Filed Under (Life, Stuff) by Sean on April-10-2008
Well I’m not 100% sure if it’s in the same tier as beer when it comes to the hierarchy of needs, but being on Alltop.com is pretty effing bad ass. And check this out - I’m listed twice on Alltop.com. Once under life.alltop.com and once under twitterati.alltop.com (apparently my irreverent drunk tweets are amusing to some)! What can I say? (In reality I stole Guy Kawasaki’s Glock from him and demanded the listing, but it’s the results that count, right??) Alltop.com is a virtual magazine rack, where you can choose from a huge variety of topics and get a quick scan of the content from each source by just hovering over your interest. So go check out Alltop.com now!
In any case, Guy quickly got up into a crane stance and deftly kicked the gun from my hands and pointed it back at me. He told me I better put up some Alltop.com badges!! While I cannot hold a candle to the badges created by the Bloggess, I was nevertheless inspired.
I’m usually very loathe to simply link out to another blog’s content, but I thought, with tax season upon us, this post was worth a mention. I think it’s a tremendous testament to social media when a company the size of H&R Block (and one that is in the tax business of all things) embraces social media to strengthen brand awareness. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but I’ve pasted three paragraphs below from the story that relate directly to H&R Block’s use of Twitter. Who ever thunk it?
When people join Twitter, they often send an update out into the world and then go away. Nothing happens. So they don’t get it.” But once they move in to Twitterville, as you call it, and really listen and reply and become part of the community, they’re addicted. There’s nothing like it.
When it comes to truly connecting with customers, I’d say that Twitter has been the most valuable and most effective component of our social media efforts. I went back and looked at our update archive and I realized that more than half of our updates are “@ replies.” Not only have we shared tax tips and advice that serve the general community, but on a one-to-one basis we’ve helped people get jobs and professional tax training.
We’ve helped others overcome the anxiety associated with doing their taxes on their own for the first time. We’re having a blast participating in @zefrank’s Colorwars (how could H&R Block resist a “veryGreenTeam”?). We’ve discovered and resolved customer support issues and we’ve met and thanked very happy customers. It sounds crazy, but I actually feel like H&R Block has made some friends on Twitter. We even had a customer call us out as part of @garyvee’s Good People Day! We couldn’t ask for more than that.
Ok, fellow peeps, tweeps, lurkers and whoever else out there on da Interwebz - April 3, 2008 is officially Good People Day!
I could not possibly compile a list of all the awesome people out there in my life and my new and quickly growing social media friends on Twitter and other networks, since it would crash Firefox from taking up terabytes of memory! Gary Vaynerchuk, the most awesome host of Wine Library TV, came up with the idea for Good People Day (see the video below calling us to action!). It’s all about spreading the love and positive karma. For me, this includes all my tweeps and fellow twitterati, all my fantastic social network friends, and many nameless people that hang out in the numerous IRC channels and lend help to those like me who often cry out for it when we can’t get something to work. Gary is truly a role model for this spirit of helping and generosity. He literally answers hundreds of emails and tweets a day to people he doesn’t even know who ask about wine. Just the other day I was asking him advice via a tweet about a certain 1997 Merryvale Profile and whether I should drink or cellar it. His direct message to me within minutes, “DRINK IT.” This is at 10:41pm his time on a Saturday night! How much love is that? And he doesn’t know me from Adam other than as a fellow twitterati (though you certainly don’t have to be a top twitterati to get a quick response from him!).
So I’m sending out much love and positive karma to all those who save my bacon and otherwise lend a helping hand, and to those who follow me on twitter, read my blog or have any interest in what I have to say. This goes to all my close friends, family and total strangers (whom I hope to meet someday at a tweetup or meet up or camp)! Try not to complain or be negative and extend the golden rule to the maximum to everyone you interact with, on line or off. I vote we make April 3 Good People Day every year!
