whirlwinds..

I can’t believe the week is over! Thank goodness. I always look forward to the weekend ( I mean, who doesn’t?) because I actually have free time to do the things I want to do…not the things that I HAVE to do. But some way, some how, I always end up in front of my computer working – I just can’t seem to pull away.

This weekend will be different. I will ignore my computer and instead focus on friends, food and shopping. Those three things usually take up all my times on weekends I visit home, aka Fort Worth, aka the BEST city in all of Texas. In between the FFS (food-friends-shopping), I will have to do a little research for my BIG Wednesday interview, aka my first internship interview this season! So excited. Finally, companies are starting to get back to me. For my Wednesday interview…I am doing every prep step I can so that I don’t come off looking like a fruit loop in my interview. Did I mention I’ll be at that office for 4 hours? Yep – 2 hours of F2F (face to face) interviews and a 2 hour writing test.  I’ve got the interview in the bag. The writing…eh. The one thing that haunts me about my writing is my love of the “passive voice.” I can’t escape it. Luckily for you, reader, wordpress has an awesome editing function that points out my mistakes before I post. Unfortunately for me, I will have no access to wordpress for my writing test. So let’s hope on Wednesday I can leave good ol’ passive voice behind and actually write like a pro.

I am in the midst of coordinating another interview in March/April with a big shot firm. It’s comforting to know that this interview is only an hour long. But still, I have never actually had a real, live, legit, business-ey interview. I have rocked student organization interviews and I’ve had casual job interviews, but I have a feeling these two are going to be much different.

Wish me luck!

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when you suck & it’s a fact: time to step up and re-evaluate.

I’ve always hated Nickelback. The lead singer is fugly, their sound is garbage, and their song lyrics are bogus. The songs make no connection with their audience and they all sound the same. Chad Kroeger’s voice sounds constipated. Not a fan.

Apparently, I am not the only one who isn’t a fan either.

It’s no doubt that they are the worst band of all time. I am not saying that because I have fantastic musical taste and I am a bit of a music snob, it’s a fact of life. See for yourself – go to Google and type in “Nickelback is.” The first two search terms that pop up are “the worst band ever” and “terrible.”

At a performance in Portugal, concert goers showered the band with rocks and booed them off the stage after only one song. A video tape of the incident has since become a popular video on YouTube with almost 2 million views. FailBlog.org also featured the video, titled “Nickelback Fail.”

Facebook fans joined in on the hate parade when one created a fan page titled, “Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?” The page came to life on February 3, 2010 and at that time the band had 1,380,820 fans following their page. In just two weeks, the All-American Pickle beat mainstream band Nickelback in fan numbers. I don’t imagine that jars of pickles are flying off grocery store shelves or that in fact, people who are fans of the page even like pickles. The fact that a band is comparable to a Pickle speaks for itself.

I thought I was one of a few who hated Nickelback. The radio played their songs all the TIME back in the day and some even say that Nickelback is the band of the decade. But this amount of online evidence has proven that I’m not the only one; it shows on three of the biggest online outlets: Google, YouTube, and Facebook.  Proving the FACT that Nickelback is the worst band of all time.

So, what do you do when your brand or brand is downright hated by millions? Can good PR save you?

Looks like the only way the band is taking care of the situation is the shut down of the page, which will ultimately ignite a fury of backlash and creation of new pages and websites aimed against the Canadian singer.

My suggestion for Chad Kroeger is to quit being a douche bag. Laugh – it’s hilarious; I get a kick out of it every time I see the page on my news feed. Pose with a pickle – hell, why not even create your own line of Nickelback Pickles? I would buy some! Better yet, listen to your audience. Re-invent your sound, work with new producers & writers, become creative and change your look. Any brand can take that advice – when your audience is talking smack, prove them wrong and build your brand back up. Listen.

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cool people who i love.

This summer, during the best internship ever,  I had the opportunity to discover and follow awesome bloggers and thought leaders. My daily task was to review my boss’ Google Reader and create micro blogs promoting the posts as part of a branding campaign for our company. The boss man was certainly connected (he has one of the lengthiest blog rolls I have ever come across) and as a result I spent almost two hours every morning reading posts from the previous 24 hours. By the end of the summer I felt like I knew these bloggers and in my eyes they were celebs.

I admire these internet stars as writers and as professionals; I want to be like them when I grow up. They taught me things about myself, my career, social media, marketing, challenges, the workplace, adulthood and much more. This month I’m gonna highlight the men and women whose writing continues to have an impact on my learning and growth. With my, “cool people who i love” series, I will introduce you to them and their work.

Who do you love and admire? Any bloggers who you think I should check out? Comment or DM me.

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what’s all the buzz about?

For those of you who have been in another planet the past two days, Google launched a new social network –  Google Buzz. I would relate it to Twitter; you have connections, share info, ideas, and etc.  But to me it seems more like a collaboration tool at the moment, much like Google Wave was. I didn’t use Google Wave – at all, but I of course begged those with invites to give ‘em to me. That’s kinda how it went. There was a big buzz about Google Wave for a moment, but imo the “craze” eventually faded out.  As an office collaboration tool, sure, it can be useful. But that’s about it.

According to Mashable, this new Google Buzz has generated over 9 million comments in just two days.Wit the internet excitement that has come out of Buzz so far, do you think it will continue to pick up speed and rank among Facebook & Twitter?

Cool

1. Connectivity to other social networks: Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, and Google Reader.
2. Google listened: You can NOW integrate Facebook now. I am against trying that out for now – I like my Facebook separate.
3. Buzz opens in your inbox.
4. Option for public/private sharing.
5. You are automatically connected to your Gmail contacts.
6. No set up needed.

Lame

1. Without the Facebook/Twitter integration, I only see it for business/office use.
2. No search.
3. Not as social.
4. Meh..

I see potential for this new social tool, but I really just love my Twitter and Facebook for my business/social tools. I love my Google for its e-mail and search engine. Together they’re great and separate, they’re great.

What do YOU think about the Buzz?

give and you shall receive.

Earlier this week, an advisor of mine asked me to aid in marketing efforts for an independently organized Haiti Relief benefit concert, taking place at Texas A&M on February 12. I was specifically recruited for my social media skills – and what better way to reach students than on a community where they spend most of their time? Facebook. That’s a no brainer.

My strategy –

1. Build a Facebook fan page for the event: I can keep followers up-to-date with ease and I prefer fan pages to groups. With groups, members have to check back for updates but with pages, members see activity on their news feed. Also, once your group (or Facebook event) has a certain # of members, you can no longer send out a mass message. In the case of large events & large groups, fan pages allow the admin to send a Page update to all fans.
2. Give fans information about WHERE their ticket money is going: The proceeds of the event go to UNICEF, an organization that gives help to unaccompanied children. For me, knowing that my $10 is going to poor and helpless children will make me want to buy a ticket – and maybe even motivate me to become more active with UNICEF. I spent about an hour on the UNICEF site, gathering fast facts about their efforts, their people, and stories of personal experiences found in the UNICEF blog. With this information, I created about 20 micro blogs that are to go out over the Fan page every two hours/day. My goal here is to educate and motivate.
3. Give the people MUSIC: There are 19…yes that’s n-i-n-e-t-e-e-n bands playing at the event on Friday. It is a benefit concert. What better way to convince the public to attend your event than to let them know they did not pay to listen to 5 hours of crappy music? I googled all the acts, found their MySpace URLs, and created another list of micro blogs to go out over the fan page.
4. Photographic evidence: You know those ASPCA television advertisements, with spokesperson Sarah McLachlan? The ones that show tear filled eyes of sweet, helpless puppies asking you to save them? Every since those commercials came out I have wanted to help an animal. The commercial pulled at my heart-strings and gave me photographic evidence that there is a problem.  My goal is to create the same emotion in the fans by posting photographs from the Haiti disaster on the fan page.

Pretty solid plan, if I do say so myself.

According to the event coordinator, that wasn’t the kind of “social media marketing” they recruited me to do.

That same night, the coordinator chatted me and instructed me to: randomly chat online  friends and tell them to join the event group & change their profile picture to the event image. IMO, this was an outrageous request.

Waiting in my inbox the next morning was a message from the event coordinator which read: “Have you been invited to the fan page of “I bet I can get more A&M fans than UT by Date? (Yes, I have received about 5 of those requests, and have ignored every one of them.) There’s so many of those that come now and then and what’s interesting is that people invite and invite and invite, like if I ignore it…I’ll get it back a minute later from another person. And no one asked those people to personally do the inviting, it’s just the name page and the dare…Should we work with something like I bet I can find more Aggies that care about Haiti than UT ppl by Feb. 12?“

Absolutely not.

Later that day, I received another message from the coordinator: “Total number of invited people to the event is: 15464 as of now. Would you please take care of bumping it up to 20,000? It’s 4.5 thousand people you gotta find, 5 popular friends (LOL) inviting their friends can get that result.”

At this point, I had to tell the coordinator that I did not sign up for that. I wanted to help in the marketing strategy, not in guerrilla recruitment.

This case reinforced a few of my social media values & beliefs:

1. Social Media is NOT a numbers game.

2. Give your audience as much as you expect them to give you.

3. Answer their unasked questions.

4. Create a community, not an advertisement.

Anything else I am missing from that list? How do you use Facebook to promote a product, brand, or event? What do you think of my proposed strategy?

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The Aggie Haiti Relief concert is happening Friday, February 12, from 6pm – 11pm in Rudder Auditorium. $10 tickets may be purchased through the MSC Box Office. All proceeds from the event go to UNICEF in coordination with their Haiti Relief Efforts.

To give to UNICEF, visit http://tinyurl.com/ya6kpzm.

For all other Texas A&M Haiti Relief efforts, visit http://haiti.tamu.edu.

you are who you are.

inspiration. where do you get yours?

music, dates [weddings, birthdays, first day of graduate school], new jobs, a good book, prospects, causes, a touching story, a dynamic painting.

my inspiration comes from the people around me. people inject me with energy and excitement. throughout my four years at Texas A&M I have been inspired by countless student leaders, advisors, professors, colleagues and friends. my biggest inspiration thus far is my former boss, william of starr tincup. had i not had the opportunity to serve as his social media intern last summer, i am not sure where i would be today. social media = people, ideas, marketing = my loves = my future. before that internship, i was the communication/sociology minor girl who wanted to end up in advertising. without a clue.  now i have a direct route, a road, an exit. thanks, william.

i also learned that being yourself is important in the marketing & social media realms. YOU are the brand. i stumbled upon this read this morning; it really reiterates that point. william taught me that you are who you are, if others don’t like it then “fuck ‘em.” true story, this past summer, intern sarah made a horrendous mistake by using the word fuck in one of the boss’ tweets. well, that little word irritated a popular thought leader in the space who threatened to “unfollow” mr.tincup. of course i freaked out – i ruined a relationship, william’s image is tarnished forever. of course my cool cat boss brushed his shoulders off, took care of the situation and a life lesson was learned: “you are who you are, if others don’t like it then, fuck ‘em.” [i am almost positive this is a direct quote.]

the starr tincup guys are who they are, and their brand is kicking because of that. [check out their website to see what i mean.] i forget that sometimes; i am so consumed with what’s appropriate and what others will like. how do we create the new without taking risks and being ourselves? sounds easier than molding around other people’s standards, that’s for sure.

well, readers, there’s some inspiration for your day. pass it on!

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shout out to jacob thomas albrecht, who reminded me that my blog is my baby – it should be taken care of [not his exact words, but i like how that sounds].

you stay classy, texas A&M

It’s official: I am ecstatic about President Obama’s visit to Texas A&M tomorrow. So much so that the first thing I did after I received my badge was take a picture of it on my iPhone and send it to a couple friends [and my mom, of course]. A twit pic followed paired with a giddy update. I CAN’T WAIIIIIIIIIIIT.

I feel honored to be an attendee and even more honored that Mr. Obama accepted the invitation to speak at my school, Texas A&M University. He will be speaking about selfless service and volunteerism, something that Texas A&M is known for, something that has shaped my college career and molded me into the individual I am today. I couldn’t imagine the past four years of my life without spending countless hours a week devoted to helping others, developing programs and working for the betterment of my campus. Tomorrow feels like Christmas Day! All the work, time and energy I have spent the last four years is being honored by a sitting President and let me say it again, I CANT WAIIITTTTT.

What I an wait for, though, is the protests that will be happening on and around campus. Yes people, Conservative students and fellow Texans will be gathering on our campus to protest against our President and his Healthcare Agenda. No where in the description of the program does it say he will be speaking about politics, but for some reason numerous student groups find is necessary to gather thousands in protest to greet our GUEST. I am nervous.  Around election time this new story circulated the webs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGtUHvJY4Yw&feature=related. The YCT Texas A&M chapter held an “Anti-Obama Carnival” at our free speech area on campus in which passers by were invited to throw eggs at a picture of Barack Obama. This event caused quite the stir around town and I felt ashamed that I was associated with these people. I am all for free speech, don’t get me wrong, but the respect isn’t there. My facebook news feed is starting to get crazy, I will share a few :

“….thinks it’s funny how the former president of the United States and the current interim president of our school has to keep sending emails to all of us to tell the stupid ass red necks at my school not to do anything stupid while Obama is at our campus.”

“…is A&M going to make national news tomorrow….that is the question”

“…I’m sorry, but there is no honor in THIS president coming to A&M. The guy stands against everything that America, and A&M, have stood for for hundreds of years. I respect the position of The President of the United States of America, but i do not The One, and never will.”

“…thinks he will once again enjoy reading facebook statuses over the next 24 hours”

“…Obama kicks me out of my parking spot tomorrow, don’t tell me I don’t have a reason to dislike him.”

“…is welcoming President Obama to AGGIELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Oh how I love facebook. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow will bring on and off-line. I will be updating my twitter status all day along with some pics, so FOLLOW ME! @sbarnes0215

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