Shannon Whitley

It’s been a little over a year since the first, “Top 10 List of People to Unfollow on Twitter,” and the responses to that post still amaze me.  As I expected, the comments contain a number of creative and very funny additions to the original list. 

I always knew I’d write a follow up post to include many of those comments, and I finally sat down to bring them together.  The 2010 list includes old standards that could have been part of the original post.  It also has a few new types that probably emerged over the past year as Twitter’s growth exploded and the platform matured.

Once again, your additions are welcome in the comments section.

1) School Marm – The school marm is a frustrated linguist. He can’t stand to see the Queen’s English butchered in any shape or form, even during a casual conversation on Twitter.  She’ll often throw out copious rules and tips: “i before e,” “its versus it’s,” and “the proper usage of a semi-colon.”

GentlemanWriter: @CaveGirl You might want to check your iPhone, the autocorrect appears to be changing “you’re” to “your” again.

GentlemanWriter: @CaveGirl Did you mean to call me that? Now that’s not very nice. Did someone’s dictionary desert them today?

 

2) Social Cause Bully – Twitter is an open forum and all participants are welcome to share perspectives and ideas. You will never be attacked or coerced, and bullying tactics are never tolerated…unless it’s for a good cause.

StayTru: I haven’t seen one tweet today about what’s going on with Brazil’s Pygmy Elephants (BPE)!!! Not one.

StayTru: @OrlandoBoo Glad your son’s birthday is going well. Wouldn’t it be great to donate in his name to BPE?  They’ll never see THEIR 10th b-day.

StayTru: Come on people. Give to BPE now! Stop texting about last night’s reality show and MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

 

3) The Affiliate – You’re not sure when this account was taken over by spammers, but you know darn well these weren’t the tweets you signed up for. Still, you think maybe he’s just lost his way for a bit and things will go back to normal soon. Plus, you’re just too lazy to hit the unfollow button.

NewsHabit: A mom in Denver developed a teeth whitening system, and all of your dentists are plotting to kill her! http://whiteteethofdeath.com?id=338458317

NewsHabit: I lost 40 lbs. on the “Cookies and Clean” whole-fiber cookie diet — and you can too! http://CookiesAndClean.com?id=3838318373

 

4) Care Bear – The Care Bear provides an endless stream of positive quotes, words of wisdom, and loving affirmations. How she became so enlightened at age 23, you’re not sure, but you figure you’ll continue to follow her, just to see if she eventually has a meltdown.

SoulSurvivor: May your day be full of rainbows and your heart filled with sweet song.

SoulSurvivor: Inspire someone today. The Love you share will ripple across Space and Time to touch the Souls of Angels.

 

5) The Griper – “FAIL!” shouts The Griper at the smallest mistake. The World is full of idiots and The Griper knows each and every one.

ParteeGirl: I ordered a Margarita with “no” salt. It came covered with HUGE grains. FAIL!

LawGrad: My cell phone service goes out every time the train goes through a tunnel. FAIL!

GenYer: FAIL! I forgot what I was complaining about. SELF-FAIL!

 

6) Numero Uno – Have you ever followed someone and felt like you might just be another number to them?  With Numero Uno, you can stop wondering.  Yes, you’re one of many to him, but at least he will count you on a daily basis.  Numero Uno values the size of his friend-list above all else and is constantly talking up his stats.

ViaAFriend: Thanks for helping me push past 10,000 followers. Each one of you means so much to me. Only 25 more to reach 10,025. Let’s do it before Fri!

Numero Uno cannot resist any online application that returns some sort of number. The numbers don’t even need to make sense, but he’ll happily tweet out the stats for all of his followers to see.

SalesGuru23: @SalesGuru23 just favorited his 1,000th tweet! See how many favorite tweets you have – http://topfavorites.com

 

7) Twitter Expert – There are 15,740 Social Media Experts on Twitter [Mashable 12/27/2009], and I’m sure they’re all Twitter experts as well. The Twitter Expert knows how things should be done on Twitter and will never hesitate to provide finely-honed nuggets of genius to those who are new to the Twitter scene.

Marketeur: Remember, it’s important to complete your bio on Twitter. Fill in the url to your website and change your avatar by uploading a picture.

BobNewbee: Thank you, @Marketeur! You ARE the best!

 

8 ) Roadwarrior – Think about the last time you were in an airport. Do you really want to be reminded of the hassle, the boredom, and the discomfort? Well, the Roadwarrior thinks you do, and she’ll share every last detail of her latest travel experience. It’s just like being there!

Acct2Go: Sitting in a broken airport chair. Lousy wifi keeps cutting out and my battery is at 5%. Delayed for another hour. Ughh!

Acct2Go: Boarding the plane now. Up the ramp. Through the door.

Acct2Go: Unloading my luggage. What a joy.

 

9) Chatterbox – Here’s everyone’s favorite, The Chatterbox. She uses Twitter as her own private chatline. Come back from lunch and you might just see several pages of her replies to multiple friends covering at least ten conversations. Many of her tweets contain one or two words. Witty responses such as “LOL” and “As if” flood your tweet stream. Sometimes you wouldn’t mind following some of her friends (What is she LOLing about?). Then you quickly realize that it would take all afternoon to trace each thread.

PlayTime: @Tutu I like that!

PlayTime: @CaliGurl LOL

PlayTime: @Sumthin @Keuliu @Jibjab Haha. Smooches to you too.

PlayTime: @Dankat I was just thinking that! TTYL

 

10) Fanamaniac – Most people are fans of someone. Whether you admire a major entertainment celebrity or you simply look up to someone who attends all the cool social media parties, it seems that no one can escape this type. Fanamaniacs may hide their condition under normal circumstances, but they always expose themselves on Twitter. Probably some of the saddest moments though, take place when a Fanamaniac holds a one-way conversation with a famous celebrity.

GGGirl: @Oprah The same thing happened to me. Lord, give us strength. LOL

GGGirl: I totally agree @Oprah. You go on. Have a great show today!

Many Fanmaniacs post normal tweets on a regular basis and you’d never know they’re a secret fan. Then, they slip in a retweet of their idol, and all is revealed.

LumberJack33: RT @alyssamilano: I’m giving to the Brazilian Pygmy Elephant Fund. Won’t you help?

Some of the most disturbing Fanmaniacs are the staid, even-toned professionals who simply lose it when one of their personal idols joins Twitter.

PolyScientist: WOW! Henry Kissinger is now on Twitter! Welcome @MrKissinger!!!

 

So there you have the “2010 Top 10 List of People to Unfollow on Twitter.”  If Twitter’s still here next year, maybe I’ll make another list (who am I?).

 

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Customer Service is as much an attitude as it is a function.  I’m not sure why employees who lack basic people skills are allowed to respond to customer service requests, but it happens much too frequently.  There are too many people in customer-facing jobs who can’t relate properly to their customers.  Businesses need to provider better training to these employees or move them to back-office jobs.  We shouldn’t reward businesses that continue to employ people in the wrong positions.

I always like to use my glorified version of the ‘50s as a baseline for customer service.  I picture the service stations of yesteryear as top providers of great customer care.  Do you have a smile on your face while washing those windows?  Do you always say, “Yes, sir!” and “Thank you, ma’am!”  Maybe the customer isn’t always right, but it’s important to listen to the customer and provide good feedback, even when they’re wrong.  It’s more than just good business, it’s good manners.

I just had a bad experience with one service that I actually liked.  Now, I’ll probably find a new provider.  Rather than just layout the bad exchange, I’m going to first model what I consider the appropriate responses.  Sure, my version of the appropriate responses sound a little stiff, but when it comes to good customer service, I’d rather go for “polite” than “casual” any day.

I was recently making a change to a website.  As part of that change, I had to update the settings on a third-party website.  I was having trouble making the change on their site, and it appeared to me that the service provider may have been having some server trouble.  I contacted the service provider via e-mail.

How I wish they’d responded:

Me:  Your service appears to be down.  I can’t ping the server at “xyz2.com.”  I can, however, ping your other server at “xyz1.com”

Proper Support:  Thank you for alerting us to this situation.  I will check into it and get back with you shortly.

Proper Support:  Hello, Sir.  I have verified that “xyz2.com” is up.  It is working properly.

Me:  Thank you for the response. I tried to ping “xyz2.com” and it did not reply. I assumed since your other servers reply to a ping (e.g. “xyz1.com”), that they would all reply to a ping. I guess you must have a firewall block on “xyz2.com” that is not on your other servers.

Proper Support:  I’m not sure, but I will follow up with our engineers on your question.  Would you like a response to that inquiry?

Me:  No, that’s okay.  As long as the services are up and running.

Proper Support:  Thank you, Sir.  Have a good day.

Me:  Thank you.  You too.

 

This is a Reader’s-Digest version of the actual exchange, a great example of bad customer service:

Me:  Your service appears to be down.  I can’t ping the server at “xyz2.com.”  I can, however, ping your server at “xyz1.com”

Support: That server is not down and it is serving the correct information:   {half-a-page of log entries to show the service is running}

Me:  Thank you for the response. I tried to ping “xyz2.com” and it did not reply. I assumed since your other servers reply to a ping (e.g. “xyz1.com”), that they would all reply to a ping. I guess you must have a firewall block on “xyz2.com” that is not on your other servers.

Support:  I am only concerned with if the servers are giving the correct information and if the site is online, both are working.

Me: I went back and reviewed the history of our support exchange. I didn’t see anything in my requests or replies that would indicate an unreasonable approach on my part. Your last reply seems very dismissive of my concerns.  Was there some sort of miscommunication?

Support: I have addressed your concerns proving the servers are working and the site is online.

 

So, clearly, as far as my original inquiry goes, I was wrong.  Their services were not down.  I misinterpreted what I knew about their other servers, which apparently didn’t apply to this particular server.  The support person responded precisely to my request.  I asked if the server was down and she proved to me that it was not – but is this how she should have done it?  This is Basic Human Behavior – never leave a person feeling like you didn’t take their request seriously.  I even gave her an out at the end to quickly apologize.  Things sometimes get garbled in written form; I know that, but she completely ignored the opportunity to apologize and leave things on a good note.

I’m now looking to replace the services of this company.  I rarely need their support and their services have otherwise been good, but you just can’t run a business with an attitude like this.  I don’t have to take it, and I won’t.

What do you think?  Is this just a minor gaff for an otherwise good service?  Do you ignore bad customer service if everything else is fine?

Props to Nordstrom

And just to leave this post on a good note, I’d like to praise Nordstrom for some of the best customer service that I’ve ever experienced.  I made a couple of calls to them over the holidays and they were perfect.  I didn’t wait long to talk with a live person, and the rep that helped me was polite, knowledgeable, and communicated well.  She even went well beyond what I expected during the call.  Great job, Nordstrom, I hope many others follow your lead.

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I found many great resources for setting up my own DNS server.  Here’s one example: http://www.petri.co.il/install_and_configure_windows_2003_dns_server.htm

Unfortunately, I spent hours trying to search for the most basic and necessary part of the process:  “Once it’s setup, how do I point my domain to the nameserver?”  Sounds simple, right?  You just plugin “ns1.xyz.com” for your domain, “xyz.com.”  The problem is, ns1.xyz.com doesn’t exist and you can’t create it without, you guessed it, a nameserver.

Again, this is very basic, but maybe I’ll save someone else hours of trouble.  Name servers must be setup with your registrar.  This is a separate process from the setup of the domain.  I was thinking that I had to setup an A-record to point to a subdomain, “ns1.xyz.com.”  Forget that, just think of the name server as a different animal altogether.  Many registrars include name server creation as part of their control panel; mine didn’t.  Luckily, I found some instructions in a forum that told me that I needed to send my registrar an e-mail to have the nameserver registered.

Twitter turned out to be a great resource in solving this problem.  I received a number of suggestions that eventually pointed me in the right direction.  Thanks to everyone who helped!

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There will always be limited PR and marketing initiatives.  They’ll have very specific start and end points and a clearly defined audience.  When you’re done, you’ll be able to gather your stats and determine if you’ve reached your goals.  Once this type of campaign is complete, you can move onto the next project.

What about a general social media campaign?  As part of your latest program, you’ll research influential people who may have an interest in your product or service, track their online work, blog posts, and friends.  You’ll probably reach out to the people on your list at some point and form relationships.  These relationships will be formed as part of your campaign and hopefully they’ll generate great responses for the product or service you’re promoting.  But what about the relationships that you’ve formed?  Will you end them as soon as your immediate campaign has ended?  Is it practical to make friends for every project and try to maintain those friendships into the future?

Resources are always limited, and you’ll need to decide if you can continue to interact with each contact.  I’ll offer my own experience with a company contact who befriended me as part of a social media push.  His role is different in that he is an evangelist and his job is to maintain customer relationships, but he could have just as easily been in another role, and my point really concerns the length of time it may take for a relationship to generate a return benefit.

Michael Sheehan of GoGrid reached out to me on Twitter when he noticed that I was talking about his company.  I was trying out the GoGrid cloud server services, and I was asking some basic questions of my friends on Twitter.  Michael and I exchanged a few tweets and became online friends.  That was over a year ago.  At the time, Michael was heavily pursuing potential customers and offering a discount code for those who were interested in trying GoGrid.  If he was part of a campaign, he might have ended his relationship with people like me once we came onboard.  If he was part of an initial push of  the services that had a specific end date, he might have moved on and we might have lost contact.  However, we kept in touch on Twitter over the months, discussing a wide range of topics.  Yes, he’s the GoGrid guy, but that’s not all he is, and he shares a lot of his personal life and hobbies on Twitter.  The relationship continued.

Just a few months ago, I had an idea for a webhosting service.  I couldn’t find any existing services that provided what I wanted and I thought that I might be able to create those services myself.  I ran the idea past Michael, and he presented it to his executive team.  Server Explorer, my new webhosting service, was born just a short while after that.  Server Explorer would have never been created if Michael didn’t maintain our relationship.  If his social media campaign had lasted a month, I never would have reached out to him a year later.

Of course long term sales leads are nothing new, but I wonder if most PR and marketing people think in those terms.  If you’ve become accustomed to the quick campaigns that end in a few weeks, how many opportunities might you miss next year?  It’s something worth considering.  And if your team structure doesn’t allow you to continue to maintain those relationships, maybe it’s time to put a plan in place so that the relationships can be transitioned to someone who can.

You can’t always know how long it will take for your social media contacts to generate a return for your client or your company.  Quitting too soon might just cost you.  So, how long is your social media campaign?

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I was a nomad throughout 2009.  I moved from webhost to webhost, accumulating more code and data with each move.  I wasted countless hours during each migration; it had to stop.  I couldn’t afford to spend any more time looking for the perfect host.  I knew exactly what I wanted, but each host either couldn’t meet my needs, or they were just too expensive for an individual developer.  “If only I could run my own servers,” I grumbled.  “I just need to find a host that runs Windows servers at a reasonable price.”  Well, I never found the right host, and based on the many complaints that I saw on bulletin boards and Twitter, I wasn’t alone. 

No, I wasn’t the only one with issues, but it certainly felt that way with each of my webhosts.  I kept having problems, and they were common problems that every other customer must have had.  I became tired of submitting requests for help and then having to justify each of my requests.  If only I could communicate with the other customers.  It would have been great to say, “It’s the same problem that John’s having with his server.”

I sat down one day and outlined my needs in simple terms.  I wanted to run my own server, to have control and run the machine as an administrator.  I wanted to join a community where people like me could share tips and experiences.  I wanted a price that an individual could afford.  Luckily, I had formed a relationship with some great people at GoGrid, an enterprise-grade, cloud hosting company.  I explained what I wanted, and I told them that I’d even run the thing if they could help me make it happen.  To my surprise, that’s just what they did, and roughly a month later, Server Explorer was born.

Introducing Server Explorer

Server Explorer is a social network for all of the adventurous people who administer their own web servers.  Everyone is welcome, and people of all skill levels are encouraged to join.  Amateur server admins will feel comfortable learning and asking questions on the site, while professional administrators have an opportunity to share knowledge and market their services.

 

Server Explorer has partnered with GoGrid, and members may purchase their own GoGrid servers at a discount directly through the Server Explorer site.  Server Explorer is GoGrid’s Official .NET Developer Community.

Get Started

Everyone is invited to join Server Explorer.  Even if you’ve never managed a server in your life, if you have the interest, we can help.  There’s no reason to suffer with a bad host and pay for services that don’t meet your needs.  At just $24.99 per month, Server Explorer is a great value, and I guarantee you’ll be happy with the product.  I’ve been running GoGrid servers for well over a year, and I can’t say enough good things about them.

If you have any questions about the site or services, shoot me an e-mail at swhitley@whitleymedia.com.  I hope you’ll join me at Server Explorer.  I look forward to continuing the adventure.

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