Nearly exactly one decade ago (October 23, 2001), iPod was born. (I bought my first in 2004)

and today (October 5, 2011), the world mourns the loss of a visionary.

October 5, 2011

Steve Jobs was man who dared to dream about changing the world, and then did. My entire lifetime, Steve Jobs has been innovating across technology, computing, motion pictures, music, mobile…seems like everything I touch or rely on for my job today was somehow influenced or shaped by Steve. When we wake up tomorrow, it becomes our duty to act on the inspiration and dedication he brought to the world.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it by living someone else’s life. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

– Steve Jobs, 2005

My issue with keeping your scheduled posts in a different view than your home feed, is you start becoming disconnected with the Twitter conversation as a whole. Call me Ariel, because I wanna be where the people are.

It’s takes additional time if I have to schedule a RT that’s worthy of publishing, or a new piece of content, in one view, then click over to the “Pending” or “Scheduled” view and make sure it’s not overlapping with another scheduled piece of content. Whats so wrong with seeing everything in the same place…especially as a paying customer?

My fear is that this practice of keeping the publishing away from the conversation will encourage the bad behavior of push-push-push messages into Twitter and Facebook and really take brands out of the conversations that make social media so valuable.

Agree? Disagree? Think I’m being cranky in my stubborn old ways? Tell me.

Everything is great about being married. Everything, except one thing.

THE NAME CHANGE!

This was a HUGE change in my personal life, between all the paperwork and legwork required to get documents from one agency to another, practicing a new signature and even referring to myself as Lauren Teague (I introduced myself wrong for weeks!).

I’ve gotten used to the new name, the new email signature and crossing a “T” where a “B” used to be in my john hancock. But I keep avoiding one thing…the issue that I’m still undecided about.

Giving up LTBEYER as my online identity.

Hear me out – I started using LTBEYER in 2005, when I started my Gmail account. It stuck with me as I started using Bebo, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, Brightkite, Foursquare, and almost every single other website I’ve created an identity on.

Email. Twitter. Blogs. Social Media. Etc.
Being an “early adopter” female seems to have kicked me in the ass.

To switch might not be a huge deal for some, but I’ve spent 5+ years developing my identity under a name I (legally) no longer use. In my career as a social media professional, my online identity is just as important as anything I do offline. If I give up “LTBEYER”, do I also give up all the SEO and my “Digital DNA” I’ve built up under that personal brand?

Or will establishing a new online identity be not as big of a deal as I fear? Can I gradually switch from LTBEYER to some variation of “Lauren Teague” on Twitter and let everything else follow suit? Will my Twitter friends still tweet me and recognize my avatar when adding contacts in a new network?

Once I’ve made the decision to switch to a new profile, the next question is: Who do I want to be? And probably more importantly: Who can I be, based on what usernames are available?

I’ve tried a handful of “LaurenTeague” like names on Twitter. A couple are open, but nothing I really want to hang my hat on and move across the web with. Want to stay away from modifiers like “Lauren_GOLF” or identifying myself with a brand (_pgatour). Since @LaurenTeague and @LTeague aren’t available, I feel stuck.

Even more frustrating — I started on Twitter in 2007 and most social networks before they became mainstream. The people who have the names I want to use are inactive Twitter users, have YouTube channels with no videos, haven’t blogged in ages — you get the idea. Frustrating for someone like me who is looking to build up another Digital DNA under my married name.

I know women everyday go through this decision in their personal vs. professional lives. Building our careers and changing names mid-way doesn’t always work for women, especially in the media and on the executive track. I’m actually surprised there aren’t more blog posts on this topic. Closest I could find in Google was a post on “How to change to your married name on Facebook.“

This “do I or don’t I” decision continues to weigh on my mind — and it’s totally self-inflicted I should add. My husband doesn’t care one way or another if I keep LTBEYER online, as long as I’m a Teague on my driver’s license. Even my Tumblr profile states: In September 2010, I married @hooligantx…and became Mrs. Teague. Yet, I also get to keep @ltbeyer for as long as it makes sense.

Help me out, tweeps and friends. Am I making a big fuss over nothing? Can I keep my online identity for professional reasons? Will you remember me if I become a Teague online too? If I did seek out a new ID, what suggestions do you have for picking a new username?

Remember, I love being married. It’s this one detail in fabric that has me thrown for a loop…but if that’s the only thing, I think we’re doing something right.

I have a new customer service example after this morning My experience went something like this:

Email reminder to check in the way-too-early-why-did-I-book-that flight to Oregon arrives in my inbox.

Click to check in. Remember I booked this flight as Lauren Beyer, before changing SkyMiles account name to Lauren Teague (another married name change done via Twitter)

Try to check in. Get through entire process to find out I have an error with reservation (expected) and should wait until I get to the airport to speak to an agent. Try again anyways. Denied.

Wanting as much snooze time as possible before a 6:30AM flight, I turn to Twitter:
@Delta Can someone help? Booked a ticket under SkyMiles #, then changed to married name in SkyMiles acct. Now reservation not in “My Trips”

7 mins later, I get this response (and followed by): DeltaAssist: @ltbeyer I’d like to assist. Please follow @DeltaAssist and dm your Skymiles number and confirmation number?^TH

A couple DMs later, they’re working away on my name change on the ticket. Less than 40 minutes later I have an updated itinerary in my inbox and a DM: You’re all set. It’s been changed to Teague. You will, however, need to check in again. Glad you tweeted with us this am!^TH

Super easy. Great service. Saved me sleep & frustration early in the AM dealing with a gate agent and two IDs with two different names. The only thing they missed was adding a few hundred bonus miles to my account so I’ll be Gold status after this trip — but I’ll let that slide.

In less time than it would have taken me to do a Google Search for Delta’s customer service number for Skymiles, find 10 minutes at work to set aside to make the call, reach an agent and get my issue resolved — @DeltaAssist came to my rescue. Think I won’t be going to Twitter again next time I have a question or issue, with any brand?

What’s your favorite personal example of customer service through social media? Let’s see who really stands out.

I couldn’t embed the report directly into my blog, but here’s a link to 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing: Jeremiah’s post (w/ embedded report)

Jeremiah and his team identified 8 criteria to determine success for marketing on Facebook.

1. Set Community Expectations
2. Provide Cohesive Branding
3. Be Up to Date
4. Live Authenticity
5. Participate in Dialog
6. Enable peer-to-peer interactions
7. Foster Advocacy (give value & a reason to share)
8. Solicit a Call to Action

When I see a list like this, I put my work front and center in my mind while reading through each item, as a way to grade myself. Thankfully, I feel like we’ve been successful at most of these steps, but certainly have room to improve going forward. Some are easier to cross off the list (setting up your expectations, providing consistent branding and updating the page regularly are low hanging fruit), while working your way down the list might require more effort, sweat & tears, and getting others on your team involved to do them well.

Which items on the list do you feel are most important for a brand to do well (even if its easier to do)? What do you find you struggle with the most (either yourself or inside your organization)?  For me, it’s 3 & 5 for the first — and 5 & 8 for the second.

Thanks again to Jeremiah, Alan & Christine from Altimeter who published the report and gave me something else to measure myself against.

I made a few notes while listening to these concerns and questions and afterwards followed up with the group with six steps to getting started with social media. I wanted to share it here too, to help you start building your toolbox.

Six-Step Process for Organizing Social Media Goals & Strategies

1. Set your objectives for using social media. There are no “wrong” goals, as long as they tie into your other business objectives. Some objectives may include driving sales, raising awareness, creating online buzz, connecting with your friends/fans/customers or using the channels as additional outlets for marketing.
2. Determine the resources you can dedicate to social media. If you have a team, great. One person, great. One half of one-half of a person’s time, sure. Just make sure that you’re allocating the appropriate amount of resources that are in-line with your overall business objectives.
3. Decide what social channels help you achieve the objectives you’ve set and align with the resources you have available. You don’t have to have a presence on every social media website to be successful. PGA TOUR player Stewart Cink only uses Twitter, but he does so really well and is the most popular golfer on Twitter. Each channel (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) is unique in how the users engage, who uses it and even where its more popular. Pick the channel or channels that will reach the people you want to reach, fit with the resources and content you can produce and the outcomes you want to achieve.  [Hint: the Groundswell Social Technographics Profile Tool is a great resource to help you identify who & what your audience is doing online.]
4. Don’t reinvent the wheel just for your social media profiles. Use the content you’re already producing for your website & newsletters (can go into Facebook notes, videos, photo galleries, etc). Make your social channels another extension of your plans for marketing, communications & digital efforts.
5. Use insights from Facebook (Page Insights) and YouTube (Insights), as well as third-party sites like www.tweetcounter.com and TwitAlyzer.com to track your growth and successes. Hootsuite.com and Bit.ly let you track clicks on links posted on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. Measure everything and use the data to back up your gut instincts about what goes well or not as good as expected.
6. Try new things! and share your successes or hardships so we can create a better community to help each other.

What do you think? I welcome any comments, challenges or additional tips that will help others get more comfortable with starting out, or resetting their goals for using social media to connect.

This feels like Facebook is telling me, “We see that you don’t want to share your personal info to friends & users outside your networks. BUT we still want to give it to our developers and partner, which pay us the big bucks. So, we’ll ask your friends to supply this information, under the guise of “making the experience more social“.

People who are unhappy with Facebook’s track record of openness are starting a “Quit Facebook Day” on May 31st. I’m not advocating for a mass exodus, but am also starting to wonder about how the benefits of using Facebook are changing. In the past couple months, Facebook has loopholed around my personal privacy preferences, un-personalized my own Likes & Interests (which really ticked me off), and become even less transparent while advocating openness from their users. I’m considering what to do with my personal Facebook profile, though I’ll never leave the site completely because of my job. As long as I’m on Facebook, I’ll be dedicating as much time within “Privacy Settings” as I do checking out my friends’ photo galleries from weddings!

If Promoted Tweets is something you are thinking about exploring in your next marketing budget, and your company isn’t called Starbucks or Virgin Atlantic, you might be ahead of yourself (and the game) at this point. Early on, Twitter promotion seems like Phase 2 step, executed after a successful and exhaustive Facebook campaign to build fans around your brand.

Currently the promoted tweets are only appearing in Twitter search results, on http://search.twitter.com. I have not actually come across a promoted (paid-for) tweet yet. But when doing my preliminary searches, I noticed that Twitter was promoting the top three most popular and retweeted (reposted) updates using my search term (in this case “promoted”). Once I refreshed the page to see the new results, the promoted tweets disappeared. Not sure if this will be the behavior going forward.

The “resonance score” that Twitter will use to determine the impact of promoted messages (and ultimately, the duration) is an interesting concept. Mashable and the NY Times compared to Digg.com’s model, which takes user feedback and interaction with ads to determine the price and longevity of their run.

Initially, there may be value to brands looking to get in front of a message or firestorm by ensuring their messaging is front in search results (similar to appearing on the top of Google results). However, the golf community on Twitter is relatively small and once messaging is passed through the key voices, it doesn’t have to go much further to be heard. (Example: I saw probably 10 tweets from golf writers about Lee Westwood wearing a red shirt Sunday at The Masters. Didn’t take long for everyone to know, before he appeared on the telecast)

I would say for now, efforts to building a fan community around your branded channel should be your priority for growing your audience or marketing to them. Those core fans are the ones who will be spreading your messages for you, especially around a new product launch or tournament time. In the rare case of an exclusive opportunity that extends beyond the golf realm, that may warrant another look into extending promotions onto Facebook and/or Twitter. For now, though, I don’t believe promotional tweets should be considered in your marketing budget next month. Let’s allow the big brands experiment and see some results before dedicating budget and resources to another shiny tool.

But understand that the social world moves quickly…and by the end of summer, I may be singing another tune.

Would you make Twitter your homepage? 

How about using Flickr photos tagged with your brand name as official company images or take what someone has written about your company history and products and use it as official brand language. 

Sounds a little crazy, right? Or it might be intriguing, but you know that suggesting it at your next marketing meeting may get you tossed out the window like the Bud Light guy in that Superbowl commercial. 

The folks at Skittles (parent company MARS) are only throwing one thing out the window — and that’s the traditional approach to brand websites. Log onto www.skittles.com and 2 bright red widget boxes pop up on your screen. One is a verification and disclaimer (T&C) clause that you have to accept. This is interesting. They’re attaching their online brand to user-generated content, yet MARS Inc. is not responsible for what you might see. 

Just a heads up: Any stuff beyond the Skittles.com page is actually another site and not in our control. This panel may be hovering over the page, but SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for what other people post and say on these sites. Click the box below to acknowledge that you know SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for that stuff.

After you accept, that leaves one box cemented on your browser window, with six tabs at the top. The new homepage for Skittles.com is the Twitter search stream for thh keyword “Skittles”. Clicking on any Products link pops you to the Wikipedia page. Same for Pics (Flickr stream), Videos (YouTube channel — only 3 videos, but that’s another topic), and Friends (Facebook Fan Page). Chatter takes you back to Twitter search [is this a sign that the "Home" tab may be changing?] and Contact gives you a feedback box on the only page that looks corporately owned. 

A few questions I had after my first glances at the site: 

• How much monitoring is going to take place on all these channels? It didn’t take long for slurs and negative statements  to show up on Twitter search (aka homepage), and we all know that anyone can edit a Wiki, post pictures to Flickr or become a fan on Facebook and post/tag rogue content. 
• Why would someone leave a feedback email when they can post to a homepage instantly in 140 characters? I would assume the same person that gets those emails is also reading the Tweets. 
• How will Skittles recieve, measure and respond to the Tweets, good and bad that are being posted? #Skittles has been a trending topic all morning, and the site just went up. 
• Also, if a brand is going to base its homepage presence on Twitter, shouldn’t it own its own Twitter handle? As of 10AM (ET), @Skittles had 1 follower (and a profile pic of a LOL Cat), @SkittlesCandy was being squatted on by a concerned fan, @SkittlesUSA and @MARSInc weren’t in use yet. 
• What do we call the new Skittles online presence? It’s not a true website. Portal, widget, application, channel, presence are all more appropriate descriptions of their new initiative. 
• Will the new efforts make an impact on sales? @PRSarahEvans posed this question to Twitter in a TwitPoll . Early results showed 63% of responders say Skittles makeover does not make them more likely to buy Skittles. 

The “who owns your brand” discussion is a popular one within social media circles, and I expect the Skittles initiative to spark another round of it. But I’m mostly curious to see if Skittles.com will change or be modified before the buzz dies down. 

One last thought – I’m not against the new Skittles web campaign. I think its a fresh approach that maybe didn’t consider all the corners (or they did, but don’t care). Skittles and MARS have taken the “everyone owns a pice of your brand” mantra and acted literally. They’re telling consumers “what you say and do about us is better than what we can tell you”…although this also has the feeling of “we’re saving thousands in web development dollars”. Skittles deserves Kudos for their unique approach, but I don’t expect to see it copied soon.

I attempted this last year, in the form of my favorite PR blogs. In the [near] future, I hope to publish more specific lists for those of you interested in just social media, sports marketing, golf-industry, young professionals, corporate examples or something else. For now, though, here’s a list (mostly from the top-of-my-head) of where to start if you want to get busy and start learning.

Who to Follow on Twitter:

(tip- if you haven’t already, get to www.twitter.com and sign up. Follow these people and follow the people they are following and talking to. Follow whatever interests you, say hi to a few people along the way and make Twitter usable for you.)

• @chrisbrogan
• @skydiver
• @kyleflaherty
• @serena
• @chrisheuer
• @DavidParmet
• @KathleenHessert
• @JakeMcKee
• @hyku
• @tdefren
• @spikejones
• @GeoffLiving
• @maggiefox
• @Pistachio
• @sumaya
• @charleneli
• @jowyang
• @jbernoff
• @shannonpaul
• @jasonpeck
• @mashable
• @aaronstrout
• @ltbeyer (don’t forget to follow me!)
• @PGATOUR (shameless plug, haha)

What to read, whether on the site, in email or your RSS reader:

• ChrisBrogan.com
• Engage in PR (Kyle Flaherty)
• Community Guy (Jake McKee)
• Groundswell
• hyku|blog (Josh Hallet)
  
• PR Squared (Todd Defren)
• Sports Marketing 2.0
• Brains on Fire
• The Buzz Bin
• Shannon Paul’s Very Official Blog

I’ve left off a ton of people who are probably just as deserving of a shoutout. Feel free to nominate more sources of wisdom and knowledge in the comments and I’ll update this list accordingly.