Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

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It’s All In A Week

Monday, April 20th, 2009

The past 7 days, yes week, have been simply incredible, strange, exciting, changing, and all around crazy.

It started last Wednesday with an email about a job interview. I had interviewed twice before with the company, and their needs have now changed so they brought me back in. I will find out in a day or two if I am the candidate selected. So tonight I have been brain dumping ideas, sorting and preparing in case my life changes tomorrow. If not, I needed to do the brain dump anyway.

A few other things have happened this past week. I started a “social” experiment on Twitter. I was going to start testing the “celebrities” to see which ones truly care and interact with people. Pointless, I know. But still I think they represent a very interesting part of Twitter. I have tried to interact with @moonfrye without a reply. Yes, she is up nearing 300,000 followers, but I started when she was at less than 5,000 followers, and never a response. Expected.

The next “celebrity” I tried to interact with literally shocked me out of my stupor. @kathyireland not only responded, but then went on to carry a conversation on Twitter with me. Interacting, asking questions, responding to my questions. She even started following my wife, @raekaye, and I both. Asking questions, sending DMs and generally being very proactive and very engaging. You can’t fake this stuff people, and if you look at her Twitter stream, you will notice she interacts with quite a few people. That is powerful. Why?

Take a look at what happened during the @aplusk and @cnnbrk saga. The push to hit 1,000,000 followers. Sure there is interaction, but most people think “snob”. Use something other than Twitter. Some have gone so far as to say @aplusk and other “celebrities” (see @oprah) have ruined Twitter. Not so fast – if nothing else they need to be there to protect their personal brand, just as companies need to be there to protect their brand. If either side interacts – it opens a whole new world for them and their supporters.

That brings me to today. Job interview is over – I feel it went very well. I will know in less than 24 hours what the outcome is. It also brings me to today where I did a complete brain dump to my wife of so many thoughts, ideas and just simple things that have been crowding my brain for a while now. This not only helped get them out of my main thought process to be clear for the interview, but also sort them and organize them to start creating forward motion.

So – what about you? What are your thoughts on Twitter celebrities? The job market and interviews? Do you do brain dumps to others, paper, voice or something else to organize? Chime in the comments and let us all know!

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Posted in Off-Topic, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Does YOUR Business NEED Social Media?

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

I remember back in the early days of the web, it was truly amazing. I also remember many discussions that not ALL businesses needed to be on the web. It was true, not all of them needed to be on the web at that point in time – it wasn’t mature enough. That has changed considerably, but I wonder if it has yet matured enough to quantify businesses being on the web.

That brings me to social media. Does YOUR Business NEED social media? Chances are, with the infancy of this new paradigm, you may not. You may not need to be interacting on every social network, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and others. There may not be much that you can accomplish right now. Besides, launching a complete social media plan and then executing it is not easy, just read Chris Brogan’s thoughts on the subject.

However, there are two things that you should do, right now.

  1. Protect Your Brand/Business/Name: Simple enough – go out and register your brands, your business name and your trademarks on the various social tools so that some unscrupulous would-be wanna-be doesn’t do it for the sheer fact you haven’t yet. This also keeps the said wanna-be from causing damages by impersonating you, your business or your brand. Even if you don’t use these accounts right now, just like a domain name, protect who you are.
  2. Social Search Your Brand/Business/Name: This one can’t be said enough. If you are not actively searching through Google, Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, on Facebook, MySpace and the other plethora of social networks and social media tools, you are causing damage to your business, your brand and your name. You will have no idea that your product was a trending topic on Twitter, and that 95% of what is being Tweeted is NOT in your favor. Cleaning up this fall out is messy at best, and disastrous with long-term, if not permanent, damage.

There you have it, protect your business, your brand, your name and become proactive. If you should happen to notice chatter in the socialsphere, you have the accounts already in place, with which you can respond.

What if some damaging comments are made, and you find out that some 17-year old registered your preferred name, your brand name or business name and you now have to be ambiguous on your identity until you get that resolved?

What if that 17-year old (or 33 year old) who impersonated you responded to the chatter?

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Posted in customer service, Marketing, Social Media | Comments Off

Pleaseretweet.me – All things Twitter

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Late last week I acquired a new blog – Please Retweet Me and have been working on changing everything over so I can begin writing some killer posts on Twitter related items. There will be interviews with some of the top Twitter users, interviews with people that have made a difference and changed the world using Twitter as well as tips on managing followers and who you follow. I will also be doing reviews of Twitter applications – whether they are web based, desktop or mobile applications.

I am also looking at having some guest posts, so if you are interested just contact me through the contact page on this blog, or send an email to bnab [at] southplatte [dot] com.

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TwtPoll: Auto-DMs

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

There has been quite a bit of discussion on Twitter users sending auto-DMs to new followers. Some think they are great, but it seems most feel they are useless, sometimes rude and generally not okay to do. Most of the time they come in the form of: “Hey, thanks for the follow. Check out my link/blog/MLM/Scam/Whatever” and so it is understandable that it can be taken as those aforementioned thoughts and feelings.

However, I wonder, would it change if it was businesses sending the auto-DMs? Does that change perception? Some on Twitter said it would even be worse if a business, especially a large corporation, let’s say Dell or Toys-R-Us used this method. My thought process took it one step further, would it change the outlook for Twitter users IF the auto-DM contained a coupon code, discount code, rebate offer or other special offer?

That last thought changed some views, and that is why I am running this poll. Does it change the view if, let’s say hypothetically, one of Dell’s Twitter accounts sent an auto-DM with a 20% or 30% e-code or coupon code? It would be a one-time auto-DM that could really provide some great deals only offered through the auto-DM and nowhere else. Would that change the view of Twitter users? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Take the poll and chime in your thoughts in the comments and let’s see what happens – maybe a shift in the auto-DM feelings? Maybe a shift in who uses them and how they are used?


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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | Comments Off

Twitter and TRUE Rockstars

Friday, March 20th, 2009

On Thursday, March 19, 2008 I had the privilege of watching history take place. Yeah, I know you have all heard that before. THIS is different.

Good guy Danny Brown (@dannybrown)is the brainchild behind 12for12k – raising $12,000 for 12 charities in 12 months. Each month a different charity is picked, and money is raised in support of that charity. Someone happened to his idea this month. That someone was Scott Stratten (@unmarketing). Scott organized a 12-hour Tweet-a-Thon for 12for12k’s March charity, Strength.org.

For 12 hours, Scott pushed the envelope on Twitter. Through the combined efforts of many, spearheaded by Scott and Danny, in 12 hours $13,000 was raised. $13,000 in 12 hours, that is more than $1000/hour in donations.

You know, many people talk about social media not being worth the time or effort. Others talk about how it can and cannot be used. Yet still some say it is a passing fad, just as they do with anything that is “new”. Yesterday, I witnessed the social media micro-blogging service known as Twitter blow so many myths and rumors about ways to do things, what can and can not be done and rules simply shattered.

We MUST NOT label tools because we can all use them for the ways we want, and purposes we want, short of being a snot-nose-spammer – that’s wrong no matter what the tool.

I don’t personally know either Danny or Scott. I do know this – I seen something amazing on March 19th from these two, and I know they are good people from what they did. There were countless people helping to Tweet and retweet calls to action. Each one of us making a small difference, that collectively raised enough money to help feed over 500,000 children over summer break here in the United States. That is power my friends – when you can use a tool to accomplish that type of feat in ONE DAY, in 12 HOURS no less.

It is not about the number of followers, the number of readers or any numbers at all. It is about the passion of connecting, interacting and creating positive value for those who are in your network. Seeing Scott’s and Danny’s passion yesterday was awe inspiring and humbling. Seeing the passion of those tweeting and retweeting was the same. If we only use the tools as a way to get as high of number as possible on readers and followers, just to broadcast our messages to I think we are going to miss quite a few GREAT things that people are doing.

Don’t believe me?

Why don’t you just try it for yourself. Instead of using tools and gimmicks to gain mass followers to whom you merely broadcast yourself and your message to, why not build your followers by way of engagement, interaction and conversation. Sure, it does take longer. In the end though, when you call your network to action, they will do just that ACT. March 19th proved that to me.

To me, Scott and Danny are Twitter & Social Media ROCKSTARS with an exception – they are EXCEPTIONAL people who INTERACT, ENGAGE, CONVERSE and CARE about their networks – it is NOT just a numbers game to either of them.

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »

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