Marketing Talk

A few months back, I started a brand new Twitter account for myself, and I decided to call myself “real life mad man” (I have since shortened my handle to RLMadMan). The idea came to me when a friend asked if my office and the goings-on were anything like what Mad Men shows. “Well, not exactly,” I said. I thought I would try to create a Twitter account comparing my daily experiences with those of say, Don Draper. As I have discussed before, this modus operandi was not ideal for the Twitter world.

Now, however, seems like an okay time to revisit the idea. What are some things we do everyday that I’m sure would just make for a riveting television show?

1. We look through publications when we get them to make sure our placed ads ran properly and to see if there are stories of import

2. We explain to new contacts that actually invoices need to come to us, not to the client, and that yes, that is the client’s address but our company name

3. We take calls from companies that have now been trained to make us think they are our friends. ‘Heyyyy is so and so there?” “Um, who are you? “Oh, I’m George and I’m from SellYourSoul.com.” “Yeah, um…the president of our agency actually JUST got eaten by a pack of dogs. Sorry.”

4. We file. Oh the filing. We file magazines. We file job jackets. We file invoices. We file tear sheets. We file our nails. So much filing.

5. We sort mail and wonder why someone who left us 15 years ago is still in someone’s database.

6. We analyze BPA statements to compare key publications.

7. We monitor publication news

8. We monitor technology news

Not exactly made for TV, but…

These things may all sound very tedious, but let me tell you something about the life of a real life “Mad Man.” It is all of the little things that will make or break you. Yes, we write copy. Yes, we design ads. Yes, we take photos and make cool websites. Our difference is in the little things that illustrate our commitment throughout the entirety of a project. Our difference is our complete commitment to serve our clients’ needs in every way possible, glamorous or not. The little, boring, not good for TV things that we do, like making sure we have authorization from our clients before we order anything on their behalf, that’s our bread and butter.

The Invisible

My mom used to go nuts when my brother and I were kids. She’d spend a whole day cleaning the house, and inevitably, the family would be hard-pressed to notice. “I make things disappear,” she’d say. Where there was a mess, she took it away. Where there was a pile of stuff, there was now blank table space. Similarly, the little things we do make problems disappear for clients (hopefully). We rush in and strive to solve problems or, more often, we aim to prevent problems before they even think about starting.

Are you a “real life” something or other? What little things do you do that make you valuable? What bad for TV specialties do you illustrate as often as possible? Hang on to them, whatever you do. They may not be exciting. They may not be glamorous. However, they could easily represent the factors that make you memorable and unique. No matter how mundane some of your tasks might be, if they are for a greater good, hang on tight. It’s not made for TV, but it is made for Real Life.

I have been having a lot of conversations lately about how people confuse a lead with ROI. ROI should not really be measured based on how many clicks an ad receives. ROI is about how many of those “clicks” result in a sale. It’s why metrics are so important, and it’s why so many people who love metrics are often frustrated that they don’t have more comrades in arms.

Well, I thought of a way last night to kind of bring the difference to life. Foursquare! Yes, that mobile geo-location creepy thing that I will probably regret bad-mouthing in 3 years will help me illustrate the difference between a lead and ROI.

So, let’s say you’ve downloaded Foursquare to your phone. You are checking in like a crazy person. You have already become mayor of the name you gave your car. You find out that a store near you is offering cookie samples if you go and check in there via Foursquare, so you take your loyal subjects of Cartonia and go shopping. You check in. You get your sample. You look around, but you realize that buying a dozen cookies the size of your head may not be a good idea. You’re already hopping up and down just from the sample. You’ll come back another time.

Are you a lead or can the store calculate you as part of the ROI of their mobile campaign?

You are just a lead, my friend. In fact, you might be proving the VP of Sales right. She said, “Um, we are giving away free samples, and we are asking people to come by, but people who get free samples are seeing their desire met. They don’t have an incentive to buy, they just have an incentive to check things out and check in on Foursquare.”

The Online Translation

Now, take this Foursquare story and bring it to the online world. Instead of an incentive via Foursquare, you’re enticing people to come check out your site via a contest you’re promoting on Facebook. If they download your white paper, they get entered into a drawing for the new iPod Touch. So, you get people to your site. You get people to download your white paper for free. Those are not examples of your Social Media ROI, though. Those are the people who got the free samples at the cookie store. If you give them something good, they may consider coming back later. If you don’t give them a reason to come back, or if you don’t motivate them to buy, then they might never become a customer. Your ROI will be poor.

Does this make sense?

Image by Tan Hsin-Ee. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/hsin26

For the last couple of years, the Cleveland Indians have had a pretty disinterested theme song.

Hey, ho, hey let’s go tribe. Then the tagline comes. “Are you in the tribe?”

To which I always respond, “Sadly, yes.”

Given the lifelong scarring the Cleveland Indians have inflicted upon me, you might understand why I am a little paranoid about other tribes, even when people I respect greatly say, “Hey, you should check this out!”

I’m also a pretty cynical person, generally speaking, so when someone says, “Hey, this is really really awesome!” my gut reaction is often, “Eh, it’s probably not THAT good. Or you have an angle.”

I tell you all of this because I am going to make a statement that overcomes both my fear of tribe-related terminology and my cynicism when it comes to positivity.

You should join the Third Tribe right now.

Why?

Oh, my word isn’t enough, I forgot. Okay, well, let me describe what I have experienced just by dipping my little tiny toe into the great big sea that is Third Tribe.

The forums

I am a big fan of forums, I must admit. I’m not really sure why, I am a ham but I have always been drawn to talking to other people in the forum setting. Make a statement, wait for responses. Even with the development of fast-moving sites like Twitter, I still like the “check back” nature of forums. So, when I logged into Third Tribe for the first time and saw about, oh, 17 different forum families, I felt a bit like a kid in a candy shop (if I had told myself when I was a kid that I would equate a lot of forums to candy one day, I would not have believed it). The forums range in topic from you asking questions of the many many thought leaders behind the project, you helping answer questions that other people post, and then tons of discussions that just add to the sense of community. You can track goals and get support, you can talk about subjects that interest you – it’s a pretty amazing amount of content (but I would like to call it conversation).

Speaking of community

I haven’t been a member for long, but I can already tell that the idea of community permeates everything on the site. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find a lot of my Twitter community there (hint hint) so that we can converse without a 140 character limit. I get the sense that people who have been there for awhile have already begun to cross-build their relationships, whether the relationships began on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or The Third Tribe itself. It’s kind of like going to a convention and running into people you were hoping to see. Very cool, very welcoming.

And speaking of people you were hoping to see…

In addition to the folks that got the site started (Brian Clark, Darren Rouse, Sonia Simone, Chris Brogan), lots of other very knowledgeable people are there too. And guess why they’re there? To help YOU. That’s right. You.

The Seminars

I’d love to be able to tell you how great the seminars are. They certainly look great and I can’t wait to dig into them. I just haven’t even gotten there yet. I am a forum junkie. I was not lying.

Q&A Sessions

There are also q&a sessions moderated by different pairs of knowledgeable people. Even if you don’t submit a question, or even if your question doesn’t get answered, I’m pretty certain that the first time I attend one of these,  I will feel like someone shot a fire hose through my ear and into my brain. And yes, that’s something I’m looking forward to.

Yes, it costs money

It’s true, unlike blogs and Twitter and Facebook, you do have to pay to access all of this great stuff. But here are some thoughts that might smooth that over for you.

Unlike my diatribe about repurposing content, you’re not just finding regurgitated blog posts over here

You feel like information is being customized to and for you – because it is

You are essentially getting all of the benefits of a huge convention or meeting every day, with a guarantee that you will get out of it exactly what you want – while still sitting at your desk!

All of this makes it tremendously worthwhile, a strong investment in yourself and in your company, and I mean, hey..you get to talk to me over there! Now that, my friend, is priceless 🙂

If you have any questions, let me know. Meanwhile, I hope to see you over there.

Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/eduardtrag

A lot of people get excited when you talk about the idea of working for yourself or being your own boss. “Wow,” they say. “I bet that’s great! That’s so exciting and romantic. You can go wherever you want to, do whatever you want, wow. I want to do that.”

It’s true that a lot of wonderful things are tied to having your name on the door. However, before you decide to start your own business or build your own personal brand in order to build a business, there are a few things I would add to the mix. These are things I have learned just from being the daughter of people who own and run their own business. This comes from working at a place where my last name is on our door. This is not at all to dissuade you. I think the entrepreneurial spirit is fantastic, and it might even be essential during uncertain times like these. Consider this a bit of a reality nudge.

That’s YOUR name. On everything.

How much do you value your name? How much do you value all of the people in your life who share that name with you? Those thoughts are perpetually on your mind when your name is on the door. Everything that comes out of your office is a reflection of your name. It is branded as your name, just like you are. This is very beneficial when something goes well. However, this also means that if there’s a typo, it has your name on it. If a client or customer is unhappy, it has your name on it. The amount of care and loyalty you have for and to your name is exactly how much passion you will put into every single thing you do.

Business IS Personal.

Having your name on everything and throwing your heart and soul into everything you do makes it hard to divide the professional from the personal. Sure, maybe that person was “just” commenting on your idea. But you know what went into that idea. You know that you sacrificed time with your kids. You know that you skipped watching a movie with the rest of the family. You know that you were kind of preoccupied during the holidays because you were working on that idea. The person is just commenting on a business concept. To you, it feels like they are commenting on how you spent your life while working on that particular thing.

No One Can Care as Much as You

If your new business grows and you bring in employees, they will never be as passionate as you. They will never be as obsessive about the quality that goes into everything they do. Not unless their name also shows up on the door. No one can ever care about your name and what goes with it as much as you do. This can be hard to understand at times. It is just the nature of things.

There are no kudos

You see a lot of people tweeting about their work days. “I just wrote 17 blog posts, had 5 meetings in a row, and won 2 new clients today.” The reason you see a lot of these tweets is that a lot of people are self-employed, and when you are self-employed you don’t get kudos for going over the top or over what is expected. If you are working hard, it’s understood that you are doing so because it’s your company and your name. It’s only when you lighten the pressure that people start wondering at and about you. Nobody thanks you for choosing to eat an apple instead of an almond-filled candy bar. It’s assumed you want to be healthy. No one will thank you for working hard on behalf of your company either. And again, that’s just the way of things.

There are no vacations

A common assumption is that if you work for yourself, you get to go on vacation whenever you want. In fact, it’s hard to ever feel like you’re on vacation when your name is on the door. A lot of your traveling happens for business. Vacation type trips are tied into trade shows or meetings. Your phone doesn’t leave your side during the work day, no matter where you are. You are always ready to spring into action, whether it’s on the beach or on a boat. You must always be accessible. For some people, limiting accessibility means losing money. If you don’t work you don’t get paid, after all.

These are some of the realities my family has always dealt with since we own and run our own agency. For folks who own their personal brand, this is the daily reality. It is a perpetual balance act of excitement and fear. It is a mix of passion and trying to distance oneself to maintain a professional perspective. It’s rewarding and painful.

Many times in Social Media, you just see the fun and exciting parts of owning a business. And there is all of that. But it is a struggle too, and that part often goes unseen. Before you knock the fact that someone is going on a nice trip or has bought themselves something nice, remember that those are the good, or even the great, parts of having your name on the door. For every good thing that you can take credit for, there seems to be a shadow lurking that you must always own. Until you experience that weight, or even part of it, you’ll just have to take the word of folks like me. Having your name on the door is a great power, and with it comes great responsibility.

Last weekend, I had the immense privilege of getting to meet Stanford Smith (aka @pushingsocial) in person. One of the things we talked about was the fact that Twitter seems to be undergoing some substantial changes and perhaps some segmentation. We view ourselves as in the same niche – people who are still fairly new to the world of blogging and Twittering, but not so new that we can’t look back at how we were when we first started and see progress. We are also noticing our drive to help people who are new to this world, to let them know that we’ve been there and that there is a reason to keep on trying.

Folks like Stan, Dawn Westerberg (@DWesterberg), and many other folks I talk to and consider friends in addition to peers share with me a deep respect for people that have made this game. People like Chris Brogan, Jay Baer, Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, Lisa Barone, Julia Roy – all of these people made the building that we’re all working in. MarketingProfs was offering webinars on Twitter when I was still thinking, “What in the heck is the big deal about Facebook?” All of these people have taken the opportunity not just to build something, but to send out what they’ve learned and what has worked. For that, speaking for myself, I will always be eternally grateful.

Times change, and so do circumstances

I am reading Scott Stratten’s UnMarketing right now. He talks about the fact that when he was getting involved in Twitter around 2008, he started building his Twitter community first, then brought that community to his blog. I discussed that point with Stan last week. I said, “Man, if I had tried that, I would probably have given up by now.” If I hadn’t been generating blog posts to show that I really did know how to talk like a human, I don’t think the folks that followed me on Twitter during my early days would have found any value in sticking with me at all. They could read other peoples’ posts just as well as I could, and with one less click.

I haven’t heard a lot of Old West tales about what Twitter was like when it was first beginning to grow. I don’t know what the pioneer stories of today’s biggest influencers are (though I’m sure they’re out there). But I suspect that for various reasons, they did not suffer the same level of frustration in breaking through that folks like Stan, Dawn and I did. Why? Maybe in the past, people brought their reputation to Social Media instead of trying to build a reputation using Social Media. Maybe just being on a new and innovative site was enough to get you noticed. I’m not really sure. I’d love input on that.

For me, as I’ve mentioned before, getting my blog going, getting my Twitter account going – was and remains tough. It’s 24/7 hard work. It’s endless time, and for many MONTHS, that’s months with a capital MONTHS, it was beyond discouraging.

The New World

For the pioneers who first settled Plymouth, the tasks that were ahead were daunting. As those people came to see their grandchildren and maybe their great-grandchildren in that new world, the ease with which some tasks were completed must have been astonishing. At the same time, though, those young generations knew that they would never be the ones who had risked everything to sail to the other side of the world. They had not reached out and then killed Native Americans (well, sorry, but that’s our history). They had not actually made a settlement where once there had been nothing. As much as they accomplished, they were always building on what those who had come before had done. Did that mean their progress wasn’t as valuable?

No matter how long I work on this, there will always be a crowd of people who have been working on it longer. No matter how good I get at this, there will always be people who were miles ahead of me when I was just getting started. So it is with most things in life, but because Social Media is so young and yet is changing so rapidly, I think this could have interesting ramifications for both the pioneers and the new generations.

While I note that fact, I also note that there are people who are starting Twitter right now, today. They might look at their 37 followers compared to my followers or Stan’s or Dawn’s and just think, “Man, this game is fixed. I can never get there.” They may not realize that we felt that exact same level of frustration and even despair!

A new path off to the side

When the folks that Stan and Dawn and I look up to and respect got started, there was not another Twitter generation that they were trying to network with. They were the ones getting it started. Now, for the first time, there are people who want to actually put the words and work of all of those folks into practice by helping people who are newer still. This is not to say that folks like Chris Brogan, Ann Handley, Jay Baer, and so many others are not helpful. I can honestly tell you that without support from those folks and more, I also would have given up many many months ago.

For me, in my own experience, I feel that I am in a place that hasn’t existed before in the use of Social Media. I am not one of the pioneers. I am around when the pioneers are still strong and awesome, but also maybe seemingly out of reach to some of the new folks coming up now. I feel like maybe I can help people who are struggling or who are trying to get started because I can point to the experts while also relating my own experience, which may be a bit more accessible to a newer crowd. I am still a student. I am not an expert. I am not in the crowd of people who are up in the highest room of the tallest tower.

I don’t think there will ever come a time when someone will get 1,000 hits to their blog because I mention one of their posts. I don’t think there will come a time when I mention a website and the site’s server goes down. I’m not sure folks coming up with me, now, can ever achieve the kind of pull and influence that the leaders in this space have now. Or if we do, it will be through a very different pathway. But I do think that the opportunity before me right now is exciting, if folks are open to it. To be able to talk with sympathy and memory about getting started in this space, where there are real experts and thousands of people who call themselves experts for no apparent reason…that gets me psyched, man.

I don’t think there can be a new wave of influencers like we have now. But if I can do for others what those people have done for me, even remotely – I will be among the more content people in the world. That is what I am hoping to accomplish in this space.

1st Image by Justyna Furmanczyk. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/just4you

2nd Image by Christian Johnson. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/xianstudio

Categorize under, “Things I wish I would have known six months ago.”

I am in a bit of a pickle. You see, for a long time, up to about a month ago I guess, I was a staunch defender of Blogger. And really, I’m not going to start bad-mouthing it now. I think if you are blogging for fun, there are still a lot of features Blogger offers that are really nifty, including the draft.blogger customized backgrounds that I took advantage of. However, there are a few things I have noticed since coming on over to WordPress, and I thought it only fair to share my experience.

Design

I would say the design features in terms of aesthetics are about the same. However, while Blogger has some very pretty designs, WordPress seems more interested in functionality. Designs are divided more based on number of columns or customizable headers more than “animals,” “food” etc.

Extras (Widgets)

Blogger offers a lot of widgets, but some of them kind of make me scratch my head. One nice thing about Blogger that I never took advantage of was the Google Reader feature (Blogger is owned by Google). However, I started noticing that blogging experts like Mack Collier were talking about the value of having “5 most popular posts” easily accessible. That’s something you can’t do in Blogger so far as I know, but WordPress makes it easy. I also enjoy the WordPress categorization capabilities.

Sharing

My friend Lisa asked me why I made the move to WordPress after so much agonizing. I told her, “Well, Stan over at PushingSocial said, “Darn it Margie, switch over to WordPress. It’s a pain in the butt to share your posts from Blogger.” As it happens, Blogger does not offer a URL shortener, so you are making people work if they want to share your post. I have two different ways to share my posts (hint hint) over here, including a brand new Twitter button that WordPress launched shortly before my arrival (thank you for the welcome!).

Analytics

This is the real clincher. I was living and dying by my Google Analytics reports for awhile. And that in itself is worth mentioning. Blogger does not have an installed analytics system in place. You have to get your own Analytics code and place it in the blog code. Not impossible, but kind of tricky. Anyway, the numbers were driving me nuts. My report would say that I had 0 visitors on days when I would get the most comments. The more compliments I got, the more my  bounce rate went up. When my bounce rate would go down, the time spent on the site would decrease to under a minute.

None of these problems plague me here in WordPress. You get a blog trackers automatically when you sign up for a WordPress blog, which is nice. Now, being a skeptic, I’m not 100% sure the numbers I get here on WordPress can be trusted either. However, the numbers are much more shiny than they were over in my Blogger world. So sue me, I like positive feedback.

If I wasn’t doing my Social Media work here, I probably would have stayed on Blogger. It really is quite serviceable and there’s a lot to like. However, if you are just getting started, I have to recommend WordPress over Blogger. It just might save you some heartache.