Tumblr is certainly growing in popularity.  A recent Mashable article mentioned that according to ComScore, Tumblr scored 13.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in July, increasing 218% from the same time last year. The “blog-meets-social-network service” is experiencing what most are calling explosive growth.   Tumblr has been on my radar for quite sometime having witnessed how our teens use it and rave about it.  However, that doesn’t mean that the younger generation is abandoning Facebook any time soon.  Now, they’re using both networks for similar yet different reasons.

I asked two teenagers (ages 16 & 17) about their passion for Tumblr and Facebook because I wanted insight into their fascination with both communities.  I thought it would help me to understand the difference from a teen’s point of view.  Here’s the interview with teens that were more than willing to offer their raw and youthful insight (unedited and uncensored content):

Q: What’s the difference between Tumblr and Facebook?

-       Tumblr is a blog and Facebook isn’t.

-       Facebook doesn’t allow you to blog.

-       Facebook is a place to connect with friends.

-       I think Tumblr is an anti-social social network.

-       Tumblr is less of a place to connect and is more an expression of myself.

Q: Which do you use more?

-       Tumblr, because it’s better than Facebook.

• I don’t care what people think about what I say.
• It’s easier to update your status on Facebook, but we just don’t care enough to do that all of the time.

-       On Tumblr you can say what you’re doing, but you don’t have too say what you’re doing.

• I don’t want everyone to know what I’m doing.
• On Tumblr, it’s more socially acceptable to not say what you’re doing.

Q: Would you stop interacting on one to spend all of your time on the other?

-       We don’t want to give up Facebook.

• It’s necessary because it’s an easy way to find something out.
• We get homework from classmates and we don’t have to text a best friend to see what she’s doing.

-       Facebook has a connection purpose, but Tumblr is about me!

-       On Tumblr I can relate to others more than I can on Facebook.

-       When you talk to people you don’t know on Tumblr it’s awesome, but you can’t do this on Facebook, it’s really creepy.

-       You can tell so much more about a person on Tumblr because it’s about the individual and not about connecting with other people.

Q: What do you like the most about Tumblr?

-       Personally, it gives me inspiration for the things I like…photography, art, cool images.

-       You can find a blog about anything you love.  I follow a bunch of Lady Gaga blogs … it all comes up on your dashboard and you can fill your dash with things you like.

-       On Facebook you see all the things you don’t like.

-       On Tumblr, you can catch up on the videos, memes and all the funny stuff.

-       We’re learning more on Tumblr about news, information and things about the Internet.  We found out that Osama Bin Laden was dead and all about Libya on Tumblr.

-       I even donated to a cancer cause through Tumblr.

Q: What do you like the most about Facebook?

-       You get to talk to friends, writing funny things on other people’s walls, look at friends’ photos and videos.

-       No games though…I use my phone for games or my iPod.

-       We also like to see when people are single or in a relationship (except when it’s someone you like).

-       There are a lot of people who like to have many friends, it’s not as important to us, but we know people who love the popularity of having a big network. When I had over 1,000 friends, I started to delete them.

-       I like the hide functionality on Facebook because I can hide people and they don’t know it.

-       I play around with the privacy settings so that some people can see certain things and others can’t.

Q: What is missing from either one of these networks (if you could sit in a room and tell Mark Zuckerberg or David Karp to add features, what would those features be)?

-       No changes right now to either network.

-       Both places are perfect for what they provide.

-       I may not ask them to change anything, but if I could sit in a room with David Karp, then I might just ask for him for a hug.

-       I might ask to visit Mark Zuckerberg’s new house

Q: Do you think you will stay on Tumblr and Facebook or if something better comes along you will jump ship?

-       I wouldn’t leave Tumblr … but I might leave Facebook.

-       We left MySpace, which was a crappy combination of both Facebook and Tumblr.

-       Now we just like that Tumblr and Facebook are two individual and separate networks that both make a lot of sense for us.

There you have it…the feelings of teens about their likes and dislikes when it comes to engagement preferences (or lack thereof).  The strongest opinion comes down to expression and individuality, and not necessarily connections. It should be interesting to see how Tumblr and Facebook continue to grow and what these communities offer to the teens that have very strong convictions about why they participate on two very different networks.

My 16 year-old-daughter first introduced me to Tumblr when she told me that she wanted to start her own blog.  She used to spend countless hours on MySpace checking out bands, on YouTube sharing funny videos and she used her Facebook profile to keep in touch with many of her friends after we moved from North Jersey to Central Jersey a few years ago. I would say that YouTube and Facebook are still among her favorite social sites. However, Tumblr has come onto her radar and clearly captured her attention.  Based on her behavior, Tumblr is her new social media habit.

For those not familiar with Tumblr, it’s an easy platform to express your thoughts and share information through a variety of formats including text, photo, chat, links, audio and video.  Tumblr is recognized today as a platform somewhere in between a WordPress blog and Twitter stream, which lets you share media in short form or as “media snacks.”

I’ve been investigating Tumblr to see exactly what it is that makes the platform so special.  Here’s what my 16 year old has to say about Tumblr:

• Tumblr is a place where you can express what you like and how you feel.
• Tumblr is about yourself, above everything else … it can encompass all that you do and what you want.  Although, some people might criticize, there are so many more supporters; the community is generally supportive of what you post.
• You can find a lot of people with similar interests. When someone reblogs a picture that I like, I look at their blog to find other things that interest me.
• Tumblr is better than Facebook…anyone can have a Facebook, but with Tumblr it goes deeper into your personality.
• I’m on Twitter too. Although my Tumblr is linked to my Twitter, I spend more time on my Tumblr dashboard.  It’s all right there for me, and it’s so much easier to use.
• Tumblr is the more complex version of Twitter, yet, at the same time, it’s easier to use and manage.
• Twitter is something you do when you’re out…”eating with my friend …” It’s what’s happening now and Tumblr is your online journal.
• Twitter is like a memo pad and Tumblr is like a daily journal.
• It’s the most addictive thing ever!

Here is a quick snapshot from Compete comparing Posterous (another short form blogging platform) to Tumblr, with respect to unique visitors and visits to the sites:

Unique Visitors:

Source: Compete.com

Monthly Visits:

Source: Compete.com

As you can see, there has been a significant increase in traffic and unique visits to Tumblr over the past year.  As communications professionals, it’s our job is to understand the market and to identify where various audiences congregate.  Tumblr is definitely a place of interest and focus for the Millennials.  Based on the information from February 2011 (see chart below), Tumblr is poised for growth as a simple microblogging platform.

Source: 1WD.CO

I was recently invited to participate in Online Newsroom Summit in September.  A great deal has changed over the years with respect to developing or “socializing” your newsroom.  Because companies are looking to accommodate social audiences, the newsroom is an area that has experienced a makeover.

When I first started working with companies to create their online newsrooms (although at the time we were calling them online pressrooms), these areas offered an excellent way to build relationships with journalists.  Newsrooms provided information and resources for their stories, making the company information gathering process extremely turnkey.  The idea was to have materials available, at any time, and, if necessary, without the assistance of a PR representative. Journalists would gather the resources they needed, when they needed it, having access to company’s information portal 24/7.

Today, as a result of social media, the newsroom has become an area for all of the company’s stakeholders, not just the media.  Bloggers, customers, prospects and partners searching for information, find an updated newsroom to be very useful.  As a matter of fact, many companies are renaming their newsrooms, opting for a “Media Center” or “News Center” as a repository for different groups to find all types of media.

It’s interesting to review how the newsroom has changed.  Back in early 2000, the best newsrooms included the following:

• Company backgrounder
• Facts sheet or company snapshot
• Bios of executive or key team players
• High resolution photos and logos
• Executive presentations
• Corporate videos and videos from company events
• News releases (archived)
• Links to past publicity
• Links to helpful resources and industry partners

Ten plus years later, not only do we have the information listed above, but we also see a drastic change to the newsroom’s content and functionality, with the addition of the following new social features:

• Blog communities with company executives or SMEs
• Speaker and / or interview requests
• Social media releases (SMRs)
• Multimedia galleries
• Podcasts for download
• Optimization of content by tagging images and text for search engine relevancy
• The ability to share newsroom content in a number of different social media communities
• Icons to find, “Like” and/or follow the company in various social network communities
• Tag clouds to see the most frequently tagged newsroom topics
• Twitter feeds for products / services, and company conversations

Although all stakeholders find and use a company’s newsroom, we still organize information to suit the needs of journalists. It’s important to note that according the Bulldog / TekGroup International 2010 Online Journalist Survey on Media Relations Practices, “97% of journalists indicated that they use such sites in their work.”  The survey also revealed that nearly 45% of participants visit newsrooms more than once a week, with approximately 84% reporting that they visit at least once a month.

Here’s a list of a few really good examples of socialized newsrooms for you to review and consider, as you develop your own newsroom, media or news center for your website:

Starbucks

Ford

CIGNA

Microsoft

PRSA

Cisco

BASF

What are some of the best examples of socialized newsrooms that you’ve found? How are you changing the features and functionality of your company’s newsroom?

In PR we’re used to preparing executives or company spokespeople for media interviews and press conferences. We’ve also put our crisis plans in place to be ready for unexpected emergencies.  Our position is to prepare and be ready for all types of public reaction to company communications.  And, with social media keeping our constituents actively engaged in our web communities, by now, we should have our social media comment response charts handy.  A comment response chart should be developed and included in a social media policy to address all types of conversations from general company inquiries to crisis escalation.

Whether your organization is just starting out in social media, or you’ve been actively engaging with audiences, it’s critical to develop a comment response chart so employees know how to participate in different types of situations.  Below is a checklist of questions and when answered, they will help you to develop your chart so that you can (1) recognize the different types of conversations, (2) pinpoint situations in social communities in terms of the level of crisis escalation, and (3) identify who in your organization needs to be involved in the discussion based on the level of escalation.

The more you can prepare the organization to understand the different types of conversations and create a best practices approach to address unexpected issues, the better the organization will fare to avert a crisis and keep a situation under control.  Here are several of the questions to help you frame out your chart:

• What types of general questions can all groups or personnel within the organization address?
• If it’s a positive, general comment should employees propagate the comment by sharing with the network, or retweeting on Twitter?
• What types of specific questions need to be answered by an SME? Who are the individuals in the company designated to answer those questions?
• Who in the organization should only answer specific questions regarding company policies or an official company position on an issue?
• What types of questions will be handled by a specific department? For example, determine the questions that sales will answer vs. those answered by customer service.  What types of questions will be handled by PR?
• Predetermine the types of questions that your organization does not need to answer, but rather should be answered by the community because it’s better to have a community member answer for credibility purposes.
• Who takes care of the spam on a Facebook page or spam posted in a Facebook or LinkedIn Group?  Should the spam be deleted?
• How do you handle abusive questions?  Is this person a troll that you monitor but don’t respond to and just delete the comment?  Or, was this person once a member of your community and has influence with other community members?  Do you just delete the comment and then handle the situation offline, if you have this person’s contact information?
• Who in your company handles the dedicated complainer? How will you evaluate if this person is an influencer or a member of the media?  Who is in charge of correcting the situation and making sure the issue is resolved?
• What do you do if a complaint is incorrect?  Who is in charge of gently explaining the correct facts?  And, if the situation is incorrect, who will apologize and provide the correct information.
• Who in your organization will handle the bad experience complaints in social communities?  Will you designate certain personnel or departments based on issues in the past that may occur again due to the nature of your business?
• How will you correct any misguided information in a community?  What does your policy say about correcting the information and who from your organization will be responsible for making the correction and monitoring the situation?
• Have you identified the various levels of comment escalation, for example, how do you determine your level of response from general communication to full blown crisis escalation? What types of conversations are handled your social media manager and when you do involve your PIO and other members of the crisis team (especially if the crisis escalates into a media crisis as well)?

By answering these questions, you should be able to develop the framework for your comment response chart.  But, don’t stop there…as you do your planning every six months or each year, audit the types of conversations in the past and add to your chart to proactively prepare for new community conversations as they occur.

The more I chat with my peers, the more I receive strong feedback about the word, “influence.”  In a few conversations, it’s been pointed out that although we all want to know the secret of gaining influence, no one wants to talk about influence.  Of course, we would never walk around saying, “I’m an influencer.” Then, we’re really feeding into an ego system rather than a social ecosystem.

However, looking at influence from a different standpoint…don’t we want people to trust us?  Don’t we want to have the strongest relationships with community members and finally, don’t we want to help peers make decisions, because they believe in our honesty, integrity and value our opinions.  If influence was named something different, then would it be perceived differently? I wrote a post last August, “Social Media is Serious Business,” regarding the negative connotation around “Social Media.” I discussed removing the word “social,” to see if more companies would be on board sooner with their engagement. So, for example, rather than saying social media we’d call it strategic digital media.  Perhaps that would have changed the C-Suite mindset.

What would happen if we changed the word influence and named it something else? Would it still be seen as a bad word that carries a negative connotation?  Perhaps, we’d call it your trust factor or your characteristic rating.  Regardless of what we call influence, it is a powerful factor, well beyond what any number can capture.  In many cases, influence gets a bad rap. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I want to grow influence (both for my peers and personally) for the right reasons.  Because, when you grow influence, everyone wins; communities grow stronger, there’s more knowledge passed between members and more people benefit from the help they receive.

Now that you’ve heard both sides of the story, please weigh in to let me know how you feel about influence.  Do you think it’s a bad word with a negative connotation and something we should keep in check? Or, is influence something that should be a focus and we should nurture it to help one another?

It’s Friday, so let’s keep it light and fun, yet meaningful.  Today’s topic is influence. Because influence is often difficult to define, I wanted to take an opposite approach to discuss what influence is not.  So here goes…Influence is NOT:

• About technology or an algorithm that captures a score; influence is about the people and your peers.
• A measure of your ego; it is, however a measure of trust within your community or network of peers.
• A right, it’s a privilege and as quickly as it’s awarded to a person, it can be taken away.
• Control or authority over a peer’s behavior, yet influence, depending on the level, can certainly steer or guide behavior.
• Just about the numbers, and can’t be completely defined by a metric; we rely on scores for reach, resonance and impact. But, remember there are personal ways that people affect us, and a number or score may not capture the meaning of the influence on a personal level.
• A popularity contest; popularity is demonstrated with large numbers of followers and friends.  For influencers, the numbers range from one end of the spectrum to the other; it’s not the quantity, but the quality of your interactions.
• A one-time award or something that you can sustain without constant maintenance.  Influencers must continue to captivate their communities and grow strong relationships with peers.
• The power to push messages, you have to keep listening to provide valuable information to your community.
• Static, it can change every day.
• Influence is not made up of just one characteristic; it’s made up of many.
• Influence is not exclusive to social media.  People have been influencing their peers for hundreds of years, yet we’re hearing more about influence through social media.
• Influence is not the end game; it’s only the beginning. It’s not what you’ve done in the past; it’s how you continue to grow your relationships in the future.

Help me to define influence by telling me what it is NOT.  Please add to this list so that we can understand influence, and it becomes a part of growth and not something that’s out of reach.

A best practices approach to social media begins on the inside of the organization, with education and training for employees. In a recent blog post, “Internal Social Media Education and Collaboration,” I highlighted a few social platforms including SharePoint, Socialtext, Grou.ps and Ning, which can be used for educating employees, internal collaboration and innovation.  Some of the key features I discussed in the post included:

• Internal communications tools available (i.e., messaging, discussion and chat)

• Sharing capabilities available (i.e., links, resources and documents editing)

• Subgroups and/or forums available to users

• Hosted platform or installed on a company’s network

• Data ownership and whether or not the social network claims any ownership rights in your code, content, or network data

• Ease of set up and use; the selection of a platform that’s easy to manage and upload content

• Ease of customization; a platform that enables employees to add designs, photos and maintain the brand’s identity

• Price (enterprise software vs. a social networking platform)

Here’s a helpful chart with the different platforms mentioned above, comparing their key features and benefits (click on the chart to enlarge):

Of course, this chart only gives you a basic idea of the functionality available.  You will need to research the platforms further and demo each, prior to determining which one will suite your company and your employees’ needs.

Are there any platforms that you’ve researched for internal collaboration and education that should be added to this chart?

Last week I wrote a post, The Characteristics Index: Rate Yourself, which discussed the attributes or characteristics that you could cultivate to become an influencer.  They ranged from trust and knowledge to motivation and passion.  A very interesting comment on my blog prompted me to write this post.  I can’t thank Lisa Gerber enough for giving me the idea to write about an index where you can Rate your Influencers.  Can you imagine… if your peers could rate you? It would certainly tell you the value you bring to your network through every interaction and whether or not you need to change your communication and interact with them in a different way.

Here’s the comment that Lisa shared on my blog:

“I love the idea of rating ourselves when it comes to influence. It gives those of us who set daily goals, some benchmarks and more goals to achieve! It might even be interesting (with some modifications) to share with our peers and ask them to rate us, in order to give us a more grounded perspective.”

Based on this comment, I’ve reevaluated the “Characteristics Index” so that it’s an “Influencer Index.”  However, you can’t just ask anyone to evaluate you, instead, start with the peers who interact with you the most on a daily basis.  Remember, this is a fun exercise and not the science of ratings. These categories are broad and the rating scales may change based on the input I receive.  Your peers will give you a number rating at the end of the exercise and then be able to discuss with you the areas or characteristics where you excel and those attributes that still need more work.

Here is the exercise for you to share with your peers:

Trust:

How much of our relationship is based on trust? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate me with respect to the nature of our relationship.  For this exercise, if you feel we are casual friends, then you would use a rating from 1 to 4.  If you see our relationship as a reciprocal friendship where we share helpful information to answer each others questions or to spark ideas, then the rating would be between 5 and 7.  If you feel our relationship is based on pure trust, where you highly value the information I provide, and it helps you to make a decision (whether it’s personal or related to your career), then you would rate our relationship between 8 and 10.  Remember, 10 means I am one of your closest confidants, and I’m in your circle of trust!

Knowledge and Industry Expertise:

How much do you think I’m involved in the PR industry? Do you see me helping other peers, and constantly learning and growing in the field?  For instance, if you had to put a number value on what you thought was my level of participation based on what you see as my community engagement (PR Twitter chats, webinars, conversations with other PR pros, educational blog posts, etc.), each activity would be scored as 1 point on the ratings scale.  You would count the activities in month all the way up to 10.  If you think I am extremely active participant in 10 or more monthly industry activities, then my score would be a “10.”

Motivation:

How much do I motivate you? Motivation comes in all shapes and sizes and is truly a personal rating.  Think about how the people around you motivate you to do things or make you feel energized. Perhaps you have a conversation with an influencer and then just go about your day.  However, there are times when you interact with someone and suddenly you feel like you have the energy to tackle the world.  For this exercise, please think about our most recent interactions and rate me on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is no level of motivation after our interaction and a 10 would be that you felt highly energized and ready to undertake challenging new projects and initiatives.

Passion:

Do you think I’m passionate? Passion comes from the heart and it’s not something that’s easy to rate.  However, you can see true signs of passion from people who tirelessly strive to help peers, educate about their industry and stay ahead of the curve.  You can hear the passion in their voice and you can see it in their communication, whether it’s a blog post or even a tweet that’s 140 characters or less.  For this attribute, please rank my passion on a scale of 1 to 10.  A one represents very low levels of passion and 10 is the highest form of excitement that exhudes from me in every interaction, each and every time you are in contact with me.

Winning Positive Attitude

Do you think I have a Winning Positive Attitude? How many positive vs. negative things do I say when you see me in your news feed or in your Twitter stream?  A winning attitude goes hand-in-hand with a positive personality and seeing the glass half full rather than half empty.  I would like you to rate me on how many positive thoughts you see from me in a week?  For the next week, when you see my updates each day, keep track of whether or not  they appear to be positive thoughts. Count up all of the positive thoughts, from one to ten each day (if there are more then 10, then the score is 10), and then at the end of the week take the average number.  This number is my Winning Positive Attitude and it should fall between 1 and 10+, with one being the lowest positive attitude awarded and 10+ being the highest.

The Give Factor:

How much do you think I give to my peers? Review The Give Factor blog post for more details on the different phases of giving to peers:

• If you think I fall within the Meet & Learn Phase – You can rank me as a 3.
• If you think I have moved into the The Understand Phase – You can rank me as a 6.
• If you think that I am in The Support Phase – You can rank me as an 8.
• If you think I’ve reached the The Empathize Phase – You can rank me as a 10.

Social Champions/Supporters:

Are you one of my social supporters? There’s only one way to rate me in this area and it really depends on whether or not you would support me and be one of my social champions.  On a scale of 1 to 10, rate me on how much you would support my efforts, with a rating of 1 to 4 meaning that you are a member of my blog community, you share my blog posts or retweet me on Twitter.  If you are are writing about me in your blog posts, including me in your discussions on Twitter and participating in industry events with me, then you can rate me between 4 and 6. If you are one of my true social champions, then you will be connecting me with other close friends in your network, working with me on projects outside of social networks, and recommending me as a valuable source of information that could possibly lead to business opportunities.  In this case, you would rate me anywhere between 7 and 10.

Here’s how it all comes together with the scores (with the possible top score of 70).  Your peers will have to tell you your score, so you can compare it to the number ranges below:

If your score is between 1 and 14, you are just beginning your journey to influencing your peers.  If I want to capture their attention, then you will have to up your score in every characteristic.  At this point, there’s no place for your influence to go but up!

If your score is between 15 and 28, then you are on your way to influence.  It’s important to evaluate how you can raise your score in each area of development.  Don’t give up now, as you are starting to influence your peers.

If your score is between 29 and 42, you have influence but it’s not at a peak level. You are sharing and giving but it’s at an average rate as some of your scores are higher in a few areas and lower in others.  You must evaluate where you need work and strive to greater influence heights.

If your score is between 43 and 56, you are influencing your peers and it’s truly appreciated.  Your rate of influence is high and you are so close to taking your influence to the highest levels.  There are probably only a few areas that need work.  A little more focus on your personal growth and you can be influencing at the highest rank in no time.

If your score is between 57 and 70, you have reached true influencer status.  your peers rely on you for a great deal and you give selflessly as an Influencer to help them on a daily basis.  Not only are your peers waiting to hear your thoughts and advice, but they are also acting upon them, using your knowledge and influence to make decisions in their lives!

I hope your peers will take the time to rate you on the “Influencer Index”  Please note that this is an exercise that is not based on science, yet it’s logical enough to make you identify and reevaluate how you act, based on how your peers rate you.  This is also an exercise to help you achieve higher influence among your peers.  If your peers rank you a 10 in all areas, then you are an influencer and you will move your communication from ordinary to influencer in no time at all!