Wiki’s Are Arguments

A wiki, certainly the one that started it all, Wikipedia, is an argument. Disagree with me? Let’s argue about it. Seriously though, a Wiki is an argument based system. Not the shouting until you’re red in the face angry argument (though for some it can be), but a way of communicating through “debate”. It’s amazing because never before in mankind’s history have we been able to debate topics, subjects, issues etc in such a way that is so accessible.

I can go an make an entry on a topic right now. You can then come in and change my entry. Someone else can change it again. There are lots of errors on Wikipedia. Through a constructive argumentative process, we get closer to accuracy on any given topic or issue.

Wiki’s have grown in popularity for business and organizational use. In this use-case, wiki’s are often purely “knowledge centres” where the organization loads knowledge with various publishing rights, or no specific “rights” for publishing at all – they are then less an argument.

Wikipedia, and any wiki that is publicly collaborative is essentially an argument. See Wikipedia’s definition of an argument. is it correct to your idea of an argument?

So what’s the point? The example of Wikipedia as an argument-based Social Media application is just another example of how there are different tools for different purposes. In this case, Wikipedia is similar to the early days of book printing, when all of a sudden scholars from other regions could engage in debate with others – idea creation and is a logical process to defining whatever it is your defining.

Twitter is the “water-cooler” of the Social Web, while Digg and Mixx are popularity-based news systems. Blogs are in a sense a “positioning-statement of opinion” where debate is limited to the comment section. Understanding the context of the tool will help in understanding what tools should be used for your engagement.

Care to argue?

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)

@webconomist on Twitter

5 Principles of Social Media Engagement

At least, these are the ones we’ve found to work with clients. You might also have seen them mentioned somewhere else; no claims to being the first to think of them. They do, however, work and work well. Enough that I think we can at least put a stake in the ground for these four. The rules are being written daily.

1. Transparency: Be out front. Be real about who you are and why you’re company is involved in Social Media. Transparency means not hiding behind the old cloak of PR spin.

2. Authenticity: Don’t hire a flock of ghost writers to pretend they’re “you” or use a fake “personality” in campaigns. You’ll be found out and it will cost you more to repair the damage than it did in success. In this sense also, don’t pretend you’re not trying to sell me something when you are. Marketing has been deceitful enough these past 40 years.

3. Trust: If you’re business is transparent and your actions are authentic, you will build trust. The old bait and switch tactics are, well, old. Be original.

4. Respond: Social Media is “communications” which implies a two-way set of behaviours. If as a business you don’t want to respond then use one-way media; advertising in broadcast mediums.

5. Listen: Do this before you do anything in Social Media. Seriously. Start with a good long, deep listening to what is being said, who it’s being said about, why, where and in what context.

They aren’t a complicated set of principles and I’m sure there’s more. Let me know, I’ll add them or we can carry on the conversation in Twitter. But we’re starting to establish some principles that we know work in ongoing Social Media activity. Aren’t we?

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Director)

Ethnography: The Next Marketing Trend

Stating the obvious: There has never been so many media channels in the history of mankind. This will signal a new challenge to marketers and communicators: ethnographic considerations.

It’s nothing to do so much with technology as it does with human nature and culture. During the heydays of broadcast media (TV, radio, print) we saw very little, comparatively, of specialized media channels for different cultural groups. What specialization there was (such as hispanic only radio stations in non-hispanic countries) were limited in scope due to the costs of the mediums being used.

Enter the digital media age and Social Media. These tools enable communications in a way that humans prefer to communicate – enabling groups to form, create, act and continue or cease. In the last 20 years we’ve also seen an increase in migrant populations to various countries. This means more varied cultures sprouting in within countries. Keeping an element of ones home culture is important as an identifier. Even in Canada and America, those originally of British, Irish, Scottish or Scandinavian descent are increasingly identifying with their originating roots.

This will present a whole new set of challenges to organizations reaching an audience – especially via digital media. I predict that the next trend for marketers will be understanding ethnography when doing their marketing research. It’s been hard enough for marketers to gather and incorporate demographic information and then we had to consider psychographic information in planning.

Because Western developed nations are seeing such a dramatic increase in immigrant populations who are gaining increasing purchase power, marketers and public relations pro’s will increasingly need to consider these factors. In Social Media we’re already seeing services like Hi5 develop dedicated Social Networks to hispanic and other cultures. NetLog (Facebook’s main European competitor) has language already figured out. If Facebook wants to be a serious global contender it’s going to have to improve it’s foreign language capacities.

While English may be the most spoken language outside China, it remains to be seen the impact this will have on businesses engaging in Social Media and digital marketing communications as a whole in the future.

Do you think cultural ethnographic considerations will become increasingly important to marketing communications professionals?

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)

One Easy Step to Fail Social Media Engagement

You’ve jumped into Twitter as a company and it’s tying back to your blog or microsite so you can track visits and ideally, conversions to whatever your converting them. Great. So like any good marketer you’ve looked at the related cost of spending all that time “tweeting” and getting followers. Then you discover an automated solution to get followers and push out your message. You just failed Social Media engagement 101.

All these services are designed to enable a marketer to become a broadcaster. The point of Social Media is building relationships through dialogue. Broadcasters are one to many. The ability to forge a relationship is lost because you’re not really asking, questioning or engaging. You’re telling. This is what TV, newspapers, magazines and online ads are for.

While an automated “follower” service for Twitter might seem enticing, you’re actually putting your brand into a deficit and at the very least not building brand engagement. Just awareness. Followers will quickly unfollow you. Automated DM’s (Direct Messages) back to people can have the same effect.

Building followers in Twitter or fan’s on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn or any Social Media application lose effectiveness when you attempt to use them as a broadcast medium. In some cases, some individuals such as Seth Godin or Guy Kawasaki do become broadcasters; but from time to time they do engage and respond. A large part of the reason Dell has been successful with Twitter is that they engage and connect with people one on one.

If your brand is good and your message is good, if you engage, then you will pick up followers. That is a much more real measure of success.

This post came as a result of a great lunch conversation with my fellow Social Media practitioner Carman Pirie over at Colour. We covered a lot of interesting ground, this being one of the highlights.

(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)

When Your Social Media Star Falls

She got your brand out all over Twitter, to the tune of many thousands of followers. He built a huge presence on Facebook and NetLog for you. Nary a negative word was said about your organization. It was all great, until they resigned. She got a plum offer from a PR agency and he got hired by your competitor. Now what? And just who were all these people engaged with? Your brand or the person behind it? Both really.

So. Now what? One was an intern the other was a junior. Yes, they were building positive vibes for the brand, but conversion to sales wasn’t really there yet, or you’d only just started to define success metrics for engaging in Social Media. We’ve seen this with a few clients. It creates a difficult situation. A few quick do’s and don’ts based on our experience:

Don’t:

- Leave The Kingdom Doors Open: Make sure you change all the passwords to the accounts. Just to be on the safe side.

- Drop it Cold Turkey: If you assume all those followers were a bunch of teens and 20-somethings who don’t care, you’ll be in for a little Social Media crisis. If you want to wind down your engagement in Social Media, then plan it carefully.

Do’s:

- Have a Transition Plan: Have the person’s supervisor develop a plan to transition to a new person if possible, or plan disengagement. Carefully, with solid, honest messaging.

- Be Open: Let the person who’s leaving talk about in a positive manner. If it’s possible, have them introduce the new person.

A little forethought when a situation like this can save a whole lot of grief down the road. It’s also good practice for the senior manager in the organization to “listen in” on what’s being said on a regular basis. To make sure the message is clear and on target.

(Author: G. Crouch, Managing Partner @webconomist on Twitter)