- Sep 11
- 27
How To Increase Your Twitter Following The Right Way
- Posted by Greg Schumchenia
- Published in Advice and Tips, Social Media, Social Media Marketing
Between you and me, I think most people out there don’t understand Twitter. I think they’re confused by the RT #hashtag @mention mumbo jumbo. But truth be told, it can be an insanely powerful business tool and can help spread your brand’s message like a wildfire.
Think of it like this: on Twitter you can chat with someone without being their “friend”. You’ve never been able to do that on Facebook. I’m not hating on Facebook, it’s amazing for so many things, but Twitter is a completely open arena for two-way communication.
The problem with Twitter is that people who aren’t confused by it sometimes abuse it. This is mostly by companies or people trying to sell you something. Realtors are a great example. Do you follow any real estate agents on Twitter? Don’t bother. All they do is Tweet house and apartment listings. Isn’t that what you already do on your website, Facebook page and blog? Don’t show me the same listings on 3 or 4 different channels and expect that to get my click. Say “Hi” to me or link me to an article you wrote on how awesome a particular neighborhood is. Would you ever meet someone in person and just start shouting real estate listings at them without saying anything else or even listening to them? Then don’t do it online either.
5 Comments- Aug 11
- 5
Food for Thought: The Real World
- Posted by Matt Peters
- Published in Brain Food, Social Media
image by stevendepolo
As social media becomes more robust and more people adopt various platforms, brands appear to be increasingly interested in taking previously real-world activities and turning them into social media activities. Why talk to your customer on the phone when you can chat with them on a social platform? Why have an in-store event at only one location when you can have a virtual gathering? Why have an in-person meeting when you can solicit responses via some antiseptic community platform?
I’ll tell you why.
Because the REAL WORLD is important. Humans have evolved over a significant period of time to interact socially in certain ways. Our brains crave (and indeed grow from) interpersonal experiences. As much as we like to think that digital replications of those real world experiences are just as good (or better), they are not. Edward M. Hallowell talks about the importance of the “Human Moment.” He defines the “Human Moment” as “an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space.”
The Human Moment is critical, and you can’t have one via Facebook.
Now, I am, of course, a huge proponent of the power of social media. The point of this little dish is not to bash social media and suggest a return to a pre-agrarian society. My point is simply that brands (and, indeed, all of us) should not lose site of the fact that adopting digital experiences at the expense of real world experiences is probably not in anyone’s best interest.
1 Comment- Jun 11
- 28
Transparency, Trepidation, and Ten-Year-Old Kool-Aid: “Experts” v. Expertise
- Posted by Ed Gazarian
- Published in Industry Commentary, Social Media, Social Media Marketing
Late last month, Peter Shankman posted a decidedly sour meditation on the perils of hiring a “Social Media Expert”, insisting that such a moniker is both apocryphal and a waste of dollars. Mr. Shankman wrote:
Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator.You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.
Peter Shankman, 20 May 2011
Ouch, Sir. Very ouch. I have never described myself as a “Social Media Expert”. Rather, I subscribe to the philosophy of Bill S. Preston, ESQ., who famously quoted an Ancient Greek of some renown when he said “The only true wisdom, consists in knowing that you know nothing.” and as Mr. Preston’s esteemed colleague Ted Theodore Logan affirmed: “That’s us, dude!” As I see it, the title of “expert” is one that is better given, rather than taken. It is a far, far, better thing to be called an expert, rather than call yourself one. And so on the issue of self-titled “experts”, Mr. Shankman and I are in accord.
Where I take issue with Mr. Shankman’s diatribe is in the misstep of lumping so-called “Social Media Experts” into one big pot. Bearing in mind that true social media expertise is easily identified, but difficult to quantify, when endeavoring to define an “Expert”, it serves to separate the wheat from the chaff. Social media demands a specific set of faculties: command of the written word, an understanding of who you’re addressing, and a zero BS modus operandi. You’ll forgive me, Mr. Shankman, but it is in fact about engagement. It’s about talking with someone, instead of at them. That’s what the arrow of social media has added to the quiver of marketing: a direct, potentially meaningful and easily mismanaged, tool with which to engage consumers.
And so with this squarely in mind, on several points, I’ll agree that Mr. Shankman is correct. Social media is absolutely about transparency, relevance, and brevity. Like Mr. Shankman, those tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand staunchly on-end whenever I encounter grammatical woes in professional correspondence. Just last week a prospective job candidate wrote to me, stating that she was “fluent in both Mandarin and England”. Good grief. But I’m a firm believer that those sensitive to issues like these recognize others of the same ilk. With very little effort, it’s easy to see who is an effective communicator, and who isn’t.
So Mr. Shankman, rather than drinking “the same damn ten-year-old Kool-Aid” (which you say is synonymous with repeating the ills of the dotcom era), take a step back and recognize that like you, there are those of us out here that get it. We understand the value that social media adds to an overall sales and marketing plan, and like you, we find it abhorrently distasteful when the Kool-Aid goes bad. And as for making the whole sandwich – indeed, serve up a whole, amazing one (as long as you know not to serve a Double Down to the Judges of Top Chef).
1 Comment- May 11
- 19
Be Cool: Why Content Must Compel
- Posted by Ed Gazarian
- Published in Industry Commentary, Social Media, Social Media Marketing
Last week, Matt Peters published an article extolling the need for thoughtful consideration of the already-cluttered state of information most of us exist in, these days. For individuals, this means floating in what can seem like a vast stream of information (be it news items, tweets/status updates from friends and family, or announcements from brands and organizations), and dealing with the challenge of filtering that information in ways that make it meaningful. Like any irrigation system, assuring that information in the stream, no matter what the source, gets to the right destination is essential. For brands, and for marketers savvy enough to get in the know, this means understanding how your audience filters its streams already, and determining how best to make your messaging mean something to them.
When I look at the ways I filter my own information streams, it’s a combination of tools provided by the social networks on which I’ve chosen to be active, and some home-made tools that were born from those most organic drivers of innovation: circumstance and convenience.
1 Comment- May 11
- 8
I’m More Connected than Ever, so Why Can’t You Connect with Me?
- Posted by Matt Peters
- Published in Social Media, Social Media Marketing
Image by Danndalf
This post has been rattling around in my brain for many months now, never quite finding its true form. It was not until yesterday that I realized my frustration in finding the appropriate expression was not due to my own cerebral impotence, but because the question posed in the title is, in fact, one of the most difficult marketing questions of our time.
If we are more connected than ever before, why has it become more difficult than ever to make a connection?
Please note that I am making use of the varied definitions of “connected.” We are more connected, in that we are more “joined”, or “linked,” but a true connection (“association; relationship”) is harder than ever to establish and maintain.
4 Comments- Mar 11
- 1
Employers, Facebook, Privacy, and Drawing the Line
- Posted by Ed Gazarian
- Published in Social Media, Social Networks
By alancleaver_2000
The vast majority of posts here on Context Over Dogma deal with social media specifically with respect to use in marketing. But as we all know, social media has implications throughout our lives and across numerous business and personal disciplines. Every so often, we like to address a non-marketing facet of the social media world in which we live and play. These issues will, in some way, affect us all.
Early last week, I came across an article that detailed goings-on at The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. During a recent job interview with the Department of Corrections, Officer Robert Collins was forced to give up the password to his private Facebook account. Rallying to Officer Collins’ defense was the ACLU, which sent a particularly scathing letter to the Maryland Department of Corrections, in which it called the move “a frightening and illegal invasion of privacy” and stated that “[n]either Officer Collins nor his Facebook ‘friends’ deserve to have the government snooping about their private electronic communications.”
I shared the article with my own Facebook friends, and watched the comments roll in: “NO!”, “$%*& NO!”, “%@#&#* &#*&@!” etc… If colorful metaphors can be taken as indication, clearly, a nerve had been touched.
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Stand Apart on Facebook – Don’t Pander
There’s a growing trend in online communications, and I – for one – am not too thrilled. With increased aggression and startling frequency, quotients of the brands on
Facebook are lowering their standards of communication. You know the type. They use words like ginormous and irregardless, both of which have become so pervasive in the American lexicon that they’ve been entered into the ranks of reverence on Dictionary.com (somewhere, another Wordsmith of some repute is rolling over in his grave, but doing it with a wink and a smile). These are the same folks that start every sentence with “Actually”, or “I feel like…” and in the spoken word utter every statement with a sickly sweet sense of mild, bland surprise, and a frequently falling intonation (“Oh, really? No kidding.) They have seemingly no regard for the fact that an exclamation point is meant to do just that – exclaim. If you can’t express the sentiment with language, then using !!!!! as a crutch is not an acceptable workaround.
These grammatical slights are not creative. They are examples of lazy, uncreative people expressing themselves in lazy, uncreative ways. Like telling an old joke over and over again to the same person, what once was impactful for its uniqueness has become ineffectual by way of ubiquity.
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