Social Media | Samuelson's Media

February 11, 2010

Changes in Facebook – Thoughts about Social Media

Filed under: Opinion, Social Media, Technology — Tags: communication, facebook, facebook apps, facebook client, iphone, iphone apps, microsoft, Social Media, statistics, twitter — Garth @ 11:04 am

For the umpteenth time since last year Facebook has changed its interface. (actually, it’s the second, I think) It seems a kind of petty thing to comment on, but given that 400 million people use Facebook, it is more interesting that you don’t see commentary on this kind of thing in the mainstream.

Facebook is free. Additionally, as a part of web 2.0, it is in a real sense ‘permanently broken’ or incomplete. Nobody really knows what we’re doing, and so things change and adapt quickly. However, a real question arises – if it is true that for instance Facebook will be launching a gmail clone – will people begin to actually rely on it for vital communications? If this is so, what will a fairly moderate interface change mean? Given that people on the web are about as vocal every day as strikers are on the day of the ‘general strike’, can a service like Facebook ignore comments? What are they to do if a change removes key functionality (such as in this case, viewing updates from a specific application or status updates alone)?

It can easily be argued that Facebook is free, and therefore, you pay for what you get. But Facebook itself does not have that attitude; that’s a ’screw you’ attitude that they’d never be caught uttering. Therefore we can assume that despite being free (on the front end, anyhow) Facebook wants to give its users the best experience possible, as though they were being paid for all of this. (They are, but not directly by us.)

What is interesting in all of this is that when I spoke to Ron, he mentioned that his iPhone app still had the same functionality. In other words, the same Facebook ‘data’ is sitting there, there is just a new ‘terminal’ we who are using the Web need to use. It makes me think that going forward we will see Facebook clients, much the way we see clients for Twitter. The difference is of course that Facebook is many times more complex! Imagine though, if you could get a Facebook client for 1.99 – Facebook gets a cut of that – over a possible group of 400 million folks?

And what about how widely used (and despised?) it is… I am reminded of everyone carping about Microsoft whenever they try to change something. Difference is, we have to accept the change on Facebook. With Microsoft at least there is a few years for us to adapt. And yet we keep using it!

Free, rich communication is valuable; just like a very generic & flexible operating system is. Maybe Facebook will give up trying to play nice and annoy us until we pay to stop the annoyance. I’ll bet they won’t lose people – where else will they go? Twitter?

Or maybe the value is like that of a huge fan page – everyone is there! How can you take credit for that?

2 Comments

January 28, 2010

Ron Samuelson to Speak at the Smart Jewelry Show

Filed under: Jewelry, Local News, News, Press, Social Media — Tags: instore magazine, Jewelry, matt stuller, ron samuelson, smart jewelry show, Social Media, speaking — Samuelson's Diamonds @ 1:37 pm

If you are not familiar with INSTORE magazine (if you don’t work in retail you might not be) it’s the fastest growing jewelry trade magazine, and the Smart Jewelry Show is its super-sized progeny. Featuring some of the biggest names in the biz such as Matt Stuller, the show ranges from topics that interest retailers, owners and vendors, to those focused on people who make jewelry by hand.

All of this is to let you know that our own Ron Samuelson will be speaking at the Monday Pre-Show Conference in an exciting session called “Social Media – Myth or Miracle?“. Smart Jewelry Show is scheduled for four days from the 23rd of April to the 26th, and Ron will be speaking the morning of the 26th.

More details to come!

2 Comments

December 18, 2009

The ‘New’ Influencers?

Filed under: News, Opinion, Social Media — Tags: aggregation, INQ Mobile, Mashable, pete cashmore, social climbing, Social Media, stories, twitter — Garth @ 12:15 pm

No formal connections to Twitter (as far as we know.)

I like to pay attention (with one eye at least) to the happenings in the social media world, since it is likely our success on the web going forward will involve more and more of it.

It is somewhat amusing to see the ‘new media’s equivalent of the Oscars, the Pulitzer and so forth – as it more often than not serves as a promotional tool for itself! As an outsider of course I find this intriguing, but it also makes sense from their perspective to do so.

So on to the meat here. We have the ‘most influential people on Twitter’ – and the irony of the day is Mashable reporting that their own Pete Cashmore is regarded as #1:

Along those lines, INQ Mobile has just released their 2009 Twitter (Twitter) influence study, determining the most influential Twitter users in both the UK and the world. The winner? Not Oprah, not Ashton and not Diddy, but Mashable (Mashable)’s founder and CEO Pete Cashmore!

I’d offer congrats, but then, the way social media works he has probably seen too many congratulations already to read them.

An interesting fact here is that I was not surprised in the least by this, and not because of a kind of general theory about being a media person on Twitter and thus producing a lot of tweetable content, but on this simple fact. I actually follow Cashmore.

Generally speaking, I do not follow people who have a lot of followers or who follow a lot of people (10000+) as I have no interest in shouting for attention among thousands, and I certainly have little interest in gossip or self-help. Social climbing is not for me either (you can see I have few that I follow!)

But I followed Cashmore, mostly because of three things (that I can recall.) 1. He seemed like he was really there using the account. 2. He was active. 3. He offered things I was interested in, that were if not completely unique or original represented some kind of genuine work; a collection of stories and opinions which reflect Mashable’s take on things.

Many who are out there for ‘twitter success’ seem more like they’ve randomly grabbed stuff to put up; there’s no story to the stories. All chatter, no thought.

And I tend to think that this difference itself is Cashmore’s X-factor.

November 23, 2009

The Social Media Train is Coming At Ya

Filed under: Social Media, Technology — Tags: brand name search experience, google social search, Mashable, News, search ranking, SEO, text rich, twitter, Yelp — Garth @ 12:14 pm

This train doesnt have to stop for anyone.

It has been long clear that blogs and other kinds of fast-updating media – especially of the text-rich variety have dominated other websites in search.

The formula is pretty simple: New content is news, blogs and public social media produce more new content than even periodicals, therefore to the search engine they essentially produce more news. A standard method of ranking includes a measure of relevance – which for many things will be how recently the information was acquired. The search engine can’t tell Plato from Gawker and add to that a frequency of smaller and more diverse postings (as in Twitter or Facebook,) and you have a recipe for search-domination.

Jennifer Van Grove at Mashable writes:

Essentially what customers, fans, and detractors are posting to social media sites are dominating the brand name search experience over social media content created by the brands themselves. This data clearly creates a legitimate reason for brands to be proactive with their social media presence, as participating in the exchange about their brand should improve the quantity and quality of customer-created social media content that searchers will happen upon.

It is worth noting that this only effects opinion and brand, since these sites (blogs and the like) are less apt to drive sales than product-rich websites. They have a broad but shallow impact. It really makes clear what marketers have been saying about word-of-mouth advertising for a long time, doesn’t it?

Google Social Search is coming!

Add to this the emergence – and how soon no-one knows for sure – of Google Social Search, it might just be the moment to be on social media (or the time to stay very, very far away from it!) Which you choose depends on how you interact with customers.

A final note is that Google Social Search requires a person to keep connections in their Google account (which not everyone has or does) so the impact may be spotty for awhile. I’ve experimented myself, and my results tend to be dominated by a few people who are more connected in that way, or who run blogs or comment on blogs frequently.

It is cool, though, in a weird kind of way. What kind of SEO can you do on that kind of stuff?

My brain replies:

To: john

Subject: your posting on Yelp!

Body: Can you please include the words ‘diamond retail experience‘ in your review? Thanks.

Oh! That would be strange.

November 13, 2009

Guest Blog Post: Which Social Media “Expert” are you?

Filed under: Guest Posts, Social Media, Technology — Tags: Bridget Forney, business, experts, followers, local, public relations, Social Media, twitter — Samuelson's Diamonds @ 5:37 pm

Here’s a funny and informative post by our friend Bridget Forney titled “Which Social Media “Expert” Are You?”. You can read more of Bridget on her blog http://www.numbersnotinvited.com or follow her on twitter @BridgetForney.

Which Social Media “Expert” are you?

These days, it’s not hard to find an expert on social media. Well, to rephrase, it’s not hard to find a self-proclaimed expert on social media. With the semi-recent craze for all things Twitter, Facebook and web 2.0, everyone seems to be coming out of the woodworks announcing their know-it-all status when it comes to online marketing and poking around the deep dark corners of networking websites. But how knowledgeable are these “experts”? What makes a social media expert to begin with? Which social media expert are you?

There are a few types of “experts” on the web that you may run into when looking for a professional in the social media world. Heck, you may very well be one of these social media experts. Read on to investigate the inner workings of online “specialists”…

The Twitter Expert
The Twitter Expert is one who has a Twitter account, and is probably an obsessive tweeter. They probably follow people in the thousands in an effort to increase their “follower” numbers. The people they’re following most likely will exceed their followers by a number in the hundreds at the least. This expert thinks they specialize in all things Twitter, but they’re likely the type of “I am clipping my toenails right now”-tweeter that you try to avoid. Follower quantity means more to them than follower quality and to credit their expertise, they’ll often boast about the number of followers they have – even though 80% of them are likely spammers. If you don’t follow the Twitter Expert back, they might shamelessly DM you to say, “Will you follow me back!?”

The Business Expert
The Business Expert is one who has an online presence for their business, either on Twitter, Facebook, both or other networking websites. This expert thinks their knowledge of social media is credible due to the fact that they use it for their business. This expert is about as much a social media connoisseur as the person who hands out teriyaki chicken samples in the food court at the mall is an expert at marketing Thai food. Just because you play the game, doesn’t mean you should be a coach.

The Local Expert
The Local Expert is a native to the area and may or may not be a shameless self-promoter. This expert promotes their credibility through the fact that they know the city, the town and what’s going on with the local culture, thus they probably tweet useful information often and may have a substantial and legitimate following. The only problem is, this expert probably learned everything they know from someone else. All of the information they give you is likely second hand knowledge and they may or may not take the credit for it. There is no disputing the fact that The Local Expert is experienced and familiar with using social media applications, but by no means are they social media specialists or should be offering their “services” to others.

The Unemployed Expert
The Unemployed Expert, it goes without saying, does not have a job. For this reason, they can spend unparalleled amounts of time online perfecting their social media expertise. They’re the people you see flooding your update column with useful, and sometimes controversial thoughts…ALL the time. Sparking a controversial conversation with an A-lister is probably the highlight of their jobless day. It’s okay though, because due to those particular conversations, they’re seen and virally heard by hundreds, sometimes millions. At the end of the day, sometimes it’s their social media presence that ends up getting them hired. The Unemployed Expert will likely know social media pretty well, but may or may not know the inner workings of strategic communications specifically for businesses. Ancient Chinese Proverb: He who can market himself, may not necessarily be capable of marketing others.

The Public Relations Expert
The Public Relations Expert is usually a professional in the marketing industry who first stumbled upon the beautiful world of social media in an effort to promote or advertise a client. These professionals were probably the first people online who immediately recognized the power of social media, harnessed its raging potential and used it to their advantage. Whether or not they do it effectively, however, is open to interpretation. The Public Relations, or PR, Expert accredits their expertise to the fact that they use social media for their client(s). This lucky expert has the ability to transfer their authoritative status in the marketing industry over to the world of social media. Some PR Experts can talk the talk, but not all can walk the walk.

The Salesman Expert
The Salesman Expert is generally someone who isn’t at all interested in joining a social conversation, and doesn’t really care about social media at all. This selfish social savant is only interested in selling their own product or service, and their updates will generally reflect that. These Internet marketers will sometimes boast about having the secret juice, the magic dust that will bring you followers. Don’t fall for it. Like a fat person trying to lose weight, the only way to gain followers is by doing it the good old-fashioned way: hard work and (metaphorical) exercise.

If you think your expertise has been questioned here, it probably has. Don’t get your panties in a bundle; it’s for good reason. Step back and ask yourself which social media expert are you? Are you a mixture of a few classifications? Should you REALLY be offering “services” to others on social media? The definition of a social media “expert” should not be open for interpretation. It’s not a grey issue. You either are or you aren’t.

If you’re not sure, a good rule of thumb is to wait until someone ELSE says you are. Otherwise, you’ve just been self-diagnosed. Where’s the credibility? You can tweet about being an expert and others can too; you may even have your own website, blog and newsletter, but the only thing that can qualify you as a REAL social media expert is a PROVEN track record of success. That means results.

I’ll leave you with this ancient Chinese proverb: Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.
Go forth and tweet,
Bridget Marie

P.s. If you know of an Expert I didn’t list here, please leave me a comment and I’ll add it to the list!