Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

what is social media

How to Take Social Media into the Mainstream

For anyone reading this blog, it’s a pretty good chance that you’re already social media-savvy. Whether you found it through a Twitter link, a blogroll, Technorati or similar means, I’m guessing that you know about the benefits social media can offer.

(For anyone else that arrived here by mistake – well, I thank your error and hope you’ll stick around!)

And therein lies the problem. If you did use one of the methods I mentioned, you’re already a social media user, which is great. But for each one of us that “gets” social media, there’s another 10 that don’t.

(By the way, this figure hasn’t been scientifically proven – I just like round numbers).

This is the problem that social media needs to overcome if it’s ever to be taken seriously. There are some great people out there helping to spread the word about social media, both for personal and professional use. But there needs to be more to help the medium into the kind of acceptance the Internet now has with everyone.

One of the main issues is that there are just too many social media sites, applications, tools and more that it’s all too easy to get lost when you first jump in. No-one likes to be the guy that made the wrong choice – just ask Betamax video or HD-DVD early adopters.

What’s needed is a standard format for the different tools available. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to see a monopoly of social media any more than you do – but figures prove that something is much more likely to enjoy success the easier it is to use.

Instead of having multiple microblogging platforms like Twitter, Pownce or Plurk, etc, have one main platform to work from. Differentiate the users by offering categories, if you like, that helps them find like-minded users more easily.

Have three main social networking sites – Facebook for people, MySpace for music, LinkedIn for business. Integrate some of the better features from other sites like Bebo and FastPitch and make these three sites the one-stop shop for whatever field it covers.

Combine the best of Stumbleupon and Delicious to offer a bookmarking site that truly does drive traffic to your website or blog.

These are just some ideas to bring social media to everyone. The biggest stumbling block for people and businesses is simply confusion as to what social media offers. Having so many platforms doesn’t help. Narrowing all the current options down into a more manageable resource would go a long way into negating this confusion.

I’m not saying it’s the ideal solution – but it’s got to be better than the mish-mash that’s currently out there, no? What do you think – are there too many social media platforms or is all this choice a good thing?

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Discussing Social Media with… Lisa Hoffmann

A little while back, I sent out a request via Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. With the medium meaning so many different things to so many people, as well as how it can be used, I was interested to hear the views of the people I connect with.

My original plan was to run a ?round table? style of blog post – raise the questions and then have a mix of views as the responses. However, the answers I received back were all excellent, and showed why social media is the mix of interesting people and views that it is. So, I decided individual posts would be far more effective in an on-going series of interviews.

Sharing her views today is Lisa Hoffmann, Chief Copywriter at PRstore, offering small businesses an invaluable and affordable marketing resource. My sincere thanks to Lisa for taking the time to reply and share her views. To connect with Lisa, or find out more about her, please visit her blog new media lisa.

If someone was to ask you for your definition of social media, what would it be?

Media that allows for two-way conversations. Social – or interactive – media offers everyone the opportunity to contribute. Where our parents and grandparents were merely media consumers, we are media participants. This includes blogs, forums, photo and video sharing, microblogging, virtual reality – all the gadgetry that encourages sharing, interaction and community building. Social media technology makes it possible, social media culture makes it powerful.

What is your reason for using social media?

I became interested in it purely to figure out how it can help clients with their marketing and PR efforts. The more I researched it, the more fascinated I became. The communication potential is enormous. I’m still on the far side of the learning curve and drink up the great conversations centered around social media. It’s so exciting to witness its development, to consider the implications.

Do you feel that social media is being used to its maximum effect?

Not even close. It will continue to develop and evolve. On a recent vacation I stayed at a bed and breakfast with a group of American and international business people. Smart, accomplished folks. None of them had any idea what social media is or understood any of its business applications. They all associated it with kids fooling around on MySpace and Facebook.

What social media tools or applications do you use? Why these ones in particular?

My big focus right now is on blogging and Twitter. I’m a big believer in concentrating on one or two tools at a time, so you can test its compatibility and you can become a part of the community. I love blogging because I’m a writer at heart and it gives me the creative and communication outlet I crave. I love Twitter because it opens the door to stimulating, educational and perspective-changing conversation.

I can’t be at all the wonderful conferences that are happening across the country, but I can soak up a lot of what’s coming out of them. And people are so generous with their knowledge and insights. It’s exhilarating – sometimes exhausting – to engage with all these brilliant, forward-thinking people. Many are true visionaries.

Where do you see the future of social media, both in general and for you?

It’s hard for me to see the future, since I’m relatively new to the scene and still trying to get my arms around the whole thing. But I can safely say it will continue to grow and change and find its way into everyone’s living rooms and offices.

Are businesses effectively using social media? If not, what can they do to improve?

No. Many business people in my small corner of the world aren’t using it at all. They don’t understand it and they don’t realize its benefits. The only Web-related things most of the small business clients I talk to want are static websites and e-mail advertising campaigns. Education is the biggest obstacle to social media truly entering the mainstream as a marketing/PR strategy.

What do you feel are the best and worst features/uses of social media?

Best: Community building and information, and idea-sharing capabilities; facilitates quick feedback.

Worst: Too many applications; 24/7 availability and steep learning curve threaten my work/life balance.

  • You can find more ?Discussing Social Media with?? interviews here.

Discussing Social Media with… Adam Gainer

A little while back, I sent out a request via Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. With the medium meaning so many different things to so many people, as well as how it can be used, I was interested to hear the views of the people I connect with.

My original plan was to run a ?round table? style of blog post – raise the questions and then have a mix of views as the responses. However, the answers I received back were all excellent, and showed why social media is the mix of interesting people and views that it is. So, I decided individual posts would be far more effective in an on-going series of interviews.

Sharing his views today is Adam Gainer, a Public Relations intern at Subudhi Consulting Group, a boutique PR agency in Richmond, VA. My sincere thanks to Adam for taking the time to reply and share his views. To connect with Adam, or find out more about him, please visit his blog Trying to Keep Up With an Ever-Changing World.

If someone was to ask you for your definition of social media, what would it be?

A mix of online tools for people of like interests to share information and collaborate on ideas.

What is your reason for using social media?

I use social media to share things I find interesting with my friends. It also helps me as I try and keep abreast of items and ideas in my field and try to keep ahead of the herd.

Do you feel that social media is being used to its maximum effect?

I feel that a lot of people are using it for its maximum effect to branch out to people they might have never met.

What social media tools or applications do you use? Why these ones in particular?

I use Twitter to find out what people in my field are doing, as well as let people know when I update my blog and what I’m working on or when I need ideas. I use Facebook to keep up and share things with friends, professors and colleagues. I use AIM to keep in contact with friends and family. Digg and delicious to find new interesting articles. I run a blog to try and help people looking to intern in my field see what they have ahead of them.

Where do you see the future of social media, both in general and for you?

I see social media being used for marketing as well as public relations to read direct niche markets with people who share common interests. Today is just becoming more and more media saturated and a lot of people are hungry for information. It will also be used by companies for them to be able to collaborate on projects from afar. For me I hope to use it to try and promote myself and help the right job find me.

Are businesses effectively using social media? If not, what can they do to improve?

I do believe that some businesses are. A lot are starting to get into twitter and blogging which is good because it helps them to communicate on a more personal level and get feedback from their customer base. The ones that do not are really missing out on an opportunity to find out what their customers and audiences think of them – this leaves them unable to influence perceptions.

What do you feel are the best and worst features/uses of social media?

I love how it’s instantaneous feedback and response. There is a lot of personality and interaction in different communities. The only drawback is that it’s 24/7 and you can’t always be monitoring it or you will drive yourself insane. Another aspect is while you can share a lot of information about yourself there is the constant fear of someone posting something you don’t like about you and it damaging your reputation.

  • You can find more ?Discussing Social Media with?? interviews here.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment and subscribe to my RSS feed or via email to ensure you can enjoy the latest post(s).

Discussing Social Media with… Keren Dagan

A little while back, I sent out a request via Twitter asking if anyone would be interested in being interviewed for a discussion on social media. With the medium meaning so many different things to so many people, as well as how it can be used, I was interested to hear the views of the people I connect with.

My original plan was to run a ?round table? style of blog post – raise the questions and then have a mix of views as the responses. However, the answers I received back were all excellent, and showed why social media is the mix of interesting people and views that it is. So, I decided individual posts would be far more effective in an on-going series of interviews.

Sharing his views today is Keren Dagan, Director of Engineering at Unica, a software company specializing in marketing automation. My sincere thanks to Keren for taking the time to reply and share his views. To connect with Keren, or find out more about him, please visit his blog Webnomena.

If someone was to ask you for your definition of social media, what would it be?

I define social media by the Twitter model not the specific application. Everyone adds from their own to one big pile of content and news without forced context or agenda. Participants can choose to just sit and listen, to monologue about their life or to converse with others. Participants can start new discussions, share, react, complain, educate, and converse. Existing members bring and introduce new participants, expanding the pool of content.

The social crowd coronate influencers due to their communication, leadership and entertaining (fun) skills. Yet, the most notable characteristics of social media are generosity, authenticity and openness. Anyone can try and you don’t have to look good to succeed, yet most of the social media celebrities are working incredibly hard – maybe even harder than if they were working in traditional media.

What is your reason for using social media?

Honestly, I don’t know and I’m not yet sure where it is all leading me. A close relative inspired me into blogging and Twitter almost exactly a year ago. I knew nothing about this media but I think that I covered a lot of ground during the past year. I love to explore new applications and technologies. I’m very curious about performance; scalability, search, monitoring and discovery techniques, and I usually read and write about those.

Professionally, I can see how much of these activities helped me with my work.? This year I introduce new development technologies and methods for building better and modern applications. It doesn’t come without effort, though – I blog late at night and I read a ton online every minute that I can.

Yet, I have to admit that I’m hooked to the interaction: getting blog comments, a tweet (@ and making new friends, fans or followers. Getting a vote of confidence like Digg, Delicious saves or StumbleUpon review is too exciting and fun to stop, and makes the effort worthwhile.

Do you feel that social media is being used to its maximum effect?

I think that lots of information is falling between the cracks of multiple social media applications and activities. I see opportunities for social graph aware applications bridging these gaps. The value: catalyzing building new relationships. I wrote about it here.

It is hard for people that are not computer savvy to discover how others react to their social media activities. If we want to see the social media going mainstream this kind of information should be constantly available and without an effort.

What social media tools or applications do you use? Why these ones in particular?

Twitter for my micro-blog, web presence, keeping in touch with the community and the million other things that one could do with this platform. WordPress for my blog. Twitter Search, Twellow, TwitScoop (through TweetDeck), Backtype, Google Alerts, and FriendFeed for listening to the web.

Delicious and Delver for smart searches. Twine – organized bookmarks – building knowledge bases. GoogleReader, Netvibe and iGoogle for feeds. Twhirl and TweetDeck – Twitter desktop clients ? since each has its own advantages; I?m just waiting to see a winner.

Facebook (friends) and LinkedIn (professionals) – for scalable and dynamic contact management. Technorati, Google Analytics, Alexa, PostRank (aka AideRSS), Compete – for ego measures. I also use Technorati, Twitter and Google Chart APIs for my little BlogMon mashup for keeping track of bloggers? progress. Google Docs – for sharing results from BlogMon and writing/sharing guest posts.

Where do you see the future of social media, both in general and for you?

I’m not experienced in making predictions. Here is my take on the business world and social media. I truly think that it could improve internal corporate communication and engagement.

Social media tools can help in improving vendor-client relationships and it is an extremely effective tool for marketing. Know your loyal customers – some are true influencers so keep them on your side. Arm them with the message and let the viral effect of their word of the mouth drive your growth.

Are businesses effectively using social media? If not, what can they do to improve?

In my opinion it is too early to tell. There is more than one way that businesses can leverage social media. Please see my previous answer speaking about a few.

I also don’t think that we know how to measure the effectiveness of social media investments. In the case of marketing, conversion rate is the leading business measure; turning leads to sales.

I think that social media could be used for acquiring new customers or retaining existing one but only indirectly. I think that when you try to use it explicitly people run away. Somehow social media seems more spiritual, and going with direct business messages feels like polluting it.

From my experience using social media I found that there are some people that others tend to listen to with trust. It is better for the business to build relationships with these influencers. If they find that this individual is excited about their product (or this individual approaches them) they should allow him or her to share their experience armed with all the available information about the product or service.

Maybe the measure should be something like how many relationships did the company build (relationship conversion). I actually see small businesses leading the way here.

What do you feel are the best and worst features/uses of social media?

Best – The way it changed browsing the Internet. I constantly get great content recommendations. I can also share it with others. Twitter and my friends? news feeds are my new gate. The way it spares me on email storage – posting (perma)links killed the endless file attachments (although I’m still getting some from my dad, sigh). Replacing broadcast with self-cast – you got the power! Making new connections – the invention of the follower replacing the friend concept helps to eliminate the fear of strangers, especially if the stranger has a blog.

Worst – Splogs that copy blog content and spam your comments. Nasty comments. Some videos on YouTube. Services that can’t handle the load and go down occasionally. Twitter spam account. Remembering your login and password.

  • You can find more ?Discussing Social Media with?? interviews here.

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The Kindergarten Approach to Social Media

For anyone entering the minefield that social media can be for the very first time, the excitement and eagerness can soon turn into fear and uncertainty. Fear of not knowing where to start and uncertainty of which social media sites and tools you should be using. Don?t worry, we?ve all been there (and in a way, we?re all still there as well).

Yet like anything new, social media is just another ?stumbling block? to overcome if you haven?t used it before. If you take time to think of all the things you?ve successfully overcome in your life already, you?ll see that social media should be looked at as just another stone to step across. Perhaps the best analogy is to compare social media to your time at kindergarten.

First Day at School

Remember the fear you felt when you first arrived at kindergarten? Unless you were a mini-Rambo, of course, and feared no-one. Yet if you were like me, the fear of feeling alone and not knowing anyone was a difficult one to overcome. All I wanted to do was stay in the car and go home.

The first time dipping my toe in the social media world elicited similar feelings in me. I knew I was meant to be there, but I was thinking it?d be just as easy to not be there. Yet just like that first day at kindergarten, it?s all about taking that first step.

Just like you ended up stepping through the doors to the kindergarten building, so you can step though the barriers to the social media world. All you need to acknowledge is that it is new to you so it will take a little time to feel comfortable – but it will (and does) come.

Stay Out of the Sandpit

Once you got used to the new world that was kindergarten and you started making some friends, life became easier. Yet I recall this one kid that wouldn?t mix with anyone – he stayed in the sandpit at breaks and refused all attempts to make friends. Rightly or wrongly, every other kid thought he was strange because of this.

Don?t be the sandpit kid when it comes to social media. The best way to feel comfortable is to make friends and introduce yourself. Whether it?s via a blog to share your voice or a short exchange of messages on something like Twitter, communicating is key to enjoying the full social media experience.

The result of communicating? Apart from making new friends and opening up your network, people that have been using social media longer than you can help you make informed decisions of which ones will work best for you.

Listen to Teacher

While at kindergarten, one of the strangest things I had to get used to was listening to the teacher. I say strange, because although I had been told that I should listen to my teacher by my parents, it was easier said than done. My line of thought was: ?You?re not my mom – why should I listen to you??

Of course, I soon overcame this way of thinking – especially when my mom banned me from any toys after kindergarten until I started listening to what my teacher was trying to tell me.

In the social media world, there are some excellent teachers that you can learn a lot from. People like Chris Brogan and Jeff Pulver are just two names that spring to mind – yet the knowledge that they and other social media visionaries like them can impart to you is invaluable.

If you need to know anything about social media and the wonderful world it can open up to you, signing up to Chris or Jeff?s blogs isn’t a bad way to start. After all, if you can?t learn from these guys, then maybe social media isn?t for you. And perhaps you may even glean some knowledge from me now and again…

There?s a whole new world waiting out there for you. While it may appear daunting and confusing, just remember – you navigated through kindergarten and beyond. You can navigate through social media as well – just keep an open mind and open ears, and don?t be afraid to speak. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the conversations you hear.

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