As stated in my previous post, I do not claim to be a Social Media expert of any sort.
But when it comes to companies, brands, etc. having a presence in the Social Space, I feel they need to have the same, if not more, of a level of transparency.
I’ll use Twitter as an example since its my new favorite and the most relevant for this post…
I think one way to gauge how well a company uses Twitter is to simply look at the amount of Tweets that are @replys. This shows that they are actually reading and responding to mentions of their brand.
I recently read in a post (http://bit.ly/9Peuq) by Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo) that he heard Best Buy is requiring new hires to not only be on Twitter, but to also have at least 250 followers. So naturally, I’m going to call out Best Buy on this.
I happen to love Best Buy. In fact, I just bought a 42″ HDTV there yesterday. But when it comes to running a Twitter page, they are clueless.
If you look at their Twitter page (@BestBuy), it says it all. All of their tweets are plugging their website, products, or even worse yet, the Twitter pages of other Best Buy employees. We know what your website is. It’s listed on your page in case we didn’t know it was bestbuy.com. We know what you sell, and we definitely don’t care what your employees are up to at the moment.
In the past, I have asked Best Buy simple questions via Twitter and received no answer. Whats the point of having a Twitter page if you’re not going to interact with your customers?
So that was a look at a poor approach. I’ll also give the opposite end of the spectrum.
I couldn’t decide on who was best out of those who I follow, so I’ll point out all three…@DunkinDonuts, @Starbucks, and @RizzoTees.
If you go to their pages, they are actually interacting with their followers. Imagine that! Sure they get their plugs in about their brand, but they answer questions and have fun with their followers. Here the word comes again…they are transparent!
As of the time I’m writing this, @Starbucks has 250,043 followers, @RizzoTees has 36,497, @DunkinDonuts has 28,662, and @BestBuy has 4,934.
Coincidence? I don’t think so…
Before I begin lets give a quick background about my Social Media “experience.” I believe my experience started with Xanga when I was in roughly 6th grade (I am now almost 21). This was basically my first blogging experience. I wish I could remember the log in so I could even see what I was writing about. It was probably about some girl who called me a ugly during recess or something. But I distinctly remember all my friends telling me Xanga is for geeks, but hey I guess I am one.
After this, the MySpace craze started and I created one. Again, I was called a geek for having one. Months later, I’d say about 90% of my classmates (grade school) were on MySpace, mainly because of me (What posers!). After this my MySpace account became flooded with spammers, and I created a Facebook.
The question I kept getting was, “Why would you delete your MySpace?” Answer: Easy, I get spammed, pages are too “flashy” and Facebook is so much better.
Plus I always wanted Facebook ever since my older sister got an account. She was at Villanova at the time and at this point it was still exclusive to those with a .edu e-mail account.
Once High School kids could create accounts, I created one. Next thing you knew, all 500+ classmates of mine were on Facebook.
Than about 6 months ago I was introduced to Twitter by Jen Cohen (@jenz036). I signed up and have been hooked ever since. Shortly after I started this blog.
Twitter has increasingly blown up since I joined, with the help of celebrities like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher. Now, I’m noticing many of my “Facebook friends” following me on Twitter.
Now that I’ve given a background of my Social Media experience, I want to share what I think has worked for me and again stress I am no EXPERT. But it is the same word that’s been popping up in blogs all over: transparency.
In about 6 months I have almost 1,100 followers. Now those numbers may not be astonishing, but yeah, I admit I’m pretty proud of them.
But at the same time, I did not do anything to TRY and gain followers, I was just myself. In other words, I was transparent. I did not send specific tweets that I thought would get me followers and I know for a fact I have sent some tweets that lost me many followers (including questioning why everyone was glorifying Michael Jackson’s life). I was in many discussions about this topic and lost many followers due to my view point.
But isn’t that what is great about Twitter. You follow those who you share interests with. I also follow celebrities just to see what they are up to, very well knowing they won’t follow me back or even respond to my @replys. @jeremypiven is one of my favorites to follow and its purely because I care what he has to say and he’s entertaining. He is who, he is.
I also @reply anyone who mentions me, I answer all questions, and in doing so, I’m completely honest. I AM ME.
If you do not like my tweets, or do not like me, simply don’t follow. This is what it all boils down to. Be yourself, don’t be fake, and followers will come.
Stay tuned for a post on my thoughts of being transparent on a business account.
Recently, I have been going through, lets just say, a rough patch. This is what got me to write, and essentially moved me towards writing this blog the way I now envision it. But I just want to share how important a good friend can be. Some prefer to have many people they call friends. But are they truly a friend, or an acquaintance. Other choose to have one or a few good friends aside from acquaintances. I’m lucky enough to have the latter. Not only do I have the latter, I have a few good friends. I look at these friends like they are brothers. They are part of my family. We’ve been friends since we were 5 and 6 years old and haven’t looked back since.
Recently, the feeling of brotherhood with my friends was solidified. I was going through this said, rough patch, and essentially I kept it mostly to myself. I shared my problems with loved ones, but never with my “brothers.” Not sure why I didn’t originally. I know I can tell them anything, but I guess I just was just satisfied with the relationship I had with them and didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. But boy, I don’t think I could have been any more wrong. Yeah, it changed our relationship. But for the better.
One of my friends told me a quote that he heard a while back, “Everything that rises, must converge.” Now think about that… what does he mean? The word rise could be used to mean a lot in this context. You take take its literal meaning, as in to lift. You could also take a more general meaning, as in to grow. With converge meaning to bring together, what could he possibly mean?
He used an analogy, or I guess it would be personification in this case. He compared us both to smoke, and as we rise, we come together. We find one another. It goes to show that we are all intertwined. I’m a Catholic and I am a firm believer in my faith. But I believe in nothing more than I believe in fate. And this fate puts us all in certain situations to test our weaknesses and perfect our strengths. This same fate brings us together with those who’ve been in either similar situations, or a situation that can help you through.
This also made me think of how tragedy often brings people together. This could be a national tragedy, like 9-11, or a death in the family. But these problems both have a common theme. They are known. They are on the surface. This makes the problem easier. Imagine if you were the ONLY person who knew about 9-11. Imagine the isolation you would feel. This is an extreme analogy but it can be applied to all problems. So face your problem. Tell a trustworthy friend, and get through.
The key is to go through. Do not go around and do not run. Face your problem, face your fate. The best way out is through. Trust me, you will evolve from the situation. Nobody is perfect, but as a whole, as a collective group, you can be perfect. Take your true friends and your family and run with them. They will help you out, by going through.
I’ll end with a quote from one of my favorite movies…
“I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may…”
With the death of Michael Jackson, the one thing that came to my mind was how I will remember him. Sadly, I will remember him for the last 15 years of his life, that involved scandal, accusations, plastic surgeries, everything that was “Wacko Jacko.”
It’s really a shame that I will not remember him for the Thriller album or what he did to change music as we now know it. With his death, the word Icon, and the phrase the best there will ever be is being thrown around. Now this may or may not be the case. I feel was more innovative than anything. He CHANGED pop music and dancing. He’s essentially one of the reasons MTV is what it is today. MTV rode the MJ wave.
But, the real question I have (since I was not part of his era) is was he really the best? Was he really an icon? Or was it simply he was just innovative, and unlike any other. I mean now there are plenty of artists like him, Usher and Justin Timberlake come to mind. But they are not the first. They will ALWAYS be compared to Michael. Just like every white rapper will always be compared to Eminem.
Like many people, I put Michael in the same category as Elvis. Not because of their iconic status, but because they were simply doing what everyone else wasn’t doing, at least to my knowledge. I mean Elvis was essentially doing “black music” at the time. He was the first Eminem if you want to look at it that way. While Michael, changed pop for the better, what was his competition? He was it.
Lastly, RIP Michael Jackson. I think I’m going to go buy the Thriller album and try and remember you in a positive light.
How does everyone else feel? Comments are welcome.
Recently I heard the quote, “if you keep doing everything the same way, than you’re going to keep getting the same results,” or something along those lines. This quote really got me thinking because it really can be applied to just about everything. From the way you iron your shirts, to the way you maintain your relationships, to the way you make money. Did you ever wish you’re relationship with someone was better, but have not done anything about it? Or maybe you’ve done everything you can to change the relationship but you’re still not happy with the results. So switch it up, try a different approach. It may be the complete opposite approach, you never know. This philosophy can be used in almost any situation.
I’m the type of person who is almost rarely satisfied. I’m always trying to better myself, my life, or a situation in one way or another. If you are that type of person, just give this rule of thought a chance. The possibilities are endless and worst case scenario is you do not improve anything and things stay the same. This is when you simply go back to the old way of doing things.
Before I begin, I just want to say this is my first blog.
From what I read about writing a blog, it appears that all believe you should find a niche. So what should my niche be? Basically, I’m going to blog about current happenings in the world having to do with subjects I’m interested in. The blogs will be based on my opinion. So of course, I encourage comments. I love hearing the viewpoints of different people. So please, try and educate me.
With that said, I guess the niche of my blog will be my opinion on things. But it’s going to be all about interaction with my readers. I’ll keep blog posts short so they are quick reads, to encourage conversation. I’ll update whenever I want to voice my opinion on a hot topic. So follow me on Twitter @MartyBuckley to hear about What the Buck!? updates. There will be one coming very shortly, so stay tuned!
