Welcome to Shy Social Butterfly, a blog about all things social media. Yes, I am an introvert, and no, I’m not an expert. But I’m fascinated by the way social technologies make meaningful connections between people around the globe. I see the potential for cosmic consciousness in a webcast, and I believe a brilliantly executed social marketing campaign can change the world.
I also know that expertise in social media comes only through participation. And you can’t participate in social media without racking up a few failures. So, I’d like to start Shy Social Butterfly by confessing my most royal failures in the social media world.
- I started a Facebook group instead of a Facebook page for my organization. I had no idea what I was doing when a group of students in my organization started begging for a Facebook presence. In response, I proceeded to make an individual profile in the name of my organization in order to start a group. One year later, I realized a Facebook page is drastically superior to a Facebook group. Consequently, I had to message hundreds of organization friends and ask them to become organization fans of the newly created organization page. It was a good move. We now have thousands of fans.
- I wrote sample organization blog posts in third person and proceeded to compose live blog posts in first person. Big woops. When launching a blog, be sure to write sample posts that truly reflect how you plan to write.
- I took successes and failures personally. When the company Facebook page took off with interactive fans, my first thought was , “Wow, look what I did!” When members began to express dissatisfaction with the company blog, I thought, “They hate me.” In reality, I am neither a super hero nor a big fat looser. I’m just doing my job to the best of my ability.
So there you have it—my biggest most embarrassing social media flub-ups. Anybody else have a few to share?
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Great blog! I can raise my hand high for #3–taking successes and failures too personally! So much of social media is about either huge overblown success–everyone thinking you’re the greatest–or people having a vested interest in seeing you fail to prove themselves right that social media is just a stupid fad. Unfortunately, the bad stuff is most often the stuff that gets the most notice: if you write a blog post with an error of some kind, or just something that doesn’t sit right with some people, god help you. In my personal blogging life I’ve been slammed up one side of the street and down the other–everything from Washington Post readers starting a sidebar discussion about how I looked like a dumb blonde and was probably a cheerleader in highschool (I’m not kidding) to a super high-profile mommy blogger/PR person threatening to “escalate things” because she didn’t like the light in which I painted one of her posts. Oh, then there was the time when Chris Brogan took exception to a post I wrote about his Twitter style and drove thousands of people to my blog within a few hours–lots of “you’re an idiot”-ish comments that day.
All in a day’s (unpaid) work for a blogger, right?
Maybe that’s what’s so addictive about social media–the highs and lows that come with either being bashed or praised to the rooftops….usually for about one fleeting day, then the world moves on and it’s back to anonymity. I guess that’s the saving grace of social media–even when you make mistakes they’re pretty quickly forgotten about as someone else out there makes an even more entertaining mistake.
Wow, you’ve had some major roasting sessions! It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. People seem to have a larger capacity for meanness online than they do in offline life. BTW, I’m blonde and I was a cheerleader in high school. It’s not so bad.