Tom Altman’s Wedia Conversation

Image by motionblur via Flickr

If there is one thing my circle of friends (Jason, Annette, Nick and Abe) would agree that I say way too much is it’s all about the conversation - we need to engage people in a real life convo.

So when I read Steve Raye’s post @ social media today, you can imaging my grin:

We’ve heard a lot of people repeat the Web 2.0 cliché that “Content is King”. But the new thinking is that Content is not King, Context is. The internet has evolved in stages over the last 10 years from “Surf” to “Search” to “Find” and now the challenge is to “Filter”. We can get a massive amount of relevant information in a nanosecond…

So here’s the message marketers in this brave new world need to get…Be Part of the Conversation…With or without you, the conversation is taking place. The choice then is to participate and help shape it, or ignore it and let it shape you.

Heck yea!  I say we need to del.icio.us-up, twiter-up & most importantly…WEDIAUP.

Super post at Social Media Today yesterday called “The Paradox of Self-Promotion with Social Media”:

Social media is a beautiful thing. The internet is finally living up to its potential as the first truly democratic medium. The traditional gatekeepers (to use a Seth Godin term) of mass-media no longer control the flow of information. In fact, I would argue that the term “flow” of information will quickly fade into our linguistic past. Web 2.0 has introduced us all to the “currents” of information. Things are far less linear than they used to be.

There has been a bit of buzz about the concept of free and how much business is gained or lost from the idea.  Here is a post on SocialMediaToday called “How Does ‘Free’ Impact Your Business?“

The “free” model doesn’t fit well with traditional business models and mindsets. People have a hard time figuring out how to convert “free” to earnings. Most everyone considers the social web as a primary point of distribution for advertising and view advertising as the only means for converting free to earnings.

Chris Anderson - author of The Long Tail has a neat podcast over at IT Conversations called “FREE: The Economics of Abundance and the Price of Zero“

We think of free as scary and radical but this economy has always existed. Previously not dignified as an economy, its currency is not money: It is reputation, attention, respect, fame, fun or money from a superior service after giving away something inferior for free.

I think we all need to take a good look at how we are doing “free” today and check to see how much something costs and what the impact of giving something away will have on our business.

Jeff Tippett had a post at SMT asking his network if they used soical media for business use:

I sent this question out to 30 or so fans of mine in Stumble Upon. The results were mixed and truly speak of where I believe social media currently is in business applications. Here are the results:
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1. Most people that I surveyed are using social media sites merely for personal reasons.
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2. A few are starting to ask how their “fun” experience on social sites could translate into business.
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3. A minority have discovered ways of using social media in their businesses.

How do you use social media?

Found a post over at ReaDwriteWeb called “Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond“

Steve Outing wrote a very good article at Editor and Publisher on Friday about the need for cultural change inside the newpapers around the US (found via the wonderful CyberJournalist.net). That article got me thinking that people in many different industries probably hear many of the same objections to new, social media and online tools. (”It takes too much time, conversations online are insipid” etc.)

This is a great “howto” post at Denis McDonald’s blog called “How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy“

The process described here is a structured one. A general structure and flow of work is proposed with the end goal being support for development of an organization-wide plan for employing social media and social networking in support of defined corporate goals. The intended audience for this document is middle and upper management within mid- to large-size organizations.

Nothing earth shattering or revolutionary - but good solid stuff.

Most of what I share about how to blog I’ve learned by doing, usually by trial and error. The same can be said as it applies to growing traffic to my blogs over the years.

I enjoy reading posts at Social Media Today, this one is called “How Do Community Managers Report Up?“

Bill Johnston over at OnlineCommunityReport recently released the 2007 survey results from those running communities online. Fifty respondendts commented on the average yearly spend, staffing and other statistics. You can get the report here from Bill.

Interesting article about how social media works inside enterprise.

Podcasting has become the second-largest social media vehicle at IBM, an executive told a Podcamp audience this weekend. George Faulkner, Advanced Communications Professional at IBM and one of its most visible podcasters, gave an enlightening overview of how IBM’s podcast library has grown and flourished with almost no internal promotion, and he shared some ideas other companies could learn from.

I like the viral nature of the promotion…it means people really WANTED to listen.