So when I read about the Genius Pack on USAToday.com I was excited to try it out!  I trusted the site, and the suitcase was exactly what I’d been looking for.  I ordered one that day.

The case arrived quickly and had all the compartments and fancy add-ons I had hoped for (better pockets, phone charger built in, dirty laundry compartment).  I was a happy customer and decided to tweet about it.

A bunch of my followers jumped in and replied, some of who were also looking for suitcases. Travel, and anything to make it more comfortable, is a popular topic on Twitter, and the tweet lead to a great conversation.

You know who didn’t join in though? Genius Pack.  The company remained quiet.

When would-be or happy current customers mention your product or service, they are putting up their hands for a high five.  It’s not to say when we compliment a brand we have to get a reply, but when we make an effort to include the Twitter name, it shows we are including you in the conversation. (I still remember my first reply from the brand, Cirque du Soleil. Love them.) This is an opportunity for engagement that is all too often ignored.  As businesses we are quick to reply to angry customers, but often leave happy ones hanging.

Genius Pack wasn’t listening.  Or, if they were, they weren’t interested in talking with me, or the other would-be customers putting up their hands.

At the time, I didn’t think too much about them  not replying.  I gave them an opportunity, and shared my excitement about their product, but I wasn’t sitting around waiting for a response.  I took my new suitcase-of-awesomeness, packed it up for the trip and away we went.

However, by the time I’d reached security at my first airport, I was already frustrated with my new suitcase.

It tipped over.  Many times.

It tipped over in line.  It tipped over when I let go of it for a moment to take off my jacket.  By the time I had finished my trip, the front pocket zipper had broken (It wasn’t over-packed by far). I couldn’t wait to throw the thing out and use my old suitcase again. The case had been expensive and instead of making my travel more comfortable, it was more difficult.

Because I hadn’t built a connection to the company, I had no problem voicing my issue publicly.

People replied that they were also looking at this particular suitcase and were glad I saved them the hassle after seeing my original tweet.

When we are endeared to a brand we seek out private and personal channels to manage resolution.  With a brand I know, like and trust, I will email or contact them privately first, rather than publicly, when I’m unhappy.  Since @GeniusPack hasn’t followed me, I couldn’t send them a private message even if I wanted to.

Unlike the non-reaction to my first tweet, Genius Pack did reply to my second very quickly.

We went on to email and their CEO was apologetic and very efficient at processing the refund for my purchase – but not before the issue was shared publicly online. I was very impressed with how great they were after the problem, which confused me as to why they had no response before the problem. There weren’t hundreds of mentions of the product, actually none other than mine that day.

If you only pay attention to your customers when they are angry, you are only going to have angry customers publicly.  You will miss the chance to engage with the happy ones and create brand evangelists.

Here are the four steps to create Brand Endearment.

Listen.  You need to be paying attention to what people are saying about your brand and industry online.  There are some great tools out there to help you keep up.  It can be as simple as setting up a Google Alert or using keyword search on Twitter.  Use a listening tool such as Expion, Radian6, Vocus or Trackur. Paying attention is the first step.

Own the good you do. Value the positive voice.  It’s too easy only to focus on the negative.  You need to make time to thank customers who love what you do.  Be proud and say thank you. (and by “thank-you I don’t mean only RT’ing positive compliments about yourself. Avoid the humble brag). I try to do this with people who tweet compliments about my books.

Don’t leave all those high-fives hanging.  Take time away from fighting fires, and seeking out new customers, to thank the ones you have. This is the where the opportunity for brand endearment begins.  Don’t value your customers based only on purchases already made.  A happy customer is your best marketer.  Grow those relationships.

Engage.  Social media is just a fancy term for talking to other people.  When you listen and value your customers you can create content and products that give value back to them.  Be a part of the conversation; find out what they like to chat about. Care about what they are looking for.  And then be there, to have a conversation that matters to them.

When you do these three things, your customers will become endeared to you.

As customers we feel like we know an engaged brand, because we do.  Brands who connect with their customers online earn a face, a personality, and a reputation for listening.

I recognized the sender and remember signing up in the first place.

The content is relevant to me, not just relevant to the sender, like a sales pitch.

I feel a connection to the brand, like a relationship.

Really, there are three classifications of email that we all receive:

1. Spam/trash/not reading.

2. Will read later.

3. Must read/react.

Stay out of the first two categories, because “will read later” is latin for “not reading later, see it 3 months from now, feel guilty, delete, pretend I never got it.”

Here are some tips to get yours into category 3:

- Get them in the door in the first place. Having a box on your website that says “Sign-up for our free newsletter” is not enticing. Besides, since when was the “free” part unique? Are there a rash of crappy paid newsletters that are taking over the nation that I didn’t know about? How about “Sign-up for product updates and exclusive announcements” if you’re a product business. Or something like “Sign-up for weekly tips on how to save your business money.”

- When I do sign-up, send me a welcome email, not a confirmation email. Big difference. A confirmation email is “You’ve been added to the BoringAsPaint newsletter. 8490283HJF-94″ or even better “You’ve been added, here’s the info you just entered into the form.” Someone signing up for your newsletter/blog update list is them raising their hand for a brand high five, and we’re leaving most people hanging. Do you know how stupid people feel when they’re left hanging for a high-five? It’s almost as embarrassing as tweeting about a juice cleanse. Welcome them. Talk to them. Start a conversation.

When you sign-up for my newsletter, my welcome email says:

“Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to the Un-Marketing newsletter. I know how an
inbox can get crowded and I appreciate you allowing my newsletter
to get through the clutter.

May I ask what line of business you’re in? It helps me tailor the
newsletter to you even better.”

Really, it does, go see for yourself and you’ll get emailed only when I have something awesome to say for your business (see what I did there?)

Go ahead, reply to it. I’ll see it.

You know what that does for me? It creates a connection with the reader and automatically sets the tone for future emails. Most don’t reply, and of the ones who do, half are replying to say they just like the fact that I asked! For the ones that do, I read them. I get them right to my phone, and I reply to a lot of them. I used to have them go to my assistant, but then I realized that missed the point of the reason I was asking it in the first place: I wanted to know!

Not only does it create a connection and I’ve had awesome conversations with people because of it, it’s lead to book sales and speaking gigs. When researching speakers about “engagement” for a conference coming up, the booker subscribed to a few newsletters of potential keynotes. Guess who the only one was that actually engaged with her? I’m looking forward to keynoting that conference. For those of you saying “Whoa cowboy! We can’t handle that amount of email replies!” Relax. The 3 subscribers you’re getting a week won’t overload the server with responses. Even a big brand shouldn’t have a lot of issues. I had a newsletter in a different industry with over 350,000 subscribers, thousands coming in a day. Most people don’t reply, they just like the fact you asked.

Also, when you connect with them, your brand is no longer a brand, but a conversation they’ve had and when your name pops into their inbox again? They recognize you. Forget “best time of day to send email” if they don’t recognize you, it doesn’t really matter what time it is.

Check out this great example of a brand being awesome in a confirmation email that products are on their way.

Even my fave Tshirt company, Sevenly says this when they email to confirm you’ve bought a shirt and helped a cause:

- Respect your readers. I’ve said this many times in books and talks, but email them when you have something to say that’s useful for them, not because you “should” send weekly. I rarely blog, but when I do, people open the email about it because if my lazy-ass wrote something, it has to be good.

- Make it personal. I can’t stand automation, that’s no secret. When it comes to newsletters, when I say “automation” I mean the sending of blog posts and the copy that goes with it. The “Feed” looking notification that a new post is up, or even the cut-off intro to the post. I write a custom email to my list when a new blog post is up, just for them. It’s short, fun and I love writing it. And only they get it.

So which ones made the cut for me? Sideshow Collectibles (because I’m obsessed with comic statues, those are mine in the pic), Convince & Convert (Because Jay and his team have the best content around, and a new book coming out) and a few others.

So go forth and become a category three newsletter, and save the crap for the cleanse.

Which emails are category 3 for you? Are you on an email cleanse? Let me know in the comments below?

There have been many examples of people getting sued for bad reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor and others. Then there are the ridiculous ones (Thanks Stephanie).

There is a fine line between protecting your product and creating the Streisand effect, bringing attention to something most people didn’t even know about.

Recently, a McMaster University Librarian was sued by Edwin Mellen Press for $3,000,000 for his scathing review of their books and really, their entire business.

Initially I sided with the reviewer, thinking that the publisher was over-reacting, then I read the actual court filings and saw how badly he beat them down.

Everything from the quality of the book materials, to the company themselves. A lot of blogs are saying this is an attack on academic freedom, etc. I’m not so sure.

I want to know what you think. Was the publisher right in doing this? Have you ever wanted to sue someone for libel online or been threatened with it?

Friends of mine have been on the receiving end, and it’s not pretty. (see his comment below)

My non-legal advice? When giving a review, stick to the facts, versus smearing the company. I’m not the best example of that, but take the higher road

Will we get to the point where people are afraid to leave a restaurant review because of the lawsuit potential? Where is the line between transparency and libel?

I look forward to your thoughts in the comments.

And as always, please sign-up for future blog post updates below. I only post when I think you need to read something, not a “forced schedule”. It’s free, unless you plan on suing me. Then it costs $3,000,000 to subscribe.

Right when it was launched, I was told I “HAVE TO” get on Google+

Seriously, in all-caps.

So I went, it’s what us social geeks do. Nothing new right?

But Google+ was different. Through the growth of places like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest were different… they grew initially organically gaining momentum because people loved them.

But not Google+, private beta invites, peer pressure mostly from marketers and the ones trying to stake their claim as Google+ experts the day it was released (I wish I was kidding).

So I joined, and started to circle people, looked around and to be honest I didn’t really see the need for it. All the same people I was already connected with sharing the same things on other networks. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good site or that others shouldn’t use it. And then came the numbers…..

Google came out last year and said that 60% of their users signed in daily.

I beg your pardon?

In reality, the numbers that represent Google+ usage are a total and complete farce.

Their numbers are calculated by how many people use their Google account in the year. They claim Google+ is a “layer” or “portal” part of the site.

So anytime you use: YouTube, Google search, Gmail, Calendar, heck any site/service that is part of the Google empire that you’ve logged into Google with, it counts as a “use” of Google+.

Oh, and for anyone who has signed up for a new Gmail account since Google+ launch? That counts as a Google+ login too even if you never set up a profile on Google+.

Sweet mother of goat milk. Read all that again. It is the worse digital exaggeration since “Twitter hashtag reach”.

Why doesn’t Google tell us the number of active users on Google+. Posts, +1′s, even just reading within the site itself. Why the inflated numbers?

If you like it, awesome. If you don’t, awesome too. There is no need to lie about stats to pretend you’re popular. Google seems to be the kid in high school that wants friends desperately, so they bought the high school. And everyone skipped class.

(Speaking of wanting things desperately, if you’d like to subscribe to blog updates, I’ll give you my bagged lunch.)

Every month a new “study” comes out to say when the best time is to send email out to your list/subscribers/mother.

This study say between 12am-3am http://blogs.constantcontact.com/fresh-insights/best-time-to-send-emails/

This study says 8 a.m. – 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. – 4 p.m http://blog.getresponse.com/best-time-to-send-email-infographic.html

This study says 6am-7am http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57411092/the-best-time-to-send-email-so-it-will-get-read/

If I looked hard enough I could probably find studies that cover every hour of every day.

The best time to never send email is when someone else told you to.

Do your homework. The only important data out there is what your own list does.

I’ve been doing email marketing since the old days when you sent an email and everyone received it.

Back in the day when the email alert went off, you got excited.

The biggest mistake with looking at “when” to send to your list is we think that’s our issue. We think we’re getting low open rates because we sent a newsletter at 11am EST on a Wednesday instead of 5am PST on a Thursday.

The best way to get your email opened is to write content worthy of being opened.

When notification of your new blog post or newsletter arrives to your subscribers, do they react with apathy or excitement?

Is your subject line “ABC Chiropractor Newsletter January Edition”? I don’t care what time you send out that breaking news, no one wants to open it. No one puts aside their game of SongPop to read that headline.

People first have to recognize your “From:” as a brand they want to read, then the subject, then the content itself.

Fix those things first then test, test, test. But don’t test with different emails over a few weeks, test the same one. Create one variable: delivery time and split test them with your email service if they allow it.

Stop changing how you market your business because of a headline. The only important case study is the one you’re currently running for your business.

Oh, and sign-up for mine, obviously. Only sent when I have something useful for you to read, and not a minute sooner.

Currently, people are sharing two things about Shell Oil that are hoaxes/parodies. One is the website that is made to look like a crowd-sourced ad-campaign gone wrong for shell:

A hilarious parody, but a parody nonetheless. I was sent this site by no less than 25 people yesterday, and I love them for considering me to be the brand fark-up Sherpa, but every time we share something that isn’t true, it can hurt our credibility. (Shell has decided not to sue them, for now.)

Think about it. When you find out you’ve been conned, you feel stupid and you raise an eyebrow towards the person that originally told you. It hurts trust a little bit. It’s not as bad as forwarding the Bill Gates sends you $1 email, but you still want to smack the person with a Snopes tshirt.

Then came along the Twitter account @ShellIsPrepared and most people are taking the bait:

Parody accounts are actually protected on Twitter, if it’s an obvious parody. To some this is, but as you can see above, to a lot it isn’t. It’s not the fault of the people reacting, but the fault of brands behaving so poorly that it’s actually believable that one would do this.

So, my fellow social media speakers, take out the screenshots of this from your talks about social media going wrong, unless it’s to show how spreading fake events is bad for the people who do the spreading

Nobody is perfect, but instead of trying to be first to spread something around, try to be the first to confirm it.

+++++The entire Bon Jovi fiasco is a chapter in my new book “The Book of Business Awesome/The Book of Business UnAwesome” including references to at least 5 classic Bon Jovi songs and the book itself is a flip book. Let’s see Gladwell do that!

Twitter is a place where we (meaning me) talk about mostly meaningless stuff. What we’re eating, thinking, watching, doing. That’s what I like about it. It’s virtual small talk. However, we also use it to vent. Venting is our way of getting things out, and Twitter allows us as consumers to vent about mistreatment and to have others give us virtual hugs, and if we’re lucky, we publicly shame the company into playing nice.

It’s amazing what one reply can do. Take what happened recently to me:

I practically live in airports and hotels. I really love NYC, to the point where tourists get on my nerves (I live in Toronto). What I don’t like about the Big Apple is the airports. All three are the Bermuda Triangle of UnAwesome. I’ve learned to come early and wait. So I head to JFK nice and early and hit the Delta security line. 30 people or so, no big deal. After waiting almost an hour, I’m getting a little edgy watching person after person running late getting let into the front of the line, but I’m ok. I’m assuming all of them are paramedics traveling with kidney’s or something, so I wait. I get to the front of the line, disrobe, and put all my stuff into the bin. As I’m pushing it into the X-ray machine, a gaggle of flight attendants swoop in and head right for the front of the line. No “excuse me” no “pardon me, we are late for a flight” they literally pushed in front of me with bins in mid air and landed them in front of mine. It would have been an impressive Cirque du Soleil act. I’m not exaggerating. Bins in mid air as they’re being filled and then pushed over mine into the machine. There was about a 6-inch gap between my bin and the machine.

After the 6th (seriously) person did this in a row, I said “Come on”. I didn’t yell, although I was frustrated. As I was saying “at least an excuse me would be nice” one of the fine Delta employees said “I said excuse me!” in a harsh tone. when I replied I heard no one say anything of the sort she said “WELL THEN, OPEN YOUR EARS!”

Oh no you didn’t. I was speechless for a second (a rare occurrence indeed) and said “Pardon?” and she then just started saying “Excuse me!” over and over.

People have bad days, I know. Especially flight attendants. People are allowed to, but you’re in your Delta uniform and a bad day does not excuse anybody from common courtesy. I just got told off by the company that I paid to fly with. I get that they need to get through or their plane won’t leave on time, but if I don’t get through, my plane will regardless!

So what did I do? I tweeted it:

I didn’t want a resolution. I was pissed off. I didn’t add any of Delta’s Twitter handles. I didn’t expect to overhaul the customer service of an industry because of it or anything, but I wanted a few hugs from my Twitter crew, even to calm me down a bit.

16 minutes later this tweet came in:

Speechless, again (new record for me!)

I didn’t tweet to them “DO YOU KNOW WHO I THINK I AM! I AM TWITTAH!!” (say that in a Gerard Butler 300 voice)

They saw a misspelling of their brand name come up on their tweets and acted. They apologized. That’s it.

There was no way I could reply to that other than in agreement.

I could only tweet this:

In 20 minutes I went from irate to smiling. Then when I got on the flight, the person serving drinks was one of the nicest people I’ve dealt with, and no they didn’t know it was me. She was just wonderful with everyone.

When it hits the fan, it’s not time to hide behind the fan, it’s time to be awesome.

I’ve heard a lot of brands say they don’t want to use social media because they’re afraid of negative interactions. That doesn’t make any sense. The negative brand sentiment doesn’t vanish because you’re not there to yell at. It just gets unheard and therefore the anger brews.

I had to book a flight the next week and Delta was one of the choices. Without that tweet, I would have avoided them like the plague and instead, I flew with them.

Lashonda (^LH) from DeltaAssist didn’t offer me a $5 voucher next time I fly or some crappy headphones, she gave me what most customers are dying for: validation and a virtual hug.

Thanks Delta.

++++For more stories of UnAwesome turning into Awesome, my new book is coming out! The Business Book Of Awesome is actually two books in one. One side talks about how businesses are being awesome, and flip it over and it’s a second book about the Business of UnAwesome!

Brands/people etc have looked foolish in the past when they’ve scheduled auto-tweets that get sent at bad times during world events like disasters, elections and otherwise.

However, this one from 30 minutes ago takes the cake.

There was a RadioHead concert scheduled tonight in Toronto at Downsview Park. Tragedy struck, and some of the staging collapsed before the show, where at least one person died and many more injured. Obviously the news spread like wildfire:

Obviously a horrible tragedy that has occurred at too many events this year.

LiveNation, the promoter for the event also tweeted that the show has been cancelled, so people would not head to the venue.

The problem being a half-hour later they sent another tweet, this one obviously pre-scheduled to get people to tweet about the show!

And right away they were getting nailed on Twitter:

Everyone makes mistakes, including people behind brands. This type of one is preventable. Stop scheduling tweets. They aren’t 60,000 word books, it’s 140 characters. If you can’t take the time to type them (10 seconds) and be there when they send, don’t send them at all.

The problem is LiveNation wanted the benefit of people tweeting about a show in real-time, without actually being there in real time themselves. That tweet sat there for about 45 minutes before somebody took it down. That’s about 45 days in Internet time.

Our hearts here at UnMarketing go out to the family of the victim and those who were injured.

(Thank-you to Benjamin for bringing this first to my attention)

So much potential, yet so much stink. The fans and fanatics shout about how great it is since it’s only for “business people” and you don’t get all the junk that is on the other social sites. The problem is LinkedIn isn’t even a social media site. It’s a digital Rolodex pretending to be social. As a way to connect with the very people you hated at your last job it’s perfect. I’m actually one of their original members and have more contacts than an octopus with 10,000 biz cards (only to make up for my lack of popularity in high-school) but I go there less and less now.

I actually do see the potential of it, especially for job-seekers and employers looking to hire. If I was still in HR (which I left when I realized I hated people) it would be the perfect recruitment research tool.

The problem is once they tried to make it social, the “business” people started farking it up.

Here are the Top 5 Ways You Stink At LinkedIn:

1. Warm Spam – Just because I accept you as a contact, does not mean I want you to pitch me your product/service. Although I wrote a post about it, take a gander at what happened today. Some financial planner thought it was wise to pitch me his services right after accepting him as a contact. When I enlightened him in my reply on why spam is a bad thing, this was his reply:

“”I’m sorry that you felt so negative about that email. I try to send that correspondence out to a select group of people that I think have the financial sense and means to be interested in this strategy Scott. Obviously I was wrong in your case and apologize for brothering you with this suggestion. Linkedin is a way to network and connect with other business people Scott so if I can help enhance a high income earners retirement, that’s what I try to do as a Financial Advisor. Most high income earners are always looking for a way not to pay taxes Scott and this is a strategy to do so and this is why the rich get richer.”

I assume the book he read about selling said:

1. Every no is a yes in disguise!
2. Use the person’s first name multiple times. It makes them trust you!
3. Social media is really social selling!

Outside of his lack of a comma anywhere, spelling and the perception that my name was just auto-filled into a form email, what he doesn’t realize is that in his industry above most, I have to know and trust you to an incredible level before we’d even start this discussion.

Social is just that, getting to know each other. Not social spamming.

2. Blank Requests – “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”. Do you feel that? That’s the feeling of a relationship! Nothing says “I know you!” like a generic request for a connection! Let the good times roll! If you want someone to be your connection, put 5 seconds of effort into it and let that person know how you know them or why you want to connect. I know some of the apps don’t allow for it and fire off this request anyways, but spend a little time and care and those requests will get accepted much quicker.

3. Twitter + LinkedIn = Litter – Go login now to LI and tell me what you see from people and their “status”. 98% of what I see are automated feeds from Twitter. Broken @ names, and “via Twitter” all over the place. Is that the message you want to send to your business contacts? That you’re not there but you’re giving them the honor of reading your tweets? Social media isn’t about being everywhere, it’s about being great at where you are. Stop the social synching.

4. Drive-by Group Articles – The saving grace of LinkedIn is the group functionality. The ability to share discussions with industry peers or ones of like minds is incredible. Sadly, running one of these groups is a daily battle at removing drive-by spam disguised as “articles”. You know the ones, where the person posts “Thought this would be interesting!” or “Hope this generates discussion!” and they post the article in 10 groups, where it’s a bunch of regurgitated drivel designed for you to check out their blog or read their profile. Want to start a discussion? Post a question and want answers, not your own. No one asked you. I know the frustration, I tried building an UnMarketing group there for a long time, it just wasn’t worth it. If you run a great group on LI, post it in the comments, since they’re rare to find.

5. Endorsing Strangers – The endorsement option is the best part of the entire place to me. You can give endorsements for a job well done and it feels pretty awesome to receive them. We’re farking them up when you blast request this to your list. I get at least two a week from someone I’ve never done business with to endorse them. Seriously. Stop it. Want to do them right? Pick a contact a week and give them an endorsement. A real one. Not a “Hey I’m giving you one, sooooooo where’s mine?” Give them unconditionally, and if you’re good at what you do, you may just get a few yourself.

Have you found success on LinkedIn? Something grind your gears? Let me know in the comments below!

Inflating numbers isn’t new, the problem I have is when we take the same methods and apply them to social media, and for this post specifically Twitter.

Social has given us a fresh start in the word-of-mouth world. The ability to see consumers in real-time talk about our brands can be the main cause of many awkward boardroom fist-bumps. However, we’ve learned along the way that most numbers being used to prove something is “working” is no better than the magazine circulation claims of the 80′s.

Follower counts have been proven to be next-to-worthless (thanks Newt) and influence score systems are always under the microscope. So we scramble around to find another metric set and have come up with a term that was made popular after the Internet explosion: Impressions. We then throw in the old school “Reach” -around that can help measure how effective our Tweets and Twitter chats are. Ya! We have our new metric set! Vanilla Ice fist bumps for all!!

Not so fast Rico Sauve.

Let’s take a look at an example of a report tracking a specific Twitter chat hashtag:

I’m not going to name the chat this was used for, because it’s irrelevant. Nor am I going to name the service that does it (unless they end up telling me they want me to) because I want you to focus on the numbers themselves.

So we have a chat that had 139 people involved on Twitter and generated 758 total tweets. Slammin! Good number of people on a specific topic talking together. That’s where the issue begins.

Then it states the hashtag/chat had a 2,100,000 person reach and almost 18 million impressions.

The reach number is calculated by the number of followers of all 139 people involved in the chat. The impressions are calculated by the number of followers a person has for each tweet they send.

So if I was in a chat, and I have 120,000 followers that would be included in the “reach”. And if I tweeted a total of ten times with that hashtag, I would contribute 1.2 million impressions (120k followers X 10 tweets).

I see people boasting these types of numbers all the time, but not just the Twitter brag, they’re sending this to sponsors and executives to say “SEE?!?! Look how awesome we did!”

There are so many bad moves with this, I don’t know where to start. But I shall try:

1. The majority of people with Twitter accounts aren’t active. Twitter claims that there are 140 million active Twitter accounts while also celebrating their 500 million user milestone. That’s about a quarter of all users.

2. Most of your followers aren’t on Twitter 24/7, let alone on there refreshing the homepage feed. I think half of the people, from experience, are refreshing their replies page hoping Bieber replied to there “ZOMG I lUv U!” tweet.

3. This brings us to a huge chunk of the impression stat: @ replies. Have a peek at the breakdown:

43% of the “Impression” metric is accounted for through @Message’s, or replies. This is when somebody in the tweet replies to someone else and uses the chat hashtag. There is a huge issue with including this. In the main feed, the one that people look at to see conversations they’re not involved in, @messages between two people are not shown to you unless you follow both people. So they don’t even appear on your screen. Ugh.

4. From my non-scientific research (which entails me looking at the screen and rubbing my beard in a professor-style way) and through sending over 85,000 tweets over 4 years and seeing the click-throughs, video and picture views of most of those and other accounts, this is more accurate: 10/10/10 rule.

10% of your follower count is online at any given time

10% of those will have a chance to see your tweet

10% will actually view it/click something

So for me, 1,200 people will see any given tweet of mine that is not a reply. Scientific? No. But I’m sure as shinola it beats “Impression” and “Reach” as a more accurate measure.

What is the answer? I think we have to stop being so fascinated by “size” for one. The above Twitter chat had a good number of people talking and they should be proud of that. Instead we go the sensational route and say 18 million impressions. Hell, 18 million people aren’t even on Twitter during that time frame. The problem is there will be no “result” that matches that. An impression online is something that can be used in the digital ad business that can prove an ad has been served on a website. Imagine an ad network selling ads by “potential impressions”. Then we’d have to call them a “newspaper” (Heyoo! Here all week, try the squash).

We have an uphill battle as it is in the boardroom convincing people to use social or at the very least listen to it. We better not claim a size we aren’t ready to back up.

Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below! It will make you really popular, this blog gets a ton of impressions.

PS – If you live in the Southern Ontario area, John Morgan and I are doing a public event on Friday April 20th! I rarely rock a public event, so get on over! There are only a few tickets left that you get you John’s new book and my new paperback.

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