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September 27th, 2011 by Wadds

Brand Anarchy: launch party planning begins

Two days. That’s how long Steve Earl and I have got before we hand over the manuscript for Brand Anarchy to Bloomsbury. All being well it should be published in March next year.

You can pre-order a copy from Amazon.

Our thesis is that the organisations have utterly lost control but there are ways to take even greater command of reputation if it’s done right.

Researching and writing the book has been a marathon. In a bid to build a view of reputation management in the future we’ve gathered insights from people that have defined the media and PR business in recent times.

We’ve spoken to tens of people in the media and PR industry and read numerous books and hundreds, maybe thousands, of blog posts.

That it now takes five months for the book to be published is a modernisation issue that the publishing industry faces.

But snagging a deal with Bloomsbury with its reputation and distribution has been a coo thanks to Antony Mayfield for the introduction.

We’ve been assured that we can make tweaks along the way in case Google launches another social network or Facebook offends its users with an abuse of privacy too far.

If you have any ideas for a launch party we’d love to hear from you; we want to launch the book in a suitably fitting way.

Finally, inevitably our own blogging efforts have been neglected of late. I’m starting to address that situation immediately.

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September 17th, 2010 by Wadds

Getting ahead on LinkedIn – and building your personal reputation

Here’s my presentation from last night’s session at the CIPR Summer Social on LinkedIn on getting the most out of LinkedIn. It includes tips on building your profile, developing your network and how to mine information on the network.

It was great to meet Graeme Anthony. His effort to build his personal reputation using a video portfolio (18,000 views and counting) is inspirational. See what you think.

And if you’re interested in exploring this area more check out Antony Mayfield’s book Me and My Web Shadow.

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April 26th, 2010 by Wadds

Five minutes with Mayfield: serendipity engines

In the final chapter of his book Me and My Web Shadow Antony Mayfield introduces us to the concept of serendipity engines. By sharing online you expose yourself to unexpected connections.

“[…] to be connected is to be lucky, or at least luckier. […] Online connections increase your chance or finding the right person with the right knowledge at the right time,” says Mayfield.

I asked Antony to share some personal examples of web serendipity.

“These moments of serendipity come so frequently that you almost expect them, and while delighted are no longer surprised that they occur. You have the ‘small world’ effect of being in the same place at the same time a lot – whether it is happily meeting with an old friend in New York when I was there alone one weekend, to discovering that you are waiting in the same café at Gatwick airport as someone from your Twitter network.

“When I broadcast the book’s launch details on Twitter among the good wishes were notes from two good contacts saying, ‘good timing’ and that they would be putting in multiple orders to support training at their respective organisations.

“One afternoon I said on Twitter I was researching a particular topic and got back messages with lists of links and introductions to experts in the area – it saved me literally hours of searching and reading.

“The more you put into your network selflessly, the more it gives back in terms of lucky breaks. Although I say I’m less surprised when these things happen, I never cease to be amazed.”

Antony has created a category on his blog for updates about the book.

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April 15th, 2010 by Wadds

Five minutes with Mayfield: syncing personal networks

Here’s Me and My Web Shadow-author Antony Mayfield on how he uses difference networks including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and makes connections between each. Antony has created a category on his blog for updates about the book.

How do you segment personal networks on Facebook versus LinkedIn versus Twitter?
This is different for everyone, and people need to work out what works for them based on what’s useful for them and those in their networks.

What works for me is:

  • Facebook: Is a personal space for me, mainly for friends and family. I restrict what people see about me and things I post there beyond that network of people, partly for privacy, but mostly so that I don’t have to feel too self-conscious about posting endless updates about family life, running, or whatever, which will be boring or even irritating to many people in that volume. Colleagues and acquaintances that I “friend” on Facebook see some content, but not everything – this isn’t a business networking space for me. It feels a little harsh dividing out people into groups or degrees of closeness, but it is necessary to do so in order to make the network useful for you and them.
  • Twitter: Twitter is a very special network for me. It’s mainly for sharing thoughts about what is happening right now and getting those amazing moments of serendipity when someone posts a link or a thought that is precisely relevant to me in that moment. How I manage this network is simple: I follow people who are interesting to me at that time, and unfollow those who seem to be less relevant at the moment. I allow anyone except blatant spammers and bots to follow me (I block them) and try hard not to be offended if they unfollow me – appreciating that I might not be useful to them right at that moment.
  • LinkedIn: As my blog is my public notebook, LinkedIn is my public contact book, biograph  and a functional, business networking space. I don’t cross-post to Twitter as I don’t think most people hang out there like they do in Facebook or Twitter as much and the volume of posts would be irritating. I’ll connect with anyone who seems interesting and relevant, but mostly people who I have met. There’s no real need to segment networks in this space, beyond giving endorsements only to people I have actually worked with and not connecting with people I have reason not to trust.

Should bloggers exercise caution in promoting their content across different networks, based on audience?
It’s a matter of taste and social sensibilities really. “If in doubt, pull don’t push” was a mantra in the social media team at iCrossing for a while, meaning yes, be cautious, because if you don’t understand a network or a space properly a clumsy promotion could do more harm than good for your reputation. Better to earn attention and pull in attention via recommendations, links and most of all by developing good, durable networks of likeminded people.

That’s not to say don’t be pushy – most commentators on a post on Mashable I wrote recently were promoting a site, service or book related to the topic – so I guess that is acceptable in that space. Some of them were certainly useful to me and no one in the Mashable community saw fit to challenge them.

What’s your view of syncing status updates between Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter?
For some people this works well. They tend to be people who are happy living very open lives online. Like a lot of people, I choose to divide those networks a little.

I cross-post manually between these three networks when I think there is something. That’s actually not that often. I like to like status updates on LinkedIn for a while, for instance, and it will usually be something about a work related event, or a trip I am making that might be useful to people in that work-focussed context. Also, I think my less social media focussed friends and family in Facebook would get irritated by the frequency and content of my Twitter posts.

Again, though – how you manage this is based on how it works for you and what is useful.

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April 13th, 2010 by Wadds

Five minutes with Mayfield: common names in networks and Google’s appetite for personal data

I caught up with Antony Mayfield after reading his recently published book: Me and My Web Shadow. He kindly agreed to talk further about some of the issues covered in the book.

Over the next few days I’ll post his comments on dealing with common names in networks, duplication in networks, syncing updates between personal networks and web serendipity.

Antony has created a category on his blog for updates about the book.

How do you manage your web shadow if you’ve got a common name such as John Smith?
The most important question to ask is: can people find me when they want to? What will they do when they are looking for John Smith? Well, most of us would start adding keywords to Google searches like your job, companies you have worked for, where you have lived. John Smith may not appear in the top results for his own name, but he should appear for “John Smith Acme Widgets Ltd”. Making sure a current photo of you is on your LinkedIn, Google and personal websites is also going to help make sure people don’t miss your profile or mistake someone else for you.

When establishing your web presence – personal website, social network profiles – it is important to make sure they include some of these keywords that are part of how people will want to find you. You might also think of adding addresses to your website and key profiles (LinkedIn and Twitter for work) and other places on your emails, both personal and corporate accounts so people can by-pass Google when they want to find out more about you.

The other thing to think about it is making yourself stand out from the crowd a little. Many people use a common name for their Twitter profiles and the like that is specific to them (for instance, Wadds). Keep that consistent (and your avatars/profile pictures) so it will be easier for people to recognise you in different networks.

Should we be concerned that Google is recording our every interaction on the web?
First of all, we should be aware that this is happening, and not just with Google either. Although people who work with the web a lot know this, many people don’t understand how much data is being gathered by them.

Google itself is a benign guardian of our personal data and the pay-off of free services and access to their technology seems to be a deal most of us are happy to make for the moment. The fear some rightly have is about who will have access to that data in the future? What will Google be like in 20 years time and who will own it? This is an important and ongoing debate.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s COO, says that the company would like to make it possible for people to take all of their search data with them – it would be good for Google to make it clear that we can all have access to and the right to delete all of our own data if we wish. As the volume and importance of the personal data held by Google (and others) grows, I would like to see them staying ahead of both governments and citizens in putting in governance structures and safeguards against abuse. They have to keep earning our trust.

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April 5th, 2010 by Wadds

Book review: Antony Mayfield’s Me and My Web Shadow

Proponents of social media in the UK and US will almost certainly have come across Antony Mayfield’s work. He’s a senior vice president at iCrossing, a digital marketing firm, that works with brands including Coca-Cola, Toyota and Channel 4.

We’ve only ever met once very briefly but Mayfield feels like an old friend. I read his blog and follow his tweets. Therein lies one of the benefits of maintaining a strong web shadow.

Managing your own web shadow is important says Mayfield as our lives increasingly move online. The web is the first place people will look to find out about you and being connected brings opportunities he says.

Mayfield’s personal web shadow extends over his blog, Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Look him up for yourself.

Me and My Web Shadow is a guide to managing and promoting your personal reputation online. In three sections Mayfield covers the basics of the web, a review of your personal reputation online and a self-styled “Haynes manual” to managing your web shadow.

It’s an incredibly well written book (Mayfield is a former PR) that successfully bridges the gap between self-help manual and text book. The theory is there when you need it, but for the main part, the book is packed with practical advice and links to useful resources and tools.

This is a book that you should share with your family and friends. Mayfield says this is his intended audience. It works equally well for web savvy and the “I don’t get Twitter” brigade alike. My wife, a self-confessed privacy obsessive and social web Luddite has bagged my copy.

Me and My Web Shadow focuses on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as a means of building a personal profile online. Each social network is tackled in a basic guide to getting started, through building a presence, establishing a network and publishing content. The personal benefit of blogging is also covered in a chapter of its own.

But Mayfield doesn’t dodge difficult issues online such as dealing with bullies, trolls and negative comments, identity theft, privacy and dealing with mistakes.

The key theme of the book is that openness online is rewarded. In the conclusion Mayfield introduces us the concept of serendipity engines.

“[…] to be connected is to be lucky, or at least luckier. […] Online connections increase your chance or finding the right person with the right knowledge at the right time,” says Mayfield.

Openness uncovers opportunity through connections.

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