When one goes slowly and with imagination through a list of influencers, reading about their passions, studying their proclivities, observing the vicissitudes of mood and opinion in their social stream…a story emerges and forms about that individual, about their market sector and about the customer in that sector. And it is such stories that form the basis of potent marketing campaigns, the focus of which is to grow awareness of YOUR product/service.

Popularity: 79% [?]

Social objects (photos, tweets, posts) mediate the ties btwn people…& are the reason why people affiliate w/specific others.~Jyri Engeström

I have been working lately on building specific social networks, pre-populated with members from other social networks that share very specific qualities. The work has been arduous but very interesting. After going through the Thousand True Fans process I outlined a few months ago, I have been working on discovering shared social objects (photos, tweets, posts) WITHIN tight-knit social groups.

The emergence of object-specific social networks is truly staggering. The World Wide Mind is merely a lobby in which conscious beings stand and peer out into the seemingly endless depth of mash-ups possible. A site like http://www.shelfari.com/ or http://www.last.fm can be divided into countless strata, specific networks bound together through shared love of social objects (books, quotes from books, fragments of poetry, songs, music videos, concerts).

A social network like StumbleUpon is a window INTO social objects and is organized around popular social objects. The genres within StumbleUpon ARE social networks unto themselves. http://www.stumbleupon.com

I was recently approached by a branding wizard to create a list of influencers related to a specific country. Related to the needs, desires, fears and problems within that country. As part of this work, I am assembling not only a list of influential individuals and organizations (tweeters, bloggers, offline influencers) BUT ALSO a list of social objects (photos, videos, music, tweets, blogposts) that tie the countrymen together, or could tie the countrymen together.

It’s about Influential individuals and organizations. AND it’s about the social objects that have held (and could hold) the attention of the populace.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Discussing A Thousand True Fans with Eleftherios Hatziioannou in Athens, Greece. May 25, 2011.

A Thousand True Fans essay by Kevin Kelly:
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

First, organize 1,000 by Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/first-organize-1000.html

A DEFINITION:
“A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can’t wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.” ~Kevin Kelly, The Technium

…………………

“In the entertainment area, there are members of the hardcore fan base.
The equivalent of the guys who will camp outside of an Apple store to get the new iPhone.

The fanatics are important …. but the “visionaries” are crucial.” ~Peter Economides, FelixBNI

…………………

“For example, let’s say you launch a Facebook campaign to get 1,000 “likes” for your brand page. You make your goal of 1,000, but what’s to say those people will attend your event or even visit the page at a later date? You have to offer them something of value in order to create a social consumer. That social consumer might then provide feedback on the event and even influence peers to attend. Figure out what your audience wants, and give it to them — over and over. You have to give them a reason to both connect and come back.” ~Brian Solis, Altimeter Group

……………………….

How does influence translate into dollars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztUOVVZAxvU

……………………….

A PROCESS: A THOUSAND TRUE FANS as derived VIA KEY INFLUENCERS

1. TWITTER SET-UP AND BRANDING: Set up a non-branded Twitter account for market research purposes related to specific customers (ie. – Tourism, Hotel, Restaurants, Art, Fashion). Value: This will be our “window” into the Interest Graph.

2. KEY INFLUENCER IDENTIFICATION & FOLLOW: Identify 1000 Key Influencers using Listorious (http://www.listorious.com) AND Research.ly (http://research.ly). Follow these 1000 influencers in the non-branded Twitter account. Value: Know the Social Influencers related to your vertical market, customers and competitors. Connect to them for realization of sales goals, event opportunities and growing awareness in regions/communities you may not have penetrated. Grow the network around the customer for the purposes of connection, sales and marketing.

3. CSV FROM TWITTER (with 3rd Party Tool): Download a CSV from Twitter (with a 3rd Party Twitter Export tool like Export.ly – http://export.ly).

4. CSV TO FLIPTOP (or other tool): Upload CSV of Twitter account to Fliptop or another tool to discover influencers’ locations ACROSS The World Wide Mind (http://www.theworldwidemind.com). Value: (a) I get to see where my influencers are in other social properties AND (b) I get to hear and see what they are messaging about.

Discussing The World Wide Mind with Eleftherios Hatziioannou in Athens, Greece. May 25, 2011.

5. FOLLOW THE INFLUENCERS IN FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN AND OTHER SOCIAL PROPERTIES: We will translate our findings into actual friends in the social networks and begin the process of connecting with these friends. Value: Influential friends in the Social Graph that we have discovered via the Interest Graph.

6. TWEET CREATION/COPYWRITING: Turn entire corporate site, blogposts and other collateral into tweets. The goal here is to get around 150 tweets for scheduled posting. Also, derive and mash-up content BASED UPON current and trending conversations WITHIN The World Wide Mind. Value: Influencers who follow you will become aware of what you offer and interact with you on this. Note: for a non-branded research account, we can copy-write industry and niche-related tweets.

7. TWEET SCHEDULING: Schedule these tweets in Social Oomph – (http://www.socialoomph.com). Value: This will be pre-scheduled so you do not have to keep tweeting (the tweeting will be automatic).

8. KEY INFLUENCER CONTENT SUMMATION: Summarize what the 30-50 top influencers are saying in the Twitter accounts. This would be “culled” from their latest 100 tweets. Value: This is a very powerful option, that will give branding teams insight into what top influencers are talking about.

9. KEY INFLUENCER ENGAGEMENT: Engage and nurture relationship with Key Influencers. Results sought: (a) Getting the Key Influencer to follow you back (b) Getting the Key Influencer to re-tweet, share or post a message originating from you (c) forming a business partnership with the Key Influencer for mutual benefit and the benefit of the customer (customer-centric business).

RESOURCES:

THE WORLD WIDE MIND: http://www.theworldwidemind.com

A THOUSAND TRUE FANS: http://www.a-thousand-true-fans.com

THE LONG TAIL DEBATE: Long Tail Debate: http://bit.ly/long_tail_debate + Long Tail Keywords http://bit.ly/long_tail_keywords

Popularity: 16% [?]

• How do I choose the right social media monitoring tools?
• What are best practices for social media monitoring for enterprise-level
business intelligence specifically?
• What are best practices for social media monitoring for small businesses specifically?
• How do I measure social media engagement?
• How do I measure social media ROI?
• How do I extract context AND meaning from social media data?
• How do I identify key influencers in social networks?
• What is the value of sentiment detection, trending and analysis?
• How do I use social media monitoring for reputation and brand management?
• What is the relationship between social media monitoring and social CRM?
• How can we use all this data?
• What are the best social media monitoring tools for specific goals or intended outcomes?
• Where and how can I find my customers in social networks?
• How do I get started with social media monitoring
• How do I build my own social media monitoring service? What is sentiment trending?
• How do I monitor sentiment and benefit from the insights this provides?
• How can I identify influencers and build valuable relationships with them?
• How do I measure the success of my social media marketing campaigns?
• What types of media or geographic markets are monitored by social media monitoring tools?
• Which tools have the most accurate and contextually correct sentiment analysis?
• Which tools have the most accurate methodology for discovering location of conversations?
• Which tools are better at gleaning quality tweets AND distilling tweets from large volumes of tweets?

Popularity: unranked [?]

Gathering intelligence to inspire meaningful and actionable social programs is priceless. ~Brian Solis

To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation. ~ Chinese Proverb

The best salespeople are great listeners – that’s how you find out what the buyer wants. ~ Spencer Johnson and Larry Wilson

TARGETED RESEARCH + CREATIVE STRATEGIES = SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING AND SELLING!

Web monitoring tools offer business developers and marketers CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE on where the major audience(s) for a product/service reside in cyberspace and in the physical world. Audiencecounts.com is a website where a 3-tiered competitive intelligence solution is offered. The solution provides online intelligence in regards to where a client’s major audience (major conversations, major communities and key influencers) currently resides in social media/web properties in an accessible format for the non-technical user.

Whereas there currently exist numerous web monitoring solutions available that offer access to this information, there are few services that offer a SIMPLIFIED version of the intelligence ALONG WITH TARGETED STRATEGIES on how to use the intelligence. We offer a simple final format that has TWO sections:

YOUR AUDIENCE: Where your Audience is (based on keywords submitted by the client). This is presented in a Top 25 format in each category:

In blogs
In social media properties
Web Communities
Key influencers
Largest dicusssions
Largest communities

YOUR STRATEGIES: Strategies for the social web that offer basic preliminary strategy/tactics on: (a) establishing a presence, (b) entering the conversation, (c) becoming a leader in the conversation and (d) monetizing tips. Advanced strategies for specific needs related to your organization.

How does this work?

1. Using keywords and keyphrases, we use a combination of sophisticated social monitoring tools to discover the key influencers, major online communities and highest populated conversations about your product/service/brand.

2. We compile a report of these top audiences for your product/service/brand AND give you strategies for accessing and monetizing these relationships and conversations. Remember, a conversation IS a community AND a selling opportunity. Read more here on the Top 10 Reasons to Listen from Radian6, one of the world’s premier social intelligence solutions.

3. We deliver this report to you for your use.

What do I do with the report and strategies?

The key influencers, major discussions and largest groups/networks identified around your brand/product/service indicate fabulous starting points for getting the word out/participating in the conversation about your offering. The strategies tell you how to do it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation. ~ Chinese Proverb

Keywords are the words that are used to reveal the internal structure of an author’s reasoning. Keywords can be identified as words which appear with statistically unusual frequency in a text or a corpus of texts. An adventure into the significance of a single keyword includes etymological, mythological, cultural and personal discovery of meaning. Understanding the eco-system of key influencers, major conversations, largest web communities and highest examples of ROI around any given keyword signifies a successful foray into the heart of that keyword.

We now have truly fantastic ways to discover all of these deeper meanings of keywords using the following tools.

ETYMOLOGICAL SEARCH: Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. As marketers, we want to know about this history because it informs our intelligence gathering about the communities that have surrounded, do surround and will surround any given word.

Example of the power of etymological search: When doing recent research for a film that targets the Cultural Creative community and specifically the Karma Queen consumer within that community, I found that “family” is THE single most popular keyword by global search volume for that tribe. Knowing more about the etymology of the word family gives me further insight and inspiration on which key influencers, largest groups in social networks and web communities. What insight does the word etymology of the word family give me into the Karma Queens?

c.1400, “servants of a household,” from L. familia “household,” including relatives and servants, from famulus “servant,” of unknown origin. The classical Latin sense recorded in English from 1540s; the main modern sense of “those connected by blood” (whether living together or not) is first attested 1660s. Replaced O.E. hiwscipe. Buzzword family values first recorded 1966. Phrase in a family way “pregnant” is from 1796. Family circle is 1809; family man, one devoted to wife and children, is 1856 (earlier it meant “thief,” 1788, from family in slang sense of “the fraternity of thieves”).

From this etymology, we can derive some of the deepest HEART SIGNIFICANCE of this word. A FAMILY (ideally) is a group of people who would do anything for each other, including lying, cheating and stealing to help each other survive. They are pregnant, not only with children, but also with the ideas, the hopes and the dreams of the individuals carrying the same blood. And out of these ideals, they develop values that signify devotion to the children, giving them as much hope and thrust INTO the future as they possibly can.

To perform an etymological search, go here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tool

MYTHOLOGICAL SEARCH: Mythology is defined by Joseph Campbell, the world’s foremost mythologist, as “a field that teaches humans what is behind the literature and the arts.” He goes on to say that “metaphor is the native tongue of myth… myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths.” It has been said that at the root of EVERY word there lives a deity. A mythological search reveals the deity, the sacred and the divinity at the root of a word — its magic.

One location to perform a mythological search related to a keyword is here: http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/index.php?_search

CULTURAL SEARCH: When one works with keywords and SEO, it is wise to take into consideration ALL of the factors present for OTHER cultures related to keywords. For an excellent article on this go here.

KEY INFLUENCER SEARCH: Knowing who is recognized by the world as a TRUE expert in any given field is pretty valuable information for a researcher. There are many tools for discovering key influencers. Radian6 will reveal key influencers in real time and PeerIndex has produced an elegant and effective measurement tool for the Key Influencers in many areas.

NEWS SEARCH: Searching news is a powerful way to discover what is happening. Recorded Future has created a truly incredible tool for discovering news from the future. With its major investment coming from In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and Google, one can be sure there is some excellent information coming through this window into global activity.

One of the world’s foremost social community and strategy architects, Brian Solis, writes, “Gathering intelligence to inspire meaningful and actionable social programs is priceless.” Every KEYWORD contains etymological, mythological, cultural and personal significance AND understanding this truth gives significant power to anyone wishing to influence anyone on anything.

To create “meaningful and actionable social programs” a social marketer should consider delving into each of these disciplines AS A MEANS OF UNPACKING THE SECRET OF EACH KEYWORD AND KEYPHRASE. For a social strategy to find its seed in a set of potent keywords is the equivalent of walking down the rainbow into the pot of gold. Use keyphrases, their meanings and their histories to inform your understanding of the living quality of the WORD, the COMMUNITY, and the OVER-ARCHING CAMPAIGN PHILOSOPHY.

At the root of every word, there is a god or deity, a revolution waiting to happen, a cure for an ill, a ticket to a desired destination…a living and breathing presence and experience. Understanding words AS living and breathing presences transforms keywords from plain data into VIBRANT DATA, DATA WITH VITALITY!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Over the last week I have worked in Los Angeles with a variety of individuals and entities. The experience has been fascinating AND revealing.

One of the first observations I have is that most entities interacting for the first time with social media marketing truly struggle with the concept that relationship architecture and network analysis MUST be preliminary steps. And this is done using LISTENING tools like Radian6, Buzzmetrics, Trackur, Compete, JIVE and the like. The concept of listening to OTHERS as an INTEGRAL aspect of formulating marketing plans and models lies outside the conventional creative bent. Most of the super-creatives I have run into this last week are hell-bent on THEIR own vision, which is fabulous of course. AND it has been my job to be the listener and translator of what their prospective audiences say each day about their material.

LESSON #1: Transitioning creatives to customer-centric marketing/sales tactics IS JUST AS CHALLENGING as doing so with brand managers, marketing managers AND general managers at major corporations. BUT once both types of individual and entity see lists of top bloggers, top tweeters, top FB groups and top forums in which their audience resides AND the volume of their potential market…ONLY THEN do they wake up to the amazing POSSIBILITY that social architecture and relationship analysis provides. Again, employing strategists trained in LISTENING TOOLS is vital to customer-centric vs. product-centric business. (ie.- A single Key Influencer who tweets to 1.5 million of their prospects OR a FB group of 850,000 entirely populated with their kind of tribe members OR a blogger who over 2 million read every day. Those are NOT numbers to turn away from).

Popularity: 10% [?]