Category: Business

Apple: The Forbidden Fruit, iHolics, PReemption

Posted by Rich Harris – August 17, 2010

My first iPhone: The iPhone 4

I finally broke down. Not the epiphany in counseling type, but more the technology type. The BlackBerry rocked before social media came and forced it’s OS to be more app friendly for Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s safe to say that for many, the new need for multiple social apps and other ‘always on/connected’ apps were just too much for the BB push technology pipeline. After many crashes over a few years with multiple social media/content client apps, I was sick of java errors, hang ups, and a mobile experience that has been outdated for 4 years now….I needed a change. So being that I was already an Apple product user in everything else I do online, it was time to switch.

I love my iPhone 4 and have witnessed none of the issues related to Antennagate. I dig the user experience, the aesthetic, the apps…..all of it. It totally fits me and my life. The only issue I had with it was trying to install the 4.0.1 update to fix the signal issue. My issue basically was when attempting the update, it got about 3/4 of the way through and hung and then my phone was essentially bricked so I had to take it into the Apple store. My issue was a one off. Otherwise the phone rocks so I wasn’t trippin’ or considering the device a ‘failure.’ However, I did have an interesting experience at the Genius Bar that I’ll explain further down this post.

The Apple Store replaced my phone no questions asked and I was up and running again. All good. I’ve been in tech long enough to know that sometimes things fail or are defective. I’m cool with that. Now then…..

What is Wrong With Questioning Companies & Products That You Love?

I don’t understand the human need to invest so much blinder-level emotional commitment to Apple, or any company for that matter, that they are willing to get on their knees and drink in all the cool-aide, figuratively beer-bonged down their throats, regardless of how shitty it can sometimes taste if said figurative batch is fucked up. They just keep drinking. The power of customers connecting with each other via social channels STILL hasn’t empowered Apple fan boys enough to break free of the clutches of the black turtleneck so that they fully think for themselves as consumers. The weird thing about the Apple phenomena is that these very same customers would blow the whistle on any other company, product or service if they ever had a simliar experience. No one will ever be this loyal to Sony, Philips, Samsung, or even Microsoft (for the most part). Even then, the word loyal is probably too level-headed of a word in this scenario….sometimes, based on my convos with good friends who love Apple and a recent experience I had at the Genius Bar in the Los Gatos Apple Store, I wonder if a slight obsession has chemically altered people’s brains somehow after they’ve bought their first Apple product. Maybe our Macbook Pro built-in cameras spew a fine mist of the world’s strongest opiate into our face during use so we get a euphoric numbness and sense of relief that we attribute to Apple products all Pavlov style ….who knows…anyhow, I digress…

My name is Rich Harris, and I too am an iHolic, just like you. But as iHolics, we are entitled to be continually impressed by, passionate about and extremely critical of this awesome company called Apple and it’s suite of products, kapeesh? My kids question me as their father during disagreements, etc. Does that mean they don’t love and respect me? NO.

Side Note: My First Genius Bar Experience

Maybe it’s because he was burnt the F*** out from all the hype rolling in the door and asking him about antennas, etc. but his response when I questioned him about the 4.0.1 update crashing my phone etc., I felt was a little disturbing. I told him that my iPhone had bricked from the update and he says to me, “yeah I don’t know why everyone is making a big deal out of the signal being accurately displayed on the phone, who looks at that anyway?”. What the hell kind of answer is that? I’d say that not only is that important but companies have made that a priority since mobile phones came out! Just like when Apple launched a phone in the beginning that didn’t support MMS even though every other crappy flip phone supported it and had for years, this signal accuracy bug in my opinion is just another “stupid.” The fact that the Apple Store employee tried to minimize this right in front of me and disregard the issue is even more ridiculous. In fact, if I ran that store, he would’ve been in the unemployment line the next day. Call me an asshole but when customers invest as much passion and money in their “Apple Lifestyle” as they currently do, we’re allowed to expect the BEST from a company and it’s employees that claim it to BE the best. The best doesn’t mean you don’t have flaws and bugs, but the best does mean that you don’t release your products with really lame amateur issues.

Antennagate: No Pedestal Can Transcend The Pressure of Social Media

A PR department has basically two jobs: Announcements & Damage Control (preemptive & post). Both of these fall under the over-arching umbrella of perception. Antennagate was a perfect example of a great company with even greater products that pushed their social media ignorance and side-stepping a little too far. It is true that the acceptable amount of iPhones with antenna issues fell within the acceptable failure rate threshold (all technology hardware companies have one). So the amount of customers with issues and the issue itself, really WEREN’T the issue. The issue was that they tried to do the notorious Apple PR ‘brush off’ during a time when direct communication via social media is at an all time high, run by the people, syndicated by the people, all FOR the people….a large part of those people this time around were considering buying their first iPhone, and because that fact was a component of the timing, while Apple will recover of course (their latest earnings are insane), they will pay for this financially and already have, big time.

There was a really great article on Mashable about what we can learn from this from a PR and social media perspective titled, “4 Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn from Apple’s Antennagate“. The four things (with some quotes from the post) they cover in this article are:

  • Address The Real Problem – “Part of what got Apple into trouble was its initial approach to Antennagate. After Steve Jobs blew off some of the concerns, Apple admitted there was a problem, but blamed it on a software issue and sidestepped the very real hardware problem.”
  • Taken Control of The Situation – “When you’re in crisis mode, the last thing you need is to have the situation spiral completely out of your control. Establish control of the situation as quickly as you can.”
  • Make Reparations and Don’t Be Cheap – “If you find yourself in a crisis and you are at fault, don’t be afraid to make it up to your customers, no matter the cost. While it may be very painful in the short-term, it could very well be what saves your company in the long run.”
  • Better Late Than Never – “While Apple made many mistakes during the entire Antennagate saga, in the end it admitted that there was a problem and took enough steps to keep consumers happy.”

Dear Apple

I love your products. I have none of the well publicized issues with my iPhone 4. I love the phone and life is good. I will continue to use nothing but Apple products for all my mobile/computing needs. HOWEVER, you need to get onboard with the social side of things. You need to be leveraging social media and it’s channels to not only speak the truth quickly when problems arise like most product companies nowadays, but you also should take a long hard look at how much headache you can save with a simple ongoing blog post on the issue, or a hashtag on Twitter with real-time info on what’s going on so we can all follow and feel like we can be your co-pilot as you work through it. You would’ve saved yourself some serious dough and headed off TONS of unwarranted online media flack. I’m hoping the cost of the free bumpers is a little reminder that the days of spoonfeeding us what you want us to hear are actually over. Keep making the great products you do and start being up front using the tools that we all use to communicate. No one wants to be the “BP” of computing products when it comes to PR.

Onward.

Another Guest Post on ZDNet

Posted by Rich Harris – August 10, 2010

Late last month my good friend Jennifer Leggio let me squawk about the importance of making sure your digitals are tangibles and how The Cloud rocks but keeping your personal stuff back up and safe and close to you rocks even more.

“It’s safe to say that most of us in the age range of 30+ still have an attachment to these analog artifacts. However, it’s not just an emotional attachment. When it comes to memories and things that matter to us, we know that physical tangibility is something we can trust, something that holds it’s own unique value, reminding us that our lives have been actual, real and organic.”

Read the full article here

Quick’n’Dirty Episode 50: Be Interesting and Be Interested

Posted by Rich Harris – July 3, 2010

This week’s episode made us hungry, and not just for food. After co-hosts Jennifer Leggio and Aaron Strout had the opportunity to chat with Winnie Hsia (@MissWinnie), Social Media Specialist for Whole Foods (@WholeFoods on Twitter), we were reminded that if you have a passion for customers and the business you are in, it is possible for that passion to resonate up the corp ladder influencing change in long-standing policies etched in proverbial stone by a 30 year old company. It’s also rad when you can applicably discuss business and food in the same show. You can listen to this episode here.

First topic of the show was our Social App of the week. With location-based apps and functionality becoming more than just a personal novelty, making their way into the advertising space, marketing campaigns and creating more biz partnerships, it’s a very hot topic right now. This week we chose location-based app Whrrl. This app has been around for a few years and while it is not new and they offer some of the standard features of the other loc-based apps, one of the things that sticks out is their “Societies” feature, making it easier for you to virtually group together with others that share your specific interests and passions. Giving users an option to either join a “Society” or create their own if they haven’t found one that serves a need or specific interest they’re looking for, is a great way to foster new relationships virtually and meet new friends in a way that is more meaningful online. Really cool.

Next was our featured guest, Winnie Hsia. Many of us can vouch for the fact that it’s always a challenge bringing social media into an older company. While she started out doing some part-time stuff on Twitter/Facebook for Whole Foods, Winnie was able to create value for Whole Foods quickly within the social media landscape and has since turned it into a full time job. From answering questions from headquarters via various social media channels, to encouraging and educating individual store managers on how to leverage SM to increase sales and customer involvement, she has really helped paved the way for a company based on everything organic, gracefully transition into the digital lives of it’s customers without missing a beat. She has found a way to utilize her passion for food, community and technology to connect and engage with customers on Twitter, Facebook and beyond. Her closing tweetable thought was so awesome I had to make it the title of this blog post: “Be interesting and be interested.”

Finally, our Twitterer of the week was none other than Jo Garfein (@JOpinionated). After reading through her tweets, credentials and various projects that she is part of, I assure you that if you at all think you are truly in the know when it comes to pop-culture, you have more than met your match with Jo. She is a pop culture content machine and an unparalleled Lost fan. You can check out her various projects at JOpinionated.com. Jo, we love your tweets!

Last but not least, for our point/counterpoint segment, Aaron & Jennifer went on to discuss businesses being able to attach a dollar value to a fan or follower. This to me is the Holy Grail of data in social media, data that if at least 85%+ accurately established and forecasted, will finally allow businesses to fully harness SM for revenue purposes as well as help those of us in running the  SM show to be more iron clad in our pitches to executives and both internal/external clients in business. The discussion was sparked by Q’n'D after discovering and reading a recent article posted at GigaOM. They do a terrific job discussing some of the challenges and discoveries covered in a recent report developed by Syncapse, a social media measurement firm.

Here are some of the more insightful takeaways from the study:

  • On average, fans spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves as fans of, compared to those who are not fans.
  • Fans are 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.
  • Fans are 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.

This information is definitely helpful and was finally presented in a way that most of us in business can make sense of. It also reinforces how marketing will always be, to some extent or another, a series of moving targets that will evade our business objectives if we don’t make research a huge part of the equation.

Next week we’ll talk to Bob Knorpp, of The BeanCast. Please join us next Thursday live at noon PT / 3 ET in the Blog Talk Radio chat room or feel free to listen anytime on iTunes. Have a great weekend!

Onward.

Second Harvest Food Bank Gets Social

Posted by Rich Harris – June 25, 2010

Second Harvest Food Bank has been around since 1972 and has raised 125 million pounds of food since it began it’s mission. Today, it’s one of the largest charities combating hunger in the continental United States. SHFB for years has always built their network and team members from the ground up, by word of mouth. In this day and age, the tools available for non-profits like SHFB, can build that following 50 times as fast. Sites & tools like Facebook and Twitter are both amazing environments for fostering awareness for charities and spreading the good word of helping others quickly and virally. In Santa Cruz, CA, local business man of 25+ years Danny Keith has recently accepted a spot working for SHFB, providing guidance and a strategy for utilizing today’s social media communication channels to spread the word.

47Project: So who are you and what do you do for Second Harvest Food Bank?

DK: My name is Danny Keith, I founded Grind Out Hunger with Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County and I am most recently the Development Officer for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County.

47Project: How are you using social media to help the SHFB raise awareness?

DK: In my day job the realization of becoming the voice for your brands so your community can drive your message and support or alter it based on how they see your brand. I applied these same principals when I launched http://www.grindouthunger.org and I found that the laws of social apply universally across all aspects. After an extremely successful year with Grind Out Hunger in 2009 and the subsequent traditional and social media it received, I then begin to analyze the existence of of TheFoodBank.org’s website and realized it needed a voice. They already had started a Facebook Fan Page and were using YouTube, Twitter and Vimeo moderately. I came in and syndicated all to cross pollinate each other and create a circle of social. We then branded and begin to implement the push, while bringing the social items directly to the front page of the website. At this point the creation of a WordPress Multi-User platform to set the stage for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County to become their own media channel through http://www.thefoodbank.org all while tying in the social activity to tell the story.

47Project: Has it been a challenge trying get online communities to follow SH F B and it’s initiatives? If so, why do you think?

DK: Actually it has been well received, and honestly taken off virally allot quicker than some of my for profit ventures. Non-profits in general are doing such great things at a frequency that creates the need for social even more. Non-profits really are their own best media outlet.

47Project: What have been some of your biggest social media successes so far?

DK: With Second Harvest Food Bank it was the rapid acquisition of fans through our Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/secondharvestsantacruz from 300 users to over 1000 within 5 weeks.

47Project: What is the end result you are hoping for after all is said and done?

DK: To tell the story loud and proud…Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County has been on the forefront in the non-profit sector distributing half of its monthly distribution as fresh fruits and vegetables (one of the few food banks in the Nation to lay such claim) while also working with agencies to simplify the processes to get help within the community (On staff WIC and Food Stamp agents help with the process) and educating the recipients of the food around the importance of nutrition. All while servicing over 180 different food distribution agencies within Santa Cruz County. Alarmingly allot of this great work was under exposed mainly due to lack of a social channel to promote it to the community that it services.  Raising money is aˇlways the focus at Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County, the “ask” is happening differently now. What used to be a mail in donation or a face to face has become electronic, anonymous and instant. My goal is to increase the micro ask (individuals donating $1 to $10) electronically to support the expanding need Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County is experiencing.

47Project: Are there any SHFB events or announcements you’d like to mention?

DK: Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County has divided its year in two. 1st half of year is scheduled Food For Children and then second half of the year is Holiday Food Drive. I would just implore people to take a moment and reflect on the hardships others are experiencing, especially around food insecurity. Please donate if you can whether it be food, money or your time…it all makes a difference.

For More Information:

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz on Facebook

GrindOutHunger.org

FeedingAmerica.org

Humanize Your Business Or Fail

Posted by Rich Harris – June 16, 2010

The old school of thought, because historically consumers were so easily wow’d by bright colors and one-way marketing messages, is that the top priority of  your marketing efforts should revolve around your products or services, what they do, what it’s gonna cost them, and why you are the best choice over your competitors and their products or services……oh yeah, and how rad your logo is.

Because profitability for any business comes from human beings making the decision to invest in you or your company, I believe that the old school is now officially backwards and can almost be hurtful to your cause. In the last year or so, the concept unearthed, thanks in large part by the social aspect of the web, is that companies need to spend more time using their market research and user group studies to construct a strategy around presenting their offering as an integral part of someone’s life, rather than as a “great product or service at a great price.”  The “Hey look at me! Look at me!” syndrome that so many companies and business people fall into when they don’t know what else to do with their time and budgets and feel like nothing else was working, is no bueno.

Like It Or Not, Warm Fuzzies = Revenue

I’m not saying the quality of the products or services aren’t a priority. Hell, they have to be if they’re are to successfully become a part of someone’s life, solidifying their purchase decision to make that initial investment in their relationship with you, ensure customer loyalty and retention, and increase the frequency of word of mouth (now more valuable than ever). I’m just saying that assuming quality is already there, the next step is to make sure you are a part of your customer, not just someone they handed over money to for products or services.

If you want to know what I’m talking about, just watch Apple. Love them or hate them, Apple knows how to create the notion that their technology products are seamlessly already part of who you are as a person. The concept of the iPad, and the iPad itself, is a perfect example. It doesn’t matter if you are selling car insurance, lamp shades, financial advice or skateboards, make sure that the presentation layer of your marketing plan does the following:

  • Think about a meaningful situation or experience that is most common among your market segment.
  • Assess which vehicle (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, blogs) they use most to consume information about your product/service type.
  • Storyboard a campaign that revolves around said meaningful situation/experience.
  • Keep your product (and even sometimes your brand in certain cases) as a background focus of your campaign, the whole time.

The above is how I would handle marketing/campaign methodology in this day and age. Catering to people’s emotions is nothing new in Marketing. Catering to segmented human emotion in a way where they can also interact with you and quickly, followed by easily doing business with you immediately, is new, thanks to the technology and tools. Pull your weight in the relationship with your customer and they’ll stick it out with you, even when your industry or company hit some rough spots.

Onward.

Respect Your OWN Online Privacy

Posted by Rich Harris – June 3, 2010

Facebook

Let’s face it, Facebook could’ve done a better job at a few things:

  1. By default, upon sign up, make each user’s privacy settings the most private they can be. This shows them that you are there for them to enjoy your site, putting their safety first.
  2. Make detailed information about the risks involved in posting ANY content on a social network WAY more prominent.
  3. Explain in very very simple terms with videos/flash animations what it means to allow applications to access your content, what those applications might use your content for, and how you can keep it blocked if you so choose.
  4. Make a security/privacy video required viewing before they’re even allowed to create their account.

I agree that Facebook’s popularity exploded faster than it’s inexperienced college student of a leader could even fathom. His inexperience with owning/operating a real business and being accountable to those people called “customers” shined right on through and bit him right in the ass. I almost feel bad for him….almost….but not quite.

This whole privacy issue that happened has created legitimate concerns that absolutely need to be addressed, however, it has also unearthed a reminder about human behavior and it’s common and lazy aversion to personal responsibility online.

Just Because You Like It, Doesn’t Mean You Should Trust It

Here’s a news flash for ya: All online activity is logged. Even though some of the logged content is logged privately somewhere inside a network like Facebook, or Gmail, there’s ALWAYS the chance, that someone who does have access to that email, that IM conversation, that private tweet, that private message/convo on Facebook can dump that data somewhere and share it with whoever they want for any amount of money or just for the sake of being an asshole. That’s the most extreme version of course but I’m trying to make a point that newer generations are putting too much trust in the cloud, too much trust that the tangible things that mean the most to them are to be trusted in such an intangible environment (electrical impulses and 1′s and 0′s).

My recommendation is that if you really care about your online social privacy, if you really care about who sees what content that is yours and when, then only upload or post stuff that is not personal. Millions of people are trusting their most personal content to one of the most impersonal environments in existence, a social network. A social network is meant to be just that: social. The allure and culture of a social network is to share and be shared with, to feed and to be fed (personal experiences via data), and this is to happen openly and by design.

If you don’t want people to see certain things that you consider ‘private’, things that could provide an opportunity for companies or others to exploit blatantly or subversively, then don’t upload it, don’t post it, don’t share it. Plain and simple.

Nothing is more annoying to me than online users getting mad at the baker just because they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Onward.

Social Media: The Agriculture & Farming Industry

Posted by Rich Harris – June 2, 2010

Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle on Twitter) and I met at a Twitter conference in Seattle back in early March of this year. He’s a mellow dude and one of the nicest guys I’ve met in a long time. He’s a farmer, Agvocate, family man and a social media guy. After chatting with him in Seattle, I was interested in knowing more about how an industry as organic as his could proliferate an era as digital as the current one. Jeff has been instrumental in doing just that.

I think his bio says it all: “Jeff Fowle is a third generation family farmer and rancher from Etna, California. He and his wife Erin and son Kyle raise registered Angus cattle, Percheron draft horses, warmbloods, alfalfa and alfalfa-grass hay and grain as a rotation. They also start and train horses for riding, jumping, and driving. Their family run ranch has incorporated many environmentally beneficial and water efficient technologies and management strategies.”

NOTE: Jeff was also the Twitterer of the week on last week’s episode of The Quick’n'Dirty Podcast. You can listen to the episode or read the recap.

Here’s the quick interview we did over email.

So who are you and what do you do?

I’m a 4th generation rancher & farmer, raising the 5th. We raise Angus and Hereford cattle, Percheron Draft horses, Warmbloods, Thoroughbreds, Quarterhorses, alfalfa hay, wheat & pasture.

Jeff, you and I met at 140tc in Seattle and your good friend Ray Prock (@RayLinDairy on Twitter) was explaining to me some of the complexities of farming. I had no idea. Do you get the sense that most consumers don’t know much about where their food comes from and how it got onto their dinner table?

Over 90% of Americans are at least 2 generations removed from the farm or ranch. This generational gap presents a situation where the average person no longer understands what is involved in order to get that food to their table, let alone a clear idea of where it came from.

What is the most common misconception about the farming industry and those that work in it?

I think the most common misconception is that “farmers don’t care.” Main stream media carries a few negative stories and assumption by the public is that “all of ag” is like that. Reality is that farmers & ranchers are great stewards of the land and livestock. It is in our best interest to keep the land healthy & productive for future generations and diverse wildlife. Also, livestock that is low stress & happy is healthier and produces more consistently.

How are you using social media to help the farming industry? Educational? Marketing?

I’m using SM for several purposes.

  1. To reach out to people who have questions about where their food comes from & how it is produced.
  2. Address mis-information being spread by those opposing agriculture.
  3. Learn what the perceptions are by the public.
  4. Learn from fellow producers across the country.
  5. Market my own products.

Has it been a challenge trying get the farming community to learn, use, and embrace tools like Twitter and Facebook?

The biggest challenge is overcoming the technology issues. Many farmers & ranchers are still on dial-up which makes most SM applications a challenge.  For those who do have access, its a matter of building confidence & helping them realize that there are folks who are interested in their story and learning how, what and why they do what they do.

What is Agvocacy and what is it about?

Agvocacy is simply the act of promoting agriculture. I believe that we need all types of production in order to meet the future needs of the people. Conventional, organic, natural, farmers markets all will play an important role in continuing to provide safe, wholesome and healthy food for future generations.

What kinds of changes have you seen in the farming industry’s communication culture since you started your social media push?

The biggest learning curve has been in relating to people. Due to mis-information and incorrect assumptions, many people have formed opinions about what we do. We must first listen to their concerns and understand why they believe what they do. Once we understand their perspective we can then discuss their questions rationally and eliminate or at least reduce the likelihood of a confrontation occurring. It is paramount to remain professional and civil in all conversations. Farmers and ranchers have become very cautious and almost numb to attacks, so this is a sign of progress, being able to engage with the public, share the story and have mutual respect.

Any events or announcements you’d like to mention?

The AgChat Foundation will be having some announcements of upcoming events in the next couple of weeks. They will be announced on Twitter, Facebook & also on our website agchat.org.



Leech Marketing: Stop The Algorithmic Madness

Posted by Rich Harris – May 31, 2010

Like most social media peeps, I sit around all day and watch Twitter as a part of my job. I watch several keyword/phrase streams like everyone else, to keep my thumb on the pulse of the business, various industries, market segments and influencers. Lately I’ve been surprised (and a little dissappointed) to see what some of the fairly notable and medium to large companies have been doing, some of which are publicly traded. I’ve covered this and similar observations in a recent rant “Twitter Auto-DM’s: Perpetuating Our Inner Lemming?” which more of a Twitter-specific bitchfest but still lends itself to a bigger issue I’m seeing that is not platform, industry, or era-specific. I don’t think this issue will ever really go away because there will always be a layer of misguided marketers and businesses doing things that are just lame, hoping to capitalize on customers that haven’t been trained to think for themselves as consumers (yet).

In this world there are three types of people:

  1. Givers
  2. Takers
  3. Those that know the importance of balancing being both.

In business it’s no different.

What is Leech Marketing?

In the social media/web world, to me leech marketing is basically the effort behind leveraging search algorithms to make quick money from uninformed customers with no concern for the real long-tail value of one’s business or industry. The unfortunate effect of this behavior is that it brings down the social capital value of those businesses that are doing social the right way for the right reasons. So to explain what the hell I’m really talking about here, these are a few (of many) leech methods, sucking the value out of social media by muddying the waters of our intended target audiences.

Irrelevant Hashtagging

This definitely can make trying to do business on Twitter (the right way) more time consuming as you watch keyword/phrase streams, trying to follow current market segment-specific conversations as well as unearthing new potential markets. People are hashtagging business-related tweets by top ten Twitter trending topics rather than relevancy to one’s target audience in an effort expose a ‘conversation’ to new randoms, more shotgunning.

Unfortunately (and statistically) your ROI will not only suck, but you are actually hurting other businesses that aren’t even in your space. This will NOT give you a competitive edge and additionally makes you (personal brand) or your company look desperate and clueless. You want to be the company that looks like you are smarter and wiser than everyone else, that you’ve risen above it all, focusing on what’s really important. Here’s what I’m talking about.

Examples:

Say you want to sell your Canon point-and-shoot camera on Craigslist……

  • Good: “Selling my point-and-shoot camera. DM me if interested. LINKTOCRAIGSLISTPOST #photography #pointandshoot #photographer #forsale”
  • Bad: “Selling my point-and-shoot camera. DM me if interested. LINKTOCRAIGSLISTPOST #socialmedia #justinbieber #oilspill”

Irrelevant Categorizing/Tagging of Blog Posts is Clutter

Similar to tweet construction, categorizing/tagging blog posts is an art. It’s probably safe to say that since search engines give preference to blogs, I believe that category/tag spam and it’s content irrelevance is responsible for probably a surprising percentage of lost business, wasted bandwidth, wasted time, and overall confusion for customers.

I understand that one way to help proliferate or unearth new customers and markets is to tag posts with keywords/phrases with ‘somewhat relevant’ tags. I think that’s all smart and good, but tagging anything “Justin Bieber” alongside anything other than what’s relevant is what I’m against.

Let’s take the same concept, selling a used Canon point-and-shoot camera on Craigslist, except this time, you write a blog post about it with info about the camera and then linking to your Craigslist entry.

Examples:

  • Good Tagging: “For sale, camera, canon, point and shoot, photography, photographer, used camera, craigslist, beginner camera”
  • Bad Tagging: “canon, camera, photography, oil spill, bp gas, justin bieber, lost, social media”

Above I’m not saying it’s “bad” because it won’t work, however I am saying that you are creating more clutter for the rest of us and hurting online business flow by doing it. This method of tagging reduces the value of search and other social media tools for the business and personal web experience.

Search rankings don’t mean squat without a real conversion that supports the business objective(s).

“Mannequin” Blog Posts, Keyword-Based Post Aggregators – Automated or Manual

A “mannequin” blog post basically consists of the first paragraph or so of an original post, plus the link to the source so you can link back to it. I’m not opposed to this at all as long as the mannequin’d post is relevant to your business/brand and if it only makes up a fairly miniscule portion of your content. Those that have set up websites that in a scripted fashion crawl every blog post with a certain brand name, product type, specific industry keywords/phrases, then in a scripted fashion duplicate the post, creating a blog post and publishing it, is not only wrong for search/business clutter reasons, it’s also one of the many ways the companies sell their soul if that website or process is a documented part of their business plan. It’s weak and not a good foundation for your brand….my opinion of course.

Blind Following, Friending, Liking, Retweeting

Doing any of the above without researching the person/website first to make sure it’s relevant and has intrinsic value to your business and it’s objectives is just dumb. Plain and simple.

Common Sense

On the web, especially nowadays, people and content are data points, data points whose connection and strength lies solely in their relevance. The less relevant, the less valuable. The less valuable, the bigger the reason you shouldn’t do it, but you already know that. :-) Here’s a few other good articles on this stuff. Some old, some new.

How not to use Twitter: HabitatUK as a case study
Why Hashtag Hijacking Is Bad for Everyone
Onward.

Quick’n'Dirty Episode 46: Hold An iPad to Your Face

Posted by Rich Harris – May 28, 2010

This episode of ye olde Q’n'D, I filled in for co-host Jennifer Leggio (@Mediaphyter). This week the fearless Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout) rang in this episode with a little primer about Postling.com, the social site of the week, followed by an awesome and insightful discussion with special guest Sylvia Marino (@SylMarino), Executive Director of Online Community Operations & Social Media for Edmunds.com. The Twittererererer of the week was none other than one of the rockstars of #agchat, Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle). Last but not least, what was intended to be a point/counterpoint discussion back and forth between Aaron and I about whether or not the iPad is truly unique and necessary as opposed to just an oversized iPhone.

Social Site of the Week: Postling.com

First up on the call Aaron brought his site of the week to the table, Postling.com. In a nutshell, it’s a way for you to add multiple accounts (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, etc.) so that you can post updates/links/photos to them simultaneously. Where this app is NOT similar to sites like Ping.fm and some of the other atomic status updaters is that you have a nice dashboard and you can actually take your account posting management up a couple notches by organizing a group of accounts into a “brand” so if you are managing multiple accounts for multiple brands you can keep it all nice and organized, able to drill down into each “brand” and watch conversations, comments, etc. This is pretty cool and easy to use. Curious to see how popular something like this gets as the age of the personal brand continues. It definitely seems to have that type of thing in mind.

Featured Guest: Silvia Marino, Edmunds.com

Silvia, @SylMarino on Twitter, has been at Edmunds for quite awhile, helping the company connect with car buyers, building/managing their communities, proactively tweaking their social media strategy to meet customer needs, and ensuring that the latest social media tools are integrated into Edmunds service offering in a way that is seamless, engaging, and personal. She’s done and amazing job and was terrific to chat with. She talked to us about her background, some of the transitions from the old days of using only forums back in the mid 90′s, into the nimble age of social media, augmenting the already a successful community reputation that Edmunds.com is known for. Her closing meaningful tweet was awesome and is advice that every seasoned marketer should follow: “Explore, participate, share, measure & repeat….until dead.” Amen Sylvia. We look forward to witnessing more stellar examples of customer satisfaction through methodical and smart engagement from Sylvia and her team at Edmunds.com.

Twitterer of The Week: @JeffFowle

I met Jeff Fowle at the #140tc in Seattle in early March of this year. He’s a farmer. He’s not just any farmer though. What makes him special is his ability to leverage social media to educate people on food/agriculture. Honestly I had no idea before we met that that industry would even have a use for sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. He continues to do an amazing job educating people on how their food makes it from the farm to your dinner table, issues and the science behind agriculture and how it affects our food, and as a food consumer advocate helping to correct misconceptions about what what we *think* we’re buying at the store, and what we are actually buying. He’s heavily involved in #agchat discussions on Twitter. He’s a really nice guy and knows his stuff. You can also check out the website, KK Ranch. Check back here soon as I will be publishing a more in depth interview with Jeff about his experiences in bringing social media into the folds of the farming industry.

Point/Counterpoint: Is the iPad Bitchin’ or Just a Gluttonized iPhone?

This part of the show didn’t last that long but Aaron made the mistake of allowing me to talk first after I had just consumed my quad tall cappuccino. It ended up being more of a Point/Point instead as we are both kind of on the same page. At first both of us had wondered if this thing was kind of silly. I particularly thought Job’s portion of the launch keynote for this thing as a little silly. After I started reading about how universities were handing them out to newly registered students, seeing people use them for presos, and in one case, actually embedding one into a kitchen cabinet (check out the video), I started to get it. I can see how non-smartphone owners who don’t want to pony up for a Macbook but would still like to be able to send email, view videos, and enjoy Facebooking and surfing the web while en route to wherever would make sense. Plus, to Aaron’s point, it has a battery life that makes the iPhone seem like it’s running on hamsters. What do you think?

[Giant iPhone image borrowed humbly from an old Gizmodo post.]

More Info On The Quick’n'Dirty

Listen to this Quick’N'Dirty Podcast Episode

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I’ve Joined The Quick ‘n’ The Dirty

Posted by Rich Harris – May 11, 2010

Over the last few weeks I’ve been talking to Jennifer Leggio (@Mediaphyter) and Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout), and not just about their inability to agree on what smartphone is the suckiest….(an ongoing topic of snarky contention between them both always making it’s way onto the show).

They started The Quick’n'Dirty Podcast on BlogTalkRadio almost a year ago and it has since grown to the point where they need some help. Their reputations, experience and down to earth approach in business and social media have helped them grow the show quickly and attract some well known talent as guests on the show. My role as producer on the show will be to help put together and implement the tools needed to make the content syndication more fluid, tightening up some of the nuts and bolts of the show, and at times standing in as co-host if either Jen or Aaron get called off to duty to better mankind through social media.

I’m honored to be onboard  and thankful for the opportunity to work with and be surrounded by so much talent and intellect. It’s nice when you can work with people that you are also comfortable enough inviting to a bbq at your house and sharing a beer with.

For more information on The Quick’n'Dirty Podcast and it’s co-hosts check out these links:

Aaron Strout’s Blog

Jennifer Leggio’s Blog on ZDNet

Q’n'D on BlogTalkRadio

Q’n'D Podcast Subscription

Q’n'D on Twitter (@quickndirty)

Q’n'D on Facebook

Our main blog is in development and it’s launch will be announced in the coming weeks.

Twitter Auto-DM’s: Perpetuating Our Inner Lemming?

Posted by Rich Harris – May 10, 2010

[Rant Alert]

This post is a rant. Normally almost any auto-DM I see makes me angsty due to their “hey look at me me me!” nature. I’m also ashamed of their blatant attempt to shape our brains into “realizing” that as customers, we are none other than weak-willed bafoons lacking the ability to think for ourselves, incapable of doing research before committing to an action or purchase.

The Hollow Influencer

I started following some people that seemed prolific an insightful on their blog or website, had decent inbound link traffic and showed up in search fairly high in the list in a relevant way. I got a flurry of DM’s when I followed a certain group of these tweeps based on the fact that they had Social Media in their Twitter bio. I was following them just to get an updated lay of the land when it comes to the latest influencers/trending business topics on Twitter.

These auto-DM’s poured in and I was laughing at some of them but also kind of appalled by others from a business perspective. I’ll list the tweets below but will hide the author names to protect the misguided folks that meant well, even if they did miss the mark by a longshot. It’s not surprising, yet still ludicrous and sad, that this layer of the business world, the empty useless stagnant one, still existed and functioned in the background like an old kitchen appliance, louder than ever.

Harvesting The Lemming Long-Tail

The DM’s…..these are all real Auto-DM’s from people that, based on some very minimal research, appeared to possibly be legit influential marketers.

“I REALLY appreciate the follow and I’m always interested in real estate resources if you know any.”

…..okay cool cause I want you to rope me into voluntarily telling you about my real estate resources of choice, so that you can feel justified replying back and saying, “good idea, however I have a better solution, check this link out….

“I do value your follow. Hope you find my tweets helpful. Look forward to yours. A gift:”

(They provided a link here to a promo video for some dude’s “Build an Online Business” DVD.) The guy seems nice enough but calling your own DVD with you talking and it costing me over a hundo to own your DVD series, a ‘gift’ to a human being, to me is like getting ‘the gift’ of a barely working ’84 Buick from a used car salesman. “Thanks buddy, can’t wait until this heap breaks down a block down the road after allowing myself to be sold on the car when it was actually missing it’s engine and steering wheel.”

“Want To Learn How Twitter Could Pay Your Bills Every Month? Look…”

(They provided a link to a network marketing training video.) Twitter can’t pay my bills every month, only I can. Your poorly produced DVD isn’t helping.

“Thanks so much for following me! If you need any help feel free to let me know!”

Help with what??? Anything? Rad! Come wash my car, pay my bills and hook me up with dry cleaning!

“Want to see how I built a twitter list of 40,000 on autopilot?”

This one by far is the best example of everything that is jacked up about social media. Do you raise your kids on autopilot? Do you maintain your closest friendships on autopilot? Does your marriage run on autopilot? Do you keep your biggest customer relationships and accounts running on autopilot? Great job buddy. Thanks for reminding us how there are still a bunch of ‘takers’ trying to exploit peeps for revenue instead of putting some value in the fact that they’ve chosen to invest in your company, you, and your potential success. NEWSFLASH: You OWE them for that.

I just can’t stand this stuff and I don’t bitch that often…so here’s my rant and whining for the quarter. My point here is you can’t squeeze an organically built business relationship out of some cheese-0-matic of a DM so don’t try and sell people that way. It just looks cheap and self-absorbed.

There are of course selfless/harmless versions of these but I just believe that if you want the smartest customers as your loyal customers, don’t treat them like they’re idiots with your messaging.

Onward.

Your Social Media Stereo EQ

Posted by Rich Harris – April 29, 2010

The Conversation

I have to credit a tweet from Adam Cohen (@AdamCohen on Twitter, His blog: http://adamhcohen.com/) as the genesis for this post. He was attending the Social Business Summit 2010 in Austin I believe (assumed based on his hashtag). While attending a keynote/panel of some sort he had said the following:

@adamcohen “Social applies in product dev, marketing, sales, customer svc, lines of business, Ops/IT/back office, but some more than others #sbs2010″

I then responded with:

@47project: “@adamcohen Yep…like adjusting a stereo EQ for business, depending on the business needs.”

I just kinda said it quickly without fully visualizing it and then moved on but I started to really think about it and, maybe because I’ve been a musician all my life, the above image immediately materialized in my noggin. So I exercised some of my below average Photoshop skills to demonstrate how I believe social marketers that deal with medium to large companies need to approach social media.

Silver Bullets

I kind of mentioned this in my last post “A Couple Social Media Observations“, yammering on about werewolves and such. In the same way that there is no silver bullet measuring tool for social media, no silver bullet platform or website that would perfectly serve every customer or market segment for every type or size of company, NOR is there a silver bullet approach or equation as to what tools you should use, in what combination, and to what extent, for your engagement efforts. You can only make an educated guess based on some initial critieria/research.

Everything you do in social media is a combination, an equation full of multiple variables that need tweaking every month, tweaking that is influenced by ongoing metric/data collection and analysis (obviously). While you may eventually find that yes, Twitter is the best tool for that campaign or LinkedIn is the best solution for this initiative, you should never go into it initially with some preconceived notion of what THE best anything is, honestly…

One of the main reasons why so many seasoned professionals struggle so much with the assessment of social media and it’s value or place is that it’s natural state is fairly amorphous because you are dealing with humans. Social media has finally helped translate the gray area in business into something valuable and palpable with the interwebs and all the popular tools. Now it’s up to us to embrace it for what it is.

The Art of Fine Tuning

Even though there is no, and will probably never be, a piece of rack-mounted hardware like the one I created above where you can just simply turn a dial to crank up the Twitter juice for PR, or turn down the Facebook juice in sales, by now you understand the approach I’m talking about. If you run into any blog posts where someone is trying to get the readers to pigeon hole their efforts into one particular app, website or tool, I recommend you move on.

Social media is an ocean full of wildlife and ever changing temperatures and currents, and extreme weather conditions. While you are at the helm of your ship, equipped with senstive navigational instruments (Insights, Radian6, web analytics) to make your way through everything, you know it makes no sense to just set all of them to one setting and “hope it all works out”. You need to make adjustments along the way based on all kinds of changing variables, sometimes frequently. Social media is no different.

Onward.

A Couple Social Media Observations

Posted by Rich Harris – April 28, 2010

This post might come off as a little bitchy but it’s not intended to be that way. Nor is it intended to make me sound like I know everything, because I absolutely do not. I’ve just been spending a lot of time watching the behavior of the SM streams, the waves of info that continue to flush and wipe away that other trending topic that just happened 60 seconds ago.

Apples vs. Oranges

Twitter vs. Facebook, Facebook vs. LinkedIn, Twitter vs. Mr. Coffee. Everyone is trying too hard to pigeon-hole the social media approach, and which tool is THE “best”, instead of focusing on the fluid open-minded nature of using social to meet your overall objective(s). Please stop.

Social media is a gigantic toolbox full of applications, sites, approaches, and mindsets. All, none, or some of which can be used individually or in combination to varying degrees depending on what you want to accomplish. There are no werewolves in the social media landscape so there’s no demand for a silver bullet. Kapeesh? If you somehow find that silver bullet, let me know so I can make millions in nanoseconds and retire.

Don’t Drink Anyone’s Kool-Aid. Make Your Own.

I’m on RT overload right now. I’m all about sharing. Sharing is caring. I’ve learned a lot from content that I share with others, lots of content that was not created by me. It’s a big part of the info dissemination unicorn that makes social media tools and the information age great for business, people and content in general.

However…….I think the current ratio of forwarded content to original content is WAYYY out of whack. I would like to see a little less retweets/forwards/shares and more original blog posts/content from more brilliant people. I also think that while we are all learning and constantly fine-tuning our own voice, make sure that it is your top priority if you are a social marketer to not just augment useful things that others are saying, but more importantly, come up with some new concepts and opinions that you haven’t seen published yet. We need more Brogans, more Solis’, more Godins.

I know you are out there, don’t be afraid to take the “individual unique thought-leader content creation” leap alongside those that you look up to. You MIGHT be short-changing yourself and your potential if you don’t at least explore it.

Onward.

FeedTheMuse.net – Power to the Artists. Power to the Fans.

Posted by Rich Harris – April 26, 2010

Old School

From 1998-2001, I was in an aspiring band called Stitch that was starting to do well. We had a distribution deal with Metal Blade Records, we were in Tower and Wherehouse record stores, had a good lawyer, were one of the first bands on MP3.com (yeah remember that?), and had a half-stable bulletin board/forum application that ran on PHP when it was new and obnoxiously vulnerable to PHP injection attacks. Back then our only opportunity to get support, sell products, etc. (unless you had a web developer or designer in the band), was to be touring or playing a ton of shows……..Not anymore.

New School

In an age where record labels almost don’t mean anything anymore. In an age where if an artist or band is capable of  running their own show if their music has that magic and speaks to people thanks to all the great fluid syndication that happens on these interweb thingies…only a handful of sites have a real genuine ‘Give to the Artists That Inspire You’ vibe. FeedTheMuse.net is a website that enables and empowers the talent to enlist their actual fans to help them out. No middle man. No bullshit. Fundraising for bands for the same reason that public schools need to hold a bake sale to buy school books – The powers that be don’t always have the well-being of the talented folks top of mind that actually NEED the support. They’re too busy lining their own pockets.

All you gotta do is create a free page on their site, upload a band pic, fill in your mantra/bio, and people can just start supporting you financially. It’s cool because you set up different donation tiers. For example,  donate $1 and it is just you helping, donate $10 and get a band demo/t-shirt, etc…

A good example of this solution in action is for a local bay area band called “Electric Leaves”. Check out the implementation at: http://www.feedthemuse.net/electricleaves.

If you are in a band and want to make it easy for your fans to hook you up while you hook them up, I highly recommend this site. Everyone wins.

Onward.

Will Facebook’s Web Proliferation Be Too Noisy?

Posted by Rich Harris – April 21, 2010

Ok, so I wasn’t able to make it to F8 this year but I’ve been following pretty closely. I won’t go into some big ol’ assessment about all of Facebook’s recent announcements but I will say that while @aviel on Twitter is right on with his statement: “I feel the need to say it again… Facebook has won the internet. Thanks for playing everybody.”, will Facebook proliferation make all of our feeds more insane and overloaded? I’ve slowly started to started to see the results with several of my friends “Like”ing IMDB pages and a couple others for instance.

So my questions are…..What happens when it’s a standard for big high traffic websites to add this Facebook functionality to every article? What happens when every blogger on the planet adds the new Facebook/Like plugin to their WordPress install for every post? I understand that this helps Facebook bring the entire web “to” them “for” us however now all of our feeds won’t just contain stuff we find on Facebook that we thought was cool, we’ll be seeing the result of EVERYTHING people like from all over the web shoved into our feed……or will we? When I checked out what my options were when trying to hide the content I show on the image of my friend’s activity in this post, I didn’t have the option of hiding “Like’s from IMDB”, etc. I could only hide all of the content from that person, which was not what I wanted.

Will our Facebook feeds be nothing but “Likes” pretty soon just because of sheer volume? I’m looking forward to seeing what type of controllability Facebook will provide for us so that we can Hide content like we can native or authorized Facebook games/apps. It’s a-changin’…….

Some other articles/discussions about Facebook’s announcements

ReadWriteWeb: Is the New Facebook a Deal With the Devil?

Mashable: Facebook Makes Major Announcements at F8 [LIVE]

The Facebook Blog: New Ways to Personalize Your Online Experience

CNN.com: Facebook makes it easier for users to share interests across web