Category Archives: social media (general)

Path, Twitter Cards and Instagram, and Facebook apps

I am cramming three topics into this quick blog.  I wanted to write about all three but didn’t want to spam out three posts back to back.  And, as it goes in the social media world – If I waited a week to post one of these it might not be relevant any longer.

Thus, here is your jam-packed threesome of social media topics on my mind for this fine Sunday morning in early May.

Path users can no longer “find friends” using Facebook within the app

I saw this article this morning while doing my very early morning “what’s going on out there?” twitter surf.   I am not surprised by any means.  Facebook hates things that they deem spam, or anything that comes off unclean to their users.path  They probably felt a little taken advantage of that they allowed Path to have this functionality and then family and friends of Path users were bombarded with invites, thanks to Facebook giving the “OK.”  Or so it seemed.  Facebook likes blocking things (see: Vine).  The social media war continues to get weird.

Instagram’s lack of Twitter Cards really sucks

I find this so annoying as a constant user of both Twitter and Instagram, and as one who has used Instagram for several brands from a business angle as well.   Instagram is to get that very visual content out there as a beautiful, pleasing connection with your fans.  You don’t want to just put the same photos in there that you put on other social platforms.  instagram However, you utilize other social platforms to basically ‘promote’ your Instagram posts and presence.  Now, Facebook does own it, so it obviously fully integrates on there pretty seamlessly.  I understand that Instagram was hoping this would drive more visitation to their Instagram site itself.  I get why they’re doing it.  All it did was annoy me and cause me to take in less Instagram content.

Again, the social media war drags on.

But when I am scanning my Twitter feed and see an Instagram link now, I honestly don’t even want to look at it.  I don’t want to click out and go to another website/app to see your picture.  I want to see it right there, and quickly consume it, like we used to.  I previously got most of my Instagram content from Twitter.  That all being said, I find myself using Instagram less and less.  Brands as we move forward might need to find new ways to get that content out there and not just rely on Twitter, just in case there are other people out there that hate those two extra steps now to get to your photo.  From first hand experience, once Twitter Cards went away, the brands I had on Instagram saw less activity from putting an Instagram photo out there on Twitter.  So…

The other side of this argument is from the people that use Instagram a TON, even more than Twitter.  They couldn’t care less about any of this.  For those people, this is no big deal at all.  For the Twitter-first user like me, this is a nuisance.

Are Facebook apps dying?  Or are they already dead?

I am only speaking from first hand experience managing and creating several Facebook apps for a couple different brands over the last few years.  I am not going off any article or stats that might have ‘made my mind up for me.’  So, these are just my thoughts as I’ve seen them evolve over the last 2 years.

People are really straying away from clicking on Facebook apps.  Users barely ever go to a brand’s actual page/timeline.  They consume from the newsfeed.  So, a post here and there or a sponsored story or marketplace ad will see a spike in traffic to the app, but overall it will most likely be pretty stale.

The apps themselves are more or less web pages that live within Facebook, on your brand’s page.  That just doesn’t seem that cool anymore.  People want things right there in front of them, seamless.  Not a page within a page that sometimes (God forbid) are even like-gated just to get in and see what the hell it is. Facebook-like-gate Like-gating.  So I seriously have to “sign-up” to get your status updates just so I can see this one Facebook app, or enter to win this one thing?  Real cool.

The new timeline changes will be altering the way they’re displaying anyway.  So, Facebook might already be on to this.  There will no longer be big boxes to click on.   Waiting on the verdict on that one…

Apps just aren’t cool anymore.  I said it a few sentences ago.  They are sooo 2011.

Agree with me?  Think I’m nuts?  I love to hear it.  Holler.

Facebook – my quick take on the newer news feed

facebook screenshot

I watched the livestream of the big Facebook announcement today, and I must say, I was really surprised that the last guy that spoke was not wearing a hoodie.

That being said, everything else was very Facebooky.  A relatively informal presentation, but with big hitting information.

I am absolutely not reporting on what changes were discussed.  I leave that to the Mashable and TechCrunch’s of the world.  However, I did want to share some of my very quick takeaways.  These are my initial thoughts before ever actually using the new newsfeed, so take it for what it’s worth.

  • It’s all about evolving, and doing that with stories.   The most prominent way to tell these stories on Facebook?  Photos.  Other media like videos.  Third party shares from sites like Pinterest…and a slew of others excluding Vine.   Facebook recognizes what people are doing on Facebook.  I can tell you with complete confidence that nothing kills it on Facebook (in my industry) like an awesome photo.  Nothing else comes close.   This is good news for those that want more visually pleasing stories from friends, but it’s also good news for brands.  Bigger, richer media is a big positive.   Of course, this means that brands will have to be even more creative to compete for that precious real estate.  As always but possibly even more now than ever – the best/highest virality content wins.
  • That precious real estate… from the sounds of it not a lot will change for brands immediately with the changes.  There will still be a main “Most Recent” newsfeed that includes everything under the sun, with all of the Facebook algorithms we all know and love to hate.  The curve ball here are the new separate newsfeeds that users can “switch” to.   Friends only.  Brands only.  Games only.  Whatever else only.  Will people use them?  If they do, and use them a lot, this will hurt brands and make it even moreso pay to play.  And even your ads will have to be more strategic to end up in the right feeds, correct targeting, you name it.  If people are lazy and still just use their main landing feed, things will probably stay pretty much the same.  That’s my guess.  I could be wrong – we’ll know as we use it, but that’s how it appears right now.  And I do think people will use the friends only feed.  Why not?  It’s very cool and gets rid of terrible brand posts telling you to “like this post if you love cats.”
  • Facebook is really obsessed with newspapers.
  • Ads will continue to play in the convergence arena, meaning that even though you’re paying for the reach, you still have to earn maximum reach with quality content within your ad.  The whole owned, earned, paid world on Facebook comes together and is eventually going to be what brands have to do be seen at all….  Apparently ads will be much bigger within the newsfeed which is great news.  But, while this works in brands’ favor, it also works against them.  People might get annoyed with the huge ads and start using those new feeds more and more, and inadvertently cut out brand content.   Catch 22 for brands in a way.  They’ll be chasing people around from feed to feed.
  • The overall concept with “everything is bigger” is very cool.  As a Facebook user it’s awesome and I’m really looking forward to it.  As a social marketer I’m kind of making the Jim Halpert face.   I think there are some really good things and some new challenges to overcome.  As always, keep feeding your communities real, great content that will keep them coming back.  That’s how you’ll win.   Brands will adapt.  We always do.  It’s how marketing is now.tumblr_mdaldqkTck1qgy27g

getting to know myself – the social media user

I’ve been “using” social media in some capacity since 2004.  I was in college when Facebook hit, and Myspace was already a ‘thing.’  I had a few Friendster requests from people even before those; I set up a profile one day and never checked it again.  So, I have been a user of some sort for the last 9-ish years.  My involvement with social media with a business/brand twist has been present since late 2009, so even that’s creeping up on 4 years.

My use of social media before 2009 was a lot different than now – the social business boom hadn’t hit yet, so we weren’t liking Facebook brand pages or getting quick info from major brands on Twitter (well, maybe a few).  And, ever since that big social business boom, I’ve been looking at it all through the lens of a social marketer/strategist/manager.  A couple months ago I wrote a blog about how taking a break from it all is healthy, and I still absolutely believe that.   But over the last two weeks I took another break and got to learn even more about myself as a social user: how I behave socially when I have no connection to the business side.

One of many Instagram posts from me over the last 2 weeks. Profound stuff.

One of many Instagram posts from me over the last 2 weeks. Profound stuff.

I have been on paternity leave for almost two weeks.  We welcomed our second child, a wonderful baby girl in early February.  So, I have given myself the opportunity to step away from it all, completely cut it off, for two weeks.  I’ve honestly been paying very little attention to what’s been going on in the social media world (I’ll have a lot of catching up to do), with brands that I work on, or brands in general.  I’ve had other priorities during these two weeks of leave.  But what I discovered after these two weeks is that I have been using social media as your everyday “user.”  I put down my social business lens.  I have been using it to be, well, social.

So, how do I use it?

Looking back at these couple weeks I can say that I used Twitter and Instagram more than any other platform.  It wasn’t even close.  I still got all of my news from Twitter and kept up on what my friends were doing on Instagram.  I also posted to Instagram more than I ever have, from my own personal account.  I posted a couple things outgoing on Facebook, but to be honest, I really didn’t look at Facebook much during my time away.  When I would look at it, I found myself much more interested in taking an action (liking, sharing, commenting) on actual friends and family’s content as opposed to a brand’s.

What does this tell me?

I am a challenging user for a brand.  I consume the content but rarely take an action.  I don’t produce a stat or metric.  I typically don’t engage, but, I am still part of that community and enjoy seeing the content come through.  So now I ask myself when looking at it through that brand lens, “What would make me actually engage with this content?”  And I’m not talking about for statistic’s sake.  I am talking about true engagement that can form a relationship and/or loyal following within the community.  If I could create something that even I would click on, then I’m winning.  That’s something I learned over these last two weeks.  As a social marketer you can strategize all day and make your users drink the Kool-Aid, but would you even drink the same Kool-Aid that you’re serving?

A vacation from social is good for you, but an extended leave with “normal” social use is a very helpful exercise and experiment.  I didn’t realize any of this until I was already doing it for almost two weeks.  Pretty interesting stuff (at least I think so).

A final point that I learned or reaffirmed: Twitter is still my favorite.

As a side note: And yes, I’m fully aware of the Harlem Shake meme.  It was unavoidable no matter how hard I tried (or didn’t try).  Seems like every brand and their brother has made a video with their own version…

social media success: not always just about revenue

As a business, if you are looking at your social media presence and only asking how much money it made you…you’re not looking at the big social picture.  If that is really the only thing you care about…you’re only using sales media, not social.  Some might completely disagree with me, mainly folks from the school of believing that anything and every thing you do absolutely has to tie back to revenue.  It’s a hardcore belief, and, those that do lean towards this theory probably don’t care as much about the actual social community.  Fair enough – everyone is entitled to their own theories and strategy, but with social media as it sits right now for businesses, there are several other measures that spell success.

I do agree that your messaging, content and overall social strategy should absolutely tie back to business goals.  After all, your brand’s social media presence is still your brand.  What you do socially should still resonate with your audience as an extension of your brand.  That being said, that doesn’t mean that your social media presence has to directly gain revenue to be “successful.”  Untitled-1

If you run a print ad in a magazine you might be able to track some conversion based off a specific phone number, a QR code with a tag, or a special url, but for the most part you really don’t know how many people saw that ad and said, “Cool, I think I might act on this, but just not right now.”  That’s a lot like how specific messaging and content works in social media.  If you are trying to push an action, for example, your post has a call to action to click on a link and buy something.  A very salesy post (not ideal).  You’re able to see stats on how many clicks it got and also how many sales transpired through the link from the post, but what about the thousands of people that saw the post and did nothing?  Just because they didn’t create a “stat” doesn’t mean the messaging didn’t work.  Who knows, they might have written themselves a reminder on a post-it note to act on it next week and purchase by another means.  You would never have that stat as a result of your social media campaign.

This is why just looking at direct revenue from social media as the only measure of success is incorrect.

Social media is supposed to be social.  Not just for sales.

You can absolutely track the sales that do occur, but just don’t forget to consider all of the other people your content reached and understand that you just don’t know what affect it might have had on them.  Social stats only tell the story of those that decide to act on a piece of content (a like, comment, share, retweet, etc).  I find myself often times seeing something and really liking it, but not necessarily “liking” it.

What if you are a brand that has a social/digital presence but your products are only sold in person; in a store?  How could you possibly measure social success?  Determine what social ROI means for your company first and foremost.  Is it engagement?  Awareness?  Reach?  Referrals to a website?  Revenue generated via social campaigns?  Other?  There are a slew of things that could be defined as having a return on your social media investment.  Prioritize.  Once that’s nailed down, look at ways that you could actually directly impact the behavior of consumers in store, by way of your social presence.  One idea might be to create a special social-media-community-only loyalty program.  Develop a mobile loyalty “card” that literally can be accessed on their phone to scan when they purchase products in the store.  They get a special social media discount on certain products/LTOs.  You get their data from their in-store action.  Everybody is happy.   This is just one idea – you have to get creative.  There is always something that can be done to break through that clutter.  Social can impact how people behave when not in front of their computer or mobile screen.

I am a firm believer that engagement is where the meat of social success lies.  What stories are people creating from your content?  How “viral” did your content go based on your community interacting with it?  What kind of reach did your content have due to shares and retweets?  This is where you can measure how you are doing with what you’re putting out there.  And I do acknowledge that many people reached don’t act and register an engagement stat (I just said it above).  However, I think this is a far better representation of success as related to the purpose of social media than just making money.

Sales messages and posts are not what people are looking for socially.  Users are not spending hours a day on Facebook to buy stuff, or to be told what they might want to buy.  They want to be entertained.  This is why cat photos go viral.   And while a sales media strategy might work here and there, it shouldn’t be your #1 goal.

Entertain your community with great content relevant to why they liked your page in the first place, establish a content strategy that speaks from your brand, and the loyalty will continue to grow.  Build a solid base of fans and followers (that doesn’t necessarily mean a big one, just a solid one) that actually come back for more because of great content, and these people will be more inclined to eventually spend money with you… Revenue will happen; it just might not happen straight from social media.   So, don’t expect it to.

(The opinions are only those of Jeff Werkheiser)

Graph Search – helping you creep even more

Facebook Graph Search is explained like this, from the book of face themselves:

“Graph Search will help you instantly find others, learn more about them and make connections, explore photos, quickly find places like local attractions and restaurants, and learn about common interests like music, movies, books and more. All results are unique based on the strength of relationships and connections.” (source: Facebook Graph Search)

Here is is how I read it:

“Graph search will help make it easier to creep on people you once knew, learn things about them you otherwise would have never noticed or cared about, scan all of their personal photos, and take common interests from these people you may or may not know and think that you suddenly have a connection.”

I understand that it is apparently supposed to give you results based on your existing connections and relationships and how strong those are, but let’s be honest, we are all ‘friends’ with probably hundreds (in some cases thousands) of people on Facebook that we knew 10 years ago, and haven’t given a second of thought towards since accepting that friends request.   I have friends that I knew when I was 6-years-old and know absolutely nothing about now.  But, since they are a connection to me, will they pop up in my Graph Search results?  And, my friends that I do know really well, I wouldn’t need them to pop up in a search to learn something about them.

What I’m trying to say here, is that it seems like it will just give new life to creeping, within your already existing friend base.  I normally don’t go looking for new people to connect with on Facebook.  I already have a good deal of connections on there that I barely know, or once knew, or will probably never know again.  Graph Search opens a new opportunity to quickly learn about these people, find common interests and make it seem like we should chat or something?

If Graph Search expands to brand pages and allows people to find businesses they might like that they otherwise didn’t know existed, that makes more sense to me.  Then it really starts to become a Google competitor, all within the Facebook world.

The functionality does seem cool, don’t get me wrong.  And I’m looking forward to seeing how it works.  They are always innovating and trying to make the free product better, more engaging, and interesting.  But, personally, I don’t need help creeping on my Facebook friends.  The news feed is in-your-face enough with the content Facebook chooses to show me.

 

(The opinions are only those of Jeff Werkheiser)

2013: A Year to not be annoying as a social business

This whole social media thing is finally not “new.”  The big social business boom of 2008 was several years ago.  If that was the business world’s freshman year; it has now graduated.  If you are a business that’s been around for a while and just starting or trying to figure social out – you are behind.  The businesses that have been doing it for years have been able to try and fail, try and succeed, and figure out what the goals are for their brand(s) with social media.   Many have gotten it right.  And, many are still looking for a map.

Luckily for you, if you are new to social business, there are a gagillion blogs and articles and “best practices” out there to learn from.  I still completely think that first hand experience with social media is the way to learn, but if you want to dive into a bunch of articles and claim you know it all…go for it.   You’re not alone.

Now back to this whole 2013 thing…Happy New Year!  I promise that wasn’t sarcastic.  Seriously, happy newest of years.  It’s a new beginning.  A start over for some.  And in the world of social media for business- the year to not be annoying.

It’s been long enough now.  Brands should know the following things below to avoid being annoying in 2013.  And I don’t just mean a little nuisance, but the ‘you will get “unliked” or “hidden” at a rapid rate in 2013 if you keep doing these things.’  People are generally not idiots.  People don’t feel the need to tell a retail brand what they’re doing for their Saturday any longer.  The same things that might have worked in 2010 or 2011 won’t work now.  So, to the community managers and social strategists out there….avoid these things:

1) Trying to sneak the word “LIKE” into your post with a goal of your fans subliminally seeing it and thinking, “Hey, I like this sentence.  I will click “like” so the brand feels good about themselves, and because they capitalized the word LIKE, they are clever and I’ve never seen that before.  Amazing.”

2) Hashtagging until the cows come home.  I don’t know when the cows are coming home, but it’s not anytime soon apparently.  The cows needs Google Maps.  If you are using a hashtag, or maybe two, use it with purpose – as part of a strategy or theme.  Just throwing in 7 hashtags in hopes that a trending tag will pick it up looks like your keyboard puked all over your tweet.

3) Auto-posting your tweets directly to Facebook, especially when they include Twitter-only functionality like @ mentions and hashtags.  This one should’ve died off in 2010 but I still see it.  And when I do I give off an evil laugh.

4) Asking your fans things that they could care less about talking about with your brand, in hopes of getting some quick engagement.  Engagement just to get engagement is pointless engagement.  That means you’re just in it for the numbers with no weight or meaning behind them.  Random questions worked really well a few years ago.  But I’ve seen first hand from my experience as well as with many other big brands – people are just getting plain bored with this type of content.  Social media and content is evolving and getting bigger and better than ever.  You’re not surfing around on Facebook to tell a paper towel brand what your New Year’s resolutions are (no offense to any paper towel brand).  ”What are you guys up to today?”  This opened-ended, off-brand question still gets engagement if you have tons of fans, as some people are simply destined to jump at an opportunity to partake, but it’s so annoying.   And if you have tons and tons of fans you probably aren’t even responding to most of the comments, so if you say “relationship building” you can just go hang out somewhere with those cows.

5) Trying to run a Facebook contest on your wall.  This hasn’t been allowed now, in very straight-forward writing, for over a year now.  Although it really has never been allowed – it was just cracked on hardcore just over a year ago.  Smaller brands still get away with it.  Others get warnings, and the really bad rule-breakers get their pages shut down, apparently.  As a community manager, just know better.  There is a right way to do these things.

There are more, but these are what stick out in my mind as something I keep seeing brands doing that I would classify as annoying.  Something to look for in 2013.  Again, Happy New Year!

-Jeff

 

All thoughts and opinions above are mine and mine only.

Begging for Likes and Retweets: Don’t be sleezy

“LIKE our page!”

“RT this if you LIKE us!”

“Do you LIKE awesome photos?”

“If you RT us, we’ll RT you!”

“Help us get to 1,000 followers.  Please RT this!”

“We need to get to 5,000 likes by Saturday – share this with your friends and help us out!”

—————————————————————————————————————–

I just threw up a little bit out of sheer annoyance after typing all of those out.  Unfortunately, those are actual examples that I’ve pulled straight from a couple different brand Facebook pages and Twitter handles.   What’s even more crazy are the countless articles, blogs, and “best practices” floating about that claim this is a solid strategy for your social media presence and engagement success.

All I have to say is this – if your brand social strategy is centered around either a number goal of fans/followers or begging people to engage with your content…you’re doing it wrong.

In the current social sphere, people want to talk to real people, hear from real people, and interact with real people.  They don’t want to be talked at by a brand.  So, if you are acting as a brand, you might as well start by talking like a real person with an authentic voice.  Social media isn’t your old fashioned marketing strategy, so your voice and tactics shouldn’t pretend to be.  It just won’t work.

And even the huge focus on fans and followers is a thing of the past.  If you are a start-up that has 57 fans then sure, you might want to set a reasonable number goal to get off the ground.  That’s a different situation.  If you aren’t talking with anyone, then what’s the point?  However, if you are an established brand, why do you care so much about a number?  You can go buy that number and then what?  Have them unfollow you a month later or never engage with your content?  Most won’t even see your content in their newsfeed now.  Yeah, thanks for that, Facebook.

I still do think there are situations or strategies where promoting certain pieces of content or messages can serve a valid purpose.  You will most likely gain fans along with this promotion, but they’re joining you based on the content your promoted.   They were attracted and took an action.  That’s an effect of the promoted content, but fan growth wasn’t the goal.  My problem is with a straight-up fan gaining spend.  No content.  Just buying fans.  That just feels a bit dirty to me.

And yes, I have done the whole incorporating the word “Like” into a post thing to make it clear that I wanted likes on the piece of content.   I felt sleezy.   It just felt fake.  I did this roughly a year ago as a “let’s see how this works” trial.  Nothing wrong with trial and error.  That’s a HUGE part of social media.  But, if it just doesn’t feel right, and you would hate it if you were a fan seeing it from a brand, then it’s probably not the right way to go.  Go with your gut.  Don’t be sleezy.  Don’t beg.

If you are begging for engagement or numbers, you’re doing it wrong.  Let your content do that for you organically, naturally, from people that actually do enjoy what you’re putting out there.  That’s where your true engagement should come from.   And I know it’s easier said than done.  You don’t just have great content overnight.  It can take a while with a lot of planning, strategy, resources, and distribution.  But, when you do get there, that’s when you and your fan-base will click.

Seriously, that wasn’t a “click” pun.

$7 to brag even harder on Facebook

This week Facebook finally started rolling out the not-very-anticipated promoted posts for normal people.  You read that correctly; these are not for brand pages, businesses, or any other revenue-generating organization.  These are for your personal accounts.  Say wha????

After hearing about these a few months ago, I kind of wanted to wait and see if this was real.  And it turns out, it’s real.

For the people out there that have never managed a brand page or acted as an advertiser on Facebook before, the ability to promote something on the platform will be completely new, and completely weird.  But for those that do this for a living or for a business, this is just getting kind of ridiculous.

As community and social managers, we deal with this stuff day in and day out, optimizing our promotions and social marketing strategies.  And now, everybody else has the ability to optimize their own damn self-marketing strategy.  Seriously, how vain do you have to be to feel the need to promote a post about yourself to make sure more people see it?  If you have compelling content, just like a brand, it will naturally pick up a higher level of vitality and more people will see it – the right way.    Brands promote.  They have ROI requirements, revenue measures and goals, and other specific engagement objectives riding on content strategies and campaigns.    Me and you?  We do not.   I don’t have a goal riding on how many people see the video of my kid diving off the couch.

What the hell is Facebook doing?

I recently saw someone comment on another post about this claiming that Facebook is now just turning into classified ads.  So true.  Are people just going to start posting about their couch for sale and promoting it?  Apparently it starts at $7 a pop.  If that’s seriously the case, then it’s going to spiral out of control.  Allowing regular people to promote their own posts could be the beginning of a dark, desperate path for Facebook.  Gotta keep the shareholders happy, gotta keep making money.  But like this?  Figure out mobile first.  Please.

It’s getting weird.

What’s next, a video about how Facebook is like chairs?  Oh.

Kohort – my first impressions

Last Friday I received an email from Kohort.  They told me that the site was now live.   I signed up to get a username to the long-awaited social platform several months ago, but to be completely honest, I forgot about it.  I love social media and I enjoy playing around on new platforms, so what the hell.  I created my account and gave it a shot.

Last April I saw this article on Mashable about Kohort and its impending launch…sometime soon.  But no one knew what it was.  Whatever, if it’s featured on Mashable it must be the biggest, greatest social media platform ever created, right?

Back to this last Friday…

My first impressions of the new social platform:

  • It’s clean.  There isn’t a bunch of “crap” along the sides or any of the riff-raff we see on many other social networks.  This could be what they’re going for, but it also could just be because it hasn’t been monetized yet with advertising.
  • It’s easy to navigate.  The links are clear, and the flow of what you should be doing on the site is obvious to the user.
  •  It’s simple.  The idea and goal of it is right there.  They specialize in groups.  I never felt confused or overwhelmed.  It’s all very clear which is great.
  • Almost no one I knew jumped aboard.  I interact with a lot of very social-savvy folks in and out of my industry, and just about no one flocked to Kohort on launch day.  I thought that was interesting.  Maybe they didn’t know about it.  Maybe they didn’t care?  Maybe they knew something I didn’t?
  • It reminded me of Google+.  Well, sort of.  I’m not saying that it actually as a whole reminds me of Google+.  However, the entire “group” concept immediately made me think of G+ Circles.  Posts that you share on Kohort can be filtered to which group should see them, or if they’re public – exactly like circles.  And we all know how active people are (or aren’t) on there.  And, this doesn’t have the power of Google behind it.
  • Facebook groups, too? Not much to say about this one, but Facebook has simplified and improved their groups quite a bit in the last several months, and on a platform that pretty much everyone is already on.  Just sayin’…
  • Is the group concept really that original?  This was more of just a random, rhetorical thought.  But, we all wondered what Kohort was, expecting something super original.  And, it’s a network for groups.  I guess they’re trying to do it “better.”  Did they succeed?  We’ll see.
  • On launch day, the groups created, well, sucked.  I searched and searched throughout the day, waiting to see what cool groups were being created, who was out there, etc.  As I filtered by “most active, “most popular,” and “newest,” I was very disappointed to find literally nothing I wanted to join.  I completely understand this was day 1, so I’m not trying to be too harsh on this point.  However, I just thought more people would’ve been active on there creating really interesting groups and content, especially after the anticipation of the launch.
  • My group might collect dust.  I wanted to created a new group to try it out.  Being that it was launch day I figured I could probably claim something that people might actually want to join.  Why not?  Let’s see what happens.  So, I created a Kohort group for Ski Industry Marketing.  I connect with a bunch of people involved in this world on other platforms and thought that just maybe, some might join up and play around as well, maybe even start a discussion on Kohort.  Nope.  I broadcasted about the group on both Twitter and Facebook.  Crickets.  And I refuse to send an email to my contacts.  I’m not going to personally spam you about something like this.  So, as I write this 3 days later….still no one.
  • Mobile? I personally have a Samsung Galaxy S III so I use Android, and there was definitely no app on Friday.  iPhone?  I wouldn’t know.

I think the site has potential, as it’s WAY to early to ever rule out any new social platform until we get a chance to see what the people think.  At this point, it’s very new, but people don’t seem to be racing to join it, to create cool groups, or interact.  My two followers both work for Kohort.  The jury will be out for a while.  Maybe they have something else planned to give it a boost?  Some cool digital marketing campaign?  Some earned media online write ups to give it some exposure?  Not sure.  But if it’s released to the wild and this is what it is for good, we might not be seeing it in a year.

Good luck to the Kohort team.  I hope to interact with better groups and more people soon.  Otherwise I might have to start cracking Google+-esque jokes about it.  And I don’t want to do that.  I wish them success.

a tweet chat with my CEO

Last week I got the very cool opportunity to host a tweet chat with Vail Resorts’ CEO, Rob Katz (@RickysRidge).  Not something you see every day – an open, public discussion with someone so highly ranked in such a big company.  It was a very cool experience.  Many other folks jumped in as well, adding questions to the conversation.  Rob answered every single one, and added in some jokes, too.

The main topic was social media.

Rob offered some great opinions and thoughts, and he did it all within the 140 character limit, including the chat hashtag (#VRSS12)!

This is just another testament to how important social media/business has become, and also how committed Vail Resorts is to being a leader in the socialsphere.  I want to give major props to Rob for being so willing to jump on a tweet chat.

I hope to see more of this from other companies and industries.  Social-savvy CEOs are the future.  Other leaders out there who haven’t quite taken a liking to social media, or haven’t quite jumped in yet; take the lead from Mr. Katz.  That’s how you do it.