Larry is a guest blogger and if you’ve read, Hip Hop Schools Silicon Valley”, 21 Lucky Tips for Blogworld” or ‘How to Hack Twitter, Take 2″, then maybe you’ll like his latest: ‘Communication 2.0′
By Larry Chiang
Communication in Internet land is crazy, but with Web 2.0 (coined by my publisher friend, Tim O’Reilly), it is even crazier. Its under studied, sophisticatedly subtle and highly varied. Navigating the ins and outs of social media communication is some they definitely don’t teach you at business school.
Communication 2.0 is about using technology tools to communicate more effectively. Yes, these tips aren’t taught in business schools anywhere.
-1- One Ping Only.
Sub commanders used to ping to confirm sonar position in relation to target. The modern equivalent is to ping an email BEFORE a long email is drafted.
Insert cell number in the subject line.
Include the cell phone number of your receiver and your own cell IN THE SUBJECT LINE to pierce both their spam filter and their interest filter.
For example:
Subj; Lawrence, 650-651-1515, this is Larry-licious 602-369-9741
Body: “hi Lawrence, we met at Arrillaga’s basketball court. Is this the best email for you?”
-2- Twitter Force Follow.
Twitter only allows for direct messages if they follow you. There are two ways to force a follow
a) the Unfollow. Follow. Unfollow. Follow. Method.
This sends a new email message notifying them that @larryChiang “is now following them with an email. Time the Unfollow Follow maneuver at time where you think they’re seeing email subject lines.
b) Force a twitter follow by calling them or seeing them in person.
Walk them through it and wait for the follow confirmation.
-3- Jedi Voicemail Tricks.
Leaving voicemail is like a using a light sabre. Ever see Return of the Jedi?! Yoda can do more damage with a light sabre than a bunch droids with cannons and super spiffy force fields. Voicemail has been called dead. It ain’t.
I think you can not only send a message via voicemail, but also close deals. Read more on “GigaOm”
-4- Text Message Intro.
Email intros have been coached here and here. Good thing you mastered them. Communication 2.0 uses the text message intro. Hitters do. For example, “Lawrence, 650-283-8008, meet Larry-licious 602-369-9741. He’s got Sand Hill Road hardwired”
-5- Plan B for Phone.
Plan B for Fundraising is when you don’t raise VC but are progressing anyway.
Fail forward with the “Missed Call” manuver. Show your vulnerability with communications new “hail mary”: the phone call. A hail mary is a pass that is on a wing and a prayer but if you’re calling from a position of power, no vm is necessary so long as the missed call shows up in the log.
-6- Facebook Wall Markings.
A wallpost that says, “call me” pretty much means, I’ve left you a voicemail because I want you and this is a last resort to get “closure”. Dogs pee on walls to mark territory so in Communication 2.0, people do the same.
After your Facebook wall gets peed on, for all to see, you have one of two options.
A) erase it. That says eeew, I don’t want this (or you)
B) keep it. It means, “yeah you’re a hottie and you can pee on my wall all-day-long. In fact, I like you enough to flirt back on your wall.
-7- Google Alert Them.
A Google Alert is when you use gmail to email you when an alert if a phrase gets read (or crawled and cached) on the web. Every hitter has their name, company name, portfolio stock tickers, and name in a google alert. I said name twice because they get google alerts for mispellings too. When people mention but incorrectly spell “Larry Chiang” by juxtaposing the a” and the “i”, I know about it via google alerts.
A Google Alert is when your name gets read by Google (spidered) and it fires off an email to you. They used to text message alert me but that Google feature’s broken right now.
Google alerting people with something as innocent as a flickr photo caption prods them forward and gets you back on their radar. MBA kids do this to go from the waitlist to getting accepted.
Larry Chiang is the founder of Duck9, which educates college students on how to establish and maintain a FICO score over 750. He has testified before Congress and World Bank on credit.
He is a frequent contributor to Business Week’s blog on “What They Don’t Teach You at Business School”