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Is Pinterest being ruined by words?

Remember when all the numbered lists (top 10, three reasons) started to make blogs tiresome? When ubiquitous @s made Twitter overwhelming to scroll? When getting friended by your boss first made Facebook awkward (long before your grandma logged on)?

Those little fault lines were true moments of user design. Examples of what happens when we the people change how we use the tools of social. These growing pains shape the next generation of what that destination will be and who will stay to use it (while others wander away).

Pinterest is at its first fault line.

Its early adopters were cooks, designers and fashionistas. They posted beautiful garments, quirky finds, mouth-watering creations. These were people who loved the look of a thing. Who embraced the idea that a picture alone could inspire.

Then came the pet lovers, the crafters, the nest feathers. Each building a personal NotCot -their own curated collections of delightful things.

The third wave has brought words. Lots of them.

Some are harmless, trite successories. A few are long, winding infographics. Some are recycled quotes from long-lost artists. But, far too many are didactic little blurbs, randomly assigned a font and punctuated with bangers or single-word affirmations (truth, yes, amen, or simply a :).

A few recently popular examples repinned in my stream:

 At some point, Pinterest became something between a doodled notebook cover and a scrapbooking store. Or, it created a new way we share affinity - a way we can vote for the philosophy about life/gender/parenting we feel most connected to. A new kind of like-minded microblogging that celebrates visceral reactions to both images and ideas.

It's an interesting, learn-worthy trend. But, not a shift I personally love. Perhaps I am too quickly nostalgic (in fact, it's possible that I'm reminicsing typing this even now), but I miss the pictures on Pinterest ...

What do you pin?

ePatient conference: Ten big ideas (Day 2)

Seth Quillin (the EVP of innovation in GSW's digital lab) and I were in Philadephia this week for ePatient 2010 - a conference that brings together lots of people like us who are dedicated to reaching, engaging and educating epatients and caregivers. Who are they? Patients and caregivers who’ve become empowered and engaged advocates for their own care through the social web and connected communities.

We were both live blogging from the conference floor on WhatsYourDigitaliQ.com, but of all the great talks we heard, these are the essential ideas -

Ten big ideas from Day 2:

1. Medicine is moving online (fast). Kaiser Permanente has over 3 million people enrolled in its online health management system. In the second quarter, those people sent over 2.6 million emails to their physicians. 


2. Pharma's selling cycle hurts digital investments: Product launches inspire big investments, but they're often quickly abandonned once a list is built or a product matures. Patients don't trust that pharma-sponsored destinations will be/stay there.


3. Big trend in wellness = powerful sensors. Products like Zeo let engaged patients be active participants in their own health. More engaged patients need better tools.


4. Medicine will only change by example. Docs have four years of medical school. That sounds like a long time until you think – the amount of medical information doubles every 3-5 years. Docs have a lot to learn and keep learning. New skills (like writing, video conferencing, sharing) can't be taught that way (what would be left out to teach them?)  We need to get to a critical mass of doctors who think this way and practice this way to teach by example.


5. We're ready for quick response: Kurt Mueller at Roska Digital said that 45% of US is QR ready; 95%, Japan; 75%, Europe


6. Your competition online isn't other products. It's everything else on the internet. People are watching the Family Guy on Hulu, not camping out on your competitor's new blog.


7. Medical journalism is "sideways." Twenty years ago, medical journalists tended to open their advance copies of JAMA and New England Journal of Medicine to write stories. The medical news was top down. Now personal stories reflect bigger challenges in navigating the healthcare system.


8. Nonspecific guidance IS coming. Barabara Chong from DDMAC reported that the agency will release multiple rounds of online and social guidance - the first of which should come out this year. But, the guidance will be general, not targeted to specific destinations, like Facebook


9. We need to think about ePatients when we design clinical trials. The big opportunities are making them more participatory (enroll from anywhere) and more patient centric (share clinical data back with enrolled patients to allow them to increase their own health and wellness or decrease their medical costs)


10. Storytelling breaks through. Novartis reported that 78% of docs were motivated to change their behavior after seeing a film about life with cystic fibrosis. The difference? Real storytelling that followed the three-act format of compelling entertainment (The three acts)

Also see: Ten big ideas (Day 1)

Social retailing at the crossroads of recommendations and social search

That post last week about Cap's new Facebook Connect-powered tour experience got us talking again about the promise and possibility of integrating brand content with live social input.

Of course, we looked at all the usual examples (including the still-creepy-over-a-year-later Prototype Experience), but there's one that stands out as an easy, powerful integration more brands should be making:

Levi's Friends Store

 

It's a friendly, personal little shopping experience that asks you to log in with Facebook Connect to see both what other Facebook users like and what your actual friends say about their favorite denim. All the brand's coupons and offers from their own Facebook page appear in the right rail.

 

I'd love to see this built into Facebook itself, but the experience on this outpost is nearly as good. You do have a sense of what people like you are choosing - with a much more personal face on it than the algorithms Amazon uses ... the ones that somehow decided I should really buy The Rambler and a 38-piece casserole set (pass, thank you).

That said, looking at my personal friends store, I'd guess this isn't highly adopted technology yet ... all my recommendations seem to come from other ad bloggers (@griner is the next review down). Still, this feels like a step in the right direction.

How to be a (good) company blogger

Here’s a question I never even thought to ask: How do you train a blogger?

Isn't blogging just a conversation starter you type instead of talk?  Something that's kind of natural - like writing an email or posting a Facebook status?

Wait, in what world did these things become natural? I've got to shake up my digital comfort zone and think like people who haven't spent their entire careers on one long anthropological online dig.

We’re getting a couple of team-sourced blogs up and running here at GSW. There’s a lot of interest, but also a lot of uncertainty.

The sponsors/editors worry:

• Will people really submit content?


• Will it be on brand?


• Will it be something people want to read?

The contributors worry:

• What’s the right way to do this?


• How will I fit it in my workflow? (i.e. how will I have time for this?)


• What topic should I talk about?

The truth is, they're totally understandable concerns. John Cass wrote an interesting article recently about the four operational models companies use to adopt social media. They largely focus on getting people like me (digital junkies) to use their habit for the good of the brand.

I'm trying to add a whole new model. One that's pretty uncomfortable at first.

I'll call it: Corral the conversation

Find the people in your organization who have great, shareworthy ideas and give them new kinds of tools to share them. Fast track the digital adoption process by making technology work like they work. Basically help your curious, chatty people climb onto a soapbox they wouldn’t have been inclined to build up on their own.

Yeah, that’s harder, right? But, it’s one of the few way to get past the early adopters and tap into that larger, smart conversation going on in your organization. To have your social media investment really be authentic to your organization.

Now the question makes sense. How do you train bloggers? How do you help people feel comfortable in an environment that is totally foreign to them?

First, pick the right people. Or, better, let them nominate themselves (that's right, people, a call to blog. Complete with job number!).

Good bloggers are energized by the conversation. They share three things in common:

1. They’ve got a comfortable, recognizable voice. Both spoken and written.


2. They’re naturally curious. They’re the ones who send you all the links to the new studies, the breakout creative, the industry trends.


3. They’re good synthesizers. They read a couple of disparate things and draw a new conclusion. They tag their ideas with memorable phrases. They make it all accessible with analogy.

Ok, now you’ve got your core group. How do you make them successful?

I'm still thinking about that question: How do you train a blogger? I don't know the answer, but I know some things I recommend to writers to make it easier:

• Scribble an outline: Blogs are definitely a back-of-the-napkin kind of business. Just jot an idea down when it comes to you. It will be much easier to fill in the details later (vs. stopping everything to blog or trying to come up with an idea cold.)


• Call yourself: Blog writing is best when it sounds natural, like something you'd actually say. If you're having trouble writing that way, stop. Call your voicemail, turn on your iPhone's voice recorder - talk it out. Then go back later and type it up (Or try that nifty Dragon Dictation app)


• Take a POV: A lot of bloggers get caught up and trying to report on something. Covering every angle, citing sources, etc. It doesn't have to be that hard. Don't try to tell the whole story; just share a unique insight or POV on part of it. (Link to news story the media paid someone to write)


• Embrace the bullet point: Short is better (that's true even though I'm terrible at it!). Don't worry about big complex thoughts and compound sentences. Just give me the highlights.

The biggest opportunity, though, is probably for the editor. How can she use tools and technology to make blogging work the way people work:

• Make it doable: Set reasonable expectations. Start with two posts a month. And, do the proofreading for them.


• Use email: Wordpress, Drupal and other platforms now enbable post by email. How much better is that for contributors? Type your email with your pictures and bullets and bolding, send it to a custom email address, and (like magic) it's in the blog queue for publishing.


• Create a clear filter: Tell bloggers (and readers) what the blog is about. That crisp statement of purpose that helps them know what to write about (and what to save for the water cooler)


• Provide examples:  Show, don't tell. It's a lot easier for most people to work from a pattern.


• Accept lots of formats: It's not all about words. A great picture, a podcast, a video - take them all!


• Share results: Bloggers want to connect with readers. To be read and be valued. Make sure to pass results back to them - how many people have visited the blog, where the content was shared, what posts were most popular.

We're trying a little of all those things. Keep an eye on our progress.

We've already launched one team blog.

There's another one coming on April 22.

And, one more soon after that.

A few seats left in SWAY Workshop - Join us?

 

I'm teaming up with Alaina Sheer next month to give area marketers the opportunity to upgrade their social media initiatives. Laptops and logins in hand, we'll spend two days working together on ways they can better engage their current and future customers on Facebook, blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and other social destinations.

This workshop isn't about talking, it's about doing. So, each participant will leave with tangible changes to both their social strategy and social presence. There are great breakouts for beginners and intermediate users. Check out the agenda.

The SWAY social workshop is April 22 - 23. I hope you'll join us.

Good bye stars, hello mood meter

Just saw this fun little execution posted by the good people over at Brandflakes. 

A local NBC news site replaced the typical star ranking with something a little more telling. Readers now click a reaction to each story - things like furious, thrilled, bored or laughing. The results can be pretty funny. But, maybe I just think that because the example I found was 68% of people thrilled with an editorial call for Marion Barry to just go away! Voice of the people, baby. 

I'm a work hacker

I love the intro to this idea subtitled Learn to love the rule breakers by Bill Jensen and Josh Klein: 

The Problem: When a 12-year-old can gather information faster, process it more efficiently, reference more diverse professionals, and get volunteer guidance from better sources than you can at work, how can you pretend to be competitive? When the personal tools in your mobile phone are more empowering than what your company provides or approves for your projects, how can you be saved from devastating market forces?

Their point is that the tools we use in life have leapfrogged over the ones we use at work. And, some of the employees who stand out in your workplace have just learned how to hack together solutions using them.

Work Hackers aren't like the internet bad guys. They aren't stealing anything or breaking down password-protected walls. No, they're just working around the prescribed way of doing things. They're using open source and shareware and social networks to work faster, find new ideas and deliver deeper insight. 

I'm a total work hacker. I knew that for sure when I was packing up during my last few days at Ologie. I was putting together an email about some of best go-to sources for pitches & proposals and I realized that none of them were the least bit usable in the way most people work. There were the Delicious libraries I pulled into a feed reader, the totally brilliant Exel + Wordle hack I went to for everything, the fake-making-an-ad-to-get-all-the-Facebook-demo-info-I-need "solution," the 3000 brilliant Twitter followers who seem to find anything I can't... 

Hacking, it turns out, is not highly transferable. 

But it is valuable. The new gen opportunity for companies is finding ways to translate how people really work into tools the entire company can use. One-size-fits-all Microsoft products aren't going to be enough. Ethnography + creative coding? That might do it.

Will social win out over search?

Big, conversation-changing idea from Tac Anderson over at New Comm Biz in a post called 3 Reasons Why Social Media is Killing Search: 

"Bit.ly and Google both have the same purpose: deliver you to a useful website. That’s it. The difference is that one is performed by search queries (and) the other is initiated by a recommendation."

Social networking has fast been gaining ground on search. For a few days in December it actually beat it. Our wandering curiosity may be being replaced by an appreciation of good curating. After all, why would we dig around for the next great idea, beautiful thing, innovative stain fighter, first date, etc., when those things are being fed to us by our trusted network?   

Anderson attributes social’s emerging supremecy to three things: 

1. Faster news.  Think where you went when you last heard office chatter of the latest breaking news (politicians philandering, planes plummenting, people perservering)? I went to Twitter. Most of the news sites are 30 minutes behind. Google just started time-based search. Those gossipy little follows of mine on Twitter always seem to have it first. 


2. Better filter. You find the best stuff people have read on social; you find everything on search 


3. Faster innovation. Social developers just seem more responsive to user needs and behaviors 

Brand experience on Facebook is back

A few updates ago (I'm thinking circa early 2009), Facebook migrated all fan or brand pages to look pretty much like profile pages. All the crafty designing and widget wondery that leader brands had invested in was lost, reduced to the lowest-common-denominator rubble of tabs and walls.

Of course the promise was there - the updates also allowed full-width application tabs and boxes of all kinds. But, no one was rushing in to try to figure out how to own the new landscape. Until a last Fall. A few retail brands, like JCrew and Gap, created Facebook pages that looked much more like the quality of their brands, even personalizing the experience to deliver different content for fans and visitors. They stood out because of it. Racking up thousands of fans and earning real engagement.

    

Now, enter Resource Interactive - the top 50 interactive shop that up until now hadn't leaned on its Facebook page for marketing or reputation building. This week they launched a fabulous new presence that breaks out of the tabs and looks like them (not the social network).

 

 

A friendly neighborhood programmer said, "no one knew how to do that two years ago." The truth is, I don't think anyone knew how to do that two months ago. But, I'm thrilled that experience is coming back to Facebook. I've had enough basic blue. Cheers, RI!

Better Social Media Executions: Three Best Practices for Colleges

Answer me this:

• How many websites and networks are you registered for?
• How many different passwords do you have out there?
• How many email addresses have you used and discarded along the way?
• Do you get a sense of panic when you have to answer a new generation of security question, wondering truly if your favorite color/food/pet will really be the same as it is today when you eventually forget your password?

Managing all these different identities and accounts is a hassle. Uploading your best photo (and re-uploading it when you find a better one). Filling out all the information. It’s creating a barrier to participating. Who has time for another account setup?

So why are so many colleges asking their potential students and alumni to do just that?

I recently wrote about four of the top colleges in social media. Ones that “got” their audience and came up with a clever strategy that made just the right connection.

But, they’re not the only ones out there with good ideas. Think of all the social media campaigns you’ve looked at and thought: well, that had a lot of potential. The idea was clever, but the execution? Just not there.

Often what’s missed is one of three simple best practices:

1. Make it easy.
   Don’t ask you audience to adopt a new behavior or even create a new account if you don’t have to. Leverage the tools they already use. Sync with their behavior. Be as creative with technology as you are with strategy.
   
   Who does it well: Barnard invites its alumni to connect via a private network. But it doesn’t take a new account to join, alums can just leverage their existing Facebook credentials to enter. 
   
   Stanford University uses the technology in its students’ pockets. Last school year, Stanford released a free iPhone application called iStanford that allows students to register for classes, look up campus maps and be able view the location of their friends on a map – instant messaging them if need be.
   


2. Use a personal voice
   I would argue that voice is the single most important element of a successful social media execution. The medium rewards casual interactions. People feel more intrigued by – and connected to – brands that they sense are authentic and more genuine than their competition.
   
   Who does it well: University Nebraska-Lincoln is hands down the execution expert here. David Burge is the Associate Director of Admissions there and he’s also the host of the popular online video program Real Nebraska.
   
   Real Nebraska was developed as a recruitment tool and is available to prospective students through the admissions website, vodcast, and on YouTube. The program, in its third season, averages several hundred hits per day and was featured on the TODAY show in early March.
   
   Shot, edited, and staffed with entirely in-house talent, the three seasons of Real Nebraska have produced more than thirty 3-4 minute episodes highlighting student life. Importantly, they’re told in a friendly, relevant voice. Full of ready-to-pass on soundbites, subtle answers to those pesky questions you’re afraid to ask, and a real peer-to-peer authenticity


3. Seed the audience
   You’ve probably heard that the idea if you build it they will come is about as outdated as that Friendster login you’ve got written down on your old Trapper Keeper. It takes some work to get a new social media destination to critical mass. That’s where seeding comes in. It’s an intentional strategy for how you’ll get your first users.
   
   Often social media campaigns don’t have the kind of marketing dollars behind them that traditional programs might. So, it’s important to think about what you can do with what you have.
   
   For example, in 2006, CareerBuilder launched a fun little ecard destination called Monk-e-mail. Using a phone and their computer, visitors could customize a talking monkey and send it off to a friend’s inbox. With few resources to publicize the site, they looked for what assets they did have: the people who worked there. All the employees at CareerBuilder (~1500) and at their agency partner (~300) were asked to send n monk-e-mail card to 10 friends. There were no marketing dollars spent to promote this campaign.
   
   Since then? Over 100 million monk-e-mails cards have been shared.
   
   Who does it well: Capital University. You’ve probably seen me write about their Will You campaign before.
   
   (Short story: This was a great collaboration between the agency I work for and Kevin Sayers and his team at Capital. It was a show and tell of the school’s evolved brand that mapped in comments from Facebook; pulled in Tweets with a certain hashtag; grabbed photos from Flickr, etc., to get a whole campus of feedback.)
   
   But the part I didn’t talk about was the seeding. They didn’t assume that the site would naturally take off (even though there was quite a bit of curiosity on campus). They made sure to make some noise.
   
   They chalked the website address on campus sidewalks; Sharpied it onto white boards; saved it on screensavers; hung it on fliers. They gave sneak peeks to talk leaders and sent post cards to parents. In short, they bootstrapped a clever seeding campaign and got real results. 120,000 people visited the destination in the first three months. And 6% of the student population engaged by leaving a comment or a photo.