At my agency Strategies 360, we’ve had quite a bit of success in running contests using social media channels. In most instances we’ve seen tremendous growth in reach and engagement, and in just about all those cases, very minimal loss in those gains post contest. I’ve always wondered if I could expect the same types of results with my personal brand running something similar.

So without further adieu, I formally announce my February Facebook Page Music Package Giveaway! I am giving away an 8GB Ipod Touch, 2 GB Ipod Shuffle, and a pair of Zagg Smartbud Headphones. For the full details and to enter, checkout my Facebook page. Simply put, if you haven’t done so already, like my Facebook page, then enter your details into my email newsletter signup form to officially enter. If you already like my page, simply enter your details in the email signup form. I will choose one lucky random winner at the end of the month. That’s it!

Good luck to all and as always, thank you for your continued readership and support!

Regardless of the circumstances, algorithms, or opinions, I’m flattered and it’s just another feel good moment knowing that the time I spend on my blog means something to others.  So many great names on that list that I respect and enjoy and to be included with them is awesome.  I can’t speak to the exact methodology that was used to determine this list, but I would imagine that my blog factored in way more then anything else.  It just goes to show that creating great content can be a game changer for you personally or professionally.

The funniest thing about finding out about the list was my initial reaction.  It was a mix of shock and excitement, but was immediately followed by this thought…”Man, I need to be doing more!”  How crazy is that?  I get recognition for my efforts thus far, and my first thought is what more could I be doing?  How can I capitalize on this recognition and do more?  I have a full-time job and have to spend the majority of my time delivering on social media work for clients, so it’s very difficult to be able to spend a large amount of time on my personal blog or personal social efforts.  So I can’t imagine how much more I could actually take on, but I certainly feel compelled to do so.

So I’m humbled, but also realistic to know that it’s just a subjective list and could easily be argued (which if you take a look at the comments is already the case).  Let’s be honest, there are some fantastic folks out there not on the list that I would easily include that create amazing content, are socially active and influence significantly.  Some of my recent favs you must make a regular read include, Mark Murnhan, Dino Dogan, Daniel Newman, Francisco Rosales, Jessica Northey, and special shout out to one my personal fav blogs and list detractor Erika Napoletano (her stuff is just plain awesome, and let’s be honest, pretty damn influential).  So many more out there I read and enjoy, but these are just a few that come to mind.

So flattered, honored, but realistic to know that it’s business as usual, and while I will certainly take advantage of the accolades, I’ll continue to stay the course and try to provide useful, entertaining content and connect with others as much as my schedule permits.  Big thanks to all and anyone that takes the time to read.  More to come!

The whole premise of this blog post was actually inspired by an email my wife copied me on from her trainer.  His name is Spencer Gates and not only is he a tremendously awesome trainer who we’ve both worked with, but he’s an incredibly smart and has an old school, no nonsense approach that I love.  My wife was having some frustrations with watching others utilizing fad diets successfully and wanting to hit her final goals quickly, she sent him an email about this wanting to get his take and be reminded how hard work is the way to go.  Here’s an excerpt from his response he allowed me to share:

“The most important narrative to this discussion is that skinny does not equal healthy in ANY sense. Rapid weight loss via ANY method has been irrefutably shown to be unhealthy from a cardiac perspective, endocratic (hormonal) perspective, and performance perspective; this doesn’t even include the fact that people who rapidly lose weight will almost always, on a 5 year time line, regain more than 70% of it, only to crash diet again, causing more damage. If you’re interested, I can provide you the negative scientific implications with no-carb diets and more importantly the horrible long-term metabolic side effects we are beginning to see from the HCG diet. My point? You are watching people ruin their bodies; ruin their capacity to exercise; implicating themselves in long-term adverse health risks; and set themselves up for a vicious cycle, all because we generally only measure success in terms of how quickly one can lose weight and disregard most everything else.  My views on the matter, while grounded in legit, peer reviewed scientific research, are hotly contested by those who have a stake in these fads, or are so brainwashed by contemporary culture that they’ve shut off their rational thought process.”

I LOVE everything about this.  It’s amazing how many times I’ve seen or had to hear about some “amazing” diet someone went on, watch them actually lose the weight quickly (and unhealthily), only to put it back on over time.  There’s only one diet that has stood the test of time, a healthy diet and regular exercise.  Don’t get me wrong, their are certainly a few healthy diet plans out there, but the ones that are, simply incorporate a routine of healthy eating and exercise.

We live in a world of the need and expectation of instant gratification, taking any shortcut we can get our hands on to get the job done, even if it means negative long term ramifications.  It applies to all facets of life and not just diet or fitness.  Just do a search for “add twitter followers” and you’ll get pages of results promising thousands of Twitter followers instantly.  There’s an entire industry of black hat SEO providers promising front page results.  Their tactics (while possibly proving usefully initially), can lead to damaging long term ramifications.

The fact is, nothing replaces hard work, and their are no shortcuts in life.  The number one trait I look for in those I hire in any capacity is their work ethic.  I’ll take a tenacious hard worker who possibly needs a little training, over an “expert” who calls it in any day.  They’ll pay off in spades in the long term every time.

Thanks to Spencer for allowing me to use a portion of his amazing email, and seriously, if you happen to live in north end of Seattle or higher, I highly recommend his personal training services.  He’s the best.

I’m also guilty of growing bored with my theme design on about a yearly basis.  But rightfully so I believe.  Last year I paid a pretty penny for a custom site that initially I really liked, but just like anything, times change.  After a year of blogging, and watching the blogging landscape evolve, I felt the itch to update my look and feel again.  However I wasn’t interested in shelling thousands of dollars on blog that doesn’t really drive any income for me.  So I took to the web to find my next design.

This time around I had very specific wants when it came to choosing a new theme & direction to work with.  These included:

1. I wanted a theme that was a bit more minimilist.  One that focused on the content, and less on everything else.
2. I wanted a theme that was coded clean, and supported a design and features that would make the site less dependent on plugins.
3. I wanted a theme with a strong community and support so I could have access to the help I needed with customizations and technical issues.
4. I wanted to stray away from a 3rd party commenting system to improve performance, stability, and to be able to integrate the CommentLuv plugin which I also highly recommend.  CommentLuv encourages more comments through dofollow links and the ability to give commenters the option of promoting their blog links as part of the comment.

After hours of browsing, I found what I was looking for and what I believe to be one of the finest WordPress theme frameworks on the web; the Standard Theme.  The Standard Theme met all my requirements and more.  I spent a few weeks playing around with the theme on another domain, familiarizing myself with everything, and within a few days I was convinced I had made the right choice for a variety of reasons including:

1. The theme is incredibly easy to use and has a terrific admin panel that makes the entire customization process idiot proof.
2. The support and community are terrific.  It’s a thriving community and the forums have practically every answer to any question you might have.  Support is incredibly responsive and helpful as well.
3. This theme is super clean and fast.  My blog now loads much faster.
4. I’m down to only having to use 2 plugins as all my other needs are met right within the theme framework including SEO, social sharing and advertising support.

These are just a few of the great features of this theme.  They have 2 versions you can purchase the first being a $49 version that basically includes just the theme and no support/community access or upgrades, but if you seriously consider this theme, I would just go with the $99 full version. I initially purchased the $49 version, and quickly upgraded as I was thrilled with the theme and wanted the support.

I rarely dedicate an entire blog post around a product or service, and when I do, it comes highly recommended.  I anticipate using the Standard Theme for a long time to come despite any design changes I plan to incorporate.  If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll be more then happy to answer.

Almost 3 years ago a bomb dropped on me when Microsoft laid me off. I did not see it coming, nor should I have as they never had laid anyone in history of the company. I was ill prepared to enter the job market with thousands of other unfortunate souls. I had failed to focus substantial efforts on my own social credentials. I was fortunate however to have a decent enough severance package to buy me the time to focus on myself. And that’s exactly what I did concentrating on blogging, building my social following, and influence in social marketing.

Those efforts were the foundation to some fairly significant career happenings in my life. To more clearly reinforce why the numbers do matter, the following are a few examples to demonstrate how.

1. In the past 2 1/2 years I have scored 3 different interviews, 2 at Microsoft, and 1 for my current gig. In all 3 experiences, my social following was clearly a big reason for getting the initial interviews. It put my name at the top of the list every time.
2. Every client pitch I walk into is proceeded with my social credentials, and every time, it impresses them enough to walk into the room with a level of credibility before I even say a word.
3. Most recently, I was contacted by a casting producer for Season 2 of a reality/adventure show called Escape Routes. I was clearly identified and drew interest initially because of my social following.

I know what some of you are thinking…all those people don’t know enough about social media thus are easily influenced by big numbers. And my response to you would be….Yea, that’s exactly my point.

Of course those numbers are not the be all end all. You have to back it up with actual knowledge, experience, and an ability to effectively leverage those networks, which I have been able to do. In all my examples, if I wasn’t able to back it up with clear examples and experience, of course they wouldn’t have worked out for me. But one clear fact remains; MY SOCIAL REACH OPENED THE DOORS. And that my friends, is the whole point of this blog post. Having a large social following in and of itself will open doors for you. You better be able to back it up, but the doors will open. Fair? Maybe, maybe not.

What’s your take or experiences?

Escape Routes is officially season 2 of a Ford sponsored, web based, reality/adventure show that deeply integrates social media into the mix. The show is broadcast on Hulu, and last season was featured on the Jimmy Kimmel show and promoted heavily pre Super Bowl.

Once notified, I watched all of last season, and I have to say that I was genuinely impressed on how they leveraged social media, and how it played such an integral part of the show. Users had the ability to choose which team they wanted to side with, and interact with them throughout the show and its challenges. Followers were actually able to not only win prizes themselves, but help contestants with their specific challenges.

I can see how this investment is a wise one by Ford, especially with the growing trend towards original programming originating online rather then through traditional broadcast channels.  So needless to say, I grew more excited by the prospect of being considered for the show. I auditioned last week and had a great experience. Between my love and experience of social media, competitiveness, and ability to make a fool of myself, I’m no doubt what they are looking for, and I have a tremendous partner in crime @melissayeager1, one of my very best friends who brings a combination of competitiveness, social savvy, and a do whatever it takes attitude that make us an unbeatable team.  If you aren’t already, be sure to follow her as well!

I’m going to do something I rarely do. Ask my readers and followers to support our campaign by doing any or all of the following in order of preference:

1. Share this post on Twitter Tweet #escaperoutes

2. Share this post on Facebook while mentioning @fordescape & @jasonyormark.

3. Leave a comment on this post so that I may personally thank you for your support.

You may be asking yourself why bother?  Fair response.  Most of you may not.  But it would be tremendously appreciated if you took the moment to do any of the above to give myself a better chance.  As an added incentive and to make it more fun, leave a comment with your best embarrassing (but family friendly!) idea for me to film.  I will take the best ideas, create a poll, and the winning submission I will post here on my blog in the next few weeks.

Thanks in advance, and more updates to come!

So here’s my new outfit.  I’m using what I think is the most fantastically simple, clean and amazing theme I’ve come across yet.  The Standard theme is wonderfully minimilist, yet loaded with options and the ability to customize.  I spend countless hours looking at and researching WordPress themes, and considering I invested quite a bit in a custom design last time around, it took a pretty special theme to convince me to use it.

So it’s still a work in progress, so bear with me as I unwrap a few more customizations over the next few weeks.  My goal this time around was to really simplify my blog, and go with a look that was focused on the content, and more clear on who I am and what I do.  Trust me when I say I went back and forth on my tagline “social pro”.  I thought maybe I was entering borderline social douchebag territory, but the fact is, I feel my experience and work history warrant calling myself a “pro”.  Plus it’s painfully simple and lets people know exactly what I do.  Feel free to disagree of course!

I look forward to seeing what 2012 has to bring and continuing to write about my experiences and helping others as much as I can when it comes to social marketing and tech.

More to come soon!

The social media explosion has had a similar effect. A few years in, and the social web has taken it a step further by giving those some people an ability to connect with far more people more easily then ever before. Tools such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, etc. have made it much easier to amass an audience. And while great things have come from these new technologies, it has not come without being taken advantage of as well.

Having just returned from SES Chicago (a search and social conference), I had another overall good experience. I had the honor of getting to moderate one panel, speak on another, and participate in a Webmaster.fm interview (to be posted here shortly). The reality is, I don’t attend conferences much anymore unless I’m doing one or a variety of one these activities. More so because typically these conferences are not geared for me, but for those without my experience. Not that I don’t learn a few things or two along the way, but I tend to learn much more with other methods (on the job, books, online research, etc.).  

But what I’m most amazed by is the often significant discrepancy between a person’s online credentials vs. their offline persona. Often times I’m impressed with those I do some research on whether it’s reading their blogs, following their social profiles, etc., but then when I meet the real thing there is a glaring difference in what I perceived, and the real thing.

The web and the social web is definitely an equalizer. It enables just about anyone to position themselves however they want. But honestly, outside of outright lying, I can’t blame anyone for doing so. It’s up to people to do their due diligence to always ask the right questions, and more importantly, utilize your circle of trusted relationships to get the right answers.

And when all else fails, defer to examples of real world business results. Ask for examples of claimed knowledge and experience in action. Ask for references from those examples. And make sure that the business results that you define as success, map to those examples closely so you’re not left in disappointment. All the likes and follows in the world do not matter if they don’t lead to more sales, more engagement, or whatever your true measure of success really is.

And in case anyone was wondering…I’m Batman. No really, I am.

Now I’m totally on board with this idea. I think it’s a creative and fantastic way to build buzz and awareness of your current or soon to be blog. People are visual in nature, and taking this approach will certainly create some interest for your endeavors. However I think it should only be a part of an overall larger strategy of a blog launch. Where I somewhat disagree with Jon’s take is around the results you can expect as a lessor known blogger, and dictating your decision to move forward based on those results.

As of this writing, Jon claims to have received over 1,700 subscribers, 1,000 Twitter followers and 600 likes/comments on Facebook prior to even writing a single post and only publishing his movie style trailer promoting his upcoming blog launch. Pretty good numbers if you ask me. I was intrigued after reading his post, and most certainly had to see the trailer.

My first reaction was, “Well of course he did”. Why? The trailer leads with two ringing endorsements from the blogosphere’s heavy hitters, Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame, and Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net. That’s instant street cred and is obviously going to lead to people subscribing or following to learn more. In addition, Jon has established himself as a credible and successful blogger due to his guest posting contributions to the above networks prior to this launch which also contributes to these numbers.

Bottom line? The trailer only partially contributed to this pre-launch success. The real driving force here is that Jon had already established himself as a valued and trusted resource for his given topic through endorsements and a proven track record. Which goes to my personal opinion in that the steak is far more important then the sizzle. If you want to be successful in the blog game, you have to commit to establishing yourself through patience, persistence, and a commitment to providing useful, valuable and entertaining content on a regular basis. Sure, you can lead with a fancy trailer, but don’t let the number of people that jump on board necessarily dictate whether you should go for it.

What’s more important is whether you are passionate and knowledgeable about what it is you want to write about. Sure, maybe you’re not the greatest writer in the world, or you have little to no marketing savvy. But with a little hard work, a bit of trial and error, you’ll learn by doing, and slowly build an audience.

You’ll never really know the true potential of your blog without grilling a few steaks!

Then you go to obtain your social media usernames.  You know going into it that there’s a good chance it’s probably already taken, but worth a shot anyway.  You go to Twitter, enter your desired username, and RATS…it’s taken.  But that’s not really what’s frustrating.  What’s frustrating it although it’s taken, it’s a dead account.  Either never used, or hasn’t been used in months…years even.  You know what’s even more frustrating?  Twitter won’t do anything about it.

Well, that’s not ENTIRELY true.  Twitter will help you if you own the trademark or copyright, but let’s be honest, most of us aren’t shelling out those kinds of dollars either for a blog or small business.  At least not anytime soon.  So what are we small fish to do?  There’s nothing we can do.  Here’s Twitter’s standard response that many have gotten when inquiring about obtaining an inactive username:

If you’re looking to acquire an inactive username for personal use, please check back in a few months. We’re currently unable to accommodate individual requests for inactive usernames. We may release all inactive usernames in the future, but have not yet set a date for doing so.

This has been the response for a few years, so this is obviously not a big enough deal for Twitter to address.  What’s so frustrating is because it’s so incredibly easy for anyone to sign up for Twitter, every stinking name under the sun gets taken regardless of whether it’s ever intended on being used.  Yes, the domain industry is very much the same, but in the domain industry, you at least have the potential to purchase the domain after the fact.  Not the case with Twitter usernames as it goes against their terms of use.

It can’t be that difficult to create a solution here can it?  I understand that Twitter probably cares more about numbers reflecting # of users vs. actual engagement, but it’s not like they would be relinquishing their subscriber numbers here.  They would just be replacing dead users with potential active ones.

Here’s a few ideas in hopes that Twitter may actually listen:

• Update your terms that require users to actually USE their accounts or risk losing them.  6 months of no activity, account automatically goes back into circulation.  Case closed.
• Hell, make a few bucks if you want.  Create a marketplace where users can sell the names and take a cut.  Something, anything to give those that are actually willing to spend a few dollars for the name they want, an option to do so.  Better yet, keep all the money and just charge for official requests for these names.
• Simply allow users to officially make requests for unused names and give them up if they meet certain criteria.  What’s the harm?

Get on it already Twitter.  You’ve created a valuable social channel, and you have real users that want to use the platform in place of dead accounts.  It’s a win win.

Some active conversations on the issue:

http://www.quora.com/If-a-Twitter-user-has-been-inactive-for-over-6-months-can-I-get-their-username

https://dev.twitter.com/discussions/262

A great free tool to help track when (and if) those Twitter usernames ever get released:

http://tweetclaims.com