David Feldt Proud father. Entrepreneur. Builder. Catalyst. Accelerator. Guide.

Evolving Our Understanding of Online Conversation

As marketing and sociology continue to collide, we're clearly witnessing the Cluetrain "markets are conversations" come to life.

Social networks have enabled ubiquitous two-way communication between individuals and brands alike. How do we make sense of all the cacophony?

(I've deliberately chosen to focus on brand conversations here but the majority of what I've written applies equally to individuals who are looking to build their own personal brands.)

Brands are grappling with understanding how:

• to better engage in meaningful and relevant conversations
• to add value to the multitude of online conversations going on across the globe

What are the metrics and metadata that are emerging to measure, manage and improve these conversations?

Although the ego effect exists and many still seem to be focused on how many followers they have, the true value of social networks goes way beyond the traditional reach measures of the (offline) broadcast model.

How much value you contribute to your social network on Twitter or how much value you contribute to the community on your blog (as an individual or as a brand) is more importantly about listening, reciprocating, networking, learning and giving.

One thing is self-evident - It is HARD work.

Chris Brogan recently wrote about this from the perspective of comments and David Armano wrote about the viral impact of retweeting and how it allows one to bridge different networks.

How do we take this further?

I recently came across Benedikt Koehler (profile here) who used the Twitter Search API to create Twitter Friends.

He provides a wealth of visualization tools and measures that bring us a lot closer to fully understanding the key metrics to value contribution within social networks. Let's look at the list of metrics he uses to build his "Twitgraphs" and understand how it works:

• Size of relevant outgoing network (people you engage in conversation)
• Size of relevant incoming network (people who engage in conversation with you)
• Fans = people who replied to you at least once (NOT followers)
• Loyalty ("Stickiness") = % of fans that replied at least twice
• Twitter Rank
• Overlap of outgoing and incoming net = indication of how much conversation is going on vs. one-way messaging / broadcasting
• Tweets sent / day
• Follow cost = annoyance factor measured as time in milliscobles
• Replies sent / day
• Conversation Quotient (CQ) = % of outbound tweets that are @replies to incoming tweets  (indicating what percentage of your outbound messaging is conversation vs one-way broadcast)
• Conversational Rank (rank of conversation quotient)
• Replies received / day
• Retweet Quotient (RQ) = % of tweets sent that are retweeted
• Links posted / day
• Link Quotient (LQ) = % of tweets sent that include a link
• Replies with Links from friends / day

This may seem overwhelming at first but it makes a lot more sense once you see it represented visually in the Twitgraph.

Zappos vs. Comcast

Let's examine the above metrics for two of the most successful brands on Twitter: Zappos and Comcast.

@Zappos is the voice of Tony Hsieh, Zappos.com's CEO.  He is one of 438 people at Zappos who actively converse on Twitter. He's also an active blogger with a dedicated CEO & COO blog amongst 13 other blogs at Zappos.  Their social media strategy is discussed here and here.

What do the numbers say about Tony's Twitter activity over the past 30 days?

• Despite having 43,000 followers, Tony has relatively little activity on Twitter.
• He sent only 4 tweets a day on average despite receiving 50 tweets a day
• Only 30% of his tweets were @replies (relatively low conversation quotient)
• 41% of his onbound tweets contain links, aimed at driving people to his blog where he promotes the people, products and culture of Zappos

@ComcastCares is the voice of Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care at Comcast. Frank has become a celebrity and is frequently invited to talk at conferences about his customer service activities on Twitter. Frank's mission is to bring a human voice to a company not known for its ability or desire to communicate with its customers.

Frank's numbers show how successfully he is at using Twitter to engage in dialog and solve people's cable problems. He's a digital conversation machine!

• Frank has 8,400 followers and so you'd expect that he'd be your classic celebrity broadcaster but that is not his goal. His goal is to serve people, listen to them and solve their problems
• Frank has 755 fans who are very local (41% loyalty)
• 55% of his incoming and outgoing networks overlap (lots of one-to-one real conversation)
• 98% of his tweets are @replies (high conversation quotient)
• He receives and replies to 50 tweets a day (high follow cost)

What does the Twitgraph say about their respective approaches to conversation on Twitter?  Zappos appears to be more focused  on mass one-way broadcasting with links to drive people to Zappo's various blogs. Comcastcares, however, is exclusively focused on solving individual customers' problems and has a very high conversation quotient.

Despite the differences between the two, their respective conversations bring a great deal of authenticity and transparency to their brands.  They both communicate in a very human voice. This is a key take-away for those embarking on this journey.  Conversations occur between people and are filled with human emotion.  No-one will engage in a conversation with a faceless corporation.

Given my cursory analysis, the following five metrics appear to provide the greatest insights into underlying conversation strategy:

• Loyal fans (not number of followers)
• Conversation quotient
• Link quotient
• Retweet quotient
• Network overlap (between incoming and outgoing nets)

Before you go off and start to emulate these successful social networkers, remember to spend upfront time clearly establishing your social media goals. What are you trying to achieve? Are you ready to put in the hard work it takes to become a prolific and valuable conversationalist in the social space? Once you've articulated your goals you can look to build the appropriate Twitgraph to achieve them.

As always, I'd love to hear your perspectives, comments and feedback.  I invite you to comment below.

Twestival Toronto

Join us for an historic global event! Get your tickets here!

On Thursday, February 12th, Toronto is joining forces with over 107 cities around the world, harnessing the power of Twitter, social media and technology for an evening of fun and networking to raise money and awareness for Charity: Water.

Why is it historic?

For the first time ever Twitter users from around the world will be participating in a single event to be broadcast live from major cities to benefit a single vitally important cause. Think of it as the ultimate global tweetup!

Why Water?

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

What is Charity: Water?

Charity: Water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.

For updates on venue and ticketing information, please visit toronto.twestival.com

Are you interested in giving your company exposure to the Toronto’s early adopter community by supporting Twestival? If so, please contact us via email for sponsorship opportunities.

Help spread the word by Tweeting this to your network on Twitter / Facebook. Please donate to charity:water here.

If you're not in the Toronto area, look here to find info about the event in your local city.

This is an opportunity to start a new life journey I wrote about here.

Global Effort to Leverage Twitter Connections for Good

Join us for an historic global event!

On Thursday, February 12th, Toronto is joining forces with over 107 cities around the world, harnessing the power of Twitter, social media and technology for an evening of fun and networking to raise money and awareness for Charity: Water.

Why is it historic?

For the first time ever Twitter users from around the world will be participating in a single event to be broadcast live from major cities to benefit a single vitally important cause.  Think of it as the ultimate global tweetup!

Why Water?

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

What is Charity: Water?

Charity: Water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.

For updates on venue and ticketing information, please visit toronto.twestival.com

Are you interested in giving your company exposure to the Toronto’s early adopter community by supporting Twestival? If so, please contact us via email for sponsorship opportunities.

Help spread the word by Tweeting this to your network on Twitter / Facebook. Please donate to charity:water here.

If you're not in the Toronto area, look here to find info about the event in your local city.

This is an opportunity to start a new life journey I wrote about here.

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• Twestival: tweeting-up with a social conscience
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• Tired of People Ignoring Relationships
• When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.

The dying pangs of the traditional advertising industry? Or the birth of a new model?

I received an "Ad Alert" this morning via email touting a new TV commercial for Heineken. I had opted in to receive this email so I didn't initially consider it to be spam. The usual spam that we receive typically falls into one of these categories:

• Adult content
• Health
• IT
• Personal finance
• Education/training

This was an email about a cool new TV commercial, not for Viagra or some MLM get-rick-quick scheme.

I clicked on the link and was taken to a site where I could watch the ad.  This is what I saw:

Is the traditional advertising industry / agency experimenting with a new business model? Even if TV commercials were to become the next wave of entertainment that we download to our computers, iPhones, Apple TVs, etc, who in their right mind is going to download a TV commercial for $10?  Obviously there is  something wrong with this picture.  $10 for a 30-second TV commercial? That's not going to fly.  How about 99c on iTunes? Maybe that would work. I can buy a full-length movie on my Apple TV for $9.99.

Round #1 of this new business model has failed.  Try again please.

The Puzzle

(via Tzvi Freeman at Chabad.org)

Think of your world as a massive jigsaw puzzle in time and three dimensions. All the objects and events are meant to fit together neatly, yet they seem just a heap of dysfunctional fragments.

Here is the trick to reassembling those fragments: Find your own purpose first and start moving headstrong towards it. Once in that mode, all things related to your purpose will find you. And those things already attached to you will find their place as well. Suddenly, where once noise and chaos tore you in a thousand directions, a great symphony occurs.

Dear David

I work for a digital agency that is owned by the one of the "Big Three" in the advertising/communication industry.  I was lucky to be chosen to attend a senior management training program back in June of 2008 with 50 colleagues from sister agencies across the globe.

Imagine spending a week in Massachusetts with leading Harvard Business School professors who expertly teach, manage and facilitate an intense 5-day dialogue with 50 of the smartest people in your industry.  It was like a highly intensive "Executive MBA on Steroids." It was a truly inspirational, high-energy journey of self-discovery!

On the last day, we were asked to write a letter (a real letter on real paper with a real pen - not an email) addressed to ourselves and we were told these letters would be mailed in the New Year.  My letter just arrived.  I think it's the first hand-written letter I've received in 10 years and definitely the first letter from myself.  I thought I'd share it on this blog as we collectively embark on a New Year in 2009:

Dear David,

In order to be a better leader I remind you to:

• Give up your addiction to CPA (continuous partial attention)
• Take control of your attention. Be present in the moment. Put away the Blackberry. Forget the past and the future. Concentrate on the NOW
• Remember balance. Beyond work, give of yourself to your family, friends and community
  
• Be a Leader:
  • Don't give up
  • Be courageous
  • Be connected
  • Be empathetic
  • Talk to people (in person and on the phone not just via email, IM and Twitter)
  • Have fun
  • Always reach higher
  • Focus
  • Be diligent about follow-through
  • Be diligent about follow-through
  • Be diligent about follow-through

Interesting to get a gentle kick-in-the-butt reminder from yourself 7 months later!

What do you think? Any of this resonate with you?

“Will You Marry Me?” Twitter Style …

This is a very cute example of how ubiquitous Twitter has become as a conversation platform.

Grant Robertson from Atlanta, GA proposed to his girlfriend, Christina Warren (also of Atlanta, GA) via Twitter as she was in San Francisco at Macworld and he couldn't wait for her to tell her any other way! So he used Twitter to reach out over 3,000 miles to pop the question ...

See the conversation below:

A search on Twitter shows thousands of people retweeting the proposal and sending their best regards to @grobertson and @film_girl

This just made our collective day a little brighter!

Time to Stop Pretending and Time to Start Helping Israel

Alan Dershowitz on Israel, Gaza and Hamas.

Want to do something to help? Click here!

From the HelpUsWin.org site:

Make your voice heard - 7  Things you can help us win this battle:

1. Join Groups and post comments on Media Websites
2. Join our mailing list and we will send you updates
3. You can change your Facebook picture to show your support ( you can get the israeli flag pic here )
4. You can add the QassamCount application on facebook : http://cli.gs/qassam. With QassamCount you can do one of two things: You can have your status updated automatically every time a Qassam falls, or you can have your status changed once a day to reflect the total amount of Qassams that fell that day.
5. You can help us and Digg for israel.
6. Follow us on Twitter
7. Spread the word anyway possible

Key Messages:

1. ISRAEL WANTS PEACE!
2. The IDF targets terrorist outposts and always attempts to limit civilian casualties.
3. The definition of TERRORISM is the deliberate targeting of civilians, which HAMAS does daily to Israel.
4. Israel is, and always has been, sending food and humanitarian aid into Gaza through the Karni and Keren crossings.
5. HAMAS is arbitrarily firing rockets into Israeli civilian areas including nursery schools, hospitals, and shopping malls.
6. Israel left Gaza for peace in August of 2005 and has been attacked from Gaza with thousands of rockets ever since.
7. Israeli citizens live with post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of daily rocket attacks.
8. Israelis only have 15 seconds to run into bomb shelters once a rocket is fired by Hamas.
9. HAMAS’ incitement and ammunition build-up has reached dangerous levels and during the last week alone we have seen HUNDREDS of rockets fired into Israel.
10. Hamas openly admits to using civilians as human shields.
11. How would the US react to a missile attack on its citizens coming from Canada or Mexico?
12. Israel, as any viable democracy, must defend its citizens.
13. While Gaza suffers under Hamas’ rule, the West Bank has witnessed an upsurge in economic activity.
14. ISRAEL WANTS PEACE!