Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 374
January 4, 2011
No Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast This Week
Well, it was bound to happen.
Yesterday, I had an amazing conversation with Mark W. Schaefer from the Grow Blog that covered topics like the power of Klout and the evolution of Marketing, Communications and Blogging in 2010. We even pushed out into the coming year and discussed creativity, analytics and what might be in store for Social Media. The Skype line that we connected on sounded great and I used Audio Hijack Pro to capture the conversation (as I always do). It lasted about 45 minutes and I thought it was the perfect bowtie ribbon on a great year of Podcasting.
But then...
When I went to record the show tonight (intro, outro, music and shownotes), something truly strange happened. The audio on Mark's side was perfect, but my voice came out about two octaves lower and to make matters even stranger, there was a delay on my side of the conversation, so I would hear dead air, Mark then speaking to something I was saying and then my voice coming in after. In all of my years of Podcasting, I am stumped. I don't think it was Skype and I'm baffled as to how Audio Hijack Pro could have messed up the audio recording in this manner.
It really does suck.
I've missed a couple of shows over the years, and I tend to not publish/talk about it, but this really upset me, mostly because I now feel like I wasted Mark's valuable time (especially during the holiday season when we were both taking some well-deserved time off). It also sucks, because the content was great and I really wish you could hear it, but it's just not listenable. I considered just putting it "out there," with a warning that the audio was wonky, but I couldn't even listen to it because it sounded so... weird. I hope Mark understands and can accept this apology. I'm hopeful he and I will record a lot more this year... and for years to come.
Until then...
If you're really starved for an episode of Six Pixels of Separation, please allow me to recommend that you take a listen to SPOS #159 - Digital Marketing All-Star Roundtable. This episode featured a roundtable conversation I conducted on behalf of Marketing Magazine with Seth Godin, Charlene Li, Shelly Palmer and David Weinberger in June of 2009. If you haven't heard it yet, I promise it won't let you down.
Next week, we'll (hopefully) be back with our regularly scheduled programming.
UPDATE: Mark was kind enough to re-record a fresh episode. We made it happen and it will be published this coming Sunday. I hope you enjoy it... I think it came out great (and yes, it's better than our first attempt).
Tags:
analytics
audio hijack pro
audio recording
blogging
charlene li
communications
content
creativity
david weinberger
grow blog
klout
mark w schaefer
marketing
marketing magazine
podcast
seth godin
shelly palmer
skype
social media
January 3, 2011
No Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast This Week
Well, it was bound to happen.
Yesterday, I had an amazing conversation with Mark W. Schaefer from the Grow Blog that covered topics like the power of Klout and the evolution of Marketing, Communications and Blogging in 2010. We even pushed out into the coming year and discussed creativity, analytics and what might be in store for Social Media. The Skype line that we connected on sounded great and I used Audio Hijack Pro to capture the conversation (as I always do). It lasted about 45 minutes and I thought it was the perfect bowtie ribbon on a great year of Podcasting.
But then...
When I went to record the show tonight (intro, outro, music and shownotes), something truly strange happened. The audio on Mark's side was perfect, but my voice came out about two octaves lower and to make matters even stranger, there was a delay on my side of the conversation, so I would hear dead air, Mark then speaking to something I was saying and then my voice coming in after. In all of my years of Podcasting, I am stumped. I don't think it was Skype and I'm baffled as to how Audio Hijack Pro could have messed up the audio recording in this manner.
It really does suck.
I've missed a couple of shows over the years, and I tend to not publish/talk about it, but this really upset me, mostly because I now feel like I wasted Mark's valuable time (especially during the holiday season when we were both taking some well-deserved time off). It also sucks, because the content was great and I really wish you could hear it, but it's just not listenable. I considered just putting it "out there," with a warning that the audio was wonky, but I couldn't even listen to it because it sounded so... weird. I hope Mark understands and can accept this apology. I'm hopeful he and I will record a lot more this year... and for years to come.
Until then...
If you're really starved for an episode of Six Pixels of Separation, please allow me to recommend that you take a listen to SPOS #159 - Digital Marketing All-Star Roundtable. This episode featured a roundtable conversation I conducted on behalf of Marketing Magazine with Seth Godin, Charlene Li, Shelly Palmer and David Weinberger in June of 2009. If you haven't heard it yet, I promise it won't let you down.
Next week, we'll (hopefully) be back with our regularly scheduled programming.
Tags:
analytics
audio hijack pro
audio recording
blogging
charlene li
communications
content
creativity
david weinberger
grow blog
klout
mark w schaefer
marketing
marketing magazine
podcast
seth godin
shelly palmer
skype
social media
January 1, 2011
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #28
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Rednod, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for each other (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - The Atlantic . "In this somewhat unexpected essay, shaggy-haired renaissance wunderkund Jaron Lanier offers a cautionary look at what happens when the nerds win, and at the Wikileaks story in particular. Lanier gets that Wikileaks wants to upset a 'conspiracy of bastards,' but as he points out, the Internet has turned the tables on who's powerful - and 'how can you tell when you are the underdog versus when you are powerful?'" (Alistair for Hugh).
The Two Things - Glen Whitman . "Sometimes, constraints can be good. Twitter limited users to 140 characters, and that produced a whole new set of communication conventions. Glen Whitman 's Two Things list asks people to distill everything about a particular discipline into just two things. It's an old list, which Glen blogged about back in 2004, but it's an idea I think should be revived: ask enough smart people to distill something into two nuggets of information, and you'll find some truisms." (Alistair for Mitch).
Qur'an etched in Saddam Hussein's blood poses dilemma for Iraq leaders - The Guardian . "Continuing from terrifying and depressing, to... terrifying and so
bizarre that it's hard to quite get my mind around it: Over the course of two years in the 1990s, while Saddam Hussein was still running Iraq, a nurse extracted 27 litres of his blood, which was used as ink by an Islamic calligrapher to transcribe a complete Qur'an." (Hugh for Alistair).
Out of Lehman's Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants - Bloomberg . "I should probably select more cheerful links for New Year's Day, but, well... I won't. So: remember how the global economy almost fell apart due to a confluence of massive consumer/corporate debt and complex financial instruments, driven in large part by the collapse in the crazy US real estate market? The fall-out has been massive unemployment, unprecedented housing foreclosures, and an astronomical shift of debt from private parties (banks and corporations), to the public balance sheet. Behind all of this was Wall Street (well, the global Wall Street), which - for the last 30 years or so - has been extracting greater and greater amounts of wealth from the economy, by encouraging more debt and risk. When the cards came down, starting with Lehman Brothers, and swiftly taking AIG and then the whole global financial system with it, some of us thought: 'OK, so this is bad enough that something major will have to change.' What changed was who gets caught holding the bag (taxpayers). What didn't change was how much wealth Wall Street continues to extract from the economy: 'The last two years have been the best ever for combined investment-banking and trading revenue at Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.'" (Hugh for Mitch).
In Pursuit of the Perfect Brainstorm - The New York Times Magazine . "Sticky notes, games with toilet paper rolls, whiteboards, squishy balls, crayons, tinkertoys, Lego... is there anything that hasn't been done as a way to open up the minds of a group of people to get them to brainstorm better? Is there a science to it? Does brainstorming actually work? Well... you'll have to read the article to find out..." (Mitch for Alistair).
Up Front: Why Criticism Matters - The New York Times - Sunday Book Review . "There is a trove of great content in and around this feature. In the top left corner there are links to six critics who each discuss the importance of what they do. Further down you'll find a great audio Podcast on the subject. I'm currently finishing up the autobiography, Mustaine, all about Megadeth founder and frontman, Dave Mustaine. This guy (and his band) took a ton of criticism from the media, the public and their peers. While Mustaine has a thick skin, you don't have to read too far between the lines to see how hurtful it still is to him when the mass media critiques his music. Nobody likes to be critiqued, yet well all do it (at some level or another)." (Mitch for Hugh).
Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.
Tags:
alistair croll
bitcurrent
bite-sized edits
bloomberg
brainstorm
communications
complete web monitoring
criticism
dave mustaine
gigaom
glen whitman
global economy
great links
hugh mcguire
human 20
jaron lanier
librivox
link
linkbait
managing bandwidth
mass media
media
media hacks
megadeth
mustaine
rednod
sunday book review
the atlantic
the book oven
the guardian
the new york times
twitter
wall street
wikileaks
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #28
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Rednod, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for each other (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - The Atlantic . "In this somewhat unexpected essay, shaggy-haired renaissance wunderkund Jaron Lanier offers a cautionary look at what happens when the nerds win, and at the Wikileaks story in particular. Lanier gets that Wikileaks wants to upset a 'conspiracy of bastards,' but as he points out, the Internet has turned the tables on who's powerful - and 'how can you tell when you are the underdog versus when you are powerful?'" (Alistair for Hugh).
The Two Things - Glen Whitman . "Sometimes, constraints can be good. Twitter limited users to 140 characters, and that produced a whole new set of communication conventions. Glen Whitman 's Two Things list asks people to distill everything about a particular discipline into just two things. It's an old list, which Glen blogged about back in 2004, but it's an idea I think should be revived: ask enough smart people to distill something into two nuggets of information, and you'll find some truisms." (Alistair for Mitch).
Qur'an etched in Saddam Hussein's blood poses dilemma for Iraq leaders - The Guardian . "Continuing from terrifying and depressing, to... terrifying and so
bizarre that it's hard to quite get my mind around it: Over the course of two years in the 1990s, while Saddam Hussein was still running Iraq, a nurse extracted 27 litres of his blood, which was used as ink by an Islamic calligrapher to transcribe a complete Qur'an." (Hugh for Alistair).
Out of Lehman's Ashes Wall Street Gets Most of What It Wants - Bloomberg . "I should probably select more cheerful links for New Year's Day, but, well... I won't. So: remember how the global economy almost fell apart due to a confluence of massive consumer/corporate debt and complex financial instruments, driven in large part by the collapse in the crazy US real estate market? The fall-out has been massive unemployment, unprecedented housing foreclosures, and an astronomical shift of debt from private parties (banks and corporations), to the public balance sheet. Behind all of this was Wall Street (well, the global Wall Street), which - for the last 30 years or so - has been extracting greater and greater amounts of wealth from the economy, by encouraging more debt and risk. When the cards came down, starting with Lehman Brothers, and swiftly taking AIG and then the whole global financial system with it, some of us thought: 'OK, so this is bad enough that something major will have to change.' What changed was who gets caught holding the bag (taxpayers). What didn't change was how much wealth Wall Street continues to extract from the economy: 'The last two years have been the best ever for combined investment-banking and trading revenue at Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.'" (Hugh for Mitch).
In Pursuit of the Perfect Brainstorm - The New York Times Magazine . "Sticky notes, games with toilet paper rolls, whiteboards, squishy balls, crayons, tinkertoys, Lego... is there anything that hasn't been done as a way to open up the minds of a group of people to get them to brainstorm better? Is there a science to it? Does brainstorming actually work? Well... you'll have to read the article to find out..." (Mitch for Alistair).
Up Front: Why Criticism Matters - The New York Times - Sunday Book Review . "There is a trove of great content in and around this feature. In the top left corner there are links to six critics who each discuss the importance of what they do. Further down you'll find a great audio Podcast on the subject. I'm currently finishing up the autobiography, Mustaine, all about Megadeth founder and frontman, Dave Mustaine. This guy (and his band) took a ton of criticism from the media, the public and their peers. While Mustaine has a thick skin, you don't have to read too far between the lines to see how hurtful it still is to him when the mass media critiques his music. Nobody likes to be critiqued, yet well all do it (at some level or another)." (Mitch for Hugh).
Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.
Tags:
alistair croll
bitcurrent
bite-sized edits
bloomberg
brainstorm
communications
complete web monitoring
criticism
dave mustaine
gigaom
glen whitman
global economy
great links
hugh mcguire
human 20
jaron lanier
librivox
link
linkbait
managing bandwidth
mass media
media
media hacks
megadeth
mustaine
rednod
sunday book review
the atlantic
the book oven
the guardian
the new york times
twitter
wall street
wikileaks
What Moved You In 2010
Every year, I fall more in love with writing, the written word and Blogging.
From discovering new Bloggers who are discovering their own voices to the minutia of niches that people are driven to write about. As a former magazine publisher, there's just nothing like opening up a browser and entering into a world of insightful pieces of content written by people who are truly passionate about a topic that gets published the second their idea is complete. Couple that with the subsequent comments, commentary and sharing in places like Twitter and Facebook, and it's mind-boggling how anyone can think that this publishing platform isn't as transformative as the Gutenberg Press.
What moved you here.
Part of becoming a better writer, journalist, Blogger and Media Hacker comes from understanding what content worked for your community. I spent a couple of minutes looking at my Blog posts over the past year. I looked at comments, engagement and the PageRank score that each Blog post received. Using a minimum PageRank score of 8/10, these are the Blogs posts on Six Pixels of Separation that moved you the most (in alphabetical order)...
The Agency Of The Future.
Being A Twitter Snob Is A Good Thing.
The Best Piece Of Management Advice I Ever Received.
Blogging Still Matters... Now More Than Ever.
The Business Of Kindness.
The End Of Conversation In Social Media.
The Followship Of Twitter.
Five Reasons Why This Blog Is A Failure.
Is Twitter Killing You?
The Most Important Thing You Can Do...
The Myth Of Work Life Balance.
9 Ways To Elevate Your Speaking To Black Belt Level.
No More Websites. Only Publishers.
Personal Branding R.I.P.
Product Is The New Marketing.
7 Lessons That WikiLeaks Teaches Us.
The 10 Core Values Of A Winning Personal Brand.
The Truth And Lies Of Networking.
Web 3.0 And The Future Of The Internet - The Movie.
Thank you.
Personally, professionally and communally, 2010 was an incredible year. Along with a healthy and happy family, amazing friends and my community service, we (my three incredible business partners and I) managed to grow Twist Image to nearly 130 Digital Marketing professionals in our two offices (Montreal and Toronto) working for some of the best clients and coolest brands. I travelled to over thirty cities in five countries, evangelizing the Digital Marketing industry, my agency and the book, Six Pixels of Separation (which 800-CEO-Read and Inc. Magazine just listed at #13 on their Bestsellers of 2010 list - thank you!) at over 70 events, and met/worked with the best of the best. People often see my mug on all things Twist Image and Six Pixels of Separation, but the real work and heavy lifting is a team effort. Those 130 Digital Marketing professionals are not employees... they're teammates. Nothing I do happens without them... and you can see them all in action right here: Twist Image Facebook Page.
So, while the Blog posts above moved you, working with the amazing team at Twist Image (and my extended business families at Speaker's Spotlight, Greater Talent Network, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency, Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun and the Canadian Marketing Association) is really what moves me.
Happy New Year.
Tags:
800 ceo read
blog
blog post
blogger
business book
canadian marketing association
community
content
digital marketing
digital marketing professional
facebook
grand central publishing
greater talent network
gutenberg press
hachette book group. montreal gazette
inc magazine
journalist
levine greenberg literary agency
magazine publisher
media hacker
pagerank
publishing
speakers spotlight
twist image
twitter
vancouver sun
writer
writing
December 31, 2010
A Market Of One
Just because you do something (or don't do something) is no indication of how the market actually is and reacts.
You can sit here all day and lament at how bad Lady Gaga is, but you can't deny that not only is she a success, but she has a massive following. You can claim that a massive following has no intrinsic value and that many things that have mass appeal (like dancing and singing competitions on TV) aren't all that good, but the public speaks in very loud and clear terms. Your mediocrity is their deep passion.
Don't be a market of one.
I was in a meeting with a retailer discussing the merits of Social Media and Digital Marketing, when one of their executives interrupted me. This individual informed me that they had a panel of their customers with whom they often discussed trends with, and that one of those individuals didn't even have an email address. They had helped this person get set-up on email just so that they could stay connected. If their consumers weren't even on email, how would Social Media or Digital Marketing be able to save them? Statistically speaking, that unique individual should not be on their panel because they are not representative of the norm. Not engaging in Social Media and Digital Marketing because one person - an anomaly - made it on to their panel was (to me) a prime example of "a market of one." After all, if this person isn't even on email, maybe all of their consumers are not on email? Ludicrous... even more ludicrous because we have the data to prove them wrong. In fact, it wasn't even a small percentage... it was miniscule... almost to the point on non-existence. They were all on email and highly engaged online.
We all (often) act like a market of one.
If you ever say things like...
I would never order anything from an infomercial on TV.
I never click on ads in search engines.
I don't read the newspaper anymore.
I don't listen to the radio anymore.
Dancing With The Stars is the worst show on television.
I would never use something like Foursquare to check-in to a location.
I never read fiction.
My kids don't use email.
I would never clip out a coupon and bring it down to a store.
... these are all statements from a market of one... and you need to be cautious about this.
The truth is that we live in a very big and highly connected world. Just because you and all of your friends on Twitter don't do something, it doesn't mean that there's not a large segment of people who do. I don't enter contests... does that mean that my agency should never run a contest for a client? No chance. I realize that a personal statement like that is a "market of one," and that there are millions of people who love and actively enter contests on a regular and frequent basis. They work! The data doesn't lie. Just because you don't do something or because you're ahead of a curve (this is often the case with "early adopters"), it doesn't mean that it's not a viable marketing option.
Whenever you're in a brainstorm or discussing marketing with a client and/or peers, remember to never let a market of one potentially ruin a great idea... and don't be afraid to call them out either.
Tags:
coupon]]>
a market of one
brainstorm
contest
dancing with the stars
data
digital marketing
early adopter
email
foursquare
infomercial
lady gaga
market research
newspaper
radio
research
search engine
social media
television
twitter
December 30, 2010
Content Pays
Here's a newsflash: people will pay for content online.
You may think that the statement above runs contrary to everything we know about the Internet. From music and the torrents to pay walls at newspapers and magazines. Mostly, the people who are complaining that consumers will never pay for content are the ones who are simply taking their content from its traditional form and migrating it to the digital platform. Beyond being able to deliver true value online (more on that here: People Pay For Value - Their Value, Not Yours), consumers have not really felt the need to pay for content.
But all of that is changing.
Today, MediaPost ran a news item titled, Pew: Two-Thirds of Web Users Buy Online Content, based on Pew Internet's latest report, 65% of internet users have paid for online content. Here's what we've learned: "Among the 15 categories the study asked about, music and software were the most commonly purchased types of content, with one-third of users having paid to download or access each online. Those were followed by mobile apps (21%), digital games (19%), newspapers, magazines or articles (18%), videos, movies, or TV shows (16%) and ringtones (15%). E-books, which have gained popularity with the emergence of Amazon's Kindle and other e-reading devices, have been bought by one in ten Web users to date. A quarter of Web users have bought only one type of content and a majority (61%), three or less."
It's just getting started.
While this was the first time that Pew surveyed people about paying for online media, this particular finding "roughly matches the proportion that pay for tangible goods online like books, CDs or clothing," says the research company. There are many mitigating forces at play here. Although it only ranked at 21%, mobile apps and the app economy is probably one of the bigger reasons people are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of virtual goods. Having access to something useful anywhere and everywhere (and this includes in the palm of your hand) is a big (and still relatively) new idea. The smaller the devices, the more portable they are and the more simple they are to use (re: ubiquitous), means the more value there is in paying for content.
Think about it this way...
If you can now buy a magazine subscription, have it downloaded to all of your devices with ease on the day of publication (sometimes earlier) and then be able to go through it on a myriad of devices (computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc...) the ease of access adds a valuable premium to going down this digital route. Couple that with the ability to have countless titles on one small device (and not creating stacks of paper at work and at home) with a highly interactive experience embedded within it (live links to to everything that is being discussed and multimedia extensions and additions through bonus audio, video and images), and you can better understand this big shift that Pew is talking about.
All media must be digital.
There's no lie there, but all media that wishes to extract money from a consumer must do much more...
It must be mobile.
It must be asynchronous.
It must have added multimedia value (bonus material).
It must be easy to access.
It must be easy to download/stream.
It must do more than simply being a digital version of the traditional platform.
It must be able to make itself more shareable, findable and social.
Where there is value, there are consumers willing to pay for it.
*UPDATE: here are two new Blog posts that are directly related to this topic that well-worth checking out:
PaidContent.org - Parsing Pew: What The Latest Online Content Buying Numbers Really Say.
TechCrunch - So Much For FREE!: Apple Will Sell $2B in Apps in 2011.
Tags:
amazon
app economy
content
content online
digital game
digital platform
e-reading
ebook
internet
kindle
magazine
magazine subscription
mediapost
mobile app
multimedia
newspaper
online content
online media
paidcontent
pay wall
pew internet
publishing
research company
techcrunch
torrent
traditional media
virtual good
Content Pays
Here's a newsflash: people will pay for content online.
You may think that the statement above runs contrary to everything we know about the Internet. From music and the torrents to pay walls at newspapers and magazines. Mostly, the people who are complaining that consumers will never pay for content are the ones who are simply taking their content from its traditional form and migrating it to the digital platform. Beyond being able to deliver true value online (more on that here: People Pay For Value - Their Value, Not Yours), consumers have not really felt the need to pay for content.
But all of that is changing.
Today, MediaPost ran a news item titled, Pew: Two-Thirds of Web Users Buy Online Content, based on Pew Internet's latest report, 65% of internet users have paid for online content. Here's what we've learned: "Among the 15 categories the study asked about, music and software were the most commonly purchased types of content, with one-third of users having paid to download or access each online. Those were followed by mobile apps (21%), digital games (19%), newspapers, magazines or articles (18%), videos, movies, or TV shows (16%) and ringtones (15%). E-books, which have gained popularity with the emergence of Amazon's Kindle and other e-reading devices, have been bought by one in ten Web users to date. A quarter of Web users have bought only one type of content and a majority (61%), three or less."
It's just getting started.
While this was the first time that Pew surveyed people about paying for online media, this particular finding "roughly matches the proportion that pay for tangible goods online like books, CDs or clothing," says the research company. There are many mitigating forces at play here. Although it only ranked at 21%, mobile apps and the app economy is probably one of the bigger reasons people are getting more and more comfortable with the idea of virtual goods. Having access to something useful anywhere and everywhere (and this includes in the palm of your hand) is a big (and still relatively) new idea. The smaller the devices, the more portable they are and the more simple they are to use (re: ubiquitous), means the more value there is in paying for content.
Think about it this way...
If you can now buy a magazine subscription, have it downloaded to all of your devices with ease on the day of publication (sometimes earlier) and then be able to go through it on a myriad of devices (computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc...) the ease of access adds a valuable premium to going down this digital route. Couple that with the ability to have countless titles on one small device (and not creating stacks of paper at work and at home) with a highly interactive experience embedded within it (live links to to everything that is being discussed and multimedia extensions and additions through bonus audio, video and images), and you can better understand this big shift that Pew is talking about.
All media must be digital.
There's no lie there, but all media that wishes to extract money from a consumer must do much more...
It must be mobile.
It must be asynchronous.
It must have added multimedia value (bonus material).
It must be easy to access.
It must be easy to download/stream.
It must do more than simply being a digital version of the traditional platform.
It must be able to make itself more shareable, findable and social.
Where there is value, there are consumers willing to pay for it.
Tags:
amazon
app economy
content
content online
digital game
digital platform
e-reading
ebook
internet
kindle
magazine
magazine subscription
mediapost
mobile app
multimedia
newspaper
online content
online media
pay wall
pew internet
publishing
research company
torrent
traditional media
virtual good
The Followship Of Twitter
Full disclosure: I'm not the best at Twitter .
Currently, when I put personal and professional time and effort into my online efforts, I prefer the focus to be on this Blog and the Podcast of the same name. It fits more appropriately into the over-arching marketing strategy of Twist Image and - on a personal level - I love to write and speak, so these platforms and channels just "feel better." I use Twitter as a place to share smaller ideas, links and mind stuff that doesn't require more in-depth analysis. I use Twitter as a place to see what is being said about Twist Image, Six Pixels of Separation (Blog, Podcast and book), our clients and team members. I use Twitter as a place to meet new and like-minded people. I use Twitter as a place to keep tabs on friends, acquaintances and potential opportunities. You may be using Twitter for others things (and that's just fine). Personally, I'm in awe (daily) of how people like Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten and Amber Naslund leverage Twitter. It's omnipresent in their lives, and seems to be adding tremendous value to their personal and professional development.
Just because you use it a certain way, it doesn't mean that you don't see the bigger picture.
Everyone makes choices about how they use Twitter. I've been fairly transparent about how I use it (more on that here: Being A Twitter Snob Is A Good Thing, The Trouble With Twitter - Confessions Of A Twitter Snob and The Dirty Little Secret Of The Twitter Elite). I also put a lot of time and energy into seeing who I am interested in following. While some may argue that I am loosing out and missing the point of Twitter, it sure doesn't feel that way to me. Each day I meet more and more interesting and diverse people... I'm simply comfortable knowing that there isn't enough time in the day to meet everybody (as much as I would like to). That being said, there are certain things on Twitter that are almost instant "no follow" for me.
The type of people I will never follow on Twitter...
No bio. If you can't even bother to write 140 characters about who you are and why anyone should connect with you, then ask yourself, "why would anyone follow me?"
No picture. This is baseline stuff. It's an online social network. I'd like to know that I'm connecting to a fellow human being and I'd like to know what you look like.
Not in the same language(s) I speak. While I can appreciate that you are competent in English and interested in following me, I simply don't have the skills to follow someone who tweets in a language I don't speak.
Playahz. Anyone who changes their "s" to a "z" doesn't get followed. I've seen bios like: "followz me for the goodz." And all I can think is, "ummm... no." I get that it's friendly and fun... it's just not my style.
MLM. I'm sure there are many happy Multi-Level Marketers who see the Internet and Twitter as an amazing business opportunity. More power to you, but it's simply not an area of interest to me and the majority of tweets are self-serving.
Get rich quick. From helping someone get more followers to making millions online, I'm simply not interested in these types of tweets.
Life coach. Tweets filled with inspirational quotes and peppered with "buy my system" messages are real turn-offs. While I value those who work in professional development, the majority of life coaches I come across on Twitter are pretty snake-oil salespeople-like.
Motivating women to be their best. I'm all about equality. Period. From race and gender to sexual preference, but I'm not interested in tweets to empower women... though I am sure that there are many women who will be. I just don't happen to be one of them.
I'm a nice person. If you have to say - right off the bat - in your bio that you're a nice person, that's a personal red flag. I'm sure you are very nice, but use the limited space to tell me what you're about and what you're up to. It's like a business saying they have "integrity." If you have to say it, you usually don't have it.
If you follow me, I will follow you back. I see this more and more in bios on Twitter. That's a turn-off. I want to follow people of quality not quantity. I'm not looking for more followers or to follow more people. I'm looking for quality people to connect to. Not number jumpers.
Social Media Guru. So much has been written about the "Social Media Guru." I'm fine following people who have self-anointed themselves like this. That being said, I won't follow any guru, expert or specialist who only has 40 followers. If you're an expert (in whatever industry you serve), you should have more people interested in what you have to say... especially if what you have to say is about how to engage people using Social Media.
Realtors. No offense to the realtors of this world, but the majority of them are just leveraging Twitter to post their listings or scour for more opportunities. If that's working for you, then great. I'm not looking to buy a home or a commercial property. There are also a slew of realtors who are interesting and use Twitter to connect in a more human way to the mass populous (those folks are great and should be followed!).
If you don't follow anyone back. If you don't follow anyone back (we see this with a lot of celebrities and television personalities), it's hard for me to be interested in following you. The message I'm hearing is, "this is a one-way broadcast" and I'm not interested in any interaction. As with everything, there are exceptions to this, but if you're on Twitter, it would be wise to look at it as something more than another blow horn.
What are your "no follow" rules?
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amber naslund
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chris brogan
marketing strategy
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scott stratten
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The Followship Of Twitter
Full disclosure: I'm not the best at Twitter .
Currently, when I put personal and professional time and effort into my online efforts, I prefer the focus to be on this Blog and the Podcast of the same name. It fits more appropriately into the over-arching marketing strategy of Twist Image and - on a personal level - I love to write and speak, so these platforms and channels just "feel better." I use Twitter as a place to share smaller ideas, links and mind stuff that doesn't require more in-depth analysis. I use Twitter as a place to see what is being said about Twist Image, Six Pixels of Separation (Blog, Podcast and book), our clients and team members. I use Twitter as a place to meet new and like-minded people. I use Twitter as a place to keep tabs on friends, acquaintances and potential opportunities. You may be using Twitter for others things (and that's just fine). Personally, I'm in awe (daily) of how people like Chris Brogan, Scott Stratten and Amber Naslund leverage Twitter. It's omnipresent in their lives, and seems to be adding tremendous value to their personal and professional development.
Just because you use it a certain way, it doesn't mean that you don't see the bigger picture.
Everyone makes choices about how they use Twitter. I've been fairly transparent about how I use it (more on that here: Being A Twitter Snob Is A Good Thing, The Trouble With Twitter - Confessions Of A Twitter Snob and The Dirty Little Secret Of The Twitter Elite). I also put a lot of time and energy into seeing who I am interested in following. While some may argue that I am losing out and missing the point of Twitter, it sure doesn't feel that way to me. Each day I meet more and more interesting and diverse people... I'm simply comfortable knowing that there isn't enough time in the day to meet everybody (as much as I would like to). That being said, there are certain things on Twitter that are almost instant "no follow" for me.
The type of people I will never follow on Twitter...
No bio. If you can't even bother to write 140 characters about who you are and why anyone should connect with you, then ask yourself, "why would anyone follow me?"
No picture. This is baseline stuff. It's an online social network. I'd like to know that I'm connecting to a fellow human being and I'd like to know what you look like.
Not in the same language(s) I speak. While I can appreciate that you are competent in English and interested in following me, I simply don't have the skills to follow someone who tweets in a language I don't speak.
Playahz. Anyone who changes their "s" to a "z" doesn't get followed. I've seen bios like: "followz me for the goodz." And all I can think is, "ummm... no." I get that it's friendly and fun... it's just not my style.
MLM. I'm sure there are many happy Multi-Level Marketers who see the Internet and Twitter as an amazing business opportunity. More power to you, but it's simply not an area of interest to me and the majority of tweets are self-serving.
Get rich quick. From helping someone get more followers to making millions online, I'm simply not interested in these types of tweets.
Life coach. Tweets filled with inspirational quotes and peppered with "buy my system" messages are real turn-offs. While I value those who work in professional development, the majority of life coaches I come across on Twitter are pretty snake-oil salespeople-like.
Motivating women to be their best. I'm all about equality. Period. From race and gender to sexual preference, but I'm not interested in tweets to empower women... though I am sure that there are many women who will be. I just don't happen to be one of them.
I'm a nice person. If you have to say - right off the bat - in your bio that you're a nice person, that's a personal red flag. I'm sure you are very nice, but use the limited space to tell me what you're about and what you're up to. It's like a business saying they have "integrity." If you have to say it, you usually don't have it.
If you follow me, I will follow you back. I see this more and more in bios on Twitter. That's a turn-off. I want to follow people of quality not quantity. I'm not looking for more followers or to follow more people. I'm looking for quality people to connect to. Not number jumpers.
Social Media Guru. So much has been written about the "Social Media Guru." I'm fine following people who have self-anointed themselves like this. That being said, I won't follow any guru, expert or specialist who only has 40 followers. If you're an expert (in whatever industry you serve), you should have more people interested in what you have to say... especially if what you have to say is about how to engage people using Social Media.
Realtors. No offense to the realtors of this world, but the majority of them are just leveraging Twitter to post their listings or scour for more opportunities. If that's working for you, then great. I'm not looking to buy a home or a commercial property. There are also a slew of realtors who are interesting and use Twitter to connect in a more human way to the mass populous (those folks are great and should be followed!).
If you don't follow anyone back. If you don't follow anyone back (we see this with a lot of celebrities and television personalities), it's hard for me to be interested in following you. The message I'm hearing is, "this is a one-way broadcast" and I'm not interested in any interaction. As with everything, there are exceptions to this, but if you're on Twitter, it would be wise to look at it as something more than another blow horn.
What are your "no follow" rules?
Tags:
amber naslund
blog
business book
business opportunity
chris brogan
marketing strategy
podcast
professional development
scott stratten
social media guru
speaking
twist image
twitter
twitter celebrity
twitter snob
writing
Six Pixels of Separation
- Mitch Joel's profile
- 80 followers
