Buzzword Bingo!

When new technologies and new methodologies emerge on the internet, people make up new words to try and communicate these new ideas with others.  There really isn’t any problem with buzzwords unless they are used to confuse people. All too often people use buzzwords in order to sound knowledgeable about a subject.

Ok, I admit; I did it too, way back in high school. I try to simplify things now and explain to clients what a particular buzzword means before I start using it in conversation. I certainly don’t want to be accused of playing “Buzzword Bingo”.

 

 

Why don’t all my Facebook Fans get my newsfeed?

You can be proud that you have a couple of hundred fans on your Facebook page, but are they quality fans? What’s the difference really? Well, the difference is something called Edge rank. Edge rank is an algorithm that Facebook uses that determines what shows up on the newsfeed, and that includes the posts and other information from your pages.

We can all understand why everything that everyone posts on Facebook can’t possibly make it to our newsfeed, but how does Facebook go about determining what actually does show up on your feed?

Looks complicated? Well, let’s go through it:
μ_e – the affinity score. How often you interact with a particular Facebook friend raises your affinity with that friend.

w_e – the edge weight. What interaction is going on? more weight is given to a comment than a like, for example.

d_e – the time delay. How long has the information been up. The longer, the less it’s worth.

So what does this all mean? Well, when all these factors are multiplied together, a high number means your object (picture, comment, tag, etc.) is more likely to show up on your Facebook friends’ newsfeed.

Taking this all into consideration, and making it simple; the people that interact with you, and you with them, are more likely to get your fresh objects in their newsfeed.

See the f8 video from April 21, 2011

Social Media is Not Advertising

When I tell people I’m a social media marketer, people often respond with something along the lines of “So you’re in advertising…”

Well, yes and no.  Yes I do use social ads on Facebook and yes I do generate some content and creative that would be classified as advertising, but no, social media marketing is not about advertising.

It is about generating interest and making connections.  That may not sound like a completely worthy venture for business, but it is and I’ll tell you why: no business survives without a network of connections.  You must respect your connections, they are valuable people.  Social media allows you to not only connect with them, but with their network of equally valuable people.

You wouldn’t go to a business cocktail meeting and advertise your business to everyone in the room, or the next time you’ll be having cocktails alone, on your balcony with only your thoughts for company.  Think about it for a minute; if one of your connections needed the widget that your company sells, wouldn’t they already know you sell them?  Unless they are the newest of the new connections, they probably already know you sell widgets and didn’t connect with you to get spammed with widget ads.

The idea of social media marketing is to keep you and your widgets top of mind for the next time someone in your audience (or your audiences’ audience) is in the market for a widget. Instead of spamming your audience with advertising, (of which we are all inundated with) provide them with some useful, interesting, or entertaining content related to the widget product/industry. You need to make connections, widen your network, and grow your business, but a sure shot way to get “de-friended” or have your feed blocked is to advertise relentlessly to your connections.

Can you advertise with social media marketing? Yes, but keep it less than about 20% of the time.  Maybe only when you have a super mega blow out special on French Dijon widgets.

Every Political Campaign Needs a Social Media Manager

In a political campaign team, there’s the candidate, the campaign manager, the volunteer manager, but do you have a Social Media manager? As campaigns move increasingly on to the web, and connecting with constituents through the Internet becomes crucial, every campaign now needs an online manager.

Using social media in a campaign is not about a couple of blog posts, a website, and a few tweets. You will have an online manager with staff, and responsibilities such as (but not limited to):

• Online reputation
• Determining who the players are in the online political field
• Determining where to have a presence
• Becoming a voice in important social media channels
• Monitoring and if necessary, controlling conversations and comments
• Tending to, eliminating, or ignoring online trolls
• Recommending channels for the candidate to personally connect in
• Recording, reporting, and deciphering metrics
• Monitoring the opposition

We were recently part of a campaign with almost all candidates having an online presence. The top three candidates had: website/blogsite, Facebook page (one had a locked profile not a page). Our candidate also had a LinkedIn profile, and a Twitter account.  Our candidate’s web site added pages almost weekly, with more and more content as time went on especially near “e” day. He was tweeting three or four times a day with useful messages. His Facebook page was constantly getting comments, and he was commenting back. We were also monitoring important forums and pages. As for the other guys; one did nothing online except set up his channels and not so much as review them for the duration of the campaign. The other had some comments in his Facebook page, a blog of self promotion, and no presence outside of that.  Needless to say, our candidate dominated the online media. Oh, and won the election.

I’m not saying that you will win the election if you have a competent online manager, I’m just saying that without one you will be missing out on a huge opportunity to effectively connect with the people that are voting. Your online manager and their staff are responsible both for the message of your online campaign and the messages online about your campaign. A social media marketer experienced in political campaigns can guide your online team to success.

7 Tips to Starting a Political Social Media Campaign

There is no doubt that social media has become a necessary part of any political campaign.  Campaign budgets are always tight and social media is probably going to give you the most connections per money spent than any other medium; that is, if you do it right.

There have been numerous examples of how the use of social media and the Internet made a long shot challenger into the campaign victor. So how does a candidate employ the channels available to them to become the overall winner?

7 Tips To Starting a Political Social Media Campaign:

1.  Start early. Even if you’re just thinking about getting into politics, start a Twitter account and an open Facebook Profile.  Work at making relevant connections. Not having connections in your social media channels is a lot like announcing your intention to run for prime minister of Canada to a huge empty stadium.

Connect and engage with people in the geographic region you’re thinking about politicking in. Show up to special events and demonstrate how active you are in your community. Take pictures and post them online. Basically, use the channels at your disposal to demonstrate yourself as an active and interested member of society.

2. Join groups and online chat boards in your area and be an active member. Tweet about issues that are important to the community and elicit reaction. Be active in the conversation which demonstrates that you have a genuine interest in the community in which you want to serve; getting your name around is crucial.

3. Optimize your social media channels. Make them all interconnect and tweak them for the best keywords. It’s so terribly time consuming having to post the same content multiple times in multiple networks and in multiple channels, so make it all automatic.  Take the time to optimize your postings for keywords so your content will be more easily found when someone is looking for the keywords in search engines.

4. Authenticity If you’re not authentic, you can stop here and choose another line of work.  The key to social media is authenticity.  Your personality has to shine through in your communications.  People want to connect with you, the person running for office, not a talking head on the television or YouTube video that looks and sounds an awful lot like a politician. Online is a place where reputation is everything and it takes time to build an online reputation so make it solidly your own.

5. One word: Transparency. I have rekindled my interest in politics recently and I’m following a story about a member of our federal government who made a small edit in a federal document. At first she said she didn’t, and then she said she did.  That was over a month ago and the political storm is still raging within the House of Commons. Now, imagine if a politician with a large online following was caught trying to obfuscate the facts, not in front of other politicians, but in front the people who have elected them and are paying them to be there. Again, reputation is everything online and if you’re not transparent about your actions, you can be certain of a non-elected position after the next election.

6. Tweet on Twitter. The new mayor of our city is a social media master.  He is authentic and genuine, and he does his best to involve people in his everyday life as mayor of our city.  If you’re an interested citizen, you can follow him on twitter and find out that he is actually doing something for the tax dollars we are paying him. Now he’s in council chambers, later he’s at a steering committee meeting, and this evening he’ll be practicing with his punk band for the upcoming Earth Day concert.  Never before in history can the average citizen have an insight into the daily life of our political figures on a daily basis. This could be a double edged sword, but if used correctly, you won’t get a reputation of being lazy or getting paid to be a politician and moonlight at your law practice as well; that is, if you’re not.

7. After you win the election, stay connected. Those people who voted you in want to know that you’re doing what they elected you to do, so let them know. Send them pictures of the buffet table at a charity fund raiser, tweet about the difficult negotiations at the budget meeting, post some articles of interest in Facebook. What you’re really doing is securing your victory at the next election.

Embrace the Lurker

Lots of businesses using Social Media today are obsessed with public participation and how to get more of it. While that is a huge priority in Social Media Marketing, I often have to sit down with clients and have the “Lurker” talk.

In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely or never participates actively. Research indicates that “lurkers make up over 90% of online groups” **Wikipedia

Most businesses are dismayed at the lurker to active user ratio. I was even told by one “I don’t care about the people that don’t participate, I only care about the people who do” <insert error buzzer here>

The Lurker/Participant Ratio

90% of users are Lurkers (people who do not actively participate in Forums/Groups/Pages etc.)

9% of users are casual contributors (people need a question answered or comment specifically to something that is relevant to them)

1% of users are active users (sometimes referred to as power users) contribute approximately 91% of user content

Why do Lurkers Lurk?

We have all “Lurked” in some form or other when we surf the web. After all, have you posted a comment on every site that you have been to that gives the option?

Lurkers enjoy reading conversations and stories that other posters have contributed to the site for entertainment or educational purposes or searching out expert advice.  Imagine having a problem with your computer and using Google to look for an answer, when you click on a link to a board where someone else has asked the question and another person has answered it so you do not need to post a question because you have found what you’re looking for.  Great examples of these sites are Yahoo Answers and eHow.

Some lurkers do not post on a blog, forum or Facebook Group/Page for more personal reasons such as

• they do not feel competent in the subject being discussed
• they don’t want to be called out or ridiculed for their opinion
• they have poor writing skills (kinda like me)
• they are cyber-shy and don’t want to post publicly

Getting Lurkers to Participate

• Have a discussion or “sticky post” asking people to introduce themselves and make sure to thank every last one of them.
• Create content with participation in mind including some fun and entertaining conversation starters, polls and questions.
• Create a culture of participation. Give out “bonuses”, “prizes” and/or awards for 1^st time posters and people who post multiple times.
• Administrators and Moderators of boards, groups and pages should rule with an iron fist when it comes to negative and demeaning comments.

It is important to remember that you will never get all Lurkers to participate. It is human nature so stop fretting! Some people are listeners and some people are talkers; but they are all important!