Cooksey Connects

Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

This past year has proven remarkable for Cooksey Connects. Following a Headquarters relocation to Houston, TX, business has exploded (in a good way)! In fact, my first engagements OUTSIDE THE FIFTY STATES have just been booked! To find out where they are, CLICK HERE.

As I continue to lead training workshops around the country, a growing number of people have been inquiring as to how they can Connect with me.  To make it easy, here are a few links:

• Social Media
  • facebook.CookseyConnects.com Connect with the Official Facebook Fan Page
  • linkedin.CookseyConnects.com Get yourself connected with Cooksey’s LinkedIn profile
  • twitter.CookseyConnects.com Keep up with the latest Tweets from Cooksey Connects
  • delicious.CookseyConnects.com When I find interesting articles online, I’ll link to them here. Just for you!
• Training Workshops, Keynotes, and MORE!
  • A menu of services and ways to Cooksey can CONNECT with your organization!
  • Ask about special ON-SITE TRAINING tailored especially for YOUR organization.

Watch for even more updates coming over the next few weeks, including a NEW SECTION on Recommended Reads to keep your Success Library growing!

Remember, you cannot FORCE someone to follow you…but you can give them a REASON to call you a LEADER!

Earlier today, I ran into a friend of mine (we’ll call him JB..no, not that one…the other one) who works in corporate communication for a large regional bank. He’s a terrific fellow whom I have known for several years. Everyone I know who knows him has nothing to say but how great a person he is, how professional he is, and how passionate he is…..about his bicycle.

His bicycle?

You see, JB is a Twitter user. He doesn’t go overboard with it, but he regularly posts tweets for his friends and followers (currently about 300). Often times, he tweets about his bike. I mean, he is a Dad and all, but he LOVES his bike. I’m just jealous because I am ready to trade in my running shoes (at least a couple days a week) for the adventures that await me in the saddle….but we digress.

SO, realizing that JB’s followers were beginning to mention his place of employment and ask him information about the Bank itself, he started thinking about his “online image”. Careful not to post anything inflamatory (EVER) and always helpful, JB decided to change his profile pic to something more….professional.

Well, within MINUTES of his next tweet, his followers let him know what they thought about the new picture…THEY HATED IT! What’s wrong with a corporate, black and white head shot for someone who holds a professional position at a respected company as the profile pic on Twitter….well, apparently EVERYTHING!

JB’s picture (which was QUICKLY restored) is one from a function he attended several years ago. It features his trademark smile along with the corniest, Woody-from-Toy-Story-look-alike, cowboy hat perched atop his noggin.

The Redux:

If you want to connect with your followers on Twitter (After all, what is SOCIAL Media without the Social?) do the following:

1. Be relevant and timely
2. Be yourself
3. Keep your profile pic a little corny
4. Drop @jboudiette a tweet to let him know you love the hat!

Credit Where It’s Due:

The role of JB was played by @jboudiette.
The role of peer pressure was played by @NatLoveBug, @jroby, @Nnascenczi, @beckyendicott, and @mattgalloway.

The obnoxious blogger who took this story to the web? @CookseyConnects

You’ve heard me say time and again how much “success” is such a subjective term. Perception is a powerful aspect of how we as people and professionals (as if those are two different things) are viewed, it is amazing to me how many of us still miss the point from time to time.

Just this week, I was invited to visit a networking event with one of my clients, whom I have networked with for years. My travel schedule makes it tough for me to be a regular member of a group that meets weekly, but I figured it could be a fun way to meet some new people. When it came time for my 60-second commercial (as a guest I was granted 120-seconds), I glanced down at a few notes I’d scribbled on an index card and just started talking. They laughed. They smiled. We connected. Isn’t that the goal? At the end of the meeting, several people in the group requested the opportunity to meet one-on-one over coffee to learn more, and one fellow even handed me a referral AT THE MEETING!

Here are a few tips to get the most out of any networking opportunity. Try these the next time you walk into a room full of strangers. You never know where your next opportunity or client will come from:

1. BE CONFIDENT – You are who you say you are, if your actions are confident. You are a subject matter expert for what you do…ACT LIKE ONE! [Need help in this department? Visit a local Toastmasters club!]
2. TELL A QUICK STORY – Which do you think is more memorable: a) “Hello, my name is ______ and I work for _________.” or b) “**insert a quick 30-45 second story about how you solved someone else’s problem**:..
3. LET THEM KNOW HOW TO GET MORE INFO ABOUT YOU – Two great ways to do this are: a) direct them to YOUR website (ask them to connect with you on a professional, social networking site like “LinkedIn” or if your organization has a “Fan Page” on Facebook, direct them there or b) Tell the audience to ask the person who invited you to the meeting to tell them how you successfully worked with them! What’s better than a live, word-of-mouth success story from a CLIENT!?

Above all…If you don’t have any business cards (hey, sometimes we forget them or run out)…make sure to get one from everyone in the room and make it a point to follow up with each one directly! Anyone remember the hand-written note? It works! Now…get out there a find some business!

Friend and fans-

Just a quick note to let you know I was quoted this week on the Blog of “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur”. What is THAT all about, you ask? Well, check it out HERE! (Be sure to scroll down to #30 on the list!) – Scott

One of my favorite professional groups is the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Speakers Association. Over the past few years, I’ve had the occasion to meet and learn from some of the most talented speaking professionals from all over the country.

I just wanted to take a minute to say, “Thanks for the shout out, Jerry Gitchel!”. Hey, I made his website and his blog. He even posted the pic, included complete with my noggin!

Be sure to check out Jerry’s Blog post (featuring a photo with my mug in it) here!

While some people learn by watching, others learn by reading. Still, others prefer a demonstrative approach referred to as “kinesthetic“. Put another way, it means that the person learns by DOING. When it comes to Social Media, I’m the latter.

Several months ago, I set up my first account at Twitter.com. Immediately following, I found myself trying to sum up thoughts and ideas into often cryptic phrases comprised of 140 characters or less. Soon after, I began to “tweet”, converse with “tweeps”, and actually learned it was okay admit that sometimes I “twittered” in public.

With it, though, came a lesson. You see, I make a rookie mistake. (Part of the effectiveness of kinesthetic learning.) While one of the coolest aspects of Social Media communication is to syndicate and push out (through various “feeds”) information you post across multiple distribution channels, it’s something I’ve learned can confuse your followers. Even worse, I posted so much, people were starting to tune out my posts and tweets. Something you do NOT want to happen when building a brand!

For example:

• Someone who follows you on Facebook likes to see Status Updates, but doesn’t necessarily want or need to know EVERY LITTLE THING you’re doing…all the time! (Many of your “tweeps” however, don’t seem to mind.)
• People who are familiar with Twitter understand that @cookseyconnects or @dscooksey are fellow “Tweeps” (Friends who also use Twitter); #usair was a group code used by multiple people to follow what was unfolding in the Hudson River as Capt. Sully completed the first successful “water landing” of a commercial jetliner; “RT” ahead of something I “tweet” means “I plagerized/am forwarding someone else’s post” by “re-tweeting” it; and URLs like http://bit.ly/b9mR aren’t necessarily sending me to some nefarious corner of the internet.

And finally, I just uncovered a little piece of brilliance that allows me to more consistently brand ALL of my online profiles using my OWN DOMAIN NAME…it’s called a “sub-domain”. I’ve known about them for YEARS, but didn’t realize how easily I could set them up for my followers. Many of the current social media sites have long, un-intuitive URLs to “share your public profile” or otherwise make it tough for people to find your site (a la “Fan Pages” on Facebook). The most popular “subdomain” is actually “www.” It stands for “World Wide Web” which, believe it or not, is merely a PART of the Internet. For most people, it’s where your website lives…but, I digress.

Why simply build someone ELSE’s brand, when you can make it easy for others to find either you, your business, or various web tools you often access, all the while reinforcing YOUR domain as the connecting brand. Check us out online at the following URLs:

• linkedin.cookseyconnects.com – For professional, online networking
• facebook.cookseyconnects.com – Link to our business’ Fan Page
• delicious.cookseyconnects.com – To find sites Bookmarked by Cooksey Connects
• blog.cookseyconnects.com – the NEW location of the blog you’re currently reading, “Your Success. Your Terms”

So this post was a little geeky, but hey…it’s what we do. Contact us today and learn how we can put these, and other great tools, to work for YOUR company. Cooksey Connects!

As many of you know, I have the privilege of speaking, literally, to thousands of high school students each year as a presenter for Monster.com’s Making It Count Programs. During these programs one of the nuggets we caution students about is the importance of managing your personal image ONLINE.

Always curious about where my own “internet fingerprint” may turn up, I have a Google Alert set up to comb the web for sites where my name shows up. Over the past year, I’ve learned there are a handful of us around the globe who share the name “Scott Cooksey” (including one “Scott Cooksey” whose brother has the same name as MY younger brother-VERY unexpected.) There is a (retired?) soccer, goal-keeper in the U.K., a Dallas, TX area tattoo artist, and a fellow at Texas Tech University who seems to have a good reputation. I digress…

My latest Alert, which I received in an email this morning, linked to an entry I’d sent to the Tulsa World’s Opinion page back in 1997. I’d forgotten ALL ABOUT the post:

Trim elsewhere
Woodward Park is a gem, and deserves the love and care it has earned over the years as a wonderful, beautiful place in our city. Reckless acts of an arborist with an itchy chain-saw finger are simply that: reckless.

As an alternative to this condition, might I suggest the arborist look to more obvious eyesores such as the weed/trees standing tall along the train track in the middle of the Broken Arrow Expressway. While he’s at it, head on toward downtown to the south side of the Inner Dispersal Loop and consider doing some trimming of those “trees” growing up the retaining wall on the sides of the highway. They look awful.

As for spending city money for beautification, let’s fund those mowers to keep our roadsides looking good all the time; not just mowing them a week prior to a major golf event. It’s nice that the visitors get to see how nice our city looks once or twice a year, but if we could keep it looking good for the residents, that’s even better.

Scott Cooksey, Tulsa

Re-reading the article reminded me that no matter HOW or WHERE you post your thoughts, rants, opinions, and more on the ‘net, once you’ve published it, there’s no taking it back.

The lesson today, reminds me of some critical advice I’ve learned which can best be summed up as a three step plan for voicing your opinion:

1. Be relevant – Make sure the issue you are raising is clearly articulated and one which truly matters.
2. Provide a solution – No one likes a person who simply complains. Make suggestions on how the issue might be resolved. Even if your recommendation is not taken, it may still push efforts to implement a successful remedy in a productive direction.
3. Listen to others – When you are the one in position to influence change, remember how appreciative you were when someone at least took the time to hear your ideas out before taking action. It’s an easy way to become known as a concensus builder – a powerful leadership trait.

For those of you curious, about 7 months after the above Opinion column was printed, Tulsa fell under the spell of Mother Nature’s response to the tree issue with an ice storm of disastrous proportions which took months to clean up. The park still looks great, but even previously healthy trees suffered severe damage. I guess it goes to show, you can’t prepare for everything!

Well, nobody thought that the penultimate, uber-diva of rock, Axl Rose and his bunch (a/k/a Guns-n-Roses) would EVER get this album released, but keeping true to their word, the folks at Dr. Pepper are honoring their promise to give a FREE DR PEPPER to everyone, if this album released by the end of 2008.

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY AS REPORTED BY THE Associated Press. (You’re welcome, MSNBC, for the traffic I’m pointing your way!)

The coupon is only available for 24 hours, beginning Sunday at midnight only at DrPepper.com

The album is streaming on MySpace—enjoy! [UPDATE: Wow!...GnR's sound has truly matured. I must say it was unexpected.]

THE REAL QUESTION: Will the album be released at 10, 2, or 4?

Open message to the popular media: Please STOP adding such sensationalism to EVERYTHING. Seriously, we’ve all seen video of some idiot driving off with the gas pump still hanging out of the car. It’s happened before. It will happen again.

“Wall Street bracing for a dismal start!” – Seriously? The reporter I’m watching AS I WRITE THIS is saying, effectively, “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” Look, the financial situation of late is dicey, but let us not all lose our minds.

Ms. Talking Head, you’re (most likely) someone who is pleasing to the eye when on a television screen . [Come on, I know I'm not the only person to have noticed this phenomenon. ] I was a financial professional for over 12 years. So here’s the real story: If it all goes to hell, we’re all in it together, and we’ll find a way out. Don’t believe me? Call your grandfather. Mine remembers the Great Depression, and he is STILL ALIVE (at 92, thank you very much)! It’s though every news outlet is now trying to predict the future, so they can lay claim to being the source who “brought it to you first”–even if it wasn’t true yet when it was reported. I’m SO over it!

As a society literally BOMBARDED each day with such overblown sensationalism over what MIGHT happen….no wonder we live amongst people who have lost all hope when all they need to do is pull up their big boy pants and take some accountability for their own well-being. Haven’t you people ever heard of Chicken Little?

p.s. By the time I could get this posted online, the market (measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average) had closed…Down 215.05 from Thursday’s close at 8476.20. Hardly the “worst financial day ever”.

A special “Thank You ‘tini” to @urbanwallflower, @chimchim237 and @steve_hurst for the info on TwitterFeed. In addition to THAT tidbit, I finally am catching up by learning about OpenID logins. Check Out Vidoop for more on that.

The more I link my various sites together, the easier it is to syndicate everything and stay uber-connected to my fans. Okay, so I may have but a handful of you, but THANKS!

You may now return to your regularly scheduled Tweets!