commbasics

I love it when great minds think a like.  First Brian Solis sets up the segue from low-level to high-level engagement, and then Dan Holden talks about what the most important influencers might be.  so today I can talk about where you find the highest-level engagement in your social media program As a recap, since it was almost a week ago, the first level of engagement is made up of people that agree with you and give you kudos.  You know, the really intelligent readers ;).  The second level are the people who disagree with you and can include competitors.  these are people that can help you make course adjustments by giving you a reality check.  You don't have to accept what they say, but looking into the criticism can often make what you share so much better. The most valuable of all engagement, however, is the expansion level -- the people that take your ideas and concepts to different levels.  It may start as either agreement or disagre...

For a couple of months now, I've been doing live broadcasts on a variety of subject, ranging from semiconductor design to marijuana legalization , on a new network called Vpype. The broadcasts are sponsored by Vpype and Magma Design Automation and can be about anything that might pop into my mine. Yesterday, I had an interview fall through so I vamped on the subject of privacy in social networks, which I had touched on earlier this week in a blog. This is a big topic right now and I'm kinda surprised I haven't had more discussion... but a lot of people may be on vacation. So the interview can be seen here, and you can comment here, or go directly to my channel on Vpype  (that's even better for the show). Watch video live on Vpype Live Broadcaster

Last week I talked about how it isn't important for engineers to join the market discussion because they don't care why they do what they do; all they want to know is what the parameters of the problem you want them to solve.  The conversation on social media doesn't really need their input either, it's just a means of determining the parameters. But that doesn't mean social media can't help engineers do their jobs better. This all got started when John Cooley trotted out the hackneyed complaint  that he doesn't care about what someone had for breakfast so Twitter and other social networks are useless to him.  He says the conversation is too much of a distraction.  My position is, if all he sees on social media is inane chatter, he needs to get a better social circle.  But let me give a tangential example and then a solution that engineers might appreciate. My daughter, Beth, is following in my footsteps as a communications cons...

Now that I got my rants on the business of media out of my system, I can finish my thoughts on Twitter. Someone recently sent me a link to a Twitter "how-to" manual on Mashable that serves as a pretty good description of what it is and the features, but makes a pretty poor guide on best practices.  It basically treats Twitter as a typical mass medium, which it isn't As I mentioned previously, Twitter is part of the mass media subsection I call micromedia and requires a different approach to communication than traditional mass media, or macromedia.  When you apply traditional communication approaches to micromedia, you will inevitably fail. Take Coca Cola for example.  When they started out on Twitter, they were just pushing advertising and messages.  As a result, one of the biggest companies in the world could only garner 15,000 followers.  But in the past few months, Coca Cola has changed their strategy and is providing information and athle...