Will the real social media expert please stand up?

Let's say your company wants to hire a social media consultant to launch a blog for you. You're down to two candidates, one has a list of 12 different clients that they say they have helped developed blogging and social media initiatives for. The second consultant doesn't list any clients, and appears to be brand new to consulting.

So you naturally want to go with the first consultant, right?

But what if you check the consultant with the multiple clients, and notice that their blog has almost no comments, and the newest post was 27 days ago. And their SiteMeter link says their blog averages 29 visitors a day.

Then you check out the consultant with no clients, and see that their blog has an avg of 4 new posts a week, every posts gets at least 5 comments, and their blog averages 500 visitors a day.


Now who do you hire to create a vibrant blog for your company? The consultant that claims to have done this for multiple clients (but that has a dead blog), or the consultant that has no clients, but who also has a vibrant blog?

Who's the real social media expert here? Do we place more importance on client list, or what the person has actually done with social media?

This post is partly based on this post by Josh Hallett. Josh's main point is that if a social media speaker can't produce a list of clients for their work, then there's no reason why we should listen to that person. The big problem I have with this stance is that it implies that a list of clients is all the social media speaker/consultant needs to then be credible. In fact, I often see people speaking on blogging and social media that claim many well-known clients, yet you scan their blogs and presences on social sites, and virtual tumbleweeds are flying by.

But the MAIN reason for this post/rant is this...

Over the past several months, I have had the 'why aren't you consulting/speaking?' talk with several incredibly SMART people in the social media space. People that are clearly experts in creating social content that resonates with others. People that have vibrant blogs, people that have hundreds/thousands of engaged Twitter followers. People that truly understand why social media works, and that could make a good living teaching companies why social media works.

But most if not all of these people are/were hesitant to start consulting. Often because they didn't have a client list, and felt that people would think that they shouldn't be hired as a result. Nevermind that these people knew more about creating compelling blog content than most of the so-called 'experts'.

And then there's the whole issue of self-promotion. I had this talk with one friend and they told me 'but if I promote myself as being available for work, I am afraid that people will think I am calling myself an 'expert'.

This is how warped our idea of who a social media expert really has become. We are so scared to death of self-promotion that the REAL experts are afraid to promote themselves at all. Lisa Hoffmann is exactly right.

Can we stop the insanity? Having a list of clients you have performed social media work for doesn't mean you know the first thing about the social media initiative that my company wants to launch. And not having a client list shouldn't mean that a potential client would automatically eliminate you from consideration. Social media being utilized by businesses as a tool to reach their customers is still very new. Yes having a robust social media client list is VERY important. And perhaps even more important, is whether or not you actually understand why these tools work and can demonstrate that.

Pushing my soapbox back under the bed. I hate to launch into a rant, but when I see really smart people that are afraid to start consulting/speaking because of how they feel they will be viewed, or if they will be accused of claiming they are an 'expert' (and not if they are talented enough), then something's amiss.

Pic via Flickr user jgarber

Three chances to catch me at Marketing Profs events and how YOU can benefit!

I wanted to give everyone a heads up about three upcoming events from Marketing Profs that I'll be involved in. The first two are a pair of blogging webinars that I'll be conducting tomorrow and Friday at 12pm EST. Tomorrow's webinar is entitled "Not Blogging Yet? What Marketers Need to Know to Get Started." As the title suggests, it is very basic blogging 101, aimed at marketers that are curious about blogging, but not sure what it's all about. We'll talk about the basic components of a blog, and look at several examples of superior company blogs. We'll also cover some of the most popular blogging platforms, and how companies can decide if they should be blogging, and which of their employees would make the best bloggers. It's $129.00, unless you are a Premium Plus Marketing Profs member, in which case it's free!

On Friday, I will be doing a second blogging webinar, that will build on many of the points I cover in tomorrow's webinar. Friday's webinar is entitled "Next Steps With Your Blog: Building Excitement, Readership, and Community". In this one, we'll look at:

• What readers are looking for from your blog
• How to create content that is valuable to your readers
• Why commenting is so important, both on and OFF your blog
• How to put the spotlight on the readers that are the most active on your blog
• Why pictures are so important in helping readers connect with you
• How to change your blogging mindset from ‘what’s in it for me?’ to ‘what’s in it for my readers?’, and why this is key for creating a blog that’s a growth vehicle for your business

As with tomorrow's webinar, Friday's webinar is free to Premium Plus Marketing Profs members, and $129.00 otherwise.

Finally, I've just committed to join Marketing Profs at their B2B Forum in Boston in June to provide one-on-one blogging sessions. We first did these at the Digital Marketing Mixer last October, and they were a big hit with attendees, so Marketing Profs decided to ask me to come back and do them again in Boston! Attendees will have 15 mins with me and we'll either go over their existing company blog, or talk about ways that they can get their blogging strategy off the ground. I had a blast doing these, and I think the attendees got a lot of actionable ideas for how they can improve their blogging efforts.

Now as an added bonus, Marketing Profs is giving a special $200 discount on registration to the B2B Forum, for The Viral Garden's readers! If you want to get this discount, you need to register via this link, or by clicking on the speaker badge in this post, or on the sidebar. These are affiliate links, meaning that I get compensated for everyone that registers for the B2B Forum through my links, and if you register via those links, you get a $200 discount!

This is the first time I have ever attempted to monetize the content I've created here. I always said that if I did, there would have to be a clear benefit for both me AND my readers. I think this program does exactly that, I am paid for each registration, and everyone that registers gets a special discounted rate. And besides that, I would be promoting this event even if I wasn't involved in this, or even if I wasn't attending. As you can see, I've blogged about several of Marketing Profs previous events. Marketing Profs always produces stellar content, and their conferences are among the most well-respected in the country. So the end result is that the content I create here will be the same as it would have been anyway, but we'll all potentially benefit.

So hopefully I will get the chance to interact with you at one of the two webinars I will be doing for Marketing Profs tomorrow and Friday. And if not there, hopefully we can meet in person in Boston in June at the B2B Forum!


Pic via Flickr user LiveWorld

What is your blog's 'Bigger Idea'?

One of the themes I'll be hitting on early and often during the webinar I am doing for Marketing Profs on Friday, Next Steps with Your Blog: Building Excitement, Readership and Community, is creating value for your blog's readers. People simply won't get excited about a blog unless there's something in it for them. But the big stumbling block for many bloggers, is how do they create that value?

As @KathySierra's tweet above suggests, a great way to find that value is to tap into your blog's 'bigger idea'. Blog about the benefits of your products/services, not the product/services. For example, if you own a pet grooming store, don't blog about dog grooming products, blog about dog grooming. Don't blog about 'The Ten Best Shampoos for Your Dog's Bath', blog about 'Ten Steps to Giving Your Dog the Perfect Bath'.

Kodak's A Thousand Words blog doesn't focus on Kodak's products as much as it does photography. Graco's blog doesn't focus on Graco's products, it focuses on parenthood. Patagonia's The Cleanest Line doesn't focus on Patagonia's products, it focuses on the environment, sustainability, and environmental activism. In each case, these blogs understand what content would be relevant and valuable to their readers/customers, and they tailor the posts they write with this in mind. By taking a step back and focusing on wider topics and issues, these blogs become far more relevant and valuable to their readers.

If you are a company wanting to use social media to reach your customers, the key to doing so successfully lies in creating value for these special people. Is your blog tapping into the 'bigger idea' that makes your content valuable to your readers?

What I learned from last night's #blogchat

One of the themes I heard last week during SXSWi was that people didn't necessarily want more social tools, they wanted better ways to organize the available information. If you've read this blog for the last few months, you know I was a big fan of the ability of Plurk to allow threaded conversations, and the 'Plurkshops' that resulted. Of course the problem was, as Twitter corrected their instability issues last summer, many people that had tried out Plurk, left the site to return to Twitter. And I was among them. But while Twitter has a much larger community, the format makes it more difficult to organize tweets and track an ongoing conversation.

Yet recently, users have started getting smarter about organizing conversations around hashtags. I believe this was started by @prsarahevans with #journchat and a few others have started. As I've been wrapping up my PPT decks for this week's blogging webinars for Marketing Profs, I've had several blogging questions bouncing around inside my head. Last night I decided to ask Twitter if everyone thought that personal bloggers did a better job of connecting with their readers than company bloggers do. And as an experiment (and way to later track any replies), I added the #blogchat hashtag to my question.

What resulted was a very vibrant and informative conversation for the next 2+ hours about company blogging and how companies can better use blogs to connect with their readers. It was fascinating, and due to the #blogchat hashtag, the conversation was better organized. And it was interesting to watch how the participants helped each other, members such as @conniereece were telling others how to follow the conversation, and how to properly mark their replies.

And yet one of the overarching themes of the conversation, was how companies can create value for their readers, via their blog. I was thinking about this as the conversation unfolded, because at one point I told myself that 'I need to make sure I am following everyone that's participating in this chat'. And I did, I followed about a dozen people during #blogchat, and was actually disappointed to find that I was already following most of the participants. On the flipside, I picked up about 30 new followers in the 2+ hours that #blogchat lasted. I'm sure others were doing the same thing, we were all creating value for each other, and we were cultivating and growing our own personal Twitter networks, as a result.

As I said, last night's #blogchat was purely sponetaneous, I simply added a #blogchat hashtag to a question, and it snowballed from there. At one point last night the #blogchat topic was the 4th most popular on Twitter. You can check out the conversation here. This has also gotten me thinking about how I'd love to see other people hosting similar #chats around other topics. I think we'll see more of this moving forward, and I think that's a good thing.

So thanks to everyone that joined us for last night's first #blogchat! We'll do it again next Sunday night at 8 pm CST.

SXSW Recap - The People

Everyone knows this is why you come to Austin for SXSW, because EVERYONE will be there. This year's event didn't disappoint, as I reconnected and met with literally dozens of great friends. The networking at SXSW is always a big draw, and this year didn't disappoint. In fact, I made a huge mistake in not scheduling more time in Austin. I alloted myself the same 2 days and 3 nights that I had last year. But this year, I knew far more people than I did in 2008, and far more people knew me. The end result was that I didn't have enough time to meet everyone I wanted to meet, and really didn't have enough time to spend with anyone that I did meet.

And this brings up a great point about companies and how they can participate in events such as this. In the weeks leading up to SXSW, I had several company reps either email me or reply on Twitter asking me to stop by their booth or find them during SXSW. But in almost every case, I never got to meet any of them.

But I did get to spend a TON of time with reps from two companies; Dell and Radian 6. Why? Because instead of setting up a booth, Dell hosted two events, All Hat No Cattle on Sunday, and then they were involved in a social media panel on Monday night offsite. Radian 6 reps were present at both events. The key was, guys like Richard Binhammer, David Alston, John Pope, and Marcel LeBrun were out and mingling with SXSW attendees, instead of waiting for them to come find them. In fact, the very first person that greeted me when I arrived at the Austin Convention Center on Sat night to get my badge, was Dell's Lionel Menchaca. And being around the guys from Radian 6 often gave me the chance to get David to demo their monitoring service for me. If they had been set up in a booth, I probably wouldn't have had time to come find them. And being around the Dell guys, I got to see their mini notebooks, which would have been much easier to lug around than the Vostro I had ;)

Now if your company came to Austin and set up a booth, I still think that was a great move. But next year, don't focus your efforts solely on your booth, also make time to get out and mingle with the guests. Don't assume that people will come find you. I had every intention of finding the companies that had invited me to come see their setup, but I just never had time.

What about you? Did you get to interact with company reps at SXSW? If so, where did you talk to them? Their booth? Hallways? Sessions?

Pic via Flickr user David Alston

SXSW Recap - The Sessions

There's a popular saying about SXSW; "You don't go for the panels, you go for the people." While the meetings in the hallways and at offsite events are priceless, there are still a few excellent panels/talks every year. I only attended three sessions at SXSW, but they were all very good.

On Saturday night, as soon as I touched down in Austin and snagged my badge, I raced to the Hilton to attend the Is Friendship Dead? talk by Russ Unger and David Armano. The topic itself was interesting enough, as the duo walked us through an exploration of what 'online friendship' really means. When we say we are 'friends' with someone online, do we mean literally, or simply that we are connected to them.

But what I loved about this talk was how the room was organized. In many talks/sessions/panels, you have the audience, then the speakers at the front of the room behind a podium, or up on stage. In either instance, they are isolated from the audience. But in the Is Friendship Dead? talk, the audience was organized in a circle around the room. At the start, David and Russ were at the outside edge of the circle, but they eventually moved to the center of the room, and bounced ideas and questions off the audience the entire time. What resulted was a vibrant discussion where the audience was totally engaged throughout. Armano even remarked at one point that he looked around the room and saw his social graph. This was one of the most enjoyable SXSW talks I've ever seen, and a wonderful example of how to engage and encourage the audience to participate in a way that greatly improves the quality of the talk.

The next session I attended was on Sunday. And the audience again participated, but it wasn't in as constructive a manner. One of the great things about SXSW is that the audience feels empowered to share their viewpoints and challenge the speakers with tough questions. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of this to either use the Q&A time as a chance to directly promote themselves, or to 'make a statement'. This happened a few times in the How Social Networks Are Killing the Revolution talk with Steve Swedler, Jeremy Tanner, Shannon Paul and Todd Huffman. The panel discussion itself was pretty interesting, and as a whole, I thought the panelists handled the flack from the audience fairly well and kept the discussion more or less on topic. I also thought Shannon made several brilliant points, especially about how when we share information online, we have to accept that we are foregoing privacy. That once we share that pic on Flickr, that it's out there.

Finally, on Monday I got to see Kathy Sierra. And upfront I must apologize to Kathy, because after her talk I made a point to come up and introduce myself. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I think it was little more than 'OMG I LOVED YOUR TALK!' about ten times in a row. I was a total fanboy, but I had to do it, Kathy is amazing. And I did love her talk, which was entitled Change Your World in 50 Minutes: Making Breakthroughs Happen. It was so good that I decided not to Twitter it, and actually (GASP!) paid attention and took notes. Here's some key takeaways:

• Practice and hone your strengths, that helps you kick ass
• Spending 4 hours a day on something for 4 days is better than 1 hour a day for 16 days
• Don't make a better (X), make a better (user of X)
• Change the EQ, add new sliders. Look at someone that had a breakthrough and think about the sliders they added. EX: How did Gary Vaynerchuk change the way wine is sold?
• Find the 'Bigger Idea' behind your product. Why are your users using it? What do they get from it?
• If you could give your users a superpower, what would it be?

Just an amazing and inspiring talk from Kathy, which is exactly what I expected.

Overall, the biggest talk I heard from other SXSW attendees about panels focused on how few really 'must-see' talks they were, and how they were all at the same time. I have no idea how SXSW is organizing the talks, but it doesn't seem to be by topic, perhaps it's by expected audience size and when certain speakers want to speak? I'm not sure, but the scheduling of talks was a big disappointment to myself and many other SXSWers I talked to.

At any rate, I attended only three talks, but was very pleased with what I learned from all three. If you went to SXSW, which sessions were your favorites?


Pic of Armano and Russu via Flickr user Mattanium

Are we meeting at SXSW?

Guys I want to apologize for the lack of content here the last few days. Unfortunately, this will continue for the next few days as I gear up for SXSW.

But the good news is, that while in Austin I will hopefully get to meet many of you! I'm arriving on Sat evening, and will be there through Monday before leaving early on Tues. There are a LOT of you that I want to make sure I meet, and probably our best chance to do that would be on Sunday.

First, I'll be at All Hat...No Cattle on Sunday, starting at noon. If you are coming to SXSW to meet people, and can only make one event, this is THE event to make. Everyone will be there (no seriously, check the link). Later that night, there will be a tweetup that looks to be pretty packed as well.

On Monday I will be around the conference center most of the day, and have a few client meetings scheduled. So I have tried to set aside Sat and Sunday for meeting everyone I can, and the business portion of this trip will mostly be on Monday. But if we don't connect on Sat or Sun, absolutely look for me in the conference center on Monday, and I will also be there a bit on Sunday afternoon.

So let's connect if you are in town! And I want to apologize in advance, because I know this will happen. Someone will introduce themselves as 'Hey I am Mark D, I'm following you on Twitter!'. And I will look at Mark D's badge, not see his Twitter avatar, and have no idea who he is. Because I recognize people from Twitter by their avatar, not their names. So if you have the same Twitter avatar on your badge as your pic, I should recognize you immediately. Otherwise, I will be lost. This happened often last year at SXSW as most people did NOT use their Twitter avatar as their badge pic! So if I do this to you, I apologize, but I can keep up with pics easier than I can names.

BTW make sure that you are following me on Twitter if you aren't already, as I'll be constantly updating on where I am at during SXSW, and where I am headed.

So who is going to SXSW? And more importantly, where will you be while you are there? I definitely need to know where to go on Sat and Mon nights. See you there!

Being successful with social media = creating value for others

Whenever I talk to companies about using social media, I always tell them to think about how they can use social media as a way to create value for others. If they are blogging, they should think about how they can use their blog as a tool to create value for their readers. It's the same thing with any social media tool, you have to give people a reason to want to interact with you.

Take Twitter. Everyone wants to know how to get more people to follow them. I did a little experiment today to show how if you create value for others via social media, that it will resonate and lead to more people becoming interested in what you are doing.

One way that many people create value for others on Twitter, is by sharing links to content that they find interesting. I am constantly finding and bookmarking tools that increase the utility and productivity of Twitter. So as an experiment, earlier today I decided to take 10 of the most useful Twitter sites/tools I have bookmarked, and over the course of an hour, link to one every 6 mins.

During the course of that hour, I picked up 15 new followers (one every 4 mins), and 32 times my links were Re-Tweeted (once every 2 mins). That's just for the hour, I had several more RTs and follows afterward, but I wanted to only focus on the hour of this experiment. During this hour, I only posted ten tweets, each one was a link to a different Twitter site/tool.

Notice that none of the tweets were self-promotional, they were all highlighting content that I thought my friends on Twitter could find VALUE in.

And this is the key to being successful in social media. Always think about how you can create value for others. That's how you build awareness and influence in this space.

Can we figure out what the rules are first before we start breaking them?

This has been a pretty interesting week to sit back and observe the blogosphere/twittersphere/socialsphere.

First, we had Skittlegate. I blogged about Skittle's new 'social' strategy here Monday. By now, the Skittles' homepage has switched to having its Facebook fan page be the default. MediaPost even claimed originally that this move was prompted by backlash from internet users, but they later acknowledged that the site was simply switched and that the Twitter page was still on the site.

Then we had Forrester issuing a report on what it calls 'Sponsored Conversations'. This also led to backlash in the blogosphere.

As I was mulling over these two stories, I thought about the label of the 'social media expert'. How many posts have been devoted to those three words? How anyone that claims they're a social media expert is a snakeoil salesman, and that no one can claim to be an expert in social media. That the space is too new, and that we are all still learning. And for the most part, I completely agree with that position.

But then there's this...

If no one is a social media expert, how can so many people make definitive judgments on this space? On Monday, a mere handful of hours after news of Skittles' new homepage hit Twitter, I saw several people on there claiming that 'this campaign is a disaster/failure'. After 12 hours?!? We constantly preach about how there are no social media experts and how we want to see companies experiment with social media. Then as soon as a company does, we put on our 'social media expert' cap and claim that the company that just started experimenting with social media, totally blew it.

Then with the 'sponsored conversations' debate it was the same thing. I saw people that accept advertising/sponsorships around their content, claiming that the idea of a sponsored post was wrong. How is one form of monetized content acceptable, and another isn't? Who gets to decide that? And who SHOULD be able to decide that? Again, if there are no 'social media experts', then who is qualified to act as such?

My take is this; this space is still growing, and still evolving. I applaud companies that are taking risks and joining this space right now. Do I think Skittles is doing a great job with their current campaign? No I don't, but I also know that this is a work in progress and that we are only seeing part of the final picture. Do I think that we are making too much of the label 'social media expert'? Yeah I do. It's a label, and I have to think that there's more important things to get upset about than what someone calls themselves (Besides it seems that almost all of the people that others claim are positioning themselves as 'experts' of social media, have never claimed they were). Lisa has a great post on why the 'don't call me a social media expert' stance might be completely wrong.

I think we all need to just chill a bit on accusing others of breaking the rules around social media. Like, until we first determine what those rules are.

Help someone win a free ticket to Online Media Bootcamp!

The Online Media Boot Camp Economic & Brain Stimulus Package: A chance to win a FREE Ticket!

Customers and prospects searching the Internet for products, services―and conversation―and the world of marketing has changed forever. Your company, brand and industry are being discussed online… Are you prepared? We know times are tough, but we also know that business owners and marketers/communicators need to get a leg up on competition (whether you are competing for business or that new job). Now is your chance! We have three tickets available…will you be the lucky winner?

Online Media Boot Camp is April 9th, 2009 in King of Prussia, PA. The three lucky ticket winners will be picked on March 20th!

For more details visit: www.onlinemediabootcamp.com

1. Want a chance at winning a free ticket to the Online Media Boot Camp (a value of $349), you have to be nominated by someone else.

2. A person can be nominated in one of four ways:
a. A blog post
b. A video
c. On Twitter
d. Via an e-mail sent to OMBC (beth [at]onlinemediabootcamp [dot] com).

All four must include: Who you are nominating and why. You must include a link to the Online Media Boot Camp (www.onlinemediabootcamp.com) in your post. If you tweet it, use the #OMBC hashtag.

3. If you nominate someone, you can buy a ticket for $349 after 3/16. A savings of $100. (Code: OMBCFTW)

4. If you are nominated for OMBC and you want to go to OMBC, you must do one of the following to accept the nomination:

a. A blog post
b. A video
c. Or send an e-mail to OMBC accepting the nomination (beth [at]onlinemediabootcamp [dot] com),

You must state that you will cover all travel costs, that you will attend and why you deserve to win. You must include a link to the Online Media Boot Camp (www.onlinemediabootcamp.com) in your post. If you tweet it, use the #OMBC hashtag.

5. All posts, videos and e-mails of those nominated will be posted to the OMBC blog too.

6. The three winners will be selected by the OMBC speakers. Criteria includes: creativity, passion, honesty, statement of how online marketing/social media will help you as a business owner or marketer/communicator/etc. and any other items that you think make your case to win a free ticket.

7. If you are nominated for a free ticket, but don’t win, you can buy a ticket for $349 after 3/16. A savings of $100. (Code: OMBCFTW)

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It’s that simple! Have questions? Contact Online Media Boot Camp on Twitter: @onlinemedibc or leave a comment!

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 139

Here's the standings for Week 139:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 132,000 (No Change)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 120,000 (No Change)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 53,399 (+472)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 20,533 (+368)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 20,244 (+396)(LW - 5)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 13,026 (+125)(LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 12,632 (+89)(LW - 7)
8 - Daily Fix - 8,818(+197)(LW - 9)
9 - Influential Marketing - 8,809 (+22)(LW - 8)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 8,691 (+126)(LW - 10)
11 - Jaffe Juice - 4,816 (+28)(LW - 11)
12 - Conversation Agent - 4,414 (+102)(LW - 12)
13 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,938 (+27)(LW - 14)
14 - The Viral Garden - 3,920 (-15)(LW - 13)
15 - What's Next - 3,825 (+94)(LW - 15)
16 - Social Media Explorer - 3,742 (+472)(LW - 19)
17 - Converstations - 3,620 (+55)(LW - 17)
18 - Debbie Weil's Blog - 3,616 (-13)(LW - 16)
19 - Being Peter Kim - 3,405 (-154)(LW - 18)
20 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 3,356 (+204)(LW - 20)
21 - Techipedia - 2,900 (-6)(LW - 21)
22 - Brand and Market - 2,266 (+76)(LW - 22)
23 - Emergence Marketing - 2,109 (-15)(LW - 23)
24 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 2,105 (+9)(LW - 24)
25 - Techno Marketer - 2,062 (+33)(LW - 25)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked by the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Another interesting week for the Top 25 with plenty of jostling and bumping happening. Chris Brogan inched even closer to Jeremiah Owyang's blog, but Web Strategist held onto the #4 spot. But the news wasn't as good for Influential Marketing, as Daily Fix was powered by another big week and took over the #8 spot. Conversation Agent continued to close the gap on Jaffe Juice at #11, and now less than 600 subscribers separate blogs #13-20.

Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog. And if you redesign your blog, make sure to keep the FB chicklet on there, or I can't track you for the Top 25.




Next update is next Wednesday.

Skittles surrenders its homepage to social media

In a move that has everyone's keyboard waggin', Skittles has ditched their homepage and incorporated related pages from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube into their site. When you now go to Skittles.com, you are asked to provide your DOB, then you are greeted by the Twitter search page for 'skittles'. If you click on Media in the box to the top left, and then Videos, you get their YouTube Channel. If you click on Pics, you get search results for Skittles on Flickr. Finally, clicking Friends takes you to Skittles' Facebook fan page.

Not surprisingly, this bold move has Skittles as the top trending topic on Twitter, and it will probably be at or near the top for at least all of today. This move presents two obvious questions/problems for Skittles:

1 - Since Skittles is now pulling content from social sites, that means some pretty unflattering tweets and pics could be prominently displayed on Skittles site. As Li found, this is already happening.

2 - Skittles is now getting a TON of buzz for this move. Good for them, but there needs to be a payoff to doing this. Does the company have a strategy in place where this move is the first step in a larger process that will successfully leverage this buzz? We'll soon find out, but if this was a one-shot move, my feeling is that the buzz will turn into backlash. And to be fair, a lot of the chatter about this move is already negative. So for Skittles' sake, I hope they have a plan in place to build off of the attention they are getting now.

Will be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe I am giving Skittles too much credit, but I think this is just the first step of a larger strategy. What do you think? What should Skittles do next?

Are Twitter members more likely to comment on blogs?

As we know, I obsess over my blog's traffic. I've kept a close eye on the traffic that Twitter sends here for a while, and I've noticed that it's been growing every month since last September. I've also noticed that there seem to be more comments here in the past few months, and my guess is that as more traffic is coming from Twitter, that more of those people are commenting.

So I decided to dig in and see if the stats supported this theory.

Here's the traffic that Twitter sent to my blog for each month since September, and the average number of comments per post I had for each month(in parantheses):

September - 162 (10)
October - 342 (7.6)
November - 554 (7.5)
December - 1,079 (14.7)
January - 1,349 (11.8)
February - 1,377 (13.2)

Now when I first looked at these numbers, I wasn't that impressed. If you look from September to February, traffic from Twitter has increased about 800%, but comments per post only increased by about 30%.

But then I remembered that the avg comments per post figures include the Top 25 posts. This is important to note for two reasons: 1 - The Top 25 posts get far fewer comments than the rest of the blog (around 4 comments per post, compared to 11 per post for all of the blog), and 2 - I rarely promote new Top 25 posts on Twitter, while I do promote almost all of the remaining posts there.

So I decided to remove the Top 25 posts and comments from the totals, and see what the stats looked like then:

September - 162 (8.7)
October - 342 (9.7)
November - 554 (9.9)
December - 1,079 (18)
January - 1,349 (14.5)
February - 1,377 (15.5)

Now you see traffic from Twitter is up about 800% since September, and avg comments per post have almost doubled.

Is all this enough to suggest that Twitter members that come here are more likely to comment than other visitors? I'm not sure, avg comments per post is definitely increasing, but referral traffic from Twitter is increasing at a much faster rate.

What have you noticed from your blog's traffic? Does it seem that people coming from Twitter are more likely to comment on your posts?

News, notes n quotes

Hey guys there's a few updates and items that I've been involved with recently that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention:

Recently I was interviewed by both Aaron Strout and Dan Schawbel. Both Dan and Aaron have a ton of great interviews on each of their blogs, so I'd recommend spending some time reading each site.


I was beyond floored to be asked by Sean Howard to contribute to a project he created, an ebook where several thought leaders (and me) get to give our thoughts on how we can create a passion economy. The authors include:Scott Suthren,Ellen Di Resta,Gavin Heaton,Charles Frith,Mike Wagner,Mack Collier,Mike Arauz,Katie Chatfield,Alan Wolk,Peter Flaschner,Matthew Milan

Sean explains his reason for this project here, and you can download the ebook directly here.


Finally, I have some updates to my speaking schedule. While I have written literally dozens of articles for Marketing Profs, I've never done a webinar for them. But that's going to change in a big way next month, as I'll be doing back-to-back blogging webinars on March 26th and 27th. The one on the 26th is entitled Blogging Fundamentals; What Marketers Need to Know. As the title indicates, this will be for marketers that need an introduction to blogging and what a blog is. Very Blogging 101. The one on the 27th is entitled From Blah to Blockbuster; How You Can Build a Blog that Excites Your Customers. This one is perfect for people that are familiar with blogging, but want to take their efforts to the next level, and create a blog that encourages interaction, and is actually exciting to your readers! I'm beyond thrilled to be doing both of these, and hope you'll attend one or both of them!

And finally, I'll be leading a social media workshop at a special day-long event that the Social Media Club of Birmingham will be holding on April 27th. I'll be joined by Ike Pigott, Scott Schablow, and Chris Heuer. I'll have more information on this event soon, so check my speaking page.

So for now, that's what's new with me. What about you?

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 138

Here's the standings for Week 138:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 132,000 (-129,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 120,000 (-129,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 52,927 (+859)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 20,165 (+447)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 19,848 (+1,055)(LW - 5)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 12,901 (+289)(LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 12,543 (+273)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 8,787 (+283)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 8,621(+352)(LW - 9)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 8,565 (+323)(LW - 10)
11 - Jaffe Juice - 4,788 (-42)(LW - 11)
12 - Conversation Agent - 4,312 (+171)(LW - 12)
13 - The Viral Garden - 3,935 (+85)(LW - 14)
14 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,911 (+51)(LW - 13)
15 - What's Next - 3,731 (+74)(LW - 15)
16 - Debbie Weil's Blog - 3,629 (LW - UR)
17 - Converstations - 3,565 (-30)(LW - 16)
18 - Being Peter Kim - 3,559 (+116)(LW - 18)
19 - Social Media Explorer - 3,270 (+118)(LW - 17)
20 - The Social Media Marketing Blog - 3,152 (+120)(LW - 19)
21 - Techipedia - 2,906 (+63)(LW - 20)
22 - Brand and Market - 2,190 (LW - UR)
23 - Emergence Marketing - 2,124 (+36)(LW - 21)
24 - Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog - 2,096 (+27)(LW - 22)
25 - Techno Marketer - 2,029 (+26)(LW - 23)


The Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs are ranked by the number of subscribers, according to FeedBurner. The number you see after the blog name is how many subscribers accessed the blog's feed, according to FeedBurner. FeedBurner (and I had to look it up to make sure) tracks the number of times your blog's feed is accessed, and matches it against the IP address of the computer making the request, to approximate the number of subscribers that access your feed, and report this as the number used in the Top 25. After that number is a positive or negative number, and this represents how many readers the blog gained or lost from last week's Top 25. The final stat tells you what position the blog held in the Top 25 Last Week (LW). If you see this; (LW - UR), it means the blog wasn't ranked last week.

Some drama in the Top 10, as Chris Brogan is closing in fast on Jeremiah Owyang, Logic + Emotion is gaining on Search Engine Guide, and Daily Fix has almost pulled even with Influential Marketing. In fact, the Top 3 are pretty much cemented in place, but every blog after that is on the verge of jumping the one in front of them, or close to being jumped by someone behind them.

Two new blogs this week, as Debbie Weil's Blog along with Brand and Market join the Top 25. Paul Isakson's blog and The Social Customer Manifesto just missed the cut.

Remember if you want to have your blog be considered for inclusion in the Top 25, make sure you add the Feedburner feed count chicklet to your blog. And if you redesign your blog, make sure to keep the FB chicklet on there, or I can't track you for the Top 25.




Next update is next Wednesday.

Twitter and the imperfect conversation

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Twitter. I have TweetDeck up for better than half the day on average, either while I am on Twitter, or running in the background while I am working on something else. And one of the biggest uses I have for Twitter is to engage in conversations. I am closing in on my 18,000th tweet, and over 75% of those have been replies to someone else. So I spend most of my time on Twitter talking to others.

Which I love! But in the past few months, I have been seeing some less than perfect communication happening between myself and others on Twitter. More than once, I have been involved in an exchange with someone on Twitter, then after wards they would blog about the discussion, and usually incorrectly identify my stance and the points I was trying to make.

Or recently, I got in what I thought was a very mild disagreement with someone on Twitter. At one point someone replied to me to say we were arguing, and I clarified that we were having a civil disagreement. But a day or so later, I discovered that this person had unfollowed me. My first thought was that it must be an error by Twitter, so I replied to them asking if they meant to unfollow me, and never got a reply. So that answered that question.

And what's worse, I have heard from others on Twitter that they have had similar issues. That they would suddenly find themselves in arguments when they thought they were actually agreeing with the other person. That someone would repeatedly mis-state their position (even after they clarified it to them) or they would later discover that someone had unfollowed them after what they thought was a civil disagreement.

What does all this mean? Well I am going to assume that it means that *I* am not doing a good job of accurately expressing myself, or accurately reading what others are saying and feeling. It means I am going to state my stance, re-state once if there's confusion, then drop it. If I see an argument developing, I am going to wave the 'we should agree to disagree' flag MUCH earlier, or invite the person to continue via email so we can better explain our positions.

What about you? Are you seeing the same thing with your conversations on Twitter? Until I can decide differently, I am going to assume that most of these imperfect conversations are my fault. What have you seen?

Turning your feed reader into a powerful monitoring dashboard

Kat recently had a great post about social media monitoring, and lamented that the post might be too elementary for her blog's audience. I disagree, I think that while many active individuals might understand the importance of monitoring, most companies totally miss it. And since we in the 'social media fishbowl' tend to all cover the same topics, I figured this one is actually worthy of more attention.

As I've blogged about before, I am obsessive about my blog's stats, and that carries over to monitoring. I monitor for blog mentions, for mentions of my name, and for links to this blog. I also track twitter replies, and even mentions of terms such as 'social media', 'customer evangelists', etc.

And all this is done in Bloglines. That way, I have everything there where I can look at it in one place, and because I get WAY too many emails as it is, and the last thing I need is more by signing up for Google Alerts. Now if you want to subscribe to a search, you can usually just click on the Feed or RSS button. These will normally work just fine, but what I do is a bit different. After I have performed a search and want to subscribe to the results, I copy the URL by right-clicking, then selecting Copy. I then go to Bloglines and click Add at the top left of the screen, and then Paste the copied URL and subscribe to the search that way. This way I can save every search in the same way, whether it's a search done via Google Blog Search or Technorati or Twitter Search or something else.

Now it's great to subscribe to the so-called 'vanity searches', but why stop there? I also subscribe to several marketing and social media terms. I do this to stay up to date on news and to keep up on how mainstream media is reporting news and information about this space. If you are a company setting up a monitoring system, I would focus on industry-specific terms, as well as your competitors, so you can keep up with what they are doing in social media. Who knows, you might pick up some useful ideas from watching how the competition is connecting with its customers.

Now for the big question; how much time should you invest in social media monitoring? It will of course greatly depend on how much time you CAN invest in monitoring. If I could only use one tool, I would use Google Blog Search. It's Google's search engine for blogs, and probably has the widest 'reach'. And in addition to searches for terms, it also lets you track links to sites/blogs, which is very valuable.

The next tool I would add would be Twitter Search. Think of Twitter Search as 'real-time' monitoring. Google Blog Search gives you a feel for the trend, Twitter Search gives you live feedback. If you need to monitor customer feedback in real-time, such as during a crisis situation, Twitter Search is what you need. Obviously if you work for a larger company, you will likely have more resources to devote to monitoring, and will have more feedback to track anyway.

Finally, what comes next? Or SHOULD anything come next? In my opinion, companies that are just starting to monitor shouldn't overdo it with too many bells and whistles. Stick with one or two tools that give you good results, and master those. This is why I focus most monitoring posts on Google Blog Search and Twitter Search. They both offer a ton of utility, and also complement each other well in what information they track. After you have been monitoring for a while, you'll get a better idea of the information that's relevant to you, and also of which tools can help you track that information. Then you can add more monitoring tools that work for you, after you are more comfortable with the process.

And I also like organizing all your searches in one place with a feed reader. Even though I use Bloglines, your searches could just as easily be organized and tracked with Google Reader, using the same copy and paste of the URL method.

What if your number of Twitter followers didn't matter?

I asked this question earlier on Twitter. What do you think? Would your behavior change if you knew that no one could see how many followers you had? If you remove # of followers from the equation, how would you then define 'influence' on Twitter?

What if we had no idea how many links a blog had? What if numbers were removed from the equation? Would interactions be based on something more personal and human? How would we determine who is worthy of being followed?

A lot to ponder. Seems too many decisions and too much of our behavior is predicated on numbers, and not on personal interactions.

What do you think?

I am (almost) sure I will never fly US Airways ever again

It was a few mins after midnight, last Thursday. I was supposed to be just arriving home in Alabama from a business trip to New York City. Instead, I was sitting in an airport in Charlotte because my US Airways flight from NYC to Charlotte had been delayed by 2 hours, causing me to miss my connecting flight home from Charlotte. So it was midnight and I was settling in for a 9-hour wait till the next flight left Charlotte for Huntsville.

And I was VERY pissed.

This was my first time flying with US Airways, and it had been a disaster. Every flight had been delayed, and I had missed my final connecting flight home. I got on Twitter to vent my frustrations, and quickly heard sympathy from many followers that stated that they had had similar issues with flying US Airways.

Then I got a tweet from Jody Gnant, AKA @usairwaysgirl. She wanted to know what was happening with my trip, and if everything was ok. At first I assumed she worked for the airline, but she was instead an evangelist for US Airways.

And if I ever fly US Airways again, she'll be the reason why. Note the title of this post says I am 'almost' sure I'll never fly USAirways again. By evangelizing the airline, @usairwaysgirl put that bit of doubt in my mind, that MAYBE I should give them a second chance. I decided to see if USAirwaysGirl would be interested in letting me interview her, and thankfully she was:

1 - You are obviously an evangelist for US AirWays, and your bio says you used to work for the airlines. Why do you spend time on Twitter essentially providing customer service for the airline's customers and trying to help them solve their issues? What's in it for you?

US Airways is also my hometown airline… ala "America West". I remember the girl in the TV commercials standing on the baggage counter and singing "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" – and I just LOVED her! She was actually one of the first singers I looked up to! So, needless to say, I've always loved America West, and then US Airways, as the merger took place.

I really loved working for America West / US Airways as a Customer Service & Sales Agent (1995 – 1996), and didn't actually want to quit; but I needed to get an extended leave of absence and it was not granted. I had made a trade with Kyle MacDonald of www.oneredpaperclip.com allowing me the opportunity to record an album for the first time in more than 10 years. I could not pass up the chance, and so I had to leave. :(

(I wrote a song once, while I was working for US Airways, that was called, "The Hero and The Pawn" – mainly because I loved helping people figure out the solutions to their problems – even while I myself had no real power within the company.)

People fly for some of the most important moments in their lives, and so when they have trouble getting there it can be super stressful. I just thought that since I have a really great understanding of the policies of US Airways that I might be able to help some of my fellow Twitterers get through those times.

When I started working for US Airways, we all had to take classes in airline aviation. (Betcha didn't know that I have 11 college credit hours in airline aviation, did ya?) I got a 100% on my final in the class, and loved every minute of it.

I almost never have any trouble when I travel – and I travel almost exclusively with US Airways. (I flew 50,000 miles last year – and they were ALL US Airways flights.)

But, I am also convinced that the REASON that I never have any trouble is because I know the rules and regulations of the airline like the back of my hand, and I truly feel like this helps me when it comes to booking a ticket, choosing connections, understanding what my rights are as a passenger, etc.

I just want people to love traveling on US Airways as much as I do.

Now, granted, there will be times when I have missed a connection, or a flight is delayed, and there is really nothing anyone can do about that. But in those situations, I at least know the difference between a weather delay and a mechanical delay – and I know what my options are. That information alone can make a big difference in what happens next at the airport.

2 - As you know, I recently had a pretty disappointing experience with US AirWays, and I tweeted my frustrations with the service I got from the airlines during a recent trip. I didn't hear from anyone at US Airways, but you responded to me, offering to help if you could. Is this something you do often on Twitter?

It's something that I do as often as I can… I don't have an iPhone, so my customer service time is limited to the times I am actually on a computer –which, fortunately – is fairly often.

Were I helping you, in your recent situation, to initially book the ticket that you had trouble with, I would have looked at the average on-time departure of the planes that you were taking. Based on the averages, I might have suggested alternate flights, or a longer layover. When your first connection was missed, I might have suggested that you call the airline to "protect" yourself on the next flight. Again, I was not privy to your exact situation, but it is advice like this that can really make a difference when you are sitting on the tarmac wondering if you are actually going to make it to your destination in time.

3 - You told me on Twitter that US Airways hasn't reached out to you, and that you aren't sure if they know what you are doing on Twitter on their behalf. Do you think that US Airways should contact you?

Sure! I would welcome dialogue with US Airways! I have a lot of ideas on how they should properly enter this space, and what they should do with it.

That being said, I think that if US Airways is to enter the Social Media space that is Twitter, they will need to reach out to someone LIKE me. They are in a very difficult position, because in my opinion, they need to find someone that understands the Twittersphere, and also the already established booking policies and procedures of US Airways. While it would be fun for them to enter the space, and Tweet about fare specials, and airport closures, etc. – the real value to me (and other US Airways customers) would be to have an actual Reservations Agent capable of helping those in their most dire moments of need. As I said, people usually travel for very important occasions… these are some of the most important moments of these people's lives and it would be pointless to enter the space unless there were an actual point of contact for the customer to reach out, if necessary.

That seems to put US Airways in quite the predicament, because it would take a Super Agent - someone who was flawless on company procedures, and was able to make comments without jeapordizing the company legally in any way; a tough spot, indeed.

4 - Do you think US Airways should be active on Twitter? If they were, how could the company benefit?

I guess I accidentally answered that one above… ;)

5 - What, in your opinion, makes US Airways a company worth doing business with? Why do you 'love' US Airways?

Well, a lot of people don't know this, but US Airways is actually a low cost carrier… This means that they do not offer some of the luxuries that some of us have begun to appreciate as "standard" on other airlines. I actually like this, as I often am travelling on a budget. I don't want to pay extra for my ticket - for meals I don't want, drinks I'd rather buy at the gate, and built in margins for change fees I'm not intending on incurring. I also don't feel that flight attendants need to be waitresses.

I want my ticket, and I want to get there safely. I can take care of myself for the rest.

Luckily, I've had the privilege of flying enough (and loyally with US Airways) so as to have had the opportunity to enjoy Elite Status over the last three years. This allows me free first class upgrades, mileage bonuses, preferred check-in and boarding, free checked bags – the list goes on and on…

If I'm upgraded on both legs of my itinerary, I can get a first class round trip ticket from Phoenix to New York City for $240! Who wouldn't love that?

Also - Their mobile app is amazing, I can go to over 200 destinations, and accrue miles from other Star Alliance carriers (and by shopping online at places like iTunes, and Home Depot).

I actually flew round trip - Phoenix to Amsterdam – last year for 37,500 miles… Awesomeness!

If one knows the rules of traveling on their favorite airline, the sky is the limit!

And there you go. I will say that while I am still ticked at US Airways for the treatment I got from them, that Jody's passion for the company is undeniable. I'm not saying I will give the airline a second chance, but if I DO, Jody's evangelism for US Airways will be the ONLY reason why.

My advice to US Airways is to find the people you have like Jody that are passionately promoting your company, and reach out to them as quickly as possible. Actually that's my advice for any company. Thanks again, Jody!

Mack Collier's Bio

Mack Collier is a social media consultant, trainer and speaker. He has been actively immersed in social media since 2005, and in that time, has helped advise, teach and consult with businesses of all shapes and sizes on how they can better connect with their customers via these amazing tools and sites. While being passionate about the social media space, what truly excites Mack is the human connections that can result from the proper use of these social tools. His motto is "Don't focus on the tools, focus on the connections that the tools help facilitate." His goal is to help his clients create those connections with their customers, and nurture them into relationships that help grow their bottom line.

His social media 'homebase' is The Viral Garden, which in 3 years time Mack has grown into an influential marketing/social media blog with a monthly readership of over 175,000. He is also a frequent contributor to the website Marketing Profs, as well as the marketing blog Daily Fix, and small business blog Search Engine Guide. His writings have been referenced in several mainstream publications and websites, including The Washington Post, MSNBC.com, Ad Age, CNET, and The Boston Globe.

Mack is also a requested speaker and has presented at some of the top social media conferences and events, including South By Southwest Interactive, Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, and Small Business Marketing Unleashed. He is also passionate about teaching companies how to use social media sites and tools more effectively, and offers training and seminars privately to companies, in addition to his public speaking schedule.

You can learn more information about Mack's social media training and consulting services here. If you need a social media speaker for your event, or want to know where Mack will be speaking next, click here. If you want to email Mack, click here.

Mack wrote this bio. The third-person thingie is just for fun.

Pic via Flickr user LiveWorld