A few words.

I’d like to offer my fans a sincere and heartfelt apology. There’s no excuse for waiting this long to put a few new words up here. I could say that I’ve been busy, but that’s a lie. Yeah, I do things, but so do Sydney Owen and Nicole Antoinette and yet they somehow manage to come up with good content on a regular basis. Yeah, I went there. I read a blog that’s 90-95% about vaginas. And I’m a man. Wanna fight about it?

As some of you know, I have recently started a new career in sales. As I was reading through my last post I noticed a few things 1.) I have zero idea what I’m talking about 2.) My mixture of optimism and narcissism is completely unfounded, and 3.) I should update this thing more often so that previous posts get pushed to the bottom of the page and out of view of the general public.

And finally: factotum, lubricious, dubiety.

Social media for sales (don’t get caught with your jorts down)

If you’re like me, you probably occasionally find yourself torn between two social media personalities; the fun, after 5:00 person and the get-down-to-business, before 5:00 person. This identity split in social media has been widely discussed in a plethora of different places online, but in the shameless spirit of self-promotion, I have discussed it here, here and here.

In this post, I will discuss some important dos and don’ts for representing your brand or company in a sales capacity in the social media space. It’s important to remember that we are all human and we all make missteps and commit errors when tweeting or facebooking or linkedinning, so consider the following info a set of loose guidelines and don’t hang yourself with your belt if you are guilty of any infractions. Oh yeah, and remember that I’m just a guy offering advice and not a ‘social media guru’ or ‘maven’ or ‘whatever other term du jour people use to describe themselves as someone who knows how to talk to people without looking or acting like a fool online.’

When discussing social media and the mix between personal and professional images on the internets, it’s important to figure out why companies are in the space in the first place. I break down the general motivation for a corporate online presence into three categories: sales, customer service and crisis management. Each category can be further broken down to more granular objectives like promotion in the sales category or troubleshooting in the client services category, but let’s leave these three categories intact for now.

When you decide to represent your company using a personal social media profile or account, first ask yourself this question: how am I furthering my company’s goals in one or more of these three categories? If the answer is that you aren’t, and you’re just complaining about how bad your day was, I’d leave your company out of it entirely. Trust me. You’ll thank me for it when the girl next to you gets canned because she tweeted about how her client is making her want to stick toothpicks in her eyes.

It seems to me that most companies encourage positive, cost-free promotion of their products or services (Did that just sound as dumb as I think it did?), but keep in mind that there are rules. Especially in the sales category. Especially.

Sales is about image. Your personal image, your online image and the image that you project of your product or service. When you decide to interact with a client or potential client on behalf of your organization, consider your personal online image first and foremost because that’s exactly how a prospect will judge you, and ultimately, your product. Based on your twitter account, do you look like someone who is knowledgable and proficient in the area of social media? If not, why are you using it as a medium to interact with a customer in the first place?

Think about it this way: would you buy a high-tech medical device from a person wearing jorts? Let me explain. Without going into the analogy too too much, your image online is a lot like your image in person. It suggests income level, education level and level of expertise in a given area. If you are interacting with customers or potential customers online, the image that you are portraying of yourself is transferred directly to your product or service and may very well affect a customer’s decision about whether or not to do business with your company.  I, for one, would be awfuly skeptical about any product being pitched by a person wearing jorts. But maybe that’s just me.

So if you swoop in on what you consider a sales opportunity on twitter from an account without a picture, without a background, and you are tweeting for the second time in the history of ever, be prepared to be taken about as seriously as our friend wearing the jorts and trying to sell medical devices.

Here are a few things to consider when representing your company online in a sales capacity. First, the number of followers that you have is not the end-all-be-all of online judgement. But it doesn’t hurt your cause either. The number of people who care what you have to say is superficial, but does play a role in whether or not people will listen to you. Secondly, I think that the amount of interaction that you have with other people online is a great way of determining whether or not you are a person that someone would want to do business with. Lastly, I think that what you talk about online is an important factor. If all you do is pitch products or services, you are less likely to be someone who a customer would like to talk to. Based on your history, your conversation with a prospective customer will likely be a high-pressure, uncomfortable sales pitch.

I probably should have started with this disclaimer, but it’s always a good idea to speak with someone already using social media in your company before doing ANYTHING on behalf of them in the social media space. Every company is different and figuring out what initiatives are currently in place will help you figure out what you can do to help.

Anatomy of a hiatus.

Hey you. It’s been awhile. What’s new? Oh yeah? How’s that going? Good? Good.

Me? I’ve been keeping pretty busy. I started a new job last week and hit a bit of a breaking point when it comes to what I can fit on my plate and still devour everything with the same zest for life to which I have grown accustomed.

I feel like we started off on the wrong foot. The angry foot. The foot that would rather rant than converse. For that, I sincerely apologize. My point is this: Color Me Social was supposed to be a discussion. Even while I was writing angry, fiery posts about how you are screwing up and why I have a chip on my shoulder and yadda yadda yadda, I knew that I couldn’t keep up with the tone that I was building. It’s not in my nature to focus on the negative. So let’s try this again, but this time let me be clear about where I’m coming from and where I’m trying to go.

I talk too much, too loudly and sometimes come off as abrasive. It’s not my intention. Often when people have very little to say, they make up for it with extra volume. I’m absolutely guilty on this count.

I got an e-mail from a colleague right after my last post that read like this:

Hey Ben,

A few points:

a)      You should really get an RSS feed…would make it easier for me to keep up on your blog

b)      I feel that with a number of your posts you take the ‘angry guy in the room’ approach and try to shout as loudly as possible, which perhaps isn’t the most effective way of getting your points across.

c)       I do feel that you have some extremely valid arguments, but sometimes they get lost in the shouting.

I guess don’t take anything I say too personally, it’s been rather interesting reading your blog, Boondock saints II, dirty dancing, social media, it’s all fitting together.

 Keep it up!

XXX

I took his points to heart. I don’t want to be the ‘angry guy in the room.’ I don’t think Lewis Black is that funny. I think that his bits are hit or miss at best, and downright awkward at worst.

So there it is. The most important point that I’m trying to convey here is that tone is everything when it comes to social media. The anger that was coming across in my blog posts was a result of some personal issues that I was dealing with and it showed.

It’s important to draw a line between personal and professional web presences and although they sometimes occupy the same territory, you must find a way to keep the negativity out and let your positive attributes and character traits shine.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a deep breath, step back and examine what kind of web presence you are building. Is it helping your personal or professional brand? Are you drawing people to you or pushing them away? What are people gaining from their interactions with you?

These are the questions that I didn’t have good answers to a month ago. Color me sorry for that.

Drinking, farms, double-standards and that one time I took my pants off at the bar.

Let me preface this entry by saying that I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to talking about age-related issues in the social media space. It comes from all of the times that I have been at a networking event and been shrugged off as some kid that doesn’t belong. It comes from all of the times that I have raised a legitimate question or concern via a social media channel and been ignored. It comes from that one time when I retweeted your f*cking blog post and you didn’t say thank you. Color me mildly pissed about that. So that’s where I’m coming from.

With that being said, if you are old enough to drive a car and you use Facebook for networking or professional purposes, put away the gifts, farms, mafias, and whatever other app you think will look cute on your Facebook page. Lately, all of the invitations and requests I have been getting have come from people who I have met at networking events. People who are using social networking sites for business. People who should know better. Sad face.

I would liken these requests to walking into the office of a small business to find the owner sitting on the floor playing with Troll Dolls or My Little Pony. What would you think about that small business’ ability to handle the demands of their consumers? Would that reflect positively or negatively on your perception of that company?

Oh, and please, please (please!) stop inviting me to join in on the fun. I would rather be hit in the head repeatedly with my own severed arm than join your mafia gang. I’m sorry, but Mafia Wars invitations are grounds for an instant unfriending. No joke. Try me.

Moving right along. So, since joining the big boy grown up world of working in a corporate environment about 3 years ago, I have heard one consistent word of advice regarding Facebook: untag any pictures of yourself drinking or partying that you have linked to your Facebook page. Employers will look at that sort of thing and they don’t want to see you looking unprofessional or, God forbid, having a good time.

Now let me ask you, who would you rather have as an employee? The jovial, good-natured person who goes out on the weekends and occasionally takes his pants off at the bar because it was really hot that day and they were restricting my range of motion and I really wanted to win the dance-off? Or the grown up person who spends all day playing with an imaginary farm and sending virtual gifts to their virtual, grown up ‘friends’? I’ll pause and let that question settle. I’m not sure why this issue is never brought up when people are talking about social media and professionalism.

Let’s face it, everyone likes to go out and cut loose every once in a while. From management to new hires, it’s all the same. For me specifically, that ‘once in awhile’ might be more than for some others, but that’s not the point. The point is that I look really good when I’m drinking. Like, better than when I’m wearing a tie and sitting up straight and there’s a lame photographer’s background behind me. Plus, if I had to untag all of the pictures of myself that were either taken at a bar or while intoxicated, I would be left with some throwback baby pictures and that’s about it.

So why would employers discourage the tagging of pictures where people are having fun? In our crazy, stressful, mixed up world, shouldn’t we be embracing the traits and activities that bond us together and make us human and condemning the activities that make us lame and weird? Sometimes I think the whole world has gone mad.

People who get it.

First off, I’d like to say a big, juicy thank you to everyone who has read my blog over the past few days. It means so much to me that you all are reading and sharing and commenting. If I could describe my mood right now, I’d say somewhere between elated and fan-f*cking-tastic. Enough of that. We have work to do.

It has recently come to my attention that I’m spending a bunch of time describing what not to do in the social media space, but less time focusing on what people and businesses SHOULD be doing. Ok, I might have made up the “it has been brought to my attention” part. No one brought this to my attention. I just wanted to write about it. So here it goes.

I have met so many great people via Twitter and Facebook (mostly Twitter, but sometimes Facebook) that sometimes I just sit back and try to think about how different my life would be without these sites and then my head explodes and I take deep breaths and suddenly everything is back to ok again. “What makes these people so great,” you ask? Well, there are an infinite number of answers to that question, but they all boil down to one very simple answer: they talk to me. Sometimes about stupid, immature stuff. But they talk to me.

This may not seem like a deep thought, but it is. Trust me. I know where I’m going with this.

Interaction. It’s a simple concept, really. You talk to people. You ask people in your online community how they are doing. You comment on the funny video of the monkey throwing feces that someone just shared. Did you think that I could use the word ‘feces’ twice in one week? Well neither did I.

You let your walls down and connect with other users without the pretense that you are going to try to sell them something or promote yourself or your brand. Most importantly, you listen before speaking.

So on this beautiful Friday in February, I’d like to recognize a few people and accounts that are truly great ambassadors for their brands and themselves. The one thing that all of these people have in common is that they are people first, and marketers second. And all you have to do is look at their accounts to see the difference.

So here it goes. My very first ‘People Who Get It’ list. #pwgi if you want to follow along on Twitter (I know it’s not pretty, but is anyone really getting anything good out of #followfriday anymore?).

1.) interactiveAmy

2.) Garrett Popcorn

3.) Tim McDonald

4.) Barbara Maldonado

5.) Ramon De Leon

There are so many amazing people out there, and it’s as much your responsibility to find them as it is for them to find you.

Who am I missing? What characteristics do you think make a great online marketer or brand ambassador? Is anyone else going to the Monster Truck Rally at the Allstate Arena tonight? No? Ok.

How auto-DMs are ruining your marketing mojo and making everyone uncomfortable.

So you’ve got this shiny new Twitter account and blog and website with bright colors and you’re super psyched about it. Everything looks great. Let’s say that you’re peddling discount travel. Everyone likes to travel right? So you start following people on Twitter that use keywords like “vacation” and “getaway” and “flight” and “airport” and “terminal” and “stewardess” and “plane” and “overworked and underpaid.”

Awesome, right? You’re finding new potential customers and you’re rocking the shit outta life. Good job, buddy. Then you think, “you know what would be awesome? If all of my new followers get a super-sweet message ‘personalized’ by ME!” So you send them to every single person that follows your discount travel Twitter account. You pat yourself on the back for streamlining the process of meeting people and sit back and crack open a beer.

By the time your beer is halfway finished, you notice something. A bunch of the people who recently followed you back are gone. Poof. They’re dropping you like it’s hot. They’re running away from you like you have some kind of leprosy or something. You spit the beer in your mouth across your desk. “How could this happen?,” you wonder.

Well, get comfortable, because I’m about lay some truth eggs and when they hatch, those truthlings are gonna grow up and kick your ass, little man.

I love the analogy of Twitter as a huge cocktail party. Everyone is talking and groups are forming and everyone is having a good time sharing the latest news or the article that they just read or how they wish that there was a SXSW in Chicago and why the hell is it in Austin anyways? What’s so cool about Austin? Oh, it’s warm? Oh, ok.

So yeah. Everyone is talking to each other and a new guy walks into the room. He’s got a nametag and he seems nice enough, so they acknowledge him and a few say what’s up and everything is cool. Then things get weird. He systematically approaches everyone in the room and gets about an inch from their ear and with a raspy voice whispers, “hey, what’s up? Wanna visit my website? It’ll only take a minute and you won’t regret it…” Now I don’t care what your breath smells like and what you’re wearing, I just don’t like people that I don’t know whispering in my ear.

Here’s what many marketers don’t seem to understand about Twitter. No one likes a creepy guy whispering in their ear.

That being said, there are 3 ways that you can communicate with people on Twitter: you can send a general tweet, send an @ reply, or send a DM (direct message).

As I said in yesterday’s post, a general tweet is like walking into a crowded room and saying something to no one in particular. You run a serious risk of people not taking you seriously, or more likely, just ignoring you. But that’s fine. You didn’t care if anyone in particular heard you in the first place.

The second form, the @ reply, is kind of confusing to some people. It’s like tapping someone you know on the shoulder and having a face to face conversation. Everyone can hear you, but it’s cool because you aren’t saying anything private or scandalous, right?

The third form, the DM, is where marketers seem to run into trouble. When you DM someone, it’s like whispering in their ear. It’s a familiarity thing really. You wouldn’t like it if some guy that you didn’t know on the bus were to pony up next to you and whisper in your ear, right? Well the same goes for the Twittersphere. If you don’t actually know someone, don’t DM them unless you have something very pertinent to say that can’t be shared in an @ reply.

Follow this last rule, and you’ll avoid being unfollowed on Twitter. Or pepper sprayed.

Why I’m not following your brand and God I feel old.

The other day I logged into my Facebook account to find 2 page invitations. Nine times out of ten, when I see these, I ignore them and go about my day wishing slight ill-will upon the fringe-friend that thought that I would be interested in their company’s or friend’s company’s stream of feces.

Ok maybe feces was a bit strong, but what struck me about these particular invitations that how un-targeted they were towards me. One was for a dentist and the other was for a chiropractor. I am very happy with my current dentist, I don’t need a chiropractor and why would a so called friend of mine suggest that I follow these Facebook pages in the first place? And more importantly what good do consumers get out of following brands on social networks? What kinds of companies lend themselves well to promotion on social networks? How did we get to a point where I’m referring to legitmate business operations on Facebook as “feces?” Why am I asking so many questions in a row?

First off, let me say that these questions completely relate back to my topic-du-jour of yesterday, “Content Overload.” Futhermore, I think that it’s important to remember why people get into social media in the first place. Sit back, and let me share my story.

The year was 2004. Or 2005. Whatever. I was much better looking then. So I’m sitting in my dorm room at Loyola New Orleans, probably listening to OAR or thinking about how awesome Boondock Saints 1 was, and I hate that I have to refer to that cinematic masterpiece as ‘Boondock Saints 1′ because they decided to follow it up with a flaming turd like ‘All Saints Day,’ but someone probably hit me up on AIM (remember AIM?) and told me about a new website for college students. This website would let you set up a profile, join groups and you could also write on other people’s “walls.” “Jackpot!,” I thought, “finally a way to share information with my college buddies and everyone will finally know how cool and smart I am!” Naturally, we used this new Facebook platform to share dick and fart jokes for 3 straight years.

We liked Facebook because it was personal. We liked it because it was absolutely limited to our immediate group of friends. We liked it because our parents couldn’t see it.

Well, as we all know, this sense of community has slowly been taken away from Facebook users over the past 3 or so years as the network has grown. First our friends at uncool colleges were allowed to join. Then our friends at community colleges were allowed to join. And then, gasp, our parents were suddenly hitting us up on Facebook and asking what’s up.

The reason that I share my personal story is this: when your company joins a social network, you have to put it into the context of that network. On Facebook, you have to realize that many users still see it as a way to contact their close group of personal friends and ONLY their close group of personal friends. Marketers would do well to tread lightly when sending out mass invites for anything on Facebook. The danger for any company effectively spamming a group of people on Facebook is that they will be seen as first, an uninvited outsider, and secondly as an annoyance. Your shiny new Facebook account for XYZ business could actually hurt your bottom line and alienate potential customers. There are already ads on Facebook, we don’t need any more of those.

I would suggest asking yourself the following 3 questions before asking people to become fans of your business on Facebook or Twitter:

1.) Do I have a business that lends well to social media? If you want to be successful in the social media realm, you must peddle something that people like talking about. If you are a dentist, ask yourself this question: “when was the last time I overheard someone on the bus talking about how much they like going to the dentist?” or “will people see my Facebook page and think ‘gee, I love dentists! I think I’ll set up an appointment rightthissecond!’ or will they think ‘wow, I think that they should use their Facebook time to squeeze in some more patients because last time I tried to set up an appointment, they asked me if I was free sometime in July 2013.’”

2.) What methods will I use to promote myself? Picking the social media platform or platforms to promote yourself is a huge part of the process. As I mentioned above, tread carefully on Facebook because it’s very personal to some people. I would suggest that when in doubt, use Twitter because it’s easy to figure out what kinds of topics people are talking about and identify people that might be interested in your business based on keyword searches.

3.) Do I have time to create and maintain a social media presence? This may be the most important question that you ask yourself. Unless you are willing to put in the effort to interact with your customers or potential customers, get out of the space immediately. The key word here is interact. No one wants to feel like they are getting a hard sell every time they log in to their network of choice. We are on these networks to interact with people, not to have ads shoved down our throats. It’s the equivalent of walking into a cocktail party and yelling about your new product or service or whosiewhatsit. Everyone will look at you like you are crazy, and you’ll be lucky if even Rusty, the benevolent bartender will talk to you.

Content overload and why you should be reading my blog, like now.

Hello fellow interwebs user! Chances are that we have connected on some sort of a social media platform, be it Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or maybe another mystery network that I haven’t joined yet, but exists in the future and wouldn’t that be weird? It would be like I’m speaking to you from the past; a time when those three social networks ruled the social media space and long before the invention of the particle transporter and the cure for cancer and moon cities and stuff.

Chances are that you aren’t going to read every word I write, so the ones that you do read better be good. Believe me, I understand. Because of my balls to the wall involvement in social media channels, I am constantly bombarded with links, blog posts, pictures of people’s pets, engagement announcements, and invitations to parties that I will never go to. I’m sure you are too because you’re here and we’re friends, so I’ll make this short and sweet: I’m getting pretty sick of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that your parents love that you posted pictures of your new apartment on Facebook, and they probably also worry about you when you post an ambiguous emotional status update about how you “just can’t trust anyone anymore,” but I’m not your parents and I don’t. I refer to my current mind-state as “Content Overload.” It’s when you can’t sift through all of the crap to get to the gems that are buried beneath the rubble of our overly connected, yet strangely impersonal society.

So here’s what I’m NOT going to do with this blog: I’m not going to use it as a pity party for me. I have actually taken a ‘liking’ to liking people’s Facebook statuses when they post something tragic about how the guy that they have been dating isn’t picking up their phone calls after 5 years of blah blah blah. I’m also not going to innundate you with constant lame details about my life. It’s not all that interesting. Trust me. I watch it 24 hours a day and if MTV were going to film a reality show about me they would have contacted me at 21, not 25.

What I WILL use this blog for is sharing content that I think is both useful and entertaining. I am blessed to work in a space where innovation is a part of everyday life, and while knowledge is not hard to search for, sometimes it can be hard to find. So I hope that you enjoy my blog and love it and share it and pet it and where is my copy of Tommy Boy and why haven’t I watched that movie in over a year?