How to properly pre-launch a show

December 13, 2008 · Filed Under Online Marketing, social media · Comments 

Several months back NBC announced that Jimmy Fallon would be taking over hosting duties for Conan O’Brien once Conan replaces Jay Leno next year on the Tonight Show. He’s just a kid (35) compared to O’Brien (45) and Leno (58) and although I don’t watch a lot of late night talk shows, I’m definitely interested to see what Jimmy brings to the table, or desk, I guess.

Earlier tonight I saw a tweet scroll by that was a response to @jimmyfallon. Usually when I see a celeb’s name as part of a twitter account, I’ll visit the profile page to see what’s what. I like to try to figure out if it’s really the celeb doing the tweeting, or if it’s some marketing guy. Not that I mind the ‘marketing guy’ angle, I just like to see how they are using social media. Regardless, what I found on Jimmy’s profile page was a link to LateNightWithJimmyFallon.com, and this is where the fun begins.

On the site Jimmy is doing a daily video blog. The first few have been a behind the scenes look at the studio where the show will be taped, meet the announcer and the first installment of “Ask Jimmy“; a weekly segment where he’ll answer questions sent in by the community. If you record a video asking your question and send it in, there’s a chance you’re going to end up being part of the segment. I’m looking forward to more episodes of Ask Jimmy.

It’s great to see a show taking advantage of social media. And take advantage they are. Aside from Jimmy personally twittering, check out this post where they list 18 ways to connect with Jimmy online. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, etc… As I’m writing this, Jimmy has over 3500 followers on twitter, 879 friends on Facebook and 3300 friends on Myspace. By interacting with the audience before there’s even a show to watch, Jimmy’s going to build a buzz for the show that will be far greater than if they went with the usual commercial onslaught in every popular TV show on NBC during the month leading up to Jimmy’s debut on the show.

Congrats to NBC and Jimmy Fallon for realizing the benefits of social media.

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Dealing with Twitter Spam

October 16, 2008 · Filed Under Ranting, Technology, social media · Comments 

I’m not even close to being surprised, but the amount of Twitter Spam I’ve been getting lately is on the rise. Sure, it’s nice to have your follower count go up, but when the only messages coming from them are for you to come check out their poker site and receive $50 in bonus cash, the trade off is just not worth it. Besides, letting these spammers stick around only makes the place a little worse for everybody.

So how should you deal with spammers? Easy; block them.

Ya see, Twitter has a nice set of rules that is designed to keep the spammers out. Of course that’s just not going to happen entirely since any time you have access to a large number of people, the spammers want to come piss in that pool. But, by taking the 10 seconds to go an block the spammer on twitter, you are actively being part of the solution.

Twitter’s software is getting pretty good at catching the spammers. Twice this week I have received notices that I have a new follower. An hour later when I went to check out their account, they had already been blocked. I call that efficient!

I’m one of those guys who leaves the email notifications turned on so that every time I get a new follower, I receive an email. I do this because I usually will go and follow the people who follow me. I read the incoming email, click the link to go check out the person’s twitter profile and I decide if they are a spammer.

What is considered spam?
When I view the person’s twitter account, I look at the following:
1) How many followers do they have?
2) How many people are they following?
3) How many tweets do they send out?
4) How many tweets include a link or some sort of offer?

If they have 8 or 10 (or more) times less followers than they are following, this is a good indication that they are using external software to follow mass quantities of people hoping that they will reciprocate by following them. They are getting blocked.

If they are following more than 100 people and they have less than 10 tweets, I’ll check the content of their tweets to see if they look “spammy.” I usually just give it the sniff test. If something smells funny, for example, 5 tweets and 3 of them have a link back to the same site, I’ll block them.

If somebody has sent 5000 or more tweets, I won’t block these ones, but I’m less likely to follow them, too. Typically I find that these guys are responding to EVERY tweet they see come in. That’s totally fine. I have no problem with that. I’m just not going to follow them back as I don’t need to read all their response messages.

Twitter’s software looks for all of these things as well, so it won’t be too long before your spammy follwers end up getting the proverbial boot by Twitter. But, it’s such a nice feeling to think that you’ve helped get them kicked off the site. Well, I know it works for me.

Not sure how to block somebody on twitter? Check out this post here.

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Become a Twitter Rockstar

October 1, 2008 · Filed Under Technology, social media · Comments 

This is one of those amazing times where I set out to do something and rather than over-complicate it as I like to do so often, I applied the K.I.S.S. principal, Keep It Simple Stupid, and was able to get it done in about a week. “What’s the project?” you ask, it’s an eBook called “Become a Twitter Rockstar.”

I’ve been using Twitter for a while now and I’ve gone through my fair share of Twitter apps. Twirl and TweetDeck being my two favorites, but TweetDeck takes the cake for usability and features.

A few weeks back while messing around with TweetDeck, I realized that there’s a way to build yourself a nice little business using the combination of Twitter, TweetDeck and a Blog. Total out of pocket costs are about $20 to start up and a few bucks a month for hosting your website, but other than that, there’s nothing more to spend. I messed around with my idea for a few days until I was satisfied that the process would work. And work it did.

I was thinking that I was going to write this eBook and then sell it for ten bucks a pop and earn a little beer money. But, after I wrote it, I realized that it was less than 10 pages and I would hate to get in to a spot where I either had to justify it’s value, or worse, deal with giving people refunds. Neither of those sounded like fun. So instead, I’m giving it away. If you want a copy of my eBook, it’s all yours. Use the form in the sidebar (or at the bottom of this post) of my site (sorry RSS readers, you gotta visit the site for this one) to sign up for my newsletter. When you confirm your email address, the eBook will be sent to you via email automatically.

Check it out and then come back and leave me a comment telling me what you thought of the eBook.

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