The title for this article comes from a little nugget posted on Active Rain by Terry Haugen, it in no way reflects my thoughts or opinion.

In fact, as one who spent 28 years living in Texas, is a product (in part) of a Texas public education, who graduated from a Texas university, and considers Texas his adopted home state, I find a statement like “No wonder people from Texas sound so ill-informed!” patently offensive.

Hell, as a human being, Texan or not, I find stereotyping and asinine statements patently offensive.

But this isn’t the first time some “writer” has offended me, nor will it be the last. That’s not what has compelled me to write this post.

In case it gets deleted later, here is the post in its entirety:

The Texas school baord [sic] which is comprised of a 15 member board, incuding [sic] 10 republicans, has decided to included MORE references to christianity [sic], and fewer mentions of civil rights leaders like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

On a 7-6 vote, the board added "causes and key organizations and individuals, " including Phyllis Schafly, the contract ON America, the ever present and always wingnut Heritage Foundation, the NRA, and the Moral Majority, to the students curriculum.

They also voted against requiring teachers to cover Ted Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Sotomaor [sic], leading Hispanic civil rights groupls [sic] LULAC and MALDF.  Fortunately Thurgood Marshall, the country’s first Afriacan [sic]-American Supreme Court justice, will be taught.  Whew!  Thats [sic] a relief!

In addition, Sen. Joseph McCarthy will of course be reverred [sic], because of his communist witch hunts in the 50’s.

Oh and here is the best one, students will be required in U.S. History classes to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. (considering, a good number of students attending schools in TX were born of illegally immigrated parents, this should be an outstanding history lesson.)

Way to go Texas!  If you can’t rewrite history, well then just present the issues you want to present to your students.  No wonder people from Texas sound so ill-informed!

While the irony of a post ostensibly about the Texas School Board being riddled with spelling and grammatical errors does not escape me, that’s not why I’m writing this post either.

And Terry Haugen is certainly entitled to her opinion. But as a student of blogging and social media, there are certain things beyond the obvious that disturb me about Ms. Haugen’s post. . .

Active Rain is a “Real Estate Network, a free social network and marketing platform for real estate professionals. This network helps agents to create business relationships both within the industry and with the consumer.” This straight from their about page.

What, pray tell, does Terry Haugen’s post have to do with real estate, real estate marketing, or creating business relationships within the industry and with the consumer?

This isn’t Ms. Haugen’s first foray into political discourse on Active Rain. Far from it. Here are just a few sample titles from her recent posts on AR. All from January of this year:

• Military Weapons Maker Inscribes Bible Passages On Weapons!
• Yet Another Wingnut Pastor Blames Haitian’s For The Earthquake!
• Peta Video Reveals Ringling Brothers Circus Animal Cruelty
• Prop 8 Court Case. In Defense of Same Sex Marriage
• Its Really NONE Of Their Business! 39 Congressmen Work To Block Same Sex Marriage in D.C.
• Legal Abortion Is A Fundamental Right!

It goes on and on. You get the point.

While I clearly don’t share political views with Ms. Haugen, what I really don’t understand is her use of the ActiveRain network blogging platform to delve into her politics. It’s a social network for real estate professionals. It is designed to help people “create business relationships both within the industry and with the consumer”.

Clearly, at least inside my head, the types of articles Ms. Haugen writes do not belong on the platform she has chosen. It’s hard to imagine that these posts help create business relationships. Given her often caustic responses to people that challenge her in comments to her posts, one has to wonder what any consumer would think, regardless of their political leaning.

Hey, this is the United States. I’m a HUGE fan of the First Amendment. If you want to express your political opinions, knock yourself out. But why not take it to your own blog? Go to wordpress.com and get yourself online in 3 minutes at zero cost. Blogger is free and open too. Rant away on those platforms.

But to corrupt a real estate network with these rants seems senseless. If Terry Haugen wants to drive away consumers that might utilize her staging services, that’s her prerogative. But she shares Active Rain with 171,000 other real estate professionals and what she writes there can affect the public perception of all members.

Terry claims that she doesn’t care what people think, that she’s not posting to “win friends” but she is “here to inform” (source).

Yet when I asked her to cite her sources, she didn’t. I was told to Google it. When I asked if parts of her post were fact or opinion, she didn’t answer (in fact, less than 30 minutes after I posed those questions, she elected to close comments on the post, saying she felt “the discourse is getting out of hand”.)

I would challenge that she isn’t informing anyone of any thing. She’s tossing in her opinion of news stories she refuses to cite, and when challenged, she either deletes the comment or closes the thread to further discussion.

Fine, do that to your heart’s content on your own platform, not one you share with 171,000 of your fellow professionals. Lord knows John Q. Public has a lousy enough opinion of real estate professionals, we don’t need Terry Haugen’s help reinforcing those opinions.

Prompted by an article on that other blog about a contest to win a copy of Tara Hunt’s The Whuffie Factor, long time reader/commenter Cooper left a comment asking me what books were on my social networking / media “must-read” list.

You remember books. Printed with ink on actual paper – not phosphors on a screen. I still love them. You can take them to the beach, or to bed, or on an airplane. Maybe I’m weird, but I like the way a hardback book feels in my hands.

But I digress.

The five books shown above are all what I consider “must-reads” from the social media space. I talk about them in the real estate continuing ed classes I teach and invariably someone asks, “Which one should I read?”

I can’t answer that question.

All are very good. All are different.

With the exception of The Cluetrain Manifesto, all were published in 2009. Cluetrain was WAY before it’s time and came out in 2000. But it’s still very relevant, and very, very good.

I’ve been honored to meet in person the authors of The Digital Handshake, Crush It!, The Whuffie Factor and Chris Brogan of Trust Agents (Julien Smith is on my “must meet IRL” list. Along with any / all of the Cluetrain authors). Having met these folks, I can tell you they are without fail brilliant, and incredibly personable people.

Read these books and you’ll learn a lot. About business, technology, and most importantly, life.

My Top Five Social Media / Networking Reads

The Cluetrain Manifesto – Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger
The Whuffie Factor – Tara Hunt
Trust Agents – Chris Brogan & Julien Smith
The Digital Handshake – Paul Chaney
Crush It! – Gary Vaynerchuk

I’ve also added bonus pick Socialnomics by Erik Qualman to my list. I haven’t read it, yet, but I love this video he did…

That video should make you think.

Disclosure for the blogger police: The Amazon links are affiliate links. I get a (very) small pittance should someone actually click-through and purchase a book. So far this year, I’ve made $8.63!

The Twitterverse is all abuzz about Google’s announcement they are going to start indexing Tweets. (Yes, Bing announced the same thing earlier –- and most don’t seem to care).

My friend Mariana Wagner (@mizzle) sent out an interesting Tweet about this yesterday. It made me think (she does that frequently)…

My answer?

Nope. It won’t change how I use Twitter one iota.

I told Mariana that I don’t change the way I write for Google, and I’m not about to change the way I Tweet. I am what I am, like it or leave it. Google may be taking over the universe, but they aren’t taking over who I am.

I’ve seen Tweets in Google search results for ages (particularly when Googling a name) so I’m not quite sure what this announcement is all about. Apparently Google is going to step up the indexing, make the results more prominent or something.

Whatever it is, I’m not changing who I am and what I say there in an attempt to appease the Google Gods or to exploit and manipulate search results.

Though you can bet that many will.

Twitter already has a spam issue, and this certainly won’t help in that regard.

But change the way I Tweet?

Ain’t happening.

How about you?

Before you read any further, please follow @DrewFromTV on Twitter. Seriously, with one click on that link, then one more click on Drew Carey’s follow button, you can help raise $1 million for Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong Cancer Foundation.

Huh? A million bucks just for following someone on Twitter?

Yep, and in my humble opinion, this is one of the best applications of a site like Twitter. Of course everyone has heard of cancer, and unless you’ve been living in a cave the past several years, you’ve heard of Lance Armstrong and his cancer foundation.

You’d have to be a real ass to not want to help fight cancer, but odds are you don’t have a million bucks to donate.

Well, Drew Carey does, and he’s willing to fork it over if he gets a million followers on Twitter by Dec 31 (at the writing, he’s at 81,671).

Carey isn’t the first to do something like this with Twitter. Ashton Kutcher did it. Hugh Jackman did it too (both for a much lower dollar amount than Carey is offering, but they still donated to most worthy causes).

If you want to know the back story behind this, it’s very interesting. It started with cancer fighter Drew Olanoff offering up his primo “@drew” Twitter ID for bid with proceeds going to LiveStrong. Here is Drew’s summary of how this turned into a challenge from TV star Drew Carey to raise a million. And below is a video Drew Olanoff and Drew Carey did today for CNN (but before you watch it, follow Drew Carey and help LiveStrong get a million dollar donation).

What’s the deal with blog comment spam?

Every morning, I have to delete multiple comments on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. I’m not talking the usual things about porn and pharmaceuticals, those are almost always caught by the anti-spam plugins and filters.

I’m talking about people that insist on advertising in the comments. Plugging their wares (often completely unrelated to the article they are commenting on) and my fellow real estate agents advertising their websites, listings and open houses.

Maybe “spam” isn’t the right word. But it feels at least as icky as spamming.

Why would anyone think it’s appropriate to leave comments like these:

Nice blog!!
Sell your home quick by making available alternatives no else has told you about. Whether you are looking to move fast, downsize, relocate, liquidate an estate or are dealing with the threat of foreclosure, divorce, or bankruptcy, the professionals at Sell My House Dallas.com can help you in getting
YOUR HOME SOLD TODAY !!
Visit us at [link redacted]

Or:

Val Vista Lakes IS a great community. I invite your readers to come see the open house I’m holding on Sunday at [123 Main St]. It is a beautiful home!

I used to take the time to send commenters like this an email, nicely explaining their comment clearly violated my comment policy on no advertising in the comments. I’d also include tactful verbiage on how it was just plain rude to advertise their services on someone else’s blog.

I sent probably 40 or 50 of these emails and got one response along the lines of “Sorry, you’re right, I didn’t think of it that way”. I got a few responses from people saying “I have no idea what you are talking about, I never left that comment” (they apparently ignored the part in my email that talked about how some “SEO services” practice this ridiculous tactic), and one even told me, “I’ll comment anywhere I want to, it’s a free country”. (Yeah, but it’s my blog…)

These days I don’t bother with an email. I just flag the comment as spam and block the name and email from commenting. Yes, I could block the IP address too but that can lead to legitimate people being blocked.

But it’s a never ending battle. Every day, every single day, I get people leaving blatant ads in the comments on my blog.

I’m this close to just shutting off comments completely. Problem with that is I like the interaction commenting provides. I’ve learned a lot from many of the commenters on TPREG. I don’t want to close that off just to stop a few knuckleheads.

I just don’t get it. Doesn’t simple common sense dictate that it is rude to plug your company/self/product on someone else’s site? Is it wrong that I find this so annoying?

Some day, when this blog is more than two days old, someone is going to Google “get rich with social media” or something to that effect and land here expecting all the answers.

So let’s just come right out and say it.

You’re not going to get rich using social media.

Oh sure, some people will command ridiculous appearance fees from their social media presence. But let’s face it, we can’t all be Gary Vaynerchuk. Some people will write best-selling books, but we can’t all be Tara Hunt or Chris Brogan. (for the record, I *love* what all three of these people do, say, write and stand for).

The simple fact is, the vast majority of “social media practitioners” won’t make a dime from social media. Many will pay (lots of) dimes to hear “guru’s” speak and preach about how you have to use social media in your business. 

Do you have to use social media in your business?

Of course you don’t. Let’s face it folks, the vast majority of businesses out there use absolutely no aspects of social media, and even in the current economy, they are doing just fine thankyouverymuch.

In fact, I’d go so far to say that you’re better off not using social media than using it “wrong”. Go wrong and at best you’re wasting your time, you’re probably making yourself look silly and at worst you are damaging yourself and your business.

Here’s an example from Twitter on “doing it wrong”. I’m not trying to pick on this guy. My guess is he’s got no clue that what’s he’s doing with Twitter is senseless. There is even a good chance some “guru” told him, “Get out there and follow as many people as you can! Follow everyone back! Follow follow follow!”.

From the actual Twitter stream. This goes on for page after page after page:

There is zero engagement from this “user” of social media. Oh, he can tell prospective clients, “I’ve got 2,246 followers on Twitter!” but so what? Is he sharing anything (other than a link to his website)? Is he actually meeting with and engaging with anyone via Twitter?

No. He’s blindly following people and perhaps more remarkably, people are blindly following him. Why? What would anyone possibly get from following this guy?

What. Is. The. Point?

So now I’ve just about blown any chance I’ll have at landing esteemed speaking gigs. I’m telling you you don’t have to use social media to be successful. In this day of social-media-is-the-whiz-bang-get-rich-scheme-of-the-new-millennium who the heck would hire a guy that’s saying you don’t have to use it? (note to conference organizers: you should hire the contrarian. One who’s not afraid to buck the trend. And I’m cheap. Just sayin…)

Don’t get me wrong though. You can use social media in your business. And you can use it to grow your business. I have, and trust me if I can do it, anyone can. It’s just that contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to participate in social media to be wildly successful.

But you damn well at least better understand it because it’s not going away. Sure, the tools may change. But until human beings cease talking to each other, social media is here to stay.

Personally, I think anyone can achieve “untold wealth” via social media. It just depends on how you define “wealth”. Yes, I’ve secured several clients for my real estate business via social media. I’ve gotten exposure in the traditional mainstream media. I’ve been invited to speak on social media. All that puts hard dollars in my pocket.

But where I’ve really gained untold wealth is in the friends I’ve met literally all across the world. How do you value friendship? I happen to think it’s priceless.

Yeah, this is just what the blogiverse needs, another blog on Social Media. Like there aren’t enough of those out there already…

So why Jay, why clog up the interwebs with yet another site dedicated to social media?

Two reasons:

1) Social media intrigues me. Blame it on years spent in Human Resources in Corporate America. I’ve always been fascinated by the human need for social interaction. People ask me what my hobbies are and I usually say “Poker and people watching”. Both are intertwined. Poker is just a way to have fun (and make money) while people watching.  I also have an odd addiction to mindless reality TV shows — again it boils down to observing how humans interact. Don’t ask me why human interaction fascinates me, it just does.  And let’s face it, “social media” is, in its purest form, human interaction.

2) I like to write about social media-like topics, and I needed an outlet. My “regular blog” is a real estate blog. Occasionally I’ll write something there about social media, but that tends to annoy the primary audience of that blog and it’s that primary audience that pays the bills (since I’ve not mastered the game of poker well enough to make a living playing. Yet.)

I also need a blog sandbox to play in. A place to try new themes, new plugins, new scripts, etc. A place that should I happen to break it doinking around under the hood, it’s far less likely to cause me to stay up late swearing and panicking.

Hence the… need… for Thoughts on Social Media.