I’ve decided to take a 30 day break from social media.

I still believe in the value of social media as a business promotion tool, but I’m taking a long look at who I follow and why.

980+ people are hard to keep track of and it’s beginning to feel a lot  like a online networking group to me. I’m following a lot of people in hope that they’ll notice how awesome I am and they’ll throw some work my way. Unfortunately, instead of spending time actually being awesome, I’m wading through tweet after tweet of shameless self-promotion and auto posts from Mashable & Techcrunch.

I think the value of social media is the ability to be authentic and engage people on a personal level. You don’t always make a immediate buck on it, but the return on investment comes in the long haul. A little shameless self-promotion isn’t bad, but too much and it loses the personal touch. You might as well buy broadcast time if that’s all you’re gonna do.

My battle cry for social media has been, “Don’t tell me how great you are. Show me!”

I think it’s time I heeded my own call.

Seth Godin is very popular among the social media/internet marketing crowd. He should be. He’s awesome.

But if you look at Seth’s internet presence, you’ll notice something. There’s a twitter account ( http://twitter.com/sethgodin/ ), but it’s private and he’s only allowed 5 people to follow him. The public account, like Seth’s Facebook Page, is really only a feed leading back to his blog. No responses from Seth. No @replys to anyone. Just a feed that points back to his home.

So much for engage or die.

It’s not that Seth never responds. He occasionally replies via email, but hardly ever via social media channels.

So, what gives?

Here is my theory: Seth is about much more than social media. Seth is *the* idea guy. The thread that runs through all of his work isn’t something as trivial as “engage or die” nor does he have blog posts about “100 steps to master social media”.

Seth’s message is this: “Be Awesome”.

It sounds like a oversimplification, but take some time & read through his books. Comb through his blog posts that you can’t leave comments on. It’s there over and over again.

Be Awesome.

Every time someone mentions the word “blog” to me, I get up on my soapbox and say, “If you’re not going to update it at least once a week, don’t even bother. Doing it badly is worse than not doing it at all!”

And, yet, here mine sits.

Part of it comes out of the fact that I loathe self-promotion. Yes, I’ve got a lot of cool projects that have been hitting the Internets lately, but I hate tooting my own horn. I hate it so much that I’ve entertained notions of trying to kill my business by ending all advertising (Yes, Yellow Pages, I’m looking in your general direction) and relying solely on word of mouth to generate business.

Ah, but I once again digress.

The really fun news making the rounds last week was that Mickey D’s increased their foot traffic by a whopping 33% via a FourSquare promotion. Word of this social media success spread faster than a bad cold until someone at ReadWriteWeb took a little time to think about things and point out that the emperor was not wearing clothes.

The thing that bothers me about the initial reaction to this bit of misinformation is that it reflects what we’re all looking for. We want that magic pill that instantly makes us insanely profitable. A lot of people point to social media success stories like this & the Old Spice campaign and that only creates unrealistic expectations. Facebook pages are created, tweets tweeted and nothing happens.

And then social media gets the blame.

I’m not doubting the benefit of promotions via social media, but it really is a long term investment. It’s not just about motivating potential customers by contests, coupons or the good old bait and switch upsell. It’s really about putting yourself out there and showing who you are and what you’ve got. It’s holding conversations and building relationships.

If you want to see a master at work, check out @CosmicKitchen on Twitter. Hands down, Kris (not a typo) does the best social media marketing of any business here in town. She’s not above a little shameless self-promotion, but she mixes it well with real conversations.

Of course, the fact that they have some of the best food in town doesn’t hurt (I could go for a Reuben right now).

In case you’ve been living under a social media rock for the past 48 hours, Old Spice has launched the current mother-of-all viral social media campaigns.

Apparently, they’ve assembled a crack creative team and locked them in a Portland, Oregon bunker with cameras, a shower and a live internet connection to answer questions posted at various social media sites.

When I first sat down to write this, I thought I was going to poke all sorts of holes in it. Yeah, a big company with a well established character & brand could do this sort of thing with deep pockets, but it really doesn’t do any good for the little guys. Local businesses could never pull this sort of thing off.

But why not?

I mean, yeah, you couldn’t do it on this sort of scale cranking out 87 videos in 11 hours that get national attention, but how about on a micro scale?

Maybe one a week?

With some sort of interesting delivery?

Educating & informing your potential customer base instead while entertaining them?

It could be done.

But you’ve got to have something of value and be interesting first.

Part 1: Refollow

I’ve tried a lot of twitter tools and some are painfully slow or borderline useless. Yesterday, I decided to thin the number of people I’m following and used Refollow ( http://refollow.com ) to thin the herd.

It was awesome. Fairly quick to use once it loads your info and offered just about every way possible to sort Friends/Followers.

** This is a unsolicited/unpaid, yet glowing endorsement

Part 2: General Social Media Philosophy

While I was going through the list of people that I followed, I started to notice that quite a few people weren’t following back and I started to get a little miffed. I’m not talking about celebrities either major or minor (for a good take on that look here: What Twitter is For ). Some were people that I knew personally and others were businesses that I though, “Well, heck. why wouldn’t they want to follow me???”

You Can’t Take Social Media Personally

After getting a grip on myself, I started to really think about why someone doesn’t follow back and I’ve put this in a nifty web friendly scanning unordered list for your viewing pleasure & enlightenment.

• They Don’t Use Twitter The Way I Do
  Believe it or not, a lot of people use social media for *gasp* socializing with their friends. Even business accounts are going to skew towards friends & associated because they’re run by real people. They’re not so much interested in links or (as in my case) the occasional anonymous dry sarcastic comment. They’re communicating with their real life circle and that’s a good thing.
• I’m Not Offering Anything of Value
  My Twitter account is a mix of professional and personal items and leans heavily in the personal direction because I feel that blatant self-promotion makes me look sleazy. No offense to anyone who blatantly self-promotes; it’s just not encoded in my DNA. Still, posting design related items doesn’t always attract local business people because they’re worried about other things… like staying in business.

  Along the same lines, I don’t follow everyone back immediately. I only reciprocate after I look at their profile & recent tweets and decide that they’ve got something I’m interested in. I also am not prone to follow someone if I’ve already got an expert in their field in my list. For instance: I’ve got my goto guys for SEO already.

• I Haven’t Engaged Enough (or at all)
  Guilty as charged. I see a lot everyday that I think is cool or interesting. A Retweet isn’t always enough. I’ll be making a effort to engage more beyond my normal circle.
• I Haven’t Shown Up On Their Radar
  Many Twitter users follow thousands of people. I don’t know how they keep track of it all. Unless you’re making a regular effort, you’re going to miss some people.

In Closing

Getting upset about the whole who-follows-me-and-who-doesn’t social media game is a lot like cursing the darkness; the darkness doesn’t care. The best thing to do is be yourself and try to be interesting. All the cool tools & tricks in the universe won’t gather you anything of value if you’re not trying to do those two things first.

Social Media badges on every page?

Why?

Once customers come in your shop, would you send them down to the coffee shop (where all their friends hang out) just to sign up for your mailing list?

Heck no.

So, now that they’re on your website, why would you make it easy for them to go to Facebook where there are a thousand other distractions?

Once they visit your site, you’ve got their attention. Do something quick or you’ll lose it.

I’ve noticed several inconsistencies in the way businesses are using Facebook and I think a lot of it comes from not really understanding the different types of Facebook accounts/pages and how they work. If you get caught doing the wrong thing, Facebook can delete all of your accounts and that would mean the loss of a lot of hard work & followers. So, it pays to do a little research before you jump in.

Types of Facebook Pages

1. Personal Account
   This is the account that any *person* can have when they go to Facebook and sign up. I’m emphasizing *person* because it’s very important to understand that these are for individuals and not groups/businesses.
2. Page
   This is the official representation of a business on Facebook . You must be an authorized representative of the business in order to create one of these.
3. Group
   This has some important differences from The Page, but the main thing is that you need not be an official representative of a business/group to create one of these.

Well, That’s about as clear as mud…

Yeah, I know. It’s confusing. The best way that I know to explain it is to tell a story about a familiar character.

Jethro Bodine moves with his uncle’s family from the Ozarks to Beverly Hills. In this strange & wonderful new land, Jethro makes a lot of new friends, but he finds himself missing the friends and family that he left back home. One of his new California friends (Miss Jane) suggests to Jethro that he join Facebook to keep in touch with them. This sounds like a great idea, so he signs up for a Facebook Personal Account. Unfortunately, no one from back home has indoor plumbing much less a computer with an internet connection, so Jethro’s friend list mainly consists of his really weird Hollywood friends and all of the animals that his cousin Ellie May has created accounts for.

Eventually, Jethro’s Uncle Jed gets tired of seeing him sitting around watching TV while eating cereal out of a mixing bowl and tells him that he needs to go out and get a career. He tries a lot of different jobs (bookkeeper, brain surgeon, street car conductor…), but settles on the role of Hollywood Producer. None of the big studios will hire him, so he starts his own production company and names it JBP Studios. Uncle Jed gives him a little cash for marketing, so Jethro creates a Facebook Page for his studio & put the money in ads on Facebook. He also tells his weird Hollywood friends about the page and they all become fans. Their friends see that they’ve become fans and they join up as well. Pretty soon Jethro has the most fans of any business on Facebook before he’s even released a single movie.

After many months of hard work, JBP Studios releases their first movie titled, The Double-Naught Spy and despite the massive push on Twitter, it’s a tremendous failure. It has such abysmal numbers on the first weekend that the distribution company decides to immediately pull it in hopes that the general public will not hear the horrendous reviews and buy it on DVD because the cover looks cool. However, no one buys the DVDs and the movie is forgotten until several years later when a programming director for TNT uses it to fill gaps in programming for five nights in a row.

Then, something odd happens.

A young man in Akron, Ohio sees The Double-Naught Spy on the last night of the TNT run, and is immediately inspired by it. He finds a copy of the DVD in the discount bin at Wal-Mart and begins organizing viewing parties for all of his friends. One of them starts a Facebook Group called Fans of the Double-Naught Spy and word of the movie goes international. Soon, it becomes a cult classic and Jethro returns to the Ozarks as a hero. Parades are held, keys to the city are presented, and Jethro retires on the income from the licensing rights for Double-Naught action figures, lunch boxes & t-shirts.

Summary

If you managed to make it this far, then bravo for you.  Here’s what you need to remember:

1. Facebook Personal Account – Individual People

2. Facebook Page  – Official Business

3. Facebook Group – Unofficial Representation

4. Never under estimate the power of TNT reruns.

More Resources

Facebook Advertising: Pages

Facebook Business Accounts

140 Characters is just too short a space to recommend people to follow on Twitter. So, Here are my #FollowFriday recommendations. This isn’t a comprehensive list & I’ll try to do this on a regular basis.

• @JimWare – “Night editor and crime team leader at StarNewsOnline.com and the StarNews newspaper”
  I try to follow a lot of news folks (both print & Broadcast). Jim is a genuinely nice guy and always a pleasure to talk with.
• @WilliamLang – “25 year old entrepreneur. // SEO/Social Media Enthusiast. // Larry David Imitator.”
  William is a sharp young man and someone to keep an eye on (but in a good way).
• @CosmicKitchen – “Casual Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Restaurant headed by a Culinary Institute of America Graduate (910) 792-6720″
  Kristin runs the Twitter account for Chris’ Cosmic Kitchen. If you’re a business wanting to use Twitter, look at her tweets and take notes.
• @gwensutton – “Jazz Loving, Hard Working, Woman!”
  If you’re interested in real people that are worth getting to know, this wonderful lady is a must to follow. (She’s a pretty good shutter bug too)
• @DeniseMerritt – “QuickBooks expert, bookkeeper, wife, mom to 2 daughters, scrapbooker, quilter, lover of Jesus, Third Day and Eagles music fan, love 24 and Kay Arthur Precepts.”
  QuickBooks expert, but also another good real person to follow.
• @scottpiner – “Photographer”
  Excellent, Excellent photographer – and a new dad.
• @NatashaNDavis – “Nonprofit updates, gardening, gluten free lifestyle, and Cape Fear area events and news”
  Community minded Tweets (plus, anyone that works with non-profits is more than ok in my book.)
• @CoachReggie – “ActionCOACH Business Coach, OU Sooner Fan, Husband, Daddy, Christian, Business Educator, Mentor, Speaker, Butt Kicker of Small Biz Owners, Social Media Junkie”
  Man, what more can I add to that bio?
• @carolynmejia – “Wife, mom, geek, and all round lover of all things good and/or funny. Media Director at The ROCK. http://rockwilmington.com”
  ‘Followed her on Twitter, met her in person and discovered that we knew each other from more than 20 years ago at a church in Raleigh. (ain’t life funny that way?)

Congrats to all the guys at StarNewsOnline.com! The MyReporter.com website recently won the Citizen Media Award in the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.

And what can you take away from this? A little quote from their announcement says it all…

“Executive Editor Robyn Tomlin had noticed editors and reporters were connecting with readers on Twitter and other social networking sites, and she saw that readers appreciated the personal connection to people who reported the news.”**

Using social media isn’t about just blatantly promoting yourself. Tootin’ your own horn a bit is ok, but if you’re not making personal connections then you’re probably not going to get a whole lot out of it. In fact, if all you do is toot away, you’re probably going to come off doing a good bit of damage.

link: MyReporter.com wins national media award

** BTW, local TV stations should take note. Simply tweeting teases like you’re tossing to break isn’t going to cut it.

Kevin Spacey explains Twitter to David Letterman.