Logic+Emotion

Twitter's Unspoken 50/50 Rule

 

Colleague Peter Kim and I got into an interesting discussion on Twitter today. Turns out that he uses autofollow, while I don't. Now before you take sides on this—I'd like for you to consider the bigger picture. After our conversation, I went and checked many of the active people on Twitter who I know personally, or some who I know of and I noticed something interesting. The number of followers, closely aligns with the number they follow. In some cases it's nearly 50/50. So for example, someone who has 30k followers is also following back nearly 30k. 

Now I want to stress one more thing, I'm not making any judgments here. I'm curious and I'm wondering how I should be evolving how I use the tool—so rather than think about it in a vacuum, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Is having a 50/50 follower to following ratio a viable way to expand your presence on Twitter? Is it worth the effort, or is it better to keep the number of people who you follow more intimate? I'm sure we can get into a lengthy discussion on business, personal objectives etc. But I'm really interested in your opinion on a gut level. What do you think?

Conversational Marketing Summit 2009

 
Next week I'll be in NYC for the Conversational Marketing Summit hosted by Federated Media. I'll be presenting a case study titled "The Risks And Rewards of Backing A Good Cause" . I hope to share some learning's and insights from our situation with Daniela and her family—the good, the bad, and the unexpected. The event has a great sampling of folks from companies ranging from Intel, to MTV. If you can make it, please stop by and introduce yourself.

Hope to see you there!

Conversational Media Summit 2009

	Magid Abraham President and CEO, comScore
	David Armano Senior Partner, Dachis
	John Battelle Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Federated Media
	Jason Calacanis Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com
	Bill Capodanno Director, Customer Experience Architecture, Microsoft
	Neil Chase VP, Publishing, Federated Media
	David Churbuck VP, Global Web Marketing, Lenovo
	Deborah S. Conrad VP and GM, Corporate Marketing Group, Intel Corporation
	Ree Drummond The Pioneer Woman
	Chas Edwards Co-Founder, Publisher, and Chief Revenue Officer, Federated Media
	Frank Eliason Director of Digital Care, Comcast
	Sean Finnegan President & Chief Digital Officer, Starcom MediaVest Group
	Bonnie Fuller Founder, Bonnie Fuller Media
	John Galvin Marketing Research Director, Intel
	Seth Goldstein CEO, SocialMedia.com
	Steve Governale ED, Interactive and Innovation, AT&T
	Seth Greenberg Director, Online Advertising and Internet Media, Intuit
	James Gross VP, Ad Products and Sales, Federated Media
	Mike Hoefflinger Director of Product Marketing, Facebook
	Reid Hoffman Chairman and CEO, LinkedIn
	Scott Howe Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Corporation
	Jeff Janer CEO, Spring Partners
	Terence Kawaja Managing Director, GCA Savvian Advisors
	Richard Kang EVP, Strategy and Business Development, MTV Networks
	Jim Marggraff Chairman and CEO, Livescribe
	Mike Masnick Founder and CEO, Floor64
	Oren Michels Co-Founder and CEO, Mashery
	Charlie Moran Web Editor and Producer, Advertising Age
	Betsy Morgan CEO, The Huffington Post
	Jim Murphy VP Product Development, AideRSS/PostRank
	Eileen Naughton Director, Media Platforms, Google
	Lou Paskalis VP, Global Media, Content Development and Sponsorship Marketing, American Express
	Dana Perino Chief Issues Counselor, Burson-Marsteller
	Marc Ruxin EVP, Chief Innovation Officer, McCann Worldgroup San Francisco
	Marcy Shinder VP, Brand Strategy and Marketing, American Express OPEN
	Pete Spande SVP, Sales, Federated Media
	Matt Spiegel CEO, Omnicom Media Group Digital
	Max Ventilla CEO, Aardvark
	Brian Wallace Director, Global Digital Marketing, RIM
	Jen Walsh Global Director of Digital Media, General Electric
	Lucas Watson Global Team Leader for Digital Business Strategy, Procter & Gamble
	Fred Wilson Managing General Partner, Union Square Ventures

Relationship Loop

Kill Your Website

I was wrong.

Ok, I wasn't totally wrong, but partially off base. Several years ago I spoke at a blogging conference and inevitably Seth Godin was invoked in a question from the audience. It went something like this:

"Seth Godin says you don't need a Website anymore if you have a blog—what do you think?"

My answer essentially defended a well designed Website. I made a logical case that blogs didn't do a good enough job of providing a great first time experience to a user. Keep in mind that this was over 3 years ago and a lot has happened since then. Fast forward to today and I'm eating my words. I just killed my personal Website (screenshot above), using a search engine friendly re-direct to simply point to my blog (you can now go to davidarmano.com and it will take you here).

On a personal level, it made no sense to keep a Website and blog up at the same time when the blog has all of my information, plus content and value and provides a reason for people to actually come back. Not to meniton I'm saving money on hosting fees etc. Also keep in mind that if were better and coding, and had a lot more time—my blog would look and function a whole lot better (I currently do it all myself). So, on a non personal level here's a couple of recommendations I'd make on evolving your Web presence if you are not an individual but an organization. Here are two of my favorite examples:

whitehouse.gov
Whitehouse.gov is probably one of the most elegant and functional non transactional site experiences I've come across in quite some time. The site seamlessly blends it's blog right into the design, while it aggregates links and other content types from other social networks. Clicking on the blog link simply refreshes the page in the identical design template while the site does a great job of presenting the first time user with a very digestable set of options and starting points. Not to mention, it just feels dead on.

barbarian group
The barbarian group is probably my favorite agency Website to date. They recently overhauled their overproduced, low value site to something that is accessible, easy to navigate, filled with value added content and displays the thoughts of their people front and center. On the spectrum of Website to blog, it leans more heavily to the latter as it displays recent posts on the homepage, but you can still get around to all sections quite easily. Keep in mind that in the ad agency world fueld on "sizzle" this is a 180 departure from much of what's out there pure and simple. In my estimation it's a sneak preview of what we'll see others do more of.

So, if I were asked the same question today—I might answer it a bit differently. The short answer, assuming we are talking about personal or corporate type sites is this:

Your website should provide value to all of your users. If you can get them to participate, then do what ever it takes achieve that. In other words, it doesn't matter if your site looks more or less like a blog, what matters is if you're doing something to transform behavior from the passive to the active. Participatory behavior leads to better interactions between people, brands, businesses etc. So the real question is—are you designing for participation? Your answer should be, yes. If your Website doesn't do that, kill it. Then bring it back to life into something that does.

Venn Genius

 

Social Engagement Spectrum

 

Doing a bit of thinking of how to frame up some of the differences between traditional, digital and social initiatives—each has it's own set of properties, there is some overlap and there are also distinct characteristics. Thought it might help to apply them to a "spectrum of engagement"—the thought is that the more you move away from broadcast—(one way communication towers), the more participatory behavior and engagement with the business/brand etc will be had. The point isn't to replace any of these or place them in silos, but to simply illustrate a range at a high level.

Traditional Marketing
This is the marketing advertising mix that's prevailed over the years and has been perfected through broadcast and mass media techniques supported by a ratings system. It also could include some traditional PR, direct etc.

Tradigtial Marketing
Digital marketing has moved beyond it's infancy years and matured into something that's partially interactive, holds more promise for engagement, but incorporates traditional methodology. For example, a traditional Website may be interactive and technology dependent, but doesn't allow for user participation, feedback mechanisms reviews etc. Engagement can be increased through tactics such as interactive games or even a rich user experience, but there are no social components. Search methodologies are limited to things such as keyword, search optimization etc.

Social Engagement
Social engagement is created when design for participation is the primary strategy for the associated initiatives. Tactics can range from the simple to complex, but is primarily tasked with facilitating interactions from participant to participant to organization to participant(s) and vice versa. Social engagement carries distinct characteristics compared to "tradigital" in that it requires not only technology, but human intervention on the part of the organization in order to achieve the highest levels of engagement.

The gaps in between each stop represents where lots over overlap can exist. Anyway, it's a high level model. Thoughts appreciated.

Twitter's Ghost In The Machine

This morning I woke up to something a bit odd. Around 20 people had sent out nearly identical messages linking to my Twitter page. I have no idea how it happened—I also heard from one user that they were getting DM's (private direct messages) with links to my blog.  Also, no idea why or how.  Twitter is known to be very buggy at times and incidents like this tend to happen.  Here's a couple of things I noticed.

1. The tweets (at least the ones here) seem to be coming from Twitterfeed.
2. The tweets seem to be coming from legit accounts (though I doubt they manually sent them)
3. I'm not the only one (I've also seen similar Tweets linking to Robert Scoble ) See below:

So, I'm really not sure what's going on. Seems like a glitch—interestingly enough it does show that the Twitter platform is vulnerable to spam, not to mention accessible to advertisers who might want to get into your stream. I doubt Twitter would ever do that knowingly. It seems like a bug, or hack to me. Anyway, if I somehow ended up in your stream—it wasn't my doing, and I changed my password, just to be safe. There seems to be a ghost in Twitter's machine. Hopefully.

Is Your Organization An Umbrella or Mixing Bowl?

Was having a conversation with a colleague recently when it struck me that organizations are facing some interesting new challenges when it comes to how they operate at a cultural level and how this manifests outside the walls of the entity. I got to thinking about two very simple ways of looking at this:

Umbrella Culture

This is the organizational culture many of us have grown up with. Organizations or corporations act as "umbrellas" to the people who make up that organization. The umbrella "shields" the people, process, and even technology from the outside world where current weather conditions remain out of control of the organization. Umbrella cultures are protective, but like any shield—they can also limit exposure by protecting people from external changes in climate. People under the umbrella can get comfortable with the buffer and the organization feels safer having one in place. It's all much easier to control and less risky. No one really likes getting wet, and umbrella cultures double as a nice way to keep everyone huddled under one roof. 

Mixing Bowl Culture

Now, what happens if you take the umbrella, and flip it over? Instead of protecting and shielding, you've moved to something that exposes and supports. The mixing bowl holds all of it's ingredients, accessible to what's outside of it. Instead of being covered, hidden or even separated by the shaft of the umbrella, the bowl holds all of the ingredients together, allows for mixing and like any mixing bowl which sees use, allows for a bit of spilling over the sides. Mixing bowl culture is the umbrella turned inside out. 

Of course when we talk about complex institutions, corporations, organizations etc. This is way too simple of a model to do anything practical with. Complex issues require intricacy in how you approach resolving them. But as a conversation starter, what would happen if you flipped that umbrella over into something that looked more like a mixing bowl? And which better describes organizations you've been a part of? 

Micro-interactions Get People Talking. Thank You, Corner Bakery.

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about "micro-interactions". You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out how to do it.

0. Listen
1. Cut through the corporate red tape and participate (this was Corner Bakery's 4th tweet)
2. Listen some more
3. Add value
4. Keep listening
5. Repeat

(Today at my local Corner Bakery in Glenview, Il)

I say add value because Corner Bakery did exactly that. They knew enough about me to surprise and delight me with their initiation and the context they provided. I'm working out of a Corner Bakery as I write this because we are on a long road to sell our house and are regularly kicked out for showings (this is about as fun as it sounds). Corner Bakery brightened up my day just a little bit (and you have to love the free Wi-Fi). So they'll be rewarded with some new followers because of it. What they do after that, is up to them. But I have a few ideas...  :-)

Earning Trust In Streams = Attention + Influence

Several months ago I did some thinking around the notion of "paid and earned media". I wanted to continue that vein of thinking a bit, perhaps broaden it and provide some new context. Let's put marketing aside for a moment. Let's even put the social web aside. Before our obsession with "social media"  existed, we had e-mail, which as imperfect as it is has become very relevant when we think about things such as attention, action and even influence. Not unlike Digg, Twitter, Salesforce, or even RSS feeds to name a few—e-mail acted as our original streams. We receive messages, communications, responses etc. from friends, co-workers, relatives, brands, companies—you name it. We've all developed systems to filter the signal from the noise and prioritize our interactions using e-mail software or even cloud based services such as G-mail. But here's the secret to e-mail that everyone knows. Half the battle is getting "in the stream" meaning that marketers will do most anything to get in there. Some force their way in. This of course is called "SPAM". The other half of the secret is earning the trust of the individual who controls their e-mail ecosystem. This of course can be just as difficult if not more so than merely getting "in the stream".

Let's say you are a brand that someone trusts. You may be rewarded by getting permission to be "in the stream". Violate that trust and you are just as easily removed. Or in some cases demoted—you've gone from being "always trusted" to "rarely trusted".  And who enjoys premiere status in this ecosystem? Those you do trust—or have high frequency interactions with. Friends, co-workers, family, etc. This isn't a secret—surveys from sources such as Forrester back this up, not like we need that validation, it's common sense.

Managing Multiple Streams
Now let's fast forward beyond e-mail (without excluding it). Many of us have supplemented our digital diet of websites and e-mail with a healthy dosage of search activity, social networks of all shapes and sizes and Web services that allow us to produce and share content and connect with peers, communities and other businesses. What many of these have in common is that they exhibit "stream" like functionality. Facebook for example has pushed their experience even further in this direction to mimic the stream dependent interface on Twitter. Mobile versions of both platforms enhance this even further. Search results on Google are dependent on a pagination model, but the stream metaphor is applicable here as well. Advertising happens mostly "outside the stream"—but there are battles waged to get "in the stream". This of course is called "search engine optimization". Of course it's also common knowledge that the best search optimization is great content. Great content typically leads to what's called favorable "organic search results" meaning the more popular the content, the higher it surfaces in the stream.

Getting Access To Our Streams
There are all kinds of ways people are trying to gain access to your "streams". In feed readers, ads can be placed directly inside the stream in between posts. In more direct models like Pandora, ads show up directly in the stream (the service is arguably valuable enough to make this tolerable). Bloggers can write about your products and services and marketing is inserted directly inside the stream often times indistinguishable from the advertising that may surround it. There are services which will automatically generate a "tweet" if you've performed some type of interaction with a brand. All of this can get content, messages and information about products, brands, services or even individuals inserted. In some cases, even in context. This is something that you can be sure many people are trying to figure out.

Trust = Attention
While "getting in the stream" may be doable from both technical if not clever means (PR firms know how to do this), trust is another story. Trust equals attention. It's that simple. And right now, everything comes down to attention. We're all overloaded by demands for our time and most of us can't invest in filtering activities 24-7, so we default to giving our attention to those we trust. And this is where it comes full circle back to the e-mail example. Trust has to be earned, and once earned it leads to attention. Trust can be broken and there are multiple levels of trust.

Affecting Both Ends Of The Social Business Spectrum
If you think of social business (a term I'll use for doing business in an age where the social web is becoming ubiquitous), think of a spectrum where on one end is a large enterprise and on another is the individual. There's a great deal of nuance in between (not to mention overlap). On the consumer side of things, as we manage our streams both from a professional and personal perspective, we prioritize our attention based on who we trust the most (individual or brand). On the enterprise side, it's not all that different, though the ecosystem may be. Let's say an organization is levering an assortment of Wikis, internal blogs, communities and forums. Who do you think will get the attention and influence adoption of new systems etc? Those who have earned trust within the organization. While anyone within a large corporation can gain access to a stream (just as in non-enterprise), those who earn trust will earn attention. They will influence. The bottom line in both enterprise and consumer scenarios is the trust + getting into the stream can be a very effective way to get someone's attention. Other methods will likely be met with skepticism, get ignored or be flat out annoying.

Anyway, just a few thoughts I've got rolling around in the noggin at the moment. What do you think?

Barchart Hysteria