Content Matters

Four Ways Twitter Can Improve "Who to Follow"

Last week, Twitter launched its new “who to follow” feature, a valuable tool in identifying those with similar interests to you. Who to follow works on the basis that if multiple people whom you already follow are following someone, they might be of interest to you as well.

Besides its grammatically incorrect form (I guess “whom to follow” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily), “who to follow” could use some basic improvements.

Here are some suggestions on how to improve Who to Follow:

• Exclude the” Twitterati”; if my profile suggests an interest in social media I probably already know @scobleizer @guykawasaki and @pierre. If I’m not following them at this point, it’s because I’ve chosen not to do so. I would suggest excluding any user that has more than 20k followers. At minimum, give me a way to filter them out of the list.

• Don’t ask me to follow a user who has never tweeted. Earlier this week, I saw a tweet from @bandhphoto that Twitter had suggested he follow @canon. Makes sense, as B&H is among the largest sellers of Canon photographic equipment. But then he noted that @canon, while having 3,278 followers, currently follows no one and has zero tweets.

            

• You have tons of data, Twitter (though I'm not sure what you’re archiving). Please mine it more effectively. A few ideas:

• If I've previously unfollowed someone, there's no need to show them to me.
• If someone's on a list I've created, I must know of their existence, so there's no need to suggest I follow them (that's what I currently do with the Twitterati mentioned above)

• Please display the basic metrics for each person - # followers, #following, # of tweets (or better yet, # of tweets per day)

There are also some more advanced features that would be very useful. For example, applying Who to Follow to a list would be a very useful way for me to add more people to each of my lists. Or, let me identify a group of my users and have it calculate new “Who to Follow” suggestions based on those users. There are some third party apps that do similar things – Twiangulate, for example; Twitter could add these types of features or more tightly integrate with Twiangulate and others to handle them.

Of course, Twitter needs to balance its efforts between the early adopter power users and those just coming to the app today. While Geoffrey Moore might argue it's time to ignore the power users and focus on the mainstream, the early adopters are still driving much of Twitter's adoption and these added features should keep those users in mind.

 

What Sidney Harman should do with Newsweek

It’s possible that 91-year old Sidney Harman acquired Newsweek simply as a means of minimizing estate taxes for his family. But assuming he truly wants to turn Newsweek into a viable product in the coming years, what might he do?

Here are three steps he might take to make Newsweek viable.

Leverage the brand

This won’t be easy. Newsweek has very strong brand recognition, but that brand name is an anachronism in the age of real-time news.Perhaps the best thing he can do here is come up with a clever tagline. Maybe something like:

There are 604,800 seconds in every week. Newsweek covers each and every one of them.

Kill the print edition

This one is the most obvious, but will also be very difficult for many inside Newsweek to embrace.
But there is no better way to change the mindset of a newsweekly than to eliminate the weekly editorial and print schedule.

It may seem harsh to kill the print version and the many jobs that will go with it, but if he wants to save the brand, he will need to move swiftly in that direction.

Reconstitute themselves as the curator of choice for politics & policy

Rather than trying to author content on a vast number of topics, what if they instead set out to become the curator of choice for political and policy content? Don't try to comment on the news - instead, provide insights on key policy issues, both domestic and international.

Retain a few key editors, each of whom will be expected to write 1-2 blog posts each day. Then, using a combination of technology and lower-cost curators, sift through content from other media and blog sites, identifying relevant content and classifying it by topic. The end result will be a series of high quality pages on compelling topics, led by a modest amount of proprietary blog content surrounded by carefully curated web content. Some topics may be evergreen, while others may be cyclical (elections) or event-driven (e.g. WikiLeaks). The content should be multimedia in nature and should aim to provoke and promote discussion.

I would trash the existing Newsweek.com site and come up with a dual strategy for website and mobile.  They should take a look at what Flipboard and Pulse have done on the iPad for inspiration. Everything should be based on easily browsing and sharing content.

That’s what I would do with Newsweek. What would you do?

 

What a Long, Strange Marketing Trip It’s Been

It’s no surprise that a key to innovation is rejecting conventional wisdom. And innovation thrives in many businesses, particularly those in the technology space. But whether in silicon valley or silicon alley, marketing is still largely done in the same way it has for decades. Companies hire PR firms who push out press releases, while marketers post product info to web sites and create factsheets for their sales staff.

Marketers may dabble with new approaches, sticking a toe into the social media space by creating a Facebook fan page or setting up an official Twitter account, but even then most apply old approaches to new platforms. Knowledge is shared through boring white papers which sit behind a registration wall while Twitter accounts push out links to bland press releases or staid marketing messages.

 When it comes to breaking the rules of marketing and rejecting conventional wisdom, David Meerman Scott (literally) has written the book. And now, he’s joined together with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan to author a new book, Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.

It’s not the first time that David has written about the Grateful Dead. Readers of his book World Wide Rave may recall a discussion framed by asking whether you wanted to be like Led Zeppelin, whose historic reunion show at the O2 arena was not made available in video format (and where YouTube was forced to remove clips posted by fans), or like the Grateful Dead who, long before the days of Facebook and social media, encouraged concert attendees to record their shows, even setting up special sections where they could plug in to the soundboard to get better quality recordings.

As the book pointed out:

If you want to remain relevant in an always-on, fan-centric, YouTube world, you need to embrace—not restrict—your most important supporters. You need to believe in the power of a World Wide Rave to sell your products and services.

In this new book, David and Brian take a look back at how the Dead worked to develop and nurture an active community of fans, then show how to apply many of those same techniques to today’s marketing platforms. For example:

Rethink traditional industry assumptions – Rather than focus on record albums as a primary revenue source (with touring to support album sales), the Dead created a business model focused on touring.

 (blogger note: if you’ve read what Fred Wilson and others have written suggesting media companies look to monetize the audience, not the content, this is a great example)

Bypass accepted channels and go direct – The Grateful Dead created a mailing list in the early 1970s where they announced tours to fans first. Later,they established their own ticketing office, providing the most loyal fans with the best seats in the house.

The foreword to the book is written by one of the biggest (literally and figuratively) Deadheads, former UCLA and NBA great Bill Walton. As he so eloquently describes it:

Their passion, creative spirit, imaginative soul, and industrious commitment to promote truth, fairness, justice, and the Grateful Dead way led them through the evolutionary transition where they went from playing for silver to playing for life. This book tells you how to make that transition for your own career.

David Scott’s books are always practical, insightful and a fun read. Fans of his prior books won’t be disappointed here. Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead may be his finest book to-date.

 

To go mainstream, Foursquare needs to become more like Groupon

Foursquare has done a good job of attracting the early adopters – hypersocial mobile data users. If you’re young, single and living in an urban area (or a college town), the value proposition is huge.

The next stage of adoption (and monetization) is likely to be a tougher hurdle. There are two obvious directions for Foursquare expansion:  digital-savvy business users and shoppers.

While shoppers are the larger (and more attractive) demographic, let’s start with the digital-savvy business users. By this, I’m referring to those who are probably active on Twitter, but are beyond their bar-hopping days. These users (and I fall into this category), get the value of social media, yet struggle to find real value in Foursquare.  I know that I use Foursquare much more heavily when I travel than when I am in the office. Check-ins at clients are typically not appropriate and a daily check-in at Starbucks and the office just isn’t that exciting.

The more attractive market is the local shopping market; I’m using shopping in the broad sense – in addition to goods, it could be food, drink and other services. This is also the place where Foursquare expects to generate its revenues – through promotional marketing offers. Yet, so far, the promotional offers have been somewhat lame.

The dominant offer, at least for those in major cities, comes from Starbucks.  I’ve got five Starbucks within a stone’s throw of my office, so any check-ins in this area will likely yield the yellow “special nearby” sign with an offer from Starbucks. Yet that offer is sort of pathetic: Become Mayor of Starbucks and get $1 off on a drink. But that’s a pretty limited deal.  It took @michaelwolf 76 visits to become Mayor of his local Starbucks.  

Last week, when I was in London, it only took me about a half-dozen check-ins at the Starbucks on Old Broad to become Mayor, but that wouldn’t happen in New York or San Francisco. And what you often find is that the Mayor of a given Starbucks happens to be one of the baristas.

Checking in over and over in hopes that you, like Michael Wolf, may get $1 off on a frappucino, after dropping $200 just isn’t likely to get the mainstream user to adopt Foursquare.

 

Compare those offers to what you see on Groupon. The typical Groupon offer is 50% off or more. Recent deals I’ve received were for 67% off from Wine Insiders, 50% off skating at Chelsea Piers and 53% off at the NY Hall of Science. Those offers are why Groupon is experiencing huge growth. A chance to be the one person that day who qualifies for a buck off a frappucino just won’t motivate users.

Perhaps enabling rewards for multiple check-ins (e.g. everyone who checks in 5 times this week gets a half-priced coffee) would probably get many more people interested. There are complications, of course (you don’t have to actually buy anything or even step foot inside a Starbucks to check-in), but those are things that Foursquare and its marketing partners will have to figure out.

There are many potential innovative offers that can leverage location-based services. Content providers could provide access to premium content to users checking in at a conference; wine brands could offer special deals on wine pairings at a restaurant. I can think of dozens of compelling offers that would make users  more likely to check-in.

 

I think it’s inevitable that checking-in with location-based services will become mainstream in a few years. But if Foursquare wants to be the leader in this space, it needs to provide greater value to mainstream users.

Three Obvious Features That Twitter Should Add NOW

It’s good to see that Twitter is has introduced the new “You Both Follow” feature, which lets you look at a Twitter user and see whom you follow in common. My first reaction was “what took so long?” After all, one of the key inputs to any social system (online or off) is identifying who you have in common with other participants.  Similar features have been available in other social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn for quite a while.

Since You Both Follow has only been rolled out to 10% of the user base, here's a screen shot of it (courtesy Mashable):

While they’re at it, here are a few similarly obvious features that Twitter should add right away:

You’re Both Followed By: this is the flipside of You Both Follow. Who are the people who follow both you and the Twitter user you’re viewing. This is probably just as important as You Both Follow; when assessing the credibility of another user, seeing that they are followed by people you respect makes you more likely to follow them as well.

Are they following me? Today, when I look at a user on Twitter, I can easily see whether I am already following the user. But, there’s no indication of whether they are following me. How many times have you tried to DM someone, only to see that they are not following you? A simple indicator “@graubart is following you” would make life a lot easier.

The ability to mine the social graph is a huge opportunity and there's no reason Twitter shouldn't expose these simple queries.  Yes, there are ways to get at this info through third party sites, but it should be bundled right into the product.

And, while they're at it, the third feature Twitter should add is the temporary mute feature. When users are at a conference and are hyper-tweeting, or even getting a bit overenthusiastic during a sporting event (sorry to those not interested in the #StanleyCup), there should be a way to mute them. There are a few 3rd party tools that do this such as TweepSnooze or my favorite, Muuter (which supports user and/or keyword muting), but this should be part of the basic Twitter toolkit.

In addition to making these enhancements through the Twitter UI, these features should also be accessible through their API so that third party clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic can implement them as well.

Mastering 140: Engaging Your Customers on Twitter (a free eBook)

“Well, what would I tweet?”
More than blogging or other forms of social media, Twitter seems to generate the most questions about what’s appropriate to share with business users. Perhaps that’s due to the short message format, which can seem foreign to business leaders not accustomed to being pithy. More likely, it’s due to confusion from all the media messages new users have heard about Twitter – where the role models seem to be Ashton Kutcher or Oprah Winfrey, rather than business professionals.

This eBook grew out of a discussion at a recent industry event, where the topic of Twitter best practices drew huge interest. The goal of this eBook is to provide a framework for engaging with customers and peers on Twitter.

Download your Download Mastering 140 - a free eBook.

What this book is not:
This eBook is not a policy manual governing employee communications. I’ve always worked for entrepreneurial companies and am not a policies & procedures guy. I believe that you need to trust your employees to make smart communications decisions, whether online or off. Leading by example is probably the best way to help employees make smart judgments. At the same time, some helpful guidelines will probably help your team feel more comfortable in what they are doing.

This eBook is also not aimed at “how to attract a million followers and get rich”. First, while there are schemes out there to gain followers, most of them are ineffective. As Anil Dash (@anildash) recently wrote, no one really has a million followers on Twitter.

The key to gaining followers is to provide useful, relevant content. That said, the practices shared here will certainly help you gain followers and, more importantly, to become more relevant to those who do choose to follow you.

Twitter is a conversation, and while eBooks are not very interactive, I welcome your feedback and additions. Please send me your thoughts @graubart or, to go beyond 140 characters, drop me a note at barry-at-graubart-dot-com.

Media Quote of the Day

Great post from Cory Doctorow on the sustainability of social media. Overall post is great, but this quote is priceless:

Only ancient, clueless dinosaurs like Rupert Murdoch are dumb enough to pay hundreds of millions for social media companies with the belief that they will grow to be immortal giants. Only lazy, fat media execs from firms that endured for decades without having to remake themselves from top to bottom think that a complete turnover in the corporate landscape is a failure.

(would have just tweeted this but it deserved to be displayed in its entirety)

Ten for Ten: Digital Media Predictions for 2010

I think we’re all happy to see 2009 come to an end, while we prepare our businesses for the growth we hope to see regenerated in twenty ten. And with that eternal hope comes that other classic year-end exercise: predictions.

So, here are my predictions for digital media and technology in 2010:

1. Apple (NASD: AAPL) will break its exclusivity with AT&T (NYSE: T), making the iPhone available on other networks (T-Mobile and Verizon). AT&T will get to test the loyalty of its new subscribers (and find many of them leaving their dropped calls for Verizon).
2. Android (NASD: GOOG) shows itself to be a serious player in smartphones. This one will take some time, but I think that going into the 4^th quarter of 2010, the Android platform will have established itself as a legitimate competitor to the iPhone. Android will also make a run at the enterprise market, providing a viable alternative to the Blackberry.
3. Spotify will line up its partners and launch by mid-year and will mount a realistic challenge to the iTunes model of buying music. Apple will respond with a service-based offering, based on the LaLa platform it acquired.
4. Online advertising spend will exceed analyst forecasts. As the market begins to recover, advertisers will first expand their budgets online where they can measure results. Pepsi’s decision to skip the Super Bowl and focus online could be the tipping point and we’ll see lots more growth to come.
5. The real-time web will continue to grow in importance, and will be more fully integrated with the existing web (especially on mobile devices). Hence...
6. Real-time search results presentation will be overhauled. Google and Microsoft Bing (NASD: MSFT) rushed solutions out the door after inking deals with Twitter, but the results are mediocre, with a “last-in, first displayed” approach like web results circa 1998. Given time to do it right, I expect that Google will display results using measures of influence (based upon a mix of followers and engagement) to rank results, similar to their core page rank system.
7. Consumers embrace web video as an alternative to cable: Roku’s partnerships with Netflix (NASD: NFLX) and Amazon (NASD: AMZN); and various devices launched on the Boxee platform will begin to drive mainstream acceptance of video downloading. This integration of television and the Internet will lead to new and innovative offerings.  Meanwhile, Blockbuster (NYSE:BBI) finally declares bankruptcy, shuttering most of its stores.
8. Apple will release its long-rumored Tablet. While it will not instantly cure cancer or bring world peace, it will provide functionality that the naysayers had not considered, much in the way that the iPhone was more than simply an iPod with a phone built-in. The Tablet will not be the savior for the print industry, but will accelerate consumption of television content and may also provide a boost to glossy magazines and other visual content.
9. Mobile gaming will continue to explode; the iPhone and Android will be considered viable alternatives to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP as handheld gaming devices.
10. Internet Explorer market share drops below 50%. While Apple and Google fight over control of the rapidly growing mobile screen, Microsoft’s long domination of the desktop will be diminished as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat into Internet Explorer’s share.
11.  The M&A market will be strong in 2010 as entrenched companies pick off weaker competitors at what they perceive to be bargain prices. Here are a few deals that I think we could see:

• MSFT should buy RIM and give up on Windows Mobile; otherwise, they will cede the mobile space to Apple and Google. Can Steve Ballmer make a large deal happen without his ego screwing it up?
• LiveNation should merge with MySpace. The recording industry is dead; live performances are the way that the big acts make their money. Meanwhile, MySpace is a great platform for awareness, but doesn’t fit with News Corp’s long-term strategy and is dying as a social media platform. News Corp should spin out MySpace and merge it with LiveNation as the dominant music platform.
• Twitter will not be acquired; instead it will have an IPO. Ditto for Facebook.
• Numerous content company CEOs will overpay for underperforming old media assets, convinced they can turn around these “gems”. They will fail.

Will these predictions come true? Who knows. But, it’s pretty clear that mobile, the real-time web, gaming and video are where huge opportunities will come in the next 12-24 months.

Should lawyers be on Twitter?

This Thursday, I'll be participating in an event at New York Law School, entitled Social Media for Lawyers. My panel will be focused on the use of Twitter for Lawyers.

Joining me on the panel will be Deena Burgess (aka @deenaesq) and TC Coleman (@upwardaction). Since Deena and TC are both attorneys, I'll focus more on the general application of Twitter for business and some of the how-to info.

TC, who runs a branding and social media agency, will focus on the rules & regulations for attorneys, while Deena, a sole practitioner, will provide insights as to how she has used Twitter to build her practice.

So, if you're an attorney (or work in the legal information market), this should be a great event. It's hosted by Gotham Media Ventures and you can register at the Gotham Site.

The session qualifies for CLE credits.

Hope to see you there.

UPDATE: I've posted my Twitter for Lawyers presentation for those who want a copy.

StockTwits Launches Desktop App

The public beta of StockTwits Desktop was released earlier today. In doing so, StockTwits has staked out some pretty interesting territory.

When StockTwits was initially launched last year, it was simply aggregating tweets by ticker symbol. During the past year, StockTwits has developed a robust community of more than 75,000 active traders, and wth the launch of StockTwits desktop, they've cut the umbilical cord to Twitter.

At first glance, the new StockTwits desktop resembles TweetDeck (no surprise, since StockTwits co-founder Howard Lindzon is a TweetDeck investor). But rather than simply a fancy Twitter client, StockTwits Desktop is an extensible desktop application that allows users to pull in Twitter feeds, RSS feeds and custom feeds of news, charts and more. When you post on StockTwits Desktop you can choose to tweet to both Twitter and the StockTwits desktop, or just to the desktop. There's also a channel to access StockTwits TV. StockTwits Desktop has support for Groups, though there are only a handful of groups right now.

StockTwits Desktop uses a tab interface to help you manage all the streams of information. Barry Ritholtz describes it as a “social Bloomberg” meets an iTunes Music Store for finance. There are numerous well-thought-out features, such as the ability to click a link and automatically launch a browser within a new tab of this Adobe Air app.

On initial release, StockTwits Desktop is a robust application, bringing together the best of community and RSS reading, but that's just the start. StockTwits Desktop has been designed to support permissioning for premium content streams. The StockTwits vision is for StockTwits Desktop to become an "unbundled Bloomberg" for active investors. While StockTwits Desktop is not going to push Bloomberg off institutional desktops, with the right content streams, an a-la-carte approach could be compelling for individual traders who are not in position to spend $1,500 per month for a Bloomberg.

In the coming years, I expect a number of providers to carve out vertical market niches around Twitter. StockTwits has taken bold steps with a foothold in the financial information space. And with the new StockTwits Desktop, it has given itself the flexibility to move beyond Twitter.

The StockTwits Desktop is available for download.