Max Gladwell

Oh, the people you’ll meet…and find when you send the right signals.

One of our mantras as bloggers and social media marketers is to “be a beacon”. (Not be confused with Facebook’s failed Beacon advertising platform.) The beacon approach is a fundamental principle of social media. In our case, Max Gladwell is a beacon for “the nexus of social media and green living”. This is the signal we send, and it takes many forms.

A beacon is defined as “a signaling or guiding device, such as a lighthouse” and “a source of guidance or inspiration”. We think of them in terms of backcountry skiing or snowboarding. Everyone wears an electronic beacon in the event of an avalanche. Each unit is initially set to broadcast (outgoing signal), and when someone gets buried, everyone else switches to receive. The outgoing signal allows rescuers to establish a search grid based on signal strength. You then quickly close in and dig out your friend…before they suffocate. With slightly less drama, this is how it works on the social web.

Your blog or site is buried under an avalanche of Internet debris. Without a beacon, it will die.

A beacon on the social web has to be strong enough to not only reach through the debris, but it has to be efficient enough to reach the right people i.e. those willing to dig out your site or brand and save it from obscurity. These people fall into two categories: those who are looking for you and those you are looking for. The signal has to reach each, and it requires the use of several different channels.

Your content is indexed by search engines, which make it searchable and discoverable. Needless to say, the right content is essential, and being able to find it is partly a function of the SEO signal. The right people find you because they’ve also sent out a signal in the form of a search query that matches or complements yours. Once they’ve found you, these people can subscribe to your RSS feed signal. They may also subscribe to your email newsletter, which is yet another channel. These are the people who are looking for you, and there is an obvious advantage because you just have to be discoverable. The second group requires more effort.

You want to program your beacon to locate people who aren’t actively looking for you but who would like to find you if your signal happened to find them. Out of the hundreds of millions of people on the web, you probably want to reach a relative few. After all, the strength of your signal is limited, and you don’t want to waste any of it by reaching those who wouldn’t want to find you. Here are a few channels that can carry those signals.

Social Networking: Profile pages or groups on Facebook and MySpace serve as satellite beacons, which attract select members of those communities through the use of a network-wide signal. Joining relevant groups or using certain widgets sends a signal that you have something in common and possibly something to offer. These pages can be populated with content, RSS feeds, and other signals from around the social web (see below). In addition, there are vertically oriented social networks where the power of a signal is potentially magnified by the relevant nature of that community.

Commenting & Contributing: Sincere contributions to relevant conversations on blogs and other interactive venues is one of the best signals you can send. It adds value for its own sake and gives people a chance to discover you not because you’ve solicited them with a direct signal but because they happened upon it through the course of an interesting conversation. Discovering something of value is much more powerful than being told it’s valuable, no matter who’s doing the telling.

Social News & Bookmarking: These venues offer channels for sending direct and indirect signals. It’s great when someone submits your content to Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. And there are times when it’s so damn good that you submit it yourself. This essentially says, “Look at this. It’s important.” Becoming involved and networking within these communities, however, can be just as valuable in a less direct manner. Digging, Stumbling, and commenting on stories or websites is a signal unto itself. It’s a communications medium that says, “This is what I find important and why.” In the aggregate, these Diggs, Stumbles, and comments become a powerful signal that should ultimately reflect your brand. Which is why giving Diggs and Stumbles to help someone out can also compromise that signal if it’s not consistent with your brand.

Lifestreaming: There are many channels for lifestreaming (or brandstreaming). Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, and Ustream offer different mediums, but the idea is the same. You are streaming a signal that can be picked up by anyone who’s listening. If it’s compelling to certain individuals, they’ll find their way back to the signal’s source. It’s worth noting that many of the below lifestreams can be simultaneously sent to social networking pages.

Twitter is a mix of social networking and blogging (microblogging), where the signal takes the form of haiku-length Tweets that often include links. Over time, a Twitter signal attracts a following. These are people for whom the signal consistently resonates. In turn, they are compelled to follow it back to the source.

FriendFeed is a signal aggregator. It organizes your many signals–RSS, Tweets, Diggs, photos, videos–into one place. Anyone who wishes to follow more than one of your signals will want to subscribe to this feed to make it easier to organize. In addition, you can send signals directly to FriendFeed, much like Twitter, and start or contribute to conversations in that venue.

Flickr is an image signal. It’s obviously quite visual and can provide a window into your life or brand. The thing to remember is that what might seem mundane to you in the course of daily life could be fascinating for others, particularly those who’ve already picked up on your other signals. You don’t have to be Annie Liebowitz to produce valuable photos.

Ustream takes a bit more nerve. This is your live video stream. It’s certainly not for the timid, but it is a powerful signal that leaves little to the imagination. The clips are saved for future viewing, provided you don’t delete them, which offers consistency to the signal and makes it discoverable. Ustream also does its part to promote the site with its own set of signals.

Photos from Flickr.

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