Category Archives: Socialite

May 26 Comments comments
Blogger, Learner, Socialite

How to Deal With Your Hacked Twitter Account

Hi! Welcome to Twenty Set. Here you will find 4-5 insightful new articles each week about personal and professional development. I write candidly from personal experience.

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I should be writing about my recent trip to Cancun, and my safe return without the swine flu. Or how I need to update this blog more often.

But instead, I’m writing about this stupid person who hacked my Twitter account and started following hundreds of spammers who started sending me hundreds of direct messages with hundreds of stupid links that I’m afraid to click. So I can’t tell you where those links go.

What I can tell you is that the incident completely freaked me out. First, because I was only gone from social media and internet access for one week, and someone managed to violate my privacy in that time frame. Second, because I had to unfollow everyone to get rid of the spammers. And I was afraid to unfollow everyone because I know lots of people have auto-unfollows and I knew my followers count would drop. Fast. Wait. It’s still dropping. Like hundreds of people every few hours.

Then I realized I just don’t care. Seriously. I know that people who would only follow me if I was following them are using me to boost their egos. And I know that cleaning out my Twitter following was unmanageable without starting from scratch. And I know that I need to get over the idea that numbers define something about my online presence.

I feel a lot of things right now. Mad at the hacker. Annoyed with the source of the originally hacked account. Annoyed with myself for using the same password for both accounts. And then, relieved that I have an excuse to unfollow everyone and delete the noise in my Twitter account. And then, back to annoyed, because I will probably spend a lot of time adding people back.

But. I can breathe again. I can hear myself think. And if that costs me a thousand followers, it’s probably still worth it.

Here’s what to do if your Twitter account is hacked:

  1. Change the password.
  2. Identify the source, so it doesn’t happen again.
  3. Unfollow the spammers, even if you have to unfollow everyone.
  4. Use this How-To to delete your DMs.
  5. Be patient. You can’t fix your account in one day.

If I owe you a follow, let me know. And be patient. Because it’s going to take me awhile to get back on track on Twitter.

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Apr 22 Comments comments
Careerist, Socialite

How to Find a Job With No Experience in a Recession

I’m going to start answering reader questions on my blog. If you have a question you can submit via twitter (@monicaobrien) or email me m@twentyset.com.

This one comes from @davidgallant :

“I am very interested to hear what you have to say about college grads finding their first job.”

Okay. So this isn’t really a question, but it sort of is, so I’m going to answer it anyway.

When I graduated from college, I went straight to Caterpillar, a Fortune 500 manufacturing company. It was an awesome experience for a first job and I learned so much about working in corporate and I would recommend it to anyone; but my guess is that many college grads are not going to get that opportunity because most large companies have hiring freezes right now.

The reality for the Class of 2009 is if you don’t have a job lined up yet, it will be very difficult to get one before graduation. I spoke to my sister-in-law who was Class of 2008 over Easter and she said that most of her friends were still having trouble getting jobs a year later, especially if they didn’t have very specific career degrees, like a business degree or a software engineering degree. This is probably even more true for current graduating seniors.

There is not much you can do to change your degree at this point. So here’s my advice:

1. Create your own internship

My friend Nisha Chittal, a political science major, did this. She spoke to some contacts she met on a trip to Cambodia and she is now going to spend 4-5 months after graduation helping start a business there.

You may ask how to get an internship, and the answer is to first figure out something you might like to do. (This is probably the hardest part.) Try to come up with an industry, a target company list within that industry, and a function within each company (like marketing, or sales). Once you have that, start contacting these companies and explain to them how you can add value to their operation.

You may have to offer your work for free. Yes, it sucks. But it is better than spending all summer doing nothing plus a job search. Now you can be gaining valuable work experience while you do a job search.

2. Be willing to move anywhere

There are much fewer jobs in a recession, so in order to find one that’s a good fit for you you must cast your net wide. That means you have to be willing to relocate.

You can take an opportunity somewhere without having to commit too heavily to the location. Most of Generation Y leaves their first job within 2 years of starting. So if you take a job in a crappy place know that it’s not going to last forever, and think of it as an investment in your career.

3. Take your part-time college job full time

Getting a job in a recession is hard for generalists, which is what all entry-level workers are. Every position that’s open is looking for the perfect fit, from executive positions all the way down to the waitressing level.

Yes, waitressing. Right now, you cannot get a waitressing job without having recent years of waitressing experience.

Wait. That’s perfect for college students though. So if you can, take your job as a sales associate, or a bartender full-time to pay the bills while you search for a real job.

4. Do project work

There is a talent agency headquartered in Chicago that I am in love with, because it understands what twentysomethings want, and it is legitimate. It’s called Brill Street. The idea is that you join Brill Street and they find project work for you in your areas of interest at large and mid-sized companies.

And they are looking for social media and tech-savvy types. Like you probably.

It is a contract-to-hire agency that essentially let’s you test drive different jobs and different companies until you find one you like. Perfect for Gen Y. And the company is open to college juniors and seniors as well, so if you are looking for part-time work or want to recession-proof your future, now would be the time to start.

What do you think college grads of 2009 should do on the job-front? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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Apr 07 Comments comments
Activist, Blogger, Careerist, Entrepreneur, Goal-Setter, Socialite

6 Personal Branding Lessons I Learned from Observing Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is kind of a big deal these days – he has a book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success that just came out (today! go get it), tons of press publicity, his award-winning blog, and his reputation as the #1 personal branding expert. But while Dan’s articles can teach us a lot about how to use social media to brand yourself, I actually learn more about personal branding just from watching Dan work his magic.

Here are some of things I’ve learned:

Dan gives a lot of himself

As one of the Personal Branding Blog writers, I get the opportunity to talk to Dan on a fairly regular basis about everything he’s doing in his career. What I’ve found is he has a huge heart and gives so much of himself to everyone he possibly can. He speaks at local colleges and organizations, he writes articles all the time, he shares interesting information through his twitter account, he does press interviews, he answers questions via email, he writes LinkedIn recommendations for everyone he knows… the list goes on and on.

I recently wrote a post about How to be Popular on Social Media, and Dan is the epitome of one of the points – to make the conversation about your followers, not yourself. It’s no surprise that Dan has a great following, because he truly gives more than he ever asks.

Dan keeps track of his online brand

Dan uses every outlet he has to promote good content of others, but he never misses a chance for self-promotion. I think this is a great thing, because nobody is going to toot your horn for you. Promoting your own accomplishments gives you credibility among your followers and sets an example for what people like you can accomplish.

In Dan’s case, he always shares every article that is written about him, no matter how large or small the publication. The situation is win-win – Dan gets publicity and the publication gets traffic, an incentive that encourages other publications to interview Dan.

Dan writes a ton of articles for various publications

Dan is known as the personal branding expert, but he knows that personal branding is not a vacuum. That’s why Dan applies his subject (personal branding) to broader subjects so he can write on a variety of topics.

Dan also knows that in order to grow a reputation, you cannot invest too much time into one community. He knows that every networking connection is a series of transactions rather than an intense, ongoing conversation. Instead of becoming just another member in several communities, Dan builds his own community around his work. He accomplishes this by gaining more reach - tapping into other communities through his writing, and bringing a portion of those communities back to his own blog.

Dan takes his network with him

The great thing about Dan is he uses his own status to elevate others in his network with him. He is constantly sharing press and speaking opportunities with the people who support him and his career.

For example, the week before Dan launched his book Me 2.0, he emailed the entire Personal Branding Blog team to thank us for making his book launch so successful. In other words, he let us know we were contributors to the Me 2.0 launch and could share in its success. I know that as Dan’s career skyrockets, he will bring his network with him.

Dan wrote a book to move his personal brand forward

I recently wrote that blogging to demonstrate “expert” credentials was sooo 2007. That’s not really fair, because Dan became a personal branding expert largely due to branding himself through his blog.

Not that Dan’s blog is his biggest accomplishment – not nearly. He simply used it as a stepping stone to make an even bigger career jump – writing his book.

While Dan did not get article in Business Week and the New York Times through his blog, he did get them because he had a book deal. So if you really want to become an expert, write a blog about a particular subject, and use your blog to sell a book.

But first you have to find a great hook that sells. And “personal branding expert” is already taken, unfortunately.

Dan is a Google Reader rockstar

I recently dusted off my Google Reader, and as I started using it, I was shocked to discover that Dan Schawbel shares, like, 50 articles a day. How the heck does he read that much, I thought?

But then I observed Dan’s shared items, and found a lot of truly great content. And I realized quickly it’s all in the title – you can skim article titles in Google reader and tell what’s going to be interesting and relevant to you and what’s not.

Now, I have over 200 feeds in my Google Reader. I give basically anyone who communicates with me in any way a chance, whether through commenting or sending me a message on Twitter. I add feeds to my reader without fear, because I can scan 500 posts, pick out and read the best 10 (based on titles), and share the most relevant 5 on Twitter and my blog in about 10 minutes.

I know this has to be how Dan Schawbel finds great content to share with his following, and has built a loyal fan base that makes him the personal branding expert he is today. And I love reading Dan Schawbel’s shared items because they are usually intelligent, insightful picks. And I think if I can share good picks with people, I can brand myself as someone in the know too.

*******************

PS. I highly recommend Dan Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, which I have already read and found very impressive.

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Apr 05 Comments comments
Careerist, Entrepreneur, Socialite, Woman

Why the New Girls’ Club Doesn’t Work

Have you heard of the Old Boys’ Club? In the twentieth century, this was a group of privileged men vying for management positions. In the post-feminist age, this is a group of high-performing, stellar networkers in the boardrooms and executive suites.

Yes, the Old Boys’ Club is still alive and well; the difference is that women are now allowed to join, if they can demonstrate leadership and toe the fine line between feminism and masculinity.

And yet, instead of joining the club, women have created their own clubs – New Girls’ Clubs – which are all-female professional groups trying to use the power of numbers to compensate for gender disparity in the workplace. For the most part, these clubs don’t work. Here’s why:

Joining ‘the Sisterhood’

New Girls’ Clubs typically host overly girly networking events. I know, because I am a board member of a new girls’ business club. Here is what our event calendar looks like:

We’ll put on a spa event instead of a sports event. We’ll do a wine tasting instead of a bar crawl. We’ll host yoga classes instead of going golfing.

Realistically, none of these events would ever be settings for a gender-neutral, business networking event. So while we women think we’re learning how to build a professional network, we are actually just engaging in a sorority-like slumber party slash gossip-fest that reinforces the girly habits that don’t get us ahead in the workplace.

Shorting Your Network

On average, women speak 20,000 words per day while men only speak 7,000. Yet women do not have as large of networks as men, even though they talk more. Where women are conversational, men are transactional. Men are more likely to use who they know to open doors, and they are more likely to ask for help despite not having helped someone previously.

If you want a larger network, you must not only network with men, but become a more transactional networker; both of which you won’t find at a New Girls’ Club.

Starting a Cat Fight

There are so many things to say here. First, I hate hate hate that when men get into a fight it’s a fist fight, but when women get into a fight it’s a cat fight. Second, cat fighting usually comes with sexual connotation, as if the two women might start making out after ripping handfuls of each other’s hair.

Third, and most important, women are taught at an early age to be jealous of other women because we base our own self-image on what other women have that we don’t. Career columnist Penelope Trunk says, “Everyone is competitive, but there are more problems between two women than between two men or between a man and a woman.” So chances are women are not always your best allies in the workplace. Why limit your networking to just women in the New Girls’ Club?

Signaling a Pay Cut

Research shows that female-dominated fields have lower average salaries than fields where the ratio of men to women is equal or higher. In fact, as a profession goes from male-dominated to female-dominated, the worth of the profession actually drops. This phenomenon is so prominent that it shows up everywhere, from business to college basketball.

This begs the question: why would we purposely aggregate ourselves into female-dominated groups? In any business, factions of females send the wrong signal to their male-counterparts: that the girls can’t eat at the big boys table, so they had to form their own.

And really, if you want to make more money as a woman, you should be in a male-dominated field. It forces you to let go of the New Girls’ Club crutch because there are so many men that all-female networking skills become irrelevant. Which means the New Girls’ Club doesn’t work – it actually holds women back in the end.

Further reading: The G-20 is Complete BS for Women

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Mar 11 Comments comments
Blogger, Careerist, Entrepreneur, Socialite

4 Rules of Communication for Internet and New Media Types

Since so many people are working from home these days, it’s important to discuss expectations regarding business and personal communication for internet and new media types. Here are four rules I try to live by: I’d love to hear what other rules you use to communicate via the web!

State a preferred method of communication

Most people don’t write out the way they use new media to communicate, but what I’ve noticed is that a general set of rules emerges on its own for each individual. For example, I don’t read Twitter direct messages unless it comes from someone I know personally. I don’t respond to Facebook messages unless they come from my sorority sisters. I don’t use Skype or gTalk for important information, like accounts or passwords.

It is likely that you’re rules are not the same, because it’s all about preference. With all the different ways to communicate, professionals in new media have to be clear about how to reach them for business so that they can actually manage their business efficiently. So put a line in your email signature, or make your preferred method clear on your voicemail or business card.

My preferred method for all initial communications is email. Readers of this blog can best contact me at m@twentyset(dot)com.

Have patience

I am constantly asking my husband if he saw such-and-such email, and he tells me things like, “The last time I checked my email was at lunch.” When it’s 5pm. And then he goes on about how I live too much in a virtual world, and I offer to buy him an iPhone to replace his crappy Sony Erickson flip that he refuses to upgrade, and we laugh about how we are possibly so happily married.

If my husband and I are on different pages, just imagine how crazy business communication is in this ever-changing world of social media. The reality is that people have very different perceptions of how urgent matters are, and they filter and prioritize in part by the medium through which they receive the communication. But everyone has different ideas about the rules, and the internet just perpetuates the likelihood that two people’s perceptions won’t match up.

So get real and have patience when you send out a message. There is no 48 hour rule on email. There is no right way to use Twitter. And anyway, if you are observing the person’s preferred method of communication, you will not need to worry so much about having patience.

Understand why people aren’t replying to you

I will be the first to admit that I don’t reply to every single email. I try, but some slip through the cracks. And you can say that I have bad time management or I’m disorganized or whatever, but I seriously doubt most people at my level of connectivity or above genuinely answer every piece of communication they receive in a timely manner.

There are only a couple reasons why I don’t reply –

You didn’t ask for a reply – Sometimes people send me beautiful, long emails about how much they love my blog, or about what their company does, or about a new project they started. Then they wonder why I didn’t respond, and it’s usually because there was no call to action. So if you want me to do more than read your email and appreciate the wisdom you’ve imparted on me, ask a question at the end, or tell me what you want to come from the exchange; otherwise I usually mark it as “FYI” and move on.

I forgot – Sometimes I genuinely want to help you, but it takes awhile and I don’t have time right then; so I mark your request as “come back to later.” Then later never comes and there is no trigger to remind me. It doesn’t hurt to send a few follow up emails after a couple days to ask about the first email. But be warned – if you don’t get a reply to the third email, don’t send a fourth.

You’ve made it hard for me to help you – Sometimes my mom calls me just to chat, but she wants to talk for an hour. Sometimes people want me to write a blog post about them, but don’t send all the information I need; or worse, send me a generic press release. Look, the world moves a lot faster these days. If you lessen the time it takes me to help you, I am more likely to do so.

I reply way more than most people I know – so I think these reasons are probably why a lot of people don’t reply. Start here if you are not getting responses.

Sometimes you have to pay to play

Another reason you may not be getting a response is because you want too much for what you’re offering, and the relationship isn’t mutually beneficial.

For example, someone asked me the other day, “You can be an elusive chick. What’s the best way to reach you?”

What he really meant was “What’s the best way to reach you immediately, whenever I want?”

Look, I can’t be someone’s b*tch, and I can’t give all my knowledge away for free. So I replied, “The best way to reach me is to pay me!” (PS. If you read this blog this story is not about you, so please don’t email me to confront me.)

Harsh, maybe – but in this day and age, it is just too easy to reach out to someone for a favor. Thanks to the popularity of my blog, strangers and weak ties constantly call me, chat me through GTalk, Twitter and Facebook message me, etc. for advice or help, which gets overwhelming after awhile.

Don’t get me wrong – I love hearing from readers and companies trying to use social media. That’s why I started this blog to begin with, so don’t be shy about sending me messages. But understand that I only have a limited amount of time to help people who ask for it, and blog popularity is not scalable unless you take the Tim Ferriss route.

If you really want a direct line to someone, consider putting them on retainer with your company. I answer client calls immediately, at any time of the day – but it’s completely unrealistic for me to give non-payers the same treatment.

What are your thoughts on communicating via the web?

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Feb 09 Comments comments
Blogger, Careerist, Entrepreneur, Socialite

5 Reasons Not to Worry About Unemployment

I was updating a friend on my job search and the conversation went something like this:

“You should have listened to me. I told you that start-up would go under.”

“Yeah, but I quit before that happened anyway.”

“Either way, you don’t have a job. You could still have your old job right now and not be searching for a job in a recession.”

“But the start-up job was better than my old job. I accomplished a lot more in a shorter time period. It was a good choice.”

He stared at me in disbelief. “Monica. You’re unemployed.” His tone rang with finality. As if being unemployed were like getting diagnosed with leprosy, or dying.

Listen Up. First, I’m not unemployed. Second, if I were unemployed, I would be okay, and you can be okay too. Here’s why:

If you’ve managed your career well, you will always have more than one income stream.

Right now I have two – I have a website that makes money from affiliate marketing and ad placement that gets a quarter-million pageviews per month, and I am consulting two start-ups on their social media strategies. No, I am not rich from either of these ventures, but I am making enough to pay the bills and stay busy.

People who are afraid of not having a job worry because they only know how to make money one way. Even if you have a job, figure out what transferable skills you are gaining now that could help you make money when you don’t have a job. Most people are surprised to find that many of their skills are only useful to get the same job at a different company. And what good is that if the entire industry is tanking?

So work towards multiple revenue streams. But realize that “money in” is only half of the equation; the other half to work on is “money out.”

If you’ve managed your finances well, you will always have unemployment insurance.

Eric and I have impeccable finances, which I can’t take much credit for because Eric is truly an impeccable manager of finances. His frugality is a major part of our success, and I feel secure knowing I will always have someone keeping track when I don’t.

Where I add value is I always have little “schemes” (his word, not mine) about how I can make more money on the side, no matter what my main job is. In the beginning, my schemes annoyed him, and probably scared him. The only way I could convince him to let me try something was to show I could produce tangible results.

It became a game between us to see how much my scheming paid off. So I opened a second checking account with a couple hundred bucks to fund my schemes, and put all my earnings back into the account, never dipping into it for emergencies or spending a penny of it on myself.

It’s paid off big time. After a year we had thousands of dollars saved up that we didn’t even count towards our regular savings. Now, when my restless mind comes up with a new scheme, Eric is willing to invest a small amount of our money to let me execute. He likes having a Plan B.

If you’re a creative thinker, you will see your Plan B in everything.

I have plenty of ideas for jobs I could do to make money. I could give speeches about marketing or technology at local colleges. I could become a freelance writer for online magazines. I could create an online course. I could sing at a local bar (yeah, I sing. Weird, right?). I could write an E-Book and partner with people to sell it. I could even become one of those desperate internet marketers and put ads in my Twitter stream (okay, that’s not going to happen, really).

Furthermore, I can also think of back-ups in case we run out of money. We have student loans we can draw from if necessary. We have valuables we could sell. We have our parents who might be able to help us out with a loan. We have excellent credit and could probably get a loan that way. We have credit cards.

Okay – some of these ideas are not great – but you don’t need 50 million great back-up plans. You need maybe two or three to feel secure. And how hard is that if you get creative?

If you want to work, nobody can stop you.

You know the saying that goes, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” (or something like that)? Well, the same holds true for your job. Nobody can tell you to stop working, and you don’t need to get paid for all the work you do.

Look at this blog. It takes a lot of work to maintain, and nobody is paying me. But that doesn’t mean I am not learning and gaining skills that could be listed on my resume or lead to a paid job. And actually, I have gotten one paid job through Twenty Set recently, now that I think about it.

I don’t consider myself unemployed. On my resume, I have a listing for “Marketing Consultant,” where Twenty Set is one of the bullet points. Because that’s what I do now. By choice. Mine.

And if you don’t want to count that as being employed, consider that extremely successful C-level executives almost always have consultant work on their resumes. They are not afraid of not working full-time for a company because they know their most valuable skills can be sold in any form.

So figure out what you want to do, and then just do it. And call it work, because that’s what it is when you are trying to meet a goal or produce a marketable product. Your life is not tied to a job.

If you keep a healthy perspective on life, your employment status is insignificant.

Frankly, my buddy at the beginning of the post upset me. We have a mutual friend with a blood clot who has been hospitalized several times over the last few weeks, whose body is not responding well to the medicine. It makes me mad that he would admonish me for my choices when she is dealing with a potential nightmare right now.

And look – having a job doesn’t make your life easier all the time. My ex-boyfriend has a job, and his life is terrible right now. He leads a platoon and spends 12-16 hours a day running missions in Iraq. His team had to buy wood from a local store to build each of the soldiers’ dorm rooms, which are barely big enough to fit a bed.

There are so many worse things than being unemployed. You could be really sick or you could be in a horrible job that is leading nowhere or you could be risking your life for a country that doesn’t appreciate it. If unemployment scares you that much, consider you may need to reevaluate your priorities. What are you so afraid of, really?

Now, go fix that. And stop worrying about being unemployed. Life’s too short.

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Jan 31 Comments comments
Entrepreneur, Socialite

5 Answers to Tough Questions Companies Have About Using Social Media

I’ve been interviewing for jobs in the marketing/social media/community management arena and I’m amazed by some of the interview questions I’ve gotten. Most of these jobs are at start-ups or small organizations, and most of these companies have been told social media is good for them but don’t really understand the whys or hows.

There are lots of questions left unanswered about how companies can use social media, especially to someone who is not ingrained in the daily grind of using social media for personal branding. Here are five questions I’ve gotten about how social media helps companies, and my best answers:

Should I have a company blog? Why?

Yes and no. I think every company needs a blog that is physically located at their web address, mostly to get more web real estate in front of search engines; however, I don’t think a company needs to write about their company regularly on a blog.

I get what companies are asking though. It boils down to this: If I’m not Google or Apple, why would someone want to read a series of my press releases? Who will even care about this blog, and how am I going to convert them into sales?

The answer is that the most successful personal blogs are the ones that provide useful information people care about. The challenge for a company is to mold its own identity into the “noteworthy” blogging business model that garners them attention.

So here’s a new idea for company blogs: Why not write a blog about a topic that appeals to your target demographic instead? Blogs are most useful when you have content that people are searching for and when you give people good advice that they would be willing to subscribe to.

So then, when you have something that your target demographic is interested in and they’ve found good information on your site a few times, they want to know more about the person and company behind the content. They will visit your site, send you emails, and respond to your requests for feedback. They will tolerate the occasional self-promotional post from your company, especially when they realize that even that information is useful in their daily lives (they are the target demographic for your business, remember?).

Then you get sales. Yes, it’s a lot of work and difficult to measure, but at least it’s a lot more cost-effective than a SuperBowl ad.

Which social media networks should my company use?

It’s really difficult to say without understanding the company better. Before each interview I go on, I research the company’s current online presence and outline a rough social media strategy I would implement for the first three months at the company. But realistically, a few hours of research is not enough to know what works best for the company as social media is half experimentation, half art (and perhaps a dash of science).

The only two pieces of social media I would recommend for almost every company are blogging and Twitter. I explained blogging above, and I recommend Twitter because it’s basically taking over the world and replacing half the Web 2.0 networks out there.

From there, I would look at having a Facebook presence because it’s easy to go viral (look at that recent 25 things meme), YouTube for the virality of the network and because so many people hate reading, and iPhone applications because pretty much everyone I know has one, and anytime you can leverage the insane, cult-like loyalty of the Apple tribe you should take advantage of it.

That said, it really depends on your business and company goals, so define those first and they you’ll know how to execute a social media strategy.

Why would someone use a niche network when they can use the dominant network instead?

My initial response is don’t. Why use Plaxo instead of LinkedIn? Magnolia instead of Del.icio.us? Yammer instead of Twitter? Go where the people are, and build up your social media accounts on the dominant networks that have a better chance of sticking around for awhile.

But my second, more thoughtful answer is maybe it depends on your goals. If your product or service is in a niche and you can find a community focused on that niche, you will have a much better target audience for your message. People who join niche sites really care about the topic – they have to, because why else would you invest so much time and energy into another social network?

People use social media in many different ways, so a customized strategy is essential for any company. Hire someone who is enthusiastic, flexible, and innovative to come up with your strategy, and you’ll be set!

Why do some brands go big on social networks while others don’t?

I think there are two reasons.

One, that people who are popular get more popular. Numbers matter in social media, and when you have them you get featured by traditional media and other social networkers. Which brings you more followers/fans/friends… it’s cyclical.

The second reason is brands that are cool with internet and social media users offline are more likely to be cool online. Look at Zappos, JetBlue, and Whole Foods on Twitter. All fit that 20-40 something demographic that dominates the online space.

And then there’s HRBlock. Sorry HRBlock, you serve a good purpose, but I don’t even like to do my taxes come April. I definitely don’t want to hang out with you the other 11 months of the year.

Sure, personality and aggressiveness of growth plays a role. It has to. But companies also have to be realistic about their online popularity expectations based on what kind of business they are. Social media presence can give you some of the cool factor and help control your brand image online, but don’t expect to become the next Tony CEO if you aren’t hip to begin with.

How can my company use social media to improve internal relationships between my employees?

This one really threw me for a loop, but in the end, my answer has a lot to do with the last answer: it depends on what the issue is. Social media is not a band-aid to fix real world problems, and too many companies see social media as a solution rather than one layer of a solution.

So the first thing I’d say is if your employees are literally sitting next to each other and have trouble getting along or lack fluid communication, they will probably not suddenly become best friends online. You have to fix that problem first through team outings or activities.

BUT if your employees are getting along already and you just want to strengthen those relationships, use social media to turn every employee into an evangelist of your brand.

It’s simple. Establish your company’s values and make each employee aware of the marketing goals. Encourage each employee to sign up for the social media networks you target, and tell them what the rules are if they’re nervous, Finally, engage them to interact with each other, which will make your customers want to interact with them.

Social media users: What are your thoughts on these tough questions?

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