This blog post originally appeared on TheObviousExpert on October 7, 2009, and is reprinted with permission.
Randy Block is a career transition coach and consultant—an Obvious Expert in his field. He has an interesting article, “10 Ways To Blow An Interview” that you can find on his website www.randyblock.com.
While his advice is very helpful for face-to-face encounters, we think it carries just as much relevance for social media marketing. So we applied his 10 strategies, but instead of including his explanations for what these strategies mean in a job interview, we looked at them from a different perspective.
Here’s a social media marketer’s spin on Randy’s 10 tips for blowing that all important job interview, and remember, this is what NOT to do:
1. Don’t prepare. Jump into your social media marketing without a plan. Don’t consider the objectives you want to realize or what your competitors are doing in their efforts on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.
2. Show up early. Be the first to jump on new technologies, software, and widgets. You don’t have to know whether or not they are effective, offensive, or stable. You just want to be first.
3. Take control of the interview. Tell your audience, but don’t listen in return. Make your conversations totally one-way so that you establish control.
4. Tell them everything. Share all the personal details of your life online. After all, you want your market to see the real you, right?
5. Look down and look up. In other words, never make the equivalent of online eye-contact. Assume that a moving target is harder to hit, so don’t engage your audience, fan, or followers in anything that feels like a personable communication. (Note the key word is personable, not personal. Rule #4 has already told you to pour out the personal details of your life on your blog and Facebook page.)
6. Trash your old boss. Or in this case, your competitors.
7. When in doubt bluff. No one fact checks or looks for transparency in business these days, so don’t worry if some of what you put out on the internet isn’t true.
8. Show desperation. Make it clear to your blog readers and Twitter followers that your business or consulting practice is desperate for their business. Consumers love the smell of blood.
9. Take notes throughout the interview. Okay, Randy, we have to admit, we were stumped at how to apply this rule of interviewing to social media marketing.
10. Don’t ask questions. Remember, it should be a one-way conversation at all times.
Thanks, Randy for writing such great, how-not-to advice for job interviews—that also has a very interesting application in the world of social media communication.
10 Ways to Blow Social Media Marketing…Okay, Only 9, Special Reprint
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally agree with this article it does apply to social marketing and I have one for number 9 for you
9. Be so busy gathering your research that you forget that the conversation is the most important thing.
I believe that creating honest, open conversation without leaving them drowning the your personal trivia is the most important part of using social media. Be you, be helpful, add value and never advertise.
Annie
Hello,
I found the article on ‘how to blow an interview’ and the comments on how it relates to social media useful. And I find it hard to think in the negative, so thought I’d make a stab at writing the rules on WHAT TO DO for social media. Here’s my go:
Here’s a social media marketer’s spin on Randy’s 10 tips for blowing that all important job interview, and remember, this is what NOT to do:
1. Prepare by Jumping into your social media marketing with a plan. Consider the objectives you want to realize and what your competitors are doing in their efforts on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.
2. Show up and research which social media are effective, offensive, and stable. Talk to others, experiment, and avoid ‘analysis-paralysis’ that could stop you from showing up.
3. Engage in dialogue with your collaborators, followers, fellow travellers. Use retweet and other features to share good news and tips.
4. Use the ‘bikini approach’ often touted about statistics. Show enough to be tantalizing, hide enough to be discreet.
5. Develop personable communication so you come across as a real person whom others would like to meet. (Note the key word is personable, not personal. Rule #4 has already given you the bikini principle.)
6. Build up former colleagues and your competitors. Have you even noticed in old towns how all the yarn merchants would have shops next to one another, in markets in Africa that the maize sellers work next to one another? They develop a trust and each has a niche that they learn how to develop from working collaboratively and for the long-term.
7. When in doubt say you don’t know that you’ll find out or ask others to help you find out. Ask for help.
8. Show long-term commitment and integrity. If your business is good it will survive and thrive through your commitment and your being your word and living your life out of an empowering vision.
9. Show a clear thread through your communication. Have an underlying theme so that others can see your vision and commitment throughout.
10. Ask questions that invite and stimulate conversation and feed-back.
I’d appreciate comments on this ‘turn around’ to positive to see if this works, offers a useful contribution. By the way, my organisation is working with micro-entrepreneurs at the grassroots level in Kenya to improve their business performance through training, including the use of the internet. They are ‘resource poor’ in terms of access to technology, not in their willingness or their human resources. They may live in the biggest slum in sub-saharan Africa and they are improving their lives and their community from the bottom up. See http://microfinancewithoutborders.net for blog. Our website http://www.microfinancewithoutborders.com being updated. Best wishes for 2010 and living without borders! Phyllis SantaMaria based in London
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