Dave Sloan, President of CATA finds the powerful impact of social media energizing.  Dave laughs at the recollection of some “experts” who said social media would kill major events and conferences because of the online availability of the content.  But the opposite turned out to be true.  Social Media has helped dramatically increase interest and attendance at the Auto Show.

This year will be the best Chicago Auto Show ever and we’re excited to see all the new interest and participation that will come from the most comprehensive social media PR plan.   I hope to see you at the Show!

I was sitting next to a woman and her phone rang and before the chime could make it to the second ring, the woman behind us scolded her and told her to turn off her phone.  When another woman spoke quietly to her friend in another seat, the Hominid behind me leaped again and asked her forcefully to be quiet.  I’ve seen this behavior a few times.

I’m all for quiet in quiet cars but we need some forgiveness for people who aren’t purposely violating the rules.  Minor infractions are almost always accidents but some hominids cherish their opportunity to exhibit control.  What does this have to do with marketing?   I believe this same species has been criticizing others in social networks for years.   There’s also the TMI gang (too much information) we have to suffer with.  Bawdy displays of too-much-information on Facebook has spoiled more than one candidate’s chance for an interview.

Let’s be civil and civilized.  Life’s more fun that way.

With all the changes made to search algorithms recently, the beliefs of the past cannot be relied upon for success.  Facebook and Twitter are excellent channels to connect with new and existing customers, where companies can develop a deeper, more profitable relationship.  A peek at GE Appliance’s Facebook page reveals a contest where you can use a creative tool to design pictures of the socks you’ve lost in your dryer.  The winner gets a new GE washer and dryer.  Google is using it’s Facebook page to introduce a new tool called Map Maker for the United States.  Many companies are using Facebook intelligently, like GE and Google, distributing contests, new products and other content that will grow their customer base and increase involvement with their brands. However, Facebook doesn’t show up in the top SERPs for either GE or Google when I search their brand names.

I recommend companies use marketing resources to promote their Facebook and Twitter search results, especially if they’re using them intelligently.  The cost to improve the search visibility of your corporate Facebook or Twitter page, in most cases, is much smaller than the investment required for most other marketing disciplines.  Truthfully, social media budgets aren’t getting anywhere near the same budgets as advertising, PR, direct marketing or events.  Why not?  It has the potential to deliver better ROI, economies of scale and customer acquisition.  Re-balance your media mix and invest in the value of your digital community.

Do you agree?

1. Start with your own employees. In an information vacuum, employees will make up their own rules so make sure they know what’s appropriate and what’s not. Lay a positive foundation by providing social media guidelines for your employees. Always start with your legal team to review your corporate non-compete and Intellectual Property policies. The legal team can help with trademark and domain questions that often arise. You don’t want anyone tweeting about a new product prematurely. You want the legal team involved early to help inspire social programs that encourage employee participation within the rules of your existing communication policies.

2. Next, consider your best customers. Focus on your primary marketing objective, and include them in your social networking. They’ll be flattered and contribute great insight. Define your social communications program as an extension of your business strategy. Give customers a chance to respond to new ideas. Content that is relevant to your best customers is also relevant to prospective customers. Apply this discipline and I guarantee it will shape your program with intelligent rigor.

3. Monitor other social media sites that are relevant to your business. There are great tools to follow company names and keywords to help you stay in front of opportunities. These will help you stay relevant and help you contribute to the quality of the conversation.

4. Develop a crisis strategy in advance and anticipate eventualities and how you will respond. Time is of the essence in social media and your response time will determine your ability to successfully participate in the conversation.

5. Build measurement tools into back-links so you capture the data that will help you determine success or failure. There are powerful link strategies that allow you to gather data beyond “follows” and “friends”. Even if your measurement goals are more perceptual than quantitative, you need to establish goals. Unless you have your eye on a target, you’ll never know whether social media is contributing to your business.

By applying these marketing disciplines to social media, you’ll bring more credibility, accountability and innovation to your marketing and Public Relations plan.

While social media dominates the conversation among marketing executives, most companies are very slow to adopt it. The unrestrained nature of the medium makes a lot of executives nervous. The fact is that social media is a global phenomenon because it has penetrated our daily lives faster than any other mechanism in history. Four out of five US online adults now participate in social media (Forrester). Social networking penetration climbed from 58% of Internet users in 2008 to 86% in 2009 and 80% of female Internet users said they had become a fan of a product or brand on a social network (SheSpeaks).

Given these surprising adoption statistics, I’m perplexed about the lack of investment, trials and cases proving social media ROI. It’s time we brought social media more credibility. Like every other media, there needs to discipline around the strategy, technology, process and measurement of social media. Of course there are companies that are testing social media strategies, but it seems like everyone is throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. People are tweeting from conferences and events, ads are populating Facebook and YouTube and spam is sloshing around forums and chat rooms like beer at a tweet-up.

Anyone with a Twitter handle gets instant credibility. It’s time we increased the discipline and strategic planning around social media and give it the same respect we do every other marketing channel.

Companies should utilize traditional strategic mapping and channel mix analysis with their social media programs in the same way they apply these discipline to other channels. Discipline forces consideration of return-on-investment and leads to better integration with the other channels. This “Social Media Mapping” will result in better results, which will fuel further investment in this underserved medium.

Here are six points to help you map a more effective social media marketing experience:

1. Always start with your legal team to review your corporate non-compete and IP policies. They can help with trademark and domain questions that often arise. You want this team involved early to help inspire marketing programs that follow FTC guidelines and your own policies.

2. Focus on your primary marketing objective, including strategy, tactics and measurement for any social program. Apply these disciplines and I guarantee it will shape your program with intelligent rigor.

3. Lay a positive foundation by providing social media guidelines for your employees. In the absence of leadership, your employees will make up their own rules. Get in front of it and guide their participation (especially if you plan on launching a social media marketing program)

4. Monitor other social media sites that are relevant to your business. There are great tools to follow company names and keywords to help you stay in front of opportunities.

5. Develop a crisis strategy in advance and anticipate eventualities and how you will respond. Time is of the essence in social media and your response time will determine your ability to successfully participate in the conversation.

6. Build measurement tools into links so you capture the data that will determine success or failure. There are powerful link strategies that allow you to gather data beyond “follows” and “friends”.

By applying these traditional marketing disciplines to social media, we’ll bring more credibility, accountability and innovation to marketing.

So in deciding if @1KrazyKorean is a Twitterite whose tweets I wish to follow, I use this checklist:

1. Are tweets relevant to my objectives? For example, do they give me info related to my professional and/or personal interests? Do they make me laugh? Introduce me to new bands?

2. Could the follower be a prospective client or referral source at some point? Or heck, a friend?

3. How frequently does he/she tweet?

4. What’s the balance of tweets, vis a vis first tweets or replies?

Unfortunately, @1KrazyKorean didn’t fit my objectives, so I took a pass. It’s important to note, that if you decide not to follow, that follower might ultimately decide to stop following you. There are Twitter apps that make it easy to do so. But if a follower just doesn’t fit into your objectives, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

That said, if you are a consumer goods company planning a major new roll-out you would have a different objective, one that would be likely be focused on getting as large an audience as possible. If that’s the case, then follow ‘em all (oh, and email me).

Out for now.
Josh

Anyone on Twitter gets a steady stream of new followers. The question is: do you reciprocate and follow them all? Or do you look at the profile, activity levels and types of posts?

For example, I was just notified I’m being followed by @1KrazyKorean whose philosophy of life is “Lifes Short: So Poop Alot =)”.

Typos aside (he is krazy after all) should I follow back?

First, you need to determine your objective(s) in following tweets. My objective in following is two-fold:

1. Professionally, I want to build relationships and interactions with current and prospective clients, while constantly seeking out new information that makes me better at my job.

2. Personally, I love to share and learn about photography, humor, politics and alternative country music.

As it relates to my profession, I want to follow all things related to SEO, social networks, PR, advertising and video seeding. For many of my clients, I also want to stay on top of developments and trends in the financial and commodity markets, futures, options and technology.

That’s part I, part II to follow.

Dazzled by our prose? Email us.
Josh

The real estate bubble popped in 2008/2009. The bubble that’s replacing it is the Who Has the Scariest View of Our Future Bubble. Let’s hope it pops soon, as well.

There are no doubt ugly days ahead, but it seems as though commentators are competing to see who can provide the most negative of viewpoints. Perhaps some are overcompensating for missing the signals that led to our current situation. Perhaps going negative is perceived as risk-free. If you’re wrong, that means everybody’s doing better; if you’re right, well, you were right (oh, and everbody’s doing bad).
What does this say about the risks involved when great marketing campaigns create our own little bubbles? Is there a way to prevent this?

We will follow future developments on this site and its success in this different channel.