Kill the babble in forums

15Dec09

When I can find the time, I like to answer and ask questions relevant to my business on LinkedIn and MarketingProfs.com “know-how exchange”. You can often find a wealth of information and it’s kinda fun to help out others.

So what’s the problem?

Every time I post a question on LinkedIn I get spammy/self-promotional responses. It drives me crazy. How can these forums be used as good sources of information if you are constantly weeding through the spam and people trying to game the system to get more “expert-points”?  I wish there were some way to report these people and easily delete their useless answers.

Recently I asked a question on LinkedIn, “Where do you look for a Website DevelopmentDesign company?”

I got responses like:

If you look up some people by the list of recent answers they’ve had – it seems like they are constantly listing the same links:

Doesn’t this start to make you question the intent of the answerer?

On MarketingProfs sometimes I don’t even want to ask a question because there is no way to block an essay length response from Gary Bloomer who happens to be one of the KHE “experts”. To me, after I saw the same name repeatedly in answers it seemed like reading a Dear Abby column….not a forum for professionals to share ideas. You see, his answers tend to be in the range of 500+ words long – and his opinion seems to be in a majority of questions posed. It doesn’t really feel like a community when one person seems to make it their job to put their two cents in for everything. It just doesn’t seem like the intent is to share expertise anymore. It seems like for some, it is a competition to earn points. The game I think, is that if the person asking the question does not select a “best answer” within a fairly short period of time – MarketingProfs will close the question and all questions will be accepted. So for some, I think it is just a game to answer as many questions as possible….a pure numbers game.

Do you think that these forums would be more valuable if there were limits to the either the number of answers one person can give, or if there was a better way to erase spammy answers?

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Tags: community forums, khe, know-how exchange, linkedin, marketing profs, online communities, Q&As

Using Twitter at Conferences: it’s the hashtag!

11Dec09

I was recently chatting on Twitter about the difference in Twitter usage at some conferences. One conference that seemed to have quite a bit of tweeting used a fairly short hashtag. What’s a hashtag? It’s a keyword prefaced by the hash symbol “#”. For example, #marketing. Using a hashtag in Twitter makes it easy for people to follow a certain topic. At the conference that had less tweeting the hashtag was fairly long.

The problem with long Twitter names and long hashtags is that they further reduce the number of characters available to write a tweet: limit is 140 characters.

What Will Increase Tweeting at Conferences?

Personally, I believe that conferences should start posting a short hashtag far in advance of the conference. The hashtag should be displayed on Twiter page, conference website, promotional materials, emails, and yes on the doors of the conference when you are walking in….everything.  Why?

Increased Engagement

If everyone at the conference knows that they can use the same hashtag to follow conversations rather than a mixture of sponsor and attendee created hashtags – a tighter community will be created.

Open Text Content World is a Great Example

At Open Text Content World, the hashtag #otcw was announced via the conference website and various Open Text tweeterati. It seemed to be well used. For the virtual version of the conference they used #otvcw. They’re both very short: easy to type, easy to remember and don’t use up much of the 140 characters.

A note on “Tweckle”

Don’t be the guy heckling conference speakers with Twitter. You might make a few people laugh but I think most people will remember you as being unprofessional and distracting.

http://chronicle.com/article/Conference-Humiliation-/49185/

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Tags: conferences, hashtags, twitter

What NEW Features for Twitter?

05Nov09

I was thinking about the very cool Sitecore OMS after talking to one of Oshyn’s contacts at Rackspace about the features of Sitecore OMS that I love. And I started wondering to myself, how can we use some of these features in Twitter? What Twitter needs now, is a way for tweeple to see where their Followers are coming from. What actions led someone to follow you? What are the top sources of people following you? Was it someone’s Twitter list? What keywords make you more popular? Which tweeple influence your re-tweets (RT) and followers the most?

What say you? What else do you think can be measured more effectively in Twitter?

Oshyn is now on more lists….

List name
@iSponsor/agencies
@SusanDavisIntl/strategist
@SusanDavisIntl/creatives
@jordanwillms/digital-agencies
@dllipp/agencies
@saramckinniss/los-angeles
@reiver/webdev-webdesign-ux
@SarahSturtevant/new-technology-apps
@TedWahler/drupal-drupalers
@imagex_media/drupal
@glennhilton/drupal
@bmayorga/ecuador
@BeanaritaDotCom/advertising-media
@PaulSchwend/smartpeople

 

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Tags: cms, oshyn, sitecore oms, twitter, twitter features, twitter lists

Twitter Lists

01Nov09

Well now it seems that Twitter has made Twitter Lists available to everyone. Cool! So what can you do with Twitter lists? Well you can more easily categorize Tweeple you follow. You can also categorize people that you don’t yet follow (for whatever reason) so that you can follow them later. One reason might be the reason that @Oshyn_Inc is limited from following more Tweeple: Twitter imposes a 2000 Following limit. That is until your followers catch up. And thankfully, on that note, Twitter now has algorithms to stop Follow/Unfollow tactics – that some APIs were making popular as a means to get more followers (People would follow you – and if you did not follow back – they would unfollow and then refollow in hopes that you would see them and follow them – often times just to get fast large numbers of followers).

So how can you use lists?

Before, if you wanted to follow a certain keyword you needed to use an API like Tweetdeck or use a website like Hootsuite. Those are still very useful and powerful tools – but the lists let you follow all those people that have engaged in conversation about your keyword – not just who is tweeting now.

You can also share your lists with other people. You can make them public. You can even see who has added  you to a list. And yes, I smiled when I saw that @Oshyn_Inc was added to the list @PaulSchwend/smartpeople. I mean how cool is that?  @Oshyn_Inc has been identified in the Twittersphere as “smart”.

I’ll write more about Twitter lists as they evolve. I’ll be watching out for APIs that figure out how to integrate them and make them even more useful.

In the meantime – the lists @Oshyn_Inc is working on are:

@Oshyn_Inc/cms

@Oshyn_Inc/opentext

@Oshyn_Inc/sitecore

Also, Influential Marketing Blog has a blog post that is very interesting, “5 Ways To Use Twitter’s New List Feature For Marketers“.

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Tags: @oshyn_inc, cms, cms on twitter, content management, open text, open text on twitter, opentext, oshyn, oshyn inc, sitecore, sitecore on twitter, twitter, twitter for marketers, twitter lists, using twitter, www.oshyn.com

We the People are NEW dictators

31Oct09

The evolution of social media has happened because of the combined forces of high speed internet connections, Web 2.0 capabilities and credibility.

There are so many companies out there trying to figure out what to do in the space of social media marketing. More and more are hiring Online Community Managers, Social Media Officers, Chiefs of Digital… The other day I was asked to meet with an Executive Search agency in London about a report on social media and digital (which is why I’m not naming names – they haven’t released the report yet). They have interviewed numerous people from various industries and this agency indicates they are having a difficult time defining what the “role” is. The people in these roles come from a myriad of different industries with different previous roles, etc. The problem, I think, is that the people who should be heading up these roles shouldn’t be selected based primarily on a “clear” set of competencies like “website development” or “corporate communications”. They should be selected based on their ability to understand the consumer, the company they represent, embrace technology, embrace change, and their ability to find the best ways to combine and leverage these forces.

Tricky.

Why? Because the digital and social media space is evolving every second of the day. People are the new media. We the People. It makes me think back to the book, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. In the book he told a story (I’m telling from memory because I don’t have access to the book at this moment!) about a company hiring people based on precise skill sets and how when companies decided they needed to drastically change strategy/direction – people wanted to get off the bus. Some people want to know the route of the bus (the company) and just stick with it: they’re not agile. But Collins said that his research showed that GREAT companies (at least in leadership positions) hired people that could adapt and would embrace the change of course. For companies to excel in social media I think they need to embrace Collins’ notion and find agile people. Of course they have to have experience that would demonstrate an ability to strategize and execute in this space – but not from the kind of clear skill sets/competencies we are used to. I think in this case, personality becomes a lot more important. And a whole lot of creativity.

Perhaps psychometric evaluations will become a more important piece of the pie? What say you?

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Tags: chief of digital, good to great, hiring for social media, jim collins, online community manager, online marekting, social media, social media jobs, social media marketing, social media officer

TweetLater aka SocialOomph and FutureTweet

24Oct09

Yesterday I was giving a run-through of all the things we do on Twitter at Oshyn, Inc. I was asked what the benefit of using TweetLater now called SocialOomph was. I explained that it allows us to schedule Tweets to one or several accounts for later distribution. This way we can share information we want without sending a bunch of Tweets all at one time. Scheduling Tweets has become some what of a norm: even Guy Kawasaki does it.

But then I started thinking, “Is there a better service than SocialOomph? Even with the plethora of Twitter apps listed on the amazing blog BrandsAmongMany there is still no one Twitter app that provides all the functionality needed to Tweet effectively for business. So I decided to look around at some more tools when I came across the appropriately names FutureTweets. Seems very similar to SocialOomph only it has a prettier user interface (UI) and lists one of its benefits as “Have an alabi…”. I decided to check it out only to realize that I had already created an account. Why couldn’t I remember this? Maybe it was months ago. I finally got my password reset and logged in. So let me tell you, despite the prettier UI, FutureTweet does not have a URL shortener like SocialOomph. Sorry FutureTweet I’ll be staying with SocialOomph for that very reason. 140 characters is a small amount easily expanded by bit.lys.

But still, I’m wondering when content management systems will buy up such social media tools or create their own tools to allow website managers to better analyze metrics/analytics. Hint! Hint!

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Tags: cms, content management, future tweet, Inc, oshyn, scheduling tweets, social media, social media marketing, socialoomph, tweetlater, twitter, wcm

Giant Nokia Sign Hangs Over London

23Oct09

Nokia has launched an all new marketing tool. A very large sign hanging from a crane high over they skyline in London. Using an application called Ovi Maps you can enter your Good Things on the website and cross your fingers your Good Things get displayed on the enormous sign post. Check it out here: http://www.nokia.co.uk/apps-and-services/ovi-maps/main

Pics from the Good Thing Nokia sign

I wonder if we can get the sign post to point to www.oshyn.com ???

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Tags: good things, mobile, mobile phones, nokia, nokia good things, oshyn

Seth Godin “Brand Jacking” with Squidoo?

25Sep09

The phrase “Brand Jacking” along with the  name “Seth Godin” on the front page of Advertising Age online caught my attention. Seth Godin Brand Jacking???

advertising age

So it seems that Seth Godin has created a new venture within his Squidoo website called “Brands in Public”. The Brands in Public pages aggregate social media mentions onto each brand’s page (blog posts, Tweets, etc.) Why Brand Jacking? Because Seth Godin created pages for top brands rather than putting the service online and inviting companies to create pages.

squidoo

I opened a new tab in Chrome and typed in www.squidoo.com. In the search bar I typed in Trader Joe’s – as the AdAge article mentioned that this was a brand Seth Godin had created a page for. But guess what? I got a message that said I was one of the first people to search for the term Trader Joe’s and thus could create a Squidoo Lens for it. Looks like Seth’s search capabilities might need a tune-up. All the Brands in Public pages use squidoo.com as part of the URL: http://www.squidoo.com/trader-joes-in-public. But if you go to www.squidoo.com, you won’t find any mention of “Brands in Public” on the homepage. So how does Squidoo want Brands in Public pages to be found?

Trader Joe's Squidoo

I wouldn’t mind having a Brands in Public page for Oshyn, Inc – could be good for SEO. =)

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Tags: ad age, advertising age, brand jacking, brand management, brandjacking, brands in public, oshyn, seth godin, squidoo

Still on the Social Media Guidelines

24Sep09

Anyone who knows me, knows I spend a lot of time “communicating”; email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, mobile and well not even a traditional landline – but VOIP. In these myriad of communications with people it became apparent that there are a plethora (unfortunately) of people that work for companies or universities that have not yet engaged in social media or social media marketing. The famous questions are: What is Twitter? How can my business benefit from social media? Where the hell do I start?

To help people that find themselves in such companies or asking such questions I drafted up an overview of how to jump over the first few hurdles and engage in social media for business. Maybe its my Canadian sense of humor that led me to name it, “Getting Over Social Media Paralysis for B2B” – or maybe its because that is the precise condition my target audience is experiencing!

Read it and let me know what you think. If you know some poor souls still scratching their head while asking, “Social what?” What is Twitter?” – send them the link!

Download white paper “Getting Over Social Media Paralysis for B2B”

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Tags: b2b, bit.ly, facebook, hashtags, internet marketing, linkedin, oshyn, social media, social media marketing, social media white paper, twitter

iPhone by Wireless Electricity?

23Sep09

Within several years portable devices like smartphones and laptops could be void of batteries. According to a report by John D. Sutter (CNN), “WiTricity’s version of wireless electricity — which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency — still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon.”

According to the story, Giler, which is a spin-off of Massachussets Technology has created a technology “magnetically coupled resonance” which sends a magnetic field through the air via a frequency that electronic devices like the iPhone could pick up to charge. Giler rebuffs health risk claims saying that the magnetic fields are “about the same as the earth’s magnetic field.” Batters “Good-Bye!”

I imagine such technology, coupled with improvements in wireless internet connectivity will make mobile devices an even more relied upon by consumers.

Here is an overview of how the technology works:

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Tags: iphone, iphone accessories, iphone charger, remote electricity, smartphones, wifi electricity