Dear Michelle, Thank you for being Linkedin member #53,517

How cool. Got this email from Linked in a while back. Started a post, and got sidetracked.

It makes me feel like the social media pioneer I am…I just don’t talk about it as much as some of the others who ‘sigh’…never seem to stop talking about their social media pedigrees.

Anyhoo, Linkedin is at 100 million members, and did a very successful IPO.

Waaaaaay back in ’04, I was a member of one of the “in-crowd” email discussion groups. i-Sales I think it was (anybody else remember those lists? You replied via email…the moderator accepted or rejected your reply. How draconian they seem now).

The new moderator and I hit it off, and he invited me to join Linkedin, which was by invitation only back then. I joined, and didn’t really see anything to do with it. So it sat on the back burner until 2007, right about the time MySpace was hot (never could get into it myself. The screen was too busy).

When I started noticing Facebook heating up around that same time I decided to seriously figure out what Linkedin was really about…it was still boring. (sorry! only my opinion)

7 years later, I think they finally have the formula right.

Dear Michelle,

I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first 100,000 members (member number 53517 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the innovators, those who help lead the way. That was you.

We hit a big milestone at LinkedIn this week when our 100 millionth member joined the site.

When we founded LinkedIn, our vision was to help the world’s professionals be more successful and productive. Today, with your help, LinkedIn is changing the lives of millions of members by helping them connect with others, find jobs, get insights, start a business, and much more.

We are grateful for your support and look forward to helping you accomplish much more in the years to come. I hope that you are having a great year.

Sincerely,

Reid Hoffman
Co-founder and Chairman
LinkedIn

 

Technorati Tags: linkedin, linkedin ipo, reid hoffman, social media, social network

6 Levels of The Social Media Users Ladder: Profile Your Audience FIRST

When I found this information on from Forrester Research , I immediately thought of “Social Climbers”. However, it’s not what you think

What it tells you  is “look before you leap” and find out HOW your audience uses social media. AKA “Social Technographics(r).

For example, say you wanted to create an online community or social network for your business. You need content, and you assume that if you build it, and give your audience the ability to create blogs, they will come, and blog, and create the content for you.

What if based on this cool tool, they aren’t Creators, they are instead Spectators? Then it’s pretty useless to create a community where they can blog, right? It would make more sense to find the bloggers they already read and are influenced by. Who also allow comments on blog posts.

You could then do a couple of things. You could invite those bloggers to blog on your community. (And offer them some sort of social currency or even hard currency to do so). Or you could hire your own bloggers to create content that is related AND goes deeper into the topic.

Then you could create a comment strategy and go start commenting on the blog your ideal users read. And link back to specific, relevant blog posts on your community.

Watch the slide show, then play with the Social Technology Profile Tool. Enjoy!

Social Technology Profile Tool

What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: social media, social media strategy, social media trends, social technographics, user generated content

reBlog: 15 Things Social Media Can Do for You Today

FYI, “reBlog” is for bloggers what “Re-Tweet” is to Twitters.  I learned that today on my internet travels.

Using Twitter to discover conversations about thought leadership, I found this great list of 15 Things Social Media Can Do For You today and wanted to share it.  I couldn’t have said it better myself :

1. Allows you to participate in networks that at one time you didn’t have access to.
2. Gives you access to thought leaders
3. Connects you to employment opportunities
4. Grants you an opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with brands
5. Brings the world closer to you
6. Allows you the ability to build a global network easier
7. Provides a platform to build and promote a personal brand
8. Increases the opportunity to become a thought leader in your area of expertise
9. Provides income opportunities
10. Gives you access to raw journalism often times not available to mainstream media outlets
11. Connects you with business opportunities – partnerships and funding
12. Gives you a platform to be heard, if you’re willing to take time to listen to others.
13. Give you access to information faster, easier and in real time.
14. Makes it easier to share information with your networks
15. Through technology and social media channels you have instant access to communities and networks at all time.

socialmediaexplorer.com, 15 Things Social Media Can Do for You Today, Jun 2009

Technorati Tags: reblog, social media, thought leadership

Social Media Trend Watch – Beyond Blogs

I admit it, I’m a die-hard trend watcher. It’s a bit frustrating at times being a woman who naturally does this (for any of you StrengthsFinder 2.0 fans, one of my themes is Futurist ) because I haven’t yet tapped into a network of women who get as excited as I do about what’s next.

Out of love, most of the women in my network get pulled along until they start to jog with me (just ask my best friend Michelle Anton about this – 4 years ago she could barely turn her new Mac on – last week she figured out how to map her new domain to her own social network that she set up after I told her about it!)

I’m a systems-thinker. Which means I look at things holistically first. Like “what is it?” – “it” being the role of whatever it is in whatever I’m trying to figure out. Once I figure THAT out, then it’s all smooth sailing. I have this burning curiosity about “things” and their role in the world.

So when I started to move from blogs to social networks to social media in my mind, I began that “systems-thinking” thing that I do to make it make sense, so I could help my women entrepreneur friends make sense so they could benefit from learning EARLY about it.

Blogs play a HUGE role in social media – and the real “killer app” of blogging (uh-oh, am I dating myself from before the “dot-bomb” of 2000 with that word ? ) is the RSS feed that is already BUILT IN.

In fact, in my book blogs are the “new little black dress” for women entrepreneurs, if they can get past their “technophobia” to realize it. I often wonder if they think they can “break” something and that’s why they are afraid to experiment. Some old psychology at work I guess.

But I digress.

I was tickled pink to see Business Week’s new issue “Beyond Blogs – What Business Needs to Know” because it validated the trend I saw coming over year ago with the rise of all of the social networking sites, and a new industry that is emerging called Social Media.

See, in a systems-thinking world, blogs are a piece of the overall social media picture.

Along with

• social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, Biznik)
• social news-sharing (digg, de.li.ci.ous, etc.)
• social surfing (my words, but think StumbleUpon, Sphere-it)
• social video (YouTube, Google Video, Veoh, Blip.tv, etc) and I recently discovered
• …social radio! (Pandora.com, and also internet talk radio re-framed as “social radio)
• And whatever else comes along to try to ride the trend

The reason I say blogs are the foundation for social media marketing, is due to another emerging trend called Social Media Optimization (SMO) (SEO, move over, SMO is in the house!)

With the strategic use of your blog’s RSS feeds, you can be everywhere your customers and prospective customers are and never leave home base. (your blog)

Without further adieu, I present you the video where BusinessWeek’s Stephen Baker discusses the Cover Story he co-wrote in May, 2008, on online social networks, an update of the May, 2005, Cover Story, “Blogs Will Change Your Business.”

In it, he talks about how IBM is using social media (Twitter) for market intelligence, and to connecting with consumers. And retracts his statement that blogging didn’t have a bubble that would burst, because there wasn’t any money in it (hey, tell that to Darren Rowse over at www.ProBlogger.com)

(I embedded below, so you don’t have to link over if you don’t feel like it.)
Take it away Stephen!

What do you think? Is he on target?

Technorati Tags: beyond blogs, business week, ibm, social media, social media trends, stephen baker, systems thinking

read more

Caveat Vendidor – Let The Seller Beware (or… WalMart Bows Down to the Blog-o-sphere)

Okay, I’m borrowing a phrase from my good friend and colleague Mitch Axelrod. Caveat Vendidor is one of the tenets that underpin his philosophy “The New Game of Business”. He says that instead of the old game, where it was “caveat emptor” or “Let the buyer beware”, it’s now “caveat vendidor” or “let the SELLER beware”.

Case in point. Walmart.

The interesting thing about this David vs. Goliath WalMart story is that this is a case that Walmart won, and then an appeal actually went to the Supreme Court, who refused to hear it.

The Short Version: Walmart continued to proceed in it’s attempt to recoup $470k in medical costs for a now-brain damaged former employee because it’s policy allows for that if the person gets a settlement of any worth. However, in this case, the settlement ended up funding a trust to take care of this former employee who will never be able to work again.

So…somehow this came to light and one blog post, begat another post (you know the old shampoo commercial “she told one, and then she told one”?) begat a call for a boycott against and before you know it, Walmart bows down to the power of the citizen journalist.

To repeat: Walmart won this case. They let the family appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court and then bowed down to the bloggers! (See walmartwatch.com/)

And to think, I found this story on CNN, through following a Reuters Oddly Enough text ad link in my Gmail inbox “Children Find Woman’s Head on Beach” story (You know, I just can’t resist the power of a good headline sometimes- no pun intended!).

And now, for the rest of the story…

Wal-Mart: Brain-damaged former employee can keep money – CNN.com

Powered by ScribeFire. (this nifty tool lets you blog from any page on the Net – very handy dandy)

Technorati Tags: blog-o-sphere, citizen journalists, social marketing, social media, walmart