Emerging Social Media Tools

Emerging Social Media- or -

How I learned to stop worrying and love “The Next Big Thing”

Adam Schweigert Director of Technology

Investigative News Network @aschweig

The Pinterestification of The Web Everything

http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com/

Visual Publishing Comes Into Its Own

Conversations As Content

Open Alternatives

The Power Of Small Numbers

Context Is King

Responsive Design

Wearable and Embedded Computing

So, Adam… How do I decide which of these things I need to worry about?

I, [YOUR NAME], give myself permission to not use every new social network. To not download every new app. And to not spend every waking moment in front of a screen.

Who do I want to reach? Where do they spend their time? What do they do there? When are they online? How can I contribute in a meaningful way? Why does this make sense from a business perspective?

5 Whys Ask “Why?” 5 times to understand (your or someone else’s) motivations, underlying beliefs or the root cause of a problem.

We need to be on Pinterest! Why? Because everyone else is! Why? Because Mashable told them they should be! Why? Because Mashable needs people to be interested in the next new shiny thing so they keep paying attention to Mashable Why? Because they make money from advertising sold on a CPM basis and need the pageviews Why? Because they have to pay their investors/staff/etc.

5 Whys Ask “Why?” 5 times to understand (your or someone else’s) motivations, underlying beliefs or the root cause of a problem.

We need to be on Pinterest! Why? Because our potential customers spend a lot of time there Why? They find it useful as a way to discover new products they might like to buy Why? They follow people who have common interests and share cool stuff Why? They want to be viewed as tastemakers Why? It’s cool to be a trendsetter.

Strategy vs. Tactics “Grand Plan”

Immutable, big picture definition of

a problem and what to do about it

Specific measure to push a plan

forward; Changes with circumstances (i.e – Technology)

Social Media is NOT A Strategy!

Goals Metrics Targets How will we measure our progress? Pageviews Unique visitors Repeat visitors Time on site Conversions Again, as SPECIFIC as possible. # of comments per post (in a particular post type) per thousand (non-bounce) visitors

What does success look like? Increase/Maintain/Decrease [METRIC] by [% or number] by [DATE] Increase the avg. # of comments per post per 1,000 visitors in the politics section by 10% by November 31.

What do we want to accomplish? (Be Specific) Increase depth and frequency of conversations around our political content.

Try lots of little experiments With an eye towards how new tools and approaches might fit into your bigger picture strategy

Set clear, specific goals and targets And regularly evaluate your progress

Iterate (but know when to say no) It’s ok if experiments fail, but you need to recognize what failure looks like

Celebrate successes (This is what you need targets for)

Spend more time outside

Thank You!

Adam Schweigert @aschweig

aschweigert@gmail.com adamschweigert.com