I was quoted in today’s Launch magazine in Do’s and Don’ts of Using Social Internet Sites for Business. In the article, I offer the following advice on adding and interacting with contacts on various social networks:

“Don’t forget your manners.

While nearly all social networks have rules for participation (don’t post obscenities or copyrighted material, for example), the etiquette for adding people to each network is defined by the mores of those on the network, Postman says. He offers a few guidelines:

• Users should be particularly careful to avoid the appearance of flirtation and inappropriate comments and messages. Use the same rules as you would in the workplace.
• Don’t send blatantly commercial messages. Business networking is OK. Shameless promotion and cold calling is not.
• If the network allows, give the person you are inviting some context for the invitation.
• Do not take it badly if someone declines or ignores your invitation to connect. That’s their option.”

The full article can be found here.

Tags: Launch, Grow Utah Ventures, social network etiquette, Facebook, Twitter

I’ll be participating in Blogout09 in Singapore on March 6, giving my Communications Inside Out (see below) talk, which is based loosely on the last chapter of my book, SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate. I’ll be in the esteemed company of Yongfook, the Ashton Kutcher of the Singapore social media scene, and Melvin Yuan, who is referred to by Kevin Lim (aka @brainopera) as “a ridiculously thoughtful public relations gentleman in Singapore.”

In commemoration of my visit to Singapore, Kevin has created this stunning photo montage:

Note that Yongfook is cited for his good looks, Melvin for his intelligence, and me for giving away copies of my book. This is how I want to be remembered! On the other hand, can either of them drive a Zamboni? I think not! My picture is a composite and the hand with the book doesn’t even belong to me! I appear to be grimacing after eating a bug or something.

Here are a few things you might not know about me:

• I came up with the original concept for Blogout in 1992, but since there was no such thing as blogging then, I had a hard time selling the idea
• The internet IS a series of tubes, and I will prove this scientifically during my presentation
• If you send me $500 by PayPal, I will disclose my great secret of making millions by blogging.

Hope to see you in Singapore!

Communications Inside Out

Now that the social media “dust” has settled, many companies feel like they’ve made the transition to a stable, predictable, Web 2.0 world. Not so fast! I’m going to lead a conversation about a second wave of changes underway or rapidly approaching. Communications Inside Out, based on the final chapter of my book, is loosely structured around five key shifts in perceptions about what social media is, and how it behaves:

• Speed–>Brevity
• Managed Participation–>Chaos
• Letting Go–>Taking Back
• Engagement–>Doing Business
• Wild Wild West–>Civilized World

For example, the attention span of the average person online has grown shorter and shorter, and with it, the length and duration of online content has similarly been reduced. Online videos, once considered “short” at three minutes, are now less than a minute, or even a few seconds in length. Entire “blog posts” have been reduced to 140 characters on sites like Twitter. In other words, while the emphasis in social media was on speed, it is now on brevity. Similar shifts have taken place elsewhere. My presentation will take a random walk through a handful of such shifts, helping participants better understand the nature and role of social media in the future.

Tags: Blogout, Singapore, Communications Inside Out, SocialCorp, Social Media Goes Corporate, Yongfook, Melvin Yuan, Kevin Lim, brainopera

One of my favorite Twitter users is PopeyesChicken. I even complimented the company in my post “Seven rules for establishing a corporate presence on Twitter” for being human and having a sense of humor. (The guy behind the account used to make inappropriate “nuggets” jokes which I really appreciated.)

But a few days ago, my romance with PopeyesChicken ended abruptly when I got a notice from Socialtoo that Popeyes had unfollowed me. I checked my followers list and verified the awful truth: dumped by a chicken. I’ve heard of people breaking up on social networks, but an unfollow has to be the unkindest click of the mouse.

Not long after, I discovered that Kentucky Fried Chicken was also on Twitter, as KFC_colonel. I guess I was on the rebound, so I decided to openly support KFC on Twitter as a way of retaliating against Popeyes for snubbing me. I promoted KFC with tweets like: “People behind @kfc_colonel are nice folks! Let’s help them out with a follow so they can achieve chicken parity on Twitter!” and “Slay the demon that is @Popeyeschicken!”

Keep in mind this was all in good fun. I don’t mind being unfollowed. OK, a little. I weep openly.

I included Popeyes in my updates hoping they would pick it up, and they did, tweeting: “I never quit following @jpostman! He must just want a piece of me. Looks like he’s gone over to the dark side.” Eventually they added me back and DM’d me that they hadn’t intentionally unfollowed. As KFC_colonel put it: “I love a story with a happy ending! Life’s too short to fight. Unless you’re fighting for the last piece of chicken in a bucket.”

I think it’s awesome that two “corporate spokespeople” can provide a useful customer service and have some fun while doing it. So if you’re on Twitter, follow them both if you don’t already. I’m going to chicken out and not say which one I prefer. I’ll just say they’re equally entertaining.

Update April 28, 2009: I just learned from a post by J C Lamkin on the Technically Speaking Radio blog http://is.gd/v8eK that Church’s Chicken is now on Twitter. Let the great Twitter chicken wars continue!

Rian ONeill Named Winner of February Promotion for a Signed Copy of SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate

Comments are still open on this post, but the promotion to leave a comment below to win a free copy of SocialCorp has ended. Rian ONeill is the winner! Congratulations Rian! Many thanks to everyone who commented and especially to @KFC_colonel and @PopeyesChicken for being tremendous good sports and great company spokespeople on Twitter!

Tags: Twitter, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeyes Chicken, unfollow, follow, Socialtoo

On January 29, a large number of followers (including me) were dropped from Whole Foods corporate Twitter account. I was curious as to why this happened and what was being done about it.

I looked at the Whole Foods timeline and saw that the company was attributing it to a Twitter-generated glitch. I contacted Whole Foods via email, and Winnie Hsia, online community moderator, told me the company had sent Twitter a “Support Request (#16647) to address the issue … and shortly afterwards a Twitter staff member notified us that they were aware of the problem and currently investigating it.  At their request, on Feb 2nd we gave them a handful of user names of some of the folks who were unfollowed.

@WholeFoods did not respond to my questions either on the public timeline or by direct message, so I contacted the company’s PR people via the web site and received Winnie’s courteous and reasonably prompt reply.

I also exchanged emails with Biz Stone, one of Twitter’s founders, in an attempt to find out what happened. He confirmed that there was a problem with the account but said it “was a cosmetic glitch on the number displayed on their profile page.” When I pointed out that I was among those unfollowed by Whole Foods the morning of the 29th, Biz said “I’d have to look at that as a separate issue.” I asked him on February 5 to confirm the root cause of the problem, but have not heard back from him.

I would love to hear something like “we had a corrupted database which has now been fixed” or “during the migration to newer faster servers, about x followers were accidentally dropped, but we are able to quickly restore them.” I think Twitter users, both companies and consumers, would feel better if the company owned up to the occasional IT problem and talked openly about its resolution.

Here’s why I think this all matters to businesses on Twitter. If you’ve been on Twitter for any period of time, you’ve experienced or heard tell of serious IT problems. In general, these have improved a great deal, and high marks to Twitter for improving availability and response times, and for smooth sailing during high load events like the Consumer Electronics Show when people tweet like crazy. Still, features like search and direct messaging get switched on and off or have limited functionality as Twitter IT people try to keep the Millennium Falcon of social networks running.

Where else do we tolerate so many IT problems? If a company like Salesforce dropped a few hundred contacts from a company’s CRM system, people would be really upset. Web 2.0 companies like Twitter should be held to similar standards.

I say similar, because I realize Twitter and Salesforce aren’t the same thing, but I also think the argument that “Twitter is free, so you should be grateful it’s there and stop complaining” doesn’t hold water. It isn’t free. Companies invest time, resources, opportunity costs and reputation by establishing and maintaining a presence on Twitter. This presence results in the creation of often huge numbers of connections (people who follow the company, people the company follows) which in turn increases Twitter’s valuation. So it’s not cash, but companies are not participating on Twitter for free.

Obviously, situations like this put companies in a difficult spot. In assuring me that Whole Foods values its Twitter followers, Winnie told me:

“We believe strongly that Twitter is a unique channel, allowing us the opportunity to listen to and respond to our customers, fans and critics in a way not afforded to us through other channels and we would certainly not intentionally shut down any of those voices.“

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Twitter. It’s one of the most powerful and amazing communications tools every conceived. I just think it still needs some clean-up and a little more professionalism before it’s viewed as a serious (and reliable) business tool.

Tags: Twitter IT problems, Whole Foods, Winnie Hsia, unfollow, unfollowed, Biz Stone, @WholeFoods

Everyone in social media and public relations has watched in amazement as Barack Obama’s campaign made better use of Web 2.0/social media than any other campaign in history, demonstrating mastery of social networking, viral (truly) video and mobile initiatives. (Yes, the VP announcement SMS thing was a screw-up, but the strategy was right.)

In the past, the Web has not been kind to politicians, with Howard Dean’s 2004 Iowa Caucus concession speech “war whoop” rocketing around the Internet, and Ted Stevens’s “Internet Tubes” remarks being mercilessly lambasted with YouTube videos viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

But 2008 will be recognized as the year Web 2.0 played a major role in positively influencing the electorate. The Obama campaign, and now administration, and organizations like Moveon.org, have exposed millions of “ordinary” Americans to these new communications tools.

And while @BarackObama is the most followed user on Twitter, it’s unlikely he’ll be tweeting you “great idea!” or “lol!” any time soon. The demands of the office, security considerations, and prioritization of where the administration and new president will invest their time and our money, will influence how Web 2.0 is used by the federal government. In fact, the best uses of social media may be invisible to citizens…

To read more about why I think this is the case, please check out my column in this month’s Talent Zoo.

Tags: @BarackObama, Barack Obama, Blackberry, Web 2.0, federal government, tweet