130 Million Are Being Influenced Online

I was reading the new Razorfish FEED Digital Brand Experience Report for 2009. This report is unbelievable and has some amazing statistics to help further the goal of increased use of digital marketing. I am going to be devoting the rest of this week to breaking down the Razorfish report.

At the beginning of the report Razorfish states:

65% of consumers report having had a digital experience that either positively or negatively changed their opinion about a brand. 97% say that their digital experience influenced whether or not they eventually purchased a product of service from that brand.

Razorfish surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers (50.5% female, 49.5% male) in four major age groups. The consumers that were surveyed have spent $150 online in the past six months and have broadband access to the Internet. According to the PEW Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet. The use of broadband stat stat roughly translates to 200 million people.

With 65% of broadband users being influenced by brands online (130 million) it may be important to start debating importance of digital marketing. The use of the Internet is only going to increase over the next 5 to 10 years. It is important for brands to start learning and educating their employees and consumers on the values of digital marketing.

What is even more important than the 65% statistic is the fact that almost ALL of the 130 million people influenced by a brand made the decision to purchase (or not purchase a product) based on their digital experience.

Decisions are being made online. Are you putting enough emphasis on your digital brand… or are you wasting that money on a stationary billboard that individuals can not interact with?

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The Problem with Fear

I was driving to work this morning listening to a great track by Sufjan Stevens… reminiscing about my “musical” days in college. I played guitar for a long time and have just recently put it aside for other hobbies and activities. I want you to know that I have never… ever… ever talked about this with anyone. This is the  “I’m Being Completely Open With My Blog Readers Morning with Kyle” show.

Get Ready.

During the years of guitar playing… I had always wanted to perform in front of a group of people and honestly… I don’t think I knew exactly what that entailed… maybe it was playing my own songs or playing a popular song from John Mayer… who knows? The deep down desire was to play in front of a group of people… my acoustic guitar and a mic.

It never happened.

I can associate most of my hesitation with fear. It is a hard thing to admit… that you were actually afraid of doing something and it kept you from actually realizing some sort of… success or maybe pride? My fear of being laughed at and individuals not enjoying my music kept me from walking up and just doing something… crossing it off my list.

Is anyone connecting with me on this?

Fear is an extremely powerful thing. It can paralyze you in business and in life… destroying the dreams that you were building over the years of work and preparation.

The problem with fear is that… sometimes… it keeps ordinary people from doing extraordinary things. And let’s be honest… do you really want to admit you didn’t do something because of fear? Steve Jobs would laugh in your face.

I decided to screw fear and take a stab at doing what I wanted… without hesitation. There may come a time when I step on a stage and perform for the.. two people in the room. Until then, I am going to move forward with my head down. I would rather deal with the ramifications of my actions than never know the outcome because of hesitation.

Quality, Service, and Expertise Do Not Matter

I am currently in a sales training class at Trustpointe, a Sandler Sales Company, who I highly recommend  to anyone looking for sales training and expertise. We were talking about the idea of quality, service, and expertise not mattering when involved in marketing communications. I have been wrestling with that concept over the past 48 hours and decided… who best to ask?

I have been under the assumption that it is absolutely idiotic to use “best customer service” in marketing communications. I’m still convinced that you have to be a little more creative  to gain the attention of a consumer base when using traditional marketing… even more when using social media marketing.

Plain and simple… everyone has quality, service, and expertise. What makes you different from everyone in your industry? If I get hit with marketing that says “Best Quality since 1889
“… Do I really care? No. I don’t.

I care about how you personally take care of your customers. I care about how you go about your daily routine.

Seth Godin has always said that people have come to expect that you have quality, service, and expertise… you do not have to keep telling us… show us.

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Think Big and then Think Small

I’m not going to lie to you. This blog post is completely… and utterly… inspired by Jay Baer over at Convince and Convert. His blog post titled Get More Bait in the Water has a great thought that pushed me to write this blog.

“Thought leadership via social media content is about thinking big. And then thinking small.”

I believe that we are so focused on thinking big that we deny the concept of thinking small when deciding on strategy and implementation. It can lead to inconsistent messaging and promotion. We are talking about the death of many small to mid sized companies.

The overall strategy of a specific marketing initiative is the concept of thinking big. How are we (as a company) going to achieve our goals? How are we going to move from point A to point B and dominate the market? The overall goal of strategy planning is to think big! But creativity can only take you so far. I can use my own social media and design company as an example.

We do a ton of creative brainstorming. My role as head of business development allows me the luxury of thinking big.. 24/7. Early on we ran into the problem of implementation. We had some huge ideas both internally and externally but they were not implemented properly (for our clients or our company). My business partner, Brandon Coon, took it upon himself to be the implementation guru.  We hired an awesome company ran by Nicole Bickett to help us with process and we acquired an excellent project manager named Amy Rowe.

It is so important to remember the small things that make a BIG IDEA work. The same concept applies to your social media strategy and implementation. You have big goals but how are you going to accomplish the social media goals?

A top ranked blog or seach engine ranking takes small posts and careful planning to reach that coveted spot. Great lead generation tools for your sales team takes little ideas implemented over.. and over.. and over to work. In the words of the great Chet Holmes, “Pig headed discipline and determination is key to business success.”

Be pig headed and stubborn… but remember planning and implementaxtion.

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The Power of a Decision. Be A Risk Taker!

There are times when I stumble through Seth Godin’s blog and he rocks my life into oblivion… this morning it happened again. Seth has a post about decision making and the power of making a decision in the world of business growth… as many decisions as possible. Interesting thought right?

From Seth’s blog:

No decision is a decision as well, the decision not to decide. Not deciding is usually the wrong decision. If you are the go-to person, the one who can decide, you’ll make more of a difference. It doesn’t matter so much that you’re right, it matters that you decided.

Don’t you feel like standing up and singing hallelujah? Don’t you feel like making some strategic decisions? I know I do.

What is keeping you from moving to the next step of business growth? Is it a marketing initiative? Is it jumping into social media (God forbid)? Are you letting yourself make decisions that might have a negative effect on your bottom line… that is key. Successful businesses take risks and live to tell about it.

And if you don’t live to tell about it…

At least you can say you tried your best and gave it your all. If you don’t make risky decisions and adapt to the changing world… you may be dusting off that resume.

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2 Steps to Starting Social Media

We all have to start somewhere right?

1. Start A Blog About Something You Love and Be Authentic

I know the concept of authentic content has been thrown around here and there between social media experts. It is a common practice to write about the concept of authentic content and communication. Many people ask the same question when debating on starting a blog: “What should I write about?” Write about something you enjoy! Write about something you do on a daily routine. Do you enjoy collecting stamps? Do you enjoy watching soccer and following sports?

I write about social media because I love it. It is easier for me to write because of the joy I find in learning about all things social media.

Write about something you love and find other people who are writing about the same thing. Utilize google alerts to find the people who share the same interest.

2. Start Small. Join a Regional Social Network and Dive In.

We have talked about regional (geographically based) social networks before in earlier posts. I am a member of a regional social media community called Smaller Indiana. I have found that my visibility as a business owner and social advocate has greatly increased because of my use of Smaller Indiana. If you are trying to build a personal brand identity through using social media a local social network will give you amazing exposure to local people.

It is getting harder and harder to make a name for yourself on the Internet when you are competing on a global scale with millions of individuals. If you focus on a niche geographic community you will find that it is slightly easier to be recognized. In order to get the most out of a geographic community don’t leave your relationships on the web, go out and meet the individuals you are collaborating with. A cup of coffee will go a long way at facilitating the building of a personal brand between two individuals.

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Diamond Marketing and Selling the Experience

This morning I was listening to a local radio station when a diamond store’s advertisement played across the speakers… I sat there at the stoplight listening to the words…

“We are the ONLY diamond store that buys direct from the manufacturer… cutting out middleman pricing… best quality diamonds… friendly service…”

Truthfully… the ad was lame. There was no story telling… there was no emotional buy. There was nothing that invited me to continue the conversation. I decided to look into the other diamond sellers and manufacturers in the city. You guessed it… they were all the same. They all said the exact same thing.

Frankly, I do not care that you had to fly to Hong Kong to buy your diamonds. I don’t care that you are cutting out the middleman pricing. I care that you treat me the right way when I walk in the door. I care about the experience of the purchase not the purchase itself.

When we are selling a professional product or service it is important to DIFFERENTIATE. It is a lost art. How do you differentiate in a world where everything is starting to sound similar… sound bland?   It is essential that you gain the trust of the individual before they buy. It is essential to encourage your customers to tell the story.

You can buy as many radio, yellow pages, or newspaper ads as your budget allows… it only breaks the surface. The experience sells the product. How are you using your website, social media, traditional marketing, and networking to tell your story.

Do not bore the world with details… tell them the story!

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Do Tight Corporate Social Media Policies Help or Hinder?

Linda Skrocki is the Senior Engineering Program Manager/Owner for Sun’s primary, external-facing community sites (blogs, forums, wikis, etc.). In addition to being a corporate social networking evangelist, she has managed many of Sun Microsystems highest profile web programs over the last 9 years.

What is your risk & transparency tolerance?

That’s a question every company must ask before embarking on their officially branded new media journey, but let’s be honest, tightly controlled content is nothing more than traditional website content and/or press releases. If that’s the most risk your culture/policy allows when it comes to marketplace conversations via social media platforms, don’t waste time and money implementing an external-facing officially branded collaboration site — it simply won’t be an environment conducive to meaningful, authentic marketplace conversations and certainly won’t foster healthy business relationship building that ultimately affects your bottom line.

If a tightly controlled or no approach is the chosen path, it’s important to note that conversations about your company, good and bad, won’t cease to exist. They’ll just have to happen elsewhere — most likely in places far less findable by you; thereby, giving you less opportunity to:

• amplify positive company & product feedback from the marketplace
• strengthen your company & products by listening and acting upon negative feedback
• rally interest and extend awareness by being able to easily participate in the conversations

(Re)evaluation of our fears

Still reading? Thinking your company’s social media policy might need a laxative? Not sure how to get started? Try this: Each overly rigid policy term is based on fear of a specific situation. Examine each term & it’s fear-based situation & ask:

1. Aren’t these legal bases already covered in our company’s employment terms and/or site Terms of Use?
2. Why are we trying to control conversations employees & the marketplace may have on social sites any differently than conversations they have at a bus stop, dinner party, etc.? Don’t we want them to drive awareness of our company and products?
3. Why are we scaring our employees to a degree that they don’t want to engage in cool and interesting marketplace conversations about the company and our products?
4. In the statistically* unlikely event that an employee goes hostile and says bad things about us,
   a) do we really think policy will stop them?
   b) wouldn’t we want the likely inaccurate rant to happen in our own backyard where it’s more easy to find and respond to?
5. Is it really worth sacrificing hundreds of thousands of fruitful conversations because we’re afraid of a possible nasty conversation?
6. What if the nasty conversation happens? Why can’t we just counter by publicly correcting the inaccurate points with facts and own-up to the accurate points by making our product stronger and gaining bonus points for driving this awareness?

Relax, Trust & See Goodness Unfold

I’m not saying let go entirely. Employees appreciate guidelines. They want to remain gainfully employed and don’t want to get themselves or the company in trouble. They may not clearly be aware of the company’s stance on topics to avoid if they are buried in pages of legalese. To augment existing employment terms, a set of brief, comprehensive social media guidelines will not only stand a better chance of actually being read by your employees, but will set everyone’s minds at ease by knowing how to effectively engage in the social media space.

If you need a solid example of an effective set of guidelines, Sun’s Guidelines on Public Discourse has stood the test of time and has proven to be amazingly effective not only for Sun but for other companies who have used it as a model.

* Example: http://blogs.sun.com, along with the Guidelines on Public Discourse, deployed in 2004. No approval is required prior to employees blogging. The original tag line “This space is accessible to any Sun employee to write about anything” remains in place. As of this post, there are more than 140,000 blog posts and only a handful of possible policy violations have been raised.

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REMAX Loves Social Media and I Love Them

I had the pleasure of speaking at the Indiana RE/MAX sales rally yesterday and it was AWESOME! I loved debating, questioning, and teaching about social media and the use of the tools in the real estate industry.

I always try to post videos of the attendees screaming for social media. You will find the videos below. (sorry for being shaky)

Session 1

Session 2

If you attended the rally and are interested in the information shared. You can either click the REMAX button on the right side of this page or CLICK HERE.

Again, thank you for all who attended! It was encouraging to see such enthusiasm for social media!

25 Reasons Why Your Company is Boring

(This was sparked from a Seth Godin post called You’re Boring. It was brilliant. I had to write about it.)

You know you a boring business if..

1. You have a tri-fold brochure with little business cards that you hand out to everyone you see… and I do mean EVERYONE.

2. You designed the tri-fold in Publisher.

3. You are using a type-font called Arial, Times New Roman, or Courier for your logo… and you made the logo in Microsoft Word.

4. You decide not to blog because “I just don’t have the time.” Your potential customers don’t have the time to read it anyway.

5. You use your initials for your company name. (This is a give or take depending on your initials)

6. Yellow Pages is the only marketing for your business because you have been doing it for a decade. Why change a good thing? (ha)

7. You attend networking events and take as many business cards as possible but never help another business professional.

8. If your website says “Copyright 2002″ or anytime before 2007.

9. All your collateral material looks different… different colors… old logos… better yet… no logo.

10. You refuse to think outside the box and go out on a limb (marketing or anything else).

11. You get up after 9am.

12. If you photo-copy a flier and hand it out. Spend the extra money and get full color. Better yet, don’t use a flier. Doesn’t everyone?

13. You have an individual answering your phone that sounds like they just woke up from a nap or smoked a bowl.

14. YOU USE AN EMAIL THAT Ends with a phone or cable company: AOL, SBCGLOBAL, or the like.

15. You refuse to act on ideas until they are safe or your competitor does it. Ready, Fire, Aim. Fail.

16. You do not attend networking events because you have “better ways to spend your time.” You will be spending your time closing your business account at the bank.

17. You never have a new idea. You just copy others.

18. Social Media is scary to you. So you do the next best thing… you ignore it.

19. You hard sell EVERYONE. Nobody cares. Put away your product or service. Can I get to know you first? I don’t give a crap if you can save me 20%.

20. You have goals. Wait. Well, you HAD goals but you didn’t write them down so…

21. You look down your nose at everyone who is younger or less experienced. You never pay them but want to share services.

22. You actually cut your marketing budget because sales are down.

23. Your Twitter account has no interaction… just a broadcast message.

24. You send an Auto-DM on Twitter. Period.

25. You cut your business cards yourself and left the tattered edges.

The best things about having a boring business is that you can change. You can turn into the vibrant and growing company that will be the pride and joy of your life. Well, other than your children or significant other.