Posts Tagged “social media”

I started the passover season with the first five plagues of social media, and despite a considerable transportation delay incurred by of all things a flood, I’m back with a few more plagues this Sunny Easter morning.  To refresh your memory:

1. Spam
2. Corporate Blogs
3. Self-Appointed Experts
4. Accumulationism
5. Constant Partial Attention
6. The Echo Chamber. Dance all you want on the grave of print, but at least when you went to the newsstand to buy your favorite rag, you had at least passing exposure to the headlines on the covers of opposing rags.  Creating personalized newsfeeds and groups of friends and followers lets us indulge our weaker impulse to attend only to those with whom we already agree.
7. Social Media Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism as you may recall from the last couple hundred years of United States politics, is the belief that your thing is, well, exceptional, and therefore “does not need to conform to normal rules or general principles” [wikipedia] – this is more or less a continuation of PR Exceptionalism and Brand Exceptionalism, two great “we can’t/shouldn’t measure this program” belief systems.  I’ll grant that social media is by nature more measurable and that many practitioners are making good efforts to measure it, but exceptionalism still kicks in when the measurements don’t live up to what we hoped and we decide we must have underinvested or decide to call the program experimental. No more excuses, no more faith-based marketing, I say.
8. Social Media Purism.  Or maybe I should call it Puritanism.  The idea that Social Media is All You Need and the related idea that It Cannot Be Mixed or Diluted with Other Modes and Methods have the ugly tang of fanaticism about them.  The flavor of the month is tasty, no doubt, but it’s not the only one.

Just two more plagues to go.  Stay tuned and stay ducky.

Tonight is the start of Passover, a holiday celebrating the struggle for liberation with foods designed to remind you of suffering and enslavement.  At one point in the traditional Seder, participants recite the ten plagues visited on Egypt , spilling out a bit of wine for each one in token commiseration for the suffering the plagues brought.

The canonical plagues are:

1. Blood (water turning into blood)
2. Frogs (lots of frogs, everywhere)
3. Lice
4. Beasts (like wild and marauding ones)
5. Livestock disease
6. Boils
7. Hail (sometimes described as mixed with fire – eek!)
8. Locusts
9. Darkness (all day)
10. Death of all first-born children

Perhaps tonight social media peeps will hold back a tweet or ten in recognition for the suffering visited upon us by social media, social marketing, and all the attendant hoohah these past few years.  Here are five, and I’ll serve up five more within a week.  I have the full list pretty well figured out, but I’ll happily take nominations.

1. Spam.  OK, social media didn’t cause spam,but it didn’t stop it or even reduce it.  We have to contend with actual malicious content as well as content that’s merely obnoxious, such as oversharing or overtweeting.
2. Corporate Blogs.  Companies trying to cash in on the authenticity and openness of social media have created some of the least authentic blogs in the universe.  I know, I’ve written some of them. Sure, you can use a blog for PR and for link building and for SEO, but hey, guess, what?  You can also use it to share what’s really going on in your company.
3. Self-Appointed Experts.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and people seem to want experts to explain to them how to use democratic, user-generated media.  Seems to me they miss the point, but I hereby appoint the self-appointed social media experts a plague.
4. Accumulationism.  OK, I probably just made that word up, and if I didn’t, I probably misused it.  Anyway, the mis-measurement of social media success or influence by the number of followers, the number of links, the number of friends, the number of posts, and so forth is pernicious and misleading.  Feh.
5. Constant Partial Attention.  Mobile devices are as much to blame as social media proper, and this was a problem with email before, but it’s gotten so much worse.  The need to even try to consume the torrent of microdrivel prevents people from focusing for even a minute on any one thing of import.

Well, that should keep you all busy as you attempt to discreetly update your facebook status while digesting the meginah.  Stay tuned for five more plagues over the rest of the holiday.

I’ve done it over 2,000 times., and I don’t think that’s immoderate for a man of my age.  I’ve done it on a boat but I’ve never done it with a goat. Sure, when you’ve done it as many times as I have, it may seem almost routine, but I’ve noticed that some people are having some anxiety about their First Time, so here’s my advice for  your first twitter experience:

Relax. Just do it.

Seriously.  If you’re sitting on the twitter sidelines trying to figure out what it’s about or how your company can use it, you’re missing the point.  Just get on there and say something.  It’s social media, after all. Follow some people, @ them a bit, get your feet wet.  No ideas but in things! I promise you’ll be able to figure it out after a while.  (Here’s a hint: ask for help on Twitter, tweeple love to help)

Some people say that Twitter is the most important thing since sliced bread. I doubt it. But if they’re right, why are you wasting time worrying about it when you could be living it?  And if it’s not so important, what have you got to lose?

So if you’re still fretting (yes, I’m still talking to you, G*****, and you too, L*****), here’s a handy tip: you can erase your embarrassing tweets. Permanently and forever. Just click the trashcan next to the goof – see it on the right?

The last thing people need these days is something else to worry about.  I suppose that might be an argument for ignoring twitter entirely, but if you can’t do that, I urge you to just jump in.  There will be plenty of time down the road to laugh at ourselves for being so foolish or faddish.

It’s not every day you go to a social media event in a cargo container sponsored by a shoe company and hear somebody invoke Thoreau when talking about Twitter. Today was just such a day.

But first, I’ll back up to last night, when J (have I mentioned lately that she has an excellent food blog?) joined me at an Earthwatch.org’s shidig at Puma City. (Puma City is a batch of cargo containers assembled into a retail and party space in a temporary “village” set up in South Boston to celebrate the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race and it lacks indoor plumbing) We sipped melon puree and watched the sunset while listening to Earthwatch CEO Ed Wilson talk about the state of the world’s oceans. The event was well-attended and raised money and awareness for Earthwatch’s programs. Also, they served tasty but lukewarm mini open-faced cuban sandwiches and raffled off some cool prizes. Having already won a gift card at Four Burgers that day, I couldn’t be too upset at missing out.

Barely 12 hours later, I returned to Puma City for Social Media Breakfast 13, Rocking the Boat. Founded by Bryan Person and recently organized by the estimable Bob Collins, SMB has reliably been one of the better live events for those who live online.

The first presenter was Dan Schwabel, a young man who has the admirably meta occupation of promoting his personal brand as “the guy with a personal brand.” He observed at one point that he chose marketing because he was “creative and not that great at math,” which I think sort of sums up much of what’s wrong with marketing these days. I bet Dan isn’t really that bad at math, but I also think that people like FM Days are trying to rescue marketing from the folks who are afriad of or (perhaps willfully) ignorant of the numbers.

Next up, George Grattan, Marketing Strategist at Earthwatch took the stage. I use the term, “stage” loosely, as the sight lines inside a space made of cargo containers are a little rough. Anyway, George talked about Earthwatch’s social media strategy, which includes a lot of Facebook and Eons (because their target is a little older) and no Twitter yet. Grattan quoted Thoreau on the subject of the transatlatic telegraph wire to explain this choice:

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

The idea being, until Earthwatch has something to say on Twitter, they will remain quiet. I just hope George has grabbed the username. As I’ve discussed and as I’m sure Dan would agree, you have to register your brand on every network you can, even if you’re not going to use them, just as a protective measure.

I’m skeptical that Earthwatch really has nothing to say to the people of Twitter. After all, they are actually somewhat older that the Facebook generation and probably closer to Earthwatch’s demographic. But more to the point, how different is what Earthwatch has to say on Twitter from what they have to say on Facebook or on their blogs? (They do have blogs, don’t they? George, call me!) With tools like Ping.fm, Friendfeed, and Twitterfeed, you can syndicate content you already have into all kinds of channels at minimal extra cost or effort. Sure, that’s not the level of engagement that your customers really want and deserve, but isn’t it better than nothing? You can start building your Twitter following by pushing your Facebook status and blog updates there, so when you are ready for full-on Twitter engagement, you’re partway there. To use an ironic metaphor, Earthwatch should fish where the fish are.

The last two presenters, Roger Wu and C C Chapman deserve blog posts of their own, and I’m sure many others will provide. In short, Roger’s company Klickable.TV is doing some cool stuff with videos that you can click on and the data that those generate. (Roger, does Rachel Ray know you’re clicking on her like that?) CC is a social media fixture for good reason. Check out his site, blogs, podcasts and so forth whenever you can.

First Sunday each month
Boston Media Makers
at Doyle’s in JP.

This April only
It was the second Sunday
to keep us alert.

I brought my netbook,
hipster PDA and cards.
What’s with the mermaid?

Lots of great people,
some serious geeking out.
Here are some highlights:

Rachel Levy was
laid off but is too busy
working to find work.

Quiver and Quill hosts
Rubber Chicken Social Club
I approve, of course.

Boston Tweetup is
a list of Boston Tweetups
in handy G-cal!

David Tames’ site
kino-eye.com has lots
of cinema links.

Ben Atlas has deep
thoughts on networking and wants
more wider hallways.

Reiko’s Geek Girl Camp
sounds like fun, also good for
non-techy women.

Robin Maxfield has
a video show that is
sort of, um, edgy.

Thanks to Steve Garfield
for organizing again.
Matzo balls should sink.