This is going to be a very personal post, and I apologize in advance because I usually don’t write about myself here. Actually I never do, but I wanted to after a discussion I had last nite on Twitter.
Over the last 5 years, I have met hundreds of people that I am proud to call my friends. I have gone from being unemployed, to being able to support myself. All of this is due to social media.
So when I say that I appreciate it when people read this blog, when they follow me on Twitter, I mean it. Not in a ‘hey, this is really cool!’ kinda way, but a ‘what did I ever do to deserve this with tears rolling down my face’ kinda way. I am extremely grateful to the people that are generous enough to give me their time and attention. I truly care about you all.
So with that in mind, let me tell you about an exchange I got into last nite on Twitter. I’ve noticed in the past couple of days that a lot of people I am following have started asking their followers to vote for them in the Fast Company Influencer Project. If you don’t what this is, it’s basically a schemecontest where you are rewarded for promoting Fast Company to your friends. You are trying to convince them to go to the Fast Company website and vote for you as being an ‘influencer’. Apparently, the more votes you get, the better your chances of ‘winning’. I have no idea what you win, but you win something. And all the while Fast Company gets a TON of free links to their site.
I tweeted something about being sick of seeing these tweets, when @DotJenna replied to me and told me that I shouldn’t begrudge people like her that were in the contest and trying to win it. Over the next 30 mins or so, we had a back and forth about the Fast Company ‘contest’. I told her what I thought of it, and how I thought it was encouraging participants to spam their own networks. Which didn’t create any value for them. She offered that she deserved to win, and told me how times were tough for her, and doing well in the contest would really help her. And she implored me to please promote her to my followers on Twitter, and how much it would help her and that she needed help right now.
And while I was reading this, I was getting madder and madder. I realized that this was the first actual conversation I had ever had with @DotJenna, and it was all about her trying to convince me to promote her to my network on Twitter. I realized that she was asking me to help her win a contest so SHE could benefit. There would be no benefit for my followers, just for this person that I was having my first actual conversation was.
And then I thought about how she said winning this contest would help her, and that she needed help right now. And I thought about how she was asking me to help her (again, 1st time we have talked), and I thought about the problems that I am going through right now. I thought about some of my friends on Twitter that are also having problems that needed help as well. I thought about how none of them were asking me or anyone else for help.
I kept getting angrier. I became protective of my network on Twitter, and that led to angrier tweets. Eventually, she realized that I wasn’t going to help her, and her tone went almost immediately from asking to help, to lashing out at me for being part of a ‘clique’ that was attempting to hold her back.
And sadly, this is what stuff like the Fast Company ‘contest’ does to people. It encourages them to leverage other people for their own gain. There was never any discussion of how MY network was going to gain from my promoting this person. Hell there was never any mention of how *I* would benefit either.
This isn’t what social media is supposed to be about, is it? Am I supposed to be building a large network simply so I can leverage them for my own benefit? Really?
I don’t want it to sound like I am dumping on @DotJenna, I am more pissed at Fast Company for starting such a stupid ‘contest’ that encourages people to act in a way that puts their own gain above that of others. Yes, people are still responsible for their own actions, but so is Fast Company. And I probably came off as being a jackass to @DotJenna on Twitter, and I probably went too far in my arguing.
But I argued because I don’t want social media to be about how one person can gain at the expense of many. I want it to be about how we can all benefit together. I want it to be about how I can create value for the people that have helped me. I don’t think it should be about me asking you to help me, it should be about me trying to help you.
Cause if I do, the rest will take care of itself. Right?
BTW I am sorry again for this post, but I just wanted to get this off my chest. And that’s one of the best reasons to have a blog, right? 
{ 83 comments… read them below or add one }
You’re awesome, Mack, and your followers love you for that. If you were in a contest to gauge influence, I would definitely vote for you, even though you would never ask for it. That’s what true influence is!
Nedra´s last post ..Transmedia Storytelling for Social Marketers- A Sample Campaign
Thank you Nedra. You’re right, I wouldn’t feel right asking anyone to vote for me in something like that. And now that I think of it, very few of my close contacts on Twitter are mentioning it at all. I think a lot of us have seen this before, and now how it usually ends up.
BTW you are pretty awesome yourself
Hey Mack
I think you did right posting about this.
I completely agree with you. I guess these Social tools are there for people to use how they want to. And in some ways if people want to spam their networks trying to get votes for freebies that’s up to them… my guess is that long term the network will ebb away… ultimately @Dotjenna will realise that people don’t want to follow her if she has nothing useful to say for them. I certainly wouldn’y dream of tweeting something like that to my followers. I value them, I feel privilegded that they want to follow me and are interested in what I have to say. No way I’d send junk down their feeds to them.
Your experience does also offer up some interesting thoughts around engagement strategies too. How to do it and how not to. Hmmm. Food for thought
Cheers
Jeremy
Hey Jeremy thanks for the comment. I think it also depends on your relationship with your network,. If you are constantly helping them and supporting individual members, then occasionally asking them for help might not be that much of a disconnect for them. But if your network doesn’t feel that connected to you, then see you constantly asking them to help YOU, then that could backfire. Interesting conversation about investing in others, before you can ask for ‘withdrawals’.
You’re spot on Mack. I always hover over the unfollow button every time I see “Please RT” – and this is an insidious new level.
I follow people because I’m interested in what they say, how they interact and what they might be able to lead me towards. I’m sure people follow me for the same reasons. Sure, I’ll link to my own blog or articles I’ve written, but I’d have thought they’d be of interest to my followers. Asking people to follow you so you can win a contest is just pathetic. Numbers aren’t important; collective gain and knowledge is.
David Whitley´s last post ..Lesson for hoteliers- How to disappear from the guidebooks and lose customers
Right, David. Whenever I see someone asking for help like that, I always ask myself ‘ok how often is this person interacting/helping others?’ If I can’t answer, then it really is a disconnect for me. Unfortunately, I think things like the FC ‘contest’ encourage that type of behavior.
I have only discovered you today via a RT from someone else I follow but every word resonated. I completely agree with you and think you’ve done the right thing and said it in a very well balanced way.
Yesterday I was bemoaning that evry competition that I see now requires you to upload a video or pictures to Facebook and the one with the most votes wins. It’s stupid, because people who deserve to are no longer winning competitions – either get proper judges or leave it to fate but don’t leave it to the people with the biggest social network.
A colleague has just won a writing competition with one of the worst pieces of writing I have ever seen. But we work in IT, everyone is online and they asked the company to vote for them. It just seems so wrong.
Your comments here really struck a chord and I wanted to chip in and say well said.
Laura if you see this, please give me your Twitter name so I can make sure I am following you.
Unfortunately, many companies are creating contests like this that are built around the entrants leveraging THEIR networks in order to promote their involvement in the contest, and ultimately the host site. The networks being slammed with constant requests for involvement almost always get nothing but sales pitches for their trouble, and usually the entrants don’t get anything either.
@ed had a great point on Twitter last nite that all these contests are doing is teaching people how to spam their own networks.
Mack, never apologize for standing up for your friends and your colleagues. That is extremely commendable and one of the things I admire most about you. If social media is about building and maintaining relationships, then what good are they if they’re not strong enough for someone to stand up for them in this way.
Thanks for being a friend and for looking out for all of us, who consider you a friend, colleague, acquaintance, role model. Your fierce loyalty is one of the reasons we all keep coming back.
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Thank you
” There was never any discussion of how MY network was going to gain from my promoting this person. Hell there was never any mention of how *I* would benefit either.”
Does one always have to benefit oneself in order to help out another would be my question?
If I located something that seemed to be of value, I would not mind backing them without hoping to *gain* as a result.
I’m not among the moasters, or boasters of huge numbers of Followers,
and I don’t know of this Fast Company which does sound rather unsavoury — and yes, I have been asked to back people at times (when I haven’t as I did not like the product/cause/standard of entry et al) but just once in a while, one surely can do something for another without expecting a reward.
Now I’m sure I sound like a Mother Superior. Which I’m not. But this is another angle, don’t you think?
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Hey Christine! I may be a bit naive, but I have always viewed my network on whatever social site I am on as being something more than just a collection of numbers and names. I’d like to think we are a community, and as such, I am a bit defensive about who and what I promote to them. If someone who I have never really interacted with suddenly asks me to promote them to my friends in my network, I scoff at that. Because I value the time and attention of my network, and don’t want to promote someone else to them unless they value their time and attention as well.
That’s just my approach.
Very nicely written and I agree with you 100%.
Mack,
Seeing your tweet this morning about the fact that you’d written a personal post surprised me because, as you say, it’s not in your blogging nature.
Having read the post I went back and took a look at the stream of tweets from last night…
There’s so much that’s just awful about all of this.
I certainly feel for Jenna if she’s really struggling right now and I wish her the best – but if she wins this contest we *all* know it will not be a real reflection of influence. The fact that the twitter conversation got heated and that she started calling you and Ed names is – alone – just one indication that she actually does not have *any* influence.
And for your readers who have not had the pleasure of spending time with you in real life – as I was honored to do a few weeks ago – I just have to say the insinuation that you are a “kingpin” and that you’re leading a “clique” was a bit horrifying. Those of us who have met you in person know that could not be further from the truth. It’s actually almost funny because it’s 180 degrees from being anywhere close to the real you!
Having said all of that, I just have to say that the sentiments you expressed about the Fast Company contest reflect how I feel about asking for votes for my SxSW proposals as well. In a perfect world perhaps those people who are planning to attend SxSW would peruse the proposals and vote for those that they would truly be most interested in attending. But that’s not the reality here. There are over 2000 proposals… No one in their right mind is going to go through them judiciously. And thus, like the FC contest, voting for the SxSW panels becomes a popularity contest as well. Fortunately it’s only 30% of the score, and I’ll trust the judges to use their 70% decision making power wisely, but the fact that I feel obligated to at least *try* to get some votes means I have to ask my friends, readers and followers for their support.
Quite honestly I find both the FC and the SxSW experiences abhorrent.
Anyway, I respect you – and always have – because of the respect and loyalty you have and you show for your friends, readers, blogchat participants and others who have shared their insights with you via social media. I think the respect you show for the medium itself is admirable as well, and I hope that’s what translates for your readers.
@LisaPetrilli
Lisa Petrilli´s last post ..How Wonder Woman Can Help You Conquer Your Career Kryptonite
Lisa said what I was going to say.
Right on Mack, right on. This whole thing is an unsavory scam.
It not only shows how desperate FC and their ilk are, it also shows how desperate many so called social media experts (and regular people) are to be relevant.
As a much larger picture though, have you noticed how it seems every contest now is a popularity contest? The merits of the claim are no longer considered but rather the raw popular votes – whether FC, American Idol and similar voting reality shows, Pepsi Refresh Everything Project, Entrepreneur Magazine’s newest initiative of Second Chance Contest, etc. It’s a stupid trend, and it really highlights the loss of critical thinking in the populace in exchange for sheep like behavior. It’s sad.
I would rather get something on my merit with honest effort alone rather than any of these charades.
I’ve had many of these arguments with people on LinkedIn, and I too have said what you said in this quote: “I don’t think it should be about me asking you to help me, it should be about me trying to help you.” where you mind your own business, invest good karma into your community and eventually you’ll reap some dividends. All this “me me me me me” stuff that people like dotJenna are doing is marching themselves up to the edge of a steep cliff. That’s not healthy for anyone, particularly not the community as a whole.
Likewise, there is a lot of social commentary that can be made in this type of behavior.
Don’t mind the FC “influencers” – they are blinded by their own irrelevance and greed.
Like Lisa said, it is apparent they have no genuine influence.
and to take this conversation in a positive direction, let me ask this: Since we’ve established that these people have none, How do we measure genuine influence?
Bruce Serven´s last post ..Are you cheating yourself out of good content
Thank you Lisa. I know that Jenna has no idea who I am (again, we’d never talked before last nite), so any assumptions she made about me was really taken with a huge grain of salt.
As for the SXSW voting experience, ask Connie Reece what I think of it. It’s a disaster, and in many times it rewards the people that best promote themselves to their networks, instead of the people and the ideas they want to present.
And notice that I promoted your SXSW panel ideas and actually asked YOU to tell me if your ideas were accepted, so I could promote them to my network. Because I know you, and we have a relationship established. Plus my network knows you, you’ve often engaged them via #blogchat and other times. So it’s not like we just met a day ago and you are now asking me for favors.
Thank you Lisa, I respect you as well. Probably even more now
Mack, I applaud you for this post, because it explores the unsavory side of Twitter. Twitter is a community, a place to engage and connect. There’s no place for “me, me, me.” And I agree that so much of the blame is with Fast Company and with other tools like followers and analytics and anything that encourages us to think quantitatively and not qualitatively about what this is really all about–people. Real relationships. And if you have to go around begging for people you don’t know to vote for you, well, just how influential is that? Not that she’s not a lovely person with something to contribute, but that’s a lesson yet to be learned.
And nothing wrong with personal in blogs–it’s kind of my mantra.
Laura you just hit on a huge problem with this ‘contest’. It’s supposed to reveal and acknowledge the ‘influential’ people, but it looks like the people that are doing the best are going to be the people that spend the most time promoting themselves to their own networks. If they were REALLY influential, would they have to continually plead with their networks to support them?
So I think the ‘contest’ is actually going to reward the best ‘promoters’ under the guise of identifying who the ‘influential’ people are. And again, the big winner here is Fast Company. Thanks again for the comment, Laura!
I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that hope’s this Fast Company celebrity contest blows over and goes away pretty soon.
I’ve witnessed several cases of unsavoury behaviour in getting people to vote for them and as you mentioned in your post this is only bad for social media.
Those with hidden popularity agenda’s & Me-Me-Me complexes are unfortunately able to project themselves almost along side those with integrity and intellect that are helping to drive forward the ways that we communicate and do business. (Like yourself Mack, Good Work…!)
BF
Mack,
I really enjoy reading your blog (and tweets) and found this post very touching and informative. Merci mon ami!
With all the energy @DotJenna was expending on beating you up… what could she have been doing to build a business, or find some other way of creating true value for other people, especially those in her own network? Could the problem be that she “collected” people who don’t really care and wouldn’t pay attention, so she must find artificial means of developing influence?
Seems to me that FC has promoted laziness with its contest. It is true that to advance, “all you have to do is ask.” But as you pointed out, Mack, the asker must have something to offer in exchange. Not sure that is appropriate for a contest, which is fundamentally about anonymity/obscurity rather than the hard work of relationship-building. In other words how would you match what you have to offer, with the exactly right people, in a contest? You’d face better odds going out there and finding matches… which is about having a vision, goals, etc.
FC’s approach is backwards. I’d love to see them end the contest and challenge participants to build their own real, living networks!
Christa M. Miller´s last post ..Defining value- whose point of view is it- anyway
I think the problem with the FC contest is that it seems like they started with the goal ‘how can we use this to build exposure for US?’ and worked backwards from that. They were ‘smart’ to get people’s egos involved, but ultimately this benefits FC, and hacks off a LOT of people in the process.
Oh well, if there’s a silver lining, I guess it’s that the NEXT time someone tries to pull this stunt, we can point to this example as how it should be avoided.
The down side to that silver lining though is that they will have a case study of why to do it because of how it got them traffic and mind share. Which is why I presume we keep seeing more and more of these types of contests.
Bruce Serven´s last post ..Are you cheating yourself out of good content
Mack, I couldn’t agree more with all of your post and most of the comments. This contest is one of the most ill-conceived schemes I’ve witnessed in social media. I’ve lost respect for both Fast Company and some of the people who are promoting themselves through it. I’ll be glad when it’s over, but we still have to look forward to someone gracing the cover as the “most influential” person. Can we get an asterisk with that?
@SherryinAL
Hi Mack;
I read your post with interest, and I agree with you. Honestly, it’s an angle I had not considered because I was peeved for a totally different reason which caused me to reject this FC thing out of hand. I got an email through one of my LinkedIn Groups that said the following: “Fast Company magazine is searching for people who are influential online. Discover how influential YOU are. Find out how influential other people are by visiting The Influence Project at:…”
I didn’t add the link into this post because of the simple reason that when I clicked on the link to find out what this was all about, it recorded me as having been influenced by the guy who sent the email. So basically this project encourages people to craft emails that look like they are being helpful and collaborative when in reality they are trapping people into unintentionally “casting a vote” as it were. So that totally hacked me off!
If a person wants to be collaborative, then do it. If a person wants to trick me into “voting” for him, I have no patience with that. The person who sent this email (to every single person in a LinkedIn group) has lost all credibility with me and hopefully with a lot of other people.
Thanks for your post. I’m glad someone is finally airing it out – and giving the rest of us an opportunity to camp on.
Margaret thats a great point. For those of you that haven’t followed this, most of the emails Tweets aren’t asking people to vote for them, they are generic ones like Margaret described. So you aren’t even aware that you are ‘voting’ for the person whose link you clicked on, till you are taken to the FC site.
So it starts with deception. That’s always a healthy way to begin an online relationship
Thanks for pointing that out, Margaret.
I love this post, Mack. I am so glad to have met you at DellCAP.
I just think you exemplify everything that social media is truly about (for me, anyway).
This whole *popularity* thing. Ugh. I love my creative community on Twitter. Number of followers doesn’t even come into the equation; it still feels like a private, lovely community of genuine friends who celebrate *creativity* together every day – and many of us (from India to the UK to the good old USA) have known each other for more than a year now.
I wouldn’t dream of having to *ask* for votes or an RT. It would feel degrading and like a disservice to our community. I am honored to promote awareness of their wonderful blog posts and works of art, however.
Props to Dell for choosing a quality individual like Mack Collier to represent them.
Been meaning to check out #blogchat and your LI group. ;*
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p.s. I had the same experience as Margaret above on the Fast Company *scheme* .
sheri strykowski´s last post ..full-size photo test
Thank you Sheri! I’m so glad I met you as well, you’re a very sweet person
And BTW, try to check out #blogchat this Sun nite at 8pm Central, @chrisbrogan is co-hosting. Might be busy
Yes, saw that, Mack & penciling in. Very excited about that and going to tweet that right now.
sheri strykowski´s last post ..full-size photo test
Mack, as generous as you are in this community, you needn’t apologize for a personal post. You give so much. Your genuine appreciation and caring of your followers always comes through, and when you say, “Thank you”, your sincerity rings true…even in the written word.
You had our collective backs on this one. Thanks for being such a stand up guy, Mack Collier.
Thank you Michele! And I got a comment from you, that makes my day
This makes me think of all the people I’ve been seeing on social networks claiming that they want to “help” others and making themselves look like saints but really most have an ulterior motive which is to be popular and ultimately sell them something!! Helping others on social networks or in person is not about if I help you… I’ll get something back! “Helping” is an overused word and its meaning has become distorted.
Hey Genevieve! It’s funny, I have had people tell me that I need to be ‘selling’ to my network more. I dunno, I guess it’s a bit pollyanna of me, but I’ve always thought that if you are helpful and respectful of others, that everything will work out.
Yeah now that I read that, it does sound a bit naive
But I guess it’s better than the alternative 
Thanks for stopping by!
“I’ve always thought that if you are helpful and respectful of others, that everything will work out.”
Same philosophy here Mack.
Bruce Serven´s last post ..Are you cheating yourself out of good content
Thanks Bruce, brilliant minds think alike?
Hmmmm….Mack, there are a lot of very selfish, self-entitled people in this world today and You definitely don’t seem like one of them.
Everyone wants instant gratification and doesn’t want to have to work for anything. What a lot of people don’t realize is that people like yourself have worked long and hard to obtain the “influence” and gain the trust of your community.
My mother used to tell me, “Everything that starts fast, ends quicker” – thus the name “Fast Company”.
Thank you Angela! I also think a LOT of people believe people are more influential than they seem. I don’t have 20,000 people that ‘follow’ me on Twitter. I have 20,000 connections on Twitter, so of those people are dear friends, some are people I have met and interact with on Twitter, and the vast majority of them, I would guess, are people I have never talked to, and likely never will talk to.
So how much influence can I really have over people I have never talked to? Same thing with follower numbers, or friends, or fans, or whatever. Their ability to accurate assessment someone’s ‘influence’ is grossly overstated, in most cases.
Hey Mack
I appreciate your post and your willingness to get personal this morning. And as someone who is part of your community on Twitter and #BlogChat I’m grateful that you are intentional in what you put into your streams.
I think this FC campaign is over the top and interestingly enough it doesn’t feel like a community activity to me. Remembering that it’s how you set up the chairs that defines whether you have community or a lecture this FC feels very impersonal to me and competitive. And if there were chairs they’d be in rows. All are qualities that I believe are contrary to community and even influence. As a matter of fact earlier this week I had the opportunity to attend an event for one of the candidates in the run-off election for governor. And because of this candidate’s presentation and their inability to connect to the audience it changed my mind in terms of how I would cast my vote. I found myself actually saying to a friend “I find it hard to believe this person could successfully influence and lobby lawmakers here”. Another interesting fact – this candidate lost the run-off election and had been the popular candidate all along. Proving that popularity only wins a popularity contest but influence can inspire, motivate and change not only people individually but collectively as well.
Thank you for your thoughts this morning and for your willingness to be so transparent and personal.
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First of all, I want to say that I think personal blogs do add. It’s nice to know that someone who is doing well and helping people is also human. (Which like I have commented on twitter is also why I like your cowboy hat avatar.)
As far as this whole FC thing. I was exposed to it through the “it starts with us” blog. Nate had initiated a “takeover” of the whole scheme hoping to get FC to do the following:
” When I was thinking about the Influence Project last Thursday, I wanted to figure out a way to change the tide of public opinion from mostly negative to mostly positive. I thought that if Fast Company kept everything else the same, but added in the single component of giving everyone in the project a chance to pool their collective influence to do something positive, together, then they could get some good value out of the project and sway the public opinion. ” Full post here: http://www.itstartswith.us/blog/2010/08/03/the-influence-project-hijackers-surrender/
Sadly FC didn’t want to play ball.
I think there is a time and place to ask for help, but you need to choose wisely when to ask, be authentic and be prepared for people not to agree to help.
Good post and would love more personal ones in the future as well.
(sorry so long)
Susie @newdaynewlesson´s last post ..Even If It Is True Altruism- You Gain Something
Hey Susie! This is all about Fast Company trying to do something that benefits Fast Company. That’s fine, but in the process we are all getting spammed by ads for their site that we often don’t even realize what we are clicking on.
Short-term, FC will get a LOT of buzz from this, and see a BIG spike in traffic. So it’s a win there. But long-term, I can’t see how this won’t hurt their rep. I have had about a dozen people tell me since last nite that this contest has prompted them to stop reading and promoting Fast Company’s content. @Ed told me he used to promote their content all the time, but now he won’t. And he has over *300,000* followers on Twitter.
I think what they have lost site of here, and like when many people in life lose sight of, is that people have to feel they are benefiting or the world is benefiting from what they are doing. Even if I personally don’t get anything out of something, if I know the cause is good and it is making a real difference or helping people then I would go along with it and help.
Susie @newdaynewlesson´s last post ..Even If It Is True Altruism- You Gain Something
Exactly. David Armano raised about $15,000 for a family last year by asking his Twitter network to help them. He wasn’t asking for himself, he was asking for them. His network trusted him, and could see that it was a good cause, so they responded.
Wow-that is amazing. That I think is the way it should be.
Susie @newdaynewlesson´s last post ..Even If It Is True Altruism- You Gain Something
Hi Mack,
Great post. You should really come out of that shell you hide in more often.
I found out about the Fast Company contest a few weeks ago. Being a good direct marketer who tests everything, I signed up to see what they were doing. I tweeted about it one day (three tweets) to see how it affected my participation. Then I was done.
Fast Company deserves kudos for finding a creative way to get traffic, links, and publicity. Does it convert into cash for them? Short-term – yes, it will. Many of the people who are participating will pick up a copy of the November issue to have a souvenir of their picture in the magazine. Long-term – I don’t expect them to pick up new subscribers.
You have to be willing to risk failure and ridicule when you put yourself or your brand in the public arena. The people who are competing to win the Fast Company contest are risking it all. Guy Kawasaki is participating. He is definitely influential. He tweeted one of my posts and I received more traffic to my blog in one day than I normally receive in a month. Someone without his influence can beat him by begging (spamming?) his or her network. And, when they win, they get bragging rights. I haven’t figured out how to convert that into cash. If someone is participating with a desperate need to win, my heart goes out to him or her. I hope that in winning, all is not lost.
I agree with Lisa on the SxSW competition for votes. It’s hard to understand why people who don’t attend the event are allowed to participate in choosing the content. If they want to crowdsource the sessions, they should limit participation to people who have attended previously or who have already signed up for the next event.
I find a lot of duplicity in the social media arena. Quite often people say one thing (build relationships) and do the opposite (block or ignore personal contact). Mack, you are cut from a different cloth. You practice what you preach. I’m glad that you didn’t allow the ugliness to affect you.
More personal posts please…
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Thank you Debra, a lot of good points raised.
Help me out here, how many people could potentially be profiled in the magazine? Are we talking 1 person or 10 or 100? Because unless they plan on making this a bigger deal than I think, I can’t see them giving space to more than 10 or so people. IOW, I can’t see how this is going to be a significant driver of issues sold off the rack.
As for the SXSW panels, again, don’t get me started. The whole process is a farce, and most of the best ideas never make it past the 1st round of voting, because the ‘winners’ are chosen mostly by the most tweets, links, and comments. IOW, it’s another popularity contest where the people that do the best job of organizing their network to promote for them, win. I always thought the best IDEAS should win, but maybe not.
And I’ll work on more personal posts. Thanks again
Everyone who participates is supposed to have their picture in the November issue. The size of the picture is based on the amount of “influence”. I think the top 100 are supposed to have more coverage than just the photo.
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Mack
As I read this I couldn’t help but thinking back to the first time I approached you to help me with my 2009 Mardi Gras Twitter project. Like @DotJena, i was asking you to help me with a project that certainly would benefit me personally and professionally. Unlike her, I had “spoken” with you previously and I was offering to share the results of the experiment with everyone vs keeping it all to myself so there would be value for you and your network.
It is a shame more folks don’t understand that the “clique” as she referred to you is actually more than willing to help folks that are looking for help. And no, the “clique” doesn’t just help the biggies.. I think at the time I had like 700 followers… but the “clique” gets called on a lot for that kind of help and thus, it is not only fair of them but right of them to expect value for themselves and more importantly for their followers be returned.
It’s post like this that make me very sad you won’t be joining us in Birmingham tonight/tomorrow. You are an influencer in my book… regardless of how popular or unpopular you are/become — or what FastCompany might say
)
Keep it real brother.
@TomMartin
Thanks Tom! Yeah the situation with you and Mardi Gras was completely different. We’d interacted before, and you made sure there was something in it for the people that you were asking to help you. Sure, you obviously got more, but you made sure to see that we got something as well. Plus, you were creating content that WOULD be of value to some of our followers. So I felt good about promoting it.
Hope you enjoy Birmingham, maybe our paths will cross again soon!
Mack, I have honestly never read your blog until 5 minutes ago. I will from now on just based upon your integrity.
Thank you for shedding your light on the current frenzy that Fast Company started. I also agree, popularity doesn’t result in quality. Great post and good for you telling @dotwhatever, NO THANKS!
@ericamcclenny
Director of Enterprise Engagement
Expion
Aw thank you Erica, I really appreciate you checking the blog out!
Help me out, Mack, for I’m confused.
To make an organizational analogy, do you view yourself as chief executive with your social network followers as your employees? Or, do you view your connection to your followers as more equals?
Reason I ask is who are you to decide what all of your followers want to read? Why do you feel you own what people read? Because that’s what it seems after reading some of your sentences.
Ari Herzog´s last post ..Be Impressed by Brobdingnagians and Not Gyps
Hey Ari, a couple of thoughts about this part of your comment:
“Reason I ask is who are you to decide what all of your followers want to read? Why do you feel you own what people read? Because that’s what it seems after reading some of your sentences.”
1 – No idea what you are talking about here. Seriously, you are going to have to give me some insight into the thought process that went into this point, cause I am baffled.
2 – Why is the tone of this paragraph so confrontational? Why did you feel the need to add “Who are you to decide” and “why do you feel you own what people read?”?
It’s like I not only don’t understand why you are saying what you are saying, but I don’t understand why you are shaking your fist in my face while you say it
You wrote, about two-thirds down, the phrase, “There would be no benefit for my followers…”
It is in reaction to this I ask you why you decide what is of benefit to them. You currently are followed by 21,307 accounts and appear on 1,491 lists (such as mine). How do you know what will or will not benefit all of those people?
I’m not trying to be confrontational, but when someone makes a decision to affect other people without asking those other people, such as me, I wonder why.
Ari Herzog´s last post ..Be Impressed by Brobdingnagians and Not Gyps
Ah, ok I think I get your point now. Well you are correct, I cannot say with 100% certainty that none of the 21K people that follow me would want me to promote someone for the Fast Company contest. I was speaking of my followers as a group. Maybe I didn’t do a good job of explaining that.
And I mostly base that on experience going through both this contest, and others just like it. I have never once had someone send me a reply or a DM thanking me for promoting someone in a contest like this, but I have had dozens of people thank me for NOT doing so. About a dozen in the last 12 hours, as a matter of fact.
But in general, I think I have a pretty good idea of the content my followers want, because I am always talking to them. I’ve also left over 36K tweets, and over 70% of those tweets were replies to someone.
Yet if my followers want me to change the type of content I am sharing with them, I hope they will tell me. Because I’ll be listening!
This. This This This. Totally agree.
@Leslie
First time reader – one of my friends shared this on Buzz and I thought it was excellent – except that you thought it necessary to apologize for how you feel.
Seems like nowadays we all feel like we need permission to say what we’re thinking because it’s bound to make SOMEONE or another angry.
To Ari I would say that you can’t control who follows YOU (except of course if you decide to block them), but mostly people follow you because of what you offer them, right? So you ARE sort of in charge of what people are reading in your stream.
I got followed by an account about a year ago and it was nothing but retweets, quotes, and spam links – ZERO personal engagement – and they had SEVENTY TWO THOUSAND FOLLOWERS.
That was my moment of epiphany – the numbers are of no value whatsoever, and popularity online has very little to do with our Real Life selves.
I really enjoyed your post and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to find it.
Thanks for writing this. I’ve been following The Influence Project and it reminds me of junior high student council elections. The most popular folks got seats in the council every time.
It’s great to hear from folks who may not have the most “popular” viewpoint, but one that nonetheless needs to be said. Thanks for your honesty and integrity.
To me, the whole “influencer” thing is like being “cool”.
A person is deemed cool by their friends because of who they are and what they do. A cool person never says he is cool or acts like he is cool or asks his friends to validate that he is cool; he just is. And that’s why his friends are his friends.
@DotJenna wanted to be cool. She asked you to confirm her coolness – which would indicate to all your friends that she is cool – yet you don’t know her from Adam. Or the Fonz. Not cool.
She asked you to confirm her coolness simply to benefit from profit. When she realized she wasn’t getting her way with you, she resorted to name calling. Seriously? Not cool.
@FastCompany wanted to be cool as well. From a business standpoint, being cool means more sales. Nothing wrong with that. But how they went about it – by feeding off the coolness of others – was not cool.
Sure, more sales might mean more writers and more photographers for better content (or it might mean more executives at the yacht club), but asking people to validate their influencing power is so not cool. Bad things happen. In this case, the worst with @DotJenna
What you did and what you said was the right thing to do, Mack.
Good for you. The fact that this was the first interaction you had with this chick totally makes your point valid. Immediately. Twitter is about sharing, and promoting (not self) and offering. Then, maybe if you have established a relationship with someone, you can kindly request that they help you. And even then, DM is the way to go. Don’t let people like that bother you. If you think about it, the time that it took you to write this post and the energy you gave to this girl, was really what she was asking for. I just ignore ignorant people. Or I make a totally inappropriate joke and they stop following me….
You are so right! Influence is NOT popularity. And influence is earned. Thanks for another great post!
Your post is spot on. I saw the link to the Fast Company “contest” on my FB wall & thought it looked kind of cool. I subscribe to the mag & enjoy it. I signed up and sent out the link once. Then I started seeing tons of contest links & it has become quite annoying. I’m really glad I only sent it out once.
According to FC, I have no influence. According to real people, they appreciate my knowledge and experience.
Jon Christensen´s last post ..Why Do We Sell The Products We Do
Mack,
Thanks for writing this! I said it a year ago and I’ll say it again… People have influence TOTALLY wrong (especially my PR brothers and sisters!).
Now, I haven’t read (yet) any fancy books on influence that explain it from a studied psychological/sociological/ethnographical perspective, but I have experienced people believing (totally misguided, of course) that I am influential in some way. And I do know, just from living this life of mine, that my family and friends have more influence over me than anyone online I don’t know. Understandable, right?
I get pitches all the time from people looking for help, to promote themselves, their blog or their products/services.
Here’s where I think they are misguided…
The onus of influence is put on the wrong group of people. Influence doesn’t belong to the people with high reader counts or friends/followers it belongs to the people trying to and efficiently get their message out through a channel of established potential reach. If someone pitches me it’s their potential influence over me that will help me make a decision to help them…or not.
What people forget to consider is whether or not *they* have enough influence to affect how I will rearrange my time or priorities to write or talk about them. And even if someone has taken the time to build a relationship or proven that there is value in what they are trying to share, they may misunderstand how much influence they truly have.
As well, we’ve seen it time and time again. “Influencers” have a tendency to take a pitch, chuck it over the wall, and walk away (after they’ve done their duty in order to be paid, compensated, etc.). There is nothing sticky there…so what kind of influence is that, truly?
My theory is totally unsubstantiated scientifically, but I am going with it. And, I will continue to help clients to understand why they need to be the influencers and not to worry about going after those big numbers. As well, they need to allow their customers to provide influence on them too. When both are in harmony, great things happen!
Beth Harte
Serengeti Communications
@bethharte
Beth,
You’re amazing. Anyone who doesn’t listen to you is a fool. Everything you’ve said is right on track.
Debra Ellis´s last post ..Social Media is Surprisingly Similar to Direct Marketing
Why thanks Debra! Just speaking from experience. Well, that and the fact that I refuse to do ‘pie in the sky’ marketing/PR.
Beth Harte´s last post ..Hello world!
Beth that’s an amazing comment!
To me, here’s the basic disconnect:
Companies see an ‘influential’ blogger with a readership of say 50,000 people a day. They think that if they can get that blogger to write about them, that s/he will send ‘their message’ to 50,000 people that will then want to buy their product.
A few obvious problems with this line of thinking:
1 – Most bloggers that have a high readership publish more than one post a day. Some, like Mashable, can post 5-10 a day. So the potential reach of your message has been cut in half, or a quarter.
2 – High numbers do NOT equal influence. I’ve seen this from my own experience in crafting blogger outreach programs, and I’m sure you have as well. Notice the bloggers that get thousands of readers a day. Most of them publish several posts a day, and little to NO interaction with their readers. How much influence can a blogger have over you if they never answer your comments or make any attempt to interact with you?
Which blogger do you think has more ‘influence’ over their readers:
1 – The blogger with 5,000 readers a day, who gets 5 comments a post, all from their readers
2 – The blogger with 500 readers a day, who gets 15 comments a post, half of them are from the blogger.
If you want to really succeed in reaching people of influence, target the SECOND group, and find people in that second group that are ALREADY passionate about your products and company.
I actually just started to follow FastCompany shortly before this nonsense because I remember liking their magazine.
I tried to follow a couple of links and realized that after being forced to sit through an ad I couldn’t even see their content without allowing cookies. Rather than doing that I just unfollowed. I’m not surprised they don’t get the influence thing.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about…I loved this FC project. I was able to reduce my follows by a significant amount and now can focus on those who are truly engaging and informative.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about…I loved this FC project. I was able to reduce my follows by a significant amount and now can focus on those who are truly engaging and informative.”
And there ya go…
Ha! Traci, you are the best . “I was able to reduce my followers…” The antithesis of what most people *think* they should be doing! There is NO influence in lots of followers/followings with no rhyme or reason. Let’s stop with the influence nonsense and get back to the job of being engaging and informative in a way that actually helps people.
Wait, that was a double negative!! Ooopss. I should have said “without rhyme or reason.”
Beth Harte´s last post ..Hello world!
I love double negatives Beth…confuses people like crazy! But the key was follows (people I follow) not followers. I just unfollowed everyone who sent me the damn link.
I agree with your overall point, but would simply add that people don’t “have” networks.
Larry Irons´s last post ..Gossip- Collaboration- and Performance in Distributed Teams
Leave it to a phellow Philly peep to nail this on the head…
Beth Harte is 1 billion (yes, a billion) percent right.
Remember the old pick up line “What’s your sign?”
Now it’s “How many followers you got?”
This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. And it sure as hell ain’t no popularity contest.
Mack I am one of your newer fans and thank you for this post!
Here you are illustrating an everlasting truth: That relationships (of any kind) only work when you operate from: “what do I have to contribute to this person?” and NOT from “What do I have to gain from this person?”
Pure and simple. Moving on…right?
MONICA
Now that Fast Company’s Influence Project is over…
Technically, it was more about perseverance than popularity. They didn’t have filters to keep people from voting multiple times. If someone wanted to win, all they had to do is sit and click for hours. Or, they could have a few gnomes join in.
I didn’t mention this earlier because I didn’t want to influence the Influence Project. : )
Debra Ellis´s last post ..Social Media is Surprisingly Similar to Direct Marketing
Oh REALLY, THAT IS FUNNY I think you had another conversation with dotjenna……the time you wanted to help her get votes for a similar contest. So NOW you are angry??? I don’t get it. You sure get angry at SMALL things maybe you need to relax and take a vacation from your computer. She works night and day to help her clients. You obviously do not know her! You sound mean spirited using dotjenna as a scape goat to look good to your audience.
Actually I tweeted that I appreciated people RTing me, and if they had done so, to please tell me so I could RT them. Jenna then RTed a post of mine, then asked me to RT that vote for her. Which I did, because I said I would. Which taught me a valuable lesson in the process.
Mack, I hear what you are saying, and I am torn. It’s a very fine line here, and a real finesse in using social media. If someone could indeed influence the most people to vote for her in a contest, I would say that is legitimate influence. I agree we want to give a lot of value to those who subscribe to follow us and our work. I also believe that we can ask those who we give value to for things if we believe they are in line with who we are and what we are doing. Let our client base/fan base/followers decide. Some people who are following others really love to help to do something for them. They like to be asked. You will not make it very long in this arena if you are taking without giving, true. Can we not also model asking and receiving? It’s a two-way street, and it works best when it flows both ways. It empowers others rather than seeing them as victims who need protecting. I am a colleague of Dot Jenna. I do not know her well, but she and I do a lot of give and take on the internet, and it serves us both. I was not put out when she asked for a vote. I took a look and made a choice to support her in what she was asking, and I felt good, and I let her know I voted for her. Knowing her personality and her persona, I thought that contest was a good fit for her. I didn’t think it fit me well, so I took a look and went no further with it for myself.
Thanks for making me think about this. We are carving new roads here. Thanks for playing.
Michelle
Michelle Barr´s last post ..James Ray- Spiritual Teachers Come In Many Forms
Hey Michelle!
The biggest problem I had was with the way Fast Company structured the ‘influencer’ project. It was constructed so that entrants were encouraged to basically spam their own communities/followers, in order to win. And the ultimate winner is Fast Company.
It’s not so much about what you do or don’t do, its how you go about it. No one is obligated to do anything for anyone unless they choose to and demanding that someone do something shows no tact.
A true influencer will either not need to ask or will ask and then leave it up to the recipient. The Internet is about “pull” not “push” marketing.
Also, I believe Mack said he didn’t have a problem with Dot Jenna or Fast Company. The issue was with the method Fast Company used in this particular case.
And as far as give and take go….Mack is definitely a giver.
Angela Beasley´s last post ..Free Business Advertising Online – How to Use it Effectively
Hi Mark,
I have always been a fan of yours, but I have to say that I got really embarrased for YOU when I read this article. Not only did you spend a great deal of time debating the topic on Twitter, you went one step further and chose to blog about it and cast someone in as poor of a light that you possibly could. My friend, that really makes you look very very small. Tiny! ;-/
Just my opinion. I’m still a fan though.
Susan
THANK YOU for this! I was laughing when I read it because I totally relate. Not only was it annoying to get spammed for votes, but now the “winners” are using this to promote themselves & validate charging large fees for bogus workshops & such. These “social media educational workshops” are usually some type of MLM or other program asking people to invest their money. It’s so disappointing for those of us trying to hold workshops to actually teach people useful skills so they can understand & utilize social media for themselves.
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