LOL? I don’t believe it.
Confused? You will be.
Oh how I hate LOL. Just in case you don’t realise, it stands for Laugh Out Loud. Not, Lots of Love, as many have found out too late. Like the travel presenter on BBC 5 Live, Nick Duncalf, who emailed his commiserations to a friend following a death in the family. He signed off his email with LOL.
Or my friend’s mum who sent a text from a Derby hospital saying her husband’s operation had gone well, finishing the text with LOL. Who’s laughing now?
When have you ever read a tweet, text, Facebook message and laughed out loud? Surely it’s a very rare occurrence – so why put LOL when you did nothing of the sort? Oh, it does get my goat. Perhaps we should invent a new acronym. Like MMS – Made Me Smirk, or TMI – Tickled Me Inside or MMG – Made Me Grunt?
Mind you, why do we have to have such stupid acronyms at all?!? Why can’t you just write “ha!”? I like that much better. It’s more genuine – doesn’t leave me wondering whether they really laughed out loud or whether they’re just saying it to be polite. Ha! has a ring of truth around it. LOL does not.
Not that my hatred of text shorteners stops at LOL. The other day, I noticed (you may wonder why it took me so long to notice this…) <3 after a few tweets on Twitter. What the heck’s that, I thought? When I was at school, <3 would have meant less than three. But on a tweet? What’s less than three? Is it some sort of insult? No, according to my business partner Martin (who really is a social media expert) it’s a heart. A heart?!? It looks more like a set of wonky boobs on a thin-necked lady to me.
And then don’t get me started with kisses. When to put that “x” and when not to put that “x”, it’s a stress I can do without. When there’s an “x” one tweet, and there’s not one the next, has she fallen out with me? Was it because I didn’t “x” her back? Or was her first “x” a subtle attempt at a pass and I’ve unknowingly snubbed her? And what if there’s “xx”? Does that mean love? Or passion? Or what? Oh, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one little bit. But then, let’s be honest, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, text or in the day-to-day world, I’ve never been able to work out girls anyway.
Are you human spam?
You know when someone knocks on your door in the middle of the day, it’s going to be human spam. So although I hoped it was an unexpected visitor confidently rat-a-tat-tatting just after 2pm last Tuesday, I knew in my heart of hearts I was just thinking wishfully. How not to photoshop a picture...
Now sir, we have a great offer on today which has been getting a lot of interest from people on your street, began Boy-Number-One, as Boy-Number-Two looked at something on the other side of the street (probably our neighbour’s aubrietia axcent, looking beautiful this time of year). How much do you pay for your broadband package, he asked.
Probably less than you’re going to offer me, I correctly guessed, but that wasn’t going to put him off. He told me about the wonderful television packages I could buy. He felt he needed to tell me that he loved The Discovery Channel. But I don’t watch much television, I told him.
“You don’t watch much television?” he replied incredulously. “What do you do?”
“Well I talk to my wife, I go out, I surf the web. I have a life,” I replied.
Not that that put him off. Boy-Number-One had his trump question ready.
“Ah, but which way do your sofas face?” he asked triumphantly with a knowing looking. “I bet they face towards the television.”
“No. None of them do.”
It was like I’d just told him his mother had run off with a sailor. He backed away from the door, stunned at what I’d just said. Before I could even say a proper goodbye, he was pacing back to the roadside on the hunt for his next couch potato; Boy-Number-Two scampering behind him. Teaching him how to do it? How not to do it, more like.
What Boy-Number-One needs to learn is that you can’t assume your market. My current broadband deal runs out in May and I want to swap providers. But he was so fixated on my television habits that it stopped him making a sale. He never really found out about my broadband requirements, he was so stunned when the line of sales he’d been trained to follow stuttered, he couldn’t change direction.
As a social media marketer based in Derby, it’s a valuable lesson. Rather than talking to potential customers about what I can offer them, I need to listen to what they need. I received some lovely feedback from a BBC presenter I’d trained last week. He’d been praised for an interview he’d done and he Facebooked me to say: “Hope you noticed the pauses after his [the interviewee’s] answers… taught by the Master!” And it’s the listening, in all areas of business, not just social media, which is so key. Listen to your customer’s requirements. Listen to what they need. THEN respond. Or else there’s a danger – you could become human spam too.
When social media stinks
Have you ever told someone they’ve got an odour problem? I mean, letting them know they’re smelly? I have. Three times. It wasn’t a pleasant experience but when you dread being near them because you feel there’s a danger of passing out, then it’s a job that has to be done.
The first guy (they were all men – why are males seemingly less aware of their hygiene?) took it very well. I was very subtle; told him that working in a small office meant we all needed to deodorise. He took the message very well and changed his shower habits.
The second pongo also received the message well but then went off on stress.
The third fume-filled-fella didn’t like my message. Mind you, by then I was a bit blasé about talking to people about their hygiene habits so I didn’t plan what I was going to say. The conversation didn’t go as I’d hoped:
Me: “Sometimes there’s a bit of an odour around you. You might need to shower more often.”
Smelly man: “What?!?”
It is difficult to be the bearer of bad news and as a man working in the social media marketing industry, I sometimes have to deliver messages that others don’t want to hear. Such as when their social media presence isn’t really helping their business.
The difficulty often comes when people get their own personal Facebook or Twitter account confused with their business image. Instead of perhaps having separate accounts, they’re all lumped in together. So alongside marketing for their company sits inappropriate messages. One Derbyshire company plugs their website through their Twitter account but occasionally posts updates like these (I’ve replaced the offending letters):
oh my lord. can finally keep water down. the entire flat smells of alcohol and vomit. I have wasted an entire day. beyond gutted.
and
i think im going to f***ing scream. what is it with some people. #f***ingidiots
Now it depends what sort of an audience you are aiming at as to the non-business things you tweet or write on Facebook. If you’re looking to attract a younger audience and you want to be seen as risqué, then perhaps this approach is appropriate. But when you’re selling wedding stationary…?
So think about your audience. Who are you aiming at? What do they want to see posted? What sort of language should you use? What type of personal information about yourself are you going to reveal? What you don’t want is a potential customer researching your social media to find out more about you, and finding comments that will put them off. Like this one from a Derbyshire magazine:
disgusting, the puppy has just been sick and then eaten it
Not that this status is offensive, it could be deemed as just being unprofessional. Why take a chance? Think before you update your status – is it really an appropriate message for your business or even for yourself? You might find it funny but will others? Customers who decide not to buy from you after seeing your social media marketing won’t tell you that’s the reason. They won’t tell you your social media presence lets off an unfortunate pong. And I can tell you that even if they did, no one likes being told they’re smelly.
Ones to Watch: Social Start-Ups
Following the successful launch of the photo sharing app Color, which allows you to see the photos of other Color users that are within 150ft, we thought we would take a look at other exciting start ups that are soon to be launch from Silicon Valley and beyond.
Posterwalk
The latest in location based social software is Posterwalk which turns your geotags into art. Posterwalk uses your location data and social media activity to create maps of your life and turn it into a poster. You can choose the style you want ranging from London Underground Maps for the city based geek to a world map for the jetset tweeter. Onto these a range of your tweets, photos and check-ins will be added to show others how much of a well travelled techy you are. Posterwalk is compatible with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and AudioBoo.
Breaddit
Bizarre in the extreme, Breaddit is a web based bakery that makes crazy shaped bread for those wishing to add additional talking points to a dinner party. Given the success of the dead head bread, Breaddit is expected to rise to the top of the artisan bakers league where they will prove their worth by raking in the dough. Users will be able to request new shapes and peers will upvote the most popular ones which Breaddit will then create in limited batches to sell via mail order. Given the popularity of social news website Reddit, Breaddit could turn out to be the best thing since sliced dead head bread.
AccuPics
Ever wondered how your friend always has brilliant white teeth on their Facebook profiles? Does your old college classmate always have perfect sun-kissed skin on their Flickr photo stream? Now AccuPics, a Danish startup, can reveal the hidden truth behind their perfection. Photo editing software is available on phones as well as PC’s these days so it’s easier than ever to brush away those blemishes. AccuPics analyses the pictures and restores them to their original format and reposts the original image to name and shame your charlatan friends. Lars Aprilsnar, AccuPics CEO, says “we are anti-airbrush, anti-vanity and anti-fashion industry and we want to live in a world where there is no post-production editing. This is the first step towards that goal.”
CheatSheet
CheatSheet is a Facebook app that scans the photos of your loved ones and then tells you whether or not they are faithful in their relationships. In contrast to the successful extramarital affairs website AshleyMadison.com, Cheatsheet provides those looking to play away with a reason to think again. Cheatsheet technology scans photos and looks for facial expressions on the “target”, as well as monitoring status update sentiment and interactions with third parties, to determine whether or not the “target” is unfaithful. Cheatsheet told us the software currently has a 70% accuracy rate and said it would be foolish to launch a public beta until it is at least 97.8% accurate.
Whether these start ups make it into the public beta stage remains to be seen. The teams behind the projects are convinced they have viable products and that the demand will be high enough to ensure successful futures. Lets see if they even make it into tomorrow, shall we?
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