What’s Fresh?

When I was 15 years old I was waiting tables at a Pizza Hut and would say that many people would have a similar answer.  Not Daniel Brusilovsk, a 15-year-old techie, who just launched Teens In Tech into a private Alpha.  The site offers a community for teens who create (or want to create) content by podcasts, videos, and blogs.  The idea is that this will be a safe place for them to converse about their work, share tips, and showcase their talents in a profile based format.  The site even offers a job board for hiring new talent to Teens In Tech.  Quite a far cry from “would you like extra cheese on that.”

If you live in San Diego you likely know that the town is being taken over by Darth Vader credit card holders, people who will argue about Spiderman’s divorce, and Fanboys (for PC reasons shouldn’t it be Fanpeople?) of all ages.  Comic-Con 2008 is officially here.

The event is entirely sold out and if you work near the convention center be prepared for the influx in traffic.  The crazy traffic is what got me asking “Who are these people that are flocking to SD and skipping work for a comic book based event?”  I decide to search it out (kinda like Ari Gold with a Google box) to answer my question.  Well It took me one search to figure it out…..The majority of these people are some for of techies.  And here is the search that got me to that conclusion: TweetScan-Comic Con.  This leads to pages upon pages of people talking about going to comic con or being jealous of those who are.

A vast majority of the people on Twitter (or those who are really active in it) have some tech connection.  These people either code, blog, work in online marketing, or have family members or close friends who do one of the above.  So to the techies that are attending Comic Con, have a good time.  To those who will be staring at their computers screens instead, keep checking your RSS.

What’s in a name? Apparently a lot.                                                                          

As more and more companies begin to realize that social media is a space they can no longer avoid, they are looking to hire agencies and internal positions to help navigate the vast space.  However, these new positions (and agency needs) are causing an interesting game of semantics.

A recent 2 page AdWeek article on the subject of social media referred to the same type of position in the following ways:

• Social Media Consultant
• Social Media Expert
• Social Media Czar
• Social Media Team Member
• Social Media Marketer
• and my personal favorite Social Media Evangelist

Now coming from the SEO side of things, someone needs to get a WordTracker account pronto and a quick rundown in content optimization.  Beyond that…..what is the real difference here and does it really matter?  I would say none and no.  If the position listing  calls out a proper set of activities the company needs the position (or agency) to fill, finding the right person or group should be no problem.  Naming it or them should be even less of one.  But hey, if this name-game continues I may push for a title change to Social Media Goddess or Princess or Queen or….you get the idea

In Canada social media is becoming something more than just a buzz word; it is becoming an outlet to encourage blood donation.  Thank Your Donor is a social media site that allows users to share stories of how blood donations saved their lives.  The stories offer a place to publicly thank the donors and ask for people to continue to do so.

Will this site revolutionize the world?  Probably not.  Will it get more people to donate blood? Possibly.  Is it more innovative than setting up a table in a mall?  Definitely.

Do you have a Facebook profile? A MySpace page? A Twitter Account? A blog? A YouTube Channel? A personal Wiki?  Chances are that almost every person can answer yes to at least one of, if not all, of the previous questions.

The internet has become a haven for personal publishing and information sharing.  People freely offer opinions, ideas, photos, videos, likes, dislikes, and everything in-between.  However, how cautious are people about the lasting effect their information may have on the company they work for?

This question is something I ponder and am reminded of daily with the things I find online.  Using Twitter as an example, I follow roughly 125 people that are affiliated with SEO or Social Media Marketing.  Numerous people use this site to push out content they have written or are reading that help to show them as industry thought leaders.  When these type of people are free with their company affiliation this can positively effect how the industry views the person and their company.  Yet, some people are not as strategic with the information they share.  When people that associate themselves with their company tweet information about “giving the finger to a client” or “our blog is run by suits” or “my boss doesn’t know bleep” I have to question if these people really care about the work they are doing, who they are doing it for, or what external people think of them?  My opinion has been changed about numerous companies this way, be it fair or not.

To some extent, freedom of speech has to be protected and people should be able to post whatever type of content they please.  Yet, at some point common sense should kick in and say maybe I shouldn’t tell the world that “i hate ABC co-worker” in an open forum setting.

Does it seem fair to judge a company based upon the actions of the people who work there?  Can this really be patrolled?  Should it be?  What are your thoughts?

Pulling down the window shade to shield my particularly-sensitive eyes (and head) from the intense Austin sun, I write this entry on the flight back from the 2008 South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference. Albeit a massive event with endless panels, events, and parties parties parties - there seemed to be one theme in particular that I encountered repeatedly over the past several days: social media. Most of the panels I attended revolved around these topics in one way or another - and pretty much 9/10 people I met from the conference were somehow involved in social media. Most were start-ups offering niche social networks or aggregation of social media (social networks, blogs, and video). I was pleased to encounter social media in a multitude of different situations as it is becoming a core interest and marketing concern for many Geary Interactive clients.

I attended one SXSW panel titled, “Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They?” lead by Tom Parish of Tom Parish Inc, Brian Magierski of BSG, Michael Smith of USAA, Ynema Mangum of BMC Software, and Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy. The only conclusion that I was able to leave the room with was that there basically is no consensus as to social media metrics should even be. The perceived value of social media is user engagement from a qualitative perspective rather than quantitative. Rather than counting number of visits, we should be considered with amount of time spent on the site/blog. And not only that, but what is the level and quality of user contribution? Are they generating content that adds to the value of the site? Therefore “traditional” online analytics methods and metrics are inherently flawed for social media measurement.

Although social media currently resides at the periphery for most online campaigns — I see it rapidly approaching the center. And as it does, there will most certainly be new and different analytics methods developed to better capture the essence of what makes social media efforts a success — or failure. I’m also curious to see how all of the social networking aggregators come into play here and how they effect analytics numbers for the sites they are pulling from.

However the issue of getting C level executives to even consider entering the realm of social media dominated the panel discussion. I was surprised and simultaneously grateful that at Gearyi we have such progressive clients, whom give us the opportunity to utilize newer and more innovative online strategies like social media. While social media might not make sense for all industries or clients, it’s going to be tough for most organizations to ignore the impact that social media is having on how users interact with each other and the web. That interaction may be the very thing that the C level execs find most intimidating — suddenly the users have a voice, and a very strong one at that. Therefore transparency and moderation now surface as primary concerns. This brings us to another consideration for social media ventures: moderation.

In the process of developing community sites, one resource that is often overlooked is a community manager/moderator. At least one, living, breathing human being will be required to manage the community site. But who is best fit to take on that daunting role? SXSW panelists Miles Sims and Jake McKee explained several options: You could hire someone internally (or with your agency) who does this as part of many other job requirements and responsibilities. But, chances are, that unless the resource can be fully dedicated to managing the community, you can rest assured that moderation on the community will be very minimal.

This might work for more some communities, however, there are many others that require constant moderation to keep things from becoming unruly or even illegal. In the case that intense moderation is required, it’s best to allocate more than one, full-time dedicated community managers to the site. These managers can be internal employees, agency reps, or even volunteers from the site itself.

There is also the option of having the community platform provider manage the community. For example, Small World Labs offers community management among their many other services at different levels and pricing depending on the requirements and size of the community. If it were my community, my top concern in this situation might be the level of brand knowledge that can be provided. Agencies and clients work hard to build partnerships based on a solid, mutual understanding of a particular brand. It could be quite risky to bring in a third party for community management when that party may not have such intimate knowledge of the brand’s identity.

One way or another, it’s crucial to have a community deployment AND management strategy in place early-on. You can help steer the community in the right direction and pre-empt extensive moderation is to provide community members with a clear understanding of what the purpose and/or mission of the community is. Users are more likely to contribute (and contribute quality content) when they feel as though they have a “job” to do as part of a greater effort or movement. Let them know what you are hoping to achieve with their content and why their voice matters. It’s not enough to simply create a community for your website and to hope that users will figure out what it is they are supposed to be doing there.

Social networking site Facebook is quickly becoming a common source of skirmishes. First, the site drew ire for its Beacon program; now, it’s getting flak as more and more users discover it’s ridiculously hard to permanently delete their accounts.

In the past, disenchanted Facebook users had only a deactivation option - an option that included Facebook servers keeping copies of their personal information. A difficult, little-known manual deletion option was also available.

Nipon Das, a business consultant in Manhattan, became the de facto face of a movement demanding that Facebook make it easier to delete accounts. He spent two months trying to delete his account, and in the meantime, continued to receive messages and alerts from the site. A groundswell of support grew, and a Facebook group entitled “How to permanently delete your Facebook account” has grown to include nearly 10,000 members.

In response to the complaints, Facebook updated their Help pags to announce that the easiest way to delete your account is to email the company and make your wishes clear. They announced that they have no plans to introduce a one-step delete account option.

Facebook users are calling for a simple, manual Delete option, and it’s a reasonable request. Users should not have to hunt for instructions on how to permanently delete their account and all their personal information. Good customer service extends to people who want to discontinue using your site, and making is difficult for people to delete their accounts is not the way to help them leave Facebook with fond memories.

Obviously, Facebook has a stake in retaining users and the personal information they provide to the site. But at some point, they need to consider the desires of their users. It’s extremely common for Internet users to pare down the number of social networking sites they use, or to give up online social networking entirely. And as Web users have the expectation that they can quite sites as easily as they can join them, Facebook needs to get with the program.

As a follow-up to our earlier post about Facebook going commercial, we’d like to report that Facebook users reacted unfavorably the social networking site’s Beacon tracking program.  Initially, Beacon tracked Facebook users’ purchases on various sites as long as they did not opt out. Users had to opt out site-by-site, and could not opt out of the service with just one click. Many people were surprised and frustrated to find that their purchases were being tracked, and opposition to the service bubbled to the surface.  Facebook users did not reject the Beacon tracking service wholesale, but they did successfully pressure Facebook’s chiefs to modify Beacon’s opt-out policy. Now, users must opt in to the service.

Though Facebook faced a massive user uprising in relation to Beacon, it has survived similar protests in the past. Facebook users are, for the most part, not quibbling with the service itself, only that it was rolled out quietly, and it was initially difficult to opt out.

However, this conflict has garnered an unprecedented amount of mainstream media coverage; in addition, many advertisers, including Coca-Cola, are backing off of participating in the service.

Is the Facebook generation getting jittery about privacy concerns? We don’t think so. Rather, the Beacon fight was about user control — in this case, the ability to easily opt out of a service. For every unabashed Internet exhibitionist, there is someone who is a little more reserved about sharing information online – and the Beacon controversy reveals that it is important for Facebook to cater equally to both groups.