Last Friday night over cards with friends I was asked, “What’s the point of Twitter?” Before I could respond, a guy waded into the conversation by saying, “There is no point. Who cares what I had for breakfast?”

I realize so many people feel the same way, and they totally are missing the point and the value of social media.

Talk with anyone who owns their own business, or is a solo practitioner, or is looking for a job. They will tell you the two most important tools they have are their network and their reputation. Both of these are built today with social media. Without question, Twitter contributes to building your personal brand.

How you use social media, what you say, and the pictures you post will all become part of your permanent record. Not participating will also speak volumes about your brand.

“I have a good job, so I have no need to build a personal brand, right?”

There is no such thing as job security in the digital age; therefore, everyone, regardless of current position, should be building their personal brands because your business worth is becoming more and more predicated on your “Google juice” (getting a high representation in a search for you.)

When was the last time you Googled yourself? That’s right, put your name in the search box and see what comes up. How many times did you appear on the front page of the listings? Did you even appear on the front page of the listings? How many pages deep did you have to search before anything about you appeared?

If I can’t find you in a Google search looking for you, you are brand-less to the world. Who you are and what your skills, talents and capabilities are matter in today’s business environment. Companies are shifting to a more talent-focused approach to hiring and promotion than the old school experience-based hiring approach. Why the shift? Because everything is changing so dramatically that experience is becoming of lesser value compared to skills and talents that apply to current job demands. So what if you have 15 years of experience working with outdated technology? It just doesn’t matter anymore.

So how do you make yourself relevant? By building your personal brand.

Building a personal brand is tough. There are over 845 people in the United States named Russell White (and I think every one of them must have a Facebook account.)  One Russell White was a Heisman Trophy candidate out of California. Another is a gospel singer. Yet another is wanted for armed robbery. So how do I jump above this crowded space to grab some Google Juice and make my brand heard?

Start with creating distinction. I use my middle initial (Russell J White) in most everything I do. That gives me traction on Google with Russell White AND I dominate the first two pages of search results when people search “Russell J White.”  Personal branding takes time, consistent effort and participation in a number of social media outlets. In this article I don’t have time to go into all of the most obvious social media opportunities to build your brand such as with LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the importance of blogging. I’ll save those for future articles, but I do want to answer my card-playing friend’s question about Twitter.

Twitter

How do I use Twitter to build my personal brand, reputation and network? I simply treat it like a conference hospitality suite. Talk a little business, talk a little fun, and share information. Unlike a hospitality suite conversation, people can find everything you tweet, so keep it clean and friendly — use it to develop your reputation, not harm it.

Think before you tweet.

Many employers check the public record of Twitter streams of employees as the proverbial fly on the wall. It gives a great insight to the thoughts of the individual, how they approach life, and what is important to them. It will also reveal how they view work and relationships and how they communicate. Many celebrities and professional athletes forget the permanence of a tweet and how fast they can be shared. It’s hard to believe how 140 characters can ruin a reputation and cost someone an endorsement deal.

So what do I tweet?

Information you think your followers will find interesting. Monday at 9:04 am, I tweeted that Jim Tressel had resigned and included a link to the Columbus Dispatch article. On Memorial Day, thank those who serve us in the military. I have commented on the storms we are having, that I will be attending the next tweetup, and that I will be going to an upcoming concert if anyone wants to join me.

I will let people know where to find this blog article with title and link. The last blog article I posted someone retweeted it (copied the link and sent it to all of their network, thus building my exposure!) Like I said, a little business, a little fun and sharing information.

Respect the power of Twitter and use the medium to your advantage.

My Twitter account name, @BizWizTV, has over 6,000 followers and is growing. I use that account to specifically refer to my BizWizTV.com television channel where I post weekly three-minute videos. Google still sees my name tied to that account as it is registered in my name, so I still get good juice. Your Twitter name should speak directly to either who you are or what you are talented doing or, in my case, a specific destination that is about me.
Solely because of Twitter I have made many local connections with business owners, and I am offered a number of free networking events, lunches and meetings known as tweetups that have helped my business, my knowledge and my network.

As Twitter is maturing, it is far less about “what I had for breakfast” and more about breaking news stories, making meaningful business connections, and gathering meaningful information that speaks directly to my interests. Twitter is a great tool to build your business reputation, build your network, and build your brand. That is why I think it is the most underused tool in the traditional business person’s toolbox.

Today being April Fool’s Day a fellow speaker listed today as his birthday as a prank to pull on Facebook to see who would wish him a happy birthday and who really knew it was in a different month. For the last couple of years this has been a funny joke to John. As one person in the know best put it, “In a society that is a bowl of Cheerios, John you are a Froot Loop!”

Sadly, John passed away in December and his Facebook page is still up. Those who have him as a Facebook friend but not a real life friend are leaving cheerful birthday wishes which is unfortunate since they didn’t realize he is no longer with us. Yea, I found it sorta creepy, like actually being there at Weekend at Bernie’s  and knowing what is going on.

Those who know he is gone are still leaving birthday wishes hoping he is having the greatest party of all wherever he may be. Is this in honor of their friend? For the relatives of John?

This raises many questions about social media:

• Do Facebook pages of the deceased become pages in honor of fallen friends? (Pretty cool idea I think)
• How many “friends” in social media are actually contacts, connections, admirers, lurkers, or friend collectors who really don’t know their friends?
• How many on your Facebook friends list “know” you as a real friend?
• What is the social media definition of “friend?”
• When a person dies, what happens to social media profiles, blogs, websites, and information available on the internet?
• We have birthdates on Facebook, should there be a death date as well for those who have passed?

I think these are but a few questions created about how social media is redirecting the habits of society and what new societal protocols will be. And finally, to John; listing a fake birthday on April 1st is genius even when done posthumously.

Have you ever been to a Meetup? Tweetup? Flashmob? Social Media event? What about using Foursquare to connect with people in the same location you just checked into?

Do you even know what these are?

These gatherings have no attendance requirements and have no annual fees. You pay as you go for the events you want to attend and sometimes they are simply free.

Rotary groups have an attendance requirement and a rigid schedule of meetings at least twice a month. Chambers of Commerce are constantly struggling to come up with services to justify membership. Both require annual membership fees. Why? Mostly to support overhead that may no longer be necessary. This is what is wrong with these groups: the model no longer fits the business world. Today’s business world is fluid, leaders are schedule challenged, and people only want to pay for exactly what they want and attend only those meetings that interest them.

Tell me I’m wrong – have you never gone to a Rotary meeting only because you felt you had to even though the presenter was of no interest to you?

Tell me I’m wrong – when it came time for your annual chamber dues check to be written, have you hesitated, wondering how to justify spending the money since you no longer feel you are getting your money’s worth?

Remember buying an entire album or CD for the one or two songs on it you really liked? Today people pay by the song, when they want it, 24/7. No more paying for what you don’t want to hear and no more waiting on store hours to buy it. Business gatherings are now the same way.

I have attended open invitation gatherings of local business people connected by Twitter (tweetups). I have made great connections over these lunch gatherings.

What exactly is a tweetup?

An organizer announces on Twitter a gathering at this restaurant at this time on this day. Those available and interested come and exchange business ideas over lunch. All of us know the best exchange of information at any chamber event or Rotary meeting occurs in the side conversations, so why not just have those? That is what a tweetup is to our group. Sometimes we have 12, sometimes we have over 30. The point is it is fluid, come if you can, and you only pay for your lunch. Simple and organic. No annual fees or restricted membership.

I also attend social media events. For these I pay a small fee. Once again no membership dues, I only pay for a ticket to attend those meetings that interest me. I obviously don’t get to as many meetings as I would like because of my schedule. Business travel just doesn’t allow for it. Were I paying an annual fee or had an attendance requirement, I’d probably drop out of the group, and that is what is causing Chambers and Rotary groups to lose members.

As one CEO told me when he got a letter from Rotary informing him his attendance was lacking, “They say they want movers and shakers, but today moving and shaking is very different from the 1950s.” Needless to say, he dropped his membership.

In addition, the younger generation of upcoming leaders are more expense focused, more immediate results oriented and more mobile. They do not identify as closely to their geographic location, traveling freely for business and pleasure and often working for companies hundreds of miles away.

I argue that membership fees are a trap for bad programming. If your meetings or offerings were that awesome, people would flock to your meetings and pay to get in Like TED conferences.) The fact is the majority of the people attending current functions are doing it out of obligation, not desire, because they have been trapped by membership fees. As more and more people are realizing that, memberships decline.

If Rotary groups and Chambers of Commerce want to increase involvement and attendance of younger, more active leaders, they need to create better programs and drop membership requirements, attendance requirements and overhead. Flash gatherings and meetings of substance are thriving with business leaders who make a difference. The traditional model just needs to be updated to attract them.

As fast as the pace of business is moving, it’s easy to fall behind the leading edge. If you stop to wait and see what you should do next, you can become obsolete just that fast. Look at your products and services from the customer’s perspective. Evaluate your marketing strategies and ask if they are still fresh. You also should be constantly experimenting with new offerings.

To challenge the status quo first you must identify the barriers to changing the status quo. What are the sacred cows? How can they be abandoned or improved? Redefine the new approach for success and put it in action with persistence, diligence and focus.

In the age of over-sharing led by the communication generation, people are using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media site as an opportunity to broadcast every detail of information, have publically viewed arguments, and create a permanent record of TMI (too much information).

Employers are watching, clients are watching, co-workers are watching, and those with ill intent are also watching for opportunities. Self-censorship is becoming less frequent, especially for the young people who have grown up with social media as a given for expression. Cautionary tales abound, and here are four pieces of information you should resist sharing.

1. Personal Proclivities

I have friends of all ages on my Facebook and Twitter accounts and I’ve read many self revealing comments that are better left for a counseling session than a public broadcast. People have shared their affairs, use of illegal drugs, driving drunk, and overindulgences. In some cases, they add photographic proof of their exploits.

People have lost jobs, marriages, and respect by drunk tweeting. People regret what they’ve posted on Facebook once they realized they have over-shared, and there is no real way to clear the record once it’s been digested by those who have read it.

One study showed that last year 8 percent of employers fired an employee for misuse of social media. Open sharing means anyone can read it. Just because you don’t friend your boss or parent doesn’t mean you can’t cause serious damage to your important relationships and yourself.

2. Personal Information

How much personal information do you express on your posts? Do you have your birthday date, year and city you were born? According to a study done by Carnegie Mellon University, a person equipped with that information could predict most if not all of the numbers in your social security number?

Identity theft is a significant concern with the wealth of Internet Information floating about, not to mention the sharing of where you went to school, what year you graduated, what your weekend habits are like, where your “go-to” spots are, and when you are most likely to be there. A good experiment would be to take one of your Facebook friends and see what all you could learn from their online information if you were a complete stranger. Now imagine if someone were looking at your information the same way. How well would they know you?

3. Personal Plans

One of the most frequent posts I see particularly on Facebook deals with personal plans, specifically when a person is going to be away from home. Either on vacation or on a night out, people are constantly sharing when they are not home and where they can be found.

Do we really want to announce to the criminals and vandals when we are not going to be home? When Facebook and Foursquare first got started I used to announce the city I was speaking in and when I was at airports (hey, look how cool I am!) until I realized how idiotic I was in letting everyone know I wasn’t going to be home for days. I have a greater responsibility to the security of my family than I do to be thought of as cool.

4. Personal Rants

I’ve read the follow posts on Facebook:

I hate Mondays because I hate my job.

If my boss was on fire, I’d grab a bag of marshmallows.

I am so hung over I wish my boss would go to the meeting so I can get a nap.

If you want to know what hell is, ask me, I work there every day.

Ranting about your job, customers, co-workers, your spouse, your kids or your friends in social media will surely come back to haunt you. People lose jobs and won’t get hired for such posts as these. Employers are looking at social media accounts to get insight to the people they are considering hiring. It’s a public record. It’s due diligence research. It is the new way of conducting pre-employment research and executives find it effective.

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Linked In, and YouTube are here to stay and will continue to grow in subscribers and those who over-share. Know how to properly use these social media sites so they don’t harm you in the long run.

The Social Media Pool Rules

Before you dive into the social media pool you need to know the pool rules.

By Russell J. White

1. If you don’t want your boyfriend, girlfriend, BFF, wife, husband, mother, father, grandmother, priest, doctor, local newspaper, national press, TMZ, Huffington Post, current employer, previous employer, future employer or any current or ex-friend to read it; don’t post it.

2. Anything you post is part of the public record and will be treated as such.

3. The best privacy protection for social media occurs between your brain and your keyboard.

4. Not everyone in social media can be trusted. Ask yourself: What if criminals read this information? Because they have and will continue to do so.

5. We don’t care what you ordered at Starbucks.

6. Just because you thought it doesn’t mean you should post it.

7. It’s great to wish someone a happy birthday, offer congratulations, condolences, support, love, respect and recognition. Otherwise, negative personal feelings might be better left to a private message.

8. Private messages can easily become public.

9. Don’t SPAM.

10.  If you did something great, let us know! If every day in your opinion you do something great, we will get tired of hearing it quickly.

11.  Adding attractive “friends” doesn’t suddenly make you a stud.

12.  There is a difference between networking, voyeurism and stalking. Know what it is and act accordingly.

13.  Keep in mind those party pictures you post could follow you for decades, even after you have removed them from your page.

14.  Deleting someone from Facebook doesn’t actually make them go away.

15.  Even “nom de posts” can lead back to the real person – with consequences.

16.  Never meet a Craig’s List purchaser in your home or their home.

17.  Links are great to share unless they always lead back to something you are selling or have written.

18.  Being opinionated is fine. Expecting no one to be offended is unrealistic.

19.  When talking about your job, customers, boss, fellow employees or the company who employs you, you are speaking as an employee.

20. Geo-location software is a criminal’s new blue light special. Don’t announce every time you leave your home.

21.  If you monitor your friend, fan or follower counts and brag on them, your ego is misplaced.

22. If you spend hours on your “farm” or in your “Mafia,” you might want to evaluate where you could otherwise use that time to improve your life.

23.  If you automate tweets, posts or responses, there is nothing social about your social media involvement, so stop it.

24. Nurture the social relationships that are most important to you.

25. Zuckerberg’s law: The less you want your social information to fall into the wrong hands, the more likely it will.

Last year the buzz at SXSW (SXSW.com) was Foursquare and a year later 450,000 people are eager participants in the location-based phone app that is changing the marketing picture for businesses by placing it in the hands of customers.

What is foursquare?

Foursquare is a smartphone application that allows the user to “check-in” to an establishment and get points for doing so. With the right combination of check-ins a person unlocks badges and scores points. This “game” is shifting how word of mouth on businesses is transferred.

Anyone can enter a business into Foursquare, in fact the first person to enter a business into Foursquare gets additional points, meaning as a business owner you may not even be aware you have a foursquare page. I recently entered the Anytime Fitness location I am a member of and told the owner I had just done this. She gave me a blank look as I explained how it worked and what it could mean to her business. She blew it off.

Why is Foursquare important?

Every time a person checks into a business using the Foursquare app they have the opportunity to enter a comment or a tip about the business. Foursquare also allows the user to set up notification to all Facebook and Twitter friends and followers they have. In my case that means when I check into a business 1100 Facebook fans and over 6800 twitter followers see what I enter.

Bad service? I let almost 8000 people know in an instant. Do a great job for me? I let 8000 people know! Research shows repeatedly how word of mouth marketing is considered the best and most reliable and with the new technology friends comments become instant information to thousands.

Grab opportunities

The person who checks into your business most frequently with Foursquare becomes the “Mayor” I am the Mayor of a local grocery store, a local lunch spot as well as a hotel I stay at in Louisville, KY and Gate B4 in the Louisville airport my flights always use.  What should this matter to a business? Plenty.

Customers love to be the insider and foursquare users take great pride in being the mayor of a place. Want to drive good word of mouth? Treat your mayor special. Giveaways, thank you notes, even marquee recognition gives an organization a chance to be part of the game, while also driving positive word of mouth.

Imagine the next time I check into the Louisville hotel I am the mayor of that I am greeted with, “Mr. White thank you for being a gold member (which I get every time I check in here) and I see you are our current mayor! Here is the chocolate coin for being a gold member and as mayor you get breakfast complimentary.” You think I won’t be telling close to 8000 people about my mayor breakfast?

Foursquare is an emerging marketing opportunity savvy businesses will enjoy creating customer insiders who will spread the good word.

Marketing your business in this economy requires a strong stomach and a creative mind. Why the strong stomach? Most executives cave into the knee-jerk reaction of cutting marketing budgets when revenue slows down, which only exacerbates the revenue situation by not getting the word out to customers and prospects. When in fact, organizations should be increasing marketing efforts in challenging economic times.

The most common complaint I hear: But I don’t know if my marketing is working or not? Then maybe you are doing it wrong.

Traditional marketing:

Newspapers, television, radio, email and a website are traditional marketing methods that will not set an organization apart unless the content is extremely good or unique. Creativity still gets the message through on these old school tools. Flo for Progressive insurance, Vince for ShamWow and Budweiser’s Clydesdales have messages that cut through the noise and their revenue proves that.

If you choose to use tradition marketing bring the creativity and lots of it. Frequency is also the key, although it can be expensive, consumers notice the unique.

Toward the edge: Web-based marketing

I mentioned a website is traditional marketing because there are literally millions of websites being added in the time it takes to read this article! Websites are old school marketing. The key to web-based marketing is how you drive traffic to your website (and it better be designed to keep the visitor there!) Search engine optimization, multiple links and social media feeds should be the focus of any marketer trying to drive traffic to your “awesome” website. And, if it isn’t awesome in the mind of the visitor: It won’t matter how much traffic you drive to it, you are failing in your marketing.

I mentioned social media because that is fast becoming the best way to touch prospects and customers while also driving them toward your website. Facebook, twitter, ping.fm, and Hootsuite are social media tools that should be in your marketing quiver. Millions of people are active in social media and it is not only here to stay but will be driving the next generation of search engines based on peer review. If you’ve not already joined the social media party you are lagging behind great marketers.

Out there: Game marketing

When someone says they are the mayor of Starbucks do you have any idea what they are referring to? Foursquare is a location-based phone app where a person can check in when they visit an establishment and the person who checks in the most in the last two months is given the title of Mayor. It is a game where not only can people check in but they give reviews and tips for their foursquare friends to see. How are you treating your mayor? What customer comments are being left on your foursquare listing?

Tomorrow I’ll go into greater depth on foursquare, but I bring it up here to point out how marketing is becoming the domain of the customer and the evolution of marketing is changing rapidly. Get creative and develop a strong stomach because the new economy rewards the best in the business and crushes those who are clueless.

Chip Conley, the CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, shared his internal struggle with posting his Burning Man pictures on his Facebook page at http://bit.ly/2qIml5 His pr advisors told him those pictures and his CEO persona could cause a misunderstanding about what is proper behavior. (I think it was his tutu picture that was the point of the discussion.)

Burning man is a one week retreat in the middle of a dust bowl with no food, no water, no showers, no cars, just what you carry in on your back or bike. It is intended to be an “out there” experience and from what people who have attended told me, you will see anything and everything going on at this retreat. When I say everything, suffice it to say, it is impossible not to be shocked at Burning Man because it attracts the freest of the free spirits and the edge is pushed more and more each year. I would guess not many CEOs attend Burning Man.

Which brings the question for all executives: What is proper to share on social media? The challenge with social media is that your personal and professional lives collide and for the “In the full disclosure of who I am” category it is actually a great resource for people to investigate who you are. Everything about who you are.

Employers are looking at social media pages such as facebook, twitter, and linkedin to see what employees and prospective employees are saying. The same goes for executives who are being “checked out” by employees, clients and competitors.

I have a number of clients who follow me on my personal pages as well as my fan page www.facebook.com/russelljwhite2 and they get the full me. But where is the Too Much Information (TMI) line drawn?

Would I share about my Saturday night in the strip club where I got 5 lap dances, had 8 beers, and was escorted out of the club by the bouncer for rude behavior? Would I share my disappointment about my employees letting me down? Would I go on a rant about how I hate Mondays?

Curiously, I have read each of these remarks by people who at that moment were employed somewhere. Is there a different standard for executives? I don’t think so.

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