I plied him with the most tailored advice I could give about starting and joining in conversations, linking, curating related content, and generally being himself. He was already starting to collect followers, and I knew he’d be welcomed.

But he wasn’t posting. When he finally did, the post seemed awkward. And yet, he’d told me he was reading and parsing everything I’d written. So what was going on?

Short bursts of conversation are not for everyone

Most people who thrive on Twitter tend to do so within just a few tweets of joining. They figure out how and where to find the people they want to connect with, and before long, only their follower counts show how new they are to the space. The short form of communication doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest.

I emailed my SME. “It’s not the conversing with people… it’s figuring out how to fit your natural patterns into Twitter syntax. How often do you text message or IM or chat with other people?” I asked.

His response: NEVER. “I hate texting and IM’ing,” he wrote. “I only text my wife and a couple of buddies. I never use IM.”

Of course it would be harder to fit into short-form messaging. And yet, there was still that niggling problem: because of the forensics community on Twitter, it was still the best place to drive traffic back to his site.

I recommended he check out Twitterfeed. Although I don’t advocate automation as a stand-in for the kind of relationship-building Twitter enables, it was clear that my SME wasn’t all that into this particular mode of relationship-building. Automation would ensure that he could tweet both his own, and related content. Enough tweets, and he’d be able to stay in front of followers.

But don’t just “set it and forget it”

Those who expect to be able to build a relationship with Twitter-based experts may be turned off when their RT or attempts to start a conversation go unanswered. They’re not likely to understand that this isn’t because the expert is a snob, but simply because s/he isn’t there to respond.

To get around this, the expert might do one of several things:

• Post a Twitter bio reflecting that the account is automated and giving users the option to email with questions or comments. This isn’t perfect — people generally won’t check before they reply to a tweet — but when they first follow you, the bio can be useful to establish a ground rule.
• If you dislike Twitter, but you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook and feed your status updates to Twitter, consider periodic tweets that ask followers to connect with you via one of those channels instead.
• Ask blog readers to email you or comment on your blog rather than tweeting you. (Twitterfeed allows you to input text before or after a tweet.)
• Use an app — my SME tells me Twitter for iPhone has one — that pops a message up whenever you’re publicly mentioned.

Twitter is well worth the time and effort to get to know, but if you hate short-form messaging in general and decide, after making an honest effort, that it really isn’t for you, then consider automation and/or combining the channel with the social sites you do prefer.

Have you chosen not to use Twitter? What have your experiences been? How do you connect with the investigative community otherwise?

photo credit: cevanoff

What can you accomplish as part of your community?

Eric Huber’s post about Guidance vs. AccessData touched a nerve (as you’ll see from the comments I left there). Over the last 18 months of business-building, I’ve read many a blog from marketing/public relations/social media people who all say the same basic things:

• If you want loyal customers who consistently buy your products and services, build relationships with them.
• Connect those customers to one another via your products and services.
• Your relationships with them, and theirs with each other, constitute a community.
• Be part of that community, not outside it or over it.

These are the values that create loyalty over the long term. They are part of an organization’s culture. And I worry that too many digital forensic solutions providers, at least the “big guns,” are not part of the community they serve. They’re too focused on competing with one another.

Community vs. competition

It’s not just what I’ve heard and read that leads me to say this. It’s the almost complete lack of presence on social networking sites. There are exceptions — the SANS Institute and AccessData, both of which  put out valuable information as well as engage customers — but most everyone else? Might have a presence via blog or Twitter or LinkedIn, but only rarely update.

Which is a shame, because they’re missing out on a phenomenal little community. A community of developers and examiners, investigators and problem-solvers, many of whom blog or podcast their thoughts and expertise. What if forensic brands regularly joined these daily conversations?

I suspect one or more of several reasons why they don’t:

• They’re afraid of getting too cozy, of the chance that an off-the-cuff comment might betray an important secret.
• Their PR staff running the social networking show aren’t privy to enough of what’s going on in the company.
• Their PR staff know plenty about what’s going on in the company, but not enough of what’s going on in the industry to be able to talk about it.
• They’re afraid the competition will go after customers with whom they actively engage online.

There are probably at least a few more reasons. But the upshot is, even if they are monitoring the blogs and podcasts, they are still too busy looking sideways to focus on things the community wants and asks for beyond product-specific features. Of such needs and desires is innovation born, and companies too focused on remaining the leader of the pack can never rock their customers’ world by breaking free and doing something truly special.

Sure, they might offer intriguing and even ground-breaking information in conference labs or lectures… but those only reach the people who are there. And you can’t earn loyalty by taking business cards and putting the email addresses you find there on an email list that spits out the same content. Loyalty comes after customers recognize that you’re trying to make their lives better: easier, faster, more efficient.

Community-building as business strategy

So whether it’s great content that teaches, great products that help them do their jobs, great customer service that solves their problems, or (best of all) some combination of the three, good value-adding, community-building strategy has got to be part of more forensic vendors’ offerings. You’re not helping digital investigations by keeping your cards close to your chest, and you may even be making them harder.

All the while, you’re leaving a gaping wide opening for community members who do understand each other’s needs to come along and take what you’ve been taking for granted all along: customer loyalty.

Because at that point it won’t be about the products anymore. It will be about all the intangibles that go with them: the things you can never compete with because your C-suite isn’t willing to share enough of its passion, values, personality, the things that drove the company into the digital investigations industry to begin with.

What can you do today to become more fully a part of the investigative community?

Image: diamondmountain via Flickr

Honesty builds toward the reputation you want

“Reputation management” is a concept that makes sense for organizations trying to maintain their brands. Whether they have a strong online presence or not, companies’ and agencies’ reputations are made or broken on the actions of managers or employees, products or services, tragedy or the everyday.

When it comes to individuals, however, “reputation management” starts to sound a bit shady. Reputation and character, after all, are two separate things. If you are managing the thing everyone sees, that implies the underlying character itself must be managed.

Of course, an organization has much less control over its reputation than an individual does over his or hers. An individual, at that point, shouldn’t need to manage anything; it should be second nature.

Second nature online

The problem with online reputation management isn’t the reputation or the person behind it; frequently, it’s the tools. People to whom blogging, tweeting, or status-updating does not come easily find themselves at a disadvantage: people who do it daily may get, and offer, more attention. Which might even translate into more business.

Making reputation management second nature involves making choices, and I don’t mean hiring a company like ReputationDefender or committing social media suicide. (You could, I suppose. But because social media amplify rather than create, consider whether you have an offline reputation you need to work on first.)

As I said on CyberSpeak, reputation management for an individual means honesty. This can take one of a few forms:

Honesty about stupid decisions

So your Facebook account shows incriminating evidence of—well, more than girls gone wild. This post (and accompanying comments) at Shel Holtz’ blog shows how conflicted many people are about whether employers and others have any right to make hiring decisions based on what they see on Facebook.

Note that it’s not about the behavior itself. As many pointed out, partying happens anyway. That it’s now both more documented and more accessible is the issue. Some believe that just because it’s documented doesn’t mean people should be fired or removed from consideration.

Others think if prospective employees are dumb enough to post it publicly, what other poor judgment will they display? (Think about this in terms of information security.)

Best of all: the employee or prospect who comes clean about going wild. No, it won’t guarantee job security. Only the employer can say that. But there is no better way to build character and reputation simultaneously than to own mistakes made. If you do lose a job? Then it’s an opportunity to move and continue to grow.

Honesty about what you know and what you don’t

Reputation for individuals is frequently about knowledge. Whether boss or expert, the person who can admit they don’t know something—and ask for enlightenment from the best qualified person to provide it—wins more respect than the person who tries to hide their insecurity by blaming, posturing, or anything else that makes it painfully obvious they don’t know.

Again, it’s about ownership. And, as with mistake-making, courage to learn. That can be much more difficult when you are in a leadership position. It involves giving up a certain amount of control, making yourself vulnerable to possibly less noble-minded people in your organization or outside of it. Worst of all: if this happens during a crisis.

There are many complicated variables in play here. Making yourself vulnerable through honesty means trusting your team, sometimes the public. What if you can’t trust your team? Well… sometimes that’s about them, but other times it’s about you.

The balance really lies in desire for personal growth vs. job security… but keep in mind, job security is very often flimsier than you think. Posturing and honesty may both get you to the same place, but if you’re fired for being honest, at least you can build your reputation on a positive quality rather than a negative.

Honesty about what you can and can’t manage

It doesn’t make sense to run out and get an account on every social network imaginable, because of the hundreds that exist. Even those of us with fewer than half a dozen accounts have trouble “scaling,” or adjusting the ratio of social networking to our regular work.

You might admire the way other professionals blog their thoughts three times a week, but if you only want to blog because you think you “should,” think about your real reasons. Are you afraid they’re getting business you want? That they appear to know more than you do? Blogging may not be for you. Think, instead, about Facebook pages—they frequently take less work to maintain—or networking via LinkedIn groups or even Twitter.

If, however, you have something to say about a topic no one else is covering, then blogging (or its siblings podcasting and vlogging) is something to consider. And, because it allows for a depth of thought not enabled by quick-fix status update services, it’s a good way to give others a feel for how you think and seek to be perceived in public.

Starting fresh

Trying to wipe out your checkered past is too obvious. As shown in the comments about this judge, attempts just tarnish one’s reputation further.

It would be refreshing to see the dishonest own their troubles rather than try to cover them up or destroy them outright. And I do mean own, not make public apologies no one will take seriously.

The truly repentant act it. That means forming new habits, challenging yourself to push past the more convenient ways of doing things. Unless you’re a sociopath, that kind of challenge can only give you the reputation you so desire.

Image: OliBac via Flickr

• Why an online resume is not the same thing as a traditional C.V.
• Why it’s not just about not posting some things, and how online users might “fill the hole” with better content
• The importance of goal-setting and strategizing how to use various social sites
• The need for better guidance for young professionals online
• Having consistent professional values online as well as off

After you’ve listened, please come back and tell me what you think!