Musings

Social Media, you need to get your head on straight, and right quick. You’re heading for a wall that will not bounce you back into a nice place with lovely grass to sit on and delicious treats to eat. You’re heading for a wall that will turn you into a pancake (and not the kind that tastes good with syrup).

It’s weird to see this kind of sentiment pop up on my screen in this context as I type. After all, for a long time, probably a year (hey, that’s a long time in the world of social media) I had REALLY rosy glasses on. If a well-known person in the online space offered advice, I assumed it was solid. I was talking to my friend Jeannette Baer (@myagenda) about this the other day in fact. You wrote a book? Let me read it pronto! You say that I should focus on this more than that? Cool, I’m listening.

It’s not to say that I was a mindless robot, here to absorb you. It’s just…there seemed to be an air of credibility, intelligence, maybe even kindness.

Have I changed, or has the space changed?

Taking advantage of the desperate and ill-informed

Last year, when some well-known folks announced that they were writing books and doing webinars about Google Plus shortly after it launched, there was a lot of controversy and vitriol in the social media space. I have to admit, the back-and-forth got too personal and too ugly for me so I stayed away from most of the conversations. We talk about attacking the idea, but we know that doesn’t really happen. But having read some of the stuff recently that came out shortly after Google Plus launched, I realized it was, by necessity, very half-baked. This is simply a by-product of trying to make money educating people on how to bake a cake before your new cake is out of the oven. I spent a minimal amount of money and sort of knew what to expect, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

Then, I started noticing more stuff. I watched a few webinars that had really good titles – titles that seemed to promise actionable advice – but what I got was a book promotion. Same thing for blog posts I’ve read. I haven’t spent money on these things, but imagine if I had? Imagine if I said, “I’m going to teach you today how to best use social media if you are a B2B manufacturer. “Great!” You might think (assuming you’re a B2B manufacturer). What if you paid me, I don’t know, $50? $67? $291.22? And all you got was me talking about a book that was only loosely related to what you wanted to learn? You’d be a bit peeved, right? Especially if money was tight.

Then, Pinterest happened, and I have seen notifications for webinars on how to use Pinterest for your business. One such webinar costs you $139. This while there are copyright concerns and while many people are deleting their accounts rather than building them out. It’s entirely possible that everything in that webinar is great, but we just don’t know yet. It’s too early.

So why are we doing this again?

Gettin while the gettin is good versus taking advantage of people

I fear that the world of social media is being overrun by people who are more towards the snake oil salesman end of the spectrum. This makes me really sad. I’d love to go back to a year or two ago when I thought that everyone in the online world was just out to give me and other people a boost. But something is off. Something is different. Whether it’s in me or in the online world I’m not 100% certain. But it seems like there is confusion between tying money and sales to social media versus absolutely ripping people off. This is not sustainable for individuals or for social media as a means of marketing and communication, right?

Why can’t you wait to write that book? Why can’t you wait to charge $139 for that webinar? Is it because you might get beaten to the punch? It could happen, but isn’t it better to offer advice that is based on reliable information? You might not get the earliest of the early adopters, but things take longer to evolve than we might think. There will still be plenty of people who want to learn from you. Heck, there are still people who want to learn Twitter or Facebook. Did those earliest books and webinars stave off future adopters? Nah.

Sadly, we live in a time when people will be enticed to spend that $139 or whatever it is because they feel it’s an investment in the future of their brand or business, and it’s hard to talk yourself out of that kind of investment, isn’t it? It’s a mode of optimistic thinking. It’s a symbol of hope. It’s you being confident and self-assured. Is it a coincidence that these for-pay educational “events” are increasing as the economic recession continues? Maybe not. Maybe the folks offering those items see a fertile garden of people hoping and praying for that big silver bullet. Maybe that’s capitalism. But if it is, it’s capitalism’s ugliest side by far. And we should call it what it is – taking advantage. It’s not really educational if you can’t *possibly* know everything about what you’re talking about. And it’s only impossible to know everything about what you’re talking about because it simply does not exist yet. Simple as that.

What do you think? Is it right to jump in and charge people for information as soon as you have any? Is that the way to tie social media to hard dollars? Or are we heading towards a rather corrupt mode of communicating where “information” is short-cut-laden language masquerading as something more credible?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluerobot/5490728061/ via Creative Commons

Not too long ago, FishbowlDC published a blog post called Females on Campaign Trail Go for Sexpot Look. The argument was that female reporters covering politics in DC and elsewhere are using über sexay pictures of themselves on Twitter. Well, actually, no. That’s not *quite* the issue. According to the post, which is complete with three allegedly disconcerting photos of female journalists, there’s the *chance* that women could start going for a “sexpot” look, and darn it all, that just might not be good for their brands.

Shortly before publishing this post, FishbowlDC published a short article with two photos of Hillary Clinton, who was wearing a “monochrome pantsuit.” You might recall that during the 2008 election Hillary’s pantsuits may have received more attention than the pending economic crisis and the war in Iraq COMBINED. What do these pantsuits mean? Is she trying to be too masculine? Is she trying to bespeak a sense of feminine power? Does she hate skirts?

Of course, politics is not the only place where the conversation about what women should wear is ongoing. Daria Giron invited me to participate in a 7-part series on the “executive image” last year because this issue is so much of an…issue. A friend of mine on Facebook recently lamented the lack of professionalism a lot of women seem to exhibit in their professional dressings. Some people complain that skirts are too short and shoes are too high. Others complain that women are looking too frumpy and old-fashioned. Are pantsuits really that bad? Should women wear pin-stripe skirts to sort of bridge the two genders? And then how do you accessorize?

AHHHHH!!

The really unfair thing about all of this, of course, is that for the most part, nobody gives a rat’s patootie about what men wear. Take Mark Zuckerberg as your case in point. The man wears hoodies nearly every day. Would a woman be able to get away with that?

Think about that for a moment.

Why does it matter?

Or maybe the better question is, Does it matter? If a woman has really good ideas, does that change because her skirt is an inch too high or an inch too short? If a woman is a passion-driven leader, does it matter that her lipstick might not be a similar shade to her nail polish? Does it matter if she doesn’t wear lipstick?

Perhaps, as women continue to excel in the business world and in other leadership positions, these roadblocks are put up as a way to question that success. If you can’t question a woman’s experience or intelligence, you can almost always find something wrong with how she looks. It’s all rather objective, right? If a woman tends to wear headbands, you can suggest that she isn’t professional enough. If a woman wears pants instead of skirts you can accuse her of trying to be too manly or not “feminine” enough. If a woman wears a lot of pink and purple, you can say she is trying to be too girly and too feminine. The list goes on and on. All of these types of criticism can achieve one simple goal – they can shed doubt on how the woman will perform in her new role.

Sadly, these kinds of roadblocks are often thrown out by women, not men. Now there’s a tidbit, huh?

What can we do to fight this pattern of behavior?

I’m sure there will always be an expectation that professional women should look professional. I think we could expect that of men and women, Zuckerberg be darned. But how can we stray away from this major emphasis on how a woman chooses to dress? Is it something we need to instill in young ladies as they grow up? Is it something we need to talk to men about? Is it just a matter of trying continuously to emphasize what really matters?

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14359321@N04/5085545292/ via Creative Commons

Hello!

I am very excited to announce that I will be one of the speakers at the 140Conference Montreal event in May! This will be my first official speaking engagement and I have to say that I am really looking forward to it. I am only slightly scared out of my pants that great people like Mitch Joel and Ric Dragon will also be speaking there 🙂

I’m truly honored and delighted that Mila Araujo asked me to come as a speaker, and I’m hoping I can meet many of you there as well. You WILL come, right? If you want to, register now, cuz Mila is doing a great job of enticing people to come see her and her city 🙂

Now, I just need to learn some French!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/2062476413/ via Creative Commons

I was still pretty new to the world of social media when this article was published in Vanity Fair called “America’s Tweethearts.” The article is allegedly an insight into how a handful of women built their Twitter empires. There are a few things I’d like to draw your attention to, apart from the “come hither” photo of the women all dressed in trench coats and high heels.

“Twitter doesn’t even require real sentences, only a continual patter of excessively declarative and abbreviated palaver.” (thank goodness, because my little woman brain can’t handle full sentences most of the time).

This one was really interesting:

Each day, these women speed easily across the Twitformation Superhighway on their iPhones and laptops, leaving droppings in their wake: “getting highlights before class,” “I hrd u had fun!,” “Wah, missing my twittr time!” They use a lot of “hashtags,” which is a way of identifying posts on a certain topic—like Twilight or Tiger’s mistresses—and often participate in chain-letter-style tweets, adding their haiku to such threads as OMGFacts. (Sample OMGs: “You’ll eat 35,000 cookies in your lifetime”; “banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories per hour.”) And somehow this fascinates millions of readers.

Even as new as I was, I had heard of Julia Roy before this article came out. She had already appeared on “top women of social media lists” like this one by Lee Odden from 2010. Noting that what she did could be described as “leaving droppings on Twitter” kind of bummed me out.

As it happens, this would not be the last time I’d encounter the argument that women are able to excel in social media because it’s so…well, social. Take this quote from a 2011 TechCrunch article: “Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the Internet.” This article from GenConnect almost apologetically suggests that some women should appear more on lists like the Ad Age Power 150. Tied to all of this is the huge “mommy blogger” movement which is so powerful when it comes to baby product retailers. Recently Jeremiah Owyang also reported on a new movement called PANKS (professional Aunties, No Kids), again tied to how marketers can target women in the online world.

Aren’t women making inroads for any other reasons?

There’s nothing wrong with the conversation that indicates that women can succeed in social media because some women like to talk brands with their girlfriends or just plain like to talk. However, the way this conversation is carried out sometimes makes me wonder if the same exact wording could be used to describe a teenage girl and a 50-year-old woman, both of whom blog and use Twitter.

Also, we are missing some huge opportunities to celebrate women for things OTHER than talking or shopping. For example, we could celebrate women like Estrella Rosenberg, Ifdy Perez, Beth Cantrell,  and Molly Cantrell-Craig, who are doing fabulous work in the not-for-profit world. Maybe we could talk about sharp marketing minds like Dawn Westerberg, Jeanette Baer, Mila Araujo, and Brandie McCallum. Maybe we could even talk about women who are powerhouses in the business world like Carol Roth and Nicole Fende, both of whom blog and tweet quite regularly.

We’re missing a real revolution

Even more than highlighting women who are using social media as a professional tool, we are missing an opportunity to shine the light on women who are using social media to call for and implement social change. This fascinating article, “Revolution, Women, and Social Media in the Middle East” appeared in the Huffington Post on January 27, 2012. The article details a conference where several women who had used Twitter and Facebook to express their opinions and spread information during the revolutions in Egypt and Libya were finally able to meet in person. These women, who have limited rights in their own countries, were able to use the social networks at their disposal to get the word out about their own situations and what was going on in their countries. One of the women notes, “I couldn’t have done this without social media. The world would not have known…”

Would you want to call what these women did on Twitter “droppings?” Would you want to say that they found their followers because of funny, trivial hashtags? I don’t think so.

Why are we not focusing more on women who are breaking the “talking and shopping” teenybopper stereotype?

Women Are Social. A Lot of Women Like To Shop. And?

The real question, of course, is why there seems to be a hesitation to highlight women who are powerful in what they do, not just in the numbers of followers they have. Beyond that, there is even less written about non-white, non-American women who are successful in the online world. Maybe we can work on changing that.

What do you think?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philandpam/1485578432/ via Creative Commons

Last week, I decided what I was going to get myself for Valentine’s Day (me and myself have a loving relationship). I was going to give myself a day off from social media. I would not write a blog post. I would not twitter a tweet. I would not facebook a facebook status. I would unplug as much as is possible in today’s world.

As the day approached, I realized with a start that I don’t think I’ve ever taken 24 hours away from social media, like completely away, since I started blogging almost 2 years ago. There have been days that I didn’t blog and there have been days that I didn’t tweet or Facebook *much*, but a whole 24 hours with nothin coming from me? I don’t think it has happened.

Mark Valentine’s Day 2012 on your calendar. I spent the whole day away from producing content, and the only stuff I did was play on Pinterest.

You know what the weird thing is? I REALLY enjoyed myself.

I love social media, but it’s work

Here is the reality that bonked me on the head during my ever so brief hiatus. Are you ready?

Social Media is a lot more work than we think it is.

Now, I’m not asking anyone to play a violin for me, but consider everything that goes into this “social media stuff.”

• You are perpetually “on” in two ways – you hope to provide interesting content and you hope to provide content that won’t lead into a complete crap storm (unless you enjoy those, but I do not)

• You are constantly monitoring. Did someone mention you in a post or link to a post of yours? Did someone ask you a question? Did someone nicely tweet out a post of yours? Your ears are always ringing.

• You are always trying to respond in kind. I get extremely brilliant comments here on my blog. That to me means that each comment deserves an equally thoughtful (though maybe not as brilliant) reply. That’s a lot of writing in a short span of time.

The list goes on and on. Really, we have our brains running perpetually on overdrive and we don’t even notice it because social media “stuff” is happening ever so covertly in the background of other stuff “stuff” we are doing.

The clock is always running

Even in the most stressful jobs, there are times when it’s probably okay to be a bit slower to reply. In some more traditional jobs, you have the generally accepted 9-5 Monday-Friday gig. You may do a bit here and there over the weekend, but it’s generally considered “overtime.”

In social media world, we don’t take breaks because a) we don’t feel like we can and b) because the clock is always running. When I go to bed, it’s only 7 or so in California. It’s already the next morning in places like Australia and New Zealand and Malaysia and the Philippines. People are emailing me, tweeting me, Facebooking me, all while I am sleeping. From the moment I wake up, there is stuff to reply to. Sometimes, insomniacs may catch themselves responding to things at 3 or 4 in the morning.

You know you’ve done it.

Is this all natural though? Are our brains meant to be this “on” all the time? Or, let me put it another way. Is it healthy for our brains to be stimulated by the same kinds of stuff nearly 24/7, 365? I’m not sure it is. A day without the daily grind showed me that a lot of social media really is a grind. It’s pressure. It’s risk. It’s frustration. It’s pulling back something you want to say or saying something you shouldn’t have said and then apologizing, all in the very public world.

That’s kind of crazy when you think about it, right?

I went about 2 years without pulling away fully from social media for more than 24 hours. That’s 2 years without a single day off, pretty much.

When was the last time you unplugged, completely, for any length of time? What was your experience?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thestarmama/69575266/ via Creative Commons