Twitterville Etiquette: Quote THIS!

 There have been 9,165 blogs, articles and posts about Twitter and Social Media etiquette that we have all read and hoped we have not made near fatal mistakes with and I know I have read at least 1,964 of them.

But, I did something last week that in Twitterville is a major Go Directly To Jail offense but luckily was able to quell as fast as it all occurred.

I collect great expressions and quotes. I cut and paste them, drop them in a word document and keep them cozy on my desktop waiting to be used. I save them for rainy days or on line chats that warrant their subject matter and I infuse them into the conversation. I’m always very careful to make sure I quote who say’s it because let’s face it, Twitterville is a small town.

So, I was going into a chat with the #custserv group last Tuesday and I needed a great quote to drop on the crew and I was short on my own words that day. So I went to my magic file, found an amazing quote that had no writers credit pasted along with it. I couldn’t remember for the life of me where I saw it and figured, “oh, just use it regardless”. Here for the record is the quote:

“The Best Companies have a Strong Culture but a Thin Rule Book. Stick to Your Standards & be Disciplined. What You Permit, You Promote.”

Sounds great right? The response was terrific and everybody and their brother Re-Tweeted it and they told two friends and so on and so on…And then I get a Direct Message from “The Author”.

Now, the author is no ordinary guy, this is a guy I have been connected with through FohBoh.com for a couple of years, I respect and look up to even use his “Leadership in a Box” program in my company. We had even chatted online earlier. His name is, Jim Sullivan and no we are not related.

The Direct Message reads (and I paraphrase here): “FYI Ty, that quote you used was a direct quote from me on Twitter on Feb.5th. Just letting you know.”

I am MORTIFIED! Sweat cascades down my head and builds on my shirt collar!  All I’m thinking is ‘have mercy this poor guy’s words are stolen and now he thinks I’m a thief and my name is mud in the world I worked so hard to build”. So I of course am a man of action and can’t deal with guilt very well (and I can’t afford the therapy to fight this one off), so I jump right on it and apologize for the incident both publicly and personally. I explain it was in no means malicious or sneaky and offer him my 2^nd born heir or an Applebee’s Gift Card but not both. He gentlemanly responds, “no worries, apology accepted just wanted credit where credit due” and fair enough! YES!

Bottom line, I spent 24 hours responding to every Re-Tweet of this quote (and there were TONS of them-the quote was that good!) by addressing the Twitterer with, “YES! Great quote by @sullivision wasn’t it?” making sure they KNEW it was Jim Sullivan’s not mine.

So here’s the bottom line citizens of Twitterville, check you facts, quotes and Tweeted gems before you pull the trigger. If you’re not sure of the quote put “Anonymous” after it. If you’re a “quote hoarder like I am, make sure that you CUT & PASTE the authors name.

24 words can cost you 24 hours of clean up.

Please check out my friend Jim Sullivan’s website out at www.sullivision.com and follow him on Twitter at @sullivision He’s a smart guy! Very quotable!

Power To The People: Social Media On The Front Lines in Egypt

Twitter my friend, we had you all wrong.

What started out as a 140 character ego fest has once again proven itself in the battlefield. Literally.

This last week we all watched as the uprising, the REVOLUTION, started by the people of Egypt reached a fever pitch in violence. And on the front lines of this planets latest battle for change and independence stands, Twitter and smart-phones as they chronicled the atrocities that scared “little big men” don’t wish for us to see. Remember that it was just 18 months ago that the same technologies were hailed as a factor in Iran’s Green Revolution as the streets stirred in protests that followed the disputed presidents election.

By cutting off Egypt’s internet and wireless capabilities last week in the wake of massive protests, President Mubarak’s greatest fears came to fruition. The social networking empire he tried to bring down backfired on him in epic proportions. His people and opponents became empowered and found ways to reach out to the world, exposing his failings that would topple his regime, through Facebook, Twitter and the big bad Social Media.

By most accounts, the new armory of social networking helped hasten Tunisia’s revolution, driving the country’s ruler of 23 years, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, into exile and igniting a blaze that has spread across the Arab world at breathtaking speed.

It was an apt symbol that dissident blogger, Slim Amamou with thousands of followers on Twitter, catapulted from the interrogation chambers of Mr. Ben Ali’s regime to a new government post as minister for youth and sports in just a matter of days. It was a marker of the uncertainty in Tunis that by Thursday, he’d stepped down from his position.

Tunisia’s uprising offers the hottest encouragement for a reassuring idea: that the same Web tools so many of us Americans use to keep tabs on college pals and post momentary thoughts have a more noble role as well, a thorn in the side of tyranny. John Lennon’s ‘Power to the People”, has been coursing through my mind ever since.

There are times that I ask myself, why am I on Twitter? Why do I care about what others have to post on Facebook? Why are we all wasting our time in the lackluster tactile world of internet social media? Then, something like this reminds me why I’m here. Why we are all here. Because in some way we all make a little difference in the landscape of mankind.

From Lauren Lankford and Nate St. Pierre, who encourage others to lift up those downtrodden through Itstartswith.Us and dropalovebomb.com, the Twitterthons we hold to raise dollars for organizations such as Strength.org or @JEFFin140 on Twitter's #USguys selling ad space with tattoos on his body to raise money for a new house for his mom, to the stories that make the news like Egypt, Iraq and Somalia’s struggle for independence, one thing is clear. Social media has given POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

I begin to wonder if someone like John Lennon who was not afraid to take a stand for something he believed in were HERE TODAY, would he have a Facebook page, Twitter account or blog about the feelings and issues he and others are passionate about? I would have to say, Probably. Could you just IMAGINE that?

Power to the People. Power to the People, right on!

The Great “Friends” Tour '11- A Humorous Look at Who Our Friends & Followers Are in New Media

**Note to Reader: Read in a slight British Accent**
Friends.
Nice word. Positive word.
Webster defines it in the following ways; 1:one attached to another by affection or esteem; 2:one that favors or promotes something.

Let me start by saying I really do like the word ‘friend’. I use it daily when I address people whom I know. “Hello friend”, “How are you friend?” etc.

It always struck me as strangely humorous and in some ways creepy though the way that Facebook and Myspace call everybody ‘friend’.
Make Me Your Friend.
Add To Your Friend List.
69 Friend Requests.

Now, whether they are on your personal or professional sites, you really have to step back here and wonder; How many of these people really are your friends? Do they fall under Webster’s definition #1? Well, how can we tell?

So, in order to better know, love and appreciate the demographic of those that are “my friends” I have decided to do a Marketing Research Project and go and visit each and every individual person signed up to both my personal and business Facebook and Myspace accounts, go to their homes knock on their doors and say, “Hello! According to my Facebook and Myspace we, you and I, are friends. I would there for enjoy coming into your home, sitting on your couch for afternoon tea and see how much we really have in common.”

Now should the visit go smashingly, I will of course maintain them as “friends” perhaps even elevating them to a “favorites” category. However, if the visit should not go brilliantly and I find their response to my unprompted visit to be somewhat course and abrupt, then I shall remove them as my friend. Of course if they are from my business social media account and they have a lot of followers, I may have to reconsider.

Again, this is Marketing research so pie charts, graphs and Power Point presentations must and will display this data to make it all so very official looking. Also, I may need to stay in touch with you, my FohBoh contacts, in case I need a couch to crash on for the night or hit you up for a hot meal at your restaurants while traveling for this project…All in the name of research for our businesses of course.

Then there of course are “Followers” as in “follow me on Twitter” or “your followers”. A rather pretentious and egotistical expression really.
“My followers”.
If you’re a restaurant using Twitter it makes the hospitality biz sound a bit like a cult.
“Come in This Week For All U Can Eat Wings & Our Secret Recipe Lemon-Aid!”
Offer Good Only Until The Mother Ship Arrives or Our Ascension into Godhood.

Now, if you should rather go with Webster’s definition #2, just ignore all the gibberish above as is #2 does pertain more to what you (we) are trying to accomplish through Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, or as I like to call it, MyTwitFace.

So, my friends, have a wonderful day, we have all worked hard so enjoy it with the ones you truly call your friends and be safe.

SOCIAL UN-NETWORKING: 10 PEOPLE, 1 DAY NO SOCIAL MEDIA

I could begin to feel the circuits overheating. 

I had been very active with several different chat groups, creating a new one, researching Social Media related issues for work as well as running and responding to all the Social Media there and making new followers and friends at a rate that would have The Flash look like he was moving at the speed of a Presidential campaign push for Dan Quail.

It needed to slow down or stop for a few hours. I thought, “oh what a lovely little article this would make with me taking the day off from all Social Media”. But, what I thought would be even more effective and challenging would be to take others that I knew who were also Social Media Junkies on the journey with me. So I went into two of the Twitter chat forums I live in, #CustServ and #UsGuys and put forth my quest: I NEED SEVERAL VOLUNTEERS TO GO A WHOLE DAY WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA. WHO’S WITH ME!?

The response was overwhelmingly silent and the roar of the crickets and tumbleweeds was deafening. So I asked several more times and got a small trickle of responses and enlistees. Funny part was, they were all female! Not one guy! Where were my dudes in Twitterville? Where was my Band of Brothers? It was an experiment with all females and only me as the solo male.

The experiment hadn’t even begun and I already had my most interesting statistic so far. Only females volunteered and when I asked 10 different males why they would not join this merry little band, they all had the same answer. “I can’t go a day without it.” Period. Only 2 said it would compromise their work.

Here’s what the rules were: NO Twitter, Facebook,  Four Square, MySpace (as if anyone under the age of 12 has a page there anymore) LinkedIn, Skype, Google Chat, IM’s, Blogging or even texting.

Yes, that’s right texting. I researched other experiments of this nature and 3 out of the 5 I reviewed all categorized ‘texting’ as a Social Media outlet.  According to a Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project report in April of 2010, text messaging has become the primary way that people reach their friends, besting face-to-face contact, email, instant messaging and voice calling as the go-to daily communication tool.

They were allowed to email as is it’s not considered ‘social media’ but rather a regular at work and at home source of communication.

With all my lab rats (and myself) set to run through the maze for a full day I reached out to them via email with their mission and the following 4 questions for them to answer upon the completion of  the day;

 1. Did you snap like a twig, collapse and start using Social Media before the day ended? If so, why?
2. What did you find the biggest challenge or hurdle in this experiment?
3. Do you feel there are TOO MANY SM sites and it causes you distractions throughout the day?
4. Of all the SM sites you are on, which one did you miss the least and feel you could do without?

The votes have been counted. The results…After this commercial break. OK, couldn’t resist the dig at Ryan Seacrest…OK, here we go:

Snap, Twitch and Drool:

Zero out of the 10 people had a Lindsey Lohan style relapse. Everyone stayed the course.  Ellie, a Twitter fanatic reported “a terrible longing for my iphone and kept looking at it and caressing it as if it were a chocolate bar”, while @CaiPalmiter from Twitter said she suffered from paranoia and dreamt of Skyping. Only one person slipped slightly, Sherree (@starry_girl on Twitter), with a texting volley with her husband regarding their dog. You’re off the hook Sherree, I’m a sucker for dogs!

Oh the pain, the pain…

As far as challenges and hurdles an overwhelming 80% said the voyeuristic urge to “peek” and see what others were conversing about in their absence was unbearable. Sherree, stated “It was hard first thing in the morning and when I got home in the evening. Thankfully, my day was full of meetings and deadlines; I didn't have time to want to check things. “I suffered the same day as our friend Sherree as is I actually worked that faithful day.

This One Goes to 11

Are there too many Social Media sites out there creating too much noise and distractions? YES! It seems every time a newer and shinier one comes along we all herald it as the “second coming”. But do we need anymore? According to 90% of the test subjects, no, we don’t.  Ellie informed me “I was definitely less distracted, more focused at work.” Dina, said “it made me realize, I don’t really need half of these sites.”

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

When it came time to say “good morning” to the Social Media sights again the #1 site that was not missed at all by 80% was Four Square! It seemed people just don’t care about being the Mayor of anything or wanting to know where @droolmarks is eating at that very moment.  Very interesting statistic was the #2 least missed site: Facebook! This one floored me. Don’t people check their Facebook more times a day than the time? The one that was missed the most by a staggering 100% was Twitter. As L.J so eloquently phrased it; “I couldn’t live without Twitter. I would die not knowing what to do under my desk all day.” ‘Nuff said.

Feelings, Nothing more than Feelings…
Some key words to note here as well that got tossed around by the majority; “isolated” “lost” “habitual” “slacking” “weird” and the number one word used, “addicted”.

A Jerry Springer Style Final Thought

Social Media is an extraordinary option to commune with our world, learn new things and expand our horizons and meet those we may not be afforded the luxury of doing so in the real world!  But isn’t Social Media now an element of The Real World?

During this little experiment, I learned that I can participate in my social media “neighborhood” without living in it. I can't imagine life without my social media community of friends, followers, business acquaintances and clients. I have a friend or “family” to chat with anytime I want! But I have another life beyond social media.  I have a wife and daughter that don’t chat, IM, Tweet, RT, follow or Skype. At the end of the day, it’s just the three of us in our own world.

I like it there. Think I’ll stay awhile.

More of The Beatles take on Customer Service: BECAUSE

Yeah I was the 5th Beatle until they got tired of me screaming

"WOW! Your The Beatles" in recording sessions.

We hear the expressions “Authentic You” and “Be Authentic” used a lot lately. Personally, I don’t get bothered by its use or as some feel, over use. It’s a philosophy I subscribe to the best I can in my personal life.

You can just tell when someone has it and when they don’t especially in the field of Customer Service.  We choose our friends based on their being authenticity and a bond based on a foundation, a feeling of trust and joy. The same can be said about the customer service representatives we deal with on a constant bases.

I constantly tell CSR’s at speaking engagements that people can go anywhere to get a product like the ones they sell, be it down the block or on the internet. But what keeps the consumer coming back are them. The individual.  The CSR’s the “get it”. The guests are there daily or frequent to see their “friends “where they know it’s safe and the customer service is great! Make that exceptional!

I deal with retail businesses where their CSR’s interact daily face to face with guests and yes, they have an easier time of it because they can learn guests names etc. But the philosophy applies to CSR’s online and via phone activity as well. It’s what I call the BECAUSE factor.

Being

Engaging

Centered &

Authentic

Ultimately

Serves

Everyone

By following the BECAUSE factor it simply benefits the CSR, the guest and the company as a whole. All it takes is a person who “gets it” as far as how to deal with humans on a genuine level to make a difference all around. That CSR may not have all the answers, but if they stay focused on the customer, if they stay concerned and engaging with the guest, problems will dissipate in their severity at a much faster pace than an with an “auto response”.

Let me give you an example. We have a Starbucks near our house (go figure) that we go to as it’s the only one near us (go figure that one too).  Even if there was a Tim Horton or Café De Spend Tu Dinero Here within reach, I would still choose to go to Starbucks. The CSR’s there are friendly, polite, accommodating and more importantly they know me. 

There is one CSR, Jasmine, who I saw once when my 2 year old daughter and I went there for coffee and juice after a grueling music class. When I saw her again 2 weeks while on a solo visit she asked me, “So where is that adorable little one today?”

WOW! One meeting. One time serving me and she remembered! Guess who I look for when I’m there? Jasmine! She gets BECAUSE. But it’s not just her. It’s Tanim who always knows I have a Half Decaf-Half Regular Black so I don’t leap out of my skin and send my ADD into overdrive with regular high octane coffee! It’s also the dude whose name I don’t know with the goatee (looked for him for a pic with him but not working) who knows what my wife drinks and makes it a point to play with my 2 year old when we are on line.

These are the people I like to reward with my business and my time BECAUSE…!

Customers who feel they have been treated well and in an authentic manner have a 70% chance of returning to a business they have developed a relationship with even after just one positive visit.

BIGresearch, an Ohio-based market intelligence firm, asked thousands of shoppers what kind of customer service they expected. Customers said they sought friendly, authentically polite service and wanted to feel that a company valued them more than the sale. They look for value, but define it as more than the price of a product; it also includes the service they receive. According to the survey, 71 percent said they stopped doing business with a company due to bad customer service.

So, before you have to go chasing down unhappy guests asking why they left and they just tell you, BECAUSE, train your staff in the Beatle version of BECAUSE. It will HELP you in THE END during the Customer Service REVOLUTION.

Peace and Happy New Year!