photo by lollyknit

I had planned to write about the importance of putting your best social media foot forward by being what I think of as your “true best self” when using online social networks. But apparently you are who you are, according to researchers at the University of Texas.

In a recent study of Facebook users, they found that profiles accurately represented users’ real-life personalities. In the New York Times article I read about the study, here’s the key takeaway for me:

Dr. Gosling said the findings suggested that online social networks could provide users with an opportunity for genuine social interactions.

“Is Facebook an opportunity to promote ourselves, a P.R. exercise? Or is it just another medium of social communication, like the telephone?” Dr. Gosling said. “This research suggests the latter. Young adults are using it as a way to communicate and leaving lots of clues about what they’re really like.”

Rather than looking to social media for its advertising potential (which I find one of the least interesting things about it), maybe we should focus more on captilizing on its amazing utility for linking, communicating, sharing, collaborating, etc. As for the marketeers among us, those “lots of clues” are a rich vein for data mining.

Seems to me that turning social media into just another megaphone is a criminal waste when you consider its potential.

photo by dvidshub

I usually don’t engage in the whole self-delusional New Year’s resolutions routine that we’re encouraged to torment ourselves with each year. If I see one more article on how I should lose weight/get in shape/find my dream date/dig out of debt/fix my finances/fix my relationships/get the job I’ve always dreamed of/score that promotion/start my own business/become the perfect person just dying to emerge from my current imperfect cocoon, all tied to the turning over of another year, I may just have to give up all forms of media, social and otherwise.

On the other hand …

This blog reaches its first anniversary in another month or two (I should probably figure that out), and I am reflecting on how to be a better person from a social media perspective.

Contrary to what you may have heard elsewhere, using social media to achieve your marketing or communication objectives is hard work. It may be relatively inexpensive, but it doesn’t come cheap. I’ve devoted much time and energy to this blog and Twitter in particular, less so to some of the other tools I use. I’ve received amazing encouragement and support from others whose own social media efforts continually astonish me. I’ve learned more about my craft and profession in the past year than at any other time I can remember. And I’m constantly reminded of all the things I don’t know. It’s exciting, intimidating and humbling, frequently at the same time. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a friggin’ amazing time to be a marketing or communications professional.

If true expertise requires 10 years experience or 10,000 hours deliberate practice, then we all have a ways to go in our mastery of social media. Given the fluidity and moving-target nature of it, I suspect they may have to come up with a new measure for capturing true social media expertise, all the SM gurus, masters and other self-proclaimed prophets notwithstanding.

With all that said, here are my social media resolutions. I hope they spur some soul-searching in others who share my belief that self-improvement is good for the soul. Regardless, feel free to hold me to them.

1. Be more effective in my mission. Poke the Beehive’s stated mission is to provide effective writing and communication strategies for the communication-challenged. Looking back at a year’s worth of work, I think I’ve been uneven at best in achieving it. I need to either do a better job or rethink my mission. (Again, feel free to share your own thoughts on where you think I might take PtB.)
2. Be more conversational. I tend to focus on serving as a guide to what I consider to be great marketing and communications content out there, especially in my use of Twitter. But that can lead to a broadcasting model I have no wish to emulate. I’ve been extremely fortunate in connecting through this blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook in particular to an amazingly rich community of fellow marketing and nonprofit professionals. I need to take greater advantage of being part of that community and engage in more conversation.
3. Be more generous. The flip side of taking advantage is being more generous, of course. My social media generosity tends to be reactive. I need to actively seek out opportunities where I can share my expertise and knowledge with others without waiting for them to ask for it.
   
4. Be more original in what I share. Oooh, tough one. Let’s face it, there’s very little originality to be found out there. Much of the sage advice and brilliant insights you find through social media are nothing more than a rehash of something someone else said earlier (and better). Personally, I cringe at much of the writing advice I see being offered as fresh and new. There really isn’t anything out there that wasn’t said long ago by Strunk & White, Zinsser, Bly and a whole host of others.
5. Comment more elsewhere. Being conversational and a more active part of the community means offering feedback to others. I’ve been pretty inconsistent on this front, and need to comment more on the blogs and other websites I find so incredibly informative and useful.
6. Practice what I preach (and share). I actually do read pretty much everything I link to and share via Twitter. But I find myself falling into the same excuses we all have for not putting into practice what I learn and believe to be true: It’s hard, there are too many obstacles, too much resistance, I don’t have time right now, blah blah blah. We all need to have the courage of our convictions and practice what we preach. Anything less is a betrayal of our organizations, our clients and ourselves.
7. Don’t let up. If you’ve ever felt the urge to chuck this whole social media thing because it’s like being caught on a treadmill with no end in sight, you’re not alone. Why do you think there are so many lifeless husks of websites orbiting out there? Or dead Twitter handles? Or LinkedIn profiles with three connections? Don’t give up. The rewards are worth the effort.

Not to belabor the whole resolutions thing, but using social media feels to me like eating right, staying fit, meeting financial goals and all the other stuff that makes you a better you (whatever the hell that might mean). It’s a lifetime commitment that can enrich your life. As corny and preachy as it sounds, I do believe it. And that’s why I stick with it.

Now if I could just get a handle on the whole eating right/staying fit thing …

photo by robert couse-baker

Going postal over the letters to Santa program. The secret behind a truly great brand. Chicken soup in the cold remedies aisle. A look at why Twitter followers without engagement is worthless.

These are just some of my most popular tweets during the month of November. No surprise in today’s jobs-challenged “recovery” that the top tweet was a post concerning my search for a communications manager (still under way, tell all your friends).

If you missed any of these when first we tweeted, be sure to check them out now. Lots of good stuff here for what ails you.

Now Hiring: a Communications Manager

The Secret to Making Your Brand Truly Great

The Case of the 4,000 Twitter Followers Who Don’t Care

Confused Stock Boy … or Brilliant Product Placement?

Let’s Play 20 Questions to a Solid Strategic Plan

Is Social Media a Marketing Thing?

Content-ment: Curation Vs. Aggregation

Postal Service Limits Letter to Santa Program

Top 20 Tweets in October

Why Facebook Continues to Suck

25 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women in Social Media 2009

Why Nonprofits Should Be on YouTube

Five Things Brand Marketing Can’t Do

Writing Errors That Make You Look Stupid

Location is the Missing Link Between Social Media and the Real World

Email Campaigns That Work for Nonprofits

Beth Asked a Question

American Red Cross – Nonprofit Social Media Marketing Example

Top 50 Journalism Blogs

Ten Things Social Media Can’t Do

photo by dariuszka

This one is for the multitude of marketing and communications pros who have yet to seriously engage in social media, whether on behalf of their organizations or on a personal basis.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed with the workload you already have. Or family obligations make it impossible to devote the time it takes outside of the office to really support your social media involvement. There are many excellent, valid reasons not to dive into social media.

And there’s really only one reason you must … You have no choice.

This is where our profession is and will be. It may not be Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Wave or any of the other tools with which you have a nodding acquaintance. In another year or two it might be something that doesn’t exist. But the concept of online communication for whatever purpose, enabled and supported by technology, isn’t going away. You need to understand it and put it to work for you or run the risk of becoming obsolete.

I won’t embarrass any of my colleagues by name, but it astonishes me the number of people working in marketing or communications who still haven’t taken the pledge. When I look for them online, I feel like I’m playing Where’s Waldo. Are they on Facebook? Not there. Are they on LinkedIn? Not there. Are they tweeting? You’re kidding, right?

It’s almost worse when I find someone “using” social media in the most pathetic way possible. They have a Twitter account with four followers and three tweets. “How was your Fourth of July?” it reads in December. Or a LinkedIn account with 20 connections. You’re communicators, dammit! Connect! Communicate!

I’ve run across agency folk, designers, marketeers and other extremely smart, talented pros whose social media footprint suggests borderline imbecility. Better to do nothing than to be lazy or halfhearted.

Here’s a question for the Luddites among us. If you had been handling corporate communications back when movable type was introduced, would you still be pushing block printing and illustrated manuscript? Or would you be figuring out how to introduce the new technology into your marketing and communication efforts in a way that laid the groundwork for the inevitable transition that was coming?

I’m not one of these “Print is Dead” fanatics. I love print. Print will have a valuable role long after we’re gone. But it’s time to retire print as a channel for some forms of communication.

I am no social media guru. I like to think of myself as an enthusiast who’s trying to figure out how to make the best use of new technologies on behalf of my organization. That said, here’s my simple advice to those who haven’t braved the waters yet:

1. Blog. I don’t care what you write about. Make it work-related, hobby-related or just share whatever’s lurking in the deepest recesses of your mind. But get into the habit of writing for the web by blogging. Others have waxed poetic on all the benefits. I won’t. Just do it and don’t ask a lot of questions.
2. Join LinkedIn. It’s the Chamber of Commerce mixer, your Rolodex and your social network wrapped into one great tool. Join in the discussions, reach out to fellow professionals or just people you respect. Connect, connect, connect.
3. Open a Facebook account. I’m a little ambivalent about this one given the amount of crap you have to wade through in terms of advertising, inane games and the like. I use it mostly to stay connected to friends, although I do feed my profession-oriented tweets into it (and no doubt bore the crap out of some friends).

That’s it. Just do these three things for the next several months. I love Twitter, but that’s a hungry monster that demands to be fed on a constant basis. Stick with the gateway social media drugs to start.

I welcome comments from those who agree and those who think I don’t know what I’m talking about. Feel free to whale away. That’s part of the social media fun.

photo by d. sharon pruitt

As more people crowd into the social media space, knowing who’s worth your relationship-building time and who’s a waste of effort becomes more imperative.

I don’t know what your criteria are, but for me making the first cut is pretty simple: Is the person in question social or antisocial?

My definition of sociability is pretty straightforward. Are you open about your identity and transparent in your motives? Do you engage in conversation, share your thoughts and opinions, pass along what you’re finding online and share your knowledge and expertise? Or do you see this as just another opportunity for endless self-promotion and selling?

If it’s the latter, don’t bother me. When I’m interested in what you’re selling I’ll find you. Better still, be of value to me before the sales opportunity and I’ll probably put you on my short list of potential vendors.

Keep in mind that sales and marketing are two distinctly different activities. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” Social media is very much a marketing opportunity; the key is in how you approach it.

There are those who don’t share my opinion re blatant self-promotion. They see nothing wrong with using social media the same way they use traditional media. I’m not going to go into all the ways in which I think that’s just plain shortsighted and stupid. I’ll save that for another post.

For me, being a true creature of social media boils down to the following:

You are identifiable. Your Twitter profile includes your real name, photo and a profile that tells me something about your background and interests. Tweeting on behalf of an organization is fine, but tell me who’s doing the tweeting and what your connection is to the organization. You have a blog where I can learn more about you and what you think. Your LinkedIn profile is rich with details of your background and experience. The same with Facebook and other networking sites.

You are present. By present I mean I can easily find your web site, blog, social media outposts, Google profile, etc. I’m always skeptical about a Twitter user who doesn’t provide a link to a web site, whether it’s a blog, company site or even a LinkedIn profile. Point me to where I can learn more about you or your organization. Point me to some MLM scheme or a site that teaches me how to generate 10,000 Twitter followers in a few days and you’re gone.

You are sociable. You don’t have to be a great conversationalist. Use the tools to make contributions to the conversation, whatever it may be. Share your opinions, point us to resources we might not know about, ask questions, reach out to others who share your interests.

You are honest. If your end game is to sell me something, don’t try to hide it. If you’re making money off links in your posts, don’t hide that, either. We all have to make a living. Deception is a poor foundation for a social network and will ultimately bite you in the end, figuratively and literally.

These are just the basics as far as I’m concerned. Anything less is antisocial media. What do you think?

Clay Shirky is one of the most insightful and interesting thinkers on the subject of how emerging technologies are enabling us to collaborate and get things done without relying on traditional organizational structures. Here’s his TED Talk on how citizens in repressive regimes are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools to get out the news.

How are you using social media to make history? There’s a sometimes dispiriting over-emphasis in the conversation on how social media is changing advertising, changing PR, changing sales, etc. How is it changing our ability to effect social change? What might we expect to see in the not-so-distant future?

It’s not that I’m not interested in how social media is being used to sell Korean BBQ, shoes and blenders. It’s just not a game changer.

photo by freeparking

A recent article in the Washington Post about the perceived ineffectiveness of Facebook’s Causes application to raise money has kicked up a lot of upset among fund raisers and other nonprofit pros.

You’ll find excellent responses to the article out there from Allison Fine, Beth Kanter and Jeff Brooks. The main takeaway is that, unless you’re running for president, social media is a far more effective friend raiser than fund raiser.

That really shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s worked in the nonprofit world for any length of time. Every institutional advancement professional I’ve ever worked with understands that relationship-building precedes the ask. Unless the ask is for pocket change.

Real money comes with time. Fund raiser gets to know the donor, what motivates. Donor develops an understanding of the organization’s mission, its potential to make an impact and how a gift actualizes that potential. Successful fund raising is the matchmaking process of the right donor to the right cause. Social media at this point can facilitate and accelerate that process, but it doesn’t replace it.

Serious money is raised by people, not direct mail and Facebook pages. I seriously doubt anything will replace the slow, methodical getting-to-know-you process that great fund raisers do so well.

So while the Post article wasn’t particularly revelatory about its subject, it did serve as a pointed reminder that most media outlets do a lousy job of covering the nonprofit sector. It’s ironic given all the debate about the nonprofit model as a potential savior of journalism.

artwork by intersection consulting

This one is for all my marcomm pro friends and colleagues out there. I’ve looked for many of you on Facebook, on LinkedIn and on Twitter. Where are you? I know how busy you are with all the traditional channels, but one of these days your boss is going to come to you and ask what you know about social media. And you’re gonna be screwed.

Trust me, I feel your pain. I know what your workload is like because it looks like mine. But it’s past time to get your feet wet. Let’s connect. You don’t know what you’re missing.

If you are out there and I just haven’t found you, let me know. If you’re reading this, then you know where to find me.

photo by cambodiaforkidsorg

For all the moments of brilliance you’ll find in the Twitterstream, there’s a mind-numbing deluge of sludge that, if you’re not careful, will lower your IQ a few percentage points if followed too closely. Think a 24/7 stream of the kind of insightful commentary you’ll find on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” “Glenn Beck” and “Bad Girls Club.”

At least that stuff can be entertaining if you keep telling yourself that these are not real people, that they exist only in some alternative universe where they can’t hurt you (unless you keep watching).

These are professional crazies. The non-professionals who feel the need to overshare their every thought and movement are just boring. Don’t be one of them. Try to restrain yourself from tweeting the following:

• what you just ate
• what you’re going to eat
• something private that should remain that way
• the fact that you’re not doing anything
• the weather
• the fact that you’re so tired
• that you just arrived somewhere
• mindless minutia
• your bathroom habits

Besides the boredom factor, you also might want to avoid tweeting anything that will turn around and bite you professionally. For example:

• Be careful what you say about the new job.
• Be careful what you say about the hometown of one of your biggest clients.
• Don’t post when you’re supposed to be doing something else.

Oh, and what goes for Twitter goes double for Facebook. I’ve been sorely tempted to unfriend people I’d like to keep in touch with but who continually flood my feed with the most ridiculous, uninteresting crap. I’m glad you’re really enjoying that cup of coffee, but unless you’re planning on buying me one keep it to yourself.