5 Dumbest Social Media Mistakes Businesses Make Every Day

1. The no strategy mistake. Some dumb idiots shoot out posts and Tweets without having commercial goals, without segmenting their market, and without understanding the buying process for what they sell.

2. The same dumb idiots don't invest in good content. Your content strategy will be as thin as air if you don't invest in it.

3.  Dumb idiots aren't unique, either. People with imagination and great writing skills, who can write different, new posts, are needed, badly. If you can write a  stunning post, do it. If you can't, please don't bore us with faded copies of the worst post we read in 2010.

4. Those same dumb idiots don't get social. At all. For God's sake, there's no point in having a Twitter feed and Facebook page if you don't respond to people who contact you that way. 7 days a week too. Wake up. M-F 9 to 5 will die. Your customers are online 24/7. Can you not at least be there 12/24?

5. And they don't ask customers anything and don't adapt to their needs. If you are targeting a group, get their views, find out what they want, and deliver it. How hard is that? You should know what's trending in each segment, and what value you can deliver for free, too.

Don't expect miracles, either and don't get conned into promising them, This stuff works, but it's based on building a reputation, delivering value, and nurturing the leads you accumulate through your email and blog sign up systems. With that in mind, please use the button on the right to follow us.

There's lots more posts like this coming. Stay tuned.

The Social Media Puzzle: Piece #3 Can you apply the Socratic method to social media?

The goal of this blog is to stimulate thinking about social media. I believe the Socratic method is an interesting tool for communication. It must therefore have applications in social media.

Here's my thoughts about using the Socratic method in social media:

1. Take a stance of skeptical ignorance. Enquire about others views on a subject.

2. Be conversational, but keep probing assumptions. 

3. Require definition of terms. This is where conversations often go wrong. Ask what people mean by X.

4. Use experience. Refer to your own experiences.

5. Draw implications & consequences. Talk about what will happen if X occurs.

Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher who proposed asking questions to test people's assumptions as a way to debate the truth of an assumption and to stimulate thought. 

Getting someone to see the problems with their assumptions was one of it's goals. It is one of the methods used in education to get engagement from reluctant learners and to test critical thinking skills.


For detailed info on Socratic method, as used in education and philosophy see here.

My guide to social media is available on Amazon. Enjoy!

The Tipping Point Strategy

The music business gets social media. Lady GaGa had 49 million Facebook followers in 2013 and Rihanna 50 million. Rihanna is the second most popular music star on Facebook behind Eminem.

In the last few months of 2013 Rihana's label, Universal, used a tipping point strategy to leverage her followers in the run up to the launch of her new album and single.

Followers were encouraged to visit a new site, post content and like a new page and go on missions. Only when a certain number of likes had been achieved were rewards released. Rewards included song lyrics, a release date, cover image and videos This strategy has been used before, but it hit the jackpot this time. They achieved:

+ Over a 100,000 Tweets a day during launch month

+ 420 million Facebook wall posts

+ Triple platinum success for her single and a No 3 debut for her album.

4 Key Arguments for Using Social Media - Updated

1.   To get noticed. It’s all right if you want to stay unknown, if you want to stick to the old ways, but if you want to get noticed these days social media is a great way to do it. Getting noticed is important for all types of people. In the past it was ok to hide away and not talk, you were forgiven. These days people expect it of you. Stand up, get noticed, be strong!

2.   It will allow you to connect with customers, partners, employees and all the other groups who you work or play with. Social media is a communications tool. It’s a some to many tool. The telephone was a one to one personal communications tool. TV and radio are about communications by a select few to many. Social media is a low cost communications tool where you can reach out to groups of varying sizes and send them all a message or just one.

3.   It’s a positive step to take. By taking action on social media you are sending a positive message. There are many groups who will appreciate this positive message. People under 29 are mostly on social media already so whether they are customers, employees or other partners they will be encouraged that you are getting engaged with social media.

4.   It’s good for your well being to be more open and communicative. In the old days, and for some sections of society this is still true, secrecy and cover up were the order of the day. I agree that many traditional things are good; family, culture and sport are just three, but we have found out, all over the world, that secrecy and cover up can be used by criminals who steal, corrupt political life or abuse children. Being open is symbolic, for me, of a rejection of all those people who did those evil things. 

My son, Martello Tower, Dublin, Ireland, near where I live

Zuckerberg's Law - 6 ways it could affect you

Mark Zuckerberg stated in 2008 that every two years or so (like Moore's Law for computing power) double the amount of information will be shared on social media as the year before.

While that may seem impossible I'm not the only one to think that something like this will happen. But what will that mean for most businesses?

Here's the reality of how this could affect you in the next few years:

* SEO and old style websites are likely be less and less relevant. Social sharing will drive site visits and the social sites will become the place more time is spent on. Social is already more popular on the web than pornography.

* TV, radio and newspapers will also be less relevant, as people spend more and more time on these social sites.

* Advertisers will take up real estate on your social feeds. And they will get cleverer. Ads will become engagement snares.

* Out bound selling will transition into content creation for inbound prospect attraction sites.

* Organisations of all types will evolve to adopt social media in HR. induction, training, on the job help, staff management, customer servicing, social activities, product development, sales and alumni networks.

* Your social life from finding a partner to creating an event will become a truly social media supported activity.

Not everyone of us or every organisation will be affected in the same way. Some will resist. A digital-less underclass will find themselves cut off from society.

How will you cope? If you need advice on anything in this post email me now: lob@yourasms.com

Social Media is Dynamite for Sales

I worked in sales and sales management in the UK & Ireland for 25 years.

Social media, in my opinion, provides an unprecedented opportunity for people involved in sales to understand what is going on in prospect and client organisations. A new era of corporate openness and the widespread use of social media for customer service and stakeholder communications means that sales people, account managers of all types from national to global, have access to previously hidden data.

I have created a slideshow here: http://www.slideshare.net/SocialMediaisDynamite/social-media-is-dynamite4-sales

This describes in 7 slides the ways a major account manager/sales person can use social media to research prospects, identify problems within those accounts, listen to what is going on and to create material to propose solutions.

This ILC model (Identify - Listen - Create) can be used by all account mangers to help them sell more. It is also a model for a service to research prospects, clients and even competitors. Get in touch if you want more details.

Is your social media daily diary in need of disruption?

There are so many great social media sites, with real potential for building engagement on each one, it would be easy to be overwhelmed by the amount you need to do.

I recommend setting up a diary or calendar for keeping track of what you need to do. I use Google Calendar. It's free if you have a Google account and it even emails you when you should start an activity. It also allows you to repeat activities at any interval, which saves time having to write it all in your diary each week.

Here's my list of recurring calendar activities:

Everyday: Check Twitter & respond to any personal Tweets (via Tweetdeck) & check Facebook & respond to any posts of interest.

Monday: Post to 3 LinkedIn groups

Tuesday: Post to 2 Goodreads groups

Wednesday: Create a post for blog 1 & comment on 2 Google+ communities

Thursday: Create post on blog 2 & comment on LinkedIn groups

Friday: Create post on blog 3

Saturday: Post on Facebook

Sunday: Create another post on blog 1

So, I'm posting each week on 3 blogs and contributing to Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, LinkedIn and Google+. That's 3 blogs and 7 communities or groups on 5 social media sites. I was on more, but the above stretches me enough!

Do you think I am doing to much? Consider that I am a social media consultant and an author with books to promote.

And here's another question; what will we be doing in 10 years? How many of these sites will still be here or will they be managed in one place, more easily?

Will we end up doing it all through a new version of HootSuite or Tweetdeck or something else, something new?

I would give a new service a try if it allowed me to shift easily between communities and post at the optimum time and day, automatically, for my my responsive followers.

Anybody know of such an app?

And what's your calendar?

Newsjacking - 3 Critical Questions

A blog post led to this!

I have written previously about using news stories to insert yourself into the story. There are a three critical questions you must consider if you wish to use this method to get your blog/post or site more widely know.

They are:

1. What do you believe in? What do you stand for? In some cases this is difficult to work out. Do you have a  mission statement that might help you? If your goal is to provide reliable and secure mobile payments, for instance, you might insert yourself in stories about mobile or internet security breeches.

2. Do you have an opinion? Having an opinion helps on social media. If you pull your hair out that people aren't upgrading their Windows software or anti-virus protection, allowing hackers easy access to their passwords for instance, I think you are allowed to show frustration. The corporate mode of operation, in which everything is cool, lacks passion these days. Think about injecting some.

3. Do you know when to stop? You can get thousands of visitors to your site in a day if you create a powerful post, but you should also know when to shut up. Newsjacking isn't just about getting hits. It's about injecting what you want to say into the conversation, then stepping back.

Do you have any successful experiences of newsjacking you want to share, any observations on how to get this technique to work properly? Please use the comments below.

A plan for managing social media

I have created a seven slide online presentation on how to plan for social media.

The slideshow is here.

It proposes a six monthly cycle for all organisations based on an audit - plan - implement - audit cycle.

I suggest a six monthly cycle, as the social media world is changing so rapidly.

If you have any comments on the plan let me know. 

Blogging for business - 7 ways to get it right

Creating blog posts, whether it be for your own blog, a group blog, a LinkedIn post, a Facebook post or a community blog, is one of the key social tasks in the new online world most businesses now live in.

But what do we need to do to get it right? 

The first thing to consider is your audience. Are they consumers? Are they business owners? Are they IT specialists? Below are seven types of post you can use for clients and stakeholders of all types:

1. The first type of post, or series of posts, is to provide something useful. This is the basis for many blogs. Something useful can include: guides, FAQs lists, teach-what-you-do posts, illustrations of your product/service in action, case studies and product manual excerpts.

2. A second type of post, or series of posts, is anything to do with corporate social responsibility. Do you sponsor a charity, help a sports club, run an event for ex-employees? All of these can be featured in posts.

3. A third type of post is a free to enter contest. The prize may be small, but everyone likes to win and if you don't charge for entry it's not a lottery. You can use something like www.random.org to pick a winner from everyone who comments and shares your post, for instance. Most blogs number each comment you get.

4. A fourth type of post is brand news. News about new products, launches and updates can all be posts.

5. A fifth is about job opportunities.

6. A sixth is about special promotional offers exclusive for the readers or not.

7. And finally, a seventh are simply ads for your business. I suggest keeping these to 10-20% of your posts at a maximum.

If you mix these post types and establish a cycle of posts, new product news every month, job postings every two months, a guide to an aspect of your service every two weeks, you will build an easy to manage schedule. 

I hope this helps with your blog and general content planning. If you need any advice on making this work please email me: lob@yourasms.com

Whitepaper: Social media in the Irish financial services industry 2013

The Financial Services community in Ireland has been taking its first real steps into social media in the last year.

Bank of Ireland has a Facebook page offering information on Bank of Ireland products and services, the ability to share experiences, get tips for managing money and to ask questions about day to day banking. It has 3,500+ followers and features competitions for tickets to events and exhibitions the bank is involved in.

AIB has an AIB GAA Club page with 10,000+ followers and announcements about sporting events and match reports.

Irish Life has a blog offering occasional posts and a Twitter account with 700+ followers and a Google+ account as well.

In the US the financial services community has taken social media to its heart, indicating the most likely direction of social media in the industry worldwide.

While many Irish financial sector firms are proceeding slowly and cautiously into social media, US based licensed financial professionals and their customers are adopting social media with haste.

In fact, an Accenture report notes that so many financial advisors are using social media that many are "likely flouting their firms’ current policies against this type of activity."

Our recommendations for financial services use of social media in Ireland are:

1. To develop a training program for key staff segments

2. To develop a social media audit & planning process

3. To develop social media guidelines

4. To focus social media on achieving organisational objectives

To read the remainder of the whitepaper this post is extracted from please email lob@yourasms.com and it will be forwarded to you.

5 real ways to build contacts through Twitter

Twitter is a great way to make contacts. Whether you are selling services, products or you're helping people in some way, Twitter allows you to reach people and develop real relationships.

Here are 5 real ways to build those contacts:

1. Follow them, retweet them and/or forward their tweets to people who might benefit from what they are saying.

2. Compliment or agree with a tweet or post they have put up.

3. Ask for an opinion in their area of expertise. Make the questions authentic and you will have a better chance of getting a response.

4. Share a content link with them, if it's appropriate, non spam, but useful content, either your own or another's.

5. Offer help of some kind. Make it genuine and appropriate to their possible needs and you will have a greater chance of getting a response.

These are the five main ways of building contacts through Twitter. If you can think of others please share them with us in the comments below.

35 Social Media Tools (many free)

A selection of the most popular tools for social media are listed below - with links. This is not a complete list, but hopefully it will help you and inspire you to look for more!

If you'd like to add to the list do so through the comments at the bottom.

Listening & monitoring:

Topsy - Real-time search for the social web Topsy.com allows you to search the global Twitter stream for mentions of names and phrases, as needed.

Twitter alerts via email by Twilert Twilert.com is a similar tool with options on searching in a geographic location.

Real Time Search - Social Mention allows you to search current mentions across many social media sites.

Addictomatic: Inhale the Web create a custom web page with the current mentions for your topic

Facebook Search – Inside Facebook searches Facebook

Icerocket blog search – search for blogs and more

Klout The Standard for Influence – the key influencer score

Creation:

WordPress.com A key blog creation tool, free for most uses

Tumblr – Free short picture and graphic posting uber-cool blog creation

LinkedIn – The business to business social media site

Blogger – Free Google blogging creation

Twitter – the gold standard in short blogging

Checkthis – create a web site in a few clicks

Facebook -  the number one social media site world wide

YouTube – the number one video sharing site worldwide

Flickr – the number one picture sharing site worldwide

Pinterest – the number one picture/style/fashion sharing site

Google+ - Google’s answer to social media

SoundCloud - Record and share your sounds for free – audio social media

Management of multiple social media sites:

Buffer – schedule Twitter & Facebook posts & track click through’s

TweetDeck by Twitter – schedule, monitor and manage Twitter feeds

Social Media Management | Sprout Social – schedule. monitor and manage

Social Media Management - HootSuite – schedule, monitor and manage

XeeMe – create a single identity for all your social media identities

Insight & analytics:

GoogleAnalytics – a lot of new analytics coming through here

How Far Did Your Tweet Travel? | TweetReach – does what it says

bitly | shorten, share and track your links – shorten links, then see how many use them

Twitter Stats by Twitter Counter – track your Twitter growth

Crowdbooster Dashboard - Your Network – analyse your Twitter network

Socialbakers (Facebook, Twitter…) marketing, stats – more stats

Viralheat | Social media analytics – serious social media analytics

Miscellaneous

FollowFriday Helper - FFHelper – picks out your best followers

Flush & Follow Twitter users: Tweepi – follows & flushes people 20/40 at a time

Social Media is Dynamite – my social media blog – lots of posts!

Who Unfollowed Me on Twitter: Twitter Unfollowers – see who stopped following.

Over to you!

7 mistakes you can make using social media

1.     Dabbling. If you only do a tiny amount you are going to get a tiny pay back. Unfortunately, like most things in life, you get back what you put in. This is why it’s so important to be involved in creating social media content that you find meaningful. If you write about or Tweet about something you have no interest in then you will find it difficult to sustain your effort over the months ahead.

2.      Ignoring it. If you ignore social media and hope it will go away what will happen is that intrepid individuals, your competition, will start doing it. Do you even know how many of your competition are tweeting or blogging or Facebooking? Social media is coming and you can't stop it. Get on board.

3.     Not aligning your social media goals with the goals of your business or your personal goals. The goal of social media is not to simply acquire more followers. Sure, there are plenty of people who want to just do that, but a business needs to align social media to its business goals and individuals need to align to whatever their personal goals are. Engaging with followers is key, focusing on quality, not just quantity.

4.    Thinking it's just a marketing and PR thing. Human resources, purchasing, the canteen, investment analysts and R&D and every other department can all benefit from the research, communications and feedback service that social media provides. Don't leave it all to the marketeers. Every division can use social media just like every division can use a telephone. Social Media can be everywhere.

5.     Copying others, not innovating. I can understand it when you start off, you look at what’s been done by other big players and you emulate, but eventually copying won’t be enough. You’ll need to come up with something new and innovative yourself. That will take real creativity and an environment where people can experiment, test, fail, and still survive. Innovation will draw on your best talents and allow you to leapfrog your competition, if you get it right. There are risks, but there are real rewards to innovation too.

6.     Being too serious. Sure, social media is serious at times, but it’s also light-hearted ;-). And don’t expect all of your messages to be super cool and super important. Sometimes you’ll put your foot in your mouth with social media. Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world.  If you do make a mistake, don’t forget to smile! ::-)

7.     Not moving on. Social media is changing fast. Services are evolving too. Twitter is changing how it will support the software that links with it. LinkedIn is offering your contact details to anyone who is willing to spend enough to buy them. Facebook is asking for money to get all your followers to see your posts. The only constant in social media is change. Build an evolving cycle of review and test and implement into your plans and look at all emerging options on a regular basis. Keep up to date with social media blogs too and stay tuned for new developments.  

The most important services of the year 2020 are still only a developer’s dream, but if you stay in touch with what is going on you might be able to catch that dream.   

And follow this blog for regular updates and soon a list of social media resources.

TV & radio are dying! And they are lashing out at Social Media.

Last week I listened to a radio news program interviewing a lawyer warning business people about the dangers of social media, how they could get sued if one of their employees said the wrong thing on Twitter.

There was no opposing view given, like how the words of any client facing staff can affect a company at any time. Or anything about the benefits of social media to business. At all.

It sounded like scare mongering. I suspect that TV and radio executives and journalists aren't even conscious of what they are doing. They feel the ground moving and they lash out. Their all powerful roles as arbiters of what is news and what should be popular is disappearing. Fast.

How do I know this? My thirteen year old daughter almost never watches TV. She uses YouTube and Facebook. And I rarely watch live TV too. And I don't like TV news any more. I don't like someone selecting what's important for me. Sure, I record an occasional TV program, but I could get that on Netflix, if they ever get their act together and deliver popular programs.

How long before it all vanishes? I mean the way it's currently structured. I want radio that's more like podcasts and TV that's more like YouTube. I want greater selection, control on when I watch or listen and the arbiters of taste to all retire. Their time is up. A change is coming.

My challenge to you is, can you spot the dinosaur riders of TV and radio as they try to stop social media taking over? If you do, or have ever heard this happen, please report it below in the comments.

The Social Media Puzzle: Piece #7 Where is social media heading?

Social media is changing fast. Facebook buys Instagram. Google+ changes its look and feel, again. Twitter gets more visual and is used to assess the public mood and soon it will help predict riots and stock market rallies.

All these are real stories in the past few months. Try searching for #socialmedia stories on Twitter and you will be assaulted by wave after wave of developments in social media. Every minute.

But where will all this lead us? I see three clear trends, each of which could lead to big developments:

1. The visual web. Instagram video, Google glasses and local YouTube2 feeds will allow us to travel almost anywhere and experience everything as ultimate-voyeurs, but beyond that expect artistic photojournalism, fashion fabrics that change colour, people tracking, your visual life on a site, celebrity holograms at your local fashion outlet and rebranding sites that will let you see how you might appear with a few nicks and tucks.

2. The auto posting trend. Expect your phone to auto post your location to Eightsquare, your preferences from your GoogleGlasses2 to your life-blog and your audio-to-text tweets to Twitter2. Going beyond that we will be tracked by location posting sites for curfew, remote working and spouse spying applications.

3. The digital divide. The erosion of the middle class will lead to a divide between those of us who pursue hourly deals on energy and fuel and Bigger Mac deals and those few of us who need hologram security services, auto-taser fencing and  helicopter extraction from urban locations. Security zones will extend to elite stores, clubs and hotels, all invisible to the rest of us by their anonymous exteriors.

Much of the above will happen before 2020. If you want to create a start-up focusing on what we will be the number one social media brand in that year, consider incorporating some of the above elements.

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

Socmephobia - The Fear of Social Media

Socmephobia! What's that?

It's social media phobia. Socmephobes are people who don't want anything to do with social media, Twitter, Facebook or all the other blogs and picture sites and online networks that hundreds of millions of us are now using, and which are likely to become the driving force in the cultural and corporate spheres in the coming decades.

You can identify socmephobes by their instant dismissal of all things social media. They will deride blogs, dismiss Twitter and deny that Facebook has any relevance. Canute-like they sit by the shore and order the oncoming waves of social media back. Then, when their screens fall dark, they will deny the sea of social media has any importance at all, because they can't see it.


The history of this cultural/psychological disorder can be traced back to when the inventors of the wheel were laughed at, the inventors of the spinning loom were attacked, and the wearers of mini skirts dismissed as agents of the devil.

If you identify a socmephobe in your office or home there are a number of treatments you can use to help those afflicted:

1. You can create a Facebook page for them and connect them to members of their extended family so that  they can see pictures of family events and read news from family and friends.

2. You can ask them about their interests, and let them see people in those areas' Twitter feeds, blogs or YouTube Channels.

3. You can get them to talk about their fear, and take notes, for if you find out anything that will make you want to run, you may need evidence for any subsequent investigation.

In the event that you are confronted by a group of socmephobes I advise checking where the nearest exit is first, then using the opportunity to observe a cultural phenomena as if you were an anthropologist studying a dying tribe on a remote island.

The self reinforcing rituals of the group should be documented and recorded and, of course, posted on your blog/Facebook page, with a link on Twitter, so we can all enjoy your observations.  

This post has been submitted as a public service announcement.

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

On images taking over the interweb

Images work!

• On Facebook, videos are shared twelve times more than text posts and links combined
• Photos are Liked twice as much as text only updates
• 42% of all Tumblr posts are pictures
• Pinterest, the photo-driven social media phenomenon, is now referring more traffic than Twitter, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and Google Plus

We may see a visual split soon, where ebook readers allow easy reading of text and many other sites go mostly visual. Is your site visual or are you ignoring the elephant in the room?

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

A radio interview about the power of social media to do good

In the interview with Dave Fanning on Ireland's national RTE2FM station I argued that social media is a force for good.

I believe the openness and transparency that is forced on us by being involved in social media are a huge long term cultural benefit. Corruption, trickery and fraud are all exposed by openness and transparency.

In Ireland we have suffered too much from all these ills.

I know social media is no magic wand, which will change us all overnight, but slowly, with each post, the veil of secrecy is lifted, just a little.

Listen to some of this argument in this ten minute interview here.

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

AS/MS is growing! New projects and clients:

In the past month Advanced Social/Media Services, your global social media consultancy, has picked up a number of new clients and projects.

First off, we ran a one day course at the Irish Writers Centre July 14th, which was so oversubscribed a second one day course was organised on August 11th to deal with the overflow. Both courses were very well received with many compliments from participants and the centre. They were a wonderful experience for all and had a wide mix of people taking part in a very practical workshop.

Second, we have been invited to run an 8 week one-evening-a-week course at the Centre for Creative Practice in Dublin on How to Get your Work noticed from September 19. Details here. I look forward to working with people from all backgrounds to help them get the most from social media in the most creative ways possible.

Third, we have new clients for our consultancy including a leading Irish diamond jeweler, Turkey's most prominent event management company and one of Ireland's leading publishing companies. In addition our contract to manage a blog for a London property agency has been extended.

Fourth, our guide Social Media is Dynamite is nearing completion and will be available in September from Amazon. If you want to read a pre-publication copy for free email: lpob at outlook.com All we ask in return is that you reply with some comments on what you thought. This offer will close at the end of August 2012.

Below is an image of the 5 star hotel in Istanbul where our events management client in Turkey holds many events.