Pinterest was introduced to me by my fiance. Of course. There is no secret that #pinterest has been adopted mainly by women. When I first logged on to play with it, I was getting nothing but dresses, wedding plans, motivational quotes for-and-by women.

Yeah… no wonder why men bounce quickly from the site.

So.Much.Ribbon. (and pink with lace!)

But I was intrigued because of the massive adoption. I am a marketer at my core, so I saw this as an interesting way to approach a segmented audience. The audience is mostly women who post “pretty” things. At the time I was working for GannettLocal as their Chief Marketing and Product dude. My focus was always innovate new ideas and adapt to trends. Well, you can not say Pinterest was not a trend! So I played around with the obvious to see what traction I could get. What is the most obvious…. #cuteoverload pics of course. So I optimized my StumbleUpon and my Tumblr for “cute” photos of animals.

Starting pinning and noticed the only folks re-pinning, commenting, and liking the pin’s were my own network. Well, I could do this on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. Why is this different. I quickly found out that I needed “categorize” my Pin Boards to public boards.

Once I did that… I saw significant and quick engagement:

That was just a few house and one cute post!

Well this is easy! Women like to share pretty things on this site. So what kind of things would they want to share that would result into marketing win’s for our clients. We started with furniture stores and their inventory. Then went to girly geek gadgets. This was great link bait! Shares and click through were happening and we were driving traffic to our clients sites.

So there is an obvious lead gen play here to an audience that self segments. In fact, many brands are now getting this. Here is a list.

But is the community turning off the men with all that ribbon?

Well recently a few noteworthy social media dudes have joined in on the #pinterest fun:

• Scott Stratten‘s board: http://pinterest.com/unmarketing/
• Jason Falls‘ board: http://pinterest.com/jasonfalls/
• Thomas Knolls’ board: http://pinterest.com/thomasknoll/
• Gary Vaynerchuk: http://pinterest.com/garyvee/
• and of course Jay Baer is rocking his tequila board: http://pinterest.com/jaybaer/
• You even have some political dudes playing in on this.

You can see they are still trying it out. Their volume isn’t high, but the quality is. They have not gone crazy like me, just yet.

There is a UX flaw IMHO with Pinterest. By default, when you “follow” a user, you follow ALL the boards of that user.

So I follow the girly room decor stuff and the dresses and the shoes. Gah! But when you choose to follow just the boards that matter to you from your friend who happens to be female, then your feed is optimized. I started following art, gadgets, photography, and yes… even I like pretty home things… so I kept a few of those as well.

By default, I followed ALL the board of my male friends just to see what they are pinning. I have yet to unfollow any of their boards and my feed is more balanced with the dude and girl stuff.

Men… it can be done, and be fun, and drive traffic.

Pinterest is heavily trafficked by women, yes. Does that mean hands off to men?

Nope.

And if you are a marketer… it gives you another ecosystem to play in and understand new forms of engagement strategies.

Are you a dude on Pinterest? If so, leave your link below so other dudes can follow and not be alone! Or hit up #dudesonpinterest

UPDATE: Got a lot of interest in this blog post. Thank you! Here is one mega #dudesonpinterest board that came to my attention because of this blog post. The board of man: http://pinterest.com/drewhawkins/board-of-man/

And there is my Pinterest boards

Related articles

• The Top Brands on Pinterest (mashable.com)
• 5 Ways Brands Can Use Pinterest to Boost Consumer Engagement (mashable.com)
• Using Pinterest for Business: 5 Must-Reads (firebellymarketing.com)
• Is Pinterest the ‘next big thing’ in social media? (news.cnet.com)

The top 3 rapid growing communities and quality engagement in 2011, IMHO are…

1) Pinterest

At the heart of the bewilderment are the 421 million pageviews generated in the month of October. This growth is apparently a staggering 2000% growth since the company last reported traffic numbers in June.

(Source: sitetrail.com)

2) Crock Pot Girls / Crockin’ Girls

These girls went from a new Facebook Fan page with zero followers to over 1.2 million Likes in just weeks! They even changed their name to “Crock’in Girls” because of of the anti “Rival” women out there (the makers of Crock-Pot) and started a NEW group and was able to generate +500k likes in weeks after that. Nearly 2 million likes in just a few months! Some mommy bloggers are saying there was some black hat involved, but others dismiss this.

3) Spotify

Spotify is getting its systems in order to support a planned 100 million users in the future, job openings suggest.

(Update 12/09/11: I started this poll yesterday on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook and received a lot of feedback that I decided to post this officially on my blog.)

These are my top 3. What are your top 3?

Related articles

• The Crock Pot Girls Get Over 1,000,000 Facebook Fans in Just Two Weeks (blogworld.com)
• Watch Your Back Pandora, Spotify Launches Spotify Radio (techcrunch.com)
• Christmas Pinterest (thingsifancy.com)
• How Pinteresting! (mygreenvelvetlife.com)

Is 2012 going to give us Web 5? While we see the next evolution of the web, others are still trying to catch up and be relevant in Web 2, let alone Web 3. Wait, was there a Web 4? Gah!? What the heck people?!

Well, to be fair… there is no “official label” that is assigned by an official committee. There is only talk about such evolution online and in nerd herds I associate with.

In a recent conversation, I realized the core of this evolution is the byproduct of the previous evolutionary phase. Or what I have recently began calling the “guano” of the web.

What’s guano? Well, profitable [bat] crap, of course!

Let me step back…

This is how I define the evolution of the web: I see business models fitting into each phase of the evolution and – depending on the phase – there are specific measurements of success associated with each evolutionary web step.

I often refer to Web 1 as the Dewey decibel system of the web. Indexable by keyword, author, and subject. Think Altavista, Webcrawler, Yahoo Directory, and even Dogpile as businesses that fit in this space. I would consider email technology short of automated marketing to also be categorized as Web 1 – broadcast and search. Success in this space is use of product. Metrics of success in businesses under Web 1 are defined by user experience around the curation and display of data as a service as well as the use of transition of data peer to peer. Early social products are around bulletin boards, forums, IRC, and peer to peer networks (file sharing.)

Algorithms in discovery evolved within search and the mass adoption of user generated content (social web) gave us Web 2.0; the ability to connect. With Web 2.0 we can see the transformation of search to include sentiment, reviews, and networks of trusts. MSN’s Bing becomes the “decision engine” and consumers begin to adapt to the decision making process and how community, networks of trusts, and online conversations around brands impact discovery and information consumption. From Friendster to Facebook and Twitter to Tumblr, social networks evolved around inter-connectivity of communities. The programmable web via the API gave us the ability to harness the byproduct of social content into products themselves. Example; a review of a service or business on Yelp populating as a “Check-in” on Twitter, a review on Facebook, and a curated search result on Google.

I recently referred to this as the Guano Effect of the Web. Attract a community of bats that call a place home, and then guano farmers will flock to harvest the byproduct of that bat community; their crap. They found many of uses for it and have built businesses to harvest this crap. Therefore, the programmable web is akin to bat crap! Semantic data is the guano of the web.

Most agree with these labels. It’s the labels past Web 2 that are subject to debate often online.

The frequency of which user generated content is produced from Web 2 technologies give us many options of how to harness that data. The fact that any new discipline created in this space is derivative of the latest and greatest tech and business models that were just put forth into the market place allows for massive research and development. Lots of “testing” and the market place learns from these tests. From 2005 to 2009, many “social” businesses were created. Success in this space is defined as adoption, connections, and the ability to build experience off of a social graph. Example, open API, Open Graph, Apple’s “App Store,” etc. Many Web 2 technologies are still launching today. But 2009 was the birth of Web 3.

In 2009 two businesses launched that defined the Web 3 world. We saw the launch of Qwiki and Wolfram Alpha. Search engines harnessing semantic data. Searchable, indexable, with sentiment, relevance, and contextualizes the data with human behavioral algorithms. Two years later, these businesses are still grasping for adoption and relevance in the online consumer. Those of us who live and breath this, love that they are forging ahead with this as the market space learns from their success and/or failers.

This phase is in its infancy still yet with massive adoption and more and more web guano being made, many are finding new uses and adapting technology to fit consumer use.

Many have started defining Web 4 as the automation of this semantic data. To put artificial intelligence behind the social cloud and harnessing the lessons learned in algorithms like Wolfram and Qwiki. Some have even started to label this automation and “software intelligence” and Web 4. Many have said this Web 4 now has a voice, and a name. Her name is Siri, and her father is Apple.

Is Siri Web 4? Is there a next step in this path to Web 5? Is Web 5 true artificial intelligence with proactive curation and the ability to broadcast to your electronic portals to the web? Is semantic data the new gold rush? I think we know that it is for many. Is the web really headed to harvesting social data as the product? We have opted into behavior that gives birth to millions of dollars being made off our content.

I am ok with that. In fact, I love collecting the web guano and finding awesome world solutions to connecting people. To me, guano is gold, man!

Related articles

• Web 2.0 vs. Web 3.0 (fileunderheading.wordpress.com)
• Article Commentary: Web 3.0 Demystified: An Explanation in Pictures for the Rest of Us (jeremoller.wordpress.com)
• Qwiki Embraces HTML5 And Takes The Next Content Step With The Qwiki Editor (techcrunch.com)
• Why Is It Still Web 2.0? (techcrunch.com)

For nearly two years now, I have had the privilege of working at GannettLocal. I started as a Marketing Manager focused on content marketing within social media to deliver leads for our SMB marketing team. I saw a lot of opportunity on how social can be leveraged for Gannett advertisers that focus on true ROI (lead gen.) With a great leader, Brad Robertson, and a great team (#gannettfamily) we began building social media marketing solutions that were affordable, and ROI focused. I took on the role as Director of Product Development. I led a team as we built products that they addressed the pain points of many small and medium sized businesses. We even got some nice shout outs by other social media friends on our marketing products.

The final test, was can we stay authentic with social, as we scale nationwide, and still deliver quality social voice. Can social (boutique) scale? Well the answer was talent driven. We have a team of amazing social media and digital marketing all stars in our Scottsdale, AZ office that now service accounts nationwide. They are hands on with the client, manage community brilliantly, and drive leads to our customers. I am proud to be a part of that team.

That is why this is hard for me to write.

Prior to GannettLocal, I was working within my own agency around activating word of mouth. My focus was to build community around brands. With GannettLocal, I was able to do that with a team, and with many clients. I have been given the opportunity to lead social strategy around a brand I grew up with, a brand I know well. The Village Voice Media is the parent company of The Phoenix New Times has asked me to help build their community and lead social strategy for all of their brands, products, and markets (13 markets.)

It is an opportunity to connect digital voice with news, events, culture, and local business. I can’t pass it up. I am excited about the next steps. What the folks have built over at the Village Voice Media is impressive. I am honored to be a part of the team.

I am humbled by these opportunities, friends, and the over all experience I have had at GannettLocal.

Thank you so much. You always know I am but a tweet away

Related articles

• Taking Business Social (gannettlocal.com)
• An Insider’s Look At GannettLocal (gannettlocal.com)
• The Village Voice Blog (Village Voice Media)

Why are you on LinkedIn? Many are on LinkedIn to better connect their professional career path with opportunities, peers, and industry insight. Here are some quick tips to making sure your time spent on LinkedIn will lead to quality results.

Step 1: Define your objective (ROI vs. KPI)

Set goals. Are you looking to drive up business leads? Or are you looking for a career change? Setting up objectives will allow you to qualify success. In my case, I am making sure my personal brand and my company is seen as experts within small and medium sized marketing. To this end, my summary and groups match this objective. I qualify success (ROI of time) by connections (leads) and my performance metrics (KPI) by views in search, responses of content I produce in groups, and the unsolicited recommendations I receive. You can gain access to some of metrics through “Who’s viewed your profile” when you have a paid membership ($25/mo.)

My ROI:

Actual conversations and invitations (leads)

Actual views of my profile

My KPI:

Times my profile has appeared in random searches

Realtime results

Step 2: Optimize your profile to meet your objectives

Based on your goals, adjust your profile content to match high volume search terms. Use Google Keyword Tool to find search volume around your industry. Example, “Small Business Marketing” + “Small Business Consultant” top keywords: entrepreneur, startup, ppc, lead generation, and branding.

Adjusted my LinkedIn summary to include these keywords, resulting in high volume of discovery based on these keywords:

Personal Brand, Company Brand, and search term "Lead Generation"

Search by industry type

Step 3: Engage!

Don’t just stalk the LinkedIn groups that interest you and/or are strategic based on your goals, but chime in! Post survey’s and ask for opinions. Folks who engage with you and see your content will most likely want to find out more about you. Example:

Engaging on the topic of social media

Multiple responses lead to multiple views on my profile and one connection.

For best results, make sure that your profile is compelling enough around the content you are posting within the groups. Just like a “landing page” and a “call to action” the “click thru promise” is the same within LinkedIn. If a user clicks through to find out more about you, make sure your profile is written in a way that addresses the curiosity factor from these groups. In this above case, I spoke about leaders within the social media space in Phoenix. Think about the user experience… “Why is this guy asking this? Let’s find out more about him to gain that frame of reference.” Does my profile address these potential questions? What is the potential call to action once they click through to my profile? Is my latest status update encouraging folks to connect with me?

The point is… user experience is the same in social space as it is on Google. Think about what your profile says to attract the potential traffic you want. Ask yourself what is your objective, and how do you go out and engage with those that can help ramp up achieving your goals.

Related articles

• How to Find New Clients via LinkedIn (xemion.com)
• Free eBook: How to Use LinkedIn for Business (hubspot.com)
• A LinkedIn Company Profile (errandmanagers.wordpress.com)
• LinkedIn Cuts Off API Access To BranchOut, Monster’s BeKnown And Others For TOS Violations (timothymununuzi.wordpress.com)
• 8 LinkedIn Strategy Shortcuts to Better Business Branding (wiredprworks.com)
• 6 ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile (holykaw.alltop.com)

The review of what a “Social Media Expert” is and their relevance have resurfaced on the interwebs with a back and forth joust these last few weeks.

It started with Gary Vaynerchuk’s TechTV interview: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns.”

He got a lot of heat for this post and responded to the heat with this vlog: “Social Media Experts as Clowns: Expanded.”

To sum up his argument, he basically said that to be “social” is one thing. To get the business acumen of how social fits in the larger business strategy is something completely different. I could not agree more! How does the “listening and engagement” fit in the larger business strategy? Is it top of the funnel of a sales cycle? Is it strategic customer service? Is it just public relations? How does a social foot print truly add value to a brand past the perception and voice? His point: that many in the social media space, as a consumer of social, does not translate into someone who should be considered an “expert” as to how social fits in the larger business model.

This was followed by Peter Shankman‘s post “I Will Never Hire a ‘Social Media Expert’ and Neither Should You.” He basically says that marketing and common sense has not changed. That conversation, how it fits into marketing, and basic rules of business thumb hasn’t evolved, so stop hiring “experts” to do what you really should be doing yourself.

Rand Fishkin responded with what I feel is the slam dunk of all responses “Everyone should hire a ‘social media expert.’“. He backs his arguments with tons of data and defends the notion of what a “social media expert” is in the larger picture, someone with knowledge of the data, the KPI, and at times the ROI.

I don’t want to get into the always debated “What is the ROI of your mom” conversation around social media but to take these back-and-forth’s between leaders in this space and reflect how awesome it is to have access to this spirited, honest, debate. And of course add my $0.02. After all, this is my blog

The reality is… they are all right. As someone who hires social media talent, and build businesses around the use of social media, I see the duality of social media consumers that think they can cross the line into “strategic implementation of social media” and business guru’s that try to grasp the understanding of social media as part of a larger business plan.

A true “social media expert” is someone who understands the larger business model and the many different applications and best practices of social media. If you consider yourself a “social media expert,” I challenge you to define what expertise do you bring to the table?

Are you part of marketing within social media? If so, then how does conversations fit to the marketing funnel? How do you qualify your engagement strategy with true metrics? Are you focused on eyeballs and exposure or true leads? How do you qualify your leads?

Are you part of public relations within social media? Then how do you qualify earned media? How do you define brand equity in your engagement strategy?

Are you part of customer experience within social media? What quality assurance practices do you implement? What is the life cycle of a customer service issue? Do you actively use “tickets” to track experience?

Are you part of sales within social media? What does your sales funnel look like? Do you have a defined prospect/suspect plan? How do you research, engage, and warm your lead for a sales ready conversation?

I can go on and on. The point is, getting “social media” is a skill. It is NOT a job. Adapting that knowledge into a business pain point and providing a strategic, measurable solution is when you can begin championing an expertise.

Do you consider yourself a “social media expert?” If so, why?

Related articles

• What the Most Effective Social Media-Using Businesses are Doing (gannettlocal.com)
• Social Media Marketing is Most Effective When a Human Voice is Used (gannettlocal.com)
• Who Should You Outsource Social Media to? [Marketing Cast] (hubspot.com)
• Everyone Should Hire ‘Social Media Experts’ (seomoz.org)
• Should You Hire A Social Media Expert? (smallbusinessmavericks.com)

I came across an interesting blog post by Brad Feld today that got me thinking about my social stream. One comment he made stood out above the rest:

“Given my social network promiscuity I realize that I’ve fallen into a broadcast-only trap.”

Wow, that hit home hard. You see, I am an instant adopter. I want to try all the new services and gauge the relevance of its use for the many clients I work with. I also love sharing these experiences to my social streams. Yes, I am guilty of sharing Instagrams, Foursquare check-ins, daily Paper.li posts, what I am watching via GetGlue, and even what I am listening to via Soundtracking. But when is it too much cross posting, sharing, curation… spam? Or is it just static?

There are many levels of irony at play here. I see the static on heavily consumed networks like Twitter and Facebook. I contribute to it. But often times I want to converse away from the noise. In fact, because I am an instant adopter, I often times engage with fellow instant adopters on these networks/services that sometimes I don’t on my main Twitter or Facebook feed because of the noise.

Example: When Quora first came out, I was engaging with acquaintances like Scott Monty or Scott Stratten. These are folks that I occasionally engage with on Twitter from time to time, but those conversations are one of thousands that transpire weekly. On these new platforms, they are here to test out the relevance of these services like myself. There is more of an intimate audience.

Does the fact that I know that there will be consistent engagement between my fellow early adopters and I on a new platform yet I rarely see that on the larger social streams showcase the fact that there is indeed too much noise on Twitter and Facebook?

Do you ever opt-out of following a friend or colleague on Twitter or Facebook because of to many notifications of these external services?

When does social aggregation become too much aggravation?

I love all these emerging services that pipe INTO Twitter and Facebook. However I am going to try to NOT share my statuses, my check-in’s my activity from these 3rd party services with my main streams for a while. I am curious what I my social stream and my interactions with others will change. This will be my attempt to turn the static to a clear signal.

Do you think that engagement and activity will drastically change?

Keep an eye out on my social streams and give me hell if you see me “check-in” the next few weeks. I am going to do my best to see what difference it makes. I have not manually gone through all my services and turned off the notifications. So I might slip up. Let me know!

Related articles

• GetGlue Integrates With FourSquare, Announces Sponsorship With NFL Network, HBO Sports & More (searchengineland.com)
• Brad Feld on building local communities, Boulder-style (freddestin.com)
• Twitter and TV – the perfect match (edlee.ca)

Image by Marc_Smith via Flickr

Waiting for the next Facebook? Wondering what the Foursquare 4.0 will look like? Trying to build your business strategy to fit the ever growing and changing technology and services?

These are the things that are always on the mind of social marketing strategists. But they are not paramount.  At least not for the ones leading the industry. You see those that build brand engagement strategies around social channels understand that it’s not about the channels as much as it is about the principles of how social works. Through the technology and the noise, there is always the 1:1 relationship. This is the core of all strategies around social marketing. As technologies evolve ways to enhance the 1:1 does too. This is where the focus remains.

In early 2009 the notion of Social CRM was a rough sketch in brand marketers minds. But the concept of organizing and measuring the 1:1 across social channels was there. In 2010 we began seeing these practices take shape in conference presentations and software begin to adapt more and more around managing this reality. The fact is that some people still turn to technology for answers rather than understanding the core philosophies in place. Remember the 1:1 reality and as technology evolves the core Social CRM philosphies are:

• Measuring the 1:1 relationship based on quality, loyalty, and context
• Archiving conversations and relative data of the relationship
• Listening and monitoring multi-channel access to each person within your network

If you utilize or are thinking of utilizing technology to help with this process, kudos. There are many programs out there from free services like Gist to larger Enterprise custom platforms like Sprinklr. But remember the core 1:1 aspects of Social CRM and how the technology fits those philosophies.

Related articles

• Social CRM at a Crossroads: Where to Next? (customerthink.com)
• Social CRM Tagging (kevinspidel.com)
• Gartner Says the Use of Social CRM for Customer Service Will Grow Rapidly Over the Next Two Years (serve4impact.com)
• Gartner Says Social CRM Market Will be $1 Billion in 2012 (serve4impact.com)
• As the Social CRM World Evolves: Your Guess Is Better Than Mine….. (thecustomercollective.com)

About Social Media “Experts.”

Late at night I tend to vent about social media “experts” or social media “marketers” that don’t get it. I take it personal, because I tend to get grouped in with those that give us a bad name.

First of all, social media is a place to bring your brand alive. To engage and converse. Not to spam! So when I see so many small businesses going after the quick “for $200 a month we can get you 5000 Twitter fans” strategy, it pains me. People are making money off of this!

Case in point, a new agency in Phoenix has launched to help small business with their social media.. This firm went after Twitter users that have large networks to help sell and fulfill their social media products/services. Being in the space myself, I am hyper vigilant of who is doing what in this space. Mainly because I believe in this space so much that I love to see people doing new things, engaging new ways, building businesses off of great micro communities. I love LOVE giving shout outs to business who rock this space. I do it all the time. I try hard to NOT call out those who do it wrong by name even though I feel they hurt this space so much.

Today I got a message from the CEO/President of this new firm asking me to “like” a new page of theirs. Really? Really? #facepalm.

Because I value this space so much, I need to break the rules this once and call a spade a spade. This did in fact happen!

I am sorry… but that is just painful. If you are outsourcing your social media to someone who does THIS to your brand/small business/company, please be warned. You are wasting your money. This “social media expert” who leads other “experts” doesn’t even know how to send an invite! IM Spam? Really?!?!

Please take value in your voice. Please take value in the community you build around your brand. Do not just comb the web and spam others. This type of engagement and “like” is not marketing. It does MORE damage than good.

Accounts on the social web are people. Talk to them as such. Not these simple, “Hi, I don’t know you… can you endorse my business” tactics!

This is why I rant.

</end rant>

Update:

He just did it again this morning! He is spamming so many people that he is forgetting the conversations he has. This time I am not holding back on the name. He is the CEO of PTS Social Media.

Another update (and to be fair):

They reached out to me in an email. I felt they need a public rebuttal because I called them out here. I commend them for that, but have a few issues still:

Dear Kevin,

I had a chance to read your blog and Twitter post in relations to what occurred on February 16th and 17th. I felt inclined to respond not for argumentative sakes, but rather address some of this issues you outlined so clearly in your blog post “Why I Vent.” I do not know why you believe I have given you a bad name. I, Andrew Shainker, who was the writer behind Doug Greenwald on those specific dates never once claimed to be an “expert” in social media. I am sorry that you have gotten that impression. I believe by asking someone to like a page is a choice that I rightfully have. You as the receiver can either decline or accept that request. In addition, you also have the option to ask me to like your page. Social media is not just a one way street.

The company, I work for prides itself on getting results for our clients. We have more than 60 businesses we represent with a staff of more than 10 people. Our cost are way more than $200 a month and there is no “Twitter Fan guarantee” in any of our contracts. Those statements you outlined in your blog were false. I believe it is about creating a loyal following rather than just a large following.

I am glad that you have knowledge in the field of social media. I am fond believer though that there is no right or wrong way to do social media. It is my professional opinion that only through trial and error  one can determine what truly works. There are no degrees to become a social media expert. The way you use social media might be different for each and every person. I value your opinion, but in the future I hope that if you have an issue or a concern you will call the person, not just de-friend them on Facebook.

Working at a premier web based marketing company we run into “one man” shows all across the valley. I believe that these individuals do not have the overhead, the staff, or truly the time to do social media correctly for multiple clients.  As you know social media can be a full time job. It might not be brain surgery, but it is time consuming. I hope that when representing your clients you spend your time on there accounts rather then picking a part whats wrong with ours.

If you would like I would be happy to answer any of your questions or concerns. Please call my personal cell at any time. Thank-you for taking time out of your day to read this,and I hope to hear from you soon.

–
Andrew J. Shainker
Business Development Manager
PTS Social Media

First off, really am thankful they responded. He is right, social is a two way street. A public two way street. I make this argument public because this is not just about one person having an issue with how one company is doing things. It is about this space as a whole. I did not say the firm charges $200 for 5k Twitter followers. I say some do. So I want to clarify that. In this case, I get a blind “Like” request from someone managing a person account of another person that both I don’t have a relationship with. If you were in a cocktail party, would you walk up to a stranger and ask them a blind favor to “LIKE” or endorse a brand? Sure it is your right to do so. This is correct. But it still not ethical. And I will most likely tell others at the party what just happened because it was simply, rude.

That is what happened here. But the party is the social web. I told the social web what just happened. Then, it happened again the next day. So names became involved. Just like everything social… when someone is rude and unethical, word of mouth spreads. Yes you did reach out to me. Should I have called you directly? It is my right in social media to post the above because I am very prideful of those that build epic in this space. So for Andrew, speaking on behalf of another persona, to engage me on social media and be rude a second time got me more upset. This is not just about him, his actions but what MANY do. If celebrities and CEO’s of multi-billion dollar companies can manage their social feed, why can’t a local firm do the same. Why must random invites as IM spam be a tactic they have to defend?

What are your thoughts as a consumer of social media. Yes he has a right to do this, but is it effective? What does it do to this space?

Related articles

• How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] (fredzimny.wordpress.com)
• 11 Keys to Social Media Marketing Success (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] (mashable.com)
• Social Media and your brand – it’s all about how you play the game (socialmediatoday.com)
• A Social Media Tip for Small Businesses (famousbloggers.net)
• Social Media Management Tips (ducttapemarketing.com)

Tonight I was invited to present to several dozen Phoenix nonprofits on social media engagement thanks to Cox Arizona at WordCamp Phoenix. The audience ranged from the Phoenix Zoo to the Red Cross. Greg from Cox presented on engagement tactics, culture, best practices, and illustrating some examples. I presented on the management of engagement within a CRM environment. In essence, Social CRM for the nonprofit. This was my presentation:

Related articles

• Technology Trends for Nonprofits in 2011 (nten.org)
• WordCamp Phoenix (polldaddy.com)
• Should Social Media Replace Traditional Channels? (vivanista.com)