This blog hasn’t been very active lately, but that’s because most of my contributions have appeared elsewhere. Here’s a roundup of what I’ve been musing about.

10 Tips for Expanding Your Social Authority in 2015 – Midsize Insider, Jan. 1, 2015

I go into detail on strategies to get more out of your existing social presences and where to experiment with new ones. It comes down to basic blocking and tackling, and making sharing part of your daily routine.

Organic Facebook Marketing Is Dead; Think Customer Service Instead – Midsize Insider, Dec. 22, 2014

Numerous studies have shown that organic posts by Facebook pages are reaching only a tiny fraction of the audience they used to. This may finally be a wake-up call to marketers to share Facebook responsibility with customer service and to use Facebook as a listening post and customer-retention vehicle.

Research Shows CISOs Gaining Influence Even as Challenges Mount – Midsize Insider, Dec. 15, 2014

IBM’s annual CISO survey shows that security executives are finally getting a seat at the leadership table.

20 Ways to Enliven Those Boring Year-End Predictions – LinkedIn, Dec. 16, 2014

Annual predictions are now a dime a dozen, and most are predictable, self-serving and monotonous. Instead of following the pack and issuing the same old lame set of predictions, change up your angle and approach to make them stand out. Here are 20 ideas organized into eight categories.

FIR B2B #20: Indium’s Awesome Engineers

In Episode 20 of the For Immediate Release B2B podcast, we speak to Rick Short, Director of Marketing Communications at Indium Corp. Indium has created a creative and successful inbound marketing campaign that connects engineers to customers to solve problems in exchange for contact information. It’s paying off so well that the company can afford to increase its focus on lead quality because it has more than enough leads in the hopper.

FIR B2B #19: Doubts about Social Media’s Lead Gen Potential

Two new surveys cast doubt on the value of social media as a lead generation vehicle. One found that the top three value propositions of social media relate to ongoing customer engagement rather than lead generation. A second found organic social media marketing and social media advertising, which have some of the lowest costs per lead, also produced the worst quality leads.

In our interview section, we speak to Don Lesem and David Wagman of IHS and Engineering360, which is one of a suite of vertical communities the B2B information provider is launching to increase customer engagement.

FIR B2B #18: John Fox on Why Marketers Need to Get Out of the Office

John Fox has led the launch or re-launch of 44 companies, resulting in double and triple-digit growth for every client served. He thinks all the talk of a radically new B2B buyer journey is overblown. The process hasn’t really changed all that much, he says in this interview, and he has provocative thoughts on what content really motivates buyers.

I haven’t yet tried Ello, the newest social network to aspire to the role of “Facebook killer” (though my request for access is pending), but I know already that it is doomed to fail in that role. I’ve seen this scenario play out again and again, and result is a foregone conclusion.

Ello has attracted attention because of its pugnacious attitude expressed in a “manifesto” that begins, “Your social network is owned by advertisers” and ends “You are not a product.”

Some people are rooting for Ello to unseat Facebook by tapping into user rage over the giant social network’s controversial approach to using member information to sell advertising. They will be disappointed. Ello has no better chance of challenging Facebook than MySpace or Friendster. The social network wars are over, Facebook won and it’s time to move on.

My opinion is rooted in more than 30 years of watching battles play out over new platforms. Invariably the script is the same. To understand why Facebook has already won you have to understand the nature of technology platforms.

Platform Markets are Different

Platforms are technologies that serve as a foundation for development. Windows is a platform. So is the X86 chip architecture. Oracle is a platform and so are iOS and Google Maps. The winners in platform markets typically get 80% share, and everybody else fights over the scraps. This is because developers and customers want safe choices. They’re willing to pay more and accept less in exchange for knowing that a platform is going to be around for a while.

Platform winners are never supplanted by direct competitors. They fail for two main reasons: Customer preferences change or a new platform comes along that delivers a new kind of value.

An example of the first phenomenon is spreadsheets. In the late 1980s Lotus was larger than Microsoft and had a stranglehold on the highly profitable spreadsheet market with 1-2-3. Dozens of competitors took on Lotus with cheaper alternatives or modestly differentiated products. None gained more than a few percentage points of market share. What killed 1-2-3 was a change in preferences.Users preferred an integrated office suite based on a GUI metaphor. Microsoft had that and Lotus was slow to respond. (What’s sometimes forgotten is the Microsoft also discounted Office heavily in the early days, a strategy that helped tip the balance.)

An example of the second phenomenon is network operating systems. Novell’s NetWare reigned as the market leader until a good enough alternative came along in IP. IP wasn’t as elegant as NetWare, but it was free and accessible to all. Once it achieved critical mass, it became a safe choice and NetWare’s fate was sealed. Linux did the same thing to proprietary competitors on the server. Platform vendors are terrified by competitors that build critical mass.

Free doesn’t always supplant expensive. Linux on the desktop has never challenged Windows, but I think that’s due more to usability issues than price. On servers, Linux has done extremely well. It has critical mass.

Once platform companies become embedded they protect their franchise through a surround strategy. Some, like Microsoft and Intel, build formidable distribution networks and use volume discounts to block competition. Others, like Oracle and EMC, build software layers around their platforms that effectively embed them into customers’ organizations. Basically, it becomes more expensive for customers to switch than to stick with the incumbent.

What’s Really Different about Ello?

How does this relate to Ello? From what I’ve read, Ello uses the same basic social networking metaphors as Facebook and every other social network. Functionally, it’s a wash. Ello’s only major distinction is in the way it handles personal data.

The problem with that strategy is a few people really care. Privacy is important to a vocal minority, but in my view the vast majority of Facebook users couldn’t care less. As long as they can post photos of their kids and trash talk with their friends at no charge they’re happy. The recent disclosure that Facebook secretly manipulated the emotions of nearly 700,000 users has gotten plenty of media attention, but I don’t see anyone occupying Central Park over this issue. Facebook knows better than anyone that there are lines it shouldn’t cross.

What will ultimately unseat Facebook – or at least halt its growth – will be something that looks nothing like a social network. It may be based on sensors or artificial intelligence or free beer. No one knows. That’s one of the beauties of technology disruption. It comes from the craziest places. One thing is clear to me, however. It won’t come from Ello.

The world of online B2B news services continues to expand with the introduction of Engineering360, which owner IHS calls “the world’s largest online destination for engineers.”

Edited by David Wagman, a journalist and analyst who’s covered engineering for more than 25 years, the site features news, analysis, product research and tools, events, product catalogs, an interactive community and other resources typical of professional networks. Formerly known as IHS GlobalSpec, it was relaunched last week with an expanded news and community focused. The site is posting original news daily, most of it written by freelancers with apparently good domain knowledge. Their feature stories are mixed with a steady stream of un-bylined news shorts.

IHS Engineering360 editorial “covers the entire engineering landscape, with key areas of focus such as automation and control, electronics, energy and natural resources, general engineering, manufacturing, materials, network and computing and process equipment,” IHS said in a press release. IHS is the biggest media company I’ve never heard of. Based  in Englewood, CO, it had revenues of $1.8 billion last year providing information services for a wide variety of mostly heavy industries.

This is the latest in a series of 360 online platforms launched by IHS. Others include Electronics360.com, Janes360.com, IHSmaritime360.com, Datasheets360.com and IHSairport360.com. I’m working on getting an interview with some of the principals involved in these new communities for my FIR B2B podcast.

Here’s an example of a B2B2C initiative that looks like a potential winner for all parties involved.

American Express OPEN, the hugely popular community for small businesses sponsored by the credit card company, and Etsy are partnering ahead of Small Business Saturday on Nov. 29 to encourage small business boutiques  to support local Etsy sellers by hosting Trunk Shows.

According to a press release, “These events provide online sellers with the opportunity to put their products in front of customers in a traditional retail setting. For boutique owners, the trunk show is a chance to increase foot traffic into their store by providing diverse product all while supporting a local artisan in their community.” Each boutique that agrees to host a Trunk Show gets $75 worth of credits to buy supplies and a chance to win a $5,000 design consultation from Rue Magazine.

I’ve long been impressed by American Express OPEN. In addition to representing a large financial commitment on AmEx’s part, the community is a great example of a B2B initiative that really gets close to the customer. Small Business Saturday, which Amex invented four years ago, is one example of the energy and creativity that Amex has put into courting this audience. The Trunk Show idea is not only innovative, but it potentially benefits American Express, its small business merchants and independent crafters. That’s a rare win-win-win.

This morning I spent 45 minutes cutting an article by a technology marketer by one-third. When I finished, the piece was better than when I started. And that made me happy.

I love editing, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I also love my occasional roles as speaker, prognosticator and thought leader, but there’s something uniquely satisfying about taking someone else’s work and making it better.

Editors get little credit for what they do, but like film directors and record producers, their function is essential to a quality product. Today they are more needed than ever.

I sat down to write this essay after reading Alexandra Samuel’s eloquent post on the HBR blog network. Content marketing, she writes, “has emphasized producing a high volume of content at the expense of producing content that people actually want to consume.” But repetitive, unremarkable content drives audiences away, which is the opposite of what marketers want to achieve. The solution is better editing.

There are three types of editors: visionaries, copy editors and line or content editors. Marketing departments have no shortage of visionaries. They can also hire hourly workers to sweat the details of grammar and punctuation.

What’s missing are the editors in the middle, the city editors,  the people who shape individual stories and work with writers to turn ideas into content that people want to consume. In a world where everyone is a content producer but few people know how to write, they are in desperately short supply.

There are a lot of misconceptions about line editors. I’ll address a few big ones:

Editors work mostly with copy.

This is true only if the editors are incompetent or their organization is screwed up. Good editors do 90% of their work before a single word is written. They take ill-formed ideas and shape them with interesting angles and approaches. They guide writers on sourcing, structure, voice and format. They know when more research is needed and also when to stop researching and start writing.

Editors take words out.

This is sadly truer than it should be. People are taught from their earliest school days to equate length with gravity, so overwriting in the business world is epidemic. Sometimes the solution is to take words out, but it’s often better to rephrase ideas so that fewer words say the same thing. Editing is also about knowing where gaps exist and directing the content creators to gather more information.

Bill Blundell’s The Art and Craft of Feature Writing should be required reading for all editors. A longtime Wall Street Journal writer and editor, Blundell documents the almost obsessive culture at that newspaper with packing more information into less space. The reason for taking words out, though, is to fit more information in. The Journal’s time-pressed audience wants efficiency, not just brevity.

The editor’s most important constituency is the people who create the content.

Wrong. Good editors advocate tirelessly for the people who consume the content. They need to know better