Jeremy Waite

Today I’m publishing a list of, in my opinion, the Top 100 People in Social Media. It’s from my forthcoming  book about people who have done amazing things and have helped to create today’s social web that we know and love.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet many of them. It’s a book about leaders who lead from the middle of the pack. They understand community and the kind of things that can happen when people with one common vision join together. Their motivation is very seldom financial ~ they are interested in legacy, a more connected world and having their name being remembered as people who made a difference.

And I mean “social media” in the loosest sense by the way… “Media” has been social for a very long time, so don’t mistake this for just another social media book focused on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. (Social media is a two-way conversation, unlike traditional media which just pushed messages at us). These are people that have built digital communities and championed the social web. In my mind, this book is as much for social media professionals as it is for entrepreneurs and business people…

It’s a very comprehensive list and I’ve worked on it for some considerable time. There’s been a lot of debate over who should be included and who should be left out. They are people that matter to me, although there is also a very complex algorithm that has helped to create the rankings.

I’m doing this for 2 reasons.

1. Many people forget that the social web was created, built and exists because of people. Not technology. Not computers. Not platforms or fancy innovations.
2. There is a lot of rubbish on the internet. 95% of twitter is recycled content. The hardest part of living online is finding useful content that adds value to your daily work / personal life. Knowing who to follow makes the social web much more enjoyable.

I want to showcase the people behind the networks and technology that we use everyday, in a way that might inspire or entertain you. For the next 100 days, leading up until 1st January 2013, I’m going to publish one blog post each day about each one of the people included in this list. It will be a quick read with links to more cool stuff if you like what you see.

Each chapter will include memorable and inspiring quotes from these social superstars. When I publish the 100th post – each post will become a chapter of the book which will be available for FREE (Pay-with-a-tweet). There will also be a coffee table version of the book for £30 that you can buy, if you are that way inclined! I’ll also be publishing a graphic from each chapter daily on Tumblr & Pinterest.

I’m doing this because I believe that social media exists to do five things. Brands especially often forget this, and become consumed by an arms race for the most fans, followers, subscribers, views, pins or check-in’s. In my opinion, all social media should do one or more of these five things.

1. Inspire
2. Inform
3. Educate
4. Entertain
5. Challenge

All good content has one of these elements. The best content might have 3,4 or even 5 of these elements. In the book I’ll highlight some of the best content that has been created by some of these people. Hopefully you will find that you also become ~ inspired, informed, educated, entertained or challenged.

Steve Jobs said “I love Apple because it exists at the intersection of technology and humanity“. I think the same about social media – and that’s what makes it so special.

My goal is that we spend more time talking about great people and less time talking about shiny new platforms. I suspect very few people will agree with my list but that’s part of the fun. I want to know who your favourites are. Better still – you might even write your own list, or compile a wall of fame for superstars of your industry or passion.

I’m sure we will have some feisty banter on twitter (using the hashtag #) as we discuss each person – and if nothing else, you might stumble across some interesting quotes, stats and advice from people that you didn’t realise you liked.

Hopefully – the real debate is only just getting started. Enjoy!

Visit “Follow Me, I’m Right Behind You” on TUMBLR for daily updates

@JeremyWaite

I agree with Chris Brogan, uber blogger and Google+ evangelist – blogging is not dead, it’s just that all the boring people have left. The only people that are still talking are the really good ones with something useful to say.

The thing is, as much as I feel that I should be blogging every day myself, the truth is I’m not Chris Brogan. As a head of social media I feel that I should be setting an example by blogging everyday, but I’ve come to understand that different things work for different people. Just like some brands are killing it on Facebook, there are many brands for whom Facebook is the last place they should be. I’ve had a lot of success with my blog. It got me a book deal, it secured the biggest job I’ve ever had and it has landed me a few lucrative projects and speaking gigs.

This isn’t to say I’ve forsaken my blog for good – I may start blogging regularly and productively in the future, but for now I am saying “sa·yo·na·ra” to WordPress in favour of other ‘engaging‘ platforms. You will always find me on Twitter @JeremyWaite having a good rant or taking part in a feisty debate.  It will also be interesting to see if my current shiny object Pinterest, has the kind of longevity that I am predicting. (Flickr, Tumblr & Twitter combined – with a bit of digital curation thrown in).  I also upload doodles from my notebook to my Flickr account and you can always hook up with me through LinkedIn.

So come and say “Hello”! I’d love to chat and debate the merits of beautifully written 1000 word blog posts – versus the short form interactions on Twitter, Tumblr & Pinterest. There are some amazing bloggers out there already writing much better stuff than I could recycle. Along side the great Chris Brogan and marketing “guru” Seth Godin, there’s the king of content blogging himself “Junta” Joe Pulizzi. Check him out. But if you need any more links, help or advice in the meantime – I’m only a tweet away

Bless ya’

Jeremy

For nothing more than my own indulgence, I thought I’d celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man this weekend with a retrospective of my life in 30 brands…

1. Age 8 (1981) Mum buys Mini 1275GT. Love affair with Mini begins.
2. Age 9 (1982) Get my first computer. A Commodore VIC-20 with a 16k expansion pack. Friends have a 48k ZX Spectrum. Insanely jealous.
3. Age 10 (1983) First pair of Adidas track shoes. Canvas spikes. £10.99
4. Age 11 (1984) Beg for my first Nike’s because Sebastian Coe wears them.
5. Age 12 (1985) All my friends have Ocean Pacific coats. I don’t. I cry.
6. Age 13 (1986)  Stick a Porsche postcard with a Jeremy number plate in my school book. Vow to have one before I am 26.
7. Age 14 (1987) Watch Wall Street. Decide to be a stock broker and buy red braces. Read the Financial Times everyday (even though I don’t understand it).
8. Age 15 (1988) Buy my first pair of Levi 501’s. Sit in the bath (listening to Marvin Gaye), so that they ‘shrink-to-fit’. I can’t get them off so I sleep in them.
9. Age 16 (1989) Leave school and work for Burton selling Farah. Refuse to wear them because my granddad does.
10. Age 17 (1990) Buy my first suit from the Next Directory. Double breasted navy-blue pinstripe. Wear it at every opportunity.
11. Age 18 (1991) Get my first store card. £120 Nike Air Jordan VII’s later and I’m just like Mike.
12. Age 19 (1992) Friend tells me that the coolest look in the world is dirty jeans and t-shirt, old boots and £10,000 on your wrist. Vow to get a nice watch.
13. Age 20 (1993) Discover cologne. Buy Ralph Lauren, Benetton and Fahrenheit. Doesn’t seem to have the same effect on girls that it does in the advert. Feel betrayed.
14. Age 21 (1994)  Michael Jordan retires. Box up all my Nike Air Jordan’s out of respect.
15. Age 22 (1995) My first salaried job working in a Hi-Fi store. Get introduced to the Versace store. Wages soon vanish.
16. Age 23 (1996) Visit Nike Town in Chicago. Almost wet myself when I walk in. Spend everything I have on Tiger Woods apparel. Plan to take up golf when I get home.
17. Age 24 (1997) My first mobile. A Motorola Startac. My life will never be the same again.
18. Age 25 (1998) Buy my first Mac. Realise I can now never go back to windows.
19. Age 26 (1999) Buy a Ford Focus. Very sensible. The Porsche 911 is conspicuous by it’s absence.
20. Age 27 (2000) Design labels for Marmite. Love it or Hate it? (I hate being without it…)
21. Age 28 (2001) Read No Logo by Naomi Klein. Think about destroying all my labels. Feeling soon passes.
22. Age 29 (2002) Skateboarding becomes cool. Buy a pair of Etnies and a skateboard. Fall off and hurt my back. Realise I’m too old and decide to watch it on ESPN instead.
23. Age 30 (2003) Work with Irn Bru on an extreme sports event. After drinking 10 free cases it is no longer my favourite drink.
24. Age 31 (2004) Get an Omega Seamaster watch.  Not £10,000, but I do feel pretty cool. Practise my 007 James Bond quotes.
25. Age 32 (2005) Work on Savile Row. I must have a Norton & Son’s suit before I am 40.
26. Age 33 (2006) Work on a project for Reebok. Not allowed to wear Nike. Reebok project soon ends.
27. Age 34 (2007) Buy my first mini. Head on collision on motorway at 80mph.  I buy another one as it saved my life.
28. Age 35 (2008) Watch Product [RED] grow into an impressive concept. Discover brands can be cool AND ethical (without looking like charities).
29. Age 36 (2009) Decide to work full-time as a brand consultant. Can’t believe I can actually get paid for talking about ‘labels’.  Have a debate with myself about the morals of inflicting my brand addiction on others. Debate doesn’t last very long.
30. Age 37 (2010) Start writing a blog about brands and promise myself not to let myself be defined by the labels that I wear. My Adidas Shells beg to differ.
31. Age 38 (2011) Start working for Phones 4u as their Head of Social Media. Soon develop an unhealthy obsession with all things mobile and have started to change my phone every other month. Realise I’m actually now more of a brand whore than I ever was. I fantasize about the day that I won’t care…
    

1. What Twitter Isn’t…
I’ve spent a lot of time of twitter this week as I’ve been at 2 pretty amazing gaming conferences: #extra11 and #gamesforbrands. One thing I was most surprised at was the lack of banter between tweeters in the audience. Too many people still think twitter is a publishing platform. It isn’t! That’s what your old outdated press releases are for. Twitter is for engagement. If want to see what a twitter timeline should look like, check out @GaryVee to see almost every tweet is an @reply. And if you were wondering what it shouldn’t look like, look no further than the amazingly inspirational but sadly anti-social @GuyKawasaki

2. I (Still) LOVE Angry Birds
I had lunch with the wonderful people from Rovio this week and chatted about the future of gaming and the Angry Birds franchise. Seems that they want to turn themselves into Pixar, with forays into animation, film production and 3D technology. They were wearing “1 billion plays” t-shirts and they’re well on the way there. 450 million global plays to date. Not bad for a little game that cost about 100 euros a few years ago. (Download the Eagle on Angry Birds if you’ve not got it yet. 100% destruction is even harder than trying to get 3 stars!!)

3. How Many People Are REALLY Talking About You?
Facebooks new Fameranking is an interesting number. It shows who is talking about you, as well as how many fans or likes you’ve got. What’s interesting is that while Coca-Cola is still the number on Facebook brand with over 35m fans, Starbucks have DOUBLE the amount of engagement – with 10m LESS fans. (508,526 talking about *Bucks – only 220,867 for Coke).

95% of people who “like” a page never return to it

4. Last.fm Don’t Like Facebook
Well almost. They don’t hate it, but they have made the decision to stay away from the social network for lack of control. I don’t agree with them that you shouldn’t build your brand on “Marks House”, but what I do agree with them about is that if you have a successful forum, website, blog or community (where you have total control over data and analytics), you shouldn’t jump onto Facebook instead (where you have very little control, and Mark could change anything at any moment). The social graph and the insight your customers give you is very powerful. Use their details wisely, but don’t take advantage of them either.

5. Not Enough People Have Read LOVEMARKS
The gaming conferences that I was at this week made me realise how much games actually humanise brands. Even quite dull ones like banks and insurance companies. Check out KokoDigital to see what I mean. Games create emotional connections with customers. They give brands character and personality. I launched a game this week Zombies Ate My Phone and it’s had over 1m plays already. I’m sure that will do wonders for our brand. But to truly understand how you get customers to fall in love with your brand, you MUST read Kevin Roberts Lovemarks

6. There Is No Such Thing As A Full Service Agency

I’m lucky that Phones4u has an impressive array of agencies. What I’m glad is that we don’t have a ‘one size fits all’ or ‘full service’ agency. I don’t believe there is any such thing. Everyone is good at a few things. No one is amazing at everything. The bigger your budget, the more people want to look like they are brilliant at everything but they are clearly not. The really amazing agencies rare the ones who still to what they are great at. For me that means….
Adam & Eve for the best ad agency in the country
Essence Digital for brilliant Facebook apps and development
Koko Digital the best gaming agency I’ve ever met
Techlightenment the unsung heros (and mad scientists) of social media CRM
Sysmos for their wonderful social media monitoring, listening and engagement tools.
Casual Films The kings of web video!

Thank you to them all. And big love to everyone that I’ve had the privilege of meeting and tweeting for the first time this week. I really appreciate it and I’ll make sure I answer your every email and tweet. (Even quicker if you promise ‘good’ coffee or cake!!!). Have a great week everyone

Social media often bridges the gap between the commercial arm of the business and customer service or marketing.  It’s a good place to be because it gives you the freedom and creativity to add value and contribute across the company, but it’s also hard to keep your integrity when you have split priorities.

• Social media for example is ALL about engagement, customer service, retention, relationships, loyalty, trust and goodwill.
• Commerce is all about sales, transactions, media, acquisition, seo and page rankings.

When I’m in Manchester I drive an hour to get home each night, and as thinking about this is somehow made me think of lumberjacks and tree huggers.  Both have very valid credentials. They both have a role and a purpose to play, but they often find themselves fighting against each other.  One might be protecting the environment and trying to make the keep the world a better (more natural) place for everyone, whilst the other is providing food and income for his family by working hard and selling wood. By comparison, lumberjacks could quite easily be the sales guys, and social media (as it is a bit fluffier), could be the tree huggers. Both compete for the attentions of the customer – but sometimes at the expense of the business.  So is one more important than the other?

It’s hard to argue because everyone will have a different viewpoint depending upon where they are looking at the situation, but they both have an important role to play.  The really good stuff happens when organisations like Greenpeace, Make Trade Fair or FSC come into play because they are the glue that sticks both sides together.

In my opinion, social media is exaclty the same. It’s the glue that sticks parts of the business together who previously may not talk to each other.  It’s OK that you don’t want to be obsessed with sales and transactions, but we are here to sell things and make a profit.  Likewise, it’s great to think ethically and have a more holistic view of the business, but without the commercials there wouldn’t be a business to worry about.

It might all sound like a bit of a cliche but at least makes sense in my mind (!).  So whichever one you are, a lumberjack or a tree hugger, just remember that special things can happen when you understand each other and start to work together…

I wrote recently about why privacy is over-rated. I took a lot of abuse and raised eye brows and rightly so. It is a sensitive issue, but I stand by what I said. Privacy IS over-rated because the only people who worry about it are the ones that have something to hide.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not being provocative for the sake of it because I also understand the sensitivity of family photos, young families and personal issues that don’t need to be shared in the public domain, but despite what Mark Z might have us believe, not everything needs to be published onto Facebooks new timeline.

I don’t know if it’s true but someone told me that in Facebooks T&C’s somewhere, it clearly states that they can not guarantee that anything you upload will remain private. Can anyone confirm??? I’m not painting Facebook as the villain here, but I do think it forces us all to look at our own lives much more closely.

But my point today is this. Privacy stops the world being a better place. It does make it harder to be immoral, un-ethical and un-faithful – but it also helps us realise that we are never on our own. People who used to suffer in silence or thought that their personal circumstances were totally unique, now find people to chat to online finding help, support and encouragement.

Facebook will only encourage more people to share more parts of their lives. The new timeline that will appear over the never few weeks will try and encourage us all to invest more of our lives online. They are smart obviously, the more of your life that is invested in Facebook, the harder it is to ever leave for Google Plus or whatever new shiny social network launches next.

Facebook acts like it is still in college

But will Facebook be less flippant and appear more responsible as Zuckerberg grows up? Now he has a girlfriend and looks to get a mortgage and kids at some point in the future, maybe he will adopt a more sophisticated view of privacy. For now he is still a college grad and for that reason Facebook acts as such. As long as we all realise that (and treat Facebook accordingly), our lives will not be destroyed and we’ll be fine…

As a social media guy representing a large retailer, I am lucky enough to speak at various conferences and meet some really cool people. Chatting to people from American Express, Barclaycard and Tesco last week though, made me realise that many people still don’t understand what social media is… But this is not a rant about the role of social media because social media has been around for ever.

Pigeon post, smoke signals, emails, letters…. Anything that has ever generated a conversation can be called social media. It is not new. (So in case you wondered, having a Facebook page and Twitter account does not a social media strategy make). No… The thing that worries me the most is that people talk about “building a community” as if it is no more complicated than replying to every tweet, comment or post. That is not building a community – that is ENGAGEMENT.

And because many people fail to understand this small but significant distinction, I think we’ve stripped “community” of all meaning. If you really want your brand to stand for something beyond price (and you want to build a community of advocates and evangelists), you need to examine what community really means…

According to Wikipedia…

The term community has two distinct meanings: a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and

often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household. The word can also refer to the national community or international community.

I think that to understand what a community is, you have to look to Europe a few hundred years ago when everyone lived in small villages and huts. There were no windows or doors, so everyone knew everyone else’s business (for better or worse). People helped and supported each other. They shared everything that they had. Of course a hierarchy existed so that there was some degree of order, but everyone was treated equally and they all had a voice that could be heard. Imagine an online community acting like that… That WOULD be revolutionary.

Mark Zuckerberg thinks Facebook genuinely will open up the world and “revolutionise the universe” and he’s clearly not in it for the money as he’s turned down so many multi-million dollar approaches. So whilst we are all very sceptical and rightly suspicious of Facebook’s privacy policy, what we can’t deny is that Zuck probably has more in common with medieval European villagers than he does with his Silicon Valley contemporaries. Thoughts?

Privacy is one of those words that always generates a heated debate, but I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. What is it that we are all so scared of sharing with the world? Is it just that we try to hide behind human-rights or ethical arguments in order to protect the darker side of our own actions?

Mark Zuckerberg has taken a lot of flak since he announced some significant changes to the Facebook platform at the F8 developers conference last week. I understand that people hate change, but if Zuck had an “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” attitude, then Facebook may not have even been invented in the first place. Futhermore, when you understand why he genuinely believes that Facebook is changing the universe for the better – privacy because even less of a big deal.

“If it ain’t broke, it’s obsolete”. Bill Gates

In my opinion, the reason that Facebook succeeded where MySpace failed is that you must be your true self. Whilst it is possible to run multiple fake accounts, Facebook tries to demand personal transparency where other networks failed. It was for this sole reason that so many people wrote off Facebook back in 2004, because they assumed people would value their privacy so much. In actual fact, the majority of our this generation don’t care about privacy. You only have to look at the amount of brands capturing deeply personal details in return for a $2 discount code to see that people have no issues giving their details for the smallest price.

Zuckerberg has always championed a single identity. We don’t have a social self and a professional self – we are just ourselves. All the time. We don’t need seperate pages or accounts for each part of our life. People still ask me all the time should I have multiple Twitter accounts for themselves. Unless you have a much darker side that you need to hide, I see no reason why anyone would need multiple accounts. I have got some great relationships with people that have grown as a result of learning more about them through Twitter or Facebook. Whilst I am head of social media for a large retailer, I love that I regularly have conversations about cycling, giraffes, book writing or art with people that I know professionally.

The reason that a ‘single identity’ view should also be promoted is because visionaries like Mark Z have recognised that a lack of privacy can also bring about a better world. For example, how hard is it now to have an affair, when all your friends can see who you are flirting with online? And do you really want to let everyone know that you are searching for Kelly Brook nude or Asian babes, when all your friends can see your actions in your timeline? You used to be protected by “what goes on behind closed doors”, but the doors aren’t that closed anymore. In fact, on many social networks, the doors have been removed altogether.

A few of my friends have already been stung by this with the Huffington post. Without realising what they were giving up when the “allowed permissions” with the Huff Post, everything they now read and search for on their news feed is published in real time for all their friends too see. I might know them for being CEO of a large media company, but do they really want to let everyone know how much they are obsessed with searching for naked photos of Kim Kardashian? I also have friends that have been busted by wives and girlfriends for flirting with ex’s or under-estimating how much that one night stand would come back to haunt them.

I’m not sure if I am in a minority or the majority here, but surely transparency like this across our lives will only promote stronger relationships, integrity, faithfulness, accountability and more responsibility?

I’ve always loved adidas. I even have a big wardrobe full of adidas shells in different colour ways, but I fell out of love with one of my favourite brands this week. Living only 200 yards away from where the Salford riots took place last week, I feel particularly strongly about the people who made me feel unsafe – they succeeding in stopping me going home one night for fear of attacks on my house and car.

My local shops have been smashed up, part of the road has been ruined by burnt out cars and 100 “yoofs” where in a stand-off with the Police for most of Tuesday night.

Whilst everyone was holding BlackBerry’s BBM and Twitter responsible for organising the riots (they were responsible, but no-one questioned them when they started revolutions against tyranny in the Arab world), I was more concerned with the people that were doing the rioting – not the tools they were using.

Don’t get me wrong, I love adidas products – but when you talk about a “brand”, you talk about everything associated with that company. You talk about how that company makes you feel, how much you want to be associated with their brand positioning, and how much you might want to aspire to the lifestyle that they project in their advertising. Here’s where I got a little bit unstuck….

I’m not bothered because the front page of almost every newspaper in the world (it seemed) had the iconic image [above] of one of the thugs fully decked out in adidas apparel, I’m bothered because when I scratched a little deeper there was a reason why many of the rioters felt such an affinity to the three stripes. It is one thing being edgy and cool in order to engage with the notoriously difficult 16-24 demographic, but putting yourself at the forefront of yob-culture is not the way to do it.

This week (great timing), adidas are launching a campaign with Snoop Dogg for adidas originals. Don’t get me wrong, I like some of his music (“Snoops-up-side-your-head….”), but I don’t like the fact that he was a gang member and is a convicted criminal. The very same campaign also features fellow US rapper Big Sean (he was charged with sexual assault only last week). Brands thrive on provocative advertising and effective positioning within their target demographic, but isn’t this just a bit inappropriate?

Now I’m not suggesting adidas originals roll Beckham and Noel Gallagher back out to restore their brand image, but I don’t think adidas can distance themselves from the very image that is causing their PR department such a nightmare.  These, after all, are the very people that adidas is desperate to create “an emotional attachment with”. A quick search of “adidas riot” reveals that one of their shoes is even called the “Supernova Riot”! No wonder so many JD Sports shops were looted. Please. adidas – you let me down

I directed a similar message of distaste towards another of my favourite brands this week, Levis. An iconic label that I grew up with – but launching a new TV campaign glorifying ‘riot culture’ the very same week as the riots. I mean…. really???? [I know it was pulled eventually, but the sentiment remains].

And it’s not just adidas and Levis – the smaller brands looking to ride on the coat tails of the bigger brands are just as guilty.  In their quest for more market share within a similar audience, they are using a similar “tone of voice” as well. Yes Criminal, Goi Goi. Fred Perry and Ben Sherman I’m talking to you. Our country has a great culture with some of the most creative, artistic and musical talent in the world. Showcase that. Give us something positive to aspire to. Because if you appeal to the lowest common denominator for lack of a more creative identity, then like adidas, this image will come back and bite you on the ass.  And why is this so important? Because as all brand marketers already know…

“Your brand isn’t what YOU say it is, it’s what THEY say it is”.