This is an email I got in my inbox this morning. The first mistake? Not finding out who managed the social media program in the company. It was sent to a PR person who had little to do with the website. The second mistake? Not finding out if the company already had a social media campaign and commenting on how well they are or aren’t doing.
Here is the email:
“Hi ####, I think you would find it fascinating to learn what is being
said about your organization on social media sites and ways to optimize
your online reputation. Could we set a time to discuss in the next week?
^^^^^ provides clients with alerts on all mentions of your
organization online (blogs, news, social, and community sites). Our team
of expert journalists then determines which ones are damaging and
suggests possible replies and key strategies to counteract them. In
addition, we also help you capitalize on positive mentions.
Our clients tell us that we are exceptional at building a top reputation
score with minimal demand on their already busy day. Let me know a time
that you’re available and I will confirm back. Thanks ###.”
Bad, on so many levels. It’s emails like these that make me lose a bit of faith in PR firms.
Think they will stay in business long?
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As you may already know, I work for a local g0vernment agency , and recently we posted another update to our android app last night, to include an item that had been requested, and when checking the feedback, downloads and ratings this morning found a comment that absolutely made my day.
“by Derrick 20/05/2010 – “Who would ever imagine you’d enjoy the department of transportation? Fun and informative tweets and now this.”
That makes me feel good. Our efforts in recognizing how users are accessing and using information and providing that to them via social media sites and mobile applications completely changed this users point of view and how he feels towards us as a government agency.
I know it’s only one comment, but I love it when efforts pay off and that one simple comment is generated that makes me feel like I am doing something right.
You can see that comment and more at androidzoom.com or follow the agency on twitter at http://twitter.com/wsdot
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1. Look at the bigger picture when attempting measurement. Analytics/numbers only provide a small piece of the bigger puzzle that is value. Also customer experience is difficult to measure.
2. Embrace those who speak negatively about you. Your worst critics can teach you great lessons and often challenge you to improve.
3. Being there can gain you a lot of respect, showing you care moves you to the next level of trust.
4. Information doesn’t have to be polished, it just has to be real.
5. Simple case studies have more worth in the long run than you can imagine. Sharing the simplest lessons learned is not only fun it provides great value for future endeavors.
I know I said five, but I have to mention this one.
(a more personal note) Social media can be addicting. As my wife says, “Facebook is the People magazine for your friends”. The endless stream of the lives of those around us remind us that we are all connected. One of the hardest lessons I have learned is that I need to step away more often.
Happy New year everyone, lurk less, interact more.
Jeremy
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YouTube Insight provides detailed information regarding use of the videos you post to the site. It shows how many times your videos were viewed, how long people are staying on the videos and which site has deemed your video worthy enough to embed it into their site. I use this tool weekly to gain an understanding of the audience that is viewing our videos and to help make decisions about what type of videos to make in the future.
One of the reports within Insight called “Demographics” has been very interesting to me. When YouTube users create an account on do they really enter their age? I never use my real age or birth date when I create accounts on Web sites, I want to have some privacy and retain some ownership of my personal information (if only in a small way) so how accurate is this chart really?
But what does this chart actually tell me. Let’s look at it a little closer.
In order for YouTube to gain this information a user must be logged in. By that token we would have to assume that males 35-54 are more likely to be logged into their YouTube account than females are. (Guys, do they know something we don’t 
).
Missing Key Metric
The missing metric? Anonymous users. How many people viewed my videos anonymously? What percentage of entire use is this demographic really based on? How many people are actually logged into YouTube accounts when viewing videos?
Until YouTube provides this anonymous use information I will treat demographic information on their Insight tool with a bias, knowing that it isn’t accurate and only really represents a smaller audience than it should.
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I was wondering recently how we can reach out to those local blogs and get to know them, learn their challenges and see if they would have any interest in using information our agency provides to add content or value to their own website. Upon searching I found that there isn’t a great list of these local Puget Sound area blogs, so I put one together:
Have others? Let me know
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