Marketing Talk

Today is a special day for um, well, for me. Today is my official one-year anniversary of my blog, and while I don’t know the exact date that I started using Twitter, I can tell you that I started my personal account sometime after February 10th last year. So, let’s call it a year for me doing Social Media stuff professionally.

Only Future-Margie will be able to confirm this for sure (and maybe you can if you’ve seen a year come and go), but I think making it through your first year is probably the toughest thing to do in Social Media. Everything is new. Everything is a surprise. You are starting from nothing. You’ll never REALLY have to start from nothing ever again in the online world. That’s pretty darned comforting.

Over the last year, I’ve had my blog situated on Blogger, WordPress.com, and self-hosted. I’ve changed the name of my blog I *think* three times. I’ve had three different Twitter usernames. I very nearly stopped all of this craziness on three different occasions. I’ve also had more than my fair share of completely joyous and exciting moments.

If I had to do it over again, what would I recommend to myself? What am I recommending to you now so that you can make it through your first year?

[Read more…] about How to survive your first year of Social Media

In 1848, along the American River in California, on John Sutter’s property, nuggets of gold were uncovered, and the United States, not to mention the world, was changed forever. People who had perfectly comfortable middle class lives in Pennsylvania and New England suddenly said, “Hey, wait, I could go out to California and become the richest guy in town!” People piled into California with picks, spoons, pans, and anything else they could muster, and they all went to the banks of that little California river.

Well, almost everyone.

[Read more…] about how to win the gold rush without digging

“So what is going on with so and so,” I asked a friend about a mutual friend of ours one day. “Oh, they’re in Europe. They’re posting about their adventures on a site called livejournal. It’s like an online diary, sort of.”

“An online diary? What a CRAZY idea,” I replied.

The year was 2000, and I had never heard of these crazy things called “Blogs” before. I had only really learned about the intricacies of email in 1996. The online world was not my oyster.

A mere 11 years later, and a couple of things have changed. Well, okay, no, a lot of things have changed. Shortly after my conversation, I decided that I would try this livejournal thing. It ended up replacing the mass emails I used to send. Then I got invites for Friendster and Orkut. How cool it was to stay in touch with that person you used to walk by on your way to class! Then Myspace came along, and that was just ridiculously cool.

Of course, now I wouldn’t remember my Friendster or Orkut usernames if you pointed a gun to my head (please don’t). I haven’t logged into my MySpace account in *at least* a year. I haven’t blogged in my livejournal account for about a year. All of the platforms that used to be completely indispensable to me are now laughably out of date. So while I love Twitter and Facebook and blogging, I fully expect for them to be old hat in a couple of years.

[Read more…] about If Twitter disappeared tomorrow

I’ve watched or attended a fair share of presentations at this point, going back to my wayward days of academia and on up through the business world. Some presentations I have seen have been spectacular, but others seem to have been a bit lacking in that “oomph” factor.

Let me put it another way.

There are 7 mistakes people make in presentations that drive me batty. A short trip, granted, but still, it needs to be said! I thought I’d share these 7 oopsies with you so that you do not drive people batty in the future. Are you ready? I thought so.

1. Title your presentation to raise interest, then talk about something else. I really hate this one. If I am in the chocolate business, sign up for your webinar about how to market chocolate, and then you end up talking about oranges the whole time, I’m not going to feel pleased with you. I am happy for you that you have a book to talk about, an area of expertise, or whatever else you want to present on. Say that you are presenting on those things rather than what would *seem* interesting to a potential audience.

2. Use really beautiful daffodil yellow or tangerine orange font. Yeah, we can’t see that too well, can we? It looks like there might be a hint of something there, but it’s hard to tell. Is that a smudge on my computer, maybe? Use dark colors. Be bold!

3. Include about 17 bullet points per slide. When I was first learning Power Point, I was totally guilty of this one. “Oh, drat, it doesn’t fit. Let me move my font on down to 8 point. In Helvetica it’s still legible!” It’s a horrible, no good, very bad idea. Not only will you have people in the front row squinting, but people in the nose bleed section will phase out. Eye tests are for the eye doctor!

4. Talk too fast as you try to cover your 17 bullet points. As you move through your presentation, you begin to realize that having a mini-dissertation per slide is not working, but it’s too late to revise and edit, so instead, you start talking really fast. This makes my brain confused. Do I try to read your slide, which is hard to see, or do I try to take notes based on what you’re saying? If I can’t do either easily, I might end up with a sudden urge to get up or click out. This is not optimal for your success.

5. Don’t try to cover everything about your topic in one presentation. I know. You have the stage, real or virtual. All eyes and ears are focused on you. It’s hard not to take this scenario and run with it, right? “Now I can finally show everyone how brilliant I am! How exhaustive my knowledge is!” It’s exhausting! Leave things up to the imagination. Depend on your audience to add to the story just like you would on your blog (you do that, right?). Leave your audience with a reason to follow up with  you. Please, please, do not try to cover every minute detail in an hour-long presentation.

6. Don’t say that what you’re about to tell me is boring. Do I need to explain this one? If you think it’s boring and it’s your presentation, I’ll just say, “OK, cool, thanks for the heads up.” If you think it’s boring, by the way, why are you doing a presentation about it? Is this a self-flagellation thing?  I don’t get it.

7. Don’t try to be a stand-up comedian. Yes, entertainment is good, but if you’re hosting a webinar or if you’re presenting at a seminar, people are sitting before you because they want to learn, and they heard that you could teach them. You are not on Last Comic Standing. A little humor here and there is fine. Don’t push your luck or waste your audience’s time.

Those are my 7 pet peeves. What are yours?

Image by Felix atsoram. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/atsoram

My friend Jilly Manty just posted a video that has me hot and bothered. It’s about a seven-year-old whose parents got her plastic surgery because her ears were a bit floppy and big. The story positions it that a parent will do anything to protect their child from bullying. Check out the video, then answer this question for me…

Do we really want to send this message to parents and their children?

Let me tell you a story

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was walking by a bus when I heard a voice say, “Hey…hey you…are you sure you’re old enough to be in high school?” I ignored the voice but they were persistent. I couldn’t figure out where the voice was coming from. Then I realized it was one of the bus drivers. They called me over and asked me again if I was sure I was old enough to be in high school. All of the kids on the bus, of course, laughed their butts off. It was like a moment from an after-school movie.

My “abnormality” as the story puts it is that I am a ruler’s length shorter than most people. As minor a problem as ears that stick out a bit. But there’s no plastic surgery that can magically make me taller. And if there had been something to make me taller, blond-haired kids may have picked on me because I had brown hair. If you are blind, if you are deaf, if you are mentally challenged, if you are ill – there are no quick fixes for any of these things, and if you get one problem fixed, bullies are sure to find something else.

People will always find something to pick on if they feel small themselves.

Ultimately, you have to love yourself. No amount of plastic surgery can put a band-aid over self-loathing. No amount of denial can protect you from the fact that some people are just mean-hearted individuals.

I am so utterly concerned that this story seems to indicate otherwise. And I’m a little ashamed that this is where our society seems to be going.

You have to love yourself. That is all.