The Many Uses of Social Media

I have recently taken the Social Media Management contact work off my Resume.  At first, about 2007 or 2008, I thought I would turn my hobby into something that generated an income. By 2011 I felt like a Traitor to my Tribe of the First Generation Content Generators.  I could never shake the feeling that We lost the War on Commercializing and Regulating the Internet – we would never be allowed to make an income off of some so powerful as Social Media.  After I discovered that another person had taken full credit for code that I had written way back in 2004, I swore I would never “make money” on my code ever again.

My knowledge of Data and Analyses of trends was one of the best in both Health Care and Aerospace – my two most challenging Industries.  In 2004, I was managing Applications Implementations and Integrations through what was then EDI and playing Full Time in the Social Media Space. Today, 10 years later, I see on LinkedIn articles about Social Media, by the so called “Experts” who publish said articles, the more I realized I never ever want to be associated with these people. They re-hash 10, 12 and 14 year old advice, passing it off as the newest, latest and greatest approach, when in fact all they are doing is scamming people new to Social Media.  Corporations spend thousands implementing Campaigns with no real visibility to ROI because the exchange of Personally Identifiable Information for access to the Social Media Network has been cheapened to a nearly negative value.

My connections here on LinkedIn recently witnessed my use of Social Media to solve a problem by manipulating my “outdated” Social Media skills.  My willingness to Go There had another very poignant consequence: the light now shining on the Value of Personal Data.

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LinkedIn witnessed a Truth very few of my connections know: I never threaten.  Or should I say, my threats are never empty, they always have very sharp teeth.  The action demonstrated how powerful the Social Network really is – the flood of advice which flowed my way resulted in an uptick in Vendor Management recommendations from Professionals I have worked with.   The value of my Personally Identifiable Information can’t be controlled by Removing it from the Network, but instead by pushing the boundaries of it’s reach.  While I have spent many years pushing the boundaries of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others, I had never pushed LinkedIn – at least not very far.

It was because of this Payroll problem that I took the action of removing reference to being compensated for Social Media on my LinkedIn Profile.  My opinions on Social Media become cloudy when my resume reflects my experience with the medium.

Some see my use of the LinkedIn Socail Machine as vindictive Sour Grapes.

Others see it as Teenage Hustling.

And still others see it as mean spirited Troll behavior.

That’s fine, because the end result  of my using this method is to use the Spirit of the Non-Commercialization of the Internet  to stand up for myself and reject the shallow and petty attitudes projected by the Recruiting and Human Resources Industry.  Our Professional Identities have been warped by the Industry raiding LinkedIn of it’s rightful profits.

Several months ago I was challenged on a blog I keep down a Data Back Road, by an accusation that I did not monetize my blog; that I was not getting the exposure I should; in a nut shell, they told me I was doing it wrong.  Yet, the blog is purposely kept on a quiet cul de sac in a small corner of the Web that people rarely drive by and never visit, precisely because I did not want exposure.  If exposure were the goal, I would have linked that Bitch to every Profile, every Social Network and slapped the URL on a bumper sticker.  And it has been CEOs and Corporate Directors who have shown me the Light of Commercializing the Internet… so I give in and play ball.

Social Media is not about Followers – it is about exposure.  Different people have different opinions, but after 16 years of managing Social Presence on the Internet – morphing through the gyrations each Social Platform phases in and out – I know a thing or two about exposure. More importantly, I know how to control exposure turning the volume down to a whisper or cranking it up to deafening volumes.  Social Media is an art form.

My choice in Social Strategy was quick (time), cheap (money) and completely dirty (efficacy).  I have not used Dirty Social in the Corporate Realm ever. In fact, one of the main reasons – besides the NDA – that I have my employer listed as “Confidential” on LinkedIn is so that I can keep my Social Networks as mine. I don’t have to censor myself for fear that it will reflect on my Client or Employer. I have a completely separate Twitter account that until the LinkedIn Group Admins for Mission Critical Systems Forum (facilitated by Oracle)  outed me (linked my Twitter account to my LinkedIn profile) last Summer, was very active.

In the case of the Payroll Problem, I had begun my Campaign research in November 2013.  The Payroll Problems had been going on for 9 months by the time I fired my Recruiter on March 9.  I realized, no matter what I do, I will be judged as The Problem.

If I do nothing, I prove to have deficient business acumen.

If I do anything, I will be judged High Maintenance or “difficult”.

I was trapped and at the Recruiter’s mercy. I had spent months trying to properly invoice and track Payroll to no avail. So, I fired him.  We reached the climax a week prior with the Recruiter informing me the corporation was bankrupt and would not be paying any payroll for March 2014.  Except he refused to provide any information to me about the bankruptcy, making my chase for the Paycheck that much more complicated.  Even now, I have no empirical evidence to support the bankruptcy claim.

First the Dirty:

I used Google Search, Bing Search and Gmail for the Internal Campaign. An Internal Campaign (for me) is off the Social Networks and is the equivalent of The Tattletale, or the Spurned Mistress knocking on the Wife’s front door.  The Campaign is Direct and Targeted.  In the Art of War, this is called Fighting the Enemy Where They Are Not.  In Business Dealings, the Personal Life is traditionally off limits. In the New Millennium, however, it has become another Pawn on the Field. I have repeatedly learned that the hard way.

For the entire 3 months after the first missed Payroll, I researched the Recruiter, the Staffing Company, his partners, their families, their homes, where they went to Church, what they did on the weekends, even the tiniest tid-bit got filed away for future use.  I never once breached Security on any servers. I used only what was available through my own Credentials on my own accounts. Every piece of data I used was open and classified as Publicly Available.

The Cheap:

In the normal course of business, the Payroll Problem should have gone through the Legal channels. You know the drill: hire an attorney, file the papers, go to endless meetings and depositions while the other side drags the proceedings out for as long as possible only to settle for pennies on the dollar 5 or 7 years from now.  It would be an expensive fight and I would be lucky if I even saw half of my paycheck down the line.  Instead, I used the Great Equalizer – Social Media and the value of my Personally Identifiable Information as Currency to the World Wide Web..

The Quick:

I used Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook for my Public campaign.  Completely Free and the exposure determined only by my effort – it would be up to me to keep the posts updated, flowing, public and available.

I purposefully did not use Twitter. My Twitter account, THE Twitter Account, the one that was accidentally on purpose linked to the Mission Critical Systems Forum (facilitated by Oracle)  by the Group Admins on LinkedIn.

Had I chosen to fire up the Tweet Machine, it would mean Content and massive exposure.  But Content meant I would have to publish all the emails – 9 months worth – revealing just how long I had let the Recruiter take advantage of me.  I would have to justify my belief that the Client is “Going Places” and that the fight to keep the relationship with the Client was worth the Investment, both in the short run (Campaign) and the long (investing my time and skill to grow the corporation). By Thursday, April 10, I was ready to publish the content, should the situation reach that point.

Now you know what brought us here, to this space where I used Social Media to not only gain the legal knowledge and ideas for strategy, but also to prove the old cliché “Don’t Make Me Use my Powers for Evil”.

The Long version – the TL/DR is in publication format but remains filed away on a hard drive. I really do want to publish at some point, but since I got what I want in this instance, I feel it’s best to just keep it that way.  Besides, there might come a day when I need to hit that Publish button…