Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

Internet Fame and the True Impact of Influence

You may be aware that there is a big debate going on in the social media blogosphere about ?influence? (and you can see links to several blog posts at the end of this one for examples of these discussions).

How we need to leverage influencers in our communities in order to get the word out about our causes, brands or services, etc. And that makes total sense from a generating-word-of-mouth point of view.

But hold on.

If you?re trying to do this, what if you don?t actually know who your industry influencers are? Perhaps because you?re not really immersed in your own open community, or because your community is too large or public-facing to be able to list your champions in an organic way, you?re just not seeing it?

So you begin to use some of the tools out there that purport to measure influence, and you start to think, ?This isn?t as easy as it sounds.?

Maybe you?re starting to think that influence is not about how many followers someone has on Twitter. ?Maybe you?re starting to think that ?influencer scores? are totally meaningless for your goals and objectives.

So what is influence, really?

Can it be measured (and if so, how)? How can you find the influencers in your industry? Do apps?like Klout or Twitalyzer really work to automate this? Or?is this all bunk?

A group of us are going to be talking about Internet Fame and the True Impact of Influence in a new BlogTalkRadio show on Wednesday February 9 at 10pm ET.

This new show is the brainchild of some really smart social media practitioners and consultants from various industries, and the purpose of the show is to debunk some of the social media bubble/hype around various issues. The tone will be irreverent, but the conversation and concerns around the topic are very real.

I hope you?ll be able to join us (expect the accompanying chat to be lively and extremely snarky!), or listen to the podcast afterwards (bookmark this page and come back to listen!).

I?ll be hosting this inaugural episode (uh-oh!) and Tamsen McMahon, Lisa Thorell, Allyson Kapin, Rich Becker and Olivier Blanchard will be chatting live with me on the night. But, as it?s BlogTalkRadio, anyone can call in and ask the panel questions. Lots of other people with thoughts on the topic will be listening in and participating by chat.

In preparation for the radio show, here are some of the blog posts the group may be referencing.

4 Things You Need to Know About Influence ? Tamsen McMahon, on Brass Tack Thinking
It?s About Impact NOT Influence ? Allyson Kapin on Frogloop
The Influence of Trust ? Danny Brown
Artifacts of Influence: grassroots movements, familiar strangers and the power of the social media daisy chain. ? Olivier Blanchard
Flipping The Scale: Influencers Are The Most Influenced ? Rich Becker on Copywrite, Ink.
Klout & Critics: Time to Close the Door or Kick it Wide Open? ? Lisa Thorell on Digital, Ink.
Strength of Community Supersedes Influence ? Geoff Livingston
Why I?m 10X As Influential As Ashton Kutcher On Twitter* ? Chris Yeh, Adventures in Capitalism
The Holy Grail of Online Influence vs Our Current Measurement Limitations ? Beast of Traal
How do you evaluate influence? ? Jeremy Porter, on Journalistics

So put the kids to bed, grab your tipple of choice, and join us on Wednesday evening!

This post is derived from Maddie Grant and SocialFish.

Kenneth Cole Is Just The Latest in a Long Line of Bad PR Decisions

There?s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity ? but is it?

Kenneth Cole might be questioning it, after the tweet in the image above – that tied his retail chain’s sale into the devastating events currently happening in Egypt – was picked up and discussed on various PR and marketing blogs and news sites.

I’ve also written on here before about examples of bad PR and PR that takes advantage of tragic or upsetting situations, and questioned the sense behind it.

True, a discussion about your company or business means that at least people are talking about you – but is there a limit as to how far this should go and be accepted as a good thing?

A client approached a well-known agency in New York to run a campaign about that client?s new start-up business. The business was technology-led, and the idea behind the campaign was to run a number of press releases and forum posts that implied the current technology on the market was doomed.

This was where the PR agency?s client would step in ? by providing the new technology that would replace the ?outdated? one, they would become the de facto standard for this piece of software.

Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, this backfired spectacularly.

First, the software wasn?t actually ready ? it was still buggy and users kept having their systems frozen.

Second, the target audience the client was going for were already fiercely loyal to the older technology. They came out fighting when the suggestion was made that they were the equivalent to schoolchildren if they didn?t upgrade to the new software, whose users would be the advanced students of that niche.

Cue forums and tech blogs lighting up with inflammatory statements and posts about this new upstart who was saying all these bad things about the user community. The PR agency swiftly put a damage limitation exercise into place, but it looks like it?s too little, too late.

Now it looks likely that when the software is ready, it?s going to have too much baggage attached to make any headway ? which is a shame, as the technology in question is an excellent idea.

So who?s to blame ? the client or the PR agency? It?s a little bit of both.

For a business that wanted to be the standard in its field, releasing a buggy product and not classifying it as a beta is one of the worst things it could have done.

For the agency?s part, they should have had more balls and advised their client that pissing off your target audience is not good PR. The client hired the agency for their expertise at getting the right media attention ? so they should have enforced that and made the client realize the mistake they were about to make. After all, their reputation would be at stake as well.

In fairness to the PR agency in question, it seems that in this case the client wanted to drum up controversy to get people talking about their product. That certainly happened ? but was the (potentially) final result worth it?

Maybe Kenneth Cole and the tech company can tell us in a few months time…

Lessons from an Entrepreneur Turned CEO

This is a guest post from Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich, Inc.

Nearly three years ago I had to make the transition from working in the business to working on the business. It was a difficult transition (sometimes still is) because no one tells you how to do it. When I asked my peers, friends, and family what a CEO should be doing, no one could give me a straight answer.

I read a ton of books. I read every article I could find. ?I brought it as an issue to my Vistage group. I asked other entrepreneurs turned CEOs. I kept a list of things I thought I should be doing as a CEO.

It turns out being the CEO of a company you founded means different things to different people. What is important to me may not be important to other business leaders, which is probably why I couldn?t find the magic answer in all of my searching.

Following are some of the lessons I?m learning in my journey to the top:

Cash truly is king.

Debt isn?t bad, unless there is a recession and you can?t get access to capital because you already have debt.

Big is not always better; profit is always best.

Leadership is not about being the first one in and the last one to leave the office, nor about working the most hours.

Employee communication should happen only in person; internal email sucks.

Just because you have three letters after your name does not mean you have to be all business all of the time, if it doesn?t fit your personality.

If our clients aren?t happy and want me working on their accounts, it?s because I haven?t done my staff coaching and mentoring job well enough.

My time is best spent on innovation, coaching and mentoring staff, landing the whales, and being the face of the company.

It?s okay to say no, if it?s for something not in the four areas listed above.

It?s good to shake things up every once in a while, in an effort to stay ahead of the trends.

It?s great to have friends who run competitive companies; if the relationship is set up correctly, we work very well together.

People like working for a company that stands for something and lives its values.

My gut is ALWAYS right.

Engagement, connection, and transparency are the most important communication tools ? with employees, with clients, with prospects, with talent candidates, with vendors, with partners, and any other stakeholder.

Bad news does not go away and it does not get better with age; no matter how much I hate conflict, sometimes it?s worse in my head than it is in reality.

Having fun with my colleagues, and connecting with them as people, is what I truly love about getting up and going to work every day.

What have you learned? What do you do that is not on this list?

Gini Dietrich is the founder and chief executive officer of Arment Dietrich, Inc. and the author of Spin Sucks, the 2010 Readers Choice Blog of the Year, a Top 42 Content Marketing Blog from Junta42, a top 10 social media blog from Social Media Examiner, and an AdAge Power 150 blog. You can subscribe to Spin Sucks or connect with Gini on Twitter or on Facebook to learn more.

Why You Don’t Need to Impress Gini Dietrich’s Mom

First, let me say right off the bat that Gini Dietrich’s mom is more than likely a very nice person. Heck, anyone that can put up with Gini’s wily ways has to be good, right? Anyhoo…

This post came about for a couple of reasons. The first was a post that Gini herself wrote over at Spin Sucks, about why your mom tells you what you want to hear. It’s a great read about conflict resolution, and worth checking out. I shared the post on Twitter, with a tongue-in-cheek addendum that Gini’s mom doesn’t tell me anything.

Gini replied about her mom’s probable thoughts on me, and this post was born. So, why don’t you need to impress Gini Dietrich’s mom?

Lets dig in.

Parental Approval or Parental Removal?

When I was in my late teens/early twenties, I kept losing girlfriends. It wasn’t that I was ugly (at least, not terribly so – who knows?); nor was it that I wasn’t a nice guy (or, at least, I thought I was nicer than some of the dicks I’d seen use and abuse their girlfriends).

But it didn’t matter what I thought I was as boyfriend material – every girlfriend I had never lasted more than a few months (with the exception of one long engagement).

So what was my issue? Simple – I was trying to impress the wrong person.

I was under the impression that if I got the mom to like me, then the daughter would see what a great guy I was and follow suit. After all, we’re always told that moms are usually the ones that wield the main influence in the household, right?

So, win the mom, win the daughter – easy as pie. Except I was wrong.

By trying so hard to impress the mom, I was missing out on trying to impress the one I really should have been impressing – my girlfriend. So what if her mom liked me, when I wasn’t really being the guy my girlfriend wanted, but a poor substitute for an approving mom instead?

Once I learned that harsh lesson, well then of course it was full steam ahead on the gigolo front. Yeah, right….

That Don’t Impress Me Much

Shania Twain had it right – trying to hard to impress usually won’t impress at all. It’s either obvious, and you look like a suck-up, or you miss the bigger picture and the real target you should be looking to impress.

I learned the hard way that girls aren’t impressed with you making their mom feel good (and don’t read that the wrong way!). However, it wasn’t all bad – because it helped prime me for my professional life (although I didn’t know it at the time).

Think about it.

Instead of trying to impress your customers with someone you feel they want you to be, be yourself and just do things right full-stop. That will impress them.

Instead of posting blogs solely for your readers because you think they want to read them, post for yourself first and be 100% happy with that. Because if that satisfaction comes through in your writing, the readers that are right for your blog will be there for you.

Instead of trying to impress your boss by doling out compliments, just roll up your sleeves and produce the results that will make your boss stand up and take notice.

Simply put, don’t go for false love that will up and leave you. Instead, concentrate on being what you need to be for the proper audience you need to impress and make sure you’re giving 100% to that. Everything else will fall into place.

And, somehow, I think Gini Dietrich’s mom would say the same…

Epilogue: Of course, if you want to impress Gini’s mom, or any other mom, then there’s nothing wrong with that either. Moms are cool.

image: Stuck In Customs