The mobile Internet revolution continues to accelerate, fueled by the latest smartphone releases from Palm, Apple and Blackberry. It’s not so important whether people prefer Blackberry, Apple or Other. What does matter is the functionality these phones bring to the market. With computing capability, broadband Internet, and GPS location ID, smartphones are capturing market interest to the tune of 25%.

Some — including the New York Times — feel Internet-savvy mobile phones have become a necessity. Most importantly, they are finally realizing the much ballyhooed promise of the mobile Internet. Between stellar applications developed for the iPhone and other platforms to mobile social networking, people are engaging online using their phones more than ever before.

Communicators should be paying attention to the increasingly mobile Internet. In last year’s Pew Future of the Internet study, 67% of the 1000+ visionaries through the Internet would be accessed primarily through handheld devices. And according to Pew:

Some 39% of Americans have positive and improving attitudes about their mobile communication devices, which in turn draws them further into engagement with digital resources – on both wireless and wireline platforms.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the handheld form is the same as the wireline computer based Internet. Yes, reviewing your site and making it mobile friendly is just smart. But the mobile ecosystem is quite different, creating usage patterns that communicators will need to adapt to. This mobile ecosystem report authored by Joe Horrigan for Pew Internet shows five early types of mobile user, only one of which prefers social networking.

Mobile Uses

One of the most exciting and obvious uses has been the development of mobile applications. While the iPhone has dominated this story to date, the Palm Pre and hopefully the open Android API will make this a much more competitive marketplace. And in an effort to compete with Apple, mobile powerhouse Nokia recently launched their Avi store for its mobile assets.

Regardless of platform, the usefulness of applications from a brand experience extension standpoint has been proven. But applications do not necessarily require social functionality, and in some cases — like banks, stores or travel organizations — simply allow the brand loyalist to do their business from their phone.

Other exciting applications include the now increasingly prevalent use of mobile video (gawd, is this Cloverfield redux?). And of course, mobile social networking via traditional plays like Facebook, Skype and Twitter has been well discussed.

However, a new type of social networking tied to GPS-based location is starting to emerge. GPS-based social networking seems to have a variety of players vying for market leadership, including Brightkite, FourSquare, gypsii, and Loopt.

I’ve been playing with each of these mobile location networks, and everyone seems to have some unique functionality, while none of them feel like a homerun yet. For example, Loopt has a dynamic Mix app and allows you to ping friends, but you can’t comment on status. Brightkite, the veteran of the group, allows you to comment on status, but direct contact is less accessible.

These GPS networks are exciting and different, pushing the boundaries of conventional social networking. What’s right to communicate, what’s not? I have not geo-located from home yet, as I prefer to keep that information private. Another example is when is it appropriate to ping someone and say, “Hi, I’m in your neck of the woods. Coffee?” Early, new and developing, one thing is certain, one or two of these networks will take a leadership position, and own mobile and social.

Prior Buzz Bin Posts:

• #sxsw - The Future of the Internet
• Local, Mobile and Social: What Needs to Happen
• Democratizing Location
• Marketing Profs Wireless Internet Article

Pam Slim’s book, aptly named Escape from Cubicle Nation, is a must read for anyone considering an entrepreneur’s life.  Named after her blog, the book provides a great read from beginning to end.  The thorough examination of the start-up process is spot on, and can really help newcomers to business avoid pitfalls.

Quite frankly, I wish this book had been available when I started my now-acquired company three plus years ago. It goes well beyond the usual business plan process, and provides a much more in-depth personal look at whether or not you are right for this kind of life, how to go about it, and what to expect. In fact, I was a reader of Pam’s blog at that time for these very types of insights.

Escape is intensely spiritual, focusing on balance issues, happiness, and even things like having fun and, gulp, sex. Who would have thought that a business owner would have time for that? But in all seriousness, the book is about sparking your inner fire and essence, allowing your true creativity come out.

My personal professional experience is that business is too often about being billable, achieving profitability, following the rules, political hierarchies, and creating the right process.  While these things are important to a business, they can eventually become so cumbersome that they absolutely beat the life essence out of a person’s daily existence. That’s why I originally escaped from my cubicle (well, office) nation.

So if you feel like that, it’s definitely time to read Pam’s book. You probably have an itch that can’t be scratched in your current day job.

If you live in DC, you can see Pam live at one of her workshops here on Thursday, July 30 from 8:30 until 4. You can also read a full Escape from Cubicle Nation chapter here free of charge.

Corporate messaging has been under fire for a long time from many a PR 2.0/social media/web 2.0 pundit, including me. I’ve been a loud defender of the Cluetrain principle that there’s no market for messages. But while I still feel that one dimensional messaging from a traditional corporate communications standpoint fails utterly on the social web, there is a role for more evolved messaging: The role of the conversation starter (conversation starter image by shadow traveller).

A good message for the social web serves a different role than drilling home a sales proposition, or highlighting a brand attribute, or controlling public perception. Instead it inspires a great conversation amongst a community. It’s a conversational lead, something that provokes raw dialogue about a relevant issue to not only the organization providing the starter, but also the community participating in the discussion.

In that sense the modern message isn’t controlled. It’s actually architected with the hope of sparking a wildfire of uncontrolled word of mouth. That means giving people something worthwhile to talk about.

So a message actually becomes Socratic in nature. It poses a question and/or causes other parties to actually think about a topic, as opposed to trying to force ideas into their head. Rather than deliver finite ideas, social web messages start the conversation, but may not end them.

In fact the community conversation may take the message and turn it upside down (AT&T iPhone pricing, Dominoes, Motrin Moms, etc., etc.). In such cases, an organization needs to be responsive to and flexible with its community. In that sense that’s where letting loose of the reigns and actively participating in dialogue really comes into play. If the message serves the community with informative conversation, than the organization who started the chat should understand that it may need to shift its position.

I need to give a hat tip to Jeremy Pepper on this post, as the outspoken PR blogger was adamant in a phone conversation with me, maybe two years ago, that in fact messaging still had its place. It took me a long time to come around to that point of view, but I agree.

Traveling along the highway of organization social media adoption, you’ll find half-baked first attempts on almost every major social network (Image Litter Lout by Smabs Sputzer). Blogs, Flickr accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube channels, Twitter streams and even Ning networks, these launched initiatives usually span 2 weeks to 2 months of activity and then are left in the ether to die. Yes, there’s lots of social media litter.

It seems almost every company or nonprofit trying to adapt these days has social scars on their online brand skin. Many try a social media form, find it difficult (or results hard), and leave. This organizational Internet litter — often intended to be picked up again at some point — demonstrates a few things:

Why not just close the accounts? Or if holding the brand name is important, post something indicating absence and where to contact the organization. The notice could say as little as we are no longer active here, but an intent to keep old content alive. That’s what I did with the Now Is Gone blog.

It reminds me a lot of Web 1.0 when old web sites would be half built, under construction, or worse, 404 errors. The message is we don’t care about you, delivering a frustrating brand experience. Just take the time and clean up your social media litter. It makes the Internet a more enjoyable place.

There’s been no greater use of social media during a crisis moment than GM”s use of these tools during the past week. GM’s head of social media Chris Barger took some time out of his incredibly busy week to answer some questions on GM’s efforts this week, and moving forward.

GL: You used social media as part of your larger integrated campaign to communicate through the bankruptcy. How did it work as a crisis tool?

CB: I think it was a critical piece of the strategy - because it was the one set of media where we could *respond* to people and answer questions, and listen to their thoughts. We had a lot of information to get out and we certainly used social media to help convey it, but the real value for us as a crisis tool was in the ability to interact, explain and go deeper with audiences.

I would like to think they got more out of interacting with us than they would have from just hearing the messages delivered through traditional media. I also think that there’s now an expectation — of companies in general, but especially those in our situation, accountable to the us taxpayer — that we should/will be engaged in social media conversations… Had we not been, i think it would have been deemed a failure — so some of the “crisis tool” value was actually in heading off potential other criticism.

GL: GM is used to the negative voices. I am sure you heard some positive, hopeful voices, too. Did the social web detract or empower GM employees this week?

CB: This was the most unexpected thing for me of the whole week — and was a wonderful surprise. I expected that we would get ‘killed’ out there and that in engaging in Twitter, FB, blogs, etc., I had my team set up to personally bear the brunt of people’s anger. Instead, we largely found the opposite to be true.

People seemed to like that we were out there trying to be genuine, trying to answer as honestly as we could; people seemed to respect the individual courage it took for our people to be out in the social web this week. Most people — even the ones who are really angry at gm or at what’s happening right now — were very kind to us, sent us public or private encouragement…

We in the social world always talk about how social humanizes an organization, but the converse also took place for us this week: it humanized the audience. The encouragement we received genuinely kept us going; when even many detractors were polite and even gracious about engaging with us, it really made everything easier to go through. This grace and courtesy we saw from 90% of the audience was the most wonderful and appreciated surprise.

GL: One thing that became apparent during the outreach was GM’s focus on team social media as opposed to a singular voice. How does that different approach empower GM?

CB: On a purely practical level it enabled us to better engage this week; there was no way that a singular voice or ‘brandividual’ could have taken part in all the conversations that we needed to be in. However, many conversations one person can be in at once, a team can engage exponentially.

More importantly, it avoids the concern of too-heavily associating your brand with an individual — and mitigates the danger of that individual leaving the company. Robert Scoble’s audience follows him wherever he goes; they didn’t automatically stay with Microsoft, for example. It is absolutely vital that gm be more human in our interactions, rather than ‘hiding behind a blue box’ logo. But we have more than one human, with more than one set of passions, more than one area of expertise. As much as my ego might enjoy being “Mr. GM in social media,” I think the company is better served in the long run by being represented by a platoon of voices, eventually even an army (It’s what I still admire about IBM’s approach.).

Most important of all, however, is this: the more pervasive a company’s use of these media, and the conversations and relationships that develop from them, the more genuinely responsive we become. All the learnings that i get from interactions online… Add my team and we multiply that benefit and those learnings by 6. Add in the extended team we built this week, and our learnings increase by 20x.

How much more responsive, customer-focused and better attuned could we be if we had 100 highly active people in social media? If we had 200? 500? 1000 or 5000? It would be an #epicfail on my part if i focused all those learnings and affinities on myself (or any single individual) and then relied on individuals’ power of persuasion and personality to imbue them in the organization; rather, i’d say that the more people gm plugs into conversation, the more genuinely connected and responsive we’ll be.

You can read Part II of this interview on the CRT/tanaka whatcanbe blog. Chris answers questions on whether detractors were correct, which social tools were best used in the crisis, and what’s next for GM on the social web.

Facebook Causes is oft criticized for its ability to build causes with tens of thousands of followers yet relatively few donations. But is it really the fault of the program, or the tendency for organizations deploying Causes (as well as a wide variety of social media tools across the Internet)? Isn’t the problem that we’re relying on tools instead of interacting with key stakeholders in communities?

To that point, it’s people that drive social media, not tools.  And so while an app can get people to join, it can’t make the right kind of ask for donations that an influential member of a network could.  A network of 100 influentials with strong connections can make a much bigger impact than 100,000 passive followers with no vested interest in the cause (brand, company, effort, etc.).

To demonstrate this point, I decided to use my birthday as a fundraising mechanism to raise money for the Clean Energy Coalition.  It seemed like a natural fit for this purpose, 70k members in the organization’s cause page and $996 in donations as of May 15th.  With a decent, but certainly not the largest Facebook network of more than 1500, I embarked on my birthday cause campaign to raise at least an initial goal $500 for the cause, if not tripling the funds to date.

As of 7 p.m. today, the eve of my birthday, I had raised $452. I had increased the amount of financial donations by almost 50% in just two weeks.  Imagine what 100 of me could do. $50,000? $100,000? 

The evidence is obvious.  Facebook Causes isn’t really the issue. The Cause application is just a tool that works best when people use it to fundraise, for their birthday or in general. Social media that involves commitments works best when people drive the initiatives as opposed to software programs.

P.S.

Thank you to everyone who donated to the Clean Energy Coalition on my behalf.  I really appreciate it.  My interest in the Coalition, Live Earth and other green efforts is a sincere one.

As I said in the original citation, for me the environmental crisis is the challenge of our generation. While we are focused on the current economic issue, it’s apparent that the ecological changes we are all facing continue to accelerate. We need to collectively ban together and change our lifestyles and habits to save energy, water and other precious resources while reducing our carbon footprint.

If you’d like to donate, my birthday cause page is here.

Companies and organizations have a real hard time understanding why the traditional message doesn’t seem to work in online social environments. Yet, if you think about the way we as human beings relate to one another it really shouldn’t be that much of a mystery.

The above social profile chart highlights just the tip of the human interest iceberg. It demonstrates a multifaceted level of online interests and representations. If you consider that people parse themselves into communities using these and other interlocked personality attributes, it becomes easier to understand what motivates any given individual. We identify ourselves online in several ways, including:

That’s why you see so many subject matter specific forms of social media. From community groups and blogs to loosely knit Twitter “echo chambers” and subject-matter specific social networks, there’s interest/lifestyle, geography specific topics discussed everywhere. Any given individual can participate in a wide variety of these media, cross-pollinating across diverse mesh-like groups of communities. The human conversation is a rich, complex one that varies from person to person.

The failure for traditional communicators occurs when they try to deliver an unsolicited simple message in this diverse conversation. In essence, an organization probably plays a very small role in this picture. Yet most organizations fail to realize that. Instead they try to insert themselves into the dialogue as the center point of the conversation.

By providing one dimensional approaches — i.e. traditional messaging — organizations fail to compel most people to participate. In essence, they are like the bull in the China shop, and because the message is so controlled and obvious no one wants to engage.

Smart social media empowers conversations beyond the message. It embraces human nature and the strange mesh-like conversations that occur between us and our collective interests. That’s why a strong social media effort understands there’s more to the stakeholder than a simple purchase interest. Instead of talking “inner tubes” a bicycle tire company may facilitate or participate in a larger conversation about rigorous outdoor exercising, including bicycle rides.

When an organization successfully participates they engage beyond just a linear hit with a stakeholder within an interest group. Instead, they compel that stakeholder to engage and talk, usually in a public social media environment. If favorable, this creates more momentum within and beyond that person’s vertical topic area, touching several of the individual’s social network interest areas.

Consider how if I became a successfully engaged stakeholder my conversation could impact several interest areas across my social network. In fact, using the above “clean energy” example, you can see many areas could be touched as denoted by shades of green. It’s not as simple as just touching my social cause friends. In fact, the only area where it could be met with lukewarm results would be the larger communications network I participate in.

Command and control messaging just doesn’t work as well in social worlds. What does work is an engaging approach towards developing relationships and fostering community action. That requires a more sophisticated approach that starts with talking with people, and the need to listen and understand their motivations.

“It might not be intuitively clear to non-participants that a company representative’s consistent high-quality engagement in community is necessary to reap the benefits of community, but for community managers, the relationships they are building make it very clear. Those relationships would go cold without consistent engagement.”

I really enjoyed the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Community Management. Under Marshall Kirkpatrick’s gifted hand, this savvy report delivers the basics for any CxO or CMO considering developing their own social media community. In particular, I love the focus on hiring or appointing a community manager to start.

Most companies want to start with a campaign or an initiative, and that’s the wrong focus. Community Management quickly and aptly points out that social is not about PR per say, more about networking, thus the need for a continued outbound presence. A face of the company, if you would. Without a community manager, companies can fail to harness the many benefits organized social media can offer.

There were several aspects of the report that really seemed to be of service to the marketer trying to figure this out (I assume that most people reading this will be marketers). There’s a heavy focus on the confluence of the many outbound customer functions from PR and marketing to customer service in the report. It’s essential to understand that no one traditional skill set will do the job. Further, social is about engagement versus advertising. There’s a great discussion here on the topic.

There’s a heavy focus on measurement, which is great. I don’t know how many times I hear that you can’t measure social media, and while the report admits to the ambiguity of measurement, I wholeheartedly agree when it says, “Community managers should establish methods to measure their own impact on other departments’ bottom lines.” Frankly, if you can’t determine measurement, then you have no strategy. Strategies are to achieve objectives, and objectives are measurable.

Finally, there’s a great discussion on what makes a good community manager, including statistics and personality type. This is very helpful for organizations trying to hire or identify this role within the company. Guidelines are given for how to participate within and manage the community, too.

I did have a few nitpicks with the report, and for the sake of balance I will offer them. First, the report does say right off the bat that Twitter is a place any company should be and Facebook more than likely could be difficult, but that group pages can work. In the beginning, the report also highlights a blog as a must have, yet we know most blogs fail. Given that, should blogging be so openly embraced?

For the record, I question Twitter’s value sometimes. While I see how Virgin America can be happy with 15K followers, I question whether this kind of reach has any real marketing impact for the company. Straight up truth: Twitter is dynamic and fast, but it’s not a broadcast medium for consumer companies. However, it is a great place to organize and interact with your die hard community members and influencers. Twitter has good uses (See Buzz Bin Twitter primer) and bad uses, so look beyond Shiny Object Syndrome before drinking the Kool Aid in full.

The other nitpick was the personal brand conundrum. While the report acknowledges having a singular voice does not scale, it does not dive in deep on how to handle this issue. It’s a quality problem derived from success, but it would be helpful for companies to see the value of scaling on a team level.

Overall, I highly recommend this report. Any company considering a community management strategy should by the ReadWriteWeb guide as it will give them great insights into this growing professional discipline.

LinkedIn is the network that no communicator really seems to love. Complaints about not getting it, and its hard to use interface, or the inability to promote/communicate virally with large groups of people are common. Yet its staying power and growing strength are undeniable.

From left to right: Chris Brogan, Kathryn Jennex, Sarah Merion, and Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes’ short primer, “LinkedWorking” made the communicators’ problem – and the solution – clear to me.  Communicators struggle with LinkedIn, but not because it lacks robustness or the viral nature of other networks.  There are many people getting dynamic results out of LinkedIn everyday. Instead, it gets back to the old one-way “we’re promoting” mindset versus the two-way nature of conversational media.

At its heart, LinkedIn is made for brass tacks networking. It’s where people meet and greet online, just like they would at a real networking event. It makes sense that some of the bigger successes on LinkedIn have come from recruiters and business developers. They understand how to communicate one-to-one.

Communicators naturally migrate to what is going to get them the biggest reach per touch. They want to broadcast messages rather than have conversations. In many ways, that’s why within our community Twitter has become so hot and LinkedIn has not. If successful at building a following in Twitter, communicators can  broadcast messaging and links to thousands with one strategically written 140 character “message.”

If one has a LinkedIn following, that too can occur, but the very architecture of LinkedIn forces a more genuine conversation focusing on both parties.  One person or company’s viewpoint has much less sway. You really have to participate on LinkedIn.

That’s why I like Howes’ book. It’s short and sweet, and provides reminders for great networking principles, and how they apply on the social network that more than any forces you to actually talk with other people.  What a great way to really dive into LinkedIn.

Friends of Live Earth Senior Ambassador Alexandra Rampy and Ning’s Charles Porch.

Some of us on the Friends of Live Earth team recently had the opportunity to sit down with Charles Porch from ning, who gave some general pointers on network building best practices. Porch has worked with thousands of the 1.1 million communities now using the ning social community platform. So here’s your quick jujitsu:

1) The network should have a purpose. It shouldn’t be just a fan club, instead it should try to achieve something, and if it’s a nonprofit have a clear call-to-action.

2) Give them a welcome wagon. Make it personal and easy for people to come in. Let them feel welcome, give them tips, and allow them to move into the socnet naturally.

3) Give people clear ways to engage. Make it easy for them. Give them the power to engage in subgroups by topic and by region. Let them “spiff up” their own profile page. Provide people feedback mechanisms and loops. Ensure there are icebreakers for people to easily participate with.

4) Understand the push-pull effect. Never just push information, and always assume it’s a two-way conversation.

5) Enable people who want to be active. Provide ways to allow them to rise to the top and lead. Create a leaders group, feature most active and distinguished members, and allow people to become heroes!

6) Make the network a little sexy. People love video, photos and checking out other people’s profile pages. These are the features that people are most interested in. Use the latest activity stream to highlight the latest and hottest topics, content and media that community members discuss.

7) To start, keep it simple. You may not need every single feature on Ning to make the network successful. Add features as your network grows and function demands.

8) Commitment to the community means creating content and opportunities to talk regularly, from once a week to once an hour depending on the level of activity you have.

9) Consider creating some guidelines, too. Suggestions help people self regulate their own community.

What would you add to the list? Also, if you are interested in an even deeper information, check out this Ning Workshop which Charles recommends.

If you are interested in the Friends of Live Earth initiative, stay tuned or join the network. We are revamping the site currently, but there are some exciting things about to happen!

P.S. For the record, my work with Friends of Live Earth is strictly on a volunteer basis. I am not getting paid as Senior Advisor; I just believe in the cause that much, and have decided to spend a few months of my extracurricular time helping the good people organizing Live Earth.