Social Media

LinkedIn: You Can Do Better

by Marian Schembari on January 12, 2012

This is a brilliant guest post from my friend David. It’s the email he wish he’d sent to a to a generic LinkedIn connection request. Hope this guy learns his lesson.

Dear Guy-who-sent-me-a-generic=LinkedIn-request,

You sent me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, even though you don’t really know me. Of course, I know you, or at least know who you are. With about 7,000 Twitter followers, blog, Facebook profile and fan page, YouTube channel and Flickr account, you’re kind of a big deal in the Chicago social media scene. People I interact with regularly know you or have heard of you. You come up in conversations. I’ve run into you at networking events and even tried to introduce myself. You were too busy being social with friends instead to talk to me (instead of actually, you know, networking).

Your LinkedIn invitation consisted of the generic text provided by the network: “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” How lazy and impersonal. Why don’t you send me an auto DM on Twitter while you’re at it? I thought everyone who knows anything about LinkedIn knows this is the ultimate faux pas. Perhaps I’m wrong though. You list “Social Media” among your specialties.

The invitation also says you’ve indicated I am “a Friend.” I recognize “Friend” is a relatively loose term when it comes to social media. People who have never met in person are Facebook friends. If you have no other connection and want to get around having to look up an email address, “Friend” is the viable only option on LinkedIn. But aside from knowing the same people, we aren’t really that chummy. Perhaps you’re using the term “Friend” just a bit too loosely in this case.

Your LinkedIn invite would have been more effective if you had said something like this:

Hi David,

We seem to operate in similar circles.  Why don’t we connect?  Perhaps we’ll meet in person sometime soon.

Regards,
________

That probably would have resulted an acceptance of your invitation. For the time being, though, my response is, “You can do better.”

David Salkover works in the Meeting and Events industry. He’s passionate about tradeshows and conventions, and is never without a good book to read.  Far from being a social media guru/ninja/expert, he’s more of a social media nerd. David tweets about whatever happens to be on his mind at twitter.com/dbsalk. 

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How I Use HootSuite: An Organizational Tutorial

by Marian Schembari on November 21, 2011

A few months ago I made a video tutorial for the subscribers of my newsletter. To be honest, I never really liked making “exclusive” content so the newsletter is now defunct and I’m re-purposing some of the good ones that went out last year.

As you’ll see below, this tutorial is a demonstration of how I use HootSuite and keep it organized. While I’m a big proponent of “different strokes for different folks”, I personally love taking a peek into the quirky ways people use things. While my setup below is by no means unique or all that creative, it does work hugely well for me in terms of keeping up with searches, conversations and not losing my life entirely when I sign in.

Enjoy!

For those of you who aren’t into the whole video thing, here’s a quick summary:

  1. HootSuite is more awesome than TweetDeck because it’s web based and there’s more flexibility in terms of organizing followers, topics and events.
  2. Use the “pending tweets” stream to start scheduling posts to go out so you can reach as many followers as possible.
  3. I organize my main tab with my home feed, @replies, sent tweets and pending. This way I can see everything at a glance and avoid sending a post out more than once.
  4. Go through your home feed every morning and see if there’s any conversations you can jump into.
  5. If you have a blog, organize a separate tab to include people who regularly comment/retweet so you can return the favor and stay in touch!
  6. Use well organized and highly specific lists so you can keep tabs on interesting people in your industry, coworks, real-life friends, etc.
  7. Set up a tab for any Twitter chats you join. Create columns for mentions, the hashtag and the moderator’s username so you don’t miss any questions or important comments in the flurry of the chat.

Any questions, don’t hesitate to ask below in the comments. And if you have any tips for me/us or if you’ve found different aspects of HootSuite useful, please share with the class!

Update: A few of you have asked to embed this video on your own sites and you’re more than welcome! A link back as credit would be a nice, but isn’t required.

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5 Twitter Bio Examples That Will Rock Your Socks

by Marian Schembari on November 7, 2011

For the past few months I’ve been making a point to take screenshots of Twitter bios that have made me laugh, think or are just plain brilliant. Bios that find a way to – in 160 characters – sum up a person, what they do and why we should follow them. And I figured it was high time I started posting them here. Every few weeks I hope to update you with more, but for now, take a look at these rad five:

@montoure has found a way to give us the feeling of his genre rather than just telling us about it. This bio could not be more brilliant. That last line gets me every time.

@KatieDavisBurps lists all the things she does, but they’re not boring, overused interests like “loving life” and “eating food”. She’s written a solid, interesting list that ends in a way that’s incredibly relatable and made me want to be her friend. Or make her a pot of coffee.

@jamievaron always cracks me up because every time she opens her little blogger mouth, an absolute truth no one ever mentions comes out. And, without fail, she’s nailed it in her bio while also being crystal clear about what she does. Funny + informative = WIN. (p.s. why hasn’t Entrepreneur magazine bought entreprenuer.com? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve misspelled it in my browser.)

@mariancall not only has a beautiful first name, but her bio makes me want to listen to her music rightthissecond. THIS is how artists should be using social media, y’all. She lets us get to know her with the word “wanderlust”, helps us understand her style with musician comparison and adds a little funny in there to make us like her. Then she tells us to buy her album without actually telling us. I don’t know about you, but I’m sold.

@neilhimself has been on my list of Top Bios since day one. When I was working with authors I always sent them to his profile as a great example to follow. Basically, we all know who Neil Gaiman is; he doesn’t need to list his books or hobbies. Instead, he shows us how passionate he is about what he does and he writes it in typical Neil fashion.

Looking back at the bios that have caught me eye, I’m finding: Humor is always a good idea. So is passion. Lists can be great if you’re creative. And, at the end of the day, show – don’t tell.

Anyone come across a great bio recently they want to share? What do you think about these five?

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How to Use Social Media in the Wake of a Disaster

by Marian Schembari on June 13, 2011

This weekend, I was lucky enough to meet my mom in Wellington for a mini-holiday (she’s in New Zealand for the next few weeks and managed to squeeze in a conference during her first few days). Because I’m cheap and booked my tickets last minute, I used budget airline JetStar, run by Qantas.

Sunday afternoon, mere hours before I was supposed to leave, I hear about a volcano spitting ash in Chile. Because the world is an incredible place, said ash had made it’s way over to Australasia and was effecting a ton of flights in the area.

Did JetStar call me to say my flight was cancelled? No. Did they even post information on my flight before I was supposed to leave? No again. Did they even NEED to cancel my flight? Yeah, that would be a no. Air New Zealand was running just fine.

Here’s the thing: I fell in love with Wellington. I wasn’t going to cry about being stuck there. What did grind my gears was the complete lack of communication on JetStar’s part. A lack of communication that could have been avoided had they actually taken advantage of their 17,000 follower strong Twitter presence.

So ready for the secret on how they could have kicked some serious ash ass during this mini crisis?

Harness the Power of Social Media Post-Disaster…

Talk to people.

Period.

End of lesson.

JetStar’s biggest mistake was setting up this huge Twitter account with absolutely no intention of actually responding to their customers. People from all over Australia and New Zealand were asking questions, voicing their concerns and JetStar proceeded to ignored them. So I posted a question to their Facebook page seeing as they never called to tell me my flight was canceled (even though it clearly says they will on their site). They ignored my comment and the dozens of other legitimate questions posted.

Then, today, they suddenly started replying to tons of tweets. They updated new flight cancellations, responded to the 50,000th question about refunds even though it was probably hugely annoying and they’re sending out tweets every few minutes with news.

Progress!

This is how it should have been all along. When it comes to disasters, you can’t help cancellations or delays, but you can help good service. And if you’re in the position of being  a major company, you’re going to get ridiculous amounts of complaints and repetitive questions, but if you’ve created a social presence, you’ve made it your job to get on that and respond in kind to those who reach out. Esepecially when people are worried about saftey, getting to that job/wedding/birth/conference on time or just simply want information on when they might get home.

No matter who you are, or what your business – you don’t need anything fancy. You don’t need to create the next People Finder or even set up fancy donations. At the very least, you need to talk to people. The best way to calm your customers, ensure repeat customers and do your damn job? Acknowledge the situation and simply be there.

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A Lesson In Being Proactive

by Marian Schembari on April 11, 2011

I’m teaching myself to be more proactive. In my life, my job, with the whole settling-into-New-Zealand-thing. Before arriving, I had gotten a little lazy. Back home, social media was The Thing. Businesses, even if they weren’t hardcore into social media, understood the benefits. I rarely had to look for clients because they came to me. But over the past four months, I’ve been at a sort of a standstill. A crossroads. A cliche if there ever was one.

First off, I had no friends. Actually, that’s a lie. Some of the amazing people I lived with in London are now living in Auckland, and I’m incredibly lucky we all came over together.

HOWEVER, Sam and I live in a very isolated country in a very isolated part of town. There’s hardly any public transportation and we don’t own a car. I went from living in a city with over eight million people, to a country of only four. I’m not going to lie, it’s been rough settling in.

Luckily, email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype have made for an excellent connection with family and friends back home. And while my closest friends have put up with my crying every time we Skype, they’ve also given incredible insights into my new life here, my career and how I view change.

I know, a little corny for me, but there is life outside the internet and it can’t always be social media all the time. Plus, it’s my blog and I can do what I want.

Justifications aside, I’ve learned more from my friends over the past few months than I’ve learned from any blog. And, I’ve learned that even if your business (or your life) does fantastically at one point, you can NEVER stop being proactive. Not even for a second.

Operation Fear

My dear friend (and the woman behind Command C), Sara, sent me this amazing email last week and one line really struck a cord:

We have such strong tendencies to operate out of fear.

And for the past four months, that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been afraid of not fitting in. I’ve been afraid of losing my audience. I’ve been terrified of being stuck across the world with no job, no friends and no money.

So I started applying for jobs I that would never have challenged me. And I’ve been trying really, really hard to make friends. But let me tell you something, you can be in a country filled with the nicest, friendliest people in the entire world, and still not feel at home.

I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I think it’s hard for anyone to do any kind of magic in their lives when moving to a new country with no foreseeable plans to come home.

But you know I wouldn’t talk about my struggles now without any kind of resolution. My point in all this being that in the past week a lot of good things have happened. Really good things. And I’m just reminded how important these two qualities are:

  1. Proactivity
  2. Patience

I joined a coworking space. I stopped applying for available jobs and started emailing companies to create a job. I have three meetings set up in one day. I contacted a local bakery, just for fun, to see if I couldn’t help out. (In case you don’t know, my ultimate dream is to own a bakery.)

Things aren’t perfect here yet. But you know what? I’m not some study abroad student exploring New Zealand only to return home in three months. I’m here for the long haul. And I’m here with my partner. I’m here with my business, wherever that takes me.

And however long it takes, I’m okay with patience. And, trust me, patience is much easier to deal with when you’re bad ass about being proactive.

What have you done lately that’s been proactive and landed you something awesome? Let’s make the comment section of this post the most inspiring on the web!

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