Marketing Talk

There are tons and tons of books out there on Social Media, and I get the feeling more are being created as we speak, but the whole secret to finding success in Social Media can really be summed up by two words. Talking and Answers.

What? What were you thinking of?

What does Social Media success look like?

Before I explain myself, I feel it’s important to clarify that “success” is a three-tiered monster when it comes to social networking sites.

In no particular order (with 1 being the most important in my book), those three tiers are:

1. Meeting brilliant, amazing, wonderful people

2. Creating professional networks that can serve your business in the future

3. Creating money-making scenarios for you and/or your business

Now that we’re on the same page, let’s get back to T&A (talking and answers)

Talking

Last night during the inaugural #techchat on Twitter, some ideas were thrown around regarding how to interact (or react) on Twitter. As I’ve mentioned before, when I first started tweeting, I was generally a link posting machine. It was boring for me, and I’m pretty certain it was boring for any folks who were following me at the time. So I decided, “Well, maybe I’ll just start talking to people. Like how we used to do in real life.” That decision, I am convinced, is what made Twitter become a resource for me rather than just something to post to.

There’s a lot of pressure on people to post nothing but meaningful and interesting things when using Social Media for business. We are constantly told that we need to make ourselves stand out, we need to prove we are thought leaders, etc. I’m sure a lot of that is true to at least some extent. However, it’s okay, and sometimes extremely rewarding, to talk about things that are perhaps not as valuable to your general cadre of followers. Sometimes you will see me talking about baseball. Sometimes you will see me talking about Monty Python. Yesterday I lamented my failing reading skills as I kept reading news about China Unicom as China Unicorn.

My rule of thumb? No one wants to talk to an encyclopedia, and no one wants to talk to that annoying relative who talks about colonoscopies and doggy doodoo all the time. Stray away from those ends of the spectrum and you’ll have the talking part of the formula down.

Answers

That being said, talking about things, whether ethereal or boring, won’t necessarily help you meet people who are in your profession or who are interested in the same things you are. That’s why answers are also key.

Answers can be kind of tricky on sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s very easy to come across as a know-it-all sometimes, especially when people don’t know how to read your tonality. If you think about it though, most of what thought leaders and other successful Social Media folk post consists of answers to questions you may or may not realize you have. Why are people like Denise Wakeman, Mari Smith, DM Scott, Ann Handley, Beth Harte, and Chris Brogan successful? Because they are providing you information you didn’t really think about needing. The information is provided before you even know what to ask.

Answers are the engines of success behind sites like PushingSocial, CopyBlogger, and ProBlogger.  People go to these sites, retweet posts, and comment because there is always a feeling that the information being provided is important. It’s a constant stream of important answers.

On LinkedIn, giving answers is something that is requested. The “answers” section is a treasure trove for building this part of your Social Media portfolio. What I have come to enjoy is not just offering my opinions or solutions, but also seeing how other people answer and interacting with them. A combination of talking and answers can reveal many of your strengths simultaneous and can also be a great way to make strong connections.

You may be saying to yourself that there must be something beyond these two words that could lead to any type of Social Media success. I have thought about this and find that most of my responses pretty easily fall into either or both of these categories. I’m open to being proven wrong, however. Go ahead, make my day 🙂

1st Image by Michaela Kobyakov. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/michaelaw
2nd Image by Nate Brelsford. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/runrunrun
3rd Image by Julia Freeman-Woolpert. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/juliaf

Every morning for the last couple of months, the first thing that I reach for is my Blackberry, which sleeps comfortably on my night stand. I don’t reach for my alarm because, annoyingly, I tend to wake up 10 minutes before it’s set to go off. I reach for my Blackberry, and inevitably there is a little flashing red light signifying that I have email messages. Then I check Facebook and Twitter in a skimming kind of way, and then I begin my day.


Does your day start in a similar fashion?

Social Media seems to be everywhere these days, and its power and potential seem palpable. Every day there are case studies explaining how social media helped a start-up become a corporate giant. There are stories about how individuals went from a computer and phone to an industry leader. There is a different kind of success story available. It’s not as sexy. It may not sound as exciting. But it’s just as valuable.

The Zen of Standing Still

Late last year, we launched a Social Media services program we call ClayComm 2.0. There are two parts to it. The first part is research and the second part consists of various ways to implement an agreed upon Social Media strategy. We always recommend that our clients start with the research part before we begin any kind of implementation.

There is one story in particular that I want to tell you about.

One of our clients asked us to research what Social Media tactics should be pursued for their company. We ended up with research that suggested there just isn’t a lot going on in this client’s particular industry except for on YouTube, where there was a fair amount of relevant videos. We suggested keeping ears and eyes open on other channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but we said that YouTube seemed to be the best place to start. Instead of investing a great deal of time in a Facebook strategy that would have taken an extremely long time to bear any benefits, we targeted our client’s focus to something that would jump start their presence in social media. In the long haul, videos highlighting their particular strengths will be ideal building blocks for any type of Social Media campaign that follows.

The Difference Between Making Money and Saving Money

A lot of case studies point to a specific metric of improvement. We increased sales by x%. We grew by x%. There’s of course nothing wrong with such measurements of success. You’ve probably noticed, though, that there is not a lot out there about companies who jumped on to Facebook or Twitter and then abandoned the accounts. It doesn’t take much searching to find examples of these orphaned efforts. How much time and energy was invested in those accounts before the realization hit that it was not the right time or the right environment? What if a company hires a social media manager only to find that, as is the case sometimes, social media is just not as integral to that industry yet?

We advocate researching on the front end. Sometimes, the result will be that social media is just something we need to monitor. That’s not to say that it will never happen. That’s not to say that you can never be a pioneer. But we measure the risks on the front end, before the time (which we all know equates to money) is invested.

It’s not the kind of success that is easy to point to. It’s noticing what’s not there — a Facebook page with a few product promos, a company Twitter page with 3 tweets. It’s using time, energy, and money wisely. It’s the kind of success that can alter a company’s path for the better, even if the hows and whys are not known from the start. There may not be an acronym for money saved through researched strategies, but perhaps there should be.

Have you experienced a similar kind of success? Feel free to share it here.

Image by Bethany Carlson. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bewinca

I was wading through Twitter this morning, coffee cup in hand, when I saw a post from Ann Handley. She had been quoted in the Wall Street Journal! Being a fan, I decided to see what she had to say. Although I’m still happy that Ann got quoted by such an important source, the article itself left me deeply troubled. Titled “A Guide to Online Marketing Tools,” the article essentially is a “cheat sheet” for people who are starting their own companies and want to “easily design fliers, stationery, and business cards,” etc. Some might see the article as an invaluable resource, and others might see it as a sign of the times. My own perspective, as an agency person and as a believer in the highest quality work and the most integrated, cohesive marketing campaigns possible, is that the article represents numerous potential pitfalls that today’s companies, start-up or otherwise, could easily avoid with some guidance.

In order to explain my point of view a bit, let me review some of the points that the author, Shara Tibken, details.

“Get It On Paper”

Ms. Tibken begins by explaining how companies can use online templates to create stationery, fliers, and business cards. These websites are certainly no secret. Companies like Office Max, Staples, and FedEx have been touting these services for awhile. I won’t lie either – most of the time, you’ll get a serviceable product. Serviceable. How does this differ from what a marketing firm or agency can do for you, however?

Fliers: I’m not sure if the reference here is to sell sheets or something else, but let’s assume we’re talking about a single-sided sell sheet. Can you plug an image and some copy into a template? Sure, of course. Here is my concern for companies that take this route, however.
     • Are you integrating important keywords and phrases into your copy?
     • Is someone proofreading your copy?
     • Are you making sure that the images used will translate well in print as well as online?
     • Are you using a stock of paper that speaks to high quality, or is the stock kind of thin?
     • How are you going to use the flier? Are you going to post it to your website for download?

Stationery and Business Cards: It’s really easy to take things like stationery and business cards for granted. However, when we work on these projects, we refer to the entire project as “corporate identity.” This tends to lend a little more gravity to the situation. The article notes that creating stationery and business cards is as easy as point and click, but there are other considerations that are not as intuitive. For example, if you are a start-up, what is your logo? What is your corporate tagline? Do you want or need one? What is the most important information to include on your business cards? These are all things that marketing and agency folks think about. If done correctly, creating a corporate identity for yourself (which could also include an email signature convention, packaging, and more) is much more than simply plugging in your contact information.

“Making Pictures Perfect”

Next, the article talks about photography. Ms. Tibken begins this section with an indisputable truth. A good photo can be a real key to success for any kind of campaign, or even for just getting a company off the ground.

The first thing that is a bit misleading about this section is that Ms. Tibken mentions all of the various sources a person can use to “clean up” a photo  if it’s not ready to go from the start. You can remove red eye, you can add a background. Again, these things are not secrets. I knew about photoshop before I joined the business. The thing is, the kind of touch-ups that really show quality are things the article does not mention. How do you strip out an image, for example? Why do you need to do that? What is a hi-res versus a low-res image, and when do you need to use one or the other? What is the difference between a .jpg file and a .tif file? Which one, for example, would you upload to create your flier?

Next, the article discusses professional websites where you can purchase images. Again, nothing mind boggling here. These sites have been around for quite some time. Again, though, the issue is more complex than simply carrying with you a willingness to purchase a professional picture. One important thing the article does not mention is that because everyone has access to these sites, the chances for two companies in the same line of business to end up using the same stock photo are extremely high. Without the guidance of a marketing firm or agency, the burden will be on you to research what your competitors and peers are doing with their marketing materials. They may gravitate towards the same images you do. Do you want your ad or website to meld with your competitors in peoples’ minds?

Less philosophical is the problem of usage. Many photo stock sites offer low resolution, high resolution, and different sizes. Different sizes have different prices. How do you know, without professional knowledge, which you will need? If you guess incorrectly, that is more money out of your pocket.

“Don’t Go It Alone”

Interestingly, I thought this section was going to encourage readers to at least seek out consultation from marketing experts. Instead, however, this section details sites like crowdSpring LLC, which Bob Garfield talks about in The Chaos Scenario. The jist is that you don’t have to create all of your work yourself.

Well,  you can probably guess what I’m going to say.

Yes, it’s true that all kinds of work can be generated by all kinds of people. Let’s use this hypothetical situation. You are launching a new product that you think is going to put your start-up company on the map. You know that you want a website, a sell sheet or brochure, a product-specific logo, and some ads. It is 100% possible to go to a crowdsourcing site for each of those products. However, without the proper guidance behind each project brief, you are very likely to end up with projects that bear no relation to each other. This is problematic for several reasons. It’s difficult to build a brand without recognizable features. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd without a cohesive campaign. It’s hard to translate your corporate and product mission to 20 different people, most especially if you don’t have that information at hand yourself.

Can crowdsourcing sites work? Oh, absolutely. But if you are trying to create an entire campaign, it is quite dangerous to think that using this methodology will save you time and money with a positive ROI in the end.

The ending of the article, which is where Ann Handley’s quote appears, does mention some good points. Make sure you have a call to action. Don’t just create content to do it. My concern is that if you begin to rely on these open source solutions for the execution of your work, you may miss some of the background thought, research and strategy that will make all of those separate pieces come together as one giant, successful jigsaw puzzle.

Will working with an agency represent more of an investment than some of these “online tools”? The answer may not be
as black-and-white as you may think. Although some of these online tools look cheap or free, the costs can add up if there are mistakes, constant changes, or updates made necessary by a lack of planning. Something to consider.

1st Image by Hector Landaeta. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/coloniera2
2nd Image by ilker. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ilco

Today is Sunday, which also means that today is Blogchat day over on Twitter. It’s not just any ordinary chat either. The one, the only Chris Brogan is going to be hosting. Naturally, one of the five parties I go to in a year is occurring tonight, so I might miss the whole thing.

Inspired by my grief, and also, in a completely different way, inspired by John Jantsch’s The Referral Engine, where I am reading about his views on blogging, I decided to take a little time today to talk about where my blog is, how I am doing what I am doing, and why I am doing those things.

What I’m doing now

When I first started blogging professionally, I realized something terrifying. People won’t read your blog if they don’t know it’s there. Simultaneously, I learned that people won’t follow you on Twitter if all you do is retweet other posts and alternate that with links to “interesting” articles. I decided to try to tweet links to my new blog posts. It showed that I was capable of generating my own thoughts, and it addressed both traffic problems at the same time. I would say I am rather pleased with my levels of success in doing things this way. The nice thing about promoting through Twitter is not just that you are potentially reaching huge amounts of people, but you can also let people know you are blogging about them or something they might be interested in. Harder to do that on other social networking sites.

Although I preach and appreciate the value of a blog “editorial calendar,” I do not have one for this blog (as uh, you might have noticed). I am very fortunate in that it doesn’t take much to get me thinking about writing something. Since I follow so many great people on Twitter (which has also directed me to their blogs), there is always a wealth of ideas to borrow from. Sometimes I’ll just make a comment, but other times I’ll respond with a post of my own. I might talk about something that comes up during one of the chats I’m involved in, or I might write about a current event.

I also do not have a schedule of when I blog. Again, I am very fortunate in that I seldom get brain cramped for too long. I generally like to blog once a day (I feel more than one is too much), but I don’t freak out if I miss a day or two. If I miss three, I start to get itchy.

I am not getting as many comments as other blogs that I visit, but that really doesn’t bother me, as I’ve discussed before. The comments I do get are thought-provoking and sometimes inspire another blog post through their brilliance. Besides, I would probably be the kind of “last person on Earth” people who would still write even though there was no one to read it. I like the sound of my typing that much.

Why do I blog?

The part of The Referral Engine I am reading now lists reasons why you *should* blog. I think a lot of folks are familiar with those reasons by now. SEO, networking, content, etc. But in addition to the shoulds, why do I blog?

Every blogger has an ego: This is hard to admit. I think that if I was a dessert I’d be humble pie with maybe a touch of ice cream. But if you are writing content in a very public place, there has to be some part of you that thinks you have worthwhile things to say. Ego is ego, a rose is a rose.

Hopefully Helpful: I have certainly not attained expert status yet, and I may never get there by various peoples’ perspectives. Even so, I think that on occasion I have ideas that could help someone in some way, whether it’s solving a problem or thinking of a sticky issue in a new way. Maybe I’m a showcase for what you don’t want to do in your blog. Hey, that’s cool too!

Captain’s Log, Stardate…If you’re a Trekkie, that line will sound very familiar. But did you ever notice that despite all of that very careful logging, there was seldom a time when Captain Kirk went back to reference what he had said on stardate whatever? I like blogging in part because it’s easy to mark progress. I make a point of looking back on older posts, even though I haven’t been blogging for all that long. Sometimes I think, “Yeah, I’m still happy with that.” Other times, well…every space ship has a hatch out to space, and sometimes you want to use it.

Gathering my thoughts: Sometimes there is an issue that is rolling around in my head and I can’t seem to get my arms around it. Blogging helps me with those situations. In trying to write about the topic, I get my brain to take each part of the buggy issue separately. Hopefully, I don’t confuse too many readers in the process.

A timeless time capsule: Remember burying or unburying time capsules when you were a kid? To me, a blog is kind of like a time capsule, only you never bury it, and hopefully you never stop adding to it. I enjoy taking moments here and there to write about what the times are like right now. There is a lot going on that has never gone on before. People are worried about the future, worried about how they are relating to people, hopeful about what technologies might come next, and more. Why not try to capture some of that for later?

It’s really fun: The most important reason why I blog is that it’s enjoyable. I love writing. I have always loved writing, from the time I wrote a ten-page book of poetry when I was about 10 (very naturalistic poems on clouds and trees, btw). What makes this kind of writing even more fun is the sharing of ideas. At any given moment, I can be in the same virtual room as thought leaders I respect, people whom I enjoy talking to, and people I don’t know. Like a pinball, ideas bounce off all of those people, and blogs are the flippers that keep them going.

What is your state of the blog? Why are you blogging right now? I’d love to hear about it!

There have been two conversations occurring all week simultaneously. The first is a conversation about “influence” in the world of social media. What are fans and followers really about? What is the tipping point where you actually have too many people in your network? What happens then?

The other conversation is a very different kind of lamentation. I’ve heard people talking about when art used to be presented on a series of layered boards, a process that seemed like magic. I had a conversation yesterday about how hard it is these days to present a complicated folding piece because now, more often than not, projects are presented via PDF, long distance.

What do these two conversations mean?

The Great Relationship Crash of the 21st Century

Chris Brogan posted earlier this week, as I did, to Julien’s post about influence. Chris asked if we were coming to a social media crash. My greater concern is that we are heading for a relationship crash. With 24/7 access to friends and family and acquaintances, in-person get-togethers are getting, paradoxically, harder to put together. Have you noticed lately that if a friend is in town but you can’t make it to see him or her, you figure, “Well, that’s okay, I can still catch them on Facebook later.” Have you noticed that when you do meet up with a friend with whom you are connected on Facebook, it’s kind of hard to know what to talk about? We already know not only the big things, but things we would not have even thought to talk about 5-6 years ago. We know how our friend’s dog is doing. We know, on the day of our meeting, that our friend is going to be cranky because kid #2 is teething. We know that our friend’s mom is going in for a colonoscopy. I mean, really. Once you get to THAT point, what is there to talk about?

Is this a real relationship? People are very excited about Skype, and a lot of people get teary-eyed at the new iPhone commercials touting the video capabilities. But to me, these ads signify that we no longer understand what real connectivity is. Even if I had an iPhone with video connections, I wouldn’t tell my husband I was pregnant via that impersonal medium. I wouldn’t want to tell a hunk of plastic in my hands. I’d want to be there, to see the real facial expression, the real reaction. Is a grandfather seeing his grandchild via phone the same as seeing the grandchild in real life? I can’t believe that the answer is yes, but it seems like society is pushing us that way. I don’t like it.

The Personal Touch

I find all of this very difficult to interweave with my job in marketing. There is an increasing emphasis on “getting to know your customer.” “Be human,” the experts say. I have actually heard a story of a person refusing to do an in-person meeting because most of their clientele is spread out across the country, and they didn’t want to show favoritism to a local by meeting in “real life.” Huh?

Now, I know, I know. You can learn about your customers through studies of demographics. You can learn about them by looking at your Google Analytics report. But it seems to me like old fashioned things like hand shakes still could mean a lot. Learning the intonation of someone’s voice to tell when they are being sarcastic would be key. How many times have you misread an e-mail or a tweet? Can you do all of this via programs like Skype or GoToMeeting? Sure, I suppose. But there’s something about working with a real life person — in person — that adds depth to the experience. We are losing that today. And that’s just in the world of marketing and business. What about friends and family?

The Ramifications

We don’t know what the ramifications would be of a social media crash. Maybe you just quit using Twitter. It wears itself out. Maybe you create a half-dozen accounts to siphon your followers. But what happens if we hit a relationship crash? Do you think that increasing numbers of children are being told they are socially awkward by accident? Do you think that social anxiety is becoming more prominent as a condition just by chance? Do you think that great grey mass called “customers” is suspicious of companies and politicians for no apparent reason?

We’re all becoming shadows to each other, flickering names, an avatar swinging by in the never ending twitter stream. We think we are being fed, socially, because we are in contact with people all of the time. But it is not the nurturing kind of contact that people need. We are digesting our friends and family in bite-sized bits of wonder. We are missing chances to relate in the offline world. What will the final ramifications of that kind of world be? I have no idea, but it worries me.

How about you?

1st image by Michal Zacharzewski. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/mzacha
2nd image by Mateusz Stachowski. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Mattox

When I was a junior in high school, I got a job as a cashier. After the training period, which seemed to go on forever, I finally got my real name tag. Under my name, it said “Sales Associate.” I was euphoric. “I’m not a cashier, I’m a sales associate!!” I said it to myself, I said it to my parents. I had never been an “associate.” It sounded so grand, so important! As I dug more into the job, as I went to work during Summer months for the first time, as I dealt with people who were rude and sometimes even cruel, I realized that really I was a cashier. My grand title did not really describe the reality of what I was paid to do.

So what do I do now?

If you’re in marketing, maybe you’ve experienced this exchange before. You meet up with a long-time friend. They ask what you do and you say something like, “I’m in marketing,” or “I work at a marketing firm,” or “I work in Public Relations.” Your friend gives you a kind of blank look. “So, you advertise or promote things?” Your gut instinct is to laugh and say, “No darling, it’s SO much more than that.” But if you’re like me, you stop short. Is it more than that? It seems so, but I have no real way of describing exactly what my job entails.

This is a problem I did not expect. In one of my favorite movies, City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays a guy who buys radio ad space. That’s his job. “I buy air,” as he says. In Mad Men, the characters are ini “advertising.” Their job is to use ads to create sales for their clients. These things are pretty clear cut. But I can’t really define myself as being in “advertising.” This blog is not really advertising in the traditional word. Is it PR? Not really. Consultation definitely isn’t advertising. Or is it? Is that more marketing?

I’m downright confused.

What exactly are we integrating when we integrate marketing?

This has been on my mind ever since I started participating in two chats on Twitter, one called #custserv (you can guess what that focuses on) and one called IMCChat, which focuses on Integrated Marketing and Communications. Repeatedly, while participating in both chats, I am faced with questions that make no sense to me based on my understanding of various terms. Sometimes advertising is differentiated from marketing. Sometimes PR is differentiated from advertising and marketing. Sales is differentiated from all of the above and customer service. And social media? Well, sometimes conversations have erupted just regarding who “owns” a company’s social media presence.

I believe in integrated marketing with all my heart. If you show me a diagram with arrows going around in a circle showing how everything is interrelated, I’ll probably accept it with a little drool from excitement. I could preach integration until the cows AND the horses come home. There’s just one little problem. I don’t think we know what we’re integrating anymore. We take words of the profession like “Public Relations” or “advertising” for granted, but have you thought lately about what these words actually mean?

Well, over the next few weeks, every Thursday, I’m going to take a different phrase and explore different ways we could define it. What I think we may find is that the words we have always used may simply be too outdated now. People were talking about PR before email. People were talking about advertising before mobile. Even marketing may be a dying word. Is there a market to market to, or is just a bunch of individuals with whom we connect?

How do you define your job? How do you explain what you do? Let me know in the comments below.