Last year, Chris Brogan coined the phrase “the audacity of free” to refer to the entitlement his “friends” feel they have about getting free entry into conferences that he and his team spend months to organize. Somehow, individuals forget along the way that costs accrue when considering the venue, food, exhibit hall, and the staff required on hand to run the event smoothly. At the end of the day, contrary to seemingly popular belief, the hosts aren’t the only ones pocketing the money.

Yet with social media, there’s a perception that it’s easy to score freebies. After all, we become easily connected and six degrees of separation is slowly becoming three degrees.

Social media has introduced incentives to the online space, encouraging others to connect with your business. It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s the way it is. You want something from someone, so you need to compel them to engage or they’d have no reason to. In fact, in a test a colleague of mine ran with sponsored advertisements, the incentive-based campaign was much more successful than the original information-only campaign. But many individuals take this concept too far, expecting a freebie at every turn. And unfortunately, social media is at fault for breeding this mentality and causing it to spread.

Let Me Pick Your Brain for a Bit

Those of us who eat, sleep, breathe, and even bleed social media often get asked out to “free lunches” so that a “friend” can pick our brains and ultimately use this free advice to get some material gain out of it. And Chris is right: while seen as a kind gesture by the giver, it’s exploitative. After all, hourly consulting fees are typically much more costly than a “free lunch” plus the travel time it took to meet up.

It’s shocking, almost appalling, to see the reactions of individuals who are asked respectfully to pay consulting rates for these “free” brainstorming sessions, whether over a meal or on the phone. I’m not sure where we’ve gone wrong here, but something needs to change. Time is money, and inquiries are usually made to those possessing a certain level of expertise that only is available to those who have had years of training, which is also time and money (and even debt for some!). That lunch and the information provided therein will often benefit your bottom line. Making a payment for that should really not be so difficult. However, while haggling is expected in the economy of today, trying to get everything for free is downright unethical, nor is it fair to the person who poured their heart and soul into the advice that you’ll merely milk from them without any reservation.

There’s a Lot of Value Here Already

I won’t deny it: I want Techipedia to be packed with value, to show you what I know and how I can help you. A few high profile folks have even called my readers lucky for getting great content without any up front monetary commitment. (If you want great beginner social media content behind a pay wall, check out Exploring Social Media, a project I am working on with Jason Falls and some other great minds.) This comes despite people asking for more under the assumption that I “must” be making money on this site and therefore owe my readers more. (Do you see any banner ads anywhere?)

I’ve spent seventeen years in the social space. That’s a long time and before most of you probably even owned a computer that was connected to the Internet. I’ve been working in consulting for a little less, but it’s my job. It’s what I do (among other projects). And my fees pay the rent, keeps me connected to the Internet so that I can serve my clients, and covers other expenses such as staff and business expenses. All of this doesn’t come for free for me either.

Books Take Time to Write

Last week, a Twitter user asked a really blunt but surprising question about how to download my book (legally) for free. It was nice to request a legal copy, but there isn’t any. My book is less than $20 on Amazon, which makes for a great deal and covers years of practice and training. The investment could benefit your business by a lot more than $20 in financial gain.

Books aren’t a breeze to write and anyone who is an author might tell you that book writing is some of the hardest and busiest work they’ll ever do. It took me nearly 1000 hours that could have been spent on other clients. Did anyone know that authors make perhaps a dollar off the sale of every book? As much as I’ve wanted to be an author since the age of 5, I understood why my mother tried dissuading me at that tender and impressionable age: most authors simply don’t make enough money. Surprisingly, some individuals who have yet to build any type of relationship with an author still expect to get a break. Whether or not it’s my choice — and in book publishing, there are other parties involved beyond just the writer — it’s just the wrong question to ask.

Last week, when the Twitter user asked the question about the free downloadable copy, I gave her a straightforward unemotional-and-without-thought “there is none” answer, which is typical of the types of responses I provide on Twitter (I’m only wordy in blog posts ). Consequently, I got chewed out both on Twitter and following that on her own blog, telling me that I should have responded nicely and recommended the library. Somehow, people think it’s okay to ask an inappropriate question and get a more-than-grateful response.

Life won’t always hand you breaks. Those of us who are successful in our space usually have worked really hard to get here. Social media should not continue to give off the mindset that it’s easier to get things for free. Sadly, it absolutely has.

I’ll Respect My Time. Will You?

Lisa Barone made a really good point last month when she said that her productivity went up as a result of respecting her time. While her specific circumstances were different, the premise is the same. Most of us are busy, and lately, the extent of the “busy”-ness for me is about helping a business’s bottom line. I’d like to help others but feel the need to repeat my stance against giving people who do not know me and who do not even really warm up to me the benefit of a free ride while still charging customers who have been with me for years. And time is too finite to give everyone free advice. I wish the world worked that way, because I love to help businesses. After all, that’s why Techipedia continues to provide really great informational content almost weekly. It’s why I respond to every comment on my posts. It’s why I reply to every email often within minutes. At the end of the day, though, we ALL have families to feed.

Expertise Comes at a Price

I’m sure I’m speaking for all social media consultants (and other Internet Marketing strategists) out there when I say that social media advice has come at the cost of learning through trial and error for us, and the more and more times we’re asked to give out freebies, the more numb we get to the request. I really hope this post drives the point home that freebies, even a $50 lunch, don’t really benefit anyone but the receiver. (Most of us would be eating lunch anyway!)

Not Everything is Free

I always am fascinated myself by looking at people doing dirty jobs — that guy cleaning the bathroom in Madison Square Garden definitely isn’t a happy camper — and realizing that the only thing that governs people toward these tasks is financial benefit. Almost everything everyone does in the business world, be it a regular transaction, tourism, or travel, has some financial element to it. Money makes the world go round. Chris puts it really nicely when he says, “But free is a choice, and it’s not your buyers who decide this, no matter what we like to think in social media kumbaya-ville. Free is beautiful, and costs are part of life.”

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and there always will be. But setting up the expectation and making demands for freebies puts unnecessary stress on the giver, and that’s just not the correct way to build a real relationship.

Now it’s Your Turn

How have you handled the requests for freebies? Do you have any system that has worked? Failed? Sound off in the comments.

Photos provided by Shutterstock.

[ The Audacity of Free: The Products and Services Edition is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Over the past two years or so, social media’s increased popularity has really done something for those assuming that it’s all a “get rich quick” opportunity. The widespread adoption of social media has caused for hordes of “experts” to suddenly come into town assuming that they can totally own this niche. These new “Internet Marketers” take Twitter by storm, using automated Twitter tools in abundance that give them the true appearance of expertise. They are no-name people who all of the sudden have 22,000 followers while following 23,000, but that doesn’t matter because a newbie trying to market his business sees this 5 digit number and gets excited about the opportunities to reach so many people so quickly.

It’s a Utopian mindset but one that clueless business owners step into after following an “expert” and hiring him for services. Many unsuspecting business owners blindly spot the riches of social media based on the appearance of numbers (even though those are usually deceiving). They think, “This guy must be great; he has 30,000 Twitter followers! What’s better than that?”

It’s unfortunately a situation I’ve been picking up more and more on as I see users building their entire social media marketing empire on the basis of automation.

A few months ago, a big named blogger called out another “expert” for writing an eBook that included a blog post from this blogger without attribution and completely verbatim. The thought process likely was that he wouldn’t get caught. Someone, though, recognized the content and reported it to the original blogger who rallied his audience and successfully had this original blogger amend his document. Where was the eBook author during all of this? I wanted to know since I never heard of the guy. Who was he, I wondered, and was he credible? So I hopped on Twitter for a sneak into his daily activities. Despite the fact that he had over 50,000 Twitter followers, his entire feed was a broadcast. There was no engagement and his ratio of followers to following was close to one-to-one. It’s kind of hard to have a relationship with 50,000 people, is it not? A 1:1 ratio at that level brings up a few red flags, but most notably, automation, especially with regards to automatic reciprocation of every single incoming follower.

But that was a few months ago, and I’m naive enough to think that others won’t be so silly in their online engagement activities. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on building out a social media strategic plan for a really interesting company. Their social media efforts were spearheaded by a guy who looks like a nice dude, but after studying his personal Twitter feed, it was almost the same kind of thing: the process was almost wholly automated. Effort was placed into collecting articles and scheduling them over time to give off the appearance of a “fresh” and “relevant” Twitter feed, but engagement was kept at a true minimum. Essentially, the actual user’s Twitter account became a broadcast medium but not a conversational one.

Sadly, that same strategy was passed onto the client’s Twitter feed as well; with the exception of a single @ in a full month (that was a response to a question), the entire Twitter account was fully automated. He must have spent an hour or two collecting posts to schedule throughout the month, adding no real value to the client’s stream, thereby capturing no leads and empowering customers. Plus, one of his automated tweets even advocated auto-following users, which some very keen customers noted and caused him to remove that tweet and apologize for endorsing the tactic!

So when I finally got access to the client’s Twitter account to begin promoting their services, I didn’t know what I’d find but expected the process to be a tad easier. However, following their home Twitter feed was really difficult. I was reading tweets from a sea of twitterfeeds, which if you’re unaware, are totally automated posts that come from processing RSS feeds. It seemed that none of the accounts this Twitter account was following were actually manned by people — and there were hundreds! Twitterfeeds are hardly the kind of thing a real human would ever want to read, especially one that wants to embark in social media marketing. It’s a great tool, but it’s not one you’d exclusively want to dedicate your Twitter efforts to. And it doesn’t help for marketing — at least not the social kind. If I wanted to shout it out, I’d buy a billboard over the Strip in Las Vegas. Preferably one that was visible from the top floors of the Mirage, Treasure Island, the Palazzo, and heck, while I’m at it, the Bellagio. Why not?

We should hang a banner ad in the middle of the sky

A similar tactic was mirrored on the client’s Facebook account; there was no user interaction, just a bunch of messages that were cross-posted from Twitter to Facebook that were scheduled in advance. There were fans on the Facebook page, but what is keeping them there? A great product — nothing more, nothing less.

Yet there’s so much more that can be done online, and it doesn’t involve only using tools. Tools make your life easier, they’re really a small fraction of the process of social media marketing. Having a solid social media strategy and realizing that social media marketing involves dealing with people is critically important. Here are some rules of thumb to consider when considering a social media marketing strategy:

Engagement is Everything

I can’t stress it enough: social media marketing is a social activity! People are flocking to sites like Twitter and Facebook and other communities because they are online communities where they can learn from and hang out with their peers. The success of a social media marketing campaign strongly revolves around engagement. Broadcasting works better as a billboard.

What kind of engagement can you do? That’s not as difficult as it seems: find people talking about you and respond to them. Find people talking about your competitors and tell them about your own opportunities (use your best judgment though). Find people talking about your industry and chime in! Add value by finding blog posts or articles of interest to your followers and make sure to credit the author of the article, especially if he’s on Twitter! (e.g. “Just found this great post on green and orange widgets by @tamar”).

Numbers Do Not Dictate Influence

There are some people who will automatically follow everyone who follows them on Twitter. As a result, they have incredibly huge following numbers even though their followers may have also used automatic methods to get new followers. It’s actually more common than you think. I’ve been autofollowed by many people simply because I’ve tweeted about Internet Marketing and Social Media Marketing, and I’ve seen my peers accumulate followers for doing the same thing. The funny thing is that some of my peers will auto-follow these folks back, making the entire process automatic.

When I first signed onto Twitter in 2006, I used to manually review every single incoming email notifying me of new Twitter followers just to see if there was a synergy between our accounts. Am I interested in what the other person has to add? If so, I followed them. With the number of followers that come and go, and due to Twitter’s widespread adoption, it’s now a bit difficult to manually review the dozens of followers I get on a daily basis. I now employ lists as a way to follow people in my own defined categories (though it still has a shortcoming; the process is still manual!). This method may or may not work for you; my point of illustration is simply to explain that the process of following (both on Twitter and on lists) for me is a completely manual one, and it may be advisable for your own account integrity to avoid following everyone just because they’ve elected to follow you. Are you genuinely interested in everything the 15,000 people you’re following have to say? Will you even pay attention to your home feed? These are questions you need to seriously consider before you automate.

Tools like Klout can really help you find the influencers among those who are merely twitterfeeding it up the wazoo. If their number is low (I’d say a Klout of 35 or less counts for low/no influence among social media experts, though this can be debatable), even if they have 302,402 followers, they’re not influential. If you’re hiring a social media marketing practitioner for your business, look at their Klout. If it’s low, they aren’t exerting enough influence on their own accounts to be influential enough on your account. Even though some of us are busy helping clients, we should still find time to nurture our own account and grow it organically.

Automation is Okay… in Limited Quantities

Sometimes it’s okay to share content you love. I have close friends and colleagues who share sponsored posts from major blogs among the other posts they share from these large online publications. They do it because they generally love ALL the articles — and so what if there’s an infrequent article that thanks the blogs’ supporters?

Running through automated tools is fine, but it’s not something you should be doing regularly. There’s only so much genuity that comes out of automating your Twitter account. And it also proves that there are thousands (millions?) of blind Twitter users who think it’s a numbers game.

Remember, engagement is key. Respond to the people who are around you. If you want to stand on a podium and start shouting through a megaphone, by all means, do it. Just don’t do it on Twitter if you want a return on your investment. Twitter is a community and you’re a member of the congregation. You need to respect your peers and treat them as they deserve to be treated.

Thanks to social media’s widespread adoption and thanks to a really open API for platforms such as Twitter, it’s inevitable that people will take advantage of the latest and greatest of Twitter tools — and then some — to eliminate the need for manual labor while still charging an arm and a leg for services. Don’t fall victim to this trap, and make sure to evaluate the people you’d be hiring to ensure that they are real people and not set-it-and-forget-it bots. By taking a more automatic route, you’re missing an opportunity to capture the attention of some people who really can matter for your business, so don’t forget to be human too. It’s that easy.

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ No, You Can’t Automate Social Media! is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Unless you’ve gone to a college in the last 10-15 years (and only when the book existed), you may not even know where the name Facebook came from. (In case you want to know, here’s a hint.) Facebook, originally known as thefacebook.com, was a service that connected college students to their classmates and to friends in other universities. The concept was based off a tangible book that incoming freshmen were given each year so that they can meet their classmates. Because of its original simple use (communication!) and its restricted access, people had no need to use any other names on the Mark Zuckerberg-created social network. You could find me by searching for my name (my maiden name, at least). You could find any college student who elected to join by using their first name and last name. They weren’t trying to be silly and they had no reason to self-promote. It was a closed service with almost instant and immediate trust.

It’s how social networks are intended to be used.

I’ve briefly touched upon a huge pet peeve of mine in my social media etiquette handbook, saying that you should use your real name and not represent anyone (or anything) else. If you do so on Facebook, your account will likely be terminated especially if Facebook receives reports of misrepresentation. Case in point: in 2006, Facebook removed the only Facebook friend I had who wasn’t a real person. That person was St. Augustine of Hippo, who has been dead for nearly 1500 years. Since Facebook wants you to use your real name and to be yourself, I totally understand and respected their decision to remove the account.

By removing this account, and I’d imagine dozens of others, Facebook set an example, but four years later, name abuse is running rampant on the service. Since Facebook’s user base is so big, and since their staff is clearly too small, they are unable to police this infraction as effectively as they used to. It’s a shame since some of us “purists” (if you will) are bothered by the lack of respect these individuals give to Facebook’s rules themselves, and most importantly, their peers.

Here’s my request of these individuals: Use your real name. Only your name. Don’t be ridiculous and start adding qualifiers (like Seo unless it’s part of your name). Facebook is a great tool for marketing your business, but only if you use it correctly. Sorry, there are eleventy billion SEOs on Facebook. There are probably many web consultants. These terms do not belong in your first name or last name. If you want to promote your business services in some capacity, use a Facebook Fan page.

Because it is still unclear to a large (unfortunately) percentage of people how to use Facebook, I’ve taken the liberty to explain what the different Facebook profile options are that are available to you. Don’t need this? Pass it onto the people who do. Maybe they sent you a Facebook friend request and you were too uncomfortable accepting it because of the strange associations implied when a person said he’s a pizzeria.

Profile Page: This is simple stuff, guys. You create a brand new account on Facebook. You enter in your birthday (yes, your birthday. The one on your birth certificate). You tell people about the schools you’ve attended, the degrees you’ve earned, the interests you may have. That’s for you, the person reading this. You shouldn’t create it for your dog or your 3 month old son (as much as I want to for my own child, I assume that in 13 years or so, if Facebook is still around, he’ll want to create his own account with a real birthday). This account is for you. If you already have an account, don’t create another one. This is a personal profile for a reason.

Just a guy's personal profile on Facebook

Facebook makes the bold claim that they have 400 million accounts, which is a great number to a potential advertiser or business looking to jump on the bandwagon. Truth be told, that may even be why Facebook has stopped canning abusive accounts. However, that number simply isn’t accurate because most Facebook users don’t follow the rules. Still, it puts Facebook ahead of MySpace.

Official Fan Page: Are you the owner of Gary’s Ice Cream on Main Street? Do you represent Sylvester’s Soccer Shop down the block? Excellent. You’re authorized to create a Facebook Page. This is a page you can use that is publicly available (for the world to see and find via search engines) to help your customers find you. It’s the greatest thing for you as a business owner; you need not go out and start befriending people to let them know you exist — once you create the page, just tell your customers about it, and the word of mouth will spread.

A regularly updated Fan Page brings greater awareness

Community Page: What if you love something but you have no direct affiliation with the product/service, can’t find the official page, and worse, discover the page doesn’t even exist? Community Pages are the most annoying thing Facebook has given us, but I see their point. In an effort to make Facebook data more public, Community Pages let people share ideas, thoughts, and their interests in a fully open forum. Sadly enough, most people don’t know that their content is public; a wonderful example is seen below. Did anyone know that this was going to be made public? Of course not.

I wonder how many of these folks know that their info is viewable by the entire world.

Groups: Facebook Groups still exist, but I wouldn’t encourage using them unless you’re looking to maintain a fully closed and private community in the confines of the service. Normally, Groups exist to let people congregate around a common interest. Maybe you went to the same summer camp in 1992 and want to share photos with your old camp mates. If that summer camp doesn’t exist anymore, a Facebook Group may make sense. (And if it does still exist, a Facebook Page may make sense.) There’s a lot of overlap between Facebook Groups and Fan Pages, but Facebook Groups is very limited in terms of functionality (Facebook has had Groups since the beginning of time).

I had a good reason to base this on a summer camp example.

There you have it: personal profiles versus Fan Pages versus Community Pages versus Facebook Groups. And perhaps, now you know a little more of how each “community” on Facebook is intended to be used. Heck, most of you get it. But in the last few days, I’ve run into:

• One of my favorite new restaurants using a regular Facebook profile, which I only learned about because it showed up in the box of 6 friends on one of my friend’s profiles. Restaurants aren’t things I feel comfortable being friends with. They’re things I Like. On principle, I just cannot add this restaurant as a friend. It’s just awkward.
• A religious institution using a personal profile which uses default privacy to broadcast information about its offerings. Too bad it’s not public; nobody can actually see these updates unless they actually are your friends.
• A local photographer who not only has a Facebook account which totally is named after her business, but she also watermarks every single photograph she uploads to her Facebook album. It’s overkill.
• Contributions on a Facebook event wall that come from a social media aficionado whose name clearly isn’t on his (her?) birth certificate. Even social media “purists” aren’t really that pure.

Okay, yeah, perhaps these minor details aren’t the end of the world for some people, but when I’m friends with real people with real names, having a friend who looks like the odd one out just seems wrong and exploitative. (Yes, exploitative: “Facebook hasn’t stopped me yet so I’m going to sell my services as overtly as possible in my username. Maybe a friend of a friend will need me one day.”) Yet, over the past few months, I’ve been befriended by some “www dot domain dot com” types and refused on principle, but I realized that so many of my friends who do not even know them are accepting the requests blindly simply because there are other mutual friends, not because they agree with this tactic. Hold your moral ground!

What Facebook needs is a way to convert profiles — full fledged ones that include “religious affiliations,” “marital status,” and the like — to Fan Pages. People who have already established a fan base on their personal profiles don’t want to start anew. But in the absence of that, for now at least, it’s advisable to change your name where you can or just create that Fan Page. You wouldn’t want the months or years of work you’ve invested to disappear into thin air one day because your account got terminated due to abuse of policies.

[ Dear Facebook Friends, You’re Doing it Wrong is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Just last year, I became a mother for the first time. My son just turned one (time flies, doesn’t it?) and after being a full time mom and performing various social media marketing tasks throughout, I’ve learned that there are many parallels that can be taken from parenthood that also apply to social media marketing. Let’s take a look at the similarities.

You Need to Do it All the Time

True social media marketing — that is, connecting with your customers and prospects — is a consistent and regular task. One-off campaigns can help drive viral success, but social media is not a “set it and forget it” type of initiative. You need to consistently work at building relationships and not let them be. And you need to be consistently monitoring the space. Silence can hurt you. If you’re not following the conversation regularly, your customers might just flock to your competitors instead.

Similarly, as much as it might feel compelling to neglect your child to perhaps play in the virtual space or to do anything else for that matter, you can’t take lengthy breaks from your kid. Parenthood is a full time job for either the parent or a caretaker. You can’t just give birth to a baby and forget her either. She needs your attention just like your audience does.

You Don’t Get a Vacation

In the online space, there will always be some sort of mention online that is applicable to you in some way. Maybe it’s on Twitter. Maybe it’s on a forum. Maybe it’s on Tip’d. The Internet never sleeps and neither should your online initiatives. As someone who is required to monitor your brand, there will never be a day when all is quiet. It’s kind of why I don’t really take vacations.

Once you’re a parent, there’s no going turning back. As Tony Hung once told me, you can’t put your kid back where he came from. You don’t exactly get a vacation from your kid. Once you’re a parent, you can’t distance yourself from that role. And if you do go on a real vacation, when you get back from that trip, you’ll need to tend to your child yet again and most likely address issues that arose when you were gone.

It’s Going to Be Difficult at First

When you first give birth to a child, you’re in for a challenge. I must have heard the standard “so, are you getting sleep yet?” question a hundred times. (Thankfully, now I am.) For the first few months, a new parent has to worry about the constant waking and sleeping that interrupts your day, regular feedings (and what to do when the baby doesn’t eat), buying new clothes every 2 weeks, doing laundry 3 times more often than you’re used to, the frequent crying, the regular diaper changes — and that’s just about your child. Think about the dynamics that will change with your work environment (maternity/paternity leave, perhaps) and even with your existing partners or family members. Things are changing and they’re changing permanently.

If this is your first time diving in the social media waters, it’s going to be difficult to make a splash. You’ll be creating that Twitter account for the first time, and you’ll have to grow followers. Your Facebook Fan page will have 0 fans. That’s not really convincing social proof. Then, when you’re joining a community for the first time, you’ll need to study the users and slowly build relationships with them. They won’t be easily trusting — after all, you’re probably there to market — so it may be especially difficult getting people on board with your marketing initiatives.

But as you establish yourself, and as your child grows up, it gets easier. No doubt, it will be hard at first. Just keep on trudging and you’ll start seeing breakthroughs.

The Relationship Grows Stronger Each Day

When you meet your customers and prospects online, you’re usually doing so because of some connection with them. There’s some common ground. That’s only the beginning. As you consistently interact with them, offering value and reason to continue following you, that relationship — and even the brand awareness — grows stronger. This is especially true of other social networks, especially ones where you were originally untrusted. MrBabyMan, Digg’s top user, was an unknown once. Through hard work and dedication, Andy has proven himself and people look up to him. Today, he has an incredibly huge following.

Some mothers give birth and don’t immediately form a bond with their child. Others do. I was one of those parents who was in denial during my pregnancy but fell in love immediately following his birth. Yet, it’s incredible to see how that bond grows stronger each and every day as he begins to understand his surroundings and as I realize how lucky I am.

You Need to Nurture It

A newborn is unable to care for itself. It can’t be fed, it can’t clean up after itself, and it definitely won’t like you if you don’t burp it. A regular daily regimen often entails the caretaker role of feeding the child, changing the diapers, burping the baby, changing the clothes, bathing the baby, teaching the baby new things, taking the baby to the doctor or outdoors, putting him down for a nap — the list goes on and on. It’s hard work. And you, as the parent, are responsible for these tasks.

Many companies that have not embraced social media marketing often do so because of the fear of an uncontrolled message. That’s why social media marketers reassure these companies that they may not be able to change what’s being said (nor may they necessarily like it), but they can nurture the perception that people have of companies (see letter N). Yes, you’ll have to work at it, but you can do it.

Sometimes There Will Be Bumps

Sometimes there will be parts of the job that just aren’t fun. Your child may get sick, he doesn’t like his green beans, he might be very unhappy when he’s teething, or he might have a rough patch and revert to a previous sleeping pattern that isn’t ideal. As a parent, your job is just to stick with it. It’s not the best scenario, but hopefully, it’s only temporary.

Similarly, your social media marketing initiatives might sound great until someone goes out and ruins it for you. Perhaps you’ve prepared really well for what you thought would be a great viral video campaign, only to find out that the audience does not care in the slightest. As a social media marketer, you might be ill-prepared for these unpleasant experiences. Still, though, you trudge through it. It isn’t going to be a walk in the park; everything is a learning experience. Life gets better.

Conclusion

Parenthood for me has been an incredible journey, one that I realize now I appreciate wholeheartedly. On the other hand, I’ve been doing the online thing for more than fifteen years. Sometimes it’s tough and requires more attention of me, but it is also incredibly rewarding. The daily gains are substantial.

None of this is easy, but social media marketing isn’t supposed to be. Neither is parenthood. Working at it, though, is extremely powerful, both for the relationships you build online and the ones you grow offline.

Update 6/8/10: Natalie Bourre posted the toddler version of this post with more great parallels!

Photos (with the exception of the first one) provided by Shutterstock.

[ 6 Things Parenthood Taught Me About Social Media Marketing is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

I started this letter before f8, so for the record, it’s not about anything new. However, it even holds more water as a result. While Facebook is introducing new developments, they are losing sight of the old issues that are mostly “broken” or that have not yet been addressed. As such, this letter serves the purpose of reminding Facebook that they should focus on current affairs — especially for businesses — before launching new initiatives.

Dear Facebook,

I’ve been your buddy since you were open to a handful of select universities and were called thefacebook.com. In fact, you can validate that by cross checking my user ID, 102991, which should indicate that I’ve been around for a real long time (since February 2004, to be more precise). And though I signed up when I was a recent college graduate, I’ve been an addict for quite awhile and even was impressed by the early app offerings, consistently applauding many of your developments. So you see, my complaints to you are that of someone who has been with you through and through. I like you, Facebook, I do. You’re kind of fun. Usually.

I have to tell you, then, that I wasn’t a huge fan of you opening your doors up to everyone. Yup, it’s true. I was a Facebook purist in its former form and I liked having access to select group of exclusive folks knowing that these were trusted people and that only certain groups of individuals were allowed to have access. It felt good to be exclusive. I, like other “students” at the time, always thought Facebook wouldn’t “sell out” and become an open platform.

But Facebook, you did open your doors to the world, and we all got used to it. Facebook’s goal to be the social network of choice for all was a lofty one, but I gotta hand it to you, Facebook — it was a big deal, and let’s be honest here, it made lots of sense. I can’t blame you for wanting to be accessible to everyone everywhere. After a good amount of time, in fact, I was trying to convince my entire family to sign up. My grandfather, one of Facebook’s holdouts, even created his first account (finally!) after my convincing appearance on The Agenda on TVO in February 2010.

Facebook announced Facebook Pages, too, for businesses to have a real presence. And here’s where the real problem starts. By then, Facebook, you were so big that you didn’t have the staff to accommodate the requests and inquiries — some which are quite legitimate and require personalized attention — that resulted as a consequence of being more open to businesses. With the initiative for Facebook to be open and to empower businesses to host pages that celebrate their business, offering deals and giving the community the ability to converse directly with the business or entity these pages represent, you forgot about accountability.

Where Did My Facebook Page Go?

I’ve heard about dozens of businesses who created Facebook Pages, pouring their hearts and souls and development hours into crafting content and attracting new fans, only to find out that their account disappears without a trace. Some ask me directly for help; I’m not Facebook and I do not have any answers.

Neither does Facebook, apparently.

When these individuals ask Facebook why their Facebook Page was deleted, they are met with silence. Sure, you have staffers to respond to the requests, but it seems that you refuse to. Your standard messaging goes to the effect of “Unfortunately, we are unable to respond to every [concern] individually, but we are reading them.” I get that, but this isn’t just a casual encounter anymore. With Facebook being the social destination of choice, these pages are businesses’ lifelines. Facebook, you’re cutting them where it hurts and you don’t even care to respond to these panic-stricken individuals who have to pour in hours of work, money, and time again to make things right.

It’s sad, really.

It would be sadder if someone built a brand new Facebook Page only to find out that Facebook canned it a second time. That would be really unfortunate. Maybe instead, Facebook, you can respond to the original concern so that the businesses learn from their mistakes.

Personally, I worry that our memories are being lost in digital oblivion, never to be easily recalled or referenced by us — especially with the threat to the long-term viability of our accounts.

Wait, that’s it?

If this was the only problem related to Facebook, I guess this post really wouldn’t have a place. After all, it’s a similar issue to Robert Scoble’s when Facebook disabled his account two years ago. Many individuals have had their accounts cancelled for violations of the Terms of Service.

Or maybe there weren’t TOS violations at all. Who knows. A lot of people don’t seem to be breaking any rules but see their accounts and Pages gone.

Except there’s more.

Permanent Administrators

Here’s another situation I recently encountered. Through a digital agency and with full approval from a client, I was tasked with building up the client’s Facebook presence. Consequently, I was the original creator of the Fan Page. Well, if you know about how it works with agencies, you know that this stuff is campaign-based, and when the campaign ends, you really don’t belong as the page admin anymore. If you’re not involved with the client any further, why should you still have access to the page and all the data? So, after several months, the client asked me to remove myself as an admin.

The thing is, and I wish I knew this earlier, you can’t. The Page creator — the original Page administrator — cannot remove himself. At all. So I emailed Facebook, only to receive a generic acknowledgment saying that I might not receive a response. Well, great. With Facebook’s track record, I knew that, and I kind of respect that given the volume of junk reports they likely get that are answered in Facebook’s help documents. But yet, to this day, Facebook has done nothing about it — which would make sense from your perspective, Facebook, because you’ve covered yourself via your help documents. However, you need to start seeing it from others’ shoes.

I’ve no hard feelings against the client and therefore they’re lucky that I’m the admin of the page as I won’t do anything hurtful now that I have no client relationship with them. But let’s just say that the main admin of a big brand’s page or other type of page leaves the company on bad terms and defaces or even removes the Facebook Page. Now what? Whose fault was it? We have no resources available to us to remove the main person as the administrator. This can translate to very horrible things down the road.

You see where I’m getting with this.

Engaging on the Pages Themselves

Let’s take another issue that more people can relate to. I’m the admin of a few Facebook Pages. Sometimes I want to respond to these pages on behalf of the business that powers that Facebook Page. Sometimes I want to respond as me, myself, and I, Tamar Weinberg, Facebook ID 102991. But if I’m the admin of a page, I can’t respond as me. I can only respond as the business/entity powering that Facebook Page. Why, Facebook, can’t you give me the option to represent myself?

And now that I’m an admin of that client page, well, what if I wanted to engage on the actual page on behalf of myself? I can’t! I HAVE to respond on behalf of the company, even though I’m not at all affiliated with the company anymore.

I’ve seen similar issues with news outlets, especially those with postings that are authored by multiple writers. If you’re the admin of the Facebook Page but want to comment on a posted article, you can only do so as the Page owner, not as an actual participant in the conversation. Essentially, the communication appears to be coming from an official capacity.

I have a colleague who maintains two Facebook accounts — one where he can respond on behalf of the business represented on the Facebook Page and one where he can be himself (transparently, of course). Oh wait, is that against your Terms of Service? You don’t really give business owners a choice. No wonder you have 400 million members. I wonder how many of those are actually unique users.

Removing Fans

Here’s another interesting issue. The only way to remove a fan on Facebook is to click “Fans” and then find the user to remove him/her. Let’s just say you were tasked with doing this on a Facebook page that has hundreds of thousands of fans. Yes, you’d have to manually go through the list, hitting Next, Next, Next, and Next again until you find it … 30 years later.

Seriously, Facebook? You can’t give us a search box?

Contests? What?

Okay, maybe there’s a reason for this, but I never found out, and to this day most of us really have no idea. Just a few months ago, you removed the ability for businesses to easily run contests on Facebook pages. The stipulations that surround contest hosting on Facebook at this present time actually benefit big brands and not small companies who are looking to build their presence on the network. Apparently, Page owners have to ask permission but only if they are spending a lot of money on Facebook Ads.

Sure, Facebook, we get it. You have your reasons for doing this, and they’re probably financially driven, but why not be honest about why you shut so many people out? Why not work with small businesses and those affected most by this policy change to find something that would work better for them that does not complicate the process or require a substantial financial investment? Believe it or not, even with my minimal reach, I’ve been asked about Facebook contests from businesses of all sizes dozens of times. People want to do it right without fear of being punished and losing their hard-earned Facebook Page.

Why did you have to change your terms to kill the potential for businesses to use promotions to shine on Facebook? Most people explicitly join Facebook because they want exclusives, deals, and freebies. Way to take much of that away.

If this decision was financially motivated, perhaps you should have just charged money for the ability for a business to create a Fan Page versus forcing them to spend money on ads before contest permission is granted. Maybe then it would have solved the issue about the permanent administrators. Only people truly financially invested in their companies would actually pay to create Facebook Pages, after all.

Are you Listening, Facebook?

Where, Facebook, can we request these legitimate improvements, and more importantly, will you really listen? I know I’ve made several requests of numerous individual staffers before, but apparently I’m a nobody whose requests deserve not a single listen, despite the fact that I’m not speaking for myself. Facebook needs to improve upon itself instead of innovating with uselessness.

Maybe it’s time to be attentive to these concerns and not shut them out. After all, this time, they’re not complaining about news feeds. Facebook, when you open to everyone, you need to have ears and listen to everyone. Sometimes the concerns are actually legitimate. From what we’ve gathered, the people behind these support forms are junior staff who don’t pass on requests to senior staff, and that’s why nothing gets done.

Facebook, it might actually be a good idea sometimes to listen to your users. When you’re a platform for businesses, having a mutually beneficial relationship could even be a good idea. So, Facebook, when are you going to have a Business Center that regularly communicates with owners of small businesses or larger businesses who don’t place ad buys on your network? I’m aware of your larger-scale relationships with businesses with deep pockets, but not every business is there yet or feels comfortable in the social space. Perhaps creating and fostering relationships can help make it better for everyone involved. Being responsive, though, is a critical first step.

Facebook, I (we) ask that you start valuing business entities and not ignore those who might not be in a financial position to invest with you (yet!). They might not be the lifeblood of your site, but they’re definitely driving more users to the network, which we hope actually helps your bottom line.

Readers, Now it’s Your Turn

What other flaws have you found in the way Facebook handles its relationship with businesses? Readers, the comments are yours.

[ An Open Letter to Facebook is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

For most, social media is new and fun. For others, though, social media is old and is falling out of favor. I’m seeing it happen of users who were happy about social media when it became hyped but are now realizing that they’re not yet ready to hold onto social media any longer. It’s boring, too challenging, and uninteresting. Catering to individuals seems to mean you need to bend to their will at every turn. Nobody wants to have to to a minority that seems to be unhappy with the content you’ve spent hours upon hours writing.

Social media experts are no longer social media experts. They’re moving onto “bigger and better.” Here’s why.

Social Media is a Trend

Wait, what? Social media is here to stay. However, to some, social media is a fleeting trend. That’s because social media marketing experts found success early on since social media relationship building was simply easier. Back then, companies who were engaged were genuinely involved because they wanted to build strong valuable relationships. They weren’t there to push a marketing agenda. Users were more trusting because they could be. Consequently, the early adopters persevered.

It is thanks to the early adopters, the sneezers, that we’re now seeing social media as something entirely different. It’s a cesspool for marketing as some see it. Hype translates to market saturation and puts us where we are today. The newest marketers in the social media space want to take but not to give. The audience becomes less trusting of these networks that they have been so careful to preserve.

Flurries of new experts are seeking the pot of gold behind the rainbow, despite there being none without super hard work. As a result, the original social media consultants are finding social media to be a short-lived trend that actually brought success easily. Now, with more of a challenge, they are slowly moving on. They’re no longer wanting to do the work for social media. It’s too hard now.

Relationship-Building Grows Tired

Despite social media being an extremely comprehensive field, possessing hundreds and even thousands of media, websites, and interactions, at the end of the day, social media is synonymous with human relationships to some degree. Any way you slice or dice it, the human relationships portion will always remain. Sometimes, people eventually get sick of constantly engaging and constantly trying their best to put on a happy face.

With social media, you really can’t have a bad day. You must be on your best behavior and wear your best pair of shoes all the time. Can people really do that?

Not all can. When they can’t, they don’t hang around.

Multitasking Creates Instability

This last decade was much different than any other. We’re living in such an intensive multitasking environment. Our brains are not only accustomed to frequent change, they now require it. Thanks to brand new technologies that consistently and constantly claim our attention spans, thereby requiring us to shift our focus on a very regular basis, we’re no longer willing or able to sit still. Monotony breeds impatience. Thanks to the real-time web and other sites that keep us incredibly busy all the time, unfortunately, there’s no turning back. Many in Gen Y who have become so sucked into doing a million things at once are never going to be settled on any one career, and change is inevitable. They’re used to the rapid fire nature of the Internet and these lessons learned online will be applied to real life.

Sadly, the social media profession is only one casualty of thousands. The kids are going to shop around for jobs, never staying put. And when it comes to social media, your experts of yesterday won’t be there tomorrow.

Social Media Alone Doesn’t Cut It

Social media marketing alone is not enough. There’s a lot more to marketing than just being social. Like it or not, you can’t ignore or disregard the other facets of marketing. For example, your website, without a doubt, needs SEO. SEO and social media are two entirely different things. Sure, someone with great content might capture others’ attention and get lots of links, but you have no idea how many other tweaks you might be able to apply to your website to bring highly targeted and relevant traffic. Links are just one currency of the web.

What about the creativity that is now required of you? Yup, you can’t just chat with people on Twitter and broadcast on Facebook. You can’t just IM your friends begging for votes via the backchannel. You can’t only write comments on forums. The creative element is absolutely necessary. Social media needs to be coupled with a creative strategy for maximum effectiveness, especially as everyone and their mothers join these sites and services to market themselves, their services, or their products.

It’s lofty to consider social media as your only marketing aim. Your best bet is to consider an integrated marketing plan that consists of social media and other marketing tactics, because the act of just being nice to people online won’t bring you conversions.

People Want More

If the chart above is any indication, it’s without question that social media has grown by leaps and bounds. Social media marketing, too, is now a reality for many. The virtual space is becoming a real viable way to market. With the rise of social media is the expectation that social media information should be in abundance — with all the takeaways. However, expecting freebies all the time is audacious.

Market saturation brings lots and lots of experts, many of whom think Twitter is a shiny new object and are ready to write books, charge $2000 for conferences where they promise TWITTER TIPS AND TRICKS THAT NOBODY HAS SEEN BEFORE (in caps!), or offer consulting immediately after getting 20k followers via using automated friend adder applications. After all, there are millions of other users — like grandma who doesn’t even own an iPad, let alone a computer — who can still harness its potential.

Social media marketing of four years ago, when nobody was around, was simply easier. That’s because, as touched upon earlier, the audience was more trusting; the people who were online were there because they wanted to be there. They weren’t there because they wanted to take something in the form of a sale. And to attract new audience members, the earlier strategists would share a lot more. In 2010, with eleventy billion new experts, the “experts” of the early days are no longer interested in giving away social media trade secrets, and you won’t find them shared openly online. Want them? You’ll need to work long and hard for them, but nobody is going to hand them to you on a silver platter any longer. The fruits of their labor stay well hidden away to avoid being abused by everyone who capitalizes on a new finding that someone else worked hard at discovering.

Expecting that those blogging on behalf of social media have a responsibility to give you freebies is, frankly, highly inconsiderate. There are enough freebies here and in other blogs and books. Bloggers already give a substantial amount of their time, so asking for more is just wrong. Bloggers in social media don’t owe anyone else anything, nor do any other bloggers who provide expertise, for that matter.

If you give your tricks away to everyone, they’ll quickly be beaten, abused, and exploited. In a few days, after newbie marketers jump like giddy schoolchildren to try out these grandiose tricks, they’ll become ineffective. That’s exactly why social media bloggers blog in generalities. Those of you rude enough to want to demand more: consider yourself lucky that you’re better than the content provided online. I’m still reading content every day — even the stuff I already know — to consistently grow. Why? Because we can never actually be experts. We can always be learning, and sometimes that requires us to read the same things phrased differently, to get content in the form of a refresher course, to remember that social media still has the human element at its core. The nuances related to how YOU can build your business further — with specific details related to a single campaign that has no relevancy to 95% of the others — are not going to be publicly shared, because that’s stuff that you need to figure out on your own. We all have to put food on our families‘ tables, so sometimes we might have to charge for deeper insights. Demanding more is selfish.

In the absence of detailed direction and secrets provided by social media bloggers, people give up. Sorry, you can’t always lean on your “friends” to help you navigate your territory. You actually need to do the work yourself now. Surgeons don’t just pull up a website in the middle of the operating room when they’re in a rut. Sometimes “social media experts” just can’t do that either. There comes a time when all the information you get online is content you already know. At that point, you might start feeling Fed Up. If you’re still seeking the answers from others, then I’m really sorry. We found the answers by working hard. Maybe you should too.

You Can’t Please Everyone

Just like I have my own critics via comments on my last blog post, in social media, those who are trying to cater messaging to everyone will find out that they can’t. If you try to be everything to everyone, you’re failing.

The perfectionists aiming for 100% success rates in social media will not be able to last long in this space. When dealing with emotions, psychology, anthropology, sociology, among other disciplines, you’re bound to make “mistakes” as you attempt to understand demographics and communities and learn about who will be receptive to what. Sometimes, despite understanding everything you think you could master, the work you’ve done simply doesn’t cut it, and you’ll have to try again. If your efforts are being met frequently with failures, you might be inclined to give up — even if you’re that “expert” and have all the direction you need.

Sadly, consistent failure means that some are simply no longer willing to continue. They’re unwilling to adapt to their environments and instead find something else to work on, perhaps something a little more predictable.

And so, Social Media has an End

It was bound to happen, though. There’s always a tipping point. David Armano put it nicely: “The true believers will remain, while others flock to the next hot field.” He’s absolutely right. We’re starting to see that happen.

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ Is Social Media Becoming Boring? is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Influence is everywhere, but it’s up to you to spot it. As information flow is infinite, many find that it is of utmost importance to capture the attention of the select few who serve as influencers — these are the people who can actually stop their followers in their tracks to help spread your message. Perhaps this might serve as the start of a real relationship. If nothing else, these influencers will help to share your story with their own audience.

I contacted a number of influencers to see what grabs their attention. I selected influencers in all different “walks of life” and areas of influence, from the blogosphere to the power users of Digg to founders of successful startups and authors of bestselling books. The question I asked, simply, was “how do you recommend people grab your attention?” The question was purposely left open-ended; I wasn’t necessarily seeking out attention in the form of a product pitch, despite the fact that many of those asked are prominent bloggers. As such, the responses are varied — just the way I wanted it. Here’s what they told me:

Craig Newmark

Craig Newmark is the San Francisco-based founder of the nearly 15-year-old extremely successful classifieds site Craigslist. As of January 2010, Craigslist boasts close to 50 million unique visitors per month, according to Compete.

For me, it’s just asking, via email, Twitter, or Facebook.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin is the bestselling author of numerous books, including his latest, Linchpin. He also writes for the most popular marketing blog, is the founder of Squidoo, and is an extremely dynamic public speaker.

PR people shouldn’t try to get my attention.

Readers with something to say should email me.

Marketers should make great products that loyal readers or long-time friends or trusted colleagues choose to tell me about!

Pete Cashmore

Pete is the twenty-something founder and CEO of Mashable and is also a CNN columnist. Mashable currently boasts over 20 million pageviews per month.

I think keeping it short and to the point is most likely to get a response — having a clear message or request that gets the idea across in a couple sentences. Everybody is short on time these days, and the more succinctly you can express yourself, the better.

Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder is a co-editor of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE Magazine.

It’s simple: talk or write about things that interest me!

Nicholas Carlson

Nicholas Carlson is a Senior Editor at The Business Insider. Previously, Nich wrote for Valleywag and InternetNews.com.

People can get my attention by helping me. For example, I write a lot about AOL, and after the recent layoffs, I wrote how the entire mobile advertising team took a voluntary buyout and quit the company. Now, a couple weeks later, a PR rep came to me and said, hey a lot of those people are joining this one company (that I rep), would you like to learn more? Because I know that my readers care about that story, I jumped on it so now this PR rep is going to get her company coverage because she approached me in a way that will help me.

Jesus Diaz

Jesus is the Senior Contributing Editor of highly popular gadget blog Gizmodo.

Read what I write about and imagine what can interest me. No amount of pitching will make me write something unless it excites my gonads.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is a blogger and president of New Marketing Labs. He is also the author of Trust Agents and Social Media 101.

The way people get my attention is simple, and yet so few do it well. They start by telling me all about what they need from me. They start by telling me all about their wants, their angles, their client, etc. By contrast, the people who get my time, and who keep my time, actually have read my blog enough to know what I cover and what I don’t. (For instance, I rarely talk about software.) They know that I look for the “human business” angle for most of my stories. They know that I actually care about my community and that they’re not an audience. They understand brevity. And they understand that promoting others is every bit as important as promoting themselves.

Adam Pash

Adam Pash is the Editor-in-Chief of the highly popular blog, Lifehacker. He has also authored How to Do Everything With Your iPhone.

It’s about a lot of dos and don’ts for me.

• Don’t send me what’s clearly a form note.
• Do be direct.
• Don’t try impress me with your funding or whatever industry related things you think you do really well. My eyes glaze over at the site of industry jargon.
• Do make it easy for me to understand what your thing does, and what’s interesting or awesome about it (and do it as quickly as possible).
• Don’t make me read a press release to figure out what’s special about whatever you’re trying to highlight.
• …and so on.

Honestly, the best way to get my attention is to make something cool and show it to me. I love talking with developers about things they’re clearly and genuinely passionate about.

David Chen

David Chen is currently the Managing Editor of /Film and the host and producer of both /Filmcast and The Toblowsky Files.

Do your research and select your targets smartly. I’m a content/podcast producer, so I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours talking and writing about the types of movies (and other products) I love. You don’t need to listen or read all of my work to get a taste of my personality, but if you put in just  a little bit of effort, you can easily figure out what types of things I’m likely to enjoy and eager to promote. In other words, blast e-mails and form letters with no personalization will usually go ignored.

Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble is a prolific early adopter and blogger. He currently serves as the community guy at Building 43.

Do something interesting.

OK, that’s a lame answer.

But to get my attention you should look at what’s getting my engagement at http://twitter.com/scobleizer and the other places I write.

To tell the truth, this is difficult to say in an email. Why? Because, well, if you have something worth paying attention to you probably already have my attention.

Jason Calacanis

Jason Calacanis is the founder and CEO of Mahalo. He also co-founded Weblogs Inc. and the Silicon Alley Reporter. Jason is also the host of This Week in Startups.

Do something epic.

Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is a blogger and Principal Engineer at Google, where he heads Google’s Webspam team.

I think it’s sometimes overused to call someone out by name; it can backfire. An introduction from a trusted contact can make a big difference. Getting to know the person first without asking for something (e.g. tweeting stuff back and forth without a specific “ask” in the beginning). I would say great research or a catchy piece of unexpected data that appeals to me. And of course a snail mail letter is likely to at least get opened.

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Peter Rojas and Ryan Block are the founders of gdgt. Both come from popular gadget blog Engadget, where Peter was founder and Ryan was former editor-in-chief. Peter is also the founder of Gizmodo, Joystiq, hackaday, and Engadget Mobile.

Peter: That’s easy: just do something interesting!
Ryan: …and keep doing it. I’d say being consistent and tireless amounts every bit as much as doing something interesting or worthwhile.

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is the Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land. He also founded Search Engine Watch. Danny is currently Chief Content Officer of Third Door Media which operates the Sphinn social news site and organizes the popular Search Marketing Expo conference series.

I guess it depends on the attention they’re after. If they’re writing about something and trying to spread the word, I can be reached through email using a form on Search Engine Land, plus I do see tweets that are addressed to me. If it’s interesting, I love to spread the word. Point me at so-so, ho-hum content, and you’ve wasted a first impression. If they’re after coverage, email remains best. Be to the point, succinct, and that’s the best.

Anita Campbell

Anita Campbell is the Editor of Small Business Trends and an expert in everything small business.

Participate in my site’s community. Leave comments; tweet “with” me; share information that is valuable to readers (not self-promotional stuff, but something that gives freely of your expertise to others).

Also, while I appreciate requests to do guest posts, I strongly prefer those who have shown a propensity to contribute to the community on an ongoing basis. “Hit and run” guest posts are of little interest to us, for two reasons: (1) there’s a certain amount of work involved in getting someone set up as a new author and showing them the ropes; and (2) the community responds much much better to those they get to know and converse with regularly.

Louis Gray

Louis Gray is a prominent technology blogger and Managing Director of New Media at Paladin Advisors Group.

People can get my attention an a lot of different ways. The easiest way is interacting with me in my data flow. That means making comments on my blog posts, interacting with me on FriendFeed or Google Buzz, and sending me notices on Twitter. I will see all of those, every time. But I also have my e-mail addresses public and cell phone number on the Web site. People reaching out to me in those ways will also get me.

If the question is not just connection but actual attention, they need to find a way to be differentiated and interesting – helping to solve a known problem, or finding a new approach that has entertainment value. I am always interested in hearing about new approaches to solve today’s issues around information overload, content discovery or new ways to discover interesting people.

Brian Lam

Brian Lam is the Assistant Managing Director at Gawker Media and Editorial Director at Gizmodo.

Make noise, but backed up by fact!

Andrew Sorcini

Andrew Sorcini is also known as Mr. Baby Man and is Digg’s #1 User. Andy has submitted nearly 15,000 stories to Digg and over 4200 of his submissions have hit the front page of the impossible-to-game social news site.

First and foremost, show me something original.

Steve Gebhardt

Steve Gebhardt is the Content Editor of the COED Magazine, one of the fastest growing online publishers in the 18-24 year old market.

When it comes to work related instances the best way to get my attention is to be introduced formally by a close contact we have in common or email me at my “personal” work gmail account with a subject line that includes my name and something that I find interesting.

Steve Rubel

Steve Rubel is a prominent marketing blogger and SVP of Edelman Digital. He also contributes to Forbes and AdAge.

Basically, it’s really easy – provide high value content that’s targeted to my interests and those of my internal Edelman and external audiences. They can use any channel they would like – email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (just not IM or the phone). I am very accessible.

This doesn’t necessarily mean pitch me, however. There are lots of people and companies that have secured my attention because they provide regular value. One example is Mint and the insights they offer via their blog. Another is Google, which is putting out gems on their Twitter feed – like this http://twitter.com/Googletech/status/10184907622

Kurt Kohlstedt

Kurt Kohlstedt is the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Webist Publishing & Misnamed Media, which includes the famous WebUrbanist blog.

Offer me something of value to me – no, it does not have to be money, or free samples, or anything of that sort. This can be as simple as some sincere praise for a project I work on or a truly interesting tip on something I would really enjoy learning more about. The key here is: make it relevant and personal – let me know through your words that you have actually read about me or a publication of mine, and explain briefly (ideally with real examples) why you believe you have good reason to reach out and contact me.

Alternatively, if you would prefer negative attention and a quick trip to the email recycling bin, send me a link to something that you did that has no relevance to anything I do, ask for support with a clearly commercial venture in which I have no professional or personal interest, or my personal favorite: ask to swap links with one of my publications and offer a link from an obscure page of your e-commerce site in return. The last is most likely to get you a response, though not of the sort you want.

Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh Shah is the founder and CTO of HubSpot, a software company that focuses on Internet Marketing. Dharmesh also blogs at OnStartups.com.

To get my attention you have to do one of two things: Create something that is so amazingly awesome that all who regard it are amazed with its brilliance. Or, another alternative is to connect to someone I know and trust and have them tell my this is so great.

Note: I rarely take direct messages from people I don’t know.

Owen Thomas

Owen Thomas is the online editorial director for NBC Bay Area executive editor of VentureBeat and founder of Ditherati an on-off again site that has been around since 1997. He has previously written for Valleywag and brought it to its greatness.

You know, I think I’m going to refer back to Louis Rossetto’s original instructions to people who wanted to write for Wired:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/333152/the-ultimate-luxury-is-meaning-and–chocolate

“Amaze us.”

Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin is a former attorney turned blogger and author of The Happiness Project among other books.

People most get my attention, I have to admit, if they come to me through someone else I already know and trust.

Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick is the Vice President of Content Development at ReadWriteWeb and a technology consultant.

I recommend people do fantastic things, then reach out to me through whatever channel works best for them. Maybe more than once. I am generally looking for engineers more than marketers though, so if I don’t respond to you it might be that our definitions of fantastic are different.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is the personality behind Wine Library TV, author of Crush It!, and a dynamic speaker.

Tweet about the NY Jets

Also write an honest email … and the biggest mistake everyone makes is the ask or sell instead or greet or welcome in their 1st interaction.

Ben Huh

As CEO of Pet Holdings Inc., Ben Huh is the mastermind behind sites like I Can Has Cheezburger? and FAIL Blog

Speak your mind freely and clearly. Provide a perspective that isn’t usually offered. Then take other people’s opinions with a grain of salt and an open mind. And do it often.

Aaron Wall

Aaron Wall is a search engine optimization expert and is the founder of the very famous SEO Book ebook-turned-training program.

I think too many people are sales all the time. Everything is about them and how much they can sell and how great they are and so on. Lots of jerks want to put you on a sales call or try to hype their trash to you without giving you anything for your efforts. In their eyes you are simply a conduit for their misinformation and sales materials.

I typically tell those kinds of people that they can go to hell or that they can buy an advertisement or an hour of consulting. Since they are typically greedy one-sided pieces of trash they get nothing and they help me pigeonhole their product as something to never talk about (if it was worthy of discussion they wouldn’t need that sorta hard sell strategy). In essence they are doing anti-marketing for themselves by pissing off the people they want to connect with.

You know what is easy and works well? No hype. No sales pitch. None of that crap. Simply give a person a 3 or 4 sentence email explaining

• what it is & does
• why it was created
• how it can benefit them

and then…if it is something where incremental access costs next to nothing (like a SAAS offering) then give them a free account to check it out. SEM Rush did that to us…and I have promoted them aggressively (even before they had an affiliate program) because their service was valuable and useful and original and they priced it reasonably while using soft sell marketing asking for me to check it out and setting up an account for me.

Even if an item costs $50 or $100, that is how much a crappy link costs…so the product give away strategy should apply to just about anything which retails under something like $500… because if you get exposure on one good site that makes it easier to get exposure on another good site, and the more expensive the item is the more likely people would be to appreciate that you gave it away and mention it.

Other ways to get attention are to buy ads in some well read spots, participate in the target market in a meaningful way for a while before you launch, and/or to develop an affiliate program. Some people also like to start out a non-commercial website and then later slowly transition into commerce. If you build a media channel of your own with readership and throw off attention + links, then that can lead to relationships which make it easier for you to promote something. This is one of the reasons group interviews and such are so popular…they allow you to select the people you hope to gain attention from WHILE giving those people a reason to want to talk about you.

Jeremy Schoemaker

Jeremy Schoemaker, aka Shoemoney, is a blogger and founder of Shoemoney Media. He is also the co-founder of AuctionAds.

The best way to get my attention is to get right to the point of the email. Don’t patronize me, don’t ask me to honor your embargo, don’t ask me if I would be interested in your product — just tell me what you want.

Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse is founder of b5media and ProBlogger.net. He is also the co-author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income and one of the cofounders of Third Tribe.

A few quick thoughts:

• Be personal – impersonal ‘pitch’ emails are a turnoff.
• Be useful – whether its being useful to my network/readers, business, me personally or just the world in general – I tend to pay attention to people who are solving problems and meeting needs.
• Introduce yourself – I get a lot of emails and don’t always remember everyone I’ve talked to before – help me out a little Being ‘polite’ goes a long way too.
• Keep it brief – the longer the initial contact the less likely it is that I’ll get to the bottom of it – unless it’s VERY compelling
• Let the Relationship Evolve – I’ve had quite a few people ‘pitch’ me on really big and complex stuff in a first email to me (including people wanting to go into business together). I tend to be pretty cautious with people I don’t know – I need time to warm up to bigger stuff!

I’m not as high maintenance as that sounds – but I’ve had ALOT of bad ‘pitches’ over the years

More on this type of topic – http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/10/30/how-to-pitch-to-bloggers-21-tips/

Jay White

Jay White is a blogger at Dumb Little Man, a successful productivity blog.

My attention span is short, like a dog. The best way to communicate with me is in short bursts of information. Your Value, Intent, and the Desired Result need to be conveyed for both of us: If you can summarize those in 2 sentences, odds are you will get a response from me. If you notice, things like name, credentials, work experience, where you’ve guest blogged, etc., are not on the list. You know why? Because it doesn’t matter. I know plenty of MBAs successful entrepreneurs, and downright blowhards and many of them aren’t bright so a paper trail of “I am great” doesn’t cut it with me.

To me, the value you bring to the conversation speaks for itself. You tell me how my audience gets smarter or lives a better life by knowing you, now you’ve got my attention.

Corvida Raven

Corvida Raven is the author of SheGeeks.net, and co-producer of EverythingTwitter and TheSocialGeeks Podcast. Her passion for Technology and Social Media has made her one of the most Influential Women in Technology (FastCompany, 2009).

The easiest way to get my attention is to be excited about what you’re showing me. If you don’t care about it, no one will. So many people lack passion and enthusiasm for the things they do.

It leaves me wondering why I should be paying attention. Their presentation should say it all, otherwise we’re wasting time.

Mark O’Neill

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer who serves as the managing and publishing editor of successful software blog MakeUseOf.

How would I recommend people get my attention? If you mean if they want to promote their product, I would immediately say “get to the point and keep it simple”. People spend so long waffling and rambling, and all I’m thinking is “when are they actually going to get to the point?”. They spend so long saying how great their product is but I still don’t know what the product actually is!! I’ve read so many bad email press releases.

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is a blogger, photographer, and principal of FutureWorks. He is also the author of a brand new book, Engage and co-author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.

Interesting phrasing of this question…I assume that by responding, I consider myself an “influencer.” It’s easier to say that, like anyone living and breathing new media these days, my attention span is testing its elasticity. Truthfully, it’s a difficult question to answer. Cleverness, wit, tenacity, and most importantly relevance are the ingredients for assembling a plan for attracting my attention. It’s important to connect with me where I’m actively engaging…when I’m present. Make it easy for me to digest, providing the value and the action up front…prompt me to respond or ask for more information…turn it into a dialogue.

Tara Hunt

Tara Hunt is an entrepreneur, speaker and author of The Whuffie Factor, among many other things.

How would people get my attention? I guess I’d say to build relationships far before you need to get anyone’s attention. Do good, positive things for the community. Help me out when I ask questions from time to time. Interact positively in lively discussions and debates. Then, when you need to get anyone’s attention, it doesn’t feel like an imposition or spammy. It just feels like you are calling in a favor from friends.

Vitaly Friedman

Vitaly Friedman is a web designer, author, and editor-in-chief of popular web design blog Smashing Magazine.

Be short, be precise and convince me. Instead of explaining features, tell me what makes you or your product different, what’s unique about it and what advantages it has.

My own advice

Do it more than once. I get a lot of messages directed at me. I am more inclined to notice people when they tweet at me again and again. (I respond to emails pretty quickly, so you don’t need to email me more than once. Of course, pitches that you send that are off-topic normally won’t get a response.)

Not too long ago, I asked my Twitter followers for a service provider. One person who caught my attention through repeated exposure stood up and offered herself. I was excited about meeting her and told her that I was giving her preference explicitly because she made the effort to catch my eye. She was the epitome of this example! (I was pretty bummed when she proved not to be reliable, but I did reach out to her first.)

Today, I look at a few things. I look at effort put forth in comments. I look at tweets. I look at engagement. I look at what looks like a solid personalized effort versus just a blast. Show me you’ve put the time into it and you’ll be acknowledged.

If you’ve elected to email me, make the email short and sweet. Brevity is all the rage these days simply because there is so much noise vying for my attention. Make your pitches succinct. I don’t care who you are or what brought you where you are today. I might be interested in your life history at a later date. For now, if you want me to know about your service or a cool startup, try to use the Twitter format: tell me in 140 characters words or less.

Summary

It’s pretty obvious, then, that there are some underlying themes behind the responses I’ve received. If you’re reaching out, keep it short and sweet. Submit content that jives with the recipient. Get to know the influencer’s influencers. Be a purple cow. Immerse yourself visibly in the influencer’s community. Put effort into the outreach attempt and make it obvious that you are passionate about it.

Yes, this is a process, but hey, do you see all those influencers up there? You’ve gotten the secret sauce. It’s now up to you to heed to the advice given and make a real splash.

Disclosures and Credits: Affiliate links are added to all the book links, but I recommend them wholeheartedly. Photo credits: Jesus Diaz by Diana Levine, Brian Lam by Brian Solis and Wired, Pete Cashmore by Lisa Bettany, Brian Solis by Brian Solis, Anita Campbell from a UPS video, and others that have been so frequently distributed online that I do not know the source. Know the photographer or source? Let me know so I can update this section. (Note: Non-collage photos of Aaron Wall, Ben Huh, Gary Vaynerchuk, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Jeremy Schoemaker, Danny Sullivan, Robert Scoble, Nicholas Carlson, Chris Brogan, Matt Cutts, Louis Gray, Adam Pash, Owen Thomas, Darren Rowse, and Jason Calacanis were all taken by me.)

[ How to Get an Influencer’s Attention is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

I met her during my freshman year of college, though she was two years my senior. We’d exchange greetings when we passed in the dormitory hallways. Nine years later, we met again when we were assigned to the same tables at a local luncheon. She told me she worked in Internet Marketing, which I was quite excited to hear given that there was no marketing discipline taught at all in our alma mater.

We started talking about the last few years and our dreams for the years ahead. We then got into the nitty gritty of business. With Internet Marketing, there are many ways to go, from affiliate marketing to SEO to social media to email marketing. What was she doing? Her answer surprised me. Essentially, her focus was SEO, and her daily grind consisted of keyword stuffing clients’ websites.

Anyone who knows a good search engine optimization expert knows that keyword stuffing is not an approved tactic. Perhaps this is a fact that her agency overlooked, so as a good friend, I told her that it would be in her best interest to learn about approved tactics through the many free blogs, to engage in acceptable and informative (though not free) SEO training, and to read the best SEO book/training program (aff). Even though there is a cost for entry for some of the best resources, the solutions were highly worthwhile, I explained.

Over the next few months, I received multiple invites to various groups on Facebook and messages imploring me to participate in activities in which I had no interest. All social media etiquette rules were not heeded to. Rather recently, she told me that she had enough and was going to quit.

I was excited at the prospect that there might be some freedom for someone who was forced to clearly break every rule that was in the ethical Internet Marketing handbook. I suggested the same blogs and training courses and told her that she could potentially go out on her own and do her own thing after she learned the basics and knew how to apply them.  But first, I cautioned, “you must learn the material.  Your work environment didn’t allow you to do so.”

My friend ended up going out to do her own thing, offering “Internet Marketing services” to anyone who would bite. The instruction I gave her and resources I provided, though, were ignored. I am not afraid that she’ll find this blog post and know that she’s the subject of the story because I know she won’t. I’m honestly worried for her clients who are being cheated out of money and time.

A few weeks ago, another person connected with me on Facebook who was referred to me by a social media buddy I never actually met. “I am a relatively new internet marketer trying to break into the industry,” he wrote. “What are good companies to target? Should I learn a specific skillset?” Overall, the questions were basic and I worried that the individual was looking to target companies for clients before actually understanding the nuances of the culture of Internet marketing as a whole.

While this person’s intentions were more pure — I later learned that he was looking for agencies to target, rather than clients, and that he was willing to endure pain (learning) for ultimate gain (clients which would lead to money) — I began to worry that there are others out there like this college colleague of mine. There are others who sell internet marketing services who are ultimately clueless about changes in the industry that could ultimately amount to them not seeing any increased rankings or improved traffic. At all.

There Are Different Specialties in Internet Marketing

“What do you do for a living?” he asks.  ”I do Internet Marketing,” I say.

“Oh.”

If you’re involved at all in Internet Marketing, “oh” is not a suggested response. Internet marketing is a vast field.  There are different specialties to Internet Marketing. If you’re going to take “Internet Marketer” at face value, you’re being silly.  In the study of medicine, doctors have different specialties; Internet Marketing is no different.

If you’re a brand new Internet Marketer, choose a discipline and a niche that you can tackle head on and be successful at. You can’t do everything at once. Sure, a basic understanding of different Internet Marketing elements is fine, but it’s not practical to be everything to everyone. Here are just some concentrations you can explore:

• Search Engine Optimization:  Someone involved in search engine optimization is focused on building out websites in such a way to be understood by search engines (and by people).  A search engine optimization expert is usually focused on changing URL structure, optimizing title tags, and making code tweaks to a website to make sure the search engines find the site and the pages contained therein.
• Link Building: Part of a search engine marketing strategy includes the process of building relevant links to your website.  This often includes submissions to directories and contacting webmasters of related websites.
• Affiliate Marketing: Affiliates are individuals who market a particular product or service and who get paid commissions by a merchant when they make the sale.
• Pay Per Click Marketing: PPC is another search engine marketing strategy that utilizes contextual advertising; based on a search query or the content of a web page, ads will appear.  PPC requires understanding of keywords, having appropriate landing pages, and other factors.
• Social Media Marketing: In social media marketing, you are tasked with leveraging the social space through its media to market your products.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing relates to the promotion of products and services through e-mail.
• Content Marketing: Content marketing refers to writing relevant articles on your site (or having good site copy) that can bring awareness to your website property.

Most people that I know will excel in one discipline but have a working understanding of the others. If you know someone who is great at every single Internet Marketing discipline in the book, it’s likely too good to be true. If you’re studying Internet Marketing, learn everything you possibly can, but you’ll typically find an area you’re most comfortable in and end up going with it. For me, that’s social media marketing.

Get the Right Training Materials

Depending on the type of work you’re looking to do, your best bet is to learn everything you can on the subject matter. Some of the sites I recommend for educational materials include:

Free

• Sphinn: Sphinn is an Internet Marketing social news site.  Users submit timely news articles to Sphinn, and the community votes up the best stories to appear on the front page.  Normally, the front page consists of high quality content, though even the upcoming queue has good stuff that doesn’t always get promoted.
• There are hundreds of blogs on each specialty’s subject matter.  How do you find the signal through the noise, you ask? Find those who influence you, and then find out who they are engaging with. And read this post from Mat with some good suggestions.
• My top three forums include Cre8asite Forums, Webmaster World (which is mostly free but also has subscription-only discussions), and High Rankings Forum.

Paid

• SEO Book: SEO Book is the bible of search engine optimization.  Aaron Wall nailed it when he released his extremely informative PDF about a decade ago.  In the last few years, he moved his forever-changing content online in the format of members-only training guides and forums.  He also offers high quality tools, many of which are free.
• SEOmoz PRO: SEOmoz PRO features a rich library of informative guides, a myriad of tools, and a strong active and close-knit community.  If you’ve seen their free site and know what kind of great information is already provided, you can only imagine how much value is multiplied behind the pay wall.
• SEO Dojo: David Harry’s SEO program is the newest kid on the block, but it already has a very active group of members and engaging online discussions, in addition to easy-to-read training materials and video tutorials.
• Training Social: Samir Balwani has worked tirelessly to provide one of the most (the most?) comprehensive social media marketing training there is.  I highly recommend you follow his stuff.

If you like books, you should also check out Winning Results with Google AdWords, Pay Per Click Marketing, The New Community Rules (which was authored by yours truly), The Art of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and Search Engine Optimization for Dummies.

Find the Right Agency to Work With

Unless you’ve been doing it for years, it’s never a good idea to go into Internet Marketing without an educational foundation. And most people won’t follow sound advice, instead eying dollar signs as soon as formal education ends.

If you’re serious about this kind of thing, beyond online training guides and books, you need to apply those skills.  Any educational experience in the work world, thus, will help bring you to the next level. Consider working at an agency, even in an internship capacity. Being able to work alongside the brightest minds in the industry can be extremely empowering. Having hands-on experience — the much-needed application of your learned skills — is incredible, especially when working alongside brilliant minds and analytical thinkers.

Every newbie should start working for someone before he embarks on the journey alone. Learning among the smartest in the industry is a sure-shot way to get ahead of most playing the same game.

Not All Agencies are Created Equal

As evidenced by the the story I provided in this article, not all agencies are competent. Keyword stuffing, for example, might have worked 5 years ago, but it’s not a successful tactic anymore.  If you’re about to start working for an agency, study it out before you actually work for it, because if you don’t, you might end up finding out that you’ve wasted years of your life learning the wrong strategies.

One of the easiest steps you can take is to look at their website.  The first thing I normally look at for “SEO” firms is to see if their canonical redirect is in place.  It’s one of the smallest things that can be done, but so many “SEO” firms, including the one I mentioned earlier in this article, actually don’t do it at all.  Also, check the website’s footer: are there keywords stuffed there?  If so, it might be a good idea to turn your back away from the opportunity.

Another thing you should do is to talk to people in the industry that you know to see if they can tell you anything about the company’s officers or about the company itself. If the right people have never heard of the company, that could mean that the company itself consists of self-proclaimed marketing experts who likely get websites banned from search engines rather than ranked higher.  It could also mean that the company is keeping a low profile,  so use the website check to see if the company is up to shady tactics not worth your investment — even if the job offer is there. (You never want to work for a company who has a bad reputation, especially if you plan to remain in this industry. Word travels.  If you’re already there, get out while you’re still ahead.)

It’s probably a good idea to step away from the agency if you find out that the tactics employed in the company don’t match what is taught in the training materials I recommended earlier.   These materials are written and maintained by real experts who know their material cold.  You can do better.

Going Off On Your Own

Only after you have spent at least 18 months to two years at a reputable company should you actually go at taking clients alone. Keep in mind that it’s not as easy as it seems. Doing the solo gig requires you to be the sales department, the financial and accounting department, the secretary, and the person you were hired to do: the marketer. You’re not only doing everything, but your salary is variable as you take and lose clients on a month-to-month basis.

If you’re choosing this path because you’re unhappy with your current company, look for another.  If you’re doing it because your freshman college friend is able to do so successfully, focus on the food on your own plate, Miss. If you’re ready to take on more responsibility, by all means, go ahead and do it.

Just don’t be the girl who leaves a company that wasn’t challenging you anyway — and then starts your own thing without the right educational foundation or skill-set. Be the student who mastered the subject through learning and application, and who eventually graduated to be the teacher. And keep in mind that the best teachers never stop learning either.

Internet Marketing Snake Oil

The Internet is rife with “experts,” but not all self-proclaimed gurus can actually deliver. A lot can talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk.  They might sound great on the phone,  but they might not be able to actually increase traffic to your website through search engine optimization.  They might not have any clue how to effectively manage your Pay Per Click campaign to actually increase leads.

Unfortunately, not all “clients” will be so savvy enough to know the difference between someone who knows his stuff and someone who doesn’t.  As such, when the marketing dollars they invested actually result in nothing, they call the entire practice a scam.  There will always be a few rotten apples who ruin it for the rest of hard working decent folk who are truly looking out for the entire industry.

Buyer beware.  If you or anyone you know is looking to engage in this practice, do yourself a favor and do due diligence before going with your expert.  Interview prospects.  Comparison shop.  Don’t just look for the cheapest option; it might be the worst.  (“You get what you pay for.”) Then again, the most expensive option might not be better.  High costs don’t always translate to better quality.

Don’t Be that Guy

Every single profession has “snake oil” salesmen. There are doctors who don’t really know how to practice medicine and teachers who don’t know how to teach. If you’re an Internet Marketer who genuinely wants to sell your services, consider being well-educated and well-rounded. Consider focusing on a specialty where you can excel — and know your stuff cold. It’s hard enough that there are con-men and scammers who bring the industry to shame, but if you care about the future of the profession, don’t.

There’s probably not a single one of you reading this who is that guy. However, you might have encountered individuals who want to be just like you but might be looking for a silver bullet. Give them the full truth. Let them know that this profession is real work, just like any other type of profession. If they want to protect the integrity of this profession’s future, they should consider being well-read.

For me, Internet Marketing is not just a profession but it’s a passion. I read books and blog posts on the subject not only to further my career but because I love what I’m doing and I want to feel empowered personally and professionally. If you’re like me, you’re in the right place. You understand that this kind of work comes easy, and that you were meant to do it. But someone might approaches you for direction despite the fact that they don’t have gusto to do the work and to learn the ropes. They might just try to cash in simply because they see that some other people can do so successfully, even though those are the people who consider this more than just work: it’s a lifestyle, and they had to climb a ladder to be where they are right now.

Those of you involved in Internet Marketing for a long time might have faced this dilemma. Be up front. This is a discipline and it’s not a walk in the park. Knowing the tools doesn’t make you an expert. Ignoring the tactics makes you even less qualified. Ignoring the paid (and free) learning materials makes you a failure.

Everyone needs to work for success. As your role is now of a mentor, be the guiding light.

[ Advice for a New Internet Marketer (or How to Spot Internet Marketing Snake Oil) is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

This is a guest post by Glen Allsopp, a 20-year-old genius who has been in this industry for as long as I remember — and you can tell he’s got a knack for brilliance. Follow him on Twitter.

There are a few jokes going around the blogosphere right now regarding what it means to be a social media expert. Now that the stay-at-home-moms (and dads) are finding their way to a five-figure Twitter follow count, they’re offering all types of services and branding themselves as all-round experts.

Despite the title of the post, having worked as the social media manager for Fortune 500 companies, and a lot of knowledge here being totally personal, I do not think of myself as an expert. In fact, I don’t think becoming a social media expert is something that people should be worried about; they should be focused on becoming expert communicators instead.

Because of the less serious checklists that are being passed around the web right now, I thought it would be a good time to look at what some of the influencers online are really doing, and how you can join their ranks if you’re so inclined.

Highlight Others

Do you ever read the tweets of Chris Brogan? I know there are a lot of them, but that’s because he’s spending a large portion of each day highlighting the work of others. Darren Rowse? Brian Clark? Daniel Scocco? They might not tweet as much, but they are definitely focusing their attention elsewhere.

I’ve personally taken this concept so far that I now have a pretty new box at the end of most blog posts which highlights other bloggers that I enjoy. Right now, you’ll find the likes of Tamar, Jonathan, Lisa and Rebecca in my feed reader, and consequently, in that box.

You can help your bid to become more transparent online by sharing what you enjoy. Plus, if you know anything about how blogging works, you should know that no blog is a competitor.

Grow Biggers Ears

I did have another way of saying this, but Chris’s term sounds better. Quite simply: the true social media experts are willing to listen to the ideas of absolutely anybody in this space. That could be from traditional media, my sister, a friend, the radio, or even a small child. If someone has an idea I like the sound of, I’m not going to care about where it came from – I’m going to see if I can use it.

Remember, to make an impact in the social media space you have to become the best communicator. And, to fulfil that position, it requires you to be willing to give your time, attention, and logic to people with a variety of different ages and backgrounds.

Accept a New Normal

When I talk about accepting a new normal , I’m talking about two different aspects of life. The first is personal. Take my own situation as an example. Because I have quit my job, and I blog about personal things, I have written about quitting my job and in turn found that this interests a lot of readers.

In terms of influence though, people email me about whether they should quit their job or not, and expect that a 20-year old from England really should know the answers to such important career advice. Influencers accept that they have a position to hold and won’t abuse it for a quick buck.

Not only do experts accept a change personally, they also accept that the business world is changing and the way to get sales no longer means interrupting your audience via every medium they hate being interrupted in.

If you resist the changing times, you’ll just get left behind.

Make Everything Else Irrelevant

In aiming to be the best communicators, it’s important that we don’t discriminate anyone by age, gender or ethnicity when working with them. However, as an influencer, you must remember that while many people will praise you, lots of others in the same niche will not even know who you are. Therefore, aim to constantly focus on producing the best products / posts / services that you can, to make your previous background or achievements irrelevant.

For example, when I first started making money online, I was 16 years old. I knew that unless I went above the effort of everyone else who was blogging about my topic and offering services to clients, people just wouldn’t take me seriously. Because of this, I believe the influencers in any niche should be the people who are the most passionate about their industry doing well.

If you feel the same, then you must also realise that these people don’t fit a cookie-cutter image. Social media experts realise that you can’t control what people say about you online, but you can continue to focus on putting out your best work possible, whatever your medium can be.

Despite all the noise online, it’s still possible to become a signal.

Ignore Social Media Checklists or ‘Top’ Lists

It’s nice to be featured in press both online and off, but allowing that to influence your ego or strategy is just silly. The people that deserve to be the influencers are the ones that realise 10,000 random followers can not be compared to 1,000 or even 500 people who genuinely care about what you have to say.

You don’t become a social media expert by promoting yourself as a social media expert. In fact, if you don’t mind me letting you in on a little secret, there is no way to become an expert in the eyes of everybody anyway. Instead, what you should be pushing to become is the biggest communicator, thought-provoker and connector in your niche.

Then, and only then, will people really start to see you as an expert at something. And perhaps it will be deserved.

Glen Allsopp writes about the topic of Viral marketing at ViperChill. He’s also a huge fan of Tamar and very thankful to have her offer him this opportunity.

[ 5 Things True Social Media Experts Do Online is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Finding productivity on Twitter, especially if you are a large company or one that manages several profiles for clients, can be quite difficult. It’s especially difficult to build up a strong following. Fortunately, Tweet Spinner is here to help. Tweet Spinner is a powerful application that manages the more high level management Twitter tasks for you, from managing followers/friends to changing your profile design and then some.

Tweet Spinner Feature Set

Tweet Spinner features four main features. We’ll get into these in detail in the next sections.

• Direct message management.  Consider spam protection for your email inbox ported over Twitter.  Sadly, this feature has become necessary, and TweetSpinner helps you maintain anti-spam rules to weed out the junk.
• Profile design rotator. Tweet Spinner actually lets you schedule different Twitter backgrounds, bios, and profiles, so that you can see which profile types might get the most engagement.  It also can be used to tell your followers more about you (and to encourage them to check your page more often!)
• Twitter CRM. Tweet Spinner is a CRM tool too, allowing you to connect with potential followers. You can find potential customers by location, view followers of your competitors and “mimic follow” them, analyze keywords you use that elicit the most response, and more. The tool will also prevent you from following spammer accounts through a variety of tactics.
• Scheduled Tweets and DMs. For a big company account, it’s difficult to actually engage all day long (and all week long, especially if you’re a 9-5 shop).  Therefore, you have the ability to schedule messages and to personalize them too.

Direct Message Management

When it comes to direct messages, TweetSpinner understands that you probably have been inundated with messaging that you’re not interested in. And while you could keep those messages stored on Twitter’s server, it might be in your best interest to have them stored to a separate account in the event that Twitter goes down or for ease of searching. With Tweet Spinner, you get a DM archive listed in an easy-to-read page that is searchable (via Ctrl+F on your keyboard; additional search facilities would be useful for accounts with thousands of DMs). You can choose to delete spam DMs or all DMs. Personally, I think something along the lines of an exportable data set would be excellent, but I’m a digital pack rat.

Tweet Spinner: Direct Message Archival

Spam management is offered within Tweet Spinner as well. In Tweet Spinner, spam management can only be applied to messages in your inbox, so if you’ve already archived your DMs, there is no need to run this as it will not find anything. You can choose whether to archive spam (do you really need to wade through those “is this really you?!” messages?) or not. You can also choose a very aggressive spam filtering method that will consider any DM with a URL as spam.

Both archival and spam filtering can be scheduled. This is a subscriber-only feature and occurs every four hours. You cannot change the schedule.

Tweet Spinner: Direct Message Spam Management and Archival

Follower Manager

One of the niftier features of Tweet Spinner is the follower manager. This is where you really can go golden in terms of finding targeted followers but ensuring that those you follow are relevant.

Filters

Right under the “Follower Manager” heading, you see some powerful filtering options that you are recommended to take advantage of. The first, “show/edit filters,” is broken down into four parts.  The “show/edit follower filters” lets you choose how you’re going to follow users on the service. This is further divided into two parts:

• General Follower Filter: You’ll be following users with Tweet Spinner, and based on other criteria, you can pause the rate that you follow users for a specified amount of time.  You can also set a specific follower-to-following ratio, and if you exceed this point, the system will stop following any additional users.  Further, you can limit the frequency of your following behavior; for instance, you may choose to follow 30 people at any specific time and then cool down for a bit so as not to be too aggressive.
• Specific Follower Filter: Let’s say you’re going to follow some users.  They need to meet specific criteria (of your choosing) before you go ahead and proceed, and this will apply to the various types of following options that Tweet Spinner offers (to be discussed).  These are:
  • The number of friends and followers they have.  If they have too many friends and not many followers, for example, you might not want to follow them.  You can set the follower-to-following ratio range in this section.
  • A specific number of friends. You can also follow users who have a specific number of friends (e.g. between 40 and 40000).
  • Age of account. You might not want to follow Twitter accounts that are 3 days old.  You might also want to see that they are future upstanding members of the community.  This is the section where that magic is made.
  • Tweet frequency. You might choose to only follow active users (who tweet between 1 and 100 times a month, for example) and not users who are either way too inactive or are too excessive.
  • Tweet activity.  You might want to follow users who have sent tweets recently.  Why follow someone who last tweeted in January of 2008?  You can set a day here.
  • User-filtering/pruning. If you’ve pruned them before, why would you follow them again?  You might not want to, and here’s a way to prevent the system from re-following someone you’ve unfollowed already.
  • Location. If you’re a local business, you’ll go crazy with the ability to follow Twitter users who are based on a geographic location. I believe that location filtering is based on the location listed in the bio, so someone entering their latitude and longitude will not be followed by this system.
  • Tweet content: URLs.  You might want to follow real people who are engaging.  If a high percentage of the user’s Tweets are filled with URLs, you might not have an interest.  You can specify the percentage threshold here.
  • Tweet content: @replies: You also might choose not to follow people if they are a broadcast tool.  If their tweets contain more than a user-specified percentage of replies, you might opt in.  After all, it shows that they’re involved in their Twitter stream.

With this filter, you must meet all the criteria before a person is followed.

Tweet Spinner: Follow Filters

The “show/edit purge & prune filters” removes spam bots and boring Twitter users.  You might do this based on the health of your Twitter account (good ratio of followers-to-following), or you can stop at a certain percentage threshold.  You can also specify to unfollow a maximum number of Twitter users per action (so as to avoid penalties from Twitter).  Finally, your most recently-added friends might be immunized in the sense that they won’t be affected by the pruning filter (though you might choose to wait a number of days before they do get the axe).

Your pruning filters also can apply to Twitter users who are inactive, if their tweets contain URLs, or if they tweet too excessively (default: 600 per month).

Tweet Spinner also has a “nofollow” user list that will algorithmically never follow users who meet certain criteria.  You might not want to follow specific users ever, and you can put their usernames into this box.  If their username contains fragments of a name you never want to see, you can also put them on the list (e.g. xxx means you’ll block xxxBob, YugoXXX25, and others).  Moreover, you can also nofollow people based on their tweets.  I might never want to follow someone who tweeted about “government grants,” and I can block out certain terms in this system.  At this point, the keyword fragment and keyword list is limited to 50.

Finally, there’s an immunity list (“show/edit immunity list”).  You might never want to unfollow your colleagues ever.  This is a way to keep them from being impacted by the purge.

Follower Manager Statistics

Now that we’ve gotten the filters out of the way (which is overwhelming but gives you solid control over your activities), you can dive into this amazing feature. You’re greeted with some general statistics about your follower-to-following ratio.   Based on this data, you might opt to prune followers. This is a sophisticated method that lets you unfollow spam and stale accounts.  In the future, you’ll be able to schedule pruning, but you can already schedule purging and following and the schedule runs every three hours.

You might want to unfollow everyone who is not following you.  The “purge” lets you remove up to 40 friends who are not reciprocally following you.   On the other side of the coin, you might choose to follow those who already follow you but who you haven’t reciprocated with.

Tweet Spinner: Follower Manager Statistics

Keyword Following

This is where the biggest and best features of Tweet Spinner shine. If people send specific tweets with phrases you’re interested in, you can automatically follow them.  You can also get statistics of whether these individuals reciprocated, and if so, what percentage of reciprocal following you’ve achieved.

Tweet Spinner: Keyword Following

Mimic Following

This is an altogether fascinating implementation of Tweet Spinner as well.  Let’s say I am a competitor of the guy behind the blue widget factory (@BlueWidgets) because I own red widgets.  I might want to see who he’s interacting with on Twitter and chooses to follow.  Or let’s say I’m doing promotion for the movie “New Moon” and might want to see who is following Peter Facinelli on Twitter since they probably would be interested in this Twitter account too.  This lets you do just that. Based on the targets you specified earlier, Mimic Following lets you follow the people you really could benefit from reaching out to.

Tweet Spinner: Mimic Follow

Location Filtering

Again, for local businesses and brick and mortar locations, Location Filtering might be an incredible godsend.  Tweet Spinner uses case insensitive search but requires that you fill out detailed information for best results.  The example that they use is that for Portland, OR, you should enter “Portland, Oregon”, “Beaverton, Oregon”, “Oregon”, “PDX, Oregon”, and “Portland, OR” to catch all variations.

Profile Rotator

Here’s another great feature of Tweet Spinner. You can save your profile (bio, URL avatar, background color scheme, and background graphic) to the server and upload a custom one at will. You can even test to see if one performs better than another.

Here’s how it works: you can’t upload to the Tweet Spinner backend likely because they want to avoid incompatibility with Twitter (such as size limitations). The idea is to upload the files to Twitter first and then import it to the Tweet Spinner back-end. At any time, you can choose to upload the desired profile just by clicking a button on the Tweet Spinner interface. Statistics (# of times the profile has been uploaded) show up in this section.

Tweet Spinner: Profile Rotator

You might choose to schedule your backgrounds to add some more flavor and personality to your account. What if, for example, Manny is working the day shift and wants to associate his profile with his Twitter corporate account when he’s on duty, but Nadia is doing the night shift and she, too, wants to have a profile that associates her information with the account when she’s up? That’s definitely possible with this functionality. When you schedule a profile rotation, the design is cycled and changes every few hours (as specified by you). It’s a great way to spruce up your account and keep it looking fresh.

Smart Tweets

Another great feature of Tweet Spinner is Smart Tweets. This is where you add and schedule tweets that will be cycled at a user-specified interval. This is different from HootSuite or other scheduled tweets in the sense that these are recurring tweets. If, for example, you want your followers to know that you have a special deal on a product, you can send a regular tweet every few hours to make sure it gets the most coverage.

Tweet Spinner: Smart Tweets

Smart Tweets gets even more complex via Tweet Spinner’s “tweetscript” coding functionality. This lets you specify dynamic tweets to be sent. For example, you can create a list called “action” and put an unlimited number of phrases on the list.  If you tweet “don’t tweet and [action],” a different message (“don’t tweet and drive,” “don’t tweet and tweet,” “don’t tweet and drink,” “don’t tweet and eat,” as illustrated below) will be tweeted every time so as to avoid duplication. Tweetscript is a “language” that the Tweet Spinner team is enhancing on a regular basis, but there are already some pretty powerful ways to use it.

Tweet Spinner: Smart Tweets List Example

Rule-Based Direct Messages

Another pretty nifty feature of Tweet Spinner is the DM outbox. These are rule-based outgoing DMs that you can send via Tweet Spinner. Tweet Spinner only sends DMs if certain criteria in rules you specify are set. Once you have some rules in place, you can go ahead and personalize these DMs. Currently, the personalization supported is full name, friend count, follower count, number of days that the account has been in existence, number of days since their last tweet, the URL in their bio, and the location of the user. A possible implementation of this is “Thanks, [{fullname}], for following me. I see you’ve been on Twitter since [{created}]. Cool!”

Summary of Tweet Spinner

As you can see, Tweet Spinner is pretty complex and pretty exhaustive, but the features offered are pretty amazing. I personally get excited about the follower capabilities the most, but I really like how profiles can be rotated and messages can be varied and personalized. Tweet Spinner would make a good addition to an agency or big brand needing to have a little more control over Twitter. It’s especially useful to have an opportunity to let Tweet Spinner run its magic and find targeted followers; I haven’t seen a single Twitter application that offers any comparable features.

All in all, Tweet Spinner is fantastic. Their help documentation is lengthier than this article but everything is clearly explained. Once you’re set up, you have immediate access to these fabulous features, and you’ll have a chance to interact with your followers and leave the grunt work up to Tweet Spinner, from following new users (and not just any new user but those who would actually be interested in what you have to say) to changing up your profile colors every few hours.

If you’re a business looking to get a little more control over Twitter, check out Tweet Spinner. The first account is free (but limited in functionality), and you can add up to 5 other accounts for $18/month. Tweet Spinner also has agency pricing (10, 20, or 50 accounts) but takes Twitter TOS very seriously; to be considered for more advanced pricing, you need to contact them directly and let them know exactly which accounts you plan to use so that they can hand-check them and make sure that you do not intend to run spam accounts on Tweet Spinner.

I highly recommend Tweet Spinner. Even if you’re a small company, the keyword following options are superior, and it’s a lot of fun to actually get statistical data to see how well you’re doing.

Update: Genuine Chris explains how to get targeted followers using Tweet Spinner.

Disclosure: I was introduced to Tweet Spinner by business colleagues, and I took the initiative to request a full featured account for the purposes of this review. As Tweet Spinner runs an affiliate program, I am including affiliate links.

[ Tweet Spinner Review: A Powerful Application to Manage Your Tweets is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

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