I want you to want me....in 2 parts

So yesterday the fabulous @DannyBrown posted a tweet about re-tweeting someone's praise of you Pride/ego. I could not quite tell if Danny was ticked by the original tweet that he considered either prideful or egotistical or if he genuinely was questioning the protocol. Read Danny Brown's blog inspired by the same Tweet and subsequent conversations surrounding the concept of ego/Twitter.

What is so incredibly amazing about Twitter is that following that tweet was a real time, in depth discussion including people from a myriad of professional, geographical and philosophical backgrounds. People on Twitter are pretty forgiving, most of them saying it was likely this person (the original offender) trying to acknowledge the praise they received. This empathy brought up other conversations addressing inherent issues with tone and intent in things like Twitter, email etc.

I don't really care about these chicken and egg kind of issues, if I offend you, let me know. I still haven't found the rule book or how to (though many are making there way to the market) that really addresses the idiosyncrasies of the interwebs. What I really started thinking about is this virtual world we have all created and what it must look like to those on the outside or trying to get in.

Really we're all taking time to publicly talk about what we think, feel, see and do, which is somewhat self aggrandizing in and of itself. I mean do you really care about what I am listening to all day? Probably not but I am going to click that little share button on LALA every time a killer song comes on.

What I am hearing from friends and reading is that folks aren't really making Twitter their own. They sign up, have no followers, follow some famous people and news agencies but then what? Even though there are millions of Twitter accounts isn't it really an inside deal? Your in the tech world, the entertainment world, the non profit industry (a real power niche on Twitter), or your selling something.


If you are Joe Blow from Idaho and your trying to catch the Twitter craze do you feel a little left out? Like you don't speak the language? I wonder if it's like not being a guitarist but trying to read Guitar World magazine. Sure you know what bands they are talking about and know that (insert your favorite guitarists name here) is the greatest guitarist of all time. But are you really going to get a great experience from reading the magazine? Can you really benefit from the intent of the editors and contributors? Is it worth your while to buy a copy just to look at the Guitar Girls and maybe read the headlines?

Or do you feel like you wasted your $4 because they didn't talk to you? You don't know a Gretch from a Fender after all. WELL....I think Twitter must be a lot like that for people. I think people must register and then get completely overwhelmed. But fear not! It's just in how you look at it, how you make this new world your own.

For instance, my friend set up a profile as over million folks did just to follow Ashton Kutcher on his CNN vs. Ashton stunt that was for Malaria No More. Like most of the people who did the same she never went back, was too overwhelmed. She simply could not figure out how to make it her own. So I talked to her about using Twitter as a real time news feed from both those who report the news she wants such as@people, @cnn,@nytimes and those actually creating the news such as @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), Sarah Palin @AKGovSarahPalin-looks like she will be changing that handle soon and @johncmayer.

Once you become part of the real time news you start following others, finding like minded folks and eventually becoming part of the conversation. And there are a myriad of industries that will find this an incredible lead generator and resource to enhance your business from Real Estate to Restaurants and so many more.

Really, we all want to be loved-we just have to find the right language to communicate our needs and wants. And for all of us trying to start the conversation and getting wrapped up in the etiquette of it all--don't we all just want to be wanted (for our opinion, ideas, innovation,analysis)? We're the ones eating, sleeping and breathing this stuff so we feel our opinions are warranted right?

Cheap Trick had it right, and this is what makes me lose sleep at night...the innate ability of the internet to allow you to indulge your desire to ramble on while simultaneously rocking out to Cheap Trick. 10 years ago I would have had to put a dime on the needle to make sure Rick Nielsen didn't skip on his incredible guitar solos.

Be Bold & Wear One Glove

I have officially jumped on the Michael Jackson bandwagon. Additionally I have sealed my fate as a Non-Profit Technology geek. I had a pretty strong opinion about Michael Jackson, was pretty convinced at the very least he had been "indecent" with young people. But watching the memorial today I couldn't help but be moved by the work he had done to help, heal and inspire the world. Literally and lyrically to Heal The World.

It's not my fault I watched the memorial-I had no intention to do so but even Mashable was intoxicated by the Michael Jackson moonwalk all over the web.

So in true 2.0 fashion I watch a live feed, while tweeting and doin a bit of work. My little 17" screen fully supporting 4 fully functional windows of social media wonderment (including the project I was working on; I was working i promise.)




So as I am watching Brooke Shields comes on and says a very moving and illuminating piece. I can't help but feel sorry for the type of life they both led as child stars. I also can't help but be a little jealous of how good she looks and remember how badly I wanted bushy eyebrows and Calvin Klein jeans way back when, but I digress. She ends her beautiful speech about MJ with a passage from The Little Prince (one of my fav's) and the insight that Micheal's favorite song was not one of his stellar classics but rather the song SMILE originally penned by Charlie Chaplin and re worked millions of times in a million different movies and commercials.

Well....that made my brain switch immediately into marketer mode. After all, I help create smiles for a living. My daily mission is to inspire people to help Operation Smile perform free surgeries to children around the world. What a perfect tie in to our campaign to raise smiles through Twitter, and an amazing way to honor Michael Jackson. And as my wheels start turning, Jermain comes out with a tear laced rendition of the song. A perfect backdrop to my just crafted Tweet "Honor #MJ by helping a child smile www.140smiles.org". The rest of the ceremony continued to unfold opportunities to help our mission with "We are the World" and "Heal the World" sung while a sea of children graced the stage.

Now, some in the office thought this was in bad taste. Maybe, but my intentions were truly to honor Michael Jackson and to truly help children smile, something I really believe he would love. And why not offer a real time opportunity for those tweeting and Facebook-ing about his life and contributions to help in a real, tangible way. We increased traffic to our sites and I have only received positive responses and tweets in response to my efforts.

So this is a brings me to re-iterating some of my favorite Social Media lessons:

-PAY ATTENTION; opportunity abounds, especially through Twitter so keep up with whats going on, pay attention to what people are saying and how it can effect or be effected by you

-BE FEARLESS; Things go away as quickly as they come with Social Media, so don't be afraid to test something or try something. If it was a bad idea, it will be quickly forgotten and is easily replaced by a good one.

-Have a POV; I was only able to tweet because we have a relevant and easily expressed story and happen to have a Twitter campaign to direct folks to. So it may behoove you to think of your point of view, your hook or engagement piece.
-Is it a story about your brand?
-Is it a special landing page that shows how cool your product or org.is?
-Is it something people can relate to and dissect quickly.?
-Do you have a fast and easy way for folks to give/buy?

Social Media moves fast-those folks who penned "Get it while it's Hot" had NO IDEA!So be prepared, be bold and most importantly BE THERE!

Double your pleasure

While at TWTRCON I had the great honor to sit down with the cool guys from GURU TUBE and record a couple of pieces about my Social Media philosophy and experiences. There are now 2 little videos for you to check out if you so choose--click here.

I am so excited and doing the Wayne's World We're not Worthy thing
because David Meerman Scott who appears a few videos below mine is one of my heroes in the industry. He was one of the first "gurus" that I started following and helped shape how I think about and use the tools.

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I also added my 2 cents worth to a thread on LinkedIn and thought I would re-post here as well since I have yet to really outline key points about Social Media strategy--from a beginners point of view:

When asked, I often tell people that you want someone already using the channels and familiar with the format using them for you. That may mean your reception would be better at Social Media strategy than your marketing manager!

Darren, the key to our Social Media strategy is first understanding the philosophy that social media must be used as a communication tool that can by default lead to sales, not a sales tool that leads to communication.

the 3 steps we have used are:
1. Listen/Audit/Follow
-listen to what people are already saying about your brand as well as the ton of conversations around your products or like companies.
-audit; take an audit of where you may already have a social media presence such as facebook groups etc.
-Follow key influencers and resources to learn the ever changing tips and tools

2. Test/Engage/Prepare to Fail
-test various messages and tactics to see what yields the results you desire with your target audience
-engage those currently talking about you and encourage them to continue the conversation-use them as ambassadors to engage more friends/fans/followers
-don't be afraid to try-try-try again; this is all one big experiment and there are no true benchmarks or guides-platforms change before books can be published and your audience is still catching up. So try a ton of different things and don't freak out when one fails---just learn from it!

3. GET REAL!
If your not prepared to be authentic, if you have to run all of your copy through brand marketing; social media may not be the medium for you. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are all about the conversation--people will only pay attention if your tone and information is presented as such. Make it a two way street and don't over analyze. Additionally if you can't devote enough time to keep up with the conversations by responding to people in a timely fashion-beware; that could really work against you much in the way poor customer service would.

Marketing, Road Trips and Hammers

So much has happened in the last 2 months. I launched a killer Twitter based fund raising campaign with the organization I work for Operation Smile. We flew to San Francisco and threw a launch party and then promoted it at TWTRCON, the first Twitter for business conference.

It was so amazing meeting the various personalities and marketing professionals who, like myself are trying to harness Twitter and (for the most part) use it's powers for good. It was also refreshing to discover that one can be valued for their ideas and ability to develop unique and dynamic strategy even while they may lack the technical mastery to fully implement. I was told an analogy of marketing days gone by when websites first arrived and it wasn't up to the strategist or marketing manager to write the code for the site but it was up to them to make it look great and produce.

AHHHHH sigh of relief. Because frankly these web tools are so vast and while I am working hard to master them and reading the masters to do so (you know who you are because you get my dm's and @'s)i sometimes get caught up in the tools and forget that i am skilled at the plans. My husband had yet another great analogy as I fretted in the car on a roadtrip en route to Bonnaroo at my lack of ability to get my apps to work on my Blackberry.

He said-every man has a tool set in their house somewhere, a hammer, a saw some sand paper. But do many of them have the forethought, creativity and drive to use those tools to really create something amazing like a piece of furniture or art?

WOW. pretty heavy stuff. I used to use the pencil and paper analogy but in the tech world this is even more illustrative. (the pencil analogy if you haven't heard me ramble about art is that you can give 50 people a pencil and paper and ask them to do something with it and the artist or creative thinker will create something magical while the others will right their name or play tic tac toe).

So for the rest of the road trip I contemplated the tools I needed to master, read my Seth Godin and Clay Shirky like a good little web marketer and felt excited about the evolution of my marketing and creative mind.

So we've arrived in lovely Manchester Tennessee where we are surrounded by what I can only dub "Faux Hippies". I just woke and started reading my morning blogs, still reeling from my road trip of web marketing exploration and home read this incredible blog post from Mark Olson which seems to echo many of the themes I was contemplating yesterday. "Groovy man"

I am so inspired and excited about this paradigm shift, where finally innovation and passion have equal places in the tool box as experience and technical skill. The constantly evolving and revolving nature of the tools we are using evens the playing field a bit as we're all learning them together.

So I guess for the duration of this "Social Media Strategy" road trip I'm on, I'll make sure I subscribe to the right RSS feeds, maintain a steady watch on the tool makers, keep an open mind and then continue to figure out more creative and incredible ways to use my hammer...

less than a week and counting

I am officially not sleeping and determining just how many knots an intestine can create. I am so excited for my little baby project #140smiles to launch. The response has been fantastic, people are clamoring for more information on the campaign. We've also hit our 100 person mark for the launch party and half of the TWTRcon attendees still have not reserved theirs (only 75 left!)!

This is such a collaborative effort, I am in awe of the work Common Knowledge, Modern Media and Adventure Girl have done to make the campaign and launch super fantastic. I hope it meets the standards of those who have already raised their hands in support of the campaign. (holy mackrel-@pistachio, @missrogue, @jason_pollock, @shelisrael the list goes on). We are hoping everyone visits the site on 5/30 (day of the launch) and starts a twitter team to mobilize their followers for micro-donations to reach our goal of changing 140 children's lives.

There has been an amazing outpouring of hearts on Twitter helping people like the incredible story of Eric De La Cruz . Twitter is oddly enough somewhat of this utopian community where people truly respect and dare i say love one another. @iconic88 is clouding my Twitterstream with messages of random acts of kindness. I am learning about the teachings of Kabbalah from @yehudaberg.

I am hoping this notion of doing good and helping the world will continue on May 30th when we ask the Twitterverse to join us in helping to bring smiles to children around the world.

How often do you take your ability to smile for granted? whatch this video and I bet you won't anymore! AND, I hope you'll join us on May 30th for #140smiles!

social media's so bright, i gotta wear shades!

SO many wonderful things have started to materialize since the New Years Bell tolled and the start of 2009. I switched gears in my professional role from Donor Relations Supervisor, managing my International children's medical charities Donor Relation Call Center and grassroots fund raising to a role doing a very similar function only using social media.

I met some amazing mentors and contacts very early on by attending the We Are Media workshop from NTEN in Feb. and then had some great conversations and learning experiences from SxSW Interactive in March.

The more I learn, the more I feel like it's o.k. to listen to my instincts. While I may not know the jargon and the latest trends in web marketing, what I have always had a knack for is relationship building. Talking to people, anticipating their needs, predicting trends and acting on my instincts.

These traits have served me well in various fields including the restaurant business, retail, marketing and radio. They also helped way back when I donned a purple with and face glitter in my role as a professional clown! (thank god that was pre-social media and the pics are non-existent).

I am reflecting on all of this this because I recently had some really amazing conversations with folks who are outright terrified of social media. People who I have always respected and admired for their incredible intellect, innovation and professional prowess are now asking me for my thoughts and ideas related to social media. And, while I'm not an "expert" like my colleagues and mentors, and I don't speak fluent tech ease, I realize I do have some valuable perspective and information to help them get their toes wet in social media.

I also realize that there are no experts. Everyone is learning, we're all in this together which certainly echoes the very notion of "social" media. You can't get a degree in it because surely by the time the commencement speech is over the technology has changed. But the philosophy remains the same. And the philosophy of Social Media is what seems to have corporate America shaking in their loafers.

While I have a ways to go to maximize my understanding of the total picture if the world wide web, I am uniquely qualified to dive into the pool of Social Media philosophy and strategy. I started as a user and evangelist starting with Friendster in 2002 and then Myspace, DeviantArt, Etsy etc etc. I am now an official Facebook and Twitter addict and am anxiously looking for the next great way to communicate.

And the communication is the key-social media has created an incredible community to learn, grow, explore, elevate and inspire. The playing fields are becoming more level and the walls are being broken down in more ways than you can even imagine.

In the coming weeks I will have some personal benchmarks that will prove to even more solidly tie me to this insane online world and I can't wait to see where it all takes me. The lessons are pouring in from my mentors are invaluable as are the conversations, tweets, blogs and webinars. I'm grabbing some sunglasses (with non-reflective lenses to reduce the screens effects on my eyes) because this social media future is so freaking bright...bring it on!