10 Tips for Talking About Web 2.0 When You’re Not Sure What You’re Talking About
I feel your pain. There’s too much information out there and it’s changing too fast. But the pressure to sound informed is unrelenting, particularly during the dangerous hours of 5 – 7 p.m., when real time, face time takes place. If you’re okay with social networking but terrified of actually talking about social networks, here are 10 little tips that will see you through any small talk situation.
Scan the list while you’re in line at the cash bar and you’ll be good to go. Just don’t get smug. You don’t want to blow an actual social networking opportunity by sounding too superior about the world of Web 2.0 (or anything else for that matter).
1. Name drop. When hasn’t this worked? If you’re not a thought leader in the new world of social media, talk about someone who is. You can’t go wrong by mentioning any of these:
Chris Brogan has been called the blue-collar guy of social media. Shake your head as if it’s incomprehensible that such a nice guy got so many people worked up because K-Mart gave him a $500 gift card and he wrote about his shopping experience.
Brian Morrisey is the editor of all things digital at Adweek. To sound insiderish, just say the word ‘PigDog’, followed by a pause, then an exclamatory ‘intense’. Pigdog is Morrisey’s personal blog about running and overcoming personal limitations.
Brian Solis looks awfully young to be a social media pioneer, but that’s what he is. You can compare his new venture, MicroPR, with Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out. Be pleasantly vague, saying both services help connect media with pr people.
2. Take a strong stance against blurting, the practice of talking too much about yourself, your company, your client or your anything on Twitter. I’d like to start a trend where blurting is called barking but then you get into troublesome issues like: “He’s such a dog. He just barks about himself.” This is even worse. “She barks incessantly. What a dog.” Hmm. You’d better stick with blurting in all its ugly manifestations.
3. Casually mention some newsy news you’ve seen on The Huffington Post, but be sure and call it HufPo.
4. Don’t worry about stylish prose. Just use the words ‘Ning’ and “The Long Tail’ together in a sentence. Ning is a niche social network platform and The Long Tail is Chris Anderson’s book subtitled: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.
5. Show disdain for the reliability for web metrics, but be sure to mention the names of three major firms: Nielsen Online (gets data from installed tracking software and panels) comScore (gets data from installed tracking software too); HitWise (gets data directly from ISPs).
6. When the topic of Web 2.0 or social media comes up, toss off one of these phrases. “Content is the new currency, right?” “You can’t be authentic if you don’t have something to say, don’t you think?” “Participation separates genuine listening from eavesdropping for personal gain. Just one girl’s/guy’s opinion.”
7. Sound like a digital historian and bring up Burger King’s successful Subservient Chicken promotion.
8. Build rapport with people by confessing in a conspiratorial whisper that you’re afraid of mommy bloggers.
9. Be ready to name your favorite podcasts. Here are a few personal favorites:
Smart: BBC’s Melvyn Bragg host of In Our Time
Useful: Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Guide to English
Emergent: Conversations with Creative Minds (Oh, wait. That’s self-serving since it’s our podcast. It is emergent though.)
10. Ask people which micro-blogging site they prefer, Twitter or Friend Feed. It’s okay if they mention a platform you haven’t heard of. Nobody likes a know-it-all.
That’s it. With these ten little tips you can be social offline and sound really smart about being social online. It’s just like mom said. Be interested and people will find you interesting – no matter where you’re networking. Ultimately, the smartest person in the room is the one who listens more than they talk.
jan
Comments (43)
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Hope this helps!
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