Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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FSB Associates at Book Expo America 2011

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

To celebrate 16 years of online publicity business, FSB founder and President, Fauzia Burke, has taken the company to the Javits Center in New York City to officially debut at this year’s BookExpo America 2011. Being a recognized vendor at BEA is a big deal for FSB as it allows the company to better inform the public about its services and how they fit into the ever-changing publishing world which is right now abuzz with digital technologies. The online component of book publicity has become an integral process of today’s successful branding and marketing campaigns and FSB is proud to be at the forefront of this movement. See Fauzia’s BEA digital marketing presentation online if you missed it at the show. You can also hear her discuss these trends in a special podcast presented by BEA.

Each day at the FSB Associates booth a different set of members from FSB’s team along with Fauzia and Vice President John Burke will be greeting attendees with an in-depth presentation on the latest trends in book publicity and personal branding. Keeping with the digital theme, the company’s social publicity brochure and valuable resources are presented on USB flash drives for participants to take with them for later reference. There’s even an Amazon Kindle up for grabs for those that enter FSB’s giveaway.

Midway through BEA, there have already been tons of celebrity sightings and friendly exchanges with the big movers and shakers that make the publishing world go round. The photos below capture a taste of the fun and excitement FSB has experienced so far. Catch more up-to-date happenings on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Or better yet, come to booth #4304 and visit us in person if you’re in town!

Whether you attend or not, make sure to visit BookExpo America’s web site for information on the large number of programs and events taking place.

BookExpo America (BEA) is North America’s largest gathering of book trade professionals attracting an international audience. It is organized with the support of association partners including the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the American Booksellers Association (ABA).  BEA is recognized for the media attention it brings to upcoming books as well as for the notable authors it attracts to the convention itself.

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The Six Elements of Digital Marketing Success for Authors

Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

by Fauzia Burke

There are six essential elements for successful digital marketing and when used together they make for a powerful combination. Each element is important on its own, but when you use all six together you will see a strategy that is effective, scalable and long term.

  • Website — A professional website is the single most important step towards your digital marketing plan. Your website is your homebase, so make sure it is updated regularly and is current. Use your site as a platform for all other activities. Post your blog and photos along with links to your social networks. Always remember your audience when developing content. If a person cares enough to come to your site, you need to make sure their trip was worth the effort.
  • eNewsletter — email is still the most powerful digital tool. Every single author should have an enewsletter. You should collect as many email addresses of your readers as you can. Overtime email addresses of your readers will be a huge asset. You can communicate with your readers through a regular enewsletter sent either once a month or once every 3 months. Just keep those lines of communication open.
  • Blog — A blog is the best way to share your expertise and drive traffic to your site. Use your blog on your own website along with posting it on an important high-traffic website as a guest post. Everyone needs content, and it never hurts to ask a popular blog if they want to run your blog post. Blogs don’t have to be long, 500-700 words tend to be the most popular lengths.
  • Facebook — Every author should have a Facebook fan page so they can socialize and communicate with their readers. It’s an important element of digital marketing and honestly at 520 million people, you can’t afford to ignore it. Along with being a great place to build community, Facebook fan pages also offer Insights a great tool for monitoring your audience and your interactions.
  • Video — There is not a better or easier way to show your passion and personality than video. It can be fun content for your Facebook fan page, your blog, and your website. Remember to post it on YouTube as well.
  • Twitter — I know many authors are intimidated by Twitter, but it’s a fabulous way to share resources and develop a following. I find Twitter to be an incredible tool for listening and for doing market research. You can listen to your readers, find out what other people are doing and saying, and build a relationship with current and future readers.

If you chose not to participate in digital marketing and social media, you are only hurting yourself and your readers. There are millions of people on social networks; they don’t miss you, but you are missing out if you ignore them.

Digital marketing is a wonderful way to connect with people who care about your work. Just remember that all six elements of digital marketing working together will produce the best results. There are no short cuts here, but it is all well worth the investment of time and attention.

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Personal Branding Advice for Authors

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

by Fauzia Burke

With over 15 years of experience in online marketing, I can say without a doubt or any reservations, that developing a personal brand online is crucial to your success as an author.

Personal branding is new to all of us, but its importance is growing exponentially. So the question I get asked most is, “What’s in it for me? Why should I invest in building my brand online?” The most important element of a personal brand is that it helps you be yourself and stand out from the crowd. After all, there is no competition for you.

The essential elements of personal brand development include: web publicity, blogs, syndicating content for guest blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  The benefits of these activities increase considerably when conducted in a well-planned and cohesive manner. First, it is best to establish goals for developing your personal brand.

Two of the most important goals of Personal Brand Management are:

  • To increase brand awareness through consistent social media interactions
  • To increase credibility and establish expertise via web exposure

Developing your personal brand takes time, but the good news is that the tools are free and you already have the knowledge. Social media now allows you to share your knowledge and build a following. Once you “know” your readers you’ll have a lot more control over your career and will be able to promote not just your books but also your apps, conferences, videos, webinars, websites and more. Your personal brand will make you more valuable to your publishers and agents as well. In my opinion, personal brand management is today’s resume.

Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, a constant availability of learning opportunities, as well as a myriad of ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were nonexistent just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting our good name.

Credibility — Web Publicity allows others to lend credibility to your work by posting reviews, interviews and mentions of your book on their site or blog.

Expertise — The benefit of a regular blog is that it allows you to show your expertise and share your knowledge. Four out of every ten Americans read blogs, according to a study by Synovate/MarketingDaily. This trend is increasing daily.

Syndication — Once you have a blog written, it is best to submit it on other sites such as The Huffington Post. If possible, you should also submit your articles to other blogs and sites for guest blogging opportunities. Each time your blog gets mentioned or posted, so does your name and the link to your website. Over time this is the best way to increase the Google ranking of your site.

Relationship Development – More than 500 million active users spend 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook. It is no exaggeration to say that without a Facebook presence you are at a great disadvantage. Engaging with your readers will lead to higher book sales and career advancement.

Share Expertise — At first, Twitter may seem overwhelming and difficult to use, but as you spend time on the site you will likely discover the benefits of sharing resources and collaborating with others.

Networking — About 35 million people use LinkedIn. It is the most professional of social networks and essential for showcasing your professional experience, contacts and recommendations.

Show Yourself — The popularity of YouTube is growing hourly, currently it gets 2 billion views a day. Today, people are looking for an authentic connection with you. Posting a video of yourself allows potential fans and readers to learn more about you, your expertise and your passion.

Although social media engagement may not provide instant gratification, it should be viewed as an investment of time and money in your career and your future. I have experienced first-hand the benefits of personal branding, both for my clients and myself. I have witnessed the difference between launching a book for an author who has work to develop a strong personal brand, versus an author who did not invest any resources in building an online presence.

In the coming year, I urge you to devote some time to developing a plan that includes all of the aforementioned elements. Decide how much time you can devote to each aspect of building your brand and also where you will need to invest in receiving help from experts.

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Twitter Tools for Tweeting

Monday, April 25th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

If you made the big step into the microblogging world of Twitter, then you deserve a good pat on the back.  News of Twitter’s utility as an information speedway during international crises and the platform’s ability to ignite publicity wildfire have made headlines worldwide.  It’s quite obvious that you’ve added an incredibly versatile and powerful instrument to your PR arsenal.

So your account is set. You uploaded your favorite profile picture, crafted a sharp bio, splashed your background with eye-catching graphics, added like-minded users to your following list, and even posted fully-loaded tweets complete with searchable hashtags, user handles, and shortened urls that link to your web site or blog. Well done.

By now you might have realized that Twitter, while fascinating, is a voracious time gobbler. Rummaging through streams of countless updates from your news stable and scrambling to respond to every retweet, reply, mention, greeting, and inquiry, you might notice the day pass before you even get to your direct message inbox. Add to this the chore of finding new people to add to your community and you’ll probably begin to wonder if your toe-dip into the social media pool hasn’t suddenly pulled you in above your head.

Fortunately for us, a bevy of tools has surfaced over the past couple of years to help cut down your maintenance time so you can get down to the business of perfecting that complex craft of writing catchy 140-character-confined copy.

Hootsuite

I’m putting our favorite one first. By far, if there’s one tool that will have the biggest impact on your social media productivity, control, and insight it would be an online brand management system. While there are a few on the market, we prefer Hootsuite because of its ease of use, features, and lack of software to install on your computer.

The free version of Hootsuite offers more than enough for most users out there. Hootsuite has an interface that puts you in full control of your account. The dashboard is made up of customizable columns that can display a variety of information streams such as your home feed, lists, trends, mentions, direct messages, retweets, schedules and more without having to change pages on the screen. There’s even an analytics tool to see how people are reacting to your tweets.

This tool is highly recommended. It has a slight learning curve, but there are instructional videos and official Hootsuite help topics to guide you.

Twitter Search

While Twitter and Hootsuite both have search boxes and allow for some basic filtering, you’ll need a tool like Twitter Search to add precision to your searches. Click on the advanced search button to start targeting your search with filtering options that include words, people, places, dates, sentiment, and more.

Twittonary

With only 140 characters to convey thoughts into meaningful tweets, you’ll find users exercising some creative messaging.  The use of established acronyms and abbreviations, as a result, could come off as cryptic to the uninitiated. Twitter glossaries and dictionaries make it easy to decipher codes you run into as well as help you apply Twitter speak to your own messages.

Twellow

Finding the right people among the millions of users is no easy task. Thankfully the online world works much like the physical one. If you were looking for a doctor, plumber, or caterer in the real world, asking around on the streets probably won’t get you very far. You might, instead, look to your local Yellow Pages. Twello works the same way but for Twitter. Find users by category, area, or name just like you would with a phone book.

TweetStats

TweetStats acts like your Twitter account’s personal assistant. This Twitter statistics application will feed you information about your Twitter activity without judgement. Just the facts on the frequency of your messages by time, day, month, and year. Tweetstats can also tell you what your popular keywords are and the amount of time you spend engaging with other users.

Klout

At some point you may be interested in knowing how effective you are on Twitter. While Hootsuite and Tweetstats metrics can help you gain insight into your Twitter activity, a service like Klout will give you a Twitter assessment that will help you decide whether your social networking approach is working or not. Using a proprietary scale, Klout will compute a score based on your activity and networking that you can brag to your friends about or work on to bring up to par. Other assessment services exist, but Klout, for now, is the most widely used.

Friend or Follow

There are many reasons why your followers/following lists are important. Mainly, your concerns should be that your networks can become indicators of who you are to potential new followers and that a Twitter restriction on the number of followers in your allowance may prevent you from adding new people to your network if you let spammers in. Friend Or Follow is a useful tool that allows you to see the relationships between you and those you follow and those that follow you so that you know precisely what kind of users make up your community.

A little poking around online will lead you to a wide variety of Twitter tools and services aimed at enriching your tweeting experience. Since new products are always being added to the marketplace, it’s a good idea to ask around before spending too much time on any one application.

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Developing Your Digital Marketing Blueprint

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

by Fauzia Burke

Here are seven steps to developing a digital marketing blueprint. Many people skip the first four, but these first few steps are the crucial difference between success and failure. I have also uploaded slide presentations to help you along.

  1. Assess Your Situation – This first step is perhaps the most important. Before you can commit to doing more digital marketing, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Take a snapshot of where you stand. Think of the following questions: how well is my website working for my goals? Do I have email addresses of my customers? How many fans or followers do I have on Facebook or Twitter?When you are assessing your website, look over the traffic numbers. How many people come to your site, which pages do they visit, how do they find you, and how long to they stay? These answers should give you an idea about the effectiveness of your site. If nobody is staying on your website for more than a few seconds, then something needs to be changed.Another element of assessing your situation requires an honest assessment of your resources. How much time, knowledge, technology or money do you have to devote to digital marketing? If you don’t have a lot of time you might need to hire somebody. If you don’t have a lot of money you might have to set aside some extra time to do this work on your on.
  2. Know Your Customers – Understanding your target audience will help you devise the best digital marketing strategy for you. Digital marketing is customized and personalized so it is essential for you to know your customers so you can serve them best. Learn about their age group, their gender, their industries. It’s also important to know the tech savviness of your customers.
  3. Designate a Storyteller – For any digital marketing strategy to be effective you need a designated storyteller, marketer, brand evangelist. If you skip this step, your digital marketing strategy will not be sustainable.
  4. Set Goals and Timelines – Without setting realistic goals and timelines you will not know when you are achieving success and when you are missing the mark. Some realistic goals are: improve your website; build a mailing list; start a fan page on Facebook or get more fans on Facebook; start making videos and getting them distributed; start writing a blog, or syndicate your blog; look into twitter or grow your followers.
  5. Implementing Digital Marketing – Once you’ve taken the first 4 steps you digital marketing strategy will become much more obvious to you. Then you can start implementation a plan. I find a lot of people jumping from new thing to new thing without really setting goals or having assessed their situations. In my opinion, the six essential elements of digital marketing are: website, enewsletter, blog, Facebook, video and Twitter. For more details on these elements you can read my blog on 6 Elements for Digital Marketing.
  6. Monitor Your Progress – Although a lot has changed in marketing in the last few years, the most exciting change is the availability of free monitoring tools. You can set up email alerts for your name on either Google or Bing, and use Google Analytics for analyzing your website traffic. If you set up a fan page on Facebook, you can use Insights to gain valuable information. My favorite tool for monitoring Twitter is still TweetReach.
  7. Be Flexible – Digital marketing is new to everybody and we’re all trying things out. It’s important that you just keep an open mind and experiment. Experiment with your time, and experiment with your money. If you succeed learn from it and try it again. If you fail, just smile. Take a deep breath, and try something else.

Digital marketing is a very innovative field right now and everybody is trying different things in different combinations. You just have to find the right combination for you and your customers.

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Social Networking Importance

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

By Fauzia Burke

We recently posted a Twitter basics blog post that covered the fundamental parts of tweeting that many beginners find confusing. Well, the response has been quite positive and a few of our clients have expressed an interest in knowing whether or not social networking was really worth the extra effort for authors. The overall answer is yes. We’re getting to a point today where authors are thought to be behind the curve if social media tools are not being equipped. Does that mean it’s too late for those who haven’t taken their campaigns online? To that we say no. And to help those who have not adopted social media skills yet, we have decided to share why an online outreach is so important.

The Importance of Social Networking

Social media has given us great ways to protect and build our digital reputations. Today we have the ease of searching conversations, the ability to set alerts to help us monitor our names, the constant availability of learning opportunities and more ways to communicate and interact with others. All of these tools, which were not available just a few years ago, now make it possible for us to be proactive in maintaining, building and protecting your personal brand and help spread word-of-mouth about our books.

Here is also an inspiring video about the importance of social networking.

Developing a personal brand takes time, but the good news is that the tools are free and you already have the expertise in your field. Social media now allows you to share your knowledge and build a following. Once you “know” your readers you’ll have a lot more control over your career and will be able to promote not just your books but also your apps, conferences, videos, webinars, websites and more. Your personal brand will make you more valuable to your publisher and agent as well.

Some Resources

How to Create Your Social Media Presence
How To Make Your Personal Brand Visible With Social Media
5 Easy Ways to Build Your Digital Reputation
10 Golden Rules of Social Media

FSB also provides clients with regular updates on social media. We recommend that you sign up for our newsletter, visit our blog and follow the tweets on two handles that provide resources and tips for digital marketing.

Newsletter: http://www.fsbassociates.com/company_newsletters.php

Blog: http://www.fsbassociates.com/blog/
HuffPo Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fauzia-burke

Twitter: http://twitter.com/FSBAssociates / http://twitter.com/websnapshot

Facebook

Do I need to be on Facebook? Quick answer is yes. Facebook has 500 million users worldwide. Together they are creating a community of savvy consumers, connecting with friends, family, co-workers and acquaintances to share advice, information and yes, recommendations. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

People on Facebook read books and tell their friends and colleagues about books. Engaging on Facebook also allows you to be closer to your fans and prospective readers.

Instructions are provided at the end of this post.

You may want to start by watching this video on Howcast to get oriented and get step-by-step instructions.

An excellent place to start is the Mashable Facebook Guide.

For general questions and step-by-step instruction, please visit Facebook’s help center.

Some Resources

5 Things That Don’t Work on Facebook Pages (and 5 That Do) by Aliza Sherman
Facebook 101 Business Guide on Social Media Examiner by Mari Smith

Everyone on the FSB staff is available on Facebook and you can find us all there. You can also “like” the FSB Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/FSBAssociates

Twitter

If you are hesitant to join Twitter, you are not alone. However, we want to encourage you to give it a shot. Set up an account, follow some people and learn some things. People on Twitter are very generous with their time and knowledge. Yes, you will spend time on Twitter that you already don’t have, but you will also learn things that will make you more valuable, smarter and “in the know.”

Even if you don’t plan to be very active, it is important to get a handle and follow others. It is also a good way for your publisher and friends to discuss your book by referencing you. You can use Twitter to provide links to your blog posts, media events and reviews. However, no one enjoys a 24/7 advertisement. A good rule of thumb is to have a 4 to 1 ratio for self promotion. One self-promotional tweet to 4 that will help others or engaging in the community through reply or retweet.

The best advice is to spend time just observing and seeing what others are doing before posting much yourself. There are people you already follow (favorite authors, must-read columnists, magazines, newspapers, influential friends) and now you can follow them on Twitter.

Some Resources

Best first step is to watch this video for starting with Twitter

Twitter Tweet Anatomy
Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started
Twitter for Business by Twitter
Learn the Lingo
5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence by Problogger
A Personal Branding Checklist for Twitter by Social Media Today
Twitter Hashtags by Marketing at About.com
8 Ways To Find Relevant Followers On Twitter by Small Business Trends

Together we have 14 Twitter feeds here at FSB. You can find and follow us here:

http://twitter.com/list/Ishii_Ken/in-house

www.fsbassociates.com
Web Marketing . Social Publicity . Online Branding . Consulting

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FeatureMe2 Website Reviews: FSB Media

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

Recall the short story “The Elves and the Shoemaker” by the Grimm Brothers about a shoemaker who went to bed expecting to work hard in the morning and woke to find his job had been miraculously and masterfully completed by a pair of spirited supporters.

The bunch of us here at FSB work hard for our clients, but we also put great effort into letting others know what our mission is and hope to get noticed for the services we provide.  But yesterday we had our own “shoemaker” moment when in our Twitter stream we caught a tweet from the fine folks at the FeatureMe2 blog about a review of FSB.  Unbeknownst to us, FeatureMe2 had written a thorough review of one of our websites, FSB Media, and featured it on their blog.  It was a surprising and terrific discovery that let us know how many of our authors feel when they see their hard work recognized in front of millions on the web.

We would like to thank Kay and Mike from FeatureMe2 for taking the time to review our company, website, and services when their list of priorities is already so long. We’re proud to feature the review below and look forward to answering any questions from the comments section.

For honest, thoughtful and balanced reviews of books, games, movies, software, TV shows, and websites, we hope you turn to FeatureMe2 as they have both the expertise and experience of running an outstanding review site.

The following is a review of FSB Media from FeatureMe2 Website Reviews posted on February 15, 2011 by Mike@featureme2.com. For more reviews on the latest media on or offline, visit featureme2.com.

FSB Media will be of interest to many of you bloggers out there like myself who not only have a love for reading great books but also enjoy discussing or reviewing them as content on your blogs.

FSB Media is an arm of FSB Associates, one of the most talented Book Promotions companies in the business. How FSB Associates was founded and grew into the company it is today is a great story but one perhaps better saved for another day. My interest in this website review is to bring book bloggers a fabulous source for possible content.

FSB Media provides the book blogger with free content from published authors and publishers that helps publicize their book. Their client list is a very long and prominent one so no matter what genre you’re blogging about you are sure to find something that interests you at FSB Media.

Having great content to work with is a blogger’s dream and FSB Media comes through in flying colors. You will not be disappointed in the selections available to you as a book blogger or reviewer. You may be thinking that there is some gimmick here or something you will end up being asked to purchase. Simply put, FSB Media is a business and like any other business they have a duty to their clients (authors) to place books in the most appropriate places on the web. So the only catch here is that you need not apply if you’re running a spam site, link farm or if your site has nothing to do with book reviews/discussion.

Also you need to understand that some books you request may be deemed not suitable for your site. This would have nothing to do with your talents as a writer or reviewer but the audience you cater to. For example if your blog is about tractor pulls and speed racing how many of your readers do you think would be interested in the latest release of a book on ladies fashion?

Ok so you pass the test you say. You love books, you love blogging, you have a great looking site with an excellent readership, and getting a free book now and then to write about sounds like a gift from heaven. So what is the next step?

Use the “Click Here to Visit Site” button located in this review and visit FSB Media. Spend some time there learning what they do and how they do it. Get to know some of the authors by reading their bio’s on the Authors pages. Then contact FSB Media with some details about you and your site and explain why your site would be a good fit for their program.

Once accepted you are in for another wonderful surprise….the helpful service you get from the staff!

Leyane Jerejian, Anna Suknov and Julie Harabedian work very hard to liaise with bloggers and ensure your start with FSB Media is a great one! My wife Kay has reviewed books from FSB Media for a couple of years now and she has yet to need assistance that was not provided in a fast, efficient and friendly manner. It really is like you become part of the FSB Media family once you start blogging about the authors and books they make available to you. The staff are a real pleasure to deal with and their enthusiasm for their work shines through.

Now to be honest it is a give and take situation. FSB Media provides you with the latest content by well known and bestselling authors, as well as the new author just getting that first publication date. In return you as a professional writer/reviewer are expected to give each book you select the best possible open and honest review you can. This is the magic that makes FSB Media such a delight to work with.

Use the red button located at the top of this review and take a little nosey around their site. Meet some of the authors that you may soon be writing about, then contact FSB Media if you feel you’d be a good fit. Their standards are high. Who knows, you may be a perfect match!

FSB Media Connects Bloggers With Books!

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Twitter Tweet Anatomy

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

by Ken Ishii

For authors, Twitter is an incredible platform for promoting not only your book(s), but publicizing you – as an author, as an expert, as a person.  Twitter gets compared to Facebook and texting when, really, it’s a social networking platform unlike anything out there.

There are millions of people on Facebook and it’s the top social networking service for good reason.  Using Facebook is a great way to connect with friends, family, and people that have decided to “like” you.  But if you’re looking for new users to introduce your book to, it can take a great deal of time and effort to get outsiders to visit and interact on your page.

Using Facebook is arguably becoming one of the most time consuming activities in the US that many simply can’t afford.  Some would rather email or text each other.  A bit too direct for most marketing campaigns to be successful.

Twitter combines the economy of texting with the networking power of Facebook to create something too fast and far reaching to ignore.  Getting started is as easy as signing up on the Twitter website.  Enhancing your experience and finding marketing success, however, is a whole other game.  We collected several resources that will help you get engaged with the millions of people that are having just as many conversations every second of the day.  Fauzia Burke has an article, Twitter 101: Tips to Get You Started, on The Huffington Post that will get you up and running so you don’t end up spending time wondering what retweets or hashtags are.  What the heck is a Bit.ly anyway?  You’ll find out soon enough.

One of the difficulties I notice people having even after reading a tutorial is getting used to the endless streams of confusing text racing back and forth between users.  To that, I say there’s nothing like hands-on experience.  But for now, I’ve put the brakes on a few tweets for you to examine at your own pace.  Bonus!  Click on the messages with links to go to the articles that are mentioned in the tweets below!

Twitter’s 140 character limit may be the very reason for its success.  It forces conversations to get straight to the point.  With this limitation, though, you’ll find users getting creative with their tweets using abbreviations and compressing text.  While an entire list is hardly practical, it is good to know some of the basics and we have them listed below to help decode the tweet-speak.

Going forward you’ll probably be interested in employing Twitter to help promote your book.  Twitter Power by Joel Comm will show you how to use Twitter for marketing purposes which will help build awareness for your book and strengthen your personal brand.  See the video below for more information.

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Looking for Balance in a 24/7 World

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

By Fauzia Burke

It is not uncommon for me to get business e-mails at 6:30 a.m. or 12:00 midnight. Until recently, it was also not uncommon for me to answer them. However, this year for my birthday I’ve decided to give myself the gift of balance.

We live in a culture of 24/7 work and it has become normal to many of us. We have raised the expectation of availability to a point that is unhealthy. Recently, a potential client wrote to me on a Saturday, then wrote back on Sunday wondering why I had not e-mailed him back. Another prospective client emailed me at 10:30 on a weeknight and by 8:30 the next morning had written again, a little frustrated, asking for a response. Another person asked to talk to me on a Saturday, and when I informed her that I don’t work on the weekends, she was irritated.

I realized that by trying to always play catch up and accommodate the 24/7 expectations, I was feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and unbalanced. To get some solutions, I turned to an author who has written a book on the challenges we face at work today. I asked Tony Schwartz, author of “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working,” how to handle the 24/7 expectations. He said, “We can’t control the expectations of others, but we can seek to manage them. Above all, it makes sense to try to invest your energy in what you have the power to influence.”

What I am discovering is that living on this crazy cycle is a choice, being “open” 24/7 is a choice. We ourselves have set up these expectations. Everyone I know seems to be tired and overwhelmed because we are trying to stay ahead of the information overload.

And we are not alone. According to Daniel Patrick Forrester, a client and author of “Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization,” “25 percent of our workdays are spent immersed in information overload.” I asked him for some advice on how to tackle all of the information coming at us.

Information abounds and will forever compound as the world further connects. What we all can do is to force time into our habits and routines to simply think and value reflection as much as we value responding to the onslaught of data that will forever pour over us.

We are taking no time to think, to consider, to plan or to dream. All we are doing is trying to stay ahead of e-mails, Tweets, DM, status updates, LinkedIn invitations and more.

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog called Lost in a Digital World which was retweeted 952 times within 24 hours. He recommends that we turn off the noise and turn on the productivity.

One of the biggest disadvantages of technology is the lack of “thinking time.” Forrester tells us that the reason we have so little time to think is because, “our habitual use of technology and bias for immediacy and rapid response has contributed to fragmenting our attention across many issues at the cost of allowing deep exploration around any one issue.”

Many of us depend on multitasking as the only way to get everything done. However, there is a cost to all this multitasking, I worry that we are doing nothing to the best of our abilities. Schwartz talks about the myth of multitasking: “The brain can’t do cognitive tasks at the same time, so you end up dividing attention between them, as your brain switches back and forth. The result is that you do an injustice to everything, and everyone your splitting time between. We’re sequential beings, not simultaneous. One thing at a time: it’s been around as a basic principle since the dawn of time!”

In the last six months, I have made some small changes in my life. Twice I took two weeks off completely unplugged. To tell you the truth it takes a few days to find a rhythm, a few days to remember how to “be” without the noise, but after that it is blissful. And you know what? The world did not stop, nor did anyone miss me. I just slipped in and out of the river of digital information with no consequences. I found that when I returned I had better ideas, more energy and fully formed thoughts. This year I plan to take more steps for creating balance in my life. Like anything else it’s a choice and like anything new it will take some practice.

Why not join me? I say to my fellow workers, set some office hours and stick to them, take back your lunch hours and unplug during dinners, family times and vacations. We deserve our own time and even more importantly our own attention.

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2010 Social Media Stats and Insight

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Happy New Year to everyone out there. Hope you had an enjoyable, safe and sound holiday with all your loved ones.

Now that “2K10” is set tidily in our past, a collection of social media reports and statistics detailing top trends from last year have surfaced to help anyone lost at digital sea get back on route to where the online action is. Now that there are over 300 social media services vying for your time, it’s wise to know where the pack is heading. Hopefully you’ll find the information below helpful when planning your social branding or marketing strategies from here and into the rest of the year.

Facebook

As reported by AddThis, a social sharing service, Facebook continues to lead the race with 44 percent of the total social networking service volume in 2010. That’s a growth of 33 percent from 2009.

Twitter

After examining over a billion tweets, social media monitoring company Sysomos revealed some interesting information about the service nearly everyone has heard of but has taken time to embrace.

The number of Twitter users with over 100 friends has tripled since 2009 which could say the platform is good at forming tight communities. Still, 2010 could be seen as the year of experimenting as 80 percent of all users have made fewer than 500 tweets and that 90 percent of all Twitter activity came from less than a quarter of all users. The company also states that more and more people are disclosing location, bio, and web information to Twitter profiles. Looks like these users have found a service they find valuable and worthwhile.

MySpace

With Facebook now a household term, it’s hard to believe that MySpace was once the most popular social networking site. ComScore, a web measurement firm, reports MySpace worldwide total unique visitors to be less than 13 percent of Facebook’s visitors. At the same time, AddThis shows a backward growth for MySpace of 20 percent. For marketers, it seems pretty clear where time investments are going to be cut.

Services Growth

As important as it is to recognize which services are hot and cold now, it’s crucial to track how these services are growing. AddThis has put together a chart that shows the rate at which the most well-known services are moving. Note that while Facebook is leading the pack, other services still have their eyes on the prize.

Whether you’re posting updates on Facebook, experimenting on Twitter, or transitioning from other services, being active with social media is essential to any branding or marketing campaign. We were glad to see authors embracing social media with roughly 50-70 percent of our clients on Twitter in the summer.  By the end of the year, 100 percent of the clients we represented in December had Twitter profiles they used to market their expertise and books. For 2011, the question is no longer whether you should participate, but rather how you’re going to connect with your online audience.

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