Written for The Future of Social Media conference, I was supposed to talk about the "future" of social media technology, but the term "social media" and "marketing" together give me the jibblies, so I mixed it up a little. I try to give a preview of where I think things are going along with a couple things I'd do if I were a marketer to be more human and hopefully more effective. Warning: contains Cluetrain content.
1. Making Marketing More
Human Through
Technology
Kevin Lawver
Chief Architect, Music Intelligence Solutions
The Future of Social Media, 2009/01/29
http://uplaya.com
2. Social
• adjective - pertaining
to, or characterized by
friendly companionship
or relations.
• adjective - growing in
patches or clumps
• noun - a social
gathering or party, esp.
of or as given by an
organized group
3. Media
• noun - the means of
communication as radio
and television,
newspapers, and
magazines, that reach or
influence people widely
• noun - the material or
technique with which an
artist works
4. “Social Media” is a Silly
Term
• All media is social
• All media begs commentary
• The internet just makes soliciting, gathering
and filtering commentary easier
9. I live on the internet
• I assume everything I create will be
published and commented on.
• I actively seek out my real life friends online
• I expect my life to be public.
• While this isn’t the norm for my
generation, it is for today’s kids.
10. I expect my brands to
live on the internet
• But they don’t.
• They come visit sometimes, but they sound
just like they do on TV. I fast forward
through that stuff.
• If they talked to me like people, I might
listen.
23. Get a Feed Reader!
• The general public may not have grasped
RSS, but you need it.
• NewsGator or Google Reader
• The only way to consume the flood of
information the conversation generates
every minute of every day.
24. Google Alerts
• Still the best way to track mentions of
phrases or links across the web.
• To track links - “link:uplaya.com”
• To track phrases - “uplaya artists”
• Get the feed and add it to your feed reader
26. Follow it Live
• Use search.twitter.com to search for
mentions of your product or brand
• Add the feed to your feed reader
27. Get a client
• Tweetdeck has good reply support and can
follow multiple conversations
• Twhirl is good for managing multiple twitter
accounts and following FriendFeed as well
30. Get a Blog
• Yes, they’re old school, but they’re a good
place to aggregate everything.
• Use one of the big blog networks instead of
rolling your own.
• Wordpress.com is a good place to start,
but Typepad and Blogger will work as well.
32. Be Conversational
• Don’t just issue press releases
• Post about the company picnic,
• funny office pictures,
• success stories and reviews,
• and interesting stuff.
• Think of it as your company’s water cooler
for the world, but more importantly, your
users
33. Tumblr
• Attractive way to aggregate and syndicate
all of your various content
• Extremely easy to use
• They really “get” the new activity stream
35. facebook.com/
advertising/?pages
• They’re free
• They’re a good way to get in to facebook
without investing in developing and hosting
a facebook app
• A good way to get feedback on your prodct
or service from highly connected users
36. Facebook Apps:
Caution
• You may end up spending a lot of money for
no reason
• Success may be more expensive than failure
38. Twitter
• •
Don’t just broadcast Be useful
• •
Don’t follow everyone Reply to those who talk
about your product
• Don’t be annoying
• Offer support where
• you can
Don’t post just links to
your blog post or to
•
your product Do follow those who
talk about you
• Don’t worry about your
following/er numbers
39. “Spamming Twitter does not make you a
Premier Thought Leader. It makes you
an Idiot. A paper millionaire with a fistful of
Enron stock. The numbers are impressive, but
have no value outside of impressing people
who don’t know any better.”
Jeremy Tanner
40. Good Twitter Examples
• @garyvee
• @zappos (more on them later)
• @twalk
• @railsmachine
• @halcyon
41. FriendFeed
• Another good way to aggregate all of your
content in one place
• Allows people to follow everything you
produce, and comment on it in one place
• A good set of widgets to re-purpose
content
42. Facebook Groups
• Find groups that actually fit your topic
• Listen first, don’t just divebomb
• Comment on existing posts at first
• Become a part of the community. Be on the
bridge, not under it.
44. Someone doing it right
• Zappos
• Their CEO uses twitter and responds to
customer feedback
• They aggregate all their employee blog
posts
• They have radical customer service and
really do have a conversation with their
customers
46. The Future
• Reputation
• Aggregation and noise reducers to the
rescue!
• API traps will be everywhere, and they all
want to own your data
• If it’s not in the activity stream, it never
happened
47. Reputation
• Spam and “fake” people will become a
bigger and bigger problem
• There will be an impartial clearing house for
reputation data
• Play nice now, because this data is already
being collected and acted on
• It’s only a matter of time before the dots
get connected
48. Aggregators
• FriendFeed, SocialThing or something like
them will go mainstream and aggregate all
your social data in one painless place
• Niche search engines, conversation trackers
and smarter spiders will do a better job of
linking conversations and personas across
networks
49. API Traps
• Be careful what APIs you use in your
products, because they will go away. Plan
ahead and around failure
• Don’t let them lock your data up. Keep a
local copy of everything
50. Activity Streams
• They started out annoying
• They’re now indispensable
• You’ll see them pop up all over
• And federated so not just one company
owns the stream
• Keep your eye on Google