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Web Credulity
Do you believe everything you read on the Web or see posted, tweeted or pinned on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest?
Yesterday on my Facebook feed there was a serious discussion of an article from the Daily Currant claiming that Sarah Palin had advocated invading the Czech Republic to thwart radical Islam in Chechnya.
Of course the article was a fictional satire, which would seem obvious from:
- A cursory reading of the article,
- The article being in a publication which describes itself as political satire, or
- Even the name of the publication – isn’t a currant a tasteless raisin?
Yet some web-savvy Facebook friends and acquaintances were seriously discussing what their European friends and the rest of the world would think… (The thread has been removed, so don’t bother trying to find the conversation…)
Teaching SMM – METRICS #6 ROI of Social Media
Note: This is a continuing excerpt from what I teach my social media marketing classes on introduction to metrics and measurement…
Calculating the ROI of Social Media
In five previous posts the importance of measuring social media efforts and a broad array of metrics tied to social media activity have been discussed. All of these measures can potentially have value to assessing what is currently going on in the SM effort and trends for the organization’s social media presence. But what is the bottom line? What is the ROI of social media? As discussed in the next and final chapter of this text, organizational goals and objectives will be set based on the organization’s mission and strategy. Therefore the goals and measures used by different organizations will differ. In this section some of the possible return on investment or success metrics for a social media campaign will be discussed.
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How should you Tweet during a Tragedy??
My first attempt at using Storify:
(I failed at inserting the post into my WordPress blog…)
Posted in Uncategorized
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Teaching SMM #5 – METRICS Monitoring and Listening
Note: This is a continuing excerpt from what I teach my social media marketing classes on introduction to metrics and measurement…
Monitoring and Listening to Online Conversations
There is an incredible amount of information, discussion, and “content” being created and posted on the web every day. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted in 2010: “There was five exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every two days, and the pace is increasing.” Even though Schmidt may have exaggerated a bit—the exact figures are subject to some debate (Finley 2011), there is no doubt that we are living through an information and knowledge explosion. As noted several times, social media marketing is commonly referred to as “word of mouth on steriods.” Key metrics of social media efforts should logically include what is being said about an organization in social media or other online conversations.
Monitoring the Conversation
Teaching SMM – METRICS #4 Influence Scores
Note: This is a continuing excerpt from what I teach my social media marketing classes on introduction to metrics and measurement…
Influence Scores: Interactivity, Performance or Nothing?
At the time of this writing, the growing influence of influence measures has generated considerable controversy. There are stories of otherwise qualified candidates allegedly turned down for jobs because their Klout™ or PeerIndex scores were less than 90th percentile level. Mark Schaefer (2012, p. 1) begins his book on influence measures with a story of a marketing expert who was turned down for a job because of a Klout score of 45. After a “tweeting rampage” to game the system, his Klout score reached 70 and he started received unsolicited job inquiries. Some applicants with high Klout scores have begun including the scores on resumes. This raises a fairness issue: Should people be evaluated for jobs and special marketing offers based on an ambiguous score generated by a secret algorithm?
Posted in Klout, Social influence, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Teaching SMM, Text
Tagged Andrew Grill, Appinion, Ferenc Huszár, Justin Beiber, Klout, Kred, Mark Schaefer, Obama's Klout score, PeerIndex
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#soslam: Great Talks! Live Networking!
Last year I spoke at Social Slam; this year I was an attendee-only, but it was still a real high! What makes this event so special? The presentations are excellent and motivating. Attendees have the opportunity to speak with social media luminaries, online friends they have never met in person before, and other people just as enthusiastic as they are about social media.
I think of the old Miller Lite commercials… Visualize the large crowd in a full session yelling: Great Talks! Switch the camera to the crowds at the TweetUp or after party who shout: Live Networking! …. Great Talks! Live Networking!!
Posted in Blogging, Content, Klout, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, twitter
Tagged Build Your Personal Online Brand, Duct Tape Marketing, Jeff Bullas, Jeremy Floyd, John Jantsch, Knoxville, Mark Schaefer, Sean McGinnis, SEO, Social Slam 2012, Social Slam 2013, The New Realities of Search Engine Optimization
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Smartphones make us rude…and stupid!
RUDE
I have heard smartphones referred to as “rudephones.” They certainly have coarsened behavior in the non-virtual world. Who hasn’t been stuck in a line behind someone telling the cashier to “wait a moment?” while they finish messaging or talking? Or been cutoff by a minivan or truck driving who seems to be texting while driving?
I know of a preschool that sent a note to parents saying that “The high point of your child’s day is when you pick them up after school. Please do not be staring at a screen or talking when they first see you. We will not release children to a parent who is using their phone.”
Posted in Higher education, Internet, Mobile computing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Teaching SMM
Tagged acquiring a learning disability, attention, cyberg, google, google makes you stupid, Mark Schaefer, multitasking, multitasking is halfassery, Rudephones, smartphones, smartphones make us rude, smartphones make us stupid, Smartphones make you rude, Smartphones make you stupid, Stupidphones
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Is Facebook about to be DISRUPTED?
The Wall Street Journal had an article about the growth of messaging apps and how their use threatened both Facebook and the mobile providers. Users spending hours a day messaging with friends are not using cellphone minutes or viewing Facebook ads. The threat is not just hypothetical – a study shows that mobile apps are already more used than either Facebook or Twitter in Japan and Korea.
Many observers including my friend Mark Schaefer believe that the size of the Facebook network and its value (“network effect”) make Facebook virtually invulnerable. I suspect, though, that Facebook is vulnerable to disruptive innovation….
Teaching SMM – METRICS #3 Measuring Influence: Art or Science?
Note: This is a continuing excerpt from what I teach my social media marketing classes on introduction to metrics and measurement…
Measuring Influence: Art or Science?
Wouldn’t it be great if an organization could identify people who were highly influential to their prospective users and customers and reach out specifically to them? This could be the key to “Word of mouth on Steroids.” Marketers have struggled for years with the idea of influence over prospects in choosing spokespersons and endorsers of products. Celebrity endorsers are measured with a Q-score, a metric that combines public awareness of the celebrity and the appeal of the celebrity. The Q-score is often considered a measure of likeability. However for many products and services, the endorser’s likeability is not enough; source credibility is also important. Source credibility[i] is seen as vital for products that are major purchases or perceived as complex. Source credibility, as usually measured, comprises expertise and trustworthiness; the spokesperson would be likely to know and understand the product or service and be telling the truth about it.(Hovland and Weiss 1951)
Multiple services are trying to measure the “influence” of social media participants.
SMM Case Exercise: Public Shaming & Hostile Environment
This extended exercise is effectively a mini-case based on a Tech Crunch article from March, 2013. A sexual joke at a high-tech conference resulted in public shaming, a DDOS (distributed denial-of-service) attack, and a couple firings. The background and the quotes included here all came from the Tech Crunch (2013) article.
Teaching SMM – METRICS #2 Activity Measures
Measures Based on SM and Web Activities
Learning Objectives
1. Be aware and learn measures available to analyze social media activities.
2. Understand web activity metrics and monitoring.
3. Understand tactics to use web activity measures for specific SM posts or campaigns.
4. Understand social media “monitoring” and monitoring measures.
5. Qualitative analysis: understand SM “listening” & tools to analyze SM information.
6. Understand difficulty arriving at a return-on-investment for social media activities.
7. Know the approaches to an ROI calculation.
A starting point to the measures and metrics for social media is an overview of an organization’s and community’s activities on social media and website.
Activity on Social Media Sites
Teaching SMM: METRICS #1 Importance of Measurement
Note: This is an excerpt from what I teach my social media marketing classes on introduction to metrics and measurement…
Gary Vanyerchuk, online wine entrepreneur and social media celebrity, has famously said “What is the ROI of your grandmother?” in response to recurring requests for the range of return on investment enjoyed by corporations. Other social media advocates have asked similar rheotrical questions such as, “What is the ROI of your phone?,” or “What is the ROI of breathing?,” suggesting that social media activity is essential to the ongoing vitality of an organization. Questions about the return on social media efforts have come up increasingly often as more corporations and organizations, not just the early adopters, have become actively involved in social media marketing and organizational spending has increased on SM applications.
Posted in Klout, Social influence, Social Media Marketing, Teaching SMM, Text
Tagged and Influence Marketing, Klout, Mark Schaefer, PeerIndex, Return on Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Media ROI:Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts Oliver Blanchard, Social Scoring, The ROI of social media is your business will still exist in five years., What is Measured is Treasured, What is the ROI of your grandmother?
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Teaching Social Media Metrics – The Hangout
Had a nice discussion of teaching measurement in social media on Google+ Hangout. It is available here (video about 50 minutes). Jeremy Floyd did a great job of running the session! Insightful comments from @mjkushin @NancyRichmond @jfloyd. I also participated…
For nice summary details go to Jeremy Floyd’s blog.
The next few posts of this blog will be excerpts about what I teach about social media metrics to my students…
We ARE all cyborgs now!
The military is working on external skeletons to create “super soldiers.” Medical devices are advancing beyond temporary mechanical hearts and synthetic joints. The melding of the human body and machine is going forward. The combination of man and robot – cyborgs – no longer seems far in the future. However the most important melding of man and machine – enhancing the brain – is already proceeding.
What do you do when you can’t come up with a word, or citation or name that you are searching for? Until 10 years ago you would have put it out of your mind and waited till it popped into your consciousness by the end of the day or first thing next morning. Today you type some prompts into Google or Tweet to your followers and you have it in 2 or 3 minutes. Computer power – available 24/7 has already augmented your memory!
Similarly when you are dealing with a difficult problem or a creative idea an early step is a Google search and possibly a post on twitter, Facebook or another social site for an impromptu brainstorming session online.
Mark Schaefer posted an additional insight from SXSW yesterday: “One of the things that is dawning on me throughout SXSW is that the mobile smart device can turn each of us into a constant, real time, data collection machine.” It is wonderful and true: with a couple clicks we can save our insights, record thoughts or conversation, take photos or video clips. Going forward our lives will be recorded digitally. Memories will be far more detailed, complete and accurate then ever before.
[Future historians may be more rooted in fact and information and have to know the principles of "Big data".]
We are all cyborgs now!
Memory augmentation, creative support, data collection: in these and other ways computer power with us 24/7 is aiding us, but also changing us. Computer power in our pockets enhances us. We are all cyborgs now.
Mobile may be as important a development as the development of the Internet itself was in driving augmentation forward.
Is this all to the good? How do you feel about being a cyborg??
[As a long-term fan of apocalyptic science fiction, I harbor some concerns that I will share in my next post...]
Is Jeff Bullas really a BOT? Are you?
In a recent blog post Jeff Bullas describes how to use an internet tool to generate and post automatic RTs from selected Twitter participants. Is Jeff Bullas a BOT?
According to Wikipedia bots are ”software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet.” The most important task of a social media participant is sharing and spreading content. Auto-RTs perform the most important Twitter function: I would say that @jeffbullas is in fact a bot!
However, as most of you likely know, Jeff Bullas is also a celebrated blogger. I read Jeff’s blog regularly and recently read his book on Blogging. As Jeff relates in his book, he views Twitter primarily as a tool to publicize and distribute his blog articles. This may be why I have always found his blog content compelling but his twitter persona less engaging then other excellent bloggers like @markwschaefer and @ckburgess.
So Jeff Bullas may be a Twitter BOT, but is a terrific social media contributor through his blog and other writing.
Authentic or BOT?
What separates an authentic social media participant from a BOT? Some participants such as Mark Schaefer, writer of the excellent blog Grow and social media guide The Tao of Twitter, seem to indicate that authenticity means using no automatic tools for creating or timing posts or managing followers. In one post Mark described how he spent as much time screening followers as people to follow. (However, he has mentioned using assistants to help him, which raises the question of whether outsourcing is more authentic than automating…)
We are all cyborgs!
I watch tweets from specialized Twitter lists on Hootsuite and collect blog updates via RSS feeds on Google Reader, but I consider it important to read every tweet and every link before I retweet them. So I consider by twitter output to be fully authentic, even though I had help assembling the information.
However I do time my posts using bufferapp. And I use software to selectively follow-back people on twitter. I use other software to double-check the earlier follow decisions. I do not screen who follows me unless I see something offensive in my feed. So others with different standards might accuse me of being too automatic. (I even confess to something that many consider a cardinal sin: I send a single one-time-only DM to new Twitter followers promoting my blog… it seems to increase blog followers, even though a get an occasional hate note.)
I argue that we are all cybergs – part human and part auto – at least most of us who are active on social media. But we must continue to consider what authenticity means, to retain our social media soul. To me authenticity means that my content is mine.
What do you think???
Posted in Blogging, Content, Social Media, twitter
Tagged Are you a BOT?, automated social media, BOT, cyberg, Jeff Bullas, Mark Schaefer, twitter tools, we are all cybergs
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Does Facebook CAUSE narcissism?
… or are narcissists just drawn to social media?
I started asking this question on Twitter a couple weeks ago, in order to gather some ideas and thoughts from my online friends for this post.
Most of the comments suggested that it was the latter – that narcissists were drawn to social media. That makes sense and is a comforting idea. All those people bragging all the time on Facebook were simply attracted to the medium for that reason… But is it true?
All the teenage girls taking a self-photo with their smartphones… were already narcissistic? All of the people extending their Christmas-letter-bragging to a year-round activity on FB?
I know my behavior is different when on social media. After my university asked alums about professors who had changed their lives, I was asked to be in a promotional video. I told very few of my real world friends and colleagues about it, and when I did I carefully worked it into the conversation as an aside. But on Facebook and Twitter I shouted “CHECK OUT the new promotional video at this link –>”.
Having met some of my social media friends in person, I know that they are also reasonably modest in person, unlike their social media personas. So I am confident that social media affects behavior at least online. My worry is whether it then spills over into the non-online world.
What do you think?
During the writing of this post, two others weighed in on related topics. Mark Schaefer wrote a post on social media and the spiral of envy that cited a German study that Facebook users were envious.
Reg Saddler @zaibatsu posted what I like to call the “Facebook Prayer”:
What do you think. Does social media turn us all into narcissists??
Posted in Social Media, twitter
Tagged envy, Facebook, Facebook makes you vain, Mark Schaefer, narcissism, narcissist, social media, Twitter
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Is #FF Follow Friday SO 2009?
I have noticed a decline in #FF and #MarketerMonday activity among my online friends. Have the Friday and Monday call-outs become passe? Am I one of the last to figure it out? I started asking for the reasons for lower activity and received a variety of responses.
Some indicated that #FF and #MarketerMonday are simply flawed ideas. @MarkWSchaefer said that #FFs hurt the feelings of those not included; @MGranovsky said that it hurt the feelings of some that assumed reciprocity – if you just don’t participate no opinions are hurt. Several others mentioned that #FF and #MarketerMonday have become just a Spam-like strategy to add followers, as people you don’t know and aren’t even following you mention you hoping for a follow.
I surveyed friends that I regularly #FF and they indicated that the number of new follows have declined. @MGranovsky ran a mini-experiment that showed little impact from #FFs. A number of people that I have #FF-ed for years indicated that they used to see 3-4 new follows and now don’t feel that there is any impact.
I had an interesting three-way discussion with @FHuszar (who always has keen insights) and @sinanaral about when #FFs might work and how it might be tested. Some largely anecdotal propositions about #FF effectiveness follow.
Propositions about the effectiveness of #FF mentions.
#FFs are more effective:
- The more credibility (influence?) the recommend-er enjoys
- The first few times a user mentions a given tweeter.
- Among those included in a #FF grouping. [They show up in mentions and each has a halo effect from being included in the set with the others...]
#2 and #3 (hopefully not #1) would explain the waning effect of my mentions since I have tended to mention many of the same people in the same groupings?
Any more thoughts on this phenomenon???
Posted in Social influence, Social Media, twitter
Tagged FF, Follow Friday, Huszar, Mark Schaefer, MarketerMonday
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Start up comics!
Finally a comic devoted to our true superheroes – entrepreneurs.
To follow the strip -and few past adventures – go to http://www.inthestartup.biz/
Creating and Nurturing your Personal Learning Network #PLN
In The Impact Equation, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith say that everyone needs a channel in social media: ”developing a channel is about more than expression… it’s an important step for your personal life, your business, and your career. It is not something you need to be doing not when you are working on your new project, but much earlier…”
I made a similar note when I talked about the benefit of my online community in creating a new course in Social Media Marketing.
But for most of us there is an ongoing value from the community that is even more important than help in a future project. Whatever our area of expertise or passion, it is hard to stay current in a fast paced world. Our online community, sharing our passion, is an aid to lifelong learning, a Personal Learning Network or PLN.
PLNs are mostly discussed in educational literature, but in a knowledge economy, nearly all of us need to continuously keep up-to-speed on changing developments. So build your “community” or your “channel”, maybe they will help you with a major project some day, but in the meantime they will support and enhance you as your PLN!
Along with my wife, Laurel, I presented a workshop on using social media to develop and nurture a PLN at the Virginia Tech Annual Conference on Pedagogy. I recommend the conference to all. Our slides are posted on slideshare, embedded below:
Posted in Higher education, Social influence, Social Media
Tagged Chris Brogan, Cider, Julien Smith, Pedagogy, personal learning network, PLN, the Impact Equation, VT
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Social Media Marketing at Radford
The social media class played a major role in a new recruiting video for RU!
Posted in Higher education, Social Media Marketing
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B2B Selling: Content has ALWAYS been a winning strategy!
I had an interesting conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn with Sander Biehn (@sanderbiehn), who is an an evangelist for Social Selling at AT&T. The conversation was prompted by an article on the importance of creating good corporate content that I had tweeted.
During our discussion, I mentioned my sales approach during my earlier career as a salesperson and sales manager, and belatedly realized that there is nothing new about a content focus for B2B Sales! When I was selling bonds and fixed income derivatives and later online platforms and services for derivatives trading I used content to sell for me.
Posted in Content, Selling, Social Media
Tagged content, Content strategy for B2B selling, selling, social media and selling
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Blogs that a Student of SMM should Follow…
I suggest that my new social media marketing class start following some blogs immediately. Below is my current list – any suggestions for improvement?
- Social Media Explorer
- Hubspot Inbound Marketing Blog
- Mashable Social Media
- Technorati Blog
- All Facebook
- Social Media Marketing Magazine
- Grow! from Mark Schaefer
- RU SMM Class Facebook Page
- My blog
I want to keep the list to a manageable size but want them to get information they needs to be social media savvy. Again suggestions solicited!!
My Social Media Reading List
I teach undergraduate and MBA courses in social media management. In the courses I stress experiential learning, especially projects such as a campaign for a personal passion, self-branding, or consulting with an organization. I tell my students that the only way to learn social media is hands-on.
I personally started blogging and then tweeting and benefited from mentoring with Mark Schaefer and Kent Huffman and learning together with Cheryl Burgess. However, on reflection I have also benefited from reading some wonderful books on social media.
Take a look at the books I list and most importantly let me know ones that you think I omitted!
THE THREE GREATEST BOOKS ABOUT THE SM Phenomenon
- The Cluetrain Manefesto
- Groundswell @charleneli + @jbernoff
- The Tao of Twitter @markwschaefer
Three other Great Books about the phenomenon
- The New Rules of Marketing & PR @dmscott
- Socialnomics @equalman
- Likeable Social Media @davekerpen
Other really good books about SM and specialized topics in social media (alpha by author)
A Bloggers 2013 resolution – check out Reddit and Triberr
I have already publicized my personal new years resolutions – to lose weight and produce a lot of pages on some major projects that I committed to (and to tweet a report of my weekly pages typed and weight lost every Weds morning…)
Every blogger should have resolutions also. My blogging resolutions for 2013 are:
- Figure out Reddit and how active I want to be,
- Figure out Triberr and whether I should participate,
- Post every Tuesday (minimum) on this blog, and
- Figure out what to do with my other blog, servicecocreation.com.
I signed up for Reddit two weeks ago and installed the button on my blog, but really haven’t explored it yet. My typical daily hits pattern on this blog (which still lags the older one) is to have 150-250 hits on the day of a new post and the following two days and then go down to 10 per day or less on Sunday and Monday before a new post. Sunday night, with only 5 hits for the day, I experimented with hitting the Reddit button on two recent posts – A presentation lasts FOREVER and Would you trust your daughter’s beach pics to Zuck. I had over 200 hits in 24 hours. No new comments, but presumably new readers. Reddit has my attention.
I have noticed my two favorite bloggers, Mark Schaefer and Cheryl Burgess are using Triberr. I couple weeks ago I read and interesting article describing Triberr as the bloggers best kept secret. Triberr would also seem to merit attention!
The need to post at minimum weekly is obvious. As is the need to figure out what to do with my two blogs (and another I have been considering). I may be back to my readers for suggestions on that…
Anything else that belongs on my blogging resolutions???
Posted in Blogging, Klout, Social influence, Social Media, Social Media Marketing
Tagged Blog, blogging, Cheryl Burgess, Reddit, resolutions, Schaefer, Triberr
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A presentation lasts FOREVER!
Today when you step up to the podium at a conference you must realize that your talk may well last FOREVER!
Last year at Mark Schaefer’s wonderful Social Slam, I gave a 15 minute talk about how I crowdsourced the whole process of creating a new course in social media marketing – from grant request to syllabus – using Twitter and my blog. At the time I wrote a post about the great conference and the novelty of talking while everyone else in the auditorium was tweeting.
Later in the summer my daughter text-ed me that my speech was on YouTube. I just checked and it now as more views on YouTube than the estimated crowd of 300 when I gave it live.
Fortunately I am fairly happy with the talk, but… I might have left out a somewhat snarky comment about the host (who is a WONDERFUL guy) cutting out when I started talking… and two or three other asides.
Something to keep in mind – All talks live forever. Will it affect your presentations?
Posted in Higher education, Social Media Marketing
Tagged Mark Schaefer, Presentations, Schirr, Social Slam, soslam
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Can Twitter Enforce New Year Resolutions?
I am a big believer in New Years Resolutions… And some of them have come to pass!
In the past couple years my social media network, especially twitter and this blog, have helped me keep up on social media trends and helped me develop SMM courses, acting as both a personal learning network and co-creation platform!
So I naturally got to thinking whether my social network could help with resolution execution.
Are you familiar with “Quitter’s Inc.?”, the short story of Stephen King (1978)? In it an organization spun-off from the Mafia claims 98% success in curing smoking. Once you sign on with Quitter’s Inc. you are expected to quit smoking cold turkey. You are under surveillance: if you backslide the organization kidnaps a loved one and tortures them with escalating electric shocks or worse.
I plan to use the same simple concept adapted to social media. Two of my primary resolutions are to (1) lose weight and (2) finish a couple of key projects. Each Wednesday morning I will tweet how much weight I have lost and how many pages I have typed from the previous Wednesday and whether I have met the minimum goals of 2 pounds and 5 pages.
Tens of thousands of tweeps are available to ridicule me if I give up, or consistently fall short of the weekly goals!
Not as macabre as Quitter’s Inc., but hopefully effective…we will see!
Posted in Innovation, Social Media Marketing
Tagged broken resolutions, lose weight, Mafia, New Year's resolutions, social media, Stephen King, write
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Would you trust your daughter’s beach pics to Zuck?
We heard the resounding answer yesterday: NO!!
Instagram and Facebook have “clarified” the new privacy settings for Instagram after a furor caused by the original announcement of the new rules.
The original announcement indicated that Instagram and Facebook had the rights to all of your content including the right to use your photos in ads: ”A business or other entity may pay” Instagram to display users’ photos and other details “in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.“
Today Instagram “clarified” away advertisers ability to use your pics… Clearly Facebook backed off its original plan due to the swell of protests.
Why does Facebook have one PR disaster after another with regards to privacy or other changes in its service. One answer is the clash between the freemium model used throughout social media and the desire of these companies to grow revenue. (More about this in my next post.)
But I think Facebook is a special case because of the corporate DNA from founder Zuckerberg. We all know the famous stories:
- Developing FB while telling the Winklevoss twins he was working on their Harvard-only social network,
- Disputes with his former roomate and co-founder,
- His famous reply to why clients gave FB access to their private data: “They trust me…dumb f***s”,
- The change in algorithm that reduced viewing of FB pages posts just as FB started pushing promoted posts for FB pages,
- Strange and confusing changes in privacy settings,
- Etc.
I discussed this issue in a previous post: The Social Network – The IPO. I believe that a lack of ethics and disregard for privacy is central in the corporate DNA and corporate culture of Facebook. (Sorry to mix metaphors.) I believe that FB’s corporate slogan should be:
Customers trust us, the dumb f***s!
If you rely primarily on your Facebook page for your organization a good question for you might be:
Would you trust your business to Zuck?
Posted in Social Media Marketing
Tagged ethics, Facebook, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, pictures, privacy, social media
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Top 11 Social Media Sites
It is interesting to browse through the top websites as assessed by Alexa here: TOP Sites
Eleven of the top 100 websites are social media sites. (I have also included an estimate of recent total monthly visitors, when I found a credible estimate somewhere else on the web.)
Note that blogging is understated because it is not dominated by a social site. For example, according to WordPress there are more blogs using WordPress software on a private site than using the WP blog hosting site that is used in this ranking.
The top eleven ranked by Alexa:
Platform(s) Social Media Monthly Visitors Alexa Rank[2]
- Facebook Social Network 850 million 2
- YouTube Video-sharing 800 million 3
- Twitter Micro-Blogging 250 million 9
- LinkedIn Professional Network 110 million 14
- Google+ Social Network 100 million –
- WordPress Blogging – 22
- Tumblr MicroBlogging 13 million 36
- Pinterest Social Scrapbook 11 million 38
- Blogger Blogging 47
- Flickr Photo Sharing 56
- Instagram Photo Sharing 98
[1] Wikipedia estimates (October 2012) unless otherwise cited; the sites are ranked by the Alexa ranking for consistency
[2] Alexa web site rankings at http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo World Ranking
[3] Top 15 social network sites, October 2012, eBizMBA http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites
Social Learning and Online #HigherEd
The past two days I enjoyed observing social learning at work in my classes.
Friday I gave my sales classes a midterm. I then allowed them to form groups to retake the tests to improve their individual scores. It was fun to watch them discuss issues I consider important and reach consensus within their groups. This simple technique (which I highly recommend), turns the exam into a genuine learning activity! I have been doing this for several years: I have gotten some negative feedback (a couple students have cited the retest as proof that I am “easy”), but the process is an incredible improvement over the former professor-led test review.
Monday I decided to have my social media marketing class present their progress on their individual semester projects at the half-way point. I had intended it mostly to give them a push to get going. What a wonderful session! Students talked about what they have been working on and got feedback and ideas from other students. Great learning session, likely the best next to my great guest speakers!!!
Use of MOOCs
These two great examples of the power of social learning or peer-to-peer learning lead me to be skeptical of current MOOCs…
I freely admit that somewhere on planet earth there is likely someone who gives more engaging lectures on personal selling or social media. I also believe that lecturing is one of the least effective ways to learn, and that watching a 40 minute video of my lectures would suck. Unfortunately for the more simplistic MOOCs I believe that watching a series of videotaped 40 minute lectures from the very best lecturer on earth would also suck – just a bit less.
Flipping, social learning and social media
Thus I think the best use of the much heralded MOOCs would be be to provide raw material to “flip” classes. (For example, instruct students to watch some of the lectures online if they can stand them and then apply the concepts in class by problems and discussion.) Ultimately, of course, lectures can be made more palatable by cutting them into 10 minute chunks and using animation to replace talking-head professors. [not cheap]
However the key to online learning success will be to bring my wonderful Friday and Monday classes online – online social learning. This will be a valuable application of social media. I have seen some evidence of social learning in Facebook groups and wikis in my classes. I expect the effort to mirror in person social learning via social media to be difficult, really difficult, but not in the end insurmountable.
Posted in Higher education
Tagged HigherEd, Kahn academy, MOOC, MOOCs, online education, peer-to-peer, social learning, social media
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Can One Billion Facebook Users be wrong?
According to Wikipedia (note: don’t cite in my classes!) as of early summer the social platforms had the following number of users:
- Facebook 955 million (certainly 1 B by now)
- Twitter 500+ million
- LinkedIn 175 million
Am I the only one who thinks these numbers are skewed? Based on strictly anecdotal evidence I believe that there are a LOT of fake and duplicate FB accounts out there. My personal example – My wife and I between us have:
- TWO LinkedIn accounts (and don’t know anyone with dups) and
- FIVE Facebook accounts (and know many people with dups).
What do you think? Do you also have dup accounts? (I have one for old high school acquaintances and my dog has one that he really doesn’t post on.)
Does LinkedIn have both a more professional group and honest count?
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Tagged duplicate accounts?, Facebook, Linkedin, number of users, Twitter
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What is your Klout score today?
Even after carefully reading Mark Schaefer’s excellent book Return on Influence, I am still one of those unrepentant Klout-bashers that Mark has referred to in several of his recent posts. I believe that a Klout score has little value and acts like an SEO-like force in motivating participants to game SM, thereby coarsening social media. See selected posts:
Last evening at the ribbon cutting for the beautiful new business building at Radford U. – Biz Building – an MBA student not in my SMM class came up to me and said “Your social media class has impacted everyone in the program. It seems the new greeting is ‘What is your Klout score today’”
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
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Tagged Influence, Klout, Mark Schaefer, Return on Influence, ROI, SM, SMM
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Professor Klout
“…here is an inescapable fact. Many firms are sizing up college student’s Klout scores as a quantitative metric to use for job applicant screening. Therefore, I decided to create a class project in which the final grade earned is solely determined by a student’s Klout score.”
This is a quote from a post by Todd Bacile ( @toddbacile ), a new PhD from FSU on Mark Schaefer’s Blog http://www.businessesgrow.com/2012/08/26/florida-state-university-class-using-klout-to-determine-student-grades/
This blog post generated a bit of a storm in the comments on the Grow blog (my comment must have been screened out…) and on FB and other social media sites. Todd is likely now the most talked about marketing job candidate. USNews even ran a tepidly critical comment: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/08/29/professor-sparks-controversy-for-klout-based-grading?page=2
Todd’s curious wording – some readers interpreted “the final grade earned is solely determined” as meaning the class grade – and provocative use of “gaming” helped incite the ire. However his key premise that since some employers are using Klout scores to screen job candidates, Universities must teach students to achieve high scores is also widely criticized.
I am a fairly consistent Klout-basher. [For example see http://servicecocreation.com/2011/02/16/will-klout-kill-twitter/ ] I think the measure itself is faulty, even somewhat silly (and worse since the recent modifications – more later on this). More importantly I believe that the service becomes harmful to social media as participants game their scores under pressure from imbecile employers who screen with Klout or perhaps by professors who specify that a “final grade earned is solely determined” by the measure.
I think most social media participants have already seen clear evidence of the coarsening of social media due to J0e Fernandez and his Klout henchmen in their Facebook stream. Why has there been an increase in:
- Artificial or photo-shoped pics?
- Vapid posts that sound like campaigns for Miss American? (Why can’t we have world peace?)
- Exhortations to click “like” – Please “like” for world peace, Please “like” to support our veterans, please like if you love the Hokies (local).
Answer: Pumping up the K-score!!!
What should an academic do? Klout and its competitors do exist, try to measure something important, and are widely followed. I personally think Todd may have pushed too far…
BUT I do offer extra credit in my social media courses to the two or three students who over the course of the semester: (1) end the semester with the highest Klout score, (2) show the largest increase in their Kred and /or PeerIndex scores.
What is your opinion:
- Does Todd go too far in promoting Klout in his class?
- Do I go too far in promoting Kred, Klout and PeerIndex in mine?
Posted in Social influence
Tagged FSU, Grading by Klout score, Klout, Kred, Mark Schaefer, PeerIndex, Todd Bacile
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Wicked Commentary on Social Media
This “ad” for the iPhone 5 is also a wicked commentary on social media!
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Social Media used to Crowdsource a New Course!
A recording of a presentation at Social Slam 2012.
(Also posted at servicecocreation.com and youtube.)
The Social Network: The IPO
Six possible lessons of the Facebook IPO? Investors in an IPO should be wary if:
- “They trust me…dumb f–ks” is a corporate slogan. (Zuck in early days…)
- All the insiders are selling as much as they possibly can.
- A tech company hasn’t transitioned well to the new platform…(mobile)
- The public has lots of access to shares
- The price and quantity of shares is ratcheted up just before the launch
- The CEO wears a hoodie (or a mask) to investor meetings.
Disclosure: I was deeply skeptical of the FB IPO and tweeted the Forbes article about whether FB would even exist in five years multiple times, but I was not brave enough to explore options to go short on any bounce.
The biggest issue: Will Facebook exist in five years?
Mobile IS the new platform. Facebook was dominant in the Web 2.0 world – it is having problems in mobile. To summarize: Facebook mobile is clunky and boring and currently has no ads!
In my social media marketing class I had to persuade about 10% of my students to reopen Facebook accounts. They see FB as a place to exchange pictures with grandma but not too useful on their iPods. Twitter or texts plus instagram readily replaces what Facebook did from them in the Web 2.0 days – no wonder Zuckerberg quickly doubled Twitter’s buyout offer for Instagram!
Of course FB is focused on mobile and has a legion of smart people working on it, so they can’t be ruled out. But as Forbes noted a couple of weeks before the IPO, it is a question if Google or Facebook will even be around in 5 years: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-facebook-might-completely-disappear-in-the-next-5-years/
(It seems to me that Google is better positioned.)
The revised earnings scandal
I was not surprised to hear that “eyeballs are increasing faster than ads” at Facebook. Even though their app is clunky and boring, the world is going mobile and FB is adding users on mobile and as noted has not yet figured out how to put ads there!
It does seem tawdry for the underwriter to share info with the institutional buyers that it didn’t share with the public, so let the suits go on! But the simple fact that the deal was available to the public was an ominous sign…
“They trust me… Dumb f—ks”
The biggest worry with FB is whether it can master mobile. Issue #2 is whether it is run by grownups. Wearing the hoodie to investor meetings should have been a reminder of the startup days of Facebook. Zuckerberg in a series of IMs (he didn’t have Twitter then) told a friend that he could get him private data on nearly anyone at Harvard:
ZUCKERBERG: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCKERBERG: people just submitted it…i don’t know why…they “trust me”…dumb f–ks
A good question for a potential FB investor: Does Zuck respect you the way he respected his early users or his users’ privacy?
………………………….
For further insight into the founder’s character, remember how he stole the idea and perhaps some of the code as also discussed in a recent Forbes blog post by James Crotty: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/07/22/learning-from-the-winkelvi/
Klout, Kred, and PeerIndex are influencing social media!
I have been and continue to be a skeptic of influence measuring.
From physics we all know about the “observer effect” – that the act of measuring impacts the phenomenon being measured. Surely this effect should be even more powerful in the social realm, with thinking and emotional actors, than when analyzing inanimate particles. In an earlier post I stated that from the principles Mark Schaefer outlines in Chapter 10 of his new book, ROI, these seven steps should be effective at raising a Klout score:
- Post more often,
- Post on trending or popular topics,
- Post when your important followers are online,
- Follow people with high Klout scores,
- Don’t follow people with low Klout scores,
- Unfollow followers who have become inactive or have had their Klout score fall below a cutoff level,
- Do whatever you can to engage people with high Klout scores.
Six weeks ago I started focusing on steps #5 and #6, both of which I feel are a bit anti-social. My content is actually down over the period because we are at the end of the semester with grading and projects and committee wrap-ups…
Sure enough my Klout score has slowly risen from 48/49 to 53 over that period. [I will never do all seven steps as I write about what I am interested in and cannot be a sycophant...but if you REALLY care about your Klout score do them all!]
I encourage people to look at the Klout alternatives, PeerIndex and Kred. Because of the observer effect it is important to have more than one scorer. I examined relative scores on the three services. I consider @ckburgess @markwschaefer and @kenthuffman to be my three mentors on social media, so I looked at how the four of us score by the three measures. Two observations: (1) there is some diversity in the scoring (2) they are probably all wrong because all three mentors should probably score higher than me.
SM Participants KloutTM Score PeerIndexTM Score KredTM Score
@markwschaefer 71 64 922
@ckburgess 55 60 843
@ProfessorGary 53 65 789
@Kenthuffman 49 52 783
According to figures from www.klout.com, www.peerindex.com, and www.kred.com
More on influence measuring?
Mark Schaefer in a 9-minute interview talks about the power of influence marketing:
Azeem Azhar, founder of PeerIndex is interviewed by Mark. An interesting insight into the power of the mighty middle (scores of 35-65):
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Tagged Influence, Klout, Kred, Mark Schaefer, PeerIndex, Return on Influence, social media
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SMM Class hears “Voices”
SMM class has decided to work with new author Dr. Kathryn Jordan to promote her new book, Voices: Words from Wise Women.
http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Words-Kathy-L-Jordan/dp/0982812841
The inspiring book illustrates principles of career development through stories from career women. Dr. Jordan formerly ran the career center at Radford University and currently is a coach to women executives. The book will be launched on April 24.
This video was doubtlessly inspired by videos from John Boyer’s VT geography class, scaled to 40 students instead of 3,000.
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Tagged Kathryn Jordan, new book, SMM, social media marketing, Voices
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Tweeting for 3 years!
On Saturday I received a friendly mention from @TwBirthday, saying “@ProfessorGary Happy 3rd TwBirthday! You’ve been around since 18 March 2009!”
I took a quick look at my statistics – over 12,000 tweets and over 50,000 followers – and reflected that it really didn’t seem that long.
Then a tweet from @steveshu totally reframed the analysis: “Time flies! Happy Twitter b-day! 3yrs at 12,053 tweets is ~1.7 mil characters. Library of Congress has about 4 new books!”
OMG! (in a manly voice of course…)
How much time have I spent on social media over those three years. FOUR books!!!
Being an optimist I then thought of:
- the many friends I had met such as Mark, Cheryl, Kent, Pam, John, Diana, Steve and so many others,
- the help I had received in creating my social media marketing course, and
- the existence of the SMM course.
Just Tweet It!
I am in the early stages of a planned book: Maybe I can just tweet it!!
“Green” Textbooks
There is a buzz on campus about e-books as texts, not only are they generally 40% cheaper than traditional textbooks (“only” $70 or $80), but they are also “green”, “sustainable”, and presumably lower carbon footprint…
Unfortunately, the story does not seem quite as upbeat to me. As implemented by the major textbook companies, e-books are green in the sense that they squeeze more green ($$) from our students. By eliminating used books, the companies rid themselves of competition and actually achieve a higher average book price with lower costs! (I guess we can still celebrate putting some printers and tree farmers out of work…)
However there is disruptive change afoot from new companies, Continue reading
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Tagged disruptive change, e-books, Flat World Knowledge, ripoffs, Textbooks
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ROI is a good book…but Klout still sucks!
I put my formal review of ROI by Mark Schaefer on my innovation blog: www.servicecocreation.com. In summary:
- EVERYONE should read Tao of Twitter by Mark: The Tao of Twitter: Changing your life and business 140 characters at a time
- People interested in Klout and its effect on social media should read ROI: Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing
However I was frustrated by the tone of ROI. As a longtime Klout-skeptic I feel that it reads like an authorized bio of Klout and Joe F. Yes, Joe sounds like a nice guy; yes the people at Klout are working hard to find the right algorithm; and yes, Klout is trying to be more transparent…but:
Thinking through the action plan of improving one’s Klout score from the principles Mark outlines in Chapter 10 of ROI, these seven steps should be effective:
- Post more often,
- Post on trending or popular topics,
- Post when your important followers are online,
- Follow people with high Klout scores,
- Don’t follow people with low Klout scores,
- Unfollow followers who have become inactive or have had their Klout score fall below a cutoff level,
- Do whatever you can to engage people with high Klout scores.
These are actionable steps…but will they ultimately make Twitter, FB, your blog, and social media in general better places? It think not – in fact I think transparency will make things worse as more and more people will follow the seven steps above. SM will become less and less social…
KLOUT STILL SUCKS.
In pre-ROI days, Mark had some tough comments about Klout and influence:
- Klout: An Infographic http://bit.ly/nBFhtV
- Social media slut http://bit.ly/p2Tj0P
- Big fat Klout scores http://bit.ly/paCZqj
Also from me:
- Will Klout kill twitter?: http://t.co/pD6HAsy
- Will Klout Kill Community? http://t.co/K2Ax7dj SMM Magazine
Pinterest Infographic
The social media wizards at Modea have posted a cool Pinterest infographic on their website. You should check it out:
http://www.modea.com/blog/pinterest-infographic
Several people at Modea, including Aaron Herrington and Mike Cox, have been very supportive of the SMM class!
Pinterest…or one way to learn something…
Everyone has heard the bromide that “those who can do, do; while those who can’t, teach.” A less well-known one is “one way to learn something is to teach it.”
Back in January in the second session of the SMM class I asked the students what social media sites they were active on. As expected EVERYONE was on Facebook, a few were on twitter (though most had tried it and given up: fodder for a future post!), MySpace, or others. Then one of the young women mentioned a site I had never heard of and I was surprised to see 7 or 8 others smile and say they spent a lot of time there. That was my intro to Pinterest. Continue reading
Class infomercial!
With the help of talented grad student, @koehlerslagel this video was constructed to help motivate social media marketing students through three demanding projects!
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News coverage!
The campus news had a nice article on hands-on projects, including the social media marketing class effort to make “Voices: Words from Wise Women” by Dr. Kathryn Jordan into a bestseller!
http://www.radford.edu/content/RU-Today/home2181492224653.html
The Roanoke newspaper had earlier done and article on the class:
http://blogs.roanoke.com/ticker/2011/05/31/radford-professor-studies-social-media/
More about the book by Kathryn Jordan:
It is a happening class!!!
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Moving back to WordPress from tumblr
I decided I needed a new blog for my social media thoughts from teaching my new course, Social Media Marketing.
http://www.servicecocreation.com has been my primary blog for 3 years and I have written quite a bit about social media. There is a lot of overlap between SMM and innovation. But I thought it now made sense to separate the two topics.
I decided to start the new blog in tumblr, which has a cooler aura than WordPress — but I am back…
Changing platforms is painful – there must be some obvious advantages to motivate me to relearn everything. Tumblr is supposed to handle video more adeptly but I have posted video on my other blog. Why relearn everything???
How is Google+ dealing with this issue?
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Theory of Innovation
Do you have thoughts about a theory of innovation?
If so, please go to my other blog and share your ideas!!!
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