Sumolabs - jordan willms on web strategy, social media, business and technology

Video: Selling Distinctive Value

Jordan Willms — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:48:46 +0000

New Ventures BC has kicked off again, and I'm very excited that they decided to record all the sessions. Now I can watch a session time and time again and really let the information sink in.

These are quality sessions, especially this one on Selling Distinctive Value.

A sneak peak of Wolfram|Alpha

Jordan Willms — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:33:34 +0000

A sneak peak of the search engine / research engine that the web has been all abuzz with lately:

I can't wait until it is live to see how different the real experience is from the demo :)

How I built TweetTop.com in 6 hours with Drupal.

Jordan Willms — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:19:00 +0000

TweetTop was an idea I had when struggling with managing the hoardes of people who I liked to follow with twitter. I use TweetDeck for daily conversation and Hootsuite for posting, but even with groups bundling people together it was getting a bit ridiculous. I wanted a place to be able to just see what a group of people were saying, all in one page, without "committing" to them. (i.e. Without following them)

It also stemmed from the fact that when most people join twitter, they have no idea what to do (or whom to follow).

So, in order to kill two birds with one stone, I decided to create TweetTop one sleepless night. My goal was to more or less be "inspired by Alltop's interface" but have the near real-time feel of Twitter.

I eagerly went to work, wondering how far I could get with Drupal without having to write any code.

I got pretty far.

The first thing I did was do a standard 6.x Drupal installation, with the Zen theme, admin_menu, and Views (something I figure I was going to need regardless).

Once I had that whole setup installed, I played around with the Twitter Module. The Twitter Module essentially allows each Drupal User Account to have one-to-many associated Twitter accounts. Once associated, it can be set to automatically "scrape" the twitter API at every cron run for each of these twitter accounts.

As "messy" as it was, I made each user account a topic. E.g. "Social Media" is actually a Drupal user account that has many twitter accounts associated with it. This was great for a few reasons: i) I could hand off control of any given topic to have it edited and vetted by someone else (by just giving them the topic login and password), and ii) I can make it so anyone can register and create their own "MyTweetTop" page featuring accounts they want to follow. Yet to do, but solid.

So, at this point I had exactly what I needed happening in the backend. Twitter module was scraping the data and now I just needed to pull it from the database and present it in one cohesive page.

I played around for about an hour with Panels and Views trying to figure out how to create "topic pages" without code, but finally I had to drop down to a text editor and write about 30 lines of code.

Effectively, the code just did this:

1) Load up all the twitter accounts for a particular user account (aka "topic") e.g. Get all associated twitter accounts for "Social Media"

2) Order them according to a ratio including followers, following and status updates (to identify and rank the "best").

3) Loop through them, print a custom header for the avatar and user description, and then dynamically call a Drupal View that displays tweets for a particular twitter user account.

4) Bam. Literally, that was it.

For fun I added in a sidebar that auto-updates every 30 seconds or so for all members of the page, so we could see a sort of "fire hose" of everything everyone was saying.

Finally, I tweaked some CSS, turned on CSS and Javascript caching, created 10 or so more topics and LAUNCHED.

We got a great response from everyone in twitter-land. Nevermind the fact that Kevin Roses' WeFollow.com launched the next day, I was still stoked, because WeFollow's first release sucked IMO (anyone with lots of followers could dominate any category, since authors classify themselves, not the other way around). TweetTop.com on the other hand, is vetted and controlled by editors. Quality over quantity.

The Challenge

Continuously, we added more topics and more topics (meaning that more and more twitter user accounts were being followed). Right now we follow some 1000 accounts or so (give or take).

That means, with the current Twitter Module setup, we'd do 1000 API calls every 15 minutes. Twitter only allows 200 an hour, so we were hooped. This thing wasn't going to scale up for us to add more accounts. Twitter started rejecting our API calls.

So, we came up with a great idea. Whenever a user is added to TweetTop.com, that user is also FOLLOWED by our "tweettop" user account (this is done via the Twitter API). Then we simply poll the Twitter API every 30 seconds and say "which one of the peeps we follow on twitter has updates?". We then take those updates, write them with the existing Drupal Twitter Module and we are done. All in all about 20 lines of additional code.

Now we can follow up to 2000 people without any problems. We can likely follow more but we'll need to get the Twitter boys to up our limit.

Drupal seriously rocks. I am constantly amazed by the fact that I can accomplish very complicated things with limited programming knowledge and do 95% of things without touching code.

If you have any questions about how TweetTop was done, or if you need any Drupal help, don't be shy and give me an "@" on twitter. I'm a busy dude, but I'd been more than willing to walk you through it (even send you some code).

Links and Reading for 2009-04-13

Jordan Willms — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:04:20 +0000

Web Trends Map on Flickr
Really great diagram indicating the players of the web: both domains and people.
Future: How The Social Contract Between People and Brands Will Evolve

In a previous post, I highlighted how this simple technology will shift the power from marketers to customers, and as a result registrations pages will go extinct. How will this happen? Because people will be able to control their identity, and can choose to expose as much or as little information as they want to brands and websites, they are now in control.

I am not sure I holistically agree with the prediction, but I think the argument is sound. Something to consider though: People will always exchange their information for things of value.
The Future of Social Media Marketing - Social Media Roadshow 2009 @ SMEI
Great insights from thought leaders in the social media space.
7 benefits of social media outsourcing
Outsourcing social media publishing and conversation? Does this violate the best practice of authenticity and transparency?
What Best Buy is doing with Social Technologies
A Google Ranking Experiment
Two SEOs strategies go toe to toe. Who will win?

Knowledge is power.

Reading and Links for 2009-03-31

Jordan Willms — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:20:13 +0000

What Social Media Means for Search
"The separation between search and social media is melting away, and a new paradigm is taking hold."
Skimmer, a lifestreaming tool
Definitely worth checking out, or at least keeping your eye on
Relationship Symmetry in Social Networks: Why Facebook will go Fully Asymmetric
I agree, but they might just keep Page? I think that keeps a nice separation of Friends and Followers (Use user accounts for friends, use pages for followers)
How To Monetize A Social Network: MySpace And Facebook Should Follow TenCent
Sshhh! Don't let the cat out of the bag. We know this very well over at http://www.workatplay.com. Micro-transactions are the hip new business model.
Steel Cage Debate On The Future Of Online Advertising: Danny Sullivan Vs. Eric Clemons
"The separation between search and social media is melting away, and a new paradigm is taking hold."
Customer Service is the New PR
"My takeaway is that this isn't just a CRM concern, but rather it requires close coordination between customer service and PR."

Knowledge is power.

Top 5 Worst Practices in Social Media Marketing

Jordan Willms — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:33:08 +0000

This is a follow up to my quick 5 minute presentation at the Vancouver Social Media Road Show 2009: Risks & Rewards for Marketers. In it, I only really had time to go through the 3 best practices that I perceive to be the most important.

Here is the original quick 5 min presentation I gave:

And without further delay....

The Worst Practices in Social Media

Forgetting about SEO & SEM

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is only one part of the inbound marketing equation. Don't forget about proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Being able to excel at all three will cause some synergies to form, thus amplifing efforts. I call this cross pollination.

Treating social media like traditional publishing

Traditional publishing is broadcast. Radio out, TV out, magazine out, newspaper out. Social media is a conversation and therefore is implicitly bidirectional.

If you are only publishing, you are not really participating and reaping the full benefits you might be able to.

Not being transparent and honest!

Don't be fake in any way. Don't even think about Astroturfing. Bullshit detectors are exceptionally well tuned on the social web.

Be clear about your intentions out in the social media wild.

Not making social media a company-wide collaborative effort

It is often that different departments and divisions try to create their own social media tests and campaigns. What results is a disparate group of marketing attempts with mixed messaging. A collaborative effort, sponsored from the top dogs, is best.

Monitoring the Social Media Wild With or Without a Budget

Jordan Willms — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:04:58 +0000

How do you monitor what people are saying about you, your brand, company or competitors?

There is either the cheap way or the $$$ way.

Use Social Mention, Google Alerts, or Boardreader to look for where conversations are happening for your brand. You can also build your own brand monitor/social media dashboard on the cheap with netvibes.com

If you've got the cash, check out Nielsen BuzzMetrics or Cymfony.

Charlene Li on Future Of Social Networks from SXSW

Jordan Willms — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:58:32 +0000

Charlene Li is awesome. Here is her latest from SXSW: "The Future Of Social Networks"

Thesis: Social networks will be like air.
Description: Your friends, your family, the people you care about, the people like you, will be available anywhere and anytime that you need them.

Examples: (Accompanying screenshots are in the slideshow.)

* Shopping: When buying something on Amazon, you'll be able to filter reviews to see those from friends, or chat with your music-loving friends to get advice on which headphones are best. (Slides 5-6)
* Events: At conferences, you'll be able to find friends or people with similar interests who are in the same session with you. (Slide 7)
* Mobile: Apps on devices like iPhone will recognize when friends have the same app downloaded too, and invite them to play games, interact with content, etc. (Slide 8)
* TV: Twitter streams were integrated into Current TV's presidential debates coverage. Integra5 is building a platform that will enable friends (via Facebook Connect) to chat with each other right on the TV screen via PC or mobile. (Slides 9-10)
* Enterprise: Salesforce.com integrates Facebook profiles into customer records, while Lotus Notes shows the LinkedIn profile of an email sender. (Slide 11)

There is also a summary of her presentation over at Amy Sample Ward's blog.

My view? A good deck indeed, and makes me marvel at the future - but it reminds me alot of the thinking that went into Razorfish's presentation back in December.

Announcing TweetTop.com - Who to Follow on Twitter

Jordan Willms — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:09:38 +0000

I got bored over the past two nights and created TweetTop.com. It took me 6 hours (which is why it looks like crap -- I'm not a designer).

Tweet Top is the latest and greatest from Twitter people on popular topics. We update the latest thinking from topic experts every 20-30 seconds. Pick a Topic below and we'll deliver it to you 24 x 7. All the top "Tweets", All the Time.

Currently it has 18 topics and we'll add more based on user suggestions. Got any?

So -- if you are struggling with figuring out who to follow on Twitter, or just don't want to bother with creating your own account at all, then TweetTop.com is for you.

Current Topics

Action Sports	Apple	Blogging	Celeb Gossip
Celebrities	Design	Drupal	Economics
Fitness	GTD	Investing	Lifehacks
Marketing	Personal Finance	SEO	Social Media
Startups	Virtual Worlds	Wordpress

Yes. I added myself to the Social Media page. Deal with it ;)

How Not to React to Negative Customer Feedback...

Jordan Willms — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:16:50 +0000

I recently assisted a friend of mine who works at a large corporation in the US. He is in the marketing department, and I helped him setup some basic monitoring tools using Netvibes.

Often times, I would peak at the brand monitor to see what was being said or whether I could improve the monitoring for him.

One day, I stumbled upon a particularly bad post, where a number of disgruntled customers were being very vocal about how dissatisfied they were with a recent product decision.

I notified my friend, and indicated that his marketing department should be aware of the conversation and authentically join it to resolve the issue.

What happened, baffled me. When I visited the next day, there were 5 or so posts, all written in the same tone (but allegedly by different people) defending the product decision and stating how it was the right decision to make and "everyone should be happy". This was not the response I expected from such a large company.

I was a bit shocked: It was all clearly written by one person, and it made the company appear ever more negatively in the eyes of their customers.

Rule for Social Media: Be Authentic. Be Honest.

My Definition of Social Media:

Jordan Willms — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:17:59 +0000

Let's beat a dead horse.

What exactly is social media? Here is how I define it:

Social media is the ecosystem of conversations and interactions around traditional content AND user generated content.

These conversations and interactions are enabled by various technologies, including, but not limited to, blogs, wikis, podcasts, microblogging (i.e. twitter), social networks (i.e. facebook), RSS, forums, rating sites and UGC websites (i.e. YouTube). Anything that facilitates these conversations and interactions can be seen as being part of social media.

Simple. Factual. I don't try to scare people with the whole "the media world has been completely turned upside down". Baby steps, People, Baby Steps.

Consumer Influencers 2009 Trends

Jordan Willms — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:57:14 +0000

Influencers on Consumer Trends 2009 by TrendsSpotting

View more presentations from Taly Weiss. (tags: products 2009)

Targeting Influencers in Social Media Campaigns

Jordan Willms — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:23:39 +0000

Many people in social media are following one variation or another of the Forrester POST method.

In a nutshell:

People - Understand how your customers are using social technologies
Objectives - Define your objectives
Strategy - Define your strategy for social media
Technology - Select the technologies that you want to use (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, or whatever startup has their current 6 months of fame)

This is great. Social media is chaos and this gives us a pragmatic approach to developing social media strategies to coalesce the mess.

However, I sometimes feel like we spend too much time simply thinking about how the target demographic interact with social technologies. My colleague, Lorraine, and I, spent lots of time talking last week about how targeting the influencers of a target demographic is almost as important as the primary.

For example, consider trying to raise awareness for a particularly embarrassing medical exam, the prostate exam. The target demographic here is men over 40+, but several other demographic have influence over our primary: Fathers, Wives, Kids, etc. A social media campaign can engage any of these groups, educate them, and drive them to inform the primary demographic on the facts and importance about the exam (and ultimately get them into the Doctor's office).

Obviously, different campaigns would be needed for influencers vs. the target demographic, each with their own set of key performance indicators. As such, we need to look at how these influences utilize social technologies as well (if we are to target them with a separate campaign)

Why Twitter will Fail

Jordan Willms — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:23:14 +0000

In its current form, I think Twitter will fail.

I recently got into this conversation with David Tedman from Invoke. We were talking about his product, BrightKit, which allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts, delay posts and collect stats on your links (If you haven't checked it out, I suggest you do -- Tweekdeck and BrightKit are an awesome combo).

I asked David if he was planning on integrating any of the other microblogging platforms such as Identi.ca (Laconica), Jaiku, etc. I especially emphasized Laconica because of the open nature of the technology.

Here was my main argument: It is rare that an internet communication medium ever becomes extremely popular for the long term when controlled by a private entity.

Take a look at internet history: News Groups (NNTP), Email (SMTP/POP3), Web Pages (HTTP), Voice over IP, Video Conference, etc. All have standards and generally operate in a distributed fashion.

Twitter is from-the-center command and control. They have the data and interactions. They control the end points. When twitter ends, the conversation ends.

Juxtapose this with something like Laconica (which I won't waste time explaining in my own words because Wikipedia rocks):

Laconica is an open source microblogging server written in PHP that implements the OpenMicroBlogging standard. So Laconica provides the potential for open, inter-service distributed communications between communities with functionality similar to Twitter. Enterprises and individuals can install and control their own services and data. Its first deployment powers the identi.ca openmicroblogging service.

Back to my original argument: Twitter will fail in it's current form. That was a bit of link bait, since Twitter can still adapt.

This could mean Twitter implementing the OpenMicroBlogging standard, turning into a non-profit foundation, and a hundred other ideas. However, in its current form of command-and-control I believe that Twitter's life is on a dying trend despite massive growth.

Communication mediums, especially microblogging, need to be based on a open, standardized, distributed protocol. Just like what OpenSocial is doing for social networks, so must the OpenMicroBlogging standard do for Micro Blogging.

In summary: I wish Twitter all the best (since I love the product and the ecosystem of applications that are built on it).

FYI: You can follow me at http://twitter.com/jordanwillms

Business Productivity 101: Communications

Jordan Willms — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:35:42 +0000

Articulating your message

When composing a verbal or written communication always ask yourself three simple questions:

1) Have I clearly articulated my message?

2) Have I made clear what my expected response is? When you need a response by? (i.e. Make the email time bound)

3) How can I tailor my communication style to fit the audience I am delivering the message to (i.e. Evaluate how informal you should be, how to phrase the message, etc)

Proof Reading

When sending out any communication or deliverable the minimum number of times you proof read it should be equal to the number of levels above you in the hierarchy the most senior recipient is.

In other words, an email from two steps up the corporate ladder should be proof read at least twice and an email to a partner/executive at least four times.

Remember that having correct spelling and grammar is just the meeting of a standard - not an achievement. A polished communication counts for nothing but an unpolished one makes you look unprofessional and foolish.

This is part 2 of many of a series of posts regarding business productivity and common sense. This document was created by Stephen Duncan and myself at Accenture, Inc and was handed out to anyone we managed as "Rules of Engagement"