No Mom, I Won't Friend You

It seems like everyone is on Facebook now. It's only a matter of time before my mom sends me a friend request. I'm going on record now to say I'm not going to accept it. I don't want my mom hanging out where all my friends are, especially when I feel like sailor-talking... or complaining about her (sorry mom).

Early on, I was willing to 'friend' anybody on Facebook - pretty much because I never used it. I didn't really care who was in there (which is my current approach to using Plaxo). Now that I'm actually using Facebook to keep in touch with my friends from high school, college and today, I'm starting to realize that a lot of my "friends" aren't really friends.

So what to do now? I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by de-friending them. I've been de-friended a bunch (okay, only one time I can think of) and it stings a bit. But really, are you just trying to follow, friend or link to as many people as possible, or are you building quality relationships?

Here's my new plan for social networking...

Facebook - if you can answer "yes" to any of the following questions, I won't mind giving you a "poke" from time to time on Facebook:

• Do you know the words to "Here's to the Breezes?"
• Did you grow up in "The Home of the Red Onion?"
• Have you ever heard me sing (try to sing) three sheets to the wind with a future American Idol finalist?
  
• Did you ever date me, but don't hate me?
• Am I married to you, or did you go to my wedding?
• Do you know what happened that we're leaving in Vegas? Me neither.
  
• Did you ever pot plants with me?
• Do you know the names of any of my kids?
• Do you know a story about me (or have a picture of me) that is your insurance against me telling that story about your (or showing that picture of you)?
• Do you know whether or not I have a tattoo?
• Or... are we friends?
  

Did you answer "yes" to any of these questions? If so, we're probably already connected through Facebook. Now it's not a requirement, but it's a good starting point - if we're not really friends, we shouldn't pretend we are.

LinkedIn - now LinkedIn is a different story. I think professional relationships at all levels are important, and that we're all interconnected in this smaller-than-it-seems world we work (and live in). So if we've ever met through work, have worked together in the past, or have exchanged business cards... and, we'd both like to talk again sometime, let's be connected through LinkedIn. I really know everyone of my LinkedIn contacts - and I don't get people who use other networks to brag about how many contacts they have. It's one thing to collect business cards, it's another to build meaningful relationships.

While I'm at it, here are some examples of LinkedIn requests I'm not going to accept (pulled from real examples):

• "Can you forward my request to the CEO of this huge tech company? I know he's three degrees away from you, and you probably don't know him, but I'm sure he'd like to meet me." No.
• "You're in the same group as me and we're from the same city. We should be contacts. Let's meet up sometime too. Oh, my name is..." No.
• "I'm a networker, you're a networker, wouldn't you like to network together?" No.
• "I know my LinkedIn says 500+, but I have over 5,000 contacts in TopLinked. Want to be 5,001? You should go over there too, so you can get credit for the contacts you have above 500." No.

Okay, so maybe I'm venting a bit here, but this is just lazy. LinkedIn is an incredible tool. I was an early adopter and have been blown away by the constant improvements. It's value - for me - is directly tied to the quality of my relationships through the system.

Plaxo, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, etc. - I use Facebook for personal and LinkedIn for work, it's that simple. I'm on the other ones - including the social network my college created - but it's really just to refer people to the ones I use. Plaxo is great for reminding me of people's birthdays, or for inviting people to be my friend when I don't want it too, but it doesn't do anything beyond Facebook and LinkedIn for me.

Twitter - I follow anybody I find interesting. I hope the people following me find me interesting. I don't follow people just because they follow me, nor do I think that should be a requirement. I love Twitter, and I don't mind engaging in the conversation with anyone there. It's a fantastic tool for interaction - and I'm completely open to being contacted through there. Want to get to know each other first? Twitter is great for that. I'd love to have you follow me on Twitter.

Final thought: I'm not inferring that I'm sooo important that I need to segment my social networks. That's hardly the case. I'm just saying that I think that you sometimes need to have different strategies (and messages) for your audiences. My status updates in Twitter about a cool new Web application I discovered will be interesting to my followers there, but my friends in Facebook (true story) are going to wonder what the hell a "UI" is. Likewise, everyone doesn't want to hear about my trip to the zoo or see pictures of my kids playing in leaves.

Do you have any hard and fast rules for how you manage your various social networks? Are you completely open and transparent to all, or do you limit access to your personal life in networks like Facebook?

My Favorite iPhone Apps

I'll admit, I was pretty skeptical about the iPhone when it came out. I can remember saying to myself, "There's no way it can do all that." Of course, this stems from my past disappointment - having been an early adopter of several smartphones (eh hem, Treo). This time around, I wasn't going to fall for it. Which actually worked out fine, since I didn't make a move until the iPhone 3G came out. While it was hard letting go of my Blackberry, I couldn't be happier with my decision.

The thing I like most about the iPhone is all the apps and its seamless integration with the App Store. Think about it - you decide you need a piece of software on your phone, you search for it through the App Store, download it and use it, no matter where you are. That's delivering on the promise of mobile computing.

So what are my favorite apps? In no particular order, I'm a fan of the following apps:

• Shazam - the coolest app ever created. Ever hear a song and wonder who sings it? Shazam answers that questions using some crazy recognition technology beyond my comphrehension. I've been in the middle of a noisy bar, held up my phone with Shazam, and had it tell me what song was playing in the background. And talk about instant gratification, I can download it from iTunes (or Amazon) right then and there.

• ToDo - the ToDo app is great as a standalone task manager, but it's integration with Toodledo made me decide to buy this one (at the time, Toodledo didn't have an iPhone app - now they do). I still like ToDo's UI better though. ToDo syncs flawlessly with Toodledo and I like using the two together. I've added ToDo to my menubar, so I've got it on each screen. I've also used Jott (voice recognition service) and the Toodledo integration point so I can add tasks to my to-do list using my voice - this comes in very handy during my long commute.
  

• Facebook - FB's mobile sidekick for the iPhone is pretty decent. If you have a lot of friends, it does tend to load slowly, but overall it does what I expect it to do - let me interact with my friends while I'm out and about. Best feature of the iPhone Facebook app? Mobile upload of photos. Before the iPhone, I updated my Facebook page far less often. Of course, you can instant message through the iPhone app - which is a cool feature - I just haven't used that much.
  

• LinkedIn - I'm a LinkedIn junkie. I use this business social network to keep up with a lot of my professional contacts. I really only use LinkedIn to search for bios before meetings or to update my status. If they incorporate their full feature set (messaging or answers for example) into a future edition, this would be a killer mobile app. I'll cut LinkedIn some slack, since they've been really aggressive about adding features to their core app over the past eight months.
  

• Twitteriffic - I currently use the free version, but am thinking about upgrading (since I don't think you can RT with the free). I use Twitteriffic as my primary personal mobile Twitter client. It serves the purpose, but I know there are other options out there that folks like more.

• TwitterFon - speaking of Twitter clients, I use TwitterFon for my work tweets (easier than logging in and out of one client). Since I've been using TwitterFon, I've liked the interface better - I also like the search feature, which isn't included for free in other clients.

• Pandora - I stream Pandora in my car via the iPhone and it works great. If you like the Web version of Pandora, you'll love the iPhone app. I hear they're going to roll out ads to the iPhone app next, so that could knock it down a few points as my favorite - but it's still a great app. If you're not familar with Pandora, you can create channels based on an artist you like - and the software figures out other songs you may like based on qualities found in the music - this is referred to as the Music Genome Project.
  

• Tick - Tick is the mobile sidekick to TickSpot, one of my favorite Web-based time management apps (and I've evaluated at least 50 of them over the course of the past couple of years). The design is plain and simple and easy to use - the pricing is very reasonable as well (I'm referring to the Web app - the mobile app is free). I use TickSpot to track time for my freelance work.

• Yammer - I've just started using Yammer to collaborate with my startup team for a side project. It's a great place for all those random thoughts you want to share with co-workers - think of Twitter, but limited to people in your company (must have @yourcompanydomain email to participate). While I'm not sure if I'll keep using Yammer, the mobile app increases the chances - since it's easy for me to review what everyone is working on and update my status on-the-go.

• Stanza - I read a lot. I always cart around a book or two in my car, so I can take advantage of downtime. As a gadget guy, I've been eyeing the Kindle for a while, but it's just not that sexy of a device in my opinion (not to mention the price $$$). While I think Amazon should just give them away, that's another issue for another time. I recently stumbled across Stanza, which basically gives you some Kindle-like functionality on the iPhone. You can download books for free through several sources, such as Project Gutenberg - or you can buy books through several sellers. I'm currently reading The Prince on the iPhone and it's a very cool little app.

• Clock - the standard clock application on the iPhone deserves to be on this list for me. I uses it as my alarm clock, my reminder, my timer, and stopwatch. It's a simple little app, but a great value-add. Waking up to the Xylophone is much more pleasant than the air raid siren my old alarm clock sounded like.

• LIVESTRONG - my favorite app so far this year, the LIVESTRONG app syncs up with The Daily Plate from Livestrong.com. It's a huge collaborative database of calorie information and exercises for tracking your health and fitness. This app is the single reason I've lasted in to February on my new year's resolution.

Apps I Wish I Had On My iPhone Right Now

• Hulu - I wish I could watch Hulu on the iPhone right now. The good news is Adobe and Apple seem to be talking about supporting Flash, so maybe I'll get my wish later this year.

• Slingbox - I'm also waiting for Slingbox to launch their iPhone version. When they do, I'll buy a Slingbox, it's that simple. For now, I'll have to live with watching snippets through the YouTube app.

• Audible - I don't need this app, but it would be cool to have over-the-air downloading of my Audible library to the iPhone (so I don't have to manually sync). I'm sure they're working on this, so it's only a matter of time.
  

What Are Your Favorites iPhone Apps? I realize my list isn't that exciting. I didn't name a single game (300 Bowl, Flick Fishing, Penguin) or pointless apps (iFart Mobile, Hold On!), so take a minute and share some of your favorites in the comments.

Glad to Be Part of the Growth of Lacrosse in the Atlanta Area

For almost a year now, I've had the pleasure of volunteering for the Henry County Family YMCA, helping them establish a youth lacrosse program for boys ranging in age from 10-15. Last season, we had about 20 kids total show up - barely enough to field one team, let alone a team in each age group.

This year, after two pre-season clinics, we've seen more than 60 kids show interest and are planning to have a team in each age group - and we may have enough girls for a team as well. It looks like we'll have 4 home games and 4 away games (we only had two scrimmages last season), so all the returning and new players are very excited.

I really buy into the Y's mission of "Building Strong Kids. Building Strong Families. Building Strong Communities.", and see the positive effect organized team sports have on kids through the Y. Of course, volunteering really just gives me an excuse to run around the field and pretend I'm still 21 each week.

It would be an understatement to say I'm excited to see lacross growing in metro Atlanta, especially on the southside of town. Of course, I'm not surprised, since this is a national trend that is even more pronounced in Georgia.

Lacrosse is now the fastest-growing sport at the high school level in Georgia. In 1999, there were seven boys and six girls teams. There are now almost 100 high school teams (46 boys and 48 girls) in the State (Source: AJC).

Nationwide, lacrosse is growing at every level across the country. According to a recent BusinessWeek article, about 480,000 people played lacrosse last year, nearly twice as many as in 2001." There are currently more than 400 college teams and more than 1,200 high school teams in the U.S.

Want to learn more about lacrosse? Check out the web resources I provided below. Even better, do you live in the metro Atlanta area - somewhere on 75S - and want more information on the youth lacrosse programs offered by the Henry County YMCA? If so, visit their site here or comment on this post.

• Facts About Lacrosse
• Wikipedia Entry on Lacrosse
• Best Lacrosse Team Ever

Have you seen exposive growth for lacrosse in your part of the country?

What's Your Conversion Rate?

I had a great brainstorm this morning with Todd Miechiels, a B2B marketing expert that specializes in lead conversion for small to medium-sized businesses. We were talking a lot about how surprising it is that many marketers still place so little emphasis on conversion. It seems like the focus remains on lead generation - generating as many qualified leads as possible - but less on conversion of those leads.

What's an Acceptable Conversion Rate? What is ROI to You?
Ask any marketer what an acceptable conversion ratio is for any strategy they're using in their marketing mix, and chances are good they know. Often, they consider anything that converts above the industry average to be a success. Others look more at ROI, often equating the return as anything above and beyond the cost of the campaign. If a campaign generates more than a dollar per dollar invested, it's considered a success. There was a return. In my opinion, ROI should be a specific and measureable goal - the desired yield from your investment. If you spend $1, how much will you generate in return. If it's not more than $10, I'd question the value of the program.

It's still surprising that so many marketers don't have an adequate system in place to track conversion - beyond their search engine marketing programs, where it's much easier to nail this down. Of course there are many issues surrounding conversion - first, what's your definition of conversion?

Rather than jumping on the latest marketing trend - like video, social networking or micro-blogging - it's better to take a step back and figure out which tactics will generate the highest-possible conversion rate for your industry, target audience and budget. The information is out there, often only a couple of clicks away.

As you're working through your marketing budget, or looking for areas to cut as you've got less money to work with, it might be a good time to ask yourself "What's my conversion rate?" on this program. Is it enough to justify spending money on it?

Marketing Automation Systems Can Help You Manage and Optimize Your Marketing Investments for Greater ROI
If there's one area you should invest in this year - assuming you haven't already - it's in the area of marketing automation. There are some great new platforms out there for managing the entire marketing progress, each of which delivers its own set of positives for tracking conversion and ROI. The more efficient you can make your marketing machine, and the better data you can get from your systems, the better position you'll be in to predict outcomes and adjust budgets accordingly. One good Atlanta-based company in this area is Pardot, which I currently use for some of the projects I'm working on. I'll talk more about these types of solutions in an upcoming post.

A quick note on email. If your current email marketing platform doesn't provide you with insightful conversion information, you might want to check out MailChimp (another Atlanta company). Not only does MailChimp provide you with valuable ROI calculators, but the provide you with comparison conversion averages and other useful data for your industry category. MailChimp also integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics, so you can more easily close the loop on conversion through your email campaigns - beyond opens and clicks.

Questions to Consider
As far as evaluating your conversion efforts goes, consider asking yourself these questions to help you refine your focus:

• Do you really know the return you're currently generating from each marketing program you spend money on? Can you loosely draw a line from investmetn to revenue realized?
• Are you setting your conversion goals based on industry averages (such as 5% being a good conversion ratio for direct mail), or are you striving for the best possible (above average) conversions?
• Is there anything you could do differently to improve your conversion ratio across any of the programs? If not, are the results enough to justify continued investment?
• If you use outsourced resources or agencies, are they providing you with regular assessments of the ROI they're generating for you? Do you know what their conversion ratios are? Do you agree with those assessments, or are you taking their word as experts?
• If you were only to spend your money on one marketing program, which is most valuable to your organization? Chances are, this is the area that converts at the highest percentage.
• Is there a different new marketing initiative you could invest in that would perform better than what you're doing today? For example, when was the last time you updated content on your website? Do you have a call to action or other way for visitors to engage you on every page? Are you using landing pages? So on, and so on.
  

The whole point with this post is to challenge you - particularly in leaner times - to look at all your investments across sales and marketing to determine areas where you can improve performance. It's sometimes easier than you might think to increase your results, even when demand is on the decline.

In truth, I'm not the expert in online lead generation and conversion, that's more Todd's area. You should check out his website and blog for more on this topic. Another good resource would be Brian Carroll's B2B Lead Generation blog (he's probably considered the top industry expert on this subject - not to take anything away from Todd).

What Do You Think?
So what do you think? What investments generate the best conversion ratios for your business? What's the best source of qualified leads for you? Are you using marketing automation systems already? If so, how have they helped you refine your processes and improve conversion? Let me know.

Taking My Own Advice On Blogging

I meet with people all the time to talk about marketing. They always ask me what the most effective marketing tactics are and what they should be doing to build their brands. I always recommend social media and blogging, telling people they should blog on a regular basis - as in posting daily - to attract a loyal and devoted following.

Of course, I'm a total fraud... at least when it comes to blogging. I don't have a blog. It's really a shame, since I think I occasionally have a good idea to share and have been a copywriter for years, helping others write articles and blog posts. It's not that I can't do it, or don't want to do it, but rather I just don't do it. Some might call it laziness or procrastination - I call it a failure to put one foot in front of the other.

So I'm going to get this monkey off my back and start blogging now.