Biznology

Photo credit: Christopher S. Penn

If you call yourself a social media marketer and you’re not completely promiscuous about it, you’re not serving yourself, your boss, or your clients. If you’re not constantly downloading new apps or registering for every single new social network, you’re slacking; if you don’t endlessly click YES when it asks you if you want to search for or invite your friends, you’re derelict in your duties; and if you aren’t hooked in to share everywhere whenever possible, you’re not going to understand how all of these connectors, sharing strategies, cross-posting techniques, check-in features, and general spaminess and shamelessness quotients work first hand, then how would you be able to honestly either know about or be recommend any of them. And unless you want to be a professional tweeter and Facebooker all your life, you had better know both what’s out there now as well as what’s coming down the pike. Read the remainder of this entry »

They always say that the parents who put in all the boring, taken-for-granted time are the very best. That it’s not even about quality time, it’s about persistent time, time spent. I don’t want to compare parenting to social media community development and management but I guess I just did. Folks tend to have the zeal of the newly-converted when they first adopt social media into their communications, sales, and marketing plan; however, the truth of being a “parent” is that you’re responsible for the welfare of an entitled ingrate for not just the first 18-years but for life — and that can be dispiriting. Unless you love it; unless you’re passionate; unless you pace yourself; and unless you truly bond with your beloved. As I have said before, these are human relationships and as such, they require constant gardening. They say that true beauty exists in the flaws and not in the perfection and this is true as well when it comes to the consistency of your relationship with those with whom you’re connected online.

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Over the course of a couple days, my Klout score went from 65 to 67 because my mother died. Not because I had some sort of amazing Klout-gaming strategy but because I have been honestly and openly sharing my grief at the sudden loss of my mother on Google+, Twitter, but mostly on Facebook. And the reason why my Klout spiked is because so many of my 47,000 followers on Twitter and my 4,800 friends on Facebook came to my emotional aid at my time of need.

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I experience a lot of contempt for bloggers and social media influencers. From agencies and marketing firms as well as from self-professed social media experts and social media gurus. Bloggers and other social media online influencers may not know who Edward Bernays is or have the lingua franca of a trained communications professional, but they sure can spot the eye roll of condescension and contempt from a mile away, even through the terse messaging of a single pitch. While the biggest brands with the biggest gifts and social cachet can get away with being douche bags and intolerable asses because the level of peer and personal prestige and importance  more than compensate for bad manners, rudeness, and a condescending manner–the proverbial upturned nose and eye roll–this sort of behavior isn’t acceptable from anyone but the crown king and queen of their particular demographic. Read the remainder of this entry »

Now that I have my iPhone wired for sound, I do a majority of my tweeting and facebooking through the apps that I use. I use Instagram, which connects to my Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Posterous, and FourSquare account; I use Hipstamatic and it connects and posts to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Flickr; I use Posterous and it will cross-post to Twitter and Facebook; I use FourSquare and it posts to Twitter and Facebook as well; and I have started using GetGlue recently and I can check in to FourSquare as well as post to Twitter and Facebook. Even my RunKeeper app posts to Twitter and Facebook.

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