Recently Rachel Levy sparked an interesting discussion on her blog when she posed the question “To Cross-Post or Not to Cross-Post”. Rachel was of course referring to the dilemma some social network users face when deciding whether their Facebook friends want to see what’s happening in their Twitter streams, or their Twitter followers want to see what’s happening in their LinkedIn accounts, or the various other combinations of conversations on one social network finding their way onto another. Todd Clayton & I had similar conversations as we prepared for the recent Defrag conference, and you can see some of the results reflected in Todd’s presentation.
Looking back on some of those discussions and comparing them with the comments that are flowing into Rachel’s post, there seems to be one thing we can all agree on: LinkedIn is the No Fun Social Network. If all the social networks got together for a party, Twitter would be the person who talks a mile a minute, never lacks for conversation starters, and loves meeting new people; Facebook would be having lots of fun conversations with some occasional business ones mixed in, but would generally confine them to people he already knows well; MySpace would be provocatively dressed and flirting with everyone in close proximity…
And finally, over there in the corner would be LinkedIn. He’d stick out like a sore thumb, the stuffy guy in the tweed jacket who confines all conversations to business and has zero sense of humor. Don’t bother trying to say hello to LinkedIn unless you already know him. The only way to meet him is to have an associate in common OR to correctly guess his e-mail address. If you’re fortunate enough to be introduced, you can expect a long spiel about his great credentials and degrees, his career accomplishments, and all the people who recommend him. LinkedIn is a name-dropper if there ever was one.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think LinkedIn is an invaluable resource that plays a vital role in the social space. There certainly is a need to connect people who want to succeed in their careers and promote their businesses. I’m not suggesting LinkedIn should do anything to change the features I just indirectly described. However, I do believe it’s time for them to have some fun with that image. How easy would it be for LinkedIn to produce a web marketing video with the LinkedIn character doing some wild and crazy stuff that we’d never expect to see? For example, can you imagine LinkedIn recreating the canonball scene from Anchorman? Instant win, right? People love to laugh, and the potential to produce a marketing video that goes viral is always there. Sometimes proving you can laugh at yourself is the secret formula to making everyone stop, take notice, and maybe change their opinion of you. I would imagine content producers like my friend Eric Guerin at SmartMarket Media would have a field day with this opportunity.
My advice for LinkedIn: it’s fine to be the No Fun Social Network, but at least have some fun with it!
Posted by: Chad Northrup | November 24, 2009 | | categories: Social Media | tags: advice, Anchorman, canonball, context, defrag, facebook, linkedin, marketing, myspace, no fun social network, Twitter, video
Recently I was annoyed with one of my personal online service providers. SmugMug, the photo sharing site I pay $39.95 per year to use, was intermittently failing to accept my uploads. With 2 children starting school and a new soccer season, I have family members & friends chomping at the bit to share in all the excitement by viewing my photos. Obviously any delay in getting these albums posted is a problem, especially when it results in a “where are those photos???” phone call from my mom.
On Sunday night I was annoyed enough to express my frustration on Twitter:
Soon after that a couple things happened: SmugMug founder & CEO Don MacAskill started following me, and I received a tweet reply from SmugMug offering assistance via their help page/email. This got me thinking back to about a year ago when I tried using SmugMug as my HD video service. I upgraded to a Pro account and found that the upload speeds were too slow for me (note: this might have changed over the past year!). At that time I emailed SmugMug support and they could not have handled things better. They immediately downgraded my account and refunded the difference on my upgrade without any hassle whatsoever.
That’s when I started to feel remorse over my tweet complaint, for a couple reasons:
- This was a company that had established a track record of reliable support with me. Perhaps I should have sent an e-mail instead of delivering a public spanking-by-tweet.
- SmugMug is family owned and operated. Don is an entrepreneur just like me. Normally I tend to give small operations the benefit of the doubt when it comes to issues because I’ve been there before and I understand what it’s like to support a customer base with limited resources.
Looking back, the main reason I tweeted was because SmugMug is not free. As a paid service, I hold it to a higher standard even though it’s basically a start-up.
Obviously social media channels give people voices and influencing power they never had in the past. It wasn’t long ago that a terrible interaction with your phone or cable company might result in a bashing session around the office water cooler and perhaps a letter or e-mail complaint which never received a response. These days we can notify a mass of users in seconds via tools like Twitter & Facebook. Due to the viral nature of these broadcasts, one negative situation can quickly snowball.
So now that we have these public channels available to us, the question becomes: when do we use them? What causes consumers to take that next step and go public with their issues and general complaints? Here are some factors I consider before I “go public”:
- Free vs. Paid: I generally expect more from a service I pay for
- Previous Support Interactions: if I’ve gotten quality support from you in the past, I’ll lean toward keeping things private
- Provider’s Background: entrepreneurs/start-ups usually get the benefit of the doubt because I can relate; big corporations like cable companies, phone companies, etc are easier to scream at because they’re nameless/faceless
- Do I aspire to do business with your company one day?: no sense burning bridges before they’ve been built!
I find there are no hard and fast rules on this list. Facebook is a free service (at least in terms of monetary payment), yet I wouldn’t hesitate to rant about Facebook in a public forum. On the other hand Charter is a big company that has won me over through its proactive use of Twitter.
I’m curious to know how others feel about public gripes. What’s your main reason for complaining about a product or service on public channels? Do you get a better response from providers when you go this route? Do you consider the size of the company or what you’ve read about them before you complain? Please chime in below!
Posted by: Chad Northrup | September 14, 2009 | | categories: Social Media | tags: ChatterBox, complaints, entrepreneurs, facebook, gripes, help, public channels, smugmug, support, Twitter
