Tag: Social Media

Why I deleted the Facebook app from my iPhone

I work in marketing. In fact, I’ve made a great career out of it – helping organizations evangelize their products and services in a honest and transparent manner. Part of my success is predicated on social media, and specifically, Facebook. In prior roles, I was a very large Facebook advertiser, spending millions per year on ads and content to reach potential customers.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like Facebook. Love would be too strong of a word. I love my wife and son, not Facebook.

I’ve spent the majority of many speaking engagements and presentations at conferences helping all types of organizations understand how to best use Facebook, engage with their audiences and succeed on the platform.

So why did I delete the Facebook app from my iPhone?

It’s simple… the time I was spending on Facebook was being wasted. Or rather, it was being misdirected. I found that Facebook was entertaining, but when I dug in to it, I was misdirecting my time… I should have been spending that time with my friends, family or personal enrichment.

Facebook provides a filtered view of the universe. I’m not talking about Russian manipulation of your crazy’s uncle’s political views, either. I’m talking about what most people post to their feeds. They post a filtered view of their life – things they want you to see. Mitch Joel wrote one of my favorite articles on the subject, what you see vs. what is happening. You need to read this article because it makes my point – that what people post on Facebook is not reality. It may be true, but it is a filtered view – it’s only the stuff people want you to see – it’s an airbrushed view of themselves. It’s how they want the world to see them.

The end result is that staring at unrealistic filtered views of peoples lives can make you believe they are {insert whatever you want} than you. They are {better, smarter, prettier thinner, richer, cooler, and so on.} That is just not healthy. You are you and you should strive to be the best you you can be each day. (I know I used “you” five times in the prior sentence, but it helped me make a point.) But, you should not fall to false comparisons of filtered lives. Instead of being inspired, you can become envious or jealous.

Then I became somewhat voyeuristic. Not in a creepy way… in a waste-of-time way. I spent time looking at what happened to people I used to be acquainted with… past classmates and co-workers. I spent time looking at other people’s photos and reading their posts. I got angry when I read their opinions if I disagreed with them, I felt myself being judgmental.

So I gave it up. I deleted the Facebook app and I haven’t really looked back. I still log on to Facebook to catch up with family and friends that I don’t normally get to see, but I spend a lot less time going down those destructive rabbit holes of filtered realities. I now spend my time interacting with people, spending time with my family and friends, having real conversations and working on personal enrichment. I have focused my energy on positive things. Not comparisons.
How to Handle Negative Buzz Like the Pros: Session Trailer

Here’s a trailer for my upcoming session at ClickZ Live in New York City.
Handle negative buzz like the pros
I’m excited to share (and self-promote) that I will be participating in the ClickZ Live annual marketing conference in New York City.

From ClickZ:

Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience

April 11-13, 2016

Attracting 1,000+ marketers and business leaders, our 17th annual event in New York will equip you with cutting edge strategies to inspire, acquire, convert and retain your customers.

Here’s information on my session:

Engage & Convert

Handle Negative Buzz Like the Pros

Trolls are not just pink fuzzy haired dolls; they are lurking in the corners of the ‘net waiting to tear your business apart. But it’s hard to know how to respond or if you should respond. In this session, Dan will take you through several real-world case studies of various strategies for handling negative buzz, working in your organization, and injecting a little levity to keep things calm. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but most importantly you’ll learn how to use best practices for review engagement to make your brand stand out in new digital era to create real street cred.

Attend this session and:
- Review real case studies across a number of scenarios
- Learn when you should and should not reply
- Discover techniques for replying and converting negative moments to positive wins
- Unlock the “L.E.A.D.E.R.” acronym and achieve success fast
Essentially, I will spend the session walking participants through the LEADER methodology that I have developed over the past decade with regards to handling negative comments that pop up online.
Companies should not uses consumer’s social content without opt-in

SYDNEY EMBER and RACHEL ABRAMS at the New York Times penned a recent article entitled, “On Instagram and Other Social Media, Redefining ‘User Engagement’“.

It’s a great article that explores a number of pertinent topics with regards to consumer generated content (photos, tweets, etc.) on social media and how companies may leverage that content for their own marketing campaigns.

I do think the article misses two key points, however.

First, a 37-year-old mom of a 4-year-old daughter should know better. But the problem is that the general public is extremely naive. They think what they post online is private, or reserved for only a select few. Even worse, many people have no concept that what they post online, even for a few moments, can come back and haunt them for years. Use this rule of thumb: don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t want your dear old grandma to see. But in the example in the article, this post pasts that test. So then what’s the problem? The problem is that she didn’t want Crocs to use the photo. In a moment, I’ll get to why Crocs screwed up royally… But first, if you don’t want strangers seeing photos of your kids, stop posting them online! Stop talking about your child’s hissy fit or medical problems too… when they are old, their classmates will use these things as bullying opportunities. In this case, the mom even hashtagged the brand term. That sort of says, “hey brand, come and get my photo!”

Crocs broke a core marketing principal when they did not seek her permission to use the photo. Seeking permission is so easy. It’s a great opportunity to engage a fan, thank them, possibly reward them, encourage them to continue sharing, and so on… However, this didn’t happen, nor did they get the mom’s permission. Yet somehow the picture showed up on their site.

There are exceptions of course… In my opinion if you pull a social feed, moderated but unmodified, and post it on your site, that’s fine… The content is easily attributed back to the social source and no one for a minute thinks those users are participating in a marketing campaign without their permission.

It’s very easy for brands to go from good to evil, and not seeking permission can be the pathway. But to prevent it from happening, users should think carefully about what they share online, and even how they tag it.
Social Media in Sweden

I’m excited to announce I have been added to the speakers list at Bring Dialogue’s annual conference taking place in Strömstad, Sweden August 23-26. I will be hosting a workshop on my trademark L.E.A.D.E.R. strategy for social media engagement to 500+ attendees from across the European Union in this large marketing conference that focuses on branding, CRM, social media and other emerging trends in the world of marketing.

Here’s the link to the conference web site (sorry, some of it is in Swedish): http://www.dialogkonferansen.com/2015/.

I’ll provide more links and info as they are made available.
Back on Tour in 2015
As many of you know, I took a new full-time position with Ultimate Medical Academy earlier this year. On top of the new job (which required relocating my tribe from the DC Metro to Tampa, FL), being a dad for a toddler required a brief hiatus from the speakers circuit. I’m pleased to announce that I’m back on tour in 2015 with the first two stops announced:
- Social Media Summit 2015 – Las Vegas – “Reputation Management: How to Listen & Engage Your Customers while Maximizing Success and Minimizing Risk”
- Social Media Summit 2015 – Chicago – “Branding & Social Media”
In Las Vegas, I’ll be hosting a two-hour workshop on engagement and listening strategies. I will also be discussing my “trademark” approach to social media – LAETER”. Here are the details:

Your customers are talking about you on the internet whether or not you’re listening. A few negative comments can cause your reputation and sales to plummet; while a happy customer can evangelize time and time again. This hands-on session will provide attendees with social listening strategies that can keep their team and their C-level executives on the forefront of what’s being said about their brand (and competitors) – and how to plan a proactive rather than reactive approach.

Takeaways include:
- Tips and tools for listening (and what to listen for)
- Using the “LAETER” approach (listen, acknowledge, empathize, triage, escalate and resolve)
- When not to respond and how to address trolls
- Adding value to your business
- Educating employees on the importance of corporate reputation on social media
For Chicago, I’ll be giving a 45-minute presentation on branding via social media:

Should you argue with your customers on Facebook? How do you draw the line between defending your business and antagonizing a troll? Your customers are talking about you on the internet whether or not you’re listening. A few negative comments can cause your reputation and sales to plummet; while a happy customer can evangelize time and time again. But not all negative comments can spell trouble. Learn how to engage unhappy customers and turn them into brand evangelists. It works and we’ll show you how. We’ll also help you spot potential land mines so that you don’t make things worse. It’s an art as much as it is a science.

Takeaways include:
- Using the “LAETER” approach (listen, acknowledge, empathize, triage, escalate and resolve)
- When not to respond and how to address trolls
- How to fight back and when to throw in the towel
Defending your turf on social media
Typically when I speak at conferences on the topic of social media, it’s not long before someone invariably asks the question,

“Should I respond to a negative review/comment on Facebook page?”

The answer is certainly not a simple one – in fact, I’ve spent an entire session speaking on the very topic. So a brief opine on the page here will not necessarily do this topic justice. What I will offer up instead is a framework for evaluating the basic tenants for making a well-informed decision.
- Easy stuff:
  - Did you screw up? Let’s face it, sometimes your customers have to call you out. If so, cop to it, acknowledge every so humble, vow to correct it, and move on. Don’t make a big deal about it (unless it is a big deal!) If you are a good business, you can take constructive criticism and your customers will love you for it.
  - Is the person factually wrong? I had someone recently get all dramatic that my organization was supporting a political party because they were naive enough to associate a political sign on the property of the office space we rent with our business. They never thought it might be placed by another tenant… and, their post went on dramatically (and made many ridiculous comments) about what our business stands for, just by judging a few people who were coming and going from our building). In this case, we were quick to calmly point out that our business didn’t place those signs (explaining that the space is shared). We also went on to explain that we have many programs and policies in place that contradict the assumptions the poster was making (and provided examples). Interestingly enough, the poster deleted their comment pretty quickly. Another win for us.
- Harder stuff:
  - Is the person trying to pick a fight?
  - Is the person complaining and not making any sense?
  - Is the person unwilling to be helped?
For the hard stuff, you need to understand that social media is often a game of chess. The better players anticipate the various reactions the opponent will have to your move. So if you reply to a social media “hater”, you need to anticipate and prepare for all the various possible replies. Using this mentality, chart the probability that the person is simply going to argue with you further. Is that a good outcome? Drawing more attention? Probably not. Engage if you genuinely believe the outcry is for help – not hurt. But tread carefully. You can always be empathetic.

The empathetic approach:
- Sorry you’re annoyed
- We want to help
- We want to understand
- Do you want us to help?
- DM us your issue and we’ll help offline
- Or, indicate that you have contacted them offline
When engaging a hater online, and you reach a resolution offline – but the hater doesn’t update or remove their post… it’s okay to ask them to do so. Or, simply reply back to their post and say, “I’m glad we were able to resolve the issue for you. Let us know if we can help further.”

Just remember, you don’t have to reply to every post. And sometimes your customers will come to your defense. But make sure they take it easy. Loyal brand advocates can be a lethal army. We’ll talk about that later.
Legacy customer service challenges can impact success of a social media strategy

Erik Sass at MediaPost.com reported today that Wells Fargo is launching a social media command center and this got me thinking about big business, social media and customer service. Is it possible for a big business to do social media “well”? The key to this is to understand how businesses perform in the area of customer service, since I believe social media and customer service go hand-in-hand for businesses.

If you invest time and money into a social media strategy you may be effective in managing your reputation in the online space; or at a minimum simply understanding what people are saying about you and identifying areas that need improvement. But if you are an organization like Wells with tens of thousands of employees – many on the front line, you have a different challenge. Essentially your front line staff can do more damage to your business than you think. By giving bad customer service, they may be counteracting anything positive you are doing online. Furthermore, you may be frustrating your customers and employees if your social team is faster at acknowledging, triaging and escalating customer service issues. If you do a good job in the social space, more customers will go there to get help – potentially creating more negative sentiment online, and overtaxing your social team. If you send those customers back to the support team, they may not receive the same response times they are used to when going through social.

This is a difficult challenge to overcome, and really hits at the root of customer service – training front line staff so that they are not liabilities to your brand, but rather, they enhance your brand’s equity at every interaction. And good customer service as a tenant of good business has always been prudent.

To conquer this challenge takes time, coordination and a bit of patience. Start by reaching out to your counterparts in various departments to educate them about social media, your mission, and social’s ability to positively impact the business (and improve their lives). You’ll need to do a lot of selling and a lot of training. But a collaborative approach whereby you involve department staff in the social process is an approach that is both effective and well-received at organizations I’ve helped tackle the service challenge. You’ll find champions in each department who will lead the effort with you – and it’s a joint effort. I recommend starting with one or two departments, perhaps with folks that are already doing some social or demonstrate social wherewithal. Then incrementally add on more departments and communicate through regular conference calls and presentations to discuss case studies (successes AND failures) so that you can improve upon your efforts over time.

And, none of this is possible without a really good social strategy and policy – two things you must have in place before looking to conquer the world of social media customer service.
Social media for combating crime

As the Edward Snowdon NSA leak story continues to unfold, another conversion, equally as important is surfacing – who should be allowed to monitor conversations and when? And even more important, what defines something as a private conversation versus public? Certainly we would all agree that if you post a website with information about a crime, that information is publicly available. But what if that information is within a private social network requiring authentication and moderation to join the group? These types of questions are all coming into play as the Snowdon story continues to develop. But they aren’t new questions. We’ve been talking about them for years. Just what can get a person in trouble on the web or within social media?

At the University, we teach what I refer to as the “grandma test”. Simply put, if what you do, say or share on social media is okay to share with your grandmother, than it’s probably okay to share with the world. Of course our training is more extensive then this, but that’s a good reference point.

The NYPD has been quite resourceful lately, using social media to track down, identify and incarcerate gang members who where bragging and discussing their escapades online.

Does it make sense to go one step further? What if the networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, allow (through some sort of partnership), law enforcement to have more administrative or back door access to these sites so they can monitor groups that are moderated or private without those groups knowing? There’s nothing in the terms and conditions of these sites that prevent this; nor anything to protect you. Most users operate under a false sense of security. So again, my suggestion is to not do, say or share anything on social media (even if you think it is private and secure) that you wouldn’t want the world to know.

If law enforcement then mines that data, looking at groups purported for criminal behavior, are they doing the public justice or encroaching on personal freedom? Can they prevent certain types of crimes from happening altogether or at the very least stop future crimes from occurring? Probably. But how much personal freedom are you willing to give up? I’ve never really assumed I had any personal freedom for anything I’ve posted or stored online, so for me personally, I don’t feel that I’m giving up much freedom. However, I do have personal conversations over email, and that goes through servers owned by Verizon, Yahoo and Google, to name just a few. And I wouldn’t want my email records to be made public (but even if they were, it wouldn’t be a big deal, because I again, I don’t say much of anything over email that if made public would be embarrassing).

So think about it – your phone calls, text messages, emails, social posts, and so on… all of these things could be mined for insight. If you are paying for the services (such as your phone), does that entitle you to more privacy?

These are some interesting times. What do you think? How much is too far when it comes to mining this information?
Social Digital San Diego – Recap
We had a blast, fellow roosters, cats and dogs! Thanks for making my trip out to the amazing Gas Lamp district in San Diego for the Social Digital 2013 summit. I had a great time presenting, “Are you winning the race? Strategies for measuring success each step of the way on your social media journey.”

Many of you have tweeted me asking for the case study template and the dashboard template. Have no fear, the links (along with my slide deck) are below.

Just a reminder, the data in the presentation screenshots is not real, but the concepts are! Take your organizational reporting on social media ROI from good to better to best… and dip your big toe into attribution too!
Thanks again for all your great feedback on the presentation.

Tag: Social Media

Creating the Ultimate Customer Experience

Handle Negative Buzz Like the Pros