Ten best secret mobile killer what?

You know, you don’t have to read articles like this. They aren’t about you or your device or what you should really be doing right now.

Moreover, they won’t guarantee your content will go viral either. Also, so what if your content “goes viral?” Lots of people will see it and maybe that’s good. Or maybe it isn’t good.

Or maybe it doesn’t even matter. Think of the last cool “viral” thing you did or saw? Did it influence you to do something? Did it influence anyone you know to do something? And “do something” I mean more than “share” it or “like” it. I mean, “did it have a meaningful impact on your life?”

Stop reading articles like this. Instead, read things that are helpful for you. Or better yet, stop reading stuff like this and instead go out and meet with people or talk with people. That way you’ll have a better foundation for making content that is good. Content that helps your business and helps your readers.

And it won’t matter whether it goes viral or not.

I encourage you to read Matthew’s post “On Reading.”

@respres @gahlord 'Ten secret killer apps to download now that are guaranteed to make your sources go viral'

12:14:11 7:03 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Corcoran_Group

Matthew Shadbolt

Image via Wikipedia

Strategy is one of those words that gets abused. People use it all the time when they mean something else, usually a plan or tactic. This edition of “three views of a secret” presents some different takes on what strategy is or isn’t.

Social isn’t a Strategy

A post spurred on by an online conversation between myself, Jeff Turner and Derek Overbey. In it, I include a definition of strategy and an example of how it works.

Strategy And Conflict: In re Gahlord

Rob Hahn, one of my favorite people with whom to argue about discuss these kinds of things, takes issue with the fact that my definition of strategy doesn’t rely on the existence of conflict or competition. Rob lays out a modification of my definition to create a competition-focused definition of strategy. His addendum is especially useful to review. His discussion of social capital is also useful but I think the result me not clarifying what “social” is in my original post.

Say WHAT? A Five Star Yelp Review for a Competitor?

Phoenix real estate broker Jay Thompson describes his thought process in taking a specific action using online social tool Yelp. My guess is that if we were to ask Jay whether he had a particular strategic motivation he’d say “not really.” However the thinking and actions are very relevant to the concepts of strategy, competition and social tool use.

As the shine of social media dulls ever so slightly and we begin to examine it just a little more closely, there are ways of considering and using the tools that go deeper than “10 tips for Facebook” or “Best practices of Twitter.”

There are strategic considerations, sociological considerations, marketing considerations. Here are three articles that examine aspects and approaches to social media that I think you’ll find relevant, thoughtful and useful.

Your Facebook Friends are not Really Listening

In Jeff Turner’s request that the hype nozzle be squelched a bit, he applies some fancy math and some common sense to  some of the social metrics and measures that are getting tossed around.

On Colony Collapse

Matthew Shadbolt challenges the concept of the “strength of weak ties” in this essay that covers social tools, biology and the nature and meaning of human connection.

Stop Trying to Engage Your Audience

Included not only because I want to list my own work alongside the previous excellent works, but because it outlines a method for action and behavior in the social space.

Everything that can be measured, will be.

I was introduced to the concept that “everything that can be digital, will be” in  Nicholas Negroponte‘s 1995 book Being Digital.

While a read of that book today will be humorous for the pantheon of companies that self-immolated in the big dot com blowout of the early naughts, the concepts introduced have pretty much all held.

Lately, I’ve been mulling over a corollary to “everything that can be digital, will be” that is making itself apparent: Everything that can be measured, will be. As human interactions become increasingly digital, there are–by default–data points being generated on all of our interactions.

Social technologies are accelerating the availability of data and the kinds of data available to measure.

Measured: physical presence

Mobile technologies make it fairly simple to measure where someone is using GPS and WiFi. As people are typically more guarded about their location, the incentives required to get people to volunteer that data are trickier.

However, arbitrary social incentives (such as Foursquare’s badges and “mayor” status) and real social incentives (knowing where your friends are so you can join them) break down the barrier to volunteering location.

In addition, commercial endeavors like deal services provide a “rational” reason to volunteer physical location for measurement.

Measured: relationships

Facebook, Twitter and any other social networks out there combine these data points to measure our “social graph.” Our relationships are being measured. There’s even a metric: “friends” or “followers.”

(As an aside, the above video is from 2006–any changes in social media since then?)

Measured: sentiment

As we volunteer information on sites like Twitter, our sentiment about a variety of topics can be measured. Since people tend to like to have their tastes and preferences about some things known, voluntary expressions of sentiment are not especially difficult to gather.

Existing methods of sentiment analysis are certainly rough around the edges. But an entire field, text analysis, is embracing this problem. I would expect our ability to measure sentiment in a meaningful fashion will increase significantly in the coming years.

Efforts are under way in medium to large organizations to quantify and qualify sentiment analysis into meaningful metrics.

The disruption of being digital

There were a variety of responses in the late 90s, as industries began to realize the disruption potential of statements like “everything that can be digital, will be.”

Some organizations stuck their head in the sand and waited for the fad to blow over. Some organizations blindly thrashed about with digital technologies until they either learned new skills or expired. Some began to make use of legal power while others worked to innovate around legal power.

That first wave of the web, getting everything that could be digital to actually be digital, was disruptive. It left more than one large, well-established industries in disarray.

As organizations and industries have adapted to being digital, new skills have been learned. New language, technology and strategies have been added to the skillsets of employees and business leaders.

However, this “digital revolution” was primarily a workflow and distribution disruption. Learning how to create things for a digital world and how to distribute things for a digital world.

The disruption of measure

I suspect that, like being digital, there will be disruption associated with being measured. There will be new skillsets that will allow organizations to prosper or continue long enough to adapt to changing competitive pressures. These skillsets will not be limited to departmental silos, specific layers of corporate hierarchy, or outside vendors.

Just as all people engaged in business today need at least a foundational level of internet understanding, we’ll see the requirement of a foundational level of measurement understanding.

The nature of the disruption posed by a “measurement revolution” requires more than simply learning new processes and manipulating new toys and infrastructure. Learning to understand data and derive meaning from it is a more involved task that requires a different level of cognition.

It will also require different human skills for living in an environment of constant change and overwhelming specific data.

Image by Marion Doss via Flickr

I was recently asked for some simple practical tips that business owners could take to “strike an effective balance between print and digital.” I think that’s the wrong question.

The real issue is how will organizations thrive in a changing environment. Here’s is how I responded:

Examine all marketing, whether print or digital, from a perspective of viability and importance.

It will be difficult to gauge importance without doing some diligent research into which media and specific pieces actually drive sales. For many businesses, learning to do this will be enough to work on as a starting point.

Determining viability is much easier: do you have the in-house skills to create and evaluate good digital work? How about good print work? What evidence exists to support your conclusions? Here again it is likely that new skills will need to be acquired (through learning, hiring or successful partnerships).

This issue of the need to acquire new skills (either to evaluate importance or to determine viability) is not limited to small organizations. It is prevalent across all sizes of companies I encounter. In addition, it isn’t a problem that is confined to entry-level workers or job seekers–in many cases it is company leadership which needs this sort of honest learning the most.

We’re in the midst of an economic shift that is much like the shift from agrarian economies to industrial economies. It isn’t about whether something is digital or print. It’s about how the data flows and how an organization is going to thrive in an environment of increasing change.

Image via Wikipedia

Aba and Jonathan from Dealer are going to be presenting at this month’s Web Analytics Wednesday. The topic is: “Up and to [the Right SEO Tactics]”

• 6:30 hangout begins
• 7:00 Aba and Jonathan present
• Followed by more geeking out

Hosted here at Thoughtfaucet located in the Howard Space Center at 4 Howard Street Studio i3 Burlington VT. See you there!

Image by ronsaunders47 via Flickr

• Twitter favorites duplicate a bookmark function
• Twitter favorites displace the many tools for reading later
• Twitter favorites becomes a mishmash of random stuff that becomes a chore to wade through
• Twitter favorites become yet another in-box and no one needs more of those

Add to all of that the fact that all of the other features of Twitter are way more engaging because they involve real people doing and saying things in real time. Favorites becomes a sort of icebox where tweets go to become forgotten.

But here’s something I do that you can do too.

Twitter favorites: a technique

Whenever someone says anything positive about me or my business, I favorite the tweet.

That’s it. Very simple, very easy, very quick.

You’re going to get a few benefits from using this technique.

Learning about sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is a hot topic among social media wonks. I suspect many public relations firms are using it as a stand in for the old “placements” metric–how many times was a client mentioned in the media.

By manually adding tweets to your favorites you’re going to gain direct experience with sentiment analysis.

The most challenging thing about this technique is determining whether something is positive enough for me to give it the favorite. If you undertake this process you’ll start to realize how challenging sentiment analysis really is–and why it’s probably not worth trusting what anyone is telling you about sentiment analysis.

Do you favorite a simple retweet? Do you favorite a simple smiley? How about a #FF? How about something that has a positive bit and a criticism bit?

If you aren’t sure where to start with this, here’s how I do it:

• Any tweet by anyone that has anything vaguely positive gets favorited.

• RT without positive commentary isn’t favorited.

• #FF in which I’m just one in a long string is not likely to get favorited.

• Anything that includes the word “thanks” gets favorited.

You’ll have to decide for yourself. And what you consider positive sentiment might be different from what I consider positive sentiment.

The payoff for doing all this deep thinking is that you end up with a metric for how much satisfaction you’re generating on Twitter. You can count the number of favorites and know if you’re making people happy or not.

You’ll start being more helpful on Twitter

The payoff mentioned above can be a powerful motivator to use Twitter in a way that is helpful. We all like gold stars, right? Well whenever you get to favorite something on Twitter you basically are giving yourself a gold star. The icon is even a gold star. Genius!

But seriously, if one of the quick, simple actions you take regularly is to hit the favorite button whenever someone says “thanks” you’re more likely to look for opportunities to generate satisfaction.

The outcome is that you’ll be more helpful on Twitter.

Twitter as social proof

By using this technique you will be building up a mass of positive content that is about you. Unlike the testimonials on a website that you own, tweets are more likely to be viewed as authentic.

You can’t control someone else’s Twitter account so all those favorited tweets are a little more meaningful. Sure, you could astroturf it and make tons of fake Twitter accounts to say nice things about you. But it’s pretty easy to detect this that it’s probably easier to simply be helpful to real people.

When I link to my Twitter account (from this site, for example) instead of linking to my current stream, I link to my favorites list. That way when people get there they can see a lot of nice things about me from a variety of people. I think that says enough about whether I’m worth following or not.

Decrease of self-congratulatory retweeting

As noted above, people like praise. So when someone says something nice about us it’s tempting to retweet it to show everyone that someone said something nice about us.

That practice can get irritating and maybe be non-helpful. By simply favoriting such tweets, you keep the social proof without having to be overly self-congratulatory. The person whose tweet you favorited also gets a notice from Twitter–so they feel nice too.

Archive the good stuff

As you may know, Tweets have a sort of expiration date. They aren’t always available forever. But at the same time they don’t go away. It’s just that you can’t find them in your regular timeline or through search.

Favorites stick around a lot longer.

So by favoriting you are creating something that will stick around a little longer. You still won’t be able to scroll through all of the favorites, there’s a limit. But they will stick around longer.

Twitter favorites, strategic considerations

This technique should be altered and adjusted depending on your own strategy. There are many subtle ways to use this that can help or hinder what you’re really trying to do.

For example, I explained this method to a friend and he really thought it was great. In his business he has a desire to be perceived as an industry leader and influential person. So he chooses to only favorite positive tweets from other influential people in his industry.

I was tempted to follow suit because I do have some real gems in there:

No Doubt! Awesome hair day everyday RT @homeloan_ninja: @DisasterManSC but @gahlord doesn't need a cape on account of the samurai hair ;-)

05:26:11 12:39 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@DisasterManSC

Scott Clemetson

Thanks to everyone on #TFCT, hope you enjoyed the conversation. I Did!

05:5:11 12:35 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@justincutroni

Justin Cutroni

@gahlord Beautiful point! You're so right!!

04:26:11 10:56 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@beastoftraal

Karthik Srinivasan

@gahlord Gahlord -- it was such a gift to hang with you and get to know you at #midyear! Like everyone says...you are extraordinary.

05:15:11 8:00 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@krisstinawise

Krisstina Wise

But for my own purposes and strategy, limiting to just the known influencers isn’t a good fit. Again, it was very very tempting. Guy Kawasaki’s Enchantment presentation was one of the things that helped me stay the course with my own approach.

The point being, what works for me may work better for you if you alter it a bit. Take the time to play with it and find what feels right for your practice.

Image via Wikipedia

While presenting at Global Strategic Management Institute’s Boston Social Media Strategy Summit I had the chance to see Stefan Heeke from Siemens Corp present on their use of social media.

Below you will find my notes in mindmap format and a text outline of the mindmap itself.

There are a couple areas that stuck with me in particular:

1. Ad agencies aren’t up to snuff on social and quick decisions and Heeke has their number.
2. Decision cycles need to be much much faster.
3. Design should start with content, not lorem ipsum.

In addition, some of their initial entrypoints into social came as a result of analytics: observing that certain obscure pages of their site were getting significantly more traffic than usual.

Heeke’s talk was honest, straightforward and valuable regardless of the size of your organization.

Outline of Social media in the large, international organization