What Roseta, PA Can Teach You About Social Media

I have been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and just to be clear… the book is awesome.

At the beginning of the book Malcolm talks about a researcher named Stewart Wolf who was fascinated with the long lives of a group of Italians living in Roseto, Pennsylvania. Wolf did extensive research to try and figure out when the citizens of Roseta had virtually no heart disease or any sickness related deaths of any kind. It was not the diet, exercise or location… what Wolf found was that it was the city itself (pg 9). The conversations and relationships that “Rosetians” experienced on a daily basis helped keep them healthy and jovial.

This post is not about the City of Roseta.. it is about the data that was presented to medical communities across the world. Wolf was being met with resistance because of lack of “long rows of data arrayed in complex charts (pg 10).” They had to convince the medial establishment to look PAST the data and look at the findings in an entirely new light.

The same is true for using social media. There is still resistance from the “establishment”  because of the lack of data and charts to show growth rates and return-on-investment. Have we started to discuss the negative ramifications of not being involved in the new medium of social media?

Roseta citizens remained healthy and content because of conversations and relationship driven communication.. can’t that be applied to your marketing? Can’t that be applied to your communication strategy

What is stopping you?

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Respect the Social! Be Responsible.

What is the number one thing holding small business owners away from using social media? I will give you an example.

Brandswag: “So.. that is basically what social media can bring your business. It is a broadcast/communication medium that will turn your leads just a little warmer. What do you think?”

Small Biz Owner: “This sounds great. It really does. I just don’t have the time to spend on using the tool.”

It always seems to be time. This is not an issue for the larger companies we work with at Brandswag. They have the resources to hire either outside consultants or in-house people to act out their social media campaigns. What many small business owners fail to understand is that they have the personality that will win them business in the long run. It is harder for large companies to have individual personalities show through.

As a small business you have a huge opportunity to leverage social media as a relationship and lead generation tool. You have to make the time. You are a small business owner! You knew this was going to be more difficult then being an employee… you knew this was a bigger time commitment then the 9-5. Be responible.

If you do not respect social media… it will not return the favor.

And by respect… I mean spending time on the medium. Manage your time effectively and you will see return.

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5 Marketing Posts to Read This Weekend.

I have been reading different blogs for most of the day today and thought I would list the 5 of the more interesting..  Of course… for your reading pleasure.

1. Time To Call It Quits? by Duncan Alney

Duncan always has a way with breaking down the internal strife of Internet companies and shedding light on the potential ramifications of biz activity. This is a great read for the group of us who cares what is internally happening at Facebook.

2. How Much Personality Should My Blog Have? by Lorraine Ball

Lorraine breaks down the intricacies with running two blogs: one for a company and one for the personal side. What do you think?

3. Integrated Campaigns. Multiple Partners? by Jacob Leffler

“Recent market research has exposed the fact that there are no less than 150 – 200 advertising agencies/marketing communication and/or marketing consultancies in the city of Chicago alone. Many of these firms claim to offer “web site” design/development and/or interactive services. If you go the portfolio section of many of these firms
web sites…” I’ve said enough.

4. How Would You Feel About Google Buying Twitter? by ReadWriteWeb

I’ve been wondering the same thing. ReadWriteWeb takes a couple of innovators in the area of Social Media and gets THEIR reaction. Good stuff.

5. Silver Square Reaches the Inbox of Your Brain by Clay

Hilarious April Fool’s Day post about Push-Telepathy technology. Freaking hilarious.

Nominate My Friend Brad Ward at SquaredPeg

Social media is about collaboration right? I love reading and collaborating on different ideas with Brad Ward. He has a higher-ed blog called Squaredpeg and it has excellent information about using social media with the higher-ed of the world.

He is running for the eduStyle Award for the best Higher-ed blog on the market. I vote Brad and you should too.

Why? He has some excellent Facebook research on admission department marketing and he speaks all over the nation about social media marketing and higher-ed.

Plain and simple. He is the man. Follow the link and vote!

Vote for SquaredPeg

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Don’t Let Fear Paralyze Social Media

Fear of Change.

We run into this a lot at Brandswag and for good reason sometimes. People tend to fear the unknown. They fear the change that will transpire when a new communication model or marketing ploy is brought into their company. Most of all, they fear open communication.

“What if someone says something negative about me or my company?”

“What if other people read it and agree?” AGHHHHHH.

What some people fail to understand is that you cannot control the medium anymore. Open communication is here to stay and that (simple fact) is something you must come to terms with. Traditional communication mediums have always controlled the conversation until recently. Technology has given us, the consumer, the power to control what we want to experience. Social media is nothing more than another communication medium (like Radio and TV). It is here to stay and must be embraced from the small business to the massive PR firm down the street.

Where do you get started? Start reading and learning. Take 10 minutes out of the day and read a blog post… read an article pertaining to communication online.

Some great places to start: Chris Brogan, ProBlogger, Beth Harte, and StyleTime.

The beautiful thing about social media is that we are all human. We all learn. We all adapt and if you don’t… you die off and start something else. As a small-to-mid sized business owner/employee it is important to start learning (at the least) about the NEW communication model.

Don’t be paralyzed. Don’t be left in the dust.

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Targeting Location and Conversation on Twitter

Imagine if you could target conversations around a specific target location? Do you think that would be valuable to any small business or marketing firm using Twitter as a communications tool? Probably and Yes.

I stumbled across TwitterHawk this morning while finishing up some last minute preparations for a pitch and I would have to say… at first glance.. I am pretty impressed.

Developed by Duellsy , Twitterhawk allows you to search for keywords across the conversations happening on Twitter. Now… this is not revolutionary.. I know but the cool part is that you can target specific geographic locations around a keyword. If you want to know all the conversations about coffee happening between people in Indiana it is possible to track. Here is an example:

Let’s say you just opened a new coffee store in Queens and wanted to let people know about it. As part of your advertising efforts, you could setup TwitterHawk to search for things like “coffee near:Queens within:8mi” (of course you could simply search world wide if you are global).

We would then periodically (at a frequency determined by you) find twitter posts that mentioned coffee by users that are actually located within 8 miles of Queens such as
‘@cracksh0t Oh I could really go for a coffee right now’ or
‘@loxly Coffee… my one true love’

Talk about a great marketing tool to start a conversation! I am still debating on whether or not this is just another form of Auto-Dm… which I despise.. I haven’t really made my decision. It is a great way to start conversations and use Twitter as an actual marketing platform. It is only disingenuous if you don’t respond after the initial connection is made.

What do you think?

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10 Ways to ROCK and NOT on LinkedIN

LinkedIN is being talked about constantly in the small business world in #Indianapolis (oops.. sorry the hashtag is out of habit). I thought I would add my flair onto how to use and not to use LinkedIN.

How to Rock it on LinkedIN

We have all wanted to be rockstars at one time or another in life. I always wanted to be Tom Morello from the last Rage Against the Machine.. and sometimes… I still do. In light of my extreme Tom Morello man-crush…here are 10 ways to rock it on LinkedIN.

1. Be the first to answer on Q&A. When you are surfing the questions and answer sections of LinkedIN it is important to keep the “Be The First To Answer” link in the back of your mind. People are more likely to read the top three answers than the couple on the bottom.

2. Go 3 and 3. Pick three local groups you can join and three global groups. Keep the number at six or below in order to help you manage the multiple emails you will be getting fromt he groups.  You don’t want to get overwhelmed. Also, try to add comments or some type of thought into half the groups (3) once a day.

3. It is better to add all your work experiences not just your current. (Thanks Guy) You will have a better chance at finding more connections by adding your previous employers. Who knows what could come out of it!

4. You must give to receive. Give out those recommendations and you will receive them in return. People put greater stock into the LinkedIN recommendations that are given by other people because they know (to an extent) they are sincere. It beats putting them up on your website… not very trustworthy.

5. Put your LinkedIN address on your business card. It is going to be easier for people to add you on LinkedIN if they have your url in their possesion. Add it to your next business card and always ask if they are on the site.

How to NOT Rock  on LinkedIN

1. Fill out your profile to 95%. Believe me this sounds easy but I cannot tell you how many times I have come across a profile and it is only filled out to 75-92%. Seriously? Did you not take the time to just fill in your last job? Give me a break.

2. Add your logo instead of your picture. Be personal. Add your picture and use your real name. Please?

3. Lie on your LinkedIN profile. You would think this would be a given but it’s not. Just don’t do it. The Internet NEVER FORGETS.

4. Become a connection whore! If you add 114,000,403 people within your first week of being on the network. You have completely missed the point. Don’t become a connection whore! Add the people you have met face to face. It will keep your relationships and connections strong.

5. Send an invitation without clearing explaining the objective. Do you have a business card to a person at a networking event and just walk away? Don’t do it on LinkedIN.

That’s it for me. Write them down. Pin them up. Laminate it and put them in your wallet.

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When is Social Media a Primary Marketing Tool?

Let me be the first to say that social media is a brilliant tool. It can enhance every aspect of your marketing plan from Public Relations to direct mail. Although… there is a time and place for everything. It is extremely important to realize the potential of social media can either be a primary or secondary.

When should social media be used as a primary tool?

If you are building a personal brand, social media can be a huge driver to increase a following or “fans.” Many small businesses are run by so-called thought leaders… The visionaries behind the brands that are being built by the thousands. Small businesses must rely heavily on referrals and word-of-mouth marketing and what better tool to help the process than soacial meda. As you advance in a community of clients and customers you can use social media as your primary source of marketing.

Whether social media can be defined as a medium or a tool (later post) is not the point. Arguing over semantics hasn’t helped anyone in the past. You have the opportunity to build your brand.. both personally and professionally. Embrace it.

This is the first time in history when millions of people are just a click away. You can’t get any better than that. So how should you get start on your online brand development?

• Do your customers even care? Make sure you do not negate your current clients. Keep picking up the phone.
• Research what others are doing in the area. What are your competitors writing about? How can you be different? How can you do it better?
• Start a blog. Sign up on WordPress.com and start writing (after the research, of course)
• Go to CommonCraft and get update on the more recent tools on the Internet. They will help you in your social media quest.

And remember… be conscious of your people. What makes them tick?

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Don’t Shoot at Fish in a Barrel. Blow the thing up!

Jeremiah Oywang has been ON FIRE the past couple of weeks with his posts regarding social media. I went through the slideshare (above) a couple of times and wanted to share.

When it comes to social media marketing you either understand the tools and then reach the customers…
or understand your customers and then find the tools!

Which choice do you think will grant you more success? The second.

Small business owners and business professionals are scraping to learn the tools presented to them. Whether it is for their personal use or for external marketing, they learn the tool and then broadcast it to catch the fish. They are choosing a gun… learning how to use the gun… and then firing into a barrel. Blow the thing up!

If you created a strategy and you understand your customer you don’t have to shoot anything… you will destroy the competition and the market. You will be picking dead fish up off the ground and cashing in. Dead fish apparently equal revenue/sales in my mind.

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Social Media is Valuable but Broken. We Need to Work Together.

There is always debate.
There is always debate on the topics of social media… the black magic of the business world. Should we do it? What is the best way to do it?

Traditional marketing, advertising and PR firms do not know what to do. “Social Media” companies do not have enough traditional strategy to make something stick. We are all scraping to find something to make this powerful tool work. It is going to be a long process of customization, personalization, and strategy.

My company, Brandswag, started out as a small business design and marketing firm in Indianapolis. We have thus grown to a 5 person shop dealing with graphic design, web design, and social media/internet marketing. The transition happened pretty naturally because all of us were so involved in social media already… Why not try to leverage this amazing tool for business benefit? And it has worked… to an extent. The tool is broken. Social media should be used strictly with a traditional strategy. Hire a traditional marketing firm. Hire a Public Relations firm.

This is not the “save-me-from-the-economy” tool. It is a new thing. It is a new product that is being slowly pushed and pulled apart to make it work. I am far from an “expert” and there are only a few that can take that title (Chris Brogan and Douglas Karr). We all have little pieces of the pie to maximize a marketing strategy.

What are we to do? Work together.

Traditional marketing, PR, and advertising companies need to open up their minds to the tool and also the opposite way. Social media and internet marketing companies need the traditional strategy and marketing of the agency. Let’s work together to measure and get results.

We are all in this together. We have (at our fingertips) a tool that could transform the way we communicate.

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