Guest Posts

If Twitter Went Back to the Drawing Board

This is a guest post from Jamie Fairbairn.

The web is constantly evolving.

On July 15^th 2006 Twitter was officially launched and has since gone on to change the way many of us interact online.

As Twitter approaches its 5^th Birthday I thought it would be good to take a look at what it might be like if it was launching in 2011.

Read on below to discover my 10 point Twitter wish list.

Auto DMs wouldn?t exist

Isn?t it great when you follow someone on Twitter because you want to engage with them and have a conversation, only to find an auto DM coming your way?

?Check out my blog, Like me on Facebook? ? or maybe that should that read ?I couldn?t care less about you, it?s all about me?.

Certain words and phrases would be filtered out

Have you ever followed someone only to find they weren?t quite what you expected? Wouldn?t it be great if you could have a list of words or phrases you could automatically block? How about ?make money online?, ?get more Twitter followers? and ?instant traffic? for starters?

I know you can block users but it would be nice not to have to do this manually and have your time wasted.

A daily limit on tweets

There?s always someone who takes their Twitter use to excess. You know the person you follow who is quiet for a while then suddenly launches about 40 updates in as many minutes.

I wouldn?t want everyone to be penalised by this though, so perhaps a ban could be only placed on those who took their tweeting to ridiculous extremes.

A ban on tweet scheduling

I don?t know about you but the relevance on some automatic tweets I?ve seen recently has been questionable to say the least. This week alone I?ve seen tweets with ?10 social media rules for 2010? and similar outdated titles.

In my humble opinion, Twitter should be about real-time interaction and the example above demonstrates how automatic tweet scheduling can go badly wrong and ruin a user?s credibility.

An audio chat function

I?m not a technical person but maybe an audio chat function could work on Twitter? I realise you can go on Skype or pick up the phone but if you?re having a discussion on Twitter with more than one of your followers, perhaps a Skype type function could be incorporated?

I know there are other tools out there that allow for real-time collaboration in this way, but surely Twitter would rather people didn?t leave their site to do it?

A Twitter divide ? business and social

Call me crazy (and I know many of you will) but I can?t help thinking it might be a good idea to split Twitter into two separate platforms ? one for business and one for social purposes.

Now I know what you?ll be thinking ? that just takes away from the whole point of social media, but to be honest I?m sick and tired of ?business? people telling me what they had for breakfast or how many pints of lager they drunk last night.

Since some people don?t seem able to post the inane things from their life on Facebook rather than their business Twitter profile, why not give them a separate social Twitter to blether away on?

An official Twitter jobs board

I think Twitter is missing a trick by not having an ?official? jobs board. It?s always said they?re looking for ways to create revenue but many third parties seem to be one step ahead ? for example www.twitjobsearch.com seems to be doing very well.

An official Twitter jobs board would create revenue for Twitter while also giving its users a fantastic portal for employers and job seekers.

A smarter ?who to follow? function

I think the ?who to follow? function is a great innovation by Twitter but it could do with some modifications.

I recently checked out my ?who to follow? list and was pretty disappointed that it was full of verified Twitter accounts of people I?d never heard of and had no obvious connection to my industry or my existing followers.

A tweet improvement tool

No offence to anyone who uses Twitter but some people post a lot of nonsense. There are also others who post fantastic content but give it a weak headline so nobody clicks through to it.

With this in mind, I thought a built-in tweet improvement tool would be a good idea. Something that could scan what people had written and make some suggestions for improvement would make Twitter a better place for everyone.

A tweet spell checker

Nobody?s perfect and there have been times when I?ve accidentally tweeted something with a spelling mistake in it. Of course you can delete the offending tweet and post it again with the mistake removed.

Wouldn?t it be better for everyone though if Twitter had a built-in spell checker so you could be sure your tweets were error free before posting?

I?d love to know what you think of my wish list and if you have any suggestions of your own, please leave them in the comments below.

About the author: Jamie Fairbairn runs SearchBlogger ? an online marketing blog for small business owners. Jamie has helped small business owners in the UK get more from the web over the last 10 years.

SearchBlogger was set up in October 2010 to share Jamie?s knowledge on all aspects of online marketing with a wider audience. You can find him on Twitter @SearchBlogger.

image: theOOBE

3 Things CEOs Should Never Lose Sight of in Social Media

This is a guest post from Lisa Petrilli.

I just spent two full days in a phenomenal leadership simulation program entitled, ?Magnetic Leadership? that was conceived, created and offered by Profitability Business Simulations.

I had the privilege of playing the role of the customer throughout the simulation, and then coaching the teams and their leaders after each simulation round was completed.

During each round, one person on each team was appointed ?CEO? and was responsible for determining the overall direction and strategy for their team of eight people.

They had one hour to prepare the team for the 10-minute, high-stress simulation in which they were given a business challenge along with a fickle customer (me) and tasked with meeting the challenge while satisfying the customer.

Three Overarching CEO Success Principles

There were three overarching principles that were critical to the CEOs? success that surfaced during the simulation.

As I was reflecting on how I would talk with my leadership-focused clients about how the experience confirmed the importance of these principles, I realized that it was imperative to talk with my social media clients about the experience as well.

Why?

Because these principles are such that they must be communicated and absorbed throughout the entire organization, so that the company can exude them and live them on a daily basis. As a critical part of marketing, sales, business development and customer relationship building, employees on the front lines of social media must also exude and live these principles through their work.

Vision

As someone committed to ?visionary leadership? I was thrilled to see how the high-ranking leaders I was working with understood the importance of vision to their success, and how they got better over the 2-day experience at clarifying and communicating their vision:

“In an organization, those individuals on the front line of social media must clearly understand the vision for the organization in order to exude that vision when talking, and sharing content with, customers.”

For example, though Patagonia does not have a formal vision statement, it shares its vision when it writes about its ?Reason for Being:?

?Patagonia grew out of a small company that made tools for climbers. Alpinism remains at the heart of a worldwide business that still makes clothes for climbing ? as well as for skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running. These are all silent sports. None requires a motor; none delivers the cheers of a crowd. In each sport, reward comes in the form of hard-won grace and moments of connection between us and nature?
For us at Patagonia, a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet.?

Patagonia?s vision is to enable its customers to experience that hard-won grace and moments of connection with nature, and to express its love of wild and beautiful places by saving them.

Now see how Patagonia?s social media efforts further their vision to enable customers to experience that hard-won grace and those moments of connection with nature?especially the wild and beautiful places.

From Patagonia’s Facebook Page:

Picture Story: Conditions
Another in our occasional series of posts for the more visually oriented. This one goes out to all those lucky enough to charge off the couch and into the unknown without looking back or thinking twice . . . or doing much thinking at all, for that matter.

And from Twitter:

It?s clear to me that Patagonia employees immersed in social media understand the company?s vision and how critical it is to share it, and inspire through it, via what they communicate.

Values

It was striking how in such short leadership simulations one?s personal and leadership values became so immediately obvious.

For example, whether or not a leader valued the input of others was demonstrated by how well they listened, because there?s a difference between asking for someone?s opinion ?to appease that person? and asking because you truly want to know. Of course, this is just one of so many ways to demonstrate values.

It?s critical that CEOs not lose sight of the fact that the values that are rewarded in the organization are those that will ultimately be imbued in conversations with, and content shared with, customers socially.

Contrast the fact that I worked with a client who would not allow me to tweet birthday wishes from the organization?s Twitter account to some of our most loyal and active members, with the following, recent tweets from Patagonia:

Which organization would you naturally gravitate toward; the one that allows itself to be human and places value on sharing the human experience or the one that believes doing so just isn?t professional?

Value Proposition

Your company?s value proposition is what sets you apart from your competition; what makes you unique and provides that niche in which you cannot be rivaled.? For Apple and Disney it?s about customer experience while for Walmart it?s low cost and for Nordstrom it?s service.

If Disney social media employees tweeted about low-cost tickets to Disney World or asked Facebook fans to share stories about how to explore the park on a budget, it simply wouldn?t fit with the brand?s value proposition.

Rather, you see tweets about unique customer experiences that cannot be had anywhere but Disney World:

And yet, without guidance and clear communication from the CEO, employees immersed in social media might make the mistake of expressing the company in ways that are in direct contrast to its value proposition.

It is the CEO?s responsibility to ensure that all employees understand the vision, values and value proposition (amongst other things!) that the company is committed to, to be their head steward, and to never lose sight of how critical it is to align these principles with their company?s social media efforts.

If you?re in the C-suite of your company, ask yourself if you?ve communicated your vision, values and value proposition well enough so that employees in social media roles may do their jobs to the best of their ability and are empowered for success. If not, you run the risk that what they share socially may not be aligned strategically!
If you?re in a social media role and you realize you?re not clear on these principles and priorities, make sure you ask and get clear direction!

Your thoughts?

About the author:?Lisa Petrilli?is Chief Executive Officer of C-Level Strategies, Inc. and is passionate about visionary leadership. She helps C-suite executives and emerging leaders create strong visions for their companies and for themselves, and then bring these visions to fruition with clear and aligned strategies focused on leadership, marketing, and social media. You can find her on Twitter @LisaPetrilli and running #LeadershipChat every Tuesday night at 8pm ET, and she welcomes your emails at?Lisa@CLevelStrategies.com.

image: Joelk75

The Zen of Social Media

This is a guest post by Stuart Mills.

“Social media is a great way to tell the world what you?re thinking before you?ve had a chance to think about it.” – Chris Pirillo

Have you ever heard of that old saying, “You can take the ‘x’ out of the ‘y’, but you can’t take the ‘y’ out of the ‘x'”?

It implies to social media a lot.

How many people do you know have Facebook? Or Twitter? Or even that old-time favourite, Myspace? Or the more focused ones such as StumbleUpon, Digg, or Delicious? Is it a lot? I bet it is.

Ever since I started my website, I’ve come across so many different ways of connecting, it’s unreal. I could send the same message to you in a hundred different ways. I won’t, but the fact that the potential is there indicates that we are never more connected than we are now. The choice is mind-boggling.

A lot of the ways we can communicate is by social media. I could send you a Tweet, a Like, or a Stumble, and we could get our communication on (if you know what each of those terms mean, then consider yourself connected!). But I must ask now, do we really need all of this? Really?

Facebook Dilemma

I’ve recently had a couple of experiences with Facebook that I feel must be mentioned, as I believe they are examples of the ‘Facebook effect’ on people.

First, myself and my girlfriend were involved in a minor argument about a comment that was left on my Facebook page by someone we know. It was all meant in jest, yet the whole thing got a little out of hand. Its settled now, but you can still look and find the post on my Facebook profile here, and the comments following it.

This is the first time I’ve been involved in ‘Facebook fury’, and it wasn’t a very nice thing to sort out.

The second experience is to do with my Facebook page. I decided to delete the Unlock The Door Facebook page because it wasn’t serving me well. In fact, it was becoming more of a distraction, as it wasn’t growing as fast as my Twitter account, and there wasn’t much interaction taking place at all.

So now, all of my Facebook activity will be concentrated onto my Facebook profile. I believe this will make things simpler for me.

So what does this all mean? It means that Facebook has recently gotten out of hand for me, and I’ve now taken steps to reduce my Facebook activity, and focus more on Twitter as my main social media outlet. I like Twitter, it’s fun, informative, and it just seems a lot more professional.

But what it also means is that I needed to minimise my social media exposure.

Less Is More

I prefer to liken social media to a whirlpool. It looks fun but it can suck you in without ever letting you go. Before you know it, you’ve just spent those two hours in the morning, which you were going to spend on your website, checking out other profiles on Facebook, and tweeting the latest Charlie Sheen rant. It’s a waste.

Why do you do it?

Why waste those hours doing something which, at the most, might get a couple of cheap laughs? Social media can do that to you, it can turn you into a mindless, pointless status-uploading, zombie. I know, because some of them are my Facebook friends.

How can you get out of this? Simple, cut it back. Social media can become an addiction just like alcohol, drugs, and smoking. Excessive amounts are bad for you, we all know this, but it doesn’t make it any easier when you’re trying to log off from your profile but you just can’t bring yourself to do it!

Cut back on your addiction. Go cold turkey if you have to. I recall Steve Pavlina going on a 30 day Facebook fast after being an active user for two years. You can read his results here. I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I was at what he learned.

The same applies for any other social media outlet that you find yourself addicted to, as it’s not just Facebook.

Some people are addicted to endless retweeting, others like to click the ‘stumble’ button just for the hell of it. Cut back on these outlets. Disconnect your internet. Banish your computer if you have to, but however you do it, just take a break. Get your head out of the social media sand and look up to the sky. Look around you. You know what you see?

It’s life! Life is waiting for you if you only get away from your social media and embrace it.

Purposeful Social Media

Of course, I don’t advocate that you dispel social media entirely. Some of it is actually quite useful.

Want to share something new that your business/website/yourself has introduced? Use Twitter to tweet about it. Or advertise it on Digg. You can reach a shed load of people in seconds by using a social media outlet, and this is good. This is very practical, and has many uses, but it has to be purposeful.

Why use social media if not for a good reason? Are you just using social media because everyone else is using it? Rubbish, that means you are a sheep, as you are following everyone else and doing what they say is good for you. I’ve been a sheep before, when MySpace was hip and cool, but never again. If I use social media, it will be for my benefit and purpose, not for anyone elses.

Our man Danny Brown wrote a post not too long ago about the philosophy of social media, and what it can mean beyond the trivial conversations and noise. I implore you to check it out here, and learn that social media can be so much more than boring tweets and likes, and it can be a completely different experience for you.

If you let it.

Why Social Media?

Social media is meant to help you by letting you help others. That’s the ulterior, moralistic motive of social media, yet somehow it’s transformed into a hideous, blabbering, tweeting atrocity of a monster. It’s awful to think about it, so the best thing you can do is not to let yourself get sucked into the monstrous whirlpool.

Use social media for your own uses, and help others in order to help yourself. And if you find yourself getting sucked in? Breathe, turn off the internet, and gain a little perspective. The monster is still ugly behind all that make-up.

About the author: Stuart Mills is an experienced writer who wants to help you improve at life. He thinks you?re awesome. You can often find him here, where he writes constantly to make it a better day for everyone, and you can subscribe here. You can also follow Stuart on Twitter at @theunlockeddoor.

image: SilverLunace
image: artbymags

Common Courtesy? Yes Please, Thank You!

This is a guest post from Ingrid Abboud.

You’re at a dinner and someone compliments the outfit that took you 20 minutes to pick out. What do you say?

You’ve written an article which took you 15 minutes to research and another 30 minutes to write. Your friend likes it and shares it with some of his friends. What do you say?

Besides the Ghost Busters tune that’s now ringing in your head, err…at least in mine, do you get where I’m going with this?

Great, I had no doubt that you would.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching on how you should live your life and this is NOT another post on Twitter Etiquettes.

Let’s face it, we’ve all read enough of those to conclude for ourselves that:

Although there are preferred tweeting methods and friendly guidelines – there is no specific, agreed upon, set of rules.
Your technique may rock for you and your twitterverse – but it may suck for others.
No matter what and how you tweet – you can’t please everyone.
Common sense and courtesy may not always be applied. But then again, you should already know that by simply being alive.

Common Courtesy

Speaking of common courtesy, how many of you say “thank you” for retweets when you think it’s appropriate?

“Joey put your hand down for Pete’s sake, this isn’t grade school! I know you do.”

“Troy, don’t think I haven’t noticed you cheers’ing me in the @mentions a few times .”

“And Danny, we all know that behind the badass facade, is the most genuine of nice guys who never takes his friends and readers for granted.”

Now, if you know me well enough, you know that I say “thank you” somehow.

I may miss a few here and there, and that’s okay. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best. Hell, I even say “thank you” for #FF’s, especially if someone’s gone the extra step and added a little something to it.

It’s common courtesy folks and it goes a long way.

If someone’s taken the time to read and RT an article of mine, I’m gonna take 5 seconds to thank them – either through a @reply or a DM. Although, I don’t know whether they actually read it or not, I do know that for whatever reason, they thought it worthy of sharing.

So what do I do?

@DannyBrown: Hey Bonsai Boy. Thanks a lot for the RT on my Bring IT! post. Have a great week. Cheers.

That took all of 5 seconds to type.

Was it painful? No! Was it polite? Yes! Does it express my gratitude? Yes! Will Danny appreciate it? Probably.

Now if you plan on arguing that some people get RT’d 700 times and that it’s hard to keep up then, sure…I hear you and I agree. But let me ask you this – how many of you reading this piece get their blog posts retweeted 700 times? 300 times?

Hmm…that’s what I thought; not many.

Unless you’re someone like Godin, Brogan, Clark or Rowse, I sincerely doubt that the twitterverse goes into “RT-mania mode” every time you publish a post. But in case it does, then spill your guts and tell me your potion, cause I’m jealous but I’m all ears!

Clutter, Schmutter

Do “thank you’s” clutter a stream?

Well, if you’re looking at it that way, then everything is clutter. The noise is everywhere you turn. Twitter is one big chatter box and if you don’t like it then I suggest you consider a different “non-social” information network.

Seeing “thank you’s” in someone’s stream, only enhances it. It shows they’re human; it means they interact and care. Because if they didn’t give a whoop about their posts being retweeted, they wouldn’t have a tweet button on their blog now, would they?

In his panel discussion with Joe Hackman, Danny Brown said, “You’re only as influential as your audience allows you to be.”

How long do you think your audience will stick around if you don’t show them you’re listening or that you appreciate them? Granted, there are many other ways to do so.

That being said, I don’t hold it against you if you don’t thank me on Twitter. You’re probably doing something else that I like. After all, we all have our different ways or techniques that work for us.

Suh..weet Alternatives

So, if you’re not the “thank you” type of Twitterer for whatever reason – why not consider doing something else to show your appreciation?

Here are a few great alternatives which I sometimes use that work just as well.

Visit their blog and RT one of their posts
Leave a comment on a post I enjoyed
Subscribe to their blog
Link to a noteworthy article that they wrote
Give them an #FF shout out
Follow them back if I don’t already (if their Twitter profile interests me)
Vote for their blog post on SERPd
Stumble one of their blog posts
If I like their writing style, I can invite them to guest post for me (once I open my blog for GP’s)

Now it’s your turn to share…

Do you thank people when they RT your blog post?
Does it depend on who RT’d it?
What else do you do to reciprocate the gesture?

About the author: Ingrid Abboud aka ‘Griddy’ is a whole lot of things with a ridiculous amount of interests. For one, I’m a Social Media enthusiast with a tremendous passion for writing and blogging. I’m also a pretty cool Copywriter but a more serious MarCom Consultant. But most of all, I’m the proud owner and driving force behind?nittyGriddy.com – A Kinda Social Media Journal with entertaining SM ramblings, Net News & more. You can follow Ingrid on Twitter @nittyGriddyBlog.

image: NguyenDai

Yelp Doesn’t Understand Your Small Business

This is a guest post from Joe Hackman.

I received an email this week from Yelp reminding me that they do not understand my business. The first thing in bold red header images I read was:

What Yelp continues to fail to understand is that many small businesses and self-employed professionals don’t have a massive amount of customers. To put it bluntly, if we did not ask our customers to review us, there probably wouldn’t be any reviews, and we think that is a shame because we’ve worked hard to build up our reputation. The message went on to talk about one of the more frustrating aspects of Yelp:

“Another reason to avoid asking for reviews: solicited reviews may get filtered, and that will drive you crazy.”

This is Yelp’s story and they are sticking to it. Every time I’ve gotten a call from their sales reps I complain about the fact that the limited reviews from legitimate customers that I have received over the years ALWAYS seem to get filtered. Instead, it seems you need to fall under some key criteria:

Pay to play (advertise on Yelp).
Drive a lot of traffic to their site (read: have a lot of customers that are more Business-to-Consumer oriented).
Get reviewed by people contributing frequently to Yelp (their reviews don’t seem to get pulled).

It is easy to conclude that Yelp does not really want you. I think the real answer is to focus on Yahoo Local, Google Places and LinkedIn recommendations. At least none of them are calling me asking for money, yanking legitimate reviews or otherwise gaming me to try to get me to do things “their way”.

Rocky Past

Yelp has a bit of a rocky past – a lot of business owners have felt extorted by the tactics Yelp has used to try to encourage advertising. I know I get a bad feeling every time they solicit me. I bring up the issue of the positive reviews being removed and they do their dance, then call me back again in a few months. The whole thing seems like a classroom full of kindergarteners in charge of a candy store.

What do you think? Have you experienced similar frustrations with Yelp?

Joe Hackman is the founder of Managed Solutions, a blogger, podcaster, technology enthusiast, and fan of conversation. He helps businesses use technology more effectively.