ExactTarget Acquires CoTweet. What Does It Mean?

For most of my readers, you heard it here first.

I have had the privilege to meet, chat, and work with the brilliant team at ExactTarget over the past month. It is always fascinating to meet people that want to change the way corporate culture uses social media. It has been said that the future of social media is in enterprise expansion and we are officially witnessing the push into one virtual platform (thanks to ExactTarget).

As of 11 am (EST) ExactTarget officially announced that they will be acquiring CoTweet, a Web-based collaboration platform that allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single dashboard, support multiple editors, track conversations, assign roles, and create follow-up tasks. Social tools have been random and sometimes carelessly developed because the developers did not have the financial means to build a top quality product.

I don’t know about you… but I am overly excited with this step into an enterprise system social media platform. I am overly excited because ExactTarget is an Indianapolis, Indiana based company… and… I am overly excited because Jesse Engle (co-founder of CoTweet) is an awesome guy.

This deal will result in (finally) the expansion of social platforms into a unique collaboration system for one-to-one marketing. I love it. See press release below.

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ExactTarget Acquires Twitter Pioneer CoTweet, Creates Social Media Lab in San Francisco

Businesses Now Have Complete Solution to Manage Social Media, Email and Mobile Communications

SAN FRANCISCO (March 2, 2010) – Global on-demand email marketing and one-to-one marketing provider ExactTarget announced today it has acquired San Francisco-based CoTweet, creating the industry’s first complete solution for managing communications across all interactive marketing channels including social media, email and mobile.

CoTweet will operate in San Francisco as a business unit of ExactTarget and will lead the company’s social media product development.  CoTweet co-founder and chief executive Jesse Engle will lead the San Francisco operation and spearhead the creation and expansion of the company’s social media lab.

“What we’re seeing in the market is organizations are moving quickly to try to capture the potential of social, but are discovering that it’s siloed and not integrated effectively with other forms of digital communications,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget co-founder and chief executive officer.  “By combining the power of ExactTarget and CoTweet, we can provide businesses a complete solution to tie together all forms of interactive communications and drive deeper customer engagement online.”

Founded in 2008 and based in San Francisco, CoTweet is a Web-based collaboration platform that allows companies to manage multiple Twitter accounts from a single dashboard, support multiple editors, track conversations, assign roles and create follow-up tasks.  The company has a growing client list, including Whole Foods, Oracle, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Ford, Dell, Pepsi, Sprint, Target, Intuit, Salesforce.com, USA Today and Coca-Cola.

“We see a huge opportunity to build on ExactTarget’s incredible business and customer relationships to help companies drive more measurable value from social media,” said Engle.  “As part of ExactTarget, we’ll have the global resources to cement our early lead, rapidly expand our platform and develop the next generation of social media communication tools.”

Forrester Research predicts social media marketing will grow faster than any other form of interactive marketing.  In its 2009 U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast Report, the independent research firm estimated social media marketing will grow at compound annual rate of 34 percent, reaching $3.1 billion by 2014.

“This acquisition is strong validation that valuable, sustainable businesses are emerging from the Twitter ecosystem,” said Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer. “An ExactTarget and CoTweet combination should lead to even further digital marketing innovation through use of the Twitter platform.”

The acquisition of CoTweet follows ExactTarget’s record-breaking 2009 that welcomed the company’s 36^th consecutive quarter of growth in the fourth quarter 2009 and saw annual contracted revenue soar to $114 million and total GAAP revenue exceed $95 million.  In 2009, ExactTarget also secured $145 million in venture capital investment, opened its first international office in London, earned the title of a “leader” in email marketing in the “The Forrester Wave: Email Marketing Service Providers Q4 2009” (December 2009) report and added NIKE Inc., Best Buy and Universal Music Group to its client list.  Headquartered in Indianapolis, ExactTarget now employs more than 600 associates worldwide.

About CoTweet, Inc.

CoTweet is the real-time business collaboration platform for Twitter. Working with companies such as Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, Ford, Pepsi, Sprint, Coca-Cola, the City of San Francisco/311 and Twitter, CoTweet has established itself as the tool of choice to brands to connect and engage with customers and stakeholders. Founded in 2008, CoTweet is based in San Francisco, Calif.  For more information, visit www.CoTweet.com

About ExactTarget

ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email marketing and one-to-one marketing solutions. The company’s software as a service technology provides organizations a single platform to connect with customers via triggered and transactional email, integrated text messaging, voice messaging, landing pages and social media.  Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based multi-channel communications for thousands of organizations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, CareerBuilder.com, Gannett Co., Inc., The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Home Depot and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, visit www.exacttarget.com or call 1-866-EMAILET.

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Media Contacts:

Cybele Diamandopoulos (FOLIO Communications for CoTweet) – 512.431.5759 or cybele@foliocommunications.com

Lindsay Tishgart (FOLIO Communications for CoTweet) – 512.327.1818 or lindsey@foliocommunications.com

Mitch Frazier (ExactTarget) – 317.670.9611 or mfrazier@ExactTarget.com

Carol Sacks (Tenor Communications for ExactTarget) – 650.520.8261 or carol@tenorcom.com

Lauren Sanders (Dittoe PR for ExactTarget) – 317.202.2280 X 10 or lauren@dittoepr.com

5 Ways to Not Be a Complete SAP on Social Media

Maybe… I am just in a bad mood. Maybe… I am just upset because the Colt’s lost the Super Bowl last night. Maybe… I am just being honest and open with my opinions… whether right or wrong. Either way… I have a bone to pick with a certain group of people that use social media. I am going to preface this  by saying that I have also been guilty of this activity and have been trying to change my ways…

There are a certain group of tweets, status updates, and posts that are sent out every day that consist of what I call “The Tony Robbin’s Smile Tweet-Post-Update.” If you are familiar with Tony Robbins… you can understand where I am coming from here… Here are some examples:

“Let’s have an awesome week! Lot’s of great stuff planned and new clients rolling in. Good luck everyone!”

“Just believe in yourself and all your wishes will come true!”

“If you don’t climb the mountain, you can’t view the plain.”

“Just talked to @abdcd and it was the best conversation ever! So Awesome!

Now… the last one in that list is not necessarily bad because you might truly think that the person was awesome  (I’ve done it) but does it really have to be every person you have a phone conversation with… and do I  need to know… every… time? There should come a time when you strive, yearn, and want to create something more…There should come a time when you want to create content and updates that make people think and strive to be more both intellectually and emotionally…

Where do you draw the line as a person and as a brand? I think the issue I am having with so much irrelevant content is that… it is not new… it is not fun… if I wanted an ego boost I would turn on Joel Osteen or Tony Robbins. And most of all… it is not real. So let’s talk about how we stray away from terrible human development content and get down to creating content that will be extremely beneficial to your life, business, and social media tribe.

1. Share thoughts and emotions surrounding an experience.

“This weekend’s funeral left me pondering: Do you celebrate the life lived, or mourn for what is gone and what will never be?”

This is an important development in the world of social media. You can share business and info about your company but you can go to an entirely new level with an update like the one listed above. (This is more for the personal business account than a company account) It is a tasteful update that will get a response and bring the community closer together.

2. Do NOT re-tweet, re-share, or re-post every quote on God’s green EARTH.

I am okay with one or two quotes a day but when I keep getting “live your best life now” or “this is the first day of the rest of your life” quotes it gets fairly annoying. I do appreciate the individual trying to pump me up but I don’t need self-help gurus in my face every day.

3. Share quality content around your company, service, or life.

If you are a self-help coach… I understand the concept of sharing thoughts and ideas about self improvement… when you are not in the self-help world and everything is absolutely (over-the-top) positive that flies off the keyboard… it strikes me as a little fake. I want to know real. I want to know substance! I want to know how life is being led… treated… and dealt with… We can all grow if we are honest with our positions.

4. Don’t share about every success, new client, or project development in your company.

It is okay to celebrate with your community but there is a fine line between blatant self-promotion and excitement…. because the truth of the matter remains… If you were actually signing all the clients and success under the sun… you wouldn’t have the time to use social media 14 hours a day.

5. Be real. Be real. Be real.

It is important to share information and content that excites and drives you through life. If you want to share gobs of emotionally insignificant content… that is your prerogative… but remember that the best strive to be real, honest, and raw. I want to know about the little things in life… I want to know when a community member is upset because an individual flipped them off on the road.

I want to know when they are hurt, exhausted, and emotionally raw.

I think it comes down to the point of not going over the top… everything is okay in moderation… do not share every pain and do not share every success… just be who you are… period.

Social Media: The Haven for New Ideas

Ali is a 2009 graduate of Hanover College. She works at an Indianapolis SEO company, Slingshot SEO, Inc., where she integrates the importance of SEO and social media in the blogosphere. She is an avid Tweeter and blogger. Ali is an upbeat person who loves working and communicating (in any form!) with everyone.

As I caught up with my daily blog feeds this week, I stumbled across a very interesting blog post by Copyblogger’s Jonathan Morrow entitled “The Alexander Graham Bell Guide to Changing the World.” Turns out, this post (and a swift kick to my backside to keep up with blogging) helped to sort through the mess in my brain and I was finally snapped out of my case of writer’s block. Halleluiah! So what DOES Alexander Graham Bell have to do with changing the internet marketing world?

Of course we all know that Bell changed the world with his invention of the telephone. Right? Actually, it’s safe to say that we were lied to as elementary school students (GASP!). Yep, according to the research, two men created the first two models of the telephone BEFORE Bell. Who knew?!  More importantly, how did Bell jump ahead of these fellow inventors and gain the credibility for the telephone?

Bell was a smart cookie. Instead of hording his communicating device idea in his bedroom, he spent years fighting to get his idea out in the world. He fought for the right to get HIS idea patented. Through his journey of changing the way people communicated, it was evident that Bell understood the most important aspect of getting information to the people. Morrow explains, “He [Bell] understood that what matters isn’t who thinks of an idea first. It’s not even who takes action first. It’s who spreads the idea the farthest.” Smart, huh?

This phenomenon is still alive today, possibly more than ever. We ALL have ideas upon ideas upon ideas (IDEAS, get the drift?) that we would love to ONE day share with the world…and then someone else finally DOES and then “my idea” becomes “his/her idea” and then you are back to square one. Is this you? I know I am definitely an idea pack rat (as Morrow describes). I’m sure I’m not alone.

So, what now? GET THAT INFORMATION OUT THERE! If you take the time to come up with a new, brilliant idea, why wouldn’t you want to share it? Fight like Bell did and your passion behind your ideas will be revealed and people will notice. Be that person who shares information and ideas with the rest of the world. Heck, isn’t that what the internet is for anyway?

My hope is that you see that I’m not saying that you need to create immensely creative and amazing inventions or come up with the ‘next big trend’ (although, face it, that’d be pretty sweet), but the internet allows us to take information that we learn from others and add our own understanding and thoughts (of course giving credit where credit is due!). We all have thoughts, right? Well, use social media to get those thoughts out instead of becoming an idea pack rat!

As writers in the internet-driven world, we know there is more of a focus on getting the information OUT to the masses, rather than being the first one to do so. This directly relates to Bell’s advice—spread it the FARTHEST. How do we do this? Social media. We tweet, post, blog, Flick new information 24-7. The new age of information and idea exchange is at our fingertips, only a keystroke away, how much more cliché can I get?

Have a case of writer’s block? Winter blues got you down? Dig through those ideas you have packed away and start typing. Fight for your ideas and be the passionate one who gets the word out, just as Alexander Graham Bell did, and who knows where you’ll end up!

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5 Ways to Use Foursquare for Business

Some would say that Foursquare has blasted into the scene of location based social networking applications with a vengeance. I would tend to agree with that sentiment. The best way to describe the service is to actually use the source. From the Foursquare site:

People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places – cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices.

You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. Not only is it a great way to meet up with nearby friends, but you’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover.

I will be completely honest with you (side note: I love that saying because it is a funny thing to say… just so you know… I will always be completely honest with you) I have not realized the full potential of Foursquare personally but I have seen it being used across a multitude of different users… from power users to newbies.

What I strive to accomplish while writing this blog is to give the reader practical uses of emerging digital technology and ideas to use them effectively. So let’s get this party started!

1. Encourage Foursquare Users to Check in and Post Reviews about Your Location

Foursquare allows a user to view where their friends have been within 3 hours of a certain update. This could have huge potential for a hotel chain. David Fleet mentioned in his blog post, Foursquare’s Potential for Hyper Local Marketing, the advantages of using Foursquare to check where your friends have stayed (the night) in a given location. A hotel, sauna, or day spa could encourage Foursquare users to check into a given location and put brief thoughts about the service in their tip updated.

Example : Give users of Foursquare a discount on their tab for a favorable tip update. (This could also be applied to any social network)

2. Use the Points Structure of Foursquare to Support a Local Charity

Users will gain points when they accomplish certain activities like checking in, making multiple stops in a day, adding a new venue, making a repeat visit, or consecutively checking into a certain location. Encourage users to rack up the points and put a value to the points they are accruing (Ex: $0.04 per point). At the end of the promotion donate the amount of money to a charity. This encourages visits to your business and gives back to those who need our help!

3. Use the “Mayor” Status as a Perk – You Become an Authority Figure

The user that checks in the most at a certain location will gain the notoriety of becoming “mayor” of that location. I have actually witnessed people fight over becoming mayor. If you offered special perks to the mayor of your location (ie: name on a board, gift certificate for the month, free beverage, or maybe a puppy!) it will encourage Foursquare users to visit your location more often.

4. Utilize the To-Do List to Give Users Tasks to Complete – Scott Hepburn

Each business has the potential of creating a to do list for Foursquare users. If you visit a Foursquare page for a business (Click here for an example) you will find a button to create a to-do list. This could be utilized as a contest for people visiting the location. You could offer perks much like the user became a mayor of your location.

Example : Give a to-do list of what the location wants to improve upon in terms of service. Allow users to help improve those services by viewing the to-do list and adding tips for improvement.

5. Encourage Users to Become Superusers of Your Location

When a user becomes a SUPERUSER at your location they have the ability to edit venue information. Some of you may be skeptical and hesitant at giving users the ability to edit YOUR data… but let’s be honest… it isn’t really YOUR data anymore is it? It is easier to have users edit your location information because they are actually using the tool and experiencing your company in a completely different way. Also, this help for annoying bad data that could be spread through different users.

Foursquare is an infant compared to social media titans like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter… the important thing to remember is that it is growing and people are using it.

Is your business getting reviewed on social applications? You would be surprised…

Marketing Through Social Media is Not Easy. Plan Accordingly.

If you haven’t figured this out already… running a small business is not easy… managing a network of 100 sales professionals is not easy… running a marketing department with a budget of $100 million is not easy. Accordingly

Marketing your products and services is not easy.

Nothing in this world… that is worth anything of value is EASY to obtain. Well…unless you grow money on trees or you are just THAT good (Ben Affleck in Boiler Room)… The majority of us have not found the seed to grow a tree that sheds Mr. Benjamin Franklin ($100 bill for the layman) twice a year.

It is hard to get to where you WANT to go in life. It shouldn’t be easy.

I am amazed that people want the easy way out. How do we make this tool easier to use? How can we spend the LEAST amount of time possible to get a project completed? Why do we have to spend money on marketing? How can I get to the 4-hour work week? No thank you.

Integrating social media into your marketing is not easy and it is not cheap. If you want the intangible (branding) and tangible (product sales) benefits of social media you have to agree to work hard or pay someone to work hard for you.

Don’t confuse or try to convince yourself that social media is the answer to all your problems and concerns. It works when you combine the new with the old, the traditional with the web 2.0/3.0.

If it was an easy thing to accomplish wouldn’t everyone be doing it? Wouldn’t everyone be successful at it?

What is the first step to tackling the monster? We use an acronym to explain the process of marketing through social media.

MOST: Monitoring. Objectives. Strategy. Technology.

Listen. Build. Plan. Interact.

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Break All the Rules or Don’t Waste My Time!

Last night, I was talking to Jeremy Derringer, owner and absolute SEO genius over at Slingshot SEO… we were discussing the idea of taking the “leap” and taking the chance when running your own business. Going @$#@ to the wall and dominating! Shouldn’t that be the way of thinking for every business owner?

When did rules ever apply to the art of running a business?

Let me preface this post by saying that I do not mean moral, ethical, or legal rules. There are rules that each person has set aside for themselves whether spiritual or from the laws of the land. I am talking about business rules.

They are the rules predestined and applied by business owners, scholars, and business minds throughout the centuries. Rules on innovation and marketing that if applied correctly will help you run a business but…

Times are trying/changing and individuals/companies are scraping to stay ahead of the competition and make a little bit of cash on the side. I am reading the book First, Break All the Rules byMarcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman and it had me thinking about the rules we apply to business marketing and thought-leadership.

I am sure you are thinking of typical rules that you apply on a daily basis in your business. What are they? Where did they come from? Why don’t you just break them?

My favorite example is from the minds that brought us Quicken and Quickbooks: Intuit. In the early days the founders were struggling to produce demand for their product. Distributors would not pick them up because, frankly, they were the 47th or so product on the market. They decided to take every cent of their budget in the bank and invest it in marketing directly to the consumer and not the distributor.

We are not talking about 10% of their budget or a small portion of the revenue… they bet everything on this ONE idea. The rest is history. They broke the rules and changed the mold of how sass products were sold and distributed.

What is keeping you from breaking the rules? What is keeping you from adopting a social media strategy that could revolutionize the way you communicate? What is keeping you from starting a blog or starting a Facebook group?

Is it fear? Is it understanding? Is it resources?

To this I say, break all the rules. Live out your business and revolutionize the way you reach your customers. Empower your company to defeat fear and rise above the rest. If you would rather lay in the trenches… don’t waste my time.

ISBDC to Sponsor 3-Month Twitter Tour

The wonderful people over at the ISBDC (Indiana Small Business Development Center) are sponsoring a 12 part seminar series over Twitter through the state of Indiana. I am blessed to be presenting for the serminar series to support my book (Twitter Marketing for Dummies)! If you can make it out to any of the events that would be awesome! Here is the basics of what we will be talking about:

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Increasing Sales and Revenue through Twitter

WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

Building an online presence is a great first step, but how do we use that presence and use social media to make money? Using Twitter you (and your sales team) will have the ability to increase close rates and sales by building new connections and strengthening existing connections with your prospects! It doesn’t matter if you market to farmers, stay-at-home mothers, or C-Level employees, Twitter gives you the tools necessary  to connect on a deeper level with potential clients.

YOU WILL LEARN:

• The best way to design a Twitter marketing plan
• How to search and find information that will help with your sales process
• Connect with your prospects before you meet them!
• How to take online interaction to the offline environment and SELL!
• Tracking your close rates and measuring your success through social media
• 5  marketing points you can implement today!

FREE ADVICE ABOUT YOUR INTERNET WOES:

The 3-hour seminar will be followed by a 1 hour Q&A session with Internet experts designed to answer questions and address issues with regards to online initiatives.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:

Sales and marketing executives, small business owners and entrepreneurs

If you are interested in attending please send me an email or the associated ISBDC office! Thanks!

A Philosophical Debate Over Personal Branding

I decided to move the conversation happening over on Facebook (surrounding personal branding) regarding my post on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog: From Identity to Personality. Be Remembered.

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Dave Bennett:
Dear Social Media Expert, twitterific and facebookish Kyle Lacey,

First off let me say that I respect what you’re doing in marketing, you’re pushing the edges of the field, you’re making people money, and you’re (hopefully) doing something that you love. All things I respect and root for in this world.

I have some issues, a few philosophical peccadilloes that I need to pick with you and the industry you participate in. So from one double major in philosophy to another (I think I remember you being involved in AU’s philosophy program) let me start my being acerbic and dispensing with pretense.

What you call identity and personality seem to really be pretentious self-projections. Don’t get me wrong, they might be really successful self-projections that gain favor, popularity, and a following but they are far from human dignity.

What you see as the point of self expression is external recognition. But the self is something internal and independent from what others think of you, if you are basing who you are on how to attract others, then you really are nothing at all. You’re a pretentious clone of perceived likes and dislikes, a customer service invertebrate bending to the latest marketing trends.

My issue isn’t really with customer service or with marketing, its with the collusion of these two and personal identity. When in reality your virtual representation is really the most controlled and least personal representation you can come up with. That is something I am ok with, but call it what it is: namely an advertisement, don’t continue to add to the massive amount of illiteracy out there.

What I mean is that there are many people who can read, but few who are literate, few who mean what they say and understand what is meant when they read. Don’t add to the misuse of language and self-understanding in your furthering of marketing, viral marketing, etc.

Branding myself is the biggest pretense yet, and while successful, crosses into the unethical when it associates the person solely with the symbol. As if a symbol could ever really encompass a person, especially when personal branding doesn’t really represent the person at all but the concoction of personal investment in an idea or product.

I guess what I really want to know is: when you leave an emotional response on twitter or facebook, create a following, if your emotional response is raw. If it is independent of your desire for a following. And if it isn’t then is it you or a self-projection of you? A dumbassed question really, but it begs the ethics of human dignity.

Where is human dignity in self-branding when self-branding doesn’t allow for unpopular responses? I hate the idea of selling your “self”, because what is sold isn’t “self” but what the customer wants. Call it what it is.

Basically, I’m wondering, where do these things fall into twitter and facebook marketing? How does self-branding differ from self-projection?

Me/Kyle:

Let me first state that the idea “from identity to personality” is loosely based off of a excerpt from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe.

“Identity is descriptive. It is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma. Brand identities are unique and express a point of difference. But this is only the first step. Brand personalities, on the other hand, are special. They have a charismatic character that provokes an emotional response. American airlines has a strong identity, but Virgin airlines as personality.”

One other thing to think about in terms of my post:

The things I write about are not suppose to based in any type of philosophical nature… it would be like scientist arguing my logic using scientific reasoning. I write and discuss concepts in business communication, period.

The post you read and responded to… was merely an idea behind personal branding. I am not arguing the point of self discovery and emotional response in terms of inner angst (or beauty). I am plainly talking about the concepts of a story… the emotional stimulation a customer or client will receive when they connect with something you write or say..

I write what I think because it is reality.. it isn’t steeped in some inner personal conflict or unrealistic interpretation of identity vs personality. It is business plain and simple… I will give more soon. Thank you for your thoughts. I love debating and trying to solve issues in communication!

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What do you think? Is it worth furthering the conversation on this blog?

10 Ways To Build Trust with Social Media

In the new economy there is one major truth that stands above the rest… trust equals revenue. If you are a small to mid-sized business it is the amount of trust you can build between clients that strengthens your brand. With trust comes happy clients and with happy clients come referrals. Trust is a fundamental building block to all businesses.

With that in mind… marketing is built under the assumption that stories can create an emotional bond between a consumer and a brand… a client and a service. Can you tell a story… create a service and en experience that builds trust?

Social media can help you build that trust.

1. Content

Content is the number one way you can build trust with potential clients. By creating meaningful and thought provoking content you are building a bridge to later sell that person on your services. Talk about what you do on a daily basis. When I say you.. it means you are writing and communicating stories that happen to YOU and not your industry. Create a blog on WordPress and get started. Want a paid system? Try Compendium.

2. Be Transparent

Being transparent is extremely important when writing content and when participating in the social networks. Be human. Customers are people too. The people who are interested in your thoughts and suggestions want to know about you as a person.  They want to know how you helped LARRY the plumber or Susan the accountant.

3. Picture of Your Day

When you are using social networks make sure you put up pictures of your daily life. If you have a cell phone with a camera take some pictures  and share them with your connections. Just don’t over do it. We can only look at so many professional business or glamor shots in a day and no pictures from the shower!

4. Picture of You

Use your real picture.  Don’t use your logo. There is only one exception to this rule. If you are using Twitter for your business and personal (see my company @Brandswag for an business example and @kyleplacy for a personal example).

5. Saying Thank You

If somebody helps you share information or decideds to retweet a post.. make sure you thank that person. They are helping you spread the word… they are your online evangelists.. If you miss a thank you.. don’t let it kill you.. but try to make the most of the people that help you out.

6. Do Not Auto-DM on Twitter

See my post… I hate Twitter Auto-DM

7. No Hard Selling

I don’t care about your enewsletter or the new lotion you are selling. Also, just because I reply to a tweet or a message does not mean you can message me back and sell your wares. Social media is a long sell process. You are developing content in order to gain an order of trust with people in your area of influence. We are now experiencing a relationship driven economy… get on the train.

8. Time is Important

Remember that you are building relationships.. do not trust the people that tell you to add 1023920 friends and make $10,000 a month. It is a load of crap. Build your following slowly… create relationships in an online environment that can be transferred offline.

9. Criticism is Important

You will be criticized. It is a truth of open communication. Take it with stride and respond. If you are debated… make sure you debate back. Stand up for what you believe and you will gain trust with the people who are listening…. and watching.

10. Have fun

Good Lord… is it that hard? You have the ability to connect with thousands… and thousands… and thousands of people from every nationality… and life experience. Just imagine your ability to expand your knowledge base and learn?!

One thought: If you are not enjoying and having fun with what you do… quit… go find something else.

10 Tips to Integrating Social Media with Marketing

We had an excellent seminar this morning at Brandswag. The seminar was over the concepts of integrating social media into your overall marketing strategy. It is extremely important that every business drive social media through traditional marketing practices…. and vice-versa.

Below you will find my Powerpoint presentation from the seminar.

I wanted to break down 10 ways to integrate social media into your traditional marketing practices. The following tips are simple reminders that the world is changing and it is extremely important to shift with the edge.

1. Remember that customers are people first and buyers second

It is important to keep in mind that your customers are not only a demographic and a wallet… but an individual. If you start to incorporate the thinking of “individualistic marketing” your focus will be extremely… targeted.

2. People thrive on conversation and deals

A study recently released by Razorfish  states that of “those that follow a brand on Twitter, 44% say that access to deals is the main reason. The same holds true for those that added a brand on Facebook or Myspace, where 37% cite access to exclusive deals or offers as their main reason.” (pg 9)

There will always be a place for conversation and deals. Integrate your direct mail and coupon deals into your social media marketing.

3. Integration is extremely important because of speed and portability

Mobile technology is revolutionizing the way the world communicates. Social media will hit mass appeal because of the mobile phone and the pda. Thousands of text messages are sent on a daily basis… even an hourly basis… It is rumored that 4.5 billion cell phones will be on the market by the end of 2010. China has a mobile provider with 500 million cell phone users. We are going to be mobile… portable.. and fast.

4. We are shifting from uni-directional and bi-directional communication to multi-directional. (slide 16)

5.  Listening and monitoring your brand online

This is one of the more important things you can do before integrating social media into your marketing strategy. Use Google Alerts or Radian 6 to monitor your brand and understand the positive and negative influence the Internet is having on your company and clients.

6. Objective and Strategy need to be developed before using social media

Would you do anything in your business before planning out the ramifications of your actions? The same applies to social media. Now… if you would rather just throw ideas around without aiming… or acting… You are going to have a bigger problem than applying social media to your business. Ask yourself why you are going to be applying social media? Is it going to be for reputation management, brand awareness, or lead generation?

7. Add your social media profile links to your email signature

Do I really have to explain that? Need an incentive? Check out the way Hotmail grew by leaps and bounds using the footer in email.

8. Plan the use of social media within your company

Who should be using the company profile? Who should be adding content on a daily basis. It is extremely important to build out an internal social media policy. This should probably be one of the first things you deal with before entering a social media campaign.

9. Remember to build a content portal before pushing information through the Twitter-Face-Linked-verse.

It is extremely important to build out a hub for your content. You need to be driving people (users) from different sites to a central location. Why? It is easier to capture information and sell.

10. Don’t stress. Have fun.

Social media is not something to absolutely flip out about… it is important to understand and time will tell on the “importance” of the tools being created on the Internet. Remember to keep up-to-date and look for ways where social media can help strengthen your traditional communication strategy.