Part 4: Social Media Marketing for Small Business: Mentors

It is time for a roundup and the last two parts of the Social Media Marketing for Small Business posts.

Here is a look back at Parts 1-3.

Part 1: Prioritize, Plan, and Execute
Part 2: The Circle of Life
Part 3: Attention to Action

We have touched on many strategy elements when it comes to small businesses using social media for marketing and promotion. I wanted to talk quickly about the importance of having “social media mentors.”

Some of us are entrepreneurs with small business start-ups and having mentors to help with everyday occurences should be a strong part of our business routine. Andrew Hyde of StartupWeekend said it best on Chris Brogan’s blog:

Find Great Mentors. I think I have said this before, but it is slammed into my head by TechStars. It is the best thing you can have as a startup. Find them early, and listen as much as you can.

We should all have mentors. The same applies to social media use. Find a couple of industry leaders, as well as, local leaders to follow and ask questions. This should be applied beyond hiring a social media marketing company or a consultant to guide you in your social media use.

Social Media Mentors can give you great tips and benefits of using social media on a daily basis. This will help you hone your craft on top of your daily routine.

There is so much information shared on a daily basis that it is hard to seperate the good and the bad. Personally, I rely on some of my mentors to do this for me.

I wanted to list the couple of people that I am blessed to call my social media mentors (whether they know it or not).

Douglas Karr

Pat Coyle

Social Media mentors do not have to be different than your business mentor (mine happen to be).They can be anyone you trust to lead you in the right direction through your new media use.

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Are We The Dumbest Generation? Do Me A Favor And Take a Look in the Mirror

There is an underground campaign slowly spreading through the rank and file of many academics, journalists, and other individuals. This campaign can be aptly named the Digital Stupidity of the Younger Generations. I have been reading quite a few posts recently about the lack of “true” intelligence in the digital generation. Frankly, I’ve reached my breaking point. Thanks to The Independent, a newspaper based out on London, I have finally gone over the edge of annoyance to downright anger.

Andrew Keen has a post on Digitally Addicted Kids Threaten to Return Civilisation to the Dark Ages.  Here is a brief synopsis of the post from the author:

The internet is creating a generation of ignoramuses with tiny attention spans, who will surely become the dumbest generation in history.

Andrew starts the post by talking about Megan Meier, a teen who committed suicide over the cyber-bullying of a peer and the peer’s mother. This is a sad story of a social network being used in the worst possible way. I haven’t quite figured out how it connects to the increasing lack of intelligence in my generation.

Book cover via Amazon

From Andrew’s Post:

In The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes our Future, the Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein demonstrates how the internet is making young people increasingly ignorant about almost everything except online video games and the narcissism of self-authored internet content.

I don’t know about the rest of my generation but I am getting pretty tired of being stereotyped.

Would you like to know one of the main reasons why kids spend too much time playing video games? Why do you think teenagers spend so much time on social networks like Myspace and Facebook?

Parenting.

There has been so much blame placed on media and technology for the lack of intelligence in my generation. In reality, the majority of the problem is in the older generation and how they have raised the younger future. If you want your kids to read. If you want the younger generation to pick up a book instead of browsing blogs… encourage us.

I would rather not read degrading posts and comments around our lack of inhibition or intelligence. You are stereotyping an entire generation of future business leaders, politicians, service workers, teachers, and everything in between.

We need to take a look at all areas of the problem and not just video games or social media. Social Media has been a huge influence in my life, both intellectually and personally. If you are going to completely degrade something that has had a large impact in my life… do it with some class because you are embarrassing yourself.

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Is Email Marketing REALLY Effective? Really?

Just like everything in my twenty-four year old, completely ADD mind… things come and go. I have been up on traditional direct mail and then I have hated it. I have loved email marketing and then hated it only to return to love the form again.

I was reading a post by Jason Baer at Convince and Convert about email marketing. He had listed some interesting statistics that came out of a panel discussion at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer. He has a list of 15 Email Statistics That Are Shaping The Future.

I decided to take the top five out of the post and list them for you. This should help facilitate the discussion around email marketing.

1.  69% of email recipients report email as Spam based solely on the subject line.

2.  Email lists with 10% or more unknown users get only 44% of their email delivered by ISPs.

3.  84% of people 18-34 use an email preview pane.

4.  44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on promotional email.

5.  35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device.

I have always been slightly troubled the way email marketing has been conducted the past two years. With all the talk of pull instead of push marketing it would be assumed that businesses large and small would be making conscious efforts to increase the effectiveness of this online medium.

I have never been a major believer in one hit email marketing. The concept of sending a weekly to monthly email newsletter for marketing purposes seems a little contrite. The majority of the email newsletters I receive are not necessarily marketing efforts as much as they are blog posts within an email. They are announcing a new break through at the company or industry specific news.

There is a big difference between informational email and marketing email. Marketing email should be catered directly to a specific group of people and it should be set up through a drip email campaign. I am a big believer in drip email campaigns because it is measurable and you are constantly changing the message based on the action of the reader.

Sending one email out every month to the same base of subscribers can be a waste of time. Instead of sending out a monthly email why not write a blog? Sign your email list up on your blog subscription email. They will get your blog in their email and you will be killing two birds with one stone (maybe even three or four birds!).

As you can tell by the stats email marketing is still working but what I have seen from small businesses have been less than satisfying. Take some time to reevaluate your email marketing. Should you be doing something different? Maybe you should invest in a measurable system where you can cater specific messages to different users?

In the coming years different forms of more attractive and 1:1 communication mediums will take the place of email. Social Media strategies will be combining (if not replacing) push tactic email marketing.

I would like to think your client or potential customer wants a dialogue… They want communication! An email marketing campaign is a trumped up traditional direct mail strategy with a different method of delivery.

Do something different! Do something unique! Do something noteworthy.

Warren Buffett Was Right in 1999. Web 2.0 Firms Should Listen.

Book cover via Amazon

I am in the process of reading Alice Schroeder’s book entitled The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. The book is a massive source of information about the life of Warren Buffett. Needless to say the book is unbelievable! I love to read about the life of people who, in my opinion, have lived a valuable and influential life.

At the beginning of the book Alice recounts an event from the Sun Valley Conference in Hailey, Idaho. Allen & Company, a boutique investment firm in Hollywood handles the event inviting such notables as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Rupert Murdoch.

In 1999 Warren Buffett was asked to be the keynote speaker to end the conference. This was a special year because the conference was filled with Internet tycoons ready to embark on billion dollar ventures in the new year. They were invited and were making the most of rubbing shoulders with the richest individuals around the world.

The Internet tycoons walked into the conference room that day hoping for a glowing reception and the blessings from one of the greatest investors of our time. What they received was quite the opposite.

Warren Buffett practically dismantled the belief in the new Internet startup companies. He likens the Internet Boom to that of the airline industry:

“…So I submit to you: I really like to think that if I had been down there at Kitty Hawk, I would have been farsighted enough and public-spirited enough to have shot Orville down, I owed it to future capitalists.”

“It’s wonderful to promote new industries, because they are very promotable. It’s very hard to promote investment in a mundane product. It’s much easier to promote an esoteric product, even particularly one with loses, because there’s no quantitative guideline.”

Warren Buffett, pg 19.

Most of the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs left the meeting slightly chuckling at “old Warren’s mistake.” They found out later that he was exactly right.

Web 2.0 companies should listen to Warren Buffett. He has always cautioned the vamping of over-promoted companies and increasing investment in techonolgy companies with no substance.

“You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea, because you forget that the good idea has limits.” -Warren Buffett, page 21

I have always been a skeptic of increasing investment in social media and web 2.0. I do love the sites and I love the fact that they are free. I have a problem with the valuation of multiple billions of dollars for the site like Facebook.

This is a dangerous game we are playing when it comes to the multitude of millions of dollars invested in Internet startups. I am afraid we never learned to begin with.

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Embassy Suites Renamed Crack House

I have been on vacation in Florida the past few days. It has been really nice experiencing the warm weather and the sites/sounds of West Palm Beach.

I have been a guest of the Embassy Suites off of PGA Blvd and it has been less than satisfactory experience, hence the title of the post.

When we arrived at the hotel and were walking into the room, we discovered that the previous guests had left us food to snack on. They left a couple of Fritos on the floor. The maid who must have been short sighted, missed the food and we had a line of ants leading to the window.

Of course we mentioned that we would rather not have ants in our room and they sent an engineer to the room. Nothing was mentioned, an apology was not expressed by the management and I left it at that.

I decided to take a shower and realized that I was bathing in my own dirty water. The bathtub was not draining. Again the engineer was sent to the room and fixed the problem.

By this time I decided to complain to the management and they gave us a free night.

All in all it was a terrible experience. We have decided to move to the Double Tree for the last two nights. Ironically the Double Tree is owned by the same parent company as Crack
House: the Hilton Family.

You buy that handbag Paris! Or maybe daddy should take that money and invest it in better management.

Blog Action Day 2008: Krochet Kids International

Blog Action Day is today. What better way to talk about poverty than to highlight what a cousin of mine is doing to fight poverty in Africa.

Krochet Kids International is an NFP that was started by a group of college students in Washington and California. Their mission statement is simple and yet profound: to “empower people to rise above poverty“.

From the Krochet Kids International Site:

To create sustainable economic development programs that support holistic growth of individuals and communities within developing nations.

To inspire the knowledge of a generation about their ability to bring change to a world that is in need.

They are a powerful group of young people trying to make a difference in the world.

What They Do:

“Each day, a group of women in Northern Uganda gather in a simple brick hut to begin work. Their tools are small, just a hook and some yarn, yet the end product is something much more meaningful than a style accessory. The crocheted products these women are making have a far reaching impact. They provide immediate stability for their families, share about the realities of poverty, and their sale promotes the development of their community.”

Below is a video from the KK International site. I encourage everyone to watch it. I am completely humbled by the hearts of my cousin and his friends. The world would be better off if we had more like them.

Part 3: Social Media Marketing for Small Business: Attention to Action

We spend a lot of time talking about increased exposure for your company or personal brand in social media. We spend countless hours reading on how to gain attention to our content or service offerings. Personally. I spend quite a bit on Google Reader trying to stay ahead of the curve and consume the next big idea.

Many small business owners concentrate on one aspect of social media: the attention of the users. It is mainly the increased exposure to potential clients that starts the interest wheel turning in many owner’s heads. This is the old marketing strategy of the more you do the more eyes you will hit. We need to take it a bit further than just building brand recognition. It is hard to measure brand recognition in terms of return on investment.

Initially when entering into a social media marketing strategy companies need to think about the attention gaining concepts for the plan. Whether you are doing a contest, spending time in the networks, or launching a new platform it is important to initially focus on the attention aspect of social media.

What is truly important (in a business sense) is the action the user takes to buy and/or become interested in your product. You have all the attention you can muster! How do you turn the user’s attention into action.

4 Ways to Change Attention to Action

1. Free eBook:

Write a short book about your expertise. Are you an accountant? A business coach? Maybe you are a plumber who is just getting involved online? Write a quick page turner on some topics that will be beneficial to your readers. Offer it for a free download and capture their email address. This will allow you to build your database while already zeroing in on interested prospects. Chris Brogan has done an excellent job at this.

2. Blog or Email Subscription

In everything you do in social media it is extremely important to always have a subscription box for users to subscribe to your thoughts and offerings.

A great email tool for wordpress is Subscribe2 or the FeedBurner Email Subscription.

3. Promotional Banners or Links for your Profile

Always have a link present (image or text) that offers a discount on your services. You can also have a link directed to your company website that allows users to invest more time in learning about your services. This is a huge example of way to drive your attention users to your website and sell them on your services.

4. Gain Their Trust

You need to become involved in the communities that potentially may be a revenue source for your company. Take the time to respond to questions, ask questions, invest in writing great content, and helping people out. This is a huge aspect of changeing attention to action. The steps towards the buying pattern of a user has a lot to do with trust in the social media environment. Gain their trust and offer them something to hard to put down.

Gaining the trust of a user is the more important of the four steps listed above. User’s attention is not a bad thing but in order to measure your  ROI  you must take some of them to the action steps.

Always measure and document what you are doing. Time management is key.

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