Although I DID notice because I actually scanned a weekly email I get of people who unfollowed me, I have to admit I had to check if I was following Chris. I was pretty sure I did, because we have mutual friends, and I take other people’s recommendations more seriously than any other hype. I’ve never met Chris but I’m sure one of these days I will.

I signed up for that unfollow email way back and it’s good for one thing only. Well, actually two things. 1.To see who may have accidentally unfollowed me, like a really good friend, and 2.to see who I may have accidentally pissed off. Hey it happens and I try not to piss people off who I actually LIKE.

It’s called something like *who unfollowed me*, but really I have no idea what it’s called and neither should you.

Someone else who I follow, : ) CLICK HERE -> Dan Newman, wrote a blog post about it.I don’t agree with everything in that post but it did get me thinking, and isn’t that what a good blog post is supposed to do? You can see Chris Brogan’s posts within Daniel’s post. There are a few things I DO agree with, and I’d like to add my two cents, because to me it’s an interesting topic.

We all make mistakes. What point does it serve to judge someone who says, hey, here’s what I did, here’s what I’ve done, here’s why I did it?

In my opinion, we can all learn from Chris Brogan, and to date I haven’t unfollowed him from any accounts, because I think we can learn from what other people did wrong just as much as what they are doing right.

Just a few points on the following issue. speaking for myself

I follow people who add value to my twitter feed

I follow people who don’t exist to fight, bully and belittle

I follow people who write because I’m a voracious reader and write 4 or 5 blogs of my own

I follow funny people

I follow smart people

I follow people with the same interests. I have a lot of interests. That’s I follow a lot of people on 5 personal accounts.

I follow a few people who, in my opinion, do social media *wrong* because I think I can help them.

I never feel obligated to follow anybody for any reason

I never base my self-worth on whether or not somebody follows me on Twitter

I never ask anybody to follow me unless it’s obvious they think they already are

I rely heavily on DMS to conduct business, so you will never see me just following a handful of people, because all three of my businesses are very detail oriented and I want my customers to have access to me.

Note: That’s right. I actually follow some people who I think don’t *get* social media. Because I think I can help them. By them actually hiring me and by reading my blog posts. You can’t put everything you know in a blog post. That’s why people write books. That’s why people are consultants.

I try to keep things organized as I follow people and once a month I try to clean my account out and get rid of people with inactive accounts or that unfollowed me and I somehow had no idea who they were to begin with.

Although I use lists I actually look at my general twitter stream much more often than my lists.

I use hashtags more than lists to communicate with my favorite groups, i.e. #usguys #smcli #litweetup #jewelry #jewelrychat #bacon #leo just to name a few. I may not actually use the hashtags when I’m tweeting with these people but just clicking on a hashtag makes it easy for me to navigate my followers on all five of my personal brand accounts and those of my clients.

I hope this helps. I use Twitter because it works for me. Best of luck and prosperity to Chris and all of the other people who bulk unfollowed as they find their way back into what works for them on Twitter.

–Sueanne

Here’s the video of the presentation I gave at 140 Conference Hudson Valley in August and some of the content for those of you who are Just Too Busy to watch a 17 minute video. At least the earthquake we experienced that day had the decency to happen 3 hours BEFORE my speech. So I was just happy to be alive. Not nervous at all. Eyeroll. Please see the rest of the fabulous 140 conference Hudson Valley videos here. I was on an #Usguys panel that day which I’ll write another post about. All of the speakers did a great job! Thank you to the Dragon Search team for allowing me to Show and Share. : )

Kindergarten… Think back to when you were 4 or 5 years old. I realize it’s past nap time. IT’s cocktail hour. Unfortunately, there is no cocktail hour in Kindergarten. Let me help take you there. It’s the first day of school. You’re 4 or 5. I was 4 all though kindergarten. Always the youngest in the class. You may have been to school, like a preschool before, or maybe not. If you know a lot of people already you’re probably looking forward to it.

If you don’t, you’re scared stiff, hiding behind your mom when she walks you in…sliding into your tiny little chair at your tiny little table. You look around. Do I know people? Will I like this? Will people like me? Will this be FUN? Is there really fingerpaint every single day, or is that just a rumor my mom told me to get me out the door? Remember all of this? Does any of this sound like the first month you were involved in Social Media.. or does it sound like you think what social MAY be like because you have not tried it out yet?

Relax. I’m here to share with you how …what I have known since I was 4 or 5 years old helps me do Business on Social Media every single day.  Many of you already know that I do jewelry sales, charity fundraising, and social media consulting and I do manage to get a decent share of my business from the internet talking about it through Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, 4 blogs, Linked in and YouTube.

And that’s enough.

Please.

Do not invent any more ways for me to use social media. Because I will use them.

When I analyzed what I could offer you in terms of what I know I immediately thought of how easy it is to explain if you just simplify things. Sometimes when things look complicated, people are wary of using them. And that reminded me of kindergarten.

So there you are. Question. How many of you had a built-in nap or nap time in your kindergarten class? I could never sleep during nap time. I was never tired. I was always the wake up fairy. The teacher always chooses the kids that are awake. Nobody wants a crabby wake up fairy. We had a yardstick. that was the magic wand. Which is why I always tell people even in a small town to think in terms of their business as being a global business. Somebody is always awake.

Who is your wake up fairy? You should know them. It’s probably you.

So there you are on your first day of Kindergarten, and the teacher sits you down and explains the rules. My teacher was about 22 years old with cat glasses. We loved her. Mrs. Solenberger.

These were the basic rules and how I think I can help you in Social Media.:

1. Use an indoor voice.

I don’t care how crabby or excited you may be.. Do not appear to be harsh or yelling at someone unless you actually are and they are friends and you are having what I call a Regis Philbin-style outburts. Well timed out bursts are fine. Meanness is not. When you’re mean and yelling on Social Media, guess what? You look like you’re mean and yelling on social media. Watch your tone.

2. Listen when someone is speaking.

Sometimes somebody may be communicating with you and you need to read carefully what they say or read between the lines. People are not always going to come right out and ask you things or tell you things. Simply listening to what your customers want is a very simple key that will enable you to modify your own thoughts of what you THINK they wanted and adjust. The ability to adjust your business strategy ON THE SPOT is what makes social media so cool.

Because you can say YES.

I can do that for you.

That’s a great idea.

That’s the beauty of social media. It’s live, on the spot customer service. Listen carefully and think on your feet. Or hanging upside down from the monkey bars. Whatever works for you.

3. Raise your hand to share ideas.

Unless you know someone well, say something before you butt in on a group conversation, Hello, how are you? That’s funny. What do you think about XYZ. Unless your are in an organized hashtag chat, Don’t just butt in randomly in a conversation when you have never spoken to the parties involved. Especially if you don’t agree with what their points of view are. At least say hello first. It seems harsh and random otherwise. Trollish, as we say.

4. Treat others with kindness.

It takes so much energy to be negative in social media. As my grandma used to say, you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. She was from the south. She said a lot of things like that. And she made really good pie. Why jump on the negative bandwagon. You make yourself look petty and trivial. Being nice and helpful is good for other people and what’s good for other people is good for your business.

5. Follow directions.

It takes patience to learn new things. Don’t get frustrated. You will make mistakes, But if there are directions to be read. Read them.

6. Always participate in Show and Tell.

YouTube is show and tell. Tweeting pictures is show and tell. Think about it. Let people into your life a little. Especially your business life. People like to do business with people they know and relate to on some level. Tell them who you are. I’m not saying put pictures of your family up, in fact I’m totally against that. Too many crazy people roaming the streets. Some things should be private. But we all have our quirks and sometimes it’s our quirks that unite us and draw us together.

7. Bring enough to share with the whole class

If you have something to share then don’t hide it under a bushel. DM a few people you know, ask for help. People like to share good news.

8. Help out the shy kid

You know who they are. they are the ones who just say a word or two. Be patient . Go ahead and ask them a question or two. Introduce them to somebody with the same interests. This person may be your most sincere brand advocate. They have HUGE hearts.

9. Tolerate the ADHD kid

Respect the spaz. It could be you. The ADHD kids are the ones always seem to be online. They have boundless energy. An opinion on everything. They probably aren’t, they probably time their tweets and updates or they use their phone. Because they always need to be doing SOMETHING. They make amazing brand advocates. ADHD kids are the Cheerleaders of Social Media.

10. Listen to the teacher

Even though supposedly there is no such thing as a Social Media Expert , because things keep changing so rapidly proficiency takes time… clearly there are people who just operate better than others in the arena and are good at sharing the info. So why not listen? Always keep your ears open. I think I know plenty, but I absolutely learn something every day from listening to people who know more than I do.

11. Ask questions

It can be complicated like a coding, ROI or SEO, or strategy or customer service question, or, like me, sometimes you can text a picture of the most trivial thing and ask which one should you buy? What kind of pie do you like. Miracle whip or Hellman’s. Football, baseball, soccer, or roller derby. Regular bacon or low sodium. Crispy or crunchy. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry and why? I’ve gotten a lot of very smart answers to stupid questions.

12. Be childlike, nobody ever really grows up.

We are all still children deep down. That’s when our personalities get formed, Find out who your customers and clients were when they were kids you uncover what their motivations in life might be. Their life motivations reflect their purchasing decisions. How many times have I heard oh, I liked that so much as a kid?

13. Apologize if you screw up

Words are interesting things. When they get flying sometimes the wrong ones out. Hopefully all the right ones come out when you are dealing with your customers and clients, but if not, apologize. It’s easy to do and the right thing to do.

14. Say Please and Thank you.

It’s amazing how often people forget . Manners matter in business and in social media. You can’t be too polite. People appreciate it.

15. Don’t be afraid to get messy

Use the fingerpaint. Social media is my fingerpaint. It’s a wonderful creative tool for people in any kind of business to use to share what they know with the world. Paint your picture and hang it on the refrigerator door… that is social media. If you have not yet opened up the jar and gotten your hands messy, please do.

Here’s my full channel, by the way.

Did you think I would wait this long to put in my two cents on this Weinergate situation?

Disclaimer. This is not intended to be a personal moral or particularly judgemental blogpost. It’s not my job as a social media strategist to judge whether you are a good person or bad person. It’s my job to judge whether your BUSINESS or BRAND will be perceived as a good business or bad business.

Two weeks before Weinergate was revealed I attended a presentation on reputation management on social media given by the Social Media Swami himself Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions at Blogworld NYC. He covered everything you could possibly want to know about getting your brand, which hopefully already practices basic social media common sense, out there even further.  Great beginner to advanced info and even without Sashi’s verbal input along it, I suggest you take a look at the slideshare.

At the end of the presentation, Mr. Bellamkonda asked if there were any questions to the crowd of maybe 150 people. Nobody got up, and I had one, so I asked essentially the following: “You’re a guy. Is there some special way to tell male clients that they ARE who they FOLLOW and who they engage with online? You are who you tweet. I have had situations where they engage with porn people and bathing suit model types. I believe they are hurting their brand”. Mr. Bellamkonda didn’t quite understand the question, probably because he is not accustomed to dealing with this type of situation at Network Solutions. BUT THE AUDIENCE understood the question just fine.

Here were some of the suggestions

* If he/she is a client and continues to follow and engage with these types either fire the client or continue to take his money, much as a lawyer would for a client that Is guilty. Make it clear that this client will hurt his social media success with this behavior.
* Helpful hint: If he/she follows or engages with anybody his wife/husband or girlfriend/boyfriend would not appreciate, then that’s a signal he shouldn’t engage with that person.
*If he/she feels he must use the Internet to “whore around” as one male audience member called it later to me privately, the respectable thing would be to do it under an account without his name or business name on the account or an Internet dating site.
Note: I don’t prescribe to this remedy as I have seen so-called secret accounts “outed” while on twitter. There are no secrets on social media.

I’m no psychologist, but I think it’s people who need to have their ego fed who engage in this type of behavior –men and women alike. Ask yourself who you want as brand advocates, sleazy people or smart people. As a woman, to me the women who engage in this kind of behavior are essentially delivering a slap in the face to those of us who dislike being treated as objects and actually get paid to use our brain. What is the payoff to your business by engaging these types of people? How do you even know they are real people? Do you think nobody is watching? Everybody is watching.

The question is, is it worth your ego and potential damage to your business to carry on in this way?

To most of us,  managing our reputation really boils down to behaving the same online the way we do offline, assuming one is behaving correctly offline, and then broadcasting our message and brand to the world.  It amazes me those people and businesses who falsely believe that their behavior is somehow *invisible*  on the Internet. They need to wake up and realize that their behaviour is in fact magnified. They write down the behaviour. They put risqué pictures on the Internet. It does not magically disappear.

One of my first personal experiences with this was about a year ago before I officially became a social media advisor with Killer Social and Socialisle. One day I noticed I had a new follower on my jewelry account that was a local Long Islander.  A man in his 40s, about my age. I noticed that MY avatar in his “who else I follow” section on in the old twitter app that used to show pictures of all recent follows was surrounded by several porn star and bathing suit escort types. His background picture was of his family, including his young children.

I wondered – did he think I was one of THEM? Surely he did, even though I never have any below the neck or risqué avatars. What kind of person was this? I felt insulted.
This appeared to be the man’s business account and he claimed to be in the social media biz in his bio. With no further ado, I pleasantly privately informed this man in DM that because he was a local, I was giving him the following info nicely instead of just blocking. The images of me surrounded by porn girls over the image of his family was very disturbing to me. Unfollow me immediately. I gave him no option to reply as I don’t believe I ever followed him. He complied and in addition I noticed he was smart enough to clean up his act, eventually unfollowing the porn people and following the ones he actually wanted to do business with.

Some people are not that smart.

I have had less pleasant experiences with clients and people I have followed for quite some time who start to exhibit the same behavior. I say something. They feel they are being judged by me. I think I’m doing them a favor by stating the obvious. If you saw that a friend had a flat tire, would you let him go out and drive 75 on the freeway? No. You’d tell him to repair his tire before he got hurt.

I’m not saying it’s just the men who behave this way either. Some of the women are worse. I don’t think Rep. Weiner has done anything that millions of people aren’t already doing. Personally, I don’t think he should lose his job over it. It’s enough that he has to deal with the negative consequences his behaviour will have to his career and his relationship. Hopefully his experience will help others and maybe his rehab will help.

Just remember folks, there is no rehab for stupid.

What do you think about this situation? Let’s talk about it. Leave your comments below.

Tweet smart.

The 140 Conference provides an unparalleled opportunity to wake up, connect, share, and engage with people that have found success in using the real-time web, specifically social media. This is the first time it’s coming to Long Island and I urge you to attend if you possibly can. It will also be live-streamed and people all over the world will be tuning in to watch it. You can be there in person. So many great stories are out there to be shared, not only in the business world, but all walks of life. This should be a very powerful sharing and learning event where you will hear inspiring stories from fellow Long Islanders as well as around the country.

And the speakers? There are a gazillion. Here is my video attempting to list them all in under 60 seconds:

I know every time I attend anything having to do with the 140Conf family I always come away with new ideas for my businesses. There is nothing better than being there in person, because this allows you to network with some of the greatest minds in the country. You do not want to miss this opportunity, trust me.

Here is a link that will save you 10% if you are interested in attending, that I am able to offer to you because I am speaking at the conference. The VERY AFFORDABLE price includes some sort of breakfast, lunch and a barbecue as well as a Long Island Ducks game for the price of what you might typically pay for dinner. Not including drinks. Or Dessert. Haha. It’s an unbelievable value.

Here is a list of speakers for the event, many of these people I know and follow in various social channels. It is subject to change without notice. Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something from these inspiring people. http://li2011.140conf.com/speaker-schedule

Hope you will find the time to join me and listen to the many fantastic stories that are made possible by the real time web.

It wasn’t raining on the Island but it was pouring when I arrived and I had a nice giggle with some of the other attendees as we tried to cross Broadway in an attempt to get to Lincoln Center without a classic “get engulfed in a huge puddle splash when waiting to cross the street” scenario. You could tell who was from out of town. She was the one standing right next to the puddle.

After a bit of a long wait in line to check-in ( Good thing I stuck to heels under 4″) I entered the truly beautiful venue in a very comfortable chair at Alice Tully Hall and settled in for a day chock full of my two favorite things: Social Media and Fashion. I won’t be able to cover this event in one post. It will take me three, I think. This event was the product of masterminds Jeff Pulver and Lilly Berelovich. It was a huge undertaking and they deserve kudos galore.

I generally tweet what’s going on at these kinds of conferences from my iPhone but unfortunately connectivity was zilch, so I whipped out my pen and paper and figured I’d be better able to absorb what I was hearing if I wasn’t tweeting anyway.

The lineup of speakers was tremendous and very impressive, a lot of celebrities in the fashion world. It’s always interesting to hear how they are using social media, even if I totally disagree with certain aspects of how they are doing it. By and large most speakers had a following to follower ratio that was anything *but* social. They don’t follow their customers or fans back. They don’t really engage much with their followers. Is this social?

That’s a generalization, and not everybody in the lineup was like that, but most were. I would argue that these type of people and companies aren’t really capable of understanding social media as well as those of us who actually jump in and follow a couple of thousand at least and are really in the thick of things. Some of us take the time to answer a large percentage of tweets and really get to know their customers. It’s a dialog rather than a monologue for those of us who do that. A highly interactive focus group.

I would have loved to hear from a few new and independent designers who were not already famous and were in the process of using social media to build their brand. There weren’t any examples of that. I may be biased because that is the category I’m in. But isn’t that the category MOST designers are in?

I found the presentation by Daymond John , founder of FUBU and star of ABC’s Shark Tank, to be very down-to-earth and helpful. He suggested we all boil our brands down to two to three descriptive words – five at the most- and make sure everything we do to promote on social media uses or relates to those words. He gave me a couple of ideas that I plan on using in my own brand immediately that were really simple things that I wasn’t doing before. He pointed out that we are coming to a time where first impressions will be judged by how good our website looks. When he said that I immediately got this impression in my head of a girl asking a guy not what kind of car he drives or what he does, but for his URL. It’s true, isn’t it?

Another favorite from the day was Carol Brodie . I could have easily listened to this woman for two hours. Okay, 8 hours. Carol has a line of fine jewelry on HSN. Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. I’m biased because it’s jewelry. No. I would love this woman’s zest if she were selling baseball caps. She said she grew up wanting to be “Joprah– the jewelry Oprah” and believe me, she is. Her presentation was easily the best I’ve ever seen at any conference I’ve attended. She went over what she was doing on Facebook to promote her brand and really seems to understand the connection and benefits that Social Media provides for a “click and order, not brick and mortar” brand.

Thanks for reading! I’ll try to post another Fashion 140 related post soon. There were many great presentations to mention, but I like to keep each post short.

At first, when I discovered this, I just laughed it off, thinking somehow it would go away, or it wasn’t true. But then people started asking me questions. Did I think it was accurate, important? Would I hire someone or refer someone based on their Klout score? Have I been getting really cool free stuff in the mail from people wanting to use my influence to advertise their products? To which my answers were somewhat, maybe, and… HEY! where’s my free Godiva chocolate?

I was even mentioned last week by Newsday as a “top 5 person to follow-social media guru” on Long Island, population 7.5 million, probably based on this Klout score. I swear, I didn’t give away any free jewelry and I still have all of my children.

Klout is a metric scoring system that says they measure overall online influence, using over 35 variables on Facebook and twitter. The higher score you have, the more likely people are listening to what you say, pass along what you are saying to other people, and take action when you say it.

At the time of writing this my Klout score is a 65, which is considered on the high end, for a non-celebrity type such as myself. I expect it will go up as I use Facebook more (I don’t much) and when Klout figures out how to merge the three companies I’m involved in…into ONE score. That score is for my jewelry company account, @SueanneShirzay on twitter, Sueanne Shirzay Jewelry. I also own a social media consulting company, Killer Social, and am a partner in Socialisle, LLC, another social business company. I have been on twitter for two years as @SueanneShirzay , and the other usernames are recent additions.

As far as I can tell, there is no way to cheat this system, it is what it is, and it measures what it measures. I’m not a metrics person, and trust me, I don’t want to be. I just do what I do. And I love doing it.

I mentioned to one of my partners at Socialisle, LLC, George Torres, that no matter how high my Klout score is, I will always just think of myself as “Suzy from Indiana who grew up across the street from a cornfield”. He replied, “That’s why you have influence”. That made me laugh and got me thinking. Those are my roots. I can’t escape them, just as you can’t escape yours. I moved to NYC to go to college and never left, and now reside in a beach town on Long Island, which is so laid back that surfers literally strip down in the streets.

Let me unlock the Klout mystique. Eyebrow raise. If I can. This is all just pure speculation. I could be wrong. This is my experience, your mileage may vary greatly.

I’d like to think this score is probably just saying I’m good at communicating who I am and what I’m thinking online. A communicator with good manners, humor, wisdom, creativity, knowledge, passion, experience, and just plain human compassion.

Or I could just be a schmuck. Who knows?

I genuinely like people

I actually LIKE almost everybody I meet, online and off. I think the other humans are interesting. I approach meeting people without caution, ASSUMING I will like them. It’s pretty easy to make friends online when you like people. I rarely tweet politics, religion, or negative thoughts, though of course I do discuss such things privately, and have opinions. I never tweet or post anything that is intentionally going to hurt another person. If I screw up, I apologize. I don’t follow or friend people who I see bullying other people, or complaining excessively. As my friend Mike LaMonica said to me recently “Social Media is not a safe place for Anti-Social people”. This was after the recent Chrysler F-bomb tweet debacle. It’s easy to be nice online.

Communication

I have a long history in advertising, marketing, art, writing, and recently jewelrymaking. That background allows me to write what I need to communicate in a clear, informative and very often humorous way. I do video blogs. It’s easier for people to relate to me when they can hear me speak. I have traveled a little bit, and I ship the jewelry all over the world, so I often follow people in different countries and tweet in different languages from time to time.

Creativity/Content

I’m a creative person, and when you are consistently writing new content and creating new things, people react to it, so I guess that’s a way of influencing people. You have to say or do something in order to create influence, not just react to what everybody else is saying or doing. Currently, I write four other blogs and am a contributor to Herald de Paris. You lead. You encourage others to lead. You create. You do your thing that you do to the best of your ability. You don’t compete. You just be true to yourself.

Manners

I have them, and I know how to use them. I say please. I say thank you. Actually I say thank you ALOT, so much so that many times, it ends up in dm or on a phone call, because if I tweeted it, all you would see is THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU all day long on my twitter and Facebook feed. I try to respond to people who leave comments on my blogs, tweet me, facebook me, like my YouTube channel, etc. I can’t always get to everybody, but I do try.

Opinions

I have opinions on everything. In fact, I consider myself a very opinionated person. I don’t make them all public, but when you share what you are thinking, sometimes it influences people.

Humor

I’m known for having a good sense of humor, I laugh all day, everyday, and I like putting it into words and sharing it. I think that’s a big part of why people interact with me online. I don’t take things that seriously. Life is too short.

Wisdom

I’m old. I pass along what I’ve learned. I’ve met hundreds of people I originally met online… offline at conferences and social gatherings. I encourage, coach and mentor people. I do public speaking. I give back.

Helpful

I introduce people to each other. I participate and volunteer for things that are going on in my community and local and national philanthropic organizations. I also design jewelry to benefit philanthropic organizations. I truly enjoy helping other people and I appreciate all of the help I’ve received over the years.

News

I know what’s going on. I may not post or tweet about it on a daily basis, but I’m aware of what’s going on in the world

Advice

I often give advice to those who need it. All of my businesses exist to advise others, and bring people up. Some days my DM box on twitter resembles a psychiatrist’s couch. That’s okay. Things happen. People are human. It’s okay to advise the other humans.

Respect

Even if I don’t agree with what someone is saying or doing online, as a respectful person, there is a way to disagree without making somebody feel bad or be confrontational. I try to keep my criticisms polite and respectful.

In the end, I think influence may just be about sharing the best versions of who we all are…online with the world. If there was any way to make this influence work to get my kids out of the door on time for school in the morning, that would be even more impressive. Now, where’s my Godiva, please? Dark. Raspberry filling. Thank you.

This is my story, what’s yours? What things have you done that you think affect your Klout score? Is it important?