Archive | social media strategy RSS feed for this section

People Don’t Think Online

by The Anti-Social Media on October 19, 2010 in Reading, social media strategy, writing

How many times do you go online and think, “I’m going to use the internet to change the world today.”

If you thought zero, don’t beat yourself up too much.

People don’t go online to think.  People go online for two things, information and entertainment.  Entertainment is pretty self explanatory.  It’s how we end up with David after Dentist.

By information, I don’t mean well thought out positions.  I mean the raw facts and data to solve an asnwer quickly.  It’s why Wikipedia and IMDB are popular.  They answer questions instantaneously and decisively.  They settle arguments and meaningless questions.  They don’t make you answer something deeper than “Who played Jason in Friday the 13th Part VIII - Jason Takes Manhattan” (Answer: Kane Hodder)

If people wanted to think deeply on the internet, we wouldn’t have such things as trolls and flame wars.  People don’t have nuanced discussions online.  We’d rather share pictures of lolcats and retweet funny hashtags.

This is probably you need some rudimentary social media or content strategy.  If not to figure out how to engage users, but how to beat an idea into their head so throughly they actually begin to think about it beyond the level of skimming.

Figure out how to get people obsessed with one idea, one concept, and one method of thinking. Then you can get them to think deeply beyond the four sentences in your writing they actually read in your whole blog post.

Comments Off

The No-Strategy Strategy: A Strategy Guide for Bloggers

by The Anti-Social Media on October 18, 2010 in blogging, guest post, social media strategy

Today’s post is a guest post by my friend and SEO maverick, Phil Buckley.

Is it possible you’re spending too much time on strategy? I think it is.

If strategy is draining time, energy and resources from the actual doing, maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy strategy.

The idea of a no-strategy strategy popped into my brain while reading Any Jerk Can Be A Social Media Strategist.

If you’re a simple business, or a single blogger you should probably be spending more time on measuring your actions than on complicated strategy documents. My advice to anyone who is thinking about blogging is, START WRITING! That’s not a complicated strategy, in fact, it’s just the core action.

You run a business selling firewood, here’s your strategy - write about firewood. Done. You’re a mommy blogger, here’s your strategy - write about your life. You’re IBM or the Carolina Panthers, now you need a strategy. Rather than overthink your strategy, start doing the work. Start writing. Write something right now! If you can’t write this very second, make sure you make a date to write tonight.

Maybe you think that you’re a special case, and you really do need a specific strategy. That’s possible. Here’s a quick test to see if how much time you should be spending on strategy for you blog:

  • You have as many people subscribed to your blog as you have contacts in your phone. (1 minute)
  • You have posts waiting to be published in the future. (1 minute for each future post)
  • You have people contacting you about advertising on your site. (2 minutes per inquiry/month)
  • You are being asked to speak at local events. (3 minutes per engagement/month)
  • You are being offered money to speak at industry events. (5 minutes per engagement/month)
  • Your blog is main source of income (10 minutes)
  • Your business makes enough money to employ additional people. (30 minutes/employee)

Now add up the time from the list above. That’s how much time you should be spending on your strategy. Now get going bringing that strategy to life.

Phil Buckley is the Director of User Experience at Media Two Interactive, a media advertising agency specializing in digital and traditional planning, buying and design. He blogs at 1918.com on search social and web development. You can follow him on Twitter @1918.

Comments Off
Any Jerk Can be a Social Media Strategist

Any Jerk Can be a Social Media Strategist

by The Anti-Social Media on October 14, 2010 in social media experts, social media strategists, social media strategy

In my ivory tower of social media criticism, I notice that social media practitioners rarely do everything they preach. I’m guilty of it. I follow more people than I can reasonably keep up with. I don’t engage and converse with the people I follow enough.  My content sometimes doesn’t provide any informative or entertainment value.

Anyone can be a social media strategist. If you’ve ever thought about how you will update Facebook for more than a minute, then you’re strategizing.  Welcome to the glamourous world of social media strategy.  Make sure you go get the uniform.  We can plan our next tweet while you put it on.

It’s easy to make a social media strategy.  The trouble is, some people are much better at it than others.  Whether that’s through innate talent and understanding of the human nature, or simply hard work, there is no requirement or certificate that confers any social media title on anyone (I’m looking at you, ninjas, gurus, and mavericks). There is no divine right to any title on the Internet. You earn the title by making content that kicks ass and then having your esteemed colleagues confer it onto you.

Any jerk with a dream and a Twitter account can be a social media strategist.  But without any serious thought, their strategy will be worth shit.  Don’t be a shitty social media strategist.  The good ones have enough crap to deal with already.

Comments Off

What the F@%& is my Social Media Strategy?

by The Anti-Social Media on August 4, 2010 in social media strategy

What the F@%& is my Social Media Strategy?:

Do you need a social media strategy?  Have you tried this:

Build loyalty & increased engagement through ongoing conversation and brand experience 

Or what about this?

Amplify word of mouth by motivating influencers

Or even this:

Facilitate audience conversations and drive engagement with social currency 

Then you might want to check out What the F@%& is My Social Media Strategy.  Or you could check out my guide to building a social media strategy.

Comments Off
You Don’t Own Social Media

You Don’t Own Social Media

by The Anti-Social Media on June 30, 2010 in Social media, social media strategy

When I see people really think about social media and business, they always ask the question, “Who owns social media?”  This question has a lot of answers.  Some people argue marketing.  Other people argue PR.  I’ve even seen it be argued that HR owns social media.  At the end of the day, most people agree that no single department in a company owns social media, and it’s up to the everyone to use it correctly to promote and serve the busineses purposes.

That’s positive, wonderful and unfortunately idealistic thinking. When I look at the question, I tend to turn it around on itself. I think about who really owns social media, and when I boil it down, the answer is always a corporation.

Facebook owns Facebook.  Twitter owns Twitter. Google owns YouTube.  News Corp owns Myspace.  Pick your network; the list goes on.  This problem is one of the most inherent and troubling aspects of social media.  All of these networks are under the guide and plans of corporations.  Some are privately owned.  Others are public.  Still, they are under the guiding principle to make money by keeping you on their enclosed, private network.

This is something we often forget with social sites compared to e-mail.  While your e-mail address may be owned by Google or Yahoo or whomever, the system that e-mail uses is not limited to something owned and controlled by a single company.  Twitter, Facebook and the like don’t do that.  When they go down, and they do go down, the entire network suffers.

And what about the content you put on there.  Sure, as much as you can you retain the rights to it, but you also submit some of those rights to the discretion of the company who is hosting that content.  I know I am vastly oversimplifying this issue, but while you lose full control of things anytime you post them online, you lose even more control when you submit them to these services.

So, should we stop using social media sites?  No.  For right now, those sites are the best we’ve got.  However, with fail whales on the rise and deeper issues to think about, I think there exists an amazing potential for someone to create an e-mail-like system for tweets, or a better open profile.  The need to own our social media is there.  It’s time for someone to make it happen.

Comments Off

Social Media Strategies Explained

by The Anti-Social Media on June 23, 2010 in social media strategy

How many times do you log onto Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any social network in a day?  Once?  Two times?  At least fifteen?  If you’re in the last group, you’re a loser I won’t judge you, but how many times do you stop to think abut why you are actually going onto a social network?

Why you use a social network is what the professionals call a social media strategy.

While that sounds great for businesses, for the rest of us, it seems a above our heads.  Do we need to plan on a chart or break out some whiteboards?  Is this strategy supposed to be like a battle tactic?  Do I need a sword and shield, and should I prepare to make enemies?

It’s actually much simpler.  All you need to do is ask “Why am I using this tool?”

Boil your reasons down into a verb describing why you’re spending time online.  Are you keeping up with friends?  Finding the latest news?  Growing your business?  Think it over.  Now, find a piece of paper and write this out.

I use (Social Network) to (Action).

There’s your answer to why.  Now let’s fill in some of the ways we can accomplish this goal.  Here’s where you can get creative.  Consider publishing awesome content.  Or, try finding and sharing cool stuff.  Or you can message and interact with people.  These are some simple ways to go about it.  Go crazy and think of ways you can accomplish your goal.  Once you get three, add them to your statement.  You can always add or subtract methods, but three is a good number to start with.   Your statement should look something like this:

I use (Social Network) to (Action) by (Method 1), (Method 2), and (Method 3).

So, we’ve got the basis of a social media strategy here.  If you’ve come this far, you aren’t an idiot, so let’s make this an even better strategy by adding a goal you can measure.  You could do this by tracking sales, getting number of followers, or tracking how popular your website becomes.  Either way, you’ll need to figure out what you can measure and how to measure it.

So now, our statement looks like this:

I use (Social Network) to (Action) by (Method 1), (Method 2), and (Method 3).  I will be successful when (Goal).

This is my statement.  Yours should look something like this:

I use Twitter to promote my blog, the Anti-Social Media, by publishing awesome content, interacting with smart, funny people, and sharing hilarious content.  I will be successful when I have 1,000 followers and I am listed 200 times.

That took me three minutes to come up with.  Stop looking at whatever site is distracting you, write out your goal for each social network, how you’re going to do it, and how you’ll know you accomplished that goal.

Got all that?  Now, get to work making it happen.

Comments Off