6 Questions To Test Credibility of Content in a Social World

Posted on June 23, 2010 by tpltx70

Everyone out there is talking about social media, the new opportunities and risks it poses, and how to best use it. In response, your peers have begun an aggressive push to figure out what the various tools, sites, and techniques can offer their business. This is a great thing, one that I’ve been cheering on since the start.

In reality, we’ve only taken baby steps toward really getting this all figured out in both a personal and business context. With so much left to learn and so many different opinions about this fast-changing area, it’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of mastering some new tricks.

“Generate content. Generate more content. Be sure it’s relevant. The eyeballs will come!”

What about the “eyeballs”? Sure, relevant content written in a compelling manner will attract attention. That should make the information sources happy. Who is looking out for the consumers of the content?

Citizen Journalism: Fact Vs. Opinion

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, Citizen Journalism involves the “public” taking an active role in researching, analyzing, summarizing, and sharing new, information, data, gossip, multimedia, etc. that other members of the public would want to consume and/or discuss. If you think about all of the social media tools available to us — bookmarking, blogging, networking, content sharing — they are geared toward exactly that means.

This sort of empowerment of voice is truly a breakthrough that the Internet has been so kind as to provide us. But how would one know when something is “true” or “correct”? Sure, there are easy ways to do this based on public opinion, but then again, does popularity really prove anything, except the fact that a writer can get and hold your attention?

It is essential that you take a critical eye toward everything you read online. Even the stuff written by the “experts” or “thought leaders”. The following is a quick 6-question guide for completing a “stink test” on anything you read online.

Do I know and trust them already?

This is the no-brainer, and the premise behind Google Caffeine. If you know someone, their intelligence level, their credibility and trustworthiness, and their ability to assimilate information, why wouldn’t you put credence into their thoughts and opinions? If they are trustworthy and dependable, you know they won’t bend the truth just to make a point. And if you know them, you likely also know what their area of specialty is, which should significantly enhance your confidence in their writings on said topic.

Whether you are a fan of Caffeine (the search logic, not the stimulant) or not, it was built on a sound assumption that I anticipate will be proven useful. Don’t just search for me based on cryptic formulas and keywords; also filter those results for the colleagues and friends with whom I’ve already established a base level of credibility.

Was it recommended to me by someone I know and trust?

Extending out one more degree away from you (even Kevin Bacon would be proud), you don’t have to necessarily know someone personally to quickly establish credibility. When a trusted contact of mine makes a recommendation, I take it at face value. If you are like most of us, you likely do the same.

Think about Twitter for a moment. They’ve taken this concept and run with it. For example…Retweets, Lists, and even Follow Friday. Those traditions are all various methods of connecting people to each other (or to each other’s content) via recommendation. They are popular for a reason, and this is it.

Are they known as a reliable source?

This is where reputation comes into play. The first two tests are the most obvious and easiest to answer. For anyone who doesn’t make it through those filters, it makes sense to then consider public opinion. Are they a well-respected thought leader, a’la Chris Brogan (Social Media), Erin Jacobs (IT and Information Security), or Seth Godin (Marketing Strategies)? Do many of their peers seem to link to them?

It is important to consider whether someone is popular because they are already in established media, or whether they were popular on their own right before going in print or on the radio/television. All the three examples above established strong personal identities on their own merit. That’s what you need to look for.

What else have they written or said?

Perhaps the person under question for you is an unknown commodity, to you, your peers, and to the general public. Don’t just assume that means their opinions are not important. If you like a piece they’ve written, take a few moments to peruse more of their work. Share some of the “eyeball” love! You just might be the person whom your peers will trust when they are evaluating the same individual’s work in the near future.

What are the top minds in the space saying?

Hmmm, so you and your peers don’t know the person, they aren’t an established thought leader or information source, and you’ve read more of their work…but you still can’t determine the difference between fact or “quack”.

Compare notes. Do a quick search on the topic under question. See what others are saying. Is this a popular opinion or a unique one? Do you agree with popular opinion or not? Perhaps the masses are still singing the same old song while this one person truly gets it! Or perhaps the writing was hammered out while under a peyote-induced haze. This is where you need to really insert some of your own rationale into the process, as in…

What does my gut tell me?

That’s right. There is no perfect system, but at the end of the day, what do you really think? Did the writing move you to change your mind about something? Is that a sensible reaction or not? This isn’t saying to blindly accept something as fact, but quite the opposite. By this point, you’ve done enough consideration of whether they are credible or not. You’ve seen what peers, experts, and popular opinion think about them or the topic. Read, analyze, draw your own conclusions, and move on. Or maybe you can just post your thoughts to a blog, citizen journalism style!

Conclusion

Everyone is jumping on the citizen journalism bandwagon these days. That can be a great thing, but you want to be sure to use some calculated filtering of what you read out there. This isn’t just limited to blogs and social media; be critical of the established media as well.

What approach do you use with user-generated content? Do you tend to believe everything, nothing, or something in between? Do you have a better approach to the “stink test”? Fill me in!

Social Media: 3 Situations Where It Is NOT Right For Your Business

Posted on June 11, 2010 by tpltx70

Judging by the pageview stats and general response, it is pretty clear that my last post, Social Media is NOT a Strategy, really caught your attention. Since I’m on a roll with the whole “not” thing, let’s come at it from another angle.

Like I said last week, I am a huge proponent of using social media for specific business purposes, particularly when you can measure it. This is in addition to my “doesn’t have to be said” stance that everyone with an online identity should be using it for personal reasons. But just because it’s a no-brainer for personal use and is a great new tool for business, that doesn’t say it is right for YOUR business.

When is Social Media Not Right for Your Business?

Keep in mind what I said last week about getting your objectives figured out prior to attacking social media without any direction. That’s always the first critical step. However, even if your objectives might suggest that social media could provide value for you, that might not always be the case. Here are 3 situations where you might want to try other avenues first.

Your Target Audience Is Not Online

This is one area where my previous post should ring most relevant to you. Obviously, you want to make sure your customers and prospects can actually be found through whatever mediums you select upon which to execute any of your most critical strategies. For example, Facebook stats show that there are precious few elderly folks with profiles. The same holds true across most platforms.

I had someone approach me a while back about whether they needed to be on Facebook. Guess what they were selling…hearing aids! ["Um, lemme think for a sec, NO!"] In fact, the oldest demographic of our population is least likely to be computer literate at all, let alone actually savvy enough to move beyond games and email to social media. It’s not hard to find them…just rely on the established mass media and direct marketing techniques that they grew up knowing and understanding.

You Have Not Gotten The Basics In Order First

Not to harp on the topic, but the OST (Objectives, Strategies, Tactics) approach can help prioritize what the most important business objectives are. Then you designate the strategies and align against it. The next step, which should most certainly be undertaken prior to experimentation with new technologies and tools, is to get the actual PR, marketing, networking, etc. activities figured out using the tools that you already know and understand.

Granted, some of these don’t work like they once did, but I’m a staunch believer that you need to understand the past to move on into the future. Make sure you establish operating procedures, processes, and other business critical variables first. Then and only then should you start to throw darts at a wall to see what sticks.

Your Team Cannot Commit To It

Regardless what anyone says, social media is in no way free. Sure, you can throw together a profile on the various social media properties at no cost. You can start posting content to a blog or Twitter daily, hourly, whatever you deem appropriate. Is that free? What is your time worth? Who will do it for you?

If you or your team has to spend time on something, it is crucial to consider the opportunity cost associated with that activity. What would you or your marketing team be doing with that time otherwise? Will social media get the level of attention and effort it deserves? I hope so. The worst thing you can do is jump in with a head of steam and then drop it mid-stream, as soon as other priorities start to interfere. Just look at the trail of dead blogs out there and you’ll see what I mean.

If you intend to do it, you simply cannot cut corners. There is a real time and effort “fee” associated with social media. Do the calculation of your expected manhours, the cost for that time investment, and what you are leaving by the wayside to do so. Then decide if that number is large enough to hire someone full-time or as an outside consultant to execute on your behalf. If you aren’t willing to invest in it at some level, you’re better off sticking to your established methods of doing business.

Conclusion

Social media is a major shift in the way we can interact and market ourselves. It finally uses the internet as intended…in a fully interactive and organic fashion. But you simply cannot get so excited about it that you jump in without considering if it is actually relevant to your business. Surely there are other situations where you are better off delaying or ignoring social media as a communication medium, but here are three biggie’s that I see overlooked frequently.

Have you seen any other situations I’m missing? Did you experiment with social media and find that it is not a fit? How did that impact your business? I’d love to hear some real-world accounts of this, so please share your thoughts.

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Social Media is NOT a Strategy

Posted on June 4, 2010 by tpltx70

Really got your attention with that headline, didn’t I? It’s not just a ploy to get cheap clicks.

Enough with the Hype

As you are surely aware by now, I’m a huge fan of social media, new media, social networking, sharing/bookmarking, and pretty much every other cool social offering out there. I spend countless hours playing with different services, sites, and techniques on a weekly basis. Heck, I’ve met some good friends and amazing colleagues through various forms of social networking.

Let’s get one thing straight though…most of what is being thrown around as strategic advice is nothing but some good ol’ fashioned hype. Yes, there is a time and place for social networking and social media. Yes, there appears to be a list of actual money-making techniques that can be employed to derive financial value from these services. But a great deal of this yammering about ROI is just that…talk.

I’ve seen a few select examples of how social media can be used for B2B in a measurable fashion, but I’ve also seen many more examples of futile attempts at replicating these successes. And that’s not even to mention the widespread list of social media “gurus” and “experts” who throw around pie-in-the-sky advice about how you should be using social media. My message to them: Show me real world examples.

Social Media is NOT a Strategy

I recall earlier in my career when the Internet and email marketing were the hot trends. We had long conversations about our “email marketing strategy”, right after we finished talking about our “trade show strategy”, “web site strategy”, and “direct mail strategy.” We thought we were cutting edge, until someone who actually knew what they were talking about chimed in.

“Do you understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy?”

No one in the room could give a reasonable answer to that question. Luckily, I was just a couple of years out of school, so I could chalk up my “deer in the headlights” response to inexperience. But today I’m seeing the same trend. I see all of these people talking about social media strategy, content strategy, even Twitter strategy!

Let’ s get one thing straight – a strategy requires high level thinking. A medium is simply a tactic that should support a true strategy. Twitter, my friends, is a tactic, a medium. Plain and simply.

Now, many of the consultants out there will sell you on why you need a “social media strategy.” I agree that you need a plan for how to integrate social media into your business operations. But social media as the strategy itself? What’s the objective behind it…to meet a bunch of cool people and LOL/LMAO/LMFAO our way to the bank? Maybe it is a real and profitable strategy for the smart entrepreneurs, pundits, and consultants who keep dangling shiny new toys and techniques in front of you. For the rest of us, we need to take a chill pill and think for a second.

Strategic Thinking Should Come BEFORE Tactics and Media!

This is a very important point. You work for a business (or run a business in some of your cases). That business has important metrics to meet in order to succeed. Those metrics might be growing revenue, signing up “n” new customers, reducing business expenses, or even “keeping” the loyal and profitable customers or clients with whom you’ve built valuable relationships.

What do these metrics have to do with the subject of this post? Strategy must be derived from important business objectives. It must also be measured against real business metrics to benchmark success. The metrics should be driving the objectives, which in turn should be driving your strategic decisions. Then, and only then, should you turn your attention to go-to-market tactics.

Simple Process To Think More Strategically

Set your high level objective(s) – Well-crafted objectives should also be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound). A good objective will often start with the word “To”, as in “To build a new channel of 20 resellers in the southeast USA by December 31, 2010″. That’s a darn SMART goal, as well.
Determine the strategy that will help meet your objective – Cool, so this is where I say “how” I will meet that objective. Is the right answer to “start using social media”? Of course not. There’s no logical connection between the objective and the “strategy” proposed, like that of the underpants gnomes as shown in the image below. The strategy might be to launch a recruitment and qualification program for a very particular type of reseller in the region specified. Notice we haven’t talked about how to execute it yet; just what we are trying to do from a high level to meet the objective.
Outline the tactics that will help the strategy meet the designated metrics – Now we are ready to talk about tactics and media. Here you can get into specific messaging, targeting approach, and the exact media you intend to employ to make it happen. It should also indicate how you intend to measure each tactic/medium, and how that rolls up to help meet the overall goal as designated in #1 above.

: Underpants Gnomes: “Strategy” for Profitability (courtesy of thinkprocess.org)

Conclusion

Strategic thinking is very important, and a simple objectives/strategy/tactics model should prove very helpful in keeping this all in perspective. Let’s start talking about how to fit social media into our existing businesses and our overall media mix in a truly integrated fashion. This argument is not a new one; I was having conversations like this in the mid-90s!

What do you think? Do you view social media as a strategy? Is that a realistic way to look at it? It’s most certainly not just a “fad”, as I’ve heard many baby boomers refer to it. The Internet was tailor made for this sort of interaction, so that narrow viewpoint is extremely naive.

Will you think about it differently now, or did you already manage to sort all this out for yourself amidst the hype?

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Monthly Archives: June 2010