10 Ways to Build and Focus on Passionate Content

I was reading a post by Jay Baer titled the 14 Things I Think I Think About Social Media (Great title huh?) and one of the fourteen points hit me pretty hard.

“Social media is fueled by passion, and too many companies try to take elements of their company that aren’t passion-worthy, and attempt to build a social media program around it.”

How do you go about defining passion-worthy elements within your company? What does it mean to have passion filled content to share across the expanse of the Internet and the tools afforded through social media?

I don’t know if companies knowingly choose elements that “aren’t passion-worthy”… maybe they have no idea? They have been rooted for years in this centralized brand strategy… rooted in the belief that they (in the ivory towers) understand what makes their product or service passionate.

How do you go about creating passionate content or choosing “passion-worthy” elements within your company?

10 Ways to Build and Focus on Passionate Content

1. Tell the story of founding the company or your first week at the company. What sites and sounds did you experience? What made you love what you did that first 72 hours?

2. Tell the story of a client. Who is your best client? Who makes the world go round for your company? We all have them. Tell THEIR sorry… now THAT is passionate content.

3. Better yet.. get your client to tell the story for you! Ask your best client to write a guest post. They are the passionate user.

4. Include your own opinions and arguments about popular trends. Great writing moves people and inspires them.

5. Ask your employees what makes them passionate. Does it have to do with the overall company product or service? Heavens no! Your employees are as much of the brand as your overpriced logo on the side of your overpriced building.

6. Remember… your customers and employees are the most important part of your passion worthy content. Let them tell the story for you.

7. Great user/customer experience creates passion-worthy content. What does it feel like when an individual walks into your store? What is the experience when someone clicks through your website?

8. Check out the 4 cornerstones to creating great content from Rand (SEOmoz).

9. Keep tabs on your blog content creation guidelines. How are you creating your blog content? How are you systematically telling your story?

10. Leave no question behind your motives.  Create transparent content that elicits a response. If you have multiple writers in your company… be very sure you have a system and policy in place to allow them to write authentically.

Leaping Headfirst into Social Media

I recently read a post Going Overboard With Social Media by Brad Ruggles. Throughout the blog I kept trying to form my own  opinion on whether or not I agreed or disagree. Instead I found that reluctantly fall in between with no strong yes or no. I can’t say that people or businesses should always use social media but I can’t say they shouldn’t ever either.

headfirst

I do agree that you should look before you leap, don’t merely assume it’s right for you because “everyone” else is doing it. Yes, our culture is obsessed with social media. Our culture loves surrounding itself with new technologies, instant gratifications, easy communication, and fast money. All of these attributes social media boasts upon. My greatest concern for businesses is that people try and do too much at one time. If social media is the way you want to go then have a plan and tread lightly. You don’t wake up one day and run the Boston marathon without training. Same concept applies here. Come up with a strategy, plan your time accordingly and don’t expect instant results (you wouldn’t expect to run 26 miles after a day of training). Social media is evolving and introducing new features all the time. Take it in slowly and choose what will work best for you.

The only major disagreement I had with the post was the advice of not doing it at all. Now, I do think that people just jumping in without any knowledge about social media are just confusing themselves. However, everyone should look into how social media can be utilized. Sometimes you have to try before you just opt-out. Especially, with the phenomenon that social media has become. It may be best to try it first then decide to put your efforts elsewhere. Not doing it at all always leaves the curious “what if” but do realize that’s really not for everyone.

And remember that the best thing you could do with social media is to integrate it in your overall marketing strategy.

How to Deal with the Changes on Facebook

Are we in for more then we bargained for when it comes to Facebook? The social network site orginally intended for college students has evolved to become a way of connecting with anyone and everyone. Its wonderful to connect with new and old friends but are we being taken advantage of?  Facebook has launched some new features that should have us all a little concerned. These new features, however impressive, are bordering the line of excessive and invasive.

For one, there is now a way to “like” a website without actually logging in to your Facebook account. This feature will let any website you visit display a simple “like” button that be posted on your Facebook wall to show all your Facebook friends that you liked that story. Then in turn will show you  in the same box how many of your friends also liked that story. Now, this doesn’t necessarily seem so bad. Right? You decide. Do you think it’s odd that sites will be able to do this with out you having to log in with a user name and password? You also don’t even have to click any Facebook Connect buttons in order for this to happen. Literally, all that is required is that you have signed in to Facebook at some point in time before visiting the site.

Another feature to question is instant personalization. This feature allows sites to  show you personalized content based on the details of your profile on Facebook. Okay, again not so bad, yet. These sites will be able to read and interpret your profile without asking for your permission. The scariest part about this nicely named feature is that you opt-in by default. This means that if you DON’T want to have your profile read and have services customized for you without your permission, you have to specifically turn this off.

How can you avoid these new features? Well, there is the obvious, which consquently is very hard to do, delete your account. You can deactivate your account by going to your settings and clicking down at the bottom  “deactivate.” Here’s where they get you. By deactivating your account you are simply hiding it. Facebook explains all of this on its help pages. If you want to actually delete your account, there is information on the help page as well. Facebook makes it awfully difficult to leave.

For all you who don’t want to cancel your account. There are some things you can do to prevent these features from affecting you.

Turn off instant personlization by going to your privacy settings, applications and websites then click instant personalization and edit this setting. Doing this will prevent Facebook from sharing your information to sites to customize content based on your profile.

So, far there are only three sites who are able to utilize the instant personalization.These sites are Pandora, Yelp and Doc.com. If you want to make sure that these applications are blocked so that no information is to be shared by either you or you friends (who can share your information with sites) then you have to individually block each and every one of those applications. For now just those three sites.

Finally, don’t click the “like” button or any word resembling this word on websites. This will enable sites to send updates to your news feed or share information to your friends.

Lesson learned here is to explore your privacy settings and understand what Facebook is “allowed” to do based on its terms. Be in control of your information.

Information regarding this article and other helpful ways to control your account click on this link:http://gigaom.com/2010/04/22/your-moms-guide-to-those-facebook-changes-and-how-to-block-them/

Experts at Your Fingertips – The Value of Social Q&A

Bryan Povlinski is a recent IU graduate and currently works as an Online Marketing Specialist at ecommerce fulfillment provider Fifth Gear.  He is part of the Orr Fellowship program in Indianapolis, and you can find his blog about online tools at www.bryanpovlinski.com

Let’s say you’re in your weekly team meeting planning your next big initiative. The team decides that you need a Facebook page specifically for this new campaign.  Since you’re pretty savvy with social media you decide to take on this part of the project and build the page yourself.  You walk out of the meeting excited to get started, and eager to make a major contribution to the campaign.  You get down to business and start adding your company information and all the basic components of a Facebook Page.  You have some great ideas about how you want it to look, with custom design, interactive apps, etc.  Then you realize that this might be a little bit more work than you first thought.  Facebook has it’s own markup language (FBML) that you would use just like you would use HTML to build a web page – but inside of Facebook.  The logical next step would be to search Google for some resources on FBML so you can try to get the hang of it yourself.  Chances are with something so new you’re going to get stuck at some point.  Then you have a couple options:

A. Keep plugging away trying to figure it out yourself

B. Find someone in the office to help you

C. Inform your team that you aren’t able to complete the project

That may not be a 100% comprehensive list (you could find a friend who could help you out, outsource the project to a site like Elance or oDesk, pay a freelancer, etc), but let’s talk about a new option that’s made possible through social media.  Wouldn’t it be great to pose your question to a network of experts that are actively looking to help out and share their expertise?  With tools like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Aardvark you can expect quick, high quality responses to questions you ask.  Your experience may vary and you won’t always get the perfect answer, but the cost (free) and the time it takes to submit a question makes it well worth a shot.  There are many services that offer question and answers, but the three that I’ve found most useful are:

1. LinkedIn

Out of all the services I’ve used I’ve had the best experience with LinkedIn Answers.  This is where you can get the most detailed with your questions because it’s likely going to be seen only by people with the specific expertise you need.  LinkedIn makes it very easy to subscribe, by RSS feed, to categories of questions.  So if you’re an SEO expert, you can subscribe to that particular feed and browse through the incoming questions about SEO.  If you think about it, that’s a great way for experts or consultants to get new business – help others who are looking for advice on their subject for free.  Recently I had a technical issue that I needed help with, and I turned to LinkedIn.  I needed to convert an XML feed to a CSV file and was hoping to find a free tool that would do that without any development work.  Within an hour I had 2 responses, and eventually had 6 responses.  I even followed up with one of the guys that provided an answer so that I could clarify the solution he gave me.  My problem was solved, and I didn’t have to worry about trying to download questionable software programs that came up when I searched “XML to CSV” on Google.  Some even think that LinkedIn can revolutionize networking, and I tend to agree because it can connect you with people you likely would have never met.

2. Twitter

In my experience it’s difficult to get as detailed on Twitter as you might be able to on LinkedIn with your questions.  Anyone looking to help you has only 140 characters for a response (unless you decide to exchange email addresses) and that’s rarely enough for a detailed response.  Twitter has great search capabilities, and desktop programs like Tweetdeck and Seesmic have made it easy to monitor tweets on a particular topic.  So if you’re a WordPress developer you better have a saved Twitter search on the term “WordPress” because your competitors will beat you to opportunities if you don’t.  People like Chris Brogan swear by using Twitter for answers, and with over 100,000 followers it’s no wonder that he gets a flood of answers immediately when he asks a question.  In my experience, Twitter is best for things like recommendations.  What’s the best Android app for music?  What’s a good book to read on entrepreneurial finance?  Those can be answered in 140 characters, and they’re easy for people in your network and people searching on a keyword to answer quickly.  For a great play-by-play analysis of using Twitter for answers check out Don Schindler’s post.

I didn’t mention Facebook in here, but it can definitely be a great source of help as well – if you connect with business colleagues.  On the other networks there are people you don’t know actively searching for questions that they can help with.  In my experience that isn’t the case with Facebook.  I’m a recent college graduate and the majority of my friends on Facebook are my friends from college and high school.  If I need help with something at work, I have only a handful of friends that work in marketing/technology so it’s not necessarily the best place for me to ask questions.  If you have a lot of friends in the same industry on Facebook it might be a completely different experience for you so it’s definitely worth trying out.

5 Social Media Tips for Small Business

Today’s guest post is by Beth Hrusch, Senior Editor at Interact Media, a business blog writing service that teaches writing tips and best practices.

A recent study by Employers indicates that over half of small businesses believe in social media as an important marketing tool.  Yet, only 16% of those polled use their social media accounts to communicate directly with customers.  So, what are they actually doing with social media?  The average small business uses it to promote, much in the same way they use ads, direct mail and other forms of traditional marketing.

Social media for business promotion is fine.  But, the real leverage comes through engagement with people who are interested in you.  Your fans and followers are the real catalyst for your success with social media, so keeping in touch with them is critical.

Why?  Social media, much like content marketing, is all about building customer relationships.  In fact, businesses can take their cue from the origins of social media as a primarily “social” tool.  Sites such as Twitter and Facebook were really designed to help people communicate with each other, share resources and stay in touch.  Businesses can do the exact same thing with their customers, using the same sites.

Using social media sites to engage with current and potential customers takes a commitment of time. However, the tools are already built in, so you can simply think of your company account as another way to connect with your target market, just as you would with friends, colleagues and relatives.  Here are 5 tips for building the relationships that lead to sales:

1. Listen- There are a lot of conversations going on out there.  Some of them may be about your company, your industry or other topics that affect you.  Take the time to listen to what is being said before deciding how to respond or add to it.  You’ll learn more about what is important to your target market when you put your ear to the ground.

2. Participate- By becoming part of these conversations, you show that you’re interested in what people have to say.  This is also your opportunity to show how much you know about your topic, which helps to establish your authority.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions, encourage debate and even stir up a little controversy now and then.  It gets people talking and gives you more information you can use to connect with them.

3. Add value- Your comments should always add something of value to the conversation.  If you’re too self-promoting or don’t add any useful information, both you and your company will lose credibility.  Think of your efforts as conversation rather than as a push for sales.

4. Evaluate your goals- At some point, preferably at the beginning but also along the way, you should think about your objectives.  What you trying to achieve with your social media efforts?  Some businesses want to increase brand awareness, others are more interested in what their competitors are up to.  Honing in on your primary goals will save you time and energy in the long run.

5. Look at the big picture- Think of social media as a community rather than a place to sell your products and services.   People on these sites, just like the Internet in general, are not necessarily looking to buy something.  Most of the time, they want information they can use, and they want to connect with the sources of that information.  Make sure your efforts keep this in mind.  Don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re here to talk to people, invite them to join you, offer them your expertise, etc.  Design each individual post to make an overall impression that, over time, reflects your business objectives.

So, if you’re thinking about using social media to promote your business, or already are, remember to put some time into customer engagement!  It’s the best way to get those friends and followers to convert into customers.

The Beauty of Purpose Driven Marketing for Business

I have never been a huge fan of the book Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. For the readers who are fans… I apologize… I hope this does not ruin our “friendship.”

This post is not about hating on the famous book by Pastor Warren but is only the connection point between a thought I had this morning. I was scanning the book titles on my shelf at the office and happened over Purpose Driven Life. The thought of having a “purpose driven life” slapped me… straight in the mouth.

Of course… being fully surrounded by business and marketing on a daily basis… I connected it to marketing and corporate communications.

How can you lead a purpose driven marketing initiative? How do train your corporate culture to drive towards a goal with purpose?

Is it an awesome… kick butt mission statement? Not really.

Is it creating training and communication modules to help employees communicate with each other? 50/50

Purpose driven marketing is a two-fold process.

1. Your purpose should be defined (much like your mission statement) as the reason you are in business. What need are you fulfilling?)

2. Driving that purpose should be the stories told by the people being fulfilled by your purpose…. the clients.

Only when you have clients and positive contacts sharing your message will you understand the full extent of purpose driven marketing.

Are You Going to the YouToo Social Media Conference?

I wanted to let you all know about the YouToo Conference in Akron, Ohio on April 16th. I am going to be opening for Phil Gomes of Edelman Digital (Chicago).  theI can’t wait for this because it is going to be a fun time and AWESOME!

Check out the information and be sure to check out the YouToo Social Conference website.

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It’s not just Web sites and e-mail anymore. The use of social media in marketing and business communications exploded during 2009. In 2010, social media are being used in all phases of operations for companies and non-profits.

Business and non-profit communicators and students can learn how to tap into this vital network at the Third Annual You Too Social Media Conference to be held Friday, April 16, at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Franklin Hall, itself a national model for communications education.

The all-day conference, co-sponsored by the Akron Area Public Relations Society of America Chapter and the PRSSA Kent State Chapter, will include hands-on sessions with expert presenters in such branding tools as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There will also a dessert reception for professionals and students to network.

Who: Akron Area PRSA and PRSSA Kent

What: Third Annual YouToo Social Media Conference

When: Friday, April 16, 2010 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Franklin Hall
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(Directions)

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Day 3 of the ForkOut Susan G. Komen Fundraising Tour

You can donate at > Forkout

It has been an interesting process traveling throughout Indiana the past few days while raising money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. We have visited Wishard Memorial Hospital Tissue Bank, Riggs Community Health Clinic, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Indianapolis headquarters, Tippecanoe Mall, and we have interviewed multiple breast cancer survivors.

There was one breast cancer survivor (Adrienne) who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was nineteen years old. Now, this is surprising on multiple levels… especially with her age. I think I had a hard time dealing with the interview because I could not comprehend dealing with the understanding of life ending around your twenty first birthday.

It was hard for me to even put myself in her place. What do you do with that type of knowledge? How do you comprehend the thoughts of dying at such an early age? She has been cancer free for 2 years.

Now here is the kicker! This is the important part. She found out she had cancer and told her (then) boyfriend to go away because she didn’t know what was going to happen in the future. Do you know what he did? Nine days after she told him she had cancer… he asked her to marry him. Crazy huh?

The trip has been humbling and we still have eleven days left to raise the necessary money to help the Komen cause. So far we have been graciously helped by the following people:

• Omni Severin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis donated two nights in their pent house suites
• Wendy Pike from Feller Business Solutions is donating 100% of profit to all supplies sold through April 6th just mention the word FORKOUT
• Molly at Noodles & Company in Downtown Indianapolis gave us a free meal
• Jennifer from Skylight Coffee House in Lafayette, Indiana gave us a free meal
• The great people at Golden Technologies donated a hotel room in South Bend
• Dave Woodson and Nat Finn have donated dinner on Friday night
• Dana Nelson in Evansville has hooked up media and a bowling night on April 3^rd
• Wayne Clayton and Kimberly Clark have helped with media connections in Northern Indiana
• Starbucks on Frontage Road in Lafayette donated coffee and food
• Mike Heffner from Express Personnel in Greenwood, IN donated $10 for every job placement

E-Mail’s Role in Social Media

Rory Carlyle is an Email-Geek, frequent twitter hound, web-analytics nut and an all around dweeb. With experience in consulting, agency work and as an Email Marketing Manager; Rory has seen issues regarding email from many perspectives. Continuing on a 6+ year march through all things interactive marketing with a strong affinity for email, Rory hopes to make the web a better place one inbox at a time. Outside of his email passion he fills his time with beer/food/books and the occasional flight to somewhere random.

Quite a few years have gone by since 2004, the year an article was put out by John C. Dvorak regarding the death of e-mail. Since then numerous articles have followed suit in 2007, 2008 as well as 2009. Each post has valid points and comparisons; most of these posts reference SPAM and online social vehicles for the diminishing usefulness of e-mail. While I would whole-heartedly agree that there are numerous reasons why e-mail may not be the prime vehicle for communication online, I would argue that e-mail is far from dead, maybe even still in its infancy.

E-mail today still plays a pivotal role within online communication, even within the social arena. The ‘social inbox’ is just another indication of how valuable e-mail is to users on social networks. David Daniels of Forrester released the US E-mail Marketing Forecast, 2009 To 2014 mid last year with a projection that e-mail will continue to grow for the next 4 years – at least. Spending in e-mail will increase to $2 billion. Peripheral research also suggests that “Social Networkers Still Love E-mail”, noting that 42% of social network users check their inboxes more that 4+ times a day. I would agree with that considering I leave my Gmail web client open all day to monitor my inbox and I’m an avid Twitter and Facebook user.

I predict, going forward e-mail will continue to play a large role in online marketing and social media. E-mail marketers are becoming smarter and better equipped to facilitate direct personalized communication to consumers; the usage of advanced list segmentation, behavioral targeting, and retention based automated deployments will all play a huge role of reducing e-mail clutter and becoming a huge tool for social networks to continue providing services to users.

My call-to-action for my fellow interactive marketers would be to embrace e-mail and leverage it into each and every marketing effort; social marketing will not eradicate e-mail marketing, it will only envelop it. E-mail marketing and e-mail in general is here to stay due to the start-to-finish measurability and fantastic ROI of the channel. Don’t believe for a second that e-mail is dead.

Thanks for listening to my blabbering; much thanks goes to Kyle Lacy for allowing me a guest spot on the blog. Viva la E-mail!

Connect with me @rorycarlyle

Going on the Road for the Susan G. Komen Foundation

Today I will be embarking on an awesome road trip with my good friend, Daniel Herndon. We are traveling to a ton of Indiana cities over the course of two weeks to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  I am extremely excited to have this opportunity. It is going to be a blast!

Daniel founded an initiative called Forkout.org that helps non-profits raise money by experiential marketing. Forkout.org will be the central location for all the content being distributed during our road trip. You can view the places we will be stopping at the Forkout.org Fan Page.

There is only one catch. Everything that we are using from the car to the hotels are all donated. We still need some help with lodging and food in certain cities. Let us know if you can help!

We will be live web casting our trip via the Forkout.org webpage. You can view us live pretty much the entire two weeks of our travels.

Please tune in and help us raise some support for a great cause!