Written for The Future of Social Media conference, I was supposed to talk about the "future" of social media technology, but the term "social media" and "marketing" together give me the jibblies, so I mixed it up a little. I try to give a preview of where I think things are going along with a couple things I'd do if I were a marketer to be more human and hopefully more effective. Warning: contains Cluetrain content.

1. Making Marketing More
Human Through
Technology
Kevin Lawver
Chief Architect, Music Intelligence Solutions
The Future of Social Media, 2009/01/29
http://uplaya.com

2. Social
• adjective - pertaining
to, or characterized by
friendly companionship
or relations.
• adjective - growing in
patches or clumps
• noun - a social
gathering or party, esp.
of or as given by an
organized group

3. Media
• noun - the means of
communication as radio
and television,
newspapers, and
magazines, that reach or
influence people widely
• noun - the material or
technique with which an
artist works

4. “Social Media” is a Silly
Term
• All media is social
• All media begs commentary
• The internet just makes soliciting, gathering
and filtering commentary easier

5. But, that’s the name of
the conference...

6. ... so I’ll play along.

7. Hi... I’m from the
internet.

8. I’m here to help.

9. I live on the internet
• I assume everything I create will be
published and commented on.
• I actively seek out my real life friends online
• I expect my life to be public.
• While this isn’t the norm for my
generation, it is for today’s kids.

10. I expect my brands to
live on the internet
• But they don’t.
• They come visit sometimes, but they sound
just like they do on TV. I fast forward
through that stuff.
• If they talked to me like people, I might
listen.

11. “But, you’re supposed
to talk about
technology!”

12. “You’re supposed to be
the nerd (or boffin).
We’re the real people.”

13. But, you’re probably not
internet people... I am.

14. “Markets are
conversations.”

15. “Markets consist of
human beings...”

16. “Conversations among
human beings sound
human.”

17. The Cluetrain
Manifesto was a
prophecy, not a
manifesto

18. Social Media is all about
conversations

19. Following them,

20. starting them,

21. and joining them.

22. Following the
Conversation

23. Get a Feed Reader!
• The general public may not have grasped
RSS, but you need it.
• NewsGator or Google Reader
• The only way to consume the flood of
information the conversation generates
every minute of every day.

24. Google Alerts
• Still the best way to track mentions of
phrases or links across the web.
• To track links - “link:uplaya.com”
• To track phrases - “uplaya artists”
• Get the feed and add it to your feed reader

25. Twitter: The Web’s
Dinner Party

26. Follow it Live
• Use search.twitter.com to search for
mentions of your product or brand
• Add the feed to your feed reader

27. Get a client
• Tweetdeck has good reply support and can
follow multiple conversations
• Twhirl is good for managing multiple twitter
accounts and following FriendFeed as well

28. Starting a Conversation

29. Start At Home

30. Get a Blog
• Yes, they’re old school, but they’re a good
place to aggregate everything.
• Use one of the big blog networks instead of
rolling your own.
• Wordpress.com is a good place to start,
but Typepad and Blogger will work as well.

31. See, here’s a blog

32. Be Conversational
• Don’t just issue press releases
• Post about the company picnic,
• funny office pictures,
• success stories and reviews,
• and interesting stuff.
• Think of it as your company’s water cooler
for the world, but more importantly, your
users

33. Tumblr
• Attractive way to aggregate and syndicate
all of your various content
• Extremely easy to use
• They really “get” the new activity stream

34. Facebook Pages

35. facebook.com/
advertising/?pages
• They’re free
• They’re a good way to get in to facebook
without investing in developing and hosting
a facebook app
• A good way to get feedback on your prodct
or service from highly connected users

36. Facebook Apps:
Caution
• You may end up spending a lot of money for
no reason
• Success may be more expensive than failure

37. Joining existing
conversations

38. Twitter
• •
Don’t just broadcast Be useful
• •
Don’t follow everyone Reply to those who talk
about your product
• Don’t be annoying
• Offer support where
• you can
Don’t post just links to
your blog post or to
•
your product Do follow those who
talk about you
• Don’t worry about your
following/er numbers

39. “Spamming Twitter does not make you a
Premier Thought Leader. It makes you
an Idiot. A paper millionaire with a fistful of
Enron stock. The numbers are impressive, but
have no value outside of impressing people
who don’t know any better.”
Jeremy Tanner

40. Good Twitter Examples
• @garyvee
• @zappos (more on them later)
• @twalk
• @railsmachine
• @halcyon

41. FriendFeed
• Another good way to aggregate all of your
content in one place
• Allows people to follow everything you
produce, and comment on it in one place
• A good set of widgets to re-purpose
content

42. Facebook Groups
• Find groups that actually fit your topic
• Listen first, don’t just divebomb
• Comment on existing posts at first
• Become a part of the community. Be on the
bridge, not under it.

43. Oh yeah, those rules
apply to any community

44. Someone doing it right
• Zappos
• Their CEO uses twitter and responds to
customer feedback
• They aggregate all their employee blog
posts
• They have radical customer service and
really do have a conversation with their
customers

45. Conversing With The
Future

46. The Future
• Reputation
• Aggregation and noise reducers to the
rescue!
• API traps will be everywhere, and they all
want to own your data
• If it’s not in the activity stream, it never
happened

47. Reputation
• Spam and “fake” people will become a
bigger and bigger problem
• There will be an impartial clearing house for
reputation data
• Play nice now, because this data is already
being collected and acted on
• It’s only a matter of time before the dots
get connected

48. Aggregators
• FriendFeed, SocialThing or something like
them will go mainstream and aggregate all
your social data in one painless place
• Niche search engines, conversation trackers
and smarter spiders will do a better job of
linking conversations and personas across
networks

49. API Traps
• Be careful what APIs you use in your
products, because they will go away. Plan
ahead and around failure
• Don’t let them lock your data up. Keep a
local copy of everything

50. Activity Streams
• They started out annoying
• They’re now indispensable
• You’ll see them pop up all over
• And federated so not just one company
owns the stream
• Keep your eye on Google

51. Conclusion

52. Be human

53. Listen...

54. then speak...

55. ...

56. and have fun!

57. Thank you!

58. ...and check out
uplaya.com!

59. Questions?

60. Contact Info
• kevin@uplaya.com
• my blog: http://lawver.net
• my company: http://uplaya.com
• twitter: http://twitter.com/kplawver
• flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/kplawver