Online reputation: Why social media tells us so much

January 31, 2010 By 1 Comment

Social media creates a powerful impression of the person behind the ‘front’

This is a relatively famous person tweeting a couple of days ago. Some of you may be following her and you may recognise the profile or the tweets.  I’ve hidden her name and face because the purpose of this post isn’t to attack her reputation. However, despite going some way to disguise her identity, anyone with 20 seconds to spare can find out who this is.

That’s how social media is.

What impression do you get from those two tweets?

Maybe this person was trying to be humorous but forgot to put a self-effacing ‘lol’ or smiley at the end. Having followed her for a few weeks, however, I doubt it.

The point is that it doesn’t matter.  In social media, the damage is done the minute you hit the ‘tweet’ button.

Filed Under: online reputation management, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Online reputation: all your traces in one lump

January 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Why is online reputation so important? Because the web puts all the traces you leave together in one big pile for people to make a judgment about

Once apon a time, you went somewhere, did something in the real world. Whatever you did, you left traces.  Footprints, DNA, garbage, bits of paper, notes, recordings..  But whatever traces you left stayed where you left them.  The only way somebody else would find those traces would be if they took the same journey as you; if they literally ‘re-traced’ your steps.  That’s why Columbo was such fun. That’s why the TV ‘serial killer’ was all the rage in the days before Google.

Your reputation was the same.  Because it was either ‘word-of-mouth’ or ‘old-fashioned-media’ it could be different in different places.  In this village you might be thought of as a scoundrel.  In that City, a respectable member of the community.  Unless you got into the broadcast media, the traces of your behaviour tended to stay where you left them – visible only to the people directly affected by them.

But things are different now – very different.

Google brings the traces of everything you’ve ever done online together into one big, steaming lump.  And very soon, Google will be adding everything you’re doing right now – every Tweet and every Facebook update – to the pile in real time.

What does that mean, Lt. Columbo? I’m glad you asked that question, Sir, I really am.

What it means is that people nowadays assess your reputation from the bigger picture they get when they look at that pile, not from any single thing in it.

Your online reputation – how someone perceives you – is the sum total of the following 3 risk factors:

  1. The things you choose to say about yourself (your websites, blogs, profiles etc)
  2. The traces you leave of yourself (your participation in any online discussions, activities etc)
  3. The things that other people choose to say about you (customers, critics, friends, enemies)

The real problem for most people is that they only really give their online reputation any thought when something significant happens in the 3rd risk area i.e. someone starts maligning them or their business on a blog or a forum.  My clients are invariably reeling from the shock of finding themselves under attack when they contact me.

Of course there is plenty we can do at that point to repair the damage and build a stronger reputation to limit the damage of any future attacks – and there’s nothing like being in a bit of discomfort to focus the mind on the issue.

Of course, the secret is to think about your online reputation before you come under attack.

So, to sum up: take notice of the fact that from here on in,  Google WILL bring together everything you do and say online for people to form an instant – and lasting – impression of you.

And start behaving accordingly ;-)

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, online reputation management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘mu:kaumedia’s Sam Deeks proud to have helped at Davos

January 30, 2010 By 2 Comments

Sam Deeks proud to have used social media to get a difficult issue in front of a world audience at Davos

Two weeks ago my friend Julia Lalla-Maharaj heard about the YouTube Davos competition.  Activists all around the world were invited to create video pitches for the issues or campaigns they felt most passionate about.  The YouTube community and a panel of 3 world-renowned speakers would be the judges. The prize for the winner would be the chance to debate their issue with world leaders at the World Economic Forum at Davos this past week.

Having given up her career to campaign against the painful and repressive tradition of female genital mutilation (FGM), Julia jumped at the chance, only just making the deadline to film her video pitch.

Next, we hurriedly bought the domain www.endfgmnow.org and set up email addresses. A friend made a holding page that outlined the basic campaign aims.

Then, suddenly, to her surprise, Julia made the last 5 shortlist. The YouTube community voted away like mad.  Some of the shortlisted campaigners had huge YouTube communities behind them (one had 250,000 followers at the start of the race).  Others, like Julia left the starting blocks complete unknowns.

A friend’s flat became campaign HQ.  First line of attack was Twitter – creating a new account and leapfrogging quickly to follow a huge web of influential women who might be interested in FGM and the chance to take an issue about empowerment for women to the centre of a global stage.

Within a few days, we were following a couple of thousand key people – and being followed back by about 1/4 of those.  Julia and her team pulled all the best strings from her years as a communications / PR consultant in London and all the links she’d made in her work volunteering in the 3rd sector.

If you believed the YouTube view count, Julia’s capaign didn’t stand a chance of winning. But I was confident that it wasn’t about clicky numbers from an invisible audience, or nice-sounding campaigns with palatable aims like making the whole world feel a bit better.  The organisers were clearly looking for an issue that was real and focused enough for a group of influential – and powerful – people to have a meaningful debate about on a world stage.

Which is why Julia’s pitch won. Suddenly, the Google film crew were at the flat making a ‘Davos Diary’ and the interviews and news features began in earnest.

We quickly installed a WordPress blog on the www.endfgmnow.org domain and began to fill it with video content and the occasional emailed text blogs from Julia (who by this time was whirling around Davos getting into the black books of the likes of Bill Clinton, the Gates, Klaus Schwab, Paulo Coehlo and a whole host of others).

The campaign came to a climax today with a live YouTube streamed debate exploring how the different nations can work together to end FGM – and end it soon.

It was great to see social media playing its part in this campaign in a powerful and refreshingly unself-conscious way.  This wasn’t about cute, cool social media gazing at its own navel.  It was about getting things done in a real, offline world.

But it was only when I was watching the debate live from Davos this afternoon and I heard Julia say “…and that will be on my site shortly” that it hit me that she was talking to me, sitting on my sofa in Devon with one eye on the YouTube window and the other on the tweaks I was making to the End FGM Now site.

It’s at moments like that I see how amazing tools like WordPress and Twitter really are and – despite the nerdy frustration they can bring and the cringe-inducing self-obsession – how empowering they can be.

Filed Under: Benefits of blogging, WOW! Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Expo Guide and World Business Directory: Could Twitter kill off these nasty scams?

November 5, 2009 By 2 Comments

Could the wisdom of the business crowd decide the fate of Expo Guide and World Business Directory?

TwitterMonsterThe challenge

You’ve arrived here because of my Tweet about the Expo Guide and World Business Directory scams.  First of all, thanks for coming.  Second, I’d like to invite you to take part in an experiment.  Could Twitter kill these nasty scams stone dead?

Have a look at the evidence (below) and if you want to play a part in stopping these scammers, then please RT the Tweet that brought you here to people in your network and let’s see if we can help stop people getting ripped off.

The Scam

As some of you may already know the world of business is still being swept by a family of scams which deliberately set out to fool people into inadvertently signing expensive contracts they don’t want.  An early and well documented version of this is what’s known as the “Construct Data scam” originating from Austria.  The most recent variants of this scourge are European City Guide, Expo-Guide and World Business Directory.

How it works

  • You get a letter in the post (or email with pdf attachment) from the company.  It’s designed to make you think they’re offering you a free listing in their online directory.  It asks you to sign and stamp the form.  You do and send or email it back
  • Nothing happens for a while
  • A couple of months later you get a demand for something in the region of €3,000
  • Their demands direct you to the form where – for the first time – you notice to your horror the tiny, faint small-print saying “signing and stamping this form constitutes a contract for 3 years entry into our directory at c. €900 per year..”.
  • A couple of months later, you start getting various demands.  Eventually, you get formal letters from a debt collection agency.  Now you start to worry.  What if they take you to court?  What if your boss finds out?
  • You write back to the company saying it’s a rip-off and you don’t feel you should have to pay.  Eventually, they graciously agree to let you off with just one year’s fee out of three.  Maybe you pay up so you can put this whole traumatic episode behind you.

This scam has been running for years and shows no sign of stopping.  Why?  Because there will always be enough people out there who can be bullied or shamed into paying some – if not all – of this extortionate fee.

Governments seem to have little or no interest in stopping it.  Watchdogs aren’t particularly bothered.  It’s down to a few individuals like Jules Woodell to campaign against it – see http://stopecg.org/ and http://stopecg.blogspot.com/ for a thorough history of all the main mutations of this scam.  For my own posts on the subject (and to read more than 50 comments from victims) click here.  You’ll get some idea of the kind of worry and distress this scam causes.

This scam is real and current and it’s costing business people like you and me a lot of money, stress and worry.  This site gets 20+ new visitors every day searching for help on this issue – most of whom are new victims of the scam from all over the world.

Personal

For your information, I didn’t get stung personally by these scams (too long in the tooth!).  However, like millions of others, I regularly receive their scammy emails.  My motivation is to use the blog / Google platform to mess up their operation a bit and prevent others from being ripped off ;-)

Filed Under: scam, scam warning, Scambusters!, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Life, the Twitterverse and Everything

November 1, 2009 By 2 Comments

“I love this tool for cleaning up follower issues. Cannot live without it”

Saw this comment in a Tweet just now. The words “Can’t live without it” keep ringing (or is that ‘twinging’?) in my ears. This person is talking about some bit of software that let’s them prune their follower list…or something. Which is kind of amusing since most people using Twitter seem to be in a hurry to get as many followers as possible as quickly as possible.

Its not just the crazy sense of perspective in that Tweet. It also reminded me how self-referential the Twittersphere has become; how obsessed with itself and technology it is. And how grand it’s sense of it’s own place in history and its power to shape current affairs and even democracy itself.

Twitter is fascinating to watch, for sure. I read in the paper today one of the founders likened creating Twitter to putting a bat and a ball into a jungle clearing and hiding while the natives invented baseball.

Have people really reached a point where they can’t live without it? It looks like some have. Personally, I’m teetering at a point where the prospect of stopping using it is almost as attractive as using it, as I did with Facebook some months back.

Filed Under: change, history Tagged With: , ,

Even Twitter will die….

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Twitter WILL pass away

It will.  One day in the not too distant future, we will look back and cringe.  One day, Twitter will be history.

Personally, I’ve suddenly lost interest in Twitter and I’m at that ‘I think I might just de-activate’ stage’.  One more foot firmly OFF the social media bandwagon.

So what’s the matter with Twitter?  Well, nothing, really.  What’s wrong is me.  I’m just bored with the same people talking the same stuff every day.  No offense, everyone, but I’ve had it up to here with the endless chatter about social media.  And that includes me, by the way.  I’m fed up reading Tweets from people whose lives consist of lurching from one drink after another (do they really have no idea they have a problem?) and I’m tired of the whole undercurrent of small businesses looking to Twitter as a kind of Holy Grail of how to make money.

And the problem with Twitter is that if you’re bored with reading (or writing) the same stuff every day, it seems that there are only two real options open to you: either follow more people or get off the bus.  Since I don’t want to do more of something that doesn’t interest me any longer, I guess the only option is to get off.

And that’s ok because as I get older, I find I like solitude, peace and stillness more and real life as opposed to life experienced through piddly little screens.  And I also have less and less important or grandiose to say and less of an urge to say it these days.  I’m less concerned with how popular I am  or how many followers I’ve got.  I’m not sure I can even be bothered to blog any more or worry about a website.

Eckhart Tolle says that things aren’t a problem until we start seeking ourselves in them.  A work colleague of mine in London the other day spontaneously announced she had suddenly woken up and realised how much she hated the person she had become since using Facebook: vain, egotistical and self-obsessed.  Hungry and addicted.

I think I’ve reached a point where NOT doing things is becoming much more attractive than doing them.  Like NOT having to upgrade;  NOT talking about ‘social media’ all the time; NOT Tweeting; NOT needing the latest laptop or the newest phone; NOT chasing top Google spots; NOT worrying about followers, subscribers and hits or how to monetise traffic.

Ahhh. Can you imagine it?

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, Twitter, what do you think? Tagged With: , , , ,

Twitter staff don’t get high on their own supply

June 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

liotta1Twitter staff not taking own medicine, reports ReadWriteWeb

I wonder why?

Could it be that they’ve got better things to do? Like doing stuff in real life? Or planning what to do with all that lovely money they’ll make when someone eventually buys Twitter?

A post in ReadWriteWeb asks why Twitter staff seem to be using Twitter in a very different way from everyone else.

Something tells me that this won’t be a popular view, but I think that social media are inherently addictive in nature and deliberately so.  They’re designed to plug into the ego and to ‘fix’ how we feel about ourselves. Twitter is the new cigarette: once you started, you just can’t stop.  Sure you can.  Go on then.

‘Don’t get high on your own supply’ was the watchword of the smart drug dealer of the 1980s. Watch ‘Goodfellas’ and you’ll understand why.

The mark of a true dealer is he that gives enough away for free to build a customer base that can’t do without his stuff – yet stays in control by not using himself.  The mark of a true addict is how ferociously he/she fights to defend his need to use what the dealer supplies.

What do you think?

Read the ReadWriteWeb post here.

Filed Under: critical approach to online media Tagged With: , , ,

A guide to Social Media for absolute beginners

June 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Welcome to our shorthand guide to Social Media for beginners…and I mean ‘beginners’

What is all this about social media?  Why is everyone talking about it?  What’s it for?  What could you use it for? What are the dangers? And where’s it all going to end?

What is ‘Social media’?: Stuff that people create and share through online networks.

What are ‘Social Media tools’?: Software applications designed to allow people to network online and share their own and other peoples’ content

Why’s everyone talking about it?: Because pretty much everyone can do it and is doing it.  Because the possibilities for marketing products, services – and ideas – through Social Media appear to be immense.  However… (see last point, below)

What’s it for?: It’s definitely about making money. Social Media people are always talking about ways to ‘monetize’ Social Media sites and the content produced through them.  And it’s also about connecting people in networks of niche interest.

What could you use if for?: You could use it to build or connect to networks of people who might be interested in  your products and services.  You could use it to find out things you need to know from a particular niche (or market).  You could use it to add some colour to your persona online and build relationships with existing customers and prospects.  Or you could use it to keep people in your huge, multinational organisation connected and up-to speed with the latest developments.

What are the dangers?: On the one hand, Social Media is an open, democratic network of people connecting with each other and creating and sharing content.  Nice.  On the other hand, it’s all about creating revenue for Google.  Why? Because all online content ultimately turns into data for people like Google and Facebook to monetize through online advertising and other people (affiliate marketers and small business bloggers) to monitize through affiliate schemes and other things.

What does that mean?

It means that whatever else Social Media is about, it’s not primarily about creating a better world of communication for you and your mates.  It’s driven by people looking to monetize it.  Including you, if you’re a small business wondering how you’re going to use Social Media.

Where’s it all going to end?: “We’ll be successful when you guys stop talking about us” said a Twitter boss recently.

Teenagers don’t talk about ‘Social Media’.  To them, it’s invisible. They just talk to their mates on it.  The people who talk about it are the people trying to make money out of it; whether it’s the ‘work-at-home’ people, the ‘get-rich-quick’ dreamers, the affiliate marketers, the online developers or just plain, regular businesses.

It will all end when people realise that there’s no ‘get-rich-quick’ and this madness dies down.  Just as you can’t all be at the top of Google for a competitive keyword, very few of you can make a fortune out of Twitter either.  Hell, even Twitter hasn’t been able to do it -yet.

Real-world networking doesn’t work when you try to use it to sell your products and services (unless you’re a bully) and nor does Social Media.

The problem is, there are literally hundreds of millions of desperate people trying to do it as a way out to beat the system and make a fortune.  That alone guarantees that Social Media will be stuffed to the gills with junk content and spammers trying to sell you stuff ranging from the unwanted to downright fraudulent.

For me, the promise of social media is its potential for developing relationships – and in that, nothing has changed since the good old days.  What we’re seeing is the first rush of prospectors to a place where the gold is pretty thin on the ground and we already know the names of those sitting on the rich veins.

And the real implications for Social Media are barely even being talked about yet.  What are the implications of one or two businesses sitting atop the richest, deepest, most personalised resource of freely-given global marketing data ever amassed?

Go figure, as they say.

Good luck!

Filed Under: critical approach to online media, marketing, media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Qwitter: If you leave me now…

May 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Wonder who’s leaving you… and why?  Try Qwitter.

If only for the great graphics and sweet little animation on their site.  And no, it’s not about ego.  It’s about seeing how other people are reacting to what you’re offering.

In the world of Twitter, nobody’s going to stop to give you feedback.  Like unhappy customers they vote with their feet or unfollow or block buttons.

Want to know who’s leaving you?  Give Qwitter a try.

Filed Under: feedback Tagged With: , , ,
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