Nerd alert: I love communication.

From the Paleolithic cave paintings in the Altamira caves, to an 140 character Tweet, to a letter a great-aunt writes and mails to her great-nephew, all of these events illustrate the humanistic need to share experiences and connect with other human beings.

Wikipedia defines communication as "the process of transferring information from one entity to another."

The key here is that information is transferred and then received; a process involving two willing entities.

So simple. So beautiful.

So jacked-up when you consider all the chaos that exists in the social media realm.

'Early' studies of online communities as they developed in blogs were often held up to Lasswell's or even Shannon and Weaver's models of communication. Regardless of what model or paradigm you were a scenario - or in this case an online community - through, the presence and extent of two-way communication defined an online community.

I believe this same, very basic concept can be applied to social media for any person, business or brand. The rate at which friends, fans, consumers, or complete strangers are engaged and then reciprocally engage, defines the quality of your social networks.

Again - not rocket science. Yet, when I sign into Facebook or Twitter, I'm overwhelmed with GROUND NOISE and STATIC. No one is talking to me and everyone is talking AT me.

In this industry, I even see businesses selling social media 'platforms' or 'strategies', as if the art of genuinely communicating with other human beings can be bottled and sold. It seems the brands, products or companies who are 'tearing it up' on social media are those who have people that genuinely love the brand/product/service doing the communicating. These companies are few and far between though, and I believe the result of the mad rush to "be on social media" or "have a social media marketing plan" is all the mayhem we're consistently bombarded with in the online realm.

Should you be on social media? Well, do you have something you are so impassioned to say? Do you have someone you care about saying it to? Do you think they will care to listen?

Most importantly, will you put forth the effort to listen and respond to their response?

I wish I could bottle and sell this process in the social media realm. Easier said than executed.

Although if I could, we might just inject some calm amidst the social media mayhem.

Labels: Facebook, Social media, social media marketing, Twitter

In case you didn't know Twitter has an analytics team. Part of their job is to measure and understand growth. This graph tells a story of how Twitter's grown over the past three years in terms of number of tweets created per day. Note that tweets from accounts identified as spam have been removed so the counts in this chart do not include spam.

Tweeps were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day — that's an average of 600 tweets per second.

This brings me to the question Ive been thinking about lately which is...Do people have lives anymore or are we all just drones stuck to computers and mobile devices?

Labels: mobile, Social media, social media research interactive, Twitter

I follow Matt Dickman on Twitter. He has a solid understanding of marketing technology and coming trends and is an interesting blogger. Matt is Vice President, Digital Marketing at Fleishman-Hillard in Cleveland.

Here is a recent post on Matt's blog Techno Marketer, about the ages of users on Facebook and MySpace that is worth checking out. Facebook is reaching critical mass in the US, overtaking MySpace in the 36-45 age range. Facebook's over 40 growth is still booming at 24% although their growth in the under under 30 age group has become stagnant. MySpace still dominates the high school and college crowd.

Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattDickman.


-jamie

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Labels: Cleveland Ohio, Facebook, Fleishman-Hillard, mobile web, MySpace, Online Communities, Social network, Twitter, Web

Courtesy of a PRSA teleconference, four members of the national news media weighed in about Twitter. The panelists ranged from a technology reporter from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a business columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, and the digital audio manager for ABC News. About 10 PRSA members from Boise came over to Drake Cooper agency to participate in the discussion.

A blogger once described Twitter as "the latest Silicon Valley play thing" or "instant messaging for adults." Approximately 4 million people are using it now, a 440 percent increase from this time last year. Between 250,000 to 500,000 new people are jumping on board each month. This compares to 41 million unique visitors who frequent Facebook per month. Twitter is growing, but it's certainly not the only social media tool out there. Even so, because million of people are using it, it has become a marketing tool, it's a great way to pass on information to your friends and associates, it's being used by journalists to find sources for stories, and it's being used by PR people to pitch stories to journalists.

So, Twitter is another conduit that PR people can use to reach journalists who may have blocked their email inbox from unsolicited queries. How do we find these folks through Twitter? There are several lists out there online. Click here to see a pretty inclusive list of twittering journalists. This is great intelligence for the PR professional.

BUT ... the journalists on the panel warned us that sending them a story pitch via Twitter may not be the best way to pitch a story. Some of them prefer to receive a pitch via email, and some of them suggest getting to know them first by following them on Twitter, and then pitching them later.

They also reminded us that the same rules apply for pitching stories to them:

1. Research their bio and know what topics they cover.
2. Research the media outlet they work for and make sure they haven't already covered that story.
3. Get to the point quickly.

On the last point, Twitter requires you to be succinct because a "tweet" can not exceed 140 characters. Some journalists in the high-tech field prefer to be pitched on Twitter so they don't have to wade through a lengthy email to find the crux of the story pitch, if one exists at all.

The journalists also suggested hooking up with them via Facebook. The techie reporter for the St. Paul paper said he loves Twitter and hates Facebook. He also just finished a book about Twitter titled, "Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company."

The other journalists on the panel liked Facebook, and see that service providing a lot more information and bells and whistles than Twitter.

Ultimately, we should know that Twitter is a unique social media tool, and it should be used accordingly. Figure out your goals, and use whatever communication tools are best suited to reach your goal. None of the tools are the end-all be-all by themselves.

But as new tools emerge, the Drake Cooper PR team believes that it is prudent to learn more about them and know how to use them.

A couple of Twitter resources:

• twitturly.com - Shows popular url's that people are sharing on Twitter.
• tweetbeep.com - Set up like a Google alert to keep tabs on what people are saying on Twitter about you, your company or your products.
• twitter.com/stevestuebner My Twitter handle.
  
  

Labels: agency, Boise, PRSA, Public Relations, Twitter