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Michael Jackson was my first, and likely many of yours too. He was my first cassette tape purchase and my first reason to figure out the record function on the VCR. He was my colleague's first crush and the inspiration for her end-of-elementary-school dance ("Thriller" by 10-year olds — now that's scary). My half-sister's first concert was the Jackson 5. The first, and only, time I saw my babysitter, Kim "The Stickler" Stickler, get teary was when her brother ejected "Thriller" and put in Reo Speedwagon.
Why am I dancing down the lit-up sidewalks of Memory Lane again? Well, Michael Jackson was also the first celebrity whose death I learned about on Facebook and confirmed on Twitter — and I'd already decided to write about what you can learn from social-media sites. If you connect with, and follow, the right people in your network, you can learn some inspiring, valuable lessons and news. Sure, you might get a few updates about weekend plans, traffic and TV viewing habits, but you might also get a few lines about a competitor's new location, a link to a very helpful article full of SEO tips and find out when a bride has tagged pictures of your flowers in her wedding photos.
To put my "Facebook and Twitter aren't a (total) waste of time" theory to the test, I decided to spend an hour Friday, checking the status updates and tweets of my friends, including several florists, the fans of SAF's Facebook page and the folks who @safdelivers follows on Twitter.
Here's what I learned:
- Publicity is contagious. In a tweet, Susan Kaufman of Kaufman Flower's @kbflowers, tweeted about the article I wrote about her shop installing a lottery machine. Wanna bet how I found out about the lotto machine in the first place? She wrote about it in a Twitter update.
- If you're not posting your fabulous event photos on Facebook, plenty of other florists are giving away scads of free eye candy.
- Teleflora (@Teleflora) is proud of its florists and will let them know about it on Twitter by retweeting good news.
- You're partying on the Fourth of July - some off the clock, but many more on behind the scenes at weddings and parties. And a couple of you patriotic petal pushers are volunteering -- according to how you answered the Facebook update.
- President Barack Obama signed the Cash for Clunkers bill on Thursday, a day after we wrote about the car trade-in legislation in E-Brief. I learned that from my colleague and fellow social network hound, Brian Gamberini @capitolletters.
- Copper is the new gold. Although I work right here in the crime scene, I didn't know that SAF headquarters had been de-guttered. Our gutters (which aren't even copper) were stolen in a recent crime rash, a fact I learned from the Facebook status of coworker Renato Sogueco. A florist fan on Facebook warned other florists to "watch your a/c units as they have copper in them. People here (in Houston) have installed locked, chain-link fence cubes so that thieves can't get in from the front, back, side or top. Some thieves cut right through the chain link and get the copper anyway."
- An hour is way too long to spend doing this. Facebook and Twitter are like water coolers: hang out, get what you need, share a few details then get back to work.
- Oh, and you all miss Michael, too.
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