10 SM Resources for Hospitality Customer Service

Why does social media matter for those in hospitality? A Google search for "hotel" turns up 3.1 billion (that’s billion with a b) results in 1.05 seconds. A similar search on "restaurant" turns up almost 1.9 billion in 1.56 seconds. And the top results will be for such places as Hotels.com, Expedia, Trivago, Kayak and Restaurants.com.

For most users those top results will be all they need. But for others the search will be slightly more involved or the decision to click will take a few seconds longer. The difference? Loyalty to a brand or recollection of another person’s great experience.

What can help businesses in hospitality (hotels and restaurants, for example) earn those few seconds of extra consideration?

Social media – it is the very key for industries whose biggest driver is word-of-mouth marketing.

But how? And, perhaps more importantly, why? According to a 2015 article on Harvard Business Review:

• "Consumers under 35 spend almost four hours per day on social media, and more of that time is being spent engaging with brands."
•  "17% of people older than 55 prefer social media over the telephone for service."

And, of the four stages of the consumer decision-making process – need recognition, information search, evaluation and decision – social media increasingly plays a role in the first three….

So how should those in hospitality – particularly on the customer service side – use social media to attract, assist and retain loyal customers?

10 Social Media Resources for Hospitality Customer Service

The article 5 Social Customer Service Best Practices from Cision suggests restaurants and hotels graduate their social care customers to a more reliable communications platform such as SMS or email, get all employees on board with appropriate social responses and understand that customers expect a near-immediate response on social media.

• Key takeaway: "Today, 39 percent of social media complainers who expect a reply want it to come within 60 minutes, yet the average response time from businesses is 5 hours,” says social media expert Jay Baer in the piece.

In Social Hospitality: How 8 Hotels Engage Guests On & Offline (from Sprout Social) author Jennifer Beese suggests that social media allows hoteliers to be an Invaluable resource beyond just providing accommodations, to be attentive during guests’ stays and a to extend the experience after the stay.

• A key takeaway: "Knowing where your guests communicate online will help you provide a better customer service experience while enabling you to reach the right people at exactly the right time."

The grandly named The Complete Guide to Social Media for Restaurants & Bars (also from Sprout Social) gives advice on creating relevant posts (i.e. understanding the difference between engagement vs. promotional posting), how to find optimal times to post and what it takes to get your social efforts to a higher level.

• A key takeaway: "If you’re not visibly active on social media, then you’re missing out on a large customer base."

The question and answer website Quora might be a great resource for those in hospitality according to Quora: How to Generate Leads for a Hotel says an article on the Social Media Explorer site. It suggests such strategies as being on social to provide solutions, searching social platforms for questions to answer and resisting being promotional in social posts.

• A key takeaway: "A boutique hotel could easily muscle in on the big boys’ territory with well-thought out answers to travelers’ queries. In the process, you’ll build authority and possibly carve out a niche for your brand."

The eHotelier.com piece How the hospitality industry is embracing social media offers a series of "insider tips" for those in hospitality and their use of such platforms as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These include Facebook promotions and working with bloggers.

• A key takeaway: "Ninety one per cent of retail brands use two or more social media channels, and the hospitality industry should be no different."

Conversocial, a website that looks at various aspects of social media and customer service, offers Customer Service for Travel, suggesting that hospitality brands standing out as leaders in social customer service are making major investments in this area, expanding their teams and marketing budgets. The piece offers tips on deepening connections to customers and making the right impression on social channels.

• A key takeaway: "More than other customer service channels, social lends itself to creating memorable experiences for customers."

7. Customer service in its broadest sense means offering something of value on social to current and future customers. So the post 10 Examples of Great Social Media Content for Restaurants on the EnPlug Blog offers tips including the obvious "Share mouth-watering photos” and the not-so-obvious "Get your employees involved."

•      A key takeaway: Show your customers that you’re on social for more than just pushing out promotions. Whether you’re answering questions, addressing concerns, saying thanks, or just responding with wit, your responses will go a long way."

Top social media management tools for hotels and the hospitality industry from TravelTripper.com offers a list of 10 social media management tools for the hospitality industry with explanations of features and pricing.

• A key takeaway: "From streamlining content creation and posting to social listening and analytics integrations, social media tools come with a range of innovative features …."

Are there downsides to social media for hospitality businesses? Some would say negative reviews on sites such as Yelp, but RestaurantEngine.com – in How to Respond to Negative Restaurant Reviews – says "…not all negative reviews have lasting consequences…. It’s what you do with the review that sets you apart and defines your restaurant."

• A key takeaway: "Not only are you fighting for the reviewer’s business, but you’re fighting for everyone else who reads the review."

And of course I’d be remiss to not mention all of the various infographics that boil down social customer service to its key elements. I’ve created a public Pinterest board called Social Customer Service that may prove useful to those in hospitality. The graphics range from how to use social to deal with negative comments to using social to build loyalty and trust with future and current customers.

Bonus: If you’re looking for some thought leaders in the area of social media and hospitality you might check out The Top 16 Leaders in Hospitality to Follow on Twitter from Capterra.

                Is social media here to stay as a fact of life for customer service in social media? For sure. Will it evolve and grow as a series of customer service channels? Absolutely. What do you think?

Related posts:

• Social media listening – it’s time to commit to it
• Social Media Employee Empowerment - What Works

Tracking the presidential election with social media

With just weeks until the 2016 Elections in the U.S. it is clear that this cycle has become the social media-driven elections.

No matter who you support, who you despise or who you wish would just "be quiet" there is an endless supply of Twitter tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram images and YouTube videos to variously inform, annoy or enrage. How to make sense of it all? 

First, decide if social media can help you stay informed. If the answer is "no" you can just stop here. But if the answer is "yes" then here are a few suggestions: 

Twitter
• Follow a popular hashtag or hashtags: Some popular hashtags this election season include #election2016, #debates, #debates2016, #trump, #clinton, #donaldtrump, #hillary, #vote, #nevertrump, #hillaryemails
• Explore some new hashtags: There’s an exhaustive list of hashtags (Warning: some are NSFW) on the Top-Hashtags.com website.
• Create a Twitter list: This is simply a way organizing the Twitter "firehose" so that it is more manageable. In other words by viewing a list you are only seeing the tweets of the people you place on that list and not all of the people you follow on Twitter. (For more how to create a list see Using Twitter lists from Twitter). Who should be on your list? A good place to start is adding the Twitter accounts of the candidates, their proxies and their official campaigns. After that add people you think are informative and helpful.

Facebook
• Like the pages of all the major candidates: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson
• Like the pages of the political parties: Green, Libertarian, Independents, Democrat and Republican. • Use the filtering functions of Socialfixer to exclude certain kinds of posts. Although this article from ZDNet talks about using Socialfixer eliminating all political debate from your Facebook feed, the same principles can be applied to cut down on certain types of content in your feed. See How to filter politically sanctimonious Facebook posts from your news feed. 
• Use the USA Today/Facebook Barometer to gauge which candidates are doing better or worse based on Facebook activity (likes, shares, mentions).

Others
• Follow the Instagram accounts of … Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein
• Subscribe to the YouTube accounts of … Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump 

I hope this is an useful primer. Please feel free to post other social media tips around the elections in the comments.

Related posts:
Fact-checking the presidential election - from social media claims to debate points
Social Media and Politics Makes for Odd Bedfellows

Updated: Fact-checking the presidential election - from social media claims to debate points

Updated to include Google's addition of a "Fact Check" category in Google News search results. See "Update" at the end of this post.

This 2016 election season in the United States has been like no other for a couple of reasons. 

It has two leading presidential candidates comfortable using social media with hordes of rabid followers tearing up the social media channels with claims real and, well, a lot less so.

The live candidate debates have frequently degenerated into name calling and claims that are hard to believe.

What is an interested citizen to do?

Thankfully the other trend this season has been the wide range of sites offering fact-checking on what is being said by all sides. 

Here is a starter list (it could never be truly comprehensive). The links lead to a site's political coverage where many, if no most, offer live fact-checking during major debates:

Big name media outlets on the right:
Wall Street Journal
Forbes
Fox

Big name media outlets on the left:
NPR
New York Daily News
The Huffington Post

Mainstream media outlets:
USA Today
ABC News
CBS News
NBC News
PBS Newshour
The New York Times
The Washington Post 
The Los Angeles Times

Fact-checking organizations:
PolitiFact
FactCheck.org
Snopes

Foreign news media:
BBC
Reuters

Hip media outlets:  
Buzzfeed
Heavy.com
Mic.com

Partisan advocacy organizations:
ThinkProgress  (Liberal-leaning)
NewsBusters  (Conservative-leaning)
Breitbart (Conservative-leaning)

So, whether you're fact-checking a candidate debate or another's social media post, know that you have almost no end of sources tom verify what is being said.

Update:
Google has added Fact Check as a tag to search results involving major news stories. It says it is doing this to help searchers on the web identify stories that have a fact-checking in them. Google in a web post said:"We’re excited to see the growth of the Fact Check community and to shine a light on its efforts to divine fact from fiction, wisdom from spin."

Related posts:
Tracking the presidential election with social media
Social Media and Politics Makes for Odd Bedfellows

Social Media and Politics Makes for Odd Bedfellows

If you believe, as the saying goes, that "politics makes strange bedfellows," then politics and social media make for some truly odd "bedfellows."

In the current hyper-charged electoral season in the United States it seems social media streams are overflowing with political points of view ranging from bemused commentary to out-and-out hate speech for one presidential candidate or the other.

This, perhaps inevitably, has led to those posting or those seeing extreme posts to invite anyone who disagrees with them to "unfriend me now."

It’s such a phenomenon it’s become a national story with Politico, for example, reporting this week that Trump and Clinton wreck Facebook friendships.

But is "unfriending" – the Facebook term (or unfollowing or disconnecting on other platforms) – the only or even the best option?

Recently, I was asked to add some tips for a story in the Rochester, N.Y., Democrat and Chronicle: Tips to deal with political haters online.

That story featured my tips and those from Scott Talan, an American University communication teacher who studies social media and politics. His tips are all sound:

• "Take a breath or two" and think it through before commenting on a friend's post or unfriending someone.
• Instead of sharp opinion statements, pose questions such as "how can we trust her?" or "is he stable enough to be president?"
• Remember that this will all be over in November, and your friendships could and should outlast the next presidential term.
• And, in general, "try not to be like the candidates."

My additions were:

• Simply ignore the people posting things that upset you. Facebook’s algorithm will eventually push anything they post further and further down your news feed since it gives priority to close family and friends and people you interact with regularly. You can also start interacting more with the people you enjoy — this will hasten the process of the others being pushed down.
• If you must comment on posts, stick to facts and questions. It’s hard to argue with the former (especially if you drop in a citation and/or link). Or ask questions that might provoke new thinking.

But I got to thinking and there are other things you can do: 

• Another way to quickly bury someone who is posting things you don’t want to see on Facebook is to use FB’s “Hide” feature (see pic). At the top right of any Friend’s post the drop-down menu will include Hide and Unfriend. The first means you’ll see a lot less from the person and (if you have a lot of friends) eventually nothing from that person unless they tag you in a post. Unfriending is the “nuclear option” and although the person you unfriend gets no notification of this they will soon figure it out if they try to message you or tag you on Facebook.
• On Twitter a best practice is to start using the Lists feature to organize the people you follow into those who are friends and/or providing relevant posts. This cuts the “Twitter firehose” news feed down to size and can have the added benefit of ensuring you don’t see posts from people who annoy or upset you. 

And in all of this hyper-charged political season one piece of advice for anything on social media still holds true: “Would you be proud to show you grandmother whatever it is you are about to post?”

Good friends and smart people can agree to disagree on one thing and not lose a friendship over it. Social media doesn’t need to be a place where we only associate with people we agree with 100 percent of the time – that’s the kind of thinking that has turned Washington into a laughingstock…

What do you think?

Live video streaming on social media has ‘arrived’

In case you missed it this past week - live-streaming social media video has changed the world. 

While livestreamed events such as a watermelon being exploded with rubber bands or the "Chewbacca Mom" video have been Internet hits, it has been the graphic news of the past week that hints at the live-streaming’s powerful future potential.

The Facebook Live stream by Diamond Reynolds of the aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer in Minnesota was only the latest (and possibly most graphic) example of a livestream capturing and recording news as it happened.

The sniper attack in Dallas the next day led to numerous live video streams on Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope. News coverage on traditional media during the Dallas shootings and over the following hours consisted almost entirely of live-streamed social media video.

If live-streaming needed it’s "coming of age" moment this was likely it. What does it mean?

The live-streamed events of last week foreshadow "the biggest shift in media consumption we’ve seen since the introduction of television itself," writes Andrew Hutchinson, a writer and community manager at Social Media Today in a post called "The Evolution of Live-Streaming Could Change the Way You Consume Media - Here’s How"

"Just as online content democratized newspaper journalism, putting small time blogs on equal footing with centuries-old publications, live-streaming takes away one of traditional broadcasters’ most significant advantages, in the control of the broadcast of live events," he continues. 

"Really, social media is moving beyond its personal networking roots – there’ll come a time soon when ‘social’ media is simply considered part of the media more widely.”

But, the possibility of injury and death being live-streamed raises ethical issues.

In Live Broadcast of Deaths Raised Ethical Questions on the Voice of American Blog ‘As It Is’ Robert Thompson, Director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, says the rise in live streaming will have good consequences (holding people accountable) and bad (groups such as ISIS staging killings just for the purpose of recording them). 

"A lot of these bad things are done for the sake of the recording they are going to get," Thompson says. "You could make the argument, pretty soundly, that September 11 was planned as a television production." 

This will raise a wide range of ethical issues with live-streaming technology, but it will be nearly impossible to stop it: "Technology is relatively neutral," he says. "How do you only take the good from this and not the bad?"

And with all of this potentially graphic live content comes responsibility. 

To deal with the likelihood that more and more graphic live material will be streamed Facebook will increasingly play a policies-and-standards role in the news social media users will see live-streamed. 

The Minnesota video was off Facebook for about an hour last week - apparently while the network decided if it was too graphic and might violate Facebook's Community Standards. 

Writing for Tech Talk Quinten Plummer notes that "to determine which graphic and violent images are permitted, Facebook relies on context." 

In an article called "Facebook Live-Stream Video Gives Marginalized A Voice, But Here's Where It Draws The Line" Plummer reports: "Facebook has clarified its stance on gory and violent content. Just as is the case with video on demand, a member of Facebook's review team can interrupt a live video at any time. And a team member is on call around the clock, each day of the week." 

And, in what seems to be Mark Zuckerberg’s wish for the future of live-streaming, the Facebook CEO says: "While I hope we never have to see another video like Diamond's, it reminds us why coming together to build a more open and connected world is so important - and how far we still have to go."

Zuckerberg's wish is one many share, but the reality is this: The media landscape changed last week and the ramifications of that will be felt far and wide….

Related:
3 Things to Consider (Well) Before You Live Stream on Social Media

3 Things to Consider (Well) Before You Live Stream on Social Media

Live-streaming a news event on social media is about to be something more and more of us will consider doing. 

But what should we be thinking about before whipping out the smartphone and “going live” on Facebook Live, Twitter’s Periscope or some other live-stream video service?

1. Safety
Watching the world through a small smartphone screen as you live-stream is inherently dangerous.

You cannot see everything going on around you and if you’re moving you may not fully see where you are walking or what you are walking into. This is especially true at night.

Or, as in the tragic case in Chicago in June, you may become a crime victim while live-streaming (see Man shot and killed while live streaming on Facebook).  

The best idea? Have a "buddy" with you while live-streaming – someone who can look around and "have your back." 

2. Consequences
What are the possible outcomes of whatever you are live-streaming? And, if the worst-case scenario happens can you live with sharing that live?

Thinking about this ahead of time will likely help you, in the heat of the moment, make a decision you can live with.

A best practice? Ask yourself if (worst-case scenario) happens is this something where the benefits outweigh any possible harm?

3. Motivations
Why do you want to broadcast this event/news/happening to the world?

This will necessarily get into ethical considerations. So, again, thinking about which circumstances you will or will not stream ahead of time can help in the heat of the moment when decision-making may not be so clear-minded.

A useful resource for anyone considering live-streaming might be this article from the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank: 10 questions journalists should ask themselves before going live on Facebook

Getting started
And if you’re new to live-streaming where to begin?

The Chicago Tribune offers some good advice in 5 top tips for live streaming video on social media. 

Do you have experience live-steaming? What other considerations are important?

Social media listening – it’s time to commit to it

What is social listening (and why commit to it)?
In a nutshell it is paying attention to what is being said on social media, but obviously it’s more than that. 

It starts with social monitoring – or collecting every social mention and action relevant to your organization, brand, purpose etc.

After monitoring comes social listening – this requires analysis and reflection on what has been gathered. It also means watching for patterns, tracking sentiment and drawing conclusions based on where and when conversations happen.

So why should you commit to social listening? Among the things it can do:
• Improve customer care
• Learn about opportunities – business and otherwise
• Get feedback on products and services
• Identify your influencers and advocates
• Discover where your community hangs out

How to do it:
• Monitoring – what people are actually doing, not just what they say they are doing, on social platforms and the web in general
• Listening – separating signal from noise; determining importance and relevance
• Interpreting – what does it mean to us now? In the future? Do we see a problem we can solve for a customer?
• Taking action – turning data into insights; acting on those insights

Manual steps (free):
If paying for monitoring tools that simplify social listening is not in your budget there are free things you can do:
• Plan to listen: Set aside time (daily is best) to search on keywords and/or hashtags that relate to your business, its name, its products and services and the industry you’re in.
• Plan to respond: Have a document that spells out how you will respond on social to both the good and the bad comments etc. about your organization. This should include how you can redirect people to helpful online resources or be helpful in other ways. Also, have conversation starters ready to use with influencers and others who are interested in your industry.
• Plan to follow up: When you have jumped into a conversation be sure to follow it to a natural conclusion … and be timely (in other words don’t allow more than a day to elapse between responses – much less time if you’re dealing with any kind of crisis communication).
• Plan to document: Keep track of who you have interacted with and when. Complete a monthly summary of this activity and its benefits to your organization so you can send it to your boss so a higher-up will understand the value of spending time on this.

Paid tools:
There are a lot (see "Resources" below). Here’s what’s important in whatever tools you use:
• Learning curve: How hard is it to get up and running on the app/software?
• Data collection: What kinds of data can be collected and how customizable is this?
• Reporting: How is the data reported and can it be manipulated by the end-user for inclusion in reports?
• Historical reporting: In addition to the regular reports how does it aggregate data and report it over extended timeframes?
• Planning: Does it allow any kind of “what if” scenarios that show how changing one action might affect results?

So, there you have it, social listening is clearly important for anyone on social media. The question is to what extent your organization should commit to it…. I’ll address that in a future post.

Do you have thoughts on things I may have missed? I’d welcome your feedback.

Resources:
• 6 Social Media Monitoring Tools to Track Your Brand
• Top 8 Social Listening Tools That Do Way More Than Listen
• A Wiki of Social Media Monitoring Solutions

Social Media Safety Tips for Teens and Parents

Source: Woman Online Magazine

Once in a while I get asked to talk to a mixed group of high school students and their parents about social media and the possible consequences when it is misused. So given the broad use of social media by teens (see graphic) it seems like a good excuse to encapsulate some of the things I say. 

For Students: 
• Anything posted on social media can (and will) be shared by others regardless of your privacy settings. There really is no such thing as "private" in social media so if you don’t want others to see it DON’T POST IT. 
• Social media can be a good thing, but if you (teens) ever feel uncomfortable by something you see or read on social, trust those feelings and talk to someone you trust – a parent, a teacher, some other adult you trust. Bullying, threats and cruelty on social media are all signs that the person doing those things needs help. 
• For high school juniors and seniors: Clean up your social media. If you don’t think those colleges you’d like to attend aren’t looking at what you post, think again. If social media is the place you must vent go analog … write your "vent" on paper chew it and swallow it … it’s the only 100 percent way you can be sure no one else will ever see it….. 
• Understand that collectively what you post online adds up to your personal brand. What people find out about you in a Google search is what they believe to be a picture of you. Make sure that is a flattering picture. If you need help managing your online reputation use tools such as brandyourself.com and reputation.com 
• And last, but no least: Have fun on social media (but never at someone else’s expense) because if you’re not enjoying it why are you using it? 

For Parents: 
• You cannot control social media – accept that fact and work on developing your students’ life skills: self-esteem, good judgment and knowing where to turn when things get uncomfortable unkind and, yes, unthinkable…. 
• Have such a good relationship with your teen that they are OK with you being their "friend" on social networks. I know, much easier said than done – but well, well worth the effort. 
• Always be open to your teen’s concerns. Even the most innocuous question from a teen can sometimes be rooted in something they’ve been exposed to on social media. 
• Ensure that any teen under 18 using a smartphone has to get your permission to download an app (this is a setting on most smartphones) and do your research before agreeing to the download. 
• Parents hosting drinking parties think they’re being smart by taking cellphones from kids at the party, but those neighborhood kids who weren’t invited or adults who don’t appreciate what’s going on? They’ll share their photos and thoughts on social media and you can’t control that…. 

Two Good Resources: 
• The American Academy of Pediatrics says: "While today’s tweens and teens may be more digitally savvy than their parents, their lack of maturity and life experience can quickly get them into trouble with these new social venues." It offers a series of practical tips in Talking to Kids and Teens About Social Media and Sexting 
• WebMD says: "It's a parent's responsibility to parent around the technology" before offering guidance in such areas as Getting Started, Setting Guidelines and Checking In in the article Social Media: What Parents Must Know 

Related Post: Talking to Kids About Social Media and Other Online Activities

The Power of 'Thank You' in Social Media

Recently I was reminded of the power of the words "thank you" on social media.

One of my favorite apps – Buffer – publicly thanked me for tweeting about them with a GIF.

@mikejny aww, Mike! You're a legend :) Thanks so much for your support. We love having you with us!! -Paul pic.twitter.com/uY9q0XPymo

— Buffer (@buffer) March 4, 2016

It was a fun and surprising day brightener. And it got me to thinking: What has happened to the thank yous that used to be all over social media?

I think there was a big push a couple of years ago to cut down on the endless stream of "thank you for sharing" and "thank you for retweeting" etc. messages on social media. But that was never supposed to mean you never say thank you.

Part of the "social" in social media is being courteous and thankful. The real question is how to say "thank you" in a different and meaningful way – just as Buffer did.

3 Sources for Ways to Say "Thank You" on Social Media

The post Creative Ways to Say 'Thank You' on Social Media by Brittany Berger (@bberg1010 on Twitter) suggests a thank you on social media is seen by many so it must be "unique and genuine." Berger, before offering great tips also offers that writing distinct 'thank yous' can save your sanity. "Typing the same thing over and over gets boring." 

I love the Six Ways to Say Thank You on Social Media post in The Alley Blog from design company Vital. It offers basic, but sound advice that some of us may forget from time to time.

And in what only seems like a contrarian point of view Stop Saying “Thank You!” on Social Media ... And Start the Conversation! by Jennifer Gardella (@DrJennyLynn on Twitter) the author argues that she is "sick and tired of watching so many small business owners, authors and personalities just say thank you when I share something on social media." 

She says a thank you is an opportunity to "let their network know a bit more about you!" And adds that "As you and your social partners get in the groove of sharing and commenting it will become second-hand and your social footprint will grow exponentially."

Will you start saying thank you a little more now? Was this a useful guide to social media and social niceties?

How to spot a social media scam - and 5 tips to avoid them

Social media scams have always been around, but it seems that each year they get a little more sophisticated and a bit more targeted. 

This week on Facebook a lot of folks in Rochester, N.Y. (where I’m based) opened Facebook and there in their news feed was a post seemingly offering a "free $200 grocery coupon" (see image) to Wegmans supermarkets – the biggest and by-far-the-most-popular chain in the area. The posts were accompanied by poster’s comments such as “Wow” and “Can you believe this?”

The widely shared scam post

Well … no. There were a couple of clues right in the post that it was a scam.

• The URL (web address) at the bottom of the public post does not look like it belongs to Wegmans’s official page
• The English is fractured – typical in scams since they are often posted overseas by non-native English speakers 

Then, if an offer seems too good to be true, well it likely is. So don’t ever click on the headline or any link before going to Wegmans (or any supposed posting company’s) official social media page.

In this case a quick visit to Wegmans’ official Facebook page shows that this "offer" is not posted there and instead there’s a warning about the scam.

The warning on the Wegmans Facebook page

If you do click through to the offer (not recommended as this can be the way the scammers download malicious software onto your computer) there will be abundant evidence that this is a scam. For example: In the case of the Wegmans "offer" it was a digital counter counting down how many coupons supposedly remained. Every time the page refreshed it went back to 360 and started counting down again… 

And, if you are a business that has been spoofed and your organization’s name associated with a scam you should quickly do two things:

• Post something on your own social accounts warning about the scam so people will find the information there.
• Contact the affected social networks and ask for the malicious scam material to be taken down and the poster banned.

Both of which Wegmans did very quickly after the coupon scam surfaced …. 

So, in general what are the best ways anyone can avoid falling for a scam?

Top 5 Tips to Avoid a Social Media Scam

1. Does this news/post sound too good to be true? If it does it likely is. Headlines screaming unbelievably exciting or tragic news. Or offers of cash or goods that seem like they would make your life a lot better. Or words such as “Unbelievable,” “Shocking” and “Disturbing.” All are often related to an attempt to get your attention and get you to click.

As mentioned above, the first thing to do is seek verification by going to an official social network site to see if the post exists there. Or go to Snopes.com and enter a few key words from the item – Snopes is the best online debunker of fake news/information (and, in fact, had an item posted about the Wegmans coupon scam within a few hours). Even a general Google search might turn up warnings that something is a scam.

2. Think before acting: Typically scammers want to make you feel you have to act quickly. Nothing on social media is a matter of life or death. For example, those urgent appeals from a friend who lost their wallet overseas? Think about it: Why are they using Facebook or Twitter to reach out to all their friends?

3. Ask yourself: Is this a chain letter? The old chain letter used to ask people to forward a letter to a number of friends to bring good luck or cash. Today, by way of examples, the chain letter takes the form of "Tweet this image and Bill Gates will donate $100 to help premature babies" or "Share this post with your Facebook friends and Mark Zuckerberg will randomly pick 1,000 people to each receive $1 million in Facebook stock." These appeals almost always tap into a grain of truth, but would these very rich men really do what is proposed?

4. Watch for phishing attacks: You innocently click on a link you find on a Facebook or Twitter post and you are asked to log in using your Facebook or Twitter credentials – don’t. Yes there may be a legitimate reason some sites want you to do this, but before you do check out the URL of the page you are now on. Is it still a Facebook page or some other legitimate site? If not this site is wanting you to sign in so it can grab your credentials and hijack your account.

5. Be cautious of shortened URLs: Don’t blindly click on shortened URLs. You'll see them everywhere on Twitter, for example. But because they are shortened and consist of a garbled collection of characters you can’t tell where the link will take you. The best practice is only click on shortened links from social media posters you highly trust. This is not foolproof, but offers a degree of protection.

Hopefully these tips will spare some of you the grief of having been fooled by a scam or, worse, having your social media accounts compromised.

6 Overlooked SM Personal Branding Must-Dos

Personal branding – it’s all the rage. Working hard to make sure that everything that shows up online – social media and everything else – reflects well on you and paints an accurate picture of who you are.

But there a few things that often go overlooked when considering working on a personal brand.

6 Personal Branding Must-Dos

1. Updating: Stay on top of your various online presences and what they say about you. If you have a job title change, be sure to update it in all of your bios. If that profile photo more than 10 years old its time to update it – everywhere.

2. Social media and SM connections: Reevaluate all of you social media presences. Do they all still make sense to tell your story? Are there others you should be on? Evaluate your connections for quality. Be sure that anyone looking at who you’re connected to is not going to be less than impressed.

To read more on this topic, see Quality SM connections for personal branding 

3. Blogging: Writing and regularly posting to a blog is viewed by some as a bit of a vanity pastime. They could not be more wrong. To claim extra internet real estate, show off some expertise or to simply get found in Google search results – it’s hard to beat the power of a blog. 

To read more on this topic, see Blogging for personal branding 

4. Your focus: Yes, you’re focused on things you can do to your personal brand stand out, but ultimately your success in social media is mostly about how social you are and how others perceive you. To that end make your time on social mostly about others. Be helpful: help others connect, help others learn and most of all notice, and comment on, the hard work of others. It’s the No. 1 commandment here: 10 Commandments for Social Media 

5. Get uncomfortable: It’s easy to stick to connecting to people we know; to interact with people like us. But the real secret sauce of social media is the opportunity to meet people all over the world who have interesting stories to share.

Make a point of connecting to at least one intriguing Twitter or other social network account per week and look for ways to interact with the account-holder. 

You’ll be surprised where this might lead in terms of connections down the road. 

6. Get real: Finally, but most importantly you need to turn all this online activity in something in the real world or IRL as the kids say). Massive effort on social media is not worth a hill of beans if you don’t make new connections in the real world.

How to do this? Look for opportunities to attend meetups. Suggest your own meetup. If you’re visiting a different city or even a different country let your connections know and offer to buy coffee so you can meet. It truly is a very gratifying and fun experience to meet someone you’ve been connected to on social media for years to finally meet them in real life…. 

There you have it: Six often overlooked keys to stronger personal branding wit social media and other online presences. Do you have other suggestions? I’d love to hear them.

Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance

Like it or not a personal brand is something that follows you wherever you go from your personal life to the work world and beyond.

It’s the combined information (Internet postings, social media updates etc.) about you that shows up when someone searches online. So it probably makes sense to figure out how to make your brand the best it can be.

5 steps to take this weekend to boost your personal brand:

1. Define your tactics:
Ask yourself: What do you want people to find when they search for you online? Someone they’d like to …

• Hire: Then focus on optimizing your Linkedin profile (and not just to get it to Linkedin’s 100 percent complete status, but adding images, videos, examples of your work etc.) Consider using other channels too: A blog to demonstrate your knowledge, Pinterest boards to demonstrate any visual work and interests, and Twitter to share your work and to network without the barriers of Linkedin.
• Get to know: Start by picking three platforms to focus on that will allow you to tell your story. For example, if your interests are sports, travel and reading consider creating boards on Pinterest for each of you specific interests.

2. Define yourself:
Develop a short description of who you are, what you believe in and what you do best. In other words: How would you tell your online audience why you’re the right person to work with or connect with? 

This two- or three-sentence statement is for you, but should guide how you describe yourself - everywhere. Be sure to describe what makes you different from other people with the same or similar expertise. 

If you’re not sure what that is, do some research on well-known people in your field. Observe what they do and adapt it to your own way of doing things.

3. Define your expertise:
What particular skills and knowledge do you want to be known for? Who do you hope to connect with?

Determining what makes you unique helps you understand what sets you apart from crowd on the Internet. 

Your areas of expertise define who you are and what you do. They should be included in your social media profile descriptions and should include your main keywords.

4. Define your approach:
How will you use various social media platforms to advance your brand? For example, will ...

• You only use Linkedin to post things relevant to your career or will you also post a few things that show some of your personality?
• Facebook be strictly for people you’ve met in real life or consider personal friends?
• Twitter be a place to share industry news and find new connections?
• You use a scheduling tool such as Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts to maintain a regular social presence or will you post organically as you find interesting material?
• You use tools such as Empire Avenue, Kred and Klout to monitor your efforts and guide your progress?

5. Define your success:
What will success look like to you?

• Making lots of online connections that become in real life (IRL) connections?
• Enhancing your current job/career?
• Getting a better job?

Whatever you settle on set some future calendar reminders to look back at what you’ve done. Then decide which efforts are worth continuing and which should be dropped.

Remember your personal brand is an evolving, living thing. The only thing you can do "wrong" is to ignore it and let it change, or worse: stagnate, while you remain blissfully unaware…

Does this help? Will you use social media and a plan to boost your personal brand? I’d love to hear back from you.

Related posts:
Quality SM connections for personal branding
Blogging for personal branding

Quality SM connections for personal branding

Making connections is what social media is all about. When it comes to personal branding however, the quality of those connections is important.

For example, imagine a recruiter looking through your Twitter Followers and finding a spammy “Buy 5,000 Twitter followers” account or, worse, a porn account. What does that say about you that didn't block such accounts?

And, if you’re still using the number of followers to measure your social media success, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Do an audit of your audience and determine which users are the right ones, and cull your lists accordingly.

Once you’ve completed the audit what can you do in the future to ensure you have quality connections that will enhance your online personal brand?

Start by having a thoughtful approach to who you’ll follow.

How to decide who to follow on social media for personal branding success

Linkedin
When someone asks to connect with you, ask yourself:

• Are they in your industry or a related industry? (Related question: Are they in any Linkedin groups you belong to?)
• Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
• What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?

If you are seeking new connections, first ask yourself:

• Who do you want to connect to? Why?
• How will you find these people? Using advanced search in Twitter and Linkedin, and Facebook’s graph search are good places to start – search for people mentioning the terms relevant to your interests.
• Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
• What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?

Twitter 
In some respects Twitter is a better starting place to find industry-relevant people. It is a place where you can connect with anyone (unlike Linkedin where you need to be connected or pay a premium to contact people you aren’t connected to).

Basic tips to assess whether to follow someone on Twitter include:

• Does their bio indicate relevance to your purposes on social media?
• What kind of content have they shared in the past few days?
• Is their Following-Follower ratio in balance – in other words are there either more Followers or are they about the same. If there is a much higher Following number they are either new to Twitter or desperate for followers.

Still in doubt? Use one of the free tools that assesses Twitter accounts:

• Twitteraudit: It seeks to answer the question: "How many of your followers are real?" But it also evaluates the Twitter accounts of others. Anything higher than 10 percent fake followers indicates someone who indiscriminately connects or does not block spammy followers… i.e. they’re not very careful on Twitter.
• Status People: It sorts any Twitter accounts followers into Fake, Inactive and Good. A high number in Fake (more than 10 percent) or Inactive (more than 20 percent) should also be a warning sign.

Facebook
First, decide if Facebook is a place you want to open up to people beyond friends and family. Some people draw that line at Facebook.

But if you are OK with connecting professionally on Facebook you can use FB’s own search engine to find people who may be worth connecting to.

Start by using search terms such as keywords related to your industry and move on to search on relevant hashtags. And, although its focus is marketing the tips here can be applied to personal connections too: How to Use Facebook Graph Search to Improve Your Marketing

Google+
Any discussion on personal branding has to include Google+. Whether you’re a fan or not is somewhat irrelevant – it’s a Google product so you better believe being there helps in Google search results.

Using the Google+ search or a regular Google search use keywords and the usual Google search operators.

For more on doing better Google searches see How to Use Google Search More Effectively.

Was this helpful? Wil you invest some time in social media and ensuring your connections are worthwhile? It is the only way social media can help with personal branding.

Related link:
Blogging for personal branding
Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance