Twitter recently started a beta feature called “Lists”. It basically allows you to create a customized “list” of people to “follow” just like you normally “follow” a person. For instance if you wanted to keep up to date on Twitter company updates you could check out the twitter team list at http://twitter.com/twitter/team.
(Its only  available to those that are part of the beta.) It’s a lot like a news feed, and there’s currently similar personal functionality in tweetdeck, i.e. of creating a sort of customized column of people to follow without actually following them, although it lacks the ability to share.

When you create a list it’s added to your URL e.g. twitter.com/username/mylist and you can have both public and private lists (although both public and private lists currently require you to login).

In its current state you can add anyone on twitter to a list whether you follow them or not.  And you can put any one person in multiple lists.

There’s also now a “listed” count so that you can see how many public “lists” have “listed” you. You can also “follow” a list as demonstrated by the button in the screenshot above (take a look at the upper left corner for a “Follow this List” button).

I expect this will deflate some of the high follow counts as people begin to segment those they follow into “lists” i.e. following friends but using lists to keep up on news or sports or business contacts. Will this then segment followers into more of a “friends” category and “listers” (“listeds”?) into an “acquaintance” or “non-personal” category. Or will those with high “listed” counts be more respected than those with high follow counts, because people wanted to share those they “listed”?  Also will this bring a new power user to twitter, not those who tweet well, but those who can make killer lists of people who tweet well?  Will twitter become a microcosm of what’s already happened on the web i.e. a shift from content creators to content distributors?

So, I got to thinking this week about what going “viral” really means…

Viral – adj. from the English virus meaning of or like a virus.

(I know, I’m a human lexicon. You should see me play Scrabul- errr… WordScraper.) But, being the product of pop-culture that I am, when I think of viruses – I always think of Agent Smith’s classic speech to Neo in The Matrix: “…[humans are] not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus.”

Viruses consume everything they can on their mission to spread as far and as fast as possible. They move so fast because they’re on a limited time frame. They are the original twenty-four hour bug. So, they spread as far and as fast as they can because they know they will die out shortly. Their purpose seems only to spread, disrupt, destroy, and in the process survive. (Viruses will even infect other viruses.)

Are viral marketing campaigns much different? Their purpose is generally to “infect” as many users as possible to spread the brand/product as quickly and as far as possible. Most viral marketing campaigns also seek to deceive or at least trick the user into thinking this viral marketing campaign is something other than a marketing campaign.

If it’s well done, it can be an engrossing, award winning experience. But, most viral marketing campaigns, like pyramid schemes, fall far short of their promised revenue for the client and can sometimes cost millions in backlash. Viral marketing campaigns in general, particularly the bad and/or thinly veiled ones, are a detriment to the landscape. They add nothing to a conversation except a deceitful attempt by a marketer to con the consumer out of a buck.

On the other flagellum, there are bacteria. Some bacteria cause sickness, disease, and death. But, if you’ve ever seen a woman over-sharing her digestive problems on TV, you probably know that there are some good bacteria out there too. They help us with digestion and a wide variety of other things. Yet, they can also spread quickly.

We should add something to the conversation online rather than sneakily weaseling our way into marketing something. We should create campaigns that are funny, heartwarming, or weird simply for the sake of the consumer and not to exploit them.

Arguably, there must be some business model behind why and how we do this so that we can at least break even. But, if we care more for our customers than their pocket books, we will have created long-term customers. And to take the analogy farther than it probably should go, the bacteria will live forever in their gut rather than quickly dying out after controlling the whole body.

Let us then devise bacterial marketing campaigns that interest, engross, and help the average person. Let us not just chase the almighty dollar, but let us build the community and, by extension, all of mankind through our marketing. Let us be at the forefront of a new marketing strategy that invites customers into a better way of living rather than forcing a product down their throat.

If nothing else I think we’ll all sleep better at night.

My parents came into town last week.  So, the weekend before was spent frantically cleaning the house from top to bottom. Of course, this led to me finding many things forgotten or thought lost, and other items began to accumulate with like objects. Towards the end of the cleanup, I was left with the realization that I had a heck of lot of books that I had not yet read.

Ok, not all of those above are marketing books, but that’s because I have been knocking those out recently. The other week, I finished Charlene Li’s Groundswell (here’s a review of Groundswell), followed by the excellent Join the Conversation by Joe Jaffe (which I highly recommend), and I’m currently working my way through a couple of others.

I love to read, but my problem is finding the time to do so.  In days past, I had a job where I’d take the metro in to work every day, that gave me a good 40 minutes each way to get into a book.  These days I can’t do that, as people tend to not take so kindly to a person reading a novel while negotiating the traffic on route 66…

I will eventually make my way through these books (well, maybe not the one at the bottom there, but don’t tell my mum, that was a gift from her).  But, am I missing out on any great books on social marketing, search marketing, reputation management (and if you read this, I’ve already gone through your book Andy), analytics, or marketing in general? If you’ve read something that you think I should, leave me a comment below, or drop me an IM (x3259626 on AIM), and let me know.

The next speaker is Maggie Fox (she’s the one at the lectern in the picture, Josh Hallett of BlogOrlando is the one at the microphone), the CEO of the Social Media Group, with a discussion on the latest trends in traditional social media marketing

Listen -

• Who do you need to talk to?
• What are they saying,?
• What are your business objectives?
• here are they saying it?
• How can you join the conversation?

This is not a campaign, this is a long term engagement / commitment. Once you have generated the community, you need to think about how you recognize and harness this community. Don’t let it die.

Q. How do you measure your success?

A. Look at site traffic, do you have 1% site engagement? How vocal is he community?

Q. What works well internally social media wise?

A. IBM uses social media well internally, with high levels of employee engagement. Internal blogs totally flatten the dialog, there’s more equality / less intimidation communicating with executives.

Q. What’s the carrot to get internal people to engage?

A. They have to want to do it, and be good at making content. Micro-blogging may or may not be a solution, as while the content levels are smaller, the engagement levels may be greater.

Q. Twitter or FriendFeed?

A. Maggie says she likes both, which draws groans from the audience and shouts of “Coke or Pepsi”. She likes the aggregation of FriendFeed, but doesn’t like the fact that it’s not as personal (plus you can’t block people from viewing your FriendFeed feed)

Q. If a community is left to die, can anyone take it over?

A. Disney had a proto-social network – Disney’s Magic Kingdom – for over 10 a couple of years. They just announced 3 weeks ago that it would be shut down. Communities should be allowed to continue if they can be self sustaining. Don’t necessarily think of them as communities, they may be better thought of as movements.

Q. How do you teach a client that Reputation Management is important?

A. It depends on the kind of strategy that you want to have. Do you want to respond to everything or just the influencers? Most companies need to only care about those influencers. She uses Radiant 6

Q. What about sites like Seth Godin’s where there are no comments?

A. Comments should be moderated with a clear comment policy. Comments are the best way to engage on a blog.

Q. How can you launch a campaign using twitter?

A. 2 different twitter strategies – Twitterbot – just pushing stories out, no need to really answer responses. Secondly the personal response, where a real person engages with others.

Q. How would you use Facebook?

A. Examine to determine whether your target audience is there in the first place. The challenge is that it’s a walled garden, you can’t get data about Facebook outside Facebook.

Q. A digital marketing agency without a blog asked what they should blog about…

A. If you’re selling something you’re not doing yourself, you’re going to have challenges if informed clients do some investigation.

Q. How have you best been able to educate executives?

A. Walk in and do a presentation at the C level as soon as possible when beginning an engagement, otherwise education takes up a lot more time down the road. It also helps to gain champions on the executive team. Lunch and Learn sessions work great to spread the knowledge around the organization.

Today marks the start of the first Blog Potomac conference, which claims to be the premier social media marketing event in the DC area. Given the list of speakers, it looks like that claim should hold up.

Last night was the VIP and speakers dinner in Clarendon, which I somehow managed to sneak into. Rohit Bhargava, the author of the recent book “Personality Not Included” gave out copies of his bood. And, then he performed a social experiment where he has everyone write out what they would do if they had a second copy of the book. The suggestions were mixed up and handed out around the table. As roughly 1/2 of the people at the dinner already had the book, they committed to following through with whatever the suggestion was. Some of those included — “Giving them to charity, along with 3 hours of consulting time,” “Leave it on the metro,” or “Give it to the most clueless person in first class on your next flight,” etc.

Assuming the connections hold up, and my batteries last out; I’m planning on blogging as much as I can of the conference, so stay tuned to this site.