Jim Storer

Can you judge a book by its cover?

August 27, 2009 by Jim Storer

The title of this post asks, “can you judge a book by its cover?” You can when the “cover” is the front page of someone’s Twitter account and you’re judging whether to follow them. That page contains an avatar image (usually the person’s photo), a short biography (no more than 160 characters long), a link to the person’s home page (or company, blog, LinkedIn profile, etc.), and — crucially — the most recent 20 tweets that the person has sent. You can click through to see more tweets in batches of 20, but if you follow many people on Twitter, doing that often takes more time than it’s worth.

And there’s the rub: if you want more people to follow you on Twitter, you have very little time to make a good first impression on them . . . but many ways that you could string landmines of the “Don’t Follow Me” variety across their path.

Recently four heavy Twitter users — Meg Fowler, Jim Storer, Aaron Strout, and Tim Walker — got to talking (on Twitter, of course) about the poisoned words, phrases, and other cues that automatically signal “Don’t Follow” for them. The end result was that the four decided to bang out a joint blog post that talked about best practices in not following based on not liking the proverbial “cover” put forth by fellow tweeters. Here’s what we came up with:

Tim Walker’s “not follow” strategy

“MLM” (multi-level marketing). I’m sure that somewhere, some nice person who does MLM could explain to me how it’s not a veiled Ponzi scheme. Until then . . . you’ll pardon me if I continue to think of it as “a veiled Ponzi scheme.” No thanks.
Tweets that include “buy followers” or “hundreds of followers” or anything else in the “get lotsa followers!” genre. I try hard to earn new followers by being relevant, interesting, funny, and personable. The idea that you would buy yours in bulk — much less promote that process — disgusts me.
Political ig’nance. I follow people of all political stripes, from all over the world. But if you have to wear your politics on your sleeve, and if your politics are of the knee-jerk type (again, regardless of your leanings), I just can’t stand to follow you.
Calling yourself a “visionary” or “expert” or (shudder) “guru.” It’s much better to say you’re a “marketing veteran” or “experienced sales leader” or whatever. Let *others* call you a visionary.

Meg Fowler’s “not follow” strategy (cross-posted on “friend” Gradon Tripp’s blog)

Love it, Tim.

For me, it’s more about “who do I need to block around here?” Because no one likes to be spammed. So if I see any of this in your bio and/or first 20 tweets…
Requests to “follow me back!”
Promotion of affiliate programs
Actual affiliate links as the link in your bio
Any mention of followers (“I can get you followers!” “Get thousands of followers!” “5,000 followers and growing!” “This program will get you followers overnight!”)
“Make money online (from home, easily, doing practically nothing, overnight, with my system, etc.)”
Promises to “generate” anything: money, cash, followers, success, creeping rashes…
Promotion of tooth whitening programs (Seriously?)
A mention of your Twitter Grader Rank
Mention of “Sponsored Tweets”
Mention of your “Twitter eBook FREE JUST CLICK HERE”
Presence of “69″ in name (or “Shelly Ryan” as your name… poor, poor real @ShellyRyan)
Rockstar/Maven/diva/coach/thought leader/guru/expert/pro/maverick
Porn-star-like attributes in avatar or links (Nudity, actual sexual acts, clear intent to seduce me with something other than words)
Requests to click through to “see your profile”
Googly-eyed “Twitter Basic” avatar (upload a photo, PLEASE)
@ing people the same link OVER AND OVER

Jim Storer’s“not follow” strategy

I’ve never auto-followed anyone, which at this point means I’ve vetted (to varying degrees) nearly 3,500 people. Until recently you had to click through to a person’s/bots profile page to get the skinny on who they are. Now some of that info is available in the new follower email, but what I look for is the same.

Following to Follower % (you’re following dramatically more people than follow you) – If this is too imbalanced there’s something fishy and I’m not biting.
# of Updates to Followers/Following #’s – In the last six months I’ve started to see a lot of people with 5k+ followers/following and less than 100 updates. That suggests you’re just using a program to rack up followers and that just wrong (IMHO). I’m not interested in being another notch on your bedpost.
If your bio includes any of the following I’m not interested: “more followers”, “make money”, “expert” (at anything), “MLM” and everything else Tim, Meg and Aaron came up with. I trust them.
If the words you chose to describe your pursuits in your biography are overly loquacious I will not be inclined to follow you back. Get real… use real words and tell me who you are.
If you haven’t written anything in your bio and/or you haven’t added a photo, I’m not following you.
If you have zero updates how am I supposed to know what you’re going to talk about? I’m not listening until you start talking.
If your last few updates are repetitive and too self-promoting, I’m not interested in seeing that day to day. I already saw what you have to say when I was checking out your profile.

Aaron Strout’s “not follow” strategy

The upside and downside of going last is that 1) all the good stuff has been said but 2) it leaves less stuff for me to say. Out of the list above, I’m probably the most lenient of the four. Like Jim, I’ve never auto-followed (but have considered it) so that means that I’ve hand followed back nearly 9,000 people (yup, that’s a lot). However, I have a few basic rules that I follow:

In most cases (not all), I like seeing a picture. If someone is obviously a n00b who looks to be figuring things out, I’ll cut ‘em some slack. Otherwise, they don’t make the cut.
I need a bio. Is it too much to tell me what you do?
I also need a tweet or two (unless they are a friend of mine and then of course they get the free hall pass)
No “get rich fast, affiliate or “let me sell you some shit” in the bio or last few tweets.”
One I get stuck on a lot is the news feed/blog title posts. These really depend on follow ratio and quality of the tweets. It also is up to my mood. If I’m hand following 40-50 people, these folks usually make it in. If it’s 4-5, not so much.
I will follow ANYONE from Austin (pornos excepted)
Oh yeah, I don’t follow webcam girls or known pornos.

So what’s your strategy? Who do you or don’t you follow? Share your tips in the comments below.

photo credit: library.cornell.edu

Posted in Social Media Strategy | Tagged aaron strout, aaronstrout, guidelines, meg fowler, megfowler, tim walker, twalk, twitter, twitter fail, twitter follower fail | 4 Comments »

On Social Media and Goodwill

May 15, 2009 by Jim Storer

I haven’t paid this blog much attention over the last six weeks. First it was a two week trip to Japan that was so amazing I just let the experience wash over me. I’m slowly recounting the experience on my personal blog and editing/uploading photos to Flickr.

The other reason I’ve been slacking is a new business I’m starting called The Community Roundtable. It’s been quite a ride so far and we haven’t even officially launched (that’s coming in early June). So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way I’d like to talk a little about social media and goodwill.

I came across a recent post from Todd Defren in my Reader (I’m trying to catch up there too) and it struck a chord with me. We’ve all had that experience, frustrated with the way a customer service situation is handled. But what stays with me from the post is the concept of goodwill and how it impacts Todd’s (and any customer really) experience.

Comcast seems to handle the situation well. They answered the phone, tried to help, even had an employee work with Todd from their home office to try to resolve the situation. Goodwill just oozes from the experience with Comcast…

“Frank went out of his way to help me out, even offering some late-night service from his own home office. We didn’t figure it out but I did appreciate the attempt.”

Comcast was in this position because they’ve embraced social media and chosen to have people like Frank speak on their behalf. They’ve chosen to “fish where the fish are”, in this case putting front line customer service people in touch with customers on Twitter.

I don’t want to re-hash the whole post, but suffice it to say that Todd did not have as good an experience with Netgear. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest there’s some significant badwill there.

What’s interesting is how this plays out in a social economy, where transparency is the norm. Todd’s experience is part of the public record, no longer confined to the phone recording kept by the offending company. The network effect kicks in and both companies feel it – one good… and one not so good.

Do you think the 4,778 people that read Todd’s blog will think twice before buying a Netgear product? What about about the 10,000 people that follow Todd on Twitter?

I’d love to hear whether you see the connection between goodwill and the work companies (more specifically people at companies) are putting into their social media efforts.

Posted in Social Media Strategy | Tagged blogging, conversations, engagement, goodwill, microblogging, social media, twitter | 3 Comments »

Amazing People & #FollowFriday

March 27, 2009 by Jim Storer

Over the last few weeks I’ve been lucky to meet and/or re-connect with a great group of people. From the Innovator’s Road Trip to the long weekend at SXSW in Austin it was an intense week+ of networking. I’d like to share a bit about the folks I met and encourage you to reach out and start following them (on Twitter) or reading their blogs (check out the link on their Twitter bio page). They’re an amazing bunch!

Shannon Paul -Social media diva for the Detroit Red Wings. Great to meet her IRL at the Detroit Tweet & then spend time with her at SXSW.

Ken Burbary – Social media smarty pants and sports fan extraodinaire.

Lisa Dilg – PR 2.0 and rabble rouser on Twitter.

Scott Monty – Yeah I know… you all follow him already. Follow him again. He’s JUST bringing social to Ford. No big deal.

Gargi Patel – Social media diva at Rosetta with incredible experience building community.

Adam Cohen – Good friend, social media explorer and Red Sox fan.

Shawn Morton – Lead social media strategist at Nationwide Insurance and all around great guy.

Robin Sloan – Strategist at Current who’s really pushing the envelope on what’s next in digital entertainment.

Josh Resnick – VP at Gannett Digital. Brilliant. Figuring out how to turn an old media stalwart into a new media powerhouse.

Tom Callinan, Brian Butts and Mandy Jenkins – Great folks re-inventing the Cinncinati Enquirer.

Karen Gutierrez – Community manager and lead mom at Mom’s Like Me.

Todd Earwood – Founder of Moneypath. Serial entrepreneur. Louisville Cardinal fan.

Isaac Smitley – MIS at Zappos. Incredible warehouse tour guide. Patience of a saint.

Jason Falls – The original “social media explorer”, Jason set up all the iRoadTrip visits in Louisville and is one of the brightest minds in social media. His dad’s a funnel cake master.

Maggie Fox – It was great to meet Maggie in Detroit and then keep re-introducing ourselves throughout SXSW. Fun and smart. BIG brain.

Natanya Anderson, Doug Wick and Beth Lopez – It was nice to meet the folks that seduced Aaron Strout and got him to move to Austin. After spending a bunch of time with them at SXSW, I was under the spell too. Great people building social for big brands as part of the Powered team.

Bill Johnston – Part of the original “dream team” in Louisville, now he’s killing it at Forum One Networks.

Kyle Flaherty – One of the Boston to Austin guys. Social media heavyweight (meant in the absolute best way) and Red Sox fan.

Liz Strauss – Blogger extraordinaire and mentor for many of today’s A list.

Susan Bratton – I was lucky to sit in on a couple of podcasts Susan did for Aaron and learned a lot. She’s the host of DishyMix and my new BFF.

Peter Kim – I’d met Peter before at a Mzinga BBQ, but had a chance to talk with him in the Blogger Lounge at SXSW. “Wickud smaht” guy with a down-to-earth personality. And he’s a Red Sox fan, too.

Kate Niederhoffer – Peter’s partner in crime at their company to be named later and another “smaht cookie” in the social media space.

Tim Walker – All around nice guy. Historian. Social media at Hoover’s. The yin to Aaron Strout’s yang in the Austin social media scene.

Kami Huyse – Social media and real life rock star. Here version of Summertime at the Austin Social Media Awards is the stuff of legend.

Heather Strout – Social media diva for hite. Heather and I worked together at Mzinga and she’s one of those free agents that should be snapped up before I finish writing th

Aaron Brazell – It was great to connect with Aaron early at the Mashable party and get some advice on shooting in low light.

Kristie Wells – A real leader in the social media space and the inspiration on the tremendously popular Mzinga BBQ series last summer (her taco nights spurred us on).

Andy Kaufman – Always great to connect with Andy at SXSW and see what he’s got cooking in Flask 2.0. One of the most “follow worthy” people I know. Always trying out the next big thing.

Mike Schneider – Social media rocker. Boston. Awesome improv.

Jeff Cutler, Colin Browning & John Johansen – My comrades on the Innovator’s Road Trip. Social media trailblazers… ’nuff said.

Aaron Strout – What to say? He pretty much took care of me in Austin. Introduced me to all the rock stars and kept the party going when I was running out of gas. Boston misses you.

So that’s my list.I’m sure I forgot some folks (I only have 100 mb of RAM). :-)

Who’d I miss/who should I add? I’d love your suggestions in the comments.

Posted in Social Media Strategy | Tagged community, social media, twitter | 7 Comments »

My iRoad Trip Report

March 23, 2009 by Jim Storer

Trying to capture essence of the Innovator’s Road Trip in a blog post will be tough, but I’m up for the challenge. We met so many great people and toured truly great companies, I may miss someone or something in this recap, which says more about my ability to recall than it does about their hospitality.

First of all, a word about the iRoadTrip crew…

Colin Browning was the “brains” behind the operation, the guy who decided this trip was a good idea and pushed it from idea to reality. He also put up with the shenanigans of the rest of us when we decided to ditch him in Cincinnati.
Jeff Cutler came on board at my request a mere three days before we were due to depart. An able interviewer and veritable content machine, Jeff earned his keep despite the fact that he had a hard time keeping the wifi network up when we passed large 18-wheelers.
John Johansen also joined the team late in the game when I reasoned that he already lived in Austin, so he only had to purchase a one-way plane ticket to Detroit to join the trip. John quickly became the go-to driver on the iRoadTrip, which was especially helpful when we needed someone to take the wheel after a tweet-up or BBQ dinner w/ beer (he doesn’t drink).

Suffice it to say we came together as a team and never really had any issues come up that we couldn’t work through. In fact, we’re actually contemplating iRoadTrip2, which is saying something.

The people we met along the way…

The folks that came out for the Detroit tweet-up were great. Even after we mentioned our plan to drive to Cleveland that night, they smiled and said “that won’t take you too long.” Maggie Fox bought a bunch of thai food that night… enough that we were able to take a bag of leftover shrimp crisps with us in the car to Cleveland. They proved to have one of the more powerful odors we experienced on the trip (but not THE most powerful – more later).
Gargi Patel from Rosetta was a gracious host in Cleveland at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, despite heavy rain and cold temperatures. She treated us to lunch and gave us an interesting selection of CDs to listen to in the car.
Shawn Morton talked with us about his work at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus on the outside patio at Gordon Biersch (we really had to twist his arm). Despite being just two hours from Cleveland, Columbus rolled out the red carpet with sun and temps in the 70’s.
All the folks at the Cincinnati tweet up. While they didn’t announce our arrival at Bootsy’s, we quickly found Daniel Lally and Dave Knox and felt right at home. Later in the evening we had tapas with Josh Resnick and Mandy Jenkins (thanks Josh) in a crazy private room at Bootsy’s.
The team at the Cincinnati Enquirer, Gannett and Mom’s Like Me. From Editor Tom Cullinan to Online Director Brian Butts, we were given full access and told no conversation is off the record. Josh Resnick and Karen Gutierrez talked with us about Mom’s Like Me so long that Josh had to switch his flight home and Karen skipped a meeting. Great conversation! I think you’d be hard pressed to find a newspaper that’s embracing social media more than these folks.
Dueling tweet-ups in Lexington & Louisville, KY…. we had two tweet-ups on our way through Kentucky. The first was affectionately called “Jeff’s Tweet Up” since it was organized by good friend Alison Kerr. We enjoyed BBQ and good conversation at Corky’s and ran into fried pickles for the first time on the trip. Later that night we arrived at Molly Malone’s in Louisville for a tweet up organized by Todd Earwood. Here we met Isaac Smitley who suggested he could show us inside the nearby Zappos distribution facility. Isaac was both knowledgeable and generous then next day, staying way past his scheduled stop time to make sure we saw the whole operation AND had time to check out the outlet store. If Tony or anyone on the executive team is wondering… Isaac is a rock star!
Rick Redman & Vickie Boisseau of Louisville Slugger/Bionic Gloves took time to tell us all about the past, present and future of this great company. Rick gets full credit for prodding us into taking batting practice with bats from current/former major leaguers. Swinging Ted Williams’ bat is something I’ll always remember.
Denny Potter from Maker’s Mark showed us their cutting-edge reclamation facility which, through my keen olfactory memory, will also be something I always remember. Our tour guide Herb showed us every nook and cranny of the bourbon-making operation, including the tasting room where we tasted several nooks and cranys of bourbon both before and after aging. What a difference!
The folks at Sims Bar-B-Que in Little Rock, AR. It was too early for lunch when Memphis went flying by, but Sims made sure we had a great lunch of ribs, chopped beef and all the sides.
The crew that welcomed us into Austin. Aaron, Heather, Adam and Sara made sure we had a cold beer when we finished the trip in Austin. They also kept us out too late, but that’s what you do when you’re in Austin. ;-)

The places we saw…

Our first night we stayed at a very smokey hotel. It rhymes with Motel Stix. We asked for non-smoking rooms and they were marked as non-smoking on the outside AND inside on the bottom of the ashtrays in the rooms. While we left the hotel the next morning smelling like chain smokers, it was worth it for the endless amusement we got from recounting the story later in the trip.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was amazing. Not necessarily amazing enough for a trip to Cleveland with the family, but if I could wrap a Red Sox/Indians game into the mix it’d be on my short list. Seeing hand-written lyrics from songs like “Walk This Way” and “The End” were worth the price of admission alone. I could have spent several hours on the Haight/Ashbury exhibit alone (I had five minutes).
Columbus, OH gets my vote for most surprising city. It didn’t hurt that the sun opened up and gave us a beautiful day (vs. rain in Cleveland), but it also seemed to have a really interesting downtown arena area. Lots of activity and people having fun.
Marriott Residence Inn. We stayed at three of these after the debacle the first night and always had a good experience. Clean, non-smoking and “free” full breakfast. Let’s just say I had my share of waffles… and Jeff summoned the cleaning lady more than once.
The inside of the 2010 Ford Escape gobbled up all our gear and still had room to spare. Four guys and all our computer gear and no one was complaining about legroom. Sure, we had to buy that “New Car Smell” air freshener somewhere in Arkansas, but that was Colin and John’s fault for buying all the beef jerky… especially the jalapeno beef jerky.
The Zappos distribution facility. From the static racks to the robots working the pods, this was an unexpected treat. It’s hard to understand the scope of what they’re doing here, but if you’re in the area (Louisville, KY) set aside a couple of hours to give it a look. It’s an impressive operation.

Our sugar daddies…none of this could have been possible without the support of these folks.

Scott Monty from Ford. He pretty much gave us the keys to the Escape and told us to let everyone know what we thought, good and/or bad. He put up with public pranks like the accident we claimed we got into and the car no longer having that new car smell.
Chris Brogan and New Marketing Labs. We couldn’t have done the Innovators Road Trip without a nod from Chris. He saw the vision and gave us the support we needed to get the project off the ground (well only on two wheels, but don’t tell Scott about that).
Chris Kieff and Ripple6. Chris connected us with the right people doing real innovation and gave us the flexibility to move from the smokey hotel to the Residence Inn.
Aaron Strout and Powered Inc. Aaron’s always been one to back an innovative idea and it was good to have his network behind us on the road.
Bryan Person and LiveWorld. Thanks to Bryan and team for buying lunch on the road. Sims BBQ hit the spot and helped us finish our 12 hour stretch run on Friday.

The Innovator’s Road Trip was an amazing adventure. There’s discussion of an encore. Time will tell if I’m on the next mission, but whether I am or not it surely will be a great experience.

Posted in Social Media Strategy | 3 Comments »