10 commandments for moving social media mountains

Charlton Heston in the 1956 movie, The 10 Commandments.

Think you know how to conceive and create social media that gets attention? Creating two-way conversations is a given, but you're going nowhere if you don’t know these 10 social media commandments: 

1.      Thou shalt not neglect photos/graphics. On social channels be brief with your words. If you need to say a lot then use a space that is not on social media channels to say it. The only people who are willing to read more than 80-100 of what you say are your friends, not most customers.

2.      Thou shalt not unleash plagues of ideas. Ideally you should be making one point. If you must, make two points. More ideas confuse the reader.

3.      Thou shalt cast lines that reel in all who are curious. These headlines are designed to get people to click a link to go beyond the social page. Can it be annoying? Yes. Does it work? Undoubtedly.

4.      Thou shalt not be predictable. People get tired. Don’t make them tired more quickly. Curious copy interspersed with different kinds of writing for maximum impact goes the furthest.

5.      Thou shalt avoid disclaimers and disclosures. These are ugly and scorned by all of humanity. Find a way around presenting such copy on your social pages at all cost.

6.      Use photos whenever possible, except on Tumblr when you might choose to go with .gifs first. You don’t generally want to push people invest time in a movie.

7.      Thou shalt not cheat with thy neighbor’s information to create boring photos. Infographics are so 2012. The only place they still really work is on LinkedIn. Want me to prove it? Just see how often the biggest and best companies using social media (Oreo, Samsung, Red Bull, etc.) use infographics.   

8.      Thou shalt remember to execute as you wish, not as social companies want. For example, Facebook wants you to upload your videos directly through FB. Instead, you can use a bitly link pointing to a video on YouTube. You get people's attention using a flashy pic for lower investment buy-ins. There are other things you can do too. (Ask me in the comments below or in any of the LinkedIn groups this is published under. I’m happy to bounce ideas.)

9.      Thou shalt know your age. Trendy sites mainly aimed towards younger folks, like Reddit and Tumblr, see plentiful use of memes. This is where memes should remain for the most part. Occasional use of memes on other sites to remind users of our their youthful days is fine. Likewise, when on social channels for younger folks, trying to advertise or use approaches blatantly vetted by a legal team or PR group is going to explode in your face. Try advertising elsewhere and your paid posts will have a much easier time, although even many people are tired of sponsored posts (advertisements) that they see as SPAM.

10.   Thou shalt be a hep cat modern. Look for trending events and try to quickly create posts that play off of sentiment. You’ll be seen as more with the times, not creating posts that you feed into some sort of machine to be spit out at regular intervals.

BONUS COMMANDMENT! Look at what your competitors are doing with your target audience. Figure out why it works, not just how it works. Now use the why to find your own approach and do it better. 

How to shop for a social media marketing & PR agency

If you asked a store owner who has the best store, what do you think they’re going to say?

That’s right. “My store!” Even if their store has no goods, no customers and no working plumbing.

But while most people would understand that it would be absurd to rely on such a testimonial, this is exactly what many businesses looking for a digital marketing and PR service do. Confronted by many choices, they look up agencies or professionals and try to be a client. It's also what job seekers tend to do. They fall for the claims without thinking them over.

I know this because as soon as some businesses find out that I know about marketing communications and social media work they ask me if I can run a campaign for the them. All. The. Time. I actually have to turn away business that I'm not looking for because of the demand.

Businesses like this have remarkably a lot in common with beginning social media job seekers also, the subject of last week’s article (Reasons for NOT Starting a Social Media Career). This is good and bad. Mostly good for the agencies and mostly bad for clients and beginning job seekers.

Aside from how to negotiate with a social media agency or pro on a job, which requires it's own article, here’s what to keep in mind.

Look up companies on Glassdoor, Google Reviews, Facebook and LinkedIn

Do you really want to be served by or work for a company that has a lot of issues? Of course not.

One of the most powerful ways to find out if an agency is worth working with is running through a number of sites and seeing how it presents itself. Does the company have good Google reviews (search)? What kind of building is the agency housed in (Google street view)? How much does the agency update its own Facebook and LinkedIn pages, and do updates have substance (pride in presentation)?

But by far the most potentially useful thing you can do is to look up the agency on Glassdoor.

Glassdoor lets employees submit anonymous information about their employers. You can see reviews, salaries and interview experiences. Although the information can be skewed since it is self-reported, it can be very accurate and worth taking a look.

The data can give information about reliability of the company, treatment of clients, company morale, retention and much more. Next time you walk into an agency and see a sign that says it is one of the best places to work, but meanwhile you know morale is low, you’ll have a better idea of what kind of environment you’re dealing with.

Turmoil = trouble

With the proliferation of agencies and individuals saying that they are good to go into business with, you might well wonder if they are knowledgeable enough and can prove that they will take care of you, either as a client or as a job seeker.

The first thing to do is see who the agency’s clients are. Are they big clients commanding respect, or at least clients that carry weight in their industries? Or are the past clients not great? Did at any time the agency have a big client that left? What happened to the number of employees and morale? Does the agency focus on serving one client or many, so that your business as a client would be welcome?

Basically, how stable and consistent is this place in its policies, internally and externally? Hearing that a place has a start-up mentality five years after it launched is not a good sign. Look up the employees on LinkedIn and see what their past histories entails, especially if they have the position you're gunning for. Do the same on Facebook. It's not creepy, you're doing research about stuff which is right out in the open.

Do the math

When looking for information on what the agency did in the past, always steer towards hard numbers that show how the agency’s ideas had an impact on engagement rates. The amount spent on a campaign or how many industry awards were won has nothing to do with the bottom line: attracting consumers and getting them to stay.

There are plenty of Super Bowl ads that people remember fondly, yet how many actually got you to buy the product? If the goal was to get people to buy and they didn’t then engagement didn’t succeed. Always find out if your idea of success matches up with what the agency says it can do for you. Of course you’ll need to have enough data so that the agency can tell you if what you want is doable.

Of course, if you’re a job seeker and you see that the company has a lot of money to spend on campaigns, that might be a good thing – it will mean that you probably going to get a decent salary if you get in, and get to work with smart people and cool technology as well. But you have to ask yourself if all the money but lack of social engagement is worth the approach.

Always act in good faith

If you are willing to reach out to an agency or individual for help, the assumption is that you need help. The people who work at the agency can only help you so much as you are honest in admitting your company’s weaknesses. Although you might feel reluctant to do so in a casual meeting or first-time get together, not telling the truth in the beginning is absolutely guaranteed to get you labeled as a bad client and one who can’t be helped. 

The number of people who actually know how to do digital marketing and PR is surprisingly small, and you don’t want to get a reputation for being an unnecessarily demanding or otherwise delusional client. Marketing and PR professionals gossip just as much as many clients and take things personally, so keep in mind that your manners have just as much of an impact on how you might be treated as the issues that the people you're dealing with him. For example, seeing a client zoom into a handicapped parking spot whenever showing up at the office instead of a normal spot is obviously not going to win them friends. But even doubling back on promises and demanding changes in deadlines with zero input from the agency is likely to damage the relationship. We don't spit in your food, but we will take it personally.

Job seekers, when you want to work at an agency always make sure to do your side and tell the truth about what you can and can’t do. Even if you’re working for the hottest agency in the world, not being up front about your capabilities is going to cause problems. This is doubly so in a sweat shop type agency. You can always move on from an agency, but your reputation will follow you, especially in the online world.

Good luck!

How to use Prezi to blow away audiences

Are PowerPoint presentations not working for your audiences? There’s a solution in sight, and it’s called Prezi.

Prezi uses a what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface to create beautiful zooming and rotating presentations. Here is a demo:

Prezi is special because it is cloud based. It can facilitate potentially dynamic and exciting offerings that leave positive vibes with audiences long after. Prezis can be shared via email, Facebook and Twitter. I can’t say enough about how cool Prezi is. Prezi is amazing!

Except when it’s not done right.

Prezi can definitely be done the wrong way, which is when things get ugly. Fast.

Today, I’m going to explain some simple pointers for using Prezi. Use these tips and you’ll find your presentations pop more. I assume from the outset that you have some design skill, and that you can do the following. If this is difficult, you’ll want to enlist a designer to help you out. You can definitely do even more with Prezi if you know Flash, but I want to keep this straight forward.

Let’s do this.

Find photos and video

The most important thing you can do to make your Prezi’s interesting is by introducing elements of surprise. This is accomplished by zooming in and out.

Look at your presentation topic. Is there a common theme? Are there visual elements? What ties the speech all together?

After you’ve brainstormed your speech elements, go to Google images. Make sure to only use photos that you have permission to use, or can use under fair use. If you are a student, almost any images you use for a class project will be considered fair use. If in doubt, use search.creativecommons.org to find content (you’ll still want to check that the content is indeed usable).

Use the most high-resolution .jpg files for your art. Change your search terms to “large” photos for these purposes. Once you find the photos you want, save them to a folder. Once you have all your photos gathered, “save as” them as .pdfs. Making the .jpgs into .pdfs ensures that they will not get pixelated when zooming in and out of them.


You can also use videos from YouTube in your Prezi. Be careful that you don't use clips that are so long or powerful that they take away attention from you and the rest of the Prezi.

Here are some photos I'll be using:

Make captions

You can use Prezi itself to insert text into your presentation, but for a custom look you will want to create your own captions offline.

Here’s how to do it. Open a graphic design program (I prefer InDesign) and set up a new document. Make sure to switch it from “print” to “web”. You can really set up whatever pixel dimensions you want. 1024x768 usually works well for me.

Create a text box that is centered and fill it with words for your presentation. Just use a standard font at this point. After you’ve made sure that everything is spelled correctly and makes sense, select all and use new font that looks good – Comic Sans and Papyrus are two fonts you should avoid like the plague.

Generally san-serif fonts are sleeker, look better for headlines and have a more modern vibe, while serif fonts are easier to read in larger chunks. Here’s what I mean:

When you have created your text, “save as” your work as a .pdf and put it in a folder where you can easily find it.

Here is another example:

Choose a master photo or graphic for your backdrop

Remember all those photos we set aside? Choose the one that best summarizes your topic or will be easiest to remember, and which has plenty of white spaces that you could potentially zoom in on.

Log in to Prezi and select “your Prezis”. Choose “new Prezi”. With few exceptions you will want to use the white/blank background. Delete all the default starter elements by zooming or out until your elements change from light grey to vibrant grey. Now you can click on the elements and delete them. Do so.

Use the “insert” selection on the top left side of your screen and choose “image”. Select the photo that you want to use from the folder on your computer. It will be uploaded to Prezi after a few moments. Move it into position and resize it so that it fills the screen appropriately. Right click on it and choose “send to back”. 

Here's the photo I'm using for this tutorial:

Don’t make your audience members nauseous, but do
surprise them

Besides using pixelated images, the single worst error I see often on Prezi is overdoing the rotating and zooming function. Yes, Prezi supports rotation and zooming, but that doesn’t mean you should do it!

That said, use the master photo you have placed as your point of entry. Zoom into different places on your master photo for places where you can add other pictures and captions. 

Here is another place where Prezi’s can confuse audiences. Choose logical patterns to place your materials. You’ve already piqued your audience’s interest with the introduction, now you need to inject some stability. There is a fine balance between a presentation that is staid and a presentation that is confusing to follow. You might want to choose some sort of grid pattern or use simple shapes to establish coherence.

This is what I mean:

Use your path and invisible frames wisely

Now that all your elements have been placed on your Prezi canvas, you need to chain them carefully.

Select “path” on the Prezi menu on the upper left hand corner of her screen. Click on your photos and text in the order that you want. As you do this, your elements will pop up on the left hand side of your screen in order from top to bottom. These are your “slides”.

Once you’ve ordered your slides and text, you might want to have points that you zoom in on. Choose “frame” and then choose a frame style. 

Personally I prefer invisible frames, because the other type of frames look very cookie-cutter.

Click where you want to set your frame and drag until it covers what you want. Go back to your “path” button on the Prezi menu. You’ll see all the path points jump up, with little “+” signs next to points. The pluses let you add path points. Click on a “+” and drag it to the frame you set up. Let go and it should turn into a new point.

If at any point you want to change your slides around, just click on them while the “path” menu is selected and move the slides up or down to reorder them. If you want to delete path points, hover over the slide with your arrow. A little red “x” should pop up. Just click on that if you want to get rid of it.

Interested in a social media career? Laurie Boettcher speaks! (INTERVIEW)

If you're interested in learning more about making social media a career, here is a name you should remember: Laurie Boettcher (@LaurieBoettcher). As a public speaker and trainer, she runs Laurie Boettcher Speaks, social media 'for real people and real organizations'. She is also a classmate in the MS in corporate communications at Northwestern University, making a nearly-six-hour commute down from Eau Claire, WI, to Evanston, IL, every week. Laurie has been interviewed many times, including by Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times, as well as quoted by US News & World Report. I'm hugely honored to have had the chance to interview Laurie this week for my social media blog!

Aatif Bokhari: Laurie, you’re clearly a social media maven. How do you describe your job title when people ask what that means?

Laurie Boettcher: In the beginning, my title was “Social Media Enthusiast,” because that is what I was – an individual very enthusiastic about using social media to communicate. Others were very creative in their titles, but I always hated the terms “ninja”, “wizard” and “guru”.

Now, when I introduce myself, I say I’m a speaker and trainer on the topic of social media, and thrilled to be adding author later this year as well – my business cards read Social Media Professional, Speaker and Trainer. Basically, I speak, train, tweet, and write on using social media to government agencies, municipalities, public libraries, educational institutions and groups/associations, and my niche services are for non-profit organizations. 

Personally, I choose to be independent, so I am not employed exclusively by any single organization.

You’ve turned your passion for social media into a business. How did you do this, and what sort of demand is there for people with your skills?

In all honesty, my business was an accident. Here’s my story …

I became interested in the topic of social media while working as the Communication Manager for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. On August 7, 2007, the I-35W Bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, Minnesota:

Being in such proximity in St. Croix County, which borders Minnesota, my office fielded media calls concerning bridge integrity, safety, inspection schedules and so on.

As a communications professional, I could not help but notice that within minutes after the collapse, cell phone towers were jammed. People were unable to get word to their families and friends of their safety or otherwise. So instead of calling they were turning to social media – MySpace, Facebook and Twitter (the new kid on the block at the time). It was the first time I experienced people using social media tools for anything other than social. It was also the first time I saw the potential power of social media for my profession. It fascinated me!

After leaving WisDOT, I joined the library sector and taught 56 library directors and their staff how to use social media. I immersed myself into everything social. I used the tools from the perspectives of businesses and individuals, so I could anticipate questions and concerns. Many people who attended my workshops recommended me to groups within their communities. Word spread, and soon I was speaking all over.

I left the library world and went back to school to earn the education I desired to accompany my experience and expertise. I was hoping to garner enough workshops to get me through school, but was blessed with that and so much more. I found my passion and find speaking in front of audiences to be the greatest adrenaline rush ever.

LAURIE BOETTCHER DISCUSSES HOW IT'S NEVER TO LATE TO JOIN FACEBOOK

My audiences are truly phenomenal. They are super engaged, laugh, ask great questions and make me feel like I am giving them exactly what they need to be confident in their own efforts. There is no place I would rather be and nothing else I would rather do.

Some people feel that they can’t get into social media because of a lack of experience. Is this realistic? What jobs have you held and how do they help you in your role now as a speaker on social media topics?

Yes and no. Answering those questions is a little complicated!

If employees are averse to using social media tools, I always advise employers to appoint someone else to do the job. The reason is that social media is transparent. If someone does not like doing it, that is going to be evident in their engagement and will adversely affect their followings. That makes the effort a failure … and I don’t like to set myself or anyone else up for failure.

Since my professional background is in design and communications, with exposure to the public and private sectors, I felt better prepared to make the jump. I already had a deep understanding for communications as a whole and simply focused on social media. All of this helped me learn how to tailor messages for my audiences, as well as harness the newest technologies to reach those audiences. Individuals with no technical or communications experience may experience a more intense learning curve to acquire the necessary skills.

My personal story should not dishearten anyone who wants to get into social media but doesn't have a formal communications background. Here’s the heart of the matter: the essence of social media is knowing your audiences and engaging them in something they love. For example, if you sell boats and love selling boats, that is going to be evident in the way you communicate to your audience. Making sure that feeling of transparency and passion exists is key to connecting with people and being successful. If you can do this, you can do social.

How do you build a portfolio that shows your social media strengths? Is focusing on raising Klout and Kred scores really important to getting a social job?

Now that social media is no longer a novelty, there are more specific demands for social media professionals. Today, over 850,000,000 people have a Facebook account. The result of this explosion in social media use is that individuals who initially were able to sell themselves on their personal experience with social media are long gone.

Today, businesses want people who know how to use social media for business. Prized skills include knowing how to choose the right platforms for business needs, create a solid presence, listen to and monitor discussions and build an audience. Businesses also want people who know how to tailor messages, continuously engage with followers, analyze insights, communicate the social media experience and explain results to executive management. If this were not enough, social media specialists must adhere to and advise the company’s social media policy, as well as be fluent in social media research to stay on top of trends. It’s not a game anymore.

To build a stellar portfolio, you need to have credibility. Whom are you following in social media and who is following you? If it’s just in good fun, it will come across that this is a fun hobby for you, not a career. How are you engaging others? Who have you worked with? Who are you connected with on LinkedIn? Are your connections valuable to potential employers and are they a reflection of where you want to go professionally? My favorite aspect of social media is its transparency – you cannot hide your skills or lack thereof.

As far as Kred and Klout scores go, they are simply that – a way to keep score. Of course I like it when my Klout score spikes, but does it matter to my clientele or my audiences? Most of them don’t know what such scores are. If I provide value which is relevant to businesses, that is what they remember and find important.

What are the different roles that you foresee being hot for the next few years?

Community managers will continue to grow in importance and number. However, the demand for businesses to measure social media analytically, in terms of ROI (return on investment) and ROE (return on engagement), is increasing dramatically. Those with analytical skills will become more valuable. I also think that legal roles specializing in social media will be in demand as laws begin to catch up with technological advancements. 

Above all, I think the most in-demand roles for social media expertise will be in education. We need educators to teach current and future generations about “being social”, that is the etiquette involved with social media communications, including rules, messaging, ethics, legalities and policies.

We cannot expect to fill the aforementioned positions unless we have a pool of educated workers to fill them.

How do face-to-face and social media contact relate, and can one replace the other?

I love social media – it’s my livelihood and my passion. However, for me, nothing takes the place of face-to-face communication. I prefer face-to-face communication, and encourage others to do the same.

It is easy to forget people and commitments in our busy lifestyles, but reaching out through a social medium makes me feel connected and lets my connections know that although I am not always in personal contact, I have not forgotten about them.

Knowing how to connect with people is a problem for many Millenials and Gen Cs. They are so immersed in social media that the human element is completely falling away. Unless we as a nation remedy this, we will produce a completely disconnected generation.

How do you make time for your family and social when both are 24-hour demands?

I love this question! I’d like to say I’m superwoman, but I would look simply dreadful in those tights.

The truth is that I have to practice balance. I follow blogs, participate in education, and read information that allows me to be efficient. I know my niche, and I know what is relevant to me and my audiences. As interesting as other information may be, I don’t have time to do it all. I try to remain focused and on top of my industry.

As far as my family is concerned, I believe in modeling behavior. During family time, we don’t allow technology to interfere. Cell phones are off and so are computers. We may play a game or an app as a family, but it is about everyone being together, not escaping. We go on vacations where we are digitally disconnected. That means no technology allowed, except my Kindle Fire for reading or an iPod for music. If I don’t practice balance in my life, then I can’t be realistic with clients. It also means I’m completely negating my responsibilities and passion for being a wife and a mother.

There is a lot of repetition in social media as more people try to get attention for causes using social media. How can social media specialists be both innovative and relevant to audiences?

Don’t participate in discussions about things you know nothing about. It infuriates me when I see people interjecting their opinions about something they are clearly not educated in just to be present and seen. Don’t get involved with interactions that are not relevant to your audiences or you are not qualified to speak on.

What kind of money is there for people looking to get into social media positions?

Honestly, it varies widely depending on what you do with the social media position:

graphic courtesy of OnwardSearch

Many organizations are understanding the importance of integrating social media into current communication efforts and are therefore hiring community managers. These individuals are responsible for handling online communities, including social networks. 

Organizations that cannot afford the luxury of community managers seek out those with technical expertise that match their social media needs.

There are some businesses out there that stubbornly resist social media as being a “distraction”. What do you think about this? How do you convince companies to embrace social media, especially ones staffed by people averse to social media?

I approach the challenge honestly and realistically. I’ll explain.

You don’t have to like social media or even do it, but what every business does need to do is understand it. When email first emerged, many people thought it was a waste of time and effort. “Why can’t we just call someone on the telephone?” was commonly heard. Now, e-mail is how we do business. That is the same with social media.

Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest will come, go and evolve, but the fact that they have changed the way we communicate will not. If businesses do not embrace social media and participate in online conversations, they will be isolating key demographics. This will affect their businesses.

Luckily for me, the organizations I have the pleasure of working with don’t generally need any convincing that it’s smart to be social. That is good for me, because my job is to train businesses, not convince them. However, that does not mean that there is no convincing involved! I need to sometimes convince businesses to use appropriate platforms and use them effectively. But, I personally only need to convince others about the need for using social media at specific speaking engagements.

Where do you see the future of social media going?

We will continue to see social networks grow and evolve. I think we will see more adaptation by smaller businesses because it has become attainable for them. Larger corporations will start to bring down the value of the platforms, and they will struggle to find ways to remain personable. 

Social networks will find generating revenue to be an increasingly important factor, so those social networks not strong enough to resist will become over run by ads and promoted posts. Niche sites will increase and advertisers will better be able to target their customers on those networks. 

All of these possibilities make sense to me and are natural extensions of where we are now.

What would it take for a new site to dethrone Facebook, in the way MySpace was over taken by Facebook?

That’s the million dollar question! It has to be something completely unique. Pinterest is rising through the ranks so quickly because it is social without being too social, while tapping into a dream demographic. Whatever is coming will have to cater to the instant gratification nation we have become, provide a piece missing from other platforms, be highly intuitive for the wide array of experience now present on the net, and be social in a whole new way.

Last question: what do you like most and least about social media, and why?

Most: The constant change and newness. It consistently keeps me intrigued and on my toes.

Least: Lack of education and laws not being caught up with technology. They both are doing a great disservice to all of us.

To contact Laurie Boettcher, email her at Laurie@lbspeaksonline.com. Visit her consultancy at lbspeaksonline.com.