Everything Communicates

As I have mentioned before, being laid off gives me great opportunity to talk to a lot of people and also to crystallize my own thoughts on a variety of topics.

I have been thinking a lot about social media; what it is exactly, how it fits in, how people use it, etc. What's apparent to me, is that social media is not an end, but a means. Its also very apparent that social media is not some online phenomenon, but online has developed the set of tools that make conversations easier and louder. One could argue that a conversation in class, at a bar, at work is a form of social media, but now those conversations can get very wide distribution through online tools.

The other thing that has become more obvious, is that with the advent of the online tools, EVERYTHING becomes marketing. Customer service is now as much of a marketing tool as advertising. A bad customer experience, can lead to a Tweet, FB Status, blog post, YouTube video etc about the experience.

So, EVANGELISM should now be a key objective, and the one that potentially drives social media use. In my opinion, ROI is nice from social media, but the value of it is the ability to "Democratize Your Distribution" and create brand evangelists with loud voices and broadcasting capabilities. The attribution (latency) period might be longer, but in the end, its more valuable.

Twitter and Cable TV - 500 Channels and There's Nothing On (Thanks Bruce)

I have been using and following on Twitter for a while and there are some things I love to follow and am impressed with:

• CEO of Zappos
• Onward Search
• Hang in There Jack

But, as Twitter gains in popularity and usage, my lists of Tweets are becoming unwieldy. Sure, I have TweetDeck that helps to organize the tweets, but still, everytime I look at TweetDeck do I want to invest 30 minutes to catch up? and the more cool people I find to follow, the more unwieldy and unusable it gets. What happens when every brand I love, every friend I have, every company I want to work for are all tweeting? I am a big offender, but do I need to read everytime someone sees a movie or eats something? Isn't it just too much?

It might end up that there is so much, its just easier to ignore all of it. I am not there yet, but I am a little at a loss on what to follow, how to read it, and when to care! I will continue to work on this one. Maybe there is a business that allows for real filtering of tweets with notifications?

Social Media Diagrams

I was going through TweetDeck and checking out today's crop of tweets from friends, pundits, corporations, job people and came across a Tweet from Tech Crunch with a link to the Future Lab blog that offers a number of great diagrams illustrating the social media universe.

Check them out. Its very helpful to be able to see everything laid out in a visual form.

Twitter vs FaceBook: When Tweeting Goes Good

So, why Twitter? Whats the value? Does everyone care what I am doing at 3 am? I read what other people write but for some reason, I think they care what I write. Maybe its out of boredom, maybe its out of a need to feel connected. Maybe its all about the ego?

I have added the Twitter app to my FaceBook page to streamline my micro-blogging efforts. The real question I have is for FaceBook given the Twitter app. It seems to me that FaceBook could "twitterize" their status and blow twitter away. If you could subscribe to a FB status in an RSS reader, you would never need to look at Twitter!

So, I guess what I am saying is that I am confused, so maybe I should focus on how I use each. I love Twitter's ability to keep me connected to companies that I am interested in. The Marriott, Starbucks, Jack in the Box and especially Zappos tweets are great. All written with personality and offering some insight or useful content.

FB is where I keep tabs on my friends. Its a great place to find out what people I care about are doing.

So, companies, take note. Twitter is a great platform for loyal customers to follow brands/companies they love. FaceBook is a great platform for loyal friends to follow those they have relationships with.

(One side note. For those of you that follow twitter, check out HangInThereJack.com. It chronicles the events that lead up to and include the critical injury sustained by Jack, spokes head for Jack in the Box. Its very entertaining and a little out there which makes it fun.)