stop begging, start creating (cont.): a very short story

I’ve talked before about how social media accounts should stop begging for users and instead find and post quality content. Saw a very stark example of that with our campus this weekend. At about the same time on Saturday, the following two posts went out, the first from an affiliate site, the other from our main site.

The “please, please like us to reach an arbitrary figure” post goes against the very currency of social media — creating content people want to see, interact with and share. It makes everything about the account itself, and not about the user (and it should be about the user). As you can see, this post scared up 5 likes, no comments, no shares and — surprise! — as of Monday morning, the account still needed 7 likes to reach 2,000. It’s unfortunate because this account is run by smart, creative and very likable people capable of producing outstanding content.

Contrast that with the above image of the mind-bending 3-D chalk art from Art for After Hours, part of our Family and Friends Weekend. By Monday morning, it had 192 likes, 7 comments, 7 shares. While those are a good number of likes, the shares are what I consider the highest level of user engagement — they like it enough to take some kind of ownership and share it with friends. While this was far from our most-shared image, it had more shares than the begging post had likes. Plus this scene was available for any member of the campus community to capture and share.

As my friend Georgy Cohen of Meet Content has pointed out, the most-shared stories are ones to which the initial reaction of users is “wow!” or “whoa!” That was my actual reaction upon seeing the chalk art, and others seeing it in a photo (which honestly didn’t do it justice) felt the same way. No one says “wow!” or “whoa!” over an account begging for more users. Sadly in part because it’s so commonplace.

Consider this cocktail party example: You walk into the party and one person is asking people to like him, while the other is telling interesting stories. Where would you gravitate? Exactly.

I can’t say it enough: If you run a social media account, stop begging and start creating. Look around you for interesting content. It’s quite possibly everywhere. Then share it. It really is that simple.

social media for a very special birthday.

[Charles Wainwright photo]

We celebrated a very special birthday last week to mark the Oct. 4 birthday of our institution’s founder, Edward Austin Sheldon, in the middle of our sesquicentennial celebration.

How does one celebrate such a momentous milestone? With a large group picture where hundreds of people detail the year of our founding, 1861. With free food. And cupcakes. And, of course, social media.

I posted several photos live via our official accounts through Instagram onto Twitter. We have many, many more followers on Twitter than Instagram at this point, but each photo filtered onto Twitter makes more of our connections aware of this service and our presence on it, as we picked up some new Instagram followers. Our posts drew a lot of retweets as well, which garnered an appreciable amount of new Twitter followers.

In addition, viewing our Twitpics gives a quick look at major components of the celebration …

You could say the reaction was pretty good on Facebook when we posted up the main 1861 photo. At least that seems a reasonable assumption with 121 Likes, 26 comments and 31 shares. That people started tagging themselves and their friends greatly extended the image’s shelf life. This is what I mean by quality content with high sharability.

I also borrowed our office’s small video camera and took snippets as the event came together. I then went into iMovie and spliced together a quick take video. [View video]

Last and not least, we had the opportunity to deliver some happiness to one of our students who missed out on getting a free T-shirt. This thread, which also is my first attempt to use Storify, shows how that took place.

“	Thanks for all the free food! @sunyoswego http://t.co/XLJJZ3MF
	yuhhboiii October 4, 2011

“	@yuhhboiii Bon appetit!
	sunyoswego October 4, 2011

“	@sunyoswego any way to still get a t-shirt?! I didn’t get one :(
	yuhhboiii October 4, 2011

“	@yuhhboiii Uh oh. We saw some boxes headed in the direction of the alumni office, but don’t know if they had shirts in them. : /
	sunyoswego October 4, 2011

This was actually an incorrect assumption on my part. I later learned Auxiliary Services, which runs our bookstores and other entities, had them. So I put a quick request into the person in charge of Auxiliary Services, who came through. (Thank you, Mike!)

“	@sunyoswego Mail me one!
	yuhhboiii October 4, 2011

“	@yuhhboiii We’ll check and get back to you! : )
	sunyoswego October 4, 2011

“	@yuhhboiii We have something for you! What do you want us to do with it? http://t.co/k53HvL0X
	sunyoswego October 4, 2011

“	@sunyoswego name the place and time!
	yuhhboiii October 4, 2011

I sent him a DM of the time and place, lest others descend upon our office to claim the shirt. And, after the hectic day, failed to realize our @sunyoswego account wasn’t following him back yet, i.e. couldn’t receive his DM. D’oh! We worked it out.

“	@yuhhboiii This is waiting for you! http://t.co/Tn7tECji
	sunyoswego October 5, 2011

“	RT @sunyoswego: Here is how our giant 1861 photo came out. Thanks to all who made it happen! http://t.co/jQB6PUmj
	yuhhboiii October 5, 2011

Was it all a bit more work? Sure. But hey, you only get once chance to celebrate your founder’s birthday during your 150th anniversary … so we may as well find as many ways to tell the story as possible!

1 page speaks volumes on how web has evolved.

Last week I finished working on a new landing page for our Admissions Video, and it made me realize how far we have come — which I mean globally as well as locally.

Here was the old site in our old design, hosted by vendor, created several years ago:

And here’s the new one, presented (via YouTube embed) on our site:

First and most obvious, the new one represents our cleaner, sparser redesign which makes content more user-friendly. Did you notice anything else? Like that visitors no longer have to download/use RealPlayer or QuickTime to view the video?

I really think this transition reflects larger web trends over the past few years.

• Better sharability. YouTube was not the commonly trafficked site back then, and its cloud-based platform that can be easily embedded is (overused phrase ahead) a real game-changer. Paying for outside hosting of static web video is less necessary also because of …

• Improved metrics availability. One of the reasons I’m told we went with this vendor was the ability to track number of visitors, plays, etc. Which we easily can now do on our own site via Google Analytics as well as YouTube’s own metrics. We could also set up funnel reports to see how many people go from this video to fulfill other tasks … which, since this video is currently a conversion tool, will be increasingly interesting come next admission cycle.

• Increased in-house web knowledge. I had only minor involvement in (and less knowledge of) the web when Admissions set up the previous system. We had limited awareness of what other options may have existed and certainly did not have access to the awesome collective resource of Twitter #highered folks. I love that Admissions will come to us now for web solutions that we can provide at no or marginal cost with greater functionality. I think (or hope) colleagues at other colleges have similar experiences.

new rockmelt social browser: breakthrough or hot air?

You’ve probably seen at least some of the hype about Rockmelt, which bills itself as the first-ever “social browser” with its direct integration of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Its deployment began as invitation-only (thanks, Norma Campbell!) … which seems a lot like Google Wave, and we know how that ended.

To be fair to Rockmelt, however, the integration feature is really cool. You can click a button to see your friends’ most recent Facebook posts. Or to read their latest tweets. Or to use the browser, whatever page you’re on, to update your Facebook status or post onto Twitter.

Rockmelt also will happily project all your friends’ recent Facebook and Twitter activity onto your desktop in specific intervals. But, as the screenshot above shows, that can get mighty distracting and take away from your actual browsing experience.

With sharability the new currency of the web, Rockmelt covers this well with a share button that allows you to share the page you’re on via Facebook and/or Twitter. Saves a step or two from copying and pasting, and could promote more interactive browsing experiences.

The panel along the left shows whether friends (all or selected) are currently online. Which could be good or, well, a bit stalkerish. A corollary complaint I have is that Rockmelt tends to pop open Facebook chat without my permission. There are few things I hate more than chat, so I find this an annoying bug.

Standard features aren’t much different than most browsers, with the exception of the Incognito Window, which allows you to browse sites without leaving traces in your history or cookies after you close it. As far as add-ons, Rockmelt allows you to browse the Google Chrome store to pick up extensions from entertainment to education to social plug-ins.

On the whole, Rockmelt makes a pretty good browser, and the ability to be connected to, and share things with, your social network is a cool concept. But unless you like to be distracted by updates at work, it’s much better suited for casual use when your main online task is being social.

5 (+1) keys to social media platform adoption.

I clearly spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about social media platforms and explaining them to others. Part of this involves pondering why some catch on easily and others don’t — a combination of factors defying a simple recipe. Yet I’d propose at least five key factors driving user adoption of any social media platform: usefulness, usability, user interactivity, sharability and sustainability.

Usefulness: Is it clear what you can do with it? You don’t need much of an elevator speech to explain why folks use Facebook. Not everyone gets the appeal of Twitter, even in more than 140 characters; you have to learn by doing. Proponents would compare LinkedIn to a powerful, interactive rolodex. On YouTube, you share and watch video. Geosocial services like Foursquare and Yelp that offer reviews and tips make plenty of sense for those visiting another city, whereas Gowalla makes more sense if you just want to know what’s around. Innovative tools like Yelp’s monocle — a visual augmented reality layer that shows metatags of what’s around it — could serve as true differentiation as the market shakes out.

Usability: How easily can you take a desired action? Honestly, this is a huge key to why Facebook is so large a juggernaut it’s worrisome and MySpace a punchline. I could never find anything easily on MySpace, and other user pages were run-screaming-from-the-room horrible. Facebook offers a clean and consistent look with commands brilliant in their simplicity — “Add As Friend,” “View Photos of ____,” “Comment.” Twitter offers great ease of use (unless there’s a fail whale sighting). The often-poor user interface, clunky navigation and various glitches among the geosocial services (as described elsewhere) may hold them back at this point. Communities like YouTube and LinkedIn could use some navigational streamlining but are overall fairly facile.

User Interactivity: How easily can you interact with other users? No problem on Facebook — you can comment on photos, comment on status updates, comment on comments, etc. With Twitter, it’s as easy as replying with an @ or DMing for more privacy. Comments and replies are easy on YouTube. In terms of LinkedIn, since I use other connective media more, I have yet to find any reasons to interact with anyone (YMMV). With geosocial services, interaction is often more passive at this point, users more likely to read tips and reviews in Foursquare and Yelp. Although I guess ousting someone else as a Foursquare mayor represents an unusual wrinkle on interactivity.

Sharability: How easily can you share information within the community or export into other communities? Facebook and Twitter are on a different plane here, as not only is it easy to share or retweet within them, but the likes of Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp rely on appearing in Facebook or  Twitter feeds for their introduction, visibility and viability. Indeed, the main backlash on Foursquare is the annoying flood of checkins, badges and mayorships into other users’ Facebook and Twitter streams. I’m not sure how to share anything from LinkenIn, nor can I think of any reasons I’d want to. YouTube exports anywhere and everywhere.

Sustainability: Why would you want to stay engaged with it? Again, with Facebook, ongoing interaction is self-evident. With Twitter, this creates a quick divide and pundits note how many people abandon it. But this isn’t entirely bad: Those who want to use Twitter as a megaphone will not find it sustainable (fortunately), while those who understand it as a party-line telephone will keep using it. A challenge I’ve had with LinkedIn is that I find content from my contacts on other platforms already. Foursquare’s sustainability gains a boost from its mayor function, as people check into places to try to gain mayorship of that establishment. And with 24 hours of new video uploaded per minute on YouTube, there’s always something new.

Across all these runs an additional factor toward any platform’s tipping point: critical mass. A key reason people adopt Foursquare over Gowalla or Yelp is the simple fact they see more of their friends on Foursquare (and sharing this via Twitter and Facebook). After all, a key draw of social media is the ability to interact with others, so knowing friends are already there will increase adoption of any given community.

What do you think? Did I miss any key factors?