I just checked out a new site called  appropriately, When Will I Be Mayor?  The premise is pretty simple and it does exactly what it states in the title, it helps you predict how many more check-ins you need to (potentially) become mayor of a venue.  It’s easy enough to use, just sign up for an account then log in using Foursquare OAuth, and you’re in! It will do a lot of API calls then give you a list of venues you’ve been checking in to and tell you approximately how many more check-ins you need to gain mayorship! It appears that the assumption is that the person you are trying to de-mayor (is that a word?) doesn’t check in any more times, and they will, so adjust accordingly.

If nothing else, the site is fun and adds another layer to the already popular Foursquare service.  I’m a Foursquare purist and think that the best way to earn a mayorship is to legitimately check in when you frequent a particular place, so I’m not really going to watch this diligently, but it does give me something to aim for.  Watch out, Kyle…M80 will be mine some day!

Give the service a shot and let me know what you think.  You can also keep up with their blog here, and naturally can follow them on Twitter here.

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More about that in a moment. But first, if you are not familiar with what Facebook has done, let me give you a very brief overview.

What Does Open Graph Do?

Websites can now be uniquely dynamic, not globally static.  In other words, each visitor to a site will experience it in a way that no other visitor ever will.

For example, when a visitor goes to a website and logs in using Facebook, they will see which of their friends “like” the site, a single page or even an individual product. In addition to the “like” feature, any site can customize the user experience by displaying personally relevant information like upcoming birthdays, events or hobbies of their friends. In all, there are sixteen categories of personal information that can be shared on the site, creating an experience that is unique for each visitor.

As a brand marketer that focuses on social media optimization (here is a list of companies that I currently or recently have worked for), I’m incredibly excited about how this changes the scope of how we can interact and engage with consumers.  It’s a brave new world.

Proof That Facebook Now Controls The Internet

Given what websites are now able to create unique and very personal experiences on their sites, it’s no surprise that many are clamoring to understand and incorporate Open Graph Protocol into their online communities. I wouldn’t think that every company would be anxious to use OGP, however; companies that view Facebook as competition in any way are no doubt less-than-thrilled with this announcement.  One such company is Google.

It’s no secret that there is more than a little competition between Google and Facebook.  This Wired piece from February 2010 says it well, “this time it’s personal”.  It’s not a new rivalry, there are many articles going back several years that describe a similar cut-throat mentality of competition.  Given this, I’m truly surprised that even Google has started to incorporate Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol into some of their sites.  Today, I discovered that YouTube, a company that is Google owned, is using OGP is a very creative way.

My friend and social media pro Josh Groth put up a link to a video on his Facebook page today.  I thought it sounded interesting, so I clicked the link that brought me directly to the YouTube page and started watching (the quite excellent) ukulele rendition of MGMT’s Kids.  That’s not the amazing part…what I was shocked to see was the prompt just below the video encouraging me to log into YouTube with my Facebook account! Facebook Connect for YouTube isn’t new, it was implemented last year.  However, this move appears to cement into place the premise that YouTube (and therefore Google) needs Facebook.

Although I didn’t log in, it’s a brilliant move by YouTube, and I’m sure many companies will follow.  If I had permitted the application to log me in via Facebook, I would have given YouTube full permission to contact me anytime via email, and to pull my personal information (and that of my friends) from Facebook whenever they wanted to, day or night. I would be giving them the keys to the kingdom, so to speak.

I asked somebody to log into the same video, first by directly visiting the URL in their browser without going through Facebook.  The result? There was not a prompt to log in with Facebook.  Next, they clicked through the link for the same video (same URL) that I had posted on my wall in Facebook.  This time the prompt for them to sign in via Facebook was there. Want to see for yourself? Click the link here to go directly to the YouTube video page, then click the link here to go to my Facebook social media page so you can click through to the same video, but from Facebook. Do you see what I see? The prompt to log in only displays (for now) for the traffic that comes directly from Facebook.

This means that YouTube is using referral data (how you get to there site, where you are coming from) to determine if you will see the prompt for Facebook connect.  It stands to reason that if you are going to YouTube directly from Facebook, you will be more likely to log in using the Facebook method…which of course increases the amount of information that YouTube can gather, store and use about you.  All in all, it’s very clean and smart marketing.

What This Means

As much as I can appreciate the fact that YouTube is really embracing Facebook’s Open Graph Protocol, it’s hard for me to look past that fact that it is really Google using it.  In my mind, Google’s continuing embrace and use of technology that clearly incorporates and benefits Facebook is quite telling: Facebook has rolled out something that is so beneficial to every brand and company that has a web presence, Facebook now controls the internet.

Checkmate. Well played, Facebook.

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You know you’re an old-school Twitter user if…

1. You still type “summize.com” in your browser to get to the Twitter Search page
2. You’ve felt ecstatic about Twitter being down less than half the day
3. You had to explain what a “tweet” was…at least 3 times a day
4. You remember when Kevin Rose had the most followers on Twitter, and you couldn’t believe that anybody could have over 30,000!
5. You know that the first big follower race was not between Ashton Kutcher and CNN, but Kevin Rose and Barack Obama!
6. You used to use the “TRACK” feature with Twitter via SMS to find out who mentioned you
7. You remember the nightly news when they used an anchor’s title, not their Twitter name
8. You referred to somebody in terms of Milliscobles
9. You happen to know that the original Twitter bird was stock art (seen below), and Twitter paid less than the price of a pizza to acquire it
10. When you heard the news that Oprah was going to talk about Twitter,you just knew that the service had jumped the shark
11. You remember the day you heard the Twitter whale art was named “Failwhale“

I could go on and on…but those are the first 10 that come to mind.  What would you add? Leave a comment, or ping me on Twitter with your sweetest old school Twitter memory.

If you aren’t familiar with Foursquare, it’s a service that sprung up last year and has really hit the scene (at least the geek/tech scene) with fervor this year.  I’ve been a fan of it for some time, going as far as to call it the “next” social network way back in October 2009. So today is a day of virtual celebration for all of the mayors, checker-inners and social media geeks, it’s April 16th! (Get it? Four squared is 16….4/16…..)

There are a few things that make today that special day, but one of them is a new badge, just for this occasion.  Today only, when you check in to your favorite local haunt, make sure you give a shout out to Foursquare Day and include the hashtag #4sqday…you’ll be rewarded by unlocking the cool new badge that tells the world you are an uber-geek.

Foursquare themselves talked about it on their blog, and naturally there is a website that aggregates conversations from Twitter that mention #4sqday, and finally there is the official #4sqday Twitter account that is chatting up the festivities.

So what are you waiting for? Check in (if you don’t have the app you can get it here, available for iPhone, Android and Blackbery), give a shout-out in your checking using #4sqday and then add me as a friend so we can keep up.

Happy Foursquare Day!

To truly be effective in social media with influencers, I think you need to build a relationship, not ship a press package. You also have to recognize and understand the different groups that exist in social media, so you know how to develop and target brand programs and exposure.  In case you fear that I’m starting to sound a little too professional and polished in this approach, I submit for your approval a hand drawn diagram in the picture to the left.  Fancy, isn’t it? I put this beauty up on our office white board this morning while talking through the concept with a client.

Before we discuss what to do with these various groups, let’s start by defining them.

The consumer has the least amount of influence or interest in the product, but they represent the largest purchasing power…these are the folks that we are ultimately trying to sway, to move to purchase. Consumers are you and me and everybody else that has the ability to purchase your product or service, hereafter referred to generically and entirely to business-school like as “Brand X”.  This is the goal of the company: to get these (so far) non-customers to make the decision to give your company money in some capacity.  If they do this, you get to keep your job and keep on making more cool things like Brand X 2.0 and the new and improved iBrand X.

The enthusiasts are the people that still have a (relatively) small audience size (probably fewer than 3k total) but are hard-core lovers of the brand. They like all things Brand X and will talk about it day and night. They are also eager to assist the brand in many ways, including grass roots WOM marketing efforts, forum moderation and even customer support. This group of loyalists are invaluable to your marketing efforts (as we will look at later), but unfortunately are often passed over in an effort to reach somebody with a larger audience.

The influencers have a sizeable audience (from the tens of thousands to millions) but have little interest or knowledge of Brand X. In social media they have a massive audience, and are constantly asked to retweet a message, put up a link to a product or page, or just talk about a brand. Often they will do this, sometimes because they are being paid to, sometimes because they are just kind.  Corporate types and marketers usually get a good rise when an influencer mentions their product, the oh-so-popular Brand X, and think this is a completed cycle of marketing…that they have succeeded.  It is my belief that this isn’t the end-game, this is the starting line. This is the group that we want to convert into the most powerful and final group: the inciters.

The inciters have great interest in the product, use it, like it, and talk about it to their sizeable audience.  When an inciter knows and understands something, and feels passionately about it, they will talk about it…without a press kit to tell them what to say! Better yet, they won’t just talk about it, they’ll talk about it frequently.  This ultimately will drive the consumer (remember them?) to think, “well golly, since this really popular person obviously loves Brand X, I bet I will also!” and then rush down to their local big box store to buy it.

I described the four sectors of the community in a somewhat glib manner, but in all seriousness they exist roughly within the roles described, and all serve a very important part of the product (or service) sales cycle.  In our next post, we’ll look at the strategy and methodology behind the cycle, and how to move a person from one segment to the next.

There have been a couple of times that I was alarmed by what people are capable of thinking or doing.  A few years ago I started getting anonymous comments on various videos of my children, asking me to pose them in certain ways or have them do certain things.  Naturally I deleted all traces of the videos online (yes it is possible) and became very aware of what I was posting after that.  Although I was always careful to never name them or reveal the location of my children even before this incident, I became very protective after that and have been quite conscious of what I would and would not publish.  Over the years I have become more widely known because of my marketing and social media work, and although I’m certainly a small fish in a big pond, I do have a lot of connections with people that I’ve never met face to face.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade my social media life.  I’ve turned so many of my digital-first relationships into real-life relationships, and I love social media and the way it connects the world. But, and there is always a but…

I’m closing up my personal Facebook profile, restricting it to only people I know in real life.

I was going to post this earlier in the week, but as I was proofing the draft, I skipped over to my blog reader and was quite surprised to see that one of the greats in social media, Darren Rowse the ProBlogger, announced pretty much the same thing.  It’s an excellent article, you can read it here, but it left me thinking that this was the right move for me.  Darren has a much larger audience than I do (and he deserves it!), so pointing people over to his Facebook Fan Page yielded some pretty good results.  The very next day on Twitter I saw that my friend Jessica Gottlieb was doing the same thing…purging Facebook.

Honestly, the announcement of my personal Facebook page going private isn’t big news.  I’m writing this because I am looking at this as perhaps more of a renewing of the line between public and private lives globally.  The pendulum tends to swing in trends…we went from very private (no internet access) to very public (ChatRoulette) and I think we’re going to start seeing a swing back to the private.  It’s not going to go back to total segregation however…I see a hybrid emerging, especially for social media professionals.

I’m closing up my Facebook profile and unfriending people that I don’t personally know…but honestly encouraging them to join me on my fan page.  And yes, I hate the term fan page…who am I that somebody would become a fan? I wish it were worded differently.  But it’s not, so that is what I will develop over time.  I had a conversation with somebody about this today, and they initially said something along the lines of “nice knowing you”, meaning that our digital connection was being cut.  On the contrary, I replied…I really think I’ll be engaging people a lot more with this move. My current Facebook status is automatically updated from my Twitter feed, so it’s actually not all that personal to begin with.  Twitter is still probably the best way to connect with me, but I’m not going to send it over to Facebook anymore; not to my personal or my public page.  We’ll see how it goes.

Hopefully now the separation of worlds will make more sense.  When my Aunt writes on my wall and asks how my mom is, half of my friends won’t wonder what she’s talking about.  When an online friend starts talking to me about HTML5 vs. Flash, half of my friends won’t wonder what he’s talking about.  And out of all of it, I think I can start putting up pictures of my children, and my friends from high school can comment on what good looking kids they are….because they really are good looking kids!

Thanks for understanding! I would love it if you would join me on my public Facebook page (I’m going to be careful to not call it a fan page), and if you have been thinking about this separation of public and private lives, I would love to hear about it in the comments or on Twitter. Or even on my new f** page.  ;)

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Bathroom photo used under Creative Commons from Brymo

1. Agencies will gobble up consultants. This is one of the biggest game changers I think, because a lot of the talent that is freelance now will be on payroll for an agency.  I already saw this starting in 2009 with amazing folks like James Whatley moving to 1000heads and Dave Armano going to Edelmen.  Heck, I even joined forces with M80 and I’m incredibly happy to be there. This change is going to be driven by three forces I think…. First, anytime a new business field emerges it usually starts off being run ad hoc by individuals or groups, but big business starts buying it up when it becomes a clearly viable venture.  Social Media is no different than organic foods, internet connectivity or the gold rush…eventually the big guy steps in and throws a lot of cash around, knowing that very often it is easier to purchase than innovate.  Second, agencies are used to being fairly full-service and right now they are not.  As Fortune 1000 companies start spending on social, they tap their usual agency of record to perform.  Right now most of those agencies can’t do anything other than subcontract the work out, no doubt they will change that in 2010.  Third, simply put… it’s getting fairly difficult to make good money as a consultant in social media.  With over 15,000 people on Twitter alone boasting about being a social media expert, the field is wide but shallow.  I would venture a guess that most of those experts made less than $1,000 in 2009 as directly related to their expertise.  Companies are starting to realize that just because somebody has a Twitter account it doesn’t mean that they can deliver the goods, so these same companies will stop tapping consultants and will start turning to agencies even more.  It stands to reason, therefore, that the agencies will need more talent.  Time to update your resume, folks, and practice interview questions.
2. Big companies will allocate big bucks to social. Until very recently I had a hard time convincing a company of any size to spend more than $10k directly on social media marketing and outreach.  Now I personally know many companies that are spending $1MM or more on social in 2010.  One very large, very well known company (that I have no association with professionally or personally) recently announced to internal department heads that they will be allocating 10% of 2009 marketing dollars to social in 2010.  I see other companies like Apple that have been conspicuously quiet in social finally starting to get into the game (although their engagement sucks…not a single @ reply or RT…)  Even though I’m happy to see money going to direct consumer interaction, I hope they don’t throw out big piles of money without being wise in their selection of outlets, otherwise they’ll pull it all back in when 2011 hits and we’ll see a big bubble pop like the dot com crash of the late ’90s.
3. Twitter will offer paid accounts. I don’t think this is too prophetic on my part, they’ve been talking about special business offerings for some time, and I have no doubt they will deliver to the paying business customer. What do businesses want more than anything? Metrics. Numbers. Analytics.  Bring it on Twitter, and make sure it’s not some rinky-dink package…we want numbers we can sink our teeth into!
4. Foursquare will be purchased. I have no substantiation for this other than a gut feeling.  They’ve got all-star investors and some nice funding, but I think they’re looking for a quick flip and 2010 would be a great year for it.  My guess? Surprisingly not Google, who buys companies like I buy groceries.  I think this one is going to either Microsoft or Twitter.  No matter, I love the service (you can friend me here) and they continue to do great things with their geo-location services.
5. MySpace will stabilize. The service has been bleeding 1MM+ users per month for some time, but I think that will slow down around the middle of the year.  At the 140Conf in LA a couple of months back I heard COO Michael Jones talk about a renewed focus on the music and entertainment industry.  I think this is a good move (as long as they don’t have many more gaffs like the acquisition and shuttering of imeem), since music is really what launched MySpace in the first place.  Let standard users go over to Facebook and make MySpace the best channel a musician can have.
6. ROI for social media will be standardized. This is the most elusive of all creatures…the return on investment in social media.  Since companies are going to be dumping buckets of cash into social (see points 1 and 2 above), they will get more insistent upon seeing a metric version of their return.  This is incredibly difficult to put onto paper, because scoring a relationship isn’t very cut and dry.  How does one measure  week over week growth of trust? Of perception?  It’s not easy.  Because social media occurs online, too many companies expect to see a simple ROI chart like they get with paid media, but social isn’t measurable like click-thrus.  I’ve seen several attempts at ROI (all have come up short), but I think 2010 will reveal a winner and one that will be adopted by the industry.  I should probably mention that I’m obsessed with this, so I work on it constantly.  With any luck, the methodology and algorithms that I have created will become standard. ;)

I’ve got other ideas of what I believe 2010 will hold for social media, but I think six is probably enough to reference back throughout the year, and to tell me why and how I was wrong…haha! Whatever this coming year holds, I know one thing is certain: it’s going to be exciting and ever-changing.  As I type this I imagine there are some very smart people sitting around, enjoying a drink and talking about the little online service they’ve developed that will launch in 2010…and dreaming that it will be as explosive as Twitter or as big as Facebook.  I hope they are right, I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

I’ve created this list of “things you must know” mostly based upon very positive experiences I’ve had, but also from negative ones…things that I’ve either experienced myself or seen others do. This isn’t a tactical post, I think I write plenty of those. Instead, this is my advice to those that are going to lend their expertise to others, and hopefully by checking these off you will avoid some common mistakes that often result in unmet expectations, from one side or the other…or both.

Know The Product

I think this is the single biggest mistake that I see over and over and over again…lack of product knowledge when you are doing work for somebody else.You may be running a campaign for a durable good or a service. Sometimes it’s just brand awareness so there is not one thing you are pointing to, just the brand. No matter what it is, if you don’t know the ins and outs of what you will be marketing you are doing your client, their customers and yourself a huge disservice. I’ve been invited in to too many conversations that go something like this:

Them: Hey, we’re working on social media engagement for Product X, would love your advice on where to start.

Me: Sounds good. What do you know about the product, what is the community going to be talking about when we open up the social media channels?

Them: Well, I know it does blah blah blah, and our initial benchmark report shows that people mostly want to know about blah blah blah.

Me: Super. What is your personal impression of Product X? What do you like and dislike about it? What do you know about it that the general public does not, something that would be helpful that we can discuss with them?

Them: Ummmm….what?

Me: What’s your hands-on experience with it? Who are the competitors? What do the real fanboys of Product X think about it?

Them: I don’t know, I haven’t actually used it.

Get To Know The Product Or Service You Will Be Promoting

Don’t let this be you. If you’re dealing with large agencies and brands you can probably rest on your laurels for a while without being discovered, but once you start the engagement process with the consumers of the product or service, you’re going to be eaten alive. You won’t be able to join conversations, you’ll essentially be an observer, pushing out information but not truly being able to engage. The result? You’ve just turned social media into traditional media, the one way podium of information pushing. Please don’t do this, it’s bad for you, it’s terrible for your client and the customers that you manged to attract during your initial jump into social will either stop engaging your or simply go away.

Before you get into the world of social media, do your homework. What is the market share? Who is the competition? If this is something that you are able to use (service or good) personally? Try to get your hands on it; if it’s too expensive or unattainable for any reason, don’t be afraid to ask the client for access. The most effective campaigns and programs are those that are run by people that understand and are passionate about what they are talking about. This is often misunderstood on the consultant/agency side, and the results are made obvious quickly: when it comes to engagement in the channels (especially Twitter), you will get called out as a phony pretty quickly. You need to have knowledge of what you are talking about. If you need inspiration, go watch some episodes of Mad Men. I’m serious. When Don Draper and his team really try to understand the product, the creativity starts flowing and the campaigns are successful. The big difference? Their audience couldn’t talk back to them in real time…the world of social media isn’t quite as forgiving.

Want to know how to really close a deal with your client? When you’re at your face-to-face meeting, pull out their product or call it up on your computer, then talk to them about what you like about it personally and how you are going to engage their audience based upon YOUR experience. Of course there are other factors that will determine the program and who they chose for the work (like cost, reputation, etc), but I can tell you from personal experience, this never hurts. Your client wants to know that you’re more than a shill…they want to work with somebody that believes in what they are producing as much as they do. Prove to them that you are that person.

In the next post I will talk about what it means to know the audience.

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Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

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Photos used under Creative Commons License. Facebook photo from Laughing Squid and Zune from Joe Wilcox

Part 1 of 6

Over the years I’ve run a lot of social media programs, sometimes for companies or services that I own or manage, sometimes for organizations that have hired me to consult or drive their efforts in the various online communities.  This article is primarily aimed at those that do the latter, although several points can apply to the former.  That is to say, if you are a consultant or work at an agency whose primary focus is running social programs for somebody else, I’m writing this for you.

I’ve created this list of “things you must know” mostly based upon very positive experiences I’ve had, but also from negative ones…things that I’ve either experienced myself or seen others do.  This isn’t a tactical post, I think I write plenty of those.  Instead, this is my advice to those that are going to lend their expertise to others, and hopefully by checking these off you will avoid some common mistakes that often result in unmet expectations, from one side or the other…or both.

You may notice, if you’ve peeked ahead, that there is only one item in this post.  Why did I title it “6 Things You Need to Know”?  There are six in total, so be patient. However, as I wrote this post it because evident to me very quickly that I couldn’t possibly make a quick bullet point list without some thorough explanation…information without context is often misunderstood.  Therefore, I’m going to break this up into six different posts, each with a slightly different focus.  Hopefully all six can be read individually, but really they are meant to come together to form a more complete picture.  As always, if you have question I would be happy to try to answer them.  Leaving a comment here is a great way, but I’m also overly-active on Twitter, so please hit me up there as well.  Without further adieu I give you point one of six in things that you need to know about running a social media program.

Point 1: Know Your Client

You’ve made contact.  Maybe you’ve done the selling, maybe somebody else has…no matter.  We’re jumping past that and right into the assumption that the scope of the work lies ahead of you. It’s easy to get so eager for the sale that once it happens you don’t take the time to get to know your client personally.  I’m not talking about finding out their kids’ names, although if you get to that level of a relationship it’s nice.  I’m talking about understanding the type of personality you are working with, and how they operate professionally.  Running a campaign for a very laid back, hands-off person is far different than running one for somebody that expects reports and heavy communication.  Make no mistake….the point person on the other side is essentially paying your salary.  It’s just as important to understand them as it is your direct boss.  If you don’t have a boss because you are a consultant, don’t let this point get lost, because it’s even more important for you.  If you cannot operate well with your point person, you do not have much to fall back on…your boss isn’t going to rescue you.

Knowing How Your Client Communicates Is Critical

The first thing I like to do with a new client is establish how they prefer to communicate.  Some will want to do almost everything over email, some will want a lot of phone time, and some with need that always-critical face time.  By establishing their best method of communication up front you’re going to save yourself a lot of trouble.  For example, if somebody really does prefer updates and chatter through email, calling them regularly is going to annoy the hell out of them.  Likewise, if they prefer phone or in-person updates, trying to force them down the path of email only will instantly make them feel like they are not important to you.  Being the social media guy that I am, I prefer to do quick touch points via Twitter and the like…but I know that most of my clients do not.  I like to suggest new and effective ways of communicating, but I always communicate with them on their terms, in their preferred method. An important part of understand how you will be communicating is to know when they want reports, check ins, etc.  I have a couple of clients that I speak to every day, and some that I only check in with once per week.  In all cases, we make this determination together at the beginning of the project. Both over-communication and under-communication can kill a relationship quickly.

Understanding Client Expectations Prevents A Lot Of Problems Before They Start

Once you know how they communicate, it’s important to understand what they want communicated.  If you’re dealing with a traditional company that is used to traditional metrics, they’re going to jump straight to easy-to-measure things like follower count, tweets, video views,click through rates, etc.  Companies that are more comfortable with social media may look for key indicators that are more subjective, like sentiment.  All of these are important to measure and report, but make sure you know where you client wants to put their emphasis. I strongly recommend developing a reporting template that can be used and re-used with each client, making only slight changes for each.

It sounds exhausting before the work is even started, right? I assure you, time and time again setting this foundation with the client and being open and clear about expectations on both sides will make for a much smoother program…and that ultimately leads to more work, more revenue and fewer headaches.

In the next post I will talk about what it means to know the product.

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Did you enjoy this post? Consider subscribing to the RSS for future updates delivered straight to a feed reader, or come over to Twitter and say hi…that is where I do most of my one-on-one engagement

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Photos used under Creative Commons License.  Social media from anonymonk and telephone booth from wallyg with cartoon from Scott Hampson

Imagine then what social media would be like if Facebook decided to keep their community confined to college students only.  What if Twitter really did make you answer the question “what are you doing?” and excluded external links, retweets and other crowd-sourced behavior? The reason that social media is the way is it today is because Twitter and Facebook, along with countless other services, adopted to the powerful voice of the crowd. They didn’t let pride or “what they knew to be true” hold them back from making smart, and undoubtedly difficult, business decisions.  Embracing the crowd is always challenging, it means you lose a certain amount of control…and to many that is a scary proposition.

Do you remember Tower Records?  I recall going into one of their stores in Sacramento, California with my cousin in the ’80s.  I was blown away by the massive selection of tapes and CDs and thought that it was the greatest music source on the planet. Apparently, so did they; so much so that they refused to change their business model at all as the ‘trend’ of digital music exploded.  It’s not difficult to understand their outcome: they ended up filing bankruptcy and closing all of their stores, the name later being bought by an unrelated group that now distributes digitally online.  Tower Records refused to embrace the crowd, instead stubbornly pushing forward their own way. Tower Records died.

I previously consulted a company that had created what I would consider to be a game changing service, but it was lacking one thing: the crowd.  I won’t get into details, but this service was teed up perfectly to embrace the crowd, to allow people outside of the company to quickly and easily share information provided by the service.  My recommendation to include and champion social media was considered and then put into cold storage.  What was once a front-page news story is now no more than a mention in articles that talk about similar services that do actually allow the crowd to participate.

My point here is simple…the crowd is powerful.  It is you and me, and we now have a voice.  We don’t just want the ability to share your products and services with our friends and others within our sphere of influence; we expect it.  If you are building an online service, a mobile phone application or some other piece of digital wizardry that you just know is a game changer, make sure that it includes the community.  Once you release it into the wild it will change, hopefully for the better.  Where would Facebook and Twitter be if they refused to do this?

Embrace the crowd or die.