So what's whuffie and why should technical communicators care? Whuffie is social capital built one online interaction at a time. It is you or your company's reputation, credibility, reliability, brand, or image that you build in a virtual community, just as you would build it in a village, place of worship, or market but in viral mode at lightning speed.
Why should technical communicators care? It is how you will find employment, where people endorse your work, where you will communicate when employed, and how you will stay employed. Individuals and companies are leveraging social media to create a client base; find business partners; service clients; and cement client loyalty. Marketing is no longer shouting at the masses from a billboard or print ad; it is conversing via social media.
To highlight, Jonathan provided a media overview and described how blogs function in building whuffie. Jeremy differentiated Twitter from instant messaging and FaceBook and demonstrated the ease of setting up a Twitter account. David focused on the power of LinkedIn and listed the six mistakes newbies make: creating profiles everywhere, not completing a profile, faking friendliness, selling to everyone, using the same strategy for each medium, and not defining how to measure success.
The list of references and resources our speakers offered was long, and this review captures just a few to get started:
• Wordpress for blogging and publishing
• BlogTalkRadio.com for creating free talk radio podcasts and listening to thousands of original talk radio shows
• TubeMogul.com for tracking online video viewership trends and statistics on video sites like YouTube
• Meetup.com for Knoxville business marketing
• Ning for easy-to-create social networks
• Rentacoder, Elance, Guru.com for off-shore coding
• Scribd.com, for sharing original writing and documents; offers search engines to index Word documents, PDFs, etc.
• RSS feeds (really simple syndication) for receiving timely updates on selected topics
• Google alerts for receiving email on web and news pages of choice
• Cluetrain.com--95 theses, theses http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html.
An excerpt: "A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked."• Localchirps.com for following tweeting in your neighborhood
• Free: The Future of a Radical Price, a New York Times best seller by Chris Anderson
• The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business, by Tara Hunt
• Posterous.com for the fasted way to start blogging
• Harnessing the Groundswell: Drive Your Business With Empowered Employees and Customers by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler
About our presenters:
• Jonathan Taylor, president of Brand U Marketing, author of The Official Small Business Guide; check out http://jonathantaylorblog.com/july-small-business-marketing-meetup/
.• Jeremy Floyd, owner of Eluminare, an internet marketing and consulting company who knows how technology can be used to achieve business objectives; check out http://www.jeremyfloyd.com/
.• David Steele Rose, partner in GrassRoots Marketing, who has helped a wide span of business with start-up and marketing, now focusing on web site development, web analytics, search engine optimization, and social media; check out http://www.grassrootsi.com
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