MindComet

I vote for…

Today marks the official launch of CommuniCause. It allows the community to nominate and vote for their favorite charitable organziation. The winner, to be randomly selected from the top ten organizations based on votes, will receive a $25,000 social media makeover from us!

There were a few organizations that I would like to have voted for, but I’ve decided to vote for an organization that is fighting a disease that has touched me and my family very personally, Alzheimer’s disease. My Grandmother, Anne Falkiewicz, was a victim of Alzheimers.

Anne was loving and thoughtful individual, who adored her family and friends. As a devout catholic, she was heavily involved in her community and church. Loving and helping those around her was her passion and mission in life.

As the disease progressed, Anne slowly faded away. It seems so cruel that she spent the last years of her life unable to recognize the people she had devoted her entire life to. She passed away in August of 2006.

I hope that one day, with all of our support, a cure for this terrible affliction can be found.

Please consider voting for the Alzheimer’s Association.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 27, 2009

Love by association

Forums are social media and should be part of your social media strategy. For example, Pitney Bowes leverages forums to allow their users to support each other during postage rate changes. This post however is focused on using forums as part of your social media outreach and presence strategy.

Forums are ubiquitous.

Just search out your interest, and you’re bound to find a forum with relevant discussions. Want to join a forum and talk to other poodle lovers? Here’s a forum you can call home.

The question is, as a marketer, how do you engage forums? What are some best practices? What are the benefits?

The best advice in engaging forums is to tread lightly. Forum based communities are often the target of spammers and as a result are very protective. They’ve been around for years and have built great communities. Their members aim to keep it that way. So what do I mean by tread lightly?

Be respectful.

If the community doesn’t want you there as a marketer, then leave. Don’t force yourself into the conversation. If the community has a Terms of Service, read it. Their TOS might explicitly tell you to stay away as a marketer. Get the hint without ruffling feathers.

Forums are notorious for flame wars. Avoid them at all costs. They’re toxic. Don’t ever let yourself get drawn in. And please please please, don’t start a flame war. Be respectful.

Contribute value to the community

Pretty self-explanatory. If you’re not contributing value, staying relevant to the conversation, and building relationships; logout; delete your profile; Stay far far away.

If you get stuck on this one, try the educational approach. Provide links to 3rd party sites that are relevant and position yourself and the educator. Make sure you have read the TOS though, some forums frown on posting links.

Full disclosure

If you’re there as a brand or a marketer, it’s very important that you disclose it. Be careful though, sometimes the disclosure can be confused with a marketing message, especially if you come on too strong with it. Don’t spend lots of time talking about yourself and who you are. Instead, try the subtle approach of weaving disclosure into a relevant conversation.

Example: Great points. I’ve worked with [put your affiliation here] for the past year, they’ve really helped me to learn a few things about [put your relevant and valuable knowledge here]

Your disclosure doesn’t have to be in every post, just make sure you drop it in (and do it intelligently!) from time to time.

Marketing through participation

This is where the previous three pieces of advice come together. You’ve done a great job of being a respectful human who, based on contribution, is seen as a valuable, if not integral member of the community. Hopefully, you’ve also made a clear connection, in a clever and non-intrusive way, between yourself and the brand you represent.

Are you seeing where I’m going here?

The end goal is for the community to make a connection between you (the person they really like) and the brand you represent. I like to call it “love by association”.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 22, 2009

The folly of youth…the agony of mistakes in social media

I recently posted on how social media is changing the game when it comes to reputation management. Social media is permanent and easily searched. Improper comments and verbal recounts or photos of last weekend’s debauchery WILL be there for everyone, including your employer to see. We are constantly hearing stories about adults who have later suffered the consequences of an irresponsible post on social platforms. And when we hear these stories, we instinctively say “that sucks, but, they should have known better”.

But what about teenagers?

Let’s be honest, we ALL made choices that we regretted when we were teens, myself included. However, over time, the memory of those mistakes faded, and we walked away with a valuable lesson. Nowadays, with social media, those mistakes can be broadcast to the world..and to boot, they are permanently archived. Bad decisions are quickly becoming scarlet letters that can, and will in many cases, affect today’s teenagers in their future endeavors.

The results of a recent survey of teenagers who participate in social networks are pretty disturbing.

* Over 60% of teenagers acknowledged that the things friends wrote in their profiles could harm their careers.
* 48% said they could be embarrassed by what they themselves wrote
* 38% said they regretted some of the items that had appeared on their pages already.

I’m reminded of the lyrics to “Kiss Off” by the Violent Femmes…

“I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record”

Unfortunate…but true.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 17, 2009

Rant alert: 10 Worst Twitter follow auto-DM’s

For the record, I’m not a big fan of receiving DM’s when I follow someone. So much so that I just need to rant about it.

The overwhelming majority of “thank you” DM’s are auto-generated or just plain ridiculous. Granted, there are people who send a very polite thank you and craft a personalized message targeted to me. To those who DM out of genuine thanks…THANK YOU! Please realize that this rant is not aimed at you.

Begin rant:

Presenting Jeremy Hilton’s top 10 list of the worst auto-DM’s…and corresponding feedback.

10. Thanks for the “virtual handshake”...nice to tweet you. (I’ll try to be interesting).

An un-clever attempt at being clever.

9. Forgive the auto DM~We wanted to THANK you quickly! Hope to Tweet w/you soon

If your asking for forgiveness, you’re admitting that auto-DMing sucks. So why are you doing it?

8. Thanks, There’s a new site in pre-launch, their giving stocks to those who join, check it out. <link removed>

This one is a classic. The site he sends you to is an affiliate link and has nothing to do with giving stocks to members. Deception in your first message…that’s a strong start.

7. Whoo Hoo! You are my new favorite. Thanks so much for the follow. See you in the twitterstream.

I know that I’m not your new favorite. I followed you, there’s no need to stroke egos.

6. Wow is it really YOU? Thanks for the follow! we folllow [sic] back. Tweet you later have great day

Yes it’s me. Who else would it be? The intro to this DM makes me feel like I’m reading a dating site personal.

5. Welcome! You can join the discussion by sending ‘d fiercehealth msg’

Thanks for the help with sending a DM.

4. Thanks for following. As your reward, download more than 100 IM gifts at <link removed>

A treat for following you? <asked with my best impression of puppy dog eyes>

3. Thanks for the follow.  Here’s a guide to help with twitter: <link removed>

This is also a classic. The guide she referred me to shows me how to set-up a Twitter account…

2. Super, thanks for the follow…I like your tweets, what do people think of when they hear your name?

I dunno. Is this a trick question?

1. Thanks For The Follow!You wanna know How I Got 5000 Followers in 2 week & Made $2658.63 doing it? <link removed>

The mac daddy of auto-DM’s that I hate. I followed you because you had something interesting to say, and you proceed to DM spam me! And to answer your question, NO!

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 16, 2009

Facebook is a pond. Social Media is an ocean.

Sorry for not posting last week. I’ve been really good about regularly posting to either Social Enchilada or my food blog, Home Culinaire (which needs some love). However, this week, I failed and I’m kicking myself for not staying on top of it, although I do have an excuse…I was in NYC for the Mirren new business development conference!

Now, you might be thinking, “Jeremy, haven’t you read the 30+ blog posts from Chris Brogan where he explicitly tells you to be proactive and write your posts BEFORE you attend a conference?“. Honestly, I really thought I would get them done while I was there, but as you can see in the large gap in my posts, I didn’t.

Self-deprecation aside, the conference was insanely good. We came back with a bevy of insights into our business; what we’re doing wrong, what we’re doing right, and what we’re doing that no one else is! We also came back slightly irritated by the lack of understanding about what social media is in the digital/interactive agency world.

Many digital agencies are way behind in their understanding of social media. From what I gathered, in their world, social media is this very flat landscape that is comprised of Facebook and MySpace.

There was no mention of ratings and reviews sites like Yelp or social commerce sites like Amazon. When John Winsor from Crispin Porter + Bogusky asked if anyone had ever heard of the crowdsourcing platform, Crowdspring, I was one of a handful of people in a room of 100+ that raised their hand. There were less than 20 people Twittering from the event. I wouldn’t have even dared to mention BrightKite out of the fear of completely confusing everyone in the room.

This conference solidified my belief that consumers are now more digitally savvy than marketers. We’re constantly playing a game of catch-up. And the smart digital marketer, will closely follow emerging social media trends/platforms. If we’re going to fish where the fish are, we have to acknowledge that Facebook is a just a pond, and there’s a whole ocean full of fish yet to be discovered.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 14, 2009

Twitter kicks ass…and so does Boingo!

Do any of these statements match your thoughts on Twitter?

* Twitter is a waste of of time
* There is no business value in Twitter
* Customer service is best done with a phone call

If so, this post’s for you!

To set the stage, Mark Krupinski, an avid Twitter user, was at an airport and was attempting to use the service Boingo, a global Wi-Fi provider.

What did Boingo achieve here?

* They saved a relationship with their customer
* They publicly proved their dedication to their customers
* They potentially gained a customer (me)

In a mere 12 minutes they used Twitter for customer service, brand awareness and new customer acquisition via a single interaction. Plus it was all done for a fraction of the cost versus traditional approaches to each of those functions. That can hardly be called a waste of time. In fact, that’s savvy business.

Twitter kicks ass…and so does Boingo!

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 03, 2009

Are forums social media sites

While doing research on forum statistics for a strategy document I was authoring, I stumbled upon a discussion sparked by Tamar Weinberg. In her post, she asked the simple question -

“Are forums social media sites“

While there were good arguments in both the “for” and “opposing” camps, I felt that the views of a third camp required a response from me; the camp of “Who Cares and why does it matter?“

Before I respond to the “who cares” contingent, I’m going to weigh in with my answer. Based on the definition of social media being “platforms for social interaction and networking”, in my eyes, forums are definitely social media sites. They generally don’t have all the bells and whistles (APIs) as most social platforms. But at their core, they are a type of social media. Even Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, in their seminal book Groundswell, acknowledge forums as a social media platform, and write in length about the successes of Dell’s user support community.

Now on to you Mr and Mrs. Who Cares…

So the question is who cares? Why should we try to define if forums are social media sites? The answer is plain and simple: goals and strategy.

If you accept forums as social media sites, then it seems natural that the same goals and strategies for leveraging social media sites would apply to forums…which they do (this further supports the notion that they are social media sites).

To support this, lets look at goals that are being achieved through engaging forums.

Listening to and engaging your customers in order to gather feedback

TweetDeck, the uber popular desktop client for Twitter, setup an account on UserVoice (along with a couple of other smaller companies like Sun Microsystems, Nokia, and MySpace). I’m guessing that this is an invaluable resource for defining new requirements for their product.

Facilitating engagement and relationship building between your customers

Microsoft offers a large number of forums available to the their users. Many are the purposes of supporting each other, but Windows Home Server community is geared towards allowing customers to talk to each other about ideas and education.

Providing online tools that allow your customers to support each other

The success of Dell using forums for support is fairly wide known. But did you know that Pitney Bowes leverages forums to allow their users to support each other during postage rate changes? They’ve saved money as a result!

What camp are you in? Are forums social media sites? Why?

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Apr. 01, 2009