Posted by Gabe on April 17, 2011 under Social Media, Twitter | 
Originally I had four distinct thoughts about this thus created a four part series. (Part One – The Formula) If you’ve read what I’ve written in the past then you would know me as someone who changes my own rules when I feel it warranted. Something came up recently that fits that description. Here is #5.
The Favor
This happens all too often to me. People send me a Mention or a Direct Message asking me for a favor. “Can you please retweet this [link] and put it on your site? Sure would appreciate it.” Now this might seem to be an innocent enough, but read on to see why I personally feel it shouldn’t be done.
First and foremost if I honored all the requests I get from people it would dilute our mission and no one would know what we stand for . That is because, believe me, I get a lot of them.
I received an appeal from someone recently in my mentions, very similar to the example above. It came from someone I recognized as a person who had retweeted us in the past on more than one occasion. I looked at this person’s timeline. I read tweet after tweet of her doing the same thing to other people. This is where it gets a bit sticky. There are many newbies out there who unwittingly and unintentionally use Twitter in a way that some people consider as spamming. Do I tell her about this or do I leave it alone? I had just been the recipient of someone doing the same thing to me, calling me out for a transgression this person felt that I had made. I was glad she did that. We discussed it, got through it and are still friends. So I took a chance. As delicately as I could I told her that some people could interpret what she was doing as spamming. Her answer was the following: “I just thought that because I retweeted you you could return the favor.” Boom goes the dynamite… First off, she had just over 500 followers and I have more than 30K. Not sure I’m seeing how that equation is working out. But all that aside I said, “I appreciate you retweeting me, however I did not ask you personally to do so. For the record when I retweet others I do it because I like their tweet and I expect nothing in return.” I may get an argument from some but that’s how I personally feel. I even ended it with a “I consider you a Twitter friend and that’s why I am presenting this to you. Only trying to help, not offend.”
She responded with an apology and an unfollow. So I guess we agreed to disagree on this one.
As a rule I do not do it, and rarely do I ever ask for an RT in the body of a tweet. Put yourself in their position. If you get these requests from people do you honor them, no matter what the content is of the tweet? That’s your business if you do, but is not how I roll. What if you don’t like/agree with the content? Didn’t that person just put you in an awkward position?
The people who retweet me are engaged with me and I them. Occasionally I will send out something worth retweeting. That’s how you get retweets.
Posted by Gabe on April 9, 2011 under Social Media, Twitter |
If you had just one chance to talk a crowd of more than 350, 000 people, and you were limited to 140 characters, what would you say?
This is a question I ask myself every day. The reason for this is because I do have that opportunity on a daily basis through our JustCoz campaign. A few of my generous followers have granted me the opportunity to tweet through their Twitter streams on a daily basis. (Full explanation of how this works is in a prior blog post.) Where does the number 350,000 come from? As of this writing 337 people have signed up for this service to benefit us. Their followers combined, minus the duplicates, total 353,991. I am permitted to tweet once every 24 hours through this vehicle.
So, what would you say to these people if you had just one opportunity to do this?
I thought this would be a much simpler affair than it has turned out to be. At first I used it to ask for more people to sign up. The plan was to amass a big number so that we could promote the #MidAtlanticTweetup with it later. After a couple of weeks doing this I started hearing a few scattered rumblings complaining that the #KidsAreHeroes tweet, run at pretty much the same time each day, was annoying as it was redundant. (I actually only heard this from 1 person.) Now 1 out of 350,000 shouldn’t matter to me, but because he was right it did matter. I realized that I should respect the people who are giving me this opportunity and use the vehicle as I would my own Twitter stream. I thought I should at least introduce our organization to them as most of them were not following me. So I sent out a link to our website to show them what Kids Are Heroes is all about. Then I discovered that if I sent the tweets out at staggered times of the day a different segment of the population would hear my message.
Imagine if you have something to sell. Or of you are non-profit like us what would be the impact of one tweet to 350,000. How many items would you sell? How much could you reap in donations? You would think it would be a lot but it simply doesn’t work that way. I have sent out our donor walls a couple of times and only sold one square because of it. Many more of our own followers purchase them because they are connected to us.
Like most everything else on Twitter, this has been a learning experience for me. If you are one of the 350,000, please bear with us. I wrote this for you hoping you’d at least pause and get to know us a little bit. Recently I wrote a 4 Part Series about Engaging on Twitter. Every day we adjust and learn, try to get the most benefit from our time in social media, and establish meaningful connections with as many people as we can. We love to share and discuss those ideas as well.
I would love to really hear how you would deal with this if you were me. Or if you were you, which you are. I do believe it is a great gift our followers have given us, and plan to continue to treat it that way.
Posted by Gabe on April 8, 2011 under Social Media, Twitter |
For the record this is the fourth in the series and yes, I did write them all in one day. Part 1 is “The Formula“, Part 2 is “Furthering Your Cause” and Part 3 is “Getting People to Take Action“. I felt that if I split them apart a week apiece I would forget and not care what I was thinking about before. The sad thing is I have another post on similar but slightly different topic also burning to get out. Moving right along…
Part 4 – Staying Connected
I truly believe that people will have varied experiences as far as this topic is concerned. What I am getting at is that we started our Twitter account in December of 2008. There are many people we used to chat with who unfortunately for one reason or another, we no longer do. We didn’t have a falling out or anything, we just stopped tweeting each other. My theory is that the more followers you have and the more people you follow, the more likely this is going to happen. There is no way anyone can read all the tweets going by once you pass a certain number of people you follow. So we break them down into lists. I have a private “A-List” (don’t worry, you’re all on it) of people I connect with on a somewhat regular basis. I interact with them whenever appropriate. I also almost always chat with anyone and everyone who mentions me in a tweet. The only time I don’t do that is if I’ve been away and received a lot of mentions. I expect the people I used to chat with do the same. So if I don’t mention them, they can’t respond.
There are some people I really liked following but their FourSquare tweets were simply killing me. “I’m at school.” “I’m on the highway.” I’m at a red light.” Every morning this woman takes her kids to school. I get it. So alas we chat far less now than when we did before. I would also venture to guess that some have left the building. A while ago I looked up my old role model @AlexKaris to discover he seemed to quit Twitter altogether. His last tweet was Jan 11. A guy like that who enjoyed over 50K followers I know he put a lot of effort into getting there. No matter how many followers he had he would still engage with everyone. I hope he is OK.
I just discovered today that one of my (what I thought was) “new” connections actually was not so new after all. Mariah is the owner of @GingerSnapAlley. She has a whimsical web site geared towards kids playing the old fashioned way — by using their imaginations. And the parents are very much involved. She had generously purchased a premium brick on our Tweetup wall. Now the Tweetup is near Baltimore and she is from Alabama so I doubt that she is making the drive. That was very kind of her to support us. Anyway we have been going back and forth ever since.
Well today I challenged her. She was using her Ginger Snap Alley logo as her Twitter avatar. Being the type who sticks his nose in where it doesn’t belong I suggested she change it to her smiling face. If you ask most people they would much rather follow and converse with a face than a brand or logo. It took me about two years to learn that one. To my surprise her next tweet was accompanied by her beautiful smiling face! So we got to talking and she says the following: “FYI: Been following KidsAreHeroes since you first started I was @majesticchild. I fav’d a tweet u made and I still have it :) “Wow! How cool is that! I asked her what the tweet was. “I don’t remember what I offered to do but you said: ‘Thanks for the offer. Let’s tweet a bit first.’ LOL. You were a newbie.” Yes I admit I can be guarded at first. And finally she said, “Yup. There were no donor walls or videos. It was the very first version of your site. You’ve come such a long way.” Wow. I thought. It is kind of sad that she was following us for so long and it took us all this time to get really connected. But better late than never right?
So I can only hope there are more who peek in from time to time to check up on us, just like I do for Alex and others. If you are out there, let me know. I don’t bite.
Love to hear your experiences. Are there people you have remained connected with since the beginning?
As usually happens with me, I have more thoughts to add to this. Here is Part 5 – The Favor.
Posted by Gabe on under Social Media, Twitter |
And now we come to the most difficult post of my four part series. I think if you have read Part 1 (“The Formula“) and Part 2 (“Furthering Your Cause“) you would concede that I have been very candid in these posts. I am going to maintain that tradition and I ask you to do the same in any comment you might make. I have thick skin and can take whatever you dish out, as long as the aim is constructive. So without further ado…
Part 3 – Getting People to Take Action
I recently discovered from my new friend @Nonprofit_Mo that we are a “tiny” non-profit. Tiny? I knew we were small but never thought of us as tiny. Her classification has small non-profits having a budget of up to $500K per year. Right now I’d be happy with $5K so I guess tiny we are. Regardless of our size, we need money to survive. We are now moving into our fourth year and have made great strides from where we started. Despite a few small corporate donations we have had to “foot the bill” ourselves. I am not complaining here, just trying to put things into perspective. So far I estimate that in the three years KAH has existed we have put anywhere from $12-15K of our own money into the organization. Part of it is my own fault. I am not good at, nor do I want, to ask for money. The recent struggling economy has hit us all. Now we don’t have the luxury of footing the bill ourselves. One of our ambassadors was shocked when I told him that if we didn’t get $5K this year we’d have to close our doors. (And don’t think this is a long-winded script to ask you for money. Believe me it’s not. My point will be made soon.) He replied by saying, “You do realize that $5K is nothing don’t you?” In terms of a non-profit budget I absolutely do realize that. The problem is that we are the people that must somehow go out and get it.
In the beginning of March I came across what I thought was a very cool idea, which are virtual donor walls. People buy “bricks” on them and get their pictures and links back to their web sites. They even have promotional text displayed when a user hovers their mouse over top of the image. We have tried so many things that haven’t worked. We tried charity gift cards, magazine subscription tie-ins, even a crazy Jib-Jab like concert that you could create as a benefit concert for Kids Are Heroes. In the beginning MaryMargaret and I would do Twitterthons on Friday nights between 8-10 where we would run trivia contests, send out fun facts and take song requests. Although we had so much fun together doing that and I’ll never forget them, the most we made was $25 one night. Usually it was nothing. So I was indeed excited to learn about these donor walls. After all, because we have so many followers we can offer true meaningful value back to our donors by inviting people to view who is on them at any given time. I believe our Foundation Wall made $1000 in the first three weeks. Finally something that worked! And people have said that it is fun for those who participate.
The other half of the good news is that a local social media company has offered to put on an ambitious Tweetup in May with all the proceeds benefiting Kids Are Heroes. If it’s successful we should get a thousand or two from that. So it is very hopeful that we will survive after all.
When something works I will tweet about it. Why wouldn’t I? In the first part of this series I explained how all this social media blog posting came to be. A person sent me a DM complaining that we were campaigning too much. Indeed maybe I was. I am trying to get 100 registrants to the Tweetup by April 30. Not wanting to put all of our eggs in one basket I still promote the walls. Since I sent her the first post I wrote this morning, Susan (@morphing) says she loved what I wrote and didn’t need to be anonymous. We are certainly on good terms. As a matter of fact, although we were following each other, I knew nothing of her. Now I read as many of her tweets as I can. So I appreciated her pointing this out to me. This is where it gets difficult. Non-profits need money to survive. Businesses need to sell products. To think that if we just converse with people and not talk about our agenda at all they will just give us money or buy our products is naive at best. That certainly hasn’t happened to us. I admit the productivity of the donor walls has slowed down a bit as I expected but people won’t buy a square unless they know about it. Who better to tell them about it than us?
You might make the point this this is social media. You shouldn’t be “selling” or “promoting” anything. Commercials on TV are the venue for that. I would say you have a point. But since we have no budget for commercials, this is the only place we can do it.
So this is the very fine line that we must walk on. Until we get a staff that know what they are doing fund raising wise, I have to depend on myself to keep us going. Businesses have to sell their own products. Again these posts are about engaging and we are all about that but let’s be tolerant of just a little selling (and in our case, begging) sprinkled in.
This is where I’d love to hear from you. If you have been following me I would love an honest answer. Have we been pushing the “campaigns” too hard? My own sister told me “sometimes, yes”. So you are encouraged to give us your gut reaction. If my own sister, who is a huge fan of what we do, doesn’t offend me then you won’t either. Where is the balance? What are your suggestions?
Read Part 4: “Staying Connected“
Posted by Gabe on under Social Media, Twitter |
I don’t get paid to write. I don’t have deadlines. I have nobody telling me I have to produce so many posts per month. It’s a good thing because I don’t work that way. Normally I’m happy if I have written a post once a week. Sometimes I’m shocked to see it gets close to three weeks in between posts. I write when I think I have something meaningful to write and I’m inspired to write it. This is the fourth blog post for this week. I just completed Part 1 of this series entitled, “The Formula“. What triggered that post really got me thinking so I am now writing parts 2, 3 and 4.
Part 2 – “Furthering Your Cause”
The title expression works for a brand just as well as it does for a non-profit. If everyone on Twitter would be honest, 99.9% of them would say that the #1 reason they are on Twitter is to promote something. If they did not have that one major thing to promote, their time on Twitter would be either minimal or nonexistent. For posturing purposes many of them will never admit it, because technically we are not supposed to be promoting are we? We are supposed to be engaging. Well I do believe in engaging. In my search to find the ultimate balance in social media I write to help flush my own thoughts on the subject and garner advice from others. In Part 1 we talked about The Formula, which some say should be 12:1. That is for every one tweet that is all about you there should be 12 others to that are not. I also said how I felt that was near impossible for me. The interesting thing is that after posting that piece and getting it out there I did have a lot of conversation with people. The chat wasn’t limited to the blog post either. As an exercise I went back and looked at my last 35 tweets. I was surprised to see that only 2 of them were all about me. So I went from near impossible 12:1 to 17½:1 with ultimate ease. As a matter of fact it wasn’t only easy, it was a lot of fun. But here’s my story and I’m going to stick to it. I would love to do that every day on Twitter but find that it is difficult sometimes. I throw out open-ended non-spammy comments and get nothing in return. I guess that’s a sign to work on something else. Sometimes, however, it works, just like today did. Do I think that in the long run having conversations like we did today will better serve our cause later? Absolutely. I had some meaningful conversations with several people. I really hope to keep this trend going because it truly is more fun to be engaged on Twitter.
We have a neighbor whose boss is a workaholic and expects her to do the same. Our neighbor told us of an incident where she was on the phone with her boss, at night, from her hotel room. Her boss said to her, “Wait a minute…you’re not working are you?” Jane’s response was, “No, I’m eating.” Jane’s boss told her, “You know that you get a bonus at the end of the year. I’m afraid yours won’t be that big if you don’t get with it.”
My point here is that there’s furthering your cause and there’s doing it with dignity and still getting the most out of life. I used to work in a corporate sweatbox environment like that and what was it all for? My boss ended up getting fired, I quit that job and now I’m doing something that I think is much more meaningful. And yes, I work hard at it, seven days a week. We have worked especially hard in social media for more than two years now. We do it for the advancement of Kids Are Heroes, because it is our passion. I think we have made great strides in those two years, but we are still looking for the right balance. That is what these four posts are all about. Have we tamed the beast? Have we found the right balance? I won’t say “Yes” because that would indicate there is no more room for improvement. There is always room for that.
One thing I do know. Just broadcasting why you and/or your product is so great will not work. Period. What I like to do when people engage with me is look at their profiles and click through to their web sites. I look to see what else we might have in common. Sometimes I might see a good match between them and someone else, so I go and make an introduction. Other times I think of things that could be beneficial to us both. I do feel that is one of the best ways to connect with someone. If you approach them knowing a little of what they are about, that is just so much more effective that going into a conversation with no clue.
So how do we do it? How do we “further our cause” without doing too much broadcasting? I think that one thing I must realize is that there are many people “behind the scenes” who check us out and like what we do but don’t necessarily take action. Without spoiling a story I’m reserving for Part 4, I discovered today that one of my “new” connections has actually been following us since the beginning. Think about it. If all you are seeing is one-sided broadcasting (or “campaigning” as I was accused of in Part 1) would you want to engage with that person? I think this is sort of a pill I need to take every day to remind myself. It can be so tempting to send that tweet out asking for a donation or asking your followers to look at your shiny new gadget that you worked so hard to build. You have to trust that they will find your gadget once you have truly engaged with them.
Read Part 3: Getting People to Take Action
Posted by Gabe on December 13, 2010 under Social Media |
Sometimes people feel pressured to enter the realm of social media. I heard this very statement from someone recently, “I broke down and got a Facebook. My clients and friends were telling me they couldn’t get hold of me because we were not on it. So we just got an account.” Well, simply “getting a Facebook” is not necessarily the solution. Having a presence on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media platform does not guarantee you additional revenue, awareness, or anything else you might think comes from it. As a matter of fact it can be detrimental if you do not go about things properly. What I am seeing more and more is that once people get their Twitter and/or Facebook accounts, they update them, put links on their websites, and try to do all the right things. Then time passes and the social media accounts do not stay updated. People visit the main website and want to connect with someone so they click on the social media link. Or even worse, saw the Facebook or Twitter link in an ad. Hmmm… It hasn’t been updated in months. This plain and simple looks bad and makes whatever you are representing look unprofessional.
Entering the realm of social media is an endeavor in and of itself, albeit an extremely valuable one if executed properly. It should be well thought out in advance and expectations must be set. Too many think of it as a ball and chain on their business; something they feel pressure into doing but cannot foresee the benefit. It is important that you come into it with a positive attitude. It’s just like anything else — if it feels forced or negative people will not respond to it. The ones who are gaining a lot from social media do not see it as a ball and chain — it’s more like a competitive advantage that is embraced from the start. New business connections are being made that would never have been forged if it weren’t for social media. If you think you don’t have time for it, watch how you make time when it starts to benefit your cause.
Posted by Gabe on November 30, 2010 under Kids are Heroes, Social Media |
Many people (including myself) believe that social media is an excellent vehicle to connect with people in a way that would be impossible without it. I firmly believe that both non-profits and businesses who ignore it will be left out in the cold. Time and time again I have listed ways how it has helped our cause. So then if kids are performing charitable acts and forming non-profits, then it clearly follows that they too should embrace social media, right? Well I would say maybe so, but not without caution.
The people on the other side of the social media fence believe it’s just another way for nerds to not meet up face-to-face, that is discourages personal interaction and if left unchecked we will soon not be able to distinguish the virtual world from the real one. I am happy I am not in that camp. But I’m sure their argument would be that kids should be outside playing, interacting with each other, reading, imagining — there are far more activities to list that outweigh the benefits of being on a computer.
For me the answer is not cut and dried because I see valid points from both sides. However, I do think that there is much benefit to be had by having kids be social in any way they can. Social interaction is by far the most important factor in becoming successful in life. That is not to say that things like education are unimportant. Obviously that is critical as well. But to be a well rounded individual and to get the most out of life it is difficult to accomplish this if you are social outcast even if you have a doctorate degree.
Kids Are Heroes was established in 2008 and since then we have had four major events where we have invited children from the web site to come together to celebrate what they do. When kids started traveling from out of town, we thought it would be nice to have an after-party to thank them for coming. We quickly discovered that the kids bonded naturally even though they had just met and we now make a point of it to continue this tradition each time we get them together. These are the leaders of tomorrow and leaders are successful because of their strong networks. So why not help them build it now? Personal interaction is the ultimate goal and the best vehicle for them to bond with each other — no question.
Sadly we have had several heroes indicate to us their desire to come to these events but they could not as they could ill afford the travel expenses. Hopefully in the future we will be able to assist with that, but in the mean time what can they do? Having recognized the need, we decided to create a chat room just for the heroes on our site so they can interact whenever they want from anywhere on the planet. We have also provided a way for them to exchange Twitter, Facebook, Skype and all other forms of electronic interaction accounts they might have so that they can communicate in whatever way suits them best. We are just getting it off the ground but for those who are taking advantage they are really enjoying themselves. My daughter MaryMargaret was Skypeing with Wesley from Canada last night and must have chatted for over an hour. The new challenges I now face are teaching her basic manners, like when you have a video phone call on Skype you are not to interact with your other friends on Chat at the same time unless the other person is also participating.
What About Safety?
So many parents are scared to death of getting their kids involved in things like this. We hear about children meeting new “friends” on the internet and later becoming abducted by them. My take on that is to just be careful. We have no internet connection in my daughter’s room. When she is on the computer she is either within earshot in the living room or in the kitchen where all the activity is. Many times she has introduced us to her Skype friends to us and we have even met her friends’ parents that way. I told MaryMargaret that I would give her a Facebook account and not only would I friend her, but I would have access to the account whenever I wanted to. She had absolutely no problem with that, as she has nothing to hide. (She is 12 years old now — we’ll see how long that attitude holds up. ) If someone tries to friend her and she doesn’t know them, she asks me if it’s OK as it is possible they are one of my contacts. For the most part I only want her Facebook friends to be of a similar age, be someone that she already knows and/or a hero on our web site. Sometimes others can post things on an adult friend’s wall that may not be appropriate for young eyes and ears. For Twitter we protect her account so that a follower must request to see her tweets. If it turns out she does see something inappropriate, she just blocks the person, unfriends them, closes the web page, or takes whatever other action necessary to get rid of it as she has no interest in it.
All in all I think this social media is great for kids as long as they still get out and interact with their friends in real time. MaryMargaret has just been unleashed into Facebook and Skype and she does spend a good deal of time on it right now but I trust as the novelty wears off she will still use it but spend a more reasonable amount of time there. If not we will step in to help make a better balance.
I bet there are all kinds of thoughts out there on this subject. I’d love to hear yours in the comments.
Posted by Gabe on November 21, 2010 under Facebook, Social Media, Twitter |
If you look at the bottom of this post, you will see a Share button. If you open it, you will see no less than 306 platforms you can share this post to. WOW!! Honestly, many of them I have never heard of. So how are you supposed to know which platform(s) is/are best and right for you?
If I answered that question definitively, and the proponents of all 306 platforms read this post, the comment would be endless and I would probably have to censor most of them. People get very defensive about the platforms they are on and rightly so as they spend a lot of time on them. So how I will answer this is how I think things have worked best for me.
Some platforms are better depending where your interests and goals lie. Flickr, for example, is a great platform if you are a photographer. If you are looking to connect professionally for future job opportunities, LinkedIn might be best for that.
Of the platforms that are represented in the above picture, I have an account on seven of them. I m going to list them, tell you how much I participate in each and give my reasons for the level of participation.
Twitter: This is the platform I am most active in. I write a lot about it and work on my “methods” of using it every day. When I say methods I mean social methods (as opposed to technical), and how I can use them to become a better networker. I personally have seen a lot of success from our involvement in this and that is why I continue to be so active in it. In my opinion, this is the platform that gives you the best chance of reaching more people in the shortest amount of time. I may have just opened up a debate, but this has been my experience.
Facebook: In the beginning I got on Facebook and started a Kids Are Heroes Group. This was in the time before fan pages were available. I got people to join the group, but because people actually have to go there to see what’s going on my experience is that groups tend to die out. In the middle of 2009 fan pages came out. This is much more like Twitter where the material from your page is streamed directly in the user’s timeline. This is much more effective way of distributing material and since then I became much more active. I try and post at least two or three times a day. I purposely don’t use it as much as I do Twitter as I have an innate feeling that people do not want to see as many updates on Facebook as they do Twitter.
YouTube: We do have a YouTube account and are somewhat active. We certainly do not update it every day, but we upload videos whenever we have an appropriate one and also try and showcase those of our heroes from the Kids Are Heroes web site.
WordPress: As you may have guessed this is my blogging method of choice. I can’t say it’s better than the others but it is widely supported and does what I need it to do.
Skype: When people think of Skype they usually think of face-to-face connecting via webcams. It actually has much more capability than that. I have had an account for a long time but do not use it much. However, I see that changing in the near future. When I had a recent Skype session with my friend Rebecca she was sending me files, URLs and all kinds of things that showed me how useful it can be. So I keep my account active. And now that I am involved in social media coaching this is a great venue for one on one interaction. Yesterday I got a message on Skype asking me for some blogging help. It turns out my wife had “tooted my horn” to a ladies group she spoke to recently. This lady used Skype to reach out to me. This taught me a very important lesson. If you want to connect with as many people as possible, you need to be where they are. Of all the messaging platforms, this lady chose Skype to reach out to me. Maybe that’s all she uses. Now does that mean I’m going to create accounts in all the other 298 platforms I spoke of earlier? No, but I will at least be accessible by each of the platforms I mention here.
FriendFeed: There was a time when the talk was that Twitter may not be able to survive its own popularity. It scared me into thinking about what would happen if the platform actually went away. This made me create a Friendfeed account which is very similar to Twitter. In fact, you can have your tweets imported directly to it automatically. Since I never found an added value, and also because I found the platform more difficult to use, I basically abandoned it yet still let my tweets to go through my account. If Twitter ever does vanish I will have a fallback solution.
Flickr: This is a social platform where you can share your photos with others and also comment on them. I created an account there, but realized I’m not as big as a photography fan as I think you need to be to use this site on a regular basis.
LinkedIn: I do have an account there but have never really put any effort into managing this account. This is a great resource for professionals who want to connect withe people who may help them find future employment. This may be the one platform I misunderstand the most, and one that I personally should be more involved with, but for some reason it doesn’t interest me. All that should tell you is that it’s something I think you should take a close look at if you feel it may be appropriate for you.
If you want my two cents, here it is. If you want to promote your non-profit or business, I would recommend having an active account on Facebook and Twitter. There are some people that use Facebook exclusively and others who use only Twitter. That’s why you need both. If you have great videos that support what you are doing then add YouTube to the mix. People use platforms where they feel most comfortable. Maybe a friend got them started on one. They are all good if they help you connect with people. I think the bottom line is people use the platforms that benefit them most, whether it be for special interest, purely social, business or hobby.
I’d love to hear why you do or do not use some of these platforms and which ones I did not mention that you find valuable and why.
UPDATE 12/01/10: Well the CEO of Facebook has gone and created another social media network. This is just for non-profits and is called Jumo (www.jumo.com). So I guess you all think that it is a no-brainer that non-profits should be visible on it, right? Well I’m not so sure about that. We did create our profile but I can’t say I will jump in with both feet to update our status every day. I think if you have an interest there are plenty of non-profits on Facebook and Twitter (@nonprofitorgs follows over 32,000 of them) and both those platforms have lots of other subject areas to follow as well. I’m not sure that people will limit themselves by frequenting a platform just for non-profits. Only time will tell. However after looking at our profile I noticed something. Some of our Facebook fan page status updates were coming through to our Jumo account. I don’t think it updates in real time, and I think it has to do with a ‘Jumo Reader’ setting which you can set for once a day, so this feature might be valuable. Be careful though – it loves to automatically update your Facebook status so if you don’y t want it to turn off that setting.
Posted by Gabe on November 19, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
Hi. I’m Gabe. I’m a social media coach. You should pay me to coach you because I’ve had a lot of experience and was mentioned by Mashable. Come look at my great web site. Connect with me on Facebook too. People are always telling me how great I am. I have a whole lot to offer because blah blah blah blah blah blah….
Now, after having read the above diatribe who’s interested? Nobody. I knew the answer before I asked. So why do so many people still market this way on Twitter? I guess it’s because they truly don’t get it.
This entire social media journey is a perpetual learning experience for me. Since I began this trek in 2008 with the @KidsAreHeroes account I have evolved in so many ways. The minute I think I have arrived, that I finally understand everything, is the minute I realize how little I truly know. Yesterday I read a post by @skooloflife entitled “Why 150 Followers is All You Really Need.” It speaks of the fascination with numbers in Twitter and craving more and more followers. It also shares that having more followers is not the answer to being successful with social media. It is responding to and interacting with people. I am always preaching this concept but have felt as of late that my @KidsAreHeroes account was going a bit flat. Sure I have lots of followers but it felt sometimes that no one was listening. Maybe I was talking too much instead of interacting. Well again, I am still learning so I am making a concerted effort to interact more with both of my Twitter accounts. And it does work. I received a tweet this morning and looked up the person’s bio, found something interesting and the long and short of it is that we are going to chat over the phone about it later today. That is connecting.
I’m sure this person won’t mind me mentioning her. Her name is Dana Nelson (@DanaMNelson) and her web site (www.danamnelson.com) lists an education advisory board that is “focused on improving the quality of social media education in universities…” I found this very interesting . This looks like a person I can learn from. Since I like to keep up with all things new and exciting in social media, Dana is going to tell me about the iZigg logo on her web site and what it s all about.
Another person I learn from on a regular basis is Scott Stratten. You may know him better as @unmarketing. If you don’t take yourself too seriously and are willing to share ideas, you are OK in my book.
So let’s start really connecting. Let’s see if we can start a little network here by having you mention in the comments who you have learned from and how they have helped you. Are you game?
UPDATE: Ok since this morning I had a long conversation with Dana and she (so far) connected me with Chris. We had a long discussion on how I can use new technology to further my non-profit goals. Nothing less than awesome. Before today I knew neither individual. Turns out Dana had been following @KidsAreHeroes for a while but didn’t have a clear concept of what it was. Now she does. Sound familiar? Just make the jump into being more social and watch the results!!
UPDATE: Here’s a very unscientific experiment for you. If you try this, I think you will see immediate results. Yes there are variables, but here is what I did. This morning (the day after this post was written) I went on tweetgrid.com and searched for mentions in the @GabeONeill account. I wanted to see if there was a difference. I wrote this post (and made the effort to be more social) on Friday. Here are the number of mentions I received the days prior: Mon: 7; Tue: 12; Wed: 8; Thu: 5. Now for the day I made the effort: 54!! That’s almost double the count of the rest of the week!! This comes from simply making an effort to be more social. The common belief is that the number of followers you have determines how important or influential you are. When it comes right down to it, followers in and of themselves mean nothing. It’s the interaction you have with them that is key. I’d love it if you tried this experiment and reported back the results in the comments.
Posted by Gabe on November 18, 2010 under Social Media, Twitter |
I read a post the other day from Tech Crunch entitled “The Phone Call is Dead“. While it actually states that it is not really dead, at least not yet, they make a point about how kids are texting more and how we are using Google voice, Skype and other tools to get around the traditional phone call. I won’t argue these points, but even though I have been a technical person for quite a few years, I have always felt that technology should be used only when it improves on the alternative. Technology should never be used for the sake of technology alone.
I have heard the argument that “Twitter is for nerds — just another excuse not to meet someone in person.” Of course those who understand its value will argue that face to face networking is an optimal situation but social networking offers something that is unique: the opportunity to meet people that one would never have met any other way. This can sometimes lead to face to face networking with these same people thus expanding one’s network very nicely. The phone call is an easy convenient way to get to know that online person just a little better. Printed words have no voice tone to accompany them thus can sometimes be misunderstood. As we get older I think our age prevents our thumbs to text as adroitly as our younger counterparts. Skype can be spotty at best sometimes with calls often dropped. This is incredibly annoying to me. I use Skype when I must, but until the technology gets to the point where we can see and hear each other in real-time with no glitches, I will still be using the traditional phone call.
The point to this post however is not to argue about technology. It is more to remind people that technology should be used as a bridge to connect people in meaningful ways. Yes you can connect on Facebook and Twitter. The phone call can take that one step further. Now you know what that person’s voice sounds like and you have made that connection stronger. All I’m saying is don’t throw away your landline just yet.
This post is an excerpt from “Social Media – A Straightforward Approach”, an ebook I give out with each Social Media Makeover Session.
