Posts Tagged ‘social networks’

Those Other Social Networks

Posted on: April 7th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 8 Comments

Outsiders2
Image from the Outsiders

With an over-focus on Facebook and Twitter during the past few years, organizations may be doing themselves a disservice by failing to cultivate communities in other networks. These networks have their own strengths and weaknesses, and because of their sizable communities are significant in their own right.

Here is a look at three that maybe worth your organization’s time. In each case, if one invests the same amount of time they would in Facebook or Twitter — in essence replacing one with the other — they would likely get the same if not a better result from the community. So why ignore them?

1) LinkedIn: It may not make sense to call LinkedIn a second tier social network for much longer. Maintaining a competitive position with Facebook is not easy, but somehow LinkedIn keeps it coming. Now with more than 100 million people, much more fluid social tools, and a very strong professional focus, this may yield even stronger results than the often over-valued Twitter. LinkedIn’s mission to serve professional communities also makes it a better place for B2B communities, especially those with difficult topics like defense, medical, etc.

2) YouTube: You must be thinking, “So 2006.” Think again. More than 1.2 billion videos are watched by 89 million Americans… Everyday (See Shelly Kramer’s primer on video content). As mobile and tactile media increase their share of Internet page-views, expect to see more video demand and less text heavy media.

Video skills are not easy to come by, but this medium is becoming more essential in the larger marketing mix, and there is no better place to practice than the industry’s largest video social network. YouTube also boasts more than 100 million users, and in some cases is more powerful for social media communications than Twitter.

3) StumbleUpon: StumbleUpon has recently gained a few million new users, with more than 15 million accounts in total now. Small potatoes, right? Wrong. StumbleUpon is a hybrid bookmarking/referral network for cool content. It is the ultimate in surfing, which in turn means if you foster a strong community then you will see dramatic increases in traffic… assuming your content is worthwhile and interesting. Certainly dropping links on StumbleUpon can be a more productive effort than retweeting them. Another powerful bookmarking and referral network is Reddit.

The point is a balanced diet of social tools can help your program as much, if not more than, the big two. Which “secondary” social networks do you like?

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The Mounting Challenges of an Established Social Content Market

Posted on: February 14th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 19 Comments

Cowboy # 5
Image by Randy Pertiet

When blogging was new, anyone with vertical subject matter expertise could create their own site and become a success. These voices were integral role players within communities that shared the same interest. Today, the corporatization of social media by content farms, the use of algorithmic content sourcing, and an established tier of “A-List bloggers” has drastically reduced the chances of success for the individual voice. Increasingly, the desired outcomes of blogging seem like a myth of the past, just like the romantic cowboy of the Wild West.

It’s not impossible, but the dream remains big while the real opportunity has become significantly more challenging. Great content is not enough.

The pioneering era prompted the rise of books like Naked Conversations with story after story of content marketing success, and folks like Sarah Lacy who espoused the theory that anyone could create their own successes online. And there was a time when these things were true.

Years later — whether it’s traditional print, video content, imagery or applications — individual voices find it difficult to break through, unless there’s a sudden new “green field” such as the iPad application marketplace one year ago. The social content market evolved and embraced power dynamics, mostly in the pursuit of monetization. Established power structures weigh down on newcomers, forcing them to navigate a much more complicated field of competitors.

The Weight of Established Social Media

Content Farming

Last week’s AOL acquisition of the Huffington Post thrust content farming back into the spotlight as a viable means of generating ad revenue. Whether it’s an actual content farm or editorial driven sites that harness collective paid content and free “guest” columns, these corporate sites dominate the top tier of content producing social sites. Many of them are really vertical specific digital publications running on a blog platform.

Publishing on these mega-content sites is often the only way for new writers to garner tens of thousands of eyeballs in lieu of an established following. But it’s a serious trade off, sacrificing all copyright, search engine optimization (SEO), and the ability to create calls to action on one’s own site. Many writers use content farms to market their own blogs, or simply because they would rather have the eyeballs instead of launching a unique site.

Algorithm Sourced Social Content

Deliciouspopular

Popularity driven algorithm sourced content exists on almost every social networking site with a significant user base, from Facebook and Twitter to Delicious and YouTube. Thanks to Facebook’s Open Graph protocol (Like feature), algorithm sourced content is now featured on many traditional 1.0 sites, too. These algorithms serve stories that have the highest probability of provoking engagement. Depending on the site, they even incorporate personal semantic data preferences to further encourage interaction.

The challenge for the new voice remains getting sourced by algorithms as a popular voice for content. This requires intense network development, interaction and hot content… Much more so than the open era of blogging’s initial days or even the first couple years of Twitter and Facebook’s market availability. In the maturing market of 2011, new voices have significant organic network development hurdles to overcome. Either that, or they need the runaway hit to break them into the idea market.

Competing with the A List

It’s hard to find any social content marketplace that doesn’t have entrenched voices already. While none will admit to holding newcomers back, all will fight to maintain position. Further, these voices often have years of community building behind them. Tactics include ignoring new voices, blackballing and punishing dissenting voices, and stealing content ideas and positions without attribution or cross-links. The rare winners highlight other voices, and welcome them.

If new voices are lucky, the existing blogging and content producing corps within their vertical lack strength in conversation. This allows for obvious differentiation. Otherwise, expect a thinly veiled dog fight.

Search Algorithms

Using social media to drive search has been a long standing tactic for bloggers. The rise of personalized and semantic data-based search changes the picture. Like the algorithms driving popular content, these algorithms not only reward linking behavior, but also personal behaviors, social context (including tonality), and popularity.

This creates tremendous issues for new voices who have not built their networks yet. Stellar content needs to perform well to drive the linking behavior necessary to be sourced. Breaking through without a strong peer network to help out requires stellar content backed by great SEO practices, such as keyword usage and titling.

Immediate Social Network Referrals

LizandDan

Referred content continues to be a great source of readership. Many people trust their social networks to bring them the news they need to hear. While the 2011 Edelman Trust barometer shows that we trust our peers less than we used to, this is still a crucial component of marketing content. In fact, as evidenced by the placement of algorithms, these referrals drive several tenants of the current content marketplace.

It’s not enough to write, produce and/or create anymore. Community centric content that drives two-way participation has become a must in 2011.

Conclusion

This assessment means to provide an accurate market picture of the competitive forces facing a new content effort. The 2011 social content marketplace requires a much stronger marketing effort behind it than past years. Instead of the conditions of the pioneering days, new content creators find a rapidly maturing media marketplace with strong power structures.

Start-ups have faced big companies and smaller entrenched competitors as long as there has been free market economies. In that sense, the content farms and A-Listers represent the traditional challenges of an established market. The technology charged online media environment of 2011 lends additional hurdles for content creators such as algorithms and social network referrals, all of which point to the need for savvy community marketing practices.

From traditional blogging practices and SEO to high powered social networking and visibility in top tier social content farms, new voices need to deploy a wide range of marketing tools to rise to the top. This becomes easier if the voice has traditional marketing strengths to leverage such as a house file of email contacts, and a functioning PR and events program. Integrating traditional marketing into social outreach creates greater opportunities for success.

How would you approach the modern social content marketplace?

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Tips from Communities Demonstrating Sustainable Technology Adaptation

Posted on: October 11th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 1 Comment

Jardin Botanique de Montreal

The following content is based on original interviews with:

Thank you to all five for taking the time to answer my questions.

These research observations are based on interviews with Care2, Dell’s Idea Storm, the Humane Society of the United States, LinkedIn and Wiser Earth. Each of my five subjects has a different role; one providing professionals with vast social networking capabilities; another dedicated to a social network community focused on change of all kinds; a third smaller social network that works to build a sustainable ethos; the fourth, a major cause whose community is network agnostic and focuses on animal rights, and the fifth, Dell’s Idea Storm, is a community crowdsourcing site that has successfully created more than 400 product ideas for the computer manufacturer.

In the cases of Care2 and LinkedIn, their communities existed well before Twitter and Facebook came to prominence. Dell, The Humane Society and Wiser Earth are newer, with their social efforts started in the last four years. All five of them have successfully kept their communities engaged.

While completely different in scope and scale, all five had remarkable similarities in how they have stayed relevant over the years. Whether it was continuing adapting to the community’s changing technology needs, a relentless focus on mission, or empowering access and information exchange through larger networks, these social networks and communities have done what was necessary to survive and prosper. Here’s a glimpse at some of the common approaches they share towards technology adoption.

LinkedIn has a unique technology approach, investing in new products and data analytics, so that professionals can more easily find one another, connect, and discuss topics they care about. Perhaps the greatest example of this is its groups feature set, which at the time of writing had 600,000 groups, with 1000 groups added everyday and 100,000 professionals joining a group every day. Other examples include its People You May Know service and its new popular Company Profiles.

The Humane Society’s team of six community managers is challenged by what could be called consistant platform flux. They need to continue to adapt their approach on networks like Facebook as the networks evolve, in turn producing new community behaviors. For example, as Facebook newsfeeds become flooded with branded messaging, and it becomes more important to be relevant and selective in the organization’s communications. In addition, the team is always experimenting with the latest tools to see which ones the community adapts to. This includes participating and creating contests and experimenting with geo-location tools.

During the first year of Dell’s Ideastorm the platform and how Ideastorm operated and functioned was continually evolving based on community feedback. Three years later, Dell is in the midst of considering how best to evolve Ideastorm. To ensure the evolution serves the community, the company is conducting conversations with the community that will directly impact direction for future.

For example, Dell community members may suggest a relevant idea, but because a product that would use the concept has just been launched, the company ends up tabling it for months. For the new Idea Storm, Dell has beta tested a feature called “storm sessions.” This rapid conversation topic is for a short period with a deadline and requests specific feedback related to any business matter under consideration. This is being considered as potential solution to the time alignment matter between product launches and idea suggestions.

Care2 keeps its community closely in its technology evolution, and goes to great depths to ensure that there are no surprises when a feature set is unleashed. The network deploys surveys, listen to feedback and analyzes usage data before making product decisions, and then solicits feedback before making significant site changes. Wiser Earth management also adheres closely to the community and polls them for feedback on new features, involving them closely in the process.

Integrating Major Social Networks

To not use beachheads on major social networks is to deny one’s effort access to the larger Fifth Estate. General networks like Twitter and Facebook serve as beachheads to participate in larger community conversations. By engaging in these networks, an organization can draw interested parties into more specific community conversations.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, community members rarely limit their conversation to one network or one topic. Empowering fluid conversation out of specific community conversations only makes sense.

Both Care2 and Wiser Earth integrated Facebook and Twitter connectivity as the networks rose to prominence. Wiser Earth opened WiserEarth’s directory via an API, in a campaign called OpenWiser, and its executive director Peggy Duvette runs their Twitter presence. Care2 deploys community managers operating on Facebook and Twitter, added its petition functionality as an application on Facebook, and has also integrated Stumble Upon into its offering.

While LinkedIn is more of a direct, more professional competitor to Facebook, it, too integrated Twitter capabilities into its status update offering. This offering creates a popular feature that turns the LinkedIn updates into tweets, and profession tweets into status posts using the #in hashtag.

As one of the network agnostic player of the five, the Humane Society also plays on both networks. But the organization is mindful that things can change, “It’s important to not focus on the technology, but on the people,” said Carie Lewis. “Build a loyal community so if Facebook disappears and you’re forced to go somewhere else, they will follow.” Dell has integrated Facebook into Idea Storm.

Deeper analysis of these players and their technology use, as well as how these five players address community conversations will be included in my next book, Welcome to the Fifth Estate (the follow up to Now Is Gone, which is almost out of print). Comments may be used in the final edition. You can download the first drafted chapter of the new edition — Welcome to the Fifth Estate — for free.

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