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5 Signs You Suck at Twitter

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.

Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.

I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

You claim to be a social media consultant/pro/expert/guru (CPEG), but your following to follower ratio is 10:1. That is, you’re followed by 5,000 or more people, but only following 500. Social media consultants looove to say “have conversations with people.” But shouldn’t people who truly value conversation be willing to, I don’t know, have them?. Or at least fake like you are? If you’re a CPEG, you should have a ratio fairly close to 1:1. This is not to say that everyone should have a 1:1 ratio. Just the CPEGs. (Pro tip: you’ll also have more than 200 followers. I’m just sayin’.)
Nearly every one of your tweets is some motivational or inspirational message. Why do I need to get ten motivational messages peppered throughout the day? If it didn’t help me at 8:30 — 29 minutes after your HootSuite-scheduled “Good morning, my tweeps! Make this an excellent day!” — then it’s not going to help me at 9:30, 10:30, and so on. Don’t regurgitate someone else’s cleverness, show me yours. If you really want to motivate me, tell me about the cool stuff you’re doing.
You’re trying to amass as many followers as you can. If you’re a celebrity, a public figure, or someone who’s really, really interesting, that’s great. If you grew your network through hard work and earned those followers, more power to you. But if you resort to computer scripts, trickery, and joining follower-building networks to boost your rankings, then stick with being a LinkedIn LION. Twitter is not a competitive sport. Despite what you’re already doing to LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter isn’t just one more race to the bottom of mediocrity and uselessness.
Your Twitter bio has the words “money,” “fast,” and “make” in it. I spam-block every single person whose bio says they have some money making system they want to share with me. Stick to peddling penis drugs and fake watches by email.
Your time between tweets can be measured with a calendar. You don’t have to tweet many times a day, but at least once a day wouldn’t kill you. Even every other day would be fine. But when you’re only tweeting every 3 – 4 weeks on a regular basis, then Twitter isn’t a communication tool, it’s an afterthought, like calling your mom the day after Mother’s Day.

What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?

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.

Tags: facebook, linkedin, social networking, social networks, twitter
Posted in Networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.

This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.

There are only a few arts organizations using social media, but with social media’s explosive growth, the organizations that aren’t are missing a great opportunity.

While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?

Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

Set up a blog and give readers a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. Your blog should be more than just a press release center. Don’t just make it a place to dump all your promotional information. Post photos of rehearsals. Let staff, actors, and performers post their thoughts on performances. Post diary-like reflections of preparing for an upcoming show or performance.
Create podcasts of musical performances.If you’re a musical organization, create a regular podcast, and make that available to the public. People can listen to past performances and get an idea of what you sound like. But if you think “if people hear us on a podcast, they won’t want to come,” that’s untrue. (Did you know that was the argument by orchestras against selling sheet music, the Victrola, and radio?) The New York and Chicago Philharmonics have shows on public radio stations around the country, and the Indianapolis Symphony has a highlights show on WFYI, our local public radio station, and yet they still get people to attend. If anything, when people hear a performance, it makes them want to see it live.
Create videos of performances. If you are a performing arts organization, try posting videos from past performances on YouTube, and then putting them up on your blog. This is especially true for visual performances, like dance and theatre troupes. This will let people know the kind of thing they can expect when they attend one of your performances. And if they like what they see online, they’ll want to be a part of the experience, and attend a show.
Create a Facebook page for your organization. If there was a single social networking tool that was made for arts organizations, Facebook is it. Not only does it have the largest population of social media users (500 million people around the world), but it’s ideally suited for posting or reposting content from other sites. You can repost your blog content, videos, and photos to your Facebook page. You can ask your members and attendees to join, communicate with them directly, ask them to tell their friends, which will bring in new Facebook friends.
Share your contacts with other organizations. Yeah, I saved this point for last, because a lot of you will think I’m crazy. But think about it for a minute: your biggest competitors are not the other performing arts organizations in the area, it’s television, movies, restaurants, and general laziness. You probably don’t share members, so you’re not competing for the same dollars. But sharing contacts could be a benefit to both organizations. For one thing, you can introduce dance fans to the music that supports the dancers. You can introduce theater goers to dance, another visual art form. And as you cross-pollinate your membership, both organizations will benefit, rather than steal members.
How can you cross-promote with another organization?
- Do a feature of each other in your respective blogs.
- Promote ticket sales (buy one of ours, get one of theirs for 50% off).
- Do a joint performance, like their orchestra playing for your opera. Have their chamber quartet play at your museum event.
- “Like” their Facebook page, and encourage your Facebook friends to like it as well. Ask them to reciprocate.
By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.

What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?

Tags: facebook, Lead Generation, performing arts, Social Media, social media marketing, tickets
Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments

4 Ideas for Travel & Tourism Destinations to Get Started in Social Media

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

This week, I’ve been focusing on how travel and tourism destinations can get started in social media.

(See “5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media” and “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)

I probably jumped the gun a little bit by diving into the photo and video sharing sites before I told you how to actually use social media, but that’s okay. For one thing, social networks are created to be soooo easy for everyone to use that you don’t need me to tell you how to get started. Second, you can start these all in a matter of a couple hours, and then start working to integrate them all together. (We’ll discuss that in a future post.)

Vevay, IN Facebook page

What it is: It’s the largest social network in the world with 500 million members. If it was a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world, behind China and India. Basically, if there is an online place where your guests and customers gather, this is it.
Get started: Start out by setting up your own personal profile, and connect with friends and family. Keep this separate from your business or organization. You don’t want to combine your business with your personal life on here.
Strategy: Once you’re comfortable with Facebook, set up a separate business page (what used to be called a “Fan Page”) for your business or destination, and then upload your business email database — you have been saving your guests’ emails, haven’t you? — to build your network. Ask these people to “Like” your page. Start communicating with your page’s network about things going on at your place through status updates, telling people about new photos and videos, new blog posts, and new specials.
Why? The whole foundation of social media is building relationships with people. You want to evoke a positive emotional response in people when the visit your place, and you want to remind them of that emotional response when they see the latest news or photos. If you remind them of the good feelings they had while they were there, they’ll want to experience them again, and will return again.

Twitter

What it is: It’s a 140 character message that is sent out to your followers (people who have started “following” your messages, because they want to see what you have to say). Twitter is like Facebook’s “Status Updates” but without everything else.
Get started: Go to Twitter.com and sign up for an account, and add your customer list (see Gmail below). Next, download TweetDeck from TweetDeck.com.
Strategy: Communicate the same information you send out on Facebook and your blog by tweeting your headlines and links to events or new posts.
Why? Because not everyone is on Facebook at the same time. Because some people prefer Twitter over Facebook. Because with TweetDeck you can update both Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Because there are a lot of other reasons I will cover in a future post.

Blogging

What it is: Blogging is a way to publish information, like articles and stories, for other people to read and for search engines to find. It’s a way to share photos and videos, without sending people off to Picasa and YouTube (see yesterday’s post, “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)
Get started: Visit Blogger.com or WordPress.com and follow the instructions. You won’t need to upload an address book to find connections.
Strategy: Blog on a regular basis — at least once a week, but preferably more — about what’s going on at your destination or business. Show photos and videos of the fun stuff other people are doing. Talk about any special events or festivals, both before and after they take place. Share testimonials from your guests.
Why? For two reasons: 1) you can rank high in the search engines with a lot of interesting content like this, and 2) it helps your guests feel more connected if they can visit your site and feel like they’re visiting your location. (See the Facebook section above.)

Gmail

What it is: A free email network owned by the folks at Google.
Get started: Set up an account at Gmail.com, and import all of your addresses from your different email profiles, whether it’s Yahoo, Hotmail, your local cable provider, or the address book on your computer. Next, clean it up by eliminating duplicates, deleting out of date entries, and adding missing information.
Strategy: You won’t use this for social networking. You’ll use it for uploading all the addresses of your guests to the other networks. Any new social network you join will let you “see if your friends are on here!” And every social network will plug into Gmail with ease, so this makes it so much easier to build your network in just a couple minutes.
Why? Because you want to have a master list of all your email addresses somewhere other than your computer, in case your computer breaks down.

I was recently in a contest to become the “Inn-Bedded Resorter” at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire, and had a chance to be their social media specialist for two months. This was a novel approach, because the Resorter was going to be a guest, do all the guest activities, and then report it via social media. They were starting to use all of these technologies to communicate with their fans and guests, and have seen some great success with these technologies. You ought to give them a try and see what you can do with it.

Tags: blogging, facebook, Gmail, photo sharing, tourism, travel, twitter, video sharing
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Tools, Twitter | View Comments

5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Yesterday, I talked about the 5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media, and how social media is being used by more and more people than you may have realized.

Social media helps people share news about their lives with their friends and family. Not only are they telling people they went on vacation, they’re able to show them where they went, what they did, and all the good times they had. They’re especially doing it on the photo and video sharing sites. Here are fives sites you should use to promote your own travel and tourism destination.

YouTube (VIDEO)

What it is: This is the website everyone knows when it comes to video sharing. According to one source, there are 1,500 years worth of videos on YouTube right now. But that’s because they make it so easy.
Get started:Go to YouTube.com and set up your account. If you already have a Google account of some sort (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Docs), you already have an account, because Google owns YouTube. Start finding other friends and guests by importing your email address book. Then follow the instructions to upload your videos.
Strategy: Encourage guests to upload their own videos and tag your destination in it. (This helps you get found for any searches on YouTube.) Upload your own videos (regular or HD) and embed them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Vimeo (VIDEO)

What it is: Vimeo is another video sharing site that’s not nearly as big as YouTube. The benefit to you is that you get to be a bigger fish in a bigger pond. According to their website, it was originally “. . . created by filmmakers and video creators who wanted to share their creative work, along with intimate personal moments of their everyday life,” so there tends to be more of an artsy feel to it, but you’re not limited to only being a filmmaker or artist.
Get started: Go to Vimeo.com and set up an account. Import your email address book (Google or Yahoo), and make connections with your guests.
Strategy: Same as Facebook. If your guests use Vimeo, encourage them to upload videos and tag your destination in it. Upload your regular and HD videos, and then use the embed code to place them in your blog or link to your Facebook account.

Flickr

What it is: Flickr is one of the two most popular photo sharing sites. In fact, by strict definition, it’s a social network centered around photo sharing (actually, all the video and photo sharing tools are considered social networks). You upload your photos and share them with your friends, embed them in blog posts, and link to them in Twitter messages.(Note: Flickr has begun accepting 90 second videos for uploading. While they won’t give YouTube a run for their money, they are making it easier for Flickr fans to keep their video in one place too.)
Get started: If you already have a Yahoo account, you have a Flickr account. Otherwise, sign up, import your email address book, and then start uploading photos. If you have an iPhone or Android, you can also upload photos directly to Flickr from your phone. There is also a digital camera storage card called the Eye-Fi that will not only store your photos, but upload them whenever you’re in a wifi hotspot.
Strategy: Hold a best photo contest and encourage guests to upload the photos to Flickr and Picasa (next section), and then embed the photos in the comments section of your website or your Facebook page.. Post the entries to your website, and allow voting for the best photo (use SurveyMonkey.com). Use the best photo(s) on your promotional materials. Also, consider using a Creative Commons license with your photos (this lets other people use your photos as long as they give you credit), and let them use photos that link back to your Flickr page.

Picasa

What it is: Another photo sharing site, but this one is owned by Google. I like Picasa a little more because it’s easier to integrate with a Blogger blog, plus they have different paid subscription levels. You can get 20GB for $5, or 200GB for $50.
Get started: If you have a Gmail account or a YouTube account, you’re all set. Otherwise, go to picasaweb.google.com Next, go to Picasa.com and download the Photo Uploader. This will let you upload photos in batches, rather than a few at a time.
Strategy: First, don’t worry about whether you can upload videos to Picasa, because you can also use YouTube. (Remember, they’re both owned by Google.) Next, just like with Flickr, hold a photo contest, and use the best photos in your promotional material. And consider using a Creative Commons license with your Picasa photos.

Facebook

What it is: The biggest social network in the world. We talked about it previously.
Get started: Hopefully you already started a Facebook account, but if not, go to Facebook.com and start an account. Get comfortable with it and then start a business page (what they used to call a “Fan Page”) for your own business. Invite friends to “Like” your business page, and do it more than once (people need reminding).
Strategy: While this won’t be the hub of your social media campaign, it needs to be a major part of it. Facebook will have more of your guests and customers on it than any other social network. This is where you need to push a lot of your marketing message, which will drive people back to your main website or blog.

Where should you start?

While there is a chicken and egg question about whether you should join social networks first or start with photo and video sites, it ultimately doesn’t matter. It will take a few days to get everything ramped up. Focus on one video site and one photo site. Pick the one you like the best, and the one that is easiest to use, and just start using it.

At the same time, pick the social network you want to start on (I recommend Facebook, since that’s where everyone is), and work on that one as well. You’ll ultimately spend more time on Facebook than you will on your photo and video sites, so consider these sites as supporting sites for your social network.

Tags: facebook, Flickr, Picasa, social networking, social networks, Vimeo, youtube
Posted in Facebook, Lead Generation, Networking, Photo, Public Relations, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Networks, Video | View Comments

5 Questions To Ask After Your Social Media “Expert” Has Started

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

We’d all like to think our social media consultants — any of our consultants, actually — know what they’re doing, and have our organization’s best interests at heart. But there are times that, despite all the good they promised, things don’t go the way we had hoped or were led to believe.

Too often, organizations don’t realize they were sold a bill of goods until after the campaign has ended, and they try to figure out what the ROI on the entire project was. That’s when they have the horrible realization they just spent thousands of dollars on a project and got almost nothing for it in return.

Measuring ROI is important, even in the middle of the campaign. But about a month after your campaign has kicked off, start asking these questions:

Does your social media consultant avoid using Twitter or other social media tools? Ask what they think about these tools. If you hear “I don’t use _____ because I think it’s stupid” or “because no one uses it,” ask them for data to back up their statement, and a better explanation than “it’s stupid.” The question is not whether they think it’s stupid, it’s whether your customers do. If your customers are on there, then it doesn’t matter what the consultant thinks.
Who are your social media followers? Are they your target audience, or are they filler followers? (Filler-wers?) Some disreputable social media consultants will fill a company’s follower ranks with spammers, high school students, or offshore account holders, none of whom are your target audience (unless you’re selling stuff to spammers, high school students, or offshore outsourced workers). Pay close attention to your followers, and see if they’re the kinds of people you normally do business with. Ask yourself the likelihood of being followed by several hundred high school students, when you normally sell stuff to their parents. Or by computer experts from the Philippines, when your customer base lives within three miles of your store.
Does your social media company have a strategy, a look, a campaign that is unique to you? Or does it look exactly the same as everyone else’s? Does it involve some new thinking and challenges for you, as a way to reach a new audience, or is it just an online version of what you’re doing offline? While a social media campaign won’t reinvent the wheel, it shouldn’t just be a retread of your old campaign. It’s also a good idea to avoid the “everyone else is doing it” type of program, like free giveaways to site visitors. While that may bring in visitors, they may not really be potential customers (see the previous point).
What do you know about the business or the people at the business that you have entrusted with the reputation of your company? What is their reputation around the community? Do they hold to your business ethics, or do they do some things that you disagree with? While you can expect some disagreements politically — that sort of thing just happens, and is a poor excuse to not do business with someone — you should make sure that the person’s personal brand and reputation matches your own. For example, would you want an avid hunter representing your animal rights organization? Should a mixed martial arts fighter be a spokesperson for your pacifist organization? And do you want someone who tells racist or sexist jokes to represent your third world relief organization? You can find things like this on someone’s Facebook page or blog, and they should be a serious cause for concern.
Would you hand your social media consultant a microphone and let them tell the world they are representing you? In essence, are you comfortable saying, “this is our employee. We trust her enough to give her money and speak on our behalf.”
If you’re having problems answering the first four questions, the answer to this question, I hope, is “no.” Your consultant is an employee, albeit a temporary, part-time contract employee, but they are your representative nevertheless. And if you can’t trust them with little things like not hiring a bunch of offshore freelancers to create hundreds of fake social media accounts, you can’t trust them with big things, like telling members of your community that you hired them.

I realize I’m picking on my own industry, but it’s necessary to be proactive, and to point out some of the scams and poor practices that exist. Most real social media professionals do everything we can to help our clients, and do what we promised them in the spirit of the agreement, not just the letter of the agreement (that is, when we say we’ll grow their network, we grow it with likely, real customers, not people with a pulse).

We make sure we do it ethically, and that our own personal and corporate brand is something another company is pleased to be associated with.

So it’s incumbent upon the social media industry to police ourselves, so charlatans and snake-oil salesmen don’t ruin it for those of us who are actually doing it correctly. All it takes is for one person to smear the industry’s reputation by totally screwing a small company out of thousands of dollars. Then the honest professionals suffer for it.

If you find you’re being given bad information by your consultant, speak with another social media professional you trust, and get a second opinion. Find out what questions you should be asking, and what answers you should be getting. Then, double-check your information, speak to your hired consultant, listen carefully, and be prepared to cancel the contract if need be.

Yes, it’s harsh, but it’s your organization’s budget, reputation, and brand on the line. They’re counting on you to not tell anyone else about it, so they can continue to leech off your community or your industry. Protect yourself first, and make sure you’re getting what you should be.

Tags: facebook, followers, Social Media, social media campaign, social media expert, twitter
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

If We Used FourSquare for Sex

Friday, May 7th, 2010

There can sometimes be a little too much sharing about our personal lives.

Back in October, I wrote about how 36% of people under 35 had tweeted or status updated after sex.

That is, 36 percent of the 35-and-under crowd have not only tweeted or given status updates after sex, they were updates that they’d just had sex.

Now that FourSquare is getting more and more popular with the Twitterati, I’m worried what it’s going to look like if people start using FourSquare to check in after sex.

	Just checking in on my honeymoon. Hey, I scored the Newbie badge for scoring my first check-in! My new bride didn’t get one. I’ll have to ask her about that later.
	I just got the Local badge. FourSquare says that means I’ve been to the same place 3 times in one week. Wow, FourSquare is fun. So is being married.
	Woo-hoo! The Bender badge. That’s 4 nights in a row for me. Man, this honeymoon is awesome!
	Kelli has been crying for a couple hours. Apparently some guy named Trevor is now the mayor of 12 different places.
	The Crunked badge. 4 stops in one night? I need some Gatorade. And a nap.
	Whew, it took me three months, but I finally just became the mayor of my wife! I thought I saw that I “ousted” someone else (ousted? Is that the right word? Wonder what that means), but Kelli grabbed my iPhone before I could read it and smashed it on the nightstand.
	Kelli went to SXSW2010, and I saw she got the hookup badge for visiting two different hotels. So did that guy, Trevor. She must be attending a lot of parties. Also, she’s staying up awfully late. How else would she have gotten this at 3:00 in the morning. Also, what does it mean if I’m “ousted” as the mayor of something?

Tags: facebook, FourSquare, geo-location, sex, twitter
Posted in Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | View Comments

Bonefish Grill’s Corporate Videos Look Too Corporate

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

I’ve become enamored lately with the use of videos to promote one’s brand, whether personal or corporate.

Videos can be used for demonstrations, like the hilarious Will It Blend videos, for sharing information and expertise, like the BrandSwag TV videos I helped Kyle Lacy and Colin Clark produce, and corporate videos like the Bonefish Grill.

I like the fact that Bonefish Grill has embraced social media. Since we’re going to eat there tonight, I thought I would check out their social media footprint.

I found them on Foursquare, and learned they have a Twitter account (@bonefish) (hint: you should be following as many people as are following you: A 17:1,500 ratio looks like you don’t care what others have to say). From there, I found their Facebook page, and watched their latest video on making ceviche (above).

Like I said, I’m pleased to see that the restaurant is using social media with such thoroughness. I just have a little bone to pick with them.

Corporate Videos Should Not Look Corporate

Video marketers understand that anyone who is using corporate video should try to make it look a little more natural and less high end. Believe it or not, videos that look less slick and more homemade tend to perform better in marketing tests, number of viewers, and even virality. Even the Will It Blend videos, while the image quality is great, still has a homemade feel to it.

Videos that look professionally done have an air of artificiality about them, while the simple, basic video made with a Flip cam or a Droid or iPhone seem, well, sincere. This one looks like it’s part cooking show, part travel show, part commercial for Meyers Rum.

And that’s my biggest complaint about the Bonefish video: the overt use of Meyers Rum in the video, without ever telling us they’re a sponsor, supplier, or just good buddies of Tim’s. That’s where it really begins to smack of insincerity and artificiality.

Tim Curci and Rum Ambassador Robert Pallone squeeze in between several bottles of Meyers Rum to prepare some ceviche (awesome looking ceviche, mind you). Then at the end of the video, the bar owner brings out some rum runners with a little topper by Robert of, you guessed it, Meyers Rum.

Now, I understand that Bonefish sells Meyers, and that they (hopefully) asked Meyers to underwrite this little video in exchange for some placement (if they didn’t, they’re missing out on a great opportunity). However, regardless of the arrangement, it looks less natural and more forced when Meyers gets prominent placement without any explanation of why.

Don’t worry if they paid for the placement. You can tell us. No one is going to hold it against you. But it looks like you’re trying to hide it when you don’t mention why Tim and Robert are trying to avoid knocking over the display of Meyers bottles with their elbows.

If I had to grade their effort on this video, I would give it a C, but they get a whole bonus letter grade for being on social media so thoroughly. The only restaurant I know that has embraced it more is Scotty’s Brewhouse (@brewhouse) (Scotty, I’d love to see a variation of Bang Bang Shrimp on the menu.)

So, Bonefish Grill, you get a B for the video, because you’re firing on all the other social media cylinders.

And even though I wasn’t a fan of the video, I’m going to try my first-ever ceviche tonight. Assuming I don’t stuff myself on Bang Bang Shrimp first.

(Update: They didn’t have the ceviche tonight, so I had to resign myself to the Bang-Bang Shrimp and the fish tacos. Still a great meal. My prejudice against their videos does not cross over to their food.)

Tags: facebook, restaurant, Scotty's Brewhouse, twitter, video, youtube
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, Video | View Comments

Four Responses to Social Media Teetotalers

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

As a social media professional and ghost blogger, I’m naturally excited about it and what it can do for people. The relationships it can grow, the business it can create. Social media is interesting, and something I enjoy doing.

So I get a little frustrated when people hit me with “I don’t do social media,” bragging about it, like those morally superior people who sneer, “I don’t watch television.”

Maybe I don’t have a good attitude about it, but I do keep my thoughts to myself, as I explain to people why they’re missing out if they’re not at least one on network. I usually trot out at least one of four major arguments as to why they should be on it.

It’s where the leaders in your industry are: In fact, this is how they got to become leaders. They found a public forum to espouse their viewpoints, and expressed them to as many people as they could. And if you want to become one of those leaders, you need to be on here. For some people, like Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Brogan, they have launched their entire career thanks to social media.
You’ll find information about your industry: Some of the early adopters in any industry have been the trade media. They’re looking for a way to grow readership, maintain their expertise and credibility, and continue to grow and move with the times. I was surprised to see that a publishing group in one of my old careers, Watt Agriculture (poultry and livestock publishing) had gone digital. They publish their magazine online, they blog, and they even have a Ning-based social network.
Your friends and colleagues are on it: Our work culture has become one of collaboration and cooperation. We no longer operate in silos. If you want to find new projects to work on with business partners, you can find them on social media. I can think of at least three different business opportunities and five different speaking engagements I’ve gotten because of social media.
Your competitors are already on it: If they’re not, they will be. Your customers are on social media, and they’re talking to whoever is on there. And right now, it’s your competitors. They’re working to be the leaders in your industry, and your customers are listening to them. So while you’re still cold calling and attending that one big trade show every year, your competitors are talking every day through their blogs, Twitter feeds, and on LinkedIn.

Photo: Johnny_Appleseed1774

Tags: facebook, Social Media, social media marketing, twitter
Posted in Facebook, Networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Twitter | 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.

Buzz, 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.

Tags: Buzz, facebook, Google, life stream, twitter
Posted in Communication, News, Opinion | View Comments

Five Essential Tools Any Crisis Communication Pro Needs

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Social media is becoming more and more important to an organization’s response to a crisis. While my own crisis communication experience is with public health emergencies, like pan flu epidemics and the threat of anthrax attacks, other crisis comm pros are dealing with reputation management, negative publicity, liability lawsuits, product recalls, etc.

Thanks to social media tools, there is no reason a crisis communication pro shouldn’t have these tools in his or her toolbox, ready to respond to an emergency within minutes, rather than hours, or even days.

Whether you’re a government agency dealing with a massive emergency, or a famous athlete caught with his pants down, you need to be able to respond quickly and truthfully. You need to get ahead of the speculators and talking heads whose grinding of the rumor mill can do more harm than the actual truth.

Many organizations, especially government agencies, are still using old-school media to get their news out. The problem is they’re trying to reach a newspaper audience with timely news, but it’s changed in the last 30 minutes. Or they’re trying to reach the TV news by 3:00 p.m. for a 5:00 broadcast, while most people are still in their cars. And in many cases, broadcast media only spends seconds on your story, and the newspapers are only devoting a few precious inches to your side of the story.

With social media, you can bypass the media filters, reach the greatest number of people, and in many cases, get the news out before the mainstream media. This is especially useful if you have time-sensitive information, like medication dispensing points, product recalls, hours of operation, etc.

I’m not saying you should ignore the mainstream media (MSM), or quit using the old methods. Rather, consider adding social media to your arsenal.

Blog: A blog is a great way to publish an entire news story. In many cases, the MSM will use your blog as a source. If you’ve done most of the legwork for them, they’re more inclined to use the information you provided. I had one newspaper in Indiana that would reprint my press releases verbatim, I thought about changing my name to “Staff Wire Report” just so I could get the credit.

Strategy: Appoint a blog writer you trust, and give him or her carte blanche in reporting the latest news.

Twitter: Twitter lets you reach people quickly and easily. Create lists of important people who will need to hear your news: journalists, fans, customers, vendors, etc. Don’t just use Twitter for barfing out news though. You can use Twitter to talk with people and establish relationships. If people like you, they’re likely to want to hear your news, making you a trusted news source.

Strategy: Have conversations, provide information, correct misinformation, and answer questions.

Facebook fan page: If you’re a B2C company, nonprofit, or government agency, you need a fan page. If you’re B2B, the debate still rages on. People get their news from different sources, and they get their social media from different tools. So you need to match their information-gathering habits. Since Facebook boasts over 350 million world-wide users, a lot of people are getting their news here.

Strategy: Run your blog and Twitter feeds through your fan page. Follow the conversations people are having on the page, and participate in them.

Analytics: You need to measure your results and see what works. If nothing else, put Google Analytics on your blog, and set up some Google News Alerts. They only updates every 24 hours (Google News can email stories as they appear), but it’s free, and ideal if you’re not trying to monitor events in real time. StatCounter.com is free and up-to-the-minute, although it will only record 500 hits in a day (you can upgrade to the paid version if you need it). We use Yahoo Analytics (paid subscription), because it has real-time updates, and we can graph everything out. To see what people are saying in the social media stream, try something like Radian6 or ScoutLabs.

Strategy: Adopt at least one analytics package, and use it to monitor the success of your social media strategy. Compare it to your traditional methods, and see which tools are bringing you the best results. Plow more time and energy into the successful ones, and see if it’s possible to roll the less-successful ones into your new strategies.

A laptop and wifi network card: I know, this one seems so painfully obvious, it’s ridiculous to even include it. But you’d be amazed at the number of organizations still running on desktops, or laptops without wifi. It’s great to be able to visit any location with free wifi, and logging in — I’m sitting at a Subway restaurant as I’m writing this — but what if you’re in an emergency and you’re in an area without wifi. What do you do if you’re responding to a local emergency, and the fastest Internet connection in town is the dial-up credit card machine at the gas station?

Strategy: Bug your boss until you get a laptop and wifi card (Verizon has the MiFi, a mobile wifi hotspot you carry), and then learn how to use it; these other four tools are useless if you’re ever caught without a laptop and wifi. Use the mobile setup until it’s second nature. If you’re ever caught out during an emergency, you don’t have to pull out the manual just to figure out how to use the wifi card.

There are more tools available than you could ever hope to master, most of them supporting one of these five basics, but these are the ones you can build an entire crisis communication plan around. If you can figure these out, you’ll be miles ahead of those organizations and agencies who are still trying to figure out the fastest way to fax a one-page press release to 500 different newspapers in less than six hours.

Photo: Fire Monkey Fish

Tags: Crisis Communication, facebook, Social Media, twitter
Posted in Blogging, Communication, Crisis Communication, Public Health, Social Media, Tools, Twitter | View Comments

Posts Tagged: facebook

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

This week, I’ve been focusing on how travel and tourism destinations can get started in social media.

Facebook

Twitter

Blogging

Gmail

YouTube (VIDEO)

Vimeo (VIDEO)

Flickr

Picasa

Facebook

Where should you start?

There can sometimes be a little too much sharing about our personal lives.

I’ve become enamored lately with the use of videos to promote one’s brand, whether personal or corporate.

Corporate Videos Should Not Look Corporate

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

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