Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Websites

I attended two workshops at today's Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Best Practices and Patterns for Designing the Social Web and Designing Social Websites.

The first presentation was more of an read out on the analysis of different social features popular on sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr and others. I wish they would have done more of an analysis of which ones actually work, what makes them work and who they work on. Anyhow, the slides are still interesting and can be viewed here.

For me the more interesting presentation was from Christina Wodtke. I've embedded her slides below and here are some of my key takeaways:

"Behavior is a function of a person and his/her environment," this is Christina's theory to social sites. Environment is half the equation and something we can control. Christina shared an interesting analogy that you can follow the same process to designing the architecture of a building as you would a website. For example when you build a wide and open staircase it becomes a natural place for people to take a seat and socialize (for more on this check out A Pattern Language).

Christina identifies 4 motivations for contribution:

1. Reciprocity - an example is LinkedIn endorsements, people who ask for endorsements are likely to give an endorsement back. Another example is when fund raising groups send you mailing labels as a gift, by doing so people are more likely to return the favor by opening their wallets.
2. Reputation - Cisco's NetPro discussion forum do a good job of this by through a point system.
3. Increased Need of Efficacy - The reason people use sites like Digg is because it's an effective way to obtain information they have something to gain.
   
4. Attachment to and Need of a Group - This goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people want to have a sense of belonging. Then when they build their reputation it increases their self esteem.
   

Anyone who's building a social website should learn more about the Ross Mayfield's Power Law of Participation where a ' low threshold participation amounts to high engagement'. Then follow the AOF method:

1. Define your activity (ie. what are your users doing? what do they have to do for you to be successful)
   
2. Identify social objects (ie. videos for Netflix, photos for Flickr)
   
3. Choose your features (ie. sharing, tagging, advice)

(Note: this is an older version of the deck she shared at the Web 2.0 Expo, the slides are almost identical, when/if she updates SlideShare, I'll update the embed.)

Design for Product Managers

View more presentations from cwodtke.

Cisco Connected Life Contest Benefits from the Social Web

This is me exhaling. The Connected Life Contest I wrote about in an earlier post is in it's final days and we've already exceeded our project goal by 250%. The social media tactics we used showed a steady flow of entries almost immediately. Next time I'd like to spend more time building an online personality for the character of the campaign and being more active in the social web.

Overall it's been a successful campaign and I am most proud of the blogger reactions to Cisco's first ever Social Media Release:

PR Squared
"The Cisco release is great – it’s straightforward, easy to understand, contains lotsa links to additional content (including a video featuring the band members from KISS!), a YouTube community site link, an RSS feed, a Digg This link, etc. "

Agency Next PR
This ought to tell you a couple of things about the new media era in which some of us now live. Cisco Systems — you know, that company that is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet — is having a contest to gather the best new connectivity ideas out there from ordinary, imaginative people in the big wide world.

Shel Holtz' Blog
The Cisco release hits most of the right notes with news highlights and facts, tags and keywords, links, quotes, multimedia, contact information, an RSS feed for all company news, a trackback URL and a link to the traditional version of the release. (Evidently, it wasn’t too time-consuming to produce both.) A purpose-build del.icio.us page would have been a nice addition, but overall, a very nice bit of work from Cisco Systems.

The Podcaster
What Cisco have done is allow the online community as well as the media to have access to a large array of additional information through the links. (I am not a journalist but I have Google Alerts and other tools helping me monitor the development of social media and online community marketing so I became aware of this).

Looks like Cisco is taking the red pill too and will be digging into the rabbit hole deeper with an announcement coming next week. I can't wait!

Why Marketers Should Leverage Facebook

The American Chronicle gives us eight reasons and although I agree with Scott that that the viral nature of Facebook should be further down on the list of compelling reasons to use Facebook I do think the list hits the main points:

1. The very nature of Facebook is viral.
2. Facebook is the ultimate in social presence marketing.
3. Your target market tells you exactly what it wants, and they’re easy to find.
4. Over half of the people using it, use it daily.
5. Better, stronger online connections.
6. Hard core marketing is out of vogue and declining in effectiveness.
7. Your clients — and your competition’s clients — may already be on Facebook.
8. Facebook friends are willing to continue the conversation.

First on the list should be what they are calling "social presence marketing" which isn't even in Wikipedia but is defined in the article as, "the activity of promoting by participating in the pre-existing conversation around your target market, in a way that enhances and uplifts the dialogue, rather than intruding upon it."

This is what social media is really about - being social and joining the conversation. In some ways this has brought us back to a time when the marketplace was a gathering of local villagers who would all talk with each other and share their experiences. Now that same interaction is enabled in an online marketplace – the benefit to marketers is the ability to communicate directly with our customers. But it also means we can't hide behind corporate speak and those who try will suffer. As the sixteenth rule from The Cluetrain Manifesto, the original Bible of Social Marketing, states: "companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone"