Social Media | Dangerous Common Sense

LinkedIn Makes You Be Their Pitchman

The media and social media threw a fit when Facebook unveiled its plan to feature users in pitches to their friends. Facebook at least provided a working way for me to opt-out. LinkedIn now wants to use you and they don’t let you opt out.

The new LinkedIn privacy policy gives them the right to use me in their ads. Or, as they put it:

Uses of personal information …
…

K. Advertising and Endorsements on LinkedIn

In order to deliver relevant and valuable ads to you and your network, LinkedIn may use your name and profile photo in connection with social advertising based on content shared on LinkedIn. This advertising may include the fact that you have recommended or endorsed a product or service on LinkedIn, followed a company, joined Groups or conversations, established or added content to your profile, etc., and will only be displayed to your LinkedIn network. You can opt-out of allowing your name and/or profile photo to be used in social ads here.

When I clicked on “here”, yesterday I was taken to a LinkedIn log-in screen. I entered my credentials and submitted them, and the log-in page refreshed. I tried logging in again and again, and I got the same result. I used a different browser, and I got the same result. I tried again this morning (in case there was a bug yesterday), and I got the same result.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take them up on their offer:

How to contact us

If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please email us at [email protected] or contact us at:

LinkedIn Corporation

Attn: Legal Department, Privacy Policy Issues

2029 Stierlin Court

Mountain View,CA 94043

USA

The [email protected] link actually isn’t an email link, it goes to: http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Flinkedin%2Ecusthelp%2Ecom%2Fapp%2Fask%2Fsubject%2FPrivacy+Policy+Question&urlhash=Q_jC

When you click on the link, you get page not found error message:

Link Error

We’re sorry, there was a problem with the link you followed.

If you are following a link from an email, please be sure the link was not broken by your email client. If the link extends onto multiple lines, you may need to cut and paste each line into the location bar of your browser (beginning with the first line, then second, immediately after each other) until the full and complete link is recreated.

If you are coming from elsewhere in our website, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Return to the home page »

Yesterday, I sent them email to [email protected], typing the address in myself. I have received no reply (it was late afternoon when I mailed my complaint). I will write LinkedIn at their USPS address, too.

But, really! Apparently going public has made LinkedIn either incredibly greedy, incredibly careless, or both.

By Ozdachs|2011-07-02T09:52:35-07:00July 2nd, 2011|Social Media|2 Comments

When the Facebook Tail Wags Your Business Dog

Friday night I went to a concert by a well known San Francisco community group. They’re talented. Although they are a non-profit volunteer group, the back orchestra tickets were $25, and the show was well attended.

Of course, the organizers want people to keep with the group’s future concerts and events, and they’re on top of social media. So, they naturally pushed their Facebook page. The master of ceremonies suggested that people take photographs during the evening, post them on Facebook, and compete for prizes for the best photographs. The concert program even suggested when photographs should be taken.

Instructions in the Concert Program

So, after the house lights dimmed, audience members starting turning ON their cell phones and snapping photos. Folks were maneuvering in their seats for the perfect angle, holding their phone up and out, and snapping away. The man in the row in front of me really got into the spirit by starting the video camera and he recorded a section of the performance.

Cell phone displays are very, very bright. In a dark hall, they are somewhere between distracting and blinding.
Some cell phone cameras flash in dim light.

The benign suggestion to share the performance online with your friends interfered with the experience for people who had already were fans. At the intermission and the end of the show, our group talked about the flashing and lights and not about the music. Professional theaters ban pictures and videos both because their concern about intellectual property rights AND they don’t want amateur paparazzi disrupting their shows.

There’s a lot of good will for the organization sponsoring the concert I saw, and I doubt that their misplaced suggestion that people take pictures will impact their following.

But, what a good lesson for your business on what you should and should not to do!

Use social media to build buzz and get people in your doors.
Use social media to get your customers to tell their friends about you.

Do NOT let Social Media distract or de-focus your customers from doing what you want them do:

When I am already at a concert, don’t degrade my current concert experience in attempt to get future clients.
If I am already in your business, don’t suggest I check social media for deals or future events.

Just like in so many other areas of life, the bromide of “Moderation in Everything” will help your business use Facebook successfully.

By Ozdachs|2011-06-19T10:26:35-07:00June 19th, 2011|Facebook, Social Media|0 Comments

How LivingSocial is Anti-Social

Our favorite local restaurant alerted me to its upcoming” $50 of food for $25″ deal on LivingSocial. So, I went online yesterday and signed up on my iPhone.

I will buy the deal for Eurkea when it shows up. But, ugh. LivingSocial itself is pretty much a mess:

There’s no obvious way to change your password. When I signed up yesterday on the iPhone I picked a simple password, intending on making it more secure when I was at my desktop and had access to my random character password generator. Now I don’t see any link to change what I first entered. Nothing in their help search for “change password” either.Okay, LivingSocial… but don’t expect me to store a credit card or other sensitive information with you!
Their “recommend a friend process” is cheesy.
- The LivingSocial recommendation page asks you to enter your friends’ email addresses. They show you the spammy message that they’ll send to your friends, but you cannot change it.
  
  “Hey, have you checked out LivingSocial’s Daily Deals? Each day, you get an email with huge discounts to restaurants, spas, museums, and more — all for 50-90% off!
  
  I’m already a member and this is your invitation to join. It’s free — just click on this link to sign up. You’ll immediately get 5 Deal Bucks, and I’ll get 5 Deal Bucks when you buy your first deal.”
  
  That’s not my style, so I won’t be sending friends recommendations. (Okay, if you write and ask, I’ll put in your email address. But, I won’t spam unsuspecting friends with LivingSocial corporate chatter.)
- The graphic at the top of the page implies that you will receive $5 credit for just sending an email message inviting a friend to join. That’s unreasonably generous, but, that’s what they’re offering, right? Wrong! The real offer is “When a friend uses your link, they’ll get 5 Deal Bucks to help them buy their first deal. Once they do, you’ll get 5 as well!” That’s reasonable, but it is not what the graphic says.
LivingSocial Refer a Friend Offer
LivingSocial wants you to live in Los Angeles. Very “Ugh!
“When I signed up on my phone yesterday, I gave the app my permission to use my location, presumably so it would send me local deals. Instead, it showed me current San Francisco Bay deals, but subscribed me to the deal emails for Los Angeles.There doesn’t seem to be a way to pick a home city. Instead, I clicked around and discovered that I could un-subscribe from LA deals and instead ask for San Francisco deals. The process isn’t intuitive, and I am not sure most people would work that hard.

Services like LivingSocial who are playing catch-up to dominant players (Groupon, in this case), have to give consumers a reason to switch to them. LivingSocial is offering only an inferior user experience. I signed up because I’m looking forward to saving $25 at Eureka. But, once that’s accomplished, Groupon is going to be site I spend my bargain hunting time!

By Ozdachs|2011-06-12T09:59:44-07:00June 11th, 2011|Social Media, Tips and Resources|1 Comment

What’s the Value Social Media for Small Businesses?

I’m being interviewed for a podcast this week about easy and inexpensive social media actions small businesses can take. Stuff like Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, etc.

I’m starting my outline and have some initial ideas of what social media can do:

1.   Put your name in front of potential clients/your clients.
2.   Create “buzz” for your business. If you catch eyes on social media, others will do your marketing for you!
3.   Make you an expert. When you post authoritative articles, people will come to your blog for information and they’ll come to you for expert services.
4.    Create more incoming links to your website. No human may read your blog, but Google will. Google will treat social media links as evidence that your site is popular and that it should show up higher in search results.
5.   Use a new advertising channel. Social media ads have the promise of being targeted at people who are already looking for services like yours and who are in your physical neighborhood.
6.    Create an illusion of success and recreate your business’ personality.

What info do you want to hear about? What tips should I pass on?

Comment here, shoot me an email, or even break down and give me a call at (415) 347-6479.

By Ozdachs|2010-09-04T15:30:44-07:00September 4th, 2010|Social Media|0 Comments

How to Twitter Like a Teenage Girl

“I don’t want to use Twitter. I don’t care that some starlet is buying socks at Walmart.” If you’ve made this comment about using Twitter — or let loose another, similar slam — let us old-timers suggest 4 scenarios where you can get useful information from Twitter and no place else.

Scenario 1 — We were driving north on I5 a few miles north of Corning, California. Suddenly the traffic stopped. Dead. We joined a very slow crawling line of traffic that was solid as far as we could see. The passenger picked up his iPhone and searched Twitter for “I5”. Within seconds he located a raft of Tweets from other cars on the same stretch of road. Scrolling through these, he read several that referred to an overturned truck off the side of the road about a mile ahead. We inched ahead for the next mile, until we saw the truck, Highway Patrol, and the whole accident scene. What Twitter provided: an accurate traffic report in the middle of nowhere, in a spot far away from media coverage. During the holidays you can also search Twitter for reports on shopping center parking lots and other micro-traffic matters.

Scenario 2 — A client’s telephone system blew a power supply. Incoming calls were not being answered, even though the staff was in the office available to meet with clients. The client posted a Tweet about their problem and invited his customers to email or drop in. This Twitter message was picked up by a feed and reposted to his Facebook page. What Twitter provided: an alternative path to keep communications going when the phones were out.

Scenario 3 — We follow (which means that we automatically get copies of the postings) only a few people. People who post things we want to see flash in front of us when we’re already busy. We follow:
* ASavvyConsumer who posts interesting tips on buying things and, right now, surviving the holidays.
* San Francisco accountants an Ozdachs client whose Tweets often tell us new information on handling our money.
* A software supplier who announces fixes, new products, and tips
… and other organizations we belong to and industry gurus .
What Twitter provided: quick updates and links to more information on topics we’ve already selected.

Scenario 4 — We attended a business conference with competing break-out seminars, many of which were repeated at different times over the three-day convention. Other participants posted on Twitter comments on some of the hot presentations, and we altered our schedule to catch later sections of the topic or other classes by good presenters. What Twitter provided: Real-time user evaluations which helped us get the most from our business event.

These real-world adult (and mostly business) Twitter benefits don’t involve monitoring the sports stars’ progression through bars, the shopping habits of the glitterati, nor the momentary angst of our friends. The Twitter posts we read relate to our adult world just as the Tweets monitored by teenagers relate to their current concerns.

Twitter accommodates young adult and other adult equally. It’s a neutral media that serves up a banquet of information of our own selection. Older people join in just as enthusiastically as a wide-eyed youth.

We each will probably pick different information to extract from the social news cloud. But, don’t we do that anyway in our choice of TV networks to watch, newspapers to subscribe to, or blogs to read?

By Ozdachs|2010-11-21T16:03:46-08:00November 28th, 2009|Social Media|0 Comments