Sep 15 2008
Tomorrow night, 9/16 at 9pm EDT/8pm CDT/7pm MDT/6pm PDT/ 01:00 on 9/17 GMT, Connie Reeece (@Connie on Plurk) will host a plurkshop on delicious and how to maximize it! Be there (or don’t).
**Note original post stated) 02:00, that is incorrect. The correct time is 01:00. Many apologies- deb
Aug 07 2008
For those of you who have not yet succumbed to the siren call of social media in the form of Plurk and Twitter, a “Plurkshop” is a pretty neat way to collect the thoughts, ideas and whimsical creativity of some of the smartest marketing people on the web. Or, it can be a way to help your colleagues develop an understanding of what you do in a way that they can discuss it intelligently with others. Can I hear anyone thinking “referrals”??
Focus Groups are one of the most widely misunderstood applications in marketing research. Everyone will say they know what a focus group is, but when you press them for a definition, what they come out with may be extremely different from what someone else might say. People routinely say “let’s do a focus group”, when what they mean is “let’s have a meeting”, or “let’s get a whole bunch of our customers together and feed them and ask them how much they like us.”
So Tuesday night, I hosted a “Plurkshop” and invited everybody to weigh in with thoughts, questions, preconceptions, criticisms or anything else relevant to the topic.
We discussed everything from reasons for doing groups, to who hires the moderator, to how much they typically cost. Many of the Plurkshop attendees had some direct experience as a participant or client or had studied the issue in graduate school. Still, as you will see, there is some significant variance in thought regarding how groups are best to be used, and whether they are effective in helping marketers make informed decisions.
One important issue we did not discuss: The best way to insure the success of anyone’s focus group project is to hire a good, experienced moderator. A good moderator will not be the one who wins a competitive bid with the lowest price, and will not be the one who rolls over when you say that Jerome in HR wants to add a few questions at the end of the group. If you treat hiring a moderator like you would hiring a surgeon, you can’t go wrong. And it IS that important. See my long discourse on hiring a moderator here.
Plurkshops are a pretty neat way to learn, but also to ask questions that might be relevant to your business. I’ve asked technical questions that were quickly answered by experts in all of the following areas:
And imagine the possibilities if you need some quick thinking for a marketing question -
None of this will ever replace traditional research, but it is a great place to go if you want to develop some hypotheses for later testing, or just to get a quick read or short list of places to look for something. It’s limited only by your imagination.
Which, come to think of it, has always been marketing’s most effective limitation. How much does it limit you?
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Aug 07 2008
Join us on Tuesday, August 12 @ 10pm ET (Wednesday, August 13, 2am GMT) to discuss the benefits and challenges of switching your blog from Blogger to WordPress. Debra Simpson, @Debra, will share her wisdom with us. This Plurkshop will be hosted by @plurkshop. Please friend @plurkshop to get reminders and attend!
Aug 06 2008
By Jane Chin
If our personal brand is our most valuable asset, then content is an important contributor to our online efforts to cultivate our personal brand. Unauthorized piracy or reproduction of our content either by another blogger, or worse, “splogger” (spam blogger) at best dilutes our effort. At worst, our credibility may be questioned if a prospective client assumes our affiliation with the splogger or blogger whose website is perceived as objectionable.
Copyright Infringement versus Plagiarism versus Splogging
Teeg first brought this to my attention when she noted that “some copy posts without the intent, but that’s more of a copyright or plagiarism issue.” Connie in turn suggested that we define and differentiate plagiarism and splogs, and pointed out that splogs are “mostly created by bots and feeds.”
I realized very quickly into the plurkshop that we may be dealing with two three related issues that may each warrant its own plurkshop and still generate voluminous discussion. I thought this was 2 issues until I read Wikipedia’s entry on plagiarism and how this is not the same as copyright infringement - see definitions below. [Plurk to self: next time, tackle a really well defined topic if I were to host another Plurkshop.]
Definitions From Wikipedia
Are Splogs the New face of content scraping?
Teeg asked: How much of a blog post are you counting as splogging? The entire post or some of the post? Connie shared an excellent article by Lorelle, a WordPress expert on identify and fighting splogs: http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/09/23/how-to-spot-a-splog/ . This article includes courses of actions you can take and how you can fight back.
In essence, the sploggers’ goal is to make money by gaining page rank from displaying other people’s blog content on the splog and creating link-backs that increases the splogs’ visibility. Thoughtwrong said that “some sites are complete scraping bots and it dosent matter what content they get, those are the ones to look out for the most”.
Gassho noted that in reality, when we publish anything on the web, we are running the risk of being ripped off in some way. I agree, which was why I talk about “deterrence” rather than “prevention”. Connie said people may view splogs as “inescapable, like email spam.”
Connie said “some sploggers or content scrapers feel there’s nothing wrong with what they do if they include a link back to you. (I disagree.)” Gassho has been the victim of copyright violation where one of his article has been “in every article bank for yrs now,” but he hasn’t taken action. Over the years I have had a few instances my content copyright violated where either more than 50% of 100% of a blog article I published was copied and pasted on someone else’s blog, with- and without credit. I also have had my blog articles scraped by sploggers.
DebInDenver asked an interesting question: “is there splogging by accident?” Gassho didn’t think so. Gwfrink3 said the only accident he thought of was “an improperly debugged robot run amok” and often “looks like a straightforward taking, not an accident, unless you granted permission.”
How Can You Monitor How and Where Your Blog Content is Used?
How do we know when our content has been ripped off (without attribution or even with attribution if used in questionable fashion)?
In most cases is through Google Alerts keywords, for example, my name “jane chin”. Many of you may do this already as part of performing due diligence on your personal branding effort or blog(s). However, google alerts to your name works IF the splogger or copyright violator included your name in the link. Plagiarists will probably not include your name anywhere: that would defeat the purpose of stealing your content and passing it off as their own.
Gassho noted that you can see pingbacks on your blog, either on the administrative dashboard or via comments. Sir Proudgamer said that his friend had artwork plagiarized and was tipped off about the rip off by a friend on Deviant Art. What this means: building loyal readers and fans can really help extend your reach when monitoring and protecting your work on the web. Teeg said that “Google searches for specific quotes from your posts also works”. Thoughtwrong shared that in Wordpress and other content management systems (CMS) you can see from the dash board what sites are linking to you, (Google) analytics will also do this
I have found a service called Copyscape.com useful. In academia, many are using TurnItIn (http://turnitin.com) but it’s not free unfortunately. Copyscape.com is also not 100% free but at least gives limited results.
What Can You Do as a Blogger?
While some photographers have lawyers on retainer in case of copyright infringement, as Pritcharddesign shared, Gwfrink3 suggests that bloggers who may not be familiar with copyright law involve an attorney in a situation where they found copyright violation or plagiarims. Gwfrink3’s daily newspaper experience has enabled him to have a level of insight to copyright issues that others may not have.
Often, a blogger who confronts a splogger about content scraping don’t get a response, and this is only IF the splogger is even reachable. When offensive content is hosted outside the U.S., copyright violation may be difficult to resolve.
We were fortunate to have EagleHawk joined us in the Plurkshop, because he works for an internet service provider (ISP) that also provides webhosting, and gave us insight from the ISP/webhost’s perspective. EagleHawk suggests that a victimized blogger doesn’t have to to the attorney route the first time; the blogger can send a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice. EagleHawk recommends the following course of action for a blogger whose copyright has been violated:
1. find out the IP (internet protocol) of the splog by using windows for nslookup domain.com
2. find out who the owner of the IP is and report it to their abuse@ address
EagleHawk has been working on http://blog.deadspammerssociety.info/ where he is half way done with all the details of how to report splogs.
Whatever you do - DO NOT COMMENT ON OR LINK TO A SPLOG - even to state a warning that the splog is violating your copyright. Thoughtwrong said that if you let your comment appear on your page w/ the link back to the splog site then its like a big bump in the search engines.
Jul 29 2008
Yesterday, Connie Reece the social media maven who is known for her pink hair and feather boa (and shh, don’t tell her, but she is also one of my role models as I turn my love of social media into a business), led a Plurkshop titled Second Life: The Value of Immersive Experience.
Now first, I should probably explain that Plurkshops are community workshops that were created by the Plurk community. We have had eleven plurkshops so far, including discussions about social media, marketing, Plurk, and blogging.
Second, let me say I have absolutely no experience with SL (Second Life). I remember when it first came out, but I was already playing 2 massively multiplayer on-line role-playing games (MMORPGs) and figured that was enough. Plus I had a rather old computer at the time, so was concerned that it wouldn’t handle SL very well.
Over the years, I’ve been told multiple times that I needed to get on SL. I don’t know how many times I’ve downloaded the program, ready to start, but for some reason I’ve never once completed the registration to use SL (or if I have, it was so long ago that I’ve forgotten and the system has erased me, it definitely didn’t recognize my e-mail when I checked last night).
In fact, my lack of experience was why I volunteered to write this review of last night’s Plurkshop. In part because there was a lot of information and writing out some of it would help me wrap my brain around it, and because there was a great mix of SL pros and newbies, so there were a lot of great questions asked and answered. 
For a few days before the Plurkshop, Connie had a questionaire about SL posted on plurkshops.com, the best place to go if you’re wanting to know about an upcoming Plurkshop or
find information about a prior one. Some of the questions really had me thinking. For instance, can you guess how many active users there are on SL (people who have logged on within the last 60 days)? Care to guess how much businesses invested in virtual worlds in 2007? Any idea how much real money people spend on virtual goods? (Here are the answers.)
In addition to Connie, (who is Reece Llewellyn on SL), we were honored to have 2 SL pros, Patricia Anderson and Sarah Hutchinson.
Patricia (Perplexity Pleccable on SL) is an Emerging Technologies Librarian at the University of Michigan and helps with SLUM (Second Life University of Michigan). She is also active on both Plurk and Twitter as pfanderson.
Sarah’s blog, Grid Life, is written by her SL character Kippie Friedkin. Sarah mentioned she has been active in SL for about 2 years and started out working for an interactive developer for a company that offered SL services. She is also a mentor in SL. On Plurk and twitter, she is known as kidmarmite.
Since there were a couple times last night that I wished I had a SL dictionary, I’m going to start by mentioning a few of the terms that came up in conversation.
Second Life - Defined by Connie as a virtual world.
Immersive Experience - Defined by Connie as a way of learning which involves as many of the 5 senses as possible during the learning experience and by pfanderson as meaning you have to be there to understand. Showing isn’t the same thing.
Machinima - Defined by moomoney as movies made in a 3d gaming platform, by pfanderson as machine video and by rickwolff as machine + cinema.
Blingtards - Defined by moomoney as people with big hair, ridiculous bodies, and glowing attachments.
Griefers - Definied by moomoney as people out to cause trouble.
Simulation - Defined by rickwolff as a place with buildings, garden, etc. where avatars gather regularly.
At most plurkshops, there are several threads of discussions running through the conversation, which is at the same time one of my favorite things about Plurkshops and one of the things that can make them difficult to follow.
This one was no exception. With topics covering everything from companies using SL to healthcare to getting started, there was a LOT going on during the 1.5 hours that it lasted.
Pfanderson started the discussion off by asking about the value of immersive experience. Moomoney suggested that the value is directly proportionate to what you put into SL. Pfanderson mentioned that she was surprised to find SL so useful and engaging since she hadn’t come into it from a gaming background.
Bethharte wondered what the easiest way would be for someone to immerse themselves in SL after they get registered and are ready to play. In addition to stories about griefers targeting new people, some good ideas were made for getting started from a suggestion by girlfromkansas to look on YouTube for orientation videos, to Connie’s offer to run a plurkshop IN SL, to many of the experienced SLers offering to help those of us who are just getting started.
Connie said that a good way to get introduced to the best aspects of SL is to attend events there such as BlogHer, Relay for Life, and Nonprofit Commons. Pfanderson added that just giving SL 15 minutes a day can make learning it a lot easier.
I found it surprising how many businesses are using SL. Large companies like Dell, may have a special last name for their employees to use. Some, like Cisco and Sun require employees to create SL accounts as part of employee orientation according to kidmarmite. Connie pointed out that B2C (business to consumer) companies such as Coke, Toyota, etc. are more likely to be there than B2B (business to business) companies.
Even non-profit companies are using SL for events and meetings. As kidmarmite pointed out, holding meetings and events in SL saves time and money.
Pfanderson also pointed out that metrics on SL don’t look like you’d probably expect. Although most avatars are created by people under 30, it’s people over age 45 who actually spend the most hours in SL. Connie added that the median age of users is actually in the early 30s and in regards to the nonprofits companies on SL, the age is actually much older.
To me, one of the neatest uses of SL was as an educational platform, from Italian professors who us SL for language immersion experiences, to truck drivers learning to parallel park, to a pandemic response simulation and crisis response. Pfanderson mentioned other educational options, from Genomics training labs to historical immersion experiences.
Of course, this is only a small part of the chat that went on last night. You can read the rest here.
I have to admit, I’m really looking forward to registering and trying out SL now!
Resources:
www.kippiefriedkin.com - Grid Life: Life in SL according to Kippie Friedkin
slum.wetpaint.com - Second Life at the University of Michigan
mblog.lib.umich.edu/slum/ - Includes the slideshare Getting Started in Second Life among other interesting posts.
http://www.kippiefriedkin.com/2008/07/25/second-life-viewer-cheatsheet/ - kidmarmite’s Second life Viewer Cheatsheet. Wow!
slfreestyle.blogspot.com/ - How to look stylist in SL for free!
www.slconvention.org/register/ - Second Life Community Convention registration
slhealthy.wetpaint.com - a wiki collecting health groups in SL
http://del.icio.us/tag/education+slurl - A list of SL educational resources on del.icio.us
fleeep.net/blog/sl-calendar/ - Fleep’s SL Events Calendar
http://writersinthesky.blogspot.com/ - Books, writers, and SL
Jul 28 2008
Here are the answers to the survey, along with some links to Second Life resources.
1. The number of active users (those who have logged on within the last 60 days) is … 1.2 million.
These numbers come from Linden Lab. Over 14 million accounts have been created, and approximately 1.2 million accounts have been active within the last 60 days. Any time I log into Second Life, there are usually around 60,000 users online simultaneously.
Who are these people?
“Second Life users are more mainstream than many assume. It’s not just tech-savvy early adopters or gamers. It’s a much broader cross-section of society with a median age in the early 30’s and nearly half the time spent in world is by women.”
2. Second Life has its own economy and stock exchange. … True
The standard unit of currency is the Linden dollar. The current exchange rate is approximately L$ 265 per US$ 1. Some details from the official Second Life site:
3. The amount businesses invested in virtual worlds in 2007 is … $1.5 billion.
“About $1.5 billion has been invested in companies developing technologies for virtual worlds in the past year and a half, according to a report published this week by Forrester, the analyst firm. Driven by the near complete penetration of broadband, an increasingly technology-friendly workforce, and cheap computing tools, the 3D web would be “the next major wave of the internet’s evolution,” the report said.” (TimesOnline - McKinsey: ignore Second Life at your peril)
The initial over-hype surrounding Second Life lured many businesses to invest in expensive builds prematurely, or without much thought given to longevity, yet the post-hype phase of Second Life is seeing steady growth of businesses with presences in-world. Laura Thomas of Dell (known as @LPT on Twitter and as Pyrrha Dell in Second Life) recently wrote: “While Second Life itself may have hit the “trough of disillusionment” on its hype cycle, it’s on the way to the enlightenment phase; and, virtual worlds beyond Second Life are still something to which you should be paying attention.” (Media Bullseye, There’s Still a Future for Virtual Worlds)
“Many of the mistakes that were made by companies entering virtual environments in the past,” Laura added, “were rooted in the way that they approached their involvement as a marketing exercise — one where it’s all about promoting a product. What makes virtual worlds unique, though, is their ability to immerse people in an experience. And, while we can try to find creative ways to immerse people in a product such as a soft drink, makeup or computers, the real connection comes from interacting with people.”
4. The following educational and business-related activities have taken place in Second Life. … All of the above.
Recently I went shopping in the casbah at virtual Morocco, then teleported to virtual Dublin to listen to live music. Second life provides a way for Conventions and Visitors Bureaus to recreate popular tourist destinations, and for travelers to preview vacation spots. SL travel guide offers virtual vacations
“Apart from pretend sex, there is a lot to do in Second Life. There are classes and lectures to attend at universities, including Yale and Harvard, news coverage and discussion from Reuters, design and architecture experiments, films (both showing and shooting), art galleries and a shape-matching game called Tringo that was developed specifically for virtual world play. Big-name companies are using the space to promote products. Toyota, Adidas, General Motors and Sony BMG all preview their latest offerings there, and IBM has commandeered a huge space - largely cut off from the outside world - for internal communication.” (On the Hour Times: Get a Life!! But Make It a Second Life)
“Trucking companies, for instance, are teaching drivers how to parallel park their vehicles using simulations built in Second Life; Hilton, the hotel chain, is collaborating on a tool to train receptionists in virtual lobbies, and energy giants are developing applications that can help them to train staff on how to deal with a hostage situation on an oil rig.” (TimesOnline - McKinsey: ignore Second Life at your peril)
“American media giant CBS ran a report on the way people with disabilities interact in the world. Businesses such as Cisco and IBM are using it as company meeting and training ground and partially have it as a replacement to the video conference facility. … Meanwhile Universities are increasingly setting up shop there, seeing Second Life as a much richer form of distance learning than has previously been possible.” (Herd: The rise and fall and rise again of Second Life)
“In addition to helping individual patients, virtual worlds are being used for a host of other health-related purposes. Medical schools are using them to train doctors. Health departments are using them to test first responders. Researchers are using them to gain insights into how epidemics spread. Health groups are using them to educate the public and raise money.” (Washington Post.com - Real Hope in a Virtual World
“At the UT Dallas Center for Brain Health some patients with Asperger’s syndrome are using virtual worlds to help acclimate them to the real world. Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, is described by symptoms like a lack of demonstrated empathy, which causes some difficulties in social interaction. … Linden Lab has been working with Asperger patients for some time, and several prominent Second Lifers like Linden Lab Community Team’s Torley Linden and blogger Tateru Nino have Asperger’s as well.” (Virtual Worlds News - Virtual Worlds Help Asperger Patients)
“Take Harvard University, which has offered for-credit classes in Second Life for more than a year. Instructor Rebecca Nesson told me that virtual worlds, when compared with earlier distance education technologies, are a ‘giant leap forward’ in their ability to enable communication, class participation and certain types of simulated activities. More than 100 other schools and universities have also held classes or sessions in Second Life.” (Second Life Research: Second Life’s Virtual Potential Is Real)
5. $1.5 billion.
“People spend over $1.5 billion on virtual items every year. Pets, coins, avatars, and bling: these virtual objects are nothing more than a series of digital 1s and 0s stored on a remote database somewhere in the ether. What could possibly possess people to spend real, hard earned cash on ‘objects’ that have no tangible substance?
“… While people preoccupy
themselves with mocking the absurdities of some of these virtual worlds, the reality is that there are many businesses out there making meaningful amounts of money in virtual goods.” (TechCrunch - Virtual Goods: the Next Big Business Model)
Why do people so spend so much money on virtual goods? In the TechCrunch article, author Susan Wu points out the following:
6. Online auction giant eBay handles land sales in Second Life. … True
eBay has partnered with Linden Lab to provide the technology for land auctions in Second Life.
________________________________________________________
Plurkshop host: Connie Reece, Every Dot Connects
[@Connie on Plurk, @conniereece on Twitter, Reece Llewellyn in Second Life]
Special guests:
Chris Collins, University of Cincinnati Second Life Learning Community
[@Fleep on Twitter, Fleep Tuque in Second Life, Fleep's Deep Thoughts]
Patricia Anderson, Emerging Technologies Librarian, University of Michigan
@pfanderson on Twitter/Plurk, Perplexity Peccable in Second Life]
Sarah Hutchinson, Grid Life
[@kidmarmite on Twitter/Plurk, Kippie Friedkin in Second Life]
Jul 27 2008
Date: Monday, July 28, 2008
Time: 10:00 pm Eastern / 7:00 pm Pacific
Connie Reece (aka Reece Llewellyn) will lead an informal discussion on the merits of Second Life as a social network, with a look at the implications for your business or nonprofit organization.
UPDATE: To participate in the plurkshop, log onto Plurk.com and add plurkshop as a friend. I’ll kick off the discussion on the plurkshop account and send a link to the exact plurk page so everyone can follow the conversation. Warning: the high number of participants turns the conversation thread into the equivalent of a chat room. It’s sometimes difficult to follow the conversation, but it’s all archived for later review. And a recap will be published here on the Plurkshops blog.
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Jul 25 2008
Custom CSS and Profile Design are two of the newest enhancements to our Plurk way of life. Many people have asked and once again the A-Team came through.
But it seems as though some people are not taking too kindly to this feature. Why is this such a debated topic? What kind of great or horrible things can come from this? How have people reacted thus far, and will enough reactions cause this feature to fail?
Charles Weber (@thoughtwrong) will host a discussion on this controversial topic on Saturday, July 26th at 6:30pm CST
(if you haven’t done so, please follow @plurkshop so you can receive announcements and be able to join in.)
All are welcome!! And don’t forget to tell your Plurk friends.
- Charles Weber, A Pleep just like you! Founder of mypleeps.com
Jul 25 2008
The latest Plurkshop was hosted on Thursday by marketing expert Lewis Green of L&G Business Solutions, on the topic of The Downsides of Social Media and Social Networking. I’ll recap the conversation here, but please make a point to review the thread for yourself here as Plurkshops always have so much good information that it’s hard to catch all of it in one post.
First, Lewis asked us how effective are our blogs in reaching our audience/customers? He cited a recent Pew internet study that said that ‘only’ 50% of internet users read blogs (Lewis clarified that Pew reported 35% read blogs in 2006), and added that for any individual blog, that readership is obviously only a very small fraction of that. He asked us how we can reach our intended audience, if we aren’t?
Teeg made a great point that she can reach an intended audience by sharing links on other social sites, and by adding a relevant context. She explains that doing so on one social site netted her 350 hits in an hour. Greg Hollingsworth added that the threaded conversation format on Plurk allows us to add greater context to each link, as opposed to Twitter.
Lewis then asks if it really helps your business if your blog has a large readership, and how do you reach your customers if they aren’t reading blogs? Marjorie, Greg Hollingsworth and myself all noted the importance of going out and finding your customers, going to other blogs and social sites, or even message boards and forums, and interacting with them there. This helps raise your blog’s awareness with the group of customers that you are trying to target.
Lewis then asks why would businesses spend time with social media? Janechin reminded us that social media needs to be a long-term business strategy, not an attempted short-term fix. Lewis then makes the claim that most of a blog’s readers are already customers for that company, and the company wants to see them converted into evangelists, if they aren’t already. Greg Hollingsworth then makes the great point that social media in a business-sense isn’t simply about connecting, it’s about engaging on that connection.
Greg then added that most businesses are using social media to attempt to draw in new customers. Sonnygill added that he believes this is because upper management at many companies see blogs as selling tools. Cambeck clarified that social media can be used to draw in new customers, or reach existing ones. Lewis then claimed that social media should not be the main way to reach your customers, or to build a business around. (BTW I agree with Lewis that in MOST cases this is true, but if social media is the main way that your customers are connecting with each, and offers you the best way to reach them, then you need to follow their lead).
We then discussed how focusing on only new customers could lead to deteriorating relationships with existing ones. I maintain that in most cases, embracing and empowering your existing evangelists is more important, and they will help you draw in new customers with their excitement and enthusiasm for your brand. Lewis echoed this, saying that the main goal should be to service existing customers well, so they will draw in new customers via positive WOM. BethHarte then pointed out that social media is a great way to stay in touch with customers and keep them involved. Marjorie added that “current customers may love the attn and then turn into your evangelists who can complete your marketing cycle for you”.
Marjorie then asked for examples of companies that are successfully using Twitter to reach their customers, and Dell, Zappos and Comcast were mentioned. Adreich added Flock.
Janechin offered that companies that attempt to use SM to establish their brand would become frustrated very quickly, and Lewis agreed (Stormhoek might argue this ;)).
DaveWebb asked for examples of the ‘downsides’ of SM and SN. Lewis said that many businesses simply not understanding how to use social media, is a downside. Marjorie added that businesses can run into trouble quickly with SM if they don’t pick the right people to run their efforts. I added that a downside to SM can be if companies are using it without making sure that their goals for the initiatives match their overall business goals and objectives. Connie echoed this, and BethersJR added you can run into problems if you dont monitor what is being said about your company. Greg added that another problem is when companies attempt to use social media as direct marketing, and measure it as such. BethHarte added a great point in that companies can run into problems if they only look at Dell and think that SM can be a ‘fix all’.
Connie then discussed companies creating their own socnets. Teeg added that this can work if it’s an area that isn’t being serviced by an existing socnet. Connie cautioned that it’s only wise to do so if a company-created socnet helped the company achieve its larger business goals.
Alanwolk then added an interesting point, he implied that what works for blogging social media consultants in building their audience probably wouldn’t work for our clients. Alan says this is because bloggers link to bloggers, and don’t want to offend each other. I disagree with this because first, offending another blogger is usually the quickest way to get them to link to you and other bloggers to link to you. Mike Arrington has long said that he gets many links from ‘fights’ he gets in with other A-Listers.
But to the more relevant point, I think good bloggers grow their audience by creating valuable content for their readers, and interacting with those readers in THEIR space, as well as their own. This is something that any blogging company can, and should replicate. Much of Dell’s blogging success doesn’t happen on Direct2Dell, it happens on other blogs and Twitter. It happens because Dell has employees out interacting with and responding to current and potential customers on OTHER social sites. This is what other blogging companies must do as well to grow their audiences.
BTW please read the thread for yourself because I purposely did NOT cover every point raised. I tried to cover the main ones that generated the most conversation, but there’s still plenty of great points and quotes in here!
If you want to get info on future Plurkshops, make sure you follow Plurkshops on Plurk!
Jul 24 2008
Be sure to friend @plurkshop to join in at 3pm EDT.