My Social Media Mission 2008: Collecting Genuine Relationships

There has been a small buzz going around in the social media community pertaining to the quality of relationships being built online. What is the difference between on online friendship compared to an off line friendship? Can you build genuine relationships online?

I recently found a video from Gary Vaynerchuk via the ProBlogger post called, How To Get Noticed [The Art of Positioning]. In the video Gary talks about the importance of connecting to people and building relationships rather than building a bank account or a subscription list. As always, Gary never ceases to inspire. The video:

I have always been under the assumption that you can only build true, strong relationships if you combine online and off line activity.

So… here is what is going to happen. Social Media Mission 2008-2009. Maybe this has already been done, maybe it hasn’t. I am going to make it a point to meet with a social media contact, in person, once a week until the end of the year (week long Holidays may be out…we will see). I will be posting about the meeting and conversation either here or at another blog.

I am craving the leap to connecting my online with the off line. I figure this is going to be the best way to do. It starts next week. Got any ideas let me know! First one, Chris Hadley who I met on Seesmic.

When Does Subscription Turn into a Relationship?

Recently this has been an ongoing thought in my head:

Do online relationships have the same depth as relationships off line? Can they obtain the same meaningful purpose as your friends you see in day-to-day life?

I have had some interesting conversations recently with people on Seesmic and Friendfeed about the friendship dynamics between online and off line relationships. I have only been debating this because of the increased time I have been spending on social media platforms over the past few weeks. I have had the opportunity to ‘meet’ some interesting and extremely intellectual people through feeds at Friendfeed.

The problem that exists, for me, is the overwhelming urge to know more. The desire to get deeper into a persons psyche and actually understand where they are coming from and where they have been. I have had fun debating and sharing in conversations over the communications platforms and yet I am left with this undeniable longing for something more.

The sharing of information and idea generation has always been a staple in the increased support of social media. I started using social media as a way to gain more insight into technology, entrepreneurship, and the overall aspect of viral marketing. What I have found is (while all the information is great) there is a point where a person stops and wants something more from a relationship or an acquaintance.

I have had extreme success in meeting people in my area off line whom I had the first interaction online. The relationship factor grows exponentially when you are sharing both online and off line forms of communication. I am relating more to the people I have met online who do not live in my vicinity.

I know research and data is a prerequisite to have in blog posts pertaining to an opinion. In order to support an idea it is always better to have others opinions to strengthen your own. Unfortunately, I am running off the cuff here and spouting words over a virtual page.

When is the right time to want more from an online relationship? Is there a need for it? I love the information super highway sometimes more than the road outside of my house and that is what bothers me the most.

How do you strengthen online relationships to the point where you can say they are a friend? Where does a follow or a subscription turn into a relationship?

Are we meant to delve deeper? We should be.

It’s 3log Day! My 3log Day Links.

Well. This is my first year participating in Blog Day. I have been pushing through my google reader and making a detailed list of the top blogs I have read in the past couple of months. It was extremely hard for me to cut down the list to 5 but here it is:

1. Mike Fruchter at My Thoughts on Social Media: I have been communicating lately with Michael over FriendFeed and rest assured, he never leaves you disappointed.

2. MooshinIndy. Ahhh Casey. I met Casey at the recent blogIndiana conference and she is absolutely delightful to be around both online and off. Her rants and musings are centered around her family and the city of Indianapolis. She caters to the mothers of the net but she has a little something for everyone.

3. Erik Deckers. The Laughing Stalk. If you ever want a chuckle, Laughing Stalk with Erik Deckers is the place to be. Also an Indianapolis native, Erik writes humorous columns about news events, as well as, “repressed memories that have recently resurfaced.” Always gets a laugh out of me.

4. Hutch Carpenter of I’m Not Actually A Geek. Another FriendFeed acquaintance, Hutch brings a detailed approach to his writing that is hard to match. His views on Social Media and breakdowns of certain communities goes much farther than the “how to” guidelines.

5. The Marketing Technology Blog by Douglas Karr. Doug is one of the premiere bloggers in the Indianapolis area and someone I look up to when it comes to the blog-o-sphere. Doug has helped me numerous times on my blog with optimization and idea generation. He breaks down technology and has some awesome applications he has designed for the web.

There are many more who should be on this list. Other blogs you should check out and subscribe to:

Sports Marketing 2.0 by Pat Coyle
Roundpeg by Lorraine Ball
MacroLinz.com by Lindsay
Justin Korn’s Blog
Squaredpeg by Brad Ward

Still more are on the list. I would encourage everyone to visit two places to find GREAT content.

1. SmallerIndiana.com: An online social network for Indiana residents. We have surpassed the 3000 member mark and are a collection of creative, entrepreneurial, blogging, and business minded fanatics.

2. FriendFeed: Add me as a friend and follow the people I am sharing content with. You will not be disappointed.

Social Media: Ideal for Branding and Not Sales?

An interesting post flowed through my Google Alerts email this morning from Digital Response Media. The post was entitled: Social media ‘ideal for branding.’ The point of the post was to explain how the digital marketing manager of British Airways, Chris Davies, uses social media to raise the profile of his brand online. Basically, he finds extreme value in user generated content on the web.

There was an interesting quote in the piece from Mr. Davies:

Most UGC site users are wary of big brands coming into what they conside to be ‘their space’…. But if you are giving them something that helps then, some sort of social currency, then they’ll likely thank you for it.”

I found it interesting that Mr. Davies thought of a social media strategy as a COMPANY enterting into a space of individuals. I find that branding/communication strategies in a social media environment obtain more useful information and build BETTER brand value when personality is added to the mix. A good example of this would be Comcast. Whether or not you agree that Comcast is an excellent services (sometimes they are far from it) they have done a great job at using twitter for customer service. You can connect to Comcast on twitter @comcastcares.

Comcast did it right. They entered a space where individuals were sharing information and they added content themselves. When I ‘tweet’ @comcastcares I do not think of it as messaging a company but messaging an individual.

A brand can no longer enter a space as a ‘sponsor’ throwing up their adds all over the page in an attempt to gain recognition. We can see this through Myspace and Facebook. Does it work? You might get some click throughs. You might even sell something!

When it comes down to it you are not really building a lasting brand image.

You are building a weak wall that will crumble and fall.

The post ended with a quote stating that 27 percent of companies use social media as part of their communications strategy. I find that hard to believe.

The Paradigm Shift of Social Media and Time Management

It has been a pretty busy week around here at Brandswag. Projects have been piling up and there never seems to be enough time… for anything. The past 48 hours have been pretty efficient in terms of business and extremely inefficient in the realm of Social Media. I have been writing posts every day for the better part of a month and yesterday was the first time I have missed in awhile. Truthfully it upsets me.

I thought about continuing the posts on Being Productive in Social Media but I ran across Andy DeSoto’s new post entitled, Observations on Social Media Compression. I found myself reading exactly what I was going to write today! Amazing how these things happen.

Andy has been extremely busy with starting up classes in his fourth year of school and hasn’t had the time to really invest in Social Media.

From Andy:

Social media becomes something to be attended to when all other responsibilities are fulfilled, kind of like an ever-present background process.

When time is tight, not only do we rely on applications and services to filter for us, but we also engage in a more implicit, natural filtering of our own: discovering what does, and what doesn’t, work for us when free time becomes considerably scarcer.

When I am talking to small business owners about social media and being productive in online communities there is always the issue of time. “I don’t have time to manage social communities.” “I don’t have the time to write three to four blog posts a week.” “I have clients that demand my attention. I feel like I will be left out in the cold if i ignore a network for a couple of days.”

The last statement is where the curse of knowledge will get the best of us. In everyday life there seems to be an underlying belief that if you do not keep up, you will be left behind. If you do not attend a social networking function regularly the members will forget all about you and your business. In some cases this is true but, in my opinion, it is the exact opposite in the social media world.

A paradigm shift needs to occur in terms of time management and social media. Frequency of posts and over-commitment to social media communities does not necessarily mean you will be noticed. There isn’t a measurable ROI when it comes to time and social media.

The beautiful thing about social media is that you can leave and come back, save and rewrite. In a world in which content changes every second of the day it is not hard to re-join the conversation.

Don’t get discouraged if you do not have time to update a network for a day, two days, or even a week! I have to keep telling myself this as days become busier and the work gets deeper. If you are committed to staying in the conversation the members of your group, your social posse, will understand. They will remember. They will contribute and grow with you.

As Andy has shown, most of us are busy. Most of us have the daily routines which fall precedent over our social media community involvement.

Be efficient with your time. Find the best way that works for you and if you need help….ask. You have a community of people spread all over the world who would love to help YOU in this ever-changing process.

Through the Doors and Beyond the Lobby…Welcome to the New Company

Recently, Vincent Hunt of SurfaceBurn wrote an absolutely brilliant post explaining Social Media entitled There is Nobody in the Lobby…Intro to Social Media. When I say brilliant, I mean absolutely, positively without a doubt brilliant. He explains social media with a visionary, and yet simple, scenario of an office building.

From his post:
An orchestration of web services all tied together, powered by the individuals who have something authentic to say, and are not afraid to say it. Each door on this corridor represented a service. MySpace was room 101 and Facebook was room 102, Twitter was full of clamor, it was room 105, and with THIS revelation I understood even the more, that IF we do not get off the couch – and start walking into these rooms and saying something, we will be left in the lobby.

I found myself envisioning the office building. This massive steel structure filled to the top with people. People of all ages, race, personalities, opinions, and ideas running from room to room in an exuberant, mind-altering speed… Conversations bouncing from wall to wall… Ideas forming in one room, only to disappear and explode in another.

I wanted to expound upon his idea of the office building analogy. I wanted to put more thought into the idea of Social Media being an endless steel structure jutting high into the sky, the steel and glass glistening in the sun before pushing into the clouds above.

Welcome to Social Media Corp. The largest non-Fortune 500, non-commercial, non-capitalistic, and utterly EXPLOSIVE company on the planet.

You can leave your money outside because ideas, content, community, and collaboration are the currency. It is the only company in the world where you are CEO and deep-pocket commercialism is clamoring to get inside. Where they find themselves handing each other business cards in the lobby and trying daily to join in the hallways.

You will find that every room and every floor is different and yet oddly connected.

We are all employees of this new company. We choose to spend time investing in the rooms we deem fit. There is no upper-management or lunch break. There is no 401K or vacation time. There is only the content and the community behind it.

And the community is building… stretching…expanding. There are daily breakthroughs in architecture to build it higher, stronger, and wider.

We are the employees, the architects, the CEOs, and the investors. We are the company.

I cannot do Vincent’s post justice. He wrote with a touch of clarity that I could only hope to mimic. Read it. Write about it. Build on it.

This is where we become explosive…through the doors and beyond the lobby.

2 Important Things to Remember When Blogging

I am a new believer of Gary Vaynerchek. Gary is a self-made millionaire and web 2.0 genius! I stumbled across his site the past week and fell in love with his daily video blogs (vlogs anyone?). The energy Gary instills in the listener is unbelievable! Check out his site if you haven’t. You will not regret it!

My “social media circle” on FriendFeed, SmallerIndiana, and Twitter have been talking a lot about the secrets to blogging. What should be the reasons to blog? What kind of content do people want to read? Should you cater to an SEO type system?

Gary posted a great video about his opinion on How To Build a Great Show on the Internet. He relates building an online show to the likes of a blog or podcast. What I loved so much about the video is Gary completely destroying the glitz and glam aspect of social media

From Gary (semi-paraphrased by me):

“All that glitz and glamor is horse crap. It is not about the camera I use. It is not about the high-tech blogging software you use. It’s NOT! It’s not about the widgets. It’s not about the SEO

It is about Content and Community.

It is about giving from your heart on topics you understand.

Simply brilliant. Gary comes from the hardcore tactics of posting daily, responding to every reader email, and always being involved in the conversation. Content and Community should always be on the front burner of goals associated with business and personal blogs. If you start a blog strictly for SEO purposes, go ahead and join the ranks of lifeless posts.

If you care more about your bottom line than helping and joining the COMMUNITY behind your brand… Go ahead and send out an e-newsletter. Don’t waste your time with a blog.

Why have I been neglecting Friendfeed!?

I started using FriendFeed around 2 months ago. For around a month it turned into an all out obsession! I remember spending four hours constantly updating my feed until 3am. I would like to think I was discovered by Louis Gray through FriendFeed and I started making some great connections in the social media fanatics circle.

Recently I have dropped off using FriendFeed. I though about it tonight while working in Starbucks. I ask myself, “why have I not been posting on the feed?”

There are a couple of reasons that could be playing into my lack of FriendFeed usage,

1. I was burned out on the information overload of constant use for a month. This doesn’t say much for someone who calls themselves a social media fanatic.

2. Business has really picked up in the last few months. Bringing on employees in two locations and trying to learn how to manage people has taken my time down to nil.

3. I don’t receive updates via email other than a feed recount. I am inundated daily from other networks on updated and friend additions.

All of the above could be contributing to my lack of use but I haven’t quite put my finger on it. I need to make a more conscious effort to spend more time on FriendFeed. I love the platform and find it extremely useful when it comes to information and blogging content.

This is my apology to FriendFeed. I will use you more. I will. I swear. Has anyone else experienced this? If so, please tell me how you overcame your lack of use.

The Life of a Social Media Advocate. Part 1

Corvida from SheGeeks had an interesting post titled, “Why Are “We” More Willing Than The Mainstream?” The post is a brief breakdown of her thoughts on why the mainstream world is less inclined to dive into social media. She lays out three reasons: Interests, Time, and Productivity. I wanted to add a fourth level to the mix: Ego (social recognition).

Every person on this planet has some type of social need. Most of us have a desire to be recognized. Recognition could mean a lot of things. Recognition from your spouse. Recognition from your boss. Recognition from your peers. It is not a shameful thing to say you want a fair share of ego boost. You want your “balloon” filled but not POPPED.

The mainstream world (non-social media users) get their egocentric needs filled in other means. Instead of trying to get noticed by Scoble, they are trying to push to the Chamber of Commerce.

Why do we do what we do?

Interest: We love the concept built around technology and social media.
Time: Some of us do it for a living. We try to spend as much time as possible online.
Productivity: Are we really? haha
Ego: The social recognition of being a “thought-leader.”

Online Social Networking. Impersonal?

Why do we tend to shorten experiences? Why, as a society, do we keep inventing new ways to make things faster, harder, stronger, and compiled. Information flying this way and that, overloading everyone from the iPOD Millennial to the AM Radio Baby Boomer (sorry stereotyping is a spiritual gift of mine). Technology has managed to help our society do more in less time. But (hat tip to Seth Godin on this one) the “do more in less time” philosophy has taken the personality out of every day encounter. Seth makes a brilliant example in his post, Old Marketing with New Tools:

Cost and speed pressure means that when you get your car serviced, it’s unlikely you’ll be greeted by the mechanic himself, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, telling you exactly what he did to your car. Instead, you’ll get a difficult to decipher printout.

In some cases, new technology has taken out the face to face interaction with the business to the client. BUT we have seen an increase in social interaction (both online and off) in the realm of social media.

I overheard a gentleman talking about a social network (whether Facebook or LinkedIn it doesn’t matter). He was making reference to social networking on the Internet as impersonal and stupid.

First off, I about flipped out of my chair and set him on fire. I understand that online social networking is not for everyone but the least someone can do is recognize the fact that it has VALUE. I turned around thinking I would be face-to-face with a twenty-something year old. Unfortunately he looked around 50 with his real age probably being closer to 35.

The simple fact that a gentleman/business owner was implying that social networking was impersonal is completely ridiculous. If you do it right.

The right way to make social networking work for you is two fold.

1. Join a social network (preferably a geographically local network). In order to know and be productive in the different social networks refer to my post: How To Be Productive in Social Media.

2. Use the social network to meet members of that specific network off-line.

Combine face-to-face networking with your online social networking experience. I use Smaller Indiana to meet new business owners/creative individuals in the Indianapolis community. This does not replace my off-line business networking with groups like Rainmakers but it does add value in meeting people who usually do not attend networking events.

The combination of off-line and online social networking is a powerful tool you can utilize for YOUR business. Try it out. Spend a few minutes on a local network and set up a meeting. If it doesn’t work. TRY AGAIN. If that doesn’t work. Third times s charm?

Also, if you ever hear an older gentleman degrading social media, please call me. I’ll bring the blow torch. You bring the gasoline.