Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

Okay - here’s how it went. I decided to check in on the Twitter chatter from the Community 2.0 conference going on in Vegas tonight.

1. Checked my Twitter feed.
2. Found a Tweet by @MarshallK about Summize - which allows you to search Twitter for memes.
3. Tested it by Tweeting about Attensa blog post - Attensa didn’t show up in Summize.
4. Was able to post my test results directly to Twitter from Summize - very cool.
5. My second Tweet about Attensa blog post did show up in Summize - okay, I’ll use it.
6. Did a search on #C20 (the Community 2.0 meme) in Summize, found some new folks to follow.
7. Saw a Tweet about @NancyWhite’s beautiful drawings, was curious….
8. Followed one of her links to Flickr to view the drawings
9. Was absolutely blown away.
10. Had to blog about it to share… Sometimes “cocktail party” Twitter is too fleeting…
11. Checked the Creative Commons license to be sure, and can publish a photo here - set for slide show mode and enjoy!

Share This

With the chatter today around Google’s Friend Connect code being announced, there’s a wealth of new optimism for the notion of “open” social networks… where social networks become the fabric of the web, not the “walled gardens” we’re forced to manage separately with different logins, passwords, connections and feeds.

Charlene Li, Forrester Research, blogged of that notion last March, when she projected that this day would come - that technology would open up the networks to share information: “ubiquitous Internet access and the servers to enable real-time social graph access.” You can’t get more ubiquitous than Google giving away social connectedness to any web site for free.

Google’s description of Friend Connect:

Attract more visitors. Visitors bring along friends from social networks like Facebook, orkut, and others to interact on your site.

Enrich your site with social features. Choose engaging social features from a catalog of gadgets provided by Google and the OpenSocial developer community.

No programming whatsoever. Just copy and paste snippets of code into your site, and Google Friend Connect does the rest.

As they opened up the world of web analytics to “the rest of us,” so shall they open up the world of social networks to any organization interested in implementing social networking features. And these are important features like inviting friends to connect, vote and easily share the information already out on millions of web sites. For example, again from Google:

• An academic site - Discuss and review articles in context with colleagues and the broader community. Filter the discussion to colleagues only, or widen your view. Forge connections with new participants whose comments seem particularly insightful.
• A shopping site - Read expert reviews and tips right next to the camera you’re thinking of buying, and find a friend who has already purchased the same item.

(Note: they’re not shipping the code yet, but they are taking preview release participants here.)

How do we get ready for this brave new world? In many ways, both large and small. I’ll tackle the first (large, but simple) step today.

Track your digital reputation.

Old Joke: You shouldn’t Google yourself too often because you’ll go blind…

New Reality: Frankly these days, you’re blind if you don’t Google yourself often.

1) Set up persistent searches so a free RSS reader - like Google on the low end or Attensa on the high end [Attensa offers search of 18 different social networks/search engines] - will keep an eye out for online mentions on the following:

Your name/your company name/your product names… it’s quite simple to do - here’s proof:

2) Once you set up the search, check your results (you can get the feed results delivered into your Outlook inbox from Attensa) at least a couple times a week (if you’re not active in the blogosphere/social network) or more often if you are.

3) You’ll be able to train Attensa (they’re a client of mine) to know the difference between “Janet Johnson, the FL realtor,” “Janet Johnson, the former Congresswoman,” and “Janet Johnson, the marketing strategist” over time.Simply tag, check or delete the results and, depending on the relevancy, Attensa will will learn which instances to serve up first, below:

After all, millions of conversations are going on every moment of every day. More likely than not, some are about you/your company/your products. At that point, you can enter into the conversation and manage your online reputation actively.

Knowledge is power. These tools are free. From this point forward, it’s incumbent that you know…

Share This

I’ve been doing a bit of networking lately, and have received some fascinating feedback as a result:

“I occasionally read your blog to catch up, and rarely understand a word you say; but you sound very, very smart.”

<ouch>

“I’ve seen your blog, and it’s quite a collection of ‘bright and shiny things’ you talk about.”

<guilty as charged>

“I went through your paper, and it’s very, very technical. Who’s your audience?”

<great question!>

These comments have given me pause, and they couldn’t have come at a better time, as I am personally trying to define my own use of social media tools in my business, in order to better clarify their uses for others.

In an effort to do so in public, here’s a stake in the ground:

RSS: Every time I get a new client, I set up a new RSS feed in my Attensa RSS reader to gather news and information about them. (I posted screen shots on SlideShare, in case you like pictures to walk you through how it works.) I also subscribe to a few blogs that I find interesting - and read them within Attensa because it’s more convenient to have one place to go to read and comment on them all.

RSS is like the nervous system of social media - it grabs news from the entire universe and routes it to the brain.

RSS readers are the brains of social media - we train them to understand what we pay attention to, and the smart readers anticipate how to prioritize the information to feed our attention properly.

Blog: I use my blog to personally comment upon things that move me. Whether it be a new tool, a personal experience, or software to help marketers. I agree with Ken, though, that it seems a collection of bright and shiny objects. I’m okay with that, although I think it might be time to mix it up a little more. The danger in blogging is that I seem to be obsessed with, and harp on similar themes; so my posts might become boring for those who subscribe or visit often. But this is my space, so I get to be the medium of “me.”

Blogs are the hearts of social media to me - if I care enough to write about something at length, I’ll blog it. My readers know how I feel about pretty much everything I choose to share. For businesses, blogs can create a glimpse inside your organization and get right to the people who make it work, connecting with their obsessions, thoughts and (yes, even) emotions.

Twitter and other “micro-blogging” tools: I use Twitter to connect with what people are thinking/doing “in the moment.” It fits my “bright and shiny object” proclivity to a tee. Through it, I can check out breaking news, get to know people I work with in a much more casual, personal way, and share thoughts/jump into conversations and engage quickly and directly - right now.

Twitter is like the eyes and ears (maybe all the senses) of social media to me. Blink, turn your head, sneeze and you’ve missed something. But it adds color, depth, taste, and texture to the people, problems and knowledge of those I follow. I tell people in business that teams who are working together should follow each other on Twitter. Especially virtual or geographically diverse teams… they’ll learn more from each other, be more accessible, and get more done with each other as a result.

I ‘d love to hear what others think… as I’ve found this week, it’s most enlightening and helpful to get feedback. It helps focus my thoughts and further define my messages and how I relate them to others.

Which is the true beauty of social media and marketing to me.

Share This

I put up a slideshow on SlideShare last night that shows (rather than tells) screenshots of how easy and powerful a smart RSS reader (like my client Attensa’s) can be to setup and use. (View it in ‘full screen’ mode so you can see the screen shots easily.)

I’ve blogged before about how much my productivity has been enhanced by using it to keep up with news and information about clients.

Thought it might be useful to people to see how easy Attensa’s RSS reader for Mac is to use.

Share This

Over on ReadWrite Web Sarah Perez wrote a compelling post summarizing Forrester’s predictions of Web 2.0 adoption in the enterprise. She gives a great synopsis of the report, and speaks about the barriers to adoption:

“….One of the main challenges of getting Web 2.0 into the enterprise will be getting past the gatekeepers of traditional I.T. Businesses have been showing interest in these new technologies, but, ironically, the interest comes from departments outside of I.T. Instead, it’s the marketing department, R&D, and corporate communications pushing for the adoption of more Web 2.0-like tools.

Unfortunately, as often is the case, the business owners themselves don’t have the knowledge or expertise to make technology purchasing decisions for their company. They rely on I.T. to do so - a department that currently spends 70% of their budget maintaining past investments.

Despite the absolute mission-critical nature of I.T. in today’s business, the department is often provided with slim budgets, which tends to only allow for maintaining current infrastructure, not experimenting with new, unproven technologies.”

And she goes on to say,

“By 2013 Web 2.0 will be a feature, not a product.”

And while I agree with the overall premise of that statement, I agree with Forrester:

By 2013 Web 2.0 will be a fabric, not a phase.

And I think it’s that vision - coupled with fear, not budget constraints - that is precisely what’s holding so many businesses back from Web 2.0 adoption today. Scott Niesen over at Attensa has blogged a leading indicator (to me) of the fear when he said,

“We are working with forward thinking IT professionals [JLJ’s emphasis] who are partnering with business teams to integrate Web 2.0 technologies to enhance existing systems and business processes….”

I agree with Scott that finally enterprise RSS adoption is coming into fruition - but why has it taken us so many years to finally get here?

Why do the folks considering (what James Dellow has called “the DNA” of enterprise communication and collaboration) enterprise RSS today have to be the “forward thinking” ones? Because of fear.

And it’s not the IT folks who are to blame. Many business leaders (in all sizes of organizations) are fearful of Web 2.0.

Why the Fear? Because Web 2.0 Fundamentally Changes Business Rules

Many have written compelling visions of the future of the enterprise under the influence of Web 2.0 technologies. (I still enjoy Sam Lawrence’s “Enterprise Octopus” vision as a succinct roll-up of what happens to a business in a Web 2.0 environment.)

And I believe Hugh Mcleod, in writing his extremely insightful “The Hughtrain” post from 2005 was right:

“: There’s only one thing harder than starting a new business: Re-inventing an old one.”

Hugh’s “Porous Membrane” description (which could look a little like an octopus on it’s side) sums up “why the fear?” to me:

“….So I drew the diagram above.

1. In Cluetrain parlance, we say “markets are conversations”. So the diagram above represents your market, or “The Conversation”. That is demarkated by the outer circle “y”.

2. There is a smaller, inner circle “x”.

3. So the entire market, the “conversation” is seperated into two distinct parts, the inner area “A” and the outer area “B”.

4. Area “A” represents your company, the people supplying the market. We call that “The Internal Conversation”.

5. Area “B” represents the people in the market who are not making, but buying. Otherwise know as the customers. We call that “The External Conversation”.

6. So each market from a corporate point of view has an internal and external conversation. What seperates the two is a membrane, otherwise known as “x”.

7. Every company’s membrane is different, and controlled by a host of different technical and cultural factors.

8. Ideally, you want A and B to be identical as possible, or at least, in sync. The things that A is passionate about, B should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.

9. When A and B are no longer aligned is when the company starts getting into trouble. When A starts saying their gizmo is great and B is telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.

10. So how do you keep misalignment from happening?

11. The answer lies in “x”, the membrane that seperates A from B. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between A and B, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both side of membrane “x” to adjust to the other, to become like the other.

12. And nothing, and I do mean nothing, pokes holes in the membrane better than blogs. You want porous? You got porous. Blogs punch holes in membranes like like it was Swiss cheese.

13. The more porous your membrane (”x”), the easier it is for the internal conversation to inform and align with the external conversation, and vice versa.

14. Not to mention it makes misalignment, if it happens, a lot easier to repair.

15. Of course this begs the question, why have a membrane “x” at all? Why bother with such a hierarchy? But that’s another story.

[AFTERTHOUGHT:] And yes, this works with internal blogs as well, poking holes in the membranes that seperate people within a corporate culture; aligning “the conversation” internally etc. The other advantage of internal blogging is that it organises conversation into a long-term manageable form. Two people sharing ideas via blogs is a lot more permanent, viral and useful for the company than two people sharing the same information over by the watercooler.

[AFTERTHOUGHT:] Poking holes in membranes subverts hierarchies. Avast, ye scurvies etc.”

Avast ye scurvies it is! Let’s subvert the hierarchies, get over the fear of changing the way we do business and let the porous membranes dissolve. Our customers, employees and (I’ll bet money) shareholders will appreciate us for it.

Again, in a succinct summary statement, Martin Koser over on Frogpond said:

“Don’t spend hours pondering the details and splitting hairs - actually use this stuff and find out.”

Share This