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Chris Brogan on Google+ for Business, Black Friday Marketing, and The Power of Building a Platform

Esteban Contreras — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:31:51 +0000

Chris Brogan is a blogger, speaker, consultant, bestselling author and President and CEO of Human Business Works. Chris was one of the very first people I ever “met” on Twitter and I’ve been reading his blog www.chrisbrogan.com ever since.

Below is an interview with Chris about his upcoming book, examples of brands on Google+, Black Friday marketing in 2011, content curation tools, and more.

1. Congratulations on your upcoming book “Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything.” The book description says “This is a business book, not a technology book.” Can you share more about how this book can help businesspeople?

[CB] Business people tend to get a bit twitchy when a new technology comes along. But what I’m saying with this book is that this is a book about how to use the telephone to sell, or how to use business cards as part of your selling, or what to talk about at the cocktail party to sell. The tech of it all isn’t the worry. The problem is, for some unknown reason, humans get really weird when they start trying to use social media to sell. They forget the niceties and the human nature sometimes.

2. Google+ Pages have been around for a few weeks now. What are some examples of companies and organizations making good use of them?

[CB] I love what Samsung USA is doing (and no, not because you work there). I love what Dell has done. I think that Pepsi is already getting great engagement on their site. For a small business, check out Allure Home Improvements. I think people can really learn from places like these. Oh, and Kodak! Great work, Jennifer Cisney and team.

3. Social media is becoming an important part of how brands do marketing. What did you think of Black Friday efforts this year? You know who I saw doing something interesting for Black Friday?

[CB] Cali Lewis. Not a company, a person. Someone who works for a brand of her own, but who used Amazon associate links to point people towards products she endorsed, with a cut for herself. Did I see any brands doing something amazing with Black Friday? Well, at the risk of really seeming like I’m sucking up (I’m willing to risk this), I *did* like that Samsung had a nice summary on the Google+ page. Beyond that? Not as much on Twitter as I’d had expected, and I’m no longer qualified to talk about Facebook. I don’t go there anymore.

4. What are your thoughts on content curation and services like Pinterest, Curated.by and Storify?

[CB] I think that content curation is *finally* getting its due. Steve Rosenbaum wrote a grossly overlooked book, CURATION NATION, that deserves more eyeballs and thought. The specific tools will come and go, but people are finally understanding that curation is just as important as creation.

5. You’ve been blogging for over a decade and you’ve been using WordPress for many years. Do you think WordPress is at risk with the increased usage of Tumblr, Google+ and social media overall?

[CB] I rarely worry much about the tools. I think that there’s a huge group of people using Tumblr for curation and sometimes throwaway products. I think that people looking to use serious tools for serious business will stick with WordPress, but when I say that, don’t presume that I’m being elitist. I’m saying that one set of tools, WordPress, delivers a lot more business value. I’m saying that Tumblr is easy and makes it very easy to share and create. Both are quite wonderful and useful. That’s how I would divide them.

6. What advice would you give to bloggers who aspire to be book authors?

[CB] Blogging and books are two different disciplines, but I will say that if you blog daily and if you can write thoughts up such that they have a beginning, middle, and an end, you’ve got some potential. If you REALLY want to know what bloggers have to focus on, it’s building platform. Book deals go to people with lots of followers and readers, not the people with the best ideas. Sorry to pop your bubble, aspiring authors, but Trust Agents isn’t a great book. I just have a huge platform. Yep, there it is.

Simon Mainwaring talks We First & the Future of Capitalism Through the Lens of Social Tech

Esteban Contreras — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:13:57 +0000

Simon Mainwaring is founder of We First, a social branding consulting firm that helps companies use social media to build communities, profits and positive social impact. Simon is also the author of the book by the same name. Read my interview with Simon below, and make sure to follow him on Twitter @SimonMainwaring and find out more about the book at www.wefirstbook.com.

1. What led you to write “We First?”

I wrote “We First” for both personal and professional reasons. I was fortunate enough to have a long advertising career but still felt unfulfilled. I didn’t feel like there was an alignment between who I am as a person and what I did on a daily basis. With that in mind, I read the transcript for Bill Gates’ Creative Capitalism speech he gave at the World Economic Forum in which he said that government and philanthropy can’t fix the world on their own, they need the private sector to get involved. I saw this as an opportunity for me to find more fulfillment by becoming more purposefully engaged and also to use my skill sets to make a contribution. That was the genesis of writing the book.

2. What makes this book unique and why do people need to read it?

The book is unique for a couple of reasons. It does an effective job of consolidating a lot of different discussions going on right now, whether they’re about the future of capitalism, philosophical debates about self-interest, globalization, emerging technologies, the future of the developing world, and the impact of social technology. Specifically, the book is unique because it looks at an issue that many people have discussed: the future of capitalism through the lens of social technology. Mass adoption of social media has only occurred in the last three or four years, so what makes the book unique is that it looks at these questions through the lens of this new technology and provides three fundamental new solutions. First is a new partnership between brands and consumers connected by social technology and aligned around shared values that creates a third pillar of social change in addition to government and philanthropy. The second is the concept of contributory consumption, which builds on precursors like ‘1% for the Planet’ but extends to include not only retail, credit card, online, and mobile transactions, but also virtual goods when applying the concept of contributing a small portion of the sale of every good or service to a cause. Thirdly, the book proposes the formation of the Global Brand Initiative, which is a federation of brands that would combine their efforts and expertise to bring the best of the private sector into the social change space. So the book is unique because it lays out these three concepts.

3. It seems like people tend to come together in the midst of trials. What does that mean in a socially connected world?

Perhaps the most powerful impact of social media is its ability to connect people around what they care about. In times of trials, there are many pressing issues that motivate people to hope and work for change. In the last few years this has included everything from addressing persistent crises like hunger, disease and child mortality, through to unforeseen emergencies like the earthquake in Haiti, through to challenges the developing world faces such as the persistent recession after the global economic meltdown. Whatever the issue, social media allows people to connect around these shared concerns and to take action together, which is the most effective way to scale our response to these crises.

4. What do you think about companies generating awareness for causes they support by adding a dollar value donation to social media actions?

This is a critical, new dynamic that needs to be embraced by the private sector if we are going to meet the challenges we face with equal force. Now, realistically, you’ll never get the entire private sector to commit, but if we only see a five-to-ten percent shift in engagement by large corporations, and if they only donate a fraction on the dollar towards causes that are in alignment with their core values, we can systemically scale the contributions that are raised towards addressing pressing social issues. As such, the private sector and its untapped potential represent an enormous opportunity to create a third pillar of change in addition to government and philanthropy.

5. What are some of the main things that brands can do today to enhance the overall customer experience using social media?

Oddly enough, the most unnecessary mistake a brand can make is to see social media as an end in itself. This technology is just another platform that allows people to connect emotionally. By doing so, brands can build loyal customers that generate word-of-mouth advertising that ultimately impacts their bottom line. With that in mind, the most effective thing a brand can do is define what it stands for, articulate its core values and act on the basis of those values and then communicate such efforts consistently.

6. Some technologies are truly disruptive. What are some of the emerging trends we see today that you think will disrupt markets and our thinking?

I believe that in the space of a few short years, we’ll find it hard to imagine a time when customers didn’t have multiple platforms and channels through which to talk about brands with their friends and community. It will seem almost absurd to people that citizens and consumers were largely told what to think, do or buy using print, television or radio alone, and there was really no channel for them to have a dialogue with those institutions. So I think this is perhaps the most important, disruptive element in social media in that it has shifted the dynamic between institutions, whether it’s the government or corporation, from a broadcast/ monologue approach to a dialogue between customers and brands, or citizens and institutions. This has enormous implications for leadership, organizational structure, customer service and, obviously, advertising. As such, social media will transform the business marketplace as radically as the digital revolution did in the early ‘90’s.

7. Live streaming video has been around for some time but it’s still not widely used. Do you think we’ll eventually find ourselves in a world where everybody streams their life in real-time?

I don’t see the live-streaming of our lives as the most obvious or natural consequence of the new connections between people brought about through social media. My sense of it is that social media facilitates the building of communities around what people care about, so it’s a shared or ‘we’ experience, rather than simply being another tool to demonstrate a ‘me’ mentality, which is obviously what informs live-streaming your life to others at all times. In a sense, what people are looking for is human connection, meaning and hope for the future rather than simply a media outlet through which to promote themselves to others. Naturally, there will be exceptions to that rule, but by and large, my sense is that live-streaming video will just be another way of distributing content that has to be meaningful and impactful to people for people to watch it.

8. Anything that goes up online eventually comes to light. If somebody were to look at a feed of content about your life 50 years from now, what kind of story do you hope the feed will tell?

My hope would be that the story shows an alignment between who I am as a person and what I did in my daily life and career, and that my efforts would combine with others to help shift the conversation in the private sector towards more consistent, purposeful engagement that improves the lives of others.

9. What’s the process of writing a book like? Any advice for first-time authors?

Writing a book was something I had no understanding of when I went into it, and only on the other side of it did I realize how little I knew. Someone said to me recently that writing a book is not about the finished book in your hand, but what you learn about yourself along the way. I can tell you now that is absolutely true. It tests your finances, it tests your energy, it tests your intellect, and, like any large commitment, it forces you to grow. If I was to give any advice to a first time author, it would be that, like any brand, we need to recognize that we must now all be community architects. Even if you’re writing a book, you need to consider all the different channels that you can use to build a community that will eventually be the marketplace for your book. This involves blogging, tweeting, using Facebook, creating content on YouTube, and basically bringing to life the intellectual property of your book through different channels in a way that will stimulate people’s interest, engage their feedback, and create a sizeable marketplace for the launch of your book.

Empire Avenue CEO Dups talks about The Game Layer, Influence, Network Value and Foursquare

Esteban Contreras — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:07:51 +0000

The “Social Media Exchange” Empire Avenue has been getting a lot of buzz. While I heard about the site last year, people like Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim, Scott Monty, Robert Scoble, Caleb Storkey and David Armano have written very interesting thoughts in the past week or so, and the community seems to be thriving like never before.

I was going to write a few fun Empire Avenue predictions (e.g. A “Buy” button that’s like the Facebook “like” button), but instead I decided to ask CEO Duleepa Wijayawardhana (aka Dups) a few questions about the past, present and future of his company. I think you’ll find his answers, including a hint about Foursquare as the next network to be integrated, very interesting!

Follow @dups and make sure to add some “DUPS” and “ESTEBAN” shares to your social portfolio.

1. What do you think about Seth Priebatsch’s prediction about the next decade being the decade of games and the “Game Layer?”

To be honest, I happen to believe that most of what we do in real life reflects the human mind’s love affair with what we call games. In fact, in most cases a game takes aspects of what we do in life, things we can understand, and place finite scores, missions, obstacles and rewards into it and then allow us to “play” it.

What I will agree with is the notion that this decade will be the decade that the mainstream understands the use of games and gaming layers in more than just building crops and shooting enemies. I do believe we are seeing the start of a generation that has grown up with computer games and can see that games can actually teach us about Real Life and, indeed, ourselves and how we affect our environment. It’struly an exciting time in my opinion.

2. There have been a few applications/sites that simulate investing in people, websites and organizations. What do you think is the one thing that positions Empire Avenue for success?

We studied almost every single one of them :). What we realized almost immediately is that stock market sites are based on current stock market models, which, I hate to say, are complex and almost incomprehensible beasts. With Empire Avenue, we actually went backward in time to a simpler market system. We have a system of “Market Makers,” who are algorithmic”people” who analyse your content and engagement, and create share prices every night. People add to or subtract from that share price by buying and selling. In effect we have created a very simple BUY/SELL/Earnings system which is not at all a real stock market — something that has many more Bids and Asks and so on. We admit, it does take a little while to “get it,” but if you start with Buy and Sell and watch your money grow, the game mechanics should lead you in the right direction. We also have a long way to make the whole thing simpler and easier. The one thing that puts us ahead, in my mind, is our team and our community. The team is dedicated, the community equally so, and they have helped us move the site to what it has become.

3. The fact that Empire Avenue helps us measure and create influence has been getting a lot of attention recently. How does the system measure one’s influence?

We don’t like to use the word “influence” any more. Each of our Network Scores really gives you an idea of your “Network Value,” and we’ll expand on the stats that give you an understanding of your network use. (By “Network” I mean, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc.). The difference between an algorithmic score and the share price is that the share price takes all your scores and then adds the Buy/Sell mechanic to it, which does indicatesome element of reputation. Naturally, in early days people will buy for games and profit, but the same happens in real life; the difference is thatthat initial buy might lead to a valuable connection.

4. What are the benefits for a brand to join Empire Avenue, and more importantly, are there any risks?

The risks are as with any use of social media by anyone, regardless of whether you’re a brand or otherwise. If you are perceived as having done something bad, you could see a backlash against you. This is nothing new and is certainly one risk. The advantage is, in my mind, two-fold:

a. Depending on your ability to engage with users on Empire Avenue, you might just want to connect and use Empire Avenue to value your network interaction. This one is *easy* and requires little to no effort. In this way Empire Avenue can be seen as a training game for a business within social media. We are, after all, a “meta” social network, which connects to multiple networks including our own.

b. You can engage with users by buying and selling, using our search to find people who could be valuable to your brand (not necessarily the most popular, but the most engaged with your product or interest). For example, a search for Samsung: http://www.empireavenue.com/search/#users/samsung . This opens up a world of possibilities: we could create custom Luxury Items forpurchase and sharing with people, so that your brand name can spread; and certainly you get to speak to your Shareholders. The Shareholding concept is also one you can expand on, by rewarding those users who remain shareholders and more. The potential use of Empire Avenue for a brand, as with any individual, is endless.

5. How did your role at MySQL/Sun help you start EmpireAvenue?

Both my roles at MySQL/Sun and BioWare were essential in starting EmpireAvenue. The experience of building out sites for gamers in the millions is obviously an asset, and working at MySQL interfacing with those that produce the world’s biggest websites – from Google to Facebook – was also something I valued greatly.

However, in truth, the biggest help was in working with all the talented and wonderful people that make up our small, dedicated and incredibly passionate team. Without the team, we would not be here.

6. It seems like Empire Avenue depends on advertising and partnerships to provide “Eaves” for users. How have people responded to this business model?

At the moment, we’re earning revenue from the sale of virtual goods –Luxury Items and Eaves themselves — which is something that a lot of other social startups aren’t able to capitalize upon. So far the “freemium” model has paid off quite well for us, and we have other models we’ll roll out in the future.

7. Do you plan on adding other services to Empire Avenue (i.e. Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Color)?

Absolutely. Our immediate goal is to simplify the interface some more, but we built a scalable algorithmic system to support any network or service given a certain number of inputs and parameters. Basically we can implement any network, with specific values assigned to various actions. Our next network is most likely going to be Foursquare, but it’s ultimately driven by what our users are asking for.

8. Will we be able to add multiple accounts in the future (e.g. I use both @SocialNerdia and @SamsungEsteban on Twitter)?

For now we haven’t offered that option, simply because of the complexity of the interface, both for managing but also understanding and connecting. Start simple, complicate life later :) We are now in the market to raise financing for our next round, and with that in hand we’ll be able to growthe product as planned and pursue future opportunities.

Bonus question: Any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Believe in what you build, dream big, don’t give up, get a great team and founders around you, and be passionate. Life is short, so do exactly what you want to do, do it well, and do it with humility and respect for everyone else.

However, most importantly, don’t be afraid of failure; we all fail, but it’s a matter of how you get up when you get knocked down!

Badgeville CEO Kris Duggan on Loyalty, Game Mechanics, and Launching at TechCrunch Disrupt

Esteban Contreras — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 08:04:12 +0000

Kris Duggan is the CEO of Badgeville, a social rewards and analytics platform. The company was officially announced at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt event, where it won the “Audience Choice Award.”

1. What’s the story of Badgeville and what’s your vision for the company?

We make it possible for any web or mobile publisher to reward users for behaviors that align with business metrics — site visits, pages read, photos uploaded, comments posted, links shared, and more. From the very beginning we wanted to design a clean API and turnkey widgets that could track and reward any behavior that occurs on a web or mobile site. We always wanted to include elements of game mechanics, but didn’t want to just add a game layer on top of a website. Instead, we see our offering as an interactive and real-time loyalty program.

Our vision for the company, which is largely a reality right now, is to partner with customers across many different verticals (publishing, travel, education, health/fitness, retail/ecommerce, and other sites with some community aspect) and continue to innovate in helping web managers increase user engagement and loyalty.

2. How would you define “engagement” on the web and why is it so important to have highly engaged audiences?

“Engagement” on the web means different things for different sites. For one site, engagement may be based on how many times a user returns to a site to shop for a product, and how long they spend on that site. For another site “engagement” might mean how many videos a user uploads to a community, or how many “liked” comments he posts. For any site, it’s imperative to have highly engaged audiences. Many quality sites obtain a certain level of traffic through SEO and other techniques to pull visitors into the site, but once they’re at the site, how do you keep them around and coming back? Adding social reward mechanisms to a site provides a quick and easy way to increase engagement in line with any web manager’s business metrics.

3. Game Mechanics (points, badges, achievements, leaderboards) have become increasingly popular. Are you taking all the different “technographics” into consideration or is Badgeville tailored for super users and advocates?

“Games” tend to have winners and losers, and this is why we don’t see Badgeville’s offerings as games. While if you really want your site to have winners and losers, you can do that with Badgeville’s highly-customizable API, for the most part, we recommend that the implementation lets all your visitors be winners. Part of the story is rewarding super users and advocates, and making them feel special as they continue to promote your brand. But another part of the story is rewarding new users and casual visitors for the actions they take on your site, and introducing them to a community of peers who are also taking these actions. In doing so, you’re more likely to convert your casual users to advocates and your first-time visitors into casual users, and so on.

4. Can you integrate with applications/systems that web sites are already working with?

One key element of the Badgeville API is that is was built to easily integrate into existing systems on the web. We work with a growing number of applications and systems that exist on the web already. We are fully integrated with Facebook (“Like” buttons, shares, friends, etc) and can be easily integrated into any commenting system.

5. Who are some of your current customers/partners and how are their implementations unique?

Some of current customers include Philly.com, The Next Web, TechCrunch, Comcast Sports Group, Buzz Media, SlideShare, Social Media Today and many others. We also have customers in the education and shopping spaces that we are not able to reveal quite yet. As far as the implementations go, we start by asking every customer what business metrics they want to increase. Of course, most of the sites want to increase visits, time on site, and page views, but that is where the similarities end. For our traditional publishing customers, our system is flexible enough to hook into their existing comment systems. Our shopping customers reward users for leaving reviews instead of “comments,” while our education customers reward users for completing a quiz. We designed Badgeville to be extremely flexible so the web manager can track any behavior or series of behaviors on a site and reward these behaviors in real time.

6. What are some of the initial results they are starting to see?

Our current live implementations of Badgeville are fast showing increasing engagement on our customer sites. For example, The Next Web is extremely happy with the use of Badgeville in their community. They have heard from many of their users that the rewards and light competition to be of the most loyal readers has increased retention and time between return visits. They also, of course, have data to support these qualitative results with the engagement analytics engine we provide as part of the Badgeville package.

7. What’s the process/relationship, from integration to design and reporting, once a company signs up with you?

We offer a few different packages with varying levels of support. For our large customers, we team up to understand their business metrics and design a system to integrate with their sites. For our current customers with the highest level of support, we start with business metrics and discuss what the top 3-5 business metrics are that the company wants to increase. Then we talk through the number of users on the site, and how many times each behavior must occur in order to merit a reward. Each behavior can also reward one point or more and points, when added up, move a user to a new status level. All of these elements are customizable, and we work with each customer to discover what factors will increase engagement aligned with business metrics. Once this is all decided, we build custom widgets and help the customer integrate the product into their sites. Badgeville also offers a package with API access only, and in this package we provide best practices and additional levels of support to make sure the implementation is easy and successful on any web or mobile site.

8. You received a lot of positive buzz during TechCrunch Disrupt. How would you describe the experience there?

TechCrunch was incredible. When we first came up with the idea for Badgeville, it felt like something that the market would support. As we started talking to customers, we knew it was. But launching any product can be a bit nerve wracking, especially when you are doing it in front of the renowned judges at the event. Making it to the top seven finalists and winning the Audience Choice award, along with many really positive comments from the judging panel of renowned investors and top tech experts, was an incredible way to launch the company.

9. What’s coming up next for Badgeville?

We’re very busy working with our new customers to get their sites up and running with Badgeville’s white label social rewards platform. Our customers Philly.com, Comcast Sports Group, SlideShare, TechCrunch, and many others will go live in Q4 ’10 or Q1 ’11. We’re also continuing to explore implementing Badgeville with website and mobile app owners across many verticals, including travel, education, shopping, and more. Of course in talking to various companies we learn a lot and continue to add features to our product and API offering. We’ll have some more customer announcements soon!

Pop17′s Sarah Austin speaks about Brands on Social Media, Facebook Places, Foursquare, and Lifecasting

Esteban Contreras — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:04:54 +0000

Sarah Austin was one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and she is the founder of Pop17, “a collaborative blogging platform and web show that covers and tracks emerging web trends and tells the stories behind what’s going in social media.”

Sarah and I have a SXSWi 2011 Panel Proposal with Brandon Prebynski, Joel Cheesman, Christopher Kahle and Ryan Paugh. We’d really appreciate your votes and comments at http://bit.ly/howtogetajob by August 27th, 2010.

Listen to this entire 38th episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!” with Sarah Austin on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe on iTunes, stream from your phone on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio. Some show highlights and quotes are below. Enjoy!

Brands on Social Media

”When brands become a part of the community, it really feels like the brand is like your friend. You really love them, like you would a real person. In social media, they take on attributes of people because there are personalitieis behind the brand making tweets, answering questions, customer service, and establishing relationships with people, connecting with people on their interests, and offering something back to the community.”

“Ford’s really great. I had such a time doing the Ford Fiesta Movement. I got to drive a car around and go on all these adventures. It was also a competition. I got to do interviews with Ford designers. It’s interesting to see them being really progressive. Ford used to not appeal to the Millenial demographic. Ford’s really changed and become hip.”

“Companies like Virgin America are doing a really good job. They appeal to a tech demographic and people in social media really like flying on Virgin America. I was able to meet with them and interview Richard Branson. They are really involved in social media and they value people in tech. They syndicate shows like “Wine Library TV” by Gary Vaynerchuck.”

Facebook and “The Social Network” Movie

“Facebook has taken over the world. They own everything but China and they have all the conversations and connections all over the world.”

“To some people, things aren’t official until it’s on Facebook.”

”Movies are starting to document a real movement, a social media revolution, and it’s really hitting the mainstream.”

Foursquare

”I use Foursquare and have been using it for a while. I have a lot of friends there. If I want to know where my friends are right now, I’ll get on Foursquare. Facebook Places hasn’t quite reached that with me yet. I’m still on Foursquare and plug that in to Facebook.

” It will be interesting to see how developers use Facebook Places and do something cool with it. I don’t think this means Foursquare is over. I think they have to create more relationships with businesses, maybe small local business, so they can provide value on Facebook and stay on there.”

Live Streaming Platforms and Privacy

“Each of the platform has its advantages. There’s just a lot going on. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out when YouTube starts to get into the picture.”

“These sites are going in different directions so what will make them stand out for the long-run will be withstanding all the legal issues that they’ll have to go through, and making the sites safe and guarding by age, demographics, and region. The content and making these sites as secure as possible will be some of their most valuable developments.”

“I use Justin.TV and I have a lot of information on there. I’ve had 10 million video views and 27,000 followers there. These are people that have a lot access and have know me about 5 years. I dont really know the informationa bout the people watching me. Having more peripherals set up and have security on my broadcasts. Privacy is a big issue and whichever of these companies can tackle that will have a huge advantage over the competition.”

Word of Mouth

“Word of mouth is one of the most powerful communication tools because people believe that more than anything else. That is the most convincing element.”

Sarah the Geek

“I’m a geeky filmmaker. That’s what I’ve been doing for 13 years. Anything about film making I love to geek out on.”

Interviewing Others

“I think the secret to a good interview depends on whether you’re trying to get a person’s story or trying to get a story out of them. There’s a web of six degrees of separation… everyone is very accessible and the more people that become accessible it opens a lot of doors. What I really wanted to do is capture a positive angle of growth and success, not only contributing to one personal success but also to what they are doing for their communities.”

“I feel like everybody in social media has something to give back to the community and my way of giving back is providing media, documenting and doing interviews.”

Acting

“I took a theater class once. I did act in an indie film that was about a video blogger, it was a horror film. I dabbled in it a little bit, but nothing serious.”

Alternative Careers

“If I had to do something else, it would be something sporty. I’d like to do something where I’m physically active. This might sound silly, but the career before I was thinking about before before was being a park ranger. I hike a lot. It’s beautiful here.”

Our SXSW 2011 Panel Proposal

“We’ll provide a lot of information about how to get a job using social media and how to leverage social media for your career.” http://bit.ly/votesxsw2011

Avinash Kaushik Shares Insights about Real-Time Web Analytics, Actionable Metrics and Powerful Blogging

Esteban Contreras — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:00:02 +0000

Web analytics are cool. If you agree with that statement, there’s a good change you’ve spent some time reading Occam’s Razor, the fascinating blog about web analytics by Avinash Kaushik (author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day).

If you don’t know who Avinash is then just Google “Web Analytics” and you’ll surely find out who he is. I’ve personally learnt much from his thought-provoking and action-oriented writings, and I’m sure you will too. Below is an interview about some of the hot topics in web analytics today.

1. Tools like Woopra have introduced us to real-time analytics. Is real-time the future of analytics? Why are we not there yet?

There is more and more real-time data available. Google Analytics is updated, officially, every hour. Then there are cool tools like Chartbeat, etc. My personal perspective on real time analytics is…. if you can’t take real-time action then why do you want real time data?

In 99% of the cases real-time data is not actionable (it is not statistically significant and people jump the gun on the wrong signals), and companies (big or small) can’t actually take any action even if there is an actionable signal (change campaigns, landing pages, stop emails from going out or whatever). Then why do you want the data?

Real-time data becomes an excuse to stare at computer screens or do data puking. It keeps people from doing thoughtful analysis and looking at non-tactical things (and adding value to their employer).

If your organization meets these two rules: a) You have enough traffic / responses on your site to get statistically significant data AND b) You have a capacity to change things (take action), you should seek out real time data and you should make use of it. If you don’t meet the two rules take a long hard look at if you are engaging in any activity that is adding to your company’s bottom-line when you tap into real time data.

2. In 2007, you wrote a post about “engagement” often being an “excuse,” not a metric. Now that we can measure things like comments, Facebook likes, ReTweets, check-ins, etc., what are your thoughts about the importance of measuring engagement?

My point of view on engagement is simple: What the heck does it actually mean? The answer is? Everything to everyone. Hence my minor displeasure at that metric. I believe in clarity of communication and a razor sharp focus on solving specific problems. Hence precise measurements, and naming metrics for clarity.

Engagement means nothing, hence does not drive action.

My recommendation was that if you are measuring time spent on the site as “engagement” then call it Time on Site. If you are measuring the number of visits by one person as “engagement” call it Visitor Loyalty. Then people know what you are measuring and what to do with the data.

With regards to your point about Twitter and Facebook…. it is very very cool that we can measure new things. The metrics I like (or have formulated) are….

# of Retweets per 1000 followers. I call it Message Amplification.
# of Replies sent & received per day. I call it Conversation Rate.

Both measure “engagement”, but they are called what they actually measure. That’s what I recommend. More here: Social Media Analytics: Twitter: Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics.

In each new medium (like social now) we’ll get even more opportunities to measure if we are doing this right. Unique metrics for unique “engagement” processes.

3. Today’s tools and vendors seem to still be fragmented so we find separate tools for web analytics, monitoring, and specific insights. Do you see the industry consolidating to provide clients with a super tool that does it all?

Yes, and no.

Yes in the sense that as things get settled you’ll see tools evolving to incorporate that reporting. AdWords reporting used to be all by itself (it was too young, too new and no one new where it was going). It is now standard reporting included in Google Analytics and Omniture and other tools.

In the last couple of years AdSense, TV, Email, Display are all incorporated into Google Analytics, as an example. Or sometimes different vendors merge things together, as it the case with the 4Q voice of customer survey which merges with Google Analytics.

So as digital strategies reach some level of maturity expect tools by Google and Yahoo! and WebTrends and more to incorporate them together.

No in the sense that we live in such an ever evolving space (I think of web analytics today as a toddler, a lot of growth/change is to come and we actually have no idea what it is going to become). So new things will keep coming and they’ll be outside and we’ll have to become comfortable with what I call Multiplicity, the idea that to do your job effectively on the web you’ll have to:

a) Use the right tool to answer the right question, and b) Be very comfortable with managing / learning / using multiple tools at one time

And I’ll tell that that to me that is just so exciting that the world changes and evolves and you can have so much fun. Every day!

4. Bloggers often pay attention to comments and Social Media sharing as a way to measure success. What should bloggers be paying more attention to?

This should not come as a surprise… I have a blog post on Blog Metrics! : ) Here it is: Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success.

It is important to focus on the impact of social media on your blogging success (retweets, likes, replies to you on twitter and facebook to posts about your blog etc etc). But blogging is about more than social media links / clicks. The essence of my blog post about is that you should measure holistic success of your blog. The metrics I recommend are:

1. Raw Author Contribution
2. Audience Growth
3. Conversation Rate
4. Citations / Ripple Index (social media falls here)
5. Cost
6. Benefit ($$)

Taking that view allows you to have a robust understanding of if you are adding value and if you should keep doing what you are doing (or change!). I encourage people to do that beyond simply checking retweets or likes.

5. Your 10/90 rule is great because it focuses on people, not tools or technologies. With that rule in mind, what advice would you give to young people getting started in marketing research and analytics?

Learn to try new things and play in the real world. There is no better medium in the world for you to try anything you want, all by yourself without the need to rely on your employer to empower you. Tools are free or cheap. Platforms are free or cheap. All you need is a pinch of effort and a dash of desire to learn in the real world. If you do that no one will refuse to hire you because you’ll actually know what the heck you are talking about. If you don’t do that… well…. life will be tougher.

Here is a blog post that outlines how to do that, at least for Web Analytics: Web Analytics Career Advice: Play In The Real World.

6. Your books “Web Analytics 2.0″ and “Web Analytics: An Hour a Day” have not only helped many people, but also created excitement around web analytics. Did you ever think you would one day be the closest thing to an Analytics Rock Star?

There is no such thing as a Rock Star. From dust to dust. :)

But I did want to share that I feel incredibly blessed that blogging and engaging in social media allows me (and anyone else!) to simply do what I am passionate about (writing and analytics), and have something come of it. My blog is responsible for Wiley contacting me and requesting me to write a book and things kept evolving like that. All I did is focus on writing things people would find to be “incredible” and “of value” (my two mantras for blogging).

As you know, all my proceeds from both my books are donated to charity (Doctors Without Borders, The Smile Train and Ekal Vidyalaya), and in around two years that amount is over $100k. I am astounded at that outcome. More than anything it shows how “powerful” each and every one of us can be when we leverage the beautiful internet and focus on adding value through our passion.

Viva la web!

How I became a Social Media Manager with the help of WordPress, Twitter and BlogTalkRadio

Esteban Contreras — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:24:11 +0000

I believe we should all seek to do something meaningful with our lives. While paying the bills is essential, we should try to pursue something that we truly get excited about and enjoy doing on a daily basis. We should try to impact the world in a positive way, even if in a small way.

I’m personally passionate about the convergence of technology, marketing, and the social web. I feel like a huge nerd reading the sentence I just wrote, but it’s true. I like to think, learn, and talk about those three things as much as I enjoy playing sports and listening to music. It’s how I’m wired. If you’re reading this, you might be wired like that too.

So this is a short version of the story of how I went from being a social media participant to a social media content producer to a social media manager, in less than one year…

Up until two and a half weeks ago, I was a tech and business consultant. For the three years prior to that, I had been a consultant with a promising career. I had worked on challenging and interesting projects concerning innovative mobile web sites, IT cost-reductions and, my favorite, identifying social media opportunities for communications service providers.

It was going pretty good. However, my interest in social media was growing. I found myself thinking about the rapidly changing social web on a daily basis. I read blogs like TechCrunch and magazines like AdAge. I listened to podcasts like Buzz Out Loud and kept up with the latest in social media thanks to people I had started to get to know as friends (instead of followers) on Twitter.

I was fascinated by all things social on the Internet and I wanted to further explore the future of the web. I needed a creative outlet. I needed a new “home base.”

So, after two years of thinking of domain names, I finally decided it was time to write a blog I’d actualy read myself. I had created several sites and blogs in the past, but this one was going to somehow stand out from the gazillions of blogs out there.

One night, I was watching a Gary Vee video (the kind of Gary Vee video that gets you excited about stuff) when Jennifer Leggio wrote a tweet with a typo. That tweet inspired the name “Social Nerdia” and Gary’s video reminded me that working hard was going to be worth it. I asked Jennifer what she thought about the name, and she suggested I buy the domain name.

I did.

I had created most of my own previous sites, but I was going to need a really good CMS to be able to pull it off this time. Plus, I didn’t really want to spend any money if I could build Social Nerdia on my own. I chose WordPress and was pleasantly surprised.

WordPress was much better than I imagined it to be and it gave me enough flexibility to make Social Nerdia my own. I decided to make purple the main color. I mean, TechCrunch is all about the green. Gizmodo is pretty much orange. Engadget and Mashable both like blue. Most social networks are also blue. UPS owns brown. You get the idea.

I was going to own purple.

After creating the site, I wrote my first blog post. I called it “The Mindblasting Explosion that is Social Media.” The word mindblasting came from comedian Russell Peters. In the post I talked about how companies and people were using social media, and even mentioned the now popular “snake oil salesmen” that everyone was trying not to be.

In the months to come I interacted with people on Twitter, created videos that I posted on YouTube, and wrote blog posts about products, news, and ideas. Good friends, my brother, and my wife all started contributing to the site. I was enjoying my new life as a blogger.

Sometimes it felt like no one was reading. Other times, a single post created more buzz than I thought it actually deserved. Google Analytics (and later Woopra) provided great insights, but I knew that content had to be my focus, not numbers. I knew a lot about marketing, but content that people actually cared about was hard to come up with.

One day, I noticed that Andy Milonakis was on Twitter. Andy is an actor/comedian/rapper, but he got started making online videos. I exchanged a few tweets with him and sent him a few interview questions. He answered them. And just like that, I became an interviewer.

Soon I had interviews with people like Alex Bogusky and John A. Byrne.

At first, the interviews were all via email, but one day GM’s Christopher Barger changed that. His social media team agreed to do a phone interview with me even though I hadn’t mentioned anything about a phone. A phone interview? I had no idea how I was going to record this phone conversation, but I agreed anyways.

Kara Andrade recommended I use BlogTalkRadio, a web site that lets you turn your phone into a podcasting machine. I fell in love with podcasting. I soon bought a microphone and then another one. Skype and I became very good friends. More importantly, I started to have amazing conversations with admirable people. “The Social Nerdia Show!” gave me a platform to talk with people like Loic Le Meur, Brett Erlich, and Bob Knorpp. I connected with almost all of them through Twitter and I’m still in contact with many of them.

There’s something about Twitter that makes people more willing to respond, more willing to talk to anyone willing to start a conversation. Some people say it’s like a new telephone, but it seems like some people are answering this new telephone much more than the old one. The cool thing about this new telephone is that it lets you be public or private, and always encouraged you to be as transparent and authentic as possible.

One of my favorite interviews was with Matt Moller and Keith Swiderski, Samsung’s Social Media Strategists. The interview with them went well so I decided to send them my resume the next day. I knew there was a social media position available in Dallas (where I lived), so I hoped somebody had a contact there. I received a reply soon after. I was told there was a Social Media Manager position…

In New Jersey.

Less than two months later, I moved to NJ to join Samsung Electronics America as Social Media Manager. While I know that the timing was more than perfect, and that my work experience was what ultimately got me the position, I’m quite positive that I would not have gotten Samsung’s attention with just an e-mail.

Or anyone’s attention, for that matter.

These days, if you want to work in a competitive area that people are passionate about (like social media), you’re going to have to get creative and you’re going to have to work hard. It might take a lot of long nights of hard work (like when you have to post-produce a podcast that had 18 minutes of silence), and many sacrifices (like moving half-way across the country away from family and friends in the middle of winter), but in the end, the things you learn and the people you get to meet can make it all worth it.

So worth it.

I am very grateful with Samsung and one of goals in life now is to help turn the company into a truly social one. I absolutely love what I do every day and I am excited about the opportunities and challenges that will come in the months and years to come. Not only do I get to think about what a Social Media Manager is, but I also get to be one of the first to help define what one should be.

If I have any advice for anyone, it is this: get started.

Think about where you’d like to be one year from now, learn from people that have more experience than you do, and imagine how you could take it to the next level. Don’t be afraid of your dreams and don’t be limited by whatever usually limits you.

If you don’t know where to start… try WordPress, Twitter, and BlogTalkRadio. None of those tools will do the work for you, and we can’t know for sure if they’ll be around five years from now, but each of them is a good starting point.

They were most definitely a good starting point for me.

Disclaimer: I recently joined Samsung as Social Media Manager. While I am employed by Samsung, the views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of Samsung.