I’ve been very active on Twitter for about four years now and I would say the aspect that has changed the most in that time is the explosive popularity of Twitter Chats. Twitter Chats have become an important networking and sales tool. In fact, you can even make money off of Twitter chats. So let’s take a deep dive into this important social media trend.

The idea behind a Twitter Chat is very simple. A group of people with a common interest gather together at a designated time to share ideas and discussion. The chat is united by a “hashtag” so that all can follow along. For example, #CMChat gathers people who are in the country music business and #CookingChat brings together cooking enthusiasts. There are chats for every imaginable interest and the list is growing all the time.

There are several powerful benefits of chats:

• Chats are a great place to learn and exchange ideas with like-minded individuals from around the world.
• It is an excellent place to meet interesting new contacts. When you find a chat that you like, it would be a good idea to follow these individuals and perhaps even create a list of the chat members.
• Chats are a great place to gain awareness for your own brand and ideas.
• Participating in chats creates connections and content that can enhance your personal influence.
• A company, brand, or individual can establish a voice of authority by creating and leading a chat.
• Chats have become so popular, some companies are paying advertising fees to sponsor them. Yes, you can make money from a Twitter chat!

So how do you get started?

The first thing to do is find a relevant chat. The best way to keep up with this dynamic list is to google “Twitter chat schedule” and you will find a detailed list of chats by subject, day, and time. It will also list the leaders of the chat and provide a link to the most recent session.

Once you pick your chats, there are a couple ways to participate. First, follow the people who run these chats and get their updates on upcoming chats. When the chat is scheduled to happen, you can search for the designated hashtag in Twitter. The best way to follow along is to use a free service like TweetChat or TwitterFall, platforms specifically designed to enhance your Twitter chat experience.

A word of warning: On the most popular chats, the tweets may be coming at a furious rate! It can be challenging to follow when there are concurrent conversations occurring.

Participation is key for reaping the benefits of Twitter chats. Ask and answer questions, add insight, discuss. These are usually very open and friendly forums, so don’t be worried about posting a “stupid” comment or question.

Many times, there are pre-determined questions and the moderator will pose these in the form of this example: Q1 What is the best way to get value from a Twitter chat? Participants answer accordingly: A1 One idea is to participate actively and help newcomers.

Creating your own chat

Hosting your own chat can be a fun and rewarding way to create community around your ideas and subject matter. Let’s walk through the steps of creating a new Twitter Chat.

Set-up

First, I would want to secure a descriptive hashtag. At www.Twubs.com you can see if your hashtag has already been taken and secure one for your chat.

Once you have a unique name, it would be a good to reserve a Twitter handle for the chat.

To promote the chat, you may want to create a homebase on Facebook, LinkedIn group, or blog where you can make announcements and post completed conversations.

You’ll also need to pick a time and regular date for the chat. Every Monday? The second Tuesday of the month? Find a date that fits your schedule because as the moderator, you are creating a long-lasting commitment to your community. Some chat communities have co-moderators, or even shared responsibility among all the members.

Planning the content

In preparation for your first chat, you’ll want to personally invite a few friends to get the momentum going. Create enough topic questions ahead of time to propel at least 30 minutes of chat. Involve your community in choosing topics and questions. Other chats are just free-flowing with no assigned agenda. It’s just a place to meet and touch base.

Many chats feature special guests who help answer questions and engage with participants. So for example, I have been a guest “speaker” on book chats, marketing chats, and leadership chats to name a few. If you are asked to be a guest on a chat, be sure to have the prepared questions ahead of time so you can get ready with a at least a few tweetable responses. It can be quite challenging to keep up with the pace of conversation with coherent 140-character responses!

Post-chat and promotion

As the moderator, you are creating some very valuable, shareable content so be sure to capture this. There are several free platforms to do this including ChirpStory and Storify. You can post this content on your Facebook or blog and then promote this content to attract new members.

Promoting a link to your homebase in industry publications, social media outlets and related forums is another way to find people who might be interested in the topic.

Another best practice is to email a transcript to your community members after the chat. This will serve as a reminder of the next chat and also keep people in the loop even if they miss the event.

During the chat, everyone participating will be tweeting with the hashtag in the tweet. Just the act of having the chat is a great way to promote the event. I’ll often pop into a chat when I see an interesting hashtag pop up. As long as you stick to a consistent schedule and provide interesting content, your attendance will pick up over time.

Just like everything else, Twitter chats have limitations. The 140 character maximum can limit the depth of a commentary and even good ideas can get lost in a big chat. Still, the serendipitous connections you make in these forums are often more important than the content of the chat.

What have I missed? How do you get value from Twitter Chats? Positives and negatives? Tips you can share?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

A long, long time ago I had to pick an online platform to store my photos. What better brand name to trust with your photos than Kodak, right? Wrong.

For a century Kodak WAS photography. The tech. The fun. The innovation.

I was saddened, but not surprised that Kodak announced yesterday that its photo-sharing site has been sold to Shutterfly as part of its Chapter 11 fire sale. What an amazing turn of events for this once proud and dominant company. How could a brand that strong lose it so fast?

The company had everything it needed to succeed. The name. The technology. The resources. And yet in a decade the global brand has been decimated.

Kodak never really “got” the digital revolution did it? When they started charging me an annual fee to store my photos, I knew the end was near for them. What a stupid move. The adjacent revenue they could have achieved from selling prints and stuff like photo mugs and calendars would have been enormous. But they needed to have the photos — and the owners of the photos — intact and engaged on their site. Instead of focusing on making it fun and great, they went for the quick bucks and lost.

Over and over, they tried to “re-invent” themselves, to no avail. Last month they exited the digital camera business. Now their patents are up for sale. When it’s all over, I don’t even know if there will be any company left.

Any way, here is the official announcement I received from Kodak:

Although I am sad to announce that our Kodak-branded service will be closing on July 2 as a result of this sale, I am very pleased to announce that we have found a strong partner in Shutterfly. They offer a market leading user experience that mirrors ours in many ways, and many of the services and products that you enjoy today on Kodak Gallery can also be found at Shutterfly.com. Their services include free, unlimited storage and 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee. Working together, we will securely transfer your account photos to them free of charge. We are absolutely committed to making this transition as smooth and easy as possible.

For well over a decade, Kodak Gallery has operated with a mission to make it easier for people around the world to celebrate their Kodak moments through photo-sharing, photo-product creation, and more recently, innovative new mobile photo experiences. Now, it is our top priority to ensure that your images and confidential information are kept private and secure as they move from our site to Shutterfly. And of course, although Kodak Gallery is transitioning, the Kodak brand you love and trust remains.

Don’t you mean the Kodak brand I USED to trust and love?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

At the recent Social Slam conference, there was a ton of inspiring content from some of the greatest marketing minds around. And yet to me, the sentence from the day-long conference that has lingered in my mind came from the least-known speaker of the day. She is not a marketer. She is not a social media expert. In fact, Social Slam was the first social media conference she had ever attended.

I invited Dr. Alice Ackerman, a pediatrician and college educator from Virginia Tech University, to relate her inspiring story of how she was connecting to her community through social media. She told the audience of her introduction to the social web through The Tao of Twitter and of her struggles to get approval to blog from the university medical community. She persevered and eventually got the go-ahead, but finding an audience for her blog posts was another matter.

Much of her first blogging efforts were aimed at educating the community on the importance of childhood vaccinations. But she had some doubt as to whether she was making an impact. She displayed a chart displaying the lowly results of her blogging efforts. For more than a year, her posts limped along. In fact, she averaged 4.5 readers a day.

And then something magical happened when she received this tweet:

Dr. Ackerman is the person who changed my mind once I read her blog and her links. I had no idea that info existed.

And it was at this point that Dr. Ackerman delivered the line at the conference that received a thunderous applause from all the hard-working bloggers in attendance:

“Yes, I only had 4.5 readers a day on my blog … but I had an impact on one of them.”

I thought this was a profound lesson on many levels.

• “Citizen Influencers” are using the power of online publishing tools to make a difference in unexpected ways
• You never know when your words are making an impact
• Tenacity, commitment, and patience make the difference in social media success

I think this is an inspiring message for any blogger out there. What do you think? Are you making a difference in big and small ways?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this video interview with Mitch Joel.

Mitch Joel rocks. He really does. You may know him as a blogger, podcaster and author of the seminal book Six Pixels of Separation but he is also a business leader, husband, father and generous friend.

You are going to LOVE this short video interview because Mitch reveals plans for his new book. It really sounds amazing. “Re-boot your company, re-boot yourself.” Yeah, I can dig that.

He also has some very interesting observations on the writing process itself.

Enjoy!

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

As I teach and speak, I start to see certain themes in the questions I’m asked. Here are the most common questions I am asked about blogging and some answers!

How do I get started with blogging?

• Start with your strategy. What are you trying to do and why? What does “success” look like to you? Money? Community? Actions? New friends?
• Write out the first 25 blog posts headlines you think you would like to compose. Compare this with your strategy. Does it fit? Is there a common theme you can stick to for the long term?
• As far as technology, I recommend using WordPress. It works and it can expand with your needs over time. Leave the tech stuff to the tech people. Spend your time on CONTENT.
• Write consistently. It may take months for you to find your voice and your rhythm. You have to just do it.
• Commit. Carve out time on your schedule to work on this every week. To be successful, it can’t be an after-thought.
• Don’t be discouraged at first. It takes time to find success. Last month, I had the same number of page views as my first 18 months of blogging all put together. Be patient.

How often should I blog?

Depends on your strategy (a common theme!) At a minimum, shoot for one new post per month. But here’s an easy regimen to follow if you want to shoot for one great blog post per week:

• Can you write a 500-word essay on a topic that interests you? Sure you can. In analog terms that is one-page double-spaced. In the old days, you could probably crank that out 10 minutes before class, right? There’s post number one.
• Now, find a a really interesting article in your field. Summarize it, comment on it, provide a proper link and attribution. There’s post number two.
• Find a success story or a customer to love on. Celebrate why these people are special to you. That’s post number three.
• Walk down to customer service. Ask them what the biggest customer question is. Answer it. That’s blog post number four.

Don’t forget to leverage existing content like videos, presentations and speeches. Deputize other resources to help you. Get guest posts from sales, PR, customers, suppliers, community members. It adds to the content diversity and helps build your community.

What do I write about?

In addition to some of the tips above, here are five fail-safe ideas when you get struck for a topic:

1. When you don’t know what to write about, google “what should I write about.” You’ll be amazed at the creative prompts that are out there.
2. Go to a relevant LinkedIn group for your industry. Scan through the questions being asked in a forum. Pick an interesting one. Answer it. Great blog post!
3. Carefully look at the comments and questions that come in from your community. I would say I get 25% of my ideas from community comments or my own comments on other blogger posts.
4. Look at your Google Analytics for the keywords people are using to find your blog. These offer insights into the topics people are interested in. For example, I recently had a keyword of “beginning blogging” so I thought it was time to write an article like this one.
5. Collect ideas all the time — something you read or view, an idea in a meeting, a comment from a customer. Just write the headline for the idea in your blog as soon as possible. That way when it is time to blog you’ll have a list of topics to riff on.

How do I promote traffic to my blog?

Depends on your strategy (naturally!). Are you even sure traffic is the right goal?

There are two camps on this — the keyword camp and the creative content camp.

The keyword camp would have you stuff keywords into your content as much as possible — especially headlines and early paragraphs — to attract search engine love.

The creative camp would say people will come to your blog, and eventually the search engines will too, if you really put an effort into fantastic content.

I am firmly in the creative camp. I’m aware of keywords but I’m not wedded to them. My goal is to build community, make new friends and have some fun along the way and I would die if I had to force keywords in every sentence, or even every post. Who wants to read that?

There have been tons of blog posts written about this subject but here are seven things (other than content) that have helped me grow a great community:

1. be active in other relevant blog communities;
2. earn the right to do some guest posts
3. surround myself with awesome people on Twitter (who may be interested in my content;
4. make the content easy to share;
5. respect and support the people who honor you by reading your blog and commenting;
6. blog consistently so people expect new content.
7. if you write something truly stellar, ask your friends to help get the word out.

How do I make money from my blog?

There are six ways I know of to make money from your blog:

1. Advertising. This will not work for 99% of all bloggers because the traffic simply is not great enough.

2. Affiliate links (for example links to books on Amazon). Every time somebody clicks and buys, you get a small pay-out. This also will not work for 99% of all bloggers because (you guessed it) the traffic has to be huge to make any significant money.

3. Re-purposing your blog content. Many bloggers have assembled blog posts to create books, e-books and other content they can sell in a number of ways.

4. Sponsored posts. Link-hungry SEO promoters are eager to pay people to add links or even entire pieces of content to a blog. Once you do that, you turn your blog into an ad. People do it. I won’t. Ever.

5. Selling adjacent products. I have no plans to monetize my blog directly, but I’m hoping that people who love the free content will support me by buying adjacent products on my website such as my Social Media From Scratch video tutorials, books, or instant coaching services.

6. Indirect sales. This is the strategy behind my blog. I want to create great content that will make people want to hire me as a consultant, come to their office to teach a class, or give a speech to their association. My blog is basically my marketing strategy.

OK, so there are some answers for you. I’m sure I missed a lot, and as usual, you will provide some more great ideas in the comment section. Your turn!

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

I’ve occasionally used this blog to document my social media journey and in that spirit it would be impossible not to mention last week’s epic Social Slam event.

By successfully gathering 600 social media friends and fanatics and highlighting some of the coolest speakers and topics anywhere, this must be considered a milestone, a signature moment. And while I am filled with joy and pride for this event, I could not be honest with you without saying that the week was filled with trepidation. You see, success on the social web also breeds increasing risk.

Gini Dietrich kicks off Social Slam

Although Social Slam was spectacularly run by the Knoxville Social Media Club, my name is inexorably associated with the event as its founder and the person who puts the program together. Leading up to the event, I shuddered each time I saw somebody tweet that they were attending “Mark Schaefer’s conference.”

Ten years ago, if something went wrong at a conference, the damage would be limited to a little grumbling. If something failed at Social Slam, the news would spread though millions (yes, millions) of possible social media impressions. If the room was too cold, if the wi-fi didn’t work, if the lunch was awful — that is what would be recorded, that is what would be remembered. Potentially, that is what would go viral.

No person or company receives any direct financial gain from Social Slam. It is an entirely non-profit initiative so that we can keep the prices at a point where anybody can attend. In fact, that is our vision. If you attended an event featuring speakers such as Mitch Joel, Jay Baer and Gini Dietrich in New York, it would easily cost $1,500. Unless you’re working for a big company, who can afford that? You could come to Social Slam for $79 and get a whole day of content, networking, breakfast, lunch and an after-party to boot.

And yet, I realized that although this was entirely volunteer-driven (even the speakers donate their time) we would be inevitably compared to professionally-run events in big cities. In the era of the social web, there is no room for error any more.

Tom Webster in the process of making statistics hilarious

As it turned out, I don’t know how it possibly could have been better. Here is the best indicator of success — You know when you go to conferences and see people milling about outside the main room doing emails and phone calls? During Social Slam the halls were empty. Everybody was stuck to their seats because the content was so amazing.

Yes, the wi-fi worked. The room was comfortable. The lunch was delicious. The parties were a blast. The speakers rocked. The social web hummed with positive comments.

And yet mid-way through the morning, the weight of the #soslam hashtag attracted the attention of porn spammers. The stream of “Mark Schaefer’s conference” was quickly hijacked with hundreds of disgusting tweets automatically produced by bots. Other companies, not even in attendance, tried to sell their wares by adopting the popular conference hashtag like little social media leeches. And unbelievably, even individuals in my home town (who I have never met) sat on their couches at home and threw darts at a conference they have never attended in a pathetic attempt to feed their need for attention.

The grotesque irony is that the better we are, the bigger the target becomes. The bigger the target I become, too.

Mitch Joel pushed the crowd to think of social media in new ways.

And this leads me to the inevitable question — Why?

Why put myself through it? My business is thriving without it. My books are selling without it. My friends and students love me without it. Why work all these hours just to become a target for creeps?

Here is the lesson of taking big risks in the social era. Even if it pays off, you put yourself, and your brand, increasingly at risk. Success breeds hate and corruption. It always has, but now it’s automated and it’s amplified. So if you want to take a step on to the national stage, you better have a helluva thick skin.

I am still driven by this idea of creating an entirely new kind of social media destination. Of creating an event centered on relationships instead profit, on content that breaks new ground instead of re-hashing the most popular themes, on showcasing worthy new voices instead of the same 10 middle-aged white guys. How far can our passionate band of volunteers take this thing?

So, this is my way of saying thank you for your support … and I’ll see you at Social Slam next year.

There has been a lot of content developed following Social Slam 2012 but for a nice short round-up I recommend this summary from Chris Craft.

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

I would guess at least 50 percent of the websites and blogs I come across feature a widget displaying a real-time Twitter feed. I think this is a mistake and I strongly caution my clients against doing it. Here’s why.

Done correctly, Twitter is lively, personal and human. If you display your Twitter feed on your website, you’re displaying one side of a two-sided conversation. It’s conversation out of context. Why would you do this? What possible value could this create?

A couple years ago, a friend asked me to review his website. When I went to his landing page the thing that hit you right in the face was the word “PORNOGRAPHY” in the Twitter stream. In context, he was making a funny comment in response to a friend. On a website it sends the wrong message.

Everything communicates. Everything you say, and everything you don’t say, reflects on your brand. “LOL!!!! You rock Tony!” and “Delayed in Dallas for the second time this week” are appropriate for a Twitter stream but is that the right business communications you want to display on your company website?

Of course if your Twitter stream is simply company links and press releases you’re safe. But you’re also probably not too successful on Twitter.

The only possible value there could be is some symbol of social validation, like “Hey everybody, look at us! We’re on Twitter.” That just seems kind of desperate. If you provide value on your blog or website, why wouldn’t a person want to follow your social stream any way?

Meanwhile, this widget is taking up valuable real estate that could be better used to create a call to action, promote a product or service, or offer something legitimately helpful.

I know there are a lot of Twitter-on-the-webpage-lovers out there that are going to tee-off on me today so hit me with your best shot! WHat do you think?

Illustration courtesy of www.toothpastefordinner.com

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this video interview with Azeem Azhar, founder of PeerIndex.

I had a chance to catch up with PeerIndex founder Azeem Azhar at his homebase in London. Azeem is prominently featured Return On Influence and this was a golden opportunity to catch up with him about some of the newest developments. In this interview we cover:

Is social scoring getting traction? Is it creating measurable value for companies and brands or is it still experimental?

How is the company going to use its new round of funding?

Why is social scoring so disruptive for many traditional advertising agencies?

How are companies realizing “TV ad-like” results by approaching influencers?

What is the “magic middle” of influencer outreach?

Is this still experimental or are companies beginning to dedicate real money towards influence marketing?

How are companies measuring benefits from this new channel?

I think you’ll find this conversation quite interesting!

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

One of the things I have been interested in is examining practical applications of Klout and social scoring to an internal enterprise.

If you are unclear about social scoring systems and what they attempt to measure, it might be useful to start with this blog post about Why Klout Matters. Like a credit score, let’s assume that companies like Klout, Kred and Appinions are beginning to measure something that correlates to an individual’s social media effectiveness.

I had an opporunity to test some of these ideas last week when I conducted a social influence workshop with a global services company in the UK.

I began with an overview of the basics behind these systems and what we can really learn from them.

Then, thanks to Andrew Grill, president of Kred, we were able to construct an internal dashboard that approximated the relative social media effectiveness of many company employees. It was nothing short af a revelation to these top executives. Here are a couple of observations:

Who is the real company spokesperson?

One of the executives said, “I don’t know any of these people on this list! You mean they are representing our company?”

Indeed. I told him the story about how one of his IT employees — the person with the second-highest Kred score in the company — connected with me through this blog and on Twitter, and over a period of two years we had become friends. When he found out I was coming to London, he offered to introduce me to the company’s marketing team. That led to organizing the workshop.

“You see,” I said, “to me, this web developer IS the face of your company. The only reason I am here today is because he is representing you so effectively on the social web.”

This was a profound lesson for the executives. They were discovering their most effective representatives on the social web — and it was quite eye-opening. Now they are wondering about: How do we thank them, learn from them, and find ways we can work more closely together? How do we transfer their expertise to other parts of the organization?

Where is marketing?

It was illustrative that 80% of the top influencers where in no way associated with PR, sales, service, or marketing. This was an equally shocking revelation. Shouldn’t these departments be highly visible on the social web, especially in a technology and services-oriented company?

This company prided itself in being on the forefront of technology and best management practices but this simple ranking made them realize they were missing an enormous opportunity to discover gaps with their customer-facing strategies. This led to a lively discussion about further training and how some of the key ideas from Return On Influence could be incorporated into basic sales best practices.

Influencer Outreach

The exercise also started them thinking about using these scores to discover unknown or under-utilized resources at prospect companies, possible partner companies or even as a way to find high-potential new employees. How could they find like-minded and passionate individuals who have a natural interest in their ideas and technologies? They had already observed how it could be used to find a resource like me. The possibilities seemed vast.

It was exciting for me to see some of the core ideas of Return On Influence come alive in this corporate setting and I wanted to pass along some of the experiences to you. Can you see how some of these simple lists can help you and your sales efforts?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this video interview with Storify Founder Xavier Damman.

If you’re immersed in the social web it would be hard to miss Storify. The young company has been everywhere lately and it is a result of the passion and vision of its founder and CEO Xavier Damman.

In this video interview, Damman relates the interesting story of how he rapidly progressed from putting code together in his apartment in Belgium to building a company now backed by one of the most powerful venture capital firms in America.

The quality of the video was so-so because we were in a crowded area and English is Xavier’s second language so I also transcribed this interesting interview below:

Mark- I am with Xavier Damman, the founder of Storify, one of the most exciting and interesting start-ups. They are really beyond a start-up right now and we are in the only quiet place we could find at SXSW — a hallway by a bathroom — and we will probably be interrupted by waitresses at any minute. So Xavier, tell us about your story. You are from Belgium originally – how did you get this idea for Storify?

Xavier - I was an early Twitter user back in 2006 and I realized there’s a lot of great content on Twitter but there’s also a lot of noise so I really wanted to find a way to surface and amplify the voices that matter. So that’s how I started working on this idea. I moved to Silicon Valley about 2 1/2 years ago and after about 6 months, I got the San Francisco Chronicle to use the program. So I thought I would get my co-founder involved who is an awesome person but was used to be a reporter with the AP for about 12 years.

So together we worked on this vision, this idea and came up with Storify which is basically kind of a new typewriter for this social media age. It’s a way to curate social media … select what we will say on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, whatever and use that to tell the story of what happens. It’s a way to tell your audience about your brand, what people are saying about you in social media and your social campaigns.

Mark – You mentioned to me that several companies, brands and even the White House have picked this up. How are brands using this?

Xavier - They are using it in different ways for example if you want to amplify the voices of their customers, saying different things about them on social media, Storify is a great way to do it. Companies also use it as a way to engage with their audience on social media. They will ask a question on Facebook or Twitter and say, “Hey, what do you think of this? And they will curate the best answers and people who participate appreciate the fact that they are being listened to so they are part of the story.

Mark – That’s awesome. Now, your journey from Belgium to Silicon Valley – was this difficult? I mean how did you find the money to start Storify?

Xavier - The beauty of this world is is doesn’t require a lot of money to start up something like this. There’s so much available for free on the Internet, and that’s awesome. I’m an engineer myself so I actually built the first prototype. The real effort was getting to San Francisco and trying to get to know people there and that’s when I met my co-founder and things grew from there. And people say, “Oh, those overnight successes of start-ups in Silicon Valley,” … but it actually takes time to become an overnight success!

We actually took about 18 months to raise our first money, we started with a venture capital partner about a year ago which was really great but it takes a lot of effort, a lot of iteration to raise money. But we know what we are doing, we are passionate about doing it and it’s so great to be living at this time.

Mark – That’s wonderful. Such an inspiration for entrepreneurs. How can people find you on the web, to learn more about you and your company?

Xavier - They can find us at Storify.com and we just released our new iPad app — which is a great way to use your fingers to curate social media and different stories

Mark – I can’t wait to try it. I’m seeing Storify everywhere now so congratulations and I appreciate you talking to me.

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Google+ is probably not gaining enough ground to go mainstream as a social media platform and to do so, they need to “go Jay-Z.” This is what I mean …

Has Google+ been successful in attracting a large and engaged audience?

Certainly there is a lively, passionate, and involved group of users — and it’s hard to cut through the hype — but there is some indication that the social platform is languishing with key demographics.

Yes many people have accounts, perhaps they even peek inside to see what is going on once in awhile, but I think the business case for Google+ right now is “Let’s be there … just in case.” As long as that is the major value of the platform, it’s going to be a difficult proposition to compete with Facebook.

Now, I know there are many passionate advocates who will say “but I LOVE it!” but we can look at some data to get an idea that Google+ probably is not making a dent in the core Facebook audience.

The line below indicates when Google+ was rolled out. You could logically argue that Facebook usage has accelerated since then:

Last week, Edison Research revealed that a staggering 80 percent of the U.S. population between the ages of 19-34 are active on Facebook. The report concluded that essentially Facebook IS the social web for this demographic.

But don’t just look at the research. Go out and talk to young people and see what they say. In the past eight weeks, I taught classes to about 350 business/journalism/design students ranging from 19 to mid-30s. I always try to get a sense of where they are with social media with a show of hands. About 25% had Google+ accounts. But NOT ONE had been active in the past week. Both Pinterest and LinkedIn had more signs of life.

So why is Google+ apparently struggling when industry titans like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan are pumping it up like it’s social media crack?

The Kids. Don’t. Care.

Somehow, some way, Google needs to make Google+ “tip” with the cool kids. And by cool kids I do not mean Guy Kawasaki. I mean cool KIDS. The brand needs to be legitimately addictive and relevant enough to get young folks to move away from Facebook in droves. That is going to be extraordinarily difficult. But here’s one place they could start …

Celeb identity game

When my clients are in the process of defining their brand image, one of the tricks I use is to ask them, “If your product were a celebrity, who would it be? So, for example, a line of eco-friendly, cause-oriented fashion accessories chose Sheryl Crowe. So we began to explore the colors, images, textures, sights and sounds of Sheryl Crowe that could be incorporated into digital and brand imagery. This exercise provides a concrete, visual reference point for people working on the brand.

The celebrity I would associate with Google+ is “Tom Hanks.” Safe. Wholesome. Mainstream. Reliable. Somebody you would bring home to mom. The problem is, the age group they need to appeal to wants Jay-Z or Justin Bieber. Maybe both: Jay-B?

Today, Google+ does not fill any significant need that is unmet by Facebook. They don’t care about hang-outs or possible implications for SEO. Google+ is invisible to this generation. Kind of like Tom Hanks. Somehow, they need to get in a Jay-Z frame of mind.

Unless Google’s goal is to always be the “niche for geeks” they simply must break out of that Silicon Valley love-fest bubble and get out on the street with the kids. Google+ has to figure out how to appeal to the 19-34 demographic deeply, rapidly and NOW if it has any hope of really going mainstream.

And the winner is …

My hunch? They can’t do it. It’s just too far from who they are as a company.

Like so many tech companies, I think they believe if they build a better product they’ll win. That is not necessarily the case. History is filled with better products that lose. To win, you also have to build an emotional tie with your audience. Do you think the kids can better relate to Facebook’s founder, a college drop-out millionaire in a hoodie or the Google engineer with the Stanford degree in the button-down shirt?

What do you think? Can Google “go Jay-Z?” Is there a formula for them to win?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

In our information-dense world, I know how hard it is to keep coming up with consistent, compelling, original content. And sometimes you just get STUCK.

The problem is, many folks think they need to have all the answers to write a great, original blog post but most of the time, quite the opposite is true. You don’t need to have the right answer. You need to find the right question.

The most relevant, interesting and timely blog posts often are created in response to relevant, interesting and timely questions. If you can find a great question, and answer it, you are likely on your way to a dynamite blog post! So how do find the right question? Here are four ideas:

Look to your peer groups. There are so many great places on the web to find questions. My favorite place is a LinkedIn forum. Did you know there are 800,000 different groups on LinkedIn? There is bound to be one that fits your interests. Go there. Look in the community forums. Find an interesting question. Answer it. Voila! Blog post. Other possible sources are Quora, Focus and Yahoo chat groups.

Look in your comments. I would say 25% of my posts come form comments from my readers. If it is relevant to them, it wold probably be relevant to other readers too, right? Ironically, this post was inspired by a comment about writer’s block from my friend Jon Buscall.

Look in your key words. Many people post questions as their search terms. Go to Google Analytics for your website and see what questions people might be using to find your blog. Recently one of the search terms used to find this blog was “how do I start blogging?” I thought it was probably time to write about some blogging basics.

Google it. If you are really, really stuck, go to Google and type in “what do I write about?” You’ll be amazed at what you find. People have planted lots of seeds of ideas and prompts for you out there.

How do you get unstuck? Where do you find the best questions to blog about?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Within the next 60 days, an event will occur that may be the most devastating development in the young history of social media and for the businesses and individuals who love it so much.

Facebook is going to become a publicly-traded company.

If you have ever worked for a public company you can relate to what I am about to say. If you haven’t you’ll have to trust me.

The pressure of “public”

The entire tone of Facebook and its strategy is about to change in ways that I believe could portend desperation and disaster. Instead of managing for a long-term vision, becoming a public company creates an inexorable and relentless pressure to meet quarterly sales goals. If you have ever been an executive in a publicy-traded company, other than hearing “A crew from 60 Minutes is at the door,” there is probably no greater pressure in business than the demand to grow, grow, grow the revenues — To “beat the street,” without exception, without fail.

Maybe it will will take a few months, maybe it will take a year or more, but inevitably the marching orders of Facebook executives will be determined by this constant drumbeat of “more, higher, faster.”

Now, what is the source of Facebook’s growing revenues? You and me.

Virtually the entire economic model of Facebook is based on a single tactic — collect as much personal information about you as possible as a way to sell highly-targeted ads. So for Facebook to succeed, it simply must collect increasing amounts of information about you. More information = more ad revenues. Pretty simple.

Through this lens, we can now view Facebook’s new Timeline innovation as a clever move. The company encourages us to post and share everything about our lives, which will lead to more advertising opportunities. And, you can be assured that every new feature and innovation will be aimed at two things: 1) collect more information and 2) create “stickiness” so you spend more time on the site (to share information and view ads).

Is this sustainable?

So we have to consider — Is this relentless collection of information and selling of ads sustainable in a way that meets Wall Street’s expectations for continuous and aggressive growth?

At least in the near term, Facebook’s prospects seem bright. They are just starting to mine Timeline information. The possibility of organic growth in new countries like China present vast opportunities for data collection and advertising.

But will we reach a saturation point where it becomes impossible for Facebook to squeeze any more information from us? Will we reach a day when Facebook’s insatiable need for data becomes annoying and invasive? Is there a theoretical limit to information gathering? Is there an upper limit to the amount of time people will spend on Facebook?

The other collision point is that the advertising model is in transition. Smartphones are already the first screen of Internet access for 28 percent of Americans and in some parts of the world (like the Middle East), it is already over 50 percent. Compare how many ads you see displayed on your computer versus the smartphone version of Facebook and you will begin to see the crunch Facebook will be facing.

Google, which went public in 2004, faces exactly the same problem of course and I think the pressure is starting to show. I found it extremely odd when the company (who professes to never be “evil”) knowingly took a detour around anti-ad-tracking features on Apple’s iPhone to spy on our private information. They stopped the practice only after being caught by the Wall Street Journal. Apple vowed to stop the Google’s shady practices.

Why would Google do something this stupid? Well, by now you already know the answer — as a public company, Google is under incredible pressure to collect our private information to sell ads.

Similarly, executive bonuses are tied to the success of Google +. What kind of behavior will this drive at the company, when vast personal fortunes are at stake … and the platform increasingly appears to be a ghost town?

What will be the answer to the pressure for growth?

This is a glimpse of what we will one day see from Facebook, too. Undoubtedly they will look for adjacencies and new sources of revenue but nothing in the foreseeable future will come close to making a dent in their reliance on ad revenues.

At some point, Facebook will be faced with a reality — the well of personal information will be tapped dry. The opportunity to create advertising impressions will slow. Mark Zuckerberg will face unimaginable pressure from Wall Street and his shareholders. His company will have to find new ways to turn their vast resource — our personal information — into new sources of profits.

And at that point, Facebook will become the most dangerous company on earth.

How does this perspective land on you?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Mitch Joel recently threw down the the gauntlet and challenged a number of bloggers to blog about how they blog (does that make sense?) I highly recommend you read his original article called “Watching me Blog.” I only caution you about trying to match Mitch’s pace. There is Mitch, and then there is the rest of us!

Here is an insight into my typical blogging process:

THE BIRTH OF A BLOG POST

I am constantly bombarded with ideas so collecting inspiration for topics is a continuous process. I may have an idea from something I see on TV, something I read, or a question from a student in class. The trick is to have the discipline to capture these ideas when they occur. As soon as I can, I record these topics as a headline in WordPress, nothing more. That way, when it is time to blog, I have a wide selection of potential topics.

I currently have about 70 ideas in the hopper. Some of them will never see the light of day. Maybe some of them will be combined or trashed. Some of them you will see this week!

TIME TO WRITE

I usually do all of my blogging for the week in about a 3-4 hour period on a weekend morning. It has to be quiet with no distractions. In this period my goal is to write at least two blog posts for the upcoming week. Usually I can write though an idea quickly but sometimes it takes adding and massaging over a couple of weeks to flesh out a big new idea.

During this quiet time I JUST WRITE. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time trying to be perfect right off the bat. Editing and refining can come later.

I also try to write ahead if I can so I have a few completed posts in case something happens and I can’t blog for some personal reason. I have about 10 posts in reserve. I rarely write during the week unless there is a short-term topical opportunity.

FINAL FLOURISHES

On Sunday night I’ll figure out what posts I’m going to publish for the week. I’ll take a last look at these pieces, do a final edit, and then “decorate” them with illustrations or graphics as needed. I don’t often get feedback on the funny illustrations I come up with, but in my mind this is one of the fun reasons to come to the {grow} blog and it is a creative challenge for me to come up with something that will make you snicker. My rule is that if I can’t execute an illustration idea in 10 minutes, I move on to something else. I have to be very disciplined about the time I spend on blogging.

At this point I’ll also spend some more time on the headline. Headlines are so important — more important than the actual blog copy because if you don’t grab your reader’s attention, they’ll never even get to the copy. I find headlines very difficult to write. They must be accurate, descriptive, interesting and most of all, “tweetable!” You have to make your posts easy to share!

PUBLISH

I have never posted an article that I have been completely happy with, and many times I’m a little nervous about what the reaction might be. Ultimately it takes courage to be an effective blogger, to put yourself out there, to be confident enough to be imperfect, and to take your licks.

My decision on what to publish is often determined by my work schedule. If I think a post will generate a lot of comments, I won’t publish that on a day that I can’t pay attention to the comment section. I post from one of the amazing {grow} contributing columnists on Wednesdays and a cartoon on Friday so I know I will have at least those days completely free to do client work.

COMMENTS

The best part of the blog is the community commentary. Here is my philosophy on comments:

• Comments are an opportunity to celebrate the people in your community.
• When people offer you a gift of their precious time to provide a comment, it only makes sense to give them a gift back and at least say “thank you.” I try to acknowledge most comments.
• Comments build community. This is where you create meaningful connections. I have written a lot about power and influence on the social web. In my estimation, the blog comment section is where the action is (and ironically it is not considered in a Klout score!).
• If you put yourself out there, you’re not going to connect with every person, every time, even in a community of well-intentioned professionals. Don’t be thrown off-center by criticism. It’s a sign that you took risks. Take the high rode, stay positive.

Well, there you have it. As I wrote this, I was struck by how radically different my process is from Mitch’s. What about you? What is the most important part of your process? How does your process differ from mine?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

I’m a marketing guy. And boy I love it. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a great case study! Well, almost nothing.

But as I look to the future, I’m not sure marketing, sales, advertising, or even PR are going to be the leading career paths for somebody I would hire to lead a social organization transformation. Of course these areas are important — and will continue to be — but if I’m growing a corporate social media competency, here is who I would be hiring in my company:

1. Journalism. The social web’s need for content and storytellers is insatiable. I was recently on a panel with a dean of a large journalism school and he said they are having record enrollment. Why? Where are these people getting jobs? Alternative media. The ability to rapidly crank out superb content is at the heart of any new media strategy. As the information density of the social web continues to escalate to unbearable levels, the ability to stand out through scintillating content will be essential.

2. HR/Change management. You want to know the biggest problem companies face in finding social media success? It’s not budget or talent or vision. It’s corporate culture. Every large company is creaking and churning toward a reaction-oriented, empowered culture that can succeed in this environment. This change is going to take some gut-wrenching organizational shifts and, as we are already seeing, the jettisoning of entire teams of people who don’t have the right skills to make the transition. HR needs to be in the middle of this transition — and move these companies forward quickly!

3. Statisticians. If I were hiring a new social media marketing employee today, it would be a statistician, not a marketing major. Marketing has always been about finding insight from data but in the past that data was pretty difficult and expensive to come by for most businesses. We are entering the era of big data where marketing — even at small companies — will be ruled by math. The lack of basic understanding of statistics and analytics by social web “experts” and SEO consultants today is shocking. But make no mistake, this is where the treasure lies. I think it would be easier to teach marketing to a statistician than the other way around. Marketing success will come to those who will be able to tease the most insight from data, so I’m putting my money on the numbers folks.

I know this is unconventional thinking but I think if you look at the mega-trends, it makes sense. What do you think?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this interview with Jason Falls.

Many people dream of writing and publishing a best-selling book, but few earn the opportunity. In this video interview, first-time author Jason Falls talks about how he overcame resistance to writing a book, selling his controversial title (No Bullshit Social Media) to his publisher and the delicate challenges of working with a co-author, Erik Deckers. Most interesting I think is Jason’s take on what he learned about himself and social media through the process.

A great opportunity to learn from one of the keenest minds in the business. Enjoy!

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

If you’re like me, you probably hated Twitter when you first tried it. The first tweet I ever received was “It’s 4 a.m.” – confirming this was the stupidest idea ever!

In fact, it took me months to “get” it and unless you’re immersed in this platform, it’s pretty difficult to explain to another person. If I told you Twitter helped keep you safe, would you believe it? What if I told you it was an agent of peace and global connection? A way to help students? Solve tech problems? Networking on steroids?

Instead of SAYING these things, I wanted to SHOW you. Here is a snippet of my life over the past few weeks as seen through the lens of Twitter …

Two weeks ago, we had a line of dangerous storm cells and tornadoes marching through our area. As the fierce winds arrived, we lost power and all communication … except for Twitter. I was able to see reports from local friends on the status of flooding and damage in the area. A tweet from my friend Katie Granju suggested an NOAA emergency weather center iPhone app which broadcast radio news during the storm, which I downloaded immediately.

Through Twitter I have connected to hundreds of inspiring people from around the world but none perhaps as loyal and dedicated as a young man named Muhammad Saad Khan, who is using Twitter and the social web to learn about social media from his home in Karachi, Pakistan. This week he tweeted along to a U.S. Youth Forum broadcast from Korea. He could not obtain a copy of my book in Pakistan, so I sent him one. When he received the book, he made this Facebook post (along with six photos of the book):

Twitter was essential to cutting through the chaos at SXSW. This is how I learned of impromptu events, met up with friends, and found the best parties and free food. One of the best things that happened was meeting up with a long-time Twitter friend Nicole Fletcher of San Diego. We toured the trade show together and we learned from each other as I assessed the marketing potential of each new idea we saw and she evaluated it from a technical perspective.

Among my first Twitter friends were Billy Mitchell of Atlanta and Amy Howell of Memphis, who have become close personal friends in real life. At least once a month it seems we turn up some business opportunity for each other. This week I did a webinar on social influence for Billy and Amy invited me to do a blogging workshop with her clients in Memphis. Without Twitter, how would I have ever met these dear friends and business associates?

I had been struggling with a problem with my blog RSS feed for a week. I asked for help over Twitter and quickly found a resource that had the problem solved in an hour.

This week I have been very busy preparing for the amazing Social Slam event we will be having in Knoxville TN, April 27. This is a conference created entirely through Twitter. Every single speaker (including Mitch Joel, Gini Dietrich, Jay Baer and Tom Webster), as well as event volunteers came together from Twitter. We’re expecting 600 people from as far away as Texas, Colorado and California. How did they hear about the event? Tweets, of course! We’ve spent zero on advertising.

I have been really busy and overlooked the time that my favorite college basketball team was playing in the NCAA tournament. Luckily I saw a tweet about the game to remind me to turn on the TV.

Through Twitter this week, I received several requests from students for interviews that would help them with their end of the semester projects. I was happy to connect and help them.

I met a new Twitter friend a few weeks ago named Tony Dowling. He learned of my Tao of Twitter book, became a convert, and wrote an amazing blog post about his experience. He is gathering a powerful tribe in Wales and I suggested that he create a Welsh social media conference. Well, he’s done it and I will be on my way to Wales in September as their keynote speaker! I’m also speaking in London in two weeks and will be meeting with dozens of great friends who have connected with me over the years. A Twitter connection asked me to speak to her class at Oxford while I’m there, which will be an awesome experience.

I could go on, but by now I hope you’re starting to see the diversity, usefulness and fun of Twitter. If you’re just starting out, hang in there. It will work! And if you’ve been around awhile, what is your favorite Twitter connection story?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see the video of the controversial UPS ad.

I’m sort of a blog geek.

I love looking at company blogs and see their progress … or lack of it … over time. One of the blogs that has been making some nice progress is UPS, but I noticed something unusual the other day. This is a company that is still learning how to move their content and they don’t get many tweets or shares … maybe 4-5 per day.

Then I noticed one blog post about a basketball game received 482 shares and 181 comments. What???

Advertising miscue?

The sensation started a few weeks ago when UPS ran a TV advertisement concurrent with the NCAA basketball tournament that tried to connect a pass that won “the greatest game” to their theme of logistical excellence.

In the 1992 game, an underdog UK team known as “The Unforgettables” had pulled ahead by one point in the closing seconds of overtime against Duke, the defending national champion.

With 2.1 seconds left, Duke player Grant Hill threw the ball nearly the length of the court to Christian Laettner, who turned and made the winning shot with no time remaining in the game.

“Everybody remembers the shot. But what about the pass? No pass, no shot,” the narrator says. “You need a special player to get the ball exactly where it needs to be, exactly when it needs to be there.”

An unexpected reaction

Kentucky fans exploded over the fact that the most heart-breaking loss in the history of their sports program was now played over and over again as an ad on behalf of a shipping company. To add insult to injury, UPS has major facilities in Kentucky.

A common tactic is for companies to address controversies and problems through their blog, in fact it is a very important role for company blogs. In this case UPS tried to soothe savage Kentucky fans by creating a post by an actual Kentucky graduate that explained the thinking behind the ad:

I know our new ads will anger some UK fans, but if you truly look at that game with an objective eye, it’s hard to think of a better example of what determined people working together toward a common goal can accomplish – and that’s what UPS is all about.

No one should think that UPS has some kind of anti-UK bias. On the contrary, UPS loves Kentucky. We love it so much we established our primary air hub in the commonwealth, which has driven the creation of 33,000 jobs with $300 million in annual payroll.

But the strategy back-fired.

By creating this blog post, UPS just provided a forum for their detractors and inflamed irate fans who stormed the comment section with messages like this:

Here’s an idea for your next UPS ad. How about you detail the “logistics” of a major company receiving huge tax breaks from a state as an incentive to move there. Then you could show the “teamwork” required to make an ad highlighting the most heartbreaking moment in that state’s sports history. Sounds like another winner.

It’s bad you wrote this post trying to justify the ad, but to do so in such a condescending manner explaining to everyone how great the play was makes it even worse.

Many Kentucky customers vowed to never use UPS again. Even a state senator weighed in, asking UPS to pull the ad.

It’s a tough situation. Before UPS created the commercial, they actually got the blessing of the university. And even as a die-hard college sports fan, I’m not sure I could have predicted a reaction like this when a company is touting your team as a participant in the greatest game ever.

An interesting case study. A celebration of a great sporting event, the NCAA basketball finals, has turned into a PR nightmare for UPS. What would you have done differently?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

I recently did some volunteer work for a national charity and provided counsel on their social media strategy. The PR Agency started the meeting by listing all of the “messaging” being developed to support a major fund-raising push in 2012. The list looked something like this:

• Press releases
• Podcast
• Promotional video
• Slideshow
• Photos and videos from local events
• Clips from local TV stations

They’re off to a good start because there is the potential for a lot of interesting content here. But ultimately the effort will fail as merely a blip on the radar because nobody in the organization is working on the network strategy. Developing content for the social web is a waste of time if it just sits there like a bump on a Heinz dill pickle. It has to go some place if it is to attract attention and eventually compel people to do something.

To ignite a social strategy, you must ignite your content.

So to be successful, you must aggressively develop the “human pathways” that will carry your content to the world … not just write press releases that you HOPE will be buried on a community events calendar somewhere. And the larger — and more engaged — the network, the better the chances for success, so get started NOW!

Here is an action plan I provided to this charity that would result in long-term success … and it can ONLY be long-term success because it takes TIME and CONSISTENT EFFORT to build a relevant and engaged network that will share your stuff!

1. Identify all the passionate advocates of the charity. They are a powerful and critical first step in building an engaged network.

2. Explain to them why you need their help and the benefits of helping — you’re connecting many small networks to create an enormous network.

3. Teach them how to proactively and aggressively build a targeted network and a social media presence so that you have hundreds of “beacons” for your brand.

4. Give this group tips on how to effectively share, connect, and network on their favorite social platforms.

5. Assign a central resource to “corral” real, passionate stories, videos, photos from the field to share across the ENTIRE network. Unleash the content! This will provide a constant drip-drip-drip of interesting content every week.

6. Make the content easy to share. Have easy-to-find social sharing options. Use Linked Within (like I do at the bottom of each post) to highlight similar stories of interest (this increases my page views by about 8 percent). Highlight other content of interest on the site.

7. Institute free, simple monitoring tools like Google Alerts and saved Twitter searches to measure the effort and identify the most successful networks and content. “Buzz” is a leading indicator of donations. If the buzz is going, up, up, up, the donations will eventually follow.

I care about this cause so I’m going to try to shepherd this as best I can. Hopefully it will work. Does this make sense to you? What other advice would you give this worthy cause?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

The other day I noticed a highway billboard advertising a NASCAR race. The wall-sized photo was not of cars racing around a track or a cheering crowd. It was a photo of a gruesome wreck. At first, this seemed like an odd way to promote a sporting event! And yet, undeniably, our pulse quickens when those cars hit the wall, a fight breaks out at a hockey game, or when the seemingly infallible appear human.

This is a reflection on our normal tendency to focus on the negative. The negative is the news.

There is ample clinical research that codifies this trait, which is called Negativity Bias. Humans have a heightened physiological and psychological response to events they see as negative. Our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat news than good news.

Our capacity to weigh negative input so heavily probably evolved for a good reason — to keep us out of harm’s way. The brain developed systems that would make it notice danger and hopefully, avoid it.

Negativity Bias in Action

But today, with so much stimuli coming at us each day, is it any wonder that when it comes to the social web, we may tend to focus on the spam, the haters, and the tragic, instead of the beautiful, spiritual and sublime?

We saw an example of Negativity Bias in action recently with the much-publicized McDonald’s “McFail” episode.

I respect McDonalds as a well-managed company that tries to do the right thing as it serves millions of diverse customers each day with predictable quality.

Although they are not my customer, I have in the past worked for two of their food suppliers and here is what I learned: No food processing company on earth has higher standards for quality, sustainability, animal treatment, and community involvement. No matter what you think of their food, this is a company that tries to do the right thing.

This carries over into social media, too. They are a gold standard in terms of authentic social media outreach and connection. How many companies of their size have a team of tweeters available for one-on-one conversation? In terms of effectively “humanizing” their brand, I use them as a best practice case study in my college classes.

#McFail

So it came as a surprise when I started seeing headlines about the social media #McFail a few weeks ago. The story went something like this. McDonald’s has hosted a series of successful Twitter chats over the past few months and thought they would try something different. Under the hashtag of #McDStories they invited customers to tell their favorite stories of McDonald’s experiences.

As you might imagine, it didn’t take long to attract some negative stories and outcries from animal rights activists. It was probably naive on the company’s part to think that something like this might not happen.

But let’s look at the whole story. McDonald’s has made a genuinely positive attempt to be a “social” organization and I give them credit for experimenting by inviting their customers to engage. And even when one of their social media experiments did not go as planned, the company had something like 79,000 tweets and 2,000 of them were negative. So on one of their worst days, they had a positive sentiment analysis of 97.5 percent. In any company I’ve worked for, that would be cause for celebration.

And yet the all headlines focused on the failure. It will probably be a case study discussed for years alongside the Gap logo debacle. That may not be fair, but it’s what we need to anticipate from our society as we lay our social media plans over this layer of Negativity Bias.

We’re standing on digital quicksand

Every one of our organizations is standing on digital quicksand. It only takes one infinitesimal shift in customer sentiment, one outcry from a small number of passionate detractors, to dash an otherwise sterling reputation.

One of the most interesting talks at SXSW was between Billy Corgan of the alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins, and author Brian Solis. In the talk, Corgan hypothesized that artists take less risks today because of a realization that one embarrassingly human moment will get tweeted and go viral — and possibly kill a career. Before the social web, these moments might be laughed about and become part of band legend, but today it can be career-defining. He wondered aloud about a world where artists would be nothing more than politically-correct robots.

The Vanilla Web

So as we acknowledge this reality, here is the question we need to consider very, very carefully when it comes to our own social media presence and taking risks in this space – is it worth it?

As we have seen many times, even an experiment that barely makes a dent in the company’s overall social footprint can overwhelm any good that is being accomplished, any sincere intentions, any attempt at innovation.

Personally or professionally, is it worth it trying anything new in the social space, even if you thought you could have a success rate of 97.5 percent? In a world where Negatively Bias is gasoline on a viral fire, and one misstep can overwhelm years of positive work cultivating raving fans, why would anybody take a risk on the social web?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you cannot see this video interview with Eric Ries of The Lean Start-up.

I had the pleasure of catching up with Eric Ries, author of The Lean Start-Up after he was just coming down from an amazing day of success at SXSW 2102. You get to hear about this first in this video interview!

I first heard about Eric Ries when he was interviewed by Mitch Joel on his excellent Six Pixels podcast. I immediately became a fan of Eric and his concrete ideas about business start-up strategy.

Ries is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author recognized for pioneering the Lean Startup movement, a new-business strategy which directs start-up companies to allocate their resources as efficiently as possible. He is also a well-known blogger within the technology entrepreneur community.

Ries coined the term “Lean Startup” in 2008. His new-business strategy developed a following among Silicon Valley startups as well as entrepreneur groups which meet regularly to discuss his methodology. The Lean Startup espouses starting small, designing products with the smallest set of features to please a customer base, and moving products into the marketplace quickly to test reaction and make more changes after that.

Ries released his book, The Lean Startup, in September 2011.

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t view this video interview of Lance Ulanoff of Mashable.

The ubiquitous Mashable has had its moments of glory, unquestionable potential, and annoying listicles over the past few years, but received a well-needed shot of credibility when it hired respected tech editor Lance Ulanoff as its new editor in chief in September. Ulanoff is the former Editor-in-Chief of PC Magazine and SVP of Content for the PCMag Digital Network.

I caught up with Lance at the Samsung Blogger’s Lounge at SXSW and was surprised to learn that this was the veteran’s first SXSW experience. He was gracious enough to take some time out of his intense schedule to answer a few questions for the {grow} community about Mashable’s place on the tech journalism scene, his passion for using social media for social good, and the latest tech developments that have caught his eye at SXSW!

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this video of Dave Kerpen on Likeable Social Media.

Dave Kerpen had just come off the stage at SXSW 2012 when I caught him for this interview. A fellow McGraw-Hill author of the best-selling book Likeable Social Media (affiliate link), Dave is a founder of the New York-based firm of the same name.

In this short video interview Dave discusses his ideas about five of the most important aspects of social media marketing success.

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

Click here if you can’t see this interview with Vikki Neil of HGTV.

Home and Garden Television (HGTV) might not be your typical Silicon Valley start-up of high-tech powerhouse but as all media converges many traditional channles linke CNN, ESPN and HBO are getting heavily involved with bloggers and tech influencers.

Some interesting "planters" at the HGTV party house at SXSW

I had a chance to catch up with Vikki Neil, Senior VP & GM of Interactive Marketing for Scripps Networks, and discuss her strategy for the network’s first-ever SXSW event. The company practices what it preaches and renovated an old bar from top to bottom and from inside out just for this conference. They’ll be using the space to host nightly parties and concerts throughout the Interactive and Music festivals in Austin.

In this short video, Vickie explains her strategy and how it ties into the launch of a new HGTV digital property.

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.

While researching my new book Return On Influence, I immersed myself in the world of the Internet elite and concluded that on the social web, the badges of “social proof” really do matter … probably more than real achievement! So it may come as a surprise that I have made a decision to ignore them, for good business reasons.

Social proof is a critical concept behind influence in both the offline and the online worlds. In the absence of enough information to make our own decision, we turn to signals from others to help us find a way forward.

Here’s a simple example — Let’s say you are at the site of a terrible car wreck and two people are shouting orders. One is wearing a doctor’s lab coat and one is wearing a pizza delivery uniform. Which directions are you likely to follow?

A social proof “badge” can bestow authority whether it is deserved or not. Somebody who wears a doctor’s lab coat, has an office decorated with diplomas, or drives an exotic car is communicating “power” — even if they are a fake. It’s a type of herd mentality, and it can be both dangerous and useful, depending on the situation.

Social proof is even more important in the online world

A badge like number of Twitter followers or a Klout score may be the ONLY mechanism we have to determine influence in the online world. Offline, we may have the chance to meet people, or ask a mutual friend to help us determine credibility. But this type of validation is often not possible online, so we seek a shortcut, and on the social web, there are plenty of them!

We are all suffering from information overload in this data-dense online world. We simply don’t have the energy to do any more digging and will gladly accept a “badge” as proof of authority.

When establishing online influence, social proof matters … even more than real achievement. I’m sure more people know how many Twitter followers I have than any aspect of my career, education, or charitable work.

Driving the wrong behaviors

So it probably doesn’t make sense to you when I tell you that I have eliminated many typical elements of social proof from my blog. Look around at other social media blogs and they are decorated with more badges than a five-star general. It makes good business sense to do this. And while {grow} has been on its fair share of “Top 10″ lists (I was recently named on of the “Top 50 Power Influencers” by Forbes), I have decided to take down the badges.

The reason is simple. Like any good business person, I’m competitive. And these often meaningless numbers were driving the wrong behaviors for me and my business.

Here’s an example of how social proof can be important and meaningless at the same time.

The AdAge blog ranking has been rendered virtually useless after the changes they made last summer but it remains the most popular “badge” you see on social media blogs. But the ranking has nothing to do with the quality of your content or the vibrancy of your community. You can climb the list by buying backlinks and gaming StumbleUpon. 20 percent of the ranking is an arbitrary rating given by a guy named Todd. One blog in the top 100 has not even been updated since 2009.

So this numerical ranking is just plain dumb. Social proof like this is fool’s gold — sparkly but meaningless. It can’t buy you a cup of coffee. And yet, due to my competitive nature, every time I dropped a few spots, I started to scheme about getting more “Stumble votes” or whatever. This is absolutely the wrong thing for me to be focusing on! This is gaming a number to establish social proof, not engaging in an activity that is directly serving my customers and driving income.

I need to focus on three priorities in my business: Clients, Content, and College Classes. Anything beyond that is a distraction. I don’t have the resources to game social proof badges like the silly AdAge system every week.

A personal decision

Social proof is important, but it was driving the wrong behaviors in me personally. So I have simply decided to ignore the numbers … for the most part. I literally have no idea how many Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube followers/friends I have. I have a rough idea of the Twitter followers because it is so prominent on my profile. I only check the number of blog readers I have once a month or so. I have not looked at my AdAge ranking in three months. And the blog? All the “buzz badges” are gone. The one number I do pay attention to is the social shares for each blog post because I think that is a good sign of feedback — those are your “votes” on what content is working for the community.

So I’m not following my own advice around social proof — but it is the best advice for me at this point in time of my life. I’m hoping that if I put that “social proof energy” toward delivering consistently great content that the results will follow.

At least that is the theory. Maybe someday I will eventually re-join the crowd and focus all my attention on “likes,” followers and popularity contests! After all, isn’t that what really matters these days?

Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.