Archive for the ‘Community Building’ Category

Posted on April 2, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Facebook vs Twitter vs Friendfeed. Is Facebook doing to much & how are you using it?

Facebook:

There’s been a lot talk about Facebook trying to copy Twitter lately with the new public profiles, instant updates and interface changes, but after taking a closer look, it’s seems that Facebook is copying Friendfeed more than Twitter. For example, over the past few weeks Facebook has added “friendfeed-ish” like features such as:
1. “comment” and “like” to status updates
2.  group friend lists
3.  social network content feeds into status updates.

Friendfeed:

It’s easy to compare Facebook to Twitter because of live status updates but Friendfeed has that too with its real-time updates. Overall, I think Facebook is trying to make changes to keep users on Facebook.com, which is smart for them. They see how others are using twitter plus Friendfeed and see the opportunity to add a wider variety of user-controlled features to fit the need of the super geek like a Robert Scoble to people like my mom (@gwensutton) who is new to social networking.

But everyone is not happy about the changes and don’t see the value of adding the features. They want to use Facebook to stay in contact just with their personal friends and family. Nevertheless I asked the question on twitter “A lot of people are talking about Facebook vs Twitter but to me Facebook is getting more like Friendfeeed …. your thoughts? and here is what a few tweeple had to say.

How are you using Facebook?

Posted on March 8, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Twitter poll & feedback: What would you do without Twitter, build your own community?

If you have been reading the tech news lately then I’m sure you have seen the rumors about Google buying twitter and that Facebook tried to buy twitter? On Saturday Techcrunch posted an article from Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt interview with Charlie Rose, saying that it was “Unlikely” that Google to buy Twitter.  On Friday, I was thinking about the same topic and posted a tweet saying:

If twitter goes down or purchased & closed, where will you send everyone to contact you?
Take a look at the results below curiosity of @twickie

The results are mixed but Facebook seems like the place everyone will try to communicate and with all the changes that Facebook has made recently it’s not a bad idea. For me, my #1 goal is to create a self hosted or managed solution to where I can stay connected with every single twitter follower I have.  How?  First blog rss subscriptions, you can subscribe here: http://bit.ly/18i5X7 or the big orange button on your right . Next email subscribers, I’ve been collecting email addresses on every site I have, take a look at waynesutton.tv & wayne-sutton.com . Soon I’m going to launch community.socialwayne.com using ning.com and I’m working with a company to launch a mobile sms marketing campaign to build a mobile database but for now you can text get waynesutton to 762763 .

Update: http://community.socialwayne.com is now live, join!

Why the need to collect users or create a community backup?  It’s simple we have come to depended on twitter and don’t forget how felt during the failwhale season of 2008.  Plus if you can create or build your own community, it increases your social capital which you can use to possible create brand partnerships or other networking opportunities. More on social capital here: Digital Urbanite . Don’t worry as a twitter fanboy, I’m still tweeting as usual but now with everyone on the twitter bandwagaon and buyout talks showing up every other week, I’m just being a little cautious.  Also we’re three months into 2009 and still waiting on a twitter business model and I’m not sure how that will effect the use of twitter.

For those of you who missed the tweet, take the poll below and fell free to leave a comment on your thoughts about building your own community; why or why not.
[polldaddy poll="1437470"]

What would you do without Twitter?

Posted on February 6, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Transparency in social media. Do you trust me?

What is Transparency?
Let’s talk Transparency. Transparency is one of those social media / marketing buzzwords you’ll hear when being pitched a social media campaign, but what exactly does it mean?  Traditionally transparency is referenced with news media to inform the public why and how information is gathered from various sources. In plain English, transparency means I tell you who I received the information from so you know that it’s credible or that I was not the originator of the information. In media transparency leads to credibility, it builds the trust from someone reporting information by providing credible sources.

Transparency in Social Media
But what about transparency in social media? The same holds true yet it also has a double meaning. Transparency in social media especially pertaining to blogging and covering a product, brand or service means that’s I’m giving you an honest non-biased opinion or truth when I write or cover a particular topic. Online this can mean that, I am who I say I am online and that my reason for posting or having a discussion about a product, brand or service does not have any hidden agendas.  Or if I’m posting or having a discussion about a product, brand or service and was paid or hired to do so, you’ll know about it up front or it will be included in the conversations.

Why is transparency so important?
Transparency is about trust and with everyone trying to grab your attention online whether it is through a youtube video, blog post, facebook ad or a tweet, trust relationship marketing will be one of the key ways brands will try to sell their services to customers. In other words brands will contact you saying, blog out this, or can you tweet this. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that but will you let your readers or subscriber know that you were paid to post content about a particular brand upfront or at all?

Will you sell?
We’re in a time where companies will try leverage individuals who are community leaders or have a large audience for brand awareness.  If you have a lot of followers on twitter, blog subscribers or subscribers in an email database you have the opportunity to leverage your community and establish a few relationships with brands who may want to reach your audience. It’s something I call “selling their eyes”, to where you’re willing to push paid content to your community via product placement or sponsored ads. How you choose to let your community know about you “selling their eyes” is up to you but if you want to keep them, being honest or “transparent” is the best way to do so.

Do yo trust me?
There’s a lot of good and bad examples of transparency and social media and I’m not going say any names or cases of others but I’m going go over a few cases I’m involved in:

Crocs:
I’ve recently interviewed and wrote a blog post about Crocs’ social media specialist George G. Smith Jr. ,
Did I get paid to write the blog post? No.
Did I receive some Crocs swag? Yes.
Was I planning to write the blog post before the swag? Yes.
Did I let my readers know I received some crocs swag? Yes.

Kodak:

I was looking for a flip mino hd, and was suggested the Kodak Zi6 on twitter.  Then I purchased a Kodak Zi6 from Best Buy and was asked if I would write a blog post about using it for Kodak’s A Thousand Words Blog
Did I get paid to write the blog post? No
Did I receive any Kodak coupons or incentives for writing the post ? No

iPhone app reviews:
I’ve been approached by several iPhone developers or their marketing representatives asking if I would review their iPhone app on my blog and by doing so they would give me a free coupon to purchase the application.
Have I posted the reviews? No
Should I ? Maybe just as long as I’m honest, that if the apps sucks, I let my readers know and give them my truthful opinion.

What does the twitter & brightkite community think?

So I asked on brightkite & twitter the question: Why is transparency in social media important to you? Take a look at the response below:

From Brightkite:

RobertFischer says:Authenticity is what’s important. And it’s impossible to be authentic while being opaque. It’s all “Cluetrain Manifesto” stuff.

maravillasband says: Transparency is why it is perceived by some to be dangerous, I think

kagorges says: Transparency builds trust, which leads to more connection and more interesting sharing of each other — and that is what makes social networking interesting. Just trading references or pitching our product/services is shallow and very quickly boring – just like networking meetings that are all about trading business cards — no real connection or context.

pamperry says: It is about your purpose. If you are not afraid of who you are and know what you are here for – you want to share it! You want to broadcast it and promote it…and nothing makes you feel better than to be understood.

From twitter

Free Marketing
A few notes to remember, if people love your product or service they don’t mind letting others know about it,  remember the mac beautiful youtube video?

But if you do want others to cover your product/services I advise you to be upfront and let you readers now about the relationship or risk being exposed using social media.

Why is transparency in social media important to you?

Posted on December 19, 2008 - by Wayne Sutton

Using video to extend your brand and relationships. The interview that was a year in the making.

The who:
Today I had a chance to interview Pam Spaulding (@Pam_Spaulding) of Pam’s House Blend. Pam has been featured on CNN, Washingtonpost.com, live blogged from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Tavis Smiley and more. Her blog Pam’s House Blend which was started in 2004 has become more of a social network with over 120,000 visitors a month, plus includes guest writers, multi-media content and has one of the most passionate readership on the web today. But what does Pam blog about? Pam’s House Blend which started off being her personal blog now covers politics, Lesbian, Gay, BIsexual & Transgender (LGBT) rights and played a major roll this year contributing to the blogosphere as being the site to read about the differences in presidential candidates pertaining equal rights for LGBT.

The history:
Earlier this year when I had started doing online video interviews for the local TV station a lot of people in N.C. were saying Wayne you have to interview Pam. We’ll the year went by and I eventually met Pam for the first time at one of President Elect Barack Obama town hall events in Raleigh, N.C. before he was elected, we shook hands, exchanged business cards and the months flew by.  After that we crossed paths again at a new media/tech conference called Converged South in Greensboro, NC where I did get a chance to cohost an interview for 30THREADS.com of Pam. Then this week President Elect Barack Obama announced that he selected evangelical pastor and author of “The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration and the LGBT community was very upset and sounded off their frustration on twitter.  Which lead me to Pam’s site and I contacted her team to see if she was up for an interview to talk about the situation.

The interview:
The interview took place at Brian Russel’s Carrboro Creative Coworking office and asked Pam a series of questions about her blog, her role at the DNC, citizen journalism, LGBT reaction to Rick Warren, challenges of being a female blogger, main stream media rejecting and embracing blogging and what’s next for her in 2009. We also talked about the social responsibility that she and I both have as African-American bloggers to education our communities and culture. I won’t go into details Pam’s responses because I want you to watch it on http://waynesutton.tv .

The outcome:
So you may be asking yourself what does this have to do with extending your brand and relationships? For one, Pam has a huge following and a different community that I have. Plus she’s well respected by main stream media, journalist, reporters and the local community in N.C. and by interviewing her it ads to my credibility. She operates in different circles that I seldom reach and by interviewing Pam people who never heard of Wayne Sutton now know that I exist and are more likely to do a little research to see who I am and what I do. Also not being in a mode of trying to control content both my site WayneSutton.TV and Pam’s site Pam’s House Blend hosted the live interview at the same time using Ustream.TV. After the live show both of our sites share the saved show to where her readers and mine can watch the show if they missed the live stream.

The effect:
Immediately after the live show I started getting emails from my google alert from a few sites that I’ve never heard of before and a few other local bloggers in N.C.
A Blog Around The Clock – Pam Spaulding on Waynesutton.tv
Gay Blog Headlines – Live on WayneSutton.tv
2015Place.com – Combined Gay News Headlines

Lessons Learned:
Although Pam and I are entirely two different individuals but at the same time we have a lot in common.

• Pam’s a lesbian and I’m straight
• Pam blogs about politics and religion and I try to stay away from that conversation (except today)
• Both of us are African-American
• Both are bloggers
• Both reside in N.C. (Pam’s lives in Durham and I live in Raleigh)
• Both are passionate about what we do.
• Both want to education our race and community about online technologies
• Both have big plans for 2009.

But despite our differences, Pam and I respect one another and have a new found relationship. The feedback from the show has been great so far except me talking to fast…. I’m still in beta mode by the way.

The new beginning:
Pam it was an honor to interview you today, and thank you for your contributions to bridging the gab between the bloggers and main stream media. I’ll see you around N.C. or at a future conference in 2009.
The challenge for you:
Think outside of your social network and try to think new ways of reaching audiences that you’re not connected too now.

Are you willing to interview or have a discussion with people who don’t entirely agree with in a public online forum?

Posted on December 18, 2008 - by Wayne Sutton

Is it time to blog more & tweet less? Advice from Tyme & 1938Media; A blog marketing plan.

Earlier this year I had a conversation with Tyme White about twitter and personal branding that had stuck in my head ever since I got off the phone with her. She brought up the fact that I had a lot of twitter followers but where or how would I stay connected with those followers if twitter goes down (fail whale) , twitter gets purchased by google & closed like Pownce or their business model just doesn’t work and everyone leaves the community.  We talked about how some people who I admire like Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuck have huge online followers despite twitter. Robert has a large following  and readership on his blog before twitter and the same for @GaryVee but we do know they both have used twitter to extend their brand.

As for 1938Media, I was reading the Remarkablogger site and saw a video of Loren Feldman at a blogging conference where he said: “the most important thing in your digital life is your personal blog”. This was after Wired Magazine posted an article called: Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004. To Wired’s point I think the post was written to start a conversation but it did have some good meat to it.  

Some points of the article talked about how more people are spending more time on social networks and less on blogs. But in my case what am I to do? I have 11,610 followers on twitter, I just started this blog with 92 feedburner subscribers, 563 Linkedin contacts and 716 facebook friends.  If twitter goes down how would I stay connected with those 11,610 followers, will they subscribe to my feed, connect on Linkedin or Facebook?  

While we wait for Twitter to figure out how to make money,  staying connected and having a global reach with my twitter followers is where I see the true value in twitter but as 2009 come close I’m getting nervous about what’s next.  So I’m taking advice from Tyme and 1938Media and making my blog a priority but with new blogs launching everyday and people spending more time on social networking sites just have a text based blog is going to be hard to stand out from the crowd, but I have a plan. 

The SocialWayne.com blog plan.

1. Continue to use micro-blogs and social networks to reach new subscribers
2. Make the blog as interactive as possible (more features such as chat coming soon)
3. Use multiple blog content for posting: Audio and Video post. You can already subscribe to socialwayne.com in iTunes
4. Content is still king. Be creative in writing, give away free advice, seek guest writers
5. Be original “Think Different”
6. Partner with Friends for link exchanges
7. Guest write on other blogs for exposure
8. Make socialwayne.com more like a service and a social networking site to make users stick

Will it work? Only time will tell, either way if I’m not tweeting as much as I used to, I’ll be blogging here.

Also for those who wonder how I got 11,000 followers on twitter, I’m working on a blog post about that too. It’s going in my F.A.Q section.

 

Question: If you would start a new blog today, what would you do to grow your audience?