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RIT on TV: SOPA Blackout Reaction

2012-01-19T12:13:00.000-05:00

A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 4 - A Final Check

2012-01-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

It’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the fourth in a series about Facebook.

If you have followed this series then you’re ready to double-check that you’re done.

A Final Checklist

• Changed Facebook to Timeline    Yes     No

• Checked each month and each year’s postings to hide anything inappropriate    Yes     No

• Checked my Privacy Settings    Yes     No

• Sorted my Friends into the appropriate Lists    Yes     No

• Took a look at my Profile as others see it    Yes     No

No? If you want to do this visit your profile and go to "View As …" at the top. Those with Timeline should first click the wheel next to "Activity Log." Enter the name of a close friend, a co-worker or a random acquaintance to make sure no one is seeing too much. Click "public" to see how everyone else sees it.

A Final Warning

Facebook makes changes … a lot! In the past it has added functions and reset privacy settings without making any kind of announcement. So maybe it’s time to set up a regular reminder – monthly, quarterly or, at the very least, annually – to go through this kind of checkup.

As is true on all social media you should use these networks with a "buyer beware attitude." If you’re uncomfortable about something you have three choices, ignore it, turn it off or abandon that social network.

Yes, that last choice is one I’ve made with several social networks in recent years and one I have come very close to making with Facebook. Good luck.

Was this post helpful? Will you check your Facebook settings more regularly in the future?

Related links:
• Facebook Checkup Step 1 - The Timeline
• Facebook Checkup Step 2 - Privacy-Friends
• Facebook Checkup Step 3 - Lists

A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 3 - Friend Lists

2012-01-07T16:40:00.000-05:00

It’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the third in a series about Facebook.

Consider Using the Lists Function

Do you really want to share everything with everyone you’re connected to on Facebook? Probably not.

You can start your control of who sees what in two ways.

First you can go to Lists (on the left side of your home page – where you may have to click on the “More” to see it).Facebook automatically adds some of your friends to lists and suggests dozens of others.

Next, look at "Close Friends." Again, Facebook adds some friends and suggests others.

Then there is a "Family" list where you can choose the people you’d want to share more with. In this case, those you’re adding will be told, so if you don’t want that known, create a new list rather use the one Facebook set up. To do that, click Lists and then Create List.

The thing with Lists: Some people are in multiple groups, others in none. The lists make it easier to share posts with only a subset of Facebook friends or see only posts from specific groups.

Facebook also has a "Restricted" list where you dump those you don’t want to share much with. Facebook promises not to reveal who gets added.

The second way to manage lists is more time-intensive, but can be done any time you’re on Facebook.

When viewing your feed you simply have your cursor hover over a name. This causes a popup mini-profile of that person including a Friends button. Hover over that button and a drop-down menu will give you the option of adding the person to a list or unfriending them.

How to
• Work With Facebook’s Improved Friend Lists
• How To Use The New Facebook Lists (And Why You Should)

Was this post helpful? Will you take the time to organize friends into lists?

Related links:
• Facebook Checkup Step 1 - The Timeline
• Facebook Checkup Step 2 - Privacy-Friends
• Facebook Checkup Step 4 - Final Checkup

A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 2 - Privacy Settings and Friends

2012-01-07T16:32:00.000-05:00

It’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the second in a series about Facebook.

Check your privacy settings

Facebook insists that the pending switch to Timeline for all 800 million of its users will not change any individual’s privacy settings. But this ignores the fact that Timeline will expose everything you’ve ever done on Facebook.

Besides, when was the last time you checked your privacy settings? Do you know what your current privacy settings are?

Given Facebook’s troubled history with privacy – since 2009 Facebook has automatically reset users’ privacy settings to public at least four times – now is a great time to check them. (You can click on the "Facebook on Privacy" link below or on your Facebook page go to the pull-down menu on the top right of your Profile page and select Privacy Settings.)

And while you are considering your privacy you might also reconsider your definition of a "friend" – because even if your privacy settings remain the same, your list of friends likely continues to grow.

This probably means your definition of a "friend" has grown over the years and now includes such people as parents, bosses and random people you met at a conference. Someone you didn't know in 2008 would suddenly have easier access to something you posted then.

This might be a good time to open up your friends list and do some pruning. A friend’s ex-wife? A sibling’s friend in another state/country? An acquaintance who has 2,000 friends and never interacts with any of them? It’s time to tidy up that list. And don’t worry: Facebook doesn’t alert the people you drop.

How to:
• Understand Facebook Privacy
• Adjust Important Privacy Settings
• Decide Who Sees What on Your Wall

Was this post helpful? Do you keep up with your privacy settings? Will you be doing it more regularly now?

Related links:
• Facebook Checkup Step 1 - The Timeline
• Facebook Checkup Step 3 - Lists
• Facebook Checkup Step 4 - Final Checkup

A New Year Checkup – Facebook: Step 1 - The Timeline

2012-01-07T16:23:00.000-05:00

It’s a new year and it’s time for social media types to be more conscientious about their social outposts. As part of a focus on social media strategy this is the first in a series about Facebook.

Get ready for Timeline

First, consider whether you want to stay on Facebook once Timeline becomes the default way you interact on Facebook. Some privacy advocates are now concerned that the new Timeline will allow Facebook even more access to your information and will then share that data with others (businesses). For example the Electronic Privacy Information Center has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission outlining its concerns that Timeline violates the 2011 agreement between Facebook and the FTC on user privacy.

But if you aren’t ready to bail on Facebook yet you need to understand that sooner or later you will be on Timeline and how it will affect the information others will see on Facebook.

Timeline gives a much more personalized presentation of information, with a large photograph at top and a timeline of all your Facebook updates – a virtual scrapbook of your Facebook life. On the upside, users can fill in missing moments from birth until present day. On the downside, every update, every photograph you’ve placed on Facebook or been tagged in and every ill-considered or likely-to-be-taken-out-of-context moment is there.

That’s why you need to spend some time today, or at least this week, switching to Timeline (see links below) and looking through your Facebook history.

Once you switch to Timeline only you will see your profile in this new way for seven days. This grace period allows you to hide or delete material that you don’t want the world to see. For example, I’m not very active on Facebook, but in 3-plus years I had made several comments that, taken the wrong way and out of context, could seem unkind, rude or worse. They are now gone from public view.

It’s an irony that Timeline is really Facebook’s acknowledgement that it has been saving much of your data, even after you delete it. If this is a big concern for you … remember, you can always leave Facebook.

How to:
• Enable Timeline With One Click
• Decide How to Set It Up; What to Do and What to Avoid

Was this post helpful? What has been your experience with Timeline?

Related links:
• Facebook Checkup Step 2 - Privacy-Friends
• Facebook Checkup Step 3 - Lists
• Facebook Checkup Step 4 - Final Checkup

A social media - Twas the night before Christmas…

2011-12-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

Twas the night before Christmas,when all through the house

The only thing stirring was theclick of a mouse;

The stockings were hung by thechimney with care,

In hopes that social media St.Nick soon would be there;

The children and adults werenestled in beds,

While visions of Facebook dancedin their heads;

Would mentions of iPad on Twitterbe met

With stockings stuffed withtablets once hard to get?

Would discussions of smartphonesfor using Linkedin,

Bring gifts of devices with keyboards,but thin?

Would plus-oneing that post aboutthe spirit of Christmas

Help earn us the gifts we circledon Google+?

Would favoriting a YouTube video aboutChristmas afar

Help to deliver that coveted DVR?

No, it seems good old Santa maybe unaware

Of our postings to networks bothhere and there

What his spirit seems to sayabout material needs:

Christmas is not about you, but aboutyour real deeds

So as you sit with loved onesperhaps by a fire

Consider again your real social mediadesire

Is it followers, friends, businessleads or even money?

Or is it helping others, givingoften … even being funny?

You see giving is easy on socialnetworks – they’re free

You really have no excuse not togive … times three

Next time you sit down to networkor share

Tweet, share, like – but makesure that you care

Because the true Christmasmiracle is giving not getting

Be sure to give more than you getin a social setting

Spreading goodwill in deed both bigand small

Will help spread the spirit ofsocial Christmas to all

Merry Christmas and goodwill to all!

Coal For These 11 Social Media Fails In 2011

2011-12-20T15:24:00.001-05:00

I recently guest-posted for Butler/Till's Media Mosaic blog on who in social media should be getting lumps of coal for this holiday season...

I’m not Santa, although I have played him once or twice for various events. But it’s that time of year and while many social media platforms and events from the past year rightly deserve gifts and thanks there are those who absolutely deserve coal.

Here are my 11 social media tools, networks and “celebrities” who each get a lump of coal for their troubles in 2011.

To read the full post, go to Coal For These Social Media Fails In 2011

10 Rules for the Workplace (That Just Might Help in Social Media and the Rest of Life)

2011-12-14T08:54:00.000-05:00

This week marks 34 years since I started my first full-time job (and more than 40 years since I started part-time work).

While thinking about that time I realized that I’ve developed some internal “rules” about working that might equally apply to my time on social media and, in fact, life in general.

I don’t know that working in 11 jobs across four countries and five time zones gives me any special qualifications for this, but I feel compelled to share it.

Therefore, here are my 10 Rules for the Workplace (That Just Might Help in Social Media and the Rest of Life) – I hope one or more prove useful to you:

1. Having fun is essential: There are always deadlines and pressures to get things done so if you’re not having at least little fun why are you doing it? If you can find ways to inject extra fun into your work you and those around you will benefit.

2. As much as is possible, get along with everyone: Work (and life) places us in situations where we must be with people we don’t agree with or would avoid at any other time, but be there we must. And because you never know when that person you don’t see eye-to-eye with may need to “have your back” a best practice is to find a way to get along with them.

3. Say what you mean and mean what you say: Double dealing and insincerity are toxic fumes. If you play it straight – you win; it’s that simple. Rarely this truthfulness will cost you something, but over time those small costs will be outweighed by bigger rewards.

4. Be helpful and giving: No matter where you are on the workplace ladder or the journey of life there are always those above and below you – and the more you can help others get what they need and want the more your stock will rise too.

5. Always do more than is expected: You may not be the smartest person in the room or on the network, but you can always be the hardest working – and many times effort is more valuable than smarts.

6. Be able to take criticism: Getting feedback from others is always a good thing and you can always dismiss any that isn’t relevant. But over time I’ve learned that inside even the most off-the-wall criticisms there usually lurks a truth.

7. Separate the work from the person: When critiquing the efforts of others be able to separate what they do from who they are. Just as someone’s work does not define them as a person neither does what someone posts to a social network fully define them.

8. Avoid small-minded people: The gossips, the mean-spirited, the thin-skinned and the trivialists are out there; don’t let them infect you and your efforts.

9. Be willing (and able) to fire someone: Sometimes the best thing for you and what you do is to fire someone else. It’s never easy, but over time I’ve seen that if it is done for honest (and not petty) reasons it leads to a greater good for everyone.

10. Live more; work less: It will always be true, no matter how much you work, when you reflect on your past it is unlikely that your work will define your life. Therefore find ways to live more fully in the real world – experiences there are the ones that make the warmest memories.

I hope this helps someone entering the workplace or someone reassessing their work lives. Equally I hope these guidelines might also help people figuring out their place in social media. What do you think? Are there things I’m forgetting?

Does Klout have a PR crisis?

2011-11-03T14:44:00.018-04:00

With all the buzz in the past week on social media about the change in the Klout Score algorithm you might be wondering if Klout has a public relations crisis on its hands.

Seemingly across the social-sphere people who had come to place value on their Klout Score were upset that the scores had dropped suddenly - in some cases significantly. (For some background see Klout Changes ... Scores Drop and Complaints Rise)

Curious about whether Klout was facing a PR crisis I turned to my friend Jim Reynolds, the Strategic Accounts Manager, Social Media Solutions at Alterian - a company that among other things offers SM2 , a social media sentiment monitoring tool.

He ran the reports and, in a nutshell, Klout has upset a relatively small, although possibly influential, cadre of its users.

The details

Jim pulled reports for the time period Oct. 20 through Nov. 1 that focused on the term "Klout Score" to examine such things as total searches, sentiment and where the conversations were taking place.

First he looked at total searches. There was a big spike in searched on Oct. 26 and 27 (the day the change was implemented and the day after that). But by Oct. 28 it was down to half of the peak and by Oct. 29 searches were back to normal levels.

Then Jim examined sentiment. He and I were surprised to see that in the timeframe of this report almost 79 percent of the mentions were neutral, almost 11 percent were very negative and almost 10 percent were very positive.

Next up was a look at the number of searches by day. During the spike in search Oct. 26 and 27 the numbers of neutral, very negative and very positive results mirror the above sentiment rankings and the total number of searches (around 7,000 per day at the peak) are what Jim described as "a lot for Klout, but not a lot for a brand." He cited Home Depot, which typically gets more than 8,000 every day.

Then he looked at which countries might be seeing the most interest in the topic and hands down it was in the United States with more than 30,000 results. By contrast, the next highest total was that of Canada where there were 1,213 results.

Conclusion

I asked Jim for his expert opinion as to what all of this means for Klout.

"It’s a lot of people in social media talking about something in social media," he said, going on to say this this is unlikely to be a PR crisis for Klout.

In terms of sentiment Klout has a relatively small percentage of a relatively small group who were "extremely negative."

The hard thing to judge, according to Jim, is how much influence or reach the individuals making "extremely negative" comments might be. Given their relative small numbers and their relatively short-lived interest Jim thinks Klout will be OK.

So, what do you think? Was all the discussion around the change to the Klout Score just a "tempest in a teacup" or will there be public relations consequences for Klout in the future?

Possibly related posts
Klout changes ... scores drop and complaints rise
Klout questions for CEO Joe Fernandez
Klout responds to questions and critics

Klout responds to questions and critics

2011-10-29T07:36:00.007-04:00

Questions and criticisms have been swirling around the changes to the Klout Score this past week. I decided to post some questions to Joe Fernandez, CEO of Klout. He was traveling so Megan Berry, Marketing Manager at Klout agreed to step in and answer on behalf of Klout.

Her response is below. It arrived Friday (24 hours after she offered to answer the questions) by email and as a comment – cited here - on a previous blog:

Hey Mike,

As I mentioned, I was getting you the responses to these questions. I was in the process of drafting them when I saw this post so I sent them to you in email just now and I'll also post here:

1. Some of the criticisms of the new Klout are that it is not transparent enough. In other words you made changes that altered scores in some case by 20 points, but have not given explanations about why those changes were so dramatic. What do you say to this criticism?
Hey Mike, we announced the upcoming changes the week before with Joe's post on why we believe the change was needed and we also had a post on the day of announcement explaining the changes. As you know as someone in the field, social media is constantly evolving and as a measure of your influence there, we need to evolve as well.

2. A quick, early analysis seems to show that those who have linked all of the accounts Klout currently allows users to connect have kept their scores relatively the same or now have higher scores. This would seem to penalize, for example, non-iPhone owners who cannot have an Instagram account of those who blog on something other than Tumblr or Wordpress. Your response?
Hey Mike, we measure influence equally independent of network. Lady Gaga, for instance (http://klout.com/#/ladygaga), is only measured based on Twitter and has one of our highest Scores. You do not need to connect multiple networks to have influence but if you do influence on a network, it will help you to connect it (we can then give you credit for that influence).

3. One of the themes in the criticisms is that there could have been an “old Klout” and a “new Klout” or “Klout+” as a way to allow users to decide how serious they wanted to be about their score. Your reaction?
Hey Mike, do you mean letting people choose which scoring system they want to use? Technologically it takes a lot of infrastructure to process 3 Billion pieces of content and connections daily so apart from any other concerns having 2 pipelines isn't feasible in the long term. We are always looking to move forward and improve, we think once people look at these scores in context and get a chance to see the improvements they will grow to like them.

4. Another prevalent criticism: It seems the new Klout Score penalizes people who are genuinely involved with others on social media regardless of their influence scores versus those who are selective and only “talk” to high influencers. This seems to encourage a new form of social media class snobbery. What are your thoughts?
You are never penalized for talking to people with lower scores. We believe * everyone * has Klout and anytime someone takes action based on your content that adds to your influence. Yes, if they have a higher score, that adds to your influence *more * but either way we give you credit for that and you are never penalized.

5. Twitter and Google+ have been full of people saying they have or will rescind permissions for Klout in protest, the *OccupyKlout and *KloutPout hashtags have cropped up. Can Klout survive and thrive this reaction to what you consider a big improvement?
We definitely are working to listen to feedback and are always improving. We believe once people get a chance to interact with our new scoring system they will grow to understand its improvements.

So, how did Megan do? Did she answer the questions you have?

Related posts:
Klout questions for CEO Joe Fernandez
Klout changes ... scores drop and complaints rise

Klout questions for CEO Joe Fernandez

2011-10-28T07:41:00.007-04:00

Joe Fernandez,
CEO
Klout

Dear Joe,

So the changes at Klout Wednesday, I’m sure, have made for some exciting if not exhausting days at Klout. And, as I’m sure you are aware they have caused some people to get upset. I have followed Klout with interest since the beginning and feel compelled to chronicle these changes and the reaction to them.

I blogged Wednesday about the changes to Klout and how hard it might be for some to accept them. Now it occurs to me that a lot of criticism of the changes might be "cut off at the pass," as they say, if you were to publicly answer a few questions.

Before beginning my college teaching career I was in journalism for 26 years and so I’d like to offer you the chance to answer these few questions and then I will undertake to publish them with the answers in a Q&A format today. ….

The questions are below. Thank you for your time.

1. Some of the criticisms of the new Klout are that it is not transparent enough. In other words you made changes that altered scores in some case by 20 points, but have not given explanations about why those changes were so dramatic. What do you say to this criticism?

2. A quick, early analysis seems to show that those who have linked all of the accounts Klout currently allows users to connect have kept their scores relatively the same or now have higher scores. This would seem to penalize, for example, non-iPhone owners who cannot have an Instagram account of those who blog on something other than Tumblr or Wordpress. Your response?

3. One of the themes in the criticisms is that there could have been an "old Klout" and a "new Klout" or “Klout+” as a way to allow users to decide how serious they wanted to be about their score. Your reaction?

4. Another prevalent criticism: It seems the new Klout Score penalizes people who are genuinely involved with others on social media regardless of their influence scores versus those who are selective and only “talk” to high influencers. This seems to encourage a new form of social media class snobbery. What are your thoughts?

5. Twitter and Google+ have been full of people saying they have or will rescind permissions for Klout in protest, the #OccupyKlout and #KloutPout hashtags have cropped up. Can Klout survive and thrive this reaction to what you consider a big improvement?

NOTE: I did get a response from Megan Berry, Marketing Manager at Klout saying Joe Fernandez is travekling and could she answer my questions. I said "yes, of course." Since then? Crickets.

Now I’m sure everyone at Klout is extremely busy right now, but shouldn’t someone be answering these questions? Somewhere public?

So, what do you think? Should Joe, or someone else from Klout respond to these questions and others the Klout community has?

Klout changes ... scores drop and complaints rise

2011-10-26T15:40:00.003-04:00

Klout, the online social media influence rating service, made some big changes today that are sure to have people talking.

The changes, earlier described by Klout CEO Joe Fernandez as a "the biggest improvement to the Klout Score in our history" are likely to tweak many who use the service.

"This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history," says Ash Rust, Director of Ranking at Klout on the official Klout blog.

The changes include a more-detailed look on the Profile and Dashboard pages.

What’s the biggest change for most people? Officially, the Klout line is that scores will now be easier to understand. Unofficially many have seen their scores fall – in some cases significantly. Although Rust says this won’t be the case:

"A majority of users will see their Scores stay the same or go up but some users will see a drop," he says on the Klout blog.

But a quick check of the comments at the bottom of that blog post and comments on the Mashable story about the same subject indicate many scores dropped and some dropped significantly.

My favorite comment? From someone called Dolpher:

"I think Klout just pulled a Netflix... Most people have experienced big drops. Any bit of insight into human psychology would state that in general people do not like to see their 'worth' drop sign..."

Another … this from Peter Alderliesten:

"Some scores seem not to have been influenced at all, others seem to be totally 'devastated'. To keep faith/trust in this scoring algorithm, I think Klout should explain the scoring system more fully. Transparancy maybe? "

As with all change it won’t be easy for users to accept. The big question is this: Will the changes stick? In other words will people stay with a service that just knocked them down a few – or in some cases many – pegs?

What do you think?

Tone deaf in social media?

2011-10-25T19:39:00.010-04:00

Is tone deafness in social media a growing (or ongoing) problem? I would argue "yes" based on some examples I’ve seen recently.

The online Merriam Webster dictionary defines tone deaf as a noun meaning "relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch."

This sounds (pun intended) to me just like a description of some folks who operate in social media apparently oblivious to the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) messages they are sending.

Three examples I’ve seen in the past week:

• A teacher comments on a student’s video that has been shared on their program-related Facebook page saying, among other things that the video is “dumb.” Forget that the teacher seems to have missed the point that the video was meant to be a light-hearted spoof and just think about how the student must now feel after this public comment.
Bottomline: The teacher, for all to see, seems to be publicly putting down a student.

• An editor of a community newspaper asks via Twitter if the newspaper should publish graphic photos of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi after he has been killed. In the tweet there is a link to those graphic photos. Forget that this is being asked at least 18 hours before anyone could see these images in print and that anyone who wants to (or doesn’t want to) see them can’t avoid them on online news websites and such sites as Google News.
Bottomline: The editor seems unaware that publishing a link to graphic images on Twitter is, in fact, a form of publishing.

• At a conference a professor talks about how growing social influence is important for individuals and businesses and admits that he demands students friend him on Facebook before they graduate otherwise he may be unwilling to help them later. Forget that anyone at the conference can look at his presences on Facebook and Twitter, for example, and see that he has relatively small circles of followers and friends.
Bottomline: The professor seems unaware that any claims about influence in social media are easily checked.

Of course it's easy to point up the deficiencies in others when I know I have my own – including not always responding in a timely manner and not always following back or accepting connection requests from everyone and anyone.

But am I wrong about this? Is social media really that hard to figure out? Folks, whatever you say on a social network can and will be seen by others … be smart.

What do you think?

Who in social media will step up and do this good thing?

2011-09-22T09:05:00.004-04:00

Today I heard about a small book that could change the world and my first thought was how could social media play a role in getting people to read it?

The book, Time for Outrage: Indignez-vous! is by Stephane Hessel (pictured), a former World War II French resistance fighter and has sold nearly 2 million copies in France and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Now it is for sale in the United States.

It was while listening to a report about the book on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition that I got the idea: I would love to buy 10 copies of this book and get them into the hands of people under 30.

But how could I do this? Why social media of course.

So here is the challenge: I am challenging all of you in social media with large numbers of followers to find one among you who will set up a web site where people like me can buy copies of the book (it lists for $8 hardback on Amazon.com) and then ensure through a third party (perhaps Amazon) that those books get into the hands of people under 30.

Come on Lady Gaga, Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres, Shaquille O’Neal … you or someone like you has the resources to create such a site and make this happen (and I’d be glad to help!).

Why is this important? This is what the author, Hessel, says:

"If you want to be a real human being — a real woman, a real man — you cannot tolerate things which put you to indignation, to outrage," he says. "You must stand up. I always say to people, 'Look around; look at what makes you unhappy, what makes you furious and then engage yourself in some action.' "

So, can social media make this happen? Please help by spreading the word. I will buy the first 10 copies.

Can we make this work?

Image of Stephane Hessel from Wave magazine

The 7 Deadly Sins on Twitter

2011-08-29T10:18:00.002-04:00

If you’re new to Twitter or been on it for a while and wonder what will kill any social media strategy you may have involving the 140-character service think about this: It may be that you’re committing one of the seven deadly sins of Twitter!

Anger: How often do you see people saying something out of anger on Twitter and you just know they will regret it? If you are feeling angry go for a walk or find a punching bag and leave Twitter out of it.

Greed: This shows up when tweeps are greedy with others’ time (tweeting too much in too short a time) or following too many people in hopes that some will follow back and build their follower numbers. The old saying that "the more you want something, the more it eludes you" is true on Twitter too!

Laziness: People who auto-tweet and don’t engage (respond to questions and/or thank others’ kindness on Twitter) are usually easy to spot … and as a result they do not build communities of value.

Pride: Words on a screen can so easily be misinterpreted without the visual or audio cues we get from other forms of communication. Tweeps who fly off the handle at a perceived slight are victims of pride and likely revealing a lot more about themselves than they realize. If you always assume good intent until undeniable evidence to the contrary you will do fine on Twitter.

Desire: This manifests itself in Twitter users who are too anxious to achieve their goals on the network and spend a lot of time pursuing them oblivious to what is happening around them on Twitter. This narcissism is rarely rewarded.

Envy: This is one of the ugliest sins and shows up when a Tweep decides to use Twitter to tear down another Tweep (usually someone with more standing on the network). If you’re turning green with envy over how well others are doing on Twitter learn from them – don’t attack them.

Voracity: The "voracious" Tweep is that person who retweets (RTs) and comments indiscriminately – usually dozens of times in a short time period. For 10-30 minutes at a time Twitter is, in their minds, all about them.

So, does this list capture the main sins of Twitter? I’m sure there are others you’ve seen if you’ve been in social media for any length of time. Please share them here I’d love to write a follow up post on this.

Possibly related posts:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
10 Reasons I won’t follow you on Twitter

How to evaluate a social media conference

2011-08-17T06:07:00.003-04:00

This is the second of two posts on how to find a social media conference and then having found one how to assess its merits. Full disclosure: I am an organizer of a conference at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology on Sept. 29 called the Social Media and Communication Symposium. To avoid seeming self-serving I will not specifically reference that event here.

You’ve found a couple of social media conferences that look interesting and you’re ready to take your social media strategy to the next level. But how do you decide which conference is right for you AND a good deal?

It comes down to three things:

Cost

When considering cost it’s a good idea to add up all of the costs:

• The ticket price: This is somewhat obvious and if you have an unlimited conference or training budget may not be a concern, but for most of us …

• Other bills: Travel, hotels and meals can add up fast. Is the conference local or nearby? Will it require several nights at a hotel?

• Opportunity cost: This is trickier, but you need to know: What business am I not conducting while at a conference? Will what I learn there outweigh any income I lost while away from my business?

Quality

As you assess the quality of an event there are several things you should do:

• Ask your network: Check with others who have attended the event before. Did they like it or did they love it? Would they drop everything to go again?

• Check the footprint: Just how often do the presenters speak at conferences? Get quoted by industry media? Or, how often have they presented in the past 12 months? All of these things will give you a sense of whether the speakers are a big deal or not.

• Score the presenters: Using a tool such as Klout will help you find the range of their scores (which measures how influential they are in social media and to some extent how active they are). A recent comparison of two conferences I looked at found one charging $375 per ticket with an average Klout score of 41 and another charging one-tenth of that with an average Klout score of 59. Joe Fernandez, CEO of Klout obviously believes a Klout score is a great starting point for evaluating speakers for a conference, "but I'd encourage you to also check their influential topics on Klout and who they're influenced by. That will give you a more holistic sense of their influence and expertise."

Value

What are you looking to get from the conference? Here are some things that may tip the scales one way or the other:

• Networking: Conferences aren’t just about hearing from experts they’re also opportunities to connect with people you may only know via social media or not at all. What will the quality of the audience be at your desired events? How relevant is their background and experience? Ask others who’ve been to conferences organized by the same company for insight on this.

• Stepping stones: Do the events you’re looking at fit into where you are right now and where you want to get in social media? It makes no sense to go to a beginners’ conference if you’re well beyond that and vice versa.

• Continuing ed.: Will there be follow-up opportunities to learn from the people you hear from at the conference? How likely is it that what you take away from the conference can lead to even more learning? Again, check with others who have attended before. Did the learning and growing continue after the conference or was it “one-and-done?”

So, there you have it: A few ideas to help you assess any social media conference you may be interested in. What do you think? Are there other considerations?

Previous post: Social media conferences: How to find them

Social media conferences: How to find them

2011-08-15T13:04:00.005-04:00

This is the first of two posts on how to find a social media conference and then having found one how to assess its merits. Full disclosure: I am an organizer of a conference at the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology on Sept. 29 called the Social Media and Communication Symposium. To avoid seeming self-serving I will not specifically reference that event here.

Keeping up with changes in social media and social media strategy can be daunting. So what better way to hear from some leaders in the field than at a social media conference?

But how do you find a conference that might meet your needs? Sadly there is no one catch-all place to find social media conferences.

One site that does list upcoming social media events is Mashable and its listing of upcoming events. But, as good as it can be it does not appear to be posted on a regular schedule.

So here is what I’m sure is an incomplete starter list of social media conferences. Please feel free to add others in the comments area below and I will update this post as I can:

140 Characters Conference: A yearly conference founded by Jeff Pulver that gathers leaders in the tech industry to discuss Twitter and the real-time Internet. In dozens of 10- to 20-minute addresses, conference speakers cover topics about how Twitter influences the world and Twitter's effects on various industries.

Blog World & New Media Expo: This event includes a Social Media Business Summit and claims it is the world’s largest social media business conference. It says it features social media thought leaders and corporate pros.

Corporate Social Media Summit: This event, organized by Useful Social Media offers "best practice examples and in-depth case studies from some of the leading companies using social media today – Adobe, Dell, SAP, AT&T, Best Buy, the Coca Cola Company." It also offers recordings for a fee.

Social Crush: A two-day, hands-on, interactive social media business conference with a lineup that changes by event, but has recently included speakers and trainers from Twitter, HubSpot, Foursquare, Edelman Digital, Hashable, SayItSocial and PRNewswire.

Social Fresh: A one-day social media conference for marketing professionals that features, according to its site, "case studies, group discussion and learning, instruction and drilling down on topics."

Social Media Plus: A one and one-half day, three-event conference featuring in-depth workshops and expo and 21 seminars led by "marketing directors, technology professionals and social media experts, telling you how they have used social media to build brand, interact with customers and generate revenue. "

Social Media Strategies Summit:
A three-day event where, according to the website: "Attendee’s will learn how to best utilize and integrate the myriad social media platforms to engage customers directly at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. … Through presentations, case studies and workshops presenters will provide attendees with the skills needed to attract and engage quality customers."

Ragan Communications: This company offers numerous social media-related conferences and online learning opportunities (often with a public relations focus). As someone who has attended Ragan events I can only say that, although expensive, they are very much worth it in terms of the quality of the program and the speakers.

SXSW-Interactive: The “Big Kahuna” of social media events with literally too many venues and too many panels and presentations for one person to take in. Best attended by small teams who split their time and share what they learned. It should be every person in social media’s goal to attend this event at least once, if not every year!

Online:

Social Media Success Summit: This entirely online "conference" features 24 social media speakers and thinkers and runs over a three-week period. The sessions are live online and also available taped if the timing is not good for you. This may be a good solution if taking time away from your job or home is impractical.

So there it is. My incomplete, I’m pretty sure, and possibly biased short list of social media conferences. I hope it helps you chart your next learning opportunities in social media and social media strategy.

What did I leave out? Please comment below.

NEXT: How to evaluate a social media conference

12 Tools to Measure Social Influence (Maybe)

2011-07-31T15:24:00.007-04:00

Social media influence is a bit like oxygen – we "know" its there and we know in some sense that it is essential for “life” if we’re in marketing, advertising or public relations, but can we capture it in a jar and observe it? No. Well, at least not entirely.

Any number of tools – freely available on the Web – purport to tell us our overall social media influence or at least a slice of it (a la Twitter).

While none is perfect or complete yet, using a combination of them can prove useful.

Here then is a roundup of tools that measure influence in the social web:

Broad social web tools

Klout: Klout currently track a user’s Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Foursquare activity. It is reportedly looking at Google+ integration. From the Klout blog: "We think you are influential. Klout isn’t about figuring out who is on the 'A-list.' We believe that every person who creates content has influence. Our mission is to help every individual understand and leverage their influence."

PeerIndex: How PeerIndex describes what it measures: "PeerIndex: a measure of your online social capital. Topic fingerprint: a snapshot of what you talk about. Topic resonance: how much other people find what you share valuable. Comparisons: compare yourself to your friends and peers. "

Twentyfeet: What Twentyfeet says it offers: "Aggregated stats in one place. Your overview of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, bit.ly, Google Analytics, Myspace and more. See how your key performance indicators develop over time. We nudge you when your metrics change significantly."

Empire Avenue: From the home page: "Invest your social capital in people and brands for free using virtual currency" and "Engage and expand your social networks, and learn how to use social media more effectively." Whether a virtual stock exchange and virtual currency truly relates to social standing is still hotly debated on the web.

WhoSay: This invite-only service says this about itself: "WhoSay is a service that helps artists, athletes and iconic personalities connect with their fans. When you see someone posting via WhoSay, you'll know that it's real, authentic messages, photos and videos coming from your favorite people…. As a fan, you may arrive at your favorite artist's, athlete's or personality's WhoSay page by visiting their existing social media sites." In other words, just being here means you likely have influence.

PostRank : This service says it "tracks where and how users engage, and what they pay attention to — in real-time." PostRank says it measures user activity, "the most accurate indicator of the relevance and influence of a site, story, or author." By using Postrank, in a sense, you’re advertising your social popularity so brands can connect with you.

Influencer Exchange: Appinions: From the website: "For any user defined topic, brand or issue, the Influencer Exchange helps you discover, identify, engage and monitor the leading influencers. Leveraging the power of opinions, the Influencer Exchange embraces the Web, social media, forums and news articles to provide a comprehensive view of the influencer landscape."

Twitter tools

Tweetlevel: From the How To Use page: "TweetLevel is a purpose built tool for PR and marketing to help ensure brands use Twitter effectively." From the About page: "This tool will be in permanent beta as we seek to continually improve its functionality based upon your feedback. Even though we believe that it goes a great way to understand and quantify the varying importance of different people's usage of Twitter, by no means whatsoever do we believe we have fully solved the 'influence' problem.”

Twitalyzer: Twitalyzer looks at who is in your social network and, mostly for a variety of fees will give you data across at more than 25 metrics. From the site’s Benchmarks page: "Twitalyzer's Benchmark report allows you to generate ranked lists of Twitter users based on their stated location and the tags that have been applied to their profile."

TweetGrader (formerly TwitterGrader): A site that allows users to see how they compare to hundreds of thousands of other Twitter users, see how they rank in their geographic area, track Follower history and a Quick Follower Check to see if another Twitter user is following you.

Twitaholic: "How's this work? Our Twit-tastic robots scan Twitter a few times a day to determine who’s the biggest twit." Enter your Twitter account name to get your ranking on Twitter (by followers) and by location. This site also encourages you to click through to Twitter Counter.

Twitter Counter: From the site: "Twitter Counter provides statistics of Twitter usage and tracks over 14 million users and counting." Once you’ve entered your Twitter name you can compare your states with two other users.

Possibly related posts:
Do You Care About Influence Scores?
2011: The Year of Klout

Do You Care About Influence Scores?

2011-07-27T15:10:00.005-04:00

I WILL influence you! Wouldn’t social media be turned on its head if simply stating this made it so?

Well, to read some of the debates about social media and influence (and in particular about tools that claim to measure influence) you might think that the whole concept of influence is new and somehow unique to the social web.

But in reality influence (and here I use the term in the sense as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as "the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible way") has always existed. It’s just that in the open, transparent social web there are now many ways to attempt to measure that influence.

Tools such as Klout, PeerIndex, Hubspot’s Grader tools, Tweetlevel and EmpireAvenue can all lay claim to measuring some of our digital footprints across the social web and how those footprints may (or may not) influence others to follow our lead or otherwise act.

The mere availability of these tools is not what is getting folks riled up. No, it’s that some people are publicly admitting to using these tools to make potentially life-changing decisions such as hiring or business relationships.

And this leaves me, Dear Reader, with a dilemma when it comes to advising college students: Should they or should they not pay attention to these scores?

Adding to the debate/confusion/concern are a number of recent writings:

For example, Stephanie Rosenbloom in her New York Times June 25 piece Got Twitter? You’ve Been Scored Begins with: "Imagine a world in which we are assigned a number that indicates how influential we are…. This is not science fiction. It’s happening to millions of social network users. "

It goes on to quote Azeem Azhar, chief executive of PeerIndex: "We’re at the start of this journey and we expect the journey to take us into much more nuance and granularity."

It then quotes Mark Schaefer of Schaefer Marketing expressing concern "that we are moving closer to creating social media caste systems, where people with high scores get preferential treatment by retailers, prospective employers, even prospective dates."

Then Schaefer, a social media commentator and adjunct professor of marketing at Rutgers University stirred things up with his July 20 blog post The making of a social media slut where he worries that "An algorithmic measure of influence can never tell the whole story, but it seems that it is starting to become a quick and easy indicator of … something."

The blog is worth a read for its rumination on what the scoring of social presence might mean. But what’s particularly worthy of a read are the comments which, range from "Wow. I feel like I'm back in high school and trying to fit in with the "cool kids" to "If any of those kids had sent me a Klout score, they would have gotten the job."

The debate got so hot-and-heavy that Schaefer felt he needed to comment on his own blog a few days later. His comments are insightful:

"One of the common responses in the comments is that Klout is flawed and even stupid. I can imagine a similar reaction from people who went to see the first silent movies. "This is stupid. The people don't even talk." Similarly, social scoring is in the silent movie era. Klout has millions in VC money and a dozen PhD researchers figuring this out. It is going to get more accurate, more meaningful every day. I'm not defending any company in the field. I'm simply offering a suggestion to be aware of the TREND, not the data point."

Then on July 26 social media author and internationally known speaker Chris Brogan weighed in with his blog post Influencers where he first advises: "Please stop worrying about your Klout score, or your stock price on Empire Avenue and on all kinds of other measures that don’t have much to do with anything related to your real world."

Before refining his point in answer to a comment: "It's like that line in the Social Network: a million dollars isn't cool; a BILLION dollars is cool. Or however they said it. To me, having a high Klout score isn't cool; having the ear of important people that shift things is cool. : )"

Again a comment war raged on this blog – and is worth a read.

So where does this leave me in terms of advising students?

I think I have to come down on the side of: "Be aware of these tools and what they say about you, but don’t spend your days trying to game the system and raise your scores."

So what do you think? Has social media evolved to the point where measuring each other’s activities with a numeric score makes business or hiring sense?

Possibly related post:
2011: The Year of Klout

2011: The Year of Klout

2011-07-23T16:33:00.012-04:00

Got Klout? In social media 2011 is turning out to be the Year of Klout.

The service that began in September, 2009 has rocketed to the front of the pack of tools that attempt to measure overall influence across social platforms.

So what is Klout? It takes social network data and measures the likelihood that each user’s connections will act upon anything that user shares on their networks and then calculates the influence of those connections and their ability to cause actions. In other words it tracks online influence and gives each user a ranking on a scale of 1 to 100.

Initially Klout measured its users’ Twitter and Facebook influence, but 2011 has seen some big changes:

Early 2011: Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome offer add-ons: This allows users of these two browsers to instantly see the Klout score of all the people in their Twitter stream.

May, 2011: Launched a new section on the Klout website highlighting Klout Perks. According to the company’s blog: "Klout Perks are exclusive offers or experiences, given as a result of your Klout. Perks allow brands to connect with influencers in their area of expertise."

Jun 1: Introduced +K: This is a way, as Klout explains on its blog, to augment the data captured by Klout. The tool lets Klout users vouch for their peers’ influence in topics Klout has associated with each user.

June 14: Added Linkedin data to the influence score because with 100 million users of the professional network Klout said it believed adding Linkedin would make for a more accurate overall score.

July 12: Announced its data is in high demand: Klout says that it served more than two billion API calls in the month of June – or four times the demand of three months prior. This means large numbers of services are now seeing value in pulling Klout data.

July 14: Announces that Foursquare is now integrated into Klout scoring. According to a Mashable interview with Klout CEO Joe Fernandez adding Foursquare "is the start of an aggressive process from Klout to add more data sources and granularity to the Klout scores."

And possibly in the near future?

Google+ integration: According to a July 20 post on Klout’s official blog the company has "already started work on ways to assess your influence on Google+"

More on Klout:
• For an example of how Klout stirs passionate debate over the whole topic of measuring social media influence check out Mark Schaefer’s The making of a social media slut blog post (especially the comments area).

• For insight into where Klout has come from and where it is headed read the Forbes interview of Klout CEO Fernandez by Tracy John: Klout CEO On Raising Your Score, Google Plus Integration And Justin Bieber’s Perfect 100

So if you haven’t yet had your fill of Klout keep watching this space because in social media 2011 is most assuredly the Year of Klout.

TFF: The Twitter Follow Formula

2011-06-27T06:18:00.002-04:00

After being in social media strategy for some time I’ve developed a formula to decide who I follow on Twitter. And although it is not as precise as say the formula for getting a rocket into outer space it works for me to determine the most relevant and useful Twitter accounts to follow.

So here is the Twitter Follow Formula (or TFF):

If the answer to all (or at least half) of the following questions is “Yes” then the account is a good fit and likely worth your time to follow:

The bio mentions key words relevant to your interests: Yes, some people put words in their bios just to fill them out, but if there is a bio (and if there isn’t I, for one, will not follow that account) it is the first stop on your checklist.

More than half of the most-recent 20 tweets look interesting: The number might vary for you, but if I see that a majority of tweets are about relevant and interesting stuff it helps me decide.

The Follower-Following ratio is not lopsided: The ratio you find “lopsided” will vary but for me if the account is following 20 percent or more accounts than it has followers it tells me one of three things: The account is a “Twitter newbie,” a “Twitter broadcaster” or a “Twitter incompetent.” Any may be a reason not to follow.

The Follower-Tweet ratio is not high: There is no real science here, but if someone has more than three or four tweets for each follower they likely are talking a lot (OK), on auto-tweet (not OK) or just on Twitter to broadcast sales or other messages (definitely not OK).

The account is run by a person: Yes, brands and companies can have Twitter accounts, but I’m just not that interested, usually, in talking to a faceless account. How can I tell? The avatar is a logo or product picture (or worse the “Twitter egg”). The types of tweets are also an indicator: Any account talking about its own products and services too much is there for one reason only.

The account is geographically relevant: In other words its based near you (great for meet-ups in real life) or is based somewhere else on the planet that you have a high interest in. Oh, and note to some: If you say your location is “the world” or “everywhere” I won’t believe you and I won’t follow you. Be genuine.

The hunch or everything just feels right: The least scientific part of the formula is just the sense I get that the account is “for real.” This is based on my belief that our intuition is our sub-conscious trying to tell us something based on all our previous experiences. If anything at all doesn’t seem quite right I stay away.

Because there are seven elements I consider it’s relatively easy to know that I have satisfied a majority of the points. Should the answer to all of them be “yes”? Of course, but on occasion I will follow an account that meets only five of these criteria because I have a sense that the person, for example, is a newbie but shows great promise as a useful member of the Twitter family.

So, when it comes to social media strategy on Twitter how does this list stack up to select people to follow? I’d love to have your input.

Possibly related posts:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 3: Who will you be on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 4: When will you be on Twitter?

What are essential social media skills for PR?

2011-06-12T08:03:00.004-04:00

Update Aug. 4: Since this original post the number of PR professionals who have taken the survey has risen to more than 100. Among the results the percentages have remained remarkably the same. - Mike Johansson

Twitter or Facebook? Blogs or Wikis? Search Engine Optimization or social media presence management?
What should graduating students interested in public relations careers know about social media tools and how and when to use them?
That was the question I posed via a three-question Survey Monkey survey recently as I started prepping for a new class called Social Media for PR that I’ll teach in the Winter Quarter at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
More than 60 public relations professionals responded to my admittedly un-scientific survey and the results were sometimes intuitive, sometimes surprising and always insightful. Here’s what I learned:

How important is it that PR students understand the various social media tools?
The results (with the percentage of respondents giving each tool a “10” on a 10-point scale) were:
• Twitter – 63 percent
• Facebook – 55 percent
• Blogs – 52 percent
• Social presence management tools (such as Tweetdeck) – 50 percent
• Linkedin – 50 percent
• YouTube – 41 percent
• Wikis – 23 percent
• Flickr – 14 percent
• Social bookmarking – 12 percent
• Geo-location services (such as Foursquare) – 9 percent
• Social gaming – 4 percent

Which tools and techniques MUST students completely understand how to use for PR purposes? Participants were asked rank-order the list: For example, only one tool or technique could be a “10” and only one could be a “9.”
The results (with the percentage of respondents giving each tool a “10” on a 10-point scale) were:
• SEO (search engine optimization) – 33 percent
• Twitter – 19 percent
• Facebook – 18 percent
• Blogs – 12 percent
The results (with the percentage of respondents giving each tool a “9” on a 10-point scale) were:
• Twitter – 23 percent
• Blogs – 22 percent
• SEO – 21 percent
• Facebook – 18 percent
The results (with the percentage of respondents giving each tool an “8” on a 10-point scale) were:
• Linkedin – 26 percent
• Facebook – 24 percent
• Blogs – 20 percent
• Twitter – 15 percent
The high ranking of SEO, frankly, surprised me, while the consistency with which Twitter, Facebook and blogs were given an 8, 9 or a 10 makes it clear they are the big three for now in PR.

How important is it that PR students understand how to use social media for the various public relations functions?
The results (with the percentage of respondents giving each tool a “10” on a 10-point scale) were:
• Crisis management – 63 percent
• Media relations – 60 percent
• Community relations – 57 percent
• Campaign management – 52 percent
• Employee relations – 32 percent
• B2B relations – 31 percent
• Investor relations – 19 percent
• Government relations – 13 percent
All of which tells me a couple of things:
First, social media tools are seen as an effective part of the PR toolkit for the top four on this list and less so for the bottom four.
Second, there may be tremendous potential for developing techniques for better using social media tools in the bottom four categories. Based on some of the comments at the end of the survey this is a chicken-and-egg situation where PR pros are unsure how involved in social media these four groups may be and therefore have not given a lot of thought to how to use them here.

Overall, the responses are tremendously valuable as I develop the course and I’m extremely grateful to the PR pros who took the time to complete the survey.
I’m also impressed that in a very short time (two years or less by my estimation) PR practitioners have gone from casting a wary eye at social media tools and tactics to embracing them as a way to connect with and inform publics everywhere.

Possibly related post
PR crisis management in the ‘Twitter Age’

Twitter 101 Day 4 When will you be on Twitter?

2011-06-02T12:23:00.004-04:00

This is the fourth (and final) in a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter. (See the links below for the earlier posts.)

Now that you’re set up on Twitter and you’ve figured out why and how you’ll use it you need to think about when you’ll use it.

The "when" falls into two categories – literally the time of day you’ll be active on Twitter and the stages in your personal and/or business life that you’ll use Twitter.

Let’s deal with the time of day first since there are numerous tools that can help you figure which times are best for you to be active (assuming you’re interested in engaging with people, growing your follower count and getting your tweets re-tweeted). And a quick note: Your results will always be different from anyone else’s since they depend on where in the world your Twitter followers reside and the types of people who follow you (9-to-5-workers vs. college students, for example).

But, maybe the first thing to try is to just experiment with Twitter itself. Try reposting a few different high-quality tweets (newsworthy or in some other way likely to attract a retweeter) over the course of a few weeks. Do this by changing the time of day one week and the days of the week the next and so on. You should repeat the experiment a few times until you start to see trends in retweets (and an attendant jump in follower count).

Some other things to consider include the # FollowFriday effect (there’s a spike in Twitter activity each Friday because of this) and hashtag chats related to your industry (when there will also be a spike in activity among people who are likely highly relevant to your business).

But if you want to use some free tools to help here’s a quick look at some of them (and I freely acknowledge that there are dozens of others out there):

TOOLS

Whentotweet analyzes the time at which your followers tweet and gives you a recommendation on when the best time of day for you to tweet is. The app analyzes your follower data to determine the time of the day your followers are most active and displays the results as a helpful fever chart by time of day.

Tweriod examines up to 5,000 of your followers and generates a report based on the time zone attached to your Twitter profile. The report, in fever chart format, can be selected to show activity on Weekends, Sundays, Mondays, Weekdays and Combined. You can also look at "general stats," "hourly graphs" and "@replies" – all excellent fodder for deciding when to be on Twitter.

Favstar is a site that tracks what you, your friends and everyone else is favoriting on Twitter. This will show you which of your tweets others have found valuable enough to tag as a favorite. The downside, of course, is that not everyone tags all good content as a favorite.

Timely analyzes your past 199 tweets and figures out the best time slots for future tweets. It then uses this information to auto-schedule tweets that you’ve posted to Timely. If this sounds a little creepy or too automated for your tastes, that’s OK, but mow you know it exists.

14 Blocks randomly selects a subset of your followers (500 for the basic plan) and analyzes their recent tweets (past two weeks) to determine the likelihood they will be online at a given time. This is not based on the followers’ activities with you (RTs or @replies), but rather on their activities in general.

In addition to the above tools you can also use link/URL shorteners that offer tracking such as bit.ly and su.pr from Stumbleupon, but that may be getting a little technical for a 101 class!

STAGES:

So now that you’ve figured out the time of day and day of the week it is most likely you’ll connect with others on Twitter. How do you decide when to use Twitter for professional purposes? Obviously the answers are as many and varied as there are individuals on Twitter, but here are a few you may not have considered:

Offering help/Answering a question: The No. 1 way to get a good "rep" on any social network is to be helpful. So by watching your Twitter stream and offering to help or sharing an answer to another Tweep’s question you will earn a lot of goodwill.

Asking for help/Asking a question: Used rarely and strategically, asking a question or asking for help can also help you build relationships. Since Twitter limits response to 140 characters people are more inclined to help in this limited way. They may also see value in helping beyond the 140. Ask and you will receive – it’s a Twitter thing.

Testing an idea: You don’t have to give away the farm, but you can use Twitter as a sounding board for a new service or a new product or even just to discover a need. Just be careful to ask the right question.

Planning a trip or an event: Need to find a hotel in your price range in a city you’re unfamiliar with? Want to know if that airline deal is as good as it seems? Need to know what to do with that extra day in London? Need help to plan a conference? There are plenty of people on Twitter who would be happy to help. Just remember that some of them also represent a particular interest (which just a little snooping usually reveals).

Finding collaborators or employees: Need physical help? Twitter is also a good place to spread the word about your needs. People are usually willing to retweet or pass along your information to others they know who can help.

Of course there are many, many more, but I don’t want this blog to become War & Peace!

So, there you have it a few tree-top-level tips on how to figure out when to be on Twitter. And that ends your fourth (and final) Twitter 101 lesson. If you read the series, congratulations for graduating with honors!

What do you think? Will this series help a social media strategy newbie figure how they’ll use Twitter? Should I plan a follow up series called Twitter 102 for later in June?

Earlier posts in the series:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 3: Who will you be on Twitter?

Twitter 101 Day 3: Who will you be on Twitter?

2011-05-31T17:26:00.001-04:00

This is the third in a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

Now that you’re set up on Twitter and have figured out how you’ll use it you need to think about your Twitter "persona."

Below are several personas I’ve seen on Twitter. One or more may describe you. The important thing – if your goal is professional networking and growth via Twitter – is that you are aware of your persona. Which of these fit you?

THE GOOD

1. The Helper: This persona type is extremely unselfish and is on Twitter to help others by sharing interesting and relevant content. They often retweet (RT) the posts of others. They go out of their way to connect those among their followers who may have a mutual interest. They steadily build an authentic and relevant following. They very rarely ask for help, but when they do they always get it.

2. The Conversationlist: This type spends serious blocks of time on Twitter publicly chatting (with "@" messages) with followers. They sometimes share very good content and they often act as a connector between people on Twitter. They tend to build an authentic and very committed following. They rarely ask for help, but when they do they almost always get it.

3. The Listener: This type spends a lot of time watching from the sidelines and only occasionally engages in public conversations with other Twitter users. They do not often retweet others’ posts, but when they do you can bet it’s something special. This person tends to be following more people than are following them. They’re often in the early stages of Twitter use and should be cautious about asking for help too often.

4. The Humanist: This Twitter type is all about being genuinely themselves – to the point of happily mingling their personal lives ("Just picked up the girls from soccer") with their professional lives ("This post on Social Media Today is great …"). They’re OK with this intermingling and believe it may help them seem more real. They are quite picky about who they follow and often do not build a vast following very quickly – but they’re OK with that. While this leads to deeper Twitter relationships (and real-world networking) it can be hard to leverage for business purposes except with business contacts you are already closely connected to.

THE BAD

1. The Aggressive Self-Promoter: The person who talks about themselves far too much. How much is too much? There’s no science behind this, but if more than one in 10 or one in 20 tweets is self-serving it’s likely that this person’s followers will mostly be auto-followers and other bots.

2. The Non-Stop Talker: This character, although few in numbers, gives Twitter a bad name. They’re essentially clueless about Twitter and keep tweeting the most mundane details of their lives or feel compelled to tweet dozens of times per day. Their ratio of tweets to followers is your first clue: Anyone with a ratio of 10 tweets or more per follower is talking a lot and not being found useful by very many people.

3. The Flamethrower: This is someone (or some business) trying very hard to get notoriety on Twitter. They’ll try to engage big names on Twitter with inane or just purposefully inflammatory statements or use ALL CAPS and provocative language just to get attention.

So, there you have it, your third Twitter 101 lesson. What do you think? Are there other personas I’ve missed? Will this help a social media strategy newbie figure how they’ll use Twitter?

Earlier posts in the series:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?

Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?

2011-05-30T19:50:00.004-04:00

This is the second in a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

Now that you’re set up on Twitter how will you use it? You will use it to become more networked, more helpful, smarter and better-looking. OK, so that last one might be a stretch, but the others are within your grasp. Here’s how …

1. To build a network of contacts within your industry that you never had access to or knew about before, not just locally, but around the world. These people will help you, willingly.

2. Share your knowledge and expertise: This can be tricky if you’re just starting out, but if you see a chance to help someone by answering a question or filling a need, seize that opportunity. We all know “stuff” that can help others.

3. Learn, learn learn – news, industry insights and other interesting stuff. You’ll get the most out of Twitter if you strategically follow people who share good stuff and in turn if you share some good stuff yourself. If you can get past the newbie stage of following too few people and seeing the same avatars again and again you will quickly understand the power of Twitter to make you smarter.

4. Discover real-life networking events: This is where following local people relevant to your industry can really pay off. Networking through Twitter means you’ll hear about real-life meet-ups and when you get there you’ll already know something about some of the people there. This means less time wasted on small talk and more time for real networking chat.

5. Be helpful: Helping others is something that happens a lot on Twitter and it really is true here more than anywhere else I know: You get back what you give many times over. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. You will be surprised how giving the Twitter community can be.

So, there you have it, your second Twitter 101 lesson. What do you think? Will this help a social media strategy newbie figure how they’ll use Twitter?

Related post:
Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?

Twitter 101 Day 1: Why are you on Twitter?

2011-05-29T22:00:00.012-04:00

Today I begin a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

The first question is: Why are you on Twitter?

A. To talk to friends: If that’s the only reason you’re on Twitter you can do whatever you like – just think seriously about protecting your tweets so that only people you know and trust can see them!

B. Professional networking: Whether you are still in school, just starting a career or are well into a career Twitter allows you to build connections with interesting and relevant people around the world who are working and talking about topics related to your interests.

So, if “B” is your choice you will want to get the most out of Twitter – consider doing the following …

1. Make your profile public: You want to connect with people so keep your account open because you are going to be professional on this account, right?

2. Choose a Twitter name that is your entire name or at least your first name and last initial or a variation of your name. Be sure your real name is somewhere on your public profile.

3. Fill in your location with your real location: This will connect you with others in your area with whom you can network in real life.

4. Work on your bio so that it says something about your professional activities and aspirations but also displays a little of your personality. You’ve got 160 characters – choose them wisely.

5. Choose an avatar photo that is more face than anything else: Avoid the temptation to try to be too cute. Your genuine face shot is part of who you are.

6. Choose your URL wisely: If you have a complete Linkedin page link to that. If you have your own name as a URL and you use that website to highlight your skills and talents – even better – link to that.

7. Start following others slowly: Find relevant people in your business or with related interests and follow just a very few at a time. There is no science to this but if your “Following” number is more than five times higher than your number of “Followers” you may seem desperate for followers.

8. Don’t just follow anyone: Following people just because they follow you is not a requirement in Twitter. Following back should be reserved for people you are genuinely interested in learning from and about.

9. Pay attention to others’ tweets: You will learn a lot by just “listening.” When the time is right (you see something you want to comment on or you want to thank someone for sharing something send them an “@” message. These tweets are the beginnings of real conversations with people who may one day become part of your professional network.

10. Retweet judiciously: When you read something that really means something to you or you think some of your followers might appreciate retweet (RT) it. If there is room add a comment explain why you like it.

So, there you have it, the first Twitter 101 lesson. What do you think? Will this help a social media strategy newbie?

Next post:
Twitter 101 Day 2: How will you use Twitter?

Possibly related post:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

What makes a GREAT tweet?

2011-04-15T15:40:00.013-04:00

Twitter has become such an integral part of social media strategy that its use – good, bad and otherwise – is worth thinking about. So what makes a truly GREAT tweet?

I decided to ask people on Twitter. I asked people I follow, people I’m friends with and people whose Twitter use I appreciate for all kinds of reasons.

I was overwhelmed with the responses – some came in minutes; others in just a few hours.

I got responses from 15 countries from people who have a few thousand followers to those with followers numbering in the six figures. Some came from BNOTs (Big Names on Twitter) and some came from MPFTs (My Personal Favorites on Twitter).

The responses made me say “Aaw,” made me think or just made me laugh. Some answers were brief, some long and all were very thoughtful.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I feel very blessed to be connected to all of you. Thank you.

Responses to the question: “What one thing makes a GREAT tweet?” sorted by the length of the response (I had to organize them somehow!):

Eric Schwartzman (@ericschwartzman): Brevity

David Meerman Scott (@dmscott): Passion

Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan): Relevance

Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer): Personality

A. R. Karthick (@arkarthick): Conciseness...

Amy D. Howell (@HowellMarketing): Link to great content

Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh): One that is worth retweeting

rogersmithhotel – a k a John Birdsong (@RSHotel): Keep it real and keep it brief

Robin Fray Carey (@robincarey): A great tweet makes you hungry for more

Dave Larson (@TweetSmarter): Caring about the people who will read it

Chris Voss (@CHRISVOSS): A tweet that challenges readers mindset

David Armano (@armano): Attitude, personality, authenticity, brevity

Tim Moore (@TimMoore): Direct, exciting, inviting, link is not spam

Michael Brito (@Britopian): Relevant content that adds value to the conversation

Iggy Pintado (@iggypintado): One that makes you think, feel, respond to and share

Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs): When it's clear it comes from a human and not a machine

Mark Aaron Murnahan (@murnahan): I would have to say bacon. Anything is better with bacon!

Suzanne Vara (@SuzanneVara): One that is helpful and/or provides value to the community

Spike Jones (@spikejones): There is no such thing as a great tweet. Only great statement

Eric Miltsch (@AuctionDirect): Makes me smile, think and/or remember the person who sent it...

Misty Belardo (@mistygirlp): When a tweet is relevant to the people who listen to your stream

Julia Roy (@juliaroy): Positivity and energy around a topic, thought or conversation

Chris Lazuder (@TechZader): One thing that makes a GREAT tweet is brevity; less truly is more

Calvin Lee (@mayhemstudios): Gr8 tweet = 1. useful or helpful 2. Inspirational 3. If it rings true

Adam Vincenzini (@AdamVincenzini): The formula for a GREAT tweet: U.F.O Useful, fresh and original content

Liz Strauss (@ lizstrauss): If you want to be heard, make your tweet about the people you want to listen

Lolly Daskal (@LollyDaskal): A great tweet is one that inspires, encourages, empowers and engages you. It leaves you thinking

Todd Defren (@TDefren): A great tweet inspires either a click, a laugh or a renewed sense of perspective

Paul Steele (@paul_steele): Positive, clarity, humanness and no negativity… Importantly touches many people’s thoughts!

Jay Baer (@jaybaer): A clear point-of-view and a succinct description of benefit (if it includes a link)

Jawar(@jawar): Adding tremendous value to your target audience is one thing that makes a great tweet

Sree Sreenivasan (@sree): The most useful tweets are useful/helpful/timely and closer to 120 characters than 140

Gary Schirr (@ProfessorGary): Simply a controversial idea and a good headline. Engage people on all sides of the issue

Paul Smith (@twitchhiker): A great tweet might inform you, entertain you or educate you - it will always engage you

J.D. Andrews (@earthXplorer): IMHO: The difference between a "good" tweet and a "great" tweet, just like in comedy....timing!

Anne Deeter Gallaher (@AnneDGallaher): We should be conscious of making tweetworthy soundbites, so it’s something meaningful and memorable

Susie Blackmon (@SusieBlackmon): A great tweet .. is not about 'me' .. elicits responses/conversations .. adds value .. adds interest

Reg Saddler (@zaibatsu): Content is king. A catchy title grabs ’em, but to hold a Twitter audience the old adage still wins out

Ekaterina Walter (@Ekaterina): Relevancy and value-add – share interesting, useful, fresh content and add value with your own comment

Jason Falls (@JasonFalls): The same thing that makes for great content: It informs, entertains or makes my drink come out my nose

Sam Mallikarjunan (@Mallikarjunan): Relatability - what makes a great tweet is when we see it and can see ourselves tweeting the same thing!

Albert Maruggi (@AlbertMaruggi): Maruggi's rule of INK – makes you think or link – and linking is either to a new person or deeper content

Jazz Baker (@ jaycbee ): Current topic is always important, reputable link shortener and connecting with audience you are targeting

Iconic88 (@Iconic88): Extreme kindness. Great tweets should be extremely helpful, emotionally and spiritually, for the next person

Alessandra Colaci (@AlessandraCo): Great tweets are comprised of compelling content that gives useful information and spurs further conversation

Mark Ragan (@MarkRaganCEO): A good tweet provides helpful news and information that establishes you or your brand as an expert in the market

Tommy Clifford (@tommytrc): A great tweet is one that catches me off guard and just makes me genuinely laugh out loud. Off the wall is great!

Debbie Weil (@debbieweil): The tweet provides quick context for 1. an important issue 2. breaking news 3. a timely topic - usually w/ a link

Kevin Purdy (@kevinpurdy): If you can't write a joke or line that makes people smile after seeing 400 other tweets, it better have a good link

Robert Clay (@marketingwizdom): A tweet that stops me in my tracks and links to information of great value. Or a meaningful interaction with someone

Kent Huffman (@KentHuffman): Inside Info + News + Original Thoughts + Useful Links + Conversations + Personality + Humor + RTs = Effective Tweets

Ted Rubin (@TedRubin): Be authentic, be genuine, be interesting. Become known 2b responsive & interested. Keep Tweets to 122 characters or less

Ruhani Rabin (@ruhanirabin): A great tweet consist(s) of elements like ... "Great Content" and "Great Statements" (e.g. quotes, thoughts, creative notes)

Mark Schaefer (@markwschaefer): Great tweets connect people and facilitate relationships by consistently sharing meaningful content and authentic helpfulness

Susan Elaine Cooper (@BuzzEdition): A great tweet should engage the reader with content that inspires a reaction or response, or intrigues the reader to know more

Deirdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge): Relevant information makes a great tweet ... you become a valuable resource when you share meaningful content that helps people

Blair Semenoff (@Flipbooks): Typography. It's something Ppl overlook. I make adjustments to almost all my Tweets. If a Tweet looks like shit Ppl dont click

Carrie Wilkerson (@barefoot_exec): 'Great' tweets are in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes an answer to a Q, a quip, a resource or something inspiring. It varies

Aaron Lee (@AskAaronLee): A headline that stands out and different for a blog post. For normal tweets "Hello" because every relationship starts that way :)

Kriselle Laran (@ bullfrogmedia): An appeal for response based on personal connection. A really good tweet is one that will make you want to respond to it in some way

Restaurant Marketing (@JeffreySummers): There's nothing different between a great conversation and a great tweet. Both have to hold meaningful value for the targeted audience

Sean Malarkey (@SeanMalarkey): The author. LOL humor works, short to the point, phrasing the tweet as a question. Depending on the desired outcome – the answer could vary

Jovana Grbic (@ScriptPhD): A great tweet is smart, relevant to a multifaceted person, promulgates information or interest, and ALWAYS offers a platform for engagement

Diana Adams (@adamsconsulting): The things that separate a good tweet from a great tweet: Great tweets provide valuable, objective information combined with compassion. :))

Jennifer Cisney(@kodakCB): VALUE - tips, useful info, humor, answering a question, news, making a personal connection & showing that you are listening not just talking

Joe Bob Hester (@joebobhester): Completeness. A great tweet delivers a complete message. Even if it includes a link, the tweet tells readers exactly what is being linked to

So, what do you think? Does the collective wisdom of the crowd here cover all the answers to the question? From my perspective of looking at social media strategy I’d love to hear your answer to the question (“What one thing makes a GREAT tweet?) in the Comments area below.

What is Scoville? Will it Heat up Social Media?

2011-04-07T05:40:00.007-04:00

It’s not often I get 11 invites in one day to a new social network. Such was the case this week when among all the other mail for my social media strategy business were 11 invitations to join Scoville.

On clicking through from the invitation visitors to the site are greeted by a gigantic image of a cow’s nose and the message “Remember the best places are just under your nose ….” The About page goes on to say:

Welcome to Scoville #beta,

Our mission is to help our users discover at least one great new place every week. We'll make it extremely simple for you to share the places you really love, the places you believe the community should know about.

We're now opening our private beta to Foursquare users, so if you're passionate about your city and want to share awesomeness around you, join the beta now!

So Scoville is tied to Foursquare, but I wanted to know more. Here’s what I learned:

The site is named after the Scoville Scale – the international scale for measuring the heat of hot peppers. Once signed up your profile is also rated in Scoville units. After an easy sign up through Foursquare I was rated a “Jalepeno (their spelling, not mine): 129 Scoville units.”

#TopTuesday is the main way Scoville hopes to engage its members and attract new ones. How it works: Each week members pick a favorite place to be their #toptuesday pick and the each Tuesday Scoville (presuming you’ve granted Twitter access) sends out a tweet about your #toptuesday pick for and invites others to join Scoville. Any tips you’ve left at the venue are included so your friends can see what you recommend. This means that while you are helping your followers find places you like you’re also driving a Trending Topic (#toptuesday) on Twitter (which won’t hurt Scoville).

Promoting Scoville has been well thought out. For example: Promotional tweets Scoville creates for you when you sign up include:
• The Plain: “Help me unlock New York, Join me on Scoville.”
• The intriguing: “I like it Hot, real Hot! I'm ready to blow the Scoville scale!”
• The fun: “Had some dodgy Indian food, now stuck in the bathroom. Next time I go Scoville”

Unlocking your city is not automatic. In Scoville-language users cannot complete their profile or “Unlock your location” until there are 1,000 users at that location. Reaching that many users will be tough on smaller locations or even bigger ones if users are tagged with the town they live in rather than the larger city they feel affinity to. Smart users will go to the Settings page and change their location to the nearest big city.

At SXSW in March Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley said Foursquare was opening its API to anyone who wanted to build layers on top of Foursquare. Is Scoville going to become one of the first big apps to add an extra layer of value on top of Foursquare?

Perhaps more interestingly, will Scoville mean new opportunities in social media strategy for businesses? What do you think?

Possibly related post:
5 Foursquare Apps You May Not Know

Is a “Dr. Death” Undermining Your Social Media Efforts?

2011-04-03T16:36:00.016-04:00

No matter how well thought out and executed your social media strategy is it may all be for nothing if your business is not paying attention in other areas.

For example, at the gym I try to get to five or six times a week there is an older gentleman who shows up with a gigantic cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes. During the hour I’m there he seems to take frequent breaks from the treadmill or lifting weights to step outside to drink his coffee and smoke a cigarette.

So, for about 15 minutes at a stretch he’s working to make himself healthier and then he takes a break from that to …. Well, you get the point. Some of us at the gym have dubbed him “Dr. Death.”

It’s the same thing with social media strategies that get undercut by what you and your business do elsewhere. Do you have a Dr. Death or two on your team or among your non-social efforts?

Here are five things that will almost certainly undercut any good you achieve through social media:

1. An incomplete or poorly maintained website: Are all your alt tags complete? Do you have an up-to-date site map? Do you regularly ask a complete stranger to try to get lost on your site to see if you have solved all of your navigation issues? If the answer to any of these is “no” you may have serious issues with search engine optimization and/or people just getting lost on your site.

2. Not using unique landing pages: Each new marketing effort or promotion leads to a unique landing page right? It doesn’t make any sense to be sending people to your site without any way of knowing what’s working to get them there. And then you would, of course, conduct A/B testing by having a pair of dissimilar pages and sending half the traffic to each so that you can see which of those landing pages leads to more people engaging/buying or whatever from your business.

3. Hosting web-irrelevant content: Just because you have a website doesn’t mean it can become a dumping ground for any content you want to “store” on the web. This is a particular problem with companies still posting old-school press releases – the kind with no links. These releases are often seen by search engines as content, but low-value content since they are not connected to anything but the host site. My advice: Host social media releases on your site or don’t host releases at all.

4. Not using your keywords wherever you can: If the clickable text anywhere on your website has any of these phrases “here,” “click here,” “email us,” “contact us” or “for more” you should just walk away from the web now. These clickable phrases have to contain some of your keywords. The fact that you chose certain words to be clickable tells the search engines that they are important to you and your business. This is one of the simplest SEO tactics.

5. Not promoting your social presences sensibly: We’ve all seen those print and TV ads that show a social media icon and invite readers or viewers to “Find us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter.” This is the analog equivalent of using a telephone icon and suggesting people “Find us in the phonebook.” Do your business a favor and put your Facebook, Twitter and other social account names next to those icons.

So, this is just a starter list – it could easily be much longer. The key is this: Your social media strategy is only as good as everything else you are doing around it. If you have a tip or two I’d love to hear them so I can use them (giving you full credit of course) in a future post.

Possibly related posts:

Top 10 Business Social Media Mistakes

5 Signs You may Need Help With Social Media Strategy

10 Ideas to Help Businesses Navigate Social Media

Best April 1 fun on the web

2011-04-01T10:33:00.010-04:00

April 1 always brings lots of fun to the web and the day is young and already there are some clear winners. So whether you’re on the web for social media, marketing or just fun, check out …

Lose that mouse and keyboard, but still work in your email: Google introduces a new program to do away with the mouse and the keyboard when you’re in your email. Just a few simple (and not so simple) body movements do the trick. See the video Gmail in Motion.

New invisible, but clickable online advertising is here: All that unused white space on the web is going to waste says marketing guru Seth Godin. Read about it at his blog post Introducing white space links.

Linkedin’s messing with your Contacts: Well, not really. It turns out, according to the professional networking site, you know some pretty interesting, if unusual, people. Once logged in, click on Contacts – Add Connections and choose “People You May Know.” You’ll be surprised to know who you “know.” Check it out at Linkedin

The next big thing in email marketing - Infomercials: As “promoted” by Christopher Penn (@cspenn) and Blue Sky Factory (@blueskyfactory) email is going to make a comeback as the “catch-all” of your internet marketing programs. Check out the video Infomercials in your inbox.

Geeky toys for geeky kids: ThinkGeek suggests that Playmobil has come up with something every future Steve Jobs-worshipping tyke needs: A Playmobil Apple Store (video).

Other great ThinkGeek offerings: Angry Birds Pork Rinds (“A low carb, high protein, high fat snack that tastes like winning”), Star Wars Lightsaber Popsicles (Make awesome lightsaber popsicles, with movie accurate hilts) and The Original Shirt Plate (From the makers of Bowl Pants and Sock Spoon... it “Keep your snacks close by while lounging, working, sleeping or gaming”).

I hope this brings a little smile to your April 1 festivities. And you can return to all your serious web activities (social media, marketing etc) tomorrow.

Top 10 Business Social Media Mistakes

2011-03-27T07:49:00.005-04:00

Social media strategy can seem overwhelming to businesses as they are just starting out on social networks. And every day hundreds of businesses launch a social presence. Why not learn from the mistakes others?

Here is a Top 10 Basic Business Social Media Mistakes presented David Letterman style:

10. Leaving your profile incomplete: It looks unprofessional or, worse, looks like you might be a spammer. Say something interesting about your business and the people running the account and, if there’s room, make it fun.

9. The URL link on the profile doesn’t point to your business: On most social presences you have the opportunity to share a link or three. Make them point to relevant business pages.

8. Poor choice of avatar image: Depending on your business’ personality you may want to use a company logo. But generally the face of the person running the account will both look better and leave a better, more human, impression.

7. Inappropriate mixing of personal and business lives: Depending on your social approach some mixing may be appropriate (if you run a winery account and you sometimes talk about wine you like or winery tours you take, for example). Generally, though, keeping things professional, human and sometimes fun will work so much better.

6. Using social profiles only for promotional purposes: If all you do is talk about yourself and your products and services who is going to take the time to listen (follow, friend or fan)?

5. Not listening to customers: If they find you on a social network and they care they will talk to you. Be ready to respond to the good, the bad and sometimes, the ugly.

4. Not greeting new followers and friends: Would you ignore a new customer coming through your door? So why is it acceptable to not greet each new person you meet on social networks?

3. Erratic updating or completely stop updating: Once you start posting (presumably based on a well-thought-out strategy) don’t stop and start or stop completely. This can send several messages … none of them good.

2. Deleting a post you regretted: It is far better to follow up a regrettable post with an explanation of what you meant. This shows the world you’re human.

And, drum roll please, the No. 1 mistake is …

1. A serious underestimation of the time and energy social networks take: Yes, many of the tools are free, but using social networks to help you understand your customers, develop new relationships and even meet new customer needs all takes time and energy. If this scares you start small (one or two networks).

Bonus: And please don’t advertise your foray into social in your print and broadcast advertising with the Twitter and Facebook icons and the words “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook.” That is the equivalent of using a telephone icon and saying “Find us in the phonebook.” Have your Twitter and Facebook account names right there. Make it easy for people to connect. Really!

So, is this list a good start or way off the mark? Will it help your social media strategy? Please let me know.

Possibly related posts:
10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media
5 Really Useful Sites for Social Media Newbies
10 Commandments for Social Media

5 signs you need help with social media strategy

2011-03-02T09:41:00.004-05:00

What is your business’ social media strategy? You do have a strategy don’t you?

Sadly many businesses are in social media, but are not IN social media – if you can see the difference. Let's see if this blog post can help.

You may need outside help on your social media strategy and tactics if you:

1. Don’t have a clear social media strategy: Why be in social media if it doesn’t support your business goals? Investing time in social media simply because it’s popular or because you heard it can be an effective marketing tool doesn’t earn you a single dollar. Your social media strategy doesn’t need to be elaborate, but you need one. The consultant can thoroughly assess your goals and needs and help frame a plan that will help your business.

2. Have too many different social media platforms: Or worse, have too many platforms without clear goals for each. If social media is to be an effective marketing tool for your business you need to focus your efforts for each platform and regularly audit the number of those platforms you’re on. An outsider can offer you a dispassionate assessment of how many (or how few) platforms you should really be on and what value they bring you.

3. Don’t aggressively manage your community: If you aren’t evaluating the quality of your network how do you know whether you’re wasting your time or not? Do you know who among your followers, fans and friends are likely customers, business partners or collaborators? The consultant can help you decide which community members are helpful and what is being said about you and your business.

4. Don’t measure your results from social media: Yes, there is something to be said for not measuring social media success by traditional metrics and demographics. But the bottom line is the bottom line: If you’re spending time and money on social media and not measuring whether it’s working you’re likely wasting both time and money. An outsider can help you focus on what will help the business.

5. Don't have search engine optimization (SEO) as part of your strategy: Rising in natural search is the big bonus in social media. If you plan your social media carefully, your efforts will help all of your web presences rise in search engine rankings. Again, an outsider can quickly identify the steps you’ll need to take to get there.

So how did you do? If you saw yourself or your company’s social media strategy approach in any of the points above it may be time to ask for outside help.

Possibly related posts:
How to Sniff Out Social Media Snake Oil
10 Tips for Better Business Tweeting

A Shorty Awards How To

2011-01-05T22:52:00.003-05:00

The third annual Shorty Awards are under way and as has happened in the first two years of the awards there is some confusion about how you nominate someone (or support an existing nomination). More on that in a moment …

The Shorty Awards honor the best people and organizations on Twitter and social media and are presented in early March by the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences – made up of such luminaries as Alyssa Milano, actress and philanthropist (@Alyssa_Milano), David Pogue (@Pogue), New York Times columnist and author of The World According to Twitter and Alberto Ibargüen (@ibarguen), President and CEO of the Knight Foundation (@knightfdn), one of the awards’ sponsors.

Nominations are now being taken in dozens of official categories may be made through Twitter or the official Shorty Awards website. There are also thousands of crowd-sourced categories. For the first time this year, the Shorty Awards will also honor the industry's best agencies and social media professionals

And, although the awards site insists you can nominate someone simply by tweeting out a nomination, it seems some or many of these do not get caught by the awards site. Therefore to be sure you successfully nominate your favorites on Twitter and in social media, you should follow these steps:

1.Go to the official Shorty Awards website and locate the turquoise “Shorty Voting” bar mid-page.

2.Enter your nominee’s Twitter name and pick the appropriate category.

3. Complete the sentence “I nominate @TwitterUser for a Shorty Award in #category because....”

4. Click the “Tweet Your Vote” button (where you will be asked go through a Twitter authorization page).

If you don’t follow the protocol for the tweet your vote will not be recorded.

And you need to do this soon because in February, the nominees will be narrowed down to six finalists in each category. Winners will then be determined by a round of public voting and by the members of the Real-Time Academy.

So, what are you waiting for? Get nominating and contribute tom this great social media event.

Big Changes Coming in Social Media in 2011

2010-12-30T22:57:00.004-05:00

In 2011 there will be monumental changes in social media. And by monumental I don’t mean anything that has to do with new platforms or new tools. No, I mean there will be monumental changes in the way people use them.

Here then are my 5 Big Changes in Social Media for 2011

1. People will want more real experiences: It will no longer be acceptable to interrupt real, in-person conversation to check-in, tweet or update your status. Those of us who have had it up to here with this kind of rudeness will start calling people on it. We’ll all be looking to take social and other web experiences and find some real aspect to them.

The opportunity: Real Foursquare badges anyone? Any marketer who can take an online experience and add entertainment or some other real-world value will reap big rewards.

2. Social networks + email = marketer’s dream: Email is newly resurgent as a marketing tool. Combine this with the ability of social networks to help identify groups of interested customers and you have a winning combination.

The opportunity: Marketers will use email to encourage the sharing of content on social networks and use social networks to encourage engagement via email – a win-win for both email and social marketing.

3. Social network growth will slow: Facebook will continue its inexorable march to get everyone (and their pets) signed up and Twitter will continue to explode as a newsfeed. However, everyone will become a lot more selective about who they follow, friend, fan and like. This will mean a slowing in the growth of social networks.

The opportunity: The percentage of active participants on networks will rise meaning those you engage with are more likely to respond.

4. We’ll all watch the clock: How much time we are willing to spend on a given social platform will become an issue. So many people signed up on Facebook in the past 12 to 24 months, for example, that the newness of the network kept a lot of them on it for hours at a time. That, will change rapidly in 2011 as the newness wears off and we reconsider the utility of two or three hours per day spent on a social network.

The opportunity: Anyone who operates online and can simplify processes (from the sign-in to the check-in to the posting of a comment) will win big.

5. We’ll reach a saturation point: “Social media saturation” will become a catchphrase and as a result we'll all start trimming if not wholesale chopping down the number of social sites we visit to only those most-relevant to us.

The opportunity: With the crowds starting to form around fewer networks it will become increasingly easy to figure out which platforms and social network members are truly influential.

So, what do you think? Can any or all of this come to pass in social media in 2011?

5 Foursquare apps you may not know

2010-12-29T07:46:00.004-05:00

Foursquare is one of social media’s fastest growing tools. Here are five web-based apps to help you get more out of your time on Foursquare:

checkinmania.com This is an app that tracks who is checking in at various locations around you using Foursquare. And although it also offers data on check-ins on Gowalla, Brightkite and Twitter, its data is most comprehensive for Foursquare. It uses Google Maps-like functionality to show where you are in relation to various locations. In Venue mode it lists those nearby locations already identified on Foursquare. In Tips mode you can read what others have said about a particular location.

foursquarebrands.com This site allows users to manage the brands they're following and not following. And, as of this writing, there were 343 brands on Foursquare – many of them offering rewards for being followed.

ubermayor.com If you are anxious to become the mayor of more Foursquare venues or looking to get a SuperMayor badge this is the web app to use. It makes it easy to find out how many more check-ins it will take to become the mayor of a venue and is also a good tool for visualizing your Foursquare history.

fourcourt.com This app has the slogan “See who’s playing” and answers the question: If you’re in front of a computer and want to know where your friends are before heading out what can you do? Sign into Fourcourt with Foursquare sign in and see where everybody you know is (or has been recently).

4squareoffers.com A site that says it has more than 20,000 offers from around 79 countries. It allows search by name of a business, tags, category and location (within 25 miles). Note: Outside major metropolitan areas there may be a limited number of offers.

Know of other useful Foursquare web-based apps? Please help others in social media get more from Foursquare by adding them in the comments area below.

Social media branding: Discovering the real you

2010-11-26T05:35:00.003-05:00

Before you can successfully plan a strategy for personal branding in social media you need to understand the real you.

This is the fifth part of an ongoing series looking at personal branding (links to previous posts in the series below). Today I offer some suggestions on how to discover your own inner strengths and interests.

It sounds easy enough right? Just think about what really lights your fire and what you love to do? But it’s a little more complex than that.

We humans lose track of our true selves and we stop seeing our own strengths and weaknesses. So what to do? I’d like to suggest two relatively inexpensive tools that can help you get on the path to self-discovery.

Strengths Finder

This little book may be the best $10-$15 you’ll ever spend.

To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, Strengths Finder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths.

The book spent more than five years on the bestseller lists as it helped millions to discover their Top 5 talents. In Strengths Finder 2.0 Gallup unveiled a new and improved version of its popular assessment and sorted strengths into 34 themes.

You read the first 30 pages of the book and then submit to an online test. A computer-generated report is then emailed to you. Based on your Top 5 you can quickly see what approaches come naturally to you and which will likely give you the greatest satisfaction.

My strengths as determined by Strengths Finder are (in order):
• Ideation
• Learner
• Context
• Achiever
• Includer

And while none of this was surprising, the way these strengths play off each other and people with different strengths was a huge insight.

KolbeA Index:

The Kolbe A Index is a little more expensive (about $50) and measures a person's instinctive Method of Operation (MO), and identifies the ways he or she will be most productive. It is only taken once, because these innate abilities do not change over time.

The index was developed by Kathy Kolbe and identifies four human instincts used in creative problem solving. These instincts are not measurable. However, the observable acts derived from them can be identified and quantified by the Kolbe A™ Index.

These instinct-driven behaviors are represented in the four Kolbe Action Modes. For each you will be rated on a scale of 1 to 10. The combination of these scores tells you where your strengths lie.

My KolbeA Index results are:
Fact Finder: 8
Follow Through: 3
Quick Start: 8
Implementer: 1

What all of this means is that I now have a solid sense of what my natural tendencies are and what really gets me fired up. Armed with this I’m ready to start planning my social media personal branding approach.

What do you think? Are these outside tools helpful?

Earlier posts in the series:
1. Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps
2. Social Media Optimization for Personal Branding
3. Words to live by in social media personal branding
4. Blogs are the cornerstone of personal branding

Offering social media thanks

2010-11-24T05:57:00.006-05:00

Thanks for the great platforms that make social media part of every day of my life.

Thanks to Twitter for being my No. 1 source of news – and this from a guy who worked for more than 20 years in the newspaper industry!

Thanks to Linkedin for hosting such great groups – places I learn something every time I check in.

Thanks to Facebook for allowing me to stay connected to people I would have lost touch with years ago.

Thanks to YouTube for showing me aspects of life and this world I would otherwise never see (and the fact that so much of what I see on YouTube is funny doesn’t hurt either).

Thanks to foursquare for getting me to explore the planet – or at least whatever part of it I happen to be on at a given moment.

Thanks to Social Media Today for being the best aggregator of serious and accurate insights into the developing world of social media for business.

Thanks to Mashable for being the quickest and flashiest aggregator of news about social media.

Thanks to Alltop for allowing me to set up a social media feed tailored to my particular interests.

But, most of all, thank you to everyone I interact with daily, weekly or ever on social media you teach me so much and make every day insightful – I can’t thank you enough.

Related post:
A Social Media Feast for Thanksgiving

Blogs are the cornerstone of personal branding

2010-11-12T11:47:00.008-05:00

Using social media to help your personal brand stand out is a smart move, but where do you start? Can I suggest a blog?

Here then is the fourth installment of my personal branding series of blogs (links to the previous three are at the end of this post).

5 key steps to get you off to a good start with a blog:

1. Pick a topic that is uniquely you: Think passion and interests: You will not be able to sustain a blog on a topic that you don’t feel strongly about. And you should define the scope of your topic. Think Goldilocks and The Three Bears: Something that’s not too big and not too small. For example, don’t just decide to write about public relations, but maybe about public relations for non-profits who are looking to include social media. Then you should be able to sum up your blog’s purpose in a single-sentence elevator pitch that spells out why your blog is unique (and therefore worth following).

2. Be authentic: Write about what you know, what you find out and where you find it. Be human and allow your blog to grow intellectually as you grow. Become THE expert over time. Followers will gravitate to a blog that is making a journey they can tag along for. Be sure to link to appropriate sources and give credit where it’s due.

3. Be smart: . Post your best work. There will be posts that need more time for review and rewriting. Make sure you have several blog posts on the go so that you can keep to a posting schedule. But, also, don’t over-second-guess yourself. No post will ever be perfect. Listen to that inner voice. If you think you’ll regret a post a week from now don’t post it. Also make sure your posts inside the magical 250- to 750-word range so that search engine spiders will find and rank your posts.

4. Be interesting and/or newsworthy: This is easily said, but maybe not so easily done, right? What’s interesting? I found this definition at YourDictionary.com. What’s newsworthy? I like the definition here at Merriam-Webster.com. If you can appeal to these main definitions of interesting and or newsworthiness you will very likely gain an audience.

5. Stick with it: A blog can be relatively easy to start and sometimes painful to maintain. You never seem to have enough time. You run out of things to write about. Some solutions? Plan an hour or so a week to write and review. Set a realistic goal (say, posting a 250-to-500-word piece weekly) and stick with it. Start a list of potential topics and keep adding to it. For each idea that becomes a post you should add two more to your list. Jot down ideas whenever they hit you. Maintain this list. Stick with it.

Bonus tips:

• Make it easy to spread share your blog: Add code (easily found in a Google search) that allows people who like your posts to share it with others across social networking and social bookmarking sites.

• Get to know your regular blog visitors: Thank them for their comments (if they leave them) and check out their blogs if they follow yours. You never know where one of these online relationships might lead to a future opportunity.

• Collaborate: Ask others to occasionally guest post on your blog and offer to reciprocate. Your name on other blogs gets it in front of fresh eyes.

• Be patient: It may take weeks or months of posting to build a following and some relationships. Just understand that it will pay off.

So, are you ready to blog? I hope you try it because as the cornerstone of a social media personal branding strategy it is hard to beat. What didn’t I mention? Please let me know.

Related posts:
1. Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps
2. Social Media Optimization for Personal Branding
3. Words to live by in social media personal branding

Words to live by in social media personal branding

2010-10-26T22:14:00.005-04:00

When it comes to personal branding in social media what you say is as important, if not more important, than where you say it.

In this third part of my look at personal branding in social media (links to the first two are below) I’d like to focus on what you say and where you say it.

Those who are relatively new to social media may not realize that whatever you say on most platforms can be found not just by people looking for you but also by those who may not even know you exist.

Among this latter group are prospective business partners, future employers and possible social acquaintances. You, and what you say, are often “found” thanks the search engines’ “spiders” – the automated software programs that crawl the web to gather and categorize data. If these spiders see your name associated with terms such as marketing and sales that is how they rank you – and how others are likely to find you – higher in search results on sites such as Google.

Can you influence what words (and therefore industry, expertise etc) your name is most-commonly associated with? Of course. Do you want to take steps to make sure your personal brand is appearing in search results the way you’d like it to? Absolutely. But how?

Five ways to use keywords to make your personal brand distinct:

1. Have a keyword list: Keywords are single word or multi-word phrases and you need to have a short list that sums up you and your interests. Mine, for example, include social media, social media strategy, social media tactics and social media best practices. Whenever I’m writing something for the web (like this blog post)I always want to include one or more of these phrases in the headline, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. That way the spiders are more likely to associate those phrases with my name.

2. Blog: The easiest way to have your thoughts published in an easily found and cataloged way is a blog. Come up with a theme that you’ll write about, be sure to use your keywords, write posts of between 250 and 750 words (the widely believed minimum and maximum searched length of posts) and post regularly (at least weekly).

3. Share something: You need to know where to find good content by others so you can be a curator of content around the topic you wish to be associated with. Then share links via social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin and be sure to drop in some of your keywords in the postings. If all your social presences are linked (as they should be) this helps the spiders understand your close ties to the subject matter and likely boosts you up the search results.

4. Add something: Know who the thought leaders in your field are and learn about where they post content. Then find appropriate opportunities to contribute to the discussion of a blog post or on a Linkedin group, for example. You might also look for example to virtually introduce two people you know on social networks who might benefit by getting to know each other. This adding value will get you online mentions, which in turn raises your profile online.

5. Have a plan: Doing all of the above as opportunities present themselves is fine, but why leave it all to chance? To get measurable results you need a plan. That means writing a piece of content once and finding multiple ways to repurpose it across various social platforms. It means building in time to engage with others in social media. It means, most of all, making sure you stay on topic and use your keywords.

Bonus: Want to know how you’re doing using keywords on your blog, for example? Go to Wordle and enter the URL for your blog. The resulting word cloud highlights the words you are most often using. The image above, for example, is a Wordle word cloud of this blog.

If all of this sounds like work, it is. But to succeed with personal branding in social media what you say is an important social media strategy.

Related posts:
Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps
Social Media Optimization for Personal Branding

Social Media Optimization for Personal Branding

2010-10-21T13:14:00.003-04:00

If personal branding unlocks the many benefits of social media participation then search engine optimization, or SEO, is the key to that lock.

To follow up on my Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps post I’d like to look at a few ways to ensure you’ll be found – whether it’s for a job, for your business or just to network with others.

First, have you Googled yourself lately? You do Google yourself regularly, don’t you?

If you do a web search (and by Google I mean all search although we all know who dominates this space) on yourself you will fairly quickly see how others see you on the web. And for the purposes of this post I’ll assume you want to be found.

As it relates to personal branding it is very important that you are found quickly … preferably at or near the top of the first page of Google search results. So how do you get there? I’m glad you asked …

5 Steps to a Search Engine Optimized-Personal Brand Through Social Media:

1. Own the URL of your own name: If your name as a “.com” is still available run out (no sprint!) and buy it now. You get one shot at this – seize it. If your name is already taken find a way to get a distinct version of your name as a URL. The closer you can tie it you as a person, the better. For example, I was lucky to grab mikejohansson.com when it was available, but if it wasn’t I was willing to settle for MikeJohanssonNY or MikeJNY (I live in New York).

Having your own name as a URL (and some kind of website about you at that address) is quite important. On this website you will link to all of your other web presences. Elsewhere (social networks included) you will link to this website. All of this helps the web spiders that in turn help Google Search understand that you are THAT individual and not some other person with the same or a similar name and then rank you and the search results you appear in.

2. Use your name consistently across the web: Whatever name you use in life, on a resume, on the web or across your social networks needs to be consistent. That way someone looking for Bob Harris won’t be confused when they find Robert Harris. For example, if you Google Mike Johansson you should find a lot of stuff about me. At least that’s what SEO efforts in personal branding should be getting me.

3. Use keywords: Make sure you have an elevator pitch (the 30-second statement about who you are and what you do) that has your essential keyword phrases in it. This pitch should set you apart from others. All or part of it should be used as your bio across all social networks.

4. Link all of your online presences: This seems obvious, perhaps. Whatever platforms you are on you should highlight the others on which you can be found. For example, on Facebook tell people how to find you on Twitter and Linkedin or how to find your blog. Some social networks allow you to post clickable links while others (such as Twitter) do not. Post clickable links where you can or incorporate your Facebook and other links as part of the background image on sites such as Twitter. This cross-linking will pay big dividends when someone searches for you because no matter where they first find you they instantly know where else they can connect with you.

5. Check, and recheck, how others see you: You should Google your own name at least once a week. Look for how you do, or don’t, show up in the first page of results. Notice what other results show up further down. Are there some that you want to get rid of (I’ll blog about that soon). Look for clues to see who else shows up in that search and try to determine if a change in your keywords or adding one more social network might put you ahead of them in the race to be found.

Practice all of these steps in social media and you will see yourself rise up in the search engine results. But maybe you know of other simple steps in personal branding SEO that I haven’t covered here, please share them …

Related posts:
Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps
Be a Giraffe in Social Media

Personal Branding in Social Media: First Steps

2010-10-19T04:40:00.006-04:00

Personal branding is the topic of a presentation I will be giving this week and it got me thinking how social media has changed everything.

We used to be able “tell” a future employer, client or customer about ourselves with a resume, a college transcript and/or a list of references.

Today we are more likely to “show” them a little about ourselves with all our online presences (whether we intend to or not).

I’m not saying the old way is dead, but it may well be on life support.

So in the next few posts I’ll look at some aspects of personal branding with social media – since that is likely to dominate most of our online visibility. I’ll start with things that assume you want to be found and then deal with how to handle the things you’re not so proud of and how to deal with that proactively.

Let’s start with Five Personal Branding Basics in Social Media:

1. Have your avatar be the same across all presences: That little image of you needs to be instantly recognizable. We recognize a face before we recognize a name. And, even if you have a common name, your face is distinctive. Also, make sure your face is what dominates the space. Anything less makes it hard to recognize.

2. Have your name be your real name OR a consistent name with a consistent bio: Your name on your social media presences should be the same. This may not be practical if you have a very common name or a long or difficult-to-remember name. In that case come up with a memorable name for your account and be sure your real name is prominent. For example, I am mikefixs on Twitter, but my real name is right there at the top of the bio. In the bio say concisely who you are and say it consistently across platforms. This consistency will ultimately help with the search engine optimization (SEO) of your name.

3. Have all your social media presences linked (as much as is practicable): Reference all of your social media presences (as much as you can) from each of your social media pages. There is a whole blog post in how to do this for SEO value and that will come later. For now it’s enough to say that anyone finding you on one social media platform needs to know all of the other places they can connect with you.

4. Have a consistent stated reason for being in social media: It says a lot about some people who are on Linkedin to find their next job but on Facebook to recall all the partying. It may reflect your true nature, but it sends a mixed message. Decide why you really need to be in social media, spell it out in your bio spaces on each page and stick to it.

5. Have a clear vision for how you add value in social media: This is trickiest part if you’re relatively new to social media on many platforms. Do you know how you are adding value to others by being here? It may be to answer questions from others. It may be to share great stuff you find. It may be to help others connect. How you are perceived on the “giving” side of social media will have a huge impact on the likelihood you will be on the “receiving” end of good things in social media. What kind of good things? Introductions to new networks, tips on great jobs, leads on the latest information in your field … the list does go on. The important thing is that ultimately this may be the real reason to be in social media.

So, does this list do a good job getting you started? To the more experienced out there: What did I forget from my list for social media newbies?

Possibly related links:
Part 2: Social Media Optimization for Personal Branding
10 Commandments for Social Media
5 Really Useful Sites for Social Media Newbies

10 Tips for Better Business Tweeting

2010-07-29T05:35:00.001-04:00

As more and more businesses look for ways to engage in social media, many are turning to Twitter. And it’s fair to say most are wasting their time.

How can you more effectively operate in Twitter on behalf of, or for, a business? Let’s look at 10 tips:

1. Be transparent: If the purpose of your Twitter account is to help spread the word about your business, products or service then your bio, your profile background and either your account name or web site URL should make it clear that the account is tied to a business. Any deception here will be obvious.

2. Be attractive: Start with an interesting avatar image (not your company logo – except if your logo is recognized worldwide – Ford, Pepsi etc). It’s best to have a human face. Also, make sure your bio explains something about the people behind the account, not just the business and its interests.

3. Be patient: Think of your Twitter followers as acquaintances you’ve met once at a party; it’s likely they’re people you want to think well of you. So, if you’re too pushy or desperate for friends you’ll scare people away. How will they know you’re desperate? You will be following a lot more people than are following you. Need a guideline? Manage your Following/Follower ratio and try to keep the number of people you follow no higher than 10 percent above the number of followers you have.

4. Be selfless: Talk about something other than yourself, your products, your services or your business (at least most of the time). Just as you run from the self-promoting bore at a party you won’t stick around on Twitter to listen to someone who talks incessantly about themselves and their interests.

5. Be strategic: Do this by following appropriate accounts and not just anybody. If you follow random people on Twitter it sends a message that you’re more desperate for friends than you are for worthwhile relationships. (See No. 1 above.)

6. Be engaging: Join in conversations, answer questions and be helpful. This group of activities will separate your business Twitter account from the other 90 percent who are so busy being all about “pushing” their messages that they have forgotten that Twitter is a social medium.

7. Be interesting: This can be “easier said than done.” What is interesting? We all know uninteresting when we see it, but interesting can be harder to define. A good barometer is how your follower numbers grow and how often your tweets get retweeted. If you’re not getting new followers organically and few, if any, RTs it’s likely you are not very interesting to many people and you should reconsider what you’re saying on Twitter.

8. Be different: If you’re the 57th Twitter account to talk about search engine optimization tips, for example, you’re wasting your time. Use a Google search to see who else is tweeting on and around topics that interest you and then try to find your own niche and/or angle.

9. Be reliable: Tweet regularly. This can be on your own schedule as long as you can provide good content on some kind of schedule. Why? A Twitter account that is inactive for long periods of time sends the message that any activity is self-serving and only done when it serves the business exclusively.

10. Be human: This can be the hardest thing to do when you’re trying very hard to serve a business purpose on Twitter. One principle that should guide you: If you don’t feel you can be yourself and talk candidly you’re likely wasting your time on Twitter. Accounts that sound like the corporate PR department wrote each tweet will not get a following and will waste everyone’s time.

So, there you have it: 10 ideas for better use of Twitter for business purposes. Like all social media there really are no hard and fast rules, but these guidelines may prove useful. Now it’s your turn: What did I forget to include?

Possibly related posts:
10 Social Media Nos-Nos
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

How to Sniff Out Social Media Snake Oil

2010-07-27T17:26:00.012-04:00

In my recent post Social Media Snake Oil I touched on some simple clues that your potential social media services provider is a snake oil salesman. Now I’d like to show you how you can confirm any suspicions.

Step 1: You need a list of questions for the “expert.” I’m a big fan of Ian Lurie’s Conversation Marketing blog and his 10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media ‘Expert’. Between the original list and the great comments left by others there’s a ton of great fodder for questions.

Step 2: You will want to discover all their social media names so you can do research on them. Google and Yahoo searches should turn up most, if not all, of them. If a search on their name or their company name does not reveal very many social presences, run the other way.

Step 3: Try to visit their pages on the most-popular social platforms – in no particular order: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Fickr. Also find their blog (they do have a blog don’t they?). To do this go to one of these sites and enter their name and use the “refine search” function to narrow your search: Google blog search or Technorati blog search (at the top of the page).

Step 4: Based on what you see on all of these pages and social media sites you will want to look for:

Frequency of posting and engaging with others

The tone of their conversations

How they use these tools: Do they share valuable content and help people or … well, that’s what they should be doing

The numbers of people who follow, friend or connect with them (while not the most-important measure, it is part of what counts)

If anything in your research here just doesn’t seem like the work of an expert – run the other way.

Step 5: Use specific tools to assess their social media standing. For example on Twitter you can use Klout where you should pay attention to the True Reach. Influencer Of and overall score numbers. Other influence tools on Twitter can be found in my previous blog post 7 Tools to Find Who’s Big on Twitter.

And just for a laugh (and this video is not for the easily offended) you should watch The Social Media Guru – and if your potential vendor starts talking like this guy – you guessed it: Run the other way!

So what other tools would you recommend for digging into a “social media expert’s” credentials?

Related Post:
Social Media Snake Oil

Social Media Snake Oil

2010-07-13T20:51:00.005-04:00

Social media is a bit like the Wild West in many ways. One of the less-than-desirable ways is that it has its share of snake oil salesmen (there are a few women, but most of the unscrupulous characters are men).

Get-rich-quick offers and wild claims of expertise abound. So if you’re new to social media, or just looking at new opportunities in this fast-moving environment, how can you tell who’s selling snake oil and who has real expertise? Can you tell, just by looking at someone’s social media messages, status updates or tweets that they’re probably pitching snake oil? Maybe. Here are a few signs that may mean snake oil is the lubricant your “expert” prefers:

1. Makes claims that clearly over-promise: For example, a recent tweet on Twitter (of the type you’ll see hourly): “Wow! Whatever online business your (sic) in: Learn how to get positioned to at least semi-retire in 8-12 months."

2. Capitalized words in their messages: In Instant Messaging (IM) and email capitalized words represent shouting. The same is true in social media messages. And if they’re “shouting” it’s likely they’re selling to anyone who will listen. For example, from a Facebook status update: “WOW! This Is Addictive!! My Sites Are On PAGE ONE Of Google In 20 Minutes For FREE!!

3. Claims that seem too good to be true: This is where that old saying about instincts comes into play: “Your instinct is your accumulated life experiences trying to tell you something.” Would you click through using the link in this LinkedIn update? “This SHOCKING Underground Method That Generated $25956 In 1 Day After Just Seven Days Using The Secrets - http://www.xxxxxxxxxx.”

4. Constant talk of “selling,” “pushing” or “marketing”: Think about the way most people use social media – to be social. Now contrast that to this sales pitch on Twitter: “It has never been easier to get customers into your sales funnel. Check out my website for THE ANSWERS: http://www.xxxxxx”

5. They talk about social media as the new best way to make money: They’ll often reference a well-known platform and make a statement that links it to increased profitability (without a clear explanation of how the two things are related). This is from a site offering social media training for sales people: “Facebook offers you the opportunity to build and develop a following and have your followers engage in conversations to increase sales.”

6. Anyone who says social media is easy: Once you check out some of the websites of these trainers and service providers you are likely to find reassurances that all this social media stuff really doesn't take a lot of actual time and commitment. For example, from the website of someone offering social media as a “sales solution”: “We will share some ‘secrets’ to make your social media updates easy. (15 minutes a week)”

7. Anyone who says Social Media is mandatory: Yes, two-thirds of the world’s Internet users visit a social media site weekly (according to the 2009 – the most-recent – Nielsen report Global Faces-Networked Places report), but that number is still dwarfed by the numbers of people using traditional media, texting on their cell phones or seeing messages on billboards, buses and trains. Should social media be a part of your marketing mix? Most likely, yes. But put all your eggs in the social media basket? Probably not.

8. Only providing well-known (and tired) national examples of social media success and not being able to show examples of their own success: Anyone can talk about the successes of online shoe retailer Zappos or Dell or JetBlue. But it’s unlikely you represent a comparably sized company. What has the individual achieved on their own?

9. Someone who won’t share references: You’d check references with any other service provider, so why not in social media? If they do good work and have happy clients they should be happy to refer you to this clients for a reference. Be sure to check the legitimacy of the references too: Are they people or companies you know or have heard of?

10. Someone who talks a lot/plans a lot without asking a lot of questions: For social media to work it has to fit into your overall goals and that likely won’t happen if you hire someone who doesn’t ask a lot of questions about your goals and other plans. Be wary if they simply want to ”teach” you some social media tricks before quickly saddling up and riding away before any results, good or otherwise, show up.

11. Someone whose own social media presences are underwhelming: If the supposed expert has relatively few friends on Facebook and does not interact there very much, that’s a warning sign. Another: The person who promises to teach you the ”Insider Secrets of Twitter Power!”—but who has barely been on Twitter except for the two weeks leading up to his training session.

12. Someone whose social media presences seem to be on autopilot. This can be a little harder to detect, but easier to check up on. Send the “expert” a message via a social media platform they’re on and see how long it takes for them to respond.

So now you have a few ways to detect snake-oil. What other signs tip you off to someone selling social media snake oil?

My next post will offer more comprehensive tips and tools to assess your “social media expert” before you spend a lot of money with them.

Possibly related posts
Social Media Expertise is Hard to Find
Twitter ‘Twit’ or Twitter ‘Expert’?

- With special thanks to Mark Frisk for his help on this topic.

Why Twitter Should Be In Focus For Marketers

2010-07-09T16:44:00.003-04:00

Twitter can be a marketer’s best friend. In 140 characters or less and across multiple tweets marketers have the opportunity to build relationships with customers, potential customers and new business partners. These relationships have the potential to be more genuine and worthwhile … and therefore more profitable.

Twitter is a marketing tool worth focusing on because it’s a place to:

1. Learn (about customers, and their needs and wants)

It doesn’t take a lot of time (although more is always better) to notice what your customers and potential customers need or want or what they are talking about.

When you’re on Twitter with the intention of marketing a good rule of thumb in the early days is to spend 80 percent of your time simply watching and listening.

These three free tools can help:

Twitter Search - Advanced: Here you can run highly refined searches on your brand, your products, your customers and then further refine that search by time and geography.

Topsy - Advanced Search: Here you select “Tweets only” under “Search a Specific Type.” You can get all results or trending topics. Perhaps the most useful features are being able to search within a specific internet domain or by a specific Twitter user (useful for competitive intelligence).

Twilert: Here you set up alerts that come via email whenever your brand, product, service or key people get mentioned on Twitter. Your Twilerts can be aggregated and sent via email at a time of your choosing. You can even turn individual Twilerts on and off as your needs change (helpful if you have a lot of them).

2. Add value (share great content)

In social media and especially Twitter: It is always better to give than to receive.

Therefore find a way to gather and share great content on Twitter. Be sure that the content you share is relevant to you and your business niche.

Places to find great content worth sharing include:

Google News: This was always a great place to search on your industry relevant keywords, but the recent changes to Google News that make it kick back results that are increasingly relevant based on your search history raise it to a whole new level.

Yahoo News: It’s an OK news feed that’s searchable. Perhaps more interesting and timely might be the new Yahoo News blog The Upshot where news is determined by the popularity of search queries. In other words you get a sense of what a lot of other people are interested in.

Another great source of good tweetable material is blogs. Two great places to find blogs in the areas you’re interested in are:

Blog Search Engine: This site uses Google custom search to index the blogosphere and has a helpful Categories list on the lower left side.

Technorati: The granddaddy of blog aggregators still finds and indexes hundreds of blogs per day. Here you’re bound to almost be overwhelmed by the number of good blogs on a given topic.

3. Show your personality

What you tweet, how you phrase your tweets and how you interact on Twitter tells the world a lot about your personality. As a marketer this transparency is invaluable and can show people who you are. This likely will lead to more people wanting to follow you on Twitter. Of course, if you’re a jerk in real life, showing off your personality may not be such a good idea!

4. Provide customer service

If you take a little time to respond to questions and concerns about your brand, goods and services you’ll quickly find the power of Twitter: one to one conversation. In these conversations you can solve customer problems, thank your fans and reach out to future customers to meet their needs.

So, how do you track who is talking about you and your company? See Twilert above or try these two free services:

Tweetbeep: This service is like Google alerts for Twitter and can send you an email summary of mentions of your brand, products and people.

Monitter: This service allows you to monitor, track and search tweets in real-time. You can enter up to three keywords and watch as the tweets roll in.

5. Promote sales

Last, but not least, marketers can use Twitter to alert customers and potential customers to special deals, new products and changes to products, and other customer-centric information.

A big caution here is to be sure that the information you’re sharing on Twitter will be seen as valuable by your followers. That means offering real value and making genuinely newsworthy announcements and not, to quote the saying, just “putting lipstick on the pig.”

So, are you convinced Twitter can be a great marketing tool? What other ways can it be used for building viable relationships between marketers and consumers?

Possibly related posts:

Twetiquette: 10 Basics for Twitter Politeness

10 Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter

Pardon the Phrase, But You Need to Avoid the Social Media ‘Quickie’

2010-06-14T05:32:00.004-04:00

You glance across the crowded room and there he/she is: Surrounded by adoring fans, looking fabulous and giving you – yes you! – a sly look. This tempter/temptress glides your way and before you know it you’re leaving the party for a brief, perhaps rapturous encounter with your new best friend.

At some point we have all fallen to the temptation of a “quickie” – perhaps not of the sexual kind, but perhaps of the eating kind (that fast food burger when real food would have been a smarter choice) or the entertainment kind (that episode of The Real Housewives of New York when a far more informative and useful episode of Nova was on the local PBS station).

But if there is one place businesses and individuals should stay clear of the “quickie” it is social media. Trust me on this: No good can come of it.

So let’s acknowledge: Yes it can be exciting to jump into the metaphorical social media bed with a few well-known social networking apps. But businesses especially need to stop and ask: “How will I feel in the morning?’

Yes those apps that everybody seems to be drawn to – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can look very attractive and easy to conquer. The makeup is just so, the curves/muscles are just in the right place and, well, you’ve been hearing so much about social media that at this point you may be wearing the virtual “beer goggles” and blind to some of the potential problems.

So how to avoid the social media morning-after regrets? Try asking yourself these four questions:

1. Should you think twice before jumping into bed with someone you haven’t built a relationship with?

2. Are you prepared to become deeply involved and ready to deal with the long-term commitment and consequences?

3. Is this something you have time for at this point in your life? Your business? Your career?

4. Can this new relationship fit into your existing relationships or will the old ones suffer because of the new?

Answer “No” to any of these and you likely are not ready for social media. As in life social media relationships take work.

What other relationship questions would you ask yourself before deciding to jump into a particular social medium?

Possibly related post:
10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media

Facebook And You: Is There Still Love?

2010-05-31T06:02:00.004-04:00

Before deciding if you’ll join the Quit Facebook Day over concerns about how Facebook treats the privacy of its users’ information you may want more information. Here’s a short collection of recent web posts that may help:

PC World (May 27)Facebook's Privacy Changes: Are You Satisfied? Excerpt: “It's a given that these tweaks won't satisfy every unhappy camper …”

The Tech Chronicles (May 28) Study: Mass exodus over Facebook privacy flap won't happen Excerpt: “Privacy issues won't cause a mass exodus from Facebook on May 31, but people are being more careful about how they use the popular social network, a new poll said.”

The Washington Post (May 29)What sites such as Facebook and Google know and whom they tell Excerpt: “Many online service providers over the past few years have been building huge dossiers with minute details of each user's online activities - a practice that isn't usually mentioned in privacy policies.”

PC World (May 29)Facebook's Privacy Reboot: Is That all You've Got for Us? Excerpt: “Making privacy easy while providing lots of control is a fundamentally thorny challenge. If Facebook has failed to nail it, it's not because the company is stupid, evil, or careless -- it's because this stuff is hard.”

Wikipedia Criticism of Facebook page. Excerpt: “Several web sites concerned with social networking have criticized the lack of information that users get when they share data.”

So what do you think? Should you stay on Facebook?

Related post:
Poem: Facebook – Have I Trusted You One-Too-Many-Times?

Facebook: Have I trusted you one-too-many times?

2010-05-27T20:28:00.003-04:00

By Mike Johansson

Facebook, where people come to share and post
Has been the place with users most
Five hundred million some say are there
Giving personal info they’re happy to share
The Zuckerberg? He smiles with glee
The more the merrier, says he
From early days in a college dorm
His social platform is now a global norm

And yet, all is not well in FB land
As the masses suspect a hidden hand
The rumors of Zuck and FB secretly sharing
Their personal data leaves them fearing
And reminds them of the days gone by
When FB privacy was changed on the fly
Users discovered that Facebook’s data keepers
Had opened everything up … even to creepers

So now the Zuckerberg is all a-flutter
The FB reputation: May be headed to the gutter
Has trust been broken just one too many times?
Why … questions are even being asked in rhymes!
So have Zuck and Facebook earned a chance
To keep us around for the social media dance?
Or will May 31 find many of us – even most
Leave to find a more trustworthy host?

So, will you stick with Facebook?

How do you cook up a new name?

2010-04-26T05:13:00.002-04:00

One of the biggest challenges for a public relations professional can be helping a business find a name for a new product, a new service or even a new company.

Add to this the complication of trying to come up with a name that works across all media, including social media and, well, you can see how the dream of the new can quickly become a nightmare.

I was working at a startup six years ago and it wasn’t the financing, the staffing, the office space, the suppliers, the distribution or any one of countless other problems that took the most time. No, it was the name of the new product.

Even though I was working with some incredibly creative types (including the great Rob Westcott - @robtnowes) it took days and days to get to the name.

So, in a nutshell, here is the four-step recipe I’ve since practiced each time I need to cook up a new name:

Step 1: Creative thinking

Start by writing a list of words that relate to your new product, new service or new business.

Now mix up those words in interesting ways – using Scrabble tiles, index cards or a whiteboard/chalkboard can help.

Are there words you can combine in playful and intriguing ways?

Are there words that can have multiple meanings?

Are there words you MUST use?

Always keep track of all the names you come up with. Some that don’t click right now might click tomorrow with just a small tweak.

Now write out a dozen or so potential company names and move on to …

Step 2: A pinch of luck

Take some time to look over this list:

Are any of the names distinctive?

Do some of the names resonate more than others?

Can some be taken in a bad way?

Which are easy to spell … consistently?

Which are pronounceable?

Are any incomprehensible?

Run your favorite(s) by a few people:

Do the names sound pleasant to their ears?

Do they instantly get the meaning?

Do they have a favorite?

Do they reject any of them outright?

If you eliminate any names here, go back to Step 1 and come up with more. The key is to have many that you can test when you move on to …

Step 3: The secret ingredient … fun!

OK, so you have several names. Are they fun?

The real secret to a great name is one that is memorable. The shortest route to “memorable” is being fun.

Are their words or word parts you can switch to add a smile? Are there letters you can replace with other letters (“y” for “i” for example) or numbers you can use to replace word parts (“2” instead of “to” or “4” instead of “for”).

Step 4: Finding a URL

A business name that does not work on the Web is a name that has no use.

By using one of the free web tools to check (two I like are Who Is and Go Daddy) you can find out which of your favorites is available.

If a name you like is available as a URL, great! If not, will some small adjustment make it work? If not, do you need to go back to Step 1?

Like all good recipes, this one can always be adjusted to suit your needs. Happy (and creative) cooking as you come up with the name for your next social media business.

Was this post helpful? What did I miss?

Related reading:
Where do creative ideas come from?

9 Ways to Learn at Twitter University

2010-04-22T22:11:00.010-04:00

A recent post by Jeff Bullas called Twitter Reveals 11 New Facts on its Traffic and Usage reminded me what it is that I love about Twitter: It’s one heck of a place to learn.

There are some great stats there. I think they reinforce what I believe is the greatest value of Twitter – it's just hands down the best ready source of information you didn't know you needed to know.

I call it the University of Twitter and my only regret is that I don' have three or four hours a day to devote to learning from it!

And I’m often surprised that more people don’t take advantage of this great resource for learning and sharing.

So how can you learn from this free “university”? Let me count the ways:

1. Follow people like you: Easy right? Not so fast Slick! You’re have more than a one dimension so be sure to follow people who tweet about ALL the things that interest you. You never know when the person you follow because they also like Siamese cats will tweet out a link to an interesting site on football great “Mean Joe” Greene.

2. Follow people who are nothing like you: Likewise find a few followers of people you follow who seem to be 180 degrees from anything you know or care about. Follow them for a while and you may be surprised what you learn. And remember, it’s Twitter, so if you change your mind you can always unfollow them.

3. Follow smart people: Some tweets just make you see things differently … they make you think. This is reason enough for me to check out the sender’s Tweetstream and if I like what I see I follow them.

4. Follow funny people: And for Pete’s sake have some fun. It’s as true on Twitter as it is anywhere: All work and no play can make you pretty dull. For example: You’ve likely heard of @shitmydadsays and @badbanana , but do you know @funnyoneliners and @CinderellaJoey?

5. Organize the people you track/follow: Use the Lists feature to keep track of a few different types of Twitterers without committing to following them. If you like what you learn then you can follow them.

6. Use search: Go to search.twitter.com and type in any word related to something you want to know about and voila you get tweets galore (many with useful links). This kind of search always yields material you likely would not have found any other way.

7. Track trends: The scrolling trending topics bar on the Twitter home page can sometimes also lead to interesting tweets. Although the continuing fascination with Justin Bieber escapes me.

8. Follow hashtags: Keep an eye out for interesting hashtags (the “#” before a word, for the uninitiated). Click on one and see what a bunch of folks are tweeting about. You may be surprised where following hashtags can take you but you’ll often find interesting tweets.

9. Try randomness: Sometimes you should follow links “just because.” The caution here: Beware of spammers and those who might be trying to spread computer viruses via tweets or Direct Messages. How can you be safe? Never click on DM links and before following a link in a regular tweet check out the sender’s tweetstream. A lot of duplicate or similar tweets indicates a spammer (at best) and a virus spreader (at worst).

Did I forget anything? Are there other ways to learn at the University of Twitter?

Possibly related post:

Beware the Social Media ‘Cone of Silence’

2010-04-19T05:59:00.005-04:00

Can social media suck you into believing you know everything? Absolutely.

I call this phenomenon the Social Media Cone of Silence … and it could be deadly for you and your business.

The “cone” is that space where you are so surrounded by online input that it feels like you’re on top of everything: You’re following the best blogs in your industry. You follow the smartest people on Twitter. You are involved in the deepest discussions on relevant LinkedIn groups. In a nutshell you’re so plugged in you’re the go-to person for what’s hot, what’s new and what’s over the horizon.

But this “cone” of information is a trap … and you need to see it for what it is. It has taken your attention away from some more basic information sources and can lull any business into a false sense of security.

So who are you likely ignoring (or at least not paying enough attention to)?

Sales people:What’s the word from sales? What are they hearing and seeing that you aren’t? They’re in the trenches day-in and day-out and they literally hear from customers all the time. What are they hearing? Is what they hear changing?

But don’t stop there. What do they know about competitors and how competitors are perceived in the marketplace? What opportunities are sales folks seeing? Given the chance to change one thing about your business or your product what would they suggest?

Sales people have your goals too, listen to them.

CRM specialists: Your customer relations specialists likely have obvious and not-so-obvious responsibilities. But the one thing they all have is a gut feeling about what is going on and what should be getting more attention.

Find these people throughout your organization … and look hard. For example the front-desk security guard or the delivery driver may not seem like customer relations types but they are. The handle customers every single day and because of this they know a lot of stuff that you don’t. Find them and listen to them.

Carol: This person may have another name in your organization, but in the first newsroom I worked in many years ago Carol was the secretary and receptionist. That is to say she was the smartest, most community connected person in the room. If Carol said something was a big deal the reporters and editors would always come to regret not following up on her ideas. Who are the Carols in your organization? Get to know them. Listen to them.

Can social media provide you with a lot of real-time business intelligence? Yes. But don’t forget to mix it in with a heaping helping of smarts from the real people around you. Who will you go talk to today?

Possibly related posts
Just How Big is Social Media?
10 Commandments for Social Media

Be The Giraffe With Social Media

2010-04-16T04:51:00.005-04:00

“It’s a jungle out there!”

No matter what business you’re in or what your purpose in social media you already understand that it’s increasingly hard to stand out from the crowd.

So if it is “a jungle out there” why not be the giraffe? And literally stand head, neck and shoulders above the rest of the ecosystem?

Here’s how to stand out by using social media:

Be “everywhere”: Not literally. But to the casual observer it should seem as though they encounter your name (and possibly your avatar) everywhere they go in social media.

Start a list today on the places people can find you: From social networking to your blog to your personal website to your business card (yes, your business card). Be sure all those places link or point to each other.

Now Google your name: Are you dominating the first pages of results? If not, you need more online (probably social) presences.

Be “all things”: You never want to be in social media for one purpose. And you especially don’t want to be there just to “take” or “sell.”

Review how you’re likely to be perceived in social media. Are you helpful? Are you a connector? Do you share freely? In the “Giver vs. Taker” equation would you be perceived as more of the former or the latter? If you can’t answer these questions have a disinterested outsider tell you (and return the favor for them).

Now that you know how you are being received decide if that is how you want to be seen or whether you need to make changes.

Be “the best”: Set a goal of being the best at something in social media. Achieving the goal is less important than having it and continually striving for it.

For example, you might want the reputation for being one of the smartest people in personal finance. Now ask yourself: Does most of what I say and do in social media align with that goal? If not, why not?

By having the goal and sticking to it your time in social media will be more focused and one day, just maybe, you will be seen as the best.

Be “the most …”: Can you literally be the “best” at something in the social world? You can. But it will take a little luck and one more thing: A concerted effort to work harder, be more reliable, be more of a connector or be more of something than most everyone else in your area.

Ultimately what will set you apart is your willingness to put in more effort than others.

Can you “be the giraffe” by using social media? Absolutely. The question is, will you?

Possibly related posts:
7 Ways to Tell How You’re Doing in Social Media
10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media

Are You ‘Living’ or ‘Existing’ in Social Media?

2010-03-28T06:56:00.004-04:00

For all the time and effort many businesses put into setting up in social media it is surprising that many could not answer to the question: “What next?”

For some, the answer is: “We’re here and that’s good enough.” To overcome that notion I’d suggest it’s important to know the difference between “existing” in social media and “living” in social media in four key ways:

1. Planning

Existing: The plan is simply to set up on various social media platforms just to be found. This “set up an outpost” thinking is all about making sure that when people do find you on a site such as Facebook or Twitter that they are “driven” to your own website.

Living: This type of planning takes into account where your customers, employees and suppliers already hang out in social media. It carefully chooses and prioritizes which platforms make sense for your business. It takes a long-term view.

2. Presences

Existing: These businesses on social media have one-dimensional pages on Facebook or Twitter accounts that have a schedule of broadcast messages about your company, your products or your clients. Even the avatar is a company logo or a product. These pages don’t feel like they are run by human beings you’d want to interact with – they’re not and you wouldn’t.

Living: These accounts are run by people … people who make it clear that while they work for a business they are also willing to engage with fans and followers. The messaging from these pages/accounts feels genuine. Visitors asking questions here will get a response.

3. Commitment

Existing: Businesses spend just enough time and resources to set up and maintain their presences. The employee who’s doing the work on behalf of the enterprises has had social media added to their list of responsibilities and likely has had little or no training.

Living: Companies who commit to social media start with a solid plan, follow through with professional training and alter work assignments to create time for daily social media participation. The expectation from the C-Suite down is that social media is as important, if not more important, to the company’s future than traditional marketing, sales and customer-relations efforts.

4. Relationships

Existing: What relationships? Seriously, businesses who are only in social media for what they can get out of it don’t really want to relate to the “unwashed masses” … they just want their money.

Living: The biggest reward for businesses living in social media will be the relationships they build – relationships with customers, employees, clients and, yes, even competitors. Relationship-building is what puts the “social” into social media. Businesses here will monitor social sentiment and profusely thank their promoters and work with their detractors to resolve issues. Ultimately this leads to others becoming your company’s biggest promoters.

So, are you merely “existing” in social media or are you “living” there? And what other ways would you suggest businesses get more from and put more in to social media?

Possibly related posts:
10 Commandments for Social Media
Just How Big Is Social Media?

PR crisis management in the ‘Twitter Age’

2010-03-21T15:06:00.005-04:00

“In the Twitter age” is a term I heard this past week from a slightly frustrated public relations professional talking about how he’s been forced to modify his crisis management plan.

And change he must. The best-laid crisis management plan will quickly unravel when information – true, untrue or even malicious – starts spreading on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

So how do PR professionals get from “being there” in social media to modifying their crisis management plan in the “Twitter age”?

Engagement: More than ever it’s important that solid social relationships are being built before a crisis breaks. Doing the basics on social platforms is a start; being fully engaged with social audiences will help save your reputation at a time of crisis.

Resources: If you don’t have someone on social media fulltime then you need to have them on it most of the time. Look at how your organization currently spends time. How much effort is still going into maintaining relationships with a few traditional media types? The ratio of time devoted to traditional media vs. social media needs to be flipped … even if slowly at first.

Listening: From basic free tools such as Google Alerts to paid services such as Alterian’s SM2 or Radian6 you can’t afford to NOT be monitoring conversations in social media around your products, your organization and your key people. You don’t know what you’re missing – literally. And that should be a very frightening prospect.

Black pages: If your news web pages don’t have “black pages” (pages designed to go live in response to various issues) you need to prepare them now. Every organization can predict certain types of issues that are likely to arise. Having a landing page that answers some likely first questions and that can go up on your website at a moment’s notice is smart planning.

First responders: You’ve already assigned responsibilities during a crisis, but whose job is it to manage social media messages and to respond to any inaccurate messaging? What is on that person’s checklist? Not responding is no longer an option … if it ever was. In the social world silence can equal acknowledgement that things are bad. Your social media first responder needs to understand this and the critical role they are playing in social messaging.

Prioritizing: Which social media platforms need the most attention? Without a doubt Twitter is an instant news service and deserves the most attention. Don’t be fooled by the numbers of Twitter users in your organization, your industry or your community. Twitter users are some of the most-educated, most-active and, possibly worst for you in a crisis, most-likely to spread what they see on Twitter via word-of-mouth. In other words their broad influence should be of great concern. Facebook is also a default communication platform by people who are concerned. Be sure to message there too and note that once the heat of the moment dies down the conversation around the crisis will likely linger longer on Facebook.

Follow-up: Once the crisis has passed don’t ignore social media. Find a way to post a reassuring video message from the CEO on YouTube or have someone in authority blog about the event and its successful outcome … load it up with photographs. Be sure to reach out to those who were most active during the crisis to alert them to this follow-up.

Can PR professionals control messaging on social media platforms during a crisis? No. But they can be there, be engaged and can quickly tamp down the small sparks of inaccuracy before they become damaging firestorms of bad information. Social media is changing the PR professionals’ job description, what else about crisis management did I leave out?

Possibly related posts:
10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media
Just How Big is Social Media?

5 Things Basketball and March Madness Teach About Social Media

2010-03-18T05:52:00.005-04:00

In offices all across America TVs are going to be on during the work day this week and next as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament cranks up. If you need an “excuse” to keep watching March Madness games when you should be working tell the boss that basketball and the tournament can give everyone a few simple pointers on social media. For example:

1. Anyone can, and sometimes will, win: At the start of the tournament or the start of a game everyone is a potential winner. The same is true in social media where customers and the people trying to earn their business have never been on more equal terms. The same goes for businesses competing with other businesses in social media. Fail to recognize this new dynamic and, for business at least, the game will soon be over.

2. At the start it’s a toss-up: Who wins the jump ball at the start of the play can set the tone for the rest of that game. Does your business have a strategy to both grab that ball and then quickly score before the other guys know what hit them? Will your business seize early opportunities and turn them into points on the board?

3. Individual effort is great; team play wins games: If everyone understands the game plan and sticks to it the chances of your business winning its own version of Social Media March Madness are much greater. Too much solo hot-dogging or a lack of team effort will lead to lost games or a blown tournament.

4. Creative plays are game winners: Of course you must play by the rules if they’re there. But to win a game you often need to come up with a play or two no one has seen before. A creative move that takes your opponents by surprise gives you the competitive advantage.

5. Winning is 90 percent hard work, 10 percent luck: Even the best coach can’t control that last 10 percent, but a great social media strategist can help monitor the other 90 percent to ensure that the hard work is sustained and that despite any setbacks it is maintained.

Remember the start of a basketball game is always a toss-up, but he result of the game and your social media efforts don't have to be.

What other parallels are there between basketball in general and March Madness in particular and social media? Please let me know if I missed some.

Possibly related posts:
5 strategies to get the Boss into Social Media
Questions Are a Recipe for Social Media Success

10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media

2010-03-14T17:17:00.005-04:00

Almost a year ago I wrote a post called 5 Reasons Social Media is Like Sailing that was well-perceived. It’s time to update that post.

Since then I’ve come up with more reasons sailors might just have the right approach to social media for business. Even if you aren’t into sailing you might try these approaches to see if they don’t make your time in social media more positive and more productive.

Here then are 10 Ideas to Keep Biz Sailing Smoothly in Social Media:

1. Pick your boat carefully: Not every craft is right for every sailor just as in social media not every platform is right for every individual. Pick a platform that suits you. Work with one at a time and see what works.

2. Start slowly: Nobody goes from pond sailing to open-ocean sailing in a day, weeks or even years. Learn your own capabilities, learn from others and be willing to get dunked a few times along the way.

3. Find an old-salt/mentor: Every top sailor was at some point helped along by an experience hand. So it should be in social media: Find someone who literally knows the ropes and can help you navigate your early days. They’ll also be there to stop you from drowning when you inevitably get wet a few times.

4. Learn to be ease in the environment: Just as being on the water can be a somewhat unnatural state for many beginning sailors, so can a newbie feel that their first days, weeks and months in social media can be slightly uncomfortable. Relax. Once you realize that the very worst that can happen is you may get a little wet once in a while then you’ll soon be loving every moment in social media.

5. The quickest route is NOT always a straight line: Like sailing, businesses in the social media space must navigate all kinds of challenges to get to their goals. Along the way there are likely to be winds (customer feedback) and currents (the business climate) that challenge a business trying to get to its port (goals). The best-laid social media plans include contingencies to deal with these. Although the course may be less than perfectly straight, the well-planned business will reach its goals ahead of its competitors.

6. You can’t control the wind: But you can control the trim of your sails and heading of your boat. The winds at the intersection of social media and business can be unpredictable and are constantly swirling. As a business you need to monitor the breezes of public opinion so that if they should suddenly turn into a squall of bad publicity you can react appropriately.

7. When bad weather hits: You, your vessel and your crew had better be prepared. Having a well-trained crew/staff and a solid social media plan will help a business react in its best interests. The plan allows the captain/boss to sleep well at night knowing that his boat is ready for anything.

8. An efficient sailboat is the sum of its working parts: A combination of hull shape, sails, masts and rigging keep a sailboat moving forward. A business operating in social media is also about the right combination of components to keep it moving forward. A social media plan will assess existing strengths, competitive threats and business goals to come up with the correct combination to keep you moving forward.

9. You WILL find yourself becalmed: It’s not something to fear. A thorough social media plan includes a list of “To Do” items that are not pressing, but certainly help make the enterprise if not stronger at least better able to make the most of the next breeze (opportunity). Remember that the “calm usually comes right before the storm.” Using it to get your business ready is just smart sailing!

10. Sail away from the safe harbor: You should take a few chances. This great quote from Mark Twain (sent to me by the helpful and smart Marita Roebkes) says it best: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

So, are you and your business ready to sail off and explore social media? I hope so. What other tips would you recommend for social media sailors?

Image is of The Man at the Wheel – the Gloucester Fishermen's Memorial Cenotaph, a tribute to local fishermen who have died at sea, in Gloucester, Mass. From FreePhoto

Possibly related posts
4 Steps to Social Media Success
Why Social Media? A Good vs. Evil Debate

10 Newbie Twitter Mistakes Made by Businesses

2010-03-07T05:40:00.005-05:00

Businesses jumping into social media often see Twitter as a “simple” part of the plan: set up an account and start tweeting. Sadly some even get stuck right after the set up part. Here are 10 mistakes business newbies on Twitter should avoid:

1. Doing Little or Nothing
With an estimated 25 to 30 percent of Twitter accounts either empty or “one tweet and done” is it surprising that these accounts generate little interest from others on Twitter? Your inactive or virtually inactive account sends a clear message that you’ve given up on Twitter.

2. Desperately Following
If you’re following hundreds of people and only a few dozen are following back doesn’t that send a message that you desperately want followers but aren’t getting them? Why not be patient and never let your Following count get more than 10 percent higher than your Followers account?

3. Tweeting Too Much
If you’re guilty of this you will annoy your followers and water down your message… which likely means you’ll lose followers faster than you get them. How much is too much? Start slowly and only tweet useful stuff two or three times a day. As you slowly increase this over several months pay attention to what, if anything, gets a response (it's retweeted or commented on) … and when this happens. Let this be your guide.

4. Mostly Self-Promotional
Too much “me, me, me” talk will mark you as boring … or worse. Add value for others on Twitter and more followers will come. Mention your business or services only when you’ve been asked or in direct response to a stated need. If you consistently give, you’re followers will do the same and your good behavior will be well rewarded.

5. Failure to Connect
It can be tempting for businesses to give a Twitter monologue instead of engaging in a dialogue. If you get to know your followers by asking and answering questions, for example, you’ll show that you’re interested in them. They in turn will learn about you. This also means responding to any “@” messages promptly (within a day at most).

6. Not Helping Others
Acting as a connector or problem-solver will earn you loyal followers. Sometimes the simple act of retweeting a piece of great content will be seen as being helpful. Twitter truly is a place of getting more than you give, but you have to give first.

7. Mixing Business and Pleasure
Sending a mix of business and personal tweets can work when you’re well-established, but a better practice for a business new to Twitter is to keep it all professional. Otherwise you’re sending the message: We don’t know enough to keep our personal lives out of our business.

8. Impersonal avatars
Yes your business name or logo is important, but Twitter (and all social media) is about people. Use an avatar image that reflects your people not your brand name.

9. Wasting background space
Twitter gives you a lot of real estate around your Twitter-stream … don’t waste it. Use it to let people know what you do and why you do it. Put your people and the business personality on display. It’s also OK here to list a few other contact points such as email address, phone numbers and other social media URLs.

10. Not Checking In Regularly
Maintaining a Twitter account needs to become part of your routine. Once a day or twice a day or more, but it does need to become a regular thing to have any chance of helping your business.

So what am I missing? I’d love to hear other things businesses who are new on Twitter should do to improve their chances of social media success.

A Related Post:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness

Twitter Influence Graders: Behind the Green Curtain

2010-02-28T08:35:00.006-05:00

Does influence on Twitter matter? And, if it does, what is the best way to measure it?

On the first question it seems reasonable to say influence only matters if all or part of the reason you are on Twitter is for business … then “influence” matters.

So if it matters to you, how do you measure influence?

In Twitter 1.0 most believed: Followers = Influence. Clearly the world of Twitter has moved on.

Today there are many tools that claim to measure an individual’s influence using up to 140 characters.

I decided to look at the three Twitter influence graders I use and ask questions of the people behind the tools. Here’s what I found:

Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader is just one of the many free analytics tools from the always helpful folks at Hubspot. I heard back from Dharmesh Shah, the founder at HubSpot himself (and @dharmesh on Twitter).

Twitter Grader ranks Tweeps on a scale up to 100 and allows comparisons to others by city and state, as well as analysis of followers and those you are following.

Dharmesh says Twitter Grader looks at a number of factors but one of the most important is the degree of "engagement" for a user.

“So, if a given user seems to be getting more retweets and responses to their tweets, they would get a higher grade.

“This makes sense, because this ‘engagement’ score acts as a decent proxy for influence,” he says. “We also look at the number of followers – with some adjustments for when an account has a lot of low-quality followers.”

Dharmesh went on to say that what people should know is that Twitter Grader measures on a curve (i.e. a relative scale). “So, as the Twitter user-base evolves, the scores adjust automatically. So, when a user gets a grade of 80, it means that based on the factors we look at, that user scored higher than 80 percent of the other users that have been graded.”

He concluded by acknowledging that calculating authority on Twitter is not a perfect science, but that Hubspot, who has been doing this for a while, has evolves its algorithm as it learns more about how Twitter is being used.

Twitalyzer

On behalf of Twitalyzer I heard back from its creator, Eric T. Peterson, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant at Web Analytics Demystified, Inc (and @erictpeterson on Twitter).

Eric says Twitalyzer, which can spit out analytics in dozens of categories, decided that humans know that influence is “something we see and experience every day in our lives” and “that being complex for complexity's sake was a bad idea. So we fixed that.”

With the Twitalyzer 2.0 release his company made changes to the old "influence" calculation and started calling it "impact."

“At the same time we dramatically simplified the influence calculation to look at the two measures we believe best reflected the pure definition of influence (‘causing something without any direct or apparent effort’): retweets and references,” Eric said.

That way anyone tracking their influence in real time will find “the more you invest in Twitter as a communication medium, the more influential you will become,” he said.

And while he personally does not see influence on Twitter as some kind of contest “if you're a business person paid to Twitter and you can’t move your Impact score up, something is wrong.”

“This is why we provide recommendations in Twitalyzer Dashboard ... to help our business users understand how they can improve their impact in Twitter,” Eric said.

TweetLevel

On behalf of TweetLevel I heard back from its creator, Jonny Bentwood, Head of Analyst Relations and Strategy at Edelman in London (and @jonnybentwood on Twitter).

TweetLevel tallies up scores in popularity, engagement and trust to reach an influence score. It does this with a transparent calculation it reveals on its About page that includes data from such places as Twitalyzer and Twinfluence.

Jonny told me that the key aspect when measuring influence with Tweetlevel is context. Within context the tool examines the “location of the conversation” and the type of influencer (including those that create, amplify, adapt or comment).

TweetLevel doesn’t “confuse popularity with importance,” but instead focuses on “micro topics” and understanding who are the key people in those areas. Jonny added: “TweetLevel is a dynamic tool that will alter someone’s score depending upon that user’s current usage.”

“The tool will continually evolve as Twitter adapts its API and functionality (such as the recent introduction of lists and change in the way retweets work). TweetLevel will take this new data and include it in the algorithm,” he said.

In terms of what TweetLevel’s scores mean (on a scale of 1 to 100) Jonny said his tool’s score is the equivalent of someone’s Google PageRank x 10. A score above 80 is truly exceptional and below 25 is not too good. For the everyday user that means a score over 40 is good, over 50 is great and over 60 is amazing

So what did I learn? It seems that of the three tools I use (for myself and clients) all have their value.

I think anyone relying too heavily on one influence measuring tool is likely getting a skewed picture of influence. Maybe there is a place for an “influence aggregator” that scores each user across multiple influence tools.

What do you think? Does Social Media , and Twitter specifically, need this?

Possibly related post
7 Tools To Find Who’s Big on Twitter

Twitter’s ‘Tweet Lifters’ Take Credit Where Credit Isn’t Due

2010-02-19T20:14:00.016-05:00

Twitter’s ephemeral nature means content comes and goes in most Twitter feeds at the speed of light. As it flashes by you see the good, the bad and, if you are unlucky or accidentally follow an idiot, the ugly.

So taking a tweet and reposting it without crediting the source is no big deal, right?

It’s only Twitter. There’s so much stuff flying around who will notice, right?

Wrong!

People do notice and you will be caught. Your “tweet lifting” (a term my friend @markfrisk coined) will be noted.

You may be called on it publicly (the best case scenario as it may make you stop the lifting or whatever you want to call it). Or you may simply suffer a silent, but deadly decline in your reputation.

Take the case of someone I follow, someone I know personally and someone I once would have trusted completely as both an authoritative voice in social media and a “good person.” We’ll call this individual Person A.

Person A is a believer in Twitter and its power to connect people and build collective knowledge. Person A has taught classes on the topic of Twitter. In the past month I have noticed that Person A reposts items that I and others have posted – usually within minutes, but sometimes hours later.

Person A does this without crediting the original source and sometimes with minimal or no changes to the original tweet.

How do I know this? Obviously I can’t be 100 percent sure, but the evidence has me at 99.9 percent. For example, a tweet this past weekend on a somewhat obscure topic was reposted six minutes later. A Google search found four stories on the exact topic, two of which ranked higher in the Google search than the one I chose.

I had chosen the story to link to because I liked the way it was written. Could it be mere coincidence that Person A reposted a link to that exact story just minutes later. It could. But this has been a pattern for several weeks.

In another example the bit.ly shortened URL I had in a tweet was repeated in a Person A tweet about an hour later, although some of the tweet’s language had been changed.

In yet another example the entire tweet, word-for-word and with the exact same bit.ly shortened URL showed up, uncredited, five hours later.

I think I know enough about URL shorteners to understand that an identical shortened URL would not be created by bit.ly.

In his blog postSharing Content (Anatomy of A Tweet And A Retweet) Francisco Rosales spells out just how important attribution is. And I agree with him when he says it is a “critical piece of the tweet”.

The bottom line is this: Your reputation as a “good person” on Twitter is on the line: Don’t be a “tweet lifter” on Twitter.

Examples:

Posted at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 19, 2010

Reposted without credit at about 4:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, 2010

To read more from Francisco Rosales go to his blog at socialmouths. To follow him on Twitter go to @socialmouths

Possibly related posts:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
The Twitter Term “Twanker”

3 More Reasons I Won’t Follow You on Twitter

2010-02-10T05:23:00.008-05:00

We all have our own reasons for not following back on Twitter. Recently a Twitter friend shared a link to Meg Guiseppi’s wonderful September 2009 blog post 14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

This is a blog post that has been so popular that Meg very recently posted 14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter (Revisited)

And while I agree with all 14 reasons I would respectfully add three of my own:

Your tweets are all in a language other than English – it’s nothing personal but aside from some high-school French and a little college Spanish my knowledge of other languages is limited. That’s my bad, I know, but how will we communicate? What would we say?

You exclusively tweet links to the work of others and don’t give any credit or attribution. Should I trust someone who does not give credit where credit is due? How will I know if this is the fifth time I’ve read a tweet on Mashable’s take on the Edelman Trust Barometer ?

You spend too much time tweeting personal stuff – we’re all human, but your tweetstream is all about you. You’re the vainglorious guest at the party who is certainly social but only inasmuch as it gets you more attention. Yuck! Now, if we are extremely good friends I might consider this a minor character flaw. Otherwise: No thanks.

Meg Guiseppi blogs at Executive Resume Branding and if you want to see if she will follow you back on Twitter you might try connecting with her at @MegGuiseppi. But don’t try if you’re not “good people on Twitter” because she clearly is.

So are there other reasons to not follow someone on Twitter? I’m sure. What are some of yours?

Related posts:
Twetiquette: 10 basics for Twitter politeness
What Twitter isn’t

Just How Big is Social Media?

2010-01-31T06:17:00.009-05:00

It turns out there is a cool app for that

Social Media is so rapidly evolving and the growth has been so fast in the past 12 months that demonstrating just how big social media has gotten can be hard.

But not anymore – thanks to Gary Hayes at Personalize Media who has put together this very cool Flash App that tracks, in real time, activity on the social web:

I’m hoping you’ll also note that there are “mobile” and “Games” tabs too. This is highly appropriate given how quickly social computing is also coming to dominate both of these areas too.

How useful is this data? In the time it took me to type the preceding words (about 2 minutes $4,000+ was spent on Facebook advertising, 10 times that was spent globally on “virtual goods” and 100 times that was spent on mobile messaging and data.

In the same timeframe 250,000 videos were watched on YouTube, 21,000+ tweets went out on Twitter and more than 2,000 blog posts went live.

For us mere mortals to get our heads around the explosive growth in Social Media, I for one am very glad people such as Gary Hayes are here to help.

Related Posts:
Why Social Media? A Good vs. Evil Debate
Questions Are a Recipe for Social Media Success
7 Ways to Tell How You’re Doing in Social Media

Shorty: You Did Right In the End

2010-01-31T05:36:00.006-05:00

How the Twitter awards show online voting redeemed its image
The voting is over and my faith in the fairness of the The Shorty Awards and Social Media has been restored.

The folks running the awards apparently heard my complaint – that theShortys were being dominated by musicians in inappropriate categories – and the complaints of others so they disallowed hundreds of votes. It turns out that a few fans of these entertainers – notably Ivete Sangalo and Claudia Leitte – had been automating new Twitter accounts just to cast extra votes.

This meant that the category I was in, customerservice, had the two Brazilian singers among its Top 5.

But when the voting ended two days ago – miracle of miracle – I was a finalist.

Am I so shallow that the mere exclusion of the two attractive Brazilian singers from Shorty’s list of favorites can win me over? Yes!

Is Fourth Place the biggest honor on the planet? Maybe not, but I am honored and flattered because it represents the opinion of dozens of people who took the time to vote. And for that I am honored, flattered and humbled. So …

To the Shorty Awards – thank you

To the category winners – congratulations

To the people who took the time to nominate me – thank you, thank you, thank you. You made my day and reinforced my belief that Social Media is an extremely positive force for good.

Related Post
Shorty I Hardly Knew You

Shorty: I hardly knew you

2010-01-20T22:02:00.011-05:00

How a brief flirtation with fame ruined my Twitter world forever

I have a confession to make: The Shorty Awards and I have had a brief (10-day) flirtation. Now it looks as though I was dumped for a couple of Brazilian singers.

I can’t say I blame Shorty. They’re both pretty … and can sing. How can I compete with the likes of them? But there will always be my brief, sweet dethroning of American Idol’s David Archuletta. Ah, the sweet smell of victory.
But I get ahead of myself.

It all began about 10 days ago when Twitter users @ProROC and AnaRC were kind enough to nominate me for a Shorty Award in the category of customerservice.

I didn’t know what the Shortys were but I learned that they “honor the best people and organizations on Twitter. These unique awards are for the Twitter community, by the Twitter community.”

I was flattered, honored and, well, surprised.

It was time to check this thing out. After a bit of poking around I found that Archuletta, the 2008 American Idol runner-up, was in the same category as me! It turns out he had nominations across many of the Shorty’s 26 official categories.

Two days later I was in sixth place and David was in fourth. I could catch him!

I discreetly asked a couple of close Twitter friends if they would consider nominating me. They did and others spontaneously followed. Others were kind enough to retweet a nomination and cast their vote that way.

Within four days I was in third! David was behind me and we all know what the view from behind looks like.

Shorty and I were really getting along. But I somehow knew that I was destined to always play third fiddle to the two top dogs in my category at the time Neil Gaman and Team McLaren. But then along come Ivete Sangalo and Claudia Leitte - two Brazilian singers who, as of this writing are holding down positions 2 and 4 respectively. I was on my way down.

Just like Archuletta they are nominated across multiple categories. Leaving me to draw an obvious conclusion about you Shorty: You are easily swayed by a singer – especially an attractive female one.

I wish you well Shorty whoever you end up with, but we’ll always have 10 days in January. And … if you ever want me back you know where to find me and nominate me!

Update: Shorty Does the Right Thing

Be an owl … to succeed in Social Media

2010-01-19T03:45:00.005-05:00

I was awakened in the early hours the other morning by a cool sound … an owl’s haunting “Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo.”

While lying there listening I got to thinking about owls and how they have adapted to the busy, crowded world of birds. It struck me that many of the ways an owl acts to separate itself from the flock, as it were, are things we could all do to be better observers and survivors in the increasingly crowded social media space.

For example, an owl is almost never seen and seldom heard from. They have become almost completely nocturnal hunters and their chief survival skills are watching and listening.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds site the owl I heard was a Great Horned Owl. It’s a very common owl.

It has adapted to life, according to the site “from the Arctic tundra to the tropical rainforest, from the desert to suburban backyards.”

So how does being more owl-like help in Social Media? Let me list the ways:

Owls have spectacular vision. Their eyes are nearly the same size as humans and they can discern the smallest details in the lowest of light. We could all use better eyesight when it comes to observing what is happening in Social Media and learning from it.

Owls have great flexibility. Their eyes do not move in their heads, so they must move their heads to see better – they can swivel their heads through 270 degrees or the equivalent of from 12 to 9 on the face of a clock! Just try that sometime. This flexibility means they are constantly changing their perspective or way of looking at things … surely a useful skill in Social Media observation.

Owls have superb hearing. They have one ear slightly higher than the other so that by twisting and tilting its head an owl can determine the direction, distance and height of a sound. Again by constantly changing the way we listen to others we will be exposed to a deeper understanding of what is being said and where its coming from.

Owls are patient observers. They sit high in trees watching and listening. They pick the moment to strike very carefully for maximum likelihood of success. How often do we jump too quickly into a conversation and miss an opportunity that may have come had we just been a little more patient?

Owls ”talk” infrequently … and then only out of necessity. Their calls help a mate find them or find food. If only all observers in social media would communicate only when they had something essential to say.

Owls are very smart consumers. At least the Great Northern is. This species is known to kill larger animals (raccoons for example) that even its strong wings and talons could not carry away. So in winter they will let the dead animal freeze and then later use body heat to thaw small sections for consumption. Being a smart consumer and only taking what you need is a survival lesson (social media or otherwise) for all of us.

Information for this blog post on owl behavior was gleaned from – and thanks are offered to – the Great Horned Owl Wiki and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Great Horned Owl Pages.

Related posts:
10 Commandments for Social Media
7 Ways to Tell How You’re Doing in Social Media

4 Steps to Social Media Success

2010-01-04T04:35:00.000-05:00

What’s the secret to a successful foray into Social Media?

It’s likely there is no one over-arching secret, but I do believe that there is a pyramid (or order of doing things) that likely improves anyone’s chances of being successful in their Social Media efforts, whatever those may be.
The pyramid is designed to show the steps to a peak with the width of each step indicating the frequency or commitment of time and energy at each level. Ideally you will spend at least twice as much time engaged in Step 1 as you do in Step 2 and so on.
Here there are my 4 Steps to Social Media Success:

1. LISTENING
This is what Social Media is for … no really. It’s the thing that’s hardest for newbies to grasp: That just by paying attention to what others are saying, sharing and asking you can learn so much.
Do this well and your future success in Social Media (however you define it) is assured.
How to do it: Follow, fan or connect with a few key people on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn – people important to your industry, your business and/or your interests. Start following a few blogs on topics you care about. And then read, read, read. You might even want to start making note of who seems to have the “best stuff” in the areas you care about and when they are active on their particular Social Media platform.

2. CONNECTING
It’s not enough to just be a “spy in the room” – sooner or later you will need to engage with people. Start by saying Hello. No, really. Imagine your time in Social Media were a cocktail party. Would you simply sit in a chair against the wall listening in? Of course you wouldn’t.
How to do it: When people accept your offer to connect, become a fan or follow – thank them. When they ask you a question, answer it. I’m serious. You don’t think this needs to be said? Just hang around in Social Media long enough and you will see that the “Faux Followers” far outnumber the “Real Followers.” If you liked or appreciated something in a blog, leave a comment saying so. By being human at this stage your credibility begins to build.

3. HELPING
If you thought Social Media was all about what’s in it for you, you’ve really grabbed the stick at the wrong end: It’s all about what your time in it means for everyone else. Your reputation (and therefore your trust and influence) are directly related to how human you are and at this level that means being helpful and giving.
How to do it: Start slowly by answering a few questions that you are able to as they pop up. Share links to really good stuff you’ve found on the web. Introduce two people who don’t know each other but who could help each other. Connect the dots for others. In the karmatic way of Social Media this help will be repaid with much interest.

4. ASKING
Yes, you do get to ask for help once in a while and you can ask others if you may offer them a solution to a problem that just happens to be related to your business. BUT, you do this rarely and with great care.
How to do it: First you need to know your audience (your followers, fans or connections) and you need to pay attention to how they react when others make “offers.” If you have established a relationship and you believe your audience really wants/needs what you have you can make the offer. BUT (again with emphasis), be sure to make the offer at the right time and only once. Handled incorrectly this last level of the pyramid can easily destroy the other three. You have been warned.

If this all seems like too much work, perhaps Social Media is not for you. The real trick is to keep Social Media “social” and to build relationships.

Related links:
10 Commandments for Social Media
10 Social Media No-Nos
7 Ways to Tell How You’re Doing in Social Media

Looking Back on 2009

2009-12-31T11:15:00.005-05:00

Like many I started 2009 worried that the difficulties of the previous year would be magnified and my situation would eventually become serious. In late 2008 my job had been eliminated (after 20+ years with the same company) and along with it the security of health insurance and a clear sense of who I was.

But early in 2009 I launched my own social media-strategy business, Fixitology, began volunteering for the Ad Council of Rochester and began taking an online Master Certificate course in Internet Marketing through the University of San Francisco. Before the year was out I would have multiple businesses as clients of Fixitology, I’d be consulting for Brand Cool Marketing and I would take on a fulltime teaching position in the Communication Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

What a difference a year makes. I count myself extremely fortunate, but I also know that a transformative year like this will leave its mark on me forever. Here are the five things I will always remember about 2009:

Change The monumental change in the way people communicate and share called Social Media is so big that many have yet to grasp its significance. Like a tsunami, this wave of communication platforms is getting bigger and bigger. Many will not see this change for what it is until it is too late. I count myself fortunate to have begun engaging four years ago and really stepping up my involvement in 2009. And like a tsunami it’s never too late to try seek higher ground or a way to ride the wave. Here’s hoping most will “get it” in 2010.

Friendship – It used to fit a fairly narrow description in my life: the people I had known for a long time and wanted to spend time with. Through Social Media and groups such as the Social Media Club of Rochester I have learned that a shared interest in any manner of things can lead to abiding friendships with people I once would not have had the opportunity to meet. I’ve also learned that by giving help where I can and whenever I can, I ultimately feel rewarded many times over.

Learning – This has been a continual process in my life, but it wasn’t until I took the visiting professor job at RIT that I realized how interwoven learning and teaching are. I went in thinking I would be teaching, but it turns out I’m doing as much learning – about life, about people and about the way people learn. For this I’m grateful to my students and my fellow faculty. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t get valuable insights.

Courage – This is not something I had ever consciously thought about, but it is something I’ve started to detect (either in its abundance or a lack thereof) in those faced by uncertainty or the unknown. While uncertainty faced many during the year some dealt with it by striking out in new directions; others by retrenching, waiting and hoping. When a client pointed out that they admired my courage for doing the former it was a great moment of self-realization. If that is courage (as opposed to, say, naive stupidity) then I’m glad I had it at this time in my life.

Optimism – I’ve always known that my positive take on most people and most situations was at odds with some of those around me. But this year when others started thanking me for seeing a difficult situation in a positive light - I realized that just being me was helping others to see things more positively. I thought about my maternal grandmother Hilmary Catton a lot this year … it was her attitude that came through in me during the year. My favorite saying of hers (and I am paraphrasing here): “Life – it sure beats the alternative!”

So, no matter what 2010 holds in store, for me 2009 will always the year of Social Media and self-realization.

Social Media as the new technology boogeyman

2009-12-03T13:30:00.002-05:00

As Social Media becomes a scapegoat in workplaces because “employees are spending too much time on it” or “they’re not representing us well with it” I love to tell this story about a scary new technology in the workplace

The new-fangled technology was not to be trusted … so much so that the boss set it on a desk in the middle of the office where he could see it through the window in his door. Now he was sure he could keep an eye on it and monitor its use by employees.
You see he just knew employees would be tempted to spend too much time on that contraption, would not use it for work purposes and, worse, would use it to give away company secrets. What possible good purpose could this technology be put to?

Well that “technology” was the telephone and the timeframe? The start of the 20th Century.

You see humans have always mistrusted the new and suspected it would lead to “no good.”

So how should organizations regulate Social Media in the workplace? They shouldn’t … at least not in ways different from the way they regulate computer and telephone usage.

3 Ways Businesses Can Erase Social Media Fears:

1. Explain: Tell your employees all about Social Media (including some of its pitfalls such as “Your tweets will live on forever … be careful”) and then explain to them that their use of company property (computers etc) to engage on Social Media is stealing unless they are doing the company’s business.

2. Train: Are there things they could legitimately do to help your business on Social Media? Absolutely! So train them in the types of messages around your company, your products and services that you strongly suggest they use when the opportunity is right. Show them how to use Social Media to monitor for mentions of your brand and/or product and then train again on how to direct those messages or respond to them.

3. Ingrain: Make sure every fiber in their body understands that Social Media is a public space. They should not say anything they would not be willing to shout from your rooftop in front of you or their mother (whoever carries the bigger stick in their minds).

If you, like me, believe that businesses blocking access to Social Media and other websites is wrong please consider checking out StopBlocking.org and supporting its work.

Remember, Social Media, like most things can not truly be suppressed or held back. Why not embrace the change and have smart employees acting as your eyes, ears and mouthpieces?

Related posts:
Questions Are a Recipe for Social Media Success
5 Social Media Mistakes