It’s good practice to appreciate your successes and learn from mistakes. Reviewing lessons learned and acknowledging co-workers is encouraged by such process gurus as the Project Management Institute. We were taken by a recent discovery: how Umbraco CMS is creating and embracing an asynchronous non-geolocated team of open source developers through shared “high fives” over Twitter.

Our History – You Rock Awards

You Rock Awards at Pure Visibility

We are a driven bunch, much more prone to notice and stew about the 5-10% that went wrong instead of the 90-95% that went right about a project. We started a practice to give each other public compliments and called them “pineapples” (for reasons you can read about on the Pure Visibility History page). Sometimes we even presented actual tasty pineapples to each other.

Toy porcupine, shared by eperales on Flickr

Over time, we decided to expand our practice to include “porcupines”, the inverse of a pineapple, something that was a learning event. We elected to share these to prevent teammates from going down a known dead-end path.

We like nuance rather than black and white, so we elaborated the taxonomy to include “pork-apples” (half porcupine, half pineapples) and “pine-u-pines” (half pineapple, half porcupine).

Or the more complicated and multi-faceted “yay-boo-yay,” a good thing with a bad surprise inside that has an OK resolution, or “boo-yay-boo”, a bad thing that seems to resolve but then reveals another problem underneath. These silly names got us talking about these things, and sharing solutions.

We have experimented a little with Twitter-like chat and messaging systems, where we can make these kinds of announcements to include remote team members in the celebrations and the lessons, but usage of these has faded after a short while. Institutionalizing this practice (everyone had to share a pineapple and a porcupine each week…) kind of deadened it and we got out of the habit.

Umbraco’s Approach

So, we were heartened to see this practice echoed and expanded immensely to Twitter (something many of our team members already use) by Umbraco CMS, an open source Content Management System. We haven’t actually seen an Umbraco CMS deployment, so we cannot comment on their product, but their process is fun and lighthearted.

They’re using Twitter, and the hashtag #h5yr (high five, you rock) to call out colleagues for successes. They’re also using Twitter and the hashtag #h5is (high five, I suck) to share lessons learned. What’s interesting is that instead of by reciting your errors by rote and educating the team about how to avoid your misdeed, there’s something light and positive about announcing that you rock for finding your own error.

Maybe it’s snarky  and self-deprecating when used by some, but I’m taking it at face value. I believe there is a victory in finding and correcting mistakes. I’ve always been an advocate of “making mistakes faster” – sharing work early and producing work iteratively to ensure that mistakes in understanding are corrected way before the end of the production process.

Anyway, see for yourself to interpret how it is being used by the Umbraco community by reading some recent posts on these sites:

• h5yr.com
• h5is.com

What I like is that it is shared, public, using a system that exists and is already in use, and lighthearted.

Hat tip to the Chief Happiness Officer blog.

What to Do When a Candidate asks to “Link In”

I Heart Job Offers Resume T-shirt by BlackBirdTees

What to Do When You’re a Facebook Friend of a Candidate?

An Age-Old Problem, with Heightened Visibility

Our Decision

Looking for More Guidance?

Pirates have taken over at PV! See below…

Subject: Avast! Pretty Kitty Time In Your August Burndown

Eric,

Yarrrrrgh!
I’m relaying this for Gayathri,
who I just made walk the PPC plank,
into the shark-infested Sea of Invalid Clicks.
She was a scurvy sea dog,
whose soul now wonders erratically in the Land of Lost Impression Share.
Her ghost is forever known as the Vixen of Vengeance,
and haunts those who do not participate on the PrettyKitty account.

To save you from her ghost,
and because I’m over allocated right now,
and because you have some extra time for this month,
five hours of time for PrettyKitty was transferred to your lane for this month.

According to my treasure map,
this account is paid for with golden doubloons!

You will probably not use all of these hours,
and that is not a problem.
But if anything comes up this month that involves PrettyKitty,
you’ll have the time for it.

Stay safe,
and always remember,
dead men tell no tales.

Swab the poop-deck!,

Brent  Bowles
Optimizer Prime / Pirate Search Analyst
Pure Visibility, Inc.

Now that Google+ has reached 20 million users, in order to stay in the social media game you’ll have four services to keep track of. Facebook and Twitter are the obvious big dogs. LinkedIn, the business social network, has been increasing in popularity and importance. With a huge number of initial sign-ups and very positive press, Google+ doesn’t seem to be going away. Most speculate that once more people start using big G’s new network and business pages are integrated, even more growth can be expected.

So how do you manage having a presence on four different social networks? There is no universally correct way. Everyone should develop their own strategy. To help find how others created theirs, I surveyed a group of marketers in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. All of them have a strong presence on multiple social networks. The survey asked which of the big four networks they use, what their strategy was, and what impact, if any, Google+ has had.

With these tips you can develop a social media strategy that works for you and effecively targets your audience of followers.

Facebook

Facebook Usage

With over a quarter-billion users, Facebook is the largest social network. One main difference from Twitter and Google+ is that, for both these networks people have to agree to follow each other in order to “become friends.” This fosters a more personal experience. Users tend to know each other before becoming friends.

The usage chart indicates how people surveyed use Facebook. Personal usage is on the far left in darker colors while Networking and Work is lighter and to the right. This same format is used to show usage for the other social networks. As you can see, most use Facebook for personal, family, and entertainment.

“…when I share things that are more personal or family oriented I sometimes go straight to Facebook.”

“Facebook is more oriented toward keeping up with friends and family relationships.”

“I use Facebook to post more about what I am doing and who I am doing it with.”

Twitter

Twitter Usage

Twitter is a mixed bag of sorts. Usage is spread fairly evenly except for family use. Twitter is the service that tends to “stay out of the way.” They provide a method for you to share 140 characters of thoughts or links with others. The rest is up to you. Even though it is a very simple, limited interface, people often find it the most confusing. Regular users often have found specific ways Twitter can deliver custom news or information to them.

“…I use it as an aggregator of news or stories from reporters/networks I enjoy, bloggers I read, music news I care about…”

“Twitter is just for fun – mostly just follow/tweet my hobbies.”

“(Twitter) has really allowed me to build my personal brand…”

“I often cross post from Twitter.”

People tend to find their own personal use for Twitter. Often times other services feed into Twitter so they may have personal and work topics in the same stream.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn Usage

LinkedIn promotes itself as the professional social network. Its more about creating a network of business associates. People you’ve done work for, companies you’ve worked at. Content can be shared but tends to be more focused to business news or the users related industry. You can see from the usage chart that there is a heavy lean towards networking and work.

“LinkedIn is only about professional networking…”

“I’m not posting entertainment stuff on LinkedIn…”

“I use (LinkedIn) for the forums and to keep a professional network. I rarely find the feed interesting but will regularly use it to see who is reading my profile and to have professional contacts…”

Besides being marketed towards professionals, LinkedIn does not allow you to share photos. One major reason it will always lean towards the work and not personal side of the usage chart.

Google+

Google+ Usage

Do a a Google Search and you will find dozens of reviews for Google+. It combines many features from each of the other big three. So how are people using it? How should you use it?

“Try not to post the same things on each network. Google+ is the only one that may cross that line…”

“Basically it is a good middle ground between Facebook and Twitter for me.”

“…with Circles I can be more precise in who I share with and really tailor content to that group.”

“I think I’ll enjoy it more when I start following the Twitter audience, bloggers, news, companies.”

“Google+ appears to be a composite of the major social media approaches.”

Finding Your Strategy

Your strategy needs to be your personal strategy. Many of those surveyed spoke on tailoring content to your audience. Keep track of who is following you and determine what would interest them.

“Create and build a personal brand through sharing content that is relevant to the audience, while still keeping one main thing in mind: BEING SOCIAL.”

This quote brings up another important point. Be yourself. You can turn off your followers if all you are posting “seven ways to…” or “top five reasons to…” links. Engage your audience. Respond to them. Let them see who you really are while still staying with in the boundaries of the specific social network.

“Be myself and always be transparent. Also, have fun with it!”

“I definitely think transparency is important, but that doesn’t mean post everything all the time. It just means to be aware of conflicting view points and to not get trapped in an echo chamber of similar content and people. This also allows for more interaction, and much more interesting discussion and connections.

So get out there, post, share, and have fun developing your personal social media strategy.

Google+ has a clean, fast interface

Google has been busy. The Panda 2.2 update, global release of the +1 button, and now the launch of their social network, Google+. The new service is directly challenging Facebook and their 700 million users. Does Google’s new social effort have a chance to compete? Here are a few reasons why Facebook may want to keep an eye on Google+.

Potential Integration with Android. 500,000 Android devices are activated each day. Google’s mobile OS is here to stay and is commanding a large share of the mobile device market. Google could bake Google+ features into future builds of Android to make sharing on your mobile device fast and easy. Take a picture and it is automatically uploaded to your profile in the background. Share with your friends a song you’re listening to. Easily link to an article you found online. Providing simple, intuitive features on a user’s mobile device could get them using Google+ on a regular basis.

Gmail has over 200 million monthly users. While this is a far cry from Facebook’s nearly three-quarter billion, its closer than other new services could get. Google accounts can also be used to log into a variety of services, something Facebook users can also do. Facebook will need to be careful of who Google partners with and what services can be logged into using Gmail credentials. Take Netflix for example. Recently Reed Hastings, Netflix’s Chief Executive, announced plans to join Facebook’s board of directors. This could be a sign of Netflix integration into Facebook. Netflix users watching a streaming movie could potentially “Like” the movie or share recommendations with friends. If Netflix or Hulu were to partner with Google+ instead, Facebook could see that as a threat to its share of the social landscape.

Microsoft is betting social search will be the next big thing. Their partnership with Facebook is in an effort to help your friends give you better search results. Google’s launch of the +1 button can directly compete with Bing’s new feature. While many search marketing professionals are waiting to see the effects of social on search, it is safe to say that Google is trying to keep up with Microsoft’s advancements.

It will take a lot of smart moves and time for Google+ to be true competition for Facebook. So far though it would be wise for Facebook to keep tabs on what Google is doing. In the end, competition between the companies is sure to bring on more features and improvements which will greatly benefit the users of both services.

Earlier this month, PV Catalyst Catherine Juon and I had the opportunity to speak about social media with the teams at Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. We discussed ways their businesses can leverage social media to build their online brand and connect with customers outside their stores.

Many of the Zingerman’s businesses had an existing presence in some social media, but were searching for new ideas and inspiration. Based on our own experience and research, we came up with recommendations that could be applied across many businesses.

A few of our top recommendations:

1. Put your users to work: Don’t spend too much time talking about your brand: let your fans do it for you! Ask open ended questions that encourage conversation.
2. Use social media as a place to carry over great customer service: People are sharing positive and negative feedback about your company, whether or not you’re there to react. Address negative comments in a timely manner, and you’ll have the opportunity to reverse a poor experience. You should also address positive comments, thanking people for their kindness and business, and letting them know you appreciate them!
3. Let users ‘virtually’ sample your food:They can’t taste or smell it, so we encouraged their team to post pictures with detailed descriptions so users get a feel for what to expect, and try something new on their next visit! Obviously this piece of advice is fairly specific to restaurants or other foodie companies, but regardless of your business, it’s important to be descriptive in your social media endeavors.

We went into more detail about how to take each of those recommendations to the next level for several social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare/Facebook Places, and YouTube), and how to tie all of the different activities together into one integrated strategy. When we left, store managers and marketers were buzzing about user generated video contests, posting for product feedback, and fun ways to use social media to draw crowds for special events.

If you’d like to discuss social media strategies, give us a call!

How popular is your new YouTube video going to be? Will your link make it to the front page of Digg? You may be able to estimate it after only 7 days and about 1 hour, respectively. Read More

Dear Hootsuite,

We love Twitter, professionally and personally. It is a fun way to stay connected, an effective way to share good news and to connect with others, and it can be part of a cross-medium SEO and relationship-building strategy.

We have used Hootsuite to manage multiple-user access to shared or enterprise accounts for a while now, and we wrote in 2009 how TweetDeck and Hootsuite are better together. Well, here’s the reason we’re writing you, dear Hootsuite. In the body of that post, we of course shared our passion for TweetDeck and then in comments section of that post, we expressed a preference for a competitor, CoTweet. And, we’re sorry about that, we really are.

You see, when we flirted with TweetDeck it was because of its ability to create lists and segment the Twitter streams we’re following into thematic groups. You do that now. And when we expressed our admiration for CoTweet, it was because we needed to be able to manage multiple users on multiple accounts, and Hootsuite, we think you would admit this yourself, that wasn’t your strength at that point. Yet, in the time since, you’ve really grown, and you’ve made that part simple and added other features that make you the Twitter client we recommend to our clients.

The source of our Ardor: Google Analytics Parameter Presets

Beyond those “keep up with the Joneses” type updates, you’ve really set yourself apart with your Google Analytics integration. We also love Google Analytics, it helps us measure the work we do for our clients, and it gives us lots of web data to dive into and extract value for our clients. And it makes us so happy that you and Google Analytics get along so well!

We often recommend the Google Analytics URL builder to help clients tag URLs used in campaigns for tracking. Well, in the excitement of sharing or scheduling a tweet, it can be hard to remember to paste in all of those parameters at the end. And so, we were thrilled to see the ability to set the parameters as a campaign default when any URL is shortened within your dashboard.

Request – Multiple Presets Please..?!

So, assuming you accept our apology, dear Hootsuite, would you be willing to listen to one pretty-please request?

We love the custom URL parameters so much that we want to use them ALL THE TIME, so we have a request for an extension or tweak to this functionality. You see, we would like to get more specific with our campaign names, well, because we’re hyper about analytics parameters. So, ideally the analytics custom presets would to be configurable at the level of of the account rather than the level of the entire Hootsuite dashboard. You see, if we’re tweeting for ourselves, tweeting for a client, or tweeting personally, we want to be able to use different campaigns to comply with their or our best practices. And, we would prefer not have to remember to reset them every time. We love the “set and forget” pleasure of having the preset there in the first place.

Anyway, Hootsuite, thanks for listening. We sure do appreciate the wise and helpful owl you’re turning out to be.

In case you missed it (maybe you’ve had your TweetDeck turned off or you don’t surf the Amazon best sellers list), Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness came out today.

Disclosure: I’ve long been a fan of Zappos. I have hard-to-fit feet, and I very much appreciate the selection and the easy returns they offer. I’ve also long admired their openness and their zest for fun. I was one of the bloggers who received free advance copies of Delivering Happiness. I wrote my (positive) review of the book on my personal blog.

What I wanted to discuss in this space was the multifaceted, organic social media hoopla surrounding the book launch.

One of Zappos core values is to Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication. And, this book launch is an illustration of that approach. And, it is a huge signal of the amount of trust Zappos has in its book and its brand to release many books to many bloggers and request honest feedback from across the blogosphere.

Aspects of the campaign

Inviting honest reviews

Ahead of the book launch, the website offered free advance copies to bloggers and provided us clear instructions for an honest review and where to link on the book’s website and Amazon. The Delivering Happiness Book website reader reviews page tallies reviews (though at the time of this writing the last update to that page was June 2, before the requested date to publish blog reviews). Perhaps more telling is that Yahoo Site Explorer sees 6,209 inlinks to the Delivering Happiness Book website as of today at 1:42. Click this link to see Yahoo Site Explorer has found more.

Strong Schedule Planning

1. Reviewers got clear instructions on when to publish their posts – we could have posted anytime, but were encouraged to post this week, today if possible, around the launch.
2. They’ve had happy hours each Friday leading up to the launch.
3. They’ve encouraged Meetup groups to form around the book launch week.
4. And they’re livestreaming the launch party from New York City.

Clear Calls to Action

1. Get connected – become a fan on facebook, follow them on twitter
2. Start a movement – take the pledge to act in ways to increase others’ happiness, instigate/attend a meetup to discuss the book (see above)
3. See encouraged links from reviews “inviting links”.

Now, these links are on the Delivering happiness book website. Why I believe it is valuable to reproduce them here is to illustrate how comprehensive the list is of ways to engage. Their strategy is open: it’s completely visibile and they’ve released their idea out to a larger community, to largely positive results.

Their strategy is also canny, because here on day one of the launch, they’ve had many reviews in blogs, on goodreads, and on Amazon itself, they’ve garnered many many mentions, building excitement. And, they’re doing it with clear calls to action. And, given the sales they’re seeing (#1 on Amazon.com), I would anticipate their advance planning is paying off in selling books and spreading their message.

This week, Twitter unveiled its new revenue model of ‘Promoted Tweets‘. I wondered, what do Twitters 105 million registered users, who make up 600 million searches per day, think of this sponsored advertising that will start to appear in their previously advertisement free space?

To answer this question, I went to our social media ‘listening tool’, Radian6, to take a deeper look into Twitter users reaction to this news since it broke. For this, I’ve hidden the neutral sentiment, which accounts for ~90 of all posts and are generally just links to articles describing the changes, and focus this post solely on the positive and negative sentiment.

It seems most twitter users (78%) that share their opinions on the subject have a positive reaction to it, while only 22% expressed a negative response. Let’s take a look at what some of the good and bad comments have to say:

-

Positive Comments

“Thinking of ways that OCHA (and the humanitarian community) could use Promoted Tweets to aid in the coordination of emergency response”

“Would prefer a promoted tweet in which i search for starbucks and kara thrace brings me a coffee. get to it, twitter”

“I think that Promoted Tweets have great potential to *improve* #marketing relevance: http://bit.ly/cLIbR6″

“Bravo will use Promoted Tweets to engage users on shows and will show some user tweets live on TV #aadigital”

“I really like @johnbattelle’s take on Promoted Tweets and resonance http://bit.ly/aCbuNI”

“Favs are dead. The new barometer of success will be Promoted Tweets. It’s like writing movie reviews and aiming for the box every time.”

“So now which firm will be first to claim paid tweet placement services for campaigns?: http://bit.ly/cdbPtt #twitterGetsRevenueModel”

-

Negative Comments

“Twitter unveils promoted tweets. Great, I start twittering and twitter starts advertising ”

“So far my impression of Twitter’s forthcoming ‘promoted tweets’ – one big pop up ad.”

“I hope twitters new ‘promoted tweets’ monetization scheme doesn’t cut into my earnings for plugging MORT’S DELI IN TARZANA.”

“I’m all for monetization but fail to see how paid tweets can be the answer. willing to look at it in action, but have serious doubts”

“I’d pay twitter for filters. Tonight I’d block Glee, Promoted Tweets, the # symbol, the letters RT, Lost and LOL.”

-

The way Twitter has decided to serve their ads seems very unintrusive, and if they’re actually targeted very well (unlike my experience with Facebook ads so far, which seem to think I’m in extreme need of registering for an online dating site and I should switch my career choice to being on the SWAT team), could actually be very helpful. A Starbucks sponsored tweet telling me which days I can get a venti chai for cheap? I’d love that!

In many ways, Twitter has been an advertising medium this whole time! A platform so well targeted, that it requires the user to sign up, and then seek out each advertiser they wish to follow. Hah, and you thought it was for micro-blogging…

@Moosejaw   consistently writes funny posts, but also push products and promotions.
@MichiganTheater advertises which new movies they’ll be showing this week.
@JoeNBC or @KeithOlbermann give me news updates, but they also promote their TV & radio shows every day
@NewScientist and @PitchforkMedia link me to their website with new and interesting articles, where they make money from ads
@RealTracyMorgan and @JennaMaroneyTGS promote the tv show 30Rock in their tweets

While many of the positive posts were a quick opinion of the idea of paid tweets, followed by a link to an article, it will be interesting to see how sentiment changes over time, and if people continue to complain over the course of the next few months as people become acclimated with Twitters new look. Buzz about this news seems to be dying down already, with the expected initial spike when it was first released, followed by a huge drop off only 24 hours later.

So, what are your initial reactions to the promoted tweets? Do you think it will succeed??