Wrangling Social Media Tidbits

There’s so much to blog about, including some leftovers from my trip to New York City to talk about Twitter. Here are some social media tidbits in rapid-fire fashion:

• In case you were wondering about the 140 Characters Conference and my speech about the Oklahoma Twitter community’s use of hashtags and mashups during our ice storms, tornadoes and wildfires, you can watch the whole she-bang right here. I start at about the 1:50 mark.

• Stephanie Smirnov, president of DeVries Public Relations, was in the audience and wrote a nice and flattering blog post about her impressions. High praise for someone like me who is just starting out, in the PR world.

• Updates are happening fast and furiously in the world of Twitter applications. I was able to meet the guys who run Hootsuite, one of my favorite sites for managing multiple accounts. Their new version, which I was lucky enough to get a beta invite to, is even better and is a really good emulation of TweetDeck, but inside the browser. If you don’t use Hootsuite, you should check it out just for the fact that it allows you to time-release Tweets for later posting. A great time saver. Check out Hootsuite here.

• If anyone needs an icebreaker to talk about the power of social media, now is the time. While the Time Magazine cover story gave Twitter buzz, I think what’s happening in Iran gave it bones. The use of social media during these tumultuous past two weeks has shown it is now an indispensable part of anyone’s communication with the world at large. This works for businesses as well as people. Andrew Sullivan’s blog, which is a daily read for me, has done the best job of not only emphasizing this point, but for providing some of the best dispatches via tweet that are coming out of Teheran.

• One of the best moves a company can make before they dive into the deep end of social media is to figure out a policy for how they want their employees to engage with customers online and what, if any, restrictions they want to put on the content of those interactions. Strangely, some of the biggest bumblers in this area have been media companies. The Associated Press is the latest, with their employees’ union crying foul over the fact that the AP wants employees to monitor what their connections are saying on Facebook and delete any comments that might reflect poorly on AP.

Yes, that’s right. If your crazy uncle Earl sends you a message about his awesome weekend of debauchery in Vegas, you could get bounced by the bosses.

To me, that crosses the line. Companies do need policies in place to serve as guidelines and that could prevent crisis, but they only have so much leverage.

Mashable, as always, has great coverage of the story here.

• And if you’re still in the mood to drive up some Oklahoma-based hashtags on Twitter, here’s the latest - #OKHeat.

Changing the game

Speaking and attending the 140 Characters Conference in NYC really opened my eyes and changed the way I looked at things.*
It also happened at a time when things were changing in the world of social media. The expectations are now that social media, and Twitter specifically, will be a part of every big event.
Here's what I wrote in a guest blog for The Journal Record.

FOOTNOTES
* Like Times Square. Did you know they have a really big Walgreen's there? Who knew?

Who does Twitter bring together?

Try this: Harlem rappers, the Israeli Consulate, Al Jazeera, hyperactive rock-and-roll critics, mommy bloggers, a frustrated CNN anchor and a very, very ticked off co-host of the Today Show.

And that was just on the first day here at the 140 Characters Conference, the Twitter Love-In I get to hang out at, in New York City.

While the Twitterati has to wait until Wednesday to learn all about what we’re doing in Oklahoma with our 140 characters, Monday was reserved for one of the greatest panel discussions I’ve ever been lucky enough to witness.

Topic du jour was “Twitter as a news-gathering tool” with Rick Sanchez of CNN, probably the most social media-engaged member of the mainstream television media, along with the Today Show newsie Ann Curry.

Sanchez was there to defend his network against the criticism that bubbled up over the weekend when CNN failed to cover well enough (in the minds of some) the Iranian election.

What eventually got Sanchez and Curry riled up was the inevitable clash between journalism and commerce. Curry was unhappy with the clash between what she and others see as valuable and important coverage – in areas like Darfur – and what areas are doing to cut back costs and providing more of what drives ratings.

Another lively discussion was Sanchez’ defense of his use of social media and how he uses crowdsourcing. While other networks use social media in a trendy and gimmicky way, Sanchez feels like it helps to guide his show and gives him a brain trust that he had always ‘talked to’ instead of ‘talked with.’

"This is the first time that we are going to be able to connect with citizens that we, in the so-called mainstream media, will be able to pay attention to... who could be a reliable source aside from our talking heads… and happy-faced, really pretty anchors,” Sanchez said.

The crisis in journalism aside, he understands that Twitter is key on connections between the media companies which, even though they might not want to be, are driven by profit and their customers.

The users now have some say with what they get from the companies and now, through social media, have a bigger outlet to craft and criticize what gets done.

The power has shifted and Twitter has become a lever that can, with little effort from only a few, move much bigger mountains, even CNN, NBC.

New media, meet Now Media

When I first got the job at Schnake Turnbo Frank | PR, I asked that my title be “New Media Director” instead of “Social Media Director,” just because it sounded broader and could encompass things like videos, pod casts and anything else that may be invented next Thursday.

Maybe I need to come up with something else – “Now Media Director."

That’s what I learned during the morning session of the 140 Characters Conference, where I have been invited to speak about how people in our region are using Twitter.

Through the first part of the day, the conference is incredible. I’ll have some videos up later today at STF |PR’s YouTube page.

Jeff Pulver, who created a little company called Vonage and moved on to invest in some of the top and hottest startups, came up with the 140 Characters Conference (watch the live tweet stream here.) He’s invited Tweeters from all over to talk about how Twitter and its offspring have changed the world.

That’s where we get “Now Media.”

“Search was always about what was recent and what was ancient,” Pulver said. “But now it’s about the now.”

“When you are living in the now, dealing with things in real time, the way you work changes.”

The idea is that Now Media is its own entity now. Real-time information sharing has evolved into something distinct from what TV, newspapers and traditional media are doing.

Look at what’s happening in Iran. People are using Twitter to share vital information and you see the changes as they’re happening.

Pulver was joined in the early session by Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter and Fred Wilson, a top venture capitalist, who talked about how to make money off of the Web.

To Wilson, the key to dollars from social media is passed links. These are shared links (retweets, reads you found interesting) that you get from people you trust. Those links have innate value because they come from people in your “network” of followers, friends, etc.

The big bomb Wilson dropped, based on the trending analytics of the sites he is a part of, was this declaration: "The combined power of Facebook and Twitter will surpass Google in the next year."

That’s a bold statement, but since Twitter is such a more intimate tool than search, encouraging sharing and recommendations, it has the power of people instead of algorithms behind it.

It’s about what you are reading NOW. What you find interesting NOW. And that’s how it’s become more than new media – it’s NOW media.

What are the most valuable words on the Internet?

“Have you seen that …?”

As the true value of social media is debated around the clock, there’s a certainty, when it comes to this phrase. If you can produce something on the Web that can get one cubicle-dweller to lean over to the other and whisper, “Have you seen that …?”, then you are solid gold.

Susan Boyle blossomed out of the “Have you seen that …?” phenomenon. “Saturday Night Live” was resurrected by it. Reality TV depends on it to keep the blood (and cash) pumping.

And little businesses can get big bumps out of it, hooking the social media eyeballs and mouse clicks for a few precious minutes.

We’ve seen performers on the Web who have jumped to the big screen (like SNL’s Andy Samberg and actress Felicia Day). There have been imported TV shows which floated through YouTube only to become primetime in the U.S. (Wipeout, anyone?) and we’ve seen products turn the uncertain commercial tastes of everyone in this economy into strange, but true, profits. (Just ask the geniuses behind the Snugglie.)

So what does it all mean? Are there any real ways that a biz hungry for customers can make the “Have you seen that…?” magic happen?

Well, it helps to be lucky, creative or plain crazy.

You can’t predict things like the Keyboard Cat or Dramatic Hamster. Those videos just happen. Same goes for the eccentric successes of Tay Zonday or iJustine.

But the Web rewards uniqueness, creativity and great stories. That’s as much of a secret formula as there is.

“Have you seen that …?” doesn’t happen when someone sets out a sign on the sidewalk with hopes people will walk into their real (or virtual store).

“Have you seen that …?” grabs you and doesn’t let go.

Is Bing the next big thing?

May 28, 2009 may end up being an historic day in the life of the Internet.

Two products were released last Thursday. The first, Google Wave, is not quite out of the lab yet but could change the face of the Internet. The other, Microsoft’s Bing search engine, is ready to try to be a giant killer.

Either one could turn the world of the Web upside down.

And it’s not hard for me to expect that it’ll be Google.

Microsoft has found itself in such a strange position these last few years, getting battered on two sides, by Google and its dominance of the search world and Apple and its dominance of the hipster-world of well-designed hardware.

Bill Gates may be one of the richest people on the planet, but his company can’t catch a break. It’s tried and epically failed to knock off its competitors (the Mircosoft Zune, anyone?) but still manages to look like a lumbering, clueless giant, only good for blue screen of death and bad hardware.

With Bing, Microsoft has once again tried to enter the search game and knock off Google’s huge market share. But what I think Bing misses is that search, itself, is changing.

While I may be among the narrow niche of Web users in our fair state (See here), since I use Google’s Chrome browser and am on the Internet for about 18 hours a day, I can’t remember the last time I went to Google’s actual search page. With Chrome and Firefox, you can just search from your browser’s address bar. In Chrome, the specific site you are looking for usually pops right up, eliminating the middle man.


Bing claims to be a Google tamer, but how exactly it’s going to do that is still a little fuzzy. Its results are still very similar (if not identical) to what you would get from Microsoft’s Live.com search a few weeks ago. Its splash page looks nice and has some great photos, and there are some related searches, and sub-dividing of results, but nothing that blows the doors off Google.

Perhaps Bing has some killer app out there, but Google continues to improve and tweak its dominant search engine, so why should anyone move away from that if they really want to find something they want online.

Google is, after all, an innovation machine. It’s not just search that Microsoft has to compete with, but Maps, Gmail, Docs and all of the other applications that have become S.O.P. for the Web savvy.

Which brings me to Google Wave: Google Wave also debuted Thursday as part of Google’s big I/O conference. I’m sure the timing coinciding with Bing was no coincidence, but no matter what day it was unveiled, Wave would have been the Next Big Thing.

Wave is hard to describe – it’s a cooperative communications tools which has features like a Wiki, an e-mail service and Twitter all rolled into one. You can embed it, work through the threads and share your work, photos and whatnot by dragging and dropping them into a conversation. It’s hard to describe, but equal parts Twitter, e-mail and awesome. More on Wave here.

As a leader in its business, Google has the luxury of innovation. But the company also knows that the Web is changing so quickly that only innovation – and not imitation – will keep it on top of its game.

So, unlike Microsoft, Google’s big announcement last week was not about a desperate lunge at a slice of the consumer pie, but a move into the next step of evolving communication on the Web.

It seems like history is more likely to reward that move, than the other.