Advocacy and You: LinkedIn & Google+

We have looked at how to build your advocacy efforts into your facebook and twitter accounts. This week we will look at how to amp up your LinkedIn profile and Google+ account.

For LinkedIn:

• Connect: Build your network and make sure it includes people outside of the music therapy or creative arts therapies. People who do what you do, know the importance of it. In order to be an effective advocate, you need to teach as many people as you can.
• Let your profile speak: Put as much information as you can on your profile that relates to what music therapy, art therapy, etc. can accomplish. Make sure you don’t publish anything that would violate HIPPA. But the more you can put that explains what you really experience and accomplish for clients, the better you can spread the power of your profession.

For Google+

Google+ is a tricky social media site. For month’s it was private and you could only get in with an invitation. Then it was opened to the public and many people didn’t find a use for it. But there are some advantages to being on Google+ and how you can use them to be a better advocate.

• Google+ is a Google product. This means Google will naturally favor it in their search engine algorithm. Having any type of presence on Google+ will help your organization and advocacy efforts get higher rankings in Google searches.
• Use the Circles: If you don’t know what circles are, they are ways you can group your Google+ connections. You can easily create lists of people you can advocate to and how people fit into different advocacy outreaches.
• +1: This is like the Facebook “like” button but it works directly with Google searches. You can build the +1 button into your website or encourage people to plus when searching. The more “plus 1s” you get the higher you will show up in searches as well.

I hope you now have the tools to increase your advocacy efforts on social media. Feel free to share your success stories and efforts in the comments below. Join us on Wednesday to learn more about branding and marketing and why it IS important for your private practice.

Advocacy and You: Twitter

Now that you are using your Facebook as an advocacy tool, it is time to expand your reach to twitter. Twitter can be a great
way to advocate. There are over 175 million active users who are willing to connect, and ready to support a cause; you can make a difference. If you don’t believe that Twitter has power let’s look at all of the revolutions that took place in 2011. The majority of them were started because of people connecting on twitter.

Here are some tools and tips to help you be a better advocate:

1. Connect with the Media: There are a lot of journalists that use twitter. What better way to spread the power of music therapy than through the media? Begin to follow journalists on twitter and see what stories they are writing about. Begin to comment on their tweets and show your knowledge and appreciation for the topics in their articles. They more you interact, the more likely you will be able to assist them with a story in the future.
2. Look beyond your network: Start to connect with people outside of the music therapy community. Look at politicians, celebrities, and people who will be beneficial to connect with. See what they are talking about and show them that you can relate. If they are people with celebrity status, treat them like your friends. (Most celebrities won’t open up if you flaunt all over them)
3. Every connection is a new door: Just like advocating in an elevator or to the government, you never know whose life you can touch by spreading your message. If you think someone can benefit from some information, let them know. Twitter can connect you to so many people and you don’t have gateways blocking you. On Facebook they need to add you as a friend, LinkedIn requires approving your connection; twitter can allow you to gain access you didn’t think was possible.
4. Be Human: Here is one thing we often forget when we put on our advocacy hat. You may want to sound formal and stick to a script when advocating. Formality can often be lost especially in only 140 characters. The more human you are the more likely it is that people will listen.
5. Importance & Repeat: Remember to let people know why it is important to support your cause. If you don’t tell them then they won’t know. On twitter, you need to tell them often. There are so many updates that come through on a given twitter feed. I follow 666 people right now, that means your tweet can easily be missed when I log on. Tweak your message a little each time so you stay human but if it is important make sure you keep updating!

Check back on Monday for tips on increasing your advocacy efforts on LinkedIn and Google+.

Networking 101: Everything I wish I knew before I got my degree

One question I never thought to ask myself when I was going through my undergraduate degree was “Should I network outside of “_Fill_in_your_location_here”". Now that I am merely days away from putting my stuff into a volkswagen beetle and driving from Buffalo, NY to San Diego, Ca I am really wishing I would have networked a little more on a national level.

So I urge all of those individuals out there to get involved with your professional organization not only on a local level but on the national level as well. For instance, PRSA offers an international conference every year where hundreds of professionals meet to learn about whats new in the field. That is a great venue to be able to network and just get to know who is in your field and meet those connections with professionals all over the country and world. If your a student, I suggest getting involved with PRSSA. They have a national conference that goes along with the International Professional Level conference, and its a great opportunity to get your name out in the field before you actually enter it.

Another great networking tool to expand your reach outside of your zip code, is Twitter. Twitter was just getting popular by the time I was finishing my degree and was useful then. Now with the widespread popularity of the site, you can use it to expand your network with little effort. Use twitter to search professionals in cities you might be interested in living in one day (or possibly might be a good place to have connections) and follow them. Respond to their tweets, retweet, and @mention them to get their attention (but please not excessively, then you just look like a stalker). Build a relationship.

One thing many people don’t think about in networking is the other individuals benefit. DONT let your first interaction with someone be to reach out and ask for a job or help finding a job. If you can build a relationship through a dialogue about your field, then you can get to a level where you have connections that will help you when you mention you are moving. Also, try to connect with your digital friends if you get the chance. Tweet ups at conferences, or maybe meeting for coffee while driving through their city is a great way to strengthen your network.

Finally, use LinkedIn. I started with a LinkedIn account when the site was first created and really did not realize what benefit it would have to me. Being able to connect with someone in a professional environment online is a great way to show your professional you. Facebook is great, but as we all know you may not want a picture of you drinking last saturday to be your first impression to a colleague. LinkedIn allows you to get that first impression out of the way with a professional feeling before they check out what you were doing last weekend.

One last piece of advice to any college students out there that really helped me when I was an undergrad was that take advantage of being a student. Ask to shadow at a company that you really want to work with. The worst they can say is no because they are to busy. Professionals (99% of the time) will say yes, because we don’t feel threatened by you and also want a chance to impress the next generation. We can take you around and give you a chance to look at what we do all day because it is a learning opportunity for you, after you graduate you might be vying for my job so I will be less likely to give you an open pass into my organization. Take your chance and see if you can walk around the offices and get to meet some of the other higher ups. You never know who you will meet and where that relationship will take you.

The transition of Internet Marketing

Only a few years ago companies were struggling to figure out how to get active on social media sites. Then we hit 2008 and most companies got hit pretty hard due to the failing economy. After that most PR practitioners were let go because they were seen as a useless expense from the perception of the executive staff. Within a year most companies realized that their external presence was dwindling and figured that must have been what that PR person did that they recently laid off. In 2009, we saw a re-hiring of PR people but with a bigger push to get involved in social media sites because it would help save money in the budget.

So where are we now in 2011?

In my opinion, we have started to take a turn for the worse since that big push to bring PR back in ’09. PR practitioners have started to transition into the role of the customer service person. When hired back we were asked to reach out to clients and customers on social media sites because it is where they were online. Companies didn’t need to spend big money on fancy advertising campaigns or product placement if they could just give people information where they spent their time anyway.

After the PR person got the ball up and running, the execs were able to see that not only could they improve their brand here but they can also respond to customer questions on these platforms. Social media slowly turned a PR person’s daily activities from coming up with creative campaigns to responding to customer complaints.

Many airlines are running their whole customer service department off of twitter, some have even taken their customer complaint phone off-line and replaced them with a message telling people to go to twitter. Check out Delta Airline’s Twitter feed.  They have people looking at every @mention about them and responding on twitter. Gatorade is also doing the same thing. Try a little experiment, @mention Gatorade and tell them how awesome they are and see how long it takes for them to respond. On three separate occasions, it only took Gatorade 3 minutes to respond to my mention.

So what does that mean for us PR people who want to work in corporate PR? Do we have to prepare for most of our careers turning into customer service reps or do you think we are safe? Do you have any personal experience with this happening to your position?

Let me know!

Remember if it is worth doing, Do it in Public!

Technology and Music: Part 2: Social Media and You

Now that you have your brand figured out, it is time to start putting your brand to work for you. You have to live into your brand. Every time you meet with a new client or a potential employer, make sure you take some time to reflect on that meeting after it happens. Did your Brand Essence come into play during that meeting? Do you think that Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So walked out of there thinking you were “fill in the blanks?”. When you are giving your therapy session, did you keep your brand promise to that client? It is going to be tough but to have a solid brand you really have to eat, breath, and sleep it. But remember, you don’t announce what the details of your brand are to the world, so don’t think that if you can announce your brand promise to make it easier for your clients or audience to see where you are coming from.

Now that you have your Brand and are living into it, it is now time to begin building your brand into your Social Media sites. In the section below, I am going to walk you through a variety of Social Media tools that you can use to strengthen your Brand Presence and get noticed in the world. You can use bits and pieces of each, or you can decide that one tool is best for you. That is the great and frustrating thing about Social Media, there is no right way of doing it but there can be wrong ways.

Facebook:

Facebook is probably the one place you want to be involved with on-line, no matter what your goals are. There are over 500 Million active users on Facebook, and it is reported that 50% of those people log on each day. That is 250 Million people that you can potentially influence on a given day. Now for a Music Therapist, you will want to concentrate on the city you are in, but for a musician you might want to gain exposure over a state or a country or even the world. For more stats on the usage of facebook, click here.

The key to expanding your brand and advertising is hitting people where they currently are. That is why billboards are placed on popular highways. People drive past them, they see them without actively going to see them. Every time you post a message to your wall, your friends get that message on theirs. They are already sitting there, using the site, so why not take advantage of their active attention.

Now for your options. You have two general options when deciding what direction to go with Facebook. The first option is to create a page for your professional self. This way people aren’t linked directly to your personal profile when looking for you on this site. The benefits of this are that you can still have your private space where you can maintain personal relationships without getting friend requested from every person looking at you professionally.  You can flood the airwaves with professional links and information without pushing it on your college buddies, unless they want to go like your page. The cons of using this technique are that you have to go to the page to update, and you have to update. I would say if you don’t provide 1 new (USEFUL) post a day, then you will loose your audience.

Your other option is to convert your personal page to your professional persona. This allows you to be connected to your professional digital self without having to click over to a different page. Every update and wall post can be conveniently pushed to your smart phone and you can be connected everywhere. I love this option for the solo professional who is making a career out of themselves. If you are your brand, then everything you do should be that brand. It leaves a big loophole if you say I live into my brand during the 9 to 5 hours and then I am Nega-Scott during nights and weekends. The cons to this are that you no longer are away from your business (might also be a pro), and you have to live like your brand. If you don’t want potential clients seeing your drunken side, then you might want to keep those photos on your iPhoto and not on the web.

Twitter:

Twitter is a great site to get a part of, but if you want it to work for you be prepared to be logged in. If you want to use twitter effectively then you have to be prepared to update it a few times a day, with meaningful posts or links. Let people know what your doing as far as professional purposes go. We want to hear if you are working on a new song or if you are giving a presentation to the board at a hospital to advocate for music therapy. We don’t want to hear that your bagel with jam was super delicious this morning and now you are on your way to yoga. Also, feel free to send out relevant links about your profession. Let people know that you are connected to what other are doing in your field and not just yourself. The real challenge is trying to make you brand personality apparent through each tweet. If you say your creative, then make your tweets creative. If you say you are a strict professional, don’t be cracking jokes everyday.  So as far as pros and cons go of using twitter, a pro is that you can reach another massive group of active viewers, and you can link it to your facebook so both update with one message. A con is that you have to actively update, twitter is so quickly updated that you can easily be forgotten if you aren’t an active presence.

Bandcamp:

Here is a great social media site that performance musicians can really use to benefit themselves. For those of you that record your own music, do you ever dream of having it sold? Well now you can, but it might not be in the way you think. First of all, I would stop dreaming about having your cd carried in an FYE or a BEST BUY because FYE is going out of business and Best Buy will have to keep changing to adapt to the ever digital market. Also, it can be difficult to get your music on iTunes, and then unless they have heard of you people might not find you. This site allows you to sell your music digitally to your fans and lets them do most of the work. Some of the features are that you set your price, people are able to share your music via other social networking sites (which gives you a wider brand presence), and a custom design to really make your brand shine. For a full list of features, click here.  Pros is that it gives you a chance to network and share your music while you get a profit, and I can’t really find any relevant cons.

There are hundreds of other sites that I can talk about that can benefit your brand. I feel that this is a good start to get an online presence that represents your brand and they can all link together. I do want to warn you though, that it doesn’t happen overnight and if you really want to use this technology to your benefit you have to put the work in to get the results out. So just stay active, make sure your brand is being properly identified on-line and stay positive.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

*This is Part 2 of 3 in a series about branding and networking your career on-line for musicians.

Google …. Facebook … Twitter … What’s the next great idea?

I just finished watching my Collectors Edition Blu Ray copy of the Social Network for the second time, on top of seeing it in theaters, and I have to say it is one of my favorite movies and I always have this crazy urge to sit down and massively code for hours after I finish watching it. But I always think of two things when the credits start to roll. First, is why couldn’t I have invented Facebook or at least been friends with Mark Zuckerberg before he did. Second thing is, what is going to be the next big thing.

Facebook was invented in 2004, just about the time I was deciding what college to go to. I like everyone else couldn’t wait to get my college e-mail to sign up for the site. Little did I know that as Zuckerberg sat in Boston developing this amazing site, I would eventually find a way to make a career of using it. Crazy, huh? Fast forward a few years. I was sitting in my college Public Relations class, and we were talking about what possibilities this new site could have. It wasn’t very popular at the time, and it wasn’t being used regularly. It was called Twitter. With in months the site exploded, and then it showed up on CNN with Ashton’s challenge. Now it is as popular as facebook, and also something I use in my career. Crazy once again, huh?

Well, as I sit here, wondering if I could come up with the next great idea, I really wonder what will be next. I mean it is time. We haven’t had a breakthrough revolutionary idea in a few years now. The last decade was filled with these revolutionary technology thinkers, and what happened? Did we run dry, or are people just being lazy because they don’t think they can top Facebook or Twitter. I want to put out a challenge out there, that we get off our asses and make this decade as revolutionary as the last, if not more. How can we progress if we live into this thought that we can’t one up what the last guy did. We can’t depend on Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs to do all of the work. Who is going to be the next name added to that list. I am rooting for mine, but I feel that I am a few years off. But I am going to keep working at it.

So, send me your suggestions. Are there any little sites out there, that are on the verge of eruption. What is going to be next?

Any sites you send my way, I will check out and put reviews of them on here, and send them out among my groups. Hopefully, we can be the one of the early adopters of this new site, and can say we had a helping hand in making the next ….

So Google, Facebook, Twitter, (your site name here),

Remember if you want to be successful you have to Do It In Public,

Jim

Egypt, Technology, and Wisdom: What can we learn from this?

As the days have progressed, we have seen the situation in Egypt go from bad to worse, to almost hitting rock bottom. It started earlier this week when the Egyptian government “allegedly” banned the Twitter service in their country. Some Egyptian companies stated that this was probably a service failure on the largest ISP in Egypt and had nothing to do with the fact that Egyptian citizens are in the midst of a protest to overthrow their leader.

I just think that the all too convenient failure of one social communication site was just a really bad attempt at a Public Relations cover up. As we have progressed through the week, we have seen that there is no chance that it was just a system failure.  We have seen the Egyptian Government shut down internet communications beyond twitter, and even start a ban on cell phone service. They know that the strength in the masses is through communication. Which, in their minds, without these major social community sites, and basic technologies like phones, people won’t be able to communicate as efficiently and support for protest might be slowed down to where the Government can handle it.

I don’t blame the Egyptian government for being afraid of this uprising, especially when earlier this month Social Media was attributed with helping the Tunisian government be overthrown. Check out NPR’s story, Social Media Gets Credit for Tunisian Overthrow. But as I said in a previous post, Revolutions were happening way before electricity. The sentiment is out there, as we saw, nearly 20,000 protestors filled the streets to combat this. They sure weren’t sitting there voicing their opinion’s on facebook or twitter. I think by trying to silence them at this point, is just adding to the fire.

We can talk about these situations all we want, because they are across the ocean, and we luckily can just sit back and watch the chaos ensue. But as we are distracted, we should be concerned with our own country as well. Back in September of 2010, there was a bill proposed, S. 3804 (111th). This act is titled “Combating  Online Infringement and Counterfeits Acts, and basically makes a law where the government has two lists of domain names that have to be blocked by ISP’s by law, which is controlled completely by the government. Yes, their intentions are noble, to cut back on counterfeits online, to protect property, blah blah blah. But do you realize that with the ambiguity of this act, the entire internet could be blocked, and we can be no better off than CHINA? We could loose YouTube, because they allow people to post videos with songs that they don’t own. Facebook could probably find it’s way onto that list, because how many of us post a video or a song that we don’t “own”. This is absurd to think that anyone in their right mind would even consider proposing an act like this. I am not to worried that something like this will pass currently, but lets just be conscious that people in power have the thoughts and capabilities to really diminish our freedom.

So after hearing that, I just want to put this thought out there into people’s minds, especially when we can compare the situation in Egypt to the fear of social media in some circles here in America. I don’t mean that we are going to revolt, or anything like that, but when Corporations still hold a tight fist around information that is shared on public sites, and to even get to the point where people loose their jobs due to a photo or a status update, we are having a little bit of a Big Brother Complex. It isn’t working well for Egypt or Tunisia, so lets try to reform are approach here.

We understand you (big companies) don’t like to have your brand tarnished, especially by someone on the inside. And obviously, you shouldn’t allow a disgruntled employee to destroy your hard earned rep, but to cause fear in employees that if anything slightly negative goes on-line they can loose their job, is outrageous. We even have to worry about a friend tagging us in a photo from a drunken party last weekend, even know we can untag it, we can’t untag it fast enough when we are all tuned in. Even if we set our profiles to private, we live in the fear that you think we are hiding something so bad we can’t let you see it. We are in a loose/loose situation. Lets stop living in a world of do’s and dont’s and let everyone be proactive/reactive, and talk.

What I mean is don’t discourage or block people from being involved with these sites. I mean if you really treat your employees great, they can be your best source of advertising, and you don’t have to pay them extra. Instead, let people know that you appreciate their interest to talk about work on these sites, but encourage them to come to an actual person with a problem. Let them know that they can complain about their job all they want on-line, but are their friends really going to help them in that area? Nope! and you should let them know that. If they keep complaining to their friends, they will get frustrated because the problem won’t be solved and then the company will also have a negative connotation because they might not know the problem exists. If they come to the management, the problem can be solved quickly, with no harm on either end. Also, instead of blocking these sites from work computers, maybe offer a one-day training seminar on how to effectively use these tools to get work done, and be a model for the company.

There are many ways we can work together to avoid volatile situations, and I think the bottom line is to realize that Social Media isn’t the cause, it is just a tool. Let me know your thoughts on this, and let’s keep Egypt in our thoughts as they suffer through this situation.

Twitter and Egypt

Twitter is a big part of some of our lives. For me personally, Twitter and Facebook are the first things I check when I wake up in the morning and my twitter feed scrolls on the side of my mac all day while I am working. Twitter has evolved (for some people) beyond a world of telling people what your eating to a way to market your thoughts and your brand to a community of attentive participants.

So does that mean Twitter and other social networking sites can actually help fuel a revolution? Apparently, Egypt thinks it can.

Now we can see that social media has an effect on the masses even if “scholarly” research analysts are struggling to admit that this new technology; they are uncomfortable with; can be that influential in society. Just look at how fast the rumor of facebook shutting down this March spread, even on facebook. So we can assume that people actively communicate on these sites, so why can’t we accept that these sites can serve as a digital soap box.

For those of you that don’t know the situation behind this technology block in Egypt, here is the gist of what is going on. The people of Egypt are protesting in hopes of overthrowing their president, Hosni Mubarak. Basically, he is a corrupt leader, who has been voted to be president since 1981 by basically making it impossible for anyone to run against him. To check out more about his political career, check out the link above.

So what does this physical protest have to do with Twitter? Well, Twitter says that they have been blocked in Egypt as of 8 am this morning. Where as other ISP (Internet Service Providers) are saying that the problem only is on TE Data, the nations largest provider. Twitter assumes that this is a voluntary act by the Mubarak administration to prevent a wide spread message of revolution happening on the site.

I can agree with Twitter assumptions. What is the best way to end a revolution? To quarantine the spread of information. In this technological society, people don’t stand on the streets and spread their message, they rely on the internet. Twitter would be the quickest way to spread that information, not only to hopeful revolutionaries in Egypt but on a national platform. Is blocking twitter really going to stop a potential revolt? I don’t think so. People were revolting way before there was electricity. Just because we have grown dependent on technology, even where technology is sparse, doesn’t mean that the people who feel strongly about this dictator won’t abandon their passion just cause one site was shut down. They will go into the streets and protest. If Egypt really did choose to block Twitter, I feel that they just threw more wood on the fire instead of dousing it with water like they hoped.

What are your thoughts on the situation? Do you think that this was a government related censorship or a way to ironic technology failure? We will just have to wait and see what happens with the situation and if technology continues to be a part of this situation.

I do believe that whether the protest happens on-line or in the streets, they will be Doing it in Public,

-Jim

Kenny Powers … World Class Athlete or World Class Spokesperson

So I signed on to twitter today, and like any other day I looked at the trending topics. I was first off glad to see that Morgan Freeman was no longer trending, because when an older actor trends you automatically think the worst. But today I was noticing that #KSWISSANDKPOWERS was trending. I knew that K Swiss is the shoe company but I had no clue what KPowers was. So I decided to investigate.

Turns out that KPOWERS stands for Kenny Powers, Danny McBrides wonderful screw up baseball character from the HBO show East Bound and Down, which is in its second season. So apparently Danny McBrides’ character Kenny Powers is doing the ads for K Swiss’ new shoe the TUBE.

Which I have to say they are doing a few things right here. I am not an athletic person nor do I have any interests in athletics or athletic equipment. On top of it I am not a fan of East Bound and Down, but I like the comedic stylings of Danny McBride, so it kept my attention.

First of all, K-Swiss is not only constantly updating their twitter account and responding to individual tweets about them, they are doing it in the style of Kenny Powers. Not to say they are pretending to be Powers, but that they comment with the voice of someone that would be Power’s best friend. When I see a company take on a brand personality that is different and risky, it makes me incredibly happy. It means the are willing to be different. I mean when you think of athletic shoe commercials, you probably immediately think of a bunch of people running and sweating and the NIKE Swoosh popping up. But to see this represent K-Swiss’ brand, makes not only athletic people but people who are into comedy relate to their brand.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8kXCVtQgL0]

I mean, not only do you get an entertaining commercial where you are amused, but in each commercial you find out something new about the shoe’s capabilities, in some taunting message Kenny Powers says to intimidate the other person.

Then they have a facebook page where you learn about their company and also have the opportunity to get this amazing app. Kenny Powers will actually respond to your friend’s post on Facebook as you work out.

Then the brand recognition carries out through their Youtube channel. This just tells me that companies realize Social Media is the next place to really focus on. People used to go to your website to find out about your company. Now they don’t want to leave their social networking sites, and they definitely don’t want to just be redirected. They want to be infotained. I know other companies are very responsive on Social Media sites, especially athletic companies. Gatorade has people who monitor twitter and facebook all day. But I don’t think I have seen another ad campaign this involved with building their brand persona around a character from a TV show.

Let me know if you have any other examples.

72T5X5J6EW66

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 … Was it Social Enough

Last night at 12 am sharp, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 was released. Like 5 out of the 6 movies previously, I was in line at 11pm waiting to take my seat. Even being in a different state I managed to make sure I found a theatre within walking distance from my Hotel to make sure I would be there. I have to say, I was impressed. The best movie by far out of the trilogy. But like everything I do in life, I wanted to be connected more with the movie. I wanted to feel like a part of the insiders with my Social Media access. Especially when I have been a fan of this series when Book 1 was released back in 1997 and this is the epic beginning to the end 13 years later.

So looking back at Harry’s web presence over the past week, I was a little disappointed but can understand why there wasn’t more out there. Of course the main area of the HP Social Network Connection was on Facebook. You can check it out here. The first page that comes up is a nice little custom home page. that has video, links to buying tickets, games, and other goodies. All of the wall posts were links to the trailers, various interviews and also things like early reviews. There was only one thing that really showed me a connection with the fans.

This was the only post I really saw that really asked the fans for some input, and really started to get input from the fans. And if there is such a thing called a dedicated fan, Harry Potter would be the one with them.

There was also no Official Harry Potter twitter account that I could find, which would have been another way to really connect with the fans. So many movies are using this Social technology to really build a relationship with the fans. Twilight is always posting information about the movie shoots and building a relationship by asking what scenes are you looking forward to seeing. It has become such a cornerstone of our (the fans) lives that we come to expect it. We can find things like the trailers and the reviews on the news sites we follow. We look for reviews when we want them on sites like Collider or Rotten Tomatoes. We want to feel that we are acknowledged by those who we devote our time to fandom and give a good chunk of our money to buy buying books, and movies, and new versions of the same movie ( ie. Ultimate Edition Harry Potter Blu Rays – which by the way are on the top of my Christmas list this year)

Let me know if you feel the same way. Do you want to be communicated with by the entertainment series your fans of online or would you rather celebrate it without the conversation.

As always,

If its worth doing, Do it in Public,

Jim