Burning Out.. And Rekindling The Fire
January 19, 2010
When you’re passionate about your field, what you do, or create.. whether a web worker, entrepreneur, artist, or any other idea generator – sometimes, life throws you curveballs and can, for whatever reason, make you lose some of that spark.
I’ve seen it a lot, and it happened to me earlier in my career. You work for a long time, aspiring for a goal or “dream job,” only to find when you get there it’s a disappointment. It’s not just that it’s harder than expected – that’d be a challenge to be embraced in most generators’ eyes – it’s that the impact you were hoping you could have to change, to improve, to further yourself just didn’t materialize.
It can be demoralizing, spending months or years pursuing a goal that you found you didn’t want. I’ve come to believe that anyone who’s got an ounce of ambition has been there before.
What are ways to deal with it? Here’s a few I’ve found and I strongly encourage you to post yours in the comments.
1) Consult Your Mentor(s)
Who are your mentors? If they’re really your mentors, you can tell them the situation, and see what they would do to either remedy the situation, or to help you get your energy back. They’re your mentors for a reason, after all, and usually are glad to help. It can be hard – and sometimes feel like weakness, but we all go through periods of not feeling like we want to be our best.
2) Remember Why You Love (Loved) What You Do (Did)
Why did you love what you do? What was the real thing you were looking for in that dream job or assignment? Especially working in a field where you’ve got a lot of teaching and culture-shifting to do, it can wear on you. When moving forward to your next opportunity, what are the things you liked? What is the part of the dream you REALLY wanted, regardless of the organization?
3) What Is Your Passion Outside Of Work?
There’s so many things outside of work that can be inspiring. A pet, a lover, a piece of art, great music.. go experience it full-boar. For instance, if you like music and can spare it (or be a no-cover master and get on the guest list) go see the next show of one of your favorite bands. The key, to me, is getting the bounce back (but I’ve been described by quite a few as a “Tigger” in the personality spectrum (compared to Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, and Eyore from “Winnie the Pooh”).
So what are your tips? Leave’em in the comments.
Blinders
January 14, 2010
I don’t normally write my blog entries aimed for other social media professionals. After all, there’s a lot of knowledge out there – I aim to distill things to my audience, which I know is more executive and marketing related but not necessarily in the digital space. If a fellow SMP gets value, awesome, and I welcome you – but my reader base generally isn’t you.
But this post, I’m going to address you, fellow Social Media Professionals, and hopefully give value to my typical reader.
Take Off The Blinders.
I’m noticing some things falling through the cracks – people hyping different things as if it were the second coming of Steve Jobs, but at the end of the day, not producing desired results. It’s almost as if many SMPs out there have decided that social media can do no wrong, and that THE way to do it is the way they and their techno-elite friends do it (by the way, I’m one of those technophiles, for sure).
But your target market, unless you’re selling tech to early adopters, probably has no idea what FriendFeed is. I explain Foursquare at least once a week. The value isn’t evident. There’s a reason way more people use Farmville than Twitter.
Non-techies get the point of Farmville, even though it’s much more complicated of an interface.
Because it’s not about the interface, it’s about the value proposition.
More people see value in having a fake farm than Tweeting.
Think about this.
Done? Next.
It Seems The Internet and Social Marketing Pros Have A Problem.
I recently saw a post that was all about how “Lands’ End isn’t visible.” Blinders completely. As of this writing Land’s End has 250,000+ Facebook fans and quite honestly a different demographic than Zappos, with 29k or so. Yah. 29k. On Facebook, at least, Lands’ End has almost NINE TIMES more fans than Zappos.
It just isn’t the social media elite demographic, highlighted out of the valley, so it was missed. But it was still in the minds of people. It’s humming along selling stuff. It’s popular. Obviously, raw fan numbers are not your only metric of success, but a lot of people have been missing the boat.
Seem as if we as a group don’t use it or it’s not OUR work flow or in our frame of “cool” visibility, we (royal we) denigrate and talk about how others “don’t get it” or it’s a “poor choice.”
You know what? I know success on the oft-maligned MySpace in certain situations.
I’ve worked with blogs who get tens of thousands of unique visitors but few comments – but high conversions. Most of the time, readers in non-SM circles call blog posts “articles.” I’ve seen it time and time and time again.
I know people who get 5,000+ word diatribes from other “experts,” but, although their blog isn’t designed to my aesthetic taste, it works for them apparently and gets them business. Bravo to her. I’m not her target market anyway. If I were, it’d be designed differently.
One of the biggest indie musicians’ sites is the definition of basic – but because he covers so many bases contentwise that countless zoom-bang flash sites do not, including showcasing his awesome – it helped him get relatively huge and make a real career sans label.
Or the pervasive myth that content has to be short at all times – sure, short content is great – but why are the biggest podcasts around long-form, sometimes easily exceeding an hour long? Because they’re good. It takes skill to be good for a whole hour or longer, regularly. And that’s why the previous example is making millions of dollars and in this next linked case have plenty of listeners and a loyal following.
A Parting Thought
I’ve always been fascinated behind the real reasons and incentives why things happen, as opposed to the hype of them. Many times, while one hand is dealing the cards, the other is distracting you from the real “magic” that’s happening.
What are the non-sexy methods that you find that work? What about newer tools and techniques that you’ve found make it happen for your strategy?
One click, Two clicks, Three clicks, Foursquare!
January 8, 2010
Two musings or tips for today. Some others have mentioned them as rules very kindly online, others have said they like’em – I don’t like to say “rules” but here’s how I operate.
Foursquare is a social tool.
It’s a social tool. I know I’ve violated this rule of thumb, but I don’t check in unless I want you to know I’m there. That means I don’t check in at gas stations, I’m not gonna check in at the shopping market, unless of course, I’m open to you meeting me there. The other night, multiple people lit up my foursquare with notifications all night long – with mom’s house. Gas stations. Everything. I realized that if MY notifications went that crazy and got annoying, it must be for other people. It’s actually not the post to Twitter that’s overwhelming for me, as it’s a flood of things anyway. But notifications, they interrupt. And thing is, I don’t want to turn them off because sometimes it’s useful.
Yah, I’ve been an offender. My bad. Will try to do better next time. I just don’t think you should get a “crunked” badge for checking in at the coffeeshop. Or for buying eggs. I’ve not ever gotten smashed on eggs.
Three clicks, and you’re out.
Part deux of my missive is websites who feel they need to bury their stuff down a rathole 4, 5, or 8 clicks down. The most excellent Bobby Mercader had a tweet pointing to SEO roundtable – for SEO, don’t make users go more than 5 clicks down. Well, SEO is nice, but frankly, I’m very concerned with the user experience.
Three clicks is the charm – One click, two click, BUY (or take desired action).
If you don’t know what desired action you want people to do on your site, then let’s not even talk about social media and review your conversion process. It’s a real shame when someone’s built thousands of fans and not one buys because your basics aren’t covered. I see it every single week, it’s a real problem and businesses, get your fundamentals down. I know social media is new and shiny and important, but fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals, or the rest won’t work. Did I say fundamentals? Yah, I’ll say it again. Fundamentals.
How To Cheat Twitter And Get More Followers – Game The System
December 27, 2009
I’m going to save you at least $20-$200 today. I’m going to tell you the “secret” that so many websites with extremely long copy and bogus “complete online marketing strategies” will charge you for, with, shall we say, notes.
Many, but not all, of the “Social Media Experts” (see an interesting post that’s all the buzz by Mashable on the fact there’s over 15,000 of them) as well as other online pitch people will have tens of thousands of followers – and yet Tweet inane crap and rarely if ever conversate – or they use this technique, stop it once they’ve hit critical mass (5k, 10k followers), then play dumb and change their stripes.
We don’t use this procedure, have not used this, but I’ve seen it done and we’ve been asked by former clients to do it. To be clear, if we can’t set them on the right path, we fire them at that point. This is what many social media agencies assign to their interns to do, or you can do at home yourself.
Here’s how to get your useless Twitter followers:
Step 1: Follow People, 30-50 At A Time
Start following lots of people. But only so many in a day – 30, 40, 50, depending on how finnicky Twitter’s spam bots are – and then wait for a day or three. Many times, you can use keywords to semi-focus yourself (though they rarely work well because of context) or use the cover of the #FollowFriday or one of the top trending hashtags for this. Sometimes, people push it and go into the hundreds – I’ve seen it work, but to Twitters’ credit, they’re getting better at stopping this.
For instance, I had a friend today followed by a fishing company serving Texas (even though they live in Michigan). Beyond the geographic irrelevance, the last place I think this woman would be is in a bass fishing competition. I’ve never even seen her tweet about fishing.
This is just numbers for numbers sake – not actual engagement, not what actually drives sales. But the numbers sound cool to a culture of people who are used to buying big audiences.
Step 2: Unfollow The Ungrateful Saps Who Didn’t Follow You Back
If the people you’ve followed have not followed you back, unfollow them and find some more useless people. If someone unfollows you, promptly unfollow them.
Why useless? You’re playing a silly popularity game and not building any relationships. Relationships drive the sale in social media.
On a technical note, the unfollowing of the people who unfollow you keeps your balance of following/followers good in the eyes of the Twitter Gods.
The culture of “it’s rude to not follow back” I personally believe was created by these folks. I feel no obligation to follow you back, just like you should feel none to follow me unless you’re interested in what I have to say. It’s not rude. You’re not a bad person. I may just not find your tweets that interesting (whatever “interesting” is to ME).
Step 2a: Auto-DM Your New-Found “Friends” (Optional Jerk Move)
DM your new “friends,” thanking them for their follow with a link to click your junk (fan on a fan page, subscribe to blog, etc)
I haven’t mentioned it on here before, but having been involved in forums, online and digital media now for ten years, I HATE AUTO DMs. There’s few things that are more of a red flag than someone who gives you an automatic DM thanking you that they don’t get this space; if they got it, they’d realize that a thank-you DM (usually with a pitch to click some junk) is the last thing the mainstream Twitter user wants to see and is many times a turn-off. For real users of Twitter (non-marketing types who’d actually buy from you), that DM can appear in their text message stream and feels like crossing the personal line.
For Extra Punch: Set Up Your Own Personal Echo Chamber
Get yourself twenty or thirty (as few as ten will do) other faux Twitter handles, and Retweet/Reply yourself along with some other filler content to make it look like your links are important when people search you. It helps fool those “influencer” systems that rate Twitter users based on how often they’re referred to or linked to. Of course, only do the razzle dazzle until which point you might get a fire started – then promptly stop.
That’s just smarmy and part of the reason why so many normal users of social networks hate marketing types. If you saw the amount of comments around people who refuse to follow marketers – there’s a reason. And this easily implementable charade is one of them.
Summary
So there you go. There’s more finesse and technique possible, but that’s the basic outline. There’s services who will do all of this or parts of it for you either automatically via a script, or with a smarmy army of low-paid workers depending on your budget. To be fair, Twitter’s trying to stop this stuff – but the reality is, there’s so much monetary incentive they’re never going to plug all the holes.
In an upcoming post, I’m going to talk about some strategies on how to do it the right way. I’m looking forward to talking about happier things!
What The Heck Is A HuffDuffer?
December 21, 2009
What is Huffduffer?
Shortcut for illicitly inhaling (huffing) toxic chemicals? Nope.
New version of Duff Beer featured on the Simpsons? Not quite.
As a longtime fan of podcasts, there’s something that podcasting definitely hasn’t had – an easy way of sharing or having a fun discovery tool. It’s always been a difficult process as well as social aspects have been lacking. Unless you’re lucky enough to have an aficionado tweet or status their favourites on a constant basis, it can be hard to find new stuff.
Here’s where Huffduffer comes in. It’s a silly name, but it actually means something, unlike most cutesy names of the Web 2.0 ilk – it’s the pronounceable way of saying HF/DF, which is an actual term which is a triangulation method that uses two or more radio receivers to find the location of a radio transmitter. Very apropos for it’s task – finding podcasts.
So of course, I’ve signed up. What does it do? It makes your very own personal podcast feed. That’s right. No muss, no fuss, you drop the MP3 file links in, and voila. People can subscribe and find the newest stuff you’re interested in (a tip – if the link has tracking code on it by someone like podtrac, leave it in – it’s important so that the creators know how many people are downloading and how).
I’m not thinking this is for “cardinal” feeds – which are the basis of the content – but great as “adjuncts” for fans or maybe if you’re a network highlighting the best clips or shows in your network. You can add tags, a description, and see others who are HuffDuffing (Either one of the key sounds, huff or duff, when shortened, are going to be unfortunate shortened terms – “I Huffed That?” Either you’re doing something that kills brain cells or referring to The Hoff, David Hasselhoff. And I’m not sure what “I Hoffed It” would mean. Feel free to expound in comments).
The power is in taking audio content – in podcast form or not – and creating something useful, a soundscape of the things you like or you think others would – and then using the ubiquitous RSS format to distribute that information.
I must admit, as someone who likes good user experience, I really appreciated their signup process. that alone should be copied by others. It’s got a great screen that I had to share below that speaks in.. *gasp* human speak. You can click the image for a larger version.
Sharing integration is not complete with other services such as Facebook or Twitter as of this writing but there is the ability to link and embed, and there is a Firefox plugin and the iTouch mobile experience works well (haven’t had a chance to look at it on a Blackberry, but it’s a well done mobile site – you’ll be using cut and paste for this one so far until there’s a better way – and frankly, on the iPhone with it’s walled gardens, Huffduffer being a mobile site experience might just be the best way to go).
The ability to add in-depth with the notes is really valuable, too. It gives the potential for much more context and content usually only found in blog posts, or it also can be a short blast. I’d suggest being a bit descriptive if you like something and want to turn others on to it.
As to the traditional podcast feeds, it creates an iTunes-acceptable (not submitted to store but able to subscribe to anyway) feed as well as your standard RSS feed for iTunes, Google Reader, Firefox, or whatever else. Then, you can subscribe to the feeds of your friends and find the new stuff that they like.
In short, it’s a simple site that I could see in the future having a lot of potential for sharing, comments, etc. Simple disqus integration might be nice in the future, to make podcasts a much more social experience with commenting in easier ways as many podcast sites and blogs have very poor comment support.
It’s not perfect, it’s obviously new, but I think it’s a good step in the right direction to make podcasting more social.
Check it out at http://www.huffduffer.com and subscribe to my HuffDuff here.
