Betty Benton Mann, the “Betty” Behind the Betty Factor, Died Friday Morning

Betty Mann (of "The Betty Factor" fame)

Betty Benton Mann, my 83-year-old mother-in-law and the inspiration behind The Betty Factor, died in her sleep early Friday morning, December 4, 2009 of health matters incident to old age and having her gall bladder removed earlier in the week.

Here is a copy of her obituary.

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After 83 wonderful years on earth, Betty Benton Mann returned home to her Father-in-Heaven, the Savior, Jesus Christ, many loving family members and friends, and her beloved husband, Ray, on December 4, 2009, nearly two years to the day after Ray’s passing.

Born July 3, 1926 in Boise, Idaho to Mamie Thompson and Otto G. Benton, Betty was the fifth of nine children. She was raised in Boise, Twin Falls, Idaho and Redondo Beach, California.

From the day she first walked herself to services as a young child, Betty was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). As a teenager, she was president of her ward Golden Gleaner organization and helped plan and run the first ever LDS Youth Conference in southern California.

After graduating from Redondo Union High School, she moved to North Salt Lake to help her oldest sister, Wanda, care for her children, and it was there that she met her future husband, Ray Elwood Mann.

Betty and Ray were married in the Salt Lake Temple of the LDS church on May 4, 1948. They settled in Bountiful, Utah where they raised three daughters and two sons, while she also worked as a dental assistant for many years. Betty was active in the PTA in Bountiful where she ran the Halloween Carnival for three years and served as PTA president for two year.

After their youngest children graduated from high school in 1975, Betty and Ray spent an adventurous year in 1976 in West Germany for Ray’s employer, Chicago Bridge & Iron. The next year, Ray was transferred to world headquarters in Chicago where they lived until 1984. During their time in Naperville, Illinois, Betty filled an eight-year volunteer assignment with LDS Social Services working with out-of-wedlock mothers, including service as a counselor to birth mothers and transporting newborns to adoptive parents. She also served for a time as a member of the Relief Society presidency in the Glenbard Ward in Illinois.

Betty and Ray moved to Sandy, Utah in 1984 where they made their home for the rest of their lives. In Sandy, Betty served for 18 years in the LDS church’s Data Entry Program in the Canyon View Stake. She and Ray also served a one-year LDS Service Mission in 1994 near Bakersfield, California for the Home Management Department.

Betty was preceded in death by her parents, five siblings, her husband, and one son, Clyde. She is survived by four children, Linda, Pam (Harold) Egginton, Todd, and Allisha (David) Politis; 18 grandchildren (evenly divided between boys and girls); and 14 great-grandchildren.

A viewing will be held at Mountain View Mortuary at 3115 East 7800 South in Cottonwood Heights, Utah from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tues., Dec. 8, 2009. The funeral will be held at the same location at 11 a.m. on Wed., Dec. 9, preceded by an additional viewing from 9:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Interment, on site, will follow immediately after the funeral.

The family extends its heartfelt thanks and admiration for all of the fantastic doctors and medical providers who worked with Betty in addressing her health concerns during the past few years. In addition, Betty (and Ray) loved living at South Towne Ranch in Sandy, Utah where they made many wonderful friends.

Betty had a sharp mind and wit her entire life, and she loved studying the gospel of Jesus Christ and learning about LDS church history. She was a devoted and loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend, and although she will be missed, we are happy she has “graduated” from this life to be reunited with her husband and best friend, Ray.

Goodbye for now, Betty.

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Although we had some initial son-in-law / mother-in-law challenges early in the 28 years of our relationship, we both grew to love and respect each other over time, and I’m grateful Allisha and I were able to have both Betty and Ray live so close by as we raised our five children.

She was a good person and taught me much, not the least of which was to always remember to work and work and work to make sure what I wrote could be easily understood by anyone, even my mother-in law.

To that end, I will always use the phrase “The Betty Factor” as a shorthand reminder of that lesson. I will also keep this blog alive in her honor and as a way of continuing to teach about the importance of keeping all marketing messages simple and on-point.

Thank you, Betty, and for now, goodbye. 

Becoming Socially Ambidextrous

Why Using Two or More Social Networks is Becoming the Norm

Today’s blog post by Brian Solis (”The Competition for Your Social Graph“) got me thinking:

• Do I use more than one social network?
• And if so, why?
• And if you don’t, “Why don’t you?”

When I was growing up in San Carlos, California, my best friend was Alan Daines. Not only were we best buds, but Alan was unique among my friends in that he could bat and throw with both hands. By definition that means that Alan was ambidextrous (or could use both hands equally well).

Alan was a lefty by birth, so he ended up playing first base for the San Carlos High School Dons. But he also taught himself to first bat righthanded, and then to throw righthanded as well. Man, that was cool!

After a lot of work I learned how to bat lefthanded; but throwing? Nah, that was another matter.

I’m Not Socially Ambidextrous - I’m Actually Socially Multidextrous

When it comes to my use of social networks and social media, however, it turns out that I’m socially multidextrous. By this I mean that I’m not dedicated to using one social network, tool, service or media to the exclusion of others. No, I actually use multiple social networks/media/services/tools, and sometimes I use more than one at the same time.

My first exposure to social networking was MySpace. I signed up years ago because we were trying to get my daughter, Melea, into the entertainment industry as a singer. (Tough, tough world, by the way.)

Today I visit/use MySpace rarely as I find its focus on music and entertainment to be overrun with skanks, ho’s and people typically interested in their next hookup. (No thank you.)

Facebook, however, is another thing. I now visit nearly every day and use it for both professional and personal networking and staying connected.

Twitter is the same for me. I use it almost every day, especially through HootSuite (which has some great tools for managing URL shortening and providing stats on people who click through URLs you embed into tweets).

I also use two business-focused social networks: LinkedIn and Plaxo. Of the two I like and use LinkedIn the most, although I really like the ability within Plaxo to send e-Birthday cards to my friends.

I also use a number of other social media/network tools/services, depending upon what it is I’m trying to do that day, especially services and tools tied to Twitter. Of these, I probably use

• HootSuite,
• TweetChat, and
• Hashtags

the most.

Why I Use Multiple Social Networks, Media, Services and/or Tools

What works for me is using different social networks, media, services and tools for different purposes.

For example, I use Facebook (in part) because it’s so dang big — more than 300 million members at last count. That’s a massive potential marketplace, and we advise ALL of our clients to use and be on Facebook.

I also use FB because it allows people to create and post multiple types of content onto their “Walls,” profiles and other users’ Walls, especially longer posts/content. This can be a good thing (if not used to excess).

Additionally, I have the ability to filter who is actively following (or Friending) me on Facebook. That can be important from a “noise” standpoint.

The microblogging service Twitter, on the other hand, is great for instantaneous, short messages, which makes sense since you are limited to a total of 140 characters max on Twitter.

(NOTE: If you want others to retweet, or re-post/re-tweet, what you’ve written, however, I’ve found it’s best to keep your Twitter posts/tweets to around 120 characters instead of using all 140. People are less likely to shorten your tweets this way.)

I also like the fact that I can “legally” have more than one Twitter account (as per Twitter’s Terms of Service). {You’re not supposed to do that on Facebook, with the exception of having a FB profile and a FB Fan Page.}

Ergo, I currently have one main Twitter account that I use most of the time (@dpolitis), but I also have several other Twitter accounts that come into play depending upon my particular area of interest or need.

LinkedIn, however, is all about business and networking for business purposes, and I use it as such. (And to be honest, I use LinkedIn a LOT more than I use Plaxo for two reasons:

1. LinkedIn has more than twice as many users as Plaxo (50MM+ vs. 20MM+), and
2. I get fewer random (read spammy) connection requests on LinkedIn vs. Plaxo.

And then as I wrote above, I use other social services and tools based upon what they allow me to do, especially with other social networks and media.

So . . . how about you?

• Do you use social networks/services/media/tools for your marketing and sales efforts?
• And if not, why not?
• And if so, which one(s) do you use the most (and why)?
• Or are you socially ambidextrous? (Do you have two favorite social networks you use all the time?)
• Or . . . are you really socially multidextrous, using multiple social networks/media/tools/services to engage with your customers, partners, investors, etc., all in the name of selling more products and services?

Tell me what you’re doing with social networks (and why) by posing your comment below. Thanks.

Korean Taco Tweetup

Would you try Mexican food fused with Korean BBQ? What if a taco only cost you $2? What if the taco truck selling the cuisine had 10,000 followers on Twitter?

At the time the NPR story Tweeting Food Truck Draws L.A.’s Hungry Crowds aired, Kogi, the Korean taco truck that cruises around the streets of L.A., had over 8,000 followers on Twitter. Tweeters follow kogibbq to track the Kogi truck’s location and its specials and promotions. One Tweet reads: “Trojans… we’LL be in yer neighborhood Wednesday. Free taco for the 1st 100 peopLe!”

Twitter updates drive neighborhoods, commuters and college students from L.A. and surrounding SoCal counties to the mobile street vendor of Korean short rib tacos. Just as Kobi has used food to merge two ethnic cultures, Twitter has used social networking to create and unify the virtual and face-to-face Kobi communities.

175 Million Reasons Why You (and Your Company) Should be on Facebook

The latest comScore numbers are out, and there are now 175 million users on Facebook.

In other words, in less than a year, Facebook has now caught and surpassed MySpace as the most relevant and compelling social networking platform in the world. (Hmmmmm, maybe those guys at Microsoft are pretty smart after all.)

Recognize that roughly 70 percent of all FB members are from outside of the United States (or approximately 122 million users), which may or may not be a good thing for you and/or your company.

But for those of you just focused on the U.S., that still means that more than 50 million Americans are on Facebook, which is pretty mind-boggling when you stop and think about it. In other words, since its founding in February 2004, Facebook has now captured more than 1/6th the entire U.S. population as users/members.

Assuming you’re reading this because you work in some aspect of marketing, communications, public relations, shareholder relations, sales, management or a combination of these areas, 50 million of anything is a BIG DEAL! And if 50MM is a BIG DEAL, then certainly 175 million is an even bigger deal!

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Four Marketing Lessons from the TweetSum Video

TweetSum is a brand new tool for Twitter users that launched just a few weeks ago.

As Twitter tools go, TweetSum is interesting in that it allows those in the Twitter-universe (”Twitterverse”) to quickly review their Followers and people they are following, ranks each by a TweetSum ranking, and allows you to Ignore, Follow or Un-Follow people very easily. But that’s NOT why I’m writing about TweetSum here.

Actually, I recommend you check out TweetSum’s explanatory video on its home page. Here’s why.

1.   The video communicates the TweetSum brand perfectly.(At least I think it does.) According to the About section on the site, TweetSum was banged together over a weekend by a bunch of friends/colleagues in Seattle. And given

• the titles the TweetSum-ers have given themselves,
• the style of writing on the site,
• some of the terms/language they use (FYI - the rating system noted above is called the Douche Bag Index or DBI for short),

I’d say TweetSum is a tongue-in-cheek, we-don’t-really-care-if-you-like-us-or-not just-use-our-service kind of a company.

If I’m correct with my read on the TweetSum brand, the brand message comes across clearly in the video in the opening lines when a voice intones “TweetSum : So filled with awesome your head will explode.” Yeah, it made me smile too.

2.    The TweetSum video quickly explains the problem (and the answer) faced by most Twitter users — deciding who to Follow (or stop Following).

3.     The video simply shows how TweetSum works.

4.     And the TweetSum video is only two minutes & 19 seconds long.

So why am I writing about TweetSum and its online video? Two reasons.

A.   TweetSum shows how easy it is to both introduce and reinforce your brand from the very beginning by using an inexpensive, yet very informative, video on a company Website.

B.   Online video is becoming more and more important to the search engine algorithms as they spider across the Web. Those sites with video and other forms of multimedia content receive a stronger rating by the search companies. And the more relevant such content is to the site where the video is found, the better off the content is judged.

When you use video on your site(s), consider reinforcing such content with written content as well. This can either be a word-for-word copy of the video or supporting language.

As I understand it, the Web-spiders and the algorithms are not quite to the point yet where they can “read” the videos and what they contain — just that they’re on your site, what metatags and headlines they have, and what “closed captions” (if any) they contain.

Since most videos on the Web do NOT contain closed captioning, adding on the word-for-word and/or supporting copy is a good idea (at least for now).

Congrats to the TweetSum team for a good use of online video. You get a “Happy Betty Award” for your efforts.

P.S.  The “Twitter in Plain English” video is another great example of an online, how-to video. It’s found on the Twitter homepage as well as on YouTube.com. Here it is:

Learn Social Media Tools and Services Fast with Links to 200 Social Media Sites

The biggest challenge for anyone working in marketing is how fast the entire Web 2.0/social media/social networking scene is moving.

In fact, things are moving so fast in the social media/networking space, if you blink, you’re suddenly behind the curve. 

It’s with this in mind that I point readers of TheBettyFactorblog with this link to a great resource I just found online written by blogger Jason Mayfield at OpenJason.

Specifically, you should check out his blog post titled “Knowledge is Power: Here’s 200 sites that give you power.”

is Jason’s list comprehensive? No, as some very obvious social media/networking services/tools are missing from his post, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace, just to name a few.

However, it’s a very good list and a great starting point for anyone looking for a fast overview of just some of the Web 2.0 things people and companies are doing on the ‘Net.

Good job, Jason.