All posts by alicelankester

Technology use

Using Social Media to Change the World

I am reading this article “Using Social Media to Change the World” about how you can expand your base of donors and supporters for just about anything. I have recent experience of this. I am participating in a sponsorship hike for one of my favorite organizations, Girl Ventures — a group that helps inner city adolescent girls experience the great outdoors in the summer.

I posted a link on my Facebook, and emailed a link to my friends, using “Sponsor Me” an app on Facebook. Within a day or two, I had raised $450. I can assure you, I’d never have raised for than 50 bucks ‘the old way.’ (If you want to participate, please do!)

This article has some great ideas, but one of the problems I encountered is that I wanted an app that I could post anywhere that promoted my particular cause. For example, with Facebook Causes, you have to use the Causes they have listed already. And mine wasn’t.

Nonetheless, even though I work way way more than four hours a week, I feel I can still take advantage of some of the ideas here.

Technology use

Twitter — shiny new toy

So Ashton’s got a million followers. Oprah introduced legions to Twitter. It’s not a shiny new toy any more. It’s time to write about how it will mature. The more I use Twitter, the more I love it. But time will come when it will mature into a feature that’s embedded universally and then I wonder who will visit twitter.com?

Twitter’s wonderful open API strategy has ensured only the Twitter newbies actually visit twitter.com. But they’re going to have to face up to paying for all that lovely iron and clever folks in their office at some point. I wonder how? Will we all be so addicted by then that we’ll pay up $1/month to stay on the service? Certainly businesses/brands will pay way more than that. I’m just waiting for Facebook to charge us for fan pages. And we’ll cough up, because we know we’ll have to.

Technology use

The art (and science) of re-tweeting

Dan Zarrella has written an interesting post about what makes a tweet more likely to get re-tweeted. There’s lots of fun data in there, as well as an impressive algorithm or two, but here’s the crux of the advice:

  • Ask your followers to re-tweet you
  • Be timely with breaking “new” news
  • Offer something for free
  • Tweet about Twitter
  • Make a list (perhaps he means “top 10 something”?)
  • People like to re-tweet blog posts

Dan says you’re more likely to get re-tweeted if you say “please” in your tweet. Really. And also if you include a link, which it seems that most tweets do. He also says that most re-tweets occur around lunch time.

I’m going to experiment with the advice and see if they work. There are some good tools for tracking re-tweets and trends on Twitter, including:

  1. Retweetradar
  2. Retweetlist, and
  3. Tweetmeme
Social marketing

Building deeper connections in Twitter

Somewhat interesting post here called “Six Tips for Building Deeper Connections in Twitter”. It’s all quite fine, but isn’t this fairly obvious? That people don’t want to get spammed? That people want to be thanked?

I am learning a lot as I work with the Photobucket Twitter community. I say “thank you” to people who use Photobucket. I say “can we help?” to people who are stuck. 99 times out of 100, people say “thank you” back. Occasionally I get told to go away, but I’m not taking it personally! If your users know you are watching out for them, and are there to help, they honestly won’t mind.

I re-tweet and “heart” shout-outs and kudos. I follow links publicly posted and admire the photos or artwork. And I post links about features and content that I honestly think is useful to Photobucket followers.

These are pretty obvious Twitter tactics. But I guess not. If they were obvious, people would be doing them more often.

Technology use

Are you parents on Facebook?

I’m loving this YouTube video asking two kids “Are your parents on Facebook?” Absolutely LOVE the second guy. Talking about his mother: “She also has a Twitter. I don’t have a Twitter. Which makes me even more embarrassed.” I probably embarrass my children endlessly. But they’ll get over it.

Here’s the deal parents: drop the excuses and fear. Just get onto Facebook and try it out. If it makes you feel better, tell your kids they have to friend you if they want to keep using Facebook.

But in return, you must promise not to post on their Wall. If you want to communicate with them, send them private messages or IM them. You are embarrassing enough without saying cringing things on your Walls. So just don’t do it.

I am friends with my teenage children on Facebook. “Friends” I should say. In real life I am their Mother. A totally different kettle of fish.

Yes, I am worried about just how much time they spend on there. And yes, I do hope they understand that a “friend” on Facebook is a totally different thing than a “friend” in real life.

The content on Facebook is, in the vast majority, harmless. And social networking online represents an inevitable tsunami of change. Get in there and help them sort it out.

Here’s another tip: use OpenDNS in your house if, during the week, your kids are clearly spending too much time chatting and hanging on Facebook and procrastinating about homework. Ouch, it hurts. Time on Facebook is a privilege, not a right. And as such, you should be able to take it away if you need to.

Marketing best practices, Social marketing

What’s a fan worth?

Interesting article on PaidContent, titled ” What Are A Million Social-Media Followers, Friends or Subscribers Worth.?”

These are such new phenomenons that brands are struggling to understand if there’s specific monetary value in all these lines of communication. I say consider them as conversations with people you care about, rather than potential revenue streams. The value to be had from those conversations is persistent and two-way. It’s not about squeezing money. It’s about learning, helping and evangelizing.

Here’s how I approach the thousands of followers I tweet and ping on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace:

  • Keep it relevant; seasonal content, new contests, fun stats
  • Solicit input: ask for opinions, gauge responses
  • Offer help: see someone with a problem? follow/friend/fan them, and offer solutions

Avoid spam. Don’t over-tweet. I some people I follow tweet 50 times a day. It’s just too much. I don’t have time to read it all. I keep tweets to no more than three or four a day. That may change as we progress, but that seems right.

As for messages (Facebook) and bulletins (MySpace) those are more infrequent. They feel more formal, and spamming in those forums is not recommended. So when there’s something specifically relevant to those users on those sites, I’ll send an update/message. But keep it relevant. Always.

Marketing best practices

The $300 Million Dollar Button

Fascinating article about how simply understanding the flow of a user’s experience, and changing the name of a button, caused one company to increase sales by $300 million. You can’t argue with this. A lesson worth remembering.

How did the site’s designers figure out they should make this simple change in the name of a button from “register” to “continue?” By conducting usability tests. They had no idea customers were dropping off here before they conducted these tests. Though one wonders where their page drop off tracking was hiding. Nonetheless, this is a perfect example of how important it is to watch customers using your site.

Social marketing

Successful social media sites

I am listening to a talk by Bob Buch, vp of business development at Digg.com. Some of the key points he makes about what makes a successful social media site include:

  • focus on sharing – a perfect example of this is Facebook’s Newsfeed
  • Integration — build on what exists and works
  • get people on your team who grok social media — and have them integrated into your organization; confer to those experts; use their knowledge
  • the platform is all about one to many, not one to one; find the influencers, the people who link to lots of people, and get them on board with your story — this audience he refers to as the ‘taste makers.’
  • Be authentic — be honest about what your site does and who you are — stick with your core competency; what are you best at? what do people love you for?

Mr Buch focused on Facebook, Twitter and, naturally, Digg.com.

Wired.com, by example, only focused on sharing with sites that their users regularly use. They focus on the top sites that users share to most frequently, and moved the other less-used sites below the main Share feature. Photobucket has done the same thing, with the new Share interface powered by Gigya, which offers the main sites Photobucket users work with most frequently.

An interesting twist on this is to offer a customized experience based on where users are coming from, so if they’re coming from Facebook or Twitter, change the experience based on that source site.

Facebook Connect really helps a site build connectivity and engagement. Any site that requires registration and connectivity can use Facebook Connect to authenticate, and allows an automatic bridge of information between Facebook and a publisher’s site. Additionally, you can use Facebook’s built in user information to target ads and information to that user, and allow a publisher’s content to become syndicated back to the Facebook Newsfeed. Many sites have seen large increases in registration and engagement as a result of using Facebook Connect to log into the site.

I think the key point here is the incredible leverage and network effect that can be gained from building on top of Facebook’s existing network of 175 million registered users.

Technology use

The changing consumer experience

Very interesting report put out by Razorfish (been around a while, right? wasn’t sure they still were, but apparently they are). Called The Changing Consumer Experience. You can get it here for free.

Here are some of the interesting trends the article points out. They seem obvious, but as they say: it they were really that obvious more people would be paying attention to them. And they’re not.

  1. Content becomes advertising — content is an acquisition vehicle.
  2. Distribution is becoming more complex — today’s widget may be tomorrow’s TV set.
  3. Consumers increasingly customizing their digital experience around their own personal, niche interests.
  4. Video is the Internet star and online video consumption is exploding — nearly all professionally produced.
  5. Consumers prefer multiple digital destinations rather than a ‘one-stop’ destination — preferring to customize using tools like RSS.
  6. There’s a significant and inexorable trend towards using social media platforms for commercial goals.

The article makes some interesting points about using Facebook:

  • People want to feel special — put customers at the center; make them feel like a part-owner
  • Embrace the network: Communities get a brand’s message across faster, and with greater authenticity, than traditional media ever could
  • Make it interactive and participatory: find ways for users to interact

The emphasis here is on building a lasting, valuable relationship with customers. Giving them a voice. Responding to their desire to engage.

Marketing best practices

Building a corporate blog site

I recently spoke to the folks at Typepad about building a corporate blog. The details of the article are here: http://www.typepad.com/business/case-study-photobucket.html.

My advice for other corporate bloggers is summarized as follows:

Don’t commit to anything you’re not prepared to follow through on. To build trust, you have to be consistent. If you start a blog category called “What’s New” – but then you only update it every six months – you’ll lose your credibility.

Make sure people can find your blog; link to it from your main site. Most importantly, make your content useful and informative. If it’s just more ‘marketing speak’ it will just become background noise. Make a commitment to it, and allow someone in your company to run with it.