The Brand Box

The Blogosphere According to Bloggers

2008-10-08T11:25:00.008-05:00

I know I'm a little slow in reacting to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, but I kept coming back to something I couldn't quite shake. More on that in a minute. First, let's talk about a few of the interesting tidbits about brands and blogging.

"Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate)."

Yep, folks. People are talking about you, whether you like it or not. More importantly, people are looking for information online, and when they find it, they may not realize they're on a blog. It's just a link they clicked from their Google search.

Social media users tend to label our tools and put them in buckets - blogging, microblogging, crowdsourcing, whatever. But the people that FIND information on the web aren't classifying things the same way we are. They just want to know what people are saying about the laptop they're thinking of buying, or the hotel they're thinking of staying at. When they click on a link, it may not register with them that it's a blog or a forum post or a mainstream news article online, but it's the information they're after. But they ARE looking for it, so we ought to be putting it in places they can find it and - perhaps more importantly - interact and react to it.

"Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers."

Which means people want to talk about you, and given no other choice, will use the information they find to make judgments about your business. It's ever more important that you as the brand are contributing your voice and perspective to the conversation, and showing that other people's viewpoints matter to you, too.

But here's my word of caution. The report is decidedly slanted - Technorati (fittingly) only surveyed bloggers for this report. I understand that they're trying to take the pulse of THEIR community - the bloggers - and understand how and why they do what they do.

But if you're a consultant or company looking at this information, be careful not to overinflate some of the findings, and recognize that they're from a plugged-in audience. Of course they're going to predict the continued growth of blogs and the demise of print - that's the world they live in. Of course they're going to believe that blogs' influence will get ever greater in the grand communications highway - it's part of the sea change that they're creating.

I believe these things - I do. I work with lots of people to understand and tap the potential of marketing through social media - blogging included - and I think blogging is a powerful, accessible medium that really has changed the face of media. But the fishbowl can make you see things through curved glass.

So I'll end by saying that once again, we all need to be mindful of the individual business value of these tools, the important factors for consideration, and how they integrate into the larger landscape. Traditional methods of communication can still be very viable, and even more powerful when enhanced with carefully selected social media tools to transform a message into a dialogue.

And the conversation is only as good as the quality of its participants. More on that later this week...

Your Brand, In Plain English

2008-10-07T13:34:00.005-05:00

I'm not a big fan of buzzwords. Why? They dilute brands more effectively than almost anything else. And I promise, these have all come from real corporate documents, though names have been withheld to protect the offenders.

The Compound Buzzword
This is what you get when you take a perfectly good normal word - like "organic" - and cram it into some business-related context because it sounds cool, often smashing it together with some other buzzword. Something like:

We create organic solution stacks to solve our clients' infrastructure issues.

You've now compounded the confusion by making up collections of words that independently may (or may not) mean something to your customer, but have lost all context.

The Noun-Into-A-Verb
Ever heard this one?

We've tasked our customer service team to meet your every need.

Beside the fact that this violates every grammar rule because it's just a made-up word, it sounds self-important. As if you're too good to just have customer service teams that are dedicated to meeting needs. They have to be "tasked" to do so. Ergh.

The Tech Upgrade
This practice uses technically-related terms and applies them to non-technical subjects.

Our mission statement outlines our read-only values: integrity, creativity, and collaboration.

In essence you're trying to say that those values can't or won't be compromised. So why not use a word designed for that purpose? Like, say, uncompromising?

The Mashup
It can be tempting to create a whole new word, hoping that someday, someone will know you coined that term. Most of the time, you just sound like you're trying too hard:

We keep our client meetings centergistic and focused on outcomes.

What do you think? Does this make you want to hire them, or does it make you wonder if their meetings will be equally difficult to interpret?

The Misnomer
Here we've got words that are either oxymorons - meaning that that by definition the two words are opposites - or words that are completely redundant and unnecessary. My favorite example of late:

We form collaborative partnerships to help you meet your goals.

I don't know about you, but I haven't met a partnership that wasn't - at least by the pure definition of "working together" - collaborative.

Ok, Amber....What's your point?
Ok. The above are kind of fun, and you may have gotten a chuckle out of it. (For even more laughs on the buzzword front, check out BuzzWhack.) But the truth is these kinds of offenses are rampant in the world of marketing, and even more so now in social media.

Everyone wants to be different, innovative, the first to the finish line. And in the process, we've left behind some very simple words to describe what we do.

A brand isn't about 20 point Scrabulous words (or Scrabble, for you analog folk). It's about clearly defining your brand in words that make it easy for your customers to explain it to someone else.

So next time you're writing copy for your website or putting together your pitch for a new client, skip the lingo, and don't try to be a hero. Use real words that real people use and understand, and they'll be much more likely to talk about you. If you have trouble explaining your brand in a sentence, you ought to spend some time distilling it down until you can.

Sometimes, simple really is better.

Is your social media consultant...social?

2008-09-30T08:26:00.004-05:00

There was a great post on Mashable yesterday about ways to know when you should fire your social media consultant. I agree very much with the points Alex raised, but would also like to add a few of my own to the list.

They swim mostly in the fishbowl.
What I mean by this: some so-called social media gurus love to spend a lot of their time backslapping each other about how great they are. (Note to these folks: spending the bulk of your time pimping your blog on Twitter while not taking the time to engage on any of the comments on said blog does not qualify you as a social media "expert"). A good adviser of ANY kind needs to be taking in a strategic spectrum of expertise across industries and disciplines - of course with a focus on their area of expertise - in order to advise their clients in the most informed manner. You simply can't do that if you only spend time with your own "kind".

Jason Falls cautioned social media professionals yesterday about spending too much time in the bubble, and it's great advice. Make sure your consultant has offline expertise and the ability to understand the bigger business picture.

They tout social media as the only strategy.
I could probably retire if I had a penny for each time I had to explain that social media is NOT a replacement for sound corporate communication strategy overall. It is not a shortcut. It is but one piece of a larger picture, and it is not necessarily the right approach for every company. Yes, community and relationships are valuable no matter what the industry, and I believe companies should strive to build lasting relationships with their customers. But social media requires an investment of time and resources, and not all the tools are suited to any given company.

If your consultant is insisting that creating a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter is the answer to all your marketing problems, don't walk away. RUN.

They don't practice what they preach.
This is a biggie with me. Is your consultant building a relationship with YOU? Do they respond to emails, engage readers on their blog, seem like a community is something they enjoy being a part of? Ask them why they do what they do. Talk to passionate and dedicated people like Mack Collier, Jason Falls, Connie Reece, Liz Strauss, or Geoff Livingston, and see how much the conversation truly matters to them. They're shining examples of what it means to walk the walk, and I learn from all of them, every day.

I can't speak for everyone else, but social media is a passion for me because I believe that relationships are the cornerstone of truly great businesses. How those relationships are cultivated is different for everyone, but you have to love the philosophy in order to apply it well. Social media is a powerful and dynamic set of tools, but the underlying premise of building stronger and more fruitful communities should be the undercurrent of why you're using them.

Marketing, Social Media and Web...oh my!

2008-09-29T11:06:00.004-05:00

After some discussion and sharing on Twitter, I pulled together this list of some of the upcoming conferences and events for those wanting to expand their horizons in marketing and social media (and a little Web 2.0 thrown in for good measure). This list is by no means exhaustive; if you know of a great event that marketing folks should know about, please include it in the comments with a link.

TechnoMarketing - Oct 6-7, 2008, Chicago and Oct 20-21, Newport Beach

Corporate Communications in a Web 2.0 World - Oct 14-16, 2008, Cary, NC

New Marketing Summit - Oct 14-15, 2008 - Foxboro, MA (2009 dates too)

MarketingProfs DMM - Oct 22-23, 2008, Scottsdale, AZ

PRSA International - Oct 25-28, 2008, Detroit

BlogWell - October 28, 2008, San Jose, CA

Forrester's Consumer Forum - Oct 28-29, Dallas, TX

SWOMFest - October 30, 2008, Austin, TX

Ad:Tech New York - November 3-6, 2008, NYC (int'l dates year round)

PubCon Search Marketing Conference - Nov 11-14, Las Vegas

AdAge 360 Marketing Conference - Nov 12, 2008, NYC

WOM Crash Courses - Nov 6, Dec 10, and Jan 21 in Chicago

SES Chicago (dates and locations worldwide) - December 8-12, Chicago

Affiliate Summit - Jan 11-13, 2009 in Las Vegas

SXSW Interactive - March 13-17, 2009, Austin, TX

Web 2.0 Expo - March 31 - April 3, 2009, San Francisco

SBMU - TBD in April 2009, Houston, TX

SOBCon - May 1-3, 2009, Chicago

SMX (Search Marketing Expo) - International Dates

If you missed these events from last month, be sure and watch their sites to catch them in 2009:

BlogWorld Expo - September

Interact - September

Inbound Marketing Summit

Gnomedex

TechCrunch 50

BlogHer

If big formal conferences aren't your thing, check out these unconferences that are happening all the time, maybe in your area (or host your own):

PodCamp

BarCamp

A Penny for Your Brilliance.

2008-09-24T12:26:00.005-05:00

"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Everyone has something to give. And knowledge is a powerful currency.

I spent the last several days at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference put on by the amazing (did I mention amazing?) folks at Search Engine Guide. I absolutely love that this event is limited in scale to about 100 people. At that size, you can actually meet and interact with people at a level you just can't do at a Big Business Expo.

A powerful theme emerged on day one, and continued throughout the next several days. And it has huge relevance in the business world.

Left and right, people were giving away their knowledge.

Yes, we paid to go to the conference, but as conferences go, even that was a modest investment. But it wasn't just the sessions where information and knowledge was being shared. It was in the hallways. At the lunch table. On the walk from the conference center to the hotel. Over dinner, drinks, even poolside.

People of all stripes - web marketing, search, social media, branding, marketing, business owners, lawyers, technology folk, social media monitoring, video and podcasting - were all too happy to spend time with one another learning, asking questions, sharing, lending a few words of knowledge or experience. And what happens? Everyone benefits.

It's the have-a-penny-leave-a-penny philosophy of business. You're an expert at something, so leave some knowledge for someone else who needs it. And in return, someone is bound to come along to replace that knowledge with something you needed too.

When you're marketing your business, via traditional or social means, contributing your expertise is one of the most valuable things you can do. An e-book. A white paper. An educational video. Or 30 minutes of your time spent with someone to impart a bit of your vast knowledge. Some friendly advice or insight to a new business owner.

Now, before someone freaks out on me for advocating giving away the "secret sauce", that's not what I'm suggesting. But pieces of it? You bet. No one is going to be able to replicate or replace your business by using your PowerPoint slides. But by teaching and sharing, you are cultivating a sense of ownership and learning in others.

I learned so much from my friends this weekend. I have come away richer for the experience, and hopefully left a little something in the penny jar for someone else. Thank you to you all for your intellectual philanthropy, and making it fun in the meantime.

If you aren't out there sharing what you know with someone who can benefit from just a handful of your expertise, please go pick up the phone or send an email. Right now. I'll be here when you get back, counting my pennies.

image by r-z

Six Things I Learned From Kodak

2008-09-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Reading the recent Q&A with Kodak (see parts one and two), I was struck by a number of simple but compelling takeaways from their success that I think any company can and should pay attention to.

1. Get on Twitter.
Twitter isn't nearly the obscure, niche site it once was. Companies are using it, and it's snowballing when they realize what they can do with it. Kodak has dozens of members from around the globe on Twitter, and they're not alone. Check out this collection of brands using Twitter, and this great take from the inimitable Chris Brogan about how businesses can make the most of it.

2. Understand your goals.
This isn't exclusive to social media. Any solid communication effort requires understanding what you want to get out of it. Who are you talking to, and what are you hoping they'll do or say as a result of that conversation? Then, and only then, can you move on to deciding what tools to use. Which brings me to:

3. Choose the tools that are best for your business.
This isn't the same for everyone. Some businesses can make great use of a blog if they've already got a large contingent of their customers online and and interested in what they have to say. Forums can be great for connecting brand evangelists with one another. A Facebook page can work if you can deliver content and activities that get and keep people engaged. Kodak looked carefully at the tools they knew they could learn, maintain, and get excited about while achieving their goals.

4. Find the right people.
There's been a lot of debate about where the responsibility for social media lies within an organization (just ask Jason Falls). And while I agree that it should be guided and managed by people who have an understanding of good communication practices, the people participating on your blog or on Twitter absolutely, positively have to want to to it. They need to enjoy forging and building relationships with customers, period. And they can be found outside your marketing or PR department, in the form of product managers or customer support people, or even in (gasp) finance or IT. Kodak found the passionate people in their organization, and put them to work.

5. Social media results aren't instant.
Kodak, like many other companies, has realized that social media is a long term investment of time, effort, and dedication. Like the development of any relationships, participating in social media has to be something that a company commits to and works hard at in order to reap all the rewards. It's not a silver bullet. (Check out my post on other things that social media isn't, for more thoughts along these lines).

6. ROI isn't always about direct revenue.
No, I'm not saying social media shouldn't HAVE an ROI. But I took notice that, on Kodak's list of social media ROI, not one of them cited any dollar figures. It's about building relationships, building your brand, and making people want to learn more about you. These are the things that drive revenue for your company over the long term, even if it's a meandering path.

Bonus: Have Fun.
It's so clear to me that the Kodak team enjoys what they do. I mean, really! Jenny Cisney gets to talk about her passion for her company, for photography, and go to the Olympics to showcase it. That can't possibly suck, on any level (ok ok, I know it's still work). Not everything worth doing in business has to be drudgery.

So what did you take away from this? Did you learn anything about your own social media exploits by reading Kodak's point of view? Did they encourage you to try something in social media that you hadn't considered? I'd love to know what you think.

Image credit: foundphotoslj

Kodak's Social Media Success: Part 2

2008-09-10T09:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, we started talking with Kodak about their social media initiatives. Today, the team talks about their plans for the future, and what they consider ROI for their efforts.

How do you hope to build on the success you’ve had in social media, and involve it in your future communication plans? Do see your social media efforts increasing, decreasing, or staying the same for 2009?

Krista Gleason: Kodak is focused on growth and we are always looking at new and innovative ways to communicate, share information, and build relationships with customers. Our participation in these various forms of social media gives us the opportunity to spread our message further and to a larger audience. Our focus now and going forward is how to best integrate all these tools in our communications. For example, when we do a traditional press release, we also consider a companion blog post, we twitter about the news, we post to Facebook and delicious, we might do a podcast, we join the conversation in blogs and forums.

Was involvement in social media a natural progression for Kodak, or was it a culture shift for you?

Krista Gleason: In many ways, our involvement in social media is a reflection of the new company we have become – what we often refer to as the New Kodak. Film remains an important part of our business but Kodak is also now a foremost leader in digital imaging and printing.

What departments and staff members are involved in social media at Kodak, and how do you determine who is involved in each project?

Krista: In April, we named Jenny Cisney our Chief Blogger and she is responsible for overseeing all our social media activities. As Chief Blogger, Jenny also covers trade shows and events (like the Olympics) and represents Kodak at social media conferences. Tom Hoehn is our Director of Brand Communications and Convergence Media and also plays a lead role. We have an internal Blog Council that meets regularly with representation from our film business, consumer business, graphic communications business, and technology office. Our employee bloggers represent virtually all aspects of the company including technology, R&D, product development, branding, marketing, online, etc.

Jenny Cisney: It’s easy to find people in the company who are passionate about what they do and about Kodak products. There are a lot of photography enthusiasts who are eager to share their pictures and tips.

Kodak does a great deal of sponsorship and events; have you found social media to be a valuable part of these efforts, and why or why not?

Krista: Yes. A great example of this is our announcement of the Kodak Challenge – part of our new partnership with the PGA TOUR. In addition to the traditional press release and press conference, we also had several blogs about the Kodak Challenge, podcasts that were also posted to YouTube, several people twittering including Jenny and our Chief Business Development Officer Jeff Hayzlett who made the announcement, we posted photos to flickr and Facebook, and news on delicious.

How do you define your “ROI” from involvement with social media?

• Feedback from readers and customers via the blogs and email.

• Invitations to speak at top-tier conferences, including BlogWorld Expo and BlogHer.

• Links to our blogs from other blogs and online articles.

• Recognition from social media experts and media such as:

Mario Sundar - #1 Olympic blog, 2008
Debbie Weil - 5 examples of effective corporate blogs, 2007
PR Week - 5 corporate blogs that built buzz, 2007
Business Week
Mentions and compliments in the book “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online” by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.

• Awards: Earlier this year Kodak won three awards for our blogs – the PRSA Bronze Anvil, American Business Award (Stevie Award) and an Interactive Media Award.

What advice do you have for other companies contemplating social media tools like blogging and podcasting?

Jenny Cisney: If you start participating in social media, you have to be dedicated to it. You cannot leave your blog untouched for weeks. Make sure you listen to your customers and take their feedback into account. Be sure you get back to them in a timely manner. And remember your blog doesn’t have to be like other company blogs. Tailor your social media to best suit your business.

My special thanks again to Krista Gleason and Jenny Cisney along with the entire team at Kodak for sharing their story with us! I've got some great takeaways from this that I'll share with you tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Kodak's Social Media Success

2008-09-08T10:14:00.008-05:00

Today, Part 1 of my two-part interview with the awesome social media team at Kodak. I was impressed with some of their blogging during this year's Olympic Games, which prompted me to want to learn more about what they're up to.

We'll be talking about their blogging efforts, the role social media plays in their business, and how they'll be incorporating social media into their future plans. My special thanks to Krista Gleason, Jenny Cisney, and Tom Hoehn for their friendliness and participation!

When did Kodak make the decision to make social media part of their corporate strategy, and why?

Krista Gleason: We launched our first blog – A Thousand Words – in September 2006 and have engaged in other social media since then including podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and delicious. Our social media activities are part of our overall communications and marketing strategy. We use social media to connect with our customers – communicate, listen, interact, engage – and share information about our company and our products and services.

We wanted to have a presence in the blogosphere. It’s important for us to be a part of the conversation.

Tell me a little bit about the three blogs you have, and how and why each one is important to Kodak.

Krista: Kodak has three blogs. A Thousand Words features stories from Kodak employees on a variety of topics but with a focus on photography and imaging. Plugged In features stories about Kodak products and services. Grow Your Biz features stories from Kodak’s Graphic Communications business. Together, they reflect the breadth and expertise of our company - traditional (photography and film), digital, and print.

What kind of impact has blogging and social media had on your company culture? Your customer relationships?

Krista: Internally, blogging has opened up opportunities for employees to share their personal stories thereby helping to boost employee morale. Kodak employees are passionate about their work and their company and the blogs give them a chance to communicate that passion. We currently have over 70 employees who blog (including international bloggers) and new employees continually expressing interest. Externally, our blogs give customers and readers (from over 100 countries) a better understanding of Kodak – from how our products and services can help them do more with their pictures to how the company’s innovations are impacting our world. Our blogs also give Kodak a human face.

People can of course participate in our blog through comments but can also become the subject of our Picture Wednesday blog by submitting a photo to Kodak’s Picture of the Day. During the Olympics, for example, one blogger commented “I want that camera!” to a post about the panoramic feature on our cameras. We get comments like that often.

Jenny Cisney: There have been many online experts who feel that Kodak 'gets it' and customers who appreciate us listening to them. A woman on Twitter was having a problem with her printer and was so grateful when we twittered back with the solution to her problem.

How did blogging enhance the 2008 Olympic experience for Kodak, both as individual staff members, and for your company as a whole?

Jenny: Our blogs demonstrated to readers how Kodak products, services and technology were being used at the Olympics, from services for photojournalists, to printing accreditation badges, postcards and newsletters, to digital photo services for fans. It also showed how the Games and Beijing were captured using Kodak cameras. Photos and video taken on site were shared with tips on taking pictures when traveling. It’s all part of communicating how Kodak can help you “make, manage and move images and information.”

You also have a comprehensive series of podcasts; what drove you to explore this medium? Has it been successful for you, and what have you learned from it?

Krista: Kodak has its own production studio (albeit a small one) so doing podcasts is a great fit. We are pleased with the success of our podcasts (also available through RSS and iTunes). Our Pro Imaging podcasts (new this year) have been especially popular and are also featured on www.imaginginfo.com.

Podcasts are another great tool to communicate with our customers though probably consume the most time given the nature of production. But it’s something we feel adds value to our communications and marketing and we have a lot of fun putting them together.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, where Kodak talks about their definitions of social media ROI, and their words of wisdom for companies contemplating the social media plunge. Thursday I'll recap what I've learned from Kodak, and some ideas for you and your business to explore!

Social Media: What About The Risks?

2008-09-02T11:52:00.004-05:00

Someone asked this a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, and I've been chewing on it ever since.

Is social media risky?

Business in general is fraught with risk. The next client or contract or customer isn't assured. Our advertising campaign could offend someone, our direct mail campaign could be beautifully designed and tested but still fail to achieve the results we want.

Accounting errors happen, and even worse, fraud. Customer service reps have a bad day. IT departments have meltdowns and failures. Products fail to meet expectations, budgets get missed. Employees misbehave, embezzle, share trade secrets. And it all happens on channels outside of social media.

As a very public, lasting, and dynamic communication platform, social media has it's share of potential challenges. And for as powerfully as I believe in its potential to elevate brands, it would be irresponsible to assume that venturing into social media territory doesn't carry some level of risk. Here are a few of the risks associated with social media that we've been talking about:

A customer could leave a negative comment on your blog, or on a social network about your brand.

Criticism happens all the time, and companies need to respond appropriately and thoughtfully. Crisis communication strategy exists purely for this reason. I don't think that social media necessarily increases the chances that something negative will be said about you, but it certainly can amplify the message. Companies embarking on social media adventures need to understand how to monitor their brand online - especially on the company-owned channels - and learn how to engage and respond in a way that bolsters the brand.

An employee could say something on behalf of the company that's not authorized, is potentially offensive, or share something confidential.

Kellye Crane today pointed me to a post that Leigh Durst put on her blog about Whole Foods' potential misstep on Twitter. Apparently, their Twitter representative(s) reposted a tweet with questionable language, and some fallout ensued. Can one misstep like this have more staying power than five smart moves? Social media folks always say that Google never forgets, and more and more we find proof that it doesn't.

Beth Harte penned a great post about her recent experiences on Twitter; the height of the political season has folks tossing barbs left and right, and there is certainly potential for brand damage - both personal and corporate.

We've spent years now using the phone and email to communicate, and the potential exists to really screw up there, too. So what makes social media different? Is it the ubiquitous, open and organic nature of conversation on the web? Does the anoynmity of a computer screen encourage poorer judgment?

Participating in social networks or blogging requires dedicated resources or productivity, and can be difficult to sustain at an active level.

For a moment, I'm going to put aside the argument of whether engaging in social media is a waste of time in the first place, and assume that it's not. But engaging in social media the "right" way requires a commitment, and can be hard work. Understaffing, underestimating, and doing it poorly can be worse than doing nothing at all. A blog with one post that hasn't been updated in months can send a lack of commitment message that a mere absence of blogging might not.

As Mack Collier deftly points out, putting the wrong resources to work can misfire, too. Just because only one employee is familiar with blogging doesn't mean that they're the right choice to blog on behalf of a company. Choosing social media stewards for your company needs to be as well thought out as appointing any major project managers. (One could even argue more so, considering the very public nature of this kind of role.)

The corporate message can't be as easily controlled or managed.

Yes, it's true that you as a company don't necessarily control all your messaging anymore, and your customers are having a greater and more lasting impact on your brand.

But Jeff Summers and Jane Chin are both smart to point out that some industries carry more risk and liability than others for that very messaging. Financial institutions or health care organiations very likely have regulations they must adhere to, and legal obligations that control what kind of information they can disclose and how. For companies in these spaces, social media is a very serious business and legal consideration that has to be approached carefully (if its appropriate at all).

It's more than clear that a sound social media strategy involves analysis of potential issues that can arise as well as the potential benefits. And like any other smart business move, stepping into social media should be treated with respectful planning and communication. Just because it's a shiny "new" toy doesn't mean that it ought to be treated lightly.

Are these risks different than those for other areas of business? Are the standards for social media the same or different, and why? Is there equal risk in doing nothing at all and missing the boat on social media altogether?

Let's continue the conversation in the comments. This is an important subject!

Thanks also to Sonny Gill, Tara Whittle, Tim "Masiguy" Jackson, Rhonda LaShae, and Barbara Baker for weighing in on the conversation, and their great contributions as always (which you can read here on Plurk).

Image by hellolapomme

The Brand Damage Snowball Effect

2008-08-28T09:37:00.008-05:00

All of us, at one point or another, have had a bad experience with a company. Sometimes, it's mild enough for us to grumble for a few moments and go on our way, and give them another shot another day. Other times, it's bad enough that we'll never do business with that company again, but we don't spread that to other people.

Then, there's the tipping point where we're so ticked off, we not only vow never to do business with them again, but we tell everyone.

And if you're the company that's at the business end of that shotgun, you had better be paying attention.

My friend (and disclosure: client) David Alston is undertaking a move this week, which sucks in and of itself. And he was relying on U-Haul to help him with that move. When his wife dealt with some absolutely abominable customer service regarding their truck reservation, he put his gripe on Twitter for thousands of people to see. He also blogged about it (in a much more objective and level headed way than I might have).

What ensued was an onslaught of responses from David's Twitter community, and a great post from Catch Up Lady detailing some of the responses and the snowball effect of David's tweet reaching his followers and their followers and so on. (Just in case you think Twitter still doesn't matter. But this, for another post.)

One of those followers posted the CEO's phone number, and David sent him a message. He did call back, but as of this post, I don't think they've connected. I'll be curious about what this guy has to say about the behavior of his field locations and representatives (and the subsequent damage they're doing to his brand). I'll also be curious to know whether the phone call is merely a gesture, and if this guy is aware of the negative publicity he's receiving across the web (of which I'm sure David will make him aware).

David also did his part by canceling his reservation with U-Haul and subsequently booking with Penske, and he then tweeted about how great their customer service was.

If anything to me, this is yet another powerful case for why listening to social media is critically important, and you can do that even if you don't have a blog or a Twitter account. Hearing what's being said can uncover a gold mine (or quagmire) of information from your customers - or former customers - just waiting for you. If I were the U-Haul CEO, I would sure as heck want to know that all these people, in the span of a few hours, had just shared how much they think my company sucks.

Dozens and dozens of people responded to David with their horror stories (and I have one of my own). This many horror stories, and they're still out there managing to do business? What if no one had managed to give David the CEO's contact information? Would they have heard a thing? Or cared? Do you think this experience is significant enough to teach an old dog new tricks?

And then the next level: Where is the tipping point, I wonder, to take down a giant like U-Haul or force them to do things differently, and when does our collective patience run out? How do we translate the negativity we feel and express in words, and translate it into action by not supporting the brand enough where they have to change or perish? What separates a stubborn brand from one willing to evolve based on what they learn?

Can social media tip the scales and turn talk into action?

Fancy term. Really (really) basic ideas.

2008-08-25T08:00:00.002-05:00

If the term "social media" freaks you (or your boss or your clients) out and causes consternation in the conference room, consider this. It's a fancy term that describes the tools we use to do something that's been around in business since the dawn of time: get more customers and keep them happy.

Let's scrap the tools for a minute - forget the "What" part of social media and suspend your notions of Twitter or Facebook or blogs or podcasts.

This actually seems so utterly fundamental that part of me hesitates to write this as if everyone's going to say "well duh, Amber." But I keep seeing folks scrutinizing social media as if it were this revolutionary, alien concept in business that has no bearing on what they're used to. And when it comes to the technology specifically, that may be the case. These are the means, but not the end game. In practice, all social media does is facilitate a few good tenets of a customer-oriented business like:

Saying Hello
A good part of smart business is finding new ways to say hello to people who are not yet your customers, ideally by carefully locating them somewhere they gather most, and starting a conversation about something interesting. (Note I did not say finding your customers and immediately starting off by selling something.). And of course, greeting your regular customers in a friendly way, wherever you see them.

Being Available
Before someone does business with you, they may have questions they want to ask about who you are and what you do. They may want to see the people behind the business, get to know and trust you. And once they're your customer, they'll look to you to be accessible, responsive, and personable when they interact with you. Because as we've all heard a dozen and forty times, people do business with other people they like.

Being Accountable
Every business screws up eventually. The more you learn about exactly how and where you've screwed up - including from people who would never tell you directly, but who might tell their friends instead - the better your chances of fixing issues when they happen (if not before). Apologizing, taking responsibility for the mistake, and offering a remedy builds trust and credibility. And a little sense of humor never hurts.

Solving Problems
You're in business because something you make or do makes life or business easier for someone else. Your contributions are more valuable if you can hear the subtleties of those problems in order to better your product or service. And if you hear new problems to solve, that's even better. One suggestion box is good. A few hundred (thousand?) - with built in ways to respond quickly and easily and provide valuable ongoing information to your customers? Better.

Saying Thank You
So much easier when you have people actively listening, and widespread mechanisms for communicating with them.

The real question we ought to be asking ourselves, folks, is not what social media is going to do differently for us. It's how we're going to use a host of new, more amplified, and more ubiquitous tools to do what we ought already be doing, but better.

photo by helico

Social Media Powers Better Advertising

2008-08-21T14:07:00.003-05:00

One of my issues with advertising has always been that, as a consumer (not an ad expert), I feel like so much advertising misses the mark. It's not personal. It's not relevant. It's often flashy or gimmicky or shocking for the sake of it, but rarely does it help me better understand a brand or build a relationship with it. My good friend and marketing smart guy posted recently about advertising that sucks, and I posted about an ad from the ASPCA that I think totally misses the mark.

I watch the Super Bowl commercials each year like everyone else, but have to be honest that I rarely remember the brands themselves that were part of the remarkable spots. And as much as I love the Budweiser Clydesdales, I'm still not going to buy their beer.

To me, advertising should be about creating awareness for a company, product, service or idea in a way that really connects with people. In human terms. And demonstrates how the brand embodies those ideas. People develop brand loyalty because it does something for them in a way nothing else can, or because they feel a personal affinity for the company/product/service for a particular reason.

And I don't find any of those things in a jingle, a stunt, sophmoric humor, or flashy weird graphics that are meant to be bizarre or avant garde but have no material connection to the brand itself. And I see lots and lots of ads that do so many of those things. The ads themselves may be interesting or "remarkable" but that doesn't translate to the brand. Am I missing something?

And I know we use Dell as an example a lot, but that's really because they're doing so many things right, like their ReGeneration project. They've asked a question: What does green mean to you? And as part of their project, they launched a contest on Facebook where they asked folks to submit artwork that spoke to their feelings about being green. I'm actually a bit behind here - the campaign is several months old now - but it has sticking power in my head because of how open Dell was to letting the community determine the direction for their project.

The cool part to me is that Dell did something that's one of the pillars of social media in my mind: They let their community create their advertising for them. They took some of the artwork and created ads around them. No fancy agencies, no "crafted messages", no gimmicks or in-your-face corporate speak. A sample is below.

Dell realized that their customers could and do build up their brand as well or better than they can. Jeremiah Owyang has a good breakdown of the campaign here.

So are you leveraging what your customers and fans are doing on behalf of your brand? How do you think companies can better embrace the brand assets that their customers might be creating for them? Do you think advertising is as misguided as I do, and if so, why hasn't it changed? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Contemplating the Social Media Plunge

2008-08-19T10:14:00.003-05:00

When I asked around about the reasons why companies hesitate to get involved with social media - whether misconceptions or legitimate concerns - it sparked some great discussion.

By far, the overwhelming consensus was that social media makes companies far more transparent than they're used to being. Dave Murr and Matthew T. Grant on Twitter and Sonny Gill on Plurk all said that companies are uncomfortable not completely controlling the brand message anymore. Of course, the message we're delivering loud and clear is that customers are the ones driving much of your brand messaging anyway, with or without you (and they started doing it the minute they became your customers). Frank Martin says that the practice of some traditional media - press releases, advertising messages - being company-controlled gives companies the illusion that they should be able to control all of their marketing. In a digital age, that's nearly impossible.

Putting time and money toward something that doesn't have hard ROI attached.
Beth Harte and Laura Pritchard agree that many companies want to see a hard, direct line between efforts and sales leads. So far, metrics for social media are soft and indirect, and tend to be reflected instead through measurements in other areas - website traffic, customer satisfaction levels, strength of relationships with customers and prospects. How do you think these effects compare to other cultivation efforts - like customer appreciation events, golf outings, or other business development activities?

Taking communication outside the communication department. Companies may have a hard time trusting their non-communications trained employees to do and say the right thing without intense supervision. The trick is that customer service reps are talking to customers about product issues, your accounting team is discussing the slow decision processes with their vendors, your product managers are talking about disagreement about the new widget design. Employees aren't following the script in their everyday business interactions, anyway, and giving them a chance to communicate more openly on behalf of the company can bring to light new insights.

Thinking that social media is an all-or-nothing proposition. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester has a great post today about how scare tactics are causing some companies to steer clear of social media. The reality is that social media isn't an overnight sea change, nor is it a silver bullet. It's one (important) part of a comprehensive, and well thought out communication strategy for any business.

Being faced with questions they don't have answers to. Tara Whittle mentioned this one and I was glad she did. Sometimes, online customers will ask questions or point out issues that don't have immediate resolutions. In these cases, I think it's less the immediate solution to the problem, but how the company handles it that matters. Do they have the confidence to answer "We're not sure! But we're going to find out, and here's how we'll let you know when we do." That can build trust and credibility.

Committing the resources to do it right. Social media done comprehensively takes an investment of time, capital, and human resources. As I've posted before, engaging in social media can be a part of anyone's job. Listening alone takes effort - GM alone has at least 10 staff people dedicated to monitoring their brand on the web. As Sonny says, monitoring social media has become an extesion of brand mangement. And once you've heard what's being said, responding and doing something of value with the feedback you receive requires new thinking and sometimes, new ways of doing things. And, as another savvy plurker pointed out, some companies might even think that shifting their position and messaging in response to feedback can make them seem weak. I'd venture to say that evolving your messaging to respond to your community does quite the opposite, but would welcome your take on this too!

It's just new. Frank points out that it may not be fear so much as that many companies simply aren't early adopters, and he's right. Kellye Crane points out that much like websites once were the unproven tool, some companies are waiting to see just how other companies are making use of social media and how they in turn can leverage it for their specific business. And some may be comfortable with the status quo, thinking that "if it ain't broke...". The more that bellwether companies like Dell, Starbucks, Ford, Beam Global, Southwest Airlines and more blaze the trail, the more likely others are to see the value for themselves, too.

So how about you? Is your company venturing into the waters of social media, and what are your concerns? Are you the champion for social media, and how are you addressing these concerns with your clients or management? Please share in the comments!

Photo by danflo

On Women and the Internet

2008-08-14T12:29:00.008-05:00

This morning, the New York Times ran an article about women online, this time in the Technology section about advertising on women's sites.

I thought the article was well done, and I'm glad that it was placed where it was. (BTW - I get the whole logistics about the siloed section placements in the mainstream papers. We've been over this, so please let's not revisit that quagmire. I still think it's a crappy system. But that's not what this post is about.)

The article had a very balanced tone, was very business focused, and featured objective writing about the appeal of female-centric websites for advertisers wanting to reach this influential audience. Statistics and studies abound - see just a few results from Forrester here - about the influence and buying power of women in markets both online and off.

I do think there's tremendous value in segmenting gender demographics for marketing and branding purposes, because let's face it - men and women are different. And statistically speaking, we skew our interests toward certain things. Marketing and advertising have spent many, many millions of dollars on gender-focused campaigns for this very reason. And as far as social media goes, advertising dollars are shifting online, and in large part to women-centric sites.

The discussion on Plurk this morning, however, shifted gears a bit, and we started talking about women and the internet in general. How do they use it? Are the largest volume of them really using sites dedicated to fashion, food, or entertainment?

To wit: this question from my social media-savvy friend Deb from I Can't Keep Up:

Why not show how women participate online in other ways? I really struggle over this issue. I would rather see more evidence of women using the internet intellectually, professionally, and even for their sport. So maybe I just want to see something on women's participation in non-gender based sites. Then we would have an idea of women's impact overall.

This report from Pew talks about how women are more likely to use the internet to foster their human connections with others. The popular blog Lip-Sticking talks about marketing to women online - and covers topics as diverse as entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, health and fitness, real estate, and technology (and yes, there are plenty of posts about fashion, family, and other traditionally female topics).

Personally, I don't frequent sites that are female-focused exclusively. I prefer to get my information from all across the web, and my tastes are probably not "traditionally" female. But oddly, I talk to a LOT of women who have similar interests to mine, and eschew destinations focused on lighter fare like fashion or celebrities. (For the record, I wholeheartedly endorse the work of bloggers like Dooce. 850,000 people read her blog - including me on occasion - which means she is unequivocably providing fun and at times irreverent content that people love. Great stuff, and the essence of building a community online.)

So, the big questions:

Am I just swimming in a fishbowl of other non-traditional women? Are we predisposed to dismiss "women's" sites simply because they're not our cup of tea, and are we missing something as a result? Are we too sensitive about the idea that women like to talk fashion, celebrities, and sex?

Does the impact of women online who don't target their activities based on their gender matter to the future of the internet and social media?

The statistics don't lie, and the women's sites abound and thrive (which I think is great, for the women who DO want that content). Advertisers are spending their money there, and presumably they're seeing returns for their efforts. But according to the NYT article, advertisers just aren't seeing the value in reaching women on sites that focus on more serious topics like politics or business. Why is this?

How is the internet going to adapt to and connect with women that aren't in that traditionally female niche? Should it?

Are they reaching us already, in more mainstream ways? Are we in the minority, and is it merely a numbers game? Do we just not respond to advertising in the same way, and why should they care about us?

Would love to hear your thoughts and insights. I know I'll be chewing on this one for a while!

photo by Valerie Renee

The Plurk Brain Trust

2008-08-12T11:05:00.003-05:00

Today, I was stumped.

I was suffering from writers block for the blog. It happens. So, I threw out a Plurk to my friends asking about what they'd like to see here.

The discussion that ensued was a rapid-fire, but deep well of information and inspiration.

My very public thanks to friends Deb Robison, Sonny Gill, Te-Ge Bramhall, Justin Whitaker, Mack Collier, Eddie Soto, Donna Tocci, Naomi Meredith, Connie Bensen, Mao de Mao, Amie Gillingham. You guys - along with all of my connections on Twitter, Plurk, and everywhere else - are the very definition of community.

So, stay tuned for a new post series I'm researching on internal social networks. Seems more and more companies are exploring them, and I'd like to focus in closer on some of the advantages, challenges, and questions that these create. I think building communities and connections within companies can be as important as doing it outside, and I'm excited to see what I learn. Look forward to sharing with all of you, and as always, thanks for reading.

image by flattop341

Are your social networks too scattered?

2008-08-11T08:34:00.000-05:00

On Plurk, my friend Kellye Crane pointed me to a social map that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 did for his online presence - both the places where he maintains a presence, and those where he's simply in touch or aware. Check out his post about it here.

So naturally, it got my gears turning. Since social media is so much of what I do and breathe every day, I'm pondering where the perfect fulcrum is to balance having a social presence with being so completely decentralized that you can't give any one community it's due. Brian says:

The truth is that we are embracing new tools because they’re are either intriguing and fascinating to us and/or because those within our social graph are also adopting them to stay connected and participate in online conversations.

We are responsible for the decentralization of our content and our attention.

Some individuals are using things like FriendFeed to aggregate all of their sites and try to stay abreast of them all. Personally, that removes the unique elements of each community and seems to make participating more about me than contributing to the community, which kind of goes against my grain. And I don't see companies making use of FriendFeed to connect with individuals (please let me know if you know otherwise, I'd certainly be interested!).

Then there are tools like Ping.fm that help you post a singular update to many networks. But again, this takes away some of the interaction quality to me because, in my case, it wouldn't be as natural to hang around and participate in the (hopefully) ensuing conversation.

I haven't yet participated actively on YouTube, StumbleUpon, or Mixx even though I have a presence in those places, if nothing else to understand what they're about in basic terms. Obviously, I've barely scratched the surface. And I haven't even touched many other sites at all - ooVoo or Qik or Utterz. In some cases, I avoid something that seems like a new-but-not-distinctly-different iteration of something I already use with success, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Shift gears away from my personal experience, and put it in business perspective. Where are my potential clients online? Where are your business' potential customers and clients? How are they using these tools, or are they? Is this all a fishbowl, and are we swimming around just running into the same people in different places?

My savvy and always insightful friend Connie Reece put it this way:

Amber, yes the "right" networks are the ones that will be most profitable for your business, and that will be where your customers are.

Takes a lot of research and careful consideration to find exactly what those are, sure. But to me, this is a critical aspect of making social media strategy a viable, effective part of your overall communications plans. Many of these networks are most familar to the early adopters, or people who focus on this space for a living. But is this where the critical mass of customers is?

Taking the time to understand your customers and how they're using the web to engage with businesses cannot be underestimated. Not every social site or network is going to be right for every business. And participating in one or two at a really engaged, invested level is much more important than having a face everywhere but a personality nowhere. It's also important to recognize that just because I enjoy participating in a social community, it doesn't mean that I'm connecting with a business audience of potential customers. They may be somewhere else entirely.

So what say you? How do you draw the line, and what criteria do you use to make sure your investments of time and effort in social media are paying off? Do you have different criteria for your personal involvement and that of your business? I'd love to hear about your approach.

image by jurvetson

ASPCA: Marketing For a Cause Gone Awful

2008-08-07T11:46:00.005-05:00

I'm a huge animal lover. I have two rescue dogs, two rescue cats, and would probably have a houseful if only I had acreage.

But I cannot watch the ASPCA commercial that's been on the air now for several months. (I'm embedding it below, but I warn you that it's hard to watch, and might be near impossible if you're an animal lover. I had to stop it playing on YouTube just so I could copy the link. If you're sensitive, might just skip it and take my word for it.)

It's been running on the Food Network, which is a favorite TV destination of mine. This whole thing is awful to me for two big reasons.

1) Food Network is losing a viewer on a regular basis, because every time the commercial comes on, I switch channels. And often I forget to switch back. This morning, I've switched three times in the last hour, and I now will not go back for fear of running into this spot again.

2) The ASPCA has gone past the line of sympathy and empathy, and crossed into anguish. If I can't watch the commercial because of how distressing it is, I'm not going to be compelled to stay tuned and give. It's causing the opposite reaction - complete avoidance, despair, helplessness. That's not what they're after I'm sure. And I've heard from literally dozens of people who won't watch the commercial either. Are they giving?

Tugging at heartstrings might have it's place in advertising, marketing, fundraising - emotional appeal is a cornerstone of strong messaging, and I understand the motivation. But I think there's a line. I'd be much more likely to get online and give if I saw a spot full of success stories - happy animals moving on to bigger and better lives after being rescued by the ASPCA. Instead, I'm afraid to head to their site lest I be bombarded with horrific images of mistreated animals all over again.

I *know* what the ASPCA does - I'm not ignorant of the mistreatment of animals, it's harsh reality, and the great strides the ASPCA is making to combat it. But seeing it in all of its brutal reality isn't making me more likely to get closer to their organization.

So what do you think? Is this spot too extreme for you, or do you think this is just the right message? Are you motivated to give, or to change the channel?

Blogs from the Social Media Fishbowl

2008-08-07T07:27:00.004-05:00

A few days ago, I was asking around on Twitter and Plurk about social media people's must-read blogs. After a good influx of responses and requests to share, here we go! I'm happy that while some of these are old favorites, a few were new to me. And of course this is not an exhaustive list and isn't meant to be definitive; these simply represent the 25 that were mentioned most often (most more than once).

Some focus on PR, some on marketing, some on a blend of everything. Please add yours in the comments, too.

1. The Buzz Bin by Geoff Livingston

2. Chaos Scenario by Cam Beck, John Herrington and Paul Herring

3. Church of the Customer Blog by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

4. ChrisBrogan.com

5. Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse

6. Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

7. Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg

8. Every Dot Connects (multiple authors)

9. For Immediate Release by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson

10. Influential Marketing Blog by Rohit Bhargava

11. Logic+Emotion by David Armano

12. Marketing Profs Daily Fix (multiple authors)

13. Mashable (multiple authors)

14. /Message by Stowe Boyd

15. Micropersuasion by Steve Rubel

16. Online Marketing Blog by Lee Odden

17. PR Squared by Todd Defren

18. PR 2.0 by Brian Solis

19. Read Write Web (multiple authors)

20. Social Media Explorer by Jason Falls

21. The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty

22. Social Media Today (multiple authors)

23. Techipedia by Tamar Weinberg

24. The Viral Garden by Mack Collier

25. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Like I said, I could easily extend this into a list of 100+, so please share in the comments what blogs are can't-miss for you!

Image by Mike Licht

25 Reasons Social Media Can (Should?) Be Anyone's Job

2008-08-04T10:07:00.003-05:00

Social Media is still a new thing to many people and companies, so I’m thinking optimistically - even aspirationally - here. There are most certainly companies that are ahead of the curve with the way they’re allowing social media to be an undercurrent of many aspects of their business. Here, 25 ways that social media can apply to lots of different job descriptions, no matter what you’re in business to do. Add yours, too, in the comments!

Marketing and PR
This is the obvious category, of course, since these are the folks responsible for crafting, managing, and communicating the company’s messaging to customers and prospects. It’s often (but not always) the “home” for social media in a company. Here, social media can:

Help you understand if your customers are online, and if they are, what sites and tools they use most.

Provide insights into your own company culture and highlight your business’ comfort level with social media tools.

Give the company a human face through online discourse, highlighting the people behind the brand and the hearts and minds that drive it.

Let you hear how your community – instead of the company – defines the brand. Messaging in their language is more likely to stick.

Give you human insight into market dynamics, instead of relying on only structured reports or surveys. Take the “pulse” of your community, from their perspective.

Hear how your competitors are perceived online, too, to identify additional ways to differentiate your brand from theirs.

Sales and Business Development
In sales, finding and solving problems is the key to success, and good listening skills are essential. In the world of social media, business development pros can:

Locate prospects that might be self-identifying elsewhere on the web without making themselves readily apparent to the business.

Listen to the words your customers use to describe you, for better or worse. They might write your sales pitch for you.

Maintain relationships with customers before and after the sale by continuing to connect with them online.

Again, competitive analysis and insights about how and where your competitors are reaching the prospects that you might be looking for.

Identify trends and niche markets that you might not yet be tapping.

Hear how your prospects and clients are articulating their needs and pain points so your future presentations and proposals can address them directly.

Open more channels for communication – different tools and sites – and provide opportunities for dialogue that are more comfortable for customers.

Customer/Client Services
Customer service can be a never-ending, demanding job but it’s absolutely a make-or-break piece of any business. So, how can customer and client service pros tap into social media?

Identify product or service issues that are being talked about online first. Believe it or not, some people don’t come straight to the company with their issues.

Say thank you to clients and customers in their own space.

Solve minor issues on the spot (even in other peoples’ online territory, like their website or a community forum) and demonstrate that you’re listening. Be the conduit back to the company to resolve more complex issues, faster.

Build trust by developing and maintaining relationships with customers during a critical time – in between sales.

Serve as the outward-facing voice of the company to build its’ community and provide a direct line of communication back to you.

Actively ask for feedback from your customers about their recent experiences with you, and what would have made it better. Doing it live and online turns it into a living, breathing dialogue instead of just another static survey.

Product or Brand Managers
Even though product or brand managers aren’t always directly customer facing, social media can still play a key intelligence role. By listening, your product and brand teams can:

Identify quality issues in competitor’s products for a leg up in product improvements.

Hear customer’s “wish lists” that they’re posting on the web for products you may not have, or enhancements to the ones you do.

Work with customer support teams to develop comprehensive responses to product or service issues in real-time.

Help develop a useful FAQ for customers and clients based on common issues communicated on the web. Instead of relying on third party forums, make your company site the destination for information.

Gather anecdotal evidence of innovative ways that customers might be using your products (that could be very different than what you intended!). Great example: Ikea Hacker.

Create product tutorials that directly address the feedback and issues you might hear from users online. (Best part: go where they are and introduce them directly.)

I didn’t break out executive ranks above because I’m thinking there’s an executive role in every category (?). But as several people pointed out to me, executive buy in is critical. Otherwise, the big gold mine of information gathered via social media won’t be worth a fig. Somewhere, someone has to do something with the insights and use them to move forward.

Seems as though that might be the biggest challenge of all: what to do when you know the information is valuable but there are disconnects? Executives might delegate without being invested in the results. Managers might not be empowered to act. Production folks might not have all the information they need to understand why that information is important in the first place. Perhaps another post for another time. I’d love your thoughts on this one!

Thanks to Geoff Livingston, Frank Martin, Gianandrea Facchini and Sonny Gill and all of my fantastic fellow marketing/social media mavens for their great input on this post! You all teach and inspire me daily.

What do you think, folks? Help me round out the list with your ideas, and let’s share these with our colleagues, clients, teams.

cool image by Ralph Bijker

50 Days (and counting) until SBMU!

2008-08-01T12:13:00.003-05:00

Have you signed up for SBMU yet? I'm going, and last month I told you all about why. I hope you'll join us - you've got until August 29th to get the early birdie deal. Go on! I'll wait. (Jennifer is even helping you find airfare deals to get there.)

Done? ok!

So why am I posting again? Because whether you're going or not, your biz might just be right for sponsorship of this super event. You've got a tight knit audience of small and medium business owners and decision makers that might just need to do business with you. And I'm a big proponent of sponsorships that do what they're supposed to do: connect great businesses with the people who need them to solve problems and might not find them any other way. (We all know it's a big pond out there...)

In particular, SBMU is putting on a speed networking event as part of their activities that benefits COSI, the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus. 100% of the proceeds from the tickets and silent auction go to COSI's Community Access program that provides tickets to the center for low income and at-risk families. And the event is open to the public, so beyond just connecting with SBMU groupies, you're reaching out to the Columbus community. My love for a good cause runs deep, so I hope you'll give it a look.

Can your company be a sponsor? Benefits include logos, links, and mentions in Search Engine Guide and Small Business Brief Weekly Newsletters, email connections with conference attendees, a chat with the charity networking event attendees to let them know about you and what you're up to, and the best part: admission to the conference. Go here and have a look at the sponsor packet to see if this or another SBMU sponsorship might be a good outreach for you.

(Note that I mean outreach, not just any old marketing buy. You're reaching and communicating with a savvy audience that's dedicated to investing in their business and in relationships. And you'll get to connect with them personally.)

If you think your company might be a fit, or you know someone who might, drop the Unleashed team a note.

I can't wait to absorb and learn and network and surely have some fun. See you in Columbus!

New York Times Wants to Censor and Influence Bloggers?

2008-07-31T08:44:00.006-05:00

On Saturday, I posted about the New York Times and their coverage that same evening of the BlogHer 08 Conference in their online Fashion & Style section (The Sunday Styles section in the print version). I was particularly upset about where the paper placed the story and the overall tone of the article. I also wrote a brief letter to the editor that day that expressed my thoughts on the topic. You can read my post and my letter to the editor right here.

Yesterday, I got a phone call and an email from a New York Times editor in response to my letter, asking simply if I would please call her. So I did, about an hour later.

The contact is an editor for the Thursday and Sunday editions of the Times’ Styles section (known as the Fashion & Style section on the online version). She said she was contacting me because she wanted me to consider revising the letter I had written to the editor because they couldn’t publish it as it was. (She also mentioned that she had read my post and several others expressing similar criticism for the story and its placement).

So, naturally, I asked why. She said that my letter specifically criticized the placement of the story, which it did. But she went on to explain that the Times’ sections operate somewhat autonomously, and when one section gets a good story, they would never “give it away” to another section. She said that the section in which a story was placed was not something they “controlled”, but that it was based on which section editor got the story or whom the reporter chose to pitch.

Effectively, she told me that they wouldn’t publish my letter if it talked about the placement of the story since the section placement wasn’t “something [they] could respond to” and was something they “don’t have an answer for”. Instead, she suggested that if I framed my letter to focus instead on tone and content of the story itself, I could resubmit it to her directly for publication consideration.

What?

There’s a couple of big lessons to be learned here about proper outreach to your community, and how not to engage with bloggers.

Mistake #1
First of all, a letter to the editor is intended as an expression of opinion by the readership of a paper. A publication could reasonably edit a letter for length, but suggesting that content and intent of a letter be revised and resubmitted for the purposes of making it easier or more palatable to the paper isn’t reasonable (or ethical, in my view).

In this case, the Times didn’t want to publish my criticism of the editorial judgment because they would have then had to explain how and why stories get placed in specific sections. They also might have had to defend the content of their Style section and justify why it was a suitable place for the BlogHer story after all. So they’ve made my letter to the editor about what it does (or doesn’t do) for them, instead of about engaging and including the voice of their readers.

Lesson: When engage in dialogue with your community, you lose credibility and respect when you try to censor or influence that conversation just because you don’t like what’s being said.

Mistake #2
In our follow up correspondence after the phone call, the editor asked that, should I choose to blog again on this topic, I not reveal her name because she’s “not a higher-up in the section” and would “rather not be seen as speaking on behalf of the section in print.” However, her phone call to me was from her desk at the Times, and her email to me was from her New York Times email account. In both cases, she was clearly presenting herself as a representative of the paper whose duties, per her email to me, “include [responding] to letter writers.”

They say in journalism that nothing is ever truly off the record. The Times, however, via this editor, is asking to be exactly that.

Lesson: If you’re going to be a part of the conversation, be transparent. Own your viewpoint and speak as yourself. Otherwise, your community questions your motives and you lose their trust.

So what should they have done?

Here’s my take:

• Either chosen to publish my letter as it was, or chosen not to publish it as is their prerogative (after all, publication isn’t guaranteed). But never should their response have been to try and convince me to amend my opinion because they didn’t have a suitable response.

• Commented on my post. The editor mentioned that she’d read my blog post about it, and that gave her and the Times the perfect opportunity to engage in the conversation and contribute their perspective.

• Respected my stance rather than trying to influence it. They didn’t have to agree with me. But trying to get me to revise my letter to the editor or suggest how I should treat future blog posts tells me that they’d rather control the message than have a discussion.

Let me be clear that I think the Times, in theory, made the right move by reaching out to someone who is clearly speaking up about them, and to them. Engagement is much better than ignoring. But the question becomes what does more damage: Not responding at all, or responding and trying to influence a letter writer or blogger to amend their content?

I think the piece itself and the editor’s response to my letter underscores the lack of respect that the Times has for bloggers, their readers, and their influence within the larger media community. The overall tone of the exchange with the editor, while courteous and friendly on the surface, leads me to think that the Times not only wants to unduly influence the conversation, but that they might be taking this ill-advised approach with other bloggers, too.

This whole situation highlights an archaic and potentially damaging system that papers like the Times are using to determine where their stories run. I think they ought to be rethinking this for the sake of integrity.

So what do you think? How would you have reacted to such a request? Do you think the New York Times handled this correctly? If not, what should they have done differently and what are the lessons to be learned?

Photo by Anderson Mancini

New York Times Commits a Fashion Faux-Pas about BlogHer

2008-07-26T19:44:00.004-05:00

It's not often I get on my soapbox on my blog; my intention is to share with you, my good readers, a bit of widsom and insight and share everything I've learned in kind from all of you. But I'm hoppin' mad at the New York Times for how they've managed to undermine some fantastically accomplished and groundbreaking women from BlogHer.

BlogHer is a community of women bloggers who blog about everything from cars to health and wellness, technology, green causes, law, social change and dozens of other topics. With over 13,000 members and over 10,000 blogs on their directory, it's a powerhouse of content, expertise, and community building. These women are driven, and influential.

So imagine my frustration - nay, disgust - when the New York Times managed to write a story about their recent BlogHer08 conference and put it on their Fashion and Style page?

It prompted me to write a letter to the editor:

I’m so disappointed that you managed to completely undermine the professional, hardworking group at BlogHer by parking that article on your “Fashion & Style” page. Why not Business? Technology? These women are changing the face of technology and the online world, and you’re parking them off in a trivial corner instead of among the gamechanging minds of Web 2.0 where they belong.

This is exactly why glass ceilings exist. Way to take a legitimate, amazingly powerful event for professionals and treat it as “aw, how cute!”.

Shame on you.

That pretty much sums it up for me. I'm thankful that events and communities like BlogHer are garnering recognition in mainstream media for the incredible things they're doing. Blogging and social media are changing the face of marketing, communications, and mainstream media. But I am so distressed that this particular event was treated like it was some cutsie fashion show with a bunch of women getting manicures, drinking tea, and giggling with one another over soap operas. Even the article has a rather condescending tone, as if they NYT was surprised and amused at this little gathering of mommies who blog.

Blogging is a commitment. It takes dedication, passion, and focus to do it well. It is shifting boundaries all over the world about how people, businesses, and media get and share information. And communities like BlogHer are the essence of bringing people together to learn, share, and teach one another (sound like any of the definitions I've given about social media???).

So I repeat, shame on you New York Times. BlogHer members - and all of the evangelists of Web 2.0, social media, and community - deserve better than that.

Image credit: Wendy Piersall of Sparkplugging.com

Social Media Group Therapy

2008-07-23T20:09:00.006-05:00

Groups for social media enthusiasts and practitioners are popping up, and that's a great thing. Whether you're a lone soldier looking to network, or a large corporation that needs to take social media beyond the basics, there's a group for you. Here, just a few that I've come across in my travels (and feel free to share yours in the comments!):

Free Memberships

Marketing 2.0

Marketing 2.0 is a burgeoning community that, in their own words, "is a community of passionate marketers sharing ideas, insights, advice, stories, and occasional rants and raves about how to operationalize Web 2.0. In other words, how to bake things like social media, conversational marketing, and online communities into the foundation of marketing."

I personally love this approach and am encouraged by the potential of their membership. I'm particularly fond of the companion community that has a bevy of great information on the blog and through the member forum. Just reading can teach you a lil' something new. (Note: I'm a member).

Society for Word of Mouth

Billed as the place to be for those who seek word of mouth enlightenment, SWOM is a fun community with some great personalities at the helm - BenMcConnell and Jackie Huba. (You might know them from their awesome Church of the Customer Blog or their book Citizen Marketers). It's purpose is to be a free social network for those immersed (or just interested) in word of mouth, and to be a premium educational resource so it's community can bring word of mouth to their own organization. I'm big fans of theirs, so I hurried to join when I learned about it.

There are local groups for SWOMies, as well as a discussion forum, a library of resources, and some great videos. With just shy of 1,000 members, I'm eager to see where Jackie, Ben, and the community take this.

Paid Memberships

Social Media Club

You may have been hearing the buzz around Twitter, Plurk, or the Blogosphere about the SMC's announcement of their 42 board members. Founded by Chris Heuer, Howard Greenstein and Kristie Wells, the SMC says this about their reason for being: "Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media."

Chapters are getting off the ground across the globe, and promise to deliver some great events and networking opportunities for us social media type people. Membership is truly a steal: Just $100 for a professional membership up to $2,500 for a corporate membership of 10. They even offer a free "open" membership if the hundred bucks is just too much for you right but you'd like to somehow be involved.

There doesn't appear to be a Chicago chapter alive and kicking yet, but maybe I'll kick off an email...

Word of Mouth Marketing Association

According to their website, WOMMA is the official trade association for the word of mouth marketing industry. WOMMA's mission is to promote and improve word of mouth marketing by:

* Promoting "best practices" to ensure more effective marketing
* Protecting consumers and the industry with strong ethical guidelines
* Evangelizing word of mouth as an effective marketing tool
* Setting standards to encourage its use

Membership includes networking opportunities, access to research, and event discounts. Members include marketing and advertising agencies, PR firms, educational institutions, consumer products companies, and more. Membership fees start at $1,000 per year for small businesses up through $10,000 per year for governing members.

International Blogger and New Media Association

From the IBNMA site: The IBNMA has been formed to serve as a single voice representing members of the industry and as an advocate to promote its growth. The Association’s mission is four-fold, to provide: Research, information, education and advocacy to bloggers, podcasters, social media consultants and others related to the industry in any way.

My buddy Paul Chaney has been talking about the recent relaunch of this org, for which he serves as President. For $25, I think it's worth checking out. They're talking about an intranet for members, and continuing their current benefits that include discounted registration to BlogWorld and New Media Expo. It's still a little new, but I'm all for giving us students of social media more places to gather, share, and learn.

Society for New Communications Research

SNCR is a non-profit think tank that's "dedicated to the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society."

With several publications and educational events, including the well-regarded New Communications Forum, SNCR is the academic arm of the marketing 2.0 world. Membership starts at a mere $250 per year for students, and range from $495 for associate membership all the way to $25,000 to be a corporate partner.

Blog Council

If you're part of a large company that's already gone through the growing pains of integrating social media and blogging, the Blog Council might be a great fit for you. It's intended to bring together senior executives to explore issues and share best practices with one another in a private, productive environment.

The member list is impressive; I think it's a valuable place for the "big kids" that are looking to take their social media efforts to the next level. It's also designed to be intensely respectful of demanding executive schedules; events are based on rapid-fire phone calls between members and online forums, and just three live one-day meetings per year that are about peer-to-peer discussions and networking. Hop on over to their website if you are (or know of) a senior corporate executive that ought to be part of this.

I'm sure this is just the start of what's to come in our industry. And don't forget to check out some of the other larger industry organizations like the American Marketing Association, a local Interactive Marketing Association group, or Media Bistro's AvantGuild association. Please let me know what groups I've missed!

Today's awesome image brought to you by VividBreeze

They're Talking About You! Now What?

2008-07-21T09:00:00.002-05:00

So, then. You've done your homework. You've listened. You know what social media isn't and you're ready to dive in. You're paying attention.

And lo and behold - they're talking about you! And as GI Joe reminded us, knowing is half the battle.

But Now What??

Prepare for Action
First, be sure you have the tools in place for great content and conversation. Do you have:

A great website or blog to send people to for information and valuable, relevant and timely content?
An easy way for people to contact you? Think multiple channels like phone, email, and instant messaging. Or extend your ears and try Twitter or Plurk.
Excitement, an open mind, and enthusiasm for what social media can do for you? If you're not enjoying the interaction people will know.
Resources at the ready to answer questions, troubleshoot, or provide additional information to your community?

Got all those things and then some? Great. Let's talk about what you're hearing, and a few thoughts on how to engage. And please, add your own! Comment. Argue with me. Point out what I've missed! I want to learn from you, too.

The Good
There's nothing more gratifying than to hear that you're doing a great job. Your customers and clients are delighted, and they'd recommend you to anyone needing what you offer. How to respond?

Say thank you. Post a blog comment, send an email, drop a personal handwritten note.
Ask for more details about their experience, and how they found you. Find out what they liked best, and commit to doing more of it.
Hand over your contact information and make a personal connection. Offer to be a direct contact for them or offer up someone in your company that can take good care of them and make sure they continue to be happy.
Engage them as an insider. How can you get them connected to your company and encourage them to go from a happy customer to an evangelist?

The Bad
Uh oh. They're criticizing your product, trashing your customer service. What they're saying isn't at all what you'd hoped to hear. Ignoring it isn't the right answer, so where to start?

Apologize. Good old fashioned "I'm sorry we disappointed you" can be a great start to a constructive dialogue. Take the conversation to a more personal forum like email if that's what makes sense.
Ask what went wrong, and how it could have been a better experience for them.
If you have a solution at the ready, offer it. No solution yet? Explain what next steps you're going to take to come to a resolution. And follow up.
Don't be defensive. Nothing kills trust faster.
Be creative. What about having a negative reviewer be part of your next product innovation brainstorm? It's not for the faint of heart, but it can be a gold mine of new perspectives.
Say thank you. Just as important as when they say something nice. Thank them for sharing their experience, and caring enough to be angry. It's a great opportunity for you to learn.

** To note, negative comments are entirely different than hate mail, flames, or trolls. Those are best ignored altogether.

The Indifferent
This one is tricky. They're talking, but it's a solid "maybe" as to whether they'd do business with you again. They're not mad, but they're not overjoyed, either. Is it still worth interacting? I think so.

Ask them what would have taken their experience from so-so to great. You may just have an "a-ha" moment that makes you even better at what you do.
Invite them to continue the dialogue and share more detail. You've started the connection, and you can help it prosper.
Tell your story. "Eh" might just become "oh!".
Say thank you for their feedback. (Notice a theme here?)

Look who's talking!
I'd love to hear more about companies that are making the most of their online conversations. Let everyone know who deserves some kudos, and share your stories in the comments.

What social media isn't.

2008-07-16T09:14:00.005-05:00

There is so much discussion about what social media truly IS, and as many definitions as there are definers. (Check out the results of this google search to see what I mean.) If your mind is whirling about trying to nail down a definition and discover how you should be using it, we'll try a different approach by pointing out a few things that social media is NOT.

Show and Tell

There was a time when people were content to be an audience; to sit and listen and be presented to (and yes, interrupted). “Look at our shiny new product!!” “Look how smart we are!!” Those days are changing rapidly, and folks want to interact, not just observe. Social Media is about giving your customers an opportunity to talk with you about your products and services and opening up the floor for dialogue.

A Popularity and Numbers Contest

Twitter followers. FriendFeed followers. LinkedIn Connections. Plurk friends. RSS subscribers. The online world is full of folks bragging on and on about just how popular they are, how many networks they’re part of.

But unless you’re saying something worth listening to, and unless you’re allowing the conversation with your community to be two-way, those numbers just don’t matter. A big community is great, but it’s truly the level of attentiveness and engagement that matters.

Geoff Livingston in his recent post on hype in social media explains beautifully the critical importance of understanding this:

“Social media is about people. Customers are people. Social media marketing is about networking and community participation with the right few [networks], from which relationships are developed, in turn creating results.”

A Silver Bulllet

Social media in and of itself is no magic solution. And just because “everyone” is doing it, how and why social media will (or won’t) work for you may be very different than someone else. Mack Collier of The Viral Garden has a great post about corporate blogging, for example, that talks about the importance of using these tools as mutual communication vehicles:

“Instead of attempting to create an environment where readers are given valuable content and interaction is encouraged, many companies are attempting to use their blogs as an extension of their weekly circulars…[t]hey attempt to approach blogging as a one-way communication channel, which is what they are most comfortable with. The results, i.e. disappointing returns, are completely predictable."

Indeed, you must pay attention to social media because it’s not going away and it is truly changing the landscape of marketing, communications, and customer engagement. But you absolutely must take the time to evaluate WHY social media should be part of your strategy, and what tools are the right ones for you.

Just for “Experts”

This is a vast, deep and largely uncharted ocean we’re swimming in. We’ve only just scratched the surface of the tools and potential of social media (in other words, don’t let someone tell you they’re a social media “expert” – none of us are yet. Experienced? Knowledgeable? Maybe.).

There are, however, some characteristics that are common to many of those who focus on this dynamic industry for a living: curiosity, determination, relationship building, and enthusiasm for discovering the potential. Check out Tamar Weinberg’s excellent post on what traits define successful people in this industry according to people who use, know, and love social media.

But do you have to be an “expert” to benefit from this groundswell? I don’t think so.

Waiting for the “right time” to get into social media is like looking for a break in rush hour traffic in Chicago. (Trust me, I know this). Sometimes you just have to stick your nose out there and jump into the fray. You will make mistakes. You will listen and learn. And you just might find that the effort alone is enough to help you find your way.

Let me close by saying that there are a lot of things I could include on the list above. But social media is, and will continue to be, about building communities and having great conversations. Embrace this and let it be the foundation of your efforts, and you’ll already be ahead of the game.

Awesome Photo by That Blonde Girl

Be A Word Of Mouth Super Genius!

2008-07-14T14:38:00.004-05:00

WHEN: Chicago: July 30 and September 4

Until now, only Wile E. Coyote could lay claim to the title Super Genius. No longer!

Our friend and WOM guru Andy Sernovitz is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies (yeah, the big ones) at a very large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best introduction to word of mouth that there is.

We've arranged for a $250 discount for our friends! Use code "welovethebrandbox" when you register. (And you DO, don't you??)

This is a very practical, hands-on course (and if Andy's involved, it's sure to be a blast). In one intense day, you will:

Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received -- for a fraction of what they paid
Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days. Click here to get more information and reserve your spot.

Note: Nope, I'm not getting anything in return for promoting Andy's workshop (I offered in fact), and I don't promote stuff I don't believe in. I just happen to think Andy is super smart, and that every company can and should be doing what he teaches. So off with you now. Go sign up.

Plurkshop #6: Measuring Social Media Effectiveness

2008-07-11T11:40:00.005-05:00

Yesterday marked another fantastic Plurkshop, hosted by David Alston of Radian6, a groundbreaking social media monitoring company.

What is a Plurkshop?

Plurkshops started as spontaneous discussions on various topics over on the social networking site Plurk. They've evolved into regular discussions, scheduled specifically around certain topics, and open to the entire community. Fun, fast, and furious, they're chock full of great information. (If you'd like to get news of future plurkshops, follow @Plurkshop on Plurk).

Talking Social Media Measurement

Marketing, PR and Social Media types are abuzz with the importance of finding ways to measure the impact of companies’ engagement with social media. We discussed some of the key questions on everyone’s minds:

What makes social media efforts so difficult to justify?

The term “social media” has gained acceptance, but it can be misleading in literal translation. The “social” aspect of SM can create an informal (and incorrect) impression that these tools are only for casual personal relationships vs. building brands and value for companies. And the “media” aspect is often seen as just another broadcast vehicle, held to traditional marketing and media metrics that may not accurately reflect social media’s holistic community impact.

Many companies are wary of trying social media until and unless they see concrete and tangible results, and success from competitors can be a might fine motivator. A collection of viable case studies from established companies using these tools to their benefit will help blaze a trail for others to follow.

Perhaps a different question: is there a cost to not being involved? What are you missing if you’re unplugged from the Groundswell? The more examples like Dell, Zappos, Fiskars and GM we uncover across different industries, the more readily we’ll be able to get companies on the train before it leaves the station.

Why measure?

Companies using or considering social media as part of their communication strategy want to establish the true ROI of these online networks. And for marketers, accurate measurement of the impact is important to establishing credibility and long-term viability for these new tools in a business setting.

We’re able to point to positive effects that we think are being generated by participation in social media – increased customer satisfaction, sales numbers – but the hard line from social media to sales has yet to be drawn clearly. If we can create a direct connection between a company’s engagement with their community and their growth, we’ll have something powerful indeed.

What are we measuring, really?

David asked at one point “do you want to measure the ‘social’ or the ‘media’?” which sparked some interesting answers.

Focus on the word “media” seems to drive people to measure social media effectiveness in the same way we’ve evaluated traditional direct marketing or public relations efforts (impressions, response rates, website visits, sales figures). But the word “social” means we ought to be measuring the quality and depth of the relationships with people that are fostered within communities. That will require discovering metrics that are reciprocal, not just one way.

Is Return on Investment really the right term, then? Perhaps we need to consider a new “I” when it comes to social media. How about these:

Return on Initiative. What are we reaping from the effort when we look at it holistically?
Return on Interaction. Are you having better conversations with your customers and do they feel more connected to you?
Return on Involvement. Does this change how involved your customers want to be with your business?

Listening is an (the?) important facet of any successful social media effort, because it creates an avenue for customers to directly affect the products and services they purchase. What do you think, can you effectively measure the importance and impact of listening? How?

What makes measurement difficult?

Social media is a long-term strategy that takes time to show quantifiable results, and the agility and patience to make adjustments along the way. The nature of relationship building means that the impact may not be immediately visible, but will grow and strengthen over time. But because relationships and other “soft metrics” like community building are hard to quantify, it can be even harder to tie social media to the ever-present bottom line.

Monetization is key for most marketers in order to establish the direct line from marketing time and dollars spent to revenue earned. But revenue developed through social media is often indirect, and follows a winding (and hard to track) path from company to community and back again. That lack of clarity is what often causes a company to dismiss social media as unproven, risky, inefficient, or not valuable.

Is there anything we can measure?

From David's arsenal:

Mapping out the top influencers on a topic/brand and whether they are advocates (percentage of supporters amongst top influencers)
Amount of “long tail” coverage (posts/commenting activity for or against your brand
Tracking effectiveness of an outreach campaign/product launch over time (based on tracking WOM)
Share of brand buzz vs. competitors online
Engagement on website/forums/company blogs
On topic inbound linking
Total views/comments/unique commenters
Level of engagement in commenting activity
Speed of spread (how fast and idea is adopted and carried across all forms of social media)
Social media to mainstream media hops (story growth beyond where it started) and vice versa
Reaction time to engagement (most commenting activity happens in first 48 hours on a post)
Comment acceleration (how fast a discussion on a topic is taking off/slowing down)
Post sampling/collection (tweets, posts, comments are the new client testimonials)
Favorites/diggs/vote counts
Customer satisfaction (including tools like the Net Promoter Score)

So, what’s the case to be made for social media?

Social media is long term, and has to be viewed as an investment.

Social Media can support and strengthen other traditional marketing and public relations efforts by adding a listening channel.

Social Media is about building relationships, trust and community, not merely marketing.

If used properly, social media leads to more and better connections with customers.

Making a strong case for using social media in business seems to still be an uphill battle for many. From companies who seem downright afraid to talk to their customers to those who view these efforts as nothing more than productivity killers, social media advocates clearly have their work cut out for them.

Showing the true value of social media means collecting and sharing crucial case studies outlining companies’ success. Do you have great examples to share of companies who have successfully used social media to build their business and bring value to their customers? Please share them with us!

Special thanks to David Alston for hanging out with us and giving of his time and expertise. For more information on Radian6 and the great stuff they're doing, please check out their website.

Update: Check out Connie Reece's great post on the Plurkshop, too, along with a rundown of the participants!

Diluted Brands: Just Add Everything

2008-07-09T09:03:00.006-05:00

I was talking to Jane Chin on Plurk about her conundrum of too many blogs, and too little focus, and she’s not alone. My feeling was that in today’s hyper-niched world – brought to you by the wide and vast internet – brands are forced to go narrow and deep instead of wide and broad in order to retain their relevance. I’m not the first to say this, of course. (Check out The Long Tail.)

Here’s why I’m adamant that a focused brand beats an “everything” brand any day (unless you're a bagel).

Managing expectations.
Focusing your brand means that your community always knows what to expect from you. This doesn’t mean that you never do anything innovative, it just means that your innovations are focused on the things that add value, interest, or dimension to your brand while still responding to the needs of your community.

Solving real problems.
As the saying goes, you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and if you try, you risk your brand feeling a little schizophrenic. But if you focus your efforts on the things you’re passionate about and you can do best, you’ll truly be able to solve problems for the community that needs you.

Longevity.
Brands that are built with purpose and depth have the foundation to endure, adapt, evolve.

Some discussion amongst the smart folk yielded a few examples of brands that may have lost their focus:

• Starbucks and their forays into music and chocolate?
• Mercedes by offering lower end cars for mass markets?
• Barack Obama by hitting the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton?
• Coke – too many varieties?
• Harley-Davidson and their cake decorating kit (no, I’m not kidding)
• Target – are they getting into too many things?
• Martha Stewart – just how many things can one license in how many quality/price tiers and still be competitive?

Do you have examples of brands that are diluted? How important is it for a brand to stay narrow and deep? What keeps a brand relevant to you even as they evolve? Let’s talk more.

Photo Credit: Bripc

Audience is a Four-Letter Word

2008-07-08T11:19:00.003-05:00

Used as a noun, the word audience means “The group of spectators at a public event; listeners or viewers collectively, as in attendance at a theater or concert; the persons reached by a…broadcast; public.”

I can’t stand the word “audience” when I’m talking about a company’s clients or customers. I’m not even crazy about those words, because they imply a one-way relationship. I prefer things like “community”. And I’ve caught myself using it, so I’m putting it on my list of four letter words that aren’t ok to use in business, and especially in marketing and social media. Here’s why.

Audiences are meant to listen and observe.
You go to a play or a seminar, and with the rare exception, you sit quietly and listen. The idea isn't to engage the performer or speaker, but to absorb and appreciate. That has it's place in the world, sure. But not when it comes to marketing and social media. Your community WANTS to engage with you and have the chance for exchange and conversation. It puts a human face on business and allows community members to feel like they're helping to build and steward the brands and businesses they love.

Audiences come for the performance, and usually only once.
How many times have you gone to a movie twice? A couple, perhaps, for the really incredible ones. Most times, an audience shows up, watches, goes home, and that's the end of their interaction with the performer. You want your community to be a constant - surrounding you and interacting with you, giving you feedback and connecting with you. You want them to come back, again and again, because you've given them reason to. Change your thinking from "audience" to "community", and they'll feel more welcome on your doorstep.

A bad audience review rarely changes the show.
If a broadway show gets panned, they just pull it or ride it out, but they don't rewrite it because someone didn't like it. The amazing thing about having a community is how they can - and should - help shape the ideas behind a company or product. (Stay tuned for a follow up post on great examples of this). Their engagement with you and the dialogue they welcome is gold; valuable information you can use to improve your product or service offerings based on the people who matter most - the ones that buy them!

So, I'm going to officially jettison the word "audience" from my marketing/social media lexicon. Do you agree with me? What other words do you think we need to retire or change given our interlinked and hyperlinked world?

Photo credit: Felipe Trucco

Joyful Marketing! (Really.)

2008-07-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

Making people happy still fosters some of the strongest Word of Mouth you can find.

This video has been all over the web and TV, and it never fails to make me cry tears of joy. Why is that good? Because joy is a feeling that you just don't come across every day, so when you do, you remember it. And I sent it out to a bunch of people so they could enjoy it as much as I did. Take 5 minutes and watch this if you haven't seen it already (and see the story behind it here.)

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The astute mind behind Servant of Chaos has a great post about this video, and he makes some great observations. Most especially, I was struck by the fact that this video is indeed sponsored by a national chewing gum brand - Stride - but they were content to take a credit on the end of the reel instead of their logo plastered all over everything. In fact, I had to watch the whole video before I realized it WAS sponsored.

Sometimes, it's not about sales or pimping your product. It's not about splashing your website url or MySpace page all over. Stride did a powerful thing by sponsoring this effort - they put a whole bunch of money into merely spreading happiness and joy. And guess what? We're writing about them. Happiness - and the power of community - is truly contagious. (PSST - all you "viral" marketing people out there, take note).

The takeaway: How can you make your customers happy, just for the sake of it? Does it always have to be about key messages? How about finding something that makes you happy and sharing it with them, just as a thanks for being part of your community?

Worlde: It Is Indeed All About Conversation

2008-07-05T23:38:00.005-05:00

If you haven't seen the cool application Wordle, check it out.

Give it a link to your website, or plunk in some of your marketing or website copy and it will create a cool word cloud based on the content. Are the words showing up the ones you want?

I'm excited to note that The Brand Box is indeed all about conversation.

Brand Adversity? Meet It Head On.

2008-07-02T12:18:00.004-05:00

The Tour de France has had it's share of scandal for the last few years. Doping allegations, disgraced champions, the absence of reigning champions, struggles about how to govern this flagship cycling competition. It's been a rough road for them, to be sure.

Versus, the cable sports network that covers the Tour, has taken matters into their own hands to try and motivate cycling and Tour lovers alike to Take Back The Tour. The TV spots are unapologetic and in-your-face. And they're effective for an evangelist like me that loves the sport, loves the race, and wants to see the world's greatest bike race regain its former glory.

So what's the lesson here to be learned?

Brand tarnishing happens to the best of the best. In today's market of interconnected and superconnected online networks, referral- and review-minded consumers, and customer-driven branding, it's inevitable that the negative will creep out amongst the positive. And whether it's a small smudge or a giant smear campaign, nothing can be gained by hiding amongst the trees and hoping it will all blow over. (Jusk ask fans and users of Twitter these days).

Engaging those that are talking to you and about you can do wonders for healing - even improving - a brand's reputation. Yes, it's scary sometimes and it can sting to take a few blows. But your credibility is heightened when you speak in your own voice and try your best to have a dialogue with those criticising you. Companies are populated by people and a human face is critical to meeting adversity with credibility.

And if you've been the unfortunate victim of bad apples spoiling your bushel like the Tour de France has, take back your brand by denouncing bad behavior and reaffirming your commitment to your company and your customers. Skip the corporate-y crisis press release and put out real, human responses by real people. Get out there and engage with your loyal evangelists, and rally them to the cause. Apologize for your mistakes. Commit to correcting them. Thank your community for caring enough to be angry.

After all, isn't your personal Tour de France worth defending?

Capturing an Idea Storm

2008-07-01T20:43:00.003-05:00

I asked my favorite online universe the other day what tools they used for capturing all the ideas that come flooding at me every day - for my blog, for my business, for my clients. I don't want to miss an opportunity to capture something brilliant, even if I have to file it away for later. And if you're a Post-It junkie like me, you might need help reforming your ways.

I was just planning to check out a few tools for myself, but got to thinking that everyone - especially small business owners - needs great ways to capture the plethora of information they find on the web. So here's my list of a few great tools I've come across, thanks to these great recommendations.

Evernote - fresh out of beta, I'm liking this application for its clean interface, and it's handy "clip to Evernote" shortcut for a browser toolbar. Simply highlight the portion you want to capture on a web page, and click. You can set up multiple "notebooks" to categorize your page however your brain works, and you can use it on the web as well as download a desktop application. Free.

Google Notebook - Rumor has it that there are lots of GN evangelists, but they've got a little buggy thing going on with Firefox 3 right now so I'm waiting on that. But for those of you with other web browsers, this looks like it could be a super useful tool that functions a lot like Evernote above. Free.

PersonalBrain - This is a desktop application that allows you to collect your web pages, contacts, emails and files all in one place, and it offers a sort of "mind mapping" of your stuff to show you how they're all interrelated. A little bit schizophrenic for my taste, but it might be just the right tool for someone more free thinking. Free trial with full features that reverts to a more limited version after 30 days. Costs of upgraded versions are $149 and $249.

OneNote - Microsoft, of course, has their own product of this stripe. OneNote is a digital notebook that allows you to collect all your notes and information - text, pictures, audio and video - and it integrates a search function so you can find your stuff again easily. It integrates with the Office 2007 system, too. Free 60 day trial, or purchase for $99.

Instapaper - Basic but incredibly useful, Instapaper is a simple bookmarking tool. Just put the "read later" button in your browser toolbar, and click on it each time you find something interesting that you just don't have time to process right now. Then, come back to it later. Free.

Moleskine notebook - truly the high class tool for doing it "the old fashioned way" with pen and paper.

Of course, whatever tools you use, the most important part is to find a way to keep track of the waves of brilliance you find crossing your path. As a busy business owner, the best way to surefire marketing is to have great ideas and share them with others. So, have at!

Plurkshop #4: Fractured Conversations and How to Manage Them

2008-06-29T23:16:00.003-05:00

The internet - and social media in particular - has opened up vast arenas for conversation and feedback that can easily take on lives of their own. For small businesses, this kind of organic conversation can be especially valuable.

For instance, a post on your blog or website might prompt someone else to blog about you and then others to comment or share that via FriendFeed or StumbleUpon or Twitter and make commentary of their own. How to keep track? Tonight, our Plurkshop on the social community Plurk discussed the challenges and benefits of that reality, and uncovered a few tools to help listen to what’s being said about you, your company, and your brand on the web.

Challenges we cited:

Conversations about you – your brand, your blog, your company – are happening everywhere, including in places you haven’t looked.
Fragmented conversations across the web and so many tools for sharing information can make it difficult to keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand.
Dispersed commentary makes us worry that we’re missing important feedback and opportunities to engage in conversation with people who are talking about us.
The more a conversation fragments, the more it can lose context and relevance to the original topic. Comments without context can be less valuable to those who read them.
As a business owner/brand manager/blogger, you need to go where the conversation is and respond to it there, which can be taxing if you have several brands and/or a lot of content that sparks discussion.
Participating in discussions online can be intimidating for some people. How can you make it easy and welcoming for them to do so?

Some of the main takeaways from tonight:

The spirit of community conversation is more important than trying to control it. And controlling it is futile, anyway, so it’s best to embrace it. Listen and engage as best you can.
Fractured and organic discussion encourages new points of view. Different perspectives add value to the conversation. Actively encourage others to take the conversation to their own communities and build upon it or take it in a new direction.
The community should be able to use whatever tools are helpful to them to engage the conversation and comment. Readers want and will embrace content portability so they can take the discussion wherever they want. It’s our job as those creating the content to do our best to follow it.
Commenting and engaging others on their “turf” feels more natural, and demonstrates listening flexibility. It also gives businesses and brands opportunities to engage people they might not have otherwise found.
Traveling conversation can expose new audiences to your content/brand/blog.
Search Engine Optimization: Fractured conversations are good for search engine optimization so long as they link back the original source. Links that other people create to your content are gold, especially to bloggers and brands.
The evolution of this kind of conversation is demonstrating the very essence – and power – of social media.
Not all internet users find their information in the same manner, so the more avenues and options for them to participate, the better.

Some recommended tools to check out for listening/monitoring:

Google Alerts - Get email updates about search results for the terms you choose, including blogs
Technorati - Comprehensive blog search
Co.mments - track conversations related to sites you specify
Friendfeed comments plugin for WordPress users
Serph - A search engine tracking what's being said online about your specific search terms
Addictomatic - a search engine that populates results from other sites and search engines.
Disqus - a comment system for your blog that claims to make comments more interactive and easier to manage
Radian6 - a more robust social media monitoring solution that requires some $$ investment
SiteMeter - free site counter and statistics tracker
ClickTracks - web analytics tools starting at about $50/month
Google Analytics - free web analytics tools
PageFlakes - you can create a customized page to aggregate your monitoring tools and sites
Statcounter - free hit counter and web stats tools
LiJit - a search widget for your blog that provides stats on your visitors and what they're looking for
NetNewsWire - a Mac OS RSS feed reader
NetVibes - a personal page aggregator, like PageFlakes

Here’s the link to the full Plurkshop conversation. Take this back to your community and discuss how you're listening to conversations, and what challenges and triumphs you're having. What’s your take on the nomadic nature of conversation in today's hyperconnected world?

Promotions That Make People Smile

2008-06-28T18:30:00.003-05:00

I went to Summerfest in Milwaukee yesterday - a great summer music festival here in the Midwest. Checked into my hotel, and hit the corner to catch the $3 shuttle to the park, concert tickets in hand. Then the fun began!

First, I get on the bus and I'm greeted by a bubbly woman that says "Hi! I'm Jane from Jane and Kidd In The Morning on 99.1 FM, and we're buying your bus ride to Summerfest!" Nice surprise!

Then Kidd hands me a package of Twizzlers (seriously, has candy ever NOT made you smile?), and proceeds to ask where we're from, chit chat a bit. He was super friendly and engaged the whole bus full of people during the 10-15 minute ride through downtown.

Then, as we're getting closer to the park, Kidd speaks up and says "Hey folks, now's the time during the ride where we say hi, and hope you'll tune in to our broadcast on weekday mornings on 99.1. If you're not from the area, we've got streaming audio online! And as a special thanks for hanging out with us today, we're buying your admission to Summerfest!" Then he hands out free festival tickets ($15 a piece at the door) to everyone on the full bus.

So, I don't live in Milwaukee anymore, but the promotion certainly got my attention. Why? The folks doing it were fun and personable, they made it perfectly relevant to me (by being on the bus on my way to Summerfest and starting my day at the fest out on a happy note), and gave me something to talk about like I'm doing now.

The moral of this story is that you can successfully launch a great promotion for your company by making it fun and engaging for the people you're talking to, and giving something away that they're sure to talk about. Kudos to the 99.1 team for making their promo fun and memorable.

What promotions have turned you on instead of off? Which do you remember fondly and why? Do you remember the brands/companies they were associated with, or was it just gimmicky? Share with us in the comments!

Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Columbus, OH

2008-06-27T11:04:00.003-05:00

Today, I wanted to give all of you a heads up about a fantabulous event I'll be attending in Columbus, Ohio this September (the 22nd and 23rd to be exact) that's focused on small business owners and how they can make the most of their online marketing efforts.

It can be overwhelming to digest all the STUFF that's out there about online marketing, so Jennifer Laycock and the folks at Search Engine Guide have put together this tight knit forum with speakers breaking down the elements of search engine marketing, viral marketing, blogging and local search.

So what can you expect? The conference is limited to 100 attendees, and the workshops are limited to 25 people each to maximize opportunities to ask questions, interact, and learn. And it's not about just piling on the theory; these workshops are designed to give you real, usable ideas that you can take back to your company and put in play right away.

Some of the super duper speakers on the agenda:

Jennifer Laycock, Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Guide
Matt Bailey, Founder and President of Site Logic Marketing
Matt McGee, Owner of SmallBusinessSEM.com
Debra Mastaler, Owner of AllianceLink
Stoney deGeyter, President of Pole Position Marketing
Heather Lloyd Martin, President and CEO of SuccessWorks Search Marketing Solutions
Mack Collier, Owner of The Viral Garden
Christine Churchill, President of KeyRelevance
Sage Lewis, Founder of SageRock
Christina "CK" Kerley, Founder of ckEpiphany Marketing
Michael Stebbins, President of Market Motive

With such an intimate group, the networking opportunities are second to none. I know I'm looking forward to putting faces to so many of the names I've known from Twitter and Plurk and the slew of blogs I read. Why not come join us so we can meet in person, too?

The $750 admission is a steal for a great conference (register by 8/29 for the early birdy deal). Head to the SBMU website and complete your registration today so you don't miss out on the fun. Hope to see you there!!

Disclosure: Nope, I don't work for SBMU or SEG, I'm not a sponsor, I'm not a speaker. I just happen to think that Jennifer and her work is pretty darn brilliant and think you will, too.

Make Your Presentation Suck in 5 Easy Steps

2008-06-25T16:04:00.004-05:00

Conferences abound this time of year. Here, a few ways to ensure that your audience will fall asleep and that you’ll somehow miss the invitation list next year.

Read the slides.
Actually, less text is better. Use images, prominent text when needed, and don’t read the slides. Your speaking should supplement the presentation, not repeat it.

Adhere mercilessly to a script.
Sure, you need an agenda and a great topic. But encourage discussion and questions from the audience. They’ll find more value in your presentation if you allow them to help steer the topic and extract information that they’re looking for, but that you might not have planned to include. And allowing time for Q&A is a must - it opens the floor for others to contribute to the conversation.

Focus too much on tech.
Nowadays, everyone is live streaming their presentations with comments from Twitter and questions from Facebook and video and recording podcasts and and… take it easy. Focusing too much on engaging the tech stuff in your presentation can take the focus away from your content, and can distract (and annoy) your audience. If you're moderating a panel, encourage your panelists to keep their tech use to a minimum. If you want to monitor a live forum for questions, get some help from someone who isn't speaking or participating so it doesn't distract from the discussion.

Think that the folks came there for you, not the content.
True, I’ve done my share of going to conferences and attending sessions that had a notable speaker. But it’s a chicken-egg thing. A well-known name isn’t enough to carry a lousy presentation. But a great name can be built - and most of them are - by engaging your audience and giving a killer presentation that’s chock full of great content. Give your audience what they came there to get: great ideas that they can take back to work and put into play, right now.

Forget the follow-through.
The very best presentations are those that are the start to a dialogue and a relationship. If you’re speaking, don’t let your presentation end with the PowerPoint (or Keynote, for my fellow Mac users). Give your audience something great to take home with them, and if you can, get a list of those that attended and thank them for coming with a personal email. Point them to your blog or other places where they can find more information from you, and open the door for more conversation.

All cheeky sarcasm aside, presenting well is a skill that takes time and practice to master. The key is to remember that the people attending your workshop are anxious to find the golden nuggets that they can run back to work with and apply to what they're doing, right now. Focus on the value you're bringing to the discussion, and you'll be a step ahead.

What presentations have left you super excited, or super disappointed, and why? Share in the comments!

Plurkshop #2: Blending Traditional And Social Media

2008-06-25T11:11:00.006-05:00

Last night’s plurkshop opened with a great question from Beth Harte, who asked “Would you use traditional marketing to promote your social media efforts and vice versa?”

A great discussion ensued (hooray for threaded conversations), and it seems participants agreed that social media and traditional marketing should work together, and using some traditional avenues to drive traffic to social media sites can still be an effective awareness builder.
The main takeaways from last night:

• Social media should be integrated into an overall marketing plan whenever possible.

• Traditional marketing tactics like e-mail (yes, we all laughed about e-mail being “old school”), direct mail, and print advertising can still have a place in the social mediascape when used to really engage an audience and drive them to great content and information online.

• Traditional media is in fact still going to be necessary and very relevant for audiences that haven’t yet embraced online and social media outlets – older audiences, rural and non-broadband users, or simply late adopters. We all agreed that although all of us are very active in this space, we’re still in the minority.

• The trend is toward more spending on new media, while spending on traditional media continues to decrease. A recent report by Forrester expects that interactive advertising spending will move from an 8% share in 2007 to an 18% share in 2008. Overall, they’re predicting that total interactive marketing spending will surpass $61 billion in five years. Whoa.

And some great examples of Plurkshop attendees and their experiences with the blending of traditional and social media:

• Beth’s company is in a niche market, so she’s planning to leverage some traditional outreach like direct mail or e-mail marketing to drive adopters to a new social platform she’s considering. And, she's working social media planning into her overall planning efforts as a single marketer in the company (you go, Beth!).

• Michael Jones’ newspaper publisher did multi-page spreads in all four of their papers to promote their new website. The result: The day the site launched, they got more visitors than the publisher did papers. And even the 60-year old owner is doing podcasts. Talk about embracing a new medium!

• McDonald’s is running a TV ad campaign right now that by pointing viewers to a MySpace page that’s part of the campaign, encouraging them to submit a new Big Mac jingle. (Thanks to Mack Collier for the heads up.) They’ve also got podcasts on their main website about "The McDonald's You Don't Know", and investor relations issues. They still have that sorta-corporate ring to them, but a solid effort nonetheless.

• Frank Martin’s local newspaper in Roanoke, VA (The Roanoke Times), and several news outlets in Connie Reece’s hometown of Austin, TX are using accounts on Twitter to send links to local news stories and editorial. All of us rather agreed that newspapers are still a little awkward with their participation, but we all heartily endorsed their effort to embrace this tidal wave of social media.

• Andre Natta’s hyperlocal paper, The Terminal, in Birmingham, AL was the first in its market to use Twitter, and the result was markedly more readers for the paper. They use MySpace to update readers and point them to particular stories and news items. And, they’re about to use Facebook and MySpace to promote an event and drive viewers to their blog for more information. They’re still using email marketing too, with great success.

• Deb Robison used Facebook and MySpace to promote a fashion show called Frock Out! Denver for the Denver Library. Some models and designers from the show were on the sites, too, and helped to spread the word. The success was in getting kids to invite their friends and pass the word – and interestingly, the audience spanned the generations. At the event, they actually had to turn people away! Here’s the link to the video they posted on YouTube to promote the event. The best part? Out of pocket costs were zero (just Deb’s invaluable time), and the exposure got them some great press (Denver Post stories were even picked up by news outlets) and large corporate sponsors for this year’s event. What a success story!

The resounding conclusion for our Plurkshop was that traditional media and new media need to work together in this environment to really have success, and social media can be a powerful asset, indeed. As the landscape continues to change, we all need to remember that the point of social media is in connecting people to other people and giving them ways to reach out into the community. It’s not the technology, it’s a very human desire to connect that will continue to drive folks online.

As Connie is fond of saying, “Technologies change, people don’t”.

Want to join us for a Plurkshop? Get your Plurk persona rolling and look for the thread counter that keeps ticking up! Stay tuned for updates from upcomig Plurkshops.

How Plurk Won Me Over

2008-06-24T11:06:00.003-05:00

I admit, I wasn't a fan to start with. And I still feel a little hitchy with the user interface. But last evening, I figured out a few thing that Plurk has going for itself and that warrant hanging around and giving them a shot.

Threaded Conversation
At first, the only evidence I found of conversation threads were long strings of people telling each other "Good Night". Snore. But yesterday, I responded to a quick plurk by Mack Collier about what kind of advice us social media folks give to our clients about how much/often to blog. It spawned an impromptu Plurkshop (Connie Reece's witty term) on social media, which several people found helpful, and I think we all took a little something away from that conversation. It's a great demonstration of why Plurk's ability to thread a conversation can be a great group discussion forum. (Read it here)

Unexpected Community Support
There was a young woman on Plurk last night that lost a close friend in an accident. And I thought it was interesting that she chose to share her sad news in that forum. Of course, there was an outpouring of support and condolences, which I'm sure helped in some way, and it was touching to see some truly heartfelt notes of support. And I realized that Plurk's advantage over Twitter in this scenario wasn't a closer personal connection, per se. It was the opportunity to have an uninterrupted thread of support - one unfractured by "my new blog post is up" in the main Twitterstream - that kept it completely focused on the issue (and the person) at hand.

My takeaway for social media in small business was mostly from the Plurkshop and the overwhelming agreement by all of us about the importance of:

Having a plan
Starting before it's "perfect"
Listening before you start
Practice, tweak, and tweak again.

I continue to be amazed by the spontaneous ways that social media, piece by piece, transforms the landscape of both business and interpersonal relationships. It's going to be exciting to see what's next.

Measuring Social Media Effectiveness for Your Small Business

2008-06-23T14:22:00.002-05:00

Measuring the impact of using social media to drive visibility and sales for business is still a bit elusive. The big companies have yet to solidly quantify what using social media has done for them, but the anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly positive. For instance, we know that once Dell started getting its employees involved and participating in communities, there was significantly less negative feedback posted about them on their own site or others. Exactly how that translates into sales for their business is another issue, partially because they have so many avenues to track, and one I’m sure they’re all hard at work on by now. I, for one, cannot wait to hear the results.

For small business, the good news is that it can actually be easier for you to measure the impact of your social media adventures, because you have the ability to personally be out there and communicating with people to get their feedback and input in real time. The social media avenues themselves can be your ticket to quantifying just how much business they bring to your door.

Pick Your Spots and Participate.
For instance, let’s say you’re on Twitter and you spend time there every day chatting with folks. And you use LinkedIn Answers to provide input for colleagues looking for professional collaboration. Perhaps you even have a feedback forum on your website for your products, or allow users to post reviews.

If you’re new to social media, choosing sites that allow you to hold a dialogue can provide a better forum for networking and business development than an ad placement on Facebook, and can make it easier to identify people who move from online contact to prospective client.

And listening is as important as talking. Folks might be talking about you in places you don’t frequent. Chris Brogan sums it up better than I can in this post about how and where to listen online.

Ask Questions.
You should always be asking how your clients and customers find you, anyway. In this case, it’s a straightforward matter of tracking how many people cite these online communities as their conduit to your website (or blog) and therefore, to your company. Sound unreasonably simple? It can be, at least for starters.

If someone replies that so-and-so referred them to you, ask them how they know or found that person, too. It can give you a nice trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the original source. And if you have a new client that found you through other means, ask them anyway if they’ve seen you online, or read your blog. If so, see if that had any impact on their decision to buy from you.

Keep Track.
Small business has a major advantage in social media, especially owners and staffers that are savvy about keeping in great contact with their clients and customers. Pay attention to the people you meet via social media, and make sure to note that in your contact management system, even if it’s just your Outlook contacts. Note the visitors who comment on your blog, and those who sign up for your RSS feed. Flag those email addresses so you know who they are when they come knocking (and they will!).

As a small business owner, you have fewer degrees of separation between you and your customers, and that’s a great advantage when it comes to finding out just how effective your online exploits are. Asking, responding, talking all go a long way. It is called social media, after all!

Photo Credit: Darren Hester

Thanks, George: Laughter As Inspiration

2008-06-23T09:22:00.002-05:00

George Carlin was in-your-face, irreverent, vulgar at times. And damn funny. He took serious subjects like war and made them laughable, all while he made a point.

It reminds me that sometimes, you have to stop taking yourself so seriously. That means me, too. I catch myself doing it more often than I’d like.

I’m blessed to be in business for myself, and to be helping small businesses succeed. I work with amazing, smart, hilarious, fun people. I get a great deal of joy from what I do. And there have been so many adventures along the way, many of which deserved a chuckle or two, even when they sucked royally at the time.

So my personal affirmation for the day, and the one I’d like to share in George’s honor, is to inject a little humor into your business. It makes you real, it makes you human. The best relationships are based on trust and affection. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t always trust someone who can’t take their head out of the game for a minute and have a good laugh (especially at their own expense). Sure, there are moments in business to be serious and focused, but not all of them.

There is something exhilarating about peals of good, hearty laughter. Over a cup of coffee, or in a board meeting. Yes, even in marketing. I’ve had some of the most productive and inspirational sessions of my career filled with a little silliness and some great camaraderie over laughter.

So go ahead. Laugh. George would be proud.

St. Peter and the gang upstairs have no idea what they’re in for. We’ll miss you, friend.

You’re Marketing and You Didn’t Even Know It.

2008-06-20T11:05:00.003-05:00

I'm fond of saying that marketing isn't just a task you do, it's a living, breathing part of your business. And it sneaks out in the darndest places.

Your Voicemail Greeting.
“Hi, you’ve reached Amber and your call is important to me but I’ll ignore it for several days.”

This is a prime opportunity to give people a 10 second screen shot of your personality. Your voicemail greeting should include, without fail, your name, a thank you to the caller, instructions to leave a name and number, and a timeframe in which you’ll return their call (I like within 24 hours). Infuse some personality. Be happy they called. Then call them back.

Your Business Card.

I know it seems silly, but your business card does not have to be boring. (And unboring doesn’t have to mean that it’s a handheld super video game thing or something). And when you leave one, leave several. It'll be easier for people to pass them along to others and spread the wealth. Cards should always have your name, phone number (direct, please, if you can) an email address, and a website. Don’t ever put generic info@XYZ.com on your card unless it’s supplemented by your real email address. After all, the point is for people to contact you, and if you don’t trust them with your information, why should they trust you?

Your Out Of Office Autoresponder.

This is similar to the voicemail greeting. Be friendly, human, and un-corporate as much as you can. Acknowledge that you’re sorry you missed someone, but that you’ll get back to them in a designated timeframe. If you have an alternative contact they can reach out to, give it to them. And thank them for reaching out. Then RESPOND when you say you will. It’s amazing how much good will a fast response can engender.

Your Email Etiquette

1. Spell check.
2. Double check name spelling.
3. Use proper grammar.
4. Please and Thank You.
5. If sending an email to several people, use the BCC field unless you’re ABSOLUTELY sure they’re all ok with sharing their emails with the other recipients.
6. DON’T USE CAPITAL LETTERS.
7. Skip the emoticons :) in professional correspondence.
7. Remember that email is indeed written correspondence, just without paper. Be open and friendly, but mind the rules of polite letter writing, please.
8. Include a signature that contains your name, phone number, email and website. Keep it concise, and dispense with graphics.

Email is the ubiquitous form of communication right now, and it’s often the only interaction a client or customer has with you for some time (or ever). Take care to make your correspondence professional, open, and conversational so it encourages dialogue. If you have a generic email for inquiries (a la info@XYZ.com), be sure you have a designated real person respond within 24 hours. This whole topic can consume an entire post. Maybe it will someday soon.

Marketing is a perpetual state of mind, really, when you're a small business. Every interaction you have with your customers and prospects is a mini marketing experience, and the small things can do a great deal to elevate your image in the eyes of these people. Be enthusiastic, be human, be polite, and be responsive.

What other small things have you noticed that make a big impact on how your clients and customers perceive you?

It's almost like they were listening.

2008-06-18T21:02:00.002-05:00

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chicago-sonic-restaurants-jun18,0,306295.story

I still say the preemptive advertising for the last year has done more to piss me off than motivate me to visit when they arrive, but those Tots with Cheese are rather tempting.

More Marketing Miscues for Small Biz

2008-06-18T12:01:00.004-05:00

A few days ago I counted off a few of the top mistakes I see in small business marketing. I'm rounding out my list here, and as always, welcome your additions and comments!

#5. Not having a clear objective.
This one may seem obvious. But scatter-shot marketing rarely achieves the results that you need or want, and your customers may even be left totally confused.

To atone if you're aimless: Before you launch any marketing initiative, you need to spell out your goal in 10 words or less. If you can't do that, you're aiming too broadly and your risking dilution. Spend time using the 5 Whys method or something to force you to really get at the heart of what you're trying to accomplish and who you're trying to reach. You might even find that you change your approach or come up with a new, clever one when you're super focused.

#4. Censorship
The introduction of so many mechanisms of communication - both personal and professional - has shown us that sometimes the most amazing advocates for a brand are it's customers, or someone among its ranks that would never before have been given leave to speak about the company "officially". News flash: Your "official" position isn't the one anyone is paying attention to, anyway! It's what's being said about you in all the other conversations. And they ARE happening.

To atone if you're doling out gag orders: Stop and listen. There are people speaking among your own ranks that don't necessarily have titles in communications, PR, or marketing. (The origins of Moleskine's Moleskinerie blog have been well documented in lots of great books. Where would they be if they hadn't been listening?). Hear what they're saying and let their passion for their work help you fine tune your messages, and even be a new voice.

#3. Resting on your laurels.
One great campaign does not a brand make. Nor even one great product. You have to be constantly riding the tide and willing to bend, groove, and shake yourself into new and interesting places. Nothing lasts forever. Ever.

To atone if you're in the easy chair: Get up. Go now, get pen and paper and gather your people and get brainstorming about what's next for you. And for some help, get these nifty cool cards from IDEO. They're masters of breaking down barriers and I love these exercises for fostering new ideas. No, they don't pay me. They're just awesome.

#2. Marketing to yourself.
Don't make the mistake of always vetting things inside your own walls. You drink your own Kool-Aid and you've got your own ideas about how your product/service/idea "should" be talked about. But the people interested in your stuff might be speaking a different language altogether, so it's best to be sure that you're not stuck in a rut by getting some outside perspective. The brilliant Brian Clark talks about Narcissistic Marketing here.

How to atone if you're being narcissistic: Talk to your customers first. That doesn't have to mean fancy focus groups and surveys. It can be as simple as getting a bunch of them together for coffee and talking about your newest adventures to get their perspective. They might point out advantages, exciting benefits, and other cool stuff you never thought of.

#1. Forgetting what you're in business for.
I'm going to admit to already making this mistake. I got so wrapped around the axle trying to get my website perfect and my blog posts scheduled and and and...that I forgot to unleash some of the passion that brought me here to begin with to connect with the people that needed me most. It's easy to get mired in the day to day and forget to tap into the creativity, expertise, and even fun that put you in business in the first place.

To atone if you've lost your way: Go back and read your materials. Do they speak to why you ventured out into the world as a small business, and what keeps you working 70 hour weeks and weekends and putting your all into what you do? If they don't, change them. Passion is contagious.

Non-profit organizations aren't the only ones to have missions. We all have one. To help small businesses communicate better. To deliver an amazing vacation experience. To build the home where someone will raise a family. To achieve what no one thought we could.

Marketing isn't a task you do, it's a living, breathing thing. It's your business' reason for being, but wrapped up in lots of pieces. Remember what you're doing and why, and your marketing will follow.

Yeah, What He Said.

2008-06-16T16:54:00.003-05:00

Many of you who read me know how much I admire Chris Brogan's work and contributions. And he's done it again, so I had to just do a ridiculously gratuitous plug for his post today, which is full of super duper helpful guidelines for branding, especially in the online and social media space, and I couldn't have said it better. So go here and read it.

Five Small Business Marketing Miscues (and how to atone)

2008-06-16T11:34:00.005-05:00

I work with several small businesses, and there are enough miscues out there in the marketing world that they warrant a quick rundown. I'm sure these aren't really just for the small guys, but always talk about what you know, right?

#10. Too Much Jargon
Five dollar words aren't usually worth the price. Even in business to business situations, the most elemental philosophy still holds. You're talking to people - humans - and they're the ones making the decisions about whom to work with. Speak to people professionally but humanly, and use words that feel more conversational than those that come out of your graduate school textbooks. Take a breeze through your collateral and see if the text would make sense to someone outside the industry. Necessary technical issues aside, you'll get much more mileage from your conversations with your people if they really believe you're talking to and with them, not over them.

To atone if your'e a Jargoneer: Pick a page (or a paragraph) on your website full of buzzwords and industry jargon. If you can't be an objective judge, have your husband/wife/teenager/friend read it for you. Cross out all the offensive words. See what you're left with, and start there for a rewrite. And go subscribe to Copyblogger and read Brian Clark and the gang's super awesome insights about writing, and writing well.

#9. Viewing Marketing as an Expense
Especially in today's economy (or recession or downturn or icky point, whichever term you prefer), small businesses have a tendency to panic and pull the plug on all things marketing - even brainstorming. I agree with MarketingSherpa today about using this time as an investment in your business and a great time to find those opportunities to really connect with your clients and customers or explore new avenues like online marketing and some of the cool social technologies out there. The market always, I repeat always, comes back around. And when it does, the time you've taken to have great dialogue with your customers will pay off when you're first on their mind.

To atone if you're a Marketing Scrooge: Spend some time with a few simple strategies that won't break the bank but are super valuable. Find the 25 customers that have been with you the longest and take them to lunch. Pick 50 of your best clients and write them a handwritten thank you note for their business.

#8. Mass Anything.
Gone are the days when you can throw 57,212 darts at a board and hopw that one sticks. Yes, ok, if you blast the world with a bunch of form letters, you might get a bite. But how personal is that? Mass email, mass advertising, mass mailings. They're all just a "toss and hope" kind of tool, and you risk alienating the people who are hopeful for personal and exclusive relationships with your company only to be handed a number and a Dear Friend letter. Small business is, and always will be, personal.

To atone if you're a mass blaster: You're much better off taking the money and time from the paper and envelopes and printing and postage and trade mag ads and doing some really great picking apart of your customer base and finding out who they are and what makes them tick. You may find a great deal of interesting information about clients and customers you never knew you had, how they found you, why they love you, what frustrates them. Understanding is the first step. Then you can talk to them, individually, with messages and ideas that are really relevant to them.

#7. Being Deaf
You're the business owner, which means you know exactly what your customers want, right? Are you sure? Are you sending out surveys or collecting comment cards and stuffing them in a drawer somewhere? Do you have a feedback form on your website? Do you insist on having your employees talk to customers about how they found you or what they like or what challenges they're having with your product or service? And then the million dollar question: What are you doing with the information once you have it?

To atone for being deaf: Start listening closely. If you get comment cards, read them, and don't dismiss the negative ones out of hand. Respond to the feedback emails you get - personally - and thank your site visitors for taking the time to share their feedback. And pay attention to the trends. One person lamenting that your return policy is too strict is one thing. A cadre of frustrated people might be pointing out something you need to fix.

#6. Bandwagon Jumping
There are so, so many techniques and technologies out there that it can be supremely overwhelming to decide which you need to use and which you can safely put aside. Some things will never go out of style - personal phone calls, one on one meetings, a personal letter or email to a valued customer. But launching a loyalty program or starting a blog or having an email newsletter can all be incredibly valuable if - and only if - they truly bring something of value to your customers. Small businesses especially need to look closely at what's out there before deciding where your time and money is best spent. Have a look here to see a few of Social Media Today's recommended starting points.

To atone if you're in a rush to hop the next train to techie town: Start by participating and exploring the technologies that you're hearing and reading about so you get a true sense of what they're really doing and who else is participating. Then, spend some time evaluating what your customers use (asking them is a good start) and how they use them. Are they just lurking on Twitter, or do they find it a valuable source of information about resources for their business? Do they have a Facebook page and look for connections from potential business partners? And most important of all, ask them what they love about your website and what they'd like to see on it to help them. It might be a few simple tools, and you're suddenly engaging your customers like never before.

I'll round out my top 10 in another post coming soon!

Free Stuff from Smart People Rules.

2008-06-12T14:55:00.002-05:00

I have a Google Reader account that, for those who aren't familiar, aggregates all of my RSS feeds in one place so I can keep up with the many smart people whose blogs I read, people like Chris Brogan and Conversation Agent (Valeria Moltoni) and Brian Solis and Andy Sernovitz and and and... (the list goes on - check out the blog list to the right for more).

One thing that hounds me a little bit is that I'm thirsty to learn stuff. I've always said I'd go to school forever if I had the money to do it. But my need to absorb knowledge from the smart people around me is at times overwhelming. And with all of the tools available today and the many I'm actively using - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Flickr - it's easy to fall behind and miss stuff.

So to me, the incredible value I find in spending concentrated time reading through my feed updates is the amazing community of sharing. If I miss something on one blog, I might just get linked to it through another blog that I *do* manage to read. Today, I was so excited that Chris Brogan's blog directed me to Brian Solis' new free e-book on social media. Free Stuff From Smart People! More Free Stuff by Smart People that I've found lately:

Valeria's e-book: Make Your Website Sticky
Greg Verdino's updated presentation on Six Emerging Media Trends
Drew McLellan linking to Seth Godin's TED talk on being remarkable

It's got me thinking about the content and information of value that I can and should be creating for my readers, my clients, and just those generally interested. I'm a firm believer in sharing everything you know, and the concept of teaching someone to fish meaning that you, in turn, will never go hungry. Yay for those who feel the same way, and I'm committed to spending some quality time with my keyboard to continue bringing and delivering great information.

Something in particular you'd like to see? Got a great Free Thing from a Smart Person? Drop me a note and let me know. I've got my creative juices flowing.

When Advertising Goes Bad. Or Stupid.

2008-06-09T19:13:00.004-05:00

Have you ever been to Sonic Drive In? They have lots of yummy treats on the menu - great burgers, shakes, malts, slushees, and cheesy tater tots. mmmm.

I've seen them in the south near where I have family - Atlanta, Hot Springs, Memphis. But I've never seen one in Chicago.

Nevertheless, they advertise like crazy in my market. TV, radio, the whole bit. And finally, after the requisite number of impressions or an overwhelming interest in chili fries, I went to their website to have a look and see just how far I'd have to go to find one. After all, if they're advertising in my area, they must have one nearby, right? It's "America's Drive In"

Nope. In fact, according to their Sonic Locator, the nearest one to me is in Peoria, which is over 185 miles away. Are they kidding? It might be America's Drive In, but it ain't Chicago's.

I'm not sure the point here. As a potential customer, the ads leave me feeling slighted and a bit taunted. Like ha ha, no Sonic for you. And I can't help but wondering how much money they're wasting. Sure, I know they buy blocks on networks that include their entire distribution area. But this smacks of pure advertising laziness. I honestly can live with the fact that their business model must not include Chicago. But to advertise here anyway?

So I'm actually motivated to go back to the website and comment to someone about their flirtation with us Sonic-hungry folks in Chicago. And I've looked all over the site. Their contact us page has a phone number, which no one answered save for some automated recordings about franchise ownership. No email. No contact form. These days, I can't possibly understand why someone wouldn't make it easy for the outside world to get in touch with them through their website. Yikes!

So, friends at Sonic. While I still feel like a chocolate malt or a raspberry slushie delivered to me by a carhop is a thing of beauty, I'm not driving to Peoria. And when and if you decide to be nearer to me, I'll be thinking twice about whether to bother then, either. I may just try my hand at cheesy tater tots from my own oven. So there.

You Don't Control the Conversation Anymore!

2008-06-08T10:58:00.004-05:00

One of the major dynamic shifts in marketing in the past several years has been the migration of our role as conversation starters - an active role - to conversation facilitators, a more observational and influential role.

10-15 years ago, we were all charged with integrating our marketing efforts by crafting and streamlining our messaging, ensuring that all of our channels were using the same language, creating "key messages" in bullet point form for the media, and mastering "official positioning" for everything from our product's benefits to our company's role in the community.

Not anymore.

These kinds of manufactured conversations simply don't have staying power and credibility in today's transparent world. The remarkable nature of the internet and social media have broken the conversation wide open, and put the audience in the drivers' seat. Today's consumers, companies, and readers aren't buying the canned corporate statement anymore. And frankly, they could care less about your "official" position on something. They're not going to ignore the unofficial stuff that's out there about you, and they're going to make up their own minds about what's really being said. Brian Solis has a great podcast that discusses this very thing.

So what can you do? Listen to the conversation and participate in it. Hear what people are saying about you, and respond. Craft your "official" positioning by making it your policy to:

- Allow your best assets - your team members, at all levels - to speak about what they know. Quit stifling their insights in favor of "approved" media spokespeople. It's more genuine this way.
- Respond to the dialogue that's happening around you and about you. And that means the criticism, too.
- Pay attention to how your idea of your brand is matching up with how others are talking about you. If they're vastly different, it's time to reevaluate.

Today, we're all charged with letting go a little bit and realizing that we're not the ones dictating the conversation anymore. The social media reality means that conversation and dialogue is now:

Transparent
Open to everyone
Collective - the power of many
Brutally honest
Fast as lightning.

Our role as marketing people is to help create an oustanding, remarkable, and great product/service/idea. Then we participate in the conversation rather than merely trying to control it, and see what a difference it makes. Not convinced social media will affect the way you do business? Read this great post by Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research.

This kind of conversation can actually be great fun, super insightful, and inspirational. I can't tell you how many brilliant people I've met just by opening my brain and my business to these possibilities. Let go of the steering wheel a little bit, and reap the rewards.

How Not To Find a Great Marketing Person

2008-06-04T10:04:00.005-05:00

Egads, have you ever read some of the job descriptions for marketing people? Some of them are downright cryptic. And for companies who are looking for "results oriented" people, I'm amazed at how jargon laden and crappy some of them are. Cases in point from just a little quality time with CareerBuilder:

From a big fat Fortune 500 company:

Collaborate with field and other cross-functional partners to identify potential revenue generating gaps or barriers in building infrastructure for any given alternate channel.

Is this jargon for "figure out what's working and what's not?"

From a big department store retailer:

Planning and execution of a multiple cutting edge business and strategic relationship marketing programs supporting the extension and development of online and direct-to-customer channels for XYZ company. Forming partnerships with internal business for expansion of value-added services and capabilities. Forming strategic partnerships with external partners to create new services, adding value to the XYZ customer experience.

Ready for buzzword bingo, anyone? Using the old trick of removing the buzzwords to reveal the essence of the sentence, we're left with little of substance. No wonder this company is struggling mightily.

From another retailer, this time in office supplies:

...this position is accountable for building, maintaining, and expanding the technical infrastructures and analytical skills pool required to consistently deliver timely insight to key decision makers as well as for building strategic relationships with merchandising, marketing, and sales to foster a fact based decision making culture.

As opposed to making decisions based on a bunch of BS? And I'm not exactly sure I'd like to go swimming in an analytical skills pool.

I could go on. (If you're a serious masochist, just head to career builder and type in "marketing". Start reading. Prepare the Advil.)

So how should people find great marketing talent?

You have to be willing to turn convention on it's head a little bit. The essence of great marketing is clear, compelling communication with the people that want to know you. You can't have this be an integral part of your strategy and then recruit people with this drivel.

Start paying attention to the aspects of your potential Marketeers that are the intangibles. I promise you'll find lots of people with adequate qualifications. But pay attention to a few other things:

Are they personable? Funny? Gregarious? If not, their projects aren't likely to be, either.
Can they hold an engaging conversation? This translates, trust me. Ever met a great marketing person with a wilting personality?
Do they have interests outside of work, and do they participate in other activities and communities, either online or off? Great marketing is a good dose of insight and instinct, and only those who are involved in communities will know what it's like to talk to one.
Is their resume or cover letter full of the same jargon that's in these job descriptions? Red flag.

It'll also help to take a hard look at the job description you're writing and whittle it down to the things you really want someone to do. You probably don't need much more than that. Skip the buzzwords. And when you're interviewing, toss aside the standard "Give me an example of a time you helped a customer with a difficult problem" and get to know the person sitting in front of you.

Smart marketing people are immune to these kinds of appeals, and will often skip right to the next company. Remember, you're selling them the appeal of working with you too, not just doing them a favor by giving them a job. Smart marketers are savvy and in demand, and unfortunately mediocre ones can be found in droves. Which are you searching for?

Are You A Marketing Wannabe?

2008-06-03T10:43:00.002-05:00

There's an important point to be made about marketing that to me is plain as day, but apparently it bears repeating.

Not every marketing vehicle is appropriate for you just because it's cool, trendy, new, or because a company you admire is doing it.

Greg Anderson has an interesting article today on AdAge about just this topic. And he actually has a funny anectode about showing up on Facebook and having his teenage niece ask "what are you doing here?".

He says:

Ironically, bad marketing is also part of the reason that people like my niece are leaving one setting and moving on to the next new thing where we're not clumsily asking them if they want to be friends.

Bad marketing. We don't like that term, but the reality is that it's everywhere. And there are countless upon countless articles, blogs, websites and everything in between promising that they can teach you, too, how to be viral and social mediafied and make your business relevant to millions by just putting your stuff on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn.

So Can I Use This Stuff Or Not?

The answer is yes. But you must proceed with caution and understand these networks or risk ticking off all the people you so desperately wish to reach. Remember these things:

1. Social media is a conversation. Good conversationalists listen, absorb, and participate, in that order.

2. People participating in these communities are there because, uh, it's a community. They welcome newcomers but most are quick to spot the fakes and the posers and promptly ignore them.

3. Consumers - and your audience - are not dumb. Unless you have something that's interesting, relevant, or useful to them, they just aren't going to care.

So How Do I Know What Tools to Use?

I'd actually turn the question around and ask whom you're looking to reach, what you're planning to say, and what makes you unique. Then - and ONLY then - can you start evaluating how to get the message across. And you may find that some "old school" tactics are just as viable as getting yourself in a kafuffle to try and figure out a Facebook page.

But if social media outlets are really something you want to explore, you need to get out there and experience it for a while to build some credibility in the community. Get a Twitter ID and start following people that interest you or are in your industry. Have conversations. Go set up a LinkedIn profile and spend some time answering questions that others are asking.

What you'll find is not only do you learn what people are talking about and how they're digesting new stuff, but you're earning trust and credibility which can be a hundred times more powerful than a cheesy, badly run banner ad campaign (IMHO of course).

So what lessons have you learned about blending your business and new marketing channels? Share your successes and challenges in the comments and we'll do a follow up.

Marketers: No One Believes You.

2008-06-01T08:40:00.003-05:00

Christopher Penn, blogger and creator of the Financial Aid Podcast, has this to say on a recent post about why marketing sucks:

When companies, organizations, or individuals focus only on the short term, whether it’s quarterly results on the Street or whether you can get some action at the single’s bar tonight, the same desperation is created by short term thinking. That combined with a profit above all else mentality has turned marketing into the corporate equivalent of that guy in the bar who smells of equal parts aggression, fear, and desperation - and the target audience stays far, far away.

Yep. I can't tell you how much I cringe when someone says to me "we need to do some of that New Media" or "can you get us some marketing on the internet?" Yikes.

What's worse, Penn's point above makes me cringe even more because it echoes something more sinister.

If you're a marketer, no one believes you will use your superpowers for good rather than evil.

So how do you overcome?

Chris Brogan is a fun blogger to read, and he usually comes up with something that makes me think. His recent post talks about Personal Branding and how important and challenging it is. I think it's even more critical for those of us who purport to be in the business of helping others elevate, define, and create awarness for their brands.

I've blogged before about the fact that I believe that your brand is really created not by you, but by the people that use your product or service or seek you out in the vast online universe. Sure, we can contribute to the conversation about how we'd like to be perceived, but ultimately, someone else is going to make up their mind. If you haven't checked out the interesting Brand Tag site, it's interesting fodder for my point. If you look at the words that people choose, sure, some are super intuitive. But it's amazing how many of these "tags" are words that the companies might or might not have chosen for their brands in the first place, for better or for worse.

That didn't answer my question.

Ok, sorry. My point is that in order to really have people believe that there ARE marketing people out there (I'd like to think myself included) that are honestly, truly dedicated to the good side of this craft, we have to continue to bring people interesting, relevant, different, and compelling stuff and stories.

It's not enough to extoll the quality, value, and convenience of Bob's Buttered Biscuits, we have to dig deep, find the unique elements, and tell THOSE to people without shouting at them to pay attention. You can lead a horse to water, after all...

As a marketing person, I think it's my duty not to whore out any old product and polish turds, but rather to find the diamonds in the rough. The untold stories. The nifty, keen, funny, exciting, exhilirating ones. And to be honest, if someone or something doesn't have ANY of these qualities? Well, that's not a problem that any marketing person - no matter how much of a rockstar they are - can fix.

Are you in marketing? How do you avoid being cast as a deceitful, manipulating liar? Or do you?

Buzzwords that don't work anymore.

2008-05-30T16:02:00.002-05:00

Feel free to comment and add yours to the list or argue with mine.

Convenient
Unique
Authentic
Exciting
Quick/Fast
Consistent
Out-of-the-box
Synergy
Paradigm shift
Value-added
Results-oriented (I've never met someone who admitted to aiming for NOT achieving results)
Proactive (nevermind that the grammar purist in me still doesn't buy this made up word

You must use a human, accessible voice to talk to people about what you're trying to accomplish. I'm sure I could make this list into a top 100 (and I just might). Whatever story you're telling, it comes off as bogus when it's full of a bunch of trumped-up adjectives.

Honesty and humanity can speak volumes.

Retro Marketing

2008-05-30T12:25:00.006-05:00

It's only a matter of time before the big CPG companies look to resurrect their old classics. And they're doing it - remember Brim, Salon Selectives, Underroos? There's a movement underway to bring these brands back to life because of their powerful recall. Kellogg's has announced that they're bringing back the "beloved" Hyrdox cookie.

Which makes me really wonder something.

Does recall still make the brand? We marketers have always touted brand recall as a signal of its success. I'm just not sure that does it anymore.

First of all, it's the quality of the product that ultimately determines whether it has a long or short lifespan. If Brim has a great jingle but tastes like crap, it's destined for the dustbin. Reason #1 why I don't think recall is enough.

This all sounds to me like big companies are finally feeling the pinch of traditional, big bucks marketing and rather than spending the time, money, and effort to innovate something truly powerfully great, they're riding on the coattails of nostalgia in hopes that it will bring them around. (I wonder if Seth agrees with me - I doubt he thinks that Hydrox revisited is a Purple Cow, if a Cow at all).

What do you think? Would the reprise of your favorite Quisp cereal make you rush to the store, or just make you think "hey look, Quisp!" and go on your merry way?

Brilliant Fundraising

2008-05-28T17:08:00.003-05:00

Jennifer Leggio should have been on my team all the years I did fundraising for a living. Talk about harnessing the power of social media.

Jennifer has reached out to her network of brilliant minds to auction their brains, services, and other in the name of raising money in the fight against leukemia. She's running a marathon as part of Team In Training and has an ambitious (but at this point, highly reachable) goal to raise $10,000. As of right now, she's already raised $3K. Not too shabby.

It just goes to show - and remind me - how powerful it can be to have conversations. I heard about Jennifer's efforts via Chris Brogan, and now here I am blogging about them. Which means hopefully someone else in turn will find her through me and help her cause.

Now, to check the bidding for some of those brilliant minds...

Dogged Determination

2008-05-28T16:28:00.004-05:00

There's no substitute for dogged determination. I can't help but continue to gape in amazement at the NASA team and their multi-year quest to get the Phoenix lander to Mars. I mean, come on. It's NEWS that the thing is going to unbend it's arm. The arm is going to probe beneath the Martian surface to reach the water ice below and bring back lots of yummy subterranean bits and pieces for scientific analysis. All aimed at figuring out if somewhere, in some age, Mars supported life.

It's a lesson in patience, timing, perseverance, and faith. Nothing will test your mettle like slinging a big thing into the deep reaches of space, waiting 10 months, and hoping against hope that it goes where you told it to, not to mention landing on a planet light-years away and still working once it gets there.

There are many times when, in the marketing world, you try something and it doesn't work. (Yes, indeed, we are fallible creatures). Not every strategy is perfect, and despite your best efforts, sometimes you miss the mark. But still, we march on and try, try again to find the thing or combination of many things that will reach that new client or finally crystalize that elusive and compelling message for all to hear. When it happens, it's a beautiful thing. But by no means does it happen by accident.

Successful communication starts with something super important: people. Without them, there is no dialogue. And to forget that they're on the other end is a mistake. But if you don't reach them the first time, don't stop talking. It's a noisy world out there, and sometimes it's a matter of timing before you can be heard just right.

The team at NASA's JPL was an exuberant bunch of kids in that control room, watching the countdown and jumping up and down when they got the confirmation of Phoenix's successful landing. They deserve a round of applause, and a good pat on the back for staying the course when there were more questions than answers.

I'm putting a picture of Phoenix on my bulletin board, and every time I stumble, I'll be all the more determined to make a successful landing.

Hacked! LifeLock's CEO Gets Unlocked, After All.

2008-05-23T13:39:00.003-05:00

Today, the LifeLock CEO was on the Today Show talking about how he got himself hacked by identity thieves - the very thing his company is in business to prevent.

Last week, Drew McLellan commented on his blog about the bravery of the marketing campaign in which Todd Davis boldly displays his own social security number on billboards, TV spots and the like as if daring the identity thieves to come and get him. I agreed! Talk about putting your money (and your credit and your private information) where your mouth is.

So what does this mean for Davis and LifeLock now? Have they lost brand equity because their very own CEO has been victimized?

I don't think so. Why? Because Davis came out and addressed the issue, point blank. He admitted that many people had attempted to use his information without success. And he insists that the damage would have been far worse had LifeLock not been protecting his identity.

I know that's probably a little happy-hearted, thinking that just because he talks about it, everything is ok. But the question is, was it really a failure of the company to fulfill its brand promise, or did Davis open the floodgates for people to attack him more vigorously, just like a Double Dog Dare?

Guess I'll be keeping an eye on LifeLock to see what's next for them. And I'll be shredding my documents more carefully, of course.

One Of These Clients is Not Like The Other

2008-05-22T13:51:00.002-05:00

No one likes to be generalized. Lumped into a pile. Labeled. Assumed to be just like anyone else. And clients and customers are no different.

Sure, we may share certain tastes, values, opinions. But we're individuals and prefer to be treated that way.

Take the case of a woman we'll call Amy. She's a super talented friend of mine in the marketing world, and she's on the Big Job Hunt for a sparkly new position that will really let her show her stuff. So she's doing all the right things - networking, using her professional organization contacts, and she even met with a recruiter who sought her out. Which is where the trouble began.

Right off the bat, she's a senior level person and this firm is accustomed to a great deal of freelancers coming through their doors. They sent her a 14 page "application" to fill out, full of standard HIRE paperwork like tax forms and employment agreements (as would be appropriate for a freelancer, I assume). She hadn't even set foot through the door yet. The form email she got about her interview was clearly geared toward freelancers, didn't even have her name on it, and was chock full of information that didn't apply to her.

So before she's even met anyone, she's been made to feel like a number on a list. She asked questions like "did they even read my resume?" and "do they have any idea what I'm looking for in a career?". It sure didn't feel like it. At the very least, they could have taken out the verbiage and paperwork that was freelance-specific. But they succeeded in making Amy feel like a dollar sign to them.

We're all busy, and it's easy to give into the temptation of tossing out blanket communications in hopes of reaching many people at once. But while your clients and customers may share affinities for certain products or activities, don't make assumptions, and be careful about how you generalize the information you send out.

An extra five minutes to segment your email list or put a personal note on a direct mail postcard might be the difference between making that client or customer feel like a valued and understood member of your larger community or making them feel like a number on your mailing list.

Knowledge is portable.

2008-05-21T08:50:00.003-05:00

If you don't read Seth Godin's blog already, first I'm going to hang tight while you go there and bookmark or feedburn or otherwise connect to it.

Done? Ok good.

Seth says a couple of things today that made me go YES! loudly, in my office, to the confusion of Riley, my dog.

#1) Knowledge workers should not have to go to the office every day. I've long been amazed that we marketing -PR-creative type people are "required" to be in an office for a corporate job where we add little value to our surrounding environment in a typical day because we're in a) unnecessary meetings or b) buried behind a phone or computer screen. I can say personally that I have the most productive work sessions when I'm around other people actually - gasp - producing, or when I'm in an environment of my choice that stimulates creativity. I'm oddly productive at the library. But that's another story for another day.

#2) Knowledge between experts is better shared than kept as some holiest of holy secrets. Look. People who hire me know that I'm one of many people that can do what I do. I make no mistake about that. What people love about working with me is completely different for everyone. And THAT is what keeps them coming back, not the illusion that I harbor some secret holy grail of knowledge that has never before been seen on the face of the planet. Silly, silly. It's why Seth has no problem posting about other great marketing minds, or sharing links to other people's brilliance. Me either. Share and share alike, and we shall all be the better for it!

Communication is Key

2008-05-21T08:12:00.005-05:00

Recession or no, don't make the mistake of thinking that an economic downturn means that you should put the brakes on everything you do that's considered "marketing".

Marketing is sometimes construed as a dirty word. So let's clean it up and consider the most basic of all marketing principles - communication.

Every business feels the symptoms of economic strife a little differently. In my neck of the words, for instance, clients are super focused on targeted, economic methods of communication. Which is a beautiful thing, because that's what we advocate anyway. But there are also those people who say "Amber, I'm halting all marketing spending right now." Yikes.

Especially for growing businesses and non profit organizations, there's a lot of noise in the market on a GOOD day. When it's a dog-eat-dog environment where every last customer or donor or volunteer is a gem (they should be anyway, but that's another post), I think the worst mistake you can make is to stop communicating.

Marketing, done well, is a dialogue. It's an ongoing communication with your clients and those you wish to be, and you need to be talking to be heard. In fact, when the frantic sales cycle is cautious and slowed, it can be an incredible time to spend developing those relationships with your customers and reminding them of how you're there to help them, serve them, provide them with a valuable product or service. Now is not the time for the hard sell - it's the time to have a conversation and be great at the most important part of all - listening.

And the bonus? Great dialogue with your customers doesn't have to be expensive. Pick up the phone. Launch a blog. Send out a handful of handwritten notes.

How can you spend a few minutes building relationships with your customers and clients so that when the sales cycle picks up pace, you'll be top of mind?

Over Deliver.

2008-05-16T12:36:00.005-05:00

How many times have you heard these words when talking about customer service or the work you do for your clients? Do you do it? Really?

Nordstrom has legendary customer service, and I am never disappointed. Personal attention, and the unrelenting drive to have me leave a happy customer. And I do. Even when the alterations done on a suit I bought were not quite right, my frustration quickly dissolved when a quick phone call promised that they'd do it again and fix it, with lightning speed.

One of the very best things you can do for your product or service, and your brand, is to deliver on promises. All of them. Meet deadlines. Return phone calls. Answer questions or offer to find the answers when you don't have them. And of course, exceed their expectations with whatever you deliver to them.

If you're not sure whether you're delivering on your promises, the best and most effective way to find out is to ask them!

One of Altitude's 60 Minute Marketing tips is to do a quick survey of your customers to connect with them and ask their thoughts. There are so many great tools out there now that make creating a simple online survey a breeze - we like Survey Monkey because it's super simple and straightforward. Not up for sending out an email survey? No worries. Go low tech and just pick up the phone and call some of your customers. Send them a note.

Most important, no matter what else you ask them, borrow a page from the Net Promoter Score methodology and include the question "Would you recommend us to your friends, and why or why not?" That answer will tell you how well you're delivering on the promises you make - even unwittingly - to your customers. And you might be surprised at what you learn.

Lastly, make sure that you DO something with the information you glean. It's not enough to just ask the question and walk away. The best thing you can do for your business and your customers is to address any of the shortcomings you might learn about. Your customers will know you're listening to them, and the value of your brand in their mind increases.

What are you doing today to over deliver on your promises to your customers?

Chris Brogan is Smart.

2008-05-14T20:55:00.003-05:00

Someday I'll be smart like him. Seriously, his blog and his newsletter are chock full of insights about the social media world that's so mind boggling to so many.

He and his minions spent a good chunka time putting together this list of killer blog posts from his writings on all sorts of social media and marketing topics, and it’s worth a read. Check it out here.

You don't own your brand.

2008-05-14T09:05:00.000-05:00

Your customers do.

Seem counterintuitive?

Branding is an art, not a science. And the cardinal sin that you may commit is assuming that you (or - gasp - your marketing agency) knows your customers best, knows what they want, understands them perfectly. Absolutely, you should aspire to do just that. But at the end of the day, your customers and clients are the power behind your brand.

Uberbrands are built by the consumers who love them. They shape them, react to them, talk about them. The most brilliant marketers can merely hang around, listen closely, and respond to what their customers are already asking for.

That also means that the ever-elusive “buzz” is not something you can manufacture. You cannot force something to be “viral”, as viral - by its very nature - is something organic, self-populating. There are no guarantees. Create things and ideas worth talking about, and let your customers and would-be customers do the rest. That’s the beauty and simplicity of this kind of marketing, which really isn’t marketing at all. It’s conversation.

Be true to the brand that your customers have helped build for you. Give them more than they could ask for, be sincere, and they’ll return the favor.

Tx 4 Th Fdbck

2008-05-10T11:41:00.000-05:00

I’m in what I’d call a Blackberry transition period. I had one, and I don’t at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll get another one eventually.

A recent post about this on the Influential Marketing Blog made me laugh out loud, not because it’s all wrong, but because it’s all RIGHT. I’ve worked with those berry addicts who seem to not have time to type a proper response to any email sent to them. I mean, really. The idea of these devices is to make you accessible and able to respond to your colleagues/friends/staff/CLIENTS in a timely manner without missing a beat.

So why am I so put off when someone responds to my well-writ and thought out email with “thx”? As if the word “thanks” is too hard to type, even with thumbs? Seriously. I’d almost rather not get a response at all.

So how can you apply this to your business?

Take an extra 2 minutes to respond to your customers. Whether they put up a comment on their blog about your business or sent you a feedback email. Write back, or make sure that SOMEONE is. And don’t let them be stingy with the response, and for the love of all that’s holy, please don’t let them type “tx 4 th fdbck”.

Talking to your customers is the single most important and effective way to find out what they think of you, your business, your products, and your ideas. That’s the kind of feedback that ensures that you can course correct or discover brand new opportunities (or, hallelujah, keep doing what you’re doing because they love it!).

Don’t shortchange the conversation.

The Beat of a Different Drummer

2008-05-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

Exactly how wise is it to try and be all things to all people? In my estimation, not so much.

I’ve seen plenty of companies and brands get themselves in hot water because they’re trying to capitalize on every potential customer, every potential market, every potential place they can make a buck. To their detriment.

Diversify your stocks. But when it comes to diversifying your brand, be very careful. Your brand has equity, and those that know it make certain associations. (If they’re not the right associations, that’s a different problem). But haphazardly trying to jump on every bandwagon that presents itself can be hazardous to your brand’s health.

For instance, let’s say you’re a women’s clothing boutique but there’s a huge new trend in men’s fashion for some nifty new brand of jeans. Do you just rush out and pile up some inventory because they’re selling like hot cakes? Maybe, if you have men that frequent your store to shop for the women in their lives. Or women that would buy the jeans for their boyfriends or husbands. But are you certain that the market exists for YOU just because it exists elsewhere? Will your customers be perplexed by a mixed message?

It may seem like you’re narrowing the field of potential customers, and in a way that’s true. But the quote “know thyself” is important as well as its near cousin “know thy customer”. Altitude is a small but smart business that caters to businesses of all sizes, but we specialize in growing businesses and non-profits. We’re a little irreverent and a bit cheeky, but we’re nimble and fun. Some companies will relate to us, some won’t. And that’s ok.

Are you staying true to your roots?

Conversation Starters

2008-05-05T12:36:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite sites is Trendwatching. They’re the gurus of watching what’s going on in the world and distilling trends and cool stuff into perfectly digestible little packages. You should subscribe to their briefings, if nothing else, for their wit and humor. But pay attention to a particular trend they mention, called Status Stories. We all know that telling a story is so important to attaching your brand, and your message, to your customer, donor, or potential client. They need to not just hear you, but understand you and want to have a conversation. That’s what starts the marketing machine rolling. Check out what Hubwear has created: T-shirts that display the wearer's travel routes via airport codes. Wouldn't you want to know the story behind their trips?

But for smaller businesses and even non profit organizations, telling a story is absolutely critical. And it can’t be the same story, repackaged. Audiences today want to be in touch with something different. Something that expresses their own personality through their choice of brands and businesses. What unique personality does your brand bring to your audience that will make them brag about being in your inner circle?