Category Archives: SEO/SEM

Social Media Dumbed Down

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Common Craft is a two person, husband and wife company that makes videos that are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand.  One of those ideas/videos that I absolutely love is about social media. It’s “dumbed down” to levels that even the most stubborn, stodgy, old school, CEO can understand. They use a whiteboard-and-paper format that is designed to cut out the noise and stick to what matters. See what you think and share with others!


 

Social Media marketing, is there room for the small players? 23 talking points

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I was driving home yesterday going past hundreds of small companies that are all in the same economic boat right now. They need to drive traffic, sales, and business. And you can best believe that they are willing to try any and all things that can possibly do that. And that includes utilizing social media.  I mean we can find plenty of blog posts and articles about whether large companies can succeed using social media, and my answer would be “uhhh… yea!” 

So one of the questions I would have as a small business owner and even a medium sized in some cases would be:

1) How can I drive sales, traffic and business to my click and mortar site using any online means available?  Wow that’s a broad question. But wouldn’t you ask the same thing? Tell me what’s out there and I will use it, if it helps.

Let’s assume that you have a website and you use email. If you don’t, you can stop here because the rest won’t matter. But unless you’re reading this post at the library or you’re over at your Aunt Evelyn’s, I’m going to assume that you at least have a computer. And since you are a small to medium size business owner, you damn well better have a website! NO MATTER WHAT KIND OF BUSINESS YOU HAVE, YOU BETTER HAVE A WEBSITE.

Lets get to it, Lets go over this checklist and see if there is room in the social media marketing space for the small players.

2) Do customers use your website? If they don’t maybe it’s because they don’t know you have one. What efforts have you employed to market or optiimize your current site?

3) Do you give them any reason to go to your website? If you are not letting people know your site is out there and what it has to offer, then you can answer that question pretty easily. But is your site a marketing tool. Can customers get a better deal on a service or a product if they go there?

4) What do they do when they are there? Whats the bounce? What do your analytics tell you? You do use some type of stats package right? If you don’t what your customer does on your website, it’s the same as if you stayed in your office all day and never came out to see what was going on in your business or store. In order to understand the customer you have to see their tendencies. You have to know where they are coming from and how they found you.

5) How well do you utilize your URL on other marketing materials? You have signage, billboards, print ads, business cards, letterhead, email, Is your web address there?

6) What is your presence like locally? How well are you branded locally? Do they know you, who knows where you are locally? What efforts do you make to brand you and your company locally? The “if you build it, they will come business model”, doesn’t work too often.

7) What are your current marketing initatives like? Do you support them online? Do you have a budget? What do you use it on? Is it a print ad? Do you do anything that can drive business on a consistent basis?

8) With a limited marketing budget, what would you do with it? What DO you do with it? Is that something that even is on your mind or lips? Are the economics of what is happening right now preclude you from even thinking about budgeting for marketing? Wouldn’t this be the most opportune time to be spending?

9) Do you do any type of digital marketing now? i.e. email, seo, sem? If you don’t then that will explain your lack of any traffic on your website, along with the design you have to let people know you have a web presence.

10)  Do you know what social media is?

11)  Do you understand it? Do you know what the essential elements are of social media?

Before I go any further, lets throw something out there right now and that’s lets assume that you have answered all of these questions the “right” way. Let’s assume that you are ready to do this, you are ready to “try” some element of social media marketing. And lets hope that you’re not fighting or resisitng to try social media You’re next set of questions are going to be:

1) Is there a company or someone out there who can help me?

2) Do they have experience working with my type of company, my type of customer?

3) What guarantees do I have that this will work?

4) What will it cost? What can I expect?

5) Will it fail? What is the downside?

6) What is the upside? What, after all is said and done, will be the net result?

7) How long will it take?

8) Is it a process?

9) Is it measurable?

10) What do I look for in my results?

11) How do I pay for something like this?

12) What if it backfires?

13) Now what do we do?

 

Ok so we now have 23 talking points to get the conversation going. There are questions that small to medium sized business owners need to ask of themselves in regards to their current marketing efforts and the general state of of their advertisng efforts and there is the next set of questions that these same owners need to ask of any individual or company that comes knocking that is going to pitch them on social media marketing.

The point is this, there are so many “conversations” going on right now in regards to how corporations are wrestling with implementing social media into their marketing efforts. In fact Jeremiah Owyang recently wrote a post about the 5 questions that companies ask about social media, but it concerns large outfits and not the little guys. I think the small players are being ignored. It’s not that it can’t be done, it just needs to be very focused. Why can’t everyone participate in the conversation?

 

 

Social media: A cocktail party

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So Im on Linkedin and someone I should reask a question about social media tools. the question was: What are the best practices and available tools in the social media marketing space?” and what are the methods to measure them ?

One of the first responses I received was from Rosemary Reilman in which she said:

This is the $64 Million question. And whoever has all the answers could probably make themselves very rich.
As far as the best available tools – I’d say the ones that your audience are going to. There are so many sites it really depends on who you’re trying to reach. If you’re trying to reach high school kids or college, probably Facebook or MySpace. If you’re looking to reach Tech-Savvy Professionals, then something like Twitter or LinkedIn might be the route to go. I think it just involves some research on who is where.

As far as best practices, I went to a really good workshop with the AMA and a speaker Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media gave some common mistakes (which I guess is the opposite of best practices but still helpful) I had a link to his blog below. Also my thoughts on the presentation as well.

I think the most important thing to remember with SM is that it’s not the same as regular marketing campaigns. It requires not just pushing out a message but allows for your audience to talk back.

Those are some of my thoughts on your question!

Great answer, so I went to her site and actually one of the links on her site referring to social media as an online cocktail party in which she provides great insight into a workshop she attended  called the Social Media Marketing workshop. her synopsis of what went down was cool, but I had to give my 2 cents of what I thought marketers thought of social media marketing, since there seemed to be some lively discussion of what exactly it was that we, them, they do and think. Here is essentially what I wrote:

 

I’m not sure where to begin Rosie, well first thanks to the response on Linkedin which led me here. Your post was great, it brings up a lot of things and I’m not sure which one should be addressed first. Well, let me start by saying that I think marketers stick with what has worked for them in the past regardless of the medium. Be it, email, tv, radio, print, event, whichever worked, they have taken it and honed into their craft.
Now we are all abuzz and all are talking about this phenomenon. This new way of doing it. Talking to the customer… And surprisingly it’s not necessarily a new way, it’s a new means. Marketers have wanted to talk to their customers for years, and for some they knew if they did, it would give them more insight and sales etc. But they always relied on older mechanisms for reaching out, i.e feedback forms, but what social media has done has allowed them more ways of connecting. Its not like all of a sudden we’re cavemen and we discovered fire, its that we’re cavemen and someone gave us a lighter. and the word has spread from cave to cave that someone has dicovered, not the mystical and powerful properties of fire-we get that, it’s that someone has something that can grow, sustain and spread something virally that we all need, want and desire. In this case, customer interaction on steroids…

 

 

 

What do you think? Am I right? Partially right, sorta right? or am I missing the point?

4 More Social Media Luminaries

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First I wanted to thank some of the gracious people who got back to me in regards to my post about 30 social media experts, evangelists and pundits. It was a fun list to compile and did not really expect to hear from some, and am surprised I did not hear from others. So much for the conversation? too busy? traveling? 3 day weekend? Nevertheless I want to thank Chris Brogan, B.L Ochman, Valeria Maltoni, Phil Gomes and Toby Bloomberg, Their responses to this post were more than gracious and reinforces why I read their blogs on a regular basis.

Sure, I know I should be bashing twitter right now, but Chris is all over it like a cheap suit, and there’s nothing I can think of thats going to change it except to say that Twitter is effin up in a big way. Maybe IT IS time to go over to Friend Feed? Actually I have, I just don’t use it as much…yet.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, One of our Top 30, who rocks the effin house, has graciously provided me with 4 more peeps/peers that we can add to the list. Here they are, and I must admit, they were great additions to this list.

Geoff Livingston
Rajesh Lalwani
Jeneane Sessum
Paul Chaney

I’m still open to add to this list as it might be a pretty cool list to maybe work up to 50. or maybe this is it? Maybe the conversation only consists of 34? You tell me.

Peace

-MM

 

 

Monetizing Social Networks. The simplest analogy possible!

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Aside from the big players in social media making money via advertisers and cutting deals with some of technologies biggest hitters, there are more social sites that do not make money then there are those that do. What do they do? How are they going to make money?

Obviously one of the ways to create a social networking site that actually makes money is to niche-ify it to the extent that is speaks to a specific type of brand user and all the products or services that can be wrapped around the user. Picture the hot dog . Thats right, you are the hot dog. Your social network, the hot dog. You are going to be interested in all things related to you. 

Now the hot dog has the bun, the ketchup, the mustard, the relish,and the onions. All viable participants in the network. Including our friends chil and cheese. Couple with that will be napkins,  something cold to drink and perhaps to go with the hot dog, a side of chips.

All of these mentioned make perfect sense. They are viable, channel driven, niche driven, complimentary, cross promotional products that speak to the center of the social network universe known as is…the hot dog,

The problems arise when something that is totally irrelevant tries to crash the party. And interestingly enough, you would be surprised how often the following happens:

The best example of a lot of people trying to crash the party is perhaps the frenzy that is Myspace and Facebook. The frenzy of advertisers wanting to take advantage of million and millions of customers waiting(or are they?) to be pitched. Problems can arise from people who try and crash a party that they’re not invited to. Some great examples can be found in Jeremiah Owyangs post on brands that got punked by social media

As an advertiser, one just needs to know and it’s not like it’s that difficult. Are you the windshield, are you the bug? Are you the louisville slugger, are you the ball? Are you the hot dog? are you the bun? Or are you window cleaner that is the upsell to a box of triscuits?

The Moonwalking Bear

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This is courtesy of Dothetest

 Imagine…
A passer-by asks you for directions. As you talk to him, two workmen walk between you carrying a door. In a flash the passer-by switches places with one of the workmen, and you are left giving directions to a different person. Do you think you would notice?

Researchers at Harvard University played this trick on some unsuspecting people and over 50 per cent failed to spot the change.

This phenomenon is known as “change blindness” – only a tiny fraction of all the information going into your brain enters your consciousness. People often fail to see a change in their surroundings because their attention is elsewhere.

Even stranger, if you are concentrating on something, you can become blind to other events that you would normally notice. This “inattention blindness” is possibly the reason why motorists collide with cyclists.

Just as it is important for road users to keep an eye out for cyclists, cyclists must also take steps to ensure they are seen by motorists.

Even if music isn’t your thing.

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Ok, this has nothing to do with social media, but then again, we need to have some balance in our lives. If I were going to start a music collection and I have, but If I’m just starting out and I need to add discs that will really give me a well rounded complete music collection I’m going to start with this:

Watch this:

 

Social Media and Web Metrics Dinner Party Conversation

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Ok class it’s time to throw out bits and pieces of useless information to astound the people you’re talking to this weekend at the dinner party that you have to go to. Usually when you go to these things, you try to seek out the tech-y guy or person. But ultimately what happens is they try to impress you with what they know and think YOU don’t know nothing. It’s at this point you drop of this on them.

 

Social Media

So some how, things shift to talking about social networks, you went to get a drink and bam, somehow they’re talking about how America’s youth is effed up because of Myspace and Facebook and is populated by amped up testosterone laced males. At which point you chime in and say:

Actually Facebook has more female users than male. In fact, of the 57 million users on Facebook, 56% of them are female.  It’s at this point that you now have their attention and they all start looking at you. Which is when I silently thank Marty Fahncke for throwing that tidbit of his up on an article in Electronic Retailer

So now they are wanting more.  So thanks to Marty I throw this one out: DID YOU KNOW…that Linkedin has 17 million members with every Fortune 500 company represented? Or that the average age of the LInkedin user is 41?   Hopefully none of them ask what Linkedin is, but invariably there WILL be someone within the group who asks.

So while they’re chewing on that someone will of course ask, How many members use MySpace? And with total confidence you answer 200 million members, 110 million of which are “active”. Whew. You have them eating out of your hand right now.

Time to drop some good stuff on them now.

Web Metrics

Did they know that the average American spends 30 hours per month online with October being the heaviest month for usage? Thanks comScore Or that Ann Arbor had the highest internet penetration in the U.S.? According to The Media Audit

Think the majority of users are the 18-31 user? Think again. Leading the way for tops in internet usage are the 44-62 year olds. In 3rd place are the 32-43 year olds and behind them are the 63+ demo followed by the 12-17 year olds according to emarketer

The audience around you will grow and the questions will now vary. But they will all have a tech feel and flavor. Someone will no doubt ask, what site they should go to in order to get a good feel for the pulse of say the blogosphere. I’ll mention that shel israel has a really interesting and observant blog that should at least warrant a stop by as does Seth Godin who always has some great points about all things marketing related.

But maybe that’s too deep for you and you need  some sites that are light on the copy and heavy on engagaing you for awhile. Where can you go you ask? Go here and check out what streams from Kevin Kelly’s consciousness.

I grab another drink while I see some grabbing napkins to write on. I blurt out that I always enjoyed this blog just because it’s put together well, and its always got something that helps me learn and understand and yet is not so technical. Jaffe Juice fills that need.

From the Jaffe Juice site: How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?

Uh oh, I think you’re starting to glaze over, too much info. It happens to everyone who doesn’t live and breath and digest this stuff on a daily basis. Thats cool though. For that I will throw Matt Creamer at you, he always has some interesting links to pass on as does Nathan Gilliatt but it may be a little to techy for you. But then again, when this conversation started you thought you knew your stuff anyways. You do Twitter don’t you?

 

Myanmar disaster relief sites

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Join the recovery efforts mobilizing around the world to assist cyclone victims in Myanmar

The following aid agencies are accepting contributions to help those affected by the cyclone in Myanmar. The list is from InterAction, a coalition of aid agencies, which can be contacted at InterAction at (202) 667-8227 or http://www.interaction.org.

ADRA International

Myanmar Cyclone Fund

12501 Old Columbia Pike

Silver Spring, MD 20904

(800) 424-ADRA ext. 2372

http://www.adra.org

Action Against Hunger

247 W. 37th St., 10th Floor

New York, NY 10018

(877) 777-1420

http://support.actionagainsthunger.org/donate

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

JDC: Myanmar Cyclone Relief

P.O. Box 530

132 East 43rd St.

New York, NY 10017

(212) 687-6200

http://www.jdc.org

American Jewish World Service

45 W. 36th St., 11th Floor

New York, NY 10016

(800) 889-7146

http://www.ajws.org

American Red Cross

International Response Fund

P.O. Box 37243

Washington, DC 20013

(800) HELP-NOW

http://www.redcross.org

American Refugee Committee

430 Oak Grove St., Suite 204

Minneapolis, MN 55403

(612) 872-7602

http://www.arcrelief.org

AmeriCares

88 Hamilton Ave.

Stamford, CT 06902

(800) 486-4357

http://www.americares.org

Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team

6810 Tilden Lane

Rockville, MD 20852

(301) 984-0217

http://www.amurt.net

Baptist World Aid

Myanmar (or Burma) Relief

405 North Washington St.

Falls Church, VA 22046

(703) 790-8980

http://www.bwanet.org

CARE

151 Ellis Street N.E.

Atlanta, GA 30303

(800) 521-2273

http://www.care.org

CHF International

8601 Georgia Ave., #800

Silver Spring, MD 20910

(866) 779-2CHF

http://www.chfinternational.org

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC)

2850 Kalamazoo Ave., S.E.

Grand Rapids, MI 49560-0600

(800) 55-CRWRC

http://www.crwrc.org

Church World Service

28606 Phillips St., P.O. Box 968

Elkhart, IN 46515

(800) 297-1516

http://www.churchworldservice.org

Concern Worldwide U.S.

104 East 40th St., Suite 903

New York, NY 10016

(212) 557-8000

http://www.concernusa.org

Direct Relief International

27 South La Patera Lane

Santa Barbara, CA 93117

(805) 964-4767

http://www.directrelief.org

Episcopal Relief and Development

815 Second Ave., 7th Floor

New York, NY 10017

(800) 334-7626

http://www.er-d.org

Food for the Hungry

1224 East Washington St.

Phoenix, AZ 85034

(800) 248-6437

http://www.fh.org

Habitat for Humanity International

Cyclone Nargis

121 Habitat St.

Americus, GA 31709-3498

(800) HABITAT

http://www.habitat.org

International Medical Corps

1919 Santa Monica Blvd.

Suite 400

Santa Monica, CA 90404

(800) 481-4462

http://www.imcworldwide.org

International Relief Teams

Attn: Myanmar Cyclone

4560 Alvarado Canyon Road, Suite 2G

San Diego, CA 92120

(619) 284-7979

http://www.irteams.org

International Rescue Committee

(Note on checks: Myanmar)

P.O. Box 96651

Washington, DC 20090-6651

(877) REFUGEE

http://www.theIRC.org

Latter-day Saint Charities

50 East North Temple, 7th Floor

Salt Lake City, UT 84150

(800) 453-3860, ext. 23544

http://www.lds.org

Lutheran World Relief

P.O. Box 17061

Baltimore, MD 21298-9832

(800) 597-5972

http://www.lwr.org

MAP International

Donor Member Services

Myanmar Assistance

P.O. Box 7020

Albert Lea, MN 56007-9931

(800) 225-8550

http://www.map.org

Operation USA

Memo “Myanmar Cyclone”

3617 Hayden Ave., Suite A

Culver City, CA 90232

(800) 678-7255

http://www.opusa.org

Project HOPE

255 Carter Hall Lane

Millwood, VA 22646

(800) 544-4673

http://www.projecthope.org

Relief International

1575 Westwood Blvd., Suite 200

Los Angeles, CA 90024

(310) 478-1200

http://www.ri.org

Save the Children USA

54 Wilton Road

Westport, CT 06880

(800) 728-3843

http://www.savethechildren.org

United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)

#3019674 Myanmar Emergency

P.O. Box 9068

New York, NY 10087

(800) 554-8583

http://www.umcor.org

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

UUSC-UUA Burma Cyclone Relief Fund

P.O. Box 845259

Boston, MA 02284-5259

(800) 388-3920

http://www.uusc.org

U.S. Fund for UNICEF

125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor

New York, NY 10038

(800) 4UNICEF

http://www.unicefusa.org

World Concern

19303 Fremont Ave. North

Seattle, WA 98133

(800) 755-5022, ext.7706

http://www.worldconcern.org

World Emergency Relief

P.O. Box 131570

Carlsbad, CA 92013

(888) 484-4543

http://www.worldemergencyrelief.org

World Vision

P.O. Box 9716

Federal Way, WA 98063

(888) 56-CHILD

http://www.worldvision.org