tbeard's blog

With all of this social media blasting at us, has anyone stopped to consider the purpose.  Smart companies (and yes individuals with an agenda) use the social media tools to manipulate opinion, spur debate and provide a method of communication that was not available to them only 5 to 6 years ago.  By organizing the approach to the use of these tools, companies can inform, gain insight and engage customers like never before.

We have looked at some companies in class, but I also work with a customer who seems to grasp the effectiveness of just how this stuff works.  James owns a company that imports and sells rifle scopes, binoculars and night vision equipment.  The equipment is sold at large retail outlets and on line.  Each of the products has a registration card in the box that allows the customer to register the product for warranty.  Once the customer registers the product, the social media contact begins.  They invited to follow on Twitter and like them on Facebook.  Regular tweets and Facebook updates provide news and information about special offers and new products that are available.  Each market (hunters, birdwatchers, etc..) has its own social media (wizard) person to share the information the company thinks is important to the market.  This wizard is also responsible for providing feedback to inquiries and if there are problems with a product, the manufacturer.  Using these tools the company has grown by 300% in the last two years.

The company found specific target markets require all of the tools, just in different amounts.  For example, hunters are not big tweeters he found, so that market wizard spends most of the effort on Facebook type social media.  The large retail chains require the old face to face marketing, but more retail people have LinkedIn accounts that are used to notify them of shipments, orders and new products.

The company has demonstrated that with a purpose, these social media tools provide an effective way to grow the top line of a business.

I am new to this twitter thing and as such I have looked at the suggestions twitter makes on who to follow based on my interests.  I chose to follow the Energy Star Program because I have a direct interest in the happenings at the Department of Energy and what they are doing with the Energy Star program as it relates to buildings. 

I also chose to follow the USDA Peoples Garden feed.  The tag line is that this is the nations demonstration plot and provides information and the latest happenings on events, workshops, plantings and harvests.  It also is used to announce grant funding opportunities (latest is July 26 announcement).  These announcements could be helpful for our capstone project.

I am also following e-agriculture.  This feed is a global initiative to enhance sustainable agricultural development & food security by improving the use of information and communication technologies.  I have noticed since it is international, I need some foreign language lessons since some of the posts so far are in French and Spanish.

Now that I have access to all of this information (not all of it useful), I can see how this will be a challenge to manage.  How on earth does anyone filter out the noise without reading everything?  I am investigating the twitter tools further, but it is no wonder people just give up and quit for a while.

I would start by defining who I was trying to reach before updating the blog appearance.  Place links to topics that would interest my audience and join forces with contacts in LinkedIn to enhance the content of my blog.  The next thing would be to update the about page to include a more descriptive backgound of who I am and what I believe.  A sort of Mission Statement if you will. 

As for the posts, I would go back and rethink the outline and follow the 9 steps in the article we read.  This would mean all the blogs would have some call to action and not just be informational.  This would mean fewer posts but the posts would contain more passion.

The results I would expect are an excited following that could offer constructive feedback on actions that they have taken as a result of the blog.  A way to create a lessons learned for people that were doing the things we talked about. 

I have not made many changes to my blog page since this journey started.  I have watched with great interest many of my cohorts growth in this and am excited for their progress.  It is very uncomfortable for me to do this and I have no intention to continue.  I will continue to submit content to our social media people at work and let them do the blogging.  In the words of Harry Callahan “a mans got to know his limits”  and I am up against mine here.  I understand the potential of all of this, but I am not a writer.  There are people much better suited to these things than me.

What is an effective blog?  According to Dustin Wax there are 9 signs that your blog is effective (or in effective).  In this post we are going to discuss the signs and how one example blog matches up to the signs. 

First, lets start by outlining the 9 signs taken from the blog Nine Signs of an Effective Blog Post written by Darren Rowse:

1. The headline draws the reader in.
2. A concrete detail or visual illustrates the benefit promised in the headline.
3. The lead expands the theme of the heading.
4. The layout is clear and skimmable.
5. The post covers the topic in a logical sequence.
6. The post is persuasive.
7. The post is interesting to read.
8. The post is believable.
9. The post asks for some action.

Now all of these seem like common sense.  After all, why would you go to all the time and trouble to write a blog post if you were not trying to change the reader’s mind or spur the reader’s actions.  Turns out not all bloggers are sign readers.  Let’s check out one blog in particular.  Now we are only offering up some comparison as to how well the nine signs were followed. 

The blog is titled Solar and Wind Energy blog.  With a title like that everyone should be interested, right.  Higher energy cost getting you down?  Try solar or wind energy sources and save $$$!!!  Turns out our blogger only has two posts on the blog about solar or wind energy.   The topics about gardens are very interesting, but we went here to discuss solar and wind energy.

The blog talks about expected savings from installation of a similar system in general terms.  I think the blog could have used specific in this case to bolster his case, but savings of 50 to 80% are substantial.  At this point the reader is thinking “yeah, this is really cool and I can save money”

After catching our attention with solar water heating and the potential dollar savings our blogger begins by saying he has done some research about this topic, which makes us to believe he knows something about the subject.  The blog clearly describes the two systems and how each of them work.  We even get diagrams.  The diagrams break up the post but don’t really add eye appeal.

Now we know what we can save, what the system does and how it works.  Time for the hook, everyone go out and get one, right!  Well, almost.  He gives us a testimonial (sort of) from his neighbor and a link to the unit the neighbor had purchased.  Maybe we could work on closing the deal here.  Encourage more than one product, or better yet provide a list of many products and suppliers with pricing.

Now that brings us to the subjective parts of the nine steps.  Can the post be skimmed and is the post interesting?  This particular post is not easily skimmed.  The layout is choppy and all the white around the diagrams is hard on these weak eyes.  Interesting?  really? I did not think so.  This is information that I think is common knowledge and of interest to very few people.  The author may know something about the topic having conducted research, but there is a lot more to the selection and installation of one of these systems than presented here.  He may entice some to further research this but in my opinion it is a waste of electrons posting this blog.

I have a LinkedIn account mainly because we were asked to create one at work.  I have not been a faithful user of the site thus far.  I always felt ambivalent about things like LinkedIn because I did not realize the potential of what it could offer.  The site is very easy to use and can be very informative about people you are connected to.  I think there are several pros to the site.  The uses of the site range from Business Development, Marketing, Sales to Job Searches.  Sometimes you get job offers just from your profile post.  My oldest son was invited to apply for a job at Google based on his LinkedIn Profile.  I had never heard of such a thing until he called me.  I then checked with some of my business associates and found that this was one of the uses of LinkedIn.  One of the ways we use it at TMAC is the group function.  It allows us to share information, tools and techniques across the state with colleagues in different regions of the state.  This means we can create a consistent delivery model for our products and services.  One of the drawbacks to LinkedIn is that people ask to be recommended.  This is always a risky proposition, especially if you aren’t sure about capabilities of the requester.  I am a member of 3 groups on LinkedIn.  I participate in the TMAC group more frequently that the Tech Fort Worth and Earth NT groups.  I joined the latter two groups really for information updates.  The TMAC group is used by the field staff to stay abreast of the latest developments with our program, upcoming events and discussions of problems that need solutions.  Since this is my only real use of LinkedIn, I must admit that I do not keep up with the regular status updates on my profile page, nor do I send messages through the site.  I only check in once a week on a good week and message capability is better accomplished with telephone and emails.  All in all the experience with the site has been good, but it is another password to keep up with.  I must say that after reading the articles and learning from my son’s experience I have not utilized the full capability of the site.  I think that if I were to use the site capabilities that are outlined in the articles that I have been reading, that it would offer a better insight to our organizations capabilities.  This would aid in the marketing of TMAC to the manufacturing community.  By focusing in on our customers stories and highlighting their successes other potential users of these services may be enticed to contact us.  This is also a site that would most likely be used by a TMAC customer, unlike Facebook.  I have dabbled with Plaxco for some of this, but it is not a functional or well used as LinkedIn.

I sat down this past week with one of out student workers from Mexico to discuss the communication methods of the younger generation.  I have worked with this student on several projects ranging from implementationof environmental managment systems to industrial assessments of energy use.  Each project required different skills.  The skills required, however, had nothing to do with what we discussed on this day.  It really starte over her sending me a text message and me not responding.

I think that it was as entertaining for her as it was informative for me.  The student is very active on Facebook and Linked-in.  As an engineering PhD student, Linked-in is used for job hunting.  Facebook is used mainly to communicate with friends and family across the world.  Facebook time, as I found out during the interview, is anytime because of mobile connectivity and the iPhone.  The entire social calendar is driven by its use.  Everything from simple updates to scheduling get togethers with friends at restaurants is done on the phone through Facebook. 

She really did think it was strange that I am stuck with an old Motorla Razor that has no GPS capability.  She could not understand the resistance to the technology and wondered how I found my way around the area.  She demonstrated how she finds things using the mobile phone and gets directions to places immediately.  She also has tried to use it to find her way to customers, but somehow always gets lost. 

She is active in the student chapter of the IEE (Society for Industrial Engineers).  This organization provides email and Facebook updates on events and meetings.  She likes the feeling of being connected to the organization in this way.  She does not blog and does not regularly read a specific blog, but uses the Internet daily to conduct research on specific topics for her studies and our work with customers. 

Since spanish is the native tounge, I wanted to know how difficult it was to communicate in printed english.  I found out that she can change the printed word almost as fast as she can change back and forth when speaking.  I had never really considered it for my little narrow focus.  She did say that she enjoyed being around people more that engaging with them on line.  But I still can’t respond to text messages and she thinks that is funny.

Specific goals

The Charleston Parks Conservancy is a Non-profit group that is focused on getting community involvement to make the parks better and more accessible. The goal was to present their work to the public and gain volunteer support and financial support.  The slogan of the Charleston Parks Conservancy is “Connecting People with their Parks”.  

Random Buzzers.com is a site for writers. This website goal is to connect with a younger demographic and encourage these readers to get excited about books.  It is also a place for writers to be exposed to new readers without the constraints of conventional publishing.

Seaworld wanted to build relationships with the roller coaster enthusiasts, build awareness of their new coaster, and increase park attendance.

How are they successful?

The Charleston Parks Conservancy has successfully started community gardens, thrown fund rising parties, renovated parks and has even gotten the public involved in park maintenance. They have also included people on their park blog sites as well as some community adoption of local parks.  The Charleston Parks Conservancy’s website is full of photos, showing volunteers and others enjoying the parks.  

Random House appears to have an active community utilizing their site.  User-generated content fills the site using tools such as Twitter and Facebook.  They are able to write reviews of new/hot books as well as comment on writing trends and story ideas.   Writers are also able to talk/chat/blog with other writers to exchange notes and tips of the craft of writing.   

Seaworld conducted surveys of park visitors, and found that a number of attendees came to ride the Journey to Atlantis coaster after hearing about it online.  They were able to establish credibility with coaster enthusiasts, by attending meetings.  

How could they Improve?

Charleston utilized a number of tools in their efforts: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, Google Maps, etc.  I didn’t notice any YouTube videos.  They may have a little too much info, the site could be overwhelming to some.

Random House should expand to include a link to pages for illustrators. This would allow artists to collaborate with writers on books/stories. This would add value for site users.  The site could improve by increasing the appeal to the male audience. My impression is that many of the contributors were primarily female.

Similar to Random House, the folks at Seaworld should now expand their demographic.  They initially targeted coaster enthusiasts, but don’t they have other attractions at these parks?  Use their coaster enthusiast endorsement to provide evaluations of the overall park and other attractions as well.  Was there a gender gap in visitors from this effort?  Should they target younger or older groups?

What SM Platforms Were Used?  How Were They Utilized?

All three utilized various SM tools. Most of these were mentioned in previous answers, but basically they used:  websites, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, Google Maps, Veoh, and blogs.

These tools promoted their products and services, while engaging their audience.  These should allow users to share their opinions, both positive and negative, not only the companies, but with others as well.  User-generated content could then be used to promote the current service and provide feedback that would allow the organization to see where improvements could be made.

Was Social Media Use Effective?

The Charleston site was image heavy and user-friendly, encouraging web visitors to explore their site and, ultimately, the parks themselves.  They have postings of many of their public events. These events look well populated, and there are people that were drawn there and invited by the different social media outlets. This is consistent with their mission.

Facebook and twitter seem to be good enough for Random House. The effectiveness of the tools was seen in the amount of content contributed by visitors to the Random Buzzers website.

Overall, it appears that SM was effectively utilized.  This was measured through surveys conducted by Seaworld to analyze their promotion costs versus traditional means.  

Specific Elements Shared by Campaigns That Could Translate to Other Efforts?

These three sites had varied goals, but through the engagement of people, no doubt created by the social media use, they were able to be involved with many more people (who are likely to act) than by using other means.  They all created connections with users that made them feel as though they were a part of an experience.  This falls in line with the idea of sustainability, where one should consider a cradle-to-cradle approach.

an article in environmental leader news letter contains a video from united technologies http://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/07/18/united-technologies-discusses-energy-efficient-building-systems/

Welcome to Maverick Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!