Capture the Conversation Internet Marketing Tag Feed for 'capture the conversation'

Social Media Monitoring Tools Podcast - A Discussion with Brian Chappell

Jason Cormier — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:30:00 -0400

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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Why Social Media is Succeeding at Qwest

Jason Cormier — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:01:01 -0400

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."

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The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media

James Clark — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:30:00 -0500

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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Is it April's Fool Yet?

Stepan Mazurov — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:19:36 -0400

We thought it would be bad to lauch on April 1st, because many of our readers wouldn't believe their eyes, so one day early it is!

The new site is here, in all its rounded glory. It is long overdue, most of our company has lost hope for it ever seeing the light, but after 6 months of development, its finally here. The new, improved podast section, brand new articles directory which we invite everyone to keep track of as we will be posting some awesome things there in the coming weeks/months and of course the reworked video tutorials section that actually makes sense and is a lot more user friendly are finally here!

Some things to come are improved author profiles that includes links to our personal blogs as well as other social sites (did somebody say friendfeed integration?) Keep on the look out for more new features! We would also love to hear your feedback on the new design, nay or yay? Let us know in the comments.

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CTC Podcast #1- RSS Marketing and the Future of

James Clark — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:15:49 -0400

As the first Capture the Conversation (CTC) podcast, this show offers a nice snapshot of the personalities behind Room 214 - in addition to the kind of discussions that take place when it comes to Google search results, SEO, public relations, RSS and more.

Opening - Kris introduces James Clark and Jason Cormier of Room 214, http://www.Room214.com, for the inaugural CTC Podcast and Kris' claim that the Internet doesn't lie and he can prove he had the first official podcast studio.

4:00 - SEO discussion about Matt Cutts post on Internal Search Results Pages and how Google is responding to placing those pages high in SERPs. Kris talks about being #1 for Wii News on Google - an internal search page for Croncast. How long will it last?

5:30 - Comments on the recently released State of the News Media 2007 Report - everything is moving into niche areas and how people are consuming media. How The Sopranos and TiVO changed everything in the Clark household.

17:50 - Roll Your Own discussion and Jason's Tupac sighting in his toast.

20:00 - Kris' FeedBuffet idea to track feeds in real time, James' view of the world through his Google Reader, and Jason talking about SEO being dead - RSS or Die: The Oncoming Slaughter of the Corporate Website.

Music provided by JT Presents: The Lovely and Talented, song Dog

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Merging Traditional PR Into Online Conversations

James Clark — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:43:33 -0400

Awe the lines are starting to blur and I like it.

Using public relations is a critical tactic in generating awareness for many businesses, and online businesses should be no different. The irony is traditional PR tactics (media relations, ed cal tracking, by-lined articles, speaking opportunities) to drive awareness in the main stream media (MSM), are as foreign to an online business as RSS feeds and blogs are to a majority of offline businesses.

Steven Van Yoder's recent post titled "Why Online Businesses Should Embrace PR" provides excellent insights to using PR to drive traffic.

To quote Steven, "They read newspapers, magazines and listen to the radio. To reach your market niche comprehensively, you need to explore ways to reach your prospects beyond the Internet. It will help you drive traffic to your web site."

We agree. Our experience has been that offline MSM coverage drives a tremendous amount of traffic to a company's website. We know this because we work with PR teams to help them avoid The Placement Crash typically associated with MSM coverage driving new visitors to a dull and non-engaging website.

The magic happens when the PR team is able to work with the online team in delivering a unique and fresh conversational experience to those new visitors.

Don't waste the amazing opportunity media coverage gives you. Capture the conversation by:

Extrapolating the salient points in the MSM coverage on your blog and continuing the conversation by posting and responding to comments
Setting up a teleconference on the coverage topic a week out and provide the ability to register for free online
Get them to sign up for your email newsletter
Provide an in-depth article on the coverage topic available for download

Because of the nature of online businesses, it is my honest opinion they are more apt to capitalize on the MSM exposure than many traditional offline business. The reason - they have the technical skills and flexibility to update and use social media and online technologies (blogs, podcasts, email newsletters) to capture the conversation that are often beyond the scope of knowledge for most companies.

For more information on strategies for leveraging the synergies between online and offline media tactics, check out our posts on The Placement Crash and Tried and True PR Tactics for Igniting Online Buzz.

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