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This week for our Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing Video, I'm discussing some Twitter Tool that you can integrate into your strategy to get a better handle on what's happening with all those URL's you are tweeting out.
Full Twitter Tips Video Transcript after the jump....
Earlier this afternoon I was getting a little disheartened by some .... pardon the expression,.... lame ass marketers touting that everyone needs a Blog .. type promoting social media marketing. You know the type, they think they know social media because they have a blog and a twitter account. A friend of mine asked me to check out some links from some webinars that .. well frankly, some schmuck put together who thinks social media is about links from a blog directory. Pardon my candidness - but schmuck is about the best way to describe who presented the information.
For the record, like my respected pal Mike Grehan, I hate the term Social Media ... there's got to be a better term to explain this form of conversation/promotion/marketing.
With that all said, I set off then this evening to find a shredder. Yes, something as plain Jane and utilitarian as a shredder. See I got new checks, but the bank made an error and put the wrong number in the account area - so they sent me the correct ones. I also have a bunch of CDs I need to shred. Thus started my quest.
I went to Twitter and asked:
Low and behold a local pal Shawn Collins of Afflilate Summit tweeted me back:
Of course I thanked him!
But .... me being me not only did I watch his review:
I did a search.
Look closely at what I have highlighted in red boxes (click image for larger view), it's all Shawn. Shawn's review ranks highly from the website I visited, not only that his YouTube VIDEO ranks highly. Followed by the OfficeDepot.com listing (highlighted by blue box). Funny thing - Shawn's link links right to the Office Depot product.
Now, If I wasn't such an in-depth internet user that I am, and as loyal to Staple as I am, I wouldn't have done a search on the Ativa™ DQ120D Diamond-Cut Shredder in Google to find alternate sources for this product. However neither Staples nor Amazon carry this product.
Point is, I trust Shawn - he's one of my followers on Twitter who actually holds conversations, I've met him in person, and he even runs a respected conference called Affiliate Summit. He's got authority in my book, a trusted authority. Add to the fact that he's ranking in Google for all this, I'm buying the Ativa™ DQ120D Diamond-Cut Shredder from Office Depot.
That's not just the power of Twitter, it's the power of a blog post review and video sharing - Social Media Marketing (by an Affiliate Marketer) in action.
As Director of Social Media for Serengeti
Communications, I'm really excited about announcing this contest that we're holding through our Take it InHouse brand. The contest is really simple and you have the opportunity to join us for a private dinner with Charlene Li in San Jose during Search Engine Strategies this year. Charlene Li is Thursday's keynote speaker and she's also co-author of the awesome book Groundswell.
We're giving away 2 seats to the dinner and here's how you can win.
Take it InHouse is looking for two companies who manage the most vendors to help them get their online marketing strategies accomplished.
The two companies with the most vendors will be our winners. If there are several companies who have the same number, we’ll put them into a fishbowl and have a drawing. We’ll be announcing the winners on Friday August 7th, so spread the word! If you are coming to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies or even live in the area and run your business from around San Jose, let us know about how you manage your online marketing strategies!
Complete Disclosure* - I'm an AVID Zapos fan.
I love Zappos.
But I'm afraid!
Zappos has such an open embrace of social media, I point to them time and time again to clients as to how they should model their interaction in social media with their customer after. If you are looking for someone to model how you deal with a community with - its' Zappos.
I've read their culture book which i got at Pubcon 2008. I have read article after article after Tony Hsieh, one of the most recent coming this past May there was this article about him, it really made me think! It made me love Zappos even more. I changed my shopping habits for shoes to go there first, that's how much I have come to respect Zappos.
Last week, Amazon bought Zappos. I found myself a little saddened. Much like this whole Yahoo / Microsoft deal. I feel like this little... awesome ... company who truly understands the use of social media is being swallowed up into a larger entity who has no clue about social media. These huge companies see social media not as a way to engage customer like Zapos does, but more as another place to drive traffic from.
Amazon's team is really noted for watching that "buy" button. They have an entire team dedicated to watching how you, me and anyone else interacts with the "buy now" button. What's sad is that they dont' really see what happens several times before someone hits that buy button.... or what happens AFTER!
Zappos worked hard on their "unboxing" promotion.. pushing it hard at this past year's SxsW conference in Austin, TX. Add that into their contest for winning a trip to Las Vegas and their headquarters which was won by a Philly local - Gloria Bell of Red Stapler Consulting - they were doing some pretty awesome social media initiatives.
Unfortunately I've become a bit concerned, mostly because already there's a small sign of the corporation taking over. Just like any other startup that's been bought buy a huge company, I'm afraid Zappos is going to loose their customer centric focus and loose what makes them fun because now they have to deal with the big corporation "machine".
No where do I see on their site's main page, any information about their merger with Amazon. Zappos has always been very open and upfront about this kind of stuff in the past. However now, I'm relegated to blog post and news pieces about the acquisition via a search on Google. No Where .... nada... is there information on Zappos.com information about this merger. For a company dedicated to customer service.. this is just really surprising.
For a company that's so upfront about what's going on, Zappos.com not having a big link graphic about the acquisition on their main page leading to the blog post about and how it will affect customers (it likely won't, but still reassure the folks not on twitter or gettin emails from Zappos employees!) is a big worry for me. There's nothing... not a small blurb, not a big graphic... nothing on the main page. Take a look at the screen shot below.
Dear Zappos ... I love your company, I love your philosophy for customer service.... please for the love of social media, search, and all of your current customers online - please post something easily accessible about this Amazon acquisition prominently on your website not just on your blog! Perhaps post something on your front page linking to that blog post? At least give us some hope you won't loose what makes you some fun to deal with!
*More Disclosure - I'm on a social media panel with Brian Kalma of Zappos at SES San Jose in August.
This week's online marketing tips video is all about online reputation management in social media and search marketing. It's a little different look beyond just monitoring with Google alerts and buzz monitoring tools (the first tip). Buy building relationships and loosing your grip, these tips can also help you with your reputation online.
Reputation Management Online Tips Video Transcript after the jump....
Continue reading "Online Marketing Tips Video: Online Reputation Management" »
This week's Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing video is all about how to be social in social media, especially if you are a company. These days it takes a lot more than just having a Twitter account or a Facebook page to be successful in social media! In this short educational video, there's 3 quick tips that companies can use to integrate into their social media strategies and be more social with a lot more success.
Full Being Social in Social Media Video Transcript after the jump ...
Continue reading "Online Marketing Tips Video: Being Social in Social Media" »
Finally I'm back with our Tuesday's Tips in Online Marketing!
Today I decided to focus on Community Building in Social Media. It's under 3 minutes, quick and to the point about 3 tips for helping to build the community around your blog, forum, or even networking group like those on Facebook or LinkedIn. Enjoy!
Continue reading "Online Marketing Tips Video: Community Building" »
Let's face it, no one likes to hear "bad" things about themselves. It's never more true when you have a corporate PR or Marketing department who's only job is to "spin". But negative thoughts, comments and situations are a given whenever a company enters into the public spectrum. There is always a detractor somewhere. This is why companies who are entering into the social media space really need to be prepared to accept the love as well as the "non-love" with their brand, products or services.
So with a little inspiration from the group on Sunday night's #blogchat group and from Debra Mastaler (who I've personally called the Link Goddess) I present some ways for companies to get over the "ouch" of starting a blog.
I'm sure there's other tips out there for dealing with the "ouch" syndrome, do you have something that worked for you? Would love to hear about it!
To kick off the work week Twitter was all abuzz with news that Pizza Hut wanted to hire a summer intern to man their Twitter account. The story even made the New York Times. I really don't know what made me roll my eyes more, that the NY Times gave this obvious PR Stunt credibility or that the Vice President for marketing communications at Pizza Hut (Bob Kraut), actually stated "The successful applicant will speak fluent OMG and LOL and correctly use the terms DM (direct message), RT (retweet) and # (hashtag)." to make himself sound cool and hip.
For the record, if you tweeted DM it wouldn't work on Twitter, it's "D" for direct message, let alone they left out knowing how to reply to twitterers with the "@" symbol.
Tom Martin, who writes at Positive Disruption asked if this "Twiternship" was Ethical, its a very interesting look at the situation and a very thought provoking piece if you into marketing, PR and social media. It kept me coming back to even more questions, beyond asking if this was just a PR Stunt to draw people away from the Domino's video fiasco.
Pizza Hut is not just a national brand, but an international one. Twitter isn't just a U.S. based tool, its a world wide tool. Now, stop and think. Would any company be crazy enough to let an intern who doesn't know the inner workings of their global brand (carefully crafted messaging they've spent millions on) plan, prepare, run and speak at an international press event that launches your brand on an international stage?
Continue reading "A Pizza Hut PR Stunt Or a Social Media Blunder Waiting to Happen?" »
Lets face it, Social Media can be pretty tough sell to the senior management or to clients who have just gotten their arms around the whole "SEO and PPC thing". Trying to force them into putting social media into a marketing plan can be a pretty tough sell if you are just looking at it from a dollars and cents perspective, or even a links & search engine results perspective. The toughest thing with social media is that its rough on seeing the immediate return - except when it's 'bad'.
I use the term "bad" loosely as it could be PR-wise, bad because something went viral and the traffic took down your server to you couldn't sell anything, or bad because it just doesn't seem to be working. There can be a thousand other references to "bad" and when things seem to go down hill with online marketing efforts in social media, "bad" is usually how it ends up being described.
This is why agencies or companies need a person or a department that is their social media champion. Social media is a vital part of marketing as a whole, not just online or offline. It's not something that can be attempted lightly, without resources being attributed to it, otherwise it will end up "bad".
These are just a few of the reasons that if you don't have a social media champion on your team you should consider getting one:
This person can become your voice and constant presence in the social media sites where your audience is holding conversations about you, your products, your brands or even just your industry. This person (or even a team) can become a trusted resource for your audience to come to whether they are seeking out advice on how to use something, letting you know about a problem or giving you advice on how to improve your products.
If your social media champion isn't out there participating, how will you know what's really being said about your company. How will you know if your target audience is really being reached and the messaging you so carefully crafted is getting through. Without those eyes and ears who are trained not only to understand your company in and out, but to listen to your customers and understand what they are saying, you'll totally be in the dark.
Who better than someone dedicated to being your voice, who understands how the social media site work can help you navigate and put in place reasonable, understandable measurements so that you know if things really are "bad", than a Social Media champion. This person, or team, will understand better than your Public Relations, IT or even your search marketing team, what can reasonably be measured.
By understanding the in's and out's of the social media sites, and by understanding exactly how your audience is communicating, the Social Media champion can get a much better handle on those conversations that are taking place. They can also understand what those measurements you set in place, mean, in relation to what's going on in those particular social circles. It's one thing to have numbers, its another to have realistic data.... and then it's whole other ball game to but context and understanding behind those numbers. That's what a social media champion can do.
This is another "Lets face it" situation here, HR is not going to really understand the damage a Facebook update can do, so allowing them to alone make the policies in this area isn't a smart move. Sometimes neither can a CEO or a CMO, understand the true impact of just 1 "tweet" can be. This is where a social media champion can really help you out beyond the marketing focus.
By understanding the impact a tweet, update or post in a forum has upon an audience about your company's perception, it can behoove companies to have the Social Media champion squarely involved in helping to develop social media policies for employees who are not directly involved in the companies social media efforts. This can help cover things that employees should be aware of, like their own personal blogs, twitter accounts or even Facebook & MySpace profiles.
Lastly, but not finally (there's always more to come with social media!), your social media champion can promote social media throughout your company. You may be wondering why you want someone to do this, who cares if the janitor has a Facebook page, right? Well you should!
Most likely that janitor has put down that he works for your company. He's got photos out there, updates, applications and everything else that a person who isn't technical, puts on their profile. That janitor has friends, and his friends know he works for you. He can have an impact on how your company is perceived in the social media sphere he participates in. A social media champion who realizes everyone in your company has a stake in social media, can relate to each employee what their individual stake is. Most employees want to do their part and help their employer, the social media champion can help make that happen
So have you thought about this some more? Still on the fence about dedicating resources directly to social media? Stop and think about how hard it's been trying to pull a social media marketing effort together currently with all different departments pulling at you. That should be enough to let you know its time to assign one person (or team) to be solely at the helm of the efforts to make them a success!
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