Social Optimized

Wibbly-wobbly, Returny-wurny | Lessons on Social Media from Doctor Who

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:00:00 PDT

In 1963 a children's show was created in the UK. It was meant to be an educational show, a show that would transport its audience through time to the past to witness the Aztecs or Ancient Rome. It was marginally successful until someone decided that while the characters were traveling through Time, they could also be travelling through Space. The show, Doctor Who, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and is more popular than ever. But it wasn't a smooth ride at all.

For the first years of its life, the show was popular with children (and their adults) as a sci-fi show, with evil baddies, ambiguous morality lessons and a charismatic, mercurial lead, The Doctor. In the 1980s the BBC leadership was absolutely dedicated to killing the show, but fan pressure - now global through Public Television support for the show in America and Australia - brought it back from the grave, for a while, until the show was once again cancelled after the 7th Doctor played his last spoon....

...Only Doctor Who didn't die. Bizarrely, it was picked up by an American television network, which of course focused on all the wrong things, and annoyed the British fans no end ("The American Movie" is how the 8th Doctor's tenure is known among fans.) But it did something unheard of. 40 years old and the show hadn't died. Like a Monty Python character, it kept reassuring us "It wasn't dead yet." And fandom hadn't moved on. With a body of episodes in the hundreds, still showing on Public TV, then reluctantly released by the BBC on VHS, the DVD, fandom wasn't dead.

And neither was the show. In 2005 the famous blue box known as the TARDIS landed once again in the UK and it was alive, again. The "new" Doctor Who, which picked up with the 9th Doctor and has now made it to the 11th is more popular, more global - and more financially lucrative than ever before.

So, what are the lessons we can learn from this story?

Return on Time - Perseverance isn't overrated

In the days before Venture Capital and Y Combinator, sometimes all you had to rely on was Time. Having a good idea five years too early can gut a company. But Apple proves the point - when a good idea takes time, perseverance, passion and a soupcon of delusional belief that you're right, playing the long game can lead to success.

Return on Investment - Throwing money at the problem works too

When the BBC demanded better ratings for the 7th Doctor, and they were competing with Star Trek: Next Generation for share of the TV Sci-fi watching audience, the creators of Doctor Who were in a bind. They scraped up more money and put on the most sophisticated show their budget would allow. In comparison with earlier seasons it was fantastic (despite that, the BBC was grumpy again, and they killed it anyway.) In 2005, the showrunners pulled out the stops and the re-launch of this iconic show was as good as anything else on TV. No plywood hallways, no two-set shows. Doctor Who was a big kid now. When you've strained to the edge of what you can do with Time, Investment pushes you to the next level.

Return on Social is Wibbly-wobbly, Returny-wurny

The 10th Doctor famously stated, "Time is wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." If there is a single lesson we can grok from The Doctor and his travels through our airspace and time, it's that Return on Social isn't a matter of simple eyeball formulas or likes or shares. In the days before the Internet, Doctor Who fandom created fanzines, wrote fiction, gathered together with friends on Saturday night to watch the show on Public Television, went to conventions to meet the actors. It has always been a social product. DW fandom were early adapters of online technology, expanding their contacts in fandom globally. When the new show launched, fandom was all ready for it. The network was built, ready and waiting. Virality wasn't an accident, it was 40 years in the making. And that is why the new show is popular. BBC and BBC America have made it more accessible, but the Internet does the rest.

Return on Social means a little push here, a nudge there, circle back and start again. When the formula doesn't work exactly as planned, passion and engagement can carry the project along. Superb execution pushes the boundaries and then back to the beginning yet again. Social is wibbly-wobbly, but if Doctor Who teaches us anything, it's that it can absolutely be returny-wurny.

The 4 Pillars of A Healthy Online Community

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:01:00 PDT

Whether we're reaching out to a specialized subject community or to a broad social network, we're looking to our contacts online for information, suggestion and recommendation all the time.

More of our lives is spent online in the communities we join and build, and more of our time is spent handling the issues that arise in these spaces. Communities exist on investing sites, shopping sites, health sites and entertainment sites. There is hardly anywhere online one can go where a community is not at least part of the equation.

The question then is - how do we build healthy online communities?

Defining Community vs Network

For the purposes of this article, I want to define how I am using the word "community" vs. "network."

A "network" in this context is the web of contacts, acquaintances, friends and colleagues we acquire over time. These may be circumstantial - professional colleagues, coworkers, etc.; or social - friends, relatives, acquaintances. Networks may be organic and/or intentional.

Communities are, for the purposes of this article, always intentional. A professional community may be an association, a personal community may be a group focused on a hobby or interest. Networks can grow without our specific intent to do so (a friend introducing us to another friend for example) but we seek out community with intention.

Groups on Facebook, subReddits, hashtags on Twitter and other smaller pockets of interest on larger platforms can function as communities, as well as focused lists, forums, sites and even whole social networks.

Online Communities are, therefore, groups of people we intentionally seek out in order to...what?

People seek out community to gain/share/impart information.

The guy who tells you about this lunch on Twitter - he's imparting information. Not very relevant or targeted information, admittedly, but hey, there may be someone out there who cares that Taco Tuesday at the Taco Stand is outstanding. It might be noise to you, but it's signal to the guy who shared it.

So when we seek out community, we have the intention of finding folks who will share info that is more signal than noise - i.e., stuff we care about. This may be information of relevance to us professionally or personally, but the point is, we look for a "community" where this kind of information will be shared.

When we join a community, we are all initially consumers of information. We might read FAQs, ask a few folks for their thoughts, read what is being said. We join to gain information. We join as "consumers" of information. Over time, some people find themselves with the right experience or temperament to share or impart information. These people contribute information. (Contribution is sometimes rewarded with badges of achievement or rank.) Generally speaking, even new people can see that there is an upper class of users. These may be called senior members, power users (or the star-chamber cabal, depending on the level of resentment harbored by non-power users) and they will have both cognitive authority and be the object of resentment on even a healthy community.

Building a Healthy Community

Every community want to be a healthy community. Like our own bodies, there's a certain amount of health one can establish as a solid base on which to build. For a community, these include good moderation, inclusive policies, scalable architecture and a soupcon of humor when dealing with other humans. I.e., the hardware, the software and the humanware should be as flexible and scalable as possible.

On this base are Four Pillars that support the Community.

Contributor Contributor

Top-Down Communication	Peer Communication
Peer Communication	Bottom-Up Communication

Consumer Consumer

Consumers come into a community with a desire to know, learn or share.

Let's create a fictitious community called Labville, where high school students can discuss scientific experiments with other students and get prompts from older students and teachers.

Adam joins Labville first as a Consumer. He reads posts by Barb and Charlie, both students who have done the same experiment he's working on now. Adam asks a few questions, but mostly reads. He is a consumer involved in Bottom-up Communication. Once he's learned that Daniella is doing the same experiments and has similar ideas as he does, he starts to talk to her as a peer. Adam and Daniella are joined in their "Experiment Y" discussion by Eugene and Frieda. A peer group is forming between them and they generally don't reach outside of it unless they need help from Barb and Charlie. The groups now engages regularly in Peer-to-Peer Communication.

George arrives and he's...a problem. For whatever reason, he's taken a disliking to Adam and snipes constantly at his work. Whether Adam asks a question, replies to someone else - and even though he generally avoids conversations where George is active - George goes out of his way to be rude to and about Adam.

Barb and Charlie, as Contributors, will try to hold the conversations on topic and maybe Harriet, a Labville Moderator, will step in.

These Contributors will shape the conversation through Top-Down Communication. Because Labville is not a hobbyist community, but is focused around asymmetric relationships (people who know and people who want to know) Contributors contribute by answering questions, positing thought-provoking questions of their own and guiding and focusing conversation. Top-Down Communication serves to keep conversation moving forward, or restarts it after it stalls. One of the goals of Top-Down is to inspire Peer-to-Peer Conversation among Consumers by helping them over humps in their learning

George has been behaving, but after a few months, he's started up again. Barb and Charlie have both moved on as Contributors (as a natural part of the Community Lifecycle,) but Ike and Justine are now very active Contributors. As Moderator, Harriet needs a private place to warn them about George and ask them to let her know if there are issues. The Contributors need a space for Peer-to-Peer Communication of their own, to foster best community practices, share critical operating information, training materials and provide a space for them to discuss the Consumers who might serve the community well as Contributors or even Moderators.

Peer-to-Peer Communication at both Consumer and Contributor levels fosters teamwork (and cliques.) Top-Down Communication provides a steady hand at the rudder and Bottom-Up Communication means there's opportunities for Consumers to learn and grow in the community.

These four pillars, standing on a foundation of good community practices, will be stable enough and strong enough to support a healthy, sustainable community for a long lifecycle.

The Truth About Internet Trolls

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:18:00 PDT

There is a very real misunderstanding of the nature of Internet Trolls and, as a result, there is a incorrect belief about the way to "deal" with them.

Here is the fundamental flaw.

People think this is what Trolls look like:

Angry person online, fundamentally outraged by your words - possibly your very existence.

Trolls give you that impression because they make very personal insults, they comment on your appearance or something you may or may not have said. As a a result you think trolls are about you.

And then you think, surely, this guy can be reasoned with. Yes, he's angry, but he is an adult, he can see the value in other perspectives. So you engage, thinking consensus is possible.

In reality, trolls are this:

Trolls have no idea what "skullfuck" means, it doesn't have to mean anything - it sounds nasty. They don't have any interest in reasoned dialogue - they haven't read your post/article/answer. It's for the lulz and the win - if they can silence you, they win the Internet. It's something to pass the time..

I'm not being ageist here - trolls are often actual teenagers, trying to be adults in a very childish way, they are also adults being childish, but they have one thing in common - trolls all treat harassment as a game. A game they can't lose, because there is no one to catch them, there's no punishment if they are caught. It's for fun. If you get angry, they win. If you react at all, they win. If you have to set up new rules for comments, they win. Block their IP, they'll change it - and they win.

So how can you win? Remember "sticks and stones"? Yeah, that.

Since the goal of the game is to silence you, all you need to do is ignore them and go about your business. Leave their comments hanging out there, ignorant and hateful as they are, unanswered. They will expose themselves trying to get you to react. All you need to do is...nothing. If they escalate - you win. If they take it to multiple spaces online - you win. The more they scream and rant and waste time thinking about you, and the less time you think about them - the more you win. Your toolkit is Report, Ignore, Block, Delete, Mute, depending on the site/platform you're on. Use all of the tools, but use Ignore the most.

Have pity for the trolls who spend hours of their day obsessing over you while you read books, go out with friends and have a life. Because the more you win, the more they lose.

Opinion is not Information - Why Social is Not the Answer You're Looking For

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:15:00 PDT

Lee Odden in his excellent presentation War of Words: Myth-Busting Social Media, SEO & Content Marketing has a slide that shows Pete Cashmore stating "Social is on the verge of solving all search problems".

As a Information Professional with a quarter of a century of experience, I think my reaction to those words looked something like this:

And it came to me in one fell swoop WHY social is not the answer to search at all.

Opinion is not information - Social is not search. Information is nor knowledge - Search is not research.

Let's look at a common scenario to explore the difference.

You want to take a short vacation. You ask your friends for ideas. One suggests Las Vegas. Now, if you like spectacle, elaborate shows, gambling, theme hotels, this is a terrific idea. What if you hate those things? Not so good an idea.

You asked for an opinion - you received an opinion. It may be relevant to you. It may be as irrelevant as possible, if your friends ideas are about their desires, as indeed, I have found with the above question. People tend to suggest the kinds of vacations that would appeal to them, whether or not they know your tastes.

Now you need to book that room, one friend went to one site, got a one price, another friend got a different price, one bought a package and has no idea about the cost of the hotel. You asked for information - you received data.

Social search can answer some, but not all the questions you have. When you need information, opinion and data points will only confuse the issue.

Your friends are great when you need an opinion. Social Search will be great when you need an opinion. But when you're running a business, you don't need opinion, you need information. Information professionals take information and turn it into knowledge you need to make critical business decisions.

Defining "Quality" for Content Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:40:00 PDT

Quality is not, by it's nature quantitative, so it will always be both subjective and a moving target. So what does "quality" mean in the context of content marketing?

As much as I would like to say "Quality is more important" it honestly doesn't matter how good your storytelling is if you're talking to yourself. Compelling, unique content brings in an engaged audience, and nothing draws a crowd like a crowd. To achieve your goals you'll need quantity in audience and quality in content.

When you and I read a newspaper article, novel or blog post, we bring our own bias, opinions and experience to bear on what is ostensibly someone else's bias, opinions and experience. One should not presume there is a valid way to measure that - if one does, one had clearly lost site of their own bias, opinion and experience.

For instance, I loved Lord of the Rings the book and thought to movies and incoherent mess. My relatives loved the movies and though the book boring. Which narrative has the best "quality"? The books which have sold millions of copies over decades, or the movies which made millions of dollars? Both are high quality when judged by certain criteria, and perhaps not so high when judged by others.

Quality is judged over time: I've been writing a blog for over a decade now and I'm still gaining new readers. But some people vociferously disagree with my opinion, so they say my blog is poor quality. In this case, "quality" is the word we use to describe things that agree with us. ^_^

When you're selling the story of your business, "quality" means "good enough to bring someone back."

Quality content will sell consumers on your brand, your products, your commitment and on you.

In content marketing, "quality" is the impression you leave on potential consumers that brings them back as customers.

Community Lifecycle: How to Prevent Evaporative Cooling from Eroding an Online Community

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:25:00 PDT

Evaporative Cooling, a termed coined by Eliezer Yudowsky, is the natural loss of user base on a community, tare if you will. Time, crises and change will contribute to Evaporative Cooling. It can't be prevented, but it can be slowed and managed. In response to a question on Quora, I detailed a few steps to identifying, managing and modulating Evaporative Cooling on an online community.

How to Prevent Evaporative Cooling from Eroding an Online Community

1. Acknowledge Community Lifecycle

2. Passion At The Top to Ignite Passion at the Bottom

3. Reward Users With Rewards, Not Rank

4. Architectural Flexibility = Good, Managerial Flexibility = Better

****

1. Acknowledge Community Lifecycle

There is no way to "prevent" Evaporative Cooling (EC) in an online community completely.

Your active user base will ebb and flow over time. Incremental growth may or may never lead to an explosion of popularity, but tare will exist with every new generation that joins the community, because people's priorities change and technology changes over time. What is a passionate interest now could become a vague interest later. Technology will change and no matter how innovative a community architecture is right now, at some point it will be old-school or obsolete. Not updating the technology means you'll lose people - updating the technology means you'll lose people. Keeping the group small and intimate means you'll lose people. Opening the community up means you'll lose people.

The key to keeping a community alive has a lot to do with keeping the currently engaged users engaged. In part, this can be achieved by...

2. Passion At The Top to Ignite Passion at the Bottom

I'm speaking here as owner and moderator of 4 concurrent communities, all based around an interest - not a hobby even, merely an interest. Of course people come and go in this interest space and in the more than ten years I've been running these communities, the thing that sustains me - and the communities - is that we all still enjoy the topic. My passion for it communicates to some degree in everything I do on these communities. My communities give warm welcomes to other fans, who find their enthusiasm rewarded.

In communities I haven't run, but have had the pleasure of moderating for, when the passion at the top cools, the community congeals almost instantly. Community builders that choose moderators so they can play with the architecture, cede control to people who don't have their vision or their passion. Moderation becomes a "thing to be done" not a "thing that keeps our community thriving." (1) (See point 3 for more on this.)

To slow one's own EC, one must acknowledge the limits of one's own passion - and energy. Like any community leader, I go through phases of burnout, or if there is simply less to talk about, I let the conversation ebb. Ebb tide is not an irreversible trend on a community, a blog or even in a conversation. When I've been blogging with frequency and intensity, I often take a few days off to let the audience - and myself - have a break. When I come back to it, my readership jumps. The same is true with a community. Short breaks in news/updates allow for a more relaxed approach when one returns - time for chat, personal opinion and other less quantifiable discussions that make up a community. Or a pattern of small news/chit-chat can be excited by big news or broader topics.

The more passion a leader brings to the community, the more passion the community will generate.

3. Reward Users With Reward, not Rank (2)

I cannot stress enough how critical this point is.

It's time for a story. Two, in fact. In both cases, I was a Admin-level member after rising through the ranks by just being a good contributor and relatively unflappable.

The story is very similar in both cases. In the first case, there was a member of the group who offered to take charge of one of the committees. She was a horrible leader; selfish, mean and lazy. Everything she touched withered and died. She was so bad, that even the people above her left because she was loud and intractable and it just wasn't worth the energy. When the person above her left, invariably she would be given that position. No one at the executive level would be the bad guy and tell her to get lost (in part because this was a volunteer community, in part because of who was chosen to lead.) She rose through the ranks, more quickly as time went on, because the higher she got, the more people had to work with her and more would leave.

Ultimately, in the first case, the person took over the community and - no surprise at all - within a year the community was dead.

In the second case, a top user was rewarded with rank, because she was online so often. The community owners relied on this person for feedback but there were no checks and balances to her intel or actions. Her misinformation was the only information the owners received and like idiots, they relied on that. The problem was that the reason she was online so often was that she was conducting a cyber-affair with another user (who was a major contributor of money, which translated to rank on the community.) The two of them formed a block that abused, harassed and destroyed other users they felt were a threat.

In the first case, rather than dealing with the problem, that person was given power. In the second, the community owners used hours logged as a metric for valuable contributor. In both cases, the community owners set the community up for massive EC as the community members were disengaged and occasionally, active persecuted, by people who unsuited to hold any power at all.

In both cases, I pointed out the fallacies behind the appointment, but The Powers That Be chose to pretend nothing was wrong. I did not stick around long.

How can this problem be rectified? Understand that the #1 value good contributors are making is not their presence, not the hours they log, not their experience. Good contributors contribute good content. Rewarding them by giving them management tasks which will suck away their energy and desire to contribute is the perfect recipe for EC. It's the Peter Principle, online community style.

When I created a reward program for one of my communities, I focused on rewards that reinforced the "team" aspect of user support. Rather than adding on burdensome responsibility, they are rewarded for what they already do, the way they already do it. Time is not an issue. Amount of money spent is not really a major factor. Power is taken out of the equation entirely. The point of a reward is to make someone feel rewarded. (3)

By using Rank as a Reward, you disincentivize your top users to use. Their time on the site becomes unpaid work, their voice becomes the Voice of Authority, so it's harder for them to kick back and have fun. Many sites give rank without power or tools to maintaiin order- a veritable death spiral for online community moderation. Additionally, training for Moderators is poor or non-existent on many communities. The end result is that your best users are too frustrated and tired to contribute.

There is no faster was to kill a community than by using Rank as a Reward for contribution. It is the major EC generator.

4. Architectural Flexibility = Good, Managerial Flexibility = Better

In the article quoted, the focus is more on the technology than the people. It is absolutely a benefit to be able to adapt to the times. Adding social sharing and alternate means of communication, providing spaces for digression and dissension (warrens) and open fora for conversation are a fantastic way to slow down EC.

Even better is management that acknowledges mission/scope drift and is as transparent as possible (4) when changes are made or have to happen. "We're adding a new feature because we want to try it out" is something that community builders can (and should) say. Users may or may not try the new feature out - this, and what they have to say about it when they do use it, is valuable feedback. When a new control has to be rolled out, the best way to explain that is to say just that. "We had to do this because...." Engaged users will understand. Don't be coy, "Hey we made new changes that will take away something you liked because we did." Are there so many cases of something that a new rule was warranted? Say that and say it plainly.

Users believe they ought to have some say in a community by virtue of their time and engagement. Management has to make decisions based on the greater good and the bottom line. But surely there's a way to bring these two things together? Harness the insight of new users, casual users and heavy users in regards to community change - and publish these findings so people can feel as if they were represented, heard and understood. In the volatile start-up world more=better, so it's understandable that changes will be rapid and constant. Can you think of any community anywhere, online or off, that likes change? People get used to what they get used to and they adapt very quickly, but they do not realize this. Every change, no matter how ultimately important, will increase EC...unless you include the community in that change.

It's easy for engineers to tinker with architecture, it's far more important for community managers to tinker with community engagement.

5. Conclusion.

While Evaporative Cooling is a fact of online community life and cannot be prevented or avoided, it can be slowed and managed. Understanding which aspects of community life are the most vulnerable to EC, establishing a rhythm to harness the ebb and flow of community life, maintaining engagement, rewarding contribution, providing tools for moderation and flexibility in management can decrease EC over the long-term.

More reading:

1. Perils and Pitfalls of Online Community Management by Erica Friedman on 'Splaining: The Bloarg

2.Moderation: Policing, Curation and Shoveling Behind Elephants by Erica Friedman on 'Splaining: The Bloarg

3. When a Reward Program Feels Like a Slap

4The Myth of Transparency in a Community by Erica Friedman on 'Splaining: The Bloarg

Erica Friedman has been managing online communities since the olden days of BBS. She was a moderator on Usenet, and has owned, adminned or moderated about 2 dozen communities online. She currently own and runs 4 communities.

The Heart of Social Media - and the Key to Unlocking It

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:37:00 PDT

Hey you. Yes, you. Your Social Media strategy isn't working is it? Takes too much time, you end up dealing with customer complaints mostly, you don't really see the point, right? Forget ROI, you're not seeing ROAnything.

Well, I have something important to tell you.This isn't just another "why companies suck at Social Media post", although yes, we'll be starting there.

The heart of Social Media is the ability to express mutual admiration.

Okay, so what? There's plenty of things that express appreciation. Greeting cards, 15% off discount coupons, televised award shows...

Only those aren't really mutual at all. Think of Sally Field's iconic Academy Award speech, "You like me, you really like me!" The Academy did indeed like her that year and she liked that they liked her (after years of pretty much ignoring her existence.) A discount coupon is a carrot to get the horse into your barn. These may have mutual benefit, but they are not expressions of mutual admiration.

Customer A: "I love this store. You guys are always friendly and you always have just what I need."

Store Owner: "Thanks! We try our best."

There's nothing wrong with this answer, but it could be better.

Store Owner: "Thanks! We try our best, and we couldn't do it without great customers like you."

By expressing *mutual* admiration, the store owner acknowledges the important place the customer has in the process.

Online, way too many companies forget the mutual aspect of Social Media. A company might thank customers for complimenting them. They may offer to help customers with problems...but how many companies on Social Media think to thank their customers?

Take your Social Media up a notch and make it mutual. That's the key to unlocking the "social" part of Social Media.

Yes, Less Can Be More in Customer Service

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 04:52:00 PDT

There have been many studies about how small rewards create less pressure and instill more creativity and receptiveness. The Candle Problem is the one I refer to the most:

As I so often do, I'll resort to parable.

Parable 1: On my older blog, which deals with an extremely narrow niche of a niche, I created the "Hero program," in which people who buy an item off my Wish List for me to review get the least of all possible rewards - a jpeg image of a badge. This program took off so quickly that there are times I'm pressed to keep items on my list...and I had to create a premium tier for people who wouldn't stop giving me things!

The point here wasn't that I was giving them meaningful physical rewards, but that I was giving them recognition. I'll come back to that in a moment.

Parable 2: I recently called up an airline to request an upgrade for my upcoming trip. I am flying with my wife and while I have barely-elite status, she has none. The CSR said, "You'll be upgraded first, then she will, if there's room." I replied, very slowly and calmly, "But you're going to do *everything* in your power to make sure we both get upgraded, right?" And I kept on her until she actually said those words back to me.

Which brings me to my actual point. Customer Service has two key components:

What you do for people

and

How you do it

What you give people is the actual reward. Whether it is a little gesture of thanks, or a new car, the reward itself is only as important as the feeling of "seriously, we appreciate you" that the customer gets from it.

Truly frequent fliers probably don't notice anymore when they get upgraded...they expect it, demand it, feel that they've earned it. It's their due, not a gesture of appreciation for their business.

How you do a thing is 99% of the impact of excellent Customer Service. Is what you're giving a true expression of gratitude for the customer's business and support? Or is your loyalty program instead of a true expression of gratitude?

My Heroes know that I appreciate them...from the bottom of my heart. The badge is worthless, my sincere and heartfelt appreciation is priceless. And they know that.

In Parable 2, had the CSR said those words - even if she was lying - to me the first time, I would have felt much more appreciated than when she responded with "well,I don't know...there's not much I can do."

When I call a business that I've supported for years and say, hey, can I get a coupon or something, the wrong response is "well, we don't have anything like that." The right response is to offer something, anything. "Of course, ma'am! If you come in today, we'll give you...." It absolutely doesn't matter how small the thing is, it's not the the thing I care about. It's the way the thing is presented. What I'm actually asking for is that you recognize and appreciate me and my business.

So, if an airline says, "We see that you've flown with us three times this month and we just wanted to say 'thanks,' so here's a free drink coupon for you." It's worth, what, $6? But it would make me feel good. Like someone noticed me. I feel that my contribution is recognized.

Providing customers with a pleasant feeling of recognition for their business is the very least thing and the most effective thing you can and should do for good customer service.

Moderation: Policing, Curation and Shoveling Behind Elephants

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 11:45:00 PST

A new tenant moves into a community, notices that the grass has been trimmed, the kids are playing in the street without fear of being run over, and every Friday, there's a BBQ for the residents.

How does that happen? Well, resident fees are high enough to pay for regular maintenance, people obey the posted rules and they all chip in for the weekly affair with money, time, or supplies.

That sounds idyllic, but in reality it's just as likely for new residents to chafe at the rules, and work harder to find ways around paying the fees, and be annoyed by the constant clipping of the grass.

In online communities the secret ingredient to a peaceful life is almost always good moderation.

***

Good moderation looks awfully like the secret police to those members of communities who just can't manage to follow rules. Transparency in moderation always sounds good but involving the entire community in moderation only produces good policy when the community is small and there is a consensus of purpose. Once the community grows larger than the founders it's almost impossible to maintain that consensus.

Moderators, like the police, have an unpleasant job and no one likes them for doing it. They have to be parents, expressing disappointment at bad behavior, reprimanding when the behavior escalates and, ultimately punishing when it becomes untenable.

***

In a library, collection librarians are tasked with managing the size and content of the collection. They know the space limitations, budget constraints and what their community needs from them. This is not an abstract concept - a library filled with classic literature, when the community around it needs employment resources is a terrible mismatch. The gap would harm the library as much as the community.

Moderators, like librarians, have to have awareness of what the community wants from the community. If the majority of the community likce having a nice library, as unpopular a decision as it is, Moderators will have to remove Playboy magazine from the shelves. This may mean keeping tabs on "joke answers" or memes as answers because, while they entertain, they lessen the overall quality of the community. Not surprisingly, while the community wants a nice community, if they are the one posting the joke answer, it still hurts to get slapped.

***

And then there's times of crisis. On online communities, crisis looks like nothing at all to people who are not involved, the end times to people who are and the inevitable "this community sucks now" to people on the sidelines.

To Moderators, who have to escort anti-social, perpetually angry/dissatisfied or microaggressive members off the community and, to the best of their ability, clean up the mess afterwards - all while taking heat from people who don't really know the details - it looks exactly like the parade does from behind the elephants.

***

Moderators are unloved by nearly everyone, but essential to the functioning of a healthy community. Because Moderators are human, it's smart for a community Owner not to give them unlimited personal power, and require a certain amount of checks and balances from them before drastic measures are taken.

But if you've ever wondered how an online community can keep the lawns trimmed and hold a Friday BBQ, that's a good time to reach out and thank the Moderators.

The Most Important Comment I Ever Received On My Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:24:00 PST

Originally written as an answer to What is an article, post, debate, or video that persuaded you to change your mind about an important topic? on Quora, this post is not just about Blogging, but about Community-building and the heart of social media.

When I began blogging at Okazu, I saw my role as "leader of the opposition"; the one woman writing about lesbian-themed Japanese comics in a world of commentary by not particularly open-minded young men who had one, quite personal, use for lesbian themes in media.

My points were very in-your-face and I tended to write as if I was a lone voice in a wilderness (which, in many ways, I was.)

Some years into blogging, I wrote a post which was contentious. In fact, I still receive hate mail from it. My original prologue included something like, "If you liked this, please slap yourself, hard, thank you." Ultimately, I rewrote the thing to be less harsh, but insisted (and still insist,) that it was one of the most mind-numbingly dull things I've ever watched. I have no idea what other people were watching when they say it was cute, sweet, romantic, etc. It was episode after episode of crushingly dull animation, plot, character and dialogue. That post received the most comments, the most exposure and, perhaps obviously, the most anger I had ever received up to that point. I've had many more popular posts since, and this one has fallen into deserved obscurity.

But.

After that review, I received a comment from a long-time reader about how I was writing as if my readers were the enemy.

That comment profoundly changed my approach to blogging and to the people who read my writing.

Hard as it was, I acknowledged that the comment was right. I was writing as if the audience was creepy losers and I was on the side of reason and justice. Based on that comment, I revamped not just my tone, but my whole approach to blogging.

I became the opinion leader, encouraged guest posts to give other points of view voice, began to acknowledge my own biases plainly, and set up a reward system for people who actively take part in helping me grow the audience. Instead of treating my readers like the enemy, I began treating them like part of the team - which they are. I thanked them when they corrected me, when they added information I did not have, when they brought up points that contravened my own. Ever since then, I have thanked and rewarded my readers, because without them, I'm talking to an empty room.

I'm a different writer and social media user because of that comment. And the entire community is a much, much better place for it.

Are You Ready for Twitter Rank?

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 05:15:00 PST

Don't you just love it when someone you hardly know passes along "important" emails to your whole department? Or when an acquaintance cc:s everyone in their contacts folder?

Klout, Facebook and now Twitter know better than you who is important. They do, because they have told themselves so. Klout understood that your network was valuable to you, but they insisted that those people they found inherently important were objectively so, by being influential to other people. Your network was less valuable to you than these A-list people over there. And Facebook took a more objective stance, promoting people who paid, unless you click settings that say you absolutely, positively want to see other people.

Now Twitter is joining the ranks of companies who know better that you, with Twitter ranking. Based on purely objective criteria, of course, like size of followers and other numbers that don't mean a thing, Twitter is going to prioritize your feed for you. You'll have a chance to hear more from people who other people feel are important, while your own contacts will be de-prioritized. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it?

Well, you don't have to roll over on this. Using tools that already exist, you can preserve your feed.

Use Lists

Twitter Lists is the simplest way to make sure you don't miss anyone's post. Put your friends, business network and news sources in custom lists. Check your lists rather than your main feed for news and comment that are relevant to you. This is especially important if you regularly talk to people with small followings. Twitter is going to helpfully de-prioritize these posters for you. If the person you need to follow most only has 100 followers, put that person in a List, so you never miss a tweet.

Use a Third-Party Tool

For the moment, you can use a third-party tool such as Hootsuite or a Twitter-ownedtool like Tweetdeck to prioritize and organize your feed. Even better, you can use simple filtering tools to keep certain irrelevant terms off you feed entirely.

Use the Phone/Email/Events

Twitter is a great tool for keeping up with contacts and acquaintances, but sometimes going old-school solves the problem faster than 20 tweets. Organize a meet-up or use an industry event to create that real-life List.

Get your duckies lined up before Twitter hit the Rank button and you'll be ready for anything.

Online Communities: Entropy Increases..Are You Seeing The Cracks?

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:34:00 PST

This is a post I wrote on and about the online platform Quora, on which I am active and frankly I'd like to see succeed. Since the day this post was originally made Quora has instituted some important changed which address the issues in this article. In that case, it is rendered thankfully moot. Nonetheless, I believe this information has value in an of itself. While the post specifically related to Quora, the point I want make here is that Entropy Increases on Communities, as it does everywhere else. Watching MySpace flailing to regain relevance pains me, not because My Space is inherently bad, but because it's over. It had its time, it was really popular and now it's done. But could it have managed to retain relevance longer? How is it that Facebook is managing to do so, where MySpace never could? Read this and join me again at the end:

This winter marked my 2nd anniversary here on Quora. My second year was filled with some amazing things - answers being reproduced over at Huffington Post and Forbes, being named Top Writer. I've connected with amazing people here and really have enjoyed all my time on Quora.

I'm not leaving or anything, but when I (and all of you) come up on that moment, here will be the reasons why:

1) Taking away our sovereignty over our own content.

Several Quora community members have said this plainly and - for whatever reason - Quora is not listening.

If Quora makes it impossible to share the content we create on Quora, then we will create it somewhere else.

I don't know how to say this more plainly. Quora is going to see good writers take their content away from the platform, not because we don't love Quora but because we love creating good content. And we want people to read it. I wrote something great this week, but I have not shared it on Twitter or Facebook because those of my friends who might very well appreciate it cannot see or read or share it themselves unless they are sign up to Quora. Do you sign up to every site just to read a paragraph or two of good content? I don't. I wouldn't ask my friends to, either.

2) The upvote-to-view algorithm ignores the 80/20 rule of all online communities

Ariel Williams wrote an amazing post today: How promotion can reduce an answer ranking... With an actual case example.

How much more/better can it be said that requiring votes to views is punishing the best writers? Good heavens, have none of you ever lurked on a community before? Plenty of people read, think and lurk and VERY FEW comment or engage. You're requiring the best writers to prove, then prove again and again that they are worthy. And you're handicapping them by making it easier for people to see their content here on Quora, which penalizes them.

Here are the first major cracks in Quora. Do nothing if you wish, but entropy increases.

Here is my point for today - No community fails without warning. Breaches of security, privacy, sovereignty and trust do not happen in a vacuum. Your users will first whine, then complain, then create petitions/boards attempting to notify you that changes are unwanted and unwelcome. Then, when enough of them are fed up, the exodus begins. The drain is slow at first, and it's easy to label those who leave with negative terms. But when top users are telling you there are problems and you as community manager/owner are not listening...what do you expect will happen?

On MySpace, users were thrown under the bus for advertisers. The layout became loud and cluttered with ads that did not provide additional value for users. The main reason why Facebook is not yet already fading into obscurity is that they have so far failed to create a functional platform for advertisers. When they do, people (other than those who ran to Google+ to get away from their mothers) will find somewhere else to post their cat pictures.

Whether you run a hobby community or a product community, Entropy Increases, but not invisibly. Cracks appear in walls, voice are raised in protest. When you fail to notice the issues or address them it's not the user base you have to blame.

Optimize Your Next Webinar For Maximum Impact

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 06:03:00 PST

Gone are the days when vendors and speakers come to offices and train people on their newest product. And slowly, the days of face-to-face networking meetings is slipping away as travel becomes less and less of a priority for most businesses.

Webinars are already the tool of choice among training professionals. And by now, you've probably sat through a few and wondered to yourself, how could this be better? What opportunities is the presenter missing? (Okay, maybe you're not thinking that way, but I sure am!) What chance to connect with the audience is slipping away along with the lack of face-to-face time.

Before you fire up Webex next time, here are three tips to maximize your next webinar, and avoid missing important opportunities to connect.

1. Get Your Story Straight

Content Marketing is not limited to product marketing. Whether you are presenting at a conference or on a webinar, you are marketing you. Your skills, your expertise, the story of You is the critical component in communicating well with your audience. Forget worrying about whether you "um" once or twice. Have your story, your key points, and good answers to likely questions ready and waiting. Storytelling during a webinar breaks up the monotony of staring at PowerPoint slides, makes you and your work more real and gives listeners something to grab on to.

Get your story straight so people know who and what you are.

2. The 10-minute Rule is 6-8 minutes for a Webinar

When you've got folks captured in a room, it's easier to see their body language, to *see* their attention waning. On a webinar, the chances are very high that listeners are multitasking from the get go. You are much more likely to be talking at a distracted audience.

Break up the talk slightly more than you might in person. Ask a question, solicit feedback, change focus.

Whatever you choose to do to draw people's attention back to you, do it slightly more often than you might if you were delivering that presentation in person.

3. It's not about you. No, really, it's not.

People have a lot of claims on their time, and they've chosen to take time out of their busy schedule to listen to what you have to say? Why? Is it because you are a compelling and famous speaker? If the answer is yes, then skip this bit. ^_^

Most likely, people have signed up so they can learn something that they can use themselves in their careers. Right now. Preferably 30 second after they click off.

While you're talking about your work, your experience, your perspective, you are missing a chance to ask your listeners what they need or want from this time. Yes, you have a lovely PowerPoint presentation, I'm sure your audience appreciates that. They'll appreciate you going off-slide to help them with a real-time problem more.

Be comfortable enough with your content to make it actionable for someone who is not you.

Being personable, approachable and flexible will take a decent webinar and turn it into a memorable one.

The Myth of Transparency - Why We Don't Really Have a Say

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 08:50:00 PST

Every few months, it makes the news again - another change in Privacy rules on Facebook , a new agreement at Twitter, Google pulls its access from another platform, a shakeup in management, key employees leaving.... Each time this happens it causes an outbreak of prodding, poking and, in many cases, intrusive questions to dig out the "why" of what happened and all the dirty laundry.

Gossip-mongers, paparazzi, we have words for people like this in the entertainment industry and in everyday life. And yet, in an online communities there seems to be a presumption by the community that they have a right to know why decisions are made and who profits from them.

Clearly this is not the case. All of the leading networking platforms are privately-owned firms and while some of them are publicly traded, none are owned by the users. The privately owned networks have limited legal need to report even so much as executive leadership changes. Publicly traded companies must report changes...but they still have no requirements around explaining the whys and wherefores. Nor is there any moral obligation to explain personal choices by the staff about their own lives.

So why do we demand explanations? Let me illustrate with a parable, as I so often do.

I am active in an incredibly niche industry. To say that everyone knows everyone else comes very close to the truth. A few years ago a major player in the industry landscape, having pulled itself out of two
major business setbacks, packed it in quite suddenly, just as it was doing really well again.

People went ballistic. They raged and ranted about this company, how it had never been well-run, or
that it was a joke. Specifically, the President came under major dissection. He's been higgeldy-piggedly about his business objective, running the company like a hobby, inconsistent, etc. (In reality, the market had radically altered several times over a decade, and he had merely been attempting to find workable business models, but that was never once acknowledged.)

Recently, that company has made some moves to return as a player in the field. There were positive
and negative reactions, but the weirdest and most inexplicable reaction I encountered was from members of that industry press. Two journalists told me that they were going to contact the people
involved and demand details of their contracts. I boggled. Then I asked, "By what right do you demand
this knowledge? It's none of your business."

The argument was loud.

A week later one of them contacted me privately to admit that I saved him from embarrassing himself
badly and ruining his credibility.

We use the products. We engage with the communities. Of course we feel as if we have a claim on those companies, but in reality, we have none. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn owe us...nothing. We use their sites for free and in return they sell our data to advertisers. Equally we owe these platforms nothing; no loyalty, no praise. By what right do we demand transparency from these platforms? Because we answer questions and talk with other people?

The Myth is that by participating on a community, we have some kind of ownership of that community. In reality, we have only our own content to leverage. Anything that we have created to make the community a better place is ours, and with some foresight, we'll have made it as portable and flexible as possible. If that content is customized for that site, well then, it's gone.

Change in any community comes with emotional cost, and each time it feels like upheaval but, we are owed no transparency from any platform on which we willingly engage that we do not own. Perhaps some platforms will be more transparent than others, but we have no right to demand answers to questions that are none of our business.

So go ahead and ask your questions, but don't be surprised when no one tells you "why".

4 Ways To Fight Back Against Facebook Throttling Pageviews Without Paying For Promotion

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:00:00 PST

Facebook is throttling Page views in order to "encourage" us to pay for promotion. We all know they are, and we're frustrated by this. It feels like extortion even if it isn't. It's not fair to the folks who have "liked" that page, and okay, yes, we can harangue them to add the page to their favorites, but isn't that forcing them to say they want to read the page, no really, they really want to read the page, thanks, really, over and over again?

No matter how you slice it, it's a crappy deal for the folks on your page. They want to read your posts, they want to "like" and respond to them, if only they knew they were there! But FB has us in a bind, and we're getting fewer and fewer views every time. (I"m down 20% on views from this time last year.) It's time to fight back! Here's a a few tactics to make sure you get your word out.

Ask People to Share the Post - If you're a nice person who believes content is king, this feels like cheating. You don't want to shill for your page, you just want folks to enjoy the content. But, along with "likes" this simple act of sharing allows more people (and people outside your page) to see the content. So go ahead and ask!

Switch Up the Kind of Posts You Make - You're posting status updates regularly (not too often, just often enough) and you're worried that even when they do see the post, people following your page aren't taking note of it. It's time to switch up your posting strategy. Instead of a status update, share a picture, or a video or a link. Ask a question, hold a poll. Rotate through different media to engage people who prefer different communications styles, and you'll get more attention overall.

Share Posts Outside Facebook - Media posted publicly on Facebook can be accessed by people not on Facebook. Public posts can be seen by anyone with a FB account. Go ahead and tweet that image post, share the existence of your page on your mailing list or blog. Amplify, amplify, amplify!

Share Page Posts From Your Personal Account - This is the ace up your sleeve. You have contacts who don't follow your Page but do follow you and when they see you share a post from your Page, they'll be there with likes and shares of their own. Share those posts on your personal page and leverage that network.

Use these four tips to fight back against Facebook throttling and get the word out!

Where to Start With Content Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:13:00 PST

Social Media's new buzzphrase is Content Marketing. You've seen it on blogs, Facebook Gurus tell you to embrace it, webinars abound. You love the idea...but where to start?

Chances are, you're already creating content. Look beyond "holiday sales!" reminders to see the content you already produce.

Tell people what you love about your product or service - you have years of helping people be more productive, happier, more efficient. Tell those stories and let you passion shine. People respond to that with passion of their own.

Share the insight years of experience have given you - You've been working in your field for years, maybe decades, and you've seen fads come and go. You know what works and why. That kind of experience makes an impression on readers.

Be honest - This advice cannot be repeated too often. Consumers are not children. When you know something, say it, when you don't, be honest. There's no amount of fiction that can make up for betrayed trust.

Tell your own story - You are a unique snowflake...or maybe not, but chances are, your story can help someone, by giving them a unique perspective on life. Don't take yourself out of your story, you are the best hook you have.

Avoid gimmicks - Don't look for "clever' ways to gain engagement, just talk with people. Contests should be about your users/readers/followers not about your numbers.

Creating original, compelling content is as simple as having a conversation about something you love, with someone else who loves it, too. Tell your story your way, respond when people talk with you and Content Marketing will happen.

How Passion Sells - Going Beyond Eating Your Own Dogfood

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:03:00 PDT

It's an old adage that "Passion Sells." And we've all experienced how a passionate influencer can sway our own opinion - especially when that influencer is someone to whom we have previously given cognitive authority in areas of expertise. This is the core of social search, and every platform is betting on you wanting to do more of this - getting opinions and recommendations from influencers, providing recommendations of your own to your sphere of influence.

But, why is it that passions sells? What are the specific qualities of passion that work in terms of influence? What, specifically triggers the metamorphosis of passion to influence? It's more than just eating your own dog food, although realistically, you'd better be starting from there. ^_^

Passion is often softened in marketing into images of sensuality or hedonism, but at it's heart, passion is about belief.

The Journey Begins With Belief

Celebrity endorsements are a tried and true form of advertising, so are testimonials. Both of these are based on the simple idea that a voice that is recognizable will have influence. For some people sheer recognition is enough, for others there must be a connection - that person is like me. Either way the journey begins with belief in the voice speaking. Depending on the product, or the sophistication of the audience, you can buy endorsement, but you can never fake belief. When you believe in your product, other people are willing to believe in it too.

Benefits With Benefits

It's awfully nice that using your product or service was good for that person over there. You'll need to convince every person out there of direct, tangible results for them, too. To do that, you'll need to think way outside your list of intended results, uses and outcomes. Understanding that each person who uses your product or service has an individual story, gives you a chance to customize what you have to say to your listeners. Make the benefits plain to each person on the scale of their needs, not out of your jar of pitches.

Making a Convincing Case

When we have been in someone else's shoes, we know what they are seeing. When we have a story that is compelling to that person, they can see what we are seeing. Bridging that gap between perspectives is exactly where passion fits in. Passion becomes the connection between the words and the belief that underscores those words. It's your business, it's your content, it's your life. If you aren't passionate about it, why should anyone else be?

Don't throw your passion down on every third project out there. Take every opportunity to mean what you say. When you've built up your reputation as someone who means every word they say, whose passion has worth, you'll find that your influence increases exponentially.

Embrace what you do with passion and ignite your creativity, and your market's belief in you.

When a Reward Program Feels Like a Slap

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 06:32:00 PDT

One of the keystones in a business-consumer relationship is the idea of reward. The concept is simple - the company says, "Be loyal to us and be rewarded by us" to the consumer.

I'm not going to rant how credit card companies, airlines, hotel chains and other business conglomerates have shifted their "reward" programs from any meaningful measure of reward to S&H green stamp-like "points you can cash in for cheap consumer goods." Today I'm going to focus on a situation that any small company might run into - when a reward ends up feeling more like a punishment.

The company in question is, generally speaking, excellent in both word and deed when it comes to customer service. They recently ran a promotion in which current customers would receive a code that could be decoded for a discount to be used on a future purchase.

There were several problems with this contest right off the bat. Non-purchasing people who visited them at an event were able to get the discount code card - and presumably more than one, to get a better discount - while people not at the event had to jump through some hoops to get a card. It wasn't as easy as sending one's email address - it was a throwback to the old days of send a 3" x 5" card with 1" block letters and a self-addressed stamped envelope.... That was Step 1. It wasn't an insurmountable hurdle, but it did feel weirdly anachronistic and awkward. And it mean that I waited 2 weeks to get my card, where people who just happened to be at the event were able to get theirs right away by mere coincidence of time and place.

When one received the card, it contained a QR code which, when scanned, would reveal the code, or the code could be entered in a special website to reveal the discount. Step 2. Again, not by itself arduous...but why couldn't this have been Step 1 for people not at that event? I give you my email, you send me an email with the code. Faster, less waste of paper and less time.

Step 3 was where it really started to go wrong. I revealed my discount and found that I would save....4%? Seriously? I admit - I felt insulted. All that time and yes, I paid for a stamp...to get 4% off an order? I'll be honest, any discount less than 15% annoys me. When I discount items, I never discount less than 15%. But to go through that rigmarole and wait to receive a 4% discount...well that was much less of a "thanks" than they intended, I'm sure.

But this wasn't over. I kept the card, even though it had what I considered to be a relatively limited time period - it was good for only 3 months. So, not a special reward discount so much as a time-sale coupon.

Step 4 - I finally put an order together and went to apply my discount...only to find that the items I chose were not eligible for the discount. (To be fair, they were already discounted, but still.) So, in the end, as a reward and to thank me for my support, I'm out the price of a stamp.

As I say, I genuinely love this company. I can totally understand at each step of the process why it had to be the way it was, but in the end, the special discount was more like a slap in the face.

When developing reward programs, consider the process as a whole, as well as individual parts.

Make sure that the end goal - to reward and thank customers - is executed fully, or you may actually accomplish the opposite of what you intend.

Rumors of Quora's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:59:00 PDT

Note: I have been less active here of late because of other time constraints and something had to fall off the list. This blog was it. I have, however, been very active on Quora, where I answer all sorts of questions about just about anything except Social Media. ^_^ Recently Quora has been tagged by a number of former users as a site that is just about to implode. Here is my rebuttal, with a healthy dose of Community Lifecycle discussion. If you've got any kind of a community online, forum, mailing list, Facebook, consider reading section 3, 4 and 5.

***

1. Introduction

Elitist, clique-ish, stuck up and broken, Quora is reported to be in the middle of a mass exodus of tech talent and contributing users. Or so some people would have us believe. Certainly, some former users have written angry screeds based on their own personal experience in this apparent snakepit. One of the founders is leaving, so clearly that is a signal to anyone with a brain to get out now!

The problem with these reports is that they are, in most cases, conflating two completely different aspects of Quora, and trying to make the one responsible for the other.

2. Quora, Product and Community

Let's have a frank discussion about Quora. Quora is a beast with two faces - a community, which has all of the very typical problems of all online communities, and all of the benefits, as well. And there is Quora the product, which as of yet does not have a strictly defined existence in the public eye, but is strong enough to have gained a second round of investment.

Quora the product is a fully-fleshed out community architecture without an [apparent] business model. Neither users nor spectators really know anything about Quora the product's future. At the moment, Quora has neither advertising nor subscription and if content is being sold by Quora to media outlets, none of the users know anything concrete about those agreements.

What Quora the product will evolve into is, as of yet, entirely unknown to users of Quora. Pretty much any conjecture or opinion you hear from disgruntled ex-users is just that...conjecture or opinion. Charlie Cheever leaving means that...Charlie Cheever is leaving. We cannot reasonably connect any change in his status at Quora with any external change in Quora the product.

The second half of this equation - apparent problems with Quora the community- is driven by the community lifecycle. Online platforms have a lifecycle of their own, and each user on that platform has a lifecycle on that platform.

3. User Lifecycles

Think of MySpace for a moment. It was a pioneer in the social space, stepping on the shoulders of less-popular but still functional Livejournal. For a while it was the go-to social platform. When people ask the question now "What happened to MySpace?" or expound upon its downfall, they are merely showing off their lack of knowledge about communications platforms and the lifecycle that accompanies them.

In Perils and Pitfalls of Community Management, I wrote about the stages of creation, organization and moderation of an online community.

Along with the lifecycle of a community, each individual user goes through a lifecycle process:

1) Newbie - Everything is new and exciting. Some people seem to effortlessly acclimate, others bang against walls, still others fall foul almost immediately of community guidelines and moderation.

2) Experienced Community User - A person has been active on the community for a few months, can answer basic "how to" and "where" questions and still has a lot of enthusiasm for the community.

3) Senior Community Member - This person has been active on the community for more than 6 months and has been assigned cognitive or real authority on the community.

4) Moderators/Admins - Ideally, these people have shown uncommon skill in handling community interaction. (This is often not true, however, and many communities will promote heavy users without any real people skills.)

***

What does this mean for a person who has just joined Quora? It means that there are roughly 3 months or so for the honeymoon. In that time, the new user will be building their profile, their interest map (i.e., following topics and people) and building their reputation. The reputation one builds in the first three months will be critical to future interactions - this is the online community equivalent of a "first impression."

After that 3 months, the user continues in the role they have created for themselves - whether it be "active user" or "gadfly"or "occasional poster," very little will change for another cycle of three months or so.

At 6 months, the user has had time to acclimate - or not - to the community and to establish behavioral patterns there. If the reputation the user established is as "knowledgeable and helpful resource" then they might find themselves rising in cognitive authority in the community. On Quora, the PeopleRank algorithm is a direct expression of this, as the user gains status through community approval.

For the community, this three-month user lifecycle means that, at any given time, new users are joining and asking all the same questions, while previously active users are retiring, either due to life changes, changed status on the community, or merely because they have hit the end of their lifecycle and are not as motivated to be there any more.

People who engage, but are not recognized, on online communities very often were not able to gain positive attention through normal community activities. They take their opportunity to gain attention and garner reaction with a dramatic exit, called "a flounce." Ironically, many users who engage in a flounce do not actually leave the site at all, but remain on the periphery, commenting (negatively) on the community's downfall.

Changes in staff, formatting and community standards can all affect user lifecycles. Some users take these changes as chances to leave quietly, while some take the opportunity to flounce off publicly.

4. Successful vs Unsuccessful Engagement Online

The recent spate of "Quora is over" posts are almost all written by people who never quite "got" Quora, people who leave with a flounce. What is the difference between the person who "gets" a community and a person who doesn't?

- Experience on other community platforms
A new community member who has never been on a moderated platform before might find the constraints of that society confining. The Internet is a big place, and in many places, freedom of expression without consequence is a standard expectation. On a moderated community like Quora, consequence of expression is a daily occurrence. Some people, when forced to comply with community standards, will find themselves unable to do so

- The ability to separate knowledge/experience from opinion
New community members whose agenda include "winning" conversations and those who cannot imagine that their own biases and experiences have colored their perspective, often find it nearly impossible to function on a moderated community. These people have a hard time separating qualitative from quantitative information.

- The ability to separate constructive criticism from personal criticism
Quora is designed to allow anyone make suggestions to alter a question or answer. Many new Quorans are shocked and appalled when complete strangers edit their answers. Others are enraged when their answers are tagged with "Need Improvement" or "Does Not Answer the Question" or any of the other tags with which Reviewers, Admins, Moderators can tag a post.

The inability to separate out the needs of the community from the needs of the individual Quoran shows a critical misunderstanding of what Quora the community is about. Quora is, on the face of it, a group effort - a constant process to ask good questions and benefit from great answers.

5. What Cliques With You

Let's take a moment and look at the accusation of "cliquishness" that inevitably arises within a community. What, exactly, does that mean for a public community?

In school, a clique is a social sub-network that forms within a larger social framework. It is impenetrable to outsiders, and is easily broken or destroyed by interactions between insiders. Can a public online community really be "cliqueish?" Well, yes and no.

After a community is established and stable, any new user is likely to find an in-crowd in existence. You expect a store to have employees and a hierarchy in place to keep it running - a community needs no less. Users of any level who have interacted for any length of time before you arrive will, of course, have already developed relationships with one another.

How hard is it to break into this "clique"? To a small extent that depends on the reason for the clique in the first place. If the group was formed for the sole purpose of providing a way for a small group to communicate, it might well be very difficult for a new user to make a positive impression.

But public online communities very rarely exist to serve a small group of people. It's far more likely that they exist to provide a forum for communication and information-sharing for a large group. So - how hard is it to break into that in-crowd? Not hard at all. By providing useful, thoughtful perspective, insight and information, a person can rapidly be recognized as a positive resource on that platform. Again, Quora makes this simple, by providing the community a chance to increase cognitive authority for any given user with upvotes.

Why, then, do people have a hard time getting along on Quora?

It's easy to see people who will not last long on any online community. These people start off rude, or loud, or "clever" and slowly, but surely, the community ceases to hear them, tunes them out or escorts them out the door. Multiple warnings from admins are seen as personal vendetta, rather than a call to engage with the community in a positive and meaningful way.

Recently, a few experienced users have taken time off from Quora. Some of the more public "Quora is dying" articles have cited these people leaving as proof that Quora is rotting from within. However, if you look at individual cases, you can see that as many people have left because of life changes and community lifecycle changes as have left because of any intrinsic (much less endemic) failure on Quora's part. In other cases, Quora has moderated a few people for their inability to follow community standards - these actions have almost invariably been followed by loud, public flounces by the parties involved. This is followed by those parties conflating Quora the community (with which they never meshed) and Quora the product, about which none of the users have concrete information.

6. Conclusion - What Does This Mean For Quora?

This, of course, is the big question. And honestly, we have no idea. Quora the product is a privately owned entity. We, the users, are not privy to decisions made about the company or product until they are made public. Any conjecture about the health of the company is, as I said, merely conjecture.

What we can say is that Quora the community is as vital as ever. No, the quality of questions has not dropped - people are just getting through to the last part of their lifecycle and are tired of waves of new people coming in and stomping around the site. Yes, Quora *could* do better with onboarding. A brief training video, followed by a single, easy to find Index of information (not in Q&A form, which just encourages confusion about rules) could, potentially, solve some of the problems. But it would cause others. In any case, no one reads the FAQs.

Users who joined post the Initial Quora ramp-up, it is still possible to find a place here. It just takes a little time and effort and a little goodwill and desire to make Quora a better resource.

For those of us who use Quora in this fashion, at this moment, at least, the rumors of Quora's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Two Things You Can't Fake on Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 06:35:00 PDT

This week Social Media channels are abuzz with NBC's epic failure to recognize what Social Media is about...and what the Internet is, full stop. While Twitter blazes with reported failures of NBC's streaming channels and inability to access live coverage, NBC executives have taken to the airwaves to explain to the denizens of the Internet how the problems are all their fault.

The above debacle is a massive and public expression of the two things that cannot be faked in Social Media: Cluefulness and Relevance.

Being clueless is, unfortunately for many businesses, quite simple. All you need to do is have no idea of the needs of your audience, or any idea of what social media really is (hint: it's a lot of people talking...).

Being Clueful and Relevant means you know:

Who Your Audience Is (Where they are, When they are on)

What They Want

How They Intend to Get What They Want If You Don't Give It To Them

This last is where NBC really dropped the ball. By insisting on delayed coverage for the Opening Ceremonies, I guess they expected we'd all sit around staring at the clock. Instead, many of us simply found overseas streams and proxy servers, so we could watch the Ceremonies live. It took me, oh, about 15 minutes to find a working overseas stream. When that one cut out, it took me 10 more minutes to find another one.

But I'm not talking about NBC today. I'm talking about another failure to be Clueful or Relevant. A much, much smaller scale of failure, but just as annoying.

Yesterday I received a tweet: Hey @Yuricon! I followed you, you should follow me!

Okay, not the most skilled opening, but maybe sincere. So I popped over to their account and found something that only very tangentially intersected my interests and the interests of my audience. I tweeted back:

"Your topic isn't my topic, but if you say something interesting, I'll share it and follow."

Okay, so far, another day on Twitter. Bear in mind that I am outspoken about media's failure when it comes to women (hyper-sexualization, body image, unequal portrayals of men and women in power, dismissive and judgmental language in regards to women, etc.,). The next tweet showed a massive dose of Cluelessness.

The person/company in question assured me that they understood women, because he (he had identified himself) was publishing a book on self-improvement for women. My response was admittedly very sarcastic, something about how wonderful that was, because more women need more men to tell them how to improve themselves.

Here's my point. NBC execs are taking to Twitter to tell us to stop whining, that the problems are with our computers..., this shows clearly a complete lack of connection with their audience. It's obvious that to NBC and to the IOC, that we are merely a commodity to be bought and sold. NBC cannot fake having a clue, or understanding the least anything about Social Media. This guy was also unable to fake being Clueful or Relevant and instead, just opted to throw his one pitch with "something about women" at me.

The worst part about companies pretending to have a clue or to be relevant, is that it is horribly, painfully evident to anyone looking on.

NBC could have asked their interns, "Hey, if we do a time-delay on the Opening Ceremonies, what would you do?" This guy could have read some of my posts and seen what he does that would be relevant to me and my audience.

Have a clue who you're talking to - about what - and why - and you won't need to fake anything at all.

How Social Media Can Work in the Brick and Mortar World

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:14:00 PDT

The first post on this blog starts, as it should, from the beginning. To make sure we're all talking about the same thing, I provide a short overview of the terminology we're using. Here are a few highlights relevant to today's post:

Social Media is the media you use to communicate with people. It does not mean "online" or "Facebook." Any medium you use to communicate - to be social - is social media. Twitter is a form of social media. So is a forum or discussion group. So is a cocktail party.

Social Media Marketing is using social media to communicate the value of your products and services. If you are good at your business, you do this every time you talk to a customer. If you have a Fan page on Facebook, or a website with updates and promotions, you are also doing this.

As I will say over and over here - the medium is not the message. It is merely a medium. If you can think of "talking to people" as a kind of medium - that's Social Media. You communicate something to them (wherever, however) and, if you do your job well, they communicate it to other people. The medium is "being social."

**

Local businesses are having a hard time of it these days. They are being squeezed by the convenience (and, in some cases, the lack of sales tax) of online sites and the cost of doing business in brick and mortar world. I sympathize with local businesses, because physical real estate and overhead do make costs much higher upfront. Knowing this I will often go to a local business to get an item that I know I could get a little cheaper in a big box store, just to support the business and the town. However, I'm seeing a real gap in local businesses these days and it's not just in pricing. Return policies, greetings, pricing and communications skills all seem to be taking a hit.

I walked into a store recently, and saw *exactly* the item I was looking for. The price seemed competitive, so I asked if the price included a critical part (something without which the item was useless.) The person behind the counter came over, looked at the tag and said, "No." Then he started to add up the costs of the all the pieces that I would have to pay for. The total wasn't cheap, but it wasn't massively out of line with what I had seen for that item elsewhere. I thanked him, said it was a little expensive, but that the piecemeal pricing was very offputting and walked out the door, wondering why he wasn't asking me what I needed the item for, how much his competitors were charging and most importantly...what he could do to make that sale?

Social Media is talking with people, Social Media Marketing is communicating the value of your goods and services. That store owner could have used Social Media to fill my immediate needs and make that sale by doing any one of the following:

Ask a Question

Had he stopped me with "What are planning on using this for?" as a lead-in to a discussion of the superior quality and longer life of this item as opposed to some other brand, he would have stopped me from leaving the store. Being interested in why I needed it, and how I would use it, could end up making that sale.

Tell a Story

Surely someone else has bought that item, why not tell me about that person, and how it suited them. Don't offhandedly say "well, pros like it," because that doesn't mean anything to me, but a hearty tale of stability, flexibility for multiple situations and long life could have made that cost seem less of an obstacle.

Be the Expert

When I go to a local business, I expect that you know every single item like the back of your hand. If I want confused stares and shrugs, I'll go to big box stores. I came to this store because they specialize in this field - I expect to get expert advice. If the best you can do is quote a price and watch me walk out the door, you've lost your chance to be seen as a resource.

Make a Deal

This is a classic fall-back technique. Throw in a lower-priced, but necessary item, if I buy the rest of the kit. It's low cost for you and I'll need to replace that part anyway, eventually, so if I've bought the rest of the set-up, you can be pretty sure I'll come back here to get the replacement.

***

A good Yelp review is nice and might get someone in the door, but best practices when you speak with every customer will stop them from walking out again and keep them coming back.

Online or offline, brush up your Social Media and make those sales.

Dress Up Your Profile for a LinkedIn Groups Interview

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:39:00 PDT

When one reads articles about professional networking on LinkedIn, LI Groups are almost always a key component.

LinkedIn Groups are loose confederations of people with a topic, industry, company or qualifications in common. Conversation is mostly driven by group members, and from time to time by a highly engaged group leaders. Some LI Groups have very specific criteria - members of trade associations, employment in a certain field, particular academic achievements, work experience at a specific company, but many others have more open criteria and will allow people who are even peripherally associated with the topic to join. Each group is a little different, and each will have a different take on what makes a good member.

I run an industry-related group myself and, as a result, I see all the various ways a person can misunderstand, misrepresent or simply miss a chance to be seen as a valuable group member.

Here are a couple of tips on dressing up your profile so that the group leader adds you without hesitation:

First: Read the Group Description Do you fit the group? Are you close, but not quite, what the group is looking for? If you really don't fit the group criteria re-think what you hoped to gain from the group. Check to see if the group posts are Public or not. You may be able to read posts, even if you are not a member of the group. If you come close, then it's time for a relevance upgrade to your profile...

Second: Add Relevant Experience and Projects to your Profile You may be a volunteer at a local event and that is why you are so interested in this topic. Add that experience to your profile! Companies looking at candidates often look for outside relevant experience to round out on the job experience. Make every effort to let a group owner know that you belong in this group because you already have done relevant work.

Third: Write a Short Note to the Group Leader LinkedIn doesn't give Group Leaders a chance to require notes from applicants, but providing context goes a long way to filling in holes. Explaining how your experience or projects are relevant to the group. Don't give the group leader a resume, just highlight the relevance of your experience.

Fourth: Do Not Reply With Anger to a Rejection Because my group is an industry group, I end up rejecting a great number of people who do not really pay attention to the group criteria. Because some number of those people are younger, with little professional experience, I occasionally receive very angry emails explaining why my rejection was unfair. Not surprisingly, this does not work to change my mind...if anything it reinforces my belief that my choice was the correct one. No one needs or wants a professional group member who throws hissy fits. As the Group Owner one of my jobs is to keep the group from too much drama, in fact.

In my group, I am as flexible as possible when I allow folks in. If there is no note added, I will visit a profile and look for relevant experience. So frequently I encounter profiles that are incomplete or utterly bare, with no way to know why this person thinks they are a good match for the group. I also see a great deal of wishful thinking, as young people apply to the group in order, they hope, to get a job. Unfortunately, my group description specifically states that the group is not to be used for job-hunting. If they took a moment to read the description, they'd know that.

Seeing how you fit into the group will go a long way to saving time and energy (and avoiding potential rejection.) Dress up your profile and be professional to pass your LinkedIn Group interview.

How Social Media Doesn't Work (and How It Does)

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 06:15:00 PDT

It's morning. We wake up and turn on the, Internet, TV or radio for weather report, music, traffic or companionship. A voice starts talking to us while we pour our coffee.

A commercial comes on, "Log in to our Facebook page at...!" the voice says. We stop and stare at the TV. "Log in to our Facebook page?" we say, dumbfounded at the idea. "You sell sneakers. What benefit can your Facebook Page give me?"

So we check. Nope, no sales, no discounts, just facts about the store and a overenthusiastic comment or two - then a lot of questions on the Wall that have been left unanswered.

How Social Media doesn't work: If your business has a Facebook page, you'd better have something there to make it worth people's time and respond to them when they ask questions.

We're on the way to the office, radio in the car is on. The DJ, who clearly has been given a free meal at a local restaurant in return for a positive comment is raving about the awesome large portions. "Don't forget the pickles" he says, eagerly echoed by his sidekick. "The pickles?" we echo. How stupid do they think we are? It's obvious that they've been fed for free or paid to endorse this restaurant. And, we ask ourselves, is this DJ really someone we admire? Do we *care* what kind of food he likes? Probably not.

How Social Media doesn't work: Paid endorsements are not, and never will be, Social Media.

We start our morning email review and there, on Facebook, is a picture on a friend's feed. It's a book we have never heard of - the cover is appealing. The friend is someone whose taste we trust. So we take a few minutes and look around for information about that book. And we find a video trailer that delights and charms. We share the trailer with our Facebook group, our Twitter and we buy the book.

That's how Social Media works.

Guest Post on Brainzooming: Fake Social Media Hall of Fame

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:38:00 PDT

This week on Twitter I was calling out egregious corporate misuses of Social Media. At the behest of Mike Brown of Brainzooming, I collected them all into a guest post for his blog. I invite you to enjoy my Fake Social Media Hall of Fame and other great posts on innovation and creativity at Brainzooming!

When You've Crossed the Line Between Fan and Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Erica Friedman) — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:49:00 PDT

Social Media has provided all of us with almost unlimited access to communicate across previously unbreachable distances. Geographic distances mean nothing, and Time is not nearly the issue it used to be. Even the distance between fans and their idols are decreasing. Your favorite actor may not follow you back on Twitter, but you know...they may. Or they might respond when you have something important to say to them. People in niche fields have unprecendented access to people they admire, where they are likely to get personal reponses from creative minds that even a few years ago would be walled away behind a publicity machine.

As fantastic as it is, this access is not without problems.

This week I posted a rage comic on my personal Facebook account. A "friend" took offense to it and 'splained why I had no right to post it. When I suggested that people who 'splained was, in fact the problem, they 'splained again why I was a jerk.

The problem here is that this person was not, actually, a friend of mine. This was a fan who has access to me as a "friend." The fact that they took offense and used the opportunity to 'splain to me how rude it was was ironic, since the comic was specifically about how fans tend to 'splain.

To be clear here, I should probably explain what 'splaining is. 'Splaining is short for mansplaining, or whitesplaining or, in this case, fansplaining, in which a person presumes to know more about a thing than the people they are talking to, based on the fact that they are a member of a privileged group or because they simply don't know or care how much the other person knows. When a woman asks a group about what SSD to get, and a guy in the room starts to talk to her about memory and security like she doesn't already understand that, that's "mansplaining." Fans of popular culture have a habit of wanting to win a conversation, or show how much they know, so they "fansplain."

The real problem is not that this fan chose to 'splain something I already knew to me, it was that he chose to lecture me on my personal FB account. He crossed the line.

I've seen people get very angry when an admired idol doesn't respond to their tweets. Or be furious when their emails are blocked. Not everyone wants to be friends with their fans. Even people who are relatively relaxed about that have a line in the sand they don't want crossed. My line is this - don't presume to tell me what I should or should not say on my own spaces. For one thing, you don't know what my intent is. Secondly, and I mean this in the nicest possible way - you are not actually my friend. So, please, don't cross that line.

Because you can contact someone on Social Media, do not presume that your are actual friends.

Be mindful of your privilege as a fan, and enjoy, but do not overstep those boundaries.