SOCIAL IMPRESSIONS

As you become increasingly active in social media, you will find a wide variety of competitiveness across the board. Some want to be regarded as A-list bloggers, to reach a top status on social bookmarking sites, and to have the most number of friends on Facebook. While some can maintain genuine relationships with people, others see them as part of their massive network. Competition is usually healthy, depending on the amount of competitiveness involved.

Although there are many gray areas between each level, I have observed roughly five main levels of social media competitiveness and involvement.

Lurker

Lurkers exist online; they just aren’t visible. These people don’t actually participate. They quietly watch the activity on their favorite sites. They may identify core sites and users that they admire or enjoy and follow them religiously. Even the most offensive of posts won’t incite a comment from them. Although these lurkers might sign up for an account on a social site, they are usually the users without an avatar. Their activity on these sites is minimal, and their contribution is non-existent.

Dabbler

Dabblers are active in social media just for the fun of it. They don’t care if anyone knows them and only interact with a minimal number of users. They go to Facebook to connect with real life friends and go to social news sites to vote on stories that intrigue them. They will only tag stories for personal use. These users are usually those who use social media sites, but don’t realize how much they can grow within them. Dabblers make up the bulk of social media users. They are absolutely oblivious to the various tools, applications, and help forums that are available for the sites they are active on.

Part-timer

Part-timers have a few accounts that they are active on. They subscribe to their favorite blogs and make sure to check them out when a new post has been published. They participate when they have the time to, but real life intrigues them much more. A part-timer will assist others when needed but isn’t always accessible online. Part-timers are the users who will submit their blog to Digg and wonder why they only got two votes; these users still have a limited understanding of how to best use these sites.

Hard-core user

This person is invested in social media and usually spends a few hours a day participating in the space. They are involved on many channels and are major contributors to the community. They want to share knowledge and add value. These people typically interact with anyone in the space, regardless of their level. They believe that the exchange that they have with various users is fulfilling. Although these hard-core users are extremely driven and would like to have top user status, they will avoid taking advantage of other users to get there. Due to their high involvement, these users will install and rely on user-scripts and alerters to simplify their online experience.

Pro

While not all Pros are uber competitive, most uber competitive users make it to the Pro level. They will duplicate a submission if it means it will increase their popularity rankings. They enjoy the attention they get from being on the top of the totem pole and will continue to invest time, effort and money into building it. They constantly check their statistics to ensure that they are still ranking very high. Immersed in the social media world, the pros are usually the first to know about breaking news stories and technology innovations. They are privy to technology short cuts and will utilize them to assist in maintaining their status. They have a wealth of knowledge about the various spaces and will only share it with those who have proven their worth. However, trade secrets are only shared with their tight circle of top users.

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Update: The “Pro” section has been updated to clarify my intention.

Thanks to Tanner Hobin for creating the image.

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Only two years ago, corporations were hesitant to ride on the new wave of communications. Launched yesterday, Conversations Matter is a blog that proves this trend has since changed. Michael Brito, social media marketing manager at Intel, saw a major gap that needed to be filled in the blogosphere. He noted the abundance of blogs written from consultants’ perspectives and identified a need to help educate professionals new to social media. Brito created Conversations Matter to engage a variety of audiences about the internal marketing process that happens at Fortune 500 corporations and facilitate the necessary conversations between companies and agencies. In an interview with Brito, he explains his vision and hopes for Conversations Matter.

What is Conversations Matter?

It’s a collaborative blog authored by in-house marketers who touch social media in some capacity. The contributors include Fortune 500 social media marketing visionaries like LaSandra Brill from Cisco, Tac Anderson from HP, Kelly Feller from Intel, Tom Diederich from Candince Design Systems, and Marc Levin (formerly at Yahoo!). We hope that this blog will provide a greater understanding to what corporations are tasked with when launching a social media campaign.

What inspired you to create this blog?

I felt that there is a lack of representation (or voice) in the internet today from in-house marketers who manage/execute and define social media strategy across an organization; similar to that of in-house SEO, which may be a future project as well. We want to share our knowledge with our readers. Quite honestly, there is nothing like this online today. It’s unique and provides a point of view that is not represented enough. We don’t just talk about social media. We live it everyday…all day and we are held accountable. Besides, if we don’t produce, we lose our jobs.

According to the “About” section, there are social media managers from Fortune 100 companies contributing to Conversations Matter. Tell me more about why you selected these individuals.

I think that those who work in big organizations have a unique perspective of the industry; and the variables associated with social media are not visible to agencies/consultants who normally write about this space. Examples of topics we will discuss are: legal repercussions, getting customer support involved, IT and the web infrastructure, accountability of results, and evangelizing social media; and also just to provide a different point of view of social media in general.

What is the main purpose of Conversations Matter and how do you hope to impact the readers?

Our purpose is not to define social media. Others in the industry have already done an exceptional job at that. Our main purpose is to help educate and inform other marketers about the challenges/opportunities/learning/best practices of driving social media from a corporate perspective. Long term, we would like to facilitate workshops, webinars and networking events.

As an in-house marketer, please give me a brief description of your day-to day activities

Let’s see, after my morning java boost (not the programming language), I usually log into my blog(s) to see if there is any activity. I then open Twhirl to see whose hoot’n and holler’n in Twitter; and then Facebook to check the feeds. I then open Outlook and start plugging away – emails, then conference calls, then more emails, then more conference calls. It’s a daily ritual for me but I love it.

How does your perception of social media strategies differ when working ‘from the inside’ as opposed to an agency? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

My perception (and speaking entirely for myself) is that many agencies (not all) approach social media from a promotional perspective (i.e. web traffic, links, rankings, downloads, Digg effect, etc.). Internally, we rarely ever talk about this; it’s more about asking ourselves, “How do we create, join and facilitate conversations using social media? How do we create value in these conversations? How do we empower brand ambassadors? How do we increase usage of our products/services?” The promotional element of social is indeed important but it’s not the end goal for social media. In other words, everything I have ever done in social media has resulted in a two – way interaction with our audience. On the other hand, we may very well use “promotional social media” tactics to help drive traffic to these conversations. There are no advantages/disadvantages to these perceptions as long as they are both used in defining a complete social media strategy.

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To ensure the success of any social media marketing campaign, it is important to have a strong network of friends who support you. When you build up connections and friendships online, you establish credibility as a user. User-generated content encouraged by companies typically garners more trust than traditional advertising. Brand evangelists develop their presence by establishing friendships online. Their content recommendations hold more weight and are considered incredibly valuable.

This network of relationships will help push content across many platforms. Simply, these friends will twitter posts, Digg submissions, stumble stories, and provide support to the brand evangelist. This relationship should always be mutual and reciprocal. I have always advocated that people you connect with shouldn’t be considered as “contacts” but as friends. When you invest the time to build that relationship, it will be rewarding on personally and business-wise.

Muhammad Saleem, social media marketing maven known as “msaleem” online, has been gracious enough to discuss the concept of community building and the importance of maintaining a strong network.

You have established a strong personal brand online. People know who you are and strongly respect your opinion. What do you think have been your most important steps towards achieving the status you have?

I think most of it lies in genuine passion. Passion for social media and a passion for meeting and talking to new people and not just sharing my insight with them but learning new things from others.

Community means something different to everyone. What does it mean to you?

It means that I have a massive network of friends that also serve as a priceless information resource. Whenever I have a question or concern, whenever I write commentary on something, basically every action I take online, I can get tons of valuable feedback from the communities I take part in online. It also means that I’m exposed to dozens of different viewpoints on anything that I am curious about. Ultimately it means that my online existence and my presence in the social media space is not one man’s perspective, rather it is the result of hundreds of different people’s unique perspectives and insights and as a result is more well-rounded and comprehensive.

How do you integrate yourself into a community and become a well-recognized participant?

As far as the social media space is concerned, you can check out the social media manual I wrote as a reference for anyone entering the space as a newcomer. More generally, I believe that it is important to study the unique dynamics and implicit rules of any community before you start participating in it. Once you participate keeping the code of conduct in mind, you can’t go wrong and over time your valuable contributions in a community will help propel you to a respected position.

Lee Odden provided an overview of the Free Traffic: SEO/SMO 101 (Search Engine & Social Media Optimization) presentation you gave at Web 2.0 Expo in San Fransisco. You said the second most crucial step to take in order to optimize your site in social media is Community. Why is that important?

I mentioned that there are two important aspects to any social site. The first is content and the second is community. Community is important because you need to participate to understand what the community wants and to be successful in providing exactly that kind of value. Participating in the community is also important because it helps you build relationships with other like-minded individuals and help yourself grow as a participant in the space.

Do you think having strong relationships has a business value? If so, why?

I certainly think so. It really depends on what your goals are. For example, you can leverage these relationships for many different purposes beyond using them as excellent information sources. Take the example of someone trying to pitch a story to me. If you say something to me, I am much more likely to listen to you, blog about it, put it on social media. Whereas if it is someone I don’t know at all, I am much less likely to pay a lot of attention.

So you believe that your personal brand will ultimately benefit and help your company. So, how can companies leverage these relationships during a social media marketing campaign?

Certainly. One thing that I would keep in mind is that you should use your fans and not abuse them. Don’t just build one-way relationships for business purposes. That said, there is a lot of potential there simply because a network of 100 friends turns into a network of 100,000 if you start going to the second and third degree. And that is a network that you can leverage to your advantage. For example, every time you write something, you can run it by 10 other people to make sure it is comprehensive and that it is viral enough or sticky enough to propagate through social media. You can also increase engagement with your content by sending a message on Twitter, sharing content on social networking or social news sites. Who hears what you have to say is somewhat dependent on how well you network. For example, I have gone from 200 to 1000 followers on Twitter in the past few months, largely because of word of mouth from my core group of friends. Now every time I send a message, it is heard by exponentially more people than it would have if I didn’t network at all. In fact, one of the most important (and my favorite) parts of my job is precisely meeting new people.

What are the three most important codes of ethics you believe are important to abide by online?

I think it is incredibly important to 1. Create value for others, 2. Participate in communities and build relationships, 3. Reciprocate and engage with other people’s content and services.

How many hours do you spend online in creating strong content, establishing a community and promoting content? Do you think it will decrease or increase as time passes?

With the exception of explicitly promoting content, most of my time online is spent on participating in various communities and creating strong content. I would say about 50 hours a week? I think from a purely business sense people do tend to decrease the amount of time they spent online because the more visibility they have the less they have to do. But for me specifically, I don’t see that time decreasing. There are too many people that I still haven’t met.

I am sure you have many online “groupies.” What is the funniest thing someone said to you once they knew you are “Msaleem: Social Media Maven”?

It’s really funny. A lot of time people come online and message me and are actually shocked when I reply to their message or their email. And it’s funny to me because I try to get back to everyone, that’s the only reason all my access information is freely available online.

Thanks to Muhammad for the interview and to D’Arcy Norman for the image.

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Does having face-to-face interactions really have an impact on your friendships? Is someone going to be more faithful just because they have seen your face and had coffee with you?

Due to the anonymity that the internet provides, it is hard to establish trust with a person you have only interacted with on the internet. Many people who are not engaged in the social media space are perplexed by the friendships that are established online. For many, it’s a foreign concept that you can feel extremely close to someone you have never met. Through trial and error, you begin to realize who is loyal and trust-worthy and who is just there to pimp a link.

Here are the five levels of friendships:

Jedi

This person is a master in the online space. They serve as a mentor and provide you with information you could have never learned in any text book. Additionally, they are generous with their knowledge and time. Jedi cares about seeing you grow and invests the time in making sure that you meet your full potential. Beware, your mentor will likely reprimand you or hold you accountable for your mistakes. After all, they have a vested interest in seeing you excel.

iBestFriend

This relationship has evolved over a long period of time. Through mutual respect, trust, and openness, you feel absolutely comfortable in sharing private information with that individual. When something happens in your life, the iBestFriend is one of the first people you think to contact and ask for advice. You work hard to maintain this bond through reciprocity, accessibility, companionship, and compassion.

Buddy

This friendship is still in the beginning stages. You are starting to trust them and enjoy the relationship that is blossoming from your dialogues. During this phase you are laying the foundation for a very strong friendship. This is where a mistake made on either part can be detrimental to the dynamic. Loyalty isn’t guaranteed in this level of friendship, so be careful with what information you share.

e-quaintance:

This is a random person you have in your IM and are active in the same communities as you. You don’t interact with him/her frequently. But when you do, you are exchanging jokes, funny links, and engaging in casual banter. You know very little about each other’s personal lives, and you don’t really care to!

Link-lover

This person is solely in your IM to link stories to. You don’t intend to keep them around, just have one submissions-stands with them. Your lust for front page supersedes your interest in growing that dynamic into a real relationship. Simply, their sole purpose is to help you promote your stories. The only conversation you have ever had with them goes something like this:

<conversation>
You: Hey, can you digg this story? Really appreciate the help <link>
Link Lover: done!
You: Thanks a bunch. Let me know if you need anything.
Link Lover: n/p
</conversation>

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