Samantha Power, in the most recent issue of Time Magazine suggests criticism of web 2.0 trends in “Technologies’ power to narrow our view.” Power highlights the ongoing trend in technology, politics, and social movements:
Much has been made of the convening and mobilizing power of today’s technology. A person inspired by a cause can blog about their outrage and plot a response on Facebook with other similarly animated people. While any single congressional district might not produce a groundswell to demand a halt to global warming or killing in Darfur, a virtual community unmoored from geography can deliver a critical mass.
Power, however, worries:
But while the long tail ensures once obscure documentaries remain available, citizen advocacy may have a short tail, causing the number of viable causes to get winnowed to a handful of megacauses. Burma may achieve the requisite market share, while Burundi fails to penetrate at all.
Non-profit Advocacy and Outreach 2.0:
While I agree with Power’s on-point recognition that this is an issue that needs to be highlighted, addressed head-on, and discussed robustly in society, I fear her analysis may be slightly askew. Certainly an undercurrent of the issue Power discussed is emerging, however I feel Power may miss the larger point. Initially, Power’s analysis forgets the power of the network online. Social movements, non-profits, and advocacy groups are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the community and community aspects of web 2.0, particularly as mobile expands. A nonprofit concerned with Burundi can find other folks interested in similar issues via social media platforms and social networking communities (for instance those interested in human rights in Burma and China, as well as those concerned with genocide and ethnic conflict). Further, a non-profit concerned about Burundi can talk about related issues on their blog, as well as provide context and depth for what may be more shallow coverage in mass media. Video platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and UStream along with Ovoovoo and Seemic provide the ability to provide dramatic documentation of rights abuses, environmental destruction, and compelling stories of cancer. Video can tell these stories in a way the written word may not. Further, as mobile video expands, the ability to cover issues and international news, including international human rights, ethnic conflict, and genocide, will vastly expand.
A More Viable Criticism of Web 2.0 Communities and Trends:
Non-profits may struggle to find the most strategic platforms to use amongst the thousands of web 2.0 platforms. Understanding how their customers and donors will behave online in three to five years is certainly a difficult calculation. Third, dealing with the struggles of getting outside the echo chamber of the non profit blogosphere in constructive ways and dealing with the information overload in productive ways (aka social networking overstrech may be larger concerns that the ones Power outlines). Fourth, web 2.0 uniquely risks encouraging the younger generation to conflate knowledge of human rights with more robust forms of activism and volunteerism. To me these seem like the more urgent risks and disadvantages of a web 2.0 world for non-profits, social movements, and advocacy groups.
Are the criticisms Powers outlines a real concern? What are the actual disadvantages of a web 2.0 world?
After completing my undergrad at Middle Tennessee State University in english, I decided to travel northward for some midwestern influenced learn’n in the middle of nowhere Indiana. I recently was contemplating where this near two year section of life moved me personally and professionally, and here’s what I came up with:
• Everything you ever wanted to know about communication you can learn from Malcomb in the Middle, Friends, and The Simpsons.
• Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. And sometimes Mythos.
• So what?
• The power of stories.
• Metaphors will get you everywhere. (see also Metaphors We Live By)
• Muncie, IN is not just a made up town in a lesser known Cohen brothers movie (The Hudsucker Proxy)
What did you learn in college, university, or perhaps graduate school?
If you liked this post and would like to friend me on Stumbleupon or Twitter feel free to do so.
Blogging can sometimes be very time intensive–especially if you approach it with a smart and targeted strategy in mind. If my work with Away Find and SET consulting as taught me anything, its that making technology more efficient gives you more free time and ultimately yields a better return on investment.
• Execute a Targeted Information Diet- Create focus and a more productive workflow, by practice a strict information diet. Its an extremely practical strategy for getting things done (GTD). (this tip from the Four Hour Work Week and Tim Ferriss, by way of Jared Goralnick)
• Efficiency is all about mobile productivity. Leverage Your Time Away from Your Computer. Consider mobile blogging with Utterz, Jott, or Qik.
• Focus on Listening, Not Searching with Google-Listening acutely with Google alerts for your keyterms and a finely tuned RSS reader. My work at Sitening SEO with two search engine optimization and corporate blogging campaigns has really emphasized the absolute critical nature of having a half dozen to a dozen Google alerts all sent to one email address. This is the best way to stay on top of the newest and latest content coming up.
• 37 Signals and Google Apps are Your Friend-Maintain a centralized whiteboard for brainstorms and ideas. Maintain a separate list of the websites you need to target (perhaps with del.icio.us). And maintain a list of targeted keywords (that is if actually being found and SEO is important to you)
• Create a Seemless Linkbuilding Strategy for Search Optimization-Everybody needs Google love via inbound links. If you don’t have a linkbuilding strategy for your web pressence, you should create one immediately. Otherwise, you are missing out on being found by the millions using Google to find information like yours and you are missing out on 60-95% of your website’s potential traffic.
So I hope you make your life easier and maximize your return on investment on business blogging by using the above tips, tricks, and hacks. So whether you need tips for getting started blogging or you are more advanced an need expert blogging tips, enjoy.
Ten critical questions to ask to best evaluate your search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), or social media optimization (SMO). These are critical to answering the return on investment (ROI) questions associated with all your internet marketing needs and efforts. So whether you are looking to get into corporate or small business blogging, web 2.0 marketing, social media marketing strategy or a Google Adwords management campaign, here are 10 questions you want to consider before you dive in or hire an SEO or internet marketing firm.
Pre-Search Engine Optimization Evalution:
• How many are searching the terms you want to rank for?
• Where in the search ranks (SERPS) are you?
• Where are your competitors?
• How much traffic are you getting?
• What is your conversion ratio?
• What phrases are your users using to find you now?
I really like my decision to choose WordPress as the blogging tool I use. Congrats to the WordPress developers, theme designers, and widget makers across the blogosphere. However, there are still improvements I would like to see made to make it more useful to myself and others. How would you fix WordPress to make it meet your needs and the communities’ needs better?
• More options for design in the WordPress hosted blog. I would suggest more that look like magazines or some of the nice ones published by Smashing Magazine.
• WP posts would publish exactly as they are in visual, not collapse them without carriage returns and spaces (this may just be a Mac problem)
• Fix the problem 7) that turns it into a smile
• The ability to make a post private by checking or unchecking a box (or pressing an unpublish button).
Twelve Fundamental Principles of Smart and Productive Blogging:
1) Content is king (original perspective)
2) Create pillar content
3) Community and Relationships (inclusivity)
4) Collaboration
5) Find a model-mentor or three
6) Leverage your blog with real world events (networking)
7) Guest posting on others. Interview people your audience is interested in or bestow credibility upon (and optimally that your audience will be searching for)
9) Mix in fun content
10) Consider PPC
11) Consider a formal blog launch after 1-2 weeks of blogging
12) Reciprocal link building can help your SEO.
Engage Key Blogging Communities:
Get accounts on all five and enter your blog’s info on each network.
1) Technorati-Google for blogs.
2) Del.icio.us-social bookmarking. save your best content
3) MyBlogLog-great blog community that can augment blog traffic for the better
4) BlogCatalog-great blog community that can augment blog traffic for the better
5) Flickr-great way to tell the story of your organization and for people to find you
Three Blog Design Concerns
• e-mail subscription
• RSS subscription
• Widgets
Quick Brand and Reputation Management Tips
• Linked In
• Zoominfo
• Add other social networking and social media networks as necessary
This is probably the most common objection to social media adoption and corporate blogging. Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read/Write Web answers this question here:
With practice, familiarity and technology fine-tuned with a little experience you’ll find the time required will decrease.
You might consider this time spent on marketing or communication with existing customer base - perhaps there’s something else in that department that isn’t working well and could be replaced with online work.
Here are some key reasons I would add to the list:
Technical Solutions Solve the Time Issue:
• Some of the best posts are short and pithy. Much blogging can be done by adopting other content.
• Jott and Utterz offer mobile solutions, for easy blogging.
• Qik and other platforms offer mobile video options.
• Blackberry’s and Palms offer great ways to blog in transit.
• Network with other organizations in your field for business opportunities.
• You can blog for as little as an hour a week.
The Time Brings Great Return on Investment
• A CEO’s main job is communication (thanks Debbie Weil)
• Establish yourself as a thought leader with clients and businesses.
• Create a better product. It’s a free form of online focus group. A better product is worth it.
• Blogging allows you to draw on the wisdom of crowds.
• Blogging results in a net time saving, given you won’t spend so much time on email.
• Learning from industry leaders and listening to your customers is well worth it.
• The digital marketplace is where people increasingly live.
• Search engine optimization advantages of blogging help justify time.
• Time you will be save by using Backpack or Company Wikis.
• Do you have an hour and a half? You can blog for as little as an hour and a half a week.
• Self-actualization, passion, and creativity.
• You already have content for a blog.
• Once you get started your will want to blog.
Thoughts? Can you add any? Can you re-frame any? What are the best three of the bunch? Have you experienced this objection? What did you say?
I’ve been involved in quite a few blogger relations campaigns over the past six months. Blogger relations is an art that is still being perfected and its norms are in a period of gradual, protean evolution. At the end of the day blogger relations about being human and friendly. Here are my four blogger relations suggestions for print publications (although some apply to all products–digital and otherwise) from my experience in blog relations campaigns:
• A quick signed note with a sincere thank you.
• And why not make it a signed copy while you’re at it?
• Linking to my blog to thank me by giving me a bit of Google juice is a nice touch.
• I believe having a blogger relations page in most cases is marginally superior to e-mailed info.
I read a lot about increasing blog traffic, but I think a lot of it gets back to six core tactics, some of which get overlooked or misplaced in the marketing mix.
1) Traditional public relations and media relations for TV, print, and radio.
2) Online blogger relations
3) Pay per click advertising
4) Guest posting on core industry blogs
5) Interviews with industy experts and bloggers
6) Community hub function (aggregation)
7) Search engine optimization
Of course a host of other issues are important as well:
• Listening to trends and conversations.
• Joining ongoing conversations.
• Being linky to blogs, particularly in your field.
• Commenting intelligently on authoritative and/or well trafficked blogs in your field.
• Building offline relationships via networking at dinners, conferences, and unconferences.
• Active social media participation. I think the sweet spot for social media is flickr, audio, and video.
• Forum participation. These are the watering holes of the internet.
• Blog design
• Blog usability
• And all importantly interesting, original, informative, and/or thought leading blog content.
All of this generally gets back to listening + content + relationships. Or perhaps listening + content + community + relationships.
An easy step by step process for getting involved in corporate, executive, and personal blogging.Its not supposed to be a rigid list.Its to be adapted as appropriate to the given individual and corporate culture.In fact, I will probably revise the schema in the near future.
Week 1:
• Find and listen to the three most influential and interesting blogs in your field
• Listen to what is creative, interesting, unique, and what is popular
• Get a google reader or Netvibes account
• Learn to use technorati and google alerts to listen
• Get a del.ico.us account and use it to bookmark important and interesting finds on the web.
Week 2:
• Look for blog mentors in terms of content and form
• Subscribe to 3 blogs in your field and 2 or 3 blogs for fun
• Brainstorm ideas for entries
• Write your about page
• Start writing entries and editing them as needed
Week 3:
• Start interacting by commenting
• Decide on a name and perhaps a voice. (note: you voice will likely mature and change slightly over the life of the blog
Advice from family and friends is the No. 1 source consumers turn to when making a variety of decisions — from purchasing consumer electronics to planning a vacation — and advice from an expert rates highest when making medical decisions and purchases based on a product’s environmental impact. Despite the strong evidence that friends, family and experts play a key role in influencing decisions, only 24 percent of communicators report having a word-of-mouth program in place.
In its second year, the Media Myths & Realities survey examines the use of more than 40 media channels, ranging from newspapers to social networking sites. This year’s survey was expanded to include the fast-growing BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The Annenberg News continues:
With digital media giving rise to increasing media choice, fragmentation and personal empowerment, the term “mass market” is being outmoded. As a result, it is imperative that communicators view their audience as distinct groupings of individuals.”This year’s findings magnify the point of last year’s benchmark survey, which showed that communications professionals need to vigorously reassess their communication priorities to meet consumers’ needs in this multimedia channel world,” said Nicholas Scibetta, Ketchum senior vice president and global director, Global Media Network.
So this post is the genesis of thinking about how to easily explain blogging to future and beginning bloggers. Its a short and helpful resource for folks who want ways to organize their posts for creativity and productivity. Enjoy!
• Quote and question
• Cool blog of the day
• Article
• Narrative or metaphor (Both Skellie and Chris Brogan are great about this)
• Rant (generally of an interpersonal relations, customer service, or media culture variety) (Marc Cuban and Seth Goodin are well known for this)
• Link bait (news around the web in a specific area or random)
• Link bait resource (there are tons of options for creating resources) (this Chris Brogan resource post became a small meme, as Darren Barefoot chimed in with some additions to the list and Chris got tons of traffic, even if the traffic was primarily just a spike)
• Project or Meme post (almost 700,000 have checked out this video and vlogging meme) (there are various GTD and productivity projects on flickr as well as 365 days and Whiskerino)
• Interview (text, audio, video, or live UStream)
• Interview by an influential blogger or a not so influential one.
• Video (YouTube or one of the other free video hosting and sharing services. Rohit explains an issue you may want to consider for YouTube posts and channels) I have a wide assortment of nonprofit, politics, church and online marketing Channels on YouTube
What can I add? Did I leave anything off? What do you think gets the best return? Thoughts? If you want a little inspiration….I thought I would include this rock’n video from the Free Hugs campaign!
I’m excited. My grandparents have attended Crieve Hall Church of Christ as dedicated members for over twenty five years and have had a relationship with the church since 1964. My grandmother’s preacher Bill Watkins and a pastoral assistant Andrew Leeper are both passionate about the word and are interested in receiving technical knowledge about the so-called “social media space” including blogging and web 2.0 interactivity. I have one other meeting scheduled later this week to help and am looking to widen that number in an effort to help bridge the generational and culture gaps with web technology.
Your Journey and Reflections:
I’m interested to hear your opinion. What do you find to be the biggest challenges of blogging and the social media space? [you don't have to be Andrew Keen or Dooce to know there are struggles] Alternatively, what are your favorite parts or favorite experiences? Or what is your blogging story?
My Crazy Journey through Social Media and Blogging:
Mine seems more like a random series of crazy events…but here goes: Its pretty crazy to think that someone from Asian (and probably Singapore) read my blog after I tracked back to Mitch Joel after he did a conference in Asia and its even crazier to think that someone from South Africa read and commented on my blog. And these are events I know about without the help of google analytics or a geographical map feature (which is soooo the next addition to my blog). I talked in forums to second life pastors in Australia. And I was added to the rotating blogroll at Swerve (the biggest church in the country Lifechurch.Tv). And just this last week I got some link love from Rex and social media guru JD Lasica. For being so young in the blogging part of the space–to me thats pretty cool. Not to mention, I’ve gotten a lot of link love from the Nashville blogging scene in the Music City Bloggers and Volunteer Voters (and all the Nashville readers like Newscoma and Ginger who dredge through my occassionally typo-rich texts) If I failed to mention Travis M, from Maryland who writes for Relevant and Lifted Magazine like it was his job I would be remiss and a host of other folks who read and comment and even lurk. This just scratches the surface. The metaphor of the social web is alive and well. I think one of the projects that epitomizes it is the Twitter Mosaic. The twitter mosaic compiles individual Twitter pictures of people who are following him/her in a mosaic. This month’s Twitter mosaic is of college football.
When you do a google search on this person’s name, my blog posts come up first and lower hers! I looked at the results and I’m number 2. Number 1 is another blogger. Many of the rest of entries on the next few pages are references to this campaign, including some — ugh - splogs.
So how can SEO or social media help? The question made me think, how does social media specifically effect SEO? And which social media network gets the most bang
1) My WordPress Blog
2) Linked in
3) Ning
4) Amazon profile
5) Digg
6) Another Ning
7) My Care 2 Magnolia (this appears a couple times)
9) Ex.pode.us (social media overload anyone????)
10) Comments I’ve made on other blogs that are Linked to my blog
What did I learn:
Social media can definitely have a direct effect on your branding and the scope of your impact online. Linked in and blogging are particuarly helpful in branding, as are comments linked to your blog [note the number of results you get here are also dependent on the types of comment links the individual blogger allows] In other results for other search terms, MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog often show up high too, which is can help magnify your branding online.
Test your name out. What results do you get? Any social media optimization tricks? Can you suggest any social spaces that are particularly helpful in this regard?
So, if you have great, cool, or unique info on your blog or an awesome product or service service…(or hopefully the tri-fecta) perhaps social media can help you in your attempts to connect with people online.
____________
Note: this won’t hold true for everyone and for every keyword. In fact my delicious account has a name of “dcmusicfusion” instead of Nathan Ketsdever and I’m curious why my MySpace and Facebook don’t show up higher in the ranks (because they should be very link heavy). I think for most people they do.
As a pre-empt, this does seem at tension with my recent post about twitter, however I think your identity online is different than you day to day stats or technorati ranking.
Pastor Rob Singleton is saying no to Technorati. Technorati is one way blog reads and bloggers can track blog “authority” and influence. Rob Singleton is stepping away, with fairly extensive reasons including that its somewhat arbitrary and inaccurate as well as the following rationales:
There are a variety of ways that technorati sucks you in:
your ego (what’s my authority today?)
your pride (why aren’t they linking to me? Where’s the love?)
your time (I’ve spent more time on technorati then some do on personal hygiene!)
your paranoia (maybe the techsters have it out for me)
your computer savvy (seriously, technorati goes down so much [they refer to it as the technorati monster getting away] that I spent a third of my time on it trying to figure out if they lost my blog!)
your sense of fairness (there is no rhyme or reason to technorati’s authority junk)
I’ve struggled with the same issue over the last couple of months. I check my hit stats and technorati rank far, far more than I should. [the words like a crackhead come to mind] I need to write, blog, and connect with more purpose and reason. I like Rob’s suggestion also because it just makes common sense for those who are interested in Getting things Done and productivity. I personally hope that Rob’s personal change starts a small movement of sorts. At the very least I’m going to try to do my part. So, I’m personally going to try to ween myself away from my obsession.Your Thoughts and Personal Reflections: Thoughts? What’s your technorati? What has your ego? What sucks your time or mind away like a vacuum? What do want to do to put it down? I guess with New Years coming up soon, talking about such things makes great sense. (image credit: niall kennedy)
Got ideas? Or would you like to “drop some knowledge?”
I’m passionate about blogging, communication, and the democratization of media. In an effort to Pay it Forward, I’m offering my blog, social networking, and social media consulting services free of charge for the week of November 4th through November 17th, 2007 on a first come first serve basis.
Would you like to know…
• why blogs are helpful in telling your story?
• how to set up a blog?
• how blogs can help you connect with your audience?
• the advantages and disadvantages of blogging?
• which blogging platform is best for you?
• what rss is?
• how to maximize your blogs chances in search engines?
• how to take advantage of blogs or social networking?
• how to use the web to express yourself or your skills to the world?
While this is primarily aimed at small businesses, non-profit organizations, and artists, opening it up to anyone and everyone. So if you sell social justice or sell real estate or just want to show folks your photography, I’m glad to help. All I ask in return is respect, friendliness, and a review or referal.
What to do now?
Getting a blog set up is quick, easy, and fun. For more information, please contact me via email at compassioninpolitics[at]gmail.com or for a quicker response contact me on facebook by clicking here . Or if you prefer you can ask questions in the comments section of this post and I will reply to your inquiry. As a bonus, if you are located in Nashville, Brentwood, or Franklin, TN communities, I would be glad to offer face to face help, as well, at a local coffee shop or eatery with free wifi.
Who is this Nathan guy?
Nathan Ketsdever is a new media communications maven and consultant. Among other things, he is lover of music and movies, a book and food critic, tech geek, and educator. He has been in the social networking space for 2 years and has been blogging in various capacities for over a half of a year. In a former life, Nathan did online marketing, blogging, and social networking for a international arts non-profit in Washington DC. He has taught computers and technology professionally for over 15 years, as well as a very fulfilling two year stint as a college communications instructor. Nathan holds an MA in Communications. His current blog Compassion in Politics has nearly 10,000 hits and a Technorati ranking of 49 in just over 3 months. Nathan’s normal rate for blog consulting is $20 per hour.
Pastor Rob Singeton reached out to me on Blog Catalog and I provided him with some suggestions about his blog and new social media for reaching out to his community. I mentioned to him that social media maven and all around great guy (and general rockstar) Chris Brogan was using Utterz in a powerfully human way and I checked out Rob’s blog today and he has already started using Utterz. Rock!!!
I look forward to hearing how Rob’s experience with Utterz goes and look forward to hearing from other folks. Why don’t you check out Utterz?
Update: I’m officially on Utterz. It takes about 3-6 minutes to sign up and its super easy to set up an automatic post. Also, if you don’t like the Utter you create its very easy to scrub it and make another.
David, who is the author of the Cluetrain Manifesto and more recently Everything is Miscellaneous, chatted it up with me and Johnathon Trenn in the comments at Marketing Conversation. If you don’t know who David Weinberger is check it out here. He is one of the thought leaders who saw the blogging and web 2.0 revolution coming back before 2001. Wow. I’m a bit star struck! Thanks Dave!
If you enjoy the discussion about ongoing revolution in new media and web 2.0, you might check here for my earlier discussion of Dave & Cluetrain related topics in relation to the Vision of StudentsYou Tube video.
Interview people your audience is interested in or bestow credibility upon (and optimally that your audience will be searching for)
Pastor Rob Singleton is saying no to Technorati. Technorati is one way blog reads and bloggers can track blog “authority” and influence. 
