How to Be the Best Social Media Douche Bag Ever

Being a great social media douche bag is obviously something a lot of people are interested in becoming.  There are plenty of  social media experts, webinars, seminars, guides, blogs, Twitter tools and other sources of information out there that will teach you how to be the best, or biggest, social media douche bag you can be. Social media douche baggery has even become a business for some and the great thing is that some of these people don’t even need to know what they are talking about in order to get other people to fork over money to them. As far as this writer can tell, becoming a “social media expert” requires 1 of 3 things: the ability to create a Facebook account, the ability to create a Twitter account or the ability to create a social bookmarking account, like Digg or something. Then – POW! Another social media expert is born.

Here are some tips on becoming the best social media douche bag ever.

1. Keep all of your personal friends and family informed about every sale, offer and promotion your business is having. There is nothing people like more than being sold to. Especially from friends and family members.
2. Remember to post the exact same message multiple times a day to all of your social networks. This way you can keep your important information fresh in everyone s mind 24 hours a day.
3. Keep everyone you know informed about how you are doing when playing online video games and ask them to join you. As a matter of fact, please send me all your email addresses so that I can let you all know every time I kick the crap out of my kids while playing Wii Resort because I know you all really care about that.
4. Pay for a system that will get you tens of thousands of more followers on Twitter. There is nothing better than an automated system to get you tens of thousands of more people that have no interest in what you have to say to spam to.
5. SELL, SELL, SELL! All anyone really cares about is what you are selling so ask for the sale in every update,  tweet, message or post. Remember to never offer any valuable information because that would take away the focus from you.
6. Hire someone else and have them pretend to be you. Nobody knows you better than someone else. This is  especially true when it comes to your business. So hire yourself a social media expert to run everything for you. Most “social media experts” have social media douche baggery down to a science already.
7. Remember, spamming really does work. Look no further than the penis enlargement industry as proof.
8. One way communication is key. All that really matters is what you have to say so never respond to messages from people within your social media circle. Just make sure they get your message loud, clear and often.
9. Trick people into thinking your more popular by creating multiple fake user accounts. There is nothing better than tricking your online friends into thinking you are as cool as Ashton Kutcher by creating multiple user accounts and linking them all together for your own personal network of fake social media douche bags. Your online friends will ask themselves, “Who knew that so many other people were interested in making grout?”.
10. Keep all your business associates updated on what’s happening in your personal life throughout the day. Believe it or not, the people you do business with really do love hearing about how you just dropped the kids off at school, how smart they are, how you got over an infection, how your spouse has been and all the other fascinating details of your life.

Just remember that if you are going to use social media for your business it’s best to try to create a community around your services where you can not only educate people about what you do, but also communicate with them too. It’s not just a one-way street where all you do is post, post, post. You also have to be willing and able to interact with people.

In a nutshell, look at social media like an ad in the yellow pages (remember those). If all you did was place the ad and then never answer the phone the ad wouldn’t do you much good would it. After all, if all you’re going to do it put it out there and then never respond what’s the point of putting it out there in the first place. Posting your message all over your social networks and never interacting with the people who actually take the time to read your stuff is a waste of your time. If you are paying someone to do it for you then you are wasting your money too. Make sure you have someone, preferably an employee or yourself, responding to your friends, followers, fans or whatever in a timely manner. A third party (social media expert) may not have the ability to answer questions about your services as professionally as you could so why pay them to do it? You may need help planning and setting up a social media campaign. That’s okay, but running and monitoring it really needs to be done by you or someone within your organization to keep it genuine and real. It is networking after all.

20 Things To Know About Using Social Media For Your Business

These are the Twenty Things that everybody needs to know about Social Media and how they can use Social Media for their business. A lot of Hype has been created around this topic and we want own clients to understand what exactly it means to them.

(1) Don’t Believe the Hype

Our professional opinions are based on our expertise, experience and education. We are not here to repeat what others have to say. We are here to give you the facts not feed you fiction.

(2) It’s Not Cheap Advertising

It is wrong to believe that Social Media is nothing but a cheap channel to spam out a sales pitch. Social Networks are not a place for an infomercial or “Guerrilla Marketing”. Social Networks are not “the new” late night television, they are a new way to communicate with people.

(3) It’s Not Just Numbers

Social Media is not about building large numbers or friends, fans or followers that do not know who you are or do not care about what you have to say. Sending out information to large numbers of people that do not care what you have to say is spam. If you annoy them enough they may even look to see who is spamming them. This is not the way to build traffic to your website, because the only thing that they will remember is to buy elsewhere.

(4) It’s Not Just About You

If you make it just about you, only you are going to want to hear it. It’s easy to spot someone that doesn’t say anything with out posting a link to their website or starts every message with “My new Blog Post”. Words “I” or “Me” from your Social Media vocabulary or else you will create a personal brand that nobody will ever want to buy.

(5) You’re Not a Movie Star

How celebrities and major corporations are using Social Media has very little to do with what is going to work for you. Do not make the mistake of comparing yourself to a super model,  celebrity or professional athlete.  Social Media has nothing to do with who they are or why people are interested in them.

(6) Have Realistic Objectives

You need to know what your objectives are before you even think of starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign and if you are going to be able to realize those objectives for the type of business that you are in.

(7) Develop A Game Plan

An effective Game Plan will create the buzz for your business. Social Media gives you the ability to keep in touch with your loyal customers and to reach out to new ones around the world.

(8) Know Your Marketplace

You need to know your marketplace and why your customers buy from you. The Internet is a global marketplace and people can buy from you from all over the world.

(9) Give It Time

You need to remember that Social Media Marketing is a long term strategy, not a way to become an “Internet Millionaire” overnight.

(10) Treat People As Friends

Talk to people like they are your friends. Abrasive tone, SHOUTING, and pushy sales pitches are not what your friends want to hear. You are not writing copy for an infomercial.

(11) Build A Community

Use your Social Network to build a community around your business and reward your customers for their loyal patronage. Building a community online is how you bring people into your business, because they want to bring their business to you.

(12) Understand the “Vibe”

Every Social Network has a different Vibe and that vibe is created by the people that use the network, not the people that operate the network. For example automatically posting messages from another network is considered to be an acceptable practice on Twitter, but would be considered spamming somewhere else.

(13) Do Something Interesting

Always offer something that people are going to want or else they are not going to be part of your online business community. When you give people the opportunity to do something fun, they are going to bring your business into their circle of friends.

(14) You Must Participate

Internet Communities are about people and you are going to have to be there to carry on a two way conversation or people are just going to blow you off. One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they join as many networks as they can find and never become a part of the community. “Auto-blogging” services like Ping.fm can give people the idea that spamming out a sales pitch to as many social networks is going to build traffic to their website. What they don’t realize is that traffic is not converting to actual sales. because people are just looking at their site in contempt.

(15) Encourage Cooperation

People will remember that you helped them and they will come back when they need your services. When you let people ask questions and answer them promptly they will know that someone is listing to what they say. Community pages should always include postings from fans to encourage cooperation between the people in you community.

(16) Build Relationships

Social Networks allow you to meet people around the world and in time you will be able to make friends them. These friendships may also lead to trust based relationships in business with people that you would not have to opportunity to meet otherwise. People that are experienced in business networking understand how this works on the local level, when they join Chambers of Commerce and other networking organizations.

(17) Think Business

Don’t say things that are going to offend the people that paying you money or challenge their political views or religious beliefs. One of things that makes America great is that people have the right to have different views on everything. It’s not your business to try to change what people believe and the only thing you are going to make them believe is they need to do business else where.

(18) Protect Your Reputation

Reputation is the key component in Social Media, the way you deliver your message and the frequency that you deliver it is going to directly impact your reputation.

(19) Never SPAM Your Friends

Friends don’t what to read spam or care about the latest trends in Social Media. Computer programs that send messages over the Internet that nobody wants are spamming. There are places on Social Networks to advertise and build lists of people that want to know about your business. For example, when people join a page on FaceBook they know that they are going to receive messages from the people that run the page.

(20) You’re Not Fooling Anyone

Just be yourself and treat people like your friends and everyone is going to like you. Pretending to offer sage advice only to lure people into some get rich quick website is going to get you nowhere fast. An excellent example is the “Thank Your For Following Me” message on Twitter, that is always generated by a computer program. A tool that will only build traffic to your website from contemptible people or people with contempt for you.

Are You Networking or Collecting?

Last week I attended a business networking function hosting by one of our local cities. It was a table top event filled with the hustle and bustle of small business owners displaying their wares, hundreds of people navigating through the maze of table tops to get to the food areas and beer lines that seemed to go on forever. It was a fine event with plenty of opportunities to meet new business people.

In fact, let me pause a moment and give the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce credit for this. They consistently put on one of the best monthly business networking events you’ll find.

Now, as I was standing near the entrance waiting in line to get my free promotional magnet from a vendor’s table top display (I collect promotional magnets and stick them all over every exposed metal area I can find back at the office) I noticed two women in business suits walk in. It looked to be a trainee / trainer situation. One of the women looked fresh out of college, pretty, young, vibrant and wide eyed. The other was more mature, put together well and obviously very comfortable in this environment. These two marketing agents then proceeded to have a conversation that demonstrates the very problem most people have when it comes to networking at business events.

The trainee started scanning the room and pointing out to the trainer people she wanted to talk to. The trainer then cut her off and declared, “We’re here to collect our business cards and leave.”

“We’re here to collect our business cards and leave.”

“We’re here to collect our business cards and leave!”

“We’re here to collect our business cards and leave?”

That phrase stuck with me the rest of the evening. As I mingled, I started noticing how many other people were there just to collect their business cards and leave. Do you do this? Do you set up a goal of collecting “X” amount of business cards at an event so that you can follow up, or, in simpler terms, spam the s#!t out of everyone the following day?

Large networking events are golden opportunities to meet new people and make new contacts. For some business owners, meeting  just one person that eventually gives you a referral makes it worth attending. But it’s hard to really meet people if your just there to collect cards.

Now some of your “Networking Gurus” out there will probably shutter at the following statement but after every networking event I usually end up throwing away anywhere from 15-25 business cards. Why do I throw them away and not add them to my data base of prospects or contacts? Well, for one, they’re not prospects. Introducing yourself to someone at a networking function does not make them a prospect no matter what you’ve read in your sales success books. They are not a prospect until THEY mention to YOU their interest in your services.  And why don’t I just add them to my list of contacts, because honesty, I don’t know them. I separate my business cards into 3 groups: leads for me, leads for other people and junk. The bulk of what I end up with are junk. Now I don’t ask for business cards unless I really want them. All the ones I throw away are given to me without having asked. In turn, I don’t hand my card out unless asked to do so.

At a 2 hour event I usually speak to around 20-25 different people. When I say speak, I mean have some sort of conversation with them beyond, “I’m so and so what do you do?” I use these events to build on existing business relationships and meet new people. I try to stay away from the professional marketing reps because, more often than not, they are there to just “collect” and my goal is to get to know people. If you have ever tried to have a conversation with a professional marketing rep who’s “on” you probably understand what I mean. Everything out of there mouth is pre-scripted crap and they usually couldn’t give a damn about anything you have to say. They are there to do a job and that job is usually to promote, promote, promote.

If you feel uneasy reading this you probably have a little bit of the “card collector” mentality. That’s okay just be aware. To be successful at business networking you need to use the time to develop relationships with people. Don’t just blow through collecting cards so that you can spam them. And yes, it is spamming if they don’t specifically request to be added to your mailing list. You can call it “following up” all day till the cows come home but it’s spamming.

Networking events are golden opportunities to meet new people and get to know them so take advantage and your business will benefit.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey an Internet Consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, FL.

Does Size Matter In Social Networks Or Is It How You Use It

When using social networks for business is it good to have tens of thousands of friends on Facebook? Should you be following as many people as possible on Twitter? Do you need to connect with every single person you meet on Linked In?

When I went to college there was a guy I knew named Christian who attended the larger University in the city. Now he had a simple goal while in school. To get as much tail as possible. He was a simple guy. He didn’t want to be bothered with dating, buying girls meals or being the douche bag that buys a woman drinks all night to only see her go home with someone else. By his calculations there were roughly 15,000 – 20,000 women on campus. Every year the campus would lose and gain roughly another 2,000 – 2,500. He figured that if he just cut to the chase and asked every woman he met to sleep with him right then and there (whether he thought they were attractive or not) he would make out alright during his four years in school just based on the numbers alone. It would take some balls, but he was up to the task.

Most, if not all, of the aps out there being used for social networking have the ability to add friends, colleagues, followers, Plurkers or whatever. The philosophy most marketers use is the same old as dirt, tried and true Marketing 101 tactic of expose your brand to as many people as possible in order to get the filter down effect for your business. Connect with as many people as possible (which is extremely easy through social networking) and the numbers alone will generate some interest in whatever it is your selling or promoting. That’s why Super Bowl ads cost so much. The commercials are seen by so many people at one time the expense is worth the cost. Well, many business owners and self proclaimed social networking experts use a similar module of if you friend all of them, some will eventually buy.

Christian wasn’t best looking guy in the world but he was in reasonably good shape, funny and personable. His plan finally paid off for him about four months and 100 rejections in. He hooked up with a pretty college sophomore that had just been dumped by a guy she had been dating since she was a freshman in high school. When asked if it was worth all the hassle and embarrassment of the previous months his response was, “Hell yeah!”

The model of exposing your product, business or brand to as many people as possible has been around for as long as there has been marketing and the reason is because it does work. It works in print, tv, radio, direct mail and even online. But realize this, social networking is a new and different medium than we have ever been exposed to before. The dynamics are different than that of the marketing resources we have been dealing with for the last hundred years or so. Naturally, the first instinct of most marketing experts is to do what has worked for them on previous successful campaigns and apply it to this new medium. But this old way of thinking may not be in your company’s best interest.

Toward the end of my first year in school watching Christian hit on every woman he came across on weekends became quite a show for everyone that knew him. He was relentless. He truly didn’t give a damn what the women thought of him. If they said, “No” he’d just move on to the next one. It was akin to a small child asking everyone at a family gathering for a cookie before dinner until someone finally breaks down and gives them one. By the end of the year, from what I remember, he ended up hooking up with 3 or 4 different women using this tactic. After all the time and money he spent in bars (the place he found women would be more likely to accept this blunt type of offer) he felt it was worth all the rejections and considered his first year of chasing tail in college a success.

The point of social networking for business is exactly the same as real life business networking. It’s to meet people, get to know them and have them open up their contacts to you. In real life networking this process can take some time getting the trust built up before they start referring you business. In social networking online many times a person’s entire list of contacts is open to you the second they “friend” or connect with you. This really accelerates the process. You can instantly start corresponding with their contacts adding more and more “friends” at an extremely fast rate but is this really such a smart thing to do?

Midway through year 2 Christian’s tactics started backfiring on him. He began hitting on girls he had already hit on before. Sometimes this was due to the fact that he was drunk off his a$$ but most of the time it was because he had hit on so many the year before he flat out didn’t remember them. Then some of the girls started warning their friends about the creepy guy that hits on everyone. Some of ones that actually got with him also started telling their friends to stay away from him because he was a jerk and he started to get a bad reputation around campus. By the end of the second year he abandoned his plan because it wasn’t working anymore. Too many of the women he met already had a preconceived notion that he was just a player or that he was just a flat out jerk.

Social networking works both ways. You get to see all the contacts that every you know knows and they also get to see everyone you know. Savvy business people can tell when someone is really using the social networks to meet people and when they are just collecting contacts. Can you really correspond with 10,000 different people on a regular basis? How about 1,000? What about 100? Do you have the time in your schedule to follow up with hundreds of emails a week? You may counter with, “Some of those may be real people trying to business with me and if I didn’t have all the contacts then that person wouldn’t have contacted me in the first place” and you would be right. But what if you never opened the email because of the fact that the bulk of your “friends” send you so must spam and junk mail that you can’t keep up with everything. Or maybe, because you’ve received so many messages with pictures of Britney Spears’ gooch from all your “friends” through one particular social network that you don’t even bother to login to that one anymore. If it becomes too big to manage then you may miss more than you get and what happens to a business that doesn’t get back to potential clients? Those unsatisfied potential clients tell their friends. Remember, people are more likely to bitch about bad service to their friends than praise good service so be careful. With social networking this message can get out to many, many people very quickly.

Year 3 is when Christian’s tactics from his freshman year really came back to bite him in the a$$. He met a freshman named Kat that he had become smitten with. They started hanging out a lot and the time came when Christian wanted to get serious (in a dating, not sex way). Now while he was courting her she was also hearing the stories from other women around campus. She eventually told him that, even though he seemed like a nice guy, she couldn’t get serious with someone with his reputation and dumped him.

Many of the social networks have games where you earn points, or karma, or prestige for connecting with as many people as possible. They will also reward you for joining groups or getting others to sign up.  This is in their best interest, not yours. Connect with people that will help you achieve your business goals. It’s better to have a smaller, controllable network than to have something that gets out of control where you can’t follow up with people that may want, or need your services.

One of the most written about success stories on social networking is President Obama’s social networking campaign he ran during the election. He had hundreds of thousands of people following his every move. He got his message out to millions of people online. But there is one other thing… He also had an entire staff of people running it for him. Social networking is about connecting with lots of people but you have to be able to manage it. So make sure you don’t just become a contact collector. Make sure you can actually correspond with your network.

Your business isn’t a game so don’t treat it like one.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet Consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida.

First Annual Mr. Awesome Awards for Networking Tools

Normally I would use this valuable cyber-space for giving no-holds-barred advice to business owners regarding marketing, but this week you are all in for something special. This week I’ll be giving out the 1st Annual Mr. Awesome Awards for Networking Tools.

Now for those of you who don’t already get the joke let me explain.

VH1, purveyor of such fine programming like “People Who Used to be Celebrities But Are Now on Drugs”, “Skanks Who’ll Do Anything to Get on TV Like Sleep With Bret Michaels” and “Why the F@ck Would Any Woman In Her Right Mind Want to Date Flava Flav” has now come out with a new show that sets the bar so low that the heat from the Earth’s core has already begun melting it. Their new entry into the world of “The Honeymooners”,  “The Cosby Show”, “All in the Family” and “MASH” is called “Tool Academy”. In this show, disgruntled women tricked their @-hole boyfriends into believing they were going onto a show where they would be competing for the title of “Mr. Awesome”.  (I’m not making this up, this is a real show that’s on like every other day). So these dip sh!ts get on the show only to learn that their disgruntled girlfriends are really just trying to change them for the better because they are such tools.

That’s where this week’s blog comes in. I asked myself, where in the business world do you meet the most tools?  Well… networking of course. Whether during real life business networking or social networking online we’ve all met them. So, maybe, just  like on the TV show, we can help some of these clueless people by giving them out their own “Mr. Awesome” awards.

Here we go.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for Twitter mastery goes to…

The guy who only posts links to his website or blog over and over and over again.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for best usage of time goes to…

The guy who posts the exact same message to every social networking outlet he’s signed up for 50 times in a row within 5 minutes.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for best first impression goes to…

The guy who shoves his business card into your face before you even get a chance to ask him his name.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for best conversationalist goes to…

The guy who can’t carry on a 3 minute conversation with you without mention how his business or products or services can help you over and over again.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for sensitivity to women goes to…

The guy who relentlessly hits on every woman at a business networking event.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for business development goes to…

The guy who invites you out for drinks and then offers you a “terrific business opportunity”.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for blog promotion goes to…

The guy who decides that mentioning he updated his blog just once isn’t enough, so he does it every hour on the hour for an entire day.

The “Ms. Awesome” award for image consulting  goes to…

The woman who rolls into a business networking event with her boobs hanging out and then proceeds to bitch about how everyone is just looking at her boobs.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for group posting mastery goes to…

The guy who is always posting questions yet never actually responds to anyone who comments on his posts.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for group posting mastery II goes to…

The guy who always responds that his business has the answer to whatever question has been posted.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for helping out goes to…

The guy who keeps giving you leads without ever really confirming that the people actually want, or even need, your service.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for LinkedIn mastery goes to…

The guy who has decided that LinkedIn groups are the perfect place to spam the sh!t out of people.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for best social butterfly goes to…

The guy who keeps everyone in his  MeetUp group up to date on all his specials and promotions yet never actually attends any events in person.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for practicing what you preach goes to…

The networking group that ignores visitors to that group when they show up for the first time.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for best sales tactics goes to…

The guy who doesn’t realize that the time to sell is not within the first five minutes of meeting somebody.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for Jeffery Lebowski / Big Lebowski mistaken identity goes to…

The guy who thinks that anyone actually cares to hear about his network marketing opportunity at a networking event.

The “Mr.  / Ms. Awesome” award for way to much information goes to…

The man or woman who gets hammered at a business networking function and then proceeds to bitch about their spouse all night.

The “Mr.  / Ms. Awesome” award for false advertising  goes to…

The guy or girl who uses a 20 year old photo for their online profile picture.

The “Mr. Awesome” award for keen insight goes to…

The guy that keeps sending me emails promising to add extra size to my junk.

Feel free to respond with any other “Mr. Awesome” awards you feel I may have left out. Keep them geared toward real life or online networking.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey an Internet Strategy company located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida.

Stop Selling and Start Meeting

How to be more effective at business networking functions.

A couple weeks ago I was at a business networking function thrown by my local Chamber of Commerce when a scenario played out that had done so many times before. Things where moving along as they tend to do at those things when I met a young woman who happened to sell vitamins. Well, let me correct that. They weren’t just vitamins, they where a nutritional supplement that no person on this Earth could possibly be living without. As a matter of fact, anyone reading this blog that is not taking these life altering pills must be on borrowed time because, according to her, we’re all basically going to die if we don’t buy her stuff now. The most impressive thing was that she got that whole spiel out in about 30 seconds after going through the perfunctory motions like she actually wanted to get to know me. If it wasn’t for the fact that she caught me while I was in line to get a beer, she wouldn’t have lasted 10 seconds. I told her that I’d keep her in mind and watched her as she hurried off to continue her verbal spamming attack on my fellow Chamber members.

Now, I may have over exaggerated just a little bit but I think you all get the point. How many times have you had a similar experience while out networking? How many times have you had, what seemed at the time to be, a productive conversation interrupted by some marketing rep pitching you in between nibbles off the veggie tray.

Networking is about meeting people with the purpose of developing business relationships and that’s it. It’s not about collecting the most business cards and then relentlessly spamming, oh wait, let me rephrase that, relentlessly following up the next morning with the stock email template you typed out the day before. It’s not about making your sales pitch to as many strangers as you can within an hour. It’s not about handing out as many of your fliers, brochures, CD-ROMs, DVDs or whatever other kind of promotional crap you have. There is a place and time for all that and networking functions are not that place.

When you meet someone new start thinking about how you can help them. Ask yourself how many people you know that may need their products or services. Do you know of any events, leads groups, Chambers of Commerce or anything else that can be useful to them? Is their anyone at the event you are currently attending that you could introduce that person to who may be able to help them out with whatever it is that they do? Can you put them in touch with someone else who has a product or service that they may currently be looking for like business cards, a web site, embroidered shirts, insurance, etc.?

I’ll leave you all with this. The key to successful networking is allowing connections to happen through you rather than having it be all about you. Start putting others before yourself, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and financially rewarded when it comes back to you.