Thanks for Following--Will You Move With Me?

This blog has moved to www.cksyme.org (please click on link to see the new site)

Just a brief note to let you know that I am migrating the material from this blog to my new blog at http://www.cksyme.org/. Even though I am still an "old SID" in a sense, I have decided to take an adventure and leave college sports information. In the last year, my life has changed so that I am no longer able to put in the ungodly hours required of an SID. I am hesitant to leave--I feel I will always be an SID in my heart.

My new blog will have the same essential content as this blog did--updates on social media that pertain to college athletics with a twist of higher education as well. I will continue as a member of CoSIDA and continue to attend conventions. I still consider myself a communications associate, but now I am here to help you be the best you can be.

Thank you for following my blog and I am hoping you will go over to http://www.cksyme.com/ and become a follower there. You can still follow me on Twitter at "cksyme", and I will see you all at CoSIDA in June! God bless you, my friends.

You can find my new blog at http://www.cksyme.org/

Three Steps to Online House Cleaning

I don't clean--or at least I don't like to clean. One of the benefits of working has been an excuse to hire a house cleaner. This is by far my best ongoing investment in my well-being (hint to husbands). I am not sloppy. Au contraire. I am the opposite. I want a clean, organized home, and just don't have the time to do it anymore. So, to make a big step in my career well-being, I've decided to do the same for my "online home."

Step One: Cull the people I follow on Twitter. Sorry--I am not one of those "mutual following" people. If I follow somebody I want to do it on purpose. What can I say? I am curator, and I need to be able to learn from the people I follow, not just press a button so they will have one more number on their profile. One of my goals for 2011: be picky about who I follow on Twitter. I use Twitter as a source of information and also as a personal place of communication with people I find interesting. Stick to the plan, man.
Step Two: Evaluate my online strategies--and be willing to pull the plug on anything that isn't producing results for now. I am deactivating the Facebook page for my consulting business.  Not because Facebook doesn't work, but because I am not ready to put the amount of work into my Facebook business page that it needs to be successful. I need to concentrate first on building my business through my blog. I believe what will win me fans and clients initially is to provide content--content that will help my readers. I don't think Facebook is a good place for that goal right now. When I'm ready to tackle it with all the zeal of a Mari Smith disciple, I will probably revisit that strategy.

Step Three: Focus the goals of getting my business started online with laser-beam intensity. When I first decided to put my coaching business online at www.cksyme.org, I didn't have a good strategic plan. I wanted to do too much. I have many areas of expertise, but I have decided the only way to differentiate myself in the market is to take my most successful skill areas and promote them. In my case, I think smaller is better for now. Reading Chris Brogan's stuff has really helped my focus there.

So there is my first take on online house cleaning for 2011. What about you? Do you have any plans to cut back, refocus or evaluate in 2011? I'd like to hear them.

Give Me More Leaders, Not Followers, in 2011!

Experts prognosticate that 2011 will be a year of adjustment in social media. What are you hearing?


I read a prediction that metrics will be more important in 2011. All I have to say to that is, "well--duh." It's time for those of us that have been bragging about social media to learn how to "show them the money." It's not going to be enough to know how to use social media in 2011, you're going to have to know why you're using it and what the ROI is.

Also, I hear popularity will be replaced by influence as the new social media currency (sorry Bieber). Finally. Those of us who use Twitter faithfully for curation and news feeds have known all along that Twitter makes a much better information pipeline than it does a "gathering place" like Facebook.  Matthew Creamer recently wrote in Advertising Age inferring that Twitter may not be a good medium to increase influence. I agree. But the real question is, can Twitter measure "strategic influence"? In other words, if I use Twitter to try and get as many people as I can to follow me in hopes of growing my business, I need to measure that. Or, if I am using Twitter to find important information for my business, I need to measure that. Or, if I am using Twitter for customer service only, I need to be able to measure its effectiveness for that. If I am using Twitter to promote my blog, I need to measure that. One measurement for every use of Twitter is not effective. Measurement has to match your strategic use. Apps like Klout and Twinfluence don't work for me. What are they really measuring anyway?

Twitter, unlike Facebook, is a multi-faceted medium. There are as many uses for it as there are people on it. Just because Seth Godin only uses Twitter to post links to his blog (as Creamer states) doesn't mean Twitter is not a medium of influence for Godin. It just means that Godin is using Twitter as a one-way news feed. Hopefully, he is measuring its effectiveness for that--driving people to his blog--and is not real concerned with his Klout score.

When I look at Twitter, I am looking for leaders--and I follow them. For me, they are people who are providing links to great content that interests me. I don't think Twitter is going to make me rich or famous or popular, but it is my primary pipeline of information to blogs, articles and thoughts from people I want to hear from. I know this is only one of the myriad ways Twitter is used. How do you use Twitter?