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The New York Times is reporting that Twitter and LinkedIn are joining forces. I can understand LI's incentive for adding tweets, but question whether it's really in their best interest to have tweets like "Time to watch Monk. It's the last season." or "I rode a Greyhound bus once when I was 18 and it taught me to never ride a bus again as long as I live." on what is an otherwise professionally-oriented social network. I mean, really, do we? In my view, this is an oil-water mix. 

It's not that LinkedIn should be exempt from Twitter mania, other than that it has set itself up as a site for professionals that is strictly business. 

The Times says, "The partnership with LinkedIn affirms Twitter’s role as a network for professional conversation." That would be fine if all we used Twitter for was professional conversation, but you know better than that. 

Some questions for you...

1. Will this integration cause us to be more guarded in what we say on Twitter? Will we be less open to casual conversation? 

2. Does this signal a shift in the way we view Twitter, seeing it even more as a tool for business-oriented conversations? Has Twitter grown up, so to speak? 

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s chief executive, said that he wants "LinkedIn to be the hub for all professional conversation," according to the Times article. That's fine, so long as he is willing to accept everything else that comes with it, including what I had for dinner! 

What do you think? Is Twitter appropriate for a social network like LinkedIn? 

Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog

There is a lot of talk these days regarding social media business models. Let me propose one that's truly social -- give content away freely. That is to say, share what you've learned from others with others who have a need to learn it, and do so without a financial transaction being involved. 

Think of it as mentorship or paying it forward or, to put it in somewhat biblical terms, discipleship. We all have individuals who have influenced and taught us. What I'm talking about is becoming that sort of person to someone else. 

For quite some time I've been influenced by something author David Meerman Scott said, you've got to turn loose of your content, making it freely available to others. Ungate it, don't charge for it, don't put up barriers to its access. 

I've even thought it would be a good idea to take on some "mentees" and teach them everything I know, charging nothing for the privilege. If they want to pay me, fine; if not, that's fine as well; they still receive the benefit of my knowledge. 

In some respects that's what Chris Brogan is doing through his blog. He exemplifies this "give and it shall be given" attitude. (And I think you would agree, he's done quite well because of it, at least if book sales are any indication.) 

Yet another such person is Mike Sansone, who the people in his home town of Des Moines refer to as the blogging "godfather." Every month he meets with a group of others at their local Panera to discuss the hows and why of business blogging and social media marketing. Having talked with Mike at some length about this, I told him its as if he's a shepherd to these people. They hold him high esteem and implicitly trust his insights. 

While I think my time and intellectual capital is worth something, I hate to propose that it's worth a certain something. No matter what amount I may determine, it's going to be prohibitive for some and not enough to convince others that I have what it takes. I'd rather remove the financial barrier from the equation altogether and let the individual (or company) make the decision for themselves. If they can afford to pay, they determine the worth. If they can't, they still have the opportunity no questions asked. 

Besides, it's not "my" knowledge anyway, as if I ascended some mountain and was given information that was proprietarily mine to claim. Whatever knowledge I have has been gleaned from others and forged in the fire of my own experiences (experience which came as a result of working with others). How dare I assume that I even have the right to charge for that unless I am willing to pay royalties to each of those who influenced me. 

Do I have the temerity to do it? Am I willing to trust that if I "cast my bread upon the waters" that it will come back? I'm not there yet, but am moving in that direction. In fact, I have a couple of people with whom I'm working in this respect and I'd like to work with more.

I realize this is "blue sky" thinking, as Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer would put it. (You might refer to it as "pie in the sky.") I admit to being a starry-eyed idealist, no question about that. But, if we can create a framework whereby everyone benefits regardless of their ability (or willingness) to pay, I think there is value there both of an intrinsic and fiscal nature. 

What do you think? Does this way of thinking belong more to a ".org" mindset than a ".com?" 

Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog

Like many of you, I've become fascinated with Posterous, a new blog publishing tool that fits somewhere between Twitter and a regular, more traditional, long-form blog. At least, that's where I think it finds its sweet spot. Obviously, I'm not alone in that presumption. As you can see from the screen shot, Damien Basile thinks so too. His quote, "Posterous, for those times when blogging is too much & tweeting is too little," would make a nice company slogan.

If you don't mind me harkening back to blogging's good old days, you know, before Facebook and Twitter existed, when all we had was our blog, many of us posted everything there. Our blog served as an "online journal or diary" chronicling not only our business-related thoughts and ideas, but more personal, anecdotal information as well. 

In 2006, Twitter came along and relieved our blog from carrying some of that burden. Still, the micro-blog wasn't suitable for everything and, by then, traditional blogs were morphing into more topically-specific, long-form posts, which were for many, very article-like in their conception. 

That's where Posterous comes in. It's the "everything else" blog. At least, that's how I'm using it. Want to post some ad hoc image you captured on your iPhone? You can do it. See a blog post, article or video that you think you're readers would appreciate but that doesn't synch well with your main blog? Put it on Posterous. Using the bookmarklet, you can even scrape content by highlighting it with your mouse, then add some commentary of your own as need be. Posterous always provides a link back to the source too.  

Not only that, thanks to the easy subscription option, Posterous allows its users to build a community of other Posterous blogs around themselves. But, you don't even have to be a registered user to post. Simply send an email containing text and links to photos or other media to post@posterous.com and the platform will send you back a link to it. 

That's another thing. You can post from email! In fact, that's the option that Posterous seems to prefer. (That's the option I'm using to post this message.) There is a web-based posting interface, but it's kind of lame when compared to the likes of Typepad or WordPress. 

Finally, something I like (sorta like anyway) is the autopost feature that permits the post to be sent to Twitter, Facebook or another blog. (I'm allowing that with this post as well.) 

Posterous is not lifestreaming in the same sense as Friendfeed, though it does fit that genre. For me, it's more of a life saver, the place I post when, to quote Damien, "blogging is too much and tweeting is too little." Reminds me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in fact. Poppa Bear's bed is too hard. Momma Bear's bed is too soft; Baby Bear's bed is just right. Same can be said for Posterous too! For some things, it's the "just right" blogging platform. 

Want to know more? Check out their FAQs. 

Here's a nice guide from Mashable on how to get the most from your Posterous blog.

Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog

AMEX Open Forum

If you click the image you'll be able to read the text that says, "Every day, more and more business owners are sharing their insights on Twitter. To help them find each other—and potential customers—we're introducing OPEN Forum PulseSM, a unique online experience that brings together the Twitter feeds of some of the most-followed business owners and industry leaders...You are specially invited to be among the first to participate in Pulse."

This appealed to my ego..."most-followed"..."specially invited"..."be among the first"... Oh, and the email referenced my name in the greeting, "Dear Paul Chaney." Now, it would have been better and more personable had it said simply, "Dear Paul," but at least there was the name reference. 

Contrast that with...

Kodak

No personalization...just one of a one million...generic message... I'm no one special. Plus, it assumed I would even want to attend the Ellen DeGeneres show. (I don't) The OPEN Forum message knew exactly what excited me, tweeting about business and using social media as a tool to make connections.  

I know both were email broadcasts sent via one or another email sending platform. OPEN pulled my info from a database just like Kodak did. But, that's where the similarity ends. 

OPEN did a much better job of making it more personal. There was a sense of exclusivity. It wasn't as good as if some PR person sent me a one-off email (I'm not that special!), but it got the job done.

Guess which one I clicked on. Yep, you guessed right. 

Want to get people's attention and respond to your overtures? Appeal to their innate needs for attention, love. a sense of belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization. All those things Maslow talked about in his hierarchy.  (And use their name for Pete's sake!) That's what the OPEN Forum email attempted to do and it worked.

A new survey conducted by Citibank shares some disheartening news: "Few U.S. small businesses have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses."

The survey states that "three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business." (The survey was done with 500 U. S. businesses with under 100 employees.)

I admit to being dismayed by the small number, but not necessarily surprised. To quote Maria Veltre, executive vice president of Citi's Small Business segment...

"What this survey indicates to us is small businesses are very, very focused on running their business and on generating sales and managing their cash flow and doing the things that are really important, especially in these economic times...I don't think quite yet the social media piece of it has proven to be as significant."

"Proven." That's the keyword and the issue at stake. Small businesses are sticking with that which is proven. For example, according to the survey:

• 42 percent of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales
• 19 percent were doing more advertising to attract new customers in the economic downturn
• 28 percent were using more email marketing
• 25 percent using more online advertising to generate business leads and sales

You can't blame them really. When times are tough, most stick with the tried-and-true. Email has long proven itself to be a cost-effective means of marketing, as has search (SEO and PPC). More online marketing dollars are spent on those forms of media than any other. 

Proving the Case for Social Media Marketing

It's not without merit that the sub-title of my new book, The Digital Handshake, is "Seven PROVEN Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media." The book is replete with examples and case studies of companies large and small who are successfully using social media to affect their bottom line. 

With a title like that, it is incumbent upon me to prove that this medium does indeed work. That is going to be the focus of my efforts over the next few months. I'm going to:

1. Blog about the case studies included in the book
2. Find examples of other small businesspeople who are using these tools successfully and blog about them
3. Re-kick start the What's Working Wiki so that people can post their own success stories or those of others

Let me end with a short story. 

A shoe salesman is assigned a new territory, some islands in the south Pacific. He gets to one such island and finds that no one there is wearing shoes. He calls his boss and says, "We can never be successful here. No one wears shoes." 

Needless to say, he is quickly replaced by another, more optimistic salesman. That person shows up at the same island, calls his boss and says, "Send me 1,000 pair today! We're going to do great. No one here wears shoes!" 

This stuff works folks. I bank my entire career on it! So, in response to Citibank's survey, I say: "No one here is using social media? Send me 1,000 blogs! We're gonna do great!"

NOTE: Read this response to the survey findings from Read Write Web.

The panelists include: 

• David Deal, VP-marketing at Razorfish
• Marla Erwin, interactive art director at Whole Foods Market
• Ramon DeLeon, operating partner of Domino’s Pizza
• Allan Schoenberg, director of corporate communications at CME Group

Panelists will take about 15 minutes each to share their own Twitter success stories. I'm going to do my best to introduce them and stay out of the way. My main role will be monitoring the backchannel (yes, we have a plan in place). When it comes time for Q&A, we'll reference the conversation we're seeing taking place there. 

MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer promises to be a signature event covering not only social media, but other forms of online marketing as well. If you're in Chicagoland or able to make your way there next week, I'd really encourage you to attend.  

If you plan to go, use the link above or click the image; both are affiliate links I've been assigned by MarketingProfs; affiliates could either get a cut of the revenue or donate it to charity; I choose to donate my proceeds. So, not only do you get a great experience, you get the positive feeling that comes from knowing you're doing good as well.

The Wall Street Journal says email's reign is over. Real-time, always-on, collaborative forms of communication have taken its place. They are right.

The problem is that, while there is a semblance of order where email is concerned, the same cannot be said for these new forms. The Journal outlines some specific problems:

• Information becomes more frequent, which can result in it being less personal and more anecdotal. 
• The constant stream of information can be overwhelming, making it difficult to filter out that which is less significant.
• Communication via social media is tied to your personal profile. That's not always a good thing. Rather than hide behind the anonymity of of username@emailaddress.com, the story of your life is being told. 

Social Media Chaos

We are in a time of flux. Some of the most prevalent questions I get regarding the use of social media have to do with time management and how to handle the fire hose of information being aimed in our direction. 

All I can say is, in time a new form of order will arise. That might come in the form of software applications -- tools like Tweetdeck and PeopleBrowsr, for example, which have evolved to help manage Twitter, Facebook and other accounts. 

In fact, I believe in many cases the answer is better software. How do you manage your personal finances? For many, Quickbooks or Mint is the answer. Similarly, you used to maintain your business calendar on a DayTimer. Now, you use Outlook, Google Calendar or some other office software tool. This is no different. We're just not there yet, but we will get there. Necessity is the mother...

Google Wave

If traditional email is dying away, what will replace it? Many think Google Wave is the email for the 21st century. In fact, Google is pitching it as real-time email, a mix of traditional email and instant messaging. Having just received my invitation, but really having no one in my inner-circle to converse with as of yet, I'm anxious to find out whether it will serve as a productivity tool or, as Robert Scoble alleged, a "productivity sink."  

One thing that is certain, "Times, they are a changin.'" We are effectively between the now and the not yet, the what has been and the what will be. There is no escaping it either. Email is less useful than it was. What will replace it is still to be determined. 

For those more interested, here's a great explanation of Google Wave by Rafe Needleman from CNet. 

Plenty of such stories abound. I want to hear yours. Share the secret to your success.

Here how it works:

1. Go to the What Works wiki and register. 

2. Add your success story under the appropriate category (Social Networks, Online Communities, Blogs, Microblogs, etc). If you don't find a category that fits, create one and place your story underneath it. 

3. Be thorough, but pithy as well. No more than 350 words please. Each of the 101 stories gets its own page in the book, complete with images and full attribution to the author and/or source. 

It needs to either a) be your own story, or b) the story of someone you have the explicit permission to tell. 

Let's prove once and for all that social media really does work. Share your story! 

Good explanation of what Google Wave really is, real-time email.

Posted via web from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog

Posted via email from Paul Chaney's [Other] Blog