Category Archives: Social Media

Should My Town Use Social Media?

Social Media No Comments

This is #3 on Chris Brogan’s 100 Blog Topics list, and is part of the 100 Topics Challenge.

I’ve seen this a lot lately: some little flyspec place a million miles away from anything decides that they need to be bleeding edge. So they build a virtual world that duplicates the whole town and everything in it, and then try to provide municipal services through it.

My chief question is whether they have virtualized garbage collection and property taxes. I’d love to be able to pay my property taxes in Linden Dollars.

I don’t see anything wrong really with the notion that municipalities need to find more ways to connect to residents (as long as they do it right). I think the critical factor is that they need to realize that Social Media provides a different set of features and opportunities to other, older ways of “interfacing”. If their goal is to give their residents a way to contribute to the community then good for them. If they think that throwing up a 3d VR version of City Hall and then hoping that people will vote them in again next time around, then they should understand up front that they are wasting taxpayer’s money.

Ways I Embrace My Audience

Social Media No Comments

This is #2 on Chris Brogan’s 100 Blog Topics list, and is part of the 100 Topics Challenge.

The idea behind corporate blogging is to somehow build a more effective connection between a company and its customers. By allowing customers to have a say in how the company functions – giving them “ownership” in a certain sense – there is both opportunity and risk. The risk is more obvious: what if they say bad stuff about us? The opportunity has been well documented by people like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki – there is something incredibly attractive about a company that is truly willing to open itself up and “embrace” its customer base.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t have too much first experience with this idea. Yes, I’ve blogged in the past, but it was always more of a personal thing to amuse myself and my friends. Yes, I’ve played around with social media for marketing previous companies that I’ve been part of, but again this was in some way a half-hearted effort; not much more than randomly broadcasting “here I am” to anyone who would listen.

When I started Lichtman Consulting, I wanted to do things better, in a way that I had always somehow felt attracted to, yet never quite did – often because I couldn’t get buyin from my stakeholders (and other times because it is hard and takes real work). My goal was to build the kind of company that I had always admired from the distance. A company that listen to its customers. A company that gave them a say in matters. A company that is committed to Open Source, to community give-back, to making the world a better place. Not just words, but for real.

When I think of embracing my audience, I think of:

  • let people comment on anything;
  • respond to their comments;
  • try to learn their needs;
  • make an effort to change what I do to fit their needs better (even when it hurts);
  • learn (and teach) constantly;
  • care about stuff

I’m not convinced that I’ve totally nailed it yet. I mean I’ve seen other people do it, and do it well. People you’ve heard of too. I know I’m still new at this game, and that there is a lot to learn if I’m going to be any darn good at it.

Have some good ideas on embracing your audience? I’d love to hear from you!

The 100 Blog Topic Challenge

Social Media 9 Comments

Back in 2007, Chris Brogan posted a list of 100 Blog Topics that he suggested people write about.

The list blew me away when I read it recently.

I immediately wrote a blog entry on one of them, but I’ve discovered that that just isn’t sufficiently satisfying.

I want to cover ALL of those topics.

So here’s the challenge (and I love a race): Let’s see who can be the first blogger to cover every single one of those topics. If you’re in, let me know so I can keep track.

Twitter Jaiku Pownce Facebook- And Then What

Social Media 1 Comment

In my experience, build traffic to a site is easy – it just takes work. The same goes for building a following on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. If you’re willing to dedicate the time to posting regularly, promoting diligently, and continually learning new tricks, eventually everything will come together.

Continue reading →