Gaming Apologies: Empty Without Empathy

Last year, Bob Conrad was one of a few communicators who stood in defense of Toyota while it was savaged in media coverage over recalls. This year, ample evidence has been released that demonstrates Toyota was essentially proven to not be at fault for the accidents.

I was less sympathetic, but only because Toyota made the decision to apologize too quickly. It had come before Toyota had even identified the problem.

Why? They assumed their own guilt because of a rushed and improper situation analysis. Once they apologized and accepted guilt, nobody was ready to believe them again, at least not right away.

Taco Bell isn't handing out apologies. They're handing out tacos.

In the wake of a lawsuit claiming that Taco Bell is misleading consumers into believing it serves "seasoned ground beef" as opposed to "taco meat filling," dozens were prompted to make jokes and try to turn allegations into opportunity at the expense of the chain.

Had the company employed the ten commandments of social media crisis management, they would have rushed in, taken their lumps, and said they were sorry. So why didn't they?


Personally, I'm not a fan of fast food but I have to give them props. They paused long enough to conduct a situation analysis and conclude they aren't guilty. Their taco filling contains considerably more beef (88 percent) than the plaintiffs want people to believe (35-36 percent). The courts will decide the rest, but the public crisis appears to have been abated.

Most apologies are meaningless anyway.

Perhaps worse than not offering an apology when it is warranted is offering one that doesn't sound like much of an apology. Ask Nir Rosen.

He had every reason to apologize after some of the mean-spirited remarks he made related to the Lara Logan atrocity. And he did apologize, sort of, maybe not.

"There's probably some larger lesson about social media to be drawn here, and how its immediacy can be great in its power to connect us," Rosen wrote. "But also a liability because something blurted out and not meant to be serious acquires a greater power."

Um, hardly. There is no larger lesson about the immediacy of social media to be learned from Rosen or how things might be taken out of context. There is, however, a lesson that can be drawn from his article. It appears to be the one quality he seems to lack.

Empathy is the most important aspect of an apology.

It's simple. Apologies are meant to be an expression of empathy from the guilty. And, when they are well meant, they might elicit forgiveness. But without empathy, they're empty words — a ploy concocted by public relations and propaganda.

Some public relations professionals advise that apologies are critical to protecting reputation, guilty or not. However, if they are delivered with a lack of empathy, it reveals something worse than no apology at all.

For Toyota, it showed how willing their executives were to trade strength of character for the illusion of reputation. And, for Rosen, it seem obvious that he is only ready to apologize for the damage he caused himself.

In fact, both of them might have fared better with non-apologetic empathy. For example, Toyota executives could have expressed their sympathy for any accident victims and their families while investigating the claims (perhaps offering to help even if they were not at fault). Or, perhaps Rosen could have reflected on how his words could have made sexual assault victims and women feel instead of intellectualizing his dilemma in an article.

And when no one was hurt? Taco Bell might have made the right play. Most people seem to be expressing empathy for them these days. That makes sense. Besides, their tacos only contain one-and-a-half ounces of seasoned beef anyway.

Causing Revolutions: The Influence Of Nobody

"I, a girl, am going down to Tahrir Square, and I will stand alone. And I'll hold up a banner. Perhaps people will show some honor." —  Asmaa Mahfouz

Jay Rosen has contributed a nice round- up of posts that brings some balance back to the debate of whether or not social media helped topple a dictator, so I won't bother. (Hint: It's not a yes or no answer. It's not even the right question.) There's a better topic, even if some of it overlaps.

This topic comes in the form of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz (and others). While she is a young and reasonably new activist in Egypt, she would be considered by most social media measures as one of the least likely catalysts of an uprising. She might even be considered a nobody. (Me too, I imagine.)

And yet, she is the person who posted a status message on Facebook, not Twitter, saying that she was going to Tahrir Square. It was also her video that resonated with the Egyptian people. And it resonated not because she appeared to be somebody but rather nobody, much like them. Here is the video if you haven't seen it.


You can read one of the earliest stories about her contributions here. You make the call on the source. There are others. Thousands in fact, including The New York Times, which included that her video motivated men even more than women.

Real influence often belongs to nobody at the right moment.

Sure, I understand there is some hubbub about whether social media played a role or not, even if most of it was preemptive push back. I call it "preemptive" because the people Rosen criticized for the push back seemed to be reacting to what they thought people would say. They thought people would say "social media toppled a dictator" because they did say things like that about Tunisia. Mike Masnick addressed it too, perhaps even better than Rosen.

The better question is what can we learn from Mahfouz about influence? And what does her role say about those who cater to somebodies as opposed to nobodies?

I think the answer predates social media. After all, Rosa Parks didn't need Twitter or Facebook or even an Internet to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Right, there were others before Parks (much like there were others before Mahfouz in Egypt). But unlike the disobedience by Parks in 1955, no other individual action sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. Hers is the story of the right action, the right message, the right time, and the right nobody. Someone who unexpectedly turned out to be one of the most important somebodies in the civil right movement.

I suspect the same could be said about Mahfouz, whether or not she had Twitter or Facebook. The only difference is that the new tools speed things up.

For Parks, it took 24 hours before her story (originally printed and circulated on a flyer to the local black community) reached Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and even longer for the Supreme Court ruling (Browder v. Gayle, 1956). Hundreds of years earlier, it took months before the iconic Paul Revere depiction of the Boston Massacre to circulate before enough people saw it as a rally point that sparked a revolution six years after. Hundreds and hundreds of years before that, Spartacus did not even have the benefit of a printing press.

All told, there have been hundreds of notable and historic revolutions and rebellions all over the world well before social media. And, I suspect there will be hundreds more long after social media is replaced by some other sweeping form of communication.

The tools, no doubt, will continue to change. But what will remain is that revolutions, uprisings, and rebellions are most often sparked by nobodies, regardless of the communication tools at their disposal. They are not sparked by nobodies who turn into somebodies, who then turn their backs on the rank and file of nobodies from which they came.

And this, more than any other lesson, is why we ought to be more cautious about influencers. They are only somebodies under constant threat of losing the authority granted them by the fat and happy mass of nobodies. However, when those nobodies feel less than happy, they are also the ones who may one day unexpectedly change history in ways we can never imagine. In ways that Mubarak never imagined. In ways that George III never imagined. In ways that Roman republic never imagined.

Nobodies define history, even when they are obscured by it.

Not all of it has to be confined by revolution or uprising. Sometimes it can be a simple act of incredible heroics.

Case in point. Ronald Reagan is rightly credited for setting the environment in which the Berlin Wall came down. However, he could have never delivered that speech if not for the action of the nobodies — Jerry Parr, Thomas Delahanty and Tim McCarthy (and others) — who acted heroically and prevented an assassination attempt. Those men, and also the mass of nobodies responsible for the intense East German protest in 1989, made it happen. One of the world's most influential super powers was suddenly powerless.

I don't mean this as a rub against Reagan in the least, but there was a time when he was considered a nobody too. Ironically though, what seems to separate him from a some people who climbed up the ranks of social media, I think, is that Reagan never forgot it. Other people do. Companies do. Organizations do.

Organizations needn't bother looking for and empowering influencers, tiny tyrants of their respective spheres. They ought to consider how they can work together with hundreds and thousands of the right nobodies who just might change the world.

Old school media is gone, but that doesn't mean we need to erect new media based on old ideas. It's one of the many reasons Seth Godin was wrong when he wrote about tribes or Shel Israel about villes. Social media is still populated by nomads, hundreds of nobodies with the potential to be somebody (and nobody again) in the blink of an eye. Just like life, offline.

Influence is a fragile thing, you see. And the tools — a mass following of people you think agree with you or a paid army of one million — change nothing. It all ends the same for those who forget where they came from. The most influential man in Egypt might wake up to find he has nothing more to say because a nobody girl like Asmaa Mahfouz captures the hearts, minds, and sentiment of how people feel.

It's the kind of outcome organizations might think about. It might seem easier to prop up someone who can dictate. But sooner or later, it will be the mass of nobodies beneath them that decide whether to protect your company or buy what you are selling. Because once the influencer is gone — bought out, burnt out, retired, run out, or proven a fraud — you might find yourself asking tough questions like the United States is asking now.

Do these people want our definition of freedom or just freedom from us? Were you listening?

Getting Attention: Is Online Popularity A Great Big Lie?

More than anything else, exposure remains the number one measure for Internet success. Facebook page managers want more fans. Twitter account holders want more followers. YouTube producers want videos to go viral. Bloggers want more traffic. More, more, more.

But more is not always better.

If exposure is the measure, then the biggest losers are all winners. There are thousands of examples. Here are a few.

Nestle learned that fan pages could become a billboard of outrage on behalf of critics. Kenneth Cole exhibited no empathy for Egypt on Twitter. With 1.4 million views, Microsoft wins with this video gem. And Kathy Sierra would have never quit blogging.

Great marketers know that they don't have to convince everyone to love the Ford Taurus. They know that they only have to find people who like the features that the Ford Taurus offers. Likewise, Christina Aguilera wants to be known for her singing. Right now, people are more likely to know she blew the National Anthem at the Super Bowl and tripped at her Grammy performance.

More only works for vanilla.

When you give coffee-flavored ice cream to kids, they make funny faces (so do I). But that doesn't mean we always have to serve vanilla, the most popular ice cream flavor. We also don't always have to eat pepperoni and cheese pizzas, which account for 25 percent of all pizza sales. And we don't all drive white cars, which is the color 21 percent of car buyers prefer.

It seems only social media gives more value to popularity than personal choice or quality content. People watch videos that are watched, like Facebook pages that are liked, follow Twitter streams with followers, and leave comments on blogs where they "think" more people will see their comments.

Ironically, most of those leaders tend to offer exactly what you might expect. Vanilla, pepperoni, and white. In tracking about 250 blogs, daily, for almost a year, we found popularity to be the biggest lie of all in democratizing the Internet.

Of all the communication blogs we covered, those at the top of the Advertising Age 150 underperformed with three in the top ten failing to produce a single post that could be called a best fresh pick of the day (note: not all Ad Age participants were tracked). That doesn't mean they are necessarily bad blogs, but it does mean that they serve up more than their fair share of vanilla, pepperoni, and white. The placement of the top ten fresh picks show how far off that list can be.

Of those those that we picked with regularity, Valeria Maltoni is ranked 25th; Geoff Livingston is not ranked; Ike Pigott is ranked 607th; Lee Odden participates on Top Rank, which is ranked 10th; Jason Falls is ranked 15th; Adam Singer is 83rd; Ian Lurie is not ranked; Danny Brown is 23rd; Maria Reyes McDavis is not ranked; and Bob Conrad is not ranked.

Advertising Age isn't alone. The few communication-related blogs that make it into the Technorati top 100 rank underperformed too. PostRank, which relies on activity, didn't prove to be any better of a measure. And neither did SEO, which is one of several reasons Google is trying to fix its algorithm.

Specifically, SEO proves a site can lead people to it, but no indication that people will find something useful when they land. And, that other popular consideration — bounce rates — tends to mislead. People only look at one or two posts on blogs; those that pertain to their topic of interest, which is usually aligned with the topic du jour. Few people go back and read the same ones again.

There was only one measure that seemed solid. And most people overlook it.

People tend to savor of the quality that comes with being different.

Time on site. The most popular bloggers hold people's attention for about two minutes and those minutes are sometimes spread across as many as three or more pages (and that includes time for people to leave a comment). Higher quality posts tend to hold people for about four to five minutes (based on real time graphs, not averages that are also misleading).

Even among blogs that were picked for one or two posts during the year, we noted small surges in the time people spent on the fresh pick post compared to other posts read. This held true even for fresh pick posts that didn't draw very much traffic. Those posts were enjoyed by the traffic they drew. And that makes all the difference.

It reminds me a little bit about the Twitter stunt shitmydadsays. Two million fans with long gaps between tweets and never a response. Did they ever read the book? It starts out as if it could be funny, but never delivers. And yet, it's triteness is offset only because it is vanilla. It's perfect for a television series on CBS, even though it lost 25 percent of its audience after the first show. It has a balanced following now, being saved by William Shatner.

That's how it goes sometimes. Did you ever consider that nobody boasts about eating vanilla, ordering a pepperoni pizza, or buying a white car? Not really.

They may mention it in the moment, but the memory of commonplace isn't all that memorable. And, when you think about it, if the content (not the personality) isn't memorable, then how could it ever be influential? Quality content makes people think.

This is the third lesson from the Fresh Content experiment, which tracked 250 blogs for almost a year. The experiment focused on the quality of the content and not the perceived popularity of the authors.

Cheapening Content: How Amateurs Feed Content Farms

"We need six to seven articles a day with 200 words each. $15 per story. ... Ten articles, 400 to 600 words each, three key word links, and level one and two "spun" versions. Less than $500. ... Ten articles, 300 words per article, $200. ... 100 short customer review submissions, $50. ... Ghost articles, 100 words, $3 per article for content farms submissions."

These are actual freelance writer solicitations, taken from several freelance markets online. Consider it a welcome to the world of digital content, where amateurs are writing for as a little as $10 per story or a few cents a blurb. Some of them make nothing at all. Many of them will never see a byline. And even for those that do receive a byline, their stories appear nowhere in particular.

Worse, the majority of offerings aren't about original writing anymore. Almost half of the proposed work is for "spinning content," which is the catch-all term for rearranging paragraphs and using a thesaurus to make the same articles sound like different articles. Right. Some publishers want to automate the process so they receive ten stories for the price of a fraction of one. They'll get plenty of takers too. The amateurs are desperate enough to outbid each other to oblivion.

Expertise is nonessential. Proficiency is in the eye of the beholder, sort of.

Content mills, or content farms as they are called, are not just about little companies or shady operators anymore. It's becoming a standard practice.

AOL asks its writers to produce as many as seven articles a day to drive its hit-and-run visits primarily from organic search engines and others try to eek out $15 for 100 words that make it past the black hole. Yet, AOL had $315 million laying around to buy the Huffington Post. Yahoo too. It recently bought a content mill, hoping to cash in on Google traffic.

At the same time, these rates can be considered generous. Plenty of e-zines and news sites convince writers to work for free, offering the favor of exposure, appeasement of their vanity, and the promise of future "influence." All of these terms are nothing more than the newest carrots in the marketplace of quick content, inflated opinion, and illusionary traffic.

No one is exempt from receiving these offers either. I recently had someone I thought was a friend ask if I wanted "to be considered" to volunteer time for their upcoming paid subscription e-zine. It wasn't the first time. It likely won't be the last.

I sent them a video of Harlan Ellison. The context might be different, but the sentiment is the same. If the publisher can make a living off what the writer writes, then the writer can make a living too.


What Ellison doesn't consider in the modern age is the effect on unsuspecting readers. People assume the content they are reading has some sort of vetting process, especially when it comes from big brands. A growing percentage of it has very little. The content is nothing more than people plunking on keyboards in a virtual sweat shop.

The cheap content has another side effect too. The goal is to generate an ever-increasing mountain of slush that can be spammed across social networks and capture search traffic. You can see it everywhere in the news today. Half of everything reported is speculative, designed to capture our attention long enough to click on a link that refutes its own headline.

Of course. In many cases, some amatuer-publisher arrangements make pay-per-post writing and Twitter perks look like gravy trains. And yet, the companies adopting content farm approaches are the same ones that question the ethics of pay-per-post schemes. Can you imagine? They paid a writer $3 to question the ethics of another writer who accepted $150.

What writers need to know before they jump into the profession.

There is a time and place to write cheap or free, but it's never based on the terms offered by the client or publisher. It's only based on your terms. (The same can be said of pitches from public relations professionals.)

No Experience. While there may come a time when no one asks for clips or samples, amateurs do have to start somewhere. They need about five clips and samples. There is nothing wrong with writing a few for the favor of a byline or, assuming the publisher is reputable, working on speculation for the right acceptance rate. Even so, no one is going to be impressed by poorly edited clips under 200 words. You'd be better off publishing a blog, assuming you have some talent.

Topic Passion. Sometimes you might want to cover a topic that is near and dear to your heart, perhaps even an article that helps generate exposure for a nonprofit. It's an admirable pursuit, even if whatever you are passionate about isn't related to charity. That might even be what you are hoping to achieve — a forum of sorts, now and again, without starting a blog.

Promotional Purposes. You own or work for a company or already have your own blog. Writing the occasional guest post or agreeing to a temporary cross-post endeavor sometimes serves as a nice introduction. But you have to make sure it makes sense for you and your company or your blog. All guest posts ought to be accompanied by a bio and direct link somewhere. Even then, choose carefully. Not every promotional opportunity is worth the time it takes to write something.

Personal Favor. In the same vein as promotional, writing an occasional guest post for another blogger because they don't want their blog to go dark while on vacation is a nice gesture. The relationship exchange rate usually works both ways. Mostly, it only makes sense when you have a commodity or service or blog in the first place. Sometimes you might even help someone start something, but never do it if you expect something in return. It's a favor, nothing more.

Community Passion. Maybe you belong to some community and want to contribute something. There is nothing wrong with it. Sharing between friends and people with similar interests is much like bringing a pot roast to a pot luck. Just keep in mind that every social network has its own rules of content ownership. Be very wary of any network or service that claims all rights, especially if they supersede your own rights.

While there might be a few other special cases, there aren't too many good reasons outside of these five. Expect some people to try and convince you otherwise.

Ninety-nine percent of all offers that promise "more work in the future" are lies. Unless it is in writing, no one will ever give you stock in a start-up company or publication (and even if they do write a contract, consider such offers with the skepticism of an investor). Accepting a reduced rate to help someone during a rough patch (or extending excessive credit) is money that you ought to consider lost revenue until proven otherwise.

It might sound cynical, but it's reality. The difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional can produce something that people want and the amateur has to convince people that they can produce something people want. Having worked on both sides of the fence as the vendor and client, I learned most of it the hard way. Sometimes two or three times. You don't have to.

So what is a fair rate for freelance writers?

When I owned and published a limited subscription international trade publication, we paid $300 per 700-word article, which was 30-50 percent higher than publications with similar circulations at the time, regardless of where the writer lived. More recently, I asked two writers if they would volunteer to write for Liquid [Hip], but haven't given them assignments because it conflicts with my belief that writers deserved to be paid. I don't have a budget.

I ran into the same conflict a few years ago too. I passed on a lucrative offer to become an editor and co-publisher of what seemed to be a well-financed online publication. Negotiations broke down because I wanted to pay writers and they wanted to appeal to the willingness of amateurs to crank out free content. No hard feelings. We're still friends.

At the same time, maybe amateurs need to know that professional freelance rates for copywriting range from $45 to $150 per hour, web content from $40 to $100 per hour, and technical writing from $50 to $100 per hour. Two hours per half-page is a fair estimate of time, with adjustments for research, interviews, and revisions built in to the estimate. Some writers do charge more, but anything less is amateur. Too much amateur work will only keep you there.

By the way, some material, like print ads and outdoor, take more time, regardless of how many words. Ergo, it often takes more time to write less. So expert magazines often pay less than those rates above, with the low approximately $150 for 600-750 words.

Anything less, regardless of praise, should convince you to look at what kind of revenue they generate, how nice their offices might be, and what kind of cars they drive. Why? Because you might be the person who affords them those luxuries.

Related articles on quality content and content farms.

• Content Farms And The Death of Remarkable Content by Lisa Barone.

• Four Ways To Improve Content by Geoff Livingston.

• Mahalo’s Calacanis: Time To End The Content Farm Arms Race by Danny Sullivan.

• I Worked on the AOL Content Farm & It Changed My Life by Marshall Kirkpatrick.

• Blekko Bans Content Farms Like Demand Media’s eHow From Its Search Results by Erick Schonfeld.

Eclipsing Brands: How A Good Commercial Still Fails For Chrysler

According to Motor Trend, the average age of a Chrysler buyer is 62. The average age of an Eminem fan is about 24. The average age of an advertising executive is about 36. The average age of a journalist is about 42.

While Volkswagen easily won Super Bowl pre-buzz, it seems the Chrysler ad (more often called the Detroit ad, Motor City ad, or Eminem ad) by Portland-based Wieden + Kennedy is catching the most post-game buzz. More than 2,000 news organizations have mentioned it. More than 3.7 million people have viewed it on YouTube. Both Edmunds and Chrysler reported surges in searches for the brand.

But does the buzz-up alone make the measure of the ad, especially because much of the attention is marred with curiosity and confusion? Maybe. Maybe not. Watch the spot and then consider both sides of the same Motor City coin.


What worked for the Chrysler advertisement.

• Production. By most measures, the production value is on target. It's a stylized mood piece that borrows some of its feel from Gotham City (even if Gotham is based on New York City with a Chicago toughness) and ample inspiration from past Nike commercials. The tight shots on some iconic symbols in Detroit work too; as does the slow reveal of Eminem.

The copy is honest, garbled, and unapologetic. And while some people have questioned whether Detroit can claim to be experiencing a resurgence, no one questions that Detroit natives have an underlying sense of pride. Some might even say that it was this same pride that convinced Eminem to accept the gig. I don't think he sold out.

• Nostalgia. Although most Super Bowl commercials passed on what's proven to be the most effective television commercials for the Super Bowl, Wieden + Kennedy stayed true to them, with an emphasis on nostalgia.

This is one of the underlying reasons for the appeal. The ad doesn't only resonate for what people want out of Detroit. It resonates for what people want out of America. People are weary and generally feel beaten down by constant a rehashing of the country's considerable challenges. They want someone tough enough to get the job done. The spot taps the need for better leadership and a pull yourself up attitude.

• Eminem Appeal. Of all the songs ever cut by Eminem, Lose Yourself has universal appeal. People who don't generally like hip hop or rap genuinely like the song. The instrumental alone is enough to pique interest. On iTunes, it remains his number one (explicit) and seventh (clean) most purchased song.

It was made famous in part because of its inclusion in 8-Mile, the underdog movie about Eminem. Only the recent hit Not Afraid comes close to having as much crossover appeal. And his presence in the commercial almost convinces me that he might outsell the product placement in the Detroit spot.

What didn't work for the Chrysler advertisement.

• Confused Demographics. There is nothing wrong with an automotive company with an aging buyer trying to infuse some youth into its brand. Having worked on campaigns for Lincoln and Mercury in the past, I appreciate the challenge.

However, when the commercial aired during the Super Bowl, I noticed agency creatives and communication professionals were much more likely to rave about it than the non-industry people I follow on Twitter. That could be a concern. If the ad plays better to industry professionals than anyone else, Chrysler will be more than disappointed as the 200 is not an industry car.

• Brand Eclipse. While the advertisement has earned considerable buzz, the headlines reveal something else. As mentioned earlier, the advertisement is just as likely to be called the Detroit spot or an Eminem ad or a combination of those two, sometimes pairing it with Chrysler.

Of the three brands, Chrysler is clearly the weakest. And I suspect that it doesn't help that it is owned by Fiat, an Italian company. Even worse, days before the $9 million spot aired, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne had to apologize for describing the $12 billion U.S. bailout as a "shyster loan."

• Curiosity Buzz. The commercial shows so little of the Chrysler 200 that people have no choice but to look it up. The curiosity will be short lived as people discover the truth. Reading Edmonds' review of a refreshed Sebring worthy of consideration doesn't hold the same excitement as the commercial. Wieden + Kennedy clearly over promised.

Over-promising in an advertisement raises awareness but it also drives up negative impressions. In fact, in reading a cross section of reviews, I was disappointed to discover the best feature is the price point. But even that promise seems silly. Few people will want to drive that much ugliness with a cost-saving four-cylinder automatic.

It begs the question. Who cares if you pique the interest of the mid-sized sedan buyer (average age 41) but fail to deliver what they really want? I can write a commercial that promises McDonald's will add steak to its menu and drive buzz. But it is patently irresponsible for an agency to do so without any concern for whether people will figure out the steak is still a Big Mac.

What the people who appreciated the commercial really want.

It's painfully easy to appreciate what people want: The ability to break free from adversity, retain some semblance of attitude as they age, praise artists who are willing to stand up for their cities instead of gripe, and for Chrysler to succeed as a tough-as-nails innovative American car company so it can pay off those "shyster loans" and employ people.

That is the dream. And Wieden + Kennedy delivered it brilliantly.

The only problem is that they delivered a dream that their client cannot deliver. Haven't you noticed? People aren't talking about the Chrysler 200 (formerly Sebring) as much as they are talking about Eminem and Detroit.

And that's the real lesson of a mixed brand commercial. As an Eminem for Detroit commercial, most people are all in; as a Chrysler commercial, it only underscores that the most dangerous assessment in the advertising industry is "I like..."

"I like" has nothing to do with it. The phrase we're supposed to shoot for is "I buy."

Revolutionizing Social: Does Activity Equal Experience?

A few days ago, Arik Hanson called it right. Anyone who looks up David Mullen will find less social activity than they might have found a few years ago.

Does that mean David Mullen no longer understands digital marketing?

Not at all. As Hanson points out, he has different responsibilities. And tracking about 250 blogs, daily, for almost a year, we found Mullen is more often the rule than the exception.

For example, the Decker Blog is relatively light on content and two of the authors have a minimal following on Twitter (without custom backgrounds no less). Yet, Kelly and Ben Decker still managed to co-write a well-read post on the top ten best (and worst) communicators of 2010. Between October 2010 and January 2011, Bill Sledzik, associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University, took one of his frequent social media leaves of absence. Rob Reed doesn't post or engage with a byline very often, but that doesn't make him less than a founder of Max Gladwell.

It might make you wonder. Does taking time off, shifting priorities, or working behind the scenes as opposed to being a visible participant make a difference in social media? Perhaps in perception, but not in practice. If the Old Spice campaign taught us anything about social media, it was that an advertising agency might understand social media without an active presence.

In fact, it seems to be another rule and not an exception. Most major social media brand successes that social media experts talk about do not come from social media experts at all. They came from communicators and business owners who happened to include social media as part of their mix.

Old Spice is only one example. And while I had a much more tepid view of the campaign, most experts called it the best social media campaign despite the producers of it not measuring up to their own activity-based social media standards.

A revolutionary way to look at online activity, experience, and influence.

During the American Revolution, many people played many different roles. Thousands of people rightfully earned the moniker, including more than 100 as signers of the Declaration of Independence and/or United States Constitution. However, we don't remember all of them. We remember a few, which is based more on the degree of their influence as opposed to their activity.

We picked four names to demonstrate the distinction. And while the specifics might vary, their historical status is remarkably different. But then again, the founding fathers didn't meddle with definitions. They had more important things to do.

• Authoritative Influence. As commander in chief of the Continental Army, George Washington made decisions that largely influenced the course of the war. While he was also as statesman, his visibility as a statesman was secondary to the decisions he was given authority to make. Today, elected officials, judges, legislators, investors, and network owners can also set the course of a network or the entire online landscape regardless of authored participation.

• Innovative Influence. Although he was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most influential documents produced during the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wasn't necessarily an active author or publisher like many of his colleagues. By today's measure, he tended to write less but when he did write, his words were profoundly influential in that they often included innovative ideas that still have an impact today.

• Persuasive Influence. Much more consistent in his writings than Jefferson was Thomas Paine, author of the widely read pamphlet Common Sense, which consistently advocated for American independence. Later, he would also move to France and became deeply involved with the French Revolution. His writing often set the agenda for others to follow. Some have even gone so far as to suggest without Common Sense, Washington would have raised his sword in vain.

• Activity Influence. Samuel Adams is often praised as someone who had been steering his fellow colonists toward independence long before the war, and was frequently in the midst of the political affairs in Boston. Like the majority of the founding fathers of this country, he is remembered less for his contributions despite leading many of the activities that led up to the Revolution, including the Boston Tea Party.

In looking at activity, Samuel Adams, second cousin to John Adams, was an active participant throughout, perhaps even more so than the founding fathers most people know by name. However, Washington was still the more suitable person to lead the army and Jefferson better suited to write the Declaration.

What this might teach us is that activity does not substitute for formal experience or lasting influence, even if it sets the stage for events. It might make us reconsider activity as a social media measure all together.

The seven personas of the activity in social media.

The Fresh Content experiment captured varied online activity, beyond publishing content. It showed that the people who have the most experience are not always the people who are active, day in and day out.

On the contrary, sometimes it showed the participant lacked education, experience, and expertise. It also revealed a subtle set of motivations between those who are the most active. Without assigning labels in a confining sense, these are the seven types of personas we saw frequently.

• Professors. While not all of them carry the title "professor," educators tend to be passionate about the subjects they teach. They tend to be active in various networks, sharing their education and experience with students and colleagues, often balancing out the bad advice of others or providing attribution when someone doesn't know their idea is less than original.

• Publishers. Whether they serve as editor or reporter for a firm, dedicated online magazine, or a social network, content publishers and providers are paid to develop content for their company brand while establishing their own presence. In some cases, they may develop some keen insights. In others, they can be likened to a music critic who can't play an instrument.

• Peace keepers. Online community managers become exceptionally skilled in keeping multiple windows open at the same time. Some of them expand a personal network while managing the online assets of a company, network, or publication. In other cases, their job descriptions better match an online customer service manager than a communication professional.

• Promoters. While their experience and expertise varies, there are dozens of people in the communication field that either use social media as a primary promotional tool for their firms or for themselves because their primary products are book sales, affiliate commissions, or paid speaking opportunities.

• Preachers. There is a segment of communicators that are simply passionate about social media. They see the space as some sort of revolution to unhinge traditional marketing. Some would even outlaw advertising all together if they could, but only because they see any sale is exclusively based on relationships and every transaction the result of a personal connection.

• Provers. A majority of professionals who become increasingly active in social media are attempting to prove they know social media. Some of them are attempting to launch a new consulting practice while others are looking to land a job at a firm that that might be dazzled by large follower counts and clout scores. Some social media firms never break away from this category. Neither do those who have nothing to prove, except to themselves.

• Pretenders. Compared to any other category, these people tend to have one of the highest network activity levels, with some even leveraging social network monitoring tools to do the dirty work. They are generally one of two types. The occasional A-lister who produces more content than humanly possible by raiding lesser known bloggers in order to look like they came up with the idea first; and the busy bee, eager to please, but without any formal experience to generate their own ideas. They are easy to spot.

None of these descriptors are meant to disparage (except the last, perhaps). And many individuals fall within two or three categories at a time. The real intent here is to help professionals distinguish just who they are listening to: An inexperienced egomaniac, a parroter of other people, or a self-promotor paid handsomely to work once a month in between business card books.

Social network activity doesn't sort these people out. Likewise, social media measures don't distinguish from the general who ought to be running your campaign, the author who ought to write your white paper, the writer who might be best suited to add frequent content, or the wildly active independent who is important but never remembered enough for their contributions.

Sure, there is truth to the wisdom in thinking that someone who professes to be a social media expert might engage in social media. Then again, the overstatement of this fact is misleading, given you won't find many advertising agency commercials on television or a steady stream of press releases about about every public relations firm outshining their clients. It's all relative.

This is the second lesson from the Fresh Content experiment, which tracked 250 blogs for almost a year. The experiment focused on the quality of the content and not the perceived popularity of the authors.