We Built it. They Came. Now What?

Facebook for business--you're kidding, right? Everyone knows Facebook is for teenagers sharing drunken or suggestive photos of themselves--what possible use could it possibly have with regard to business? The answer: plenty.

But I work for a non-profit--do these "business solutions" still apply? Definitely.

Not sure if Facebook is a good fit for your business or non-profit? The best way to find out may be to just jump in, set up a page (as opposed to a group) and see where it takes you.

That's just what we did at the association I work for. We created a page--if for no other reason than out of curiosity and with no particular agenda. Within a few days we had 50 fans, then 100, then 500...and so on. As of today, the page has been up for about three and a half weeks and we have 1,191 fans (and counting). I don't think any of us imagined we'd get this kind of response.

I guess this is what you might call a happy accident. We did what you're not supposed to do: start randomly using social media without pre-defined goals and a set strategy. However, there's definitely something to be said for being able to use the figure "over 1,100 fans in three weeks" to convince skeptics that yes, it is time to start solidifying a social media strategy.

Of course I realize that Facebook is one of many social media tools; I'm just using it a an example. And, yes, I know--jumping in without a set strategy=bad. The thing is--with social media, maybe taking more of a ready, fire, aim approach isn't the worst idea in the world.

The Samsung Instinct Must Really Suck

About a month ago I blogged about my horrible experience with Sprint's Samsung Instinct phone. At about that same time, my blog got accepted for inclusion on Alltop, an "online magazine rack" in the form of an RSS aggregator classified by topic (mine is in the social media category).

Awesome--I thought--finally I might actually get some traffic to this blog. And--voila--I did. Overnight, and ever since, my traffic has increased like 350%. In the interest of full disclosure, that means that I went from roughly 5 or fewer (ok, probably fewer) readers to an average of about 20. But pretend I didn't just reveal that and be impressed with the 350% figure (but don't correct me if the math is wrong; just let me revel in my imaginary rise to glory).

Naturally that huge surge in traffic was a result of the link to my blog being included on Alltop, right? After all, to say Alltop gets a lot more traffic than this blog is such a gross understatement as to not even be worthy of typing. But you know what I mean--a link to my blog on a (in my opinion, at least) somewhat popular website means all those people will click on it, right?

The answer: sadly, no. I believe I've had a total of 10 visits referred from Alltop. However, referrals from Google searches for "Sprint Instinct sucks" or some variant of that? Bingo: 67 visits. E.g. at least 75% of all traffic to this blog since that post has resulted from people Googling "Instinct sucks."

Therefore, this post serves two purposes:

1. Case study of traffic increase (or not) as a result of link on high-traffic website


2. More fodder for people searching for "Instinct sucks."

This Just In: More Old People Are Using Social Media

Forrester Research has updated their data on Social Technographics and--shocker--the upshot is that social technology participation has grown significantly in the last year. "Inactives"--people who don't participate at all in social networking or technologies--now make up only 25% of the online population in the US. "Spectators"--people who read blogs, watch videos, rate products or listen to podcasts--jumped in just one year from 48% to 69%.

According to Forrester, much of the growth in social media adoption came from "middle- aged" people: 35-to-44 year-olds. Even bona fide old people--45-to-54 year-olds--are participating in Spectator behavior and joining social network at record levels: 68% and 24%, respectively.

If you're not already on the social media bandwagon you may as well climb on, because these numbers are only going to continue to rise.

Social Media Manager: What's It Worth To Your Association?

Lately there's been a big buzz about a newly-created Manager, Social Media position at the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Judging by the number of people blogging, tweeting or otherwise talking about it, I can only imagine how many resumes are flying into NAR.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm nosy, particularly about people's salaries. What can I say--I like to know how much money people make. And, in particular, I like to know how much money there is to be made in any given job.

Naturally, the only mention of salary in the NAR social media manager position is "competitive salary." My question is: competitive with what? How are associations going to benchmark these newly-created positions? Would they be on par with a communications/pr specialist? Or will associations consider the person managing social media to be part of IT or web? Are they envisioning hiring recent college grads who are, presumably, most familiar with social media concepts and tools, or are they going to want seasoned communications (or marketing or web or membership) professionals who have a passion for social media?

While I don't know the answers to these questions, I do know that there is a fair amount of information out there about what private industry is paying social media or community managers. As of the time I'm writing this post, Salary.com says the median expected salary for a typical Community Relations Manager is $80,218. Connie Bensen, community strategist at Network Solutions, blogged about the results of a survey of community manager salaries. The upshot? The average salary was $81,000 with a median of $72,500.

Many (most?) companies, however, haven't gotten to the point where they're hiring community or social media managers. Good news for social media consultants, who, according to Marshall Kirkpatrick on ReadWriteWeb, command rates starting at $150 an hour and going as high as $2,000-$4,000 per engagement (engagement, he describes, translates to 20-40 hours per month).

How will these numbers translate as associations benchmark their new social media manager/specialist/strategist/coordinator positions? Will the position be on par with a Communications/PR/Public Affairs Specialist: $72,000 (according to ASAE's 2006 salary report)? Or will it be classified as a lower-level position, with a lower salary?

In the long run, of course, only time will tell how important social media becomes to associations and, therefore, how much the people who fill those roles are worth. If it turns out that social media efforts meet or exceed predictions in terms of increased member engagement, retention rates and revenue, then obviously the position will be more highly valued. If it turns out (God forbid!) that the haters were actually right and social media is a mere flash in the pan that will ultimately not yeild any tangible results, the position will either be eliminated entirely or relegated to the lower ranks, staff-wise.

But where does that leave the association that's sitting at the table today, trying to budget for this new position in 2009?

Will Citizen Journalism Replace Traditional Journalism?

Last week there was a discussion on one of my listservs about "real" journalists as opposed to bloggers; e.g. only journalists are credible resources. Naturally, I disagreed.

Whether or not bloggers are journalists in the traditional sense is becoming a moot point because "citizen journalists" are now considered by many to be just as respected as "real" journalists. Look at The Huffington Post's "Off the Bus," a "citizen-powered and -produced presidential campaign news site." Apparently the model is a huge success because just today I got an email from them announcing a new section, "Eyes and Ears," which will feature "people-powered...stories from a network of thousands around the United States."

Yeah, but who's reading this stuff, you ask? I'll tell you who: "real" journalists. Back in April, an Off the Bus blogger quoted Barack Obama in a post about a fundraiser; two days later Tim Russert featured the story on Meet the Press, as did the New York Times, the Guardian and the LA Times.

Let's see--so we have bloggers who are influencing the election; how about the stock market? Last week a citizen journalist wrote that Steve Jobs had a heart attack and Apple stock plummeted 10 points. The fact that a citizen journalist can have this kind of impact is enough to give anyone heart failure.

Like The Huffington Post, though, CNN has decided to embrace--rather than fight-- the rise of citizen journalism by launching iReport. Its tagline is “Unedited. Unfiltered. News.” and anyone can blog or post videos about news.

Here's the thing: whether you want to call bloggers "real" journalists or not is irrelevant. According to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, 77% of Internet users read blogs and that number is going to continue to rise. Meanwhile, readership of print publications is down and continues to fall. Do the math--and then watch what you say because you never know who might be citizen journalist.

Hey--Don't I Know You? Social Networking Makes the Leap From Online to Real Time

Picture this: you're in a restaurant, all cozied up with your secret honey, holding hands in the safety of your favorite "safe" meeting spot far away from the prying eyes of people you know. Suddenly a guy who looks vaguely familiar approaches your table and greets you warmly. "Hey--it's great to actually 'see' you in real life! Remember me from high school? We're friends on Facebook. Loved the photos of your recent family vacation." Turning to your "wife": "Hey--I thought you were pregnant? You looked like you were about to pop in the pictures and that was only last weekend. And your hair was shorter--way shorter--and blonde." Suddenly his face turns bright red in embarassment and he mumbles something, then turns and hurries away from your table.

Busted, courtesy of social media.

I've blogged before about how social media is becoming a little too social, putting many people in daily contact--albeit cyber contact--with just about everyone they've ever known. And those status updates you casually throw out there? Those, too, are now fair game for not only "friends" but whoever cares to track what you're doing or even thinking.

Starting to feel a little claustrophobic? Welcome to the future of social media. Not only will you have nowhere to hide online, but "friends" and other contacts will be able to pick you out of a crowd and walk right up to you. Forget having to think twice about posting those embarassing party pictures; you might just be in plain sight of someone you don't even know you know and he or she can observe your antics in real-time.

This technology is actually available now, courtesy of a German company, aka-aki. Apparently they think people are spending too much time on the computer and need to convert their Secondlives to Firstlives; e.g take social networking to the streets. You can download aka-aki to your cell phone and, if your phone has Bluetooth, it will vibrate when another member of aka-aki comes within 20 meters of you (meter-to-feet conversion=very close to you). You can then view that person's profile and walk right up to them to say hi, therefore dispensing with the need for those pesky "What are you doing right now?" questions--you'll be able to see what they're doing with your own eyes.

Another application, Commandro, offers similar capability, allowing you to track friends' location and proximity to you via GPS.

Something to think about next time you get a friend request, I guess.

How Much Time Does It Take To Do Social Media? More Than You Think.

Beth Kanter had a great post today about how much time it takes to do social media. I started to post a comment but ended up typing WAY too much, so I figured I'd just blog about it.

Beth suggests five modules for implementing a social media plan: listening, participating, generating buzz, sharing your story and community building/social networking.

I'd like to throw out a few more time-consuming activities/categories:

1. Learning. In addition to the time it takes to do the activities she lists, there is the time it takes to have acquired the knowledge to be able to do them in the first place. You have to know what tools are out there and not only how to use them, but how to use them for business--what you can and can't do, and how to do it most effectively. This alone takes a huge amount of time—finding the blogs or books or webinars that will give you the information you need, then taking the time each and every day to stay on top of them. Every little thing needs to be researched before it can be implemented, and the whole thing keeps evolving so the learning curve never stops.


2. Selling. Once you’ve acquired the knowledge—an ongoing and time-consuming activity in itself—you’ll be responsible for teaching others inside and outside your organization not only how they work, but why they’re necessary components of the social media strategy. This is even more time-consuming if you work for an association; not only do you have to convince and educate senior management and staff; you also have to convince members that social media is a benefit and worth investing their time in. It’s one thing if your staff and membership are predominantly young and already engaged in social networking; it’s another if none of them have even heard of Twitter or think Facebook is just for teenagers—that can be an uphill, time-consuming battle. After all, if your members aren’t engaged in a blog or social network, what’s the point? Depending on how large your staff and membership are, this can take a lot of time.


3. Coordinating. You also have to factor in the reality that many associations are all about silos—membership does membership, PR does PR, marketing does marketing, etc. Social media is about all these things, yet if these departments don’t even communicate or work together internally, how are you going to present a united message about your organization’s programs or campaigns? And furthermore, who is heading up the social media efforts—is it one person? A team? Whether it’s either of those, it takes time to coordinate internally about messages, methods, goals, etc., not to mention decide who should and shouldn’t be out there sharing the story and what’s ok and not ok as far as doing it. Already have lots of meetings eating up your time? Prepare to lose even more time to meetings to decide about all this stuff.

The bottom line is that, as much time as you think it will take to integrate social media into your organization’s overall communications efforts, prepare for it to end up taking a lot more time than you thought it would. I equate it to reading blogs—you go to read one thing, then click on a link to another, then another, and so on until you realize you’ve eaten up half your day. And don’t forget—once you build it, they will come—and that will lead to even more time investment managing those relationships, press inquiries, etc.

Think Nobody's Reading Your Facebook Status Updates? Think Again.

Nothing like reading an article like this one to make you realize that Big Brother is, indeed, watching your every move online.

News correspondent Olivier Knox was researching a piece about the economic rescue package and paused to update his status on Facebook: "Olivier just counted, and President Bush has pushed the bailout in 12 of the past 13 days." Apparently Mr. Knox has "friends" in high places; deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel among them; Stanzel noticed the comment and left a (tongue apparently in cheek) comment on Knox's personal page, taking him to task for his use of the word "bailout."

Like I blogged before: it's getting awful crowded on Facebook. And that cleanup crew application that I fantasized about? Stay tuned for a post about that, because it apparently does exist.