Stop paddling once in a while, and look around you.

Yesterday, I went kayaking on Green Lake. It is Wisconsin’s deepest lake at 237 feet deep, and it is wide and windy. Paddle anywhere near an open bay, and you need the upper body strength of the Hulk to keep going. So I clung pretty close to sheltered shoreline. But, what I was thinking about was mostly this lesson I have decided is the most important thing I need to bring home from vacation.

In paddling, and in life, it is not actually necessary to paddle furiously the entire time, as is my tendency and I suspect most of yours.

It is actually OK to stop paddling, float for a while, and just look around you, savoring exactly where you are at this moment, rather than the next point at which you are trying to arrive.

If the swells are up and the wind is high, you might start getting pushed too close to a place you don’t want to be. So, you’ll need to redirect yourself from time to time.

And then, when you’re ready, you can start paddling furiously again, with renewed strength and focus.

This morning, I sat on the bench in this photo with my latte and gazed directly across the lake, at the point where my lovely childhood memories live (see previous post). And while I may or may not have shed a couple of tears thinking about how my past compares to my overall present non-vacation state of being, it’s a healthy thing to have one eye on the past, if it helps you redirect your future.

I had to overcome a lot of pressure to come back from vacation yesterday, to attend a meeting today that was planned long after this vacation was planned. And as important as my work is to me, it will never, ever be more important than this time to break away with my family to just enjoy the beauty of the moment and reflect on how we want our future to be.

What do you think? Are you capable of stopping the frantic paddling, to just float on the waves for a while? The last time you did so, what was the result?

Susan Spaight

Social Media Marketing Resources #MMchat with @KentHuffman

For our sixth MarketerMonday Chat #MMchat our SPECIAL guest was @KentHuffman the original founder of #MarketerMonday and our topic was Social Media Marketing Resources!

This is only the sixth #MMchat we’ve held and see #MMchat for more details on MarketerMonday Chat our previous SPECIAL guests, transcripts and our upcoming schedule.

Thanks again to Kent as well as all of you #MMchat tweeps who joined us and participated in this interesting and very interactive chat!

Check out the full transcript of tonite’s chat at http://bit.ly/KentHuffman and please join us in two weeks as @ScottMonty joins us! Scott Monty is the Head of Social Media for Ford and a member of the @TheSocialCMO Crew and will be joining us September 13th at 8:00 pm EST to discuss Encouraging Executive Participation in Social Media!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

Mistakes being made trying to measure Social Engagement

The mistakes I see being made is trying to measure Social engagement with the same tools we measure every other digital touch point. In my view email, search, even banner ads, have spoiled marketers into thinking everything can be and must be measured with the metrics used to gauge success in other mediums. I am not sue of what the next stage will be but right now as we are building our Social Media audiences, and testing. I have three stages with which I measure… #1 is Audience growth, #2 is Reactivity… getting them to take an action, and #3 Stickiness… keeping them coming back, engaged and interacting.

In addition setting expectations is important. Setting goals for number of follows/fans and how you interact and engage with them and them with you, can be very useful. Growth of your audience is very important and as clearly outlined in the study by CMB, consumers engaged via social media are more likely to buy and recommend.

Five reasons corporations are not using Social Media effectively… 1. They don’t talk about anything broader than their own products, 2. They listen to customers but don’t take any action (which means they aren’t really hearing), 3. Companies can’t expect to have a strong social media presence when social sites are blocked internally to employees, 4. There is a fear that exists about jumping in, but while there have certainly been some hiccups and miscues along the way, social media has yet to be the undoing of any company, 5. When employees are more concerned with what’s in or out of their job description than doing the right thing to help the customer, that’s not a culture that’s likely to build trust and advocacy for a brand and there is no way social media efforts can be effective.

Ted Rubin

I Still Believe

I’m a pragmatist.

One of my strengths is that I can take a big, lofty idea (usually conceived by someone else), and help bring it down to earth. Break it down into reality, make it happen. Tamsen excels at that, too. (The blog’s tagline here is no accident). So for most purposes, I’m pretty practical, and I’m sometimes the killjoy as a result.

But I’d like to say something.

I’ve been in the business world for nigh on 15 years now. I’ve worked in nonprofits and the corporate world, mostly in communications roles like fund development, marketing, client services. I’ve seen little business, big business, slow business, and fast business. I’ve experienced bringing the web into the business world, and all that’s entailed (for better or worse). I’ve watched a lot of stuff change, and a lot of stuff stay the same.

In the 3 years or so that I’ve been working in and around social media specifically, I’ve seen some amazing things happen. I’ve been in awe of the implications, the changes, the subtle shifts (and the not so subtle) that have been happening in the way we communicate with one another, be it business or personal.

And I’m still excited.

I know negativity sells. Controversy catches eyes, and it’s all the rage right now to, well, rage against the machine that is social media. Or point out all its shortcomings. Or declare things or people dead, over, overhyped. Or spend time tearing ideas down instead of applying true critical thinking, and figuring out how to build something from the rubble.

But I just don’t think that’s very helpful.

We are indeed at a time of unprecedented opportunity. The web and its agility give voices where there were none, ways to connect that defy time and geography, opportunity for ideas that might never have seen the light of day. It’s helping businesses rethink everything from their culture to their people to the systems they’ve built, and even big ships are finding themselves turning in new directions.

And we’re starting. We’re trying. We’re learning with little things that feel comfortable and familiar (and don’t always go so well, but that’s the nature of progress). There are missteps and misunderstandings and lots of imperfections, but those will always be there. The nature of a gawky adolescent with limbs too long and a mind too easily distracted.

But we are moving. Waking the sleeping giant. Growing and maturing with flashes of brilliance amid our zealousness. And things are indeed changing around us…for good.

I think that’s pretty spectacular. We’re part of history right now, and not an insignificant part. To all of you with enthusiasm and knowledge, I say let’s leave people with things they can do. Focus some of our boundless energy into the hard work of creating, of criticizing with thoughtfulness and progress in mind, and laying a foundation upon which we can build this next generation of human connectivity.

I still believe. Do you?

Amber Naslund

photo credit: Bob Jagendorf

Long Tail death knell… I think not!

Some in the digital media world are declaring the death of the long tail due to digital ADD, the exponential growth of and time spent on Social Media platforms and the time taken up by gaming. I have to strongly disagree. The long tail is alive and well, and if anything, experiencing a re-birth of sorts with regard to media and independence.

As stated so well by Chris Anderson, even if he is changing his mind now… “One of the most frequent mistakes people make about the long tail is to assume that things that are not viewed by a very large audience are ‘not as good’ as things that do have vast distribution. A given niche has both quality content and a lot of junk across a broad spectrum. Sturgeon’s Revelation states that the percentage of crud (junk) is in the range of 90 percent. On a store shelf, or in any other limited means of distribution, the ratio of good to bad matters because it’s a zero sum game: Space for one eliminates space for the other. Prominence for one obscures the other. Long tails in the online world are not pre-filtered by the requirement of factors such as shelf space, bandwidth, or the biases of purchasing managers.” Companies are popping up every day to serve and offer valuable services to the long tail at very affordable rates and the desire for people to communicate, build audiences and relationships, is not only growing, but a very basic part of human nature and something that is gaining momentum, not the other way around.

As long as publishing is low-cost and easy, and people have an easily accessible means to access that content, the long tail will not only live on, but thrive.

Ted Rubin

Little lies and small promises

“I’ll be out of bed in five minutes,” is not a true statement because it’s a promise not meant to be kept. It actually means, “go away, I’m sleeping, I’ll say what I need to get rid of you.”

“Your call is very important to us,” is not a true statement either. The truth is self-evident.

“I promise I’ll tell the manager about this,” is of course not a real promise either. It might be uttered with good intent, or might be designed to get an annoying customer to go away, but still…

You can already guess the problem with little lies. They blur the line, and they lead (pretty quickly) to big lies. The worst kind of little lies are the ones you make to yourself. Once you’re willing to lie to yourself, you’re also willing to cheat at golf, and after that, it’s all downhill.

Companies that refuse to break small promises have a much easier time keeping big promises. And they earn a reputation, one that makes their handshake worth more.

Given that expectation and trust are just about all we have left to sell, it seems to me that little lies and small promises are at the very heart of the matter. And they’re a simple choice, nothing requiring an MBA or a spreadsheet.

It all depends on what you want to stand for.

Seth Godin

MarketerMonday Chat with @ckburgess & @mnburgess

Tonite we completed our fifth MarketerMonday Chat #MMchat with SPECIAL guests Cheryl @ckburgess & Mark @mnburgess and our topic was Agency Blueprint for Social Media Business.

This is only the fifth #MMchat we’ve held and over the last seven days have had 1,101 tweets by 179 contributors. See #MMchat for more details on MarketerMonday Chat our previous SPECIAL guests, transcripts and our upcoming schedule.

Thanks again to Cheryl & Mark as well as all of you who joined us and participated in this interesting and lively chat!

Check out the full transcript of tonite’s chat at http://bit.ly/SMblueprint and please join us next week as @KentHuffman joins us! Kent is the original founder of #MarketerMonday and will be joining us August 30th at 8:00 pm EST to discuss Social Media Resources.

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

Why so much research about Twitter is flat-out wrong

Every week it seems there is some fresh research establishing that Twitter is irrelevant to businesses and/or brands. Bloggers gnaw endlessly on reports dismissing the marketing possibilities of micro-blogging, calling for the death of Twitter.

I’d like to suggest these debates are largely meaningless because so many of these reports are hopelessly flawed. I’ll demonstrate this point by asking you a simple question:

If you took a survey asking you to name the brands you follow on Twitter, would you name me?

I’m guessing that you wouldn’t, because you relate to me as a person and possibly even a friend, and yet I am certainly also a personification of my company and its “brand” on Twitter. I would be overlooked in any research report looking for how people relate to “brands” on Twitter, wouldn’t I? And lots of other companies would be missed, too.

For example, Amy Howell is the personification of Howell Marketing of Memphis, but I am following Amy because I like Amy. Megan Parker is paid to be a voice of GE on Twitter. I love her irreverent spins on corporate news and sometimes don’t even connect that in fact, I am following one of the largest companies in the world. Everyone knows how fun and effective Chris Brogan is on Twitter yet make no mistake that he is the personification of his growing new media fiefdom. When you follow Chris, do you even think about him as a B2B company?

Here’s the deal. If research focuses on the benefits of Twitter for “business-to-business” or “business-to-consumer” it’s doomed because this channel is ultimately about P2P — person to person. In fact I would suggest that with few exceptions, ONLY “personal” brands thrive on this platform. I can’t imagine following a bottle of beer or a restaurant chain on Twitter yet I would eagerly follow real marketing professionals from those companies who can enlighten, teach, and entertain me.

And that’s why so many of these research reports are missing the point. They’re asking the WRONG QUESTION. In fact I think it would be very difficult to measure the complete business value of Twitter across the social web quantitatively — many of the successes are “stories” of connection or qualitative data points. But I’m sure companies will keep trying to reduce Twitter to a list of survey questions because it’s easy to do, it’s a hot topic, and it’s a way to get their name at the top of the wave for a moment. And so many of these reports are being rushed to a data-hungry blogosphere without regard for statistical validity!

So, how many of the individuals I follow on Twitter represent brands or companies? Just about every one of them! And THAT’S the point!

Does this make sense to you?

Mark Schaefer

TheSocialCMO unGeeked e’lite RT Contest

Commencing at 9:00pm on August 19th, 2010 and ending on September 30th, 2010 at 9:00pm, TheSocialCMO in association with unGeeked e’lite is running a draw for 3 – 3 day passes to the unGeeked e’lite retreat being held in Toronto, Canada from Oct 28th to Oct 30th, 2010

To enter the contest all entrants must tweet the below information in it’s entirety directly from their account and not using the Twitter retweet function as it does not provide the needed information for us to track entrants.

RT @TheSocialCMO RT & win 1 of 3 – 3-day tkts 4 unGeeked e’lite Toronto Oct 28-30 & Save w code THESOCIALCMO http://bit.ly/unGeeked #UGDraw

Please note that THESOCIALCMO discount code in the tweet provides users with a 10% discount on the 3-Day passes (early bird and regular)

Should users wish to get a discount on 2-day or 1-day passes, they may use the discount code SOCIALCMO to get a 5% discount

On October the 4th during MarketerMonday #MMchat SPECIAL guest CD will pick three winning numbers to determine who will win the three passes! The Twitter accounts of these three winners will be posted here.

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