for a report later in the week.

SMCQ10: Free content, friend or foe? The jury is out

Deborah Crooks — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:01:57 +0000

Last weeks question,

#SMCQ10 Is the EASE with which we are able to share content — be it music, words, pictures, etc. without payment — hurting creative industries or ultimately, helping advance society? By what measure does this matter? and the responses it generated, demonstrated that its simply too soon to tell whether we’re advancing or retreating. The new economy so to speak is very much in process, and we will either make the most of it culturally, or not.

Notes from our online respondents:

NotSoFreshPeel: FreshPeel: I believe it is hurting organizations that don’t know how to leverage this shift. But that’s all part of evolution.

hisisMojave: The web has cut out middlemen, same will happen with information. Info wants to be free. #SMCQ10

aolsen: Tech. advances promote innovation in any industry. Smart people adapt, and we are all better for it.

Forward thinking companies, like the initiative music site Reverbnation recently launched to give its artists access to a level of major brand relationships usually reserved for arena size acts, demonstrate a willingness to adapt:

“Traditionally the music business has been synonymous with the record business where the lion’s share of revenue came from selling music. With reduced emphasis on music sales, the music business must develop new revenue streams that leverage the artist as a brand,” Michael Doernberg, CEO of ReverbNation said in a statement on Thursday, in conjunction with the announcement. Increased access to content isn’t bad, thought it does force one to apply an equal amount of creativity to generating income.

Yes, industries based on traditional models are suffering, but many see this as an opportunity as much as it may look like a crisis. Bruce Houghton, owner of Skyline Music believes that culturally, this is not a bad thing. “… my greatest source of optimism for the music industry comes from the rising musical middle class - a middle class not just of artists who from Jill Sobule to Corey Smith and other artists are finding success on their own terms - but also of indie labels like Asthmatic Kitty, Park The Van, Suburban Home and ABB who are finding success by nurturing great music music and embracing music 2.0 instead of swimming against the rising tide. …Despite all of the real gloom and doom; the sky is not falling on the music industry. Gone are the helicopter rides from Cannes to Monaco for lunch; and MIDEM may have to start running buses from the train station instead of just from the airport. But this was always about the music. Some of us just let the money get in the way.” — Bruce Houghton, MidemNet Blog

Money used to be the incentive for some to get into a field. Those people aren’t lasting:

“ModernBuccaneer: Participants in an economy are motivated by incentives. Remove the incentives, and participants leave the industry. My opinion.

And power of ownership is yours to keep or give away, as SMC board member Kimberly Turner pointed out on her Regator Blog:

“If you’re a band who chooses to give away your album to draw more concert-goers or sell more merch, if you’re a writer who wants to give away one book in hopes that familiarizing the public with your work will help you push your other material, if you’re a playwright who chooses to allow works based on your work, if you’re a photographer participating in Creative Commons for credit (see photo by Dave Wild [publicenergy] above) to build your name or reputation. Those are all smart choices. But they’re CHOICES that you as the artist and creator of the content are making. Sharing is good until we forget that it’s optional.’ — Kimberly Turner

As we’re in an evolutionary state, whether we are advancing or regressing is not wholly discernible. Nonetheless, questioning how we are going about sharing our content is perhaps the best practice to ensure we do progress forward rather than backward. The trick is to steer the change in the direction of benefiting everyone equitably, which, IHO, is advancing society from one of extremes to one of moderation.

More responses to #SMCQ10:

kristiewells: @johnpwalker1: Free content IS benefical to greater community & think it will last as long as some1 pays some1 2 keep developing it. #smcq10

matthewray: @socialmediaclub Depends. Yes, we can find answers fast. But we may start relying on just answers vs actual learning #smcq10

The editorial board will be discussing the question more on Blogtalk Radio Friday, 10am pst. Tune in and join the conversation.

A Book Author Wonders How to Fight Piracy, Bits Blog, By Peter Wayner

ReverbNation To Indie Artists: We’ll Pay You To Give Away Your Music, Hyberbot Blog

Fair Play in the Music Industry, Billy Bragg

“SOLD” In 50 Hours using Social Media!

timmoore — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:20:42 +0000

IN 50 HOURS using Social Media? – What? How? Are You Kidding?

Is your home NOT selling? It’s no surprise that the majority would answer “yes” to all of those questions. One would have to be living literally under a rock down by the river not to realize that the economy has impacted a homeowner’s ability to sell ones home. It’s all about supply and demand. We have too much supply and not enough demand. Homes are staying on the market longer. People are being forced to re-locate as a result of losing jobs & of course the sad eventuality of some –having to foreclose on their home and even declare bankruptcy. Selling your home may seem impossible. Or is it?

Obviously, more is needed to supplement traditional selling in today’s changed market, world and economy. Just using traditional (“old”) ways of doing business are proving to be less and less effective and more is needed to reach targeted buyers. How? Well, that’s where my experience comes in. Selling my house this past week will hopefully help you expand your efforts using social elements and assist you in selling your property.

Read the full story with the details on how here.

With every good wish,

Tim Moore
Social Media Club Wilmington
@TimMoore

#SMCQ10 Free for all: Is easily available content advancing society?

Deborah Crooks — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:49:04 +0000

Our Social Media Club Editorial board convened this Saturday to discuss perhaps one of Social Media’s more sticky subjects: free content. To both our pleasure and consternation, music, news, film and other media is now readily available without payment, giving us increased access to almost any form of media we desire. However, at the same time that this move from paying for creative content, to creative content as value-add has been inspiring, entertaining, and often enlightening, it’s signaled a death toll for print media and ‘traditional’ music industry practices and called into question the viability of a true ‘creative class.’

What does this sea change mean for society at large? Our Social Media Question of the Week for YOU:

We welcome your response, posts and examples of how creatives and media outlets are weathering this sea change. Please tag your tweets, posts & responses #SMCQ10 We’ll review the results later this week.

SMCQ9: Network overload? No way

Deborah Crooks — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:41:29 +0000

Earlier in the week, we asked readers if they thought the accelerated use of Social Media for networking was changing our society for the better or worse. For all Social Media’s power to link us together, the board wondered it was reprogramming our brains or perhaps, leading us to operate on a shallower level. While all these possibiiites exist, our readers were far more inclined to believe that the wealth of new connections available was a boon for society:

Some highlights from our commentators:

“Social media for networking is changing the world for the better, for all kinds of reason… the social media medium clears the deck of many hurdles, including distance, race, gender, social “class”. .. It’s about what you have to say, less than the non-verbal baggage you bring with you.” —Catherine Novak

@enicholson: the more the merrier, I think. We are in a broadcast model now, soon it will need to splinter back into tribes

In a post “Human Nature and the Need for Connection“Alan Moore, author of Communities Dominate Brands. Business and Marketing Challenges for the 21st Century, looked at variety of data and found that “New research shows that human beings are simply far more intertwined and interdependent—physiologically as well as psychologically—than our cultural prejudices have allowed us to acknowledge,” and that social media is proving. “… we are evolving our world into one that more reflects human nature. This is a world that defies the logic of the industrial society. And reinterprets it as one that brings more meaning to our lives.”

So while Social Media both demonstrates the unruliness of human nature, it also reveals our capacity for deeper connects, business or otherwise, and allows fresh takes on old friendships.

As reader Howard Greenstein wrote, “I see many happy people connecting and reconnecting after long periods of time out of contact. Some of these connections are turning into friendships, or business relationships. Those are both positive for society.”

And lead to evermore possibility.

Stay tuned as the SMC editorial board reconvenes this week to ponder the next SMC Question of the Week. We’ll look forward to your feedback.

Online Community Unconference: SMC Member Discount

Grace DiLaura — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:37:22 +0000

The Online Community Unconference is a gathering of online community and social media practitioners - managers, strategists, developers, business people, tool providers, investors - to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities and social media. Those involved in online community development (and social software in general) share many common challenges: community management, tools, metrics and ROI, implementing new social media programs, business models, and legal issues. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information comes from open collaboration among smart and experienced online community and social media folks that attend our events. The Online Community Unconference is the biggest online community focused event that features a low-cost, high-value day of learning and collaborating on social media and community strategies and incredible networking opportunities.

The Online Community Unconference is inspired by the emerging “open space” conference format. (For an excellent description of our most recent unconference in New York, February 2009, see this Huffington Post article.

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is a unique venue with plenty of parking and WiFi. Lunch and tasty snacks will be provided, and the Museum exhibits will be open to the group during the breaks.

An extensive FAQ has been posted here: http://www.forumonenetworks.com/ocu_faq

For more event information, or information about sponsorship opportunities contact Bill Johnston: bjohnston@forumone.com.

Registration link: http://ocu2009-smc.eventbrite.com
Discount Code: socialmediaclub
Discount amount: $25 off

A tale of two brands

Pete Codella, APR — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:41:05 +0000

Here’s an example of how two different brands are using and not using social media.

Tale One

A few weeks ago, some good friends of ours stayed several nights at the Peery Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. They parked their car with the hotel’s valet service and found out the next night that their car was stolen from the valet lot.

From that unfortunate circumstance a series of poor customer service decisions forever turned our friends off to the Peery Hotel. And because of their experience, and what has been written about it (my blog post is only one example), now hundreds of people have a poor impression of how the Peery Hotel treated this unsuspecting car theft couple.

And still, weeks after the incident, after several emails and plenty of talk online about it, the hotel has yet to respond to any criticism or offer any kind of assistance to our friends.

Tale Two

After a blog post by Chris Brogan about Socialcast I decided to give it a test drive.

Someone from Socialcast responded to my tweet about trying their service within an hour or so, offering to help answer any questions and asking me to let them know what I think. I really like what I see, by the way.

Socialcast gets social media.

Of course, I’m comparing an historic hotel in downtown Salt Lake City to a new social media service company. Let’s hope the social media company gets social media.

But there remains a powerful opportunity for older, more established brands to utilize social media tools to at least monitor what’s being said online. If they don’t, they may find themselves in the middle of a reputation crisis among those who use social media (i.e., Amazon, Motrin, Domino’s) without even knowing the discussion is occurring.

What’s your take? Do you have examples of companies who have ignored social media to their peril? How about examples of companies that get it?