Emerging Media Dictionary

I started this as a document to share with co-workers and clients at work to help with two things: 1) to help them understand the space that I work in and 2) to help me remember not to speak in jargon that has to be explained in a dictionary.

In speaking with a few friends, I decided this could be something to share publicly here.  I borrowed much from socialmedia.wikispaces.com and others, though I did change up a good number of the descriptions since the way I think of them varied a bit or they needed more ‘plain English’ descriptions for sharing here.

Introducing the world to ArtStarters.org

I’ve been working the past few weeks with my team on bringing a great new website into the world.  As November slips by, we get ever closer to our ‘Hello, World’ moment on ArtStarters.org.  The past two weeks have seen me trying to make some headway on building interest among people who can help us pull in beta users.

So what have I learned?

1. Remember to ask! – Don’t just send notes introducing people to your project.  Make sure you ASK for what you want.  I was surprised and excited to receive a note back from the Editor in Chief of a fairly major online arts magazine saying that she’d be happy to help us gain some visibility for our project.  Asking works!
2. Pull out all the stops.  If you’re a student, tell them you’re a student!  If you have no money for advertising, tell them what you CAN provide.
3. Don’t limit yourself to the traditional – I sought out Facebook Groups and sent notes to the administrators.  I’ve heard back from a few, which is a few more people than I’d have reached if I hadn’t done so.
4. Plan for a fraction.  If you don’t plan on hearing from everyone you reach out to, then you’re not as likely to fall short of your goal.
5. Just do it.  The old Nike slogan still has legs – we covered this point time and time again in our program and it seems so obvious, but it’s probably the hardest thing.  Even if you don’t feel ready, you have to start sometime.  I’m not saying don’t make any preparations, but don’t drag it out.  Prepare the minimum, then put your feet to the pavement, otherwise you’ll find reasons to continue to wait!

Also, I have to confess, I’m loving Twitter lists and Listorious right now.  I think Twitter lists are much more user friendly than Twitter directories like Twellow or WeFollow (though those are great, as well) and are perfect to get started with a new Twitter account.

That’s all for now, but I’ll certainly update again when ArtStarters.org is live encouraging you all to go sign-up and check it out!

Brief ramble on oversharing…

I’ve been thinking a lot about oversharing lately – you know, when someone only needs a certain amount of information but you continue to explain yourself anyway. That’s an overshare.

Particularly, it’s been on my mind whether social media causes us to become ‘oversharers’ in other areas of our lives, too. We become so habituated to sharing the whole story – even if it’s in fits and spurts – that we continue to overshare when we step away from the keyboard.

Oversharing is obviously a rampant problem on sites like Facebook. I’ve done it, you’ve probably done it, and we all hear stories of the person who did it much too big ‘that one time’.

Perhaps a ’stop the oversharing’ PSA is in order…

Culture and Social Media Work

I believe pretty firmly in the subtle cultural differences within the regions of the US. As a person born and raised in the Midwest, I think there are a few key differences that I note (and other people seem to point out to me, too), and I think it’s interesting how they affect my work in public relations/social media.

1. An inherent necessity to at least pretend to be friendly : This one’s actually been pointed out to me by lots of people since I moved, that I ‘can’t be from California’ because I’m ‘too nice’
2. Over-apologizing (sorry for being sorry when you told me to stop saying ’sorry’!)
3. A need to act like I don’t have a life outside of work when I’m at work
4. A need to talk too much about work when I’m away from work
5. A tendency to overshare when dealing with any kind of service representative – waiters, valets, customer service people on the phone, etc.

So why do these things matter to my work?  Because they shape the way that I communicate to people who communicate to me!  I do a fair amount of customer service (as you’ll note from some prior posts here) in my communications role, and my responses tend to embody all of the characteristics I mentioned before.  When I learn of a customer service complaint, the super friendly, very apologetic tone.  And you know what?  It works.

People like that tone when they’re talking to a company.  They WANT you to be too friendly and too apologetic.  But on the other hand, I see the values of a West Coast lifestyle helping with social media in different ways – like the ability to take your work with you but still have fun!  All of these social media folks who live-Tweet events and photograph every attendee – that’s a great skill in social media!  Whereas my Midwestern work ethic means I focus on the moment and often forget to capture things that way, unless I’ve been assigned to take pictures or live-Tweet, but then I often miss the bulk of what’s being said and done!  lol

So what’s your take on cultural differences and work in social media?  Do you buy it?

Media relations put out to pasture?

Is it time, yet? Can we viably say that as traditional print publications start going the way of the dodo that media relations as the core competency of a public relations practitioner is on its way out, too?

One thing that still makes me upset and frustrated with former colleagues and clients is the inability to move beyond measuring the ‘value’ of a media hit. It’s tempting, I know, because it IS something you can clip and paste – you can make a book and see if it’s thicker than the year before. If it is, good work, you’ve still got a job! Less? Please explain.

Just as Brian Solis has been arguing now for years, it began as PUBLIC relations and to such shall it return. Day by day the PUBLIC are becoming the beacons of information, the central hub of sharing and knowledge. It’s true, we’ll always have to work hard to find the right members of the public, but we can’t rest on the bylines of newspapers and magazines anymore. We have to talk to people, eat our own dogfood, get engaged with the product and it’s consumers!

I’m not in social media because I love the bright shiny new toy. I’m entering social media because I think it’s eventually going to be the ONLY place for someone like me – someone who loves to communicate and build bridges between people in companies and people in streets.

What’s up

Just a quick post to highlight the new semester I’m in. It’s going to be a bit of a bear, but interesting.

Currently, we’re in planning stages for the development of my team’s social community. The name has been nailed down, it will be called ArtStarters.org

The first steps were outlining our project scope (who will use it? what problem are we helping them solve? what tools will we give them?). Next is to take our list of tools and give them greater depth, outlining in detail what they have to do (input first name, if no first name upon ’submit’, refresh page with error note) that kind of thing.

Next steps will be to begin shopping for developers. Additionally, we’re taking an internet law class so we understand how to write terms & conditions, what’s legal to ask users to undertake, what we open ourselves up to legally by hosting the sites, etc.

My third class for the semester is my one and only elective and is outside the Annenberg Communications school. I’m in a class in the business school looking at the business of the networked digital industry; how is the internet and the demand for ‘always on’ going to affect companies like Nike or General Mills? What do the hardware companies need to do to keep up? Just how far behind IS the U.S. in terms of internet speed and connectivity (umm, way far; we’re about to go 4G which I vaguely recall is like 10MB and South Korea is consistently at 40MB, um, yeah, bad news bears). It should give me a wider global perspective on how networks are changing business cases.

Finally, I’m going to be writing a little eBook, so keep your eyes open for more info on that one!

Intarwebs changes our minds

I was reading the most recent edition of Wired Magazine that landed on my doorstep this week.  There’s an interesting piece written by Clive Thompson using research from the Stanford Study of Writing organized by Professor Andrea Lunsford.

The argument is that we write more than we ever have despite as critics bemoaning that the the internet ruins students’ writing skills.  We’re probably vastly different (and more participatory) writers than humans have ever been.

Old-school reference material

That got me thinking. What else does the intarwebs change about us? I’ve noticed that people in my program at school who are also working in jobs where they are online the most are also the people who are most likely to cite internet sources, or cite sources at all.  Does the internet make us better referencers? Are we all becoming librarians of a type?

And what about kids with mobile phones that access the internet? Are they more social than we’ve ever been? Teens have always been highly social animals, but the opportunity for constant connectivity wasn’t there before; at some point you had to go home and try to sneak privileges to the corded phone. No longer. In another Wired story (apparently my source of choice today!), it’s explained that texting in the company of others isn’t rude – “texting those who couldn’t be there lets everyone feel they’re part of a larger social network.” This was according to research by Mimi Ito, a well-recognized researcher in the electronic culture of Japanese teens.

Another point made by Ito, this one to the New York Times, is that this persistent use of social technologies is not (as many adults would see it) a waste of time, but rather training for the future digital literacy that we’ll all need to get through our lives.  Ito’s point reflects much of what Henry Jenkins argues in his book ‘Convergence Culture’.  All of these new toys and games are really a practice grounds for generative tools that will become part of our social and economic fabric – it’s just that in human culture, those things that become important innovations often start as ‘novelties,’ widely seen as objects of fun or play but not ’serious’ value.

So the next time I walk around quoting websites like a librarian quotes books – you’ll know why.  My brains are being changed by the intarwebs!

Connect the spots

Twitter - meet Chain Letter

While attending Twiistup the other week, I caught a panel discussion on social media and music.  The part that really got my attention was the point – made by Chamillionaire, a rapper and forward-thinking, social-media-using entrepreneur – that social media tools are useless unless you’re building your ‘lists.’  Whether that’s a list of Twitterati to reach out to, an e-mail list (still like gold ’round these parts) or a list of names and mobile phone numbers, you can’t let these communications go to waste.

As a communications person, I want to act on this, I want to keep track of my fans and customers so that I can do a good job of connecting them to the information they’ll find interesting and will help me make sales.

But what to do? Social communities are replacing e-mail (social communities were more popular than e-mail according to a 2008 Nielsen Online study).  So how long will e-mail lists still be the gold bullion by which all other digital currency is measured?

Will we ever find a way to actively gain and use mobile numbers? Consider research detailed by MediaPost which describes that mobile users find SMS marketing messages “invasive” but will welcome point-of-sale messaging which doesn’t lend itself to list building.

As a frequent subscriber to new services, new tools, new things online in general, I personally tend to find that e-mail marketing is done so poorly that it provides less value to me than the Twitter Chain Letter I pictured.  Receiving almost daily updates (or in some cases, strike the almost part!) from catalogs, stores and other outlets that I logically know cannot be adding new content or product at that rate is aggravating and, yet, almost impossible to unsubscribe from.  But I’m also one of those mobile users who find mobile marketing invasive – my phone is the last bastion of marketing, the one which I will fiercely defend from receiving advertising, as much as I like to use it in my own purchase pursuits.

For my own efforts, I’ll probably be sticking with old faithful in the e-mail list building, while keeping my eyes open and ears to the tracks for feedback on my methods from my fans, followers, subscribers and friends.

Trying out Prezi…

<object  width=”320″ height=”200″> <param name=”movie” value=”http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader-beta.swf?prezi_id=145536&amp;experimental=embed”/> <param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true”/> <param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/> <param name=”bgcolor” value=”#eaeae2″/> <param name=”lock_to_path” value=”0″/> <param name=”autoplay” value=”no”/> <embed id=”prezi” src=”http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader-beta.swf?prezi_id=145536&amp;experimental=embed&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;autoplay=no” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”320″ height=”200″ bgcolor=”#eaeae2″> </embed> </object> <p>from <a href=”http://prezi.com”>prezi.com</a></p>

Did it work?!   If so, then what you’re seeing is a class presentation based on a paper I did for my research methods course.  The assignment was to use a content analysis to study something, so I applied it to the question of the impact of eWOM on movies.

Widgets?

I’ve been wondering lately – with so many things moving from the web to mobile, are mobile applications completely replacing the widget? It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a well-executed, popular, buzzed about widget. It seems lately, all the ‘cool little things’ are mobile or platform-supported (Twitter, Facebook mostly).

Just a shorty, but it got me thinking.