What First in Social Media?
A question that I get all the time is “How do I get started in social media? There are a million blogs out there, which ones should I start with?” Since I frequently tell people basically the same answer, I figured I should probably blog about it (although, if they are a complete newbie, they probably aren’t reading my blog, so perhaps I’m launching this into the echo chamber, but nevertheless, here we go…)
One of my favorite first stops on the getting your feet wet highway is the Common Craft Show. This site has a myriad of intro/how to/in plain English videos. One of my favorites is Social Bookmarking in plain English. Last summer, my mom asked me what delicious is and why she would ever want to use it. After tripping and stumbling over my tongue for a few moments attempting to figure out how to explain it to her, I turned on my computer and showed her this:
After watching it she said, “ok, I get it” and then she actually started using it! My goal this summer: get her on Twitter.
Now onto blogs:
There are quite a few quality blogs out there. All of them require a newbie to comb a little, but there are definitely nuggets of gold to be found. A few good places to start are Chris Brogan’s blog, for microblogging (aka Twitter) Laura “Pistachio” Fittons’s blog, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel is also great. I recently blogged about a list that Viralogy put together of the 10 best marketing blogs by Gen-Yers. If you are interested in affiliate marketing and how to make money from you blog, and about blogging in general definitely check out Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. If video blogging (or vlogging) is your thing, then Steve Garfield is your man.
Now, before I hurt any one’s feelings for leaving them out… I want to state loud and clearly that there are a TON of amazing blogs out there on a TON of topics. Many of which I read almost daily (I definitely don’t have time for the newspaper anymore, but with all the great content out there, who needs a newspaper?!) The resources I listed above are simply what I view as a good starting places to begin the adventure that is social media.
With all that being said, what do you think? Is there a blog or a site that you advise people to read when they are dipping their toes in for the first time? I’m always looking to be a better advice giver, so please share :)
Photo Credit: Bartek Kuzia
Everything should be Negotiable
How many times have you called a customer service help line and not gotten a satisfactory response? Or a human one for that matter? Customer service should not be a chore that is farmed out with limited training to people that can’t really do much for you. To often customer service gets a bad rap for being unable to solve your issue and you often leave the conversation angrier then when you began it.
What can you do then to stop this wave of frustration? Pay customers for their time on the phone? Offer incentives for quality answers? Casual Friday? Maybe, but none of these solutions offer any real progress to solving the customer service headache.
Ways to Change:
1. Reward Innovation. The best solutions usually come from the call center floor. The people in the trenches know the best ways to find out whether something works or not simply by testing it. So ask them to come up with solutions.
2. Don’t block access, enable it. If you can’t trust your customer service employees to do the right thing and solve problems by giving them access to a system that would allow this. Why are they employed by you? What value could they be possibly adding?
3. Utilize every channel (and make sure people can access your services from where THEY are and not where you are). This is getting more and more important as time goes on. People don’t use one form of communication to reach people anymore. They utilize several…until they get a response they prefer. The phone and email have been the standard for to long: let’s open up the door for a variety of services.
Empowerment is the only way to ensure customers have a more positive experience. You need to allow people to actually help people in order to help people? Not exactly rocket science but in today’s world it seems pretty damn close.
Does your company have the same commitment to customer service as the rescuer? It should.
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This is a guest post by Stuart Foster.
Stuart Foster is a marketing/PR consultant in the Boston area. He specializes in brand management, social media, and blog outreach. He authors a blog at Thelostjacket.com
Top 10 Gen-Y Marketing Blogs via Viralogy
I love top 10 lists. I love Gen-Y bloggers. I love marketing blogs. Throw them all together into one post, and I’m so happy that I have to write my own blog post about it.
Today, Viralogy came out with their Top Ten Gen Y Marketing Blogs list. While some of the names on the list are familiar to me (Stuart Foster’s Lost Jacket) most are blogs I haven’t read before. I’ve already checked out a couple of them this morning and am greatly looking forward to reading the rest soon.
The metrics for rating the top blogs are very interesting too. Linkbacks, Traffic, Comments, Authority, Followers, and Retweets were all evaluated to create a rubric for rating each site. I find it very interesting that he didn’t just look at the blog’s status, but at the impact and waves the authors are making on other sites too.
If you haven’t checked out Viralogy before I highly suggest you do. It’s a blog/vlog by Jun Loayza (@JunLoayza) where he interviews, via Skype, other awesome gen-yers. His blog is pretty sweet too.
What do you think of the list? What blogs do you think he missed that should have been on it?
Shiny Toys and Paralysis
This past Tuesday, during Social Media Breakfast 13, George Grattan shared with us the extent of how Earth Watch is using social media. One thing in particular about what George said stood out for me (and I think a lot of other people in the room). He told us that Earth Watch isn’t on Twitter. Yet. He stressed the yet because he says that he understands the value of Twitter but isn’t ready to engage.
This is simultaneously commendable and worrisome.
C.C. congratulated George for not getting caught up in “shiny object” syndrome. Too often, we see brands that are using social media simply for the sake of using social media, and because it’s the “hot” thing to be doing right now. Many a blog posts have been written about the importance of listening before engaging, of creating a strategy before jumping in with both feet. I completely agree. Only engage in social media if it makes sense for YOU.
So. Why did I find his comment worrisome?
I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down with George to discuss, so this is purely conjecture and my own reaction, thus, it is entirely possible that what I’m about to say does not in fact apply to Earth Watch, but nonetheless, I believe it does apply to many people/brands/situations.
Part of the reason he gave for not engaging yet, is he isn’t sure what to say. Not knowing exactly what to say is not a reason to not be on Twitter. This may seem like a contradiction to what I said previously about having a strategy, but I assure you, it isn’t. Strategy and tactics are two different things. Strategy is the reason you are there, the overall approach that will hopefully have a specific outcome. Tactics are the nitty gritty. If Earth Watch isn’t on Twitter yet, because they haven’t decided on a strategy, then great. They should wait. If it’s dues to tactics, then I’m worried, for their sake.
When I first joined Twitter I was often struck with paralysis of the tweet. I wanted so much to be witty and interesting and smart, for people to enjoy my tweets, for them to want to engage with me and read what I had to say. I wanted all to the point that I found myself frozen in front of my computer or cell phone in hand, having no idea what to say. I had effectively psyched myself out of the game. It took me a while to relax and just be myself, without the strain of worrying if my 140 characters would change the world. With paralysis (or simply not engaging) comes so much missed opportunity. So don’t get stuck!!
What about you? Have you been struck by shiny object syndrome? Or paralysis? If yes to either, how do you navigate it?
photo credit: marcus_jb1973
Social Media Jungle Boston
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Social Media Jungle hosted by Jeff Pulver here in Boston (well, Waltham actually, but close enough). It was a great day with a lot of amazing speakers. The format was casual, which I’ve come to expect at social media conferences and events. Each presenter had 20 minutes to present their thoughts/ideas with no PowerPoint slides. Jeff encouraged all the speakers (and the audience) to think of each session like a blog post–floating ideas out there for people to interact with and comment on. Some sessions were more interactive than others, Laura @Pistachio Fitton had us raising our hands for polling purposes, Steve Garfield had us uploading pictures to the web real-time and Christopher Penn has us shouting out what numbers matter to us like a game show. Lots of other amazing people presented that day and I highly suggest checking out the assembly of blog posts that came out of the day. And don’t forget to check out the Twitter stream from the day too.
A few of my take-aways from the day:
- Be human, be real, be vulnerable — we are people talking to people. Not brands talking to brands or companies talking to companies.
- One email can make all the difference (of course this is one of my take-aways, it was mine and Alexa’s session ;-)
- We need to stop talking about social media in social media. Time to spread the gospel. Or time to just use the tools without always talking about the tools.
- Be HELPful - Hustle, Engage, Listen, be Passionate
- Engage each generation, utilize each one of the generations’ specific talents. No one is irrelevant, no one is too inexperienced. Each generation brings a unique perspective to the table. Be cognizant of that and use it to your advantage.
- Numbers matter. But don’t let them matter too much. (CC Chapman first spoke about how the numbers don’t matter, then later in the day CS Penn rebutted with how certain numbers do matter, and matter a lot. The balance of the two points of view was perfection.)
- The influencer doesn’t matter. The message matters. If you say something good, and say it for long enough, people will hear. You don’t necessarily need a loud speaker. And having one doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to pay attention.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to passion. BE PASSIONATE about what you do. Excitement can be found in the most mundane of details and tasks if you look hard enough. And in this crazy world we live in, with the economy spiraling out of control, my one little piece of advice–keep breathing.
