Citizen-Generated Media (CGM)

How Your Social Media Capital Can Get You Closer to Your Market

The recent awareness, or lack of, depending upon your company,
of the massive spike in "digital word of mouth" in the
marketplace has led many firms to rush out and "get a blog".

In many cases the conversation goes like this - "We need a
blog, go hire someone and have them start writing good and
clever things about us!"

They have already gotten it wrong in relation to social media.

Social Media is first and foremost created by individual people, not
businesses. Thus the term "social". Businesses are not social
in and of themselves, but require social interaction at key
points to truly grow and flourish. Personality is a requirement
of the most prevalant railroad track in social media today
which is the blog.

These blogs require an identity of a person with a name that
is at least the primary writer, as readers will not necessarily
appreciate a simple company identity  Thes same readers will be
people that want to "talk back" or converse with comments back
to the writer, or keeper of the journal. Entries should not be
made with the typical company pontification or corporate speak,
as no one will read it - at least not for very long. The more
authentic you are in speaking to your circle of friends, the
better response you will receive. This should sound familiar to
your social relationships.

The lines between public relations, advertising and marketing
have been criss-crossing for years. Their new re-defined, yet
watered-down counterparts include "alternative pr, online
advertising and brand marketing". Each of these silos have been
forcibly melded together as the digital social consumer has both
commandeered and mastered the very same toolset used by these
groups today.

Beginning to get the picture?

Well, if you're not, the big risk is that someone else might be
getting (or painting) it for you. If that's the case, you
probably need to act fast as I described above.  So, as an
assistant in your cause to not wrinkle your firm's reputation
in the blogoshere, or perhaps to help fix it if you already
have, I'll be posting a detailed a must-have roadmap for any business to
keep it's social media capital properly budgeted in the next week.

Disproportionately Large Influence

“Ignore Bloggers at Your Peril” warns the U.K. Guardian yesterday.  While this article primarily deals with blogging in Europe, the same points could be made about the American blogosphere as well.  The Wall Street Journal debates whether blogging can turn a profit or not, unleashing Alan Meckler of Jupiter Research and Jason Calcanis of Weblogs Inc. as point-counterpoint.  Delicate Genius has his ideas on the commercial viability of blogging too.  David Sifry issued another of his quarterly “State of the Blogosphere” reports recently as well.

Extending Your Blog’s Reach

Wayne Hurlbert has a lengthy post on how to make visitor traffic logs work to increase your blog’s visibility and the number of search engine referrals it attracts.  The article also offers hints on how to make any unique visitor increase the time spent on your blog.  If all your visitors are one-click wonders, your blog will likely remain in the lower depths of the blogosphere.

Blogometrics

Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion posted this past week regarding Bloginfluence, a website which measures the scope and reach of any blog entered into its engine.   He suggests that such a tool could be invaluable for marketers making decisions on which blogs they will place their advertising.  I think he is probably correct.   

Not All Newspapers Hate the Blogosphere

The U.K.’s Guardian published an odd editorial last weekend, “In Praise of . . . the Blogosphere.”   It also provides a Special Report on Weblogs that offers a few links of its own.  Three days later, the Guardian reports on a speech given by media baron Rupert Murdoch, in which he predicts his own demise, and a “second great age of discovery” led by pioneers of the Internet.

Tracking Everything

Google has just announced the acquisition of MeasureMap, software that allows bloggers to track their viewership through the use of sophisticated web analytics.  Pretty soon, one will have to renounce the use of electricity and move to the South Pole if remaining off the surveillance grid is top priority.  But for tracking your blog’s visitors and lurkers and determining what pattern of use they forged, tools like this are invaluable.

BBC News reports “First Impressions Count for the Web”

This article discusses a new Canadian study that makes me realize how fast we are conditioned by the approximately one million (and increasing) annual ads each of us sees on average. Get it here…