I Am Now Part of the 1%
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Tools Leave a comment »by Sherry Heyl
I am now part of the 1%. Not in the financial world, but in the world of Linkedin.
I received the above email today. I was actually quite surprised. Linkedin is one of my least used networks. But receiving this “honor” only proves what I try to tell my clients often. Something I am sure Linkedin would not like to hear me say, which is “do not pay for Linkedin until you are maxing out what you can do with the network for free.”
I have met a number of people who have the premium membership and they barely get any use out of it. It is a bit like paying for a gym membership, not actually hitting the treadmill and expecting to get in shape, because you are paying that monthly membership. It takes more than handing over your credit card number. You actually have to do the work.
I currently use Linkedin to stay connected in touch with my connections. It is not about being connected, it is about staying in touch; reaching out to people when they make a change in their career; reaching out to people you have not talked to in awhile; reaching out to people who you have not met yet when they ask to connect with you. It is about building relationships.
That takes time. Just like getting on the treadmill takes time. But just like the treadmill, doing the hard work does eventually pay off.
One of my 2013 goals has been to improve my use of Linkedin. I have been reaching out to my network, finding new groups to participate in and removing myself from groups that have not provided any value yet. I actually anticipate I will be ready to take my membership to the next level this year. But not until I have maxed out what I can get with the free version.
Thank you Linkedin.
What Can We Learn From The Applebee’s Fiasco?
Posted: February 3, 2013 Filed under: Tools | Tags: Applebees, crisis management, pr, reputation management 3 Comments »by Sherry Heyl
The Internet is all abuzz about Applebee’s being the latest victim of a social media mob. Some call it the Applebee’s social media Meltdown.
I feel like I could be called as an expert witness on this case. I spent 10 years of my life as a waitress in restaurants similar to Applebee’s and the past 7 years in social media (college degrees and other corporate jobs in between).
I should be able to see this situation from all sides, but honestly I found myself scratching my head as I read the account of what happened.
The incident started when a Pastor who was paying for her part of the meal of a large party, crossed out the automatic 18% tip and wrote on the receipt ““I give God 10% why do you get 18,” above her signature.
To the witness stand I call the me who was a waitress for 10 years and I would be pissed! But I also realize that this happens at restaurants, it is part of the job. I actually had a church group that I waited on scam me out of money once.
Another waitress took a photo of the receipt and posted it on Reddit, a community made up of people who will definitely side with the waitress, and so the story spreads with not so nice things being said about the Pastor. The photo of the receipt has the name of the Pastor on it and she is eventually alerted to what is going on and informs Applebee’s.
Alright this is where the me who has advised individuals on social media etiquette takes the stand. Social Media is powerful, and “with great power comes great responsibility.” I see the server taking action against the pastor, but doing so publicly will come back and bite you. I waited tables before there was social media, or even the Internet. We had our ways to take action against certain guests (this is why you should ALWAYS be polite to your server and tip appropriately), but we did not pour the drinks all over the guest (yes that happened) and then get on the loud speaker and announce what we did. No, the action had to look like an accident or not be traced back to the server. I am sorry, the server who posted the picture was in the wrong in that she did not understand what she does on the Internet is similar to announcing an action or opinion over the loud speaker, which I am sure she would not have done. The computer screen does not shield you.
This is why having a social media policy is NOT good enough….
Here is where I think Applebee’s did some things right regarding their social media program.
From what I have read, they have a social media policy that employees sign which states:
Employees must honor the privacy rights of APPLEBEE’s and its employees by seeking permission before writing about or displaying internal APPLEBEE’s happenings that might be considered a breach of privacy and confidentiality…this includes guests….
The way the legal system has been struggling to catch up with social media actions, I do not know if this policy will stand up in the court of law. Employees have a right to complain about their job conditions, but to call out a customer may be a different story. I am glad to know they had a social media policy though.
The waitress who posted the picture was fired for violating the Applebee’s social media policy.
The problem is that the social media mob is not going to emotionally take the side of the Pastor and her right to privacy. Since most of us have worked with the public and have had to deal with people we feel did us wrong, we will empathize with the waitress. So, as the story evolved so did the social media protest.
The second thing that I commend Applebee’s for is responding to the attacks. I believe their responses were professionally written and sincere. I believe they really tried. But they did not understand how to deal with an emotionally charged mob.
Here is what they could have done better.
First of all, I believe that Applebee’s was in the right to fire the waitress and that there is no reason for them to cave into the pressure of the social media mob. But they needed to take a stronger stand against the mob.
As soon as Applebee’s noticed that this story was going to be a big deal on social media, they should have got in front of it and made it a big deal themselves. They posted their responses to the mob within the comments section (you can find the details on this blog). You can tell they were responding in a way where they wanted to keep the issue on the “down low” and make it just go away. That gave them the same result as what swatting a hornet’s nest will give you. Don’t swat at it, take a blow torch to it. Go big! Post your side of the story as a prominent Facebook status and take steps to own the search results for those who are looking into what the story is all about. Many people will not agree with Applebee’s, but some, like me, will.
Understand that your side of the story is not going to quiet the mob and that responding to them directly is only going to fuel their fire. Let the mob vent. Don’t block them from your page, don’t delete their comments, let them vent. Ideally, guide their venting to the appropriate status. Currently the Applebee’s Facebook page has 2 posts explaining their situation up with approximately 30,000 comments on them. I think 2 updates plus all their responses within the comments section is a little too much. One update with the facts is enough.
Will Applebee’s lose customers over this situation? Maybe a few, but nothing for them to panic about. Is this a huge social media fail? No. I have seen lots worse where the company behaved as if they did not care about the public. I think in this situation, Applebee’s was trying to care a little too much. They went to a lot of effort to continuously to provide the facts and explain their side of the situation, which was perceived by the mob as being argumentative or confrontational.
I have seen a number of posts about how bad Applebee’s was in this situation. Not one post that I have read has said what the right thing would have been for Applebee’s to do. I suspect many people would like the waitress to have not been fired. But then where do we draw the line on privacy? Can any server begin to post pictures of stupid things their customers are doing? Because I promise you, we all do stupid things that we would not want shared on the Internet.
As I said in the beginning of the post, this one has me scratching my head. It is easy to say that Applebee’s failed in their social media efforts here because obviously they are currently dealing with an angry mob. But what could they have done to avoid having to deal with such a mob, besides not fire the waitress?
What would you have advised?
Facebook and Privacy (They don’t mix)
Posted: January 6, 2013 Filed under: Tools | Tags: Facebook, Privacy Leave a comment »by Sherry Heyl
Facebook is constantly changing and changing fast. That is actually the secret to their success.
That means what you were once used to and comfortable with on Facebook will be different the next time you log on. This includes your assumptions about your privacy settings. A little over a year ago I gave up the idea of having any kind of privacy on Facebook. If I want it to be private I don’t post it on Facebook.
With that said, you are not completely helpless when it comes to managing what you see and what other’s see on Facebook. But with all the changes people often get confused of what they can and cannot manage. This past week a number of my friends posted this in their status update:
Hello, my FB friends: I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!! However, with the recent changes in FB, the “public” can now see activities in ANY wall. This happens when our friend hits “like” or “comment” ~ automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we can not change this setting by ourselves
because Facebook has configured it this way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” and also “PHOTOS”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy and paste this on your wall. Once I see this posted on your page I will do the same. Thank you very much!
This is quite misleading and can be very confusing. So I am going to try to break it down.
The first sentence says:
I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!!
If you do not want your photos to be accessible to the public go to your privacy settings in the top right.
From here you can chose whether or not you want the default setting for your posts to be public or for “friends only” or custom.
Friends: Just people connected to you.
Public: Everyone
Custom: Certain friends only that you have put on a list.
There is also an only me option, but I do not know why anyone would want to only share with themselves….
Here is where Facebook recently changed. You used to be able to chose friends of friends as an option. Meaning if I am friends with you and your friend Sally has set her privacy settings to friends of friends, then I could see Sally’s posts even though I was not friends with Sally because you are a mutual friend. That is no longer an option for future posts, but it past posts remain set that way. That can be changed to friends only in the Privacy setting as well.
The next part of the Facebook status that is going around says:
However, with the recent changes in FB, the “public” can now see activities in ANY wall. This happens when our friend hits “like” or “comment” ~ automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we can not change this setting by ourselves
This is not true at all. What the public can see is activity that happens on public walls.
As I mentioned, my profile is public, so you if post on, comment on, or like a post on my wall the public will be able to see that activity and your friends may see that activity in their Facebook feed, because it was a public action. This includes any activity on pages. So if you comment on or like something on a political page people will see it, because it was a public activity.
If however you comment or like something on a friend’s page who has their settings as friends only, only her friends will see that activity.
Finally the status says:
because Facebook has configured it this way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” and also “PHOTOS”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public.
What this activity will do is ensure that YOUR friends will not see what you comment on or like or your photos. The people you WANT to share with will not be able to see what you are sharing, but the public will still be able to see your public activity.
Basically what the activity described does is to enable you to have control over what shows up in your feed from your friends. If you have a family member or friend that you feel obligated to stay connected to but you don’t like seeing their updates, you can take them out of your news feed or modify what you see from them. The activity described has nothing to do with what the public can see of your activity.
I hope this makes sense. But once again please keep in mind that whatever you share on Facebook or the Internet can be leaked or copied and shared. Therefore although you can manage your settings, never assume you have privacy, because we all know what assume means (ass-u-me).
Lifehacker also recently posted a great article about the many other ways you can manage your Facebook presence.
Trees Atlanta Wins The Change Challenge!
Posted: April 11, 2012 Filed under: Tools | Tags: Atlanta, competition, nonprofit, Social media, The Change Challenge Leave a comment »by Sherry Heyl
Last summer as I was watching The Voice an idea hit me. What if we put teams of people together to compete on developing and implementing a social media strategy. After a few months of bouncing the idea around I teamed up with Jake Aull and Terry Coniglio and The Change Challenge was born.
The Change Challenge was made up of 4 teams of 4 volunteers that supported 4 different sponsoring nonprofits. Led by myself, Terry, and Jake the teams received hands-on training on developing a social media strategy and integrating social media into business processes. Ultimately The Change Challenge was a competition where each team was judged based on Creative Problem Solving, Goals Met, and a Sustainable Implementation.
A couple of weeks ago The 2011-2012 Change Challenge volunteers celebrated their incredible journey with an awards breakfast.
A special thanks to our judges:
- Dr. Naveen Donthu, Department of Marketing Chair, GA State University
- Jeannie Ericson, Executive Director, Integrated Media Association
- Cindy Cheatham, VP Consulting Services, GA Center for Nonprofits
Volunteers from The Change Challenge had the opportunity to present at SoCon12 and will be presenting at the CXO Forum and the GCN Summit.
Congratulations to the Trees Atlanta team for winning The 2011-2012 Change Challenge.
Comments from the judges:
- “Goals were well defined and met.”
- “Their focus on a content calendar was key to creating a sustainable implementation.”
- “Everything they did seems very creative but logical and well thought-out”
The Change Challenge Trees Atlanta Team
Trees Atlanta team included: Abby Schwimmer, Kent Jones, Sara Cheshire, Elyse Klova, and their nonprofit sponsor Bethany Clark
Pictured below is Ashlee Lindo from the Adpative Learning Team and Tori Vogt from the Atlanta Mission Team
“I applaud the team for persevering through all their challenges. Their flexibility and creativity kept the idea alibe.” Judges comments related to the Atlanta Mission Team.
“A lot of good came from the project in terms of understanding what kind of effort must go into a real social media campaign.” Judges comments related to the Adaptive Learning Team
Pictured below, the Emory Center for Injury Control team: Michael Mumper, Kirka Mugo, Dan Schlossberg, Kristina McInerny
“Really thought through where you want to go and the opportunities to expand” Judges comments related to the Emory Center for Injury Control Team.
This was an incredible experience and I sincerely appreciate and am still in awe of the dedication and hard work from everyone that was involved.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead
Why Gap’s Social Media Policy is NOT a Model to Follow
Posted: March 18, 2012 Filed under: Tools | Tags: Brand, Gap social media policy, Social media 2 Comments »by Sherry Heyl
Last week, all through my Google Alerts I kept seeing articles from around the web praising Gap’s social media guidelines as the model to follow. I saved a couple of the articles so that I could review them this weekend, take notes, and help my clients model the success that so many thought Gap had found.
I just read through Ragan’s highlights and learned that the actual policy is not public for me to review. However what Ragan is celebrating as the success of the policy is exactly what I tend to tell my clients does not work.
If you have heard me speak, you may have heard me tell this story, but here it goes again.
Throughout college, which took me 8 years, I worked at Bennigan’s as a waitress. Many people who are younger than me do not know what Bennigan’s is, but if you have seen the movie Office Space, this was me…
We were told that if we served alcohol to people who were under-age, the restaurant would get fined and could be closed down and we could lose our job.
Now let me relate that message to one of the messages in the Gap guidelines…
“These guidelines are important—because if you don’t follow them a few things could happen: your posts can get deleted, we could lose customers and investors, we could get in trouble, or, worst of all, you could even lose your job … So do the right thing, stick to the guidelines.”
Similar, right?
Here was the problem. As servers we got really busy. We were working for tips. And overall we were not real loyal to our company. So if we were too busy to check an I.D. we did not check an I.D.
In any corporate job your employees are looking out for themselves, trying to solve their problems, and more often than not seeking to establish their own voice online. They are not loyal to your brand.
So what should you do?
Stop thinking that your social media policy should focus on your corporate brand and start helping your staff consider their own personal brand.
In Florida, which is where I worked as a waitress, they decided to make each server individually licensed to sell alcohol. We each had to go through a certification training and if we were caught selling alcohol to someone under age or anyone who should have been cut off, WE as individuals could get fined, go to jail, and lose our license to sell alcohol.
We all started taking the time to check IDs which in turn benefited the restaurants.
If you focus your policy and training on helping your team to protect their personal brand and not focus so much on your corporate brand, your team will pay attention to what you have to say and will even appreciate your willingness to look out for their best interest. I call this the “brand you” campaign. I have been saying for years, and repeated it just recently, but if you want to protect your brand in the age of social media you have to go beyond your social media policy.
Facebook Timeline for Brands
Posted: March 4, 2012 Filed under: Tools | Tags: brands, Facebook, Facebook features Leave a comment »Blog Rewind! The Metaverse: Mirror Worlds and Augmented Reality
Posted: February 23, 2012 Filed under: Tools Leave a comment »There is a lot of talk about Google glasses happening this week which reminded me of this blog post written by my friend Timothy Moenk July 2, 2007.
by Timothy Moenk
Two weeks ago I wrote about two Metaverse scenarios explored in the Metaverse Roadmap project. I’m excited to say that the Metaverse Roadmap Overview document has been released into the wild! You can download it from here (it’s in pdf format). For those of you interested in a good read on the intersection of social media with 3d virtual worlds, mapping technologies, and the era of ubiquitous mobile devices, I highly recommend checking it out!
This week, I’ll be discussing the remaining two scenarios: Mirror Worlds, and Augmented Reality.
Mirror Worlds
A book called Mirror Worlds was written by David Gelernter in the early nineties that outlined the potential of computer simulations of our natural environments and the planet Earth itself. Fast forward a decade and a half, and we have a very clear example of what he was talking about in the form of Google Earth. Because of Web 2.0, the increasing preponderance of satellite imagery, and a number of other factors, maps are becoming more then abstract visualizations of space, but very tangible and malleable communications mediums. We now have the ability to infinitely annotate the physical world with data including text, photographs, video, and three dimensional models. This can be done behind a computer, or on the ground at the actual physical locations via mobile devices. While there is a lot of discussion and hype about the Virtual WorldMetaverse scenario right now, the disruptive technology behind the Mirror Worlds scenario will have much greater societal impact.
Most of the major pieces of the Mirror World scenario are already in place. Our mobile devices are beginning to become geospatially aware and it’s only a matter of time before most mobile phones are equipped with gps capabilities. Google Earth/Maps is a cornerstone technology that is enabling these developments to move forward, and Google is taking leadership in developing open standards for embedding geospatial data throughout the web. Here are some examples of the impact that Mirror Worlds are beginning to have today:
Yahoo’s Flickr photosharing service has a feature that enables you to geotag your photographs. Essentially, this allows you to put your photographs on the world map in the exact spot they were taken. This is a very powerful tool for citizen journalism, and it’s only going to get easier and faster. With gps enabled mobile devices, geotagging will happen automatically. Uploading also occurs on the spot, which means Yahoo’s world map will be constantly populated with real time photographs taken by people across the world.
Google Earth has been absolutely indispensable for nonprofits, government organizations, and scientists. Whereas similar technology has been available to them for years, it’s been extremely expensive and wasn’t nearly as collaborative as what is available now due to the nature of open software standards and social media. The ability to collect data, visualize it, and compare it to other data geospatially is becoming affordable to even the smallest of organizations. The impact that Google Earth has had in our ability to deal with natural disasters, educate on global issues, etc has led Google to recently announce a new initiative called Google Earth Outreach. The main objective for this program is to give support to the nonprofit community so they can maximize the potential of Google Earth to accomplish their global (and local!!!) missions. I highly recommend checking out this page to explore different examples of how Google Earth is being used to make social impact.
Combined with social media, place becomes a powerful way to communicate. Using the Flickr example from before, each photograph becomes a conversation thread for that location. Imagine walking past a restaurant and pulling out your mobile device (without pressing a button) to see which of your friends have been there before, and also if anyone has written any reviews. It’s not so far fetched that people might even leave digital messages for you at specific locations. This is already happening amongst early adopters, and will likely become common place nearly overnight (especially amongst the youth) when gps enabled devices reach ubiquity.
Commercially, Mirror Worlds are largely untapped. The largest developments there so far lie in basic advertising around locations, but there is huge potential to tap into the social aspect of Mirror Worlds to present how brands relate to people and places within society. Being able to appropriately build relationships with people around key places and times will take marketing to a whole new level!
Augmented Reality
This scenario is in some ways a bit more futuristic then the Virtual Worlds, Lifelogging, and Mirror Worlds Scenarios, and represents a blending of elements from each into the physical world. In fact, some of the examples of Mirror Worlds I’ve given above are also examples of Augmentation.
One popular vision of Augmented Reality lies in utilizing heads-up displays to visually overlay 3d data over our perception of the physical environment. (Think what the Terminator sees when he looks at the world!) For the most part, I don’t see people in the mainstream wearing goggles for this type of application. At first glance, this is a niche technology for industrial purposes. However, there is work currently being done to embed this type of technology into our car windshields. Combined with mapping technology, our paths will be projected out in front of us (in a similar style to Google Street View) within the next decade or two.
The most important aspect of Augmentation is really about understanding context. Our environments are full of information, but most of this information isn’t digital yet. As we increasingly use smart devices that connect to the web and introduce sensors such as RFID and teens with camera phones into our environments, there will be much more information for us to work with and contextualize. As the web becomes something that is all around us rather then something just inside the computer screen, the goal behind Augmented Reality is to make it easy to understand and visualize all this information at the appropriate times.
One of the most powerful examples of Augmentation that is often overlooked, is the friends list on social networking sites. This form of Augmentation makes it easy for us to see not only our relationships, but the relationships between other people in the network. As members of our network interact with each other, we can then visually gauge the quality of those relationships as well. By having all this data out there in a way that we can understand, we’re also beginning to interact with each other in new ways. In much the same way, as our environments become even more connected to the web and our mobile devices more capable, we will begin to interact with our environments in new and more intelligent ways.
Honda’s Super Bowl Commercial Was a Huge Let Down
Posted: January 30, 2012 Filed under: Tools | Tags: Advertising, emotions, superbowl 2012, video, YouTube Leave a comment »by Sherry Heyl
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is at the top of the list of favorite movies for every person in my house. It is at the top of my husband’s list. So when I saw the teaser for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2 I was excited to send it to him.
This 10 second teaser is enough to make anyone think that there is a sequel coming. We were so excited! We were planning on making it a family day off and theme an entire day around the new movie.
Today I saw a video that was over 2 min and I thought it was more of the movie trailer…and that is when the disappointment set in.
I had to break it to my husband that it was just a car commercial. I am not sure how long it will take him to get over it. And the lingering feelings toward Honda are not positive.
Overall it is a great commercial, but the release of the teaser back fired on Honda, at least in this family. What do you think?
