Engagement, Influence and User Experience

Posted on May 27, 2009 by marc meyer

I was sitting this morning with a client having a breakfast meeting when I started to use what was on the table for props. I was explaining the different marketing channels like this…

Each of the above “tools” has a certain marketing function within your organization. You use them everyday for engaging your users and customers and even your prospects. Good, bad, or indifferent, you use them. It’s what we all have been programmed to use.

They can, however, be influenced by what you bring to the table.

But at the end of the day, you are still going to use the same tools pretty much the same way.

You might enhance them. Or influence them.

But the tools are still the same. Regardless of look and feel, they still function the same way.

But what if we could add something to the dynamic? That enhanced the whole experience? That wasn’t there before? That perhaps no one else was doing?

Or…

Now the experience has been changed for the user. You’ve upgraded the experience by adding 2 elements that were not there before. If you don’t add them, nothing really changes. If you do add them, aren’t you better off now than you were before?

Once they are in place, you see how much the user enjoys them, and how they told their friends and what it did for your business and your organization… the feedback has been tremendous versus no feedback before. Customers are talking about you and to you.

Now, would you ever consider removing the OJ or the table cloth? Is this better or worse than prior to your 2 new additions?

Lastly, your new customer, user, client comes up to you and says, ” We love what you have done with your OJ and your table cloths and it’s why we come here now, but you know what would be nice…?”

You listen and you now have enhanced the customer experience. You listened! and they appreciate it and tell others.

Now, would you ever consider removing the flowers?

Say hello to the most basic elements of social media.

Searching for social media experts

Posted on May 18, 2009 by marc meyer

Lets say I’m a business owner and I want to get into this social media thing and I want to hire someone to handle my social media marketing. I don’t know anything about anything so I’m going to go straight to Google to find one.

If you do a search on “social media experts”, the first organic result in Google is for a post by Chris Brogan If I saw Chris’s site, I’m not sure he would be the best fit for me since I might not know any better. I might not know Chris Brogan from Mary Brogan, so I’m going to keep searching.

Interestingly enough the only ppc result for that search term is for Pandemic Labs, but their site is dark and too techy and makes me think Nintendo or Xbox, so I’m out. I’m frustrated already.

The second organic result is for giovanni gallucci, who I am familiar with, and ironically enough of the top 10 search results, this is or his site is the only one actually touting himself and his services as a social media expert. Why is this ironic? Because of the other results, the majority of them are blog posts essentially slamming people who call themselves social media experts.

What am I saying? I’m saying, if I do a search for a social media expert, I may not be able to find one. Funny isn’t it, given the amount of blog posts about people claiming to be a social media expert?

I better change my tactic. How about social media companies?

The results are a little different but no less confusing. Your top 10 results are the following:

CrunchBase company profile on Social Media.com
An blog post from Jeremiah Owyang from 2006
A post from David Meerman Scott’s blog on Social media company entrepreneur official garb.
A post by Lee Odden from Top Rang Blog on How Big Companies Use Social Media @ BlogWell
An article from Inc titled, Inc. 500 Companies Fast Adopters of Social Media
A blog post titled, Valuing social media companies and Facebook apps
The management team results from Pluck
Tech Links piece titled, Social Media Companies See Increased Demand for Internet Marketing Services
This next one is actually not too bad, though as a n00b, it might all just fly right over my head. 12 social media companies that kick ass
This last result is actually a pretty good one too though again, not for the noob, it’s by Peter Kim-It’s a list of social media marketing examples

So at this point I’m striking out, big time. I’m going to try one more thing, maybe two. One is, lets do a search on social media marketing companies and the other is lets do a search on social media consultants. Waddya say?

First 2 organic results for social media marketing companies? Izea and socialmediasystems.com, the 2nd result is scary. It might be the streaming talking head in the right hand corner; but companies like this may hinder more than they help. Though, they do rank #2 for the term “social media companies”, the used car sales approach doesn’t fly with me, and shouldn’t with you.

Further down the page, we finally get to some results that may benefit me. one note though that the PPC results on this page are a little more condusive to the search term we’re using at the moment, but lets continue.

In the #6 spot we have a post by marketing pilgrim titled Social Media Marketing Beginner’s Guide Which I would most definitely read. Why? Before I go and hire and expert, here is a chance to know what I’m looking for and know what I’m talking about..

In the #7 spot, I like this article simply because it’s arming me with some more solid info, that in the long run will help me, even if I’m not the one doing any of the work. It’s titled, How to Leverage Web 2.0 & Social Media Sites to Market Your Brand & Control Your Message has over 30 sites for you to check out on social media marketing tactics.

In the #8 spot we have 11 Marketing, which I, the business owner, might click through some and check out, it sort of talks the talk at least. In spots 9 and 10, we have blog posts from Mashable and Peter Kim and thats it.

So the results were spotty at best and if we adhere to “people only search the first page” theory, we’re done; and we have maybe 3-4 “leads” to pursue. Interesting.

Onto our last search and then some conclusions.

Wow… the results for “social media consultants” are 9 blog post results dissing anyone who calls themselves a social media consultant, and one search result for Dan Zarrella who actually is a social media consultant!

The conclusion? If you are in the social media space, then what you hear (and read apparently) are a lot of people complaining about other people calling themselves social media experts and consultants. The truth is, they(the experts and consultants that is) must be just telling themselves and anyone else who is willing to listen. Fact is, not too many are actually doing a very good job at marketing themselves and their companies and what they do, to the masses. Or maybe they just don’t understand the importance od SEO?

Either way-by the looks of the search results, if you are looking for a social media expert, social media consultant, or social media company, or social media marketing company, good luck weeding through all the people that are pissed about the people who are claiming to be one of those. Sour grapes? Perhaps, but what it looks like is that not only does the cobbler not make shoes for his own children but his competition spends more time watching him, than they do doing their own job!

What should the definition of social media be for the layperson?

Posted on May 12, 2009 by marc meyer

Last week, I was at another baseball game, I go to a lot of them, and someone asked me what I did. In this situation a couple of things have to happen very quickly. The first of which is that I have to size up the person I am talking with. Can I give them the high level deep answer or do I give them the “lite” version?

For example, my 75 year aunt gets the, “I’m in computers” answer… which she then yells to my 82 year old uncle, “He’s in computers”…That’s the “lite” version.

If I have someone who I think might understand what I do, I then have to decide how “deep” do I go then? Do I go the route of the, “I work with the internet, internet marketing, online marketing, marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, social media consulting, branding?”

If I do go that route.

What will best describe what I do to the layperson, who may actually “get it”, so that I don’t get the following question: So you’re a webmaster?

I digress. So last week I’m talking to this person in the stands and I decide to go for it. She’s a lawyer, she’s smart, knows her stuff. Who knows? Right? I tell her about my company and how we are all about search and social media and marketing, and how awesome social media is and continues to be etc. etc. and I decide to try and give her a suitable yet understandable definition of social media. I stumble a bit but think I’ve done a pretty good job and she looks at me and says…

So you’re a webmaster?

What is YOUR lay-person definition of what social media is? Help me out.

10 reasons why the Unpanel worked.

Posted on April 1, 2009 by marc meyer

Beth Harte recently asked if I would write a guest post on her blog and this is the post that she’s getting based on yesterdays first Twitter based Unpanel

So Tuesday was the first official Unpanel event on Twitter. A one hour, once a week, no holds barred, fast paced moderated twitchat. Or to quote Jason Breed, one of the founders, “an Unpanel is a purposeful interaction with individuals around their industry or business on Twitter….”

This Unpanel was significant on a few levels and I want to highlight ten reasons why you might want to make a point of blocking off the time each week to participate in a truly engaging and elevated conversation about social media.

1. We had a moderator that absolutely drew out of the 100, yes that’s right, 100 participants, more than just the cursory “social media is all about transparency” comments. Did I mention that Beth Harte was the moderator? We could not have had a better “first” moderator/host.

2. Pre-set questions; but not your normal “what is social media” questions. Below are those questions..

Q1: Where are the deficiencies in business around People, Interactions & Technology? In other words, where does social media make sense in a business setting when addressing those deficiencies?

Q2: Play the “What if” game. Addressing the above deficiencies, remove all barriers and let the imagination roll. (For example, what if CRM systems were filled up by buyers not salespeople) Use the “In a perfect world” scenario when plugging in a social media solution. What does that world look like?

Q3: Combine the identified needs in business with the “imagine if” comments and let’s create a high-level road map

3. Incredible discussion. Powerful give and take. Amazing connection with people on social media issues that we can all relate to that get beyond the echo.
4. A discussion on Twitter with actionable takeaways.
5. Value. I harp all the time on the value of a tweet or the value of a persons tweets, and in the span of one hour, there was more value in what was being said than what might be gleaned from a week of following a so called social media expert..
6. The website Hashtagsocialmedia, provided a forum to follow the tweets right on the site. It also provided Beth’s tweets on the side panel so that we could see Beth’s insights and followup questions. Key and critical to pushing the discussion to a higher level.
7. People worth following AFTER you’ve had conversations with them, Not before and not based on who they are following, I cannot tell you how many times I said during the Unpanel, “Wow what a great point”…
8. As awesome as Beth was, the Unpanel will have a different moderator/host with a different perspective every week and thats an important aspect. They don’t have to be rock stars to bring value to the discussion.
9. A compilation in one place, of potentially the best minds in social media, that SOME people might not know. And we’re able to talk with them. Only through the power social media is this possible. How cool is that?
10. It’s going to get better as more people participate

The Unpanel is a very atypical event and that was a good thing, so maybe it should be that it was “un-typical?”. I dunno. Huge shout out btw, to Beth Harte, Jason Breed and Terry McKyton

Social Media best practices. Part 1.

Posted on March 16, 2009 by marc meyer

Awhile back, Ari Herzog who writes a wonderful blog over at AriWriter.com asked me to do a guest post on his blog for a series he’s doing on social media best practices. Rather than give him the usual written 500 words on the 7 things, 5 tips, or 4 factors that you absolutely must do in social media, I decided to mail it in and do a 3 part V-log instead. I hope he doesn’t mind! I’d also be curious as to what you might think of my 2 assertions here as well.