Brave new world of social media marketing

Every day I’m reminded that we’re still figuring out this whole social media thing. I just ran the app on Facebook that calculates statistics about your friends “single vs. taken, Democrat vs. Republican”, and while I was waiting, they showed me this ad. I had to watch a countdown from 15 seconds before it went away.

We’ve got a lot to do.

::UPDATE:: I think I need to clarify my point here. There is so much more that could be done with this ad, with this space, to make it more interesting, useful and engaging, let alone more attractive.

Mobil 1 ad from Facebook

Convincing your boss of the value of social media

I’ll be speaking at the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer, held in Chicago on Oct. 21 and 22. They’ve got a great lineup of speakers, and I hear O’Hare is lovely this time of year. The early bird rate expires Oct. 2, and you can get an additional discount by using the code DMSPK09.

I’ll be on the panel for the “Positioning Your Company to Reap the Benefits of Social Media” interactive discussion. I’m glad it’s an interactive discussion. That means if someone asks a question that I have no idea how to answer, I can say, “So, let’s open that up to the audience. What do you think?”

Earlier this week, Claire Coyne from MarketingProfs asked me a question for their newsletter. I sent her my response by email. In other words, it’s a blog post that just needed to be ported over here. “A lesson to keep in mind about easy ways to write blog posts.” With Claire’s kind permission, I reprint it here. If you find it useful, there’s lots more where this came from in store for you at the event.

The first step in convincing your boss that social media is valuable for your company is to make it real for him or her. Remember what it felt like when you first signed up for Twitter? You created your account and saw “0 following, 0 followers, 0 tweets and you thought, “What now? For those of us who enjoy doing this stuff daily it’s easy to forget it can be confusing and daunting when you’re getting started.

Sit down with your boss and any other doubters in your organization and give them a focused, practical introduction on how you use social media. Break the monolithic concept of “social media down into manageable chunks and show them it’s possible to participate without becoming overwhelmed. And keep in mind that some of these social media terms can sound pretty silly to older, more traditional people in your company. Don’t baffle them with buzzwords “or worse, leave them laughing dismissively”.

Show them the blogs you follow and what useful business information you glean from them. Show them how you use your RSS reader to cut through the noise and present what you most need in an easily-digestible way.

Show them how you use Twitter “or better yet, tools like Tweetdeck” to mine valuable and timely information. Dispel the misconception that people are talking about lunch and show them the useful links, market information and competitive intelligence you get that’s targeted to your business.

Have you had an interaction that lead to a quantifiable business success? Capture it in a screen shot so they can see it right away: “This person asked a question, I answered it, it led to a sale “or positive mention of our company or valuable connection”.” If you haven’t had an interaction like that yourself, have one of your competitors?

If they doubt the value of social networks, show them how many people are sharing information on LinkedIn and Facebook that directly relates to your company. Every day, your customers and potential customers are posting information about their wants and needs, their plans and concerns and what’s keeping them up at night. This is the kind of information you used to pay to get from market researchers and focus groups, and now it’s freely and publicly offered, if you take the time to look for it.

Originally published on Conversations & Connections, my SAS social media blog

Developing your social media muscle

Jenny on the JobI wrote a lot of poetry in college. “Don’t worry, that was pre-web so I have no links to subject you to”. When I was doing it regularly, thoughts would come to me in poetic terms, or a snippet of conversation would spur an idea. The more I wrote, the more that happened.

My love of photography also began in college, and carried through to a job as a professional photographer for The Chapel Hill “N.C.” News “which nearly killed my love of photography, but that’s a different story”. The more photos I took, the more I saw things in photographic terms. My eyes sought out angles and patterns and juxtapositions and I would mentally compose the photo before I ever brought the camera to my eye.

The same principle holds true in social media. The more you participate, the easier it gets. I’ve been referring to it as “developing your social media muscle.”

Blogging isn’t always easy. Sometimes it’s downright difficult to come up with an idea worth sharing, find the time to write it, find a photo to illustrate the post and do all the little logistical things that go along with it.

But you know what? The more you do it, the easier it gets. That’s why bloggers like Chris Brogan and Wayne Sutton can be so prolific. They’ve developed their blog muscles. Thoughts and ideas come to them more often because they are receptive to them.

When I was blogging every day in the early 2000s, I nearly always had an idea I wanted to work up and one or two in the queue. And I’ve found that to be true in the last couple of weeks as I’ve tried to notch up my blogging to where it should be for someone with a job like mine. I have three ideas on a note stuck to my monitor.

It works for Twitter as well. The more you do it, the easier it is to digest ideas into 140 characters. When you see something that interests you, you’re more likely to think, “I should tweet this because other people might find it useful.”

The more you develop your social media muscle, the easier the heavy lifting becomes.

Originally published on Conversations & Connections, my SAS social media blog

I need to be more orange

orange lowrider

Ask me what my favorite color is and I’m going to say blue. Over the last decade, I’ve bought somewhere between 10 and 137 more-or-less-identical short-sleeved blue check shirts.

Every now and then, though, I buy something orange. I have a couple of orange shirts, a pair of awesome orange Saucony sneakers and a black leather jacket with a big orange stripe across the chest. Somehow in my mind, that’s the “cool” stuff that I only get to wear sometimes. Why only sometimes? I don’t know.

When I decided to resurrect and consolidate my blogs into this one, I found this WordPress theme, which I loved immediately. It just seemed natural to use the orange that was already in the theme for the logo. That got me thinking about the blue vs. orange dichotomy. And I realized I need to be more orange.

What do I mean by that? We’ll see. It’s still a vague notion but it revolves around the idea of being more present, more engaged, more active, more excited about what I’m doing, and hopefully, ultimately, more interesting.

I was listening to C.C. Chapman’s podcast the other day and he quoted Derek Sivers on his new philosophy:

Those of you who often over-commit or feel too scattered may appreciate a new philosophy I’m trying:

If I’m not saying “HELL YEAH! about something, then say no.

Meaning: When deciding whether to commit to something, if I feel anything less than, “Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah! – then my answer is no.

That’s a hell of a goal to work toward.

Photo by hexodus