Twitter Makes Non Sequitur

Are Social Networks The New Newspaper?

Excerpted from Rick's RSS by Rick Hancock of Fox 61 News:

Last week my state’s largest daily newspaper, The Hartford Courant, (it also bils itself as ”America’s oldest continuously published newspaper“) took a gigantic digital step forward into the future. It created a Facebook page and begun inviting “fans” to join. This week the paper took another big digital step forward and created its own Tweeter feed. Hooray for them.

The Courant brags that 800,000 people read the Courant via the newspaper and online. So, far – as of this blog post “only”192 Facebook users have become Courant Facebook fans. By comparison The New York Times Facebook site has 357,678 fans.

The Courant’s current low fan base probably has more to do with little to no promotion in the paper or the main Courant website that readers can now check them out on the social networking powerhouse. Talk about a soft product launch!

So what are the advantages of news organizations jumping on Facebook? ” Facebook is the “newspaper” for many people,”says Quinnipiac University Journalism Professor Richard Hanley.. ”It is much more powerful than the traditional newspaper because it incorporates news about friends and family into an interface where more traditional news can be posted. I’ve seen the future of newspapers, and it is Facebook.

My Take

The oldest example of mass media in the US, The Courant is a natural fit for social media. Through Hartford’s history it was sold and consumed in the community. In a way it was the community.

It was everywhere people were - available for purchase on every corner, generously distributed around barber shops, diners, offices, trains, buses - the most popular and frequent conversation starter.

It was the prime spot for job listings, real estate purchasing and classifieds.

Like The Hartford Times it was home-delivered and found on kitchen tables and in stacks next to dad’s favorite chair. Perhaps agreeing on little else, the generations would hash over the box scores, Dear Abby and upcoming white sales.

A Courant route was reason for pride and income for the disciplined, early rising pre-teen and high schooler. Courant delivery routes were coveted and accompanied by pre-dawn war stories.

Like any newspaper, The Courant was marked up, folded up, circled, scissored and spread out for the puppy or the parrot. Even spread in the garden. Every inch was useful.

But there have been several partings of the ways between The Courant and its readers. Now easy, immediate access to opposing political views is available. Social media and its user generated content provides what editorial boards and 3AM press runs can’t.

As the community increasingly incorporates digital media and online news it will be interesting if The Courant will find its audience and its voice there.

Local Biz Has Two Minds About the Web

Small Business Not Keeping Up With Online Presence
by Jack Loechner, Friday, February 13, 2009, 8:15 AM

Excerpt:

According to research from Webvisible and Nielsen, reported by Marketing Charts, though 63% of consumers and small business owners turn to the internet first for information about local companies and 82% use search engines to do so, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget online.

The study uncovers a significant disconnect between the way small business owners act as consumers vs. the way they market their businesses online.

92% of searchers say they are happy with the results they get when using search engines.

Webvisible found that online search and e-mail newsletters are the only forms of traditional media that are growing among consumers who wish to locate local products or services. Compared with two years ago, respondents report they use search engines and email newsletters more, while they use newspapers, magazines, direct mail and radio less:

Consumer Use Of Media Compared to Two Years Ago (% of Respondents)
Media	Use More	Use Less
Search engines	72%	1%
E-Mail newsletters	35	7
Yellow page directories	16	23
Local newspaper	10	25
Magazines	11	31
Direct mail	9	27
Radio	9	23
Source: WebVisible and NielsenOnline survey November 2008, February 2009

Though less than half of small businesses do have a website, the ones that do are not happy overall with their online marketing. Among those small businesses that have a website:

• 51% believe both the quality and ability of their site to acquire new customers is only "fair" or "poor"
• 99% of small business owners are directly involved in the marketing
• 65% believe it is very important to know where their customers come from
• Only 9% are satisfied with their online marketing efforts
• Only 7% of small business owners say their primary marketing goal is to get more visitors to their website

My Take

This is more than a disconnect - it is schizophrenic.

Ninety-nine percent of business owners run their own marketing. They overwhelmingly turn to the Web first when they need to locate a local business. Yet 56% do not have a Web site for their business. Doesn't this seem crazy?

While this is illogical, it is easy to understand. Local business people are busy all day long running their business. And they're putting in long hours doing so. Most don't have time for chamber of commerce meetings or networking groups, never mind updating their Web site or blogging.

Their problem is the Web isn't yet an easy to use marketing weapon. It's a "nice-to-have", but not yet a "gotta-have". Plus, 93% of their competitors who have sites aren't getting the results they could be because they're employing them as Web 1.0 brochure-ware - not strategic marketing tools.

Plus, these businesses are getting word-of-mouth referrals from their satisfied customers, neighbors and friends. They do not see a sufficient incremental return on their investment in time and money needed to design, build and manage another ad channel.

This is where YouGottaCall.com's patent-pending process is crucial - it provides local businesses with all of the benefits of a Web page with none of the hassles. Plus, it allows them to connect with their best source of leads - their real, live network of customers and friends.

In time, the Web will be the leading tool local businesses use to gain new customers. It will be more friendly, more intuitive and more social. As I posted in "Social Media - Getting Local and Getting Real" it will support real, local relationships and provide real, social revenues.

Social Media: Small is Big and Vice Versa

Social Media: The Next Great Equalizer

by Nuno on January 21, 2009

(Excerpt)

The internet did a lot to even the playing field between giant corporations and small businesses. Both could register a domain name, put up a website and, at least early on, compete for traffic on search engines.

If you’ve been a netizen for any significant period of time, you’ve probably come by a web site or two that clearly is a one-man operation but where every reference to the business is first-person plural: “we, us, our company.”

That was clearly an attempt to make a small company seem big. The issue, of course, is one of trust.

Don’t be afraid to act like a three-person company with big dreams. It’s all the rage.

My Take

There is much irony in social media. Socializing with hundreds of people while sitting at your computer. Being "friends" with many you've never personally met.

Nuno Andrade (twitter.com/nikkonuno) points out that big companies are imitating the intimate relationships that small companies enjoy - with the same media that small companies used to appear "big".

twitter.com/timtracey

Facebook - Who Cares What the Kids Think?

It's growing like crazy among "middle-agers"



My Take:

I knew it since began hearing non-webby folks rave about Facebook - "I just connected with my old high school friend" ..."Wow - it was so good to hear from them...". FB is resonating with people of all ages.

Back in 2007, my independent research showed a phenomenal growth rate among Facebook users from my alma mater.

But thanks to Nick O'Neill of AllFacebook.com and The Social Times we have data to confirm it. Using data from AllFacebook, the trend is for annual quadrupling of US users in the 45 to 54 demographic. The 35-44 demo is over twice the current usage level and trails just slightly in compound growth rate.

So don't listen to your high school or college kids' warning to "stay off" of their social network or you'll embarass them. Facebooks isn't just for kids. And if you're in business, you can count on it being a major piece of your marketing mix in the next year.

Your Target Audience Still Doesn’t Know Squat, So Teach Them

Posted on 08. Jan, 2009 by Andrew Shotland in Local Search

Excerpted:
I just spent an hour with a local contractor who has started to feel the pain of the economic meltdown. Guess what? After years of avoiding it, he’s finally ready to put up a website and start figuring out how to market himself online. Good for him. Now he’s really screwed.

The guy barely knows how to click on a link let alone buy a domain, build a website, learn SEO, figure out what people are searching for, set up a paid search campaign, troll for customers on Twitter, etc.

As I was listening to him discuss his ambitions, it occurred to me that even after all of these years of investment in the local search industry, a huge number of the potential advertisers still don’t understand the options available to them in local online marketing.

Consumers may be a bit ahead of Joe the Plumber, but not by much. How many IYPs are there? Why did that list of businesses show up for one Google search and not the other?

All I’m trying to say here is that until there is a service that makes it dirt simple for SMBs to understand how to get online and how to choose between the options, and until there is a service that makes it dirt simple for people to find reliable service pros, no one is going to “win” this game and every company will be ripe for having their clients and users poached by a better mousetrap.

There are a number of companies out there taking stabs at both sides of the equation, but I have yet to see a model that is not just an incremental improvement on what is already out there.

Andrew Shotland - Local SEO Guide

My Take

You don't mince words, Andrew. Small business owners are screwed by the amount of time and money required to build a Web marketing program.

In my opinion a new approach to the problem is needed. Perhaps one that mimics the success of organic word-of-mouth to facilitate and capture sales leads.

Why not simply "webinize" the WOM process that has consistently delivered the most qualified leads? Why can't businesses increase their sales by connecting to their network of satisfied customers, neighbors and friends in a Web-based social network like Facebook?

If they could do this then they'd be able to know exactly where their best new customers were coming from. (They could even voluntarily reward them to show their appreciation.) Such a system would eliminate the time and expense of creating and updating a Web page. It would be as easy as having a Facebook page.

Monetization and social media

by Christopher S. Penn Awaken Your Superhero January 19, 2009

Excerpts: If you are a social media practitioner interested in earning money for your skills, you have to deeply understand money first.

First, money is a medium of exchange for other goods and services. Money doesn’t solve the value equation - that is, what you do must have value to someone. Money only makes trading value easier. If what you do is of no value to anyone, then like the farmer facing no demand for chicken, no matter how skilled you are, no one will trade with you. As a social media practitioner, your work has to have value.

The most successful social media practitioners recognize that social media in and of itself is of relatively little value. It’s a communications channel. What is of value is what you deliver to your audience. I deliver, for example, financial aid information on my Financial Aid Podcast. The fact that it’s a podcast has no inherent value; what has value is the quality of the information.

If you’re considering offering up your services to someone else as a social media practitioner, make sure that they have something of value to offer their customers, or both you and your client will fail to generate any business. Your own track record must demonstrate that you understand underlying value and how to present it in a social media context.

Second, money as a store of value is vitally important to social media practitioners. Like all industries, social media, new media, online media, etc. all have trends. There’s a new shiny object every day, and that presents new opportunities for you to demonstrate your skills and earn some money in doing so. You have to not only capitalize on trends, but sock those earnings away. You have to be able to store the value of a trend so that when it cools - and it always does - you have a strong base of capital to operate with.

Equally important is your ability to recognize value and trends ahead of time so that as a platform matures - as blogging has - you’re ahead of the curve and in new spaces. This is the often referenced blue ocean strategy, where there’s virtually no competition in any vertical in a new area. Blue ocean was podcasting in 2005, blogging in 1997, Twitter in 2006, Facebook in 2004 and so forth. As a social media practitioner looking to earn a living at your craft, you need to be able to spot new blue oceans and move in long before others do, while recognizing that it will be some time before that space is highly desired by a large population.

For companies looking at social media, recognize that the store of value means you need operating capital and strong revenue streams today from your social media efforts, but you need to be investing for the future as well. Your internal financial health will dictate how you prioritize investing for the future vs. banking on what’s hot today.

My Take

It strikes me as strange that attempts to monetize Web 2.0 have used Web 1.0 tactics. Web 2.0 supports actual, personal relationships. These relationships have natural, tangible, financial value.

Example - there are relationships that either save you money or make you money every day. Whether you are looking to buy something or sell something - your network enables you to do this more efficiently by filtering out bad choices through communal experience.

First, we need to understand the economic value of personal relationships. Communites have always been built around the value that these relationships produce. It is why we people band together.

In this sense, social media communities are no different than physical villages, towns and cities. Then we can replicate the process and create true value that can be converted to cash.