Live and Learn…Social Media Style

Ever since the early days of the internet, you know back when we were all innocent, happily posting away, giddily anticipating as the square with the lightening (complete with sound effects) gave way to the one with the triangle…(or am I the only one who remembers the early days of dial up AOL?) There have also been warnings, few and quiet at first, becoming stronger and more dire as the years flew by…protect yourself and more importantly, your INFORMATION! Hackers are EVERYWHERE and they are looking for YOU!
As a college student I took the warnings with a grain of salt, taking the usual precautions: anti-virus software, awesome (I thought) passwords. Later as I became wiser and more involved with social media; I became a blogger, then later a public affairs officer and then a social media consultant; I became even more savvy to the evils of phishing, trojans, keystoke viruses and web/spider trawlers A.K.A. Hacker scum with nothing better to do than ruin your day, week, life…

However, as aforesaid social media consultant I had grown comfortable with my knowledge…a dangerous thing. I assumed I was safe..it would never happen to me…until it did.

Sometime yesterday my GMail account was viciously hacked. 623 emails (EVERYONE in my address book) was sent an untitled email with a link that appeared to be from Google but was actually a virus. Not only was this bad for my social life, but the emails that went out also went out to people I had sent resumes to, people that trusted me in my network (including government, politics, the military, social media and the entertainment industry) now all exposed for the world to see. The link was also conveniently posted to my Facebook, Posterous, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIN and FriendFeed pages just in case you somehow missed the email! I was not only angry I was mortified!
To top it off when I decided to be proactive and change all my passwords I discovered my Google account had been disabled for a violation of TOS (since my ADsense address is also in my address book, Google was also sent the virus!) And I guess they don’t appreciate that sort of thing.
Well I immediately contacted them, Facebook, Twitter and most of my other services to let them know what was going on. Thankfully Google did not take the most extreme measure which would be to ban me forever from all Google services, but I did get a really stern email about taking preventitive measures in the future which made me feel about two inches tall. And I of course had to send out about a million emails, tweets and posts to apologize for the hacking, which more than a few did not take lightly.
Well, what’s done is done. Did I learn anything? Hell yes. Am I a little humbled by my experience? Absolutely. Am I getting new virus software, changing passwords and encrypting the hell out of everything? Duh.

Live and Learn.

Should PR and Media Pro’s Offer Opinions?

I was recently contacted by Jess Todd about a particular controversy that I couldn’t help but weigh in on. For the entire encounter you can read over his blog, but in a nutshell he was basically lambasted for offering his opinions on a topic that he happened to know something about, rather than go the standard PR route. Those of you in PR know what I’m talking about, something  happens, or will happen and you send a release, the reporters call and you hand them off to an “expert” of some sort, or occasionally just someone else. Well what Todd did was streamline the process by contacting the media directly and simply stating that ” “as a media consultant, I have thoughts and opinions on the story and am available for interview or quotes.”

A few media outlets took him up on his offer and called him. Others however…went off calling his methods into question, accusing him of dictating what they should print, that it was their job to go find the “news” yada yada yada.

So this brings up a very good question. Is there a more efficient way to do things, some of the time? I have never been one to say that just because we have new methods we have to use them exclusively. However there have been many times when I knew I could make the reporter’s job a hell of a lot easier if I simply contacted them first with ALL the info they would need, rather than require them to have to go on a fishing expedition that they most likely don’t have time for anyway. So many story ideas get dropped for this very reason. Tight deadlines and stiff competition for space/time means that the days of the reporter who does all his or her own pounding of the pavement are long gone. PR professionals are here to help…so let us help. So to get back to the particular situation, which was his commenting on the resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner, he shot me an email saying he wanted my take on the situation and my response to him was this:

“I think you are actually right on the money. I used to work in-house PR sending out the standard releases and when reporters would call, it was always me putting them in touch with someone else, one more step for them to take, and not because I wasn’t qualified but because that was simply how things were done where I worked. We were PR people, and treated by management as having little value – just get the right people to the reporters. Well, having been in the media business myself, having worked as a social media consultant, I too have an opinion on many subjects. Am I always the best? No. Am I an expert at everything I like to talk about? No. But then I don’t claim to be either. I am simply someone with experience that knows a few things about what is going on in the world, especially if it has to do with social media, PR or wildlife conservation.”

Where is the best place for those of us who have become hybrids at what we do? Is there a time when being efficient becomes overstepping our bounds as PR and Media professionals? Professionally I find nothing wrong with what Todd did or the idea of offering our services straight out whether they be quotes, opinions, whatever help we can provide to reporters so that they can get their job done faster, better and with better quality. Isn’t that after all one of the core responsibilities of public relations?

I applaud Todd for staying on top of the newest methods of breaking through to media. In today’s lighting quick world, when a plane crash is faster tweeted than reported on the six-o-clock news, it is all too important that people like him, people like me even continue the all important work of media and social media research to make sure that the public is always well-informed.

Think I’m wrong? Right? Have your own opinion you’re just dying to share? I welcome your comments.

(image courtesy of PRtalknow.com)

Why I Will Never Stop Blogging

I just recently learned that I was accepted by Alltop – that I will be included in their listing, which is a great honor for me and so I felt that I owed them an explanation of why I love blogging and why I will never stop.

In all my years of writing I have always felt that there were certain limitations placed upon me. Whether by a teacher for a school assignment, an essay contest, a grant proposal, an editor, you name it. But with blogging…I feel that with very few exceptions I can be totally free to express myself.

I have always loved words. I guess I can thank my overbearing 3rd grade teacher in part for that one. I was quite the talker in grade school, always eager to shout out the answer whether I had raised my hand or not. Her punishment was to have me copy dictionary pages while sitting in silent lunch. Truth be told I spent nearly the entire third grade in silent lunch and had copied that dictionary (EVERY PAGE) twice by the end of the year. But I guess It really did me some good though since after that I was placed in advanced classes(primarily due to my excellent vocabulary) and never again received a bad grade for behavior….ever. Thanks Ms.Taylor!

Anyways, back to writing, even before that I was always writing poems, short stories or drawing cartoons. I had so much in my head that I wanted to share. Some people got it and others wished that I would spend a little less time in fantasy land and concentrate on math and science more. I didn’t care though and by the time I was in high school I was winning awards for my creative writing.

As anyone who has followed this blog knows I discovered blogging in college and a new outlet for me was born. All of the sudden I was free to write pretty much whatever I felt like. I have never pushed to monetize this blog, it is simply my way of expressing all that I have swirling around in my brain. I love talking about public relations, which in many ways is simply good story telling and this is how I do it. So therefore, no matter how few readers, I will NEVER stop blogging. I now operate five blogs actually, each with a different purpose, each with a different style and I love all of them. I hope that you have the chance to one day visit them all.

What makes things even better is that I have passed on my inherent passion for storytelling and writing to my children as evident in The Adventures of the Little Red Car, a story-blog I am co-writing with my children based on semi-true events.

I also write about the crazy adventures I had while serving as a public affairs officer for a wildlife conservation agency for nearly three years, an experience that led me to become a conservation ecologist.

Dancing to the Music in my Head is a deeply personal blog where I write about my family, my friends and what it’s like to just be a crazy creative soul in a topsy-turvy world that is not always open or accepting of people like me.

The last one, Teaching with Technology was started as this one was, as a class blog and is not updated as regularly as I’d like it to be but I hope to get back to it soon for  it serves a valuable purpose, that of helping teachers and other educators (even non-traditional ones) of using this wonderful thing we refer to as social media to further education.

So I hope you will continue to enjoy reading as I enjoy writing it for you. Until Next time 🙂

How Good a Story-Teller are You?

I hemmed and hawed for a couple of weeks over the subject of this post. I am right in the middle of several projects and quite frankly could have written about any of them but as I am going to be a guest lecturer in the one and only Professor Karen Russell’s Classroom this Friday I felt that topic of properly engaging an audience perfectly fitted the bill.

Okay, first a little background. Way back when I was a lowly undergraduate struggling along with the rest of my class to figure out where I was going in life, (I will admit to being a little more anxious than most of my fellow students seeing as I had about 10 years and 2 kids on most of them) I met a really cool teacher. For whatever reason, call it fate or whatever, we just sort of clicked. We had kids roughly the same age and we were both into this “new” social media revolution. She assigned the class to start a blog, and here five years later, I am still at it. I found something I love to do. Something I enjoy so much in fact that I actually have started several others for various reasons and have helped various non-profits set up ones of their own. Over the last five years, Karen has given me feedback, advice, and friendship and has rightfully earned the title of blogging mentor. Now on to the rest of this post.

I have been studying social media for the past four years. My teachers are people that you are probably pretty familiar with if you follow social media at all. I’m talking about Blog Bloke, Holly Hoffman, Tiffany Mollohan, Lisa Barone, Kelley Crane, Matt Chevront, Michael Margolis, Daren Rowse, Eric Qualman and course Chris Brogan. Some of these I met via Brazen Careerist, an awesome site that brings a whole bunch of us bloggers together regularly in a comfortable forum where we can bounce ideas off one another and share both good and bad ideas. Others I’ve met only in passing, either through Twitter or one of my blogs but I can honestly say that I’ve learned something valuable from each and every one of them.

Recently I have been reading a fantastic book by Annette Simmons entitled “Whoever Tells The Best Story Wins”. When I first started reading it, I will admit it was out of pure curiosity, being a writer and a storyteller by trade. By the time I realized it was actually a book geared towards marketers I was enjoying it so much that I kept right on reading, figuring that the lessons learned could very well apply to just about anyone who makes a living from stringing words together, whether in a sales pitch or an article in a magazine.

So how does this apply to social media? I mean this post is about what I plan to talk about as a THE guest speaker for the 5990H class at the University of Georgia on Friday so I guess I should get to the point.

Social media is like any other media in that those who have the gift of being able to intuitively tune in to their audiences are going to be the most successful. To be able to do this you have to be able to suppress your natural inclinations towards objective thinking, you know the type of thing that has been ingrained into us since we were barely knee-high. This idea that everything must be logical, must have a justifiable cause and effect. This thinking will only slow you down when it comes to getting in tune with those who will ultimately become your bread and butter.

Lost yet? Here is an example. say that a particular client loves the color red, songs by Bach and moonlit walks along the beach. You have been hired to create a social media campaign for a new brand of breath fresheners. Objectively speaking the clients subjective whims have nothing to do with the product. But putting objective aside you decide to do a couple of independent online surveys to see if any of the target audience may also have similar associations with their breath freshener products. 

As it turns out, your cleverly worded survey brings in surprising results. Putting objective numbers and statistics aside you decide to run with your campaign which features individuals being carried away by their breath fresheners….taken over in a dream like state. The video shorts were posted on YouTube and the Twitter and Facebook campaign solicited consumers to send in their own experiences with their favorite brand of X breath freshener, whether it be a magical proposal moment or just a fun moment.

The client was impressed.  They had expected a presentation of numbers, target markets, graphs and the like.Objective stuff.Instead they got a series of stories told right from the mouths of the consumers, The subjective. What better way to sell a product than to tell a great story. One that can be repeated over and over again.

So I ask you. How good a storyteller are you?

Using your Backstory to Shape your Online Persona

“Everyone is a storyteller”  –Michael Margolis

I recently had the privilege of listening to a webinar broadcast from SXSW 2011 (where I so wish I could be right now) by the author and master storyteller, Michael Margolis. Despite tuning in a little late, the first comment I caught really made me sit up and pay attention; and that was that as social media entrepreneurs we are all essentially storytellers, that our success or failure depends on our ability to relate our story to our audience.

As a trained journalist, Communications & Outreach Specialist, PR pro and freelance writer by trade this totally made sense to me. after all, isn’t it my job to relate to those who I am working with by finding the common ground, by sharing my story in the hopes that there will indeed be a shared empathetic connection?

I think his primary point was to use your “back-story” to shape your online persona, the parts of yourself that you put out there for others to either accept, judge or completely ignore. The idea that we can reinterpret a past event through new perspectives and may even learn something new just made total sense to me. After all, don’t we all live according to a certain revisionist history to a point anyway? Seems to me that as we look back on what made us who we are, we may even learn something new to add to the story.

So what’s your back-story? I’m thinking that I can totally be a superhero if I want to be. I did after all graduate early, make it through college with honors while a single parent (at least in the beginning) and then became known for my social media knowledge through rigorous self tutelage (thanks @blogbloketips, @socialmediatoday, @socialguide and @HollyHoffman for that!)

So maybe from now on I am going to work on developing my back-story. Interested? Well you don’t have to take my word for it. You can download the free e-book “Story Manifesto” or buy your very own copy from the Get Storied website.

So What’s your back-story and how do you use it to engage with your clients? I’d love to hear all about it!

Blogger’s Little Helpers

I recently came across a little thing on Twitter that many may already be familiar with but which I had only seen occasionally and never really followed up on. A little thing called the Follow Friday helper.

Apparently there are several of these services in existence and they all work mostly the same way. They analyze your Twitter account and then give you suggestions for your #Follow Friday listings.

At first I thought, wow, what a neat idea. I registered and then pressed the magic button to see what suggestions it would give me. Now I am not knocking the followers it listed. They were all great and the good thing about the service is that is does give you justification for why it chose that person. Either they mentioned you, RT’d you, or somehow or another engaged in a lovely act of reciprocity that garnered them a nod from the algorithm used by the Follow Friday helper program.

What I noticed however is that the main people it suggested are the people I tend to talk a lot with on Twitter. Again, not that I wouldn’t recommend them…I usually do. But that isn’t what I generally use my #FF listings for. When the time rolls around for me to make suggestions I really try to make it personal.

Maybe I am still idealistic (or maybe I am just not huge and famous enough) but I still take the time to go back through my list of 500 or so followers and look for those that had something interesting to say over the past week. Something that caught my attention, or someone who needs a boost – maybe they are really awesome, have a ton of potential but just need a few people to help push them into the spotlight. I love it when I do that for somebody. Everybody needs a little good karma now and then.

So it seemed to me that by automating the process it was impersonalizing it as well and I am not into that. Maybe one day, when I have millions of followers…I would consider it but at the same time it seems like the same argument as the automated welcome message debate.  Those who are successful will tell you that having an automated welcome message is a big NO-NO. It turns people off. If someone decides to follow you, it is because they saw something they liked. If you can’t be bothered to welcome them, send a quick hello without a sales pitch, or an auto-DM, then maybe you really are not worth their time after all.

I know what you are thinking, if I sent a message every time I got a new follower I would be tweeting constantly. Well I don’t do that either. I keep track of my new followers using a column on my Tweetdeck. Then once a week or so I send out a welcome to my new followers, thanking them for following me. Takes maybe five minutes of my time.

Therefore, while some of these services might be neat, I think that I will stick with doing my #FF’s the old-fashioned way, and keep things personal. After all, just because you are online doesn’t mean you are not reaching out to people.

What do you think? Do you use any blogging/Twitter “helpers”? Where do you fall on the automation debate? Is there a point where using a service becomes necessary?

Not everyone (or thing)needs or wants your help

I just want to help…

So the idea for this post literally came to me when I was driving to the store to buy more children’s Tylenol to care for yet another ear infection in our household.

It had been raining all day and the creeks were overflowing their banks creating tiny rivulets of muddy runoff across the road as I drove. I noticed something in the road and in a split second recognized it for what it was, a turtle. I pulled over, hit the flashers and pulled my hood up, ready to help the defenseless reptile.

I got about a foot from the animal when I realized two things very quickly. First, he was much larger than I had realized at first. Second, he was no garden variety turtle. He was pointy, quick-moving and at the moment entirely pissed off that he was being disturbed by me. Oh, and he was also a snapping turtle.

I stood there in the rain debating. I didn’t want to just leave him. But at the same time, he was hissing and turning in circles following my every move. I finally decided to nudge him just a little bit with my shoe. Wham! he snapped so fast I am surprised he didn’t take my shoe with him. At this point several cars had slowed down to observe the ridiculousness of my attempts to “help” this turtle. I was soaking wet, and feeling thoroughly chastised.

The take away message is one that those of us in conservation tend to forget. We get so caught up in trying to “save” or to “help” that we often forget that there are times when it is best to simply do nothing. Many species have been getting along just fine without us and will continue to get along just fine without our help. Not that we don’t need to engage in conservation, we certainly do, every single day. But in the grand scheme of life, we can not be nor should we stress out about being responsible for every species that crosses our path, especially when many that do, are very capable of getting across the road just fine without our help.

A lesson well learned.

Staying Innovative is Crucial for Conservation

With so many non-profits and NGO’s, not to mention all the state and federal agencies vying for a piece of the continually shrinking resource pie, it is no secret that to remain in the conservation game, being innovative has become a critical component for survival.

The old stand-by tricks of the trade are no longer returning the numbers they used to which is part of why so many have turned to using social media. But just “using” social media or creating a social media plan is not enough.

In order to stay ahead of the game, you have to almost stay ahead of social media, a nearly impossible task. That means having at least one or more dedicated staff members that just work on social media campaigns, not just a summer intern. They stay current on what’s out there, using valid search methods and make sure your organization is represented on all the major social networks where it is relevant to be present.

But as the great Cat in the Hat said, “that is not all, oh no, that is not all.”

Twitter and Facebook, while important are considered the norm by today’s social media standards. To stay ahead and keep today’s 5-second attention spans on your web sites (and hopefully clicking on your donation buttons) you have got to have an innovative approach. You need something that will not only capture attention but then nudge them to act upon an impulse. Not an easy task I know (In fact I am currently working on a thesis about this very topic so please feel free to comment, I need all the help I can get!!)

First take a look at this list. I found it while perusing a great blog called NowSourcing and although a bit dated, it has some tremendous resources.

Next take a look around you and ask a few key marketing and demographic questions. Who are you trying to reach? What kind of sites do they generally frequent? What is your key demographic. Most organizations have access to this type of information and can sit down and come up with a list pretty easily.

Once you have your list, it is time to get creative. Brainstorm all the ways (in 140 characters or less if you can) that you can appeal your organization’s latest achievement to all the different demographics you listed. Try humor, trivia, promotion, a plea, whatever and see what you come up with. The point is start getting the creative juices flowing.The upside of this is that if you come away with anything really good, it is already pre-packaged for Twitter!

Once you are feeling a little looser, take your demographic and start researching some new networks where you might be able to connect with them. Depending on the type of organization you are a part of this could be Care2, GovLoop, GreenWalla, etc. Again be creative. Enter some key words into a few search engines and see what pops up, whether they be blogs, web sites, online magazines etc. Make a note of these search results and where you can begin to interact. Don’t hide your identity, the point is to get your organization’s name out there, to show you have an interest where your customers/constituents are spending time.

Okay, so you have a pretty good idea where your audience is spending their time and you’ve created a decent, maybe even humorous list of possible tweets/pitches for your organization. Now for the next step – to find out who is already talking about you and plug in.

Similar to the keyword search you used before, you will be using some social media tools to locate just how far your actual reach is on the web using klout, backtweet, twitter reach etc. A great discussion of these tools can be found here. What these will do for you is to help you determine just how influential you are being with your current campaigns, and where you may need to beef up your efforts.

So hopefully this short refresher has helped you but please note that this is a continuing work in progress. What additional ways do you stay on your toes in the name of conservation?

I Make Mistakes Everyday…And I’m Okay With That.

Okay, so I’ve been absent from the blogging scene for a while. Not that I haven’t been around; I’ve made a point to keep up with my social networks, commenting, tweeting, having some fabulous conversations with some of my fellow bloggers and perusing some new social media applications, making notes for my ongoing research. But as for actually writing a post of my own, I’ve come up against a wall.  Today after some Tweeting with the BlogBloke about whether or not to be controversial (I generally open my mouth when I shouldn’t, he was toning down a post), and catching up on emails I read a great post from Copyblogger about inspiration that ended up giving me just the push I needed. The post referred me to a site called The Quotations Page among other ways (music, reading great authors, leafing through magazines) to break through writers block when you feel like you just can’t write one more line. So I hopped on over the site and one of the first quotes to pop out at me was this one.

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.” – Mark Twain

I tend to be one of those that rushes forward, excited, into new situations feeling and learning my way along as I go. On one hand I tend to learn a lot this way and have a great deal of practical hands-on experience in many different areas of life. On the other hand, I have made many mistakes and incurred several injuries along the way.

However, having said that, I am proud to say that I live with no regrets for the way I live my life. I make mistakes,  I learn from them and then I move forward. Always move forward.The important part as the quote so eloquently points out is admission though. Most people don’t like to admit when they’re wrong. They will go to great lengths to hide every little flubb up. I include myself when I say that as I too have been guilty of posturing on more than one occasion. But there is wisdom in that quote.

If you go ahead and admit the mistake it tends to confuse others. I think it is true that most people expect you to try to get out of it, so by admitting you have done wrong, you leave them scratching their heads and then you look incredibly wise and on top of things. (I’ve even heard it can be a great way to get ahead in business, as long as you are not a constantly messing up.)

So what am I taking from this little lesson? I am going to try to admit to a few more mistakes. Who knows, maybe this will be just the crack in the wall I need to get the creative juices  flowing.

Thank goodness for Mark Twain. How would we ever Blog without him?

Photo courtesy of Creative.com

Being Green in Theory v. Practice

I must say that I am so tired of getting pile after pile of JUNK mail from groups (that for the sake of this post shall remain nameless…well that and I happen to be a card-carrying member of a few of them) that claim to want to save the planet in some form or fashion, whether it’s dirty coal one day or drowned polar bears the next…they fill your mailbox with pleas for your hard-earned dollar but seem to ignore one of the most basic and vital resources known to mankind as a species…clean air…produced in part by the very trees (some of them OLD GROWTH) cut down so that they could mail out their solicitations, most of which will never even be read, much less recycled and will likely wind up in some landfill taking up even more space and causing even more problems for these groups to complain about creating a new impetus for them to send out a whole new round of solicitations about these “new” problems to an uninterested public!

Whew! What an opening rant…

Ok, now let’s get serious folks. Yes I may be a hard-core environmental fanatic, but I make mistakes, have my failings, am outright lazy once in a while.(I sadly admit that even I have thrown away recyclable items without a twinge of remorse when tired, in a hurry with screaming toddlers strapped to both hips….) But, for the most part, I am working to be a responsible citizen, not just of my community, or even my country, but of my planet. I try to instill in my children the basic moral principles that less is more, and that homemade is from the heart. We avoid the big box retailers when possible, rarely eat junk, recycle regularly, endure the dirty looks we STILL get as we haul our cloth bags, walk more than drive and bundle up rather than crank up the thermostat.

Despite all these efforts, they can’t seem to avoid the barrage of mail we receive on a near daily basis asking for our support (which means money) and the really slick and cool ones promise that if we respond in 30 days we get a lovely reproduction 1930’s explorers backpack! How cool is that??

Just make sure you read the fine print…(you know the one that tells you that in exchange for that awesome backpack, only 5 cents of your $30 donation will actually help save the imperiled penguins, drowning polar bears or whichever cause it happens to be this month.)

Now please don’t assume I am bashing the wonderful work done by such groups as the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy or the World Wildlife Fund. As a contributing member I do receive an annual report each year with an informative breakdown of how their money is spent each fiscal year. I study those charts and graphs ( and I am NO math major) and think to myself that a better use of such a  large chunk of  the money dedicated to marketing (to gain new members, raise more dues, and other advertisements) could be better spent on actually reaching out to college advocacy groups (the ones that are not afraid yet to write their congressmen and women and march on Washington in protest), providing grants to grassroots groups making real changes in communities,  etc.

To me it just makes more sense to spend that large  ( and I do mean large….well it is certainly many times more than I and probably most of my entire  staff make in a single year, but then I am a state employee so I guess I am probably not the best example to go by)

So for those of you out there…what are your thoughts on this???  Even using 100% recycled paper, should these organizations cut back their marketing and PR funding and maybe divert that money elsewhere where it might do more good? Please leave your comments below and let me know the following:

1. Should these organizations reallocate their funding  to include more grassroots/ college advocacy movement workshop/events?
2. Do These groups spend too much on marketing/PR/postage/etc?
3. Is adequate research being done to ensure quality ROI for money and time spent?

I look forward to your time and answers. and if you feel more comfortable sending a more in-depth but private response, please feel free to email me a personal response.

I look forward to putting together these answers and then crafting a very nice letter to the presidents and CEO’s of some of these organizations, many of which I have faithfully supported in excess for more than 20 years. I want to know just how MY money has really helped (if at all beyond padding his or her salary while I struggle to feed my family) and whether or not they are truly following their own green  advice in both practice as well as theory…..

Until we meet again…..