Unjournalism

Harvey Mackay, the famous businessman and author, was born in 1932 — 76 years ago. But despite being one year older than the chocolate chip cookie, this guy knows the true power of social networking.

One of Harvey’s great contributions to the business world is the Mackay 66, a tool that helps salespeople, managers and other business types “outsell, outmanage, outmotivate and outnegotiate our competitors.” It’s a form that asks for 66 pieces of information about a person with whom you’re starting to build a relationship — information about their education, family, business background, special interests, lifestyle and relationship with you.

Sound familiar? Well, among other things, these little tidbits are a lot like the information on your Facebook profile. Or that you share in your daily Twittering. Or that you write about on your personal blog.

Sure, some social media efforts are tied directly to sales, but in most cases, “doing social media” means having more chances to interact with people, to build relationships, to make connections in ways that weren’t likely or possible ever before. When you know what makes a person tick, what sports team she roots for or what school his kid goes to, you have the material with which you can begin to build a relationship.

Relationships and personal connections are what make the world go around. The desire to connect is natural and immutable, and it has little to do with technology. Social networking is in our blood; technology just breaks down barriers of space and time.

I must give credit for this concept to my boss (he hates it when I call him that), Albert Maruggi. During a presentation on “thinking different” and using social media earlier this week, he made the connection between the venerable Mackay 66 and a Facebook profile. I’ve merely put more meat on the bone for this post.

Tags: sales, social networking by Mike Keliher
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(A note about the headline to old people who might read this: “FTW” means “for the win.” Think golf: “The Shankman sinks the big putt – for the win!”)

PRNewser provides a brief write-up about Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter” Web site, a good-karma-earning project in which the Shankman (doesn’t the “the” make him sound at least three times cooler?) fields requests from reporters looking for people to talk about, well, anything. The Shankman then compiles and shares those requests for resources with a community of somewhere around 1,200 or so (last I heard) public relations folks.

This Web site actually works its magic in one of the oldest forms of “social media”: a massive, e-mail distribution list. Remember those? Came around a few years before RSS and wikis and the like? Yeah?

HelpAReporter.com started as a group on Facebook.

Read those last couple of lines again. As bloggers tend to say when they’re trying to be funny about stuff like this, I’ll wait…

You back? OK. Did you catch it? Facebook, the darling of so many social networking junkies and social media consultants and so many other people who say “social” a lot, drove away a very successful, purposeful group that embodies exactly what social networking is supposed to be. Drove it away to an e-mail distribution list.

Way to go Facebook.

This happened because, as PRNewser mentioned, Facebook puts a limit on the number of Facebookers who can receive direct messages, sort of like an “internal e-mail” unique to the Facebook system. The Shankman’s group quickly outgrew that limit.

I’m sure there’s (probably) a reason for that and other limits, but probably not a very good one, especially if you’re Facebook and you’re trying to take over the Web. Plus, the Shankman really should want to be on Facebook to help his group grow. I know coverage on the NY Times site can help, but so can a link in my Facebook news feed that says, “[Friend's name] has joined ‘If I can help a reporter out, I will…’” That’s how I learned about it months ago. The power of that spread is not to be underestimated.

On a related subject: The folks who run ProfNet apparently hate Peter Shankman. ProfNet is a service from the PR Newswire that does basically the exact same thing HelpAReporter.com does. Two differences: It looks a little bit prettier and costs thousands of dollars. For kicks, I’ll remind you that the Shankman seeks no money, just good karma.

ProfNet has no ground to stand on. It’s not kosher to take content from ProfNet and share it with thousands of others who aren’t paying for it. But there’s nothing stopping a reporter from submitting a call for help to both ProfNet and ShankmanNet to improve his or her odds of success. Maybe ProfNet will find some other way to succeed in the long run.

Tags: social networking by Mike Keliher
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