An email.

To: Sheridan, Tom
From: Brodavich, Kyle

Tom:

I’m writing this with no small amount of egg on my face. It appears that you and the rest of the management team have become aware of some statements I made online that reflect poorly on our company.

Right off the bat, I’d like to say that I’m very, very sorry that I reviewed our workplace as “hell on Earth” on Foursquare. I should realize that while social media allows us to communicate with our friends more easily, a great deal of what we say is available to the world at large and that means that clients, coworkers and prospective hires are likely to see our statements without context. They wouldn’t know that our air conditioning was on the fritz at exactly the same time that the Donelson lawsuit went down, so they might view my commentary as more than a bit of spur-of-the-moment venting that should have stayed under my breath.

It was highly unprofessional and you can rest assured that it won’t happen again.

I’d also like to personally apologize for calling you and the rest of the executive staff “a clique of raging fucktard douchebags with delusions of Hitlerian grandeur” on Twitter, which was then automatically posted to my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. It was an unforgivable slip of the tongue born out of my frustration with our current deadlines and how project management seems to be slipping across the board. It’s a holistic issue that impacts every aspect of the company and I should have taken steps to address it before allowing my feelings to take over.

I should not have taken it out on you, Devin, Gary or Stephanie. You have all proven to be consistently good managers and executives, capable of guiding and inspiring our team even when beset with issues such as our continuing timeline slippage. I vented my feelings at you when you are not the problem – I am.

Finally, I should be much more careful about what photos I post to my Flickr account and the company’s pool and how they are tagged. There is no reason at all that Sally in account services should be tagged with “fat,” “chubby,” “BBW,” or “Blubbo the She-Whale.” It was hurtful and I have taken steps to remove any personal insults from the many iPhone photos taken and uploaded directly from the summer picnic.

However, that thing about the Irish office? No way am I taking that shit back. Those potato-humping, bog-dwelling, indecipherable mick fucks know what they fucking did.

Comics Marketing: Social Media Is Not The Answer, Even If You Want It To Be.

Facebook is one of the best timekillers/ad display ideas that’s come across in quite some time. Where MySpace reveled in its Geocities-meets-Friendster garishness, Facebook made everyone conform to some sort of design standard and made sure that nobody in the office would know you were visiting the site due to an errant profile blaring “Crank That.” It gives you one “landing page” that lets you see whatever activity your friends wish to share with you and access to the various applications you may want to use.

As a marketing tool, it offers a nice extension of your brand, giving people who enjoy your comic book/strip a place to gather and talk about your projects:

However, this is why I would never, ever use it as my sole online presence versus having my own domain as the primary point of contact between me and the customer base:

Despite the fact that Facebook is free and super-easy to get involved with, that little login section is a barrier between the customer and you. Marketing is, at its core, about eliminating those barriers and making sure that your audience is able to listen to what you’re trying to say with as little work as possible.

More and more I’m seeing creators (such as Billy Tucci in Chris Sims’s comments) using Facebook as their main method of communicating to their fans. While I can see the appeal: it’s free and easy as hell, it’s not an example of reaching out with your message. Instead, Facebook groups and the like are preaching to the choir: people that have already added you as a contact. They know what you’re selling. Throw in the fact that all of your content is hidden from the search engines because of its closed system and it’s plain to see that Facebook is lousy for acquiring active, inquisitive customers unless you’ve got a social media manager doing the heavy lifting and customer engagement for you.

It boils down to this: If you’re serious about your product, you should have your own domain. If you can’t spend $10 a month maintaining your own domain, then maybe you’re not serious enough about your business. Business cards and emails shouldn’t feature a url like http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26254088540 or http://www.myspace.com/therackcomic on them: they should present something that anyone can type in within seconds and look at what you’re trying to sell, be it www.therackcomic.com or http://www.dccomics.com.

Once you’re up and running, it’s important to note that almost every webhost in the world allows you to add a new domain to your existing account with them for the cost of registering a URL. With Dreamhost, it’s literally two minutes from “I want to buy a domain” to starting the initial stages of development, which in many cases could be a basic WordPress installation, a template that will be customized, and a nice gallery package: perfect for title-specific websites. A great example of this is PhonogramComic.com, even with their “click here to enter” front page.

It’s easier than ever for creators and publishers to have a platform that allows people from anywhere in the world to see what they have to offer. Facebook and the like provide an easy way to do things, but it’s not the best way. Each new project is a chance to sell more of your work to new people – do the lifting so they don’t have to. Use social media and networking sites to fire up your existing base and keep them abreast of things, but use the web to get new people on board.

Something somebody actually said to me ten minutes ago during a phone conversation about social media networks and business.