Get off my lawn!

This blog entry is more of an etiquette lesson. But I will put it in real terms too. Imagine that the guy painting your house, put a sign in your front yard without telling you.  Or the guy running for office put his bumper sticker on your car without asking you if you supported him, or would even want the sticker.
That's what it's like when someone posts their ad to your pages and accounts without consulting you.  It's an invasion of privacy, and potentially an attack on your brand.

I manage several Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and the whatnot. When someone posts to my page (other than a customer) trying to promote their band, art, business without consulting me - I delete it. Plain and simple, across the board, I delete it (or hide depending on the system). I then message them what they can do to cross brand with us and wait for them to communicate back.  Most of the time, it's spam. It's like when people post their events on the outside of my windows at the wine bar, I take them down.  It's actually even against a public ordinance, so I can't be the only one that feels this way.

So why do I write this? Not to be a nag, but there are ways to cross market that aren't trespassing on others pages. Basically it comes down to figuring out the commonality between your two companies/organizations - For example: If you have an event, and you would like to tell my company's customers about it, see how it can compliment my traffic that evening and maybe get us more customers because your event brings them in town.  Remember, my company worked hard to get that customer base - you are borrowing it. Cross-marketing is an amazing way to get people together from similar backgrounds.  I am on the board of our Village Association, and we constantly are trying to work to get people to the Village to experience all of the businesses and sites.  It's not easy to make it look cohesive, but when it works, it works well.

Short blog today - moral of the story - don't advertise your interest on other people's pages without their nod.  End of message :)

I am naked

Titles work. They suck your customers and viewers in. It's marketing peeps. Gotta get people's attention in your posts.  I am thinking about Facebook for this post, but would love your input on other medium for your tips on how to see what has been successful for you (twitter, linked in, myspace, blogs and others - how do you do it?).

My thoughts on how to get people's attention...

• Say something out of the ordinary 
• Constantly posting events the same way is boring - there are different ways to show things off - updates, pictures, friends posting.
• Don't just post to post - if you post infrequently but it matters, then people will take attention at your posts.
• Be timely - posting something that happened 2 weeks ago or 5 weeks in the future doesn't work.
• Show a picture
• Pictures draw people in - they say that it says 1000 words, but those words are different to every viewer.  It's an amazing way to say EXACTLY what the viewer wanted you to say by them making it up themselves.
• Use a poll
• Tricky one here - I think polls stink.  But if you can get a controversial (yet benign - this is business right?) topic and some wild answers - try it!  Prizes help too...
• Make sure what you used to get attention is true 
•  False advertising is false advertising - people will not follow your cry for wolf more than a couple times.
• I am naked - under my pajamas (I blog in bed a lot)
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