This Is Not Easy and It Shouldn’t Be

If you haven’t figured this out already… running a small business is not easy.
Marketing your small business’ services and products 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… The majority of us have not found the seed to grow a tree that sheds Mr. Ben Franklins ($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.

Social media marketing is not easy and it is not cheap. If you want the intangible and tangible benefits of social media tools you have to agree to work hard or pay someone to work hard for you.

Don’t confuse the concept of social media marketing to be 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? Read. Learn. Interact. Get on Facebook and go to WordPress and start a blog. After you have posted a couple of blogs and have used Facebook for at least a month… you are ready to contact a new media marketing company to take the next step.

Dive in.

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You Have 500+ On LinkedIN? So What?

We have been through the friend train on Myspace. We have been through the obsessive adding of people trying to get the biggest friend list on the block. I have spoke with numerous people who feel their social capital is built around how many people exist within their network. They take some type of pride in the fact they have over 4000 friends on Myspace or Plaxo.

You know what I have failed to ask them?

So What?

I was reading a blog post by Beth Kanter called My First Grade Teacher Friended Me on Facebook. This post title really has nothing to do with what I am talking about but she makes a great point in the post:

Do you remember the line –  “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  It means roughly that to get things done you need to build up social capital, not just knowledge.

She goes on to say that the majority of social platforms are making it extremely easy to connect with people. There is so much beauty in the thought of connecting with hundreds of people and building your social capital. However this does not mean your social capital consists of 5000 people in which you have never spoken. The days of bulk networking, 500+ on LinkedIN, and massive friend lists are fast dissapearing.

Do you want to know why?

Because it is easy. Let it be know that there is nothing valuable in the social media world that is easy.

Another reason?

People are craving relationships. I was on your mailing list 3 years ago why would I want to be spammed on my social networks? They would rather not be a part of your mailing list.

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Tired of People Ignoring Relationships

I am tired of people ignoring relationships. I am tired of being a part of conversations about the “lack-of-time” for tools that build community value and relationships. 

Have we still not dropped over the edge? When you are reading studies that tout figures like:

• 36% of Internet users post opinions about products and brands online
• 84% of buyers look for opinions on products and brands online

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Calling All Pharma Companies: Docs Love Social Media

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the world of the doctor. Whether it has been actually getting medication or researching for a marketing report, I have been learning a lot about the medical world. I was perusing some content through Google Alerts and came across an article by George Koroneos at PharmExec. The article referenced a study release by Manhattan Research detailing the use of social media spiking about doctors by 60%. 

60%!!!! Holy crap.

Apparently the users tend to be female, primary care doctors, and smart phone owners. It made me think about the concept of pharma-marketing and an overall direct marketing strategy to medical offices and doctors. According to the study, physicians that use social media prescribe an average of 24 more scrips each week. 

We are talking 1,248 more scrips a year because of recommendations and the use of chat rooms and forum boards. 

What does that tell us? 

Viral marketing and word-of-mouth is working among primary care physicians. Now, this is interesting news for the pharma companies. The question is how can the utilize the information from the study by Manhattan Research?  Answering that question will be for another blog post. 

The importance of this study is that it shows a reasonable increase in the use of social media as a viral marketing tool. Doesn’t it change your perspective if you can see tangible numbers? 

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Personalize Your Twitter Page with BubbleTweet!

I love this tool. I love it so much… I just had to share about it. First, check out the link to my new BUBBLETWEET PAGE. Pretty cool huh? I probably could have spent more time recording a nice message but Jay-Z, a pen, and a pad is good enough for me.
Can you think of a better way to personalize your Twitter page even more than a customized background? YOU should go check out BubbleTweet and get one for your Twitter page.

How should you use it?

Give a personalized greeting. You have about a minute to record whatever response you would want a user to hear when entering your Twitter page.

What do I suggest?

My first suggestion is to NOT do what I did. I would doubt that the majority of your users (both potential and current) would enjoy watching you dance to Rhianna and Jay-Z. You never know though.

Thank them for coming by your page. Tell them a quick snippet about yourself. This is a great way to be transparent and show some social media authenticity!

UMBREL. ELLA.. ELLA… ELLA

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Thanks To You and Yours: 10 Bloggers I Like

I wanted to take a brief moment to thank everyone who has read and posted comments on this blog for the past 6-12 months. Seriously..

I love writing. I love blogging. I love social media. But the biggest thing is the people who contribute to this great community. Here is a shout-out to some commenter and twitters I enjoy.

Thanks to everyone.

10 People to Follow and Thank

1. Jeff Bennett. Jeff Bennett.org Jeff Bennett is an entrepreneur, husband, father, coach, teacher and enthusiast for many things. As an entrepreneur Jeff is the President and COO of NameMedia, Inc., a venture backed online media and commerce company based in Massachusetts that is developing media properties for Social Media, Direct Search and Commerce.

Latest Post: First Pictures From Scene of US Airways Crash From Twitter

2. Jeb Banner: SmallBox Web: design, build, promote and enhance Websites. Because we know how the Web works, we can make the Web work for you.

Latest Post: Having A Meaningful Online Conversation

3. Robby Slaughter: Turning Left Against Traffic: has had a lifelong passion for information technology, spanning some twenty years of education, teaching, full-time employment and consulting. His current areas of focus are usability, software development, process and methodology, technical communication, and data architecture.

Latest Post: The Expert Detector

4. Tom Williams: Innogage Blog: broke from traditional passive marketing knowing that Social Media would force companies and colleges to “Innovatively Engage” (aka InnoGage) their customers & students in the marketing process.

Latest Post: Blogs: Cornerstone of Social Media – Video Interview

5. Jeremy Williams: TourismTech Corner: will shine a light on technology and how it affects the world of tourism. The primary objective is to show how using interactive social media can help your website become more service-oriented and more valuable to your customers.

Latest Post: Social Media and ROI

6. Louisa Nardini: SupaNova Training: her passion is showing people how to use the Internet to build their own successful online business or to increase the profitability of their existing business.

Latest Post: Incredible Launch Offer from PepBlogger

7. Zac Martin: Pigs Don’t Fly : is an 19 year old university student, currently in his third year of a Marketing degree. He is a freelance social media marketing consultant and the Marketing Officer for the Student Union at Monash University.

Latest Post: Social Media Marketing Madness

8. Erin McMahon: Live United Y’All : The staff at Metro United Way have created this blog because we want to foster a vital, caring online community just as we build our real-life community. We want to encourage conversation and interaction, share our work and offer our community more avenues to give, advocate and volunteer to advance the common good.

Latest Post: Pop Quiz

9. Chris Hebert: Web Dazzling: Chris has been a long time knowledge seeker.  She learned to read at an early age, and continues to read “How To” books on a daily basis.

Latest Post: Microsoft Windows 7 Beta Info

10. Andrea Hill: Digital Likeness: s passionate about optimizing digital experiences. She also keeps a running blog at www.afhill.com/gothedistance.

Latest Post: The Paradox of Choice Book Review

There are many, many more people who have helped make this blog a reality. Thank you all. I look forward to another year of excellent social media marketing ADVICE!

Downgrade of Social Media: Web 1.7

That’s right. I downgraded Web 2.0 to Web 1.7 and for good reason!

I received a Google Alert in my email this morning from NetVibes pertaining to the new Social MEdia Dashboard they are building for Oglivy PR. 

Let me start off by saying I don’t have anything against NetVibes or Oglivy PR. I do have an issue with companies inventing old ways to use social media. I went and checked out the Daily Influence Social Media Dashboard and realized that it was an upscale version of a Yahoo and Google Personalized page. What happened to new ideas and innovation in the social media world? Web 2.0 is being downgraded to Web 1.7

I know that Oglivy is helping people monitor their brand online (which is awesome) but there is still the time issue that is keeping people from using Social Media. Can we create tools that can help people with the problem of management and understanding.

This is just another example of throwing everything in one spot. It solves the problem of multiple Safari or Firefox windows on my screen and that’s about it. I am not trying to throw Oglivy and Netvibes under the bus. This is a shout-out to every social media developer and user. It is time to upgrade. It is time to create something that brings SM to the masses. 

When are we going to truly utilize the power of the social media? 

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Breaking Into the Minds of the Gen Y via Automobiles

Ahh Generation Y… Otherwise known as the coveted Millennial Generation. Otherwise known as “Big Businesses want a piece of this action” demographic. And again, otherwise known as the “Facebook” Generation. We are a powerful generation at 75 million strong and brands will be developing to cater to every single need. So let’s break the generation down a little bit.

I wanted to break apart some information from a Deloitte Survey (courtesy of brandeo) that has some information regarding Generation Y weighing in on what is making automobiles cool again. I thought the survey had some interesting points on product development in the eyes of the younger generation.

The Top 3 Cool Factors for Gen Y in Automobiles

1. Exterior Styling

2. Affordability

3. Being Environmentally Friendly

It does make sense right?

The main point I took away from the Deloitte Survey was this comment from a PR Release:

The students found that their peers are not satisfied with what they consider their parents’ Generation of cars, but instead feel vehicles should be an extension of their lives and as such be customized to fit their always on, always moving lifestyle.

I don’t think you can get a clearer example of the power of experiential marketing. We want a brand that speaks to our need to feel connected. I want a car that looks cool, is affordable, and keeps me going – 24/7.

By the way, a recurring theme among the survey participants was the need for more connectivity via Wi-Fi, Facebook, and Twitter. Social Media in your vehicle? Say it ain’t so!

Calling all Gen Y Marketers: Now the question is… how do you take this information and apply it to your own products or services? Are you doing what it takes to capture my generation? If you are building a long term brand now is the time to capture and KEEP my attention.

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Don’t Delegate Social Media. Embrace It.

**Disclaimer: I am very much in favor of using Interns because they are plenty of experienced and energetic college students who do great jobs for companies. This post is merely something to talk about a company developing a social media strategy and not throwing it off on the first person.***

Let me run you through a scenario from my days in college.

I was an Intern, an inexperienced and cocky Intern. This was my freshman year of college and my Father wanted me to complete an internship at his radio stations in Terre Haute, IN. Believe me, I wanted to go. I thought it would be a good experience to learn about sales, marketing, and the world of traditional advertising.

And that lasted about… 3 weeks.

Yes, 3 weeks into the process I started getting bored and wanted to do something else. Being a Freshman in college there is only so much you can do without wanting to go and… do what college kids do. With all that said, I helped the radio stations move more into the Internet world and I sold a few ad spots. But I wasn’t really that involved in the organization because of the short time I would be there.

Guess what? I didn’t really care much about building a brand or contributing to the overall five year plan the company had in place.

Believe me.. this story applies to social media.

Jay Baer said it best in Delegation Equals Death in Social Media:

Almost every time I work with a public relations firm… “Us old dogs don’t really understand all this new social media stuff, but we’ve got this brilliant young guy right out of school….” Bang Bang.. You’re Dead.

I am getting tired of hearing about companies throwing social media strategy and tools off on an Intern. To be honest with you, I get tired of hearing about brand building and extremely important communication tools being used by someone who is not OVERLY invested in the growth of the company.

Social media allows you to directly communicate with your clients. It allows you to increase customer support, increase customer interaction with your company experience, and allows for truly grou-breaking information gathering potential.

Would you put an Intern in the front lines of your top customer support center? Probably not.

An entire company needs to be involved and be on board with using social media tools. The company use of the tool needs to be PLANNED and EXECUTED.

Jay asked the question, “Are you a social media cheerleader? Are you ready to drop the pom-poms and get your hands dirty?”

I say, “Burn the stupid pom-poms and throw some dirt. Let’s start using social media to transform communication.”

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1 of 4 Customer Types of Social Media: The-Lost

I had a post a couple of days ago talking about the four customer types of social media which was a piggy back post off of Jason Baer’s 7 Critical Elements of your Social Strategy.  I wanted to start focusing more in-depth on each customer type.

First on the list is “The-Lost.”

The-Lost can be categorized as a person or user that has either maybe heard of you or has not heard of you at all. Jason calls this section of a social media marketing strategy the Awareness phase. This is very much brand development on the part of the marketer.

You want to gain the mind-share of a web browser or potential client. We all know that this individual is lost because they haven’t discovered the beauty of your product or service.

We have described what it takes to become a member of the Lost. I guess the question is now: How do you market to an individual that is “lost”?

Using Social Media to Capture the Lost: Join the Community

This is not rocket science. There are many level of an individual in the Lost category. Let’s focus on the Generation Y Lost. If you are seeking to gain acceptance into the social media world of a Lost Gen Y it is important to become involved in the community. Community acceptance is huge for this demographic and Social Media type.

I am a part of Generation Y and I can tell you first and foremost… we are not brand loyal. By joining a community there is an aspect to being transparent that needs to be obtained. You cannot join a Gen Y community as a logo and business name. Go ahead an be disingenuous… and be killed.

Slowly start to work your way into the minds of the Lost. Their friends will help them along the way.