Posts tagged social media best practices
6 Marketing Lessons Learned at the 2013 New Media Expo
Jan 11th
By Dan Gorgone, {grow} Community Member
As marketers, content creators, and experts gathered in Las Vegas this week at the New Media Expo, it was an opportunity for all to take the pulse of the industry. Understanding how the latest trends have evolved and gaining a vision of the future for blogs, podcasts, and content production is something all companies need – that is, if they want to understand how to market themselves, their products, and convert users into revenue.
So, as the stage lights lit up the keynote stage, and the Keynotes burned into the screens in the breakout rooms, what did these high profile leaders from across the industry have to say about the state of marketing in 2013?
1) To get something, give something. Something good. For free.
People will connect with companies they trust, and nothing spurs the growth of a relationship quite like the act of giving. In this case, creating social media accounts, blogs, podcasts, and delivering content of real value – i.e. stuff users actually want and need – helps establish you as the place to go for solutions. Your well-written post might fix a problem now, and your positive reputation can easily lead to a business opportunity in the future. As Content Rules author Ann Handley pointed out, providing content your customers might actually thank you for will generate many positives, such as improved user relations and industry reputation.
2) Marketing strategies resemble a marathon, not a race. Start training now.
With the value placed on relationships today, it’s important to avoid the hard sell, hammering users with calls to action, obnoxious social content, or any other tactic one might compare to the practice of coming on too strong. You’ve got to trust that your strategies will bear fruit given time, because, as Jay Baer noted in his session on “Youtility,” “inbound marketing does not create demand; it fulfills it.” Create and build your presence online, maintain and monitor it, and the demand will find you.
3) Marketing requires constant attention, but more work means more opportunity.
Ford’s Scott Monty shared many lessons learned from the car company’s past marketing campaigns. Without careful consideration of qualitative and quantitative data, it would be impossible to gauge their success. By that same token, you wouldn’t drive around in your car and only check the gas tank once a month. So, why would you check your analytics data just as infrequently? Likewise, you don’t set aside one hour each week to listen to your significant other, so don’t think that level of attention will work for your followers on Twitter and Facebook either. Establishing an effective process to monitor people and data takes practice and refinement, but it will lead to earlier and more frequent opportunities to meet your goals and help your customers.
4) Social good is inspiring more companies daily, and you should get involved.
More and more companies are finding creative ways to give back to their users, communities, charities, and more. Each company is different, but you must find a way to give back that aligns with your personal ideals and pursue it. Digital Royalty’s Amy Jo Martin cited the TOMS “One for One” initiative as inspiration to donate education resources. We must recognize that the smallest of gestures can mean the biggest difference for others in need. Real people are the heart of our companies and our customers, so look beyond the numbers and see the value that doing good can have on people both outside and within your company.
5) Podcasting is not dead; it’s an opportunity.
In fact, as I heard from many a podcaster this week, podcasting has never left – but, it would seem, many listeners – and media attention – have vanished in the past few years. So it’s not the game changer some believed it to be … so what. The Podcast Awards held during the NMX proved that many well-produced, entertaining, informative, and well-supported podcasts still exist, and the community ranges from one-person passion projects to productions from media titans like ESPN. The truth? Minus the hype from years past, podcasting has emerged as a medium similar to audio books: it appeals to a certain user base, but can work for almost any kind of content. In business terms, there is a real opportunity there for the taking, if you have the vision to follow through.
6) Marketers must be teachers.
The role of marketing, as always, continues to evolve, but it goes beyond analytics or strategies. Marketers already embrace many roles on behalf of their companies: the help desk, the promoter, the mechanic, the ambassador, the diplomat. But in order to gain long-term support, we must become someone that supports others through the work we do, and must do so knowing the work may not yield direct or immediate results, but may enrich the lives of others and lead to real benefits down the road.
Students don’t learn when teachers reveal an answer; it happens when teachers create an environment where students can discover the answer on their own. Students not only gain an understanding of the desired concept, but also trust the source. Marketers must follow this example, creating environments where customers, clients, and followers can discover the answers on their own through the content and features – that is, the value – we provide.
If we marketers can help teach today’s users rather than market to them, our users will view us in a new light: not just as a location of available content, but a trusted source for the future.
Dan Gorgone is a marketing teacher at Treehouse. Usability preacher. Red Sox fan. Born and raised in Boston. Follow him on Twitter at @dangorgone
Top illustration courtesy of Dan Gorgone
The New, Old Rules for Winning Fans and Influencing Followers
Nov 8th
By {grow} Community Member John G. Olson
Dale Carnegie
I heard Guy Kawasaki speak recently about the need to enchant others to bring influence in the digital age. It reminded me of a book I read decades ago, Dale Carnegie’s classic How To Win Friends and Influence People
Technology has given us enormous potential for reach, immediacy and influence. It provides a permanent online record of information and interactions. With that, marketers have greater responsibility for what they publish online. A poor communication decision can have a lasting impact on personal and brand reputations, with legal, privacy and employment repercussions. A few examples:
- Facebook faux pas: In October 2010, a domestic violence advocate at the group Hispanics United of Buffalo began a Facebook thread, “Lydia Cruz, a coworker feels that we don’t help our clients enough at HUB. I about had it!” Three days later five participants in the social conversation were fired.
- Blog bloviating: In July, 2012, a millennial blogger posted a provocative article entitled “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under Age 25.” It set off a firestorm of 600+ comments and scrutiny of reasoning errors in the piece, with several rebuttals pointing out the author had alienated future hiring managers.
- Errant email: A salesman at a networking company accidentally sent a file chock-full of favorite pornographic cartoons and jokes to everyone on his top customer list, which included government agencies. His subject line: ‘Special deals for my best customers!’
- Twitter twaddle: In 2011, the Kenneth Cole corporate account tweeted “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.” The tweeter was either unaware the Arab Spring had toppled the government taking several lives, or was making an ill-advised joke.
These cautionary tales illustrate how digital communications can go wrong and go viral. Social blunders like these are commonly caused by carelessness, false assumptions or unchecked emotions. They can be avoided by following Carnegie’s principles in online conversations.
Notoriety is NOT credibility
Each of these principles could be the topic of a separate blog post, but do you start to see how these truths echo in our social media maxims and best practices today?
Our media rewards the outrageous but does this does this translate to influence? Not necessarily. Digital citizens need to make a distinction between notoriety and credibility. Viral sensations like Rebecca Black and Gangnam Style memes have a short shelf life. They live on borrowed influence that gets attention and traffic, but does not earn a meaningful, long term following. They entertain, but rarely create a relationship-level connection that truly influences.
In contrast, Carnegie’s principles create a higher level of influence. The emphases on engagement essentials that affirm what is good and connect with others’ core desires inspire a following. People will be inspired to follow you:
- Because of what you’ve done for them
- Because of who you are
Mastering the essentials of influence
These principles are simple, but not always easy to apply. An entire industry has emerged that teaches emotional intelligence skills in the workplace. Learning to communicate in ways that build up, rather than tears down, takes self-discipline. But it is a skill worth learning. On the social Web, every interaction sows the seed of potential influence. That makes influence skills more than good manners. It makes them good business.
I would be interested to know — as you review these 10 principles, which seem most important on the social web today?
John G. Olson is a B2B marketer, copywriter and strategy consultant. He writes about marketing strategies on his blog Marketers being Awesome. Follow him on Twitter at @John_G_Olson.
What the $200 Million Tweet Can Teach You About Personal Influence
Apr 25th
Is this the new face of power and influence?
By Contributing {grow} Columnist Stanford Smith
I’ve been thinking about what makes a person influential. Can it come from a single tweet?
The other day, I saw an infographic that plotted the hockey stick growth of Draw Something. The addictive Pictionary-like app was released on Feb 6th 2012 and was slowly growing without much fanfare.
Then something incredible happened…
On March 1st, Jersey Shore cast members Vinny Guadagnino and DJ Pauly D tweeted about the addictive gaming app. Immediately app downloads took off. By March 5, Draw Something was the #1 downloaded app on iTunes.
On March 23rd, Zynga, the Farmville creator, bought Draw Something for $200 million dollars.
From this perspective, Vinny and DJ Pauly’s tweet was worth a cool $200 million. It may have not taken off at all without that tweet.
Yep – they are influential.
But wait…
Before you hang your head and say “I’ll never have that type of influence” take a moment to consider this… You actually are THAT influential. Think about it. You are surrounded by friends and family members that will buy, trash, share, and recommend products based on what you say. The only difference between you and DJ Pauly D is scale. Specifically, Jersey Shore cast members have a hit TV show to use as a platform.
Right now, you have your blog, Facebook timeline, Pinterest Board, or daily tweets.
Your challenge is to build the quality of your influence while you build scale.
Influence is Not What You Think
If you ask the social media intelligentsia about how to create influence they’ll point to tools and tips. The tools help monitor influence. Tips offer guidance on “how” to cultivate influence.
Mark Schaefer’s book “Return on Influence” is a invaluable because it clearly explains “What” influence actually is – and offers some damn good advice on how to build it. However, I often see bloggers focus on responding to every comment and dutifully referencing every Twitter @mention. They believe that these tasks are critical for building their influence.
Not so…
I believe influence is built when you are demonstrate relevance. In fact, influence and relevance go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other. For example, Howard Stern may be popular but he couldn’t influence me to tie my shoes. Howard Stern isn’t personally relevant to me and only marginally influential (if at all).
Relevance is built when a business or person focuses relentlessly on being indispensable to their audience. They eat, sleep, and dream about solving their audience’s problems. Their passion for relevance attracts followers, creates fans, and breeds fanatics. Soon their relevance translates into Relevant Influence. Their audience turns into an instant financial windfall. Everything the influencer touches turns to gold.
Answering comments and being accessible via Twitter is good. Being relevant is better.
Four Ways to Build Quality Influence with Relevance
Of course the reading Return on Influence will give you a great head start on building relevant Influence. In the meantime, start with these tips -
1) Solve Common Problem in Unique Ways
Problem solvers are always relevant and influential. Search for problems that need unique solutions and you will quickly become the “go-to” person in your niche. Use your blog and social platforms to promote your unique approach.
2) Start Teaching
The most powerful influencers are teachers. The Content Marketing revolution builds on the premise that educated consumers buy more, refer more, and stay loyal longer. How can you use your Facebook page, Pinterest boards, and blog posts to teach your customers about your unique value?
3) Make Real World Connections
Over a year ago, Mark Schaefer called me on the phone. It shocked me. I remember waiting for him to try and pitch me on a product or service. He didn’t. He just wanted to meet me and see if he could offer any help. Wow. Work to build real-world connections with your audience and watch your influence grow exponentially faster.
4) Be a Filter
Your audience, customers, and prospects are drowning in information. They are struggling to decipher the signal from all the noise. Help them. Use your deep understanding of their challenges, problems, and aspirations to deliver the right information at the right time. Your audience will reward you with new sales, leads, and referrals.
Relevant Influence focuses on being useful instead of being busy. Relevant influencers build devoted audiences that take action.
How are you staying relevant as you build your influence?
Contributing Columnist Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass!
3 Developments that are Sabotaging the Social Media Movement
Dec 6th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
I’m worried about the social media movement.
Although in some ways the initial enthusiasm in social was overblown, we were right to place high expectations on the convergence of media, social networking, and collaboraton.
However, as of late, something seems to be missing.
Thoughtful dialogue has turned to petty conversations about rules and technique.
Thought Leadership has morphed into clever personal grandstanding.
When I think I’m going a bit overboard I can’t help but notice some disturbing signs – starting with …
The Selling Out of Social Media
One sign is the gradual co-opting of social media as a broadcast tactic. Marketing professionals increasingly use social networks as a platform for reaching precise demographics. Facebook ads for soccer moms, LinkedIn for HR professionals, Twitter for novel writers, whatever slice you want, a social network has it.
It seems that the social faithful have gone to sleep and allowed the pendulum to swing too far to the media side of “social media” cutting the heart out of the movement.
Unfortunately, this approach guarantees that Social Media will play second fiddle to PPC, email marketing, and even SEO in the market discussion.
This is not where we want to end up.
Perhaps this is inevitable since it seems that we have precious few innovators in the field.
Where Are The Innovators?
It’s been a while since I had a “wow” moment. It seems that the rule of the day is to “model” (read shamelessly copy) instead of innovating. The evidence surrounds us.
There are numerous Old Spice Q&A spin-offs, CEOs are racing to match Tony Hsieh’s Twitter engagement, every company wants Facebook Fan page razzle-dazzle. However, no one is pushing social engagement into new territory.
To be fair, we are struggling to find where that new territory is but far too many of us are content with being copycats and pundits rather than innovators.
Even though this is troubling, there’s one more sign that threatens to hollow-out the promise of social media …
Conversations or Professional Small Talk?
Do a quick audit of company Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and you’ll see a disturbing trend, I call it the rise of “Professional Small Talk”.
It works like this, instead of having meaningful dialogue, the company loads its tweets and Facebook posts with inane conversation starters. You know what I’m talking about -
- “Do you prefer a hot or “white” Christmas?
- What are you wearing today?
- What is your favorite season?
This small talk is entice a person to comment or share. From there, the so-called engagement is rolled up into fancy metric reports showing hockey-stick engagement growth. Does the audience really feel any closer to the business? Nope. But somebody’s spreadsheet looks a lot better.
While Professional Small Talk looks like engagement, its just panders to small thinking and guts the social movement in the process.
So what’s going on here?
3 Habits That Are Sabotaging The Social Movement
Three bad habits have conspired to rob the social movement of its momentum. I’ll touch on them and we can discuss them at length in the comments. Here we go:
Tool Addiction: Sharper minds among us tried their best to intervene and break us of our tool habit. They were unsuccessful despite their tireless work. The race to focus on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn techniques dumbed down our thinking and forced us to sit at the kiddie strategy table.
ROI Fixation and Vanity Metrics: Almost from the start, “practitioners of the obvious “started beating the ROI Drum. Before marketing professionals even fully recognized the benefit of social business, the ROI priesthood began challenging social’s efficacy.
Instead of calling for patience, harassed social media managers raced to embrace Klout, Follower vs. Following stats, retweets, Likes and other vanity metrics. While the metrics placated executive teams, it forced us to use an inadequate quantitative narrative to describe a powerful qualitative phenomenon.
The Engagement Rut: On the opposite side of ROI Fixation is The Engagement Rut. This happens when simply commenting or tweeting satisfies social media goals. Companies unwittingly embraced this by creating social teams who just needed to “show up” and tweet from a loose script.
Along the way the social program became unhitched from business goals and strategy. Soon, the social person became the passionate and chatty person at the party who didn’t have the faintest clue why she was invited to the party in the first place.
How to Kickstart The Social Movement
I may be biting off more than I can chew here, after all social business is more than just a 700 word topic. However, I believe there are a few key questions that will refocus our attention on what makes social business special and profoundly important to every aspect of business.
How Can Customers Drive Innovation?
Businesses have to invite customers into the design studio. Sustainable innovation will come from satisfying and anticipating customer needs.
Sure, I know Henry Ford’s (and Steve Jobs’) innovation caveat – “If I asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse and buggy” but we shouldn’t use this to lock customers out of meaningful product development collaboration.
Social provides amazing tools for this collaboration and we should be taking the lead in developing and implementing them. Businesses who use social to view customers as the source as well as the beneficiary of innovation will achieve enduring competitive advantage.
How Do We Restore Real Dialogue?
We urgently need to move away from ‘Professional Small Talk” and start focus on building relationships through meaningful conversation.
Notice that the goal is a relationship not just a mention. Once we get our priorities straight we will be able to align expectations around customer lifetime value, loyalty, and advocacy.
How Is Your Organization (or client) Inspiring Its Customers, Employees and Partners?
Social business draws its power from fantastic products and services. People want to talk about their purchases, social media just gives them an efficient way to do so. However, social tools can’t save uninspired products.
Simply having a Facebook page doesn’t create real excitement around your value proposition. As social strategists we should take the lead on helping businesses infuse their products with the ‘wow’ factor.
Do I believe that the social revolution has stalled?
Yes.
I also believe that we have exactly what we need to get our momentum back.
Am I being too harsh? Has social media lost its relevancy in your organization?
Contributing Columnist Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass.
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