How I Use Different Social Networks

September 27, 2011 — 0 Comments

Not all social networks were and are created equal, or with the same intended purpose.  Some intend to help you stay connected with friends and family, some focus on your business life, some help you explore and share online content and others are everything in between.  But they all do the same thing, help you stay connected to people in your life, hence the name social networks.  When I meet someone for the first time, they are often surprised that I am part of so many social networks. So the most common question I hear is How do you use all these networks, don’t they all do the same thing? Here’s my answer:

Facebook

I use it to stay connected to close friends and family.  I never accept invites from people I don’t know.  In order for me to connect with you on Facebook we would have had to meet in real life.  I don’t share much content on here as I used to.  If I wasn’t in marketing, I’d probably close my account.

LinkedIn

This is where I stay connected to my professional and business contacts.  LinkedIn also serves as my live resume.  I am more likely to connect on LinkedIn than on Facebook.  However, I only connect with current and former colleagues, classmates, thought leaders, like-minded individuals, people I’ve done some kind of business transaction with, and sometimes for strictly networking purposes.  I tend to share content that is relevant to my contacts, my industry and career.

Twitter

The bulk of my social networking/social media activity happens on here.  It’s very easy to get a pulse on what is happening in your neighbourhood, your city or the world.  Very easy to connect with me as my profile and twitter stream are public.  I tend to follow back if you seem interesting, have a real name in your profile and are a conversationalist.  I broadcast almost everything and anything on here. See for yourself @andreipetrik

Stumbleupon

One of my favourite sites and web discovery tools.  I use it mostly for web discovery than it’s social networking functionalities. It’s a highly addictive service that helps you discover online content that you wouldn’t have thought of looking for on your own.  It also serves as my social bookmarking site.  Check out my discoveries.

YouTube and Vimeo

I am not very active on these two sites as much as when I was doing video and film work.  If you find my profile, feel free to connect, but if you send me a message through YouTube or Vimeo don’t expect a quick response.  I watch the videos, but almost never subscribe to channels or participate in comment sections.

Slideshare, Goodreads and Flickr

These three services are used to bookmark, favourite and keep track of content I find interesting.  I never use their social networking functionalities.

Foursquare

This is a location based social network that allows you to check-in to various locations to earn rewards, meet friends and discover other places around you. I am not actively building my network on here,  as I have already connected with friends, colleagues and followers from existing networks.  Useful to check out local deals nearby.

Google+

It’s a new network, launched in Summer of 2011.  My usage is slightly increasing every week.  One day I hope it replaces Facebook. At the moment I’m in the network building phase, and ever so often I’ll share some content. Follow me on Google+

Quora

Quora is a Q&A site with built in social networking functionalities.  In addition to connecting to my existing following, I also use to connect to thought leaders and experts.  Whenever I seek outside expert advice, tips and opinion is this my one and only go to Q&A site.  LinkedIn has same functionality built into their service as well.

Tumblr

A blogging platform, stuck somewhere between Twitter and WordPress. Although I am not a frequent user, I do love this service.  I have created an account, which one day I hope to put to a better use.  This is one of the (social networks) accounts I created strictly to expand my digital marketing knowledge and experience.  And to that point, I have a number of other social network accounts.  Created them simply to explore, and expand my knowledge and expertise of the digital marketing space.

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A Digital Sandbox

August 1, 2011 — 0 Comments

It’s what I refer to my blog as.  Like a regular sandbox where you play, build and share; my blog serves that purpose.  It’s my digital sandbox.

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Maybe Excite Didn’t Understand Internet Users

May 17, 2011 — 0 Comments

In a blog post on Business Insider I learned that Excite (remember them?) refused an offer to buy Google in late 1990′s.  I had no idea, or maybe I never heard about it because it never made it to the presses.  Nonetheless, what I’m most surprised about is the reasoning Excite executives provided for not buying Google.  Especially at the time when every search result was dominated by porn related keywords or pop-cultural flavours of the week; internet users we’re hungry for better search results.  An explanation of Excite’s reasoning:

[Google] was too good. If Excite were to host a search engine that instantly gave people information they sought, [Excite's CEO] explained, the users would leave the site instantly. Since his ad revenue came from people staying on the site—“stickiness” was the most desired metric in websites at the time—using Google’s technology would be counterproductive.

Prior to Google, I was using Excite, Hotbot, Altavista and Lycos.  And when I first discovered Google, I never went back. Yes, maybe I didn’t spend my whole time on google, but I always went back to it when I needed to find relevant information.  Google was so good, and still is, that it became synonymous with ‘searching the internet’, and consequently ‘google’ was officially entered in Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. Where are the other guys now?

I am not sure where Excite got their reasoning, I bet they didn’t ask their users, but isn’t building an amazing product (search engine in this case) will make people use it more often and refer their friends and colleagues? As the popular saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20.

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B2B Companies and Social Media

April 26, 2011 — 0 Comments

There’s no shortage of banter and debate on whether social media is an effective marketing channel for B2B companies.  Social media has worked well in the B2C space and is proving to be an essential element of the marketing mix, but in B2B arena many are still cynical.  If you’re a B2B company, who buys your products? You may answer with a company name. So let me ask you, who did you meet with? Who placed an order? Who signed the check? If you’re still answering with a company name then you have other issues on your plate.  The answer should be a name of a person.

If you sell to businesses you’re actually dealing with people.  And guess who’s making decisions?  Guess who’s doing the research?  Guess who’s looking for recommendations and referrals?  People. There are people inside those businesses who will meet with you, who place orders and sign checks.  You’re not interacting with some inanimate entity.  You’re talking to Sue from Accounting and Jim in Purchasing.

So why avoid Social Media? Embrace it and include it as part of marketing mix. People like you and I, that eat, sleep, go to their kids’ soccer games and dance recitals use social media.  So why not use it to connect and engage with them?

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Personality Traits to Look For in Your Social Media Expert

April 11, 2011 — 0 Comments

If you read job postings for Social Media Experts, Social Media Specialists and other online marketers you will notice the big emphasis on experience, size of network, and knowledge of various tools and apps.  Those are very important components, but experience can be gained, networks built and skills learned.  But what you can’t teach the candidates right off the bat is trust, integrity, initiative, dependability and drive.  They either have it or they don’t.  And this is critical if their job comes with a with full privilege to communicate with online masses on behalf of the company.

Trustworthiness

You must be able to trust your new Social Media Specialist..  Afterall, they will be talking to your customers, prospects, followers and fans on your behalf. You need to trust them not to divulge any sensitive company information, not to post inappropriate and offensive content and trust them to treat the community with out-most respect.

Integrity

Your new hire also needs to have a good moral compass and be able to use professional judgement when making decisions and communicating with the community.

Initiative

Social Media space and the Internet is constantly evolving.  Your potential candidate must evolve too.  She needs to have enough curiosity to learn and explore new tools and technigues. Then be able to take ownership of it. Implement it, and teach it to others.

Dependability

Is your new hire going to be available to tweet important company or service updates at 1am on a Saturday morning?  You will need someone to count on to help you get the message out as soon as the news breaks.  In addition, your incumbent must be dependable that they will do everything in their power to help a customer, provide accurate information and uphold company values and beliefs.

Drive

Your incumbent must be self-motivated and driven to succeed.  He must see the big picture and always push forward to achieve business and professional goals.

Finding an outstanding social media expert with these traits is a challenging task. Your research and an interview with the candidate will guide you into the right direction; but when looking for someone with these personality traits you’ll need to look for some guidance from your gut.

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Facebook vs LinkedIn: War, What is it Good For?

April 11, 2011 — 0 Comments

Most recent upgrades to LinkedIn’s developer’s platform and implementation of social features over the past year prompted everyone to speculate that LinkedIn is taking on Facebook head-on. If you google ‘Facebook vs LinkedIn’ the search yields almost 23 million results.  Most results aim to answer which is better. Which is better for business, which is a better social networking, and so on.  Comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges.  Yes, both are social networks, both have high usage rates and both have millions of members, but both networks serve two different purposes.

Facebook is more of a personal social network, whereas LinkedIn bills it self as a professional social network, and it is.  Instead of trying to pry members away from each other, both should be focusing on improving user experience and adding value to their current offering. Whether they like or not, most if not all users will not use either network exclusively. Check out my previous post on how I use social networks.

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There Are No Accidental Tweets

March 28, 2011 — 0 Comments

Every time a public figure, executive or an employee representing the company in the social media space tweets out an obscene, out of character, sensitive company information or an offensive status update some media outfits and bloggers like to call these incidents as accidental. A recent tweet by an employee of New Media Strategies, company responsible for running Social Media Strategies for Chrysler, dropped an F-Bomb. This tweet was referred to as being accidental.

The problem that I have with this label is that it is difficult to believe that status updates and tweets are accidental. When something is accidental it means something occurring unexpectedly and unintentionally. So when you take the time to open up TweetDeck, Hootsuite or go directly to Twitter and take the time to write an update and create a hashtag for it, it’s not an accident. Doesn’t matter, as in this case, if they didn’t realize that they weren’t logged into their personal account. If you work in Social Media you have to be extra cautious because anything you Tweet, upload, post or comment on you can bank on it being permanent part of the web; and spread like wildfire through the ‘interwebs’, sometimes leading to harsh consequences.

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Death to Always Be Closing

March 21, 2011 — 0 Comments

Always Be Closing, the ABC of selling is the very first thing new sales professionals will learn. I did when I worked at Mercedes-Benz, promoting and selling smart cars. But I never abided by that rule, because I didn’t believe in it, thought it was outdated, and was taught by old school car salesmen.

I am not suggesting that you should completely stop closing, but you should not attack your customer like a guard dog the moment you meet them. Your customer will just put their shield up, leave your premises and never return.

Almost in the same breath, the second thing that new sales people will learn is that people like to buy from people they like. If you’re pressuring your customer to place a deposit or sign on the dotted line, the chances of them liking you and actually handing over their money will be next to none.

With so many choices in the market, it is increasingly difficult to find a competitive advantage. When the salesperson across the street is selling exact same product, can offer same price, can throw in same accessories your only way of differentiating is becoming likable.

Sticking to my principles paid off on a numerous occasions, but one Saturday afternoon I was able to prove it to my manager that ABC is useless, at least in the way he wanted me to do it. A daughter came into the dealership with her very elderly father. When I initially greeted them they were “just looking around”. However, judging by the types of questions they were asking and their interest in the smart car I knew they were ready to buy. But I never pushed for it. All I did was listen. Also, recognizing that her father wasn’t a fast walker as he probably was in his youth I made sure to accommodate him at every step.

I was building a very strong rapport. But my manager insisted I closed them immediately. He annoyed me to the point where I wanted to quit and walk away. I fought back and stuck to my principles. Even though my customers said they were going across the street to look at a Mini, I didn’t feel threatened but my manager was pulling his white hair out. I didn’t feel threatened because I knew the sales style and tactics competitors across the street would deploy. They Always Be Closing. Guess what? My customers came back and bought the car. Not only did I prove to my manager that ABC wasn’t effective on that day, I also proved it on the day when the corporate head office received a customer testimonial explaining exactly why they bought the car from me instead of from the competitor across the street.

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Enchantment and Book Reviews

March 20, 2011 — 0 Comments

Last month I was pleasantly surprised to have received Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. I’ve read Guy’s previous titles and enjoyed them thoroughly; and when I found out I could get a copy of his new book early, I quickly signed up.  But I didn’t expect to receive a copy.  Having read his other titles, I couldn’t wait to obsorb more of Guy’s wisdom.

Still hot off the press and unavailable to the public I was compelled to start writing a review to publish on Enchantment’s official release date.  I started to ponder what the hell am I supposed to say in my review.  I’ve read plenty of book reviews and recommended many books to my friends and colleagues, but writing a full review?  This would be the first.

I killed the idea of writing a full review very quickly as I started to think about what makes me recommend books.  So, I asked myself 4 simple questions:
Did I learn something?
Was it thought provoking?
Was it interesting?
Is it worth keeping it on my bookshelf?

In Enchantment’s case for example, the answer is a resounding ‘Yes” to all questions.

Most importantly, I only make book recommendations if I strongly believe the recipient would benefit from reading it.

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Engage. What Does That Really Mean?

March 19, 2011 — 0 Comments

You’ll hear a lot of this. Engage. Engage. Engage. Especially from Digital Strategists, Social Media Marketers, Community Managers and the like. You need to Engage with your fans, Engage with your followers and Engage your subscribers. Its one of the top recommendations social media and online marketers give to businesses who ask, whats the point of social media and how do I get any value from it? In a nutshell, to get value you need to engage your audience.

Sure, everyone knows the meaning of the word engage, but how do you do it via social media? Engaging via social media is simply starting a conversation, it’s giving your fans, followers, subscribers, partners, current and potential customers a reason to talk to you. A reason to carry the conversation, a reason for them to tell their friends about you and a reason to build relationships with you. If you’re not engaging them, someone else is.

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