Skip to content

Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

I'm not much bigger than a breadbox.

Social Media Continues its Relentless PaceSocial Media, Social Media Writing, Social Media Writing Part, Social Media Writing Part 3, Best Lengths, Hesitation Generation, screen name, Happy Holidays, Relentless Pace, Cyber Infidelity, Podcasting, Neurotic Writers, Social Media Balance, Social Media Perfection, Losing Control, Social Media Tips, Employee Passwords, Look Like Online, social media, Social Media Platforms, Promoting Writing, Social Media Marketer, EditMe Webinar, Demand for Social Media Jobs, Stumbleupon surpasses, Less Conversation, Snapchat Settles with FTC, Quickly Boost Results, Hype, Auto-Service Economy, Sharing Less, Social Media background check, formatted, Four Important Social Media Stats, Cheat Sheets, Seduction, social back, Social media background check, Collaboration, Wikileaks, Editme Webinar, Cyber Legacy, Campaign 2012, Demographics, ways, Time-saving tips, Campaign 2012, Happy Holidays, Neurotic Writers, Sharing Less,

Social Media Continues its Relentless Pace

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on February 2, 2021

Ever feel like you’re on an online treadmill? Well, you just might be falling victim to social media’s relentless pace.

Social Media Continues its Relentless Pace to Try to Make You Stay Put

It’s a relentless pace out there. And much like the holidays accelerate the end of the year, and we suddenly look up on January 7th or so and wonder exactly what the hell just happened, social media is continuing to not so much reap the whirlwind as to be the whirlwind. But at the same time, there’s an effort afoot to slow down and control the whirlwind.

Twitter’s Relentless Pace

Case in point: Twitter has implemented changes, over the course of its history, that are designed to keep people on as long as possible.

They do this by embedding media more directly and making it so that you don’t have to leave Twitter’s embrace in order to enjoy a clip or a photograph. Often, this means shortening a URL.

So far, so good. But shortened URLs can allow for more malware exploits. It’s like one step forward, a step back and another one to the side.

Facebook’s Relentless Pace

Facebook, yet again, looks to change its layout. In fact, it changes it every single day. They are the biggest A/B testing site on the planet, bar none! So, what’s changing? What isn’t?

The profile is going to become richer and provide more information. This may or may not be useful to users but it will certainly keep them on longer. At least, that will happen in the beginning, when it’s a novel concept.

As time has passed, we have all seen how Facebook has attempted to become more things to more people. Is that good? Well, it can be.

But it also means that people have to take it more seriously. Somewhat ridiculously rigid rules on verbiage force people into typing silly stuff like ‘unalive’.

LinkedIn’s Relentless Pace

Long ago, LinkedIn tried adding Signal to make it easier to track even more of the social media avalanche – and, of course, to try to keep people on LinkedIn as long as possible.

Currently, they are using status types of communications. Sounds a lot like Facebook, eh?

LinkedIn also pushes articles, and tries to get you to follow thought leadership. Not a bad idea over all. Except anyone can, conceivably, become a thought leader. Kinda. Just post enough, and get a big enough follow. This is not a bad gig if you can get it, but it can also be a dandy way to spread misinformation, sports fans.

The Common Thread

What these changes have had in common, other than, perhaps, novelty for the sake of novelty, is the desire to keep people on site as long as possible. Put some tar down, and have us all stick, at least for a while.

So while the internet spins ever faster, and social media sites attempt to keep up, their overall strategies seem to try to slow us all down. Will it work? Is it a foolish dream to think you can keep people around with such tricks, such slick bells and whistles?

The Lack of Meaningful Content

What disturbs me is that there’s not a lot of content happening. And it would, could, should make me want to hang around. Instead of hiring writers to improve things, or rewarding good current content providers, each of the big three sites is instead pursuing a software solution.

But what’s the sense in hanging around a site if the content isn’t compelling? Or are we, instead, merely getting the sites that we, perhaps, deserve?

Hence here’s what happens if my Facebook friends list is dominated by people I went to High School with over thirty years ago. Their status updates and my wall have a lot of news of their birthdays, their children (and grandchildren these days), and their careers. But isn’t that what we would expect?

And if I instead tip my list in a different direction, and it’s suddenly dominated by the people I work with or diet with or do artwork with, the news is going to be different.

In particular, politically, you can see very different versions of each site, depending on your bubble. After all, a lot of us prefer to see people we like and agree with. … and that’s how we get ideological bubbles.

Comparison to Reality TV

One thing about Reality TV is that it’s anything but real if it’s at all successful. Because people just, generally, don’t lead terribly interesting lives (yes, you too, gentle reader). We pick up the dry cleaning. Or we bicker over the remote. We forget to buy sausages and make do with hot dogs. And around and around and around we go.

And all three of these really big social media sites, when we are not following celebrities and businesses, are really just a big agglomeration of Post-It Notes whereby we tell each other to grab milk on the way home. For “Reality” to be compelling at all, it’s got to be unreal, and scripted. It must become this fight or that rose ceremony or this other weird pancake-making challenge.

The big three older social media sites, when you strip away the celebrities and the companies, can be a boatload of errands or a standard-form holiday letter. You know the kind, where you learn little Suzie has taken up the clarinet. Over and over ad infinitum.

No wonder we need software solutions to keep us there. The relentless pace continues.

Whither TikTok and the Rest?

TikTok shackles you to it by way of its algorithm (sound familiar)? Like one video and you get sucked into the next one, and the next, and then the next one after that. The videos are short, so it doesn’t feel like a relentless pace.

Until you look up and realize that four hours have gone by.

It’s a lot like eating a bag of potato chips. You stick your hand in, grab a few or a big handful, and go to town. It doesn’t feel like a lot, until suddenly the bag is empty and you’re thirsty from all the salt.

In the world of dieting, the conventional wisdom is to portion out your chips. Fill a smaller bag and put a clip on the bigger one, and stick it back in the cabinet. In short, have some discipline and a smidgen of self-control.

With TikTok or anything else, unless we put a timer on our sessions or have external pressures getting us off the virtual hamster wheel, our lives pass us by as we succumb to the relentless pace.

Dang, I am a ray of sunshine sometimes, eh?

1 Comment
Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book ReviewBook Reviews, Killer UX Design, Content Nation by John Blossom, SEO Made Simple, Lee Odden, Dave Kerpen, Liana Evans, dummies, cluetrain manifesto, shama hyder kabadi, Numerati, Guerilla Marketing, White Space, Clay Shirky, Trust Agents, Kristina Halvorson, Stephen King, Zen, William Zinsser, Drupal for Dummies, Executive, XHTML, Communicating Design, Joshua Porter, Strategic Planning, Google Advertising Tools, Web Analytics, Right Hook, David Meerman Scott, web analytics, Revved Up, robot building, Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, style guide, elements,

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 26, 2021

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith seems to be one of those books that everyone tells you to read when you want to go into social media marketing. And it’s that sort of a wholesale recommendation that sometimes, frankly, makes me nervous. After all, how many people have read it? Are they happy with what they’ve learned? Or is the work somehow coasting on its reputation?

Usefulness

But it doesn’t seem to be. Instead, I think there’s useful information in there – and it’s information that doesn’t seem to be found in the other social media books I’ve been reading lately, in particularly Cluetrain Manifesto and Groundswell. There’s more practical nuggets in here, more like in The Zen of Social Media Marketing. No great shock there – Chris Brogan is the coauthor there as well.

How so?

Too Many Delays

One of the issues with books (you know, pulp and paper books, not electronic ones) is that they take so long to be produced, and then they can become obsolete or at least out of date rather quickly. It can almost seem like buying a new car – once you get it out of the dealership, it’s depreciated a good thousand dollars. And, once many books are published, they’re suddenly obsolete.

But Trust Agents doesn’t care. Instead, it forges ahead with practical, specific tips. If they go out of fashion or become obsolete, head to the website for an update. Or, if you prefer pulp and paper, there’s always a later edition.

Basic Principles

The gist of the book consists of six basic principles:

  1. Make Your Own Game – e. g., break the mold and experiment with new methods. This means you’re going to occasionally – gasp! – fail. So you do. Get over it. Pick yourself up and try something else. Safety and sameness aren’t really going to get you anywhere. At least, nowhere good.
  2. One of Us – be one of the people. Be humble and be accessible. This means blogging. It means letting your hair down every now and then when you tweet. Of course it doesn’t mean foolish oversharing or putting out things that are going to really harm you (“Had fun at the Crack House last night!” – uh, no)
  3. The Archimedes Effect – use leverage. That is, got something that’s working? Then use it to push and promote the next thing. Think of it like the spinoff to a sitcom. Laverne and Shirley was originally a spinoff of Happy Days. The first success was, absolutely, used to generate the second.

More Ideas

  1. Agent Zero – be the person in the center of the connections. This does not necessarily mean that you have to be the center of every conversation. It’s just – everyone seems to know someone (or know of someone) who is like this. Oh, talk to Gwen. She knows everyone.
  2. Human Artist – be polite and gracious to people. This may seem to be like a no-brainer to most, but, sadly, it’s not. Thank people. Tell them how much you enjoyed meeting them. Follow up. If this means creating a tickler file to remind you to contact people, then do that. True story – the first time I heard the term “tickler file” was in 1984 when I was working on Joe Biden’s Senate Campaign. And it made sense –you followed up with voters (in those days, it was via phone call or postcard or letter, and sometimes via an in-person visit) because you knew that, even if their support was unwavering, that they had busy lives pulling them in a million different directions. This continues to be true if not far truer these days.
  3. Build an Army – e. g., as you become the person in the middle of all of the connections, and the one who does the followups, your time will start to fill up. You’re going to need help, so link up with other people who can be social hubs and follow-uppers. This does not relieve you from thanking people, but it does help you to continue to keep in touch.

Details

There are, of course, a thousand little details that go along with these. The specifics include things like using Google Alerts to check on how often your name shows up online and looking at AllTop and Technorati for blogs to follow. Grab an RSS feed so that you can get through more blogs with more speed.

But be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were trust agents. You cannot take a shortcut and metaphorically substitute canned vegetables for fresh ones here. Cultivate this and pay attention to it. Much like a garden, your hard groundwork will pay off beyond your wildest expectations.

And you can even leave your extra lettuce on my front porch.

Rating

Review: 5/5 stars.

Leave a Comment
Community Management – Look at Me!Community Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management – Look at Me!

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 21, 2021

C’mon and Look at Me! Look at Me!

C’mon and look!

Look at Me!

Ah, marketing.

We’ve all seen it done well, and we’ve all seen it done not so well, and even downright poorly. Now let’s look at applying it to your extant community.

A poorly executed marketing strategy cannot only turn off your preexisting users; it can also get your site marked as a Spammer. And the scarlet S can get your site unceremoniously dumped from Google. And that means, essentially, the equivalent of the death of the site.

Long Story Short: Don’t Spam

In order to effectively market your community, you need to cover three kinds of SEO/Marketing. Those are onsite, offsite and offline. Onsite will be covered later in this series, and that information will not be repeated herein. Plus, it may seem a tad counter-intuitive, but onsite SEO is not that big of a deal.*

Yes, you need good keywords and you need good content. But after that, your optimization and marketing efforts need to move offsite.

Offsite Marketing

Offsite can be (mainly) divided into three areas:

  1. Directories and Search Engines
  2. Social Bookmarking and Networking Sites and
  3. Linkbacks.

Directories and Search Engines

Let’s start with directories and search engines. You must submit your site to Google. However, don’t submit to any other search engines. Why? Because others’ share of the market is virtually nonexistent. Hence this is a waste of your time, and they will likely pick up your site from Google anyway. So don’t use a blasting service. Heavens, no. You don’t need it and it is absolutely not worth it.

Directories are even easier. For general interest sites, you can just skip ’em. Seriously. They’re really not meaningful any more.

But there are other directories you can submit to (depending upon your site’s overall purpose). So, these include places like Google My Business, CitySearch and Yelp.

It can be best to do well locally and rise to the top of the search engine rankings for specific search terms like, say, Indiana Relationship Forums, than to attempt to break into the top rankings for a more general terms, such as Relationship Forums. Consider directories in other languages, too!

Social Bookmarking and Networking

Social Bookmarking and Networking are different animals. Much like for search engines, there is a huge panoply out there, plus it’s tempting to just blast out information. Don’t. You don’t need to.

Only submit your site (and your blog, if you have one) to the following social bookmarking sites:

  • Digg
  • Reddit (although be aware they want you to engage more than just dropping a link and bailing)

Forget the dozens of others unless there is a very specific and perfect match between your site and what they bookmark. Because they are mostly tiny, they can be spam factories and they are generally just not worth your time and effort.

Look at These Social Networks

Social networking implies more interactivity, and not just voting links up or down, perhaps laced with the occasional comment.

While there are international ones (and if you’ve got a perfect match between your content and their focus, then by all means establish a presence thereat), you really only care about the following:

  • Facebook – an official fan page helps for any number of reasons. First of all, it can make your site known to friends, family members, business colleagues and any other connections to your site’s currently existing users. And you can use it to post photographs and links directly back to your site. Furthermore, you can use it as a rallying point during both expected (and unexpected) site outages.
  • Twitter – even if your users are not, generally, on Twitter, it is still a useful marketing tool. Try feeding in a slice of the site via RSS. Just like with Facebook, this can expand the network of persons who know about your site.
  • LinkedIn (if applicable) – if your site is attached to a going concern, then at minimum make sure the company listing on LinkedIn is correct. And make sure all of the company’s employees directly linking their profiles to it. Furthermore, make sure your site’s blog and Twitter stream are configured to feed it updates.

Look at More Social Networks

  • Pinterest – demographics tend to skew heavily female and over thirty-five. Got a restaurant? A shoe store? Wedding products or services? A women’s health collective? A feminist bookstore? Go to Pinterest – but only if you’ve got excellent images.
  • Got great images but less of a female-centric slant? Consider Instagram instead.
  • Tumblr – demographics skew heavily under thirty-five and even under twenty-five. Got a video game? An indie film? Go to Tumblr.
  • Snapchat – demographics skew toward teens and tweens? Consider this fast-moving site for everything from soft drinks to acne cream to fashion.
  • YouTube – longer form video content is a great way to get a message across.
  • TikTok – 100% content-centric. Show this slice of the world what you’re made of.

BackLinking

Backlinking is where you get others to add your site link to their own websites. Back-links help a great deal as Google gives them weight when determining your site’s importance. And that is directly linked to search placement. You always do better when more trusted sites link back to you. Don’t get spammers to link to you.

Blogs

For your blog, you can add a blogroll of other sites you admire. Just as importantly, post comments on those sites. This provides value to those other people, so they are more likely to spontaneously wish to link back to you. In addition, don’t leave it all to happenstance. Put a link on your site and approach the webmaster of that site and politely ask for a back link.

Some people are happy to oblige. Others are not, so remove their links from your site after a reasonable amount of time. Some may simply think about it, so give them a little time.

And be reasonable, but also be reasonable with yourself. If you’re not getting link backs, try to figure out why. Are your requests too aggressive? Or do you ask people with wholly unrelated sites? Do you, perhaps, have no content (or no meaningful content) for them to associate with? Look at your site with a critical eye before throwing in the towel.

Offline Marketing and Optimization

Offline marketing and optimization means going back to techniques used before – shudder – there even was an Internet. Before computers even existed.

Depending upon your budget and your site’s overall purpose, offline marketing can range from something as simple as business cards or baseball caps or tee shirts with the site’s logo to a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl. It can even be completely free. After all, any time you mention your site to someone else, didn’t you just market it?

Look, sitting back and waiting for your site to take off will almost never work. You need to market it, particularly in the beginning. Get your name out there!

*Of course, onsite SEO is vital for a blog like this one. But for a forums site? Er, not quite so much…

3 Comments
The Conquest of LinkedIn – Your Profile PageLinkedIn, inmaps, Profile Page, Resume, Network, Meeting Offline, Facelift, Last Little Bits, Q & A, Social Media Specialist

The Conquest of LinkedIn – Your Profile Page

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 19, 2021

To Continue the Conquest of LinkedIn, Let’s Look at Your Profile Page

What’s up with your profile page?

You’re doing it. And you’ve got your resume up. You’re answering questions. And you’re joining groups. You’re even meeting people offline. But you aren’t getting an enormous number of invitations to connect.

Or, perhaps, you’re blogging and tweeting. But you’re not getting a lot of readers in either medium. And you’d love to get some of your LinkedIn buddies to read some of your stuff. Maybe you want to use your writing and social media skills as a part of your overall job search strategy.

So the most obvious place to look, and to fix, is your Profile page.

Just like with a resume, a news story, or even if you were trying to sell your home, it pays to spruce up the first thing people see. Hence special care should be taken, as this is your first (and it may very well be your only) chance to make an impression.

There are any number of things you can do to assure that this impression is a positive one.

Driving Traffic

And, you can even use it to help you drive a little traffic to your own website and/or blog. Here’s how:

  • Make sure that you make use of all available fields, and customize these as you are able.
  • Next, list your blog.
  • and I also recommend adding Twitter.

If another social media platform will fit better, then add your details there as well, such as YouTube for videographers.

More You Can Do With Your Profile Page

So assuming that your resume has been integrated in its entirety, your next task should be to update the summary and specialties sections in your profile page. First of all, the specialties section is essentially just for keywords, so load them up.

However, the summary section should be more grammatical. So don’t make it an old-fashioned and generic personal statement. Instead, highlight your main differences here.

Pix, Pictures, Images, You Get the Idea

Include a current, clear, professional image of yourself. And once that image becomes, say, about five, eight, ten or so years old, replace it with a newer one.

URL City, Baby!

LinkedIn won’t give you a nice URL unless you essentially make your own. But they offer instructions for customization. After all, it is absolutely in LinkedIn’s best interests for you to put your LinkedIn URL on, say, your resume, your business cards, etc.

And most people won’t do that if the URL is breathtakingly ugly.

It’s a very, very easy thing to do, and there is truly no excuse not to polish your URL.

Posts and Takeaways

Yes, you can add posts to your profile page (a feature which seems to come and go). But you don’t have to. This isn’t Facebook, so a continual stream of statuses (statii?) is not expected.

Finally, with a little polish, your front door (profile page) can look mighty inviting to all.

5 Comments
Community Management — The Circle GameCommunity Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management — The Circle Game

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 14, 2021

Community Management Tidbits – The Circle Game

What the heck is the Circle Game? Er, I don’t mean this one.

Forums have cycles, and so do users.

Community Phases are the Backbone of This Circle Game

There isn’t a lot that you can do about this. You can, however, stretch out the individual phases.

Discovery

The first phase is discovery. It all starts with excitement. The user has found your forum! It seems huge! The user can’t possibly read everything. It’s all too much.

It’s heady, and the user may very well tell everyone he or she knows about you. Or, the user might want you all to him or herself. Either can happen.

Nesting

The next phase is nesting. The user makes friends and starts to get into an enclave or two. Enclaves are little groups within your forum, whether formal or informal. Even if your forum does not have actual designated groups, per se, this still happens.

In a single fathers’ community, for example, a user might hang around with other users who became first-time fathers after the age of forty. In a folk music forum, a user might spend time with (and follow around) other users from Ohio.

This is perfectly normal – a carving of familiarity in an alien sea. But it does set up the next phase.

Boredom

The next phase is boredom. The community has too much sameness and does not seem to be changing quickly or thoroughly enough for a user’s taste. But the user sticks around, however, grudgingly.

Departure

The final phase is departure. Whether that comes with a bang (a user suspension) or a whimper (the user simply fails to sign in any more), is immaterial.

Or, there is a third type of endgame, where the user posts a topic about their departure. This topic can be fond, hostile or even a ploy to get other users to beg that person to stay. Or to get other users to join them in exiting—or going elsewhere.

Don’t put it past people to use their departure as a means of gathering friends or fans or followers in some new pasture. They want to start their own, new circle game. But they don’t feel like putting in the time or effort to build an audience.

Fighting Back and Reversing the Circle Game

Does it always have to be this way? Well, this kind of a cycle is more or less inevitable. The trick is to stretch out the first two phases, discovery and nesting, as much as possible, or to have the user cycle back from boredom to nesting again (e. g. to find a different group to hang with).

Or, a positive situation would be if the boredom phase were at least short (and put off) so that the departure phase would not be a suspension. And it would be less fraught with meaning.

Because a user taking leave, no matter how popular that user is, will leave behind less of a hole if they are a part of a 100,000-person forum versus a 100-user community.

How do you do this? By phases, of course!

Discovery, Reimagined

The Discovery phase of the circle game has two essential elements: new users and new topics. Increase both with good SEO and with encouraging as much user participation as possible.

Nesting, Transformed

The Nesting phase can be encouraged and promoted by keeping your community a safe, warm and welcoming place. Having formal specific groups is not strictly necessary for this, but it can be of help if your users are struggling in this area.

And, if you do go with formal groups, ask your users which groups they would like. They might surprise you. And it (almost) doesn’t matter whether a group is terribly active. It will still serve its purpose, to continue to afford your users with a friendly place within the forum, even if it is small. This is a place they can call their own.

Boredom, Shortened

The Boredom phase of the circle game can be delayed and/or truncated by keeping the twin flows of new users and new topics going. This means more and better SEO, offering new features and encouraging your users to continue adding new, interesting and diverse topics.

Can’t think of new topic fodder? So try taking a stand on a controversial subject, or ask for comments on a related news article. Or look in your archives, and see if an older subject might benefit from a fresh, new take.

Circle Game Departure, Delayed

Finally, the Departure phase of the circle game can, of course, be put off if the first two phases stretch out. When departure happens, don’t ask most users to stay. Unless you have a very tiny forum, this kind of behavior will be impossible to scale.

And it generally doesn’t put off the inevitable for too terribly long. Instead, try to find out from the user just why they are leaving. Except for purely personal, internal circumstances (e. g. the user just started a new job and has no time for your community any more), there may be something you can learn from and improve on.

And asking why will also give you an opportunity, not to entreat the user to stay, but to let the user know that he or she is welcome to return at any time.

The Circle Game: Takeaways

Your users’ interest in your community will wax and wane. You cannot always do anything about it, but if an effort is made, your users are generally going to appreciate that. And your circle game will go on.

2 Comments
Community Management – Snakes in the GardenCommunity Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management – Snakes in the Garden

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on January 5, 2021

Community Management Tidbits – Snakes in the Garden

Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?

It’s inevitable. Virtually every community open to the public is going to get its share of trolls and spam. To keep from being overrun, you need to be vigilant.

Snakes! Why'd it have to be snakes?Trolls

A troll is, essentially, a disruptive presence.

But know your community. Chances are that a community of young mothers will have a far different tolerance level for disruptions versus a community of gun enthusiasts. And disruption also has a situational definition.

Because a community of atheists very likely does not want to hear from someone extolling the virtues of prayer. Similarly, a community of fish owners may not wish to read about how to make fish ‘n chips. Or maybe they do.

Shaping the Dialogue

You, as the Community Manager, can shape the dialogue. And one thing you can do is to help dictate the community’s response to, and level of tolerance for, off-topic digressions.

For example, with the possible exception of a dating site, few communities will welcome new people as their main subject of conversation. Yet every community probably should have a means for the currently existing membership to welcome newbies.

This is not only common courtesy; it can help newbies to stick around. So decide just how much going off-topic you wish to allow. This can also help to keep the off-topic discussions from invading the money-making ones. At least, not too much.

Getting Help

Next, enlist your super user(s). A super user is, essentially, someone who loves the site, is around a lot and probably makes a lot of good or at least decent content. These people can often be tastemakers so you can enlist their assistance to defuse a troll’s behaviors or bring discussions back on track.

Or, at least, these people can take the lead in creating and promoting other content, thereby burying and nullifying a troll’s handiwork. Furthermore, if your super users can create, promote and magnify their own content, that can assist your other users in wielding a great and powerful weapon against trolls: ignoring them.

Technological Solutions for Dealing with Snakes

Another solution is to use blocking software, either to suspend the troll’s posting privileges or to curtail them. Or, if available, allow your users to electronically ignore a troll (or at least demote or vote down that person’s posts), by either blocking the troll’s posts or disproportionately promoting those of their friends.

Going Nuclear on the Snakes

Completely suspending a troll from all usage of, and interaction on, your site is something of a nuclear option. It does not mean you should never use this tactic, although I would advise you to use it relatively sparingly. After all, a troll may simply be someone unused to forums, who charged in without looking.

Tone and humor are hard to gauge, even with a liberal sprinkling of emoticons. Everyone has bad days and your “troll” could actually be a perfectly good member, or even a superstar user, in disguise, if properly nurtured. So go easy on the heavy-handed moderation if you can.

Pick your moments and battles: a person urging suicidal members to go through with it should not be tolerated, but isn’t a debate among music lovers about the merits of Bach versus Mozart, well, healthy?

Spam

Onto spam. Spam is essentially a form of commercial speech. You first need is to define it in your Terms of Service. You may wish to allow your members to promote their own blogs but not their own commercial ventures. Or you may be more tolerant of commercial speech if it’s more on topic (say, a parts dealer’s site being touted on a Chevy enthusiasts’ board).

However, you need to get this rule clear, and you need to be consistent in its enforcement. You will, inevitably, miss an exception or two. Accept that as just something that’s going to happen, post your rules and move on. And make certain to make it clear that the Terms of Service may be subject to one-sided changes at any time. This is not the time to ask for a vote by the site’s membership.

Zero Tolerance for Spam

Once you have spam defined, you really should go with a zero tolerance policy. First off, it’s easy to be overrun if you’re not careful. Plus, if you allow spam to remain on your site, you are allowing the spammers to piggyback on your SEO. Excise them and their messages quickly and, unlike in the case of trolls, don’t be afraid to rapidly go to the nuclear option.

You will, inevitably, get appeals on any form of communication you’ve provided to the membership, whether it’s in the form of a Help Desk ticket, a feedback form, an email address you’ve made public, a “contact us” link or something else.

Monitor these channels and investigate every appeal. Some will be groundless, while others might not be. So, if it’s at all possible, make sure that you have fully reversible means for excising potentially spammy messages.

Enlist Your Membership to Help with the Snakes

Also, provide your general membership with the means to report spam and get those snakes out of there. The membership will not always perfectly understand your rules or apply them consistently and fairly. But that’s not their job. It’s yours.

All you need is a report, and for them to be your eyes and ears on the ground. You, of course, should also be checking, along with your moderating team if you have one. But give your membership the means to report spam and they can help you. They want to help you.

Trolling and spamming are not the signs of a failed forum. To the contrary, they are often signs of success, that your forum is large enough that spammers wish to market to your members or trolls seek to shake them out of complacency.

Spamming and trolling only indicate a failed forum if you let them take over your site, drive out all other means of interaction, and those snakes send your other members scurrying for the hills.

1 Comment
Writing Progress Report – Fourth Quarter 2020Writing Progress Reports, First Quarter 2018, Second Quarter 2018, Third Quarter 2018, Fourth Quarter 2018, First Quarter 2019, Second Quarter 2019, Third Quarter 2019, Fourth Quarter 2019, First Quarter 2020, Second Quarter 2020, Third Quarter 2020, Fourth Quarter 2020, First Quarter 2021, Second Quarter 2021, Third Quarter 2021, Fourth Quarter 2021, First Quarter 2022, Second Quarter 2022, Third Quarter 2022, Fourth Quarter 2022, First Quarter 2023, Second Quarter 2023, Third Quarter 2023, Fourth Quarter 2023, First Quarter 2024, Second Quarter 2024, Third Quarter 2024, Fourth Quarter 2024, Writing Progress Reports Hub, First Quarter 2024, Second Quarter 2024, Third Quarter 2024, Fourth Quarter 2024, First Quarter 2025, Second Quarter 2025, Third Quarter 2025, Fourth Quarter 2025

Writing Progress Report – Fourth Quarter 2020

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 31, 2020

Progress Report –Fourth Quarter 2020

How was fourth quarter 2020 for writing? So I spent fourth quarter 2020 working on NaNoWriMo. So this was either planning, or writing, or editing. The end of 2020 could not come fast enough.

Fourth Quarter 2020 Posted Works

First of all, I worked on the November 2020 NaNo novel. So this was planning and preparation, plus some research in October. Then of course in November I wrote like the wind! And finally in December, I wrapped up more of the storyline and edited a bit. The book clocked in at a bit over 65,000 words.

Then on Wattpad I posted on the WattNaNo profile and nowhere else.

I also got some professional accolades, and have a good 10 articles published in Enterpreneur magazine. So of course this is huge for my career!

Milestones

Also, I have written over two and a half million words (fan fiction and wholly original fiction combined). So right now my stats on Wattpad for wholly original works are as follows:

  • Dinosaurs – 323 reads, 9 comments
  • How to NaNoWriMo – 22,775 reads, 308 comments
  • My Favorite Things (like kibble) – 972 reads, 133 comments
  • Revved Up – 59,320 reads, 530 comments
  • Side By Side – 10 reads, 0 comments
  • Social Media Guide for Wattpad – 14, 070 reads, 591 comments
  • The Canadian Caper – 485 reads, 37 comments
  • The Dish – 250 reads, 24 comments
  • There is a Road – 189 reads, 28 comments
  • WattNaNo’s Top Picks 2018 – 1,855 reads, 45 comments
  • WattNaNo’s Top Picks 2019 – 1,551 reads, 10 comments
  • What Now? – 2,471 reads, 104 comments

More Published Works

Also, I am amassing quite the collection of published works!

Untrustworthy, which is my first published novel. So yay!

A True Believer in Skepticism, to be published in Mythic Magazine.

Almost Shipwrecked, a story in the January 2019 edition of Empyreome.

Canaries, a short story in the March 29, 2019, edition of Theme of Absence.

Complications, a story in the Queer Sci Fi Discovery anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds went to supporting the QSF website.

Cynthia and Wilder Bloom, stories in the Longest Night Watch II anthology.

Props, a story in the Longest Night Watch I anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to Alzheimer’s research.

Surprises, a story in Book One of the 42 and Beyond Anthology set.

The Boy in the Band, a story in the Pride Park anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to the Trevor Project.

The Interview, the featured story in the December 14, 2018 edition of Theme of Absence. So they even interviewed me!

The Last Patient, a story in the Stardust, Always anthology. This was an anthology where the proceeds go to cancer research.

The Resurrection of Ditte, a story in the Unrealpolitik anthology.

This is My Child, a short story published in the April 8, 2019 edition of Asymmetry Fiction.

Three Minutes Back in Time, a short story published in Mythic Magazine.

Killing Us Softly, a short story published in Corner Bar Magazine.

Darkness into Light, a short story published in Corner Bar Magazine.

WIP Corner

So my current WIPs are as follows:

The Obolonk Murders Trilogy – so this one is all about a tripartite society. But who’s killing the aliens?

The Enigman Cave – can we find life on another planet and not screw it up? You know, like we do everything else?

The Real Hub of the Universe Trilogy – so the aliens who live among us in the 1870s and 1880s are at war. But why is that?

Mettle – so it’s all about how society goes to hell in a hand basket when the metals of the periodic table start to disappear. But then what?

Time Addicts – No One is Safe – so this one is all about what happens in the future when time travel becomes possible via narcotic.

Time Addicts – Nothing is Permanent – this is the second in this trilogy. What happens when time is tampered with and manipulated in all sorts of ways? It’s the ultimate in gaslighting, for one thing.

Time Addicts – Everything is Up For Grabs – coming in 2021!

Prep Work

So, for this year’s NaNoWriMo, I wrote the second novel in the Time Addicts/Obolonks universe. A lot of this year has been spent on the plot for it. At this point in time, it’s just about time to start editing it. I have called this one Time Addicts – Nothing is Permanent.

Fourth Quarter 2020 Queries and Submissions

So, here’s how that is been going during fourth quarter 2020.

In Progress

As of fourth quarter 2020, the following are still in the running for publishing (I withdrew some and didn’t resubmit because … 2020):

This list is the name of the story and then the name of the potential publisher.

  • I Used to Be Happy – Gemini Magazine
  • Justice – Adbusters
  • Mettle – RAB
  • Soul Rentals ‘R’ Us – A Thousand One Stories
  • Who Do We Blame for This? – Sonder Review

All Other Statuses

So, be sure to see the Stats section for some details on any query statuses for fourth quarter 2020 which were not in progress.

Stats

So, in 2018, my querying stats were:

  • 68 submissions of 19 stories
  • Acceptances: 4, 5.88%
  • In Progress-Under Consideration: 3, 4.41% (so these don’t seem to have panned out)
  • In Progress: 10, 14.71%
  • Rejected-Personal: 14, 20.59%
  • Rejected-Form: 24, 35.29%
  • Ghosted: 13 (so, these were submissions where I never found out what happened), 19.12%

So in 2019 my querying stats were:

    • 23 submissions of 11 stories (so, 6 submissions carry over from 2018)
    • Acceptances: 4, 17.39%
    • In Progress: 11 (so this includes 2 holdovers from 2018), 47.83%
    • Rejected-Personal: 4, 17.39%
    • Rejected-Form: 3, 13.04%
  • Ghosted: 1 (so, these are submissions where I never found out what happened), 4.35%

2020 Stats

So, in 2020 my querying stats so far are:

  • 37 submissions of 12 stories (so 9 submissions carry over from 2019)
  • Acceptances: 3, 8.11%
  • In Progress: 7, 18.92%
  • Rejected-Personal: 12, 32.43%
  • Rejected-Form: 4, 10.81%
  • Ghosted: 11 (so these are submissions where I never found out what happened), 29.73%

It can be pretty discouraging and hard to go on when nothing new comes up which is positive. It was a huge lift when Killing Us Softly and Darkness Into Light got acceptances!

This Quarter’s Productivity Killers

So, it’s work, what else? I am working on a ton of things and so much of that is also writing. Hence, it can sometimes burn me out. Because fourth quarter 2020 will not be the end of that!

Previous progress report post
Next progress report post

Leave a Comment
Happy Holidays, Social Media StyleSocial Media, Social Media Writing, Social Media Writing Part, Social Media Writing Part 3, Best Lengths, Hesitation Generation, screen name, Happy Holidays, Relentless Pace, Cyber Infidelity, Podcasting, Neurotic Writers, Social Media Balance, Social Media Perfection, Losing Control, Social Media Tips, Employee Passwords, Look Like Online, social media, Social Media Platforms, Promoting Writing, Social Media Marketer, EditMe Webinar, Demand for Social Media Jobs, Stumbleupon surpasses, Less Conversation, Snapchat Settles with FTC, Quickly Boost Results, Hype, Auto-Service Economy, Sharing Less, Social Media background check, formatted, Four Important Social Media Stats, Cheat Sheets, Seduction, social back, Social media background check, Collaboration, Wikileaks, Editme Webinar, Cyber Legacy, Campaign 2012, Demographics, ways, Time-saving tips, Campaign 2012, Happy Holidays, Neurotic Writers, Sharing Less,

Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 29, 2020

Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Happy Holidays!

Oh, I do so wish I had written this.

This sweet video says so much more about Social Media than most can say, and it does it in a breezy, easy to understand style.

The main idea behind this rather detailed video consists of a retelling of the Nativity Story. The video does so through the medium of social media, with everything from Facebook statuses to Foursquare check-ins, to tweets, and more. Even email gets into the act. The Virgin Mary apparently uses Gmail.

Even More

And then there is even more, with a look at Nazareth from Google Earth. Of course there is a check for directions from Nazareth to Bethlehem. A check for hotel space reveals only a stable available (but of course). Joseph buys a cow (from Farmville, I would guess).

The Magi discuss their offerings (over Gmail – man, Google has its hands in everything!). And they pick up their gold, frankincense and myrrh at, you guessed it, Amazon.  Twitter gets into the act as the Magi, naturally, follow the star there (very clever play on words there).

Eventually, the visit to the baby by the Magi ends up on video. Someone uploads it to – could there be any other place more perfect? – YouTube. The video shows, I suspect, a play.

Lovely Ideas Made Manifest for Your Happy Holidays

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, this is not even my holiday. But it is never heavy-handed. It always has a light touch. That is a big part of why this kind of happy holidays video works. Much like with the best forms of advertising, you never really know that you’re being talked to. Or preached to, for that matter.

Or, perhaps, sold to.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

This beautifully made and cleverly written and produced video comes to us from ExcentricGrey, which is evidently a Portuguese advertising firm. They report that this viral video has over 20 million views. Viewers are concentrated more in the United States and Western Europe than elsewhere, a function (probably) at least in part due to the video being made available in both English and Portuguese.

Oddly enough, Portugal did not seem to have a very big concentration of viewers. Neither did Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Mozambique or Angola.

Enjoy, and have a wonderful holiday.

Leave a Comment
Community Management – How to be a Terrible NetizenCommunity Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management – How to be a Terrible Netizen

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 22, 2020

Community Management – How to be a Terrible Netizen

Are YOU a Terrible Netizen? I have been managing Able2know for over twenty years and I have seen my share.

It is a generalized Q & A website and the members are all volunteers. I have learned a few things about making yourself the biggest jerk online during this time.

Because I have seen a lot of people being awful, as if it were their aim in life.

How to Be a Jerk Online

  1. Post as fast as you can and don’t think about it. And anything worth doing, is worth doing fast. Editing is for wimps.
  2. When you’re being attacked, never step away from the keyboard. Because the way you feel about people online is never related to the offline world. It only comes from online events.
  3. Be vague with your words. Because anyone who cannot figure out what you really mean is an idiot, and you should tell them that. Clarity is for other people.
  4. Everyone should/must get you, oh terrible netizen, even the aforementioned idiots. What you have to say is perfectly wonderful for every audience and needs no tailoring.

Yet More Jerk Advice

  1. Be First and Best, every single time. Why let anyone else be happy? They’re a bunch of idiots anyway.
  2. Always get in the last word, terrible netizen. And this is even if you have to do that over and over again while someone else tries to do the exact same thing. That person is an idiot. You, of course, are not. Never!
  3. Call people by names, because there’s nothing that says maturity like using a taunt from second grade or a word that trips a profanity filter.
  4. Discuss as many controversial topics as you like, and don’t expect hard feelings. Because if people become defensive, their skins are too thin for them to be online in the first place. So have at them.
  5. Never stop, and never surrender, and never ignore anyone. All comers deserve your pearls of wisdom, 24/7! Therefore, even months later, when the other person has clearly gone off to do something else, go back and pick at that scab some more.

I hope you let me know if you’re going to do any of these. So I can find a way to cross the street and walk in the other direction when I see you online. ‘Course, that probably just makes me an idiot.

Can You Still Find a Terrible Netizen Online in 2023 and Beyond?

Good lord, you can find them more than ever! Still being jerks. Still overthinking or underpreparing. And still spouting God only knows what, whether it’s Covid conspiracy theory nonsense or incel garbage or sealioning or just nanny nanny boo boo kinds of taunting and claiming to be better than anyone else.

Good netizens are hard to find. But terrible ones? They’re a dime a dozen, I’m afraid.

2 Comments
Community Management – Let’s Get this Party StartedCommunity Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management – Let’s Get this Party Started

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 15, 2020

Community Management Tidbits – Let’s Get this Party Started

W00t!! Let’s Get this Party Started! You’ve made the decision to have a forum on your website. Great!

It can be for any number of reasons, such as to cut the number of lower level technical support calls, to generate buzz for various advertising campaigns, to generate sales leads. It might be to bring together people interested in a common cause. And you have a site with forums, done up in Drupal, or maybe using a PHP application out of the box.

Or it might exist on Facebook exclusively. Or perhaps you’ve conjured up your own proprietary software.

And … nothing.

You’ve got no users, no content, no conversations. The community should be a hubbub of activity, a virtual village. Instead, you’re stuck with a ghost town.

Whaddaya do now?

Don’t panic.

Recognize that no one wants to be first attendee at a party. So, you’ve got to get the party started. But how?

Success?

For any website to succeed, you need to be strong in four areas:

  • Design
  • Metrics/Measurement
  • Content and
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

So let us operate under the assumption that you’ve got the first two set (and, if you don’t, make sure you fix, perfect and beautify your design as much as possible). If you’re not already getting metrics, go get Google Analytics.

Now with those two set, you can, fortunately, work on the other two together. First of all, let’s work on some elementary Search Engine Optimization. SEO divides into optimizing onsite and optimizing offsite. So start with a few basic offsite measures. It used to be that you had to submit your site to the late lamented DMOZ Directory. Yahoo ran this human-edited directory.

At this point in time, that advice is out of date. Don’t worry about it. You can do just fine with social media and indexing on social bookmarking sites instead.

Submit your site to the follow social bookmarking sites:

There are any number of others but these are the really big ones and give you the most bang for the buck (most readers) versus others out there. You don’t need to pay some service to do this. It will all take you less than half an hour, no lie.

Content

For onsite SEO, let’s move onto Content. Because the two are intimately intertwined. Furthermore, your future users are going to want to see topics. And they are going to want to see them started by a number of different people. You’ll need to pull in some friends for this, and divide the new topics up as much as possible. Be sure to start with topics like this:

  • Welcome to the New Members/Getting to Know You
  • Basic News from outside your company, about you (if you’ve got a company blog or press page already, link to them here and
  • A few (say, half a dozen) topics showcasing your best keywords but are written for humans to read

Keywords

That brings us to keyword research. Go to your competitors’ sites, right-click and select “View Source”. Which keywords are they using? Consider using similar if not the same ones.

So if your site is about, say, infant and child care, your main keywords and key phrases are probably going to be words and phrases like infant, child, child care, childcare, children, baby, babies, pregnancy. Do Google searches using these keywords and key phrases, with and without the words forum or community added.

Look at those sites’ keywords and key phrases as well. Because you want to keep thinking of terms that your target audience will use for their own searches. Incorporate these words into your site and into the titles of some of your first topics.

Look at synonyms! If baby works better than infant, then use baby in the title but you can still put infant within the body of the post. Think like someone searching. What are they really looking for?

Specifics

Don’t be afraid to be specific, for the child care site, try topics on such subjects as teething, sibling rivalry and readiness for kindergarten. Keep the keywords in the titles if you can logically and grammatically put them there.

Consider some really niche topics, such as handling siblings who are acting out because one child has special needs or a terminal illness. Because searchers are looking for those answers as well.

Now, you’ve got some content, and you’re getting some SEO, even if you are still low in rankings (don’t worry, it’s percolating). But you still need users. Here’s where invitations come in. You, me, all of us – we have online networks. We’ve got friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and a network on LinkedIn, and a whole host of other groups of online acquaintances.

Plus we’ve got friend and family email addresses.

Send Out Invitations to Get the Party Started

So craft an invitation. Make it polite, pleasant, simple and short. Be definite about what your forums are about (e. g. write more than “Please check out my site.”). In particular, if you know people who like forums (perhaps you already regularly post on some other forums site, even if the main subject is radically different), invite those people.

And do this in small doses, say, 30 people at a time. This will keep an influx of new members from overwhelming you. And you can greet everyone personally, at least to start. Furthermore, it will add to the feeling of exclusivity that a small site can engender. Don’t worry if people start inviting others to your site, even people you’ve never heard of before. Because this is a good thing. You want them to do this.

So look for sites to link to you, and be sure to get reciprocal links. Consider adding Google News Reader, and a blog to provide directed quality content if you don’t already have one. Furthermore, it will keep your users updated as to outages and new features as you add them.

Add a Facebook fan page for your site, although I’d recommend waiting at least a little while after launching. After all, if no one likes you on Facebook, you’ll have the same issue. It’s trying to attract people who don’t want to be first. Furthermore, you’ll need at least 30 Facebook fans (that number may rise in the future) to get metrics. And then you can really get this party started.

But above all, have fun. And get this party started!

Leave a Comment