Capture the Conversation Internet Marketing

Social Media Monitoring Tools Podcast - A Discussion with Brian Chappell

Jason Cormier — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:30:00 -0500

Room 214 Co-Founder, Jason Cormier, discusses social media monitoring tools with Brian Chappell, Senior Social Search Strategist at Ignite Social Media.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. The most valuable aspects of social media monitoring tools: Keeping tabs on conversations and customers for the purpose of crisis communications and reputation management.

2. Sentiment analysis in social media monitoring tools: Is automatic sentiment analysis developed enough?

3. What are clients looking for in these tools? Engaging in new markets through listening to customers, opportunities to include intelligence in product development cycles.

4. "Social media isn't a salt shaker": You have to work it into the base of your marketing.

5. What's next with social media monitoring: Greater levels of CRM integration, and more consistent pricing models.

Notes: I appreciated Brian's participation in the discussion, even as some have cited our agencies as competitors. It was affirming that Ignite is working through many of the same issues we are with respect to the tools. Hopefully, there is a nugget or two of insight here for others considering how they should evaluate the options. As one of our partners once put it to me, "it's always preferable to combine our powers for good instead of evil."

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The Top Value Propositions of a Social Media Agency

Jason Cormier — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:34:04 -0500

"Of people who identify themselves as social media marketers, 65.5% have never posted an update on Twitter" ~ Source: Sysomos Blog, June 2009.

I've been witnessing a dichotomy: Many marketing professionals are unaware social media agencies even exist, while at the same time, emerging hordes are on their way to creating them. Whether you're a social media "expert" looking to build an agency, or part of a company trying to understand why you might need one - this post should offer some insight.

At Room 214 we consider three areas of focus as seen in the diagram above: Analysts, Engineers and Creatives. Competency with respect to communications and the actual execution of work takes place in and across each of the three, ultimately enabling our value as a social media agency.

Each of the three focus areas have their own value propositions, and like a tri-pod, the whole operation is ineffective if one of the legs is too weak to support its part of the load.

1. Being Analysts: One of the beauties of Internet-based campaigns is the ability to track and measure what people do. With traditional web analytics meeting with new conversational analytics, the data can be overwhelming. Social media agencies have the expertise in sifting through the data to interpret insights leading to actions.

Due to the explosion of social media, there has been an emergence of social media monitoring and business intelligence tools for benchmarking, competitive analysis and gaining insights around certain topics that can be tracked in blogs, forums, Twitter posts and mainstream media.

The question becomes: Are the tools and data valuable? Yes. Do busy marketing or service support professionals have time to stay on top of them to the extent of actually impacting their business? Often not.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Analysts:

Identification of trends, and insights into thought leadership
Objective evaluations of tools, strategies and tactics
Understanding and establishing best practices
Research, benchmarking and measurement
Filtering out the unwanted noise and capturing actionable data

2. Being Engineers: This is a key differentiator for our agency, in particular - even to the extent of adopting "social media engineers" as our tagline. Why? Because in our experience, a high level of expertise around technical platforms and infrastructure is a leading contributor to quickly making and keeping companies competitive.

Consider Facebook as a case and point: In the context of "engineering," there are three technology environments in Facebook that need consideration: Application development, Facebook Connect, and the functionality of general pages. Each of these areas has its own set of rules. The documentation is arguably limited, and as @DominicDiMarco put it - "the target seems to be constantly moving."

You may have great ideas - but the ability to execute and leverage relevant assets is often delayed and overly expensive due to a lack of technical (engineering) expertise.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Engineers:

Knowledge of when to build vs. when to buy
Ability to uniquely integrate, build and implement technology
Insight to how solutions scale or how they are limited
Innovation needed to improve upon accepted functionalities
Customization of tools, applications and social platforms

3. Being Creatives: One thing I've noticed about "agency" vs. "contractor" status is the expectation around coming up with great ideas. Effectively implementing and supporting social media campaigns is critical to the success of any agency in this industry, but conceptualizing and communicating (internally or externally) great ideas requires a combination of skill and inspiration.

Expecting clients to conceptualize along with you without effective presentation aids, creative samples and proofs of concept can be an uphill battle. The ability to articulate, justify and demonstrate an idea from inception - then efficiently create the spaces by which it may grow and materialize is a practice in and of itself.

Top 5 Value Propositions from Social Media Creatives:

Frameworks for brainstorming and conceptualization
Development of visual samples or proofs of concept
Collaborative processes to improve upon original concepts
Holistic approaches to leveraging existing assets, advertising and PR
Relevance around usability and effective models of engagement

It's easy to conclude that leading social media agencies must wear many hats - analysts, engineers and creatives. And being successful while maintaining a competitive edge requires a constant fitting of all three hats.

Where do you believe most agencies are strong or lacking? Are there aspects of the stated value propositions you would like to elaborate on from your own experience?

social media agency social media campaigns value propositions of social media room 214 jason cormier

The 4 Keys to Social Media

Jason Cormier — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:02:28 -0500

This has been somewhat of an anecdotal piece to many of our conversations about social media lately - so I'm sharing it. Given the countless layers of social media, it should be understood these keys are in the context of research, planning and measurement (not tactics).

Of course, many of our prospects and clients want to shoot straight for the tactics. Part of our responsibility is backing them out to the bigger picture of what the objectives are. Strategy follows, and only then are the tactics (and technology) addressed.

As practitioners we casually speak about listening, learning and engaging. The first two keys are specific to listening.

Here is Room 214's take on it:

1. KEY Words: Those again? Yes. Keywords are not just for SEO and search marketing. In fact, most of today's leading online business intelligence and social media monitoring tools are providing value initially based on keyword search queries. Even basic keyword analysis can go a long way.

2. KEY Topics: Beyond keywords, are key topics or emerging themes. Knowing what your share of voice is in terms of percentage of conversations about your brand (vs. your competitors or partners) has its place - but understanding common themes or topics in those conversations adds a whole new level of insight with respect to priority of messaging, response, etc.

3. KEY Performance Indicators: If you have an idea in terms of what success looks like against your objectives, then key performance indicators should be established to provide a means of measurement.

I realize we could get into an entirely separate discussion around score cards, Net Promoter and ROI here - but the point is to establish some form of measurement related to response. Might sound like common sense, but it's an often forgotten element.

4. KEY Influencers: This is where the gold is with respect to a great deal of action that can follow from the initial data (listening) collected. Social media is little more than word of mouth marketing on the Internet. Unlike traditional word of mouth, however, identifying influential people and web properties essentially enables the priority of who gets the word first.

When you consider these keys, which one do you think is most relevant to you? What parallels do you see with what might be considered traditional marketing and public relations?

Note: Thanks to nerdapproved.com for the image.

social media marketing word of mouth social media monitoring key performance indicators key influencers social media programs room 214

Computers Are Computers. Humans Are Humans.

Brandon Whalen — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:15:00 -0500

Today I found some pretty appalling examples of people misusing automatically generated updates on twitter to over-promote themselves. It inspired me to highlight why auto-tweets are a really bad idea.

First of all, if you are thinking about using Twitter to get your name out there, or tap into this social media stuff, please consider a few things first. People are not going to follow you, or help you achieve any sort of promotional goal, unless you understand how to operate within their realm. They can easily spot fakes and spammers.

If you want to promote something on Twitter, you have to do the ground work. You can start by being a human that knows how to listen, being respectful, and putting others before yourself. Take a look at Qwest's Twitter (@talktoqwest) for a good example.

Out of all of the bad examples I dug up today, one particular account struck me with it's extraordinary misuse. In the nearly two years this account has been up, it has amounted to a whopping 107 followers. They have been kind enough to follow zero of them back. Instead, they thank their followers by pounding them with an outrageous 211,291 tweets.

Here is an example of one of their tweets. I must note that every single one of their 200k+ tweets looks exactly like this (I changed the link to keep the computer Twitterer anonymous):

www.newestfindings.com update: Zimbabwe parties 'agree timeline' (Mediators say Zimbabwe's rival parties have agreed to share power...)10:05 PM Jan 26th from web

There are a few fundamental things this computer is doing wrong:

1. Every tweet is self-promoting and comes out in the same format.

2. It does not interact or converse with anyone.

3. It is is sending way too many updates for any real Twitter user to ever want to follow.

You are never going to experience any kind of success running your account this way. In fact, it only showcases that you do not belong on Twitter.

Now lets take a look at the way a human uses Twitter:

One of my favorite persons to follow is Mr. Chris Reinhard. Chris' stream comes packed with plenty of humor and down-to-earth friendliness. He responds to people. He communicates with his friends. He shares his thoughts and feelings.

He even took the time to do a favor and let me interview him on his Twitter use:

1. Are you a human or a computer?

I am human. Or am I dancer?

2. Why do you Tweet?

I use Twitter as a news source, a writing and editing aid, and a place where I can make small talk without having to answer any questions about the weather.

3. Do you use Twitter to interact with other humans and physically meet them at some point?

I've only met people from Twitter who came recommended by other friends. Random folk...no thanks, unless it's a job opportunity.

I was able to get Chris to fill out an interview within 3 minutes of sending him a direct message. It demonstrates the kind of connections you can build on Twitter if you just use it in the appropriate way. It can be far more effective than any of the banners or links you see everyday.

I was able to get someone to stop what he was doing, open an email, and fill out an interview by sending him one direct message. The auto-generated account has failed to make a real connection with anyone in two years.

There are no shortcuts, but having a well-run Twitter is valuable and important for any company.

twitter best practices

Why Social Media is Succeeding at Qwest

Jason Cormier — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:01:01 -0500

Qwest announced its "Talk to Qwest" program today - a comprehensive social media effort effectively helping Qwest customers resolve a range of issues online - including billing, tech support, product/pricing inquiries, etc.

Starting on Twitter, @TalkToQwest, Qwest has put together a super-group of people clearly demonstrating their care for customers through daily outreach and response (in 140 characters or less). That is actually the short answer to why they are succeeding in social media: their people.

As the social media agency hired to assist them, it's a privilege to share a little personal insight on Qwest with respect to both challenges and opportunities. But first, I have a confession.

Frankly, I was a little concerned about the project before we even started working together. It's one thing to focus on a project within a department of a large company - but when multiple departments are motivated to participate, and impassioned individuals are talking about literally changing how the company does business… well, I'll let you fill in the blanks from your own experience. Exciting? Yes. Quickly and effectively executed? Often not.

My internal questions were simple. How quickly is Qwest really going to be able to move on this? Would even necessary things like "messaging" and legal stand in our way of doing it right? Could they be relevant? Could they be cool? Could they be timely? Would the people we worked with have enough buy-in from the rest of the organization to really show the world that Qwest "gets it?"

Today, you (and Qwest's customers) are in the position to answer some of the more important questions I had early on. Socialmedia.qwest.com is a good start for seeing how the company is introducing and addressing the relevance factor.

And cool?! How about those Viddler videos of the people behind Qwest's Twitter presence? I can't tell you how glad I am about the avoidance of over-production that could have so easily been present here. And you just gotta see what this Qwest guy does at the bowling alley after hours (see video below). Classic!

In answer to my own questions - it's refreshing to say that early on, what we discovered within Qwest were groups of extremely committed people excited to work across multiple departments to make this happen. The natural process of helping to educate stake holders on the what's and why's of social media was soon escalated in a way that gave us and them an effective platform to educate others while also communicating objectives across a wide range of departments and decision makers. We could not have asked for a better start.

From the collaboration needed to focus on the right research, to the flexibility of learning new tools and concepts - we saw the most rapid of time lines that were consistently met.

While I'm expounding upon the kudos, I think it is important to mention Qwest would readily admit they are not the first in the industry to embrace social media as a means of customer service.

Still, I believe the inventiveness and authenticity in their approach will continue to set them apart over time - and because I have some insight to the numbers, it's a little easier for me to speak about this confidently :-)

In terms of the challenges, they are similar to what we are seeing everywhere in social media. The sheer volume of data and online conversations must be effectively filtered and managed. Optimizing social media monitoring tools to conform to an organization's needs and workflow is an ongoing effort.

For example, imagine coming across a blog, forum or Twitter post about your company's products or services. It's one of several hundred you see each week.

What are the guidelines for determining:

If the source is representative of someone you might respond to?
Within each classification of source, what is the predominant theme pertaining to the content?
How will you track resolution?
Assign resources?
Implement Feedback?
Demonstrate improvement and ROI as a result of the effort?
Extend learning to other departments within your company?

As we pursue the ever-changing challenges and opportunities residing around these kinds of questions, it will be exciting to watch Qwest move forward in this space.

For us, each customer engagement opens a new realm of learning, sometime accompanied by unexpected surprises. Qwest has not fallen short in this - and one of the pleasant surprises for me personally relates to how well they have been able to do what has made our own organization successful over the last five years: "Get it done."

talk to qwest qwest social media social media monitoring social media planning capture the conversation twitter customer service room 214

The Relationship Between Social Media and Search

Jason Cormier — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:46:29 -0500

Kudos to Peter Hershberg regarding his insight on what social media means to search, along with his explanation on the three evolutionary waves of search.

It seems not that long ago (middle of this decade), I was writing quite a bit about how relevant search results had evolved through Google's PageRank concept - what Peter refers to as Search 2.0.

And now here we are talking about Search 3.0 - relevance based on personal networks and the filtering of data through online social graphs, ultimately strengthened as more people connect with each other via the web.

When you consider the technology (RSS) supporting the distribution of information or updates within online social networks like Facebook and Twitter - I think we actually began seeing the infancy of Search 3.0 nearly two years ago through Google's Universal Search algorithm update (see basics of how Google's indexing changed in image below).

Another glimpse of Search 3.0 could be recognized with Stanford's 2008 Study on (Delicious) social bookmarking. Three highlights from the study included the following:

25% of posts through Deicious are pages that have yet to be indexed by search engines.
35% of URLs submitted are first-time submissions (roughly 120,00 URLs submitted per day).
Tags are considered 93% relative to associated content.

What does it all mean? People, not search engines, are assigning relevance to content. Whether they know it or not, it's their keywords, their descriptions and their opinions that are making the impact.

Now consider how your opinion is shaped to people you are actually connected (networked) to online. Granted, some connections are stronger than others (Peter refers to three kinds of online connections in his Ad Age post) - but all are still highly relevant because they are ultimately chosen by you.

Bottom line: Marketing and PR folks need to get what this is about - and if you are a "social media expert", then you really need to be on it.

social media search social bookmarking search 3.0 google peter hershberg jason cormier

Social Media ROI - A Podcast with David Meerman Scott

Jason Cormier — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:30:00 -0600

Room 214 Co-Founder, Jason Cormier, interviews best-selling author and online marketing thought leader, David Meerman Scott.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. Old-school measurement for ROI: What is really a "lead?" People want to apply same measures to social media. Traditional measures are being applied to social media marketing when so many other aspects of business simply don't. Example: What's the ROI of the receptionist, or even the accounting department for that matter?

2. We can measure how many people are exposed to our ideas, downloaded our YouTube video, etc. but these are very different measurements compared to traditional ROI measurements.

3. David states that ultimately, the ROI argument is used as an excuse based in fear. Many companies are simply afraid of social media.

4. David's new book, World Wide Rave: How ideas spread and why people talk about you and your company. The first step in the formula for success is very counter-intuitive to marketers: Nobody cares about your products except you. To create something that has potential to spread, you can't talk about these things. As soon as your product is brought into the equation, nobody cares.

5. Key take-away: Doing lots of activities in online marketing as opposed to one or just a few, should be the expectation when it comes to increasing your chances of success.

Notes: You can check out David's blog at WebInkNow.com. I really enjoyed this interview, and am looking forward to reading his new book.

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Blogging Best Practices Checklist

Jason Cormier — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:00:00 -0600

I know there is already a great deal of information on this, but it keeps coming up in client conversations. Since one of our clients recently requested that we create a checklist, I'm posting a version of it here to share with you all. As always, feel free to add your input too!

Blogging Best Practices Checklist

When Posting
1. Title: Intriguing titles go a long way. Consider using odd numbers as part of your title (example: The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media)

2. Keywords: As much as possible, use your top keywords in:
i.) The post title
ii.) Hyperlinks pointing to older posts or specific company web pages in the post body
iii.) Tags used to describe the post subject matter

3. Scheduling: Consult your editorial calendar, in addition to top keywords highlighted in your SEO/Analytics report and/or your keyword analysis. No less that one post per week if possible.

4. Images: Including an image with a post is recommended when possible. Use your keywords in the image "alt" attribute when possible

5. Links: Link to other blogs and/or to previous posts of your own (using keywords for links to posts of your own when possible)

6. Post Length and Content: Mix up length of your posts. Don't be afraid to be brief (i.e. 200 words). When possible, offer analysis, new tips and tricks

7. Submitting: If resources are available, run your pending post by a trusted advisor or editor who can do a review, make minor edits and immediately submit on your behalf. If it has to go back to you for your "final approval," it may not be worth having an approval process.

8. Announcing: Sometimes announce on other social networks to notify others about your post (example: Facebook or Twitter). Chris Brogan recommends doing this tactfully by writing a question, then including a link to your post. Also remember not all posts are Twitter worthy - so don't abuse this.

When Commenting
1. On Your Blog: Comment to other's comments in your own blog. This will grow the conversation and ad more value to your posts

2. On Other Blogs: Make your comments thoughtful, beginning often by referencing what stood out to you in the post or in another's comments. Strive to include a valuable take-away for anyone else reading your comments

3. Frequency: No hard rule, but remember conversations are easier to join than start. Commenting on a few of the same blogs often can establish a relationship with the blogger and their audience.

4. Linking: If you are linking to content of your own, be sure it very relevantly addresses the topic at hand. Consider including links to other blogs often. Linking to your own content in a comment is better received when the blogger recognizes you have commented earlier.

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Podcast with the Penguin - Jeremy Tanner

Jason Cormier — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:00:00 -0600

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews Boulder-based social media consultant, Jeremy Tanner.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. To follow or not to follow: Acceptable twitter manners - great people in person doesn't always transfer to great people on Twitter.

2. Advantages of Facebook vs Twitter: Facebook throttles down notifications, meaning you won't receive constant updates from a person on Facebook, even if they are posting 20 items an hour.

3. A day in the life of Jeremy Tanner: It starts with his iphone (of course)

4. Bridging the gap between online and offline communications: It's about keeping two-way conversations. Also, don't forget or be afraid to pick up the phone.

Be sure to check out Jeremy at http://www.jeremytanner.com, and follow him via twitter at http://twitter.com/penguin

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Room 214 and Twitter ID Rights

James Clark — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:35:55 -0600

"A person can achieve everything by being simple and humble" - Rig Veda

I have always found that being humble in mind and spirit has worked well for me in life.

As I was gong through my normal pre-bedtime routines of checking emails, Twitter and Facebook, I was alerted of a video post by Kevin Rose, yes that Kevin Rose, on Seesmic about Twitter ID naming rights that was referencing a situation with Room 214 and Colin Davitt, the owner of the Twitter ID @room214. If you click on the Seesmic above link you will see Kevin's reasoning and position on the subject of Twitter IDs.

But first things first - Humility:

To Colin Davitt, my most sincere apologies in regards to the Twitter ID issue. You can rest assured that we are not interested in your Twitter ID, and wish you only the best in using it.

And to keep it - Simple:

As a company, and I can say this as one of its co-founders, we have never sought legal counsel or even discussed attempting to obtain the Twitter ID right to twitter.com/room214. Yes, about a year ago we did seek to secure the name, but it was one of those - "Awe shucks, someone already has it moments" and we moved on. Colin got there first - and that is that.

There were mistakes made in communications from one of our employees in their own conversations with Colin. We are all human, and from my discussions with this individual I can honestly say that there was never any bad intent in the situation, and now only heartfelt regret.

Twitter ID Rights

So, Kevin brings up a great conversation about naming rights in social media - one that we will most certainly take an interest in following.

Truth be told, I look forward to participating in the process and hope this situation only helps all of us in the long run.

Sincerely,

James Clark

co-founder, Room 214

@room214 twitter twitter id rights

Open Web Awards Winners

Jason Cormier — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:00:11 -0600

Thanks to all who participated in the voting of this year's Open Web Awards. It was a huge success in terms of "voter turn-out" compared to last year. I'd say many of the results were predictable, but I'm also happy to report there were definitely some newer, emerging companies that made it to the top. The final results have just been posted below. Congrats to the winners!

http://mashable.com/2008/12/16/open-web-awards-2-winners/

mashable open web awards blog partner

Social Media Testing for Room 214

Jason Cormier — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:33:43 -0600

This is a test blog post as part of a Room 214 testing process we are conducting for several social media tools. Please disregard.

room 214 social media testing social media tools

The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media

James Clark — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:30:00 -0600

The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media: Summary

Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Yuck - the power of the word is evident in just looking at this infamous list.

The forces of good and evil are universal principles both online and offline. We all come into the real world (and the virtual one) as innocent babes. But once we arrive, our actions can bring us glory or shame.

In the world of social media, are you going to be a force for good? Or are you going to turn to the dark side - ruining your chances and infuriating those who cross your path?

The Fork in the Road

Building an online presence takes clarity of thought, tenacity and honesty. And it demands that we quickly differentiate right action from wrong.
I've got two young children, and I watch this process all the time. With young kids, the reaction isn't the split-second decision adults make. I can see my son's brain working it out while he is holding the permanent marker, looking at his sister's homework and processing: "Should I do it? Should I draw all over her homework?"

More often than not, adults' intuition tells us the correct thing to do.
It doesn't always come easily. In life, this kind of intuition is learned over years, through life experiences and influences and teachings from parents, family, community, religion, school, teachers, friends, etc.

But I'm drawn to saving sinners. For those wanting some form of moral compass to give a basis for understanding the right and wrong of social media, this article will capture the learning that takes a lifetime of community inputs in less than 2,000 words. How's that for vanity!

The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Let's get at it. This list is in no particular order of importance. There is no hierarchy of social media sins. And for those reluctant to reform, you can't simply choose the least of the seven evils and get away with it - they are all bad.

Pride

The original and most deadly of the mortal sins, pride is the grim reaper of social media sins. When you have too much pride to admit you are wrong, and you go on defending your flawed position, even when conflicting facts are made available, you are treading on some seriously thin ice. What's worse is when you "spin" facts in an attempt to convince others of one kernel or intent of truth in your statement. You must accept that it is OK to have made a mistake. Swallowing your pride and accepting that you were wrong is priceless - and in the long run this will make life easier. True character is revealed in times of adversity.

Note: If the clarifying response is not immediate and the apology not genuine, then all hell will start breaking loose. If your community or subscribers find out you are not walking the walk, then the revolution will be openly socialized.
Social Opposite to Pride: Humility

Gluttony

Gluttony - too much, too fast. We've all seen the social sin of gluttony in beginners who look at social media as a new channel that is built to serve them. They jump in and devour all the services they have read about and quickly find themselves swamped, ineffective and wasting everyone's time.

To avoid gluttony, we recommend starting on one or two social media platforms. Get to know the inner workings, leverage the value of each of those communities and then confidently start expanding your social network footprint.

Remember you are present to add value to the communities you join, not to push messaging in those communities.
Social Opposite: Temperance

Sloth

Sloth - I could easily say this sin is being lazy and not participating in the conversation - never posting comments, creating new content or adding value to the networks - and I would be right.

Sloth in the social media sense is more meaningfully the failure to apply and use your talents and gifts in the conversation. Just remember you're good enough, you're smart enough and people like you.

But I'll also stick up for those that have tried getting involved in the social web and failed. Sloth is often a symptom of non-believers. It usually comes from a culture where there is little support for a social media initiative and little commitment to its success. Immersing oneself or an organization in social media takes a tremendous amount of time, dedication and attention, and without a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T from your peers, the effort is futile.

Sloth creeps in for non-believers of the product or company, too. This means if a social media community manager is placed at the head of the program and he or she frankly doesn't care about the company, product or service - it's doomed. Listen, if the effort is not a passion, the creativity will dry up fast.
Social Opposite: Diligence

Envy

Envy - "Damn, I had that idea three months ago." "I know twice as much as that idiot, and he's got thousands of followers." "I wrote about that two years ago, and along comes this A-list blogger who gets all the credit."

'Nuff said - these situations are painful experiences. But face it, the reality is that someone else spent the time, energy and effort to build their network to put themselves in the position to get the credit. You might have brilliant ideas and have written great articles, but if your network is non-existent, then guess what: If a tree falls in the forest... Can you confess your network is lacking punch? (See "Pride," above.) If so, gather the strength and commit to putting yourself into the conversation. Offer to help others in ways that genuinely and directly benefit them, not you.
Social Opposite: Kindness

Greed

Greed - a deliberate betrayal for personal gain. Greed has many different labels in social media: astroturfing, link baiting, spamming, scum-sucking scourges that live in the bowels of hell... The sin of greed just might be the most reviled and hated of all the sins in social media. So I'm going to spend a little more time on this one.

Let's put the greedy in two camps: fakes and flacks.
Fakes: Fakes blatantly attempt to hijack social media platforms for personal, employer or corporate gain. Think Wal-Marting Across America. Fakery is when a fraudulent blog site, Facebook page, Digg profile, etc., pops up, posturing as if it has no ties or biases to a particular product or company. Yeah, sure, it's just out of the pure goodness of these people's hearts that they are driving around the country visiting Wal-Marts and blogging about it (in the case linked above), or constantly submitting a company's content to Digg, or posting updates in a Facebook group. Just know this: You will be exposed. It is the duty of bloggers and other personal marshals of the social media universe to sniff out the fakes and shine a light on dark-hatched plans.

Flacks: Flacks are in the offing when a team of coordinated individuals premeditate their actions as part of a campaign to go out and fill social media networks and blogs with comments, tags, Diggs or Stumbles supporting a particular product or company. Think: Comcast "Big Ten". Take note of this so I can say, "You've been warned."

Yes, bloggers can deduce comment spamming is happening by referencing the IP address from whence the comments are coming. If you have hired a PR agency, and those individuals are all connecting to the Internet via the same IP address, and all of a sudden three of four new commenters appear on a blog post from that IP address, then it's a good indication the black horde of flacks has arrived.

Common traces of flacks include:
1. First-time comments on a blog. This is an error in the basic understanding of community. Most bloggers and group owners know who their most frequent commenters are, and blog platforms like Post Zinger can even keep a history of comments by name. So after a post that may be controversial or damning receives a flood of new commenters trying to contradict the statements of the post, somebody will likely sniff out the orchestrated reputation management effort.

2. The comments are lacking any anchor text link (the name of the commenter that links to a blog, webpage or social media page). If you're an active participant in social networking there has to be some website, blog or social media profile you can link your name to.

3. Comments teeming with "messaging." We can all spot buzzword messaging a mile away, so please refrain. (BTW, you must play buzzword bingo at the next event you attend.)

To tame greed, make the commitment to the 80/20 rule. That means 80 percent of the content you are commenting on, tagging and submitting is not yours or related to your clients or company.
Social Opposite: Charity

Lust

Lust - "Oh John, Oh Paul, Oh George, Oh Ringo." Come on, people, excess in any form is not good for you. Excessive ass-kissing of social media experts is just downright annoying. I'm not talking teacher's pet stuff, where you are trying to be good by paying attention, showing up on time and participating - that's all cool with me. What I'm talking about is the freaky, inappropriate and relentless pursuit of an individual that is just in bad taste.

I'm not saying don't try to create relationships with these individuals; by all means do pursue those relationships.

What I am saying is have some skill and tact, and use common sense. Don't constantly link to your content in their posts, and spare us the smoochy comments like "Love this post. Thanks!" and "Thanks for sharing."
Social Opposite: Self Control

Finally, there is…

Wrath

Wrath - Uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger where you lash out and post a stream of vile meant only to tear someone or something down with the intent to do harm.

Now, I can sympathize with the sin of wrath, and sometimes it's borderline justifiable. Do everything in your power to resist publicly berating an individual or company. Don't personalize anything. If you're getting bad service, find a way to creatively discuss your exact experience and stick to the facts; don't get into name calling.

If you're genuinely pissed off to the point of blindness, type up your diatribe in a Word document, sleep on it overnight and come back the next day to see if it's still a good idea to post it. More than likely, you'll come to your senses. It's always easier to catch flies with honey.

Remember: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering," states Yoda.
Social Opposite: Forgiveness

Who Are You - Saint or Sinner?

When it comes to social media, there are a lot of great voices in the conversation - let's call them saints - willing to help others understand the right things to do: Chris Brogan, http://www.chrisbrogan.com, Brian Solis, http://www.briansolis.com, Jeremiah Owyang, http://www.web-strategist.com, Steve Rubel, http://www.micropersuasion.com, Peter Shankman, http://www.shankman.com and Dave Taylor, http://www.intuitive.com/blog to name a few I personally enjoy.

Naturally, the shadowy side has personalities attached, too. Because I'm a Wikipedia addict, following is a link to information about the mortal transgressions, starting with the 4th-century monk who first delivered the seven mortal sins to the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_deadly_sins

If you read the Wikipedia entry you will see each of the Seven Deadly Sins is associated with a demon:
Lucifer: pride
Beelzebub: gluttony
Belphegor: sloth
Leviathan: envy
Mammon: greed
Asmodeus: lust
Satan/Amon: wrath

Who would earn a demon title in the social media world? Do yourself a favor: Absolve yourself of the risk of evil new nicknames being hung on your online identity by using social media virtuously.
Now go forth, and sin no more.

About the Author
James Clark is a social media expert and cofounding partner of Room 214, a social media and word of mouth marketing agency. James is also author of the award-winning white paper, Fire Your PR Firm. Some of his other notable Room 214 articles include The Placement Crash: The Failure of PR in the Conversation World and The Top 5 Reasons Why It's RSS or DIE.

James Clark and Jason Cormier co-founded Room 214 (www.Room214.com) in 2004 to help companies with search marketing, online public relations and reputation management.

Leveraging the Cluetrain Manifesto doctrine, James and Jason originated the "Capture the Conversation" philosophy: search engines are media and markets are conversations. To dominate a market, you must capture the conversation by pursuing a unified, multi-tactic approach to social media and high search engine visibility.

Take Some Next Steps To Keep in Touch

1. Subscribe to our blog at http://www.capturetheconversation.com
2. Follow us on Twitter at /JamesOClark and /JasonCormier
3. Get our quarterly Capture the Conversation email newsletter
Invite us to help your organization or speak at your event by calling James Clark or Jason Cormier at 866-624-1851 or by filling in the contact form at http://www.room214.com/contact.php

Download the PDF of The 7 Deady Sins of Social Media

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A Social Media Discussion with Marshall Kirkpatrick

Jason Cormier — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:09:29 -0600

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews ReadWriteWeb's lead blogger and social media consultant, Marshall Kirkpatrick.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. Quick Advice for what's working best in blogging these days (unique analysis, being first to release the news, posting out to others and broader participation in new social networks).

2. What's exciting in terms of new social media tools? Friendfeed's new instant messaging integration, enabling people to be more consistently engaged in online conversations.

3. ReadWriteWeb and their latest project, Jobwire.

4. How the state of the economy is effecting social media. The importance of Community Managers in social media: Do startups need Community Mangers?

5. The need for a Community Manager as it relates to drawing out the highlights of conversations, team building and response.

Note: Talking with Marshall is always a treat because he is so effectively tracking with what matters most in practical applications of social media. We had the pleasure of using him as a consultant last year to review our blog and podcasting application, Post Zinger - and he was able to provide some great insight within minutes of our first conversation.

Be sure to check out his new Jobwire project with ReadWriteWeb, and follow his personal MarshallK blog or via twitter at http://twitter.com/marshallk

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A Conversation with Tribune Interactive's Social Media Strategist, Daniel Honigman

Jason Cormier — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:15:00 -0600

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews Tribune Interactive's Social Media Strategist, Daniel Honigman

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. Mainstream media's need to adopt social media, and Daniel Honigman's recognition of the touch points missing from traditional media and news organizations.

2. The Chicago Tribune's successful use of "Colonel Tribune" as the social media persona used to better reach people in the online social space.

3. The need for reporters to think of themselves as publishers as bloggers do, why news organizations who blog need to link to other bloggers and show thanks for links.

4. Success and strategy considerations with Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and social bookmarking in general (reference made to Brett Boarders from Copy Brighter.com)

5. A brief mention of top tools used to build reputation, including Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin (reference The Conversation diagram created by Brian Solis)

6. Daniel Honigman's new blog, OldMediaNewTricks.com

Note: Kudos to Tribune Interactive for employing a forward thinker in the social media space like Daniel Honigman. Check out Daniel's new blog or follow him on Twitter at dan360man

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3 Tips for Marketing To Bloggers

Wendy Ricci — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:38:05 -0600

Last week JupiterResearch and BuzzLogic released the results from their Harnessing the Power of Blogs survey; a study of more than 2,000 online consumers in the U.S. Aside from revealing a 300% growth in blog readership in the past four years, this study confirmed that consumers are "strongly influenced" by blog content when it comes to purchasing a product. Not only are these consumers discovering new products from blogger reviews, they are using blogs to refine their choices, get support and answers, and even assure themselves of their purchase decision.

So how you can you tap into the purchasing power of blogs? Implement a blogger outreach program for your brand! Below are 3 tips for successfully marketing to bloggers.

1. Be authentic. I can't stress this point enough. Always disclose that you work for the company/brand/product before you start your pitch. Full discloser helps build trust between you and the blogger and provides an open environment for feedback. Check out Fired for Astroturfing: A Social Media Don't for an example of what can go wrong if you don't disclose your affiliation up-front.

2. Do your homework. There are literally millions of blogs covering endless topics, so it is important to target only blogs that are highly relevant for your product or service. To start identifying appropriate blogs, select 2-3 keywords that best describe the industry for your product or service. (For example, 'candy' and 'chocolate' would be good keywords for M&Ms). Next do a Google Blog Search using these keywords to find blogs that have these keywords in the title or have a high concentration of content including these keywords.

3. Customize your pitch. I have received feedback from numerous bloggers applauding our company for 'getting it right' when it comes to outreach. The reason? Customization. Do not send out impersonal, mass emails to the bloggers you identified in Step 2. Instead, use the blogger's name at the beginning of your pitch and let him know you read his blog (identified by name) or a specific blog post (again identified by name). Tailor your pre-written pitch to make it as relevant as possible for this blogger. The more personal your communication seems, the more likely a blogger will respond positively to it.

Fostering blogger relationships can help you build brand credibility and provide a forum for online conversation about your product or service. I would love to hear about other blogger outreach tips and success stories, so be sure to leave comments!

WSJ Says Twitter Goes Mainstream

Jason Cormier — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:57:30 -0500

"What are you doing?" If the answer has anything to do with attempting to improve your online marketing or customer service, then Twitter better be a part of it.

Ok, I can almost hear it now. "This again? Please Jason, not more fanfare about this geeky tool. Why must I broadcast my thoughts in 140 characters or less? Are companies really using this? Really?"

Yes. Still don't believe me? Then wake up and smell today's Wall Street Journal article, Twitter Goes Mainstream. Companies called out specifically in the article include Dell, Zappos and Comcast.

I'll be the first to admit that using Twitter has a set of issues that deserves mentioning in a separate post. From a business perspective, we at Room 214 approach it like any other social media tool. We start by listening (see Brogan's How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter).

When considering most of my colleagues, I'm a newborn baby on Twitter (find me at JasonCormier). Still, I find the rate at which I'm adding followers to be ever increasing. I'd love to believe it's because I'm becoming more well known, but the reality is it's just more people getting on board.

Oh, just saw Brogan's latest tweet on the Brian Solis post on Twitter tools. How are you using Twitter for your business?

twitter wsj opportunities on twitter jason cormier

7 Tactics for Successful Online Events

James Clark — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:15:33 -0500

A good partner of Room 214's recently asked if we have any good learnings about how to run successful online events. Come to find out - we sure do.

Following is the email I sent (sans the names and companies, plus some spelling fixes).

Wanted to give you a brief recap of what we have seen to be successful with running events online.

1. Find Your Audience Online
This is basic and practical I know, but many companies don't really get a good lay of the land far enough in front of the event to be successful. The idea is NOT to be a total new comer to the conversation and expect people to ride in and support the effort.

Part of this effort should be around ad support and potential sponsorships in those key communities months before the event.

As part of monitoring the online audience, look for themes that arise as part of the conversation. This gives you content fodder for mini-events (#3 below).

So getting some brand visibility is key. The visibility needs to be focused on the influencers.

2. Set Up Your Online Presence
Social media is fueled by reciprocation, be it tagging, friending, commenting or viral applications. But, there's got to be some place for people to see who you are what you're doing. Options (among others) could be a blog or microsite, Facebook group or page. Somewhere that gives you the ability to post content, notices and updates about upcoming events.

3. Create Mini-Events
Trying to get large audiences online is dependent on either: (a) celebrity draw, or (b) unique, interesting and relevant content. In front of the event itself create mini-events such as online chats using UStream or Kyte player. So you can take some people involved with the main show and start creating content and events that would be of interest to your crowd. During these mini-events your always throwing messaging forward to the main event.

4. Cause Marketing
This one has potential to work extremely well. Through cause marketing you can tie the event to a charitable cause. You can leverage the non-profit network to promote the event, and you can do something around say attendance numbers. So for each online viewer we will donate $1 up to 100,000 dollars. Obviously this costs money, and we only recommend this strategy if the organization itself is building a sustainable online community. With cause marketing you're driving lots of visibility and traffic and if the idea is to sustain a community beyond the event then it's an effective and comparatively inexpesnive way of doing it.

5. Main Event
In the online world, we have found promoting an event by communications outreach too far in advance is a waste of time. For exposure use brand advertising or site sponsorships as mentioned in point #1 above. For the event itself use the mini-events as a way to keep people interested then do your outreach online max four days in advance. Have something interesting and exciting to talk about for the outreach (see point #6 below) is critical.

6. Post Main Event
Another great tactic we have used is a post-event community program. That is a live call or online chat after the event where people who just watched the telecast can then get on and talk about it. This gives great reason to do outreach: "Don't forget to tune into the Telecast at 9 p.m., and then join in the Live Chat/Audioconference/Blog Radio Show with XXX immediately after."

7. Create Calendar Items that Can Go Viral
Calendaring for events is one of the main reasons we like Facebook. Events are one of the most viral applications in Facebook. So if I'm interested in the event, I'll click on attending the event, and all of my contacts will see: "James is attending the XXX event at 9 p.m. on Thursday". So if my circle of friends on Facebook are also passionate about the topic, they now see it.

Now, one point not raised is e-mail. This discussion was based on the assumption the client didn't have an active email list.

BTW, most people stumble and fail miserably at Step 1, never giving the following six steps a chance.

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Leveraging Virtual Communities

Jason Cormier — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:48:13 -0500

One of our readers just asked me what "virtual community" refers to regarding point 3 in my post about the top 5 things Chief Marketing Officers want.

Although virtual communities can be defined within a broad range of social media properties (like Facebook) - CMO's are saying, I wish to leverage them so I can better "understand my target audience."

This discussion can quickly get more involved than how a company might use Facebook, because now we are talking about the use of intentional business tools. One local company and customer of ours that provides the kind of tools I'm referring to is HiveLive.

With the goal of better understanding a target audience, one of the advantages of using a virtual (online) community platform comes in leveraging multiple audiences. The audiences I'm referring to specifically are employees, customers and partners.

If you can effectively create the space through which these audiences can participate - you are fostering a new means of sharing, exploring and learning. The results? Better communication, marketing, innovation and loyalty.

If you would like to dig into this deeper, Jeremiah Owyang did a comprehensive report on community platforms for Forrester only a couple of months ago.

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Social Media Monitoring Podcast with Collective Intellect

Jason Cormier — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:02:00 -0500

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews Co-founder and CTO of Collective Intellect, Tim Wolters.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. The value of Collective Intellect for social media monitoring

2. The specific values of online conversational monitoring in terms of base-lining share of voice among competitive brands, identification of themes, identification of influencers and what the sentiment is around a brand.

3. The maturity and differentiation of Collective Intellect's ability to track online sentiment, and approach online monitoring from a "topic net" approach as opposed to a simple keyword approach.

4. Tim's reaction to Google's potential patent-pending technology for identifying key influencers in Facebook, MySpace and others.

5. Tim's advice for getting started in social media (start monitoring with free tools).

Note: This subject matter has become extremely relevant to Room 214's social media agency services over the last two years. On that note, let us know if you are interested in hearing more about strategy, planning and/or tactical outreach efforts used in conjunction with these kinds of tools and data.

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The Top 5 Things Chief Marketing Officers Want

Jason Cormier — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:33:39 -0500

According to September's Sapient survey data, nearly half the chief marketing officers surveyed are moving their business to agencies with a greater understanding of the web ("digital space"). Anybody surprised? Of the more than 200 CMO's surveyed, the top 5 things these marketers are looking for in an agency are:

Greater knowledge of what's online: More than 1/3 revealed they are not confident their current agency is well positioned to successfully take their brand online.
Using "pull interactions:" 90% want their agencies to use pull interactions such as social media and communities rather than only traditional "push" campaigns.
Leveraging of virtual communities: 94% expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities to understand more about their target audience.
Agency executives using the technology: 92% said it was important the agencies use what they recommend.
Agencies that have "Chief Digital Officers."

Additional noteworthy items desired (actually included as a broader top 10 list) pertain to what many of us would intuitively expect - like an agency's ability to demonstrate an understanding of social media, the ability to demonstrate strategic thinking and analytic measurement for success.

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Leadership in the Era Social Media

James Clark — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:14:59 -0500

I was just on Amazon checking out the reviews on Seth Godin's book: Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, and came across a quote from Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching providing a unique perspective of leadership in the era of social meda:

"Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves. "

This goes back to the root of any social media program. LISTEN first and learn what your group is thinking, what motivates them, where they spend their time and then and only then can an organization plan its engagement strategy.

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Consistency With Your Online Identity

James Clark — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:05:39 -0500

Maintaining consistency with your online identity is one of those mundane, but effective strategies for building out your social media footprint.

If at all possible don't be JohnHucksCliffs on Delicious and JohnnyRockStar on Twitter. Try to keep your identity consistent across as many platforms as you can.

Sometimes that's easier said than done. Being graced with a common name like James Clark can have its benefits. For instance, I can pretty much go to any major sporting or entertainment event, walk up to the Will Call window and say, "Tickets for James Clark please", show my ID and I'm in. Now I won't admit to doing this, but for those of you with common names it's a plus.

But in the social media world it's a pain in the.....

A common name, be it personal or a corporate, is often difficult to come by for a username ID. So prior to setting up personal or company profiles, plug potential ID names into UserNameCheck.com and see what is available and what is taken.

Our recommendation is to make sure you're covered on the bigger sites:
Delicious, Digg, Flickr, Friendfeed, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter and YouTube.

So in case you're interested JohnHucksCliffs is very available:

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PDF Marketing on Steroids: A Discussion with Vitrium CEO, Peter Nieforth

Jason Cormier — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:00:00 -0500

Room 214 Co-founder, Jason Cormier, interviews Vitrium's CEO, Peter Nieforth, regarding their new PDF marketing product, Docmetrics.

In this podcast, we discuss:

1. What is Docmetrics, and why should a marketer take a look at this product?

2. The limitations of using standard web forms as a resource to collect sales leads.

3. Statistics of engagement on forms within PDFs vs. standard web forms.

4. The new opportunity considering ROI and measurement: the ability to know who is reading your PDFs, who they are being passed along to, which pages are being read the most (applicable to newsletters, white papers, case studies, media kits, PDFs handed out on USB drives, CD's, etc.)

5. Docmetrics costs and use case

Note: Peter said if you go to Docmetrics.com and mention my name, you'll get a free USB device. There is a free trial on the website. I'd love to hear anyone's feedback on their experience with it.

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Customer Service as the New Marketing

James Clark — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:38:28 -0500

"My role was just a pleasant accident," Craig Newmark quoted in a recent article with Susan Kuchinskas of iMediaConnection.

The role Craig is talking about is going from founder and growing Craigslist, to being the public face of the company, working with the media and being part of a team of customer service reps.

I personally find this role fascinating and refreshing. What better way to serve your company than to be directly involved in helping solve customer issues or responding to customer inquiries.

Imagine the insights and knowledge he gains from personally interacting with the customer.

Which begs the question: Why do so many companies look at customer service as a necessary evil?

Answer: EGO

The people best suited to handle the vast array of customer service issues are not people manning phone banks in India. It's high-level management with a true and deep understanding of the products and service offerings. But these individuals would need to check their ego at the door to start manning the gates.

I do think there is an opportunity in elevating conversational customer reps, those individuals responsible for the Twitter and GetSatisfaction pages to be more senior as these individuals will most certainly become a public figure in the company.

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