Your Social Media Failure is Not Because Social Networks Are Too Crowded

I read this article yesterday and am still shaking my head about it today. The article's premise--"Governments Tweet, Few Care"--is based in part on one guy's opinion that government is boring and people only seek excitement and entertainment on social networks. The article goes on to state that this guy "does not use social-networking sites." Why are they interviewing him, then, about using social media for government?

Then they tell how the guy from a local ad/PR agency explains that Twitter and Facebook aren't great online networking sites for business and government because people are there for entertainment, not work. Oh, really? Or could it possibly be that his agency doesn't know how to design an effective, engaging social media strategy?

THEN they quote another local public information officer who declares matter-of-factly that social sites really only reach niche markets and staff time is "best invested in traditional media." Yeah, Facebook clearly only reaches niche markets with its 350 million active monthly users. That's some niche.

I don't mean to sound like a hater, but let's call a spade a spade: many businesses are having a lot of success using Facebook and Twitter for business. Don't assume that it's not even worth trying based on articles like this one. Yes, it's crowded out there--but that just means there are that many more people you can potentially reach with a well thought-out and orchestrated social media strategy.

Is It Just Me Or Is Twitter Not Ready For Prime Time Yet?

Over the past few days I've seen about a million re-tweets of the big news: Twitter is about to roll out business accounts. I seem to be the only one who finds this news disturbing.

I feel like I'm in the social media version of the Emperor's New Clothes or something. Twitter's shortcomings--which are so glaringly obvious to me--seem to go totally unnoticed by others. Or at least unnoticed in the flurry and fuss over Twitter's impending for-pay offerings.

What shortcomings, you ask? Um, well let's start with the first and most glaring: the ubiquitous fail whale. The fact that we're still seeing him--as cute as he may be--means Twitter is not yet ready for prime time.

Here's the thing: the whale was cute when people were just using Twitter to talk about what they were having for lunch. It's no longer cute when companies are paying FTEs to be Twitter moderators and those people can't do their jobs because the site is down. It's one thing to rely on a free tool; that's kind of a "buyer beware" situation. But it's going to be a whole different ballgame when big companies are shelling out money for Twitter business accounts and the site goes down.

Big deal, you say--no platform is 100% reliable all the time. Ok, how about these Twitter issues:

• Hacks.


• Huge security breaches resulting in hundreds of confidential Twitter corporate documents ending up in people's inboxes.


• The Denial-of-Service attacks that first shut Twitter down for hours then continued to cripple it several subsequent times in the following weeks.


• Metrics. If I'm a company using Twitter for business, I need to be able to refer to search results indefinitely--not just for 2 weeks. Part of being a social media professional means being able to prove your worth and demonstrate the ROI of your new communication channels. My job may well depend on proving that the money my company spent on a certain campaign was well-spent, and the way to prove that is to be able to measure engagement. I can't do that if all the tweets disappear after 2 weeks.

I really wish I’d read something from Twitter about what they’re planning to do to address these huge obstacles before I read any more about their impending business offerings.

Am I crazy or are these legitimate concerns?

*Update*
If you didn't think my other reasons were compelling enough, how about this Twitter exploit I just read about on Mashable?

I'm Confused! Conflicting Social Media Studies

One of the most confusing things to me about all this social media stuff is the constant conflicting information. One day there's a study showing one thing; the next there's another that shows just the opposite.

For instance, WorkPlace Media's recent study "Can Big Brands Crash The Social Networking Party?" found "The overall impact of a brand's presence on social networking sites was shown to be minimal in terms of impact and perception." Stephanie Molnar, CEO of WorkPlace Media, says "When it comes to influencing brand perception and purchase decisions... social networking... has a long way to go."

But then you check out Charlene Li/Wetpaint's new research on "deep brand engagement" and it seems to show just the opposite--that the brands most deeply engaged in social media demonstrated an average 18% growth in revenue over the past 12 months compared to the least engaged, who showed an average decline of 6% in revenue over that same period. This doesn't seem to illustrate brands being minimally impacted by social media; seems to be pretty persuasive evidence of the exact opposite.

Now the same thing with the teens/Twitter thing. First "Stats Confirm It: Teens Don't Tweet." Ok.

But then I read this. "Naturally, younger respondents were more familiar with the microblogging site. Only 11% of 18-to-39-year-old advertisers did not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion on its value, compared with 20% of advertisers ages 40 to 49 and 21% of those 50 and older." What do you mean, "naturally"? I thought teens don't use Twitter? Which is it--they don't use it or they're the experts?

What this whole thing underscores for me is the reality that it's impossible to be a social media "expert" because social media is a constantly moving target, with new "truths" being revealed--and dispelled--every day.

Association Chat Fail--or Thing #4 I Hate About Twitter

Ironic that yesterday's association chat (#assnchat; takes place every Tuesday at 2 pm thanks to Jeff De Cagna) was supposed to be about virtual attendee experience...but because the world felt compelled to live-tweet Michael Jackson's funeral, Twitter was so slow that we had to postpone #assnchat.

I know I'm not supposed to admit this, but when stuff like this happens--the free tools some of us are staking our careers on fail miserably--it makes me wonder if it's wise to even try to incorporate tools like Twitter into an organization's social media strategy. All I know is that if instead of #assnchat, what I'd been trying to do was show the BOD how great Twitter was and how useful it could be for our members, I'd have been looking mighty stupid.

Last week I wrote a post about 3 things I hate about Twitter; now I'm adding a 4th:

4)Reliability--almost a year ago I blogged about an article in Business Week that questioned Twitter's long-term financial viability. Since that time, Twitter's growth has exploded...yet, it still appears to be without a business model. Will it be e-commerce? Search, carriers and content? Aggregating tweets by topic? I don't care what it is--can they please just settle on something so they can get some more servers or whatever so the whole thing doesn't feel like it's built on a house of freakin' cards all the time?

Is Summer the Season for Social Media Malaise?

Recently I just haven't been feeling it as much--blogging, tweeting--just the whole social media thing. Life is too busy and sometimes I question why I put all this other stuff on myself when I already have a more-than-full plate with kids, a husband, a full-time job, etc. I blogged about it last week with regard to Twitter. Since then I have come across a few blog posts that lead me to think I'm not the only one experiencing some social media doldrums.

The NY Times recently ran an article about blogs fizzling over time as people either get tired of pouring effort into something that either nobody reads or something that sucks up so much time even if it does get read. Then today I read this post, Why I'm Quitting Social Media, and started thinking maybe I'm really not the only one who's not feeling it so much lately.

I've blogged before about the reasons I blog. Bottom line, I guess, is that I love writing. But blogging, which can be all about numbers and subscribers and ratings, isn't really about the writing. Mack Collier had an awesomely-titled post last week talking about how blogging isn't just about writing content. His post was great and his points were totally true...and totally illustrative of how blogging can be such a big, tentacled endeavor that you just want to throw in the towel. It's not just about writing--it's about then going and cultivating a following--a never-ending, incredibly time-consuming exercise in futility. Fun and gratifying endeavor, yes, but when you have a full-time job and kids and real life stuff--it can get overwhelming fast. And discouraging.

I had a great Twitter conversation with Mack after I read his post and he told me it took Chris Brogan 8 years to get his first 100 readers. It's been a year and a half for me and I have 60 subscribers and get an average of about 25 visits a day.

How about you, faithful 60 readers--do you feel less inclined to blog/participate in online communities during the summer? Or is it not even about the weather and sometimes it just gets old?

Twitter Honeymoon Period=Over?

I'm wondering if my love affair with Twitter is starting to wind down.

I've been at it for well over a year now, basically addicted and loving every minute. Learning stuff. Meeting People. Promoting my blog. I've gone from thinking Twitter was a stupid waste of time to seeing it as a tool that has fundamentally changed the way people--and companies--communicate. Ironically, my original thoughts about Twitter were that it was the equivalent of trash art. It makes me laugh to read that post now, given the passion I eventually developed for Twitter and, especially, given the fact that it's now an actual part of my job description at work.

The funny thing is that I've now come full-circle: I totally see the value of Twitter as a tool and marvel at the ways it's changing business communication. Customer service, fundraising, news, marketing...I could go on all day. The most interesting Twitter thing I've come across recently is this--using twitter to help manage the treatment of autism? Wow.

The thing is, though, while Twitter has become more and more "serious" (e.g. not just trash art), it's also become just plain lonely. I don't know if it's because people have gotten busier and started taking Twitter more seriously or what, but recently I've definitely noticed a drop in the interactive value of Twitter, at least as far as I'm personally concerned. Could be because most of the people I follow on Twitter are social media people, and therefore each have thousands of followers and in turn follow thousands back. I "only" follow 159 people and I can barely keep up. Considering that most of the people who follow me also follow thousands of other people I am a tiny gnat on their collective windshield.

Bottom line: to me, Twitter is starting to become information overload and interaction underload.

Who You Calling A Nobody?

Today was my daughter's 13th birthday so I let her skip school and took her to the mall. While I was stranded in the hell that is Hollister/Abercrombie/Pac Sun/Aeropostale (e.g. loud music and lots of perfume in the air) I was thankfully able to entertain myself with my iPhone. And, naturally, Twitter. The Washington Post tweeted a link to a story in today's paper about--what else--Twitter, and I admit my nerd sensibilities were completely offended when I got to this part:

"Here's something odd:

There are some non-celebrities who amass giant followings. Thousands of strangers tune in for regular updates of these nobodies' lives."

Nobodies? Wow. I could almost feel the gut punch the collective Twitter elite no doubt felt when they read that.

What I don't understand is this: how can someone find it curious that "non-celebrities" could be as interesting as, or--dare I say it?--more interesting than celebrities on Twitter? Um, Washington Post reporter lady--have you read Britney Spears' tweets? Kim Kardashian's? I personally will stick with the 154 nobodies I'm following, thanks.

If Twitter Wasn't Mainstream Before, It Will Be After 4pm Today

I started writing a post yesterday about Ashton Kutcher and CNN's contest to get to a million followers but didn't get to finish. My point was going to be how I know it's pathetic to get worked up over something as stupid as the commercialization of Twitter--but that it did offend my nerd sensibilities. As does reading the captions in Star Magazine lately--"Britney tweeted "my dancers were awesome last night"."

The final nail in Twitter's early-adopter elite coffin came yesterday when I was watching Oprah. (Ok, yes, I do watch Oprah and read Star magazine.) In her promo for today's show Oprah dropped the bomb: "The king of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher..."

So much for the revered Twitter Elite; are they now doomed to be replaced by Oprah, Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher? So much for the notion of Twitter as tool to build community, to engage with your followers/customers/fans; Twitter is now being hyped as a popularity contest and a bullhorn for celebrities.

The upside? Maybe celebrities will all start hiring social media assistants to manage their reputations in social cyberspace.

Twitter Me This: Why Is Twitter's Popularity Surprising?

So today's Washington Post has yet another article about how stupid Twitter is, this time in the context of sports. Ok, ok--we get it--Twitter is stupid. Who the hell cares about what you or I had for breakfast, or that we're stuck in traffic, or how we were walking down the street and suddenly a piece of meteor just fell out of the sky?

Well, based on the amount of press coverage Twitter is getting--plenty of us care.

My question is this: why is Twitter's popularity surprising? If the minutiae of people's lives isn't interesting to us, why the hell is reality TV the ridiculous phenomenon that it is? Why do billions of people read The National Enquirer, People, etc or watch Oprah or Barbara Walters or engage all manner of other voyeuristic behaviours? Because we're nosy and like to know what goes on in other people's lives. We want to know that Jon and Kate got two new puppies, and that one of them piddled on the floor and one ate a toy horse. We want to know that Britney bought not one but two Frappucinos. We care that Jennifer Aniston decided to throw caution to the wind and eat a cheeseburger and fries.

Basically our whole entertainment culture revolves around the stupid trivialities of people's lives. Add to that the fast pace of life today and the fact that people spend most of their waking lives either on cell phones or on the Internet, and what do you get? Twitter.

Brands on Twitter---Are They There For You or For Themselves?

First there was Comcastcares. (Ok, they were not actually first but it was the first example that came to my mind. Zappos is another notable example, but for whatever reason I thought of Comcast first. Sorry Zappos.) Frank Eliason, Comcast’s “director of digital care”-- who Business Week dubbed as “the most famous customer service manager in the U.S., possibly in the world”-- came up with the idea of using Twitter to interact with Comcast customers. Then others, probably awed and jealous of all the positive press Frank Eliason and Comcast were getting, followed suit by setting up shop on Twitter too: Dell, Whole Foods, JetBlue, Southwest...you get the idea.(Again, my timing might be wrong as far as when each of these companies set up shop on Twitter; I'm including this caveat instead of taking the time to research actual dates.)

The upside of having all these companies on Twitter is that you sometimes get rocket-fast, personalized customer service. When I tweeted about my frustrations with Sprint, within a few minutes I had a one of Sprint's social media customer service people contact me offering help. He ended up hooking me up with my own "Executive Services VIP Analyst" who not only resolved my problem but left me with her personal contact information should I encounter future problems.

If those two paragraphs were too wordy for you, this awesome slide show basically sums up what I just wrote:



The thing is this: social media--Twitter in this case--has set the bar so high that the only place to go is down. Take my recent experience with Pepco power company. A few weekends ago, we woke up to find the power was out. Having recently seen somewhere that Pepco was now on Twitter, I thought--great, no need to call and sit on hold; I'll probably get an immediate response on Twitter. But not only did I not get an immediate response; I never got a response at all. A few weeks later, when I tweeted about their non-response in another context on Twitter, I immediately received a response from Pepco's Twitter customer service person apologizing for the delay and telling me that they tweet during business hours.

“Business hours”? Business hours in the context of Twitter is like saying bankers hours in the context of a 24-hour supermarket. As in, are you kidding me? Isn't the whole point of setting up a customer service outpost on Twitter being able to offer service that goes above and beyond what traditional customer service channels can provide? Or is a company that offers customer service on Twitter...

Ah, but wait--there's the rub: are any of these companies really offering customer service on Twitter or they merely there so they can be held up as examples of cutting-edge companies who engage with customers in new ways? I mean, yes, they are engaging with customers in new ways--but isn't it kind of on their own terms? There's no accountability. Take the legendary Comcastcares, for example. If you check Comcast's website, you'll see that they offer "six ways to get help" on their customer help and support page. Twitter isn't mentioned at all.

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here so I better stop. I guess my question is this: should companies who establish a customer service presence on Twitter be expected to provide real-time support 24/7 or is just being on Twitter enough to earn them bragging rights?

Twitter: What Is It Good For?

Lazy Friday: I'm just linking to a guest post about Twitter that I wrote for Jill Kurtz's blog earlier this week.

Have a great weekend!

Live Tweeting Lawmakers?

On the heels of ASAE's Great Ideas conference and the twitter about live tweeting during sessions, there's an article in today's Washington Post addressing the same thing: A Tale of 140 Characters, Plus the Ones in Congress--excellent headline, btw.

The article talks about lawmakers tweeting through Obama's speech to the joint session of congress. Tweets like "I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg" and "Capt Sully is here -- awesome!" The author, Dana Milbank, likens the tweeting lawmakers to high school kids sending text messages from math class. He poses the question

"Should these guys maybe spend time fixing the country and leave the Twittering to somebody else?"

Are you kidding me? The article lists the number of followers for each of the three lawmakers featured as of the date of publication (today). As of the time I'm writing this post (7:30 pm), each of them have gained hundreds of new followers just since this morning. Look at Claire McCaskill; she has over 10,000 followers. You think she's going to walk away from that attention anytime soon? Hell, I feel like a rock star having 220 followers; I can't imagine what it would be like to have 10,000.

Twitter has made it so anyone can bask in a spotlight that would otherwise be unavailable. Pre-Twitter, it would never have occurred to anyone to ask "what are you doing?" on an ongoing 24/7 basis--nobody would have cared. Now anyone at all can have his or her own personal ticker tape, to which their fans--I mean followers--are riveted.

There's no doubt about it: Twitter is inherently narcissistic. Why would you bother sharing what you're doing with the world if you didn't think your every move was fascinating? If you're a private person or don't think what you do would be of interest to anyone, chances are you're not on Twitter. Or if you are, you're merely a lurker using it as a convenient RSS feed.

So who can blame these politicos for wanting to stand out from the crowd and be seen as more than serious guys/gals soberly flanking the President? What is politics other than one big popularity contest? And who are the popular kids? The witty ones, the smart ones, the glamorous ones...the ones who can spin any given moment's happenings into a 140-character piece of prose, for instance.

So back to the question about when these people are going to hand over the mike and get back to work: I say the answer is no time soon. It would be like asking a stand-up comedian fill a room then walk off the stage.

The Power of Social Media: Are Companies Overreacting?

Yesterday the world seemed to be a-buzz—and a-twitter—with reactions to Facebook’s announcement that they were changing their Terms of Service (TOS). I’m not just talking cyber world either; I’m talking the Washington Post, WTOP radio, NBC TV news—“real” news outlets.

The first thing that came to my mind when I read about the TOS changes was “so what?” I’m not a risk-averse person and as far as I’m concerned, if Facebook wants to find a way to use one of my status updates or Lil’ Green Patch requests at any point in the future they can have at it. The second thought I had was wow, Facebook has really gone mainstream if WTOP is featuring the story every 10 minutes.

Then, just as my coworker and I were talking about it this morning, he read online that Facebook has recanted the changes to the TOS. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, announced this decision early today on Facebook’s blog, and told users that they will play an integral role in developing new terms that “reflect the principles and values of the people using the service.”

This reversal brought to mind a handful of recent similar situations in which a company puts something out there then takes it back after the public slams it. It happened when a Motrin campaign ignited the wrath of millions of parents who were offended by an ad that basically poked fun at moms who carry their babies in body slings. After a public outcry on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, Johnson & Johnson pulled the ad both online and in print and published an apology on their website. It happened when Molson Coors Brewing Company pulled a photo contest on Facebook after a flurry of negative comments that the contest encouraged irresponsible and underage drinking. And it happened when Site Meter, a service that provides website tracking tools, launched a new version and within a day rolled back to the previous version after users (including me) went ballistic about the new version. (note: even though the post from the Site Meter blog is dated 2006, it actually was written in September 2008; I'm not sure why the date is wrong.)

Being in the association frame of mind I’m in right now since I’m leaving for ASAE’s Great Ideas conference in a few days and will be live blogging the event, I couldn’t help but think back to a post on Acronym that posed the question Do associations overreact to criticism? At that time, I commented that associations shouldn’t put too much stock into negative blog comments and shouldn’t rush to action as a result of member feedback. However, after this Facebook reversal and the others I just cited, should I be rethinking my stance about associations reacting to criticism? If the ways of the word are evolving towards a “power to the people” dynamic, does that mean that the same will be true for associations?

Enterprise Twitter: Who Would Pay?

I love it when I can use the word "atwitter" in a blog post. So it's my lucky day because my inbox and twitterstream are both atwitter about Twitter's rumored new business model: charging companies for commercial use. Simple enough, right? I mean, if Twitter is now a mainstay of corporate communications--garnering all kinds of notoriety for companies like Comcast and Dell--shouldn't it cost them something?

But wait a second--same story, different headline this time: "Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use." The operative word here being "brands."

Sure, just semantics--but it does make me wonder what "companies" Twitter's new business model would encompass. Sure Dell made a million dollars (allegedly) and who knows how much companies like Comcast might potentially make as a result of their turn-around in customer service resulting from Comcastcares. But what about nonprofits or associations using Twitter? Or freelancers? Or even the White House?

Where will Twitter draw the line? And will this business model work for them or will they all agreee with Bob Pearson, VP of communities and conversations at Dell:

“If it becomes complicated and costly, our instinct would be to move elsewhere.”

Last question--I promise--where exactly would they move and still get the same results Twitter is delivering?

Twitter in Real Life

There's a good reason I'm a blogger and not a videographer: because I'm horrible at making videos. Actually, that's not technically true; I haven't ever tried to make a video. I don't know the first thing about directing, editing, animating--frankly, I don't even know the terms for the things I don't know. Suffice it to say I'll stick to blogging.

With one exception, that is. One of the funniest things I've ever seen on YouTube is the video about Facebook in real life. I was hoping there'd be a similar one for Twitter, because if the concept of Facebook in real life is hilarious, the concept of Twitter out loud in real life is even better.

Alas, there wasn't one (ok, there is one but it wasn't what I was thinking of). It did, however, introduce me to my new favorite thing: XtraNormal. XtraNormal lets you turn text into a movie. Naturally I was intrigued--text I can write.

So I tried it and, while I'll definitely be sticking to blogging, I personally was very amused by my video.

Without further ado, here's my Twitter in real life video. (If the F word offends you, you shouldn't watch.)(But now you're curious so just watch it anyway.)

Why Every Stay-Home Mom Needs to Be On Facebook

A few weeks ago I went to a bingo night at school, arranged by the PTA. PTA isn’t really my thing, but any form of gambling is, so I went. After bingo (I didn’t win once in 21 games—go figure why I love gambling) I went out for drinks with a group of moms.

When we were leaving the restaurant, somehow the conversation turned to Facebook. I had recently made Facebook converts of a few of them and they were raving about it.

Then one woman said “My husband says if I have time to waste on Facebook I need to get a job.”

Ok, so Facebook might be a time toilet and of debatable merit in many ways—what with the poking, smile invitations, Lil’ Green Patch requests and all the rest of it. But the larger truth is that Facebook is a social media tool, and being familiar with social media tools is far from a waste of time--especially for women who have given up or postponed their careers to be home with kids.

I'll spare you the rant about how hard it is for women to re-enter the workforce after taking time off to raise kids; suffice it to say that clawing your way back up the career ladder is a LOT harder than climbing down. Chances are, while you're home raising kids, the world and the workforce are marching on, leaving a thick layer of dust on your resume.

Think about it, though: what if there was a career you could actually build from scratch, for free and in your spare time at home? Guess what? There is one.

While the title varies, the occupation I'm talking about is social media or community manager (for our purposes I'll call it social media manager). I was prepared to write a whole treatise about how social media careers are on the rise, but found this great post that sums it up better than I could.

Want to be a social media manager? Here's what you do:

• Start a blog. Not only will you familiarize yourself with blogging platforms, terminology and applications (widget, tags, comments, Digg, Technorati, etc, etc...) but you'll build a portfolio of writing samples.


• Get on Facebook and Twitter and every other social network you can. Granted, you'll probably only be able to (or want to) keep up with a few, but it's a good way to familiarize yourself with social networks--what they are, which ones are useful for what and what all the crazy little icons mean.


• Read. Read blogs, articles, books, magazines, newspapers--anything about social media. The beauty of social media as a career is that it's basically a brand new field; therefore the only things separating you from the "experts" are a few thousand blog posts. Everything you need to know about social media is out there; this is one area where grad school is not only not necessary but actually detrimental. The world of social media is evolving so rapidly that it requires constant, ongoing learning, not classwork. Think of it as a never ending learning experience--but in a good way.


• Network. Social media offers the unique opportunity to actively network without ever having to have so much as one face-to-face conversation with anyone. Not that there's anything wrong with actual personal interaction, but when it's not an option because of time constraints, social networks can help you connect with people who will be able to help you get a job when the time comes.

I could have included much more detail--told you which blogs to read, which people to follow on Twitter, which social networks to familiarize yourself with, but figuring out the answers to these questions is part of your social media self-education so I'll leave the details to you.

So next time your husband accuses you of wasting time on Facebook, tell him that you're actually laying the foundation for your social media career and to leave you alone.

Social Media, Circa 1997

Canadian blogger SuzeMuse had a great post today about social media not being new at all. As a social media veteran of over 11 years, I can assure you she's right. Her post inspired me to take a trip back to web 2.0, circa 1997.

Back then, I was a stay-home mom, desperate for social interaction but totally isolated from actual friends. The only thing I had to keep me company was a computer and a dial-up connection. What started as a Google search for an ovulation calendar led me to an “expecting club” of women who were also trying to conceive—and with that, my social media journey began.

Through the magic of one of my favorite web tools, the Wayback Machine, I was actually able to dig up the page that started it all for me. This is a snapshot of the page in 1997.

Guess the concept worked because here’s the 2008 version of the same site.

Ok—you say-—maybe there were online communities back then, but not web 2.0 stuff like reviews, blogs or videos. Actually, look again: granted, the 1997 version doesn’t have blogs, but it does have groups, reviews and videos (sorry, link to the videos is broken).

As SuzeMuse, well, muses, about Twitter one day just vanishing--imagine your most valued social network suddenly disappearing? It happened to my online mom community-—multiple times. But Suze is exactly right: somehow we were always able to pick up the pieces, rebuild and regroup. Somehow (can you say social networking?) we’d always manage to spread the word to one another and find the newly-created group. Imagine trying to find and contact all of your Twitter followers--but without Twitter. Good luck with that.

Oh, and forget luxuries like free social networks—our boards were either hosted and supported by one woman’s techie husband, or built on rickety, unreliable services that would go down at the drop of the hat and stay down for days, if not permanently. Imagine 100 women all waiting breathlessly to hear whether Sally’s pregnancy test was positive after watching her trying to conceive for 7 years and having the boards suddenly be gone for a week or more? Happened. Ditto for labor, births, and other cliff-hanger moments.

We have had some awesome meetups—10 or more of us at a time, some traveling from as far away as Australia and Norway. Flying from Australia to DC to meet up with a bunch of women you’ve never even laid eyes on and know only by virtue of an online social network? If that isn't a testament to the power of social media, I don’t know what is.

All I know is that anyone who says social media is just a fad hasn’t had the experiences I’ve had. Social media is here to stay, period.

Association Social Media Roadshow Reflections Part 1: Twitter

*Disclaimer: I work for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); however, this is my personal blog in which I express my own thoughts and opinions.*

*When I sat down to write this post I intended it to be a wrap up of all my thoughts about our social media explorations at ASHA's Annual Convention. Once I started I realized that there is so much to tell about I'll have to break it up into more than one post; stay tuned for the next installment about Facebook*

Last week was ASHA's Annual Convention--my first. It was great to be able to meet some of the members--12,500 of whom were there--and to see their enthusiasm for their professions in action.

I work in ASHA's web department, and we had a booth at Convention, as did most of the other departments. We used the experience of being among so many members as an opportunity to get some feedback about their level of interest in social media.

Prior to Convention we announced in several places (newsletters, tweets, convention information page on website) that we'd be using Twitter at convention, and encouraged members to sign up so they could follow our updates. For the most part, our members aren't really there yet as far as Twitter, but we do have a handful of dedicated followers. Using Twitter this time around was more of an experiment than anything; we didn't have any real expectation that many would follow.

Prior to convention we tracked a fair number of tweets about it, both from exhibitors who were using Twitter to promote their booths and from members enthusiastic about the upcoming event. Some examples of tweets were:

• "If you're in Chicago for the ASHA conference, please stop by our booth - #1906"


• "First session attended at #ASHA08 was presented by my grad school advisor, great to see her again! Fun start to ASHA Convention 2008."


• "Getting ready for 2 more days solo at the hospital. Becoming very sad that I don't get to go to ASHA convention. I want to go!"


• "2008 ASHA convention in Boston hosted 13,000 speech-language pathologists & audiologists..what is your prediction for attendance in Chicago"


• "Have you signed up for a job interview at the ASHA convention?"

Plus plenty more. Not too bad for an association whose members are predominantly in the 35-55 year group.

That said, this was a surprising tweet:

"Refining my ASHA presentation for Saturday 8-10 session 2501. I will talk about twitter and the future"

This from a member of 34 years doing a session on academic leadership! I DMd him asking about his presentation and he later came looking for me and we had a great conversation about social media. He spent about 15 minutes telling me his thoughts about using social media to engage students and showed me his slides and even his MySpace page. He was very cool!

Twitter turned out to be a great tool for interacting with members and exhibitors in several ways:

• A member tweeted asking if anyone had tickets to a sold-out function; I tweeted her back that I was able to find some for her. It was a great opportunity to offer one-on-one customer service to a member--something she undoubtedly would not have otherwise been able to get at such a large meeting


• When exhibitors tweeted about convention, I DMd them telling them to stop by and say hi. They did, and several expressed interest in ASHA's social networks--this generated one solid lead for our advertising department, as well as a few others who said they wanted to explore future opportunities with us. One major exhibitor even videotaped an interview with me and my web coworker for their blog!


• I was able to make a few announcements that otherwise wouldn't have been possible, since we didn't have a message center and the convention daily had been pre-printed


• A member DMd ASHA saying she'd lost her wallet and asking if we could help find it. Again, it was nice that she thought of using Twitter to connect with ASHA staff.

All in all, Twitter turned out to be much more of a success than we'd anticipated.

Stay tuned for part 2: Facebook.

How Much Time Does It Take To Do Social Media? More Than You Think.

Beth Kanter had a great post today about how much time it takes to do social media. I started to post a comment but ended up typing WAY too much, so I figured I'd just blog about it.

Beth suggests five modules for implementing a social media plan: listening, participating, generating buzz, sharing your story and community building/social networking.

I'd like to throw out a few more time-consuming activities/categories:

1. Learning. In addition to the time it takes to do the activities she lists, there is the time it takes to have acquired the knowledge to be able to do them in the first place. You have to know what tools are out there and not only how to use them, but how to use them for business--what you can and can't do, and how to do it most effectively. This alone takes a huge amount of time—finding the blogs or books or webinars that will give you the information you need, then taking the time each and every day to stay on top of them. Every little thing needs to be researched before it can be implemented, and the whole thing keeps evolving so the learning curve never stops.


2. Selling. Once you’ve acquired the knowledge—an ongoing and time-consuming activity in itself—you’ll be responsible for teaching others inside and outside your organization not only how they work, but why they’re necessary components of the social media strategy. This is even more time-consuming if you work for an association; not only do you have to convince and educate senior management and staff; you also have to convince members that social media is a benefit and worth investing their time in. It’s one thing if your staff and membership are predominantly young and already engaged in social networking; it’s another if none of them have even heard of Twitter or think Facebook is just for teenagers—that can be an uphill, time-consuming battle. After all, if your members aren’t engaged in a blog or social network, what’s the point? Depending on how large your staff and membership are, this can take a lot of time.


3. Coordinating. You also have to factor in the reality that many associations are all about silos—membership does membership, PR does PR, marketing does marketing, etc. Social media is about all these things, yet if these departments don’t even communicate or work together internally, how are you going to present a united message about your organization’s programs or campaigns? And furthermore, who is heading up the social media efforts—is it one person? A team? Whether it’s either of those, it takes time to coordinate internally about messages, methods, goals, etc., not to mention decide who should and shouldn’t be out there sharing the story and what’s ok and not ok as far as doing it. Already have lots of meetings eating up your time? Prepare to lose even more time to meetings to decide about all this stuff.

The bottom line is that, as much time as you think it will take to integrate social media into your organization’s overall communications efforts, prepare for it to end up taking a lot more time than you thought it would. I equate it to reading blogs—you go to read one thing, then click on a link to another, then another, and so on until you realize you’ve eaten up half your day. And don’t forget—once you build it, they will come—and that will lead to even more time investment managing those relationships, press inquiries, etc.

Would you let Twittad pimp your Twitter profile for cash?

Twittad is a new service that, as described on their website "gives Twitter users and advertisers the opportunity to meet for product placement & website promotion on a Twitter user profile."

Sounds warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Then you go to the "How Twittad Works" page and the first thing you read is "Post Twitter account for advertisers to purchase." Huh? Purchase your profile as in own it?

Apparently the marketing geniuses at TwittAd aren't familiar with the concept of personal branding; if they were surely they would realize that, for some, the idea of selling their Twitter profile is probably tantamount to selling one of their kidneys. These days, a person's Twitter profile can be--and probably is--an integral part of their personal and, therefore, professional brand. Would anyone consider "selling" their LinkedIn profile? After all, if you sell something to someone, isn't it then theirs to do whatever they wish with? Are people going to be ok logging on to Twitter to find that their personal brand is now porn or something?

Ok, then--say you are willing to sell your profile to the highest bidder--what kind of money are we talking? Take a look at the current listings of profiles up for sale. The highest prices is $20; most are $5 or $10. Is that price per "hour you serve the ad"--whatever that means--or is it what advertisers pay to take ownership of your profile, then you rake in revenue similar to what you'd earn with AdSense; e.g. $0?

I'm just baffled by the whole TwittAd website--I have no idea what "hours serving the ad" means and, as far as I can tell, they give no explanation. I suppose one way to find out would be to put my profile up for bid and see what kind of money it actually brings in--that seems to be about the only way to find out based on the lack of detail provided by their website.