Building engagement ON and OFF your blog: My take...

This Monday, the 28th of June at 8pm (UK time), one of my favourite bloggers, Mack Collier, is hosting a special edition of #CommsChat looking at building engagement ON and OFF your blog.

As part of the preparation for this session, I thought it was worth looking back at some of the things I've done, and considered doing, with my blog in the last nine months from an engagement perspective.

I'll mainly look at 'ON my blog' via this post and save the other bits for Monday's chat.


ON my blog

The 'staple' activity that builds engagement on a blog is generating content that encourages comment / discussion, and then responding to those comments.

The other things that have worked for me have included:

Specific participatory content

In February I asked 140 communications 'characters' to define social media in 140 characters each.

The response was phenomenal, with people from every corner of the globe submitting a definition.

By opening my blog to the 'world', 140 'stakeholders' in it were created, taking a vested interest in it's content (for that post and hopefully subsequent ones).

'Specials' 

I've found that 'series' posts encourage engagement as those who are interested will pro-actively make contact to find out when the next instalment is being published.

Unique content falls under this category.

Giving up newspapers for 12 months and blogging about it has given this blog something unusual, and people a reason to ask questions / stay connected.

Easy connection

There's not much point attempting to build engagement if you don't make it as easy as possible for people to contact you.

I've listed all the channels people can connect with me on a single page on my blog, ensuring no hurdles are in the way.

Interviews / guests

Interview posts and appearances by guest bloggers tend to encourage from people beyond the normal readership as those people bring their engaged connections with them.

(I'll get into a specific activity re: guest blogging in the next section)

Provide useful information

This might seem like a 'no-brainer' but I learnt early on that more useful my posts were, the more interaction I'd have with people, as opposed to only serving up 'opinions'.

Create content that can be picked up by a 3rd party

Before you can build engagement you need to attract 'eyeballs'.

One of the best ways to increase readership is to create content that bigger sites can syndicate.

I often read the content on places like PRDaily.com and SocialMediaToday.com to check that I'm producing content in a way that they might consider using.

No matter what you blog about, think about which would be ideal 3rd party location for your content and keep that audience / format in mind.

Give...when you can

Back in March I profiled mflow - a cross between Twitter and iTunes - and was able to give my readers a special code to trial the service while it was still in beta testing.

Use other 'assets' creatively

In March I decided to make my blogroll open only to students, as opposed to the normal practice (generally higher profile blogs).

I found that this was a nice way to engage with a group of people I my not have if I stuck with the traditional approach.



That gives you a flavour for activity conducted ON my blog...now let's take a look at what I've done OFF my blog to build engagement.

OFF my blog

Again, there are some obvious things you can do OFF your blog to build engagement, with the most obvious one being consistently 'active' on other platforms like Twitter, Facebook etc

Other techniques / activities I've adopted include:

• Commenting on other blogs
• Taking part in live Twitter chats i.e. #JournChat
• Creating initiatives that encourage engagement i.e. #BeMyGuest month
• Writing / producing content for other people and interacting directly with their communities
• Speaking at events / meeting people 'in real life'

I'm looking forward to trading these ideas and many more on Monday night with Mack Collier and the #CommsChat community.

Keep up to date with all the #CommsChat action via Twitter @CommsChat

40 of the most useful social media and PR posts of Q2, 2010 (Apr-Jun)

The #Fab40q2 compiled by Adam Vincenzini

In late March, I published a compilation of the 40 most useful social media and PR posts of Q1, 2010.

These picks were based on the links I save away (and share) on my posterous site as part of the '10 out of 10 in 2010' series.

Now that we've almost arrived at the end of Q2, I thought I'd break open my 'shared link piggy bank' again and serve up another 'Fab 40'.

Shall we get to it? OK then...

40 of the most useful social media and PR posts of Q2, 2010

I've broken the collection into the following categories: blogs / blogging, engagement / content, Facebook, tools and tips, measurement / analysis,  PR / buzz and a couple more.

Blogs / blogging

1. 19 tips for driving traffic to your blog

2. 10 SEO tools every blogger must use

3. Why your competitors have more subscribers than you...and what you can do about it

4. Blogging tips: 52 different ideas!

5. The 5 unwritten rules for guest blogging

Engagement / content

6. 25 ways to engage contacts in social media

7. 10 powerful video marketing techniques

8. 5 great sites to help create bespoke forums

9. Top blogs on the web arranged by 'platform'

10. 55 examples of creative and integrated social media icons

Facebook

11. 21 creative ways to increase your Facebook fan base

12. Facebook case study: Marketing with a cause

13. Facebook community pages: what businesses need to know

14. The ultimate list of 100+ Facebook statistics (infographics)

15. How to create a vanity Facebook URL

Tools and tips

16. 36 resources / tools for advanced business Twitter search

17. 4 awesome bookmarking sites you may not have heard of

18. 5 genuinely useful Twitter tools

19. Comment management tools you should consider

20. 5 commonly misunderstood things on Twitter

Measurement / Monitoring / Analysis

21. How to audit your social media efforts

22. 8 tools to better understand your target audience

23. How to evaluate a listening vendor / service

24. A varied collection of tools to help you track your Twitter mentions

25. 10 key awareness metrics to track*

PR / buzz

26. 10 free social media tools every PR pro must master

27. How to pitch to journalists via Twitter

28. 7 ways to use social media to create buzz-worthy events

Location-based

29. 21 great foursquare, Gowalla and Whrrl case studies

30. 10 foursquare 'secrets' worth making public

31. 20 interesting things: foursquare

General resources

32. 50 top startups worth watching

33. How to set social media goals

34. How to develop a social media strategy: A roadmap for integration

35. 8 ways to manage up for social media success

36. Social media demographics: Who's using which sites?

37. "Meet the team" pages: Trends and examples

38. Amber Naslund's social media case study bank on Delicious

39. 12 social media secrets from the world's leading online operators

40. 60 useful social media learnings from 2010 (so far)

Why have these 40 been selected?

One simple reason: each link contains practical information that can be applied right now.

On a collective level, this compilation provides a snapshot of the key areas of consideration for people operating in the social media / PR space.

It is important to recognise that a post like this is only possible because of the amazing knowledge shared on the social web everyday.

Huge credit and thanks goes out to the producers of these posts.

I hope this selection, combined with the picks from Q1, captures the first six months of 2010 adequately.

Now it's over to YOU!

Are there any other posts / links you'd add to this group?

Has there been anything you've spotted in the last few months which is / was invaluable?

Suggest away...

Adam

If you'd like to subscribe to the COMMS corner, click here.

Mack Collier to host a special edition of #CommsChat on Monday 28 June

I'm really excited to announce that #CommsChat, the live Twitter chat that brings communicators together every Monday, will feature a special guest moderator for the first time on 28 June at 8pm (UK time).

Mack Collier, founder of the hugely successful #BlogChat, will guide our #CommsChat community through a topic that you won't want to miss.

The topic: Building engagement ON and OFF your blog

This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from one of the industry's most knowledgeable people on a subject that is vitally important for modern day communicators.

As per the normal routine, we'll post some more information about the session and how to take part in the lead up to Monday.

In the meantime, I can't encourage you enough to block out an hour in your diary next Monday for this session.

To find out more about Mack, visit his blog or follow him on Twitter.

To find out more about #CommsChat, visit the blog, follow us on Twitter or link up on Facebook.

Thanks and I hope to catch you next Monday!

Adam

100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far...(part 3 of 5 - productivity and content)

Note: Parts one and two of this series are available here and here.

We've arrived at the third instalment in this series which looks at '100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far...'.
In this post, part three, we're going to look at productivity and content.

So, without further ado...

(Actually, there is a little 'ado' - I've been very fortunate to be shortlisted in the PR Readers' Choice Blogging Awards along with some great people I admire I lot - if you'd like to submit your vote, click here).

100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far...(part 3 of 5)

Productivity (41-50)

41. The social web is a bottomless pit - to help manage the time you spend on any single website it's worth trying out x.minutes.at which will tell you how long you've spent in any one place in real-time. Handy...and a little scary.

42. Encouragingly, I am seeing more and more people make use of Twitter's 'favourite' button as a way of flagging up content worth assigning proper time to - sync this up with favstar.fm to help rank links in order of priority even more.

43. Pre-set your monitoring into sub-folders - I use Google Chrome as my web browser, and for each client I've pre-set searches on them and their keywords by tool. For example, go to www.addictomatic.com, type in your search term and bookmark that search - you can view it at any time, in real time.

44. I tend to use TweetDeck as my main Twitter client - this is just a simple tip, but I put my client-related key word search columns on the left of the dashboard, encouraging me to monitor those streams as opposed to my personal ones (which I keep to the far right).

45. Use your 'dead time' more effectively - social media is a time vacuum, check in on Twitter, Facebook etc from your mobile while in transit (as much as you can), separating it from your 'desk' time.

46. When blogging, adopt different ways of presenting your content - for example, screenr.com is a great way of walking your audience through a website / service as opposed to a more traditional 'written' post - and it is LOADS quicker to complete too.

47. There are some great tools in existence to help assist with tasks / to do lists. Some of the ones I've tried this year include doomi.com, teuxdeux.com, GQueues and Remember The Milk.

48. Take the clutter out of Google Alerts by using AlertRank - the easiest way to categorise mentions by importance - more on this great tool here.

49. I mentioned evernote is part one of this series - make it even more useful by downloading the Google Chrome Web Clipper which allows you to file links / information with the click of one button in your toolbar. Genius.

50. I've been banging on about NutshellMail for a while now - it's a free service which provides you with daily email updates about activity taking place in and around your key social media properties i.e. Twitter, Facebook etc - a HUGE time saver.

Content 51-60

51. Make your content more 'newsful' - OK, it's a terrible name but the sentiment has merit - don't always adopt the 'inverted press release model' to the way you produce content. Instead, make it more timeless / shareable by adopting another approach outlined here.

52. Content and strategy are two words thrown around a lot in social media, but Steve Sponder's visual outlining his approach to it is really worth keeping on file and referring to - view the full post here.

53. Write with your SEO hat on - create a list your relevant keywords and search phrases and refer to them every time you write a post / produce content. This will encourage you to 'naturally' include the terms you want your properties to be associated with / searched for.

54. Use Google Analytics and Google AdWords Keyword Tool to shape the content you are producing - both of these tell you how the world discovers your content and if tracked over time can tell you whether or not you are meeting the purpose / aims of your content (Jason Falls has written a great post on this which can be found here).

55. PostRank is a great tool to help you get an idea of the quality of content you are producing (based on pre-determined criteria). They also have a nifty little Top Posts Widget which can sit on your blog and ranks your content accordingly for you and your readers.

56. Where you 'publish' your content can have a big impact on how popular it becomes / how much it gets shared - Nike did something really clever with the launch of the recent 'Write The Future' World Cup video by making it 'unsearchable' on YouTube on launch day. This made passing on the 'discovered' link more exclusive / valuable.

57. When blogging, switch up your style of your posts regularly to keep your subscribers engaged - for my own personal blog, I've adopted the following types of posts this year at various times: Interviews, 'how to' posts, lists, infographics, opinion pieces, experiments, crowdsourced content, guest posts, investigative reports, case studies, tongue-in-cheek posts, creative posts, personal experiences, research-heavy posts, 'series' specials (like this one) and many more.

58. Experiment, experiment, experiment! The most valuable thing I've learnt this year is to use your personal blog to experiment / try things - it is THE BEST#BeMyGuest, #140from140 and the newspaper-less experiment were all experiments and have taught me loads.

59. I don't do it enough personally, but always advise brands / others to use video content as much as possible - sometimes the best way to bring an initiative to life is by physically talking to your audience. This is especially powerful when demonstrating how a product works i.e. and iPhone app.

60. Try your hand at live blogging - my good mate Joanne Jacobs wrote a great piece for the COMMS corner a couple months back which outlined how to do it - it's a great way of encouraging targeted interaction with your audience.

So, that's part three in the bag.

I'll aim to publish parts four and five in the next few days.

Thanks!

Adam

100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far...(part 2 of 5)

Welcome to part two of "100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far..." - my attempt to capture some of the things I've got my head around in the first six months of the year.

Part one looked at location-based services and Twitter.

In this post, part two, I've pulled together 20 'nuggets' relating to blogs / blogging and measurement / benchmarking.

Class will be in session for the next week or so when parts 3 - 5 get dished out...ready?!?

Let's do it...


100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far... (part 2 of 5)

Blogs / blogging (21-30)

21. There isn't a 'one-size-fits-all' resource to create perfect target lists - which is why sector specialists need to be part of your social media mix. Tools / resources that do help include regator.com,  Wikio, Google Blog Search, Technorati Blog Directory, Blog Pulse, Scribnia, Alltop and a few others

22. Tracing backlinks to your blog is a major part SEO - one of the best tools to see who is linking to your blog is Page inLink Analyzer - a simple way to gauge a blog's popularity

23. It's widespread knowledge that guest blogging is a great way to build an audience - take this to another level by inviting international bloggers to write for you - I was lucky to have Canada's @ElissaPR analyse the now infamous Gordon Brown 'gaffe' on my blog and subscriptions from that region jumped by 300% the next day

24. Interviews are a great way of presenting engaging content for your audience - after seeking advice from others and testing a few different methods I tend to not ask more than four questions in any one interview. This seems to work for the interviewee and the audience in terms of balance / depth.

25. Promoting your blog is just as important as the content it houses - some of the directories I've discovered that help boost profile include blogged.com, blogerbase, blogengage and networked blogs

26. Something I haven't done for my personal blog (yet), but has worked incredibly well for client blogs is disqus - it is simply a better way to encourage comments from visitors and is linked to several of the key social networks. On my personal priority list.

27. Everyone recognises your blog is 'the hub' of your social media presence and in this role it should link to and from your other social media properties. The best place to find social media buttons / icons for your blog is via Icon Finder.

28. Use evernote as your blog resource filing cabinet - set up a specific folder and paste every quote / fact / stat you find relevant to your blog in there - makes the process of writing (with evidence) much easier.

29. Ensure your blog is optimized for viewing on mobile - people access content via mobile just as much as they do via a computer, so make this job easier for them by adopting these measures (I use Mippin which works great)

30. Tamar Weinberg (one of my favourite bloggers) wrote a great post recently featuring the 11 characteristics of successful bloggers - I love (and attempt to subscribe to) each of these: consistency, eloquence, uniqueness, specific, personal, analytical, detail, thought-provoking, passion, instructional, networked - each week, take a look and see if your blog(s) feature these characteristics.

Measurement / benchmarking (31-40)

31. If your brand is launching a product at the same time as a competitor, getting a handle of social media 'share of voice' is incredibly useful - I stumbled across a neat method / spreadsheet by Jay Baer recently which is really worth using

32. I've become more and more inclined to 'manually' measure engagement levels as opposed to automated tools - three ways I do this is via tweetstats.com / replies (to assess reply % on Twitter), use Twitter's search function to read full conversations between people and keep tabs on people who migrate from one platform to another i.e. Twitter as entry, followed by subscribing to your blog, followed by connecting on facebook.

33. Did you know you can compare the number of subscribers one blog has versus a bunch of others? There is a tool called Feed Compare (sorry, no Meerkat) that can give you this intelligence, but also help you benchmark your subscriptions versus output / milestone.

34. Another method of comparing interest between brands / activity is to see which specific links are being shared the most on Twitter - using BackTweets you can add in a specific URL and see where people are going for information how popular a destination is

35. General measurement metrics are a hotly debated topic - Amber Naslund listed a criteria recently which helps narrow this down a bit. Her criteria for measurement includes: Potential reach, mentions per time period, inbound links, share of conversation, subscribers to content, referral ratio, brand recognition, brand-specific searches, sentiment trends and content resonance - not each of these will be applicable to every brand / campaign, but they can help shape the framework for measurement

36. Want more measurement metrics? Here is another 47 thanks to 60secondmarketer.com - again, not every metric will be applicable but it does help in framing your benchmarks and on-going evaluation

37. This is a really simple measurement trick: You can find out the number of views / retweets / shares of any bit.ly link by adding a '+' to the end of the URL i.e. http://bit.ly/cPrTrl+

38. In order to measure the change in sentiment relating to a specific topic over time you need to benchmark the current state of play first - the most effective way is to manually audit conversation drivers in that space - simply list these people in an excel spreadsheet and update it with the relevant URL every time they discuss that subject. Over time you can see whether or not your efforts have made an impact (but it requires manual review).

39. Whatthehashtag.com is a great place to assess the popularity of a hashtag over time - we use it for #CommsChat and can see how many contributors and mentions we have each week, enabling to gauge whether there has been an uplift in participation

40. The other big thing I've learnt this year re: measurement is that although there are millions of free tools out there to help, the more robust 'paid for' solutions are very worthwhile (depending on the brand in question) - I like to use a combination of the two, but if you do want to try a 'proper' ones, solutions like Radian6, MeltwaterBuzz, and BuzzMetrics all seems to have some merit.

So there you go - instalment two is now live - the plan is to get parts 3-5 done in the next week or so (time dependent) with each part focusing on two subjects each, adding to the ones we have covered so far:

- Location-based services
- Twitter
- Blogs / blogging
- Measurement / benchmarking.

Chat soon!

Adam

100 useful social media learnings from 2010...so far... (Part 1 of 5)

Note: Parts two and three of this series are available here and here.

The original purpose of this blog when it was launched 8 months ago was to capture learnings about social media (and PR) to help further my own development as a consultant, but also share bits along the way with others on similar journeys.

As I keep learning, the 'learning' never stops, but not much time is spent on reflection and properly taking in all this information.

Through a series of posts, I'm going to try and solve that by featuring 100 of the more useful things I've picked up this year...so far... (as broken down by key categories).

These are things I'm using professionally day-to-day for my clients and / or personally as a blogger / social media participant.

Let's look at the first 20 (relating to location-bases services and Twitter).


100 useful social media learnings in 2010...so far... (Part 1 of 5)

Location based (1-10)

1. Foursquare isn't the only game in town - there are more than 10 significantly active location based / mobile services in operation (and it's growing), including: Gowalla, Whrrl, MyTown, Yelp, BrightKite, CitySense, GyPSii, MobiLuck, Loopt, Plazes and iPling

2. News outlets are using foursquare creatively - one such example is Metro, the Canadian commuter newspaper, which tailors news based on specific locations when users 'check in'

3. Yelp have begun linking it's restaurant search results with the ability to make reservations within the application - a sign of things to come perhaps?

4. New foursquare apps are constantly being made available - keep up to date with the latest releases here including a nifty one called isli.de which helps create photo slide shows on the move

5. Event managers are using Gowalla cleverly including the NBA's New Jersey Nets who 'hid' virtual tickets in selected bars / venues that could be claimed once users checked in

6.  4sqsearch.com is a solid 3rd party foursquare specific search engine that allows for searches by tag / venue

7. FourWhere a public app that helps you discover popular places (i.e. 'buzzing' venues) by integrating with foursquare

8. The UK's Financial Times will soon be offering exclusive content to people who check in at selected coffee shops - another clever use of the platform

9. There are rules businesses and consumers need to be aware of. For example, users technically can't check in more than once per 11 minute time frame to reduce foursquare 'fraud' - the six primary rules can be found here.

10. At present there are 186 foursquare badges - you can keep-up-to-date with the growing list via this link




Twitter (11-20)

11. Bookmarking is a big part of learning - make it easier by using a tool called packrati.us - this automatically saves any Tweet you send that contains a URL to your delicious page (or as defined by bespoke settings)

12. Archiving tweets by keyword or hashtag is impossible right? Wrong. Set up key phrases / tags with twapperkepper.com

13. Twitter hashtags can be 'claimed' - simply go to whatthehashtag.com and assign an explanation to a tag - or, find out the meaning of a tag - great resource

14. A clever tool has emerged recently called foller.me which provides extended biography information by Twitter user - especially handy when getting a 'handle' on conversation drivers

15. You can add your business to a directory of businesses on Twitter - it's called twibs.com - it's a solid place to browse brand presence on Twitter

16. Private Twitter lists can come in really handy - I tend to use them when getting an idea of how a sector / subject is being talked about by key conversation drivers (easy to set up)

17. Twitter Media is becoming an increasingly useful place to stop when you're thinking about integrating the platform with TV, entertainment and journalism (especially the case studies)

18. Retweet measurement tools are useful in measuring the impact of a campaign / message - there is a good list of tools to choose from here - my favourite tool is definitely BackTweets which when assigned to a URL can show you how many limes that link has been shared.

19. Real time news search sites are predominantly based on Tweets - you can check out what is buzzing by using sites like: twazzup.com, Bing's real time search, OneRiot.com, Scoopler and WOWD


20. In need of Twitter case studies? Check out Twitter 101 for case studies on brands like Pepsi, Dell, Levi's and The North Face.

Over the next week or so I'll serve up another 80 'nuggets' including areas such as blogs / blogging, content, issues / crisis management, other platforms i.e. Facebook, general tips / tools, events, measurement and more.

If you've picked up some neat tricks, secrets or knowledge about location-based services or Twitter that you think might come in handy to other people, drop them in the comments box below.

Thanks!

Adam

Newspapers and major events: A match made in heaven...

A pre-read for #CommsChat on 14 June, 2010.

It has been more than 160 days since I read a physical newspaper as part of my 2010 'newspaper-less' experiment.

I haven't posted an update about my progress for a while and the reason is simple: I have been surviving pretty well without them.

This will be severely tested from tomorrow when 2010 FIFA World Cup begins.

I'm nervous....


A match made in heaven

Newspapers and major events are the perfect couple.

• How many of you have kept a copy of a newspaper that features a story / picture about a major milestone in your lifetime?
• How many of you have a World Cup wall chart / fixture up in your house?
• How many of you will keep the obligatory middle-page spread poster of the team who wins the big prize on 11 July?
• How many of you plan to keep a copy of a newspaper from the day your first child is born?

I can't see myself bookmarking a page from a website when (ok, if!) little Adam Jnr is born.

I can't see myself keeping the mobile I used to Tweet from when Australia win this year's World Cup (you'll notice 'if' wasn't used on this occasion).

Until I began this experiment I never really considered these things before.

And, to be honest, it has made me a little sad.

What else am I missing out on?

Without weeping too heavily, I was hoping you could have a think about what other little joys I am missing out on by not reading physical newspapers this year.

It'd be great to compile a list and maybe remind each other why they play a part in our lives we are fond of.

Anyone care to help?

Adam

Note: To find out more about this week's #CommsChat topic: "Newspapers: Dead by 2020?" follow the official account on Twitter @CommsChat.

#FriendlyFlagUp - Doing your bit for the social media community...

(Big thanks to @kerrymg who made a great suggestion to alter the name / concept to make it more timeless)

Ideas.

For me, they generally fall into two categories:

1. Ridiculous (97% of the time)

2. Useful (3%)

I had one this morning that I think, potentially, could fall under category two.

(I stress 'potentially'...big time!!)

#FriendlyFlagUp - Doing your bit for the social media community...

The idea is pretty simple.

We all manage countless online properties profiles, either personal ones or on behalf of clients / brands.

And, no matter how much monitoring we put in place, glitches and errors will always slip through the net.

So, what I am proposing is that if you spot something on someone blog, website, profile etc that isn't working, isn't spelled correctly, a link is broken an icon is missing etc - let 'em know.

Simply send them an @message along the lines of:

@SJOgborn I was on your blog last night and your RSS feed link is broken, thought I'd let you know #FriendlyFlagUp

Or

@BigBrand It would be really useful if you included your Twitter and Facebook icons on your homepage :) #FriendlyFlagUp

What people often forget is that you get incredibly close to your 'own' properties, making it hard to spot even the most obvious glitches.

On the other hand, a fresh pair of eyes, scanning a page they only visit occasionally, can spot things you may have missed.

In some cases, you might be aware of these glitches / errors, and simply not had the time to fix them...or they'd fallen off your to do list.

The big question: Why take part?

It's totally up to you.

There's no reward and no prizes on offer.

It is simply something useful, selfless and easy-to-do as you trawl your way through web pages on a on a daily basis.

It's also a way of being proactively helpful to brands, as opposed to having a negative shot at them (thanks to @SJOgborn for her great post on social media karma which inspired part of this).

I'd be hugely grateful if someone spotted something on my blog that I've missed.

And, to round things off, and maintain that community spirit, don't forget to say thanks if someone does 'flag up' something to you.

@cubanalaf thanks for flagging up that broken link on my page, I had no idea!! #FreindlyFlagUp

As I said up top, this might fall into the 'useful' category - then again, it may not - but my feelings on this kind of stuff is there is never any harm in trying stuff out.

Even just taking 10 minutes out of your day and thinking about someone else is a nice way to give a little back to the online communities you operate in.

It's just like being in a 'real' community and spotting someone's doorbell wasn't working...you'd let them know...wouldn't you? :)

Thanks for indulging me.

Adam

Additional Note:


@patrickhadfield asked this question immediately after I posted this - fair question:


Why use Twitter for this? I simply leave a comment on the relevant page. It doesn't need to be broadcast. And why a hashtag?

My response:

1. To help promote a more friendly community and reduce antagonistic / mean spirited tweets especially towards brands

2. Its's not really broadcast if you are @'ing the recipient

3. The other thing it does is highlight common problems people are having, paving the way for collaborative solutions

If anyone has any other thoughts, I'd love to hear 'em...

Is FIFA deliberately kicking themselves out of the 2010 social media World Cup?

South Africa 2010 is being billed as the 'most social' Football / Soccer World Cup of our generation.

However, if you have a dig around the official website for this year's tournament, you don't really get that impression - in fact, it almost seems like FIFA are 'anti' social media.

When assessing how 'social' an event is being pitched / marketed, the first stop is usually the website of the body in charge.

I spent about 10 minutes on http://www.fifa.com/worldcup home page (and subsequent pages) earlier today and couldn't find any of the following:

- A link to an official FIFA Twitter account
- A link to an official FIFA Facebook page
- A RSS feed icon (although you will find one if you go to the media centre correction, there is a RSS feed icon on the home page, embedded under the news section, my apologies)
- A mention of the an official Twitter hashtag (#WC2010 seems to be the fan's choice FYI - even   whatthehashtag.com doesn't feature an explanation)

Note: There is no obvious YouTube link either but this is probably down to rights holders / contracts as opposed to a willingness to use that platform.

This is in stark contrast to most of the other major sporting events / bodies operating in 2010.

Just a couple months ago I looked at the NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness) via a blog post and discovered that they were doing a pretty decent job.

Most importantly, the very basics i.e. clearly signposted icons linking visitors to social media platforms, were clearly visible (see below).


Google

The next obvious stop is Google - perhaps the almighty search engine could direct me to the official social media properties of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

I conducted a simple test search: "2010 FIFA World Cup on Twitter".

The top five results that came back were:

http://twitter.com/fifaworldcupsa - A 'FIFA' World Cup account (but not one that appears 'official')

http://twitter.com/2010oc - The SA 2010 Oranising Committee account

http://twitter.com/fifaworldcuptm - This appears to be the 'real thing' but it's not verified and without a link on FIFA.com pointing me to it, I am somewhat dubious.

http://twitter.com/FIFA_news  - This took a little extra effort to find but appears officially 'official'

http://twitter.com/2010FIFAcup - Another account using the tournament logo and FIFA name, but doesn't appear to be official

With the recent events surrounding @BPGlobalPR and various similar instances, trusting Twitter accounts is becoming more and more difficult.

The most obvious way to get around that is to feature blatantly obvious links from official websites or to have accounts verified.

What's the score?

If I was to put my 'fan' hat on, I'd be a little confused.

Not just because FIFA appear to be making it particularly challenging for me to follow the tournament via the platforms I am immersed in everyday, but the official tournament sponsors seems to be doing LOADS.

For a comprehensive summary of what FIFA's sponsors are doing around this World Cup, click here.

After having worked with the Cricket Australia for many years, I know how much sponsors attempt to own as many properties as possible - or, at the very least, conduct activity that is very different to the other associated partners.

Even at my most cynical, I can't imagine FIFA is taking a gentle approach to social media because of sponsor rights / deals.

It just seems odd...very odd.

Best in class?

If you take a look at some of the other leading sporting bodies around the world, you'll see how much they have embraced social media.

The NBA is probably the best example.

More than 2.5 million people 'like' the NBA on Facebook.

Nearly 2 million people follow the NBA on Twitter.

NBA.com even has an official guide to Twitter featuring current and former players, commentators, teams and much more.


Why is this so perplexing?

Without knowing the ins and outs of FIFA, I don't really think I or anyone else is in a position to throw stones.

There may be a perfectly logical explanation (or an even more compelling commercial reason).

But, with less than a week to go until the greatest sporting event in the world begins, I am curious as to why these basics haven't been covered off.

My hope is the heatwave currently smothering Europe is the reason I can't find what I was looking for at FIFA.com - maybe you'll log on tomorrow and the Twitter and Facebook icons will smack you right in the face?

If you do have the answers to any of these questions please let me know (especially as I am more than five months into my 'newspaper-less' experiment and keeping up with the World Cup via social media is my only ticket to the dance this year).

It is still very (very) early days for social media, especially for global organisations often constricted by layers of approvals, so I don't think we can be too hard on who's in charge of social media at FIFA...but a couple of icons and some direction as to official accounts would be super!!

Adam

Notes:

This post is a prelude to the next edition of #CommsChat which takes place on Monday 7 June 2010 at 8pm UK time.

This week's topic is: The most social FIFA World Cup of our generation - what does it mean for communicators?

You can follow #CommsChat on Twitter via @CommsChat or on Facebook

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10 ways to keep tabs on 'live' hashtag chats on Twitter

Twitter chats are increasingly growing in popularity, providing participants with a specific time and place to discuss pertinent issues and share knowledge.

Before you can get stuck into these lively sessions, you need to consider which application / tool is best suited to the format in question.

Emily Cagle, co-founder of #CommsChat, has kindly taken a look at 10 ways to keep tabs on Twitter chats and / or hashtags...and here they are...

10 ways to keep tabs on 'live' hashtag chats on Twitter

By Emily Cagle (a #BeMyGuest post)

1) Twitter Search

Twitter Search is essentially the built-in function on Twitter that allows you to search for all Tweets on a certain subject.

Pros: Access the search automatically by clicking on any hashtag inside Twitter.com.

Cons: You have to manually refresh.

2) TwebEvent

Web-based app, TwebEvent allows you to create a ‘Twitter event’. Each event has its own custom URL and you use your existing Twitter account to talk to other attendees during the event.

Pros: As a host you can customise your event with video and audio streams or a hashtag. Events can be invite only, if you wish.

Cons: Can be a little flaky when loading / refreshing.

3) HootSuite

HootSuite is a web-based app that lets you to manage multiple social network profiles, pre-schedule Tweets, customise the Twitter streams that you follow, and track your performance through statistics and keyword monitoring.

Pros: Set up different columns, so you can have a stream dedicated solely to a certain hashtag. Click ‘in reply to' to view the entire conversation thread behind a reply.

Cons: Can be slow to refresh, so if the conversation is moving fast, you could miss out.

4) TweetGrid

TweetGrid is a web-based app that allows you to monitor up to nine different topics at once.

Pros: Updates in real time so no need to refresh. Allows users to tweet from TweetGrid. Will automatically add the hashtag to your Tweets if you instruct it to.

Cons: TweetGrid is not supported on Internet Explorer 6.

5) TweetChat

TweetChat is a tool specifically geared towards enhancing and simplifying the live Twitter chat experience.

Pros: Hashtag gets added automatically. Conversation automatically updates, and you can set the refresh speed. Has a ‘smart pausing’ feature meaning that the page doesn’t refresh when you scroll down so you don’t reply to the wrong person.

Cons: Can be slow to refresh. Only allows you to follow a single search term.



6) TweetDeck

TweetDeck allows you to customise your Twitter in several different ways, including incorporating it with other social media websites, creating groups, saved searches and automatic updates.

Pros: Easily customizable. Reply from inside the web app.

Cons: If you work on multiple computers you have to customise it every time.

7) Monitter

Monitter is a web-app that allows you to follow several keywords on Twitter in real time (and within a geographic radius).

Pros: Can be followed as multiple columns. Can set up RSS feeds for keywords.

Cons: Can’t reply from within the web app.

8) CoTweet

CoTweet allows you to manage multiple accounts and multiple users, monitor keywords and schedule Tweets.

Pros: Can set it up so you can respond as a team. Can make notes on users, which can make following hashtag conversations easier.

Cons: If using CoTweet as a team, you can’t create search columns for every team member – they have to create and monitor their own which could lead to inconsistencies.

9) What the hashtag?!

What the hashtag?! is an online, user editable encyclopedia of hashtags on Twitter, featuring stats such as the number of Tweets containing the hashtag or the number of individual users who have used the hashtag over a set period.

Pros: Updates the list of tweets associated with a hashtag in real time. Tweet from within the page and automatically add the hashtag to Tweets. You can subscribe via RSS. You can view an archived transcript of the conversation over a specified dateline.

Cons: You can only follow a single hashtag per screen.

10) Google Reader

Google Reader checks your favourite websites for new content, allowing you to share items of interest. Follow hashtag chats by following the associated RSS feed (e.g. feed://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23commschat)

Pros: Get an instant transcript for your favourite hashtags delivered to your reader or email inbox.

Cons: The time delay between items appearing on the net and appearing on the reader makes it impractical if you want to take part live. No way to reply from within Reader.

A big thanks goes out to Emily for compiling this list and analysing the pros and cons of each tool.

Are there any others you'd suggest?

Do you have a favourite amongst that bunch?