Fun with Twitter: Do your “overheards” tell a story?

One of the joys many people, including myself, find with Twitter is the beauty of the tweeted “overheard” statement, which is some odd statement that is, well, overheard, that you just feel compelled to share with the rest of the world. (Because of character constraints, “OH:” is usually used before the statement instead of “Overheard” though I confess when I first saw people using this I wondered what Ohio had to do with anything.)

Usually neither attribution nor context is given, which makes them that much funnier. In fact, in my office, it’s become somewhat of a competition between coworkers to see who makes my “overheard” tweets. I work with a very creative, linguistic bunch and there’s never a dull moment in our conversations. My overheard tweets aren’t always coworkers, mind you, oftentimes they’re friends outside the office, like at gigs or something.

Anyway, the other day I decided to see which gems I had tweeted “OH:” recently, so  I went to my profile and searched “OH:” in my tweets only. Twitter only archives the past few days now, which I just learned, but the tweets in my past few days’ archives were not only hilarious, but kind of sounded like a funny story if you read them in chronological order.

Keep in mind that NONE of these tweets are related in any way, shape or form, and most had completely different contexts:

To “get it,” you have to read from the bottom up, but to make it easier, here they are in succession:

“That’s like, WAAAAAY down the road. Like Friday.”

“Haven’t you seen Subway commercials? Don’t you know the right way to say it?”

“I wore so much black I out-blacked myself. Black is the new black!”

“You are the reason that dress was invented.”

“Woo! It’s nice and bright in here! It makes me wanna take this dress off!” #unrelatedtothelasttweet

“We’re going to drool all over her like a pork chop.”

“… and it doesn’t give you the risk of having quintuplets!”

“You just want me for my numbers.”

“You gotta perpetuate the SEO-ness of your lineage.”

“Who the hell are you and why are you soliciting me?!”

OK, maybe it’s only funny to me, but I’m curious to see if anybody else’s completely unrelated overheard tweets also look like they kinda tell a story. It’s an interesting and fun exercise.

Here’s what you do:

1. Just view your own profile on Twitter.
2. Plug “OH:” (or “overheard,” whichever you use) into the search box and make sure that the box is checked to read only your own tweets.
3. Read from the bottom up.
4. Do they kinda tell a story?
5. If so, take a screen shot & share.

Come on, you know you want to. It’s fun!

Facebook changes again, this time users can’t figure out how to protest

In the meandering, ever-changing saga that is Facebook’s user experience, once again the mammoth social network made some abrupt changes without warning to its community.

On April 1st, Facebook changed their rules again and unleashed “community pages,” in an asinine attempt to “simplify” the already confusing issue of Pages vs. Groups.

This was not an April Fool’s joke, either.

The goal of this new “feature” is to weed out the unofficial brand pages from all the “official” ones on the network, and retain fan pages specifically for businesses, brands, public figures and official spokespeople for any of them. For example, if one wanted to make a page for a random cause or to make a statement, it would fall into the “community pages” category. Once the community page hit a certain amount of users, Facebook would hand admin privileges over to the community, thus creating a Wiki-like platform.

In every past instance of Facebook making big changes, users have protested within the network by creating hundreds of “Bring Back the Old Facebook” groups and even a few pages. However, this time there appears to be very little protesting in the social network by the addition of “community pages.”

Not because users don’t want to, but because they can’t figure out how.

“I don’t like it at all. I wish they’d bring back the old Facebook, and so do all my friends,” said Sarah Jones, a die-hard “Bring Back the Old Facebook” online protester who admins several groups. “I’d start another protest on Facebook but I can’t figure out if I should make a page, a group, or now one of these new community pages!”

Others are more suspicious of Facebook’s motives.

“I think it’s a conspiracy, Facebook is trying to confuse us so that we can’t protest all the change,” said one Facebook user and avid Obama supporter who declined to be named.

Indeed, as of this writing there are a few anti-community pages fan pages, but none have any more than three fans.

To make matters worse, Facebook also decided they are soon going to replace the “Become a Fan” button on fan pages with a “Like” button, citing better conversion on the “Like” feature within the network and increasing engagement without implication of commitment.

“I’m not a fan of removing the ‘become a fan’ button, and I don’t like the idea of just having a ‘Like’ button. Would fan pages become ‘Like’ pages?” asked one concerned Facebook protester, “I was going to make an anti-Like Button page but it wouldn’t even have ‘fans’ anyway… now I can’t figure out if it should be an anti-Like button group or page or community page to protest removing the ‘become a fan’ button AND the addition of the community pages!”

Many users have said they’re giving up and going back to MySpace, but are wary, as they got lost on the way to Facebook the last time.

It is uncertain what Facebook will decide to change next, but one thing is certain: They’ve finally found a way to quiet all the noise of whiny protesters within their network.

Image via Blackrage.org.

Real Men of Genius: Social Media edition

(Real men of genius!)

Tonight, I salute YOU, Mr. “I-Sync-My-Twitter-and-Facebook-Accounts”!

(Mr. I-Sync-My-Twitter-and-Facebook-Status!)

Yes, you sir, are oblivious that your Facebook friends really don’t care about your every move & your Twitter followers are a) mostly the same people, and b) annoyed as hell.

(Absolutely, completely oblivious!)

It’s imperative that you tell EVERYONE POSSIBLE about that ham sandwich you had for lunch, or that you are happy it’s football season, because you are just. that. important.

(I’m big on the internet! I’m big in Japan! Germany loves me!)

So go on and open a Ping.fm account, Mr. Twitter-Facebook-Syncer, because YOU are a REAL MAN OF GENIUS.

(Inspired by the Bud Light “Real Men of Genius” radio commercials, you can hear all of them here.)

Social media is not your brand’s “natural male enhancement” pill

Remember these commercials?

You either loved Smiling Bob or you hated him. I thought these commercials were hilarious at first, but after so many euphemisms for “natural male enhancement” and cheesy double entendres, every time I heard that annoying whistling song and saw Smiling Bob’s unnatural-smiling face, I wanted to reach through my TV screen and punch him in the teeth.

However, in a conversation about companies and social media yesterday, Smiling Bob popped (no pun intended) into the forefront my mind. Whether we want to admit it or not, there are a lot of similarities between Enzyte (not linking to them, sorry) and brands’ expectations of social media.

Anybody that fell for these Enzyte commercials bought into the bulls**t that this once-a-day pill would be the answer to all their problems. . . at least in the bedroom (which leads to solving the rest of their problems, apparently). Guess what? It wasn’t.

Consumers who forked over $100 million were sold on this idea, though:

“. . . After a few shorts weeks, Bob has a LANE full of confidence, PRIDE to spare, and now everyone can see that Bob has made some SIZABLE STRIDES to improve his SCORE.”

Many, many businesses seem to think that social media is their Enzyte. That it is some kind of once-a-day thing they do and after a few short weeks, their company will have tons of publicity, they’ll look cool because they’re online, have sizable profits, and an improved overall brand.

Hate to break it to you, but social media is no magic pill that cures everything that ails ya.

We can learn something from Smiling Bob, though. Watch these, and pay attention to the last one, especially:

Let’s substitute a few key words with “social media”:

1. The quality of social media is very important.
2. There’s a proper tool for every social media project.
3. Working with social media can be both fun and rewarding.
4. When it comes to social media, it always helps to listen to an expert.

(I hope I don’t have to remind anyone that the term “social media expert” shares the same degree of ambiguity as Enzyte’s intentional usage of the term “natural male enhancement.”)

According to Wikipedia,

Because Enzyte is an herbal product, no testing is required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An official of the Federal Trade Commission division that monitors advertising says the lack of scientific testing is “a red flag right away. There’s no science behind these claims.”^[4] The company has conceded that it has no scientific studies that substantiate any of its Enzyte claims.^[5]

So whatever happened to Smiling Bob?

Twenty-five years in prison and over $500 million in fines for massive consumer fraud that “preyed on the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of customers in a case about arrogance and greed.”

I don’t think anybody who promises successful social media strategy and doesn’t deliver the goods is ever going to get sentenced to prison or fined like that — not at all. Nor am I implying that everybody who claims to “do” social media is a Smiling Bob — of course not. But if you think your business can get a quick fix and ahead of your competition with an out-of-the-box social media “strategy” requiring little effort, think again.

Social media can be an enhancement to your overall marketing efforts, but by no means should you think it will solve all your company’s problems. If somebody tells you that, check to see how much they’re smiling at the time.

I encounter people who think social media is the Enzyte for their business quite a bit, and it’s frustrating. What is it about people that makes them think it’s a magic pill? Is it the overblown publicity of the usual case studies, or hearing about it from celebrities and TV networks? Is there something I’m not seeing?

All I ask for is a frickin’ rotating chair.

As of the other night, yours truly is now a contributor* to a hilarious site for people who secretly (or-not-so-secretly) hate their jobs, Office Evil.

My first contribution is currently the featured MadLib on the home page. It’s a memo from your boss. He/she saw what you were doing on those social networks on company time and NOT very happy about it. Fill in the blanks to find out exactly why you’re in deep.

*Disclaimer: Potential future employers – Please do not interpret this the wrong way. Though I currently work for myself, anybody can tell you that I’m a workaholic, love what I do, and always go above and beyond. This is only for fun, and came about randomly. Don’t hold expressing my creative juices against me.

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