Entrepreneur

Who are you? The new Facebook is tricked out social media storytelling

Date: September 22, 2011  Author: Marlynn 2 Comments

I like the new Facebook, or at least, what it is about to become. I’m not here to debate the good, the bad, and the confusing — you can already find dozens of posts where you can share your rants or raves.

I’m simply here to share that I like what the new Facebook is hoping to allow us to do as users. I like the question it is posing before humankind more than any other social media platform: Who Are YOU?

The new Timelines (replacing Profiles) allow users to create fluid visual stories about their lives. With the new addition of a large cover photo, and three columns that span more like blog columns, the new Facebook basically gives users mini websites, visual portfolios. You have more control over what shows up in your Timeline, which means more control over the story you tell.

Facebook Timeline Marlynn Schotland

{above: my new Facebook Timeline, with a Cover Photo that was taken and edited by me.
It pretty much sums up who I am… or does it?}

Who are you?

When you look at Facebook and what it has become, it’s the platform most people tend to use to connect with friends and family. Sure, businesses pages are on there, and my friends and I all post work-related updates and promos from time to time on our personal profiles (and now Timelines), but for the most part, my non-scientific experience shows that the majority of people are still on there to make a personal connection. We’re there to relate, to share, to question, to understand one another’s stories.

Think about everything you do on Facebook: when you “like” certain pages, share the movies that you are watching, the food you are cooking, the books you are reading, and the music you are listening to, you are weaving your story to your friends. They are able to piece together the kind of person you are from every move you make on Facebook, and you are always ultimately in control of that story.

As humans, we are born storytellers. We have a need to connect with others through our stories. Soon Facebook will be the place we can do that on a level that surpasses all other platforms. It will be THE hub for social interaction. I am excited to see the roll outs revealed in this year’s f8 conference over the next couple of weeks that will enhance the way we share music, books, movies and more.

And more than ever, Facebook will be the place where who you are is up to you. You can complain about the changes, or the time it takes you to learn how to navigate the new interface – but in the end, you, the user, is always in control of the most important part of the social media puzzle: your story.

Take a look at your Facebook profile or timeline right now. What story does it tell? Is it an accurate representation of who you are? Are pieces of you missing, and if so, why are you holding back? Are you telling a story that is so different from who you really are, and if so, is that who you wish to become?

Who are you?

Think about it. Facebook is asking, and inquiring friends want to know.

Sarcasm & social media: the fight for understanding

Date: April 13, 2011  Author: Marlynn 2 Comments

Listen, if you can’t read sarcasm dripping from someone’s written words, you are clearly inferior and deserve to be made fun of told so.

See what I did there? No? Then perhaps you should stop reading blogs all together. And get off of Facebook and Twitter while you’re at it, because the new media includes a whole lot of nuances that will likely BLOW YOUR MIND. Your itty bitty pin-sized mind.

See what I did again? I’m kidding. KIDDING! You are not inferior. You should stay on Facebook and Twitter. You don’t have a pin-sized mind.

I do that sometimes all the time. Normally I am not that blunt harsh mean direct with my sarcasm, but I like having fun with words, fun with friends (and, side note: fun with Words with Friends) and I’m from Portland, where sarcasm drips from every word that comes out of our starving-for-sunshine mouths.

But then there’s all of YOU. You know who you are. The ones who take life a little too seriously. The ones who believe that your Twitter streams should only be 110% suited-up old-school suite-and-tie professional (read: booooring. snooze. wake me when you’re ready to be social). The ones who would never dream of writing a swear word, lest you offend/scare/lose your precious readers (I’m sorry, but damn is not a swear word. Neither is hell. But damn-it-all-to-hell? No, not that either). The ones who probably drink your organic tea with pinkies up and never wear white after Labor Day.

Sarcasm and social media make a tough mix. If I offended you in the paragraph above, guess whose fault that is? Yours. 1: because you crazy selfish bastard you — thinking I’m writing about you in particular? Now, that’s pretty arrogant. And 2: Even if you don’t think I am talking about you (I totally am, by the way), you are internalizing.

I know, I know: we humans are programmed to internalize every comment that comes across our paths. Someone mentions they have cancer, you feel compelled to tell them your great-great-great-aunt had that kind of cancer and died 3 months later. Someone posts that they hate the color blue, and you realize that you LOVE the color blue, are wearing a blue sweater, and just saw that person who tweeted they have that color. Oh, they MUST be talking about you, right?

Here’s the thing: sarcasm really is all about the writer, and not the reader. Oh sure, I am sarcastic in the hopes that you will snicker or laugh right along, but really, I’m being sarcastic to just say something to amuse myself. Some people with the same sense of humor will get it; many others won’t. Should those others be offended? No!

Marvelous Mistake Monday #3: Mission Creep

Date: February 13, 2011  Author: Marlynn Leave a comment

Every entrepreneur I know is guilty of this, and if there were one person to be appointed a Queen of Mission Creep, it would be me. It’s not a crown I wear proudly.

Mission creep is the annoyingly-named term (probably by some equally annoying “marketing guru” no less) for stretching your services and goods outside of your original mission’s boundaries to the point that it becomes detrimental to your brand and business. There is a difference between expanding your services to create multiple revenue streams that make sense for your business (smart move), and taking on additional roles that your business neither has the time nor the staff to manage effectively (not-so-smart move). The latter is mission creep.

There are many reasons entrepreneurs fall into the trap of mission creep. A few of them might be:
1. You’re becoming successful and you want to expand out of fear for falling behind the competition
2. You’re becoming successful and being bombarded with “you should really start offering XYZ as well” by clients/customers
3. You’re not making enough money and think that you’ll reach a greater number of customers by starting to offer a host of new services/goods.

In most cases, mission creep comes from panic. In my case, it came from an honest passion for wanting to better serve my customers. Urban Bliss started out as a custom event stationery business, that morphed into graphic design, web design, then public relations & communications strategy when I combined my PR studio into it, and eventually social media and small business strategy. These expansions make perfect sense for a creative studio — if I had the staff to back up my grand plans. Yet I don’t, and while my kids are young, I don’t plan to staff up because it’s not a business model that I find particularly family-friendly.

The same happened with The Power MOB. My inbox was flooded every week with personal pleas from women who would just love it if we offered this service, or that service, if we held meetings closer to their home, if we held meetings at times more convenient for them, if we focused more on this type of business owner or that type of industry.

In both cases, I forgot the one key ingredient that makes a business run: the business owner. I started listening to too many squeaky wheels and started letting them run the businesses. When you have a personality like mine, where you have no problem trying new things and you in fact truly love to do a million different things, it can be damaging. So I started listening to the one who actually does the work and can see the business from an overarching view: myself. I’m still in the process of paring down and I know it will be a while before I get back to that solid ground of laser-sharp focus, but I’m now cutting off squeaky wheels as soon as they pipe up, and I’m learning the most important word to people-pleasing entrepreneurs: “No.”

In many cases, mission creep can be better kept at bay by doing one simple thing: taking the time to write out and stick to a very specific mission that encompasses your biggest passion, your greatest money maker, and the thing that makes you stand out above all the rest. When a new opportunity to expand comes your way, check it against your mission, and if it doesn’t 100% support your mission and your target audience, politely decline and move on. If it does, then figure out a way to incorporate it into your existing system versus creating a whole new system built around the new service/goods.

Twitter Taboos

Date: February 1, 2011  Author: Marlynn 9 Comments

If you’ve been on Twitter for longer than a few months, you’ve likely come to realize that there’s quite a bit of complaining about how people use Twitter, on Twitter. “Old” Twitter purists such as myself who have been using it for 3 years or more are easily made cranky by common missteps made by both newbies and overeager marketers alike. Consider it your hazing period: brief, we will mock you out of love, but hopefully at the end you learn a lot and we all become fast friends.

The beauty and the beast of social media is that it’s a direct reflection of societal communication: we each interact with others in different ways. We each have different reasons for using social media, and sometimes, our differences in our goals, our reasons for using Twitter, and our communication styles clash.

It’s to be expected. Just don’t expect us to be quiet about it.

While there are a few universal Twitter taboos such as the Golden Rule of “Never, EVER send an Auto Direct Message (DM) to anybody thanking them for following you. Ever. NEVER.”, when I polled my own tweeps about Twitter actions that irk them, I received a few responses I never expected — because they don’t personally bug me at all. What is the bane of one’s existence in the Twitterverse is hardly a speck worth worrying about in another’s. The politics of using Twitter fascinates me, and I love seeing how passionate people get about how to — and how not to — use Twitter.

Here are just a few Twitter pet peeves sent in from my tweeps:

1. “Post a link with no explanation. Why would I click on it?”
2. “Expecting a follow back from a locked account that you can’t see.”
3. “Retweeting your own praises or compliments from others.”
4. “Don’t DM me unless it’s REALLY private. @ me for normal convos. Nobody is THAT important.”
5. “Tagging (@) me by using my Twitter ID at the end of a post that has nothing to do with me.”
6. “When we’ve never interacted and your first @ to me is a request for me to check out your etsy shop. #twitterpetpeeve”
7. “Hijacking hashtags to spam a link or retweeting one of my tweets and adding your link so it looks like an endorsement”
8. “People who chain-post. They get on and just barf out a weeks worth of tweets in 10 minutes.”
9. “I dislike it when people flood their followers’ streams (10 posts in 2 min). Spread out those tweets, people. Grrrrr.”
10. “There seems to be some app that tweets what songs you are listening to. EVERY song, for hours. Um, I’m not that interested.”
11. “RTing all the time and putting your reply in front of the RT so everyone can see the whole convo.”
12. “IMHO Curse. the big stuff anyway. I’m ok w/ hells & damns, but not really fond of the other 4-letter stuff. ”
13. “oh!, here’s one: they shouldn’t take gratuitous photos of their McDonald’s food product & link to it alongside slogan-y tweet.”
14. “RT every contest they come across. 1-2, I can handle but when it overtakes a persons feed, I want to unfollow even if like them”

Scavenger hunt time: I wrote one of those tweets above, can you tell which one?

For those of you on Twitter, do all of the aforementioned actions bug you? I admit to cursing once in a while (rarely), and I do sometimes RT the whole convo w/my response in front if it’s short so that everyone involved doesn’t have to dig to see what I’m responding to. The moral of the story is: you will, without a doubt, at one point in time or another, bug the crap out of someone on Twitter just by being yourself. It’s the way the world works, and Twitter is no different.

A few clients have asked me how to get started on Twitter when it seems there are so many unspoken rules. My advice is always the same: read more, tweet less. Watch and learn from the pros. I’m not talking about the people who have 45,000 followers, but the people who have an obvious loyal following, regardless of number. They @ others a lot, RT others, and are obviously engaged in conversation. Watch what they do, and notice very carefully what they do not do. If you try to push yourself on others too soon without building a relationship, it’s like being the last to arrive to a party in full swing and throwing your business card in people’s faces without the small talk.

And for the love of all things Twitterlicious, please do not ever, EVER send an auto DM thanking people for following you, sending them to your Facebook page, or “thanking” them with an automatic “free gift” of your damn ebook/Top10List/downloadanything. So how do you thank tweeps? By genuinely engaging in conversation, absorbing what others are tweeting & responding authentically, and by building a relationship with your followers.

Many thanks to the following fabulous tweeps for contributing their pet peeves: @Metro_Parent @KatrinaWheeler @CarlaYoung @GinaRau @TwitAdrian @JolieKG @DebtPrincess @MsLierre @fringies @i_obsess @whatscooking @EmilyFitzhugh @EmbarkCreative

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If you’d like to connect with me on Twitter, I’m @designmama for daily life/foodie/design/mama/music tweets, and @UrbanBlissMedia for blog/design/strategy tweets. I also tweet @ThePowerMOB for mom entrepreneur business tweets.

Marvelous Mistake Monday: Complacency

Date: January 3, 2011  Author: Marlynn Leave a comment

The first Monday of the new year. Let’s kick it off right by kicking to the curb a marvelous mistake of 2010: complacency.

In my five years of being a small business owner, I have been fortunate to have gained client after client almost solely on referrals and word-of-mouth. I’ve heard from many of you who have had the same sort of luck with your businesses, and last year I held the same conversations with many of you: what’s happening to our clients? Why are they no longer flocking to our doors? Why is the phone ringing less?

Then as soon as we heard ourselves asking those questions, we immediately smacked ourselves in the head. If you are asking those questions, then you have probably fallen to the same entrepreneur error: you’ve become complacent in your business.

It’s not that business has never been easy – far from it. It’s that we get into our grooves and do business as usual during a time when business is at its most unusual. We simply failed to prepare for and imagine the worst:
What if our biggest client suddenly shut its doors?
What if our second biggest client suddenly lost funding for the five-year project we were hired on to help with?
What if suddenly our smaller clients decided they couldn’t pay because of financial changes in their personal lives?

It’s not that we got lazy, we just kept doing the same old, same old. When you do that during a tough recession, you may survive, but you certainly can’t thrive.

And we should all aim to thrive, not just survive.

Here are a few things that my fellow complacent colleagues and I have been doing and/or will be doing to revive the flow of work for 2011:

1. Innovate from within. This means something different to each entrepreneur. For me, it means developing my own projects that challenge my skills and test my abilities. When you stretch your mind, you tap into new areas you are able to bring to your business. The good ones will inspire you; the best ones will inspire you and help bring in more business.

2. Do a better job of reaching out to past and current clients on a regular basis. Whether it’s a monthly newsletter or setting aside one morning each month to touch base, it’s vital as you are seeking new clients to remember to take care of your old ones, and to serve them well.

3. Go to more networking events. I admit: for me, it was easy to get complacent in this area because I run a networking organization. And I detest networking in its traditional sense. But it’s important to participate in more than one networking organization, to not only reach potential clients in every possible appropriate venue, but to expand your vision of what could be by learning from new people and being motivated by their work.

4. Get rid of the time sucks and get down to business. When you realize you’ve been complacent in your business, you need to break down your time by the minute and rebuild a schedule that weeds out the ineffective activities and people and opens up more time to do the first three activities mentioned. Maybe you spend too much time on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe you spend too much time playing Words With Friends and Angry Birds. Maybe you participate in too many book clubs by obligation to your friends. Whatever is adding stress to your life more than it is adding emotional, professional, or personal benefit, cut it out or cut it down and re-prioritize. Now is as good a time as any to take charge of your time again.

I’m personally in the process of doing all of these items. Even if you feel you’ve been turbocharged and ten steps ahead in your business this past year, it never hurts to remember to do these things throughout the year.

Here’s to a pro-active, vibrant 2011 business year for all of you entrepreneurs out there!

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