Category: social media

Got a recommendation, let me say no thanks

I’m a sucker for a good recommendation. I like having recommended channels, people, things, etc. on the social networks. What they need, however, is a no thank you option to 1) hide that recommendation in the future and 2) learn from that choice. Facebook and LinkedIn can use this big time.

Here is some recommended channels on my YouTube page:

no-thanks

Let me say, “no thanks.” Then offer me up some more recommendations why don’t ya? As it is, there is a little x to remove the recommendation, but it’s just temporary. The same recommendations come back again and again.

Trader Joe’s Doing Well with No Social Media Whatsoever

Something kind of weird happened earlier this week. I happened to be thinking of healthy protein muffins. Since I’ve been exercising a lot more and watching what I’ve been eating, I thought these would be a good healthy and filling treat. What does this have to do with the blog title? Not much, yet.

Coincidentally I got a Trader Joe’s flyer (more like a mini newspaper) in the mail the other day. Lo and behold they sell protein muffins and they were on sale! Talk about relevant ads! What does this have to do with the blog title? Still not much, yet.

I know of a few locations around me, so I was set to go the next day to pick some up (with some other things that caught my eye). Before I did however, I decided to learn a little more about them in the social media space. Maybe look at (or ask) what people were saying about the muffins. What did I find? Crickets chirping.

Nothing. Nada. No twitter, no facebook, no blog. Nada.

Hmmm. This is odd. How can an eclectic trend-setting establishment have  zero presence in the social media space? A place like Trader Joe’s is a perfect fit for the kinds of fans social media attracts. Surely the social media “gurus” must be as perplexed as I am.

Still baffled today I did a little searching. It appears that they are very secretive. And also insanely successful.

I still went and bought the muffins. I suspect the lack of social media doesn’t hold any of their other customers back either.

It kind of makes you think. Really how important are twitter, facebook, etc?

Oh, by the way, I don’t recommend their protein power muffins. They are a lot smaller than I expected, and kind of gooey. I do recommend their jalapeño jack cheese though!

I do think brands can use social media to attract, engage, etc. I’ve become a fan of MMA and the UFC. Sports wise, there is no comparison to what they’ve been doing in social media. I love it. BUT, despite what the blog “gurus” are saying, sometimes there isn’t a perfect fit/niche/audience worth all the effort and sometimes brands can do ok without it.

Google Buzz Update

Just like I’ve flip flopped many times with Twitter, I have with Buzz too. This time I made a final decision. I’m finished with it. I did not like the UI one bit. I didn’t know anyone personally who used it. And it doesn’t look like the “active” user base is growing. Active meaning people who use it, not just stream other feeds into it.

I’ve “decommissioned” my Buzz profile. Unfollowed everyone, etc. It’s not for me. I would delete it entirely if it wasn’t tied directly to the Google Profile. I’d like to keep my Google Profile, so I’ll just keep a blank Buzz account open until they kill off Buzz like they did Wave.

Where I can, I’m trying to go to all of the social media, bookmarking, etc. sites that I’ve tried over the years to delete my account. Just kind of to clean up any outdated profiles of mine from the web. It seems only about half of sites allow you to delete a profile/service. So abandoned ones will always remain I guess.

Since I mentioned Twitter… I stopped trying to make it work for me, but also found probably one of it’s best uses. Niches. I’ve become more and more a fan of MMA, and since MMA isn’t mainstream, Twitter is a great source of information from the fighters and MMA news outlets. I’ve stopped following a lot of the “gurus” (social media, marketing, etc.) as Twitter became a forum for a lot of them to be too self-promotional. So now I follow a handful of friends and associates, some news sources, and good MMA sources.

Twitter Testing Suggested Users

Maybe I’m late with this. I just noticed on my personal account that twitter has a suggested user list. Looks to be based on who you follow and who they follow.

It must be a test because it’s not available on all my accounts. It’s no surprise that a lot of Buffalo Bills are suggested to me.

Here is the link:
https://twitter.com/invitations/twitter_suggests

twitter suggested users

Does Google “Get” Social

Orkut. Know it? Probably not. It’s Google’s version of Facebook.

Friend Connect. Know it? You may have seen it on a few sites. Do you remember what it was for? I run the http://nycbbb.com/ site, which should be a slam dunk for something like that. I had it on my site for almost a year, and got maybe 7 people to “join.” Then I couldn’t figure out how to leverage it even if more people joined. The only word I can think of to describe the feature is fractured. Compare that to nearly 600 people I got to become a fan of ours on Facebook–in a matter of weeks. Interacting with the fans on Facebook is easy.

Latitude. Does anyone use that for any real purpose? I sure don’t know anyone who even uses it at all. So I finally shut it off.

Buzz. Fitting name. Like an annoying fly it had proved to me to be highly annoying. I want it separate from e-mail all together. I really don’t think it’ll ever become popular like Facebook or Twitter.

I guess you have to be in it to win it so to speak. But Google hasn’t had any wins in the social space yet.