an excellent updated book on the economics of social media, here are some thoughts that have been simulated by my reading this book.Listen or connect?
Following blogs is likely to form connections, it is largely a "listen" form of communication closer on Marshall McCullan's 'broadcast' culture that the 'digital' culture that we are moving into now, especially with social media. Social network platforms like Twitter, Facebook or Linked In are much more likely to create conversations and connections. From a business perspective these are much more likely to generate interest and new leads.
Marketing myself
When it comes to marketing myself how should I use social media? Its all very well for Qualman to show how large companies like Starbucks can tweet about a free coffee and afford to give loads of small value items away, but I have finite resources, especially time which is expensive to give away. I am already doing this with my Pro Tools for Media blog and my Twitter profile @MikeProTools and these benefit other Pro Tools users and help to keep my profile up in the Pro Tools world but how much new business will come from this work? On page 130 Qualman says...
Often our customers will market the product better than we can". In a social media world this can be really powerful.
We have always had personal recommendation but it has always been a one to one word of mouth. How we have what Qualman describes as a 'world of mouth', or a 'many to many' digital culture to use McCullan speak, our clients can tell the world how good we are and it will have much more respect than saying it ourselves. So we need to encourage our clients to share their experiences of our services. But we have to make sure that we maintain the correct balance in our conversations so that the marketing doesn't stand out as 'selling'.
Only one of me
Qualman dedicates chapter 6 "Death of Social Schizophrenia" to the need for everyone to have one persona or identity in this connected world. Where as before we could have a work, social, and family peronas and maintain them because we could keep each segment of our lives separate. Now in a connected world we can't get away with it. Our work colleagues see what we are doing at home, our friends see what we do at work and so on. Currently I have two blogs, a personal one here and my Pro Tools blog and similarly I have two Twitter accounts. Should they be one? In this case I believe not as the Pro Tools blog and @MikeProTools Twitter account are very niche. I am sure most of the folk following my @Sound_Mike twitter feed and my personal blog wouldn't want to hear about the inner workings of how to use Avid Pro Tools in a media context. However I was posting more personal stuff as well as details of programmes I have been involved in on my @MikeProTools twitter account and Pro Tools for Media blog, but as a result of reading Socialnomics
I have stopped that now and will keep these for purely Pro Tools matters. Play to your strengths
On page 135 Qualman says...
Being well rounded as a company, or an individual is less beneficial. Its more productive to play to your core strength. This differentiates you from the competition. You need to stand out in order to be outstanding.
He then goes onto to refer to a book called Strengths Finder Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage
which I have read and been through the programme to identify my strengths a while a go. If you haven't done it, I can strongly recommend this programme above other similar ones. A number of times I have considered some possible diversification routes, like becoming a video editor and rejected them. I am an audio editor and producer, sound is what I do, so I am much better to play to my strengths than invest a lot of time and money trying to improve weak spots, only to end up making them less weak. Embed the sponspor
Qualman does an in depth study of an American series called Football Fantasy and how the presenters decided to set up a podcast in their own time. One of the reasons they did this is there were TV presenters one day a week as it was a weekly show, where as they have made the podcast a daily show and so are able to react to changing stories and audience responses so much quicker. Also because it was a podcast they didn't stick to a standard programme slot. They made the podcast as long as it needed to be to cover the content that day, rather than make the content fit the slot. They also developed techniques for embedding the sponsor and the sponsors content into the programme. They didn't use standard ad format straps and spots. Rather they worked the sponsors message into the programme content which provided variety so they weren't using the same spot every time. Qualman says on page 142...
Consumers today in particular Millennial's and Generation Zer's don't want adverts to shout; they'd rather have conversations and ongoing relationships with companies.
If the ads top and tail a podcast they can easily be stripped off when the content is spread virally. However if the sponsorship references are embedded in the programme and become an integral part of it, then they travel virally too!
On page 148, Qualman talks about CNN anchor Rick Sanchez who started tweeting and realised that it was more important to talk less about himself and more about the interviewees. On page 175 Qualman outlines how social media gives you so much more data about your audience and their habits. We need to use that data to determine our marketing decisions, 'The audience has spoken'. Remember if we create conversations, that will lead to a trusting relationship which is so much more valuable. So shouldn't PR folk be asking what we can do to create these conversations.
With our experience surely we can help clients develop these conversations, also look at the complete web presence. On page 221 Qualman outlines the Skittles experiment with their web site in 2009. They turned their static web site into a simple landing page with some links took you off their site to social media.
Connect = Skittles Facebook page
Video = Skittles YouTube channel
Photos = Skittles Flickr account
Info = Skittles Wikipedia entry
News = Skittles blog.
Skittles were acting as an integration point or hub to great authentic content that existed elsewhere about them.
This shows that we need to be prepared to experiment and that will mean we fail sometimes but Qualman has a phrase he repeats through the book about failing - Fail forward, fail fast, fail better.
What next?
These are some random thoughts from things that caught my attention as I read through this book. It certainly has made me think about social media and its growing power. One of the conclusions Qualman also makes at the end of chapter 8 is that
The younger generation's interpersonal communications skills are starting to suffer as a result of over-dependence on non-verbal and non face to face interactions.
So the next book I want to look at, which has just been Radio 4's book of the Week, follows on from this observation and is called "The Winter of Our Disconnect
" by Susan Maushart. She writes...The Winter Of Our Disconnect started out as a kind of purge. It ended up as so much more. Long story short: our digital detox messed with our heads, our hearts and our homework. It changed the way we ate and the way we slept, the way we "friended", fought, planned and played. It altered the very taste and texture of our family life. Hell, it even altered the mouth-feel.
In the end, our family's self-imposed exile from the Information Age changed our lives indelibly - and infinitely for the better.
At the simplest level, The Winter Of Our Disconnect is the story of how one highly idiosyncratic family survived six months of wandering through the desert, digitally speaking, and the lessons we learned about ourselves and our technology along the way. At the same time, our story is a channel to a wider view into the impact of new media on the lives of families, into the very heart of the meaning of home.
With two daughters as well as my wife and myself, very much 'connected' I look forward to reading this book.
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