Posted in Marketing, Social Media Community, social media
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23/07 2009

25 Ways to Fit In with Your Competition and Fail

(disclaimer: this is tongue-in-cheek, otherwise known as sarcasm)

In light of my post yesterday about fitting in with the competition… I wanted to make a list of 25 ways you could fit in with the competition and use marketing/design/communication the wrong way. There is a ton of this going on and it doesn’t make any sense to me.

1. You use an email with an ending of @aol.com or @comcast.net or @hotmail.com

2. Microsoft Publisher was used while creating your brochure. Oh that clip art looks nice!

3. Your website hasn’t been changed in 6 months to 5 years.

4. You send out direct mail the same way you did 5 years ago without changing any strategy.

5. You chose to use a WORD font for your logo instead of investing in good design.

6. You wont touch social media or the Internet because you “don’t have time.”

7. You are reactive to competition instead of proactive.

8. You send out an article for your e-newsletter instead of up-to-date content and information.

9. You send out an e-newsletter once a month… same day… same time.. same content.

10. You sell the same thing your competition sells.

11. You care more about selling than listening.

12. You don’t ask questions… just sign contracts.

13. You will not invest any money into marketing because you fear wasting “resources.”

14. You do not spend time investing into your education and do not read because it is “boring.”

15. Your employees hate going to work.

16. Your brochure has 5,000,000 words about your company and 10 about how you help the client.

17. You think Facebook is just another “college kids” hang out.

18. You don’t attend networking events or community events because you have “better things to do.”

19. Your best client is described as…. everyone that owns a small business.

20. You refuse to write a blog. Period.

21. You create seminars you know nothing about but only because it is the “cool thing” to do.

22. Use a billboard without tying to the Internet.

23. Use the same stock photography as everyone else.

24. Ignore market trends because what “you do” worked in the past.

25. You talk about what you offer instead of what YOU do.. it is about personality and human quality… not service offering.. to an extent.

Well there you go. If you want to fit in with your competition… by all means.. follow the 25 steps.

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Posted in Social Media Community, blogging, corporate blogging, facebook, social media marketing
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16/07 2009

The 4th E of Social Media is Engage

Kat Jaib beat me to the punch! I had been writing this 4th step in implementing a social media strategy as engage and Kat beat me to it in a comment earlier on my morning blog post. Kat is right when pertaining to the 4th E in the social media strategy: Engaging the Community

After you have stepped through the 3 E’s of Embrace, Educate and Empower it is important to engage the community in conversation. If you think of it as an action point you are listening and learning. By engaging the community you are creating action steps to supporting relationships to the people using social media.

Engagement means you care about what other people are saying online. What happens when you actually listen and engage? You create a new lead generation and communication tool.

When people know you care… they return the favor.

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Posted in Corporate Strategy, Reputation Management, Social Media Community, customer evangelist, facebook, relationship, small business, social media, social media marketing
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13/07 2009

233 Million Hours Spent on Facebook in April

(Stat courtesy of the Seattle Times)

Nielsen recently reported that there was an average of 233 million hours spent on Facebook in the month of April. 233 Million HOURS! Let me repeat that.. Americans are spending 233 million hours a month on Facebook. That is unbelieveable.

I would like to think that the majority of the time spent on Facebook is productive and not a MASSIVE time suck but that is not what is important. The important thing to take away from this Nielsen Online study is that the online communication platform is still growing. There is a massive shift happening in how people communicate. Whether you like it or not…

People are moving online to share ideas, thoughts, opinions, and their lives.

What does this mean to the business owner? Your customers are experiencing a new way to communicate. They can now connect to individuals through their daily lives! Get your sales people on Facebook. Teach them how to interact with people in the REAL sense of true interaction. This is not a hard sell environment… this is a relationship based environment.

Create relationships and win… and maybe… you will find that 233 million hours spent on Facebook can actually drive leads to your door.

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Posted in Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Social Media Community, blogging, innovation, social media
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8/07 2009

Your Website is Your Social Media Hub

Our web-developer extraordinaire and overall genius at Brandswag, Stephen Coley, wrote in his post yesterday about the importance of centralizing your overall social media communication strategy. Stephen is a genius at php and has been building websites  for the company since March and I couldn’t agree with him more.

When you are building your online strategy.. please.. make sure that you are driving traffic to one source. We are developing content to reach a wider audience than ever deemed possible in the world of marketing and public relations. For this very reason it is important to have a centralized hub. This pertains to B2B and B2C strategies. Great content develops readers and followers.. which in turn.. develops trust and thought-leadership.

Now, this may not deem necessary for some early adopters. There may come a time when the entire social media world will be decentralized and a new form of strategy will develop… but until then.. spend time developing your hub (your website). Put deep thought into the content you are creating and then setup the necessary tools to drive readers to your connection point.

I welcome disagreement on this topic but this is what I have seen from multiple sources, our own work, and current clients.

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Posted in Social Media Community, Social Strategy, productivity, social media mission, twitter
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6/07 2009

Twitter Usage Plan for Success

Twitter is the talk of the town from marketing firms to small business owners… how do we use this tool to increase leads and drive growth? This seems to be the question most people are asking across the business landscape. If you are skeptical and a little confused… believe me… you are not alone. I am immersed in social media on a daily basis and I am still testing strategies when using Twitter.

We are all trying to figure out this new world of online communication.. so where do you start when diving into Twitter.

Twitter is just another tool in your (business) aresenal to drive brand awareness across a specific group of people. So what do you do when first starting out? Limit your twitter use. It is extremely important to build out a usage plan for Twitter when first starting out on the tool.

An example:

Phase 1

  • Use Twitter for 30 minutes a day
  • Add 10 strategic relationships to follow every two days (between 30-45 followers a week)
  • Tweet (send a twitter message) three times a day
  • Write down all strategic relationships or new business leads formed when using Twitter

Phase 2

  • Move up to an hour of Twitter usage a day. Example: designate 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes after the work day. You could also break the usage out over the day
  • Sign up for a HootSuite account to help with Tweeting and follower management throughout the day.
  • Move up to 10 tweets a day. If need be… use HootSuite for random posting through-out the day.

This is just small example of how you can build out a Twitter usage plan for yourself or your employees. There are a couple of important things to remember:

  • Use the tool on a daily basis. It is important to build up a habit of using the tool.
  • Measure. Measure. Measure. Measure. If you do not see some type of success from Twitter after 3-5 months.. re-evaluate your usage.
  • Remember that Twitter is just another medium to reach potential consumers… don’t give up your other marketing strategies… integrate your approach

Twitter is a great tool to use for communication and brand awareness. Do you have any other productivity tips? Ways to be productive? This is just a small example but I would LOVE to hear from other people.

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Posted in Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Community, blogging, rant, social media, social media marketing
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30/06 2009

The Failing Marketing and PR World

I am becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of blog writing by public relations, marketing, and advertising firms in the city of Indianapolis and abroad. The simple fact that a communications company is not in-tune with the changing landscape of the consumer driven world is troubling… to say the least.

If there are any industries that should be on the forefront of social media and blogging it is the public relations and marketing worlds. YOU are the communications arm for major brands both large and small. YOU are driving them out of business because of your lack of knowledge pertaining to the changing world.

If you do not believe in social media as a valuable device for communication (two-way communication)… I am concerned for your company health and your clients bottom line. You may be riding the fair wave of strictly using traditional marketing and media buys… Don’t get me wrong… it is still extremely valuable to use and implement but only when integrated with new techniques.

But what happens when 6 to 12 months down the road… when you realize that you did not change in the right direction… What happens when you are surpassed by smaller, more agile firms and your market share is ripped away because of one thing..

THEY realized it was important to talk to single consumers instead of a HUGE demographic mix. They realized it was important to communicate instead of blasting messages over the airwaves.

It is important to understand that social media will be new medium of communication. It may be a new concept but in the next year it is going to revolutionize the way we communicate. Are you searching for the truth? Are you watching the trends?

Most are not.

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Posted in Advertising, Corporate Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media Community, Social Strategy, blogging, business, content, corporate blogging, customer evangelist, small business, social media, social networking
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17/06 2009

Authenticity is Life. The Rest is Just Details.

How do you creat great content that is alluring to the general public and your potential clients? The simple answer would be keyword rich content and industry news. Oh yes, keyword rich writing. We all love it.

There is something deeper that tends to push one blog past the other in terms of the public attention deficit disorder: Authenticity.

Authenticity should be one of the driving focusing of your blog, your use of social networking tools, and your business. We are now in a customer centric world where people want to deal with… you guessed it… people.

Staying authentic with your content means you do not sound like the back of a brochure. It means you do not sound like the news anchor on the Fox Business Channel droning away about the pitfalls of capitalism.

It means..What does it mean?

Telling stories.

Creating visual memories of how you have helped clients. Telling the story of starting the business and being honest about the mistakes you made “growing up.” It means giving your personal opinion on activities happening in the market.

I think I speak for everyone when I say… we want to hear from YOU not your industry.

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Posted in Social Media Community, Viral Marketing, innovation, social media, social media marketing, social media mission, twitter
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15/06 2009

What You Can Learn From Tony Robbins About Twitter

I was browsing Twitter this morning (I know. It sounds stimulating doesn’t it?) and happened across Tony Robbins Twitter profile. If you have no idea of who Tony Robbins is… go check out his website. He is an extremely influential speaker and thought leader in the world of personal development. I was surprised to find that Tony Robbins very rarely used Twitter for communication.. only the broadcasting of messages.

Some may say that Mr. Robbins is accomplishing communication by using social media tools to spread a message… unfortunately he is not. Communication is a two way street and unfortunately, one-way messages rarely harness the power of social media.

What if Tony were to take 30 minutes a week to respond to his fans and supporters? What if Tony were to utilize the some 750,000 people following him on Twitter? He is probably accomplishing some type of thought leadership and a hint of viral marketing by continuing to use Twitter in this manner… but the roads that could be forged if he did more than just USED the tool… endless.

What can you learn from Tony Robbins about Twitter? Move from automation to emotion. You can automate anything in the world but it takes the human quality out of the process. Take some time and add personal c0mmunication into your Twitter strategy. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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Posted in Social Media Community, social media, social media marketing, social networking
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4/06 2009

Using Social Media As A Sales Tool

I have been debating (with myself) recently about the concept of using social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIN, Blogs, and Twitter as sales tools. A recurring picture keeps popping into my mind of a kettle warming on a stove waiting to boil over.. at just the right time.

Selling in social media can be directly related to the concept of the “slow boil.” You are producing content and creating relationships in the online environment that is slowly building your reputation as a thought leader. Your readers and your fans will be constantly involved in the conversation and trusting your advice when it comes to a specific topic or problem.

What happens when they reach a pain point? What happens when they realize they need your guidance and support?

I would venture to guess that it is going to be much easier to sell a prospect when they trust your opinion even before you walk in the door.

What do you think? Is social media a viable sales tool?

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Posted in Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Reputation Management, Social Media Community, Social Strategy, Viral Marketing, customer evangelist, productivity, relationship, social media, social networking
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3/06 2009

Killing the Machine with Social Media

First off… a side note… If you are not reading Convince & Convert by Jason Baer you should be. He always gets me thinking and brainstorming on new methods and ideas to marketing through social media.

If you were to think back to the days of (what we will call) old-school marketing…the days where big money won and the more you broadcasted the higher the return…it can be debated that the marketing arm of many companies ran much like a machine. Yes, there was some creative thought process involved but the communication model was more machine-like than we would care to admit.

They (the machines) started churning out hundreds of thousands of ideas in order to plaster on our minds the benefits of their products and services. More often than not, it worked.

In the age of the Internet, open collaboration, and social media the machine is slowly dying and giving way to a more sophisticated school of thought. The customer is now crafting the message of brands. The customer has castrated the machine of marketing and created a new form of communication.

In the words of Jason, social media is now at the forefront of the customer experience. The thoughts and ideas of brands are no longer crafted in the board room (which many people would like to believe) but created in our living rooms, restaurants, gathering places, and keyboards.

As a business owner it is up to you to listen to this message. To never ignore the potential that social media can have on your brand and welcome the unison of voices which are the PEOPLE who love your product… and..

the people who do not.

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