2008 has been a hell of a year, hasn’t it?  The economy went to shit, the automakers asked for a bail out and the States got one hell of a new President. For me, 2008 started out very promising, and then quickly went sideways, and kinda stayed that way for the rest of the year. Kinda rollercoastery.

There were a couple of events and phrases that popped up through the year, that I am hoping were a 2008 phenomenon and will get buried under the passage of time, like the rest of the year, including:

“Rockstar” “Guru” and people just starting out in social media calling themselves “experts”. Maybe this was happening in late 2007 too, and lord knows I was one of those who called myself a rockstar at first and then a guru for a while after that.

Here’s the thing:

If you don’t get up on an arena stage, sing or play your guts out, every night, are a household name, have groupies and can’t walk down the street to go grocery shopping without paparazzi following you and selling your picture to every celebrity rag in the USA, you are not a rockstar. Let me say it once more, so it sinks in: YOU ARE NOT A ROCKSTAR.

If you are not a spiritual teacher who has the power and wisdom to erase others spiritual ignorance and help them practice a certain religion as a discipline; if you do not have a following, an ashram, and people do not seek out your assistance to help them find their spiritual path, you are not a Guru. Let me say it once more, so it sinks in: YOU ARE NOT A GURU.

If you have a facebook page and you twitter, but have just started dabbling in the social media scene or even if you’ve been here for a while; if you cannot think strategically enough to get yourself to your destination with maximum efficiency or cannot demonstrate enough ‘thinking-it-through-edness’ to develop and implement an effective plan to increase brand visibility (or if you know what all those words mean, but you can’t explain their true essence to me), you are not a social media expert. Let me say it once more, so it sinks in: YOU ARE NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT.

The sheer volume of “new media experts” “web 2.0 experts” and “social media consultants” that have cropped up all over the place, hanging their shingles out, hoping to cash in on the wave of social media is staggering. Every 1 in 3 people who follow me on Twitter these days are “social media consultants” but, they have nothing to back it up. Where’s the honesty and transparency folks? Where’s the truth? Do they even know that’s a tenent? If they do, can they tell you why? If the person you are talking to about your upcoming social media strategy can’t answer that simple question, along with “how long have you been working in the social media scene?”  then run. Do not walk. Do not hire them. RUN.  And quickly.

This wasn’t any more obvious to me than the other day, when Chris Brogan tweeted that if he didn’t have your twitter name top of mind, you might be missing out on work and fifty-eleven billion people all tweeted @ChrisBrogan here’s mine! Here I am!. Great, you know how to Twitter, but can you produce a strategy?

Now, yes, I term myself as a social media strategist, and here’s why: I have more than 8 years of traditional public relations experience - which has taught me a huge amount about how to create effective strategies, how to reach the people, and what the public responds to. I have spent the past two years working with real social media clients, helping them to develop communities, speaking on the topic of social media, and analyzing every single new tool, service, and goofy “measurement” schtick out there. I know the ins and outs of those services and I know why it is that certain brands work better on certain platforms, and best of all, I can tell you why. So yes, I’ve got the phrase “Writer. Social Media Strategist. Loudmouth.” on my business cards. And I am all of those things. I’ve earned the right to call myself that after 8+ years.

Along with the terms that I would banish for 2009 are “Web 2.0″, “blogosphere” and “weblog”. They’re outdated, outmoded and they suck. They are no longer representative of what we do.

Web 2.0 is very 2006/2007, back when it just began. Maybe just 2007. Either way, it’s no longer the next thing. It’s the now thing. You want to differentiate? Fine, use “traditional” or “conventional”. That means that the way we’re doing things now is new. Is different than the traditional.

Blogosphere. Oh, the Blogosphere. A rip-off of “atmosphere” and, sure, I get it, but it’s very 1998. Much like “weblog”. Let it go. It’s not a “sphere”. I have…. (counting)… seven blogs at the moment. Four of which I get paid to write. Plus two of my own and one that is connected to the book I am writing. I’m about to launch an eighth on travel etc. Due to the volume, does that mean that I have my own ‘blogoniverse”? No. It means I have blogs. I write for several blogs. And we’re done, mmk? Thanks.

The other thing that I was very aware of in 2008 that I think should just go away and stoppit entirely, is the public drama/cat fights/bullshit. As one of my local Twitter connections recently put it brilliantly:

Holy Brilliant, and Amen sister!! Thank you for saying what the rest of us are thinking.

There were several public blow outs - both online and face to face, but still in the community that I was either dragged into, a part of, or witnessed, and damn am I tired of them. The social media community is a small one, and any words that are said, shouted or written, can and will be repeated. I am guilty of this myself - as well as guilty of participating in said dramas. I regret it, but 2008 was a year of personal drama for me that spilled out into my public life, what can I say, except “I apologize”?

For my part, I’m taking a break from the world and focusing on my own life for at least January - and that means few social commitments, little online interaction and more introspection and work.  It means letting go of several of the people to whom I threw drama at, who dragged me into drama, and whom I dragged, unwittingly into drama. It means letting go of the drama, of the people who cause it, and concentrating on my own development.

To those who were involved in drama I witnessed or took part in and to those whose dramas I didn’t see, just let it go. Please. It’s dumb. It’s not worth it, and it mars your reputation and brand.

Either way, whether you take my advice or not, I’m out. I don’t want to play anymore, and to that end, I will not rise to the bait, I will not lash out at those who have wronged me, whether real or imagined.

The moral of this post? Drop the drama. Be honest. Do unto others. Most of all, stop the bullshit. I’m over it, and I know others are as well.

Let. It. All. Go.

(image sources: Sam Roberts at the Commodore, by me, on Flickr; Shallomj Screenshot from Twitter)

This has been bugging me for some time now, but I think in order to explain my annoyance, I have to give you some back story.

At BlogWorld Expo, I was hanging out with people I’d met at SxSW and knew from Twitter. A couple of them hassled me (gently) over my following to followers ratio. You see, I’d gotten fed up with the fact that I was missing many of the people I really wanted to know about on Twitter, and so ruthlessly slashed and burned. If we hadn’t had an actual exchange on Twitter, I was out. I culled those I was following down to approximately 250 (from about 1100).

So, ok, fine. I come home from BWE and start looking at ways to get the updates from my 250 or so “main interest” Twitter folk, while still following back just about everyone who followed me. I found that Tweetdeck will give me an “attention” group, despite the fact that the program takes up a lot of screen real estate and is kind of unwieldy.

So, I’ve begun to follow almost everyone back (unless you’re a spammer or a bot), and I’m getting a deluge of direct messages! “Thanks for the follow. Check out my blog!”, and my favourite, “Five reasons to move to Sweden”. Um, thanks but this is not why the direct message feature was introduced!

 People, restrain yourselves. Just stop it! I will find your blog if I am interested. Sending me a direct message and telling me to check you out is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth and even if I do manage to find your blog on my own, I’m not going to stick around. (image sources: screenshots taken by me)

So please, please people. If you want to say thank you for the follow or whatever, it’s ok to do that publically. It’s not a secret. Use the Twitter DMs for what they’re ACTUALLY for, ok?  Thanks.

Edited to Add: Matt makes a good point. I got all ranty and didn’t talk about what the DMs are actually FOR. I use them, as do many of my friends on Twitter, as a quick communication between two people that we don’t necessarily need all 1400 people or however many are following us to see.  I use them more or less like text messages - quick and easy, something that I can direct to one person rather than something that I want on the public timeline, but that doesn’t require as much effort/space as an email requires.

So, how are YOU using Twitter DMs?

Jason Calacanis thinks so.

I’ve gotten more press than any entrepreneur could dream of–certainly more than I deserve–and I’ve never had a public relations firm working for me. [source]

Ok, fair enough, and I agree with Jason for the most part. I don’t think that all start ups need PR. What’s pissed me off about Jason’s article is his overall perception of the industry.

You must realize that journalists are constantly getting banged by lazy, clueless PR folks who fire first and don’t understand what the word "aim" even means.

Now, while that can be true, not all of the PR people in the world are lazy or clueless. In fact, painting all of the PR people in the world with that same brush is like a Canadian (yes, that’d be me) saying that all Americans are fat and ignorant.

When I was doing PR full time, I was adamant about doing it right, not being clueless about anything I pitched or the way I pitched it, when I made phone calls, who I pitched, what they covered etc.  Even more important, now as a journalist, I want to be pitched properly. I’ve written about this in the past, and I suspect it won’t be the last time.

So, yes, take a look at Jason’s tips for doing PR for your startup, but make sure that if you’re pitching a reporter, that you’re doing it right! Don’t ask if they got your release. Make sure you know the beat your target is covering and for the love of god, don’t get upset if they say no.

Like I said, I’m sure that I’ll revisit this because, well, I’m still getting shitty pitches, so until that changes, I’ll keep harping on it.

Wow. Advertising is taking a huge nose dive. The future is Word of Mouth, (a la blogs) “web 2.0” (again, blogs, twitter, plurk, friendfeed etc) and other online properties.

So it is any surprise that the ANA is saying that they anticipate ad budgets to be cut? Yeah, not really. Add that to the Pew survey that people get the majority of their news online vs tv or radio, and basically, it looks like traditional media channels are screwed.

This just looked at advertising however. Having just spent a full evening catching up on movies and tv shows I’ve recorded, I don’t think traditional media channels are going away. I do think that advertising is going to have to change significantly however.

Um. No. And yet, Jennifer Leggio, a dear Twitter friend and an uber smart security chick, had to point that out to people on her ZDnet Blog.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with Jennifer, as well as with Al Krueger from Comet Branding whose post, “Regurgitator or Originator”, is what brought the whole Copy+Paste+Publish phenomenon to light.

Copy+Paste+Blog is when the blog author does one of the following:

• Posts only snippets of another blog with a link to said blog, sometimes posing a question but rarely offering additional ideas
• Using a blog solely for research and referencing that blog without doing the background work on his or her own 

Yes, I totally cut and pasted that from Jennifer, and like she said, if I wanted to just C/P/P, I’d ask you what you think and sign off. But that to me seems like lazy blogging. Where’s the author’s own opinion or voice here? If you just cut+paste+publish, why are you even bothering to blog?

I read blogs for the opinions and information offered by the author. Sure, I use a good number of blogs as source information, but I also make sure that I track down additional news stories, the original blog articles and additional opinions as well so that I can add to the conversation, not just regurgitate other people’s words. And if I can’t find something that I want to add to the conversation, then I don’t bother blogging it. There’s tons of other things in the world to blog about.

If you want to make sure that you’ve got your own thoughts out there – there’s some things you’ve got keep in mind, particularly the tenets of traditional journalism. To me, these were no brainers, but then I come from a PR/Journalism background. It’s just a given to me to follow the trail and find out what I can before posting madly.

If you remember these two things (well, ok it’s kinda three or four things in two points, but you’re smart. You’ll find it all), you should manage to avoid the majority of the problems Cut – N – Paste blogging presents:

• Don’t bandwagon jump – climbing onto the “me too!” bandwagon is only going to stir up the waters more, instead of adding to the conversation.  If you haven’t experienced something for yourself, and you don’t go tracking down the original information, then shush.
• Which brings me to: Find your own sources. Yes, absolutely, use the blogs you read as inspiration, but make sure you’ve got the true story and also that you formulate your own ideas, opinions and sources.

(image source: Vinyl Pulse)

Seriously. We live in a world where women outnumber men in industries like public relations, marketing and even social media. Yes, there’s lots of great men in social media, but there’s a gazillion women.

We’ve, at least in my opinion, pretty much leveled the playing field for any woman who wants to get out there and actually play. Sure, it might mean you get your hands dirty or break a nail (and yes, I am using sexist metaphors on purpose), but hell, that’s what soap and manicurists are for.

I am a woman who knows how to promote myself, how to ask for things and how to get people do help me do those things, and am usually thanked for the opportunity to help me when it’s all said and done. Sometimes, I use traditional "old fashioned" methods like the telephone (and a land line at that! gasp!) or email, and sometimes I use the new-fangled technology. No matter which way I go about it, the worst thing that’s going to happen in that moment is that the person I’m talking to will say "no". Doesn’t mean I’m a horrible person or that I am an idiot for asking. It means that, for whatever reason, the other person can’t accommodate me.

I got into a discussion about this very thing with @MissRogue and @Aruni one day over Twitter, and I just got frustrated. A few other people feebly joined the conversation and said they didn’t understand how we  could be so strong and passionate about what we do and that they envied our ability to be that strong, capable, passionate woman. They claimed they could never be as "brave" as we are.

It’s not about brave.

Lemme give you a minute to let that sink in.

It’s not about BRAVE.

It’s about smart, which we all are; it’s about confidence, which we all need to find (it’s there, and it’s been there all along, you just have to find it), and it’s about learning how to take "no" for an answer and then don’t stop asking until you get a yes!

I think every woman should be able to be as successful as they want to be in business, however that looks to them. I think that no woman should ever bemoan the fact that the world is run by an "old boy’s club". You know what? 50 years ago, that might have been the case, but guess what? All those "Old Boys" are all sitting around in retirement, in their private clubs and congratulating each other on past victories, while you’re out there, getting things done, making things happen and living your life. They don’t affect you unless you let them.

There is no try, there is only do. There’s no such thing as willpower - you either do something or you don’t, but you make that choice to do or not do, consciously.

So get out there, take the bull by the horns, throw stones at people living in glass houses and break their ceilings. (How many other metaphors can I throw in there?)

/steps off soapbox. @Aruni, upon hearing this rant, told me I need to write a book. I haven’t talked to her about it in a while because I’ve been too busy writing the book proposal. @Aruni, it’s in the works baby!!