Spark Minute » Tech debate

Build Strong Industry Relationships Through Content Marketing

David Spark — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:37:09 +0000

Last week I got to appear on Murray Newlands’ show “Future of Engagement.” We talked about how content marketing has become all the rage as of late. It’s been around for a while, but I’m happy that everyone thinks it’s “all the rage” because it makes my company appear a little more hip. Regardless, we talk for about six minutes on content marketing, how it’s necessary to be visible when people are trading information via social media and seeking it via search. That’s why we stand by our credo that “Content is the currency of social media and search.”

Content also becomes a point of contact, an icebreaker, or development step for relationship building.

Watch the short interview, especially to see the absolute worst angle and close up of my giant misshaped head.

13 Annoying Communications that Must End in 2012

David Spark — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:58:58 +0000

Last year I wrote a list of 16 annoying communications that must end in 2011. It was one of my most popular articles of the year. I guess my readers just love to hear me complain. Given that my crankiness is in demand, I decided to put together a new list of annoying communications for the new year.

Shortening someone’s name right after you’ve been introduced

Almost everyone who has a long first name, for which there are many shortened versions, must deal with this. If someone says their name, call them by that name and no other version. If a person introduces themselves as “Elizabeth” then that’s what you call her. You may want to call her “Liz” but that’s not what she wants. So don’t do it.

What’s far more irritating is when the name shortening happens immediately after an introduction.

“My name is Robert.”

“Hi Rob.”

“Hi Shmuck.”

Not remembering someone’s name right after you’ve been introduced

I’m monstrously guilty of this as I can immediately forget someone’s name the instant they tell it to me. Others who are guilty of this will declare, “I’m so bad at remembering names.” Nice try. Announcing your fallibility is not an excuse. Unless you’re being introduced to the entire choir, be in the moment and remember people’s names. If you need to, use some tricks such as associate that person with someone else you know with the same name. If it’s a name you’ve never heard before, repeat it back to make sure you’re pronouncing it correctly.

Tagging objects as people in Facebook photos

This was funny the first time, but not anymore. Especially now that Facebook puts thumbnails of your five most recent photos at the top of your profile. If you don’t want people thinking you’re a bowl of spaghetti or the hooded assassin in a New Yorker cartoon, you need to untag yourself.

Tagging people in Facebook articles just to get them to read them

I’m more than happy to accept a personal email or a Facebook message, but to tag me in an article on Facebook just to get me to read it is obnoxious. The Facebook wall is an individual’s public expression, and it’s not designed for you to promote your crap. This was a major problem with MySpace as people would post photos of whatever they were selling on their friends’ walls. The site just became a useless marketplace for digital graffiti and we now see what’s happened to that.

Opening a panel discussion by allowing the panelists to first talk about themselves

This irritates me to no end, and it’s an incredibly lazy move by the moderator. If you have four panelists, and you give them five minutes each to talk about their business “just to set the stage” you’ve wasted 20 minutes on information NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR. The audience has a program with speaker bios, let them read it on their own. The moderator should just give a one line introduction to each and then begin the session. Unfortunately, that’s just one way that most panel discussions suck. To make your panel session not suck, download and read my article, “More Schmooze, Less Snooze: How to Deliver ‘The Most Talked About’ Panel Session.”

Asking a blogger, “Can you blog something for me?”

This is thankfully not as bad as it used to be, but I still get these completely inappropriate requests. Blogging is a job. There may not be direct income from it, but it can be used to build an industry brand and create relationships. Making this request is asking, “Can I intrude in on your personal brand? Would you promote something you know little to nothing about? Would you do some work for me for free?”

It’s often a thoughtless request with the hope of just getting free press.

The most egregious case of this I’ve ever received is spelled out in this two-part story, “Hey PR, Bloggers Are Not Tools to Be Used.”

When this type of request is OK is when someone who you do know and have a relationship with asks you to retweet something on Twitter or to “Like” something on Facebook. It’s a sign of support and assuming it doesn’t infringe the brand you’re trying to create, it takes little to zero time to do.

Stringing people along

Whether dating or in business, there’s nothing more annoying and rude than giving someone hope by stringing them along with an “I’m so busy, call me next month” response. I don’t care how important you think you are, no one is truly that busy that they can’t give the person the current status even if they don’t know what the current status is. It could be as simple as “I have no information for you now, and it’s not looking promising, but you’re welcome to follow up in a month if you want.”

This only works if you actually connect with the person on the phone or in person. If you send a lot of emails or leave a lot of phone messages and get no response, take the hint. The recipient is not required to email or call back every person to tell them nothing is happening.

Attaching videos and uncompressed photos to emails

Most of us 45 and under don’t make this mistake. It’s the fault of our parents and grandparents who just learned how to attach a file to an email.

“Did you get the wedding video? I attached it.”

It’s our responsibility to show the older generations how to use YouTube, Kodak Gallery, or any of the hundreds of other video and photo sharing services.

Not understanding what BCC is

With every email we send, we see the To:, CC:, and BCC: fields. After at least 15 years experience writing emails, we should all know the difference. Sadly, at least once a year, we receive an email with 50 people in the CC: field. Inevitably someone will hit “Reply to All” in a response just to the sender. Then someone else will hit “Reply to All” and tell everyone to stop hitting “Reply to All.” What fun.

For more, read “Social Media ‘Gurus’ and Bloggers Are Egotistical Jerks.”

Sharing without consumption

This is the behavior of liking, sharing, or retweeting a piece of content without reading, listening, or watching it. It’s often done as a favor to a friend (e.g., “Would you retweet something for me?”). More often it’s a means to game online popularity to build your own social media profile. We can now see actual results of this as others are putting weight on social reputation services such as Klout and Kred.

These services unfortunately have a major fallibility that awards the content sharer rather than the content creator. For example, if someone tweets this blog post without my Twitter handle (@dspark), and then they’re retweeted, then their Klout score is increased, but mine isn’t. Therefore, the “klout” goes to the person who shared the content, not the person who created it. This happens all the time.

Hiring companies that are looking for employees with audiences are now using these services as benchmarks. One friend applied for a job which required him to have a Klout score of at least 30.

For an egregious case of sharing without consumption read “Here’s What’s Wrong With Social Media: Sharing Without Consumption” and for more supporting data read my Mashable article “Why Sharing Online Content Might Be Too Easy.”

Cross posting all tweets to Facebook

Does anyone enjoy this? Thankfully Facebook doesn’t reward this lazy type of posting. Most of these reposted tweets will not show up in your newsfeed. People who turn the Twitter app on in Facebook just end up clogging their profile page. In the end, it only reflects poorly on the user.

Wishing “Happy Birthday” on Facebook

I know I’m going to get a lot of heat for this, but in all the years people have said the phrase, “It’s the least I could do,” this truly is, outside of doing nothing at all, “The least you can do.” Nothing says, “I barely care,” then to type “Happy Birthday” on someone’s profile page.

If you do truly want to wish someone “Happy Birthday” then do something else, anything else other than just typing “Happy Birthday.” It’s great that Facebook reminds us when people have birthdays. Use that as a chance to reconnect with the person with a positive message about them or your relationship with them. Or, better yet, send a personal video message through Facebook. For more, read “I Just Sent 555 Personalized Video Holiday Greeting Cards-How I Did It.”

Please, just do anything else, write anything else, beyond just “Happy Birthday.”

Facebook pages that require you to hit the “Like” button just to see the content on the page

This is really obnoxious, and it’s a method of gatekeeping content. The fan page is requiring me to make a commitment before I can see the content. This goes hand-in-hand with having a splash screen with a giant arrow that says, “Click our ‘Like’ button.”

It’s not the best way to treat and talk to your audience.

“We want to capture you so we can send more ad messages to you. Problem is we also believe you’re an idiot, so we have to tell you what icon to click.”

Now it’s your turn to complain

There’s got to be more things that annoy you. What have I missed?

Creative Commons photo credit to Dan Taylor, JAXPORT, and Adam Tinworth.

Stock photos of angry guy, confused person, and name tag from Shutterstock.

This Week’s Beancast: The End of CES and Who Defines Decency

David Spark — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:04:10 +0000

Last night I recorded this week’s episode of the Beancast with host Bob Knorpp (@TheBeanCast). We discussed digital branding, the end of CES, who defines decency and people not wanting to talk to brands. Joining me and Bob on the show were Bill Green (@mtlb), Creative Strategist, BFG Communications (Host of the Adverve podcast and The Adverve Blog), Tonya Hall (@tonyahallradio) host of Tonya Hall Radio, and Tom Martin (@tommartin) Founder, Converse Digital.

Listen to the show (Time: 1:02).

How to Fail at Content Marketing

David Spark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:35:29 +0000

Screwing up at content marketing is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do. In fact, I see far more content marketing failures than I see organizations doing it well. It’s an honest mistake an organization makes. For most, content marketing is new territory and rarely are we good at something the very first time we do it.

I have witnessed and unfortunately been part of many of the following mistakes. If you’re just starting out with content marketing, you are almost definitely making some of these mistakes. Almost all of my clients have at one time dealt with these issues and in some cases may still be dealing with them.

Hire an ad agency or PR firm

As the communications landscape changes, traditional ad agencies and PR firms have been offering more services to satisfy their clients’ needs, such as content marketing. Seems natural, right? Communications firms know how to write and produce video for marketing purposes, it should be a natural shift to do the same editorially. It’s not.

Unless an ad agency or PR firm already has a staff of former journalists and TV producers, it’s not a natural shift just like it wouldn’t be a natural shift for a journalist to start writing marketing copy.

Yes, ad agencies and PR firms without a seasoned editorial staff can physically create media, but it’s like hiring a general practitioner when you need a specialist. A GP can only sort of help you.

I’m sure I’ll get a lot of heat for this comment as many ad agencies and PR firms are basing a lot of their new business on content marketing. I’m all for that, just as long as they have an experienced staff to do it. That requires hiring people who have worked in traditional journalistic media, not just giving new responsibilities to staffers who don’t have the experience or training. Traditional media is very different from creating ad copy.

Treat content marketing like marketing

This is one of the net results of hiring an ad agency or PR firm to do content marketing. Because their head is so steeped in creating marketing and delivering for the client, it’s very hard to break away from it. Heck “marketing” is in the title of “content marketing” so why not treat it like marketing?

People are forced to watch ads, but they self-select content. If it appears that your content is really marketing in disguise, consumers will sniff it out and avoid it. There are exceptions to this rule such as truly entertaining Superbowl commercials that people like to watch on YouTube.

The core problem is in the name “content marketing.” It sounds insidious. We’re giving you content, but we have an ulterior motive and that’s to market to you. I have used the phrase content marketing to categorize my business, Spark Media Solutions, solely because it’s understood and people use those words when they’re conducting Google searches on the subject. I used to use the synonymous term “custom publishing” but unfortunately it’s become rather dated and only people in the industry know what it means. What I now use, which I think is a more apt title that speaks to the viewpoint and the skills needed is “brand journalism.”

Try content on a limited basis, and give up quickly

I have sadly seen too many examples that I will not show in order to protect the guilty. As I mentioned in a previous article, “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Consider When Developing a Social Media Strategy,” you have to calculate time into your strategy. Rarely do companies have that kind of patience with any communications. It’s understandable that if you spend money you’ll want to see some results for your efforts. The problem is measuring a content marketing campaign is unlike measuring a marketing campaign. Content’s value is cumulative. Initially, you won’t see the results like you would from a pure marketing effort, but over time results will increase, sometimes dramatically.

No magazine built a brand with its first issue. It takes many issues, trial and error, to build an editorial voice, a brand, and a following.

Don’t get involved in social media

Traditional marketing doesn’t require involvement with your audience. It’s something that can be outsourced and you don’t have to get your hands dirty. Not the case with social a social engagement which should be part of any content marketing effort. Unlike most services, this isn’t one that someone can “just do for you.” You need to take a level of responsibility yourself, and that requires building a social presence and that takes time.

Have a narrow view of production

A good number of my initial engagements begin with “We want to make a video” and immediately the first question is “How much does that cost?” Which is the equivalent of asking, “How long is a piece of string?”

In all cases, someone who wants to “make a video” has a bigger problem to solve, and that gets into discussions of strategy and whether this video will be the solution to that strategy. But a greater concern of mine is that if you focus all your efforts on just one video it can get very costly to just create a single item and that means you’re putting a pretty heavy gamble on one single piece of content. Conversely, I’m a big fan of one effort, multiple units of content. For example, instead of going to a conference and producing one video of the event, why not produce multiple videos, articles, photos, a podcast, and maybe also a summary of the event? All of that is going to yield much greater output, make you more visible, and your per unit (video, article, photos, podcasts) costs will be a fraction of that original video you wanted to create.

For more, read “Be the Voice^SM” – Build Your Business by Becoming your Industry’s Thought Leader.

Have extremely high expectations about traffic

This coincides with giving up quickly. I’ve had huge clients for which the employees eat, sleep, and drink the company Kool-Aid. If you’re so steeped in it you lose perspective and think the rest of the world has been itching to hear more about you and once your story gets out there they’re going to be busting down your doors.

It’s not going to happen. Unless you already have a brand with an extreme loyal following, no one cares about you. Everyone cares about themselves.

Believe there’s a direct correlation between site traffic and inbound sales calls

It rarely works that way. Have you ever purchased something solely after reading an article or seeing a video a single time? Probably not, so don’t believe there are some other people out there that do. Direct sales shouldn’t be content marketing’s purpose. That’s the purpose of marketing. Content marketing helps you build greater brand affinity. It plays into many other critical factors, such as:

Increasing brand value
Increasing audience trust
Humanizing your business
Connecting with industry influencers
Creating assets to be traded via social media
Creating assets that are visible in search
Increasing the value of your services

The asset itself and the process of creating it is what creates value.

Conclusion: Pay attention to your audience first

Self-centeredness with content production only works for a select few that have already established a powerful brand. For organizations that are just starting out you must always play to your audience. It’s a great rule of thumb. Before you create any piece of content ask yourself, “Why would anyone care about this?” If there isn’t a compelling reason, then move on to another content effort. Remember, unlike traditional marketing, content marketing is user selected. Make something the user wants to select.

Fail, traffic, and cameraman photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

Our 6 Favorite Debates of 2011

David Spark — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:00:23 +0000

Whether I’m initiating the controversy, or the debate comes about of a question I ask, I love a good argument. Here are six of my favorite debates, complaints, and arguments of 2011

1. Top 9 Unsubstantiated Accusations of Brand Journalism

Spark Media Solutions is a custom publishing firm with a social media bent, or as I have rebranded it, a brand journalism firm. It makes more sense as we still behave as journalists, but we’re doing it from the editorial viewpoint (not marketing) of the company. While we’ve got happy customers, the “brand journalism” industry has not fared as well. This article provides some clarity to the confusion, and opens up a little bit of debate as well.

2. 21 of the Most Insulting Business Requests

If you’re ever feeling down about your career or think nobody respects you, then you need to read this article. I asked people around the Internet what were some of the most insulting requests for work they’ve ever received. You may have had it bad, but you haven’t had it as bad as some of these people.

3. 16 Annoying Communications that Must End in 2011

This is hands down my most popular article. Wow, this piece really struck a chord with people as they agreed heartily with most, and yet had some disagreement on a few. For example, not everyone would come on board with my complete disinterest in my friends’ photographs of their meal.

4. 10 Ways Meetings Suck and How to Fix Them

Unless your company has come to its senses and completely revamped the way it handles meetings, in general most meetings suck and they’re pure drudgery for the people who have to be in them. Often the only person who is interested is the person leading the meeting. If you’re that person, take charge and make your meeting suck less.

5. 10 Tales of Condescending Morale Boosting Efforts

So often companies talk about “What can we do to improve morale?” And instead of just treating people with basic respect and listening to their issues, they try to come up with a party or some idiotic game to “improve morale.” The people you hired are not stupid and therefore they’re not going to be thrown by such a ruse. These tales were so astonishingly horrible, especially the one company who hired a clown to improve morale. Uggh.

6. Why Sharing Online Content Might Be Too Easy

I once posted a video entitled, “How to Get Everyone to Watch Your Video.” It appeared to be very popular because it was getting lots of shares via social media. But then I looked at the view counts and witnessed that there were more shares than their were views. Meaning people were sharing my video without even watching it. In a report that I wrote for Mashable, I wanted to prove that people share content without consuming it. This was probably the most difficult piece I’ve ever researched because the data on this subject doesn’t exist. I was able to uncover some more starting examples of sharing without consumption.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

Our 10 Favorite Videos of 2011

David Spark — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:17:34 +0000

The year is wrapping up and while I posted Our 10 Funniest Videos of 2011, I also wanted to post our favorite non-funny yet really interesting, videos. Here they are.

1. A tour of an IndyCar steering wheel

This year Spark Media Solutions began covering IndyCar Racing. While we loved interviewing all the drivers, the geek in me wanted to learn more about the technology. Here’s a very simple explanation of all the buttons and readouts on an IndyCar steering wheel as explained by an engineer on Simona de Silvestro’s racing team.

2. The Best of the SocialDevCamp Hackathon

By putting a severe time limit on an open-ended project it forces the participant to rise to their fullest potential or completely give up and fail. That is the architecture of a hackathon and it always makes a great story. For 36 hours at SocialDevCamp in Chicago I followed all the participants as they struggled to come up with an idea, work with their team, parse out responsibilities, execute, and present their project without failing. Oh yes, and do all that with little sleep and very little bathing. This nine-minute video tells the whole story.

3. What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you about development?

At the same conference with the SocialDevCamp hackathon, I asked the throngs of developers about tips they learned that inspired them to become developers. Some really great tips here, even if you’re not a developer.

4. What do you wish you knew about web development two years ago that you know today?

At the Future of Web Apps conference in Las Vegas I got the developers to admit to past development failures that make a lot more sense today. Had they only known, development would have been a lot easier.

5. My interviews with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS

Here are my interviews with Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley after they broke the record for the most global online conversation using Ortsbo, a real-time chat translation tool. Both incredibly nice guys, and I learned that Gene Simmons has never uttered the phrase, “No comment.” He’s literally got an opinion on everything.

6. How do you energize word of mouth?

Word of mouth is arguably the best form of advertising. At an event Spark Media Solutions produced for Zuberance, the brand advocacy champions, I asked attendees what techniques they use to get people to talk about their product.

7. What game inspired you to be a game developer?

Game developers were gamers before they became game developers. For most, it took the inspiration of a certain game to become a game developer. At the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco I asked attendees, “What game inspired you to be a game developer?”

8. Andy Ihnatko’s take on Apple’s iPad 2 launch

Andy Ihnatko is a well known tech journalist and author, specifically about Macs and Apple. The two of us went to junior high together. While we knew each other when we were 13, we didn’t reconnect until both of us entered the world of tech journalism. Now, once a year, at MacWorld, Andy and I reconnect at the conference and I often get him on camera to talk about whatever the hot issue is in the world of Macs. This year, it was the introduction of the iPad2.

9. RSA Conference 2011: End of show report

The RSA Conference is the biggest conference every year about IT security. Everyone and everything in the industry is discussed at this event. Here’s my 5-minute summary of the event.

10. How to make your product go viral

A little known conference in the tech world is ICIS. It’s held every year in December, a poor time for conferences, but a great time for educators who are on winter break. This conference is for people who research and teach technology to young people entering the IT workforce. One of the people I spoke to was a doctoral student at NYU who had done some interesting research on online contagion.

Stock photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Our Best Tips and Advice from 2011

David Spark — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:00:41 +0000

Tips and advice seem to be the Internet’s most hotly traded commodity. Using my own experience but also tons of crowdsourcing techniques, I try to offer up tips, mostly in regards to social media and publishing. Reviewing what we wrote over the past year, I pulled out our favorite and most popular advice articles for 2011.

Thirty Innovative Recruiting Tips for 2012

I asked recruiters and business owners what their most unique recruiting tip was for 2012. I tied this article in with Spark Media Solutions’ coverage for Dice of the Recruiting Innovation Summit where we asked attendees to hold up speech bubble boards with their innovative recruiting tip for 2012. Check out the 100 photos, plus there’s video at the end of the article where we asked the very same question.

Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following

If you’re in the IT security industry, this is a must read and must follow list. This piece was written for Tripwire’s “State of Security” blog and is really a culmination of the people they’ve been paying attention to and following in the industry. What’s most valuable about the list aren’t the names, but the security tips each and everyone offered for the new year.

30 Tips on How to Interview Like a Journalist

This was a really fun crowdsourcing project where I asked fellow journalists to offer up some tips on interviewing. It really was a selfish exercise as I was trying to come up with some new techniques myself. I asked the question also on LinkedIn for Journalists and the conversation continues to get great answers.

Discussing Brand Journalism on DishyMix with Susan Bratton

I’ve interviewed Susan Bratton, founder of Personal Life Media, many times about how she created her online media network. She turned the tables and interviewed me about Spark Media Solutions. While I was explaining what I do, I offered up a ton of tips of how to get recognized at a live event utilizing brand journalism techniques.

10 Effective Techniques to Boost Employee Morale Without Increasing Salaries

A great crowdsourcing effort written by Spark Media Solutions’ Joy Powers. We got tons of really great advice from the community. We learned from our audience (and Daniel Pink) that money is not necessarily a motivating factor. This piece got picked up in a ton of locations including Ragan.com and the NYTimes.

Seven Ways You Can and Should Start Charging for Your Content

A round up of techniques you can use to get people to actually pay for your content. The trick to getting money is to actually demonstrate value or create a desire for more of your content. How badly do you want it? Are you willing to pay for it?

12 Tips on Approaching Bloggers

These tips came as a result of a panel discussion I moderated at the PR Summit in San Francisco. The room was filled with PR reps and the panel was filled with journalists. Here’s what came out of that debate.

How to Become One of the Most Respected Companies in Your Industry

This is a successful case study story of how Spark Media Soluti0ns worked with Tripwire to increase their recognition in the IT security industry, make connections and relations with key industry influencers, and overall improve their industry respect and reputation.

Will Your Company Ignore Your Social Media Strategy?

I see it happen time and time again. Companies get all worried that they don’t have a social media strategy so they hire a social media strategist to create one for them, and then no one follows through with it. That’s because every social media strategy requires everyone to participate. And trying to get people to change their behavior is a more complicated process than just developing a social media strategy.

HOW TO: Record, Publish, and Manage “a Video a Day” of Your Child

I became a father a year and a half ago and I started a project where I shot a short 1-minute video every day of my son. Eighteen months later the project is still going strong and I haven’t missed a day. Seems like a tantamount task, but it’s not. All it requires is a good strategy to plan everything out. I’ve done it for you, so you don’t have to. If you’re a new parent or know someone who is/will be a new parent, please forward this to them. I’m very happy that I started and kept up with this project and so is my wife, mother, and mother-in-law.

Four Solutions for Taking Collaborative Meeting Notes

It aggravates me so much when I come to a conference or meeting and I see everyone in the room repeating the same exact task. We’re all taking the same identical notes. Why not take advantage of the multiple bodies and minds focused on the same goal and create collaborative meeting notes? Here are four ways to do just that.

How to #Trend on Twitter

This is the most popular post/article on Spark Minute. It’s advice on how to create a trending topic. Most of the advice centers around creating trending topics at live events. I’ve actually had a lot of success with these techniques with my clients.

HOW TO: Jump-Start Your Career by Becoming an Online Influencer

This is a really successful article I wrote for Mashable earlier this year. Offers a “how to” guide with real practical advice to be an industry voice. It’s not easy, but these are the effective steps you’ll need to get you there.

Looking for a Social Media Strategy? Try This One.

“We need a social media strategy” is uttered in desperation. There’s this sense that others have capitalized on this social media bandwagon and you haven’t even got a ticket to take a hayride. In an effort to give people a good jumping off point, I wrote up this “all purpose” social media strategy that can work for most organizations. Start with this, and then begin to tweak for your needs.

Check out MORE great pieces from 2011

Our 10 Funniest Videos from 2011

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

Why people are unfollowing you on Twitter

David Spark — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:06:40 +0000

This blog post is a report being submitted for Intertainment Media, makers of desktop communications and content app, KNCTR, and real-time chat translation tool, Ortsbo.

I watch my Twitter followers go up and down all the time. Why is that happening? I must not be providing useful information or I must be irritating people. Or there could be some automated Tweeters that are following and unfollowing me. Who knows.

Whether you’re worried about it or not, there is often a reason that people stop following you. While it’s close to impossible to please all people all the time, it’s still a good idea to understand the most common reasons why people stop unfollowing on Twitter.

I’ve always been intrigued by the subject of unfriending or de-friending as I used to call it because the term “unfriend” had yet to take hold. See my piece for Mashable “12 Great Tales of De-Friending” and the Spark Minute piece “The Awkwardness of De-Friending.”

Three years ago when I wrote those pieces I employed a service called Qwitter (three years later it’s still in beta!) which would automatically email me every time someone unfollows me. Included in the email would be the last tweet the user saw before they decided to stop following me. I paid rapt attention to those tweets that appeared to have caused the unfollowing, until I realized I needed to spend my time a little more wisely (read: When Technology Tells Us We have No Friends).

The unfollowing discussion won’t disappear, and it sparked my interest again when I happened upon this discussion on Quora where people gave their list of reasons they unfollow on Twitter. Here’s my summary of those reasons with a few of my own sprinkled in.

11 Common Reasons Why People Unfollow

1. Too salesy – I think these two quotes sum it up perfectly:

“They’re all business, all the time. It’s like being stuck in an elevator with a salesman.” – Chris Velazquez, screenwriter.

“No one wants to meet the encyclopedia salesman in a party.” – Alan Firmin, Founder & CEO of Sqrall.com

2. Too much tweeting – This is usually my number one reason. I once unfollowed a very well known social media star because the first ten tweets in my feed were all his.

3. Sales pitches via DMs – I don’t know what it is, but via email I can handle it, but Twitter seems more personal, and it seems like a broken level of trust. For someone to send a DM you have to follow them as well. And it seems a violation of that unwritten rule of DM being a very personal non-sales channel.

4. Excessive cursing – I’m obviously not following the right people, because it doesn’t affect me, but many people complained about this problem. There was a time that if you did want a flood of cursing, you could head over to the site Cursebird which was a feed of tweets with profanity. Unfortunately, Cursebird was shut down in the middle of this year. DAMN IT!

5. Empty Twitter profile – Hard to trust someone when they’re not willing to present their identity to their audience. Without a bio or photo in the Twitter profile, how do I know who you are? And a link in that Twitter profile to your blog, LinkedIn page, Facebook page, or some other personalized page is key. Also, if you’re not willing to spend the time to upload a photo or write one sentence about yourself, why should I give you any of my time?

6. Irrelevant auto-posts from other social services – People checking in to Foursquare are the worst abusers of this. When this dominates your Twitter stream what value are you truly providing your followers?

7. Link-only tweeting – Some people only share links and while this can actually do wonders to build their Twitter brand and Klout score (see Why Sharing Online Content Might Be Too Easy), too much of it without conversation and discussion seems like they’ve got a personal brand building agenda.

8. Me, me, me, me, and did I mention, me? – Similar to the “too salesy” complaint is a person who just talks about themselves. Unless you’re a celebrity for which people want to hear every minute detail of your life, cool it.

9. Repetitive tweets – Sending out the same tweet over and over again to the same audience is like seeing the same advertisement over and over again. There’s a crossover point where each additional promotion has a negative effect and you start actively avoiding that person/brand.

10. Getting too political – We’re heading into another political season and watch this amp up considerably. Three years ago I witnessed this happen primarily on Facebook. People get very passionate and they can’t control their political views. Pushing your political views with statements such as “Why can’t people see…,” “You have to be an idiot to think…,” and “I’m so impressed with…” can sour a long standing friendship very quickly. Be careful about expressing your political views too strongly.

11. Depressing and complaining tweets – I actually haven’t been subject to this issue, but a few tweeters argued that constant negativity from fellow tweeters became a serious problem.

So now you know what it takes to get unfollowed.

Want to follow me, with the option to unfollow at any time? Find me on Twitter at @dspark and click “Follow.” And follow @ingaged_blog, the blog for Intertainment Media (the ones I filed this report) as well.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock. Creative Commons photo attribution to Gina Trapani.

Top 10 Things You Didn’t Consider When Developing Your Social Media Strategy

David Spark — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:53:46 +0000

This blog post is a report being submitted for Intertainment Media, makers of desktop communications and content app, KNCTR, and real-time chat translation tool, Ortsbo.

Developing a social media strategy is a never ending moving target. Regardless, there are some standard things almost everyone does, such as getting a Twitter account and a Facebook presence. Many often think that’s it: “Our social media strategy? Well, we’re on Twitter and Facebook.”

For basics on getting started read, “Looking for a social media strategy? Try this one.”

We all know that’s not enough, and even if you do a lot more, any social media strategy can truly have an endless number of moving parts. There’s always something you’re not doing. Still, I believe there are there are a number of critical issues that are often skipped or not fully thought through.

What could you possibly be missing with your social media strategy? Here are some suggestions:

1. Blocking social services is moot

If your company still has a policy to block services such as YouTube and Facebook, it’s completely pointless. The penetration of smartphones in your office is very high, and any service you may be blocking via the corporate network can be access through a mobile phone. In addition, many of those phones have their own hotspots so people could use their mobile phone’s wifi to circumvent any service blocking you have. If you believe your employees are using these social services unproductively, then it’s your job to train them to do otherwise.

2. Simplify discovery of what’s most important

It’s not too hard to find us fall into the trap of link overload. So often sites try to point people to everything all at the same time. Nick Bilton of the NY Times did a really interesting study where he analyzed 98 of the most popular sites just to see how many links they have on a single page. The results were surprising. Huffington Post had 720 links on a single page. Other well known sites had more than 500 and 400 links on just one page.

It’s impossible to put all your social media efforts on everything. Some people will be more involved in Twitter, a discussion board, LinkedIn, or Facebook. Wherever you want people to spend their time, you need to direct them there with less links, in more obvious locations.

3. Turn blogging into a challenge among colleagues

Ever try to get an office of non-bloggers to all of a sudden start blogging? It never works. In the early days of blogging for a completely unknown site and bloggers you get little to no response. Really hard to keep people motivated to blog when it seems so futile.

For that reason, in the early days of a corporate blog you need to gamify blogging within your organization. Give out awards and badges for small accomplishments such as first person to get five retweets, or first to publish three blog posts in a week, or maybe first to get a comment from a non-coworker.

To avoid social media strategy failure, read “Will your company ignore your social media strategy?”

4. Time, time, time

Similar to the last item, web developer Tom Belknap advises you to build time into the strategy. “The biggest mistake people make in getting into social networking is the thought that, well, we post a few updates on Facebook and we’re all set,” said Belknap. Plan on your social strategy taking time.

5. Own a singular identity across all social services

A successful social media presence has a lot to do with having a consistent identity. Too often organizations don’t plan out what their social identity is going to be. We’re “CompanyX” on Twitter. “CompanyXCorp” on Facebook. Our web address is “CompanyX-Inc.com”.

All these slight differences which may seem simple to you, are massively confusing to everyone else.

Pick one name and use it across all the services you plan on using. Use KnowEm to see if the name you want is available on all the services you want to use.

6. Move existing content from private to public space

A successful blogger is able to spot private conversations that could and should be made public in a blog post. We have private conversations in emails, IMs, over the phone, and at professional networking events. Learning what should be made public is what will make blogging a lot easier. For more, read my article, “Blogging advice for people who ‘have no time to blog.’”

7. Engage your top customers/connectors A LOT.

You’re going to learn and gain the most from the people who are your biggest supporters. For that reason, you need to feed that fan pipeline by communicating with them a lot. “Ask them if they had to replace you as their supplier how would they go about finding someone else? What keywords would they enter into the search bar, what social media sources would they pay attention to and consider to be authoritative,” said Phil Lauterjung, Duct Tape Marketing Consultant.

8. Your offline social strategy

Your strongest social media connections will be initiated in real life. Most people have very poor follow up skills. For example, 1-in-20 people I hand my business card to actually follows up. Not only should you follow up with someone via email, but also try to connect with them via all necessary social connections such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn so that you can more seamlessly maintain a relationship, even if it is only ambient intimacy.

9. Integrate with all other communications efforts

When it comes to customer relations, it is sadly the norm that you’ll get completely different service depending on how you contact the organization. I’ve noticed that the more publicly I discuss an issue (e.g., complain on Twitter, write a blog post about a poor product experience) the better service I’ll get from someone high up in the company. Conversely, if I chose to pick up the phone, I’ll wait a long time and get some phone lackey that may or may not work directly for the company, and not have the authority to give me the service that I need. They may not care about my dissatisfaction. I have always seen disjointed customer experiences. The trick is to simply bring everyone to same table and train them simultaneously, no matter what medium the public uses to connect with you.

10. Your strategy should be to help others

Almost everyone who begins in social media comes at it from the marketing angle of “How can I get people to pay attention to me?” If you flip that poorly aimed philosophy to ask yourself, “How can my social media strategy allow others to express themselves and their own interest,” then you will have a lot more success with social media.

Even though you need a strategy. The best social media strategy I think is to just start. For more read, “No more, ‘What are we going to do in social media?’ meetings.”

What’s your advice that I didn’t consider?

This is far from a comprehensive list. I’d like to know your rarely considered, yet highly important, social media strategy advice. Let me and your fellow readers know in the comments.

Stock photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The most inappropriate things people do on a mobile phone

David Spark — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:30:06 +0000

Here’s some of my coverage of Mobilize 2011 in San Francisco, where I was reporting for Dice. For more coverage and job news, check out Dice News.

Uploading pornographic pictures, talking on a phone during a meeting, and texting while on the toilet are just some of the inappropriate things people do with a mobile phone. With all the capabilities of the mobile phone, are the options just giving us more chances to be inappropriate and rude?

At the GigaOM Mobilize Conference in San Francisco, I asked attendees if they could tell me what was the most inappropriate things they’ve seen someone do on a mobile phone.

Stock photo courtesy of Shutterstock.