There’s nothing I love more than a good pop culture reference and it’s time we take our tweets and turn them into bows and arrows. (If you’re unfamiliar with The Hunger Games, you’re going to have a really hard time with this blog post.)

I have spent the last four days at Gartner’s US Symposium and in that time, I’ve taken 40+ 1:1 meetings where I’ve spoken with clients about social media and its application to their business. Coupled with around 300 clients inquiries I’ve taken on the topic thus far this year, that makes almost about 400 social media problems that just I, myself, have worked with businesses to troubleshoot. Keep in mind, I’m not the only person at Gartner who covers social business so if we extrapolate a bit I’d venture to guess that Gartner has taken between 2,000 and 3,000 inquiries on social business topics this year.

Yet market pundits try to say it’s become less important, having the staying power of District 11 in the Games. CIOs look for reasons why social media is irrelevant to their company in an attempt to prioritize Districts 1 and 2. So why does the underfunded, undernourished District 12, Katniss Everdeen, continue to be a force of such impact that the Capitol is forced to pay attention?

You have to consider what the Capitol wants. They’re comfortable with what they know, what they can control, traditional strategy, traditional approaches, and traditional technologies. Katniss/Social represents all that the Capitol has neglected: essentially customer and employee feedback…for years.

And once we empower Katniss, give her the bows and arrows she needs to thrive, allow her to tweet or blog or post to the Web and be seen by all of Panem, she becomes dangerous. She becomes something we can no longer control because we’ve never spent the time to nurture her strengths and teach her where to aim the arrows.

This is where the enterprise still has a chance. The enterprise needs to stop ignoring social, stop trying to repress it, and instead embrace it and give it a target. If the Capitol can channel Katniss and get her fighting for their cause, a real business impact, then it gets its power back. But as those who’ve read the books know the fate of the Capitol, they can only hope enterprises see a better fate.

*The grammatical errors in this blog post are gratuitous.

There are so many things about social media engagement that are deemed to simple to write about anymore. Well ladies and gentlemen, let’s get tacky!

Tacky, or weird?

I know people are struggling with developing their individual social networks and their organization’s social networks and so in my first blog post of 2014, let’s talk about one of those things that everyone is afraid to ask about: how to organically build out your social network. What do I mean by organic? I mean not buying followers, not following people in hopes that they’ll follow you back in a move of courtesy.

I mean gaining followers by genuinely being intriguing in the sense that Carnegie wanted to help us win friends and influence people.

You might say, “hey lady, you only have 1,800 followers.” And I might say, “I’m cool with that,” because for me, it’s okay to only have 1,800 followers. If 1,800 people are interested in what I have to say, that is enough pressure for an individual person. I’m not trying to sell anything via social media. I’m trying to meet and bond with cool people and for such an objective, a pot of 1,800 people ensures I am always amused.

But if your objective is a business objective – how do you even get to 1,800? Here is my rule of 3 for individuals and organizations looking to build out their social networks: for everyone one original post you create, you must retweet/share something someone else said, and comment on something someone else said. And here is why:

• Create an original post because you want to show you have a mind – and that mind can come up with something unique. Maybe something unique is something about your business, maybe it is something you’re thinking of, the bottom line is this is your post to do what you want with.

• Retweet or share to show you’re the kind of person who is willing to proliferate someone else’s message, if you think that message is a good one. This is the whole “you scratch my back, I scratch yours,” concept. We’re all a littler narcissistic folks. Pet an ego.

• Comment on someone else’s post to engage with them. Building a real, meaningful network means you need to have a reciprocal feeling of relationship. So talk to the person! Start up a dialogue. Ask a question, make an observation. Encourage people to communicate with you, not at you. Set expectations that when someone enters into a relationship with you, you engage.

It’s quick, it’s easy, and now you don’t need to be embarrassed about asking. The truth is, we talk to clients about this a couple of times a week.

You don’t need to comment here if you don’t want to admit you looked at this – afterall, we are being tacky. But do, do me a favor: come find me at an upcoming event I’ll be at and let me know if you found this valuable. I promise not to rat you out Here is where I’ll be:

Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit, March 31 – April 2 in Las Vegas

Customer Strategies and Technologies Summit, April 28 – 29 in London

Portals, Content &  Collaboration Summit, May 5-7 in Los Angeles

Customer 360 Summit, May 19 – 21 in Orlando

Someone asked me about Twitter’s stock price the other day to which I replied: I know nothing of stocks, but I’ll happily tell you who I think is ruining it for all of us. Let’s have some straight talk about who is ruining Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook

Embarrassing parents ruined Facebook. Sorry, but they did.

Years back when people outside of colleges were granted access to Facebook, us college folk were more concerned about high school kids getting access to our “privilege.” I remember there being a Facebook group that was actually entitled, “Facebook is a college privilege, not a high school right,” or something of the sort.

I don’t know that any of us thought our parents might actually join Facebook, nor did we think they’d post our baby pictures on our birthday, or write novels on our pages singing our praises for the world to see…

Now, as a self-proclaimed adult, I think that all of that is actually adorable. Imagine the pride someone would need to have in knowing they helped raise a somewhat well-balanced human! However, when you’re somewhat between 14 and 20 you really don’t need the extra social anxiety that comes with people knowing that you took ballroom dance classes in middle school or dressed in matching outfits with your siblings.

This picture is so adorable, I think I may have posted this to show how adorable I was.

Twitter

Marketers ruined Twitter. Just for kicks, I pulled up my Twitter home feed as I write this and removing companies I follow from this count, 5 of the 10 PEOPLE I am following are self-promoting + another 1 of the 10 is an advertisement.

*I can’t put a screenshot in here.*

Perhaps it’s a reflection of who I follow, but I don’t think I am alone in seeing this type of continuous self-promotion in my Twitter home feed. Now mind you that as I say this I will undoubtedly post a link to this blog post on Twitter and LinkedIn…but it’s not the only thing I post. Some of the “marketers” out there have told me I am not using Twitter appropriately because I don’t solely post about work. GOOD RIDDANCE!

You’re telling me that *this* is not on par with my persona as a social media analyst?

And now for the educational portion of this blog post…why does this matter? Well, ever wonder why “the kids” are moving toward applications like Snapchat or WhatsApp or any other mobile messenger? It’s to get away from their parents and companies and people who make Twitter the new Times Square with the amount of advertising being spewed. Luckily for Facebook, kids tend to grow out of the embarrassment of being praised and adored by their parents.