Can Social Media Be Outsourced?

By Mark Evans in Social Media, Uncategorized 6 Comments Tags: , ,

There are two parts to social media – strategy and tactics.

In my consulting business, I’m working with a growing number of clients that need strategic plans for social media – plans that take into account their business, the competitive landscape, their objectives/goals, and resources. It is exercise in which I can be successful as a outsider by bringing my expertise and experience to the table.

But when it comes to tactical execution, I’m uncertain whether social media can be outsourced a on a day-in day-out basis in the long-term. One of the keys to social media is authenticity, passion and transparency. In other words, you need to be drinking the corporate Kool-Aid.

As an employee, it’s easy to believe in the corporate cause because, after all, you’re getting a paycheck on a regular basis to wave the flag. But what about non-employees? Can they effectively run social media programs on behalf of corporate clients? Can social media guns-for-hire do all the things on the social media landscape in a way that’s real and authentic?

My gut says “no”. No matter how well-paid or motivated, it’s difficult for a non-employee to do as good a job with social media because they’re not living and breathing the company and the brand. I’m not suggesting it’s impossible and I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule but social media strikes me a very internal activity if it’s going to be done as well as possible.

That said, I do think social media services are going to emerge to serve the needs of corporate clients. This will be based on the fact that social media activity is hard to scale so it will be seen as an operating expense that some companies will try to manage by having some activities outsourced. This could be daily monitoring and updates of Twitter and Facebook. It could be responding to comments, or answering questions.

In this scenario, I can envision a warehouse full of social media savvy worker bees pounding away 7/24 to meet the needs of multiple clients. In many respects, it would be a lot of like the call centers that do work for lots of companies.

Still, I do believe that the best and most creative social media programs will be internally led and driven. These programs will thrive because they’ll be within the corporate culture and strategic ecosystem with daily interaction with the company and its people.

Note: This post was inspired by Valeria Maltoni (aka The Conversation Agent), who has an extensive post that draws views from a variety of people about whether social media can be outsourced.

Six Questions with…Prezi

By Mark Evans in Web 2.0, Web-based Services 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

If you’ve got to a technology conference recently, you may have noticed some presenters using a new and cool tool rather than PowerPoint. Instead of slides, these presentations look like a giant landscape with text and images on them that can be easily be accessed by roaming around. For presenters, the downside is the presentation tool attracts as much if not more buzz than their presentations.

So, what is this new and mysterious tool? The answer is Prezi, which can be used to create presentations online, and then, if you want, have them downloaded for off-line use.

Prezi is a freemium service with a free versions, and two premium versions selling for $59/year and $159/year. The company started in Budapest before opening an office last year in San Francisco. Its investors include Sunstone Capital and TED Conferences.

Curious to learn more about Prezi, I fired off an e-mail to CEO Peter Arvai while attending WordCamp Toronto on Saturday.

1. Why did Adam Somlai-Fischer and Peter Halacsy decide to start Prezi?
Adam and Peter working on Prezi in 2007 as they felt slides limited their ability to develop and explain ideas. They were frequent presenters before working with Prezi and thought that Prezi could help them in their work.

2. How is Prezi different from other presentation software and services?
Prezi works with a big canvas instead of slides. This allows users to develop their ideas in an uninterrupted way. Presenting with the Prezi canvas offers a new presentation style: you can skip the slide-by-slide approach, show the big picture and then drill down in the topic that interests the audience.

3. Do you see Prezi as a rival to Powerpoint, or complementary?
We think slideshows are good for monologues aimed a large crowd (the path walkthrough of a Prezi works like a slideshow). The canvas approach is better for smaller meetings where dialogue, questions and brainstorming plays an important part.

4. What’s the target audience? If other words, who are the people out most likely to use Prezi?
Prezi is for anyone who’d like to develop their ideas and communicate them on a single surface. We see a lot of users who are used to presenting ideas as part of their everyday work, e.g. marketers, sales people, teachers, students, project managers.

5. Are you surprised by how Prezi has been embraced, particularly in the presentation market?
We’re very happy and proud of the embrace of Prezi.

6. How is Prezi’s freemium business model been embraced.
Our model has worked well so far. Its aim is to encourage both users who can and can’t afford to pay for services. We have asked our free users to publish their presentations so that they contribute with the content they create.

My Approach to Writing Multiple Blogs

By Mark Evans in Blogs 3 Comments Tags: , , , , ,

At WordCamp Toronto on Saturday, I did a presentation on how to effectively write multiple blogs. Given that I juggle five blogs these days, it seemed like a pretty obvious topic to talk about.

Whether you write one blog or five blogs, the most important consideration is being organized. It sounds like a straightforward concept but having a plan and then making it happen makes blogging a lot less stressful and a lot more fun than trying to do it on the fly.

There are a few organizational pillars that keep me on the straight and narrow:

1. Defining Priorities: When you’re writing multiple blogs, the reality is some need more attention than others. Blogs that are part of your job or a play a key role in your personal branding need constant nurturing, while blogs that are hobbies that can be written semi-regularly.

2. Creating an editorial calendar: Not that you have to be totally anal about when each blog needs a post but having a solid idea of an overall editorial calendar makes it easier to get organized and plan things in advance.

3. Capture ideas anywhere and everywhere: Clearly, one of the challenge in writing multiple blogs is coming up with enough material to support them editorially. This means that all those great and semi-great ideas that emerge need to be captured, otherwise they’ll disappear.

My idea tools include “new” ones such as Google Reader, Twitter, Packrati.us (a personal favorite that connects links within your tweets to your del.icio.us account), Evernote, Instapaper, Twitterfeed, Tweetbeep and Google Alerts, as well as “old” tools such as a Moleskin, newspaper clippings and a whiteboard.

4. Cross-pollinate: One way to get more people aware of your blog is simply promoting them in multiple places. People reading this blog, for example, might be interested in my Twitterrrati blog so I promote both of them on both blogs.

I’m also big on using desktop writing tools, although I do go back and forth between them and WordPress’ publishing tool, which still needs some improving. Some of the desktop tools that I’ve used include Ecto, Mac Journal and Blogo. It sounds heretical but I’d love to see a version of Microsoft Live Writer for Mac.

Another key part of my multi-blog approach is using a variety of blog posts based on the idea that variety is a good thing for me and my readers. Some blog posts are long thought pieces, some are quick four-paragraph rants, some are simply one or two sentences with a great photograph or graphic, while others are a Q&A.

Finally, I’m a big believer that ideas flourish when you’re out and about talking to other people about their ideas, interests, thoughts and business endeavors. As much as you can get many ideas from reading online, socializing is a great way stimulate the mind and idea generation.

Here’s my presentation via SlideShare:

How to Write a Bunch o' Blogs

Next Up: A Bigger WordCamp Toronto

By Mark Evans in Blog Services, Blogs 7 Comments Tags: , , ,

I attended WordCamp Toronto yesterday, and did a presentation on how to write and manage multiple blogs. The event, which continues today, is extremely well organized, teeming with enthusiasm and at $35 offered terrific bang for the buck.

That said, I think there’s a place for a bigger and even better WordCamp Toronto. If you were relatively new to blogging or WordPress, yesterday offered a great opportunity to get a lot of solid knowledge and inspiration, and an opportunity share ideas. But for people experienced with WordPress and looking to do more creative, innovative or sophisticated things, it wasn’t the place to get it.

In an ideal world – and something that should be seriously explored given the size of Toronto’s tech and WordPress communities – WordCamp Toronto should be a one-day, multi-stream event that meets the needs of everyone from newbies to WordPress ninjas.

There should be a WordPress 101 stream that provides the straight goods on why to use WordPress, the different ways it can be used, and basic information about the worlds of plug-ins, themes, hosting, etc.

A second stream would be for designers and people looking for insight on how to take their blogs and Web sites to the next level, offering insight into creating new themes, and rolling out innovative features and functionality.

The third stream would be for developers with sessions on the guts of WordPress MU, the development of themes and plug-ins, hacks and security.

WordCamp Toronto would become a place for the entire WordPress community to gather to meeting new people and exchange ideas – a place where the new WordPress users could talk to experienced designers and developers to learn about how WordPress can be used, and a place where experienced WordPress users could learn from peers and gain insight into the things that users are looking to do.

Toronto’s technology community has tons of enthusiasm, energy and a hunger to learn. In the right venue, WordCamp Toronto could be a much bigger event with a larger mandate that would be a roaring success.

An Open Letter to Biz Stone

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

Dear Biz,

I’m sure you appreciate the intense, burning interest that people have in how Twitter is going to make money. After all, you’ve got more than 50 million users, which has caused the monetization buzz to get more increasingly feverish the more popular that Twitter becomes.

But can you do me a favour: please stop talking about how Twitter is going to be announcing a business model soon. It’s an act that, frankly, has grown tired because it keeps repeating itself.

Yes, I understand that you’ve got to answer the “money” question every time you do an interview but the thing is you keep giving interviews so they keep asking the money question. It’s a vicious circle that’s become more vicious.

That said, it seems that you have a hard time not playing the game so when you appeared on TV yesterday, you declared Twitter will unveil a business model in the next month.

Is this a tease or do you really mean it? The problem is no one is sure whether Twitter will actually announce a business model because we’ve been led down this path before only to be disappointed.

I’m hoping this time you mean it but time will time.


The Debut of StickerYou

By Mark Evans in Web 2.0 No Comments Tags: , , , ,

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been immersed in the world of stickers in helping a new client, StickerYou.com, prepare for its official launch, which happened today.

A few things I didn’t know before starting with StickerYou: the North American sticker market is worth about $1-billion, and there’s no dominant player.

Andrew Witkin was inspired to start StickerYou while walking on Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles. He noticed stickers everywhere, and how they played a key part of the local scene. Inspired, he came back to Toronto and launched the company, which has raised capital from a group of angels that includes Jordan Banks through Thunder Road Capital.

So, how is StickerYou different and unique? While there are other online sticker services, StickerYou’s technology lets you create high-quality vinyl stickers in any shape or size, which means you’re not stuck using the standard oval or circle. And you can order them by the dozen or by the thousand depending on your needs, which makes it great for individuals or businesses.

In terms of the bigger picture, StickerYou is another example of Canada’s vibrant high-tech landscape. There’s a growing amount of activity, which is being fueled by the emergence of capital for start-ups. For the first time in years, angel investors are starting to get active, while funds such as Mantella Venture Partners, Extreme Venture Partners and Rogers Ventures are stepping up to the plate too.

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