Treating your fans right, in Social Media.

Before I say anything...I want to mention about the lateness in this post. I have been teasing on Twitter/Facebook all week that I will have a new blog post up, but for the life of me i have not got around to it. I have written a few things here and there but nothing truly stuck. Until I saw Alissa Sheley's twitter post last night.

"Are you following @dudecavanaugh? If he gets 2,000 folowers by 12am tomorrow he has to get a tattoo on his butt. Only 600 more!"

Now I love Alissa, do not get me wrong. I was kindly allowed to join her and the JHP crew during the Superbowl show and debate my thoughts on commercials. The whole experience was rather fun and entertaining and something that I will not forget. But I do have to ask one thing? Why does Ryan Canaugh need 2,000 follwers? I am sure their contest is all in fun, and this blog/rant is not meant to be directed at them, but people in general. What is the point of having so many followers?

Though Facebook and Twitter are two different applications both of these applications have this same issue. What are you going to do with 2,000 people following you? What is your ulterior motive? People need to think about this before they add that person or company.

How many of us has a friend or family member who has over a 1,000 followers in a social media page? There was a girl I went to high school with who recently created Facebook fan page for herself that said "****** ***** wants 1000 fans." Okay, why does she want this number of fans? As every marketer says before they start anything..."Why are we doing this?" Why did she need such a large number? If she has nothing more to give to these people, why would they want to join her?

Most people forget that this is Social Media and regardless of what you think, it is here as a vessell of communication. Look at Kevin Smith, this is a guy who knows marketing. Kevin Smith is one of the most recognizable guy's on Twitter, who usually entertains his audience by going on numerous rants that always include pot and sex. But not only does he use these rants to keep his fans (and himself) entertained, but he uses this to remind his followers to go see his movie's or to check out the latest comic book he's written. This is a guy who engages his customers and then slips in the occasional reminder that he does produce something. This is what marketing should be.

VICTORIA SECRET OR ANY OTHER BRAND CAN HAVE A MILLION FOLLOWERS BUT WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH IT?

Does Cavanaugh plan on using these numbers in some interesting way I do not know? Will the fans stay afterwards if he does/does not get the tattoo, who knows? But these new followers will be here with him for the foreseeable future, and whether or not he does anything with them, is up to him.

Why and how to like something, the Facebook way.

What do you like?

I ask you this, because Facebook is rolling out a universal like button, that will allow you to like almost any article that you find on the Internet. If you have not heard anything about it feel free to visit this article at PC WORLD where they break down this new application a bit. The whole point of this new universal omniscient like button, is to allow you to LIKE any article and share it at ease, with your friends.

Now I am not quite sure all of the reasonings behind this button, but do we really need this? I mean do we really? People tend to forget about the invasion of privacy that many of these websites tend to have over us. True they are not stealing your credit card, but they are stealing your browsing history and this like button will be able to do the same. Do we really want Facebook and everyone to know where we went? Our privacy on the Internet is shattered now as it is, but do we really need everyone going on to the Internet and being able to follow our every move through Facebook.

I have already visited TIME which already uses the service and has the LIKE button on many of it's articles. I visited a few stories to experiment with this new feature and I found no real reason on why I should LIKE the story. I did play around with this new button however and you can simply LIKE a story or comment on it and send it to all of your Facebook followers.

Many people will click on this new feature, just to be a part of the in crowd, but these people need to remember that every click has a reaction, though we do not always see that reaction. This clicking on the LIKE button will store that information and place it somewhere, though that destination is not quite known at this point. Though Facebook currently says it will not give that information to Advertisers, that information is there to be sold and used. Only time will tell,what will happen with the LIKE button so in the meantime be careful on what you like, because it might come back to bite you.

Why it's important to get your fan on, in the Social Media scene.

Are you a fan of anything in life? Do you have a favorite sports team? Do you have a favorite restaurant? Do you have a political affiliation? At any set point in life, you have your own morals and rules you live by, you are obviously a fan of something. Well are you a fan of anything in the Social Media world. Are you a fan on Facebook? Are you a Twitter follower? If not, why not....you are missing quite a lot.

For those of you that do not know, I have worked on my share of Social Media accounts in the past and I currently manage a local Restaurant's Fan Page (McKinley's Restaurant and Pub, look it up?). It started one night when I was at the bar talking to the owner's daughter. "This place, needs a Facebook page." I had commented. "Yes," it does she responded back dreary, and so that was how Mckinley's fanpage was born. But why a fanpage? In general why do companies need fan pages? Or social media accounts in general, you might ask?

Well McKinley's needs a fanpage for it's fans. I manage the page, but I have not been there in over two months. Despite my effort and the money in my checking account, I have not been able to go McKinley's as of late, however no one would ever know this because I can tell you about all of the bands that have played there and the events that they have had. Why? Because of Social Media.

Fanpages and Social Media in general are another way to reach out to our clients and their fans. The best way to think about this process is imagining the reason you use social media. You use it to reach out to your friends. Can a company not do the same? They can tell you about all of the hot deals and sales that they have going on. They can tell you about the event that is happening next Wednesday, but most of all they get you talking and thinking about them.

Once that little worm has slipped into your brain it's hard to forget it. In McKinley's case, you wanted to go out Saturday and you just saw Rexasaurus is playing that same night. Coincidence? I think not.

In a world of youtube, and attention spans getting even smaller, their's nothing wrong with being a fan of a particular event or sport. Heck, they might even teach you a thing or two. So do not feel wrong about getting your fan on and becoming a fan of a particular page, it might just prove to be beneficial after all.

Myspace or Deadspace. What do you call it these days?

What do you use your Social Media accounts for? I know why I use mine. I use Twitter because I have found it to be the ultimate tool to follow my fellow Social Media collages. I mainly use Facebook to keep up with my perspective friends and family throughout the country. I use Foursquare, well, as a game and to brag to my friends about my mayorships. But out of all of the Social Media accounts I have, I am left wondering why do I use Myspace? What do I use it for?

As I was pondering this question, I recently sent out an online message, through Tweetdeck(WWW.Tweetdeck.com), asking if anybody still used Myspace and somebody responding back with, "I'm actually deleting my account tomorrow." Wow, I had thought? Is this what Myspace has become, Deadspace?

To know the future of the product we have to know the past. Myspace was one of the first social media tools that captured everybody's attention. It had a fairly simple user interface that was geared toward content creation by editing your personal page, or your "myspace page" to your personal preference. You could change your color, layout, and avatar. You could even add music and videos to your Myspace page, to make it even more individual.

However Myspace did fail at one thing and that was communication. Despite the fact that people did enjoy the customization of the pages, the application failed in the exact reason that people were using it for. Sure people liked the customization of it, but they were there to talk to their friends and family, not to customize their page. So when Facebook became open to the public, shortly after 2008(after being strictly restricted to college kids) Myspace failed. Many people soon jumped ship and found the user interface of Facebook much easier as a communication device than Myspace.

Though Myspace has done a little bit to become more streamlined and become similar to Facebook it is still falling behind. Where does this leave it? I doubt it's ever going to become a dominant engine for social media such as Facebook or Twitter, or regain any of the steam it had in those early days. Myspace might be a dying application, but it still has many features it can capitalize on. One feature in particular that I believe is vital to Myspace's success is it's ability to integrate music and video into it's pages.

Myspace is the only Social networking site that allows users to add both music and video to their profiles. Through Myspace you can create your own song list and share it with friends or upload your videos and share them with other people. I have come to the conclusion that I am making Myspace my own personal music page, filled with songs I can jam out too in one afternoon, because that is all Myspace has going for it. It's film and it's music. It has to capitalize on this, or it might as well call itself Deadspace.

*Feel free to add me on Myspace and check out my music list I have created. WWW.Myspace.com/TheBilljake125

The town.

It's Tuesday and we are a little less than halfway through the week. Here's a little poem, I wrote when I was 16 that I have always kept with me. Whenever I am down it always cheers me up.

A man came into town today,

And asked me a jolly question.

"The town is so pure,

so beautiful,

how'd you get it this way?"

I smiled,

and patted the gentlemen on the back,

"To get here my friend,

you have to follow your dreams

And never look back.

A call to save the Internship.

So as I was driving home from work last night, I made my usual post-work call to my father to check in and see how the family was doing. We did our usual chit-chat, "How was work?", "How was your day?", when I hear from him "Did you hear Obama's going after Internships?"

"What?" Those were my first thoughts. Me and my father usually talk politics and though we agree and disagree on many subjects that the current administration has been talking about lately, this hit me like an uppercut with the power of a hurricane. This entire subject is touchy for me, as it definitely affects me and hundreds of my colleagues who are going through the same situation right now. Forewarning though, this blog is going to get a little more personal than usual.

For those of you who do not know I spent the first few years post college working retail before finally getting the opportunity to pursue a career in the field in which I received my degree.

I received a degree in Communications from Appalachian State in December of 2007 and finally decided to make that giant venture to the Raleigh area in the Summer of 2009. But shortly after moving here, I was running into the same problems I had then, no experience. This was nothing new to me, after hearing this numerous times after college, from various employers who did offer me the opportunity to talk to them.

So when I first moved here, unsure of where I was going to take my next venture, I found an Internship at a music management company. Though it was not truly in the marketing field, I spent the next six months doing a variety of marketing related tasks to help not only promote them but also the events they put together as well. I will never forget some of the things I learned there and I thank the whole company altogether for the experience that I will never forget. I moved on from that Internship to another one, working now at an actual marketing company, in hopes that I will sharpen my craft that much more.

This is my story currently. Seven months ago, I moved to the Raleigh area, how else was I suppose to network with people, without the Internships I took. I knew a total of two people, who were non-family in the area. I am taking these internships not only to meet new people, but to get the experience that I need to move to the next level. Both of these have been non-paid Internships but do I care, no? I am getting something much more out of it than money, I am getting experience.

In a current job market where people can be ever so picky about their next hire, what else as college graduates and job seekers are we supposed to do to get this ever growing experience that these companies so dramatically say that we need? Yes, as Interns we are probably improperly trained at times to handle the tasks that are thrown at us, but doesn't that happen all the time on the job? A client or a boss asks you to jump and it is our job to ask them how high.

Mr. President, you and your circle are talking about ending non-paid Internships. This is after you are furhter burdening companies with healthcare restrictions and individuals with new taxes. Can companies really support to create an opening for one more position on their staff? Do not get me wrong, I WOULD LOVE TO GET PAID FOR ALL OF THE WORK THAT I HAVE DONE IN THE PAST, but, Mr. Obama, payment does not always come in the form of currency, sometimes it comes in something else.

So I am asking you as a citizen and an individual, yes there are problems out there with Internships but you have to have the good with the bad. How else are we suppose to climb the mountain if you are going to take out the very steps that we use to climb.

Where does your Social Map take you?

Imagine looking at a map and that being literally filled with millions of tiny red dots. Now imagine those dots representing people. Every living person is now located on this map that you are looking at. If you need to find somebody, simply pull out this map and look for the John or Jane you are looking for. I imagine this map is our future or will be, at least as long as Geo-Social networking is involved.

If you are not familiar with Geo-Social networking feel free to reflect on this at a previous post, "The Beginner's guide to Foursquare.". I use Foursquare. I have no problems with this application. I am proud to be mayor at half a dozen locations, but the question remains where are these applications headed.

Though people are worried about privacy I cannot help but think a social map is going to exist down the road. People are worried, as the day's come and go, that we will eventually be machines with chips in our heads. But have they thought about the active map, that will show our every movements. Where is the privacy line being drawn? Do people at this point want privacy?

But what does all of this mean? Imagine a website such as WWW.PleaseRobMe.Com becoming a staple for most Americans. If you are unfamiliar with WWW.PleaseRobMe.Com, I recommend visiting the website at least once. Though the website is currently down, after being flooded by hate mail and nasty complaints, the website was a breakthrough idea and really made us question Geo-social networking applications. The website literally listed every check in that people made using Foursquare and added a "please rob me, I'm not at home" to these check ins.

Though social networking is still a "niche" program these days imagine if people checked in everywhere they went. This map would literally be a social satelite of where you have been and where you are at that very moment. Is this a problem? I am not suggesting that is, all I am saying is that our maps might lead us somewhere different in the not foreseeable future.