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Social Media: Spotlight on the Speed of Change

November 10, 2016 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

Social Media: Spotlight on the Speed of Change

People have complained about information overload since, well, since there were people. And I suspect that before homo sapiens, cro magnon man (and woman!) were also complaining about too much change. Now that social media is here, change is happening faster than ever.

Insta-Updates

With the advent of social media, we can find out about our relatives’ health, life changes, and new pets instantaneously. And even if we don’t want to know, we hear about political opinions. By the way, here’s a fun piece about the latest election: Albert Einstein and the Menace of the November Election. Even on Instagram, which is the best place for introverts, in my opinion, people are yelling–YELLING!–about politics lately. Ugh.

Eustress

Change produces stress, and there are some types of stress that are in the Good Camp. Promotions at work, getting a seven-letter Bingo in Scrabble, or learning that you won the Lottery could be in this category. As Elizabeth Scott outlines in When Stress is Good for You, you don’t need to worry about all kinds of stress. Acute stress is particularly harmful. We humans like some things to remain stable, and not to have shifting sands under our feet.

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram–Oh, My!

Just as all kinds of stress are not alike, not all social media platforms are created equal. Let me explain. Twitter moves fast and can catch you off-guard with its constantly moving articles, memes, and newsy tidbits. Facebook can be a rabbit hole of articles about cats who think they’re dogs (and dogs who think they’re cats!), and people ranting about every possible first-world problem. The videos and sponsored posts can move quickly as well. If you want a more peaceful social media experience, Pinterest and Instagram are much quieter–without tons of ads or newsy posts screaming at you to pay attention.

Photo by valkyrieh116

Reframing Information Overload

There are a million rabbit holes and tasks that call out to us. There are parties and business events. And there is that little voice that says “you should…”. For myself, deciding what I could do versus what I should do makes all the difference. Did you know that there’s an Information Overload Awareness Day (October 18)? And an Information Overload Research Group?

Meditation and Quiet Time

Everyone needs some time to completely withdraw from the world, whether that’s through meditation, yoga, or simply quiet time in the car. For all you introverts out there, here’s Six Facts About Introverts and Social Media That Will Impress Your Friends.

How Do You Manage the Speed of Change?

Do you withdraw from the world or does being involved and “on” 24/7 excite and exhilarate you? Leave me a comment! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: change, Facebook, information overload, Instagram, Pinterest, Social Media, Twitter

Albert Einstein and the Hidden Menace of the November Election

November 3, 2016 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

Albert Einstein and the Hidden Menace of the November Election

A couple of weeks ago we brought Nikola Tesla back from the dead to answer some questions about the iPhone 7. This time, we’re bringing the ghost of Albert Einstein back to help us out because we’ve become very stupid and we could use some help.

Great Britain and the Queen

Let’s get one thing straight, right off the bat. In case you were wondering, the Queen has NOT asked us to write in her name on November’s Ballot and restore British Rule. It’s in Snopes. Although the Brits are happy that we’ve become so silly that it might distract the world from Brexit.

Photo by MarioMancuso

On Having Only Two Choices

Since Einstein is here for only a short amount of time, let’s ask him what he thinks.

Us: So, do you mind if we call you Al?

Einstein: Please, go right ahead.

Us: Do you think we might need other choices for this president?

Al: As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.

Us: We thought so, too.

Photo by CJ Sorg

He Who Must Not Be Named

Us: So, Al, do you think that the Republican candidate is a little bit like He Who Must Not Be Named from Harry Potter?

Al: Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.

Us: We’re putting you down as a yes.

Al: Ok.

The Future of Education

Us: So, Al, If He Who Must Not Be Named wins the election, does that mean that any and all education is doomed?

Al: The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem.

The Unnamed One and Twitter

If He Who Must Not Be Named uses Twitter for his rants, does that mean that Twitter is somehow diminished?

Al: “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Us: Ok, but did you see Jon Stewart turn his Twitter rant with him into a stand-up routine?

Al: That was funny.

Us: So we should vote wisely this November?

Al: Ayup.

Photo by Lee Edwin Coursey

How Should We Vote, Then?

Us: So, any advice on how we should vote in the election?

Al: A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Us: Are you saying “Don’t worry, be happy?”

Al: Never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate.

Us: Gotcha.

There You Have it!

If the smartest man, er–ghost, ever can’t sway your vote, who can? Leave me a comment about the election and how you’re managing to stay sane.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Einstein, Election, November, Presidential Election, Twitter

Need the Best Twitter Followers? Focus on Awesome Quality!

September 15, 2016 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

Need the Best Twitter Followers? Focus on Awesome Quality!

One of the top ten questions I hear from new users on Twitter: how will I attract influencers to my new account? If you want the best followers, then your focus must be on the best quality content, find the best accounts to follow or list, and have a highly focused strategy.

Here are a few basics.

Know Your Audience

Someone was talking to me the other day and said to me that the chocolate I was buying was a “chick magnet.” Putting the dumb sexist comment aside, why would I be interested in a “chick magnet”? Now, had he been talking to one of his guy friends over a beer, that comment might be more appropriate. Maybe. Same goes for what you write: make sure it’s something your audience would want to know.

Share Great Content

If you’re creating your own content, fantastic! As Clement Lim says, creating quality content keeps your audience coming back for more. If you show your audience something valuable or solve a problem for them, they’ll keep coming back. And the same is true with the tweets you choose.

My audience wants to know how to save time. So something like Social Media in 60 Minutes a Day could help my them, if I’ve been listening carefully. And my clients always say they want to spend less time doing their social media.

Use Search and Save Your Searches ©johnmoneypenny.com

Use Search and Save Your Searches

You can save your searches in Twitter, whether they’re for a hashtag, a keyword, or a combination. On desktop, search in the top search bar, then go to More Options–>>Save This Search.

Advanced Search

Did you know you can search for a topic, such as “Social Media” and then choose whether there’s an associated emotion with it? For the positive emotion, that would be a little smiley face “:)”. You can also search within a certain geographic area if you’re a brick and mortar. Use those saved searches to find people tweeting about what you’re interested in.

Create Lists!

If you get more than a couple of hundred followers, you will go insane if you don’t have lists! Find the best accounts and list them. For instance, you could create a list of locals, people who retweet you, or friends. Check in on them occasionally, especially when you’re looking for good content to retweet. You will save a ton of time, I promise!

Engage in Tweet Chats!

Engage in Tweet Chats

People who want to engage come to tweetchats. Find one that includes topics that interest you. You’ll find new followers, the time passes quickly, and as a by-product, you’ll also find new friends. At least that’s what happened to me. If you don’t know how, here’s how to participate in a tweet chat.

How Do You Find Good Accounts to Follow?

Tell me your secret ways. I promise I won’t tell anyone! Pinkie swear!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: advanced search, Followers, how to find followers on Twitter, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter followers

Donald Trump’s Prison in the Depths of Social Media Hell

August 18, 2016 By Carol Stephen 10 Comments

Donald Trump’s Prison in the Depths of Social Media Hell

Many news articles about Donald Trump describe remarks so horrendous that his PR team later tries to rewrite what he says, explaining how his remarks were “taken out of context” or that he was “joking.” When the news is horribly negative, (and it usually is), then it was “meant as a joke.” And then social media, controlled as it is by the “liberals,” takes the negative comment and makes it worse. If I were on Donald Trump’s social media team, I’d be worried about having to continually reframe The Donald’s words.

Has Social Media Helped or Hindered Trump’s Slide?

Like many others have postulated, it seems that The Donald may never have had any intention of being president. His comments are so envenomed that it’s unfathomable that he could ever really win. The Huffington Post has even suggested that Clinton take a break from campaigning, as doing nothing could help her win. And recently, Michael Moore, who just last week said that Donald Trump would probably win the presidency, now says that Trump “never actually wanted to win the presidency.” How has social media helped or hindered Trump’s rapid decline?

Mistakes Are Magnified on Social Media

At one time, maybe as recently as ten years ago, some of the things a candidate said could go unnoticed. The microphone wasn’t always on, as it were, and nothing would happen if a candidate made a faux pas. But now, with everyone having a cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter, any misstep is sure to spread faster than the Zika virus. So the magnification of any mistake can make the error look far worse than it actually is.

Google Trends: Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Google Trends: Donald Trump and Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Trump and Google Search

Although the number of Google searches might not indicate where the Donald ranks, it’s still interesting. As recently as March of 2016, the New York Times indicated that “Google Searches Point to a Strong Showing for Donald Trump.” Near the end of July, 2016, the Huffington Post reported that the search term “Donald Trump treason” showed a spike. And then there’s this interesting article about Trump responding to video claiming that Google skewed search results to be more pro-Hillary. And if any publicity is good publicity, then Trump is getting his fair share of Google searches. Although a search on “Donald Trump treason” which was recently trending doesn’t seem to bode well.

Twitter Fails

On the Twitter front, Forbes recently published an article about Trump’s Twitter account, “We all know that Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter rivals the Kardashians’. He has amassed over 10.7 million followers and sent over 32,000 tweets.” By any account, that’s a huge number of tweets. But is Trump’s presence on Twitter helping him when many of his tweets show such negativity?

Big Data and Tweets

To me the most interesting article about Trump and social media is this one that covers Trump’s tweets. Read the text analysis from the data scientist David Robinson, who does a comparison of the data from two different phones (Android vs. iPhone). And he claims that only some of the tweets, those from the Android, are from the Donald himself. And those tend to be the angrier ones.

Fascinating stuff.

David Robinson goes on to say: “Trump’s Android account uses about 40-80% more words related to disgust, sadness, fear, anger, and other “negative” sentiments than the iPhone account does.”

From the Horse’s Mouth

Trump complains on Twitter that newspapers can say whatever they want:

It is not "freedom of the press" when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2016

Sadly for Trump, when he tries to outwit his detractors, he seems to always lose. He may have so many followers because people want to see him stick his foot in it. And then threaten to sue. See the excellent article Top Trumps: Seven of The Donald’s biggest Twitter fails, including a few tweets of Trump defending his hair. Seriously? Yes.

Meanwhile, on Instagram

Over on Instagram, Trump has been waging a campaign ad trying to target Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky debacle. His campaign tries to insinuate that Hilary Clinton doesn’t protect women. Wired Magazine says that Trump is “winning” on Instagram by being himself, “But here and there you see the often unsavory linchpins of his campaign: the bullying, the bravado, and the bull crap. It’s unfiltered, every bit as sophomoric and occasionally vulgar as his rallies and tweets.” Of course, that was back in March. Now it’s August.

Maybe it’s true, as Liz Krokin says in the Observer that Tech Companies Apple, Twitter, Google and Instagram Collude to Defeat Trump. Still, could any of Trump’s detractors do any worse damage than Trump has to himself?

Your Turn

What do you think? Is the deck stacked against Donald Trump? Or is he spiraling out of control all on his own? Leave me a comment! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Apple, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Donald Trump search, Google, Hillary Clinton, Instagram, social media hell, Twitter

How to Avoid Bad News on Social Media and Keep Your Sanity

June 16, 2016 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

How to Avoid Bad News on Social Media and Keep Your Sanity

Those of you on social media know that being there too much can almost make you have ADHD. Here a squirrel, there a squirrel, everywhere a squirrel squirrel. Am I right? Oh, look! A squirrel! Seriously, though, how do you keep the omnipresent bad news at bay? Here are some ideas.

Use Lists

Vigorously maintain your lists in Twitter. Do not enter the mainstream every day, for that way madness lies. Clip unwanted accounts in your lists, like you would trim the unwanted branches of your beloved shrubberies. Chop out those on your lists with tweets you don’t like, and look for others you do like. You may want to take a deeper dive into using lists.

Photo by eflon

Hide Posts

Yes, you can hide posts in Facebook. You are not obligated to follow everyone’s sad, crazy story of how they were once beholden to the circus, forced to eat Spam, or nearly drowned that one time in Buenos Aires. Really. For some clues on when to do what, here’s a post about how to unfollow a friend without unfriending.

Photo by Loozrboy

Unfollow

Sometimes you need to unfollow people. If they always post bad news, if they badmouth others, if they sell sell sell! Those are good reasons to unfollow. You may have others. Also, if they haven’t posted since 1999, that’s a good reason, too. Why are you following them? And here is one of my favorite posts from friend Bridget Willard about your “safe place” on social media.

Get Outside

We all need a break from social media. Take a break every hour, two hours, or whenever you need it. Don’t follow someone else’s rules. Take a day or a weekend off. Heck, take a week off if you can! When you return, everything will look fresh.

Photo by mstearne

Post Less, Curate More

Maybe you could simply post less, but better stuff. Some accounts seem to post everything they find, rather than what’s perfect for their audience. If you curate, only the very best will get through your filter.

Focus on the Good News

There are some places that publish good news. Here are some of the best:

How Do You Avoid the Bad News?

Do you have the skin of a rhino? Does bad news roll off you like water off a duck? Leave me a comment! I’d love to know!

Photo by thirdblade

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: bad news, Facebook, good news, positivity, Sanity, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter lists

Five Quick Ways to Boost Your Social Media Listening

May 25, 2016 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

Five Quick Ways to Boost Your Social Media Listening

People are always complaining about the amount of noise there is on social media. Clients want to know how to cut through the tremendous ruckus and hear the good stuff. Here are some surefire ways to listen better.

Photo by darkday.

Twitter Lists for the Win

My number one piece of advice for new clients is to set up lists on Twitter. You can make them secret or public, but either way a list is how you can follow many people and listen to the best ones. For a deeper dive, here’s my post about lists for the power user.

Photo by telmo32

Google Alerts

Did you know that you could set up a Google alert for any keyword you like and then add it to a column in Hootsuite? Each Google Alert has an RSS feed. So for instance, if you have a Google Alert for your own name, you can add that. You could set one up for all the people in your startup so you can monitor who’s talking about you. Then put them into columns using HootSuite Syndicator.

Facebook Groups

You can have different groups on Facebook. That is, you can create groups of friends, people who are restricted, or those you’d like to see less of in your newsfeed. It’s already built into Facebook. So if your coworker is meddlesome, put him in a group other than “friends.”

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Personal Hashtags

You can create your own hashtag by typing a pound sign (#) in front of any word. Use it to organize a search or any time you want to be found. Make sure your content matches your hashtag. For instance, my chat on Twitter is #DigiBlogChat. For a deeper dive into hashtags, read the excellent The Only Hashtag Guide You’ll Ever Need.

Pinterest Guided Search

If you’re on Pinterest, use the guided search. You can pin from the feed, but a better way is to use the guided search. Listen to what people are pinning on a particular topic relevant to your business. Start with the highest-level (for instance, a hair dresser might search on “short hair,” then let Pinterest guide your search.

Local Search by Keyword

If you’re a brick-and-mortar store, you could search by hashtag to see what people in your area are saying. For instance #SF or #SanFrancisco. I search on #SantaCruz in Twitter quite a bit. Then retweet, repost, or comment on those posts. Brainstorm other keywords your ideal audience might be using.

Make Listening a Habit

Julian Treasure, in his wonderful TED Talk about listening better, recommends trying to listen to different channels to deepen one’s connection to the world around us. If you have a chance to listen to his video, please do.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Facebook, Followers, listening, Social Media, Twitter

How to Lose All Your Followers on Social Media

May 12, 2016 By Carol Stephen 12 Comments

How to Lose All Your Followers on Social Media

I almost called this “The Wonderful Art of Subtraction on Social Media,” because sometimes the best thing to do is to subtract. That is: unfollow, unfriend, and mute. After all, everyone wants more, more, more followers on social media. Isn’t that the whole point? Not always! Sometimes less is more.

Photo by cliff1066™

Same Old, Same Old

Lately I’ve grown tired of seeing the same stuff day after day, month after month. On Twitter, the accounts that spew quotes are the worst. My friends Mitch Mitchell and Terri Nakamura have been tweeting about it. How do those accounts get so many followers when all they do is broadcast quotes all day long?

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Spew quotes all day long.

@terrinakamura @Carol_Stephen Yup. I love quotes but if that's all they have to share I refuse to connect with them.

— Mitch Mitchell (@Mitch_M) May 6, 2016

Unfriending on Facebook

On Facebook, if I don’t remember where the heck we met, or if we haven’t had a conversation for a couple of years, off you go! I’ll bet they don’t remember me, either (even if to me, I’m the queen of the universe!). Wiki has a great list of reasons you might have been unfriended on Facebook and how to get over it.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Being offensive and way too personal is a good way to be unfriended. Right now, the political rant is also a great way to lose friends.

Photo by abodftyh

Unfollowing on Twitter

On Twitter, if there’s too much salesy stuff, and too many boring tweets, same thing: they get muted or unfollowed. Muted if the volume is too high and unfollowed if the tweets are tasteless. Partly the fault is mine. I may not have taken a good, hard look at the account when I first followed or followed back. But sometimes accounts change, too. Here are some Twitter Best Practices, by the way.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Drunk tweeting off topic is a fast way to lose followers. Also, sending direct messages asking for money is a fast path to being unfollowed.

Photo by davebloggs007

Disconnecting on Pinterest

Sometimes people post about too much of one thing, and it gets boring. Or, as in the case of someone I unfollowed this week–too many “sexy ladies dressed as animals.” Yeah, I know. Weird. I kept unfollowing one board after another, until finally–no boards at all! What a great day that was. If you want a primer on Pinterest, you might like this one: Pinterest: Top Ten Tasks and Power Tips.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Pin only photos of sunglasses. Or stuffed animals. And you’ll lose followers. Try it!

Photo by janoma.cl

Getting Unlinked on LinkedIn

Like Direct Messages on Twitter, sending salesy messages before getting to know someone is a no-no on LinkedIn, and a great way to lose followers. Today I got an email from someone I’d never had contact with asking me to buy their IT services. See ya! If you want to know how to prune the rose buds on LinkedIn, here you go.

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Send a lot of salesy stuff, before getting to know someone.

Photo by eelke dekker

Insta-Unfollowed on Instagram

On Instagram, a really great way to be blocked is to leave a comment on someone else’s post saying “follow me.” Don’t you hate that?

Fast Path to Losing Followers: Say you sell followers in a message on someone else’s post.

Who Have You Unfollowed Today?

If you’ve unfriended, unfollowed, or blocked someone today, why? I’d love to hear from you!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: failure, Followers, Instagram, less is more, LinkedIn, Pinterest, subtraction, Twitter, unfollowing, unfriending

How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways

April 7, 2016 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways

Since it’s almost Earth Day, it’s a good time to talk about recycling your content on social media. It’s also a very good time to prevent your brain from exploding. Recycling your content, as it turns out, is a very good way to prevent your brain from exploding. If you need other reasons to keep your brain from exploding, you might want to read: Content Curation: 5 Killer Reasons It’s Your New BFF.

Photo by Caden Crawford

Start with Your Blog

Your blog is like the torso of your efforts. Everything starts there. The “limbs” are the different social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. You may be a starfish, with five arms, or an octopus with eight limbs. Or maybe you’re a mollusk, with only one leg. But I digress. Create your content on your blog, with plenty of nice, fat keywords.

Recycling Tip: Go back to your older blog posts and see which can be rewritten. A slightly different slant can give new life to an old post!

Tweet Your Post

Not only should you tweet your blog post, but if you’ve done your homework and gotten some social capital, ask for people to retweet. “Please retweet!” you might say. And then pin that tweet to the top of your Twitter feed so anyone coming there can see it. If you don’t have social capital, this is an excellent post on Reciprocation from my bud Bridget Willard.

Recycling Tip: Retweet your own tweet later. That’s right. When the initial excitement of that tweet is over, retweet your own post again. You could use a different headline and a different image. Or not. Up to you. Guy Kawasaki repeats his posts, and here’s Guy’s strategy.

Photo by tian2992

Pin on Pinterest

You do have a blog board on Pinterest, don’t you? If you don’t, make one right away! And then pin your blog post there. You might also want to join a group board so that you can pin your wonderful writing there, too. Here’s how to join a group board.

Recycling Tip: If your pin doesn’t get repinned the first time, pin it at a different time and delete the first pin. Make sure you’ve added your key words to the description. You could also add it to a different board, at a different time.

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Facebook

Facebook is a little trickier, unless you post a lot every day.

Recycling Tip: Use #TBT (Throwback Thursday) or ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) to repeat old posts. And add some different text, for heaven’s sake!

Email Marketing

Remember that blog post? Take pieces of it and put it into your email newsletter. Maybe use a different image, from further down in the post, and add a sentence or two.

Instagram

Instagram has been taking off the last couple of years, with more people using it.

Recycling Tip: Regram your own posts, and change up the hashtags. Of course, recycle the hashtags, too!

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Google Plus

There’s some disagreement as to whether Google Plus is still relevant. Many Social Media Managers think that it isn’t. Most agree that it’s a ghost town, and that posting there helps with SEO.

Photo by jenny downing

YouTube

Videos are one of the best ways to get attention from your audience. Short videos, in particular work very well on social.

Recycling Tip: Chop up your video and reuse it in different ways. You could take a one-minute video and create three or four shorter videos.

Photo by CityscapeGUY

LinkedIn is often described as the “sleeping giant” of social media.

Recycling Tip: Share one of your favorite posts in a LinkedIn group at a different time.

Recycle Your Images

If you’ve created terrific images, you could recycle them. For instance, you could make a calendar from Instagram photos. Or Create magnets from Pinterest images.

Recycling Tip: Use this link, which friend Kittie Walker shared on Twitter (follow her on Twitter ~ @avidmode), to recycle your images from Instagram.

Photo by E. D’Ascoli Photographies

How Do You Recycle?

Do you recycle? How?

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: email marketing, Google Plus, Instagram, LinkedIn, newsletter, pin your tweet, Pinterest, reciprocation, recycling, social capital, Social Media, tweet, Twitter, YouTube

The Surprising Importance of the Offline Meeting

March 17, 2016 By Carol Stephen 16 Comments

The Surprising Importance of the Offline Meeting

People crave connections. While those connections may begin with an online conversation on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, the best connections morph into face-to-face meetings. People sometimes then move back online, and stay in touch for years, meeting online and offline over months and years. But the offline meeting is what forges the connection.

Photo by vramak

Brainstorming, Laughing, and Whispering

Brainstorming often occurs best in offline meetings, where people are talking, interrupting, laughing, whispering, and in general having a good time. Social media can provide a strong introduction–and you can feel as though you know someone you’ve met online. But you won’t truly know them as well until you meet them offline. For instance, someone you thought was the biggest extrovert IN THE WORLD could suddenly turn into an introvert. Has that happened to you?

Photo by milesmilob

Technology Can Only Go So Far

Although we have wonderful technology to bridge the distances between colleagues, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Blab sessions can’t replace the face-to-face meeting, where we can see people roll their eyes, tap their fingers in frustration, or stifle a smile. And many entrepreneurs may dislike online meetings, especially Baby Boomers. By the way, here’s my post about Baby Boomers and Social Media.

Photo by kevin dooley

Real-Life Meetings Drive Business

In an article from Entrepreneur, 3 Benefits of Meeting Face to Face, Katherine Duncan mentions that Simone uses a personal approach because it’s about “how you make them feel.” You’d never know without meeting in person that a serious person could be the class clown. Or that the class clown online is deadly serious offline. For me, meeting in person has led to more solid connections, and more business.

Photo by jeanbaptisteparis

Body Language

How a person stands, sprawls on a chair, or crosses their arms say a lot about what they’re thinking. None of that comes through online. In this article about The Surprising Power of Body Language, Ronald Riggio writes about how power poses and eye gazes can cause a shift in power. We all know someone whose body language is intimidating. And we all know that person who shrinks when you meet them in person. That first meeting in person is always a surprise.

Photo by PeterTea

Get Off Your Phone

Instinctively, we know that meeting in person helps build trust, although being connected to a smart (or dumb!) phone doesn’t. It’s similar to receiving a handwritten card in the mail–something unexpected and unusual, and a good way to stand out. Not to mention when you’re in person you can show off your good manners.

Face to Face Still Matters

One story stands out to me, and that’s the day a year ago that I met some online friends at WordCamp San Diego. Bridget Willard (You Too Can Be a Guru), my bestie, was going to see Heather Steele of Blue Steele Solutions, since Heather was speaking, so we all decided to meet up. Then we also got to meet Frank and Adam (also of Blue Steele Solutions). We all still talk about that meeting and the long dinner we had with Tracy Phillips and Chef Ivan Flowers. Even though it was a year ago, we all remember that day. Could a tweet go that far? Or a Google Hangout? I don’t think so.

Photo by reggiepen

Your Turn

Who have you met and how did that meeting surprise you?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: face to face meeting, Facebook, marketing, offline meeting, Social Media, Twitter

Twitter Spotlight: Follow People with Different Interests

March 10, 2016 By Carol Stephen 8 Comments

Twitter Spotlight: Follow People with Different Interests

Here’s a question that people always ask me: why should I follow so-and-so? His business is completely different than mine! Why would he be interested in what I do?

We Each Know 600 People

Although the number is always changing, the average number of people each of us knows is around 600, according to this New York Times article, The Average American Knows How Many People? And each of those people knows 600 people, too. So the odds of someone seeing your tweets grows exponentially when more people follow you.

Photo by Wesley Fryer

We Are Social Creatures

Back in the day, people might find articles and cut them out to send to each other. Now, people share links, tweets, and videos. So if your tweet, link, or video is easy to access, guess what? It could get shared by the right person. If your Aunt Betty sees your tweet about something her nephew is interested in, there’s a good chance she could share it. By the way, although you’re social, you might still enjoy the analytics behind Twitter.

Photo by anoldent

3.435 Degrees of Separation

We all know about the Six Degrees of Separation and the Six Degrees game that came after it. But on Twitter, that six degrees number is smaller. It’s either 4 or 3.4, depending upon who you talk to. There are lots of studies quoted on the Six Degrees of Separation Wikipedia entry. In other words, it’s easier to connect with people on Twitter than elsewhere.

Who Should You Connect with?

When you first get on Twitter, you might only want to connect with a few people. But once you get comfortable, why not connect with more people? For instance, I retweet things about packaging and manufacturing because a couple of people with those accounts have become friends. By the way, you might have missed my article: Twitter Lists for the Power User.

Need to Get Started?

Here’s a good five-minute video by my buddy You Too Can Be A Guru: Twitter in Five Minutes! Yes, it’s from 2011. It’s a classic. And while you’re on Twitter, follow her, too! (@YouTooCanBeGuru)

Who Have You Met Accidentally?

Serendipity often plays a role in meeting people. Who have you met by happy accident? Leave me a comment. And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: connecting, Following, Social, strategy, Twitter

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Reframing Information Overload

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Your Turn

Use Lists

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Unfollow

Get Outside

Post Less, Curate More

Focus on the Good News

How Do You Avoid the Bad News?

Twitter Lists for the Win

Google Alerts

Facebook Groups

Personal Hashtags

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Local Search by Keyword

Make Listening a Habit

Same Old, Same Old

Unfriending on Facebook

Unfollowing on Twitter

Disconnecting on Pinterest

Getting Unlinked on LinkedIn

Insta-Unfollowed on Instagram

Who Have You Unfollowed Today?

Start with Your Blog

Tweet Your Post

Pin on Pinterest

Facebook

Email Marketing

Instagram

Google Plus

YouTube

LinkedIn

Recycle Your Images

How Do You Recycle?

Brainstorming, Laughing, and Whispering

Technology Can Only Go So Far

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Body Language

Get Off Your Phone

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Your Turn

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We Are Social Creatures

3.435 Degrees of Separation

Who Should You Connect with?

Need to Get Started?

Who Have You Met Accidentally?

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