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

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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books, not electronic ones) is that they take so long to be produced, and then they can become obsolete or at least out of date rather quickly.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

4. 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.
5.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.
6. 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. For alas, 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.

Want More Book Reviews?

If my experiences with book reviews for social media resonate with you, then check out my other book review blog posts.

Check Out Book Reviews on Social Media, SEO, Analytics, Design, and Strategy

• Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0, a Book Review
† The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition, a Book Review
• Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson, a Book Review
† Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, An Updated Book Review
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
† Likeable Social Media by Dave Kerpen
• The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott, A Book Review
† The Numerati by Stephen Baker, a Book Review
• Social Media Marketing by Liana Evans, A Book Review
† Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, a Book Review
• White Space is not your Enemy by Kim Golombisky and Rebecca Hagen, a Book Review
† The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani, a Book Review

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Community Management – Look at Me!

Community Management, Drawn to Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes in the Garden, Circle Game, Look at Me, Good Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Community Management Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010, community managers, off topic posts,

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!

Ah, marketing.

We have all seen it done well, and we have 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: Never 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 marketing is not necessarily 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 to something different. As in SEO.

Look at Me Doing Offsite Marketing

Offsite can be (mainly) divided into two areas:

1. Search Engines
2. Social Media

Consider Search Engines

You must submit your site to Google. However, do not submit to any other search engines. Why? Because the non-Google share of the market is virtually nonexistent (sorry, Bing). Hence this is a waste of your time, and they will likely pick up your site from Google anyway.

So do not use a blasting service. Heavens, no. You will never, ever need it and it is absolutely not worth it.

There are still some directories you can submit to (depending upon your site and its 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 and even search engines in other languages, too!

And if your site really does not fit within a particular directory, never submit to it. For if you do, all you are asking for is an exercise in futility.

Look at Social Media

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

While there are international ones (and if you have 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/X – 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.

If X is not a fit ideologically (for you or your userbase or both), then by all means consider Bluesky or the like instead.

• 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 employees directly linking their profiles to it.

Furthermore, make sure your site blog and social media streams are configured to feed and accept updates.

A Look at More Social Media

† 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 have 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, but recognize that it is a lot more niche and fandom-centric.

Seeing as MySpace became niche before finally going belly up, you may find that Tumblr feels a little too much on its way out.

• 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 are made of. This is for short-form video content and it is very algorithmically-driven, so you had better tag your stuff extremely well.

Back Linking

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 the importance and influence of your site. And that is directly linked to search placement.

You always do better when more trusted sites link back to you. Do not 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.

Blogrolls can feel old fashioned these days, but they are not completely useless, particularly if you are getting backlinks in return.

In addition, do not 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 are 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.

Truly Offline Marketing and Optimization

Offline marketing and optimization can mean 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 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!

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Analytics (see link below)
• Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community
† Risks of a Community Without Management
• Are Off Topic Posts Ever Okay?

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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 X or Bluesky.

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.

Want More About the Conquest of LinkedIn?

If my experiences with LinkedIn resonate with you, then check out my other articles about the largest networking site on the planet.

What LinkedIn Has to Offer

• Your Profile Page
† Your Resume
• Meeting Offline
† Your Network
• Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift
† Last Little Bits
• InMaps – Visualize Your Network on LinkedIn

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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 do not mean this one. Don’t even think about it.

Forums have cycles, and so do users. That is, there is a start to them coming to your site and joining. But there is also a middle piece. And, inevitably, there is an end.

Community Phases are the Backbone of This Circle Game

There is not 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 never possibly read everything. The whole thing is all too much.

It is 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 community for single fathers, 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, so far as this particular user is concerned. 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.

Do not 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 do not 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) does not 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.

What if you simply cannot 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, do not ask most users to stay. Unless you have a very tiny forum, this kind of behavior will be impossible to scale.

And it generally does not 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.

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

• A Day in the Life of a Community Manager
† Analytics (see below for link)
• Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community
† Risks of a Community Without Management
• Are Off Topic Posts Ever Okay?

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Writing Progress Report – Fourth Quarter 2020

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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, a site which unfortunately is no more.

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, another site which is no more.

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!

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Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Social 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, Hope and Hype, Auto-Service Economy, Sharing Less, Social Media background check, formatted posts, Four Important Social Media Stats, Cheat Sheets, Social Media Seduction, social back, Social media background check, Collaboration rocks, Wikileaks knocks, Editme Webinar, Cyber Legacy, Campaign 2012, Demographics, ways to improve, Time-saving tips, They Used to Call me Robot Girl

Happy Holidays, Social Media Style

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 29, 2020

Happy Holidays, in Social Media and Every 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. X 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.

Want More About Social Media?

If my experiences with non-platform-specific social media resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about navigating our social media obsessed world.

• Social Media’s Seduction AKA Oops, Did I Do That?
† Social Media Background Check Being Used For Jury Selection
• How Social Media Can Ruin Your Life
† Social Media Balance
• Social Media: Hope, Hype or What?

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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! So, you have 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 have conjured up your own proprietary software.

And … nothing.

You have no users, no content, no conversations. The community should be a hubbub of activity, a virtual village. Instead, you are stuck with a ghost town.

Whaddaya do now?

Do not panic.

Recognize that no one wants to be first attendee at a party. So, you have 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 have the first two set (and, if you do not, make sure you fix, perfect and beautify your design as much as possible). If you are 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, we will 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. Or, you had to submit to social bookmarking sites like Digg.

At this point in time, that advice is out of date. Don not worry about it. You can do just fine with social media instead.

Create an X or Bluesky (or both) account for your website, and start to fill it with content. Follow likely members, or people you want to attract. In short, be a good netizen.

Content

For onsite SEO, it is time to move onto Content. Because there is an intimate connection between the two of them.

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 will 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 have 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 competitor 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 to Get Your Own Forums Party Started

Do not 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 have some content, and you are getting some SEO, even if you are still low in rankings (do not worry, it’s percolating). But you still need users. Here is where invitations come in. You, me, all of us – we have online networks.

We all have friends on Facebook, followers on X and Instagram and a network on LinkedIn, and a whole host of other groups of online acquaintances.

Plus we have 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.”). So, if it is a writing community, mention that!

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.

Do not worry if people start inviting others to your site, even these are people you have 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 do not 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 would recommend waiting at least a little while after launching. After all, if no one likes you on Facebook, you will have the same issue. It is trying to attract people who do not want to be first.

Furthermore, you will 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!

Want More About Community Management?

If my experiences with community management resonate with you, then check out my other blog posts about how online communities work.

Here are some posts about my years in community management, and what I have learned.

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Optimizing Twitter

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on December 3, 2020

Let’s Take a Look at Optimizing Twitter/X

Now that you’re on it, it’s time to start optimizing Twitter AKA X. And please keep in mind: a lot of what I am talking about where will work perfectly well on Bluesky.

After all, the same people made them both.

Lists for Optimizing Twitter/X

What are lists on X?

You may have noticed people who have a rather different follower to following ratio than you do. What do I mean by that?

Let’s say you follow 100 people. And 1000 people follow you. The ratio of follower to following is 100:1000, or 1:10. This is fantastic. Celebrities often have ratios that look like this, or even better, where they might be following 100 accounts but there are 100,000 people following them. Or more!

Newbies often end up at the other end of the spectrum, with 1000 people they are following and 100 are following them, for 10:1. If you want to just read for the most part, this is perfectly fine, except it tends to not mark you as a thought leader.

Celebs and Optimizing Twitter/X

Now, most people don’t sit down and calculate ratios. But they do glance at profiles. Someone like Sir Patrick Stewart, for example, might be following some 200 people but he’s followed by 2,000,000. Hence people will really notice if he starts following them.

Does he (or any other celebrity, major or minor) have a sparse news feed? Probably not. Because he might be using lists.

Go to the profile of someone you want to follow but, instead of hitting follow, pull down on the gear wheel and select Add to or Remove from Lists.

Your lists will show up, and you can add someone to several at a time, or make a new list. You can even decide whether you want your list to be public.

Go to your own profile (e. g. click on your profile rather than your settings) and you’ll see whose lists you are on.

Why use a list rather than follow? You’ll still see that person’s tweets in your feed, but your ratio won’t change. Furthermore, a public list tells everyone what you’re interested in. How about lists for indie authors, agents, or publishers?

You can also follow others’ lists. Maybe someone will find yours to be definitive and will follow it.

Who to Follow

Well, who should you follow on X?

Sometimes you want to publicly follow someone, rather than add them to a list. So long as you keep these people special, then this is perfectly great. I tend to keep friends as open follows and anyone more business-related on lists. But you may prefer otherwise.

Follow fellow indie writers (this is a community, after all), or publishers, or agents. Consider who can help you, and who you can help, and follow accordingly.

How to #Hashtag

What’s a hashtag, and how do you make one that isn’t lame?

A hashtag is a means of searching on X. Hashtag something as, say, #amwriting, and click on that, and you’re led to a slice of X of everyone who used that hashtag. Hashtags don’t look good if you use a ton of them.

Don’t just indiscriminately hashtag! Also, keep them short. #ILovePuppiesAndDolphinsAndUnicorns is probably not going to be something used by anyone else, or at least not that frequently. But #ILovePuppies is pretty popular.

Experiment by searching before you hashtag. Beware, your innocent-looking hashtag might already be coopted for an unexpected usage. Just do a search on #NeverForget or #IStayedBecause and you’ll know what I mean.

Takeaways for Optimizing Twitter AKA X

Consider your peers. Who do you love to follow and read? Who doesn’t seem to be trying too hard? Of course, if you want to start optimizing Twitter/X, you should copy what the former does.

Want More About Twitter AKA X?

If my experiences with X resonate with you, then please be sure to check out my other blog posts about X. While it’s now got a new name, and has changed considerably, a lot of these tips will still work. And often they will work with other social media platforms as well.

Almost Everything But the Tweet

• Starting a Twitter Stream
† Demystifying Twitter/X
• Twitter, Social Media and Professionalism
† Conquering X/Twitter (verbal elements)
• Conquering Twitter/X (visual elements)
† Twitter/X (metrics and timing)
• X/Twitter (offsite connections)

And, if you’re a fellow writer, you may want to check out:
† PitMad on Twitter/X

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Beta Readers and Editors

Beta Readers, Editors, Beta Reading, Editing, Beta readers, Beta Reading, Reading, How to Edit a Manuscript, editing part 1, Editing Part 2, choosing, Editing Tips, Beta Reading and Editing, beta reader,

Beta Readers and Editors

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on November 24, 2020

A Look at Both Beta Readers and Editors

Consider beta readers and editors – what’s the difference? Does it matter which one you use to help with your manuscript? Why yes, yes it does.

Beta Readers

Beta readers are people who read over your work. They evaluate it before it gets anywhere near a publisher. They might read for typos, spelling errors, grammatical issues, and punctuation problems, but that is often not a very good way to work with them.

Beta Readers and Continuity Checks

Instead, you want them to help you with flow and continuity. If your main character is female and 5’2″ and has a chihuahua on page 4, then she should still be female, 5’2″, and the owner of a chihuahua on page 204, unless there is some on-page reason why she isn’t. E. g.:

† They are transgender, and successfully transitioned (with or without surgery) to male. Or the character no longer identifies as female or male.
• The character had a growth spurt and is taller, or has osteoporosis, and became shorter. Or maybe her legs were amputated (er, sorry, character!).
† She gave away the chihuahua, or it ran away, etc.

The last thing you want is for your beta reader to wonder where the chihuahua went, particularly if the little dog isn’t a big part of the story.

Because if your beta reader is wondering, then a person who pays for your work will, too. And that confusing can rather easily turn into a bad review, or bad word of mouth.

Demographics

Good beta readers are in the demographics of the people you’re trying to reach with your novel. They like your genre or at least are willing to read in it and offer feedback. They don’t tear you a new one when they don’t like something, but they are also unafraid to tell you if something isn’t working for them.

Some Questions to Ask Them

Ask them:

• Are the characters believable? Are they distinguishable?
† Do you think the situations are plausible?
• Are there good descriptions for the scenes? Can you picture yourself where the characters are?
† Do the transitions work?
• Are the conflicts plausible?
† Is the conclusion a satisfying one?

Also ask about genre-specific issues, such as whether your mystery was too easy or difficult to solve, if your horror story was scary enough, if the technobabble in your science fiction novel was credible, etc.

The best way to get a beta reader is to be one! Offer a trade with another indie. Usually this work is done for free. So be kind, and either recommend your beta reader friend or at least donate a little something to one of their three favorite charities.

Beta feedback isn’t the gospel. You don’t have to listen to it all. And if you have a good reason to contradict what they are saying, then have at it. But if you’re going to just reject everything that they say, that should tell you something.

Either you’re not yet ready for people to critique your work, or you need other beta readers.

Editors

Editors are more professional than beta readers and they are generally people who you hire. They will do copy editing, where they check for typos, etc., although there should be a last pass by a proofreader before publishing, no matter what.

Editors can also check for continuity, but they will mainly read with the audience in mind. They are a good enhancement to the work of a beta reader, and are a good idea before you send your work out for querying.

Researching Editors

The best way to get an editor is to do some research. Ask people you know are published. After all, an editor no longer has to live in the same city or country as you (but you will do best with someone who is a native speaker of the language your book is in). Work with the editor on a sample chapter or pages. Do you get along? Are his or her suggestions reasonable? Are they slow?

And if you are absolutely, utterly stuck for funds, try a local college or university. You might be able to get an English major to help you, but be aware they probably won’t have experience and they may not be the best fit. But they may be all you’ve got.

And make sure to have a written agreement with them! This is a sample copyediting contract, and it’s pretty good. Be sure to change the contract to indicate the laws of your state apply!

Beta Readers: Takeaways

Perhaps one of the best parts about working with beta readers in particular is that they can often be your most ardent supporters. After all, they are getting early access to your raw, unfinish stuff! For writers with street teams, it makes sense for fans to do more than one of these tasks. That is, if they want to.

Also, if you ever join a critique group, you will most likely be doing some beta reading. And you will be receiving that kind of work/info in return. Try to check your ego at the door. Believe me when I tell you that I know how hard that can be. You are there to get feedback, and you cannot operate under the assumption that every person you meet is going to tell you how awesome you are.

In fact, if you are in a group where you are told how awesome you are all the time, then that’s a sure sign that you have outgrown a group and need to find one which will challenge you. It is, quite literally, the only way you are going to be able to get to the next level.

And above all else, be kind, both to your own beta readers and when you’re the one doing the beta reading.

Want More on Beta Reading and Editing?

If you want more on beta reading and editing, then please be sure to check out the following blog posts:

Beta Reading:

• Beta Reading for Indie Writers
† Beta Reading, Part 2

Editing:

• Writing Needs Editing, Part 1
† Writing Needs Editing, Part 2
• Choosing an Editor
† Editing Tips
• How to Edit a Manuscript: 7 Stages to Success

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Adventures in Career Changing Posts

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