“Social is like sex… you can’t truly comprehend unless you do it”.
Okay so starting off the #blogoff2 blogging contest talking about sex is possibly a cheap shot for getting comments. And sex talk is not how I typically sell the need for professionals to get on board with social personal adoption to lead their corporate adoption. But it comes from a still favorite post of mine from George Colony, founder and CEO of Forrester. As one of few CEOs that twitters [well about 134 tweets anyways] and blogs, George shares his thoughts and quest getting other CEOs on board with personally using social media.
It’s a tough sell for those business owners and executives daunted by the learning curve and time investment for social media. I know as I coach some reluctant learners on the value of social media. Does an executive need to be on facebook?
Okay so starting off the #blogoff2 blogging contest talking about sex is possibly a cheap shot for getting comments. And sex talk is not how I typically sell the need for professionals to get on board with social personal adoption to lead their corporate adoption. But it comes from a still favorite post of mine from George Colony, founder and CEO of Forrester. As one of few CEOs that twitters [well about 134 tweets anyways] and blogs, George shares his thoughts and quest getting other CEOs on board with personally using social media.
It’s a tough sell for those business owners and executives daunted by the learning curve and time investment for social media. I know as I coach some reluctant learners on the value of social media. Does an executive need to be on facebook?
Well.. last time I checked, you can’t see a corporate Facebook fan page without having a personal profile. Nor can you update a wall and really engage. But I can appreciate business owners and executives don’t see this as a starting point but it is an easy place to learn. I hashed some of this out in an earlier post about the tough questions I get on the value social networking.
But what George hasn’t shared yet in his blog is his personal woes of keeping up with what’s happening out there for those CEOs who are social. I’m not talking about the secrets of using twitter and adding alerts but how much our brains can retain and reaching our maximum manageable network size. Case in point, George only follows 41 people [albeit Jeremiah O, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff included].
A worthy example. George’s CEO audience, being early or late baby boomer generation, potentially lags in social networking adoption. Check out Pew Internet and American Life’s generational differences in social media adoption - modified so that we can just look at social networking site profiles.
This points out the challenge with any social networking statistics; the exponential growth of social networking sites means the charts are out of date in a couple months. Just as Mashable points out for E*marketer struggles putting out a forecast of active Twitter users at 12 million by 2009 year end but had to revise to 18 million [and now forecasts 26 million in 2010].
[mashable] http://mashable.com/2009/09/14/twitter-2009-stats/
But the real challenge for a social media expert [god I hate that term] is agile development.
I find I have to preface things with ‘last time I checked’ since many of the social networking sites are constantly tweaking and adding new features at the speed of real time. Major web releases seem a thing of the past. And if I don’t read my social network blog or page, I don’t know about a new feature. Yesterday I tweeted about switching to Hootsuite because of its twitter list integration. Today, tweetdeck has a new version catching up to the Hoote.
This is complicated by the beta blur. I somehow by election or heavy usage have access to a variety of ‘beta’ features on some social networks. But honestly, I can’t keep track of what is beta and what is not. I recently was showing off the value of tagging your Linkedin contacts, a feature that I’ve had for months, until someone mentioned that the feature is not public. Oh yeah.. a beta feature.
I’m not complaining here but I’d enjoy hearing about how other business owners, social media evangelists or executives are managing with the real time speed of information these days. I INVITE your thoughts on this.
But what George hasn’t shared yet in his blog is his personal woes of keeping up with what’s happening out there for those CEOs who are social. I’m not talking about the secrets of using twitter and adding alerts but how much our brains can retain and reaching our maximum manageable network size. Case in point, George only follows 41 people [albeit Jeremiah O, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff included].
A worthy example. George’s CEO audience, being early or late baby boomer generation, potentially lags in social networking adoption. Check out Pew Internet and American Life’s generational differences in social media adoption - modified so that we can just look at social networking site profiles.
Of course, this old chart dated late 2008, which I love, flies in the face of the +55 age group is growing enormously on Facebook – istrategylabs say up 513% in six months ending July 2009, not to mention Facebook across all age groups - up 50 million new users in the last 2.5 months to 350 million active users as of Dec 1st, 2009.
This points out the challenge with any social networking statistics; the exponential growth of social networking sites means the charts are out of date in a couple months. Just as Mashable points out for E*marketer struggles putting out a forecast of active Twitter users at 12 million by 2009 year end but had to revise to 18 million [and now forecasts 26 million in 2010].
[mashable] http://mashable.com/2009/09/14/twitter-2009-stats/
But the real challenge for a social media expert [god I hate that term] is agile development.
I find I have to preface things with ‘last time I checked’ since many of the social networking sites are constantly tweaking and adding new features at the speed of real time. Major web releases seem a thing of the past. And if I don’t read my social network blog or page, I don’t know about a new feature. Yesterday I tweeted about switching to Hootsuite because of its twitter list integration. Today, tweetdeck has a new version catching up to the Hoote.
This is complicated by the beta blur. I somehow by election or heavy usage have access to a variety of ‘beta’ features on some social networks. But honestly, I can’t keep track of what is beta and what is not. I recently was showing off the value of tagging your Linkedin contacts, a feature that I’ve had for months, until someone mentioned that the feature is not public. Oh yeah.. a beta feature.
I’m not complaining here but I’d enjoy hearing about how other business owners, social media evangelists or executives are managing with the real time speed of information these days. I INVITE your thoughts on this.
Conrad -
Grimm.. the classic cut off your toe to get the shoe to fit! Just kidding. This is a quick line to let you know that I appreciate your thoughts here.
Laurie
Posted by: laurie | December 03, 2009 at 08:36 AM
Hi Laurie,
Storytelling is the way to go.
Think of the Grimm Fairy Tales. The Brothers Grimm told a lot of stories, and each story had a single point.
That you have a large store of knowledge, and the passion to share it, are two fabulous assets. But you have a third asset that makes for an unbeatable combination:
A blog gives you unlimited potential for sharing your knowledge.
When you're writing a post, new ideas will probably always come to you. Terrific! Make a note of those ideas - they are the foundation for a new post.
Then, when you write the new post, be sure to link back to the one that gave you the ideas in the first place.
ALSO - this is a big one - go back to the first post and add in a link to the new one. Readers and search engines will think well of you for it.
Sincerely,
Conrad Hall
Posted by: Conrad Hall | December 02, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Tim - Thank you for sharing this detail. Not all people share web analytic information and so I appreciate this contribution. Sounds like you are making rapid progress on using social networking to drive back traffic.
I agree that web analytics are a powerful indicator on social networking success - phewie to the poor wordpress hosted stats which my blog sports at the moment!
Couple of adds if I may -
1. I'm always looking not just for increased traffic but a conversion of some kind. Drawing a straight line from social media or web to actual revenue is tough but do-able - and there within is the holy grail of measurement and marketing budget allocation.
2. I *hate* the word 'hits'. You mean unique visitors. Though many people use it - 'hits' actually refers to objects, content or graphics that are served up by the server. One page may have 10 hits, another 5.
Last comment - squidoo. I've futzed around here but am not knowledgeable enough to give it a thumbs up or down. Can you give your opinion here?
Posted by: laurie | December 02, 2009 at 12:21 PM
Hi Laurie,
Let me tell you a little bit about GPI and Social Networking. My company GPI was getting about 398 hits a month. Pretty weak if you asked me. I came aboard 3 months ago to help market and brand the business and the first thing that came to mind was social networking. I began to make my first ever blog, signed up for linkedin, twitter, facebook and squidoo. Where I feel I get the most of my stats from is linkedin. I participate in Linkedin via the groups and connections.
In regards to my recent stats, because of my social networking I have gained 29 new backlinks and my site visitors increased by 800 a month. More importantly the branding of GPI and the amount of quotes have also increased.
Social media and spending time withing the community can increase awareness and take up some time to "get away" from everyday work tasks. Test your results, if it seems to not work than either your doing something wrong or it really is a waste of time :)
Posted by: Tim | December 02, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Conrad -
First off - I appreciate your comment.
Good point about the links. I getting so used to constantly crediting @user in twitter that I fall into bad habits in my blog. Your point is noted.
And you got me on the struggle of two topics - keeping up and also persuading value to executives. Best to keep thoughts separate.
Honestly Conrad - I struggle with always adding something like 'the 2 or 3 ways people can manage time on social media'. Its not for a lack of ideas but its constantly turning a blog post into a piece of advise vs. making the post about storytelling. I'm no copywriter nor journalist so I could definitely use other people's perspectives here.
Open to feedback.
Laurie.
Perhaps
Posted by: Laurie | December 02, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Hi Laurie,
You have an interesting post. It contains a lot of information, but I'm not sure what you're trying to communicate.
The use of links is excellent. You have documented your sources, and connected readers to other resources. There are even a couple of trackbacks in there.
Do be careful about linking to everything. It's nice to give out "link love," but if the celebrities aren't directly relevant to the story then there's no need for a link.
The graphic seems a little out of place. It's an old graphic, and you acknowledge that social media tends to grow exponentially, but you like the graphic because it disagrees with another statistic? Please help me, and the readers, understand.
The ability of social media to take up your time is well known. It's often a major objection to adopting social media. You can quickly give this article added interest and value by showing readers 2 or 3 ways for managing the time they spend on social media.
Thanks Laurie. You have a good post with a solid foundation. Looking at it from the reader's perspective - what's in it for them - will make it stronger.
Sincerely,
Conrad Hall
Posted by: Conrad Hall | December 02, 2009 at 10:34 AM