Travel company gives bloggers free trips.

As those of you who have seen my “Ten Commandments of Social Media for the Travel Industry” already know, the list of Social Media Winners is growing fast and may soon overtake the Social Media Sinners category. Everywhere I travel there are new examples of social media savvy, from London’s Red Carnation properties to last weekend’s terrific ATIA (Alaska Travel Industry Association) Tweet-up.

Now here’s another shining Social Media Winner: Travel company YokmoK, which brilliantly uses social media to solve the pesky problem of unfilled space by inviting bloggers to travel free.

Here’s the scoop from their site:

You blog? Then travel free with YokmoK

Ask yourself the following questions:

• do I have a popular blog? (typically a popularity higher than 10,000)
• does my blog relate to travel, adventure, adrenaline sports, adventure travel, or similar?
• do I have quality content and update it regularly?

If you’ve answered YES to these questions, then wait no more ’cause you are entitled to travel FREE with YokmoK.

Why?

We’d love to have all our trips fully booked, the whole year, every year, but it just doesn’t happen, and some free spaces are available from time to time. It can be snowshoeing in the Swedish Lapland, hiking in the French Alps, or trekking in the Sahara desert. So if you are ready to jump on a last-minute plane, and blog before, during, and after the trip, then you have a real chance to travel for free with us.
How?

It’s very simple. Just send us an email to contact with the following information:

1. your name;
2. URL of your blog;
3. which trip, date, or sport you’re interested in (snowshoeing, hiking, bicycling, trips in August, all…);
4. a few sentences about yourself;
5. as subject line please put “I’m a blogger and I want to travel for free with YokmoK”.

The only nit I have to pick with YokmoK is its definition of blogger popularity. YokmoK defines “popularity” as those with 10,000 or more incoming links—relating to travel, adventure or adrenaline sports. As I’m a quality versus quantity gal, my vote’s for the blogger who genuinely engages with readers, delivers compelling and accurate information and uses other forms of social media — Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube– to promote the blog. While being effective with social media is certainly still somewhat a numbers game, there are other factors such as engagement and journalistic standards that should count as well.

Springwise reports that If the blogger is available to participate, YokmoK will pay for all services included in the price for the corresponding trip. In exchange, the blogger is expected to share their experience of the trip, including at least four entries before the trip starts, one entry per day during the trip, and another four entries after the trip ends; each entry must include at least one direct link to YokmoK’s website.

So bloggers, are you packed?

The surprisingly simple way social media can change your life.

Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated. In French its sérendipicité but also heureux hasard, “fortunate chance.”

And that my dears is the very definition of Social Media. Fortunate chance. Random reward. Luck on steroids. In the old (analog) days, the answer to “What are the odds?” would be a rueful chuckle. The only way to increase your possibilities of connecting, whether in business, opportunities, love, relationships, insights, anything, was either to up the elbow grease via traditional networking or bury a statue of St. Jude in the backyard.

Today in our Kevin-Bacon-World, serendipity now gets an upgrade. I call it “Strategic Serendipity” and when I teach Social Media workshops, this phrase gets a nod from newbies to experts alike. When you use Social Media effectively (note that vital word), what you’re doing is greatly increasingly the odds of stumbling across exactly who you want to stumble across:

* If you’re writing a book, agents, publishers and writing experts show up
* If you’re looking for a job, the right contact, the opportunities show up — including some you never imagined
* If you’re running a business and need help, the right virtual admin, the right CPA, the right insurance agent show up — and maybe even partnership and joint venture opportunities

Obviously this list could stretch to the end of the page. I cannot tell you how many people, opportunities and fruitful insights have come my way via Social Media. But make no mistake. Strategic Serendipity is no random, hippy-dippy flinging of one’s personal brand or business into the Universe. Yes, your personal message-in-a-bottle is floating quixotically in the tumultuous seas of Social Media. But you have a choice about when, where and in what direction you want it to bobble. You don’t have to toss it willy-nilly into the world. You can pick your ocean. For example, if you’re into music and entertainment and seeking fans, labels, producers, then you’d want to throw your bottle into the sea that’s MySpace. You’d tightly target your message so it’s immediately engaging to the people who find it washing up on shore. You research the influential beachcombers, learning where their favorite sandy patch is and when they’re out roaming.

Be prepared also, for whatever shows up. Often it’s not the way you imagined it. But even more often, it’s far more intriguing.

There is an art and a science to putting the tools and technologies of Social Media to intelligent use. A few tips to tap into Strategic Serendipity:

* Remember the word ’strategy.’ Before you run off and start tweeting like mad, friend your entire kindergarten class and zip through entire blogrolls, have a solid plan in mind. What do you want to achieve with your social media program? What business effect do you want to achieve? What personal effect do you want to achieve?
* Quantity versus Quality. This continues to be hotly debated in social media circles. My point of view, one that’s been reinforced recently, is that engagement is what counts, not huge networks of people who have no clue who you are. You want a healthy percentage of people who share your passion, including enough influentials to help you make things happen. But don’t always think the well-known ‘rockstars’ are the only ones to know. Many of them don’t manage their social networks anyway — all too often it’s still a “I’ll have my girl tweet your girl” world out there.
* Fish in lots of ponds. You’re far more likely to connect with a wide variety of people, networks and possibilities. One of the biggest mistakes networkers make is to spend too much time in professional networking groups. Why waste time in a pond of everybody trying to sell something? Find a pond of buyers instead.

I’d love it to hear your Strategic Serendipity stories. Please post below or email: Hello@guruofnew.com.

Forget Everything You’ve Ever Known About Book Publishing.

I’ve been planning on writing about writing for a couple of months now. As a writer-since-birth (aren’t we all?), my world is heavily and happily populated with other writers. In most ways, my fellow writers and I are simpatico. We’re soul mates. We’re creative kin. But there’s one way in which I’m decidedly different from my comrades: I saw it coming.

“It” of course is the Internet. It of course is the driving digital force that’s (pun intended) re-written everything, especially the already fragile world of publishing. New technology continues to rock the business of books. And I don’t mean the technology that gave us self-publishing and Kindles. I mean the uber-disruptive combination of enhanced bandwidth plus social media. As one of the rare writers (in my crowd anyway) who very early on embraced the “Interwebs” and later on, social media, I’ve been the proverbial canary in the mine, grown hoarse and embarrassingly bombastic at lunches, cocktail parties and phone conversations about the need to ‘get’ it. My original plan was to post a list of useful links and actionable ideas for writers here on GuruofNew.com . I still may do that. But I realized after reading Adam Penenberg’s article in Fast Company: Viral Loop Chronicles - Forget Everything You’ve Heard About Book Publishing — that unless a writer realizes the very foundation of our writer’s world has crumbled (drumroll) and is being feverishly re-built — no list of 10 Must-Have Links for Writers is going to matter one whit.

Consider this scuttlebutt: Agents now ask prospective authors how ‘big is your network’ — suggesting 100,000 as a good place to start, because if 10% of this combo of Follows, Friends, Fans and Connections buys the book, pub costs are covered.

Consider this scuttlebutt: Tim Ferriss, the author of New York Times bestseller “The 4-Hour Workweek,” is using PBwiki to organize reader feedback and participation for the second edition of his book. Tim’s innovative use of social media such as blogs and social networks won him numerous accolades for “The 4-Hour Workweek,” including his first book launch being named one of the top 50 product launches of 2007 by Advertising Age magazine, and simultaneously reaching #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Businessweek bestseller lists.

I am assuming you noticed the operative phrase “product launches” — because that’s exactly what a book is these days. I’m not idealistic fool enough to think this is necessarily a bad thing or even a new thing.

Here’s an excerpt from Adam Penenburg’s article. Trust me — every writer needs to read it:

“Forget everything you’ve heard about book publishing.

For instance, recently at a party to celebrate the publication of my latest book, a number of people asked, “Is your publisher sending you on a tour to promote your book?”

Dicl;dsCKWDfce9qdck. Sorry, I was laughing so hard recounting this story that I hit my head on my keyboard.

These friends/colleagues/acquaintances/random people I met were inquiring about Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves. It tells the stories of the fastest growing companies in history–Skype, Hotmail, eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and many more, all of which grew virally. By amassing such huge numbers of users without spending a dime on marketing, they were able to create multimillion and in some cases billion-dollar businesses practically overnight. They did it by creating a product that its users spread for them. In other words, to use it, they had to spread it. Never before in human history has it been possible to create this much wealth, this fast, and starting with so little. I’d like to think Viral Loop is partially inspirational. If they can create billion-dollar companies from scratch, why can’t you?

Most people have a vision of publishing that ceased to exist years ago: writers of yore traipsing bookstore to bookstore across America to offer readings and scrawl inscriptions to the handful of strangers who bothered to show up. It sounds so quaint. Alas, today’s publishers have little patience for such low-yield marketing efforts. Building a writer’s career isn’t part of the equation. It’s all about the bottom line. If legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, who patiently guided some of our nation’s greatest writers (Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe) were alive today, he’d probably be working in public relations.

Publishers don’t pump serious marketing money into a book unless they know it’s a hit, even after coughing up a six-figure advance. They don’t commit to ad budgets in contract negotiations and are loath to spend a dime on authors’ Web sites, travel, or any other expenses. That’s because so few of the books they publish actually “earn out,” that is, sell enough copies so that the author’s advance is covered by his or her sales. A book that sells enough copies to justify an author’s advance is about as common as a kind or thoughtful anonymous comment on Gawker.

There’s an old saying in publishing: Your agent hasn’t done his job if you earn back your advance. But, you might ask, how can a book be a hit if your publisher doesn’t get behind it?

Therein lies the mystery of marketing a book at a time the old rules don’t apply. As a former book editor of mine explained, publishers follow the broadcast TV model. You schedule a show for primetime and see if it develops an audience. If it does, you throw your weight behind it. If it doesn’t you pull the plug. Book publishing is a “hits” business, with a tiny fraction of huge sellers–thank you Dan Brown, Malcolm Gladwell, and soon, Sarah Palin–carrying the rest of us losers. Publishers don’t care about dropping money on 99 books if the 100th is a Tipping Point or Freakonomics. This also characterizes the music business and we can see how well that turned out, but I digress.

Instead of a publisher building your career, you’re on your own. And if you talk to editors you’ll get an earful. They wonder why authors don’t take a percentage of their advance to pay for their own marketing. Why should the publisher have to do it all? They paid you for the work, didn’t they? For too long authors have acted like crybabies, waiting for publishers to be like, well, publishers used to be. That was a long time ago, when editors used to, well, edit, but much of that responsibility has been passed on to literary agents.

I’m not kvetching, mind you. I can honestly say that Hyperion, which released Viral Loop, is the best publisher I’ve worked with. But there is nothing sexy about an author selling a book. It isn’t about cocktail parties, readings, and witty repartee at the Algonquin Hotel. Nowadays it’s about press coverage, social media, Facebook and Twitter, iPhone apps, virality, and the hope that if you hang on long enough and convince enough people to buy and read your book, they will market it for you.

How? Because if they like it–really like it–they will, without prompting, enthusiastically recommend your book to a friend, and so on, and so on (like the old “psst” shampoo commercial). It’s word-of-mouth, the gold standard of marketing, because a recommendation to buy comes from a trusted source like a friend or family member. This is how publishing has always worked, of course. It’s just the journey there that’s become particularly treacherous.

The hardest part for most authors is to create that initial large installed base of readers. Some like Gary Vaynerchuk, who dictated Crush It: Why Now Is The Time to Cash In On Your Passion, are, as Gary Vee would put it, “crushing it!” Most, however, fail.”

Guru’s Note: The Guru of New Group is here to help you with book strategy and social media. And we’ve got a great Book Tour guy who gets that IRL (In Real Life) still sells lots of books.

Oh and another thing. Here’s a great article on 15 Twitter Users Shaping the Future of Publishing.   And stay tuned for my upcoming posts on (yes!) the Vook and the Nook.

Can You Survive the Frenzied Waters Campaign?

I’m a little miffed I didn’t receive my obituary in the mail.

It seems that all the super-duper, uber-coolest Social Media Influencers are now apparently dead, having been devoured by rampaging Viral Marketing Sharks. These powerfully predatory creatures have been cleverly stirring the Facebook, Twitter and webby waters into a bloody frenzy:

Frenzied Waters
Something terrifying has been lurking under the ocean’s shimmering surface. Feeding on those most vulnerable and those least suspecting. Think you can survive the murky depths of Frenzied Waters?

Naturally there’s a contest:

@FrenziedWaters: UPDATE: 5 capsules still out there. “Asbury Park”: Miami, Atlanta. “Battle of the Coral Sea”: Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Fran #FrenziedWaters

@yeldarb101 They are capsules containing artifacts from tragic oceanic events. They have been found in 11 markets at specific coordinates.

All of this viral voodoo is being conducted on behalf of— . Oops. I’m not going to tell you. Snoop around the bloody oceans yourself. (Or read to the bottom for a clue, Nancy Drew.)

I continue to be ticked I didn’t receive the actual package. This shocker featured not only the highly detailed obit but also a jar with shark-bitten shorts,a floating key, a seashell and the warning sign pictured above. Last effects, I guess. Genius.

When I watched the video, I had the option to click through to Facebook, where the brilliantly sick minds who created this campaign apparently scoured my profile for personal information. Much to my utter surprise, my gruesomely final flashing thoughts were of a Ladies Who Launch panel I once moderated. There, as my blood bubbled and swirled through the frenzied waters, was the smiling face of Facebook’s own Randi J. Zuckerberg, chatting up the eager audience. Happily, Randi’s Dotcomix videos always crack me up. So I guess I sunk down to those murky waters with a grin.

As always, I have mixed feelings about intentional Viral Marketing. All too often it’s too staged and fake to be genuinely effective. But extra kudos to this team for playing it smart in one very important way: tapping into both online and offline channels. When everybody’s zigging by being so relentlessly virtual, it’s an inspired idea to zag instead, via real life tactics such as the package and …(see picture above). <--clue

Guru’s Note: I’d love to check out the Frenzied Waters marketing plan. I have a feeling the Target Audience here is the heavily male 18-34, bring-on-the-blood-n-gore segment of the taxonomy. My female friends were weirded out not only by the yuckiness of being the shark’s supper but also by the idea of viewing one’s own death. Like ICK.

Many thanks to @ChrisBrogan who so graciously first alerted us this morning to his shocking death by shark.

Do Not Use Twitter . . .

Trending on Twitter and topping Digg, this photoshopped parody would be completely laughable if tweeps hadn’t already used Twitter during arrests and earthquakes.

Love these:

circa1908: RT @ListenToLeon: Do Not Use Twitter iF yOu TyPe Liek tHiS.

ErinMarieHogan: Do Not Use Twitter is the fastest refreshing trending topic I’ve ever seen.

allonereaction: Do not use twitter to get laid…it’s lame!!

KeLauLi: RT @AwesomeChicken7: Do Not Use Twitter if you think it means you’ll become best friends with Demi Moore

LawlietJourney: Do not use twitter to make yourself seem cool,cuz honestly if ur on here were all noobs XD

Guru’s Note: Do Not Use Twitter for your brand unless it’s part of your holistic branding strategy.

The Number One Reason The Great Facebook Name Grab Rocked.

Why did the Great Facebook Name Grab rock? It’s more than those 3 million new vanity URLS.

Could it be the 200,000 usernames registered in the first 3 minutes? That’s an amazing 1111 names registered per second, according to the geeks at Mashable, who are much better at math than moi.

Could it be that by 10:01 PM PT, only one frenzied hour after Nerd Night launched, around one million custom URLs had already been nabbed?

Could it be the smooth way it all went down, with nary a bump or crash, despite record traffic?

Or could it be that I got MY vanity URL, beating out legions of pesky Sarah Browne poseurs, porn stars and Prime Minister’s wives?

Nope.  While the above milestones are delightfully droolworthy, the Number One Reason the Great Facebook Name Grab rocked was because we finally had some fun with Social Media again. 

Or haven’t you noticed it’s been stone-cold sober and Provigil-serious in Social Media Land lately? 

But Friday eve, at the appointed witching hour, Geeks galore were gleefully proclaiming their name grabs, tweeting about their victories and it wasn’t all about SEO, boosting Friends/Follows or shameless self-promotion. Yes, there is business benefit in ‘owning’ your Facebook personal URL; so yes, it was smart to spend part of your Friday night clicking, crowing and claiming your name. It also was a blast.

Look no further for proof of this newfound wit and wackiness than this list of Goofy Usernames just nabbed:

• Starting my world domination plans early: http://www.facebook.com/yourlordandmaster
• Cat ran over my keyboard:
  http://www.facebook.com/alksjfalskjfoiwefalsdlasfaslleseouaiwejndlsknjkdfs
• The entire QWERTY keyboard:
  http://www.facebook.com/qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
• Try harder: http://www.facebook.com/aaaaaa
• Fantasyland: http://www.facebook.com/JackBauercouldwhoopChuckNorris
• Someone who actually wantsto be the customer service guy?http://www.facebook.com/techsupport
• Don’t even ask:  http://www.facebook.com/dballs
• My personal favorite: http://www.facebook.com/rickroll

Guru’s Nudge: Small businesses on Facebook — remember June 28. That’s when you can nab your business vanity URL.

Thanks again to Mashable.

The Great Facebook Name Grab Is Hours Away.

If you’ve logged on to your Facebook Profile anytime in the past week, you can’t miss the drumroll-please message. In a matter of hours, starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, Facebook is (finally) letting users pick their own Facebook profile usernames on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sure, this technology has long been standard at MySpace, Twitter and Linkedin but with Facebook’s exploding growth, personalizing your Facebook URL smartly ups your personal brand presence. Plus, these enhancements mean an end to that Facebook.com/26537215 numerical gobbledygook and the beginning of a faster, easier way for your peeps to be able to find you online. Here’s what the Facebook blog says about the new vanity URLS:

“Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names.”

See you tonight on Facebook where I’ll be mightily scrapping with legions of other Sarah Brownes. I got name-jacked on Twitter and if you saw what the current @SarahBrowne was tweeting, you too would be chomping at the bit in this FB Great Name Grab. (Follow me @guruofnew)

Are You A Small Business with a Facebook Page? If So, Good News!
There’s been a lot of confusion about eligibility for usernames for Facebook Pages. Originally, Facebook would only allow Pages created before May 31, 2009 with a minimum of 1,000 fans to be eligible for the vanity URLS. After Admins of Small Business Pages rightfully complained, (me!) even forming a Facebook protest group, the powers-that-be in Palo Alto relented.

So remember this date: Sunday, June 28. On this date, “All Pages created after May 31, 2009 or that had less than 1,000 fans on that day will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28.

If you have more than 1,000 fans and the Page was live on Facebook prior to the cut-off date of May 31, 2009, then go for it on June 13 along with your personal Profile.

Guru’s Note: Please check the Facebook blog for Page eligibility updates. Rules and dates keep changing as often as Heidi and Spencer exit the jungle.

What’s Tweetworthy in Your Town? Find Out What’s Happening from Happn.

I realized this weekend at #TWTRCON why Twitter is my favorite addiction:  it’s all new, all the time –a perpetual work-in-progress.  New tools and trends bubble up constantly. If you’re a new junkie like I am, Twitter is the uber-ultimate in shiny new toys. So of course you’re going to love this hot new trend-tracking site that tracks emerging trends in 52 different metro areas around the world.  Happn.in collects and aggregates popular phrases used on Twitter, showing you what people are twittering about in your city.  The five most popular phrases each hour are posted to the site — and then they’re tweeted three times a day to the happn.in Twitter account for each city. Right now, there are about 79,678 people following happn.in in 52 cities.

And here’s a special twist that the Monetizer in me loves:  Happn lets you sponsor tweets. It actually has a business model with a mini-revenue stream. Yowzaa!  I paid a Suze Ormand-pleasing $2 per sponsored tweet. So when tweeps read what’s hot in LA, SFBay, Seattle, London, Boston and New York over the next couple of days, they’ll also see <GURU OF NEW> with a link to my site.  If I popped $100 for a heavy-up campaign, it’s possible these sponsorships could actually generate some Guru brand awareness.  But in the meantime, it’s really a blast to watch as trends zip around the world — and practically droolworthy to see what’s hot in one city and decidedly not in another. 

Guru’s Note:  I begged Jay to add the Monterey Peninsula to its list of cool trend-setting cities. But unfortunately, not enough tweeps in our eco-paradise are tweeting. (At last count, there were probably 8 of us and that includes the new seahorse @MontereyAQ and Zen Otter @EmbassyMonterey.

But good news: Things may change soon with our upcoming Social Media Monterey Mini Camp. Stay tuned for details.

Wanted: Adventurous and Creative Clients. Must Be Willing To Experiment with New Research Tools.

Here’s a good working definition of Market Research:

An objective approach to finding solutions to problems in marketing. Involves qualitative and quantitative research and analysis of the findings to help marketers’ best target and reach their audiences.

For me, the operative phrases are finding solutions to problems and reach their audiences.Thanks to the emergence of Social Media, problems and solutions are the pulsebeat of our non-stop global online conversations. From the tell-it-like-it-is Power Mom bloggers to the 200 million+ Facebook members to the exploding Twitterverse, we’re chattering about everything from politics to products to people. As of December 2008, more than one billion of the world’s population is now on the Internet. Why on earth would market researchers resist these irresistible methodologies?

Here are my favorite new market research tools — I dare you, O Clients, to (hire me) to give these a try:

Twitter

Quick, easy and budget-friendly, Twitter is a goldmine of fresh consumer insights. It’s a global stream-of-consciousness on every topic imaginable. Plus, all kinds of tools and third-party services are available to convert raw data into actionable information including trends and hot topics.

Trendrr is my favorite for trend tracking and comparison. Its Twitter Search graphs are invaluable - virtually real-time, they provide graphing of keyword mentions by the hour.

Tweetmeme: Here’s how to find the most popular links on Twitter.

For your iPhone: Twitter Trend: This free app provides a tag cloud for looking at emerging trends on Twitter.

Twithority is an easy way to have the most recent Twitter trends tweeted to you. The links provide a view of Twitter trends based on both time and authority.

Hashtags.orgIf you were checking this site right now, you’d know that #liesboystell and #liesgirlstell are the numbers one and two hashtags of the moment.

Twist: Twist is a trip. Twist provides a graphical interface for trends and keywords on Twitter.

Facebook: While most of us are waiting for Facebook to do some serious monetizing via its growing datamine, in the meantime, there’s Facebook Lexicon. Lexicon aggregates and analyzes millions of Facebook Wall posts every day to provide a searchable database of trends over time. Users can query a single word or two-word combinations and compare as many as five strings per query. The results display a chart plotting the frequency with which the words are being discussed each day. All this is done automatically with no person reading individual Wall posts and all information aggregated anonymously to protect your privacy.

Brand Community Platforms Every brand researcher in existence has to be drooling over this hot new opportunity for brand-love: BzzAgents new Bzzscapes. Now brand passionistas can erect online altars to their favorites, then watch as fellow fans join in, adding their own content to the social media mix. Will the overzealous (companies included) try to game the system? How organic and authentic can these sites be?

Private Online Communities: From Ning to Communispace, building your own private online community is easier than ever and can be valuable low-risk market research tool. These ‘walled gardens’ are a safe place to engage your with best opt-in customers, test ideas, evaluate user experience and experiment with new initiatives.

Projective Expression/Journaling Platforms
Glogsterbrings graphic blogging to the masses, and just happens to be a promising online ‘projective expression’ tool, similar to the popular Focus Group technique: Collaging. The service is focused on letting people create “posters” of various bits of premade and user-generated content. Using the right tools, Glogster users can create colorful stuff with a distinct visual style — one that could be used to represent “My Customer Service Experience with Yahoo” or “If I Could Invent My Own Perfect Hair Color It Would Be …”

Glogster offers private .edu accounts, which could be used for corporate market research.

Another site, Scrapblog, lets users create personalized scrapbooks with photos, video and thousands of creative elements, and also lets them print the scrapblogs. They’ve added top scrapbooking designers with high-quality content that’s available to purchase. The problem with this site is the user is locked into Scrapblog’s formatting — which does not even provide a ‘blank’ scrapbook for true customization.

A cool new site currently in beta, Plumkeeper, is described as ‘Family Journaling Made Easy’. This promising technology leverages everything consumers already do online –including emailed stories and photos, funny text messages, mobile photos, Facebook, Twitter and more. This makes for uber-authentic market research indeed– as it plucks from existing attitudes and behaviors in all their spontaneous authenticity. If I had a Mom or family-oriented product, I’d tap right into Plumkeeper for fresh and juicy insights.

Are You An E-Hole? The Six Tell-tale Signs.

Normally, when I’ve told friends “Hey! I’m writing a book”, the response is polite to vague to “I’m so sorry. I’ve given up reading for Lent.” In LA, they’re likely to suggest a fair exchange: I’ll read your book if you read my screenplay.  In Silicon Valley, they look blank until you explain that a book is kinda like a giant Wordle app or literary widget.  In New York, they immediately kvetch about agents while in Paris they offer to read it once smoking is reinstated in cafes.

But this book?  Amazingly, people have not only urged me to write it but to write it laser-fast. Three of my Twitter pals have already asked if the guide will be published in time for Christmas stocking stuffers. I’ve almost been persuaded to write an e-book first and then follow up with hard copy.

Is this because I am such a crackerjack writer? Although I’d love to say yes, the true answer is ‘probably not.’  The fact is, there is a clear and compelling, even urgent, need to make sense of the good, the bad and the blurry of the digital era, particularly the consumer-friendly, tool-rich phenomenon known as Web 2.0.  The Internet does genuinely ‘change everything’ — including the ethics and etiquette of how we use these tools. Countless books have already been published on this subject, many of them scholarly works of genius from academics that probe everything from user-generated content to mass collaboration to digital innovation and citizen marketing.  

If you’re looking for books of this decidedly brainy ilk, click to close and move on to Amazon or your local library. The goal of my upcoming guidebook is quite simple: to help keep you out of online doo-doo and encourage you to dip into this dynamic digital world. And maybe have some fun while you’re at it.
 
Here’s a small sampling from my new book:
How Not To Be An E-Hole:  The Ultimate Guide to Online Etiquette and Ethics.
 

Are You An E-Hole? The Six Tell-Tale Signs.

Sign 1:  Is Social Media all about you?  Social Media can indeed be Me Media.  Today’s tools make it fast and easy to get the word out about your inherent rockstar-ness. Isn’t everybody fascinated by the ham sandwich you had for lunch? Doesn’t the world want to know about your cool car, your hot bod and the gaggles of groupies hanging on your every tweet?  Smart folks see that switching from Me to We is the secret to shining at Social Media.  And yes, it is possible to be an E-Hole in only 140-characters:  http://tweetingtoohard.com/

Sign 2:  OverSharing  Over-sharing can occur on any of the Social Media channels. Over-Sharing is defined as sharing anything from the too-intimate details of your world (tweeting during your during your prostate exam) to the too-mundane (I had scrambled eggs for breakfast) to the too-frequent.

Sign 3:  Are you a FRAMMER?  Friends just ain’t what they used to be. In fact, my buddy Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Correspondent at CNN, who covered my recent Facebook Addiction story, believes the very definition of Friendship is at stake: “What exactly is a friend these days?”  Well, it sure isn’t FRAMMING them. Friend Spam is being spammed by your so-called Facebook Friends including:

• A barrage of shameless self-promoting links, events, fan pages, webinars, promos, etc.
• “Cherry-picking” among a Friends List — picking the most ‘useful’ for marketing and networking.

FRAM hurts more than traditional spam because, after all, it’s the ultimate in permission marketing. You haven’t merely signed up for an impersonal newsletter, you’ve opened the door wide to your life. You’re not an address on some database sold and re-sold by dead dotcoms. You’ve willingly extended an invitation to participate in your own personal universe.

Sign 4:  Uber-Exuberance   Apps, widgets, links, videos, photos — it’s a smorgasbord of Social Media tech and toys out there. Are you so sure all your friends want that ‘growing gift’ of cactus, that beer or cup of coffee you’re dying to send? Does everybody want to take that quiz, play 25 Random Things and beat you at movie trivia?  The sure sign of a Social Media newbie (and often Accidental E-Hole) is assuming everybody will appreciate these occasionally amusing time-wasters.

Sign 5: Where are the Privacy Police when you need them?  It’s true: Facebook keeps changing its interface, which confuses the heck out of who can see what. What was private on Tuesday may be part of a News Feed on Wednesday. So if you’re not careful about the changing-rules, your mother-in-law may be able to see the pictures of the dinner party she wasn’t invited to posted prominently in Highlights.  Or your boss might see that comment you made about ‘blowing off work’. Or your sorority sister might post racy stories about an era you’d prefer to forget on your Wall for all to see.  The secret to avoiding E-Holism?  Use the Privacy settings!

Sign 6: Keep It Social, Stupid.   Keeping it social means you never forget these new tools are all about people and being personal. Keeping it social means you avoid using robots as well as acting robotically. So personalize your Friend, Follow and Connection Requests, say no to Auto-DMs on Twitter, and develop new online relationships authentically. Don’t think you can FRAM like mad, never bother to check the youtube links your buddy proudly sent of her kidlet’s concert, and then expect favors, shares and RTs (Re-Tweets on Twitter).  Keeping it social is keeping it reciprocal. Friendship is a two-way conversation, not a Me-megaphone. 

Guru’s Note: Please send me your favorite E-Hole stories. Were you an Accidental E-Hole? Do you know an Intentional E-Hole? Do tell all. Email me at: hello@guruofnew.com or post a comment. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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