SCHWARTZ CROSSROADS

What Do Shakespeare and Social Media Have in Common?

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

This excerpt from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet came to mind when I read a recent blog post on socialmediatoday.com by Dave Fleet, “Is ‘Social Media’ Hurting Social Media?”

The quote means that what matters is what something is, not what it is called. Dave suggests upgrading the term ‘social media’ to ‘online networking,’ as social media should be more interactive and long-term and not a short, one-way street. He writes:

What changes if we use that term?

•    YouTube: “Videos with comments” becomes engaging people in a story, or enabling other people to tell your story as they see it
•    Blog: “Text with sharing” becomes a genuine conversation, where you solicit and respond to feedback from your stakeholders
•    Twitter: “Tweets of links to stories about you” becomes an opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with people

I think Dave has an excellent point. Although social media isn’t a new concept, its use is getting broader and deeper by the day. It seems that we can never quite catch up with new social media strategies. Things are moving so rapidly so we really shouldn't get caught up in nomenclature vs. understanding how a social approach fits into a broader corporate strategy.

In order to get the most out of online networking and getting your messages out at any one time or period of time, you will want to know four things:

1. Who are the leaders and media influencers in your industry?
2. What are the big trends and issues in your industry?
3. Where do your customers go for information?
4. What are your customers, partners, employees and the media saying about you?

One place to find the leaders in the technology arena is Technorati, which offers both a topics directory and keyword search to find blogs in a particular topic area. Technorati also provides an “Authority Rating” on each blog to give you a rough idea of the blog’s influence. And while you’re at it, see if you can find out about a blog’s author to see where he or she is participating. This will help you determine your industry’s thought leaders.

Another neat tool is Twiangulate, which analyzes connections between competitors, friends, followers and industry leaders on Twitter. Twiangulate helps you find out who you should care about reading on Twitter. Pick any two or three Twitter users and then use Twiangulate to find which friends or followers they have in common. Twiangulate shows the overlap between your social graph and any two other people on Twitter. It shows the resulting names as a list or an interactive social map.

Here is an example of three technology tweeps with 13 people in common of 1153 total tweeps followed.

In this graph, we see that some people who follow Scott Kirsner also follow Jason Meserve. And some people who follow GigaOm also follow Jason. So, if someone is following Jason and finds value in his tweets, that person may also want to follow Scott and Om. By the same token, those who are following Scott might consider following Jason.

This exercise will lead you to people are talking about your industry, whether it be blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook pages and so on. Take note of their conversations on Twitter and Facebook. Are they interacting with people? Only promoting their wares? Offering valuable industry information? They might also let you know where they’ll be, which can tip you to an in-person meeting.

What are the big trends and issues in your industry?

Based on the results of the influencer analysis above, you should choose a few blogs from the posts and articles that industry leaders are tweeting. This will be a dynamic list, which you will add to and delete from as you fine tune your marketing campaign. By following the right people, it will lead you to the right content, enabling you to stay apprised of news and happenings in the industry and locate other influencers. An RSS feed is a great way to aggregate the sites and keep them in one place.

A great RSS tool is Google Reader, and if you’re already a Gmail user, it’s an easy step to take.

With RSS, you’ll stay updated whenever the blogs have new content. After reading through these feeds, you will be more informed about your interest area.

Aggregation Tools

1. Google Alerts – I can’t get over how easy and helpful this is. In a few clicks, you can have new search results (from the web, news, blogs, etc.) delivered to your email.

2. Summize – Searches within Twitter conversation. After performing a search, click “Feed for this query.”

3. Technorati Advanced Search – Allows subscribing to specific blog tags, which can be much more specific than searching for that as a Google Alert term (for example, the category productivity would be useful, but Google results for the word productivity would be all over the chart). After performing a search, click the “Subscribe” button on the upper right corner.

4. Blogdigger – Searches blogs, but has a fair amount of overlap with Google Alerts. After performing a search, click the RSS icon in the upper right corner.

Stay tuned for "What Do Shakespeare and Social Media Have in Common? Part Deux," where we'll discuss how to find out where your target audience is getting information, and how you can find out what are your audiences saying about you.