A few weeks ago, I started getting email notices from LinkedIn that some people had endorsed me. A lot of people. I have received LinkedIn endorsements before (and thank you) but clearly something was up.

If you have been on LinkedIn at all, you’ve probably seen or more likely received recommendations or endorsements from people who want to publicly compliment you on the work you do or have done for them. They would write something professionally kind, note three things that you excel at and then you would receive the notification. It’s a lot like a personal reference with someone writing it but with LinkedIn, you’d have the opportunity to approve, request and amendment and publish.

But I was suddenly getting so many! Had I gone viral? What did I do?

Well it seems that LinkedIn, bowing to the Facebook “Like” phenomenon, had changed from the more thoughtful recommendations of old to a quick hit kind of “like” button.

Let me be clear–I am completely and utterly grateful for anyone who would take time out of their day in even a superficial social media way to say something nice about me. And I am glad to do the same for others who are deserving (oh yes, I’ve had people actually ask me to endorse them on LinkedIn in the old format–that was a unique situation at times).

But as grateful as I am (and I am) I liked the old LinkedIn recommendation system better. And it’s truly not because I don’t like change.

It took more time and thought for someone to write out a LinkedIn recommendation in the old format and so to me, what was written about me and what I read on other people’s pages carried more weight and was more important. It had a bit of gravitas.

Now, it seems to me to be just a bit frivolous and not as professional. And to me, LinkedIn’s point of difference versus any other social media channel was its professionalism. The people at Sambla seem to agree, you can read their post in Swedish which essentially says the same thing here.

What do you think? Am I overthinking this or were you thinking the same thing?

Tags: commentary, linkedin, social media, social networking by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If you’re looking for expert advice in this post, you ain’t gonna find here today…nah.

Today you’ll just find some observations of how social media and voice over are intersecting and maybe some thoughts on if any of it is still useful.

How do you like Google+ so far? Have you hitched your wagon to that social media train yet?

Me? I’m not feelin’ it. I’ve tried….I’ve got circles and connections and posts, oh my. But so far it feels too much like work to keep up with another network. I’ve got lots of connections…many from people I have NOTHING in common with (I’ve been trying to do something different…learn from people outside my normal circle). But I’m not finding much of it interesting. Again…this could all just be me…for others it may be a panacea. And I’m not trying to insult the network…I don’t think it’s bad or difficult to use or anything. I just don’t find myself wanting to check it out.

Oddly, I’m feeling the same about Facebook. I certainly read it more often than Google+…and yes I get drawn into silly chats, and try and make funny comments that probably amuse me more than any other readers…but I also find myself internally cursing myself when I go on it for wasting my time. I feel I should be doing something either more productive or constructive. It’s almost like I can feel part of my brain melting away, never to be thought from again, when I’m on Facebook.

For the purposes of helping my business, I post blog post links on Facebook (and Google+ and Twitter and LinkedIn) just so I can bore a broader audience, but even this gets tricky (the post part is tricky, not the boring part…just think how bored you are right now after reading only THIS far and how easily I was able to manage to elicit that reaction from you).

On Facebook, there are personal profiles and “Like” pages, on LinkedIn and Yahoo there are Groups or Boards, on Twitter there are hash tags -all with the imagined purpose of allowing you to share your thoughts among the widest audience possible and with whom you share some common interest…in this case voiceover. Conceptually, that’s awesome but operationally…oy!

Well my friend, who is both talented and lovely and a great voice talent with whom I have shared a microphone on more than one occasion, Connie Terwilliger pointed out on a forum (it might have been FB but to show you how mind numbing it has all become, I can’t remember which forum) recently how she wished that all these groups would just merge because of both the duplication of information across multiple channels (and some people are artists at managing this, Paul Strikwerda being my idol on managing all these channels to get his message out) and just the sheer volume of channels to keep up with. I’m paraphrasing here and if I’ve inadvertently mis-quoted Connie, she will right my wrongness without malice (I hope).

What was interesting was that another friend, who is both talented and lovely and a great voice talent with whom I have never shared a microphone on any occasion, Terry Daniel made the observation, as one of a group’s moderators, that he wouldn’t want to merge his particular group because it’s a niche voice over group – many (but not all) newbies to the field of voice over join his group. OK, makes sense from his perspective too.

All I kept thinking was: more niches, more channels, more work.

But are there more readers? I bless those with the time to sift and digest the multitude of voiceover groups, posts, tweets and twhats…they hurt my head. I gotta work, it’s more relaxing.

Where do you stand on any of this? Is my brain just shutting down early? Or might we be approaching a turning point in people’s reaction to and interaction with social media…especially as it relates to voiceover?

Tags: commentary, social media, social networking, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
22 Comments »

Something monumental (not really) happened recently that shook the social media world to its core (ha!).

My Twitter follower count went over 1,000 followers and my “Likes” on Facebook for my Peter K. O’Connell – Male Voice Talent page went over 100. My friends on my Peter K. O’Connell Facebook page is somewhere around 700 with a total of over 800 on LinkedIn. I’m just getting started on Google+.

So if you are in there somewhere, thanks. If you’re not, that’s OK too. And if you said “who cares?!”, I understand that too.

But it made me think of a question that has been asked before but I think still plagues folks…in Social Media, does size matter?

Nope. It does not.

It’s about the “who” not the “how many”.

I have a VO friend and a Social Media maven who has well over 1,000 LinkedIn friends (these all-welcoming connectors are called Lions). This person is actually feeling overwhelmed with all the connections. Many of the connections are not terribly applicable to his voiceover business. He was thinking about purging his list a bit…nothing personal, just practical, I think.

This person didn’t make a mistake per se in being an Open Connector, I started out as one too. And who knows where some of those currently inapplicable connections could lead someday.

But with time a precious commodity for all of us; it seems to me that making connections with people who are current friends, industry contacts or people who might be a prospect or a contact to a prospect make the most business sense for social media.

If you just want to be pals for the sake of being pals on Social Media, that’s OK. But if you are using Social Media as a business tool, as I am, connecting with people who can offer you an opportunity someday and to whom you (me) can offer help seems to me to make both business and social sense.

Tags: commentary, social media, social networking by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’m sure there was some kind of furor about the community pages when they debuted – I guess by my research – about a year ago. I don’t remember caring much about the topic then but I do remember hearing about them. I just didn’t think it would ever relate to me.

Except now audio’connell Voice Over Talent has one and there’s nothing I can do about it.

This actually doesn’t make me happy.

This is how Facebook defines Community Pages:

“Community pages — the pages that link from fields you fill out in your profile — are for general topics and all kinds of unofficial but interesting things. You “like” these pages to connect with them, but they aren’t run by a single author, and they don’t generate News Feed stories.”

So when I saw in a Google Alert that I had this community page (which I immediate thought I had set up some long time ago and just forgot about – I’m getting to that age now) I wanted to make some changes to it. Which let me to this little Facebook provided factoid:

“Can I edit the content on a community page?
No. Community pages display Wikipedia articles about the topics they represent when this information is available, as well as related posts from people on Facebook in real time. At this time, there is no way for you to add your own pictures or edit information on these pages.”

If one uses social media to control branding (as much as possible) this lack of control is not a good thing. I don’t think I like it and at this moment it is a pretty negative element of Facebook in my eyes. To be continued, I guess.

Tags: commentary, facebook, social media, social networking, social networks and links by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Truth is this was a simple idea that I should have caught on to long ago but last week is when inspiration hit. My hope now is to give you an idea that you can customize to hopefully benefit your business.

I graduated from the University of Dayton in 1986 which didn’t seem like a long time ago at the time.

Looking at LinkedIn recently I was checking on UD groups and such and saw some called “Business Connects”; these were city specific networking groups made up of UD Alumni in that city.

Ooof! Simple. On-line. Free. Double ooof!

Now I had tried creating an in-person UD alumni group in Buffalo and long story short, it no longer exists but not for lack of alumni interest.

So I created University of Dayton Business Connect Western New York. This group would include any UD alumni who have or currently do live anywhere roughly between Buffalo, New York and Rochester, New York. But those are the only requirements (so if you don’t meet the requirements, don’t ask to join cause I’ll say no – but I’ll say it politely and with a smile).

I gotta think that if you graduated from a College or High School, something like this exists BUT if it doesn’t, I can tell you it is not that tough to slap one of these groups together. If you are willing to spend a couple of hours prospecting, ‘er, researching your school name and your city name on LinkedIn, I bet you can find folks who you can invite to join.

Over about 2-3 days, there are 11 members in our group. A ton? No, but a start. I’m not sure if I can give you a better example of social media at work.

To be fair, I have no idea how successful this could be but I have nothing to risk and individually and as a group we have everything to gain.

Do you think this would be worth doing in your area for your school?

Tags: commentary, community, linkedin, networking, social media, social networking, university of dayton by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Voice Talent Peter K. O'Connell with fellow Voice Talent and Founder of Voices of Vision Shawn Maroney

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Toronto is one of my favorite cities in the world.

Shawn Maroney is an example why. As a Canadian voice talent attending VOICE 2010, he thought to himself that something like that event should take place in Canada and from June to September he set about to make it happen – Voices of Vision.

Because of personal commitments, I couldn’t attend the Friday and Saturday events but I was able to attend the mixer.

It was a great night – enjoying time with old friends and new – talking voice over all night long. Thanks Shawn for having the vision.

Voice Talent Peter K. O'Connell with Voice Actor and Coach Deb Munroe

Voice Over Talents Peter K. O'Connell and Patrick Sweeney

Voices.com Co-Founder Stephanie Ciccarelli with Voice Talents Peter K. O'Connell and Elaine Singer

Voice Talents Tom Cook, Jodi Krangle and Dan Lenard

Voice Over Talents Peter K. O'Connell and Jodi Krangle - a great friend to voxmarketising.com

Tags: commentary, social networking, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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