Successful Blog

Social Media Buzzwords

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Amber wrote a very thought-provoking post at Altitude last week (which I have to admit that I didn’t see in my feeds until Saturday – it was a busy week!) about the trap of Social Media Buzzwords:

You’re trying to discuss and describe the movement that is social media. Imagine you’re not allowed to say any of the following:

  • You need to join the conversation
  • It’s about relationships (or people)
  • It’s not about the tools
  • You need to be listening
  • Transparency
  • Authenticity

Can you come up with illustrative ways to describe it’s value without resorting to the lingo and buzzwords we’ve already beat to death?

One of the powerful elements of social media has been that it strips away many of the artificial trappings that have weighed down marketing and communications for decades.

We got mired in our lingo quicksand in that traditional, push communications world. We got lost talking about brand attributes and key messages and talking points and brand promises and all those terms, and we forgot what they meant. We lived and died by our contrived, scripted fallbacks, and often propped up buzzwords in place of real strategy and action. [Emphasis mine, Ed.]

I recently moved to a small town in New Hampshire and have been busy getting to know my new neighbors and townsfolk. Often I am asked about what I do for work and I have to be very careful about my answer. I have to be careful because many of the people that I meet only use the internet for e-mail and sharing pictures.

If I were to talk like this: (yes, it’s kind of a joke)

I just had a conversation on this very topic yesterday with a client who was interested in attending a conference but was concerned about justifying and explaining the ROI and the metrics of synaptic-node-linking.

I told her that many of these conferences are portals in the new media marketspace that can provide a way to extend her personal network via a fractal geometry and optimize her social media presence.

Leveraging these connections would expand her sphere of influence many times over, creating an aura of credibility and authority that would establish her as a thought-leader and give her tremendous influence in her community. I helped her prepare a logarithmic analysis of the long-tail effects of hyper-connectivity in the e-commerce modality, and that cleared everything right up.

…I would get nothing but a blank stare and no chance to engage this person in the future about a business opportunity.

How would you describe what you do if you could not use buzzwords and jargon in your description? Let’s have some fun with this and leave your response in the comments.

Bring Wine to the Picnic

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Another brilliant observation from Chris Brogan:

Conn Fishburn from Yahoo gave me a great analogy for thinking about social media marketing when we spoke at IBM’s Research Headquarters in New York last year. He said, “Bring wine to the picnic.” In this case, Conn was talking about the idea that if you show up and try to market, people will be frustrated and will shut you out. Instead, if you bring something of value to people, they’ll be more likely to accept you…
renoir-luncheon-of-the-boating-party

Bring Wine to the Picnic

At this picnic called social media, what people seem to want the most is information they can use. The information might be entertaining, might help them with their job, might do something to give them a sense of value. Whatever the case, in the social space, people consider the sharing of information to be one form of ready relationship currency. Let’s talk about others.

10 Ways to Build Relationships Before You Ask for Anything

1. Comment on and reply to other people’s observations, posts, and ideas. (Sometimes, just retweeting someone’s status message in Twitter is a gesture that matters to people.)
2. Share good information freely, such as pointing to great blog posts or articles.
3. Make virtual introductions when you see obvious like-minded people who could do to know each other.
4. Create useful media like blog posts or ebooks or videos that help people.
5. Find mutual interest points and talk about them. (Bonus points to you if they’re off-topic from your business needs, like talking about the Red Sox or Barbecue.)

Read more –>

The Building Blocks of Successful Interaction

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I just wanted to share this with you:

Charlie Grantham and Jim Ware, writing at The Future of Work, share some thought on the building blocks of interpersonal interaction:

In our experience effective communication is made up of three basic qualities: trust, connectedness; and relatedness.

Trust is the most basic quality.

Trust is an emotional thing. It comes when we share values with others and we can therefore expect them to behave in predictable ways. We trust people when we believe they will act in our best interests even though we aren’t there. And without trust true interaction and communication just isn’t possible. Trusting relationships are not based on power, or on status or one-up-manship.

Connectedness and Relatedness

Connectedness is a necessary but not sufficient condition of interaction. Simply put, it means there is a common basis for communication. Both parties are concerned about, interested in, or attracted to a similar issue, which then provides a basis for communicating. However, they must also relate to that issue. That is, they share a common belief, or a value around that issue. Note the difference. Take politics for example (or not take it, whatever). You can be connected with someone because you are both interested in the outcome of an election—but at the same time not be emotionally related (or even opposed to each other) because you have different philosophical positions. You can take that to the bank. If you are connected with someone, but not related, your communication isn’t going to go very far! Test that perspective with Uncle Barney.

The Effect of the Internet as a Watercooler

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Bob Krumm wrote this week: The water cooler is spreading a virus

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, two events have leapt into America’s consciousness this week. The first was the Tea Party protests involving hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans in hundreds of cities all around the country.

Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle

The second was the sudden and stunning success of previously unknown church choir singer, Susan Boyle, who wowed judges and the audience in an audition for Britain’s Got Talent, the Anglican version of American Idol. Since Saturday night when her first song was broadcast to a British audience, Ms. Boyle’s televised appearance has been viewed by no less than 40 million people, a population eight times that of her native Scotland.

In just the last 24 hours she has been mentioned, complete with a color picture, on the front page of the Washington Post, was interviewed live on the CBS Early Show, and has been booked for an appearance on Oprah.

What these two seemingly unrelated events have in common is the internet.

To riff off of one of the comments, the revolution will not be televised – it will be on YouTube!

In a more serious vein, however, the example of Susan Boyle reveals two important things:

  1. Regular people can now become as famous as any celebrity. The video of Boyle’s performance contained the perfect combination of a stereotypical set-up, a surprising twist, and a heart-warming response. I have a feeling that we are going to be hearing from Ms. Boyle again.
  2. Succumbing to cynicism and “judging a book by its cover” just might put one into a very uncomfortable position. If Simon Cowell were not known for his disdain for most performers on these talent shows he would have looked like a real jerk.

The Possibilities at SOBCon 2009

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This is a guest post from one of our attendees, Gail Lynne Goodwin, Ambassador of Inspiration:

Gail Goodwin
Gail Goodwin

Just a few short months ago, my husband and I had a visioning session together where we dreamed BIG dreams without limitation. We asked ourselves one simple question- “What would I do if I knew I could do anything, and knew that I couldn’t fail?”

That one simple question has opened doors and knocked down walls. Imaginary walls that only we saw- until we eliminated them with an easy change of our thoughts. What if there were no barriers? If you knew you were going to be successful, what would you choose to do? What’s the biggest contribution you could make?

In just 3 weeks we’ll be together at SOBCon09. In the meantime, I invite you to answer that question for yourself. What would you do if you could do anything and you knew that you couldn’t fail? Anything!

At SOBCon, we have the opportunity to get together with mentors and peers to brainstorm ideas, look at the possibilities and make life-enhancing decisions. I believe now is the perfect time to really look at what we choose in the world, rather than what has shown up by default.

Many of the masses lead as Thoreau said, “quiet lives of desperation”. As entrepreneurs, I’d like to think that our lives are more intentional and that we are all following our dream. Even so, when my husband and I asked ourselves this question, things expanded and our lives grew exponentially. Our Global Hug Tour launching this fall came from this exercise.

But hold onto your hat, for when you ask this simple question, your world will shift. Don’t believe me? Just try it.

When you ask this question out loud with another person you’ll be surprised at the result. You might have to remind each other- there are no limitations- you can’t fail.

Share your dreams. Vision together the “what if’s” of life. Pretend that you are ten years old and have that amazing, unlimited imagination where you still believe in unlimited possibility.

I don’t believe it’s possible to sincerely and intently ask this question without all kinds of possibilities coming up for you. It might be scary, but just remember the guidelines of the exercise. You can have anything. You can do anything. You can be anything. Anything! No limits. No restrictions. Just wide open space to fill to your heart’s content. How cool is that?!

The Universe will never give you a dream without the ability to make it happen. Therefore, if you have the dream, you already have the resources to make it happen- even if you may not be able to see it just yet.

This is so much easier than you think. You get to say “WHAT” and the Universe gets to say “HOW”. The most important step is in asking the question, “What would I do if I knew I could do anything, and knew that I couldn’t fail?” and all else flows from that.

Today, take the first step. Act and the Universe will follow. Take one baby step closer to your dream and watch what happens. It’s like the floodgates of the heavens open up and shower blessings down upon you just for taking action. One baby step turns into another until you’re jogging through life with a huge smile on your face, living your dream. Woohoo!

Above all, don’t let your fears stand in the way of your dreams. Your dreams are yours and yours alone. No one else can bring forth the dream or the light inside of you, so go ahead, and let it shine! The world needs your dream so feel the fear and do it anyway!

Please bring your dream to SOBCon and share it with me. I’m looking forward to not only meeting you, but supporting you to help make your dream your reality.

With gratitude and hugs,

Gail

What to do if people are messing with your brand online

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For your resources tag on delicious, some info on Reputation Management/Monitoring:
‘Smoking Smarties’ Videos Create Blaze of Unwelcome PR – Advertising Age – News

1. Don’t fight it. Trying to cajole, warn, threaten or even sue someone who is misusing your product or making a joke will only come off as heavy-handed. “Maybe some Neanderthal thinks that they can control this, but the reality is no one can,” said Pete Blackshaw, exec VP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. And antagonistic attitudes will only invite more criticism and mocking.
2. Survey the extent of the problem. Is it a small group of jokers no one will take seriously or a more reputable group? How damaging is what they’re saying or doing? That is, are they completing maligning the product and associating it with extremely unsavory behavior? Or is it just goofing around?
3. Turn to your social-media crisis plan. And if you don’t have one yet, develop one.
4. Be open with employees. They use social media too and likely already know about it. But make sure to discuss what’s happening and give them the information you want conveyed (for instance, what to say if a friend asks at a party, “Hey, what’s up with all these kids smoking Smarties?”).
5. Respond accordingly. At the very least, have a prepared statement for any media calls. Make sure it is available to all senior executives who may be queried. And make sure to respond as quickly and as transparently as possible to any direct questions from your customers.

And Toddand provides a list of 300+ Online Reputation Management Tools:

Online Reputation Monitoring Tools