Original Comment

Inbound Marketing Summit Wrap-up #IMS09

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:01:00 +0000

I took notes during the Inbound Marketing Summit (IMS) in Dallas so that I could post about each of the individual presentations. I also decided to do something that I've feel doesn't get enough emphasis coming out of conferences -- what are the immediate actions you can do to start taking advantage of what you've just learned. These aren't intended to be full plans but just the first thing to break the interia of doing something new.

So, here is my list of the presenters, their presentation, and my action take-away. You can click through to any of the individual posts to see more of my notes.

Aaron Strout - I'm Your Customer and I Can't Hear You
Take Away: Listen to your customers are talking (not just what they are saying).
Panel: Innovative Marketing Programs Using New Media
Take Away: Discover what niche communities your customers are already participating in.
Chris Brogan - You Shall Know Us By Our Dialtone
Take Away: Create a main, central location that you own to use as the call to action.
Mike Volpe - SEO 101
Take Away: List the terms you want to be found on in Google. Be realistic! (Remember the ninjas)
Tim Marklein - Advocacy, Badvocacy, and Upsetting the Apple Cart
Take Away: Inoculate your legal team against the shock of using social media.
Chris Kieff - Best Practices for Listening and Engaging Consumers in Social Networks
Take Away: Pick a community and find a way to engage with them.
Bill Tolany - Q&A with Whole Foods
Take Away: Give guidelines/direction in social media to the people closest to your customers.
Panel: Listening and Monitoring – The new way to market
Take Away: Find a conversation that is happening about your company in a space you haven't been monitoring before.
Chris Bowzer - Art of Persuasion in the New Content Marketing World
Take Away: Pick at least one landing page -- Does the page lead your users deeper into your site? How can you create a path to lead users into your site?
Rick Frantz - Discover what really works in optimization
Take Away: Write down your value proposition. Compare it to your compeition and evaluate if it's a real differentiator.
Mike Walsh - Discovering the Power of your Community
Take Away: Look at all your social networks and determine where you can focus your attention.
Mike Moran - Internet Marketing by the Numbers
Take Away: Determine what your conversions are and your current conversion rate for those.
Greg Matthews - Social Media from the Inside: A Case Study
Take Away: Start a personal blog so you get familiar with the tools for when your business is ready to jump in.
Paula Berg - Nuts about Online Communication
Take Away: Make a social media fire-drill plan. Practice it!
Greg Cangialosi - Extending the Reach of email
Take Away: If you haven't segmented, look for at least 2-3 segments you can create for your lists. If you haven't tested, pick one area you can start doing A/B testing on – subject lines are good to start with.
Jake McKee - How LEGO Caught the Cluetrain
Take Away: Determine if you have customers outside your normal demographic that are high-value.
Giovanni Gallucci - From 0 to Social in 50 Minutes – Extreme Social Media for Business

If you attended IMS09, or have heard any of these presentations, or thoughts on social media, share what you would want someone to know as they try something new.

Giovanni Gallucci - From 0 to Social in 50 Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:56:00 +0000

Presenters: Giovanni Gallucci of Giovanni Gallucci

Title: From 0 to Social in 50 Minutes – Extreme Social Media for Business

Notes:

Zappos didn't get huge because of Twitter. They got huge because they changed their culture to trust their employees and providing more customer service than anyone else.
Search Engines – especially Google – still love social networks because amount of traffic is still important to them; context is important and soc nets have groups for everything; and search engines link out to other sites.

Jake McKee - How LEGO Caught the Cluetrain

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:49:00 +0000

Presenter: Jake McKee of Ant's Eye View

Title: How LEGO Caught the Cluetrain

Main Point: Embrace what your community is doing without your help. Also look at highly-engaged but small segments of your market – they might provide a new way for you to do business.

Take-away Action: Determine if you have customers outside your normal demographic that are high-value.

Notes:

Lego didn't accept “unsolicited” product ideas. This turned into a culture that Lego couldn't talk with their customers at all.
Lego noticed that Adult Consumers had created a large secondary market for trading/purchasing pieces. And that community had already created tools that the community wanted/needed.
When you have community members committed and they come to you for acknowledgment, you should ask what you can do for them.
Talking with the highly engaged minority can provide a lot of good information.
Changes to social media engagement starts with a change to culture inside the company.
Core of Lego community effort focused around their shift from selling boxes to creating a creative medium (i.e. what you can build)
Lego has a tool that you can design an object, submit it, and have just the pieces you need to build that model sent to you.
Take advantage of consumer evangelists can be more effective than your own PR.

Greg Cangialosi - Extending the Reach of Email

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:40:00 +0000

Presenter: Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory

Title: Extending the Reach of email

Main Point: Look for the low-hanging fruit of email marketing to make it better.

Take-away Action: If you haven't segmented, look for at least 2-3 segments you can create for your lists. If you haven't tested, pick one area you can start doing A/B testing on – subject lines are good to start with.

Notes:

3 Types of Email: Social, Marketing, Transactional
Make it easy for people to subscribe. Don't put up barriers or ask for too much information
Segment your audience data (demographics). Segment what content your users get. Allow users to manage their own content preferences. Segment on behaviors (especially good for follow-up segments)
Email provides an unbelievable opportunity for A/B testing to optimize your marketing
- Subject Lines
- Copy & Creative
- Call to Action
- Time of Day
When people stop responding to your emails, find a way to re-engage them. Or, if they won't engage, start putting them into a drip campaign that is different than your master list. Maybe quarterly, or a specific request to confirm their interest.
Email is the common currency of Web2.0; All social networks require using email to sign up.
Email can be a key driver of social content. Convert your email lists into your community on social networks. It is a good way to jumpstart those efforts.

Paula Berg - Nuts about Online Communication

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:35:00 +0000

Presenter: Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines

Title: Nuts about Online Communication

Main Point: Establish yourself in social media channels before the crisis hits

Take-away Action: Make a social media fire-drill plan. Practice it!

Notes:

Picked 30 employees from all over the company who oozed pride about working at Southwest
The blog has continued to increase in readership over the last 3 years
We can't control the conversation but we can lead with our POV and facts about what we are doing. Try to make sure we are staying ahead of current news trends so we can talk about what is relevant to people.
Being a human being during blogger relations really got a positive response from bloggers
Blogs allow the public to share positive views of your company, something that media usually isn't looking for.
Southwest posted a video of their rapping flight attendant. They didn't wait for a consumer to put it up, they took the opportunity to show their commitment to flight attendants personalizing the experience.
Social media presence has started to boil down to the people who really want to engage with us.
You have all the talent you need already in your company.

Greg Matthews - Social Business from the Inside

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:30:00 +0000

Presenter: Greg Matthews of Humana

Title: Social Business from the Inside: A Case Study

Main Point: Experiment, Experiment, Experiment

Take-away Action: Start a personal blog so you get familiar with the tools for when your business is ready to jump in.

Notes:

We are changing from an information economy to a collaboration economy.
Business is like a small town. They are building pieces that help them work better as a corporate community.
Use social media (like Twitter) for taking meeting notes. Something that is immediately posted and public for people to check afterwards. (And contribute?)
Take what's fun and then make it healthy. That's how Humana approaches making games.
“We don't know what the long-term benefits of our projects will be, but we are working to find out.”

Mike Moran - Internet Marketing by the Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:26:00 +0000

Presenter: Mike Moran at Converseon

Title: Internet Marketing by the Numbers

Main Point: Marketers must measure their website and online campaigns. When you measure, you are responsible for making things work. All the Internet stuff you know won't do any good if you don't get ROI from your site.

Take-Away Action: Determine what your conversions are and your current conversion rate for those.

Notes:

Internet Marketing is more about marketing than the Internet.
Numbers have found you. You don't have to calculate the numbers but you have to be the person that makes decisions based on the numbers.
Transactional – If someone buys something, was it profitable to get them to that point
Relational – Each customer acquired is measured individually
Management doesn't care what goes into the execution; They want to know what the results of the execution were.
Know your business to know if you should calculate your conversion rate by dividing by Visitors or Visits.
Conversions are the metrics that you should be tracking. “What do you want people to do?” That's the question that matters most.
In relation to setting up source tracking “Why did we go through that much trouble?” Answer: “Because it's the only way to measure how your marketing programs are working.”
Every sale does not cost the same amount. It costs far less for you to sell more to existing customers. Make sure you understand the lifetime value of your customers.

Mike Walsh - Discovering the Power of your Community

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:13:00 +0000

Presenter: Mike Walsh of Leverage Software

Title: Discovering the Power of your Community

Main Point: As you get older, especially when you join the workforce, the noise level in your life increases significantly to the point of overwhelming distraction

Take-Away Action: Look at all your social networks and determine where you can focus your attention.

Notes:

Everyone wants to be in the Discovery space. Both Twitter and Google think that they do it but the other service doesn't.
Social networks within the enterprise allow for internal discovery – feeds that provide news about what company-centric projects are going on.
Be a Kid Again! Simplify, Simplify. Don't worry about what's not relevant to you.
Minimize your trusted sources of information to get more signal
Communities have two sides – need to be aware of what both need
- Host
- User

Rick Frantz - Discover what really works in optimization

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:59:00 +0000

Presenter: Rick Frantz of MarketingExperiments

Title: Discover what really works in optimization

Main Point: If something you are doing doesn't work, doing more of it won't change that.

Take-Away Action: Write down your value proposition. Compare it to your compeition and evaluate if it's a real differentiator.

Notes:

Hitting the ketchup bottle on the bottom doesn't work.
- There has to be a better way to do other things in life
- When something is not working well, doing more of it won't produce better results
- Obvious solutions are not the best solutions
- Measuring and Testing are the only ways to discover what works better
Starting an argument doesn't help you persuade, it only helps you hurt someone.
Landing Page Optimzation Meta-Theory
- People don't by from websites, they buy from people
- You don't optimize pages, you optimize though sequence
- To optimize though sequence, you need to enter a conversation
- Then guide the conversation to a value exchange
c = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) - 2a
- C = Conversion
- M = Motivation
- V = Clarity of Value Prop
- I = Incentive
- F = Friction
- A = Anxiety
- Value Prop and Incentive are Value Contributors
- Friction and Anxiety are Value Inhibitors
- You need the Contributors to outweigh the Inhibitors
If you don't have something that differentiates you (the Value Prop) then you are just getting by on the ignorance of the market.
When you advertise on something people are looking for, make sure that you're giving them what they want when they come back to your site.
Every page on your site should have a Primary Objective and should stick to it!

Eric Bowzer - Art of Persuasion in New Content Marketing World

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:43:00 +0000

Presenter: Eric Bowzer of SiteCore

Title: Art of Persuasion in the New Content Marketing World

Main Point: Tracking and evaluating content leads to success sooner.

Take-Away Action: Pick at least one landing page -- Does the page lead your users deeper into your site? How can you create a path to lead users into your site?

Notes:

Land pages need to deliver on ad's promise
Keep telling stories as they move deeper into your site
Understand what your sales process is
Learning to Listen
- Score your content – Give scores to content so you can start building different profiles of your visitors.
- Score your actions – Lead Scoring
- Test and Validate with content and score engagement
The show isn't over after the first dance
- Episodic delivery of content
- Build assets that can be subscribed to
- Us the crowds to help filter info for other users
Traditional segmentation doesn't work anymore
- Use community as magnet and microscope to understand what your segments should be
- Allow self-segmentation
- Match content to emerging segments
- Find ways to bring people in past the landing page of your site
Pick Your Pitch
- Understand your intimacy level with customers
- Understand how to make that window of consideration longer

Panel - Listening and Monitoring: The New Way to Market

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Presenters: Amber Naslund of Radian6, Blake Cahill of Visible Technologies, Gabriel Villablanca of Brafton

Title: Listening and Monitoring – The new way to market

Main Point: Just because you aren't listening, doesn't mean people aren't trying to talk to you.

Take-Away Action: Find a conversation that is happening about your company in a space you haven't been monitoring before.

Notes:

Amber – Companies are getting dragged in to SM whether they like it or not.
Social Media is like the phone, people are trying to call you and you wouldn't just let your phone ring and ring un-answered?
Use listening to inform the content development strategy. Customers don't necessarily want to hear marketing that “align with your core brand messages.”
What is the language that your customers are using when talking about themselves and your company/products.
When you can't act on the flow of information coming in, you need to scale up to a better tool.
Blake – Companies are seeing the transparency of the negative experiences customers are having and that scares them.
Companies have had access to this kind of data for quite a long time but may not have known what to do with it.
If there is no conversation, that's a huge opportunity.
Most of the conversations are neither positive nor negative. They are just neutral. Companies are mining the neutral to determine why people don't have a stronger opinion.
Gabriel – We do end up being like therapists because we uncover areas that company doesn't have strengths and isn't sure how to handle those areas.
Big companies can put the resources behind doing more listening. But smaller companies need to be flexible with the tools and roll with shifts in the market.

Bill Tolany - Q&A with Whole Foods

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:23:00 +0000

Presenter: Bill Tolany of Whole Foods

Title: Q&A with Whole Foods

Main Point: Be in-tune with your customers as close to person-to-person as possible.

Take-Away Action: Give guidelines/direction in social media to the people closest to your customers.

Notes:

Stores at the local level have their own blog. It's difficult for corporate to be relevant to local audiences.
Shorten the distance between customers and employees (team members).
Engage as brand advocates for local producers.
Cannot measure individual purchases at stores based on Social Media but do notice trends in how much people are thinking/talking about Whole Foods.

Chris Kieff - Best Practices for Listening and Engaging in Social Networks

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:48:00 +0000

Presenter: Chris Kieff of Ripple6

Title: Best Practices for Listening and Engaging Consumers in Social Networks

Main Point: Social media isn't a broadcast medium, it's designed for community engagement.

Take-Away Action: Pick a community and find a way to engage with them.

Notes:

Be Relevant, Authentic, Responsive (That's the foundation, you hear it all the time.)
Beware of the mean (the middle, the average). Beware of the extreme.
Allow Feedback and responses from the people; respond back to them.
Don't Be Creepy
Talk to them in their backyard
- 85% of consumers feel companies should be present online to interact with customers and help solve problems

Tim Marklein - Advocacy, Badvocacy, and Upsetting the Apple Cart

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:17:00 +0000

Presenter: Tim Marklein of Weber Shandwick

Title: Advocacy, Badvocacy, and Upsetting the Apple Cart

Main Points: Companies need to be prepared to re-think how they are approaching their customers.

Take-Away Action: Inoculate your legal team against the shock of using social media.

Notes:

Advocacy is the new wave of marketing. This goes beyond influentials or elites.
Marketers need to re-think channels, reach and influence.
Apple Cart #1 – Customer at center with different hubs:

Inside – Day to Day interactions
Outside – Expert sources
Mega – Media/Celebrity/News
Social – Online and Offline groups they consider themselves a part of

Apple Cart #2 – Engagement Methods – Not just the same mass media channels
Apple Cart #3 – Legal and Regulatory Controls
Apple Cart #4 – Measurement; Advocacy isn't all digital but it can be measured.
Apple Cart #5 – Budgeting; Most marketing budgets are not designed to fully embrace social media. Social media requires more headcount.
Apple Cart #6 – Organizational Structures; Change from hierarchy by silo'ed function and switch to community-based roles

Mike Volpe - SEO 101

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:07:00 +0000

Presenter: Mike Volpe of HubSpot

Title: SEO 101 – Why everyone should know the basics of search optimization

Main Points: Know which battles you should be fighting over keywords

Take-Away Action: List the terms you want to be found on in Google. Be realistic! (Remember the ninjas)

Notes:

Don't fight ninjas when you're not fully trained.
Google is smarter than you. Don't try to trick it. Make sure your copy matches what you say the page is about.
Meta-Data Description is what Google shows when presenting results. You should customize this per page on your site.
Google figured out how to understand which pages people will want to look at, more than just keywords on page. Links are the currency of the Internet.
If you have more content, you tend to get more links into your site.
SEO is like the lottery. The more tickets you have, the better your chances to win. In SEO, the more content you have (optimized for different keywords) the more likely you are to get links into your site.
Re-purpose your content and publish in as many places as possible.
Create content that can be shared. The more people can share, the more links will get pointed back to your site.
Don't be afraid to be polarizing. Have an opinion and get people talking -- on both sides of the issue.

Chris Brogan - You Shall Know Us By Our Dialtone

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:48:00 +0000

Presenter: Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs

Title: You Shall Know Us By Our Dialtone

Main Points: Understand how to allocate people in your organization to get involved in social media

Take-Away Action: Create a main, central location that you own to use as the call to action

Notes:

It doesn't matter what your customer is doing with your product, they are still your customer. Even if they are using it ways you didn't expect.
Listening is the new black. Marketers aren't used to listening, they are used to collecting surveys and market research instead.
You don't control facebook. If you pin your marketing strategy on those tools, you are constrained to what they let you do.

Panel: Innovative Marketing Programs Using New Media

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:22:00 +0000

Presenters: Tim Walker of Hoovers, Bernie Borges of Find and Convert, Nick Koudas of Sysomos

Title: Innovative Marketing Programs Using New Media

Main Points: Understand what you are trying to accomplish and what strategies support that

Take-Away Action: Discover what niche communities your customers are already participating in.

Notes:

Koudas: Intrigued by companies that are successful using media that isn't branded until the very end. But, also interested in what is the return on the social media success. If people watch your YouTube video, what does that mean?
Strategy doesn't have an end. You need to take what you learn at the end and start over to go forward.
People will know if you are not honest. You don't want to get caught being dishonest.
Borges: Two companies without huge brand name are making social media work for them in the space that is important to them.
Niche doesn't mean that you can't find success. If you can own that niche, you can still do well.
Walker: It's easy to pursue meaningless numbers in social media if we aren't thinking about what our objectives and strategies should be. Ask first: Where are our customers already congregating online?
I don't agree that there is a limited pool of dollars for the social media pool. They will continue to bring in more dollars, and customer bases will grow when you can show quality of product/company versus your competitors.

Aaron Strout - I'm Your Customer and I Can't Hear You

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:15:00 +0000

Presenter: Aaron Strout of Powered

Title: I'm Your Customer and I Can't Hear You

Main Point: Marketers are trying to use new tools to overcome the hurdle of media disintermediation that has entered into business-to-customer communications.

Take-Away Action: Listen to how and why your customers are talking (not just what they are saying).

Notes:

Listen
Join
Ask
Engage
Build

The Role of Content and Action in Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:58:00 +0000

The social media breakfast in Austin this morning focused on content development and creation. Lionel Menchaca at Dell, Simon Salt of Incslingers, and Natanya Anderson of Powered spoke from different perspectives on the value of content.

The underlying message consistent through each presentation was that content cannot be about your company. I'll quote the speakers, they said it well this morning.

Natanya: The best content is created in service of others.

Lionel: Your company has to be committed to action in response to social feedback.

Simon: If the content is "push" it's not social media. It's just media. Social media is all about interaction and sharing.

What struck me today is that one of the most talked about foundations of social media -- listening -- is really only getting you halfway. The other foundation that must also be in place to support a successful social media endeavor is 'action.' The content is not the end (after listening), it is the means (to taking action).

For the consumer, especially when dealing with what was termed 'lifestyle content' the consumer is typically looking for information to help them do something. It's not often just to inform them, it's about an action they want to take. And when they are able to take that action, users will start generating their own content around those experiences.

For the producer, the content needs to be a way to encourage the audience to take the actions they want -- and that's usually not 'buy my stuff.' But, as Lionel said, the content producer also needs to be ready to act on feedback they receive. Those responses will help shape the understanding of what your audience cares about and how to help them achieve it.

You Aren't Selling Content

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:10:00 +0000

The market for content is huge and unsatiable. It williningly spends its time consuming and responding to content. It willingly searches and scours out new content. It willingly ignores quality in favor of quantity.

And that works when everything is free.

But when you are trying to make money, content is cheap. It's not want of more content that makes people pull out their wallets.

What you are selling is access to context. Both the expertise and the attention to a topic that allows your audience to know you'll be able to provide them of something with real value.

How can you provide context rather than just adding more content?

Social Media in Your Job Search - A Case Study

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:53:00 +0000

Tara Weiss, the career reporter for Forbes.com, was writing an article about using social media for conducting a job search -- specifically Twitter. My friend Kyle Flaherty mentioned that I'd been successful in finding work -- both full-time and freelance -- through Twitter and that she should reach out to me.

Speaking with Tara about Twitter was an interesting experience -- giving her both a primer on the service and how to use it for job searching. I analyzed what my own actions had been and considered the principles so that other people could benefit from my experience.

Overall, I think the piece is very strong. Both for people that are familiar with Twitter and those that are considering Twitter as a way to help with a job search.

While you're reading articles about job searching, I also recommend a recent post by Heather Strout about what you should do first if you lose your job.

What has been your experience with using social media for job searching?

SXSW, Content, and Monetization

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:00:00 +0000

It might be overstating the facts to say that I went to SXSWi this year. Rather, SXSWi happened and I managed to position myself in it's vortex as it frantically rushed through Austin -- fueled by free drinks and Twitter.

The analogy between SXSWi and Twitter is apt because I constantly felt myself pulled by different currents in the stream of people. Anyone who tried walking with me from Point A to Point B knows what I'm talking about because I was constantly detouring, sidetracking, or just plain wandering off to Point C instead.

But that's how it had to be. If I had tried to control the flow instead of moving with it, I would have only ended up frustrated and (probably) alone. Instead of trying to set plans, keep people together, or have expectations, I relied on my cell phone to loosely wander in and out of what was happening.

That's the impression of my personal experience. But I also want to look at the conference from the business perspective.

One of the oft repeated points about SXSW is that you attend for the hallways and parties. This year, while inside the convention center, I heard that point repeated but with specific stories about why people felt the keynotes weren't as valuable as they'd hoped, or how the panels were disappointing them. One particularly pogniant quote was that nothing the person had heard couldn't already be found on a blog or by going to a Barcamp panel.

But SXSWi is 5-days packed full of speakers, panels, round-tables, and generally more content than you can possibly hope to consume (regardless of how many Red Bulls you have).

SXSWi isn't selling content, it's selling access.

If you work in new media, social media, media 2.0, or any other moniker, you are paying for face time with a large contingent of people in your industry. You're paying for the flow of people that allows the serendipitous meetings during the conference, over lunch, or at an after-hours party. And SXSW has been very smart in making sure they keep tight control over all the venues that are going to be used. Your badge is your passport into that access, that's what you paid for.

I'm going to wrap this up now but I have more thoughts around this topic that I'll continue to ponder.

What are you throughts on SXSW? Did you go for the sessions or the people? And what cues should online social networks take from this experience?

Innovators Roadtrip

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:37:00 +0000

It's getting late but I wanted to make a quick post that I'm on the Innovators' Roadtrip organized by Colin Browning of New Marketing Labs.

We started off in Detroit yesterday and had the chance to talk with Scott Monty of Ford about what one of the world's biggest companies is doing to innovate.

Then we made three stops in Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. It's been an interesting trip so far and we have a couple more packed days ahead of us.

Get more information about our roadtrip at the site.

Blellow -- Twitter goes vertical

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:15:00 +0000

I was invited to the Blellow Beta and my interest was picqued in examining another Twitter-like application. The recent history of microsharing is littered with past attempts to improve on Twitter. Pownce and Jaiku were both acquired... but not supported. Plurk hit a chord with it's threaded conversations, but then Twitter figured out how to stay up more consistently. And recently, Yammer and identi.ca are working to bring microsharing inside the Enterprise firewall.

With all that context (baggage?) I joined the Blellow Beta.

First, let me talk about them in their own right. They are building a community of creative freelancers that can share ideas amongst itself but also act as a location that companies can post jobs/projects that the community can fulfill. This is a bold implementation that puts to the test the concept of collaborative competition. The community will be acting as a support group but also trying to compete for the jobs that get posted. How this dynamic plays out should be one of the major trends the Blellow community manager should watch for.

Now I feel comfortable starting to do the comparisons. I was talking with Heather Strout, Connie Reece, and LaniAR (what, she has a last name?) about how Twitter was so disruptive when they launched but quickly locked themselves into their feature set and let third-party apps take care of covering their weaknesses.

This is the first place that I appreciated Blellow. They've taken the steps to incorporate some of the main requested features back into site. They allow threaded conversations by allowing you to open-up all the replies to a specific post right from your stream. You can also create actual groups and reference them (with the % symbol) which acts like a more formalized hashtag system. You can include files (especially pictures) right in your message meaning that people don't have to open up a new window to see what you're sharing. And, your home page dynamically updates (without constant refreshing!).

Why is this important? Because despite the familiarity of the early adopters, the concept of microblogging is still new. And innovation is still important. Blellow isn't trying to compete with Twitter in terms of user-base. They have taken the concept and applied it to a niche. But, they've also shown how the horizontal application could be improved.

My review of Blellow is postive because I want to see more companies take the approach of improving microblogging without trying to be the next Twitter. But I do also see a couple of downsides.

Any division of attention is going to create a barrier to entry. It's not impossible to maintain a presence in multiple social networks but when dealing with real-time networks like Twitter and Blellow, it is certainly more difficult.

Guiding the community to focus on the right content. One of the axioms of social media is that you can't control the community. You don't own them, you can't make them do what you want. But, Blellow isn't asking "What are you doing?" they want to ask "What are you working on?" Keeping the community engaged in collaborative discussions about freelance work is going to take visible leadership from the Blellow team. If users slip into the more comfortable, more conversational, routine of talking with each other about what they are doing at the moment then Blellow hasn't differeniated itself from Twitter. The result, people migrate back to Twitter

Finally, while I like the inclusion of features into the website, I am also a big fan of having a desktop client. I use my browser all the time, if I have to keep flipping back to a separate tab or another browser window, I just don't get around to it as often. Allowing this to be created (or making it themselves) will again help with the adoption and retention of their members.

Would you use a vertical microblogging site?

A Tale of Two Job Searches

noreply@blogger.com (John Johansen) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:41:00 +0000

I've had an interesting experience in the last week with my job search. I'll leave the company names out of this because it's on-going.

A friend of mine gave me a contact at a company I'm interested in with an open position. I had a chance to speak with that person and find out more about the company and role. On their recommendation, I went ahead and submitted my application through the company website.

A day or two after submitting, I received a form email saying they appreciated my interest and they would keep my resume on file but that the position required a different backgroud.

That was about a month or so ago.

Then Rachel Happe interviewed me for her Deep Bench series. (Again, let me tell her thanks!) And just yesterday morning, I received an email from the hiring manager at this same company letting me know that someone had pointed them to my Deep Bench interview. He said that after reading the profile, he feels I have much of the experience they're looking for, and wanted a copy of my resume.

What's the moral of the story? Well, you've probably heard it before but sending your resume to HR isn't likely to get you a job. Where you should focus your energies instead is building, helping, and using your network to connect you with people that need what you can offer.

Where have you found the most success in your job search?