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So I was asked to come speak at a Microsoft Bispark event last week. The topic I chose was how to market your brand in 2014. I know, shocker. The thing is, I genuinely believe that my whole “philosophy” in marketing can be summed up in two words. Of course, you are going to have to watch the entire speech to learn what the two words are.
We’ve been down this road before. You signed up for Twitter after years of hearing all your friends talking about tweeting this and tweeting that. You open Twitter.com and are completely and utterly lost. What do you say? What do you read? How do you get more followers? Who do you follow?
A few weeks ago in San Francisco, I attended one of the more eye-opening tech events I’ve ever been to. InContext was the name of the event and it was hosted by one of the more interesting startups out there, Everything.Me (if you’re an Android user, download it now. Thank me later.)
If I had a dime for every person who said to me “Twitter is dumb. I don’t get it and will never join.” or “Google+ is a ghost town, I don’t need another social network and no one is there anyway” or “Facebook is of no value to me or my business”, I would be a very wealthy individual.
Like many of my posts, this topic may be obvious to some, but unfortunately, based on the literally tens of messages I have personally received this week alone, it is far from obvious to others. Ask yourself why you are using social media. Why are you on Twitter? (You’re not? Then you have other problems you need to work out.) Why have you started using Google+? (You haven’t? See above.) Pinterest? Instagram? Foursquare? Why do you use any of these platforms? Really, ask yourself that question.
Over the years, I have ranted quite a bit about different types of behavior that annoy me on the social web. Things like group tagging on Facebook or Twitter, begging for likes or retweets, and others. It was time for another addition to the “Please don’t ever do this on social media. Ever” list.
I know, such a dramatic title, but really, this Snapchat phenomenon has been boggling my mind for months. Hold up a second here. I am not talking about Snapchat the business and why Facebook and Google want to buy it for billions. I am not even talking about why Snapchat was actually brilliant to turn those offers down.
There I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden, I got a tweet from someone I do not know. Of course, getting a tweet from a stranger is fine, I get 500 of them a day. But this one was different. Why? See below.
Someone had to say it so I figure why not me. Not a day goes by in which I don’t see a so-called marketing expert overuse and even worse, misuse hashtags on the Web. It happens most often on Twitter but recently, both Facebook and Google+ started using hashtags as well, so the same principles apply there.
You may recall a few months back I wrote a post about a Chinese restaurant and how they taught me a lesson on how NOT to do marketing. Well, this post is the other side of that coin.
Blogging is serious business. At least that is what many bloggers would have you believe. The truth is, everyone just needs to chill out a bit. That is why I am a huge fan of Jay Yarow of Business Insider. In fact, that is why I am a huge fan of Business Insider, in general. While the site has been recognized as a very serious publication for years, Jay doesn’t take himself too seriously.
