Tag: Twitter

Personal & Professional in Social Media

Personal & Professional in Social Media

WHO IS THIS WOMAN? BLOGGER? MOM?  WOM ADVOCATE?  WIFE?  STRATEGIST? She’s not confused, just multi-dimensional like you.

This week, I was honored to be asked to participate in IBM’s Social Media Marketing Summit.  The first speaker of the day was a social media standard, but someone whom I had not previously met: Frank Eliason, the man behind @comcastcares.  Frank has not only become a poster child for his company, he has become a go-to case study for traditional media getting value out of Twitter.  Frank had a lot of great nuggets of wisdom to pass along through sharing his journey, but there was one aspect that I got some additional questions on later: his very open, brave take on how personal and professional worlds fit together in social media.

Frank’s profile page not only bears his own photo, but links to his family’s personal websites.  This is Frank’s interpretation of a critical principle: people don’t create relationships with a company, they create relationships with people. He shares these links to personalize both himself and his employer.  While I agree with the underlying concept, my interpretation of what it means to bring this principle to life is different.  While my tweets, this blog, and my entries on the Ogilvy blog are all written in a very conversational style that reflects my personality, I do not have digital links up to family or (non-business-relevant) friends.  I am also pretty sensitive to the topics of what I cover and try to stay close to my mission of discussion social media & WOM-relevant topics with an appropriate slice of life on the side.  For the purely personal or “venting”, I usually use Facebook.

I truly don’t think there’s any right or wrong or black or white on this issue.  Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to figure out why I have consciously and unconsciously made these decisions.  Here’s what I’ve come up with:
I have clients – there is already a certain level of professional self-censorship on the stories I share as much of what I am exposed to is proprietary or sensitive for my clients.  Someone who is the face of a brand might feel a bit more comfortable sharing a larger percentage of their days and nights.

I’m female – I started blogging in the age of the mommyblogger explosion, but was not blogging about anything personal.   Because I am a mom who blogs, but am not a mommyblogger, I have probably veered a little dramatically to stay out of that category and pay proper respect to those who truly excel at sharing about their personal lives.  And like Rock and Roll Mama says: I’ve still got it.  Even when I am up to my elbows in Elmo and goldfish.

Virginia Miracle is a Professional Construct (or: Dad Ate My Google Results) – Virginia Miracle was born in 2004 when I married into an awesome last name.  Prior to that, I had a different, somewhat complex and very southern name that is extremely close to that of my Dad – my fabulous and extremely prolific writer father.  For a guy who just got broadband last year, he has a shockingly robust digital footprint.  Getting a new name coincided with the year that I found WOMMA and my career changed.   Thus, everything public that is associated with the name “Virginia Miracle” has stayed relatively professional and been highly correlated to Word of Mouth Marketing.

I don’t think there is a “best practice” here, but it is important to be conscious of your choices as you start that Twitter feed, create a YouTube video of your friends in Vegas, or blog about your parenting style.  Depending on how and where you share, it could follow you to your next job interview, background check, or family reunion.  Best of luck and happy social media sorting…

Let’s Take It Offline – BlogHer & Blogger Social

Let’s Take It Offline – BlogHer & Blogger Social

I wrapped up my week last week in New York at 2 amazing in-person events for active online social media creators: BlogHer Business and Blogger Social ’08. I walked away with more robust connections with people I already knew online and a list of new blogs that I should be reading. It is difficult to wrap up 72 amazing hours, but I’ll try.

BlogHer Business was an eye opening event. Major standouts to me were results of Compass Partners research on women in the blogosphere, hearing about Kodak & DC Goodwill‘s blogging efforts. On the blogger engagement front, Method, Graco & GM shared the results of their respective approaches of working with bloggers – sharing the stage with bloggers when they presented the case study. For any PR person who has ever considered blasting a press release to bloggers hoping it will stick, they would thing again after hearing some of the horror stories of bad influencer outreach told along the way. My favorite comments from bloggers:

Typing my name after “dear” is not a personalized approach.

You wouldn’t knock on my door and ask to put a billboard for a product I have never seen or touched in my front yard – why would you think I would post a jpeg for a product I’ve never seen or touched on something as personal as my blog?

really Mack & VeeDubJust an hour after BlogHer Business wrapped, I was off to Blogger Social. The concept for the event was simple – get a bunch of bloggers together to hang out and have fun. That’s it. No powerpoints, no projects, no pitches – social. One of the highlights for me was being able to put a face to The Viral Garden. Mack Collier was one of the first bloggers to pick up and write about the Fiskateers crafting ambassador movement on which I had the pleasure to work during my time at Brains on Fire. Being able to spend time talking to him in person took us from the mutual admiration society to real friends and I look forward to our next meeting.

Overall lesson from the 3 days?  Twitter is real – get to know it.

Many, many, many thanks for the event planning/hosting duties of CK and Drew and the friendly welcome from my new BS08 friends (listed below).  How many days until BS09?

Susan Bird Tim Brunelle Katie Chatfield Matt Dickman Luc Debaisieux Gianandrea Facchini Mark Goren Gavin Heaton Sean Howard CK Valeria Maltoni Drew McLellan Doug Meacham Marilyn Pratt Steve Roesler Greg Verdino CB Whittemore Steve Woodruff Paul McEnany Ann Handley David Reich Tangerine Toad Kristin Gorski Mack Collier David Armano Ryan Barrett Lori Magno Tim McHale Gene DeWitt Mario Vellandi Arun Rajagopal Joseph Jaffe Rohit Bhargava Anna Farmery Marianne Richmond Thomas Clifford Lewis Green Geoff Livingston Kris Hoet Connie Reece CeCe Lee Toby Bloomberg Seni Thomas Darryl Ohrt Joe Kutchera Paul Dunay Marshall Sponder Chris Kieff Tara Anderson Jason Falls Paul Soldera Roberta Rosenberg Saul Colt Todd Andrlik Nathan Snell Ryan Karpeles Mike Sansone Jennifer Laycock Neil Vineberg Cam Beck Mike Arauz Matthew Bailey Heather Gorringe John Rosen Cathleen Rittereiser Tamar Weinberg Rita Perea Linda Sherman Matthew McDonald Kaitlyn Wilkins Terry Starbucker
Jennifer Berk
Jane Quigley John Wall Scott Monty Kevin Horne Virginia Miracle Amanda Gravel Susan Reynolds David Polinchock Shashi Bellamkonda David Berkowitz Vahe Habeshian