There’s a human behind this tweet

On most evenings @ScottATaylor tweets “Be Good to Each other, there is usually a human behind that avatar…”
which provided my contemplation to start this weeks blog post

I am currently working on a proposal for helping out a small automotive company who when asked about their differentiator as a business replied “ We are honest, we tell the client what they need to know, which is not always what they want to hear.”

I pondered on that for a while, as I like to do. The statement itself is not much of a unique proposition statement for a marketing strategy for business. But I did appreciate the humility and integrity with which it was delivered. However, if that were a tweet would it come across as just another lame sales pitch?

I have often been asked how should I or should I be segmenting my twitter streams business vs personal accounts? I want to be me, yet I want to promote my business. I also want to maintain a rapport with my business clients who may not appreciate my 200 tweets on my favourite personal subject of Face Gurning.

For example giving credit to @vernongirl for posting this in her recent blog article: Greater Vernon Chamber Manager Touts Twitter: “Val says, “One of the most valuable things I learned from Scott Davis, is that you have to be human on Twitter.” That is one of the reasons why Val did not set up an automated message on Twitter, why she does her own tweets and why she often retweets her members and, even, non-members. She also realized how Twitter could be an opportunity for some of her staff, including herself, to connect personally with members and potential members and for businesses to connect with each other.”

So how as a business do we approach the world of Social Marketing?

I coach for a few companies with their social media activities, and have tried several methods of twitter techniques.

1. I am a person who just happens to work for a brand
2. I am tweeting as a brand
3. I am tweeting as a person working for a brand

Jeremiah Owang also has some insight into this on his post: The Evolution of Brands on Twitter:

I believe that is all depends on how we paraphrase the content of our Tweets. For example, do we tweet by saying I/My was doing this or thinking this, compared with are we doing or are we considering.

Let me compare two Tweets:

1. Woohoo! My New 15″ macbook Pro has arrived! Have to wait an hour before I get home (via @mayhemstudios)

2. We’re cleaning the house! Rock Bottom pricing on select bikes, at invoice, don’t hesitate, Opus bikes, Commencal and Norco, (via @kelownacycle)

Tweet #1 is a very personal account of what this person is planning on doing. Tweet #2 is a business tweet promoting they have items for sale.

1. I am a person who just happens to work for a brand

If you consider that 90% of your updates and contents are going to have or are about ‘YOU’, such as in example Tweet #1 (as a person who just happens to work at or own a company), you will definitely find the greatest value in personal social interaction. There are many articles that you can read regarding how just being ‘YOU’ is a great way of using Social Media to it’s fullest.

8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter (via @smashingmag) Number 1. Above All, Keep It Personal from this article

Do You Separate Your Personal and Professional Twitter Lives? (via @performancing.com)

2. I am tweeting as a brand

If you consider that 90% of your updates are going to be about the collective ‘WE’, such as in my example Tweet #2 and the company wants to publish Sales, Reviews, Blog Post updates, consider tweeting under a brand logo. People will know what to expect, a news channel directly related to that brand. Consequently, have your company set up a company Fanpage on Facebook.

3. I am tweeting as a person working for a brand

The last option for consideration is if you are a staff member, and you are acting as marketing representative to your company through social media. Perhaps consider a twitter name such as “name_company”(for example scott_culturactive). Beforehand, make sure you know what the company policies and procedures are. And also consider asking if your company provides media and PR training.

Some other great Blog posts regarding how to set up social media for a business or as a person:

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business: (from @ChrisBrogan)
Top Ten Mistakes Businesses Make On Twitter (from @SharonHayes)
Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses (from @Mashable)

So remembering the words of Scott Taylor. Be Good to Each other, there is usually a human behind that avatar…..

As for me personally, I am very much myself under the avatar of @scottpdavis and you will find me tweeting like a maniac some days and not at all when I am trying to get work out or spending time with my family and friends. I try to share as much as I can about things that I find of personal interest and try to distribute items that people have been kind enough to share with me.

How do you use social media?  And what do you find has been working well for that business or organization you work at?

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Looking for Instant Gratification

The Miracle album by Rock band legend Freddy Mercury and queen was originally released June 6, 1989 featuring the hit song “I want it all”

With one of those choruses that gets stuck in the head

I want it all, I want it all
I want it all…..and I want it now!

You can watch the clip here (if you do want to get it stuck in your noggin for a while)

Just to take you back 20 years, here are a few historical highlights from around that time Courtesy of Wikipedia:

March 4 – Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger, forming Time Warner.
April 25 – Motorola introduces the Motorola MicroTAC Personal Cellular Telephone, then the world’s smallest mobile phone (just look at this Monster .
June 4 – The Tiananmen Square massacre takes place in Beijing on the army’s approach to the square, and the final stand-off in the square is covered live on television.
July 5 – The television show Seinfeld premieres.
August 14 – The Sega Genesis is released in North America.
December 17 – The first full-length episode of The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire“, premieres on Fox.

I think Freddy Mercury may have been on to something WAAAyyyyy back then. But was he talking about consumerism?
Was he talking about a new Motorola cell phone or the next episode of the Simpson. I doubt it, but we do know from the rest of the lyrics he was talking about the youth generation at that time.

Almost Twenty year later comedian Louis C.K. riffed on youth, consumerism and general impatience in this now popular YouTube clip

everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy show on Late Night with Conon o’brian oct 2008

I must admit I still laugh when I watch this video, because it is so true. But how unfunny do you think this video will seem in twenty years from now? (if we can still find the right archived media player to play it)

News is traveling faster than it has ever done before and much of this is fueled by the increase in Social Media platforms. By the time we have got to work we are already pretty savvy to the world after eating our instant cereal and checking our tweets and Facebook wall. Are we are seeing the decline in the newspaper, because we can’t wait for it to be printed?  I saw a reporter out on the street from one of our local online news sources Kelowna.com using his iPhone to take photos for immediate upload and instant coverage of today’s power outage.

While doing round table discussions at a business seminar the other week, somebody asked me if twitter was geared toward men. This stopped me in my tracks for a little while, and asked how they came to this conclusion. “Well it must be catering to the male short attention span with only 140 characters”, I had to chuckle at that one.

But really is this true, not so much the male thing (however please feel free to comment on that ). Is Social Media setting false expectation on everything else in life? Will our youth appreciate the finer things in life that we consider worth waiting for.

An quick example ( was in not fun to build a snow fort ?) This Instant Igloo inflates in two minutes and fits four children. It makes a perfect shelter for a snowball fight retreat or hangout for the neighborhood kiddies. Made from durable, crack-resistant PVC vinyl, it includes two clear surveillance windows, two inflatable snow shields, and two detachable flags, as well as a hidden emergency escape hatch for stealthy exits. Pick it up for $119.95. Earlier this year we would wait in line for a Starbucks coffee and pay through the nose for it, now they have instant, what is that all about? As Canadian’s it seems we will still wait in line at Tim Hortons for over half an hour to get a double double in the morning. But get mad we have to wait for an H1N1 Shot.

When it comes to business how is this going to affect us?

I was taught “under promise and over deliver”, but are we getting to the point of; if I can’t have it now I don’t want it at all? Is your company providing a service or product that can meet the demands of an overly anxiousness consumer? Are you thinking about this as a problem? Are you changing it up to better suit the young crowd?

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Let’s Talk Business or NOT!

This Thursday I will be talking in a round table discussion format with a great group of other industry experts about how to take your business to the next level.

I will hopefully be talking about something I know Social Marketing and how to integrate it into other Marketing campaigns you may; or I suppose may not be running.

But what I wanted to touch on was an area that I admit I am terrible at, and it’s something the other speakers are talking about, and that is Financing and Money.

Money effect’s our life’s and every part about it seems to affect us and our culture, from the moment we are born, even perhaps before that if you asked our parents.

I always say I wish my school was more advanced at the time and had allocated educational time to teach us naïve kids about money and financing. I’m surprised sometimes I can manage to balance a checkbook (Ok i admit this too, my wife does it). When it comes to the end of my business year and the sudden arrival and denial of accounting time that I’m almost in complete panic about what I should do, what I should have done as if it was a new thing and I had never done it before.

Personally I think financing is one of those things that I feel I should know a lot more about and that perhaps I have always been too afraid to ask for advice, because I believe it is such an important part in our lives and I should actually know this information.

It wasn’t until today that I heard one of the upcoming presentations for this Thursday mentioning specifically an approach to this problem, and that I may not be alone. That especially for businesses banks are looking for exact numbers and not just estimates out of the back of your mind ( I am good at making those up). And believe it or not that there are advisors, banks and normal people like you and me out there whose business is to help you find that information, and what to do with it, and help us benefit from the knowledge.

With the way the social interaction is changing, I believe this is an ideal opportunity to change that stigma of I don’t know what to ask when it comes to money and financing. That online world has presented us an open and somewhat unlimited and interactive forum in which to learn and ask questions about some crazy subjects such as paying bills, mortgages, registered retirement savings plans, stocks, financial investments and yes and probably the best way to balance a checkbook.

So if I filter out my spam tweets that are telling me how to make a gazillion dollars a day by tweeting, and follow some of the new links to financial blogs and blogs that have been produced by banks or investors that perhaps at the end of the year I may surprise my self and my accountant and at the least have my receipts put into the correct folders.

So my simple question to you is are you honestly afraid of money, banks, investments and how it is controlling your life. Do you wish the education system would have spent more time or given you more resources in getting you up to speed about what it would mean when you left school. Are you still looking for more interaction on how to manage your mortgage or how to successfully budget for the financial requirements of your monthly living? Perhaps a massive area that could have changed many lives is what you may need to know to start up a business or to go into a business venture.

Please let us know, are are you in control of the $$ or is it in control of you?

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Brand it or Feature It

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