Jul 20
Pay It Forward 2010 Profile: DJ Waldow
Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) at 7:00 am under Blogging,Social
These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.
Spotlight: DJ WaldowTitle: Director of Community
Employer: Blue Sky Factory
Who paid it forward: Amber Naslund
What Amber had to say about DJ: “DJ has an email background, but he’s fully grasping the potential and power of social media, and I already know he’s making a difference to his community.”
DJ graduated with a BBA from University of Michigan in 1998. Upon graduation, he worked as a business analyst for two years in Chicago and Kansas City. He then decided to pursue a Master of Education degree because he wanted to be a teacher. Upon earning that degree, he taught junior high American history for two years. Ready to get back into business world, he went back to North Carolina to work in business for another four years. A year ago, DJ earned his MBA from UNC Chapel Hill. Last summer, he became the Director of Community for Blue Sky Factory, a company that provides email marketing products and services. His role was actually written based on Amber’s job description – he manages the social media presence for the company, including writing and managing the company blog, The Thinking Inbox. DJ says that if he’s doing his job right, you’ll associate his name and his face with Blue Sky Factory and email marketing. Additionally, he writes a monthly article for MarketingProfs, a monthly column for the Email Insider, and blogs for himself at Social Butterfly Guy.
Some of DJ’s thoughts on time commitment with social media: DJ says that social media needs to be all about connecting with people. Connecting, engaging, building relationships – all of these are parts of building social media. He believes that in order to be someone who is good in social media, you need to enjoy being around, or helping, people, and there aren’t really any ‘short-cuts’ to dealing with this. The typical 8-5 scenario doesn’t work when you are working in social media. You have to be passionate about whatever industry or interest you’re using it for and willing to put in the time to make your endeavors successful.
Some of DJ’s thoughts on product promotion through social media: DJ believes strongly in the power of asking. But he also believes that before you can ask favors of others, you need to build credibility and trustworthiness with them first. For example, Blue Sky Factory launched an ebook a couple months ago. He sent a direct Twitter message to Amber Naslund asking her for help promoting it, which she did because they had an established, trusting relationship already. Due in part to her credibility and help in promoting the ebook, Blue Sky Factory saw a huge jump in leads. DJ says, “It’s OK to ask – but you’ve got to build up that credibility and trust FIRST.” After all, he says, we still have to make money – we can claim that we just want to be nice, don’t want to push anyone, but at some point we have to find ways to be profitable.
Where DJ sees social media going in the future: Right now, DJ says that everyone is ‘doing’ social media. People are jumping in with the idea that this is a ‘quick fix’ to customer and/or client engagement. However, he says that just having a social presence doesn’t necessarily mean you get it. DJ also says, “You need to have a product that doesn’t suck.” If you have a good product or service or a bad product or service, social media will enhance how it is viewed, regardless of whether it is good or bad. He believes the companies that will come out ahead will be the ones who remain genuine and authentic. So many people are trying to automate everything today; DJ says that companies will need to automate parts of their social media presence but also add the face-to-face component to it in order to stay on top.
A few people who have inspired DJ:
- Amber Naslund – DJ is constantly impressed with her ‘Brass Tack Thinking‘ (which is also where she blogs!)
- Jason Baer – reads his blog, Convince and Convert, religiously
- Jason Falls – DJ is a huge fan of his blog, Social Media Explorer
- Greg Cangiaolsi – CEO of Blue Sky Factory; DJ moved into his current role because of Greg. He doesn’t focus conversations about selling the products – he’s all about having real genuine conversations, and in DJ’s words, he is a thought provoker, über connector, and idea machine
- Jason Keath – he runs a conference called Social Fresh. He’s an events coordinator for social media conferences and is able to bring in amazing keynote speakers
Connect with DJ on:
Amybeth – I’m honored to be included in this “Pay it Forward” series. Thanks so much for taking the time to interview me.
DJ Waldow
@djwaldow