Posts tagged social media
Lacking Context
Mar 31st
The other day, while writing code to work with Viralheat (for an SMCpros client), it hit me. The flaw, the thing that I dislike about ANY social media monitoring tool (although, I do love ViralHeat, because their RESTful API kicks some serious tail).
Its a lack of context.
No tool out there (and I have demoed most of them) can give context to a tweet. They assign sentiment based on a database of wordlists of what is positive and what is negative. They have no way of telling if someone is just being snarky, if they are in a foul mood, or even if they use pronouns. If I tweet “Man, @twitter is the best company to work for” followed by “They really know their stuff, great job”, all tools will only grab the first one. Same goes if I am tweeting bad things. This issue is joined with the issue that there is not a ton of follow up-when a rep from a company responds to someone tweeting, not much is done to see how it changes the sentiment regarding that company. Mentions of a brand are treated like islands-concise, self-contained bubbles of information, not a chain of data.
Now, being someone who sits right at the intersection of Social street and Developer drive, I am going to fix this. I cant tell you too much about it (believe me, I will when I can), but know that we are making a solution. We want to provide context, and more layers and views of data, to the social sphere. More abilities for people to view data, more ways to use all the data that is being generated by everyone.
Grow up, and be honest with yourself
Mar 17th
I am going to take a brief (read-1 post) departue from my covering of tech and geeknees to bring something that I try not to up-the state of social media, the web, and MSP.
I have been doing interactive here in the cities for 2 years now. Throughout this time, I have been observing, listening, and becoming opinionated.
Its time to voice that.
I want you to know that none of this is personal, and none of it means any sort of disrespect. I am simply trying to push everyone to see why they can become. No one is willing to be critical of anyone in this town-I blame MN nice.
People, stop the incessant back-patting and incestuous thought that has dominated the social media world here recently! Honestly, what was the last truly innovative thing that happened? All I have seen recently is people helping companies get on board. There is nothing wrong with this (I do it as a day job, along with other things). However, you are not innovating. You are not at the cutting edge. I challenge you to go into every new client engagement with a clean mind-create their strategy from scratch. It will take a little longer, it may cost a bit more, but unless you do this, you are not doing anything more than anyone else.
I cannot tell you how many posts I have seen that are nothing more than inside baseball bullshit. You are not covering anything new or different, you are just fawning over someone that is doing the exact same thing as everyone else. Sure, their client list may merit some lusting, but really, who has done something recently worthy of hero worship?
Also, if all you do is social media, please be honest with yourself and expand. However, as you are learning, dont try to oversell your skills. I know people that barely know HTML or CSS, let alone PHP or MySQL, calling themselves WordPress experts. No, you are not. Just because you read SEOMoz does NOT make you an SEO, just like you are not a doctor if you watch House.
The idea of a Social Media Expert/Guru/Ninja has really diluted the meaning of that word. Previously, you had to have experience and show results to get those titles. If you are just doing what everyone else is doing, are you really a guru?
I fully admit that I have fallen prey to this before. I used to think that just because I had a bunch of followers, I was an expert. I still see that today.
WRONG.
If you want to really be an expert/guru/ninja, and you really want to separate yourself, ask the tough questions. Don’t settle for just making twitter accounts. Innovate. I promise, if you try something new and fail, you will garner more respect than just sitting on the side, making Fan pages and saying “you should be on foursquare”. The talk about social media here in MSP has gone from a high standard to mindless drivel. Help me change that. I wish that more people asked “whats next.” So many times, people are talking about what is out there. I want to talk about what is coming next, what are we missing, and where is there value? I know that this cannot be all that social media has to offer, but for some reason, the majority is content with playing in this sandbox, rather than exploring others.
Social Media here in the cities needs to grow up. I want to help it, but I can’t do it alone. Push the SMBMSP, TCSMU, and the MIMA founders to go outside the box. Rather than just hold a panel with people doing it the same way, find people who innovate. I don’t mean someone who uses a different tool than someone else, but people who are really using social media in unique ways. Ask people the tough questions. Be a rabble-rouser. This does not mean be negative-this means that you are not blindly jumping on the bandwagon.
I was recently told that someone is making a calendar for social events in the city-just like the one that I used to have up. However, this one has “a year put into it, and the backing from all the major groups.” My response was that if I, a 21 year old college student, can create your massive idea in 2 hours with nothing more than his Mac, and no meetings or funding, is it that good of an idea? Is it worth it?
I know this city (yup, lumping them into Twincy) is overflowing with talent. However, many people are wasting their talents. There is no such thing as a client that you cannot innovate with, or do something cool with. Basically, pull your head out of the cloud, and get hungry. Get hungry to innovate, to push in industry forward, and to do really cool things each day.
Please, people, take this as me pushing you, rather than me hating you. I do not hold ill will toward any interactive here in the city.
The Social Media Tipping point
Jan 11th
I think that we are very close to the point when a majority of businesses “get” that they need social media. Which is HUGE. It moves social media firmly out of snake oil and into marketing/advertising/PR/whereveryouwanttoputit.
It means that social media agencies (like the one I am a part of) will keep growing, keep expanding, and keep building.
Why do I think we are so close? For one, look at how many malls/cafes/stores have accounts, and signs up promoting them. For instance, while at CES in Las Vegas, most of the casinos had a social media presence. Most used them fairly well, too. Nearly every company there had a twitter account, and the @intlCES account was very useful during the show.
However, there is still more to do. Even if companies get that they need it, and even those that try it themselves, companies still need help. They are not in the marketing business, they are in the widget cranking business.
A lot has been made about how social media doesn’t need experts, or comapnies can just do it themselves. I think that this is a VERY dangerous assumption. Do companies handle their own legal issues? Finance? Marketing? Usually, the answer is no. Why would they then jump into doing their own social media, which is just as complex and requires more innovation?
Neverless, the tipping point is arriving. Are you going to be creating good strategy to help companies with it, or are you still going to sell snake oil?
