Grow My Law Firm

10 ways to insult, irritate and get dumped by your social media connections fast

Here are a few things I've learned during my last few years in social media. If you want to keep your friends, I suggest you avoid the following:

1. Spend all your time pitching your own product or service. Very few companies are successful directly selling in social media. Use this space to communicate and build relationships. 
2. Be rude and use foul language. If you don’t speak that way face-to-face, don’t do it here. 
3. Pick fights. Openly challenging peoples’ opinions, insulting, & antagonizing them puts people off.
4. Be selfish. Using social media as your personal pulpit to preach your message without answering questions, helping, or engaging doesn’t work. 
5. Retweet or repost others’ links without crediting them. It is proper social media etiquette to credit the source when you share something from a friend’s Facebook page or retweet a link.
6. Forget to thank people. Remember your basic manners. 
7. Stalk people you barely know. When you Tweet @ people incessantly and comment on every photo, status update, and link they post on Facebook, and you’re just a casual acquaintance, that’s creepy. 
8. Drunk post. If you must jump on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter when you’ve got a few drinks in you, you would be wise to refrain from communicating. 
9. Insist that you’re right and everyone who disagrees is wrong. Speaking vehemently about your religious or political beliefs, parenting style, or favorite sports team, then arguing with, belittling, or insulting anyone who expresses a contradictory opinion, turns people off. 
10. Post information that should remain private. Betraying confidences and airing dirty laundry proves that you can’t be trusted.

What can you add to this list?

- Christine Pilch

 

Customizing Your Facebook News Feed

 

Facebook resurrected an old feature today that I really missed. You can now view your home page feed by different criteria. This quick video will show you how. Christine Pilch, 413.537.2474, Christine@GrowMyCo.com

© 2010, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

New Facebook Profile Tips

 

 

The new Facebook profile format lacks of lot of the originality that the previous format had, but there are a few new features that you might like. This video offers you some tips. Christine Pilch, 413.537.2474; growmyco.com

© 2010, Christine Pilch, Grow My Company. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Comments made to friends' posts now displaying on your Facebook profile

Facebook made this subtle change Friday, and when I posted it as a status update, many of my friends were confused about how to adjust it. Well, it's determined in part by your own privacy settings and in part by your friends' status privacy settings.

On your end, you can adjust who can see your status updates by going to Account / Privacy Settings and then choose one of the defaults, or select Customize Settings and adjust the top one. You can also do this by individual status by clicking the icon of a lock and arrow to the left of the Share button underneath each update before you post it.

This subsequently affects what is posted on your friends' profiles when they comment on your status. For example, suppose you post an update visible to Friends Only, and a friend comments on it. This comment will be visible on your friend's profile only to you and common friends that you both have, but nobody else. However, if your original update is visible to Everyone, all of your friend's friends will be ale to see his comment when it posts on his profile, subject to his own privacy settings.

This also applies to comments that you post on your friends' profiles.

I have scoured Facebook's privacy settings, and it appears that there is no global turn-off feature for this new comments posting feature. You can, however, manually delete any comments that post to your profile and you don't want there.

This small Facebook change further emphasizes the significance of carefully considering your privacy settings.

- Christine Pilch

Relationship matters: the delicate vendor / client / agency trinity

Recently someone I follow on Twitter remarked that he was having a spat with a new marketing agency brought in by his client. This person is one of the client's vendors. That got me thinking about how dynamics change when an agency enters the mix.

It is sometimes tricky for vendors to navigate the waters when an agency enters the picture, because, make no mistake about it, the agency will get between you and your client. That's their job. And no strong agency will work any other way, because they can't deliver results if they can't control all the pieces. The client hired them because they don't want to handle all that stuff any more, so you have to find a way to work with the agency.

I have been on the agency side of this equation many times, and I have preferred vendors that I like to work with, but that doesn't mean that I remove the existing vendors when I start a new assignment. I review what has been done, what is in the hopper, and any proposed work. Then I make a decision whether or not a particular vendor can deliver up to my expectations. Ultimately it's the client's decision, but clients generally follow the agency's lead.

You were originally hired by your client for a reason. You are likely very good at what you do, so just be your professional, respectful self, and things will usually work out just fine.

One critical thing to keep in mind, however, is that many agencies have tentacles that spread much further than you might expect. I once worked with a company that had repeatedly run a ridiculous ego-gratification radio campaign around the holidays on a particular station before I entered the mix. The sales rep permanently burned his bridge with me when, fearing that I would nix this tradition, he did an end run and got the company's president to sign a contract without sending it to me first, as he had been directed to do. To this day I have never given that sales person another dollar, and I've had him removed from any account that I've been associated with. He proved that he can't be trusted.

Don't make the sales rep's mistake. The new agency in the mix isn't your enemy. Actually they can potentially open up a whole new referral stream for you if you perform well for your current client.

- Christine Pilch

 

The Facebook profile transition: things to know

Migration to the new Facebook profile format is now optional. I don't know how long that will last, but following are my observations about the new profile. (My apologies for the lack of white space between the items below. TypePad seems to have eliminated the ability to do that.)

1. No turning back: Once you click the button to upgrade, there's no turning back. Your profile and is converted and you will view all others in the new format as well.
2. Character limits: Facebook has a new 995 character limit (including spaces) for your employment info. This space was unlimited before, and if your descriptions exceeded that, and you didn't save them elsewhere, they are gone. Make sure that yours don't cut off now.
3. Videos: No, your videos are not lost, they're just buried now. In the new left nav, go to Photos, and at the top click on See All Videos. They're all there. Unfortunately they're sufficiently buried now to render them essentially useless as a personal marketing tool.
4. Standardization: The new profile is very Steppford-esque. The cookie-cutter template allows no room for customization. All your custom tabs are gone with the new design, and it's impossible to add anything to your sidebar, (except featured friends,) or rearrange it as far as I can see. You can't even customize what information about you is displayed under your name except by hiding it in your privacy settings.
5. Photos: Facebook adds the 5 most recently tagged photos of you under your name. These are seen by anybody who has permissions to see them, so if they're not the photos you want visible, you might untag and retag yourself in the ones you want displayed. You might have to do this repeatedly as new photos of you are tagged. It's an annoying but effective work-around.
6. Friends: You can review your friends list alphabetically by first name or by a mish-mash of randomly displayed friend photos. Refreshing the page changes the order of the photos.
7. Info: Facebook obviously believes that your most important identifiers are your education and work, because they display that information at the top of your info now. Your true personal information is way down at the bottom, under Pages you like and activities.
8. Featured friends: You can add Featured Friends to your sidebar by adding an established or new list.
9. Lists: I'm hearing through my channels that your friends are notified when you add them to a list now if you've added the list to the Featured Friends area. However, I wouldn't trust that this won't spill over into other lists as well. This makes things a little complicated if you've built friend lists to make it easy to customize your privacy settings and some have unflattering names. I urge you to give it some thought before adding someone to a list called something like, "Jerks." So much for list privacy!
10. Shared lists: Friends lists may also be shared. I suppose this might be useful, for example, to help someone who is new to Facebook find members of your common high school or college class, especially since Facebook seems to have eliminated the ability to review members of a specific class at a school. Now all alum are lumped together in a disorganized mess.
11. Tagging: You can now tag friends in activities that you do together, including sports, education and work. I had a friend tag me as his high school classmate. I was 2-years ahead of him in school, however, it placed me under his class year on his page. That's misleading and inaccurate, so that needs work. 

That's what I've noticed so far. What have you noticed in this transition?

- Christine Pilch

(This post was amended at 1:00 on 12.8.10)

 

Social media friend or foe? The danger of mixing personal & professional

Social media is a communications channel and a means to build relationships. Gone are the days when there was a solid line dividing your personal and professional life. Social media blurred the line, and now it’s fairly common for family, friends, co-workers, subordinates, and superiors to coexist in one’s social media world. But is this smart? 

Revealing too Much 

One of the hardest things about social media is figuring out how much personal information to share. Your social media identity is an extension of your off-line brand, so if you over-share, you run the risk of being perceived as irritating and unappealing. You can also compromise your safety by telling your circle that you’re out of town, and therefore, that your home is empty. You may also be caught in a little white lie if, for example, you called in sick to work, and the next day your boss sees photos from the beach excursion you enjoyed instead. 

No Do-Overs 

Yes, you can delete a status update or post, but with the huge popularity of social media, search engines catalog everything almost instantly. If you post something and want to take it back even 30 seconds later because you’re worried about your professional reputation, it may just come back to haunt you. Think twice before you post. 

Complaining About Your Job 

Even if you’re careful about who you friend on Facebook, or you think you’ve mastered the art of blocking certain status updates from particular friends and lists, it’s just not smart to complain on social media about your job. Twitter is public and Facebook changes privacy setting so often that you risk the information getting to the exact person that you don’t want to see it. 

You Could Get Fired 

Consider what happened to a waitress in North Carolina who complained about a tip she received. Despite the fact that she thought her updates were private, her boss saw the post and fired her. Most people are At Will employees who can be fired at any time for any reason, so don’t provide any ammunition.

- Christine Pilch

 

Social media is a communication channel that must be open, especially in an emergency!

Social media is first and foremost a communications channel, and if you open that door, you better have a plan to monitor and maintain that channel.

National Grid recently failed miserably.

On December 1st, I lost power at my home at 5:10PM. It was a blustery, rainy day, so although this was inconvenient, it was understandable. I started calling National Grid's emergency line immediately, and the line rang busy throughout the next 5 hours, when I gave up and went to bed. Ironically, National Grid's website also crashed that day. The net result was that it was impossible to report the outage that affected 17 homes on my street. A neighbor finally called the police, and they reported it through a priority channel.

I tweeted @NationalGridUS consistently throughout the evening, asking for help, and there was no response until the next day at 9:57AM when someone tweeted, "This is Emily w/ Nat'l Grid. Website is live. Apologies 4 inconvenience. Pls let me know if u need assistance."

Too little, too late.

This does, however, exemplify a company's social media failure. Subsequent phone calls to National Grid have revealed that the company was aware that their website had crashed and their emergency phone line was down. In this instance, it was especially important for them to be monitoring their Twitter channel, as that was the only direct means of communication that customers had.

Shame on National Grid for neglecting their Northeast US customers on a stormy night and not bothering to monitor the only available means customers had to reach them. 

Don't follow the National Grid social media model. If you choose to use social media, and you provide a vital service, such as electricity, or perhaps OUI or criminal defense, you must monitor the channels 24/7!

 

- Christine Pilch

Facebook Page & Place Merge Disaster - Don't Do it!

My friend, Chris Kieff took the following message I sent to him and used it as a blog post, and I thought that was a really good idea.

My client, a law firm, had a Facebook Page with a year’s worth of content, including about 4 dozen videos and posts from 4 blogs, as well as updates.

I added a Facebook Place for the main office a few weeks ago, and when I went to the Page last week, I was prompted by Facebook to merge the Page and Place, since they looked similar. “Merge” seemed reasonable to me, so I clicked okay.

Within a day or two, all subscribers were moved to the Place, and the Page was deleted, along with all content. Now, when I type the firm’s vanity URL, I return to my Facebook Home Page. The firm’s Page has vanished.

“Merge” means combine, not replace. I believe it is incredibly irresponsible for Facebook to encourage users to do something that erases valuable content. Much of the firm’s advertising includes a Vanity URL that goes nowhere now. This “merge” is deceitful, and it is frustrating that Facebook provides no channel to rectify the situation.

This is not an inconvenience or bug. This is a major issue, and people must be aware that when Facebook says, “merge,” they actually mean, “replace.” Don’t do it unless you are willing to sacrifice your vanity URL and all your Page content.

- Christine Pilch