SmartMarket Media Blog

Or how I get my hesitant friends & family to start using social media

Have a friend who doesn’t know what social media is or hasn’t gotten involved yet? Is your Mom on Twitter yet? How about your Grandma on Facebook? With over 600,000 people joining Facebook every day (that’s right…every day) and with Twitter being the current traditional media darling (watch any national news cast or talk show for proof) and having 10,000 people joining per day…chances are you may have a friend or loved one who is interested in what all the hubbub is about or may be ready to jump into the social media waters. It’s reached a tipping point now where the general population is joining but what if someone needs your help or is hesitant to join in all the fun? This is what I have done with a couple people that usually gets them hooked…have them look over your shoulder.

When I go to my Facebook profile I’ll show them how I can update my status, read other people’s updates, add videos, photos, etc. Then they see how easy it is and if they know people I know (which usually they do) they start asking “ooh! Click on their profile…I want to see what their up to” that usually leads to me searching for people they know. People are always amazed by how many people they know are already on Facebook so once they can play passenger while you drive, it’s pretty easy for them to take the wheel.

Facebook is easy because it has already reached a tipping point with the mass population adopting and joining the site in droves, Twitter is a little more complicated because the constant stream of conversation can be confusing and to some people…overwhelming. I usually steer newbies to read a how to get started on Twitter tutorial or direct them to Tweetworks which threads Twitter “tweets” into easy to follow conversations in groups very similar to chatrooms.

What about you?

Have you had a similar situation with a friend of yours? What did you do?

Getting Started with Twitter

5 Questions Interview: Mike Langford of Tweetworks

There is nothing better to me than getting to meet many of the people I have conversations with online in person. Social Media Jungle event organized by Jeff Pulver was no exception. There were around 120 or so attendees and he was able to assemble some of the areas best social media thought leaders to lead some amazing discussions. Here are a few quick observations of mine from various speakers at the event:

Jeff Pulver – “ Sometimes You need to be Vulnerable”

The organizer of the event kicked it off and had some great thoughts about connecting with people as people…social media isn’t a numbers game although that is how some people would make it out to be. He also assesses his relationships online regularly and has recently removed around 3,000 “friends” from his Facebook profile. He regularly assesses those that he is connected to – do they engage in conversation? Have they brought something to the relationship in the past year? If the answer is no, then he removes them.This example was to stress his point that it’s all about building relationships and you have a “social” responsibility to define yourself as a person. People don’t interact with brands – they interact with the people behind those brands. Connect with people AS people. So being vulnerable is the secret to success in social media.

Another interesting prediction Jeff brought up – He believes in less than 18 months Twitter will be sold for between 2-4 billion to either Google or Microsoft. We shall see…

C.C. Chapman – “It isn’t a numbers game. The human side of social media”

In C.C. Chapman’s presentation he built upon Jeff’s presentation focus by suggesting that you should disregard quantity of followers, friends, etc. and just focus on building trust. “Don’t forget your human. Be yourself.”

Richard Dale – “Twitter as the universal information stream: What if the Twitter stream told us every time a can of soda is sold?”

Raised some interesting questions about Twitter becoming more than it is. Will it have accounts you have to pay to follow? Will there be automated feeds to tell soft drink distributors to restock a vending machine? Automated traffic updates?

Laura Fitton – “Social Media for Social Good”

Laura talked about getting social media involved with charities such as WellWishes because she was passionate about clean water. She also brought up Twestival which hosted over 200 simultaneous TweetUps to raise money for clean water projects. The main thing she stressed is that the influencer is the idea and not the person behind it.

Justin Levy – “How Small Business can use Inbound Marketing/Social Media to Help Increase Their Business”

Justin talked about how he is part owner of Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse a steak house in Northampton MA and how he has cut their traditional ad revenues by up to 90% and had 12 consecutive months of increasing revenue – all because of social media. He also shared an acronym he made up: HELP which stands for “Hustle, Engagement, Learning and Passion.” He also added “S” for “Strategy” which is how social media “HELPS” his business continue to grow.

Chris Penn – “It IS a numbers game – thinking about what numbers actually matter”

Chris is a stats geek which I love (being one myself). His whole topic was based around “what numbers matter?” and it comes down to basic grammar the verb. Verbs carry the action in a sentence. What measurables in your statistics have verbs? You just need to define what actions are in your statistics to find what your truly valuable statistics are.

Stephen Dill – “Social Media Lessons Learned: From the perspective of a skeptical Online Marketer”

Stephen started by talking about the misconception that people feel they don’t have the time for social media. He then quoted Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting (who spoke earlier) as part of his presentation that “Twitter is Google Juice”. He stressed the importance of “benchmarking” on Google to measure the effectiveness of using Twitter. Stephen was competing on Twitter with a famous Confederate General who also had the same name as he did (having a famous horse jockey who won the Kentucky Derby I could empathize with his struggle). He stressed that rather than fall into the misconception that social media was a time waster, you should realize that the real power and reason behind using social media is the technology of search.

Leslie Poston -”Bringing Generations Together For Success In The New Millennium”

Leslie had a great presentation about generational engagement in social media. Her greatest point was the need for real mentoring. For “Gen Yers” to help the “baby boomers” embrace the possibilities of social media and the tools that are available as well as the “baby boomers” to help the “Gen Yers” to understand concepts and strategies they may not have learned growing up completely in a digital world.

Matthew Mamet – “Using online video to strengthen your relationship with your online community.”

Matthew talked about how social media in general is a noisy place to have your discussion but that video helps to change that because people use video to change their mood. He also had stats (again I’m an admitted stats geek) that 86% of people use video to change their emotional state. It just goes to show how an effectively produced video can reach your audience by utilizing emotional triggers.

Thanks also go to Joe Cascio, Doug Levin, Jason Jacobs, Leah Busque, Steve Garfield, Alex Chriss (also the event’s host from Intuit), Maria Thurrell and Mike Langford for sparking some other great conversations not mentioned here and to Jeff Pulver for putting on a great event!

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Or what the movie industry could learn by listening to conversations and engaging further on social media.

The Academy Awards are a once a year experience that is exciting to the movie industry insiders and fans alike. Although a lot is made of who wore what on the red carpet or what surprise winner there was — the Oscar’s isn’t just an event…it’s business. It’s important to keep in mind that the Oscar buzz and awards can affect many movie production studios who have a lot riding on their movie…for this year and, particularly for small studios, to get funding for projects in the year to come.

Which is why I found the following information from eMarketer so incredibly interesting. According to Nielsen, the five Best Picture nominees spent a combined $64.3 million on advertising in the US.

The film with the largest advertising budget was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which spent more than almost all the other Best Picture nominated films combined.

So with that kind of marketing blitz you’d expect the majority of online buzz to be centered around The Curious Case of Benjamin Button…right? On Oscar night however, all that spending had no effect on the conversations people were engaging in online.

According to New Media Strategies, who tracked the online conversation buzz for the 24 hour period surrounding Oscar night and produced two reports: one covering Twitter posts (lead by @leslieann44) and one covering blog posts (lead by @simonowens of Bloggasm).

On Twitter of the Best Picture nominees, the movie with the most mentions was the Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire, followed by Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader and Frost/Nixon, in that order.

• Slumdog Millionaire: 6,369
• Milk: 3,617
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 1,110
• The Reader: 814
• Frost/Nixon: 543

The most tweeted about individual was Best Actor winner Sean Penn followed by Best Supporting Actor winner Heath Ledger, Mickey Rourke, Best Supporting Actress winner Penélope Cruz and Hugh Jackman to round out the top 5 individuals.

According to their analysis of blog mentions, Slumdog Millionaire, was also No. 1, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon behind.

• Slumdog Millionaire: 28,909
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 20,939
• Milk: 20,676
• The Reader: 16,123
• Frost/Nixon: 8,341

The most mentioned individual on blogs was Angelina Jolie followed by Best Supporting Actress winner Penélope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, Best Supporting Actor winner Heath Ledger and Best Actress Winner Kate Winslet in that order.

It’s interesting to note that while heavy spending is required by the movie industry to get people into theatres; it had virtually no influence on the conversations being held online in the social media world. Was all the talk on Twitter about Sean Penn’s somewhat controversial acceptance speech? Were people cheering for the underdog story by talking about Slumdog Millionaire? Could more social media engagement by the movie industry and production studios on Twitter, Facebook and blogs help bring a happy Hollywood ending by creating more buzz about these movies? What do you think?

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