Changes: Part 2

Yeah, the look and feel is different. More on that in Changes: Part 19 😉 I seriously hope there isn’t a Part 19, but that’s the way it feels some days.

Things Need to Change

We’ve got veterans who proclaim to be internet pro’s who have 20 Twitter accounts retweeting themselves all day.

We’ve got other veterans who post to Facebook 50 times a day and like every single one of their own posts. If you didn’t like it, would you still post it?

We’ve got the biggest names in our industry failing at blogging and ignoring social media.

We’ve got new people who have the enthusiasm, but write like a 5th grader.

We’ve got people running campaigns with little to no industry experience.

We’ve got people selling advertising on sites whose metrics don’t match up with Compete.com, Alexa.com, SEMRush.com, Quantcast.com or any other traffic estimation tools, yet they will sell ad space because people don’t know any better.

We’ve got a half dozen companies all claiming they’re going to launch the next best thing in the industry and months later still having nothing to show. I know this can frequently be due to depending on others, I’m going through this on one project so I feel your pain on this one.

We’ve got people posting weekly on sites like LinkedIn pointing fingers at anyone they can to explain why their dive business is failing and asking teh interwebz how to fix it instead of trying anything.

I want to fix it (still)

But I’m just one person.

Who has a full time copywriter.

And a part time virtual assistant.

But I’m also trying to maintain the social media for one major industry brand while building the presence of another business in a different industry from virtually nothing.

Then we get things like Google+, Facebook Timeline for Pages (and a lovely image resize for no real reason), Pinterest, a whole wave of Google search algorithm changes, StumbleUpon traffic becoming even less valuable, people on Reddit hating on me just because of my username, endless SCUBA-related events looking for sponsors, figuring out how to keep users engaged with the new Facebook Timeline, split testing ads/email subject lines/email designs/contact capture forms, trying out new stats systems/posting tools/WordPress plugins, having my time wasted endlessly by pushy vendors, WordPress core and plugin updates wrecking havoc on heavy traffic sites, company holidays I’m informed of only a few days ahead of time so I end up working right through them, reading every new book/article that comes out about online marketing… I wake up having nightmares that someone posted something scathing on Facebook and that it sat unattended for the 5 hours I may have slept.

Yes, that was an insanely long run-on paragraph/sentence, welcome to my world.

Setting Realistic Expectations

I worked for the original AT&T Wireless during their TDMA to GSM network migration. If you were a customer at that time, you probably remember what I’m talking about. If not, know it wasn’t pleasant. I was one of the guys people yelled at all day over something I had no control over.

I learned to set realistic expectations.

We had a map tool where I could punch in your address and tell you how strong your signal should be. I said multiple times a day “You may need to step outside to take a call, but it will get better in time.”

People loved my honesty.

So let’s try it here.

What You Can Expect from New SCUBA Marketing

I’m going to start sharing tools I use to actually run a massive SCUBA industry social media marketing program. This includes blogging, email newsletters, paid promotion, search engine optimization/marketing and every social network under the sun.

I’m going to share how I use these tools.

I’m not going to give away all of my secrets 🙂

I’m going to post when I have time.

I’m not going to reply to too many emails. Sorry, I just don’t have time. I’ll read them all, but if you don’t get a response, either directly or in the form of a blog post, I apologize.

I am going to introduce you to some people who can help with a lot of this stuff. People I know and trust who I’ve trained on some things and they’ve trained me on others. Good people. Divers. People who also think online marketing in this industry can use some help. Perhaps in Part 4.

Enjoy the ride.