The Black Hills Digital Strategy co-op won the U.S. Travel Association’s Mercury Award for most innovative digital campaign. Nicknamed “the Oscar of Tourism” on twitter, the Mercury Award is given out in 12 different categories. SD Tourism joins the ranks of North Carolina, Oregon and past winners such as Michigan, Virginia and Florida.
The 2008 Black Hills Digital Strategy campaign targeted three niches of travelers: history, adventure and RV’ers. Through PPC, banner ad, landing pages and email efforts, the Black Hills promoted vacation packages, online booking and three vacation giveaways. This effort resulted in over 40,000 new leads for the Black Hills, including nearly 14,000 entries for the vacation giveaways. Web traffic to partner websites also saw a 27% increase.The awards gala was held last night in Lake Tahoe. This is the third Mercury Award won by South Dakota.
I just received this video link via a digital community news feed. As the video discusses, and as we discussed last week with businesses of all sizes, “Is social media a fad?” and how do we measure its true value? Its great food for thought as I take a few moments to digest all of the notes and information in my literature bag from last week’s national Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference (#sessj).
Last week, Lawrence and Schiller had the opportunity to share our social media expertise with other professionals from across the country in search engine and digital marketing. Great topics, great conversations and I’m excited to share a quick summary of insights discussed during the event.
Search is about people. Not keywords. Search engine strategies to reach customers are not meant to be separate from your social media relationships. Today, and even more in the future, people are expecting results that reflect the most up-to-date and relevant content. User-intent and user-influence are key considerations when understanding and preparing for the way search engines will index sites and the deliver the results we see today and in the future.
SEO adds fire to Public Relations. As quoted in the video, “We no longer search for news, the news finds us.” Using social media tools and best practices for SEO are key to ensuring the right audiences find the relevant news we all want to share. Researching keyword trends, editorial calendars, writing the way the audiences are searching, keeping headlines short and simple are just a few ways we can ensure “news” continues rank well and has maximum reach with leading search engines and social media platforms.
Social CRM. Its here. Discussions on ways to integrate existing CRM technologies with social media conversations piqued my interest last week. We’ve begun the path of integrating the newest CRM 2.0 or social CRM tools within our existing enterprise systems – but the world is always changing and there’s more that we can do to ensure our clients have the tools they need. Businesses are always looking efficient ways to respond to customers from a variety of communication sources, and that includes the most popular social media platforms. Engaging in customer-driven conversations, and measuring those efforts, is the next stage in building effective relationships. These effective conversations lead to relevant search results, which in turns leads to more people finding you.
In short, no matter what the next stage in search strategies, social media, or any other aspect of marketing that leads today’s conference topics, its clear that the fundamental value of any communication hasn’t changed. The goal of great marketing is now, more than ever, about RELATIONSHIPS. The tools, the strategies and the places in today’s world are dynamic and evolving, but the basics of a good conversation never go away.
What a great day at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose! It’s an honor for L&S to be here as a guest presenter. It was a full day of thought leadership, brainstorming with industry execs and now we’re off to the social events. Among the great sessions today, Clay Shirky opened up SES San Jose with an overview of his book, Here Comes Everybody. My notes from the session:
Clay discusses the major changes in media as a true revolution based on three principles:
Community Influence – the Internet is the only medium where groups have many-to-many communications
Symmetry among the online landscape
As all previous media get digitized, the Internet will be home of ALL, providing feedback loops to media content that was previously one-way messaging
It’s not the shiny new object’s arrival that is revolutionary; it’s when people use it without even thinking about it that results in true social changes and shifts in behavior. Tools only change society when they’re accompanied my motivation. The key to understanding why people participate in social media is to get to the bottom of their motivation? Clay discussed the differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Social media is most successful when it’s lead by people with passion. Often extrinsic motivations, such as monetary compensation, ruin the fire that fuels great long-term engagement online.
Clay provided the 3 primary reasons why people engage:
Autonomous – I am my own author
Competent – I matter, people care and I want others’ attention, which eventually turns into a competition of sorts
Connected – I am a part of something I believe in
Sociology matters more than it ever has in media. Characteristics of user’s motivations are what really matters and what makes tools important. The question to ask is not “why do people take part in a particular social movement” rather it should be “why does this come as a surprise?”
The cost of the media landscape is now so low that the logic of media has changed. Content used to be filtered first and then published, because everything cost money. Now content is published and then filtered. The audience or readership decides whether to filter it or not. Producers of content don’t generally have mass audiences in mind; they are more likely to target their content and conversations to their friends and networks. No professional media network has ever had the power that intrinsic motivations can relay… intrinsic motivations result in fulfillment, which fuels passion.
Key head shift:
Stop thinking about behavior
Start thinking about motivation and modes
It isn’t about old people and new people – motives are the same, the opportunities to share have just changed.
Going to the hospital can be scary business if you’re a kid. Ok… let’s be honest… it can be unnerving for parents too.
Often the fear is based on the unknown. What is it like in the hospital? What will the room look like? What can I bring and what has to stay home?
Providing answers in a kid-friendly way is the goal of the Kid Zone. The Kid Zone is a colorful, animated and interactive micro-site developed by Sanford Health. It includes a guided tour of the Sanford Children’s Hospital, links to health information and now, an online coloring book.
In this episode of The Extra Minute, Natalie Eisenberg, account executive at Lawrence & Schiler, explains why the Kid Zone has been created and why Sanford believes it’s an important service to provide.
In the heat of the moment how do people really feel about your brand? What do they feel when using your products or services? What do they say to others about you?
Answering those questions is becoming easier than ever thanks to social media monitoring. But it takes time plus the right tools and techniques to discover relevant conversations and respond appropriately.
During this episode of The Extra Minute Courtney Lotzer, Account Planning & Research Specialist at Lawrence & Schiller, shares her experience with social media monitoring and offers some advice. If you’d like to take a deeper dive into this topic, check out session 3 of the L&S webinar series – Simple Steps to Measure Your Digital Dialogue.
For all the talk about Twitter and Facebook you’d think everyone is America is tweeting and updating their status. But the reality is nearly two thirds of American adults have never created an online profile and joined a social network.
If you’re part of this silent majority, it’s time to start managing your online identity. Here are three simple steps you should take to claim your virtual territory and protect your personal brand.
1. Investigate
Go to Google and search your name. Can you find yourself? Who’s listed before you? What line of work are they in? If someone is searching for you, who might they mistakenly find?
Go to Facebook and search for your name. How many matches are there? Do the same on Twitter .
Now that you have an idea of how competitive the online space is for your name you’re ready for the next step.
2. Build
Stake a claim to your online territory by setting up accounts in the top digital properties.
Whenever possible use the same profile name. I typically use “DaveHaan1″ (e.g. www.Twitter.com/DaveHaan1) because someone beat me to the punch and starting using “DaveHaan” before me. Admittedly this variation isn’t as good as my regular name but it’s close and consistently used.
Enter enough information into your profile so people can find you. Uploading a picture of yourself and sharing your city, where you work and the name of your alma mater is a good place to start.
Set up a profile in each of the top social categories. The names will change as new players enter the game but today the top sites are:
Domain name = Go Daddy (register your name for $10 or less)
After setting up your accounts, use them! Find people with similar interests. Listen to their conversations and join the discussion.
3. Monitor
Just because you’ve established your online identity doesn’t mean the job is done! Now is the time to start listening for comments, feedback, anything that mentions your name.
Set a Google Alert for your name and profile name. An email will be sent each time your name shows up in a blog post, news story, web page, etc.
Social Mention is another free service that will listen for your name. It will even say if the mentions are positive, negative or neutral.
Tip: learn more about social media monitoring from Week 3 of the Lawrence & Schiller Social Media Boot Camp webinar series.
According to Pew Internet research, nearly half of us have searched online for information about ourselves. Unfortunately only 3% do it on a regular basis! Once you’ve established your online identity you won’t be able to manage it unless you monitor on a regular basis.
Webinars are easy to come by. If you’ve shared your email address with any kind of marketing or advertising website you probably have an invitation to one sitting in your inbox right now.
Presenting a webinar on the other hand… that’s a different story. Preparing, practice and producing a 60 minute “show” can be hard. But in the words of Coach Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”
Take a listen as The Extra Minute sits down with John Pohlman, VP of Creative Services at Lawrence & Schiller, to discuss the challenges and rewards of hosting a webinar.
For the Social Media Boot Camp season finale, we brought in the ratings boosters –a.k.a. VP Dan Edmonds (@monkeyboy5280) and VP John Pohlman (@johnpohlman) to discuss the impact of social media on our design world.
For those not familiar with the history of social media design, let me give you a brief overview. In the mid-1990’s we entered the era of Early Static Websites. These websites allowed users to view the website’s message but only accounted for one-way communication, similar to traditional advertising. The era of Early Web Applications was soon created and those applications allowed online users to interact solely with the propriety content on the website, but two way communications started to take hold; Oh No! What’s an advertiser to do! (j/k J)
Today, we have entered into the golden era of Social Web Applications, which allows for multiple-way communication, promotes interactions and connects people together. This is why design is so important, people are using these websites to interact with other users and the brand, and users don’t need a poorly designed website getting in their way.
To succeed in the current era of Social Web Applications there are two important rules to follow:
1. Don’t Do Anything without a Plan
2. No Need to Invent the Wheel Twice.
These may seem like very basic rules to follow, but it’s good to remember that though the medium of interacting is new and different, the design concept behind the interaction is at the core, the same.
The Best Practices of Social Media Design (summed up in webinar 10): Make Interacting Easy. When a user comes to a website they need to be able to engage quickly and without a long search for the content they want, or thought they would find. Think of how many times you have gone to a website and quickly wanted to make a purchase, upload a file, or find a link, but the icon seems to have disappeared from the site! I know I get irritated when I spend too long on the website; for some reason my frustration “rope” is much shorter when working with technology than in the off-line world. Technology is here to make life easier, not more complicated; a website should be designed with the users’ intentions in mind.
In the era of Social Web Applications, users want to become a part of the website, so it is important to design and support the development of online communities. Everyone always wants to feel connected and a part of something, so design your website as a place for members to share interests, join groups or post blogs. As we have entered the web applications era, we want users to become part of the site and have it be a place to communicate and connect with others of similar interests.
At the end of the webinar, @johnpohlman and @monkeyboy5280 didn’t leave any cliff hangers but they did leave some words of wisdom: Make sure the experience belongs to the user!
Thank you for participating in our webinars, and see you next season!
South Dakota’s Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center Network provides programs and services to help businesses start, grow and succeed. This month, the small business education series will venture into marketing and how, in today’s changing business environment, it can help your small business survive and thrive.
“Marketing Matters,” a four-week educational web series, kicks off July 9 to educate business owners on the value of marketing plans, social media and other ways to better position themselves in today’s economy.
As a leading regional advertising and marketing firm, Lawrence & Schiller is proud to support the: South Dakota’s Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center Network to help lend insight and experience to the conversation.
Thursday, July 9: Roadmap to Marketing Success: Simple Steps to Writing a Successful Marketing Plan
Courtney Davidson and Micah Aberson, Lawrence & Schiller
Wayne Wagner, CFGear
Thursday, July 16: Google Matters: How Does Your Website Measure Up?
Krista Gussiaas and Eric Ellefson, Lawrence & Schiller
Greg Jasmer, DAKOTACARE
Thursday, July 23: The First Impression: Building a Positive Customer Experience
Natalie Eisenberg and Courtney Lotzer, Lawrence & Schiller
Michele Slott, Prairie Berry Winery
Thursday, July 30: Social Media Marketing: How to Start Your Online Conversation
Robin Temple, Lawrence & Schiller
Paul Ten Haken, Click Rain
Sessions are free and begin at 10:00 am (CST) via webcast. Learn more and sign up by calling the SBA at 605-330-4243 and press 0.
I am not sure about anyone else, but when I heard the words ‘gaming’ and ‘online’ used together I automatically thought of World of Warcraft and Second Life type sites that consume the user’s lives. So I was very interested to attend our ninth webinar, “The Games We Play” led by Julie (@flanneryallen) and Micah (@micahaberson) to see past the stereotype and to the future of gaming, social media and marketing.
The big question that everyone wants answered is why should I invest time, money and resources into gaming and how do I measure its effectiveness?
These statics from Omma help prove that gaming is a fast growing segment:
57% of AT&T wireless customers play mobile games on their wireless devices
50% play games during work
15% of all mobile users have purchased games
Most importantly though, is that more time is spent on gaming than any other form of social networking. Think of how much time is spent on Facebook and Twitter- now increase that and it becomes a large period of time that a consumer is having direct interaction with your brand-what more could be worth the investment?
Julie and Micah simplified the gaming concept into three categories: Branded Applications, Game Games, and Social Networking Games.
Branded Applications occur when companies start in the digital world and from that create a new product. Nike did this with Nikeid, which allows consumers to customize their own Nike shoe online, have it manufactured with their exact specifications and then shipped to their home. A few years ago I purchased a pair of Nike tennis shoes this way- it was actually one of Oprah’s Favorite Things that Christmas season. The point is I never thought of myself as a gamer, when it turns out I was participating in the gaming world without evening realizing it! Dominos also incorporated its brand into an online game. The concept is very easy: create ‘your’ pizza, register it online, and if the pizza is ordered more than any other registered pizza, you win! This becomes a fun competition between friends when they register pizzas against each other, and turns into a great incentive to order Domino’s pizza and to spread positive word of mouth so others order ‘your’ pizza.
Game Games, simply put, takes the old favorites and reinvents them in a social media way to bring together a company’s brand and the consumer. Brick Break and Mortal Combat (or in Mento’s version Kiss Fight) can be re-used so the game will connect back to the brand. A really innovative way movie theatres used this idea was creating an interactive group brick break game while movie goers were waiting for the movie to start. That sounds much more entertaining than watching the same commercial every few minutes or the movie reals which give the same uninteresting Hollywood facts.
Social Networking Games are most common. Think of all the ‘which character are you’ quizzes that have been taken on various social networking sites- or anywhere online for that matter. When brands create a game or quiz they are essentially bringing consumers to them and creating a fun way to interact together. Volkswagen used the social networking concept in creating a ‘What Volkswagen are You’ quiz to inform users of the Volkswagen family in a fun non-traditional marketing way. A great example given of gaming during the webinar was the ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ which made Facebook users ‘sacrifice’ or de-friend 10 of their friends in order to receive a free whopper. Burger King wanted to emphasize how much America loves the whopper and what we would sacrifice to have one. Eventually Facebook kicked the whopper game offline, but not before the whopper made a lasting impact on the gaming community.
Twitter has even entered into the gaming world with celebrities like Eminem and Shaq creating games their fans and followers can play to win free tickets to their events. This could be a good place for smaller business to test out gaming by creating scavenger hunts or other fun games for customers to play.
So what are the values of gaming?
Consumers are actively engaged in making a connection to your brand, you’re able to build databases for future marketing, and it drives repeat visits to the brands website. Gaming effectiveness is fairly easy to measure by looking at how many sales can be connected back to the game and by how many consumers routinely visit the site.
Your brand’s message matters but more importantly, what is the message the consumers are sending? Word of Mouth conversations, and advertising, are becoming one of the most influential and credible forms of publicity for a brand, in part to the growth of social media. Session 8 of our L&S Social Media Boot Camp kicked off with a discussion led by Jeff Hanson and Molly Schenkel.
Long before blogging was available, consumers relied purely on the message the company was delivering to make informed purchase decisions. Gradually, consumers started talking amongst themselves about what they liked and disliked about brands, but there wasn’t a way to spread the information very quickly and consumers still turned to the brand for the main message. In today’s world, consumers and brands have the ability to talk together and create a message that matters.
Think of the last time you purchased a new brand or product, most likely it was because you heard from someone that it was worth a try. Companies have quickly realized that consumers are turning more towards digital influencers and bloggers than “ads” for product information. For these influential bloggers, some companies have begun to send thank- you’s and sometimes have even tried to provide incentives for promoting the product. But do so carefully . . .even with a relationship or incentive, the messenger doesn’t work for your brand – they will act on behalf of the consumer, not you.
Digital communities are another great way of getting the message out there. By creating a community in the digital world it allows an infinite amount of users to discuss how they use the product, new ideas for the product, or to simply connect together with a common interest. These forums or chat areas are a great avenue to gain feedback from consumers, which can lead to new product developments or a more user friendly version of existing products.
An example given in the webinar was on Barilla Pasta. As an incentive for consumers to try the new line of pasta’s, Barilla gave consumers a sample of the product to host their very own ‘Pasta Party’. The party thrower was then asked to simply blog about the party, the pasta and the fun. This was a perfect way to connect the brand and consumer together to create a positive message.
For your message to be heard however you also need to make sure you are using the right channel so your audience will be able to find you. Do your homework and start with a keyword search on your company or brand to see how relevant you are, where you rank, and review what others are saying about you – is it how you want your company to be portrayed?
You want people talking about you, and hopefully, its in a positive light. Make sure the message you are sending matters to your audience but don’t forget to listen to the messages your consumers are sending you!
Today’s webinar was led by Miles and April, who did a great job of showing the uses of social media tools for both advanced and neophyte social media users. The ‘tools’ they spoke of were different software applications that make it possible to connect your different social networking sites all into one convenient browser.
If someone has multiple Twitter accounts (for personal and business uses) it would be helpful for them to use Twhirl, Ping.fm, Tweetie, Twitterific, Splitweet or Nambu -just to name a few! All of these tools are programmed a little differently so it is important to try a few and see what will work best for your particular needs. Personally, I only have one Facebook and Twitter account – which I’m still getting used to- so I would use Tweetdeck or FriendFeed, and for my phone, TwitterBerry or TinyTwitter since they all only accommodate one twitter account.
To get specific on some of the mentioned connectors, Twhirl displays your Twitter stream as a single column, the replies are color coded, the Twhirl screen dims when you are switching between applications, you can use multiple twitter accounts on it and it integrates with ping.fm. What is ping.fm? It is a tool that allows you to connect up to 40 different social networking sites together to be able to send out one status reply, instead of writing separate ones for all of the different sites you are on. TweetDeck connects Facebook and Twitter together and can help you categorize and organize your followers into columns to give a dashboard display of the news feeds from both. Twitterific is a great application that works on the iphone and can support multiple twitter accounts. FriendFeed pulls from multiple social networks and creates a custom live stream of your daily updates, tweets, videos and social bookmarking. Even if one of your friends does not accept to be on FriendFeed you can make them an ‘imaginary friend’ and still see all of their updates.
Using these connecting tools is the most time saving way to stay connected with as many friends or followers as you want. There is software for any type of social networking user, whether it is someone who would like to have phone updates, computer updates, or even updates on others updates, there is a tool for you to make your social networking easier. And with all the free time you will gain with adopting one of these tools, is time you can use trying out a new connector or new social networking site!
@robintemple and @ericellefson lead our sixth webinar about the marriage between SEO and SMM – both strategies are equally important to making sure your website, and ultimately your brand, is visible and relevant to your core customers as they search online. As a site owner, you need to understand how the search engines of tomorrow will rank site content and give engaged sites/consumers the upper hand.
Here’s a brief overview of how build a great foundation to support your digital search strategy:
Make Your Website Relevant: Content is King
On-page Elements (Techie-details)
SEO – Understand that your title tags, headers, image title, bold text and use of keywords are all influential on search engine rankings.
SMO – Coding and tags are not so important, while visual attention grabbers make a bigger impact.
The Meat of Your Page: Rich Content
SEO – Quality content is important in order to rank well.
SMO – Quality content is important in order to hold the readers’ attention and win their approval.
Socialize Your Website: External Content
SEO – Trusted domains will have a positive effect on all pages, including new pages.
SMO – Power profiles on sites like Digg can keep traffic flowing with new submissions.
Relationships with the Right People: Targeting
Know Your Audience
SEO – Provide keyword-rich informational content
SMO – Starting/joining conversations that lead to building relationships.
Research
SEO – Research and Analyze to apply changes that will impact (positive or negative) site rankings.
SMO – Research and Analyze to know what types of content draws interest.
Defining Success:
SEO – Success can be achieved by applying the same practices every time.
SMO – Success lies in knowing the social media audience and engaging in a unique strategy every time.
Measuring Goals
SEO - In-house URL tracking.
SMO – External content engagement tracking.
Plan Your Attack: Engagement
SEO – Success can be achieved by applying the same practices every time.
SMO – Success lies in knowing the social media audience and engaging in a unique strategy every time.
Integrate and Improve Your Content: Link Building
Be Linkable:
SEO – Inbound links lead to success.
SMO – Links are a result of success.
Capitalize on titles and descriptions by making sure they relate to the content. Doing so increases relevance and increased relevance = your message will spread.
Accept Failure and Try Again
The truth is, even after you’ve followed the rules faithfully, your first dozen (or two) attempts probably won’t work. It takes time to create the momentum you need to establish yourself in the various communities. However, once one of your message does resonate, you’ll understand what all the fuss was about and why social media optimization is worth all the hard work.
You also can’t let up once you get that first taste of success. If you want to maintain the traffic you are receiving, you have to continue to participate. Your success in search engine rankings will wholeheartedly depend on user engagement within social media spaces.
There’s nothing funny about drunk driving. But who says campaigns to curb the dangerous behavior have to play it straight?
Lawrence & Schiller recently launched the Act Civilized campaign for the South Dakota Department of Public Safety. Writer Kristy Andersen joins The Extra Minute to discuss the story behind the campaign.
So you have started to monitor to the conversations and social activity after Week Three of our Social Media Bootcamp, and you have an idea of what conversations are happening, where people are postings, and what the tone of the conversations are.
But like everyone else, you’re looking direction about how to engage and become part of a digital community’s conversation in an effective and acceptable manner that can help your business without alienating the passionate members of the community you’re trying to reach.
What is a digital community - a communication system of social networks whose participants share a common interest, idea, task or goal that interact in a virtual society across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and where they are able to develop personal relationships.
Growth cycle of a digital community: Tend to grow slowly at first – people are more motivated to provide content and contribute as the size of the community grows. As potential audience increases, so does attraction of writing and contribution.
Who are the citizens that make up a digital community?
Peripheral (lurker) – observes. An outside, unstructured participant. Usually visits community in response to the prompting of others.
Inbound (novice) – newcomer, just beginning to engage in community. Starts to provide content. Tentatively interacts in a few discussions.
Insider (regular) – fully committed participant; consistently ads to the community discussion and content. Interacts with other users.
Boundary (leader) – Recognized as a veteran participant. Connects with regulars to make higher concepts into ideas. The community grants their opinion greater consideration.
Outbound (elder) – Leave the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks; community may have moved in direction they don’t agree with.
Why you and your company should be engaging with Digital Communities:
1. Education
Get the inside scoop – be the first to know what is going on
Ask and answer questions – participate in the conversation
Stay up to date on your industry trends
2. Networking
Meet like-minded people
New hires/staff
Business opportunities
3. Public relations
Know what people are saying about and how reacting to your brand
Respond to press quickly
Plant a story/lead
Influence public opinion
4. Fundraising/Philanthropy
Tie into a cause – ask to join
Special offers for those that participate – Incentives
5. Brand Awareness
Around events and sales
Reviews, ratings
Tell your story
6. ROI
Can track web traffic, click-throughs, RRS subscriptions, offer redemptions, digital mentions/conversations, downloads, customer surveys, subscribers, referrals, links
FINDING the communities you want to engage with:
Great tools listed in Digital Bootcamp Number Three: Trendrr, Quarkbase, Social Mention, Technorati Search, Google Alerts. Will help you locate the places that your customers are congregating and begin monitoring conversations before you choose to try to leverage it to your advantage.
BEFORE you jump in:
Remember – utilizing a digital community for marketing is a tricky business that requires you to proceed carefully has sensitive boundaries, doesn’t suffer intruders well. When dealing with a digital community, it’s all about discovering what your audience desires and finding a way to align your brand to their desires.
Have established goals – know how this will align with your existing voice/messages/identity and your goals – and be prepared to monitor results to make sure you achieve it
Try to anticipate all possible reactions (good and bad) and have a plan for responding
Challenges of marketing to digital communities:
Be prepared to commit the resources – time, people, authority to respond
TRANSPARENCY is crucial
Remember – your community will trust you – do not lose their trust
Be aware of what is going on around you – timeliness can make or break a campaign
Build off of your existing equity – current platforms and marketing tools;
Web site
Email
Database
Let Them Play in Your Yard
Best way to monitor the conversation is to host it by adding social interaction to your website.
Poll, debate, question, leave links and opportunities to search
Many brands need to align themselves with subjects people are interested in or passionate about
Things to remember:
Remember that more than half of all fortune 500 social media campaigns have failed – the business community is struggling to keep up with the rise of the digital community.
If you set up a Social Media tool for your company – then use it.
Social media expert, Jeremiah Owyang, provides a glimpse into his Forrester Research study on the Future of the Social Web. He interviewed 24 of the top social media application experts across the nation - leaders from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Looking at the next 4 years, Jeremiah presents five eras of the social web:
Social Relationships (fairly mature) – connect with others online and share information – MySpace, Facebook, Twitter
Social Functionality (current) - social networks become like operating systems allowing you to add applications to social networks and perform activities beyond sharing static information. Multimedia / Multi-platform collaboration. Example: Facebook and LinkedIn. This era is not at all mature, much growth ahead.
Social Colonization – wherever you go online or with your mobile device, your friends can go with you. You can make decisions based on this peer review wherever you go. Also, you’re constantly connected to people.
Social Context – now that we have portable identities in our devices or online, you can exchange parts of your identity for more relevant content. Personalized content, even to the extent of personalized television and multimedia content. Demographic, psychographic, preferences, previous buying behavior and social context (people you know) will affect the kind of content you will have access to. Because you control your identity, registration pages will go away. Lead tracking will be reinvented.
Social Commerce – Communities will work together to define the products/services that they will buy. Product feedback will become part of the product development process. Again, a new level of customization. Brands will bid for their information. Community buying.
Great perspective – watch the video to hear Jeremiah firsthand.
Some might say there are no rules of conduct within the realms of social media. And they’re right. Hard and fast rules haven’t been adopted.
At the same time expectations of etiquette clearly do exist. 57% of the people attending Week 4 of the Lawrence & Schiller Social Media Boot Camp webinar series say they consider etiquette every time the post online. The remaining 43% think about it occasionally.
What are the behaviors to avoid? What things must you do? And what workplace considerations should you take into account? Click on the player below to view the recorded archive of “Social Media Dos and Don’ts”. Or scroll down for a brief recap along with poll results collected during this webinar.
Social Media Don’ts
Social Media isn’t show & tell. Don’t use it to brag about, or worse yet, exaggerate your experiences and accomplishments.
Don’t be pushy. No one wants to be spammed or read a post stuffed with keyword phrases or follow as your status is updated every five minutes or be invited to every Facebook group under the sun.
Don’t be a headcase. Social media can be a place to vent (in moderation) but it isn’t therapy. Not a good place to complain about your boss or swear how much you hate your job.
Don’t be sinister. Don’t try to hide behind someone else identity and be careful with the party pictures. Snapshots uploaded after you’ve had too many shots will come back to haunt you.
Don’t be offensive. “Funny” is subjective. Your sense of humor may not translate well online. Don’t cross the line into offensive. When in doubt, don’t do it.
Social Media Dos
Do showcase your personality. This is what makes you interesting and fun to follow. Remember there is a difference between showing your personality and giving out too much personal information.
Do consider limiting the number of groups you join. If you can’t keep up with all of them, it may be time to scale back.
Do manage your tools. Take advantage of the applications which connect your blog or tweets to Facebook… IF your audiences are similar and the message is appropriate for all destinations. Learn more about Connecting the Dots in week 7 of our webinar series.
Workplace Considerations
There is no privacy. Especially if you’re using a workplace computer.
You represent your company online even if you’re posting on your personal account.
If you work for a publically traded company, your tweets and blog pots can fall under SEC jurisdiction.
The FTC is proposing guidelines for online marketing.
Bottomline, if you wouldn’t say it in person to your boss, you probably shouldn’t say it online.
Admittedly, we first have to ensure there is dialogue. If you participated in the third part of the L&S Social Media Boot Camp, then you know that we experienced a couple minor technical difficulties – but luckily @markmorgan was able to join the conversation for questions and answers at the end. Thanks to @courtneylotzer who continued through like a champ and our participants who stayed with us during the bump and if you missed all the excitement, you can watch the updated version of the webinar here or use Twitter Search and query for #TheExtraMile.
Here’s a brief overview for those who missed Tuesday’s webinar.
Where to Start? Listen. There are numerous tools and online resources to measure and listen to all sorts of conversations online. To start listening, to help filter all the noise, we suggested a few free tools that we find valuable.
These are all great tools for providing a snapshot of what people are saying in the online space. Trendrr is probably the most comprehensive (look beyond your initial confusion, just stick with it for awhileJ), Google the easiest and others are fun to play around with if your geeky like our team is!
Lawrence and Schiller uses these tools in addition to our subscription based tool, Radian6. As a company we looked at many different options for our social media monitoring tool of choice. We debated between Radian6 and Sentiment Metrics. We liked Sentiment Metrics because it automatically assigned sentiment to each post. After researching it further, we came to find out that statistically, the sentiment metric was only correct up to 40% of time, so we chose Radian6 because of its ease of use and functionality.
With the Radian6 measurement platform, you can find your brand on millions of blog posts, videos, reviews in forums, sharing of photos, twitter updates. It is real time monitoring of mentions about your company, product, issues and competitors, and has the ability to quickly find the most important relevant conversations.
Free tools are great for initial competitive review, building broad insights of topics from a general audience and checking your “gut” instincts. We prefer to use an in-depth tool such as Radian6 for trend analysis and quantifiable ROI measurement.
I’ve listened. Now what? Define your goal, then the tool. We can’t say it enough. Social media should always start with understanding, and agreement, of what you are trying to accomplish with your overall marketing and/or communication efforts. Measurement of social media is the same. Understanding your goal is the key to defining and selecting an accurate metric for ROI.
And finally, start engaging online and offline (use traditional marketing to promote your online efforts). If you don’t engage on behalf of your company, someone else will. If there is a void someone will step up and fill this role when there is a need for it.
Deserved or not deserved a single negative review or mention can taint a brand for a long time. It’s important to take a more proactive role in protecting your brand before it’s too late. You have the tools, now you can start monitoring the digital space for mentions of your brand, either positive or negative, and it’s the best way you can actually cultivate relationships, too.
Would you be surprised that 40% of marketing professionals don’t use a formalized marketing communications plan? Maybe not…especially if you’re one of them.
When you don’t know where your brand is heading, it doesn’t matter which way you go. But when you have a defined objective, you want the most effective path there. That’s why marcom plans are such a valuable asset.
Personally, I like to think of them in terms of news.
News tells the stories of the day, and in the same sense, your marcom plan is how you’ll tell the story of your brand. It identifies the 5 W’s of your marketing strategy: the who (target audience), what (branding and creative), when and where (media planning) and why (research and overall strategy). But unlike news that’s printed and quickly becomes history, your marcom plan is a living document, adapting to the needs of your brand and the factors in flux around it.
Today’s newest plans are even more flexible. They’re measurable in real-time, so marketers can make adjustments and see results immediately.
Think about it. Without a dashboard in your car, you’d never know how quickly you’re approaching your target destination or how much fuel you have to get there. It’s the same with marketing. Without dashboards, you don’t really know where you’re going and how quickly you’re getting there…if at all.
At L&S, we’re actually measuring ROI as it relates to marcom plans through real-time dashboards.
This set of metrics can be defined by you and is displayed on an online “blackboard” where you can quickly evaluate the success of a marketing plan or campaign.
What they measure is up to you. But most dashboards include:
- Digital inputs, like web visitors, referrals or quality metrics
- Traditional and non-traditional media responses such as impressions, click-throughs, call center volumes or other inquiry types
- Sales metrics communicating how customers move through the sales funnel (online or offline) including leads, sales, product types, geographic and timeline sales trends
- Other engagements consumers might have with a brand during a campaign
By evaluating these measures, you can track ROI from the beginning of a campaign to any defined point in time, pushing you to set initial campaign goals and look at immediate benchmarks.
With dashboards like these, you can gain a real-time picture of what’s happening with your brand. Without them, you might be simply driving in the dark.
How can Twitter, the current “It” application of social media, help you market your business? Miles Rausch, L&S web programmer and an early adapter of all things digital, sat down with The Extra Minute to offer some insights.
Twitter was also the focus of Social Media Boot Camp II. A video archive of the Twitter webinar is available. During the boot camp we asked the attendees a couple questions about their use of the micro-blogging tool. Here are the results.
