Wow. This talk by Market Art‘s Cofounder Jan Nichols was a whirlwind. I’ve learned more about the different social networking services than I thought possible.I guess I’m more out of touch than I imagined!
Jan touched on topics ranging from Microblogging, to Podcasting and everywhere in between. Clearly communicating what they were and what they were for.
Oh, and I won a Panda Poken. Basically a little digital way to exchange business cards. Sort of cool.
1:03 Walking Our Talk
It’s a personal journey. many stories hav ea universal application. The things that my partenr and affiliate have learned would be applicable to you, your business, or your clients. Someone asked me the other day what IS web 2.0? It’s rowdy and I think it’s oik to make up your own definition. Tome it’s interactive media. A way for each of us to have a website hwich is interactive. It’s audio. It’s video. User Forums. Tags. Social Network Platforms. It all adds up to Web 2.0 In order to walk our talk we are simply going to kick this off with a slight but short interactive element.
Video of Market Arts Creative, the Grwn up Girls.
1:08 Users by Age
Integrating music is a pretty easy to do. Shockwavesound.com is a pretty good place t go. We’d been in the business of marketing and building websites for about 91 yers, but that’s dog years because it’s how hard our clients worked us. We decided we would make ourselves over by embracing the technologies that are web 2.0. But instead of being theoretical we wanted to walk this talk. We wanted to be telling clients how great it was because it’s what we did and we can say this didn’t work and you shouldn’t either. Why did we go in tis direction?
Well, it’s where all the people are! in the US ther are 300 million people! There are 303 million people in the usa and 189 million are on the internet. Where the growth is is in 35 and up. So they are the demographic. We also wanted to be more engaged in the Internet because people are passonate about the Internet. There was a survey by Harris interactive that asked if they would rather give up their Internet connection or Sex for 2 weeks over 50% of the women said forget about sex. 30% fof the guys did. Size does matter because there’s an electronc retailed that talked about Size does matter. The electronics dealer asked 50″ LCD vs. no Sex and 69% of guys said yes.
1:10 Market Arts Creative Social Universe
When embarking on this process we decided we needed ways to create content. To share it. To listen to what people are saying. and ways to respond back. We started building our own social network. Facebook was our first. We then followed with the next three because even though linkedin and plax are really main stream we still considered them niche sites. Then we used twitter. Followed by FriendFeed. It’s a “Your content: Agregatopr” and less of a social network. And ping.fm is a godsend. THen we put our blog on technorati. Posted videos to YouTube and Vimeo. Audio to iTunes and I love apple but it’s a pain to get stuff on iTunes. We’re on Flick and we’re on DMOZ. The Open Diretory Project. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. We were cheap. We didn’t pay the fifty bucks but once we got out there our google went way. Lik a neophyte I was like “This is great!” ZoomINfo has been really good. It’s a straight up person directory. Then the social network just kept blossoing. You go to site and want to be part of the commuity. Maybe HowTo.com or fast Company all of those things just continued to escalte.
1:13 Social Networks – Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn and Ning
This is how we tried to approac these as a business. I tried to follow the advice of one of the guests that I interviewd Todd Mont if you were in Ann arbor had a very successful nationall syndicated radio show. When Todd and I were tlaking I said you know you hae this reat personality that goes cacross the airwaves. I said I know you! We were talking about howdifficult it is to be personable. What we were doing is practicing repeatedly and getting rid of the distractions. This way he is the pure Todd Mont channel when you hear him over thee sound waves.
You talk about in Social media you have to be perfect and genuie and authetntic. it’s kind of like what your mom told you when you were in 7th Grade and she would say to be yourself. It’s hard work! It’s confusing! It takes practice! We approached social networks from how can we put together social networks that reflects what we are as absiness. That doesn’t repel people That continues to grow a positive recognition.
1:15 PM Facebook
They now have 200 million users. I kind of like how they’ve changed. It’s more twitter and lifestream like. if you’re promoting a business it makes it a lot asier to ingtegrate those varous factors. What we tried to do was yes we have a personal profile. Snce I’m the talk in the company and my partner is the visual girl my face is out there a little bit more. We also did a business page. There is an incredibly low percent of people that do not hav a business page. One of the great things is you can life streaam back and forth. If you do a blog you can use facebook notes to import your blog to facebook. if you’re wondering why I’m showing off Jewelry it’s becase when I blog I always ty to bring it back to the idea ofpractical creativity. how that applies to social neworking. My friend Susan is very crafty. So I made ablog talking about her handback. It’s cool. There was a woman with a really cool coat. What’s stuff that excites you that you’re enthusistic about?
Facebook connect is a ne discovery for us. It ust have a billion applications. You could spend the rest of your life.
1:18 Linked In
Lots of people on LinkdIn. My only complaint is it’s so very business like. it’s hard to ahve a personality. it’s like that straight up paper resume. It challenges you to project beyond the superficial that is at the core of you but not so wildly crazy. We do our best to over come that. Think about how it was founded in 2003. If people are fatigued or overwhelmed that’s absolutely how you should feel. It’s got 30 million ish uer. I think it has more. The thing that I like about linkd in is we subscribe to their business I also really like how their wordpress integrates.
I just read that only 5% take advantage of slide share. If you have a presentation. You should have it on slideshare! it’s a great place to display that! If you don’t have one, creata a mini slide show, like the wonders of me. I don’t know why I put video. There video link isn’t that great. Then of course the ability to share photos. It skews to business professionals.
1:20 Plaxo
We’re on there. I’m not sure why. It’s a good site. It’s interface is poretty good. It’s got 20 million users. the only thing I can figure out is some people wnat to use plxo for their really close friends and facebook and linked in are my business friends. it’s worth being on. But I would suggest people be on more channels than less. it looks like Faebook is going to take over the world. LinkedIn is really well funded. They’re going tob e around. Multi channel and social networks is really good.
I thnk it shows that they started out as an address book utility. There are ways to share content. it spports lifestreaming
I still give it a thumbs up even though is ounded ambivalent
1:21 Ning
We aren’t on Ning. This is false advertising. We think we should be on Ning so we probably will bes oon. Founded in 04 it’s just amazing. It’s got 20 million page views per month. I just read that there’s way more than that. When you do a presentation, don’t caption it!
Ning, if you’re not familiar is the ultimate niche site. You can create your own channel, You can create a knitting, wine olive oil. It first came into being when Seth Godin used Ning to promote his book Tribes.
The interesting thing is that after that reslt Godin got involved in a site called Squiddoo which is a kind of interesting use that the channels are now lenses and it grows based uoon peopl have common interest. I think it’s interesting but I want to check it out.
1:22 Micromedia
Twitter. I know you’re either a twitter aholic, or twitter averse, or twitte ambivilent.
Here’s what I like about twitter. We’re small. We’re not Jet blue. We’re not Zappos. We don’t want to be. but we can get real time reactions for clients and we can figure out if anything is being said about you, good bad or nothing at all. This is a great PR opportunity for our firm. That’s because a lot of bloggers and reporters are on twitter. You follow those people over time. You know who they ar you have a leg up. If you want to do a query often they will post emergency requests for experts in whatever. Weve got inside mac radio. Creative Connections.com. Every time we’re on one of those our google alerts boost and our search engine boosts. We capture it via audio and add a transscript. Twitter is great for twitter
1:24 I’m a vegetarian but I love Poepet’es hchicken Tweets.
Why in the world would @blogdiva think I wouldn’t be on tiwtter. I tried to deliver to you once but I had an issue… You’re on the other end of the road! They’re creating a persona. They’re doing this very wlel very low key. They sneak in the occasional promo offer. They’re being funny and sly and having a great exchange.
If you’re not on twitter I don’t want to make you feel bad but there are cats who tweet. They’re there. I’m not going to take th eitme to play the monkey cat video. o
But Oscar the cat. he has morefollowersthan I’ll have in my life! Over 1000 followers! if yiou’re in the pet food feline business I’d be talking to Oscar. I’d be sending relationship info to oscar. You can find ways to get your message out to people who are out there. AngelTheCat I only put in because I love it. Science Diet: $25, Kitty Leitter: $15. Cat bed: $20. Stepping in cat puke at 6 AM
1:26 Cool Cats to Follow
When we first started I had two issues.How do I pick my username! What did they mean? They mae it sound like this is your name for ever and ever! Finally I was like “I know my name, I know my company name… MARKETARTSJAN!” If you’re going to use it for business sneak sneak in your busines.
If I import my facebook friends and linkedin friends I’m just following the same people. They have more better searh tools on twitter now. Finding people follow is now a lot easier. Some of my favourites are GuyKawasaki. BstTwt they have all the ity literary gen that come out of twitter. Chrisbrogan Brian Morrissey, Brian Solis, and Skydiver are all great social media people to follow. I did bring a few handouts.
1:28 FirendFieed
Some people are deserting twitter to friendfeed. You can invite some people to join but it’s really an RSS feed for your life. Anything you post anywhere will show up on FriendFeed when you sign up. It’s less of a social network. It’s more about putting your message out there. Friendfeed is definitely worth being in there. We haven’t created your own room. it may be interesting for doing a prmotional drive. We work with authors and peopl who do tapes and books and that kind of thing. I can’t speak from direct experience.
1:29 Ping.fm
I WISH I had known about htis before. Ping.fm will PUSH your content out. If you’re on linkd in you’re on plaxo and on and on it will take anything you distribute out and do it for you. So it will also take content on twitter which will now show on facebook and linked in. They make your life so much easier. I fyou have a customized blog template or type pad you may have to go in and have your code gys or girls who can do that for you. For you it’s nothing. For me it’s like “This doesn’t work!”
1:30 Blogging;
You know about it
1:31 Who’se Blogging?
There is half of the internet users that are reading blogs. That matters because they’re getting information about buying decisions. About whether you’re the person for that job. Blogging is really relevant in that point of view. It’s kind of ahrd because you og to a client reading and they go a copy will be like “Bla bla bla” I HATE BLA BLA BLA. It’s this black void of illalbe hours to get bla bla bla into specific.
Let’s say you’re a dry cleaner youc an talk about all kinds of things that you know about and are interested in. It’s a way to tie back the things you know. It’s how we approach a calendar of things we want to blog about. We’ll be in the car and I’kl be chesed off because I pulled laundry out and right before you’re leaving the house and your black denim jeans have kleenex on them. I don’t know specifically how the aggravation will build into brand. But I know there is a way. It’s a real life human honest beginning. It stays brand consistent. I hate kleenex.
1:33 Top Blogs
These are some of the top blocks. If you’re ever social networking and you reference the Huffington Post just call it HuffPo. One of the great source is MediaShift. It’s put out by PBS.org he’s rasonable and areo ite. He doesn’t overhelm you with info but he helps you go ove everything and beyond. Sometimes you can go visit englishcut.com. They have these velises and it’s like looking back into the bell apoc. It’s very styling. It has nothing to do with my life though.
1:35 Bloggers Influence on Purcahsing.
Blogs influece buying decisions. The number of people who are on blogs is socialclimiginb.
1:35 Blog Traffic building Tools
Technorati. Yes I mentioned that. We use that. The Interface isn’t very friendly. It’s hard to get authority. But you know it’s a great source of distribution. When you’re blogging you should write for readers. I say People first and these other things follow. They have brian morrisy. I’m going to linkt oBrian Morrisy but I agree with what he said but question the other comment. Ten you build in real life expreiences and go back to other blogs.
Comment on other blogs and link to them. List it on Google. Tagging is kind of lik SEO it’s science and necromancy.
1:37 Podcasting
We used to do this thing where we’d bring people in and interview them. I call it a talkshow even though there aren’t people in site. We’d bring in a comedian and cosmologiet and ask how does creativity emerge. How does it work. We found out science thrives on uncertainty or the idea of guy sandville talkin about acting as craft and structure as essential to creativity. We were so entrhalled that we decided to do a talk shw about our talk show.
1:39 Seven Secrets of Podcasting lIke a Pro
One time I was at a presentation and the presentation had 17 points of something or other. I was demoralized. I’m never going home! I’m never leaving this room again! Surely he’ll talk abou the 3. I have seven but they’re brief.
Know WHY you’re doing something. I am a fearless person. I’ll do something without knowing why. I don’t recommend it. but I would suggest knowing why you do something so it emerges from the midsection.
Structure: Do a shorter show! Do a 3 minute or a five minute video or audio and leave it at that!
YouTube has made poor quality video acceptable. Good Quality Audio is a must. more than 2 people you need wireless mics.
Repurpose Content? Why is it good? It lets you take whit papers and sitch them around. If you’r doing anything written a podcast can be a great way to bring that to the audio world.
It’s a great PR opportunity
1:42 Favourite Podcasts
Here are some others: Mignon Fogarty’s popular Quick and Dirty Tips for Good Writing. Turned into a great book deal and is doing a whole conglomeration. if you ever need a short example of doing a podcast, hers is a great one. mike Duncans history of Rome is a reat podcast. Sincgle narrator. Remarkable work. BBC radios Melvin Bragg in our time. he’s very quirky. He broadcasts rule are broken. RUns about fifty minutes. Brings in British people. Talking about everyting from Zoastorism. They do a great job of repurposing their ontent. THey talk with physicians about how to treat a prianed ankle and they’ve turned it into a blog and podcst. Great Great Job! Also about anything NPR does is great.
1:44 Good Enough To Tell a Friend
That’s the ultimate rule. Anything you want to put out there is it omething you would want to share with anyone. Roanoke college used a little video clip I hope I can show you it was attached to free game downloads if you watch those clip you could download a game for free. They were going for a kid that’s middle scholish.
Viral is about being GOOD. I mean TUE. Honest. In touch with yourself. Not over inflated! Some local coffe chain doing very well i n this economy has bob Fish as the CEO. Google BiggBy Coffee. They put up videos all the time. They’re doing stuff where he goes into a store and video cams people with mochas on their head. He gives away the biggby coffee customers and says Wherever you go take a picture of the cup and it’ cups around the wold. He’s very savvy on very small marketing budget about using social media togeth the job done.
1:48 Freshman in the Kitchen
These are clients of ours who have written a cookbook and are going to be on the today show. This is the outtakes.
1:50 Would You Tell a Friend? ANd Why?
People leave out the filler in between there. How do you be real and authentic? How do you be your best self. It starts with sort of a “Why are you doing waht you’re doing?” WHy is it exciting? What is life insurance and actuarial tables your passion? WHat is it about that, It doesn’t have to be a glam thing. it doesn’t have to be a celebrity Thing. it has to be something that is so important to you that everything comes from that. It’s what you do with your big cheif tablet.
1:51 Favourite Resources
Mike Glazer, Media Shift. Brian Solis’s Pith Engine converts press releases into social network releases. You can attah audio and pictures. it really helps you think about doing a press release that’s appropriate for social networks. We haven’t used MatchPoint. If you want to send a press release it will analyze keywords and spiut out the journalist bloggers etc. that have recently coevered that. If you don’t subscribe to Peter Shankmans Helpareporter.com then you can be the expert. It’s great.
Favourite twitter tools.
Search.twitter.com. If you’re not using it, use it! have a client meeting and sound smart spend 1 minute searching for their competitors and come in and talk. TweepSearch you can use location keywords. Mr Tweet helps it suggest new people and new relevant tweets. Twitter Counter helps you find how many followrs someone has. TwitterFirennds helps you make sense out of conversations. Qwitter lets you know when someone nfollows you. The reason I have Flickr but flickr is photos. Photos are JPEGs I’m almost done. I am done!
Go Forth! Be social! Be Friendly! BE FUn!