Social Networking: The Garden Analogy

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Guest Writer: Todd Jordan

Networking withPurpleConeflowers_by_Liz_Strauss

Do you take your network seriously? How do you keep it and treat it? Is it cared for like a well maintained garden, or is it overrun with half grown connections and weeds? When’s the last time you bothered to nurture and prune it?

Sounds funny at first, but the truth is our social networks are an extension of ourselves. They speak volumes about us and our attitude towards ourselves and others. Like flowers, your contacts can wither and drop off. A once vital connection, bringing you many interesting tidbits or even work, can stop bearing fruit if you don’t pay attention to it.

If the overrun garden sounds like it might be your network, then it’s time to get to work on it. It won’t be pleasant at first, but the work soon pays off.

drop everyone that’s not following you - this is the hardest but most productive of all the steps you can take. Yes, you love following that news anchor but when was the last time he chatted with you? Like removing the undergrowth.
stop following anyone whose stuff you bypass or ignore - this one often feels awkward. Chances are these are folks we actually cared about at one time or another. This one also greatly improves your network. Like removing those trees that never bear fruit.
eliminate the spammers - oh, you think you’ve removed all the weeds? What about Jack, that guy that sends out endless messages about his kids, but has never sent you a reply. Or Joan, the lady from work, who friended you, doesn’t reply, but manages to talk to a hundred other friends. This is the weeds of your garden. They too choke off what you really want in your network.
move contacts and reduce redundancy - huh? this means don’t follow the same person on half a dozen networks where they post the same thing over and over. If you follow Bud on Twitter and FriendFeed, drop him on Twitter. It’s like having two busy gardens next to one another. You’ll only really tend to one. This last one reduces the clutter, freeing up the rest of your network to breathe and be usable again.

Yes, the analogy seems silly but these simple steps are no joke. If you can implement these in your networks, you’ll see things begin to change. With the dead weight gone, the rest of your contacts will begin to stand out. Good growth will begin again. You might even find some old friends you’d forgotten. But once things start blooming, don’t forget to keep the pruning sheers handy. A good garden requires consistent tending.

How’s your garden?

Tags: , garden analogy, social-networking, Todd Jordan, twitter tricks

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Social Networking: — Who’s in Your Business Conversation?

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As I work on a research project that has me going through blog archives, an interesting pattern has turned up. Things we were talking about in 2005 and 2006, still apply to what we’re doing now. In particular, the conversation about social networking hasn’t changed as much as all of the new communities and places to meet might make us think.

If you click through on this this Social Networking graphic you’ll see that it was posted to Flickr in May of 2005. The information refers to cell phone networks, but I think you’ll agree that it applies as easily to today’s social networking site.

Social Networking User Segmentation Model

The graphic shows that people at social networks break into four quadrants or types. They divide first by their need to know about the world or other people, and they divide again by the group with which they want to share what they know.

The four quadrants become these:

Content Consumers want to know about the world and share what they know with their friends.
Content consumers consider close friends a priority, but they have an interest in everyone. They share their lives with friends and family, but enjoy reading about the lives of others. Content consumers go wide finding information — these are the folks who read hundreds of feeds — but they go narrow when they pass it on. They prefer , messaging, and cell phone to stay connected. These are the keepers of information we think of a mavens. They know where to stay, where to eat, when to plant our gardens, which car / computer / camera to buy, and where to find out more.

If you find Content Consumers on Twitter, they’re probably listening more than they’re talking. They’re the masters of LinkedIn. They’re the one’s you want to plan your next personal conference meeting agenda — they get you the most for your investment. Some also make great “Stumblers” and “Diggers” because they filter content well.
Relationship Builders want to know about the people in their lives to and want to share what they know with them.
Relationship Builders are power networkers. They keep a small group close and know them each well. Relationship Builders see no need for hundreds of connections in their life. Ask a relationship builder to be your “friend,” and he or she might ask how you think connecting will help you both. Relationship builders might take longer to know, but they also invest the time to know you. They’re the fiercely loyal, brand evangelists we all want, but their small social circle can also make them hardest to reach.

You’ll recognize Relationship Builders on Twitter by the small list of people they follow — no matter the number of people who follow them. They plan a conference around relationships they want to extend and partnerships that have mutual goals. On Twitter, they look for ways to showcase their friends. On SU and Digg, Relationship Builders review content they find useful to pass on to their friends.
Social Networkers understand the value of being tapped into a network of connections.
Social Networks connect openly and with enthusiasm, thinking that, if we cannot directly help each other, our connections probably can. As part of their open networking, Social Networkers are generous with help and share what they know as often as they can. Social Networkers want to be where the people are and the action is happening. They understand what makes a party fun and how to engage and inform hundreds of connections.

On Twitter, you’ll know Social Networkers by the thousands of friends they have and by the fact that they usually friend back everyone who friends them. You’ll find them at most important conferences and on most social sites. They’ll be the ones with the crowds of friends. On Twitter, it might seem that everyone is talking to them. On SU and Digg, you might find them in huge networks that share content regularly.
Content Creators would be those we call thought leaders.
Content Creators like to connect with close friends, but want their thinking to be heard beyond their own group. Content Creators value the ability to publish their ideas. They believe that knowledge gained is valuable and worth sharing. They use the Internet to discover information, solve problems, and share new thoughts.

On Twitter, Content Creators will be discussing ideas in longer conversational threads and pointing to useful information they’ve found. At conferences, they’ll be speakers or the first to ask questions. On SU and Digg, if they are there, what they share will reflect their thoughts.

You might call the four groups by different names than those on this chart — I do — that aside, the ways we act are familiar. People are people now as we always have been.

Who’s in Your Business Conversation?

For those of us in business or looking to increase our readership, the first question that comes to mind is how can I use this information to improve my social networking ROI?

When you’re looking for evangelists and loyal customers, remember relationships get built one at at time. To find more Relationship Builders, keep in mind they prefer in their own social circle. Look within your own business and social circles to find relationship builders with whom you might have strong compatibilities. Encourage relationship builders you know to refer you and introduce you. When relationship builders ask how they might help you offer them ways and words to share what you do with their friends. They might write you a valuable LinkedIn referral or introduce to the ideal client.

When you’re looking to extend your reach, Social Networkers offer all of your friends a reason to pass on your words / work on your behalf. To enlist their support, be sure what you ask them to share is something of high value that will reflect well on them. If you offer a product or service that resonates with their needs, it’s your lucky day. They’re the broadcasters and the buyers.

Don’t discount the Content Consumers. Your subscriber base is likely to have a huge percentage of them. They may check read your blog, check your profile, but you’ll only know through your referral stats. Constantly offer opportunities to subscribe and reach out to them to become friends. When their friends are in need, they will remember your name.

Identify Content Creators you respect and read their blogs. Comment with thoughtful, well-written insights and questions. Trackback to articles that connect their thoughts to yours. Relate to them as a respectful colleague not a fan. In time you’ll be a part of their network and they’ll part of yours as well.

The conversation and the way we relate hasn’t really changed. The people talking are still people talking just the same. The art and science of social media is to understand, which people you want to listen to, learn from, and have as friends.

Have you met all four social networking types? Do you have all of them in your business life? Now that you know, how will you serve them?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Get your best voice in the conversation!

Tags: conversational types, Marketing, social-media, social-networking

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7 Tweaks to Your Social Presence to Reflect Your Expertise

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Does Your Presence Look Expert to You?

People speak and write a lot about personal branding. Online that breaks down to presence which in simple terms is reputation and focus. Both become enhanced when we highlight our expertise in a strategic and consistent fashion.

7 Tweaks to Your Social Presence to Reflect Your Expertise

Experts have authentic skills, knowledge, and experience. But some of us with those exact traits have more insight to making sure those traits shine through. Here are 7 ways to manage your online presence to be seen as the expert you are.

Walk your own path. Be the expert you are, not the expert someone else is. You can’t be compared. You’re not a fanboy or a fangirl. Differentiate what you offer from the start. Play to your strengths. Check your social networking profiles — at Facebook, SU, Twitter, etc. –to see that they underscore the same differentiated traits.
Focus on ONE thing Make that one thing particularly suited to you. Be a “go to” person for a specific problem. Then find a way to meet that need that no one else can do the same way you do.
Write expert answers and content – LinkedIn question and answers are a great place to do this. Seek out questions about your chosen point of expertise throughout the Internet and write thought, precise, actionable answers to them. Give information, examples, AND analysis. Occasionally offer evaluation, synthesis, or predictions.
Always know what’s happening with folks who need what you do. Join the sites and the offline groups where your potential customers and clients hang out. Refer and promote customers and clients whenever you can. Sometimes they’ll need a helping hand and they’ll remember the expert who helped them out.
Know your niche in detail. Get to be friends with Google Alerts and discovery services. Follow key terms around the Internet.
Be an expert at helping colleagues. Don’t be shy about sharing information. Talk with them. Visit and comment on their blogs. Ask them for an interview. Guest post now and then. Help others in visible ways — on your blog, on Twitter, through Facebook groups.
Go deep. (Don’t be shallow.) Find out what researchers are thinking so that you can offer the highest quality, relevant information and analysis. Add information to the conversation that no one has found.

An expert to most people is someone who more knowledge, skills, and experience than we do . . . never discount how much expertise you’ve gained or it’s value.

What else might we do to let our expertise show through?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Tags: expertise, online presence, social-media, social-networking

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Social Networking: Online Tridimensional Conversation

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Focus and Consistency

My days are spent talking and writing about how conversations work to build relationships. I look for similaries and differences between conversations online and offline, so that folks I work with can communicate more effectively. When we talk an analogy I often use is the Star Trek Tridimensional chessboard. It’s the multi-level nature of online talk that’s so powerful and easy to overlook.

Online Tridimensional Conversation

In an office in the offline world, the only audience is limited, visible, and apparent — much like only one level on the 3-d chess set. Online, we might direct our words to a small group, but the potential audience crosses to people who who only watch, people who have keyword alerts, and people who check in at other points in time. Our words go much further.

A whole Internet of people over a whole future could eavesdrop. What’s the impact of that? Here are three ways to focus your Online Tridimensional Conversation so that your relationship building is successful.

Think about the one idea or image you want folks to have of you. What’s the focus of your online brand? Make sure that’s the center of your profiles on social networking sites.
Review your recent comments and entries at blogs you visit and your Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, and other accounts as if you’re looking at someone you don’t know. Do your answers support the brand you’re building? Not every word needs to push your brand, but none should discount it.
Link to people who value what you do. Does your network reflect both your counterparts and your clients?

To test what I mean, try this. List three people whose work you know. Consider what each person is about. Then visit their Twitter profile page. Look down the conversational stream. Does it show what you thought it would? Is the difference good? Imagine if the profile page was all you knew of each person.

It’s the multi-dimensional nature of online communication that makes apps like Twitter so powerful. Be authentic, interested, and interesting, but also look to be consistent. If everywhere I look, I see the same you. My picture of you will form more quickly and be far more clear. When someone asks if I know anyone who does what you do, you’re likely to get a referral.

Are you making the most of your conversation? Do you know more ways to do so?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
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Learn more about online conversation.

Tags: conversation and relationships, multidimensional conversation, social-media, social-networking, Star Trek chess

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Pushing the Web and WordPress, What I Found, AND What’s Next!

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Something New Means Something New to Learn

It started two years ago, with a tiny idea that had a respectable turnout. Many folks I met at that first Blog-to Show are folks I still see. When we’d been talking about Creative Networking, it seemed natural to brush off the old idea and try it again.

I forgot that things on the web grow exponentially.
And where there’s big growth, there’s bound be big learning.

You’ll find the entire showcase here and a debrief below.

What I’d Hoped and What I Found

The longer I work with social media, the more value the tools as a way offer people a way to connect around something they care about. When you offer what’s fun and useful, the connections naturally follow. I’d hoped that the idea of showcasing our blogs would offer that.

The Blog-to show proved that out more than I expected.

More people submitted blogs.
More people cleaned up their blogs for visitors.
More people visited the show.
It also took more time and was more fun than I expected.
More people said “thank you” thank I would have dreamed.

Even reading the submissions made me feel more connected to the folks who participated this weekend. The comments and conversations speak to the generosity of those who came.

People pointed out the best of the blog their viewing. Many testimonials cropped up. We were discussing great blogging. Can’t miss the sense of community and participation.

Taken and Missed Opportunities

Some 30 entries arrived in the first few two hours after I announced the Blog-to Show. From then forward, submissions rolled in faster than I could process them. At one point on Friday, entries arrived a rate of one per minute. When I got home from my Friday meetings, I had a pile over 100 deep, While I worked on that pile, 100 more came in.

Doing so many at once, I saw the varied levels of investment people put into this opportunity to offer this “mini-blog” resume. How well the submission was formatted and finished seemed to show how seriously the blogger thinks about his or her blog and the community that would gather.

The submission request had five distinct parts chosen to give value to all show visitors. Over 30% of the submissions had missing information.
Some submissions offered straight sales copy. In the overall picture, those submissions stood out in a way that might not have helped them.
Some folks don’t do brief. Those who wrote a novel — when the request was a sentence — might have been reflecting their blog writing. I found myself thinking that with so many to choose from I might choose based on the quantity as well as the quality of what submitters wrote
Some folks didn’t use the requested subject line which meant their email ended up in the wrong place in my email filters.

From a marketing viewpoint, these are all things I’ll remember when I enter the next such submission myself. People remember when you make their life harder and when you make their life a breeze.

What the Technology Did that Surprised Me

I planned the event for Saturday, because traffic is lower the issue of damage if something went awry. Problems occurred with my XML-Sitemap plug-in, the server timings, and published posts that didn’t show up on the front page.

The mystery of the disappearance of posts 163-201 was found later on my dashboard. Though the timestamps clearly showed them published in sequence, somehow they were in reality rescheduled to post at 3 hours, 4 hours, and 5 hours after the rest were done. Great WordPress minds are researching what happened there.

I also stretched the limits of my clipboard to copy and paste — it became a resource suck. Apologies to those who’s links got pasted incorrectly in the process. As far as I know all are well now. Thanks to all who were generous in calling such things to my attention. That’s what community is about.

If you’re wondering, after all were compiled and formatted, it took about 2.5 hours to copy in and timestamp the individual entries.

How It Will Look Next Time — Get Ready!

Enough of you who participated this time (and some folks who just missed getting in) have asked about if there will be a next one. It seems that the opportunity to make something even better won’t let me leave the idea. So, I’m already planning. Here’s where I am so far. Feel free to add ideas in the comments.

The January 2009 Blog-to Show

Dates of the show: January 31 and February 1, 2009
Submissions due no later than: January 15, 2009

Here’s what I think the application will include.
Write up the following information — each part separate by a line space.
Here’s a filled out example.

Bloggers Name(s):

Blog Title:

Blog URL link in the full http:// form:

Blog Tagline (no more than 10 words):

One or two sentences about what makes your blog worth visiting.

A brief paragraph of blogging advice or a short bloggy quote that shows a little personality.

Must enter in only one of these categories
go cart (newbie blogger — less than 6 months)
street car (theme-based design)
formula 1 (custom theme or high mod)

Every entry also must include a .jpeg thumbnail of your front page, no larger than 150px wide or a pix of the blogger.

Any entry without all of the pieces will be returned unsubmitted.