Posts Tagged ‘sustainability’

Sustainable Online Communities Begin with Measurement

Posted on: April 28th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 5 Comments

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” –Aristotle

Sustaining social media communities over years is one of the primary topics in Welcome to the Fifth Estate. Given how much time and financial investment goes into building a successful community, it only makes sense for enterprises to stay in touch and sustain critical online relationships, social web properties and communities. Ultimately the answer to not only achieve success online, but to remain successful begins with measurement.

Today measurement is not built into strategies from the onset; it’s an afterthought, a late addition at the end of the process (if at all), then forgotten about until it’s time to pay the piper (yay, CFOs). To be fair, there are many great practitioners who do measure effectively from the onset, but the vast majority of social communications occurs without tangible business outcomes.

Further, the measurement presented tends to focus on weak influence barometers that fail to measure how a community actually interacts with an organization, and through which media forms. Failing to understand these data points hurts an organization because they have no idea if their grassroots networks are strong or weak. Unfortunately, they find out when it’s tested several times during campaigns.

More importantly, strength of community measurement — understanding media usage patterns and changes, and what organizational actions inspire a group of people to act — forms the basis of long-term success. Through understanding how a community constantly shifts over time, one can manage effectively and move towards new tools and media forms. The behavior indicators and changes point to which media are growing in strength, which ones are waning, and what information the community prefers.

In essence, a community is like water. Water always takes the path of least resistance towards the sea. Similarly, communities tend to migrate towards the most fun, easy to use community platform. Note: Fun does not include being spammed by marketers. Measurement lets you understand which route is the fastest to the sea, and which ones to avoid. People’s actions will show you.

Successful bloggers know this. They tend to maniacally review their analytics, at least during the period of time when they are becoming successful. Rare is the successful blogger that does not check their statistics at least once a week. Note once a week, not once a year to pay the piper. Dell, one of the most successful companies in social media over time, also pays close attention to its metrics with a weekly report to the management team (including Michael Dell).

The ability to measure weekly, daily, even hourly is one of the greatest features of Internet media. The actual practice of measuring is the cornerstone of understanding a community of people, and how to successfully serve them over time. In measurement, we find sustainability.

Related reading:

Debra Askanese: 10 Trends in Sustainable Social Media

Aspiration Tech: Gunner Speaks About Sustainable Social Media (PPT linked to in post)

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Welcome to the Fifth Estate Available for Pre-Order

Posted on: March 15th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 9 Comments

Geoff Livingston & The Fifth Estate

Welcome to the Fifth Estate is now available for pre-order with a release date of May 11! Special thanks to Mashable Editor In Chief Adam Ostrow for writing the forward to Welcome to the Fifth Estate. This introduction offers the experienced journalist’s view of an ever changing media landscape that has moved from blogs to group texting on mobile phones.

You must be thinking, yet another social media book… And from a guy who wrote one of the first social media books, Now Is Gone? Really? Well, after reading Now Is Gone again as well as the plethora of social media books that have been released since, a correction was needed with a stronger foundation in media theory and marketing fundamentals.

This book won’t pretend to be something it is not. Simply put, Welcome to the Fifth Estate guides executives and communicators towards generating a winning and sustainable social media strategy. In that sense, it is a social media book.

What distinguishes Welcome to the Fifth Estate?

  • Strategy: There will be no themed memes about engaging, conversations, instant response or personal branding. Instead, this book aims to advise you on how to get ready for, build and sustain a great online communications strategy. There is a whole chapter on specific social media strategies and a second on tactical implementation.

  • Experience: Seven awards later and dozens of social media initiatives for the likes of the American Red Cross, General Dynamics, Google, the National 4-H Council, Network Solutions, and the United Way provides this book a depth of pragmatic experience-based conclusions that no other social media book offers.

  • Measurement: Part of building a great strategy includes knowing how to measure it. Kami Watson Huyse provides a guest chapter on how to build a measurement program.

  • Pitfalls and Sustainability: Two chapters deal with topics you normally don’t see in social media books. Chapter Two deals with the weaknesses and dangers social media presents for your organization. Chapter Seven provides concrete ways to stay relevant once your effort becomes a success.

  • Commercial and Nonprofit Case Studies: Each of the seven chapters features two in-depth case studies, one commercial, one nonprofit. Every case study has a tangible outcome associated with it a la the prior point on measurement.

If your job involves communicating online, then this book will help you. It is designed specifically to become an off-the-shelf tool that supports your real efforts with guidance that has worked for many other organizations. In that sense, Welcome to the Fifth Estate should become more useful than your average business book. That is a guarantee.

Please pre-order your copy of Welcome to the Fifth Estate today!

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Full of Life, Zoetica Launches

Posted on: January 12th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 34 Comments

Sunset on the Potomac

And so Zoetica begins. Together with top-ranked nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter and PR maven Kami Huyse, I am proud to launch Zoetica. Zoetica, a social enterprise, provides superior communication consulting, training, and strategy to help mindful organizations affect social change. As part of our mission, the consultancy will allocate 10 percent of our annual profits to organizations selected by Zoetica’s three founders.

What a crazy, yet fitting name! A mouthful of four syllables, yet only seven characters starting with a unique Z, a state of almost Internet nirvana. We got it from the biological term zoetic, which means pertaining to life. And that’s fitting as the company aspires to achieve social impact and make our lives better through communications.

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I’ve been through my fair share of communications start-ups, so I’d like to tell you some of the things that are different about our team going out the door.

1) The social mission is important to us. Beth’s entire career is nonprofit focused, and Kami and I have reached a point in our careers where we want to have real, meaningful impact. Whether it’s a nonprofit or a company with a strong social responsibility or environmental program, given our collective skill set this seems like the best way to affect social change.

2) While not an agency, the consultancy is communications focused. In the words of Edward Moore, “Shoemaker, stick to thy last.” And so, we stick to our core competency.

3) We each have strengths and weaknesses, which combined as an entity provide a balanced team. While we’re all strategists who have been in the marketplace on our own, there are certain natural roles: Beth’s the best blogger, and should be the frontperson. Kami is the best manager, and should run teams and projects. I’m the best marketer of the group, and will be on the frontline with clients. The roles are essential: As someone who ran a company solo, the big danger for an entrepreneur is trying to do everything her/himself. No one is the master of all.

4) All three of us have worked together. In an era where superstar blogger teams come together and break apart at the first twinge of ego-stress, this cannot be underestimated. I’ve worked with Kami for three years and Beth for two. Together, we’ve been working on Zoetica for five months. Further, we’ve all been through hard times on our own. It’s easier to trust known elements when push comes to shove.

5) The corporate structure allows for consensus and movement. While we each have our accepted roles, we also are equal partners. Our structure enables us to move through internal challenges using a majority rule, yet at the same time honors the voice of the minority. Private companies are just that, but this factor makes our collective future direction easier.

6) The national footprint adds strength! One city alone is a regional entity, but with Houston, San Francisco and Washington covered, we’re truly a national entity.

7) I mentioned strengths and weaknesses as they relate to a team versus a sole proprietor. There’s another aspect to this. It’s lonely running a company by yourself. Frankly, the Livingston Communications experience made me realize that I need peers in my work life. What better people than Beth and Kami? Two great people that I enjoy working with, that have similar values, and who are masters in their own right.

So in the words of John Lennon, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” It’s time for Zoetica.

You can check out both Beth and Kami’s take on the new company, You can also check out the official press release.

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