Unleashing Your Social Media Mojo

Editor's Notes

• #5: According to Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership, we essentially never had control in the first place so the idea of ceding control is a misperception. Li talks about a new culture of sharing now that 1) more people are online, 2) we have a widespread use of social media, & 3) there is an increase in sharing content. Ceding that control can happen at various different levels for different organizations. Some organizations are more structured than others & Li suggests that you conduct an audit to determine where your organization is.Regardless, you must understand that people are talking about you, your company & your product. Do you want that conversation to go unchecked or do you want to get involved? Think of conversation online as party chatter. If you invite people to your house it is both easier for you to hear what they say about you & they are likely to not trash talk you as much. Control was always an illusion and somehow we in the communication industry just forgot to keep briefing our bosses about that.
• #10: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation, Image source: http://jollypeople.com/files/2010/03/Kevin-Bacon.jpgThe "Six Degrees of Separation" theory was created by Hungarian author, FrigyesKarinthy, in the early 20th century. In particular, Karinthy believed that the modern world was 'shrinking' due to this ever-increasing connectedness of human beings. He posited that despite great physical distances between the globe's individuals, the growing density of human networks made the actual social distance far smaller.As a result of this hypothesis, Karinthy's characters believed that any two individuals could be connected through at most five acquaintances. In his story, the characters create a game out of this notion. He writes:A fascinating game grew out of this discussion. One of us suggested performing the following experiment to prove that the population of the Earth is closer together now than they have ever been before. We should select any person from the 1.5 billion inhabitants of the Earth—anyone, anywhere at all. He bet us that, using no more than five individuals, one of whom is a personal acquaintance, he could contact the selected individual using nothing except the network of personal acquaintances.In the 1960s, U.S. social psychologist Stanley Milgram did a series of "small-world experiments" to estimate the average distance between individuals within a social network. In his small world experiments, Milgram randomly selected 240 people living in U.S. cities. These people were sent letters that included information about another person (aka the target person), who they likely didn't know. The 240 people were asked to forward the letter to a friend, who they thought might know the target person. When a letter finally reached the target person, Milgram counted how many times it had been forwarded to determine the number of "steps" needed to reach the target person. Of the 60 letters that made it to the target person, the average number of steps was 5.5 to 6, which provided evidence for six degrees of separation. A Facebook platform application named "Six Degrees” calculated the degrees of separation between different people. The average separation for all users of the application is 5.73 degrees, whereas the maximum degree of separation is 12.Users on Twitter can follow other users creating a network. According to a study of 5.2 billion such relationships by social media monitoring firm Sysomos, the average distance on Twitter is 4.67. On average, about 50% of people on Twitter are only four steps away from each other, while nearly everyone is five steps away.
• #11: Source:http://www.kokismith.com/2010/06/twelve-ways-to-get-retweeted/, http://adage.com/article?article_id=146149
• #12: Source: http://holykaw.alltop.com/how-restaurants-are-using-twitter-in-new-ways and http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hrRVG9JEtIOLPfse9IgAxYy-EjigD9IDO5981From AP article:When Tony Bosco saw mostly negative reviews about the restaurant Wow Bao, he Tweeted: "Going to 'business' dinner (at)WowBao. Can any1 tell me if it's going to suck as much reviews suggest."And almost immediately he got a response from an unexpected source — BaoMouth, the official Twitter feed of Wow Bao, an upscale fast food place in Chicago. The restaurant offered him a coupon to find out for himself, on the house.Wow Bao sent Bosco two $15 gift cards via an iPhone app, and Bosco went the next night, posting pictures of the food on Twitter.Geoff Alexander, managing partner of Wow Bao, explained his company's Twitter commitment like this: If somebody has 1,000 followers and writes a negative Tweet about Wow Bao, then 1,000 people could think the restaurant is bad. But if Wow Bao publicly responds to that Tweet, 1,000 people may see the issue is being handled.Dennis Yslas tweeted in a Fort Worth, Texas, Chipotle about a lack of corn tortillas. Less than 2 minutes later, the company replied to Yslas, a 47-year-old actor. The corporate office called the local manager about the tortilla situation even before Yslas had left the restaurant, Yslas said.
• #13: Source: http://mashable.com/2010/02/13/fashion-industry-social-media/, http://mashable.com/2009/12/21/social-media-fashion/, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tommy-hilfiger/id327461348?mt=8
• #15: http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2010/02/12/five-social-media-marketing-stats-that-will-blow-your-mind/, http://mashable.com/2010/10/01/twitter-kim-kardashian/From articles: And at the end of the day, would you rather have a Twitter follower who essentially remains just a number, or would you rather have convertible traffic on your own website? Growing impact of social networking on surfing habit: In the U.S., 25% of all page views came from the top social networking sites and that is up 83% from the 13.8% posted in December 2008. Kim Kardashian is not the most followed celeb on Twitter, but she does have some of the highest click through rates from tweets to her website, signaling that the right people who really care about her brand are following her. It is all about quality over quantity.
• #16: Source: http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/the-social-network-panel/ and http://sysomos.com/insidetwitter/engagement/Excerpts romMashable article:Sysomos, maker of social media analysis tools, looked at 1.2 billion tweets over a two-month period to analyze what happens after we publish our tweets to Twitter. Its research shows that 71% of all tweets produce no reaction — in the form of replies or retweets — which suggests that an overwhelming majority of our tweets fall on deaf ears.Delving deeper into the research, we see that most replies and retweets happen in the first hour after a tweet has been published. 96.9% of replies and 92.4% of retweets happen within that all-imporant first-hour window. Reactions are nearly impossible to come by once a tweet ages beyond 60 minutes, and even more unlikely after the two-hour mark has passed. There’s just a 5.97% chance you’ll see a retweet in or after the third hour, and just a 2.22% likelihood you’ll garner a reply in the same time span.Unfortunately, the Sysomos research also shows that of all the tweets that produce a reply, 85% only get a single reply. Twitter may not be as conversational as we think.--- *** GIVEN TIME SENSITIVITY, it behooves the practitioner to understand WHEN the org’s followers are online & most active then tweet out important messages during that time. This is an example of making your data actionable! ***