Arata Academy
How the good become better
The new kids
Aug 14th
Madonna did it. So did Britney.
You do not need to go that far.
One interesting thing in the music world is how old artists stay relevant and visible to younger generations and audiences by singing together with new artists. It is good business for the old artists but also for the new faces. Nelly Furtado, Eminem, Rihanna – the success formula is now a standard.
How do you team up with the newcomers in your industry?
What you need to know before reading The Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarrella
Aug 11th
The Social Media Marketing Book is an excellent read for those who have to start their work with social media. But before reading, here are some tips to make it more valuable and easy to follow up:
1. First steps
Before even starting to read the book, there are a few things that Zarrella does not tell us. Either he assumes we can take care of them by ourselves or that these are not relevant for the focus he chose for the book.
1.1 Managing your passwords
This is not included in Dan Zarrella’s book and I think it is essential.
You need to learn how to manage your accounts and passwords. Over the next days, you will create from 30 to 160 (not exaggerating!) accounts in different services, like Gmail, YouTube, Gravatar, Disqus, Yahoo/Flickr, Twitter, Hootsuite, Vimeo, Facebook, LinkedIn etc etc.
Now: if you are the type of person who uses the same username and password for all services, you are exposing yourself to more security risks every time you create a new account (chances of that information leaking increase).
If you are the type who memorizes a different password for each service, your brain will explode. And if it does not, you are just wasting a lot of energy juggling passwords around. And please do not write your passcodes in a piece of paper or on a Word document called passwords.doc. You know why this is not a good way to go.
The solution is to use a password manager. This software (you can Google around for recommendations) protects your login and passwords and automatically fills up the forms, so you only have to memorize your Master Password and never worry about other login/passwords. It is excellent.
1.2 Have an initial clear view of who you are
This is a complex and long point, but the most important part is that you should know why you are starting all this. Do you simply want to manage your digital presence (what people see about you when they throw your name on a Google search)? Do you have an ongoing business that needs more clients? Are you starting something new?
The answer to this will determine what username you will choose. The avatar. The tone (not only in terms of formality but also how you present yourself: a curious learner, a precise professor, the outrageous rebel, the naked businessman). Ideally, this tone is congruent to your personality – a key in authenticity.
Please take some minutes to reflect on this, and everything else will be much more easy, fast and fun.
1.3 Improve your search skills
When exploring all this, there will be times when you will get stuck. What the hell is a permalink? How do I configure my CNAME? Can I delete that tweet?
No book will ever tell you everything. You need to learn how to search. Today (August 2010) my favorite sources for “what is this” and “how to do that” are Google, Bing, Twitter Search, YouTube, forums and friends. There are others, but these will do the trick 99% of the time.
Google and Bing – you are familiar with these. Take your time to investigate the options of “Advanced Search” and you will be surprised.
Twitter Search – I will tell two stories.
The other day, Byline (my RSS reader on the iPhone) was giving me sync errors. I was thinking “What the hell – did the new iOS4 screw up my app?”. My theory for the error was that the new software update from Apple was causing a crash on my previously installed app. If that would be the case, there would be hundreds of people complaining on Twitter. So when I searched for “byline”, there was nobody. I was sure it was a problem on my installation so I reset it and it worked fine. Should it be however a problem with the new software version, I would have to be patient and wait for a new Byline update.
Twitter can also give you solutions. When the social network Ning decided to charge for its services, lots of users were complaining. Just by keeping a constant search column on Tweetdeck, you could see the evolution in the conversations and people slowly reporting to be shifting to Buddypress.
We will explore more on Twitter search later.
YouTube – there is plenty of “how to” videos out there. Do not assume your normal Google search will list them all as well as if you would be searching on YouTube directly.
Forums – you need to find which forums talk about themes you are interested in. Use Google/Bing to search for the forums – generally, they are open for new subscribers. Create your account, read what is already written and, should your question need a new answer, just write it down.
Friends – if you do not want to bug all your friends emailing them with questions they might not be able to answer, maybe you can use Skype status. Type “anybody can recommend a designer?” on Skype status and you will be surprised by answers. You can do the same on Facebook status. It is also okay to ask such questions in mailing lists moderately.
A Twitter client that can filter out tweets that have a link
Aug 7th
This would be on my wishlist. Sometimes checking my TweetDeck, I like to see not only what my favorite friends from specific lists (properly organized with a specific column) are talking about, but I want to connect to all of those who I follow.
And, as much as possible, I follow everyone back, except when I see that this can be a robot or someone who is really doing something I am not much interested in. For example, I have not been following anything on politics, sports, religion, cars and general news.
Recently I am considering also to add to my list of things I do not follow the “how to make money online”. Although I do follow (off-Twitter) what Susan Bratton, Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Jeff Walker and other intelligent people are doing, the simple fact of tweeting about digital marketing attracts followers who, if followed back, have made my “All Friends” column impossible to read.
One of the reasons is that this column is full of SPAM! And I call spam the tweets that are just about a headline of a blog post (of a place they own) and a om.ly, su.pr or bit.ly link.
Hello people.
I understand you need to sell your fish. And that tweeting about your blog content is part of the strategy. But if you are really doing a good work, you do not need to be pushing your RSS to the world on Twitter.
When I think of a great author like Seth Godin, I may think of following him if he has something to say on Twitter. But he does not. Seth has made very clear back in 2008 that Twitter is not his thing. And as the cost of automating was low, he uses it basically as an RSS – http://twitter.com/ThisIsSethsBlog
Now. I am a devoted fan of Seth. I read his books, watch his TED presentations and get the daily article on my RSS feed.
Why the hell should I follow Seth on Twitter?
I do not.
Seth has nothing to say on Twitter. He does not add any value, and that was his choice.
The current Seth profile on Twitter can make sense if you want an easy way to RT his content or if you use Twitter instead of an RSS.
My wild guess is that those who started to follow me (triggering me to follow them back) is that they have the following rationale (they may even call it a strategy):
1. search for people tweeting about digital marketing
2. follow them (if possible, automate/outsource)
3. hope they will follow you back
4. SPAM (automatically RSS your content on Twitter)
5. hope that those who followed you back will read your stuff, and click on the links
A feature on a Twitter client that would ONLY show me the tweets without any pitch (i.e. links) would help me a lot in engaging “the conversation”.
Any recommendation?
What are the benefits of being an early adopter? The Google Wave lesson
Aug 5th
Yesterday, Google said goodbye to Google Wave: no further development will be done, which means that it will stay as it is but there will not be any further improvement on the platform (you can still use it though).
I cannot resist to have my schadenfreude moment.
Not because I am a schadenfreudish character, but rather because the Google Wave fail confirms a belief I have – and it is always good when our beliefs are reinforced, right?
The early adopter productivity backlash effect
Here is the belief: today, it does not pay to be an early adopter. Of any product or technology.
The reason is that as companies struggle to be the cutting edge leader of innovation, there is too much noise. Too many great products. Too many apps, ideas, software, gadgets. If you are an early adopter type, you will live your life searching for invitations for the next beta product from Google and the thousand other companies trying to rise from the noise.
We think that using this new idea (Google Wave, for example) will increase our productivity and give more results. That we will enjoy more the process. And that we will benefit from more free time to do other things we love.
But then, the idea does not tip. Your Friendster profile is now digital rubbish, just like your MySpace profile and all the hours invested to choose the right background, the cool MP3 songs to play and show how interesting you are. You struggled for a Joost invite, even without knowing what it was. You find frustrating to know that not many people out there in the world use the Bump App and then have to stick to the old-fashioned business cards.
Time to get an iPhone (a 3GS)
It was only a couple months ago that I got my first iPhone – and I love it. Does most of the things I need, for a very low investment of time. Before being called an Apple fanboy who surrenders to the limiting world of Apple, I explain that my previous mobile was a Samsung Omnia running Windows Mobile.
Yes, it was highly configurable. I could do nearly everything on that piece that I got back in 2008. In fact, it was so customizable that it was a big headache to simply make the wi-fi work, to the point that I did not even bother sometimes. As a user, I do not want to waste my time figuring out the differences between PSK PSA WEP WEP2 or whatever acronyms to do something that should be invisible to me in case I just want it to work.
So that is the reason I went for the iPhone. It is more limited, but it does the trick. And, not being a early adopter who wants to sweat to have the latest technology on my fingertips, it was the adequate solution.
But when I was heading to the store, people around me were mesmerized: why not wait a few weeks for the iPhone 4?
Well, as the story showed, there were complaints about elements on the new iPhone antenna. Once again, this is a problem that the early adopters suffer to alert the next wave of latecomers, who can schadenfreude around, avoiding hassle and piggybacking on the pain from early adopters.
What about Google Wave?
So when I saw so much euphoria around Google Wave in 2009, my late adopter brain got the cognitive dissonance irritation. I thought to myself: “here is another waste of time that will soon be forgotten… or not”. I decided to wait, doing schadenfreude voyeurism on those asking everywhere for an invite, and others proudly talking around how they were so cool and had invites, and were using the thing.
Then there was the YouTube video that I decided not to watch for being more than one hour long:
But after so many people talking about it, I decided it was already about time to investigate a little more how this would be useful in my life. I cannot recall exactly at which minute on the presentation above this happens… but when you look, the audience starts to clap when the demonstration does “real time typing”… something like ICQ did a decade ago. All my red flags for collective hysteria were raised and then I closed the YouTube video and returned to my Google Wave-free life.
Until yesterday 
Goodbye Google Wave. Thanks for reassuring me that it does not pay to be an early adopter in a world with abundant innovation.
What the fuck is my social media strategy?
Aug 4th
It is very funny how common sense gets converted to hype through buzzwords.
One example, from social media marketing, is here: http://whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com/
I wonder how a similar use of this random association of jargon would work for Internet governance talks that seem to repeat hot air time and time again.
The New and the Old
Jul 29th
So I mentioned that I am at the 4th European Summer School on Internet Governance in Meissen, but I simply had no time to blog about it.
But at least I can write this short post: we have some country presentations where participants can talk about their national background and perspectives for the Internet development.
It was mentioned how Estonia is leading the way with eVoting, free public wi-fi in cities and forests across Estonia and how one can pay the parking fee on the street by sending an sms from the mobile.
Instead of enthusiasm, this brought concerns.
Concerns about how citizens can be sure that the government will assure the anonymity of the voting process, etc.
Then it was time for Iceland to showcase the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative for becoming a global haven for freedom of speech.
Instead of enthusiasm, this brought concerns.
Concerns about how it is now a time where global havens (Switzerland, exotic islands) are being pressured by the global community to play the same game as everyone else and how Iceland is just asking for trouble as other countries may not enjoy this.
What are you doing today that will bring concerns instead of enthusiasm?
European Summer School on Internet Governance 2010
Jul 23rd
I’ve been invited to the European Summer School on Internet Governance in Meissen, Germany and hope to share some materials here.
Particularly, from the Programme, I am interested in covering the following themes:
- China and Internet Governance
- Cloud computing, mobile Internet and the Internet of things: challenges of the next generation Internet
- Business and Internet governance
- Internet governance and bridging the digital divide
- Intellectual property and privacy issues in Internet governance
- Internet diplomacy, multistakeholderism and the role of government
- The Internet of the future
- The European Union and Internet governance
- Internet governance challenges of tomorrow
More news soon.
Google Analytics plugin for WordPress – install in 5 minutes step by step
Jul 20th
It is so easy to install Google Analytics on my WordPress self-hosted blog that I can even do it in a restaurant drinking a beer and waiting for my dinner.
To prove my point, here is the real time step by step process video. It is not for dummies, because you are a smart person (I like O’Reilly ‘s approach “by and for smart people” in contrast to the “Complete Idiots Guide to”).
[Book] The Social Media Marketing Book, Dan Zarrella – Introduction
Jul 20th
O’Reilly publishes great books and The Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarrella is worth a series of posts here. Before reading anything, the first thing I do is to take a look at what people are saying on the Amazon.com page for the book – http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Marketing-Book/dp/0596806604
(To do that, just type the name of the book and also the “site:amazon.com” on your Google query as in the image below)
The introduction, however, was not very compelling. Dan goes through a list of examples on how big business, small companies and individuals are using social media. It is a quick read, but one that does not add much value. Intros are not very easy to write – and the positive highlight I can make about this one is that it was very short and to-the-point.
Over the next days I will be writing more about this book.
Light social plugin: How to add social media sharing buttons on your WordPress blog
Jul 18th
Here is the how-to tutorial video on how to add social media (Twitter, Digg, Stumble Upon, Facebook…) sharing buttons to your WordPress self-hosted blog.
What is this?
Have you ever seen those tiny icons just at the end of a blog post that, when clicked, allow you to share the content on different services? Ever wanted to have them in your self-hosted WordPress blog?
The solution is very easy and there are many plugins that can do that. Today I randomly chose “Light Social” as a plugin to make this. I am not sure if this is the best plugin for my blog but I just do not feel like investing the time to do lots of research to know which one is the best.
There are a few icons of services I never used before (like Buzz This or DZone) but maybe there are readers out there who may like this. It may not be perfect, but since it has Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook, then is definitely good enough.
Do you recommend a different solution? Let me know on the comments!