When I get a new follower on Twitter or friend on Facebook, I always make a conscious effort to connect and say hello to that person. For me, the social media world is about being respectful and making a real effort to be as friendly as you can. You would never begin by talking to someone in real life by putting up a mirage and spamming them with yourself, so why would you do the same in social media?

Sadly, people do.

I followed someone on Twitter today who like me, was a social media enthusiast living out in Ohio. Because I followed her, she has the power to send me a direct message, and she took the liberty to do just that. Instead of pausing to say hi or let me know where else we could connect, she told me to confirm my identity through a well-known service called TrueTwit, which essentially is a tool that in my opinion, validates someone’s true existence on Twitter and allows your follower to have the confidence to follow you back.

Why can’t you just say hi?

I’ve stated on this blog before (see below) the merits of being real on social media and how being genuine wins you followers and a community backing. The problem as I’ve also stated, with the corporatization of social media, is that social media efforts have become ever more fake by both individuals and companies looking to try and win an extra heart and wallet. Fortunately, while most humans aren’t that naïve, some still find the action of sending out bogus requests like a TrueTwit validation to be a kosher activity on Twitter when it clearly isn’t. Why do I, someone who responds to almost every tweet that comes my way, need to validate myself when you can look at my stream and know how engaging I am?

We complain about the digitization of communication and talk about how we seem to be less personal over social media. The problem isn’t that we are less personal as a society, but rather that we are not willing to be personal, especially when we make the conscious decision to automate tweets or request that someone confirms their identity through TrueTwit. It not only makes technology appear worse, it makes people in today’s world look inherently lazy and overall very disrespectful.

In closing, social media, as I have and must reiterate again and again, is a personal tool. If you’re not going to use it, don’t bother even trying in the first place. At least if you do plan to half-ass your social media strategy, may I provide a few suggestions? 

Do you agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment below or tweet at me. 

For previous editions in this series, see below:

Part 1
Part 2

Last Friday I went to a party at Klout headquarters in San Francisco. Hanging out almost felt like one of those scenes out of a sitcom or movie where you see how hip everyone has become. If I came out of the party with one revelation, its this: People have yet to learn how to engage over social media.

Again and again, I would meet people with Klout scores half mine or even less than that. They were impressed when they saw mine, almost as if I were walking into a gym with built abs and stocky arms, but I told them the simple truth: You need to engage, create conversation and build communities within communities in order to have any measurable influence. You can have 15,000 followers and five total tweets, but if you aren’t trying to make something out of that community, you’re basically going for broke.

I also learned about what Klout score means by numerical demographic. Those with a score between 0 and 30 generally don’t use Klout much. Those between 30 and 65 are active users, and those between 65 to 85 are considered the sweet spot for brands to connect with because they control so much of the influence in their network. Any one above that is usually a celebrity of sorts.

So again, the solution to social media is pretty cut and dry: engagement. On a greater scale though, engagement is a tough task, but if done right can pay enormous dividends for your brand. Likewise, many brands are tough to engage. Beyond this party, there is still a lot more work to be done. Onward ho with social media!

Any thoughts yourself? Were you at the party? Worried about your Klout score? Connect with me here in the comments below or tweet back at me.

Social media is a tough gig. It takes up hours of your day trying to find the best way to strategize, integrate and utilize within your company. If you’re looking for an easier way and want someone to assist, look no further!

Check out my rates and offerings page and let me know! I would be glad to speak with you. As always, first consultation is free. 

I made my post yesterday regarding the empathy of people and why its necessary to succeed over social media. Nowhere is this happening more than in America in the South, recently ravaged by tornadoes and other natural disasters.

Someone was kind enough to set up a Facebook page bringing together images and momentos found after the tornado. Over 65,000 people have come together to join the page and help people affected by the natural disasters find what belongs to them. 

If this is not the kindest usage of social media, then I don’t know. Its pretty amazing in my book. How can we further use social media in efforts such as natural disasters, and how can businesses use empathy to further engage and bring together people to understand the industry?

Tweet at me or comment below. Hope to hear from you!

Elementary school children are frequently told the story of the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims, seeking refuge from religious persecution in England, decided to flee and settle in a new land. Struggling to live, the Pilgrims suffered in their first winter but were saved by the local Indians who helped them learn how to farm the land and hunt the animals available to them.

The following Autumn, after a good harvest, the Indians and the Pilgrims got together for a large feast to celebrate what had been accomplished the past year. This was the year 1620, and though they did not know it then, they started a trend, eventually made into a holiday: Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is celebrated by nearly every American household and serves as a major point for families to gather and recount the year.

The premise of this event for a lot of people these days lies in the food served at every Thanksgiving dinner and the Black Friday shopping craze that proceeds it. Deeper however, what lies at the center point of this dinner, and ultimately the vibes that come out of it, is the concept of community – the very idea that drives social media and brings communities together.

Jeremy Rifkin talks about this in his Ted Talk, The Empathic Civilization, a speech focused on what brings people together and keeps them together, particularly in a communal context. Though he never mentions social media explicitly in his lecture, Rifkin asserts that what brings us all together as a civilization is that of association and the need to socialize and belong to a community, something that is what the Internet has become and will continue morphing into in the coming years. That’s right – as marketing evolves into social media and a new age of marketing, an empathic, softer form of targeted messaging will be required to build the communities necessary to be sustained.

Allow me to explain.

Corporate marketing has always existed in a one way street. For the longest time, ad pitchmen have existed in the context of pushing a product and making the sale at all costs possible. Consumers had no choice and had to sit through the advertising, as annoying as it was, and listen to pitches come their way. As there are more ways to shut this off nowadays, advertisers must look to a new realm to share their products. Social media however, sees right through ad pitchmen speak and cuts right to the point.

Too many companies look at social media as the all-in-one solution to their integrated brand value goals. To engage on social media effectively, you must build a consensus predicated on empathic elements, such as the ones that Rifkin discusses in his video. The only way to obtain measurable ROI and see ultimate bottom-line success in social media is to be able to share the thoughts of your customers, knowingly, and build upon them as a team, and not appear robotic.  Ad pitchmen, in short, will not survive the modern day onslaught of the social media strategy.

In closing, for social media to be done right, you must create an empathic community. Pursuing an alternative strategy will prove costly and dampen the effect of social media. With marketing, communications and social media converging into an empathic point of view, you must learn to be yourself over social media and speak of the brand from your heart. Speaking from the view of someone else will simply not work, period.