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For those who don’t know me personally, I am a freelance writer. I’ve done copywriting for several years now, and I decided, earlier this year, to take the plunge into becoming a full-on marketing firm. As I putzed around for a year, completely in over my head, I manage to get a project here and there. Then it dawns on me: social media marketing.
Blogging. Twitter. Facebook. Everything is going social these days, including marketing. This was a slam dunk! I even managed to get Erik Chopin from season 3 of The Biggest Loser to sign on. This was going to be great!
Uh… wait.
After getting into it for a few months, I realized something: social media can’t be done by a marketing firm. Sure, they can put together campaigns. They can develop iPhone apps and YouTube videos. But the execution and the engagement has to be done by the company. So, as I pull away from the social media marketing flop, here’s a few lessons I’ve learned that we can all use in our real-world relationships.
I’m not Erik Chopin. I didn’t lose hundreds of pounds on national television. I’m not a no-B.S. guy from New York City. I’m Tom Meitner, a skinny guy who’s never been on TV and who hails from Milwaukee. The people are going to go to Erik’s website to see Erik, not me.
Are you pretending to be somebody you’re not? I’m a fairly quirky guy, and my friends just have to accept that about me. I don’t try to hide the fact that:
But that’s me. People accept it. Be true to who you are. Don’t be a ghostwriter for yourself.
Sometimes, when I’m on the phone with my fiancé, if I’m tired or distracted, she winds up getting the “uh-huh” and “mm-hmm” from me. It becomes clear I’m not paying attention, and she gets mad at me. And for good reason. Social media is a two-way conversation as well. The best bloggers out there respond to emails and comments. They get the most loyalty from readers.
Be a part of the conversation you are in. Don’t just be polite and half-listen. And don’t just talk to people either; ask them about their lives and how their day is going. I guarantee you, it will breed a much stronger relationship. Be pleasant to talk to.
The people who market the best with social media are involved in different areas: they blog with video, they do audio podcasts, they write, they post pictures. They have different methods of reaching out and interacting with their audiences.
Look closely at your friendships: do they just revolve around going to the bars? Do you only interact with them at work? Do you only approach them when you have nothing else to do? A friendship is based on shared experiences of all kinds: go see a concert or a movie together. Stay in and hang out (is that an oxymoron?). Take a short trip together. Build experiences with people, and they will respond in kind.
The best blogging tip out there is to write for the audience, not for yourself. Which means, base your posts on what they need to hear, not what you want to say. It makes the reader feel like they are important.
Call up a friend to just say “hi”. Buy or make them a gift. Do a nice gesture for them. That’s how you show true friendship.
Social media is to be used for your passion. It is to be done to connect with your audience. After that, if you want to make money, there are ways to do it. But if you head into it with money being the sole motivation, you will fail. Just like I did.
Don’t just be friends with a coworker to get ahead. Don’t just hang out with the guy that always buys the drinks. Spend time with people you care about; don’t patronize people just to get stuff you want.
I’m sure there are other lessons – can you think of any? Share them in the comments!
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This month’s issue of Men’s Health magazine featured a list entitled “17 Things That Waste Your Time”. It had a lot of great stuff in it, and as I read it, I thought about a bunch of things in this world that just flat-out need to go. The beauty of this list is that it’s all stuff we have the power to change. So here are things that I believe we all need to kick to the curb and rid our lives of:
1. Your massive ego. Pride is great. Confidence is great. But back those things up with your actions. And if you think you’re awesome, you stop learning and growing. Stay humble and keep on learning. You need it.
2. Men’s “marriage is a trap” attitude. A real man knows when he finds the woman he wants to be with for the rest of his life. Today’s “man” likes to say that staying married to the same person is like being in a jail cell. The hippies of the world like to say that free love and lots of wild, “free” sex is the way to go. I can’t think of anything more manly than respecting the love of your life and committing yourself to her forever. And in that same vein…
3. Meaningless marriages and constant divorces. Marriage is a contract. It is a public statement that you will be faithful to your spouse until death. When you get divorced, you are telling everyone around you that you are a liar. Plain and simple. Love is a great part of a relationship, but it needs to be balanced out with logic: can you spend the rest of your life with him/her as he/she is, right now, every day, morning-noon-and-night? Realistically answer that question before you pop the other question.
4. Paying bloated prices on anything. Think you can’t get it cheaper? Think again. Television shows, music, movies, weddings, cars, homes, you name it. We live in a world today where you can get anything on a budget that will last a long time with proper care and attention. Instead of just getting the eye candy or the “hip” new thing, figure out what you need and pay for that.
5. A Sloppy appearance. I say time and again that I was born in the wrong decade. There was a time when a man was a man when he was in a suit, and a woman was a woman when she was in a skirt (or a nice pair of slacks – I’m not a sexist or anything). I walk around and I see baggy pants with boxers hanging out, shirts that reveal “tramp stamps”, boobs hanging half out of shirts, and various vulgarities plastered across t-shirts and the butts of sweatpants. Take some pride in your appearance: cut your hair – or at least wash it, trim your facial hair (if you’ve got it), wash your clothes, and for the love of Pete, bathe properly. Brush your teeth. Wear clothes that fit. Limit your tattoos and your piercings. You’re not a kid anymore, start looking like an adult.
6. Rudeness to strangers. I was going to put “lousy customer service” here, but it goes farther than that. When you make eye contact with someone – anyone – shoot them a quick smile, a nod, or even a “Hi”. It makes their day pleasant, and it makes your day a little more pleasant too.
7. Texting language. Too many abbreviations. I’ll tell you right now, I judge your intellect based on your online behavior. You are in front of a full keyboard, and you must have taken some sort of typing class (and spelling classes) in your lifetime. Spell out the words and use proper grammar already.
8. Getting drunk every time you touch a beer (or drink). Some of the best times I’ve had with my best buddy is when we go out to a bar, have two good beers, and then call it a night. What is this fascination with getting ripped every night? You feel like garbage in the morning, you look like garbage in the morning, and you lose a crapload of money that you could have spent on something more important. It’s stupid. Have a little respect for yourself and know when to quit.
9. Escaping reality. From spending hours upon hours playing video games to smoking weed or the aforementioned getting plastered all the time, what are you running from? Live life. Put your money towards reality. If you are just looking for an escape, try looking for a real escape – identify the problems in your life and the steps you can take to change them. It’s in your hands, not anyone else’s.
10. “Reality” TV. The bulk of reality shows on television are heavily edited and acted to manipulate your emotions. Instead of watching the trials and tribulations of somebody else and their personal lives, get your butt off the couch and go have some experiences of your own. You know why executives put these shows on TV? They’re cheap. That’s it. They’re cheap, and they know that a bunch of lazy people will sit around and watch it, crying or getting upset, while they rake in the cash.
“Did you see what happened last night on ‘America’s Fattest Fatties’? A 900-pound woman lost a pound and a half and then cried for 20 minutes!”
11. Whining. Take a strong look at how much of your day you spend complaining. Do you forward a bunch of emails that tend to start with “I can’t believe Bush/Obama/Palin did [insert something horrible here]…” Is it important to remain informed and educated about the goings-on of the world? Absolutely. It’s your duty to. But stop spending so much time telling others about how much it bugs you. Have something else to talk about.
12. The personal lives and political leanings of celebrities. Alec Baldwin and George Clooney are rabid Democrats. I’m a conservative man. And guess what? I still think Baldwin’s hilarious (even though I don’t care for 30 Rock) and I want to see The Men Who Stare At Goats. Their personal lives have no effect on me. I have my own life. Those guys exist to entertain me. That’s their job, regardless of what they think. Remember Jon and Kate Gosselin? I don’t care that they’re divorced. It doesn’t change anything for me. And guess what? It really doesn’t change anything for you either.
13. Your sense of entitlement. I learned something a long, long time ago: I don’t deserve crap. I ran a marketing business for two years, but I don’t deserve more clients or a good position at a marketing firm somewhere. I have a college degree, but that doesn’t give me the right to a job. I’ve put up with a lot of hardships in my life and made a lot of sacrifices, but that doesn’t mean I deserve a good life now. I have to work at it. You only get somewhere in life by the sweat of your brow. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and learn from your experiences. That will make you infinitely more dangerous, and you will ultimately succeed.
14. The “I can’t live without my ________” attitude. Yes, you can. Sorry, iPod lovers. There was actually a time when you didn’t have access to all of your music at all times. You had to walk down the street and listen to – *gasp* – nothing! And all you DVR-addicts, you used to have to set a VCR, or even watch it LIVE! Bathroom breaks only during commercials? Oh, the horror! And take care of yourself by eating right and exercising, and you’ll have more energy that you can fit into that “must-have” morning cup of coffee.
15. Accepting your lot in life. You don’t deserve better, but you can certainly have better. But it’s up to you. It ain’t gonna fall in your lap.
16. Constant cursing. Curse words exist for impact. A well-placed one can stop a conversation dead in its tracks. That’s what they’re there for. Censor yourself and use it only when necessary. Not only that, have some respect for the people around you. Not everybody wants to hear your barrage of filth. And hey, since when did “free speech” turn into the right to be a jackass to everybody around you? And yes, I’m aware of what word I just used.
17. Cheap beer. Busch Light, Natty Light, Milwaukee’s Best, and God help me, Pabst Blue Ribbon. Have some respect for yourself and your liver. Put something quality in there. Find some awesome local brews in your area. Yeah, it’ll cost a couple more bucks, but you’ll be drinking with a little more dignity (and besides, remember #8? It’s not like you’ll be drinking 18 of them anyway!).
18. Paper. I’m a strong advocate for paperless offices, and it’s not because it’s better for the environment or anything. It’s because it works better, it’s more secure, and it’s more organized. People complain about the reliability of computers and networks, but that’s because they haven’t taken the proper steps to secure them. Using Evernote in your every day life and combining it with the myriad of services that Google offers, and you have nothing to worry about, whether you are online or offline.
19. The “everybody is right” philosophy. If everybody is right, then nobody is right. There’s a strong movement in this world that you need to believe that everyone’s religious beliefs are right for them. You know what that means? That means that it doesn’t matter, and we’re all screwed. I’m a Christian. It is my fundamental belief that a lot of people’s beliefs are wrong. Guess what? That’s okay. That’s what gives my faith meaning – if I’m right, certain people in this world have to be wrong. That doesn’t mean you are better than them. It just means you are putting stock in something. Along those same lines…
20. Blind faith. A lot of fundamental Christians believe in God because they were raised that way. They don’t have a single intelligent argument for anybody else’s belief systems. They just rely on the “you’re going to hell” argument. If you’ve got faith in something, take time every day to continually educate yourself on that faith and the beliefs of others. Intelligent debate still exists, it’s just that people don’t take the time to do it anymore. Don’t just fall into insults (like many commenters on this post will undoubtedly do).
21. Money as a status symbol. You are not your stuff. You are what you do. You are what you believe. You are what people perceive you to be. Instead of spending all that energy on accumulating more crap, work on how you treat your fellow man/woman. Focus on doing things for your loved ones and show that you appreciate them. Have some pride in whatever work you do. Respect yourself and the world around you. That’s the key to being well-liked and respected. Give and you shall receive.
Those are all the ones I came up with. What stuff in this world do you think needs to go? Share them with us in the comments! Let’s talk!
I heard about Clicker through a different blog (which I wish I remembered) that was discussing the ever-growing library of online content for everybody to enjoy. After all, there are tons of sites out there that are streaming television shows, full movies, music videos, and original web shows. The sheer volume of content is remarkable, and none of us have been able to truly see the scope of it.
Enter Clicker. Clicker pulls in all that content into one place for your viewing pleasure. This takes out all the surfing, all the searching, and all the hassle associated with finding good online content. Here’s how they describe it:
Clicker is the complete guide to Internet Television. Our mission is to make it simple for you to find the right show, right now. As massive amounts of programming move online, consumers entering a world of infinite choices, all on-demand. Great! Finding the show you want to watch? Painful. Thousands of episodes from thousands of shows are housed on thousands of different sites, mixed among billions of random clips and videos. Clicker catalogs all broadcast programming online, along with TV-quality Web originals, from these silos and delivers them in one seamless, organized experience so you can easily discover what’s available to watch (and what isn’t) online, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching.
Clicker is the complete guide to Internet Television. Our mission is to make it simple for you to find the right show, right now.
As massive amounts of programming move online, consumers entering a world of infinite choices, all on-demand. Great! Finding the show you want to watch? Painful. Thousands of episodes from thousands of shows are housed on thousands of different sites, mixed among billions of random clips and videos.
Clicker catalogs all broadcast programming online, along with TV-quality Web originals, from these silos and delivers them in one seamless, organized experience so you can easily discover what’s available to watch (and what isn’t) online, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching.
Pretty cool, huh? I was fortunate enough to get an invite to start using Clicker, and I am very pleasantly surprised. The site is very easy to use, and it has links to everything from the latest TV shows, to classic shows and movies (even organized by decade!), to documentary features.
To the left, you’ll see just one of the places you can search through the content. There’s also a search box, and various ways to break down the shows and movies by category.
The other great thing about Clicker is that it eliminates that conscience factor. Streaming video online sometimes can fall into a pretty grey area when it comes to legality. While sites like Surf The Channel can help you find almost everything, much of it is technically illegal to be on there, and limited in how much time you can spend watching it (not to mention varying in quality). Clicker only aggregates the official streams, from network websites, Hulu, and a host of others. That means that not only are you getting the highest-quality videos that are available, you are also getting 100% legal content.
Clicker is currently invite-only, so you’ll have to sign up with your email address and then wait for them to get back to you.
But WAIT: We’ve got FIVE Clicker invites to give away, FOR FREE! Just click here to IMMEDIATELY sign up and start using Clicker! It’s a slick service, and it’s one more step towards creating a world full of all on-demand content (the way it should be!). There are only five invites available through that link, so if you use that link and sign up, leave a comment letting us know.
If you don’t get there in time, sign up for an invite to be emailed to you anyway. It will be worth it. Clicker is aiming to be the one-stop shop for your streaming video needs, and so far it deserves a giant thumbs-up from me!
(Note: This was the only picture I found that could accurately express “bloated software”. I hate these commercials.)
One of the hallmarks of being a Practical Nerd is the ability to legally get the most functionality out of your computer without having to pay an arm and a leg. But there are so many people I talk to out there that have no clue about most of these options. Therefore, I am begging you to share this article with everyone you know! It needs to be spread around. There are a few great benefits that come with using these Practical Nerd Alternatives:
Cooler People: Microsoft Office.
Practical Nerds: Open Office, or Google Documents.
Why?: Microsoft Office is the standard-bearer in office products. Everybody has them, and they do fine work. But in 2007, Microsoft Office started messing around with what worked – they added a “ribbon” interface at the top, which looked really cool. The problem is, people who start using it have NO idea how to find anything! In addition, we all know Microsoft Office is freaking expensive. According to Microsoft’s web site, the retail price for Microsoft Office Standard is $399.95! Yup, and this is a suite of programs that does NOT come with Windows.
Open Office replaces your Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint, while also having a handful of programs of their own. Functionality is simple, but loaded with plenty of features. You can use it to open Office documents – even those created in Office 2007, which Office 2003 can NOT do – and save in those same formats. So, if you need to swap files back and forth with someone using Office, there’s no problem!
Google Documents is a suite of office products online – you do all your work in a web browser. Google Docs is much simpler than Open Office, but still has a host of features that make it comparable for most word processing and spreadsheet needs. It also has the ability to create forms that will then supply data for a spreadsheet automatically, and it has Presentation, which replaces your PowerPoint. All files are hosted online, so it is an automatic backup solution as well. Like Open Office, Google Docs also handles all Office files as well.
Cooler People: Internet Explorer.
Practical Nerds: Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.
Why?: Internet Explorer is junk. It takes up way too much resources and slows your computer down. Most of IE’s features over the last few years have been in response to other web browsers’ features that have proven to be very popular.
I’m a Firefox man, and I’m proud of it. You can customize Firefox to handle all of your web browsing needs and then some. It is a powerhouse, and it has a wizard on its official website to walk you through customizing it to your liking.
Google Chrome is a new kid here on the market, and I know plenty of people who really enjoy it. If a web site causes Chrome to crash, it only crashes the open tab, not the entire browser. It is also simple and clean, allowing you to fill the page with websites rather than toolbars.
Cooler People: Symantec, Norton.
Practical Nerds: AVG, Avira Antivirus, Avast!, Panda Cloud Antivirus
Why?: Because antivirus protection should be free. If you are paying for antivirus protection, it is an absolute waste of your money. Use any of the free solutions above and you will be more than protected. Plus, check out The Practical Nerd’s hands-on review of Panda Cloud Antivirus.
Cooler People: Adobe Photoshop.
Practical Nerds: GIMP.
Why?: Photoshop has become the Kleenex of photo manipulation. If somebody has edited a photo, we say they “Photoshopped” it. It is the biggest thing going – and it costs $699. GIMP is free, and it is powerful. It does just about anything the average person would need. If you are used to Photoshop, try GIMPshop, which is a version of GIMP designed to function very similarly to Photoshop for an easy transition.
Cooler People: Microsoft OneNote.
Practical Nerds: Evernote.
Why?: OneNote is a powerful program and is a great way to hold all your notes – but it costs $99.95. In my experience with OneNote, backing up your notebooks is a big hassle: when I did, in fact, backup my system before I reinstalled Windows, I could not restore my OneNote backup for anything, and there is very little information online to help out with that. So I lost my notes anyway.
Evernote has both a desktop client and an online note-taking platform for you. They sync automatically, so your notes are always backed up and accessible anywhere. Evernote has plenty of great features, and yes, it is free.
Cooler People: Nero or Roxio.
Practical Nerds: DVDStyler and CDBurnerXP.
Why?: How lame is it that you have to spend a couple hundred bucks on software to use something that came with your computer? Why is this not integrated with any software that comes with your computer? CDBurnerXP handles any CD or DVD burning that you want to throw at it. Want cool menus on your DVD? Use DVDStyler. They are both dead-simple to use and make burning any discs a snap.
Cooler People: Windows Media Player.
Practical Nerds: KMPlayer.
Why?: KMPlayer is my newest discovery, and it might be my favorite. Windows Media Player, while free, is fairly confusing to the average user. If you don’t have the right codecs or something is goofy, it won’t play your video. KMPlayer comes with every codec under the sun, and it plays music, movie files, DVDs, VCDs, you name it – “out of the box”, meaning it just works. Install it and then just use it. It’s slick-looking, and it can handle whatever you want to throw at it. Many people online will tell you to use VLC Player for this, but I find VLC to be just a bit confusing for the average user, and it did not always work properly on my XP machine. KMPlayer does, every time.
Cooler People: Microsoft Outlook.
Practical Nerds: Gmail and Google Calendar.
Why?: Outlook is also in the Microsoft Office suite, meaning we’re already talking about paying hundreds of dollars just to use it. Gmail allows you to organize all of your email accounts in one place, enables you to search deeply through all of your emails, and you can download a notifier to sit in your system tray to let you know when you have new mail, just like Outlook. Plus, Gmail stores everything online, so you free up a LARGE amount of space on your computer! Gmail also has a new feature called Gmail Offline, which allows you to work on your email offline and sync it up with your Gmail account when you restore internet access. It’s all free, and there are more features than I can even talk about here – I plan to put together a user’s guide to Gmail in the near future.
Google Calendar allows any type of color-coding, will automatically email or text you reminders of events (if you want it to), imports any number of calendars, and you can even share calendars with other people (handy for families that need to work off of one calendar). And like Gmail, Google Calendar stores everything online, which means it is accessible anywhere.
Cooler People: Microsoft Money, or Quicken.
Practical Nerds: Spreadsheets (both Open Office and Google Docs have checkbook templates online), Mint, Thrive, ClearCheckbook, many others.
Why?: Is it ironic that money management programs cost so much? Microsoft Money costs $59.99, and it has a ridiculous number of features that nobody is ever going to use. Quicken is $39.99 and is pretty much the same. Also, a new version comes out for both and you are stuck with outdated software.
One of my more anticipated posts in the next week or so will be how to manage your money for free and get all the functionality you would use out of Money or Quicken. By combining a spreadsheet with an online account aggregator like Mint or Thrive, you get all the reports you need, plus extra (and useful!) features that only online offerings present. But in brief, spreadsheets allow a neat, safe way to track your expenses while the program does the math for you. Plus, it saves paper, if you are into that sort of thing.
Whew! That’s a lot of different options! But as you can see, mainstream, well-known programs are not always the best options for you. You’ve just been using them because everyone else has. Now you can drop those bulky programs and still do everything you are used to doing! Do you disagree with any of these choices? Do you use a different option not listed here? Sound off in the comments! Let’s hear it!
Besides having the funniest website tagline on the internet, CRACKED.com is one of my daily visits for that “just-barely-safe-for-work” humor. The language gets a little strong, which generally isn’t my cup of tea, but the content is even stronger on most days. It’s a great place to grab a few laughs. Let’s start off your workweek with 7 Clearly Fake News Stories That Fooled Mainstream Media. My favorite? The “study” that found George W. Bush had the lowest I.Q. among Presidents of the last 50 years. Don’t get me wrong, I was completely annoyed with articles like that, but CRACKED shows another reason why I love them by stating that, yes, there are plenty of pictures on the internet of ol’ Bush looking retarded, the media jumped on it just because they loved making him look bad (they call it the “Beat Up Bush” bandwagon – so true).
Proving that The Guardian newspaper and Doonesbury cartoonist, Gary Trudeau treat email forwards with the same level of skepticism as your mom, both picked up the story and ran with it. Had they bothered to check the source of the email, they would have traced it back to the reputable news source linkydinky.com, and the original press release, which claimed that Dr. Lovenstein "lives in a mobile home in Scranton, Pennsylvania running an Internet business called www.collegedegreesforsale.com.
The list is basic proof as to why I’ve learned to really not pay attention to the mainstream media anymore. They’re all idiots. Get your news from FARK.com or something.
