Archives for June 2012

Is There A Benefit To Paying for Facebook Fans For Your FB Fan Page?

June 14, 2012 by Jack Steiner 61 Comments

In a world in which larger numbers provide proof of authority and expertise I wonder if there is a benefit to paying for fans for your Facebook Fan page.

I posed a similar question earlier this year regarding whether people should pay for Twitter followers and the general consensus was that it shouldn’t be done.

There is no doubt in my mind that organic growth is far superior to paying for fans, followers, comments, likes and all things similar. Dig through this blog and you’ll find lots of commentary about why comments are not currency and support for building your community around you.

Read through the various posts and you’ll find more than a few posts in which I referred to Steve Jobs as Voldemort and talked about the Cult of Apple. Yet if I was going to search for an example of a community of fans and fanatics Apple would be at the top of the list.

Think about it. It is not hard to find computers, cellphones, tablets and MP3 players for less than what it would cost to purchase the corresponding Apple Product but the Cult of Apple doesn’t care.

That is because Apple has convinced them that price is not the factor to base their purchasing decisions upon. They aren’t the low priced leader and you won’t ever see them be.

In a perfect world our community would be populated by that same rabid support.Â The readers of this blog would tell their friends. family and colleagues that they HAVE to read this and that it is a mistake not to.

Building The Cult Of Jack

It could be fun to create my own cult. Hell, who doesn’t want minions and groupies. Minions and groupies are happy to do all the scut work and handle the chores you just don’t want to do, but I don’t see it happening. Nor do I really want it.

What I want is to build a bigger platform and to reach more people. What I want is to build a bigger community which leads me back to the initial question and more thinking out loud.

Is there a significant difference between advertising and paying for people. Would that provide a short cut to the top and or make it easier to break free of the noise? What is natural growth for a blog? What would happen if I spoke every month at various conferences about social media?

One could argue that the additional exposure and the inclusion as a speaker at a conference(s) might yield significant benefits and that I’d gain a lot of new readers/fans/followers that way. Of course I would still have to retain them, but let’s not get into details.

While some of this is clearly tongue-in-cheek I can’t help but wonder. Every where we look there are stories about this. Google Klout and see what you find. Read Mark Schaefer’s post about Klout scores and ask yourself what you would do if you saw an easy way to gain that exposure we were talking about.

Conclusions

Part of what I love about social media is that it affords the opportunity to experiment and to try things. That is what led me to Triberr andÂ it is going to continue to be part of what I do here.

I am going to keep poking, prodding, twisting and turning to see what happens. I might even try paying for those fans just to see what happens. There are multiple opportunities on Fiverr and I might give up my morning coffee and oatmeal to try it.

Will I feel slimy afterwards? Maybe or maybe not. I am experimenting and that requires taking some chances. Ultimately that won’t be what makes or breaks me. Content and people drive this corner of cyberspace. If I don’t provide content that makes you think/feel you won’t come back.

If I don’t work on building relationships with you it will make it that much harder to keep your attention.

So, what do you think about all this? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The Power Of Money- The End of The Innocence

June 14, 2012 by Jack Steiner 21 Comments

I stood inside the gym shooting baskets and listened to her giggle. She counted down 5…4…3…2…1 and then I launched a series of shots from all around the basket. She didn’t care whether they went in or not. Half the time she was barely paying attention but when she was she clapped and cheered for me and I smiled.

What can I say, my children make me smile. Sometimes they make me crazy, but most of the time they make me smile. They are a big part of why I do what I do and a central part of why I have been blogging for so many years. This joint is chock full of stories about them.

Last weekend we had a tea party for my daughter’s birthday party. She and a group of her friends went to town with this. I watched these little girls do their best to imitate their moms and big sisters. Dressed in hats they drank from real China tea cups, ate little sandwiches and engaged in girl talk. I don’t know everything they dicussed, but that is because I was told that boys had to leave the room.

As I walked away I heard them all giggling and I wondered what life would look like in about five or six years. A million different thoughts flashed through my mind and I remembered the 4.5 year-old version of my daughter asking me why Ken and Barbie didn’t look like real people.

I have that Tumbleweed Crossing feeling inside my head now. That is because today was the last day of school.

Big Changes

I am fairly certain that some big changes are about to take place for my family. My children have attended one school. They started there in preschool and then moved on up through the ranks. And now I look back at snapshots in time and remember what it was like the night before my son started kindergarten.

In a corner of the living room my father, grandfather and I shared stories about what school was like for us. The kindergarten classes of 1919, 1948 and 1974 recounted tales that in some ways will not be so different from the class of 2006.

Six years later the kindergarten class of 1919 is only remembered in spirit and the class of 2006 is entering middle school.

He is old enough now to ask more sophisticated questions about school and life in general. He wants me to explain the fundamental differences between schools so that he can determine whether he thinks a private school education is more valuable than public. He asks me if I ever regret not becoming a doctor or deciding not to go to law school.

That is because he views those professions as being ones that provide a healthy paycheck and he thinks that maybe money would help provide additional opportunities. I tell him that is right about some of it, money can provide additional opportunities but I remind him that there is more to life than money.

We are unlikely to ever be the poorest or the wealthiest family. We’ll end up somewhere in the middle. He nods his head and I know that he understands. I don’t have any doubts that he and his sister will adapt and thrive wherever they go next year.

It Is An Adventure

I tell the kids that life is an adventure and that it doesn’t have to make sense. We all have our filters that influence our experiences which is part of why I laugh when people say they are telling me like it is.

What that really means to me is making sure my children understand that when I refer to a question of dignity it is because I want them to treat people well and not like garbage. I want them to understand what it is like to be a good friend.

I don’t know if they realize how many different life experiences they have had. They have confronted death more than once and learned about letting go. I am working on making sure they learn to know their own worth because it is exceptionally important.

But I would be lying if I said that a partÂ of me wished that I could protect their innocence from some of these things just a little bit longer.

The Value of Fatherly Advice

June 13, 2012 by Jack Steiner 17 Comments

There are moments in time when no matter how old you are you find yourself reaching out to your parents for help.

“Dad, I need your help and I need it now. I am stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place and I am trying not not to make it worse.”

I was 37 when I made that call and I will always remember it because my dad listened and offered some advice.

“Get back in the car and drive.”

Those words caught me off guard.

“Is that the best you have got? It is a cliche, but I need your ‘A’ game dad. I need more. Can you help me?

He didn’t hesitate or apologize. He just said that sometimes there are no good answers and then he said good luck and hung up the phone.

It was another teaching moment but this time it wasn’t me trying to pass something along to my kids it was my father passing something along to me.

I am big on this kind of of stuff. I like asking questions like Am I The Father I Want To Be because it makes me a better person and because sometimes you encounter questions that don’t have easy answers.

Practical Advice

Even though I like getting lost in the theoretical I prefer practical advice that has an immediate application. It is part of why I enjoyÂ The Sunscreen Song (thank you Frank) which doles out all sorts of good advice that children and adults can benefit from.

You might not realize this but blogging provides multiple gifts. One of them is the opportunity to look back at moments in time and see just how much progress you have made as the practical advice you have offered.

It may seem self indulgent to say that or to link back to posts like I Am A Father & A Writer but there is a purpose. One day my children may read that post and wonder what I was talking about when I wrote:

“Three weeks ago I said that 2011 was a real motherfucker. I meant it then and I mean it now.”

If they don’t allow themselves to get stuck on that line they will see that I shared some other thoughts there that I think are of paramount importance:

Do the Work
Have Fun
Stop Trying So Hard

I didn’t list them in order of importance but if I did I would say Have Fun is the one that I focus on. Life is short and you need to remember that change isn’t coming it is happening now.

There is time to try different things so that you can figure out what makes your heart sing but there is no time to sit around and wait for good things to happen. You have to make them happen. When bad things happen and they will you can’t let it knock you in a rut forever. You can’t sit and wallow. You have to figure out what happened and then get back up.

Do the work refers to taking the time to figure out what it is you want to do and then taking the steps to make it happen. Stop trying so hard is a reminder that things don’t happen overnight. Sometimes you just have to stand up and walk for a while before you figure out what it is you really want. That is ok. You can’t force some things and believe me I have tried.

March To The Beat Of Your Own Drummer Even If He Has No Rhythm

You can blame Danny Brown for introducing me to Whyte and Mackay’s master blender, Richard Paterson. I haven’t yet tried any of their whiskey but I can promise you that I will. Watch the Father’s Day gift guide video and tell me that Paterson doesn’t do a great job of capturing your attention.

Wrapping It Up

That video caught my eye because Paterson understands how to tell a story that incorporates his passion and knowledge.Â But it is more than just that, he is fun and my perception/impression of the man is someone who has done the work to figure out what he likes to do and is having fun while doing it.

What do you think?

Those Three Words

June 11, 2012 by Jack Steiner 60 Comments

Field of Dreams

Men in their twenties don’t say I love you to male friends or at least we didn’t when I was in my twenties. It was a mistake but I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know it because when you are in your twenties you are invincible and you don’t worry about dying.

You don’t ever expect that one day you will stand under endless blue skies holding a shovel because you have to bury a friend who was more like a brother. It is not supposed to be like that and you never could have imagined that 14 years later you would remember it all so vividly.

It never occurs to you that you’ll wonder what happens after we die and ask yourself if he is watching over the six year-old boy who is buried near by. I didn’t know about that little boy until after ‘D’s funeral. I was lost that day and I didn’t pay attention to any of the graves, but I saw him later.

One day after my oldest was born I decided to go visit ‘D’ and tell him that I had become a father. I walked by the little guy’s grave and had to sit down. It was always tragic to me but I hadn’t ever thought about it as a father. This time it was different. This time I remembered the looks of horror on the faces of ‘D’s parent and the magnitude of it all hit me in a different way because I understood the responsibility parents feel regarding their children’s welfare.

Those Three Words

I don’t have many regrets but I wish that I had told ‘D’ that I loved him. I wish that he hadn’t hid the severity of his illness and that he would have let me help carry some of the load. I would have done it. He would have done it for me.

All these years later I don’t doubt that he knew it but there is something different about saying the words. I have thought about it quite a bit and I haven’t ever figured out why I didn’t say it other than I don’t share my feelings easily.

That might sound shocking to you, but if you are an old friend you’ll know that I am close lipped about many things.

My Uncle Jimmy died in ’94. Technically he died from pneumonia but it was AIDS that got him. I didn’t find out he was gay until I was a senior in high school. Funny thing is that it never was a secret, I was just oblivious. It didn’t change my feelings about him. He was my uncle and I loved him, but I didn’t say it to him either.

Hell, my father almost died eight years ago and we didn’t exchange those three words. We did when I was little but somewhere along the way it stopped and I am not sure why.

But if I have learned anything from these experiences it is that you shouldn’t wait to tell the people you love that you care about them. I have gotten better about it but I need to do more.

Eight years later I am carrying around some guilt because I don’t think dad is taking care of himself the way he should because he is worried about my sisters and I. I wasn’t going to say anything to him about it because I didn’t think he would change.

But I can’t do this any longer. I can’t not say anything. I am in a transitional phase but I am not worried about coming through it. I always get through and I will this time. I am concerned about my kids, but that is because it is what parents do. They will get through this time too and they will probably do better than all of us.

This time I am going to say something. I am going to pull out those three words. I should have told ‘D’ and I should have said it to Uncle Jimmy but I won’t miss the opportunity to say I love you to my father.

This post is part of Just Write #39 and Yeah Write #61.

Triberr, Twitter & Blogging

June 11, 2012 by Jack Steiner 39 Comments

Triberr is one of my favorite social media tools. Â I have been a part of it for close to 18 months now, give or take a few days and can say that it has been amazing. It has been exceptionally useful in providing introductions to some great people and it has enriched my blogging experience.

However a tool is only as good/useful as the person using it and I think that I have screwed it up a bit. Â Let me explain how and why.

The concept behind Triberr is that you build a tribe of like minded individuals and work together to promote each others posts. If you do it well you increase your reach exponentially and good things happen for everyone.

So now 18 months in I have a reach that exceeds a million people. Let me repeat that, my reach exceeds 1 million people. That is tremendous and would be truly remarkable if it worked that well. The thing is that I know it is not.

My traffic goes up each month and engagement in all areas has increased but I am not seeing the kind of results I could or should. I attribute that to a few things.

Â Twitter has turned into more of a broadcast channel than it used to be. It is harder to get attention there.
Not all of my posts are being tweeted.
I am part of the problem and I have solutions.

I’ll probably address this in more detail in a different post but here is the short version. Â Some of my tribes are too big and I don’t want to tweet everything that comes through my stream.

Not all of it is relevant to my readers.
I can’t do it without turning my Twitter stream into something that looks like I do nothing but broadcast. Lack of engagement kills your ability to be effective.

I am in the process of modifying how I use Triberr. I expect that when I finish making some of my changes it should have a very positive impact.

Blogging

Overall I am pleased with the move back to Livefyre but there are some hiccups that irk me. I don’t like how it failed to import some of my comments and I hate the way it duplicated others and that brings me a post I want to revisitÂ Your Perception of Me Is Not My Reality.

It is one of my favorites.

“If you ask my children they will tell you that I speak with them about perception. We talk about impressions and how they impact how others treat us. They know that I am relentless in teaching them to make decisions about others based upon actions. It is the only way to truly know who a person is.

But the contradiction of life is that sometimes you never get the chance to show others who you are because their perception prevents that experience from taking place.

It is not nice, it is not fair and it is not reasonable- but it is reality. And through the years it is going to be a recurring topic in some manner or another.

The one thing that I can tell the kids that has always worked for me is the reminder that â€œYour Perception of Me Is Not My Reality.â€ You can have your ideas, your thoughts and your beliefs about who you think I am. But those thoughts, beliefs and ideas donâ€™t have to limit or define who I am.”

I might have to incorporate pieces of that post into the one that I am going to write about Triberr. We shall see. In the interim I am going to work on making the changes I mentioned earlier.

The chance to experiment and shift gears mid stream is part of what I love about blogging. What about you?

What Does Your Blog Say About You?

June 10, 2012 by Jack Steiner 37 Comments

I make a point to review my “About Me” page quarterly. There is no science behind that number. It just made sense to me to check it on a semi regular basis to see if it tales the kind of tale I want it to tell.

Every so often I need to look at it and make sure that it is in sync with the goals I have in place. I take some time to read the description I wrote about myself and the blog and take a look at the posts I linked to.

There are 14 posts listed below. My stats show that my “About Me” page is among the most heavily trafficked pages on my blog. So I need to ask myself if the 14 posts below are telling a story that I still want told.

As the year goes by I try to make a point to note any posts that blow up. If I have something that is really popular be it comment and or pageviews Â I will often include it. But I also make a point to grab posts that I think are examples of my best writing.

So here I am, evaluating it all again. It is well after midnight so I am not going to make a decision about these links now or those that aren’t included, but I expect I will make a decision soon.

Are there posts that aren’t included here that you think should be?