Robin Maiden – Leveraging New Media and Social Media

People ask me over and over “What can Twitter do for me?”   They vary from people with no online presence, people running for elected office, to business managers, and more…

Watch this video then I’ll expand on what Twitter can do for you.

Since this video was created, Twitter has evolved into a more mainstream communications tool.  But, what can it do for you?  I believe Twitter can help you do four things:

• Listen
• Share
• Discuss
• Drive Action

Listen

You can use Twitter and its offshoots to monitor what is going on in the Twittershere.   If you have a hot topic, you can search it and see what people are saying about the topic on Twitter.  You may think this is no better than searching on Google, but searching the Twitter stream gives you a near real time picture of people’s thoughts and opinions on a particular topic.   If you work for a brand or are the brand, these near, real-time searches allow you to respond in a timely manner to those tweets.  How surprised will a customer or constituent be when they get a quick response from you?  Here are my favorite Twitter Search tools:

• Search.Twitter.com
• TweetScan.com
• BackTweets.com – shows all the tweets pointing back to a particular URL regardless of the shortening tool.

Share

This is what most people do.  Most people answer these two questions with their tweets:

• What am I doing?
• What do I find interesting?

Answers to the first question may turn some readers off.  “I don’t care that you are having a hot dog for lunch.”  But, there can be a benefit to sharing some of the smaller bits of your life.  Over time, followers will learn more about you.  They will learn things that you wouldn’t put into a blog post, email, or a letter to the editor.  The mosaic of your 140 character tweets will produce a clearer picture of who you are.  Your followers will get to know and hopefully, like you.

The second question is where you can add value for your followers.  When you regularly tweet items of interest, you increasingly become a “trusted agent” for your followers.  They trust your judgment and will use you as a filter providing them with value.  That is usually in the form of links to information valuable to your follower.  It could also be nuggets from a conference or book.

Discuss

As the number of your followers grows, you can ask them a question through Twitter.   This can result in an ongoing discussion in the Twitter stream.  I’ve seen these questions grow into twitter “discussions” that evolve into blog posts which get fleshed out into ebooks and eventually into actual books.

Drive Action

Sadly, many people use twitter only for this.  They continually pitch sales to their followers.  This is not adding value for the follower.  This is asking something of the follower.  I recommend giving value first.  Only after your followers know, like, and trust you, should you ever ask them to take action on your behalf.

So, if you are new to twitter, start by listening.  Then, add value by sharing what is important to you.  Ask your followers for their opinions.  Finally, when your followers know, like, and trust you, you can ask them to act.

This is the recorder that started it all for me.  I started podcasting in 2005 and latched on to the iRiver MP3 player because it also could record with an external or internal mic.  It is a great tool and was very popular among early podcasters.  Since then quite a few solid state recorders have come along like the my Edirol and Marantz PMD-660.

I have kept my collection of iRivers for one reason.  I can use record several people all at the same time at a remote location.  With my four recorders, I can record eight people with excellent fidelity.  That would get expensive with newer recorders.

I did have a panic when the iRiver software would not work with Windows Vista.  After some searching on Google. I found the solution to keep the iRivers in my toolbox.  Here is what I did to upgrade my iRivers:

• Find a Windows XP computer.
• Load the iRiver Music Manager 3.17 software from iRiver USA.
• Download iFP-800 Series Firmware V1.95 UMS and extract it.
• Connect the iRiver and use the Music Manger to upgrade the firmware.
• You now have the equivalent of a USB drive.  You can record and then download the files when the Vista computer recognizes the  iRiver as an external drive.

I was so excited to be able to extend the life of my iRiver recorders.  The Edirol is my primary recorder, but I regularly carry a backup (or two).  Even when recording video, I will record a separate track of just audio – just in case.

My thanks to Jan Karlsbjerg for the details to make the firmware upgrade work. 

It is final.  Scott Brown won the senate race in Massachuttes.  I say social media won, as well.  There were many factors that helped him win, but I think his use of social media will be highlighted as crucial to his success.

I have to point out the caveat again - ”‘a correlation does not necessarily mean there is a cause and effect.”‘  Scott Brown did not win just because he had more Facebook fans and Twitter followers.  But, it is interesting his campaign did leverage the Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube to a greater degree than Martha Coakley.

Whether a cause or just a coincidence, I think social media is the winner in this off season election.  Social and new media tools will be critical in the upcoming election season.  Here are some others who think so too:   Real Clear Politics and ePolitics.

Obama did it in 2008.  Will Scott Brown do it in 2010?

New Media tools and Social Media tools are certainly finding their place in election campaigns.  For the last few election cycles, the campaign website has been a given.  What is new is the integration of  new media and social media tools.  This early special election in Massachusetts between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley will foretell the direction of the social media winds in the upcoming election season.

Since today is election day,   I don’t know the results of the race.  So, I can’t say yet if each campaigner’s online presence affected the outcome.  But, I can say Scott Brown’s use of new media and social media tools has brought him from underdog status to race equal.  That is clear.  As I did my research for this post, there we some subjective points that mirrored the numbers.  As I show the numbers below, I’ll explain my other observations.  Here is a quick look at how the two campaigners stack up in the social media arena.

Scott Brown is clearly the numeric leader in the Facebook race.  On election day, Martha Coakley has 17,540 fans and Scott Brown has 95,946 fans.  That’s a ratio of about 5:1.  What does this say?  Only that Scott Brown put more effort into Facebook.  When I searched for Martha Coakley’s Facebook page, I found three fan pages each with a different picture.  One of the fan pages was a “negative” fan page.  Another of the fan pages was in support of her, but contained negative images from “fans.”

Update:  As I get ready to publish this, the two “negative” fan pages do not appear after a search.  This clearly demonstrates how dynamic this online environment is.

Although Martha’s website had video on it, her real fan page did not.  In contrast, Scott’s fan page did have video.  For the latest post on each page, Scott had 4,394 “Like This…” and 1,225 comments.  Martha 352 “Like this…” and 106 comments.  Clearly, Scott Brown has far more interaction and participation with his fans in Facebook.

The story is similar in the Twitter space.  Scott Brown has 12,280 Followers to Martha Coakley’s 4,073.  This is a ratio of about 3:1.  Both have a similar number of tweets.  On the qualitative side, Martha Coakley seems to be interacting a bit more with her followers while Scott Brown appears to be using Twitter as a “broadcast” tool.  Scott Brown has a very clear call to action on his twitter page.  This “action image” changed to be perfectly appropriate for the day- election day.  This shows me Scott Brown has an online election campaign strategy in place to leverage social media tools.

My statistics teacher would be proud that I remember “A correlation does not necessarily mean cause and effect.”  If Scott Brown wins today, it does not mean he won because he leveraged social media better than Martha Coakley.  It just means there is a correlation.  It is something to watch.  I’ll leave it to the researchers to decide whether leveraging new media and social media is the new winner in election campaign strategy.

Jakob Nielsen, called the guru of web page design by the New York Times, just published his report, 10 Best Intranets of 2010.

Three points from the report stand out for me.

Mobile access Only 30% of winners had mobile enabled intranets. This is low compared to many world wide websites. The report sees this as a growth area.

Social networking tools Social media tools were common on the winning intranets. This included features for both employees as individuals and workgroup connections.

Emergency Preparedness 40% of the winning intranets had integrated some features for use in crisis situations. Some winners had learned from experiences with previous disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The inclusion of emergency preparedness indicates intranets are becoming a key part of the enterprise, communication infrastructure.

What can you do with this info?  Plan to integrate these winning features into your intranet and external website.   I know I’m extrapolating from a report on intranets to external websites, but the reports acknowledges faster adoption of these tools and techniques on external websites.  So,  if your enterprise lags in either arena, start planning.

This report reinforces something I say all the time.  You have to be where the people are. Seems obvious enough.  The report says people are increasingly in two places – on their smartphones and on social networks.

More people are using smartphones in their personal lives and in their business lives.   So whether it is for business or pleasure, the tool is there.  The smartphone is the “forth” screen after Big screen, the TV screen, and the computer screen.  You have to be where the people are.  This is just as true for your external customer as it is for your widely dispersed, mobile workforce.

As the use of the world wide social web grows, the thought of connecting and collaborating through social networks will become less novelty and more reality.  Enterprises can plan now to enable workgroups to be more engaged, involved, and  productive.

On the last point, Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “… plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”  Nobody can have the perfect plan for an emergency, but the process of planning for it will be invaluable.  So start planning how to leverage your website and intranet during an emergency.

Be where the people are – mobile and social media; leverage web technologies during emergencies.  These are what top businesses are doing.  What are you doing?

This brings back the feeling of soaring for me. I hope it stirs something for you, too.

(Affiliate Link)

• Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera
• Samson SE50T Headworn Micro Miniature Omni Directional Microphone
• Stereo – Mono Y adapter
• Remote for Zi8
• Extension Cable (Affiliate Link)

Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera

Of all the mini-flash based “Flip” style cameras, the Kodak Zi8 is the only one with an 1/8 inch stereo microphone input jack.  This allows me to use external mics to record excellent audio.  The menus in the camera allow me to adjust the input levels of the external mics

Samson SE50T Headworn Mic

These mics are remarkably small with excellent audio.  They are adjustable and relatively stable on the ear.  The Samson model is cheaper than the Audio-Technica head mics that I also own.   These mics are omni-directional so they will pick up any ambient noise.  If these “pro” quality mics are still to expensive, you can substitute a “Skype” capable computer mic with an 1/8″ plug.  I have used the Logitech “Clear Chat” model with noise canceling capabilities in noisy environments with great results.

Stereo – Mono Y adapter

This is an important part of the setup and requires explanation.  With my setup, you will be able to record two people on the separate, stereo tracks.  In the post production editing, you can adjust the levels if needed.  I’ve found two vendors for this Y adapter.  Go to www.Markertek.com search for model Y-MPS-2MF then scroll down the page to the correct model number.   Cablemart also has a model in Amazon.

Other Options

A tripod, remote, and extension cable for the mic cords are all helpful, but not required.  Another useful microphone is the Audio Technica ATR-6550 Video Camera Condenser Shotgun Microphone (Affiliate Link).  This shotgun mic can be hand held and provide more traditional interview style presentation.  It requires a single AA battery and will plug-into the Y-adapter.

Update:  Here is a quick video to demonstrate a Logitech “ClearChat” headset mic used with the Kodak Zi8 with a gas powered weed trimmer running in the back ground. This really shows the advantage of using a headmic with this camera.

If you’ve found any other solutions, please add them in the comments.

While at the BlogWorld and New Media expo, I got to play with Layar, the augmented reality tool for mobile phones.  I was very impressed by what it did.  Others are not so impressed at the state of the art right now.  But, I could see the potential beyond the tool.  Augmented reality will be huge.

Here’s another prediction.  The new AR tools will have to allow for temporal search of the “augmented” content.  It won’t matter for Wikipedia content, but it will matter for near real-time Twitter Tweets.  No sense “seeing” where someone tweeted three hours ago, if I want to find and meet them now.

I went to lunch recently with some managers at my organization. As usual, I couldn’t help but bring up the topic of social media and how we as managers can leverage those tools to the organization’s benefit. I hit a road block. Or, rather a concrete wall.

“I just don’t get Twitter… I don’t care what somebody had for lunch. I don’t care. I don’t get it.”
“My kids spend so much time on Facebook. I don’t get that either.”

So, what’s the problem? They don’t get it.

Now, I have a choice. I can complain that they don’t get it, or I can find away around the concrete wall. I choose to keep going. I do understand what’s going on in this situation. These managers have a set of tools on their tool belts that have served them well for many years. They don’t have an urgent pain or an immediate need they can’t mitigate with their familiar, well worn, tools. There is no new pain, problem or need.

Yet.

The marketplace always has a way of creating pain, problems and needs. Sometimes, it comes as a crisis – painful and urgent. When the worst occurs, that is not the time to realize the limitations of the old tools and scramble to find new tools.

I said, I have a choice. I said I choose to keep going. I understand new/social media. Some managers don’t. I will try to educate them on the benefits of the new tools.

These may be the old standards managers have been dealing with for years. Techniques, tools, and rules are always changing. Like any tool, social media can be used for good or for bad. If the manager is managerially risk tolerant, they will probably want to experiment to see how social media can be used for a competitive advantage. If the manager is risk averse and unwilling to explore the social media tools, they run the risk of having social media tools used against them. Then when a crisis occurs, they will be struggling to play catch up.

In a proactive form, social media can be used to foster relationships with customer and even highlight a cadre of evangelists for your product or service. These evangelists can react quickly in support of the company, in near real time, when a crisis occurs. A company can use the social media tools to go where the customers are rather than wait for the customers to come to the company.

Used defensively, social media tools can highlight issues before they gain enough momentum to gain negative media attention. Social media tools can help the company scan the far horizon for trouble. Conversations about your company are taking place in social media all the time. Why wouldn’t you want to be aware of what’s being said?

With all that said, I am committing to leading a seminar in our corporate auditorium to educate people about social media tools. Whether the managers are risk tolerant or risk averse in nature, we, as an organization, will be better off for it.

This is a video of Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who gives his thoughts on how Web 2.o technologies are breaking into the enterprise.  His  book, Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges (affiliate link), examines how leading enterprises are bringing Web 2.0 tools to internal processes.

I haven’t read it yet, but from the video, I think I will have to…