social media dilemma Archives by Mark Murnahan

In Marketing, It Will Fly or It Won’t: What Grounds Your Marketing?

Persistence is important in marketing. If you give up too soon, you could miss a huge opportunity. On the other side of the equation, if you are trying to fly a lead balloon, it is best to stop before wasting any more time and money.

I want to inspire you with some questions about your marketing, and your business challenges. You don’t have to answer, but I hope you will. So, let’s start thinking about some things that can ground your marketing.

Know When to Change Course

How do you define the point when it is no longer productive to keep doing what you are doing? If you don’t know when to implement changes, it can destroy your company. What is the right answer? Is it when the competition starts taking away market share? Is it when the budget runs out? Is it when the company goes completely broke? Is it before all of this begins to go wrong, and you can take a proactive approach? Let’s consider this quandary, because although it may not be comfortable, knowing when to make changes is imperative to the growth of a company.

Have you ever pulled the plug on a marketing campaign? I have, and sometimes it was too late, but other times it was too early. I lived, and I learned. It sometimes felt like I was one of The Wright Brothers, crashing airplane after airplane trying to get it right. If you have ever really tried to make a business fly, you have probably felt the same way. Sure, there is value in mistakes, but there is even more value in learning to avoid them!

Look at the efforts in this early flight video, and tell me if it feels a bit familiar to you.

Marketing really doesn’t need to be so painful. The information you need to know is right there at your fingertips. Yes, right there at the computer you are gazing into, but it will only help if you learn how to use it. Even then, it does no good if you don’t actually make the tough decision of putting it into action.

If Your Marketing Won’t Fly, You Need to Know Why

How do you avoid the failures and cut straight to the part when your marketing soars like an eagle? That is tricky, and it is as unique as the company itself. You cannot eliminate all mistakes, but you can come a lot closer, don’t you think? I think we all can.

Something that many companies hesitate to embrace is that a marketing campaign should be carefully researched, or it should not be launched at all. When companies neglect the value of market research and planning, it is usually because they have already reached a point of desperation. This is often geared to cut corners, but it is about the worst place to make cuts. Another reason I see companies skip market research and planning is because they simply fail to realize how much they don’t know about growing a business. They may know their business, but know little about how to make the business grow.

Shortsighted marketing is especially common as social media marketing has become a perceived savior of the business world. This can all be used to your advantage, but not if you are doing the same things, and making the same marketing mistakes the competitors are.

Social Media Made Marketing Easy … Mistakes and All!

During my 20 plus years in marketing, I have made a lot of observations. What I have seen in recent years is a far greater tendency for under-funded and poorly planned companies to try and emulate competitors, rather than stand on their own unique merits. I call it imitation marketing, and imitation marketing means imitating failures, too. It does not fly well.

Along with the social media marketing craze where everybody wants to become a marketing professional, a lot of talent has been discovered. Far more often, it has led to massive amounts of waste created by squillions of people trying to earn as they learn, instead of earning based on their experience, knowledge, and marketing talent. I’m not exaggerating when I say that social media has as many downsides as it does upsides, and this is a huge downside!

Projections became more like a drunken bar room shootout for a lot of companies, and based less on solid mathematics and science, and more on luck. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because there is no other form of marketing that is more measurable than that which is performed with a computer. Computers record data and organize it very nicely, but some people still question the measurement, or the ability to hit the target. That sounds completely absurd to me, but then again, I have worked with it every day, since the 1990’s.

A Crash at the Air Show

Wouldn't Orville Wright's Diary Help You Fly?

I often watch unprepared marketing departments and small business owners running off customers by crashing their plane at the air show. They finally get an audience, and they make a bad maneuver. Worse yet is when they strafe the audience.

Firing into the crowd and hoping something hits the target is popular, but it yields a low return on investment (ROI). In military or police terms, it is a “spray and pray” effort. If you spray enough bullets, and pray to the warrior gods, you may get through the battle alive.

Failure to implement a proper marketing strategy is often why small businesses remain small. I don’t think it is because they don’t want to do more business, but rather because they are overwhelmed.

There is much more to running any business than just the marketing. A challenge exists in realizing that good marketing is what makes a company successful. Marketing is what makes the difference between Coca Cola and other drinks that didn’t make it. It is a pretty terrible area to make mistakes, or take shortcuts.

There are many potential points of failure in any organization, but making your company more marketable, and actually marketing it well, can make the difference between huge success and utter failure. It makes the difference in whether it will fly, or it will not.

What Challenges Your Marketing Flight?

I want to know what you think. What are your biggest challenges, or the challenges you see other companies facing? What do you think companies are missing in their marketing? Is it ineffective market research, lack of marketing creativity, failure to budget, fear of loss, or the monster of all monsters … complacence?

You name it … I want your opinions, and I hope your insight may help others.

Let’s do some learning together. I would not ask you these questions if I didn’t want to learn, too. If you struggle with an answer, here is another way to look at it: What obstacles do you think hold a company back from hiring an experienced flight engineer like myself? Please share your insight.

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The Least Expensive Hour in Social Media: Study Time!

Have you ever wondered what is standing between you and a more successful social media marketing campaign? I am not going to read your tea leaves or make a bunch of speculation here, but I will tell you where a lot of people fail miserably.

I want to relate this to something that should get your attention, and that is cost. Have you ever considered the cost of social media marketing? We can break this down in many various ways, but the fact is that social media will have a cost, whether you take action or not.

If you don’t take action with social media, it will cost you lost opportunities and dwindling market share, and that is usually the biggest cost of all. You probably understand this, or you would not be reading my “SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog”. So, I am going to take a big leap here, and assume that you intend to take action. Maybe you are already taking action, and in that case, you probably want to do it even better.

Many business people choose to spend more time than money in their social media marketing efforts. I guess they feel like the cost of time is less than the cost of money. The fear of monetary failure hits a lot of people harder than the fear of lost time.

Since your time and money are both valuable to you, I want to help you discover the least expensive hour in social media. That hour is the one spent taking in knowledge. No, not just seeking knowledge, but finding it and absorbing it. That means you will need to prepare yourself to fight the boredom and be ready to work hard at learning from others’ work. It means it is time to go back to school and treat it seriously. Just like most schooling, you will not be interested in everything you need to learn in order to be successful, but it is still there for your benefit.

I may never understand why so many people try hard to become a social media expert, but it is the way of today. I can’t fight that, and I don’t try to. I can’t understand a father studying dentistry to fix his kids’ teeth, either, but if I had a dentistry school, you can bet I would try to help them.

The Cost of Social Media: Time and Money

When you take action with social media, it will cost you time and money. You can weigh them out and spend more of one or the other, but in business, nothing comes from nothing. Regardless what you may have read somewhere on a marketing blog, success does not just come out of nowhere. Success in business comes from taking action. Not just that, it comes from taking well-calculated action.

That means you will need knowledge to balance your expenditures of time and money. Good, reliable, factual, knowledge will take the edge off, regardless how you reconcile your time and money dilemma. Think of it like a shot of whiskey before the surgeon starts cutting.

Unless you are some kind of gifted alien from another planet, or simply do not care about your business, time and money have heavy influence in your decisions. Time and money are both very precious resources to a business, and so they must be allocated with diligence.

Stop Chasing Wild Geese!

Now consider that since you don’t know it all (none of us do … even Google), knowledge is an important building block. It is why we tell our kids to go to school, and it is how we begin our careers. It is hard to dispute the value of good information, but yet, it is easy to neglect it. The Internet also makes it extremely easy to lose your attention and assume that maybe there is something even better “over there” behind the next flashy, blinky, brightly colored link.

Maybe there is something better over there, but it is even more common that it is another “wild goose chase” that will send you chasing in circles. This makes it more important than ever that once you find good and reliable resources, you hold on to them and use them and stop the goose chasing.

What is the cost of sitting in front of your computer learning? Sure, you can waste a whole lot of time. There are some astonishing statistics on how much time people waste with social media. For example, did you know that Zynga, the company that produced Farmville and Mafia Wars was recently valued at over ten billion dollars? Seriously, let’s look at that valuation in numerical format … $10,000,000,000! That says a lot about the time spent in social media websites. If you are in it to help your business, avoiding the time-wasting, and finding good resources will be essential. Ten Billion … seriously, can you believe how much time people are spending playing games? That probably includes some of your competitors, so while they cultivate their Farmville farm, you should be studying!

If you are concerned about wasting time, as I am, I hope that you will take a serious and sincere approach to this. It is easy to get caught up with the mystique and the unrealistic hype of the Internet, but if you take it seriously as a business, the results can be astonishing.

The whole thought of this occurred to me when I read and commented on a friend’s blog. My friend, Mark Harai wrote an article titled “Social Media Tire Kickers – Dead on Arrival“. It reminded me of things I tell people when they ask me about my work in social media. I will share a portion of my comment, but you may read the rest on Mark’s blog.

“I tried the approach of common sense, and appealing to a brain in their heads, but it is tough for people to jump over their own barriers. Ages ago, I quit trying to sell the SEO and social media marketing services that I provide (I still sell the services … I just quit “trying”). I found that many people worry about the cost more than they consider the return, and fears devastate their business hopes.

I often suggest to potential clients that if they don’t have enough desire to build their business to spend an hour or more in my blog archive to understand the benefits of my work, they are not ready.”

Within the context of Mark’s article and with the complete comment, I think it makes sense how much I really believe in sharing ideas and helping people create value for their business. I don’t always put it in nice and comfortable terms, but you can bet that I am very dedicated to sharing good information.

There are a lot of others out there who adhere to similar values, and I want to share a short list of them with you. If you truly want to enjoy your least expensive hour in social media, do yourself a favor and spend an hour in the archives of each of the blogs listed below. I am just going to get you started with a small selection of people I respect and trust. I have a longer list, but I would like to see yours. Who do you pay attention to, and who do you think belongs on a list of good thinkers who can help progress your efforts rather than distract you? Add your comment with a link to your favorite social media thinkers who inspire you.

I included a link to the latest article from each of these blogs, but don’t assume their latest is their greatest. Take some time to learn from them and use the knowledge they have worked hard to produce for you.

I have said it before that a small amount of good information is worth a lot more than the whole Internet’s worth of bad information. Once you get the good stuff, it is likely that your money and your time will both come into a much greater balance. I hope that you will spend some time in my blog archive as well. I have written about an extensive list of topics relating to search engine optimization, social media, and other marketing issues. They may not all interest you or inspire you, but I can say without a doubt that if you take it seriously, your time will not be wasted. I am confident that you will find useful information that you can implement to benefit your business.

Some of the best lessons in social media are the ones which inspire your own thinking and your unique adaptations to their successes. When you find those, you will be far closer to your own success.

Once more, here is the link to my archive. Don’t assume it was all written just for the sake of my own ego. It is there to be helpful.

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Social Media Rat Race: Avoiding Social Marketing Burnout

I surely cannot be alone in my thoughts when I reflect upon social media and the rat race it can sometimes represent. There are millions of people out there in our social networks who are trying so hard to be brilliant every day, in their respective industries and job roles. It can be really challenging to find the right balance between burning hot and burning out.

If I am the only person who feels that pressure of striking the perfect balance, I would be really shocked. On the other hand, if I am the only one who will admit it, there is little surprise. People are proud (often far too proud), and they don’t like to admit their weaknesses.

Some of you certainly must relate to the burn that keeps you “hot” in your social media efforts. Just like any fire, it takes fuel to keep it burning. When the fire rages, it takes more fuel. After a while of burning really hot, it is easy to run low on fuel and need to go chop some more wood. That means it is time to find new inspiration!

There should be little wonder why so many people burn out and give up on their efforts. I see it all the time, and I see it across many networks, and with individuals and companies of all sizes. It is really hard to be brilliant on a consistent basis, and it is even harder when you try to balance long-term objectives with short-term frustrations. This is true for individuals and groups alike.

How can you control this “fuel consumption” dilemma and keep your fire burning steadily? I may not have all the answers to your individual burnout challenges, but I can offer you some ideas. First, I would like to direct your attention to the term “Rat Race“ as it is described in Wikipedia. Here is a quote:

“A rat race is a term used for an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of the futile efforts of a lab rat trying to escape while running around a maze or in a wheel. In an analogy to the modern city, many rats in a single maze expend a lot of effort running around, but ultimately achieve nothing (meaningful) either collectively or individually.”

The first step to keep your efforts from becoming (or remaining) like this description of a rat race is to be aware of it.

Who Are Those Social Media Experts, Anyway?

I have a strong suspicion that the reason you took all of that “brilliant” advice the world kept shoving at you about social media marketing is somehow related to money, right? They told you to use Facebook and Twitter, they gave you all the good reasons to blog, and urged you to jump on the social media express train. Maybe a few even advised that you be “human” but yet, whatever you do, be brilliant every single day!

Social Media Rat Racers Are Constantly Feeding

Maybe “they” didn’t put it quite in those terms, but that is the writing you saw on the wall. Social media marketing became the clearest answer for helping your business to survive and hopefully thrive while other marketing failed like an untied balloon sailing through the air as it deflates. You have seen how thin newspapers and telephone books are nowadays, right? Perhaps you noticed how many television stations had cutbacks, or how thin your telemarketing cousin is looking these days. All paths seem to lead to social media as an ideal cure for the cancer ravaging your business.

Social media is the one place where “they” tell you that you can do it all yourself and you will save a ton of money because it is “free”. Of course, “free” will never come without a cost. That is another blog article altogether, but let’s be realistic: Social media marketing is not designed to save you money, or save your sanity, but rather to earn you money more effectively. There is a huge difference in saving and earning, and I love how Thomas Jefferson said “The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.”

Social media marketing done well will often require an even larger investment than those things of the past. One of the steepest costs comes from right there between your ears. It takes a great strategy to achieve great results, and great strategies can be just about challenging enough to put most people on the doorstep of an insane asylum. Whether you hire it out, or you try and do it all yourself, there is a big cost of time and energy, or money.

In a perfect world, success may be simple or it may be free, but you can bet that it will not be both. In either case, the famed social media miracle cure has probably let you down more than once.

Grab Your Social Media Rope

Since you are hip-deep in it now, I want to throw you a rope to help pull you from the ashes and give you an ember to rekindle your efforts.

I will admit that I am not feeling very brilliant today. I am worn out from long hours of work, and we have had a nasty cold running through my family. How else would I be able to reflect on burnout so clearly, yet confused at the same time? Hey, I am human … Imagine that! You are, too, and that means you are full of faults. You have all kinds of lovely faults, and each of them provides opportunities to do better.

If what you are doing is burning you out, it is time to regroup and rekindle. It is time to rethink things, and create new solutions. My example is certainly different from many, because I am a marketing professional. After long days of building upon theories and crafting marketing strategies for everybody else, it is easier to just ignore my own marketing needs. I guess it is why there are so many metaphors about plumbers with leaky pipes, sick doctors, and cobblers with barefoot children. If you are in the marketing field, this should be a cinch for you, but it can be applied to any marketing endeavor.

Grab my rope and pull yourself out of those ashes and let’s reflect on your strategy. Is it outdated for your needs? Do you have more insight to work with today than you did in the past? If so, it is time to redefine and reshape your social media strategy.

In the Social Media Rat Race, It is Better to Be A Squirrel!

Redefine Your Strategy

Why did you ever begin a social media marketing effort? Did you do it to solve short-term objectives and squelch immediate fears of jumping in too late? One of the most tragic things I see with companies is the act of just dipping their toe in, only to find that it is quicksand.

If you take a step back and consider this, you may find that you entered the social media arena with a tactical approach, but without a well-formed strategy. If this is the case, don’t be ashamed of it, and don’t be overwhelmed by it. It is a common mistake, and my experience says that it is the most frequent cause for burnout. I was not kidding or trying to be “Mister Popular” when I wrote “Social Media Tactics Without Social Media Strategy Fails“.

Taking a new look with a fresh set of ideas can make a huge difference. What have you learned along the way, and how can you use that knowledge? It is worth the effort to discover things you may be overlooking or procrastinating.

Measure and Enjoy Your Social Media Successes

I can often share things best by recounting things from my professional work. Real stories are very often my best inspiration and source of that “fuel” to keep me working hard. It is a good way to get a point across and help you to think about how it may relate to your world.

I met a college student on my blog this morning. You see, I have this nice little chat on my blog where I can see what people are reading and engage them in a chat. I saw the article he was reading, and I struck up a conversation. We had a nice 19 minute chat, and I found that he was very interested in learning from my work. I have given a lot of hard lessons and grief to newcomers in my industry, because there is a widely held perception that it is easy. I strongly dislike the type who come into my industry and treat it like a Gold Rush. It is not a “get rich quick” kind of job, and it took me years to earn my first million. On the other hand, I respect the newcomers who have integrity, are willing to work hard, and want to learn. I work hard to help them, and I feel good about doing that.

What? You don’t consider that a success story? It did not pay me a penny, but you can bet that I came away feeling better about my work. It gave me more fuel, because it reminded me that I have a lot to offer, and that I can make a useful impact in somebody’s learning. It reminded me why I love what I do, and why my objectives always follow along behind my purpose … and not the other way around.

Maybe this seems too longsighted, but it is what works in the real world. Anything else is like trying to harvest a crop without sowing any seeds. All you get is dirt!

Restate Your Objectives

Are your objectives honorable? Do you have integrity and honesty? Unless you are representing something despicable and unworthy, it is OK to make your objectives known. Regardless of the stigma which some (usually jealous or unsuccessful) people place on those seeking a benefit from social media, most people won’t hate you for that. What they hate is when you try to harvest a crop without planting any seeds.

If you work hard to provide a value to others, and they appreciate your work, it is fine to ask them for something in return. That may mean asking for the sale, asking for them to subscribe, or many other possibilities. If they don’t like it, they are probably selfish about other things, too. Some misguided people will always want something for nothing. A lot of people will respect you for it, and it could be a big breath of fresh air for your business.

You don’t have to take it as far as I do with stating your objectives and your strategy publicly, but you must at least mark them in your business plan and keep them in your sights. When you have a clear definition of your strategy and how it will help you achieve your goals, it is a lot easier to do what it takes to reach those goals. It will also be much easier on the people you hope will listen to you and take action.

It was perhaps not my most brilliant moment, but I think I said it pretty well in my article “How to Make a Blog Popular: Consider Your Intent!“ This is not just about a blog, either. Your intent will have a lot to do with how people perceive you, and how receptive they are to your brand. Here is a quote from that article:

“The focus of this blog is to help educate people about things which can help them. I like to help people think and create their own ideas. I like to teach people about things which they may find useful. I also like to dispel the many SEO lies which are common in the industry.

When I say that intent is important, here is how I look at it: If my intent was centered around selling something rather than educating and helping people, the direction would be totally different. The intent would show through, and the value to others would be far less.”

When I consider this intent, it is a lot easier to achieve my hopeful outcome. That hopeful outcome is that you will subscribe to my blog, share it on Facebook, Twitter, email, blogs, and scream it at the top of your lungs in a packed office, train station, street, or any other place where there are people. My strategy involves people adapting and sharing my ideas far and wide. Since I only seek a very select group of businesses to provide my services, my strategy is to help others enough that they will help me in return, by getting me in front of my special somebody.

Did you follow that? My strategy is to help enough people that some of them will help me to find my special client … the one I call “The Right One”. Be helpful? Not a bad idea, right? Sure, I am only seeking one good person to see value in my work, and you may be seeking a million of them. Trust me now, or resent me later, but I can tell you that the principle is the same regardless of the scale.

Can you see the parallels in your industry? I hope so, and I hope that this gives you some fuel for thought and keeps your social media bonfire burning for another day.

The strategy almost seems too simple, right? It should seem simple, because then it is manageable and sustainable. If you make things too confusing, or if you don’t have your objectives straight, your strategy will fail. That is a perfect recipe for rat racing and eventual burnout.

What do you have to say about this?

Photo Credits:
Two Rats by Matt Baume via Flickr
Rat & Squirrel by Peter Pearson via Flickr
Rats Drinking Milk by Mandy via Flickr

Social Media Express: Avoiding The Social Media Train Wreck

Social media is more than just a little bit special to me. Perhaps, if you have been using social media for a while, you feel this way, too. I have lived with my Internet connection close by my side for many years, like a good friend. Just like any longtime friend, it has changed. It has built me up, and it has let me down.

Social media has helped me to meet many wonderful people that I never would have met elsewhere. Those people include some of my closest friends of the last 15 years, and even my wife and mother of our three children, whom I met back in 2000. I think a lot of people can relate to how I feel about this special part of my life where I laugh, learn, and spend many hours working.

I still cherish many memories of times when social media was simpler. I guess it must feel kind of the way my 94 year old grandmother feels when she recalls her earlier days. The pace was more manageable, and people would still wave from their window in a train, and take more time to visit with the passengers around them.

Today, I want to encourage you to slow your social media train to avoid a crash. Yes, I said slow down … take your time. Read about one of the worst hazards of social media, and consider how you may avoid it.

Don’t Let Your Social Media Train Derail

Over the past few years, we invited the whole world to board the “Social Media Express”. It has created a time in our society which can adequately be termed “astonishing”. Now that the train is full, we all want to go somewhere, and get there fast.

Sometimes it seems that social media is like a runaway train with a huge payload of information and passengers just sitting there oblivious to the derail ahead of them. I have ridden this train to many derails, such as Yahoo! Groups that fell apart, and services that eventually phased out and friends lost communications. In cases where I looked far enough ahead, I could see it coming and warn my friends and we could slow the train down to resume our comfortable ride.

I feel very fortunate for the many people I met through social media and still communicate with regularly after teens of years. It took some effort to avoid the scattering effect of a train derailment, but it has been very worthwhile to me.

The big crash that I have emphatically warned people about is trying to “follow”, “friend”, “connect”, and etcetera, with excessive numbers of people with whom they never have any intention or ability to build a meaningful relationship.

I understand the huge urge for people to feel popular. I hear it all the time, even from people who have no real agenda to have a squillion connections, but just enjoy the appearance of being popular. If I had to point a finger at one single overriding challenge in social media, this would be it.

What so many people overlook is that having real communication and meaningful relationships with a smaller group who really listen to you or care about you is much more rewarding. This is true for both personal and business purposes, because it only takes about 150 people sharing something worthwhile to set it on a path to “viral” communication. Don’t try to argue this point with me, because I really will win this one.

Robin Dunbar Meets The Social Media Express

Have you ever heard of Dunbar’s Number? I will explain with a quote from Wikipedia:

“Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.”

I watch people trying to push Dunbar’s Number to a breaking point every day. Once they run through each passenger car on the “Social Media Express”, they burn out and jump off the speeding train when they don’t get what they hoped for. They don’t pull the hand brake, they don’t say goodbye, and many of them will never board the train again. They broke their social media train.

I can certainly place a good amount of blame on the implied importance of somebody with a lot of “friends” in social media. After all, I must be more important if I have xxxxx followers on Twitter and xxxx friends on Facebook, right?

There is another big challenge created by the many desperate people producing deafening levels of static while trying so hard to become marketers. With enough of that static, it causes many people to build up stronger than ever communication barriers. This overheats the train’s brakes, and sends more than a few passengers jumping off between stations.

Can You Share in My Guilt?

I witness many examples of pending challenges in my own use of social media. For example, I tend to tune out a lot just in order to keep up with people communicating with me directly. I am always available to anybody on this Internet, but it takes a lot of effort to reach out and see what all of those people have to say. So I let them come to me. I have even found out shamefully late of people who died, because it took me a long time to make my rounds to their Facebook profile.

I do my best to put friends and interesting people into lists, and I try to keep up, but nobody is immune to the challenge of “keeping up”. Many of the people I used to hear from every day stopped participating in social media, because they felt burned out and like nobody heard them anyway. Twitter makes a profound statement in this area, and has a horrible churn rate. It is not just specific networks, either. Many bloggers have expressed concerns that although people are reading, their comments have diminished. I certainly see it here, as well. Even while my readership is consistently high, it seems that many people don’t want to discuss topics the way they used to.

Do Those Big Numbers Really Matter?

I have studied this dilemma for years, and I know the importance of reaching a lot of people. Sure, it may increase your odds, right? Well, the truth is that if those are not the right people, and they are just a number for the sake of numbers, your impact will not be proportionate with your efforts. When you see somebody with a lot of friends, followers, and whatever you want to call them, it generally happens for one of two reasons: They either sought a lot of people who were also looking for big numbers for the sake of numbers, or they earned those numbers by reaching an appropriate audience who cared what they have to say and pay attention. One method imitates popularity in order to appear important or to throw spam at the wall and hope it sticks, and the other method is to do something people care about and presenting it to the right people.

I recently looked at my Twitter followers to find that many thousands of them had not used Twitter at all in the last six months. I filtered them out by those who had not sent an update in the last 90 days, and found that for many of them it had been over six months. I unfollowed 1,000 of them, which were mostly just nameless and faceless to me, and then I stopped. I realized that it was a waste of time to keep sorting through the graveyard of fallen Twitter users. I had only followed them in the first place because they had followed me, so I don’t feel some huge loss of a close friend.

Back before it became so popular to try and follow everybody under the sun, I used to see a huge value in Twitter. I liked it enough that I was asked to write a book about Twitter. I wrote it, and it was pretty good. I published it in July 2009, but I wish I had written it a few months sooner, before the Twitter graveyard started filling up.

Back in the good old days of social media, even as recently as Twitter, people paid attention to others. There were more conversations, and the conversations turned into friendships, and many times into business.

Today, I tweet something and it can sometimes seem to go unnoticed, even if it is totally hilarious or brilliant. Very few people respond, and almost nobody retweets things, compared to earlier years. Is it because they all hate each other, or is it because they simply went blind and only communicate if you go directly to them?

It is a tough call, but the numbers clearly indicate a speeding train.

Do You Slow Down and Say Hello Enough?

As a person who works and socializes here in this social media world, I have sometimes wondered “Is it me? Did I do something that changed things? Did I contribute to the extra hustle and bustle?” I really don’t think so, but I always try to keep myself in check.

I still find great value in many areas of social media, and it is still a very good place to make friends, build relationships, and produce new business. In fact, far better than any other, but it requires greater effort than ever before. It is not as easy as it used to be, and it can be more challenging than earlier years. It sometimes makes me wonder if I hadn’t been in my industry for so many years, what it would look like to me today. I have watched it evolve, and I have evolved with it nicely, but for somebody new here, I think it could get pretty overwhelming, and lose its luster quickly.

The Social Media Train is Human-Powered

I have written volumes of thoughts on the human aspects of our technical world. I write it in books, blogs, and I talk to groups about the importance of the real human communications that social media is so great for.

We control the pace of the train we are on, and the direction it travels. There are no rails, and plenty of great people and places to see. I only hope that more people will enjoy the ride, consider the people, stop running from car to car seeking more people to irritate with bad marketing, and avoid the train wreck.

Here is just a small selection of things I have said to try and caution others, and help them become more cognizant of the people around them. The longer list is found throughout my blog archive and in my books. I would not say these things if I didn’t mean them, and can stand behind them.

A Story from My Social Media Train Car

Something slowed my train nicely a few days ago. As I was unfollowing that 1,000 people on Twitter, as I mentioned, I came across several old friends who had dropped off the face of Twitter. One of them was Tom Roquemore, whom I met on Twitter a couple years ago. I like Tom, but he stopped using Twitter last October, and we hadn’t communicated since then.

Remembering good talks we had shared, I put him on my list of people to contact by phone. Before I even got around to calling him, my phone rang and it was Tom. We talked for a while and it was great to hear from him again. The timing was kind of uncanny, but we probably would have talked even sooner if our train was just moving a little slower.

How Does Tom Roquemore Affect My Social Media Train?

I have used social media, in one way or another, since before Yahoo! purchased GeoCities. That has been a long time, and I have seen a lot in those passing years. One thing that I have found to be the most valuable of all is to focus on a core group of the right people who really listen and feel strongly about the value you represent. That is where true and worthwhile popularity stems. It is like the initial spark of an explosion, and it starts very small. This holds true in the largest of all marketing campaigns, and in the smallest of groups. If you focus more on value over volume, your success and your enjoyment will be far greater. You just have to slow the train to recognize it, and find the truth in what I am telling you.

If some of you great people will slow down and add your comments here on my blog, maybe we could show others the start of a better habit. A habit of taking the time and effort to bring better communications back to social media, and not just rushing to the next thing that seems urgent.

Conga line image credit to fallingrock via Flickr

Social Media Irony: Does Twitter Hate Facebook?

There surely must be some tension between the social media giants, Twitter and Facebook. After all, social media is a fiercely competitive and also very profitable industry. Once in a while, there is a blaring case of irony to make us laugh.

Irony: “… situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions.” (source: Wikipedia)

Maybe you will not find this as amusing as I do. After all, I laugh at a lot of absurdities that I discover online. Social media is fantastic for a laugh, and I may never get the pictures of people with back-boobs and front-butts out of my head. Yes, that’s right, I said back boobs and front butts. See for yourself at your local Wal Mart store, or follow the humorous links I provided.

NOTE: I know some fine people with back boobs and front butts, but let’s face it Snuggies are cheap, and they could disguise that stuff better than Spandex!

Now back to this social media irony of Facebook and Twitter. We have all heard that we should be using Twitter, right? Anybody in the marketing industry will, at a minimum, recommend reserving your brand name at Twitter.com.

Twitter grew like influenza since 2007, and millions of people flocked to the service to find out what a “tweet” is all about. I must say that it was not without merit, and I have participated quite heartily in the conversation surrounding Twitter.

Long before Twitter … centuries before Twitter (in Internet time, of course) we had Facebook. Facebook really hit the world by storm, and grew to over 500 million users in short order. Do you realize how big 500,000,000 is? It is big … very big!

Obviously, Facebook has a stronghold in the social media industry, but we still cannot overlook Twitter for its complex simplicity. I like Twitter enough that I wrote a book about the service, so this is certainly not a bash on Twitter. It is just an observation.

I also like Facebook, and I can spend hours spying on the lives of nearly everybody I ever knew. Then, of course, there are those many companies who do not even see it coming while I am compiling the information I need in order to crush their business with marketing intelligence that I pick up on Facebook.

A logical and meaningful bash against Facebook is like slapping a hungry grizzly bear with a slab of meat and then hoping I can outrun it. It is one of those things that sounds stupid even when smart people say it. Facebook is a winner in the information age. Knock Facebook if you like, but 500 million kind of speaks for itself.

No, this is not a bashing, but I question how they see each other. What is a good way to open a dialog of speculation on how the two social media giants view the others’ service? Make up your own mind on this (and please share your comments), but to me it seems that a look at each of their usage of the others’ service should say something. What it says could be taken different ways, and I will let you chime in with your thoughts.

Twitter on Facebook

Twitter has a Facebook account with hundreds of thousands of fans. My logical assumption would be that Twitter may actually have something more than 140 characters (the character limit on Twitter) to say to all of those adoring fans. Sure, they have a blog, and of course they have Twitter, but it seems that Facebook is not just “the competition”, and it could serve some great uses for Twitter. It seems that Twitter did not ask for, nor act upon my opinion … or the opinion of the 714,256 people who elected to “Like” them on Facebook. As the image below illustrates, “Twitter has no recent posts.” Surely they have something available if you click on “older posts”, right? No … nothing at all. They signed up for an account and did not use it, just the same way as the overwhelming majority of accounts created on Twitter. Irony? Just wait, because there’s more!

Facebook on Twitter

I guess I never really pay much attention to Facebook on Twitter, but they are there, and using the service. When I want to know more about Facebook, I either look at Facebook or find it on one of my favorite Facebook-focused blogs. Facebook really does not need Twitter, but they apparently found value in embracing Twitter as another tool. I commend them on the choice to use Twitter, and it just makes good sense to me.

In contrast to Twitter’s blank Facebook page, Facebook sends updates using Twitter. As illustrated in the image below, Facebook is not a huge user of Twitter, but has sent 683 tweets since their account was created in March 2007.

Does Twitter Really Hate Facebook?

I guess it is a stretch to say that Twitter hates Facebook, but it is pretty clear that they do not have anything to say to the people who chose to “Like” their Facebook page. It seems that they could at least try it out and perhaps come out and say “tweet”.

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