I am starting a new series of  blog posts called “What AH Does.” This is a series of free-form posts by members of the Abraham Harrison staff.  Instead of a book report, I asked my staff to write a company report.  While the request was generally free-form and I didn’t care what was written — everything is good — I did float some general questions that people could respond to. This week, we’re exploring What AH Does through the eyes of our Director of Operation, Saul Wainwright — Saul chose to respond directly and openly to my suggested topics and questions, and I quite love the response (Via Marketing Conversation):

Cocktail Party Synopsis:

Abraham Harrison is a PR agency that focuses on the social media environment – primarily blogs, and social networks like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. We help to amplify, create and promote conversations around client’s products and services.

We focus predominantly on getting bloggers to actively participate in the conversation by reaching out to them – via emails, twitter or comments on their blogs – with the intention of alerting the blogger to a product or service and to get them to blog about these products/services.

This ultimately increases the amount of online-buzz surrounding the client and leads to a filtering of the conversation in all directions. We never sell a product – we only talk about the product.
   
With longer-term clients we focus on building them a strong and active social media presence that we ultimately teach the client to operate in and to manage on their own. Our goal is to make our clients stronger and to educate them about how to actually participate and actively use this incredibly powerful resource.
   
Our methods are open, our conversation is open and we enjoy seeing our clients – who are often nervous of this space – moving actively and strongly into the realm of social media.

AH Business Plan:

I see AH moving into this arena with the goal of creating an agency that operates in as close to a non-hierarchical structure as possible – something fluid with nodal points. AH hopes to become an active agency in the social media realm and is open to partnering with multiple agencies providing the “services’ that are necessary to successfully implement an online social media PR campaign.

What we do that is cool?

AH is able to get people to talk – to talk to us, to talk to others and ultimately to help amplify the voice of different organizations and companies. All of this is done with out having to pay a single blogger for their time, their input! This shows a) how altruistic on one level people are b) the power of a story – everyone wants to hear a story, wants to tell a story and to feel like they have access to stories

What do you think we do that is most effective?

Our online outreaches are very effective – and I see them getting better and better. We are very good at this process and will continue to refine it. I think implementing my idea discussed below (and have mentioned in meetings and emails) will be an incredible tool to help us move more effectively into this space.

What could we do to grow our services?

The continued and growing presence of Chris will help – I would like to see Chris’s blog grow in prominence and I think this will greatly lead to increased business.

I also think a little bit of “specialization” or at least the “impression of specialization” will go a long way especially if this is expressed on the website. So – I think our work around NGOs could really grow – all of our most successful clients are interested in this.

Thank you very much, Saul, for sharing so openly and for pouring your passion, experience, and skills into the company.

Creating a space for your members to “show off” or “express themselves” is less important than giving members to interact. They crave connection and will pursue any perceived connection such as shared interests, hometowns, movies, orientation, or schools.

They’re not at all about sharing, they’re about connecting. The best of breed SNS’s are primarily concerned with three things: finding your current friends, reconnecting with old friends, and making new friends. In that order. Current friend connections are the most essential, offering the most energy.

The best SNS’s are like an office ski trip. Out of the 30 people who choose to chip in on the trip, maybe four or five of them are pretty good friends. The remaining 25 have only a few things in common with you, including being in the same industry, being at the same company, liking skiing, and being probably within ten years of each other in age and a shared experience of going to college.

When you get to the ski slope, there are plenty of diversions planned to help you relax and feel comfortable among your colleagues. You may rent a very large home together near the slopes, you might stay at a big hotel together. You might all travel up there together in a chartered bus. And when you arrive, there is a cocktail party, and a social, and in the morning there is breakfast, etc. The people who come up who don’t want to ski have board games and the spa.

So, an SNS is about creating artificial and intentional ways of starting a conversation. Office pools and work happy hours. They’re all affectations. There are so many web sites and blogs and so forth out there that successful SNS’s can’t follow that model.

So, when it comes to building a valuable personal profile for an SNS, it is important that the profile isn’t just pretty and isn’t just the equivalent of a questions-based, template-based personal website. For example, modern SNS’s tend to request an exhaustive list of favorite movies, favorite books, favorite TV shows, etc. These are props that allow registered members to find each other based on a love of LOST, 24, or the Matrix.

People love to connect based on shared interest and shared memories. People also love to compete. A friendly competition is always a very powerful way to allow people to both connect and create shared memories.

One of the most successful methods of connecting people in a very strong way is through bringing them together through “pools.??? Fantasy football is popular; Oscar pools, college basketball pools, etc, are very powerful ways of bringing people together and allowing them to “ski??? together, allowing them to interact in a very powerful, visceral, way.

I have friends who have powerful, shared memories, of Oscar and football and basketball pools; even stronger are the shared memories of seasons of fantasy sports, fantasy football in particular. Unlike catching a real game together, fantasy football can happen 100% online.

Virtual online communities are neither virtual nor are they exclusively online. They are real, powerful, communities of real people building real connections that can, and often do, result in marriages, children, businesses, jobs, and emotional support when times are rough.