Ryan C. Miller.com - Social Media, Design, Tech, Commentary - broadcasting from Utica, NY

We live in an amazing time and no one cares…

Posted on March 6, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

This YouTube clip is courtesy of ReinventingErica.com - Great Clip of Louis CK on Conan O’Brien that had me rolling while also making me think about how cool EVERYTHING is when you stop and look.

We Need Twefficieny

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Miller1 Comment

I was fowarded (and reminded of) a great blog that I used to read quite regularly, called Girl At Play, run by Alex Beauchamp.  I always enjoy her writing style and have an immense amount of respect (bordering on envy in some cases) for her experiences in blogging, traveling, and general outlook on life, all expressed with elegance and eloquence.  If you haven’t checked her out, you certainly should.

In any case, Alex had a great post about Negotiating Technology and talks about how with all these social networking tools to navigate, have we shifted from using technology to ‘do more’ to simply ‘monitoring.’ And its true, its really easy to get swept up in participating in the digital conversation, posting to a blog, keeping track of friends on Facebook, etc.  When do we unplug?  And how much of the information that we consume over these different networks is REDUNDANT?

Alex says it better than I ever could, so here an Excerpt:

With the addition of Twitter, RSS Feeds, and Facebook, I’ve found myself receiving the same bits of information several times over. For example, I used to just subscribe to a blogs feed and access their info that way. But if that person is on Twitter, they’ll also tweet about their new post and link to it. If they’re on Facebook, chances are their Twitter hits their Facebook profile and I’ll get an update there, too. LinkedIn now offers the same. So instead of getting one piece of information one way, I’m getting the same information 3 or 4 different ways which results in an overload.

But what happens if you then remove that person from your Twitter feed? Will they think you aren’t their friend? This has happened to me. People have equated my Twitter removal with a friend removal even though in real life I did a lot more and gave much more support than just clicking “follow” on Twitter. So once you incorporate technology, removing it becomes really hard because of social and sometime business consequences.

So that makes me ask how and when we should unplug, and to what degree?  I was thinking the solution may be similar to solving our energy crisis…. I’ve read different articles and heard statements by the likes of Al Gore who talk about how instead of waiting for the next groundbreaking technologies to arrive at our doorsteps, we can solve so much of our energy problems through efficiency.

I wonder if that’s one of the keys to keeping up with the ever expanding sphere of social networks.  I know there’s not a huge incentive for networks to ’standardize’ their information or services, but I think there’s a huge business opportunity for someone to build an app that eliminates digital redundancy.

For instance, as Alex said, I obviously want my network to know about this post, so I’ll send a tweet, which will also dump down to my Facebook profile, and I may supplement that with an e-mail blast (I won’t really, but let’s say I wanted to).  Now if I have friends on all three platforms, they’re consuming the same information three times.

I want a service that will know what networks I use and if I’ve read the tweet, delete the update in my Facebook Feed, or delete the e-mail.  Or if I get the e-mail with the update, don’t put the tweet in my list, or send me an RSS notification.  Its the same problems that were created by having AIM, MSN Messager, ICQ, GoogleTalk, etc.  I know there are clients that aggregate all the IM networks, so why not one that would take care of all my social networks?

I think this would go a long way towards helping people be smarter about the ways they publish content and communicate digitally.

What do you think? Would something like this work, and more importantly, is it a viable business model? And what is the breaking point for you? Is there a cap on how many social networking tools you will use or participate in at any given time?  Would love you’re thoughts.

Reading: Chris Brogan on The Rightous Web

Posted on March 5, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Wow, I know I’m a day or two late, but this post from Chris Brogan ties in nicely with the conversation that’s been happening here over the past couple of days. An excerpt:

What the social web gives us are tools. How we choose to use these tools is up to us. Are people trustworthy? Does a blog decide that? Are people sell-outs? Does a blog suggest they are not?

We demonstrate by our actions and by whatever trails we’ve left across the web whether we should be considered trustworthy. We attempt to discern trust and belief in people by how they appear and act in context. We do our homework (some of us). We look beyond the immediate. We observe.

Read the Full Post here as he makes some great points about how business fits into social media and blogging.

While I’m at it, if you haven’t signed up for Chris’ Newsletter, I’d HIGHLY suggest it.  You’ll get some great tips and insight on social media that you won’t see on his blog.

March 4th Currently Reading

Posted on March 5, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Just a couple of late night posts I’m enjoying:

“Influencer Programs Likely to Spread” - from Adweek

“Web Site and Social Media Metrics You Should Monitor” - from ProBlogger

“Ask Not What Your Country Can Dev for You” - from TechnoSailor

Gary Responds - a lesson in Ego Searching

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Miller1 Comment

For those who didn’t see, a few days ago I wrote a post about Gary Vaynerchuk’s efforts try new things and extend his brand through different outlets online and offline.  I titled it ‘Has Gary Vaynerchuk Sold Out?’ - My argument, by the way is that he hasn’t, but I did raise some questions about community and hanging onto your brand.  In fact, he’s done a really effective job of taking his brand, and using it to create new opportunity, and monetizing.

Also, for those of you wondering about his helping to get the word out about a friend’s iPhone app or his Obsessedtv.com business venture, he dropped a quick line in the comments of that post).

In fact, Gary not only checked out the post, he actually did a video about it on his own blog, using that as a way to talk about the importance of knowing who you are and how success, more eyeballs, and money eccentuates your personality for good or for evil. Here’s an embed of his response to my post:

I bring this up because I want to give you a quick timeline of how it went down and then just talk a bit about the importance of Ego Searching.  First, I wrote and posted the article around lunchtime, close to 1pm EST.  By 6pm I had a Direct Message from Gary letting me know that he saw my post and was doing a video about it. That video was up shortly thereafter.  It was a quick thing on his end but it only took 5 hours to put out a response.

Ego Searching - its the act of googleing or searching for information on yourself - and its important.  If you’re a business or person playing in this space, you need to know what people are saying about you.  This can be hard and easy.  Two quick and comprehensive ways to get a pulse are to search your name or your business’s name on the Google Blog Search (didn’t know they had a blog search, did you?) and also to search Twitter.  There’s a ton of other networks that you SHOULD be on, but lets start there.  If people are talking about you, positive or negative, it’ll probably show up. Now that I think about it, Gary has a primer on it.

Let’s face it.  MY blog??  I’m nobody in terms of traffic, but I did do things to make my post easier to find (after all, I want people to read it, right?).  And I’m just assuming that its through one of those searches that Gary found the post (Gary Vee, if you’re out there, please correct me if I’m wrong).

But what he did was a great example of how to react, and interact with your fans, or your customers. He saw a post about him, and he took an opportunity to answer some of the questions posed on the blog, as well as reach out to me and others in his community.  It was done in a positive way, he showed that he CARED, and started a positive conversation within his tribe.  Those are all good things.  Does YOUR organization behave like that? Do YOU take a digital pulse?? Do YOU engage with your community?? If you’re not, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

Has Gary Vaynerchuk Sold Out?

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Miller8 Comments

photo by TedMurphy

Everyone keeps reading about social media.  That’s the buzz word in much the same way that ‘blogs’ were a few years ago (wasn’t it picked as Oxford’s Word of the Year?).  And the million dollar question is how does someone monetize it?

I’ve been following Gary Vaynerchuk for a while now, first as a huge fan of WineLibrary TV but now I’m a huge fan of his Social Media and Marketing chops.  He shares a lot of this knowledge at his own website and if you’re getting into social media, or just want to be inspired to go out there and crush it, I’d highly recommend it.  I think Gary is a prime example of how you can take something you’re really passionate about and monetize.  Hardcore.  BUT I think its a winning combination of his work ethic, business knowledge and personality that makes him successful. There’s no magic bullet here, folks.

And now he’s taking another step making more dough-nuts than ever before as I read that he’s working with Virgin Airlines to provide in-flight content.  He’s also launched Obsessedtv.com which is an online talk show aimed at 25-55 year old women, and has plans to diversify even more.

He’s done a great job in taking his traffic and status as a web celebrity (though he’s say he’s a Z-lister) and leveraging that into building his own brand and diversifying.  Certainly not the only way to monetize, but it worked for him.

So is that selling out or diversifying?

First of all, its monetizing.  2nd of all, diversifying is probably a smart move given how fickle web users are and by partnering with ‘bigger business’ and creating other outlets it certainly will expose his content to tons of new people.

But here’s where it gets complicated.  I’d argue that his fans are so passionate because in addition to putting out great content, he’s accessible. He interacts with his ‘tribe’ on a regular basis and proudly declares that he answers every email personally (it appears this is true, as I’ve received personal responses back to both my inquiries).  He creates a great sense of community.  Wine may be his business, but COMMUNITY is his brand.

And I’m a little bit worried that with this brand expansion, that some of this community will be lost.  Its like when we were one of the first people to get the goods on a great band that wasn’t ‘mainstream.’  you got to see them in clubs rather than stadiums, you could have a beer with them, and certainly they were NEVER on the radio.  And that was cool, because now you are an ‘insider’.  You knew what made them so special and although you wanted them to get known for their art, by getting HUGE that sense of community can get lost.

Many would argue that Getting Big = Selling Out.  I disagree.  I think the modified statement should be Getting Big and NOT CARING = Selling Out.  Selling out is losing perspective.  Selling out is giving up control of your tribe to someone or something that doesn’t understand how to lead it.

While I’m really happy that Gary is rocking it in other mediums I hope that he’s careful in how he manages his community brand, and continues to interact in a way that made him successful.  Can he answer every e-mail forever?  Its doubtful, but I hope that he can grow his business while not losing sight of what made his content appealing.  If he can do that, then he can grow without ‘Selling Out.’ And I for one, am looking forward to many more inspriational keynotes, and wine recommendations from @Garyvee.

What’s the lesson for your business?  I’d say for one thing, know that caring about and interacting with customers matters way more than you think.  Forming relationships with them will help to perpetuate growth organically.  Also, know what the difference is between what you’re selling (your business) and what your brand is (how people perceive you and your business).  And finally, dont’ lose sight of what makes YOU and your business unique, even when faced with aggressive growth.  Be the band that plays a stadium like its a club.