There Are No Rules for Social Media

(Photo credit: kalhusoru)

It's at least a few times a week I see another "10 Social Media Rules" article on LinkedIn, collecting comments and thumbs up from the marketing industry professionals who act like Moses just handed out another batch of the Ten Commandments. I'm not a self proclaimed marketing guru ninja rock star expert, but I'm pretty certain that giving such gravitas to guidelines for successful social media campaigns is just silly.

It is also giving people a false sense of control. Look, here's the reality of the matter: Different companies are going to do well with different types of social media outreach. A company like Moosejaw can get away with being goofy and weird and it works very well for them. But they're an outdoor gear company whose tagline is "Love the Madness" and whose customer demographic is a little bit different from the average person. But if IBM started making posts like "First person to correctly guess what color socks I am wearing for 532 reward points" on Facebook, the reaction from their user base would be mostly confusion. So, the idea that there are hard and fast rules rules for what exactly companies should be doing to develop and cultivate customer relationships is just plain wrong.

It goes without saying, I hope, that your marketing person shouldn't be tweeting out negative content or that attention to grammar and spelling is important. But you don't need rules. The great part about this wide open world of new marketing is that you're free to make up the rules for your own company and your own brand! No one else operates just like you do. No one owns your brand like you do.

But here are three suggestions:

1. Don't be boring.
If your Twitter feed is a never-ending stream of blather about this new product and that new product and the white paper your company just published, it will have about as much appeal as watching C-SPAN. Give your followers something to get excited about. Ask yourself: If this was the media content of another business, would I be excited to pay attention?

2. Have a human voice.
As humans, we respond to humans much more personally than we do to corporations. So many small businesses try to present themselves online as big, impersonal companies, presumably because think that potential customers will be attracted to their impressiveness. But, customers want real people, not generic contact forms and automated phone trees. Likewise, they want to hear from real people, not faceless social media voices.

3. Don't just shout. Listen.
As I've looked at the Twitter feeds of companies I'm considering applying to, I'm constantly shaking my head at the number of businesses that just talk, talk, talk and never engage with anyone else on Twitter. Contribute to a conversation. Make it relevant. Make it helpful. If you don't interact with your customers via social media, then why are you even on there?

There are just some suggestions. Not rules. Merely suggestions! Just like your mom suggesting that you bring a jacket when going out as a teenager in case the weather got chilly. Sure, you're going to be just fine if you go without one and get a little chilled. But think of these three tips as ideas for making your marketing efforts a tad be more comfortable.

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail at Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vayner Media, posted recently on LinkedIn with his ideas on why small businesses aren't winning with their social media endeavors. He has some good thoughts on the subject, and he should -- after all, he is in the business of social media and has used it to successfully promote his father's wine retail store. But, I would suggest that here are some other ways that small businesses are truly missing the mark in their social media attempts. 

1. Scattershot methodology that wastes time and is inefficient in attracting target audience

If your company is jumping on every social outlet there is, blasting away your latest promotion or product, you're wasting precious time. Sure, the idea of throwing everything at the social wall and seeing what sticks may work for some situations, but if you're just blindly posting to every site without considering your audience, you're wasting your efforts. 

Plugging your men's grooming products on Pinterest won't exactly garner the admiration of its heavily female audience. Nor will constantly trumpeting your automotive repair shop services on Facebook win you likes or followers. By all means, experiment, of course. But analyze a social media outlet for how it functions and develop a strategy for using it.

2. Obliviousness to what consumers want to learn about and how they want to interact with brands

So many companies on Facebook are flailing wildly, unsure of what to post or how often to post or how to get users to interact with their posts. The Clymb is an example of a business that really nails Facebook advertising. Instead of blasting fans with product data on its outdoor living items, it shares stories, photos, and videos of outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers. It holds photo contests and provides equipment and training advice guides. The Clymb genuinely gives their fans and followers a reason to pay attention. The company that is simply announces its latest products is merely shouting "Look at me!" without giving their customers a reason to care.

3. Equating increase in Twitter follows with increase in brand popularity and marketing efforts success

I spoke with an inbound marketing specialist recently who was elated at the outstanding success of the company's Twitter presence but was baffled as to why the company's Facebook profile remained woefully ignored. A cursory glance at Twitter account revealed that the company actually had very little reach on Twitter and that it was mostly followed by spam accounts. Unless you are actually seeing an influx of business from Twitter, your social media presence on there is probably pretty much your company shouting into the ocean. The reason their Facebook was lagging behind was simply because it is much harder to create a fake Facebook account to follow a company and following a company on Twitter is just another drop in the sea of content. Use analytics tools to see what results your social media efforts are actually causing.

4. Assuming your clients care about your brand in any other facet of their lives

Your company is a big deal to you. And in many ways, a big deal to your employees. And to some extent, depending on what you do, you can matter quite a bit to your customers. But, honestly, customers feel about your company news announcements mostly the same way they feel about hearing latest accomplishment updates from the friends who have have young children. People only care about how their business relates to you. That is it. So, announcing every little business news tidbit is just going to annoy your customers. And they will un-follow you.

5. Attempting to use social media as a substitute for good customer service

The best social media campaign you can run is to blow the minds of your customers with intensely good customer service. If you can take an issue and solve it for your customer in a way that is considerate, helpful, and goes above expectation, then the client becomes the most powerful social media campaign because nothing holds greater weight than a personal recommendation. And if your customer service experience is tweet-worthy or compels that customer to announce it on Facebook, you're going to have exposure to that client's entire social media audience in a positive light. Fail miserably with your customer service and no amount of social media promotion is going to compensate for making a customer angry or disappointed.

Bonus: Listening to "social media experts" and taking their word as gospel

Declaring yourself a social media guru, ninja, rock star, and "expert" means nothing. As Ad Age reported in January, there are 181,000 Social Media "Gurus," "Ninjas," "Masters," and "Mavens" on Twitter. So, take everything you read with a grain of salt, even this post.

3 Lessons I Learned from Lemmings (the game)

I always hated the Lemmings computer game: 1) Because it frequently made my computer freeze as a child, and 2) it felt like managing a team of mindless, needy people in a series of life-preserving missions. But I did learn a few things from the game, lessons I've seen repeated in every day life and in various jobs I've held.

1) You need a variety of skill sets for an effective team.
It would be absolutely frustrating to attempt to dig through a wall with only builder lemmings. Granted, the builder lemmings are still useful in many of the missions, but since they can't adapt to taking on a new task, they are useless in forging through walls to reach the lemming home. Like, your company may have the most creative, brilliant minds throwing ideas zinging around the room at every meeting, but if you don't have a writer to create your copy or a designer to make your content look pretty in a new marketing campaign, your great ideas will be building bricks when you really need it to break through a wall.

2. You don't need everyone for every project.
You know those meetings where everyone in the office gathers to discuss something that only two people will actually work on? Yeah, this is a case where you are pulling together a builder, a digger, a blocker, and an exploding lemming when all you need is to build a bridge from one ledge to another. Sure, people from other departments and in different specialties might have great ideas to contribute, but sometimes, a simple email will do. No need to interrupt the lives of all your lemmings.

3. Train your lemmings well, especially after a round of layoffs.
Who wants to be the lemming that has to explode to get through the wall when there are no digger lemmings available because your company just laid off the digger lemming? Don't lay off people you need and think that someone else is going to be able to adapt without some training. Teach your exploding lemming how to be a digger lemming so when there's a wall you need to get through, you don't end up with a burned out employee, trying to complete a task they're not properly trained in.

They're pretty basic lessons, but you and I and the three other people who will read this post know, sometimes companies forget them. So, if you are starting a company and you are organizing a group of lemmings employees, think about all the skill sets you will need.

Will you succeed with ten programmers or will you need people in marketing, customer service, and copy writing as well? Don't overuse your resources and waste their precious time and energy. And train your employees in a variety of tasks, not just the ones they'll primarily be doing. People get sick, take vacations, and sometimes even quit. Your business can't wait when that happens.

If you have thoughts on this subject, please opine below in the comments section. Your voice is welcome here.

P.S. If you want to play the game for old time's sake, you can find it here for free.

Today is the day to...

Do that thing that's been on your to-do list for three weeks now and still remains undone.

I admit, I am addicted to lists.But considering how prevalent lists are on popular Digg submissions, I'm not alone. In my planner, I list everything I need to do for the day. Even mundane activities like laundry get listed. Not only does this get the item out of my brain and recorded onto something more stable, it also gives me a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. I can look at my list of to-do items all proudly checked off and smile with a sense of accomplishment.

But....

There are those items that become rewritten day after day in my planner. Lately, those have been "get a job" (more later on why listing that as a to-do is a bad item) and "bleach bathtub." They go undone because, well honestly, they're not fun. Who wants to write cover letters all day or scrub mildew out of tight crevices?

But every time I see them reappear on my daily to-do list, I feel a sense of discontent with myself. Maybe you've felt it too. You're looking at this one thing you still haven't done and it's weighing over your head because you're going to have to tackle it sooner or later. And you're upset that you haven't buckled down and done it already.

Well, here's what I've found so far in tackling these dreaded "to-do"s.

1. Create Manageable Pieces
Don't list longterm and/or multipart projects as one item. For example, I am building a solar-powered dehydrator with my boyfriend. It would be foolish for me to write "build solar-powered dehydrator" on my planner and expect it to get checked off anytime soon. Instead, I would need to start by writing "Break apart bookshelf for the wood" on day one. When I had finished that, I would need to write "Paint plywood sheet black for airflow box" and so forth.

This is why I prefer to use a planner with a monthly view that has a space for listing parts of longterm projects. (I have found that Blue Sky July-June Weekly/Monthly planners are ideal for this and include large lined boxes for each day on the weekly calender pages. Available at Target for $7.99)

So, for my "get a job" to-do, I need to break this impossible doable task into manageable pieces. For example, step one could be "update resume with latest job and contact info." Step two would be "search for writing and reporting jobs using three job search websites." Next step, which would be a daily task, would be " apply to three jobs with corresponding cover letters." Much more concrete than "get job" and much more likely to get done.

2. Eliminate Obstacles
Figure out why you haven't done more short-term tasks such as "bleach bathtub" and "hang bird feeder." Sometimes, it's just an icky job, and for that, you're going to need to bribe yourself with a reward. For something like the bird feeder, you may need someone else to help you hang it. Instead of wasting time writing "hang bird feeder," go find someone to help you.

3. Plan for Later
You may not have time to do that to do item right now, and sometimes, that's okay. Just take it in stride and list it on your monthly planner page as a "WIGATI" (When I Get Around To It) item. No need to list it on your daily pages if it's just going to take up space and make you feel bad.

These are just thoughts from my own experiences. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you do to make sure your to-do lists get finished.

{photo by Great Beyond}

How to Make Totally Awesome Light-Writing Pics

I've had a couple of people ask me how I made this:

So, here are the simple instructions.

If you have a digital SLR, turn the dial to M for manual shooting mode. Change the aperture to Bulb. This is done by turning the wheel past the longest exposure time available, which is 30 seconds for me.

Turn your ISO to 100. Sparklers are really bright and you want your light sensitivity to be low so you don't wash out your pic.

Looking through the viewfinder, set up chairs or other easily-visible markers on the far edges of the frame so the model knows where to begin and where to stop before exiting the frame.This also helps to give the model a sense of how the size of the letters will relate to the actual picture size.

Have the model hold up something like a cell phone to illuminate themselves so you can set the focus.

Have the model light the sparkler then pose in the position they want to be captured in. Make sure the sparkler is away from their face for two reasons: One, so they don't catch their hair on fire, and two, so they don't have their face obscured by the glowing sparkler. For writing something, I found that holding my sparkler like I naturally hold a pen for writing worked best.

When they say "go," press the shutter button down to fire your flash and capture the model's pose then continue to hold the button down as they write a word or draw a picture. The slower you go, the more likely you'll get ghosting, like in my picture where you can see "ghosts" of me behind the word "life." You can remove that later in photoshop, although sometimes the ghosting looks really cool.

Specs for this pic: ISO 100, Aperture f/5.6, Exposure time 19 secs, focal length 23 mm
Camera: Canon Rebel XTi

Try this yourself and let me know how it turns out!

Lynette
@bestieverdid

My original plan has gone out the window and I am actually blogging about food on my website http://lynettecornell.com. Please stop by and leave a comment with your feedback.

Thank you!

Arriving on the scene...

I just realized I have this blog. For the past month, I've been trying to get http://lynettecornell.com ready and working. Quite a challenge when it's hosted on a Linux server sitting in my living room and I know next to nothing about Linux. Why have my own server? Well, why not? So, this will be my personal, whimsical blog while the other one will have a more businesslike tone.

Words like "social media" and "journalism" and "media" will fly around that place while this will be where I share stories. I like stories, hence why I spent four years studying journalism and amassing oodles of student debt. (Hint: You probably won't find the word "oodles" in that other blog.)

See ya soon!