Reassessing My Online Profile Part 3

Read these first:

Reassessing my online profile:https://padajo.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/who-am-i/

Reassessing my online profile:https://padajo.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/reassessing-my-online-profile-part-2/

Before we start…

I’m not trying to be narcissistic here and tell you all how great (or otherwise) I am. This is just a series of posts that have come out of my experiences being online and trying to run a business.

What’s my situation now?

I’ve partially resurrected my business over the past few months after having zero joy with getting another job after losing my first proper job for 8 years (after running my business for 8 years – not being a slacker) in January.

The reason I couldn’t get another job? Simple – I’m too experienced. Now, I’m not just saying that to make myself look better, it’s the responses I was getting from prospects. Apparently, I’m too experienced (and therefore likely to move on quickly) to take on a job in a marketing agency lower than senior management level (which I’ve done) and not able to be a senior consultant in an IT consultancy, because my skills are too “varied”.  What is frustrating is that I’m perfectly capable of doing both these jobs (having done them both as a contractor many times in the last 8 years).

So I’ve had to develop my own opportunities and as far as new business development is concerned, I’ve found that Social Media is a great term (er… buzzword) to start a conversation with people who need web and marketing skills. I’ve got a few new clients, including some large charities all wishing to utilise my Social Media knowledge and skills, but I’ve also found that most of the time, it takes a few hours, or a couple of days to tell them most of what they need to know to do it themselves.

The one big client I do have (at least, big for me) is a startup for whom i’m building an interactive online classroom.  Great work, but hugely frustrating trying to complete it.

My Profile Online – What’s changed?

I’ve actually stopped a lot of interaction on Social Networks over the summer – mainly because it’s the summer, and I have a family, but also because of holidays and moving house. It’s caused me to really think about how much time I spend online and for what purpose.

I’ve adapted my thinking on what I get out of being online. As far as business is concerned, almost all of my work still comes offline from face to face networking and from existing relationships. In fact, I can’t think of a single piece of work from this last 9 months that has come from either an existing relationship (not online) or through new relationships via offline networking.

So… is Online really that important?

Well, now comes the contradiction. It is important to be engaged and developing online networks. Why? Well, I think it is much more to enhance and develop relationships that are created offline (certainly for me).

The users I follow on twitter (for example – my twitter is @pauldjohnston) are generally in these categories:

• people I know as friends
• people I have met at some form of offline networking event (e.g. tweetups, trade shows, networking events, barcamps)
• people who interest me (could be celebrities or just people that have @ replied with something interesting)
• journalists and news/content organisations

As you can see, the first two are people I’ve met, and the last two are generally not.  The ones I take the most notice of are the first two and the last one.  The interesting people I can dip in and out of, but I’m generally not too bothered what they say.

How does this make me reassess my online profile?

As I have stated before, I’m desperate to setup another startup (have done 3 – all failed – learned loads – pretty sure I know what makes a great startup now). However, now is a rubbish time to try and do that (whatever anyone says) and having no consistent work for 9 months means there is no resource buffer to try and develop something new.

I am having to rethink why I blog/tweet (not how much). I’ve realised that just getting involved in conversations, whilst fun and interesting, doesn’t always help me get my work done. So maybe I need to learn about Getting Things Done and productivity tools, but they’re only useful if I actually have a business to work on.

So, the crux of the issue is me

What it comes down to is that if I tweet/blog and comment, people interact, and if I don’t do those things, my interaction reduces significantly (and generally only a handful of people still interact).  I have to figure out Who I Am before social media can really help me to develop a business or any othe form of relationships.  Maybe I won’t ever figure out Who I Am though, and maybe that’s the point. The journey is much more important than the answer.

Well that’s just great! I’m pretty much back where I started a year ago!  It seems that my next step must be looking after the clients I’ve got and coming up with a business idea that I can take to market.

Then, just maybe, you’ll start to see more of the real more on social media.

Social Media: Enterprise Snake Oil?

I’ve been wondering about Social Media and whether or not to make a concerted push with Social Media as a business proposition to companies. I’m excited by the prospect of it, but also, there’s something that holds me back.

What is “Social Media”?

Ok, let’s just get clear as to what we’re talking about: blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, microblogs etc in fact, anything where content generates conversation and interaction.  Conversation/Interaction is the social bit and content is the media bit. There’s an interesting article on wikipedia about Social Media so head there for more info.

Social Media in the Enterprise

Companies are beginning to wake up to two facts:

1. External – Companies can no longer control the conversation about their company/brand/service (at least not completely)
2. Internal – Companies can no longer control the internal conversation between employees

These 2 types of Social interaction in the enterprise are very different and handled by different business processes. The external is a marketing and PR function and the internal is an HR issue, although other factors including R&D may well play major parts.

Internal Issues

The major reason I believe why Social Media has not taken off is that a lot of the functions of social media are performed within the enterprise by Email, and by IM tools.  Most companies have email lists, and some have internal IM tools, and everyone has a phone number, so why do we need to worry about Social Media?  There are times when shared documents and the like would be preferable, but most people are savvy enough to know how to manage that (even if it may not be perfect).

The workforce is beginning to rely on Social Media outside of the workplace, and as such, are becoming much more aware of it’s usefulness. Email became prevalent because people found that it was better for communicating than fax or letter.  If the Social Media tools begin to outshine email and phone for usefulness, then why not bring them in-house? It makes sense doesn’t it?

There is no sense in my view in just “implementing” social media in the enterprise. If it has no purpose (note: I didn’t say ROI, I said purpose) to the enterprise, then don’t bother implementing it. It has to have a reason for being there.

I’ve watched a very large company throw a trial of forums, wikis and blogs at a trial group of people, with zero help and zero suggestion and watched how those that understood it took over and those that didn’t ignored it. It became a pointless exercise in pushing people apart and not collaborating.

To implement Social Media, you must have a reason for implementing it – e.g. knowledge sharing, information sharing, organising better meetings, providing a better working atmosphere.  Part of the implementation will be training as well. No training, and the tools will almost certainly fail.

ROI: a perspective on Social Software

The Thorny issue of social software ROI

Worth a read imho.  Especially as I think the post it references opens up the main points of Social Media ROI very well.

My business

What does a company want? They want to know that what they are doing is going to add value. At the moment, I’m not sure that many companies, apart from the very large ones, will benefit from internal social media installations. Why? Because it’s only the big ones that will see a massive benefit from social media.

I’d love to be able to go into companies and help them to implement social media and software in the enterprise. Currently, I’m unconvinced of exactly how to do it, and exactly how to sell it. I can see certain ROIs but I can also see barriers to implementation, that may well require significant investment and retraining.

Snake Oil

Many people that I see blogging about “Social Media” are the same who discussed SEO and who are all aiming for the wrong part of the market for the enterprise. The enterprise won’t touch that with a barge pole, because it reminds them too much of Snake Oil.

As an external marketing tool, I think Social Media is very important for every company, but that’s another blog, for another time.

Brand and the BBC = DDoS by Mail on Sunday

I’ve been keeping an eye on the story surrounding Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross and the radio show they recently did.  The timeline of events from the BBC is here:

Timeline: Russell Brand Prank Calls

Now, I want to get one thing clear here – I don’t agree that what they did was good or fair or reasonable or funny. In fact, it showed an extraordinary lack of judgment on both their parts, and the producers of the show to even consider that it should be broadcast. There – ’nuff said.

It’s not funny! However…

Consume what you enjoy – Niche audiences

Broadcast media is viewed by niche audiences. In this case, a late radio show with a controversial figure is bound to produce content that is appropriate for that niche audience. If it produces content and the listeners drop, then the show is changed or canned.

Russell Brand was employed by the BBC to do a radio show. He’s a creative and interesting personality, and often very rude.  He’s also sometimes very funny.  But if the show he creates loses it’s audience, the BBC will replace it.  The BBC obviously recognised that he has a talent and was using it though.

The market decides what is good and bad, or at least, that’s the theory.  The interesting thing to note is that the number of complaints from listeners was very few. The number of regular listeners is 400,000.

Mob Rule

4 days after broadcast (yes that’s 4 days) the Mail on Sunday rings the agent of the Andrew Sachs (the person on the end of the obscene phone call) for a comment. This then spirals into newspaper headlines, comments on blogs, emails to newspapers and huge numbers of complaints from the “general public”.

At 6:30pm on Wednesday 29th October, 9 days after broadcast, and 11 days after the prank, there are 27,000 complaints to the BBC on this matter.

Russell Brand has now quit his show, and both he and Jonathon Ross have been suspended pending a BBC investigation.

THIS IS SO WRONG

The show was not created for the general public. It was created for the 400,000 people that choose to listen to it.  I will re-iterate, what they did was wrong… BUT this is a time when the general population has got it wrong.  Not that they shouldn’t complain, but that the complaints were dealt with badly by the BBC.

Simple Comment = Mass hysteria

Social interaction over the web allows for everyone to comment very easily.  This is a situation that has arisen by an organisation, in this case, the Mail on Sunday, taking on a cause and provoking a reaction.  But does the demographic of the Mail on Sunday listen to Russell Brand? No. Hence there were only a few complaints.

The BBC should have recognised this and recognised that while the content was unacceptable, the complaints and provocation that caused the complaints was a side of the same coin. There is stuff broadcast every single day that I don’t think is appropriate, but I choose not to watch it.

Responsible Social Media

The world is changing and broadcast media is changing. Not only is the internet becoming more important, but the audiences are fragmenting. It’s much easier to view any content you choose with on-demand players, online video streaming, and other (often illegal) downloads or streams of broadcast content available whenever you want.

People will choose what they consume. In the past people had much less choice than now, but take a look at the younger demographic and they consume in a very different way to the Mail on Sunday crowd.

Social Media is changing the way we consume, but it’s also changing the way we comment and complain. This is very good, but it has to be managed correctly.  In some ways, the number of complaints was justified by the content, but if the Mail on Sunday hadn’t alerted the agent, then would this have happened? Probably not.

Managing Comments and Complaints

This is a fantastic case study in the managing of complaints.  It’s vital that what is recognised is that the complaints procedure was almost too open. The BBC I believe has not understood that there can sometimes be false negatives and positives with content. In some ways, this kind of commenting could be attributed to spamming or possibly a viral attack.

DDos

Was this a Social Media Dedicated Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the BBC from the Mail on Sunday? Very probably yes. The upshot is that the service that is Brand’s show and Ross’s show have been suspended. It’s not too far different from a bunch of techie fanatics trying to shut down the website of something they don’t agree with via technology.

Two questions arise

1. Who is the arbiter of good content?
2. How should complaints of this nature be dealt with?

Startup Sales and Lead Generation Tips (from my Twitter friends)

I’ve been wondering how a twitter stream can help a business, so I thought I’d try a quick test on twitter.  First a bit of background…

I run a business!

It’s called Vida (or various other names I choose to call it) and it’s always been a vehicle to allow me to have lots of fun doing interesting projects for companies like Gap, Honda, Isuzu, Coke, Unilever and Tesco. Mainly working through other agencies, as Vida doesn’t have a large sales and marketing budge and I never really wanted to employ people.  I have 2 kids and I’ve seen them grow up to be 6 and 8.  Best choice I’ve ever made.

Now my kids are in school, I’m thinking it’s probably more important to build up the company, so I need a new Sales and Marketing approach.

Crowd Sourcing Business Consultancy via Twitter

I have around 250 people on Twitter who follow me. I also post my twitter feed to Jaiku, Friendfeed, and Facebook, so lots of people read my twitters.  I’ve seen people ask questions on Twitter and get very useful responses, so I thought I’d try it.  My question was:

if you were to start a company now, what would be your tips for lead generation and sales?

I then direct messaged a few people to ask for their responses. I got several very interesting ones.  Some of the answers are picked out below:

martinpacker @pjnet Sniff around the tragedies of others? 🙂

epredator @pjnet share everywhere work a freemium model and see every person on every network as customer trust serendipity

NikkiPilkington @pjnet SEO, online networking and article marketing – work hard to build brand and reputation

stevepurkiss @pjnet network, network, network…

rooreynolds @pjnet asks “if you were to start a company … tips for lead generation and sales?” – be Interesting. Don’t treat social media as marketing

PBJohnson @pjnet but SEO is easier to grasp than networking … so easier to outsource?

epredator @pjnet if you attract people they are the right people you may have to alter the “product”

NikkiPilkington @pjnet fair enough – I misunderstood “reserve of small biz”

SuButcher @pjnet think about the client/user/purchaser. What are they thinking? What do they want? Where will they go to get it?

epredator @pjnet “no publicity is bad publicity” social media and long tail engagement seems to offer opportunity to engage with customers new and old

Other Comments

I also received several direct messages, and one of which caught my eye. Roo Reynolds sent me 2 links on Interestingness, one from his own blog and one from Russel Davies which I think are stunningly good links on how to be interesting as a person:

how to be interesting A brilliant and timeless blog on how to attract people

Russell Davies well worth a read to give Roo’s take on Russell’s ideas

So What Now?

So, I’ve had lots of advice, and I’ve generated lots of ideas. I personally think that SEO is far from useful when going after large corporate accounts, but I see the purpose of it.  I do think however, I’m going to remember to blog more, and make myself more interesting!

So watch this space. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be more interesting.

Difficult Social Media Questions

After reading Andy Piper‘s blog I found one of his delicious links very intriguing:

Ten Questions Not To Ask A Social Media Panel

It’s basically asking difficult questions around the subject of how Social Media is seen in the advertising/marketing world.  Things like “How do you plan a Social Media Campaign?” and “What’s a friend worth?”.

All really valid questions, but it does raise some interesting points. The best part of the article is the comments though.  Why? Because they bring more pertinent information out about the state of the market and how executives and corporates see the Social Media world.  Especially F100 companies in the US (and therefore FTSE100 in the UK).

I recently had the opportunity to sit in a marketing meeting with a large clothing retailer in the UK.  It was an odd meeting as they were being sold a marketing campaign around real metrics (100k+ people) with the aim of “getting more email addresses”.  In other words, sending an email out with a 50% off voucher, and “send to a friend” emails.  The aim was to increase the number of people they could spam to.  How very 1990s.

The interesting thing is that this ideas is self-perpetuating for the marketing company (not the brand).  If you get a whole load of email addresses in one campaign, you’re going to do the same campaign the next time.  What happens when email becomes less important?  What happens when all the important conversation is on Facebook, or worse, distributed over different social networks?

The conversation then turned to Facebook because the key demographic fits the Facebook profile.  Their question was “How do we use it?”.  I think there’s a fundamental flaw in that exact question.  In the end, I advised the company not to even go near thinking about engaging with Facebook (or any other Social Media) unless it was going to change it’s entire marketing approach. Why? Because people are far less easy to fool directly (on a 1 to 1 basis), rather than as a crowd.   Social Media works at the 1 to 1 level.

Social Media is not to be used, it’s to be engaged with.  It’s not to be controlled, it’s to be released.  It’s not for trying to get more “customers” it’s for trying to create brand advocates.  It’s higher risk, but with much higher reward.

Brands and Companies need to realise that Social Media is not a “strategy” that is either easy or non-disruptive to their organisation. There is no easy way to start a “campaign” – and as the blog post says, there’s no guarantee that there is such a thing as a “campaign” in Social Media.

So, how do you incorporate Social Media into your brand or company? I think I’ll leave that for the next blog.