All Posts By

Marijean

Jul 07
Love0

Seven Ways to Manage Social Media When You’re Out of the Office

By Social Media

About this time last week, that was me, on the right, covered with sand and watching the waves.

I tried to unplug as much as possible — it’s the one vacation I’ll have this year. If you can get to a beach from where you live, you kind of owe it to yourself to embrace the culture while you’re there. Growing up in the Midwest, the idea of having an ocean a half a day’s drive away is still really novel to me.

Being an entrepreneur means never taking a day off, or so I understand. So here’s what I did to appear to be in my office when I was really catching some rays at the beach:

  1. I wrote blog posts for almost every day of the week I’d be gone and scheduled them using WordPress so they’d publish automatically.
  2. My blog posts automatically update Twitter when the publish, so that audience was covered as well.
  3. I used my phone to tweet, retweet and to share information (in fact, at one point, a follower who knew I was on vacation told me to quit tweeting and BE on vacation for goodness sake’s).
  4. I updated Facebook from my phone.
  5. I scheduled tweets, using TweetDeck so blog posts would get the same amount of traffic as if I were managing them from my desk.
  6. I’m promoting two upcoming workshops, so I made sure registration links were going out via the Social Trinity (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) at least once a day.
  7. I continued to read others’ content, liking, sharing and commenting in the hour or so I allowed myself to work each day.

How do you manage your “out of office” time?

 

Upcoming workshops:  Social Media Summer School and Don’t Be a Weiner: How to Use Twitter Like a Professional

Jul 06
Love0

How to Handle a Client that Won’t Take Your Counsel

By Public Relations, Social Media

My friend Ken and I were chatting via instant messenger while working last night. An excerpt of our conversation follows:

Ken Mueller

Ken Mueller and his mom in a recent photo

Sent at 8:00 PM on Tuesday
Marijean: so serious question
when you have a client who WILL NOT DO what you recommend and it’s obvious
do you:
a) dump the client
b) make sure no one knows they are your client
or
c) let people know they’re a client and let the cards fall where they may
(maybe this is a blog post?)
Ken: hold on
mom
Marijean: HI MOM!
Ken: ha
Sent at 8:04 PM on Tuesday

Our conversation was delayed while Ken talked to his mom on the phone and I forged ahead turning my question into this blog post. I’m curious what other PR people and social media professionals think about this. What do you do when it’s really evident that a client you’re working with is NOT taking your counsel? It’s embarrassing, right? Clients can’t change overnight, obviously and sometimes behavior or cultural changes must happen before client communications are up to snuff . . . but while they’re getting up to speed, what’s your approach?

Thanks in advance for the input — and everybody, say “Hi!” to Ken’s mom!

 

 

Jul 05
Love0

Bringing you a Bit of the Beach

By Communications

If you can’t see the video above, go here.

I spent last week recharging my mental batteries on a beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I asked my network on Facebook whether they take all their vacation time or not — I was surprised at how divided you all were. Some said, “What’s vacation?” which was my state for many years. Others are committed to taking the time off, realizing that it’s part of their compensation, and that they are better contributors when refreshed and rested.

I’m much better about taking time off — possibly a result of realizing I’ll never be on my deathbed wishing I’d worked more — and do make sure I unplug now and again.

I shot a bit of video one morning when we had the beach mostly to ourselves. Anytime I need to revisit the vacation frame of mind I can watch a couple of minutes of waves rolling in and remember how having sand between my toes is the most relaxing feeling there is. I’m happy to share a bit of my vacation view with you, in case you need a break any time.

Jul 05
Love0

The Chez Stands Alone

By Communications, Public Relations

He was the incredibly handsome (or so my revisionist history would have me believe) older brother of my college dorm-mate. We met at a party and went on a couple of casual dates before the incident that would forever mar him, flipping him from the “possibility” to the “unthinkable” pile.

A basement coffeehouse, less than a mile from my first university, was being discovered by my fellow students in the pre-hipster era. A cult classic for my crowd (the writers) the spot was favorite for (bad) poetry readings and offered overstuffed couches, board games and shelves of books long before Starbucks locations sprang forth from Seattle into the mainstream. My freshman fiction writing teacher introduced our class to the joint and we, the pre-emo, indie/cultish writer-types considered it “ours.”

I have, as you may have guessed, a long history of love affairs with words and their writers.

The Chez (which, to my shock, still apparently exists, 21+ years later) was the first coffeehouse I ever frequented, before I was a coffee drinker; before laptops; before the Internet; before, in short, everything I take for granted today.

The cute boy who captured my attention was not a writer. He was a jock. So when he suggested one evening we go to a new place he’d heard of called “The Cheese” I was momentarily confused. And then I understood . . . my beloved haven was not only being mispronounced but maligned by someone who couldn’t possibly understand its charm. I mean, this was not a place one could get plastered on cheap beer drunk from a plastic red cup.

It’s one memory I have of misused language significantly affecting my impression of someone. Shallow? Maybe on the surface, but it was all that misunderstanding implied that made me rethink any future with this guy. Have you ever had language affect your impression of another person? Was it intentional or a misunderstanding?

Jul 01
Love0

WTF? Friday: Quoting others on Twitter Ad Nauseum

By Communications

WTF FridayI love the flow of Twitter. I feel a rush when a newsworthy event occurs and the stream rises with discussion and news sharing. I have met good friends, learned so much and grown my business because of the way most of us use the platform to communicate.

There’s one practice some engage in on Twitter that just stops me cold: the launching of endless motivational quotes.

There are a few people I followed initially because I know them and am familiar with their work. Time quickly demonstrated to me that their use of this platform has been misguided and that the bulk of their engagement consists of words others have said. I think my friend Emma said it best:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/SocialMediaEmma/status/83121390449991680″]

What’s a Twitter user to do? Well, I ‘m taking a stand. I’m unfollowing the quoters. It’s such an irrelevant interruption to the conversation I can no longer abide it. How about you?

Jaggers, out.