Member-to-Member

Why You (Proably) Need A New Web Site to Partipate in Social Media

I've spent a lot of my career helping organizations improve their web presence and when social media first came a long I thought I would get to move on and leave web sites behind. And yet my first recommendation on virtually every new project goes something like this - Step #1: upgrade your web site! I've even developed a checklist to guide our assessment of their current site (see below).

The first few times this happened it made me uncomfortable; was I just falling back into my comfort zone? But then I began to understand the rationale behind my own recommendation at a deeper level, and it is this:

When you participate in the socialsphere your credibility (and to a great extent your success) depend heavily on your ability to express yourself genuinely and authentically. But where does your audience go to perform the "authenticity check", to compare your dialoging self against your "real" self? If you're a human being, they read your profile, meet you in a restaurant or talk to a mutual acquaintance. If you're an organization - they go to your web site and when they do this your online identity (i.e., web site) either reinforces their original opinion of you or not. To the extent your web site identity does not correlate to your social "voice" it undermines your authenticity, your credibility and thus your success.

Social Media 101 - For Marketers (and other people who speak English)

I, like everyone who does "social media' professionally, get asked to explain it a lot. I've got bunches of emails and slide decks taking a crack at the answer to What is Social Media, but I haven't been happy with any of them because they tend to focus on the little stuff, and it's the big stuff I find so interesting. Also, in getting my clients (and prospects) to the point where I can begin to actually advise them on how to incorporate social media into their global communications strategy, I have to help them understand the essence of what it is, not the details.

So, for a new client, I sat down and just wrote it out. I've been told by non-marketers and non-techies that it works pretty well to give them the big picture and put a lot of things they know about (e.g., Facebook, Twitter etc.) into a larger perspective. I share it here in the hopes others will find it useful. Feedback below welcome since I'll probably continue to evolve it for use in new fora.

Social Media 101 for Marketers

View more presentations from Dana Theus. (tags: 2.0 marketing)

Web 2.0 - So 2004?

I wanted to respond to John Redmond's post and comment on last week's post about my use of the term "Web 2.0" and "how 2004" that is. He's right of course, that the term that sounded so hip four years ago is now four years old - decrepit in Internet years. Plus, it has been a questionable phrase since inception as it refers more to a trend in perception than an actual thing (as the name itself would imply.)

All that being said, is it my imagination or are we just resigned to use "Web 2.0" now because it's:

• more broadly understood by the non-digerati (also an outdated term) to mean "all that social media and new technology stuff I don't get but know I should be able to talk about;" and

• a simple shorthand word+number combo, which is easier to write/say than actually trying to describe what is fundamentally a sea change in technology architecture, human interaction and cultural power share?

Maybe I'm lazy, but I'm not a good enough writer to weave all that actual and implied meaning into every sentence that references that new fangled technology and sea change. As a result, "Web 2.0" works for me until someone invents some other shorthand term.

Thanks, John, for the comment. Gave me a chance to think about it and decide that if I'm ever going to lead a revolution, it won't be to overthrow the term "Web 2.0."

The Psychology of Social Media - Some things Never Change

I've been harboring a theory for a while now that human beings don't change very much when they go online. We watch some of our communication behaviors change as we become addicted to various technologies (Twitter seems to the be the most annoying recent addition to this habit, though I'll admit I haven't tried it... see more on why below). But fundamentally, we use online tools to do the same things we do offline - kill time, learn, play, work. When it comes to social media, just like in the real world, we move between networks depending on which other friends are there, what they're doing and why we want to interact with them. If we're loyal to groups offline, we're probably loyal to them online. If we're fickle, well - we hop networks online too.

[Under the link I muse on about MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google's OpenSocial, Twitter, LiveJournal and Ning with more opinions about the psychology of the human species.]

Basic Social Media Etiquette

View all Member-to-Member.com posts on Social Media Etiquette.

Whether it's you, your executives or your members that need help moving into this brave new world of social media, everyone needs to learn the basics. Remember when email came out and people lost their jobs for flaming their boss and hitting the "reply all" button? Today, everyone knows the Don't Email When Angry and the Don't Write It If You Can't Defend It On National News rules of professional emailing (well, almost everyone).

What are the equivalent rules in the land of social networking?