Independent Thinking » engagement

Twitter, Followers, and First Date Syndrome

Daria Steigman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:02:58 +0000

I cleaned my Twitter house recently, dropping off over 200 people whose streams never grabbed my attention and/or with whom I rarely or never engaged.

This was not a lazy mass unfollow; I looked at every single account. One by one. (No, it didn’t all happen in one sitting.) And guess what? I can identify most of the avatars in my stream, and I know why I’m following you (e.g., marketing smarts, entrepreneur, funny, news source, runner, baseball fan, athlete, friend, tweet chatter, etc.).

My mantra for social is engagement.

Someone tweeted me the other day:

Informal Poll: Why Are You Following Me?

It’s the wrong question to ask me.

You see, I know why I followed you. But sometimes, like a first date, it goes nowhere.

Who do you follow–and why? Is it “the right reason” for you?

Photo by Shashi Bellamkonda (Flickr).

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Are Your Customers Feeling the Love?

Daria Steigman — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:48:57 +0000

We talk a lot about connecting with customers (and clients, prospects, and so forth)–but are they feeling the love? In other words, are they connecting with us?

These are not the same thing.

What a Two-Way Connection Looks Like

I’ve always highly valued my University of Chicago education. And I’m the second generation to earn a degree there (my mom was first), and then my brother followed me. But other than sending me an alumni magazine, the only time I ever heard from the university was when they wanted money.

(Except for the awesome local U of C Entrepreneurs Group, but I’ve always viewed that more as a business group than a university group.)

Now, thanks to, UChicagoAlumni, I feel connected to the institution.

It’s not about a Twitter feed. It’s Tracey Swanson (the voice of UChicagoAlumni), who gets that talking to people (conversation), listening to them (he honored my request to change how he identified my affiliation with the university when retweeting me), and valuing what they’re doing (he shares the occasional blog post from here with his audience) are critical in forging a two-way connection.

What are you doing to ensure your customers are engaged with you?

Photo by Worthy FM (Flickr).

Gary Vaynerchuk, Peeps, and the Secret to Success

Daria Steigman — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:04:56 +0000

About twice a year, I wish I were Sean Combs.

I’m always running when this happens.

At big-name-big-city races, Combs and other celebrities typically run with an entourage. The people who hold their GUs and Gatorade bottles and hang onto extra layers of clothes when they don’t need them. I’d so love someone to hand me CarbBOOM and pass my phone over when I get the urge to tweet “fueling up for that last push” at mile 12 of a half-marathon.

Most of the time, though, I’d rather have peeps than a posse.

The difference? The posse are role players. Peeps care about you.

Here’s how to have peeps.

Do you:

Talk to the toll taker on the highway?
Wave to the road crew dude holding the “go slow” sign?
Ask “how are you today” when you place an order at the takeout counter?
Say thank you when the usher scans your ticket?
Chat with the security guard who’s signing you in?

You make friends by being friendly. And having people who have your back is all about caring about them too.

I heard Gary Vaynerchuk talk recently about what he terms the “thank you economy,” and one of the points he made is that word of mouth is the equity that all businesses are built upon.

In other words, peeps are the secret to success.

Photo by QFamily (Flickr).

Does Engagement Matter?

Daria Steigman — Tue, 31 May 2011 10:05:21 +0000

Deborah Brody wrote a terrific blog post last week about the role of engagement. She said in part:

In social media, people talk about engagement all the time. You have to “engage” with your followers. What does this really mean? Why are you engaging? The answer is simple–to build a lasting relationship (the “marriage”).

A couple days after Brody’s post, I had the pleasure of hearing Guy Kawasaki talk about how to be enchanting. His starting point: “I want to move from engagement to enchantment.”

I think they’re both onto something. What say you?

Next post, I’ll recap my top six takeaways from Guy Kawasaki’s talk.

Photo by Joost J Bakker (Flickr).

Get Rid of that First Impression Once and For All

Daria Steigman — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:46:22 +0000

You can’t really shake a first impression. It’s done. When we screw it up, we have to live with that.

But I’ll share a secret: You can make a second impression.

I received a call recently from someone I’d talked to a few months ago about a possible project. She had read my blog post on The Importance of Saying “No” and saw herself in there. And so she called to say “I’m sorry.”

It takes guts to apologize. More important, it takes a lot of class.

In my earlier post, I wrote:

Most of us have mental lists of people who have gone out of their way to be helpful–or not. To answer or return phone calls–or not. To give an honest answer to an honest question–or not.

Guess which list she’s on now?

Photo by David Spender (Flickr).

The Importance of Saying “No”

Daria Steigman — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:15:39 +0000

Saying “NO” is becoming a lost art in the business world. The losers are the people who ditch phone calls, avoid e-mails, and twist and turn themselves into pretzels rather than tell someone they don’t have the job, the project, or five minutes of your time to hear or help them out.

It’s okay to just say NO:

You can say NO to the job applicants who don’t make the cut.
You can say NO to the prospective bidders who don’t win the work.
You can say NO to the vendor who’s looking for new customers.
You can say NO to the consultant who is cold calling.

What you can’t do (or shouldn’t do) is ignore them. Devalue their effort. Treat them as disposable, unworthy of common courtesy.

I make it a priority to answer personalized queries, whether from a company pitching a report, a printer looking for new customers, or a colleague looking for work. In my condo leadership role, I made it a point to personally call the lead attorney at a firm we were about to fire to give him a heads up, and I sent thank you notes to the losing law firms we’d interviewed to replace the old one. Why? Because it was the right thing to do.

If you have the guts to say NO, you gain a competitive edge. Most of us have mental lists of people who have gone out of their way to be helpful–or not. To answer or return phone calls–or not. To give an honest answer to an honest question–or not.

Which list do you want to be on?

Photo by Simon Doggett (Flickr).

Second Look: Ford Gets Its Mojo Back, Rethinking Health Care, Pioneering Entrepreneurs

Daria Steigman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:16:46 +0000

Each week I’m highlighting 3 or 4 posts, surveys, and other news that I have read and/or tweeted about that you may not have seen. As the name implies, I think they deserve a second look.

How Ford Got Its Mojo Back: A must-read post about smart business strategy reveals how Ford CEO Alan Mulally valued employees and used a combination of transparency, energy, and long-term thinking to bring the automaker back from the brink.
Driving Value in Health Care: “Today’s health delivery system and payment framework does not reward innovation around health management, prevention, and real-time consumer engagement… To truly shift the business of health, we need to drive the right combination of structural change, innovation and use of technology to create a better system–essentially, drive real value for every dollar spent.” Smart thinking around shifting the model.
China’s First Entrepreneur: The BBC looks at the courage, smarts, and serendipity it took to become China’s first licensed entrepreneur.

Photo by omniNate (Flickr).

5 Reasons I Love Twitter (And You Should Too)

Daria Steigman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:30:17 +0000

Have you ever gone through Twitter withdrawal?

I’ve been a bit quiet the last two weeks, and really didn’t mind being mostly offline. But solitude only lasts so long. So I officially re-energized today with what I termed my “social media catch-up morning.”

Friday’s my least productive day for traditional work, so I figured I’d put it to good use digging into my RSS Reader and reengaging with my Twitter community. It’s been a great way to remind myself why I love Twitter:

1. Conversation. Well, duh, you say. But apparently lots of people on Twitter have few followers and talk to even fewer people. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage people.

2. Listening. The Twitterverse is a very organic space, and you can learn a lot about who people are and how they interact by following them for a little while. Many of the people I follow are broadly in the communications world. Yet I know who likes football; who prefers wine, beer, or tequila; and where some of you spent your Xmas break. People are sharing pieces of themselves every day; you just have to be listening. There is also amazing knowledge sharing taking place; I could get lost spending time just following links.

3. Connectedness. We all recognize that Twitter is a great source for breaking news, whether it’s a tragedy (#Mumbai) or a celebration (#inaug09). But it’s also a great resource for reaching out through our expanded networks. I was reminded of this earlier today when Katie Adams sent out a tweet looking for a contact at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. I immediately retweeted it, and it was then retweeted by two more people. Within about 5 minutes, that message had reached about 4,000 people.

4. #followfriday. For the uninitiated, #followfriday is a way for you to give a shout out to people you find interesting, fun, provocative, or otherwise worth getting to know. More than that, it’s a terrific way to make new connections. I’ve met some great people that way, including several just this morning.

My #followfriday list for today included Linda Jacobson, Kim Wells, Marc Meyer, Jeremy Meyers, Charity Hisle, and Adrian Pittman. They make my list for three key reasons: they’re smart, they’re engaging, and they’re authentic.

Which brings me to #5…

5. Authenticity. When you’re conversing in 140 characters, it’s hard to keep your mask on for very long. Twitter’s a great way to filter out the authentic from the disingenuous. It becomes a trust barometer of sorts, a way to jumpstart relationships that may start online but then filter outward and offline.

Have I left anything out? Why do you use Twitter?

When LinkedIn Groups Go Awry

Daria Steigman — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:12:52 +0000

When I wrote my post about the value of LinkedIn, I called it a “must have” element of every professional’s online presence. I still believe that. So why are so many people devaluing their profiles with endless drivel?

I belong to several LinkedIn Groups, and they are helpful in identifying like-minded professionals and in broadening my network. What they are not, it seems, is a forum for robust discussion.

For an overview of what’s gone awry with LinkedIn discussions, read Craig Peters’ terrific post. In it, he outlines many of the things people are doing wrong, including looking for free advice, traffic whoring, and blatant self-promotion.

I’m personally not so concerned with the free advice component, as we’re all learning every day. PlusÂ providing value to someone else can be a good way to demonstrate expertiseÂ without giving everything away. But, like Peters,Â I’m tired of being bombared with constant come-ons and pleas to “please, pleaseÂ click on my link before answering.”

From a business perspective, I’m not sure why anyone would want their business persona to screamÂ ”bad marketer and I contribute nothing.” From a social media perspective, they’re failing miserably on the engagement piece.

As to LinkedIn Groups, they are not now a go-to place for discussion. I think the smart conversation online has largely migrated to Twitter.

Five Rules for Creating Demand

Daria Steigman — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:32:21 +0000

Fast Growth Focus columnist Doug Davidoff writes about the five rules for creating demand:

Know your customers.
Identify problems they may not know they have.
Educate clients on their problems by focusing on results and creating value.
Don’t tell clients what you do; instead, “start building the bridge.”
Monetize the value of your solutions.

Read Davidoff’s excellent article here.