Then January 1st, 2009 I made a deal with myself; live on Twitter for 30 days and see what would happen. Since I didn’t want to be another one of those marketing experts that dismissed something just because I didn’t use it, I was going to give it my all.

Fast forward to today. Over 40,000 tweets, almost 50,000 followers and a new addiction later, I realized what Twitter brought me. I was thinking today “What if I didn’t jump in?” since a lot of the talk nowadays is about “ROI” and the business case for social media I came up with a list of stuff I wouldn’t have today if I didn’t make the jump just over a year ago.

If I didn’t jump in, I wouldn’t have:

• The most incredible support system I’ve ever known in my life. When UnJr’s mom passed away in the fall, hundreds, if not thousands of you opened your arms, even if it was just for a virtual hug. I’ll never forget that
• One of the best friends I’ve ever had.
• A book deal with Wiley
• A platform that allowed my blog to have instant readership once launched, averaging 10k readers per post, brand new (key here: launching the blog after building a following)
• Learned to learn again. Seriously. I had stopped learning. Figured I knew everything about business/marketing. And that’s the worst place to be. I now learn all the time, especially from blogs like Convince & Convert, The Brand Builder, Chris Brogan, McKain ViewPoint, Blue Sky Factory Blog, Awake @ The Wheel, Altitude
• A water cooler: being the head of a company is very isolating, especially when you run it from home. Twitter allows me to have that water cooler banter which allows people to feel included
• Six figures in revenue. The reason why I don’t write about this often is people get the wrong idea. They think “if he can make $, then so will I!”. I get a lot out of Twitter because I give a lot. Social media doesn’t change the fact that relationships take time. I just believe that business is built on relationships, so I make building them my business.
• My Mastermind Group: Ok, I don’t have one, since I have Twitter. I have met some incredible business minds that I can float ideas to, and they can do likewise, all under the belief that we can better each other. I’m surrounded by awesome every time I fire up Tweetdeck
• Writing about my passion: Not only did I get to meet, and consider an awesome friend, Erica Ehm, I get to write the UnDaddy blog, which has given me a writing outlet I never thought I’d do, and love it
• A free trip to DisneyWorld for me and my son. As well as a Tassimo coffee maker, RockPort shoes, 35 books and counting
• The ability to go to events and already know people. Twitter allows me to meet people online, then when I see them at an event, I feel I already know them, because I do
• Allowed me to do my greatest passion in business, speaking at events. A lot of those gigs were generated from a single tweets. Caught someone’s eye, then they went to my site.

And finally, Twitter has renewed my faith in humanity. I’ve never “met” more kind, caring, genuine, funny, smart people, anywhere than I have on Twitter.

And for that, I thank all of you. Don’t forget, none of the above happens without giving on Twitter first. Jump in.

What has Twitter brought to your life/business? Comment below!

**Turns out my man DJ Waldow wrote about this exact thing today too**

**And now Lisa Barone wrote a perfect reply to our posts. I wanted to argue with her, but couldn’t. She’s right**

1. It allows you to reach people in other time zones

2. It allows you to make Twitter scalable

3. You get to build relationships when you’re not around!

*Sorry, give me a minute*

Ok, I’m back, I had to go throw-up in a garbage can. Automating tweets means you want people to listen to you, but you’re not listening to them.

There is no such thing as automated engagement.

There is no such thing as programmed authenticity.

Absent tweeting is dictation, not engagement. Lecturing, not listening.

Automating tweets is like sending a mannequin to a networking event. Stick a post-it note on it, and roll it in, to multiple events around the world! Think of all the Chamber of Commerce mixers you could cover! Different time zones! Let the relationships winfall begin!!! Boooyaa!!!

Obviously you realize why that’s not a good idea. The initial tweet doesn’t create the relationship, it’s the conversation after. That’s the best part! I’m not saying don’t send out “marketing” tweets, or pitch a product. I do it. But when I do, why in the name of Sly and the Family Stone would I not want to be around for questions or comments immediately after? Tweets have such a short shelf-life, it’s the conversation immediately following the tweet that’s so crucial, and if it’s a marketing tweet, may help close the sale.

It’s a different story if your account is a feed of events/news and that’s what people follow for. The problem is when people “think” it’s you tweeting to them, but you’re not even there. Once they find that out, it could hurt your relationship and your brand. That tweet tells people “I want the benefit of a relationship, but don’t want to put the time in to nurture it.”

I heard Guy Kawasaki talking about this at a recent event. He said to ignore the “Twitter Nazi’s” that tell you what to do, and you should automate a bunch of tweets. Besides the fact I have a huge issue with people using the term “Nazi”, the biggest problem is this: people at that event looked up to Guy for guidance and thought “this is how you become successful at Twitter!” and I actually read some tweets after saying they were looking forward to automating Twitter! Guy can say and do whatever he wants. What I find wrong is for people just starting out, this won’t work. You can’t replicate someone who has hundreds of thousands of followers and a celebrity name to your Twitter account for your home biz. You actually have the advantage of authenticity and one-to-one on Twitter. Why try to be a WalMart when you’re a small biz? You have the competitive advantage of being you. Automation hurts authenticty.

Relationships take time. If you try to shortcut social media, you’re shortcutting relationship building.

Agree? Disagree? Comment below!

PS – Finalizing the UnBook Tour in the fall. Ideas for places to stop, organizations/conference I should speak at? Lemme know in the comments or contact me! Speaker Demo video is here

Please stop.

You’re steering people the wrong way.

You sell yourself as social media consultants, the ones that can show you the way and then fark it up.

I beg of you to stop.

Go back to teaching Internet marketing from the old days, I could at least ignore you then. I talk to you at conferences, share the stage but I can’t listen to you up there any longer spewing “tips” that hurt people and their relationships.

Here is what I and many, if not most of the world, request of you to stop immediately when teaching “Facebook Strategy”:

Photo by the awesome Racheal McCaig

1. Stop telling people to invite everyone in their contact list to every event, even if it’s local. If you invite me to your 1 hour workshop at the library in New Mexico, and I live in Toronto, it hurts my view of you and questions your geography skills

2. Stop teaching people to create fake events. You know what I’m talking about… it’s the “month long event” that you say people should create, and then they “message” all the “no’s and maybe’s” and “not yet responded” to continue to pump out their message. It makes me feel all unfriendy. (yes, that’s unfriendy)

3. You know that trick of tagging people in articles/pics/videos that they don’t appear in so they come and read it? Stop it. Getting me to think I’m mentioned somewhere just to find out I’m not and you’re just being a selfish bumhole, does not bode well for our future “friend” status on the book of faces.

4. Inviting me to a “loss weight” teleseminar event, where it lists people you’ve invited is like being on a roll call at fat camp. Really? Do I look fat in these jogging pants? I know a lot of people are overweight, but inviting someone to an event to lose that weight, especially when I’m perfectly happy living my life of denial, does not strengthen our relationship.

And while we’re here, can you start teaching your clients:

1. Inviting me to assassinate someone in the temple in Mafia Wars may give off the wrong vibe for your brand… I don’t know about you, but I like to be a sniper in the privacy of my own Xbox, not regular updates on my wall of whose neck I’ve cracked

2. Hundreds of Farmville updates on your wall doesn’t make me think you’ll focus on my needs if I become your client. Especially if you’re positioned as a “busy” person, and your status update says “I have no time!!!” And yet we can read how you just nursed a sickly cat on your farm in FarmVille, well, um, it’s just awkward.

3. Blingee generic mass-sent greeting animated cards make people go nuts. Before turning off and blocking the app, I had 43 posted on my wall. In 4 hours. Nothing says “I thought of you personally” like a mass sent lame greeting self-serving wall post. “Hey Scott, if you don’t like the app, you can just turn it off” Well, I didn’t ask you, but if you insist, that’s like me having to tell people to stop kicking me in the nuts. It should be opt-in, not opt-out.

If you’re going to be in the position of an expert, act like one.

Teach people that really, truly want to know how to do things in social media properly. Show them how to:

1. Connect with people on an authentic, not automated level.

2. Show them that with time and effort, you can meet the greatest people in the world on sites like Twitter, if they only would only invest their time, care and knowledge first.

3. That “success” is subjective, not a number of friends/followers. If by success you mean some of the most incredible relationships you’ve ever had, that once trust is established can also lead to a fruitful business, you can have it within social media.

4. Tell them to treat others like they would like to be treated. That sending repeat invites weekly to your event on Facebook would really really suck if they had 20 people doing it to them every week, and that promoting others is sometimes better than promoting yourself.

5. And warn them, that us, the self-appointed guards of social media are very protective, very persistent and aren’t goin anywhere.

There you have it my fellow social media teachers. I’m sure we’ll get along fine with just these small but meaningful changes.

Love you.

Sincerely,

The entire Internet

(As a special treat, I also made this into a song for you. With apologies to Heart)

UPDATE – Thanks to the awesome @SnipeyHead here is a post on how to get rid of most of this annoying schtuff by using FaceBook Lite

Long hair can help hide a huge cranial circumference

Fast forward to the present day: The encyclopedia has been replaced by Wikipedia, The Big Book is now called The Internet, and the Yellow Pages are called Google. Yet, many businesses and phone directory sales reps continue to use these big hunks of paper and try to justify it.

I’ve had this debate with many people about businesses using tools like the Yellow Pages. Most people say it’s a great door-stop, booster seat or a thing to beat people with when they don’t pay up on a gambling debt (@EricaDurst inspired use), but let’s look at the case that most people say justifies using them: “They work in some markets! People still use them! Like old folks, shut-ins and people who are still locked into AOL contracts!”

So let’s roll with that: people who still potentially use them. I have a few issues with this way of thinking…

1. You’re aiming at the bottom of the barrel: No, I’m not saying people who use them are the lowest of the low, it’s that they’ve gone through every other resource that influences them to potentially buy before pulling out the directory. Have a look:

This is the Hierarchy of Buying I came up with 5 years ago after surveying a thousand or so people on how they hired a service provider. So your potential customer doesn’t already have a provider, doesn’t know anyone who could perform the service, doesn’t know anyone who knows anyone and hasn’t even heard of anyone in the field. So no relationships, no word-of-mouth. Nothing. (I should really make a new one, since Google would rank above Yellow Pages.)

2. Paper spam: Email spam works on the premise that if you blast it to a million people, a fraction of a fraction may be in the market for the product and a fraction of that may even click. Phone directories work on this same premise. 1.6 billion pounds of paper per year are used to produce the 500 million directories that go out in the United States every year in the hopes that you may be in the market for one of the 2,000 categories of businesses that are listed. It’s spam at its finest. You didn’t opt-in, the majority of people don’t use it, many not even taking it out of the plastic. Instead it ends up in landfill, might get recycled or thrown at random phone company trucks that drop them off. Sadly I don’t see them ever going opt-in, since like most things in the print industry, they charge due to bloated “circulation” numbers and I estimate the number of people who would actually ask for it at 14, give or take 12. Makes you want to go out and hug a tree and then go here to opt-out of them!

3. Price/Competition Sensitivity: The lower down on the hierarchy of buying you are, the more you’re up against lowest-price seekers and competition. It becomes a competition of who can have the most AAAAA’s in their legal name, just to rank as the first in their section, or who can put the biggest ad beside the rest of their competitors. It fascinates me that businesses pay good money to be listed next to all of their local competition. Since you have no clout/trust with the potential customer, the first and main question usually revolves around price. You instantly make yourself a commodity.

4. Lack of updates: Since they come out from a provider once a year, once you place an ad, that’s it for the next year. No testing on which ad converted to leads better, unless you do it on a year-to-year basis. That would mean to do a proper test, using three different ads, it would take you years to get any relevant comparative data. That’s like walking to Los Angeles from New York to see how your product is doing.

5. A dying market, literally: Through my totally non-scientific opinion, I’m gonna go ahead and guess that the amount of people who use a phone book to look for a service provider goes up with the age demographic. Hell, even seniors are ditchin them to jump online. According to Pew Internet & American Life Project, 45% of seniors over the age of 70 are online. Even 27% of those over 76 are surfin the Interweb tubes. Since the average life expectancy is around 80, I’m not sure who you’re aiming for. Those over 80? Go get em! Just make sure you buy the big ads with large font.

I understand there is still a lot of money to be made by businesses that aim for the bottom, when people have exhausted every other resource, but even those people are using Google at that point, and you can track your clicks, and have a concrete ROI on it.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Some other great posts about this:

Dear YellowBook: Why? – You must read this one, not just for the post, but the angry comments that were later found out to be actual employees of the YellowBook. Craptastic. Go get em Nicole

Yellow Pages Suck – Great post by Jim Brown (no, not that Jim Brown)

We Still Use Old Media – This picture sums it all up. Also made me snot laugh. Thanks @ShaneGibson

Do the New Rules of Marketing Apply Worldwide? – Great video by David Meerman Scott

However, when I get called something like “a complete idiot” from a spamming PR company, it gets my man-panties in a knot.

I hold PR companies to a higher standard since one of their functions is making others look good.

A few months ago, I put out a specific request for Vegas people to get in touch with me through a PR newsletter about a specific topic that I was going to be writing about. I received some great responses, so the world was a good place. About a week later I received a press release about a Vegas show that was a generic email blast.

Yep, I understand the logic. This PR company, seeing my request thinks I’m a media outlet, and using their 1994 way of thinking, they translated it to “this place NEEDS to see everything we promote”. So I decided to correct them, since this email was my personal one and I guard it and know it’s not supposed to be on any newsletter/blast and/or porn list (as opposed to my other addresses?)

So I replied to this very professional person (how did I know he was a pro? Because he was using an ISP email address of course. That’s one step-away from using aol or a hotmail address for business). I requested something very simple. “remove me”:

You can also see sign #2 that you’re a pro: ALL CAPS in the subject line.

I had to reply back to this person, since they didn’t have an unsubscribe link at the bottom, even though it’s required under the CAN-SPAM Act

I figured that was the end of that. But then I got another…. and another for months.

Now it was really starting to ruffle my poorly groomed facial hair. At this point some people (mostly those who spam, pacifists and people that read “The Secret”) argue “Just delete the email and move on. Positive energy!” but I don’t buy that. The onus should not be on the receiver to delete these emails. So after replying multiple times to “remove me” I took it up a notch:

You’ll notice there is also an email address to the Las Vegas Review Journal. No, I didn’t add that in to do the jackass move of “I’m going to tell the newspapers about you!”, he not only used the BCC function in his email (I can only assume using Outlook Express to send it out) but he used a newspaper contact in the “To:” in his original blast. It’s like he just completed the tri-fecta of moronic email blast moves. The only better move would’ve been putting everyone in the “To:” so everyone could reply-all about removing them from the list.

Amazingly enough, I finally got a reply:

Other than the fact that he replied in the subject line with nothing in the body, this is perfect, right? Yay! I wrote back to confirm, yes, the email that you sent the original spam PR to and that I was writing to you with was in fact the email I was asking about. (My reply was simply “yes”) which initiated a reply with something like:

“We will search for it. We have multiple databases that will take us a few days to go through”

I’m paraphrasing here since I deleted the original email. What puzzles me is… who takes a few days to go through email lists? Are they on the old tape reels that are in a storage closet? Is it by hand? Can’t you run a search in your Outlook Express or at least call AOL support to help out a wonderful customer?

After a few days, I received this reply from the potential tech-saviest PR company of all-time:

They just HAD to add the part of how they were a big deal in Vegas. Vegas, my fave place on earth. My home away from home. Oh no you didn’t. Everything else was fine! Let me know I’ve been removed, thank-you and we’re good. But something stuck me with that one clout line, so I decided to give them a little advice:

Was it necessary for me to reply like that? Of course not. But that one line smacked me of arrogance and I needed to let them know the irony of what they said. They’ve been using my personal email as their PR fax machine, I think I was entitled to give them my thoughts.

Which then brings us to the best part:

Really? I’m all for a good ole-fashioned pissing match, but come on. You don’t know how to use email properly, not to mention the compliance issue, you take days to find an email address and this is your stance?

It seems to me that a PR company has a vested interest in sending out targeted releases, with compliant lists and should be happy they weren’t reported.

But what do I know, I’m a complete idiot.

What says you? I would love your thoughts on not only this exchange but PR’s responsibility in general when it comes to email/press releases and client representation. Comment below!

(Note: I debated showing their name/email but after a few days of thinking it over and discussing with some awesome friends, I figured I could get my point across without being “sensational” with it. Would love your thoughts on that as well)

*UPDATE*

I sent him the link to the post so he could enjoy it. I guess he did:

I don’t think he gets it. So I tried to clear it up:

Good times on a Friday!

*UPDATED AGAIN*

Seems our superstar of PR thinks that press releases aren’t covered under the CAN-SPAM Act because he’s not “Selling anything”

Any thoughts on press releases not being spam? My response:

Someone let PRSA know I’ll speak at their event about proper email practices for PR. I’ll even waive my fee. Hell, I’ll waive travel costs

(note: one of my readers called PRSA just now, they said they’re months away from choosing a keynote for the conference. Awesome)

I can haz ur passwerd?

Heeeere phishy phishy phishy! (to quote the great Ernie from Sesame Street)

Like anything that gets popular, there are unruly folk out there trying to fark up our fun. Lately its been attacks against the fine people in Twittertown.

Phishing is nothing new. It happened years ago with emails from Paypal, eBay, your bank etc that mentions you must go “RIGHT NOW” to this website to do something for your account or it would be terminated/explode/massive bum rash if you didn’t. (btw, phishing isn’t “hacking”. No one is sweating for hours, banging out code trying to get into your account)

Phishing is “the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.” (via Wikipedia.)

This is what happens on a Twitter phishing expedition:

1. You get a Direct Message from someone you follow:
2. Being the narcissistic ego-maniacs “self-interested” people that we are, we obviously want to see what great video we may be in (or not-so-great) so we click on the link
3. Up pops a login screen asking for your Twitter name and password
4. People thinking it’s something to do with Twitter, they login
5. SET THE HOOK!!! You’ve now been phished.
6. The people who now have your login info use it to send other people DM’s with the same trick
7. A little while later they start sending out spam notices like this:

Now it looks like you are raving about the $19 you made using Google, etc, and you are none the wiser until you start getting DM replies back from “friends” with gems like “WTF??” and “SPAMMER!!! BURN HER!!”

So this is where I ask you to go easy on your fellow Twits. I know people should be vigilant in checking URL’s and not giving away their private information but the kicker about phishing through DM’s on Twitter is that they leverage trust from people. The wording is so basic and innocent, I’ve even clicked on them (See kids, this is called being transparent in a blog). Now I haven’t given my info to any of them, but that’s because I spend more time online than a 15 year old who just hit puberty so I’ve dealt with this stuff all the time.

What to do if you have been phished

1. Change your password. No one got access to your account because you used your pet’s name as your password (you do don’t you??). It doesn’t matter how crafty you’ve made it, if you hand them your login info, it’s like they’re psychic like John Edward, except they actually know stuff
2. Check who has access to your account by going here. It shows who you have authorized to use your account. Now don’t crap the bed if there are companies listed there. I have 18 apps that have access to my account for various reasons. But if you don’t recognize one and want to yank them out, just click “revoke access”.
3. Stop giving your info out! You should never give your info to any site that asks for it unless you are wanting them to. It’s your reputation/business here. Giving out your login to anyone is like wearing your bank card PIN on your t shirt and wandering the back streets of Vegas at 3am. Not saying I’ve done that…. ummm…

So if someone sends you a DM that is out of character, be nice, reply back to them that they should change their password. It could happen to you, you’d already feel bad enough and could probably use a helpful reply

Thoughts? Comment below!

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UnBootCamp just launched! Wicked.

Interuptive pop-ups are so 1998. Why do you think all browsers block the old-style ones by default? Because no one likes them being thrown in your face!

Yes, they serve a purpose, and yes they can actually help build a following if used correctly, but seriously people, setting it to go off within 3 seconds of arriving is equal to the used car salesmen pouncing the second you pull on the lot.

Want to use it correctly? Have it go as an exit pop-up and word it in a way that makes sense (i.e. “If you enjoyed what you just read, sign-up for our updates, where more awesomesauce is sure to come!”)

**UPDATE** One of the owners of Twitter Watchdog has informed me that they are no longer using that pop-up on the site, and believe in engaging with their audience. Good on ya guys. Feel free to go forth and check them out yourself.