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How Much is a "Day of Your Time" Worth?

2010-03-03T19:31:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I blogged about how mommy bloggers undervalue themselves; today Chris Brogan told the world that he charges $22,000 for a day of his time.

This may be sacrilege but I can't help but think of the (awesome) HBO show, Cathouse, when Chris talks about how much he charges for "a day of his time". (NOT safe for work so I'm not even putting a link to it, lest you click it then blame me when you get fired.) The show is about the Bunny Ranch...which, if you don't already know, is a brothel. Those girls make some serious coin.

My favorite concept on that show is "the girlfriend experience"--basically what regular guys get for free from real girlfriends, some guys are willing to pay thousands for at the Bunny Ranch. I don't remember the exact figure but I think they charge--and get--something like $10,000 for maybe a half day of their time. Yes--that's right--there are men out there who will pay $10,000 or more to take a woman to dinner and spend the night--even when there exist in nature millions of women out there who will do it for free. Just as there are companies out there who will pay $22,000 for a day of Chris Brogan's time--even though there are people out there who will do it for a lot less--or for free.

My point? Set your value high, because there are people out there who will pay it.

Who Needs Money When You Can Work for "Prizes and Rewards"?

2010-03-01T21:38:00.001-05:00

I was so excited to see Beth Harte's post about Nestle's "special offer" to join their digital think tank because it confirmed that I'm not crazy thinking mom bloggers are getting shafted. For a while now I've wondered if I'm just bitter or crazy for thinking that mom bloggers are being totally exploited by big brands and agencies. As far as I can tell, this is the dynamic: the new gospel for brands is that moms are the new influencers and the ultimate marketing coup is to get mom bloggers to work their magic for your brand. So brands spend thousands on third-parties in charge of wrangling the mom bloggers to do the actual work: spreading the word throughout the mom-o-sphere that brand X is great and everyone should buy it. What do mom bloggers get out of it? A chance to win a gift card. A free product to review. A coupon. Anything but actual money.

So back to Beth's post--what I loved about it was that here was basically the exact same pitch mom bloggers are being fed every day--and finally someone is pointing out just how ridiculous it is for companies to expect something of value for nothing. Here is part of Nestle's pitch:

Next week, we are a launching a unique, invitation-only online community called The Digital Think Tank and would love you to be part of it. It is an online collaborative space in which you will be able to shape the future digital communications strategy of one of the world’s leading organisations; Nestlé.

Participants will have a unique chance to create the perfect brand for our new digital world, exchange knowledge and expertise with peers.

And of course the clincher--because it works with mom bloggers:

Receive prizes and rewards: our way of saying thanks for joining in!

Hey--can't blame Nestle for trying, right? I mean, you've got millions of mom bloggers out there willing to work for "prizes and rewards"--why not assume that others may well be willing to work for the same level of compensation?

Just in case you're wondering how I know this stuff--it's because while I would never call myself a mom blogger because I think the term is demeaning, I am a mom and a blogger. I belong to mom blogger networks. I receive pitches. I read mom blogs and recoil at all the meanness and the competition. I belong to BlogHer's ad network (hence the lucrative ad in the sidebar of this blog; I've earned almost $30 running those ads for 7 months now). I know that lots of money is changing hands in the name of mom blogging--and that the mom bloggers are barely receiving any of it. Companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to agencies to do "mom blogger outreach." The agencies partner with high-profile mom bloggers, who in turn, present the "opportunities" to their eager networks of bloggers. Write a post about X and you'll be entered to win a drawing for a gift card. You can receive a FREE product if you'll blog about it, take photos of it and share on Flickr and Facebook, tweet about it--all by 5 pm tomorrow--and be sure to mention x, y and z about the product. Or my favorite--giveaways. Brand X will give you this product and you write a post about it, run an elaborate contest on your own time, then mail it to the winner--on your own dime, of course. If you're lucky maybe they'll give you one to keep for yourself and one to give.

Here's the good news: more and more women seem to be speaking up about this issue lately, both as it applies to mom blogging and just business in general:

What if Facebook Becomes the Next Monsanto?

2010-02-28T19:07:00.000-05:00

I love nothing better than a good "what if?"

So when I saw this news about Facebook patenting the news feed, I couldn't help but think of the movie I'm now obsessed with, Food, Inc. Specifically, the part about my worst nightmare company, Monsanto, and how they are systematically suing farmers who don't use their genetically-modified--and patented--soy beans.

If you haven't seen the movie, you need to--if for no other reason than so you can tell me if I'm crazy for thinking that there's nothing stopping Facebook from doing the same thing to rival social networking sites that Monsanto is doing to hard-working farmers. Basically, Monsanto has huge pockets and can afford to sue small farmers who are then forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves, even if they've done nothing wrong. I've personally never seen a more horrific example of greed or soul-less-ness, and it makes me question what kind of world we live in that they can get away with what they're doing.

Facebook has money and a patent. Let's hope they have more of a conscience than Monsanto--otherwise, looks like we can all kiss Twitter and other social networking sites goodbye. Seriously--if you don't think it could happen, watch Food, Inc.

Is The Age of the Troll Over?

2010-02-25T18:50:00.000-05:00

There was a really interesting article in the New York Observer a few days ago about the new trend towards civility. Don't get me wrong--there are still plenty of haters out there--but this point in particular struck a chord with me:

With all due respect to the Internet, it has not often been described as a "lovefest"; indeed, it has been better known as a forum for fire-breathing, semi-literate personal attacks. But suddenly, wide swaths of the Web have become bastions of support and earnest civility, where community-members "retweet" or "reblog" each other's bon mots, promiscuously proffer thumbs-up, help sell perfect strangers' books, drive traffic to each other's blogs and real-world events and even defend one another.

I have to say that I totally agree with the author--it honestly does seem that the internet has recently become a lot "nicer." I personally attribute it to several things:

Less anonymity. A few years ago I had the pleasure of being an occasional guest blogger on the Washington Post's "On Balance" blog. That was back before people were required to login to leave comments--you could just create a lil' nickname and fire away. And trust me--fire away they did. Some of the readers of those posts pretty much tore me limb from limb--thankfully usually my writing wasn't the target of their jabs, but me personally. If you have a few minutes and want a laugh/shudder, go read the comments in this post and this one. "Maggie clearly has issues." "Her last guest post was as loopy and insecure as this one." Etc. And my personal favorite "Not for nothing, but Maggie's actually pretty hot"--and the ensuing comments about how I was probably a former cheerleader. Anyone who knew me in high school would be laughing their asses off over that one--suffice it to say that cheerleader or Queen Bee I was not. Ok--sorry--back to my point--the readers of that blog did the same for every post--their daily joy was picking apart whoever was up at bat--the nastier and snarkier the comments, the better. It was actually an online community where the same people posted every day and had conversations with each other--all behind the safety of their nicknames. The Post subsequently changed their policy and required all commenters to register with the site...and lo and behold, the On Balance blog faded into non-existence. Without their shroud of anonymity, the commenters had no incentive to read or comment.
You can't hide online anymore. I blogged about this concept back in the day: "I have to wonder what it would be like if everyone had their photo next to their "screen name," or even if they had to use their real names; would they still be as aggressive as they are in their safe anonymity?" Fast forward to today when a lot of the time people DO have their photos next to their names--and, not so surprisingly, are a lot nicer. You also can't hide online as easily as you used to. Of course, there's nothing stopping anyone from using made up online identities, but most times when you're commenting on a blog post these days, your name--real or not--is tied to at least an email address and, if you have one, the url of your blog or website. Commenting on blog posts is now a way to attract blog readers and/or to call attention to yourself in a positive way. Of course, there is still plenty of online nastiness to be sure--but there's more accountability. More people are interested in what you're doing online these days: potential employers Google you; marketers and creditors may well scrape information from a number of sites to get as much information about you as possible, or use services like Rapleaf or 123People (hat-tip to the Community Roundtable and the awesome call with Lauren Gelman yesterday for making me obsessed with this issue now!)
Online reputations have tangible value now. Not only is it harder to hide online these days, but there is lots of potential gain from NOT hiding. Amber Naslund makes about the most compelling argument possible for this with her post about how she made $100k using Twitter. I know I've gotten speaking engagements--even job offers--just through my interactions with people online. Sure, I could skulk around using a fake name, blog anonymously, and get out all my hostility by blasting people like the On Balance commenters did back in the day....but why would I--or anyone else--waste my time doing that stuff when there is so much potential benefit from using your real identity online? It doesn't matter what line of work you're in--a strong online presence is basically part of your resume. I have a friend who once had a series of great interviews and was one of the top contenders for a position--only to be told that she didn't get the job because when they Googled her name, not enough stuff came up.

What do you think--is "nice the new black" online? Or are there just as many trolls as ever and I'm just blind?

Is Your Association Equipped to Integrate Social Media With Member Service?

2010-02-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm having wicked writer's block this week for some reason; luckily I have tons of half-baked blog posts just lolling around unpublished. This one is from several months ago and I'm not sure why I never finished it, but it seems sort of relevant after today's #assnchat that focused primarily on whether or not associations should be integrating social media into their overall member service offerings. What does "integrating social media and member service" mean? Listening to what members are saying on Twitter, blogs, and social networks and addressing complaints or questions in the appropriate channel as they arise. Then tracking those exchanges in the AMS just as you'd track any other member interaction such as a phone or email inquiry. Working in "real time" rather than just 8:30-5. Stuff like that.

My feeling is that, for most associations, integrating social media into member service is probably still a long way off for several reasons. The first and most important of which is that, in order to even think about mixing the two, ALL members of an association's staff must be fully versed in all aspects of social media: understand the tools, be actively listening, have a coordinated plan for responding and have plans in place for properly tracking such interactions. Yes, that's right: all. Not just member service staff. But that's another post for another time; I'm going to back it up and start by saying that a good place to begin is with the social media team concept.

Amber Naslund wrote a great ebook on developing social media teams that I think is a perfect foundation for the concept of creating a culture that would be willing and able to incorporate social media into its member service activities.

Points that are especially relevant to the social media/member service pairing:

"No matter who is reaching out on behalf of your company, your customers and community aren’t segmenting you by department and they don’t care about your job titles. They’re looking at you as a unified team that they can count on to meet their needs. So by all means devise a system that works for you, but ultimately remember that you are ALL stewards of your company and your brand, and by participating in social media, you’re setting new expectations for accessibility and availability. And you’re all in it together." In other words, that silo culture that's always worked before? Won't work anymore if you want to effectively use social media to listen and respond to members.
"The members of your team doing the participating need to be interested in doing so in the first place. Check out whether your team members are using social networks or blogging in their personal lives, and see where their interests lie." Audit your existing staff resources. Do you already have social media "experts" on staff? If so, good--they can take on the not-insignificant task of evangelizing to and training staff who aren't familiar with social media or who think it's stupid and a waste of time.
"An aspect of social media execution that I think often gets lost in the shuffle is communicating among your internal team." What channels already exist to allow staff to communicate with each other? None? That's a problem. A huge part of being able to effectively integrate social media and member service is coordinating the listening, triaging, responding and tracking.

I'll leave it at that for now...what do you think? Does this make sense or should I just wait out this writer's block and not attempt to dust off old, unpublished posts ever again?

Guest Blogging on Socialfish

2010-02-17T14:07:00.002-05:00

I'm so excited to have been asked to do a monthly guest post for the awesome Socialfish blog. Today was my first post--Curating Content for Social Media Outposts. The post looks much fancier there than it would here! Even more awesome is that they also have an iPhone app. I need to carve out about a hundred hours and make one for this blog.

Does Social Media Really Mean Big Opportunities for Women?

2010-02-15T18:06:00.000-05:00

Playing a quick game of catch-up on Facebook, I nearly scrolled right past Mashable's post--but the words "social media" and "women" caught my eye. Why Social Media Means Big Opportunities for Women. Does it really?

Last time I checked, the news wasn't so great for women in social media. Traditional gender bias seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Even though women dominate social networks, the gender/salary gap in social media jobs widened in 2009. Yes, there are a lot of mom bloggers out there, but how many are actually making money doing it--as opposed to spending a ton of time networking, making connections, writing blog posts--all for the chance to win a gift card or get a free sample of something?

I definitely don't know everything. What I do know is this: women are being tapped by advertisers and PR agencies as the new influencers. Brands are falling all over themselves trying to capitalize on the fact that women spend money and influence peers. If you are lucky enough to be female, a mom, and have a huge online following, the sky's the limit. Dooce just inked a deal with HGTV; the Pioneer Woman just irked the mom blog world by allegedly getting preferential treatment (and compensation) from Blogher Publishing Nework. But as far as I can tell, the main people making money off the efforts of mom bloggers are agencies for blogger outreach or other coordination efforts. Companies pay these middlemen thousands of dollars; the bloggers themselves rarely see a fraction of that money.

I don't know--what's your take? Am I being too pessimistic or do you agree that maybe Mashable's headline is a bit off-base?

Snocial Media, #UnTech10 and Social Media Salaries (Yes, Again)

2010-02-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

It's been a long week. TWO blizzards, a 48-hour power outage at my house, kids out of school all week--and my husband's been out of town the whole time. The positives? Shoveling snow is a good workout. Lots of time spent with the kids--AND they did most of the shoveling after the second storm. And LOTS of time spent online. Even during the power outage, thanks to my trusty iPhone. Did I mention I *LOVE* my iPhone? With it--and Twitter and Facebook--I managed to stay connected to the world throughout the storm, monitor Pepco's progress on the power restoration front, figure out what areas of DC/MD/VA were getting plowed and which weren't, and generally not feel like I was cut off from the rest of the universe.

I also got to attend a conference I wasn't originally scheduled to attend. ASAE's Technology Conference was supposed to be this week, and I was sad not to be going. But ASAE had to cancel due to the weather. Within minutes of the cancelation notice, my association buds Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer--together with a host of generous and hard working sponsors and organizers--whipped together an unconference--#UnConf10. They livestreamed most of the day Thursday and hosted a bunch of virtual sessions today. I can't say enough good things about it so I'll just link to what others are saying.

My favorite take-away from the event? The conversation about the importance of community managers, of course! You KNOW my biggest blogging obsession is the role of community/social media managers and the haziness of the whole thing, so the more people start to get on board with the fact that it IS a legitimate, important function, the more likely there will be some standardization of titles and salaries. I think this is particularly important in the association world, where there are no existing benchmarks for this role. I about died when I read Mack Collier's post on what a social media strategy will cost--because I know there are associations out there who are on one hand saying "we can't afford to hire someone to do this full time" then, at the same time, paying consultants $2,000-$5,000 a month to set up and maintain a Twitter account or $5,000-$6,000 a month to set up and maintain a Facebook page. If social and community are as important as we keep proclaiming them to be in terms of organizational strategy, member culture and all the rest of it, isn't it time associations (in particular, ASAE) put their money where their mouth is and come up with a real job description and some concrete salary benchmarks for the role?

If I Were Mayor of Dunkin' Donuts...Oh Wait, I Am

2010-02-08T15:41:00.000-05:00

Lots of buzz about Foursquare lately--in the association world, the marketing/social media worlds--and of course, my personal world, as my friend/co-worker Janet and I battle it out daily for mayorship of ASHA's National office. Meanwhile, on other, not totally unrelated fronts, Dunkin' Donuts is investing significant amounts of money and time into social media marketing.

What do the two of these topics have to do with each other? Well, frankly--me--and the other majors of various Dunkin' Donut locations. Did you know that I am the mayor of not one but TWO different Dunkin' Donut locations? What's my point--other than me making a shameless plug to get something free out of the deal? I actually do have one...

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the opportunities for Dunkin' Donuts and other businesses out there with regard to Foursquare. Let me break it down in a totally self-serving way: let's pretend Dunkin' Donuts wanted to add Foursquare to their social media marketing mix. Here are some ways they could do it:

Incentivize Foursquare checkins. They've already had more than 25,000 people share virtual donuts on Facebook--which is great and all, but what's the real value in people exchanging pretend donuts? Is it is great as real people going to actual Dunkin' Donuts franchises and purchasing stuff? No. Dunkin' Donuts already sees the value in social sharing; how about taking that one step further and encouraging people to actually GO to their stores and share that? Foursquare offers some great suggestions to businesses on how to do it--or just ask me--I've got plenty of ideas.
Base ad campaigns on Foursquare. Subway did it with Jared. Taco Bell attempted to do it with Christine...but caught a heap of flack about it. (which, incidentally, is bullshit--Taco Bell is my favorite fast food restaurant and I've been swearing by their low-fat selections for over 10 years...including when I lost over 50 pounds not once but twice. Rock on Taco Bell and don't let the haters get you down....but I digress.) So, donuts--the fare of cops and fat people, right? Bite your tongue! How about using Foursquare to promote Dunkin' Donuts healthy offerings? Feature real people--like, say, me, who eat there several times a week--or hell, I'm sure there are people who eat there daily--who are fit and swear by stuff like the egg white turkey sausage flatbread? We exist. And we are living proof that you can eat donuts and not be fat.
Do market research. When people check in on Dunkin' Donuts, encourage them to share what they ordered and how it was. Dominos recently used focus groups to redesign their pizza; how about using Foursquare to get feedback on the menu and then tweak it accordingly?
Make mayorship mean something. Smartphones are becoming more and more ubiquitous and Foursquare traffic has tripled since November. But it takes a decent amount of effort on the customer's part to use Foursquare, especially frequently enough to obtain the coveted status of mayor of a place. Now we do it because it's novel and there's some kitsch value in declaring to the world that you're the mayor of Dunkin' Donuts. But beyond that novelty, what's in it for that cross section of your customers who are both brand devotees and well-connected in the social media space? Not much. It takes time to manually add a new location to Foursquare, patience to wait on Foursquare to work while you're checking in, even more time if you want us to share check-ins on Facebook and Twitter. Giving mayors--those who are making a statement to the world that they visit your establishment on a regular basis and are proud enough of it to announce it on Twitter and Facebook--a discount or a free donut or cup of coffee now and then costs you virtually nothing, but ensures that they'll keep checking and in and spreading the word.
Become a case study and get great publicity for your brand. How psyched is Comcast to be the poster child of successful use of Twitter for customer service? How much good press have they and @Comcastcares super-star Frank Eliason gotten? A lot. What Comcast did for Twitter Dunkin' Donuts could do for Foursquare. If they don't, I guarantee you, some company will.

Why Businesses Should Think Twice Before Investing Money or Time in a Facebook Page

2010-02-05T00:23:00.003-05:00

Not to be all "what if"--but the more integral to companies' social media efforts Facebook becomes, the more leery I am about the idea of putting business eggs in a basket over which one has no control. Twitter has already announced that it's testing some business features; Facebook pages, however, while clearly a business offering, are still dependent on individual profiles. This is a HUGE liability which is virtually never discussed--I've literally seen one blog post addressing the issue.

Ok, so say you're the individual who initially set up a huge brand's Facebook page. First of all, congratulations to you--you've basically made yourself indispensable to your company or agency because if you go, the brand's page goes. Seriously. The ability to transfer ownership of that page to anyone flat-out does not exist. So you set that up, pour tons of money into having the page customized because of course you need that (not really--but of course your social media guru charging a metric shit ton per hour will tell you you need that.) So you pour thousands--or tens of thousands--of dollars into customizing your page. You add fan page widgets to your web site, add your Facebook url to all your print collateral and pay your social media guru even more to analyze the ROI of every fan, interaction, page view and what-have-you.

Then one day--poof!--Big Brother Facebook decides that the admin for your page has been bad in some way and banishes him/her forever. Apparently this is happening (hat tip to Carri Bugbee for tweeting about this) . No warning, no explanation--just you go to log into Facebook one day and can't because your profile has been deleted. Your profile and all Pages and/or ad campaigns gone too. Yes, really.

"Not only was my profile disabled, but a facebook ad campaign I was runnig [sic] disappeared, as did the 'Page' I use to promote a business." (comment by C.J.)

How come with all the billions of social media experts out there nobody is talking about this? If companies are investing real money in Facebook, why is Facebook not offering businesses a REAL business option--e.g. pages not tied to individual accounts that can be disabled with no warning or explanation at Facebook's whim? What recourse does a business have if Facebook decides to delete the page they've invested tens of thousands of dollars into? If anyone has answers to any of these questions, please share.

You're a Douchebag if You Think Foursquare Won't Sell Out

2010-02-03T17:43:00.004-05:00

I recently read this post about Foursquare's quasi-offensive "Douchebag" badge. Apparently non-nerds find the term "douchebag" to be offensive and are imploring Foursquare to consider the delicate senses of the masses if they want to go mainstream. The author of the post, MG Siegler, asks:

"This brings up an interesting dilemma for Foursquare: do they abandon some of the fun, quirky things that made the service what it is, in an attempt to go mainstream?"

I doubt it's a dilemma for Foursquare at all--that's like asking Mark Zuckerberg if abandoning the privacy concerns of Facebook users is a dilemma for him. Hell no it's not a dilemma if it means he's going to be a billionaire. I think early adopters are fooling ourselves (I include myself in this category) if we think for one minute that "nerd-only" services like Foursquare are worried about selling out. Why else would you spend money and time creating something like Foursquare if you're not hoping to eventually be faced with the "dilemma" of being a sell-out and alienating your early adopter/ nerd purists?

This is the new business model: count on early adopters to use and promote your service for free until it reaches mainstream status, then cash in.

List of Nonprofit Social Media and Community Managers

2010-02-01T10:24:00.028-05:00

Every time I see Jeremiah Owyang's list of corporate social media strategists and community managers I wonder when he'll do a similar list for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees--or nonprofits, for that matter. I'm realizing he has his hands full trying to keep up with the list of enterprise social media types since the market for these jobs seems to be exploding, so I may as well just start my own list for nonprofits. I wasn't sure whether to call it Association or Nonprofit, so I'm going with nonprofit for now.

I think his idea of linking to a Linkedin profile is a good one, so if you'd like to be included on this list please leave a comment with your name, linkedin profile url, a brief description of your job duties that relate to social media and your title. I think title is less important than job description in the nonprofit space since I'm sure there are many people out there doing the work of social media manager but called something else because most nonprofits probably have not yet allocated staff for this position.

My hope is that this list can serve as an incentive for nonprofits to standardize both a social media/community manager job description and benchmark it appropriately salary-wise. I can only speak for myself and a few other social media managers in the association space, but it seems to me the salaries for nonprofit social media positions are well below the average reported in Forum One's Online Community & Social Media Compensation survey ($69,000 was the reported average salary for nonprofits).

I don't want to just randomly put people on this list unless they ask to be included so I apologize ahead of time if you're one of my association buds and you're not on here--just ask and I'll be sure to add you. You can also add yourself to Beth Kanter's list of nonprofit social media strategists on the WeAreMedia Wiki.

Social Media/Community Managers at Nonprofits

Maggie McGary, Online Community & Social Media Manager, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (that's me, in case you don't already know that)
Shana Rieger, Social Media Program Manager, InfoComm International
Linda Chreno, Director of Marketing and Communications, American College of Phlebology
Jessica Milcetich, Social Media Outreach, Federal Citizen Information Center in the General Services Administration.
Ashley Messick, Social Media Specialist, Blood Centers of the Pacific.
Alison McQuade, Online Marketing Manager, GlobalGiving
Bill Sheridan, electronic communications manager/editor, Maryland Association of CPAs
Sue Anne Reed, Communications Manager, EMQ FamiliesFirst
Greg Allbright, CEO/Founder, Change for a Dollar
Laura Norvig, Technical Services Librarian, ETR Associates/The Resource Center, funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service
Richard Millington, Social Media & Online Community Manager, United Nations Refugee Agency
Colleen McMahon, Director of Member Services, Council of Residential Specialists (an affiliate of the National Association of REALTORS)
Lindsay Reene, E-Philanthropy Coordinator, Alzheimer's Association, Georgia Chapter
Archana Verma, Director of Marketing and Communication, International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
Beth Clark, Online Marketing Manager, National Multiple Sclerosis Society
Janie Graziani, Manager, Social Media, AAA

Is Work/Life Balance Possible In Social Media Careers?

2010-01-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

I'll say right off the bat that this post is going to be half-baked because I'm rushing to write it because it's 9:30 pm and my husband hates when I'm blogging at 9:30 pm. But Ryan Paugh, Community Manager at Brazen Careerist, started a great discussion today in the Community Manager group there and I promised I'd write a post about it today. His question was

Ok, I definitely want to ask everyone how they maintain a healthy work-life balance, blend or whatever you want to call it, as a Community Manager. It's something Maggie and I started talking about yesterday. Can you guys share any stories, tips, etc?

I answered that I think social media/community management jobs (that's another post for another time: are social media manager and community manager really interchangeable terms?) are incredibly time-consuming and make work/life balance very hard.

Why? Because social media jobs require you to do more than one full time job. One is the job you're being paid for: social media management. Already a daunting task because you're more than likely swimming upstream--having to not only do your job but evangelize both externally and internally all the while. So your days are full just doing what you're being paid to do.

Then there's the other part of social media jobs: staying on top of new tools, trends, news, etc and managing your personal brand. Both are, in my opinion, crucial to your success both in your current job and for future career opportunities. It's no secret that the social media world is all about who you know. And who you are both online and off.

Look at all the social media A-listers. They're blogging--frequently. They're tweeting constantly. They're traveling all the time, doing speaking engagements. They're getting book deals. They're reading masses of stuff--blog posts, books, articles. They're on pretty much all the time. How do you live that life and have time to devote to family or friends or spouses or kids?

I'm nothing close to a social media A-lister, but I do have a social media career and I'm here to tell you that finding a way to work 8 hours a day, blog, read, socialize either online or off and just stay on top of the things I need not only to do my job now to the best of my ability but also hopefully ensure that I stay gainfully employed for the next 25+ years in what's becoming an increasingly lucrative and competitive field....it's exhausting. Fun, but incredibly time-consuming and hard to balance with my responsibilities as a mom and a wife.

Speaking of which, time to wrap up this post. So what do you think--is it just me or do others in my same boat feel the same way?

Things Every Parent Should Know About Facebook

2010-01-22T08:24:00.003-05:00

Last weekend I was setting up a Facebook page for my pre-teen niece (and a corresponding one for her dad so he can monitor how she's using it). It occurred to me as I was trying to dredge up from memory various pieces of what I consider to be necessary information about Facebook that, just as companies are developing social media guidelines for employees, parents should present some form of social media guidelines to their kids before letting them interact online. It's easy enough to find information online about basic safety stuff for kids--sites like SafeKids.com and OnGuardOnline.gov are good places to start. However, now that Facebook seems to have gone from being interested in helping individuals safeguard their privacy to being interested in exploiting people's personal information in order to make money, I think it's more important than ever that parents whose kids are using Facebook have a thorough understanding of the platform themselves so they can guide their kids.

If you're a parent saying "It's Facebook--what is there to know?"--do you really know everything you think you do about Facebook? For instance:

Those fun games and quizzes on Facebook? They're just ways to farm data which developers can then do whatever they please with. Take this quiz designed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to learn just how vulnerable you make yourself AND all your friends every time you answer a seemingly fun quiz.
Think that you can still lock down your profile so nothing is visible to anyone other than your friends? Think again. Facebook changes stuff constantly and it's on you, the parent, to keep up with the changes so you can make sure your kids are protected. For starters, name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are now considered by Facebook to be public information and do not have privacy settings anymore.
Scams abound on Facebook. Scam groups like those offering stuff like Ugg boots giveaways, phishing scams where your friends' profiles get hacked and you start receiving emails or chat messages that appear to be your friend saying they've been kidnapped and need money, and malware scams are all things you need to let your kids know about so they're not taken in.

The bottom line? The bigger and richer Facebook becomes, the more important knowing how your information--and your kids' information--is being used, will become. If you don't want to use Facebook, you need to at least know enough about it to help your kids use it responsibly. This requires ongoing diligence on your part, as Facebook changes things constantly, including privacy settings and terms of service.

Ignoring Social Media Cost Democrats a Senate Seat

2010-01-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't done a rah-rah social media post in a while, but I think it's about time I did one. A few current events are proving how big social media has become and how much to your peril it is to ignore it:

David Meerman Scott predicted the outcome of the Massachusetts election by pointing out how Coakely totally dropped the ball social media-wise; now that it happened, the Emerging Media Research Council ties Brown's win directly to his use of social media.
Facebook and Twitter have proven to be invaluable during the horrible aftermath of the Haiti earthquakes.
Big brands are ditching Superbowl ads in favor of social media campaigns.

Still think it's a stupid fad that you will just wait out?

Facebook Users: Get Ready for a Deluge of Spam

2010-01-18T21:43:00.001-05:00

What's the percent chance that Facebook developers, if given the option to request or even require your email address in order to use their applications, would NOT use those email addresses to spam the crap out of you? We'll soon find out, since, effective Wednesday, January 20, Facebook's new email API will be going live. That's right, starting Wednesday, when you go to use an application, you'll be either requested or required to provide your email address.

According to Facebook, developers will be prohibited from reselling user email addresses, will be required to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, and will need to have privacy policies in place. They will also not be allowed to mention Facebook in subject line, "from" line or body header, nor will they be able to use Facebook's logo--which means you'll probably have no idea who these emails are from because who remembers what all those crazy applications' names are anyway?

This is great for developers, who will no longer be limited to contacting you via Facebook (or even allowed to contact you that way anymore), and of course great for Facebook, who will undoubtedly make more money through this latest change geared towards businesses instead of individual users--but how will it affect users? Will they happily comply with these email requests and just deal with the inevitable deluge of new emails? Or will they balk and stop taking those fun quizzes or playing those riveting games?

Just sayin'--you might want to set up a dummy email address before Wednesday.

Why is it News That Twitter Search Sucks?

2010-01-17T10:25:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I saw several social media "influencers" tweeting links to this post about how Twitter doesn't archive tweets. Is this news to anyone? I know I've blogged about it before.

I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again--I don't understand how a platform that is so unreliable and has such limited archival capabilities is worth a purported billion dollars.

Why does nobody seem all that bothered by Twitter's horribly limited search capability? With more and more companies deciding that social media is something they're willing to spend money on, as evidenced by more of them hiring staff to handle it or contracting various activities out, they are going to be looking for that all-important ROI--a calculation for which Twitter's archives being searchable is critically important.

Take the tragedy in Haiti. Mainstream media is featuring Twitter as an integral part of the Red Cross's efforts to raise an amazing amount of money in record time and through previously untapped channels. So what happens a month or six months from now when a reporter is tasked with researching the total number of tweets containing the words "Haiti" or "Red Cross" in the weeks after the earthquake? I'll tell you what will happen: nothing, as in "no results," because those search results will be long gone. Ruh roh. Ditto for the agency that runs a campaign for a company, one of the components of which is a specific hashtag on Twitter. After a month when they sit down to prepare the analysis of the campaign and go to count how many people used the hashtag they're going to be in for a rude awakening. Trust me, I've been there, done that many times over and it's frustrating as hell.

What if Google only archived search results for a week or two? Guess we wouldn't have been able to get rid of encyclopedias. Somehow they've managed to figure out a way to capture an infinite amount of information without having their search index run out of room. I can't imagine this isn't a problem that can't be fixed by throwing some money at it--so Twitter, PLEASE throw some of those millions at this search index deficit and fix it.

Bulltwit

2010-01-13T09:27:00.000-05:00

Swiped from my personal blog

I know I already posted about this on my other blog, but it's still grating on my nerves today so I figured I'd continue the rant over here. Not the kind of ranting that's already going on, though; I mean, come on people--"Why does Vanity Fair Hate the Women of Twitter?" Really? According to this post, the article "paints them as attention seeking, pom pom wielding, phone sex operators for the internet."

Seriously? Vanity Fair is the bad guy here? Many women seem to think so--and some men as well.

Excuse me but come on--not to be a bitch but pick one: either use your sexuality to get ahead or don't. You can't have it both ways; complain that "the media" is portraying women in a negative light while you have a website that looks like this. Granted the woman in the article who most resembles this remark, Adventure Girl, isn't the one griping about how disappointed she is with the way she was portrayed--but before the masses continue whining about how Vanity Fair portrayed the lot of these women as flighty, leggy airheads, have a good look at Adventure Girl's website. Oh, wow--you can become one of her "Sweet Tweets." Then scroll down the page and check out the "fun gifts"--you can choose a mug or poster featuring her tits--complete with "XO, Stefanie Michaels", or you can go with the cartoonized version of her in Daisy Dukes and huge porn star-esque boobs.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not lumping all the women into the same category as Adventure Girl--but let's call a spade a spade. If a magazine wants to feature you in a group of women that include, say, porn stars, and you accept--you can't then complain that you're being lumped into the same category as porn stars. You knew who else was being featured; you had the choice to pass on being glammed up, photographed in nothing but pumps and a trenchcoat and blithely described as a "tweetheart"....but you didn't. I'm quite sure there were about a million other women who would have relished the chance to be featured in the article and enjoyed the resulting thousands of new followers.

Is Self-Deprecation The New Formula for Success?

2010-01-12T20:03:00.001-05:00

I know there have been a bunch of blog posts about buzzwords for 2010; even though I haven't actually read any I'm pretty sure "authenticity" is one of them. Judging by the amount of kudos Domino's is getting for their new "Pizza Turnaround" campaign, apparently self-deprecation is also a hot trend. Creativity called the campaign "a transparent journey of self discovery;" others applaud the "great effort on their part to bring back a better image." Instead of trying to brush nasty consumer comments under the rug, Domino's took the "we know we suck" approach--you know, authenticity and all that. Works for comedians; must work for advertising, right?

I have to say--it's not really working for me. Where's the line between exposing your vulnerabilities and patting yourself on the back? How many points should a company get for acknowledging that they suck and doing better? Makes me question whether the whole Domino's-workers-putting-boogers-in-the-food video was just a staged part of this "comeback" plot.

I personally loved Domino's old crust...maybe I'm just bitter that they changed it.

Twy Me A River

2010-01-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

Chances are, if you're not busy reading articles and blog posts about the Facebook bra meme, you've come across more than one post about Vanity Fair's "America's Tweethearts" article. How it's a big disappointment to the women featured in it because it portrays them as, well, babes wearing nothing but trench coats and heels.

Disappointment how? Because they each got thousands of new followers as a result of the article? Because they got to get dolled up and treated to a professional photo shoot? Because out of the millions of women on Twitter--many of whom are doing awesome stuff--the six of them were somehow picked to be showcased as "twilebrities"?

You know what I say? Vanity Fair, feel free to tart me up and take pictures of me--if you can make me look that good in a photo, you can make me sound as vapid as you want.

Link Time

2010-01-10T11:40:00.001-05:00

Lately I'm not only not feeling particularly inspired to write anything, but I am reading lots of cool stuff but not taking the time to leave comments. So lucky for all of us--here are links to some great posts and the comments I would have left, had I not been lazy.

Elizabeth Weaver Engel on social media measurement and where it's headed. Very cool slidedeck pointing out how much social media measurement sucks now, but hopefully some cool things are on the horizon.
Lynn Morton on being a responsible Foursquare user. I am a half-hearted Foursquare user since I live in the burbs where hardly any places are already in Foursquare and I don't feel like taking the time to manually add them. Supposedly Foursquare has made some significant changes/enhancements including making it much easier to add new places but I haven't seen any changes yet via the iPhone app (tapping my foot waiting for that new iPhone app to be released...). I personally think Foursquare will be HUGE for businesses. I envision mash-ups between apps: you check in to the local movie theater on Foursquare and receive a coupon (on your phone, of course) for a free popcorn, then are asked if you'd like to review the movie you've just seen, taking you to Flixster. Local restaurants will have seen your check in when the movie started so when you leave you'll be presented with a few deals, then led to Yelp to give a quick thumbs-up or something to the restaurant. The emphasis will be on it being super easy for the user to interact with these places/apps, encouraging participation and, of course, increasing business. But I digress...now I have something to blog about next time, I guess.
Jeff Hurt's posts are always freakin' brilliant, yet I almost never take the time to leave comments. This one on social conference strategy is particularly interesting; he hits the nail on the head saying that conference organizers need to begin to start thinking like community managers.
Even though we've all had it up to hear with year-end wrap up posts and 2010 predictions and resolutions, Angela Connor's five new years resolutions for community managers is worth reading. I particularly like "share great stories up the chain." Yes, it can feel like tooting your own horn, but as Angela says, how are they going to know about what's going on in your online communities unless they know about it?

I could keep going but better get on with my day...feel free to leave links to posts you've found interesting in the comments. By the way, I hate the way comments on this blog work now--long story short, once upon a time I started using Haloscan for comments because with Blogger's comments you couldn't leave trackback pings. Haloscan got bought by JS-Kit, who now got bought by Echo and rather than figure out how to export all my old comments back into Blogger I paid to "upgrade" to Echo comments. I hate it--I think it's total overkill as far as how many bells and whistles they incorporate, looks horrible, and if I can ever manage to block out a day or so I will be trying to figure out how to get out of Echo.

Oh, and speaking of changes that suck, can someone PLEASE tell me where spellcheck is in this new Blogger CMS? While I appreciate the new features like bullets, I NEED spellcheck!

If the FTC Wants to Keep Bloggers Disclosing, They Need to Fine Kim Kardashian

2010-01-04T17:52:00.002-05:00

I'm having some problems connecting the dots about this whole Kim Kardashian $10k per tweet thing. According to Advertising Age digital and a million other sources, she gets paid $10k per tweet (see slide 8 in of online ad rates.) There she is, at the top of ad.ly's home page. Yet, not only is she not disclosing any material relationship with sponsors, she directly stated on her blog that she is NOT being paid to tweet about Carl's Jr.

So is she or isn't she? And if she is getting paid to tweet about products and not only not disclosing the relationship but lying about it on her blog, why isn't the FTC doing anything about it? Since their revised guidelines pertaining to endorsements and testimonials went into effect on December 1, 2009, every non-celebrity getting so much as a free lip balm in exchange for blogging about it must go to great lengths to clearly disclose what the FTC is calling a "material relationship."

The FTC needs to realize that their reaction to her non-disclosure will set the tone for whether or not these new guidelines will be taken seriously or not. There could not be a more perfect case for them to use as an example; we're talking big money here, and a clear intent on Kim Kardashian's part to deceive people into thinking that she's only tweeting about Carl's Jr. because the salads are so orgasmic. Isn't this the exact thing these guidelines are supposed to be protecting consumers against? Shit, I've never heard of Carl's Jr. but if I go out of my way to find one because their salads are so legendary that a "celebrity" feels compelled to tweet and blog about them because they're THAT good...and they're not? I'm pretty sure the FTC owes me $11,000.

Seriously, though, I feel strongly that bloggers should be disclosing and if the FTC lets this slide, they're sending a really bad message and basically giving their go-ahead to totally ignore the regulations they seemed to care so much about mere months ago.

*Totally unrelated but I just upgraded to the newer version of Blogger and there appears to be no spell check. HOW can that be right? So sorry if this post is riddled with spelling errors; without spell check I'm lost--even though I was an English major.

Will 2010 Be the Year Social Media Salaries Start to Make Sense?

2009-12-28T10:23:00.032-05:00

With 15,740 social media experts out there, it's no surprise that there are lots of 2010 social media prediction posts out there. A running theme among these posts is, again, not surprisingly, that 2010 will be the year the community/social media manager position becomes mainstream.

2010: The Year of the Community Manager

10 Crucial Roles of a Social Media Director in 2010

Your 2010 Social Media Plan, get that person hired

Looking for a Second Career? Consider Being a Community Manager

I agree that 2010 will see a lot of social media/community manager hires; unfortunately, as I've blogged about MANY times already, the titles and salaries associated with the position commonly called community manager or social media manager are all over the place. On one end of the spectrum, you have companies who think the position is perfectly well-suited to an unpaid intern or volunteer; on the other end, you have consultants charging basically whatever they want because, well, they can. The salary discrepancy is even worse in the association world; there are basically no benchmarks against which to classify positions such as mine--online community & social media manager--so assigning a salary to it is basically spinning the wheel and seeing what you get. In the association world, where salaries are set by comparing the position to a like position at other associations, what do you do when there are hardly any like positions? The process, in my opinion, is arbitrary, at best.

So hopefully, as more companies (and, hopefully, associations) ramp up social media hiring in 2010, clearer lines will begin to be drawn as far as what the position is called and what the appropriate salary for it is. I personally am committed to trying to shed as much light on this issue as possible because already women are bearing the brunt of the ambiguity--in 2009 alone the gap between the average male and female online community/social media salaries widened, with men earning an average of $86,644 (up from $85,423 in ’08) and women averaging $75,624 (down from $77,319 in ’08). Not cool for women, and also not cool for interns who are doing a job for free that is apparently worth a decent chunk of change. Also not cool for association staff who are not earning anything near those averages.

My association friend and colleague Ben Martin has put together a social media salary survey to try to gather and disseminate as much information as possible. Please--if you have a social media job, do me a favor and take his survey--the result will hopefully be more clearly defined job roles, titles and salaries for all involved in--or aspiring to--online community and/or social media positions.

Certifiable?

2009-12-27T14:07:00.019-05:00

This just in: there are 15,740 Social Media Experts on Twitter. What does this mean? In case you don't feel like clicking through and reading that link I'll sum it up for you: it means that we're all in danger of being hoodwinked by some of these self-professed "experts." How do we solve this problem? Clearly, what would delineate the wheat from the chaff in this situation is a CERTIFICATE. Like the kind you can already buy for $3,000.

I'm not understanding Pete Cashmore's argument that "Without [social media certification] such stats provide fodder for those who would say that social media – which is touching every industry from entertainment to air travel – is simply hot air."

To me, social media certification would do the exact opposite of what he's inferring; it would prove that social media is simply hot air--an insta-career anyone can purchase rights to for a price.

Come on, people, use your noodles. Is the only determining factor with regard to whether any professional is an expert in his/her field that he or she is "certified"? No. It's about credentials, track record, degrees, on-the-job experience...not things that are available to anyone for a price like Twitter followers or social media certification.

End of Year Musings

2009-12-26T11:33:00.030-05:00

I don't know if it's because it's the holidays or because I have barely been out of the house in weeks and the recirculated air is beginning to rot my brain but I'm finding myself at a bit of a social media impasse recently. More and more, the concept of "social media" is being paired with "marketing" to the point that, frankly, the subject is losing its luster for me. Marketing is not that interesting to me; certainly not interesting enough that I feel moved to take time out of my day several times a week to write about it. I am not a marketer. I blog because I love to write, and I use online tools like Facebook, Twitter and others to communicate because I have a two kids, a husband and a house to take care of, as well as a full-time job--I don't have a lot of time for socializing other than the kind you can do online. I know that it's possible to have meaningful relationships online and I know the internet is a powerful tool for connecting with people outside the small geographical area in which we each live.

Frankly, the snakeoil/sleaze factor of social media of late is getting to me. The amount of money some companies are charging--and paying--for stuff like setting up a Twitter account or a Facebook page or doing a blogger outreach campaign--is, frankly, stultifying. My boss and I had a conversation about this recently--he worked in San Francisco during the dot com bubble and he said that what's happening now feels exactly the same as that whole thing felt back in the dot com hay-day. The gold-rush mentality, the crazy money being thrown around, the opportunists creating stuff because people were willing to pay any price because, well, who really knew why. We all know how that ended.

Add to that the whole rockstar component of this whole thing ("Internet celebrity"? Seriously?), the bullshit factor, the fact that half of it doesn't even work half the time (I've said it before and I'll say it again now--the fact that Facebook and Twitter are so prone to crashing, viruses, hacks and who knows what else just doesn't jive with the billions of dollars both are allegedly worth), the focus on number of followers and fans whether those numbers mean anything or not, the fact that we're all basically talking about the same things over and over again....I'm just starting to not feel it.

What to do about it? Break up with social media, like Suzemuse? Blog about something else? Quit blogging altogether and get started on that novel once and for all? I'm honestly not sure.

In the meantime, I'll say this. For all the talk about social media and ROI, to me, this comment made by a member when I posted on Facebook that I had returned to ASHA is what I consider to be positive social media ROI:

You are the Mother of my Facebook. Because of you, I started it. Look at me now.

In other words, to me, it's not about numbers, it's about relationships and helping people connect.