Vote For Me In The APAT Awards

Go on, be a mate, vote for me as the 'Best Poker Social Media User' in the 2011 APAT Awards. 

You have to create a forum account, but it is worth it because APAT are a fantastic organisation who run affordable deep stack events up and down the UK, who helped pave the way for the fantastic structures we all enjoy in the UK live scene these days.

UK PokerNews is also up for an award, which is a partial brag because although I have left them, I was there for 9 months so it kinda counts too (Though Matt Pitt is doing a great job with it too and I am sure he would have been nominated regardless).

2000 Twitter Followers

It felt like forever to get to 1000 twitter followers, but getting to 2000 only took 3 months. I think that just makes sense, snowball effect and all that.

Onwards and upwards, next milestone is 5000, which should take a hella long time.

There isn't an App for Common Sense

Anyone who knows me will be sick to death of me constantly saying ‘what an age we live in’ – but I think it is something that really needs saying. I believe we live in the greatest time ever at the moment, anyone can do anything. We can do more on a phone now than what we could do on a computer a decade ago, and every day technology is getting better and better.

I discussed this with a friend over the weekend; he is currently making a living doing something that pretty much did not exist even 5 years ago. In fact, to some extent he has created his own field, and carved a unique niche for himself. We both agreed that now is a time of tremendous opportunity, but in equal measure it is going to be a difficult time for a lot of people. The lost generation he called it, and basically anyone who doesn’t have an initiative.

The problem is that we have become so reliant on technology that it has removed a great deal of need for common sense. I’m as guilty as anyone in lots of regards here, I will sometimes have Sat Nav on for journeys I know like the back of my hand, and now and then if I happen to have a  calculator to hand I find myself using it for 3+4 type equations. I am also pretty useless when it comes to fixing things in the house or car.

Imagine what it’s like to be a kid growing up now, there is pretty much an app for everything, they can have their hand held for most of their life. Having the world literally at ones fingertips is surely something previous generations would have hoped would one day happen, but I wonder if this will be to the detriment to initiative and innovation?

My friend was telling me about how he recently saw several applicants for a job he was advertising. In one such interview, the applicant’s mother not only went to the interview, she answered all the questions on behalf of her son. She could have solved the mysteries of perpetual motion or cured cancer for me, the sheer attendance of this guy’s mother would still be an instant no for me (As would if anyone over the age of 18 turned up with one of those National Records of Achievement in their hand).

I don’t know which is worse, a son who asked his mother to go in the first place (or didn’t have the stones to say you are not coming) or a mother who thought it was a good idea. God help that lad when he starts chasing girls.

I get some similar stuff myself, though nowhere near as bad. Not a week goes by without someone I don’t know emailing me out of the blue asking ‘got any jobs going at PokerNews?’ without any examples of previous work, or suggestions for possible work they could do. I used to reply, but now just ignore. I might be being harsh (and it also doesn’t help my budget for commissioning work is close to zilch), but I had to put much more effort than that to get noticed when I was a fledgling poker writer, so I don’t see why I should spoon feed anyone work when there are so many talented writers out there struggling (That’s why I am pleased to see guys like Matthew Pitt and Lee Davy getting quite a bit of work these days, two chaps who make their own luck).

It is not difficult to start a blog just to get started in writing something, but a lot of these guys are asking me to commission the first thing they have written ever. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I don't think I would have ever applied for a job with literally no reasons to employ me in my covering letter. 

Probably the most depressing story I have heard was one from a friend who worked for the job centre a few years ago. She ended up essentially writing out the answers to an application form on behalf of a young girl who had no idea what to put. This girl went on to copy & paste those answers on every future application form she filled in - even though the questions were different. So a question about team work on a future application would get an answer about a time she helped a customer, a question about working in a high pressure environment would be answered with the girls hobbies and interests, and so on. 

This is indeed the greatest time to ever live, anything is possible (and most of which can be done with an iPhone).  But now is also a time when the playing field has been levelled like never before, so competition is fierce. I do worry that having endless opportunities like this is creating overly high expectations for a lot of people, while at the same time demotivating them to actually knuckle down to some real effort and initiative, because they are used to having apps do these things for them. 

Poker Twitter Top Trumps

I celebrated a milestone yesterday, which was pretty important to me, largely because it’s amazing how much of a social media geek I have become in recent years.  I passed the 1000 twitter followers mark yesterday (And also managed to increase my ‘Klout’ by 2 places to 59, whatever that means). I am not sure quite why it is that was so important to me about getting there, other than perhaps most of the people I admire in twitter terms are into quadruple digits.

I have purposely avoided trying to get autofollows from spam accounts. The thing I love about twitter is that it is a listening tool, and certainly not a spamming tool. I like to think that anyone who follows you actually wants to see what you have to say. It is much better to have 20 people who like what you tweet, than have 20,000 people who have followed you for the sake of it.

I also see it as the future of journalism. I am going to the Full Tilt Hearing next week and I am hoping to tweet some updates live as they happen. People want to consume their media much faster these days, and twitter is often the anchor for this new form of consumption (A prime example being yesterday, as millions of us watched a live stream of someone trying to custard pie Rupert Murdoch, speaking of which, that guy got an extra 10,000 twitter followers or something immediately after).

I tried also little stunt to get me over the line; basically anyone who followed or retweeted me that day got put in a draw to win a copy of The Mental Game of Poker. Yes, it was a bit bribey, but I figured that it was at least only going to be poker players who will have participated, and thus exactly the sort of folks I want following me.

I have been playing a little game in my head lately called ‘Twitter Trumps’, where basically I have been trying to assess the relative value of a retweet from a well-known poker player. Thus far @tony_guoga got me around new followers when he retweeted something I posted, @senseichanning got me about 9 new followers, but the big dog of poker social media, @KevMath, on average has got me about 19 new followers every time he has retweeted something I tweeted. (This is all pretty anecdotal evidence btw, please don’t take as gospel).

Makes me wonder who would get me more followers from a retweet - Daniel Negreanu or Hellmuth. I would say Phil, and I reckon the over/under would be 50 followers. 

Of course the best way to get more followers in poker is probably to make the WSOP final table; I’ve just seen Samuel Holden (@SamDMND) get 300 overnight.

I guess 2000 is the next milestone. It seems like some of the guys I consider very influential poker journalists (Dr Pauly, Gary Wise, BJ Nemeth, Kara Scott etc) have about 4000ish, and in my opinion the biggest grassroots social media influencer KevMath has nearly 8000, so I guess if I could come close to 4000 before Twitter becomes the next MySpace, I will be happy enough.  

All I can really do is actually tweet stuff that is worth reading, the next thing of which will be next week when I will be live at the Full Tilt Hearing in London.

Its @barry_carter btw ;)

Lessons in Self Publishing Volume 1

One of the strangely gratifying processes of the entire book writing process has also been one of the most mundane. Because we self-published the book, we are learning as we go along about the ins and outs of the publishing process. One of the things we didn’t do the best of research on was distribution. It was really important for me to ensure that people in Europe got the book in their hands quickly, and as the printers are in Arizona, this means that I personally send a lot of the European orders from a stockpile in my office.

Every day I go down to the post office with a bagful of parcels, exchange pleasantries with the women behind the counter, and piss off anyone unfortunate enough to be behind me in the queue. It is the sort of thing that could be a pain in the arse for many, to have to do it every day, but I really love it.

Obviously the fact that I am there every day with a bagful means that we are selling books, so no wonder I am happy. Although I hated working in customer service, it’s always been a priority of mine and I think I am good at it, so there is also some satisfaction in knowing that the orders are getting there on time, and hand sent by one of the authors no less.

There is also a big part of me, that, not sure why, always wished he had his own little eBay type business. So this is the next best thing. 

The book has been on Amazon just over a week, and sales have been good. We have already jumped a bunch of places in the amazon rankings for our chosen search terms, and at the time of writing we have 12 very good reviews, all of which have been given 5 stars.

There are some rather frustrating elements to the whole amazon process. One of the oddest things is amazon do not allow us to set our shipping prices and ETA, so it shows the standard as $12 and 22-44 days for outside the US. The reality is that the shipping is closer to $8 and the ETA is 2-5 days. Very frustrating because that must really put some people off buying at all, and in other instances people have been choosing shopping options that are really expensive (which we are refunding the difference for after).

So if you buy the book, pick the cheapest option, I assure you it will get there in less than a week.

It’s all good though, it’s nice that most of our problems at the moment are the good sort of problems. The response and the reviews have been amazing so far, and there seems to be more and more buzz, and the average sales seem to pick up, on a weekly basis. I think that is because word of mouth and customer reviews are starting to drive it, now that people have had time to finish the book. We started our PR campaign by churning out lots of written content for magazines & websites, but are finding that it doesn’t convert to sales much. What does work well, which I think is a sign of the times we live in, is anything where we can interact with potential customers – forums, social media, video, interviews, and live coaching.

It’s all been a fascinating learning process if nothing else.

One more thing, for fans of this blog. We have about 30 copies of the book which have cosmetic damage on the front cover – nothing wrong with the books or content, just blotches on the cover that we couldn’t possibly send out to customers who paid full price. However, if anyone wants to buy them we are going to sell them at $25 each (normal price $44.90) + whatever the postage costs. If anyone is interested just email me at barry@mentalgameofpoker.com – and you can rest assured I will be taking them to the post office first thing in the morning.

The 2011 World Series of Poker: The Year of the Tweet

Taken from PokerNews

There is no doubt that the 2011 World Series of Poker will be one of the most significant in the history of poker. It is the first WSOP since the US Department of Justice changed the landscape of poker forever more. It is also the year that Phil Ivey dropped one the biggest drama bombs seen by boycotting the series, and suing his former sponsor.

That will probably be what everyone looks back on as being the definitive moments of this year’s series; however, I think there is one more thing the series will be remembered for – the year of the tweet. I still haven’t decided whether I am going to Vegas this year (and with the clock ticking that probably means I ain’t) but thanks to the power of social media, I don’t feel like I am missing out on anything (except lots of hangovers).

Kara Scott (@karaotr) summed this up perfectly for me in a tweet:

I am AMAZED how different things are now that social media (Twitter) is so popular/powerful. Its a whole new world for information gathering

Yes twitter has been around a long time (relatively) and it was at the series last year, but there has been a massive shift in its usage over the last 12 months. No longer is it just a place for poker players to give us the usual ‘got 22k at the break, table full of donks’ updates.

It is perhaps because since #blackfriday everyone has been forced into becoming much more news savvy consumers. The listening and gathering information element of twitter has been forced on us to an extent because playing poker isn’t as easy as it once was. There is also simply much more news to report right now – every day some story breaks that would have otherwise been a ‘major industry changing story' but in the last six weeks seems quite ‘standard’. This week already we had Phil Ivey’s announcement, Tiltware’s statement, the ‘outing’ of several (currently unsubstantiated) Full Tilt rumours on Quadjacks, James Bord vs. John Juanda, and a little bit of poker to talk about.

Social media is also allowing us more than ever before to influence the news as it happens, and interact like never before. Last month there was the story of Daniel Negreanu calling out alleged cheater Ali Tekimtamgac in front of a packed card room, and even more packed twitterverse, at the WPT Championship. There was also the story that the media would not be allowed to play WSOP events breaking, and quickly reversing, after a storm of angry tweets from the poker media. I myself found myself faced with an angry tweet from Tom Dwan after completely not expecting him have read, let alone reply to, a joke I tweeted at his expense (Dwan was in the right btw, and I tweeted a grovelling public apology, to which he sent a smiley face suggesting all was well again in the twitterverse).

There are countless more ways in which social media is allowing all of us; players, journalists, spectators, industry experts, and total whackos, to interact like never before. Twitter is allowing more news stories that would never otherwise see the light of day to break, and at the same time ensuring fewer ways to censor them.

To get all the action from the WSOP, I would still say follow our PokerNews Live Updates because they really are the nuts. But to get all the drama around the WSOP (and poker in general), now is the time to get yourself a twitter account.

Oh, and follow me, as I follow the poker world and aggravate high stakes pros - @Barry_Carter

Slow News Day: Thoughts on Phil Ivey and Apologising to Tom Dwan

Generally I have tried my best to avoid writing about the state of US poker post Black Friday, mainly because there are so many great writers across the pond doing a much better job than I ever could hope to. Not sure why, but I do feel compelled to wax lyrical on the latest string of bombshells surrounding Phil Ivey and Full Tilt Poker.

I got wrapped up in this story after cracking a quick joke on twitter that backfired. It wasn't actually that funny, and I had just woken up when I did it, so I wasn't really thinking when I tweeted. It was a reply to a Tom Dwan tweet, like a true keyboard warrior I never expected a response from the OP, because you don't really from a 'celebrity'. This is what I tweeted (which includes Dwan's original tweet):

So..you agree with him and are suing/boycotting too? RT @Tom_Dwan: @philivey poker isn't a sport.Rest of your statement is awesome though.

But low and behold, he did respond, quite quickly, by direct message. As it was a DM I won't post it (It was nothing hush hush, I just respect private messages) but needless to say he wasn't happy with the tweet, and he respectfully pointed out the fact that he had personally pledged all the money Full Tilt has paid him to the players, should FTP not pay out to their US customers.

And right he was, I apologised for the confusion, and publiclly apologised to Dwan on twitter. (Which prompted a smiley face DM from him which I assume means we are best friends now). What Dwan is doing, imo, is arguably a lot braver than what Ivey is doing.

Do not get me wrong, I respect Ivey greatly, I did anyway before, and do just as much now. It cannot be easy to walk away from your own poker room, it certainly cannot be easy for him to essentialy declare war on some of his close friends, and I imagine it is very hard to sit out of the WSOP when he has a bracelet legacy to maintain.

As brave as this was for Ivey, it was also the obvious thing to do from a PR perspective. At some point, pissed off FTP customers were going to give him shit about getting their money back (I assume that is what Bord vs Juanda was about, likewise I know Ferguson and Lederer feel like marked men). In light of all the recent revalations about FTP, things were only going to get worse for sponsored representatives and shareholders during the WSOP.

Ivey had the most to lose of any of the sponsored pros, he is the most recognised face in poker, and the best player in everyones books – he does not need to get caught up in all this. By declaring war on Full Tilt, who are sinking fast and he will never be able to play there again anyway, he looks like the hero in this story. He can go away for the summer, come back when the dust has settled, and look like the people's champion along the way.

I also feel as though perhaps Ivey was aware somethig big is about to go down. Although I am sure they did not know about the DOJ thing ahead of time, I am convinced Hellmuth and Annie Duke were becoming more aware of the fragility of UB, which is why they left, seemingly for no reason. Likewise, I think Phil possibly knows of the gravity of what is ahead for FTP, hence the decision to leave (Maybe Nick Rainey told him what he was about to say on QuadJacks).

Please do not mistake this for dissing Ivey, I am not. What he did was brave and it was honourable. It was just also the only thing he could have really done from a PR perspective.

Back to twitter and I am quite proud of this tweet, which got a lot of retweets today:

Anyone think @Phil_Hellmuth will seize the opportunity and come dressed as Phil Ivey for his main event entrance this year?

Poker and Adrenaline

Another video blog. They are slowly getting better quality production wise, apologies for the sound we have worked out how to get the echo on Jared sorted for the next one. This was once again a reader question and we had the guy on the line this time, he basically wanted to know how if psyching yourself up like an athlete or musician is a good or bad idea for poker.



We picked it because, like the drugs in poker discussion, it is not something that is discussed much, however I see tons of threads where people talk about getting psyched up for poker, what songs people listen to etc. We'll be doing more of these video blogs, so stay tuned to our Twitter where we will be taking suggestions.

Check out The Mental Game of Poker for more mental game advice.

Drugs in Poker

So it seems Blogger had a major issue on Friday where it deleted everyones posts the previous day, so here once again is the Drugs in Poker video blog we did:




It got some interesting chatter on twitter afterwards, just to clarify, when we talk about prescription drugs we are talking about them when they are being used by someone who doesn't medically need them, ie. someone who is just taking them purely because they think it will help them play better or longer.

We are running another video blog suggestion contest, just suggest a mental game topic for Jared to address (and me to sit quietly in the background and occassionally make a smart alec comment) and the person whose topic gets picked withs a free copy of The Mental Game of Poker. Suggestions on Twitter or Facebook.

Book-et List

I realised in the space of two days I genuinely ticked two things off a long running bucket list I made when I was about 20. I have always wanted to win a trophy, in anything (this was way before poker), and I got that last weekend on the Sky Poker Tour (albeit a '7th place' trophy, sigh). And I always wanted to write a book, and that finally arrived this week (Obviously I wrote it ages ago but didn't believe it until it arrived).

Now I just need to appear in a film, watch a boxing match at Madison Square Garden, and have a threesome and my list is complete.

Taking a leaf from Gary Vaynerchuk's book the Thank You Economy, I decided to go a little extra for one of the guys who had been a real advocate of the book. Jamie Mortimer has been really supportive about the book on twitter and his blog.

He was one of the first guys to buy the book, and I was amazed that not only does he work at my former workplace before poker, Aviva, and is engaged to a girl I worked with, he also sits next to my old house mate in the office. It is in my hometown of Sheffield and I thought the very least I could do was to hand deliver his copy as a thank you for his support (While he was at work, he didn't dress up to receive it....I think). Its nice to see Social Media in action like this.

Finally, if you are reading this today (Obviously you are reading it today, I mean 12/05/11) check out the EPT Madrid Live Stream on PokerNews. 

Check Out the Mental Game of Poker

The Mental Game of Poker is Shipping

Apologies for anyone who pre-ordered the The Mental Game of Poker, for reasons beyond our control we were delayed by 3 or 4 days beyond the projected shipping date. Believe it or not, it was apparently because the printers didn't quite have the right shade of blue for the cover and it came out slightly purple-y instead. Had we known this was the issue right away we would have just sent a Barney the Dinosaur version of the book out.

If you did pre-order the book, Jared & I will be sending something along shortly as a special offer and thank you via email.

Anyway, we are now both going to try out the medium of Video Blogs, just because it seems easier, more compelling, and more engaging. I probably should have shaved beforehand, and my god do we both look tired - that is actually the toll the book has taken on us lately, no joke. The sound quality is pants and it will be better in the future, I will also edit my mug out of it more often next time.

Check Out The Mental Game of Poker

Crush It

I enjoyed Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk so much I snap bought his first (none wine) offering, Crush It. If time taken to buy-then-read is anything to go by, clearly I loved it, as I managed to blitz through it in a matter of days.

And love it, I did. Crush It is all about how we live in an age where anyone can turn a hobby or passion into a career. The message is simple enough, find something you love and monetise it. If you are passionate enough about a subject you will be able to find a niche way of blogging/wrtiting/video blogging/podcasting/creating content about that subject, which you can build into something people will pay for.

Step forward social media, which is how you find your audience. Just like in the Thank You Economy, Gary reminds us that social media is really the greatest listening tool in the world – not an opportunity for spammers and old school marketeers to dump links.

It all sounds so simple. Find your passion, produce the best blog site in the world, create a community of followers, wait for the money to roll in. Of course it isn't as simple as that, it requires lots and lots of hard work, which Gary is all too eager to point out again and again. However, he is so passionate and persuasaive that he does fill you with confidence that we all have the power to do it.

This book spoke to me as much, if not perhaps a bit more, than Thank You Economy. I think this is because for the past five years I have turned a passion into a career. I haven't done all the things suggested in Crush It, nor have I necessarily done those things I have done to the best of my ability, but I have seen first hand how liberating having a job you would do for free is. With my first book now available to buy, I think this was a very fortuatous time for me to have discovered Crush It.

It's a brilliant book, and a rare one I may read a second time. I think Thank You Economy is the better book, and one that everyone should read. But Crush It is perhaps my personal favourite of the two, because it really speaks to me as a self employed journalist.

Once again, as good a book as it is, think seeing the man in action does much more than my review ever could.

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The Thank You Economy

 I just finished reading 'Thank You Economy' by Gary Vaynerchuk, which was recomended to me in very apt fashion by someone in the comment's section of this blog. The book is about how social media has levelled the playing field for small business and once again created a word of mouth culture.

10 years ago if you had recieved bad customer service from a large company, you would probably tell your circle of friends and it wouldnt make a dent in that companies bottom line. Now you can moan on twitter, facebook, amazon, trip advisor, a podcast, a blog, a forum, and probably 100 effective methods. If not handled well, your compllaint could reach thousands upon thousands of people. Likewise, if you recieve exceptional service, your praise can reach the same number of people and give that company some of the best free marketing available (Think of how much more effective a friend's recommendation is compared to banner ad these days).

I don't really see the point of explaining the book any more than this, because Vaynerchuk explains it himself much better in this video. In short, he is very successful because he gave a shit more than his competitors:

I loved the book, it has really spoken to me at a transitional period in my own life. First of all, I have really become a social media convert in 2011, I think it will be as mandatory a skill in ten years time as operating a PC is today. Secondly, I have my own book - The Mental Game of Poker - coming out next week. The nature of the book really means that word of mouth is vital to its success (especially as the US DoJ appears to have created a massive bump in the road), I know social media (particularly twitter, facebook, and forums) will play a huge part.

Finally, on a personal note, losing my Father last year has a major influence. I must admit I was much more a fast buck kind of guy, I would usually go for the easier route, I would sometimes (semi) joke that 'if a job is worth doing properly, it's not worth doing'. Dad was never someone I would call particularly ambitious, however, he always did his best, he never cut corners, he never did a shoddy job, he never put off tomorrow what he could do today, and most of all, he always did the right thing by others – customers, friends, and family.

One of the really humbling things about his funeral was seeing just how profound an impact this had, one that you would never see day to day, month to month, only in a lifetime. So many people came to the funeral, his plumber came, his mechanic came, my friends who knew him when we were at school came, so many people who would otherwise barely be acquittance's came – not the sort of people you would usually expect to see at a funeral. We also heard many stories about lives he touched, how he was like a second father to a lot of people, and was a real role model to people who were on bad pathes until they met him (One guy in particular who could have easily been in jail, but after meeting Dad, followed his example, and became a stand up family man and a nurse). 

Thats not successful in an ROI sense, but thats a legacy. It was a real turning point for me in my life, I want to leave an imprint like that. Don't get me wrong, I want to earn a shit load of money too, but I want to do it right. 

There are so many ways I could shamelessly spam this book, but I'm not going to. I have no intention of misseling this to players who shouldnt buy it (like brand new players) because whats the point? There are loads of things I could do to increase my twitter followers, but why bother if they don't want to listen (please follow me on twitter btw) - much better to know that the people that do follow us want to hear us. I know the book is good, because I know Jared Tendler is a genius, so I'm not going to ruin things by pushing too hard, I hope that enough people agree with me to spread the word because they want to.

Anyway, to get back on track, the Thank You Economy is the second best book of 2011 so far for me and I read a hell of a lot (Top read so far this year for me was 'Made to Stick' by the Heath Brothers). Its passionate, persusaive, and easy to follow. Its a real must for anyone in, well, any industry, and simply put if you don't buy into the principles of the Thank You Economy, you will get left behind.

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What Social Media Is Really About

I’ve always used social media since it became the norm, in fact, I’d say I probably knew more than most about it. Recently I have gone from having a passing interest to being a total obsessive, for many reasons. The main one being how clearly beneficial it is to both my work with PokerNews and obviously for my upcoming book.

More so, I came to the realisation at the exact same time that Bill Rini and Kim Lund have produced several great blog posts on the subject, that social media is being vastly underused in the poker industry. Most think just “lets post a link and wait for the money to roll in”, I must admit, that was my view for a while too.

Read both Bill and Kim’s blogs because they are very good, I can’t offer anything new, but I can think of something that happened to me this week which perfectly illustrates the reason to use social media in marketing. I was listening to Radio 6 (The best radio station in the world btw) and one of the guests on the breakfast show was an Irish Improvisational Comedy Freestyle Rap Act (Yes, that’s what they actually were, never thought those words could go together). They were very funny but I didn’t catch their name.

So I sent the Radio 6 breakfast show a Tweet asking their name, a few hours later instead of getting a reply from Radio 6, I got a reply direct from the band (They were called Abandoman and I advise you check them out). How cool is that? I was listening to them on the breakfast radio show and before lunch they had contacted me directly.

Now I knew their name, I wanted to see more of them, so I went to their website and then their Facebook page, which had several funny videos of their act. I also checked out their listings and didn’t see anywhere near my hometown of Sheffield, so I posted on their wall asking if they had any plans on coming? They replied quickly saying no, but could I recommend them any venues?

Just as quickly I sent them a couple of venues as well as a link to the website for the Sheffield Comedy Festival in October. They had never heard of that particular festival, but loved the look of last year’s line-up and as a result, are now in talks with the organiser to play there this year. I for one will be the first to buy a ticket if they do (Actually I will push for a free ticket being as I pointed it out to them).

What a truly satisfying experience it was for both me, the consumer, and them, the artist. Thanks to social media my passing interest in Abandoman was quickly converted into enthusiasm because they contacted me in person, allowed me to find out more about them, and even get the smug satisfaction of possibly organising a gig for them. They in turn have got a new fan, find out about a new gig, and I have already started sending links to their stuff to all my friends, potentially creating more fans.

I am currently reading Tribes by Seth Godin and in it he says that, because of innovations like social media, to market a product you only need a small, dedicated group of fans who will do the marketing for you through word of mouth – all you have to do is engage them. This was a great example, Abandoman engaged me and I am now passionately spreading the word, in part because they have given me an extra reason to like them beyond their act. I would have certainly forgotten about them by now if not, but because they took 2 minutes out to engage with me, it could help create them a new fan base (You are going to check them out after all, how can you not now?)

The lesson, social media is not about spamming and converting and monetizing – it is about conversations, engaging and entertaining (Which if done well, can lead to converting and monetizing).

With that said, please follow me on Twitter and we can have a nice chat. I promise I won’t mention my new book unless you ask me.