Curating Twitter Democracy

Everyday a friend or a friend of a friend decries Twitter as foolish, a waste of time or both. Twitter is an important social media “curation tool” and curation is the next web revolution. Since some of my friend’s eyes roll when I say things like "curation is the next web revolution" today’s post explains why curating Twitter’s democracy is important to Internet marketing. Reach, the ability to publish a message to thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions, used to be strictly controlled by a handful of media gatekeepers.

Twitter creates idea meritocracy. Cool informative content springs legs and walks around the world without gatekeeper permission, advocacy or approval. Spending seven years working as a Director of E-Commerce I learned valuable things about Twitter including:

• Twitter generates PageRank
• Twitter loves Google
• Twitter's large number economics
  
• Twitter extends "curation" reach
  

Twitter Creates PageRank
Google and other search engines have an impossible task. They must survey and map the ever-expanding web. I didn't realize, until reading Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else by Barabasi that almost half "the web" is never and will never be indexed in any search engine. As a former Director of E-Commerce I wanted 100% of our content in Google. You can't earn search traffic to pages not included and traffic = money.

The Holy Grail is earning links from sites with high PageRank. PageRank is Google's algorithmic page value from 0 to 10. I've only ever seen one 10 and it was a Google page. Higher is better. @ScentTrail’s PR4 is not bad but tells me I need to share more linkable content, content people ReTweet to followers. Gaining links from high PR sites is almost impossible unless you too have a high PR. If this sounds like “the rich get richer” or CATCH-22 you win a prize. Most high PR sites know what they have and want payment for links if your site’s PR is lower. Tools like Twitter that generate PageRank are great.

Twitter Loves Google
I couldn't hire enough writers to create the depth of ever changing content needed for content marketing. Google values breadth and depth of content AND how often it changes to stay current. You can see why Twitter loves Google. Twitter is built with Google’s control of search engine marketing in mind. Twitter content changes frequently and simultaneously across millions of authors something so algorithmically positive it is similar to stroking a dog’s belly.

The more I follow the more content I receive expanding my "curatorial reach" (discussed below). Twitter also helps Internet marketers understand what topics resonate. I wrote a post on Saturday for Technorati called Facebook and Social Media Marketing that has earned over 450 Retweets. This immediate viral feedback says, “You are on to something.” I wrote the piece after email discussions with Internet marketing friends as something to do on a slow Saturday. As an Internet Marketer I've learned to think like a baseball player. Getting 4 "hits" per every 10 “at bats” means I'm doing great. If my batting average falls below 4 out of 10 I adjust things using Twitter to test and Tweet, test and Tweet. Once Twitter followers exceed 1,000 feedback comes fast and furious so “hits” and “misses” are immediately understandable.

Twitter’s Large Number Economics - Facebook and Social Media Marketing
Let's do numbers using my most recent Technorati post, Facebook and Social Media Marketing:

# of Retweets = 451 (this may go up a little with time, but 24 hours is usually 90% of the viral lift)
Avg # Twitter Followers = 126
Reach of piece = 56,826 people (451 RT's X 126 avg. followers)
Conversion rate = 1% (if we were selling something which I'm not directly doing in this particular piece)
"Sales @ 1% = 568
$30 cost = $17,047 (if we were selling something for $30 and made 1% or 568 sales)
Creation Costs = $500 (a couple of hours of my time)
Net profit $16,500

Twitter’s law of large numbers says creation costs are small and potential return large EVEN if only a small number of people in the 56,000 who received this tweet actually take an action. There are few Internet marketing things I can do where a $500 investment can reach 50,000, 100,000 or even a million people as fast and cheap as Twitter.

Twitter Extends Curation Reach
Writing about startups (Hope, Heroes and Startups on ScentTrail and Technorait) I'm seeing the “curation tool” trend mentioned in my opening. Startups such as DailyDigital, Spring Metrics and Loyalese are developing tools to help businesses and consumers make sense of and money from the already overwhelming and still expanding web. Twitter is a "curation tool" because it helps bring in more information on more topics than I could round up without it. Twitter "employs" my friends and friends of friends as watchers or "content curators". When I want to know the latest on social media I know what five friend's tweets to check. When I want to know about art or cancer I know where to go too. As long as I abide by the hidden quid pro quo, contribute cool stuff people who follow me will find interesting, Twitter extends my reach by adding followers. Twitter is chaotic. Golden needles are buried in its dense haystacks. There is a lot of startup entrepreneur energy and innovation around creating tools to find those golden needles. I suspect Twitter 2012 will be very different than the tool we use now.

Learning Google's Secrets
As a Director of E-Commerce, my job before ScentTrail E-Commerce, making a living was tied to Google. I had to understand something, the Google algorithm, kept more secure and secret than the formula for Coca Cola. It is possible to understand general things about Google from its reflection, from what it values. Twitter and Facebook were built to appeal to Google and they do. Social media brings other benefits, but if you do what I used to for a living other benefits are moot. My team and I tweeted because it works. I write knowing Twitter’s curation democracy may be difficult to understand if you haven't gotten the "grease" of search engine marketing all over your best clothes :).

@ScentTrail on Twitter

Five Social Media Marketing Tips

Stacey Alexander's excellent June 10 post: How do I effectively find my target audience with social media shares great tools, tips and hints for finding your tribe inside of the floating, changing, now ubiquitous social networks. This post is a response to Stacey's last question:

What are your tips for finding and marketing to your audience in social media?

Social Media Marketing Tip 1: Let Principles Drive
Good To Great, Jim Collins book about corporate greatness is an instruction manual. Great companies spend time exploring and writing down who they want to be. Like ancient samurai great companies develop a Bushido code stressing self-discipline, courage and loyalty. Think of social media as great reflecting pools. Values you believe will be projected a thousand times amplified with each projection. Even strong, simple, positive values can be distorted in social media's multidimensional hologram. Know, define and write down your company and brand's values, principles, philosophy and beliefs. Use simple easy to understand language. When challenged listen intently and modify if needed. No code is sacrosanct or inviolate. What it means to be social media samurai changes, grows and is shaped by organic interaction, interaction with customers, stake holders and team members. When in doubt let your principles drive. If principles fall short honestly own your company's, brand's or product's short comings and solicit help to refine, rebuild and refocus.


Social Media Marketing Tip 2: Conduct Don't React
We are not alone. No matter how previously self sufficient every company, brand, product and individual lives in growing codependency. This means any one's greatest skill is their ability to conduct a growing orchestra. Social media marketing is increasing the number of variety of musicians in the pit. Creating consistent, cohesive communication can be difficult, but leadership and confidence can't be faked. When I was a junior marketing newbie at M&M/Mars Charlie Purdy taught me, "Plan or be planned for." The update of Charlie's statement would be, "Conduct social media or social media will be conducted for you and you may not like the result." Invest and believe in Social Media for whatever reason works for your company. Some companies will invest out of fear. Some will invest out of greed. Smart companies invest in social media marketing because they care. They are about values, products, quality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Social media marketing reflects and amplifies your company's beliefs. If you don't believe in social media marketing then Don't Do It. Attempting to use social media marketing for any thin reason appears fake immediately. The only thing worse than NOT participating in social media marketing is doing so for the wrong reasons. Wrong reasons are any reasons not grounded in values and expressed honestly. If and when you do believe in social media marketing's ability to add new dimensions to your company's communication go all in and conduct this new expanded orchestra with confidence and humble leadership.

Social Media Marketing Tip 3: Create NonZero-Sum-Ness
The only benefit that endures, I learned at M&M/Mars, is mutual benefit. Don't think of this statement narrowly. Benefit could be environmental benefit, social benefit or cultural benefit. Cause marketing is all the rage currently. Social media marketing is fueling cause marketing's expansion. Causes play well on social networks. Robert Wright's NonZero speaks of our genetic tendency, now shaped by generations of Darwinian effect, to share. We share because sharing is, more often than not, the winning strategy. We share because our sharing genes get passed on. We share because doing the right thing is rapidly becoming the right, i.e. cheapest and most profitable, thing to do. Sharing is always mutually beneficial. This is the "gift economy" idea. Freely giving pays real dividends, real ROI. In a Google powered content marketing world where word-of-mouth is the only trusted advertising it is not hard to understand why sharing creates traffic creates revenue. Why doing the right thing is the right thing to do.

Social Media Marketing Tip 4: Invest in the Gift Economy
Attribution is a bitch. This is the "It's A Wonderful Life" problem. Your company, brand and product is out there making connections, creating tribes, earning brand advocacy and converting customers to evangelists. It is hard to know what actions create what relationships. Best to build on instead of take down. Best to be generous in attribution instead of stingy. Best to invest in the gift economy even when exact 2 + 2 = 4 ROI metrics aren't readily available or are impossible to calculate beyond a SWAG.

Social Media Marketing Tip 5: Trust But Verify
Forgive me for paraphrasing Ronald Regan's famous edict about working with the Russians, but it is possible to go broke in the gift economy. Engagement points are infinite, but return will cluster around a 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of your social media marketing return will come from 20% of your programs, promotions, ideas, campaigns and initiatives. Attribution is a bitch, but create a model, a model that can be trended, to understand return on your social media investment. Trust but verify should reinforce the importance of social media marketing. If you seem so spend way more than your return look at your attribution model hard. Social media marketing ROI credit must flow fully down stream. If your social media marketing efforts are not generating return check your attribution assumptions and look upstream for revenue holes. If your social media marketing is still falling short, generating negative return, then lower your budgets and test until you see positive ROI. You can always slow down, re-segment, refocus or recast your ideas. Social media marketing is the very definition of a "no harm, no foul" situation. The biggest harm is NOT doing something. The second biggest harm is doing something for the wrong reasons such as non-value based sales manipulation to name just one. And the third biggest harm is conducting social media marketing without a quantifiable ROI model with some attribution assumptions based in benchmarks, experience or facts.

Following these five social media marketing tips will help you know what to do with your target audience once you follow Stacey's map for finding them.

Martin

Email Marketing, Metcalfes Law and Social Networks

Dear Email Marketers...

One of the hard lessons I learned as an email marketer is Internet Service Providers or ISP's are not always friendly to emails. You've worked hard to create a tribe, people who despite exploding email spam WANT your email marketing. It may be your list but you are dependent on THEIR distribution network. Thanks to Metcalf'e's Law (value of networks is square their number) an ISP's network effect trumps your email marketing list. ISP's form the backbone of your email's delivery system and their bots can ruin your email's day. AOL, Comcast and Bell South can "black list" your emails labeling your company a spammer if you violate known and unknown rules. Violate industry voodoo and your email distribution will get destroyed. You will be punished even when no punishment is deserved or warranted. If you want back on the magical email marketing "white list" you will have to call, beg, borrow and steal. Some large email providers such as Responsys (the largest and who we used at my last gig), Constant Contact (favorite of small and medium sites)and Bronto (right here in Durham) sell their ability to "white list" your emails.

Large email providers create rules or "best practices" to protected their "trusted source" reputations with ISPs. These large "bulk mailers" know who to call to resolve an unwarranted black listing. They can also help you get out of email marketing jail by figuring out how you got on the wrong side of email marketing best practices. An ISP's harsh treatment may not matter who you are. The wrong subject line, too many graphics, or a "black hat" IP block (where the email came from) on a Vatican email could be treated harshly. If you doubt ISP's harsh treatment of your emails ask your provider to run a delivery audit report. Make sure you have stiff drinks nearby when you see how tough it can be to get an innocuous email through the ISP snake.

Another thing we learned the hard way is AOL, one of the largest ISP's and an ISP others follow, customers can be pains. AOL customers use the AOL spam button as a means to unsubscribe. and it only takes about 10 people to put you in AOL jail. It is not quite that bad, but the % of spam complaints needed to get your email marketing put into the AOL penalty box is very low. You may want to make your unsubscribe button more prominent in your AOL string. We even include a call to action, AOL Customers Unsubscribe Here. Your emails may not need to go that far, but treat your AOL segment different than others.

My team and I learned to put a "can't see this email click here" link at the top of our emails. We linked to an HTML page on servers place in the "no spiders" area. Email content can mess up your SEO especially if your emails are nice and flat, appear on a regular time frequency and your site is complex and database driven. Put your "click here" email pages in a No Follow folder and keep search engine spiders out. Advantages to the "can't see, click here" link are:

• Easy for your readers to see your email designs the way YOU created them. Bet you spent hours figuring out what to put where on your email. Problem is the ISP's crunch images into nothingness and too much weight or the wrong subject line and you are in spam folders before you can blink. Everyone can see a "can't see, click here" link at the top of your emails. Make it easy for me to see what you want me to see.
  
• Easier for readers to pass your messages around social networks. I want to Tweet your cool news but need an easy way to help. Include a "can't see, click here" link on the top or a bit.ly link somewhere in the body with instructions to move your email out to social nets and you will may get 3x the play on the same email.
  

Best part of having others distribute your email marketing via their social nets is 100% of your email marketing goes through (because people not ISPs are acting as delivery agents), your emails look the way you want them to and they generate NEW word-of-mouth influenced and so highly converting traffic (the best kind).

My best advice is make it easy for your customers to help by including a "can't see, click here" or Bit.ly link. Ask people on your email list to help move your email around their social networks and as much as 1/3 of your email traffic could come from FREE high conversion social networks where there are no "blacks lists", double secret probation based on some random spam button and no penalty box where you are assumed guilty and must beg, borrow and plead your way out. Kind of makes you wonder about the future of email marketing (read Fixing Email Marketing for more).

Anyway just some random thoughts that I hope help.

Martin

Vote for Story of Cancer on Pepsi Refresh

Story of Cancer wants to help cancer patients and their families by sharing inspirational stories. Pepsi may help fund the site. All depends on votes, so PLEASE VOTE TODAY and everyday until the end of June. Thanks, Martin

New Economy Vs. Old Economy

Is your company stuck in the old economy or marketing in the new one. Hope it is the later as the half life of the former isn't good. Old economy business models feel creaky, old and like their fifteen minutes are up.

Old Economy	New Economy
Economies of Scale	Diseconomies of Scale
Face Time	Results Orientation
Cubicles	Digital Nomads
Venture Capital	Bootstrapping
The Media	Social Media
Commuting	Location Independence
Corporate Ladder	Passion and Hard Work
Specialization	Generalization
Patents and Copyright	Sharing and Mashups
Trade Secrets	Transparency
Gatekeepers	Gatejumpers
Corporate Greed	Generosity and Caring
Competition	Collaboration

Copied this excellent at a glance comparison from a new economy superstar.

Hope, Heroes and Startups Articles

I'm writing portraits of startup entrepreneurs and businesses for Technorati. I got the idea after attending Tech Jobs Under The Big Top. I live in Durham part of "The Triangle" made up of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Tech Jobs Under The Big Top showed how startups in the Triangle are booming thanks to a programs such as Launch Box Digital and the American Underground.

My first thought was to write about startups in the Triangle then I saw a Sunday roundtable with Christiane Amanpour about finding a job in the worst recession since the depression. I could swear a baton was clearly passed from old economy (represented by Mort Zuckerman) to new (represented by an English major entrepreneur). After the interview I decided to speak with startup entrepreneurs across America.

Startups are the hope of a changing American and global economy powered by founding heroes, people I thought it would be fun to meet and talk with. Use the link below to read Hope, Heroes and Startups on Technorati soon:

ScentTrail on Technorati (profile page)

Hope, Heroes and Startups - Overview (on Technorati)

Spring Metrics (on Technorati)

Social Media Marketing (on Technorati)

DailyDigital (portrait of cool new curation tool on Technorati)

Jesse Lipson's ShareFile (from Raleigh, NC)

Here is how I described the "why" of these articles to one founding entrepreneur:

• Explore what drives startup entrepreneurs
• Identify helpful processes or tools (agile developement, Basecamp, etc...)
• Share cool "crossing the chasm" scaling tips
  
• Create community by sharing war stories and identifying key startup relationships and stakeholders

Scheduled Interviews

Zack Mansfield, Square 1 Bank (startup funding vis Square Roots program)
Derick Thompson, Daily Digital (social media startup)
Chris Heivly, Launch Box Digital (startup mentor, coach and accelerator founder)
Eric Boggs, Argyle Social (Measuring Social Media Marketing)
Morgan Siem, VP Social Media at Media Two, (Interactive Marketing Agency)
Eric and Cynthia Garrison, World Trade Enterprises (Web and App developers, SEO consultants and Internet Service Providers)

Interviews I Would Like To Schedule

Lucas Fishback, PlotWatt, (web startup to help lower electric bills)
Jed Carlson, ReverbNation (web site for bands)
Justin Gehtland, ThinkRelevance (web services)
Taylor Mingos, ShoeBoxed (web app)
Joe Colopy and Chaz Felix, Bronto, (email, mobile and social marketing)
Matt Williamson, Windsor Circle, (customer segmentation software)


others?


If you are part of a cool startup please email martinsellingzoe(at)aol so we can include you in Hope, Heroes and Startups or tweet @ScentTrail or Martin Marty Smith on LinkedIn.

Thanks, Martin
.