Think Archives - Page 5 of 6

How My Dad Taught Me To Use Social Media

November 1, 2009 by Phil Buckley 6 Comments

My best friend Mike, my Dad and me on summer vacation in 1982

My Dad is awesome. I know a lot of kids say that about their dad, but I have lots of other people who also agree with me.

While working at General Electric in the early 50’s he started taking classes at Northeastern University in Boston. His mom wondered what was wrong with him, why would anyone need anything more than a steady job at GE?

After 8 years of night classes, and a new daughter, he graduated and took a job selling business equipment for Burroughs Corporation in downtown Boston. As the Kennedy administration was getting familiar with leading the country, my dad was selling top-of-the-line adding machines to businesses allowing them more free time to run their business. He lead the office in sales on a regular basis all while building relationships with the other salesmen and business owners.

He was eventually promoted to be the branch manager of the new Central Massachusetts office in Worcester. When we moved from Boston’s North Shore to we were a family of 5. He ran the Worcester office so well, he won awards and his team made a lot of money, but he missed the face-to-face connection he had with his customers.

By the late 60’s Burroughs had started dabbling in the new computer age, my Dad was a natural at all the early computer logic problems. A start-up company called Keydata swooped in and grabbed the best salesmen and techy guys around Massachusetts. He jumped at the chance to go back to taking care of customers rather than salesmen. He loved the easy going style of Keydata, and the camaraderie of the team. He loved the job right up until the day he was called in and told they were going out of business.

He quickly landed a senior sales engineer position at LeFebure about 1970. LeFebure sold bank security stuff, and my Dad was always one of the top salesman in the country. That’s where my memories start to become clear of my Dad as an awesome social media guru (although nobody used that title back then).

I can remember tagging along with my Dad to some of his appointments, especially in the summer. Sometimes he would have me wait in the car, or give me a couple of dollars to roam around while he meeting bank presidents, but many times he would have me go in with him. He would introduce me as his ‘assistant’ and I would get to sit and watch my Dad in all his glory practice his craft. He was relaxed, smooth, intelligent, well informed and friendly. He wasn’t selling, he was explaining to the bank the answer to their problems, and he just happen to represent the company that supplied those answers. Bringing me along allowed him to also talk to those guys on a more human level.

In the 70’s and early 80’s there were only 3 companies selling bank security equipment. It was a very competitive field, and you were always up against the same guys. My dad didn’t always win, but the bank president’s would often call him and ask about the competitors bids, to make sure they weren’t getting taken. My Dad always took pride in answering those questions honestly and keeping the deeper relationship intact.

The deeper I get into the social media scene, the more I realize I had been learning Social Media my whole life, from the best teacher in the world. My Dad.

My Dad taught me, who taught you?

How Not To Fix A Communication Problem

November 1, 2009 by Phil Buckley 1 Comment

Imagine you have started up a software company. You start to grow a bit. You hire a person to act as a sherpa for your flagship product. Your development team now is pushing out updates on a monthly sprint cycle. Sounds pretty good right?

At this point you notice a problem. The backbone of any company is communication, but in an agile development environment, lack of communication, or miscommunication can be like setting the emergency brake in your car before starting a road trip.

Once you notice the problem, it needs to get fixed. In many cases, “fixing” a communication problem can mean someone’s ego may get bruised.

Ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can help drive people and products to a high level, as long as it’s in-line with the company goals. In fact, I believe using ego in a competitive situation can be helpful since many people are competitive by nature. I was once told by a project manager that she was going to tell a customer that we were delaying a launch date because we’d never hit it. I told her we would, even though we hadn’t even started the project and launch was just a few days away. When I talked to the team about it, the deadline and situation pushed us to the next level. We all worked crazy hours and got it out on-time.

But what about when there are ego’s involved that are pulling in two different directions? Do you step in and talk to the parties involved? Do you restate the overarching goal to everyone involved? Do you get everyone on the same page? Do you take everyone out for a long lunch and go over the timetables, goals and objectives?

One thing that you shouldn’t do is put another person into the channel. A liaison between two departments that are not communication doesn’t fix the communication problem any more than raising your voice and speaking slowly makes you more understandable when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t speak your language.

Fixing the problem requires leadership, adding another person to the communication string is trying to manage the problem.

In 1995, Braveheart addressed the problem of leadership this way:

Robert the Bruce: Wait! I respect what you said, but remember that these men have lands and castles. It’s much to risk.

William Wallace: And the common man who bleeds on the battlefield, does he risk less?

Robert: No, but from top to bottom this country has no sense of itself. Its nobles share allegiance with England. Its clans war with each other. If you make enemies on both sides of the border, you’ll end up dead.

William: We all end up dead; it’s just a question of how and why.

Robert: I’m not a coward. I want what you want, but we need the nobles.

William: We need them?

Robert: Aye.

William: Nobles. Now tell me, what does that mean to be noble? Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don’t follow titles, they follow courage. Now our people know you. Noble, and common, they respect you. And if you would just lead them to freedom, they’d follow you. And so would I.

Are you leading?

Jeffrey L. Cohen Talks About the Social Media Business Forum

October 29, 2009 by Phil Buckley Leave a Comment

Jeff kicks off SMBF 2009 - flickr photo by: waynesutton12 — Jeff kicks off SMBF 2009

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Social Media Business Forum in Durham.

I met some great people, listened to some of my Twitter idols, heard some of the best lines I’d ever heard and was generally impressed by how well it was run. So impressed I decided to ask one of its coordinators if he’s be willing to answer a couple questions via email.

I’ve known Jeff for a few months, first meeting him at Social Media Club. He is one of the guys that started up #OurHashtag, along with Wayne Sutton, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar. The #OurHashtag guys were the brains behind the Social Media Business Forum.

I’ve always been interested in how a new conference gets started, so I asked.

Thanks for agreeing to do this, I’ve always thought the idea of putting together a conference was overwhelming, on top of just “where do you start?”

So that’s question #1…

Q: When you guys first said, “let’s do a Social Media Business Forum”, what was the first step towards making it happen, or maybe the first few steps?

The first step in putting on a conference is deciding to put on a conference. The partners of OurHashtag (Wayne Sutton, Kipp Bodnar, Jeff Cohen and Ryan Boyles) have been part of planning free social media-related events in the Triangle, both individually and collectively, for the better part of two years. Several of us also have event planning in our backgrounds. We felt that it was time to push beyond the bounds of the social media community and connect with the Triangle business community to educate them about the strategies, practices and tools of social media.

Question #2: How long from idea spark to registration day?

Never long enough for the first event. We starting talking about ideas back in the summer for a social media conference, and it took some time to hone in on the approach we would take with the conference. Serious planning and discussions occurred after Ignite Raleigh in early August. It was less than 90 days from our definitive conference vision to event date.

Question #3: What is the sequence of the following? Venue, speakers, sponsors, pricing, dates.

The very first thing that we did was confirm the NCCU School of Education for October 23. Once we had a date and location, we could begin the planning process. The next thing that we did was decide on a name and a theme for the conference. We knew we were focusing on social media for business because that was our target audience, but we wanted to address how business communications have changed due to both tools and customer expectations. We also knew we wanted to have a different kind of event. We did not want formal moderated panels. We wanted all panelists to have an equal voice in the sessions. We also wanted to make sure attendees left with practical information. We set pricing based on other events we saw locally and around the country.

So once all that was in place, we registered our domain name (http://SocialMediaBusinessForum.com) and began contacting speakers and sponsors. This was an ongoing process, as speakers and sponsors were interested in participation up until the last couple of weeks. Once an initial group of speakers committed to the event, we announced the event in the end of August.

Question #4: What conference did you guys look at as an inspiration (that did it right).

There was no single conference we saw as the perfect conference. We took ideas from a variety of events and combined those with our own ideas of what makes a good conference. The four OurHashtag partners have attended and spoken at a large number of events and conferences and we wanted to do things differently.

Registration table at Social Media Business Forum — Social Media Business Forum Registrationflickr photo by: Digital Papercuts

Question #5: From my perspective, it ran pretty smooth, how did it run from your perspective?

The Social Media Business Forum ran smoothly from our perspective too. That is the benefit of having four organizers and one fantastic volunteer coordinator. While most of the preparation of the conference was handled by OurHashtag, much of the onsite operations were handled by Lisa Sullivan and her team of volunteers. They managed registration, room monitoring, videotaping and other behind the scenes logistics that contributed to the smooth operation.

Question #6: What did you learn from SMBF that you can do better next time?

The biggest thing we learned was that we need more time to spread the word about the conference. We are already looking at dates in 2010.

Question #7: What are you guys planning next?

We will continue to organize events like Triangle Social Media Club and TriangleTweetups, as well as plan Ignite Raleigh and Social Media Business Forum for dates in 2010. That is just the beginning of many more exciting things for OurHashtag in 2010.

Thanks to Jeff for answering all my questions. If you have a question about the 2009 Social Media Business Forum, you can ask Wayne Sutton tomorrow at Cliqset where he’ll be chatting with Robyn Cobb.

Why It’s Called BETA

October 28, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

The people who run the Charlotte Observer’s website rolled out a new beta site recently at charlotte.com. It appears that they want to be a one-stop portal for all things in and around Charlotte, North Carolina.

I’d love to hear what you think about it. Here’s where I’m at with it.

They’ve had the charlotte.com domain pointing at their charlotteobserver .com news domain for over a year, and when they threw the switch to split the domains, there was some confusion. They predicted that the switch might cause some confusion, so they had an information box slide down when you hit the home page. The informational box was a good idea, but I think the execution could have been better. They needed 2 sentences in big bold letters, instead we got 4 paragraphs of various font sizes – which I think meant nobody read it.

If I decide to try out the site by clicking on the top “What’s Happening” story, I get taken to an interim page where all I get is the first paragraph or two, I have to click again to see the story I asked for on the homepage.

The reason that’s frustrating is that it’s not the way the stories in the other column respond. Clicking on a story in “Currently Popular” takes me directly to the full story.

So now I decide to tell the webmaster my gripes, so I click on the big blue box that asks for feedback. Nothing happens, I click it again thinking I missed it. Nope, the box is not hyperlinked. I click the next largest graphical element, nope, not linked. Oh, I see it, it’s the smallest text on the page.

The Charlotte team may not have been aware of it, but that is saying to me, “We don’t really want your feedback.”

They use the awesome Get Satisfaction product to manage the customer service part of the site, but they don’t use the default side tab (like on this very site) that has become a standard on so many web2.0 sites. I think adding the default tab and fixing the user-interface problems would be an easy win.

The next step is the actual management of the charlotte.com customer service page. It’s not easy to do community management, especially for the newspaper industry, which is more used to supporting their advertisers than their readers.

Readers are a fickle bunch. They don’t care about problems, they care about themselves. If you’re going to put up a button and encourage feedback, you best set aside resources to engage.

As of right now, this comment has been sitting unaddressed for 4 days.

The comment is actually pretty accurate, it does have a simple generic look to it the first time to browse to it. Letting this comment sit unanswered, while 4 additional people click the “I agree” button is not managing your community effectively.

A missed opportunity on the site is the streamlined login. They allow users to log in a plethora of ways, but I didn’t even notice until someone else pointed it out to me.

Much like the Get Satisfaction default side tab, alternate login methods have a default look, and charlotte.com has decided to ignore them, for no apparent reason.

When I click the tiny Facebook icon in Firefox, I get a warning of 5 windows opening – eek!

Then when you are officially logged in, the site takes on yet another look, and now the default Get Satisfaction tab appears.

There are other minor tweaks, like every page having the exact same title tag, no usable meta tags and almost no searchable content.

That’s what BETA is all about… listening, acknowledging and tweaking.

Let me know what you think.

WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn et al

October 25, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

You know the famous I love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel are working in the chocolate factory and the conveyor belt keeps going faster and faster? Eventually they start shoving the chocolates in their mouth and hat because they just can’t keep up.

As you ramp up your social media life, you start to spread out. This is good, because you can meet and connect with more people as your network expands, but what about home base?

Many people can feel like Lucy trying to keep up with the increasing flow of data, but there are a lot of us that also feel the pressure to keep pumping out more chocolate.

I was reading Adam Covati’s post about this very subject this morning. Adam was wondering where the different sections of his online life fall. It got me thing more about where I’m spending my time. Like Adam Twitter takes up a decent amount of focus if not time.

The power of Twitter lies in how many other apps are now connected to it. I don’t think I use a single tool that doesn’t have the ability to ping Twitter. I use Brightkite as a way to geo-locate myself to friends, which pings Twitter, well, I did until I found Foursquare, which basically does the same thing, except it gives me pretend prizes.

I started using Posterous a little while ago, I love how drop-dead easy it is to upload almost anything. I use that to upload mostly photos that I want to connect to both my Facebook account and my Twitter account. This weekend I started using my Tumblr account that I signed up for a year ago.

I also make a concerted effort to get into Google Webmaster’s Forum and help out in there a couple of hours each week. Family photos sent up to Picasa, Non-family photos sent up to Flickr. Cute videos of my son sent to YouTube.

I also need to add content to this blog as often as possible. Oh yeah, email,

I’m not alone, you’re probably in the same position. Maybe you have different channels, but your conveyor belt is turning just as fast. Don’t forget to add in your email, your daily workload, your family and that whole sleep thing.

How are you handling your online conveyor belt?

What Happens When Your Laptop Gets Stolen

September 22, 2009 by Phil Buckley 18 Comments

Have you ever thought about what would happen if you came home from an afternoon walk and someone had run through your house and stolen your computer?

Neither had I.

This past Saturday, my family returned to our house to find just that situation. We had 2 Dell E1705’s, and then, suddenly, someone else had them.

We had taken our son for a walk around the neighborhood, about a 30 minute trip. When we were walking up the driveway, we saw the neighbor’s dog loose wandering around, and their back gate open. I called the dog and put him back into their backyard. Then we walked into our house.

My wife went in before me and walked into the living room and shouted, “Our laptops are gone!”
[Read more…]

How You Can Be As Memorable As Morgan Siem

September 16, 2009 by Phil Buckley 12 Comments

A few weeks ago, Lisa Barone wrote a piece on the importance of being memorable. It really stuck in my head for a couple of reasons, but as is usually the case, the main reason was that it was immediately reinforced by real life events.

Let me back up a little. At the end of July, I lead a discussion at the monthly SEO meetup in Raleigh on Social Media. It brought in new bunch of people since social media is the hotness. One of those was a young woman, who had just graduated from UNC and who was working as an unpaid intern for Raleigh Metro Magazine.

She came to the meetup, eager, excited to learn and wanting to contribute. After the official part ended, she stayed and chatted with everyone and generally made you feel like you wanted her as a friend. Another memorable thing was her elevator pitch. When you hit her with the deadly “what do you do?” question, she answered it directly and confidently in about 30 seconds.

Over the next few days she reached out to many of us using LinkedIn and Twitter. Her profile picture was (and still is) her smiling face that makes you want to smile. Her genuine “likeability” is just off the charts.

About a week later, she sends me a tweet saying that she just accepted a job at MediaTwo as a Social Media Strategist! Wait a second… MediaTwo Interactive was where we had the Meetup. Apparently I wasn’t the only person who thought she was memorable. I sent off a quick email to the owner of MediaTwo, and he confirmed that he also saw what I did. He went on to say how happy he was to have her on board.

Since then, I’ve gotten to know Morgan better, and consider her a friend. I thought about all this on my way back from a lunch hour presentation where I saw her today. She told me she was excited to go chat up Wayne Sutton at the end of the event. I’ll be seeing Wayne tomorrow night at the Triangle Social Media Club Meetup, so I’ll ask him about it. She was talking to him as I headed back to my office.

If you’re in Raleigh, and you have an interest in social media, you should go out of your way to introduce yourself. I have no doubt that she’ll be the next rock star to rise from the Raleigh area.

Thanks for letting me part of your “Internet family” Morgan Siem.

Who was the last person you ran across who was truly memorable?

When Should You Give Up?

September 3, 2009 by Phil Buckley Leave a Comment

When you were a kid, struck out 4 times in one game and told your dad you wanted to quit playing baseball, he told you that a quitter never wins. When you attended every practice for freshman football in high school, but never played one down in the first 8 games, you told your dad you wanted to quit. He told you that you can’t let the team down, to tough it out. When your brother told you that he’s wasn’t happy in his marriage, you instinctively told him to not to give up, give it a little more time.

Is there ever a time where giving up is the right answer?

What if your working for a company where you think the path they’re on is going to lead to failure? What if you feel the major decision makers are blinded by their attitudes from a previous era? What if you have tried to make progress but are always stymied?

What if:

The old saying is wrong-winners do quit, and quitters do win.

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.

And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip – a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

That’s what Seth Godin says.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.

Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip-they get to the moment of truth and then give up-or they never even find the right Dip to conquer.

So maybe it all depends on the dip your facing. Can you see to the other side of the dip? What do you see on the opposite shore? Is it what you’ve always dreamed of?

If you can see the opposite shore, and it’s not what you’ve always dreamed of, why are you trying to fight through the dip? What if the other shore is so far off all you can see if the curve of the horizon?

How do you know when to throw in the towel?

Staying Up Late

September 2, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

Indulge me, this is a little bit of omphaloskepsis, or as the people who didn’t win the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee say, navel gazing.

It’s not very often that I climb into bed before midnight. There’s a good chance you may be the same way. Unless you have a job where you are 100% sure of your future, you should be working late also.

I work a regular job during the day. I report to work about 8:45 and head out about 5. Before work, I usually check my email, scroll back through last nights Twitter stream and see if anything is happening on Facebook.

After work is dinner time with my family, followed by bath time for my toddler. Finally about 8pm, I can start working again. I take a very quick peek at my RSS feed, usually I’ll open a handful of articles and send them off to delicious for later review. I’ll scan TweetDeck to see if anything new has popped up on the radar in the last few hours, and start reading the articles I tagged on delicious earlier during the work day.

By about 9:30 I feel like I have caught up to where I should have been at 5pm. Now I start replying to email that has piled up in the afternoon and early evening. Usually nothing urgent, lots of followups and replies from answering questions in Google’s Webmaster Forums. Sometimes someone will see me on Facebook and start chatting, or ping me on Google chat.

Lately I’ve been working on a couple of social media presentations I have coming up. I am terrified of giving boring presentations, which is probably a good thing.

Hopefully at that point in the night I can start writing a blog post that will entertain or educate you. For example, tonight I had 3 ideas for posts, but only have the energy to churn out one complete post, so I’ve started the others and left them as stubs in the draft folder.

Writing a blog post takes me somewhere between an hour and three (and I still miss typos). By the time I finish it, it’s around 11:30 but I’ve usually gotten my second wind. I’m pretty sure the last 5 hours of the day are my best hours.

I’ll check Twitter again and follow a bunch of links and try to keep up on seo, sem, and all of the closely related issues before closing the lid on my laptop and heading upstairs. I’ll sneak into the bedroom around midnight and use one of those ity-bity book lights to read for an hour or so. I am currently reading Groundswell and Crowdsourcing, both are really good. I have Trust Agents, Love is the Killer App and Rules of Thumb in a pile on my bedstand mocking my slow reading.

I guess I would say that “after dinner” is when I work for the future. I know that the corporation that I work for doesn’t care about my future, it cares about it’s own future. There’s only a couple people who care about my future, and they’re upstairs sleeping.

When do you work on your future?

How NOT To Recruit Me

September 1, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

I received an email yesterday from Everett Stephens Career Transition & Job Search with the following subject line: We have reviewed your resume and would like to make an appointment

So that sounds interesting, so I open it (round 1 to you spammer)…

The dog-eat-dog world of the job search - photo by Mike Bensalem

The email is as follows:

Philip,

We are contacting you because a member of our senior staff has reviewed your resume online and felt that we might be able to assist you in your job search.

Please go to: http://www.everettstephens.com/your_career.html to complete our free professional career assessment form and paste a current copy of your resume in the box.

After evaluation of your credentials, if we know we can be of assistance to you in your career search, someone from our office will contact you to schedule an appointment.

Also, feel free to call directly to set an appointment.

So, now I’m slightly annoyed and decide to email them back and tell them how I feel about getting spammed. My email response was:

Hi Guys,

Let me give you some feedback on the spam you sent me.

The subject says, “We have reviewed your resume and would like to make an appointment” – ok, so you start out with a lie.

Then your first line says, “…a member of our senior staff has reviewed your resume…”. Really, who was that, why not send me their opinion or feedback along with this email?

Then, why would I go to your site and paste in my resume if your senior staff member has ALREADY REVIEWED MY RESUME?

The final paragraph says after I do your work, someone may contact me to schedule an appointment, but your subject says you would like to make an appointment.

Your entire spam-mail is a waste of time for both of us. It’s a waste of your time because you’re spending time coming up with a spam campaign when you could be targeting specific people you could really help and build a relationship with. And it’s a waste of my time because it’s spam.

I’m sure I’ll blog about this later today, I’ll let you know when I do. I’ll have suggestions on a better way for you to actually connect with people who will make your earning increase and build solid relationships so that they will recommend you to others.

So I click send and assume that’s the end of that. But then a split second later I see that in fact, my email has bounced, because the email address they send their spam from (raleighjobs@everettstephens.com) can’t actually receive email.

Grrrr. So now I go to the site and pull off what I assume is a real email (raleigh@everettstephens.com) and resend. The second time it appears to go through.

I guess this shotgun approach must work for them at some level, or they wouldn’t be doing it, but I think they could be doing better.

The type of job search firm I would love to work with would do the following:

Find out what the next job I want is, not just match me to the previous jobs I’ve had.
Would have a recruiter assigned to me that actually wanted to find me an awesome job that would make me more money and more happy.
Would only send me information when it would be helpful to me, rather than helpful for them.
Checked in with me when and where it’s convenient for me.

The reason those things are important is because they make you feel special. That’s a feeling everyone likes. I’ve been thinking more about this since seeing Chris Brogan’s post on how hotels could be better for him. If a firm treated me like that, why would I ever talk to another recruiter? I would certainly tell all my friends about them.

I can already hear people shaking their head saying, “nobody does that any more”. In fact I think it’s the way most smart businesses are now turning.

I met Sonja Jacob through Twitter. She runs a high-impact copywriting firm in Boston, Massachusetts, roughly 750 miles north of me. I can’t imagine ever needing anyone else to do copywriting for me or my clients because she always goes out of her way to make you feel special. I know I’m not a huge client for her, and probably never will be, but she understands that the extra 2 minutes a month she spends on me (and probably all her other clients) makes people loyal to her.

Although I am bashing Everett Stephens Career Transition & Job Search in this post, it’s not just them.

How does your company treat people? Do your customers feel special?

Does This Social Media Make My Ass Look Fat?

August 31, 2009 by Phil Buckley Leave a Comment

Have you seen the BBC version of What Not To Wear? Well, I have. It caught my attention as my wife was watching a dvr’d version of it. The women who starred in it are now offering their services for American women.

The show I watched started by introducing the viewer to a divorced woman who is a cheerleading coach. The woman is feeling frumpy and fat because she used to be a size 4 and now shes some number bigger.

They next scene is at her cheerleading gym where Trinny and Susannah explain what they are going to do by making two women who are roughly their shape/size try on their clothes, except swapped – the results are, predictably, the cheerleading moms look awful, but when they put on the clothes that are cut in a more flattering style for them, they look great.

So by now you’re asking, what the hell does this have to do with SEO!

If you’re in charge of SEO, SEM, Social Media, Community Management or Branding at your company, you need to make the same kind of choices. Will this look good on me?

Not every tool or strategy is going to make you look your best.

If you don’t think you can keep up with the demands of Twitter, then don’t start using it. If you are terrified of blogging, that’s ok. Maybe you’re more of a glad-handing in-person kind of guy, that’s fantastic.

My advice to anyone thinking about entering the social space is, “do what feels natural”. If you try to do something that is awkward, that’s how it will be perceived, and you’ll fail. But, and this is a major but, if somone else in your company excels at one of your weak spots, you should empower them. Maybe the receptionist is a Twittering fiend, why not make her the person in charge of monitoring Twitter for the company? Twitter looks good on her.

Just because Facebook makes your ass look huge doesn’t mean Elizabeth in accounting can’t pull it off with style left over.

Newspaper Pay Wall Alternatives

August 30, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

I saw a blurb on my friend Gary’s website this morning that I thought was smart, and I’d like to add my take on it.

It was an article at Portfolio that started like this:

Yesterday, over a very tasty seafood lunch, I watched Felix Salmon spend two hours trying to convince FT.com managing director Rob Grimshaw to abandon his newspaper’s attempts to get its readers to pay for online content. He did not succeed.

Currently, FT.com has a hybrid model whereby readers are able to view a set number of articles for free each month but required to register and then to subscribe if they wish to exceed that ration. Felix hates this model because he believes it gets the incentives all wrong: Any reader who understands the model and doesn’t wish to subscribe will be careful only to click on stories that he absolutely must read, thus depriving FT of page views and ad revenue.

This is the same discussion going on inside my own company. Jeff Bercovici goes on to make a novel suggestion, but he’s unsure of where he’s going with it.

As you browse FT.com, you have a small status bar at the bottom of your screen, akin to the “life bar” in first-person shooter games that shows you how healthy or injured your character is. In this case, the status bar shows you how many free page views you have left. Now here’s the fun part: If you want to exceed your quota but you don’t want to pay, there are other ways. In video games, you can usually replenish your life bar by collecting floating gold coins or stars or mushrooms or what have you; why not do the same on a newspaper site?

I’m not sure about the mushrooms, but the general idea is brilliant. My take on it would be slightly more interactive. As you click around the site, and you notice your X number of free pages starting to wane, you can replenish by doing one of the following:

Email a story to a friend would give you one additional page view (each time).
Tweet out the story and earn 3 extra page views.
Post it to your Facebook page and earn 5 additional page views.
Link to a story from your blog and get unlimited page views for 3 days.

Bercovici goes on to add one more level which I also agree with, rewarding your best customers with specials.

Free admission to FT conferences, lunch with an FT writer, and so on.

That type of reward could also be built into the equation somehow. Obviously this sort of thing would take some additional work on the website infrastructure, but so does a pay wall.

I think I just found my next cause to start pushing at work.

My Interview Questions

August 26, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

I read a great post over at Wondergrow a couple of months ago by Kelly Parkinson about how to “write a douche-free bio”. It was based on writing a bio based on answers to questions rather than just blathering on about yourself.

Tonight I decided to answer the questions, and I have to admit, she was right, it’s a great way to get a rolling start on writing a better bio.

1. How did you arrive at running this business? What path brought you here?

I’ve been running 1918 for the past 10 years. It started as just web development, then about 3 or 4 years ago, I started doing more and more organic SEO, and in the last 18 months I’ve become a social media evangelist. I think the future is the social space and how it’s being leveraged.

2. What are you known for professionally? What do you have a knack for?

I am known as a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” kind of guy. I have a lot of ideas, and I love bouncing them off cynics so I can either move on, because it was a bad idea, or hone my response because I successfully defended it. I have a knack for taking one more step when everyone else thinks they’ve reached the end.

3. What’s the one problem you are best at solving for your clients? What do your ideal clients say about you?

I’m great as spotting places where clients have decided to just settle. There’s no need to stop at 90% of the way. My ideal client would say, “he was a pain in the ass who never stopped pushing us to believe we could be better than we first realized”.

4. Who have you worked with in the past? And what have you done for them?

At McClatchy Interactive I try to raise awareness among everyone about our SEO shortcomings, and that spread out to the 30 markets we serve. Today there’s a small amount of SEO thought in almost every discussion. I like to think that I was partially responsible for that.

5. What are you most passionate about professionally? What most excites you about your work & the contribution you can make?

No question, social media. I don’t remember exactly what started me rolling down this hill, but I feel like there’s not enough time in the day to do everything I want. I wish I could read more books and attend more meetups, conferences and networking events. I also love the feeling of connecting people who I know are a perfect fit and can help each other get to the next level.

Setting up the projector at the August SEO meetup

6. What are you passionate about personally? What do you really enjoy? What can’t you stop talking about?

This may sound geeky, but it’s social media and the ideas at it’s fringes. The ideas that leap out of books like Wikinomics, Groundswell, Free and Trust Agents make me want to take notes on every page. I also help run an SEO meetup in Raleigh that I love every aspect of, even the boring administrative tasks I enjoy.

7. Where can we find you when you’re not working? What’s your favorite way to spend a weekend or a Sunday afternoon?

Usually doing something with my family. If it’s a Sunday afternoon, and my 2 year old is napping, you’ll find me right next to him.

8. How long have you been doing what you do?

I’ve been working on the web since the late 90’s.

9. Where did you grow up and why aren’t you there now?

I grew up in Massachusetts. I moved down to North Carolina in 2003 to escape the crazy home prices on Boston’s North Shore.

10. Any volunteer activities you’re crazy about?

I love helping Ashley Berman-Hale with the monthly Raleigh SEO event (through meetup.com). I wish we could do one every week.

11. Any nonprofits you love, & why?

I’m not sure if it’s a non-profit, but I love watching the little kids play Little League. I was just watching the Little League World Series last night and it’s such a feel good event. You just know those kids couldn’t be any happier after a win, and any more dejected after losing.

12. Any awards or medals, or even medallions? Personal okay, too.

I have a basbeall from when I was 16 and threw a no hitter against Hopedale!

13. What would be impossible for you to give up?

I could never give up on my Red Sox.

14. Why would someone not want to work with you?

I know myself well enough to understand how I work best, and that’s with one or more people. I’m a social animal and do my best work when collaborating with co-workers, clients, friends really anyone who’s willing to listen and throw back other ideas. If you want someone to sit quietly in the cubicle next to you, you’ve picked the wrong guy.

15. How do you want to be remembered?

As a good dad, husband and son.

Does Your Business Need A Social Media Czar?

August 22, 2009 by Phil Buckley 2 Comments

I heard the term “Social Media Czar” during a conference call earlier this week, and it’s been rolling around in my head ever since. It sounds like one of those weird goverment jobs where your accountable to no one, and get gigantic powers and an unlimited budget. In the private sector, there’s no such thing as an unlimited budget, and rarely do you have unlimited power, but could there be such a thing as a “Social Media Czar” in a normal everyday corporation, and would it be worthwhile?

In the 21st century, your small business’s Social Media Czar can be the person who can wrangle 4 other people to keep an eye on your company’s online reputation. That way no one gets overwhelmed. If you work at a larger company, it’s probably going to be one person from the marketing department who will try not to be overwhelmed trying to watch the social media space as well as do their “real” job.

I saw a great tweet from Pistachio where she noticed that most of what you hear about Twitter is the same thing you heard at the beginning of popular adoption of the world wide web. Although she was only talking about Twitter, it really applies to almost everything in social media. How often do you hear someone say something along the lines of, “I’m not interested in what Ashton Kutcher had for lunch”. Well, here’s an idea, don’t follow Ashton Kutcher. The Facebook excuse is usually very similar.

The problem with that kind of think is that if you’re not in the space, you have no control over your brand. If I go eat at Quizno’s in Cary and ask for a lid for the cup for my 2 year old so he won’t spill his water, and they refuse because only cups that are paid for get lids, I’m going to take a photo and post that to my Twitter stream and Facebook page with my smart ass remark about how silly it is. I heard back from lots of other people who also shared their bad experiences at Quiznos. Lots and lots of people saw all the negative chatter about Quiznos, but there was no one from Quiznos there to step in and try to mitigate the damage.

The much repeated social media catch phrase is, “the conversation about you is going on in the social media space whether you’re participating or not”. If you were at a cocktail party and heard someone bad mouthing your company, would you just walk away or would you go over and try to explain your side?

If you’re a sole-proprietorship, you are your own Social Media Czar. If you run a small business, you may still be the SMC. If your business operates with more than about 20 employees, you’re crazy if you’re not actively monitoring you reputation online. If that’s all I could convince you to do, I’d be happy. In reality, you should be taking the next step, listening to your marketplace. If you want to surge ahead of your competitors, you could go all the way – appoint a Social Media Czar who can ignite your fans and grow your brand’s base.

Is The Thesis WordPress Theme Worth It’s Hype?

August 22, 2009 by Phil Buckley 1 Comment

Last night I finally got around to updating my site to start using the Thesis WordPress theme. I was always impressed with the great reviews it received from blogger I respect, but was a bit skiddish because most of them are also kick-ass affiliate marketers, and DIYthemes was smart enough to build in an affiliate program to help spread the word about their framework.

Last night I was fed up with my crappy “free” theme and decided it was time to bite the bullet. I ponied up the $164 for the developers version and a few minutes later was uploading it to my server. Then I activated the theme and I immediately became a fan. Never in my short blogging life have I used a theme that wasn’t broken in some way when I first activated it, but Thesis worked right out of the gate.

As I started looking through the new options available to me I also realized I could get rid of a few of the seo plugins, because they were already totally integrated with Thesis. Chris Pearson seems to have covered just about every step, I couldn’t be more pleased.

So to Sugarrae and the girls at Outspoken Media, Graywolf, Copyblogger and even Chris Brogan, I’m sorry I doubted your motives. You were shooting straight with me all along. Thesis is awesome, and now they have me as an affiliate also.

So if this has swayed you to try Thesis Premium WordPress Theme, click on my link so I’ll get a couple of bucks back 🙂

Can You Build A Community Website Without Involving The Community?

August 20, 2009 by Phil Buckley 1 Comment

I saw an interesting blog post in the NY Times today about how the Washington Post is planning on giving up on their attempt to cover Northern Virginia. The WaPo had spent too much time and money covering Loudoun County, Virginia:

We found that our experiment with LoudounExtra.com as a separate site was not a sustainable model

said Kris Coratti, a spokeswoman for the Washington Post Company.

The Times article goes on to say, “Updating the large amount of special features and technologies” on the site, which was run by Post staff members, proved unsustainable, Ms. Coratti said.

Really Ms. Coratti, you can’t run a full-scale news operation like the WaPo at only Northern Virginia and pay everyone, shocking!

The Washington Post isn’t the only newspaper out there who is stuck in this mindset. I would even say that most old-line newspaper companies think the same way the WaPo does. It just isn’t in the DNA of a newspaper to trust the people they cover to add anything of value.

That’s not to say they don’t trust the wisdom of the crowds. Writers will often check stuff against Wikipedia, at least as a sanity check, sometimes as their only check. They trust the Wikipedia crowd, but not Loudoun County crowd.

Why didn’t the Post reach out to the Loudoun County community to help update the large amount of special features? Why not let the community decide what features get included by voting stuff on or off the front page in Digg style?

As far as the technologies involved, what special technologies did the LoudounExtra.com have that their main site didn’t? Were they not updating all of the company’s core technologies in one swoop?

The Times article has a very newpaperish paragraph about halfway down:

The challenge, though, is that hiring reporters to cover car thefts, school board meetings and new store openings is expensive. So is hiring salespeople to visit local businesses and sell ad space.

There’s that mindset again. Do you really have to hire a reporter to cover car thefts? Is there really nobody in the gigantic community of Loudon County who might be willing to do a bit of leg work every couple days to get some experience, or get their name in a byline, or maybe it was their car that was stolen.

The same with the school board meetings. I would bet that there are people who live in the district who are more informed and passionate about what’s happening at that school board meeting than some reporter who lives 45 minutes away. Why not let them cover it?

As far as ad space goes, why not open it up using something like Project Wonderful?

I think the final paragraph in the Times story almost nails it:

Making hyperlocal sites work will continue to be a challenge, Mr. Sterling said. “It may be the case that you need to do some mix of community-based citizen journalism or blogging and maybe have a couple dedicated folks in the market,” he said. With LoudounExtra.com, “it was probably the case that they were just really top-heavy and couldn’t get the ad support.”

Trying to build a community site without involving the community is crazy. The people of Loudoun County didn’t need that half-ass site that the Washington Post gave them, but the Post desperately needed the people of Loudoun County. The problem was, the Post didn’t respect them enough to involve them in their plans. Loudon County didn’t feel any type of connection to the site, and that’s where the web is headed. It’s all about connecting now. Newspapers haven’t had to connect to an audience in so long it’s like learning to walk again.

I guess it shouldn’t surprise us when we read that 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.

Why Chris Brogan Is A Trust Agent

August 17, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

I’m not sure when I first ran across Chris Brogan, but I do know that I now interact with him almost every day. Not in person, but that’s okay, because Chris is all about connecting with people from a distance. That’s the beauty of the Internet, you don’t need to be in the cubicle next to me in order to influence me.

Reading his blog and following him on Twitter had a profound impact on the way I view the web and my place within it. There’s not many people you can point at and say that.

There are only a handful of Twitterati in the same league as Chris, but that doesn’t keep him from being super connected to almost everyone when he’s online. Let me give two minor examples. One day when I was checking my twitter feed before heading out to lunch, I saw that he has sent out a message about being on vacation with his family in Maine and going for a dip in the lake. I made a silly tweet about the fact that the water must have been about 34 degrees, but a few minutes later, he responded letting me know it was just barely tolerable. I don’t imagine the same thing would have happened if I had sent something off to Oprah, I’m just saying.

Another nice touch came just a couple weeks ago. I saw someplace that Chris lives up north of Boston. That’s where I lived before moving down to North Carolina about 6 years ago. I was planning a trip to visit my in-laws up there, so I sent off a quick email asking him if he could recommend any good wi-fi coffee shop places around Georgetown. He took the time that night to send me back 4 places he recommended. Awesome.

When I saw that Chris and Julien Smith were writing a book on social media, I knew I’d buy it, because I’m already a fan.

My absolute favorite blog on the entire web is Lisa Barone’s at Outspoken Media, she had an awesome post about Chris and Julien’s presentation at last week’s Affiliate Summit get together which made me even more excited about their upcoming book.

Last night, I could finally order Trust Agents from Amazon.

When I read Chris’s post today asking for a little bit of love in return for all he’s put out, I knew legions would answer his call. When I first ordered the book I didn’t even look at it’s ranking on Amazon’s list. When I read the tipping point tweet from Chris this afternoon, it was already at #45 on the bestsellers list. It’s at #30 at 8pm and rising.

So if you haven’t read his blog, start reading it. If you use Twitter, connect to him on there. If you already do both of those, then do the right thing and open your wallet and help out someone who has helped you in the past, buy his book.

If you honest-to-God can’t afford to buy his book, email me and I’ll try to help you out as best I can.

I Love When Social Media Spills Over

July 26, 2009 by Phil Buckley 5 Comments

I started attending a local SEO meetup in Raleigh last year. I love the feel of the group. Lots of talking, sharing and war stories mixed in with people who are just starting up their business online. Ashley Berman Hale is the organizer, and the meetup takes it personality from her easy going, “how may I help you” style.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to give a talk on the social media space and how you can benefit from it. It was the first time Ashley wouldn’t be leading the meetup, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to pull off the same great feeling that Ashley always left us with. How would our group respond to such a different presenter?

I posted the meetup, and faxed over my request for the Cameron Village library meeting room.

Then, I received a fax back from the library that the meeting rooms were unavailable. Uh-oh. I sent out an email to the group explaining the situation and that I would find someplace else.

Then I received an email from Michael Hubbard at MediaTwo who offered up his conference room. That was great. I love when someone from the meetup community steps up like that.

When I arrived the night of the meetup, it was even better. They have a kick-ass office space right in downtown Raleigh. Cool old renovated building, fancy wired up conference room, gigantic video display and even a small kitchen.

I met Michael when I walked up into the office, he had just finished interviewing Beth Lavin who was attending the meetup that night! (Beth has recently moved back from NYC and is looking to do some interactive planning – if anyone reading this is hiring.)

I wasn’t worried about the actual talk. I am a big believer in social media and all of the good things that it can bring about. I spent a couple days pulling together a bunch of stuff and then throwing most of it away until I just had a small handout. I was surprised to see the number of attendees swell to 47 by 5pm that day since we usually get about 25 or so.

By 6:30 almost everyone had shown up, not 47, but probably 35. A bunch of people had brought food. Some people brought homemade stuff, some brought traditional snack foods. Lots of repeat visitors but also a nice new influx of people who were first timers.

I babble on for an hour or so, with lots of side roads where people throw out questions or their own experiences. That’s the part that I love about the meetup, it never feels like a lecture to me, but more like a group discussion.

We wrap up most of the official talking about 8:30pm.

Then the spill over starts, and it was even more awesome than usual. I had a chance to talk with Morgan Siem, who is head tweeter for Raleigh’s Metro Mag, and is newly addicted to Twitter, Richard Horvath from Thee Design, one of Raleigh’s best web design firms, Audra and Matt Murray of AAYP (which I didn’t even know existed, but love the idea of) and the most awesome teriyaki chicken and beef I’ve ever eaten, brought in by Truly Hawaiian.

There was a ton of other people there who I haven’t mentioned, and they we just as varied as ones above. The best part of being part of your local online social media scene is the real life society it introduces you to.

Douglas Bailey Can’t Hear You

July 15, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

Don’t bother talking to Douglas Bailey. First of all, he’s smarter than you, so he doesn’t care what you say. Second, because you’re not working for a dying industry that can’t figure out how to save itself, you are not worthy to share your opinion. Third, since he has no control over his own actions, you need to change how you want to use the web.

Douglas Bailey took the time to write an editorial at the Boston Globe’s website called, Got a comment? Keep it to yourself. It is the heart of everything that is currently wrong with the online newspaper business.

He goes about reminding us of how hard the reporters work to get the story, the long hours of digging, triple checking the facts, editorial reviews, fights with their editors over a paragraph or two that might cause a problem. Now on top of that, says Bailey, the reporter has to put up with the indignity of actually having to see the unwashed masses comment on his pristine work.

This is insane. We know that newspapers made a mistake and devalued their product by giving it away for free on the Internet. Some rebuilding could begin by removing these reader forums and restoring journalism’s dignity.

Newspapers didn’t make a mistake by putting their product online and not charging for it, newspapers are making a mistake by believing that nothing has changed in the last 20 years and they should still be able to do whatever they want and get paid top-dollar for it. I have some hard news for Douglas and his friends still holding on by their fingertips at The Boston Globe – you’re not as important as you think, in fact, everyday you are becoming less important because you continue to look down your nose at the very people you want to influence.

He reminds me of Spaulding in Caddyshack who upon seeing Danny Noonan all dressed up at Judge Smails club greets him with, “Ahoy Paloy”.

People like Douglas Bailey remind me of Clay Shirky’s chapter in Here Comes Everybody where he talks about the Abbott of Sponheim coming to the defense of the pre-printing press scribes. In 1492, the Abbot of Sponheim wrote a tract called In Defence of Scribes urging that the scribal tradition be maintained because the very act of handcopying sacred texts brought spiritual enlightenment. One problem: the abbot had his book set in movable type so his argument could be spread quickly and cheaply.

Bailey finishes off his argument by sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and singing loudly while walking back to his house:

By the way, don’t bother posting any comments directed to me when this article appears on the Web. I won’t see them. Instead, go start your own website or blog or buy a legitimate newspaper, or write a letter to the editor, or an op-ed (and sign your own name to it). If you really have something interesting to say, I’ll find you.

Well, I for one, don’t believe him. I think Douglas Bailey is a coward. I think he’s afraid of the future and is unable to keep up with the changes that are re-shaping the once insulated world he was once involved with.

Who Do Newspapers Need To Attract To Survive?

July 4, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

There’s a discussion going on in every newspaper company in the United States, it goes something like this, “… we need to attract a younger audience.” But, now they’re talking about their online newspaper audience.

The problem stems from the same problems that plagues “oldies” radio. The younger audience doesn’t want what you’re offering. If the oldies station wants to attract high schoolers they need to change the music they play, if established newspaper sites want to attract a younger audience, they also need to change the very core way they’re serving their content.

massive change photo by: 416style — MASSIVE CHANGE

That type of change does not start with the online group, it starts with the news room.

If a journalist can’t see the revolutionary changes happening around him, he won’t realize that his job is now so much more than just writing. He now must build an audience. The old built in newspaper audience is now gone.

In the new world, when his story is commented on and he never responds, he misses an opportunity to connect with his audience, misses a chance to grown his audience, misses a chance to be better than 95% of his fellow journalists.

When a blogger links to his story, and the writer doesn’t reach out, he misses an opportunity to grow his circle of influence and misses a chance to start a conversation with a wider audience.

I read stories that news organizations are now “using” Twitter, but pushing out headlines with no context and no ability to answer incoming tweets does not constitute using Twitter in my mind.

I suggested to my friend Kathy Vetter down at the Star-Telegram to use Twitter like it is suppose to be used. To hand craft tweets, to link to anything the S-T audience might find interesting, even it it wasn’t in their paper! She started almost immediately. Over the past three months Star-Telegram’s followers has increased dramatically.

When I see a tweet like:

Morning, all. It’s going to be hot again, after a couple of “nice” days. High around 98 today. http://bit.ly/zPwT0 (Oh, and Rangers win!)

it makes me happy that some of the McClatchy papers “get it”. Take a look at the conversational style of that tweet, that’s not aimed at “younger readers”, it’s aimed at everyone.

That’s who newspapers need to aim for – everyone. I’m certainly not in the “younger” demographic that online newspapers think they need to appeal to, but I am someone they should be trying to convert to become a daily reader. I am a news junkie, I am online roughly 14 hours every day, I read at least a dozen blogs regularly and I watch the local television news daily. The last time I check my local online newspaper site, I was looking for information about a Memorial Day parade, which they had nothing on. I would say on average, I visit the Raleigh News & Observer site about once or twice a year.

If online newspaper sites want to compete for me, they need to put in some effort. They need to change the core way they do business. Here’s what I would prescribe for online newspapers.

Optimize your headlines so I can search and find what I want
Write about what I want to read about
Let me help you by adding content, comments, photos, videos and my expertise
Read your comments and respond where appropriate
Link out to other sources within your stories, I don’t believe that you know everything
Take more pictures, a story without a photo stinks
Take more videos
Treat your readers like you treat your neighbors, when they wave… wave back
The community does not want you to fail, just give them any reason to support you

It’s not about attracting younger readers, it’s about changing the very culture within the news organization. When they’re ready for that, ready to be part of the community, the younger readers will come, and so will everyone else.

Can Online Newspaper Sites Survive?

June 18, 2009 by Phil Buckley 5 Comments

50 years ago, Joe Morello wanted to play a kick ass drum solo. He pestered his band leader who was also in the mood to do something different from Stardust and Body & Soul.

In the end, The Dave Brubeck Quartet did something that changed Jazz forever. Jazz hits had never been written in 5/4 time, because nobody can dance to it. The Columbia Records’ sales force were scared to sell it because it sounded… well, it just sounded so different.

But when DJ’s started playing it, and the switchboards would light up.

Take Five became the first million-selling modern jazz hit, a landmark at the intersection between jazz and pop culture.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet had already cut a bunch of recordings and had a pretty good following by 1959. But they decided to take a risk. The risk lost them some of their existing fans. They lost the ones that wanted traditional, “common time” 4/4 beats. But what they built instead was a community of true fans. Not just people who listened to their songs on the radio, but people who would say to their friends, “Dave Brubeck is coming to play next month, come see it with me, you’ll love it.”

That is what I think will save newspaper websites. Love. The same kind of love that has built up a community force-field around Wikipedia, 37 Signals, Apple, and Barack Obama. People become invested. When you try bad-mouth the iPhone, an Apple fanboy will jump to it’s defense. Point out Ruby-on-Rails shortcomings, supporters point to the success of 37 Signals. Point out how cluttered and user-unfriendly the News & Observer’s website is, and we all nod in agreement. No community. No passion. No fanboys. Why is that? Where is our community?

Look at the News & Observer’s website. What is the most important story? Where does the editor want you to focus?

What is the purpose of this website?

If you ask the sales manager, he may say the purpose is to have a platform to deliver advertising. If you ask the online editor, he may say the purpose is to publish news to keep the public informed. Other answers I have heard over time include, “to get back some of the revenue we’re losing on the print side” and “what do you mean?”

What if you asked users? What are they using it for? What if we let them use it for whatever they wanted, what would they choose? Would they want to continue to be only a consumer? Are we helping them? Are we connecting them to others who can help them?

My contention is that our failure has nothing to do with metrics, local visitors or site redesigns. I think it’s because we don’t care about our audience. We don’t know our audience. We make zero effort to connect with them, because newspapers are ingrained with the belief that the very people we write for, offer us nothing in return. We are a 20th century, one-way communication platform. We’re famous, they’re not. We’re important, they’re not. We own the ink, the presses, the paper and the delivery trucks and they don’t. Well, that’s not really the case anymore.

I agree with Clay Shirky, in a world where publishing is now effortless, the decision to publish something isn’t terribly momentous. For a generation growing up without the scarcity that made publishing such a serious-minded pursuit, the written word has no special value in and of itself.

Brian Solis's Social Media Prism — Brian Solis’s Social Media Prism

If you use MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, YouTube or any one of the other social sites, you are more than just a consumer. You are joining the throngs of symmetrical participants who have the ability to receive information, but also the ability to send it. Amateur production means that the category of “consumer” is now a temporary behavior, rather than a permanent identity. The term “journalist” is also rapidly becoming an activity rather than a profession.

It’s okay to admit that you don’t “get it”, you’re not alone. Merlene Davis at the Lexington Herald-Leader obviously doesn’t, and neither does her editor. In a story about her joining twitter there’s no LINK to her twitter page. But, just because you don’t get it, don’t think that “it’s” stupid. Right now there’s a woman trying to finish up her doctoral dissertation, but she’s putting it off by reading status updates from her friends on Facebook, or following links posted in her Twitter stream.

That same woman will follow almost any link her friends post, because she knows she can trust them, they are her friends, even if she’s never met them and they live in Australia. Her friends have permission to send her links, in fact, she likes when they find cool stuff and forward it on, because she’s interested in most of the same things.

When we force our visitors to endure a flash ad that takes over their entire screen, what is that really saying? I can tell you what I think when I see it… We value this advertiser more than you. How long can we continue to behave like this and think it’s the way to grow?

Seth Godin has a post called, The web doesn’t care where he observes:

If a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station doesn’t please advertisers, it disappears. It exists to make the marketer happy.

That’s the reason the medium (and its rules) exist. To please the advertisers.

But the Net is different.

It wasn’t invented by business people, and it doesn’t exist to help your company make money.

It’s entirely possible it could be used that way, but it doesn’t owe you anything.

Our grandparents had time to read a newspaper everyday. Our parents had time to scan the paper most days. We have have the local tv newscast on in the background as we’re brushing our teeth or getting the kids dressed. What will the next generation have time for?

Think about what you make time for in your own life. Who do you make time for? That’s your community.

Do you have any online-only communities? How about communities that span both, like meetup.com? What communities would or could sprout up around our sites if we encouraged that type of behavior? What if we provided a way for news junkies to gather? What about people that are passionate about state politics in the capital sites like Raleigh and Sacramento? What if the site actively added value to a group? What if the Star-Telegram’s Dallas Cowboys group gained them exclusive access to Cowboys stuff – all based on the S-T’s long association covering the team? What if the Charlotte Observer brought a member of their photography group down on the field at a Panther game with a news photographer? Would that type of behavior create a stronger bond with the community? How many bloggers would start writing about that? How fast would competitors try to catch up?

What about a community built around making the website better? If you created a place for real discussion to flourish, there’s no better place to get ideas and keep your finger on the pulse of the very people who can help your site grow and be accepted by a wider audience.

How about starting today?