How To Lose Customers And Alienate Friends Using Social Media – Part 3

Note: From my work at InstallLogic.

How to stick your foot in your mouth online

Every day I see people and businesses write things online that are losing them customers and friends. I see businesses that repeat themselves or owners that talk on their personal pages constantly about their business. In this post I hope to tell you how to avoid alienating your friends by talking up your business on your personal page or saying all the wrong things.

Digital Deja Vu

The problem I see most is owners that eat, pray and breathe their business. This is great for the business but not for their personal life. I have friends that are so involved with their business that their business and personal pages are synced; they have the same information going out at the same time. So, what do I see in my newsfeed but an update from the owner’s personal page with the same update from their business page immediately after. This is where you lose followers. I, and many others, will hide your business if you do this too much because I am seeing the same thing twice. I will follow my friends over their businesses.

This same issue can also get you in trouble with Facebook and Twitter directly. A person treating their personal profile like a business page can have their account suspended because even Facebook and Twitter believe that business information should be separate from personal information. If you are lucky they will contact you about the information for a business page. Most of the time they will just suspend your account without warning and then it is really hard to get it set up again.

Rule #5: Don’t Mix Business with Pleasure

I know this is a cliché but you really should avoid mixing business with personal on social networking sites. Your friends and family know what you do and how your job works, so unless something particularly special happened this week about your business they don’t need to know.

If you find yourself talking about your business a lot then it is time to open up a Fan Page where you can drive customers to your information. You’ll be using your time more wisely for free marketing.

Saying all the wrong things

Now there are times when I have seen businesses talk about politics and religion, but most of the time they are businesses that are either political or religious in nature. For instance, your clients don’t need to know what your political stance is on smoking in bars if you are an accountant. I don’t feel like I need to know if my child’s math teacher is Buddhist. It shouldn’t affect the way these people do their business. However, knowing a person’s political or religious beliefs can change the way we look at them because they are highly emotional topics.

Rule #6: If you wouldn’t say it on a Sandwich board, don’t say it online.

It is best to play it safe. I say that you shouldn’t bring up topics about religion or politics unless your company is explicitly part of it. For instance, here in Oregon City many companies are talking about a political push called the River’s Project. Since this affects the community then it is ok to talk about your thoughts on it. However, you should always consider how some of your customers will feel about the subject before you post it.

At InstallLogic Social Media we all agree that if you don’t talk about politics, religion and other highly emotional topics then they are out of sight and out of mind. A good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t put a phrase on a sandwich board outside your business then you shouldn’t say it online. Keep in mind that you are publishing your ideas to the world and not to just the people you like.

Did we leave anything out?

Let us know by leaving a comment and be sure to check out the other posts in this series to see if your query is covered there. Stay tuned for next week’s post about Automation and Repetition.

Recession = Fear of the Unknown

We all agree that everyone has been hit hard by the Recession.  I would call this more of a Depression in my opinion because we always hear about the staggering number of people who are on government programs for assistance.  Those programs are the only difference in my mind between our Recession and the Depression.  Instead of breadlines you should check out the number of people that go to your state Health and Human Services departments daily.

This lack of stability in both our economy and now in our homes has caused people to fear the unknown more than ever.  It isn’t necessarily a fear of new technology but a fear of time, money and endurance of that technology.  Don’t get me wrong, early adapters will always be early adapters but they will buy less and be less eager to test in a market like this with out incentive’s that is more than “your the first”.  Sometimes they need something like free use or payment for a blog post.  There is more give and take in this economy.

The increase in give and take in a tight economy means that companies, big and small, are less willing to take a chance or a few dollars to test out something new.  The hesitance causes less innovation and can top emerging technologies in their tracks.  We are in a time when we need innovation the most because these new technologies save us time and money but only when they get a chance to prove their skills.

I encourage you to take a leap of faith with your next year’s budget and invest in a new technology you have been researching whether it be social media, analytic, nanotechnology or even electric cars.  Try something new to give our economy a chance to thrive by all of us contributing to the future by investing in new technologies.

TED Conference This Week!

TED conference!

I just found out that the TED conference is this week! I am so excited to be able to watch all the new speakers and see the new videos.
The website even says that you may actaully be able to watch live-streaming from the conference floor!

Here are some links to pictures of the attendees!

http://conferences.ted.com/TED2010/photos/?show=ted_u

http://conferences.ted.com/TED2010/photos/?show=preparing_for_ted

http://www.flickr.com/photos/yoderbaum/sets/72157623278439209/show/

Kill Your TV & Hook Up your Desktop

Just Say NO

Because Cable Companies Suck

Many of you have seen my rant about Comcast.  This is my answer to the crap I get from cable companies.  I’m tired of 5-10 minutes of advertisements I don’t care about and having to schedule my life around the shows I want to watch.  If you too are tired continue reading and/or share your solution.

How to do it

It really depends on your computer.  Go to Fry’s or any other major computer geek like store and they will tell you what components you need.  We just got cords to connect the screen and sound from either our laptops or tower.  If done correctly you have your GAME channel or DVD channel turn your TV into a monitor. 

WARNING

•  Depending on how old your TV is the resolution could be effect
• Age can also mean you could burn your screen AKA don’t leave your TV on a screen for too long because your screen could be messed up. 
• Not all TVs are equal:  You need to talk to a professional (even the professional computer geek near you) to find the components you need.

Sorry I am not the computer geek you need but if you need help feel free to contact me.  I know some great computer geeks that can help me figure out the components you need. 

And Why is it Better?…

Less intrusive advertisement

As you already know, there aren’t as many advertisements by far.  Instead of 15-20 minutes of advertisements an hour you may watch six 30 second advertisement or just two 60 second advertisements.  Plus, if you have open cookies you could have customized advertisements based on your searches and visited websites.  Or on sites like Hulu you can sometimes choose which advertisements you want to see. 

TV on my Schedule

I know this was the tagline of DVR and TiVo but really this is the essence of Internet TV.  I can watch what I want, when I want but the big difference is its FREE!  Well, you do have to pay for the Internet but look you are already multi-tasking one bill. 

I can watch TBS and AMC or A&E programs without having to pay outrageous cost for premium plans that only allow two or three of the channels I want to watch. 

Online News Update

You can watch your news online.  Yes, I wish I could just download the local news @ 6 but I don’t expect my local stations to be that up to date.  Plus, the newspapers need the help with subscriptions being down. 

Anyways, news is free!  You can go on iTunes and check.  I can now watch Keith Olbermann online for free when I use to have to pay extra to have MSNBC in my cable channels.  You can also download CNN news and Nightly News in the Podcast section.  Then there is always visiting the news sites themselves to see “Today’s Headlines.”  You can then leave a comment rather than yelling at your TV screen.  Who knows you might get quoted later. 

Best of ALL!

You don’t have to deal with major events interrupting your view habits.  For instance, many people will not be able to watch their favorite shows because of Winter Olympic coverage.  Another idea is that we missed an hour to two hours of programming because of the State of the Union address last week.  Or even better I don’t have to deal with Miss America Paget any more! 

The only thing you will notice is that your show didn’t have a new episode this week.  If you want to watch these shows as well.  Many of them realize that people may miss the show and want to watch it later AKA live-streaming or the video is uploaded later.  For instance, I can download the State of the Union address from iTunes.  Or watch the bobsled competition through videos on YouTube. 

The Drawback

The only problem is that channels like Discovery (my favorite) don’t stream all of their shows online.  I have to search through YouTube for a five part version of episodes.  This isn’t always a fruitful search either. 

C is for Cookie

(NOTE: Could some one please start a petition to get Discovery to live-stream Mythbusters and Cash Cab online?  I’ll bake you cookies)

Conclusion

While it may be a bit harder to stay in touch with the world when you can’t just flip on the news it means you are more engaged in what you read and watch.  Why?  Because you choose to watch and/or read the content.  You searched for it.  It make you more interested and actually more informed because you look at multiple sources and read the entire story.  Face it you searched for it so you want to read the whole thing.

Oregon Measures 66 & 67: And So They Pass…

I am a girl who grew up in Eastern Oregon who decided to be a Democrat in a staunchly Republican area.  However I, like my generation, vote our concise and not our party line.  I still remember where I grew up and that is why I voted against these measure.  But let me warn you, my explanation why is not a diatribe, it is my experience and a little opinion.  If you feel it is at all mis-informed feel free to comment. 

The Farm Life

Growing up in Eastern Oregon in a small town you learn about what the farmer has to deal with.  How he may be “in the money” after harvest but that is only until he has to buy: crop to seed, repair equipment/buy new equipment or pay bills and taxes.  I always thought farmers were nice, honest guys because that is what my dad is and will always be. 

You see my Dad is not the cigar-smoking farmer sitting on buckets of cash.  He pours his heart and should into the family farm that has been here since my Great-grandfather bought the land years ago.  It has been his honor and duty to fulfill the promise of taking care of it.  Though, he will not be able to pass it off to either my brother or I as he received it because we both moved away from the farm in pursuit of what makes us happy.  And my Dad supported that fact no matter how much it hurt him. 

Anyways, most of the farmers I know are not upper class or anything.  As my parents say, “We have a lot on paper but it all ends up in the land.”  They have a few investments, loans and equipment that appear on taxes that make the business and personal net worth rather high but in reality they have no control over that money for free time.  At the end of the day they can go on just as many vacations as the middle class and can afford just as much of a college education as the middle class.  I say this because I don’t want you, my reader, to think that I voted against 66 & 67 because it effected my trust fund.  I don’t have anything like that.  I just know what businesses and families will be hurt by this. 

The City Life

So, after growing up on the farm I moved to the Valley for my education.  I found that people believed I was a hick and were rather surprised that I had a rather good knowledge of ‘city ideas’ and the like.  While I may not have experienced everything I knew how to act and respond. 

When I found out that the Valley was the one that would hurt the farmers I was almost insulted to live here or even admit I was from Eastern Oregon.  I began to vote my concise when I had the ability.  I knew how measures and bills would affect my family and how they would help the Valley citizens as well.  It was a rare thing in my area. 

It was rare because the Valley sees the cigar-smoking farmer or they don’t think about him at all.  They believe that Eastern Oregon is caught in the past when they are working as hard as they can with what they know, whether it be new or old.  They would pass bills that would destroy farmland by taking away cattle grazing streams for ‘polution’ reasons.  It creates a great divide in the State starting at the Cascades.  That is probably why people believe that Eastern Oregon starts when the Cascades end.  This isn’t true but that is another blog post all together. 

What will these Measures do to the Farmer?

If you couldn’t figure it out earlier, a farmer appears to be worth a bit on their taxes and so could and probably will be taxed more because of 66.  Also owning a farm is consided a business/corporation so they will also have to pay more taxes for owning a business.  A farmer gets hit from both sides because of these Measures.  It doesn’t seem fair to punish them for working.

What they will do to the Valley?

As it seems the tax will increase programs all over the State but primarily in the Valley because, I admit, there is more need here.  (I now live in Portland.) 

However, 67 will destroy small business.  We are trying to create jobs and be innovative but having a tax increase on businesses does the opposite.  We want them to get help like the tax breaks from the current administration not tax them more because we need to fund out government programs. 

Why I voted No overall

I voted no on 66 & 67 because of my upbringing and what it taught me about city life and country life.  I also voted no because I believe the government needs to learn how to budget better.  I don’t want to give a government more money when they haven’t yet figured out how to make it work or balance their budgets.  It is time to treat the country like a business and make it live within its means

Final Thought

I was talking to my family about this subject and they told me how it would affect them.  Then my Mom made a monumental comment.  She said, “This is could change how Oregon votes on taxes.”  I had forgotten that my State is known for voting down tax Measures.  So, does this mean that we might actually be voting for a sales tax this time next year?

Why I hate Internet Ads

We have all been irritated by that Internet ad that takes over the entire page for a 30 second television ad or just keeps playing annoying music.  Here are the top things that I hate when I see annoying Internet advertisements.  But this isn’t just a rant either.  I also include what I love about Internet advertising. 

1.  Page Takeovers

As I mentioned above, an advertisement will take over a large part of the click-able landing page to either show you some cute/annoying interactive advertisement or (the lazy version) show you a 30-second television advertisement.  This all happens within the first few seconds of visiting the page.  The other problem is if the advertisement doesn’t do this then if you accidentally move your mouse over the advertisement even slightly it will expand and try to show the whole advertisement then or even a second time. 

Why it doesn’t work

This doesn’t make you gain click for your ad.  It irritates the user because they came to this site for information and not for your advertisement.  You are taking their valuable time in a fashion that they will not appreciate.  They will not remember your ad many times because they are too worried about how to make it stop so they can get back to their browsing in peace.

Solution

So you don’t have angry potential customers remember to always have an opt-out available for them.  If you HAVE to make a huge advertisement that takes an entire webpage to view make sure there is an “X” or “Close” option up in the right-hand corner.  Your customers will appreciate it after running into so many annoying ads. 

Also disable anything that will make your advertisement pop up a second time when the cursor moves over it.  The person already had to deal with your ad once don’t make them deal with it again.  Make it require a click to view the ad or a button that floats over the box that says “View” or “Play.”  If your customer is curious they will play it. 

2.  Auto-play advertisements

What I mean by this is when you arrive at the website this advertisement starts to play immediately no matter how you reload the page.  The includes the page takeovers and the TV commercials.  It is especially annoying on video websites because I didn’t come to hear this audio, I came to watch my show.  Sometimes they are even on loop so you can’t just wait for the commercial to be over either.  But that is for a later time.

Why is it annoying?

The viewer maybe curious about your advertisement to begin with so yes the auto-play does work.  However, some viewers are at work and didn’t know their speakers were on so then your advertisement is all over the office and could get someone fired.  It is also irritating because the customer came to the site for information/entertainment and not for your advertisement.  Don’t intrude on their time. 

Solution

So you don’t intrude on their time and still get a view of the advertisement allow the viewer to choose whether they want to see your ad.  You can do this by having a button that says “Play” floating over the advertisement box.  Another option is to have the advertisement playing in the box with a shade over it and the button that says “Play with sound” on it.  If the visual is exciting enough the customer will choose to view it freely. 

3. Repetitive advertisements

 We are all use to the advertisement or graphic that won’t stop flashing at us while we are trying to read text on a page.  I remember one page with a hummingbird, it was a beautiful graphic but it wouldn’t stop moving and I couldn’t scroll down away from it.  IT MOVED WITH THE PAGE!  I had to leave the website because it was so irritating.  Most of the time when I have a repetitive advertisement on the page I either move my page so it is out of view (warping my viewing window) or refresh the page till there are only stationary advertisements. 

 Why is it so irritating?

I am distracted by the movement.  I know that is the intention of the advertisement but it is annoying because I am trying to read an email/research for a report/bid on eBay/etc.  I am trying to concentrate on my task and not your advertisement. 

Solution

If your advertisement is a video then have a “Pause” button so the customer may pause the advertisement and if they are curious can play it. 

If your advertisement is just repetitive for the sake of being seen later in a page view, STOP IT!  Seriously, some people scroll down their anyways so you don’t need to have it play over and over.  Just play the advertisement once.  Then give the person the option to play it a second time if they are curious.  If you still feel the need to replay your advertisement without prompting from the viewer, maybe for pages with long visit times, play it every 3,5 or 10 minutes so that the viewer will have time to see what they came to see without being distracted by you. 

Conclusion

Don’t intrude on your potential customer.  Their time is just as valuable (if not more valuable) then yours.  If you intrude on what the customer is doing they do not appriceate it and will give you bad brand awareness rather than a click-through rate. 

Also TRUST your customer.  If they are interested by your creative then they will click on the ad to view it or go to the site directly when reminded of your company by the advertisement. 

Always give us the option or you will never get positive engagement. 

NOTE: I will update this post as more advertisements get it wrong in my life.

Why the Oregonian & OregonLive need help

To preface

I love the Oregonian. I grew up with it and the Eastern Oregonian as the main papers with more info than the local papers. I don’t mind Oregon Live because it gives me local and national info that I want.

The problem

The major issue I have is combining the two. The issue is this:

I found an article I wanted to use for this blog and to Tweet about. So I searched for the Oregoonian online. What pops up? OregonLive. ‘Oh yeah this is there online persona,’ I remember. But then I search for the keywords in the article I had read and nothing. I search for the last 24 hours, diddly! I have to look at a pdf of the front page to find my article.  So I cut and paste the title into the search for Oregon Live. Still nothing. I want to read it in its entirety online for bookmarking and highlighting (Since the office paper isn’t my own I don’t want to write on it.)

I still can’t find the Oregonian article on the website at all.  I finally, after 5 minutes or more of searching, (An enternity when  you have all your keywords already), I find the original AP article on the subject.  But it doesn’t have the voice I liked in the Oregonian article.  The voice of a Cascadian. 

So what do I do as a productive Gen-Y social networker? 

I come here to my blog with little connections to write about a horrible experience.  OregonLive and the Oregonian better get the idea that they need to share their articles before publish.  I want both the original AP article and the Oregonian article because it gives it all crediblity in my mind.  I want to move seemlessly from paper to computer and visa versa. 

HELP please?

This situation was in no way seemless.  Does anyone else have a similar experience or am I just looking on the wrong website for my infomation?

Teaching Baby Boomers to use SoMe

I have been working for about 2 weeks to create a class on how to teach Baby Boomers how to use Facebook and possible any other Social Media (SoMe) site they would be interested in using.  So I created my lesson plan and showed it to my pastor because the only place I can think to get a good audience and space with little proven experience and faith is church.  They have helped me get my feet on the ground in the past why not again?

So I start to plan and realize I could have done this months ago and now I should really wait unti

l after Christmas to start.  Mostly because everyone is worried about Holiday Bazar and making preparations.  I might offer my

personal services earlier to teach people how to use Ebay for Christmas or send out family newsletters and such but otherwise I don’t want to interrupt the season.

After thinking all of this through and creating a basic lesson plan my mom found a great article in the Eastern Oregonian called Baby boomers invade the web about a man named John Fisher who is working off a grant in the Pendleton Public Library for their Information Literacy Project.  I wish I could find something like that here in the Metro area.  It sounds really fun.

So I am just going to keep this clipping for now to show proof of my theory to teach my parents and grandparents how to use this technology.  Because admit it, we will all reach a time when something new comes along that we will need to be taught.  I want to be that teacher.  I want to know what the new thing is and teach people how to use it for their own connections.

In the article it talks about how being on the internet helps seniors beat depression.  The study from Phoenix Center found that “seniors who spend time online can reduce the blues by about 20 percent.”  I think that is because they don’t feel forgotten, they feel like they understand the world that has grown up around them.  We all need that connection to the modern and to feel like we matter in the world.  For many of us it is the chance to be heard, even for a second, on social media outlets.

If anyone knows a way that I can get my classes started in the Library or at a college please let me know.  This is something I know I can do and would love to help out anyone I can to make it possible.

Yeah! Thanks Kent for telling me about Ping!

The Mission By Puscifer

This song has been haunting me lately.  I use the word ‘haunt’ because the melody calls for it.  The female vocal sounds like that you would hear in a Gothic church at midnight.

Watch for yourself:

“What do you know?”

Though I am getting ahead of myself.  It begins with a phrase that screams “I am a song to listen to when you are pissed off” or at least that is what I hear when I hear the phrase, “What do you know?” in a voice that is less than inviting.

However, after listening to it for a while you notice the voice isn’t strong.  There is a shake in it as if the singer is frightened or about to cry.  So, I can’t tell whether the phrase is said in anger or fear or both.

Death March

The song has a strong beat but very little drum.  The guitar is more noticeable than the drum.  This is surprising to me because usually I am more attracted to drums than guitar solos.  But this beat reminds you of a march.  Not just a Sousa or G.I. march but a death march.  It makes me think of the 1984 commercial motif with people marching in leg chains, their heads hanging in deep anguish and impending doom.  It is powerful but sluggish.  Just like that voice of powerful fear.

Lyrics of War or Confusion

After getting past the points that got me to turn up the radio I decided to follow the story of the song.  However, I couldn’t understand it.  I looked up the lyrics and they still confuse me a little.  It begins to sound like the prisoners of some sort of camp or society of a V for Vendetta state have decided to revolt.  This isn’t apparent till I listened to the song all the way through.

Just beginning with the idea of people are “hip to the lies” brings and idea of distrust that has been going on for a while under the surface.  It is extended by the idea that we are “hip to the bull” as well.

It gets a little more violent because they talk about buying a “gat for a north end guinea.”  Which sounds like they bought a gun from someone on the north end.  (If you know what a guinea is please tell me)

Then the lyrics of “ante up your ass because you ain’t go a penny” goes back to the deposed V for Vendetta leader.  It sounds like he has been taken off the throne of sorts and has nothing left to offer the people for his corruption.

The final strike in the song comes in the repetition of the lines:

Our turn to decide, who lives and who dies
Right in front of your eyes, it’s time to get up

They are saying to the people of the revolt.  It is now time to get choose our destiny.  Look, see what has happened and move forward.  It is a rally to get behind.

Bush/Iraq

I can see why people have compared this song to the Bush/Iraq conflict.  We want this to be Obama singing.  We want Bush on trial.  However, that doesn’t look like it is going to happen any time soon.  But that is a different story for a different day.

Conclusion

Over all the song is beautifully haunting.  It is good for a bad day and especially those pissed off with the government.  Think “The Wall” by Pink Floyd and you will understand where I am coming from.