Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo believes that people want to read the most interesting content regardless of whether it happens to be in question and answer format or not. Quora’s new goal is “to connect you with everything you want to know about.” Its old goal was described as “a continuously improving collection of questions and answers.”

Users who want to create a board will now see a “Create a board” option at the top right of Quora and on their header dashboard. Anything can be posted to a board, whether it be links to web content like news and video, images, stuff on Quora like Questions and answers or text commentary. Users can post content directly from Quora by clicking on the ‘Repost’ option under every question.

Board Owners can add Authors and Followers to a board, as well as pay to add Topics. They can also set up the board in a grid or list format. The most interesting feature of boards, from a utility aspect, is that Authors can set up following granularity to public — i.e. everyone who follows the board Author will see content or limited only board followers. Boards will also now show up on Topics pages, as well as on your personal Quora profile page.

Relevant boards will now show up in Quora’s search bar, and boards you are following will show up in your top navigation bar. As Quora has been dogfooding the feature, some robust boards have already been set up, including “The Fourth Wave” (a feminism related board), “All Things J” (A board for Japan-ophiles), “The Quora Blog” (self-explanatory).

Boards should cut down on Quora newsfeed clutter, and make it easier for people to curate their Quora experience. But it’s not a pivot says D’Angelo, “We see this as expanding what Quora is. People have their favorite answers. There’s also people who write a lot of stuff and a number of masterpieces. This is a way to bookmark the things that people want to reference a bunch of times.”

Cheever says the Board way of bookmarking is one of the most often requested Quora features, “[Think of this as} a response to that feature request, but on steroids.”

Without the Circles volume slider, the macronetwork model didn’t work. Managing relationships individually was tedious at that scale, and Google didn’t know which Circles you wanted to see most of. This allowed noisy acquaintances or public figures to drown out quieter close friends, making it difficult to consume their content in the same stream.

With the addition of the Circles volume slider, here’s how the 4 main social network models differ:

• Twitter – Specializes in connections with strangers who share your interests, you follow or you don’t, and there’s no volume control
• Path – Specializes in connections with your closest friends, you add someone as a friend or you don’t, there’s no volume control
• Facebook – Specializes in connections with people you’ve met, and for each individual connection you  select what type and volume of content you see
• Google+ – Supports a diverse array of relationship types, you Circle connections with similar types together, and you  select the volume of entire sets of individuals

Previously, Google+ didn’t enable the macronetwork model any better than Facebook. Both provided dedicated streams for Circles or friend lists, and Facebook offered volume control at the individual level. But this individual-centered approach doesn’t scale to having  many thousands of connections.

Through its Subscribe feature, Facebook is trying to snatch Twitter’s crown and encroach on Google+’s runway in the interest network space. However, it’s too deeply entrenched around the individual after years of binary friendship to reorganize curation around friend lists. This creates an opportunity for Google+ to own mass curation.

Rather than worrying about who to friend or follow and who not to, Google+ lets you add hundreds or thousands of people to a Circle, but then opt to only see a low volume of that Circle’s content. Google’s algorithms can then surface only the best content from that Circle. I could effectively subscribe to all the experts on certain topic that I’m mildly interested in, but only hear about the most important developments in that area.

There’s no way to do this on Twitter, and on Facebook it would take too much work. Everyone might not need such capabilities today, but some do and more will with time.

Some believe in the “niche to win” model. Really, it’s about differentiating and being the best at what you do. Google could make curation of the widest variety of signals its “niche”. The content stream business is about sorting out the most relevant content. It will need to get users sharing more, but with the Circle volume slider, Google+ has created the biggest sieve.

Carmine Gallo, in his talk demonstrates how extraordinary leaders such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and others communicate the vision and the value behind their service, product, or brand. Gallo addressed the Stanford GSB as part of the Mastery in Communication Initiative’s Expert Speaker Series.

As the author of both the Innovation and Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, Gallo might even rival Walter Isaacson for his insights into the Apple icon. But while Isaacson is an expert on the narrative of Jobs’ life, Gallo’s special knowledge lies in his understanding of Jobs’ creative abilities. As he told me, Steve Jobs’ most important strength lay in his ability to transform products into dreams. And this can’t be faked, Gallo argues. To sell desire requires passion; and to turn products into dreams requires us to pursue our own dreams.

The Insights Discovery System recognises and celebrates the fact that each person in an organisation is unique, with different styles, needs and expectations.  In these differences are great strengths for the organisation, but how do we recognise and make the best of them?

The Insights Discovery system uses a very easy to understand model of four colour energies to describe personality.

1. Reporting to all stakeholders. At the PRSA conference this year, Dan Tisch, who is serving as president of Global Alliance said that some countries, such as Australia, are reporting to all stakeholders. Meaning, they’re not just doing investor relations, but reporting results to employees, customers, prospects, influencers, and more. This is expected to become a trend, especially as accounting principles are looking to include brand awareness as part of the balance sheet.

2. Social TV convergence.  You can “check in” to a TV program and then have conversations with people around the world who are watching the same thing. It allows you to review the shows, talk about what’s happening, and listen to what others are saying. It works for movies and music, too. Plus, if the rumors are true and Steve Jobs’s last project was iTV, this will become huge next year.

3. Social commerce. When you check in with Foursquare at select locations it asks if you want to pay using your Apple app. The Apple app, scans the mouse bar code, gives you a subtotal and once you hit OK you are done. It takes the amount right out of your iTunes account, emails you a receipt, and you can be on your way. Starbucks does this using your phone and its at-register scanner. You’ll see more of this next year.

Facebook as a platform is phenomenal in reaching out to over 800 million users. It’s simply brilliant when it comes to sharing content and gathering the opinions and thoughts of others. As a brand/product/service one has to ask some very pertinent questions:

1. What am I doing on Facebook? What’s my objective
2. Who am I really looking to network with?
3. What would they be interested in?
4. Does it make sense to provide valuable content that interests this segment and does it gel with my service?
5. How much time am I willing to invest and can I continue doing it consistently

If at any point, it occurs that your target segment cannot be reached through your current efforts simply because it is not interesting and cannot gain momentum, it’s a red flag for you! You need to sit down and evaluate your Social Media strategy and relook at the content strategy to push targeted and interesting content to provoke engagement and sustain it.

So go back to your Fan page and ask yourself if I were a visitor, would this entice me to engage. I’m sure we can do better. Share your thoughts and let’s explore what makes our Fan page likable

Let’s face it, G+, FB or whatever, twitter remains the fastest and easiest way to reach millions easily. Somehow it’s got the same feel as the most routine of tasks one does on one’s mobile – texting! Yeah, so it’s limited to 140 characters, but thats what I love about it.

Twitter is a powerful way to build a brand, maintain awareness, and communicate directly with your customers or simply send out coupons, discounts or spread news / industry insights. The trouble I’ve had is that because of my work schedules, I send tweets in bursts and then get on with the rest of my day. I’m unable to tweet like Guykawasaki all day round. Not that I want to tweet volumes, but in all fairness, for marketers it would annoy your followers and reduces brand awareness to spams in time.

I recently tried out Buffer, a service that automatically posts your tweets by spacing them throughout the day. It’s really simple to use: After setting up a free Buffer account, just connect it to your Twitter account, and you’re ready to go. From the Buffer website, you can enter a bounty of tweets and move on to other things without a second thought; each of your posts gets queued and sent on a schedule that’s managed by Buffer. That means they’ll go out at regular times during the day, and — unlike alternatives like Hootsuite — there are no settings to mess with. Buffer doesn’t change the way that you post or add any extra machinery between you and Twitter; it’s truly fire-and-forget.

If you prefer, you can install the Firefox or Chrome browser extension, which lets you tweet from any Website. See something you like? Click the Buffer button to post the link, add any extra text you like, and then send the tweet to Buffer.

You can use Buffer for free, which gives you a “buffer” that’s ten posts deep. If you routinely send more tweets, or want extra features (like the ability to send to two or more accounts and access to analytics, then you can upgrade. You get a 50 tweet buffer and two accounts for $8.50/month, or unlimited tweets and 4 accounts for $25.50/month.

Everyone can benefit from a dynamic platform like Social Media, if exploited correctly or turn into a graveyard if not dealt smartly during the times when it matters the most. In the world, physical or virtual, where disasters are waiting to strike, it is best that you are prepared before hand for the situation. A Social Media Disaster Management plan has to be incubated and inducted to everyone in your Community Management and Public Relation Team.

Social media disaster strikes when you are either going all wrong or you aren’t able to meet your customer’s expectation. In either case it is essential that you own up, come out brave and communicate surely but humbly. Social media is eyed by your customers, investors, employees, media, etc, each of which will have a different point of view to look at your social media conduct and you have to live up to it all!

Social Media Disaster can strike in many forms, some of which are listed below:-

• Online reputation maligned by customer by complaining, creating hate communities or blogs or sites. It becomes a disaster when within matter of hours it gets world talking about it.
• When your product has performed poorly and media is busy taking down your name.
• Your ex employees go bad mouthing about your management, reveal secrets, leave no stone unturned to paint your image black.
• When panic surges amongst your people- natural disasters, fake news or rumors surface, industry is badly hit, etc.

Social Media Disaster Management Stages

• Crisis Identification:- Social media monitoring would help you see through this stage, in fact if you are involved in this regularly then you might even avoid the crisis and deal with it at nascent stage. Follow the talks and understand what exactly is being said and the general sentiments of the public about the situation.
• Insight Identification:-  Get to the crux of the matter. Explore from where the crisis arise, who are people talking, which mediums are being used, how it is affecting the company’s image, do you know the authors, what is the volume, etc.
• Goal Setting:- By the end of your crisis management activity what is it that you expect? Control over negative comments, more positive talks trending, the authors becoming positive influencers, your target audience (investor or customer or employee or media) is happy and satisfied by the end of it, etc.
• Plan Communication:- Shape a strategy to counter this disaster by apt and strong communication program. First devise what would you communicate, how are you going put the whole crisis in front of people, what would be the tone, who would be speaking, etc. You need to figure out which are the right platforms or mediums you need to be on, where you have to create base and accordingly customize the message or content strategy to meet the platform’s needs. Remember each platform is a different market.
• Make a Team:- Social Media Disaster Management Team which must include Community Manager, a PR and a Senior Management representative so that the communication can be designed, approved and executed easily and each one is on the same page!
• Execute the plan.

Social Media Disaster Management can be avoided with ongoing social media monitoring activity! Are you ready to handle a social media disaster?

Why is everyone all of a sudden talking and writing about content?

Most often the list of features and capabilities that your product needs to satisfy the needs of your target market and it is huge. When the number of hours to implement everything is well beyond your financial runway or your market opportunity window, how do you pick which features to do first?

Let’s first define a Minimum Viable Product. An MVP is simply the minimum set of features that provide the initial value to the user of your product. It is crucial that this first incarnation of your product must show your value differentiation. In other words, not only must it provide that initial functionality for your first users, it also needs to show off why your product is different or unique in the market place.

For example, a smartphone application may show off the integration between the phone’s native features and your application in such a way that the value of your application is extended through the phone. This is a crucial time in the development of a brand new product. Generally speaking, this early version of the product dictates whether the company succeeds or fails.

a. Validation of market assumptions is critical. Even though some market research has been done, at some point one or more assumptions about the needs of the target market were made. In some cases these assumptions are pivotal – i.e. your business rests on whether these assumptions are correct or incorrect. Getting the MVP into the hands of users as well as demonstrating it to experts in the target market, helps to validate some of the assumptions. Course correction at this stage is easier and less costly than when the product is nearly complete.

b. As these early users work with the MVP, they help you to refine the product in such areas as the flow of a specific feature or the user interface. Early users have a tendency to love new technology. They love the fact that they can influence a product’s direction as well as the look and feel in the early stages – at any stage actually, but especially early on. Regular meetings with early users (even if it is in a coffee shop) are crucial in refining the product but also have a side benefit of building a solid relationship. Word of caution: evaluate each suggestion to make sure that it has wide market applicability; creating a product solely based on the feedback of a handful of users is dangerous.

c. The quest to seek funding for your new venture is a continuous event. The days of receiving funding for an idea jotted down on a napkin are long gone. Having the MVP shows investors what value real users will find in the product. It also helps to get the point of your venture across that a slide presentation cannot do. People respond far better to a real product than to a large slide presentation.

But which features do you select? Which market needs do your satisfy first? This debate will be a constant occurrence within your team. Here are a few key points to remember as you go through the process of deciding what features to build.

a. In the end, your target users will use your product to perform one or more specific tasks. The MVP cannot be a set of random disjointed features, but instead must be a set of features that work seamlessly together and allows the user to accomplish the tasks they need. Imagine the team that developed the first bank machine. They probably implemented the ability for a user to withdraw money first. They in all likelihood recognized that this use case was the most important use case – ahead of transferring money, printing account information, etc. The first implementation of this use case most likely had the ability to insert card and enter the PIN, select the amount to withdraw and from which account, and dispense cash. The key here is to understand how your target users perform their primary task today and make sure that they can perform the same task with your MVP.

b. As mentioned earlier, building in your differentiating value is key. Without this your product will be perceived as simply a “me too” product and will not end up getting the interest of your target users and investors. Continuing with the bank machine example. A key differentiator is convenience – the ability to do banking anywhere and anytime replacing the need to go into the bank and wait in line to get money. One can imagine that early machines were placed in the lobby of the bank or in the nearby convenience store. Had the machines been placed inside the bank, making them accessible only during banking hours, they would not have garnered the enthusiasm of the target users.

In summary, the MVP is crucial from an investor-pitch perspective as well as from a product-refinement perspective. Both these activities are crucial in the early stages of a new venture. The trick is to choose the right set of features for the MVP. Make sure that the user can perform one or more or their end-to-end tasks. In other words, make sure that the use case is implemented enough to provide value to the user. The implication here is that you have to know your target users rather intimately.

And lastly, the MVP must have one or more of your key differentiators. The MVP needs to set what you are doing apart from other potentially competitive offerings.

Image: Jon Radoff’s Internet Wonderland

Blog Source: http://francis-moran.com