Do You Have the Right People on the Bus for Social Media?

When I consult with businesses to develop a social media strategy, one of the most common questions I’m asked is about how to staff for it. It’s a critical question to answer. Following is a condensed excerpt from my book, Marketing 2.0 where I devote an entire chapter to this important topic of staffing for social media marketing.

Having the Right People on the Bus
Successful social media marketing requires people who understand it, embrace it, and know how to work within the culture and technology. People need to understand the lifecycle and the types of community involved in social media to better understand the opportunities and the risks.

Roles should not only be well-defined and documented, but they should be discussed in depth. Everyone on the team must be on board with his or her roles and responsibilities. Then, the heavy lifting begins. In some cases, heavy lifting has been in place for some time, but now you are in a better position to turn it up a notch with better clarity of roles. Ongoing discussions about roles and responsibilities should occur as your social media plan matures. Changes may be needed as your plans evolve.

However, what if you realize you don’t have the right staff for social media marketing? The fact is some people just don’t understand social media. Sometimes the barrier is demographic, but most often, it’s just an “I don’t get it” attitude. Worse yet, some may resist it for any number of  reasons. There are still many people who are stuck in the traditional marketing paradigm, and they are not ready to shift to the new social media paradigm.  Don’t fret—the laggards will eventually get on the social media train because the forward momentum of the culture and the technology will sweep them along. The real problem is this: what if they’re holding you back today? If you face that scenario, here are some ideas to consider.

Give It Time
Don’t force everyone to jump into a social media strategy overnight. An overnight commitment with a take-no-prisoners mentality can produce corporate culture shock. You run the risk of becoming a maverick, which can trigger counterproductive results. The best way to win people over is to approach them gradually with small but highly visible wins. Assess the people on your team and determine who is best suited to contribute to your social media strategy. People have strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. It’s your job to recognize who may embrace social media and who may shun it.

People who embrace social media tend to be social. If this sounds a bit trite, hear me out. Being social doesn’t necessarily mean being gregarious, boisterous, or the life of the party. Social people are self-confident people, even if quietly so. Their self-confidence may be limited to a specific area of expertise, but they are confident about something. I’ve noticed that some people who might otherwise shun a public social setting are often very social in online social media situations. The key is to recognize the personality attributes of the people in your organization, as well as to recognize their domains of expertise and passions, and then convince them to dip their toes in the social media waters. Asking someone to display his or her expertise or passion in a way that helps your organization meet its strategic objectives is giving that individual an opportunity to shine. For some, it’s a new opportunity he or she may embrace willingly. Find the people who will embrace these opportunities and recruit them to your team. If necessary, move people around on your team. Along the way give people new opportunities where they can achieve tangible results and be recognized by peers and management. People who like to write and create content about specific topics and have some level of creativity or technical acuity are good candidates for your team. The bottom line is this: if you don’t have the right people on the bus, your social media strategy will not go very far. Defining the roles of the people on your team is my next point.

Definition of Job Roles
At some point, it will be wise to redefine job roles so that they reflect your commitment to a Marketing 2.0 strategy. If you consider social media marketing additive, to which employee’s plate do you add it? This will be different in each organization. In some companies, the CEO embraces social media by blogging or being active in a social network. This is a best-case scenario, because the CEO can set the tone for the rest of the organization. In most cases, you’ll need to allocate time away from one activity in order to allow time for social media marketing activities. In the beginning, always start small. It may or may not be too difficult to decide to cut back on some activities that don’t yield results. Don’t continue doing something just because you’ve always done it that way or because it always produces the same results. You do know this is the definition of insanity, don’t you?

Social Media Staff Requires a Blend of Skills
Social media staff skills require a blend of creativity, writing, organizational skills, analytics, and teamwork. A commitment to a social media plan requires a formal review of people’s job descriptions and in some cases revising job descriptions to reflect allocation of their time. A social media plan should leverage the individual talents of staffers while orchestrating them to work as a team to achieve results. As your social media strategy evolves, so should your staff’s skills, titles, the way they spend their time, and the way you recruit new team members. In the years to come, social media skills will be prominently displayed on resumes. In fact, they already are. Many hiring managers check candidates’ activities on the web to assess their subject matter expertise based on how proactive they are as a blogger and social networker before even considering them as a viable candidate.

In my book, I describe the difference between a chief marketing officer’s (CMO’s) job description a few years ago versus today. For a deeper dive into this topic and numerous case studies on social media marketing, check out Marketing 2.0. Your comments on this topic are welcome below.

@berniebay

Top Reasons I Follow Back on Twitter

Let’s face it, the Twitterverse is made up of individuals and brands. While the branded Twitter accounts are staffed by people, the persona of each Twitter account is either an individual or a company or a brand. For example, General Motors has a branded Twitter account, and they also have product branded Twitter accounts.

Like you I receive dozens of new Twitter followers every day. When I plow through them, I usually make my decision to follow back (or not) in under 5 seconds. Here are the criteria I use to make my quick decision. I should point out that these are my criteria. I don’t suggest for a minute that these criteria should be yours. To each his or her own on follow back decision criteria.

I should also point out that my Twitter persona is mostly about marketing. I do very little personal tweeting. When I do it’s usually on the weekend when I may be watching a ballgame or something otherwise leisure related or an occasional random thought.

Why I Follow Back an Individual

Your Twitter account is visually appealing to me. You have more than one photo or you have a creative custom design that is unique. And, you look like an interesting or fun person I would want to meet in person. Age, gender or ethnicity do not affect my impression.

Your most recent tweet was recent (in the last 24 hours). People who don’t tweet daily are not of interest to me. Remember, these are my criteria. You may not share my follow back criteria.

Your tweets are relevant, interesting and they contain links to interesting content. Your tweets will somehow add value to me.

Your profile has a link to your blog or website. If you get my attention and I want to know more about you, you make it easy.

Your profile bio is descriptive. It paints a picture for me about who you are what you care about. It’s uniquely about you.

I get the impression (quickly) that if I met you at a dinner party, I would want to have a conversation with you.

You RT others and reply to others. The absence of either RTs or @ replies immediately tells me you’re using Twitter for one way communication.

You may use hashtags, though sparingly. This tells me you participate in Twitter conversations. This isn’t a huge factor, but I notice it.

Your follower to following ratio is greater than 1. For newer accounts (less than 1000 followers) I’m flexible on this if all other factors are compelling.

A scan of your Twitter home page generally communicates that you use Twitter conversationally, not as a promotional megaphone.

A sample individual Twitter account I like from @AmyMengel:

Why I Follow Back a Brand

The Twitter account design clearly communicates a message about the brand. Whether it’s a logo or other graphics, I get a quick understanding of the brand’s main message and persona.

The profile description clearly communicates the brand’s message and purpose. It contains a link to the website or blog where I can learn more about the brand.

When skimming the Twitter home page I see interesting content with links to more content. The tweets and links inform me, educate me or entertain me in some way.

If the brand offers promotional tweets, they are done tastefully, professionally and in a way that adds value.

The Twitter account is very transparent. You don’t B.S. me. You demonstrate interest in your followers.

You tweet with a human voice. If you’re a brand and you sound like a non-human, I’m not interested.

You engage your followers with @ replies and RTs.

If you get criticism you respond to it openly and swiftly.

You tweet daily.

A sample brand Twitter account I like: @Teddy’s Pride

Do you have other criteria you use when deciding to follow back individuals and brands? Share them below…

@berniebay

Media Heaven on Earth Meets Internet Marketing

Garry Jones, President, Full Sail University.

Media Heaven on Earth
The Full Sail campus is located in Winter Park, FL and is comprised of 190 acres. There is almost one million square feet of sound stages, recording studios, computer animation labs, green screen rooms, motion capture suites and just about any type of environment to create a video, a movie, sound track, animated feature, a game, etc. There are 9,000 full time students studying in 30 degree programs. Some students are campus based and some are online. The students are all passionate, driven story tellers interested in learning the tools of their trade. They are matched with teachers similarly passionate about these tools and story telling. The result is a hip learning environment where people are super charged and where sparks fly in the creative process.  Full Sail attracts students from around the globe. Though, the main campus is in Winter Park, FL (near Orlando) there are sister schools in the Los Angeles Film School and the Los Angeles Recording school as well as outside Denver, at The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.

The Harvard of the Media and Entertainment Education
Garry recently attended the Grammy’s in L.A. along with 18 staff members. Over 100 Full Sail graduates participated in Grammy nominated projects. The Full Sail staff toured graduate’s studios, Warner Bros Pictures and visited with many Full Sail graduates catching up on their lives and careers. Full Sail has captured the attention of much media. Rolling Stone Magazine has named it one of the five best music programs in the U.S. Electronic Gaming Monthly, named its Gaming Degree one of the top 5 in the world. Shift Magazine named it the #3 new media school. Unleashed Magazine named it one of the top 5 film schools in the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine, also dubbed Full Sail one of the Schools That Rock, naming it one of the best music business departments in U.S. Full Sail’s recognition is growing because their graduates are performing great results in the entertainment and media industries.

Internet Marketing Curriculum
Full Sail launched an online Bachelors and Masters degree program in Internet Marketing in October 2008. The Masters program is a one year long program and the Bachelors degree is a two year program. Under the leadership of Carol Cox, the students get a well rounded education in Internet Marketing including, SEO, PPC, analytics, consumer behavior, branding, mobile advertising, social media and consumer behavior. Each course is four weeks long.  All the instructors are located on campus. They work very closely together to share information to keep the content current. They keep up to date through web news, webinars, podcasts, conferences, blogs and other online sources of updated content that can be added to the curriculum as needed.  Course content is sometimes up to the minute fresh….They don’t use any textbooks. They use trade publications and other relevant industry articles. The Internet Marketing curriculum continues to grow as they attract students from varying backgrounds including entrepreneurs, corporate marketing departments and stay at home moms starting a new business or working in a family business.

Full Sail Marketing Strategy
The university market is a very competitive market with over 4500 colleges plus 3000 proprietary colleges in the U.S. Full Sail does a fine job of articulating their core message and value proposition in all their marketing communications. Under the leadership of Andrew Solberg, Full Sail’s marketing strategy includes many of the Internet marketing techniques they teach including SEO, PPC, display ads and email marketing. Additionally they use traditional marketing including outdoor, television and print. All their traditional media includes links to their website or a landing page for tracking purposes. When someone visits the Full Sail website they quickly get exposed to the student experience and the breadth of their educational credentials. Not surprisingly, their website provides a very rich media experience that is noticeably different than most college websites. A visit to their website allows you to experience a tour of their campus.

A Launch Box Moment
On the first day of classes at Full Sail each new student experiences The Launch Box. Full Sail accelerates their learning curve by putting a mobile, digital studio in their hands on day one. The Launch Box includes a MacBook Pro with all applicable software for each student’s degree program. From day one the student has tutorials to get set up and running. The famous moment on the first day of class is when the instructor says to the class “Welcome to the the next chapter of the rest of your life. Turn on your launch boxes!” At the same moment everyone powers up their customized MacBook Pro and they end up in wild applause.

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast interview with Garry Jones, Carol Cox and Andrew Solberg of Full Sail University and encourage you to listen to it (above or from iTunes). The next time you watch the Grammy’s or the Oscars, know that Full Sail graduates had a hand in some of those works of art as well as many others in private industry that may not appear in awards but nonetheless have a powerful impact in their respective market segment.

The education provided by Full Sail University allows students to earn a living in current economic conditions whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee in media, entertainment, gaming and Internet marketing fields.

As a Floridian, I’m proud to know Full Sail University is based in my home state. As a digital citizen and marketer I’m thrilled to see the economic impact of this fine institution of specialized learning and their commitment to students through tools, technology and devoted instructors.

Outbound Marketing Meets Inbound Marketing

When can an avid inbound marketer like me get behind an outbound marketing company? When it involves creative innovation that  allows marketers to cost effectively reach their target market AND create an inbound opportunity which is supported by the marketer’s content.

Enthusem is online system for marketers to send personalized printed messages with an online call to action and tracking to back it up. Here’s how it works.  I run Find and Convert, an inbound marketing agency. Let’s say I have identified a list of 100 companies I would like to target for our inbound marketing services. Rather than waiting for them to find and contact me, I could reach out to them through Enthusem in a very personalized and creative way that may get their attention. I would send an Enthusem card to one or more executives at each of these companies. Each card would be personalized to each individual with an image on the face of the card which is visible through the envelope. For example, let’s say I saw the CEO of a target company speak at a conference and I took his picture. I can put that image on the front of the card. The message inside the card would reference a key point he made during his talk that I found very insightful and I would like to discuss further with him. The call to action would be an invitation to visit a digital piece of content of mine that is consistent with the point he made during his talk.  How unique is that? Can you see how this CEO would likely at least open the card and read it when he sees his picture of him speaking on the front of the card?  Of course, my goal is to get the prospect to become an inbound visitor to my content to attract them to our inbound marketing services.

Below is a screenshot of how I would upload the image of the CEO making that presentation into Enthusem.

When the recipient of my card visits the landing page I’ve uploaded to Enthusem, I will be notified by email. I recognize that since I’m marketing to another business, they may not be ready to buy when they visit my content. So, now that I know they’ve visited my content, I can plan to invite them to another piece of content such as my Facebook fan page or a particular blog article on a topic I think may be of interest. In other words now, I can nurture that lead using the lead nurturing feature in HubSpot.

Enthusem is the only outbound marketing system (that I know about) that truly combines personalized outbound marketing with inbound marketing strategies. The online attachment to a personalized card is the content which marries the outbound touch to the inbound contact. When someone receives my Enthusem card one of two things can happen. They can read the card and toss it. Or, they can read the card and visit the online attachment. In both cases, I’ve created some awareness for my brand. In the latter, I’ve created a lead which I can nurture.

Back to my example of targeting 100 businesses. If I mailed them an Enthusem card once each month, my cost would about $300. That’s not a typo. I didn’t leave off a zero. It’s about $3 per card out the door. I can select the image for the front of the card, create the personalized message, upload my online attachment and schedule to send a card, all for $3. And, I can log into my account from my laptop or from my mobile device.

Steve Tingiris, CEO of Enthusem says it best. “We live in a longtail world. It’s no longer dozens of markets of millions, rather millions of markets of dozens. Enthusem allows you to reach niche markets cost effectively, generate leads and measure them.” Below is a brief interview I did with Steve.

B2B Buzz Marketing with Paul Dunay

B2B buzz marketing with Paul Dunay. I finally got my calendar sync’d up with Paul for this podcast interview. Paul is an award winning B2B marketing expert. He is Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications, and co-author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009).

A B2B Marketing Story

I asked Paul to describe Avaya’s social media strategy.  His response is this story…In 2009 budgets were tight across the board. Many brands experimented with social media. Actually, Avaya got the social media bug in 2009. They started diving into social media with many tactics but they were not well orchestrated under a cohesive strategy. They had launched social profiles in Facebook, Twitter, a company blog, wikis  and even launched internal social communication on Yammer. Paul was asked by the global CMO to advise and recommend a global social media strategy for Avaya. Even though Paul already had a full time job in a line of business role, he accepted the challenge of developing the social media strategy for Avaya. Now, Paul is a very smart guy. But, he knew he’d need help. So, he asked the early adopters of social media at Avaya to meet once a week to develop the strategy.

Mission Driven Social Media
Paul and his colleagues at Avaya defined the mission of all their social marketing to be: Powerful, Authentic, Personal Interaction. They defined several business objectives including demonstrating thought leadership, building brand awareness, increasing demand, and producing sales leads. Since Avaya had already started executing many tactics on the social web, they decided to consolidate their strategy across four platforms: The Avaya corporate blog, a customer forum, a few Twitter profiles and the Avaya Facebook Fan page.  The Avaya blog is the corporate voice. The forum is self help for customers. Avaya Twitter is short bursts of information as well as listening and monitoring what’s being said about their brand and competitors. In the Avaya Facebook fan page they cover events, company news, share photos, start discussions and enjoy interaction with their community.

Invite People to Your Facebook Fan Page
One objection I often hear from B2B marketers is they think their customers don’t have time or interest in Facebook. Paul asks “have you invited them to join your Facebook fan page?” He suggests you email people through Facebook to invite them to join your Facebook fan page. Paul shares my enthusiasm for Facebook because it has every form of media including video, audio, blog, photos, polls and many add-on applications. All of these functions are available from a Facebook fan page (for free). Paul suggests that the Facebook fan page is the communication innovation of the century.

In December 2007 during a keynote speech I gave, I predicted that Facebook was going to explode and become the most popular social network. I was right. BTW, I’ve made many predictions in the past that didn’t pan out. But, this one did.

Integrating Offline and Online
I asked Paul how Avaya integrates offline marketing with online marketing. He gave me a recent example. Avaya attended an industry conference where they organized an event around thought leadership. Customers were invited to attend and express their view of the future of the industry and related communication technologies.  They asked customers for their thoughts about the future of communications technology, and how they see it evolving in the coming years. Their responses were captured on video and still photos.  Immediately after the event the Avaya team wrote down four key take-aways from that event. They wrote a white paper about the trends they heard and anointed that paper the premium content from the event. They uploaded pictures, six videos, wrote four blog posts, and created content for the website, all stemming from this one customer event. They also did a webinar as a follow up. In the end, they leveraged a single event into more than one dozen pieces of content. The content that was created at the event had been multi purposed and shared with people that participated in the event and anyone who otherwise had interest in the content. Ultimately all the free content was used to drive people to download a premium content asset for a lead conversion.

The 4 Cs of B2B Marketing
Paul doesn’t believe the 4 Ps apply to directly B2B. So, he blogged about the four C’s of B2B marketing:  Content creation to attract people. Connect with people who consume your content.  Communicate on an ongoing basis. Conversion – nurture the leads with many touches to create conversions. Some people think that 4 Cs are a deep dive on the “promotion” P in the 4 Ps . I suggest that we’re all using the contemporary etiquette of the social web to create a conversion. When our content is good, and we connect with people in authentic ways, we earn the right to create conversions.

Facebook Marketing for Dummies
Paul co-authored Facebook Marketing for Dummies with his college buddy, Richard Krueger. When Paul was approached by Wiley to write Facebook Marketing for dummies he knew it would be a daunting task on top of his full time job at Avaya, so he asked Richard to help him write the book. I’ve read the book and enjoyed it very much. It’s filled with many useful tips for businesses who want to use Facebook to connect, engage and market their business using the wildly popular and free Facebook social network. Their next book is Facebook Advertising for Dummies. Paul shares my enthusiasm for the ability Facebook gives marketers to conduct highly targeted advertising based on many demographics attributes.

This podcast recording ran close to 30 minutes which is 10 minutes longer than most of my podcasts. We had so much to cover. I hope you’ll listen to the podcast where you’ll hear parts of the interview not summarized in this blog post. I invite you to post your comments on your own B2B marketing stories in the comments below.

You can connect with Paul Dunay at his blog or on Facebook or on Twitter.

How to Convert Old Media Marketing to New Media Marketing

In the marketing world there are several ways that people refer to new media marketing. There are phrases such as:

Inbound marketing
Internet marketing
Web marketing
Social media marketing
Online marketing
Digital marketing
E-marketing
Interactive marketing

The phrase which is probably the most hyped is new media marketing! But, is a marketing strategy that includes blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flckr still new? It’s 2010 not 2007. New media, is not so new anymore!

Consider that some businesses are still in new media denial. There are still some businesses who think they can ignore new media. They believe that old media is still the way to market. So, they still use the telephone, the print ad, the tradeshow and direct mail as the sole way of marketing their business.

The old media examples just mentioned are not obsolete. They can still be effective, but they should be adapted to the new media mindset of your prospective buyers. Let’s look at each of these old media formats and how they can be converted to new media marketing.

Telephone
Rather than cold calling for sales prospects call people to conduct a survey on a relevant industry topic. Invite them to take a survey on the phone or online. If they prefer the online survey get their email address and send them a link to your online survey. Be sure to offer them a free copy of the survey results. Keep them informed by email in the future. Don’t sell anything in this phonecall. The person will remember the content experience about your brand and possibly buy from you when she is ready. Of course, the best use of the telephone is to call all the leads you develop through your inbound marketing strategy.

Print Advertising
Assuming you’re advertising in a relevant publication, make your call to action accessible online on a unique landing page that is attributable to the ad so you can measure it. If you have a phone number in the ad, be sure it’s unique so you can measure the results of the ad. In many cases, print advertising serves to build or strengthen your brand. Even if you have a good call to action, sometimes the best result is brand awareness. Nonetheless, be sure the reader can engage your brand online in a way that can be traced back to your ad.

Tradeshows
You can integrate your tradeshow marketing with your online strategy in several ways. Whether you are exhibiting or just attending a tradeshow you should always talk about the event online before, during and after the event. Use your blog, Facebook and Twitter channels to discuss your contribution to the event as well as the contribution of others. Use Flickr and YouTube to share your photos and video from the event. Connect online with the people you meet at the event to keep the relationships going after the event.

Direct Mail
Similar to print advertising be sure to have a measurable call to action. Consider linking the call to action to personalized URLs (PURLs) as landing pages. This will allow you to measure the results of your direct mail campaigns very clearly with online interaction attributable to your direct mail campaigns.

New Media Transitions
There are many businesses that continue to use old media marketing strategies very well by integrating them with new media channels. Ultimately, you can achieve great sales results by integrating your old media and new media plans by connecting and engaging people the way they want to be engaged.

Avoid using old media strategies in a vacuum. Similarly, avoid using new media tools in a vacuum especially as a megaphone to blast your sales message. Rather integrate your old media and new media channels into the marketing 2.0 mindset so your audience will want to connect with you and your brand to explore what you can do for them.

As I’ve said many times previously, brands who adopt the mindset of a content publisher and a relationship collaborator are the ones whose content marketing strategy delivers the best results. Even old media marketing can convert to new media marketing using an integrated approach.

Are you still using old media marketing? Start integrating it with new media. Tell your story below.

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Business

Kim Albee on B2B content marketing.

Kim Albee is founder and President of Genoo, a marketing automation software company serving B2B SMB companies mostly in the U.S. Genoo provides tools to build micro-sites, do lead nurturing, lead tracking and it integrates with Salesforce.com. I met Kim on LinkedIn when I was looking for case studies for my book. This podcast interview is an update to that case study.

Kim launched her Genoo product in June 2008 in beta. It became available to the public in Sept 2009. As an entrepreneur launching a new marketing automation software product with no marketing budget Kim got very creative. She started playing with social media tools, most notably LinkedIn. She joined some relevant groups in 2008. But, at that time LinkedIn didn’t offer the “discussion” feature, so there was no ability to create conversations in groups.

Kim wondered how she could find and engage people interested in B2B marketing. She didn’t find any B2B groups on LinkedIn, so she created a B2B Online Marketing group and invited others to join it. But, without a discussion feature, the group didn’t have much value. Then, Kim set up a free forum for conversations on B2B marketing. But, no one joined. By now, Kim was getting frustrated by her limited ability to engage with other B2B marketers online.  Then, it happened!  LinkedIn started offering discussions in groups and everything changed.

Kim created a LinkedIn group called B2B Online Marketing and she also created a dedicated website which shares and re-purposes content from the group.  BTW, do a Google search for “b2b online marketing” and you’ll find this website in the first 5 search results. Kim started discussions in this group on relevant topics such as lead generation, SEO, how to create great content, how to create and use micro-sites and other topics of interest to B2B marketers. Initially, Kim emailed the members of the group each time a new discussion was started using the email feature in Genoo. The group has grown to over 3,200 members and it’s still growing, fostering great conversations among B2B marketers.

Kim blazed a new trail with this approach. She was willing to experiment with something new. She was very persistent and resourceful. Her leadership is apparent as she created a new group and has been willing to maintain it with active interaction with the group members.

Some B2B Online Marketers Still Skeptical
Kim hears the same objection I often hear from B2B marketers. Many are simply skeptical that marketing online is effective for narrowly defined B2B niches. The truth is that most people search online when they need to find a product or service. B2B marketers must ask themselves, how do their websites perform in searches pertaining to their niche? Many B2B websites are just a “blow-horn” for their products and services with no meaningful calls to action, or limited opportunity to engage (if any). The reality is most B2B prospects want to get to know a business before they call them or fill out a form. They want to check you out first. And, the way to allow them to check you out is through great content!

Niche Marketers Take Notice
I’ve written before in my blog and in my book how marketers in any market segment should draw a circle with two concentric circles around it to define their target market. The smallest circle is the bulls-eye target market. The two outer circles contain demographics who reach and influence the bullseye. Marketers should target each of these groups through great content.

No matter what business you’re in you have a USP (unique selling proposition). There is  a story there. Share your story. Your target market may not currently be on Twitter or Facebook every day, but when you share your content there you will get better search results. SEO is all about the long-tail now. If you don’t start now, you won’t be there when your audience arrives.

Email Challenge
Kim met someone online who challenged her to write one email every day for 30 days on a relevant marketing topic. He offered to subscribe to her email list, in return for Kim subscribing to his. Kim agreed and sent her first email to her list of about 5000 people, many of whom she did not email frequently. She had low expectations but was willing to experiment. Remember, Kim is not afraid to take some risk. She started her first email with a cheesy email heading: “Hello Fellow Marketers.” She explained her plan to send one email each day for 30 days on a marketing topic. To her surprise, she got 218 people to sign up to get an email from Kim everyday for 30 days on relevant B2B marketing topics. After her final email, she did a survey which received a 38% open rate. Kim took some risk with this 30 day email challenge. And, the results were impressive.

Content Marketing & Relationship Building
I couldn’t have scripted this interview any better. In my book, Marketing 2.0 I boil everything down to having a terrific content marketing strategy and building relationships online. Kim’s daily email was great content, not to mention her B2B Online Marketing group on LinkedIn. Kim built relationships with her 218 subscribers through a personal response to replies she received which built relationships with her subscribers. After the 30 day experiment Kim got several new customers without ever once making a pitch for Genoo. Her great content was her marketing. How measurable is that?! Very!

Kim is a  terrific example of Marketing 2.0 in action. She is willing to take risks. She succeeds a lot more than she fails. But, if we don’t have some failures along the way we’re probably not trying hard enough. Kim is proof positive of this.

To engage with Kim (and why wouldn’t you want to), here are several ways:

Genoo Marketing Automation Software

Kim Albee on LinkdeIn

Kim Albee on Twitter

Marketing Automation Resources

If Kim Albee’s content marketing strategy story inspires you, please add your thoughts below.

Top 5 Reasons Your Social Media Strategy Can Fail in 2010

There are many reasons your social media strategy can fail in 2010. Here are just five of them…

No Top Down Support
It doesn’t matter how mainstream social media is without top management support you’re going to fail. Social media takes time. When the boss sees people Tweeting, blogging and Facebooking during business, if he’s not on board he’s not going to like it. Find examples of competitors or other companies in your industry doing an effective job of engaging community and brand building through social media to get the boss on board.

No Content Strategy
Just because your company has a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page doesn’t mean you have a strategy. You need a content hub and a content theme for an effective content marketing strategy. Define the “why” and the “what” of your content strategy. Develop content that delivers on the three E’s: Educate, Enlighten, Entertain. Use platforms like Twitter and Facebook to support your content strategy. But, put the horse in front of the cart, not the other way around.

No Consistency
You’ve developed your content marketing strategy and you have the boss on board. You plan out the first two months of content and you post. Then that big trade show comes up and you get super busy. Your consistency goes from daily, to weekly and before you know it your only consistency is being absent from your social media strategy. This is worse than not having a social media strategy. If you’re not consistently posting content and engaging community, you’ll never enjoy the benefits of social media marketing. You wouldn’t water a garden once or twice then walk away from it, would you? Consistency is not an option in social media marketing.

You’re Too Loud
If all you do is consistently deliver a sales message on social media, you may just as well go buy billboards and skip social media. For social media newbies, the temptation is sometimes to use the tools as megaphones to shout sales messages. Some brands can earn the right to offer deals and promotions on social media. But, even those brands must have a loyal audience. In most cases the loyalty must be earned through consistent content and authentic, creative engagement. Brands that engage their community through enjoyable experiences win.  Remember the three E’s.

You’re Not Human
Brands who hide behind a corporate facade with corporate speak and no human interaction don’t do as well as brands who engage human to human. Zappos and Ford Motor are good examples of large B2C brands that engage well human to human.  In B2B some relatively unknown names such as Indium Corp.

BatchBlue and HubSpot are successful at engaging human to human rather than hiding behind a brand. The people at each of these companies post content in their individual name, respond to comments and engage with people who engage with them. They recognize that the brand perception is what other people think it is. They don’t ignore anyone. They engage human to human and it’s very effective for them.

There are other reasons your social media strategy could fail in 2010. For additional reasons, you’ll find an entire chapter dedicated to it in my book, Marketing 2.0.

Add your comments below to join in the conversation.

Bernie Borges

Social Media Marketing in Large Enterprises

This is the year of engagement. When I blogged my predictions for the new decade, one of the points I made is that marketers will seek to engage their target customers more interactively. While I still believe that in this decade the phrase social media will fade away, at this time it’s still here and it’s hotter than it’s ever been.

Brands of all sizes are using social media to listen and to engage. Those brands that find ways to engage people authentically and in interesting ways are finding ways to monetize the engagement. And, isn’t that what all the critics have been waiting for?

Want proof that some of the biggest and most established brands have adopted social media with measurable success?

Marcy Shinder -American Express Open
Social media is an excellent customer listening tool and an up and coming customer acquisition tool.

Eduardo Conrado – Motorola
Uses social media pre and post trade shows to engage with customers. Also to integrate existing offline communities with online communities for year-long engagement with customer segments.

John Kennedy – IBM
Uses social media to gain new insights into customers. Gain a better understanding of how IBM is involved in these conversations.

Mark Wilson – Sybase
Having an authentic voice through customers and available product managers for organic growth. Customers are now advocates. Reaching the LongTail of their brand. People are now collaborators. More, faster innovation. More organic and empowering.

Tom Haas – Siemens
New private online community called 3-1-2-1. A social network to engage government customers on topics such as renewable energy.

Jeff  Hayzlett – Kodak
Uses social media for “pretty much everything.” Naming products through Twitter. Employ a Chief Listener looking for customer feedback and new product opportunities.

Michael Mendenhall – HP
Social media is an operational strategy. Used in three ways: Customer Service,  R&D, Marketing Communications. The amplication of word of mouth.

Paul Dunay – Avaya
Like it or not, Twitter is working. It has implications on product development and how Avaya supports existing products. Feedback through Twitter on existing products is very valuable. They’ve even measured some sales that have come from Twitter.

Do you have a testimonial about social media marketing in your business or organization? Please share it in the comments below.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

Unconventional Marketing by Nadine M Rosin

Happy New Decade!

As I kick off a new year with my podcasts I want to reiterate the mission of my podcasts.

I seek to bring you interesting people that are doing interesting things in marketing in order to share their experiences with marketers around the world for education and inspiration.

My first podcast guest in the new decade is Nadine M. Rosin. Nadine is an unconventional person in several ways. It’s her unconventional approach to life and marketing that offers great inspiration. Nadine is a certified therapeutic body worker and a non-denominational minister who performs weddings in Tucson. Nadine is the author of a book titled The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood. The book was inspired by the loss of her dog Buttons. Buttons was diagnosed with cancer when she was 8 years old and was given just 6 weeks to live. That’s when Nadine got unconventional…

An Unconventional Person
Nadine is less likely than most people to accept the conventional way of doing things. She subscribes to the cliché “necessity is the mother of invention.” When the veterinarian gave her dog Buttons 6 weeks to live, Nadine sought and found the causes of the cancer. Rather than deal with the symptoms, Nadine took a holistic approach to Buttons’ cancer. Over the next four months Nadine cleared out all toxins in her home. Essentially, she cleansed Buttons’ environment inside and outside and strengthened her body nutritionally so her dog’s body would heal itself. It worked. Buttons lived another 11 years and died of natural causes at age 19.

The Marketing Lesson in Mourning
Nadine observed that people (especially in the U.S.) are encouraged to keep sorrowful emotions bottled up. She points out that it’s not healthy to hide these powerful emotions. It’s not how we heal. An example Nadine offers is how during President Reagan’s funeral the esteemed media praised Nancy Reagan for not showing her grief in public. It’s a normal human emotion to mourn over the death of a loved one. It’s authentic and healthy to grieve. Grieving gives us a healing process.

What does this have to do with marketing you ask? Good question. Keep reading…

Create Content About Which You’re Passionate
The experience Nadine had with her own pet coupled with the observations of how people need to grieve even after they lose a pet, inspired Nadine’s book. Her book helps “pet parents” to grieve and heal after the loss of their pets.

Nadine never had a budget to market her book. She doesn’t have a warehouse of books to send out for promotion. But, Nadine does have a warehouse full of passion. She started her marketing plan with a 3 minute video, which serves as a trailer about the book which she posted on YouTube. Then, she searched for videos on YouTube for “pet memorial” and found people offering tributes to a pet which had recently died. Nadine would leave a short, authentic and sympathetic comment in her handle: authorgirlpetparent with a link to her video. Many people would click on her video and find her book and buy it. Eventually, many people came back to her video to comment on how helpful the book was to them in their healing process over their pet loss.

Shoestring Marketing

Nadine designed her website herself with no prior experience. She just learned how to do it. She found and visited online pet social sites to find conversations with people about their pets and engaged them. Two such sites include Dogster and  DoggySpace. The people she encountered on these pet social sites actually speak in the persona of their pet.  She started making friends on all these social sites and establishing her brand in her own persona of Authorgirlpetparent. This marketing strategy cost no money. It did “cost” her about 6 hours each day after work, which she admits flies by because she is so passionate about the topic and her online relationship building. One such online connection got her an invitation to be flown to an event where she was the keynote speaker.

Nadine is very focused on the details of her online relationship details. She sends a personalized direct message (DM) to every new follower on Twitter and Facebook. She also gives free help to other pet parents who have holistic questions. She offers a 30-minute one-on-one consultation. No one is turned away who can’t afford one.

Marketing 2.0 at Work

Nadine’s content marketing and relationship building strategy is intuitively exactly as I wrote in my book, Marketing 2.0. Nadine has developed a content marketing strategy and prioritizes the connections she makes online with people on pet social sites and through Facebook and Twitter. Nadine also blogs regularly on her pet parenthood blog and accepts, speaking engagements where ever possible.

Experiential Marketing
Nadine is creating experiences with people when she connects with them. She shares her own personal experience through her story about her deceased dog Buttons. For example, someone on Facebook contacted Nadine about a friend who had just lost a pet. This person posted Nadine’s video on her friend’s profile. This person turned out to be Yvonne DiVita an active social media expert who supports women in business and pet owners (pet parents). Yvonne bought and read Nadine’s book.  She contacted Nadine to help her market it. She offered Nadine valuable social media advice to accelerate her social media marketing on Twitter and Facebook.

Results in Motion
When I asked Nadine how she measures results, I could tell she was a little uncomfortable with this topic. As an author of a book, I understand that conventional results measurement is all about measuring book sales. But, until Nadine’s book sales gets into in six figures, she won’t be excited measuring that result. So she ignores the numbers. Instead Nadine measures the results in motion, which includes:

What kind of emails is she getting from readers?
How much are other people trying to connect and help Nadine?
What’s the value of her new connections?
Do her connections offer value that can contribute to book sales in the future?

There Are Many Inches in a Mile
The unconventional path to book sales for Nadine wasn’t so unconventional after all. Nadine figured it out as she went along. Her passion and commitment combined with her authentic approach to connecting with people has allowed her to learn successful marketing strategies as she experimented with them.

Nadine is measuring milestones. As I state in my book, marketers can measure the outcome of relationships developed online. These milestones are stepping stones to end results. You don’t get from an inch to a mile in one step.  It’s ok to measure the inches you achieve on your way to the mile.

One small example of measuring inches for Nadine is the way we met. I found Nadine when she was featured in a newsletter article put out by our mutual publisher, Wheatmark Publishing. I was impressed by her story so I contacted her to to be a guest on my podcast. Who knows what doors may open from this podcast interview.

I hope Nadine’s story as a pet parent and as a marketer inspire you in some way. I invite you to learn more about Nadine and her book here. I’m sure Nadine would enjoy connecting with you, to share common interests in marketing or pet parenting.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

P.S. To learn more about developing content marketing strategies like Nadine’s check out my book, Marketing 2.0.

Next Page »