Scobleizer: The “Participation Premium”
@coachDeb
· 1 year ago
I just had this "argument" at a geek meetup in Hawaii where peeps got together to hear from Guy Kawasaki while he was in Hawaii.
My point was that if you want a lot of "followers" then you don't want to Treat people like "followers" who are there just to Listen to you. Instead, talk With people. Participate. @ back at them. And most of all - do video so people get a chance to get to know you veto d "just text".
Its amazing how easy it a to build a loyal tribe of followers when you treat them with respect & get them Participating in the new media marketplace.
Thanks Robert 4 being such a great example of Partcipation the right way.
Steven Hodson
· 1 year ago
How you find the time to participate in all the different ways you do continually amazes me but you are right. Participation within any group will definitely impact a person's popularity within any system - Social Media is no different.
It's really based on partial data but may have some value. Especially if I keep on crawling FF to get more results and trends over time. Right now it's a little side project.
@coachDeb
· 1 year ago
sry 4 the typo commenting from iPhone
Should read: get to know them beyond just text
Text = mere words = 7% of communication video = brings eye contact + body language into communication = 93% more influential
Bottom line: participate & do video then followers will come like a flood
mack collier
· 1 year ago
Why do I get the feeling that this entire post was a setup just to say this:
"So, why do I have 5,000 more followers on FriendFeed than Mike Arrington does"
Cameron - OddBlast
· 1 year ago
I would have to agree, participation is 'Premium'. It is the interaction that makes you more personable. Especially reachable. Or let's just say, 'Down to Earth'. Cheers! ~Oddly Cameron
KarenSwim
· 1 year ago
Robert, what I find funny is that people somehow believe that being online changes human nature. On our jobs, in our social lives, in our volunteer activities, at meetings, and parties we pay attention to those who actively participate. The person who joins twitter and simply blasts links is very much like the person that gives you a card and talks nonstop about their business and walks away.
Fred Neil
· 1 year ago
Robert, what makes you and your posts become more viral and engaging is that you do not post and run. You engage in conversation, and unlike Arrington, you are rarely confrontational and you don't have the same arrogance. I have followed you for a while, but became a real advocate after your trip to DC. I thought your coverage was engaging, informative and it was awesome that you included your son.
sean percival
· 1 year ago
Great post, I talked about this a little in my post (link on my name). Participation and adding high quality content is key for building large FF followings.
michael arrington
· 1 year ago
agree completely. now if only friendfeed would let me post my user page on a domain that I control, I'd be more comfortable handing it more attention.
Jason
· 1 year ago
Sounds like a bit of 'woot look at me and my followers, i'm better than Arrington'.
Congrats Scoble...
jamessven
· 1 year ago
Great post for those still learning the ropes. Way to go..
(I've seen Robert get plenty testy with people, esp when they trash videos taken at Mahalo.. its not confrontation that matters, its how you do it. if your confrontational in a "im here to learn, but I think your wrong and heres why but I'm more than willing to listen" type spirit v. just a "screw you - lets see if YOU can do it better" type way makes all the difference....
davidadewumi
· 1 year ago
great read, the only thing I disagree with, is the comparison to Twitter after four months and FriendFeed after four months. As the logic goes, if hundreds (maybe thousands) of Twitter users are jumping the ship, (or, as I imagine, there is quite a bit of overlap), then the logic follows that many of them would land on FriendFeed (and hence follow you). Even though I consider Friendfeed and Twitter to be two very different products, FF is in part riding the micro-blogging wave, which Twitter helped to spearhead.
Carl
· 1 year ago
Why do you have more followers on FriendFeed? Well another thing you failed to mention is you have mentioned FriendFeed and how much you love it countless times in blog posts and introduced more people to FriendFeed than TechCrunch and Mike Arrington have because they aren't constantly mentioning it in their posts. They don't plug FriendFeed like you do.
ejkeat
· 1 year ago
I would say mike is getting the "Participation Premium" he is putting considerably less work into getting followers, yet getting a relatively close amount of followers compared to scoble.
Beth Harte
· 1 year ago
Hi Robert, A quick question for you...As a marketer that is diving into social media in a business setting, I am curious about the numbers you seem to promote. It seems to me that you are implying social media is a numbers game too (he/she with the largest number of followers wins). Is that what we should all strive for in social media? Just numbers? Would you say if a company, compared to their competition, doesn't have a large amount of followers on their blog, socnet, or forum that they are unsuccessful in the social media arena? What if they have a smaller amount of followers, but they listen and have conversations that lead could potentially lead to revenue generation? Would that be seen as less successful by a social media expert like yourself? I just want to make sure I have the right expectations.
Ruben
· 1 year ago
Rob, only problem with the whole analysis on FF is that it's all a bit of a lovefest; no one gives you a hard time b/c they'll get blocked; therefore there's no real hard and thoughtful debate. Just some like's and other bullshit that passes off as constructive conversation when it's really just some brown nosing 101.
Have a think about it.
JoeDuck
· 1 year ago
Thx Robert - several really interesting data points in this discussion although I think you and Mike are such atypical users of both services I wonder if your experiences can be extended to "normal" users.
Amber Naslund
· 1 year ago
Hi Robert,
I'm still not quite sold on the quantity vs. quality discussion, however. Sure, you can get "noticed" in a community by broadcasting what you're doing/saying/feeling/thinking/writing. But does that count as truly participating in the discussion, or just being a push mechanism and hoping that others pull?
It's not enough to add content. You have to be willing to engage in conversation with those that pick up and spend their time with that content, otherwise it's just old fashioned broadcast media all over again. And with tens of thousands of followers, do you really feel like you're getting the most of those conversations? I mean with 15,000+ followers, you'd have to be responding over 1200 times an hour in a 12-hour period just to have a smidge of interaction.
I applaud the fact that you have built a loyal following, and appreciate the value that must bring to your media partners. But I'm not sure that "publicizing" to a mass audience and "participating" are really the same thing.
Susan Beebe
· 1 year ago
BINGO BABY - you nailed...thank you for posting this... Participation is KEY to community development; hence, follower count, conversation, signal/noise quality, influence, etc.
THANKS! you rock - as always ;-)
Susan
gregory
· 1 year ago
re michael arrington's comment above
giving up our ideas about control is one of the lessons of this new era of global connectivity
Nik Cubrilovic
· 1 year ago
Mike has an important point there Robert, considering you are a person who has switched domains/homes online a few times - these services need to be portable and stuck to a home the user owns, otherwise the value you are building is for FriendFeed, not you
gregory
· 1 year ago
nik, in a unified world the difference between you or i and our media is lessening ... the value fro friendfeed grows, i grow ... surprising how few get what interconnectedness and global unity is all about
how big is your "we" is the measure of your awareness
Jennifer Leggio
· 1 year ago
So, I understand that participation is key. It's kinda like if you're a wallflower at a party you're not going to make friends, but if you talk to people you likely will. It's pretty communication 101 stuff.
Where I am confused is with the numbers game. I don't understand the point of this blog, other than to do a comparison with Arrington. I also wonder, with as many followers you have on all of your services, how do you really participate in a quality way with the majority of them. How do you make the selection? There's no way you're participating the way the rest of us are participating. Right?
Just curious.
Mark Dykeman
· 1 year ago
Robert, a lot of good ideas in this post. There's just one comment that I have, however.
You compared your subscriber growth on Twitter vs. FriendFeed in your first four months using both services, whereby you had 100 followers on Twitter vs.... well, thousands, I assume, on FriendFeed.
You wrote the following: "It’s amazing how fast FriendFeed is growing, too. Remember, I’ve only been on FriendFeed four months. After being on Twitter four months I only had a few hundred followers. FriendFeed is a very viral community and is changing daily as new people discover it."
Is it reasonable to assume a correlation between your FriendFeed subscriber growth and FriendFeed's overall subscriber growth? That's what you're implying, and I don't doubt that FriendFeed is growing very rapidly, but there are 8 other default recommended FriendFeed users, plus a number of other users, so the apparent link between the two growths is a bit uncertain.
There's no doubt in my mind that a significant portion of your Twitter audience has followed you to FriendFeed, leading to a large number of FriendFeed followers. Also, Twitter really helped lay the groundwork for an application like FriendFeed by popularizing microblogs and lifestreaming/sharing, so the general audience was probably more receptive to FriendFeed today than, say, two years ago.
I'm just nitpicking on a couple of points, I do think your other observations in this article make sense and I've seen them work myself.
Zhasper
· 1 year ago
Why would I follow Mike, when have you to filter and only show me his best?
Carl
· 1 year ago
Wow, what exactly did my post do to warrant being deleted? All I did was point out that one reason why you probably have more followers on FriendFeed is because you frequently mention FriendFeed in your blog posts and TechCrunch does not. As a longtime fan and follower of your blog, i'm disappointed to see that happen. All I did was point out that you have probably created more FriendFeed users merely by frequently posting about FriendFeed and TechCrunch does not so they don't have as many followers on FriendFeed. Care to comment on why the post was deleted? You can do it privately if you would like.
and pieces like this are why those that block Scoble occasionally miss stuff that is 'right on'. Agree totally with @coachDeb. Important post Robert.
biosbooter
· 1 year ago
I think the ultimate pitfall of friend feed it it initial learning curve....may users find the features overwhelming as compared to the simple twitter UI. Once FF revamps its fairly intimidating UI, more people will flock to it...until then...it will be us geeks who benefit.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Carl: I didn't delete your comment. It was caught in moderation, which I turn on for first-time commenters to keep spam down to a dull roar here.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
>here’s no way you’re participating the way the rest of us are participating.
I don't know. How are the rest of you participating? I'm watching thousands of you and I'm keeping up with you in both quality and quantity. But maybe I'm missing something. How are you participating in a way that I'm not?
Bilal Hameed
· 1 year ago
Nice article Scoble. However you are missing the default factor here. Default is immense power see my article on it (http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/08/startup-advic...). This is how IBM allowed Microsoft to become a desktop monopoly i.e. by bundling its OS by default on IBM PCs. This is how Microsoft destroyed Netscape i.e. by bundling by default on Windows Operating Systems. This is why Google, and no one else, gets the most search traffic from Firefox Searchbar because Google is the default search option over there....
You guys are recommended by default to everyone who signs up for Friendfeed. This makes you guys feel that Friendfeed is growing like a weed, and than suddenly you start talking about it. Which in turn will attract more bloggers to it. So this perception of viral growth over at Friendfeed will eventually lead to real growth over there (Read David Hornik's article to understand the phenomena of perceived success leading to real success http://ventureblog.com/articles/2004/06/sillywo...). So clearly Friendfeed was intelligent enough to carefully handpick some good bloggers as default. This has transformed you guys into their marketing team. And in return you are getting lots of subscribers aka lots of readers and page views. Good for both.
Bilal Hameed
· 1 year ago
Scoble I have written a long and elaborate comment... I guess it has been caught up in moderation since it had two links in it as well. Hope you that it will pass through your scrutiny sooon :)
Oh ... and also Techmeme is a game, and Monsieur Arrington knows the rules.
Still doesn't make him likeable.
martin
· 1 year ago
Talking TO v Talking WITH....
Brett Nordquist
· 1 year ago
It sure seems that Twitter set the table for Friendfeed by getting people used to such a service, hooking them, and then becoming so flakey that people looked to Friendfeed to feel the void. What if Friendfeed had arrived before Twitter? Would Twitter even exist or did it take the simplicity of Twitter to turn people on and hook them?
Jesse
· 1 year ago
Twitter shouldn't really be compared to FriendFeed since FriendFeed aggregates your activity from everywhere else and Twitter is basically a Facebook status update. I just gave in and setup my FriendFeed account I had registered months ago and I think I finally get it. I am setting up a new blog today and I thought about using Wordpress but settled on MovableType simply because of the integrated FriendFeed comments feature. I figured if Wordpress had something similar, you would have it.
Jas
· 1 year ago
I wish I had the time to post 3625 likes!
Dario Salvelli
· 1 year ago
I follow this list of Friendfeed rooms, do u know?
Hi Robert i signed up at friendfeed, and it was Scobleized!
Karthik Raman
· 1 year ago
Robert- I agree with your participation premium theory.Also, I have also noticed that you have followers without claiming to be a guru.And I feel that is a necessary attribute to have in addition to participation. I would like to call it 'participation humility'. Not claiming to have all the answers, but rather willing to discuss and listen to different viewpoints. This is what makes your writing and views interesting.
An example of Robert's 'paicipation humility' For Robert's followers, recently I ran into Robert at the DC bash(hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk) and asked him innocently why he does not use a skin(template) for his blog. Anyone else, with half of Robert's reputation would have looked at me like I have committed a sin or perhaps arrogantly ignored my comment. Instead, he simply said that he did use a skin. Later I realized that his skin did not load at my workplace due to filters(where I usually read the Scoblelizer). When I logged in from home, I could see the blog template in all its glory.
hkremer
· 1 year ago
Great post! I admit, I'm a newbie, and follow you on Twitter and FriendFeed -- at least you're not one of these guys who says "who are these people, I don't want them following me!" They are not getting it.
Keep up the good work, and setting such a good example!
~H
kerala
· 1 year ago
wow thats a lot of interesting data study. I hope and wish friendfeed continue to grow with out any troubles
All Comments
My point was that if you want a lot of "followers" then you don't want to Treat people like "followers" who are there just to Listen to you. Instead, talk With people. Participate. @ back at them. And most of all - do video so people get a chance to get to know you veto d "just text".
Its amazing how easy it a to build a loyal tribe of followers when you treat them with respect & get them Participating in the new media marketplace.
Thanks Robert 4 being such a great example of Partcipation the right way.
http://user21.com/2008/07/04/friendfeed-has-750...
It's really based on partial data but may have some value. Especially if I keep on crawling FF to get more results and trends over time. Right now it's a little side project.
commenting from iPhone
Should read:
get to know them beyond just text
Text = mere words = 7% of communication
video = brings eye contact + body language into communication = 93% more influential
Bottom line:
participate
& do video
then followers will come like a flood
"So, why do I have 5,000 more followers on FriendFeed than Mike Arrington does"
~Oddly
Cameron
Congrats Scoble...
(I've seen Robert get plenty testy with people, esp when they trash videos taken at Mahalo.. its not confrontation that matters, its how you do it. if your confrontational in a "im here to learn, but I think your wrong and heres why but I'm more than willing to listen" type spirit v. just a "screw you - lets see if YOU can do it better" type way makes all the difference....
Have a think about it.
I'm still not quite sold on the quantity vs. quality discussion, however. Sure, you can get "noticed" in a community by broadcasting what you're doing/saying/feeling/thinking/writing. But does that count as truly participating in the discussion, or just being a push mechanism and hoping that others pull?
It's not enough to add content. You have to be willing to engage in conversation with those that pick up and spend their time with that content, otherwise it's just old fashioned broadcast media all over again. And with tens of thousands of followers, do you really feel like you're getting the most of those conversations? I mean with 15,000+ followers, you'd have to be responding over 1200 times an hour in a 12-hour period just to have a smidge of interaction.
I applaud the fact that you have built a loyal following, and appreciate the value that must bring to your media partners. But I'm not sure that "publicizing" to a mass audience and "participating" are really the same thing.
THANKS! you rock - as always ;-)
Susan
giving up our ideas about control is one of the lessons of this new era of global connectivity
how big is your "we" is the measure of your awareness
Where I am confused is with the numbers game. I don't understand the point of this blog, other than to do a comparison with Arrington. I also wonder, with as many followers you have on all of your services, how do you really participate in a quality way with the majority of them. How do you make the selection? There's no way you're participating the way the rest of us are participating. Right?
Just curious.
You compared your subscriber growth on Twitter vs. FriendFeed in your first four months using both services, whereby you had 100 followers on Twitter vs.... well, thousands, I assume, on FriendFeed.
You wrote the following: "It’s amazing how fast FriendFeed is growing, too. Remember, I’ve only been on FriendFeed four months. After being on Twitter four months I only had a few hundred followers. FriendFeed is a very viral community and is changing daily as new people discover it."
Is it reasonable to assume a correlation between your FriendFeed subscriber growth and FriendFeed's overall subscriber growth? That's what you're implying, and I don't doubt that FriendFeed is growing very rapidly, but there are 8 other default recommended FriendFeed users, plus a number of other users, so the apparent link between the two growths is a bit uncertain.
There's no doubt in my mind that a significant portion of your Twitter audience has followed you to FriendFeed, leading to a large number of FriendFeed followers. Also, Twitter really helped lay the groundwork for an application like FriendFeed by popularizing microblogs and lifestreaming/sharing, so the general audience was probably more receptive to FriendFeed today than, say, two years ago.
I'm just nitpicking on a couple of points, I do think your other observations in this article make sense and I've seen them work myself.
http://trendrr.com/timeseries/390144
I don't know. How are the rest of you participating? I'm watching thousands of you and I'm keeping up with you in both quality and quantity. But maybe I'm missing something. How are you participating in a way that I'm not?
You guys are recommended by default to everyone who signs up for Friendfeed. This makes you guys feel that Friendfeed is growing like a weed, and than suddenly you start talking about it. Which in turn will attract more bloggers to it. So this perception of viral growth over at Friendfeed will eventually lead to real growth over there (Read David Hornik's article to understand the phenomena of perceived success leading to real success http://ventureblog.com/articles/2004/06/sillywo...). So clearly Friendfeed was intelligent enough to carefully handpick some good bloggers as default. This has transformed you guys into their marketing team. And in return you are getting lots of subscribers aka lots of readers and page views. Good for both.
http://tinyurl.com/6m6yp6
Still doesn't make him likeable.
http://blogoscoped.com/friendfeed/rooms
i signed up at friendfeed, and it was Scobleized!
An example of Robert's 'paicipation humility'
For Robert's followers, recently I ran into Robert at the DC bash(hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk) and asked him innocently why he does not use a skin(template) for his blog. Anyone else, with half of Robert's reputation would have looked at me like I have committed a sin or perhaps arrogantly ignored my comment. Instead, he simply said that he did use a skin. Later I realized that his skin did not load at my workplace due to filters(where I usually read the Scoblelizer). When I logged in from home, I could see the blog template in all its glory.
Keep up the good work, and setting such a good example!
~H