Presentation by Adam Schweigert (INN Director of Technology) at the Kiplinger Social Media Summit at Ohio State University (November 12, 2012)

1. Emerging Social Media
- or -
How I learned to stop worrying and love “The Next Big Thing”
Adam Schweigert
Director of Technology
Investigative News Network
@aschweig

4. The
Pinterestification
of Everything
The Web

21. http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com/

27. Visual Publishing
Comes Into Its Own

32. Conversations
As Content

38. Open
Alternatives

41. The Power
Of Small Numbers

44. Context
Is King

47. Responsive Design

49. Wearable and Embedded
Computing

54. So, Adam…
How do I decide which of these
things I need to worry about?

55. I, [YOUR NAME], give myself
permission to not use every new
social network.
To not download every new app.
And to not spend every waking
moment in front of a screen.

57. Who do I want to reach?
Where do they spend their time?
What do they do there?
When are they online?
How can I contribute in a meaningful way?
Why does this make sense from a business
perspective?

58. 5 Whys
Ask “Why?” 5 times to understand (your or someone else’s) motivations,
underlying beliefs or the root cause of a problem.
We need to be on Pinterest!
Why?
Because everyone else is!
Why?
Because Mashable told them they should be!
Why?
Because Mashable needs people to be interested
in the next new shiny thing so they keep paying
attention to Mashable
Why?
Because they make money from advertising
sold on a CPM basis and need the pageviews
Why?
Because they have to pay their investors/staff/etc.

59. 5 Whys
Ask “Why?” 5 times to understand (your or someone else’s) motivations,
underlying beliefs or the root cause of a problem.
We need to be on Pinterest!
Why?
Because our potential customers spend a lot of time there
Why?
They find it useful as a way to discover new products they might like to buy
Why?
They follow people who have common interests and share cool stuff
Why?
They want to be viewed as tastemakers
Why?
It’s cool to be a trendsetter.

60. Strategy vs. Tactics
“Grand Plan”
Specific measure
Immutable, big to push a plan
picture definition of forward; Changes
a problem and with circumstances
what to do about it
(i.e – Technology)
Social Media is NOT A Strategy!

61. Goals Metrics Targets
What do we want How will we measure What does success
to accomplish?
our progress?
look like?
(Be Specific)
Pageviews
Increase/Maintain/
Unique visitors
Decrease
Increase depth Repeat visitors
and frequency of Time on site
[METRIC]
conversations Conversions
around our
by [% or number]
political content.
Again, as SPECIFIC as
possible.
by [DATE]
# of comments per Increase the avg. # of
post (in a particular comments per post
post type) per per 1,000 visitors in
thousand (non- the politics section
bounce) visitors
by 10% by November
31.

62. Try lots of little experiments
With an eye towards how new tools and approaches might fit into your bigger
picture strategy
Set clear, specific goals and targets
And regularly evaluate your progress
Iterate (but know when to say no)
It’s ok if experiments fail, but you need to recognize what failure looks like
Celebrate successes
(This is what you need targets for)
Spend more time outside

63. Thank You!
Adam Schweigert
@aschweig
aschweigert@gmail.com
adamschweigert.com