20. "Mr. Edison, please tell me
what laboratory rules you
want me to observe."
Edison: "There ain't no rules
around here. We're trying to
accomplish somep'n!"
— Thomas Edison
Snow630 am email15 open tabsHoot suite and storify5 straight hoursNo OEM No call center or databaseRecord website spike (60%!)Online services and SoMe is mission critical
15 open tabsHoot suite and storify5 straight hoursNo OEM No call center or databaseRecord website spike (60%!)Online services and SoMe is mission critical
I’m Matt Kinshella I am the Director of Communications and Online Services at 211info in Oregon Guy with no technical background Self taughtStarted communications deptNew website, model blog, social media email presence In a year...something ground breaking.Kelly is going to describe in awesome detail what you need to know to operate a successful social media operation. But before you can become competent at anything operationally. You have to learn the foundational building blocks. I&R needs standards and best practices but without a basic understanding of the larger field of social or community services, it would be tough to do I&R at all. SO first things first, there’s two parts to the term social media.
We’ve been doing social a long timeSocial is how the first humans survived.Social happens at work. Social happens at home. Social happens online.We are social beings – we know social.
And we’ve been doing media a long timeIt started with cave drawings and progressed to books then radio, tv, fax, email and facebook and itll be something different tomorrow and the next day. You should pay attention to media but not get carried away.
I mention the obvious components of social media all to say that it’s not scaryI’ve run across communications professionals who’ve been in the business for 30 years and are scared to death of social media, so much so that they abstain and can’t find work. I like to say no one was born knowing how to use email but we all use it every day… a little too much. Facebook is being used by 800 million peopleMore than 48 hours of video are uploaded to you tube every minute175,000 new blogs are created each dayTwitter is used by tens of millions. Most of the people doing these things are not smarter than you.
Though some are(show historical tweet – Einstein) In all seriousness, you or anyone on your staff can figure this out. You can inject social into every aspect of your work. You can trust your staff to be social because you trust them with phones and email and they are going to be social any way. Honestly, there’s no better advice I can give you then just try it. Think about what your audience might want from you and try something. Track what your doing, fail smartly and adjust. But if you do want to be failing smartly and not just failing, there are some things you need to know.
We have to understand the building blocks of a social web campaign or movement. Behind every successful movement are key components that go far deeper then knowing how to send a tweet or create a custom facebook landing page.
Do recognize these guys? This might be some of you or someone you know.
How about this guy? We know he isn’t painting his face as a fashion statement or because it is Halloween.So the question is: what do star wars fans and Vancouver Canuck fan have in common?
What Seth Godin and many others have called “A tribe” A tribe is different than an audience. You aren’t broadcasting to a tribe. There is a more even playing field. Tribe members live to be in the tribe. They identify themselves in part by saying they are a member of that tribe. That tribe is important to them And so the tribe is the one of the 3 building blocks of a movement online or anywhere. In the case our 211s or I&R our tribe are passionate about the power of information. Whether they are service providers, elected officials or someone seeking services themselves, they value the transformative, quality social services information.
But of course the star wars guys have a pretty solid tribe but they wouldn’t exist without this:Well not exactly that pug dressed as Yoda. But you get the idea. And that hockey fan wouldn’t be showing painting his face without this…
This. The tribe needs what is called a social object. Something they all get together and talk about. Something they can make online forums about, gather at the water cooler and talk about and gather in convention halls and stadiums and talk about. For some it is scifi movies, for others it is sports, for others it is iPhones. And after time a funny thing happens where the tribe becomes more important than the social object. Where being social is the most important thing. But the tribe can’t exisit without the social object.That’s why the social object is the second building block of a movement.
The third is the organization – and I don’t mean an institution – I mean a way to organize. There are many ways to organize. Social media – are the tools and channels that are a natural evolution of an open world wide web that is very new in the course of history (it just turned 20!) and none of us – and I mean none of us have any idea how it will shape elections and institutions and our society as a whole. It is the new organizational frontier. And it is exciting, it is a game changer.Kelly is going to be focusing more on the organization part of things. So I won’t go into much detail now. In order to build a movement we need a tribe that is organized around a social object. But perhaps most importantly we need to lead.
Step One: Let people know the object exists.People need something to point to and say – “yeah I agree with that”. The first thing we have to do is create. It sounds simple but consistently, methodically creating quality content is tough. Have to be remarkable – which of course literally means “worth remarking about”You have to stand out and get people’s attention and you have to do it often. We recently learned a lesson about this with a post about health care….
Add a social lubricant If your content is remarkable people will find a way to share. That’s the beauty of the internet – it always has a forward buttonBut You want to make it as easy as possible for people to share, because the internet has also made us lazy. Direct the elephant rider. So in your email newsletters, blogs or other media make it extremely obvious how to share what you’re saying. And make it extremely obvious what action you want people to take. Then once you think you’ve done this well, have some teenage intern test drive every channel you have – especially your website and email newsletter – to see how easy sharing is. You need to grow the tribe.
Create connections. Organize the tribeGive people a place to connect with one another.AIRSis our tribe. The AIRS Networker is a place to connect. Your website, Facebook and twitter is a place to connect but it won’t be if you just use it to spam your “audience.”One fact of a social media world is that more and more people only trust those they know, like and respect. Know, like and respect. They don’t just automatically turn to ABC and trust everything that is said. I have argued this is an amazing thing – especially for smaller organizations. But for larger ones too. For the first time we can widely and freely build direct relationships with our tribe and connect them directly with one another because of the social web. We don’t have to rely on traditional media filter.ASH.Engage! Pose questions on social media (to get resources!), write compelling blog posts and ask for feedback. Create a simple forum of yahoo group where people can exchange ideas. Not everyone is going to want to connect but some will.Indentify those people who are strongest in your tribe and court them. Take them to a real in person coffee or recognize them on your website. And then ask them to lead and find a tribe of their own. Find the people that are pumped up about it – they’ll self select.Find the people in your tribe and ask them to tell others. Ask them to write in local newspapers, find people with video talent and writers and social media people. You don’t’ have to do it all your self you just have to paint a vision and find people who can do it. Engagement ladder is on steroids. Unparalleled ability to track information about people and use that to bond. Check reporters latest articles in 2 minutes. Check a new contacts twitter feed. Subscribe to someone’s personal blog and have that feed send an alert on your phone so you’re the first person to comment.
I’m an information dork. SO I love the internet because I can manipulate it to let me learn anything I want really easily. But that’s not why I care about social media. Social media and the internet presents us the biggest opportunity to build these tribes cheaply and with force. We don’t have to wait for traditional power sources like newspapers. We can recreate our industry every day to serve our clients. If we all organize a tribe around social objects we all care about and we are savvy and nimble and creative it has an awesome power to help others. We live in an amazing time right now. And if you are just willing to take risks with our clients in mind amazing things can happen. It used to be that big corporations with million dollar advertising budgetscould make an impact. Now, not only can we all spread something remarkable to the whole world and build connections, but we are expected to. Back to that flooding story. No one asked me to do any of what I did. No one asked 211info to play that online role. We just did it. We didn’t have a plan, but we knew the tools and we new what our purpose was and we weren’t afraid to try something new.
So that’s my advice to you. Jump in with both feet. Experience these things your self. And be ruthless in your client focused innovations. And lead a tribe not just in your organizations, but in your broader communities.
