How Outposts Improve Your Ecosystem

January 9, 2010 · Comments

outpost visualized

I saw this great pic from Oscar Berg, and it showed his primary social media flow. I thought it was interesting, but then, it got me thinking about how I see my social media world (for me, not for clients, but it relates).

In September 2008, I wrote about using outposts in your social media strategy, and I defined the “home base,” “outposts,” and “passports” idea. If you see me speak, there’s a 40% chance, I define it quickly during such presentations. Outposts are those touchpoints away from your main online presence where you connect with others in some way.

In the above drawing, I point out that I see sources for input, and then I have places where I connect with others as an outpost.

You could do the same thing quickly with a piece of paper and a few minutes. The thing is this: I do see my site as the primary point of value. I put all my best work into [chrisbrogan.com], and push attention here, not to my outposts.

I see many using Posterous and other outpost apps as a kind of replacement to their home base, or as a temporary “second base,” I guess. I’m not sure how that tactic is working out for them. To me, spreading the value too thin is a recipe to have no value captured.

Thinking of your primary online presence as your home base (and it doesn’t have to be a blog, but Twitter isn’t necessarily the right medium, I don’t think), and then thinking of the places where you make social connections as your outposts (realized I forgot LinkedIn, but I’m there too, obviously), then you see how you might prioritize your time and/or how you might try keeping the value chain alive.

You might weigh your outpost efforts differently. You might determine where else you spend time (various forums, Flickr, etc) that contribute to your success, but without keeping your home base central and your outposts as a secondary part of the value, I think leads to a bit of frustration.

One last thought: sometimes, “success” in an outpost, like lots of great conversations on Twitter, pushes us to conclude that those areas are of more value to us. Ask yourself whether you see it that way in the larger ecosystem of your online presence.

What’s your take?

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  • bradblackman
    I've got a friend who describes his outposts (if you can call it that for him) this way:
    - Small Doses (Twitter)
    - Visual Doses (Flickr)
    - Moderate Doses (Tumblr)
    - Larger Doses (blog)

    His small and moderate doses are pretty funny, but his larger doses are much more serious.
  • Thomas
    Love it. Your friend should ™ this description!
  • outposts, especially comments on other blogs bring in the most visits to my blog. A little from twitter and not so much facebook. So I make an effort to add meaningful comments all about. It spreads me thin sometimes. But the hard work is rewarding. I am a frontier ranger seeing where I can add value.
  • dannyjacks
    Love the diagram. People are going to participate where they are comfortable. Your "Home Base" HAS to be portable, so to speak, to reach the various touch points.

    I like your line about puttting all your best work into your home base, pushing the attention there, and not to the outposts. While that seems like a no brainer I feel like brands, and people, lose focus on what's most important, Home Base.
  • Chris, like Hugh says below, Posterous can be a great tool to use not as a replacement for the blog or the "main" Home Base, but as light way to build more content. For folks who do some content "curating", the Share on Posterous browser bookmark tool is great. Also, the posterous API for integrating with a Wordpress blog used to be a little buggy when it first came out, but has been working much better lately. Also a great tool for getting groups to contribute.
  • Even if businesses "see" the value.. they are overwhelmed with the idea of managing it all within the scope of their current resources and workflow.
  • Chris, since about 90% of adults are visual learners (including me), this picture is exceptionally simple by design and easy to take a great lesson from.

    Thanks for "value on a continuum" that you add to your readers' lives.
  • This is a very handy guide/reminder for those of us who not only use SM/blogging for personal use, but for those of us who also do it on behalf of a company or organization. It can keep everything organized and flowing. Thanks for this tool. This can also be used to prevent unnecessary duplication and over promotion of posts that can get annoying to some of your audience.
  • This is a very helpful diagram. As a manufacturer of design-based products, our extensive product website is the place we have the most control over and where our clients (designers) can access the tools they need to do their work (when learning about/selecting our products as well as trends in the industry). We are just preparing to add a blog. So does the blog become 'home base' for SN activity or does the product website become home base or am I mixing metaphors?
  • dancingbaglady
    Wow you just turn on the lights for me. High beams right in the face. Ding! I got some thinking to do.
  • I think deciding what "base" you want to direct most of your traffic/attention to can be difficult, especially with the plethora of "bases" available to you these days. I'm not sure there's a right answer for everybody. I think it definitely depends on your specific goals.

    But in general, having "outposts" and a "base" is definitely key.
  • My hint: the base you can most control and make your own. : )
  • carriekish
    Chris,

    I love this visual description and the metaphor of ecosystem for managing my voice. I find that my clients and I tend to be very outpost-centric. In general, I think people like to stay on their platform. I run my life through my email inbox, facebook and my calendar. If it doesn't find it's way to one of those forums, I don't see it.

    Your post is a call to action for me, though, to be more active on my blog and to use it to express my voice. I also use thesis, but my posts do not deliver as nicely as yours into my inbox. I'm going to figure that out, too.

    Thanks for the inspiration.

    Love,
    Carrie
    Do It Like a Girl!
    www.CarrieKish.com
  • Glad you're giving it a go, Carrie. Girls (and guys) could use more of your voice. : )
  • julito77
    A very effective way to look at this. We tell our clients all the time: Your hub is Rome and how do make sure that all your online roads lead to Rome? Once they see that, they start to grasp it. Thanks for sharing.
  • peterpropp
    I find this diagram very useful. I probably still post to facebook more often than I tweet, although I'm trying to reverse that ratio. Also, I haven't yet been able to embrace Delicious with the gusto of many more experienced bloggers, so I'll have to look into that.

    Keeping the blog as the home base seems obvious to me. I also think that establishing a standard hashtag that refers to a blog or topic can be very useful. I'm trying to be disciplined about the blog, establish hashtag, tweet via tweetdeck to twitter and facebook at the same time structure.

    But I'm wondering what he next outpost is going to be....Its not foursquare...
  • Oh, I only mention above that *I* use Facebook less. I didn't mean that others should. : )
  • christinakatz
    This year I switched to having one Wordpress.org blog be my home base. I am still shutting down pages and outposts that I built in the past that no longer are relevant, like Myspace for example. Switching from having a different homebase for each book plus a main webpage that needed to be continually updated was no longer working for me. My creativity and what I can do with others has skyrocketed this year as a result, as has the amount of time keep up with what's going on in the present. I couldn't even begin to do that before.
  • Sounds excellent, Christina. It's hard to move in and out of bases, but easy to let outposts crumble a bit. : )
  • What does Input: Listening Station mean?
  • Google: "grow bigger ears" and you'll see.
  • Got it!
  • The outposts are collection points for your story, which always ends at the blog. The art is in sprinkling enough interesting thought and engagement out to the collection points, so people want to continue the journey home each time.

    If the content at the blog is too much the same each time as the outpost, they won't bother making the journey over time.

    I have that problem with Posterous, it's being used as a forwarding tool so it's just a mirror for me, but as someone mentioned, it's not bad for optimizing search.
  • Definitely interesting pic, that. I'm with you on the inputs part, but I beg to differ a bit on the outpost part, here.

    I see my thoughts and opinions as the home base. Every single place I share my thoughts...works as my outpost - so the website where I post them/ syndicate them...the print publication I share them with or the people/ gathering I deliver it to. It is merely a delivery mechanism. From an organizational perspective, what they'd like to communicate (about themselves/ their ecosystem) is their outpost. Intelligence or knowledge, that is. How they choose to share it is merely a matter of distribution/ reach.

    Yes, from a pure operational point of view, it helps to funnel stuff into one single home base as you call it, but that seems a bit like worrying about search engine optimization or making sure people know where to find you online. A website was invented with that purpose, many years ago, and I don't think we need to revisit that phase again, given how deeper we've come into, with social technologies.
  • Might be a matter of semantics. I'm mostly just ensuring that the item of most value lands at home base, and that what I think and share in the outposts is useful, but isn't where I'm putting my most value. Reason: I want to preserve what I can.
  • Yes, agree with that. Some times, I feel one of my best thoughts is appended as a comment, on some one else's blog post. In that case, I'm tempted to take that thought out and post it as a blog post on my own, referring the original post too. It sure helps accentuate that thought and get broader feedback...so yes, that home base vs outpost part works.
  • theredheadsaid
    a picture is worth a thousand words! I also like the term "outpost." I help small businesses get on the web and when they ask me "should I be on Facebook" (or other social media) I always advise them YES BE EVERYWHERE but to use their blog as their home base. I agree with your sentiment but there's also a persistence angle - social networks come and go but your blog is yours for the duration. Or as long as you pay domain and hosting fees. ;)
  • allisonsumpter
    Chris,

    I have a question. It's not stated either in this post or the one you reference from 2008, but it seems to be implied that the focus on "input" in the upper part of the diagram means the focus on "outposts" in the lower part of the diagram is to reach out to share your stuff via these tools (in other words, "output"). Is that what you mean? That's how I interpreted it, but I could be misinterpreting. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'd argue that the diagram of reality would be a little different - at least for me.

    I understand the "connect with people" part of the outposts, but I think the diagram should reflect the value of INPUT in the outposts. We talk about listening (from a brand perspective) on these outposts, but what good is listening on outposts if it isn't central to the input, processing and ultimate content for the home base? For me personally, I've learned SO much from outposts that I consider them as a HUGE part of my input. (Granted, many of the outposts send me to links where I absorbed material, but those outposts don't always send me to the home base of the individual communicating with me on the outposts.)

    @Ed commented "If you're adding real value to peoples journey...people will become part of your voice." I would add that at least for me, the people I connect with on outposts become significant contributors to my input and thus the content at my home base.

    What are your thoughts on this? Am I misreading the diagram or misunderstanding the concept?
  • Not exactly. The inputs are one thing. The outposts are connection/collaboration points. So, if I'm getting stuff in, I use it to feed my home base in some way or another. But at the outposts, my goal is to provide value, and then bring them to the home base, should they want more.

    As for Ed, he's right. This is the sharing/retweeting thing.

    The concept above is just a map to where one might focus one's most effort and drive most value.

    Glad to hear from you. : )
  • I like this map. As a relatively new blogger I think it makes complete sense from my experience so far. The "spreading thin" part is particularly interesting and one I'm trying to figure out.
  • This is a great map to complement your Outpost strategy - which by the way I think is one of the best advices for social media, ever.
    But I would think that a better info-graphic would be one that helped visualize the relevance of the input/outpost in terms of time dedicated/expected results for the homebase growth.
  • I'm not an artist any more. : )
  • One question Chris...using this model what would you use a Posterous account for? I don't believe you have an account and maybe that answers the question but could you use it for really small snipits or thoughts or links that you come across during your day? If you do then how do you synthesize down further to Twitter from there? Much like @Matt Sims below my Posterous account mainly acts as a distribution tool with my Blog, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc.

    Is Posterous kind of pointless as an Outpost?
  • Tallulah
    I know this initial question was directed to Chris, but I just ran into this same dilemma using Posterous myself. I once had my Posterous blog autopost pics and liners to my main wordpress blog, but then I disconnected the automation because I found my Posterous site was fast becoming a Photo journal (where I went, what food i liked, etc.) mainly bec. I used my iphone to post while mobile. My wordpress blog posts are usually more lengthy and about PR/Social Media/Music etc. So I just thought they were clashing thematically and aesthetically. Thoughts on this approach? Is this spreading myself thin?

    My Posterous site is also less optimized than my main wordpress blog - my home base - because the Posterous blog, being more casual and random, doesn't have to be that optimized. It exists to record my experiences, but also to provide a fuller picture of me, a better picture of the human behind the medium. In a way it's like a visual twitter - filling in the gaps - but really more for me than anyone else.

    Posterous is great for private group blogs btw, especially if some group members aren't even on Facebook yet. Everyone by now is likely to at least have email. Good entry tool for first time bloggers.

    Hope this helped Paul : ) Thanks for the comment
  • I agree that it is a good entry tool for bloggers but for me I am struggling to write down what would constitute Posterous content. To Chris's point:
    1. I want to keep my blog as the central point "home base"
    2. Twitter is a daily who I am, what I am thinking, seeing, etc (as well as a channel that I push blog content through)
    3. Facebook for me is a personal (non-business) tool
    4. LinkedIn is a tool I use as a channel to non-Twitter business associates but not really as a place I hold dialogue
    5. Flickr is mostly personal for me.

    I was thinking that Posterous would be an in-between site where daily thoughts that were bigger than 140 characters and less than a full blog post could go. I may still go that way but I need some quiet time to really sit down and think this through considering the pull extent of Chris's broader message here. Once I figure it out I think I will do a blog post informing my readers exactly what my diagram and what they can expect from me in what locations.






  • On the one hand, I see how Posterous can help automate posting to your home base blog, as well as allow for lengthier posts than Twitter would allow, but I do wonder about the problem of having to repost your home base blog post onto the posterous site, which further confuses the main function of Posterous in your Social Media activity.

    These were the questions that eventually led me to keep my Posterous more casual: If I use both the Posterous blog and my main blog for more professional/business posts - will I be diverting attention away from either site? Will I have to go through the trouble of reposting my WP blog posts onto my Posterous site just so that both stay consistent? Yes. and Yes. And I guess this is what it means to spread myself too thin. So I kept the content and theme separate to be clear. In case any blog readers want to know what I randomly eat/visit/do when I happen to have my iPhone, they have my Posterous. Hope these questions help somehow.

    Thanks again for the chat.

    T
  • I would use it like an outpost, like liner notes. I don't like Posterous as a replacement home base, but it's fine as somewhere to put a little of your stuff.

    Beware spreading it thin.
  • interesting post
  • I like this visualization a lot. I'd probably be compelled to extend those input channels out further to include specific points of input - particularly those from my Google reader subscriptions. Thanks for this continued content around outposts Chris!
  • Great graphic and ideas. Implementing the home-base concept should be on everybody's To Do List this year!
  • The outposts are collection points for your story, which always ends at the blog. The art is in sprinkling enough interesting thought and engagement out to the collection points, so people want to continue the journey home each time.

    If the content at the blog is too much the same each time as the outpost, they won't bother making the journey over time.

    I have that problem with Posterous, it's being used as a forwarding tool so it's just a mirror for me, but as someone mentioned, it's not bad for optimizing search.

    M
  • michaelbigger
    I like the visual graph. i learn so much reading your blog. Thanks.
  • Ed
    Last year I commented on an "Outposts" post here on ChrisBrogan.com,
    saying: "People are the new outposts".

    The map Chris posted above is a solid example / blueprint
    of being present in 2010.

    But I stand by my old comment; respect the humans
    at each of your water fountains, each place, method, tool
    where you connect with people and they take in your content.

    If you're adding real value to peoples journey, and not just
    clicking 'bookmark to all' with some automated service,
    people will become part of your voice.
    Grateful, enthusiastic people who think to give back
    are your best outposts.
  • Outposts are where I meet the people. : )
  • Interesting. That's a great way to think about how we take in information, process it, and share it.
  • Fantastic illustration and a great post/reminder on effectively building out using SM....thanks Chris
  • I totally agree with this concept. The picture is a great graphic.

    The author of a central site, blog or website, through value content provided in the outpost locations, invites a relationship. As @Mike said, maybe it will be a brief acquaintance. @Alex points out that for the business entrepreneur, longer lasting relationships are the goal and that doesn't happen overnight. It takes an ebb and flow of good content out and receiving response.
  • Great image! Thanks for sharing. You are right about the home base and that is where I have been lacking. I have been using various outposts and not paying too much attention the home base so there is nothing that connects them together.
  • Chris, That is a good image. I wrote on a (very) similar concept meant to show a 3-dimensional view of the social media-eco system with your webstite as the homebase.

    No one paid any attention at all... i'd be interested in getting your feedback on what I may have missed there? Was the 3-d representation too hard to understand? Sorry for the link (not a cheap ploy for visits) but I would really value the feedback of you and your readers. For me it represents one of the many lessons of blogging, that sometimes the things we think are a stroke of brilliance get the least attention, or perhaps delivery is as important as the concept.

    http://www.vsellis.com/social-media/your-social...
  • Thanks so much for sharing that, Scott.
  • Chris, I'll be revising this and making another attempt thanks to the feedback from one of your readers. Hopefully it'll be easier to follow.

    Sidebar, see you in Dallas in a couple weeks. Look forward to meeting you then.
  • Outposts are the local place in the SM ecosystem where readers that won't make the longer journey (or don't have the time this visit) can drop in and say hi. If it's between seeing you at the outpost or not seeing you at all, I much prefer the outpost.
  • Quite well said, MIke. :)
  • Outposts (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, YouTube, and the like) help to direct traffic to my home base, but not sure people stay there. In a recent blog post, I wrote an observation about my readers.

    Readers tend to stay in their community (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc...) and interact with my information there (if applicable). Hence, any visit to the home base is merely to strengthen future engagement in the outpost community. As an example, people who prefer Google Reader, come to the my home base long enough to grab the RSS feed and rarely return. Any engagement is often done withing Google Reader.

    With my Facebook fan page, there is no need to ever visit my home base because I port information out from there into Facebook. Any call to action requested in the post ends up happening in Facebook.

    So, if we know information can come from anywhere and end up in these outpost communities anyway, doesn't that lesson the central value of the home base? Assuming our information continues to make it to the outposts.

    Your thoughts?
  • It's a good observation, Damond. They dip out of their gathering place, the outpost, sample some of your homebase, and then come back. Makes sense, if you think about it. Twitter/Facebook/Whatever is the Commons, and the home base from your perspective, is their side street pub or store.
  • Todd Dewell
    I tend to agree with this. People participate where they are comfortable participating not necessarily at your home base. The home base seems rather useful as a hub to all these different places where interaction can occur .. Twitter, Facebook ....
  • I'm with ya. I also do not understand why so many do not maintain a solid foundation or hub. It's the creative database! And who would try to run a business without a database?

    On a separate matter, I would like for you to dig into the Ecosystem concept in detail one of these days. I majored in Chemistry in college and spent 20 years in the green industry, so I understand science and ecosystems. For some reason I can't get my brain around the social-media ecosystem concept. I was reading Scobleizer's comments on Google's reefs, so I have a sense of his perspective.

    For some reason it still feels too loosy-goosy to me.
  • Jeff - in a nutshell, I'm suggesting that everything touches everything else in some way. We don't tweet over here and do work over there. We don't read stuff here and then pay no attention to this other thing. I'm mostly laying out ways to see and wire the way we interact with it all.

    In other ways, Scoble's reef idea (which is a great analogy), is saying the same around a product ecosystem. To me, I'm more thinking of the non-product perspective of how this all interacts with marketing.
  • Chris - I gotcha. And the truth is you never really know how the touch points will reorganize in the future so you have to respect that it all is inextricably linked.
  • cosguru
    Chris

    The Home base Strategy is always the first thought when leveraging SM. One other thought to is always make sure to "lifestream" is stamped on your home base as well. in other words, use the outposts to spread the voice and once the voice is heard and they are driven back to your home base, give them the option to connect with your other outposts that they may be more involved with.

    For example, X discovers your blog post on a Seesmic link, they are driven back to your blog, once at your blog they discover you have an outpost on Flickr where X enjoys spending most of their time, they follow you there and now X has an opportunity to see your posts on Flickr to bring them back to your home base.

    @cosguru
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  • That's not how I like to do it, actually, but I'll explain why. I don't want to push the flow back out as much as I want the flow to see depth and value. I cross-promote my lifestream elsewhere, but I don't do as much to point it out on the blog.

    Just a perspective, though. Your way is every bit as useful.
  • Chris,
    Great point, but I think there's another angle to mention on the home base, which is search. The ability for a search engine to find you is optimized around this model - an outpost like Twitter is more likely to make the home base page it refer to more findable, than it is to be found itself, as a standalone tweet. Similarly for other mediums.

    You're right though, great (simple) graphic.
  • Want to know my thought? I don't care as much about search engines as I used to. I care about having real hard signposts and then lots of human agents. The truth is, that's what finds me most of my traffic. Google is a VERY low referrer to my site.
  • I wonder what the effect of Facebook, Twitter and You Tube becoming search engines themselves have on the value of the outpost as a primary communication tool? Chris, your insight about Google is really interesting. Do outposts factor into your thinking on how you plan content as they increasingly get used for search?
  • Chris,
    thanks - interesting perspective. I wonder if your experience is easily mapped to most B2B marketers. Two main differences come to mind:

    - your (Chris Brogan's) ideal audience is heavily engaged in the medium you are talking about (ie, you're speaking about social media IN social media) vs speaking about something like silicon chip design; so your outposts are ideal for your audience
    - you have developed a bigger audience/awareness than anyone just starting in social media could hope to in anything less than a few years

    Is your advice for regular B2B marketers to de-prioritize search in a similar way? Or is search just a unique type of outpost?
  • I like using my Posterous blog for smaller quick posts and use my primary blog for longer more thought out posts. Posterous is also a great way to add your commentary to things you find elsewhere on the Net and of course, I link to my main blog from my Posterous blog.
  • Liner notes. Absolutely. As long as you realize that the Posterous part isn't really where you put your value.
  • My take is: you outline this so clearly (and have been so for a few years now.) But, for some reason or another, 'businesses,' and/or marketers fail to see how this is or can be advantageous to them in the long-run. (perhaps it's myopia)

    I think it has to do largely because the results aren't instant. Developing a blog and a network that is helpful to one's business doesn't happen in one day, or one week for that matter.

    Great diagram, probably the only one that my 'right brain' can finally understand.
  • Even if businesses "see" the value.. they are overwhelmed with the idea of managing it all within the scope of their current resources and workflow.

    [sorry to repost this reply. But, I wanted it to be in reply to @alex. When I logged in via Disqus, the system seemed to forget what I wanted to reply to.]
  • Glad your right brain catches it up. : )

    And yes, lots of people fail to see the network for the primary value. Kinda like Avatar.
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