I was honored to be the first guest on Jeff Gibbard and True Voice Media‘s newest web series – The Social Happy Hour.
An hour on Periscope of Jeff having cocktails and talking social media with some really smart, funny, insightful people. Join them live on Periscope or catch up later at http://thesocialhappyhour.com/
It is not often that you get to do a truly side-by-side comparison of two new tools, but Tracey Welson-Rossman (@twelsonrossman) and I (@gloriabell) got the perfect opportunity to do just that with Meerkat and Periscope at the Philly Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference (#PhillyETE).
We used both apps at various times throughout the conference, but at the Day 2 Keynote, we did an actual side-by-side comparison.
The reason we wanted to try live streaming at the conference is a no brainer, this has the potential to be a great marketing tool . The ability to reach more people with good content, is really exciting when you run a lot of events like we do.
Here are the pros and cons of each with our “Bake-off” winner (and the reasons why) below.
Pros: Easy to set up an account
Easy to give the stream a name / title
Ability to tweet comments in the stream
Can schedule a stream
Ability to save broadcast
Can target smaller, more direct audience because no auto link to Twitter
Cons: Cannot zoom in or increase volume
Need a built-in audience to gain viewers
Lack of direct connection to tweet the stream makes it harder to gain audience
Hard to manage the chat and hold the phone
Need a good cellular or Wi-fi connection to make it work
Hard to understand the metrics for viewership during the broadcast and post
Lack of documentation on how to use it
Really need a tripod for a good recording
No post-viewing metrics
Pros: Setting up the account was easy
Ability to save the broadcast
Connecting to and broadcasting via Twitter was easy
Ability to tweet comments and likes in the stream, but can’t easily add other Twitter names in the tweet
Easy to “title” – just like a tweet
Direct link to Twitter makes for a larger audience but also more possibility for spam comments
Cons: Can’t switch between Twitter accounts
Can only have one account associated with the app
Need a good cellular or Wi-fi connection to make it work
Hard to manage the chat and hold the phone
Lack of documentation on how to use it
Few metrics – post view metrics much easier to see on an iPad
Really need a tripod for a good recording
There are a lot of limitations with both apps and we are hopeful there are more features coming that will address the issues we outlined above. Both seem to be good, fairly easy-to-use tools for live-streaming, especially at events. For right now we give Periscope the edge due to its seamless integration with Twitter. This feature alone will make it an easier-to-use social marketing tool.
It is a slight edge, though. Even with the limitations, we see these apps as a great tool for events and smaller conferences with small budgets. The video and audio quality will not be great, but these apps will allow for broader distribution of events.
Check out our next experiment at the Chariot Solutions’ talk on Angular JS on April 22nd.
I wrote a little guest post over on Bannerview.com on the 5 reasons not to hire a social media “expert”. Click on over there and take a look at my 5 top reasons.
The really observant of you may have noticed that there is a new section over there on the left side bar titled Hiring Gloria.
Yes – I am “back on the market”. Now that the family obligations that have kept me so busy the last year are winding down, I am looking to take on more speaking/training engagements and consulting projects. Know of a job that would challenge me and allows me to use my full skill set to make a real impact on a company’s bottom line and growth? Let’s talk about it.
Take a moment when you are done reading this and wander over to take a look at my bio in the About Gloria Bell section and the information about hiring me for speaking, training or consulting in the Hiring Gloria section to learn more.
It is pretty simple – I am about building bottom lines. Every action we take and every element of strategy I recommend is tied directly to the business objectives that You have identified as most important.
I believe in holistic digital marketing. My speciality may be social media, but I am going to work with you to make sure your entire digital presence is working together. My mission is to help you and your business get the attention you need to grow and to make sure that you understand the social media landscape and can navigate it effectively while avoiding as many pitfalls as possible.
The best social media strategy, email marketing strategy or website will only get you so far if it does not all work together. I help you fit the puzzle pieces of your digital presence, your offline marketing, your customer
service and your business development and sales together to build an integrated marketing strategy that achieves your business goals. Together we evaluate your entire digital footprint and your business processes to figure out what works, what needs tweaked and what needs to be added. Rather than just turning over a pretty strategy document and walking away, I work with you to develop and implement the most effective strategy to maximize your online presence and make sure it and your internal operations are working like a well-oiled machine delivering the best results possible.
I don’t consider myself just a digital marketer or a social media strategist or a business process specialist. I strive to be a business builder.
My newest passion and current consulting focus is on assisting companies to truly maximize the effectiveness of their digital presence by analyzing and evaluating business processes to ensure that no gaps exist that would hinder meeting the goals and objectives their social media presence seeks to fulfill. Yeah, even saying it is a mouthful, can you imagine tackling it without the experience and expertise of someone who knows both the social media and the business operations worlds? Most business owners are great at one or the other but there are not many who can manage both which is why I am so excited to be concentrating in this area. Watch for more blog posts talking about the necessity of this focus coming soon.
Want to know a little more about me? -Scroll through some of my prior blog posts or wander over to Twitter or LinkedIn and take a peek.
Have a speaking engagement, project or job that you think I am fit for? Let’s chat!
Just want to know more? Email me at belldigitalstrategies@gmail.com
Thank you everyone who read, shared and commented on my post yesterday – We All Have To Work To Stop The Snake Oil Salesmen
Since I was contacted by the “Executive Escalation” team at Web.com, I felt it was only fair to keep everyone up to date on what was happening. Rather then possibly mis-quoting or allowing for mis-interpretation of our correspondence, I have copied in both their email to me and my response in their entirety (see below). We’ll see where it goes from here. I may end up being the lucky recipient of a cease and desist or a libel and slander suit, but we’ll see. Hopefully the good folks (and I am sure there are a lot of really great ones there!) at Web.com will realize that 1) these are not only my concerns but the concerns of multiple people in the industry and they really need to look at what they are doing and 2) they will get someone in (Heck, they could even hire me!) to fix their social media program and the social media services they offer to clients.
Fingers crossed and I’ll be sure to keep you all informed if anything else develops.
FYI, I did leave off the name of the person from Executive Escalations intentionally. I don’t want to beat up on an single individual who, I am sure, is just trying to do their job the best they know how.
FROM EXECUTIVE ESCALATIONS at Web.com
Hi Gloria,
I work for the Executive Escalations office, monitoring our social media communication channels from within. I wanted to reach out to you to address what appears to be an unpleasant experience you had yesterday via our Twitter channel.
My sincerest apologies for any sort of frustrations, disappointments, or overall aggravations you experienced yesterday with our company, both on and off-line. We never want our customers, be they already established or potential, to feel as if they’ve been overlooked, mishandled, or challenged in any sort of way. Our goal when monitoring SM channels is to maintain an open, non-combative lines of communication, offering to help facilitate assistance however we can. We also value any and all feedback, be it negative or positive, as we report results on a weekly basis and implement changes to our policy and training as needed.
If there is anything I can do to further assist to ensure you leave this experience with a lighter, more positive outlook on our company, I’d be more than happy to accommodate. Thank you so very much for your time, and again, my sincerest apologies for any and all frustrations.
Kindest Regards,
Nice note and all… but as you can see by my response, I’m not really buying it –
Warning: I am taking the gloves off and calling out a company for making the social media and web development industry look bad. It is companies and practices like the ones described below that make the entire industry look like we are trying to sell snake oil by making promises that are deceiving and can not be delivered on in the way they are being advertised.
I know this practice is nothing new. It has been going on since the dawn of time, continues today and will continue in the future. But until we in the industry stand up and call out the people and companies who promote and sell this BS, all of us in the industry will continue to be looked at, especially by small businesses, as snake oil salesmen.
I do not call this company, or any others, out lightly. As someone who helps companies build their brand and reputations, going after someone else’s is not something I like to see and even less what I like to do. It was only after I tweeted them (see the Twitter conversation below), hoping that they would open a dialogue and show me how how I was wrong about them, that I felt the need to go further. Follow the story and see how it ended up as this blog post on not only false advertising about social, but a case study in how not to handle criticism on social.
Last night, I was hanging out with my Dad watching Shark Tank reruns on CNBC. We both love the show and hold a running commentary on what we think about the pitches and the deals that are made. My viewing fun last night was ruined by a TV commercial from a company promising to help small businesses make money by setting them up a “professional Facebook page”. They made a ton of promises about the businesses growing their brand awareness and getting new customers just by having a professionally created Facebook page. They will even create the content for you!
My Dad sat by listening amusedly as I ranted and raved about the fact that it is impossible for Web.com, given Facebook’s algorithms and terms of service, to deliver on the promises they made in that commercial. The commercial was at minimum misleading and at most, blatant false advertising. It infuriated me because they are targeting small businesses and small business owners who have little time, money, knowledge or experience in this particular area.
Having been the owner of multiple small businesses, I know what a God-send it can seem like to have someone offer you an easier way to do something, especially grow your business. You are not only going to help me grow my business but you were going to do my marketing for me by creating the content (whether you know anything about my business or industry or not?!)? People are going to come flocking to my business because they saw me on Facebook? I don’t have to spend time marketing because you are creating my content for me? And all for this for a “reasonable” price? Oh and once you have me signed as a client, you’ll build me a website and take care of all my digital marketing needs too? Sign me up!
If only it worked that way!
Those of us in social media and digital marketing know that the promise of Facebook reach and an immediate growth in your business is hooey, especially now. Maybe, if you have a big budget and can do a large Facebook ad spend you might see some quick results – Maybe! But this commercial made it sound like it was the easiest thing in the world. Just let us build you a professional looking Facebook page and you will instantly grow your business!
Excuse my language but BULLSHIT!
It nagged at me all night and all morning. I went to the company’s website and checked out their other offerings. Website design and development, social media marketing… the list goes on and on – if it is digital related, they do it. Maybe they it do it well, but based on the commercial I saw last night, I had my doubts.
So after pondering it and tweeting about it without mentioning their name, I decided to call them out. As you can see from the following thread, it went downhill from there. They replied with obviously SOP canned messages. They offered to assist me. With what? Did they not bother to look at my profile and see that I am a social media professional? Apparently not. No opening to discuss my complaint. No interest in hearing what I had to say. They then stopped responding at all. If there was ever a textbook case on how NOT to handle criticism or complaints on social, this is it. From a company who sells digital and social services to small businesses – Shameful!
My first tweet and their response
And the canned responses just keep getting worse
And there was no response to either of my last two tweets
The team at Red Stapler Consulting knows what we like and what we believe in. One of the things we like to do is share. In that spirit, we have decided to start a semi-regular series sharing things we find that highlight some of the things we like and believe in.
So what are some things we like?
Passion blended with creativity
Things that help businesses grow
Things that bring communities together
Things that help people
And the candle on this birthday cake of goodness – Effective uses of social media that do any or all of those things.
The inaugural entry in our Things We Like series is a campaign developed by the creative masters at
Red Tettemer + Partners. They have hit a trifecta! A social media campaign that is creative, is helping a business (their client) grow and is helping people (college students). Check out the Under Armour Ultimate Intern Team program.
Does it get better than this? Simple, clean, straightforward, fun and giving a few lucky college students the opportunity to have “the most memorable summer of your life.” It reaches the demographic where they like to communicate – on Facebook. It is fun without being goofy. It is intriguing. It tells you what you need to know, but holds back just enough to make us want to fill out the application to find out more and get to have the fun they are promising. And it is all wrapped up in a solid marketing principles.
Definitely a +1 in the Things We Like category. Head on over to Facebook and give them a Like – They deserve it!
DISCLAIMER: This is a reprint of a guest post I wrote for the Philly Creative Guide.
Philly has become the unofficial “Camp Town” From BarCamp to TrendCamp, HigherEd Camp to HealthCamp, Philly has been drawing the best and the brightest in many different fields all sharing and exploring the newest and current trends, information, apps, and discussions. Whether it is looking forward at TrendCamp or looking at the now at NewsInnovation Camp, the wellspring of unconference format events in Philadelphia (21+ in the last 3.5 years – a full list is below) is a testament to the vitality and growth of the creative and technology communities in the City of Brotherly Love.
For the as yet uninitiated, an unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The format consists of multiple sessions of attendee generated content. The participants are the speakers, discussion leaders and sharers of information. (see barcamp.org for more details)
The central message in the tremendous growth of all of these unconferences is that the community wants to come together. They want to share. They want to learn from each other. Which brings us to the question – who gets to decide what gets shared, how it gets shared? What is the etiquette? And most importantly, how do we as a community get the most of out of these gatherings. A few tips gathered from participants at the recent BarCamp Philly gives us some insight on how to maximize the experience as individuals and as a community.
What would your tips be?
Alphabetical Listing of Philadelphia area Camps (If any are missing from this list, please feel free to let us know)
I want to preface this post with this disclaimer – I LOVE the guys at Technically Philly. They are smart wonderful people who are doing great things for Philadelphia and its tech community and I support them 100%. If you are not reading Technically Philly, you should be! Just one of the truly great things about all of the guys at Technically Philly is they are open-minded. If someone does not agree with them, they quickly and willingly reach out to find out why and are open to lively, respectful debate.
While it is not the first time and I am sure will not be the last, Technically Philly, I respectfully disagree with you.
On 7/27/2010 Technically Philly contributed an article to their partner, Philly Mag’s section The Philly Post – ” Philadelphia’s 10 Most Influential Twitter Users“. The premise of the article was their view of not who the are the most followed Philly Twitter users but who are the “must-follows”. As a Technically Philly reader, an active member of Philly’s tech and social media communities and a self-admitted Twitter addict, I was intrigued. Till I read their list. Of the 10 people on the list there is 1 musician, 1 techie, 1 serial entrepreneur, 1 athlete and 6 newspeople/journalists. While I don’t disagree that the people on their list are influential. I follow almost all of them myself, but to consider them the 10 MOST influential Philadelphians on Twitter. I don’t think so. Technically Philly and I have different definitions of influence as evidenced by our Twitter convo on the subject –
I posted this tweet yesterday afternoon –
To my surprise, I received a fair amount of negative feedback from my followers. I was, rather harshly in some cases, admonished for “telling people how to use Twitter”. I have to admit that the responses both hurt and made me angry, until I stopped to really think about them.
There is one clear truth when it comes to Twitter. We all use it for different reasons. We all have different objectives, or in some cases, no objectives at all. And there is nothing wrong with that. Every social media platform should be used by each individual in the way they find most beneficial. I realized that I was upset because the negative responses I received made it appear that I was trying to tell others how to use Twitter. That was not my purpose and, unfortunately, 140 characters was not enough to explain. So, it was time to write a blog post.
What prompted my tweet was a series of new followers. As I have explained in earlier posts, I carefully evaluate each new follower to decide if I am going to follow them back. I want to make sure that the connections I make will be mutually beneficial. I was aggravated by several new followers who, per their bios, were self-professed social media consultants, experts, gurus, visionaries, etc… , but when you read through their tweetstreams, they were comprised almost exclusively by links, retweets and self-promotional statements. Go ahead and call me old-fashioned, but I still believe in the SOCIAL part of social media. That if you are going to profess yourself an “expert” in this field, then you have to also believe its power is in its social aspect. That means you don’t just talk to yourself. That you understand it is not traditional push marketing. That is a medium that allows us, possibly for the first times ever, as people and companies, to TALK to one another in larger numbers and on a wider reach. When the supposed “experts” devalue the medium by using it to solely push information at others, I believe we all lose. But, that is just me. I may be alone in my thinking, I would love your comments and feedback to know if I am or not.
What I did find most valuable from these exchanges is the lesson I learned in the potential damage of a poorly worded tweet, status update, email, whatever the message form. Failure to find a clear way to express our message or intention leaves open the possibility of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, as was the case with my tweet. My critics apparently interpreted it much differently than it was intended. My intent was never to tell anyone how to use Twitter, it was to express my frustration with the self-professed social media “experts” who have not embraced what I feel is the most important aspect – the social.
Gloria K. Bell 