Size Doesn’t Matter… When It Comes to Your Social Media Audience at Least! – Ep.81

Today’s episode started with a bizarre Barry flashback. Chris went nuts and it was awesome. Barry Barry everywhere! First a quick Thank You to our sponsor, TribeBoost! A great way to grow your Twitter audience with relevant and quality people. Learn More Here, and be sure to use Coupon Code “Unscrambled” for 15% OFF the first […]

Today’s episode started with a bizarre Barry flashback. Chris went nuts and it was awesome. Barry Barry everywhere!

First a quick Thank You to our sponsor, TribeBoost! A great way to grow your Twitter audience with relevant and quality people. Learn More Here, and be sure to use Coupon Code “Unscrambled” for 15% OFF the first month …Chris Curran recently got ANOTHER 2 lead via TribeBoost!

Chris Curran began by talking about how he got a ticket from a cop while trying to dial Ralph M. Rivera on the phone (M stands for Moses, incidentally), by speeding right past the cop! And then David happened to call him right in the middle of getting this ticket! It was Chris’ first speeding ticket ever; so much for laid back Colorado!

Meanwhile David will be traveling to Washington, DC to visit friends such as Mike Ogden, Mike Miller among others because Mike Miller and his wife Sarah will be moving to Georgia – the country, not the state – for a couple of years.

And we have an update from Episode 80: Chris was trying to determine the best way to approach the CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. David suggested that Chris frame this as an opportunity, not a favor. Chris reached out via Twitter and is now in the process of booking him. Great job Chris!

Another special update: Chris and David started working with David’s friend and business coach extraordinaire Jean Oursler. Together we are looking to build an amazing new platform to help people become amazing at what they do. The details are not yet all fleshed out, but we are definitely working on it!

Finally, we got to the content of the show! Have you ever noticed you get some odd advertisements on your Facebook profile? Well, Facebook has been quietly storing keywords it thinks you are interested in based on your interactions, status updates, friends, interests and so much more. You can click on this link to find out where the information is actually being stored about you. What’s the lesson? Just because you are paranoid that does not mean you are not being followed. Also, when something is free, you are the product. Jaclyn Antonacci – a previous guest on the show – said she felt that was a very low price to pay to access such an amazing tool. Incidentally, she is quite young, thus dispelling the myth that young people are not on Facebook anymore.

Chris shared an interesting story – he spoke with Christine Clifton, a messaging and branding expert. Chris spoke with her the morning of the show because they meet weekly for an hour for brainstorming and masterminding. Chris asked her how she was getting leads through social media. She said she gets referrals primarily from Facebook. Interestingly, someone in her community Liked her business page and suddenly sent her three warm introductions, all of whom became clients! Lesson: you never know who is looking at your social media content

Getting followers is not a strategy! David found an article from the Social MS. Instead of trying to get the most Likes, Followers and/or Shares, build a quality audience that engages in real conversations with you. And then have conversations with them. And then get the on the phone or in your sales cycle or whatever. But don’t just try to get followers!

Chris shared a problem which happens quite a bit: when you share a link on Facebook, every so often a different image pops up which does not correlate with the content you shared! Our friend and colleague Amy Nowacoski showed Chris how to “scrape” the photo and add one which is aligned with the posting you are sharing. The solution is somewhat technical but not difficult – Here’s Amy’s instructions with the link: Try forcing Facebook to scrape new image data from that page. https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/ . This is a common and known problem. Go to this link and paste the URL that has the image that won’t show up correctly. Then click debug. Then look for the button that says “fetch new scrape information”. This will force an update in the Facebook cache.

David flagged an article from The Atlantic where they identified the most popular social media applications for young people. They found that texting is the most popular social app! There is some debate as to whether texting is in fact social media (we’re not convinced) but also Facebook remains very popular for young people, in spite of the belief that youngsters aren’t on there anymore. Meetup.com didn’t even appear on the list!

And this brings us to Chris’ complaint about Meetup, that people will join groups but 70-80% of people never even bother to sign up for Meetups, much less attend them! On the other hand, he recently made friends with some other podcasters through a local Colorado Springs Podcasting Meetup! (What’s up Drew Smith and Brittany!) So although imperfect (there are some really creepy people out there, as Nicola Saltzman, Shalu Bhojwani and others can testify to), it can be a great way to make lifelong friends the way David has.

Then another friend and former guest, Dorien Morin-van Dam, shared on a blog post how she was able to host a Blab chat and succeeded even though only four people showed up. Again, it’s all about quality people, not quantity!

Chris’s wife, Malar, shared a story with us about how social media has been used to save lives in Chennai, India, where they have experienced awful rain and flooding. By using social media and Hashtags like #ChennaiRains and other social media tactics, they were able to help save lives in India. The same thing happened during the Egyptian riots and the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011. Social media really has changed the way we talk, and even rescue, one another.

And finally, a letter for the Social Media Therapists:

Dear Cathartic Chris and Dr. David:

I suffer from social media narcolepsy, which means I fall asleep in the middle of posting to social media. My problem is…

Have a great one folks, and see you next time! #UnscrambledArmy

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And Thanks again to our sponsor, TribeBoost! (helping you grow your Twitter audience….and be sure to use Coupon Code “unscrambled” for 15% OFF the first month