3 of my social media goals to avoid getting behind
You know what? I’ve got some catching up to do. When life gets busy, it’s easy to lose focus and get behind. I’m a firm believer that goals help with that. Therefore, here are 3 of my personal goals to help me catch up & avoid getting behind again.
Comment on one NEW blog/news source per day.
There are literally millions of blogs out there on any array of subjects. I’m determined to find the popular, the odd, the useful, the obscure, the relevant, the offbeat, etc. There is so much to learn by what others are doing not only within social media as an industry in itself, but in how people using social media for personal reasons use social media in creative or unexpected ways. With technology constantly changing, I aim to be an everyday student of what’s going on within social media.
Respond to at least one NEW Twitter follower per day.
I keep saying I’ll make the time to really read tweets and determine which ones would be interesting to elaborate on or discuss. Unfortunately, there’s never enough time to catch up on all the Tweets I miss while doing other things throughout the day. Therefore, I’m going to suck it up, get over my choosiness, and just start talking to people. And not the same people. New people. Different people. Lots and lots of people.
Get personal on Facebook.
After a month of acting as the anonymous voice behind our Facebook account, I’m ready to introduce the ME in social MEdia. Sometimes, when I’m sitting here in front of my computer, I find myself thinking, “It would be nice if I worked with people more instead of solely with the computer.” Then, I remember - social media is all about people! It’s about connections, transparency, and starting conversations. I’ve been holding back in that area, but no more.
So those are my social media promises. What are yours?
(Sidenote: SOOOO Excited to hear all the news from SXSW starting Friday! Expect blog posts pertaining to that.)
Social media & hotels
Hospitality.net featured an interesting article on hotels & social media today. Read below:
If anything strikes fear in the hearts of hoteliers these days, it’s social media. Seemingly overnight, we’re expected to tune in to dozens of websites each day to make sure no one has badmouthed us or posted an embarrassing video. If they have, we’re obliged to respond in a courteous, guest-is-always-right manner, knowing that everyone is listening—travelers, clients, media and the competition. No pressure there.We’re also expected to generate original content. Not the easy pleasantries we’re used to exchanging with guests, like “Good morning!”, “Superior or deluxe?” and “How would you like to pay for that bathrobe in your suitcase?”, but clever, meaningful things in text, image and video format. And regardless of how desperate we may be to fill our rooms, we’re forbidden from being salesy or overtly promotional. That will cost us friends and followers.
Social media is like a difficult guest who demands so much attention we’re not convinced she’s worth the effort. She’s in our lobby now, demanding to speak to the manager, because she didn’t get her wakeup call—and missed her daughter’s wedding. Like any great leader, our first impulse is to run and hide. But that will only make things worse. So we gently take her aside, listen, learn, and use every tool at our disposal to turn her around. In essence, we tame the social media beast.
Social media has wrestled control over what is being said about hotels out of the hands of hoteliers and placed it into the hands of our guests—and then handed them a megaphone. This is fantastic when guests are singing our praises, but vexing if they’re crying for blood. Fortunately, new tools are now available to help us harness the powers of social media.
For the hotel industry, social media is an all-encompassing term that includes traveler review sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity, social networking sites, blogs, and content-sharing platforms like YouTube and Flickr. Hoteliers can debate the power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook to drive room sales, but the influence of traveler review sites, where a “Book now!” button is never far away, is undeniable.
A major point of resistance to developing a comprehensive social media program is the time commitment involved. As a former general manager and director of sales and marketing, I recognize the hunted look in the eyes of my colleagues. During these challenging economic times, who has time to actively seek feedback when there’s a line of neglected guests outside our door? And yet we’re all too aware of the risks of turning our backs on the conversation.
Part of the solution is to reduce our dependency on traditional marketing activities that have diminished in effectiveness, things like print ads and brochures, direct mail, print publicity, voice reservations and three-martini lunches. Our resources need to shift to where the action is; increasingly, travel research, decisions and bookings are taking place online.
At the same time, we can adopt time-saving applications that do the work for us. Tools that scour the web for text, photo and video mentions of our hotel and our competitors and deliver a daily summary to our desktop. For the cost of a room night per month, we can monitor performance in real time, share and respond to feedback, and drill down in areas where improvement is needed. A simple, intuitive interface is essential, of course, since hoteliers reserve all our patience for our guests.
By bringing guest feedback into the open, social media empowers travelers to compare not only rates but multitudes of opinions in a variety of categories, from service and rooms to value and overall satisfaction. By collecting, qualifying and organizing this feedback, tools like Revinate enable two game-changing new standards of performance measurement in the hotel industry: market share of guest satisfaction and market share of voice.
Whether we’re a hotel owner, general manager or department head, we can no longer avoid that guest roaring for our attention in the lobby. By reallocating resources and utilizing newly-available tools, we can convert the social media beast into a powerful ally for managing our hotel’s reputation and strengthening our business.
Social media for small business
Here’s an interesting articles from Mashable:
The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business looked at the relationship between social media and small businesses and found that the technology adoption rates in the U.S. have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.
The data comes straight from the university’s third installment to its Small Business Success Index report and is based on a December 2009 telephone survey of 500 small business owners. Adoption rate calculations are compared against a baseline report conducted in December 2008.
The study concludes that one nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business processes — Facebook and LinkedIn were the most popular sites. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents even believe their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less.
As the graphic below details, the small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. What’s especially intriguing is that a much smaller percentage of respondents — just 16% — are using Twitter as a customer service channel.
Another interesting notion is that small business owners now believe social media can help them on the lead generation front, and that is the primary motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels. So while half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.
Clearly social media has become a valuable tool for small businesses, but we’re especially curious to see how Twitter adoption rates fluctuate over the time. While we expect more small businesses to use Twitter as a customer service channel in the year ahead, as it stands, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the predominant platforms for small business owners.
Protect your Social Media accounts from phishing.
This article from Mashable discusses the newest phishing attack making the rounds on Twitter.
With metric tools and applications that require logging in to connect with Twitter, it’s increasingly difficult to judge which links are beneficial and which are hacks. A couple of things to keep in mind:
1. If it doesn’t specifically tell you the purpose of the link, don’t click it.
Vague descriptions like “Is this you?” or “Have you seen this picture” or “Have you tried this?” are meant to stir up curiousity and entice you to click. Resist the urge.
2. If you can’t verify the sender, don’t click.
This is a personal rule of mine. I realize this is controversial as many auto-messages send you to Facebook, blogs, or other interesting websites. If you do click a link from one of these, you shouldn’t have to re-enter your Twitter account information, so don’t do it.
3. If you didn’t seek it out, don’t enter your information.
If you’re setting up an account on Hootsuite or attempting to measure some Twitter metrics with one of the many free programs out there, you will need to enter your Twitter account information. However, you usually seek out these types of programs. If you didn’t seek out a program that pops up or sends you a DM wanting your account information, don’t give it to them.
This You????: Yet Another Phishing Attack
In the last couple of weeks, Twitter users have been the target of several large-scale phishing attacks, and according to security experts over at Sophos, the latest one is no different.
The attack spreads via messages with the text “This you????” followed by a link that sends the user to a fake Twitter (
) login page. Don’t fall for the trick. If you enter your credentials there, you’re not actually logging into Twitter, you’re just sending your username and password to the attacker.
If you suspect you’ve fallen victim of this attack, you should change your Twitter password immediately. Check out a video demonstration of the attack (created by Sophos) below.
Why social media is not The Breakfast Club (and why cold medicine and blogging might not mix)
If I were a color, it would be orange.
I realize that’s an odd thing to say considering this isn’t a Facebook quiz. It all goes back to a leadership survey from college that informed me I had “orange” tendencies. Basically, being orange means I’m outgoing, a little theatrical, competitive, and a natural leader. If you meet me in a large group of people, I’m likely the one at the front organizing the group, explaining an activity, or getting distracted by something funny with other orange people.
I’m telling you all of this because I was utterly shocked the first time I really used Twitter in a group setting. In a world where I naturally pushed towards the front, I found myself ‘following,’ not leading, and it had nothing to do with clicking the “follow” button. It was then I realized being “orange” means nothing in social media world. In social media world, the rules for leadership are quite different.
He who talks loudest isn’t always heard.
If you’re in a group of people and someone raises their voice to explain something, you generally turn and listen to them. In social media, it doesn’t matter how many caps you use (actually, please lay off the caps) or how often you send out a message, people don’t automatically hear you and stop to listen. You have to seek them out. This is why engagement is so important. If you want to be a leader in social media, you have to find ways to draw other people into your conversation.
Charisma doesn’t always translate online.
Some of my favorite people are terribly sarcastic and absolutely hilarious. Unfortunately, that sarcasm isn’t always obvious within social media due to a lack of tone, expressions, and anything to convey emotion other than little faces (:P, :/, :), >_>… or if you’re my mom… >g>. I still don’t know what that one is.) Be very careful about the kind of humor you use in social media. It can backfire on you, and instead of loyal, engaged followers, you can end up with enraged, offended Twitterers.
No one is effortlessly cool.
There is no Fonzie in social media. You have to work for it. That requires time, patience, a little vulnerability, and the willingness to talk to people.
Shy is no excuse.
Some of the shyest people I know have a huge platform through social media. You may have heard “there’s comfort in strangers.” With social media, you can move past any physical hang-ups or fear of judgment that might hinder you in the real world. Public speaking becomes intimate, yet distanced at the same time. There isn’t any other platform like it.
Don’t feed the troll.
Bullying doesn’t make you feared in social media. It makes you loathed or ignored. Don’t stir up trouble for trouble’s sake. There’s a lot more backlash when you try to metaphorically steal the social media kid’s lunch money.
If this didn’t make sense, I blame the cold medicine.
In a nutshell, don’t enter the world of social media and expect the same reactions as you find in the natural world. This is not The Breakfast Club. Social interaction is key, but it’s a level playing field.
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