Here's how I am gearing up to tweet for eBay tomorrow (eBay is an Edelman client). You can follow me Monday through Wednesday over on the . I detail the gear I am packing as I venture to tweet the sites and sounds of this special event. More details are here.
With this in mind, my colleagues and I have co-authored a 13-page position paper on Search Engine Visibility. We released it to our clients last month but now we are making it available to the public today at the Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington. You can download it here (PDF). It's also embedded below. This is the second in a series - the first is here.
In the paper we posit that today there are two primary search visibility tactics: Paid Search (more widely known as search engine marketing - SEM) and Optimized Search (e.g. SEO). Both of these are generally not managed by public relations professionals.
Now, however, there are two new disciplines emerging. And both sit squarely in the public relations professional's domain...
A larger, much more readable version of the above is here.
Yesterday during my keynote on the future of Twitter at the TWTRCON conference in San Francisco I decided to do something different. For one day, at least, I put away PowerPoint and fired up a mind mapping program (in my case I use Mind Node for the Mac).
I really enjoyed the experience and, anecdotally from what others told me, so did the audience. For one, It made the session more interactive. Second, because it was different, it seemed to capture people's attention more than a deck would have. (Hmm, is PowerPoint making us blind and deaf?) Still, since this was my first time out mind mapping with the audience I know much can be improved.
To build the mind map I started (conceptually) with a framework that built off of Brian Solis' great Twiiterverse diagram.
Then, I divided the map in half - Twitter as an OS (think "Twitter Inside") and Twitter and the Ecosystem (think Twitter and others). Then, for the next 25 minutes, I took the audience through my initial thinking but opened it up to more feedback and input so that we grow it. Now it's your turn.
I have published the mind map on Flickr. In addition, you can download it here in PDF and OPML format. The OPML file should open up in any mind mapping application like MindManager for Mac or Windows or Mindmeister (a web app).
Let's see if we can take this concept to the next level and perhaps use it to bring Twitter new ideas, which they seem quite open to - at least that's what they said during the session that preceded mine. Leave comments here or on Twitter with the hash #futureoftwitter and let's see where we can take this.
Technorati Tags:
Twitter, TWTRCON
In my role as Director of Insights for Edelman Digital I am writing monthly white papers for clients on key trends. Sometimes we will release these broadly. For the first one, I drew on members of the Edelman team, as well as third party research, to highlight five digital trends to watch for 2009. Each includes specific recommended actions.
Even though the economy is slowing, all signs show that audiences are still spending a lot more time on the web. Marketers need to invest to meet them there. However, what's changed today they are smarter about where they focus their time, dollars and energy. Experimentation is giving way to tactics that deliver ROI. These include public engagement, search and social networking — three themes that connect the major macro trends.
There are five trends covered in this white paper...
Satisfaction Guaranteed - Customer care and PR are blending as consumers use social media to demand service
Media Reforestation - The media is in a constant state of reinvention as it transitions from atoms to bits
Less is the New More - Overload takes its toll. Gorging on media is out. Selective ignorance and friends as filters are in
Corporate All-Stars - Workers flock to social media to build their personal brands, yet offer employers an effective and credible way to market in the downturn
The Power of Pull - Where push once ruled, it’s now equally important to create digital content that people discover through search
You can download the full paper here(PDF) or simply browse or read it below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Edelman's Digital Public Affairs team in DC has authored an awesome white paper that takes you inside the Obama campaign. You can download it here (PDF). The white paper imparts several lessons: start early, build to scale, innovate where necessary and more. You can find other Edelman white papers on our site. This includes 9 on 9 - key consumer trends for 2009 (also in PDF format).
A lot of people are writing about personal branding, particularly as the economy shrivels and concerns about jobs mount. There's no doubt that a powerful personal brand, especially if it is backed up with a track record, can help you weather the storm. More importantly, it can also serve as a door opener for new business either for you personally or your company.
You can find lots of great advice online on how to use social media to build your personal brand. One of the better ways, though, is to study how big companies leverage their brands. No one is better at it than the Walt Disney Company.
I have long been fascinated with Disney and how year after year they are able to captivate audiences around the globe through content franchises. (In fact, my fascination with Disney lead me to work for them when I was in my early 20s.)
What Disney does really well is build content franchises and then leverage them across all of its different platforms. Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, started with a ride but has become three successful movies, plus video games and more. High School Musical started with a single Disney Channel film. Now there are two sequels, albums, merchandise and more. It's contributing millions in revenues.
The Disney approach to content franchises is formulaic: 1) innovate/lead, 2) find your hits, 3) leverage them across all your channels and 4) be choosy. The last one is key. Forbes explains how CEO Bob Iger lands on which franchises they build (Cars, for example) and those they forgo (Ratatouille).
In my case, over the last two years my big content franchise was The Attention Crash. I have written many blog posts on the subject, Twittered about it extensively and curated links on Delicious. Of course, I have also featured it front and center in speaking engagements and in many media interviews. If you Google it, I own "the shelf" around this concept.
Success here is simple. I followed the Disney model. I built a content franchise and leveraged it across every community and channel I participate in, including traditional ones like PR and speaking. Anyone can emulate this approach - including brands that want to maximize their use of social media.
I am now in the process of planning my content franchises for 2009. I am becoming more strategic in how I align these with my role at Edelman, my expertise and what I think readers and Google searchers want. I am thinking about having a few of these next year instead of just one.
Other influencers do the same. Dave Armano is Mr Infographic. Peter Kim is the de facto curator of social media marketing examples. Chris Brogan? He knows personal branding and even wrote an ebook on it. If you think this is happenstance, think again. It's strategic branding.
Finally, if you're a Disney fan and you're curious about the image on top, check out this clever video. It connects my personal brand with Disney's and it's easy to create your own and share them too!
TypePad this week rolled out a new commenting platform that can be integrated into virtually any blog. They also added profiles. I have incorporated both here. This now brings threaded discussions to the blog and also - if you're registered with TypePad - the ability to reply by email. This will allow me to respond to your comments more frequently than I have in the past.
The web is a magnificent communication platform. It's efficient, effective and scalable. However, now that the social web is here, it's become even more. The web is now a platform for global collaboration between brands and their stakeholders.
Over the last several months I have been working closely with a great team of folks at PepsiCo. You might know PepsiCo as just Pepsi, but they're so much more. Their businesses include megabrands like Gatorade, Frito Lay, Quaker Oats, Tropicana and of course all of the refreshments that fall under the iconic Pepsi umbrella.
Pepsi is eager and ready to change. They rolled out a whole new brand identity recently and now are eager to engage in online communities. (The changes are the first part of a multi-year transformation to reconnect with consumers/youth/pop culture.)
However, in the spirit of collaboration, they recognize it's not solely up to them on how best to engage. With this in mind, the Pepsi team I am working with has opened up a room on Friendfeed - their first embassy inside a major social network designed from the ground up for two-way dialogue and collaboration. I have to admit that I was not planning to participate "on stage." However, my clients felt that in the spirit of openness I should be there and that agency partners increasingly need to come out from behind the scenes when it comes to programs like these.
It is our hope that you will join the conversation and help Pepsi learn how you want them to participate as they venture forward at full speed. I will be there to help facilitate as a representative of the Edelman Digital team that is working closely with PepsiCo. I have embedded a real-time view of the room below (note this might not show up if you are viewing this in an RSS reader). We look forward to your feedback.
When delicious relaunched earlier this year I temporarily lost the ability to post my delicious links to my blog. They fixed that so now they're back. If you want to just get my blog posts and skip the links, you can subscribe to this feed.
On Tuesday, October 7 a group of Edelman digital experts from around the world participated in a free webinar called All Social Media is Local. The event, which lasts about an hour and is now archived, can be found on our web site as well as on Slideshare. I have also embedded it below. My colleagues cover social media from their unique perspectives via Asia Pacific, the EU, Russia and Washington DC. I talk about five trends to watch near the end just before the Q&A.
In case you missed it, iMedia Connection yesterday posted an interview with me on the changing nature of public relations.
The big topic we covered is strategy. Too many people in the industry still think about digital landscape in a very tactical/channel centric way instead of attacking it with a holistic, strategic framework that's steeped in research. It's one of my biggest frustrations. Thankfully at Edelman Digital our team is working with clients all the time in helping them take such a big picture view.
The interview also includes my thoughts on the future of press releases. In short, they survive.
Later this afternoon I will be speaking at Search Engine Marketing Expo on Ethical Social Media Marketing. Below is the full text of my planned remarks. I look forward to hearing your feedback on this important topic.
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Thank you very much for inviting me here today. The field of social media marketing is emerging and it's of course very relevant to search. In addition, it's highly likely that the space has already changed since this great panel we have assembled here started speaking.
I know I only have a few minutes and that I am last to speak so I quickly want to discuss three themes today that are relevant to the topic at hand - social media ethics.
First, I want to talk about the Collaboration Imperative. I see this as an easy way for everyone to remain ethical if it's something we truly decide to embrace everyday.
Second, there's the intersection of search, social media and public relations. There are number of ethical considerations here that all of us need to watch out for.
Finally, I want to touch on the global economic climate and its impact on social media marketing. We're going to see some important changes over the next 12-18 months that will make ethical behavior more critical than ever.
So let's get into it with the first topic - what I am calling the Collaboration Imperative.
Social media marketing is actually a term I loath, though I recognize it's sticking. First, all things social are media and all things media are now social - so I am not sure what "social media" is any more.
More importantly, social media marketing also implies that social networks, blogs and other like channels are advertising venues. They're not. They're public spaces just like our great National Parks. We must respect them as such. Otherwise we're going to pollute the environment and make them less enjoyable for everyone - especially the citizens who thrive there, just like the amazing ecosystem that thrives in places like Yellowstone.
Now, to be clear, I am extremely bullish about the marketing potential these emerging venues offer. However, I am disheartened how many companies and brands approach them. Lots of brands seem to think that consumers want to be marketed to in these spaces. They don't. Gartner is coming out with a report next week that says that 50% of social media programs fail. The key reason is they ignore the Collaboration Imperative.
People who participate on social networks, blogs and other similar venues are there for a reason - and that's to connect around shared areas of interest and passion, often with an outcome in mind. This is why advertising, to date, hasn't been a home run here. Most of it doesn't add value to what people are looking to accomplish on these sites.
Social media marketing works best when it's integrated into the experience and takes a "win-win" approach. It's action oriented, transparent and built on something we talk a lot about at Edelman - Public Engagement.
To succeed in this new world, brands need to move from taking tried and true marketing tactics and retro-fitting them for the new environment. We need to stop thinking about talk and buzz. Instead, there is an imperative that marketers engage publicly by collaborating with their audience towards a shared desired outcome. Follow that path. Be action-oriented toward a win-win outcome and transparent in the process and ethics won't be an issue.
Second, I want to talk about the intersection of search, social media and public relations and their ethical implications.
Over the last few years we have all watched the remarkable rise of Google. It's such a force in our lives. I have family members who aren't Internet addicts like us and whenever I start talking about Google the remark how they could never live without it. It's quite amazing for a site was hardly on people's radar even just five years ago.
We live in a world of die-hard Googlers. And what we've seen over the last five years or so is that search engines increasingly favor what some call socially-connected, high-quality content. The great rewards of visibility go to those who create quality content that legitimately earns links - and do so daily.
There are three categories of high quality content producers: brands, media and ordinary citizens. What's interesting is that if you were to analyze all this information, a lot of it in some way can be linked to public relations professionals, just like the newspaper clippings of old. PR pros help content producers tell stories and sometimes even advise brands on how to go direct to audience to do the same.
This is incredibly exciting but it's also fraught with ethical considerations - especially as PR people recognize that they must actually become public participants themselves if they hope to build lasting relationships that are meaningful. So there's a clear watch-out here.
Micro Persuasion, my blog, is a microcosm. It has over 50,00 subscribers, 5,000 pages of content and a Google Page Rank of seven. Let's say that I were to to start blogging about a negative experience I had with a company that competes with one of my clients. This could influence their search results negatively and in the process seem to elevate my client. This would be highly unethical. Subtleties like this one are becoming the norm.
Thus, I need to bring my ethical A-game online every day and it's something all of us in marketing, SEO or PR need to consider, even if you don't have an issue this dramatic.
Finally, there's the current global economic environment. We all know it's not pretty. However, I remain very optimistic about the prospects of the PR industry and view it as a safe haven in this environment - if we, once again, come to the table with our public engagement A-game. Ethical behavior is key here. Ethics create trust and trust is king.
Unlike previous recessions and depressions, we now live in an era of great transparency. It's very hard to hide in a world where everyone has a camera-phone, a Facebook page or a blog. Accounts of corporations doing good and doing bad will surface quickly online thanks to an intricate global network that includes social media, traditional media and search engines.
The transparency and trust trend-lines - which are directly linked - remain evergreen. I believe that public relations professionals are best equipped to help companies navigate this environment, especially in a downturn. We will be called upon to help brands build closer, more open relationships with consumers that - once the rain stops - will truly blossom into long-term profits.
Still, we have a long way to go in addressing ROI in a measurable way. But relationships and trust can be tracked over time and it's directly linked with public engagement, action, transparency. Further, it's also hooked into search since, for billions of us, Google is our window on the world.
Before I conclude I want to offer a message about collaboration of my own. Lots of us in this room, in some way or another, compete with each other - either for dollars or attention. If we can collaborate to set ethics and measurement guidelines when it comes to social media, search and PR - we all will win. Hopefully this panel is the beginning of a dialogue toward that end.
Thank you for your time today.
Over the last few months I have been blogging a lot less than I really would like to. I have so much I want to say here and often so little time to write thoughtful essays. There are weeks I get on blogging kick. Last week was one. Then there are times where it's nearly impossible to bang out quality posts with meetings, travel and client work.
That said, I am very active online every day and especially generous in sharing links on Twitter and Friendfeed - even when all I am toting is my iPhone. So if you're not subscribed to my lifestream feed, you might want switch to since that's where I am putting all the good stuff. Here's a sample from tonight ...
Next month I am going to the Blogworld Expo in Conference in Las Vegas. I was slated to be the lunchtime keynote on Friday, September 19 but, happily, there's been a change in plans. I am now going to participate in a fireside chat with Guy Kawasaki, one of my heroes. Hopefully it will be as fun as the last time he appeared on stage with a Steve (see video below). Hope to see you in Vegas. The full event schedule is here.
Marketing Age magazine, which is published in Ireland, ran a profile of me in their July/August issue where I talk about my role within Edelman Digital, how I use RSS to keep in the know and trends in social networking - including Friendfeed. The article is not online. However, If you're interested, they have graciously given me permission to share it here. The full PDF is here or you can simply click through each of the images below, which are up on Flickr.
Lifehacker is one of my favorite blogs. So when editor Gina Trapani invited me to guest blog about how to be productive with social media, I jumped at the opportunity. Here's the intro and summary. The full essay is here.
Social media is the equivalent of digital food. It's nourishing, tasty and, for many of us, necessary. However, consume too much and you can get sidetracked and create larger consequences. The good news is you can participate in social media in a way that adds value to your life. You just need to know how to manage it so so that it does not devour your attention—the most valuable commodity of the digital age. Here are three simple steps I take.
Every day a new social network is born and yet another dies. This makes spotting digital trends and tracking them to be challenging at times. However, I have found a system that works really well called Open Files. It was developed by George Stalk at the Boston Consulting Group (an Edelman client). It's become the framework for my latest talk, which I have been giving around the world.
Stalk tracks trends by breaking them down into three distinct buckets - faint signals that are here and now trends with real consumer movement and business models, a watch list - new directions that are emerging but may not be ready for primetime, and hallucinations, flashes that, if you squint, might vanish.
You can read a description of the nine big trends in my Open Files and peruse my deck over on Authentcities, the Edelman Digital blog. The trends include:
Faint Signals: The Cut and Paste Web, The Attention Crash, Digital Curators, Super Crunching and Collaboration
Watch List: Living Room 2.0. and Geek Markterers
Hallucinations: Digital Nomads and Data Leaking
Photo credit: "A-Rod taking a practice cut" by Dog Company
Recently, I was interviewed by Kellie Kass from Simply Communicate for an in-depth business profile called "How Did I Get Here." In the article, I share something I don't think I have ever talked about before: how I apply deliberate practice in my never-ending quest for insights into digital media, marketing and online culture. I decided to write about it now because I became more aware of my habits and because I believe it can help anyone become more successful.
Deliberate practice - at least as a concept - is relatively new to me. However, little did I know it's something I have been at for years. Perhaps the same is true for you. Regardless of your passion, it's something that - when applied - is surefire road to success.
The basic idea isn't rocket science. Basically, anyone with just even a little bit of natural talent in a given domain can master it in about 10 years by methodically practicing the essence of their craft two hours daily (including weekends) and measuring their progress from one day to the next.
The concept was developed by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson at Florida State University. It's becoming popular in sports and business. It's a big reason why Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez and Warren Buffet continually get better. They practice on building their strengths every day in a meticulous way. (The links on their names cite relevant stories. The best piece I have read on the subject is this one from Fortune.)
In my case, I've actually been applying deliberate practice in my work for at least five years now, perhaps longer. I have been an online junkie going back 20 years. However, I only started deliberately practicing my study of the web and online culture in 2003. It just didn't dawn on me until 2008.
Every day for five years I have spent at least two hours a day, seven days a week (usually early mornings and evenings) trolling through 500+ RSS feeds on business, marketing, culture and technology. I then parse these observations into insights that I share here but also through other venues you don't see - like content for clients and our staff. Here's my trend graph from Google Reader.
In the last few months I have become a lot better at focusing my attention and measuring my progress. For example, I often look back at my posts from the last four years to see where I was right or wrong so I can get better at what I do. Two emerging influentials who I believe take this approach are Louis Gray and Chris Brogan. I reference them both in my interview with Kellie.
The takeaway here for you is this: if you want to be an expert at something (anything really), you can! It just takes time. Here's the formula: a) follow your passion, b) practice the essence of your craft in a meticulous, measurable way for two hours daily (for years), c) learn from data and adjust as you need to.
Last week I appeared on the Brian Lehrer show talking about my role with Edelman Digital and how I track trends. We cover marketing pollution and tips on how to manage information overload with desktop search, RSS, simplified GTD and the Gmail Personal Nerve Center.
This topic of "Information trapping" is one I plan to write about more. This is becoming the most critical skill that information workers need to survive overload and The Attention Crash. This is especially true for all of us who are addicted to the social web. Enjoy. If you're scanning this in a feed reader, the video is here.
