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The No-Strategy Strategy: A Strategy Guide for Bloggers

by The Anti-Social Media on October 18, 2010 in blogging, guest post, social media strategy

Today’s post is a guest post by my friend and SEO maverick, Phil Buckley.

Is it possible you’re spending too much time on strategy? I think it is.

If strategy is draining time, energy and resources from the actual doing, maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy strategy.

The idea of a no-strategy strategy popped into my brain while reading Any Jerk Can Be A Social Media Strategist.

If you’re a simple business, or a single blogger you should probably be spending more time on measuring your actions than on complicated strategy documents. My advice to anyone who is thinking about blogging is, START WRITING! That’s not a complicated strategy, in fact, it’s just the core action.

You run a business selling firewood, here’s your strategy - write about firewood. Done. You’re a mommy blogger, here’s your strategy - write about your life. You’re IBM or the Carolina Panthers, now you need a strategy. Rather than overthink your strategy, start doing the work. Start writing. Write something right now! If you can’t write this very second, make sure you make a date to write tonight.

Maybe you think that you’re a special case, and you really do need a specific strategy. That’s possible. Here’s a quick test to see if how much time you should be spending on strategy for you blog:

  • You have as many people subscribed to your blog as you have contacts in your phone. (1 minute)
  • You have posts waiting to be published in the future. (1 minute for each future post)
  • You have people contacting you about advertising on your site. (2 minutes per inquiry/month)
  • You are being asked to speak at local events. (3 minutes per engagement/month)
  • You are being offered money to speak at industry events. (5 minutes per engagement/month)
  • Your blog is main source of income (10 minutes)
  • Your business makes enough money to employ additional people. (30 minutes/employee)

Now add up the time from the list above. That’s how much time you should be spending on your strategy. Now get going bringing that strategy to life.

Phil Buckley is the Director of User Experience at Media Two Interactive, a media advertising agency specializing in digital and traditional planning, buying and design. He blogs at 1918.com on search social and web development. You can follow him on Twitter @1918.

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Stop Pretending and Be Yourself Online

by The Anti-Social Media on June 11, 2010 in Online Identity, guest post

Today’s post comes from Brianne Villano.  Brianne is a great writer,helps organize the awesome PechaKucha Night here in Raleigh, NC, and also runs Mindful Media Management.

Randy Constan is a 56 year-old jazz musician who lives in Tampa Bay Florida and one of the things he enjoys more than anything else is dressing up and presenting himself as Peter Pan. He designed this site to find his Tinkerbell and he most certainly found her. “Tink” is his new wife Dorothy Constan. They met at an event at the Suncoast Resort in 2006 and were immediately drawn together amidst a sea of satin-clad fairies and lacy water sprites.

The wedding ceremony took place on the grounds of Tampa’s Bay Area Renaissance Fair (”B.A.R.F.”) and included cross-dressers and pinky swears. It was officiated by King Henry VIII and as they spoke lyrics from Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You”, they exchanged rings. Following the service, there was some “fairy dancing” and I’m pretty sure the couple honeymooned “second star to the right, and straight on til morning.”

Wikipedia describes Peter Pan Syndrome as “an older man whose emotional life has remained at an adolescent level, usually coupled with too great a dependence on the mother.” I’ve always been called a “big kid” and I have to admit that I’m the first to gigglesnort if someone farts. But there is a big difference between someone who is emotionally unable to distance himself from that which makes him feel safe and comforted and someone who uses this one life as a chance to be filled with wonder and awe.

An adult can be responsible and still be able to enjoy the little things, the fun things, that life has to offer. When you stop having fun and merely aim to “get through it”, you lose a piece of your inner child. Randy respects and nurtures his inner child and tries to spread that knowledge wherever he goes.

While he and his site appear to be ostentatious and perhaps a little bit “wacky”, Randy takes donations that he receives for the site and money from sales of shirts and other items and donates them to various childrens’ charities. Just another reminder that looks are not everything and no one is ever truly what they seem.

Randy and Dorothy are proud of who they are and they create their own happiness. They don’t compare themselves with others in the rat race that even the quest for social media notoriety can sometimes become. They live and dance and pinky swear.

Sometimes you have to disconnect, stop living the majority of your life online, and start paying more attention to the richer, fuller life available to you offline.

Sometimes you just have to accept who you are and work with what you have, even if it involves green tights and fairies.

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The Social Media Uniform

The Social Media Uniform

by The Anti-Social Media on February 23, 2010 in guest post

Today’s guest post comes from Allison Najman (@mbagrrl)  You can visit her site to stalk her learn more about her. When she’s not being snarky for this blog, Allison is defying online marketer and social media guru stereotypes.

What Not to Wear

Every girl’s nightmare is showing up to the ball in the exact same dress as someone else, and even worse if their frenemy looks better in it. Guys don’t seem to have this fear as exampled by the typical social media uniform I see at every Tweetup, Camp or general social media gathering I attend. This uniform transforms creative, interesting people into lemmings.

Stylish Glasses

Plastic rimmed glasses. Anyone that stares at a computer for 8+ hours a day probably wears glasses; so this population is especially prone for needing vision correction. Plastic rimmed glasses are the correction tool of choice. They are very versatile and come in a variety of shapes that almost anyone can pull them off ranging from Henry Rollins, Elvis Costello, Rivers Como and David Cross.

Blue Button Down Shirt

Blue button down shirt. There is some variation that it can be solid, striped or plaid, but blue is the color of choice. Blue is supposed to be soothing, but all this blue puts me to sleep.

“Formal” jeans with black shoes. Dark washed expensive boot-cut jeans are the new khakis. With the trend of upscale denim, came the New World Order that it’s socially acceptable to wear jeans to any occasion as long as they were more than $75. To dress up jeans, they are paired with black leather shoes.

Laptop Bag

Slung over laptop bag (with MacBook inside). No social media power user worth their salt would be seen without their laptop. Despite being armed with an iPhone, you never know when a social media emergency will come up that requires flash.

iPhone

iPhone. The ultimate social media accessory. Too bad it’s accessorized with AT&T.

Individually none of these choices are bad, but put together they make social media men look like an army of one. Express yourself a little less via Twitter and a little more through your clothes.

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