Or I should say, don’t trust the cloud alone.

Sproutbuilder is a service that was recommended to me by a friend to check out.  Since they had been around a couple years, it seemed a good fit for a few projects so I signed up for a monthly subscription. Well, Sproutbuilder is shutting down in the next 45 days, and so all the work we’ve done on that platform is going to be lost (and we will have to spend time re-creating).

Look, I get the need to focus the business. Although ditching everyone who pays less than $3,000 a month when you had service offerings that were less than one tenth of that seems quite a stretch, I get it. I understand you gotta focus. However, there are lessons to be learned and I will NOT consider paying Sprout’s ransom to keep my account. I’d rather spend the money in time recreating things than to be locked down.

Subscribers of the service cannot download or keep any of the materials they create. Even with this losing of service, everyone is screwed because Sprout is not allowing you to take the stuff you created, so many people are just going to be out of luck completely. In our case, that’s my fault for choosing a service like that, even though at the time it seemed like the perfect fit. I should have remembered my lessons.

Lesson One: If You Can’t Take It With You, Don’t Use It

Sproutbuilder locks you into their proprietary files, and you can’t download and save your work locally. This is why I will not even consider spending $3000 for a service from a company I obviously cannot trust, because they’ll just pull the plug with little support. It’s not just Sproutbuilder – you should never trust cloud services on their own. If you cannot keep a local copy or mirror of your stuff, do not use it. You’re putting your business fate in the hands of others without a backup plan.

Lesson Two: Companies Will Fail

Even the biggest of companies can fail, and you cannot have yourself be exposed to it. We’re losing quite a few hours of work because we can’t bill recreating stuff, but we have to do it, because we’re living up to our responsibilities even when Sprout did not. Again, easily solved if one could take what you created with you. Sprout Inc. and Sproutbuilder is a customer relations failure because they don’t let you do that, and they’ve erased any trust I might have to pay them $3,000 per year.

Lesson Three: You’re Going To Have To Pay More In The Future

I personally think the days of inexpensive or free services that are reliable are coming to a close. Outside of ones funded by Google, I don’t think that there’s a possibility for these services who start free to have a future. Very few (if any) have shown that they can make the transition from free to paid. The real route to success is having a paid product or service to begin with so it has an established a value with the consumer.

Sproutbuilder was a free product at the start, and I think that monetizing from free to a subscription is simply a hard road to go down and I would not invest there.Much better is to just charge from the beginning – what’s the point if you have a half million users if you’re losing money on them, unless you’re a charity?

Why Freemium Doesn’t Work For Almost All Businesses

The reason why the transition from free to paid doesn’t work is psychology. Although you love your product or service and it may have value, outside of the tech bubble if you set your price at “free” the monetary value by the purchaser is zero, no matter how much they rely on you. Convincing more than a very small percentage of people that it’s worth more than free is extremely hard, and even harder is getting them to pay an amount that makes money. Bits are free, but people are not.

Logically, if that convincing users to the paid product had occurred in sufficient numbers in the case of Sproutbuilder, they wouldn’t have discontinued the service levels. It’s always easier to lower your prices than to raise them.

I’ll take any of your recommendations in the comments for other services and Sprout or Sproutbuilder alternatives. The work we need to recreate is relatively small, and of course, we’re willing to pay for the service. I also hope there’s a general lesson remembered (at least on our part) that if you can’t take it with you, don’t use it.

If you don’t know what co-working is, it’s where groups or individuals work on their individual projects, but in a (usually) shared space. There are basic amenities, like coffee and really good wifi, as well as chairs and desks meant for getting the job done as opposed to the usual coffeeshop fare.

Professional Without Pretension

I walked into this place in downtown Ann Arbor, needing a place to “get it done” for a few hours.. and found a welcoming guy who ran the place. I plunked down my $15 for a day pass and there was a big orange mug for coffee discounts, decent working chairs and a desk that was just the right height (so much so, I’m going to adjust my home desk to that height). I knew no one, but could jump in a conversation that interested me, or jump out as needed. No harm no foul – we’re all there to get things done but also have a little social interaction.

There are two levels to this place, with what seemed to be three conference rooms on the lower levels. You can get full-on dedicated desks or offices upstairs at a reasonable rate according to the info I picked up – which if I lived  there or the business was based near downtown A2, I would totally do.

THIS Is The Droid We’re Looking For In Michigan

Considering the outrageous rent most office real estate folks want to charge, and the ridiculous restraints by governmental or quasi-governmental business “incubators,” THIS seems to be the right choice for the seasoned solo-preneur, the virtual company, or guy who wants to get something started on the side but there’s not enough space (or too much distraction) at home.

It’s an incubator or home for a business that doesn’t have all the pretension and overhead of some targeted program, or the unnecessary trappings of an executive suite.

As someone who has looked into official incubator space earlier in my career, and have been pitched it by various locations I shall not name, I can be frank in saying none of thos spaces meet the needs of many entrepreneurs. They are either too expensive for the market, have lots of useless amenities, or is completely missing the mark on the social and intelligent collaboration aspect (I believe required in today’s economy).

At the WorkEx, from the real bamboo bathroom floors, to the exposed brick and orange colors, the place was fun yet professional. It looked creative but also like a place where you could do some business and be taken seriously, especially the three conference rooms and training loft. I stole away for a phone call (half needing to make the call, half getting a good excuse to check it out on my own) and the WorkEx would do the trick without it seeming childish.

It’s Walkable!

The double awesome? It was in the middle of an urban, walkable downtown with plenty of mass transit and easy, cheap parking just around the corner.

Lunch? A few steps away. Lots of retail nearby for diversions and creativity, and excellent architecture. Although Ann Arbor does not have the signature buildings of some cities, it’s kept its 1880’s-1920’s era buildings in tact for the most part without “missing teeth” (empty lots breaking up a streetscape), and if there has been some torn down, the area has been filling them in creating a cohesive, consistently walkable, visually interesting space.

The place is independently owned, between some techs and who’s obviously a skilled builder who refinished the space.

I wish these guys the best of luck. Check’em out, they’re worth the money.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

Because it’s so relatively new (although some of us has been interacting socially on the web for 15 years before the tools got nifty pastel gradients and friendly icons reminiscent of songbirds) people are busy looking for any validation of their beliefs due to either their inexperience, their need to be like others, or simply professionally being able to point to someone else.

Unlike any other marketing/PR/customer service/etc. function, social media crosses so many barriers and traditional silos that it literally scares people. We who live “in the biz” forget that this isn’t second nature and intimidating to most not just because of the tools but the impending culture shift, contradicting what years of B-school and hierarchies reinforced.

And what do people do when they’re scared? Come together. At times through religion. Add into the mix it’s digital and many people over 40 don’t have much value for bits and bytes and/or culturally don’t understand their significance, you have a flock of converts under attack looking for leadership.

The Universal Law (Benefit) of Social Media

However, in order for our industry to grow, and for the real, universal benefit of social media – connecting people to make things happen, whatever that “thing” is to you – true progress is going to be made not by parroting the current leaders of the social media industry, but by taking their experience and trying new things. Working it. I say this with the utmost respect, but the only real difference between them and everyone else is the willingness to try something and do the hustle to make it work, and being willing to fail (which by the way, is much easier said than done, and one of many reasons to respect thought leaders).

After all, there is no formula when dealing with people; and this is dealing with people to the largest extent. Every situation you’re going to want to draw on yours and others experiences, real data, ask hard questions and be willing to listen to the answers, even if they don’t match your initial thought.

You need to be willing to act quickly, decisively, and comport to the needs of your community, not necessarily your needs.

So go out, be fruitful, be an evangelist for your brand, love your users, love your community, and charge on. We might have different sized caravans – or lone riders on a trusty steed. But if you want to make things happen – be that trailblazer with your own ideas.

Was glad tonight to get to see Social Media Club Detroit (search #SMCD on Twitter or the Facebook fan page) with Christopher Barger, head muckety-muck of social media over at GM. He hit on some really great points about SM in organizations. There’s lots of takeaways in the hour-long video, but here’s some highlights:

• Global is important, and you can’t apply what you do in the United States to other markets as there’s different adoption levels, legal requirements and platforms. Saw some on the Twitter stream were glad someone was touching on this – I have a feeling this topic will grow in interest.
• Don’t kill enthusiasm by controlling your team too much.
• The rock star vs. letting 1000 flowers bloom approach
• Get out early long before there’s a crisis
• Sometimes the marketing people are the last to adopt social media

Thanks to Dave Murr and the whole SMCD crowd for putting it together. The video is long, but I think worth it and has a wealth of information in the Q&A.

Apparently, many people think it’s okay to repost, word-for-word, other’s posts. Sometimes, with no credit, or credit buried so that it is hidden and not obvious to the reader. I’m going to try to be positive and say that it’s because they don’t know better, but I also know some of the folks are too savvy in this lot (or portray themselves to be) that if they really didn’t know they shouldn’t be charging people for their services.

Let me repeat this, because I talk to people every week who think that “if it’s on the internet, it’s free and okay to use” – legally, and I believe ethically, just because content is on the internet and free to access does not mean you have the right to use it without permission in your own work or as your own work. There is a lot of examples that back this up.

When blogging about someone else’s post or sharing it along, an excerpt is what’s appropriate if you do not have permission, and with or without permission, you should have the author’s full name and link to the website (as well as other things like their Twitter if public) at the top of the piece to not mislead readers.

Want more proof of misleading readers? In some cases, there’s comments under the post referring to site/blog author, people who the original writer doesn’t know, praising the blog/site author for writing the post, or “that’s why you’re such a great writer, *blog site author, not post author name here*”

Even better, if you have permission, make them an author in your blogging system and even have the author tags be created properly. Otherwise, it’s very likely (from experience) that Google will put the work under your name – which may be what you’re trying to do anyway. And why I’m writing this terse post.

If you’re committing this mistake, either:

1. You don’t know better (that’s okay, especially if you’re new at this)
2. Are playing like you don’t know better to scam the Google page rank and/or
3. Trying to pass off work as your own to be a thought leader off the work of others true thought leading (see this post by Justin Kownacki on THAT subject which is more well put together than anything I could write).

What Is Being Done: The Diagram

So below, I’ve diagrammed what’s been happening. Note that without any author mention, with just a very small, not plain link, it looks like the author of the blog wrote the piece and that is NOT the case, especially compared to the gigantic author info box which is commonly on the right side. It misleads the reader into thinking that it’s the blog owner’s work, when it is not. And people know how to click links – if you do a paragraph or a few lines, then link to the other blog at the end, they can figure that out. If you’re really paranoid about not letting them off the site, target the link to a new window (even though I’m not a huge fan of it, I get why it would it be done) could be an option.

We’re Better Than This, Detroit.

Although this is a bigger problem geographically, we in our growing Detroit social media community need to not do it, and not do it to each other. All the examples I’m thinking about are local. They either don’t know better – and quickly fix – or they feel like they could make a few more adsense cents or improve their brand or standing by stealing other’s works.

If we’re going to grow as a community – and prove the naysayers wrong about us – we need to respect each other first.