Leveraging the Power of Social Networks for Fame & Fortune
Submitted by rev on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 04:36
As you may have seen from my 2 previous posts:
I used my moribund blog (really I hadn't posted with any regularity for a year or so), Twitter & Facebook to goad ThinkGeek.com into taking a second look at a customer service issue that my girlfriend had raised with them.
Now, this was not the expected result. I pop-off about a lot of stuff and it doesn't seem to get any attention. That's one of the reasons that I stopped blogging. I fully expected to rant in the darkness and walk-away feeling disenfranchised as ever.
However, I have been working on increasing my visibility on the web for the last couple of years. That's the thing - nobody will look at your stuff if they don't know it's there.
One caveat before I go on, though. This post is not intended to be a guide in how to blackmail businesses 140 characters at a time. It's about new ways of doing business and the opening of communication channels between customer and company.
You see, ThinkGeek very wisely has someone monitoring mentions of their brand on Twitter. I hadn't used their profile name to mention them, but they saw my post. Heck, the company may be small enough that that someone is the boss there. The point is that they got back to me quickly, got in contact with my girlfriend (or vice-versa) through the comments section on my blog and resolved the issue within a week.
All the while, I was using this URL shortening service called Tr.im to monitor how many people were looking at the links I was laying down in Twitter & Facebook (by the way, I have to note again that it took a long time to develop my networks). It wasn't a lot. I'm not that popular even though I'm ubiquitous and have been trying relatively hard to get my name out there to make connections and maybe even get work. But it was widespread, from the US to the UK to Korea even.
Webmetrix
So, the URL shortening service I mentioned allows a person/org. to create an account whereby they can monitor the number of clicks & location/platform/browser of users for their links. You don't have to sign up for a one-off short URL, but it can be fun if only for curiosity-sake.
If you don't like tr.im, which is kind of laggy, search around for others. There are plenty. I found out about that particular site from a tutorial by AnneMarie Concepcion. That tutorial, I must say, caused me to start being more active in the metaverse, something that I had been using as more of a distraction (which is great, too) than a communication tool or PR vehicle.
Another tool I was using to see where I stand was a service called Klout. I'm at 10 (out of 100) right now. I was 6 last week and 17 before that. The readings may be spurious, as my points went up just for joining Klout. My posting is too sporadic to accurately say, as wel. It is another system by which to measure your reach, so I take it with a grain of salt.
Of course you could always ask. One of the things that Klout keeps nagging me to do is engage my "audience" (a.k.a. friends, stranger-friends or plain-old weirdos) more. That's really the gold of that site: not only giving pointers but reminding you about the need to interact. More to the point, you have to remember that there are people on the other end of that screen catching the wave you are sending around the globe.
Engage#1
As you can see from the section title, I'm a total dork. If you get the reference, you are a total dork. But here we are, together somehow. That is the miracle and the power of the nebulous thing called Social Networking. Mind you, the digital version is just a new version of something people have been doing since the cave. Albeit, never with this kind of reach.
However, despite the nature of the new beast, one must still engage one's fellow man in much the same way as before. You have to be nice. You have to talk to people. And if you want to build a persona, like staying in a neighborhood, you don't hit people over the head.
In addition to all of the real-world friends, I found a larger, world-wide network of friends playing a Heroes knock-off flash-game on Facebook (now defunct, thanks Zynga :S). I didn't go in there with the intention of gaining contacts. I really like Heroes, mutants in general, and did I mention that I'm a total dork? But a deep friendship was born through game-play over a series of months. I hope they remain my friends for a good long while, but the point is, this is how networks grow.
Back to the neighborhood analogy: if you are a corner-store you want to keep people coming in and you try not to piss people off. A lot of us out here on the web are mom&pop entities trying to get off of the ground (which may be why you are reading this). But a lot of the bigger co's out there are figuring out that this new phenomenon is a great way to connect with the world at large and forge strong bonds.
We are getting away from the "push" mentality which has dominated media for decades. The technology that made it easier for co's to become anonymous monoliths deafly blurting their message has given way to one that encourages discussion.
That's about all I have to say, but I will note (I can't say this enough) that you can't develop a real network magically. It takes a long time to create a community. Lots of people these days are more savvy (I'm looking your way, Twitter spammers). What happened with ThinkGeek is likely not the norm yet and no one will listen to you if they don't feel like they know you (at least a little bit).
That said, next time you get stonewalled on an 800 line, maybe try putting it out there in the metaverse. Even just random questions will sometimes result in good advice (and maybe start a dialog. Social Networks are the new forum of the information age.
Original post Leveraging the Power of Social Networks for Fame & Fortune
