Dooley Online

Social Media 101 - Making Connections: 3 Rules of Thumb

Recently, I have been getting a lot of inquiries from students and colleagues asking for guidance on making social media connections:

Should I accept invitations from people I don’t know and even don’t know about? Or should I limit my contacts? What is good form?

Don't feel that you need to respond to everyone who asks to connect. 

Here are three simple rules of thumb:

1. Connect with people (or brands) you know.
2. Connect with people (or brands) you trust.
3. Connect with people (or brands) who have something to say you want to hear.

If you use these three rules of thumb, you should be able to build an online community that best reflects your life, your interests and your information needs.

 

Facebook redesign: Some thoughts

I have to admit that I'm a big one for change, but sometimes I like to know what's coming and prepare for it.

Facebook did what they could to get the word out about their recent redesign of profiles and fan pages. Some of the changes are welcome. Some of them ... well ... we're trying to get used to and realize we need to do some work on our end to make them truly useful.

Eric Larson, a facebook friend, left a thoughtful note about the redesign which raises some interesting points about the role of facebook in our lives -

The New, New Facebook -- some thoughts ...

I've been at this for less than a year and this is the third iteration of facebook that I've experienced. The last change prompted a ton of "I don't like it/Bring back the old fb" messages. This latest change has brought a whole new round of similar comments. I've withheld my own judgment, thinking it's probably just something I have to get used to. My old habits for using fb will give way to new habits.

But this morning I realized what might be a fundamental change. Part of what has amazed me about fb was that it joined so many different aspects of my life onto a common space. I was flabbergasted the first time a friend of mine from my teenage life began conversing with a college friend on my wall. As they joked (at my expense) I was shocked and amused to see two different parts of my life – parts that I had kept separate in my own mind – joined on the page. It was enlightening.

This morning though, as I worked at creating new Friend Lists to better filter the ongoing feed, I realized that I was repartitioning my life again. By categorizing my Friends List – like an old school Rolodex – it'll be easier to sort through all the info, but I worry that serendipitous opportunities -- "bumping into someone or something," "childhood friend this is my co-worker… ," "I saw that video your neighbor posted…" -- might be lost. I'm worried it may prove to move an online "porch community" into one much more like the real communities in which we live.

From an online marketing and analytics perspective, segmenting is good. But, Eric raises some important points that get at the heart of what draws us -- and keeps us coming back -- to social media tools like facebook.

I'd love to have your thoughts on this ...

Ecobags: How I finally became his ... her ... uh, its ... friend

It all started on facebook.

"Ecobag Products" wanted to be my friend. I guess a connection with an environmental product makes sense - I work for an environmental organization and dutifully take my cloth bags to the grocery store to avoid using paper or plastic bags.

There is an ongoing debate about brands on twitter - I fall into the category of believing brand twitters can work as long as they truly twitter.

But brands on facebook with personal profiles - well, it was kind of weird. On facebook, PEOPLE have personal profiles, people create groups (where anything goes) and events, and brands (which can include very popular people) are represented through pages.

At least that's the general rule of thumb.

So Ecobag Products sat on my facebook friend requests page ... for several weeks. Each time a new friend request came in, I'd see Ecobag Products sitting there - unfriended.

Then today, I received the following digg ...

I read GenGreenLife's review of a new eco-friendly bag (which wasn't really) and I started thinking about lonely, unfriended Ecobag Products.

So, I entered "Ecobags" into my Google Chrome address bar (BTW - Google Chrome totally rocks as an internet browser). I found myself at the Ecobags website.

Hmmm ... not bad.

I then typed in reusable bags and found -- what else -- the website of reusablebags.com.

Among other things, reusablebags.com claims,

We've been fighting the massive over-consumption of plastic shopping bags since 2002 and have made a significant impact - inspiring hundreds of news stories and empowering individuals with practical products and activist tools.

Among their plethora of bag choices - Ecobag Products!

ECOBAGS® started in 1989 with a simple goal - to produce quality bags at great prices so that "Reusable becomes a way of life." From their classic string bag to their hemp/cotton blend totes ECOBAGS® are sturdy, sustainable and affordable

Well, Ecobag Products seemed to share my personal goals and had developed some kind of reputation in its niche market.

So, I went back to facebook to see how lonely, unfriended Ecobag Products was doing.

Ecobag Products had 118 friends as a brand.

I had 149 friends as a person - and I had a sneaking suspicion that I've been on facebook longer than Ecobag Products.

Hmmmm.

Listening to and measuring the online conversation

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This builds on Beth Kanter's post, "What is the value of listening to social media channels for your organization?"

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As a web analytics person, a challenge has always been getting the right metrics to the right person at the right time. 

In this post I'm going to focus on two areas where we currently provide metrics for World Resources Institute staff.

Website metrics (http://www.wri.org)

Moving from Webtrends and AWStats to the free Google Analytics tool was the first step in unlocking our content. 

Having said that, we are still using AWStats to track PDF downloads because not all links to PDF downloads originate through our website.

Having years of data locked up in MS Excel spreadsheets, this year we decided to take a different approach and develop tools that could be accessed directly by our staff.

This year we incorporated some basic metrics into an "Analytics Snapshot" posted on every page of our website (staff need to be logged on to the site to access).

* Page views pulled from Google Analytics.

* Number of diggs

* Number of blogs in Technorati linking to the page in the past 60 days. 

* Blog links captured throughout the internet - this number is generally higher than the number identified in Technorati because it includes blogs not currently indexed by Technorati. We also allow staff to add blog postings they find which are not currently captured.

We also have a tracking dashboard which captures some basic site-wide statistics, including:

* New content published on the site by type for the past 3 months and past 3 years.

* Top 10 site searches (search term, number of searches)

* Top digged content (page title, url, number of diggs)

* 7-day snapshot of top 10 pages with most page views (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* 2-month snapshot of top 10 pages with most page views (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 publication pages for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, and sparkline)

* Top 10 projects for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 stories for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

* Top 10 charts and maps for the past 3 months (title, url, date posted, number of page views, content type, and sparkline)

We also provide training and direct access to WRI's Google Analytics account for all staff requesting it so they can run their own reports on the content of interest.

Social Media metrics

In preparation for incorporating major social media stats into these analytics dashboard, we have labeled website content using the Google Analytics campaign schema:

URL?utm_campaign=entry&utm_medium=entry&utm_source=entry&utm_content=entry& utm_term=entry

utm_campaign	utm_medium	utm_source	utm_content	utm_term	destination URL
blogging	twitter	microblog			URL
socialmedia	facebook	wri-group			URL
socialmedia	linkedin	wri-group			URL
newsletter-type	email	newsletter-name-yyyy-mm-dd	hyperlink	hyperlink-text	URL

We use tweetburner.com to both shorten our URLs for posting on twitter (twurl them) and to track our clickthrough rates. Having said that, tweetburner has had problems since Crosspring.com took over - around December 12, 2008. While tweetburner is still capturing clickthrough data, it isn't rolled up on a day-by-day basis so we can't track our growth in clickthroughs over time - something which we found valuable in the past:

There are more than 400 applications currently available to help you manage and track your twitter account. We use the following tools on a regular basis to develop twitter metrics, track conversations, and listen online:

* search.twitter.com. If you haven't used this tool, use it. It is by far the best tool for tracking the conversation on twitter. Search by @twittername, by #hashtags, and by keyword.

* twittercounter.com. This tool was recently updated to show graphs for last week, last month, and the last 3 months. You can also post a badge on your website to advertise the number of followers you have.

* tweetake.com provide you with a backup of all your Twitter data via a .CSV file. You can download and analyze information about your followers, friends and tweets.

* twittergrader.com measures your twittering mojo, just for fun. 

* lessfriends.com identifies who follows you, who you follow and where there is mutual following. A good tool to make a quick account of who you may not be following (but should be).

There are many other tools out there - try them out and determine what works best for your organization's needs. Lists of many tools can be found through my delicious.com account - http://delicious.com/lldoolj2/twitter+tools

Lessons Learned

Listening to the conversation has taught me:

* Opt-in email newsletters are still king in terms of click-throughs. Email will never die, but you need to use it properly.

* People who enjoy the conversations I'm having and connect to me in one social media venue will often connect in other social media spaces as well (twitter, digg, facebook, linkedin).

* People who are leaders in online conversations about our issues are not always the same as those who are leaders in the offline world. You should reach out to both audiences.

* People who choose to follow me or my organization do so because of the conversations we participate in and the issues we care about. Keeping the trust of those who follow and support us is an important responsibility.

* It is important to leverage the active social media networks that are already out there - jump in, listen, contribute and you will develop a core group of dedicated followers who will become advocates for you and your work.

* Free tools I use to connect and to listen: Google Reader, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn, Technorati, SlideShare.net, YouTube, Flickr and other social media. WRI has also been awarded a Google Grant - we are testing our keywords through Adwords and will continue to monitor our clickthrough rates.

* New staff and interns often connect to the World Resources Institute facebook group. There are a variety of ways for an organization to exist in facebook - as a group, as a page, and as a cause. Do your research before determining which of these best reflects the purpose of your organization on facebook. 

* WRI's LinkedIn group members share news and respond to posts. It is worth building or expanding your organization's presence in this tool.

* It is useful to maintain both organizational and personal profiles in the major social media, as appropriate. This promotes different conversations and connections appropriate to each profile.

Social Networking - Yeah, it takes time

Okay, I admit it.

One of the main obstacles to overcome when trying to convince people to get involved in social media is the issue of time.

But recently super social media man Chris Brogan, has tweeted about his time constraints and how he's just going to have to start saying "no" more.

But how do you say "no" in an 24/7 online, interconnected, community-driven world?

I don't know, but I'm going to take time out of my busy schedule to watch this video.