Brogan, Rowse, Lacy, Sanders: A Collaborative Effort, Version 2

There has been quite a bit of collaboration lately on the idea of social media described in terms of Home Bases, Frontiers, Outposts, and Communities. If you have not gotten into the discussion and thrown in your two cents I would encourage you to read the following posts and discuss:

1.The Founding Father: Chris Brogan: Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy

2. Darren Rowse of Pro-Blogger: Home Bases and Outposts, How I Use Social Media

3. Steven Sanders: Home Bases, Outposts, Frontiers and Communities

4. My Post on the matter: Home Bases, Outposts and Frontiers Using Social Media

Steven talks about adding on the concept of communities to the mix of home bases, outposts, and frontiers. In his post he talks about the concept of communities:

If you look at Kyle’s picture of his social media model, you’ll start to notice that it resembles what could possibly be a persons house or lifestyle.  The different areas are the different things a person runs through everyday.

So If you look at this chart belonging to an individual person, then it makes sense that there are similar charts being used by others that help to build your “Communities“.

I like where Steven is going with the concept of communities. Below you will find his version of the concept of communities:

I decided to take it a step further and call the communities concept Borders. To be honest with you it is the same concept at communities but I wanted to keep with the wilderness theme.  Here is my reasoning:

According to Wordsmyth.net borders can be defined as:

The area close to or the dividing line between two countries or political regions.

To me the border defines the outlying area where we still influence and coexist among our neighboring communities. We have out home base, our outposts, the frontiers, and then the border where we wander out and coexist with other communities in the form of communication and collaboration. The only downside to the definition of border is that it means a dividing line. In no way are the borders of our social media “bases” a dividing line but more of place for the facilitation of online relationships and information sharing.

My concept in visual form:

The purple area represents the borders we define in our social media experience. It is an open territory where we cross into other users boundaries and share information. It could be defined as an open border.

Any thoughts?  If there has been any more thoughts shared in the matter please let me know. I would love to add it into the mix.

Social Media and Traditional Advertising Are Similar and Different

Lorraine Ball has an excellent post today talking about consistency in advertising, blogging, and social media.  She talks about the similarities between social media and blogging compared to corporate advertising. She cites Mitch Joel when talking about the best practices in social media.

1. “Repetition, repetition, repetition”.  His point was simple, if we wanted to get noticed, we could not take a one shot approach to our marketing.  Multiple ads, multiple pieces of direct mail would be required to break through the clutter. And the same is true today!  Using blogging and social media as an integral part of your marketing mix.

2. He also makes a great point about creating a consistent online image.  Just as you wouldn’t consider changing your brand color or font every time you print a new brochure, don’t change your identity when you blog.

It made me think about my own paradigm when it comes to push marketing, bomber marketing strategy, and traditional advertising. I have come to despise the constant bombardment of direct mail and email blasts. There is something to be said of a company who can connect with a niche group of people of an emotional level. It is true that repetition and consistency is key in traditional advertising, as well as social media. I wanted to take it a bit further and explain why social media is an upgrade to the traditional advertising platform.

There always needs to be repetition and consistency in social media but not necessarily in terms of “repetition” in the advertising world. In my opinion, repetition in advertising means creating a marketing strategy for a large demographic base and then trying to hit that base as many times as possible with that message (bombing). Social Media has a way (wether you like it or not) to create an extremely niche listener base in your community outlets.

Friendfeed is a great example of this. When you “like” something on Friendfeed you are paired and grouped with people who tended to “like” the same thing. If you are subscribed to a person and he/she likes another post, you will see it in your timeline. This creates a network of niche individuals who share a certain connection in terms of information.

It is hard to pinpoint a specific niche market in your daily social media meanderings because you truthfully have little to no control on how your listerner base in built. That is the difference between social media marketing and traditional advertising.

We choose what we want to read. We choose what we want to see and experience. There has never been such a powerful consumer centric platform in the history!

Yes, you need to be repetitive and consistent in your social media use but if you don’t tack on the content your clientbase wants to read… you might as well be dropping bombs on yourself.

Home Bases, Outposts, and Frontiers: Using Social Media

Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse have been discussing the concept of  home bases and outposts to describe the use of Social Media in their daily routines. Darren talked about the concepts of homebases and outposts in his post: Home Bases and Outposts: How I Use Social Media in My Blogging. From the post:

A home base is a place online that you own, that is your online ‘home’. For me my home bases are blogs but for others they will be other types of websites.

Outposts are places that you have an online presence out in other parts of the web that you might not ‘own’.

Chris Brogan also talks about the concept of Outposts in his post, Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy. Chris explains that an outpost is another way to define a social media service that brings awareness to the homebase, much like an outpost in mulitary terms.

I decided to go a step further and add in the frontier. Dictionary.com describes frontier as:

A: the part of a country that borders another country; boundary; border.

B: the land or territory that forms the furthest extent of a country’s settled or inhabited regions.

My social media definition of frontier: a website or service you have a presence on but rarely go. This is a site where you may have an RSS feed plugging your most-used social networks (Twitter) or your blog. The concept of frontier can be compared to Chris Brogan’s idea of a passport but shed in a little different light.

Above you will see an illustrated example of my use in Social Media. This is a mesh between Chris and Darren’s ideas, as well as my previous idea of the 4 Touch Points Model for productivity in social media.

In order to stay productive in Social Media I try to use four sites that cater to four different aspects of my life: education, social development, business interaction, and business productivity. You can read more about what these four sites mean in my being productive post. The four social media sites where you spend the most time would be categorized as outposts. I use the “home base” to center my four outposts and vice versa.

The frontier sites sit on a completely different level. Examples could range anywhere from Digg to Technorati or even Twitter. The frontier is a place where you have a presense (RSS FEED) but you have not cultivated the actually site in regards to your time. They also represent different combinations (overlaps) of the outpost sites.

This is a work in progress and I would love your thoughts. What should be added? How do you use social media? I am open for ideas! What is your outposts and frontiers?

Going From Wallflower to Butterfly in Social Media

I have recently subscribed to a local blogger in Indiana named Brad Ruggles. Brad has some interesting points and opinions on social media and I have really enjoyed reading through his recent thoughts. He posted on Thursday some tips to becoming a social media butterfly. I wanted to list two of the five that I found valuable and add a few of my own.

From Brad’s post:

1. Make Yourself Easier To Find

…one of the biggest mistakes I see people making on their blogs is failing to provide easy links to all their social network profiles. If you’re going to capitalize on networked relationships then make it easy for visitors to your blog to find where else you are online…

2. Go Deeper With Key Relationships

Don’t just limit yourself to “comment relationships” though. If you’re clicking with someone then shoot them an email, forward them a link you think they would enjoy reading. You may even chat with Skype or AIM.

There are three more amazing points on Brad’s blog which I encourage you to check out. I wanted to add a few of my own. It is extremely important to get the most out of social media if you decide to take the dive and utilize the tool.

1. Start A Blog About Something You Love and Be Authentic

I know the concept of authentic content has been thrown around here and there between social media experts. It is a common practice to write about the concept of authentic content and communication. Many people ask the same question when debating on starting a blog: “What should I write about?” Write about something you enjoy! Write about something you do on a daily routine. Do you enjoy collecting stamps? Do you enjoy watching soccer and following sports?

I write about social media because I love it. It is easier for me to write because of the joy I find in learning about all things social media.

Write about something you love and find other people who are writing about the same thing. Utilize google alerts to find the people who share the same interest. Brad has points on that, find it here.

2. Start Small. Join a Regional Social Network and Dive In.

We have talked about regional (geographically based) social networks before in earlier posts. I am a member of a regional social media community called Smaller Indiana. I have found that my visibility as a business owner and social advocate has greatly increased because of my use of Smaller Indiana. If you are trying to build a personal brand identity through using social media a local social network will give you amazing exposure to local people.

It is getting harder and harder to make a name for yourself on the Internet when you are competing on a global scale with millions of individuals. If you focus on a niche geographic community you will find that it is slightly easier to be recognized. In order to get the most out of a geographic community don’t leave your relationships on the web, go out and meet the individuals you are collaborating with. A cup of coffee will go a long way at facilitating the building of a personal brand between two individuals.

3 Reasons Why Search and Authenticity Should Be Important to Corporate America

I was skimming through Chris Brogan’s posts and happened across a post called: A Counterpoint to the Branding Craze. This caught my attention because I am a huge advocate for branding, both personal and professional.

I have tried to use my blog to create a brand identity for myself and my company and it has been successful in more ways than one. In his post Chris talks about the concept of search being involved in the corporate strategy of most companies:

One of the reasons that I advocate content marketing, such as writing a compelling group blog, is that it’s an opportunity to build search equity. Writing about things that people might search for is a great way to find some new people at your door who might want a look at your product.

Content marketing should be in the corporate strategy plans of every business in America. There are a couple of reasons why I am strongly urge clients and businesses to dive into the realm of content marketing:

1. The Search

By blogging and writing about things that “people may search for,” you are creating a website (blog) that will hit the search engines with enthusiasm. When you have a site where content is changing regularly and you are writing about issues/services that people find important, you will find an increase in visitors to your site.

2. Authenticity and Personality

Consumers today want social media authenticity and personality behind a company. If you are a stoned face corporation sitting in a corporate park somewhere and are NOT listening to your customers needs and wants: YOU WILL FAIL. By blogging and creating an area for dialouge you are telling your customers: I trust you. I want to hear what you have to say. This goes for both big business and small business.

3. Brand Identity and Value

People want to connect with brands on a level that has become as personal as a relationships between two people. A blog/content marketing allows you to start the romantic courtship of a consumer. This courtship can turn into a seasoned consumer that will spread your good message across the valleys and streams. Maybe even through their email.

There are a multitude of reasons to start a blog and create a space where content marketing is king. Read more of Chris Brogan’s posts if you get the chance. He is a genius at laying out what it takes to create great, authentic content.

Also, if you are interested in starting a corporate blog I would suggest checking in with Compendium Blogware. They have a blogging tool that allows for AWESOME search results.

Economic Downturn? Now Is The Time To Innovate!

I recently posted a video on my other blog about the concept of revamping a static site into a website that can be changed and monitored. The economy is sharply declining and the status of small businesses are hanging in the balance because of the lending crunch. Money is hard to come by and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet payroll without a credit line to back up the lack of cash rolling into a business.

As a business owner you may be asking yourself, “When is the best time to start innovating the way I do business? When is the right time to switch up and try something new?” I am in the same boat as an owner of a social media marketing firm in Indianapolis. As a small business owner of  you can get bogged down with daily routines and projects (external influences) that keep you from focusing (at least a bit) into the internal processes of your company.

When is the time to switch up and think differently? NOW. Matt Rhodes at Freshnetworks recently wrote a post entitled Innovate through a downturn, but make it customer led. He gives a few ideas on how a business owner can innovate and take control of their companies to make it through the downturn.

Some thoughts from Matt:

Make sure you are close to your customers and that they are close to you. It should be your brand they think about when they do want to make a purchase and you should be aware of what they think and how their habits are changing.

Innovate to stay ahead of the game. A crisis is a great time to innovate – you have to think of ways of staying ahead of the competition, of being more efficient or of new products that you can offer. It’s true of war-time, where many of the best innovations (from the pie-chart to nylon) originate; and it’s true of business during challenging economic times.

It was exactly the medicine I needed as a business owner to think a little differently when going about my daily routine.

You cannot be afraid of a declining economy. Fear turns into miscalculation which can morph into a disease that spread throughout your company and ruins productivity.

So how do you become innovative in your thinking and switch up the way you have been doing business? How do you create something that can be a vehicle to drive new business into your company? New business means an increase in cash flow (we hope) which can take your mind off the credit line that is slowly dissapating.

Answer: Crowd Source your current customers. Talk to your current customers and ask if there is anything you can do BETTER for them. Lorraine Ball at Roundpeg wrote a post yesterday about rethinking the way you “surprise and delight” your customers. Guess who can give you ideas on how to surprise? The actual people you are trying to delight: your customers.

Other Ways to Innovate Your Business and Marketing Message:

1. Send a thank you card to all of your clients. Thank them for their business and let them know you are here if they need anything from you.

2. Do small projects on the side for free for clients that may be having financial difficulties.

3. Revamp your static website into a content driven website. You can use wordpress for free and have something up within 12-24 hours.

4. Dive further into your social media networks through LinkedIN, Plaxo, Facebook, or Smaller Indiana.

Take control of your company. Innovate through the downturn and do not give into the fear of losing money or losing your business. Be strong and make a difference!

Losing Content Confidence in Friendfeed? What A Load.

I am a huge fan of Alexander van Elsas’s thoughts on new media and technologies pertaining to social behavior. It is always a pleasure to read his views on how social media plays a role in the day to day communication between people. Recently he wrote a post entitled: The Idiocy of Social Media Conversations. We will dive into that in a second.

I have been playing around with the idea of writing a post about the content creation from members and the value it has to the FriendFeed audience. There has been a lot of talk lately about the content being generated on Friendfeed and how some of it is not “desirable” to a few people. Robert Scoble recently wrote a post about the idiotic comments on some of the FriendFeed conversations surrounding the economic crisis. In the post he states:

The downside of this new media world is that you’ll hear a lot of opinions. Which one is right? I’m not always right. In fact, I’m often wrong. But I’ve counted on YOU, the audience, to help me correct that when I’m off in the deep end. Now, though, I’ve seen so much idiocy that I’m not even sure of my audience anymore. That’s how deep our loss of confidence in each other has come.

It is bewildering for me to believe that Scoble is blasting the entire development of content in Friendfeed based around the opinons of a certain crisis. Isn’t it all relative?

Alexander responded to Robert by saying:

Secondly he complains about the idiocy within the discussions on Friendfeed and the loss of confidence in his audience there. For some reason Robert assumes there are experts hanging out on Friendfeed that are engaging in thorough, deep discussions.

I am on Alexander’s side. It is hard for me to connect good content and in-depth conversations with FriendFeed. I know that most of the early adopters use FriendFeed and great content is SHARED but it isn’t necessarily STRIPPED. A good content site has the sharing aspect intact but also the stripping aspect where meaning dialoug is shared amount the users.

I love FriendFeed. I love the photo memes, when Mike Fruchter shares blog posts, when democrats become pissed off at Republicans (or vice versa), I love the random things posted by Mona and I love the conversations.

If you are looking for a place to share ideas and collaborate in a knowledge capital heavy environment, I wouldn’t recommend FriendFeed.

If you are wanting a wide variety of content and personality, FriendFeed is the place to be.

3 Ways To Help Face the FEAR of Social Media

Thank you to Brad Ward at SquaredPeg for his post entitled, Resistance. In his post, Brad quotes Seth Godin:

“It’s easy to be against something that you are afraid of.

And it’s easy to be afraid of something that you don’t understand.”

As social media evangelists, many of us run into road blocks when it comes to usage of social media with coworkers or clients. Honestly, I can tell you that the majority of the push back has been from the church sector where we have been marketing social networks for membership building and community development.

Fear has kept many people away from this wonderful tool because of a misunderstanding, or better yet, a lack of understanding. Every person on the planet has had to deal with fear in at least one point of their lives.  Maybe minus my FriendFeed acquaintance Duncan Riley, who seems to have no fear. Period.

Kyle. We get the point. People have fear of something they don’t understand. This fear keeps them from opening up and becoming involved in something that could help them in the long run. So what? Why do we care? Should we care?

Absolutely we should care! It is our job as social media users convince the fearful among us to embrace this medium. Shouldn’t we tout and spread the word on something we love so much?

How do we help the non-believers face their fear of Social Media? I have 3 points to help you along your way. Please Pass GO and give me your $200.

1. Put It Into Their Context

An employee of our company, Brady Wood,  was recently on a conference call with 60-70 pastors from the Church Multiplication Association. He was trying to explain to them the concept of a NING Network to help with the facilitation of training for new and current pastors. Needless to say, there was some push back. No one was at fault for this. It was new territory and it was our job to explain it to them.

Brady decided to explain the community network in terms of the conference call the pastors were currently on. He proceeded to liken an online community dialogue with that of the conference call. The sharing of ideas between people to create one solid idea that care be shared by a community of “believers.” Needless to say… they got it.

2. Throw Them Into The Water

There is no better way to experience something than to throw yourself into it head first and learn on the way down. It may not be the easiest way to face fears and shift paradigms but it will work all the same. There are times when I am consulting with a client and I will tell them, “Maybe you should take a couple of weeks and just try your hand at LinkedIN and Plaxo? I want you to write 5 blog posts and link them. When you are done with that… email me.”

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. You have to judge the personality of the person you are helping and plan accordingly.

3. Hold Their Hand (In Public)

Sometimes the only thing a person needs is to be taught how to use a platform. I’m not talking a word document that has the necessary step by step actions to add a picture to Facebook. I’m talking about sitting down with someone and physically walking them through the steps of a social network.

I have found that once you teach someone one network it doesn’t take long for them to grasp the other networks. It only takes one network to get rid of the fear and headtrash. After that one thing, you have created another evangelist.

Quantify and then Qualify Your Social Media Experience

Corvida has an awesome post today on Chris Brogan’s blog called Decreasing Our Connections While Increasing Our Networks. The basic rundown of the post (which you should go read) is her exasperation over the amount of “friends” she has over various networks and the lack of a deeper and real connection between the two.

From the post:

Maybe growth on some of these networks isn’t the best thing in the world. Should there be self-imposed limits on how many people you befriend? No because in the end, while your network growth may increase, your connection with your network still increases. However, the rate at which the connection can increase actually decreases. Did that make sense? Unless your friends are constantly questioning you or keeping tabs on you, it’s going to take a lot longer to make deeper connections the more your network grows.

We have been talking a lot about creating deeper relationships through social media. When you are adding hundreds of people on networks like Twitter, Facebook, and other networks it is hard to make the same connection as before! I wrote recently about turning friends, followers, and subscribers into a deeper connection. After all the purpose of sharing in a community driven environment should be relationship building whether for business or personal use.

The question has been presented: How do you take the massive amount of users on social networks and par them down to create meaningful relationships online? Quantify and Qualify.

Quantifying Your Social Media Experience

There are some networks where a huge following is necessary to gain the full experience of the site. FriendFeed is where I quantify my FriendFeeders for the ultimate experience. Quantifying in a social media world basically means I gain an increased quality of experience based on the quantity of the people I am following.

Qualifying Your Social Media Experience

I qualify my niche networks in social media. I have found that I have an increase in quality without necessary having a huge quantity of followers on my geographically direct communities. Smaller Indiana and LinkedIN have been my niche quality sites for my social media experience. Smaller Indiana is a geographically located social network for people in Indiana. And for LinkedIN? I only tend to add people I have met in an offline environment on LinkedIN. My niche networks tend to be the place where there is a direct form of quality conversations.

How do you manage your networks? Do you find you get more or less quality based on the quantity of your friends or subscribers?

Blasting the Technology and Marketing Elite

Occasionally I will write about certain posts that Seth Godin has thrown up on his blog. I am a huge advocate of his ideas and strategies surrounding the world of marketing and communication. Yesterday, Seth had a blog post entitled: The small-minded vision of the technology elite.

The blog post immediately caught my attention because I know Seth and a couple of the “technology elite” are not the best of friends. The post talks about the narrow outlook of innovation (Chris has some amazing ideas toward the innovation of Social Media, this is clearly a link to define what true innovation could look like) and advancement that some of technologically savvy individuals possess. From his post:

Take a look at the geek discussion boards and you’ll see an endless list of sharp-tongued critics, each angling to shoot down one idea or another. And then take a look at the companies that show up at the various pitch shows, and you’ll see one company after another pitching incremental improvements based on current assumptions.

The problem with getting stuck in an innovation paradigm is rampant over every area of business whether social media or marketing. When something works we will always see a huge entry into the market of products and services that are enhancements of the original creation.

We can fall into the trap of rejecting new ideas because of what works at the given moment. I  see it  happening on a daily basis in the social media because I have been guilty of doing it myself. When new services are being launched daily, it is hard to balance trying the innovative idea with being productive.

I tend to rely on the technological elite to give me information on new services being introduced into the market. Whether you are following Louis Gray, Mike Fruchter, Hutch Carpenter, Douglas Karr, or Mashable (the people I rely on) it is easy to categorize what works and what doesn’t.

My only warning: Keep an open mind. When testing new social media services don’t get caught up in opinions and reviews. I suggest trying it out for yourself. It may take 15-30 minutes of your day but at least you will know it either is innovative or it failed.

I am not an early adopter. I am an adapter. I will follow and collaborate with people who are better at social media adoption than I could ever be.

That is where the truth is hidden between the lines of every service. Does it work for me?