Erin’s posterous

I have no idea what it's like to be pregnant.

And for most of us, we have no idea what it's like to have $3 to spend on a day's food, or $4,000,000 to spend on a jet. We have no idea what it feels like to be lost in a big city, no idea how confusing it is to go online for the first time, no idea what it's like to own four houses.

Marketers and pundits and writers and bloggers and bosses pretend they are empathetic, but we never can be. Sure, we can try, we can be open to cues and sensitive to clues, but no, we don't really know.

Being certain about how someone else feels or what motivates them is foolish. Don't declare that you know exactly why someone made a choice or predict what someone is going to do next, and why. It's a great parlor trick, but you're probably going to be wrong. (I think the one universal exception is fear. We all know what it means to be afraid, and fear doesn't change based on income or gender. The causes change, but the fear remains the same.)

Empathy is a hugely powerful marketing tool if we use it gently, being sure to leave lots of room for error. When we say, "oh, you did that to make a quick buck or you did that because you hate that guy or you did that because you're a man..." we've closed the door to actually allowing people to write their own story and you make it difficult to learn what actually makes them tick.

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Great blog post from one of my favorites, Seth Godin. Read the rest and more here:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/empathy.html

Speak at My Conference…. for Free? My Thoughts

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Oct/0927

OK – it’s time for a little rant. It’s not my normal style of posting but it’s something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.

The Invitation – Speak at My Conference?

Last week I received an email from a conference organizer in the US offering me the opportunity to speak at their social media conference. I’d not heard of him or the conference before but the site looked pretty good and the lineup of confirmed speakers seemed good (mainly representatives of companies, but fairly high profile companies).

The only problem is that the conference is in the USA and I live in Melbourne Australia.

I replied back to the organizer saying that they look like they’ve put together an interesting conference but asking if they had budget for speakers (there was no mention of any in the previous email). I explained that I live in Australia and that I’d need to find a way to at least cover costs.

Calculating the Cost

The reply came today – we’d be happy to give you free entry to the conference but don’t have budget for speakers.

Ouch!

I begin to do the calculations. The site says that a pass to the event is around $800 – that’s my ‘payment’.

Then there’s the expenses of the trip. They include airfares (around $2200 including the flight to the US and then a connecting flight to the conference (a 20 hour trip each way), hotels (4 nights – if I stayed at the conference hotel this would be another $700), taxis, meals, drinks etc. Perhaps if I went to a cheaper hotel and shopped around for flights I’d get away with $2500 for the conference.

Also in the expense column is time – there’s time to prepare for the session but then travel and the conference. All up I’d need to be away from home for 7 days, possibly 6 if I didn’t have a day to find my feet and get over the jet lag before the conference (something I try to do).

7 days away from family sucks from my end (I miss them) – but it means a pretty big sacrifice for my family who has to rearrange their schedule a fair bit as we have 2 toddlers who have a routine that I’m a fairly big part of.

7 days away also means time away from my business. I can do some of it from the road – but not everything. This means in the week before leaving there’s double the work and the week after there’s catchup work. I do have some part time admin support but I’m largely a one man business – it’s hard to take time away.

So on the plus side – I get a $800 free pass to the conference – and as most speakers know the opportunity to network, present myself as someone worth hiring or buying from.

Conferences can be lucrative if you are selling something – problem is that that’s not my business model. I build blogs that people read, my income is largely advertising based – 500 or so people at a conference don’t convert to a heap of extra income even if they all decide to become weekly readers. Yep I do sell a couple of things – but they’re fairly low end and not overly expensive products – I like to keep even my best stuff affordable.

Perhaps I could cover my financial costs by going into a hard sales pitch for my e-book during my session (although all they were offering me was to be on a panel) – but you know what? I don’t want to SELL during my presentation – that’s not my style, I want my presentations to be about delivering value to attendees not selling something to people. I do whatever I can to pack so much useful content in to my presentations that people find it hard to keep up! I don’t want to be the guy at the conference who spends half his time big noting what he can do for people or pointing out what competitors don’t do right! I want to give value, not a sales pitch (more on this below).

So it’s pretty clear that this type of ‘opportunity’ just doesn’t fit with where I’m at. Perhaps if I lived in another part of the world or perhaps if I had an expensive product or service to sell it could be worth it – but the reality is that I’m passing.

So why the rant?

Why don’t I just pass and move on? Shouldn’t I just change my business model (and introduce some expensive products to sell) and get on with it?

Perhaps this is coming off as me just complaining about not getting paid or only being in it for the money – but I should say that I do occasionally speak at conferences for free (in fact I’ve done it many times).

I did one a few weeks back because the proceeds of the conference went to charity. I’m speaking at Blog World Expo in Vegas in a couple of weeks time for free (they’re at least paying for my flight), I did one a few weeks back because I believed in the ethos that the organizer had and wanted to support them in getting it up and running. If it is something I believe in then there’s certainly been plenty of times that I’ve taken time out and even taken a hit financially to be a part of it.

However – I also have done quite a few freebie conferences over the years that I’ve later regretted being a part of – where I’ve felt used, where there was no win/win, where I’ve been given a token gift for my effort.

In the conference I’m talking about above – here are some of the reservations I have (based upon past experience):

1. The conference is making money – I know, times are tough and it’s hard to be in event planning – but this conference has 10-15 gold and silver partners/sponsors plus numerous others. It has exhibitors. It is charging $800 a head (they’re saying over 450 are registered to attend already). It’s held numerous other conferences on the same topic in other parts of the world. If it were not profitable they would not be doing it.
2. As a conference attendee I’m completely sick of presentations by people who have to cover their costs of being there by selling themselves or their services. Not paying your speakers means that they have to get paid for their time in some other way – some smart ones do this in a way that still manages to deliver value to attendees, but many do not. How many times have you had to sit through sponsored presentations or pseudo sales pitches at a conference you’ve paid to attend?
3. I’ll bring registrations – this might sound a little ego driven but last time I spoke at a conference the organizer told me that he’d had 50 or so registrations because I was part of the line up. Now this number will vary a lot from conference to conference and I don’t promise to promote every event I go to – but I know as a conference attendee that I’ve registered for some simply because I wanted to hear a certain speaker do their thing. I’ve worked hard to build my profile over the years – I’m more than happy to lend that profile for free to help good causes or things that I believe in…. but when you’re going to directly benefit from it financially in a purely commercial sense – I think it only fair that there’s some kind of acknowledgment of that. On a side note – the conference that this post is about actually asked me in their pitch to tweet and blog about it – I found this particularly ‘cheeky’.
4. The best conferences I’ve been to were where the speakers were paid generously (in fact one I went to the speakers actually were not only paid but got some very nice (and not cheap) surprise gifts at the end) and asked not to ‘pitch’ during their presentations. These are the kinds of conferences I’d pay to attend again and again, they’re the ones I ask others to come to with me – they’re all about giving value to those who attend and acknowledging it from those who contribute.

Again – I know event planning isn’t easy and the economy is tough at the moment and perhaps I’m being totally naive about the whole business….

But in the end I guess I wanted to put it out there that if you’re putting on a conference and you want a speaker that perhaps actually making it worth their while will not only help you to attract those that you want to speak – but perhaps it’d also give them more incentive to put together presentations that delivered value rather than sales pitches – something that will benefit those attending your conferences and the bottom line in the long term as people worked out if they’d attend again next year.

End of Rant – now it’s over to you. Feel free to come back at me with why I’m wrong, what you’d add or your own experiences of both being an attendee or speaker at a conference.

Share and Enjoy:

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So good.
http://www.darrenrowse.com/speak-at-my-conference-for-free-my-thoughts

5 Easy Ways to Upsell Your Products and Services

The other night, my hubby and I were on our way back from one of my speaking engagements, and decided to pick up dinner to go. So we called one of our favorite teriyaki joints (Seattle’s Best, on 1st Ave S), to place an order.

Since it’s a little out of the way for us normally, we hadn’t eaten there in a while. So we were rather excited to have it conveniently located on our route home.

Then life got even better…

The woman who took my husband’s order asked if we’d like brown rice instead of white!

I don’t each much white rice, but I love brown rice! In fact, I’ll order it every time if given the option. So this was a very pleasant surprise. And boy was it good! This place has the yummiest teriyaki sauce and it is divine on rice (white or brown).

As a result we’ll now be going out of our way to eat there more …And I bet we’re not alone.

My husband (a sales guy) and I were very impressed. Because they’re clearly paying attention to changes in people’s eating habits, and changing their menu to suit. And they’re making sure customers know about this new option…

With the simple act of asking if we’d like their newest menu item as a substitute, Seattle’s Best made $1.90 more. And now we’ll be there more often, spending more money each time, to get that fine brown rice.

All they did was let us know this option is now available, and boom, they grew their business. Best of all, I’m thrilled to have spent the extra money.

This was upselling at its finest. And it’s most simple.

What’s interesting is that big companies and chains often train their employees to ask if you want to make it a combo, add fries with that, try their new dessert, etc. Yet it’s rare to see this done in small restaurants (or any small business).

Which is silly. Because it’s one of the easiest things to do and almost any business can do it (not just restaurants!).

When I worked in my parent’s animal hospital as a kid we boarded pets overnight. And we always asked if clients wanted their pets bathed before going home. More than 50% said yes.

Added convenience for them, more revenue for us!

The key here is…We were trained to ask.

All too often small business owners (or their employees) just don’t ask. Maybe because they aren’t comfortable selling…

Or they feel like they don’t have time employees to train in this much detail…

Or don’t know how to get the employees to do it…

Or, even worse, they think the employees are asking, when in reality it’s not happening (When was the last time you had a “secret shopper” call in to see what employees really say when they answer the phone???).

In the last case, the poor business owner is usually left thinking the promotion isn’t working. Or the product or service is a dud. When in reality clients don’t know it exists!

It sounds dead obvious, but you have to let people know about other products or services or you probably won’t sell very many. Thankfully, you don’t even have to be there in person to do an effective upsell.

5 Easy Ways to Upsell Your Products and Services

1) If you sell and ship products, put an ad or coupon for a related product or an upgrade in the bag or box.

2) Send new clients a thank you card with a promotion for one of your other services.

3) Put a sign up in your store or office announcing a new offering or special deal. Just make sure it doesn’t get lost in the clutter. And train your staff to point it out.

4) Send targeted follow-up emails to customers offering them a related product or service (you can do this automatically with a good email autoresponder and shopping cart).

5) On your Website, offer an added discount for buying two products or services together Amazon does a great job of this by always offering a second book on the same subject below your main selection.

Remember, upselling is really just a matter of offering something else your customer is likely to want, based on what they’re buying now. Simple as that.

You’re doing your clients and customers a HUGE disservice if you don’t tell them you have something else they may want or need. And you’re leaving money on the table in your own business.

5 Easy Ways to Upsell Your Products and Services - To learn more about this author, visit Stacy Karacostas's Website.

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Dave Kurlan Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website

Andrew Loos Andrew Loos is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Attack! Marketing and Promotions. He currently heads up the strategic alliance division within their Los Angeles branch. Andrew's background and inspiration were molded in the emerging guerrilla marketing movement of the late 90's. Since joining Attack! his commitment has been re focused to evolving practices around the execution of agency-driven experiential programs. About Attack! Marketing and Promotions: Attack! is a field marketing agency, partnering with agencies to provide staffing resources, promotional support, logistics, and fulfillment focused on developing successful brand experiences. At the core of our success is turn-key field marketing services, enabling agencies to deliver the best in field marketing, guerrilla and non-traditional marketing, and out-of-home media. Since 2001, Attack!'s award winning team has worked with agencies to promote over 400 of the country's best brands. - Visit Andrew Loos's Website

Kim Castle With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website

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http://www.evancarmichael.com/Marketing/2603/5-Easy-Ways-to-Upsell-Your-Products-and-Services.html

Great article on upselling products & services.

E.

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12 top Twit nits

• No support for groups
• All or nothing privacy
• No consolidated view of multiple user accounts
• A rising tide of spam
• DMs not worth the trouble
• No conversation threads
• Weak follower management
• Ineffective short URL feature
• Too many system failures
• Mysterious API limits
• Nonsensical follower limits
• Missing tweets
• Quick poll: Most wanted Twitter enhancements

Until recently, Twitter's API limited clients to 100 calls per hour. That limit caused Vorvoreanu, a TweetDeck user, to get locked out during an event where active Twittering was taking place. On July 1, Twitter reportedly increased the limit to 150 calls. But Wallace still hit the API limit one day early in July and was unable to add followers, even though she was under the follower limit. Twitter didn't indicate what was wrong. "I just thought there was something wrong with Twitter's functionality again," she says.

Chris Bennett of BLVD Status says he's OK with the current limit, but he can see why others want a higher limit -- or no limit at all. "I know of some people that change accounts after each limit to get more," he says. But he's not sure, given the current state of Twitter's infrastructure, that having no upper limit at all would be a good idea. "It could get pretty nasty, I would think," he says, of the potential for overloading Twitter's service.

There is one work-around for this problem: Check to see if your third-party applications allow you to decrease the frequency of API calls by, for example, doing refreshes less frequently. But that's a level of detail that most users would rather not have to deal with.

Why can't I follow you?

No good tweet goes unpunished. Popular Twitter accounts draw lots of followers -- until they hit Twitter's glass ceiling.

Twitter places limits on the number of followers a user can have as a way to control spammers and others who abuse the service, but some users complain that the rules aren't always clear, that they keep changing, and that they're not consistently applied. Wallace, who says she was capped at 2,000 followers, calls such artificial limits "bogus." She sees the policy as a blunt instrument that punishes legitimate users in order to filter out a few bad apples.

"It is so de-motivational to cut off legitimate users because another, better solution hasn't been devised," she says. And Wallace chafes at reports that some early users have been exempted from the rules. "This kind of mixed messaging really hurts the Twitter ecosystem," she says. "It makes me feel that some Tweeters are more equal than others."

Twit nit tweet: Sorry, Twitter says I can't follow you. Follower limits penalize power users while spammers simply work around them.

It's hard to see how a policy that ticks off thousands of Twitter's most loyal users is a good strategy to deal with those who abuse the system. Here's a better strategy: Just drop follower limits.

The case of the missing tweet

If you've ever tried to search for an old tweet on Twitter Search and couldn't find it, you're not alone. Twitter loses some tweets, says Search Engine Land's Sullivan. Indeed, this reporter went searching for a tweet that mentioned an interesting company -- but it seems to have disappeared.

Twit nit tweet: Tweets have been known to simply disappear. Why not let users save a backup of their tweets locally?

Sullivan, who wrote about the problem while reporting a story on real-time search, thinks that Twitter should allow users to export their tweets so they can preserve them. What's more, he says, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams has tweeted that "It's on the list" of features Twitter would like to add. No indication as to when, however.

The export function is a good idea. Standards have evolved that allow users to export content from blogs or Gmail messages and contacts in order to import that content into other applications or services, or as a backup. But wouldn't it be better if users could simply trust Twitter not to lose them?

A few more Twitter requests

While the annoyances listed above are the ones we heard most frequently from Twitter users, a few other requests surfaced quite often. Any thoughts of adding these features, Twitter?

Which enhancement would you most like to see in Twitter?

Better performance and reliability
Better spam management
Better follower management tools
Better short URL feature
Longer tweets
Threaded messages
Support for private groups
Support for multiple accounts with universal login
Group account management
No API or follower limits
Other

VoteView Results
Share ThisPolldaddy.com

Which feature would you most like Twitter to add?(polls)

• A retweet button
• The ability to edit tweets after submission
• The ability to write longer tweets
• A way to permanently delete tweets
• A daily e-mail digest summarizing new followers and unfollowers
• Notifications -- either via e-mail or with an indicator at Twitter.com -- when new @reply messages arrive
• Better tools for embedding Twitter feeds on a Web site

Conclusion

Will Twitter address these annoyances or continue to let its developer ecosystem fill in the holes? Will it acquire and integrate at least some best-of-breed third-party tools, as it did with Summize (which it relaunched as Twitter Search) last year? Twitter declined to comment, but Gartner's Mann doesn't see that happening.

More fully featured alternatives are waiting in the wings. Competing short messaging services such as Identi.ca and Jaiku offer a more feature-rich user interface. Neither of those services has the critical mass of users needed to challenge Twitter, which has somewhere in the neighborhood of 28 million users, according to Web audience tracking firm Quantcast Corp. -- but momentum can change quickly. Meanwhile, Facebook's August acquisition of FriendFeed could potentially bring tens of millions of Facebook users onto the competing -- and more fully featured -- social networking service.

"This certainly puts more pressure on them," Mann says, but adds that Twitter still needs to develop its business model, which may involve charging for tools and services that help businesses make sense of all of those tweets. He thinks Twitter is likely to leave the user annoyances to the developers to fix, and instead focus on building -- or acquiring -- tools and services that it can charge for.

If true, that means users are likely going to have to put up with Twitter annoyances -- or hope that third-party tools and services can surmount them -- for the foreseeable future.

NEXT: Review: 8 free Twitter clients for better tweeting

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Thanks @TaraKachaturoff for pointing me in the direction of this article!

YouTube is looking to strike a deal with the movie studios to make new-release movies available online.

Inneresting.

According to those familiar with the plan, talks are already underway with Lionsgate, Sony, Warner Bros. and MGM, who already have ad deals with the company.

The idea would be similar to iTunes

, where you can view a rental for 24 hours for around $1.99-$3.99.

It sounds like a good idea, but how many people would actually make the transition from iTunes to the video streaming giant?

There's gotta be a competitive element somewhere, right?

Would U watch movie rentals on YouTube???

Posted: September 16, 2009 at 7:00 pm

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This comes from Perez Hilton's blog... It would be very interesting if YouTube does strike a deal with the major movies. Although, the idea of YouTube is user generated content so adding major motion pictures there might dilute the user generated stuff...

Thoughts?

We hosted a free teleseminar on “The Five Mistakes Most New Virtual Assistants Make.”

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However, this does end up opening up people to the possibility of making mistakes in their businesses.

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• Leaps without planning or looking first
• Has always wanted to be your own boss but are unsure as to the starting point
• Would love to do things right the first time

If so, download this audio and PowerPoint where we’ll uncover:

• The mistake around skill building
• The mistake on niche marketing and choosing that elusive target market
• The costly mistake VAs make around certification
• The mistakes made around spending money on tools and web-related items
• The mistake around poor planning
• And more!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:23 pm and is filed under Blog, Events, Virtual Assistance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.

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Here is the teleseminar that we did today.

E.

This week Twitter announced changes to its Terms of Service spelling out that you own your Tweets, and that Twitter (

) can place ads next to your content. What’s more, Twitter wants to crack down on spammers, bots and other bad behavior.

The refreshed Twitter Rules that are a part of the new Terms of Service spell out a number of different reasons why you may find your Twitter account terminated. Everything from inappropriate content and squatting to selling usernames could be cause for you to get the boot.

Upon closer look we noticed that Twitter is closing the curtain on at least 10 types of Twitter users we see regularly attempt to game the service. Here are the 10 people we won’t be hearing from anymore:

1. The Impersonator

You know who you are. You create Twitter accounts using celebrity names or big brand identities and you hope to fool unsuspecting Twitterers into following you for your namesake. Good luck with that.

Twitter clearly spells out that “you may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others.”

Clearing out impersonators will certainly be an ongoing process, but thankfully the Tony LaRussa lawsuit prompted Twitter to launch Verified Accounts, giving us assurance that those celebrities we follow are who they say they are.

2. The Bot

Robotic Twitter accounts should live in fear of death by the powers that be at Twitter. If you’re not human and you’re configured to automatically tweet, reply, and retweet based on Twitter content or RSS feeds then you could be in danger.

The rules express a clear preference for the human touch when it comes to Twitter updates, stating that you could be in violation of the TOS and subject to termination, “if your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates.”

This is an area where there might some push back by Twitterers, as some of us use bots for practical purposes. IMDb’s Twitter account, which has more than 45k followers, is guilty of bot-like behavior, posting auto-updates from the movie database and auto-replying and DMing to Twitter inquiries, but it’s obviously well-received by followers. We’re hoping Twitter will use discretion here to separate out the good bots from the bad ones (like these guys).

3. The Naked Chick

While Twitter doesn’t plan to police or censor tweet content of an adult variety, they are going to crack down on inappropriate avatars or images on your Twitter background. When it comes to porn, the Twitter rules dictate that, “You may not use obscene or pornographic images in either your profile picture or user background.”

Moral of the story: put some clothes on before you smile bright for your Twitter avatar or background image photo op.

4. The Serial Abuser

We’ve all seen those Twitterers who are following 30,000 users but only have 4 followers in return. Then, there are those that open massive quantities of Twitter accounts to retweet their own replies or stories, seeking the limelight of a Twitter trending topic.

It’s all very fishy, and we’re pretty good at sniffing these users out for what they are — spammers – but we could always use a little extra help. Thankfully, Twitter to the rescue.

Serial accounts will not be tolerated, “You may not create serial accounts for disruptive or abusive purposes. Mass account creation will result in suspension of all accounts.” Serial activity could also get you in to trouble, so you might want to avoid these behaviors:

- If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time
- If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn)
- If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
- If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following
- If a number of spam complaints have been filed against you
- If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account
- If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies
- If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link

5. The Squatter

Domain name squatting has long been practiced by those looking to make money by snapping up desirable names in the hopes of later flipping them for a profit to interested buyers. Given the value of a good Twitter name, it’s no surprise the practice has rolled to over the micro medium as well.

But Twitter will have none of that. Name squatting is clearly spelled out as a big no-no. “You may not engage in name squatting. Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may also be removed without further notice.”

Twitter will get suspicious based on any of these behaviors:

- the number of accounts created
- creating accounts for the purpose of preventing others from using those account names
- creating accounts for the purpose of selling those accounts
- using feeds of third-party content to update and maintain accounts under the names of those third parties

6. The Slimy Salesman

We know you’re out there. You think you can manipulate the Twitter ecosystem and turn Twitter followers into a marketplace for your own profit.

But if you think you can sell Twitter followers and just get away with it, think again. You’re on Twitter’s bad list, “If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn.”

Does that mean you can’t gamble with them either?

7. The Hashtag Spammer

Due to the popularity of trending topics, opportunistic Twitterers have discovered that they can potentially reach more eyeballs if they append a trending hashtag to their tweet. The activity is known as hashtag spam, and it’s unfortunately pretty commonplace and often inappropriate, just look at Habitat’s spam tactics as an example.

Thankfully, for those of you who “post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #,” or “post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic,” your days may be numbered.

8. The Plagiarizer

The next time you tweet something someone else said or wrote without attributing it to them, you might want to think twice. There’s now a Twitter code of ethics around content attribution, so “if you repost other user’s content without attribution,” you might find your account in limbo.

This is quite an interesting policy, as plagiarism and the failure to attribute content when appropriate is certainly an issue for the blogosphere as a whole, but not something we expected to see Twitter try to enforce. Of course we believe attribution to be very important (even if it’s just in RT form), we just think it might be hard to police.

9. The Über Oversharer or Bully

Oversharing is common place on Twitter, especially if you buy into the thinking that 40% of tweets are pointless babble. But there comes a time and place when what you share in the public domain could be detrimental to another individual. Should that be the case, Twitter isn’t afraid to step in and take action.

As spelled out in the section on content boundaries, “You may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.”

Basically they’re making it easier for themselves to crack down on the bullies of this Twittersphere, especially since threats won’t be tolerated either. “You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.”

Hopefully Twitter will be a safer place as a result.

10. The Faker

Given that Twitter has made its seal of approval for Verified Accounts relatively easy to replicate, those looking to add their own guaranteed stamp of authenticity can make something passable with a little ingenuity and a few Photoshop skills.

To impersonate someone on Twitter is one thing, but to fake having a verified account is something different entirely. That’s why the penalty for faking verification is permanent suspension.

The rules clearly state that, “You may not use the Verified Account badge unless it is provided by Twitter. Accounts using the badge as part of profile pictures, background images, or in any way implying false verification will be permanently suspended.”

What bad behavior on Twitter annoys you the most? Let us know in the comments.

Box image courtesy of iStockphoto (

), hillwoman2, Bully image from Chesi – Fotos CC, on Flickr (

).

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Thanks to @mashable for an excellent post!

http://mashable.com/2009/09/13/twitter-spammers/

Image by Guillermo Esteves

Recently, I had the pleasure of viewing entrepreneur and online social media expert, Erin Blaskie, celebrate the 5th anniversary of her business. Erin was dressed up in a light pink fluffy tulle ballerina tutu and a sparkly silver scarf. She even sweetened the online event further by bringing out what looked to be a mouthwatering cake! Although this was obviously very different from her usual business video presentation dress, the tutu instantly announced that this was going to be fun and that I might miss out if I didn’t tune in! Erin had taken the time to think about her audience and how she could not only visually grab and maintain its attention but also bring forth her fun-loving and passionate personality. Needless to say, Erin (www.erinblaskie.com) accomplished her mission! I sure felt included in the celebration and; frankly, her presentation, in addition to her quality content, made me want to do business with her.

Erin’s online video presentation reaffirmed some thoughts that have been colliding in my head for some time. Let’s face it! It’s a new world and it requires a whole new way to engage. Like it or not, it is important to understand the power of the visual. The ballerina tutu obviously wouldn’t work for most professionals, but the point is that the tutu is a clear example that what you wear online and the way you present yourself is a very effective marketing tool. More and more marketing campaigns are going viral so why not make the most of yours and take charge of the image that you have an opportunity to create?

I am going to address strategic ways to approach your online style over the next few posts starting with the raison d’être/incentives to care about your Web 2.0 style.

BUILD/REINFORCE TRUST

From a professional standpoint, consumers want transparency these days. Providing a relevant, authentic and aesthetically pleasing visual representation of oneself online positively influences your consumers. If you look like someone your consumers can trust and who is on top of her game, the likelihood is they will do business with you. If a professional does not dress modern and appropriately within her/his field, observers tend to unconsciously think that her ideas are not modern or progressive enough. Why take this unnecessary risk? Viewers often report that when a professional doesn’t look like she takes very good care of herself, “Is she going to be able to take good care of me?” A complimentary online image will convey your genuine professional talents and business acumen.

In today’s marketplace, consumers also want to feel like they have been heard by businesses – that your business cares that your consumers’ needs have been met. An effective way to jumpstart the relationship and to keep these lines of communication open is for professionals to display an approachable appearance online. Consumers want to feel they know the people behind the goods and services. They want too ‘see’ who they might do business with and judge whether they can trust that person to care about delivering quality goods and services. Consumers will be more inclined to provide direct business, feedback, tips and referrals to those businesses they have judged positively. Take advantage of the opportunity to visually grab consumers’ attention and let them know you would appreciate a relationship with them.

PROJECT CONFIDENCE

Once your online look visually conveys your professional message and your competence, you will feel more empowered and more energetic in business. These traits are infectious. Nina DiSesa, Chairman of the international marketing firm McCann Erickson New York stated “effective advertising is advertising that changes the behavior of the consumer; [but also] advertising that makes people feel a certain way about a brand”. In today’s marketplace, we are our own individual brand managers selling our skills and products. Our personal presentation is the window dressing to our brand. It is imperative that we appear confident in general, but especially when our image is online.

CREATE WEALTH

Another incentive to focus on your personal aesthetic via today’s various online platforms is the positive impact on your bottom line. A pleasing and accessible online professional presence states you are open and ready for business. Your appearance conveys vitality and confidence and is inherently inviting.

Now is an opportune time for corporate executives to come out from behind glass walls; entrepreneurs to expand their market and go global; and techies to emerge beyond the computer screen/living room and share their expertise. It is crucial for us to make the most of all the opportunities available during this period of democratization within the marketplace.

Professionals spend so much time and energy thinking about the ‘message’ they want to convey with other marketing tools, such as websites’, newsletters’, brochures’ and business cards’ design layout and content; resumes; interview, presentation and conversational skills; even the method used to shake someone’s hand during business relations is considered. The first and most obvious ‘message’ is you! Mom was right – first impressions do matter!

To sum up, most professionals think about our personal appearance in business to some extent, but technology has changed the rules of engagement. The second installment of this three-part post series will address the degree of control we have over our professional online images.

If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to MooreOnStyle’s free newsletter to automatically receive my lastest articles. And for frequent sale updates, plus more tips Follow me on Twitter or become of fan on Facebook.

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Tagged as: marketing yourself

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Wow, this article is sweet! Written by the lovely Kristina Moore. Please check out her site at:

http://www.mooreonstyle.com/web-20-style-why-dress-for-success/

If you’re running a self-hosted WordPress (

) blog that isn’t up-to-date (version 2.8.4), you’re advised to upgrade immediately to the latest version of the software to avoid an ongoing attack. Users of WordPress.com hosted blogs are not affected.

The warning comes from Lorelle on WordPress after it was discovered that a nasty attack is exploiting security holes in previous versions of the blogging software, creating a new “hidden” Administrator account and getting right down to the database level. These attacks are said to be “growing by the hour”. Lorelle writes:

There are two clues that your WordPress site has been attacked.

There are strange additions to the pretty permalinks, such as example.com/category/post-title/%&(%7B$%7Beval(base64_decode($_SERVER%5BHTTP_REFERER%5D))%7D%7D|.+)&%/. The keywords are “eval” and “base64_decode.”

The second clue is that a “back door” was created by a “hidden” Administrator. Check your site users for “Administrator (2)” or a name you do not recognize. You will probably be unable to access that account.

All users are advised to upgrade to the latest version of WP, while those already affected are in for a trying weekend: you’ll likely need to export your all your content with the built-in XML WordPress export, uninstall and reinstall WordPress and re-import the content. It’s a nasty attack that goes all the way into the database, so exporting the database will result in exporting the hacked code too.

For those unaffected: upgrade today. For those affected: the WordPress community is here to help.

Image credit: Andrew Abogado, Flickr (

)

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I'll update you all more when I upgrade and will more than likely do a video showing you how to do this.

E.

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Uhhh... does anyone else not think this person's index finger looks short and the middle finger looks incredibly long?! haha

Happy Friday!!

(Thanks @TrinaLamarche)