Marketing Talk

A couple of months ago, Jonathan Fields wrote a fantastic post for MyEscapeVelocity.com called The Fine Art of Chunking. If you are feeling overwhelmed, or if you have a really big project in front of you that just seems to grow the more you think about it, you should definitely give his post a read. As a preview, what Fields talks about is that instead of trying to take on a project or a huge goal all at once, it can be helpful to “chunk it.” Do this little thing, then that little thing. Before you know it, you’ve accomplished an awful lot.

Do you find yourself “chunking” when you’re on Twitter? I know I do. And I know we’re not alone.

The big picture

Let’s talk about Twitter first as the whole network. The whole enchilada. There are hem hem hem millions of people using Twitter every day. We are getting news from Twitter. We are getting advertised to on Twitter. We are following celebrities on Twitter. And most likely, we’re trying to get our voices out there in that mess too.

If you are using Twitter for business, it can seem like the prospect of you getting the word out about your specific business, not to mention your specific industry, is pretty small. It can feel like you are a drop in the ocean. We’ve talked before about how so often, no matter who you are, you send out a tweet and get an extremely small fraction of a response from your followers.

Some people are finding this very discouraging and are searching for other ways to get their business in front of people. However, there seems to be a growing trend out there. People are chunking Twitter so that they can be seen and heard and so that they can promote their businesses.

What do Twitter chunks look like?

If you haven’t joined a chat on Twitter yet, I highly recommend that you give it a try. Here’s a whole list of Twitter chats. Pick one that looks interesting. What you will find is that in chats, people are geared towards engaging with other people. It’s a conversation rather than a broadcast, right? Well, slowly but surely, it seems like these chats are developing into communities. Now, for me, I keep meeting new people via the chats I participate in, and I am privileged to be able to add many of them into my network of interactions. Other people use the chat hashtag even when the chat isn’t happening so that people can go in and see what else people are saying and doing.

Another really interesting Twitter chunk is the #usguys community. Perhaps you’ve seen that hashtag being used in your stream. It’s tough to say exactly what #usguys is, except to say that I think it might be the missing link between the Twitter of the now and the Twitter of the future. It’s an ongoing hashtag that evolved into occasional “official” chats. It’s a way for people to see each others’ tweets all the time. It’s a growing community floating on the stream that is Twitter at large.

The small town and the big city

Chris Brogan uses outpost terminology to describe places where you are communicating beyond your blog or website. Well, I think these Twitter chunks might become outposts within your Twitter outpost. In a great conversation I got to share with a lot of great people this morning, including Sean McGinnis, Tom Moradpour, Carl Sorvino, Chase Adams, and more, we discussed the fact that in the case of #usguys, the community under the hashtag has become self-sufficient. Members can always share ideas and be heard. Members can always introduce new people. Members can always tweet a post in and get feedback. Friends are there. Supporters are there. If the rest of Twitter is the big city, there isn’t a huge incentive to travel there. Out there, you are just another drop in the ocean. In a chunk like #usguys, you’re a person who gets heard. All the time. And not just heard – you get greeted warmly. You get to joke. You get to be yourself. And you get to get your message out there.

Can business grow in chunks?

Here’s my question. Whether you are trying to build a personal brand or grow a business on Twitter, the goal, ultimately, is to use Twitter as a tool to reach a lot of people, right? You want to meet new people, you want to build relationships, and you want to get the word out there to people who might not know you or your company.

If everybody starts gravitating towards chunks, or outposts, or small towns, is Twitter really going to remain a tool that can be used to grow business or brands? If you keep talking to the same group on a daily basis, and if you don’t find the at-large Twitterverse to be particularly lucrative, is Twitter really helping your business grow? Are you growing your brand if you are building deep relationships with a few people rather than passing relationships with thousands?

Here’s where you chime in

What do you think about the world of Twitter right now? If you are using it to grow your business or your personal brand (or both), are you finding that it’s more useful to stay out in the big stream, or do you find yourself gravitating towards the same people, the same Twitter chunks, on a regular basis? Do you feel that is helping or hindering?

I’m truly excited to converse about this. I’d love to discuss this topic with you!

Image by Robin Utracik. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/RobinUtrac

Is there something about your Social Media experience that you aren’t enjoying right now? It could be anything. Maybe your blog is frustrating you. Maybe Twitter is making you crazy. Maybe Facebook is making you want to flip out.

Let me ask you something if you answered yes. Have you gone out into the Social Media world and tried to change what’s bothering you? Be 100% honest. Asking for help doesn’t count. Reading blogs doesn’t count. Attending webinars doesn’t even count.

Maybe you’re waiting to be served.

There’s not a lack of cooks

Social Media is full of cooks. It’s kind of like a festival too, because there are all kinds of cooks out there ready to serve you their delectable morsels. Even better, these cooks will not just hand deliver you their creations. Some of these cooks will literally stuff their food into your face until you say “uncle.” People are cooking up savory Social Media campaigns for you. There are cooks making delicious Digg observations. There are sous chefs specializing in SEO. It’s easy to let all of these cooks come to you and serve up whatever they’ve got, isn’t it?

But what if none of that food is hitting the spot? What if something just keeps gnawing at you?

There are three options, as so often is the case. Option One: You just keep letting the cooks serve up what they’ve got cooking. Option Two: You yell at the cooks and say, “Hey, this isn’t doing it for me, man! I am not fulfilled!” Or Option Three: You leave the table and go to cooking school.

It’s so easy to wait

Because there are so many cooks, it’s extremely easy to get comfortable with the idea of option one. If something is bugging you about your Social Media reality, maybe you visit five blogs of really influential people and you read everything they’ve written for the last week or so. That’s active, right? Maybe you go to a webinar or two. Maybe you even go to a big event. It feels like you’re moving, right?

But really, what you’re doing is walking from one restaurant to another. You’re sitting down, and without looking at the full menu even, you’re saying, “Serve me your best. Whatever it is.”

What are you hungry for?

The first and most important question you need to ask yourself before you make that order, or before you let someone feed you, is “What are you hungry for?” Or, a slightly different way of asking the same question – why aren’t you feeling full right now?

Here are some symptoms of Social Media hunger that I have seen here and there.

You leave a chat because you can’t keep up

You don’t blog because you can’t keep it going

You hate Twitter because you can’t engage

You don’t like Facebook because you can’t get it to work for you

People often talk about buzz words. Well, “can’t” is the most attention-grabbing buzz word out there. Bloggers and experts and jedi knights and gurus and wizards and ninjas – they search for that word. They gravitate towards you and they say, “Hey buddy, couldn’t help but notice you look famished. You want something to eat?”

Don’t feed the cooks. Be a cook.

A couple of days ago, we talked about expectations, right? Well, what is your expectation when you blog or tweet that you just can’t… xyz? Are you expecting someone to swoop in and solve that problem for you?

Here’s the thing. The world of Social Media is not a place where you can be passive and happy for long periods of time. It just doesn’t work. That’s not bad news though. It just means that at some point, you have to gently put down your menu, stand up, and say, “You know, I think I’m going to start my own restaurant.”

Once you do that, the Social Media world is your oyster. If you are feeling lost in a chat, cook up your own conversation with someone about something you both find interesting. If you are finding that your blog isn’t doing what you want, change it up. Add something wild, like cumin or saffron. If you aren’t having a good experience on Twitter, go out and make the experience that you want. Don’t depend on a cook popping by with exactly what you want. Learn how to cook it.

Let’s get cooking

Was there a point where you found yourself waiting to get served? Are you doing that now? What’s bothering you about your Social Media presence right now? Let’s talk about how you, yes you, can actively turn that thing on its head and leave it far behind. Put that cook’s menu down. It’s time to go to cooking school.

Image by Michal Zacharzewski. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/mzacha

Remember when you would go up to your mom or dad when you were a kid, and you’d say something like, “My finger really hurts when I bend it this way!” You would be expecting some sympathy. Maybe a cookie. Instead, you’d hear, “Well, I guess you’d better not bend your finger that way then.”

This post – it’s going to be kind of like that.

Let’s turn your thinking inside out

A lot of bloggers in Social Media, including yours truly, talk about how to create and exceed expectations for yourself. There is a lot of talk about goals. There is a lot of talk about metrics and benchmarking.

There’s something I’ve noticed though, and maybe you’ve noticed it too. A lot of the problems that people bump into online are actually caused by expectations we have of other people, and their willingness (or not) to live up to those expectations. So let me ask you some questions. And let’s talk about it.

What do you expect your followers to do when you tweet out your own post? Do you expect that they will retweet your tweet? Do you expect that they will click the link and read your post? Do you expect them to read the post and comment on it? Do you expect them to do everything above?

What do you expect a person to do after you have tweeted out their blog post?

What do you expect a blogger to do if you comment on his or her post?

If you think about these questions, you probably have some sort of answer for them. I know I do. When you think about that a bit more, what we’re really saying is that we have a lot of expectations that we place on people. Often, these expectations are not verbalized. Sometimes we don’t even realize we have these expectations. But suddenly, when our expectations are not exceeded, or when we feel discouraged because people aren’t doing what we expect, we may act out, throw a fit, lash out, or otherwise lose our online cool. That’s not a good thing.

The bad news

OK, I’m a bad news kind of person, so let me lay some hard truths on you first.

1. People do not dwell inside your head. They do not saturate themselves in your thoughts and feelings.

2. People do not keep track of everything you say, blog, tweet, or write. A quick reference to something you said six years ago today may not register with some people.

3. People cannot know what you expect unless you tell them.

4. Even if they know what you want – people may not do it. People are silly that way.

The good news

Now here is the good news. We can get our expectations under control so that we don’t end up feeling like we’re running into a brick wall.

If you have expectations of people, you first need to come clean with yourself. If you expect people to comment on your blog posts, you need to admit that to yourself. If you expect a blogger to respond to your comment, you need to be honest with yourself and say so.

Then, you need to come to terms with those expectations and determine which ones are realistic and which ones will just lead you to disillusionment.

There are some common expectations that I see evidence of on a regular basis, and they almost always lead to frustration. So, if you carry these expectations with you, it may be time to rethink things a bit. There are a few expectations people carry that I think almost always lead to frustration or disappointment. For example:

Do you expect that irritating patterns of behavior will cease if you always draw attention to those that present that behavior?

Do you expect that people will continue to build you up if you never build up other people?

Do you expect that a blogger who receives 75 comments per post will always be able to answer you?

Do you expect that a request for a significant amount of time will always be met just as you wish?

It might be hard to admit that we carry these expectations. We might not be proud of them. But we need to identify them. And we need to address them.

So, what do you expect?

When you sign into Twitter, or when you write a blog post, do people walk in knowing what your expectations are? Do you know what your expectations are for each action that you send out? Are you paving the way to frustration for yourself and others, or are your expectations more aligned with your end-goal?

Let me know what you come up with in the comments.

And no, I don’t expect you to. I just am glad if you do.

You’ve probably heard or seen the word “community” a lot if you’ve been hanging around the Social Media world. Well, today, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to envision your community building as the building of an arch instead of a little town. If you picture an arch, you have 2 legs, a left and right, and they come together at one central stone, the keystone. The keystone locks everything into place.

Building a Social Media community means that you are going to a lot of different sites or registering your name in a lot of places. So the left side of your community arch may be your blog, your Twitter account, your Facebook page – things having to do directly with you. Let’s call the right-hand leg your traveling leg. This would be your registration with commenting sites like Disquis and LiveFyre, your inclusion in someone else’s Facebook group, or just general comments that you leave on someone else’s blog.

One thing it’s really important to have in all of these instances is a name – an identifier. And that’s what we’re going to call your keystone.

Why is your name so important?

Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you have a blog that you call, oh, I don’t know, “Sunny Puppy Daisy Blog.” All of the blog posts show the author’s name (you) as Sunny Puppy. So, you’re blogging away and you leave a really nice mention of someone in your post. That person sees it and leaves you a really nice comment. The interacting, for them, is with someone who is going by the name Sunny Puppy. Now, let’s say based on the person’s nice comment on your post, you go find them on Twitter. They don’t follow you back right away. On Twitter, your name is Daisy Jackson. Guess what? That person you interacted with on your blog? They have no idea who you are on Twitter. It’s now taking extra time and effort to help that person become a part of your over-arching community because you have to explain to them who you are.

Now extrapolate this across all of the different channels you use. What name did you give yourself for Disqus? Are you engaging bloggers who then have no idea how to find your blog? Do you have different names for your Digg and StumbleUpon handles? How can anyone get to know you when they’re never 100% sure that you are you? It can get to be a pretty big problem.

Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you

There are millions upon millions of people tweeting and blogging and Facebooking these days, so sticking out and getting attention can be pretty difficult. To better your odds, make it easy for people to recognize you as you are walking down the various “streets” of the Social Media world. Help people connect the dots so that they see that you’re that person who wrote the really great comment and you’re also the person who tweeted that really interesting study. Help someone who gets to know you primarily through Twitter get to know you better via your blog or via your comments on their blogs. Help people build a relationship with just you rather than building relationships with six different versions of you.

If you don’t like the mushy community talk…

This advice can also help you if you are using Social Media for business. It is not the be-all or end-all of branding, but it certainly helps get your company’s name out there. If you say something useful on Twitter using your corporate account, you want people to be able to attribute that to you, then tie it to your related blog post. Your name, one of your common features across all channels, will help lock people in on both legs of your community arch.

A rose by any other name

So what is your name situation? If you comment here, will I be able to find you with ease elsewhere? Will it be easy for me to continue to build my relationship with you as I see your name popping up in different places, or will you become another face in the crowd beyond the walls of this space right here? Is your keystone in place?

How can I help you set that all important block that will lock the different parts of your community building efforts together? Just let me know.

So I posted last week that I would be taking nominations for Social Media MVPs, but times are busy, and while I got a few very very nice responses, it was nowhere near 100.

Well, not one to be diverted by minor details, I am just going to go ahead and give you a list of some people that I think are all stars in the Social Media space. Alphabetical order so that no one says, “Ohh, why was that person named first.”Hopefully, this inspires you to read some blogs you’ve never read or follow some people on Twitter you’ve never followed. It’s all about paying it forward, after all.

So, here are 34 people who are on my All Star Team. Who is on your team? Maybe we could make a game of it 🙂 [Read more…] about My Social Media All Star Team

Today is Friday, which means that on Twitter, a lot of people are posting names and then putting an #ff after those names. You’ll also see, very likely, a lot of chatter about what to do on or with “Follow Friday.”

The more I see this chatter, the more it makes me think that Follow Friday is one of those things in the online world that can create great feelings or hurt feelings. It can be used really effectively or it can be abused. So, since I have a bit of time today, I thought I’d take a moment to talk to you about this whole phenomenon.

Follow Friday matters to new people

I don’t know about you, but when I had reached, oh, about my 2-month marker on Twitter, I really came to dread Follow Friday. Why? Well, once I finally figured out what it meant (I suggest that you start to follow this person’s tweets), it seemed to be just another reminder of how insignificant I was in the online world. Nobody, and I mean nobody, mentioned me on Friday. Ever. I even remember making a quip about it. “Which will happen first? Will I get hit by lightning or mentioned on Follow Friday?” I was that frustrated, that discouraged. Luckily, no one responded to that tweet!

I didn’t know a whole lot of people at that time, so I would always mention folks who I really did appreciate, like Jay Baer and Ann Handley. One week, I mentioned a person and a bit later in the day I saw them tweeting about how much they hate Follow Friday. That was REALLY discouraging. Not only was I not getting mentioned, but in mentioning other people, I was apparently just creating misery. Awesome, right?

It seemed to me like Follow Friday was a way to recognize a person’s efforts. It mattered to me that I wasn’t being mentioned. It mattered to me that other people in my stream were retweeting every time they were getting mentioned. I felt bad. I have not forgotten that feeling.

Some problems with Follow Friday

There is a really good sentiment behind Follow Friday, but there are a lot of pitfalls with it too. I didn’t understand these pitfalls when I was new, so I thought I would outline what I’ve learned.

A lot of people do what I did. They mention big big names in the Twitter-verse. This causes a lot of problems. First, it’s really hard for those folks to respond to every single person who mentions them on a normal day. On Friday, they are likely completely buried. Second, if they thank 1 person but not another, that second person is going to feel even worse. And of course, if you are super new, these really big names aren’t going to know who you are. Follow Friday can look a lot like name dropping. If you say, “#FF @problogger @copyblogger @chrisbrogan @notsethsblog & @jasonfalls, and if you do that consistently, it’s going to just not have the desired effect.

A lot of people mindlessly retweet every time they’re mentioned, which really clutters it up. As an example, let’s say that someone tweets out a big long list of names for Follow Friday, and one of them is me. Now let’s say I just retweet that. That means that alllll of those people on that list are a) perhaps going to retweet my retweet and b) they’re going to assume that I know them and also am recommending them. This is not always the case, I’d wager. I think a lot of people just like to retweet when they are mentioned on Friday. If your name is with them, then you luck out.

Follow Friday is also hard because it’s hard to please everyone. If you list a dozen people in one tweet, person 13 may feel like he or she is left out. If you include that person, someone else may wonder why they didn’t make the cut that week.

These are all reasons why Follow Friday has kind of left a bad taste in different peoples’ mouths.

And e’er the twain shall meet

So if on the one hand Follow Friday can be really meaningful to a new person yet really annoying to other people, what can we do about it?

Here are some tips for you. Maybe you have more ideas to share – let me know!

I really like the way that Tristan Bishop (@knowledgebishop) does his Follow Friday mentions. Rather than just listing a bunch of names, Tristan takes the time to individually tweet about a handful of people. He tells his followers why he appreciates that person and why he recommends that other people follow that person. You can really tell that he is being genuine, and if you are lucky enough to get mentioned by him, it really brightens your day.

Suggest someone that seems to be having a hard time with Twitter but is definitely working hard at it. Knowing that someone is seeing their dedication and appreciating it can make a HUGE difference.

Make lists of people throughout the week if you want. Keep track of posts that made you laugh out loud, or people who said really insightful things during a chat. Come back on Friday and instead of just saying #ff, link to that person’s blog post (the specific one you liked). Make it a double win for them.

Most importantly, don’t feel like you have to do a Follow Friday tweet. If you are doing things right, people in your community know that you appreciate them and they know exactly why. If you can’t put a genuine feeling behind your #ff sentiment, or if you are worried about leaving something out, don’t do it. Nobody will call he Karma police on you and say, “Oh man, look at that non-Follow-Friday-er!” I promise.

Does that help?

Image by Sachin Ghodke. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/sachyn