Social Media Tip: Send out a Warm Welcome

The Grand Spa at the GrandAmerica Hotel in Utah
Image by newspapergrl via Flickr

I love to read newspapers and blogs on Sunday. It’s my catch up day. Other people visit friends and family, I read a lot. Here’s something I learned that might help you.

Tip: Use your social media profiles to welcome people.

What do I mean? Here are some examples:

Let’s say your blog is featured in the newspapers - welcome your new readers. I read about a web site for weight loss today and went to the site. I looked for an intro and guidance and found none. The blogger could’ve written a post welcoming new readers and I would’ve felt more at home instead of like a newcomer – a little disoriented and lost.

Here’s someone who got it right. GeekDad blog was featured on Time.com and writes:

Hello and welcome to any and all new readers of GeekDad! We’re glad you decided to check us out, and hope you find something here that interests you enough to return…Enjoy, and thanks again for stopping by!

The entire post tells readers what to they’ll find on the blog, links to archives and introduces readers to the team. It’s very welcoming.

Another example is if you’re a hotel on Twitter and you know there’s a big convention in town. Or a wedding party. Or, people told you they are coming via your Facebook Page. You should welcome them. It makes people feel special, appreciated.

Or maybe you’re a spa, or visitor’s convention or state that has a group of special guests coming. High rollers know that when they show up the venue expects them. It’s easy to recreate that feeling by welcoming the group on social networking sites the guests are on.

A Missed Opportunity
I let a local restaurant know that my husband’s company was coming to dinner that night. And the CEO was in town. On their Facebook Page. They could say welcome, please let us know if there’s any special requests we can accommodate for you in a message back. Or, they could greet us and ask if we were the people who wrote on their wall and welcome us and thank me for being a fan. They didn’t. The place wasn’t very crowded and we were obviously there straight from work.

Trump Las Vegas Tweets a Welcome
Trump Las Vegas welcomed people in town for conventions. This would be especially effective if the convention were held at the Trump. They could also give tips because while we’re there we’re going to want to know things like where to eat, the best shows, how to get a cab, etc.

Here’s the tweet:

This hotel gets it too

@GrandAmerica is a high end hotel that I love in Salt Lake. They are hosting a social media club meeting soon and giving us a great deal on lunch. They could send out a tweet welcoming everyone by Twitter name or by hashtag. We’d like that (and it really goes a long way to feed our giant egos). Social media people are social – we love knowing we got your attention. Give it to us and we’ll like you, friend you, etc.
The Grand America has room for events and they recently hosted the Cupcake Conference (which came about from a joke on Twitter and ended up being for real – probably the first and only cupcake conference ever) and other events for Utah bloggers. This creates tremendous good will. They are very good at engaging influencers so we love to give them positive PR. Other hotels could do the same.

If you’re active on social media sites – consider yourself the welcome wagon. Let guests know you’re glad they’re there. It’s a great way to do some online PR and build some loyalty by treating your guests like stars. It doesn’t cost anything to do — just some extra thought.

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Day 7: Foursquare Etiquette at Weddings

As with any new and hip social media trend there can be some side effects such as addiction and annoying your friends. There are times when Foursquare check-ins may be just a bit obnoxious. A funeral comes to mind. Or a wedding.*

Some brides aren’t happy with someone live tweeting or checking in to their weddings. (Not this bride – her finance proposed to her via a tip on Foursquare and she said yes)

Although right now I’m not sure that’s a huge issue when it comes to Foursquare I can see how live tweeting a wedding could get annoying. (Note: According to Forrester: 84% of respondents aren’t familiar with location-based apps like Foursquare & Gowalla).

You may be so tempted to give your “friends” a constant update. But before you tweet,  “Bride walking down the aisle now,” remember the bride might not appreciate it. As this article says take the bride’s lead and, “Let the bride check-in to her own wedding if she wants.”

Why shouldn’t you live report private events to friends that aren’t at the wedding and probably don’t care anyway?

“In an over-sharing online world, guests are posting Facebook status updates while they’re at the wedding and even trying to RSVP on Twitter, leaving brides feeling frustrated and over-exposed.”

Or, you might just embrace the whole thing and have a lot of different perspectives on your wedding – a live history. It’s all up to you and your embracing or your obliviousness to this new wave of storytelling. Or reporting. Or sharing. Oh, and if you don’t have any wedding bells there’s help for that predicament too – you can check people out when you check-in. I think Nigel should check it out.

The press release I got this from — issued by the Wedding Channel — also has some other advice. Don’t forget a gift. And what should the modern couple do no matter how open they are to live reporting? Register online, of course!

Source: PR Newswire press release (a creative use of a press release from WeddingChannel.com):
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dont-tweet-about-my-wedding-weddingchannelcom-gives-the-download-on-wedding-guest-etiquette-in-a-digital-world-95407034.html

*unless it’s Gwen Bell’s wedding” and then there would probably be a wedding badge.

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Day 5: Ford’s Foursquare Road Trip

What if your car could tweet and check in? It could be the ultimate mobile device or smart car and gives new meaning to the word auto.

I love a good summer road trip and Ford is testing some killer ideas with their “American Journey 2.0″ research project. They’ve teamed up with Intel, Microsoft and students from the University of Michigan to give their custom apps a spin. The apps connect the car to social media.

The road trip started in Michigan and ended at Maker Faire in San Mateo, California on May 22th.

Ford developed an app called “Auto”matic Blog which tweets from the car called @AJFiesta on Twitter. Another app auto check-ins at stops. It also looks for nearby sites to see like gas stations, restaurants and points of interest. They tweet pictures too (which are actually sort of funny in their nerdiness).

If Mark Cuban has anything to say about it – auto check ins from Foursquare are going to be the norm using face recognition software. You’ll have to curate your privacy settings but you won’t have to worry about manual Foursquaring.

A car that doesn’t tweet or checking in with Foursquare? That is so 2010!

Source: PRNewswire press release

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What I LOVE/HATE about Social Media

I sat down at Evo Conference (for women in social media) as good luck had it, next to Brene Brown (author of books about shame, inadequacy and perfectionism). She interviews people for part of her living and is so good at it I found myself spilling my guts to her (which I really needed to do right then). Sometimes I’m all about the fun but yesterday and today I’ve been in such deep thought that I miss my exits on the freeway and don’t notice for miles.

She asked me this question:

What do you love and what do you hate about social media?

Compelling.

I responded without hesitation – here is what I recall from our conversation:

Reasons I love social media:

  1. Social media is an adventure.
    Social media is new and uncharted which makes for a great adventure.
  2. Social media is fun.
    It’s fun to talk about and geek out on the incredible things you can do with social media. You can discover so much and offers entertainment but also enlightenment.
  3. Social media is my playground.
    I love experimenting and seeing what others are doing with new tools and ways to approach social media. I can learn anything and find something about just about anyone.
  4. Social media is never boring.
    You may beg to differ but to me social media is very engaging and so it keeps my attention. I get glimpses into brilliant minds, people’s lives and brands.

  5. Social media is a great challenge.
    It’s an intellectual challenge to come up with social media campaigns and to keep current on everything. If you’re one of the first to figure things out when something is new you have a big advantage. Like my friend Jason Alba who was one of the first people to write a book about how to use LinkedIn to find a job.
  6. Social media connects me to people and communities.
    This is a big one. We have a primal need to connect with other people. Your connections can lead to real and meaningful friendships. Research shows connecting with people online mimics the feelings of falling in love – which explains why many of us get so passionate when we talk about social media. I love belonging to a community.Online it’s easier to find and engage with like-minded people (something that can take months or years to do in real life.) I love it when someone reads my blog and calls me or emails me positive or constructive feedback, referrals, or kudos (thank you).

  7. Social media builds your own brand.
    It was a trip when I realized that my blogging – just writing about what I loved – turned into something marketable. Real business. Real jobs. Real checks. No matter where I work or what I do I am building my personal brand. I started out about 5 years ago as an unknown. I’ve gained some recognition, respect and visibility on a national level which is again, quite meaningful to me.

5 Reasons I hate social media

  1. Social media can be overwhelming to keep up with.
    Some aspect of everything you do will become outdated within weeks. Even though I love it and am fairly savvy I feel I cannot keep up. That guide I wrote – I have to constantly update it. Case in point: my book about online press releases references web sites and features that no longer exist.
  2. Social media web sites change in ways that can enhance or ruin your business.
    Say your business or livelihood is based around something like say, a highly successful Facebook App. Facebook could change the rules and your revenue channel could dry up very quickly. Apple could deny that killer app you built. Google could change rankings so your first page listing goes to page 50 overnight and your income drops exponentially.
  3. People can ruin you personally or ruin your business.
    While you sleep, are on an airplane or sick in bed someone can come up with something damaging that could take you down – before you have a chance to respond. It can be hard to respond and recover and it’s happening in a very public way. People can make up things about you to try to destroy you or your business. Your mistakes or ignorance can be used against you. Google doesn’t forget – it has a long memory.
  4. Social media makes it very easy to compare yourself to others and feel inadequate.
    People are fond of saying something like this: if you’re not getting so many retweets or comments or followers on Twitter, you suck. You’re boring. You’re irreverent. This line of thinking has made me want to stop blogging and tweeting so many times. I start to judge myself by these numbers.

    Alternatively you can read someone’s blog or Facebook profile and see the speaking gigs they got, their sponsorships or about how well their book is selling. It can look like their life is charmed 24/7. It looks to you as if their husband/wife/kids are good looking, thin, smart and successful. Every dinner looks like it came out of a magazine spread. But as Brene points out: no one rides for free – every life has pain.

  5. People can be cruel.
    Online it’s easy to attack and be anonymous (and take no responsibility for what you say or do). Brene says we could stop it if we all adopted a ZERO tolerance for cruelty on our sites. I’m an advocate of deleting comments that are cruel or that you want to retract. People can go after your writing, the way you parent, how you look, etc. This has also made me want to stop blogging or tweeting too. It can sting. The most cruel places can be online forums. Mom bloggers can be super competitive and hard on each other (which I don’t get since you’d think you’d be each others allies because being a parent is super challenging).

    The crazy thing is you don’t even need a computer or to ever access the internet to be affected by this. You don’t have a say in what is published about you. You can try to respond, try to remove or ignore it but it’s there. If it’s really bad and it’s true, good luck getting it removed. The more others agree, the more prominence that damaging information will have.

  6. Perfectionism.
    Even though I say I believe in being authentic and real it’s tough not to still want to be perfect. To be liked by all. But that is not authentic – not everyone will like you all the time. Brene says we try to be perfect to protect ourselves. We do it avoid being criticized or shamed. But if you are truly connected to others you will feel shame. You’re vulnerable to being hurt. Even though we don’t like these feelings, they are better than the alternative — not being connected.

    The true test of your authenticity comes when things are not going well. Can you maintain our authenticity? Do you have the courage to be imperfect and still worthy of being loved?

    It turns out that one of the worst things we can do is to be successful is to be inauthentic. To pretend to be more successful than we actually are can make success elusive. Oprah producers Andrea Wishom and Jon Sinclair spoke about how tempting this is to do (I admit it – I’ve done it a lot). It usually means you burn out quickly. A big-name rapper (can’t recall name) did this. Then he stepped back and was more honest about where he was at the time. He went on to be much bigger. It’s so natural to do this. Resist, resist, resist.

The number of close friends we have is dropping. The number of people who live alone is rising. For all of our connecting, as a whole Americans are still fairly lonely.

So my question is – this is all so new. How is social media changing us and how will this affect our society long-term? Sure there is a lot to celebrate but how can we mitigate the harmful pieces?

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How @GuyKawasaki Tweets

Guy Kawasaki spoke at the Cisco/Ragan Social Media Summit last week and his was my favorite presentation. Not as in inspiring, standing ovation material but he gave us practical “how to” type of information. I love both. Even though I’ve been tweeting for years I learned a lot. Hopefully you will too.

Here are 10 things Guy Kawasaki Taught Me About Twitter

  1. Guy Ignors the Twitter police
  2. The Twitter police don’t like how Guy tweets. How @GuyKawasaki tweets is how he tweets. He’s judged by what he calls the Twitter facists. They don’t like that he puts summaries and makes you go to his site to get a link to the original source and other things. He does test everything so he goes by the numbers not by the opinions of others.

    Lesson: There’s no right way to use Twitter.

  3. Guy doesn’t want your friendship – he just wants your clicks
  4. He’s not on Twitter to make friends (“I have enough friends – probably too many”). He’s after your click (“I don’t want to be your friend. I want your click.”) If you click to his web site he gets an impression on ads on that page i.e. he makes money.

    Lesson: Social media doesn’t have to be about relationships if you create enough value people will still come.

  5. Guy repeats his best tweets
  6. Using a tool called objectivemarketer he has really killer tweets go out 4x every 8 hours. Why? His stats (taken from objectivemarketer) say that he gets thousands of additional retweets when he does. Test this. He warns his new followers about this with a DM (with SocialToo).

    Lesson: Schedule out my best tweets to go out a few times at popular times a day.

  7. Guy has a team of researchers who tweet for him
  8. This is also something the Twitter police hate but he does have a team of people who tweet for him. Interesting enough he also lets some trusted brands like National Geographic tweet on his account too. I couldn’t see the number but it looks like at least 10 people work for him. They find interesting content or he flags interesting content so they can tweet the links & summary in his behalf. He says that the tweets from the team often do better than his own.

    Lesson: I wish I had a team of people who tweeted for me.

  9. Guy uses 3 main sites to get content for his tweets
  10. - StumbleUpon by topic or browse all sites (this surprised me!)
    - SmartBrief who curates articles by topic (a little tough to use – click on the news link).
    - Alltop which is Guy’s site that aggregates blog posts around a topic. You can easily scan many posts to find interesting ones just by mousing over the titles.

    He re-writes the titles too.

    Lesson: I’m not using StumbleUpon enough! [Click for another way to use it to get traffic to your web site.]

  11. Guy uses an offline blog editor to write blog posts
  12. Since Guy is into Macs he uses marsedit. Since I use PCs I asked him for the equvalent for PCs. This is what he said: Qumana and Ecto. Tools like typinator lets you create shortcuts to nicely tell people no when they ask you to do something ridiculous.

    Lesson: Stop using Notebook to compose blog posts – check out one of Guy’s suggestions so they can be formatted.

  13. Stats can get Guy in a bad mood
  14. Guy gets depressed when he sees fewer than 500 new followers a day when he checks his stats on Twittercounter. If only.

    Lesson: I suck at Twitter.

  15. Where Guy gets pictures
  16. Guy gets pictures on Fotolia and resizes them through (do you know what he uses to edit his pictures? I didn’t catch that part).

    Lesson: Use more pictures with my posts – in fact, I’m going to add one to this post as soon as I find one from the summit.

  17. How Guy power searches Twitter
  18. If you go to search.twitter.com you can search to find your target market or to track brand names and other useful things.  Want to find everyone that says they are a blogger in their bio? Then search like this intext:”bio” blogger site:twitter.com

    There are more examples on the page I reference below but I also found Tweepsearch to make this easy (but it was down).

    Lesson: Use this with new clients who are looking for people to follow.

  19. Guy does online background checks with Spokeo
  20. You put in an email address and you’ll get back all sorts of information about a person from Spokeo. Good way to check out that perspective employee or that “social media expert” you want to hire. I see that it thinks I’m in Keizer Oregon and my name is “No Name.” I have some work to do.

    Lesson: Check out people on Spokeo before deciding who to go listen to at a conference (and to see who I want to meet).

Note: I wish that SuperShuttle and airports would use Twitter to tell us how long the wait will be for our shuttle or how long the line at security is. I waited several hours to catch my shuttle after my plane got delayed.  I ended up taking a taxi instead — for $129!! Just like the Canadian border service Twitter account @CBSA_BWT tells you how long it will take to cross the border.

Who can argue with success? Guy has over 200k followers and despite his vocal detractors he’s rocking Twitter. He also rocked the keynote (my own presentation was not my best yet but I loved the conference and Guy was the best.)

More from Guy at:
http://holykaw.alltop.com/demo-of-social-media-sites-and-services

No One Listens at Social Media Conferences

It’s funny to me that the phrase that goes around social media circles is about how you need to LISTEN before you start participating in social media. Grow bigger ears. In that context it means to do some research and see what people are saying about you, your company, your industry, your competitors, products, etc. on social networking sites and online.

Many brands are still oblivious and are missing opportunities to get feedback and insights into what people really think. Most of all they are missing opportunities to create goodwill with others – and be likeable. People who like you are much more willing to forgive mistakes, stand up for you and buy from you.

However, if you go to a social media conference listening has a different meaning. People are rarely listenting at all – they are tweeting, foursquaring, updating Facebook, etc. I decided that when I pay to be there I’m going to listen. I’ll take notes and write about it later. I want to be there to meet and talk to people and to learn. I lost the desire to multitask. I used to be both the reporter and the attendee now I just want to attend. I would rather than talk than type on the breaks. Of course if it were breaking or really big I would tweet about it. So sporadic tweeting it is.

Is it just me? Does it bother you as a speaker or at a conference when no one is looking up? When everyone is typing away? Can you really listen if you’re “talking.”

New Tweets 2010-05-10

New Tweets 2010-04-19

  • GIVEAWAY! Enter 2 win 7-nite Caribbean cruise 4 fam of 4 from #RoyalCaribbean http://bit.ly/bcg9aq #gno PLS RT #
  • Join #gno w/#royalcaribbean & @oasisandallure Tues 4/13 (9-11 ET) 2 chat fam travel/cruise vacays. RSVP @ http://bit.ly/9iMSgp PL RT #
  • Preparing slides for upcoming @PRWeb webinar in May for small businesses. See http://tinyurl.com/ThriveJanetThaeler #
  • RT @bookmarketer Why Don't Authors Research the Industry Before Publishing Their Book? by Irene Watson @ReaderViews http://bit.ly/cDBAln #
  • RT @shuey03 This is what I am getting for lunch today with @ashbuckleshttp://n.pr/9eWZvm [you are crazy & this is a great PR shtick] #
  • Which headline do you like best? A: Utah Mom Shares Her Family’s Russian Adoption Story on Good Morning America #
  • B: Utah Author Tells Her Family’s Russian Adoption Story on Good Morning America #
  • C: Utah Family Shares How They Cope: Their Russian Adoption Story #
  • @ParkCityTV right – she's not famous (yet) in reply to ParkCityTV #
  • @ParkCityTV You should interview her on your show – it's quite a story. in reply to ParkCityTV #
  • So far the vote is A – using the word mom and share make the story stronger. #
  • @scottcowley You win!! That is a killer headline! #
  • @mawbooks it's not a book – but the author wrote a book about her experience raising her daughter. Good timing w/ Russian boy adoption story in reply to mawbooks #
  • @kbstudio I esp. like the Russian princess part – the child's name is Victoria! in reply to kbstudio #
  • I love crowd sourcing headlines – Twitter does not fail. Thanks for your input so far… #
  • @scottcowley It certainly paints a picture of drama and intrigue! in reply to scottcowley #
  • @mawbooks The author's name is Jodi Bean – the book is "Love Lessons" She's married to the president of @OrangeSoda (which is how I know) in reply to mawbooks #
  • @WynnLasVegas loved our stay last week – tough to come home! We woke up to an amazing 2-window view of the strip every day. in reply to WynnLasVegas #
  • It's fun seeing my logo when I go to PRWeb's home page – check out their conference May 12! #
  • @GregDigneo thanks and our webinar on using news releases as lead generation tools will be coming up right after! in reply to GregDigneo #
  • I've been looking for couples to attend a marriage retreat (to test it out). What I learned so far: most women say yes but the men say no #
  • You confirmed my suspicions – @eglue @wordymouth – men would rather not hear about their marriage issues (esp. in front of others). #
  • Poll: Raise your hand: How many married men would attend a marriage retreat (no cost to you)? What would it take to get you to go? #
  • @jayandball I followed you could you DM me your email address/contact info. in reply to jayandball #
  • @DesireeW I guess my husband is an anomaly. @slashcareer exactly what I think would entice men to go! #
  • @SeagullFountain I thought your husband was more…well he's married to a feminist. I guess I had preconceived notions about writers :) in reply to SeagullFountain #
  • @wilcoxaj I'm convinced you'd do anything if it were 1- free 2- fun in reply to wilcoxaj #
  • Someone just commented on my blog that the owners who started Quizno's also own @Smashburger True? #
  • So many deadlines today – feeling stressed to try to meet them all! Good thing my taxes were filed in Feb. #
  • thanks for the referral @sahans – @MommaDJane I DMed you – let me know if I can help out. #
  • Anyone tried the new Twitter ads – http://www.tweetup.com? #
  • My coworkers @orangesoda made this video: http://bit.ly/cpsSni Guess what they are trying to say about the internet. #
  • So busy with deadlines I had to skip @postsecret event at the U last night. Sometimes work has to come before fun dangit. #
  • @iGoByDoc exactly :) in reply to iGoByDoc #
  • Just completed "10 Ways to Rock your Next Online Press Release" for my @PRWeb presentation for Thrive http://tinyurl.com/ThriveJanetThaeler #
  • @iGoByDoc Hmmm, I'll suggest that to product development… in reply to iGoByDoc #
  • Like how VMG BPO – an Indian outsourcing company that did work for CDBaby – sends emails about new services then let's customers try free. #
  • Just finished writing, "LinchPin by Seth Godin: Is this Book Indispensable?" Will link when live. #
  • Is Everyone Ditching Their iPad? ht @StKonrath http://ow.ly/1yZKy #
  • I just learned that tomorrow is "Foursquare Day" – will you celebrate it? #
  • Check out this photo of me with @skydiver at Affiliate Summit. http://twitpic.com/1fty75 #
  • @SocialNetNanny I bet I'd like it too. So if anyone wants to donate their iPad to me I'll graciously accept. :) in reply to SocialNetNanny #
  • I might celebrate Foursquare Day with you then! @JackieB3 @matthod what time will @taslut be there? How about it @seobyswaby – film live? #
  • Hmmm. @JackieB3 says 5pm @matthod thinks12:30 for @taslut @poundersgrill tomorrow. Hoping it's lunch not dinner. #
  • @Paco_Belle most likely I'll be there (I give up trying to lose weight!). Have an appt. in S. Ogden at 11:30 so I won't be on time. in reply to Paco_Belle #
  • I tweet something I found on Facebook that goes to LinkedIn where my friend Kevin commented on it. Where should I respond? #
  • I pasted Kevin's comment back onto the original FB status (that was a feed of the original guy's tweets) @laraineking @maxbizmom @RickGalan #
  • This can get confusing and complicated. At least texts are not involved. Need to have all messages come to 1 place. #
  • RT @Jackie Banda BIG shout out2 @usuprssa conference speakers presenting @ #ragancisco http://bit.ly/cpoGfZ @codella & @NewspaperGrl #
  • Love your book about referrals @ducttape Question: Is consistency a prerequisite to being a referral engine? #
  • Linchpin message: be an artist (creative work) Referral Engine message: create systems. Both about being remarkable. #
  • Why do some people make it hard to do business with them on purpose & others focus on making it as easy as possible? #
  • Is one trying to weed out people who waste their time & the other selling a commodity? #
  • @ducttape I think I'm doomed then ;) in reply to ducttape #
  • @NteeJ I see business consultants who are better at making people feel good rather than getting them business. #
  • @NteeJ In other words, they get referrals from satisfied customers (who get results). in reply to NteeJ #
  • Another thought is: I've never worked so hard to give something free away. High value + low cost or free = suspicious & noncommittal #
  • @NteeJ good point – but if snake oil is what they want they it's alright, right? surprisingly a lot want snake oil (or to feel good). in reply to NteeJ #
  • @ParkCityTV I'm not sure why that made me laugh – probably because my next question is are you in on the retreat? in reply to ParkCityTV #
  • @NteeJ me neither in reply to NteeJ #
  • @NteeJ I have no qualms about walking away if I don't think I'm a good fit or can help them either. #
  • Companies with blogs generate 67% more referrals online than those w/o blogs according to @Hubspot research http://bit.ly/b1D0tO #
  • @SmashburgerUT thanks for the #FF – is this Paco? in reply to SmashburgerUT #
  • [Idea] Foursquare could predict where you'll be tomorrow, not just record where you are. http://bit.ly/a0NQbH #
  • #ff Thanks for the retweets today!@NteeJ @dyejo @JackieB3 @ParkCityTV @JonBacon @taylormarek @fredabramson @5dollarairplane @SEObySwaby #

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