3 Fun and Easy Ways to make Social Media Managers Hate You

You might think a big business’ social media just happens, like rain or Saw sequels. But there are thousands of disgruntled Humanities majors who got swept up into the role of brand bitch social media manager because their life’s biggest achievement is their facebook profile, and that’s something you can put on a CV now.

Here’s how to make them hate you.

#1: Assume the social staff own the company

CEOs spent their time racing radio controlled sharks and rolling gold blunts, right? Wrong. They’re painstakingly replying to every single dumb question on their company’s facebook page.

#2: Be in a demographic that can’t spell

I’ve worked on brands who try to speak to the youth of the world by saying ‘da’ instead of ‘the’. Sadly, these brands often have no idea how anyone actually talks, so writing with their style feels less like a dialect and more like a speech impediment. 

#3: Be a sore loser. And a sore winner.

Brands love running contests, it’s the easiest way to get the unwashed masses valued consumers to engage with them.

Sadly, most people who enter contests on social media are not usually… well… they’re not the kind of people you’d nominate to be humanity’s ambassadors to an alien race. Unless the aliens came over because they heard Human Nuggets were delicious and nutritious.

Sore losers love to cry foul because no fair and just universe would keep them apart from that random thing they want for free.

And if you think losers are bad, you should see the winners

Never like your own post. It's like high-fiving yourself in the mirror while taking a selfie.

And here's a pro tip if these don't work: if you really, really want to make a social media manager hate you, just remind them that they'll probably never make a living from their scathingly witty blog. :(

How To Suck A Little Less At Twitter

Have timeline, will bitch.

I'm hardly a social media expert, but I'm nothing if not a social media addict. There's plenty of advice out there on how to be great at twitter - be funny, be interesting, be a good curator, blah blah blah. But I've got a few pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned on any of these lists.

Protip. (source)

This is by no means a definitive list on how to behave on twitter. The average user (myself included) probably does a few of these now and then, because we all sorta suck, right?

My mission is a small and achievable one: to suck a little less at twitter. Here are some fun tips to make that happen:

Stop detailing your bodily functions. If all you tweet is I’m so hungry! or I’m so full! then you may as well just name your account after your stomach. Same goes with I’m soooo cold. Following accounts from both hemispheres, I’ve constantly got someone whinging about being cold in my timeline. It’s dull. You’re giving me nothing. I want insight. I want a new perspective. I want frostbitten spirit-fingers!

Quit the TMI app. Specifically, abusing the TMI feature by making every tweet ridiculously long and drawn out. The joy of twitter is that it’s a series of short, readily available, self-contained messages. Usually I only click through if you’ve offered a particularly interesting comment on something you’ve retweeted, and I want to see the whole retweet. But if you start with ‘You know what’s wrong with the world…’ then I am so not clicking through.

Stop tweeting inane decontextualized song lyrics. Maybe you’re listening to this amazing song and it’s bringing your soul to delicious musical orgasm, but twitter is a text-based experience and all I see on my screen is ‘baby baby baby oh baby baby baby no’ - and I just don’t give a duck.

Limit the text speak. Perfectly acceptable for your average tweeter with three bots following them. But what blows my mind is when self-proclaimed writers use text speak when it's not necessary (we've all had to make sacrifices to save that -1 character.) But dude, you’re trying to sell me a book you wrote? You better damn well show me that you know how English works.

Quit being didactic or overly philosophical. Thinking out loud isn't always equivalent to making other people think. Being high-minded now and then is refreshing, but if every tweet is an abstract attempt at being deep, you're probably coming off pretentious (at best.)

For the love of pie, quit with the ever-so-unique nicknames for people in your life. You can’t just say my husband or Dave (if your husband’s name happens to be Dave), oh no! It has to be The Man, The S.O., Mister BetterHalfington, and all that shit. And kids become The Princess or Little Winner. You’re not being cute and creative. You’re being that married person or parent who makes all the other married people or parents look like lame, kitschy dorks.

Now that I've alienated everybody ever, here are some things other people say to stop doing, that I say keep doing on twitter:

Swearing. Apparently not many people like swearing on twitter, but I think if that's part of your personality, don't censor yourself to appeal to the masses. Fuckbuckets.

Drunktweets. Yup, it's an art, and completely depends on what kind of drunk you are. I happen to be a happy and inappropriate drunk, so my drunktweets are by far what gets me the most followers. Unless you're tweeting on behalf of your boss, or your parole officer is following you, I'd say drunktweets are harmless fun.

Oversharing. Twitter is beautiful because it gives you the freedom to post whatever you want. And if you want to post “The thing that bothered me about my ex is that he had really weird junk.” then I am totally gonna follow you and favourite that shit.

Did I miss anything? What would you add to the list, or take off it? Have you ever tweeted about a fire before fully evacuating the building? Share in the comments!

Snarky Review: No Excuses! by Brian Tracy

Oh hey, guess what? I have a facebook page now! So follow the link and click like if you want to want to keep up with me over there, or if you want to contribute to the part of my self-worth that I gain from the internet (which is a pretty big part.)

Now, let's talk about THE POWER OF SELF-DISCIPLINE, BITCHES!

This double-negative stresses me out. NO No Excuses! This is an excuse-only zone!

Of course, I got this book because I'm a loser. I doubt many winners bought this just to feel good about themselves, right? In my constant half-assed quest to get my shit together, I figured I could get a few tips on how to stop sucking and be awesome instead. 

Here's what Brian Tracy taught me about winning:

1. You should stop doing those things that make you a loser, and start doing things that winners do (Though I'm paraphrasing, he literally doesn't get more specific than this.)
2. Your suckiness is at the very core of your identity and personality – so “to achieve greatly, you must become a different person.” Yup.
3. WINNERS DON'T HAVE FRIENDS. Socializing is an overrated waste of time. Are your “friends” going to give you a yacht? No? THEN WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH THEM?
4. WINNERS DON'T HAVE FUN. They're too busy winning. And if winning is fun, you're not doing it right.
5. WINNERS DON'T EAT ICE CREAM. Ice cream is equal to “personal weakness, underachievement, and failure.” That's on page 13 if you want to look it up. I'm not even kidding.
6. Winners accept responsibility for everything. EVERYTHING. Even Hurricane Katrina (p.57).

Sure, all the loser / winner talk is alienating because Brian Tracy doesn't understand that the audience of his book are obviously looking to better themselves, and so fall into the 'loser' category most of the time he mentions this great divide. But goshdarnit, Brian Tracy's a winner.

A winner who will fuck you up without getting blood on his lovely sweater.

The worst part of this book wasn't even getting called a loser every few pages, it was the constant barrage of invented terms, arbitrary definitions, and RULES. All the rules. Brian Tracy loves rules*. Rules He Can Capitalize Because That Makes It More Official. And the rule about rules is “we can put them in quotation marks because it sounds like we're quoting the Grand Handbook Of The Universe, even when no external source is noted.”

The amount of rules and invented terms is really astonishing. Because I love my readers (and hate myself, apparently) I made a list of my favourites:

Someday Aisle – the place where losers live without goals (but presumably with ice-cream?)

Excusitis – the disease losers have.

Path Of Least Resistance – the path that losers take.

The Expediency Factor –  this is defined at least three times in really ambiguous terms. But I get the gist that it's something about losers not thinking of the long-term consequences of sucking so much.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences – Uh... sometimes when you do stuff, other stuff happens... that you didn't intend? Apparently this only happens to losers.

The Law Of Perverse Consequences – Not as fun as it sounds. Zip up, losers.

The Iron Law OF THE UNIVERSE MOTHERFUCKERS – It's fantastic that Brian Tracy just casually mentions this as if he irrefutably knows how the entire universe works. Also called the Law Of Cause And Effect and the Law Of Sowing And Reaping.

The Law Of Correspondence – if you suck on the inside, your life will suck on the outside. So, look around you... that's how much you suck, apparently.

Choosing Organisms – what everyone is. Because people make choices. And are also organisms. Don't capital letters look like they're having more fun? Let's put them on every word!

The Law Of Concentration – Apparently, this law ensures that whatever you concentrate on becomes a greater presence in your life. So Benedict Cumberbatch should spontaneously materialize beside me any moment now.

Response-Ability – the ability to take responsibility (?!) I'm so glad we have a term for that now.

The Failure Mechanism – an incredibly vague part of your brain that clicks your default life setting to “lame.”

The Success Mechanism – an equally vague part of your brain that is triggered by having goals, and turns your brain into the rudder / compass / ship / mermaid of your life.

Major Definite Purpose – the goal that's most important to you. So important it gets its own military ranking *salutes* Major Definite-Purpose!

Mindstorming – exactly like brainstorming, only without the copyright violation.

Just Over Broke – the hilarious acronym that the word job apparently stands for – when it comes to losers who are just getting by that is.

Personal Services Corporation – an odd extended metaphor that has something to do with growing your own stock and also investing in yourself and also making yourself a company that you work for. Ignorance is strength. We were always at war with Eurasia.

I get the feeling the first draft of this book was 50 pages long, because the amount of padding is incredible. And it's not just tangential anecdotes, it's mind-blowingly condescending explanations of really obvious things. 

Here's a list of things that apparently take at least a paragraph each to explain to the humble reader.

• Why dinner comes before dessert.
• When to pay in restaurants, and when to pay in cafeterias.
• Parenting is an important responsibility (as opposed to the popular misconception 'parenting is a ham sandwich'.)
• The (American) Constitution and the Bill Of Rights are legal documents.
• Doing good things makes you feel good.
• Doing bad things makes you feel bad.
• Children are dependent on their parents.
• Frivolous lawsuits are frivilous.
• Writing things down is a good idea.
• Watching TV is unproductive.
• Homing pigeons are neat.

Like any condescending self-help book, this one has exercises. Deeply unhelpful stuff, too – every single one is a variation of Make a 'To-Do List. Do it. Loser.'

It's achingly clear that Tracy really believes that life is a competition with winners and losers, but when he puts it like this it's really a bit scary: “In biology, life forms are categorized from the least to the most complex, from single-celled plankton all the way up the increasingly complex spectrum of life to the human being. Similarly, human beings can be organized along a spectrum as well, from the least to the most developed.” (p.42)  GOSH THAT SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE A PREMISE FOR EUGENICS.

No Excuses falls into every trap of bad self-help books (and even invents a few ones) – it's condescending, vague, unsympathetic, badly written, and, well, unhelpful. It also does that thing where arbitrary words are bolded AND italicized to bring the point home – I'm sorry, but unless the message is THIS PAGE IS POISONOUS DO NOT LICK, there's really no need for this ugly double-formatting.

This book is not about how to get your shit together, it's 293 pages of why people who have their shit together are happier than those who don't. SPOILER ALERT: because having your shit together makes you happy. 

So I'm gonna give it a big fat 1/5, or 2/10. Avoid!

*As Monica Gellar would say, “Rules CONTROL the fun.” Frankly, I doubt Brian Tracy would approve of the fun at all.

Friday Review: My Lame Day At Work

Friday's review day! This particular Friday is also the day before Christmas Eve (or the day before the day before Christmas Day, if you prefer), which means I'm working at my job which I totally love. Which also means I didn't get to finish the book I planned to review today (the enchanting The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet,) nor the series which was my backup review option (the oddly engrossing anime Chihayafuru.)

But since it's review day and I'm nothing if not an obsessive blogger,* here's a review of My Lame Day At Work.

My level of enthusiasm.

Crowds: 3/10, because nobody knew we were open today.

Soul crushing: 8/10. Three people asked me who Humphrey Bogart was. One person told me my accent was weird, apparently believing this was new and valuable information to me. My second cup of coffee went cold. Trading was extended by two hours for absolutely no reason. My mp3 player's battery died. I wondered if you could really mail-order bazookas from ACME like Wile E. Coyote does.**

Sinus torture: 6/10. Dust + incense = suicidal sinuses (which would be an awesome name for a band. Give it up for the Suicidal Sinuses!)

Food: 7/10. Standards are pretty low here. I bought spring rolls and kept them down. Exciting times.

Music: -9000/10. A delicious medley of Afrikaans folk, the most arbitrary of Christmas songs (Christmas At Sea? Throw that track on repeat!) and covers of dance covers of 80's songs (you know what's better than some douchebag remixing I've Had The Time Of My Life? A random nobody making a cover of that remix with nothing but a casio keyboard, a handful of singing lessons and a heart full of dreams.)

Overall rating: :( /10.

At least tomorrow's my last working day of the year, and then I get to chill until 2012! And that's aaages away - hell, it's the end of time! Woo infinite holiday!

*For a contradictory view, see the catching up and I'm not dead tags.
**Fun fact: I always thought his name was Wiley Coyote. But turns out his middle initial's E. Go figure!

"Rainbow" is not a dirty word.

COMING SOON: "A Queer Reading Of Everything! Part 1." My awesome sister Stas suggested I do this series of posts, since I habitually read absolutely everything as gayfully as possible. It's just a hobby. Some people do arts and crafts, I get my kick out of reading carefully chosen lines of (mostly, innocuously hetero) books, placing them out of context, and putting "if you know what I mean" [waggles eyebrows] at the end of them. It's great fun and takes up most weekends! Part One will be entitled "Moby Dick: It's Just Too Easy."

And now, for a rant about capitalist fuckheads:

Surely, as those who have the (collective) intelligence to own and operate a huge website dedicated to people listening to stuff, whoever's beneath the chicken suit that is Audible.com would be just clever enough to think, "Hey, for people to listen to stuff, it needs to be in a format their listening-to-stuff gadgets can recognise!"

Apparently not.

Because money makes people seriously, irreparably stupid. In this case, Audible have decided to make a very special audio format of their very own called .aa, in which ALL of their audio books are sold. No, they can't make it in standard mp3, because then it would be too 'shareable', there would be too many rainbows in the world, and the universe would implode.

What pisses me off is that I only stumble across this idiotic problem when I've given them my credit card details, downloaded their software (really, because my RAM wants more random programs slowing it down) and put their trial file on my mp3 player. It's not recognised.

I then look back and realise this bloody file is .aa, so I go "cool, I'll just use Format Factory."
Fail.
"I'll just download a program that converts it to mp3. Can't be that hard."
Fail.
"WTF?!"
Apparently, converting it straight-out is illegal, because of the whole sharing rainbows universe imploding thing.

So, I eventually find a teeny tiny paragraph in their help file that says meekly, "Oh by the way, our files aren't in mp3 format... but that's okay because iPods and R4000 smartphones can read our format!"

Next I go to the forums. Countless stories of people who PAID for audiobooks (they're not cheap either, any good stuff is roughly the same price as hardcopy) and can't get a refund because, deep in the bowels of their help files, Audible says this format isn't supported on all mp3 players.

Thank greatness I'm just using the 2 week free trial and I discovered this problem with my "complimentary" (yes, thank you for raising my blood pressure and wasting my night) book credit, which I'm using for Moby Dick. Alas, I do actually need to finish it before I can offer a complete queer reading.

Now, I'll admit that Charlie (my mp3 player) isn't the snazziest monkey in the tree. He's a JNC ipod-knockoff and despite the box he came in stating "MP4 PLAYER" he doesn't exactly... play mp4's. But he plays mp3's just fine! And you'll find him in pretty much every CNA and computer store in South Africa, so he's not exactly a rare model.

Suddenly, having an mp3 player and the money to buy an audiobook just isn't enough. You have to have a top-of-the-line gadget to play the damn thing. And that, right there, is capitalist imperialism at work. It's. Just. Not. Right.

Luckily, on the same forums I did find a (non-shady) way to get my mp3's. By burning the .aa files to an (emulated) CD and ripping them back to mp3 format from there. I still have to personally try this but it seems doable.

Yeah, doable. And really irritating, long-winded, troublesome and deeply unnecessary in a rational world, where (in my pseudo-anarchist opinion) it's perfectly okay to have a little friendly file-sharing. And one too many rainbows.