Not to mention, we ask why with some apps like Hootsuite why those scores aren’t in sync with the Klout scores on the Klout main site. Also, there’s a short bit on what she happened to get out of #140conf (140 characters conference) San Francisco and what we might be able to expect in Detroit.

Inside, you’ll also find a case study of how Virgin America used measuring influence to make solid decisions on reaching targeted influencers that are right for your vertical.

If you don’t know what Klout is, it’s a San Francisco based company who has a tool to help businesses and organizations find influencers and measure their influence online across 25 variables broken into three categories; True Reach, Amplification Score and Network Score. Over 450 partners such as CoTweet and Hootsuite utilize their data.

So we proudly present the newest episode of Conversate. Download here or listen in the player below:

So if you’ve got the ability to play it, here’s a song to go with the post from the soundtrack…

The realization was that no matter who front-lined, the music was as timeless. As someone who generally eschews covers, I must admit I was surprised by this. But that’s because it didn’t feel like a cover.

And then I realized – with the numerous members – the Funk Brothers aren’t just a band – but a small community that made some of the best music in American history together. Don’t forget, there were, depending on your standard, between 13 and over 70 funk brothers.

What are the lessons your community (online or off – it’s the same in my book) can take away from the Funk Brothers?

1. When a community is solid, it doesn’t matter who’s lead singer. And, in fact, the best lead singer is but a servant for the community. It’s not – and can’t be – all about them. The songs of Motown prove that. In the movie, Joan Osborne, Bootsy Collins, Ben Harper, Chaka Khan took the place of some legends like Martha Reeves and Marvin Gaye – it didn’t matter that it wasn’t the original singers. It felt real, because it was.

2. You stick by each other. You call when someone’s dropped off – just because someone is not giving you three useful social media links a day doesn’t mean they’re not important or you shouldn’t talk to them. Real friends do that.

Maybe pick up the phone – it might be just what they need. If someone suddenly drops out, there’s probably something actually wrong. Communities send love, networking groups gossip.

Frankly, if the number of links someone shares or retweets they do of your stuff is your judgement of community, you’re operating in a networking mode, not as a community member.

3. People mess up. People have problems. Because, newsflash, they’re people. And when they do, you love them. Make amends. Make apologies all around. Ten years from now it won’t matter, and if it still does to you, you’re petty, and I don’t want to know you in ten years.

I’m sure almost all of us have an internal list of things from the past to right – and I’m gonna do my best in the next few months to make that happen. We all make mistakes and I’ve made my share.

4. Communities are much stronger than just networking. The Funk Brothers are here after decades not just because they’re good – lots of good bands break up. There’s love there. It’s obvious in the movie that love; the love for each other and what they do. That’s the difference. If you’re judging who you talk to by the type of car they drive, you’re missing the boat.

5. Don’t overlook any instrument or any community member. Think Jack Ashford, “the fabulous tambourine man” – it was obvious he kept the stories and at times helped keep the group together. Not to mention, can you imagine the sound without that tambourine? Just like the Motown sound is marked by the solid bass, it’s top sounds are just as important. Don’t let your tambourine men and women fall silent.

What are your community inspirations? Your tips? Leave’em in the comments.

Not that they’ve decided to end their career, but they’ve made them way less useful. Now, if you use a third party service, like Hootsuite, to update your personal or fan page profile, what it now does is stack those updates together (much like they have for Foursquare, where now you’ll see one check-in in your feed and have to click it to see the rest of your friend’s check-ins).

There’s implications around this for you if you’re representing a brand, organization, or someone trying to get your message out. First, there’s a good chance depending on the whims of Facebook’s algorithm, your updates are going to be hidden if you use third party services. For instance, this morning, I found three updates from other people and pages completely unrelated to the friend whose update I clicked on, and the common theme was they’re all from Hootsuite (there was even a “See more updates from Hootsuite” link).

This isn’t a knock to Hootsuite per se – this is Facebook obviously choking third party interfaces in the name of “cleaning up the experience.” We can complain all we want, but the reality is, Facebook is going to do what they want and we simply have to adapt as ambassadors of the message. And that means back to the days of not being able to schedule updates, or having a central dashboard to put things into. Obviously, for a litany of logical business reasons, Facebook wants us to use their site directly.

Welcome the walled garden, folks. It’s the reality of the online world now but that doesn’t mean I have to like it

Photo Credit: Gary Bridgman, southsideartgallery.com

This isn’t yet another rant about spam blasts on Facebook. No, I understand why sometimes it’s necessary, and well, the promoter friends I have I half expect it. I deal.

I get all sorts of “like my page” requests, event requests, but here’s the thing. Some of them are obvious – like, I know so and so works somewhere, so sure, I’m gonna like the the page and no explanation is really necessary.

However, most times, there’s not one bit of personalization. Almost no one, especially no one who has anything to do with marketing for a job title, sends me even a shred of “hey, you should look at this, I know you’re into -insert passion here-.”

It’s not just my network, I know this. I talk with my non-marketing friends, and they seriously lament this, and in fact, have used quite a few choice words for people who don’t take the time to be considerate.

Most folks obviously can’t be bothered on Facebook, where supposedly we’re “friends” to take a minute to even include my name or even a perfunctory pleasantry. Why should I go? When I make recommendations to friends, “in real life,” I generally try to tell them why. If Facebook and these tools are an extension of that real life, why shouldn’t it be the same? And if I hear something about “scaling the interaction,” your answer obviously doesn’t get the point I’m going at.

We’re supposed to building communities where people “care” and we’re “in it together.” If you can’t even be bothered to dash off a seventy characters (the equivalent of half a tweet) why it’s important to particularly me at least once in awhile, you’re simply using social networks as yet another broadcast channel and I have to call into question your “community” intent. Or is it really, as Dan Blank says, “developing a market” for you? If it is, we’re going backward, not forward, with these tools to help build groups. And the idea that this is a “social” interaction is a bunch of BS if that’s the case.

Maybe I’m old school. But my grandma taught me over a manual typewriter (why I type so hard and loud to this day) that direct notes, personalization, and actually including something that shows you know the person go a long way because it’s not just about the party, event, or whatever. It’s about the community. We’ve got Facebook today instead of the social register, and we don’t have to type doubly hard to make an impression on the carbon copy paper, but that doesn’t mean we always have to “send to all” the same message. You might be surprised the results to take a moment and actually dash something off.

So here’s the deal. The creative did capture attention. But there’s been a lot of debate on whether it has been successful. Some reports say a 7% drop, others say a 107% increase. There are various other bits I’ve seen all over the web, with everyone getting up some post on how brilliant or flawed the engagement was, or whatever one of thousands dissected viewpoints to get a few more eyeballs to their blog.

Here’s the reality. They’re almost all full of it.

Because we really don’t know (yet) how effective it is. It is too early.

Sure, there’s some numbers released – but until we get 60, 90, 120 days out – we don’t know what the impact is and anyone who says otherwise is participating in punditry, not reporting, and although fun, not that useful for actionable decisions for the rest of us who are interested in making money for our clients.

Politics Isn’t Just For Elections

A lot of this politics. Much like if you go to sites like the Michigan Truth Squad for politics, you find every candidate has a spin and an agenda, stretching the truth to fit that aim. Same here, with so many dollars at stake amongst the ad and media business. Social media focused folks heaped unbridled praise. Those who are skeptical look for every hole possible. This has turned more into intrigue than science. Of course, that intrigue is more impressions of Old Spice, so from their perspective, it may or may not be a bad thing.

But as professionals, we’re supposed to measure and actually find out what the real response is. Did it move more product? I think there’s not enough of that thought. For actionable data, we’ve gotta be patient instead of trying to fill RSS readers and Twitter streams with half-cocked information. And then when we get that info, look for the real trends as opposed to what we want to see. So as hard as it is to pull away from the gossip for some, it’s probably best, if you want to use this experience to improve yourself, to have a little patience and wait till there are solid results and then make some decisions.

And then take that lesson with you to future endeavors, too.

Most times, people want to help you. But I can guarantee your pitch, dear PR person, will be thrown in the trash or ignored unless you include links to relevant material. I have watched in multiple situations over the past few months otherwise good stories get chucked because it’s just too much work.

With so many things coming at once, the first revision of cuts goes to all the people who have made the story difficult to put together. And social media coverage? Provide no links and you can completely forget about it. That works in real time.

Do you have an event? Have a place where you have all the information online, and even better, a place to sign up.  A product reveal? Bloggers need to be able to easily get pictures of the thing.

No Excuses

The good news is that there is ZERO reasonable excuse to not do this. There’s free and cheap services – even some that integrate with email services like Constant Contact (disclosure – a PDM partner) that offer automatic archiving if you sent your press release via email. A press release isn’t the preferred link (a link in context to your site or blog is better) but it’s a start.

Let’s think about this logically. How is someone supposed to tweet, Facebook, etc. without a link to somewhere? They’re going to have to create all the content themselves. And that realistically just doesn’t happen very often. You’re making a for a much higher bar to get coverage or noticed.

Not to mention, even when writing their own material, journalists and bloggers want links to refer to. The links give their post credibility online, and obviously, some traffic to your site (not to mention, the easier you make the job, the better you’ll do).

So get more coverage for your clients – and look better yourself.  Put links in your communications.

I may add some suggestions, but I’d love to hear yours on ways folks can reinforce their press releases and communications with links, knowing that at times they might not even have access to their company website for changes (a real challenge in many more businesses than you may think).

This is a stable way to get things done for me and our clients. It is easy to share tasks, see who’s been doing what and to make sure our Twitter usage goes as planned. So it might shock you to hear that I am rather disappointed with one of the newest features, the inclusion of Klout scores.

For the uninitiated, this is another tool many people use to gauge how effectively they are using Twitter. There are many others services that purport to do the same thing, like TwitterAnalyzer. They are fine for judging activity in general but each service has flaws that make them unreliable for tracking true effectiveness.

Klout does show some interesting things, like the chart on how you use Twitter. Right now, it says I am an activist, someone who is fighting for a cause online using Twitter. I do check it because it is interesting to see which behaviors can make your score bounce. After looking at the scores of several friends and services who I know are active, giving members of the Twitter community and finding their “Klout” to be rather low, I started reading about how they calulate their scores.

That’s when it hit me. They use the number of links you share using bit.ly as an exlusive measure of how you share information. For power Hootsuite users, this is a fatal flaw since the ow.ly link shortener tends to be more stable and the only service many of us use to share links.

In essence, I am being punished by Klout, and now Hootsuite, for being a Hootsuite loyalist. As far as I know, there are no plans to add the ow.ly link shortener to the algorithum for calculating your Klout.

Interestingly, on Hootsuite’s UserVoice page, there have been many more discussions on how to get lists of high Klout users than there are about how they figure Klout. If you think that scores like this should not matter, I agree. Yet the reality is that scores will matter to some people, like potential clients or the panels deciding whether or not you should be a featured speaker at their event.

What can you do to help change this?
1. Keep sending feedback to Hootsuite. Just click on the little Owl, follow the dropdown to help and select the feedback button.
2. Be engaging. Over time, Klout does count the number of conversations you have on Twitter.
3. Be patient. Klout works off of the last 30 days of your activity, so your increased positive actvity will take time to be noticed.

p.s. – As an example, @CBCnews has a Klout score of 37. This is with over 38,000 followers from Canada’s largest news organization. There’s no way I have more influence than the CBC.

Audio is a bit different than usual as we weren’t recording in our usual spot, we were on the road. With the background noise, you might think quite literally.

p.s. – This episode of Conversate is brought to you by drink. Which we enjoyed during the podcast, however, they paid nothing for the sponsorship. Nor is it a real sponsorship (and we’re not looking for real sponsors). We were the kids when everyone else yelled, “Sunny D!” we must admit we were looking in the back of the fridge for drink.

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There is nothing wrong with networking at your level. In fact, it is highly beneficial.  You will find people to push you, you will find people to comfort you, and you will find people you can learn from.  Being a connector of people is a great position to find yourself in. You need to be able to connect people from many walks of life, so there is a great case for continuing to build relationships with people you are comfortable with.

As a strategy however, you have to push yourself to grow your network.  The cliché business phrase, “if you’re not growing, you’re dying,” is absolutely true when it comes to networking.  And if you are not happy with your business results, you’re probably not growing your network of people who are better at business than you are.

While I’ve been thinking about how to grow our business, I have also been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point.  He identifies three types of people that get trends moving.  One is the Connector, someone who seems to know everyone and is great at making beneficial relationships happen.  Another is the Maven, who is like the Connector, but who have an unusual expertise in an unusual number of subjects.  The third one is the Salesman, someone who is so enthusiastic about what they do that they attract people to them and the causes they champion.  This book has helped me sharpen my focus on which people need to be in my network.

All three would be great additions to my network, but personally, my aspirational contacts are what Gladwell would refer to as Mavens.  They’re the people that make things happen.  Titles are not as important as their business acumen.  They have an amazing grasp of several subjects and can speak clearly on each topic.  Recommendations they make are golden because they have a unique understanding of people and situations.  Their networks may not be as large as Connectors, but their understanding of their network is stronger.  In short, they understand people, know business and can eloquently merge the two.
So, who do you need to meet to move forward?  Do you have Mavens in your network?  If so, how did you attract them, and what are you doing to keep your relationship with them strong?  If not, why not?  If you treat them well, they’ll only help your business!

The thing is, the right answer is all of the above. Everyone and their view of Facebook and privacy is right because it’s emotional; privacy is, after all, a personal thing. Someone shouldn’t necessarily judge someone else because they feel uncomfortable — it’s their feelings and they have a right to them. The data coming from various trusted sources doesn’t help because there are studies and anecdotes proving every opinion every which way. I read one thing last night, I heard another today, etc. all from people with solid track records.

That said, I’ll share the advice that I put to clients:

It’s all one and the same now.

I do believe a promise was broken, and I also believe Facebook needs to learn some PR basics as they’ve handled the situation horribly by not communicating well, but it gets down to the reality of today’s online world. That reality is: There are no longer any boundaries between the “work you,” the “personal you,” and the “family you.”

That choice has been decided for all of us. Online society has “opted us out” of that choice.

In this “new” era that some of us have been living in for a while, there is no separation. That’s a boundary I know many will have issues dealing with and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a whole new practice of psychology to deal with this.

It’s nothing less than a cultural shift at our very foundation.

Cultural expectations and boundaries are being re-written as you consume these pixels.

Although more subtle, this is a time of cultural change not unlike major shifts in American history. In other countries, the results are more visible — for instance, in Germany, Google is in extreme hot water over their use of Street View because it feels so wrong to German society to have that “invasion of privacy.” I use quotes because that is, and should be, defined by them, not us.

You need to be the arbiter of what you share, knowing that absolutely everything online that you produce could get out. Don’t want that picture to be public? Don’t post it. Did keg stands and it’s on Facebook? Yeah, your employer will see that. Political affiliations, religion, the whole deal. And there will be people who don’t like you. Good and bad. The seal is off — and in many ways, has been off. Want to have a private conversation? You probably should use the phone or see them in person. After all, due to errors, your chat logs could leak out.

In some ways, I see a trend coming back to the internet of old — I know plenty of folks who do not use their real names on Facebook. In fact, many “kids” do this now. It’s not much of a foil, but some people do it. I know marketers who have many Facebook accounts (as many as 20), and others with two — one for work, one for personal. Forums, message boards and blogs are still alive with traffic (and you should always have a place that you own that has YOUR content for a lot of reasons, which is another post for another day).

You can either choose to live in the digital world – and be smart about what you share – or go dark. But going dark will become less and less possible.  To be honest, the ones I see getting jobs and advancing in this economy are the ones who are “in” and yet maintain privacy simply by not sharing everything with the world — and sometimes, sharing things that make them people. Because at the end of the day, you’re a person.

After all, even Steve Jobs is answering his emails these days.