If you are like me, you have laughed and rolled your eyes at “those” people that spend their time playing social games like Farmville and the most recently launched Frontierville.  If you haven’t heard of these games (gasp!), they are the creation of a company named Zynga.  (Valued at over $1 Billion…)  They build Flash based games that plug in to the Facebook social media network.  In the majority of PC based games, you play against the computer.  The twist on “social gaming” is that you play online with or against your friends.  Also, the people playing don’t have to be playing at the same time.  One person does something in the game in the morning, and their friend can respond when they have time to play that evening.  In other words, it is closer to turn-based games like Risk.

The title of this article is “Frontierville – Waste of Time?”.  I have assumed the answer is YES for so long and realized that I needed to at least play one of these games so that I could have an opinion based on experience.  This hit my radar when my brother Mike asked me to be his Frontierville friend when he was at my house 2 weeks ago.  Apparently, he and his wife Elizabeth both play the game and they were looking for “neighbors”.  The concept is that the more people you invite to be neighbors of the Frontier that you are building, the more perks, resources and awards you get in the game.  So basically they didn’t care if I played or not, they just wanted me to sign up to be a neighbor.  <grin>

Nostalgic Interlude
When I was growing up, I remember that we would get together to play board games for entertainment.  Life, Scrabble and Parcheesi were fun nights for the Terry family.  (I know, might not be the most exciting, but it allowed our family to spend time together.)  I will come back to this…

How many of you have ever sent or received a LinkedIn invitation that says “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”?

What did you think about it?

We can tell you what we think about it….DON’T DO IT!

We tend to cringe any time we see the standard default message pop up in our LinkedIn inboxes from someone that wants to connect. In fact, we often joke that the default message might as well be: “Hello. I’m lazy. This invitation isn’t important enough for me to spend the 15-20 seconds it would take to write a personal message telling you who I am, how we know each other, and why I want to connect.”

That said, we understand that there are a lot of people that are new to LinkedIn and are learning the “do’s and dont’s” around using the tool. As we work with clients throughout Kansas City, we’re making sure that people personalize their invitations and stop using the standard default invitation.

Think about it in conversational terms. When you meet someone in person or are talking on the phone, do you use stuffy, boring, impersonal language like “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn?”

Of course you don’t! (At least we hope you don’t!)

So, going forward, when sending LinkedIn invitations, do yourself, the Blue Gurus, and the recipient of your invitation a favor: PERSONALIZE IT!

We would love to hear your horror stories, so feel free to comment!

Useful Links

We spoke at the ACA Professionals Club meeting this morning and one of the important conversations was around just knowing what web sites to pay attention to.  Here is a typical list of the web sites/tools that we use on a regular basis related to social media.

HootSuite.com – This is a social media status aggregator.  You can plug in your credentials for each of the supported sites and update your status in one place that then broadcasts out to all of your sites… specifically LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

NameChk.com – This is a site where you can see where your “name is claimed” on the popular social media sites.  Type in your company name or personal name to see what may already be taken.  If available, we strongly recommend you visit the site and “claim your name” by creating a free account and following whatever process each site has you go through to claim your name.

MailChimp.com – A competitor of Constant Contact (email newsletter delivery system).  We like the price, the features, the integration with Survey Monkey and the professional free templates.

WordPress.org – One of the best web site Content Management Solutions.  Did we mention the code is free?  For a showcase of sites using the WordPress system, go here.

RocketTheme.com – One of our favorite web sites to purchase WordPress themes.  The dynamic menus, layouts and straight forward implementation are strong points to the RocketTheme WordPress themes.

Delicious.com – Save your favorite web bookmarks using this site.  They go with you where you go.  The social component is that you can easily share your sites with others, tag the links for relevance and more.  To see Jason Terry’s list of links, go here.

We would love to hear about your favorite social media sites and tools, so be sure to comment us back on this post for the world to see!

WordPress

We have talked about WordPress before, but it comes up so often that we needed to mention it again.  In the past month, we have had 5 companies hire us to help them create new web sites to replace their dated and static web sites.  (Before and after case studies will be on the web site in the coming months.  For now, visit the official WordPress Showcase.)  Our social media clients are doing this because they see and hear about how we use WordPress and professionally designed themes to create fantastic looking web sites without the equally fantastic price tag.  WordPress is a FREE content management system for creating web sites with a ton of functionality including Blogs, Image Galleries, Polls, SEO Optimization and more.

In an environment where a typical web design proposal weighs in at $5,000 as a starting point, a WordPress based site can be implemented for half that.  Another incredibly important benefit for using WordPress is that someone on your staff can easily update the content on your web site regularly with the built-in Content Management System. All without having to pay someone hourly fees to create a news article or updated staff profile.

Hello everyone.  This is Mic Johnson and I am contributing the post for our blog this week.  As we interact with clients, prospects, articles and blogs, the word “FEAR” keeps coming up when talking about the reluctance people and companies have as they figure out how, and when, they will engage in social media.

The question we keep asking is: What are you so afraid of?

Social media is a way to connect with people… customers, prospects, colleagues, old friends, new friends….in a way we’ve never been able to before. If done right, it’s the quickest way to develop a deeper connection with a person or brand. You learn more about a person or company and see if you are interested in taking your relationship to the next level….or finding a partner that better fits your needs.  Spend a few minutes on a profile, or fan page, or reading a blog…and soon after you understand a lot more about the person or company you are engaging with…at least as much as they are willing to share.