From a traditional marketing/communications standpoint, that was a reasonable request, but as a participant in the social media world, I had to bang my head on the keyboard a few times before respectfully disagreeing. It doesn’t work that way. Plus it’s cumbersome to hunt down relevant, valid quotes from really cool people when you’re trying to publish a timely post.

Here’s how it works for me: When I write posts I’m always thinking of ways to plug ARCP, but I’m careful to do it in an authentic way. If it’s too obvious that I’m saying “ARCP is the greatest,” readers get turned off. There’s less tolerance for it in the blogosphere verses an ARCP publication or press release.

Also, by covering current events that people are talking about on blogs, twitter, facebook, etc., we show people what we’re interested in and we bring them to our blog to discuss it—which indirectly, but powerfully promotes ARCP. For example, we discuss Beyonce baby and an MSNBC blogger who also follows us on Twitter may see it and say, “wow, I didn’t realize ARCP had anything to do with cool kids. I thought they were only about cool adults.” When you think about it, it’s sort of like subliminal advertising.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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?