Does that mean I am not cutting edge, probably! It also means that I don’t need to stroke my ego….or some BS like that. I often say, or think, there’s a blog post in there but that is generally the end of my efforts.

I wish I could say 2012 will bring major changes in my blogging about social media. I wish I could, but probably I’ll stumble a topic occasionally and will be motivated to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and share.

Today I feel that motivation. You see, I posted to twitter about my lunch today. It was a silly tweet and information I normally wouldn’t tweet. However, today I tweeted this:

A short time later I received this reply:

Had I known Guy, or had any prior contact with him this might have been a welcome and enlightening response. If I had asked for a recipe I would have been delighted; however, because I do not know him and was / am not in the market to change my chicken stew preferences (as an FYI his stew recipe looked NASTY to me) it was an insulting and spammy response.

How are you using your social media powers? Are you spamming? Or are you offering good and useful information? Are you being a bully with your information and trying to ram it down others throats? Or are you being approachable and interesting?

In 2012 I am reassessing my use of social media and suggesting that the time may be right for us all to look at what we do and how we do it on our social media interactions.

I have kept Charter as my Internet Service Provider for one reason, the twitter support was AMAZING! The guys (haven’t encountered a woman yet) who provide tech supports via twitter are awesome! They have fixed many a problem for me and I appreciate their abilities and their follow-up and follow through.

Over the past few months it had become clear that virtual support was not enough to fix my service. I needed a tech on the ground at ground zero (AKA my office). I set the appointment via twitter for Friday afternoon between 1-3pm. I received a call at 12:45 on Friday confirming my appointment.  At 3:15 I tweeted my frustration at the lack of attendance by the tech:

The response I received shocked me:

The moral of the story is Social Media can help you find customers, it can help you maintain and retain customers, BUT ultimately a company MUST be able to backup their Social Media efforts with true product and service.

Charter lost me as a customer because their service did not live up to their social media. Do your social media efforts match your product or service?

I for one, rarely watch television news. I don’t need to; it is all available via twitter. If I am looking for a hair cut, I ask on twitter. I have discovered some of my favorite restaurants via twitter. The list of uses for twitter is endless.

I have a great many interests and twitter allows me to follow all my favorites, in real time. From the tour de France to my beloved Cubs, I receive the up to the minute information. I also receive the best and fastest tech support from my internet provider via twitter.

While only 7% of Americans are using it, the Twitter population is still 17 million people, which is roughly equivalent to the combined populations of Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma. 49% of monthly Twitter users follow brands or companies, compared to just 16% of social network users overall. Put another way, Twitter users are 3 times more likely to follow brands than Facebook users. Combined with their above average income and above average education, Twitter users’ propensity to interact with brands make them a huge potential source for Mass Influencers.

The biggest advantage I find with twitter is that it is mobile. I may not check my Facebook via my phone. A poll of my friends says that Facebook users are not following businesses via SMS. However, 63% of Twitter users access social networks via mobile phone, compared to 34% of social networkers as a whole.

Twitter is a business tool you can’t afford to leave in the tool box.

Social media is no different. There are those business people for whom it is a one-way conversation. Every message they present is a commercial for their product or service. Social media for these people is a chore but they have been told that ‘it will sell their product” therefore they dutifully post the same information over and over. The beauty of social media is that disengaging is so much easier. A single click of a button and you have unfollowed or unfriended or simply blocked the content from your feed without the other person knowing you have moved beyond earshot.

Conversation is a two-way street. A good conversation has give and take; it may ebb and flow, but it always has multiple participants (aside from those of us who oft speak to ourselves). If one party is dominating the content then one side or the other will eventually disengaged.

Want to be successful in social media, loosen up, relax, have fun and have conversation. Be yourself! If you are engaged, your message will follow and the people you want to meet will seek you.

Do not get me wrong, if your twitter account is for you in your personal life then feel free to avoid response. However, if you have put your business out on twitter then you have an obligation to respond. I am not saying you need to be available 24/7.  Rather, that a direct question / inquiry deserves a direct response / acknowledgement.

If you use twitter to promote your business, why not go the extra step and use twitter to enhance your customer service. You clientele will appreciate the interaction. Try it.