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23rd
APR

The State and Future of Twitter 2010: Part Three

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

In Part Two of The State and Future of Twitter, we reviewed Promoted Tweets and the new advertising platform and metric system that will test and hopefully strengthen the “interest graph” that connects individuals around relevant subject matter and eventually the ads that they might find relevant. In Part Three, we are going to review the news and ideas that erupted during the Chirp conference as well as the new features that position Twitter as “consumption media” and how it will earn new users and simultaneously increase the activity and contributions of everyone. Twitter COO Dick Costolo defined Twitter as a consumption medium, “Millions of people might read tweets either on the site, through clients or through widgets on external sites, but they might not author tweets.” If Twitter adheres to the Technographics or Socialgraphics analysis of Social Media, Costolo is not only correct, but also vocalizing what many researchers are leaning about social media: even though it provides a democratized platform for participation, most registered users of social networks read updates and content instead of updating or posting content. Therefore, one could deduce that social media is, for the time being, in a state of mass consumption and not mass creation. Along those lines, two major announcements hit the Web during the Chirp conference related to mass content consumption. The Library of Congress As Twitter so cleverly titled its blog post, “ Tweet Preservation ,” it was announced that The Library of Congress deemed that the history of public tweets is worthy of preservation. There, the repository of conversations that defined a new medium, going back to the very first Tweet, will now reside at The Library of Congress. To date, billions of Tweets have contributed to the evolution of online societies and the digital cultures that would inevitably impact our culture in the real world. From global celebrations to controversial elections to natural and heart-stopping catastrophes to local events and personal achievements, the archive of Tweets indeed represents a generation fueled by the “me” in social media. And, with every Tweet and ReTweet, human communications, the way we form relationships, and media itself was and continues to be redefined. Twitter has evolved into a lens into popular culture that not only reflects behavior, but also influences it. As part of the contribution, The Library of Congress can only include Tweets in its internal library for non-commercial research, public display, and for preservation, after a six-month delay. A few examples of important tweets that are now on display include the first-ever tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey ( http://twitter.com/jack/status/20 ), President Obama’s tweet about winning the 2008 election ( http://twitter.com/barackobama/status/992176676 ), and a set of two tweets from a photojournalist who was arrested in Egypt and then freed because of a series of events set into motion by his use of Twitter ( http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/786571964 ) and ( http://twitter.com/jamesbuck/status/787167620 ). Google Replay Google paid to receive the full real-time Twitter firehose in December 2009 and since then it has expanded the feed to 40 languages and introduced a top links feature to help users find the most relevant content shared. In conjunction with the announcement by The Library of Congress, Google announced Replay , a new feature that combines the public archive of Tweets with an interactive timeline that unlocks the history of conversations to revisit any point in time to discover, study, or reminisce. Now you can zoom to any point in time and “replay” conversations that reflected sentiment and the state of conversation, steering perception with every Tweet. To replay history, run a search, click “Show options” on the search results page, then select “Updates.” The first page reveals the most recent Tweets combined with a new chart at the top. The chart, in a sense, is a virtual time machine that allows you to specify the year, month or day, to view the tweets from any given point in time. Twitter Search Data already shows that searches within Social Networks are already rivaling traditional search engines in certain cases, with some major online destinations already reporting a majority of referral traffic stemming from social media over the biggest search engines. At Chirp, Twitter reported that it fields roughly 19 billion search per month. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams also disclosed that Twitter performs 600 million queries per day, many of which are individuals searching for conversations containing their @ name I’m sure. However, neither number is easy to disregard. Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, dug a bit deeper to place these numbers into perspective to compare Twitter search to other traditional and social search activity. Using comScore numbers published in January 2010, Sullivan created a baseline using Twitter’s reported numbers: Google: 88 billion per month Twitter: 19 billion per month Yahoo: 9.4 billion per month Bing: 4.1 billion per month We were initially surprised when YouTube consistently ranked behind Google, but ahead of all other search engine engines for total search queries performed each month. Looking at the numbers above, YouTube contributes to Google’s 88 billion total. But, according to Sullivan’s math, for total searches run on search properties, Twitter would technically rank ahead of Yahoo and behind Google. Sullivan explains his caveats… Now for the caveats. For one, we’re comparing Twitter’s self-reported figures to comScore’s estimated figures. To date, comScore hasn’t reported Twitter figures. Twitter doesn’t even register on the radar screen. This is most likely because of the second caveat. Most of Twitter’s traffic isn’t happening at Twitter itself. Instead, it’s happening through API calls — a system for partners to send a search to Twitter and get the info back. Ratings services like comScore typically don’t include such queries, instead focusing on traffic they can monitor happening at specific web sites. As Twitter continues to grow, so do its search numbers. During Chirp, Sullivan spoke with Twitter’s director of search Doug Cook. According to Cook, Twitter’s daily search queries have reached highs of  750 million and as he told Sullivan, Cook expects Twitter to channel 1 billion searches as soon as May 2010. @Anywhere As we discussed extensively over the years, one of the biggest hurdles contributing to troubling user acquisition and retention was the experience from the point of introduction, “follow us on Twitter” or the recommendation to do so and every click that forced users to manually visit Twitter, create accounts, and then somehow miraculously induce an epiphany about how to use Twitter as an everyday communication and discovery service. To hopefully contribute to a more meaningful experience at inception, Twitter introduced @anywhere , which to quote Twitter, quoting Foursquare, makes Twitter “aggressively simple.” @anywhere is a service designed to enable partner websites to easily integrate Twitter functionality into the site experience. Twitter’s idea or better said, hope, is that visitors to partner sites can then engage with existing Twitter features as well as hosted Twitter personalities, without having to leave. Among the most cooperative examples for the @anywhere platform are of course, traditional media properties. In many ways, big media brands such as CNN, New York Times, MSNBC, et al, are finding their stories permeating the streams of Twitter users all over the world. Instead of indirectly benefiting from this activity, why not harness and thus, inspire it…direct, at the source. News no longer breaks, it Tweets , and as Chloe Sladden, director of media partnerships at Twitter shared on stage, “@Anywhere is a way to shift a page view into a relationship.” @Anywhere is a customizable platform (a few lines of JavaScript) that comes to life at the host site. In many ways, this is Twitter’s official answer to Facebook Connect, empowering visitors to engage with content at a host site, while simultaneously building a bridge between a user’s online activity and their respective social graph – triggering a social effect that ideally creates traffic between all affected properties. The loved (if you’re on it) and hated recommended user list that greeted new Twitter users is on the way out in favor of an experience driven model, now placed squarely in the hands of those who ask us to “follow them on Twitter.” For example, if you as a visitor decide that you’d like to follow a particular reporter based on a story, you can do so on the spot and, you can also review a list a other reporters on Twitter who might write about content that you would prefer to follow. Citysearch used @anywhere to help users get a complete real-time snapshot of a merchant and, when they’d like, engage that merchant via Twitter directly from CitySearch.com. The Guardian uses @anywhere to connect readers with those running for public office. According to the UK publication, “Now, from within our pages you can ask questions your prospective parliamentary candidates and of our journalists. This is a clear indication of how we’re trying to lower barriers between our audience and those who hold power or seek to hold office, and between our readers and our journalists.” The full list of sites using @anywhere include AdAge, Amazon, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, Disqus, eBay, Foursquare, Gawker, Google, Gowalla, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Hunch, Mashable, Meebo, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, WSJ.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube. Annotated Tweets Ryan Sarver, Director of Platform of Twitter, announced that it now boasts over 100,000 registered apps…all the more reason for a service such as OneForty.com to help you. Note, I’m an advisor to the company, but the reason I’ve joined, is because of this information. With so many apps, we essentially need an app store for Twitter. As 75% of Twitter’s traffic sources from external apps, Sarver expressed his gratitude and devotion. “Twitter is the way it is because of the ecosystem,” said Sarver. “There is no way we can be successful without you guys.” Yes. The developer community did much more than “fill the holes,” the developer community stitched personal relevance and ambition into an otherwise ambiguous network. It is us who attracted mainstream attention. It is us who lured brands into the community. It is, in fact us, the users, who adopted these applications to help us use Twitter to learn, share, connect, and grow. At Chirp, Twitter introduced what Robert Scoble might refer to as the “ Super Tweet .”  However, its name is a little less super, but these Tweets are rich with information. Annotated Tweets, for developers, was perhaps the uppermost news to receive stage time. Many refer to Annotated Tweets as “invisible hashtags,” but even that reference might not convey the capacity and potentiality of what it represents. When Chris Messina introduced the concept of hashtags, they were indeed, designed to integrate contextual references to each Tweet as well as for organizing and locating conversations as needed. However, Annotated Tweets, when they do officially launch within 60 days or so, will enable the incorporation of data behind data (metadata), beyond what’s already captured. This new Tweet framework will package and reveal the specific information that creative developers designate. Twitter is a Global Phenomenon Finally, I will share a bit of information that hit the Web one week prior to Chirp. I share this with you because I believe that Twitter and social networks overall, represent the bridges that make the world a much smaller place. When we think back to the contextual networks or interest graphs discussed in the earlier segments of this discussion, geography slowly dissipates. We are connected by the very things that captivate and inspire us and when we peer into a monitor we are essentially gazing into a window that looks upon a landscape populated by those we choose to follow and those who choose to follow us. We form a new information democracy that is representative of the stake in which we invest and nurture. Twitter documented its growth as a “global information network” with a user base that’s geographically diverse. In fact, 60% of registered Twitter accounts live outside the United States. Certainly, it’s a small world after all… Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my new book , Engage ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism:

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The State and Future of Twitter 2010: Part Three

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19th
APR

The State and Future of Twitter 2010: Part One

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

The State and Future of Twitter was revealed to the world at the Chirp Conference. Developers, futurists, reporters, investors, stakeholders, and businesses convened at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, making the journey from all over the world to witness history in the making. My experience at Chirp was in a word, profound.  I sit here, right here, right now, attempting to distill all that I heard and learned and its true effect on the general public.  The volume of ideas and insight is implausible to capture, analyze, and share in one post. Hence, what follows is Part One of The State and Future of Twitter, beginning with an answer to the question that Twitter never asked of us, “ What moves you ?” While some of what you’ll read addresses the initial question, “ what are you doing ” and also the current question, “ what’s happening ?” Prior to the opening of the show, tensions arose between Twitter and the developer community following the news of Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie to become the official iPhone app for the company. Suddenly developers felt abandoned or threatened by an ominous competitor, Twitter itself. On the eve of the conference, Twitter was faced with one additional objective for its monumental event. In addition to illustrating its future, Twitter now desperately needed to win back the support and dedication of its developer community. “Twitter has always been about developers,” asserted Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Williams continued, “Twitter is the ecosystem much more than any other Web service that exists. You guys have not only made Twitter better, you’ve helped shape it, you’ve helped define what it is for us and millions of users.” In truth, the stories and events that played out paint a brighter future for all involved, including consumers. What was clear, however, is that the days of straightforward and spiritless applications would no longer command the value and attention they once boasted. It was clear that Twitter is rapidly emerging as a sophisticated social operating system (OS) and its prospective is governed by the applications and the users who adopt them. Follow Me on Twitter! Since 2006, I’ve explored the promise and impact of Twitter on media, marketing and popular culture. At times I’ve openly questioned decisions or the lack thereof to diagnose complications with Twitter’s market position as compared to its promise. Reality eventually proved blinding. Consumers were and are unabashedly exposed to Twitter at almost unprecedented and incalculable conditions. Follow us on Twitter …it’s suddenly everywhere. Whether you’re watching the evening news, your favorite program or the commercials that support them, the request is clear. However, what was unclear, especially for the everyday consumer, were the steps necessary to find meaning in the Twitter experience and direction in its personal application in a world where Facebook and other social networks offered far more definitive and self explaining advantages. As Evan Wlliams demonstrated through a live Google search, it’s clear that they’re listening. Mainstream consumers do not understand Twitter. “Getting users from awareness to engagement–this is something that we weren’t doing very well. This is a really tough problem because Twitter is different things for different people.” Indeed. Most importantly however, what it isn’t for most people, is clear in its day-to-day application and benefits for the investment one makes in learning, contributing, and overall engagement. Twitter has tried, albeit incrementally as well as restricted and perhaps without clarity, to improve the experience. In the last year, the company has… 1. Re-designed its home page twice to more effectively depict the value that lies beyond registration. 2. Created a series of guides designed to help businesses understand the potential rife within its ecosystem 3. Analyzed and published data to humanize the trends beyond the tweets 4. Continually spotlight the clever accounts finding success At 175 employees, Twitter might now finally realize the strength in its own numbers. Tweet by Numbers It would take almost four years for me to witness the day that Twitter would convincingly recognize its calling in life and as a result, take the wheel of destiny to steer a historic, yet seemingly meandering movement toward relevance and prevalence. On April 14th 2010, Twitter made history…again. The news, ideas, and conversations erupting from the conference was positively overwhelming and promising, almost as if the team at Twitter suddenly awoke in the middle of the night to seize the revelation that presented its destiny, mission, and the course towards pervasiveness. On the first day of its first official conference, Twitter intentionally positioned Chirp as its shot across the bow of skeptics and critics while simultaneously rekindling the flame of loyalists and luminaries. A community once plagued by user acquisition and retention challenges, Twitter disclosed information absent since its debut in 2006, numbers. It turns out, Twitter is much larger than many predicted. According to co-founder Biz Stone, Twitter maintains a user base of over 105 million . To be clear, registered and active users are two very different things. But even speculating at a 50% retention estimate, just over 50 million active accounts would warrant significant respect and attention. Biz also shared that Twitter.com receives over 180 million monthly unique visitors with 75% of Twitter traffic sourcing from outside applications . Currently, Twitter is adding 300,000 new users daily , experiencing 1,500% growth over last year. Twitter search is also becoming a contender in the overall market. While still far behind Google and even YouTube, Twitter is fielding over 600 million search queries with 3 billion calls to its application program interface (API) per day. Snapshot: - 105 million registered users - 180 million monthly unique visitors - 75% of traffic sourcing from outside applications - Adding 300,000 new users daily Twitter: A Cultural Catalyst Over the last few years, Twitter users publicly explored and defined the role of the fledgling platform as a technology, a communications medium, and ultimately as a catalyst for societal evolution. At a minimum, Twitter has represented a collective collaboration that manifests our ability to unconsciously connect kindred voices through the experiences that move us.  While Twitter both spawned and symbolized the pulse of the real-time Web, Twitter itself emerged as a human seismograph, providing us with a window into the reverberating events, themes, and trends that captivate digital civilizations. In March 2007, Twitter tasted mainstream attention when it earned the spotlight at SXSW. In 2008, a journalist was arrested in Egypt and his Tweets that alerted followers to the event and broadcast his cry for help would ultimately serve as the key to his freedom. Just over a year ago, Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a Twitter race to become the first person to reach 1,000,000 followers. In June 2009, the Iran election and the following political unrest were globalized through Twitter. From its inception to its current state is entwined through countless human experiences and events ranging from earthquakes to plane crashes to triumphs, losses, and everything in between. The Twitterverse represents much more than a social network. It personified our aspirations, giving millions of people a stage for which to earn untapped recognition. Whereas YouTube inspired so many individuals willing to brave the lens of a Web cam and the resulting activities that ensured from friends and strangers online and in the real world, Twitter gifted a microphone, a stage, and a captive audience to those who could enchant our heats, minds, and attention in 140 character proclamations. Twitter did not invent social networking. Nor did it create the @ or # signs that have become pervasive not only in Twitter and other social networks, but also in real life . What Twitter did however, seems to have a much more profound effect on humanity.  As a noun and a verb, Tweets unlocked and emancipated our inner extrovert and social commentator, easing our concerns over privacy and consequence, instilling confidence through our participation and contribution with followers, responses, retweets, favorites, and ultimately a network of contacts that would prove invaluable in all things we do online and offline. I’ve spent countless hours analyzing how the “me” in Social Media affects us individually. And while many have criticized blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks for fanning the flames of egotism and narcissism, I truly believe that Twitter empowered a new generation of individuals to listen, learn, and communicate with vigor, consciousness, and passion. And every time we update our status, we earn status at varying levels that reflects the caliber and breadth of our investment and intention. As such, we are encouraged and rewarded by the deliberate unfastening of”self” from self interest to play a part in producing a vibrant and enriching civilization that transcends its populace from denizens to bona fide benefactor and stakeholder. Twitter is what it is because of us. And, where it is going and its true impact will too, be defined by us, the very people who form the democracy of Twitter. As good friend and digital raconteur Stowe Boyd observed, “It is our dancing the makes the house rock, not the planks and pipes. It is us that makes Twitter alive, not the code.” Twitter has flourished into a living and breathing organism whose characteristics are dictated and personified through our Tweets and the Tweets of those we follow. Its soul however, is defined by who we are and who we want to be . Twitter is becoming a part of our society and it is changing how we form relationships and introducing new patterns of communication that link us to one other. It is no longer a question of “to Tweet or not to Tweet.” Tweets are now artifacts of our culture and as such, they symbolize a chapter in societal evolution. Next : Part Two – A review of Twitter’s new monetization strategies. Part Three – A look at the new features, technologies, and partnerships unveiled at Chirp Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Engage ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism: —

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The State and Future of Twitter 2010: Part One

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16th
APR

Q&A: Social Media Continues to Rewrite the New Rules of Advertising and Marketing

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

To celebrate the release of Engage ! , I was recently asked to share my thoughts on how social media impacts the advertising landscape for the current issue of Winning the Web , a popular magazine related to Web marketing. While the discussion opens with a review of the state and future of online advertising, the discussion also looks at the overall tectonic shift in new media and the profound opportunities that are unfolding. With Ad:Tech San Francisco on the horizon, the timing couldn’t be better to share the entire interview with you here. #Engage Do you feel that there is a place for online advertisers and brands within the social media landscape, or do you think most “just don’t belong” there? Online advertisers and brands indeed have a role in the social media landscape, it’s just different now. Brands, as well as the online advertisers and marketers that support them, are presented with a new opportunity to make direct connections that still yield traditional results but also set the stage for webwide advocacy and evangelism. To lure attention, the commitment changes from simply paying for visibility and investing in the story, visuals, and also offering a return for engagement, shifting from visibility to presence, which is felt. Essentially, paid media is becoming instrumental in triggering earned media in order to activate visitor experiences and activity. Do you feel social media is being well-utilized by most companies or corporate entities today? I believe that in order for companies to realize success in social media, they must become media. Many brands review case studies and plow through customer success stories as a form of inspiration for the experiments and endeavors. We assume, erroneously, that these examples apply to our business and more importantly, we presume that these examples represent success that was predefined methodically implemented. This is much more than collecting followers, fans or clickthroughs. It’s now the responsibility of the brand to program meaningful content that creates branded, yet personalized experiences to steer activity, offer guidance, provide resolution, and also spark word of mouth. Look into your crystal ball – in three years, what do you think social media will mean and/or encompass? Social Media will essentially become “Media” as we return to the ongoing evolution of new media. Social Media provided everyday users with powerful publishing platforms and the ability to establish influence, introducing production into the consumer consumption equation. It did not, however, change the need to rise above the noise by connecting people and content in order to raise awareness and cause measurable action. The road to the future begins with understanding that attention is finite and is increasingly thinning, therefore we must connect with individuals where, when, and how their attention is focused. Technology is going to help, but we must help ourselves by introducing relevance, findability, and shareability into the mix. Intelligent filtering will become part of the consumption process, empowering consumers to view the most material information based on their behavior and connections. Priority will focus on aligning, qualifying, and presenting content sourced from the social graph and varying degrees of friends of friends networks. There have been numerous stories written about companies and brands trying to monetize social media. Do you think these efforts are fruitless or do you feel social media can or should be money-making areas for advertisers? Social Media is not owned by any one department and as such, the tools and services that populate the new media landscape should be viewed as just that, tools and services. It’s not unlike email for example. Every division affected by outside activity will require an external presence to influence respective activity that positively impacts online societies. As such, monetizing social media becomes an extension of various sales strategies that present those populating a social brand graph (connections forged in social networks related to brands) with offers, specials, rewards, incentives, discounts, etc. Many consumers have shouted in recent surveys that they hope and even expect to receive exclusive opportunities to purchase products or services via social channels such as Twitter and Facebook. Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Engage ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism : — Image Credit: Shutterstock

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14th
APR

Optimize Your Brand for Sharing and Social Search in 11 Steps

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

In Part One , focused on how to make your brand findable and shareable in social media. A white paper by Gigya validates the shift to, and resulting importance of, social search and its dependence on crowd participation. Online businesses must optimize in order to earn referral traffic from social networks. With the advent of social feeds — a live stream of friends’ activity shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter — consumers can more easily rely on trusted personal relationships to determine what’s worthwhile to read, watch, play and buy online. Honestly, there are too many top 10 lists, and I subscribe to the Spinal Tap school of numeration, so this list will go to “11!” Here are 11 steps for optimizing your brand for sharing and social search. 1. Keywords This one seems elementary and trivial for many, but it can’t go unsaid. Social media is inviting new players within marketing and communications to the table. Their absence from traditional SEO practices requires the review of all keywords that stakeholders use to find relevant information regardless of the platform or network. 2. Brands Become Media Essentially, for brands to earn the attention of desired audiences their content must be timely, relevant, irresistible, and shareable. Content production is only part of the equation. Establishing a cadence to entice people to introduce our work to their friends and followers is atypical. Begin by defining an editorial calendar to produce and distribute relevant content for each and every network with rhythm and conviction. In the era of real-time and social search, brands now become the CNN of their industry while also socializing the content and experience to broaden reach and awareness. 3. Define the Experience Modernize and socialize your site to complement the experience visitors expect in 2010. Once someone is introduced to your content and they land on your site or landing page, make sure it’s presented in a gripping format and the proper hooks are in place for easy sharing back to the attention dashboards of their social graph. Many Web sites are still stuck in the time of Web 1.0 and essentially represent a static dead end to the dynamic and interactive experiences transpiring in social networks. 4. Establish a Formidable Presence Go where your audiences are already highly active, and also where they’re experimenting. Create enticing, compelling, and personable social profiles in the networks of relevance that convey a sense of “what’s in it for me?” Establish relationships based on context and make sure those relationships are fortified through the production and distribution of value-added content, combined with the art and science of reciprocity, response, and recognition. 5. Social Media Optimization (SMO) Optimize the site and all social objects for traditional, social, and real-time search based on the keywords that are defined in step one. Invest time and resources in the eloquence of describing and defining social objects through titles, descriptions, tags (keywords), links , and active content promotion. Create content in the methods dictated by the communities you wish to reach (e.g., blog posts, tweets, videos, pictures). 6. Social Search Now that Google and other search engines are experimenting with the addition of social search into results, the fusion of sharing and social networking improves the likelihood of someone clicking through to our desired objects. Data shows that, in addition to e-mail, visitors who find content shareable choose to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and MySpace. 7. Connect with Social Influencers As attention spans continue to thin and as interesting content spins through attention dashboards at blinding speeds, brands must proactively connect relevant information to social beacons who can lend credibility and spark conversations and dialogue around the objects we introduce aligned by theme and context. 8. Employ the Human Algorithm Google is already experimenting with a human algorithm of sorts for ranking real-time search results. The stature of one’s social capital ultimately contributes to the hierarchy, placement, and findability of the content and social objects we share online. Not only do we need to connect with social influencers to help us share our story, we also must identify and connect with individuals in the public stream and and the back channel to ensure that the conversation generates ranked awareness. 9. Social Architecture: Analyze how key individuals in your markets are discovering, consuming, and sharing content today and integrate one-click social functionality across all pertinent content platforms. Also, make sure to stay on top of the most promising trends because social sharing will continue to rapidly evolve. Eradicate proprietary login systems and consider pervasive social logins, such as Facebook Connect and Twitter logins, as they’re designed to trigger social effects through reactions on the host site back to their respective social graphs. This extends the reach of content from a site that was once considered a destination to the networks of relevance in order to attract qualified visitors. 10. A Call to Action Implementing calls to action remind someone that captivating content is worthy of sharing . Integrating the tools to instantly do so is one part; reminding them to do so completes the circle. However, sharing isn’t the end game either. Inciting responses in addition to sharing, such as posts, retweets, likes, etc, create paths that define and engender the experience you desire with destinations and calls to action integrated to close the loop. Decide the activity you wish to inspire and integrate it into steps one through nine. Give them something to find and to talk about! 11. Listen and Adapt Create listening dashboards to monitor all activity including the number of shares, discoveries, click-throughs, etc., and find ways to improve the experience, as well as how to ignite a greater volume of sharing. If the socialization of content is defined by governing behavior, it is that of sharing and searching. The share economy currency is defined by likes, links, retweets, updates, comments, shares on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, MySpace, et al. The potential and overall impact of social objects, either discovered or shared, only expands the reach of the brand as social media becomes pervasive. Providing the necessary means for individuals to not only find your content, but also actively share it across the social Web, is paramount to the survival of businesses in the era of curated search, social influence, and channeled attention. Originally posted in Search Engine Watch . Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Engage! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism : — Image Credit: Shutterstock

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12th
APR

Search and Rescue: How to Become Findable and Shareable in Social Media

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Search isn’t an isolated experience. The act of looking for information is now fused with validation, which means the socialization of search will unite discovery with context and relationships. It all begins with where we purposely search for relevant content and also where we respond to interesting information that crosses our path. ComScore ’s most recent search engine ranking report offers new insight that will make us rethink how we publish content, increase its findability , and facilitate sharing. In comparing February to January, Google remained on top with 65.4 percent of all core search activity. Yahoo followed with 17 percent and Microsoft ranked third with 11.3 percent. Things become interesting when we analyze search queries as opposed to core search activity. The landscape broadens beyond traditional search. Just behind Google, but ahead of Yahoo, YouTube ranks second for search inquiries overall. In 18th and 19th place, Facebook and MySpace also make appearances in the top 20 list respectively. Perhaps most intriguing is that neither Facebook nor MySpace offer true search functionality — but they still account for increasing search activity. Facebook is up 10 percent between January and February. What does this all mean? As social networks gain in prominence, the amount of relevant information within each ecosystem increases in value and, as such, we deliberately seek content within the networks in which we engage . It’s the Journey That’s Important, Not the Destination Destination sites across the board are losing traffic and ultimately favor, simply because destinations are obsolete as intended or designed. The days of the traditional “start page” are coming to an end, only to be replaced with the “ attention dashboard ” — a dedicated application that aggregates the activity of those we follow in social networks into a series of digestible streams. TweetDeck, PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic, HootSuite, Brizzly, and Facebook each represent a new generation of attention dashboards as they funnel social feeds into one clickable view. These streams look a lot like slot machines as information flies through dedicated columns, almost blurring the text beyond legibility. But this is where attention is focused and the content that appears within it represents the future of the information life cycle. So how do we compete for attention if attention itself is learning how to adapt to a new media landscape? Our job is to ensure that information travels outside of our domains and to the communities of interest in order to create a bridge back to our hub. And, content must adapt based on consumption and sharing patterns with our existing and potential stakeholders. This is an important point and one that can’t be ignored. Social activity indicates that we are already moving away from the act of proactively traveling to traditional sites as a source of new content. With the dawn of social media, the activity that brings social graphs and networks to life is quickly changing how we discover, learn and share and it is also forever reshaping the idea of online destinations as they exist today. It all comes down to attention and understanding where it’s focused and how it is tempted, lured, or distracted to click away from it. The socialization of information is changing everything. Connect with Attention Where Attention is Focused Competing for attention is paramount. We lose most of the battles before they’re begun because we’re working against years of behavior that now represent the complete opposite of tomorrow’s consumption and sharing patterns. Everything begins with identifying where attention is focused, combined with the new laws of attraction. Gigya reviewed data from Compete from November 2009 and observed that some of the top media properties were already realizing a dominant effect in traffic from social networks. For example, USAToday receives upwards of 35 percent of its referral traffic from social networks and just over 6 percent from Google. People Magazine receives 23 percent of its referrals from social networks and 11 percent from Google. And, CNN earns 11 percent of its referral traffic from social versus 9 percent from Google. Peer-to-peer activity strongly influences the resulting behavior of impressionable nodes defining social graphs, much in the same way we rely upon trusted referrals from our real life contacts. The more something appears within the attention dashboard, the more likely it is that someone will click through. In addition, the more intriguing it seems, or the stronger the reaction it engenders among peers, also increases its enchantment and thus beguiling spectators to willfully lunge towards a shared experience, most likely triggering a public response that continues the social effect . Social Architecture and Connecting the Dots Information is already socializing and changing the behavior for how people search, find, react, and curate. The difference between our present and future is defined by the roads and bridges we build between relevance and prevalence. As content producers, our responsibility is to connect information and stories to existing and potential stakeholders. It’s also essential to package and optimize our content as social objects in order for them to work for us in our absence, when individuals actively seek content through contextual searches. In part two , we’ll look at 11 steps for optimizing your brand for sharing and social search. Originally posted in Search Engine Watch . Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Enga ge ! — Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism : — Image Credit: Shutterstock

eb277bb049rhd512.jpg 150x105 Search and Rescue: How to Become Findable and Shareable in Social Media

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Search and Rescue: How to Become Findable and Shareable in Social Media

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