Jim Hughes

Mobile Me sounded like such a good idea.  And it was, but the implementation is disappointing, to say the least.

I’ve been using the Mobile Me sync functionality for calendars and contacts, letting it sync with Outlook as well as my iPhone.  It’s been okay, but I don’t use Outlook anymore, and the Mobile Me web interface just hasn’t caught on with me for calendaring.  It’s just too clunky.

I’ve had a Google Calendar for a long time, but I really haven’t been using it much either.  I primarily use my iPhone for calendaring.  But Google Calendar does have the functionality I want in a desktop calendar, and it does nice things like sending an email agenda every day if you want (and I do).

So long story short, I moved my calendar and contacts sync with my iPhone today away from Mobile Me to Google Sync.  It wasn’t a painless process.  I uploaded my contacts before syncing, but after the sync, I still had to do a lot of repair work.  Some numbers lost the name that went with them.  That was minor compared to the calendar issues.  The sync process wiped out most of the items on my iPhone calendar, and Mobile Me calendaring doesn’t have any way to export data.  But fortunately I was able to export from my Outlook calendar and import the data into Google Calendar, and now I’m whole.

Bottom line:  I’m glad I made the move, and think this will serve me better in the long run.   As for online storage, which is now all I use Mobile Me for, I’ll move that somewhere else as well when the current subscription term is up.

My other blog, Difficult Seasons, addresses those times of life that we all go through that are hard — death of a loved one, caregiving for a family member, loss of a job, broken relationships, and severe illness.  I hope you’ll give it a look and recommend it to those you know that are going through these seasons.

There are many blogs that address these concerns, and recently some of these agreed to participate in a WebRing that leads readers from one blog to another.  It’s a great idea, and initially I also agreed to participate.

The problem that popped up was the website that provides the linkage:  Webring.  You’ll notice that I didn’t hyperlink their web address.  That’s because when you go to their site you’re bombarded with a loud message and flashing graphics from a very annoying ad.  Unfortunately, the way the webring works is by sending people from your site to the webring site with the annoying ad — where you can then find the links to the other blogs.

I hated being subjected to the ad.  And I certainly don’t want to send my readers there to be annoyed.  Because then they’d be annoyed with me.

Lesson learned?  Be careful what you agree to until you see the implementation.  You could lose a lot of readers fast.

I’ve seen some followers pop up in the last few days on my Twitter account that I sure don’t want to follow.  And you probably don’t either.

This afternoon a guy showed up who is a “fundraiser.”  When I first saw it, I was inclined to follow, because I’m interested in fundraising for nonprofits.  But when I looked at his stream, it was obvious that his goal was raising funds for him.  His racket is to get each of his followers to give him money.  His definition of fundraising.  Turns out he is fromNamibia.

Then there was the guy in London who has developed a script for getting you thousands of followers using a multilevel marketing technique.  You join (for a fee, I’m sure) and you’re automatically added as a follower to all these people above you in the chain.  Then as you move up the chain, you get hundreds and probably thousands of followers.  And the best part, is you don’t have to do anything — especially tweet and connect.  Then when you have your followers, you can spam them with your marketing message.  Yeah, right.

It is amazing, though, how many followers I have had show up that have no photo, few or no tweets, and 600 to several thousand followers.  Why?

If you haven’t figured out from the title, I don’t approve of these folks’ tactics, and I don’t follow them.  In fact, some of them I block.

You see, social media is about social networking — making connections, having conversations, contributing to the community, and occasionally talking about your stuff.  And these folks are not about doing any of that.  So I don’t need them even on the fringes of my network.

And neither do you.

I was thinking the other day about writing a post about the “However many” C’s of Social Media.  I wasn’t smug enough to think I was the first to think about doing that, so I did a quick Google search to see what others had written.  Here’s a sampling:

Here’s a post that features four C’s:  Content, Context, Connections, and Conversations.

This writer focuses on three C’s:  Conversation, Community, Conversion.

And here’s yet another blogger that says five C’s are important:  Conversation, Community, Commenting, Collaboration, and Contribution.

And as a final example, here’s a blogger that emphasizes four C’s:  Content, Collaboration, Community and Cumulative Value.

I like pretty much all of those, and agree that they help focus us on some important principles of social media.  So then the question becomes, do I have any “C” words to add?

Well, here are a few more to consider:

• Commitment:  Using social media is a commitment, not a one-time campaign.  Since social media is relationship-driven, to be effective, you have to be committed to nurturing the relationship over time.
• Continuity:  Sort of goes with commitment, but also maybe helps us remember that our social media involvement needs to have a continuity in the types of content and the messages we are providing to the community.

I’m sure that folks can come up with lots of other “C” words.  Just add them to the comments if you’d like.

But whether you’re an old hand at social media or a newcomer, reviewing a list of “C” words is a good reminder of what we’re about and how to do it well.