Conversations with your customers & audience through social media - Why you need to be engaged

I know I am treading on already discussed ground, but since I recently saw examples of communication failures by companies and organizations around their social media conversations, I guess it does not hurt to look at this topic again.

Recently I cut my 8 inches of my hair to donate to Patene Beautiful Lengths program.  The program takes hair donations and creates human hair wigs for women cancer patients.  Most people are familiar with Locks of Love, another great program, but their donations go to wigs for children.

Now, it took me around 5 months to get my hair to the desired length, I had a pretty good start on it. I don’t tell you this because I want to brag about myself, but to illustrate a point.  A lot of time and effort went into this endeavor, as well as lot of conditioner!  When I told people about my plans, almost everyone asked me if I was donating to Locks of Love. I chose Beautiful Lengths for two reasons, they only require 8 inches of hair versus 10 inches for Locks and I like that the hair goes to women.

This is the second time I have made this donation. I did it about 7 years ago, before social media was a thing. Beautiful Lengths is not as well known as Locks of Love, even seven years later. This time when I visited the website to find the address to send my donation, I notice they had a hashtag.  Being the good social media person I am, I knew I would Instagram, Tweet and Facebook my transformation and maybe get a couple of women to think about a donation of their own.

A bunch of pictures were taken of the actual cutting process and of course of picture of the final product, and I was good to go. My hairdresser is on Instagram and of course I gave her a shout out.  She responded on my post. Nothing from Patene.  I posted on Facebook so my friends were not too surprised of my new look. I received a lot of likes and comments. I posted on Twitter. More likes from friends.

But total silence from Patene.  Think of the conversation they could have had with me.  Besides a thank you, we could have discussed how easy it was to grow, what a great experience it was, why did I do this, how much conditioner I used.  The company is doing a great thing by spearheading this initiative.  They have a great web presence, but if people do not know about the program, how many donations of hair will they get.  I had a story to tell and they missed out on the conversation.

I contrast this with two experiences I had in my business life. The first is at Chariot Solutions.  My marketing assistant posted a picture of one of our employees dogs with a cute saying and the #officedog.  We are trying a campaign to attract employees by showing our culture.  Imagine our surprise when Purina, retweeted the photo, with a new caption.  It was a fun way to engage with us and our audience in an unexpected way.  The photo was then taken by one of the dog’s owners and put on Facebook for an extended reach.

The last is about the non-profit I lead, TechGirlz.  I manage the twitter account, I still can’t let that go. We get a decent amount of mentions and retweets.  Most of the time, I am retweeting or liking others posts, but there are many times when I am answering a question or participating in a group conversation.  Recently, I had to answer one of our parent’s questions and their disappointment about their child not being able to get into one of our TechShopz.  After a little cyber stalking, I realized I had a chance to appeal to him to be a potential teacher.  We had a good conversation on twitter, which drove home the point that TechGirlz has too much demand and not enough instructors. 

Our conversation allowed him to understand why his daughter was not able to get a spot and convinced him to help us out! Without engaging him, this never would have happened.

These are just examples using Twitter. Knowing that there are multiple social media outlets can make this daunting, but having a plan, a process and a "voice" to your responses and engagement should help.

Some items you might want to consider:
-How time sensitive do you want to be in your responses?  A product or service that is needed by your customer may need you to monitor your notifications more often
-Does your social team need advice from experts in your organization before they answer?
-Can you create stock answers to frequently asked questions?

Do you have other suggestions?

Thoughts on the passing of Dave Goldberg, Sheryl Sandberg's husband

It is funny, I did not know the name of Sheryl Sandberg's husband until this weekend when the news of his sudden passing hit my news feed on twitter.  Up to that point, all I knew of him is Ms. Sandberg's recounting of how important his support of her had been in her career and how her advice of choosing the right partner had been a key to her ability to lean in.

His passing at such a young age made me think about a few items which I think are important for all women who are married, especially with children.

First, I want to reiterate Ms. Sandberg's position on having a supportive mate.  My husband, Steve, is my second biggest supporter. (Sorry, hon, my mom is still number one.)  All kidding aside, Steve's mindset of sharing child rearing and home responsibilities has allowed me to pursue my career aspirations.   He has also supported my career choices, varied as they have been.  We have both made sacrifices, and trust me, it has not always been easy raising two children with two working parents, but his support has given me the opportunity for choices.

But here are some points that will not be discussed when recounting Mr. Goldberg's death and how it will effect Ms. Sandberg's future - we can be positively certain she will not need to worry about money and her financial future.  This may be crass to discuss at this time, but tactfulness has never been a part of my upbringing.

So take this opportunity to discuss frankly with your partner about life without them.  Do you have a will? And if you have one, does it reflect changes that may have occurred since you first put it together?  When was the last time you looked at your insurance policies? Do you have have enough replacement income to maintain your current lifestyle, not to mention to pay for your kids' college tuition?  Have you looked at your spouse's benefits at their work and are you named as the beneficiary?

And there are probably items I have not even thought about myself.  Trust me, I have put calling my lawyer and insurance agent on my to do list this week. Since I live with my accountant, I will ask him when I get home.

Discussing death is not a topic we want to think about. It is scary and hopefully we will all be celebrating our 50th Anniversaries with our spouses while our children and grandchildren. But, there are some items that are not worth putting off.

Periscope vs Meerkat Bake Off

It is not often that you get to do a truly side-by-side comparison of two new tools, but Gloria Bell (@gloriabell) and I (@twelsonrossman) got the perfect opportunity to do just that with Meerkat and Periscope at the Philly Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference (#PhillyETE) last week.

We used both apps at various times throughout the conference, but at the Day 2 Keynote, we did an actual side-by-side comparison.

The reason we wanted to try live streaming at the conference is a no brainer, this has the potential to be a great marketing tool . The ability to reach more people with good content, is really exciting when you run a lot of events like we do.  

Here are the pros and cons of each with our “Bake-off” winner (and the reasons why) below.

Meerkat

Pros: Easy to set up an account

Easy to give the stream a name / title  

                       Ability to tweet comments in the stream

                       Can schedule a stream

            Ability to save broadcast

                       Can target smaller, more direct audience because no auto link to Twitter

Cons:       Cannot zoom in or increase volume

                      Need a built-in audience to gain viewers  

                      Lack of direct connection to tweet the stream makes it harder to gain audience

                      Hard to manage the chat and hold the phone

                      Need a good cellular or Wi-fi connection to make it work

                      Hard to understand the metrics for viewership during the broadcast and post

                      Lack of documentation on how to use it

           Really need a tripod for a good recording

           No post-viewing metrics

Periscope

     

Pros:

                    Setting up the account was easy

         Ability to save the broadcast

                    Connecting to and broadcasting via Twitter was easy

        Ability to tweet comments and likes in the stream, but can’t easily add

        other Twitter names in the tweet

        Easy to “title” - just like a tweet

        Direct link to Twitter makes for a larger audience but also more possibility for spam

        comments

Cons:        

   

         Can’t switch between Twitter accounts

                    Can only have one account associated with the app

                    Need a good cellular or Wi-fi connection to make it work

         Hard to manage the chat and hold the phone

                    Lack of documentation on how to use it

                    Few metrics - post view metrics much easier to see on an iPad

         Really need a tripod for a good recording

There are a lot of limitations with both apps and we are hopeful there are more features coming that will address the issues we outlined above. Both seem to be good, fairly easy-to-use tools for livestreaming, especially at events. For right now we give Periscope the edge due to its seamless integration with Twitter.  This feature alone will make it an easier-to-use social marketing tool.

It is a slight edge, though.  Even with the limitations, we see these apps as a great tool for events and smaller conferences with small budgets. The video and audio quality will not be great, but these apps will allow for broader distribution of events.  

Check out our next experiments at the Women in Tech Summit on April 18th and Chariot Solutions’ talk on Angular JS on April 22nd.

New Year's Resolutions 2015

i normally don't write down my resolutions, but my memory is not what it used to be.  And if I put it out there, it makes it a little more real and even if others don't hold me accountable, I know (or at last believe) I will hold myself a bit more accountable.

I will make this a little easier in myself and classify them by easy and wishful thinking.

So from easy to most difficult:

Think before I speak - this is a big one.  When you are writing emails, you can delete before sending, you can edit.  I have a tendency to blurt out ideas, thoughts, etc.  Sometimes this works, but I will be more organized in my delivery and also will not talk over people.

Be more patient with people - I have become a little mean to people, potentially due to the above, and it makes me unhappy with myself because I know that is not really me.  I just need to take a breath and wait a beat.

This one is from this year and I am continuing it  - Try my best to not eat mediocre food.  There is no reason to subject yourself to food that is just ok intentionally.  It does not need to be fancy, just good.  It helps to have a son who cooks with this one!

And now for the harder stuff.

Don't make excuses - I have been working on this one for many years and it still needs refinement. There is a fine line between explaing and understanding what went a wry and making excuses as to why something did not work. 

Study French for 10 minutes a day

Write more often whether it is for myself, for Chariot or for TechGirlz.  This is the hardest one for me. I dislike writing, but I have alot of thoughts in my head.

I'll meet you at the Ladies Room at Philly ETE

Every year at Philly ETE, I joke with some of the technical women that I know, that this is one of the few events where it is really easy to get into the ladies room.

The sad truth is last year, we only had 7% attendance of women in our audience.  My co-chair, Andrea, and I are constantly asked to increase the number of women speakers (which we have been diligently working on), but no one asks us to increase the number of women in the audience.

Well, I am starting a campaign called - A Line at the Ladies Room.  This year, I want a line that is reasonably long. I want to complain about how much time I had to stand in line.  Because attending conferences like ETE are important for professional development for technologists.

I asked my friend, long time attendee and ETE committee person, Audrey Troutt, why she attends ETE year after year.  She sent me this reason:

I make it a point to go to Philly ETE every year; I've been to a lot of technical conferences and it is the only one that I make a point to return to every year. There's always something that I learn about that ends up being useful in the coming months at work and in my side projects.

In this line of work the tools and platforms that we work with are constantly changing, so we need to be constantly learning and trying new things. There's a lot that you don't learn in school and that you won't pick up if you just keep your head down at work every day hammering on the same old problems with the same old tools. You need to seek out new knowledge and understanding. Reading blogs, wikis, stack overflow, reddit and trolling github will only get you so far. Philly ETE is a great conference for catching up on current and up and coming tools and practices. The talks are never about marketing, so you know that you are going to get intelligent, practical insight about the topic or tool.

It also helps to know a lot of other technical people because when you get stuck on an hbase problem it helps to have a hbase expert as a friend that you can reach out to. Philly ETE is great for that too because it's not too big, not corporate--it's an exciting and friendly environment in which to get to know other technical people in the region. The audiences are small enough that you can ask questions while still big enough to feel comfortable if you just want to sit and listen.

It's local, it's intelligent, it's friendly and it really is a bargain compared to any other conference I have been to of this quality. Win. Win Win. You should go.

Please help me in my quest.  Encourage the women techies you know in your life to attend this year.  And have them introduce themselves to me when they attend. I will be the one in the line.

Off to the next adventure, thank you PSL

Last night was my last duty as a Philly Startup Leader board member. Knowing that this was coming has given me some time to think about the last 5 1/2 years of one of the most satisfying volunteer gigs I have ever had.

Chris Cera said it best last Thursday at Founder Factory, the startup community was not exactly jumping when PSL was started. There was no Start Up Weekend, no Technically Philly, no DreamIt, Ventureforth, Benjamin's Desk, SeedPhilly or Philly tech meetup. But there was a group of people who wanted to connect with each other, learn from each other and try and build tech businesses.
I feel pretty lucky that I have been able to help in the building what is now the largest community of entrepreneurs in Philadelphia. I love my city and I believe our region has special qualities that allow us to build great companies. I have meet others in our city and region who feel the same way, many of them who have become life long friends.

As much as I have given to the community, I have received back in new knowledge, connections and experience. I know we have built a sustainable organization that at its heart will continue to lead the region’s entrepreneurs in new and better directions. I am excited to see what the new leadership team will create over the next several years.

And if you are thinking of getting involved in PSL, don’t wait to be asked, just jump in.  It will be one of the most worthwhile experiences you will ever have.

So thank you to everyone on the board and leadership team.  It has been a privilege to work with you.

Tracey

Open Letter to TechCrunch

"I’m as mad as hell, and I am not going to take this anymore" – Howard Beale, Network  (1976)

I opened my Facebook stream Monday morning to be greeted by an article posted by a friend about the debacle that was the recent TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon.

I usually avoid commenting on these issues. I am more concerned about creating positive action to combat some of the negativity caused by a lack of sensitivity or just plain boneheadness by men in the tech industry.

But then I was virtually punched in the gut by Titstare.com and a presentation that included simulated male gratification at what was supposed to be a leading tech conference -- and I realized I can't stay silent anymore.

There has been much made of the gender divide in recent years. For more than a decade, I’ve been working in technology and studying this problem up close, which is how I came to realize there is no one silver bullet to this issue. The solution involves many steps and many people pitching in.

The only way to maximize the value of the untapped resource that is women in tech is to change the culture, not just in the workplace, but also in society.

Groups like TechGirlz and Girl Develop IT can train and teach and create girls and women who are ready to be tech workers. But if the culture does not change -- if women are not considered part of the team or are thought of as sexual objects in an overt way or if we are treated like we don't belong -- this gender gap won’t be solved. And all the work that groups like ours do will be laid to waste.  

That makes me angry. 

For four generations, women have been cut, prodded and dissuaded from the technology picture. The first computer programmers on the ENIAC were simply cropped out of the Army’s publicity shots. In the 1980s, the percentage of women studying computers in college began its decades-long decline. We can’t forget the first Danika Patrick ad for GoDaddy in 2010, though I wish I could.  And now one of the most respected media outlets covering tech allowed not one, but two, travesties at its conference. 

That makes me mad as hell.

So, let’s put this in terms that will make those who sponsor events like TechCrunch and those that depend on educated tech workers think twice: you need us.

The number of job openings versus the number of qualified tech workers is widening. There are not enough men to fill open positions. Women are getting more college degrees and becoming a greater part of the workforce. 

If you want to make sure your companies will be sustainable for years to come, don't allow this behavior to continue.

The media frenzy around this event and the ensuing flurry of content and discussion will fade shortly ... then return again with the next round of idiocy.

My question for you: What are you doing to create lasting change?

TechCrunch screwed up, issued a lame apology and offered up a process for the next Disrupt. That is great, all good stuff, but the most important thing was still missed: regular positive action to increase the number of women in tech and to create a welcoming workplace culture.

Now is the time and TechCrunch has the opportunity to make significant cultural changes. I have some suggestions:

● Assist TechGirlz.org, Girl Develop It, Black Girls Code, ChickTech, CyberJutsu Girls and the numerous groups doing the heavy lifting by helping them raise money by getting our message out.

● Create a dedicated new channel on the website to generate stories and videos which encourage women and girls to enter the field. We know that knowledge is power.

● Help us with research. There is a lack of good, up-to-date data on why this problem continues to exist. Most of our groups don't have the resources to conduct this.

Yours truly,

Tracey Welson-Rossman

Founder, TechGirlz.org

CMO, Chariot Solutions

TechGirlz Board of Trustees

Anita Garimella Andrews

Tech Girl and VP, Client Analytics Services @RJMetrics

Amy Larrimore

Managing Partner at The Empire Builders Group

Neelan Choksi

President and COO of Tasktop Technologies

Steve Rossman

Drucker and Scaccetti