AdamCovati.com

Everyone wants your most valuable content. It’s a constant battle and it’s easy to understand why. If you have the info you have the traffic.

While “Content is king” has had its heyday that doesn’t mean it’s not still not true, though there is a strong argument for Curation is king, but that’s another blog post.

I’ve spent about an hour this evening answering questions on Quora.com (a site I invariably spell wrong every time). I’ve derived quite a bit of fun and insights from reading through questions. I also managed to give myself that atta-boy feeling for answering a few as well.

It made me remember Linkedin Questions, Ning forums, and even my blog – all places that at one point in time were a favorite content repository for me. Lately Twitter and Facebook have taken over as one-stop shops for this information.

But is that the best place for it? Scattered through the morass of facebook comments and twitter musings are nuggets of extremely useful information. But there’s a large problem with that – too much uncategorized data. There is no taxonomy or filing system for Facebook or Twitter.

The most valuable information on most social networks is virtually inaccessible.

Maybe that’s a bit extreme, it’s easy to find value every day. But go back and try to find the best of twitter from a week ago. Or the best facebook comments about love or astrobiology – good luck pal.

Does this mean that there is a huge opportunity for sites like Quora to jump in and own good information on the social web? I think so. Will facebook just try to ‘me too’ its way into that market? perhaps.

So what?

Well for right now, it’s just circular reasoning that proves you need to own your own content in a searchable place (read as: Blog).

However, the large amount of interest we see in organized question & answer tools means that people are still interested in working through a long term solution to making that information more collaboratively created and less corporately owned.

An important part of my brand

I was in LinkedIn updating some information and seeing what was going on with my network when I spotted this question “How can personal branding help entrepreneurs?” After reading through the responses, I decided to weigh in with my $0.02.

I have reproduced my response here, please feel free to weigh in in the comments here, or on the LinkedIn question itself:

I echo many of the sentiments expressed here. Having just launched my first entrepreneurial effort I have seen, first hand, some of these benefits.

However, I believe that anyone who interacts with an industry or business community already has a personal brand. There may be a question as to how you have maintained it and if you have groomed it.

Having a name and a brand has already been immensely helpful to my efforts. Not only has it provided exposure, but it has helped to grow my network and provide more credibility to my work.

So I would say that if you call yourself an entrepreneur, then you *already* have a brand, just maybe not a good one or the one you want. Get out there and introduce yourself to the world.

With respect to business brand. I firmly believe that it is something you need to think about out of the gate. You don’t need to invest serious time and/or money in it. However, you need to think about how you will be perceived by the market.

Understanding your target market can greatly influence the brand you attempt to build with your early efforts. It can take quite a bit of work to dig yourself out of perceived position if it’s not where you want to be.

Again, I can’t stress how helpful my personal network of business contacts has already been in working on ArgyleSocial. That network was created and maintained as part of my personal brand. It’s one of the best investments I’ve made over the past few years.

So what do you think? Where does brand fit into start ups and entrepreneurial efforts?

Last week marked my last day at Bronto, while this week saw a kick off of my efforts in Argyle Social. Starting a fresh new company is quite a feat. I’ve never done this before, so I’m learning as I go.

I have a strong desire to build a prototype app – something we can start to play with, something we can start to show off, something we can start to get feedback on. All of those are extremely important as we strive to build something brand new, both in terms physically and conceptually new.

However, I’ve had to push back on that urge and get my thoughts in order. No small task given my love for hacking together a prototype. For those of you who’ve followed me for a little while, you may recall I threw the first iteration of idek.net together in a weekend.

So what have I been doing? Well, a good few years of product management have taught me that you can’t build a good product without a design. Also that you can’t build a good design without a conceptual model. Of course, none of this is possible at all without some goals.

Right now we have no product, no customers, really nothing but some great ideas, a lot of motivation, and some great goals. This week was spent revising those goals to ensure that we know what we are heading for and that we know what we want to reach.

So, yes, I’ve gotten more work done than just a boondoggle in the land of goals. But I know that the time and effort that Eric and I have spent on thinking through the fundamental needs of clients will pay off in spades. Delaying the launch of the first iteration of our app by a few days is definitely worth the price of improved focus and a better understanding of what will make us and our clients more successful.

A new year provides a chance for a fresh prospective and a fresh start. Like your putting your full effort into your gym routine – I’ll be running twice a week, I swear. Or maybe setting your mind to learning a new language – not French, but Objective C right Mike?

However, this year is also bringing another type of fresh start for me. I’m going to be heading out from my current postion as Product Manager at Bronto. Bronto has been great to me, providing a place for me learn and grow, and to guide their product into position of a solid player in the email marketing field. But knowing that Bronto is in capable, caring hands I am looking elsewhere.

Starting in February I’ll be working on a new product offering with my friend and new business partner Eric Boggs. We’ll be combining our expertise, knowledge, and experience to launch a social media analytics application. Interested in learning more? So am I, so in the mean time you can check out Argyle Social to get a taste.

The next few months are bound to be exciting; full of lessons and surprises. I’m looking forward to it with a fresh prospective on things. Happy New Year everyone.

It’s been hard for me to get content out in blog post form for a while now. A busy life, with a full time job, multiple side projects, a bevy of tweetups, meetups, and groupups, and a wedding kept my posting at bay. But that has meant that I’ve a lot of time to contemplate not blogging.

I use twitter pretty heavily. I’m not talking @garyvee heavy, but heavy none the less. And I’ve stopped consuming RSS. I get all my info from the stream. Twitter has been around long enough to have everything I watch feed into it. If something isn’t directly tied in then I can just follow a champion for it on twitter (sounds like another blog post in the making).

So if I’m not consuming blog posts through RSS anymore, should I consider not producing content that is so RSS dependent? Shouldn’t there be another way that is more interconnected with world that I am directly involved in?

I’m not really sure. It seems to me that there is value in a twitter stream, but not all of it. And there is definitely value in pieces of information that are longer than 140 characters. I’m just not sure how to best marry the two. Because the current method just doesn’t seem optimal.

Think about that, and I will too. Maybe there is a solution out there, something truly mixed-medium that can bring the immediacy of speed of twitter with the value of blog posts and richness of video. Ok, thinking caps on.

Did I miss one? Wait. I know, “Twitter is good for finding out what someone had for lunch.” I’ve had this argument far too many times.

This sentiment is usually expressed by experienced Marketing and PR people. People who look at channels through reach marketing lenses. But this isn’t Direct Mail or Banner Ads. This is a channel that your recipients control. You have to understand it before you can embrace it.

Too Many Experts

A common argument is that there too many False Twitter/Social Media Experts. Oh so true, there are very few true experts on twitter. There are a lot of people who understand it’s value, there are also quite a few who don’t get it – and some of these are name brands.

So ignore them or listen with a grain of salt. This person probably knows more about marketing in Twitter (or social media in general) then you do. Sure, they may not be what you call and expert, but they’ve probably been here a while.

Ok, so now we can focus on the Value of Twitter.

Seek Value, Don’t Wait For It

But on the question of value – I think too many are waiting to see ‘The Light’. Well, you can wait forever, but it’s not going to just shine on you.

You can’t just follow a few of your friends and maybe a business partner and expect to see value. Would you expect to get value from putting banner ads on your friends website or just sending your mail pieces to your neighbors? No? Really? Hmmm.

So what you need to do is branch out and look for what other people are doing and saying. Follow a few people in your industry that you respect, see who they Retweet, see who they reply to. Those are the people that they see value in, you probably will too.

You’re not going to get anywhere in Twitter if you don’t put in the effort. And you’re not going to be able to use twitter effectively for your clients until you see the value.

If you’re in marketing and you’re not seeing value then put a little more effort in. There is value in Twitter, but you have to work for it.

Show Me The Numbers

You know what, I don’t have numbers. I could go find some, but I’m not going to. What I can talk about are the benefits that I have received. Here are a few

• Huge Word Of Mouth marketing benefits
  I never would have been able to get the word out about these projects or nuggets of info if I hadn’t built a network of great people with useful things to say.
• Industry Friends – not just connections
  I had some of these before, but now I have friends in the industry – people I can have a beer with. People who enjoy talking with me about what’s going on in my industry. That makes my life easier and more enjoyable.
• Helped Sales Deals
  I can’t say for sure that twitter has closed a deal, but it has been very helpful in resolving problems and bolstering relationships. It grows a relationship and establishes a personal connection. I don’t know about you, but I’m happy about anything that increases chances of closing deals.
• Learned About Oh So Much
  Yes, I do hear about things quite quickly. Whether that is trends, new apps, or the latest news. I don’t go to CNN or watch tv I listen to my twitter friends. I don’t even use my RSS feeds anymore – if something is of value I will find out through my network.
• Grown Company Ranks
  I’ve met and recommended people (who were subsequently hired) at my company who I met through twitter.

Wow, I’ve gotten a lot out of twitter. But that list is pretty one-sided, it’s sounds like all take and no give. Well that’s because I do all of these things for other people in my network too – whether it’s recommending some one for a job, talking about their latest project, or spreading links that I find of value.

Still Hate Twitter?

I know. I know. And that’s your prerogative, go ahead and continue to hate it. OR – or you can give it a chance.

Ask yourself if you are looking for the right people and if you are giving back some of what you want to take. Go out there, look for people who provide value. Then go and provide some value of your own.

If all you want is a new channel in which to peddle your clients’ wares then you’re not going to find anything. If you are looking for a tool for building, creating, and managing relationships then you may have just found a goldmine – and perhaps one for your clients too.

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I do have a propensity to talk a lot. It’s who I am and what I do. But lately I’ve been given a few chances to do so to a bit of a wider audience.

Last weekend I spoke at the Product Camp unconference. This is a conference where there are no attendees, everyone is a participant. So at the suggestion of a product manager friend of mine, I offered to talk about Delivering Products in a Software as a Service (SaaS) World. As it turns out there was a bit of interest in this topic.

I really enjoyed the talk, it generated some good discusion. Not suprising, and in true unconference fashion, I learned quite a bit also during the talk. This was a great first experience in leading a discussion at a conference – and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve actually been invited to talk on a panel this August as well. I’ll be speaking alongside a colleague and friend, Mike Rundle at Social Media Fresh down in Charlotte. I was invited to speak there based off my experience of writing applications for social networks. This would be related to my work with idek.net and more recently pici.me.

So if you are interested in social media and how it can be a benefit to businesses – then please check out Social Media Fresh. And if you are coming then be sure to check out the Social Media Tech Panel.

Jeff Cohen, who blogs at DigitalPapercuts.com, and Kipp Bodnar, who blogs at DigitalCapitalism.com, came up with a list of 101 uses for twitter. This isn’t quite the 50 business uses Chris Brogan posted a while back; it’s a bit more fun.

Kudos to Jeff and Kipp for creating a list that not only provides some insight into the light-hearted side of twitter, it also mentions many of the buzz generating tweets (& accounts) as well as memes that have gone around recently.

Bolded below are the few I’ve managed to do:

101 Uses for Twitter

1. Answer the Question “What are you doing?”
2. Tell Your Friends Your Going To Jail
Read the rest of this entry »

What are you doing?

I’m getting sick of explaining that twitter isn’t just a random collection of facebook status updates – that’s what I’m doing.

I think the biggest objection I hear to Twitter goes something like “I don’t want to hear about my coworkers lunch habits, or when they go to bed, or what their kid is doing.” This complaint often stems from the prominent question on twitter’s main page (as well as the “home” page) of What are you doing?

The thing is, twitter is so much bigger than that. I don’t know how many times I’ve told people about the amazing capacity twitter has for link sharing, information passing, and relationship nurturing & maintenance. After about 5 minutes of back and forth I can usually get this across.

But the conversation almost always starts the same. So maybe we can get twitter to nip this in the bud. Maybe twitter can change the question.

What’s important right now?

This is how I see twitter. I mean, sure I do see a decent bit about lunch or people’s kids, but it’ usually not the mundane.  If I hear about lunch it’s because someone has something of note to say, good or bad. It’s really about what’s important right now.

I’ve heard twitter described as hyper-local, and while I feel this has some validity, I’m not sure why it’s really more local than blogging, for example. But I would say that twitter has time-context that blogs as well as many other avenues lack.

The huge value twitter adds is bringing you information in the now, not whenever you stumble across it, or after it goes through several editors. Changing the main question, that helps to define twitter, could help to change new twitterers mindset and present them a little better to the market in general.

So Twitter, capitolize on what you are good, play up the now. You’re better than just status updates.

I’ve been working hard on idek and I have been getting great encouragement from friends. One of the easiest ways for me to see how much they like idek (and of course how much they just like to help me out) is how often they recommend it to friends.

One friend, @MichaelBrooks told a friend who has quite a following. Well, it turns out that an early idek bug caught him when he placed the link on facebook. Mike told me and I messaged the chap. Well, you can read about his experience with proactive support.

I was glad to fix the problem for him, I was even more of win that he took it so well.

It just goes to show that people understand when you’re not perfect.

Thanks, Mike!