When Jack Layton passed away, I decided to postpone publication of this blog post to pay tribute to him. The positive reaction that my 500th blog post garnered reinforced the notion that social media in general and blogs in particular are a wonderful way for me, as an individual, to connect in meaningful ways with other members of my tribe. Thank you for everyone who took the time to write and speak to me about what I’d written.
In that 500th blog post, I alluded to the fact that I was going to change the direction this blog has been taking for the past 4 years. When I first launched this social-media-for-PR blog in January of 2007, there were only 2other PR bloggers in Quebec. I had been excited about the possibilities social media opened up for our industry and our clients for a few years by then, and was eager to share and discuss my discoveries with my PR tribe.
Mission accomplished. Far from single-handedly, mind you! Along with many other early adopters and social media zealots, I’ve managed to convince a colleague or two to take a look at social media for PR and I’m pleased with the inroads that have been made. We’ve been joined by the industry mainstream and social media is taking root in the Quebec PR landscape. There now are dozens of Quebec-based blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Google+ profiles and LinkedIn Groups – not to mention Third Tuesdays, Camps and other events – available to Quebec PR types hungry to stay abreast of the latest developments in social media.
I’ve written hundreds of blog posts presenting social media case studies, tools and best practices for PR professionals. Now, many more voices have joined and there’s a wealth of information out there. It’s fantastic.
And it’s why I’m now able to shift gears.
I’m going to start concentrating less on the tools and innovations, and more on the impact social media and the Internet in general is having on society, on tribes, on individuals. You’ll see less of this and more of this and of this. And you’ll probably hear more about tribes than you ever thought possible. I may just have to rename this blog …
I also intend to focus more on the public affairs side of PR, moving away from where social media seems to have found an easy and natural fit – marketing communications. So no more brand name case studies. There are other great blogs for that kind of thing. I want to take a look at how lobby groups – whether corporate or grassroots – are leveraging social media to effect political and social change.
Fifth gear: Lowest power, highest speed. Used for high speed cruising on dual carriageways, motorways and other such open roads.
Third gear: Used for driving uphill, through a hazard at speed and where a greater degree of power is needed than fourth will allow.
This blog is shifting into third gear. The hazards are greater in number, the stakes are higher. We’re talking about people’s lives and how they use social media to change the world around them.
It’s going to be a fascinating ride. And yes, I pick up hitchhikers.
Haven’t had your fill of Charlie Sheen’s rants? Now you can get them via 140-character messages, because the actor’s Twitter handle has officially been confirmed.
In a matter of minutes, Sheen has acquired more than 60,000 followers and a Klout score of 57 — without even tweeting.
That last sentence is particularly worrisome to social media specialists who turn to Klout for an analysis of online influence. The reason? While the fact that Twitter had verified the account ensured credibility, Sheen’s profile included no avatar, no biography and .. most importantly .. not a single tweet.
Within the hour, Sheen’s account had risen to 133,644 followers. Twelve minutes later, those figures had ballooned to 147,149, an increase of 14 000+. Still not a single tweet.
What does this mean for the credibility of tools like Klout that measure online influence? It means that they measure influence based exclusively on quantity, and not quality. It means that they don’t take much else into account (if anything).
Well … it’s important, as in everything, to be critical in our use of tools that measure social media influence. Klout is only one example of many. No tool is perfect. These tools should be used as part of a larger mix. They should provide guidance, but not represent a bible of online influence measurement.
If you’re selling green glowing snow-ball abacuses, do you want to reach out to these three Twitter users? Or do you want to reach out to Charlie Sheen?
I think the answer is clear.
Will I continue to use Klout? Absolutely … as I always have. With a grain of salt. As a jumping off point. As one measurement tool among the many which — along with my knowledge of online networks and my own judgement — allow me to create a portrait of the online influencer I may present to my client in an influencer audit or as a possible participant in a blogger outreach campaign.
Online tools are great, but in the end nothing beats experience and human judgement.
* Note: To his credit, Klout founder and CEO Joe Fernandez responded to Adriaan Pelzer’s assertion that Klout is broken in the blog post’s comments section as follows:
Hey Adriaan,
I am one of the cofounders and the ceo here at Klout. This is a great post, even though we get slammed 🙂
A couple things:
– Clearly there is more we can do to recognize and punish bots. This is something we are working on and I think you’ll be impressed with what we have coming. That said, this is an incredibly hard problem that even Twitter still has trouble with (judging from the clear spam bots I see following me and not disappearing).
– The score right now is actually doing what it’s supposed to in the sense that it’s measuring engagement. Take a look at search for @burroughsbot (http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40BurroughsBot). This account is actually getting way more engagement then it should. We do measure for noisiness but obviously we need to look at how we handle extreme cases like this.
We have a science team working on stuff like this on a daily basis. Post like this get us really fired up so I am excited about your challenge to step our game up.
Would love to chat sometime about how we can throw some data your way for some more independent testing.
Thanks.
Hat tip to Diane Bourque who followed the growth of Twitter followers after I’d shared the Mashable article with my Facebook network and provided the statistics contained within this blog post.
For posterity: Charlie Sheen’s first tweet. At time of publication of this post, he was at 817,083 followers and had been included on 5569 Twitter lists.
British linguist David Crystal has a lot to say about Twitter. If you have 30 minutes to spare … maybe skip the latest episode of The Bachelor or Survivor … I’d encourage you to listen to him debunk some myths about Twitter and texting. I’d especially encourage you to listen to him if you’re still scratching your head wondering what kind of creature tweets. I would particularly encourage you to invest 30 minutes to listen to Crystal if you are the kind of person who stands up in the middle of a conference and asks why we should care about communicating to a bunch of people who have nothing better to do but to spend their days typing into a smartphone. And I know you’re out there.
Some myths, explained:
People actually don’t abbreviate in text messaging and Twitter as much as one might think. This is partially because Texting and Tweeting isn’t a uniquely youth phenomenon.
Abbreviations like CUL8tr aren’t anything new .. Lewis Carroll and Queen Victoria played around with these language rebuses
Young people don’t leave letters out because they can’t spell … in fact, the best texters are often the best spellers, simply because they get tons of practice. They leave out letters because « it’s cool ». Following the fashion is a socially bonding experience.
Texting and Tweeting in fact gives young people more motivation to write and read.
Students aren’t translating text-speak into their schoolwork and exams, contrary to popular belief.
There is an artistic dimension to the evolution of Texting and Twitter. Crystal cites Twitter poetry contests as an example.
Many of the sentences in a Tweet are actually quite long – you can get 30 words into 140 characters and there are often 20 word sentences in a Tweet.
Twitter has become more of an information exchange mechanism than it was when it first launched as a « What are you doing? » platform.
Twitter has value in that, among other things, it accelerates the transmission of information.
David Crystal believes teachers have an important role to play in Internet management. For young people, the electronic technology is central and the book is marginal. This isn’t going to change, so, according to Crystal, it must be managed and used in a way that becomes motivating for young readers.
Crystal is the author, co-author, or editor of over 100 books on a wide variety of subjects, specialising among other things in editing reference works, including (as author) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987, 1997, 2010) and the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (1995, 2003), and (as editor) the Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, the Cambridge Factfinder, the Cambridge Encyclopedia, and the New Penguin Encyclopedia (2003). He has also edited literary works, and is Patron of the UK National Literacy Association. He has also published several books for the general reader about linguistics and the English language, which use varied graphics and short essays to communicate technical material in an accessible manner
Pour ceux qui sont plutôt visuels, j’ai le bonheur de vous présenter un bon aperçu des qualités requises pour devenir un gestionnaire de communauté hors pair. A ceci j’ajouterais qu’un bon gestionnaire de communauté doit être doué d’un certain instinct protecteur, toujours conscient de bien gérer la réputation de la marque qu’il représente. C’est la raison pour laquelle vous êtes toujours mieux d’embaucher un gestionnaire de communauté qui connaît et respecte (pour ne pas dire admire) déjà votre entreprise et votre marque. Il deviendra votre meilleur ambassadeur sur le web. Avez vous songé embaucher quelqu’un à l’interne? Vous avez peut-être déjà parmi vos employés la perle rare, qui, avec l’aide d’un spécialiste en médias sociaux, peut rapidement devenir le représentant idéal de votre marque sur la toile.
