You are your ( social ) network

The case of Noah Kravitz has hit front page and, rightly so.  If you haven’t heard about it, you should read this article in the New York Times.  In short, Noah Kravitz is being sued for damages – to the tune of $340,000 — by his former employer, PhoneDog Media, for leaving the company and “keeping” his 17,000 followers on Twitter.  The $340K is justified based on a rate of $2.50 per follower per month.  The question is who owns the 17,000 followers of Noah’s [Twitter] Ark?  On the one hand, at the request of the company, Noah managed to create an account that legitimately attracted so many followers (note that he achieved those followers without a follow-you-back strategy, since he only follows a couple of hundred people).  With the current mass media followup (New York Times, CNN, L’Expansion…), Noah has gained another 7K followers.  Hum, I wonder if PhoneDog would not like to go after those as well!  At stake is the setting of precedence on the value of a follower as well as the potential encroachment of who owns your network.

Who owns who?

I have written about this whole issue in the past.  And, I find the problem posed extremely relevant for the new management myndset.  There are certain black & white instances where a company account and its followers/fans belong outright to the brand.  A brand’s Facebook page is a good example.   However, in the case of social networks which are nominative, there is distinctly more grey matter.  For example, a community manager for a Facebook page may end up, if he/she does a great job, with many clients also asking to “friend” on their personal page.  It would be highly awkward for a company to state whether or not the individual should accept a friend request.  Unlike other traditional marketing efforts (ad campaign, poster…), the power of the social media marketing is that it has returned the individual to the center of the puzzle.

You’re as good as the company you keep

Who you know, counts.

Whereas in the past, the notion that you are as strong as your network may have been true, but not visible, the visibility of your network (colleagues, friends, fans & followers) on the web has changed the parameters.  My great grandmother passed along to my father the saying that you are as good as the company you keep.  My father passed it along to me and I have been living that maxim to the fullest.  Individuals set all sorts of different filters and qualifications as to the friends they choose to “accept” or to follow or to follow back.  This lawsuit — which presumably has a number of subplots — will make corporations wake up to the power of the individual social media expert within its walls.

Your company is as good as the employees it keeps

Now, in a little twist, but equally true, your company is as good as the employees it keeps.  As management, HR and their legal counsel, weigh the alternatives — including possibly cracking down on individual Twitter accounts and the like — here are some thoughts that they might want to ponder before rushing off to change their social media guidelines and policy:

• does an individual employee (for example, a “community manager“) have specific goals and objectives for his/her Twitter or LinkedIn account?
• does the individual have authority to write about your brand under his/her name?
• does the individual have the right to write personal commentaries (i.e. about personal interests) on the branded account?
• does a recently recruited individual, who comes with 5,000 Linkedin connections and 5,000 Facebook friends and/or 10,000 Twitter followers, get to charge back the company for every favorable tweet/like/retweet?

Twittering gets personal

The strength of a Twitter account relies on the individual(s) that are behind the handle.  Just as branding must get more personal in this internet-connected world, managing a Twitter account needs to be considered personally.  One’s Twitter account should be considered a part of one’s own personal eReputation.  I have no idea as to the legitimacy of the claims made by PhoneDog and there are presumably elements to the case that would make any judgment rash on my part.  It appears that Noah left on “good terms,” but that seems circumspect under the current circumstances.  That said, the main points to retain from this case are that:

• (a) there is no basis for a $2.50/follower/month value;
• (b) the quality of the followers depends on the quality (i.e. intelligence, timeliness, interactivity and reactivity) of the content and, therefore, of the quality of the hands on the keyboard;
• (c) if you want to attract social media talent, it is unlikely that claiming ownership of and/or pursuing your outgoing social media manager is going to make you attractive to other social media mavens.

It is just like wanting to confiscate the contact list in your address book (the old Rolodex).  If anything, HR teams — especially for consumer brands — should be welcoming individuals who can rack up large number of loyal followers.  Finding and retaining the good staff is the real issue. 

Digital Marketing by the Pols

eeeelections on the web & diplomacy 2.0

I made a presentation a couple of weeks ago at Hotel Napoleon, at the Conference entitled “Innovation Napoleon.”  This conference, at which I have made a number of presentations, unites a heterogenous crowd around digital and innovation topics.  Usually, there is anywhere up to 100 people in attendance.  At this last conference, I was asked to provide a “breather,” sandwiched in between presentations on the digital marketing campaigns from four major political parties in France (there was no Front National representation).

There are a whole lot of different choices to make, based on the political culture, democratic fibre and best local social media tools.  Personally, I see 2012 being a robust year for social media.  How politics and politicians specifically use the web to run their campaigns and influence their constituents will surely have a pivotal role in the way social media itself will evolve.  With 28 different presidential or prime ministerial elections on the docket for 2012, next year will surely be the year that all political bodies take social media seriously.

Some digital stats and analysis of politics 2.0

Herewith a glance at how politicians and politicians around the world are currently using social media, as well as a look at the fledgling notion of Social Media Diplomacy (or Diplomacy 2.0?) and some of the “3rd party” (not necessarily political) applications and tools that have been built around Politics on the Web.

In light of movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, the question is: will politics use and abuse social media or will social media get the upper hand on politics and politicians?

The power of digital organization

In this, the last of the 5 posts on the best productivity tools, the focus here is on the power of lists, groups and filters.  Call it your Digital Network Organization (D.N.O.).  Best in class management skills inevitably require being tremendously organized.  In the digital sphere, the skills must be reapplied and reconfigured.  The media and the tools have amplified and evolved.  The notion of organizing one’s digital media takes understanding the beauty of random access memory (RAM), folder hierarchies and diverse distribution options.   At the same time, it is vital to consider carefully one’s network, to know who is who, why, where and how you contact them.  I would classify this as a requisite part of an executive’s ongoing digital education.

Regrouping your digital network

The new social network Google+ provides a superlative feature allowing you to classify your network into circles (and then Facebook quickly reacted to improve their list function, too).  These types of lists enable you to manage better your privacy as well as how you interface with your network.  Similarly, in Twitter, one of the keys to a good Twittexperience is to create lists of the people you follow.  The key to categorizing and organizing your network is to reflect on the shared interests (whether personal or professional), shared origin or location and shared language(s).  Please don’t hesitate to share other good types of categories you use!

Whatever your platform, you must take the time to arrange your D.N.O.  As I like to say, saving time, takes time. All these groups, lists and filters take on a new meaning when well worked into an email platform.  Most modern systems provide some ability to organize your contacts.  As with most of these tools (including outlook, word, powerpoint), we only ever scratch the surface in using the available functionality.  And it’s true that, as soon as we have learned our way around, out comes a new version requiring us to get reacquainted with where is each button…  That said, I would like to suggest with conviction that there is one service that truly has the best user interface and most robust functionality to make your email experience as hygienic and effective as possible…

The uber organizing email system: GMAIL from Google

Whatever your system, you will be able to do some form of organizing.  Whether it is via flags, tags or filters, most services have some.  Having used Outlook for over ten years, and been longtime user of Hotmail, AOL, Mac Mail etc, the one that stands out is GMAIL.  Here are the top four reasons why I prefer GMAIL.

1. Priority Inbox. There are several ways to parameter your incoming mails, so that the key emails don’t get lost in the shuffle.  In the priority box, you need to key in the most important senders.  In addition, there is “Starred,” which I use to identify emails as needing a follow-up action.
2. Groups. The Groups function is related to the Google contacts which works, of course, seamlessly with gmail.  The key point is to take the time to put your contacts into groups (sorted by interests, connection, language, etc…), which allows you to send out mailings to a specific audience with targeted content.  Groups is one way to make sure that you avoid spray & pray mass emails.
3. Labels. Labels are gmail speak for folders.  The labels allow for rapid filing and organizing.  When combined with the robust filtering system, you can have mails directly filed into folders (using the appropriate label), circumnavigating your inbox and avoiding unnecessary clutter.
4. Rapportive.  Rapportive is a free add-on for gmail on Firefox & Chrome (Mac/PC) that effectively brings a social CRM environment down to the individual user.  It links to all the available social data on your email recipient, allowing you to connect and view his/her most recent social interactions.  It’s an absolutely fabulous tool.

As I wrote before, most email services provide a host of functionalities that remain unexploited by the masses.  It takes a little getting used to, possibly hanging out with a gmail nut (like me), and you can get the hang of it very quickly.  (BTW I have to thank Yael for my conversion)

Finally, here is a wrap up of the other 4 of five greatest productivity tools.

1. Dropbox – for sharing your files across multiple users and platforms
2. Evernote – for storing and synchonizing your media & notes
3. Doodle – for setting up meetings
4. Greplin — to search digital media across multiple platforms

Do let me know which is your favorite, or another one you would rather add!

I was mildly amused to receive the Alpha Invitation to join Diaspora.

Just after having written about social media fatigue and the continuing appearance of new choices in social media, here comes yet another choice.  A long time in the making, Diaspora* (www.joindiaspora.com) has the makings of a different offer.  The brainchild of 4 NYU maths students (Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, Raphael Sofaer and Ilya Zhitomirskiy), Diaspora* is being touted as the “solution” for those who are concerned about the privacy issues on Google or the questionable and ever-changing ethics of Facebook.

As opposed to the wall gardens of Apple itunes, Myspace, Facebook and Google+, the concept behind Diaspora* (D*) is to be totally open to all, be it all networks, all people, all programs, all games.  Your content is, however, to be your own.  You own it and you control it — even if it may be in the cloud.

After the initial Alpha rollout (starting last autumn), a year later Diaspora+ is now going mainstream.  My year old request for a profile landed in my inbox yesterday.  I have signed up and below are my initial feelings about the site.

• In theory, I like the positioning of Diaspora as a way to control and own your content.  It certainly meets the concern of many people I know.  However, it is my belief that it has come a little late to the party.  If someone is anti-Facebook, I don’t believe there is enough goodwill in the social networking environment to coax that person into a new initiative out of New York.
• If there has been a year of work on taking out the early nicks and bugs, the Diaspora product is at best simple, and at worst, unsexy.
• There are very few people in my known network who are already on.  This leads me to two possible reasons: I don’t have enough “cool” underground friends or Diaspora’s rollout is slow as molasses, without any fanfare.  As a consequence, I am not likely to spend a lot of time here… not until more of the mainstream have signed on.
• Diaspora has a mobile web interface which is just fine.

Overall, I plan to watch this one from afar.   I see two main challenges for Diaspora*: gaining critical mass (with a double entendre on critical); and the non vetting of games and incoming programs (quality, viruses, etc.).

I’d love to hear your point of view.  Are you open to Diaspora*?  How good an idea is it, really?

The Experiment & the Experience: What happened?

In this prior post, I described how I decided to put together a social media experiment around the celebration of my grandfather’s 100th birthday.  He died December 15, 1944 and surely would have been flummoxed by the likes of Facebook… In any event, here is how that day went down.

Grandfather Lt Cdr Minter Dial fan page on Facebook

62 of the 70 people who signed up successfully posted their phrase, which I thought was a pretty good showing for a voluntary event.  You can go to his fan page to see the actual result here — you will need to scroll down (or do control f) to find Nzingha’s post of the first line of the letter.

It was not a piece of cake by any means.  Throughout the day, operating as an ad hoc community manager, I faced myriad issues and fielded a host of questions, many of which showed the challenge of pulling off such a program.  Here are some:

• I don’t understand where I am supposed to copy and post?
• What time is it in France?
• Where do I post the phrase?
• I just realized I am not a member of Facebook
• I have to go a meeting at my appointed time, so I will post earlier.  Better early than never.

Here are some of the reasons for why a few volunteers were not able to contribute on the given day:

• I won’t have an internet connection where I will be [at the appointed time]!
• My internet connection died on me (this from a guy who sells internet access)
• My alarm clock didn’t go off!
• “I posted it on the wall…twice.  I promise I did” (but, for some reason it didn’t show up on the main wall – and I can testify that there was a weirdo bug)

The Social Media “Results” (the famous ROI)

• 5023 post views
• 124 post feedbacks
• 92 likes
• The fan base went from 308 to 442 in the space of 8 days

What I learned

• The time zone challenge:  Clearly, this was a major hurdle.  With people from 16 countries and 7 different time zones, getting all people’s calendars synchronized was a major issue.
• Punctuality: The best laid plans of mice and {wo}men do not allow for 100% punctuality, especially when there is only a 15-minute window.
• Doodle doesn’t have a parameter that limits participation to have only one person per slot.
• Google Calendar has no text enhancements (bold, italics, colors, etc.) to make the text you send a little clearer.
• Having a message with a more profound purpose rallies people in wonderful ways.

Rooster Post by Ken Takagi

All in all, it was a tremendous experience for me and for most of the participants as far as the back channel commentary was concerned.  By serendipity, the phrases that certain people were asked to post had a deeper meaning for themselves.  For example, “There is much to say, but time is limited.”   For others — complete strangers to me, much less to the fellow contributors — it was a marvellous show of international comraderie.  A hearty thanks to all of you who joined in.

Please drop by and LIKE the page if you enjoyed this story.  What do you think are the takeaways for community managers working on brands?

An Unvieling of Facebook’s Growth

F...acing East

Not that we need to keep weekly tabs on the meteroic rise of Facebook, but there was something a little curious about the statistics that were published (thanks to CheckFacebook) about the fastest growing Facebook countries last week (week of April 18, 2011).  I noticed two things in particular.

What about you?

unveiling Facebook's growth

Double digits

The first comment is that the growth is extremely high for a single week — albeit off low bases.  Typically growth is single digit.  Clearly, some countries are just NOW getting on board with this social media.

Regional effect

Secondly, there seems to be a prevalent trend in this top ten in the form of Middle Eastern countries (7 out of the top 10).  One must believe that a certain segment of the population — notably among the socially unrestful — is swarming the social network to connect with others.  Political motivation seems the obvious impetus for these spikes.  Meanwhile, Japan’s growth is probably linked to the international involvement after the Fukishima disaster — also considering Facebook’s penetration had previously been extremely weak in Japan.  Luxembourg remains a bit of a mystery both in the feeble absolute number and the spurt just last week.  Any guesses?

The Bell Curve Tolls for Thee

This bell toils for thee

When people argue against Facebook, they often like to cite the one or two negatives cases that have been heavily mediatized (people getting fired because of a posting on a Facebook wall, a girl who tragically committed suicide…).  However, taking refuge behind the extreme cases (the blackest of the black) is not the answer.  Moreover, as Thiery Noisette reminded us in a conference “(a)Social Media” at Hotel Napoleon, Paris, few talk about the many hundreds (thousands?) of people who have been recruited thanks to their Facebook presence (not to forget Linkedin, Twitter…).

Outliers have their interest, but using the “extreme” or “black” cases to balk at getting involved is clearly not the way to promote action.  I suggest that in between the black and white extreme cases, there is a lot of good old grey space, where very positive things are happening.  If we should not sweat the small stuff (ref: Richard Carlson), there is still much value to work within the gray.  Of course, with 600 million Facebookers producing 1 billion pieces of content every day, the chances are you will find a whole of average things happening, too…

So, as CC Chapman (author of the podcast Managing the Gray — and who last year set out on his ownsome, kudos CC) would probably say: “there is a good deal of scope between black and white.”

————————

This is part of a 3-part post on The Grey(s) Matter.  Here is Part 1 The Brain & Getting Energy, and Part 2 Managing Diversity and Grey Hairs.

“The world is moving fast,” is one of the more trite comments that one can hear these days (right up there with banal commentary on the weather).  In fact, the average orbital speed of the earth is 29.78 km/second (according to wikipedia) which is a quite fast, yet constant, reality.  Get used to it!

For us earthlings, one gets the feeling that the pace of change on earth may be catching up with the earth’s orbital speed!  Indeed, here is a [flash] graphic, courtesy of Gary Hayes that shows what is going in the world of social media for every second the clock ticks (or for every 29.78 kilometers that the earth is moving):

Some digital insights?

Staring at the numbers for a few moments, here are a couple of my takeaways:

• that’s a lot of commenting and content sharing going on inside Facebook — the advertising revenues remain a little anemic comparatively speaking
• there are more apps downloaded to the iphone than dollars spent on virtual goods (clearly demonstrating that the vast majority of apps must be downloaded for free, because there are many other types of virtual goods being purchased at the same time)
• for every SMS, there are approximately 17 emails
• every second there are 10 new internet users coming on board
• for every kilometer the earth orbits, there is a youtube video being watched
• new members joining LinkedIn only outpace the sale of iPads by a ratio of 3:2 (says more about the iPad (RRP $400+) than Linkedin, which is free)

What strikes your eye?  Love to hear your thoughts.

A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIMENT

Minter and Lisa Porter Dial, NY, circa 1938

I am on a mission.  I have launched a social media experiment (over on Minter Dialogue Blog) regarding the 100th anniversary of the birth of my grandfather, Lt Cdr N Minter Dial, after whom I was named.  I spent the better part of eight years researching the life of my grandfather who was born on March 21, 1911 and died December 15, 1944.  In celebration of his birthday, I would like to pay tribute to him and to the men and women who sacrificed so much during WWII.

Here is the executive summary version of the story:  Minter Dial was born the son of a US Senator (Nathaniel Barksdale Dial, SC), graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1932 and was awarded the Navy Cross, as captain of the USS Napa, fighting in the Philippines.  He was captured in 1942 (Battle of Corregidor) and died in December 1944 after 2 1/2 years as a POW.  The gem story inside the story relates to his Annapolis ring that was lost in 1944 in the Philippines, found by miracle in Korea in 1962 and then stolen in 1967 in Paris.  At its core, the mission is about trying to refind that Annapolis ring.

What I am looking for is to have a community effort to recreate Minter’s last letter, written on the eve of his death, in Bilibid Prison, Manila.  We will do this together in an orderly fashion on March 21st, 2011, 100 years to the day after his birth, on his Facebook fan page.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

To participate will only take a total of 5 minutes of your time, I promise.  The campaign is exclusively designed around the Facebook fan page in his honor : LT CDR MINTER DIAL (yes, please do become a fan if you have a moment!).  If you are interested to join, please send me a mail to MINTER at THEMYNDSET dot COM.

To find out the details and how to join, please visit my other post here.

THE REAL AND VIRTUAL MERGE – THE IMPORTANCE OF BLENDED MARKETING

As I have I rolled out this programme (with the kind inspiration and guidance of Marie-Laure Vie), I am quite amused at how the virtual and the real come to interplay with one another.

Specifically, I have used as many different networks as I can muster, including at my squash club, via email, Viadeo, forums and, of course, the Facebook community.  Since the programme is centered around Facebook, those who are not on FB, cannot participate.  That said, by virtue of the mission, the number of people who have merrily replied in full support of this mission — and yet do not have a Facebook account — reinforces how important it is to have a blended approach to any communication, marketing or networking efforts.  The virtual can lead to the real and the real can merge seamlessly into the virtual.  At times, it is hard to make out the line between them both.

The campaign was launched on Saturday March 12th and there are now more than 30 people who have volunteered to participate.  There are a total of 92 slots available, so I am still looking for volunteers.  I would love for any of you who come across this post to come join in the party.  Failing that, just drop in a comment of support below!

If Facebook has gained 20 million users in France, there are still some people in France who are recalcitrant users, wary of the platform and feel more or less forced to join (6 reasons why not to join!). But, to paraphrase Joel de Rosnay, France is not rear guard; it treads with hindsight. In turn, my own perspective on this question: within a business context, the longer one waits to take the plunge, the more one is penalized.

I attended, on Wednesday last week, the latest conference, “Napoleon Innovation”, organized by Marc Kawam and Thierry Noisette, under the title of “(A)social networks.”  There were two topics that grabbed my attention at the conference: (a) a need for continuous digital education, learning of internet usage, and (b) the need to turn ideas into action.

Regarding the first point, we’re all still learning how to “do” Facebook and Twitter … It is a work in progress.  Users need to be in a constant learner mode in order to better understand the functions, settings (which change regularly) and codes (social and semantic).  They need to find their voice and establish a solid online presence.  In short, they need to craft their online reputation.  Regarding moving from idea to action, the point was raised – we may say, with vehemence – of the legitimacy of speakers to grandstand on social networks without actually ”walking the talk,” i.e., practicing what you preach.  In other words, practice is the critical action.  Naturally, since we were in a conference, the format lends itself better to discussion rather action, but it did make me think about how many people – in advertising agencies, for example – that give advice on digital media and create campaigns for their clients, without making (much less doing) it for themselves. When you evaluate your agency, is  it not important to validate their competency, by checking their digital strategy?

Your online reputation will become your CV

Especially when a person is in the process of applying for a job, I constantly recommend to work diligently on his/her online presence.  In this regard, I am less concerned about vetting your photos on Facebook, but rather (and in descending order of importance), the quality of your Linkedin/Viadeo profile, comments in forums and on blogs dealing with your particular area of expertise and, finally, to have your own blog.  The quality of your writings on line is a great way to present your value added (in terms of communication skills and content).  Your online presence becomes your best CV.  Headhunters and Human Resource managers will understand more and more the value of this online digital fingerprint.  Incidentally, it is also important to work on the quality of your network.  For example, your network will increasingly help you to stay informed (via curation).  The more people you have in your network the more you must sort and prioritize (via groups, filters, etc.).

High Profile (C-suite) Employees should create an online presence …

Net Invisibility - What might you be hiding?*

If candidates are scrutinized for their online presence, what continues to shock me is the flagrant absence on the web of executives of large companies (outside of the official, traditional PR releases and TV coverage, etc.).  It is not uncommon to find influential managers who still do not have a profile on Linkedin (or Viadeo), without mentioning their absence on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. The shock is even more intense when it comes to those who work in marketing, or worst of all, for those who work directly in the communication / digital strategy department who have opted to live in digital hiding.

Is it a matter of fear (being scrutinized by the hierarchy or worried about making a fool of themselves); a question of principle (concerned about invasion of privacy); a lack of time (not enough time allocated because it is not considered important enough); or simply because of disdain (how many times have I heard: “it’s just not serious to be on Facebook at work ‘)?

…and applicants should scan the digital standard of potential employers

Before approaching a company, candidates should scan the de facto digital level of the company.  The digital presence of the executives will speak volumes about the corporate culture.  Are the managers personally invested in the digital space?  Do they have a real digital education (more than just some off-the-shelf e-learning course)?  Do they do for themselves what they want to implement at the company for which they work?  Do they understand that the walls between professional and personal life are permeable (or endangered)?

In 2011, it seems extremely difficult to justify that managers and executives, in a company that seeks to invest in the digital space, are not themselves “online,” living the live digital experience.

I’d love to hear your views and thoughts on this subject!

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*Find more cartoons you-can re-use Freely On Your Blog at We Blog Cartoons.