Quiver & Quill

So much is made of Twitter as a platform for conversation, it’s powerful search qualities are often overlooked.

Twitter provides marketers with the ability to micro-target based on geography, keywords and phrases, subjects referenced, content and even sentiment shared.

The increased ability to search necessitates a deeper understanding of your target audience. It also enables marketers to create an ongoing focus group to obtain it.

Use search.twitter.com, wefollow.com and other tools to find your brand’s target consumers.

If you follow 100 people from your target audience, you’ll notice trends. You’ll see who your target audience really is, what they read, think and share.

Your ability to market to them will greatly improve, too. You’ll stop seeing them as just statistics and more as real people.

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Worldwide Delivery Service (from Japan)

Originally uploaded by *yasuhiro

Here are five learning lessons I arrived at this week, most involve social media.

1. How can I use FriendFeed effectively? I recently reignited my passion for Facebook after importing Delicious, Google Reader, Pandora and other feeds into the account. I like sharing all my links in one place, especially if all my friends and colleagues are there. Now that I use Facebook for that purpose, why should I use FriendFeed? Especially considering that I can have conversations on Facebook walls and many more of my friends use Facebook. Right now I use FriendFeed to read comments from social media experts I respect. What am I missing?

2. Diagrams. Have you read 360i’s social media handbook.. It’s a good social media primer. Check out the diagrams on page 17. Note to self: use shapes to express social media concepts. Often, it’s so much more effective than words.

3. Dashboards. My company reviewed many reputation management tools in the last few weeks. These companies offered their dashboards as key points of differentiation. Before getting too excited about a dashboard, ask yourself what information is essential for your research. It’s easy to get crazy excited about all the ways powerful tools can slice and dice data, but I’d rather answer essential questions with boring tools than using slick tools and miss the point. BTW, check out this cool data visualization link.

4. Connecting my online world. This week my inner geek came to life. I went to LinkedIn, where I have a few hundred contacts. Then I clicked “contacts,” then “export connections,” then export to CSV file. This exported all my contacts to my desktop. I then went to Google chat, click “add contact,” and copied and pasted all my LinkedIn contacts. The result enabled me to chat with all my contacts on LinkedIn via Google chat.

5. We reveal different aspects of ourselves on different social networks. We show one glimpse of who we are on LinkedIn, another on Facebook and another yet on Twitter. When you are connected with the same person on multiple social networks you see a very dynamic picture of them. My favorite thing to pay attention to is the different status updates a friend has across a social network. When you connect the dots, you can see a complete picture. For example, take “Fred.” Fred’s LinkedIn status update is: “despite being tired, the presentation went exceptional well.” Take Fred’s tweet at 2 am, “Should get some sleep? No. Must party in Austin,” and then his Facebook status update: “a picture of Fred singing on stage in Austin.”

These are a few things I’ve learned last week. How about you?

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If you work in midtown Manhattan, you’re likely to know the food cart I’m talking about. It’s the one on 53rd and 6th with 30 people waiting in line. They’re waiting to eat middle eastern food sold from a cart the size of a mini-copper. And they wait at all hours. When I passed by at 10 pm at least 50 people were in line. When I asked them if the food was “that good” to merit the line, they responded, “well, I saw the line, so it must be.”

I believe the same psychology of lines applies to Twitter. So often people use following / follower ratio to determine who they want to follow before actually “trying the food.”

There are many ways to cause lines to form, yet far fewer to cook a great meal.

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Meet Biba Milioto. She’s the creative inspiration behind the social media fashion campaign that has women chasing hidden bags all over New
York City.

Here’s how it works:

Brooklyn handbag designer Rachel Nasvik is luring New Yorkers to her twitter account and blog offering clues as to where she will “loose”
her next bag. Each bag is stuffed with the essentials for a night on the town including a summer mix of music and a mysterious key. The bag
includes a note to the lucky finder which instructs them that the bag is theirs to keep. Finders are encouraged to log on to the blog and
post the story of how they found it under the corresponding picture of the bag’s location. The campaign has been very successful
in getting users excited and eager to participate in the hunt. It’s a great example of how to use social media creatively and effectively.

1. What was the creative inspiration for the campaign?

A few yards of neon pink leather and a desire to create something that was purely fun, and completely tailored to the target market—something that would delight them and engage them in the story of the Rachel Nasvik brand.

It’s actually two separate ideas that happily fused together, amazingly enough. Rachel and I conceived of the bag-hunt aspect separately from what we’re now calling ‘phase two’ which is launching this weekend.

Michael Hastings-Black of Desedo cooked up this fantastic idea of joining forces with street vendors in NYC and getting the bags to have some full-on street level face time- his inspiration was trying to further tease out the totally dedicated relationship that the Rachel Nasvik brand has with New York City, since the brand is so rooted here, where it was born. I love that it has brought the two separate ideas into one cohesive campaign. It’s been great, great fun.

2.  You mentioned there’s a second phase. What can fans expect to see?

Well- that’s where Mr. Hastings-Black comes in. He conceived of this great idea where we hook up with some street vendors (the guys that sell the knockoffs) and slip some of the Rachel Nasvik bags into the mix. It’s meant to be surprising, funny, and irreverent, and also meant to be a bit of a love letter to New York- so much of Rachel’s brand is inspired by the New York lifestyle. What’s neat about this second phase is that since we’re cutting out the middle man of the retailer, there will be maximum street-level presence. We expect to roll that out this weekend.

3. What results have you seen?

The reaction has been overwhelming- on the first day we picked up about 700 followers on Twitter thanks to some web press from DailyCandy.com- that number has grown to nearly 1,000.The blog we set up www.wherethenighttakesyou.blogspot.com has seen lots of commenting and clicks.  And the media loves the idea as much as the NYC audience does- we’ve had such great coverage, which has continued to spread the word. It seems to have offered everyone a reason to smile and pay attention. We’ve also witnessed girls running down the street to be the first to grab the bag!

4. How have you used Twitter to promote the brand and the campaign?

The Twitter account is the lifeline of the campaign- we use it to drop clues, to ask questions, to post pictures. It’s the bridge that is directly connecting us to our rapt audience.

5.  What is the most surprising aspect of the campaign?

How constantly evolving it is- and how because it’s small and tightly managed, it can change every day to up the ante. If Michael has an
idea, or Rachel wants to try something different, we can just go for it and see what happens. It’s exhilarating, and really gratifying. The flexibility of the web and the immediacy of the Twitter feed has totally changed the game in terms of interactivity.

6. What did you do to make sure this campaign truly represented the Rachel Nasvik brand?

I had worked with Rachel previously when I was the Marketing Director at Ravinstyle.com. So I had a very precise idea of where the brand was positioned, and since I live in New York, where there are lots of RN fans, I usually spot at least one bag on the subway each day (full disclosure- I have a closet full of them myself!). So I know there’s a street style, an edginess, and a spirit that is very specific to her customer. She’s the kind of girl who knows where the get the best cocktail in the city, who peruses the smartest bookstores, and eats at the coolest new restaurant- you know, the one that doesn’t have it’s liquor license yet? She’s also not flashy or showy and appreciates subtlety in design.

So- I knew we had to be fresh and smart and that dreaded word: cool. And cool here in New York has an atmosphere & an address- we figured if we showed up where that girl was, with a gorgeous bag and a neat strategy, we’d embody the essence of the brand perfectly.

7.  You called this an “experiment.” What were you testing?

We were testing the waters of interactivity and looking to see how far people would follow us into the game. Will they trek all the way across town for a bag? Will they use a password and ask for what they want? We were experimenting with removing most of the boundaries that usually exist between a brand an it’s audience—we are directly interacting with them in a way that usually doesn’t happen. I’m happy to say it worked!

8.  Can you provide my readers with any advanced clues to where the next bag may be dropped?

That would ruin the fun of the anticipation! Follow the Twitter feed!

**Recognition: Special thanks to @JennMorales for recognizing the campaign and support all aspects of this posts.

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(Image from National ACademic ADvising Association) 

I asked several people how they found what they love to do and if they always knew what that was.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, told me:

“I don’t think you’ll always know… Some things may seem glamorous and you’ll find out that you don’t actually enjoy it, and other things that you might have never thought of may actually end up being really enjoyable.  I think it takes a lot of trial and error… you may end up loving underwater basket weaving, but you’ll never know until you try it! I would just try to meet a lot of people from all different backgrounds and try to do a little of everything… and also read a lot of different types of books. The more people and perspectives you are exposed to, the more likely you’ll end up figuring out what you love to do!”

I respect Tony’s advice. He practices what he preaches. His speech on happiness at SXSW gave many people, myself included, Goosebumps. If you weren’t there, check it out below.

Zappos - SXSW - 3-14-09

View more OpenOffice presentations from zappos.

I asked Guy Kawasaki. He told me:

“I stumbled upon it. There wasn’t a plan at all. “

He advised those looking for what they love:

“Keep your eyes and ears open and pursue living with abandon. It’s a numbers game: try a lot of things to discover what you love.”

I asked the question of Marc Girolimetti, a friend and founder of Green Grotto Studios:

“It all depends, because personally I love many things… If it’s someone like my wife, well we found each other. Neither was seeking the type of companionship  that we ended up fostering, but we recognized the significance of the situation and ran with it. Then we go and start a family and you have an automatic mechanism to love your dog or your child. However, I do believe in the ability to attract things that you love…”

I’ve thought about the question for several months and continue to revisit it with friends.

I found what I love by trying to understand what people and companies were really trying to communicate–and helping them do it more effectively. When I started, it wasn’t a job—it was a practice — something I did as a daily habit. I found its relevance to my career when I observed the importance of clarity in improving marketing as well as in how people work together. The practice of seeking clarity is something which I do in my own life every day. It’s not a job. It’s a practice. My advice for finding what you love is to ask yourself what you want your “practice” to be.

Well, what do you want your practice to be?
What advice do you have for those seeking what they love?

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I am suspicious of tools that claim to identify influencers on Twitter. Most of them are influenced by an obvious but highly dubious metric - namely, a users’ number of followers. But every day, new tools and techniques make it easier for the average Twitter user to zoom into the follower-count stratosphere. This rockets them up the list at sites like Twitter Grader and Twitalyzer, and gives them more prominent indexing in directories like We Follow and Twellow.

Most of those sites also consider other factors, of course; Mashable provides a detailed analysis of them.

I prefer to use three other metrics in addition to those tools:

1. Number of retweets: Retweetist
2. Number of times the Twitter user’s bit.ly links are clicked. If you have 200 followers and tweet a link that is clicked 120 times, that’s a pretty good sign your network is listening to you.

3. Offline identity. Hundreds of reporters who are new to Twitter have few followers, low influence scores and Twitter Grader grades. And yet many of them can influence millions.

Influence plays an important role of social media marketing. We live in a world where brands buy tens of millions of impressions to reach the right tens of thousands of people. Online influencers create trends and inform buying decisions, so it benefits these companies to invest time and resources in cultivating them.

Significant literature supports this premise, from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” to scholarly studies in the Harvard Business Review.

About a year ago, Duncan Watts argued against influencer theory, suggesting trends are a result of society’s readiness for them, rather than the power of an elite group of tastemakers.

“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” he writes. Succeeding with a new product is less about finding the perfect hipster to infect and more about gauging the public’s mood. There will always be a first mover, but the contingent nature of that move makes the person in question an “accidental influencer.”
I am more inclined toward Gladwell’s model than Duncan’s. Regardless of society’s readiness for a new trend, I believe the means and messenger of its introduction shape its impact.

I actually am less interested in influencers themselves than I am in those who influence the influencers. I believe that Twitter offers average marketers, even those without sophisticated tools, a unique ability to find out who is influencing each other. One simple way to do this is to use tweetstats to see who an influencer @replies the most.

No matter what tools you use, the influencer campaign’s success depends on how you relate to the influencers once you locate them. If you intend to launch a campaign targeting influencers, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s site is a must read:

“Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns.”

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Early Wake-up FAIL!

Originally uploaded by mandiberg

1. Steal. Take ideas without citing the source. You can do this by not linking to a blog you’re quoting, or lifting someone’s tweet and re-tweeting without giving them credit.

2. Sell without establishing a relationship. Here’s how: tell me how much money you’re making on Twitter in your autofollow DM, or start promoting yourself, your accomplishments, your blog constantly.

3. Remain hidden. Don’t put up a profile picture. Don’t use a real bio. Better yet, don’t use a bio at all.

4. Constantly ask for help without providing any value. There are hundreds of millions of people on social networks—and they are all there to help you figure out how to subscribe to a feed, find a great website and use Twitter. Feel free to ask them daily. They’re waiting for you.

5. Lie. Tell people you’re a guy when you’re a girl. Claim to have a PHd when you have a GED. Pretend you’re a Star Trek fan when you’ve never seen it. Embellish on your accomplishments. People will never know.

6. Abuse the poking, nudging features on social networks. We all forget that you can poke people on Facebook and nudge on Twitter. A daily reminder should be sufficient.

7. Be inconsistent. Update your blog every day for a month and then don’t blog for a year. Try the same approach on Facebook and Twitter.

8. Be “that guy.” Comment on every picture your friends post on Facebook with an inside joke that only you and two other people understand. CC the entire email list to respond with a 1 or 2 word answer to a question intended for the group. Whine.

9. Use punctuation to express your enthusiasm!!!! Often!!!

10. Remind everyone that you’re an expert. Every day someone forgets. It’s your duty to not let that not happen.

What did I forget?

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Easter Bunny Confidential: Unmasked!

Originally uploaded by IanMatthewSoper

When you follow a company on Twitter, who do you think you’re following? Do you visualize a person? And if so, is it an intern, a brand manager, a spokesperson…? Do they have the authority to speak on behalf of the brand?

Put it this way, if you were to invite the brand you’re following to a tweet up, who exactly is it that you want to attend? When I follow a brand I expect that they are paying attention—that what happens on Twitter matters—my feedback matters. What do you expect from the brands you follow? And who, specifically, do you think you’re following?

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The benefits of social networks apply to both business to consumer and business to business models, as well as to individual executives
within those organizations. Both types of companies can use social networks to recruit talent, build reputation, identify new customers, connect more meaningfully with existing customers, respond to service issues, develop an effective communication channel with the press and the public.  For business to business organizations,  social networks provide a platform to position a company as a resource and thought leader in its respective industry. This can be accomplished by sharing
assets such as whitepapers and other industry insight. Essentially, a business can derive similar value through social networks as they can through participating in a conference.

Executives can use social networks as professional development resources. Follow subject matter experts on Twitter to benefit from articles and opinions even before they are written in trade publications. Pay attention to status updates in Facebook and LinkedIn to gain perspective into what colleagues are thinking.  Participating in social networks provides even greater opportunities. These include generating new business, speaking engagements, interviews with reporters and personal branding as a subject matter expert.

Of all the compelling reasons to be on social networks, I believe the most compelling is enhancement. Executives make mistakes assuming
social networking is an end, rather than a means to end. Here’s what I mean. If you are an executive whose sales strategy involves learning
about a new industry, a social network will provide unique insights. If you are a seasoned executive looking for speaking engagements, there are many ways to use social networks to achieve this end. My advice to you is to articulate the goals you wish to achieve for yourself and your business first and then determine which social
networks and what strategies and tactics will enable you to realize them.

Here are 5 articles I’ve found useful in demonstrating the power of social networks and social media:

•    Forbes: Yes, CEOs Should Facebook and Twitter. The importance of CEO’s and companies participating in business, new media requires a different way to do business.

•    WSJ.com: The Art of Making Online ‘Friends.’ Builds a strong case for building up your social networks, including your “weak ties.”

•    BusinessWeek: Social Networking 101 For Businesses. Businesses need to embrace social networking as a part of doing business.

•    NYTimes: I’m So Totally, Digitally Close to You. Article centers around the relationships people form through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It centers around the concept of “ambient awareness” which helps explain the appeal of constant updates from these social networks.

•    BusinessWeek: Are Social Networking Sites Useful for Business? To get the most out of social networking sites, small companies should set concrete business goals, then start experimenting.

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• Beware of changing near windows. Zoom in on any picture in this collection to see what a billion megapixels looks like. Here’s a hint: it contains 150 times more detail than a 6 megapixel camera. See here.
• Looking for what domain and twitter names are available. Check it out.
• An analysis of Brooke Hogan’s Twitter.  I like the concept of twitter account analysis a lot.
• @tweetmeme I’m excited to follow this account which spotlights twitter trends.
• Cool article i’m reading write now: Anthropology: The Art of Building a Successful Social Site

What are you reading right now? Who are you following on Twitter that you really enjoy?

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I currently manage several twitter accounts and help clients grow theirs.

Here’s a few things I’ve noticed. This isn’t based on science but from experience building many accounts from scratch.

• 
• Accounts with photos attract more followers than those without
• Photos of people usually attract more followers than logos
• Twitter accounts with wallpaper attract more followers than those without
• Attractive people seem to have an easier time getting followers
• One of the most important aspects of your twitter account is your name. If your name contains a term you want to associate with, like “luxury” or “advertising,” it’s a lot easier to build followers who share that interest.
• Clever names take more work. If I called my Twitter account “SocialMediaTrends,” rather than “QuiverandQuill” I think it would have taken off much faster. If you don’t believe this, open as second account and try it out.
• Don’t just share links to articles. It makes you look like a robot. Add your opinion, your distinct, human voice.
• What goes on behind the scenes is just as important as the tweet stream. That means create relationships by DMing people with whom you click.
• Use Retweeting and Follow Friday as a way to acknowledge the people in your network with whom you want to build a relationship.
• Twitter takes time. I think this point is somewhat deceiving. On the one hand Twitter is all about what you are doing “right now.” It is the consistency of what you write over time and how deeply it resonates with followers that form the meaningful connections that make twitter worthwhile.
• You are going to be asked about the ROI of Twitter if you’re a business person spending a portion of your day there. I recommend you responding first by determine what activity you do in business that most contributes to revenue or profitability. This could be business meetings, research, cold calls, speaking at conferences, sales, etc. Then use Twitter to assist with that activity. See Chris Brogan for how this works with sales.
• I use Twitter for more than just having a conversation with followers. It’s a source of news and insight. I subscribe to subject matter experts on business, corporate social responsibility, fashion, advertising and travel. They constantly share interesting, thoughtful tweets with links to articles and resources.
• You don’t have to keep up with Twitter. You don’t have to read everything. No one was grading you (except Twitter grader).
• Show people you are paying attention. Acknowledge them. Make them smile or think.
• At unconferences there’s this law called, “the law of two feet.” It means when something doesn’t interest you use your two feet to find something that does. I view Twitter the same way. It’s the law of two clicks. If someone isn’t providing value click on their name and then click unfollow. You can shape your experience.
• As with all branding, consistency is key. When the name, photo, wallpaper, tweets, RT, DM are all consistent with the brand, people will better understand your identity.

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I read an article today that stated 60% of new Twitter users bail. This makes sense on several levels. Twitter has become the darling of celebrities and the media. This publicity has produced a spike in traffic and attracted new audiences to the social network. However, using Twitter is not intuitive.

There is a disconnect between the enthusiasm with which Twitter is described in the media and the confusion a new user may experience when signing up. Even though Twitter is in the process of becoming a mass market platform, it’s still not “as seen on TV,” simple yet. And I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful in the same way I’m thankful when I take a good friend to my favorite Italian restaurant before Daily Candy discovered it.

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Meet Jake Karger. She’s my business partner, a management and marketing professional. I’ve learned much from her. My most important take-away has been clarifying results with a client prior to launching a campaign. Unless there is agreement on what outcomes you are trying to achieve, it does not matter how flawlessly the marketing is implemented. I’ve asked her 10 questions below for you to get to know her better.

1. Why should companies focus on “hiring” when we are in a recession?

Because good hiring = putting the right person in the right job to move a business forward. Managers can take all the principles and behaviors of “good hiring” and change them to “good management”. They are the same.

2. What is the difference between a good manager and a great manager?   

Good results v. great results.

3. When you are selling services, like coaching managers, how do you quantify results with your clients?

The coaching has to start with clear expectations. And the expectations have to be outcomes that can actually occur as the result of the work.

Example: a sales consultant doesn’t increase revenue; the sales staff increases revenue as a result of good coaching. The specific expectations of a sales consulting engagement might be:

• A set of repeatable actions by salespeople
• Each seller able to deliver a killer presentation
• Salesperson expertise in vertical channels
• 50 appointments with decision makers

4. I know you are active on Twitter. What do you enjoy most about it?

I love to follow professionals and experts who put learning and information out into the world in 140 character messages. So efficient. I LOVE following the links to great bites of information that make me smarter faster.

5. What’s a company whose marketing you respect?

Nike. They have clarity and Consistency. A real voice. When I think of Nike I instantly think of “just do it”. To me, it’s genius the way their “just do it” message is in everything they do, despite the fact that they have evolved that slogan.

6. What are a few things that make you laugh

Tiny rubber chickens; (I have hundreds of them. I am the Johnny Appleseed of rubber chickens); Ricky Gervais (everything); The Office - both US and Brit; Original SNL and especially Gilda Radner; Stupid movies like Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. And now…Harold works for Obama! (or is it Kumar?)

7. Why do you blog?

I am so damn bossy that I named my company “Just Tell Me How To Manage”.  Ergo, how can I NOT blog?  I am very busy telling everyone how to manage.

8. If you could interview anyone on your blog, who would that be and why?

All the crummy bosses that I have worked for; I would expose their crummy-ness to the world. And Peter Drucker. Always Peter Drucker. I would interview Peter Drucker over and over and over. Nobody else would be necessary.

9. What’s something that people who read your blog do not know about you?

I dated Jerry Seinfeld when I lived in LA and we were both young.

10. You often say, “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” What do you mean by that? And, do you think people are capable of change?

In other words, “wishing ain’t gonna make it so”.  YOU GOTTA DO SOMETHING…that’s what it means. I encourage people to change their
behavior, not who they are. If you’re bossy, admit it, embrace it, and work with it. Don’t  try to suppress it because it can’t be suppressed. I definitely do not try to change my clients. Instead, I encourage managers to use their strengths more often and their weaknesses less often. Change the behavior, not the person.

>>>If you like what you read, visit her on twitter, @JakeKarger and www.justtellmehowtomanage.com.

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The freakishly beautiful Strata Center at MIT hosted BarCamp Boston 4. BarCamps are unconferences meaning attendees shape the agenda. The BarCamp wiki plays at major role in determining who attends. Often the first people who sign up attract similar people and determine the event’s audience.  According to one attendee, the Boston social media crowd split from the Boston technology crowd. The former flocked to Podcamps and the latter to BarCamps. Unaware of this, I signed up to teach a social media workshop at BarCamp entitled “Twitter for Business.”

I signed up 20 minutes before driving to MIT. And when I arrived, my name tag was printed and waiting for me. Sooz took my picture which was then printed on a sheet of paper and handed to me. On the paper were a few questions:
* Pick 3 tags that define you. (I selected: socialmediamarketing, blogger and rubberchicken)
* What idea which no one knows about will be hot in 5 years?
* What’s your favorite input?

There were two reasons why our picture was taken and responses used.

When everyone at the conference gathered together for the morning meeting, all 300+ people were asked to stand and introduce themselves. Rather than sitting through hours of elevator speeches, each person said their name and their three tags.  This let everyone in the room take note of others with similar interests.
Our picture and responses were posted against the wall for all attendees to see.

Sessions were also posted on the wall. Each was listed on sticky pad affixed to an oversized chalkboard. To gauge interest in a session, people wrote its title on a piece of paper then posted it to the proposed session board. Attendees grabbed markers and made a check on the sessions that interested them.

My session, Twitter for Business, offered strategies to help attendees develop their twitter accounts.
My primary recommendation was to start a business account for twitter focusing on a specific type of content or topic. Post content relevant to that topic, follow people who care about that topic and show them you’re paying attention by adding value, asking and answering questions.

I left BarCamp 4 with a few key take aways:

•  Let conference attendees vote on topics to increase interest and participation
• Ask people to select tags that define them to help others easily network
• Post attendees picture and interests to add to the networking experience

Since attendees shape an unconference, one expects it to be less organized than a planned conference; however, every BarCamp I’ve attended has been expertly managed.

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I’ve noticed that many brands on twitter are using promotional codes in their autofollow messages. I know autofollow messages aren’t popular. However, I like this strategy for brands. If you’re a brand, it’s an immediate way to offer a benefit to a follower. And I do not simply dismiss autofollow messages as all bad. I think it’s a function of creativity and relevance. People don’t want to speak with a machine–that’s for sure–but there are ways to craft a message that reflects the personality of the brand. When in doubt, I wouldn’t use an autofollow message. However, if you can craft a message, and a promo code, that benefits your followers in real, tangible ways–makes them laugh or think–then go for it. Your thoughts?

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I’ve always respected people who do. And it just so happens, that one of my clients, Trish Karter, is one of these people. She’s the CEO of Dancing Deer, an avid cyclist who runs a double bottom-line company. Dancing Deer’s corporate cause is family homelessness, and Trish Karter is advocating for that cause in a unique and real way.

From April 22-May 6 she’s climbing on her bike, travelling more than 1,500 and staying at homeless shelters along the way. The purpose of this ride is to raise awareness about family homelessness, and my company, refine+focus is helping introduce Trish to people on social networks for whom this cause is important.
Every day we’re learning more about family homelessness and the people it impacts. And over the next few weeks, I plan on sharing what I learn with you, both here on my blog, as well as everywhere I live online. I encourage you to check out Dancing Deer’s bike ride initiative, and if it interests you, join us in this cause (by tweeting, posting, asking questions, etc).

Here’s Dancing Deer’s blog, and I think this feature—that lets you track Trish in real-time, is especially cool.

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If you follow social media, you’re familiar with the phrase “lead the conversation.” Brands use when discussing a thought leader strategy online. For example, HubSpot helps small to medium size businesses with tools to manage inbound marketing. They’ve created twitter.grader.com and other tools, to lead the conversation about online tools. Zappos, in addition to being a major online retailer, is leading the conversation about customer service. They use twitter, company blogs and executive keynotes to evangelize about customer service. Nokia’s recent Facebook application, Talking Points, is another example of a powerhouse brand leading a conversation onlinw..

The Talking Points application asks Facebook users to write the rules on conversational etiquette on Facebook, text, mobile and in person. The community votes on the best responses, and users can send responses to their Facebook friends to earn even more votes. Nokia’s tagline is “connecting people,” and this promotion does just that. In fact, it’s a group conversation on the etiquette of how we connect.

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( by corresponding shapes on Flickr)

When I tweet, cool stuff happens. I call it Twitter serendipity.

I’ll discuss a band on twitter, a few minutes later friends on twitter reply with links to songs I’ve never heard from that band. A few months ago, I helped a new twitter friend find a good deal on a hotel room in NYC. Turns out he’s the VP of a company I’d like to work with. Today, a prominent blogger discovered a tweet I wrote a few months back about wanting to represent bloggers — not just their media but their full offering as brands — to companies. That blogger who emailed me had perfect timing. I am in the process of building that model right now.

When I tweet, cool stuff happens.

I discover articles and events. And most importantly, I discover people.
Businesses often ask about the ROI of twitter. And while there are many ways to answer that question, that most elusive and compelling benefit of twitter is the relationships you create.  So, what’s the ROI of a relationship?

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Eight year old Sandra Cantu has been missing for days. Her search committee has opened up a twitter account, @searchforsandra, to share updates and spread the word about their emergency. The twittersphere has retweeted this many times-and if you have a moment, visit their website to see what you can do to help.  While not making light of this emergency, I am interested that the search committee is using twitter in this way.

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Cheeks

Originally uploaded by Yogi

I blog both to explore what interests me and to share it with people who interest me. Sometimes, that interest is in business insights, leaders and thinkers and other times it’s culture, humor and inspiration. Re-reading a few things I wrote last year made me realize my writing was a lil too stuffy. I’d like to have a bit more fun here. Maybe a few more typos and tangents? I need to unbutton my top button so to speak.

And I’d also like to hear from you, too. Either in the comments or email. Lets turn this into a dialogue. Sound good?

I read a passage last night that that had a wow factor. It’s from “Good Poems for Hard Times” by Garrison Kellor.

“The common life is precarious. I fear a future in which America becomes a loose aggregate of marauding tribes—no binding traditions, no songs that we all know, not even the “Star-Spangled Banner,” or “Silent Night,” no common heroes, no American literature—only the promotional lit of race and ethnicity, our people unable to name their senators, their only political experience via television, their only public life at Wal-Mart.”

Do you fear this future? I am more concerned with a future in which we are all chanting the same songs, in which our eagerness to create and defend a unified national culture creates a community of zealots. It’s not that I like individual tribes, rather It’s I like what happens when the cultures from all those tribes interact to create something larger and more meaningful. That’s the type of national experience I am interested in having & sharing.

How about you?

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antisocial behaviour

Originally uploaded by kalamita

Person 1: “What do you do?”
Person 2: “Conversation,”
Person 2: “What do you do?”
Person 1: “Conversation, too.”
Person 2: “Cool.”
Person 1: “Cool.”

Replace “conversation” with the word, “social media,” and that’s how many of the discussions at SXSW went this year.
I am always entertained by conversations between social media folks when, upon learning that the person they are also speaking with also is in social media, become awkwardly silent.
I learned a while back not to assume that people in social media, necessarily, are social.
I do have high hopes, though, for those whose living it is to encourage and contribute to conversation, that those same principles will translate offline.

A few months ago, I went to a technology event in Europe. In a moment of geek glory, I noticed a beautiful example of anti-social social media behavior.
At a table of 10 geeks, no one talked. Then, suddenly, at the same time, we all started to laugh.
Why? Because someone in the chat room made a joke.

Hey social media people, so…what do you do?

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