HELLO? Is Anyone Home on Your Social Media Sites?

A good friend of mine is an expert in his field. He is a great guy and is booked regularly for speaking engagements. He jumped on the social bandwagon over a year ago with a Facebook page and a Twitter account. The problem is he has outsourced the posting of content on his pages to someone who obviously does not know how to LISTEN to the community he has tried to engage.

There are regular info-dump posts with tips or links to his site with information about where he is speaking next, but you never see comments on the Facebook PAGE or replies in the Twitter feed. There is no conversations going on. Why bother? Your website is already playing the role of stagnant information dumping ground (assuming there is no blog). There’s nobody home.

Social engagement tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and your blog are about conversations and building relationships. Part of a good conversation is listening and responding to the people you are wanting the relationship with. If you don’t believe me, try maintaining a healthy relationship with someone (significant other, children, co-worker, etc) without responding when they speak to you. That relationship won’t last long.

Here are 3 tips for making sure the lights are on and people know you are home:

1. Mix in questions with your tips and information that get posted. Asking questions shows you care about what your community thinks. For example, your Twitter profile and Facebook PAGE should be sprinkled with great content and conversations.

2. NOW LISTEN and respond to the answers your community posts. Yes this means replying to every single comment. You can bundle your reply to several people at a time but show you heard them.

3. Look at what your community is saying (this is made easier by using a tool like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to filter the flow of information) and jump in on the conversation occasionally with a comment, a LIKE, a ReTweet, or a reply (shoot for 5 times a day to start).

Be sure you are applying these tips to all of the places you have hung your SOCIAL sign out–your blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Remember, don’t leave your lights on if no one is home!

Like Tom Bodett, I’m @GinaSchreck and I’ll leave the light on for you~

Join me on our Facebook PAGE (someone’s alway home there)

June 24, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Gettin Geeky, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, YouTube | 2 Comments

10 Twitter Do’s + 5 Twitter Don’ts = BIG Twitter Success

After two years using Twitter, and spending 6 months writing my Gettin’ Geeky with Twitter book, I have pulled together my top Do’s and Don’ts for using this powerful social engagement tool. There are so many tips and techniques for Twitter success, but these will be a good foundation for anyone wanting to build their business and manage their brand using this simple social engagement tool. You may not agree with all of them (and I encourage you to add your tips to this list in the comments), but I have found these the best way to build an authentic Twitter feed with minimal spam and maximum conversation that leads to new friendships, new learning and yes, new sales!

1. DO start by writing down your goals for being on Twitter. Is it a PR tool for you? Will you just be a Twatcher (someone who reads tweets but never posts anything)? Is your goal to connect with potential customers, or send readers to your blog? Write this goal down and keep it near by. Without a goal you can easily get sucked into that Twitter trap of sitting for hours and reading everyone’s posts and adding useless content to the already polluted stream. Having 1,000 followers is NOT a good goal. I can show you 1,000 naked spammers if that is your only goal.

2. DO take time to build your nest before starting to fly. Fill in your profile, giving people some information about you, a link to your website, blog or even LinkedIn profile, so they can see you are a REAL person and learn more if they want. Show your personality in that 160 character bio-HA! Most importantly is to be sure to load a good headshot of …YOUR HEAD! Don’t load a picture of your cat or truck or baby picture. People want to connect with a person, and more importantly, they want to conenct with YOU!

3. DO follow SMART people. Start by following writers and thought leaders you enjoy as well as those in your industry that you can share information with. Don’t get caught up in following the “Recommended” twits that Twitter suggests or celebrities, unless this is your industry. You can sprinkle those in later, but it can derail your focus as you read hundreds of possibly useless posts.

4. DO use a Twitter tool to manage the information flow. If you start feeling like it is information overload, realize that it is “filter failure.” Tools like TweetDeck and Hootsuite will help you manage the information flow. You do not need to read every tweet that comes raging by like a fast moving river. These tools will help you “pool” the tweets from your favorites into different columns or lists that you set up until you have time to read them. (More info on this in episode #55 of Gettin’ Geeky)

5. DO ReTweet good stuff. If you are following smart people, you will be getting smart info in your stream. When you retweet, you let others know you appreciate their information as you provide good content to those following you! (Be sure to use the RT etiquette which is to always give credit to the originator of the content)

6. DO jump in and reply to tweets that you have something to say on. Show people you are here for the conversations and not just to dump your information. If you look at your Twitter stream (look at your profile page) you should see a good mix of @replies, RT’s and great content from you.

7. DO think before you tweet! Before hitting send on that nugget of information, ask yourself if it is interesting or helpful. Many of you know my motto is “Be Interesting, Be Helpful, or Be Quiet!” Sharing personal information about watching television or what you are eating is neither helpful nor interesting. If you are telling me what movie you’re watching, perhaps you can give us a great line from the movie and have people guess, or you can tell us a lesson learned from the movie.

8. DO anticipate people ReTweeting your great nuggets. If you are posting something that you feel is helpful or interesting enough, then help people ReTweet it by making it short enough for them to fit a short comment and their Twitter name. To do this you want to aim for 120 character tweets–I know, it’s not easy!

9. DO make your links “clickable.” When posting a link to a blog or website, on Twitter, you must start with http:// instead of www. The http:// makes the link clickable. The only person who will go through the trouble to copy and paste your link into a browser is your mom, and even she will wait until later to do it. Bottom line, make it easy for folks!

10. DO add pictures, videos and other fun add-ins to your Twitter stream to allow us to SEE into your world. Most mobile devices can snap a pic and upload it to Twitter either via MMS messaging (text) or by using an app. Write a short tweet with the pic and share!

11. DON’T send people an auto Direct Message that tells them you are a cheesy spammer right off the bat. If you ARE a cheesy spammer, you may not want to tell us to unfollow you so quickly. When I get a direct message (DM) from a new person I follow and it reads “Thank you for following me, I can help you make thousands of dollars from your Twitter stream. Here is my gift to you: http://ImAnIdiot.com” I click UNFOLLOW and depending on what the spammer said, I may UNFOLLOW and BLOCK! Direct messages should be real messages from you to the other person that are not intended for anyone else to see. Here’s more information on how to use the DM feature.

12. Don’t protect your tweets. Go back to your goal-why are you on Twitter? Unless you are using Twitter for an internal communication tool (in which case, most of these tips will become useless to you), you really shouldn’t care about who reads your helpful nuggets. You do not have to follow them all back. Remember people who are following your posts will only see what you decide to send out. Make it easy for people to get your information. Protecting your tweets is a hassel for others.

13. Don’t use the verification services that make followers authenticate themselves to prove they are not spammers. YOU do the work. Remember, you don’t have to follow everyone back, but don’t punish those you were trying to attract in the beginning.

14. Don’t send every tweet to Facebook and LinkedIn. Be selective on what posts go where. Each of these sites reaches a different audience (for the most part) and requires different information. There are some nuggets that will go everywhere and some only to one or two of the sites. Using a tool like TweetDeck or Hootsuite will allow you to pick and choose which sites will receive your post.

15. Don’t listen to every so called “expert” telling you her Do’s and Don’ts on how to use your Twitter account. If you jump in and explore you will find the tools you like and a way that works for you.

Add your favorite Do’s and Don’ts~

@GinaSchreck

June 21, 2010 | Filed Under Gettin Geeky, Marketing, Twitter | 11 Comments

Watch Out for Kooks Talking About Technology & Change

There used to be a UFO club that had an office right in the strip mall near our house. It was the joke of the neighborhood. Who were these kooks that met in the small little office? Did you have to be a little crazy to even belong to this group?

We would tease the kids and warn them not to get too close as they looked in the windows, or they would be teleported to the mother ship. This UFO club was obviously never feared by locals, because after all, what could possibly happen in a strip mall? One day the office was just empty and had the FOR LEASE sign on the window again. Did they finally catch a ride back to their planet?

What if we could travel back 100 years and tell people living in 1910 that we have seen a man go to the moon, that we make video phone calls to people living on the other side of the world, and that every day we pay $4.50 for a cup of coffee that comes in a paper cup to our automobile window as we drive by? Surely they would call us kooks and even pull their children a bit closer warning them not to get near us!

Some of us feel the pain of the time traveler within our own organizations. When you have seen the future alive in other organizations, where they are using new tools and technologies to solve problems and connect people, you are sure that others will want to learn these new ways. But this is not always the case.

Organizations are very eager to talk about change and how they are focused on moving into the future but when you start trying to implement new tools and techniques, many times the old skeptics and critics come out of the rocks telling you why it’s safer to keep things as they were, at least for now. When trying to convince these curmudgeons, I suggest you start small.

Maybe for your next conference or all hands meeting you Skype in an expert from another company to share 3 top tips for your group. Get your sales and marketing team to shift just 15 minutes a day to connecting strategically on social media sites to begin building those networks. Use handheld video cameras to get your managers and executive team members to share 5 things they know now that they wish they knew when they first started and use that in new hire training. These are a few ideas to begin expanding the thinking of a crusty-thinking organization.

Don’t scare them by trying to do too many new things at once. Instead of trying to get your team to board the mother ship, perhaps you just invite them to meeting in strip mall–after all what could happen in a strip mall?

@GinaSchreck

April 15, 2010 | Filed Under Future, Marketing, Technology, Virtual Worlds | Leave a Comment

Adventures in Technology with Explorers, Skeptics and Cowards

There have always been explorers, from Magellan, Columbus, and Amelia Earhart to modern day adventurers like Robert Young Pelton, John Goddard and Jeff Corwin. And for every explorer there is a crowd of people shouting, “You are wasting your time! You are chasing a delusion! You are following a path to destruction…” (Okay, never mind, that was what my friends and colleagues have said to me!) Skeptics abound where explorers dare to dream, and the other crowd that gathers is the cowards. Those are the ones who say they will go AFTER the path is laid, After the path has been proven safe and AFTER there is a safe number of other cowards to walk with.

Exploring new business models or learning methods is no different. It takes an explorer to go first, to try new technologies, to dare to fail…or succeed! How many times have we heard, “Twitter is dead!” “No one will ever attend a serious business meeting or class in a virtual 3D environment!” “Facebook is on its way out and it is not a business tool!”? More times that we can count. The future depends upon those who will venture out into unchartered waters. Those who embrace the unknown or unproven to try something so radically different that others whisper as they walk by, “She’s the crazy one who has students using their cell phones in class!” “He’s the one who gives his product away for free and thinks he will make money…and what’s up with a name like Google?”

Last week I spoke at an event on a technology panel and a woman approached me after and said, “Isn’t all of this just hype? I mean Facebook is for teens to play games and talk about hating their parents. Businesses shouldn’t be wasting their time with these when there is real work to be done.” After I suggested anger management classes to her, I started to explain that we can no longer do business the way we used to do, and the new world of business requires new tools and then I stopped. I realized she would not be persuaded by such a lunatic as I. She would need to wait safely on that other side of the digital CANYON for the next covered wagon to come and get her. Ironically, that same day we read that Facebook reached an important milestone for the week ending March 13, 2010 and surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website for the week. Yep, sounds like a waste of time for sure.

What waters must you cross to reach the new world in your business? Who is telling you it can’t be done? Who is saying they won’t follow you? Remember, the future is already here, but only the explorers are bold enough to enjoy it! There are oceans of opportunities waiting…are you an explorer, skeptic or coward?

Share your thoughts on exploring new worlds in your business or industry. Where is going? What are you doing to prepare?

Twitter: @GinaSchreck
Facebook: Gina Schreck
Second Life: GinaSchreck Denver

March 25, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Future, Marketing, Second Life, Social Learning, Technology, Twitter, Virtual Worlds | 2 Comments

If Someone is Selling You the Easy Button Don’t Waste Your Time!

I’m really tired of people whining, “It takes too much time to use Facebook or Twitter in my business.” (Be sure and read that with a very whiny voice!) Everyone wants the easy button, the purple pill, the silver bullet, the quick fix, but when it comes to authentically and effectively engaging your target market, IT TAKES WORK!

Now I know many internet marketing folks who will disagree with many things that I say when it comes to staying away from auto-following people and sending automated messages welcoming every new connection with a fake smile and a FREE product pushed in their face…okay so I’m a bit cranky as I write this. Let me get more coffee.

Okay, so in my humble opinion (or IMHO for those of you who, like me, have a hard time with whole words any more), SOCIAL media or SOCIAL marketing, is about…. well, being SOCIAL! I like to explain to people that when you fire up a Facebook Fan Page or launch your Twitter account, you are inviting people in for a cocktail party. You start some conversations and move to different parts of the room, always moving, adding to conversations and connecting people as you go. The way most people approach their social media launch is to invite everyone over for the party and then they go back to doing “real work” or worse, they go to bed.

I don’t care what industry you are in. It could be the pet industry, the canoe outfitting industry, the professional speaking or education industry. It’s still a SOCIAL networking environment. And yes social activities do take time. If you go to social networking events through your local chamber of commerce or leads groups or association meetings, you have to take time to walk around meeting and chatting with people. You might spend 1-3 hours, chatting, shaking hands and exchanging business cards with people (many of whom you will go back and ask yourself, “Who was this?”) and perhaps have 5-10 really good connections. That is time consuming and very limiting when it comes to the number of people you will connect with.

Through the use of social media, you could connect with hundreds, or thousands per day if you spent that same 1-3 hours. You can meet and learn from smart people who are in your industry, in your geographic region or in other areas that interest you…all at the same party. And when you share your expertise and provide great content to those who are interested in your information, Google rewards you. You will start showing up more often in places where your topic is being discussed. Your tweets and Facebook posts will be pulled when someone is looking for an expert in your arena.

Now there are many people who will tell you just connect to 10,000 totally random folks, because everyone is a possible customer or good connection. They will sell you automated tools to just collect Twitter followers and send auto messages to be successful in the social media world. While there may be some truth, depending on what you are selling, I believe that if we spend just a bit more time adding some filters-whether they be filtering out REAL people versus SPAM BOTS or people who are not wearing clothes-we would have a better network, or a better chance of people staying engaged at our cocktail party. So I say pass on the EASY BUTTON and grab a cocktail. There are folks to talk to here~

If you disagree, let’s hear a good argument-give us some examples! If you want to join in the cocktail party, tell us about yourself or join me on Twitter @GinaSchreck

March 6, 2010 | Filed Under Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment