Yesterday I attended the Chinwag.com event “measuring social media” chaired by Jim Sterne of Web Analytics Association with a panel comprising of:

Alex Burmaster – European Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online

Alex did a fair amount of pitching to begin with, and to be frank didn’t really give too much insight into what Social Media actually is. He enthused a great deal on how Nielsen has tools for measuring online conversations but lacked any real solutions for the crowd, he warmed up towards the end.

Robin Grant – Client Services Director, 1000heads

Robin started reasonably well and enthused on the power of Social Media although again didn’t really give any big insights to what it actually is and how you can use it. Little too much assuming I thought, although certainly a fan of Social Media.

Will McInnes – MD, Nixon McInnes

Will was the “gem” on the panel for me, he told it straight by stating “humans are slow and computers are dumb” (or was it the other way around?). Anyway he was basically stating that we cannot measure conversations, you cannot apply numbers to people’s emotions and cannot readily understand a conversation with a metric. I have to agree to some extent. Read more on his blog

Ankur Shah – Co-founder, Techlightenment

This guy was also enthusing well and was also “bigging up” the use of their Socialistics programme, based on collection of data for analysis.

I’ll state up front that I didn’t learn anything new from this event, ok sure it was great to network and meet new people, and some old friends, but in terms of the panel content I learnt nothing.

Why is this?

I think this is two-fold, firstly I am neck-deep in Social Media myself, much of that stems from running a virtual company for 8 years, I have had to build virtual communities and use social tools to engage with that community. Therefore I know first-hand what is needed, what talents and skills are appropriate and what works or doesn’t work. I’d say I was just as knowledgeable as anyone on the panel, certainly in terms of experience.

Secondly, the panel assumed that everyone in the audience knew what Social Media is, how it operates, what you need to do to get it to work for you. However, given that the majority of the audience were in fact PR agencies, I can tell you I am convinced that not a great deal of people do actually know what Social Media is, or more specifically how it can operate and work. I don't mean that to sound arrogant, or expert-like, I'm just saying this is not new to mew.

One of most poignant questions of the evening was put by the Chair who asked “if you were given the job of Social Media Marketing Manager for Vauxhall, what’s the first thing you need to do?”. I immediately twittered this question and got the following answers:

@audio - Hi Chris, my first tool would be ears to listen. :)
Samantha_Grant at 18-02-2008 20:15

@audio demographics on target market and their media habits.
injenuity at 18-02-2008 20:07

@audio a thick skin?
GJD at 18-02-2008 20:02

@audio a super-high speed internet connection and great computer?
TamK at 18-02-2008 20:00

I like a lot of those tweets, and thank you for them because you proved my point. My answer to the question was simply “build a community and call them to action”.

It sounds simple when you look at it in print, but not one person mentioned that very important fact, in fact the very cornerstone of Social Media. Now regarding how to derive a metric from your community, I’m not sure about. Perhaps a call to action on a vote, an act, will in fact yield a metric. For example if 25% of my Social Media community act on a call to action, I do in fact have a metric, numbers, something for the CEO to consider. I know that’s not measuring engagement, connection, depth of experience, blah blah … but it is a number which CEOs “get”.

The dialogue went onto asking if we need an open source form of social media metrics, some kind of industry standard that we can all work towards, personally I’m not convinced of that either, but I could be persuaded.

I think to sum-up Social Media is currently a buzz-phrase, I’ve been socialising with my prospects for years, it’s not suddenly something new to me, though I understand it is for the traditional advertisers of this world. I also think that the strength of Social Media in terms of advertising will be the ability to extract highly detailed profiles of people in “the community”. Taking Facebook as an example, if the platform is sexy enough people will tell you “everything” about themselves.

Once we have highly detailed profiles of prospects we will be able to sell that data to be used to target individuals with specific information we know they will be pleased to hear about. This goes back to my argument around the Android Pocket Spy.

Of course the further we delve into asking our community to put forward detailed information about themselves the further down the privacy road we stumble.

Will you mind being profiled so deeply? Will you enjoy receiving targeted SMS notes about products in you geo area? It will come, believe me.

Technorati Tags: buzz chinwag community conversation measuring social media metric social media virtual web2.0 social media web2.0 chinwag metric community virtual conversation buzz

I was again perusing my friends’ tweets on Twitter this fine Saturday morning and I became aware that a recent buzz word seems to be “Social Media Breakfast”. Social Media Breakfast I say, hmm … what does that mean to you?

I have an idea of the concept but I really want to know who coined the phrase, and why? Was it coined just randomly like “hey let’s have breakfast” by a few people who use social media, or was it more thought about than that?

Conceptually I don't think it is actually anything new, the premise being that you have a friends list in one of your social networks and you create an event, a social event where you all meet-up, in this case eat breakfast, if like me you are not a big breakfast eater, or like the Italians, stand up and have an expresso on the run, these sessions might not work for you.

However, these remind me an awful lot of the activity we at Audiocourses.com have been practising since 2000. So have we been having Social Media Meet-Ups unwittingly? And have we just not applied a buzz phrase to them? I think so, let me explain.

Running a distance learning school has meant that I have had to build a strong sense of virtual community around the members and within its operating structure. As no bricks and mortar exists for the school (no point considering all students are geographically dispersed) it really is paramount to use scaffolding that supports a strong sense of virtual identity, the school really must give a sense of institution, a sense of community and a sense of something big, something to feel a part of.

Over the years I have utilised various technologies to accomplish this sense of community ranging from ftp upload centres to internet radio, forums, blogs, telephone, email, synchronous chat, text messages and various other bits and bobs. Again all these help cement an organisational concept and mostly all are social technologies, social media.

In addition to those technologies we have since 2000 held weekly online synchronous chats, typically on Sundays. We have termed these Live Workshops. As a distance learning educationalist it is vital I can aid students move away from feelings of social isolation. Think about it, when you go to a traditional University or College you see your friends every day, you meet them in the pub after study and you are generally learning in a very social manner (which is vital in my mind). So the distance learning student needs, actually I would say it is essential, to have mechanisms in place which are for the “social” aspect of learning, and this is exactly what are Live Workshops are.

You can browse through passed Workshops from 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, (I’ve kept the dialogue) and if you do indeed read through these you will soon get the vibe of what is going on. Social friendly sessions, inclusion and openness, community building, cementing attachment, installing belonging.

Now back to my original point.

So we have this large virtual community, we have people who have never met each other personally, from all over the world, only digitally through our social media channels, so if we then have real-life get togethers I guess you could say we are having a Social Media Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Pint, whatever.

This is exactly what has happened over the years, we've had breakfasts, we've had lunches and we've had dinners, and meeting these people for the first time in the flesh (having built a deep relationship already online) has been awesome, really, a fantastic experience. But will I attached the buzz word to it, no probably not, should I do that? Would you, would you raise your hand and say “hang on a minute guys we’ve done this for years already, what’s so new”?

I’d love to have your views on it, should I care about new buzz-words for old concepts?

UPDATE: Bryper is said to be the guy who coined the phrase see here, thanks to @mdy

Technorati Tags: audiocourses breakfast buzz college dinner live lunch media meet-up social students twitter univeristy words workshops buzz words social media live workshops audiocourses twitter breakfast lunch dinner meet-up students college univeristy

What is the key approach to effectively market our products in Web2.0?

As I was sitting passively in a company meeting today, (yes not often), I was very impressed to hear various company staff voices bubbling with enthusiasm and knowledge for change. I was very impressed that these voices had an outlet, and a channel for open dialogue, and the approach needs commending for allowing this to take place, in an environment where this type of dialogue had not been common place.

Large corporations the world over are struggling with traditional forms of advertising, it is no surprise to find the branding and marketing conversation rampant in the online world, where large organisations are having to employ, consult, embrace, the currency of trust, which is of course transparency and Mr Penn stated some time ago.

Marketing is now a dialogue, a conversation, the product has to be engaged with from the point of view of the prospect, and there is now a NEED, an absolute requirement to have interaction with the prospects.

Web 2.0 is here to stay, and those who embrace it will win, those who ignore it will fall, without a shadow of doubt.

So what’s needed?

A few things…

1. SELL TO YOUR STAFF - senior management need to engage with their staff transparently, and lead the transparent and open dialogue, effectively leading by example and encouraging participation, (fuelling the conversation). Old school management cascades are typically one way, very old school, the conversation stops, immediately!

2. ENCOURAGE STAFF TO SELL FOR YOU– here this is where you actively support and promote the soldiers to champion and engage in representing the company in the online space, they sell for you, and you need to provide them with full authorisation to publish their views about the company, to open conversation in THEIR channels.

3. COMMUNITY TOOLS – you need tools in place which promote the above to take place, including, blogs, podcasts, videocasts, wikis, social networks, and not only, and methods for sharing how it works, a person, a motivator, don't force it, let them want it.

4. COMMUNITY DEVELOPER - you need someone full-time working in and around the community (the staff), who not only brings people together with all of this technology, but more importantly documents, showcases, makes aware of all the wonderful activities going on and spreading that externally within the important spaces where the prospects are. You need this person popping in board meetings, nipping into workshops, R&D, filming activity and pumping it out on a channel to the internal and external community.

It’s no secret I have been community developing with my online businesses for some time and have always relished the environment of connecting people and extending the conversation. The point is as my friend Doug Haslam says, how to move mountains, how to mobilise a community to act and engage with the product.

What do you think, what have I missed, what needs adding to here?

Technorati Tags: buzz conversation coomunity developer dialogue discuss interaction market media meeting new people placement product prospects social transparency web2.0 community developer branding web2.0 marketing