social networking

Define Your Digital Footprint – Lacing the Shoes

Whether you like it or not, you already have a digital footprint that you can’t fully control. People are talking about you; dissecting you; and?making decisions about you every day of the week.

You don’t even have to be online to have a digital footprint – people and businesses that don’t have an active web presence are being talked about. By their customers; their clients; their past and futures. So if all this talk is going on and you’re late to the party,?isn’t it already too late?

Not necessarily.

But it is?time to define your digital footprint so you can?at least help guide what you’d like to be found. In this first part of a series, I’m going to look at how you can define a strong footprint. Upcoming posts will look at tools you can use, how to connect strongly, how to react and converse with negative footprints, and more.

Who Are You?

There are a ton of ways for you to define your digital footprint, but let’s face it – unless you know who you are and who you want to be known as, any kind of defining could turn out worthless. If you don’t have a strong signal of you, everything else is just guesswork. So how do you make a strong you?

Be consistent. Wherever you are online, make sure you’re not confusing anyone. While the likes of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Squidoo and other popular networking sites appeal to a different audience, that doesn’t mean you have to be completely different on them. Adapt to the community; make the conversation fit the space; but keep a sense of you while doing it. Is it a business approach you take? A more personal one? A mix of the two? Find a voice and run with that.
Claim your space. Think of a glass of scotch or bourbon. Pour it neat and it’s a strong colour. Add water, and it’s not just the taste that’s diluted – the colour is too. Think of your digital footprint as the scotch, and networks where you’re active as the water. If possible, try and grab the same username on each profile you’re active on. If this isn’t possible, it can be better going for a derivative as opposed to numbers – so, @danny_brown on Twitter as opposed to @dannybrown18275. This will keep your name strong and prevent it from being diluted.
Be recognizable. As much as what you say and how you say it will help define your footprint, the way you look will help define how you’re viewed. It’s true – first impressions do count. Use an avatar that states who you are – personable and fun if a personal account, business-like but approachable if a professional account. A good choice is an informal head shot or a clear, smiling face. You could use a brand icon, but why not show the human face with a small brand banner across the bottom instead? Either way, being easily recognizable on first viewing is something to aim for.
Start walking. If you want to create any kind of footprint, digital or otherwise, you need to do one simple thing – start walking. Online, that just means start talking. Talk to people; talk with people; join discussions; post a blog comment; write a blog post (there are a few options available if you don’t like the idea of a full on blog, which I’ll look at next time). No-one will know you’re around unless you walk up and say “Hi” – so walk on up and introduce yourself. Set yourself a clear direction and start that journey; just don’t be afraid to ask for directions along the way.

These are just the early steps that you can take toward defining and identifying your digital footprint – but they’re important ones nonetheless. Get the early steps right, and the rest of the path might become just that little bit easier to navigate.

In the next post, we’ll look at what tools are available to help you plant your footprint and maintain it, and the platforms that may be more beneficial to you than others.

In the meantime, what have I missed? What would you recommend when it comes to setting up your digital footprint?

photo credit: G a r r y

The More We Connect, The More We Lose Touch

?You can?t please everyone, so you?ve got to please yourself.? ? Ricky Nelson.

It?s been an interesting last 24 hours. Abusive emails, character attacks on Twitter and questions about my ethics. Just another day in the life of.

Time is an interesting commodity.

On the one hand, we love it when time passes quickly so we can see a new movie, or buy a new product, or see a new date. On the other, we complain there?s never enough time in the day.

Online connections simply increase this problem. As we connect with new people on new networks, our availability factor goes down.

You don?t mean it to; you try avoid it; but it?s a simple fact that as we connect with more, the less we can offer. This may be less time for people you used to converse with more; less time for generic conversations; and less time for things in general.

Sure, you can use tools to help you manage your time better. Yet at the end of the day, the tools are only as good as the person using them, so perhaps I need to brush up on my time management skills.

Yet the attacks/criticisms that came my way over the last 24 hours would probably have come regardless of time management, by the nature of them. The suggestion of ?having time for some people but not for others? being the main theme.

Again, it comes back to where to try and divert your time. While this isn?t an excuse as such, a lot of my time at the minute is taken up by:

12for12k
Legal clearances for promotional materials for this month?s charity
Conference calls with charity partners
Social change events
Client projects (since all 12for12k efforts are free of charge)

If you add in personal time, offering help where possible to people asking for advice and residency issues in Canada to name just a few, you might see where I can get sidetracked.

As I say, it?s not an excuse but an explanation. I appreciate the connections we have and I?ll try my best to manage them as best I can and help wherever I can. However, there will be times that some people and actions slip through the cracks.

So, here?s a suggestion.

If you?ve sent me something or asked me something and I haven?t responded in a couple of days, send me a nudge. Failing that, email me ? my contact details are on this blog, or my website, or on my Twitter background. I?ll try my damnedest to respond.

And if I haven?t replied straight away, please don?t take it personally.

With regards the ethics question, I certainly don?t always make the best decisions but I always believe that whatever they are, they are for the right and ethical reasons. Of course, it?s anyone?s prerogative to doubt this, but I?m happy to live with my decisions.

How about you? Are you finding yourself with less time for the stuff that needs more time? How are you managing your conversations?

photo credit: Joshua Davis

Small Business Not Ready for Prime Time – Yet…

This is a guest post from Elaine Young, who I have had some great conversations with recently about small business and social media. Elaine has some interesting views on why so many small businesses aren’t using social media, and I asked her if she’d share them with you.

2008 was the year that Twitter saw adoption grow at an astounding rate. Facebook surpassed 150 million active users and blogging become what seems to be a social norm. But does that mean small business is now ready for the social media revolution?

Facebook launched in 2004 and Twitter started in 2006. Blogs have really only started to grow from ?personal journals? to effective public relations tools in the past two years, and widgets and applications have only really been in strong play this past year.

So while 2008 may have seen a surge in growth in the ways in which the different social technologies can be accessed and connected, that doesn’t mean that small businesses are ready to jump in.

Why? Because they don?t know how to effectively use social media for their business.

I consider 2008 the year of “social media euphoria”. A group of early adopters started playing ? yes, playing – with the different tools that had become available. The power though, as we have discovered, is not just in the tools themselves but in two things:

The ability to CONNECT the different tools to one another.
The ability to CONNECT TO and COMMUNICATE? WITH the right people using the tools.

In this discovery process we are organically developing the best practices that small businesses can turn to. We have some interesting case studies.

For example many individuals are writing about how the Obama Campaign proved that social media was the reason for his overall success. While the campaign certainly leveraged the tools that were available, we need to be cautious in making broad statements about a campaign that used ALL media available and had the right message at the right time.

According to Twellow you can see that there are a total of 179,550 individuals in the US that have Twitter accounts.

When you zoom in on the visual you see that California has a lot going on and so does Texas. In Vermont there are 310 people with Twitter accounts. In our little Vermont microcosm, you can see that there are some businesses here, but most of them haven?t posted in weeks, let alone months.

There is an inherent need for small business to understand the ROI behind all of this. Even when human resources aren?t stretched tight, the small business has to be very strategic in how they approach their marketing. If the majority of their target market aren’t yet using these tools, what is the business case for them to jump in and take time to learn these tools? Particularly when they change at the speed of light (or so it seems).

So how do we move from early adopter frenzy to a small business-friendly, strategic adoption rate of social media?

We early adopters must work out the kinks and start formulating ?best practices?. We are already figuring out that ?selling? via Twitter is not the way to go ? but connecting is. Blogs help to build credibility and Facebook ? well we still are trying to figure that one out!

We must show how to measure the ROI of each tool. We have analytics for websites, we have stats for blogs and we have more companies such as Lijit working on measuring your social media ?reach?. Let?s try these out and see how they work.

We must educate. Singing to the choir feels really good, BUT it doesn?t help spread the word outside of our own circles of influence. That is the power of a tool like Twitter, coupled with Twellow ? we can now find people who are active with the tool who might influence and educate in different ways.

Don?t fall into the trap that ?only the young? use these tools. As a college professor who works with 18 ? 24 year olds every day, I find more often that they get involved with RSS and tools like Twitter not because they want to, but because I introduce them to the tools as an assignment.

Don?t lose sight of the basics. As experts we all must remember that the foundational best practices (such as target market analysis) should not be forgotten and are even more important during this time of innovation, connection and reshaping of the media landscape.

With this focus, we can make 2009 the year that began the legitimization of social media for strategic use in the small business world.

Dr. Elaine Young is an Associate Professor of Marketing and e-Business Management at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. She teaches courses in Internet-Marketing, Marketing Management, Social Media, Technology and Society and Computer-Mediated Communication. You can read more at her blog or connect with Elaine on Twitter.

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The Social Media Goes Gonzo Blog Carnival

Welcome to a first for me (and many others, it would seem). The Social Media Goes Gonzo blog carnival was suggested to me by fellow blogger and provider of invaluable information Kilroy_60.

Host of numerous carnivals himself, this is the first social media one and he asked yours truly if I’d be interested in hosting it. So, here we are.

The idea behind the carnival is to take you on a journey through the social media blogosphere, and introduce you to people that you may never have read otherwise.

Since I’m making this up on the fly (oh the fun!) I can only hope it comes out okay – don’t be too harsh on me! So, without further ado, we’re off!

Let Me Take You On A Journey.

Much has been made of how impersonal social media can be, due to its inherently online bias. Yet where else can you celebrate 500 Twitter followers with a cake? Of course, making sure you read the Fine Print can help avoid cries of “You left me, you really left me!” when you lose Twitter followers. Although you could always try out another 9 social media sites for local networkers if Twitter causes too much pain.

And that’s the great thing about social media – the whole web is your home page so you’re never truly alone. This opens up a whole new way of virtual socializing as well as networking. From talking to journalists on Twitter to taking on things like the dollar challenge to help kids in Colombia enjoy a better education, our voices are being heard like never before and making anything possible.

Of course, not everyone is convinced. There are still questions like, “Okay, social media rocks – but is it good for business?“. It’s a fair question but one that can be answered fairly easily – yes, it is. If you’re willing to listen. This will help you avoid 6 common mistakes companies make in social media.

A slightly more difficult question to answer is why cheating is okay in social media. Let’s face it, no-one likes cheaters – but are there lesser cheats than others? Perhaps – you decide. After all, the life we live comes from the choices we make.

Interactivity is another area that both individuals and businesses can benefit from with social media. Did you know, for instance, that it’s helped product ambassadors help solve customer issues immediately? Of course, offers of help are just one facet of social media – many are simply happy bragging about their Gettysburg trip to their online buddies. Personal and professional – it’s all there. The connecting factor is the sociability of it all.

Yet with all this socialness, are we in danger of opening up just a little too much? Or is that the point? What is too much information in social media anyway? I guess it boils down to if you are worried about numbers or people. If it’s numbers, information isn’t really important – but if it’s people, it opens up yourself that little bit more and helps build that all-important relationship.

After all, at the end of the day, relationships are what social media is all about. It’s why you have people so passionate about stopping the automated messages on Twitter, as it feels so impersonal. It’s why we all help in growing bolder Twitters so they can enjoy the experience more. We want to be social; we want to build relationships.

A great way to do this is via a blog, and it can be fun as well. From just starting out and raising a baby blog to the other end of the age scale and discovering what Johnny Cash can teach us about blogging, bloggers are fostering relationships every day with their readers. Bloggers can share milestones, like a blog’s first year in the blogosphere; they can share advice on finding your identity, like offering 5 tips to stand out online if you are John Smith.

Discussing the state of the blog with your readers is another great way to foster your relationship with them. Asking what they like, what they’d change – it’s letting them be a part of it. And being a part of something helps you solidify your place in the social media universe and that of your blog – and if you’ve already invited your readers to jump on board, it’ll be a place already filled with friends.

Business blogs are becoming more popular too for their ability to build company/customer relationships, and not just in traditionally office-based occupations either. For instance, the combination of heavy equipment and social networking may seem strange at first, but should it be? There are all types of businesses, so shouldn’t there be all types of business blogs?

And that’s the beauty of social media – there are no boundaries because of “tradition”. Instead, it’s adaptable to what you’re already doing. You don’t need to say, “Goodbye SEO, hello social marketing” if you’re a search engine specialist; instead, use both together to strengthen results. Scholastically, social media can connect professors and professionals to further mindsets between the two. Flexibility is its strength.

It’s true that, to some, social media is a language of its own – like anything, it’s not for everyone. But if you’re even just the slightest bit curious to learn more about that thing called social media, you can be sure there will be plenty of hands to guide you along the way. After all, just like this blog carnival has been, it’s a journey we can take together.

My sincere thanks to everyone who made this maiden voyage of the social media goes Gonzo blog carnival possible: Michael Litman, John Carson, Allen Taylor, Jonathan Crossfield, Rachel Marek, Matt Churchill, David Miller, Julie Schwietert Collazo & Francisco Collazo, Teresa Hall, Shannon Cherry, Justin Goldsborough, Kari Rippetoe, Drew Gneiser, Tim Jahn, Vision Runner, Jared O’Toole, Marc Middleton, ASM Development, Andy Klebacka, Kilroy_60, Hjortur Smarason, Zoe Westhof, Anthony McCune, Jacki Brown, and Sam Bradley.