Social Media

Facebook fun can also equal profits

September 4, 2012

It seems like every business is rushing to build a Facebook Page.  But once they get it built — they’re not too sure what to do with it.

1. Many just ignore it, publishing once a week or less
2. Some use it as a sales channel — pushing out deals and wondering why people are ignoring them
3. Others share the same links that they share on Twitter

But very few organizations actually have a good time on their page.  They don’t trigger conversations with their fans and they sure don’t turn their page over to their customers. But the folks at PostCardMania.com decided to have some fun with their fans.

Early this year, they were trying to come up with some ways to get more of their customers to like their Facebook page.   Their CMO was out doing some shopping (every great idea is not born in a brainstorming session!) and spotted those wax lips and wax mustaches that they sell in the candy section. She bought some and took them back to the office.

She was able to convince her CEO that it would be fun to send the lips and mustaches out to a list of customers who had not placed an order within a year as part of a Valentine’s Day effort.  In the package was the request that they take a picture of themselves wearing the lips or mustache and post it on the PostCardMania Facebook page wall.  Everyone who posted a photo would also get a free book written by the CEO.

500 packages were sent out. They increased their likes by about 50 people and had 20 or so clients add their photos to the wall. They also connected with their customers in a very personal, memorable way that generated a lot of goodwill.

On top of that — within 4-5 days of receiving the package — that list of customers placed over $120,000 worth of orders.

Here’s the takeaways for us in this little case study:

• They never mentioned postcard or direct mail in their communication
• They didn’t put together a long list of rules about what kinds of photos could be posted or who had to be in the photo, etc. They just opened the doors
• There was no coupon, QR code or any sort of offer in the package

This is a great example of creating a love affair with your customer.  PostCardMania simply reached out with something fun and invited their customers to take part.  There was no hype, spin or sell.  They just were having some fun and voila — they sold $120K worth of stuff.

Delight your audience and watch what happens.  I dare you.

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Is your company ready for social media criticism?

July 18, 2012

A vast majority of CEOs agree that a company’s corporate reputation is more important today than it was five years ago. New technology and social networks are reshaping the landscape of how society convenes and campaigns on critical issues.

So you would expect those CEOs would be mindful of the importance of being ready for an unexpected problem online.  But a recent study shows that 72% of companies that have been subject to social media criticism however strong (ranging from a single complaint to a full-scale campaign) rated their preparedness as average or below, with 20% being completely unprepared, according to a July 2012 report by Ethical Corporation and Useful Social Media. Just 15% of companies reported that they were fully engaged with the problem.

This finding follows from research showing that social media users believe that companies are out of step in their use of the social tools. In fact, according to a Allstate/National Journal report from June, 64% of these users want to see an increase in companies using social media to respond to questions and complaints. 73% believe that companies use it chiefly for advertising.

What should those CEOs being doing to ready their companies?

• Create a robust crisis communications plan
• Learn from other’s mistakes and make adjustments
• Be prepared to take immediate steps if you are criticized online (but be sure you should respond)
• Don’t abdicate responsibility for your social media efforts

Bottom line — prepare, adapt, respond and take ownership.  Don’t be like the 72% who talk a good game but aren’t ready to respond in the heat of the moment.

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Twitter and Facebook ROI

July 8, 2012

This has to be one of the biggest questions banging around marketing conferences, blogs and social media gatherings.  “How do we measure the return on my investment (ROI) for the time, money and effort we put into Twitter and Facebook?”

To truly answer that question, you need to define your own ROI. If it is a dollar for dollar equation, then you need to be able to quantify/tie a value to the time spent, calculate the dollars invested and then put the proper tracking/measurement tools in place to link your social media contacts/connections to actual sales.

Are sales the only worthy ROI?  Probably not. Like all marketing — you start by knowing what result you want.

• Are you trying to create a community that will tell the world about your new book, product or ?
• Do you want people to sign a pledge or commit to a cause?
• Do you want email addresses because your sales cycle requires a lot of education and time, so you want to create a drip campaign?
• Do you want to identify like-minded business people so you can create a safe place to generate thought leadership?

I have nothing against sales.  It’s how we all pay our mortgages.  But I just want to remind you, there are many worthy outcomes of any marketing effort.  And that’s certainly true of Twitter and Facebook. As Stephen Covey taught us, begin with the end in mind.

This infographic from InventHelp (click here to check them out) begins to dig at the question and explore potential answers.  Take a look at it and then tell me — what do you want from your social media efforts?

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The “how to” of business blogging

July 2, 2012

Blogs, once described as the vehicle for narcissistic over sharers and people who found cats amusing, have certainly come into their own.

Today, while there are still plenty of hobby bloggers out there, the tool is being embraced by businesses and thought leaders in record numbers.

The benefits a blog can bring to a business are multifold:

• Blogs, when built properly, can have a significant impact on search engine results and traffic to your site
• Blogs can establish expertise and credibility for a business
• Blogs can drive traffic to your web presence
• Blogs can shorten the sales cycle by establishing a relationship long before the first inquiry
• Blogs can encourage thought leadership within your organization
• Blogs can lead to other media interviews/opportunities
• And many more!

Sadly, most companies who launch a blog either do it badly or don’t sustain the blog for more than a couple months. If you’re thinking of launching a company blog, here are some basic best practices that will help assure you a solid start.

Build it on a platform optimized for blogging: I can’t imagine why anyone would build a blog today on anything but WordPress. It is relatively inexpensive to use, it is constantly being improved with new updates and plugins, the search engines love it and it has a very simple interface so that anyone who can work with Microsoft Word can add, modify or remove content.

There are other blogging specific platforms out there that are also good alternatives to consider. Whatever you do — don’t let anyone talk you into building your blog on proprietary software that doesn’t allow you to change hosts, servers and control your own site.

Have a strategic plan/editorial calendar: Don’t put your first finger on the keyboard until you have thought about why you’re doing this in the first place. Put some SMART goals in place, know what audiences matter to you and map out the logistics of writing/maintaining a blog. We literally invest most of a day with clients who want to map this out properly. Don’t short-change this critical step.

Write to/for your audience: A blog is not a place for you to put your press releases, talk about what’s on sale or push your products. You need to know who your audience is and you need to know what matters to them.

Unless other marketing tactics, a blog is permission based. People choose to read your content or not. If all you do is talk about yourself, they will not choose to keep reading.

Practice before you publish: For many companies – blogging sounds great in theory but when it comes to actually having both the discipline and the desire to sustain it over time – they fall short. To blog well and right – takes a significant time commitment. Not only do you need to create the content but you also need to respond to readers who ask questions or add to the conversation.

We have all of our clients actually blog for 30-45 days “behind the curtain” so we can help them find their voice, identify potential problems and they can get a taste for what blogging is all about. That way, if they decide it’s not something they can sustain – we haven’t publicly launched something new and then have to explain why it’s already going away. Or worse – is just left there, dormant.

For many businesses, a blog should be a no brainer. But, a blog is an organic, constantly evolving marketing tool that at best, you have some control over. But by it’s very nature – it’s going to grow and change in ways you can’t imagine. So it requires some forethought, careful planning and a watchful eye.

Make it work for you by doing the work to get it right.

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Happy Social Media Day

June 30, 2012

Today (June 30th) is Social Media Day — started by Mashable to celebrate “the one thing that unites us and keeps us in constant contact: social media. Whether you’re an obsessed Instagram photographer, an endless Pinterest pinner or a ten-times-an-hour tweeter, Social Media Day is a time to recognize the digital revolution that has changed how we live.”

People from all over the globe are gathering together to acknowledge that our world is very different today, thanks to social media — whether you have re-connected with a high school friend because of Facebook, found a job thanks to Twitter or built a business from your digital connections.

In Des Moines — there’s a tweet up tonight (details here) and for those of us who are traveling — we had the opportunity to create a short video to share our thoughts and talk about how social media has changed our world.

I’m in California, celebrating my daughter’s birthday (can you say Disneyland?) but used my very limited imovie talents to create a little something.  This is proof positive that you don’t have to be good at video to use video.

To all of you who have commented on this blog, subscribed, followed me on Twitter, met me at an event, attended Blogger Social or been an author in one or more of our Age of Conversation books — thank you.

You have enriched my life and I am grateful.

Here’s how I captured that in my talking PPT!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7rOGQKQ0Q8&feature=plcp[/youtube]

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Age of Conversation 4 — want to be one of our authors?

June 28, 2012

We know… it’s crazy. But Gavin and I are ready to do it again. This time, we’d like Age of Conversation to take on a much more personal tone… how is social media impacting you, your work, your family and your view on life? Your chapter might be as elaborate as a real case study or it might be as simple as your best time saving trick. But it’s about you and how you “do” social.

This time, we’re doing both one and two page chapters. (see below)

Here are the sections for the book:

ONE PAGE CHAPTERS

One page chapters are grouped into “sections” to provide a sense of cohesion to the topics covered. (One page = 400 words or so) This year’s sections are:

Secrets – what is a secret, what is your secret and what are the limits of privacy in the Age of Conversation?
Transparency – what does it mean for a business to be transparent? How do you go about making your brand or business transparent? And what happens if transparency fails?
Authenticity – what does it mean to humanize a brand? What happens when business gets personal and how does so-called “authenticity” impact you on a personal and professional level?
Unexpected Consequences – anything from a painful lesson learned to an unexpected cross the globe friendship. Share your journey in this Age of Conversation
How Do I … – share your tips and tricks on social media. What do you do well and how do you achieve the outcomes you want?

CASE STUDIES – TWO PAGE CHAPTERS

We’d love to have your case studies. (Two pages = 750 words or so) They need to be projects that you have worked on or have been responsible for. You must include measurable results of some sort. We’re not going to get into the whole ROI discussion…but you need to show how it played out. Please don’t propose case studies based on other people’s work.

Want to join in on the adventure with us? We’d love to have you with us!

To sign up —  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dGhydDdoTmVtZXFLT3V0YzY2ampDUlE6MQ

We’ll be closing the sign ups pretty quickly so if you’re serious about writing a chapter — sign up soon!

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Going viral = out of your control

May 8, 2012

It seems like one of the goals I hear more and more is… “and we want it to go viral.”  I translate that to mean — we want a lot of people to see it.

But rarely when someone says they want something to go viral, do they really understand the implications of that.  The biggest one is — the minute it begins to go viral, it begins to take on a life of its own and it is beyond your control.

Let me give you a very tangible example.  My daughter and several of her college friends decided that they wanted to jump into the Sh*t People Say meme that was started in December (the original video has over 16 million hits – click here to view it) and make a video based on what University of Northern Iowa students say.

Their intention was pretty straight forward and college kid appropriate — they thought it would be funny. (And it is).  So they scripted and shot the video with that intent.  It’s filled with inside jokes about the names of resident halls (Dancer, Bender, Rider so you can imagine the joke!) and some of the art that lives on campus. And the first 50 viewers or so, mostly their friends or people within their circle of friends, were of the same mindset.  They got a lot of “LOL” type comments.

But then as the video began to spiral outside their own circle and go viral, some interesting things happened that we all need to keep in mind as we cross our fingers for a viral spread of our marketing efforts.

Not everyone is going to like it.  Some people took the humor as putting down the college they loved and took offense.  And there were a couple swear words sprinkled throughout which a few people objected to.  No matter how clear your intent or how pure your motives — as your audience widens, so will the range of opinions.

People will apply it to their own agenda. Like most Universities, UNI was not without some controversy this year.  Budget cuts are leading to dropping some majors which routinely only graduated a few kids a year.  Professors and special interest groups started sharing the video as proof “that the kids are upset that classes are being cut.”

Know that we all view things through our own perception/lens.  And nuance and meaning can be inferred or transfered if the motivation or inspiration is strong enough.  Sometimes that will work for you and other times, it might take you off course.

People will nitpick at it, because they would have done it different.  Apparently UNI is a very windy campus and one of the bits referenced that inside joke.  A commenter pointed out that they should have shot it in a different location which is the windiest of the windy spots.

One of the truths that has become apparent via social networks is that everyone has an opinion.  And now, they have multiple ways of sharing it. Some will applaud your efforts, others will take the opportunity to critique.  You can’t put yourself out there if you aren’t ready to accept both.

The lessons learned by the UNI students is a very valid one for all of us that create content and toss it out into the social wind — hoping it will grab an updraft.

There’s the trade off.  If your efforts goes big (their UNI video has over 5,600 views as of this posting) it will also go places you never imagined or intended it would go.  Is that bad?  No, of course not.  The goal is exposure.  

But you need to be ready for the tangents, the crazies and unintended consequences because those are part of the package too. If your brand is strong and consistent, most people will dismiss the fringe comments and see what you were trying to say.

The fear that comes with the potential loss of control is why so many brands do social media badly or not at all.  You have to be willing to let go and trust your audience.

Hmm, there’s an interesting twist.  We want them to trust us with their money but are we ready to trust them with our message?

(Hat tip to my daughter and her fellow students for their creativity and willingness to see what happens.  A special nod to freshman Linh Ta (Electronic media major) for a great job shooting and editing the video. Want to read her thoughts on studying journalism in today’s world? Check out her blog.)

Photo courtesy of www.BigStockPhoto.com

 

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Do you SoLoMo?

April 6, 2012

I know — it sounds like a line dance but it’s actually a quickly emerging marketing trend that you need to have on your radar.

SoLoMo is the combination of social, location and mobile. It takes the form of mobile phone apps that combine social networking and location data.

The blend of these makes perfect sense. We know that social is working for local businesses. A business with 100+ fans are experiencing a much higher engagement and click-through rates.

20% of all searches has a local intent, and more and more of them are happening real time on a smart phone (I’m looking for a shoe repair place near me and I have the shoe in the car with me.)

In fact, 70% of all searches done on a smart phone result in action within one hour. (read that stat again if you think you don’t need a mobile optimized website)

So people are using their phone to find what they need/want NOW. That’s where SoLoMo fits in perfectly.

Probably the SoLoMo app that most people are familiar with is Foursquare. You have an app on your smart phone that uses its GPS capabilities to allow you to “check in” when you’re at a specific location. Many people who don’t foursquare will often say…why would I do that? What’s in it for me to check in?

Beyond the ramification aspects (badges, mayorships etc) that Foursquare built into the app, there are often advantages that come through the merchant. For example this morning, I have a meeting at Gateway Market. When I checked in, I was greeted with a coupon for Gateway that I could redeem at that moment.

That’s SoLoMo in action. Offering the user an immediate reward for being in a specific place.

Another example of SoLoMo would a smartphone app that determines your location, suggests businesses close by, and even provided ratings/reviews of that business. After going there, you could post your own ratings/reviews and photos on their system or places like Facebook or Yelp.

One of the coolest applications that I’ve seen adds a geofencing factor. Geofencing is the ability to draw a virtual perimeter around a specific area. There’s a real estate company called DDR Corp that owns a ton of U.S. shopping centers and they’re using this technology in 25+ open air malls.

Their program is called ValuText and here’s how it works:

A shopper enters the mall’s borders (geofencing) and if they’ve opted in, they’ll receive text messages from specific stores about sales and promotions happening at that very moment.

Think of the win/win here.

• The retailers love it because they can communicate with people who are literally a few steps away from their store.
• The shoppers love it because they’re being served up deals they can take advantage of instantly.
• The mall must love it because I have to think occupancy isn’t a problem when they’re offering their merchants this kind of perk.

One of the nice features of this tool is that it doesn’t even require that the user have a smartphone. By using text messages, it simplifies the technology requirements dramatically.  What could you do with technology like ValuText?

We’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible with SoLoMo.  I can remember watching the movie Minority Report and marveling at the mall scene, where Tom Cruise is being “detected” by advertising and it’s changing based on his preferences.  At the time, it seemed like black magic.  Today, it’s just SoLoMo at work.  (Granted in an advanced state)

Check out this :30 clip from the movie to see it in action. Listen for when the ads actually call out his name.  Incredible.  (Email subscribers — click here to view)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBaiKsYUdvg[/youtube]

Want to learn more about SoLoMo?  Check out the SoLoMo manifesto by clicking here.  This is where were headed folks, so don’t get caught off guard.

 

P.S.  Full disclosure:  I know the agency that created ValuText and was awed by it when they shared it with me.

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Social Media Cheat Sheet 2012

March 24, 2012

As I travel the country, teaching people how to integrate social media into their marketing efforts — I often get asked — if I only have time to invest in one social media tool or site — which one is best?

Naturally, my answer is the definitive — it depends.  Accurate but not all that helpful.

Like any marketing tactic — the effectiveness of it is based on what you’re trying to accomplish.  Social is no different.  Which is why tools like the social media cheat sheet that you see to the right are so helpful.  (Originally created by CMO.com back in 2010).

The criteria that they used to “grade” each tool were:

• Customer communication
• Brand Exposure
• Traffic to your site
• SEO

The cheat sheet has been updated.  I think you’ll find it very valuable as you access where you should spend your resources (time, money, attention) in the coming year.

You can download a full sized PDF by clicking here.

The tools they evaluate include the standards like Facebook and Twitter but the sheet includes 14 different sites including the likes of Pinterest (of course) and Reddit, Digg and Slideshare too.

• Download the 2011 social media cheat sheet by clicking here.
• Download the 2010 social media cheat sheet by clicking here.

You can also view the cheat sheet on the CMO site here.

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Social media strategy workbook

March 8, 2012

On Monday, we kicked around the notion that while access to social media tools like Facebook and Twitter may be free — that doesn’t mean they’re cheap.  Especially, if you do it wrong.

I promised you a chance to download the social media strategy workbook that we’ve created at MMG as a guide to thinking through the why, who, how and whats of your social media strategy.

I’m a man of my word….so just fill out the little form below and we’ll get you your own copy (you have to confirm you want the workbook by clicking on the link you’ll be emailed).

After you’ve had a chance to look it over or better yet, begin to apply it to your organization — we’d love to hear from you on how it’s going.

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