Blogcation!

Woo hoo--it's finally here--blogcation! I could have been crafty and set up a week's worth of posts to post daily, but that didn't seem very vacation-y.

Here are a few of my favorite posts from the past year--if you're so compelled to read a post by me, far be it from me to deny you:

• Buzz2010 and Charlene Li's Open Leadership. I never got a chance to do my post for the second Buzz2010 event...so this is like a place holder to remind you of the awesomeness of Buzz2010 until I get back and write part 2. Don't forget, too that part 3 is going to ROCK on August 18 with Olivier Blanchard talking Social Media ROI.
• I think my favorite post of the year was "Forget Traits--4 DSM Diagnoses of Social Media Mavens". I'm telling you, I'm not a psychiatrist but I could definitely play one on TV and I swear I'm onto something with this one.
• Ok, it's not a post but I've added a little fun for ya on Mizz Information. Can you find it? Here's a hint: look right. See that "EARN MOJO" tab? Click it. I have no idea what actually happens because I only had time to set it up, not read up on what it does/what the point is.
• If you are just so heartbroken knowing you won't hear from me for a week, you can wander over to Maggie Unlimited, my newly-revamped personal blog and learn a few new things about me. I don't actually ONLY eat, breathe and blog social media; over there I'm a picture-takin', trash-talkin', fool. And speaking of trash talkin', if you want some drama, don't miss the mom blogger reality show post, comments and follow up post. Let's hope that's the only drama for a good long time so enjoy it now while it's fresh.

See you people on the flip side, where I'll be tan and relaxed and probably forget what the term "social media" even means. Uh, yeah.

Increasing Demand For Social Media Managers

Last Friday I was in heaven; my friends Kiki L'Italien and Maddie Grant devoted a sizeable chunk of time on that day's episode of Delcor's Social Media Sweetspot to my favorite topic: social media salaries. The conversation starts about 14:50 in the video below, in case you missed it:



Of course you should not only watch that whole episode but catch the show every Friday because it's always great--not just when they're talking about me and my pet issue!

At any rate, I know I'm not the only one interested in the topic of social media salaries because the bulk of the traffic to this blog comes from Google searches for "social media manager salary" or something similar. Community and social media manager jobs are becoming more popular--as evidenced by more and more mainstream news coverage of the role(s):

• Business Week's article "Twitter, Twitter, Little Stars"
• Harvard Business Review's "Fire Your Marketing Manager and Hire a Community Manager"
• The Washington Post's article about Pepco's social media manager

The Business Week article does mention salary:

Business strategists capable of identifying a company's needs and solving them using social media tools—can command $120,000 a year and up. Further down the ladder are community managers, who oversee a company's day-to-day social media operations and earn $60,000 to $80,000. Below them are cub Twitter managers, essentially copywriters with little business experience, who typically earn $30,000 to $50,000.

Not for nothing, but from what little salary data I know about association social media jobs, most are wanting someone to do the business strategist level job for the cub Twitter manager salary. If they want to attract and retain qualified candidates who are able to successfully align social media into the association's existing communications and marketing strategies, they're going to have to do better than that.

Some Thanks for the Thankless

Social media jobs definitely have their ups and downs, but it's nice to see some love for the folks who are fighting the good fight and blazing trails for the rest of us. If customer service is a thankless job, how about a customer service job that you can never escape from, that requires attention 24/7--AND includes the added task of getting internal buy-in from the top down?

If you live in the DC area, you surely remember the back-to-back blizzards of 2010 and of course the near-tornado of a few days ago, all of which wreaked havoc on the power supply to tens of thousands of Pepco customers. The Washington Post just did a really nice story about @PepcoConnect, aka Andre Francis (or I guess it should be the other way around!). If you think you want a social media job, you should definitely read the article to see the kind of pressure and jabs it entails. But I've always been impressed by Andre, who I've been following since my power was out during the blizzard, and was happy to see him at least get a little fame out of what I'm sure have been a nightmarish few days.

@Comcastcares Frank Eliason is another one who's gotten some well-deserved media props during his tenure at Comcast. So much so that it no doubt paved the way for his new job heading up social media at Citi. I love this goodbye video his coworkers at Comcast made:



Yes, there is some suck to social media careers--especially if you're a woman--but maybe the rock-star quotient takes some of the sting out.

I Take Back My Jab at Posterous

Remember a few months ago I called Posterous the "lazy man's blog platform"? I totally take it back now.

Ok, actually, that's not true--it's not that I take it back--it IS the lazy man's blog platform--but, only in the best sense of the word "lazy." I'm obsessed with it now.

I'd set up a blog there a while ago and was sort of "meh" about it--didn't really give it much thought. But recently my personal blog--also on Blogger, but the older version (I started it about 4 years ago) than the version that this blog is run on. So a few weeks ago I went to add a new post and wasn't able to. I waited, asked Blogger for help, waited, tried again, waited, asked for help...and still nothing. All I'd get when I went to add a new post was the little spinning dial/loading icon...and that's it.

So I figured it was either a sign that it was time to shut that blog down or move to another platform. I like WordPress and always hear about how great it is, so figured I'd just move to that. So I tried. Imported all the posts to Wordpress.com and attempted to get it into a decent-looking template with a few tweaks.

Forget tweaks on Wordpress.com if you're using a free template--you can't touch the html in the template like you can in Blogger (or, Posterous). All I wanted was to be able to add a retweet button and a Facebook like button...but after much time researching, realized that to do this I'd have to go with a hosted version. So I did that. Bought a domain, installed Wordpress and figured ok, NOW I'm done. But it looked like crap and when I went to install the measly 2 plugins I wanted, I got a message that I wasn't authorized to add plugins.

F that. I'd already poured several hours into the process and the template looked like crap and I was tired of fooling with it. It's not like it's a business blog or anything--certainly not worth spending money on since basically nobody reads it and I'm not really interested in growing that readership.

So I thought I'd check out Posterous and see if you could import posts. You can, and you can even import them and merge them into an existing Posterous blog. So I did that, spent maybe a half hour doing some customization, and voila--Maggie Unlimited was born.

It looks a million times better than this blog and I'd forgotten how easy it was to post to Posterous. I'm horrible about adding photos to blog posts here but with Posterous it's so easy you can't help but do it. It's also perfect for personal blogging because it's so easy I've posted more in the past few days than I did over the past several months on the old version of that blog. Add in my iPhone 4 and I can now do video and audio posts so easily that I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot more of that over there--how can I not when all I have to do is record then send the file via email and it's posted?

The one downside is that there is no draft mode--you publish and that's it. But for a personal blog that's fine. Also no sidebar for posting ads--but lucky for me I don't do ads so it doesn't matter.

Lazy man's blogging FTW!

Social Media Internships: Who's Teaching Who?

I follow DcSocMediaJobs on Twitter and can't help but notice that most of the listings are for either volunteer opportunities or internships. As someone who's never had an internship, I admit I don't know much about them, but from what I do understand about them, they're sort of a two-way street: the intern gets to learns from experienced workers and the company gets some free labor out of it. Please feel free to correct me if that's wrong.

Based on what my impression of what an internship is, I can't help but think social media interns are probably getting a raw deal. After all, how many of the companies looking for social media interns have any staff at all who are experienced with using social media in a business context...or any context at all? I suspect not many, which is why they're looking for an intern to begin with. From where I sit, it seems like companies who aren't sure whether this social media stuff is going to stick don't want to tap any existing staff to "experiment" with it and certainly don't want to pay anyone to do it, so an intern is the perfect solution. After all, everyone knows that every young person has an innate knowledge of social media, right? So they look for an intern to come in, develop a social media strategy and start tweeting, Facebooking, and reporting results.

So, aside from doing what should be an actual paid position for free, what does the intern stand to gain from the experience if they'll likely be the only one on staff who knows anything about social media? I mean, they'll certainly get some first-hand experience with dealing with naysayers and change-averse staffers--which are definitely skills that will serve them well if they do end up pursuing jobs in social media. But what about learning from their experienced co-workers? Wisdom and insights gained from supervisors who have been there, done that and have valuable expertise to share? I'd be willing to bet that there will be precious little of that...in which case, what's the point?

Facebook Fan Page Notifier

So you manage a Facebook Page? Or several? I'd be willing to bet one of your pet peeves is the lack of Facebook's capability to alert you when someone has posted a comment on your wall or responded to one of your posts. Because Facebook doesn't offer this feature, your only recourse is to obsessively check your page for new posts and comments 24/7.

Or so you thought. Enter Facebook Fan Page Notifier. Now I have to start with the disclaimer that this service is not perfect, so it is not the ultimate solution. But with no other better or even comparable solution, it's far, far better than nothing.

Facebook Fan Page Notifier is a free service that will send you an email when anyone posts on any of your "favourited" Facebook Pages. You can use it to get alerts for any Page, but for this purposes, you just sign up for alerts for the Pages for which you are an admin. And voila--email alerts when someone posts something on your Page(s).

A few caveats: it doesn't work with comments on things you post, which is a drag. Also, it doesn't work flawlessly--I'd say for me it works about 80% of the time, which is 80% better than nothing but not ideal.

But beggars can't be choosers, right? It definitely beats having to just check the page(s) manually ad infinitum, and has helped me catch and squash offensive spam posts several times. Plus, it's free, so what do you have to lose?

Am I missing some app or service that works better for this purpose? If so, please leave a comment. I know Backupify is supposedly adding functionality that will pull both posts to your Page's wall and fan comments on your posts, but I have yet to see them announce that functionality--and also, even when they do offer it, I think it will be more of a pull and archive than an alert. But I could be wrong.

Can I just end this with a comment about the ridiculousness of the fact that even though it's been months since Facebook changed the whole "fan" terminology, that language still pervades when people talk about Facebook? How many people/services still call them "Fan Pages"? How many movie trailers include the language "become a fan of X on Facebook"? MANY. So Facebook, please change it back. Ok, I digress...

5 Reasons Why Foursquare Won't Be a Mainstream Success

According to this article, Foursquare is well on its way to mainstream success.

Maybe if you live in a social media-friendly city like Austin Foursquare is well on its way to becoming mainstream; where I live--a suburb of Washington, DC--I can tell you that Foursquare has a LONG way to go before it becomes anything approximating mainstream. Using the same 5 points the Telegraph article used, here are my reasons why Foursquare is NOT poised for world domination anytime soon.

1) Discounts and Rewards-I've been doing Foursquare for many months now and this is how many free things or discounts I've gotten: one. I pretty much single-handedly populated Foursquare's database for the town I live in, plus some surrounding areas, have waited patiently (ok, sometimes not so patiently) through countless SLOW AT&T/iPhone checkins, and have hyped Foursquare a lot both in person, on my blog and on Twitter and this is what I have to show for it: I once got a free scoop of ice cream at Ben & Jerry's when I bought another scoop. That's it. I do Foursquare because a) I'm a nerd and b) I need to know about it for my job. If it weren't for the latter, I wouldn't bother--it's a lot of time to expect a person to invest for very little return.

2) Winning the game--I'm a 42 year-old woman who frequents supermarkets, 7-11 and drug stores; I don't give a shit about winning badges on Foursquare. I suspect that there are tons of other people who don't care about them either.

3) Honest reviews--See #2 above; I don't need to read reviews of the places I use Foursquare for. If I want "honest" reviews I use Yelp--and even I know that good reviews can be bought for a price--and bad ones removed for the same.

4) Efficiently managing the city--the city, maybe, but I don't see many businesses in the burbs looking to spend money on Foursquare anytime soon based on the low level of adoption that exists. I am the only one checking in the places I go and, while it would be nice to have businesses paying attention, I know they're not.

5) Increasingly insightful search--A search engine is only as useful as the data it's indexing. Foursquare can ink deals with whoever they want; the fact remains that if adoption and useage are low in most areas, there won't be much to index.

What's the ROI of the Old Spice Guy?

This just in: despite the massive viral popularity of the Old Spice guy, sales of Old Spice are down.

Shocker. I don't care how fun/viral/clever/sexy/whatever you dub the campaign, at the end of the day, it's still Old Spice, the cologne of a million grandpas of yesteryear.

Here's the thing: how much of the incredible buzz about this campaign has come from industry insiders who have a vested interest in it being a success for P&G? I mean, sure a bunch of social media consultants, ad agencies and general Kool-Aid drinkers (myself among them, of course) WANT this campaign to be a success because we all stand to look more credible if this does turn out to be a slam-dunk for Old Spice and P&G. Why? Because we're trying to make money and/or a career creating this exact kind of campaign for other brands.

But now this whole Old Spice thing is getting muddy--sales are down, yet the popularity of the Old Spice Guy is up. Would canning the campaign be a "PR debacle" and hurt sales more? Or is this not even about sales anymore and, if so, what does that mean about advertising? That ads are now about garnering good PR for a brand and not about selling product anymore? What's the ROI of that?

Old Spice is cool now?

Who cares if you can't make a call from the iPhone 4--it makes video blogging so fun and easy! I was going to write a post about this whole Old Spice social media campaign, but instead I just made a (really poor quality) video instead. A) Yes, I'm uncomfortable on video so I look and sound weird and say "um" a lot and b) it's hard to take a video when you're holding the camera in your hand and you tend to fidget a lot. With that disclaimer, enjoy!

Social Media Salary Craziness

It's been a while since I've blogged about my favorite topic: social media salaries. Since a lot of you find this blog through Google searches for "social media salary" I figure I'm not the only one who's obsessed with the topic, so I may as well do another post about it, right?

What's there to obsess about, you say? Plenty. The fact that social media salaries are all over the place, for one. The fact that you have social media consultants charging a fortune to do the same things other companies are hiring interns to do for either free or close to it. And, while you can feel free to leave a comment about "you get what you pay for" or "price is an indicator of quality" or something like that, in the case of social media, that just doesn't hold true. There are plenty of snake-oil sales people out there charging--and making--a killing who don't know what the hell they're doing but, for now, continue to dazzle and snow clients with talk of "potential reach" or other sleight of hand nonsense. Just as there are plenty of of super-smart people who "get it" and are doing great work but not getting any credit--or making any money.

And let's not forget the gender gap in social media salaries...something that seemed plenty news-worthy to me yet you read nary a whisper of in the billions of social media blogs, industry newsletters, white papers, press releases, etc. You're telling me that it is not blog-worthy, news-worthy or any other kind of worthy to pause to wonder why the ONE social marketing compensation study done recently reports that "On average, the female participants earned an annual salary of $64k, which is significantly lower than the average annual salary for men, which was close to $104k"? Here's the thing: IF NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT THIS NOW IT WILL ONLY CONTINUE AND GET WORSE.

Social media is such a new field that there aren't many established benchmarks so it's the Wild West as far as salaries are concerned. There are consultants out there charging thousands of dollars a month and providing nothing--I've heard and seen LOTS of this. A guy charging $10,000 a month to maintain a company's Twitter and Facebook Accounts and giving excuses every month about why there are only a handful of followers/fans. Companies being clueless enough to continue to pay that. Big-name firms offering social media strategy and services for tens of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--of dollars, while the staff performing those functions don't even come up in so much as a Google search--let alone have active social media presences themselves.

Then the flip-side; interns or low-level staffers successfully managing their companies social media presences totally under the radar, making peanuts and being required to be on call 24/7. I've heard from people who make salaries in the twenty-thousand range whose bosses are requiring that they check Twitter and Facebook literally around the clock and respond to any/all issues immediately. Plenty of people in low-paying positions writing their companies' social media policies and procedures, managing their social media presences--doing the work that consultants or agency staff make a mint doing--and having to take side jobs to pay their rent. LOTS of ads--especially in the DC area--looking for volunteers to manage an organization's social media strategy/presences. I'm talking create strategy and content, do blogger and community outreach, analyze and report data, train staff...the same stuff others are getting paid a fortune to do. But for free, or almost free.

What say you? Is this no different than any other job/field and therefore totally not noteworthy, or are others noticing these same kinds of discrepancies?

Americans as Concerned with Computer Viruses as H1N1

Would you be more likely to safeguard yourself from a computer virus or a human virus like H1N1? If you said computer virus, you are among the 49% of Americans who are more likely to protect yourself from attacks by malware such as spyware, Trojan horses, and phishing than bacteria that can cause viruses like the flu.

With millions of Americans storing critical data and personal information online, computer viruses carry increased threats to our daily lives. The most common cause of computer malware are websites that download and install files without your consent. They can also come from files on USB drives, portable hard drives, CDs, email attachments, and sites that share files. The primary intent of viruses isn’t to harm the functionality of your computer. Their main goal is to hide and live on your computer undetected so they can replicate and spread in order to provide their creator with profit.

Just like good hygiene and hand washing can prevent the spread of seasonal viruses, computer viruses are preventable. Independent research conducted by Kelton Research indicates that while we are more likely to ward off an attack on our computers, only 3 out of 5 of us are confident we would know the correct course of action to take if our computer was infected.

Here are some basic tips to prevent a computer virus:

• Use a security solution but be aware that there are many fake security software solutions that masquerade as malicious applications. Malicious applications tell you that your computer is highly infected and urge you to buy their product immediately. Such messages will persist until you give in and pay, therefore allowing their creator to profit. To avoid this scenario, do some research about what is available from trusted leaders in the internet security industry by reading third party reviews by institutions and review magazines who test and evaluate a wide range of security products.
• Be aware of the websites you and your family visit. Clicking on links from friends, social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, or through instant messenger applications could potentially infect your machine. The random clicking that your child does on the family computer could also lead to a malware installation. Also, never click on a link from an unknown source. Kelton Research found that nearly 1 in 4 people admitted to clicking on a shortened link from someone they didn’t know.
• Scan your CDs, USB flash drives, and other removable devices before opening the files on them and also scan your computer periodically to check its health. BitDefender makes free tools that provide immediate checks at quickscan.bitdefender.com
• Keep your computer up to date by installing the software updates. Even though it may take a little time to install and restart your machine, you will save yourself a lot of time in the long run by making your computer less vulnerable to malware.
• Remember that internet security and antivirus software needs to be purchased every year. BitDefender makes software good for multiple years at a time but an expired license can make you susceptible to viruses if you don’t purchase another security system in a timely manner.

Even though the Kelton Research study found low awareness about computer security, most Americans know to take advantage of basic antivirus software to scan their machines. If you have found that you computer is infected, most paid and free antivirus solutions can disinfect your computer, or at least provide you with the name of the virus. If you know the name of the virus, visit known security companies’ websites to find free disinfection tools to rid your computer of the virus.

“While computer viruses have always posed a significant threat to consumers, this study confirms our view that Americans are now valuing their ‘digital lives’ more than ever before,” said Catalin Cosoi, senior researcher at BitDefender. “Our lives revolve around computers and the Web, and in order to keep private information safe there needs to be more education around basic safety practices.”

This article was provided as exclusive content by BitDefender because of my role as a BitMom Blog Network Member. No compensation was received for sharing this post however, BitMoms is providing me with a $250 blog conference stipend and other materials to help me facilitate sharing topics of internet safety and security with my readers and through the BitMom Community. Survey data in this article was determined by Kelton Research through a random sample of the US population ages 18 and over.

About BitDefender®- BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry's fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. Every day, BitDefender protects tens of millions of home and corporate users across the globe — giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their digital experiences will be secure. More information about BitDefender and its products are available on the company’s website.

Peer Influence, Association Bloggers and New Advertising Models

A few things have happened lately that have me wondering about blog revenue models and opportunities for association-related businesses.

First thing that happened was that I decided to stop running BlogHer ads on this blog because I was making a whopping $3 a month and having to dedicate a huge portion of my right sidebar to ads that were of no real relevance to my readers. There are enough things in life that are not optional--like answering to a boss (if you're me and not interested in working for yourself)--but having to get emails from BlogHer telling me that my ad block has moved too far down the page and can I please move it up? Sorry but having to answer to someone else about the layout of my own blog? So I can earn $3 a month? Yeah, thanks but no thanks--I'll pass.

So there's that. Clearly the BlogHer ad model doesn't work for bloggers like me--who don't have millions of views per month but who have a decent following of loyal readers.

Then I read this post about Peer Influence Analysis. I'm going to make you read the post because there's a lot of good info there, but the thing that stuck out at me was this point: people's influence on each other rivals online advertising. And this one: peer impressions are more credible than advertising, since they come from friends.

So if I'm active in the association space and my blog is read by other association professionals, wouldn't that mean that maybe companies whose target audience is my blog audience might want to advertise on my blog? And/or other association bloggers blogs? How would something like that work? Could it work? Or would it be conceived as unethical--association staff taking money from vendors on their personal blogs but remaining impartial when it comes to any business relationship in the context of their jobs? And, for that matter, what about associations buying ads on their members' blogs? Or trading a discount on conference registration or products in exchange for ads for a meeting or product?

Thoughts?

Review: ProFlowers

I don't usually do product reviews, but when I saw ProFlowers no-nonsense blogger outreach, I decided to give it a try. No PR pitches, no crazy stipulations--just pick a product and we'll send it to you and you tell your readers what you think. Fair enough.

I picked the Spa Getaway Basket. It arrived promptly on the day they told me I'd receive it and, in my excitement over how awesome it looked, I tore off the plastic before taking a photo of it. Whoops. So I took one after...still awesome looking, if not as nice as with the plastic and bow still on it.

What's not to love about a Spa Getaway Basket? I would definitely send this to someone...or to myself.

Thanks ProFlowers!

**Disclosure: I received this gift basket from Proflowers for review purposes and allowed to post my thoughts at my discretion. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post & was not obligated to give a positive review of the product. **

Think Your Lurkers Aren't Engaged? Think Again

This week's #assnchat (which, sadly, I missed) was about lurkers--are they valuable, how do you engage them, do you track them, etc. Even though I missed it, I apparently have lurkers on the brain, because when I read this post from Suzemuse, lurkers were the first thing I thought of.

Watch this video, from Suze's post, if you're wonder what I'm talking about--and pay special attention 3 minutes, 24 seconds in. Oh, and you might want to grab a tissue too....



There is so much noise in the world today, and in the social media space we put far too high of a premium on measuring only what we can see happening online: retweets, followers, fans, mentions. Just because someone doesn't retweet your message doesn't mean it didn't have an impact on them, or that they didn't share or pay it forward or be moved to some type of action. Just because we can't include it on our dashboard or spreadsheet doesn't mean it didn't happen or isn't important.

It's ok if your audience is quiet.

Association Blog Dilemma

If you read this blog regularly you know I'm a big fan of "What if?" questions or dilemmas. I haven't had a good one for a while. So here's one I'd be interested to hear some association peeps' takes on.

Everyone's a blogger these days--including your members. Some write about their personal lives, some write about professional issues. Sometimes they write about your association. Sometimes good things, sometimes bad things. But usually when they do, it's a quip or comment here or there, and they get back to writing about other stuff.

But what if one of your members started a blog devoted entirely to bashing your association? Set up a Twitter account for the blog, from which they followed every single one of your association's Twitter followers in an attempt to attract readers. Started posting weekly rants dedicated to exposing "facts" about your association...facts which, in reality, are not facts. Systematically attacked fellow members, association staff and executives--even entire groups of members based on gender or sexual preference. Nasty stuff, presented in a non-constructive, mean-spirited way, on an ongoing basis. Offensive, slanderous, factually incorrect, and just flat-out, well, crazy. Think rants like those left by the guy who flew into the IRS building.

What would you do? Look the other way and chalk it up to free speech? Or does there ever come a time when someone decides if this person hates the association so much maybe he/she shouldn't be permitted to be a member anymore?

Please weigh in--I'm interested to hear some different takes on this. Thanks!

Yes, I am an iPhone 4 Sucker

Ah, the glory of being able to roll out of bed and talk to yourself, record it, upload it to YouTube then turn it into a blog post....