How many times have you seen this DM in the past month?:

If you’re a casual Twitter user you may not find this sort of thing to be much of an annoyance.  After all, you may not even pay attention to your DM’s. If if you do, you may be bright enough not to click on any links sent to you by strangers.  If you’re a professional brand-manager, as I am, this situation is more than just an annoyance.

I receive this message, and many other similar phishing scams up to 30 times per day across the handful of channels I monitor.  The barrage of spam DM messages basically renders my entire DM channel useless to me, and it fills my iPhone Notification Center up with garbage, such that I miss important communications from the brands’ customers, vendors, and PR personnel.

I’ve seen a few individuals rail directly at Twitter from time to time about doing more to close down spam accounts, bots, and other malcontents who are pissing in the Twitter stream, and that made a lot of sense until quite recently.  Now that doesn’t’ make a lot of sense, and here’s what’s changed:

It used to be that these garbage DM’s and spam-link @ mentions were coming almost exclusively from fake profiles created, often in bulk, by spammers and folks pushing botnet links.  Now, these messages are coming from YOU.  That’s right.  There’s a new strategy in town, and that strategy targets the profiles of legitimate Twitter users, susses out their user/password combination, and then sets up an Auto-DM sequence with one of the many such services, sending out bulk spam DM’s without the profile owner ever knowing that they’ve been compromised.

Would you like to know whose fault it is?  Are you sure?  Okay, here it comes. 

This is your fault, because your password sucks.

That’s right.  No matter how many times you’ve been told, or you’ve read that you need to create truly secure passwords, you do not.  You’re lazy, and/or you’re convinced that you can’t remember a complicated password.  And now you’re polluting everyone else’s online experience.

Most users I’ve talked to about this don’t realize that the spam DM’s are coming in from real profiles.  You’re running the risk of being blocked and reported as a spammer, and you’re damaging your own brand.  How do you like that?

So, are you still reading?

Good.

Twitter could start holding users responsible for their accounts being hacked, but they never will.  Fixing Twitter is up to us.

Now go and change your password to something secure.  Remove any installed applications that you’re not currently using, or that you can’t recall installing yourself.

Steve Jobs announced Ping this week at the special music event in San Francisco.  I’m going to assume that you’re aware of what this new Music-based Social Network is.
If you’re not, head over to this article at Macworld, and get yourself up to speed, and then come on back.

Okay, back?

I try not to rant on this blog, but I just couldn’t hold back this time.

<rant>

My first impression after creating my Ping profile (oh my, I can’t even SAY it with a straight face; I felt this way when Microsoft announced Bing) was “wow, I really no really do not have time for yet another social network!”

My second impression was “wait, a social network based solely on sharing your music purchases with friends and followers?!?”  Hasn’t this been done before?  I can share my Amazon purchases socially, can’t I?  But why on earth would I want to do that?

When MySpace came out, I got that.  I was among the first 200,000 MySpace users.  When Facebook hit the scene, I got that too.  When Twitter came out, I was a little skeptical at first, but I quickly came around, and now I’m an avid Twitter user.  I also dabble with Foursquare, and I have a profile on Blip.fm which I use every so often to share music, and expose myself to new tunes I’ve not heard yet.  See, Blip.fm and even Pandora make a lot of sense to me.  (especially Pandora.)  I’m following some friends on Pandora that I know to have good musical taste, and when I hear something new, I add it to my channel, or I create a new channel based on that track.  Pretty cool, but unless I hear something I really like, I don’t have to actually buy anything. No money changes hands. 

MySpace is free.  Twitter is free.  Facebook is free.  Pandora is free.  Blip.fm is free.  Foursquare is free.  And Ping is free too, but not really; because to get anything out of actually participating in the Ping “social network,” you’ve got to be making purchases quite regularly!

I suppose that what Ping has going for it is that you can follow your favorite bands’ own profiles, and get “behind the curtain” on the hip musical recommendations of your idols.  Apple seems to be growing out whatever traction they’ve gained from their “Celebrity Playlist” feature.   I do spend a fair amount of cash on the iTunes store every month, so don’t think I’m one of these guys who feel that the only good thing is a free thing.  That’s not my issue here.  My real issue is that this is the dumbest “social network” idea I’ve heard in a long time.

Perhaps I’m wrong, and this will spread like wildfire, and Apple will realize quadrupled monthly music downloads, which will, in turn, save the music industry.  Who knows?  I, for one, do not have time to put energy into yet another social network, and especially no time for one whose very existence is predicated on my making regular purchases from within the system.

Good luck Apple on your Social Network meets Storefront experiment.  For now, I’ll stick with iTunes’ Genius feature and Pandora on the iPhone.

</rant>

Of course, if you’d like to follow me on Ping, you may, though I don’t know how to invite you from outside of the iTunes system.  Apple seems to have created a real “walled garden” in there.  My iTunes ID is chris@foleypod.com.  Do a search, and I might just show up.   You can see what I’ve bought and maybe you’ll like to buy the stuff I bought too.

That’s pretty optimistic thinking though.

It’s been said quite a lot recently that the best parts of branding through Social Media are the same as the worst part of branding through Social Media; namely that the conversation and the community’s perception of your company gets very public, very quickly.  I say to my clients in almost every introductory meeting: “Do not embark upon a Social Media campaign unless you are really ready to start talking to your customers, and hearing everything they have to say about just how bad you’re blowing it with them.”

I feel that most conversations should be public.  If I own an airline, and I ruin someone’s travel plans, I want that known, because it gives me an excellent opportunity to show the world how my company deals with a situation that led to customer dissatisfaction.  Every public blow to the brand is a chance to publicly set a new standard in customer service.

Well, sometimes, when you’re not prepared for publicity, accountability can be a real kick in the mouth.  How would you like to be this guy?  He apparently behaved poorly, and had his office assistant resign her position in a very public way, emailing her story to the entire office, and even outing his workday internet habits.  This reminds me of something out of Bridget Jones’ Diary.

I first saw this story on TheChive.com, which hails itself as “Probably the Best Site in the World.”  I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Here’s the original story:  http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

I have no idea whether or not the story is true, or if it’s a hoax, but either way, it’s food for thought.

Enjoy

~ Chris

Girl quits her job on dry erase board, emails entire office (33 Photos)

Brilliant.

What steps should my business take before we enter into a Social Media Marketing campaign? We’ve been answering this question quite frequently this past year for our own customers, and it’s a very good question.  It’s vital to have your social media marketing strategy in place, and figured out before you launch your Twitter page, or build your Facebook business page.

I’ve been meaning to put an article like this together for some time now, and then BAM!  SmallBizTrends.com beats me to it, and it’s an excellent article.  Here’s an excerpt.

Enjoy~
Chris

Author Credit: Lisa Barone.  She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

You’re going to give this social media thing a solid chance. You’ve heard that social media delivers leads, connects you with customers and you’re confident that you can avoid falling victim to the many social media myths. All that’s left to do is create the accounts hop in.

Wait! Not so fast.

Before you enter in the world of social media, make sure you’re presenting your best possible face. Getting things in order before you take your first public steps will help customers trust your interactions and get things start on the right foot. You wouldn’t show up to your wedding without taking some time to primp, right?

Here are 9 things to do BEFORE you enter social media.

Create a rulebook: Before you step onto that field, memorize your plays. Study the channels you plan to use, listen to the conversation, understand the behavior and create your rulebook for how your company will engage. Identify how you’ll handle common support issues, the tone you’ll take, how you’ll address negativity, how fans will be rewarded, etc. Work up fake scenarios and create a plan for how you’ll deal with them. Look at issues competitors have had in social media and map out how you’ll do it better. The more you prepare, the better off you’ll be. Negative commenters are a lot less imitating when you have a plan for how you’ll convert them to your side.

Assign responsibility: Make it known who is going to be responsible for social media BEFORE everyone stands around looking at each other. Figure out things like:

• Who will be responsible for creating the content, pushing it, talking to people, responding to questions, etc?
• Who will implement any changes/issues discovered through social media?
• How much time should this be taking from everyone’s day and is the number you just came up with realistic or did you just make it up?

Unless social media is someone’s responsibility, it’s no one’s responsibility.

Increase your customer support: When you open the social media floodgates, you’re creating a new channel for people to come and get help for issues they’re experiencing. You may need to increase your staff in order to handle that. If you’re a small business, that may mean rearranging your customer support system or, if you’re a little larger, it may mean adding actual bodies. Either way, you’re now going to have a live stream of people coming to you with questions, concerns and things they need fixed. You can’t ignore them. Put systems in place to handle the increases customer service tickets.

Fix your issues: You live in your business. You know that sometimes your service is flaky. You know the number one problem with your product. You know your most common complaints. Do your best to get these under control, or at least on the mend, before you enter social media. People aren’t going to suddenly stop noticing that you could be better just because you’re talking to them. Maybe start your social media effort by TALKING about all the things you’re looking to fix.

Shift your culture: There’s more to being a social company than simply creating a Twitter account. There needs to be an internal culture shift based on creating transparency and authenticity in what you’re doing. You need to be social from inside your organization out and that that may change how you deal with customers, how you treat your employees, and how daily job functions are performed. Make sure you address this before you suddenly have a spotlight on you.

Create content around common complaints: While you’re busy fixing your issues, you also want to create content on your site dedicated to solving, resolving and addressing your most common complaints or anything that may haunt you. By putting the information out there yourself, you give yourself somewhere to link to when issues arise and you also increase the transparency of your company . If you know that sometimes you get negative mentions over a business decision you made, create a page on your site that explains it. The more you can invite people into your company, the better. Answer your customers concerns before they even have them.

Read the remainder of this article HERE at SmallBizTrends.com.