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Social Media Presents 50 Shades of Wiser

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Happy Thanksgiving! 65 w dandelions growing! W...

Happy Thanksgiving! 65 w dandelions growing! WTH? via soulati

Social media has not only leveled the playing field for small businesses, it’s enabled professionals of all ages to compete.

If you’re not learning, you’re dead.

The opportunity social media presents for learning is so vast that anyone, regardless of age, who has gumption, passion, and energy can compete with youngsters in a highly successful way. More and more, avatars with gray hair are populating Twitter. I’m making an assumption they are aging gracefully and wiser as a result of social media.

Someone on a Google+ Community posted a suggestion that we should petition Advertising Age for a Top 50 Over 50 instead of the customary Top 40 Under 40 feature. (I concur.)

What prompted this whole post is a short email from a woman I never met or spoke with. She mentioned she was 50+ and was feeling the light dimming on her career path because she was a former print graphics artist. She had little enthusiasm for PowerPoint graphics nor did she know where the road ahead would lead.

…which got me really thinking, and that’s always dangerous.

Mastering what social marketing presents for anyone in the at-large field of marketing communications would take a lifetime and then some. So, instead of saying you’re all washed up at 50, why not re-invent and re-invigorate and get excited about the learnings available for the plucking?

How I’m Reinventing 

I’ve just signed on with Hubspot. Don’t you say a word, internet marketers and digital marketers and SEO folks; I’ve heard enough about your negatives about their poor technology. (I concur, and it’s terribly out of my control.)

I plunked down the money because I know myself. I know that I need to go large to ensure I do what’s required — the lessons, landing pages, website tweaks, buttons, and etc. to make the leads pour in and put my website to work.

It’s called inbound marketing or digital marketing, and it’s an area I’m investing in. Everyone who’s been a loyal member of this community knows I’ve written willy-nilly for three years on this blog. I’ve not needed to care about analytics and blogging ROI. Life has changed, and that’s prompted engagement in a whole different way.

I’m jazzed, nervous, worried, and 100 percent vested in making this thing go and grow. I’m greeting a side of marketing I’ve been circumnavigating.

With each accomplishment, I feel bolstered with energy and excitement about what the future may bring. When I get my first genuine lead in my dashboard I’ll rejoice; when I get my first slice of new revenue, I’ll celebrate and know I’ve made the right choice.

When you hit 50 as a professional, your career is not over; in fact, it’s just beginning. How many companies would relish hiring a mature practitioner at the leading edge of social marketing to guide them strategically?

Fighting Cherry Pits

With that said any of you who thinks life is a bowl full of cherry pits right now (no matter how old you are):

1. You have to find the strength from within and want it.

2. Set your goals and aim high.

3. Take little steps and do it right; earn confidence.

4. Consider obstacles a challenge; find a solution around them.

5. Align with a solid, excellent core team of IT folks.

6. Grow your business by investing when that decision is right for you; you’ll know.

7. Rejoice in each accomplishment, but do celebrate.

If you have any tips you can add about how you feel about getting wiser each year, let me know…this is a topic we may be revisiting soon!

 

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Social Media 2012 Woman Of The Year–Jenn Whinnem

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Annually, I like to anoint a social media person of the year from the Soulati Media community who has impressed me every day and week of the year with social media aptitude, engagement and professionalism.

Jenn Whinnem is that person and my pick as 2012 Social Media Woman of the Year following in the footsteps of Gini Dietrich in 2011.

Jenn lends in-depth expertise to any discussion raging in comments; sometimes she’s supportive and other times she’s the antagonist, going against the grain of conversation with intense opinion based on factual engagement.

She is a woman on a mission and her personal conviction often leads to heated discussion and eventual consensus; she is that convincing. I appreciate her from the sidelines, and I appreciate her when I’m in the throes of conversation with her.

She lends quirky knowledge no one else I know offers up, and she is quick to support anyone who needs a helping hand, a hug or is in the dumps. I have had the privilege of meeting Jenn IRL, and she is as beautiful in person as she is in her avatar (which she is continually changing).

A lover of cats, recently married and a woman who sprouts the most amazing shoes and zany ass tights, Jenn is also one of the most respected writers and grammarians I’ve seen. She can write an op-ed piece that makes naysayers think twice about staying on the other side, and she does so with conviction.

I’ve watched her blossom in 2012 overcoming obstacles by skirting them and chalking up professional accomplishments more than most people do in a five year’s time. She makes this blog home whenever she wishes, and I relish when she runs a guest post here as the topic is never an echo. Of late, you can see her work on Bloggers Unite! supporting Sandy Hook/Newtown and the communities in Connecticut via her work with a health foundation there.

Congratulations, Jenn, for sticking with social media engagement when many have disappeared. Congratulations for growing as a professional unafraid to question the status quo or make others think a bit differently.

I look forward to seeing what comes in 2013. I endorse you, recommend you and encourage you wherever the pathway takes you.

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Twitter’s Demise Or Ascension?

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twitter fail image

twitter fail image (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a self-professed Twitter-holic since early 2009 in a 24/7 pattern, I know and whine about the changes to my first-love social media channel. When Google+ launched Communities Dec. 12, 2012, Twitter was a veritable graveyard. These days, the stream is littered with retweets of others’ content. Instead, I strive to post personal messages or say good morning to someone missing from my columns on HootSuite. In fact, last week I suggested we’d need to work harder to keep Twitter viable instead of it becoming a re-posting only channel.

What’s your view of whether Twitter can survive other channels’ apparent popularity? According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter only has 140 million registered users, dwarfing that of other channels (remember Facebook’s news of 1 billion this summer?). Can Twitter survive?

News on December 17, 2012 in The Wall Street Journal suggests a resounding yes! “Now On Twitter: Holiday Shopping Deals,” is all about big-box retailers flocking to Twitter to share Black Friday and holiday gift-giving deals. Among them are Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Radio Shack, and Toys ‘R Us.

Great article about the purchase of sponsored tweets by Best Buy and its use of Twitter “parties,” hour-long Twitter chats about gift ideas for target shoppers like moms and fitness buffs.  Best Buy and its peers did not disclose to reporters how much their collective ad budget was; however, when you read the piece, it’s heartening to see that Twitter is finally getting some respect:

Marketing brand strategists prepped Best Buy retailers in various markets in advance with holiday-marketing planning sessions.

Eight weeks of Twitter attention was launched prior to Thanksgiving and is still going on during this especially zany last-minute shopping week for Best Buy.

A more creative strategy was launched other than just tweeting all day long with an inside-out perspective. Best Buy targeted shopper demographics and held 60 minute Twitter chats (there’s probably a hashtag out there somewhere) to engage peeps about gift giving.

Here’s the coolest thing about what’s happening on Twitter that the Best Buy brand strategist learned from his location-based retailers – tone of voice and authenticity were critical to the success of the campaign.

I absolutely love, love this. We on Twitter, engaging all day long for years, know the power of authentic voice. We know which brands are real, which ones care and which ones are one-way (inside out). For brands to get Twitter, they need to appoint a solid and seasoned team on the frontlines that can engage appropriately and with authenticity. When they invest in that way, the return on investment comes back in spades.

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Eight Reasons Why You Should Thank Twitter Followers

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Credit: Sociable Boost

Twitter is not a one-way street. Your content gets retweeted by a follower, and they get crickets? Thanking followers should be something you incorporate into your daily tweets.

Some folks think “thanks for the RT” is just noise and clutters the stream. Others think it’s a hassle and are on the fence about whether it’s good practice or not. In my blog post last week “How Not To Use Triberr,” the issue of thanking followers popped up in comments.

Adam Toporek who writes Customers That Stick and Ralph Dopping, the Canadian architect who writes The View From Here, both suggested that acknowledging followers for a blog post retweet was not a practice they thought they should engage in.

So, I politely disagreed and thanked them for the idea for today’s post and hope they come back to lend a few cents below (and you, too, of course!).

Two Caveats

Before I share my reasons below, let’s review a few things…

  1. There are MANY ways to thank someone for their acknowledgment. You can comment on their blog in return; you can RT their RT with a thanks at the end; you can follow them on Twitter and say thanks; you can introduce them to someone else in your stream to ensure they’ve met; you can #FollowFriday; you can make up your own way to show appreciation!
  2. Peeps like A-lister bloggers and authors who have tens of thousands of Twitter followers are unable to thank or acknowledge mostly anyone. The stream is so unmanageable especially when you’re publishing top-quality content. I get that, and I don’t expect community leaders to attempt to do a one-off thanks; not possible.  Thus, what’s below is for we who are in building mode – newbies, mid-tier and less-than-12-month bloggers, and peeps who are growing their Twitter stream.

8 Twitter Tips

Here are my 8 reasons why I believe you should thank peeps for their engagement, acknowledgment, and ‘raderie on Twitter:

1. Twitter helps you build community. When you thank someone for an RT, a comment, a compliment, a supportive gesture, etc. it shows you’re paying attention, listening and appreciate someone for their time to engage.

2. When someone engages with your blog by sending along your content, that means they’ve taken time to either read, comment, share, and take the first step to build a relationship. Isn’t a “thanks for that”  peanuts when you think of your content being shared by a relative stranger?

 3. When you don’t know someone who has RT’d a post of yours, it offers you the opportunity to address them by name, say, “nice to tweet you,” and thank them at the same time. You just accomplished a trio of good community.

4. What profession are you in? If you’re in a specialty niche, customer service, like Adam is, then you ought to be building community with like- minded customer-service peeps. If one happens to find your blog and you speak the same language, then all the more reason to acknowledge them and say thanks.

5. Your stream can never be littered unless you’re spamming it with rotten content.  Who is the judge of what litter looks like in a Twitter stream? Has anyone told you that you put out garbage…that a “thank you for acknowledging me with an RT” is trash? Absolutely not. Gratitude is not litter; it humanizes your brand and makes you personable.

6. Why would you regard “thanks so much” as noise? Noise and clutter…hmm. I mentioned that I was choosing not to re-tweet posts from bloggers writing about Halloween family dinners and baby products. These topics are not for my brand or my community. Were I to consistently retweet these to my followers, this would be regarded as noise and a dilution of my brand.

7. Are you self-employed and building a company? If Ralph is an architect blogging for some fun and not to boost his business (because he works for a firm), and I’m in B-to-B social media marketing and PR, then absolutely you betcha I’m going to thank people for acknowledging my content. When someone RTs my content, I recognize immediately if they are new to my stream. That’s how tuned in I am to my followers. Because my followers are organic I have had measured growth, and that’s enabled me to monitor the stream well.

8. What are your goals as a blogger? If you want to be an influencer, thought leader, earn more comments, build a community, monetize and sell products, earn credibility, get ranked, etc. then you need subscribers, right? A thank you to those who pass along your content seems minimal when it comes to these larger goals.

What did I miss; do you agree or disagree?

 

 

 

More Fast Company Social Media Cover Story Disappointment

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Credit: Jayme Soulati

By now, you’ve seen the Fast Company cover story, with tongue in cheek and not in check, about social media being “kinda” sexy. It’s the tonality and a few other things in question for me. If you’re late to the party; it’s not too late to see it here.

I wrote about this Monday and wasn’t happy or unsurprised that PR is getting short shrift at the mahogany table (said Barrett Rossie in blog comments) by others in the digital space AND Fast Company.

What gave me pause when reading the story start to finish was the entire tonality of the piece as well as one word choice in particular by a Fast Company staff writer, I presume (there are no bylines for the featured tips and secrets).

In comments Monday, Geoff Reiner, of Clarity for The Boss, and I were chatting about the disappointment with that kind of sub-quality wording, IMHO.

People who read Red Head Writing know and expect her to use this language in all of her post, something I’d never do and gasp upon reading a blog like the link provided. If you don’t like it, “her house, her rules,” as she always shares.

While it doesn’t sit well with me ALL the time (I’ve been known to use the f-bomb for emphasis in an adjectival sense), what bothered me about Fast Company was my stupid expectation, the props I ALWAYS give that publication, and subsequent let down as a result.

Fast Company Poor Editing

Here’s the passage; you can be the editorial judge:

“So how does a brand be intimate with a person? It’s a major mindfucker. Brands want Facebook ads to look more like the rest of their stuff; to put this new thing in an old shape.” (Fast Company, Insider’s Secret No. 2, Facebook to Ad Creatives: Help! Please!, September 2012)

So, the crux of the matter is the following, and Jenn Whinnem also raised a great point about journos and bloggers related to respectability and credibility:

Should nationally published magazines be upheld to greater standards than professional bloggers? Is the tone of this cover piece the way Fast Company itself gets invited to the table as a content marketer/blogger (thanks Ralph Dopping for that thought)?

I laud this publication every week in blog posts because I relish its content for its ability to generate blog fodder and mojo for me as a professional blogger. This cover piece on social media, although providing great inspiration for many a blogger, isn’t what I had in mind.

What say you?