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Archives for July 2011

Do You Amplify the Echo Chamber?

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I could probably link every word in this post with a blog that’s been written about the echo chamber; it’s a popular topic, and yesterday’s article here spawned some further fodder. I share a list for you, and ask you for your contribution, please.

You are amplifying the echo chamber if:

* You’ve created a stream of Twitter faves who are social media leaders and early adopters.

* You’re in Triberr (either one or more tribes, no matter) and your tribes are filled with inbreeders.

* You follow like-minded peeps in your space and don’t branch out to find new peeps from other verticals.

* You comment on the same blogs over and over.

* You’ve formed a comfy clique and don’t want to take the time to expand your horizons.

* You’ve depicted yourself as untouchable, inaccessible, and just a plain old social media rock star.

That’s my take…and, I am going to be changing it all up real soon — after I stop sucking wind this summer.

(Well, actually, I hope you’ve noticed you may not know anyone behind these links. I believe this is a great start — to share link love for those I don’t know to broaden my horizons.)

Is Twitter Broken?

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The future of Twitter is anyone’s guess, and you can imagine I have some opinions on that (who, moi?). I mentioned recently, something’s afoot in social media land and I couldn’t quite tap a crystalline here’s-what’s-wrong answer.

I think I’m getting closer.

Since Triberr hit the landscape, and I’ve seen everyone in my social media circle (hi, >) run to adopt, my stream is, ahem, littered, or shall we say cluttered, with Triberr short url links to everyone’s blog posts. In fact, in my list of favorite peeps, there’s nary an original 140 without a link to Triberr. OK, maybe not ever, just frequently. (This is NOT bad; it’s an observation that’s bothering me a tad.)

Back in the day when I launched Twitter 2 ½ years ago, it was absolutely a channel to create community and engage authentically. In fact, to Mark W. Schaefer I owe much of my community growth as we began the same time, and his blog {grow} was our (community) home base.

In the last many weeks, I’ve noticed a change in my Twitter stream content. (Have you in yours?)

* There is less original thought to anything without a link attached.

* Followers who are real people are fewer and far in between; there’s a plateau and brick wall obstacle in the speed with which you can create a genuine community.

* There are more spammers sifting through the cracks and sending DMs with links from my trusted peeps. I opened a few of those just this week several times; clever, too: “Jayme, is this you in this video?” I fell for that.

* I have often promoted Twitter to my clients as the hub from which links stem and drive traffic to blogs, landing pages and websites. This is still sound strategy, but it’s becoming more of a challenge to get peeps to open links.

* This is where community building comes in, STILL. To build a community, you need to be a trust agent. To be a trust agent, you need authentic content, to develop authentic content, you need to be original and not spammy. To be successful you need to cut through the clutter of automation and keep the real you  you.

I’d love to get your opinion on this; who else is seeing this something happening with Twitter? (And, OK, Twitter is NOT broken, necessarily, it’s evolving to a new level for the masses; it’s the post-engage phase where ROI takes over.)

Run to Google+ to Engage!

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I would be remiss if I did not share my thoughts about Google+ after a weekend of playing. Here’s the upshot…RUN to Google+ and reserve your profile and nickname before others, especially if your name is common or there are duplicate names to yours.

The site is intuitive, addictive, fast, and organized. My network is not just being built from Twitter and Facebook, thank goodness, it’s coming alive with people I don’t even know.

* And, that’s what’s cool. Google+ is organized in circles. You can put peeps into a circle of friends, social media types, PR, family, following, or any other category you create and name. I found that I have pretty much three circles only; not sure I need to skew them deeper than that. If I did, it would be a simple click with a really cool interface to make it happen.

*As for content, I’m a bit unsure about posts up there. The weekend was full of banter; ahem, Ms. Dietrich was scamming the poor system in search of “free beer.”  I think she found it.

*What people are saying, and I fully agree, is they don’t want to see content being cross-posted from Twitter and Facebook. Because so many of us are connected on all channels right now, the cross pollination of content and repetitiveness would become  unruly. This remains to be seen…how folks will elect to share.

* The jury is still out how to best use this channel. What I’m hoping for is a more professional channel of business folks that would create a hotbed of learning, testing, and challenging/useful content. Again, if you follow those types of peeps and organize others into circles, that is highly likely to happen.

* Here’s one critical tip — secure your nickname. Here’s the link and it appears like this when you’re done In box one, type in the name you’d like to use to identify yourself. In box two, copy and paste just the numbers from your current Google+ account (found in the url in your browser). Click “add” and voila. You can use this to identify yourself rather than a cumbersome set of numbers and unwieldy url.

* When people  you don’t know add you to their circles, add them, too. In this beta phase, all peeps should be safe (not spammers yet unless her name is cough, Gini, cough).

* Re analytics, there’s a lot of banter about whether this channel will help drive blog traffic. Why wouldn’t it? I already had an alert for my profile here; I know that Google, being the search engine it is, is going to be monitoring traffic inside and pushing attention to the outside.

* One thing that is slightly disturbing to me, though, is the amount of data being transmitted via Gmail, to Crackberry and to iPad2, plus other mobile devices. Think about it…how will we keep data plan charges down when the mobile providers are all going to fee for usage plans? Anyone else have a thought on this? I got the idea after seeing the huge spike in Gmail traffic to my iPad and Blackbery; that’s a bit worrisome.

What’s your first impression, folks?

Momaraderie is Erica Allison, North Carolina PR Pixie Peep

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I had the pleasure of meeting Erica Allison at Social Slam in Knoxville in April. What a big-hearted woman and someone you should know. As a PR colleague, she’s tops; she has a successful blog, called Spot On, (which I successfully blogjacked last week whilst she was away); she runs Allison Development Group, her PR and social media outfit; she is a fab writer (I know this first hand); and, she’s a mompreneur with two little ones trying to make a go of it in summer with the regular issues with sitters, holidays, etc.

You can follow her everywhere – via Skpe (funny, she just popped up on my screen that she’s online…or maybe it’s the kids); via Google+, via LinkedIn, via Twitter, Facebook, her blog, and my goodness, she also has a mobile phone number.

Twitter has changed my life; period. I have developed some of the most incredible friendships and business relationships evah. There’s no way anyone can expand their horizons without the marvels of social media, and meeting Erica Allison has been a highlight of mine.

So, if you take nothing away from today’s Momaraderie, I encourage you to take this…Erica is absolutely a must-follow, must-engage because:

*She’s continually supportive and offers sage counsel to anyone she meets.

*She’s not one to let her hair down all the way (cough, ahem, unlike some writers you may know), and that’s a good thing.

*She’s got a buoyant personality with a kick-ass charm and professionalism to boot.

*She’ll nurture you on the social media pathway, so tag along.

*She’s a hot-rod public relations practitioner, and is ready for hire.

*And, she’s simply a fab friend.

Erica Allison…I’d be surprised if you don’t already know her.

Google+ Will Social Media Fall?

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This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we? (Thanks, @GiniDietrich, for the link there.)

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.