Hey Ashton, Reach is not the Same Thing as Influence

You might have heard about Ashton Kutcher's race to 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. Today he even appeared on Oprah to discuss his use of the popular microblogging tool. Check it out below:



Oprah asked "Why did you want a million people following everything you're doing?"

Kutcher responded "In some ways this is a kind of commentary on the state of media. I believe we're at a place now with social media where one person's voice can be as powerful as an entire news network."

Uh, Really? So having 1 million passive "followers" on Twitter makes the star of "Dude Where's My Car?" as "powerful" as CNN? Okay, I don't want to be too hard on Ashton. He seems like a cool guy. I definitely agree with him that Twitter can be a powerful tool for communicating. But you've still got to communicate something of value to be considered influential.

Don't Get Caught Up in a Race to Get More Followers

Kutcher went on to say social media can make "one person's voice as powerful as an entire news network. That's the power of the social web. You through your own stream can actually have a voice as loud as an entire media network." (those are my italics, of course)

Notice that he used the word "loud."


Loud is not the same thing as influential.

America's Next Top Model has higher ratings (meaning more viewers) than Meet the Press. Does that mean Tyra is more influential than Russert, Brokaw or Gregory? Of course not (though she is definitely louder.)

Reach is Not the Same Thing as Influence

Before I follow someone on Twitter, I like to see who they are following and who follows them. I also look at the kinds of tweets they send. Too many "Good morning twitterverse" tweets and I won't follow them. I have enough noise to try to filter during my workday.

The Real Power of the Social Web

Robert Scoble and Michael Arrington have highly engaged followers. Kutcher isn't tyring to have a conversation with all 1,100,000 followers. He is only following 80 people. He is building an audience. Scoble actually follows more people than follows him. He's listening. He's conversing with others. He's not just broadcasting his life. It's a two-way conversation. That's the real power of the social web.

Gaming Twitter

It is definitely possible to "game" twitter. I have seen plenty of people on Twitter who have gained thousands of followers in a couple weeks but apparently don't have much to actually say themselves. They use techniques such as following thousands of people and then unfollowing those who don't follow them back within 24 hours. Or they use tools to autofollow people.

Be Wary of Anyone Who Thinks That Twitter is a Good Sales Channel

Many of the Twitter "gamers" portray themselves as "social media experts" or SEO gurus. Usually they have something to sell. Some of them might even have more followers than some of the original social media thought leaders. They have a lot of reach. But they don't have the same amount of influence.

Twitter is a great way to share ideas and network with people. But those who try to sell too aggressively are rarely received well in the world of social media.

Ashton Kutcher was Right

Kutcher was right about this: social media definitely gives anyone who wants a voice a platform to be heard. But to be truly influential you have to say something of value.

What Your Company Can Learn From Domino's Social Media Nightmare

It's amazing how much damage to a brand two jerks can do with a camera and a YouTube account.

We've heard stories about the sleeping Comcast technician, Motrin moms, Dell Hell and more.
But this gross video sets the bar for social media disasters. (You can see it here if you really want to, but you have to promise to read Brian Solis' great post first.)

Learning From the Social Media Crisis

If you examine almost every corporate social media crisis, the company that experienced it later chose to embrace social media. Comcast has since embraced social media. They empowered Frank Eliason and his team to use Twitter to provide customer service. Dell launched Ideastorm.
Your company may not experience a crisis of the same magnitude as the Domino's debacle (let's hope not.) But chances are you will have a social media crisis some day.

If you haven't seen it yet, watch this video of how Dominoes chose to respond.



Lessons to Learn From Domino's

Robert Scoble started a great discussion on Friendfeed about why Domino's response is going to be the textbook for other companies to learn from when it comes to social media crises. Here are some of the best points:

1. Respond Quickly
   
2. Video is more powerful than words
3. Let the CEO respond
4. Speak Like a real person ("it sickens me.") The didn't use marketing speak
   
5. Respond where the crisis started, not just on your own platform
6. Embrace the Influencers - He thanked influencers for helping Dominos understand the issue and making sure that others knew about it
7. Take bold steps to demonstrate that the crisis is over (They closed the store to "sanitize" it)
   
8. Be decisive (they immediately fired the employees and pressed criminal charges)

Don't Wait Until a Crisis to Embrace Social Media

Domino's has since started its own Twitter account. This is a good way to communicate with customers. But you don't need to wait for a crisis to start using these tools. During a crisis, an established blog, Facebook Page, YouTube Channel, Twitter account can instantly get your side of the story out to the world. If you wait to address an issue or hope it goes away, you lose the ability to frame the story the way you would describe it. And it rarely goes away.


Put in Place a Crisis Response Plan Now

• Identify potential crises and who will respond in each case
  
• Have Communications Channels in place
• Develop a basic template for responding to crises

Which companies have you seen do a good job in communicating during a crisis?