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Is this the future of Facebook business pages?

2011-09-30T16:34:30Z

Recently, Facebook debuted a new "Timeline" approach to user profiles, which many early adopters have already started using for fun and experimentation. But here's the real question: If the timeline format kicks in for all users, will business pages be far behind?

If the past is any indication, Facebook is fond of uniformity. New formatting changes typically apply to users first, then gradually roll out to businesses. We're even seeing that this week, as Facebook quietly enabled larger photos and galleries on business pages, about two weeks after giving them to users.

Here's an example of the photo change, which our client pages just received this morning:

With such features already being activated for business, it's clearly worth discussing the biggest user change in the works: Timeline.

The new user profile format, currently in beta, uses the full width of your screen to display your updates, photos and conversations in chronological order, with a timeline running down the middle and a related navigation by year off to the far right.

The goal is to turn your profile into a sort of real-time autobiography. You can even go back and add events or comments to the past. Here's a nice video overview from Facebook:

It's like public journaling. Or better yet, it's more like public scrapbooking, with pictures, video, links and coversation. It seems like a lot to deal with, especially when I think about filling in the gaps from years 1986 to 2005. But then again, I once swore I would never upload an photo album to Facebook. Well, 23 albums later, you can label me a liar.

So is Timeline coming to a business page near you? Our colleague Will Flowers mocked up the Luckie timeline you see at the top of this post, and we'd say it looks about right. But there are still several waypoints between here and there.

First Timeline will obviously have to come out of beta, which it is almost certain to do. This beta period was essentially just created for developers to play around with the new format and see how their apps will or won't work within the new environment.

But then there's the question of whether Timeline is the right format for a business. Does a company need a scrapbook? An autobiography? Most consumers, who just want coupons, exclusives and freebies, would probably say no.

But Timeline does show a dramatic shift in how a Facebook page can be formatted. It's modular. And modular means it can be customized. A modular layout for pages could mean an end to tab applications, or at least a complete overhaul of how tabs are used.

For now, we'll keep experimenting and watching as new features continue to evolve. We're curious to hear your predictions, so please be sure to share them in the comments.

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

How To Guarantee ROI On Your Biggest Business Investment

2011-05-23T13:30:19Z

This is a guest post from Leon Noone.

How valuable is your biggest single business investment? What return are you getting on that investment? You need to know. Return on investment – ROI – is a perfectly reasonable management expectation. That includes investment in people.

ROI And Your Laptop

Let’s say you want to buy a new laptop: top of the range. You’re prepared to spend up to $1500. At that price wouldn’t you make sure it had all the bells and whistles you wanted and expected before you parted with your hard-earned? After all, $1500 is a significant figure. You’d expect a clear return on your investment.

ROI and New Investment

What would you say to a manager who said, “Boss, I want to spend $50,000 a year on a new machine. And I want you to commit a further $50,000 a year in maintenance costs to keep the machine running. Incidentally, I can’t guarantee that we’ll get any ROI, or even break even. Even if the new machine works very well, we’ll still need that $50,000 a year to keep it going.” Well: what would you say?

The Other Machine

A laptop is a machine. It’s a resource you need for better business results. We also have a special name for the $50,000 a year machine that the manager’s asking for. We call it “employee”. And it often costs much more than $50,000 a year to maintain.

The ROI Contradiction

It’s interesting. We spend a one-off $1500 on a laptop and expect it to perform admirably without further investment. We spend $50,000 annually merely to keep an employee. What ROI do we expect from that investment?

ROI And the Employee Resource

Permit me to make position clear. Work is not a “love-in”. Every resource you use, whether a machine or something else, should make a measurable contribution to business success. Employees are a resource. Therefore ….ROI is essential for what you invest in employees. But the “machine” resource and the “employee” resource aren’t quite the same.

Machine Expectations

Your new machine is inert. It wants nothing from you. Install it properly. Look after it well. It’ll do what you expect …. perhaps a little more with careful attention and care. And you expect a good ROI from it.

Employee Expectations

The employee resource is different. It has emotions, opinions, expectations, ambitions, values. It has responsibilities outside of the workplace. It’s easily distracted. You can’t just plug it in, switch it on, let it run and wipe it down if it looks a bit tired. That’s not enough.

But it’s still one of the most expensive investments you’ll ever make. All up, total employee costs are one of the biggest – if not the biggest – single expense in your business. It’s essential that you get your ROI.

Some Tips For Employee ROI

Decide exactly what results you expect from each employee.
Tell each employee exactly what you expect.
Decide, together with the employee, how you’ll measure whether the employee has achieved the expected results.
Set performance standards so that employees can tell, daily – yes daily – “how they’re going”.
Put systems in place to enable employees to implement the performance standards perfectly.
Provide resources to enable employees to operate the systems.
Reward successful employees as well as you possibly can.
Let them get on with giving you what you want.
Once they achieve the results and meet the standards, give them the autonomy and independence necessary to continue to do so.

Why Bother?

Employing people is a huge investment. You owe it to everyone involved to get a good return. But there’s another, equally good reason.

Employees need to know that they’re making a positive and effective contribution to business success. They also need you to acknowledge that contribution. Finally, they need to be satisfied that their contribution is well rewarded.

The Major ROI Benefit

The real benefit is that it enhances employee self esteem and professional competence. It provides great, to use an old expression, “job satisfaction”. It enables employees solid opportunities for genuine self development. These are positive consequences of this ROI approach.

The Major Payoff

Bear this in mind. If, like most managers, you’re always looking for more time to “manage the business”, you’ll only get it when you develop “perfect employees”. That’s what this ROI approach will give you. You, the manager, are a major beneficiary.

Conclusion

It sounds simple. It can be demanding. But it’s much less complicated than some of the gurus would have you believe.

About the Author: Leon Noone helps managers in small-medium business to improve on-job staff performance without training courses. His ideas are quite unconventional. Read his free Special Report “49 Practical Tips for Removing Employee Apathy, Aggravation And Resistance In Your Business”. Simply visit www.staffperformancesecrets.com/ and download your free copy now.

How To Guarantee ROI On Your Biggest Business Investment originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog - The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license.

Social Media Contingency Planning: The Operational Plan

2011-05-12T10:00:52Z

Much has been written about how social media can help companies or entities communicate during a crisis, or how national events such as Egypt’s uprising have been influenced by or even started through social media activity. But what if a disaster, natural or man-made, struck your company, building, city or country? Do you have a contingency plan for how your social media would actually operate? Nearly 80% of companies worldwide feel they are unprepared for a social media crisis. Don’t be in this majority; determine if your company is ready by considering the following.

Give Multiple People Access to Your Social Accounts

Heidi Cohen makes a very compelling case for having a “social media backup” or two who can jump in and manage your social media in an emergency. She envisions a social media manager up and quitting, but what if your social media manager was on the wrong side of town when a natural disaster struck, and he or she could not access your accounts? Even if your backups rarely tweet or post for you, make sure they do it occasionally to keep up their skills, as platforms and tools change frequently. And be sure that at least a few people have actual account passwords for your social presences, not just access through HootSuite or their smartphone, in case connectivity is limited and they have to post in an “old-fashioned” way.

Plan for Lack of Communication on Your Team

Imagine that your office has been evacuated. Let’s hope it’s a simple thing, like a water main break, and not something more scary, but nonetheless, you and your team have been rushed out of the building and you’re not all in one place. Who’s in charge of social now? Maybe you have one person who usually does it, but they’re a lower-level person and unsure of what to do. Or you have a team who manage your channels, and you can no longer figure out how to tweet and post without stepping on each other’s toes. Now is the time to establish a social media “pecking order” – and be sure that the people who you think may want to speak for the company in a crisis either have access to social media platforms themselves, or access (cell phone, home email address, etc.) to the people who can get the word out using your social presences.

Parallel Your Traditional Crisis Plan in Social Media

It’s very possible that your company already has a traditional crisis communications plan. Dust off that plan and look at it with an eye towards social. Do you have a standard set of messages your company wants to use in a crisis? Write social-friendly versions that fit in 140 characters or that are appropriate for Facebook or your blog. If you have community partnerships already in place (like Red Cross or your local school), consider whether you can leverage those relationships via social media in a crisis; perhaps you can amplify each others’ messages. And, as above, know what your social media communications hierarchy should be, because it’s unlikely that you’ll want the intern tweeting through a bad time.

Plan For Ongoing Updates

If you’ve done social media well up to this point, you have a loyal following and they may think of your brand as a friend. Friends worry about friends, and your customers and fans could be worried about your company if they know you’re in the midst of a crisis. Even after the initial danger has passed, don’t forget to continually update your presences to keep the channel open, or else your friends will either think the worst, or fill in with their own rumors and speculation. This could be especially important if your crisis happens on a Friday or weekend – keep posting even when you might not normally, so that people can see you’re okay. Unless, of course, you’re not….

If It’s Monumentally Serious

God forbid something really bad happens, and your company determines it’s not appropriate to say much of anything. After September 11, it took a couple of days for many companies to turn off their billboards in Times Square or replace them with messaging that wasn’t the latest beer ad. In today’s immediate, tweet-as-it-happens environment, two days would be too late – if you failed to change your tone or messaging almost immediately, your Facebook wall could be covered in negative sentiment disparaging your brand for not responding appropriately. Consider what happened with BP during the oil spill; while they updated their accounts, they were not engaging at all and left the door open for others to parody their efforts, resulting in increased damage to the brand. So first turn off any pre-scheduled messages in your social queue, and then say something about the crisis, and make it authentic and sincere. Then, if it’s the right thing to do, make it clear that you’re not going to say anything else until your employees are safe. Or your community is secured. Or an appropriate period of mourning has passed. Whatever it is, be smart: just like they taught you in those grammar school tornado drills, a clear head and common sense will be the most help in this situation.

Does your company have a social media crisis contingency plan? There really isn’t that much written on this specific topic yet, so please point us to your plan, if it’s public, or give us your thoughts in the comments.

image courtesy of Shutterstock

Related articles

Is your crisis communications plan anti-social? (pouncenow.com)
5 ways to contain a crisis through social media (blog.marketwire.com)
Crisis Communications Steps for the Social Media Era (kilgannonsays.wordpress.com)

Who is making you uncomfortable?

2011-05-12T09:13:00Z

Who looks you in the eye and says, "given your skills, you could do better..."

"You have enough leverage to really make a difference."

"What would happen if you doubled the amount you donated?"

"Could you set aside the fear and go faster?"

"I know you're holding back..."

It takes love and kindness and confidence to bring the truth to a friend you care about. If you're insulating yourself from these conversations, who benefits?

Why You Should Think Twice About Opting-In to the Delicious-AVOS Transfer (Violet Blue/Pulp Tech Blog)

2011-04-30T00:50:00Z

Violet Blue / Pulp Tech Blog:
Why You Should Think Twice About Opting-In to the Delicious-AVOS Transfer — It takes “only 30 seconds” to transfer your Delicious bookmarks to its new owner AVOS, though few are aware that Delicious users are signing up to a vastly different set of terms. — Most people are unaware of what they just agreed to.

The scorecard on royal wedding internet traffic (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

2011-04-30T02:45:07Z

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
The scorecard on royal wedding internet traffic — The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton generated traffic records as millions upon millions watched the live video on the internet. — Keynote Systems, a mobile and internet cloud monitoring service, said most news web sites held up pretty well.

Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)

2011-04-30T04:30:08Z

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages — Ah, class action lawsuits in action. If you want an idea of how the class action lawsuit process is often used for completely ridiculous purposes, just take a look …

Blue Angels at Sun n Fun Fly-In

2011-04-03T01:18:47Z

Earlier today the Navy’s Blue Angels performed at the Sun n Fun Fly-In. Great show.

UberMedia, Indeed. Bill Gross' Twitter Ecosystem Empire Just Acquired TweetDeck (MG Siegler/TechCrunch)

2011-02-12T02:25:03Z

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
UberMedia, Indeed. Bill Gross' Twitter Ecosystem Empire Just Acquired TweetDeck — The number of companies in the Twitter ecosystem keeps contracting. But not for a necessarily bad reason, but because they keep getting purchased. And what's crazy is that it's largely one person who has been buying them up: Bill Gross.

New York Times weighs in on crisis PR–will the hypocrisy never end?

2010-08-23T17:51:04Z

First it was the Washington Post who declared that the high-priced crisis PR folks were out of their league when it came to crises like BP, Toyota and Goldman Sachs. I gave my opinion about that bit of silly reporting earlier. But the article this weekend in New York Times really takes the cake.The overall message seems to be that the reputation problems that BP, Toyota and Goldman all now presumably share were if not fully preventable by more competent PR, they certainly wouldn’t be in as bad a shape as they are. (Again, full disclosure, I count both BP and the US Coast Guard among my valued clients.)

As “evidence” of BP’s bad reputation the NYT’s reporter Peter S. Goodman provides an egregious but typical example of the kind of reporting done by Rolling Stone referring here to Goldman: “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Let’s see, what kind of invectives might this kind of reporter use against BP: “A giant radioactive death cloud dripping oil and toxins on innocent families below, skillfully and malevolently directed by a foreign cabal intent on sucking the very life blood out of the American way of life.”

Let me ask you, how would your reputation hold up to that kind of treatment? What if every newspaper and TV station in the land were clambering over each other, competing to see how bad they could make it to attract the biggest possible audiences to get the ratings that would let them charge their exorbitant advertising rates? And how would your reputation withstand the withering attacks of politicians like the representative from Massachusetts who see an opportunity to lead the parade of public outrage by heaping on scorn and new legislation? And what if the holder of the highest office of the land, intent on protecting his electoral future, makes certain that the news media blame game is focused on the “Responsible Party” rather than the government?

My point is this: It is the news media today, operating in a hyper competitive environment, that is one of the most important factors in the damage to reputations we see. For them to observe as both DeBord in the Washington Post and Goodman in the New York Times have done that the “spin” of public relations professionals has failed these organizations is hypocritical and ludicrous. It is a little like a guy standing next to a train track in the aftermath of a horrific head-on collision saying, someone could have prevented this, when he has just pulled the lever that put the trains on collision course.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming the news media for the mess of BP, Toyota or Goldman. In fact it is my firm belief as I have previously stated, that some events are beyond PR. As my colleague Tim O’Leary says, there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig. When you spill a few thousand or hundred million gallons of oil in the Gulf or practically anywhere, and you can’t stop it for months while the public looks over your shoulder, that is a mighty ugly pig. The best PR in the world is not going to fix it.

And don’t get me wrong about there being no mistakes. Of course BP made mistakes. Nothing like the mistake that led to the explosion and spill and then the “mistake” of not preparing better to contain an event that exceeded their worst case scenario planning. But the focus on the statements like “I want my life back” is just ludicrous, as if Tony Hayward singularly caused the reputation crash of BP by casually making himself the victim. Give the guy a break. If you had cameras stuck on you 24/7 in the worst days of your life, would you say something stupid too Mr. Goodman? BP’s public relations team and advisors made a mistake in allowing Mr. Hayward to be accessible 24/7 which enabled him to say things that minimized the spill or conveyed that he too wanted the spill done with. But, here’s the dilemma–if they hadn’t they (the media) would complain about the absent CEO, if they allowed it, which they did or he insisted, they run the risk of making a comment that the media will use to hang him and the company with.

I find the comments of Mr. Rubenstein referring to BP particularly troublesome: “It was one of the worst P.R. approaches that I’ve seen in my 56 years of business,” says Mr. Rubenstein. “They tried to be opaque. They had every excuse in the book. Right away they should have accepted responsibility and recognized what a disaster they faced. They basically thought they could spin their way out of catastrophe. It doesn’t work that way.” Mr. Rubenstein’s problem is that he’s been reading the New York Times to get his news. He should have been looking at what BP and the coordinated response was doing and saying rather than letting the media “spin” the story for him. From the very beginning BP accepted responsibility, said it was their spill, said they would compensate all legitimate claims, said they would do all they could to stop it, said they would communicate. They did.

As evidence of opaque communication two examples are continually provided: the inaccurate initial spill volume estimate and the fact that in front of Congress BP indicated they were not the only ones to blame. Giving the initial estimate was a mistake–it was a mistake not just made by BP but by Unified Command. Remember, that number was provided by the Federal On-Scene Coordinator speaking for the government and all agencies. The number no doubt came from BP. It was the best estimate they had at the time and it was wrong. What Doug Suttles said later as reported in the Times-Picayune was that what he said when he provided that number was that the number didn’t matter because they were treating the spill as if the volume was unlimited. In other words, there was no scaling of response to the estimated volume. It was all hands on deck to get it stopped with nothing held back and every bit of oil clean up equipment possible was called on. What he should have said when pressed for a number–and here is the lesson for crisis communications in the future–is similar to what Mayor Giuliani said when pressed for an estimate of those killed on 9/11 when the buildings were still falling. Suttles should have said, “We don’t know, we can’t know for certain, but whatever it is is, it is more than we can bear.”

Now, if he said that, what would the media (and Mr. Rubenstein) have said? “You’re being opaque, you’re hiding information, your trying to minimize.” The fact is the response leaders including all gov agencies required an estimate, BP provided their best based on the info they had, Unified Command communicated that to the world, and in the media spin that followed it simply proved how inept and evil BP really was and is.

The other complaint is that BP tried to duck blame. Evidence for this is their testimony to Congress. I challenge you to show me one public statement that BP ever made disowning their responsibility for this event. The truth is that in an event like this there are undoubtedly many complex causes–it is not one single failure. They will be able to point to a whole number of things that if someone had chosen to do something different, the outcome would have changed. If the valve controlling the ram that would pincer off the riser had been manufactured better, or designed better. If a third or fourth or fifth backup emergency shutoff system had been put in place. If alarms had been handled differently, if, if, if. There are more companies involved than BP and more people involved than work for BP. That is the truth. It will take the next 10 years to determine all the liability and where it falls. It would be stupid for BP to hand over to the lawyers of those who also may be liable all the fodder they need to make an open and shut case. So while BP has clearly accepted responsibility and is focusing on cleaning it up, they also have to keep in mind that the courts will make a final determination on cause. An intelligent, responsible media would point this dilemma and problem out. But such nuanced reporting doesn’t create compelling headlines needed to get eyes on the page and advertising rates up.

Once again, I am in agreement with Eric Dezenhall, even though I think the reporter seemed to miss his point. Dezenall said in the NYT article: “The two things that are very hard to survive are hypocrisy and ridicule,” Mr. Dezenhall says. “It’s the height of arrogance to assume that in the middle of a crisis the public yearns for chestnuts of wisdom from people they want to kill. The goal is not to get people not to hate them. It’s to get people to hate them less.”

The public–in a very broad generalization–hates BP. But they hate Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Citgo and all the rest. These companies and the people who run them are the poster children for planet despoilers. They are fouling our atmosphere, causing global warming, forcing us to buy SUVs to take them to the next protest rally. The public’s hypocrisy in their animosity to these companies is of course too obvious to comment on. I have complained for years at the terrible job the oil industry has done in addressing this public sentiment. But when you do something like spill an almost endless amount of oil into a body of water terribly important to fish and people, it is not going to make people like you or the industry any better. When you add the kind of coverage we have seen on this spill–coverage based on competition for eyes–it heaps on the outrage.

So what does this mean for crisis communication of the future?

I’ll repeat my old mantra: Trust is based on two things–do the right things and communicate about them well.

BP did the wrong thing by whatever they did to contribute to this event happening. That is done. What they can do now that they have finally stopped the leak, is continue to do all they can to clean it up and make it right with the people they have harmed. They are doing that and I’m confident they will continue to do that. And they need to communicate well. They need to make certain the world and the American people know what they are doing. In communicating that, they have some very significant obstacles–the media and the politicians who use the media for their own agendas. In my mind (and since I do some work for them I have so advised them) they need to be much, much more agresssive in challenging the kind of coverage that we have seen. They need to correct the facts and mis-information, and challenge the spin that media reports put on the bare facts of this response.

Will it end their reputation problems? Heck no. At best what they can look for is earning the respect of the millions of people in the Gulf that they are working with closely day to day. From that almost one-on-one trust and relationship building, the world will begin to see that there are good people here, doing their best to make things right.

Communicating well in this era of hyper-competitive major news outlets is increasingly going direct with your message. When BP began to advertise nationally that the public could get information directly from the deepwaterhorizonresponse.com website, it was a smart thing to do. It doubled the website traffic overnight. It was smart because people going direct for information had a different view than those who only got their info from the media. However, the value of this was minimized for BP when the Unified Command communication’s became a platform for White House talking points and the primary talking point was that BP was only doing what they were doing because of a boot on their neck.

Crisis communication of the future is going to be increasingly technology-driven and increasingly direct. The event website, social media channels, live video feeds, 24/7 “broadcasting” from the response will be the primary means by which the public gets its information. Sure, bloggers will spin the information according to their agendas and all news outlets will be recognized as the same as bloggers. The communicators for the response will not allow rumors, misinformation, Rolling Stone-type hyperbole to go unchallenged. The communication channels provided by the responders will be a place of lively public debate about the truth. And those providing the information will be committed above all to credibility, to being believed, to provided the unvarnished truth regardless of its damage to them. The news outlets, desperately fighting for audiences, will have a hard time creating salacious headlines in that kind of truth-filled environment.

Textbook Content Marketing on SlideShare

2010-07-20T11:00:00Z

If you're not familiar with this online network, you might want to take a look. Just to give you an idea of its actual reach, the slide deck you see in the snapshot I took of the home page two days ago, depicts the site's choice of highlighting my short deck with quotes on influence.

I was logged in, and you can see the new feature that shows community reactions to my decks on the right hand side, which is new. The deck was featured above the fold and garnered 714 views by late Saturday afternoon, a few short hours since it was posted there. It had 1,084 by the time it was lowered on the home page Sunday.

We love stories, and a good slide deck is a calling card to spread ideas.

Content ideas that are all business

Make it an event

create short and concise decks to go with your press releases or articles
use small slide decks as an invitation to participate to an event
search for an find other, like-minded companies or individuals and comment on their slides
synchronize audio to visuals for a follow up deck after an event

These are low tech ideas to extend and anticipate events so that the people who cannot attend may still get a taste of the content. They also help you bridge online and off line experience -- useful reminders for participants. For an example, see the slides I created about this year's SxSW interactive.

You can still provide deeper content for conversion.

Say the event is a Webinar, use some of the ideas to provide added value to participants by including the best questions in a follow up Q&A. Or it could be an event where you hope to drum up attendance. Last year, I used a deck to convey why a panel proposed for SxSW would be helpful, complete with call to action link at the end.

Share the research

develop a visually compelling deck of the results of your research
translate the data into information graphically
complement research results with compelling commentary -- for example, add qualitative information to quantitative research
compare competitive data and facts by industry, or geography to appeal to customer segments

Infographics are all the rage these days. Good visualizations take into account scale, context, and fair comparisons. Decide what's your point of view and organize to tell the story visually. Here's a really good presentation deck about when data gets up close and personal where the author walks the talk.

Pay it forward

collect smart quotes from your industry around a topic
celebrate the achievement of a thinker, an athlete, a humanitarian
flesh out a problem that ails your field in collaboration with other businesses
present a time line of achievements for an industry, a cause, a project

For an example of quotes on marketing, see the deck I created in 2009. It has gotten the most views of all slides I posted to the network to date. It pays to be altruistic.

Play it back

present customer testimonials as quotes for a product or service
show customers daily lives and how they use your product (even better)
develop a success story visually, defining the problem or challenge, and how the customer went about solving it with you
run a contest with final deck depicting the top 5 entries

Writing it down stabilizes information. Playing it back visually is a smart way to reinforce it and help you win referrals.

My personal presentations are mostly visuals. However, at work, I have used many of the techniques I suggest in this post. Research data does very well, as do cases studies and Webinar follow up content.

Where to use these assets

You can post PDF reports and videos to SlideShare as well. The network offers you the option to enroll in LeadShare -- see how it compares to the performance of Webinars and white papers. Even as you explore that option, there are many things you can do to optimize the use of your decks. For example:

post them to your company blog to complement a topic
use the SlideShare application to showcase your decks on your LinkedIn profile
provide the link to your deck to follow up emails and newsletters with a special code to track how many view the slides from each communication piece

Compete.com puts the site slightly over 1.7MM unique visitors, traffic on par with that of Delicious, still according to Compete. SlideShare publishes its traffic at 29MM monthly visitors, and 80MM page views.

A focus on usefulness to your customers and goals together with integrated marketing get your material found and get you results.

I even used the site when in need of adding visuals to an impromptu business meeting. What are some of the ways you have used SlideShare successfully?

This post is part of a series where we talk about blogging at work if you don't have a blog.

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How To Be The Ultimate Road Warrior

2010-06-13T18:44:45Z

If you have seen the movie, Up In The Air, you'll note that there is an art form in business travel.

So much so, that the art of business travel has taken on a life of its own. It's not just a blockbuster movie with George Clooney. It's becoming a cultural way of being. It turns out that the more connected we are, the more inclined we are to make those connections in our protein forms as well. Another indication of this interest comes from Chris Brogan (best-selling business book author of Social Media 101 and co-author with Julien Smith of Trust Agents). A few weeks back, Brogan launched his latest project: a new travel Blog for business professionals titled, Man On The Go. Two days ago, he had a video Blog post entitled, Travel Tips For Air Travel (which you can view below). As someone who has already clocked clocked close to 90,000 air miles in 2010 alone, I thought I would add some additional tips.

How to be the ultimate road warrior:

Get a Nexus card. If you travel across the border, one of these cards can save you a ton of time (and they are worth every penny). Instead of waiting in line at customs, you zip through by being pre-screened (prior to getting the card), and all you do is answer a few questions and do a retinal scan on a terminal (no more custom officials). On top of that, they are now offering a VIP security line domestically for those who have a Nexus card (bonus!).
Never check luggage. Unless you really, really have to. The way to avoid checking luggage is to get a great carry-on (like The Eagle Creek Tarmac 22 - more on that here: What A Social Media Case Study Can Look Like). Some carry-on tips include: making sure that the bag (when it's empty) is super-light (the better ones are between 5.5 - 7.5 lbs) and learn how to really pack (make sure to buy some Eagle Creek Pack-It Folders). If you're not sure how to pack a ton of clothes into one of these carry-ons, watch the video in the, What A Social Media Case Study Can Look Like, link above. Not only does this save you time at both check-in and when you arrive at your destination, but if you ever want to switch a flight, it's much easier when you have all of your belongings with you (and nothing checked). I can do 9-10 days of business travel with a 22-inch carry-on.
Always sign-up to a loyalty program. And, stick to one (if you can). The more points you acquire (which are great to use for family vacations), the more status you get as well. The more status you get, the more likely you will be able to get upgraded on your seats, switch flights and get on an earlier flight if yours gets cancelled. Overall, collecting points is less about the free travel and much more about the status and access. Loyalty also gives you access to VIP lounges and some airports even have security and check-in lines dedicated to members with loyalty.
Get on the flight first. Many road warriors wait until the last minute to board the plane. It's a mistake. Loyalty usually entitles you to board first. Not only do you have more time to get settled before the masses cram the aisles, but if you're never checking baggage (see above), this also ensures that you'll have a place in the overhead bins and not get stuck having to gate check your carry-on (which is a sure way for the airline to get it lost).
Always check-in online. Not only will this save you time at the airport, but you can also choose your seat in advance. If you're not sure which seats on the flight are best, check out Seat Guru. It's also better for the environment (especially if you're checking in with a mobile device)
Become the Digital Road Warrior. With iPhone apps like TripIt and FlightTrack Pro, I'm usually more "in the loop" than the gate attendant about whether or not the flight will be delayed or how full/how many seats are available. The amount of data and information that these apps provide (including how often the flight you're on is late, and where the plane you are about to take is coming from and its status) is super-empowering. In fact, I'll do a follow-up Blog post on the ultimate iPhone apps for the road warrior.
Bring too much work with you. Flights get delayed. Flights get cancelled. Wi-fi can super-expensive. Bring your laptop, iPad, mobile internet access and tons to read. Take a deep breath and focus on what's coming ahead. When a flight gets delayed or cancelled, I usually ask myself this question: "what would I be doing if I were not on this plane?" The answer is usually, working on my laptop, sleeping or consuming some form of content for entertainment (books, magazines, movies, etc...). There's no reason why I can't do any of that on a plane, in the lounge, in a hotel room or at the gate.

What business travel tips do you have/can you add?

Tags: air miles airline book business book business travel business travel blog carry-on luggage chris brogan digital road warrior eagle creek eagle creek pack-it folders eagle creek tarmac 22 flighttrack pro george clooney ipad iphone iphone app julien smith laptop loyalty program luggage magazine man on the go mobile internet access newspaper nexus card online check-in packing tips read road warrior seat guru social media 101 travel travel blog travel tips travel tips for air travel tripit trust agents up in the air

The Numbers Game

2010-06-05T17:40:21Z

Is it ok to change your mind about something you really believe in?

For years I've been telling brands that it's no longer all about how many people you put your marketing messages in front of. What's important - especially when dealing with Digital Marketing and Social Media - is who you are putting your message in front of. Enough people are posting and exchanging information online that there's no need to "spray and pray" your marketing message. You can finally listen to the myriad of conversations and questions online and be active within that river of chitter chatter.

It seems perfectly logical, but it's not the whole story. Numbers do, indeed, matter.

Here's why: the only way to find the right people that you need to connect to is by spreading your message far enough and wide enough that your ideas do catch on with an audience. Social Media is perfect for that, specific, action: to spread ideas. You can have a thought and publish it in text, audio, images and videos instantly (and for free) to the global online population, but for that idea to get any semblance of traction, you are going to have to wave your hands at a pretty frenetic pace. Even the great ideas take time to spread, and what really makes them spread is the amount of people who then take idea and kick it around their circle of influence.

As always, everything is "with" not "instead of."

Using Digital Marketing and Social Media to get your ideas to spread is going to require a tender balance of both quality and quantity. The ideas and concepts brought forward on this Blog spread dependant on the current size and state of the audience and the community it serves. Anybody can pump out content, but it takes quality content to get the attention of the "right people" and enough of those "right people" to give it any semblance of attention and push it towards some kind of tipping point.

The point is not to get your message out to a small group of people, but to the right people.

There is a mass audience within every niche. It's important to remember that. Whatever niche you serve, there is (usually) enough of an audience (or even consumer base) to justify the business. The real trick of marketing is to figure out the balance of that marketing mix, channels and platforms. Success will (probably) come for those who can equalize the ides and stories that they want to share and connect with by also figuring out how to get that message to enough people that matter (i.e. spreading it far and wide).

It turns out that Marketing - in the end - is, was, and will probably always be a numbers game as well (whether we like it or not).

Tags: attention channels content conversations digital marketing ideas that spread marketing marketing message mass media numbers game online population platforms publishing quality quantity social media tipping point

New Travel Site – Man on the Go

2010-06-06T22:45:01Z

Shared by Dave Fleet
Curious to see how much Chris will need to leverage his existing audiences to build this site, or if he'll be able to build it "from scratch"

Some of you know I travel often. After thinking about it a while, I realized that I had lots of information to share with people about gear, hotels, restaurants, venues, and more. So, with that in mind, I’m soft launching Man on the Go, a travel site covering reviews of products, places, and experiences (mostly with the business traveler in mind).

There are many reasons why I’m launching this. I’m using it as a teaching project, to show people how to build sites to help them achieve escape velocity. I’ll be building the results into a new course I’ll be launching shortly, so that you can see my failures and successes as they progress. How can I talk about it without doing it.

Another reason is that I am building out the media capabilities of my new company. It won’t just be a “Chris Brogan” project, but rather, a project that my new company maintains. Because my new company focuses on media and education, this is a great project to use to flesh out those experiences.

Finally, it’s a way to make use of all the travel material I seem to do. I’m on the road a lot. Why not make some value out of it by sharing what works for me and what doesn’t? As time goes on, you’ll see more hotel tours, more interviews with restauranteurs, more travel tips and ideas, and whatever else evolves.

The Design

The site was designed by the team at 9seeds. John Hawkins and I had a beer or two in Las Vegas, and I knew immediately that I wanted to work with his team. They don’t just do WordPress work; they do all kinds of back end PHP design. They’re not artists, which is why I hired someone for logo design.

The logo was designed by Craig Lee, who I met over at 99designs.com. I liked how he interpreted my idea, and I think this is a great iteration of his work. I have two other variant logos, but will keep this one for a while.

The theme is called Press75 Video Elements, a premium theme dedicated to video. It’s been weird using a non-Thesis theme (as I’ve been using Thesis for quite a while), but I’m getting used to it, and I love how it presents video.

Stop By and Visit

If you’re into business travel, take a glance at Man on the Go and let me know what you think. And if not, keep your eyes peeled for the other related announcements.

PR + Customer Service Merger Accelerating

2010-05-13T15:34:51Z

About a year ago, I posted this graphic about “The Next 50 Years of Public Relations.”

At that point, my focus was primarily on the waning (but never unimportant) emphasis on “Media Relations.” In the intervening months, as predicted, our role as “PR counselors” has evolved even more quickly than I suspected last June.

Yes, “Media Relations” is still a critical part of the job. In fact, it may be more important than ever, as many clients now realize that mainstream media results can rev the engine of online chatter in social channels.

But I’ve been floored by the amount of “Customer Service” our team now handles. This piece of the job accelerated far faster than I’d expected.

For some of our large consumer brands, particularly those who have asked us to be part of their extended brand management team, we are fielding scores of customer issues.

On any given day, the SHIFT team will:

Monitor for mentions of the brand and/or relevant keywords, across the web, including “owned” brand properties (e.g., Facebook Fanpage)
Flag and report on important issues and/or major crises related to consumer complaints and conversations
Respond on behalf of the brand to minor Customer Service issues
Identify and react to opportunities to insert the brand into a relevant conversation, in appropriate/respectful ways
Report all issues to the client team as necessary for data capture and/or escalation
Field and respond or direct Customer Service issues that come via the brand’s own website properties, including complaints and questions that come via email

And that’s just a partial list. As noted on occassions too numerous to mention, Social Media is not only upending the Marketing Industry Players, it’s essentially crashing its way through any and all consumer-facing departments.

The “PR industry” continues to benefit.

How much longer before the PR team’s at the table with the Product Development team, counseling on “what the people want next?”

“This Is The Corp. Comms Dept. How May We Serve You Better?”

Flashback Friday: Does blogging call you at 4 a.m.?

2010-05-14T04:02:38Z

My semester ends today, and for the first time in a decade, I won’t be teaching summer classes. More time for blogging? Not a chance! So I’ve decided, for the summer at least, to re-post some of my personal favorites from the early days of ToughSledding. This one appeared on Sept. 27, 2006, just 15 days into the experiment. The photo is new.

It's a long walk to the bathroom, but worth it for the view.

It usually hits me at about 4 a.m. Like clockwork, Mother Nature reminds this 52-year-old body that the bladder is smaller or the prostate larger. Not sure I want to know which, but the result is the same.

I rise to walk the 22 steps to “my” bathroom at the far end of the house. Yeah, we have a master bath right off the bedroom, but I promised my wife if she bought me this house on the lake, I’d never set foot in that space. She has a clean bathroom, and I go kayaking anytime I want. Still seems like a helluva deal to me.

Anyhow, when you walk that far in the wee hours (pun intended), your circulation gets to pumping and your mind wakes up a good bit. When I return to the sack — and this has happened every night since I started this blog — I begin thinking of new ideas for blog posts.

First I envision the lead paragraph (owing to my training as a journalist, I suppose). Then I outline the content in my head, I rearrange it, then I go back to ponder the lead once more. I revise and I rewrite, all in my head.

Meanwhile, the clock radio is pushing 4:45, maybe 5 a.m., and I’m wide awake. A little yoga breathing will usually send me back to a slumber, but if I do that I’ll lose the ideas. So I get up again, traipse to the kitchen and jot down the basics.

I know, keep a pen by the bed. Everybody tells me that. But if I turn on the light at 4:45 to take notes each night, my wife will almost certainly invite me to move to that bedroom (next to the bathroom) down the hall. Worse yet, she may invite me to move out altogether.

To say that blogging has affected my life is an understatement, and I’ve been at it less than three weeks. It is, as several blogger friends warned, highly addictive. I know that’s true, as I crave the rush that comes with publishing a killer post. And I maintain the buzz by reading the posts of others.

I also know I’m not unique. A Google search of “addicted to blogging” pulled up 1.3 million hits. So it could be we’re all freakin’ nuts.

My blogger friends assure me the addiction will fade over time. I tell myself, “You just can’t keep posting in-depth, meaningful content day after day if you have a family, a real job, hobbies — you know, a life.”

But I blog on.

I consulted my doctor about this problem. He wasn’t much help, but then he doesn’t know doodly about blogging. He assures me, however, that the 4 a.m. nature calls are probably a permanent thing. I’m old.

What’s a blogger to do?

* * *

I still spend way too much time blogging, but it never disturbs my sleep. But those 4 a.m. trips down the hall remain part of my routine!

Nexus One changes in availability (Andy Rubin/The Official Google Blog)

2010-05-14T16:40:00Z

Andy Rubin / The Official Google Blog:
Nexus One changes in availability — We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We're very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One.

Google to close Nexus One store

2010-05-17T17:11:08Z

Facebook’s Stupid Adventure

2010-05-14T18:55:35Z

Remember in school when you were chosen for a team and, unless you were doing the choosing you hated it? What would happen if Facebook was doing the choosing?

Imagine that one day you posted something on your Facebook wall that included the words “my stupid boss.” Oopsie. You may now be part of the new Facebook-created group “My Stupid Boss.” Welcome to Facebook today.

Here are a few posts found on the “My Stupid Boss” group, described on the page as “the best collection of shared knowledge on this topic.” I’m sure that these posted were never EVER meant to go public, but here are a few, including the misspellings:

“So I had a complete emotional breakdown after getting harassed … I said stupid things to my boss’s boss. I’m headed the direction of homelesness again.”

“I hate my boss….threatens my job over stupid shit. Im tired of it! I know jobs are scarce but anyone know anyone hiring?”

“HAHAH my Stupid Boss Doesn’t Realize I’m calling him STUPID on Facebook.”

The last one was an “example” posted by Altimeter Group partner Jeremiah Owyang. Earlier in the day he posted on Twitter that he was “Still shaking my head at all these people who don’t realize their Facebook Wall is public.”

To answer one person’s question and test posted on their wall, and by default the ‘stupid’ page: “so does that mean if I include the words my stupid boss in a status update that it automatically feeds into this page, even if I haven’t liked the page?”

Yes that is correct.

Robert Scoble, known for his video blog on technology, in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “Folks like [technology broadcaster and entrepreneur] Leo Laporte deleted their accounts… People are posting your supposedly private texts from when you were a teenager (I don’t even know if those are real, but they are getting reported as if they are).” It leads to “The common feeling that we can’t trust Facebook anymore.”

He’s right. A lot of the early adopters I know have limited their Facebook profiles and many are deciding to “slash and burn” their Facebook account. I’ve never seen the defection this bad, but as one of the warned: “Read the TOS [Terms of Service].” They have changed a lot.

Vice President for Public Policy at Facebook, Elliot Schrage, was made available for a rare New York Times interview. In answering reader’s questions Schrage said “Clearly, we need to rethink the tempo of change and how we communicate it.” When asked about sharing user information, he felt this is one of the most common misconceptions about Facebook. “We don’t share your information with advertisers. Our targeting is anonymous. We don’t identify or share names. Period. Think of a magazine selling ads based on the demographics and perceived interests of its readers. We don’t sell the subscriber list. We protect the names.”

And here comes that Trust thing again.

Social media is based on managing trust between people. What happens when you can’t trust the platform?

I went back to the search on my Facebook page and typed lazy. I got some really lazy people and newly formed groups. Scary – they probably don’t know they’re in there.

If you type in a word, some brand names, band names, high school names and song names – seemingly any phrase that repeated in Facebook or Wikipedia, the chances are they created a group for it. No, they didn’t automatically populate the groups with people who identified themselves as a student.

The problem is these pages for non-profits, companies and bands could gain more people than the official Facebook page. The problem comes when the members of the page THINK it’s the official page.

They also created a Terms of Service group. By the way, the Facebook terms of service doesn’t exist on that group page.

This has reached such a fever point that Facebook called an internal privacy meeting. Many in the social media world felt it should have been open.

The demands around are pretty universal: Let us know what is being used, what for, and how can I easily opt out of it. Opt me out by default. Don’t sell my opinions, attitudes and values to everyone or anyone, and don’t give it away.

But that trust thing. Yeah. That’s a hard thing to get over.

Top 10 Ways to Upgrade Your Morning Routine [Lifehacker Top 10]

2011-01-04T12:00:00Z

Never feel like there's enough time in the morning? Find yourself struggling to get up or into work mode? We know the feeling. Try out these tips on waking up, getting energized, and getting things done in the early hours. More »