2009 October | The Hartsock Agency

Humor and Your Southern Social Media Manners!

On October 30, 2009, in Doing the Greater Good, Featured, Reinventing 2.0, Social Media, by Nettie Hartsock

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjMUfIKktWU[/youtube] My friend Mark Levy (Twitter – @levyinnovation), has provided me an endless tool for laughter when I’m having a particularly lousy day, because he mentioned to me that every time he sees the Geico pothole commercial he thinks it sounds just like me and it makes him laugh.

(I’ve included the commercial YouTube at the top of this blog post.)

On bad days, I watch it to make myself laugh. While I don’t think I sound all that Southern, the voice in the Geico commercial does tend to grow on you.

It also reminds me how powerful humor is and why it’s so important to use in our lives and in our social media presence. Laughter is the great equalizer for us all.

My great Aunt Florence used to say, “If you can’t say something funny, don’t bother to say anything at all.” At her funeral this was particularly hard on all of us because what’s funny about a funeral?

In a small cemetery, in Mobile, Alabama we all stood in the rain, led by a minister, who was all of 30, and he used humor to ease our grief.

The minister related how on the last Sunday of Aunt Florence’s life she had managed (at 90 years old) to go to church that morning, have him over for fried chicken and turnip greens at noon, and prior to that mowed the front lawn on her riding mower, in her favorite purple flowered floppy hat.

In fact, she was a little bit peeved at the minister because he came a bit earlier than noon and caught her, all dressed in white on the mower clipping the very last bit of the front lawn. She was a staunch advocate of good Southern manners and you never arrive early for supper in the South.

But caught her he did and despite her chiding, they had a great supper and later that night she went to sleep and passed away. When he finished the story, our tears turned to laughter because his story had so perfectly captured our Aunt Florence and her great love for supper, mowing the lawn and her church.

I suppose today I’m feeling particularly Southern and proud because the Texas Book Festival is this weekend and my client Bill Scheft is here among all the other amazing authors that always make me laugh.

So your “Minding Your Southern Social Media Manners” is really about remembering that laughter is good medicine online and offline.

1. Don’t waste time being snarky.
2. Don’t Twitter twerrible twthings.
3. Don’t Facebook-fatigue folks.
4. Don’t blog bad mojo
5. Don’t ever lose sight that life is best lived offline and online with humor and grace.

DM me on Twitter if you’re at the Fest, would love to see you. Twitter @nettiehartsock .

Tagged with: Bill Scheft • Blogs • facebook • manners • Social Media • South • Texas Book Festival • Twitter

You Should Apply for this business book award…

On October 24, 2009, in BOOK PR 101, Books, Featured, by Nettie Hartsock

Please don’t forget to submit your book in for consideration to the Axiom Business Book Awards. I’m proud to say I’ve had many past clients submit and then win the award and I hope you’ll submit your book as well!

P.S. (Do it yourself so you’ll know it gets done. Don’t wait for your publisher to do it, and if you’re self-published send it in now! Early entry deadline is November 7th.)

Past Client Wins:
2008 Wins:

7. Human Resources/Employee Training

Silver: Growing Great Employees, by Erika Andersen (Portfolio/Penguin Group)

17. Advertising/Marketing/PR/Event Planning

Gold (tie): Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, by Lois Kelly (Amacom)

Winners 2008 Full List

2009 Wins:

22. Business Fable

Silver: Awake at the Wheel: Getting Your Great Ideas Rolling (in an Uphill World), by Mitchell Lewis Ditkoff (Morgan James Publishing)

2009 Full Winner List

*Note: Seth Godin has won an award two years in a row. Let’s all chant, “What’s good enough for Seth to apply to is good enough for us to apply to.”
If that doesn’t inspire you then perhaps chanting this quote from Stuart Smalley will do the trick,”I deserve good things, I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am an attractive person. I am fun to be with.” (And my business book is award-winning!)

Tagged with: Axiom Business book awards • bestselling business books • leadership • management

Tagged with: blog content • Blog Tips • Social Media • yakking

The Sweet Brevity of a Tweet – 5 billion strong

On October 22, 2009, in Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, web 2.0, by Nettie Hartsock

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” (Mark Twain)

Twitter has just passed 5 billion tweets.

In celebration of that, I wanted to post some new tips for Twitter usage.

And if you’re not yet using Twitter, I would urge you to at least register your name because it will continue to drive opportunities for peers, partners and customers to connect and at some point you will have to come to the Twitter-dark side. And hey, it’s not really all that bad!

No one wants to know that you ate oatmeal for breakfast, but there’s alot of amazing people on Twitter that you might not otherwise ever connect with. Guess what? Those folks do want to know your insight and wisdom and who are you to not share it? Why not choose to use every tool you can to get your message out?

Are journalists on Twitter? Yes. Go to Muckrack.com and find them.

Is Twitter gaining over Facebook? Yes. Go here and read about it.

Here are 7 new tips for using Twitter:

1. Make sure you have a savvy bio line and that you include a clickable URL link in the bio itself.

2. Make sure you have your tweets connected to your Facebook account.

3. Make sure you do Friday Follows every Friday. #FF Use those to follow new people and champion people you follow.

4. Use your Twitter account to canvas your followers. Ask questions in your tweets and encourage people to answer them.

5. Always tweet a link out to your best blog posts. Don’t tweet something like, “Yet another brilliant blog post,” instead tweet out a strong excerpt from the blog post.

6. Don’t use RT (retweet) as the lazy person’s way to seem like you’re tweeting often. Use RTs sparingly and take special care to tweet out actionable insight from others you follow.

7. Tweet others as you would have them Tweet you. (Thanks Michael Murphy for that one.)

Tagged with: Social Media • social media marketing • Twitter

Building Your 2.0 Platform Does Not Require High Heels

On October 21, 2009, in Business Advice, Creativity, Doing the Greater Good, by Nettie Hartsock

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.” (Sandra Day O’Connor)

It’s really time to stop worrying about how you will “look” on the Web if it’s preventing you from wholly participating. It’s not about how you will look on the Web, it’s about being authentic, engaging and real while you’re on there. It’s about sharing your insight freely and championing those in your peer arena who are doing the same.

If I worried about how I “looked” on the Web, I would have been a failure, during the years from 1995 to 2002, because dare I say, I was a full-time mom, writing my technology news stories late at night for Ziff-Davis and Allbusiness.com , Internet Business Forum (now defunct), all for the sake of being able to stay at home with my kids when they were little. I was lucky and blessed, and left a job at a news station to do this.

I mistakenly thought if someone could have seen the real me (mom, pajamas, milk pump, cheerios strewn throughout my hair, typing feverishly at 4am), they would not be paying me to write as a technology journalist or think the stuff I’d written was worthwile.

But here’s the real secret, they can see you on the Web. They know your heart by your writing. They know who you choose to affiliate with by your blogroll. They know how much you care about your readers of your blog by how often you post really good edu-focused content to uplift your whole community.

The Web community can tell a bait and switch a mile away. This community can also tell when you’re not being honest, authentic and mindful of their time.

If you’re going to spend time on the Web building your platform the biggest thing you need to understand is there’s not a dress code, but there is a social 2.0 code.

Take time to learn it and you’ll thrive. You’ll really make lifelong connections. Hey, maybe you’ll even be like me, who got roses upon the birth of my son Gibson, from a client in New Zealand that I worked with for almost three years and never met.

The only way to truly participate in the Web is to give up control over what you dictate your community should find useful. Decide that you are going to focus your energy on empowering the collective and you’ll be surprised at the Web marketshare you’ll slowly gain.

Decide to invite your community to share their ideas, to guest blog at your site, to openly comment and disagree with your ideas. Elevate the discussion and you’ll elevate your community as well.

Tagged with: Blogs • Online Communities • Social Media • web 2.0

Tagged with: Blog Tips • blogging • Social Media • web 2.0

Your Mom Called and She’s Googling You

On October 16, 2009, in Doing the Greater Good, Featured, by Nettie Hartsock

Six Ways To Help Her Find you Faster…

1. Stop being sheepish about your accomplishments and build a truly savvy and transparent profile for yourself on the Web.

(Oy vey – you’re not tooooooo olddddddd to be on the Web. Seriously.)

2. Use Twitter for good, not evil. As mega-celebs close down their Twitter accounts it just means more room for your content rich, edu-focused tweets! Don’t Twitter out something you wouldn’t want your Mom reading. Keep your tweets filled with link-love and be willing to share your knowledge.

4. Don’t hate me because I’m social. (Oops, did I blog that out loud?) – what that means is don’t kill the Web 2.0 messengers, and don’t buy into everything they tell you to do. Find a good Web 2.0 balance that works for you. Many people become power LinkedIn.com users, others just operate best on Facebook.com. Whatever you choose to use, don’t let it languish.

5. Stop wishing for the good old days of cold pancakes and stale coffee networking breakfast events. Put your butt in the chair with your favorite coffee mug and spend thirty minutes a day online using all the free tools available to you. No excuses. Just Social IT!

6. Find your tribe, your peeps, your community by using Google Search, technorati search and Google Blog Search. Ready for something new? Try BING search.

7. Be present, be YOU, be Web 2.0 brave!

Tagged with: facebook • Linkedin • On the Web • Online Communities • Social network • Twitter • web 2.0

Blog Action Day – Climate Change

On October 15, 2009, in Blog Action Day, Doing the Greater Good, Featured, by Nettie Hartsock

Today I’m participating in BlogActionDay and posting on the topic of Climate Change.

I encourage you to sign the petition to Barack Obama in regard to addressing climate change.

My family today is reading “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss and as part of this post I hope you’ll ponder these two quotes from that amazing book.

I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

I urge you today amidst all your Twittering, facebooking, Linkedin-ing, to take your children outside and look at the sky and the trees and pass on to them how important caring about the environment is.

Plant a tree, start a compost pile, find a new way to help your family participate in driving change for the better in our environment.

Watch “An Inconvenient Truth” with your family and talk about how you can help save our planet.

Speak for the trees!

Tagged with: An Inconvenient Truth • BlogActionDay • climate change • environment • Lorax

Social media is not speed dating…

On October 13, 2009, in Doing the Greater Good, Featured, Online Outreach, Social Media, by Nettie Hartsock

Many times my early work with clients is focused around helping them build their Web 2.0 platform. More often than not, the clients who come to me are really terrific and dynamic in their offline presence and just need some help in terms of boosting their online and social media platform.

One of the first things we come to understand is social media is not speed dating. Real social media endeavors take time and must be embraced with transperancy and authenticity.

There still exists a great hesitancy to move to more transparency and conversation online, but the bottom line is social media is not going to go away. By not utillizing these tools for the greater good of your online presence, you’re not only missing out on opportunities for new client engagements, press coverage and expanding your thought-leadership platform, but the online world is also missing your contribution.

That’s an important part of the social media equation that does not get talked about enough. When social media is just bandied about in terms of “social currency, viral marketing and quantity vs. quality of followers,” then we’re missing a vital component to why we use these tools.

The component missing is YOU. If you are not making your content, your wisdom and your expertise visible on the Web 2.0 landscape, then it is much harder for all of us to benefit from it.

The work required is to build a strong strategic plan of social media communication. Make sure you start with the foundation of transparency and build from there. Give yourself at least six months at the onset before you decide “it’s just not working.”

Remember, social media is about showing up, it involves making a long-term commitment to finding that 2.0-harmony and using it to your best success.

Tagged with: Social Media • social media strategy • web 2.0

Tagged with: E-book • HarperCollins • McGraw-Hill • publishing • Random House • Social network

Tagged with: Blogs • mashable.com • Social Media • social networking

Google’s SideWiki and a Side of Sass

On October 3, 2009, in Blogs, Featured, Google, by Nettie Hartsock

I highly recommend that you become familiar with how Google’s newly launched SideWiki[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsjJOsx84MA[/youtube] works. It gives folks an incredible amount of power in terms of becoming a new army of “sidewikians” that will “sidegraffitize” the whole Web. Ok, maybe that’s a little too scary sounding.

It does however make it more interesting in terms of content on the Web, how Web 2.0 is continuously democratizing content on the Web and what will happen in the future.

For instance, if you’re a blogger who doesn’t allow comments on your blog, this will actually provide a workaround for folks to still be able to comment on your site. What the Friday??!!! Yep. Don’t be afraid, but check it out so you can stay aware of it.

Be brave you can catch this SideWiki tiger by the tail and use it for the greater good!!!

Tagged with: Google • search engines • SideWiki • Social network • Twitter • web 2.0 • Weblogs

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