A Contrarian View of Social Media

by robert on July 1, 2009

The point of social media is to connect and share. The medium seems very powerful. (I can say whatever I want to as many people as I want.) It also seems very democratic. (No one can drown anyone else by talking louder.) The combination of power and democracy gives participants the feeling that they are now part of a second enlightenment. All opinions matter. All opinions are equal. Everyone is accepting.

At least, that is the feeling you get.

The fact is that Twitter, Facebook, Myspace are all fads at the moment. If these mediums are around in another 10 years or even 5 years, then we can call them established channels. However, I wonder if these mediums will go dead eventually.

Regarding the accepting feeling, some opinions should not be accepted. Some people should be denounced when they voice a particular opinion because some ideas are just factually incorrect or morally objectionable. Moreover, some people should be criticized for not fact checking, for being a mouthpiece of an extreme movement, or for speaking before thinking through their ideas. If Wikipedia articles have been accused of all these errors,which have been edited by a group of people, why should we think an individual would be more accurate, balanced, or thoughtful? Why should we think a crowd of people would be any of these as well? In fact, the history of the internet has proven this trend.

While plenty of people flame on the internet, most people do not know how to thoughtfully criticize. So social media often becomes polarized to either loving or hating something. You can see this kind of rating system on icanhascheezburger.com. When people start thinking in these kinds of terms, all for or all against, objectivity becomes lost. People are no longer opinion holders. They are voters for two opposed parties; either you vote for me or against me. You are for change or against it. You are for the war in Iraq or against. When in reality, these are false dichotomies. Granted this occurs in other mediums as well, but social media is more prone to this extremism because of its viral nature.

Regarding the democratic feeling, let’s just say that all opinions should not be made equal. Some people do know more about a subject than others, but with social media, knowledge doesn’t necessarily get people to listen to you. The only way to be listened to is to be popular. As a result, fame, not conversation, often is the driving force behind many who join social media. Thus, knowledge of the topic comes second to how many people you can get to follow you or friend you. So for those who are not on social media, they are labeled as unconnected or some other pejorative term. This kind of thinking creates a sort of group narcissism. If you don’t get on, you don’t matter; you don’t exist.

Also, the topics on social media are somewhat narcissistic. The most popular topic on Twitter is Twitter. People using social media a lot start talking about social media mostly. Why? It’s what they spend most of their time on, and thus, it is what they know the most about. Thus, the medium ceases to become a medium and becomes message and eventually becomes the meaning. If you find yourself Twittering about Twitter because it’s Twitter, you’ve probably lost the point of the medium altogether.

Regarding the feeling of power, truth be told, Twitter and Facebook have the ability to let you communicate with a lot of people. However, it is still up to individual people taking advantage of it. If you don’t understand how to use it properly, you might as well stand up in a crowd in the Big Apple and start spewing out whatever comes to mind because that is how people are listening to your message on Twitter.

If you are using this for business purposes, you must realize a few things. This power is not the same as the power of TV or radio or Web 1.0. On those mediums, the message is made and then broadcasted. You need to do a bit of work to make a perfect message and then you simply need to get it in front of people. Often this involves a lot of money. Social media is great because you really can’t pay people to broadcast your message, so the message needs to be inherently valuable. But here’s the dig. Since you no longer pay money to get your message out, you must pay for it in time. Consequently, social media can drain the time spent on your core business. Thus, you need to throttle how much time you spend on social media. For instance, if you spend a third of your working hours on social media, I doubt that the investment into social media will pay off as much as your time is worth.

In fact, I’ll go even further by saying that social media does not pay off for every business. If your business is designed to be trendy, fashion for instance, it is worth getting into Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. If you sell industrial supplies, I would say get on just LinkedIn and find some online forum for your industry. In the words of the Little Mermaid, you “want to be where the people are.” You need to be where other people of your trade congregate together because that is where you make the right connections. For instance, I have yet to see very many accountants on Twitter, but I know of several marketers who are because social media is inherently valuable to marketers.

Now on the positive side, the real strength of all social media is to maintain existing connections. Social media keeps you in the loop with what is happening among the people you know. While social media can create good friendships, it is nearly impossible to make those friendships meaningful if you never meet in person. Moreover, the strength of the connection between people who meet on social media is similar to the strength of the connection made with a person you sit next to on the next flight you have. Sure, you’ll talk for two hours on the flight, but will you ever try to keep up with that person again? Probably not.

With all of that now said, understand that I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I’m not wanting everyone to drop social media. Social media is great for connecting and even better for re-connecting people. Messages do get sent around. Dreams are accomplished. However, I want people to take an honest look at why they do what they do. Social media right now is a fad. Fads are not for everyone. You simply need to ask yourself the hard questions: Which social media option from the menu is best for me? Are any of them?

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SEO vs. copywriters: Fighting the same side of the same algorithm

by xybrewer on June 16, 2009

Still think that your headline has to suck in order for it to rank in a search result? What about putting words out of order? I’m not quite sure how we came to these conclusions, but something is amiss in the world of web copy writing. No, you don’t have to follow many of the kooky tactics that some search engine experts are demanding of copywriters. In fact, some declarations are so severe that more traditional journalists, editors and writers are fearful of anything SEO.

That’s really too bad, because just a little bit of research and some carefully placed strategies could broaden your audience and increase your message’s reach. But those tactics really aren’t what you think. In fact, I’ve had a great deal of success in adopting SEO tactics as “human being optimization.”

Think about it: A search engine’s algorithm is designed to quantify and analyze the searching behavior of people using the web. Yes, it also indexes content on the web and catalogs it. And this indexing is what most people tend to focus on when fearing the search engine. However, Google, Yahoo!, MSN and all the others have invested much to improve the results by studying how often a set of search results actually give the searcher what he wanted. You’ve heard of all the “algorithm updates”… they’re tweaking the match between the search terms entered and the results they serve.

As search engines improve the results they serve, they improve their ability to get inside our heads and find what we intend to find. The human brain is a complex and often scary place, so it takes a lot of guess work. But, now we’re seeing that intent playing out in search results more accurately. Maybe it’s the search engines that are the scarier place.

With these improvements, search engines have shifted away from indexing and cataloging content according to some library archive standard, and toward how a human would catalog and associate that content in the mind. Optimizing how humans search for and identify content makes me think of SEO as becoming more human, which helps me write copy for humans, and not search engines.

Why would I go back to writing for humans? Because it’s working in search engines, too. If you think about it, search engines want to give you an article on “debt consolidation” when you enter “pay off debt,” because it’s what you want. If I’m looking for “social media analytics,” the engines aren’t going to ignore an article on “analytics for social media.” Really. Trust your good writing sense.

Here are some common complaints I hear from writers and editors. They really shouldn’t be complaints, because there is a happy medium in almost every case.

1. “I refuse to write ugly headlines for a search engine.”
First, I have to confront your idea that search engines don’t bring you traffic. Yes, yes you want to have a healthy relationship with a search engine. But, no, you don’t have to write a headline that’s bland and boring, even though the New York Times ballyhooed this very complaint.

Headlines can and must be compelling to both a search engine and a human being. How do you accomplish that? Find the most important idea in this story. You should know that. Simply start your headline with that idea. We all know headlines need to be brief, and writing for the web shouldn’t change that rule. Quick and compelling, just like old fashioned headlines. What’s wrong with, “An Outbreak of Autism, or a Statistical Fluke?” Neither a human nor a search engine would have a hard time identifying “autism” as the main idea of the article, supported by “outbreak” and “statistics.”

Write a tight headline with character. Good headline editors already need to do that. Search engine algorithms shouldn’t make you quake in your boots. (Maybe that’s why I’m not a headline editor at some swank publication!)

2. “I’m not going to stuff my copy full of the same word over and over!”
Good! Thank you!! You shouldn’t. Search engines generally spot that tactic and discount your article’s value anyway. Many SEO tools coach you to reach an ideal keyword density in your article, but I still call following those a practice in hooey. Based on all that “algorithm improvement,” search engines are using the copy on the web to statistically analyze successful search results and find common threads. It’s much like a chicken/egg spiral, since we can shape future search engine performance by writing good, compelling copy; the algorithm will figure out that it’s popular and quality content, and the algo will change to find more results like it. As all of us good copywriters band together and write compelling copy without keyword stuffing, you may see those keyword density numbers change.

3. “Why would I reverse the order of these words just for a search engine?”
The original idea here stemmed from how search engines used to operate. Sure, they associated words in unnatural ways, and sometimes you’d get better results if you ordered your search terms by importance, like “education scores school tests.” What? That makes sense to neither human nor search engine. Yes, we can do away with that old tactic of reversing word order to try to look more boolean.

Here’s your challenge: Have you researched your topic fully? Yes, you and I know the phrase is “credit score,” but how many people out there have heard the term “credit rating”? Some keyword research will reveal alternate words and phrases that people (human beings!) use to talk about your topic. It naturally makes sense to include both terms in your article because people may only use one or the other. This method of bullet-proofing your target phrases will ensure that whether people use “score” or “rating,” they’ll still find your “credit” article. Use an SEO keyword tool to find other target phrases, and you’ll find more people who will see your article when they search.

While editors and writers are lamenting that they’re being asked to use words they normally wouldn’t use, people are using the very terms that are being scorned. I cherish the days when journalists and publications were the very upholders of correct writing conventions. But, in this case, a little bit of bend can work well for readership. In fact, when you speak as your audience is, you have a chance to draw that reader in and clarify the very phrase or convention you despise. Sieze the opportunity to educate and gently correct.

Think of the humans you’re trying to reach. How best to reach them? By sticking to your guns and writing to suit the corporate style? Or meeting people where they are? Understanding how people use search engines (and they do that a lot!) and just the basics of how they work will help you overcome your assumptions and fears. Stand up to SEO experts and ask “why?” before either simply dismissing their advice, or accepting it wholeheartedly. Neither approach will work. Remember: human being optimization is both technical and organic.

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Attitude: Problem vs Challenge

June 12, 2009

When you meet roadblocks on a day to day basis how do you view them? Problems are for someone else. Problems are things we wish would go away. Problems cascade and ruin everyone’s day. Challenges on the other hand are designed to be overcome. Challenges don’t get you down. Challenges don’t sit around and fester, [...]

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