Stories are Life. Marketers are Failing.

Stories are life. Stories are built off of every day occurences and the little things that happen in life. Where did we… as marketers… go wrong when telling the story? All businesses and products are built off of a story. What is the main point of marketing… Is it fulfilling a need? Is it creating a product that actually helps an individual? Is it selling your wares… period?

A story is something that creates a safe haven for an individual. You are building a message that should be involved in the story of your customer’s life. It should (and must be) the connection that brings in additional customer and evangelists for your brand.

You want your customer to get to a place… a place where they agree with your terms and conditions. A place where they say, “Yes. I do need, want, or should have that product or service.”

A place where they approve your service and believe/know it will work for them… in any capacity.

What is the series of events that drive a person to a specific point: buying your product. What are you telling your customers? Is your story bland… Boring… Normal?

I see normal marketing everywhere. Brochures… Smiling billboards… Postcards… Facebook updates…It is normal and plain. There are no new story lines. There is nothing to pull me into the brand. The stock photography you bought in 1980 is not going to sell me on buying a house. The telemarketer that just left a message on my cell phone is not going to trick me into buying your magazine subscription.

And… the direct mail piece you just sent me asking me about my retirement plans… is definitely not going to pull me into your luncheon.

My friends and MY preferences are going to sell me on your product. I want to pull your information at MY will… at MY discretion. Notice a trend here?

It is about me… how are you speaking to me? Nay… how are you listening? Do you know what I want as an individual… are you allowing me to interact?

If you are not…

You have a long way to go… shift that paradigm and interact.

57 Channels and There is Nothing On. What is On in Your World?

By: Ike Eicher

Some of you reading this probably don’t remember this Bruce Springsteen hit or how 57 channels seems so “pre-U-verse” when this was released in 1992.

“Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish

So I hopped into town for a satellite dish

I tied it to the top of my Japanese car

I came home and I pointed it out into the stars

A message came back from the great beyond

There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”

So almost 20 years later we have every kind of multi-media, social media, mobile media, blank-blank media to keep our shortening attention spans occupied. But to a certain extent, is there really nothin’ on?

In some cases I do feel that this sensory overload has warped our sense of time. We want instant gratification and short message spurts to communicate our wants or needs. We rarely watch “live” TV and the thought of having to actually wait for our online streams to load and play is crazy. And we want to take this all with us, all the time. So we have mobile devices now that are essentially super computers in our pocket.

I am guilty with all of the above, but it does make me think. From a communications standpoint is this bad? How has this changed how we deliver our message, brand promise, and call to action?

And that is where I find peace. All of these tools are simply new channels in our arsenal. And all the old rules apply. Know your brand and what it promises, know your audience and what they want and need, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

The other big message here is that in the past, for the most part, we had to only deliver a message. Now we can engage our customers, create a two-way street, and even remedy a problem… right now. The power of instant gratification goes both ways. If the customer tweets a bad experience and you are there immediately to fix it, everyone wins. No calling a 1-800 number, no filtering through an FAQ section of a website, and certainly no sending in the UPC code in a self-addressed mailer. So when the customer feels supported on their channel and we are listening and then reacting, what a brand champion we have created.

So, I’d change the Boss’s classic to 570 channels and yes, there is somethin’ on, let’s just hope we are sending a signal.

What’s on in your world?

Facebook Blasts North Korea and Uriminzokkiri

Have you heard of the new group on Facebook?

A group on Facebook belonging to to Uriminzokkiri, a Web site that provides Korean-language news and propaganda from North Korea’s central news agency.

The group had been previously deleted due to violation of Facebook terms.. A replacement account has appeared and carries similar content as the original. The profile is described as a single male who has interests in Korean reunification and lactose free milk… no joke… lactose free milk.  He describes  himself as wanting to network and meet friends. The group is listed on the Uriminzokkiri site, which is essentially… North Korea’s official home on the Internet. The Facebook group links users to articles on the Uriminzokkiri Web site and videos on the site’s YouTube channel.The Facebook group was drawing attention from mainstream media but became “unavailable” on Friday.

Facebook deleted the group because the account was violating the terms of use. As stated on PCWorld the terms in this situation are stated in section 16 putting usage restriction on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list that reads: “If you are located in a country embargoed by the United States or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals you will not engage in commercial activities on Facebook (such as advertising or payments) or operate a Platform application or website.”

North Korea is listed as being under U.S.government.

The Facebook group isn’t the first attempt  in social media by the Uriminzokkiri Web site. Before Facebook… they started a YouTube channel and a Twitter account. The Twitter account has more than 10,000 followers.

The issue with this Web site is the restrictions put on it by the South Korean government. which has blocked the site for many years and is blocking access to the Twitter account. The blocking only affects the homepage so the Twitter page is accessible. The Web site also features information on software and techniques that show users how to bypass the blocking.

Restaurants and Social Media

Restaurants using social media is not a new concept. There are certain things restaurants should and should not do. Many of the ideas by the food and beverage industry are creative and unique, which they should be.

The restaurant business is a form of entertainment. You go to a restaurant to enjoy the environment, the food and the service. I mean… let’s be honest… who doesn’t want to be waited on for the rest of their life? If you don’t… you are lying.

When planning a restaurant communication’s strategy using social media… keep in mind that your plan should be entertaining, captivating and should keep your patrons coming back for more. So what should be done?

1. Use Twitter for More than Customer Service
It’s a great tool to use for listening to your customer base. If you have a following then more than likely those followers consist of your customers and they like to be rewarded. Be creative… you could start promotions on Twitter and get your followers involved in redeeming the coupons. Offer exclusive prizes to followers. Be entertaining by giving them a reason to come back.

2. Utilize Your Facebook Fan Page to Drive Traffic
The fan page can sometimes be a second thought due to the high traffic of conversations happening on Twitter. It’s important to engage on Facebook to keep the fans visiting. You can also use the same creative approach to attract more fan involvement. Create a place for fans to visit by adding pictures, asking for fan photos, sharing updates and offer incentives for fans to visit page.

3. Create a Blog to Share Your Story
We all have a story. It’s easy to assume that a restaurant doesn’t need a blog. However, a blog can be give your customers an even greater sense of a relationship. The blog will reflect the restaurant in a more detailed way. Every blog post read can increase the chance for potential customers and current to visit the webpage and drive traffic through the doors.

4. Use Video to Capture the Action!
Take video of events or food and upload it to Flickr or YouTube. Words may not be enough for some people and actual visuals of food can intice customers. Video is also a great way to showcase the people behind the business. People relate to people and video allows for the customers to meet the people behind the food….which hopefully generates loyalty.

Food is something that interests everybody. It’s enjoyed… it sparks conversation… brings up memories…I know it sounds familiar. It should.

The ideas listed above are just a few essential “must dos” when beginning a social media strategy. These are just a few but there are so many more. Keep in mind mobile applications and location based applications.These are two applications that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. What ideas do you have?

3 Habits of Excellent Brand Communication

I’ve had the pleasure of re-reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (it is excellent every single time). I picked the book up again during vacation because I felt the need to revisit his thoughts, opinions, and ideas. While reading the book… I found myself relating much of his teaching to that of change management and social media adoption in organizations.

“It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors…. We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.” -Stephen Covey, page 31

Much of Covey’s book is based around the concept of changing identity rather than personality. If you read any book by any self-help guru… you will realize that much of change management is about changing identity rather than personality.

First. You must change the internal identity (brand) of a company before the personality (communication) will be open to change… we are talking about internal and external communication. Look deep within your organization and redraft your brand strategy.

Second. You must find the root of the problem. We all know what playing in the tree means… just staring a Facbook or Twitter account without planning and strategy… rockabye baby.The root of the problem is (more than likely) fear of the unknown. Fear of changing and making a misstep into the unknown…. stepping off an edge hoping, HOPING that a bridge will catch your fall.

Third. Plan to make the minor changes and transform your organization. Covey says it best when he states that minor changes will help you focus on achieve the quantum improvements in your life… or company.

Listen to the public. Listen to your employees. Listen to your contractors. Listening is the best way to adjust and make those minor changes to transform and jump into the world of… instant and effective communication.

Marketing as a State of Mind. Be Captivating.

Marketing is no longer a department – it is a state of mind.

I awoke with a start this morning with a single thought on my mind. It is a concept I heard randomly in the halls (or maybe on Twitter) from the company, ExactTarget. I’m not sure who said it (or typed it) but it was on my mind at 2:30am this morning. Stupid, I know.  At first the concept sounds easy to understand. “Yah… Kyle this makes complete sense! Do not think of marketing as a department with a CMO and a staff but think of marketing as an overall experience!” Easy.

However, there is a deeper meaning to the idea of marketing being a “state of mind.” It is more than your department or advertisement. It is everything under your brand… your structure that supports and influences the customer’s buying decision…. and their experience.

First, let’s explore the meaning of something being a “state of mind.” In researching for this blog post I ran across the teachings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I know… it is a mouthful). Mihaly is pretty much the master on the idea of the flow of the mental state of mind.

“Mihaly outlines his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow— a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove.”

Each individual can have their own understanding of what it means to be in the zone (or groove). When it comes to marketing it is extremely important to keep the customer or the potential customer in the groove. The groove is the process of captivation… a state of concentrating and complete absorption in an activity.

Your story is what makes you captivating. Your client’s success story is what throws people in the groove.
Can you imagine a customer being completely absorbed in your product and brand experience? You can look at any big brand and discover slivers of this idea worked into the product design, store design, marketing and employee training.

Tell the story and captivate your audience. Want a good example? Check out this marketing/recruitment/employee interation video from Twitter.

You may be reading this disgusted because you are the ONLY marketing professional in your company. Hell… you could be the only person in your company! But guess what? It is easier than you think to create a positive state of mind with your clients and potential clients. Tell your story and create the content that pulls potential customers into your mix. You are creating an experience to captivate them.

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Followers Closer

What’s more important:What you say or what others say about you? When it comes to your brand what matters most to you? Are you self promoting and only allowing good comments to be posted? Where do you draw the line?

Social media is a tool the should be used to help others speak about you. When there’s a negative comment do you delete it? My suggestion is to leave it. Although,  it may not be a good or accurate reflection of you it lets others see that you’re real. If all you ever read  is good content (about something) then usually you jump to the conclusion that something is not right with that individual. We’re not perfect and we can’t make everyone happy. The bad comment won’t ruin you. It’ll give you credibility. It shows that you can take criticism. You can deal with it and you can move on from it. However, do not mistake dealing with it as ignoring it. You want to respond to all negative publicity no matter how severe.

You can draw the line at slanderous material.

Self promotion is good when done in moderation. I would rather not go to your Twitter account and only see you patting yourself on the back. Yes, it’s good to read about your accomplishments and your other latest successes… However, there has got to be more to you than that. If not, consider yourself un-followed. Thank you very much. Spend time complimenting the successes of other people. Get to know your followers and give back by retweeting or engaging in conversations. Engaging with others fosters relationships, which will ultimately create community that you are apart of. This bodes well for you especially when a dreaded negative comment appears.

In times of trouble you’ll have all the friends you need to back you up  because of the community you’ve invested in. It’s  similar to the old saying “treat others as you’d like to be treated”. We may have grown up but childhood principles can always be applied.

The Value of a Social Media Conversion Funnel

Kristina Allen is the online marketing manager for @ioninteractive where she handles social media and PR initiatives. Kristina is also a graduate student currently working towards a master’s in communication with an emphasis on classical rhetoric. You can read her daily blog posts at The Post-Click Marketing blog, or connect with her @allenkristina on Twitter.

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Setting up a social media presence is easy. Engaging with targeted followers and fans is pretty easy too. Tying social media back to business objectives shouldn’t be hard. Connecting social media to ROI via social conversions…yikes!

A few weeks ago Jay Baer participated in a podcast with the Executive VP of ion interactive (my employer) on why a social conversion funnel is so important to a mature social media strategy.

Jay says we have to move past using the number of fans, followers, and subscribers as key metrics, and start deciding which user actions or set of actions leads to an actual conversion. Once these actions are defined, we can then use them as key metrics that are easily tied back to ROI.

For instance, if you’re an online marketer looking to generate leads by having a visitor fill out a form on your website, the hard conversion will still be having the form filled out. However, the social media conversion would be tracking how many of the people who fill out the form came in from one of your social channels.

An example might be:

It should be easy to see how tying these actions back to social media ROI is clearer than going the murky route of trying to tie the number of followers you have to ROI.

Jay says, “What I think a lot of people are referring to when they say ‘social conversion’ is converting people to fans or followers,” but “what’s the point in having a Facebook fan page if you don’t really have a plan for what to do with those people once they get there. So I would certainly hope that we can get to the point where social conversion is really a funnel, and not just a single action.”

Of course a sale isn’t the only type of conversion that matters, and in fact if the main objective for your social strategy is driving awareness or loyalty, tracking a hard conversion like a sale wouldn’t be of complete interest to you. In that case it would be good to look at the number of social engagements taking place in your universe (RTs, comments, social bookmarking), bounce rates and time on site.

It would also be a good idea to track which pages your visitors from social sites click through beyond the entry page. Do they look at your About page (probably), do they look at your services page?

Which pages are they looking at, and how can you optimize those pages for your social traffic to benefit your ultimate objective?

If awareness is your goal, what can you do to get RSS subscribers to “like” you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter and then share your content?

If loyalty is your goal, what can you do to get visitors that enter via a blog post to stay on your site? How can you get them to read multiple blog posts or subscribe to your RSS feed or newsletter?

Figure our which user action or set of actions determines your social media ROI, and then track those metrics. Having a social conversion funnel will help you watch your program grow and succeed, and will also show you which initiatives are failing, so you can move on to something else.

If you’re interested in learning more about social conversions, you can read the Jay Baer podcast episode transcript here, or download the episode from iTunes (search: ion interactive or “conversations on conversion”)

Which social conversion metrics are you currently tracking, or which ones do you plan to start measuring to improve your strategy?

4 Ways to Make Content Go Viral in Social Media

You’ve got you basics down when it comes to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even Foursquare. So, what’s next? The next big thing to look into is going viral with video. This may either intimidate you or excite you either way there a few things you need to know. Before you dismiss this media channel know  some facts. For one, 180 million people in the U.S. watch online video for an average of 13 hours each month. Those numbers alone speak volume. There is a large market for online videos. This past May, American users watched nearly 34 billion videos, and 4.8 percent of the total American Internet audience watched videos online with 144.1 million viewers watching videos on YouTube, according to comScore’s Video Metrix service.

1.Quality versus Quantity. The average video is 5 minutes or less so in order to engage without boring your audience keep it short. Also keep in mind the quality of your video. I’m not saying you have to be Martin Scorsese but keep your production value in mind. This means checking your lighting, sound levels and your background. If you filming a 5 minute blog make sure we can hear you, see you and that your background is appropriate.

2. The Power of a Web Series. If your only goal is to post a video blog then what are you waiting for? A video blog will reach to wider audience and may even attract new followers. However, don’t disregard the value of a web series. This does require you to get those creative wheels spinning and some writing. Once you’ve established who your target audience is and what you want to convey write it down, map it out and get to filming. This may seem like a lot of work but it will expand your brand and it may be a lot of fun.

3. It’s Not a Commercial. The value of a web series or video blog is in it’s content. It’s not meant to be commercial for you company or other services. If you hoping to educate or inform others do it in a creative nonabrasive way. Your goal should not be to sell something. Instead think of it as a way to engaging with your audience in a new, fun way.

4.Keep Your Audience Tuning In. What happens when your series ends? While in between shoots or blogs keep your audience engaged by filming off topic things. For instance, you could have a guest host or you could have news updates. This also allows you to market without using the same message over and over again. That doesn’t mean spam viewers into watching your video(s) instead let them find it the series organically. Try a more grassroots approach plus the people who then decide to tune it will most likely become loyal fans. It will take time to gather a suitable following but in the end it’s worth it.

Hopefully, this gets your mind ticking and your cameras rolling. What other ideas do you have when it comes to online videos? Is this something you hope to explore?

HootSuite Offers New Features for Customer Interaction

There is no denying that the relationship between customers and business have changed due to the evolution of social media.. This evolution has created a new customer to business relationship. Customers aren’t only seeking interactions they are expecting it. However exciting this is, it’s difficult for a business to produce consistent  communication and spread consistent themes. This in part is due to the overwhelmingly amount of social media channels. Hootsuite, a social media dashboard, has taken notice and is ready to help.

Hootsuite has recently added new tools for businesses to better serve their customers. These tools help businesses to offer assistance, provide information relevant to its audience and socially manage campaigns.

Are you looking to find out who in your network is most influential? Hootsuite allows you to filter columns by influence score. This will show which followers are ideal for campaign candidates or are a response priority. Essentially, you can learn which followers are most beneficial to maintain for your business reach.

Are you struggling with message overload? You can focus your columns by keywords. Simply type in words that center on what’s most relevant to you and remove all the unnecessary clutter. This tool is helpful when looking to track a topic or look for prospective clients. Wanting to get to know your audience better? Hootsuite offers an “insights” tab where you get access to your contact’s social profile links, images occupations and titles all in one view.

Now let’s say your problem is tech support. Well, don’t worry anymore. Your customer service conundrums are the least of your worries with the help of Zendesk, a help desk app.

Hootsuite also offers Team Collaboration tools that help users add extensive networks. This allows you to manage you network by showing your contacts on each network while allowing you to add more on one view. If your interested in this click the Owl, go to settings, then My Organizations.

Hootsuite aims to help businesses get their messages heard, monitor conversations and track results. Now, they are offering paid plans that grant premium users access to extra features. However, users in general still have access to 95% of all Hootsuite features. The paid plans are yet to be releases but will offer unlimited social networks, unlimited RSS feeds, advanced analytics and reports and also expedited support.