I recently finished Brian Solis‘ new book, Engage, after some stop and go reading over the past month. Overall I thought it was a great book with some good examples and case studies to keep in my back pocket.  In the end though, I think it could be broken into two separate books: New Media University and Postgrad.

The first half does a great job of breaking down social media theory and tools via courses in the “New Media University”.  Solis encourages even those who consider themselves social media PhD’s to start from square one and review what makes up the intricacies of social media:

“For those well versed in social media and the tools that connect us to those we wish to reach, enjoy this chance to hit “ctrl-alt=del” and restart with a fresh perspective.  For those new to the socialization of media and influence, please take your time here. This is were everything begins.”

By the time you receive your New Media U. MBA you have covered an extensive library of tools available and have been introduced to a myriad of examples and case studies that prove the value of those tools.  I enjoyed reviewing and reminding myself of the resources that can foster relationships, conversation and reputation both personally and for brands and business. 

The second half of the book dives more into theory and implementation of social media strategy.  There are a lot of data visualizations, graphs, models and acronyms to help make sense of the ever changing and evolving social media landscape.

Several chapters nicely coincided with client work I was doing at the time.  The same week we were working on a social media participation policy for a client, I came across several good case studies and templates in the book.  In another instance, the Nestle social media crisis was unfolding in real-time while I read chapter about preparing for and handling crisis situations. It was crazy to think that even though Solis’ book was published just months ago, it is already outdated as far as case studies and tools available.

Is social media literature cut out for traditional paper printing if after a few months of editing and production it may already be irrelevant or outdated? Is it better left in electronic form via short blog posts or e-books that can be updated or added to as quickly as the real-time evolution of social media itself?

It will be interesting to see in the future whether the success of noted social media authors will be found not in novels, but in notes and networks.

SAS Shows of its New Toy

Apr22 2010

Sarah Findle

 

I was fortunate enough to attend the SAS Social Media Analytics Software Launch event (#sassma) last night with a group of about 50 Triangle area social media experts and enthusiasts.  The turn out was a great mix and after some mingling, good food and cold drinks the event was underway.

David Thomas, social media manager at SAS, noted lessons learned from the software launch. It was interesting to see the difference just one year makes in the amount of social media engagement surrounding an event.

In 2009 the SAS Global Forum hashtag (#sgf09) received 500 tweets from 25 unique users (including SAS employees).  In 2010 the number skyrocketed to 3,353 tweets using the hashtag (#sgf10) with 836 unique users (not including SAS employees). 

A lot of this audience participation came from the company’s focus on the customer that will use the product and not the company that created it.  They invited influential bloggers and professionals to their product launch and fielded questions live, while also answering questions straight from Twitter, so the “average joe” could get in his two cents too.  I like big people/companies who remember the little people (aka those who make the big guys, big!).

Assigning “Twitter Captains” was another innovative idea implemented for the launch.  Since the developers and main spokespeople for the software were a bit tied during the launch itself, the SAS team assigned several employees who were off site to serve as “Twitter Captains”.  They were kept in the loop about timing of announcements and specific details about the product so that they could field questions that may come up on Twitter during the actual launch.  A great idea to keep conversation real time, but break up the responsibility among people.

It also shows SAS’s other emphasis on not isolating the project but making sure all teams, departments and employees were well aware of what was going on.  When someone looks at a company from the outside they don’t see individual departments and infrastructure, they see one corporate brand – so you need that brand as a whole to be on the same page.

“Shut up and Show it” – quoting the intro slide to the demo:

The spotlight was turned over to Andy Bober, director of customer intelligence product management at SAS, who brought to the center ring (aka the projector) the wild and wonderful software demo. The interface itself isn’t so exotic looking but it is functional, and gets the job done. To name some notable features:

• Media Sentiment Over Time
  • Not only does it measure brand sentiment from the past but also predicts future sentiment trends. Good forecaster, but like the weather can change unexpectedly so can’t be used as a compass.
• Influencers
  • It broke down influencers into professional and consumer categories so that if you are looking for consumer influencers they don’t get lost among the corporate powerhouses.
• Phrase Cloud
  • Like a word cloud, the phrase cloud makes a visualization of the most commonly used phrases.  A single keyword sometimes doesn’t cut it – a phrase can further narrow down data aggregation.
• Media Analysis Workbench
  • The word ‘wicked’ was used as an example. Wicked in 99% of the world has a negative connotation, but if you happen to claim New England as your home it certainly means something “wicked” good.  The media analysis workbench lets you go in and override words and phrases that are misunderstood by the software.

The Q&A session brought about some great conversation.

“What does it mean for the little guys?” Like any new tech toy the software will get less expensive as it evolves.  Currently it is geared toward larger enterprise businesses and evolves a lot of back-end work on the part of the SAS team (it also costs an arm and a leg). Eventually SAS plans to offer a version of the software to agencies and smaller businesses.

Not surprisingly people are already asking, “Where is this? Where is that?” expecting everything to be perfect right out of the starting gate.  But like all good products the software will surely evolve based on user feedback and improved technology.

So, for those medium-sized agencies and companies out there, let the enterprise businesses be the guinea pigs for now – good things come to those who wait!

• via merrellgroup.com

As if I really needed another reason why I love Raleigh?!

via gogoraleigh.com

Forbes magazine has named Raleigh as 3rd in the nation for Business and Careers. The list considered factors such as cost of doing business, economic growth projection, education, income growth, anticipated job growth, and net migration.

Des Moines ranked 1st while Provo was 2nd. Charlotte ranked 17th, Asheville ranked 21st, Durham ranked #23, Wilmington ranked #32, Winston-Salem ranked #51, Greensboro ranked 90th, and Fayetteville ranked 159th in the survey.