Community Guy – Jake McKee

Bonfire Builders Interview

Over at the Feeding the Puppy blog, John has baked up an interesting concept to describe the social stuff vs. traditional advertising: Bonfires & Fireworks.

For whatever strange reason, John has branded me a Bonfire Builder and interviewed me for his blog. Here’s a snippet.

How do you persuade others of the need to build social bonfires alongside setting off advertising fireworks?

The answer to this question is a bit different if you’re talking about being an employee of a company working inside the enterprise towards change versus working as a consultant helping those folks see change through to completion.

Looking at the work that needs to be done inside the organization (since that’s where the buck stops), I’ve always talked about the strategy of “Success by 1000 paper cuts”. Start with the smallest element you can effectively do with minimal budget, little managerial approval, and minor legal team approval.

Nothing breeds acceptance like success. Even tiny successes excite people to see more. Succeed, expand your efforts a little, succeed again, rinse and repeat. Before you know it, you’ll be launching huge programs but with far more support than if you tried to launch a big program straight away.

Check out the post for the full interview.

Monetizing Twitter

The question often comes up, “How can I monetize [our presence on] Twitter?” (or blogs, or any sort of social media tool, really)

Let’s step aside from the issue that this is usually a dumb, or at least short-sighted question. The real question is first “What’s our business objective for being on Twitter?” If the answer has something to do with finding direct revenue, you clearly don’t understand Twitter.

“Making Money” isn’t a simply conducting more core focused transactions. Saving money, making better products, improving customer experience and satisfaction, and yes, selling more products are just a few things that go into making money. If you’re on Twitter for no other reason than to push products, you’re doing it wrong.

As one example of what you can do with Twitter, look at what Gary says:

“If you don’t realise that search.twitter.com is the most important website on the internet right now, then you’re a clown.”

How social media will change in 2009

On a recent trip to Seattle, I was invited to sit down with Blake from Visible Technologies for a short interview. The video below is part of that interview, where I attempt to answer the question “How will social media change in 2009?”

Ant’s Marching: Sean talks to Visible Technologies

Check out this great interview my colleague Sean recently did with Blake from Visible Technologies.

Speaking of Podcast Interviews…

I had the pleasure of being invited by Eric over at MarketingMonger.com to talk about Social Media and Big in Japan and other assorted subjects. Eric is on a quest to interview 1000 marketing people, and I was number 79.

Check it out and if you’re interested in helping Eric drive to 1000, drop him an email and introduce yourself. He’s a great guy, and it’s a great project!