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Taking Nominations for Social Media’s 40 OVER 40

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

I’m so sick of these 40 under 40 lists I see going around. Indianapolis Business Journal did a 40 under 40. There are Young Professionals Groups all over the place. And even the trade organizations are getting in on it.

What’s the big deal with being 39 or less? It’s if 40 is some magical number that anyone over it is no longer good enough to be considered awesome. As if you’re over 40, the rest of society is going to go all Logan’s Run on you. As if being over 40 means you’re a doddering geezer who’s staining their shirtfront with drool and cluelessness.

The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List

The Social Media 40 OVER 40


I’m tired of it, and I’m going to do something about it. So I’m going to compile a Social Media 40 OVER 40 list.

This isn’t a definitive list yet. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Is it based on voting? Is it an editorial decision? Will we do it state by state? We’re not sure. It depends on how big this gets.

But here’s what I want. I want nominations of anyone who is 40 years or older and works with social media, whether professionally, or as part of their job responsibilities, or even someone who does it as a sideline or hobby. I just want nominations of someone who is a rock star, or aspiring rock star, in social media.

If you want to nominate yourself, that’s fine. There is no shame in doing this. If you want to nominate someone else, that’s fine too. Please leave the following information in the comments section:

  • Name
  • City, State
  • Twitter handle
  • Website (hey, you can even link to it so you get some SEO juice out of it)
  • No more than 200 words about how you’re using social media.

Photo credit: RileyRoxx (Flickr)

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in Marketing, News, Public Relations, Social Media | View Comments

NOW I’m an Expert: I Was on FOX59 News Last Night

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

I had the opportunity and honor of being on Fox59 News at 10 last night, as a social media expert, to talk about how Generation Y is beginning to take their online reputation and privacy more seriously than they have in the past.

According to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Reputation Management and Social Media, young people have surpassed the Baby Boomers in taking care of their online reputation. They’re hiding their negative photos — the so-called “Spring Break” photos, untagging themselves when they do appear online, and even practicing reverse search engine optimization to push their negative content off Google’s front page.

I was particularly proud that they used one of my favorite lines, one that I use at all my talks about reputation management: If you don’t want skeletons in your closets, don’t put the bodies in there in the first place.

Big thanks to Kyle Lacy for referring me to Tisha Lewis. And big thanks to Tisha “actually it’s TEE-sha” Lewis, her intern Andy, and her shooter (cameraman), Adam, for making the trek all the way out to the hinterlands of Fishers, Indiana to do the interview.

(As soon as the video becomes available, I’ll link to it here.)

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in Facebook, Networking, News, Reputation Management, Social Media | View Comments

Who has time to do the work today?

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Clock - who has time to get work doneThere has been a lot of news lately on how companies are really not hiring right now. A recent report talks about how a companies are hiring temp workers, but they are not hiring them to stay. In the past, a common practice was to test drive a worker then offer them a position. Hiring them as full-time employees is not happening right now.

So, who is getting the work done?

When I joined ATA Airlines back in 1997, George Michelsons brought in Bain and Company to basically prepare the company for sale. The process was to get rid of a lot of people and put more jobs onto fewer people. While this strategy worked around the country for Bain, it usually preceded an upgrade in office automation to ensure the work could still get done.

The office automation phase did not occur at ATA Airlines.

The result was a lot of stressed out people carrying around their imaginary trays trying to figure out how they were going to fit one more item onto an already heavy load. No longer were people interested in teamwork, they were more interested in self-preservation. It created a lot of ill-tempered people in the process.

As some of my clients reveal their corporate cultures, I am finding similarities to what I experienced at ATA Airlines. No one has time to commit to anything above and beyond what their core responsibilities are. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is not projected to get much better – CEO’s are reluctant to hire.

What are the solutions?

The easiest is what is being done by some today. Hire temp workers to get things done. They may cost a little more in the short-term, but allow you to avoid the headaches of hiring employees and their costs over the long-term. There are a lot of companies providing these services.

Sometimes, just hiring a grunt worker is not enough. Sometimes you need a professional person to do the work, you don’t have time to do. There are companies being set up that can act as your Marketing Department, your Accounting Department, or your HR Department. They can do it at a cost that is far cheaper than hiring full-time employees, but are focused solely on getting work done for you.

So, look around and ask yourself, are you and your colleagues a bunch of stressed out grumpy people not really accomplishing much because there is too much to do? There is help out there that can help your company meet its strategic goals for the year.

We actually put together a white paper on the ROI of outsourcing blogging and social media. You can download it here, if you want to take a look.

PG
About the Author: Paul Lorinczi
Paul Lorinczi is the President of Professional Blog Service. The goal of the company is the help clients use Blogging and Social Media to expand their business online through planning, execution, and measurement.

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Posted in Blog ROI, Blogging, Ghost Writing, News, Research Desk, Tools, Writing | View Comments

I’m Underwhelmed by Google Buzz

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Google released their new “social network,” Buzz, to much fanfare this week.

People watched the live broadcast and tweeted about it excitedly. The unfortunate few who hadn’t received their Buzz account were asking, “what is it? What is it?” The Silicon Alley Insider giggled that Buzz was going to be a Twitter killer. Jason McCabe Calcanis breathlessly declared that Facebook’s traffic would drop by half because of the buzz.

The best I can give it is a “meh.”

I’m sorry, I really am. I like Google. I like their products. I use Blogspot for my personal blog. I use Gmail for my email interface, including Pro Blog Service emails. We use Google Docs for work flow and client document sharing. So I really wanted this to work.

But I haven’t been impressed by Google Buzz. It has become one more thing in my Inbox to nag at me. At least with Facebook and Twitter, I can ignore the feed for a while, and I don’t have to worry about whether I missed anything.

Screen shot 2010-02-12 at 11.15.03 AMBuzz, on the other hand, has a spot in my Google inbox, where I get to see how many different posts, articles, and statement about “I’m just trying to figure out Buzz,” along with every “me too. What does it do?” comment. The count just sits there, staring at me plaintively, until I clear out the Buzz inbox. And since there’s no “Mark all as read” button, I have to scroll down just to “read” them to get rid of them.

(Note: I’ve found that if I hit CMD-Down and go to the end of the page and then CMD-Up, it clears everything out.)

I’ve got accounts on FriendFeed, Plaxo, and other life streaming social networks, and I haven’t looked at any of them in months. I haven’t touched FriendFeed since the week I opened the account. Why? Because I don’t need to have all of the Twitter and Facebook information of all my friends aggregated into one place. If I want to see what someone is doing on Twitter and Facebook, I just go to those networks. I don’t need to go to a 3rd place to do it.

That’s what Google Buzz is, a life streamer. It aggregates every short question, Buzz post, tweet, status update, LinkedIn comment, Flickr and Picasa photo, and YouTube video any of my contacts have posted.

In short, Buzz isn’t going to kill Twitter or Facebook. It’s going to kill my productivity if I keep using it. And so rather than try to keep up with the firehose that it has become (and I’ve only got 70 people in my stream), I’m going to ignore it until someone shows me what I can do with Buzz that I can’t do with Tweetdeck and its ability to create lists and columns.

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in Communication, News, Opinion | View Comments

Newsday Has 35 Paid Subscribers for Online Newspaper

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

I can’t decide whether to feel schadenfreude or pity for Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper. They have 35 (yes, thirty-five) paid subscribers for their online newspaper.

The New York Observer reveled in schadenfreudic glee as they reported this news:

As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

That astoundingly low figure was revealed in a newsroom-wide meeting last week by publisher Terry Jimenez when a reporter asked how many people had signed up for the site. Mr. Jimenez didn’t know the number off the top of his head, so he asked a deputy sitting near him. He replied 35.

Michael Amon, a social services reporter, asked for clarification.

“I heard you say 35 people,” he said, from Newsday’s auditorium in Melville. “Is that number correct?”

Mr. Jimenez nodded.

Man, I haven’t written with that much malicious glee since Ann Coulter had to have her jaw wired shut.

What’s worse is that Newsday has had their newspaper behind a paywall, newsday.com, since October 2009. (I’m not going to hotlink newsday.com, since you’d have to pay to read any of the stories anyway.)

Apparently, this new website cost Newsday $4 million, and they have grossed $9,000.

That doesn’t mean there are only 35 people reading the website. Anyone who subscribes to the paper or has Optimum Cable gets free access — about 75% of Long Island. I’m not sure how many subscribers there are to the paper, but it’s a nice little out to give free access to cable subscribers as a way to boost subscription numbers.

Still, other dailies considering going to a paid-only option may be feeling a little more panic than they’re already feeling, having laid off most of their local writers and getting local content from non-local providers, and then wondering why people aren’t subscribing anymore.

We can learn or surmise a few things about the newspaper industry from Newsday’s crappy subscribership and the Indianapolis Star’s not-so-slow descent into USA Today: Indianapolis Edition.

  • Readers have gotten spoiled. We’re used to getting our news for free, so we’re a little hesitant to pay for something we can get elsewhere. Since the Star is nothing more than an Associated Press outlet these days, I can hop over to AP.org if I want some national news.
  • People want local content. And not-so-surprisingly, we want it from local sources. The Indy Star is getting local content from Metromix, a company based out of Chicago. Long Island’s Newsday is putting local spins on national stories. “What LIers Want to Hear In Obama’s Address” was one of today’s headlines. Why would people want to pay for something like this? If it was truly local news, I would care. But it isn’t, so I don’t.

If newspapers truly want to make money online, they need to consider going back to truly local news, written by local reporters who have more experience than a journalism internship and six months of covering school board meetings. Let the national news outlets cover the national news. Make your newspaper the best and only source for local news.

This is where the small weeklies and dailies are going to survive, and even succeed by focusing on local content, with only a brief mention of world and national affairs.

Photo: Nitroglicerino

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in Communication, News, Traditional Media, Writing | View Comments

Erik Deckers is NOT Leaving Pro Blog Service

Friday, June 26th, 2009

You know, I leave town for a couple days, and things just go crazy while I’m gone.

It seems people believe that I have left Pro Blog Service to run Confluence Networking. Only part of that is true. I’m now the president of Confluence, but it’s a networking association that’s run and organized by volunteers. I am now the chief volunteer. But I’m still here at Pro Blog.

What happened is that the release went out the day before I left for Vevay, IN (the 4th coolest small town in the country, according to America by Budget Travel) to do a Facebook for Business training session.

While I was there, I started getting congratulatory tweets and emails from people I knew. And then from people I only knew a little bit. And then Mike Seidle called and said one of our clients was worried that I had left.

Uh-oh.

I found out that one of our local business news sites had republished our press release, but in the opening lede had made it sound like I had left. Which would also explain a couple emails I got this morning congratulating me on my new position.

Don’t worry. I’m still with Pro Blog Service, I’m still a blog manager, I’m still ghost blogging for corporate clients. I’ve only added additional responsibilities to my already-dwindling free time.

So I apologize for the confusion.

In case you’re interested. . .

Confluence is a professional development and networking group for mid- to large-size companies. We offer educational sessions on social media, sales and marketing, human resources, and networking for anyone who works for a corporation. We meet on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, from 3:00 – 5:00. We alternate between the Blu Martini at 96th and Gray, and 45 Degrees at College and Massachusetts Ave. Attendance at an event is $20, payable online or at the door. Or you can become a regular member for $19.95, and save you $.05 per month (see, we provide financial value too).

Next month’s session is Tuesday, July 14, and will be about how corporations can benefit from an internal social network, presented by Jeb Banner of Smallbox. Jeb was the technical editor for the Ning for Dummies book, so you know he knows what he’s talking about.

If you have never attended before, and would like to come as my guest, drop me a quick note, and I’ll arrange a complimentary ticket for you. If you have come before, ou can also register online at www.IndyConfluence.com and pay by credit card.

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in Blogging, News, ProBlogService | View Comments

Social Media expert Jason Falls to Speak in Indianapolis on Wednesday, May 27

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Social media expert Jason Falls of SocialMediaExplorer.com is speaking at the Confluence NorthNetwork on Wednesday, May 27 at 3:00 pm at the Blu Martini at 96th and Gray Rd. This is a really big deal for Confluence, Indianapolis, and Pro Blog Service, because Jason is a nationally-known speaker on social media, and he’s going to be here in Indianapolis for just a few hours. Pro Blog is proud to be one of the sponsors of the event.

His topic will be “The Future of Social Media for Corporations.” If you’re part of a corporation or organization who’s wondering whether to get into social media, and what it’s going to look like in the next few years, this is a must-see.

Besides being a social media geek’s idol, Jason is the director of social media for Doe-Anderson, a brand-building agency in Louisville. He is also the co-founder of the Social Media Club Louisville. Jason is a widely-respected speaker at conferences and special events throughout the country. He speaks about how social media can build corporate brands, and how corporations and organizations can use social media. His blog is one of the leading blogs on the subject of social media.

Registration begins at 2:30, and Jason will begin speaking at 3:00. The cost for the event is $20, and you can purchase tickets at the Confluence website.

(Social media rock star Chris Brogan even says “Jason Falls rules.”)

PG
About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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Posted in News, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments

If Twitter Can Topple a Government, Think About What It Will Do to Your Business

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Corporate Twitter Haters, take note: Twitter may be responsible for toppling the Moldovan government.

Okay, not directly responsible. I mean, they’re not even making a profit, so there’s no way they can foment unrest in a small foreign government. But someone sure did.

In April, in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, angry protesters descended on the city square, believing the latest elections were rigged to keep the Communist Party in power.

They’re calling it the Twitter Revolution.

It started when some of Moldova’s progressive youth got, as political pundits around the world put it, “wicked pissed” that the Communists won again. So six young people in a Chisinau café decided to do something about it. They called up a flashmob and spread the word with Twitter and Facebook.

In two days, 10,000 – 20,000 of their closest friends –– roughly 1.5% – 3% of Chisinau’s population –– descended on Piata Marii Adunari Nationale square (#PMAN on Twitter’s trend searches). Windows were broken, buildings were stormed, including the Moldovan Parliament, and people were just generally unhappy.

If nothing else shows the power of social media, think about this fact again: Six angry people grew to 20,000 in two days.

The government tried shutting down the cell phone towers in the square, a trick they learned from the Ukrainian protests, but the protesters ran outside the no-coverage area, or –– get this –– used the free wifi at a nearby McDonald’s. (I won’t even go into the fairness of free wifi at a Moldovan McDonald’s, while we have to pay for it here.)

No one is sure what will happen in Moldova. The riots are over, the Communists have promised to look into allegations of impropriety (“let me guard the hen house,” said the fox), and there is an uneasy peace over Chisinau. But if things don’t get fixed to the protesters’ satisfaction, don’t be surprised if it starts up again.

So what lessons (warnings?) can American companies apply to their own business?

  • People are talking about your organization, whether you know it or not. The Communists were not following any discussion on Twitter or social media, and were completely caught off-guard by the protests. The best way to find out if someone is talking about your company on social media? Use social media.

  • People will find a way to talk about you, even if you try to stop them. Whether you moderate comments on your blog (you shouldn’t), or you have the Legal department write all kinds of nasty letters to people who talk about you (don’t bother), people are still going to talk about you. Only then they’ll have two stories to tell: the thing that made them angry, and you trying to stop them from talking.

  • Your employees will find a way around “no social media” rules. The Moldovan government shut off cell phone towers in the PMAN square, so what did the protesters do? Ran outside the coverage area, sent their messages, and went back. Your employees will continue to use social media, only they’ll do it after work, they’ll do it anonymously, or if you’re particularly draconian, they’ll go do it for someone else instead.

  • If you piss off enough people, you’ll be replaced. Forget revolutions and mutinies among your employees. What about your customers? If you can’t solve their problem, or don’t give them a place to air their grievances, they’re going to replace you by buying from your competition and then dissing you online.

  • Word of mouth has been replaced by social media. Sure, it’s still called word of mouth, but we called it that before there was ever an Internet, because that’s how we spread the news. If you had a bad experience with a company, you’d tell a few people. Now, with blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, our mouths have gotten bigger. Now, you can tell a few thousand people. And if those few thousand people are suitably connected, they can each tell a few thousand people too. And pretty soon, you’ll have 20,000 angry protesters descending on your square, making life a little uncomfortable for you.

    • PG
    About the Author: Erik Deckers
    Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

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    Posted in Blogging, News, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools, Twitter | View Comments

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