eric rochow

Just wanted to share this with you, as I think its pretty cool. On the iTunes hobby page Gardenfork is up there with some of the big wheels of the video podcast world, and it ranked #4 of all hobby podcasts. Right alongside our friends from The Wood Whisperer. Neat.

Representatives John Culberson and Tim Ryan are now using Twitter. Other politicians use it, but its usually their staff that send out the posts. These 2 are sending their own. A quick review of some of their posts reveal their outlook on current topics

Of the two, Mr Culberson is using Twitter for what it does best, which is to have a brief conversations; answering back to queries from followers, he is following 768 people. Mr Ryan is using it more to announce what he is doing at that moment, he has 332 followers, but is not following anyone.

Mr Culberson is also using the Qik, ( here is his page on Qik ) which allows you to stream video from your cell phone. He tried to use Qik in the Oval office, but the Secret Service did not allow it, so he did a Qik from outside the White House

This, I think, is great. Using social media tools to reach out to people who would probably not call their office, write a letter, or attend an event, can now connect with their representatives and have a say in politics.

I’ve been fine-tuning my email signature, trying to find those few simple words, that 5 second elevator pitch, that sums up what I do.

photo by bullish1974

But nothing really seemed to work, I was trying to use phrases and words that I’ve seen other people use, but they all sound vague, and I want to tell people what I really do do.

I finally just wrote it out in 3 simple sentences. Its a long email signature, but it works better than anything i’ve come up with:

I give presentations about, and consult with companies on social media and social networking.

I create social media and social networking sites.

I am the community manager of the social network The Green House.

I host and produce Gardenfork and Real World Green, web video shows

You can learn more about me here: www.ericrochow.com

Eric Gunnar Rochow eric@ericrochow.com 917 553 3260

I’ll continue to fine-tune it, but this works for me in that gut-feeling way. I’ll come back to it tomorrow and see if it still feels good, but I’ll use it until then as well.

I think most blogs are successful if their focus is a niche, rather than just a ramble of thoughts. ( ok, mine is a ramble of thoughts )

Today I learned that Mark Frauenfelder of Make Magazine has a blog, Dinosaurs and Robots, which I learned about from Make Magazine’s daily email. While reading about Mark building a chicken coop, ( which i will share with Gardenfork viewers on The Green House ) I found a link to Toolmonger, a blog and podcast.

Bang, I see the first few posts and I am hooked. For some people its puppies, for some its infants; for me its tools. Whats not to like with subject headings like ” 1 Beer Projects”?

I knew exactly what they meant by that term. And when they say beer, I know what kind of beer: Lawnmower Beer

‘LawnmowerBeer’ a phrase I claim to have coined, is an inexpensive lager, preferably a old Milwaukee brand, like Pabst Blue Ribbon, the kind your dad let you take a sip of when you worked in the yard.

Toolmonger, as a blog and podcast is a social media success story, and will blossom in the future as it serves a passionate niche of people, many of which love to share, and I believe marketers want to reach.

Like me, you probably get a few of these a week. An email with a subject line that sounds familiar. You open the email to find it is from a group, usually a non-profit, about an event or some issue they are working on.

I’ve replied to a few of these emails, asking the sender where they got my email address, below is typical of the answer I get back, this one came today, hence this post.

Quite honestly, I am not sure how I got your address in that at one point in this project a former colleague and I pooled together group emails we had received from like-minded organizations.

The sender of this particular email used Constant Contact, which is the service I also use. They have a very easy one click procedure to unsubscribe - keep that easy unsubscribe in mind when choosing a mass email vendor - but still, I had no idea how they had gotten my address. Here is my response I sent back:

…while i certainly applaud the work you are doing, and the smart use of an email service that provides an easy opt-out policy, ( i also use constant contact ) people need to be careful who they send email news to.

my experience has found that people, more and more, are guarding their email addresses, and at times can react in a way not intended to unsolicited emails. instead of garnering support for your cause, you lose them.

i’ve been added to several lists the same way i was added to yours, and i’ve gotten similar answers when i ask how they got my name.

my suggestion to you would be to put at the end of your letter a short sentence something along the lines of :

By compiling several groups lists, we got your email address and thought you’d be interested in this event, if you do not want to receive emails from us, please click on this link to remove your name.

that will defuse most people who might be annoyed with yet another unsolicited email. yes, there is unsubscribe link at the bottom, but a link within the body of the letter works better, its more personal .

Constant Contact requires you to attest that all the email addresses you use with their email service have agreed to receive emails from you. So my answer is not letter perfect.

If you are sending out an email, my suggestion is to not compile a bunch of addresses that everyone in the office has, you can run into trouble. Instead, ask the recipients of the email you’re sending to forward it to people they think would be interested. And include a link in your email letter allowing people who have received it to forward to people they feel may be interested.

Photo by Todd Ehlers 

Real World Green is now sponsored by Primo Water. The deal was negotiated by Matt Snodgrass of Porter Novelli and Paul Kontonis of For Your Imagination.

Primo Water sells water in large 5 gallon containers at retailers and you return the container for it to be re-used. Its individual water bottles are made with a plastic that is derived from plants, not oil. This way of selling bottled water is what I term practical green. If you need to have bottled water, this is a practical green way to do it.

A big thank you to Matt.

you might notice a gap in postings here. i’ll explain more later, but we’re back on track here, and we’ll be updating you all on the shows and The Green House.

I got to have lunch with Josh Cohen and Jamison Tilsner, creators of the of Tilzy.tv, a guide television on the web . They interviewed me and checked out our new rollout of The Green House. A big thank you to them for this.

This has been in the front of my brain for a while, and David Eckoff’s post on the “Twitter dilemma, how many people to follow” has caused me to finally write about it.

To some people, Twitter may seem like a waste of time. I find it useful, to a point. You follow people, they follow you, you and they learn things and perhaps grow a bit.

Twitter can get out of hand. There are some people who I’ve followed on Twitter who post constantly. I am not the only one who has wondered if these people do anything else other than post on Twitter.

My answer to the question of how many people to follow is less than 150.

When someone decides to follow me, I check their Twitter page to see what kinds of things they post. I don’t follow people who:

1. Almost all of their posts are “@person” posts. I more than likely don’t follow the person they are talking to.

2. Their posts are mainly about what kind of food they are eating. A bit of the mundane of life is interesting, but learning what all of my Twitter friends are having for breakfast is not a good use of my time.

3. They post multiple Twitters to write out a thought. When you see someone’s name next to 4 posts in a row on your Twitter, that’s not using Twitter for what its best for. Twitter’s beauty is its 140 character limit.

4. They are following hundreds or thousands of people, with few of those following back. The goal for some on Twitter is to get as many people to follow them as possible. Their posts are not relevant, many of them blatantly post, “get your friends to follow me” Why?

5. Their ‘about me’ section is blank. If I can’t learn more about you before I decide to follow, I don’t follow. Transparency is key here.

What causes me to follow people? I’m very pragmatic in life, and this shows on Twitter.

1. People who post interesting links. Usually something like: “Good blog post on Social media and Senior Citizens http://tinyurl.com” . What I find frustrating is when someone will post something like: “You must check this out! http://tinyurl.com” . I don’t have any idea what this is, you need to tell me more. Don’t waste my time.

2. Thoughtful comments. These might be on the news of the day, or a personal observation. To be able to sum things up in 140 characters is not easy.

3. New blog posts. Some people use Twitter solely to plug their blog, but someone who intersperses blog post notices with their regular Twitter chatter is fine with me.

4. People whose lives are interesting.

Newmediajim is a cameraperson for NBC News, and is always doing and observing interesting things. His posts are a look into the world of news and politics.

5. Web Shows and sites that post new items that interest me.
Make Magazine twitters neat things from their blog. Potato bazooka is a long time favorite.

Social Media Club uses Twitter to announce new meetings.

OK, that’s Eric’s early morning Twitter thoughts. You can follow me on Twitter if you find me interesting.

It seems the prevailing attitude is that Email is Dead. I find the contrary to be true. Email works great for reaching out to regular viewers of Gardenfork and Real World Green, and causes more people to visit our community site, The Greenhouse.

In every episode of Gardenfork and Real World Green, I mention that people can sign up for our weekly email newsletter with the email address on the lower third of the video.

When an email is sent to that address, an autoresponse is generated that includes a link to sign up on our web page on Constant Contact.

I started using Constant Contact after receiving a few emails from people using their service. I really like how they’ve got their site organized. A simple Drag and Drop system allows you to build an email to your liking. It allows me to build HTML emails from well designed templates, and if you are good at HTML or CSS, you can get up under the hood of the templates and customize them.

You upload your existing email list, and set up the automated sign up page that new subscribers use. You can ask for all sorts of demographic information or none at all. I ask for a name, city, state, and how they found out about the show, but do not require any information to subscribe, as I think that drives people away.

On most of their templates is a button to forward the email to friends, and another one to sign up to receive the newsletter.

The site also provides customizable Subscribe buttons you can put on your site. On Gardenfork the sign up button is right below the video player.

click the button to see how this works

Our email list is not large, but it is effective, especially with people who are not on Facebook. It is a personal way for me to reach out to viewers, and I see the effect the email has by the responses I get.

Don’t rule out email as a way to reach out to people, especially those outside the 2.0 fishbowl.