Unplugging From Technology to Take a Breather

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I recently saw an infographic in this article, “6 Myths of Social Sharing” by John Koetsier (@johnkoetsier) in my Twitter feed and I found a very interesting myth debunked.  Before I started posting more frequently on Twitter and was focusing more on my Facebook social media efforts, I operated under the assumption that people were more active on social media on the weekends.  The assumption being that people frequented Facebook more during their free time.  At the time all of the social media princesses, gurus and ninjas hailed this to be true and it probably was then.  Times have changed and apparently this is no longer true.

According to this infographic/article, 49% of people engage with shared content during the weekday.  When I really think about it, I myself fall into that 49%.  My weekdays are full of work, which is on a computer; marketing myself in the digital realm online; and an obsessive habit of checking my phone or tablet to make sure I have not missed an important email or some other notification.  I seem to have an endless stream of chimes, dings and chirps sounding off at my desk all week long.  When the weekend comes, I try to turn it all off.  I truly need a break breather to stay sane agreeable.

Not only have I been unplugging during the weekends, but I have also found myself spending a couple of evenings during the weekday to unplug, listen to music and do nothing at all.  I will not even watch television and the only sound is of my music choice for the evening.  I think we are becoming so bombarded with noise in the form of technology that people are choosing to take time to take a break from it.  You can be in the moment with constant updates on social media, content streaming, etc, but I do not think we can also be in the “physical” moment at the same time.  I think that is what people are yearning for, leading them to take a bit of time off to unplug.  I know that plays a role in why I do it.

Are you a part of the 49% of people that engage more with shared content during the weekday?  Do you take time off on the weekends to unplug?  How do you spend that time?  Share in the comments section!

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The Reason Why Your Social Media Sales Pitch Never Had a Chance

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A lot of us digital marketers use social media as a means to market, generate leads, network, advertise, etc. I lump myself into this because although digital marketing services are not what I am selling, I use digital marketing as a way to grow my business. Everyone has a different strategy for how they approach these channels and what they use them for. For me, Twitter is my online version of attending a networking event or group. It is my professional water cooler break and happy hour. It is where I go to rub shoulders with other business professionals within my industry and outside of it. Recently, I have been noticing more and more overly aggressive or too eager salesmen types at the water cooler.

You know the type, in real life they come across as pushy, pseudo genuine and somewhat too invasive. You can feel the sales pitch in every carefully crafted phrase and question. I often find myself thinking, “You’re not really interested in what I am saying. You are just looking for the golden nugget you can spin into your sales pitch.” Well, they exist in the digital realm too. They are lurking around the water cooler and hanging out at happy hour behind their keyboards. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against salespeople in general, but I do against those that make me feel like I am being sold to.

If You Are An Online Salesman, Do NOT Do The Following:

Do not use a “canned” direct message/private message like, “It’s great to connect with you here – do you use social media for business or pleasure?”Your mentor, social media guru that you follow, etc may have told you this was a great way to get the conversation started and that you could also automate a task to send this response, but it sucks. Why does it suck? Because a quick glance through the person’s timeline/posts and a read through their bio would give you this answer. It is a task that would take about 5 to 10 minutes and is a red flag to me that you are not really interested in having a conversation with me. I’m just a “potential” buyer that you do not care enough about to answer your own question before approaching me. Also, if the person you are asking is following more than a few hundred people and has a similar number or higher of followers, they have probably already received that same exact message verbatim before.

Do not ask personal or invasive questions in a public setting. If their answer might not be something they would want to shout across a crowded room, do not ask it in a crowd. Take the conversation private and use direct messaging (Twitter) or some other private messaging channel. If that line of questioning is what you typically start with straight out of the gate, stop. You are a stranger; a stranger behind an avatar with a keyboard. It’s creepy; like pedophile in a van hanging out at a playground creepy. Talk to them first, without an obvious angle or spin involved. Make them feel comfortable with you. It’s kind of like being on a first date. It may take a little more work and effort, but it’s more likely to turn into an actual lead, sale or referral. That’s much better than a “block.”

If you want to appear genuine, do not ask questions that can be answered in their bio. It will be obvious that you did not read it. For instance, do not ask someone what their occupation is if that is the first thing they disclose in their bio. If they list a website, visit it. Find out a little background information about them so that you can intelligently engage with them. They will respect that you took the time to do so and will be more open and willing to listen to what you really want to tell them. This will also keep you from trying to pitch someone that would be an utter waste of your time because a) they have no use for your product/service or b) are selling what you are selling. Time is money; why waste it?

I admire and respect those that can sell something to me before I realize that is what is happening. I also respect those that have enough respect to make me feel like they are being genuine with their words. The key word today is “relationship.” It is important to try to build a relationship, even if it is short, with someone. Online we are avatars, logos and profile pictures attached to a keyboard. To be successful marketing and selling online, you have to humanize it. Engage. Build a relationship. Do the very basics of research…like reading a person’s short profile/bio. If you cannot do that, you should not be selling online…or do not expect a lot of success.

Have you received that same exact “canned” message as a lead-in to a sales pitch before? How did it make you feel?

 

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“Reasonable” Usually Means “Unreasonable”

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This is a bit of a vent…

rea•son•able  adjective \ˈrēz-nə-bəl, ˈrē-zən-ə-bəl\ a :  being in accordance with reason <a reasonable theory>

b :  not extreme or excessive <reasonable requests>

c :  moderate, fair <a reasonable chance> <a reasonable price>

d :  inexpensive

According to Merriam-Webster, that is the definition of reasonable.  However, in the business world it seems to meet this definition:

un•rea•son•able adjective \-ˈrēz-nə-bəl, -ˈrē-zən-ə-bəl\

: not fair, sensible, or appropriate : not reasonable

a :  not governed by or acting according to reason<unreasonable people>

b :  not conformable to reason :  absurd <unreasonable beliefs>

:  exceeding the bounds of reason or moderation <working under unreasonable pressure>

For example, when someone says that they are looking for ABC service at a reasonable price, it usually means at an absurdly low price or free.  I understand that a reasonable price is relative to what that person perceives the cost should be, but it seems that most people that use the word “reasonable” perceive the cost to be well below industry standards.  In my personal experience, it seems to be the perceived cost is low because a) the person does not see the value in the service to begin with; or b) they do not understand the amount of effort, time and energy that may be put into such a project to achieve their desired result.  Either way, when someone uses the word reasonable when inquiring about my services, a red flag is waved.  More than likely, they have received other quotes and did not like the pricing or did not feel them to be reasonable.

Time constraints seem to be another area I often hear the word reasonable used.  For example, someone needs a project/service completed in a reasonable amount of time.  Usually this tends to mean an unreasonably short amount of time.  Sometimes the offender is the service provider with an unreasonably long amount of time to complete the project.  Again, I understand that perception may play a large role in what someone deems to be reasonable or unreasonable, but I have to believe that deep down they know it may be a bit absurd.

Have you had a similar experience with the use of the word “reasonable?”

 

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Why You Should Not Design Your Logo in Photoshop

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Spoiler Alert:  Adobe Photoshop is not the end all, be all of design.  It is not the only design software on the planet and as a designer; I am telling you that any designer worth their salt does not only use Photoshop.  Each of the different software programs that Adobe makes is a “tool” used in the creation and design of print graphics, digital design graphics, motion graphics, etc.  Depending on what I am designing, I may use three different programs in conjunction with each other to make the final product.  Each one has specific strengths and specific weaknesses that make it a good candidate for certain types of design and functions.

Photoshop is not a good candidate for creating a logo.  If you are a new start-up, entrepreneur, small business owner, etc and you want to create your logo yourself, do not use Photoshop.  You will be doing yourself a disservice.  I am a strong advocate for having a logo professionally developed and designed, not just because I am a designer, but also because I see it as an investment for your business.  I feel that it hurts a business more than it helps, to try to create one on their own.  I understand that in the short term, it is a cost savings option, but in the long term, it can hurt your brand and end up costing you further down the line.

If you must create it yourself, use a vector based design program like Adobe Illustrator.  Do not use Adobe Photoshop, MS Paint, MS PowerPoint, MS Publisher or MS Word.  You are probably thinking that you will design something quick to use in the short term and then later down the line, when you have more money, you will hire someone to “clean it up.”  You probably also think that it will not cost too much money or will be a simple job to “clean up” your design.  If the logo you are furnishing to the designer for clean up, is not a vector graphic; they will have to redraw/recreate your logo first, before they can do anything to modify it.  Opening a jpeg, gif or bitmap file in a vector program and saving it as an .eps file will not make it a vector graphic.  You have the right file type, but the image, is still an image.

Image files are raster-based files that are made up of pixels.  Pixels are tiny squares that make up the image you see on screen.  Certain image file types are even designed to “knock out” some of these pixels to make the file size smaller and render a visual faster (low resolution vs. high resolution).  Photoshop is a raster program whose strength is image manipulation and screen ready graphics.  It has a few other strengths, but image manipulation is a large one.  It’s where the term “Photoshopped” comes from as it pertains to magazine covers, duped images, etc.  Your source logo file should not be an image or image file.

Vector graphics are made up of lines and points.  Those lines and points create shapes with fills.  Think along the lines of geometry.  Even the fonts are turned into shapes with lines and fills for each letter in the final file output for a logo.  With a vector graphic, you can scale it as large or as small as you want without suffering any quality loss.  You cannot do that with a raster image.  With a vector graphic, you can output as a raster image.  If you try to use Photoshop to create a vector version of a raster image, it will look like crap.  Trust me.  You can easily change the colors of an element within your logo graphic with a vector graphic.  You may need to do some bootlegging to do the same thing in Photoshop with a raster image.

You may also run into problems later down the line when using vendors to create packaging, embroidered items, etc. because they will not accept anything other than a vector file for your logo.

In the end, you will probably spend more money later to “fix things” than you would upfront to have it created.  I often feel that it would be of more value to spend the money to have a logo created to be a good fit for the brand, it’s industry and it’s demographic/target audience; than to fix something that the owner previously created when they first started out.  They end up spending almost as much money for me to recreate and then fix, refine and clean up.  So if you must create a logo yourself, you can save a little money later, if you do not use Photoshop.  Use a vector program instead like Adobe Illustrator, to create the first iteration of your logo.

Are You Being Left Behind?

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I’m going to answer the title of this post’s question for you; no you are not being left behind.  At least not left behind in the way that many small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs are.  The fact that you are reading this post tells me that.  You at least know how to use the internet, a computer or a mobile device and perhaps social media well enough that you found this post.  You are at least trying not to be left behind.

It boggles my mind that people still put such low stock into the power of digital marketing.  At this point, it just does not make sense to me that people still do not see the value in mobile media, social media, content creation (infographics, blogs, etc) and other forms of digital marketing.  I feel it’s more of a stubbornness to take the time to investigate and learn or just a fear of “the unknown,” like outer space.  It brings to mind the stories you hear about how Steve Job’s personal computer was scoffed at or how people didn’t want to give up typewriters and learn how to use a computer.

The technology train is ever moving and finding new routes.  If you do not get on the train, you will get left behind and there may not be any more stops left to board.  Even large brands are wholeheartedly embracing digital marketing and helping to expand the scope and possibilities of that marketing sphere.  If you want to compete, you cannot stay stuck in old traditional methods.  I’m not saying that they do not work or have any value, but learn to adapt and apply them to fit today’s techniques and platforms.

Being stubborn and not attempting to learn and try, is doing you a disservice.  Yes, you may be making money and doing ok, but why not do better?  If there were a way to broaden your scope, reach more people, and bring in more revenue, just by learning something new; why wouldn’t you do it?  Do you want to settle for mediocre, or be great?  Give your business the best chance possible to succeed and get on the train before it’s too late.  Typewriters…

 

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