social media | Elizabeth Barone

My life is going at the speed of a frog in a blender. It’s almost too much!

I started working two jobs a couple of weeks ago. I am not used to working all day, every day. It’s exhausting! It’s totally worth it at the end of the week, though. I’m actually catching up on things I’ve been trying to save for. Maybe I’ll even be driving the Sunfire soon, rather than my death trap Mazda. I even got the BlackBerry I’ve been dying to have (thank you to Sarcastica for being so patient and helping me get on BB Messenger)!

A couple of days ago, I also partnered my web design freelancing business with my aunt’s web design and print media business, OSC. We will be collaborating on social media websites. So basically, if one of us has a client that needs a website and social media, we will work on it together. I will be working on the social media end of it, be it setting up accounts on social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) or building a site in WordPress. We will be offering training and hopefully will be doing seminars. We have an expo in about a month that we need to prepare for, and we’ve been doing a lot of networking. Needless to say, I’ve been working pretty much non-stop and I could use a nice, long nap.

Somehow, through all of this craziness, I’ve managed to stay smoke-free. I don’t know how the hell I’m doing it.

Of course I have another sinus infection. I have to call my physician in the morning and get some drugs! I thought that by quitting smoking, I wouldn’t get as many sinus infections each year. I guess I thought wrong. I don’t want to go back to smoking, though. I don’t even care that I quit, and I’m glad for all of the extra cash (especially now that Connecticut is hiking up the taxes on tobacco).

The only real problem with all of this working is that I’m starting to feel like I don’t ever do anything fun. I realized the other day that I’ve been much been working non-stop for the last year or so, and that sucks. It’s starting to drain me. I spent most of the day yesterday trying to stop the

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from leaking out of my ears.

My only consolation is that today is Wednesday, Friday is pay day, sometime this weekend I am going to get my hair cut, and Julien-K finally released their debut album. Oh, and did I mention that Mike found me the ultra-rare translucent Dr. Manhattan figure? Cool beans.

It’s starting to aggravate me that I’m getting irrelevant messages and friend requests on a particular MySpace account that I run. Mainly, these requests are coming from bands. Now, I’m all for checking out new music, but the account is very obviously not a personal account. A message or friend request saying, “I’m really interested in what you’re doing,” or something to that effect would be much more welcome than, “Listen to our music! We didn’t even read your profile so we obviously don’t care about who you are or what you do, but you should support us anyway!”

In this day and age, social media is about branding and caring. If you’re going to use social media as a marketing tool, you should use it the correct way. Look at the profiles of your potential clients, consumers, or fans. Decide what they need and how you should approach them. If you send me messages trying to get me to comment on your page without even checking out mine to see if I’m going to like what you’re trying to sell me, I’m going to see right through what you’re doing and I’m not even going to bother. Even worse, if my account is for a jewelry business and you’re telling me to check out your oh-so-awesome hardware site, kthxbai, I’m not even going to bother with you.

We have to learn how to use the tools we have in front of us to target our audience, our niche. Stop sending automated messages and comments telling me — and others — how cool you are or that we should check you out. Pay attention to your audience first. Find out what they need, and if they will be interested in whatever you have to offer. Do not send messages that look as if you just cut and paste from a saved document without even bothering to see if the recipient is going to be interested.

Learn how to care, or get out of the sandbox.