Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Texas Has a Vibrant Social Media Scene, Really...

 

awards
With the South by Southwest Interactive (SxSWi) festival set to kick off early next month the Austin American Statesman, the newspaper of the Texas State Capital, made a call for nominations for a Texas Social Media Award.

Somehow, I was one of the 125 people nominated for the award and while I was off in the hospital having a new baby (Logan Huyse), some very generous people said some very very nice things, for which I am grateful.

A panel of judges from the paper, including Omar Gallaga (@omarg), Addie Broyles (@broylesa) and Robert Quigley (@robquig and @statesman) then culled the list down to 25. Somehow, I made that cut too. The criteria they used to judge us included looking for people who had given back to the community. If that is the reason for which I was chosen for the award than I am truly humbled and honored. To give back and share is the whole reason I started this blog and that I continue to write and participate.

I was also amazed by the depth of the social media community in Texas. The award winners are an amazing group of people, and the ones that I don't already know I am making a point of adding to my network.

I suggest that you check them out too. Even if you don't live in Texas, I think you will find them an amazing group of people.

Henry “Rizoh” Adaso, Houston. Music journalist specializing in rap and hip-hop.

Joshua Baer, Austin. Developed OtherInBox.com, software to streamline e-mail use.

Perry Belcher, Austin. Perry Belcher, Austin. Marketing strategist who blogs on topics from startups to real estate.

Michael Chapman, Austin. Former lobbyist who co-founded both Social Media Club Austin and the International Social Media Club.

J.R. Cohen, Houston. Café manager who uses Yelp, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with customers.

Michael Cote, Austin. Software industry blogger.

Sam Decker, Austin. Marketing guru and author of two books.

Jenn Deering Davis, Austin. Co-founder of Appozite, a company connecting e-commerce buyers and sellers. 

Lori Falcon, Abilene. Blogger who reviews food, critiques products and services and shares blogging tips.

Kyle Flaherty, Austin. Marketing and public relations specialist.

Matt Glazer, Austin. Political and new media consultant who is editor of BurntOrangeReport.com.

Lisa Goddard, Austin. Marketing director at Capital Area Food Bank of Texas who uses the social web to mobilize nonprofit action in Texas.

Michelle Greer, Austin. Web marketing strategist.

David Guenthner, Austin. Social media steward for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and host of Texas PolicyCast, a weekly audio magazine.

Kami Huyse, Houston [by way of San Antonio]. Public relations specialist.

Cali Lewis, Dallas. Social media butterfly known for her podcasts of "shiny, happy tech news" at GeekBrief.TV.

David Neff, Austin. American Cancer Society communications specialist who developed SharingHope.TV, a Web site for visitors to share their experiences fighting cancer using multimedia.

Erica O’Grady, Houston. Social media consultant and award-winning Web designer.

Bryan Person, Austin. Founder of Social Media Breakfast, a multicity networking event.

Connie Reece, Austin. Social media consultant and co-founder of Every Dot Connects, an online social media consortium.

Benn and Lani Rosales, Pflugerville. Creators of AgentGenius.com, an online magazine for real-estate agents.

Dwight Silverman, Houston. His blog at the Houston Chronicle is a favorite stop for tech junkies around the state.

Aaron Strout, Austin. Vice president of marketing at Powered Inc. and former strategist at Mzinga, a social media consulting firm.

Paul Terry Walhus, Austin. Blogger, video blogger, videographer, Web developer and Web host with more than 8,000 followers on Twitter.

Michael Williams, Austin. The chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission is using social media in his run for the U.S. Senate.

Even though SxSwi will be the most well-attended social media focused conference on the planet, and certainly in Texas, I hadn't planned on attending this year due to the fact that I just had a new baby less than a month ago. However, I think I will try to make this event, if only to meet my fellow Texan winners. If you will be at SxSWi, you can attend too on March 15 at Ballet Austin’s downtown building (501 W. 3rd Street). Tickets are on sale now for the event, which will include a cocktail party and an awards show.

I hope to see you there.

Posted by Kami Huyse at 12:47 PM |
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Contextual Advertising in Facebook Mimics Social Interaction

Over the past few months I have noticed that Facebook has become a destination for all of my old friends from high school and even for my parents. A new wave of people have arrived, I would suspect we are in the early majority stage of social networking on Facebook which follows those of us who were early adopters of the service.

Diffusion of Innovation

Along with the arrival of these new digital denizens has come an interesting issue. Up until now most of the people that we have corresponded with through social networks have been people with whom we share commonalities, be it interests or career, and not necessarily with people we know well offline (by percentage).

Now I find myself corresponding with people that I DO know offline but that, for one reason or another, I lost touch with over the years. with many the only thing we have in common is a shared experience in our past (work, school, etc).

Two things happened today that made me consider how social networking services that have started to welcome the late majority will change.

First, I was served this advertisement in my Facebook adspace. It featured my friend and colleague Jason Falls (Jason, did you know you were an ad in my network). It was quite possibly the first time I have ever paid attention to an ad in Facebook when Jason's familiar photo caught my eye. Apparently he is a fan of WeSeed.

Social Ad Jason Falls

WeSeed is a pretty cool virtual stock market site that allows you to own and trade (not with real money) a portfolio of stocks that are related to your interests. It is a Web 2.0 version of The Motley Fool site, which seems to be more for "grownups these days. WeSeed caters more to 20-somethings.

What is interesting about WeSeed and other that use Facebook's Social Advertising tool is that it mashes up its fan page with your friend list when it delivers the advertising. In other words, this is a PR play (the Fan page) combined with targeted/behavioral advertising.

Voila! Your friends are now selling you on the legitimacy of the advertiser without their explicit knowledge. And if Jason Falls doesn't do it for me, maybe one of my other friends will. A reload of the page brought out Shannon Paul.

As all of our networks expand with the new wave of entrants, this kind of advertising will become more prevalent, even as the US Federal Trade Commission struggles to come up with ways to determine what kinds of behavioral targeting is ethical.

Overlaying this is the quality of the relationships that people are building online. already I have heard complaints about digital only "friends" being a surface exercise, and now I am also hearing the same about reconnections. This comment from Jonathan Block illustrates the point:

Facebook jonathan

I am concerned that the use of advertising mixed into these already fragile "relationships" might further erode the effectiveness of the outreach.

What do you think?



How to Opt Out of Social Ads on Facebook

UPDATE: In the comments, Keli Whidden shared how you can stop Facebook from using your profile picture in sidebar ads. I thought it would be a good idea to share it here (this is as of February 2009).

  • Log in to your Facebook Account
  • Go to Settings in the top right navigation bar
  • Choose "Privacy Settings" from the pull down menu
  • Click on "manage" in the Privacy setting choice in the list
  • Select the "News Feed and Wall"
  • Pick the "Social Ads" tab (at the top)
  • From the drop down menu choose "no one"
It seems to me to be a lot of steps (7) to opt out of this feature, but glad that at least you CAN opt out.
Posted by Kami Huyse at 1:25 PM |
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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

The Age of Responsibility

Guest post by Andrea Weckerle

On January 20, 2009, I was one of the millions of viewers of U.S. President Barack Obama's inaugural address. His address was serious yet hopeful, emphasizing all citizens' responsibility to meet the challenges facing the nation and the global community:

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

I was heartened by the inaugural address, not because of party affiliation, but because of President Obama's introduction of the theme of responsibility, which, interpreted broadly, presents an opportunity for each individual to move purposefully towards a positive and productive goal.

As someone who arguably spends as much time in the online space as in the terrestrial, offline environment, I'm particularly interested in responsibility as it pertains to the online behavior of heavily-engaged or vocal individuals. This interest actually started nearly three years ago when I came across a discussion of the Online Disinhibition Effect, defined as:

"It's well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly.Researchers call this the 'disinhibition effect.' It's a double-edged sword."

Since then I've had numerous talks with leaders in the online space, asking whether they felt there had been an increase or decrease in inappropriate or intentionally hurtful behavior. The answers were usually mixed, meaning that while many respondents felt, as do I, that as more people go online and participate both professionally and socially, their ability to interact productively increases, but that we have also witnessed a new depth of the most negative behavior.

For example, there is the unfortunate existence of snark, which, while not unique to the online world, is easy to engage in and propagate in a 24/7 environment. In his newly published book Snark, David Denby describes it in the following way:

"What is snark? You recognize it when you see it -- a tone of teasing, snide, undermining abuse, nasty and knowing, that is spreading like pinkeye through the media and threatening to take over how Americans converse with each other and what they can count on as true. Snark attempts to steal someone's mojo, erase her cool, annihilate her effectiveness."

So while snark and other similar forms of communication tend to inhibit or shut down open communication, what might be considered responsible online behavior? Reasonable people can differ on the exact definition, but perhaps a good starting point for discussion is the idea that if an overarching goal of discourse in civilized society is the free exchange of ideas, then the creation of an environment where everyone's ideas are evaluated based on their strength and value - and everyone feels comfortable expressing them in a rational manner - should be an overarching goal.

What are the factors or elements you consider necessary for the existence of a robust system where the free exchange of ideas is fostered and supported?

Andrea Weckerle is an entrepreneur with a background in law and communications.

Posted by Lauren Vargas at 6:25 AM |
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Tuesday, February 03, 2009

You’d better have a hose if you want to put out the fire

Guest post by Beth Harte

324729869_b3574962e2[2] I’ve always wanted to use that title for a post! It’s the title of one of my favorite books on crisis communications by Rene Henry. Rene was a member of the Philadelphia PRSA when I first met him and bought his book. Even though it’s 8-9 years old, “You’d better have a hose…” is chock full of case studies and examples of crisis situations that are still relevant today. Rene does a great job of illustrating how each situation could have been avoided or neutralized with something that seems so simple to us in the social media world today…communication.


Today it seems like minor or major crisis situations pop up in the papers and on the Internet all the time and when they do, they also automatically come under the scrutiny of every marketer, PR or social media person with a blog too. Needless to say, these situations can leave a company feeling unprepared, vulnerable and rattled at the very least. Even with all the great posts and articles available on crisis communications―including everything from engaging detractors to crisis communications 2.0―it seems that companies still struggle when it comes to dealing with a crisis.


It’s really important for all communicators to learn how to handle any type of crisis―whether it stems from the media (on- or off-line) or on-line detractors―because it helps provide the communicator with a level of confidence.


There are a lot of crisis communications trainers available that can help a company to develop a crisis team and plan, but be sure not to get stuck with a 3” ring binder stuffed with an in depth crisis plan that no one will ever read let alone know how to implement when the time comes.


Here are some simple, yet actionable steps that I was taught and implemented as crisis communications practitioner. These steps can be used for traditional media or social media crisis situations.


Basic Planning:

  1. Invite all departments that could be affected by a potential crisis to a meeting (marketing/PR, legal, manufacturing, IT, executives, etc.).
  2. Document each department’s crisis concerns then rank them from low to high in crisis level and low to high in level of potential.
  3. Make a color-coded table of the crisis situations (Red = high level crisis, high potential, Orange, high level crisis, medium potential, etc. Colors can vary.).
  4. Select the crisis team (typically one key person from each department).
  5. Select who will be the spokesperson/people during a crisis (a media trained spokesperson is ideal).

Basic Strategy:

  1. Invite the crisis team to a meeting to review the table, agree on each situation and its level and potential.
  2. Develop a potential response for each situation (obviously until the situation occurs, you can’t have an exact & accurate response, but it helps to be prepared).
  3. Develop a business card size call tree for the crisis team. Make sure that there is one person who is the ONLY key contact for media (when it comes to blogger relations, you may have more than one person). It’s that person’s job to contact the rest of the tree and inform them of the crisis situation.

Basic Practice:

  1. Select a partner to work with the key contact to randomly test their crisis situation skills (ex: “Hi, this is Sue from the Daily Herald, word on the street is that your company will be having massive layoffs this week any comments?”). Or practice writing comments for potentially negative blog comments & posts.
  2. Takes notes on how the practice calls/comments were handled. Evaluate, repeat, practice even more.

Easy steps to crisis management, it’s impossible right? One might think so, but I’ve found that when potential crisis situations are actually ranked (from the potentially realistic to the potentially outlandish), discussed and strategized for it actually helps to curb corporate risk aversion. It also helps when there’s a crisis team in place that is all on the same page, practiced and confident. That said, these 10 steps assume that you are dealing with a team that understands public relations and is media trained. When it comes to actually speaking to your publics during a crisis, the key basics of being honest, forthright, etc. still hold.


During a crisis there isn’t time to look up the rules in the playbook and there surely isn’t time to get permission to implement the rules (by that time a company might have missed its opportunity to engage!). You only have time to get the hose, turn on the water and put out the fire!


What do you think? Could these 10 basic steps help move your crisis communications planning in the right direction or do you think you need something more complicated?


(Image courtesy nep.)


Beth Harte is the Principal of Harte Marketing & Communications, a speaker and an adjunct professor at Immaculata University. Beth blogs about marketing, communications and social media at her blog The Harte of Marketing, which is featured in AdAge’s Power 150, a globally recognized ranking of top media and marketing blogs. Beth also blogs for MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog and Search Engine Guide.

Posted by Lauren Vargas at 11:59 AM |
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