Posted by Nate Ludens on October 29, 2010 at 4:52 am
Today’s prominent facebook-API message on every Hootsuite user’s dashboard was kind of a shocker to some, and quite a few comments I read today showed anger or frustration. There’s some lessons to be learned here, and I think Hootsuite’s going to be the one observing their users (us) learning the most.
On some minute level, I have to wonder if it’s a delayed power play from Facebook to sort of show 3rd party apps “who’s boss,” – or perhaps some 3rd parties cut some dev corners to get out a head start on the Social Media App game. This isn’t a hack on Hootsuite – I’m a big fan, and have been an advocate since it’s launch. Tweetdeck, Echofon, Tweetie for Mac, I’ve used them all. Every single one has glitches – the more social networks it operates, the more drama with API calls, the more down time. Chalk most of these up to growing pains. (Anyone all-too familiar with the Fail Whale?)
Lesson 1: You get what you pay for. When Hootsuite announced a few months ago that they were going to a pay model, the company was met with massive Boos and Jeers. Hootsuite retracted, and said they’d chill and develop a new strategy for their pay version. Well, today they showed corporate users (the freeloaders, specifically) that if they want Hootsuite to single-handedly operate a company’s Customer Relationship Management, they may actually want to invest a dime in it.
I wonder what would happen if a large corporation had a call center full of volunteers and donated phones… I digress….
Lesson 2 is for non-professional SM users. Just because you can post and schedule every update on facebook and twitter and your blog and LinkedIn and MySpace – doesn’t mean you should. When was the last time you actually logged into each of your social networks to post on each, individually?
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Posted by Nate on October 18, 2009 at 1:55 am
Wow. My head is spinning with so much new info. It seems like Thursday’s sessions were a month ago.
I’ll keep this short, because I’m hardly an aficianado for BlogWorld09, it was my first year attending, after all. Personally, I went to bwe09 to learn about social trending, get some help with a few problems, and peek into what’s next for new media. Each of these were answered, and I think my company is on target for big success. Being a corporate blogger, with B to C (Business to Consumer) priority, there were few courses aimed at us – didn’t matter. My team was able to flex and see many other sides of our next phases into social networking. Moving ahead, I’m interested in trending for travel, retail, entertainment and gaming (Vegas, remember), and I got a great insight into some other areas, as well.
If there were any repeating trends, it’s a very positive report for consumers. Maybe because it has to be. Consumers hold a ton of power now that well, hasn’t been the case in recent memory. Conversational, Two-way marketing initiatives are the way to go, if your company isn’t doing it already. Getting to know your _________________ (insert: segment, demographic, target, guests, clients, customers, etc) is now easier than ever using blogs, facebook and twitter. It seems like the only big fat losers are the poor market research companies who do used to organize focus groups and get paid handsomely for it. Oh, and MySpace. (Who?)
What was missing? Not much. It would have been nice to see a keynote from Facebook or Twitter representatives. Perhaps it’s not the proper place. Maybe I just don’t know where that convention is yet. I would love to see a Facebook Damage Control panel, but that might make it seem okay to violate Facebook Policies.
I picked up a ton of new followers on Twitter this week, which I appreciate. I also picked up Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents, and I’m tearing through it this week. I’m only about 40 pages into it, and I can say this: Buy the damn book.
Here’s a fantastic recap of Brogan’s very inspiring Keynote Presentation at BWE09.
I’ll have a few more updates as soon as I can get to it. Hey, cut me some slack! I’m sorting through 29 pages of notes!
… If that’s not a testament to conference, I’m not sure what is.
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