Marketing Monster

I’m proud to be a contributing writer to Technically Women, a new collaborative blog that launched yesterday. As our About page reads:

Technically Women comprises a group of women from all walks of business. This blog presents our unique views on how technology is shifting our world. The women are business owners, marketers, evangelists and leaders. The idea for Technically Women stemmed from a “women and leadership” piece penned by Dennis Howlett, which brought several of these women together to share their unique views on the current state of business. We decided to keep the conversation going and bring in some additional voices.

The participating women are amazing and accomplished, and I’m humbled to be in their company:

Cathy Brooks (@CathyBrooks)
Laura Fitton (@Pistachio)
Maggie Fox (@MaggieFox)
Rachel Happe (@rhappe)
Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter)
Francine McKenna (@retheauditors)
Anne Kathrine Petterøe (@yojibee)
Marilyn Pratt (@MarilynPratt)
Susan Scrupski (@ITSinsider)

Here’s an excerpt from in my inaugural post entitled The Gender Card, which looks at my how I came to my approach toward the topic of  women in technology and business.

Let me state right from the start, I do not like playing the gender card. Sweeping generalizations about how men and women “are” make me bristle. I do not consciously frame myself in this world as a woman first. I am a person. I am unique. I happen to be female in gender. And in part, because of that, I often resist believing that there are any barriers to entry in positions or fields.

I encourage  you to explore the diverse viewpoints in Technically Women, offer up your feedback and, if you feel so inclined, follow @Tech_Women on Twitter to keep up to date.

Thanks.

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• @Pistachio’s TechStars Startup Gets Funded Fifteen Days Into Program (readwriteweb.com)

UK retailer Habitat recently made a misstep by hijacking hashtags to get their message seen. The practice is popular among spammers who use trending topic keywords in unrelated tweets to get their message in front of more people. For example, a search on one of today’s popular hashtags, HTC Hero - a new phone -  revealed these get-rich-quick spammers:

But when grave topics with hashtags like #iranelection #neda and #iran are hijacked for make-millions-online pyramid schemes, the practice becomes immoral. And that’s where Habitat landed a few days ago.

The BBC reported that @HabitatUK was posted   “HabitatUK: #MOUSAVI Join the database for free to win a £1,000 gift card” and other similar tweets using unrelated hash tags. The Twitter backlash was quick to comment on how HabitatUK were exploiting Iran to sell their brand and tarnishing their image. The BBC continued, “When asked whether an outside firm had been responsible for the strategy their spokesman declined to give details.” So much for transparency.

Whether the person Tweeting was an internal employee or an outsourced agent, it’s clear that they were inexperienced enough at representing a brand on Twitter that they were unaware of best practices. The push model of their Twitter account - advertising merchandise, following few, not conversational - is typical of traditional marketing practices and does not translate well to social media. It is particularly unforgiving when a brand makes a misstep in these waters.

Habitat claims that the errant communications were not approved and that they were not responsible for the hashtag hijacking tactic. In the end, if those who were overseeing the Twitter account at the management level were more involved in the social media tactics they chose to employ, they would have known and discussed what is an acceptable engagement strategy with the person doing the updates. That this incident happened at all - whether by an employee or outsourced - exposes Habitat of being yet another company jumping on the Twitter bandwagon without knowing what they are doing.

Habitat has since apologized, interestingly via the very blogger that broke the story. @HabitatUK has deleted it’s offending tweets, but the Internet is forever and they will live on in the search cache. With mainstream media the BBC, Sky News, and the Guardian all running stories, and blogs picking up on the debacle, Habitat’s bad judgment will live on. The challenge for them now is if they will overcome their ignorance and mishandling by participating more in the media that they choose to use. I hope for them that they become the poster child of best practices and not just one of the worst examples of how a brand uses Twitter.

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• HabitatUK apologises for Twitter hashtag issue (socialmediatoday.com)
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• Battling Spam in Iran Election Tweets (blogs.wsj.com)

I saw this in Dave Winer’s FriendFeed stream and thought this was hilarious. Twitter has become so over-hyped in mainstream media these days, that I’m getting used to people responding at its mention in a negative, eye-rolling way. I loved that the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien was able to poke fun at the celebrity Twitter hysteria in such a creative way. Laughing is a great way to start your week.

Ever wonder about the early days of Twitter? Long before @Oprah and @aplusk, many social media and technology early adopters hopped on board helping to spur the service forward. If you’ve ever wanted to do an historical study of Twitter, then I’ve got three services that will give you a snapshot of what it was like when you, or anyone else, were mere Twitter Hatchlings.

When Did You Join Twitter tells you just that. Nothing fancy. But it’s fascinating to see what dates some of the old school social media types joined. It appears October 24, 2006 is a landmark date for Twitter, attracting these early adopter hatchlings: @ChrisBrogan, @newmediajim (Jim Long), @BobGoyetche, @Julien (Julien Smith) and @jmoonah (Jay Moonah).

This sets up some interesting trivia:

• Bob Goyetche and Julien Smith were 2 of the very first podcasters in Canada, and both live in Montreal (like me).

• Bob Goyetche co-founded the PodCasters Across Borders conference, while Chris Brogan co-founded PodCamp. Jay Moonah co-founded PodCamp Toronto and was also an early podcaster.

• Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have gone on to write a book together.

• Both Bob Goyetche and Jim Long have said that they heard about Twitter from Chris Brogan. Jay Moonah said he got an invite from someone at the very first PodCamp in Boston, possibly Chris.

Looking at these early adopters started me thinking about how things go viral. What happened on October 24, 2006 for so many to join the fledgling service? Could Brogan be Patient Zero in the Twitter-gone-viral scenario?

It’s interesting to note that @Scobleizer (Robert Scoble) joined almost a month later than this bunch did, on November 20, 2006.

I’ve always known that I joined April 27, 2007 (Happy 2nd Twitterversary to me!) But it was fun to see that my friend, micro-sharing for business expert @Pistachio (Laura Fitton)  joined the same month, on April 5, 2007.

My First Follow is another great Twitter app from @dacort (Damon Cortesi), who built three of my favouites, DM Whacker, TweetStats and TweepSearch. My First Follow tells you the first 10 people you followed (provided you’re still following them).

My first 10 Twitter follows were:

@julien, @davidusher, @acrossthesound, @jaffejuice, @mynameiskate, @Scobleizer, @socialmediaclub, @shel, @steverubel and @shelisrael.

MyFirstTweet resurrects your long lost first words on Twitter. But, sadly, the service is a little unreliable. Good thing I took a screen shot of mine ages ago.

Use When Did You Join Twitter , My First Follow and MyFirstTweet to do your own historical research of when you too were just a Twitter hatchling.

And if you know who is Twitter Patient Zero, or why so many joined on October 24, 2006, please, let me know!

UPDATE 05/05/09: Thanks to Jay Moonah for providing some additional background information:

Your post got me interested so I dug into my old email file — it appears I got Twitter invites from Chris Brogan and Beth Kanter (http://twitter.com/kanter) on the auspicious date, both of whom I did indeed meet at Podcamp Boston, and both of whom have many thousands of followers more than me… not that I’m bitter. Anyway, I suspect most of the folks you named here also got invited by someone they met at the first Podcamp.

Part of message Chris wrote made me laugh reading it now: “Not exactly spam, but I just wanted to try and add you to my twitter account (which is this um.. I don’t know.. the guys from Odeo made it).“

Hi! Remember me? I was the one that used to blog about marketing and social media on a reasonably regular basis. Ringing any bells?

Those of us who’ve been practitioners in social media for a while are familiar with it, struggle with it, scratch our heads and wonder how others do it: How do you keep everything balanced without burning out?

The number one question that I’ve had from people curious about starting in social media is always about the amount of time that is needed to participate. It is a time suck, for sure. That’s not to say it’s not a worthwhile time suck, because it most assuredly is. But, let’s be realistic, it does take time and commitment to keep all of those balls in the air.

As a sole practitioner, delegation is not always an option for me (yet). So, between maintaining business/social networks, keeping up with industry developments, creating content, doing client work, nurturing new business and collaborating on some exciting new service offerings, my plate has been full.

Let’s add some life to that too. There’s my my responsibility to being a full participant in my family, because they will always come first. And, the need to maintain a few offline friendships, hoping that those whom I don’t contact regularly are understanding. Notice here that I haven’t even touched on any “me” time for personal development. You know, like taking a course in juggling.

I was headed towards a lethal combination of entrepreneur and social media burnout. Not good when you consider that my livelihood is dependent on being a marketing entrepreneur specializing in social media.

Something had to give. Actually, a few things did. This blog was one of them. But the break from trying to do it all was good for me.

In the meantime, the folks at Hubspot have revealed what I always suspected  about how Chris Brogan can do so much.

Now it’s time to get back to this blog and other things left undone (thanking the Google gods for the Mark All As Read button). Learning to keep a balance and maintain perspective is an ongoing process. For those of you along for the ride, thank you for your patience.

If you have any tips or wisdom about balancing business, social media and a personal life while maintaining your sanity, please share!