Are you satisfied with theresults you’re currently getting from all your social media efforts? Would you say there is room for improvement?
Though we’re clearly reaching critical mass point with social media market penetration, there’s still a morass of confusing information as to what works, and what doesn’t.
There are social media policies, and which sites to use, and the right content and engagement strategies. And whether to automate, delegate, ghostwrite. or not. It can all be very overwhelming and many people are stuck in a place of sheer inertia for lack of proper knowledge, training and experience.
When it comes to social media marketing, most businesses begin with no clear objectives or strategy. They jump in with the technology piece first: they set up a Twitter account, usually due to peer and media pressure. But they don’t really know how to listen or engage effectively.
Then they throw together a Facebook fan page and it sits there gathering virtual dust. Next comes the blog, YouTube channel, LinkedIn account, Ning site, live video with Ustream, and whatever new-fangled tool comes along.
But, in order to be effective in attracting and engaging quality customers using social media, you must have the following components:
Clarity on your exact target market and which social networks they prefer to use most often
Knowledge of what online and mobile tools are available to you (apps, widgets, plugins, clients, etc.)
Knowledge of the cultures, best practices and etiquette of the various social networks (there are vast schools of thought on the right and wrong way to use social media)
Clear objectives (such as: drive traffic to your blog, enhance customer service, grow your email list, sell more widgets, gain targeted media attention, crowdsource new products, etc.)
A strategy to achieve those objectives
A social media implementation plan
Resources to pay for training and ongoing social media management, whether third party or in-house
A company social media policy
An ongoing engagement plan
Systems to track and measure results
Strategies for reputation management, and
A scalability plan.
Whew, is it any wonder business people feel overwhelmed and stuck. I hope this list is of value to you. However, if you’d like some help – if you’re ready to ramp up your social media marketing and gain tremendous measurable results – I have good news for you: it’s almost time for my favorite online event of the year.
Mike gathered together twenty-four of the world’s leading social media experts, practitioners and leading brand representatives to be Summit instructors.
Each session is a LIVE webinar with visuals; no fluff, just deep useful content that you’ll be able to apply to your business right away and see results.
Effective ways to market your company with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, social bookmarking sites, mobile marketing and more
How to track and measure the return on investment for social media programs
A step-by-step method for creating a smart social media marketing plan
How to build a loyal social media following
How to bring more customers into your local business with social media techniques See all the sessions here.
Just check out this incredible lineup, each of whom will share their proven social media tactics, strategies, techniques and tools. (Names hyperlinked to each presenter’s Twitter page so you can go follow them! Links open in a new window.)
This entirely VIRTUAL event starts May 5 and sessions run during the month of May. SAVE 34% on your ticket through April 20th!
Last year, nearly 1000 marketers and small business owners from around the world attended the Social Media Success Summit. It was a huge hit. Businesses were transformed. In fact, 97% of attendees said they’d attend again!
This year’s focus is to empower attendees to build social media marketing plans, track your social media results and learn from other successful businesses. This is more than just an event. It’s also a way for people just like you to come together, share their experiences, meet the experts and network.
Remember, the Social Media Success Summit is alive ONLINE conference that you can attend from your home or office. PLUS, *all* sessions are recorded and you get access to every single replay, just in case you can’t attend a session live or wish to go back and review!
(By the way, whether you get a ticket or not, you can access a free online training session called "How to Grow and Engage an Audience).
Will you be attending this exciting virtual event? If you already have your ticket, congrats!! Come on over to the Facebook Event page and begin your pre-networking. Feel free to add photos of you with any of the 24 speakers to the Event page – you’re welcome to create valuable visibility for yourself and, in turn, let others know about the Summit! I look forward to “seeing” you on the sessions and my hope for you is this too will fast become your favorite event of the year too!
My favorite events on my calendar are giving social media talks to all sizes of audiences, across many industries and a variety of formats. Whether it’s an opening keynote on social media success in general, an in-depth Facebook and/or Twitter breakout session or a full day training.
My 2010 calendar is filling up nicely, and this year I’m intent on pacing myself a tad more, and also allow a bit of extra time in each city to a) sightsee and b) connect with Twitter peeps at local Tweetups. Yay!
My public calendar can be found here, which is always current. Meantime, I thought I’d put together this post with a smidge more detail of what I have booked for 2010 so far and I’ll update it as more events are added. and add some video content too!! [If you'd like to hire me to speak at your event, hop over here.]
2010 Events – Let’s Tweet Up!
Here are my travels for 2010 so far; as more are confirmed I’ll add to this post and also to my public Google calendar. Most all of these are speaking engagements; a few I’m attending as a participant.
If you live in any of these cities – or will be at these events – please do tweet/DM me!!
January – Hollywood CA
January 28 – February 1: The GRAMMYS! Hollywood, CA. (I’ll be in a mastermind all day Jan 30 and at the GRAMMYS Jan 31; I’m going up a couple days early and staying an extra day for a mix of pampering plus business meetings!) Special mention of my dear friend, Amy Michelson, designer of my Grammy gown. pics coming!
February – San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles CA | Nashville TN
March 9: Free WEBINAR – Maximizing Facebook: How To Effectively Use The #1 Social Network To Explode Your Business! (for ISMA members – free membership)
March 11: Private CLASS – Guest lecture on social media marketing for Grossmont College at Steve Eisenberg’s class.
I was most fortunate to have an extremely full speaking schedule throughout last year. Among my 2009 highlights were speaking at all these incredible events and getting to share the stage with other amazing speakers, leaders and luminaries including:
Feel free to leave your comments/questions below about any of these events, my travels/whereabouts, and your own events. I look forward to connecting soon! And, to book me as a speaker at your next event, please check out this page.
For me, one of the highlights of the Info-SUMMITSM was meeting legendary marketer, Frank Kern, whom I’d heard so much about for some time.
I love Frank’s highly entertaining style, having read his blog and watched his videos for awhile. I also recently got a copy of Mass Control at the Engage Today event.
But nothing beats live and in person. Frank blends his super smart marketing brain with a complete no-bull, in-your-face hilarious style. (Of course the no-bull part is Frank’s mentor, Dan Kennedy’s, specialty!)
One of the exercises Frank Kern did during his presentation was about getting super clear on what you want to achieve in life and then creating a foolproof system to pay for it all!
Frank brought up on stage the lovely Maritza Parra and proceeded to take her through this process which consisted of three simple columns: (1) Thing you want, (2) How much it costs per month, and (3) Why you want it.
Once you’ve listed a dozen or more things you want (from houses, cars and horses to travel, personal trainer and nanny!), tally up the monthly cost, multiply by 12 then divide by 365 and you have a daily amount you need to earn. Take that daily amount and divide by the dollar amount of the main product/service you sell and that’s how many sales you need to make per day.
Frank makes it all sound so easy! In fact, I created this downloadable form that you can fill out and it will calculate the numbers for you (once you fill in your three columns!): Your Ideal Lifestyle – Clarity Calculator.
Lessons from my social media presentation
Now, on to my own presentation: I spoke about social media success, particularly using Facebook and Twitter to grow your business. I was on a panel first thing on Day 1 as a quick preview of my presentation that evening and all went well.
However, my actual presentation wasn’t my best. In fact – in total transparency – I feel I let much of the audience down by not providing them sufficient content and value, which is the opposite of what I’ve done in all my other talks.
What happened is I chose to work with several speaking/sales coaches at short notice. The impact this had was I deviated from my own natural presentation style so much so that it was uncomfortable for me… and the audience.
My speaking schedule has been super-intense for most of 2009; I had the Info-SUMMITSM engagement booked for about six months, so ought to have given myself more time and practice for such coaching.
As my dear friend and personal trainer, Ashley Mahaffey, said to me, I was like a marathon runner who went out to race with a brand new pair of running shoes and ended up with sore feet and blisters! [Ok, I know this pic is high heels - but imagine running a race in these?!!]
Thing is, much of the Info-SUMMITSM audience provided positive feedback to me and I had a reasonable uptake of the training program I offered, which I’m delighted about. But I just know I could’ve done a whole lot better in hindsight.
As we say in the seminar business, “Correct and continue.”
I did watch the Twitter stream like a hawk and was able to connect with a couple of attendees who expressed their experience of my talk – I was grateful for their constructive feedback.
This is also a great lesson for other seminar attendees on the importance of monitoring what Jermiah Owyang calls the back channel.
[I have since put up a page of free social media resources for Info-SUMMITSM attendees to view/download here.]
Going forward, here are my key takeaways from this experience:
Be more selective about such intense travel and events in 2010 onwards – better to speak at fewer events and do a stellar job than pack in three a week and stress myself out!
Allow plenty room in my schedule for proper planning, rehearsal, coaching and logistics – particularly prior to major events.
Stay with my natural style and my propensity to over-deliver on content and value – even though some schools of thought differ.
Strive to attend the full events I speak at, so as to better compliment the other speakers and provide a more cohesive experience for the audience.
Integrate coaching input over time… and practice on smaller audiences!
If you attended the Info-SUMMITSM, do leave me your feedback below. I’m always open to constructive criticism. Whether you attended the Info-SUMMITSM or not, I’d love to hear your own tales from the trenches about public speaking and selling from the stage in the comments below:
At the recent 140 Twitter Conference, Isparked a bit of controversy on the branding panel that I participated on: I brought up a point that reminds me of the line in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross “ABC, always be closing” and I framed it as “ABM = always be marketing” and “always be me.”
I was fascinated to see the polarized responses from the audience, Twitterverse and one of my fellow panelists. (I’m a big fan of expressing opinions, but it’s not my style to polarize! Oh well!)
To me, Always Be Marketing means that I am extremely mindful and strategic about everything I do online and in public. For example, turquoise and bling is my signature branding color/look/feel – so that’s what I present in public. (Eight percent of my wardrobe is a shade of blue!) And, my persona is upbeat, open, caring, genuine and always helpful, always willing to answer questions particularly about Facebook. This is all part of my brand.
In fact, the greatest compliment I receive is when people meet me in person and say I’m exactly like they thought I would be from how I am online.
With social media so prevalent we are all EXTREMELY visible. Your prospective clients, your peers and your competition can drill as deep as they wish searching, reading and gathering information online about you and posted by you without you ever knowing who’s searching. Depending on what they find, your prospects may choose to do business with you or not.
Being mindful and in “ABM” mode helps with reputation management. To me, ABM means you’re never careless about what you put out there. You see the longevity of everything that’s published. (For the best book on reputation management see, Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss).
To some folks, the word “marketing” has negative connotations. It’s a word often misinterpreted as meaning “hocking your wares,” “pushing” and being like a used car salesman. That’s unfortunate. There’s a big difference between ABP: always be pushing and ABM: always be marketing!
I unfollow the “ABP” types on Twitter and unfriend or even block them on Facebook. I’m all about connecting and building relationships… and yes, there’s strategy to all that too. What may seem as idle chit-chat on Twitter is 100% visible to the whole world on Twitter. It’s important to always do your best, because you just never know who is watching you.
Perhaps some folks have negative feelings associated with the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross – it’s an intense movie and the question of ethics and integrity in sales is a theme running throughout the film. I certainly would never recommend doing “whatever it takes” to market. It has to be genuine, positive and contribute to your community. Like I say, the ABM also means “always be me” (or, for me, “always be Mari!”
In fact, here’s a couple of my fave nuggets from the #140tc:
What are your thoughts? What does ABM mean to you? Do you consider yourself to be in “marketing mode” at all times – or is it something you turn on and off? Do you apply a special formula to your tweeting style with x% personal and x% business? Is there a clear line between the two, or are you like me and completely blend your social media personal/professional style because you know ultimately people are buying YOU first?! I’d love to hear from you – add your thoughts in the comments below:
I created this five-part model – the ABC’s of Social Media – to simplify your social media efforts. Many folks come to social media and attempt to short-circuit the process by over-automating, over-broadcasting, over-delegating and miss out the vital component of connecting, engaging and building relationships.
Once you’ve confirmed your target market uses Facebook and Twitter, and you’re happy with your brand, messaging and systems for capturing leads, etc., here’s how the ABC system works:
Automate
First, set up systems to automate your broadcasts, feeds, updates, content. On Twitter, this could be using Twitterfeed to automatically post your blog feed as tweets. To pre-schedule tweets, use TweetLater and/or Hootsuite.
Import your blog post on Facebook using the Notes app and/or the Networked Blogs app.
Aggregate all your social feeds into FriendFeed and add the FriendFeed app to your Facebook Profile.
There are many more ways to automate; these are a great start. However, I do recommend not over-automating. Pre-scheduling and auto-broadcasting are great to ensure you at least have some content going out daily. But you’ll also want to generate real-time content/broadcasts too.
Broadcast
Broadcasts are what I call regular tweets (as opposed to @ replies), Facebook status updates, posts on Facebook, blog posts and more. In fact, any way of pushing your message “out there.” This could be seen as more traditional “push marketing” though you’re not being pushy, per se. It’s important to broadcast your content and, in fact, broadcast others’ content in the form of retweets, favorites, socialbookmarks and the Links app on Facebook.
Now the challenge with many businesses using social media is they stop at “B” – in other words, they just repeat the cycle of automate and broadcast, automate and broadcast. It’s hard to know who’s behind the Twitter account or Facebook page. It’s all about pushing content and there’s hardly any engagement. So the third step is vital to your success in social media:
Connect
On Twitter, this is the art of joining, initiating and responding to conversations via @ replies. Using popular third party clients like Tweetdeck, or Twhirl , you can easily track and respond to @yourname mentions.
On Facebook, create Friend Lists with your key contacts, drag that friend list to the top of your News Feed and now that’s your default view [see screenshot to the right]. Then, even in just a few minutes a day on Facebook, you can easily connect by commenting appropriately.
Acknowledge your friends’ birthdays on both Facebook and Twitter. [On Facebook, all your friends' upcoming birthdays are listed on your Home Page on the right; you can also receive a weekly list of upcoming birthdays via regular email: click Settings > Account Settings > Notifications > under the first segment (Facebook) click Show More > make sure "Has a birthday coming up" is turned ON.]
Look for other occasions to celebrate and acknowledge. And, look for ways to introduce and promote others, compliment, add value.
Subscribe to a number of popular blogs and regularly post your comments. When writing your own blog posts, encourage your readers to comment by asking stimulating questions.
Delegate
If you’re serious about integrating social media into your marketing efforts, before long you simply cannot manage everything yourself. Depending on the size of your company, you may well have a member of staff who’s sole responsibility is to be the voice and face of the company, often called a “brandividual.”
Or, you may choose to hire a competent, trained VA (Virtual Assistant) or social networking assistant – at least to help set up and manage the basics. I usually recommend you do not delegate your voice, though most of us know some celebrities have “ghost tweeters!” [There are many sources to find good VAs, including on Twitter via the directory Twellow.com - that way you can find, follow and monitor their style before even contacting them.]
One major task you can delegate is to track and monitor your reputation by setting up Google alerts and tweet alerts (via TweetBeep and/or TweetLater which is a suite of helpful Twitter tools). Look for your evangelists who are always singing your praises so you can connect, empower and incentivize them more. And, also look for negative activity that needs to be responded to and ideally nipped in the bud. [The best book on reputation management is Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.]
Evaluate
As quickly as you set up your social media systems, something new comes along or the big sites introduce new features. Facebook are constantly adding a tweak here and there, sometimes minor but often major. It’s important you stay informed and regularly evaluate how your systems are working for you. Are you meeting your objectives? Are you getting a good ROI (return on investment) and ROT (return on time). Have you thoroughly researched where your target market hang out most and are you reaching them effectively? How can you think outside the box, get more creative and innovative to stay ahead of the curve?
Let me know your thoughts on my ABC’s of Social Media model – did I miss anything critical? Does it help you better understand how you can effectively use the giants like Facebook and Twitter? Please do retweet this post too, assuming you found it valuable!
As a participant of the Social Media Success Summit 2009, you’re invited and encouraged to tweet about the event, and to tweet nuggets from the event.
If you don’t have your ticket yet, today Monday, May 24 is the LAST DAY to save $100; the event starts tomorrow with Gary Vaynerchuk.
[If you're not attending this virtual event, you can still observe tweets, retweet, favorite and tweet to the participants, presenters and of course your followers.]
Event Tweeting Tips To Maximize Your Participation
(These tips are just as relevant to any event – online or in person – that you attend).
1) Include the hashtag #smss09.
With every tweet about and from the Social Media Success Summit that you send, simply append the hashtag #smss09 – typically at the end of the tweet. That’s it. That’s all there is to hashtags! There’s no great mystery; you just send a regular tweet and add the hashtag. [For an explanation of hashtags, see this video.]
2) Enclose in quotation marks.
When quoting something one of the Social Media Success Summit 2009 speakers says, I recommend enclosing the nugget in quotation marks.
3) Include attribution.
Also, when quoting someone, add the person’s @ name to let your followers know who you are quoting.
4) Keep your tweets less than 120 characters.
To increase the chances of your tweet being retweeted, make it easier for your followers by keeping the character count to 120 or less.
Example tweet:
“When you have people paying attention to you, your biggest job is to listen to what they want.” @garyvee #smss09
Total characters: 114, leaving 26 remaining. Of course, you can fill up all 140 characters; it just makes your tweet less likely to be retweeted if you’d like it to be. [For a great guide to retweeting, see this post on Mashable.com.]
Event Tweeting etiquette: Just something to keep in mind: while it’s great to be able to share golden nuggets with your followers from an event that you’ve paid to attend, keep in mind it’s probably best not to try and tweet every nugget to be fair to paid participants. (Of course, you’d probably have to type at 1000 words a minute to do so. LOL!) Everyone has their own tweeting style, but something you could say is: “Wow!! Just learned a dynamite LinkedIn tip from @JasonAlba – I’m going to implement right now!! #smss09″
Also, if you expect your tweeting volume to increase more than usual, you may want to (a) forewarn your followers your tweet volume is about to increase and (b) if they wish, they can temporarily pause their updates from you by using Twitter Snooze. http://twittersnooze.com/
Ten Ways To Enjoy The Live Event Interaction on Twitter
Here are instructions on the many ways you can enjoy the live interaction on Twitter during and in-between summit sessions:
#1 – TweetChat
TweetChat.comworks very similarly to a typical chat room. You enter the room and interact with others in the same room. All this is still done via Twitter, so your tweets go out as regular tweets in your tweetstream and into the TweetChat room. No one knows you’re in the room though; you could just use TweetChat to observe tweets if you wish. To enter a room:
Login with your Twitter username and password. On the next screen, where it says Room to enter: type in smss09
OR choose the beta link which will simply authenticate and connect to your Twitter account so you don’t have to enter your password (I prefer this way). Then on the next screen where it says Hashtag to follow, type smss09.
TweetChat sits on your own Twitter page so you’ll see your own custom background if you have one.
Once in the room, you can observe tweets streaming by, send your own regular tweets, reply to others’ tweets, and favorite tweets. Unfortunately, TweetChat doesn’t seem to have a retweet feature built in though.
However, unlike most all other choices (other than PeopleBrowsr), one of the advantages of using TweetChat is that the hashtag #smss09 gets automatically appended to all your tweets, so there’s no need to remember to keep typing it in. (You do have to remember to leave room for it though!)
If you find the tweetstream moving too fast, press the pause button just underneath the tweet field. To resume the tweetstream, press play.
Tweets by you are colored with a thick dark blue line above. Tweets to you/with your @ name have a thick green line above.
#2 – Twitter Search
By simply doing a search for #smss09 at http://search.twitter.com you an observe all tweets with that hasthtag. Assuming you’re logged into your Twitter account, you can then reply directly to specific tweets by clicking the Reply button.
This option may be your preferred choice as you may be used to using the Twitter Search feature more than a platform like TweetChat; the number of new tweets automatically goes up until you cl
ick Refresh; you can subscribe to the feed for the search string in your favorite RSS reader (though the volume may get a bit heavy!)
The downside is in order to reply to any tweets, a new window/tab opens up as opposed to staying on the same page and there’s no easy way to retweet or favorite.
Go to http://search.twitter.com and type in #smss09 (or you could leave off the #). View and reply to tweets as you wish.
#3 – Your Twitter Profile
This option may work best for you if you’re relatively new to Twitter and you prefer to tweet from the web. Since Twitter added this new feature right on your Twitter home page fairly recently, you just type in the smss09 tag in the search box and save, which makes it real easy to come back and click. And then you can reply or favorite directly from the web.
If you’d like to augment your Twitter web tweeting experience, I highly recommend @troynt’s Greasemonkey script for FireFox which adds an RT (retweet) button under the reply arrow [along with the ability to see expanded links, add your followers into groups, save group searches (I have one in the screenshot below) and much, much more! The script is totally free to download and rocks!]
#4 – TweetDeck
TweetDeck is one of the most popular Twitter desktop clients, based on the Adobe Air platform like Twhirl and Seesmic Desktop. One of the primary advantages of using TweetDeck is you can set up saved searches in their own column. (TweetDeck also has a column with your Facebook friends’ status updates!)
If you don’t yet have TweetDeck installed, go to http://tweetdeck.com and download the app to your computer.
Once installed and configured the way you want it, to do a saved search, click the little magnifying glass icon at the top and type in smss09. A new column will be displayed showing tweets with that tag – which you can then reply, favorite and retweet. (You need to mouseover the tweet for the icons to show).
To tweet from TweetDeck, the text field is a toggle and is the first icon like a wee speech bubble:
Mouseover any tweet for the icons to show: Reply, DM, Retweet – then you can also see the little cog icon has a bunch more options:
#5 – Seesmic Desktop
Seesmic Desktop is superb! It’s rapidly gaining in popularity especially since its integration with Facebook too.
Once installed and configured the way you want it, just like TweetDeck, to create a column for the Social Media Success Summit, just type in smss09 in the search bar at the bottom left and that will save for you.
You’ll see the tweetstream show up in its own column, just like TweetDeck. You can then reply, favorite and retweet. (You need to mouseover the tweet for the icons to show).
#6 – Twhirl
Twhirl has been my Twitter app of choice for some time. (Though Seesmic Desktop is a close second with the latest round of features! Both platforms are made by Seesmic; I understand Seesmic Desktop will eventually replace Twhirl.)
Go to http://twhirl.org (not .com) and click the big blue install now button. As with the other desktop clients (TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop), you need to add your Twitter account.
Then, to add a saved search in Twhirl, click the last icon (magnifying glass) at the foot > type smss09 in the search field > when the search shows up, click Activate > you’ll then have a button as a saved search to come back to any time and can reply, favorite, retweet or DM (again, mouseover each tweet for your icon choices to show).
#7 – Twitterfall
Twitterfall is a fun app to test out! Go to http://twitterfall.com – then, to be able to tweet/retweet/favorite from the app, login to Twitter – look for this button down on the bottom left:
Once logged in, add the custom search for smss09:
Now, as the tweets come in you have several options: mouseover any tweet and a set of six icons displays allowing you to Reply, DM, Retweet, Follow, Favorite and View in Twitter.
#8 – TweetGrid
TweetGrid may not be that obvious at first to newbies. Go to http://tweetgrid.com – to use this site, you have to first select your grid size, but it’s real easy to just hit the back button and reselect if you want to change your grid.
Then just type smss09 as one of your search terms like so:
Just like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, TweetGrid allows you to build your own saved search columns. And like most all apps, when you mouseover a tweet, you have several options.
#9 – PeopleBrowsr
This has to be one of the most fun, creative and advanced social media platforms on the web. I’d tested it out some time ago when it first came out and quickly got overwhelmed (I like simplicity!). Then, recently during a tweetchat event, my Twitter bud Lori Gama turned me on to a few of PeopleBrowsr’s amazing features. You could spend weeks on PeopleBrowsr and still find new cool things it does!!
Just go to http://peoplebrowsr.com and log in with your Twitter or Facebook credentials. [Note, this isn't a typo; just like Flickr, PeopleBrowsr has no "e"!]
Then, to set up a search column, type in smss09 at the top right (when you click in the field the text that’s there disappears allowing you to type your own search term), and hit enter.
[UPDATE: The nice thing about tweeting during a hashtagged event in PeopleBrowsr is your tweets are tagged with the appropriate hashtag, just like TweetChat (so long as you tweet from within the saved search column).]
As with TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, and TweetGrid, mouseover any tweet to see your options: Reply, Retweet, Direct Message and further actions (follow, favorite, add tags):
Note: the more columns you add, in order to navigate, use the horizontal scroll bar at the foot. Same with TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. I hope you enjoy PeopleBrowsr – let me know of your experience in the comments below!! You can also follow @PeopleBrowsr on Twitter.
#10 – Follow @SMSS09
This Twitter account is specifically for the Social Media Success Summit 2009. It’s registered with GroupTweet. How that works is anyone this account follows back can then tweet through the @smss09 tweetstream by sending a direct message.
At present, we are just following back the nine presenters. Each tweet is preceded with “via @name,” showing who sent that tweet.
We encourage you to follow @smss09 for information, updates and nuggets from the Social Media Success Summit. We may add a feed using TwitterFeed to pull in all tweets with the hashtag #smss09 making it easy for you to see those tweets from one account.
GroupTweet is a fairly new tool and doesn’t seem that widely used yet. I highly recommend you check it out for your own groups. As an example, I have a protected account for my 40 students in my mentorship program at @MentorWithMari – all students can tweet through the same account and with protected udpates we can share information among ourselves.
…so there you have it. A whopping TEN options to observe, interact and participate in the Social Media Success Summit using Twitter.
Ann Handley, chief content creator at MarketingProfs is leading “Five Reasons You Need to Be on Twitter (and Tools to Help You Manage Your Experience)” on May 27th. And I’m leading this session “How to Grow and Engage an Audience on Twitter” on June 10th (as well as a humdinger session on Facebook too!) I hope to meet you online at the summit!!
Of course, this entire post is equally applicable to other events and your own events. I trust you find it valuable – dolet me know your feedback, questions and comments below. And if I missed any platform/app you feel should be included in this list, let me know!
I recently dealt with an unfortunate situation where one of my tweets was retweeted with the link replaced by the retweeter, thus implying I was endorsing his site (otherwise known as "retweet hijacking.") You may have read my post (which I have since taken down – read on to find out why.)
My first reaction was one of utter disbelief. How someone could so openly "hijack" a tweet and infer my endorsement without anyone noticing, I don’t know. Maybe it happens more often than I realized; this was my first experience – I’d never heard of it before.
I figured the best way to approach this situation was via DM (direct message), however – long story short – the matter seemed to get out of hand with a barrage of unpleasant DM’s and @ messages from the hijacker directed to me; I then chose to write a blog post about what happened.
I also chose to identify the tweet hijacker by name. This caused further controversy in the Twitterverse; over 60 comments were left on my post and though 90% of my community seemed to support the decision to out the hijacker, 10% didn’t. Fair enough.
My intent in highlighting this incident was to educate others as to some unethical practices going on in Twitter and to rally support in not allowing this kind of behavior.
Could I have achieved my objective without naming names? Yes. Would I have made different choices in retrospect? Possibly. The way I see it is this: Twitter is already an open system; we are all "out" whether we realize it or not.
It transpired that the person tweeting was a hired webmaster – to be the voice of a well-known, reputable company (I’ve since discovered).
A loyal customer got wind of the hijacking situation and alerted the company. The Assistant Vice President and President of the company contacted me directly. I ended up having a pleasant phone conversation with the President tonight. He was very apologetic, courteous and kind. I have a much better understanding for this company, their outreach and normal business practices.
As a gesture of goodwill, I assured the President I would edit my blog post to exclude his company’s name; however, I chose to take the entire post and all comments down instead. I’m grateful to all commenters who took the time to read my post and provide their valuable contribution.
What can we learn from this situation? Here’s what I believe:
One very important lesson from this scenario is how vital it is to properly assess who is the voice and face of your company.
Reputations need to be monitored rigorously by everyone from the solopreneur to Fortune 500 companies. (For the best book on managing – and repairing – reputations, see Radically Transparent by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.)
When there is a situation to deal with, do so quickly, courteously and effectively.
What are your thoughts? How would you react to someone intentionally hijacking/misrepresenting your tweets… or any message, for that matter? Do you think business best practices transcend all mediums and, if so, how do we uphold those practices in new media?
[UPDATE 5.6.09 8:32PM PDT: I just got off the phone with the President of the company that the retweet hijack webmaster worked for. The conversation went well and I appreciate now that the company is a global organization with a large staff and an excellent reputation. The situation unfortunately got out of hand. I have chosen to edit this post to remove the company name.]
[IMPORTANT UPDATE 5.5.09 2:45PM PDT: Josh xxxx (last name removed), webmaster for @(name removed) has been in touch with me via email and also commented on my post (see below) and this post and on Twitter to extend his apologies and express his regret for the actions he took. I appreciate the gesture and may consider taking this post down, per Josh's request... or at least making it anonymous, such that further repercussions are avoided.]
I don’t know about you, but I give GREAT care as to what I tweet about, even in my @ replies and conversations… even DM’s (direct messages). I run everything through an internal filter of:
Would I be okay with this on the front page of the NYT?
Would I be okay for this to be found in a Google search? and/or
Would I be proud for my grandchildren to see this in 20 years’ time? (Exaggeration maybe, but content does hang around the internet for a long time!)
And, I’m always upbeat, positive and focused on adding value. (My tweeting style has been described as the “little Tony Robbins on your shoulder!”)
Now, I appreciate there are no “hard and fast” rules to using Twitter – or any social network, for that matter. BUT there are most certainly general rules of etiquette. And there’s personal INTEGRITY. Something very dear to my heart.
This morning, I put out this tweet: “Mother’s Day is coming up on May 10! This is a great site & service for same day gifts! http://flowersfast.com.”
One of the reasons I chose this site to tweet is I know the owner of the site and service personally.
I was delighted to see several retweets. But then something odd caught my eye – a guy retweeted me, but replaced the link I tweeted with a link to his OWN website, thereby inferring I was endorsing his site. UGH! That is the antithesis to best practice. I was not amused. See the screenshot below: @(name removed)’s tweet goes to his own xxxx site.
If you know me at all, you know I’m not the type of person to put energy into anything negative; if there’s a challenge to deal with, I’d rather do so quietly and privately. So, I saw that @(name removed) and I were following each other thus allowing direct messaging.
I was a little, um, terse – I broke one of my own relationship rules and that is I sent a message while just a smidge emotional. It’s always best to allow a wee bit of time to calm down and gain perspective.
I also decided to send a regular tweet sharing what just happened… without outing Mr. xxxx just yet – to see if he could somehow rescue this situation. He didn’t. It seemed to get worse. I received a barrage of DM’s from Mr. xxxx telling me it’s a free country and it was “lame” to “legislate integrity.” Oh dear. Well, guess whose xxxx company I won’t be using. Yes, it’s a free country.
Ignoring this occurrence may have been a better choice. But I wanted to make an example of this practice – which I now understand is becoming more prevalent on Twitter. In fact, it’s called “Retweet Hijacking!”
Blocking someone on Twitter will not prevent this type of hijacking behavior.
What are your thoughts – what would you do? Have you experienced/seen any retweet hijacking? Do you agree with this xxxx guy that it’s a “free country” and he didn’t break any of Twitter’s Terms of Service? Should the citizens of the Twitterverse bandy together to ensure best practices? Please share in the comments below [click Comments]:
I’ve been eager for Oprah to join the Twitterverse for some time. As you can see by this fun comic strip I made back on September 24, 2008, my cartoon self was enthusiastically encouraging cartoon Oprah to join Facebook and Twitter!!
Yesterday on the Oprah and Friends show, even with celeb guest Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) and Twitter’s CEO Evan Williams (@ev), Oprah seemed to be getting to grips with what exactly Twitter is, how to use it, why anyone would want such a large following (one million plus) and what to say! But, I do believe she’s starting to catch the vision.
Here’s the thing: can you imagine the even bigger difference we can make on the planet individually and collectively when more and more visionaries, enlightened leaders and luminaries fully integrate the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter?!
See, everything matters. Everything counts. It’s all energy. It’s the ripple effect, or the BUTTERFLY EFFECT.
“The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different.” [From Wikipedia]
What if more people on Twitter and Facebook really stopped to think about their messages and how much impact even one tweet or Facebook wall post, for example, can make to a person’s life?
I actually believe having a large following — online or offline, but particularly through social media due to the rapid uptake — is a big responsibility. But not responsibility from a point of burden, but of joy and purpose. Surely we can use these mediums to create more good.
I’d love to hear your thoughts below: do you think social media is helping to transform the world? To raise the consciousness of the planet? Do you think those who are already global leaders and have large followings outside of social media have a greater responsibility when joining sites like Twitter? Do you have any wonderful stories to share of how something has touched your life through social media?
Ah, to follow or not to follow – that is the question. But toAUTO follow or not to auto follow – that is a whole other question! And to AUTO DM?! Eek.
I received this DM recently from a Twitter bud:
“Please post me a link to something that answers the etiquette of the autofollow? Plus the rationale. I do without knowing why.”
First, regards following, my policy from day one is to follow everyone back. Here are my two primary reasons why:
Following those peeps back on Twitter who follow you says “hey, thanks for caring about what I have to say… I also care about what you have to say.”
When both parties follow each other, you now have the ability to Direct Message (DM) – which is a private exchange between you and the other person and does not go out in the public Twitter stream.
I always like to say, “You never know when your next $100k client wants to DM you.” Granted there are other ways of reaching you – but Twitter is just SO darn efficient. And why create barriers for contact? I’ve made a LOT of lucrative deals as a direct result of having my DM feature decidedly ON!
Autofollow?
Regards automatically following those folks back who follow you: I first got started on Twitter in summer of 2007 and I was merrily building my following to about 7,000 a year later. I always manually followed back and didn’t auto DM. Then my velocity cranked up and I simply couldn’t keep up with following back.
So, I now automatically follow back using @jesse’s platform http://socialtoo.com. I enjoy the extra features Jesse has, including the anti-spam setting – where the system unfollows anyone who unfollows you within x days. (One hallmark of a spammer is to follow 2000 people then when you follow them back, they unfollow you so they can go follow more peeps!)
Auto DM?
At first, I also chose to auto-DM all peeps I followed. I experimented with a simple invitation to access my 7 Day Facebook Marketing Tips with a link to my blog. Then I nixed that as I grew weary of receiving links myself.
Next, I used a message that encouraged my followers to let me know if they had any questions about Facebook and Twitter- oops, opened the floodgates on that one and couldn’t keep up.
Then I just included a friendly message that merges in the first name field, e.g. “Greetings Roberta! It’s great to meet you in Twitterland.” But even that was starting to feel mechanical and inauthentic as I, again, received similar auto messages myself.
Not only that, it’s hard to strip out the bona fide DMs from all the auto-junk. I have my DM’s coming into my email and one of my VA’s filters them to identify important/urgent messages.
I’ve now opted out of of incoming and outgoing AUTO DMs via http://tweetlater.com and http://socialtoo.com. [However, I gotta share - check out http://tweetlater.com's suite of features on their paid version, including ability to send DMs to all followers.]
I’m not here to tell you what to do – it’s all a personal choice. I’m just sharing my experience!
What do you think? Do you autofollow everyone? If not, why not? Do you include an auto DM? I’d love to know what results you’ve achieved with the auto DMs – I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise on this one! lol.
When it comes to social media marketing, most businesses begin with no clear objectives or strategy. They jump in with the technology piece first: they set up a Twitter account, usually due to peer and media pressure. But they don’t really know how to listen or engage effectively. 
Clear objectives (such as: drive traffic to your blog, enhance customer service, grow your email list, sell more widgets, gain targeted media attention, crowdsource new products, etc.) 
Mike gathered together twenty-four of the world’s leading social media experts, practitioners and leading brand representatives to be Summit instructors. 
This entirely VIRTUAL event starts May 5 and sessions run during the month of May. SAVE 34% on your ticket through April 20th!
If you already have your ticket, congrats!! Come on over to the Facebook Event page and begin your pre-networking. Feel free to add photos of you with any of the 24 speakers to the Event page – you’re welcome to create valuable visibility for yourself and, in turn, let others know about the Summit! I look forward to “seeing” you on the sessions and my hope for you is this too will fast become your favorite event of the year too!
Guy Kawasaki, one of my favorite peeps in the socialmediasphere, will be giving the opening keynote. 
I created this five-part model – the ABC’s of Social Media – to simplify your social media efforts. Many folks come to social media and attempt to short-circuit the process by over-automating, over-broadcasting, over-delegating and miss out the vital component of connecting, engaging and building relationships.
On 
As a participant of the 
I recently dealt with an unfortunate situation where one of my tweets was retweeted with the link replaced by the retweeter, thus implying I was endorsing his site (otherwise known as "retweet hijacking.") You may have read my 
It transpired that the person tweeting was a hired webmaster – to be the voice of a well-known, reputable company (I’ve since discovered).
What if more people on 
Then I just included a friendly message that merges in the first name field, e.g. “Greetings Roberta! It’s great to meet you in Twitterland.” But even that was starting to feel mechanical and inauthentic as I, again, received similar auto messages myself. 
