Little Miss Social Media

Boston Twestival is Coming Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:14:00 +0000

I'm organizing the big Twestival party in Boston this year. And I'll let you in on a little secret... Our party is going to rock!

My dining room table is filling up with goodies to either raffle off or put in the silent auction. I've got four autographed CDs by an amazing musician @BT for our silent auction, Tea for Two from the Bristol Lounge, copies of Chris Brogan's "Social Media 101" courtesy of Wiley. I'm working out a few other great prizes - so stay tuned! All these great generous people are coming together to support a wonderful cause, Concern. So if you're in the Boston area please come join us for a celebration for a great cause! (And if you're not in Boston, search for a Twestival in a town near you - there are cities all over the world celebrating!)

So you're convinced this party is a worthy cause - you need the deets from me!

March 25, 2010

Start time: 6:00PM - 9:00PM (but we can stay as late as we want)

Red Sky Boston

16-18 North Street, Boston MA

Buy tickets here!

And please note PayPal and Amiando have teamed up to support Twestival and have waived all the fees - so 100% of our ticket sales go to Concern Worldwide!

If you would like to support Twestival in some way, please contact me!

It's Time for Social Media To Meet Direct Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:53:00 +0000

SoMe, this is Direct Marketing - DM, this is Social Media. It's time you start to work together.

I know people are going to get in an uproar, but let's give this a little more thought. How long ago were we thinking emails were not necessary for your Direct Mail campaign? Now it's one of the biggest, most cost-effective elements of a marketing campaign. I worked for a conference marketing company a few years ago and our highest ROI came from our email campaigns.

One of my favorite people to follow is John F Moore on Twitter. He is one of the biggest CHAMPIONS of Social CRM. Yes, Social Customer Relationship Management - as in using your database to create social marketing campaigns.

I know people are going to freak out because of the benefits of 'personal interaction' you find on twitter. Customer databases and CRMs are designed to keep track of client interaction - but what about when you put out an offer on Twitter? Yes, PUSH an offer out on twitter.

Here is a low hanging fruit example - consider a restaurant putting out an offer code for a free appetizer. To redeem this offer, your customers need to mention the code & twitter name when they order their appetizer. Not only have you captured a new vehicle of contact on your CRM (Twitter), but you have created a trackable campaign. Use your followers, mentions and RTs to create a reach profile and you can see the effectiveness of your campaign. People may argue that this is too much data to gather during the rush at a restaurant - but most restaurants are computerized so the servers can enter the data when they enter their orders. I know many restaurants have customer databases (Bugaboo Creek & TGIFriday to name a few). If their servers can enter a twitter handle on the fly, then slower paced businesses certainly can add the field to collect twitter names too.

Social Media is in its boom phase right now. People love the ability to reach out to a broad audience with thoughts and ideas about any topic on their mind. Some vehemently protect the ability to 'engage' on a one-to-one basis...but the same things can occur by phone or email. This is just a new medium of communication. When I can get special deals as a result of following a brand on twitter - I'm happy to put them into my feed. We've all developed filters to our emails, banner ads and junk mail. So this is another area where we can opt-in and filter out what doesn't apply to us. It's what we always do.

The Almost Job is Back.

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:21:00 +0000

I interviewed less than a week after the ice storm that crippled Central Massachusetts. I remember more weather hitting the day of my scheduled interview on that fateful day. I met with four people - one who ended up being a nice conversation, one scary conversation that I got great feedback on and two stellar knocked-it-out-of-the-park conversations....with the decision making folks. It was a great feeling to walk out of there and feel positive about my potential. Especially since it was still the beginning of the economic down turn and I had nailed it.

So that was 14 months ago - and just for curiosity, I went to the site of the would-be employer today. My job was posted - yikes!

I've tweeted about it a bit & commented on LinkedIn. I really need to reconnect with the hiring manager for this position. Here are the questions rattling in my head:

(Emotional dilema) Will they think I'm a total loser and not even give me a shot since I'm still looking 14 months later? (I've had a few consulting gigs, but nothing even close to covering a mortgage payment.)
(Ethical dilemma) I 'found' this company through a recruiter the first time - it appears they are not using this recruiter anymore the second time around. What are the rules of engagement?
(Education dilemma) I'm concerned about some of my most essential skills for this position need brushing up - but I don't have the access to the tools to refresh my skills anymore.
(Engagement dilemma) What's my best approach at contacting this person? Phone, email, handwritten letter?

For reference - they wanted to hire me, but needed to wait for their client to extend their contract. This client had a terrible time in the economy and it took several months but now this business seems to be much more stable - yet still has a long road to their own recovery. Due to the delay of this client, they were unable to officially extend me an offer. What should I do to make them extend it now?

Let's Banish the Marketing Guru

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:23:00 +0000

I hate the term Guru, Expert and the concept of self-proclamation of being "the best" at anything. Especially when you're referring to such a broad topic as Marketing or even Social Media. My issue is that there's no such thing as a Guru. You really need to be able to eat, sleep and breathe a topic. If you have time to do such a thing and truly be proficient, then you could easily claim Guru, but you need to narrow down the field.

Consider a Marketing Guru - that would mean a person is fully knowledgeable of all the subsets of marketing. They would have to know:
Search Engine Marketing/Optimization

Product Marketing

Promotional Marketing

Event/Tradeshow Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Direct Marketing

Digital Marketing

Advertising

Graphics

Website Development

Channel Marketing

New Product Development

R&D

Budget Management

ROI Management

etc

Basically the point I'm trying to get across is there are a lot of facets of marketing to consider - to be able to claim Guru of any of these single subgroups is very plausible. People build their careers on it and do quite well. I'd even say some people could be gurus on two or three of these topics.

What do people need to do to become a guru? Know the foundations of the subset, understand the industry trends and be able to implement the new developments from each area. It's a task of kaizen (Six Sigma's concept of continuous improvement) to be able to consider yourself a guru.

If you can claim full comprehension of all of the topics listed above, let me know. I'll give you a guru badge - but before you get it, I'm going to have the industry thought-leaders and gurus of each of the subsets test you and when each and everyone of the subset gurus agrees that you know their piece, then I'll give you the Marketing Guru Badge.

Blogkage

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:49:00 +0000

I haven't had any complete blog thoughts in a while. Nothing worth my standard 500 or so word posts. I am still actively looking for a full time job & I've got some consulting work keeping me occupied. I do have a few things kicking around in my head though:

1. Twitter users have rapid fire branding abilities. This is something that became obvious to me during the Super Bowl, New England Nor'easter that wasn't and Olympic Opening Ceremonies. We quickly flashed ideas to each other, often hashtagged in the instance that a little brand caught on and became an idea for the crowd.

2. I've been handling a small social media project for a client whose product is only available in another city. It opened my eyes to two things - one, my twitter feed is VERY locally minded and that this other city tweets differently than the Boston/New England area tweeters. These people are very similar in many ways and they are VERY different. I'm still learning about this city and find a piece of me really falling in love with the citizen Tweeps.

3. I'm Ghost Tweeting! Yikes - but I'm doing it as the voice of my client's product. I'm not "Bob Soandso" of XYZ company. It's giving me a lot of insight. Sadly I'll never be able to reveal my identity as the ghost tweeter, but I do have to confess to having a ton of fun. I'm also being VERY cautious to NOT cross contaminate my twitter feeds so that I'm not found out. That in and of itself is exhausting. I'm not a fan of continually logging in and out of my accounts!

That's all that's kicking in my head at the moment. Hopefully one of these will become a full-fledged post. I suspect my learnings with my client will be quite valuable, but the terms of my contract may keep further posts unpublished.

Ugly Politics!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:46:00 +0000

Direct marketers know the risk of list fatigue. It HURTS business to overwhelm the contacts in your database. Pushy marketing is bad for business. Badgering past and potential clients to death is going to get them to pull their interest and investments out of your business and give it to your competitor. As a resident of Massachusetts, I have been bombarded by political calls. Since Saturday morning (January 16 - yes 2 days ago) I have received 10 calls to my house from the camp over at team Scott Brown. (Oddly enough Martha Coakley had not called my house once....and I'm thrilled that my call volume is half of what other households have received.) It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat, this incessant calling is BEYOND irritating.

If I thought it would actually happen, I would refuse to vote (in protest of this phone harassment) so that the seat up for grabs remains open. But this is Massachusetts - we have a better chance of getting an 80 degree day on January 19th than for our people to not vote. The robocalling and phone assaults by campaign associates is annoying (if not voter harassment). The National Do Not Call list doesn't apply to these calls - so as voters, we get to deal with a barrage of annoying messages non-stop. I'm vehemently attached to my right to vote - so I will vote, but with a bitter taste in my mouth. I am at my boiling point with the calls as are many other voters. Here's just a few comments I saw in my twitter feed in the past few days:

It's annoying to be a voter and have your phone ringing off the hook. I know who I'm voting for already. I know the impact my vote will have - one person will win the seat and I will have either voted for them or against them.

My thoughts on this matter are this:

Both Martha Coakley and Scott Brown are driving their voters to distraction with the non-stop calls. How are they BOTH so out of touch with modern social norms that they feel this is an appropriate way to win votes? As a voter, I can see one call per week as acceptable. And maybe one per day the week leading up to the election - but excess of five calls per household? That is just wrong. Are they going to be this persistent in Washington - will they call Obama this often to get their policies passed? Will they take my seven calls per day when I need something?

Oh yeah, I need a job - so Mr. Brown, Mrs. Coakley - can I call you non-stop until I get one?

Pre-Branding and the Twitter Lists

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:29:00 +0000

I chose the name Little Miss Social Media when I had a particularly inspiring conversation with my husband. Since I locked myself into this brand, I have struggled with it. People can misinterpret my choice of handle as someone who promotes myself as a "Social Media Expert/Guru/Sherpa". However, that is NOT it at all - I chose the handle when my husband commented to me that my enthusiasm for social media made him call me "Little Miss Social Media" in conversation. I loved the ring to it, the memorability of it and the throw back to the "Little Miss" books I read growing up. I had a temporary thought-loss of the problems I could bring on myself with a brand so deeply steeped in a Social Media-oriented name. (Hello, analysts predict 250,000 social media sites will be live by the end of 2010 - this is the stuff that prohibits anyone from appropriately claiming "Social Media Guru" status.)

With all the potential for misconception known (and occasionally thrown in my face by someone who had a little too much snark juice for supper), I am sticking with my brand. I'm never going to get the handle "Jayna" since that was picked up in 2007 and she's still using it. People in Boston know Little Miss and the folks that really matter know I'm not trying to write the next post claiming I'm the Boston Big-Dog.

However, I'm finding myself on lists in good company thanks to my name. It leaves no question when someone sees my handle...I'm a big fan of the Social Media. And that has me on lists as a "thought leader" and in the company with amazing people who I look at as inspiration. I kind of dig it. I'm still not convinced lists are too much more than vanity. I find my lists include a lot of overlap, the 'foodie' doesn't constantly discuss food (well some of them do). I am also "all you need to know about Boston" on someone's list....since I'm the only one on it.

Lists are fun, and thanks to my twitter handle, I get to share space on lists with the real thought leaders like Chris Brogan (Hi Chris! He's 'listens' for his name a lot...I learned that trick from him), C.C. Chapman (we share a few lists such as the Bentley Alumni list, and that list with Brogan and me), the inimitable GaryVee and a number of other awesome people who are local, smart and fun to know. Now that we're on these lists, I wonder just what the creators and followers are doing with them.

Anyone care to sound off?

Do We REALLY Want a 'Dislike' Button or the "Old Version" of Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:11:00 +0000

I use my Facebook page for personal connections. I do have a few professional contacts on there, but for the most part I use it to show off my family photos, keep in touch with long lost friends and feed my addiction to Farmville. Due to the varied professions of my friends on Facebook, I'm finding they too have opinions about what they want from their user experiences. And when you think about it - the Marketing and Social Media professionals are NOT the dominant user group on Facebook, they are one of the many. The teachers, nurses, finance, operations, construction and business services (a sampling of my friends' careers) folks are just as engaged with this tool as we are.

I see my friends indicating 'support' for two different causes on facebook. Usually they flock to the "We want to old Facebook" groups and fan pages any time Facebook makes a change to their user interface. They also really want a dislike button. While I can understand their hesitation over the changes Facebook makes, I do think Facebook's slower roll out of new features is helping them adjust to the new functionality of the site with less pain. I don't think they consider the necessity of the changes...would you really want the facebook you had when you started using it...especially with the other social tools evolving and expanding. I am sure they wouldn't be satisfied with the first ever version of Facebook. They don't realize the changes they are making to Facebook helps them become savvier users of internet technologies. They just like the comfort of what they know and change can be frustrating. I always see my friends adjust to the new features and before you know it, the current facebook version IS their 'old' facebook.

As for the "Dislike" button, I know most people would use this to show support when a friend puts up posts such as: "I have a cold" or "I got laid off!" But what about the faux friends? Some people would be so crass as to put up the "dislike" flag when someone puts up news like "I'm having a baby" or "I got my dream job". Or, bringing my Farmville addiction into this, part of the benefit of playing the game is to allow it to post updates to my friends so they can get coins in the games. It would be a bummer if every time I posted something for my co-players (about 10% of my Facebook friends) and someone who didn't play the game put up "dislike". It would be mortifying if I put up pictures of my beloved family and someone decided to 'dislike'.

I know you can argue for the reverse, but the term "Like" is generally positive. It's got a good connotation in general which gives us the positivity/warm fuzzies/happy vibe. If we get the dislike, it allows negativity to seep in and could cause a lot more drama on Facebook. The absence of this option keeps us civil and, this is probably the reason why we only have the option to "like" things on facebook. And I LIKE that just fine.

Getting Spammed on LinkedIn

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Nothing annoys me more than a clunky spam reporting system. Spammers are a fact of life - we just have to deal with them. I take a certain relish in the ability to report them to Spam with the click of a button. It's a pledge of loyalty to users of your product - whether it be Twitter, Facebook, email hosts, or any other interactive tool used online.

LinkedIn is not winning the SpamWars in my book. This "personal invitation" to the Donald Trump seminar popped up in my inbox last week. It is obviously a "money making" event (scheme - whatever is the preferred term) using the Trump brand. I was annoyed because this man used my choice to allow other group members to email me.

When I searched Spamming in the FAQ database on LinkedIn - it basically put the 'reporting' responsibility on me. (The most information I could get was about how I receive Spam from other Group Members.) With all of the functionality updates on LinkedIn, it makes me think that I should not have to seek out the owners of the groups where I am being spammed and "tattle" on the Spammer. In the interest of doing something practical, put a "report Spam" button on there and allow us to select the connection. As seen in the image I posted, the Spammer identified himself as part of a Marketing Group that I belong to. So LinkedIn could easily have me check off the connections and send a notification to the group owners automatically - saving me, a 'non-abusive' member of their community a lot of hassle.

What do you think? Next upgrade - LinkedIn joins the force against spammers.

How The IMS09 Kindle Died & New Uses

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:57:00 +0000

Click to Play

My kindle fell off my book wall yesterday. It met a sad fate. It fell off a weird wall we have in our house - the wall is about 40 inches tall and has a small ledge. Just about every book we own has spent some time on that wall - and many have fallen off. The kindle fell flat - the drop was really nothing monumental. There was no twirling, no flipping, no dance...just a simple "splut".

I want to note a few things - I mention that I'm too broke to replace the Kindle. Please do not think I'm fishing for a new one. I'm well aware of the warranty I can purchase from Amazon to get it replaced. I don't think it's a good use of my money because (as I also cover in the blog) I have a 2 year old. She's way too interested in the broken Kindle. I'm sure I could purchase the warranty, get the one time dropped Kindle replacement and it would soon be broken again.

I did love the Kindle while I had it, it was a shiny new object. I was an uninformed owner and had NO CLUE just how fragile it is. Had I any idea, I WOULD have purchased a cover before I bought a single book

My apologies go to the folks at dna13 since they actually paid for the Kindle. I was thrilled to win this prize at the Inbound Marketing Summit 2 weeks ago. I wish the Kindle had gone to a better home.

I want to send a special thanks to Steve Garfield. He and I talked at the Inbound Marketing Summit and I never would have used video in this blog were it not for the inspiration he shared with me. So this is my first video blog update - maybe I'll do more - I'll just try to make sure they are more celebratory.

Branded by Proxy

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:18:00 +0000

I'm very proud of my husband. He's got a hard job, works long hours and doesn't get paid a huge salary to do it. He works in the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston cooking for The Bristol Lounge. He has been working for the hotel for over 10 years. He's recently been working his tail off and has been working 12 hour days. He's an amazing cook to say the least.

This is just a little dinner Scott whipped up in honor of my Aunt's birthday - it's straight from the French Laundry Cookbook.

What does this have to do with branding?

Well, this upscale dining experience has rubbed off on me. I have no idea how to cook and I'm pretty freakin psyched when I make something that is not a catastrophe - especially when it requires that I use the oven and/or the stove top.

This is a sad example of what happens when I cook. Usually I can bake some yummy desserts, but on this particular attempt, the cake fell apart out of the oven. At least it was still very tasty - we just had to serve it in a non-traditional manner.

What I do know is food. Terms such as Amuse-Bouche and that it's a teaser served at the beginning of the meal to 'delight the mouth' of the guests are commonly discussed in my house. When we have a date night, almost anywhere we go will have an Amuse-Bouche. And if we're really looking for a special night, the restaurant will serve Mignardises. This is all part of our daily dialogue and a secret weapon in my marketing arsenal. While I live a laid-back life and spend most of my days in denim, I can clean up and play in an upscale world as if I had a bank account that made me part of that world.

Thanks to my husband's skills, the friends we have made along the way, I have learned an amazing skill for understanding fine-dining and an essential part of fine-living.

However, I am a down-to-earth girl. I hate it when people freak out over inviting us to dinner. We both love a good simple home made meal. We're laid-back people and don't eat tuna tartare on a daily basis (although I really could eat it daily - yum.) What does all this mean? I have been branded due to my marriage to a chef. And while I love that world, it does not paint the complete picture of me - I have a well-rounded palate. So bring me a Five Guys burger any day - I'll enjoy that just as much as I enjoy a Bristol Burger - probably more because I can finish one!

Reversal of ROI - Kudos to Dunkin Donuts

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:32:00 +0000

This summer I went to visit my Father-in-Law at the Canadian border where there is one Dunkin Donuts within a huge radius. On our way out of town, our order was bungled - horribly - to say the least. I usually take mishaps with a grain of salt and I'm especially forgiving when someone owns up to the situation. However, this fine day we were met with complete and total apathy. The story does not end here.... I was totally annoyed. So I filled out the consumer survey and checked off that I did want to be contacted. Then I waited...and waited...and waited.

Then I sent Dunks this tweet:

We sent DMs (Direct Messages: private messaging between people following each other on Twitter) to exchange contact details and I sent an email to them at the end of the day. The next morning I had an email in my inbox from both Dunkin's corporate customer service and the owner of that location. I talked to the owner of the location and when I make the 6 hour trek back to almost-Canada, he's going to buy us breakfast.

Within 5 days of that tweet I had a care package from the corporate office - 1 lb of their wonderful coffee and a $5 gift card. Estimated total value - $12....also the approximate expense of our bungled misadventure.

Since then, I've spent $50 re-upping my gift card....and counting. (That would be about a 416% ROI on just the gifts sent to me. I'm not sure what the hourly rate of the employees is, but I'd estimate they spent roughly 1 hour working on my 'case'. Estimate an annual salary of $40k, that breaks down to an hourly salary of roughly $19.23.)

So total expenses on Dunkin Donut's case: $31.23 (divided by $50 (money I've spent with Dunkin Donuts since) gives a ROI of roughly 160%.)

(The last time I reloaded my gift card was several months prior to this interaction.)

I'm back in love with Dunkin Donuts and it feels so good! This is just the start of my ROI value to them. I never 'quit' Dunkin Donuts to begin our story, but that little element of showing me they care quickly brought them more revenue out of my pocket, good will from all the people I told and I'm also plotting some Dunkin' love Christmas gifting to the family!

Moral of the story:

Social Media ROI does exist.

Inbound Marketing Summit - Steve Garfield's video gathering

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:39:00 +0000

During his presentation at the Inbound Marketing Summit, Steve Garfield called for all the people with recording devices to gather with him on stage.

I talked with Steve briefly after his presentation. While I typically upload my videos directly to blogger, this file was too big for the parameters of blogger. So I created a blip.tv account and still managed to get this out for the world to enjoy!

Twitter Grader - Something Made Me Go Hmmm!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:00:00 +0000

So I'm pitching a potential client tomorrow. This is a company with an extremely high brand recognition and brand equity. I've been spending the past few days researching their social media brand.

As a HubSpot fan, of course, I ran them through the grader. Stunned that their twitter grade is, in fact, 1.5% higher than me. I was hoping to be able to go into the meeting tomorrow and shuffle the grader printout in front of them and use it as a tool to educate them. I would have been able to use a tool backed by another highly recognized and respected brand. But now I'm just going to quietly redirect my approach.

So what went wrong?

Honestly, the twitter grader is just an algorithm fed machine and it can be tricked. My "customer" (let's think positively that I'm going to win this account) has a rapidly growing number of followers on Twitter. This is due to two things - instant brand recognition and the fortune of having people easily 'retweet' (also known in English as repeat) their comments. That immediately gives the algorithm a, lets call it, 'false positive'. The customer is currently using push marketing techniques to promote product offerings. All they are saying is: Check out our special thing/event/product. Due to the brand equity, other people are retweeting these comments. This is not necessarily due to the fact that what my customer said was so interesting, but the fact that retweeting my customers comments will give the one sending out the message a more 'upscale' look. It's not savvy at work here, it's someone piggybacking on someone else's brand equity. At the end of the day, the people retweeting are not going to be a high percentage of customer conversions.

More algorithm mayhem:

From the article cited above and written by HubSpot I quote:

2. Power of Followers: If you have people with a high Twitter Grade following you, it counts more than those with a low Twitter Grade following you. It’s a bit recursive, and we don’t get carried away with it, but it helps.
Again this is a little algorithmic smoke and mirrors with this account. This account is a chain. It is only following its own sister-locations and two individuals. (The sister locations are reciprocally following my customer.) The instant brand equity of the chain artificially inflates the value of the follower power noted in HubSpot. Each location has a number of followers - creating an 'infinite loop' of power for increasing your Twitter Grade. Again, a misleading trick (without being intentionally deceptive) resulting in a way throw off the calculators.

Next, and I don't know what is happening here with this one, but the Follower/Following ratio is way out of whack with my customer. Customer is following a few dozen twitter accounts and is being followed by a few hundred people. The number of followers is more than 12 times greater than the ones they are following.

There are a few other points I can make, but like the brilliant Dharmesh Shah, writer of the algorithm and article - I don't want to give away all of my know-how either!

At the end of this day, my customer is not using twitter to engage, they are still pushing content. They are not following people within their 'sweet spot' (the local twitter-using potential and existing customers) and they are barely listening to their followers. I see a lot of opportunity for this customer to become the next case-study darling in Social Media Marketing. Hopefully they want this for themselves as badly as I do!

Hi, My Name is Jayna & I'm a Rampant #Hashtag User

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:40:00 +0000

So I'm a little goofy today ...but when is that 'different'. I've been loving twitter a lot lately (my recent blog topics can back me up). I'm at that level of engagement that I can banter with a number of people, scan for the most relevant content and just enjoy the fast pace of other people's conversations.

Hashtags are a twitter tool that allows people to collect tweets under one topic umbrella. By entering the "#" sign before a word or phrase (withnospaces) you can create a topic collecting agent. People can talk about a topic such as #followfriday & #musicmonday and in this, they can join a greater conversation outside of their followers & followees.

I created this ugly image - if you want to swipe it for your own #hashtaglove please give me the props please!

Then there are other people who, like me, on occasion get caught up in a tweet and put things up like #Imarriedagreatguy. I will be the first to admit - it's useless, I did it just to put in an arbitrary hashtag. But it's fun. I'm the only one to rock this hashtag for now. I doubt it will be a top trending topic (the most commonly mentioned topics on Twitter over a period of time). But maybe I'll get some other tweets in there about married life!

No matter what - I noticed I kinda do this a lot. Enter a random hashtag for the fun of the post. Does that make me wrong or just enthusiastic?

You decide... write a stinkin' comment or two on my blog, people. I'm not doing this to talk to myself! :) At least I have my newish comment from Lisa! :)

A Simple Case for Using Twitter to Market Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:54:00 +0000

People are still not "sold" on the benefits of using Twitter to market their business. However, I have one simple statement to help people get their head around adopting this platform for their business. Use twitter regularly (keeping within the etiquette protocols) and you will easily reach an opt-in audience with an established interest in your business.

People are so wrapped up in the METRICS of twitter and social media that they forget to look for more 'natural' benefits of using this tool. It is getting easier to create a matrix, benchmarks and legitimate ROI for using Twitter to market your business. But let's take a moment to sit back and look at the relational value you get. People who have opted to follow you/your business on twitter have interest in interacting with you on Twitter.

I'm not going to beat this point into something more than it is not. Yes, there is still a great deal of strategy and maintenance to do when interacting with your followers, but instead of viewing them as a metric, hang out with them as people. You'll be surprised at how much more they like the person behind the brand & manning the twitter account than just a logo pushing information at them.

Don't Take Social Media Personally....

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:37:00 +0000

...I mean it. Don't get discouraged if no one replies to you in Twitter. This is advice I shared with someone last night after I spoke on a panel at Bentley University. She is trying to launch a business and is frustrated with Twitter.

It's hard (to launch both a business and get going in Twitter). There are so many rules of engagement with Twitter. This is probably one you need to put at the top of your priority list - especially if you are new to Twitter. Why? Because if you give up, you'll never experience the thrills of Twitter.

Let me pick on Chris Brogan - he's a thought leader on Social Media, he's a big deal on Twitter...and he's a nice guy! He's got over (I wanted to say 100k followers, but at this moment he's 77 followers shy of that stat) - He's got a small city of followers. I can tell you, that he's talked to many of them in Twitter and in person. He has talked to me in Twitter a few times - but he hasn't replied to every thing I've sent to him.

This doesn't make Chris a bad guy - it just means something happened that he didn't get a chance to reply to a tweet.

It doesn't mean that I'm not sharing something of value with him (and his most recent tweet helps illustrate the point I'm going to make) - he might just miss it. He gets a lot of tweets directed to him each day. You may have some Social Media GOLD to share with him, but he might be stuck on a plane that hasn't started offering in-flight WiFi yet. He gets some more tweets, makes a few phone calls and your great tweet to him is just missed in "life happening" on and off Twitter.

Don't give up - Don't spam people either, but if you have something of legitimate value. Share it and send it out a few times. If you don't get any replies, move on to your next topic. People are different and if you keep trying, people will find something they value in what you have to say.

And then there's the flip side to this - on a rare occasion, you may just get a tweet that makes your day/week/month...

...this Tweet made my decade! BT is an "electronica" musician - Brian is my favorite musician of all time. I have been an adoring fan for over a decade. I have seen him in concert just about every time he has come to Boston. I saw him break his ankle on stage & I saw him (a few years later) shut down Avalon on Landsdowne St. I only missed him when he came to town on my due date. So anyone who has a favorite performer who is loyal to the end, knows how much I love BT. So how thrilled do you think I was to get this personalized message directly to me. How thrilling is it for me to have an interaction that is so enthusiastically appreciative of my fandom? (And yes, I'm giddy all over again - especially finding a way to use this interaction to encourage people to use Twitter.)

Your favorite musician/actor/whatever may not be on Twitter so you might not get an interaction this thrilling - but I hope it can illustrate just how rewarding engaging with people can be. It takes time to get used to Twitter and to connect with people - but you reap what you sew on here. Rewards will come in many forms from Twitter - I even scored a free pair of slippers. I'm standing by my opening statement - Don't Take Social Media Personally - because you could give up and miss out on some really cool online experiences.

Facebook Villain, Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:58:00 +0000

It’s common knowledge that people are followed and unfollowed regularly, easily on Twitter. It’s less personal than LinkedIn and significantly less personal than Facebook. So it’s very easy for me to unfollow someone who doesn’t add value, or just annoys me on Twitter.
I find myself regularly annoyed by someone on Facebook. This person knows me well enough to say “Hi” if we were to bump into each other in public. They are generally a nice person, but they are just ANNOYING the CRAP OUT OF ME ON FACEBOOK. I wish I could hide my updates from them so that they aren’t compelled to put a borderline illiterate, mostly irrelevant comment on my updates.

I can understand why they are compelled to write “at me” – I’m a heavy Facebook user, but I’m not over the top. I publish a new status update every day or every other day. Some days I’ll post a handful of comments as if something is unfolding – I did so when we had a party or major event. I might post a few comments during a television show that I know is in common with many of my friends. But in the long term – I post frequently but will rarely post more often than 2 times per day.

The irritant from this individual is that they are moderately illiterate commonly screwing up simple terms like your/you’re, to/too and there/their. It’s as if they choose the opposite spelling deliberately. Now I understand there is some accountability on the part of Facebook – we don’t get to spellcheck. However, I doubt this person would ever think of using it if it was a feature for us to use.

So my conundrum – this is a nice person, but one I don’t have a heck of a lot in common with. I’m not going to modify my Facebook behavior & I’m not going to be a jerk and tell them “don’t post on my comments….EVER”. Yet I feel annoyed any time they choose to post on my Facebook page. Their comments are often irrelevant to my comments….it’s like they picked up on one word of my status update and felt compelled to write about that one word and in that effort, completely go off the context of my post. The comments are often full of misspellings, capitalization errors and terrible abuse of grammar. So the posts annoy me, yet, I hesitate to defriend because I have a history with this individual.

I’ll close this post with this thought: This person is hanging by a thread to my Facebook friendship. It’s really complicated for me to figure out what I’m going to do at this point. I guess I’ll revisit when/if I decide to take action (or decide not to). Food for thought – really read & pay attention to what people write on Facebook. You may have a typo here and there, you may misunderstand their comments, you may not comment when you’re completely aligned with them – but be considerate more often than not and you’ll probably be able to keep all your “Facebook Friends”.

BTW: I use the 'group filter' functions on this individual as a last ditch effort to minimize thier commentaries. Let's see how this works!

Obama vs Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Honestly, I'm not going to use this post to offer up my political opinion of Obama. I'm a reasonable person just like most Americans, personally, I think he's doing well in some areas and other areas leave something to be desired. But, again, what he's doing is not the focus. I want to talk about how Social Media is going to reveal sides of Obama that were never seen before in history. The light bulb went off when he took to Twitter to campaign, my call to action was when he called Kanye West a "Jackass" after the MTV Taylor Swift debacle.

President Obama needs to watch his mouth! Not because I care about his personal opinion on Kanye West, the weather or whether or not he likes cats. It's because anything he says can and will be used. He is going to get publicity for anything he does...a moment of crass humor, an outburst of temper. Whatever he does is going to be exploited not only on record but off record, much like his comment on Kanye West. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Kanye's ego is so out of control that he's one embarassing incident with an underaged girl from being the next Michael Jackson. People already think he's a loose cannon. I read a full commentary on how this is not likely to impact Kanye's career because he's known for these escapades. (Sweet Taylor Swift is now even more of "America's Sweetheart" for dealing with this with more grace at a young age.)

So back to Obama. He's going to sneeze and someone is going to take to Twitter to confirm he's got swine flu. The more media we have, the more he's going to be recorded, reported and exploited. He's now got the pressure to be cool at all times and whenever he speaks, even the most inane comments will be up for public fodder. This comment will not be his last to make news...let's see if he really puts his foot in his mouth! I'm sure Mr. President will find himself tangled in some messes thanks to this age of hyper-communications.

Friend Request Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:47:00 +0000

I get really excited when I see a friend request on Facebook. It's like going to the mailbox on your birthday - there's usually something special waiting for you when you open up. I treat facebook as a social tool - I do not use it as a networking tool - that's my LinkedIn account. So when I get a friend request that is from someone I don't know, or someone I think isn't really interested in keeping in touch so much as being nosy, it's a bummer.

There are a few rules of thumb I keep in mind when I'm accepting or sending a friend request. First, am I really interested in what's going on in this person's life?

Do I respect them? Do I care about them?

Am I friends with their spouse too? (I often find I'm uncomfortable friending my friend's husbands - there are a few exceptions to the rule.)

I guess the spouse benchmark is the big hang up for me. My husband and I have some families that we are friendly with, but when we boil it down, in many cases, I'm friends with the wife & not the husband. It's not that I don't like the husband (ok well maybe in a few cases I dislike him). It's just that when I talk to the husbands of my friends, it's often a surface conversation. I don't have a connection with them that makes me feel comfortable labeling him as a friend.

I recently posted an ambiguous comment on facebook that hinted at some changes going on in our house. I made the post late in the evening and early the next morning I had a friend request from the spouse of one of my facebook-friends. This is someone who talks down to me every time I see them, has a know-it-all attitude towards many people and has clearly seen friendly comments to their spouse (posted by me.) So it's rather suspect that NOW, when I make a comment that could be an indication of what's up in my house, do I get this friend request.

All I can say to that is NO THANK YOU. If they really were my friend, they would have picked up a phone a long time ago...or sent a friend request a while ago, not when I'm all of a sudden interesting. The only thing I wish I could do now is archive the request (like LinkedIn) so they can't badger me to 'be their friend'. Obviously I could block them, but since I'm friends with the spouse, it would be obvious. I don't want to be rude, I just don't want to open up our interaction to facebook.

So at the end of the day, I did not accept this request - and won't accept any future requests from this individual!

Holy Missed Marketing Opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:40:00 +0000

I like the cliche marketing opportunities that come up in the world just being the world. I wasn't REALLY thinking too much of 09/09/09. Yes, it's all cutesy and 9 cubed jokes are cascading through my Twitterfeed. But Steve Garfield's RT caught my attention and hit me in the head. Why isn't the 99 Restaurant capitalizing on today's date? Hmmm?

People love the opportunity to have a small celebration in life. Why do you think St. Patrick's day is so popular? There are so many things the 99 could do with today's date!

What about:
Two eat for $9.99?
Every 99th customer gets their meal free?
Drop the price on all of their meals over $9.99 to $9.99 for today?
Offer the 3 course meal for $9.99?
(They DO have a 9 meals for $9.99 offer up, but it's not related with the date at all.)

The 99 is a lower price-point restaurant, so they could easily attract many people for a meal out - even in this struggling economy. I guess that opportunity is gone for the next 100 years! Hopefully they'll smarten up their Marketing before then.

Twitter: Think About Who You Follow

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:41:00 +0000

The mantra on Twitter is "it's not about the number of followers, it's the quality". Which is great, true and legitimate for using twitter to market your business. If you are working a highly regionalized industry, particularly a niche industry, you are going to have a smaller number of followers on twitter. If your target market is Dentists in Middlesex County in Massachusetts and you know that there are (this is an arbitrary number) 4,000 practicing Dentists in this county. Then if through some Twitter genie you find out that 20% of the Dentists in your target area have Twitter accounts, you would want those 800 people to follow you, right? Ok, so you might find a few Dentists in other surrounding counties might follow you, dental students might follow you and it's all okay. There is potential value in all of these people. So you may have about 1,000 total followers within your target and potential target demographic. This is all quality followers - any one above and beyond that niche is 'waste' audience(to use an old marketing term). I prefer to call them 'bonus' audience because twitter is free and you're not wasting money, or intellect on them. So this whole thought and theory is right on. Check out the thoughts of this mantra to further my point. Soshable has a great post that really fleshes out the quality vs quantity theory with followers on Twitter.

But that's not the bee in my bonnet today. My issue is with the people trying to do business with Twitter who are following without thinking. There are two local businesses (who shall not be named because I'm trying to land them as clients) who are not paying attention to the value of following. One is huge, well-known and is only following their sister locations. Another is a small, super funky business who is following more celebrity-tweeters - in fact when I went through their following list, I was hard pressed to not find a "verified" Twitter account. Neither of these companies are following their clients. Uhhhh, how do you expect to Listen when you're not looking at your marketplace? Yes, you can get a Google Alert - but they miss some things. Set up a filter on tweetdeck, but you're apt to miss something there too. (Not everyone 'gets' hashtags. ) So please tell me, WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING MASHABLE, ASHTON KUTCHER & OPRAH, but not your CUSTOMERS?!?!?! Having twitter is great and all, but if you aren't going to use it with some thoughtfulness, then don't be disappointed with your results. Okay, enough with the crabbing.

What I'm trying to get to is - when you use Twitter to market your business, signing up with your brand name is not enough. Tweeting your promotions and partners is not enough. Following interesting people is NOT ENOUGH! Find your customers, listen to them, talk to them - ENGAGE with them. You will be surprised with the awareness you get. And yes, what you are doing right now is not enough, what you will do is never enough. You need to practice KAIZEN with all of your business processes and put your Twitter marketing at the top of your list.

Ashton Kutcher is a cool guy, but he lives in California. He's not in Massachusetts where my two "doing it all wrongers" are - so what good is he going to do for your business? Follow your customers on Twitter to see what they are saying about you or your competition. Then take the initiative to talk to them, encourage them and engage them. Then you won't be disappointed with the results.

Takeaways:

Dentists and Marketers to Dentists - don't believe my stats. They are arbitrary to help illustrate my point. (and Send me kudos because I floss regularly.)
Identify your audience in twitter
Follow your audience in twitter.
Have fun in Twitter (okay, I didn't go over this, but don't you like doing things better when they are fun?)
Talk to your audience in and out of Twitter.

Thank you, my rant is now over. And it appears so is my blog writing block!

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:15:00 +0000

Well Well, I owe a thanks to AdAge for throwing some stats up to validate my sentiments. In even better news, word out is that the missing girls have been found and are safe at home.

This could be an interesting take-away when working on SoMe ROI. The article on AdAge mentions that Americans want prime time to escape and the Kennedy specials did not rank well against other shows. Line that up with my observed minimal Kennedy discussion on Twitter, even with other Mass residents and you can see an alignment with the statistics and the observations I noted.

Social Media WILL Turn Traditional Media On Its Ear

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:52:00 +0000

I live in the land of Ted Kennedy - aka Massachusetts. I have been barraged by the media attention paid to his wake and funeral arrangements. I know he was a very important individual to both Massachusetts and American government. I realize that his death is a HUGE deal. But really, I haven't been able to watch television for 2 days now because the local media sees fit to show me every last detail of his funeral arrangements, his neighbors next door, his neighbors down the street, in the next town over, and all over this state. It's set in a loop. Why is nothing else newsworthy in this state at the moment.

Yesterday a few friends of mine posted this on Facebook. Two fourteen year old girls are missing from north central Massachusetts. These young women have been missing for 6 days now. They are not even hinted at on the Boston.com website. I haven't seen them on Boston.com, any of the news channels in MA or anywhere other than Facebook. I googled the names of the girls and found a twitter post from the unofficial AmberAlert account and I found someone commenting on the fact that they are still missing.

Maybe I'm just crabby today or maybe I'm just over sensitive because I am a mom. Why is this NOT newsworthy? I've heard on the grassroots level that their families, friends & teachers are worried sick about them. Yet, we barely get more than the results of the Red Sox game and the weather in between "Ted Kennedy Moments". This just seems so wrong to me.

I was dealing with a twitter blockage earlier this week, but now I find it my refuge. It's discussing Ted Kennedy, sure, especially since I follow a number of other Massachusetts residents and professionals. The thing is, I don't follow any media professionals on my account. I follow real people and they aren't talking about Ted in excess.

Why does this make me think that social media is going to turn traditional media on it's ear? Because when broadcast media, print media (or what's left of it) go on to SoMe sites and really listen, they are going to see that it's not the dominant discussion. So in overloading us with Ted Kennedy visual memorabilia, the media is, in fact, missing what we want. Someone in a corner office decided to disrupt scheduled broadcasting not because we, the viewers wanted it, but because their competitors are doing it. So here's my quandry - should the media try to listen to Social Media and deliver what WE want? It's an optimistic thought and I understand it sounds so much simpler than put into practice. But it would be nice, for once, to feel like I have an influence on what the broadcast media finds as 'newsworthy'.

Love this Video!

noreply@blogger.com (Jayna) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:14:00 +0000

I saw this video online this morning - not only do the stats excite me, but it also makes me confident about my future career path! Thanks to Erik Qualman for creating this!