by Scott Howard | Jan 26, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, ScLoHo's Web World
Tomorrow, Tuesday January 27th is the 44th (almost) monthly Fort Wayne Social Media Breakfast organized by my friend and former co-worker Kevin Mullett.
If you are within driving distance, you should join us.
There should be between 50 and 75 social media people in attendance with one thing in common, They want to learn.
11 months out of 12, usually on the last Tuesday of the month we meet and learn. And my apologies to Kevin for continuing to call it the Social Media Breakfast. Last year, he officially changed it to Social and Marketing Breakfast, to recognize that most of the people where interesting in the business and marketing relevance to social media.
Most of those in attendance are on Twitter and you can follow along with the hashtag #SMBFW. Want more info? You can ask me on Twitter @ScLoHo, or Kevin @KMullett.
by Scott Howard | Dec 17, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
Last week was my Birthday. Another trip around the sun completed as a friend likes to say.
One of the cool features of Facebook is that it tells you that it is your friends birthday. I use it nearly everyday to send my friends a birthday greeting and initiate a conversation. If I’m planning ahead, I’ll even pay attention to the weekly email I receive that tells me who is going to be celebrating in the next 7 days.
Do I care that I get wished Happy Birthday by gobs of people? Not really.
But wait.
Because I have other motives, relationship motives.
If a person pushes the buttons on Facebook to wish me a Happy Birthday, and on their birthday, I do the same, that’s two opportunities every year to start a conversation. A chance to connect, see how the other person is doing, find out what’s new, and so on…
About 1/2 way through my birthday I stopped counting but more than 25% of my Facebook friends had wished me a Happy Birthday either online, in person or via email or some other social media site. I took the time to thank each and everyone of them (I hope) and by doing so, I renewed the connection.
That’s what this social media stuff is all about anyway. Relationships and Connections. Those of us who also use social media professionally call it engagement.
My advice to you today is simple. Get on Facebook and make sure your birthday is public so others can wish you a Happy Birthday and do the same for others.
by Scott Howard | Dec 9, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
Twitter has been a favorite communication tool of mine since I first signed up in 2008.
It helped me connect with a bunch of folks locally and around the world.
The ScLoHo persona really became public and well known due to it being my Twitter handle.
But as I prepare for 2015, I’ve been making some changes in my activity and that includes unfollowing some people on Twitter that I wasn’t really following anyway.
Before I began this pruning process, I had over 4000 followers and was following about 2600.
As I write this article at the end of November, my follower count is just under 4000 and it may drop.
I don’t really care, because I am more about building value than a bunch of followers that I’ll never interact with.
By the way, way back when I was only following a few hundred Tweeps, it was getting unmanageable so here’s what I did…
Twitter Lists.
Everyone I followed I added to a list or two. There were lists like Fort Wayne or Out of Town Hoosiers. And there is one list that if I was following you, it was the list you wanted to be on. It’s called the RF list.
RF stands for Really Follow.
When I have my laptop open I use TweetDeck. I have a few columns set up to watch but the main one is the RF list. Unless you are on that list, I’m not seeing your tweets.
In order to do my pruning I started looking at all 2600 Tweeps I was officially following and decided if they were a keeper or not.
I’ll be continuing this practice through out the new year and get down to a few hundred again that I am following. If you want to follow me go ahead.
A couple of observations and insights over the last few years:
When I started on Twitter I followed nearly anyone that followed me. Then as that number grew to over 1000 I began to always make sure I had more people following me than I was following. This gives the illusion that you are worth following.
For awhile I was pretty active on Twitter and ignoring Facebook and the other social media platforms. That changed a couple years ago when I started working full time in Social Media and needed to really crank up my use of Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
Now I’m still on Twitter but I also do daily updates on Facebook and weekly postings on Linked In.
Let me ask you…
What social media platforms are you using and what changes are you planning or have you made recently?
by Scott Howard | Dec 5, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
The week before Thanksgiving, Facebook sent me and everyone else who has a Facebook account an email with some info on how they are updating their Terms and Conditions.
If you were busy and just ignored the notice, you were in the majority.
Terms and Conditions are there on nearly everything you use online or on your computer, phone, etc. But we blindly click yes and don’t read them.
Yes, I said we because I don’t read them either.
They’re scary. All the data they collect from us, the permissions we give them, we become an open book to Facebook and all the others.
But it’s also a trade off. We give them access to our stuff and they give us access to their programs.
By the way, if you are running a business and think that the only online presence you need is a Facebook page and other social media, think again.
As you read the details of what Facebook’s latest round of changes means for us as consumers, flip it around and see what it means to you as a business owner.
In short, they want you to pay for your stuff to show up on Facebook.
This is not new. It is a continuous movement. In the summer of 2013 when I managed the social media for a multi-million dollar internet retailer, I saw how suddenly they changed the organic reach of my Facebook posts. They dropped by 50 to 90%. Fortunately I had a budget to spend and I changed my tactics to accommodate the Facebook changes and I actually increased our reach by refocusing the cash I was spending.
What help with your online visibility? Contact me.
And in case you missed the email from Facebook last month:
| Hi Scott, |
|
| We wanted to let you know we’re updating our terms and policies on January 1, 2015 and introducing Privacy Basics. You can check out the details below or on Facebook. |
|
| Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features and controls to help you get more out of Facebook, and listened to people who have asked us to better explain how we get and use information. |
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| Now, with Privacy Basics, you’ll get tips and a how-to guide for taking charge of your experience on Facebook. We’re also updating our terms, data policy and cookies policy to reflect new features we’ve been working on and to make them easy to understand. And we’re continuing to improve ads based on the apps and sites you use off Facebook and expanding your control over the ads you see. |
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| We hope these updates improve your experience. Protecting people’s information and providing meaningful privacy controls are at the core of everything we do, and we believe today’s announcement is an important step. |
|
Sincerely,
Erin Egan
Global Chief Privacy Officer |
by Scott Howard | Nov 18, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
It was weird, really, weird.
Today I’m going to rant.
In my email was a solicitation from a marketing expert wanting to schedule a chat to talk about my inbound call tracking.
There was another one too from a social media consultant that promised to increase the number of followers on my social media accounts.
Then there were several who wanted to increase my web visibility, redesign my site, do a few SEO tweaks, you name it, there was someone out there who wanted to sell me a solution to my online issues.
Big problem, however.
I’m not your typical noob, amateur business person who is clueless about these things.
But each and everyone of these experts apparently are.
If they did a little home work, they would have discovered that I don’t need what they want me to buy.
Oh, maybe I could use their help based on the number of followers, or the missed SEO opportunities that I have not fully developed on my own.
I admit that I could do a better job in a couple of areas if it was important to me. I have the training and the knowledge and the experience. I have done the work for an internationally known internet based retailer on the social media side to do everything and more that I’m being pitched.
And if these sales pitches would have just checked me out, they would have seen that I’m smarter than them.
Not an expert, despite what I’ve been called by others.
But depending on who else is in the room, I’m often the one with the answers to the questions with this web stuff.
The basics that these “experts” are ignoring is simple. Appropriate targeting of their message. Do a little research on who I am and what I do and I’ll fall out of your funnel.
And when you try and sell me on considering your services for me, you disqualify yourself as having any expertise, and instead fall into another bucket of mine, I’ll simply call the dumb bucket.
Carry on with your day and if you want a second opinion on any solicitations you receive,contact me.
by Scott Howard | Nov 12, 2014 | ScLoHo's Web World
You are more than the you that you think you are.
You are also who others think you are.
That is a timeless reality.
We have our own identity, but others have their own opinion or perception of who we are too.
We make an impression by our appearance, by our words, by our mannerisms and others sometimes share their thoughts and opinions of you with others.
All of this sharing was deliberate. Either someone asked about someone else, or someone expressed their opinion about someone due to their experiences.
The sophistication of the internet has changed this.
You and I are now searchable by people that don’t know us or our friends (or enemies).
While Seth Godin wrote a story that inspired these words I am typing, and you probably should read what he wrote, I am taking a different slant with this article.
I do research as part of my work, and that research includes “Googling”.
What and why do I Google?
I will Google your name, your business, and see where those trails take me. I will look for you on Social Media Networks like Facebook and LinkedIN. Sometimes I’ll use a different search engine like Bing or DuckDuckGo. Often I’ll go beyond the 1st page of results. Depending on what I find I may dig through 10 pages of results.
Why? I want to have an understanding of who you are. I want to learn everything I can about your business. I want to be informed and these days it is easy to search for information online.
By the way, I also expect others to do the same. I know there are people trying to discover who Scott Howard is. The one who also goes by ScLoHo. That’s me. Depending on the search engine you use, you’ll find plenty of Scott Howard’s that are not me. I have namesakes that are doctors, police officers, artists, and even a movie character.
If you want to be sure you are finding me, and not one of the other Scott Howard’s , Google “ScLoHo”.
I want to be found online.
You should want to be found online too.
You can try and hide and lock-down your Social Media accounts so they are not public, but that creates a problem.
The problem is that others will control what is said about you. Maybe not you, but your namesake, which to someone who doesn’t know the difference, might as well be you.
I encourage you to be visible online. This gives you the opportunity to help others form a realistic perception and even opinion of you before they even meet you.
Want some ideas on how to do this?
Contact me for a few suggestions. And remember I’ll “Google” you and expect you to “Google” me too.
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