I was researching for a company that had made the mistake of creating a personal profile on Facebook using the company name. In other words it was a person with the first and last name comprised of the two words in the company name. This is a common error businesses make when first getting into social media. It’s perfectly acceptable to do on Twitter.  But when Facebook finds this account they will take it down and the company will have to start over from scratch. That part I already knew but while searching for the particular TOS that discussed it I ran across this little tid bit.

From Facebooks terms of service:

“You will not transfer your account (including any page or application you administer) to anyone without first getting our written permission.”

So if you have a consultant create a page for your company, according to the TOS they are not allowed to give the page over to you with out Facebooks written permission? Facebooks has to give permission for you to own your company page? Yep, that’s how I read it.

“profile” vs. “Page”
Your profile is the account you create under your own name. It is also against FB Terms of Service to create a profile under any fake name or to have multiple profiles. Your “profile” can, however, be an administrator of multiple “pages” on facebook. A “profile” is a person, a “page” can be a company or a public figure.

Businesses need to be cautious of who is setting up their companies Facebook page. The company owner needs to create a “profile” with his or her own real name. While signed into that account create a “page”. Don’t worry, your friends and family will not be bothered by posts you put on the “page” and followers of your “page” will not be able to see your personal posts on your “profile”.

As long as you create the page you are the ultimate administrator. Once you create the account you can add employees or consultants if you want them to help with the page. Any admin posting on the “page” will show up as “Company Name” posting and not under their own names.

Facebook is useful but don’t rely on FB for all of your marketing. Ultimately you don’t own your company page, FB does.

Recently at an Orange County twEATup I overheard a question from Norman Nayler to Ted Nguyen: “So how did you get a stogy organization like the OCTA to embrace Social Media?” Answer: “I just did it”

For readers not in the Orange County area, OCTA stands for the Orange County Transit Authority. You wouldn’t expect the transit authority to be leaders in Social Media but with Ted’s leadership they are. Ted has brought the OCTA into blogging, twitter, facebook, tweetups and more.  The OCTA even won the top award for new media from the California Association of Public Information Officers (CAPIO).

if  Ted had waited for permission, OCTA’s social media efforts would still be waiting for committee approval. Ted didn’t wait, he just did it. Ted is OCTA’s doer. Are you your companies doer? If you are you looking around wondering why your company is not embracing Social Media then you probably are.

Being the doer, the person who gets things done without waiting for approval, does have it’s risks. You may be stepping on toes or even put your job at risk. But without the doers, the future will be stuck waiting for committee approval.

According to Ad Age ABC charged $900,000 for each 30 second spot on last nights season finale of LOST and yet only 2 companies took advantage of the specific audience. LOST fans come in all kinds. We are of all ages, both sexes, all educational backgrounds. We even cross the bounds between Sci Fi geeks and the “normals” who got hooked on the show before all the “weired” stuff started. The one thing we have in common is a love of the show.

Only 2 advertisers took advantage of this one common theme, Target and Verizon.  Target worked products and LOST story line concepts into their commercials. One commercial shows someone in a Darma costume  typing in “the numbers”, he hits a well worn enter key and enter won’t work.  Every LOST fan knows that if the numbers are not entered every 108 minutes something very bad will happen. Alarms start going off and then, cut to “Keyboard $23″.  Another ad shows a pig rimming through a forest simply followed by a picture of a bottle of barbecue sauce. Again the meaning of this commercial would be lost on the non LOST fan but we all remember the early days where our LOST heroes had to hunt island pigs for survival. The ads were not high budget but they didn’t have to be. They were funny and on topic for that specific audience. They showed respect for the audience.

Verizon also took advantage of the LOST fans love of the show. On the May 18th show fans were given a code they could text their farewell messages to. During the retrospective that led up to the finale Verizon sponsored “your transmissions”  They creatively inserted the messages onto computer and cell phone screens or pieces of paper and made it look as if what the actors were reading were the messages from fans. Like the target commercials they did not require a large budget.  They were warm hearted and funny, the fans got to see their words on the screen and LOST actors reading their messages. They showed respect for the audience.

$900,000 per 30 second spot and I only remember 2 of the advertisers on the show because only 2 of them took the time to respect me. Well done Verizon and Target. Well Done!

I’ve posted a new episode of PodcastJunky. In this episode I review The Thomas Jefferson Hour, a radio show re-purposed to podcasting. In the show you hear the thoughts of President Thomas Jefferson in person. No, they haven’t put him in a TARDIS and brought him to present day. Thomas Jefferson is played by Clay Jenkins, a Humanities Scholar who really knows his Jefferson.  Listen or read more here. http://www.podcastjunky.com/

Yesterday I decided to add some new blood to my twitter stream. I wasn’t planning to bulk follow but I got a bit carried away. I started looking at who the people I respect are following. Then I realized how neglectful I’ve been in following back the people who follow me. So I checked them out and followed the ones who looked interesting. I must have gotten put on some sort of list because I started getting a flood of new followers. I evaluated and followed most of them back.  All in all I think I followed about 100 people.

I wasn’t trying to do a case study on auto DMs but I should have known following that many people all at once would lead to another blog post on auto DM Spam.

In my last post I talked about how a DM is like a personal hand written note. I open it before I open other pieces of mail because someone has taken the time to put in some personal thought into it and deserves a personal response. I get very annoyed when I think I’m opening a personal note and instead I find a mass mailer.

In the past 24 hours I’ve gotten about 150 emails. A typical day for me. 22 of then are auto DMs. That is 15% of my email inbox.  After clearing out the legitimate mail this is what my inbox looks like.

As you can see, the majority of them start with “thanks for the follow…” Followed by please check out my Facebook page, website, white paper, etc. Those things may be important to you but they are not important to every single person who follows you.

The one at the very top included my name, it is the only one that did. It’s still followed by “Please visit us at…” but at least I can see it’s not by a bot and technically it is not an auto DM. Props to @helpmyresume for that at least.

I’m not the only one complaining about auto DMs.  Tee Morris covers auto DM’s in his book All a Twitter. On page 233 Tee writes:

“From Social Media authority Chris Brogan to ReadWriteWeb.com, the backlash against automated Direct Messaging reached such a pitch that SocialToo, an organizer for your various social networks, proclaimed “Time to take a stand – Yes, We’re Ending the DM’s” and eliminated direct messages from it’s options. Perhaps it’s the impersonal nature of the tweet (“I’m far to busy to welcome you so I’ll have a bot do it for you, and while I’m at it go on and visit my facebook page and subscribe to my blog.”) or perhaps it is suddenly being told , “you have a DM!” which usually meas “priority, for your eyes only!” and you find a message “Got a question on how to increase traffic to your website? I’ll show you how!”, but auto DMs are so detested that people are unfollowing and blocking people they just met.”

Clearly I am not alone in my battle over auto DMs

Recently I was researching  a topic in social media. As a result I had several twitter followers put me in touch with their favorite sources on twitter. Naturally I followed the people they recommended and the people doing the recommendations. From one of them I got the dreaded auto DM. I supose I should be glad that I only got one considering I probably followed 10-15 people that night.

My reaction: I find it disturbing that someone helping me with Social Media Best Practices Q earlier today has sent me an auto DM.

Auto DM’er (Sent via DM so name withheld):  Touche! But, the auto DM saves me a ton of time. We single moms have to save time as much as we can:-)

Saves you time? Seriously? Auto DM’ers are filling up my DM inbox and email inbox with messages that say “thanks for the follow. Please buy my crap” or “Thanks for the follow. here is where you can find more crap I’m involved with” If you actually think I might be interested in something you are involved with then tell me, personally.

Picture this scenario; you attend a function in your city and meet many people. A few days later you recieve a hand written note from Jane Smith. It says that it was a pleasure meeting you and invits you to drop by her office any time.  Jane thinks they might have some things at her office you might be interested in or business she can help you with.

Jane was nice enough to take time and send a hand written note and she might have something of interest to you. So, you decide to stop in for a bit, but you enter the wrong door. Jane is not there. Instead there a scanner auto scanning  a stack of business cards that Jane has collected at community events. A machine is printing out what looks like personal hand written notes just like the one you received.

Now how do you feel about Jane. For me, I don’t care what she has in her store or how much she can help me in business. She is pretending to be personal but she is fake and she has waisted my time.

A DM has some similarities to a personal note. I open it before I open the rest of the mail. A DM hits my email box and when I get a DM I assume it’s because someone would like a private response and it is probably something more important than an @reply.  It used to work that way before auto dm’s started filling up my email.

For a while 9/10 messages in my DM box were auto DM’s. That’s when I started unfollowing or blocking auto DM’ers. I simply couldn’t find the real messages in all the “thanks for the follow, please buy my crap” auto DM’s.  How does wasting my time = saves you time? It’s an unnecessary and unwanted message in my inbox. If you are fake and want to waist my time in favor of “saving” your time, then you are a spammer and you are not worth my attention.

A few days ago I received a phone call from someone arranging for a conference on Social Media. A journalist friend had recommended me for a panel on PR.  I responded that technically I am considered marketing but that the two are so married it really doesn’t matter. She was floored. Apparently this was a new concept for her.

I had to put on the breaks and remind myself that the PR people live in a PR bubble, The Marketing people live in a marketing bubble and both bubbles are completely ignoring the customer service department. PR, Marketing, and Customer Service need to be three branches of the same tree.  They may focus on different aspects but if they are not connected at some point they are not going to grow well.

I’m not the only one saying this.  CC Chapman has mentions similar statements on Managing the Gray and Ron Ploof talks about it in Read This First – The Executives guide to New media from Blogs to Social Networks. I’ve heard many others say it too. But it’s those of us who do not come from either marketing or PR that find separating the three just baffling.

Wikipedia has several descriptions for Public Relations but the simplest one is “the practice of managing communication between an organization and its publics”

It describes Marketing as “the process by which companies determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales… create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.^“

So if PR is “managing communication” and Marketing is “build(ing) strong customer relationships” shouldn’t they be talking to each other? And if it’s all about relationships with the customer shouldn’t both departments be talking to the only people in the company who are talking to the customers directly, the Customer Service Department?

I have a super power. Not a cool power like flying or turning invisibl, it’s more of a lame power like the ones in Mur Lafferty’s book “playing for Keeps”.  What is my super power? I can change my hair style in an instant! Change the hair color, lengthen it by inches, anything I want to do. What…? You’re not buying that line? OK, OK, read on.

Almost 20 years ago my hair started falling out. I was diagnosed with Alopecia Areata, spots on my head started going bald. Eventually almost all the hair on my head fell out, Alopeicia Totalis, and then all the hair on my body, Alopecia Universalis. One dime sized spot on my head kept growing so I was technically still considered to be at the “areata” stage but effectivly I went through totalis and universalis.

After a few years my hair started coming back. Why? No one knows, it just started growing back in as slowly as it fell out a few years before. There is no cure for alopecia, there are treatments but they were never very effective for me. I had given up on the treatments when it finally came back in.

After about 15 years of having my own hair it has started to fall out again. About a year ago I noticed a small spot in the back of my head. Now it has grown to a size that can’t be hidden anymore. The bad new is, I have to wear a wig. The good new is, I get to wear a wig:-) Let’s face it, My own hair at it’s best growth was never all that good looking. It was always quite thin and had no body.

The first picture, in green, is my own hair. The second is one of my new looks.

Back when I had alopecia the first time I made a conscious choice not to keep it a secret. After all, people who already know me are going to know it’s a wig when the volume of hair triples over night. People who meet me for the first time while I’m wearing it will figure it out soon enough. No matter how good the wig is, it will eventually show. One wrong wind blast and my secret would be out.

So both then and now I have made the choice to wear different wigs each day. So far I only have two, the darn things are quite expensive, but I will collect more. Wearing a short blond wig one day and a long red one the next makes it very clear to people around me that I am not trying to keep it a secret and that I am open to being asked about it. Writing a blog post like this also helps with that.

Reality check here. Most of the women shopping for wigs are having to do it because they are in the fight of their lives and losing their hair to cancer treatments. Alopecia has one symptom, hair loss. I am not sick, my condition is strictly cosmetic and I am not fighting for my life. I have absolutely no excuse to feel sorry for myself! Occasionally I start feeling down and have to kick my self in the ass with that reality check.

I promise not to make this the all Scott Sigler all the time channel but this guy just keeps amazing me.  A few hours after I posted the Scott Sigler as Marketing Genius post, he posted this: (Hint: look for Me and sidekick Erin in the last few minutes) 

Scott didn’t have a camera crew following him around on the tour. He didn’t even have a video camera, just a pocket size still shot camera with minimal video abilities. He also put the word out, again using New Media via twitter, for any fan shots taken during the tour. Again getting more fan involvement.

Fancy corporate video of an event has it’s place but we the fans want to see people like us having a good time with Scott and with other fans. It builds the community.

Notice all the costumes, cakes and hand made gifts. This is grass roots stuff. It’s real, and yet, it’s also selling books. So everyone is happy. This is new media.

Recently marketing genius, New York Times best selling author, FDO and all around scary psychotic person Scott Sigler blew through my town. Well, technically it was a bit north of me but you get the idea.

Scott is now known for INFECTED and CONTAGIOUS, major hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing. But he didn’t get there through traditional methods. After enjoying some success with a couple of  gaming books Scott started seriously pursuing a fiction career in 1991.  He tried the normal , traditional rout and shopped around his books looking for a publisher/agent.  In 2005 he decided to podcast EARTHCORE.

Tee Morris.com gets credit for being the very first to podcast a novel with Morevi: The Chronicles of Rafe & Askana. Quickly followed by The Max Quick Series by Mark Jeffry. But Scott made a splash by being the first to do a “Podcast Only” novel. Listeners couldn’t peek at the end. We had to wait until Scott brought us our weekly episode. Forcing us listeners, known as “Junkies”, to hit refresh over and over each Sunday afternoon waiting for our Sigler fix.

On a side note, that is when my husband gave the the title “PodcastJunky” because my all around podcast listening habits seemed to be so similar to the Sigler “Junkies”. Always updating looking for my next podcast “fix”. Remember that was in the days where the number of podcasts was in the low hundreds, not the thousands of options we have today.

Scott built a large subscribed audience of 10,000 by giving away the podcast EARTHCORE.  Next was ANCESTOR with 30,000 listeners. After giving it away as a podcast it was published in book form by a small independent press. Scott was again the first to “Make a run on the Amazon.com charts”.  His fan-base was so strong that even though we already had the free audio version ANCESTOR still reached  #1 in Horror, #1 in SciFi, #2 in fiction, (Harry Potter held the #1 spot) and was #7 overall.

Scott has been a relentless self promoter. But very little of it has been through traditional marketing. Scott has used New Media, twitter, FaceBook, his own site, etc to build a community of rabid fans who will step up and do all we can to promote his work. He talks with his fans via these social networks. He doesn’t just spew his message, he builds relationships and trust, and we reward him for it. We forward links, we retweet, we spread posters and postcards, here I am writing yet another post on him. It’s about trust. We trust him to bring us good fiction that will scare our socks off and make our skin crawl. He trusts us to be there for him and spread the word about his work.

It’s working! He caught the attention of Crown publishing who published INFECTED in 2008 quickly followed by it’s sequel CONTAGOUS which rocketed right into the New York Times Best seller list. INFECTED has now been optioned by Rogue Pictures and Random House Films, the movie version is currently in the planning stages.

Scott Sigler at Book Soup CONAGOUS Reading

He recently brought his “Sigler Stank” tour to So. Cal.

There was the traditional reading, Q & A and signing of a traditional marketing plan. But after the traditional part was over, Scott did his signature “pub crawl” Hanging out with fans, talking, enjoying some food and drink in a local establishment. You won’t see that in a traditional authors marketing tool box.  He is building the trust and relationships that make his fans hard core “Junkies”

Scott hanging out with fans at LA Pub Crawl during Sigler Stank II

Mark Jeffry, Megan Enloe, Mathew Wayn Selznick