Maybe it was sparked by a new course I’m taking on digital media strategy, or some recent data on Twitter users and engagement,  but it got me to thinking about the big question of how Twitter is going to make money. I’ve come to the conclusion that advertising simply won’t work. Two reasons:

#1 – the domain where conversations happen is sacred

OK, ‘sacred’ might be a bit mystical, but think about it – we’re social creatures, and we’re practicing our fullest expression of being human when we’re engaging with others. Whether it’s exchanging tips, ideas, or gossip, the ability to share ourselves with another person is what being alive is all about. People refuse to have their space violated at that most fundamental level – where conversations happen – and the current online version of that space is Twitter. Continue reading →

We’ve entered into a new year, the channels have been flooded with list upon list of 2010 predictions and trends, and now we’re laying the foundations for how we’d like to characterize the times – David Houle is calling it the Transformation Decade, a tweet from @RitaJKing mentioned The Imagination Age, and Seth Godin rang in the new year with a post titled “Welcome to the frustration decade (and the decade of change).”

Organizations are still scratching their heads about how to implement a social media strategy into their business plan and how to measure ROI, educators are wondering how to bring it into the classroom, marketers want to spam the hell out of it, and the layperson just wants to connect and share.

There are many levels of experimentation going on in the space, and there will be for years. But I wonder, is there a bigger picture here that might indicate what all this means? Most of us here, who seem to co-exist on and offline, feel pretty comfortable that we “get” social media. Or we think we do. But do we really understand what these tools represent, and what they enable? I’d like to share my view of what seems to be happening. I’m going to try to provide a context and make some connections. If it seems unrelated at first, just bear with me, I’m going to do my best to bring it all home in the end. 🙂 Continue reading →

Thanks to all of you that have been exploring the social web with me over the past few months via this blog and on Twitter. We’ve done a lot of thinking about what Twitter is, how to use it effectively, whether there’s a decent way to measure social media ROI, and debating the merits of this medium as a credible source for information at all. It’s time to take theory to practice.

My 2010 experiment is to do a 6 month case study to really see what measurable results can be gotten from utilizing online channels. I’m taking a three-prong approach: a blog, Ning & Twitter. I haven’t had time to really explore Facebook or Linkedin or other networks, so instead of spreading my effort too thin, I’m sticking with the 3.

Rationale:

• A blog serves as an anchor point for you to share your knowledge or expertise and establish your personal or professional brand
• Ning is a platform for building your own niche social network. (Someone has already done the work of building a Ning site for our city, so I’m just going to continue being active there.)
• Twitter is… well, I’ve reflected on what Twitter is here and here. Twitter is whatever you want it to be. From a business perspective, it’s a communications platform for developing relationships with colleagues and potential clients, and for distributing the content from your blog.

Problem being addressed:

A few years ago, I was getting ready to buy my first house, and decided to get a real estate license so I’d know what they know. What I found was an industry operating in an outdated model with virtually no means for public accountability, making it a breeding ground for greedy, dishonest shysters. (subprime mortgage crisis, anyone?) Fast forward a few years, and the real estate industry is still ripe for an overhaul. Continue reading →