Facebook Maine Summer Party – Friday August 28th
I just sent out invites this morning and wanted to include you as well. If you live near Portland, Maine I’d like to invite you to an event I am hosting called “Facebook Maine Summer Party”. Myself along with Karla Gilbert and Rebecca Daigle do these almost every month and it’s a great way to connect, socialize and meet new friends. I started Facebook Maine really as a way to bring people together, not a networking event (although plenty of that happens) but a more casual atmosphere that is geared toward making connections, not unlike Facebook itself. The Facebook Maine group has almost 4000 members and has gotten some great press and TV coverage, so if you are in the area please stop down and say hi. We’ll have a delicious free appetizer buffet and refreshing drink specials. And we’ll have a lot of fun! Did I mention that? 
Check out some pics from our past Facebook Maine parties.
For more info, video clips, news and party pictures visit:
http://www.FacebookMaine.com
Facebook Maine – Summer Party
RiRa Irish Pub – 72 Commercial St.
Downtown Portland
Friday, August 28th / 5:00pm – 7:30pm
SAVE THE DATE!
Come and relax in the lounge for good conversation and connections, bring your friends. If your friends are not on Facebook yet, come anyway! It’s the perfect time to learn all about it.
For directions visit – http://www.rira.com/
On-street parking + parking garage right next door at Casco Bay Parking Garage.
See you all on August 28th!
Cheers,
Franklin McMahon
http://www.facebook.com/franklinmcmahon
(Are we friends yet? Add me!)
Also visit:
http://www.TwitterMaine.com
http://www.LinkedInMaine.com
No Tech Weekends – Unplugged And Off The Grid For Two Days
I’ve been experimenting with doing no tech weekends, instead of constantly checking Facebook and Twitter, looking at email and news, actually scaling down to nothing by avoiding using laptops, social networks, tech in general. Imagine doing social things and not having an eye on my iPhone during conversations, going on outdoor hikes instead of inside with my eyes fixed on a flat screen, just trimming it way down to almost nothing. I say almost, because it is tough to go cold turkey, but a dramatic reduction is not that hard. I’ve learned a few things along the way during this tech elimination.
As for news, not much happens over the weekend, so things that are posted online tend to be pretty fluffy. I find most critical things I may want to know happen on Mondays and Tuesdays. E-mail is also not critical typically. I recently read an article where a CEO never checked e-mails on the weekend. He reasoned that if he did, he would start answering them. And if he started answering them, clients and associates would be notified that they can and would reach him on the weekends and get a response. As for social networks, the more you interact the more reaction you get. So if you don’t post and comment, you typically don’t get much for responses, which trims things way down.
The one item I would suggest is to have everything ready for Monday, ready on Friday. Unless you have your task lists and items completely covered and scheduled, your mind will keep running about work all weekend, which defeats the whole purpose. Ever leave for vacation on a Friday? You work so hard all that day to have everything buttoned up that when you set off your mind is free and relaxed and ready to have some fun. Imagine having that feeling every weekend? What has happened to me is that I approach Monday and the work week with much more renewed energy and excitement. I am recharged and ready to roll. As opposed to working though the weekends and having a never ending cycle, which can cause burnout. This may not work for everyone, but I am guessing that it could. Give it a tumble, if you think you can’t not work weekends because of client commitments, start to rethink the efficiency of your actual work week. Try going tech free for a stretch and see how refreshing and recharged it can make you.
Do you go tech free now? Can you do it?
Top 5 Twitter Marketing Mistakes
I’ve been thinking a lot about Twitter lately and I see some patterns that could be improved and tweaked, with myself and others. These suggestions will be tough for some of you to take, so feel free to tell me otherwise, I don’t have all the answers (see actually..I only have 5) so let me know. Here are some thoughts about how to avoid some of the downfalls, from using Twitter too much to not using Twitter at all:
1. You Use Twitter as Your Only Marketing Avenue
Twitter is a resource in your toolbox just like any other network, but keep an eye on where your demographic is. Are they actually on Twitter? Are the decision makers who may be hiring you on the service? Often the larger clients who you really need to connect with are not on Twitter. They could be too busy or perhaps their company is not up to speed on the tool. Don’t use Twitter in place of an actual marketing plan. It needs to be part of a group of initiatives you have in play, using it as a singular avenue to reach your audience probably does not make much sense.
2. You Level Off the Networking
After you get rolling with Twitter you will begin to connect with old friends and new as well as potential clients. It’s fun to chat throughout the day and see what everyone is up to, but still keep focused on expanding your network. Instead of just adding new people hoping they will follow back, start responding to new users. Begin conversations. You cannot directly message someone who is not following you, however if you are following someone you can certainly strike up a conversation. Simply reply to their posts. Your response will show up in their mentions. Twitter is an amazing sea of possibilities, remember to explore that aspect daily, as opposed to just connecting and reconnecting with the same users day after day.
3. You Learn It Then Fade
I attend and host a lot of professional and casual networking events and I am amazed at the amount of people who, when I ask if they are on Twitter, reply with “Sorta..”. They’ve heard about it and signed up, added a few peeps, but then did nothing else with it. Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool but it’s only as powerful as you make it. It does take time to invest in it and like anything else the payoff is more down the road as your network grows. Stick with it. Spend some time with it each day and start to work it. Reply to people, add new friends, pose a question to everyone. You’ll start to see things happen and build. Everything happens in cycles and Twitter is in a high cycle right now of popularity, so now is the time to take advantage of it.
4. You Use It as a Productivity Pause Button
I turned off the notifications that let me know when someone new is following me (BTW if you want me to follow you and I am not, leave a comment or email me). I found that if I needed to check e-mail I would also get new Twitter notifications, to which I would stop what I was doing and explore to see who this new person was. This lead to a path of distraction from projects that I was taking far too often. I also used to keep Twitter up all the time on my second monitor, just to keep an eye on things. Again this was a constant distraction that while it was fun to monitor, it constantly pulled me away from the main tasks at hand. I used to think multitasking was a great skill to have, I now see it as a way to drag down the progress of the entire day, expanding and pushing my work day later and later. I now exit email, exit Twitter and Facebook, let the answering machine field calls, etc. This is hard for people to do, and indeed it is just as hard for me. And for anyone who loves Twitter, the thought of turning it off can be sacrilegious. However I find now when I do make time for Twitter I enjoy it much more because I don’t feel the subconscious guilt of being pulled away from things. Again this won’t work for a lot of people, but turning off Twitter for a few hours and crafting something like a new blog post can be amazingly refreshing. Most of this blog is about producing content for an expanding audience to ramp up your career, so use Twitter to advance that career but don’t let it pull you too hard away from actually building your empire. Humans are hardwired to seek out new things and to want attention. Twitter fits both of these needs almost perfectly, but always remember you have bigger fish to fry.
5. You Actually Don’t Use Twitter
Now I am not talking about someone who has signed up and has not really worked it too hard, I am addressing those who are against Twitter on principal. They may see it as a waste of time, or discount it, thinking that it’s a bunch of people chatting about what they had for breakfast. Or perhaps they just don’t understand it yet. Having been on Twitter for several years I have seen it change and evolve and as much as I talk about using it in moderation and not using it in place of real marketing, I still think it’s a great tool than can be very powerful in hooking you up with connections across the globe. I have gained fans, clients, speaking engagements, big projects, new friends and much more with the tool and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Like any tool or network, you have to put some work into it to get something out of it. If you are reading this now you are probably pretty hip and may be on Twitter already, in that case become a mentor to a newbie, tell a friend about Twitter, get them on and guide them through it. I do this often and it’s rewarding to see how far people go with it. If you are not on Twitter, ask someone who is on it that you know, learn the ropes from them. If you have a Twitter account but never did anything with it, fire it back up and work it. The biggest Twitter marketing mistake is to not use Twitter to extend your network, fan base, promotional avenues and social grid. In the social networking realm as of right now, Twitter is at or near the epicenter. Now is the time to not only jump on board, but to work the tool to your advantage.
My 9000 MySpace Friends
I was wondering about my MySpace friends the other day, wondering what they were up to. I don’t get on there as much these days. You can however find me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It was not so long ago that all the social media experts were saying that the focus is on MySpace, it is the place where your business and your brand really need to be. Before that it was, you really need to be on Second Life, that is where your brand needs to be, in a virtual world. Before that it was, your company needs to be blogging, you cannot run a business without a blog. Oh the memories.
Since things seem to work in cycles, how can we prevent our current networks from being old news a few years from now? Actually I am not sure we can. But I am sure that they will not fade too quickly either. Twitter is a great tool for networking and real-time conversations, Facebook utilizes rich media like video, audio and photos to provide more of a showcase for whatever you want to promote, while LinkedIn continues to be more of a professional atmosphere, focused on connecting business people through discussions and linking.
Current social networks have also learned a lot looking at the history of MySpace. They don’t want to make some of the mistakes that have happened to that site, such as interface and user experience.
I think the thing to do is to create a brand that transcends any current network, one that can be immediately applied to whatever the latest social network is. It’s funny, everyone was so passionate about MySpace, but now, it’s old news. Some of the current networks may face similar fates. It’s all about communication. When a better communication option comes up, people will typically move to it.
I always tell people to be aware and on the lookout of what the next big thing will be, as opposed to jumping in later when everyone else does. If you wait that long, you will be in lots of very crowded markets and communities. The “Next Facebook” is probably being developed right now, so keep an eye out for it.
Lately the cool thing to say is “I deleted my MySpace account, I am done”.
Not so fast.
Since most things do happen in cycles, I see a phoenix-like rebirth of MySpace down the line. It is a huge network that is not going to sit by and watch these new networks grab all the glory. I have no idea how or when it will happen, but it does make sense that it will.
It may be funny to think that you will be on MySpace again daily in the future (even if you are not Dane Cook) but keep in mind, 60 million people are on it this month. That is a big network that I don’t see suddenly vanishing.
Live in the social media moment, but do keep an eye on past tools you have used, they may make a comeback. And look for the next big thing, getting in early could be a huge benefit.
Finally since I don’t get on MySpace too much, I just wanted to give a shout out to my MySpace peeps. Friends, I salute you. I may be seeing you sooner than I think.
Are you still using MySpace? Do you prefer it to say Twitter or Facebook?
Have you moved on from MySpace? Will it indeed make a comeback?
Real Twitter Spam Begins?
I had always hoped social networks would be pretty locked off from spammers. At least that was the dream. However this morning I tend to feel different. There was a Twitter user, spammer, who I am not following and who is not following me. However what they did was put in their message, which was merely an affaliate link, the names of other users. They put myself and several others. So that way it would show up in my mentions. It would also come up with any search on my Twitter username, that I did, or anyone else did. As Twitter users we are fairly focused on our mentions, so this is pretty concerning. In fact, although I can block or unfollow someone, there does not seem to be anything in place to disallow anyone from mentioning my name.
Has this begun to happen to any of you? What could be the cure for it?
4 Steps To Take Social Media To The Streets
There is no doubt that the interconnected web of social media has probably produced an abundance of new contacts for you. You are connecting with more people than ever as well as conversing back and forth with many in your local area you have never discovered before. But try to take it to the next level. Go from online to in person. As well as you seem to know someone online, you could get to know them even better when you actually meet. Of course this is tricky if someone is on the other side of the world, but if someone is right in your area, or perhaps even an hour away, there are great opportunities to connect. Here are some tips on meeting in person:
1. Meet People Not In Your Industry
The common path is we gravitate to people who are doing the same things as we are. There is much to talk about and it’s always fun to trade stories. But it’s when you start to meet up with people who are not in your industry that you really begin to expand your scope. Even if there is not a lot of common ground at first, you may meet with someone who seems to be totally unrelated but you find much to discuss. This wider scope almost always provides a better pathway to success, either in the form of clients or just informational. Or even developing a new longtime friend. I have met with people and discovered entire industries I had little to no knowledge of, some of these industries I am involved in now, so you never know.
2. Meet People More Successful Than You
It’s always a mix, but set up some meets with people who are really succeeding. Being around these people on a higher level really can not only get you thinking in new directions of achievement but it also forces you to excel just to keep up. If it is a potential client, you may be surprised that they want to work with you, which may also help you ramp up your skill set in a short amount of time.
3. Don’t Just Talk Shop
It’s always good to talk about common things, but always float in a few questions aimed at finding out who the person really is. This could be hobbies, causes, interests…people are complex with lots of layers. Diving in to some off the grid conversations can really illuminate the proceedings. If all else fails you can ask them what they do for fun. Often you will be amazed at some of the things people are in to.
4. Follow Up
Keep the momentum going. There are some people who have meets all the time, one after another. Really it’s best to develop a relationship and keep the flow going, as opposed to jumping into the next meeting. You’ll find that even if you don’t have an initial connection, if you keep the conversation going and keep the person in your circle, new things will come up that had not surfaced at first. A circle of contacts is like a circle of clients, with clients you may not work with one and then jump on to the next, you probably work with many on a continuing basis, along the way discovering more about them and their needs. Do the same with contacts, focus more on getting to know them as opposed to jumping to the next one.
Every person you meet is a doorway to a whole new world. But if you run around quickly peeking into doors you’ll never get the whole story. Spend some time, expand your contacts and get to know them better, you may be amazed at what you find when you move from online networks to in person connections.
http://www.FranklinMcMahon.com
How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Social Media Content?
Aside from the fact that social media websites provide an amazing opportunity to get your content out to a mass audience, the downside is that you are typically accessing a free service that has the ability to terminate your account at any time and for any reason.
Most of the time you’ll never run up against this, unless you abuse the social media web site’s general rules. But their rules may surprise you.
For example, on both Facebook and Twitter, if you add friends rapidly, clicking to add multiple people in a set amount of time, you could get a warning that you are “adding friends too quickly”. On Facebook if you paste in an update that you had previously posted, or used their email system to resend out an email identical to a previously sent one, you could get a warning that you are posting or sending “duplicate content”. Twitter and Facebook both have algorithms in place to make sure that their systems are not abused. MySpace had this as well especially when it came to adding a lot of friends in succession. MySpace did not have much warning methods in place, and some people had their accounts shut down with little or no explanation.
Facebook spells out more clearly what you are doing to incur the infraction. And in fact often when you send an email in to their tech support, an actual person will provide some guidance as to why you received a warning. Twitter is a bit less threatening, with general “slow down” messages as opposed to Facebook’s warnings. Facebook also puts users in a penalty box of sorts, if you are snagged for adding too many friends at once, you’ll lose the ability to add anyone for a few days or longer. The problem resides in the fact that neither network has any posted guidelines on what is deemed too much, so it’s mostly a guessing game. The social network sites put in place these rules to keep spammers and over zealous users from making it a free-for-all. Twitter in particular has recently added rules to stop users from adding too many people by literally disconnecting the ability to add new friends. You may have gotten a notice recently that you are not able to add more friends.
Again, in general, most users never hit up against these roadblocks. But it does illuminate a really important issue, that your account and feature set, which you use to brand your identify, communicate with friends and network, could be shut down if the service decides it is best. So the key is to use the social network site as a speaker, not as the stereo. Your content should reside on your own server or website, on a site you pay for, a site you own, a site you can do anything you want. And then the content is pushed to your social network sites.
This can be done in a variety of ways, you can feed your RSS feed to Facebook quite easily, you can publish a link to your podcast, photos, audio and video to Twitter and Facebook in a few clicks. You can also duplicate the content from your website, domain or blog and have it also appear on the social network sites. But it’s often best to steer away from creating original content that only resides on these services. Always have a backup at another location and try to push the content to the social network site, so in the event, however unlikely, that your account is turned off, you are not losing hours, days and months of content that you cannot replace.
Social network sites are fantastic for broadcasting. Putting items on Facebook and Twitter specifically can gain your career at lot of traction. Just remember that these sites are focused on a prime user experience above all and their quality control growth has been helped by users not taking advantage of these tools and clogging things up. So continue to contribute to the networks, but do what most social media experts do, push out content to the social sites and always have most or all of it reside elsewhere, a place where you have complete control.
Do you have a website or domain that is the centerpiece for your content? Are you planning on creating one? Or do you use a social media site for your content?
Branding Your Name On Social Networks
These days your brand is often you, it’s you and you alone. Even if you work for a large company, are part of a big enterprise or have a successful company that has a distinct name, when you are online, you are known by your name. Often on networks like Twitter, people will use usernames or handles, such as kim345 or tedphotoguy. These are great for log-ins, but don’t do much to extend your brand.
Facebook ensures you must use your real name, but it is more flexible with creating Pages, you can pretty much name them anything. But keep in mind that your name will never change (well marriage may alter that..) even as you move to different companies and get involved in various enterprises. In fact someday if you move from working for “the man” to heading up your own empire, you’ll want to ensure that your actual name has a good brand and a great following. If your current online name is based on an industry or company, remember that in 5 or 10 years you may be completely done with it. Maybe less.
So as you create accounts, as you dive deeper into the vast array of social networks, as you register a domain name, as you create a new account, remember that your name is the brand. FirebirdConsulting.com is nice, but KimSanderson.com is a lot more personable and recognizable. It all starts with you. It all starts with your name. People may remember your clever handles or usernames, but they will never forget you.
Are you marketing your name?
Your Creative Career is Online but Where is your Digital Legacy?
One thing to focus on weekly is looking at what you are contributing to the community and what you are contributing to your online legacy. Your community is your contacts online, the people you interact with, share info, help and connect with. Your legacy is your body of work, what you create, what you develop and share with your audience. Most of what you share with people should be focused on your body of work, because that is the most permanent. That will provide you the most traction for advancing your creative career.
For years I have had various websites, email newsletters and podcast/online shows going in one form or another, it has been a way to get out information and convey to an audience what I was up to. The focus on keeping people in the loop built a following which kept everyone involved. Of course I do realize that doing something like a weekly show is work, but producing content on a regular basis is key to growing your audience.
Lets put it this way: you spend two hours interacting on social networks or you spend two hours doing some blog posts, maybe a video for your fans or updating your website. Both sessions involve some work, both can be fun and both have you contributing. But the two hours in social networking can be fleeting and not very permanent. 10 comments on a variety of blogs, chats back and forth on Twitter, checking out various links and images posted on Facebook, etc. You’ll get something out of it, you may catch the attention of some people, take part in a fun conversation, maybe find some new links and that will be about it.
Now think about two hours working on a blog update or doing a new video. Once you post those, its permanent and accessible. Every person you connect with can look back at the items, at any time, for years. It builds on your previous work, it grows the body of content you are pushing out to the masses. If anyone wants to see what you are up to, popping into your website is one easy stop. If your website has not been updated in weeks, it almost appears that you have not been making progress to the interested viewer. Show what you have been up to. Try to work to keep everyone up to date.
Lets take it to an extreme. You spent a year interacting on social networks, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. You’ve made some connections, got a lot of info and contributed to the community. But a few years from now, most of those items will be long gone. Say you spent a year updating your website or blog often, daily or even weekly, with video, images, opinions, tutorials, etc. A few years, even a year from now, you’ll have an amazing body of work that anyone can access at any time. And you can look back with a lot of satisfaction, you’ll suddenly start saying “wow…I did a lot” as opposed to “where did the time go and what did I accomplish to gather interest in my own empire?”.
Look at the people you really admire online. Chances are they are pushing out content on a weekly or daily basis. Chances are even better they have a large following. They do work the social networks, but the main difference is they have become a resource. They are a landing point. They are essentially putting on a show and more people are gathering around it. I am not saying to avoid building up your Twitter streams and Facebook pages, but keep in mind, you are building traffic and an audience primarily for Twitter and Facebook. Work more on your own site, your own house. Use Twitter and Facebook as secondary tools to keep people aware of what you are up to, but the focus is best if it is on your own website and domain.
It is important to take part in the community. Digital connections are vital. But if all you have are connections and interactions, with no content, your career may be much harder to build. You may spend more time going after people and clients, as opposed to building something that brings people directly to you.
You give someone your business card, they take it home and go to your website. How big is the world you want them to explore? How compelling is it? When was it last updated?
Really start to think about building up your empire online. Your digital legacy. Try building your own house, rather than spending all your time visiting other houses.
What can you do now that can ramp things up? What have you done lately?
Have Too Much Web Info and Not Enough Outfo?
Most of us read blogs daily, check out websites, catch up on news. Even though the web has made it a lot easier to access news quickly, it also spirals into reading more and more info. A quick trip through your Twitter feed will no doubt have you exploring some interesting links, links to new sites, links to more news. You may add a few more sites to your RSS reader, you may bookmark some new ones, you’ll discover information avenues you did not know existed. The problem comes when this is done daily, weekly, monthly…the info really starts to stack up. You may have started visiting your 5 favorite websites, but now it has expanded to checking in on 20 sites every day, several times a day even.
I just wanted to let you know: you don’t need them all. The fear settles in that you may miss something. Well you will, but that’s OK. The bottom line is you may be sifting through huge piles of info for one or two pieces that are actually relevant. I recently discovered this with a tech news blog I liked to frequent. I started to count how many items I was actually interested in, as opposed to how many I was actually viewing. The score was dramatic, it averaged that I was looking at 20 posts when I would find one that I was actually interested in. Now if you multiple this times 5 sites, or even 20, several times a day, you begin to realize that you have moved from getting the news to a daily quest to find tiny nuggets of information.
All of this results in an amazing waste of time. Time when you could be producing content. We’ve all seen the alarming statistics about how people watch hours and hours of TV per day. Just zoning out and absorbing. We all think “that’s not me” as we spend hours and hours zoning out on the web. Yes we gain info, but not all is relevant and that time could be spent building our empire, producing content to engage our own audiences. You may spend two hours a day exploring websites, while your own website or blog has not been updated with your latest projects and info in several weeks. You’ll realize this when you meet people in person and they say “So…what have you been up to?”. I assume you won’t say “Surfing the web!!”.
I feel your pain. I know, I know. You love the web! I love the web too! I am just suggesting a balance, between producing and collecting.
To eliminate info overload, one tactic I do is to periodically purge or delete all my feeds and news site bookmarks. The ones you really find valuable you will remember and add back in. A lot will fall by the wayside. But you won’t miss them too much.
I realized that I myself was spending a lot of time pouring over gadget sites, reading reviews, spending more time looking at what other people had linked to and produced on news and social media sites. I decided to take that time and focus on creating a blog, to offer some advice and tips on being a better creative media artist. Remember it’s good to take in info and be informed. But when that process is taking more time than actually producing content, building your empire online and getting work done, you could be wasting huge amounts of very valuable time while leaving little to nothing for a digital legacy.
Do you absorb more info than you will ever really need? Is it worth trimming back incoming to focus more on outgoing?
