The Jury is Still Out

I like to think of myself as an early adopter of technology. My teenage daughters think I am a bit of a technology geek and I have to admit they may be right. So when Google launched the Google + Project I was one of the first in line to get in.

Perhaps I have not spent enough time there, or maybe I need to give it a few more months. I am struggling to make Google + a part of my online life. The reasons for me are simple and may just apply to you too.

I already have a social profile that is extensive, by my standards anyway. I use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Blogger. I have a Tumblr account that I have yet to use and I check in on FourSquare semi-regularly. I have tried many different tools to post content and I like things to be simple. Adding what has appeared so far to be a redundant social network has been far from simple for me.

Admittedly, my biggest challenge is my own, Google + has not yet become a habit for me. Facebook is easy to start using, it is simple and I connect with my family and friends here. LinkedIn is great as it allows me to connect with colleagues in a professional way and share business/professional content that person friends may not be that interested in. Twitter has a different role in that I follow people I have never met and learn from their content.

I get the feeling that Google has tried to bring the features and uses of these three networks together in Google +. I can group my connections in to “circles” that define how I know them and what content I want to share with them. The challenge I have is that I have no family members using Google + so that “circle” is empty. I have a large number of co-workers, a few friends and many twitter followees. All of the people in my circles are in a twitter list (or two).

Maybe with the first API release earlier this month to developers there will eventually be third party applications to push content and I will have more success embracing the new network. Until then I will continue to look for the value in Google + and hope that it does not turn out to be Google -.

In the mean time feel free to connect with me on any of the social networks I frequent, especially Google +. Let me know if you need an invite and I will be happy to send you one!

Social Media Excellence in a Small Town

My teenage daughters are both volleyball players. As their biggest fan and supporter I have the privilege of travelling to cities and towns near and far to cheer them on, some are big cities and some are small towns, remote small towns. Some towns have limited cellular coverage and I really have no expectations when I travel when it comes to connectivity. I like to post updates on my social media channels during tournaments when connectivity permits. It has been my experience that most folks in smaller communities do not understand social or my desire to constantly connect.

I recently attended Les Jeux de l’Acadie in Edmundston NB to cheer for my youngest daughter and her team from Truro NS. It is about a three hour drive from where I live to Edmundston and I was pleasantly surprised to have coverage the entire journey there. Because I was early for the first game I thought it would be nice if I could find a wireless connection and clear out a few email. I pulled off the highway in to McDonald’s and checked in using Foursquare, the following was pushed to Twitter:

I was sure that they would have wi-fi and I was right. I was able to get through a lot of work that would have had to wait 5 hours. What I did not expect was a response to this post:

I was immediately impressed that a small local Edmundston cafe was monitoring/searching for references inside social media to interact and help grow their small business. This was just the beginning! I responded with a request for directions as I was from out of town and now had their address. The Blue Lotus Café, which was unknown to me just 5 minutes prior, was now on the top of my list of interesting places to visit.

Fast forward a day to my visit to this little oasis and my social media experience continues. When I check in on Foursquare I receive a free muffin. The staff were fantastic, friendly with lots of smiles –  it was obvious they enjoyed being there. The food was incredible so the Blue Lotus Café lived up to the original tweet with ease!

It is always encouraging to see a small local business succeed, it is even more encouraging to see a small local business using social media to help them succeed. Congratulations to everyone at the Blue Lotus Café for contributing to my positive experience, I will be sure to stop in again my next time I am travelling through northern New Brunswick and I hope everyone else does too!

Quality over Quantity

Recently I had a conversation with Jeff Brown of Alpha Computer about many things social. One of the many topics covered was about building a strong community and the value of a Twitter follower. A concerning trend discussed is the increasing occurrence of “buying” a community.

Perhaps I am naïve. I cannot see a legitimate reason for either a person or business to buy followers. The purpose of building a community (which generally takes time and effort) is to establish a group of people that are genuinely interested in what you are offering and see value in following you. It is an opportunity for you to be engaged with brand loyalists and potential brand evangelists. It is an opportunity to increase the stickiness of your brand.

Maybe I am just ignorant to the possibilities that exist within the artificially acquired community. Is it possible that completely disengaged follow-bots can help build a strong community? Will a potential followers be more likely to follow if there are already hundreds (or thousands) of followers? I know that the number of current followers does not influence my decision to follow. I look for good content, interesting conversation and humility in posts. If I am interested then I will follow.

One possible explanation for this proliferation of services like Buy A Follower is the need to show results inside of social media programs. If the community is growing too slowly, throw a little fertilizer on it and presto – there is an extra thousand followers. Reporting a metric like this to the C-Suite validates the program, or does it? What is the value of a follower?

I believe that a social community which has been correctly cultivated and grown organically with good content will return far more value than the rapidly or instantly acquired community of follow-bots. There is more value in 100 followers that are actively engaged with your brand than there is with 10,000 followers that have little to no interest in what your company does. I prefer quality over quantity, every time.

If anyone can validate the purchasing of followers, I’d welcome being enlightened. If your comments are intriguing I just might follow you! 

The Good Guys

It has been too long since my last post, more than a week. Sometimes life gets in the way of a blog I guess…As a novice blogger I will do better in the future.

We are nearing the end of February and like all Canadian golfers I admit that I am getting a little twitchy waiting for the snow to melt and the courses to open. The fact that we are still at least six weeks away from playing here in Nova Scotia does not dampen my excitement, I am a “glass is half full” kind of guy so I say we are ONLY six weeks away from golf season, I should start to get ready!

While waiting to place my first drive of the year 270 yards out and in the middle of the fairway I get to do two things. Spend quality time at my local golf retailer and watch the pros play on beautiful lush green courses south of the border. This week it is the Accenture Match Play World Golf Championship in Arizona.

I have never played a real match play event; they are incredibly exciting to watch. When the brackets for this year’s event were posted on line I could not envision any one golfer as the obvious favourite – and that makes for a very exciting tournament! The PGA tweeted a link to the experts’ picks and I thought no way, the tournament is not going to be played on paper, it will be played on the course.

As a Canadian I have a patriotic loyalty to Mike Weir. The most successful Canadian on the PGA tour is always someone I want to see do well each week. Mike was not in the field at this week’s event and that left my choices wide open.

So like any self-professed expert I tweeted back “I don't like any of the Expert Picks: WGC-Accenture Match Play http://t.co/Xbd9ggL I'll go with @stewartcink this week” believing that Stewart had an opportunity to win if he could upset the defending Champ in round one.

He did. I have no particular connection to Stewart Cink as a golfer. I think he is as real a person in a professional sport as you can get and yes, I follow him on Twitter. He is one of the good guys. Any time one of the good guys is contending I want them to win. After winning his first round match I was sure my prediction was right on the mark!

Unfortunately Stewart lost in round two and will not win the match play event this year. My prediction was as accurate as at least 67% of those made by the experts so I am ok with that. The one thing I do know is that Stewart Cink has a new fan here in snowy Canada. After his second round loss he sent out a tweet “@RalphBastarache thanks for having faith but I couldn't quite deliver today!”

Next week at the Honda Classic in Florida I will be cheering for the good guys…if the final pairing on Sunday is Stewart Cink and Mike Weir, it will be the best possible finish as far as I am concerned and I will be hoping they end up in a playoff, that there will be extra holes. When it is over it will be unfortunate that one of them had to lose but I will know without a doubt that the winner is one of the good guys.

Privacy and Social Media

Lately I have been hearing more and more about Facebook and its privacy settings, and how everyone is up in arms about it. I just don’t understand what all the commotion is about. I should preface what follows with the fact that I work for a social media monitoring company and that this posting reflects my personal views only, and that I am not speaking on behalf of my employer.

For the most part I am a fairly guarded and private person. In conversation I often choose to answer a direct personal question with a vague and ambiguous reply, as I have always believed that my privacy was important. It may seem odd to some then to learn that I have had a Facebook presence since 2007, I have been on LinkedIn since 2009 and I have recently taken to Twitter and blogging. Heck, I even use Foursquare on my iPhone and link that to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I have always been protective of my social presence and my personal brand. I am very selective with regards to what I post to my status updates and my tweets. So it should not be a huge surprise to anyone that when I read that specific aspects of my profile can be seen by everyone who has a web browser my reaction is a genuine “so what?”

Let me explain. I use the different social platforms in different ways and for different purposes. After all, that is what they were intended for.

My first (and only) rule of social media is that my Facebook page is my personal space, family and friends only. Occasionally a friend of a friend, if I met you at least once and it seemed like we shared some commonality. A friend of mine summed it up best: “To be my friend on Facebook you have to be someone I would sit down and have a beer with.” That is a good rule of thumb if you ask me. I have the ability to “untag” a picture of myself if I need to but have never had to exercise this right. I don’t care what the public can see because I have only updated what I am willing to share. My profile is not locked down so people cannot see it, they can only see what is there, what I am willing to share with the world.

I use LinkedIn for business and professional development purposes. If I have ever worked with you I will connect with you. In fact if anyone sends me a request to connect I will accept it, regardless of how I know you or even if I have never you. This is my professional arena where I belong to global groups and share knowledge with people I have never met in hopes that it helps all of us perform in our jobs better. My Facebook and LinkedIn accounts are not connected in any way, and I see no reason that they should be.

Twitter resides in the delicate space between my personal and my professional worlds, and yes this is where the two worlds collide. I work in social media so I have an understanding that it is important to be diverse, informative and entertaining with my tweets. It is also important to engage in conversations not only professionally but also personally. I also need to be sure athat I do not become a megaphone for my employer or any other cause as that is not conversation.

My goal is not to amass a specific number of followers, but to follow people I respect personally and/or professionally. Some tweets entertain me, some educate me and others keep me up to date with what friends and colleagues are doing. Hopefully my tweets accomplish the same those that follow me.

So if you really want to protect your privacy, be sure to check your security and privacy settings. Not the ones on Facebook, the ones you use to filter what you are posting and commenting. You know the ones…they are the same filter settings we use every day when we meet someone on the street that we haven’t seen in a few months. I believe the technical term for them is common sense.