Blue Helm

There have always been Whiners. They whine about their jobs, politics, their lack of income, school, a product or service, and World of Warcraft (beware: this video has some swearing, but it’s hilarious). Before the internet, the only people who had to put up with Whiners were those who physically associated with them. Now Whiners can gripe all over the place. They can whine in online forums, on blog posts, on YouTube, or in the comments of a news article. They can even whine on your Facebook Page or on Twitter–there are just so many opportunities to complain!  Sometimes a Whiner gets to a point where he or she devolves into a Troll. A Troll is someone who comments or posts online solely to make people mad or to offend.

So what do you do? Some person or group has invaded your Facebook Page, your blog, or some other online community, and is causing a ruckus. Do you respond or just ignore them? It depends. Here are a few pointers:

1. Delete comments if they are offensive or use bad language – It’s important that people feel comfortable coming to your online community. Generally speaking, if people come to your site and see offensive language or comments that degrade individuals or groups, they most likely won’t feel comfortable coming back. If someone posts something regarded as ugly or offensive (particularly if it’s racist, sexist or bigoted), it’s best to delete the comment. As tempting as it may be, do not delete someone’s comment just because he or she said something negative about you or your product. You’ll never have a strong community if you restrict differing opinions. Just make it clear that you delete offensive comments but encourage debate.
2. Let it be – Sometimes you’ll get a Whiner or Troll who says something that is totally irrelevant, makes no sense, or is just plain dumb. In this case, ignore it. Keep an eye on the comment to see if other people begin voicing the same concern–then you may want to consider responding. In a lot of cases you won’t need to because most will just ignore stupid or irrelevant complaints.
3. Let your fans defend you – Often the Whiner’s complaint isn’t something that you have to respond to because your fans will for you. If you’ve done a good job of creating an interactive culture in your online community, people will be used to contributing and discussing. If someone starts ranting, the community is usually equipped to take care of the situation. Your defenders can also say things that your company can’t without getting in trouble.
4. Respond directly – Sometimes the whining is warranted. Your company messed up, your product is bad, or you just made a mistake. If someone complains or calls your company out on a mistake, respond appropriately. Sometimes your response can be a simple explanation, and sometimes you may have to change the way you do things. If you let a legitimate complaint slide it can come back to bite you. Just look at how Steve Jobs is getting all sorts of backlash on how he’s handled the new iPhone debacle.

Don’t let Whiners and Trolls get under your skin. Respond when you need to. Otherwise, just let the openness of the Internet take care of it.

What do you think? Have you had any experiences dealing with Whiners and Trolls?

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a huge disaster. I am sad for all of the damage to the environment. I’m sad for the massive economic repercussions this has and will have on the local and national economy . I’m sad that BP was not prepared to deal with something like this. It’s just a terrible situation.

While the actual oil spill has been terrible, the PR around the oil spill has been just as bad. I’m not going to talk about BP in this post; they have all sorts of problems I could talk about. Click here to read an interesting post about some things BP’s PR could have done better. Click here to see some parodies on BP’s response.

My focus today is on the Obama administration and their PR problems. People are upset, and rightfully so. They are mad at BP, they are mad at the damage to their beaches and businesses, they are mad at Obama, they are just mad. They don’t care who fixes the problem, they just want it fixed.

It’s been very interesting to watch Obama and his response. He is mad and wants to figure out whose “booty to kick” (he didn’t use the word booty, but you get the idea). He is very defensive of his administration and spends a lot of time explaining that he is very angry at what’s going on. I’m sure people are happy that Obama is mad, but the problem is that people aren’t seeing action.

So what should the government do? I believe they should better explain what they’re doing to stop this catastrophe. If they’re consulting with experts about how to clean oil spills, then tell us. If they are planning on sending resources to aid in the clean up, send out a press release. If Obama just gave an earful to the CEO of BP, then tweet about it. This is simple PR!

In this new age of communication, when people can find anything they want by typing it into their search engine, when people can vent their frustrations on blogs, Facebook and Twitter, good PR is a must. But it goes much further than having good PR. Your organization has to be willing to do and to change if necessary. If all you’re doing is talking, then people will call you out on it.

What do you think?

In my last post, I focused on the need for college alumni to clean up their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and blogs. In today’s highly-competitive and unpredictable job environment, you can’t afford to have potential employers come across negative or incriminating information on your social networks (particularly photos). If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to clean house.

This morning I want to write about the next step in evolving your social sites into positive and dynamic networking tools: professionalize.

What does that mean? Well, if you haven’t figured out by now that social networks play a commanding role in 21^st century personal branding, it’s time to take a crash course in reality. Like it or not, Facebook matters in the business world. So do LinkedIn, blogging and a host of other “new media” channels. These are robust, highly compelling tools to use in your networking and job searching endeavors. So you must professionalize your social networks—you must develop them into qualified, focused sites that employers, coworkers, interviewers, former professors and colleagues will respect, value and share with others. However, you don’t have to turn all your social networks into stale, emotionless resumes. You can still use Facebook and Twitter for personal or social reasons…just be aware that employers and business people will see your sites. You want them to look great.

(The following suggestions are for those that already have existing social networks, like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. If you currently don’t use any social networks, but want to start building your social media presence, go here.)

Upload good profile pictures. Online profile pictures can make significant first impressions on potential employers and others. You definitely don’t want a photo of your recent drunken late-night escapade greeting every visitor to your social networks. Your Facebook profile photo doesn’t have to be uber-professional, but it should be well-cropped and likable. LinkedIn profile shots can have a more professional feel, depending on your industry. Make sure your Twitter profile picture is cropped well and shows your face clearly (unless your Twitter page is based around a product or company). Remember, you’re branding yourself.

Maintain a well-written bio. Most social networks give you the option to include a small biography about yourself. Use this to your advantage! Include work and professional information about yourself on Facebook and especially LinkedIn. Bring some of the strongest parts of your resume over to your social networks. If you’re using Twitter, make your bio short, but full of key words that stand out to people searching about your industry.

Keep your blog focused. Maintaining a consistent, professional blog can be one of the most effective and rewarding online networking tools. If you do have a blog, make sure it caters to a specific industry or niche—and keep it focused! What is your expertise? Your greatest talent? Write about that, and little else. Whether its finance, politics, cooking or PR, keep your blog relevant to one industry. You’ll begin to attract readers from your field that will respect your writing and take notice of your skills. Your status as an opinion leader will grow—and that is a big deal to employers.

Fill out your LinkedIn profile. Build your summary, grow your contacts, ask for recommendations, use LinkedIn’s “Q & A” feature, etc, etc. Go here to learn how to grow and effectively utilize your LinkedIn presence. You really can use it as a great online resume.

Create a custom background on Twitter. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it’s a nice addition to your Twitter presence, and could really impress potential employers and colleagues. Go here to learn how to get started.

Professionalize! Make your social networks attractive, interesting and, most importantly, impressive to potential employers. Remove all the childish rubbish and consistently update your profiles with genuine and professional content.

My next few posts will focus on specific social networks and how to use each one to build your personal brand. Stay tuned!

What is your target audience? Cater your posts to your niche.

Why do you use Twitter, Facebook or a blog? Are you trying to reach a specific niche, like business people, moms, teenagers or social media experts? Who do you want reading what you post? These are questions I recommend you ask yourself often to keep the correct perspective before posting different social messages.

Sometimes, as a social media professional, I find myself tweeting less of the things I find interesting (articles, videos, etc) because they’ve already been shared online by millions of people. For example, just look at the Mashable home page and you’ll see that hundreds and sometimes thousands of people tweet Mashable’s content regularly. I find myself less motivated to tweet this popular content because it seems like everyone has seen it already. But this is false! Just because I’ve read or seen a piece of content doesn’t mean the people who follow me have encountered it too.

In reality, it doesn’t matter if you post a piece of content someone may have already seen. The point is to post content that is interesting to you, and what you believe your audience will appreciate. I don’t care if some social media person sees my profile and thinks, “I’ve already read that.” Why? Because they’re not my target audience. My target audience includes the people who don’t read all of the social media blogs. They don’t have time to read the hundreds of interesting posts out there, so they come to me to read the ones I feel are the best. Why do they care? Because I consistently post things they like.

The moral of the story: no matter what industry you’re in, don’t forget that your target audience comes to you for updates. They’re not visiting all of the sites you’re visiting. They rely on you to sift through what’s good and what’s not.

You thought Facebook and Twitter were social media? Sorry, you’re wrong.

Social media, or as Olivier Blanchard put it, social communications (a label I like), is not a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a blog. It’s not getting the most fans or followers. It’s not pushing a message out into the newest social network. It’s not putting little social networking logos on your web page. It’s not even posting regular content to your different accounts.

So what is social media/social communications? Here are a few ideas:

It’s being in the right spot

In order to reach your target markets you have to be where they are.  Are they on Twitter? Are your markets on Facebook? Do your target markets read the newspaper? Do they respond to billboards? Do they watch television? Do they go to trade shows or congregate at certain events? Are you where your markets are? All forms of media today can be social. If you’re not communicating with your markets where your markets are located, you aren’t being social.

It’s integration

Once you know where you markets are, you need to integrate. If you aren’t convinced that Facebook is going to be around for very long then you need to click here. When it boils down to it, Facebook has over 450 million active user. There is a good chance your markets are on Facebook. Does that mean you stop pursuing traditional marketing efforts? No! It means you start using your traditional marketing efforts more effectively. Come up with ideas to use traditional methods that will point people to your different social networks. Tell people to communicate with your company on Facebook, on Twitter or on your corporate blog. As you invite them to some sort of an action, you will see more people coming to your pages to interact with you.

It’s listening

Now that your social networks are budding with activity, what are people saying? Are you listening on Twitter? Are people commenting on your blog? Are people saying things that make you uncomfortable? Are they unhappy with your product or are they raving about how amazing you are? Are you listening?

It’s changing

If you’re truly listening to people, then you’ll need to make changes. If people are saying bad things, then you obviously need to change. If they’re saying good things, then surprise people with something even better. If people aren’t saying anything, then you need to do something to get people talking. Here are a couple of great posts by Olivier you really need to read about how a company can listen and change using social media in a crisis: Greenpeace vs. Nestle part 1 and part 2.

It’s communicating

To truly use social media, you have to communicate with people. True communication is a two way dialogue. You can’t just push a message out and hope you see results. You have to find out what people want, what they’re saying and respond appropriately. We live in an age where people all over the world can be a part of a community. Regardless of the role you want to have in that community, if you’re going to be a part of it you’re going to have to communicate effectively.

If you don’t know how to communicate, how to listen, how to change, how to integrate new and traditional media, or if you don’t know where your markets are, then don’t waste time on social networks. Why? Because you’re probably going out of business.