The Hashtag Economy

Hashtags are to the social web what emoticons were to Web 1.0 and TXTing. While both are forms of expression and sentiment, there is one subtle, but vital difference. Hashtags are not only part of online culture, they are defining a new era of communication on the Web and IRL (in real life). With over 140 million Tweets flying across Twitter every day, hashtags surface a method to the madness — the ability to group conversations into an organized timeline. But what started out as a way to index conversations in Twitter has now substantially altered how people convey, relay and discover information in and out of the popular nichework. The hashtag has also a form of #selfexpression.

In social media, “x” no longer marks the spot, “#” is now the indicator for popular culture and all that moves it. In the social economy, the hashtag is an indicator of value in the Twitter information exchange. Each hashtag represents revolving markets with varying lifespans determined by the significance of the conversation and its continuously fleeting demand. Some last only minutes, while others endure for hours or days.

While many struggle to understand the value of Twitter, those who get it are literally changing how they connect and talk to one another. At some point, a chasm emerges between those who use Twitter and those who do not. In other channels where Twitter users and other non-users are connected, for example email or text messaging, the culture of conversation becomes noticeably divergent. To begin with, Twitter users, like txters, are groomed to speak with brevity. Subconsciously aware of the character constraints of Twitter, communication is concise, to the point, with an emphasis on shortform bursts. This digital shorthand if you will is only part of what’s changing. Digital anthropologists have long observed the impact of text messaging on the ability to write in longhand. R U surprised? Prolly not…LOL! Twitter will also become the subject of educational studies to prove that the culture code of communication is transcending status updates to affect everyday engagement. Specifically within 140-character inspired transmissions, the hashtag is playing an important role.

In 2007 I was inspired by a Tweet posted by good friend Chris Messina, who is now considered the father of the hashtag, in which he simply asked, “how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups?”

The Tweet led to a series of conversations within the Twitterverse with thoughts from the likes of Stowe Boyd, Chris Heuer, Stephanie Booth, Brian Oberkirch, among many others. I too joined the conversation, stating that #hashtags would create channels that “will improve the Twitter experience.” At the time, the ability to search Twitter was in its infancy with Summize, later acquired by Twitter, providing the ability to surface relevant conversations. Unlike Groups, hashtags were meant to organize conversations in the stream. The introduction of the “#” also introduced a psychological phenomenon where people consciously injected a word or expression that indexed the Tweet and ultimately entire threads.

As Messina stated in the comments to my original post on the subject, “I think you’ve captured the sociologically component of this discussion really well. I’m most interested in getting lots of people’s feedback on this idea since it seems that, from the conversations I’ve had with Twitter folks, they’re looking at implementing the older, more explicit model of groups that I think would actually encumber the system considerably.”

Yes, as Messina’s comment states, Twitter originally considered creating formal groups. It later introduced the ability to create lists, which focused on curated streams based on individuals rather than topics. Hashtags weren’t invented over night however. I think back to something that Chris Heuer wrote in a post in 2005 about the need for what he termed “tagspaces.” He defined this classifier as “…the glue between people identifying something and those seeking it out…”

Messina’s Tweet, his published work, and the ensuing community dialog and collaboration helped to solidify the hashtag’s position in the Twitterverse with almost equal status of the now pervasive “@” symbol. In its own right the “@” is now officially the universal symbol for engagement which extends well beyond Twitter. It’s now the standard engagement in Facebook, email, and any digital conversation thread. But back to the hashtag. What started as a form of indexing later evolved into a form of declaration, sentiment, sarcasm, inner monologue, or subconscious, but stated, expression #thinkingaloud.

Hashtags have also had a cultural impact on society. In March of 2009, I ran a live experiment at DEMO and SXSW to see what would happen if I introduced a real-life hashtag moment into the flow of everyday conversation. For example, if I were to make a statement, I would end with an emphatic point to classify the conversation or to express an intentional undertone. I would then cross two fingers on top of each other in the form of hashtag to see how people responded. In every case, people reacted immediately with “HASHTAG! A gang (hand) sign for social media!” Like popular RT memes on Twitter, the hashtag hand sign flew across the social web fueled by twitpics of what would eventually become the calling card of the “Hashtag Mafia.” #brilliant. In the days leading up to SXSW 2009, the hang sign officially made the SXSW Bingo card. Today, the hand sign is part of Twitter culture, flashed by the Twitterati in daily dialogue.

Hashtags are evolving and as such, continually attract studies. The New York Timesinvestigated the marvel of hashtags and for the most part, captured the essence of this powerful expression mark. However, there are also parts of the discussion that equally miss its brilliance. For example, comparing hashtags to “air quotes” is oversimplified. Thepsychology behind it is incredibly deep, diverse and worthy of study as is the sociology of Twitter’s mircro global community. Ashley Parker, the author of the article, inexactly classifies the hashtag as Twitter’s secret handshake. In fact, it is nothing less than Twitter’s signature. It is the equivalent of punctuating a thought or experience.

Hashtags are no longer bound to Twitter. They traverse the channels for all forms of communication. Hashtags are now embedded in the fabric of our digital lifestyle and enlivened in our expressions. Although the value of hashtags are in the eye of the beholder, they are special. As such, they are not easily manipulable. Hashtags must possess cultural relevance to connect at an intellectual or emotional level before they can trigger the A.R.Tof social media (actions, reactions, or transactions). Hashtags aren’t to be branded, they are to to be relatable. #hashtag that!

Welcome to the #hashtageconomy

Original article via Fast Company

Productivity Correlated to Twitter Friends

This can’t be true, surely…?

Biz Stone on Twitter’s name & early days (Audioboo)

via Rory Cellan

Google has a Hunch

graphs (by @cdixon and @hunch)

How Online Marketing Drives Offline Success

What the F**k is Social Media NOW?

Interesting presentation from the people at Espresso on the state of social media in 2010. Some pretty impressive numbers around the penetration of what we deem as ‘social’, with some great sound-bytes in there.

The line I particularly like is ‘Now Social Media is Media‘…

What the F**k is Social Media NOW?  

HOW TO Track Social Media Traffic in Google Analytics

 If you use Google Analytics, you’ve undoubtedly seen a report like this:

The problem is, there’s no breakdown of “social media” in this view of traffic sources, and with the dramatic rise of social media marketing, marketers need an easy way to segment and “see” this traffic separately from the rest of their referrers. We know it’s mixed in with “referring sites” and “direct traffic” but luckily, there’s a way to extract that data in just a few simple steps.

Step 1: Create a Custom Segment

Custom segments are the way to go for separating traffic into filter-able buckets for deeper analysis. GA makes this fairly painless:

From any of the “Traffic Sources” sections, just click the “Advanced Segments” in the upper-right hand corner and then the link to “Create a new advanced segment.”

Step 2: Add Social Sources

This is the most crucial part, and requires that you have a full list of the sites/words to include. Don’t just use the domain names or URLs of the most popular social sites, but instead, use clever “catch-all” words using the “source” condition, as shown below:

Make sure to continue adding “OR” statements, not “and” statements - the latter will require that both conditions are met vs. any one of the “ORs”. Here’s a few examples, but you can add as many as what’s relevant:

• twitter
• tweetdeck
• facebook
• linkedin
• youtube
• reddit
• digg
• delicious
• stumbleupon
• ycombinator
• flickr
• myspace
• hootsuite
• popurls
• wikipedia
• bitly

Depending on your niche, it might be valuable to run through your top 2-500 referring domains looking for any obvious matches. You could also refer to Wikipedia’s list of popular social sites.

Step 3: Test & Name Your Segment

In order to create a fully functional segment, you’ll want to test the logic you’ve created to be sure results are returning. Before you do that, though, GA requires naming your segment (e.g. “social media”):

Once it’s complete and working properly, click “save segment.” You’ll be returned to the prior screen with the segment ready to rumble.

Step 4: Filter Traffic by “Social Media”

Your new segment is ready to be applied. You can now filter social media exclusively or see it in comparison to other traffic sources on any report in GA. Just use the advanced segments drop-down and choose “social media” under the custom segments list like so:

Segmenting social traffic is useful for reporting, particularly to gauge value (if you have action tracking on commercial activities set up in GA, for example) and see growth/impact over time. But, there’s more you can learn than just raw traffic and conversions numbers.

Here’s some examples of reports to look at, along with the value from the data:

Once broken out, you can compare referring social media sites more easily. If you then compare this against traffic “opportunity” from these sites (using a combination of traffic data and gut check), you’ll be able to find which sites have the greatest chance to improve. 

This next chart compares search vs. social traffic over time:

If looking to evaluate progress and make comparisons, this view is fairly useful. You can see that the effort in social is paying off and also having an effect on search engine traffic too (through new links, citations, etc). 

Next, the level of engagement of social media visitors:

Naturally you can compare engagement as a result of social referrals to search or direct traffic, but it is also handy to watch as you make tweaks to your site to encourage greater engagement and click-through to see if those efforts are successful.

Last, let’s look at the pages social visitors see:

These are all potential opportunities to create more customized landing experiences based on the referrer path, and the report can also give me insight about what content I need to continue producing if I want to draw in more social traffic. 

If social media marketing is a focus of your organization, segmenting that traffic in reporting is critical to determining the value of your efforts and improving. So get into GA, segment, and start seeing your traffic for what it really is. 

Original post via SEOmoz

The Corporate Approach To Social Media (photo)

via Dilbert.com

Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of Social Media

The world of social media can be forgiven for its obsession with popularity. Across the open social web we are littered with counts on blog subscriptions, page ranks, twitter following, fans, friends, comments… the list is endless. And the web 2.0 revolution has spawned the careers of the likes of Pete Cashmore (founder of Mashable), Perez Hilton (founder of the blog with the same name), to Ashton Kutcher (MTV’s funny-boy turned Twitter influencer).  

However, does popularity equate to influence? Similarly, does popularity equate to authority or capability? I’d argue that it doesn’t, using my favourite fictional being, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

For the uninitiated (seriously go find the books immediately), Holmes was a fictional ‘consulting detective’ based in London in the 1890s, who implemented astute logical reasoning and forensic science skills (along with a cunning ability to impersonate others on occasions) to solve crimes which left the city’s constabulary stumped.

Yet Holmes was no public figure in the tales narrated by his friend and biographer John Watson. It was rather the inspectors who acquired the help of the protagonist who received the plaudits in the media, as described in the stories. It seemed the art itself was what fired Holmes and the challenge of solving the puzzle before him.  Similarly, his legacy has endured and inspired the field of forensic science, future detective writers, art, film, media, plus his name has become synonymous with the detecting profession itself.

The social media landscape is littered with the ‘digital celebrity’, who do a lot of talking and crave that limelight and popularity that is fed into them through us, the media and brands trying to harness the influence. I’m not knocking the names mentioned above, for me they have a real entrepreneurial spirit & drive which you have to admire. Yet I’m sure there are many more out there who are experts in their field, every day making a difference but wouldn’t ever make a top 100 most influential list. What they do is worth more than 5K followers on Twitter, and like Holmes they have actual case-studies to speak for themselves. We can all build a legacy that endures like Sherlock, it’s simply elementary.  

How 10 Social Media Sites Looked At Launch

Using the wayback machine internet archive, below is a selection of pioneering web 2.0 sites, and what they looked like at launch. Budding web entrepreneurs can take heart here, as the designs are a far cry from what we recognise now. But how they have grown….

Facebook

myspace

Youtube

Wikipedia

Twitter

Blogger

Digg

Tumblr

Flickr

Technorati