Archives for November 2010

Lately, I have seen a lot of people in different contexts online asking, “What do I get from that” or “Is what I will get out of it really worth my time/money/effort?”

I’ve seen this series of questions in regards to Social Media in general. I’ve seen it in regards to blogging. “But blogging takes so much time. What do I get out of it?” I’ve seen it in regards to Twitter. “Nobody is talking to me now. I don’t get it. I don’t see what I can get out of it.” More recently, I’ve seen these questions revolve around sites like Third Tribe and 501MissionPlace where you have to pay for the privilege of networking with experts and other people who are in the exact same boat as you. “What can I get out of it?”

You see these questions offline, too. “What am I really getting out of this job?” “I could join this group, but what would I get out of it, really?”

Over the last few months, I have developed a single answer to all of these questions. Are you ready?

You will get out of it exactly what you put in.

Nice greeting card. What does that mean?

Let’s talk about this in regards to the different things I mentioned above.I’ll skip the big wide open Social Media question since I’ll be tackling pieces and parts. So…

What do I get out of blogging? If you don’t put much effort into your blog, you probably won’t get much out of it. Your lack of passion for what you are doing will act as repellent. Your ambivalence about responding to the comments you receive will further turn people away. Your question will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. What *can* you get out of blogging? If you take the time and effort to find out how you can help people, you can get an extraordinary sense of accomplishment. You can feel good about yourself. You can watch people evolve and grow on their own based on things you have helped them with. You can create conversation, if you are willing to converse. You can create new ideas if you pose questions and discuss the answers you receive. You can gain a sense of community via your readers.

What can I get out of Twitter? If you don’t want to put some time and effort into Twitter, or if you don’t want to invest in Twitter, you will not get much out of it. If you stop talking because it feels like no one is talking to you, no one will talk to you. If you are willing to put something in, what can you get out of it? You can learn new things every day. You can meet new people. You can build your professional network. You can make new friends. You can think about things in new ways. You can have the power of innovative thinking, genius minds, and the spirit of entrepreneurship wash over you and rev your engines.

What can I get out of paid sites like Third Tribe or 501MissionPlace? I’ve seen these questions a lot, not just in regards to these two websites but in terms of books you have to buy, webinars you have to pay for, and more. I am not made of money. I like money. I like it best when it is in my pocket. However, one must sometimes look at money not as a collector’s item but as something you can use to buy important things. When people in the business world create an opportunity online and then ask you to pay for it, there is usually a pretty good reason for it. Even so, it’s easy to say, “Okay, what will my x dollars give me?” Well, again, that all depends on you (unless the resource you have invested in is just awful, which may happen, but seldom). What have I gotten out of the things I have paid for in this space? Information I wasn’t finding anywhere else. Contact with people whom I probably would not have been able to intersect with anywhere else. Networking opportunities. Education. A chance to broaden my horizons.

In order for this to work, you can’t go into these opportunities sitting on your hands. If you say, “Well, I have already invested money, now make it worth my time,” you will likely be disappointed. It would be like paying your tuition for college and then being angry that the professors don’t visit your dorm room to teach you. You have to go. You have to ask questions. You have to point people to the kind of information you are after. You have to determine for yourself what would make these opportunities worth that investment for you. You can get exactly what you want out of it because you mold the opportunity to yourself.

What can I get out of my job? I’ve talked about this before, but I think it bears repeating. When I first started working for my family’s marketing firm six years ago, I was not on the path that I had intended. I didn’t see how my background in Library Science and History could translate to what I was doing on a daily basis. I could have just said, “Well, I guess all of that is going down the drain. I can’t get what I want out of this.” Instead, I searched actively for ways to bring my experience and education into an unexpected realm. I feel that doing so enriched my ability to serve our clients. I hope that they feel the same way. This is not to pat myself on the back, but it’s just to say that I gave the time and thought to how I could get more out of my job, and I ended up getting and giving more than I could have anticipated.

“What can I get” is a lazy question

There, I said it.

In this space, in this world, “what can I get” signals to me that you are looking for people to come to you. Online especially, so much is being presented to you in terms of opportunities, in terms of free information, in terms of networking opportunities, that this question simply does not make sense to me.

If you do not think you can get your money’s worth out of a $45 webinar customized to people in your profession, then do not pay it. If you think you cannot get a $27/month value out of a site like 501MissionPlace, then don’t do it. But what I would advise, based on the extremely good experiences I’ve had here in this space, is that you invest. You invest money, but even more than that, you invest time, your brain power, and your effort.

What will you get for that? It could be the world at your fingertips. That’s a pretty good deal. Don’t you think?

1st image by Daniel Andres Forero. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/coolza

2nd Image by ilker. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ilco

Wow. The tenth #30Thursday already. Every week that I do this, I become more and more astounded at the brilliance that is out there just waiting to be read and shared. This week, great ideas seemed to be a common theme, along with some interesting and detailed evaluations of our world as it is today. I feel privileged to have read all of these posts. I hope you feel the same way!

1. Post number one was tweeted out by Jonathan Fields, and I’m so glad I saw it. This post by Lynn Terry, a “2500 Word Rant” about the world of online marketing, is absolutely brilliant!

2. Martine Hunter tweeted out this post by Billy Mitchell. Called “A B2B Marketing Idea Takes Flight on Twitter,” the post discusses the B2BTOTY program, which rewards Twitterers for building community, not just for getting tons of followers. Billy also mentions many great people for whom he is casting a vote. Check it out!

3. This next post, by Christopher Penn, combines so many things I adore into one post that it’s almost too good to be true. In “What Vintage Ads Can Teach You About Email Marketing,” Penn notes that the way vintage ads from the late 19th, early 20th century presented information can be instructive for today’s email marketers. Truly brilliant!

4. Sometimes PR gets a bad name, and sometimes there’s a reason for that. However, in this post that Beth Harte tweeted out, Melinda Travis notes that sometimes PR, even in the world of sports, can do some good. Check out “What’s Right with Public Relations” when you have a chance!

5. Diana Freedman is clearly after my heart. Check out her post at Hubspot called “The 9 Worst Ways to Use Twitter for Business.” You’ll see what I mean (see especially number 5) 🙂

6. Lisa Petrilli wonders where courage comes from and which leaders have it. Amazing post. No, I’m not saying that just because her image is a photo she took at Antietam. Hmph. 🙂

7. @PrTini asks, “Can you measure the ROI of Customer Service?” Where does PR end and customer service begin? Can you measure either one in the world of Social Media?

8. Amber Naslund reminds us that with Social Media, we have the unique opportunity to engage in Difference Making. What could be more important than that?

9. Brian Solis discusses a new and rising 5th “c” of community, Social Commerce. Amazing eye for detail, chock-full of great information. Check it out!

10. My friend @galactic gave me the heads up on this amazing post by @thebrandbuilder called “Why Your Social Media Marketing Campaigns Aren’t Working.” A big dose of truth in an outstanding, detailed, and even funny post.

11. Speaking of @galactic (whom you might know as Cristian Gonzales), he wrote a fantastically interesting post pondering the difference between “true” and “the truth.” Give it a read!

12. The difference between a true role model and someone who calls themselves an expert is action. Beth Harte wrote a post called It’s Time To Get To Work. Arm Yourself With Knowledge. She makes the point that reading is one of the best weapons (or tools) you can have. Instead of just stopping there, though, she proceeds to give an amazing list of books to read in different disciplines. Bookmark this post!

13. Allison Boyer asks, “Where are the Remarkable Bloggers?” It’s probably not what you think 🙂

14. This post by Mitch Joel, called Being a Twitter Snob is a Good thing, presents (eloquently) one view of the Twitter follow issue.

15. It inspired Mark Schaefer to write a response called Bringing Down the Twitter Snobs. Also eloquently stated!

16. Liz Strauss tweeted out this post by Jael Strong, which was posted at successful-blog.com. Bid Farewell to Bad Blogging: Edit! I agree with Jael 100% – you can have great ideas, but if you can’t use language well, the beauty of those ideas may get lost amidst the distraction of grammatical errors or typos. Careful is as careful does!

17. Lisa Petrilli tweeted this post by her #leadershipchat co-founder Steve Woodruff, who guest posted on Angela Maiers’ blog (phew!). In this post, Steve offers a fantastic definition for passion.

18. Marsha Collier tweeted this post and the title caught my eye – turns out it’s a fantastic article by Pauline Ores at Econsultancy.com. The post is called Five Reasons NOT to Hire THAT Social Media Expert. Pauline discusses some good signals to look for when deciding if someone is *truly* an expert or if they are just a self-proclaimed guru.

19. My friend @WriterChanelle runs a really great site for Generation Y non-grads called There From Here. This week, she featured a guest post by Julia Zunich called 5 Realistic Reasons to Find Summer Internships NOW. It’s a truly great read no matter where you are in your career’s life cycle, but I think particularly useful for Chanelle’s target audience.

20. My bloggy BFF @pushingsocial tweeted out this post from Kikolani.com. Written by Srinivas Rao, the post is called How to make a blogging advice implementation plan. Mr. Rao points out that we all read tons of blogs that offer great advice. We probably say, “Wow, that’s great advice!” But do we actually follow all of that advice? Food for thought.

21. Speaking of Mr. PushingSocial, his post this week got quite a lot of buzz, and deservedly so. Check out What To Do If Your Blog Isn’t Awesome. If anyone can tell you how to make the awesome, it’s @pushingsocial 🙂

22. My friend @knowledgebishop sent me this fantastic post by Gerry McGovern over at MarketingProfs. The post argues that a lot of online marketers are still living in the past with “needy” marketing tactics. The new way to market is to use support and make the entire learning/purchasing process a positive. Major ramifications for both customer service and marketing. What do you think?

23. Do you think that concepts like integrated marketing or customer-centric organizations are tricky to understand? You’ll be amazed at how simple @wilsonellis makes these concepts. 1 little picture, a bit of explanation, and you’re good to go. Check out The Marketing Solar System.

24. My friend Dawn Westerberg offers a reminder that the past is, well, in the past, or as Fleetwood Mac might say, Yesterday’s Gone. Don’t let the past bog you down!

25. Suzanne Vara’s jewel of brilliance this week has to do with the morning after. No, not that one. After election day! Suzanne asks if there is personal branding in politics. More to the point, would politicians succeed with their negative campaigning if Social Media was their primary medium? Interesting to ponder, non?

26. I was talking to Molly Campbell about the work I was doing for Social Media Safety. Her response was to write this post, called Sticks and Stones, or Bullying for Dummies. It’s cute and funny, but there is also a good question there. What are bullies thinking? It’s a great piece!

27. Feeling a little burnt out? Feeling a little sore, either physically or emotionally? Jason Sokol has 2 creativity tools that will knock your socks off! Tell him what you think of them once you try them!

28. My friend (and new papa!) Tommy Walker uses some of the characters from Office Space to explain how companies could benefit from encouraging the use of Facebook. Very interesting read!

29. Kay Whitaker and Amber Cleveland of Sterling Hope are not just active entrepreneurs – they are entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in the world. Now is your chance to help them out. Check out “the new deal for charity“!

30. This was a beautiful post by Chris Brogan. It got a lot of attention (rightfully so). The message is important in these crazy times. Read What We Let Slip Away.

When you are involved in the world of Social Media, it’s easy to get enveloped in the “let’s hold hands and treat each other well” blanket. I often wax poetical (or maybe just wax) about how important community is. I talk about how strongly I feel that chats are important because they help you meet people.

What I don’t talk about very often is how to use Social Media to make money. There are several reasons for this. First, even though I am out here learning so that I can help support our clients, many of our clients are not using Social Media right now. This is because a lot of our clients are in niches where there just isn’t a lot of Social Media activity. As I have stated often, if we feel like Social Media isn’t a good idea, we don’t shove it down anybody’s throat. Also, I am not here to make personal profit. I am an ambassador for Clayman Advertising. Am I hoping to meet people who might want to work with us? Of course! But that’s very different from trying to get people to purchase a product.

The question pops into my head now and again…is all of the talking I do about community, helping people who are new to Social Media, saying thank you, promoting others…is that all relevant to someone who wants or needs to make money using Social Media?

My answer is that it is.

The new kid on the block

The thing is, a lot of people who have been navigating these waters for awhile have an understanding that there are unwritten rules. I don’t expect anyone in my community to randomly send me a tweet saying, “Hey buy this now!!” They would not expect the same from me. I don’t expect anyone in my community to send me a link that randomly leads me to their e-commerce store. They would not expect that from me. In short, as you develop your own community in the world of Social Media, using all of the best practices that you hear about everywhere, you become like a group of really good friends. You evolve to the point where you know that this person tends to blog at this time. This person always seems to help you promote your blog posts. The community develops a rhythm.

If you are using Social Media to make money, it would be easy to think that you can get started right out of the gate. In fact, though, if you are not careful, you can end up looking like that darned person who always seems to crash gatherings of good friends. Nobody really has a lot of patience for that kind of person, and more often than not, you’ll find that the doors and windows will be locked, the shades will be pulled all the way down, and you won’t get anywhere.

Buying is based on trust

Another reason why I think it’s essential to wait a beat before trying to sell is that people in the world of Social Media are not going to click anything unless they can generally trust you. There are too many phishing schemes. There are too many spam attacks and bugs. You have to make a name for yourself, prove that you’re not a bot, prove that you can be trusted. Only then will people begin to say, “Oh, ok, let’s see what this person has to share with me now.”

Developing that kind of trust takes a long time. It takes a daily, consistent effort of supporting other people, showing that you can help other people, showing that you know what you’re talking about, and showing that you are a good resource. Doing all of that requires, it seems to me, all of that gooey and mushy kumbaya stuff.

Many would find this frustrating

I know that if you are looking to make money, this is not the message you want to hear. It’s easy to dismiss us “community” folk as kind of the Social Media flower children. You might be saying, “That’s nice and all, but this is the real world, and the real world is about profit. It’s about driving people to your site, where your buy now button rests comfortably in your side navigation.” I know that this is an entirely new facet to marketing that we haven’t had to worry about. You didn’t have to build a relationship with a magazine for them to place your ad, right? You send them an order, you send them money, and boom, your ad appears.

And yet…

Is this really so different? Doesn’t business in the offline world also have its kumbaya contingent? You know, the people who do business based on handshake agreements? The people who excel at customer service? The people who will help you on the business front but then will also recommend a really great musician for you to listen to? And speaking of placing ads, isn’t it true that if you have a really good relationship with your contact at the publication, you can negotiate better placement and maybe even better prices for yourself or your client?

Would you randomly go up to a customer in real life and say, “go to my website and buy something, please”?  I doubt it. So, why approach Social Media any differently?

Start before you start

If you think that you are ready to jump into Social Media to make money, my advice would be to start building your community 3-6 months before you hope to start making sales. That’s not to say that you stay mum about your endgame, but what it does mean is that you don’t do any hard-selling. You need time to find your voice. You need to make sure that when you are ready to sell, there will actually be people following your tweets. You need to make sure that some of those people will click the links that you post.

In my case, I had blogged and tweeted for about 5 months before I added a link about our ClayComm 2.0 services to my blog site. I don’t point to it a whole lot, but it’s up there. I didn’t start pointing out what we can do to help companies market until I showed, through persistent interaction, that I knew what I was talking about when it came to the big picture and to some minute details. I am still not hard selling now, but if I was trying to sell a product, I would know how my community would want me to proceed. I would know how to avoid becoming that “annoying” salesman.

So what do you think? Can kumbaya and making money co-exist? In the movie Austen Powers, Austen represents the kind of naive flower child while Dr. Evil represents (funnily enough) profit and capitalism side of the equation. They are enemies. What if they could help each other out? Maybe that’s just me being kumbaya again.

1st Image by jorge vicente. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/jmjvicente

2nd Image by Rob Owen-Wahl. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/lockstockb

Normally, I like to think that I am reasonably stable mentally (don’t we all). However, ever since I joined Facebook, I’ve had some doubts. I’ve had a horrible relationship with Facebook right from the very beginning. I didn’t want to join at first because the site wanted my email password, and it wanted me to post a picture of myself, and it seemed to want to broadcast that information all over the place. Eventually though, I got hooked. Then lots of privacy confusion happened, and I decided to quit. But my friends did not engage in a mass exodus, so I was lured back in. Back and forth, back and forth.

Two weeks ago, I gave notice to my friends and family that I was going to be deleting my personal Facebook account, which I had always kept “locked down.” I started a public/professional Facebook account not long ago, and I was going to just use that going into the future.

As you might imagine, a few folks asked me why. Well, here is my answer.

Private is not really private

Every time Facebook makes changes, you find a slew of posts and announcements about how to lock down your information. When the “open graph” launched a few months ago, it became apparent that even if you lock down everything in your account by customizing all of the settings, your information could still be spread just by your connection to friends who get involved in applications. In the latest news, which Tommy Walker posted about here on Sunday, Facebook released the news that apparently some applications were selling information to advertisers.

In my personal account, I was not saying or doing anything to be ashamed of. It just was kind of a safe haven where I could talk to family and people I’ve been friends with for over 20 years in some cases. It seemed like a nice little village where we all could get together. It gave me a false sense of security.

Keeping it on the straight and narrow

When I joined Twitter, I knew that everything I said was out there in the open. Whether I am just tweeting to myself or whether I am tweeting in response to someone else, I know that anyone who wants to see what I am saying can and will. This gives me a constant sense of caution and responsibility that I did not have when I felt like I had some small measure of online privacy.

Now, with Facebook, I am out there in the open just like I am on Twitter. I have asked my friends and family to pop on over there so that I can remain in contact with them, but I will not stray far from what I would say to a stranger at a trade show, for the most part, because I no longer have the illusion, or false sense, that what I am saying on Facebook is protected.

My word of caution

Lately, the fact that online communication is out there for everyone to see has been in the spotlight, most often in negative ways. Take, for example, the gentleman (?) from Arkansas who proclaimed that homosexual kids killing themselves was a better option than wearing purple for a day. That man has now lost his job, and he will forever be known as “that guy who.” That kind of thing can happen to anyone, no matter how locked down you think you are. On Twitter, you can be retweeted. Links you post to Facebook can be shared. Status updates can be spread far and wide. There is not really such a thing as “personal” or “private” in this brave new world of Social Media.

This is not to scare people away. This is not to dissuade you from enjoying your Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s just to say that you are not in the privacy of your own home or the home of a friend when you post out here. Anything you say can and will be used against you, either in a court of law or in the court of the general public. Be watchful. Be careful. Be warned.

Last week, I read two posts on the topic of following on Twitter. First, Mitch Joel wrote a post noting that being a snob on Twitter is a good thing. In response, Mark Schaefer wrote a post called Bringing Down the Twitter Snobs. I commented on both posts. Both posts were insightful. Both posts presented their perspective well. Mitch Joel essentially argues that “The only people you should follow on Twitter are people who are immediately interesting to you or people who might become interesting to you.” Mark Schaefer retorts: “You never know who will connect with you, you never know how they will connect with you, and you never know where it will lead. So why would you exclude ANYBODY?”

So where do I stand with this? I have all of the respect in the world for Mitch Joel, but I can’t really get to where he is in his head on this issue. So let me talk about 2 reasons why.

I don’t have 500,000 people asking to talk to me

I know, I don’t understand why either, but it’s a fact. I think that folks like Mitch, members of the “Twitter elite,” if you will, experience Twitter in a totally different way than folks like me do. Twitter for them is a relentless pull on their experience, their knowledge, their time, and their tweets. People like Mr. Joel do speeches, they’ve written books. They’ve hit it big time.

In that kind of scenario, I can understand how it would be difficult to keep up with everyone who follows you. The time it takes to sift through real people versus the spam bots would be extremely demanding. And let’s face it…if you are in that Twitter elite, you have a lot of people who are asking to pick your brain. You have people throwing fits if you don’t respond. So I get wanting to be selective. Still though, how do you determine who is “interesting”? Mr. Joel talks about looking at a person whose “follow” list was about 400 people, all of whom were “A-list.” What does that mean? How do the Twitter elite define “interesting” or “A-list”?

Why do we talk about “following” like it’s a big job?

Here’s what I really don’t understand about the “Twitter snob” stance. Why miss all of those opportunities? I mean, when you were in high school or college, did you say, “Woah, I can’t meet any more people because I mean, how can I keep track of everyone?” Probably not. You were interested in meeting more people, in befriending more people. Well, that’s how I feel about Twitter. More to the point, if everyone eventually evolved into a “snob,” how could anyone new find their way in Twitter?

When I got started, people took a chance on me. I didn’t have an “A-list” of followers. I didn’t have a high Klout score (so I’m told). I had under 100 followers, and I probably was following more people than were following me. But guess what? People began to follow me. They took a chance. I am forever grateful.

Now that I have a more pleasant foothold in Twitter, I actually seek out people who don’t have a lot of followers. I look at what they are trying to do with their tweets, and I reach out to them. I introduce them to people.

You can’t judge a person by their followers

In real life, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who thinks it’s a good idea to judge people by how they look, right? If you say, “Oh, anyone who wears jeans isn’t my kind of person,” you’ll get raised eyebrow kind of looks. Well, I react that way to the “Twitter snob” concept. How can you tell who is “interesting” if you don’t take a moment to try to get to know people?

I enjoy reaching out to people. It’s what I enjoy about Twitter. I enjoy being, well, social. Sure, there are tons of reasons why I am using Twitter as a marketing professional. But I don’t view following people as a job. Yes, it takes time to make sure you’re not following a spam bot. Sure, it takes time to see if someone is giving a true effort. But you know what? I’m happy to do it, because to me, and to a lot of the people I hang out with in the Twitter world, that’s really the whole point.

So, where do you fall in this argument? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

image by Luca Cinacchio. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/cinacchi