Last night I had dinner with Ethan and Enyo at a great San Francisco restaurant called the 21st Amendment. Ethan does Search Engine Optimization (”SEO” if you want to sound like ‘in the know’) for a search engine that specializes in health care called Healthline.com. Enyo is a Nurse Practitioner at California Pacific Medical Center in Pediatric Endochrinology – she works with children who have diabetes.
Everybody who was at the dinner table has a sports background. Enyo played soccer at Northwestern University in Chicago, while Ethan studied Sports Medicine at Pepperdine University in Malibu (hang loose dude). And of course I played soccer at Wyoming and now I’m a soccer coach. So bringing these three minds together at one table was incredibly interesting – Enyo was asking a lot of questions about what Ethan and I do with “internet technology”. I wanted to share bits of the dialogue because I believe she’s not alone in asking many of these questions.
Enyo: “OK, I don’t really get it. What is social media?”
Me: That’s a good question and it’s pretty simple. Basically, we’re referring to any of the ways that people share their stories online. Through this, people build communities and share their stories together.
(Enyo has MySpace so I used that as an example). The way you communicate on MySpace is basically just networking. Building “shared meaning” about, well, anything. We can do this through music, pictures, words (blogs, wall posts, and instant messaging), videos, etc. MySpace is one kind of social network out there.
There are other sites that specialize in one thing or another (videos vs blogs), and there’s even social bookmarking sites (Digg and Delicious).
Enyo: “What is a widget?”
Me: A widget is an website add-on. Think of the MySpace Music bar, or a “Top Friends” box you can put on your page. Generally it’s a self-contained piece of code that you can move anywhere on a website.
Enyo: “I’m not into blogging, in fact, I just don’t like the word ‘blog’. What exactly does ‘blog’ mean, and why are people so fascinated with it?”
Ethan: You know how there are some people who you have a conversation with and they just talk for the sake of hearing their own voice… And it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard until they shut up? And then there’s those people who are dynamic, insightful, interesting and could hold your attention for hours? It’s the same with blogging.
Generally, what makes blogs interesting is when there is real content – When somebody writes from a specific point of view on a topic, or has a solid reputation within an industry or profession.
Enyo: “Why is online marketing so powerful?”
Ethan: There’s an old joke in traditional marketing – “I’m wasting 50% of my budget, I’m just not sure which 50%.” … But that joke really isn’t so funny if you’re the one losing the money. When a company places an ad in a magazine, in a newspaper or on television, they will never be exactly sure if it helped their business – and by how much. We can see trends and make assumptions, but there is no physical proof.
With online marketing, however, that same company can track exactly how many customers they landed based on clicks. The ambiguity that surrounded traditional media marketing has been eliminated. There’s pay-per-click marketing, search engine optimization, email ads, pop-ups, banner ads, link exchanges, and even spamming.
When you get people on your own website, you can track where visitors came from, how they searched for your site, where they’re navigating within your site, how much time they spend there, etc. You can find out so much more about your customer base, and what they’re really looking for.
A good example for Amanda: She could offer anybody who reads her blog and mentions it at the gate 50% off on game-day tickets. That’s powerful and direct. More importantly, that’s real money we’re talking about.
Enyo: “OK, I see that there’s value. But how do you get people into social media?”
Ethan: We’re looking at a time in sports, well soccer specifically, where technology is still relatively young. Let’s take one example: I bet if you went out in the country and took a poll of how many parents consider themselves “soccer moms” you’d get tens of thousands of women saying yes. That’s a real community. I’d bet that most of those “soccer moms” communicate with their friends/other parents on the sideline on a Saturday morning while Johnny is playing ball, but not too much beyond that.
Creating a place where Johnny’s mom can communicate with other parents like her, on Tuesday night while Johnny is at practice, adds real value to her life. She can get answers that may be unique to Johnny, herself, her family, her job and her life that she either may not want to share with the other soccer moms on Johnny’s team… or that they just don’t relate to.
Amanda: You want to create a place where Johnny’s mom gets valuable insight, reads interesting stuff, or gets questions answered. Perhaps having some experts post about child psychology, suggestions for what type of mini-van to buy to fit the biggest cooler of snacks, horror stories, funny tales, or even what the heck offsides is?
A male friend of mine who coaches a girls college team keeps a log called, “What you’d never hear at a boy’s soccer practice.” I always thought that would make a really funny blog. Kind of like this one: “Stuff White People Like.”
Just create a place online with unique content and everyone will want to hang out there. It’s social media baby.
