A Consultant's Chronicles

HELP! My Business Page Has Been "Timelined"

Today is the first business day where like it or not all businesses have had their page converted to Facebook's timeline format. The question then becomes, how can you maximize these changes to benefit your business? Rather than rehash it all, I am going to refer you to the folks at Hubspot because they provide an excellent  "cheat sheet" for dealing with this.

To give you some idea of what you will find, I have provided a quick peek at the main points here in outline form.

1. Set a new cover photo [the banner sized photo] bearing in mind that Facebook prohibits certain features that are sometimes found on websites like pricing, contact information ,references to any Facebook features/actions, or any calls to action
2. Set your new profile picture [a nice spot for your logo]
3. Next, time to organize views & apps
4. Now star, hide, highlight, pin items on pages
5. Enable messages to communicate  with your fans privately
6. Offset  & feature milestones & major accomplishments for the business

That's just the overview. If I were to offer one single guiding piece of advice, I'd say that the timeline format is much more akin to website design so don't be afraid to use it accordingly  & with every bit of the same creativity within the limitations set by the company. Here are some examples to help you to unleash your own timeline creativity.

Is Your Business Ready For Social Media: It's Ready For You

Recently I was working with a very promising, & innovative health- care startup so when asked if they had their social media plan in place & active now that they have gone "live," I was surprised by their answer-not yet. To their credit, they were aware that it was something that they had to do, but it was earmarked as a project for "next year." I told them while they may not be ready for social media; it's ready for them. If people are saying good things about their product, they want them amplified but more importantly, if some unforeseen problem arises, it will give them a chance to join the conversation, fix the problem, & avert the potential effect of a spear through a major organ in the company's young life.

The Mechanics Of Old Media & New Media Are Different

While these folks are aware of social media, they don't quite comprehend its mechanics because they are still applying the kind of thinking attached to "old media." More specifically, in old media [a.k.a. intrusive media] you purchase your platform "or eyes" in the form of TV commercials, magazine ads as well as other traditional outlets [email campaigns, trade shows & the like]. Also you are blasting your ads to everyone instead of surgically targeting your desired demographic-those people most likely to be converted to paying customers. However, in new media, in order to speak to your desired demographic at all, you have to first build & nurture relationships so that you have an audience to speak to when you have something to say. Also, because it's your target audience, you are more likely to convert people to leads & from leads into real customers. While the critical point of needing to engage & build relationships seemed lost on this young company, don't allow it to be lost on you. Even if your business is in its early stages, start reaching out now. How?

Edsel-Style Marketing When You Are Selling A Prius

The easiest way is to demonstrate your expertise in your area by helping others with their problems for free. For example, if your company will be selling widgets for dog training, perhaps you can begin by creating a blog offering dog training tips to new owners or answering dog training questions that appear in the “twitterverse” [once you have begun finding & building relationships with those folks who own dogs]. This is all stuff you can do even before your widgets are in the market. However, once they become available, you now have a starting base of potentially interested customers, which will be growing exponentially as you continue to reach out & dialogue with those dog lovers. The idea is to draw them to you instead of trying to impose yourself on them. Essentially, you don't want to be stuck using a strategy suited for marketing an Edsel when you are trying to sell a Prius.

 

5 Business Takeaways From The Weiner Scandal

While the media seems to be nothing short of possessed by Congressman Anthony Weiner's [D-NY] digital indiscretions on Twitter in these last 10 days, I actually think that there is a teachable moment here for people in politics & business alike because we see powerful people [typically men] getting embroiled in sexual peccadilloes on a regular basis these days. What can people in business learn from this latest scandal when it comes to navigating the rocks & shoals of social media?

Five Social Media Business Takeaways From The Weiner Scandal

1. Twitter can help to create & build a business or personal brand but it can
   just as easily destroy it if not used prudently
2. Twitter can be a fantastic PR tool when used correctly BUT remember:
   once something is asserted on twitter, you cannot obfuscate, dissemble,
   or even become suddenly silent when asked a straightforward question [is that a picture of you]
3. The cover-up is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS worse than the original
   "crime" or action. Trying to hide the truth speaks to [a lack of] trust,
   integrity and leadership. We are all flawed so people will forgive human
   failings because there is no such thing as a perfect person but are also less inclined to do so when they you lie about them
   
4. Privacy as we used to know it has gone the way of the horse & buggy.  Now the best the average person can expect is the illusion of privacy but there is absolutely ZERO privacy if you are a public person who is accountable to the people for your job. To that end, one could easily argue that Weiner wanted to be caught. Be that as it may, there will always be people watching you; people who are not only just waiting for you to fail [or to otherwise make a fool out of yourself] but also waiting to share your failure with everyone all over the internet. Do not make their jobs any easier by doing it yourself. Remember, once something is on Google, it is there for perpetuity
5. When tweeting for business, it is NOT the place for satire or dark humor
   although in Weiner's case, his name makes it almost inescapable because part of what has been feeding the media is the copy-rich double entendre which makes for attention-grabbing headlines. Nonetheless, humor can easily backfire & can therefore create awkward spin. Remember that something is funny only when people are laughing with you, not at you
   

Never Put It In A Picture

These points are perhaps best summarized by an odd pair of political bedfellows, Martin Lomnasney & former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer who was caught in his own sexual escapades.  Nomnasney, a state senator & political Boston ward boss from an earlier era said, “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” Spitzer then added a critical addendum “never put it in email.” My guess is that Weiner's postscript would be "never put it in a picture & post it!" Or as I said in a previous post, "social media giveth & it taketh away!"

 

Does Your Business Need A Social Media Policy

Back during the 90's when Bill Clinton was president, in one of the commencement speeches he gave, he told the graduating class the following: "some of you will have jobs we haven't imagined yet." Truer words have never been spoken because at this point IF Google was around, it was in its nascent stages & Mark Zuckerberg was just another kid who hoped to go to Harvard some day. The internet was still young & new so no one was talking about web 2.0 yet. It wasn't until 2004 that a new layer of the web known as the blogosphere started to flex its muscle trying to get Howard Dean nominated  [instead of John Kerry] to run against George W. Bush. While Dean's troops were not successful, a whole new medium was born in earnest with sites like Facebook &Twitter on its heels with much more to follow. Now even if you are not digitally fluent, you know there is important information to be acquired through this new medium. It's an easy way to keep up with family & friends or to interact with business in a whole new way.

Social Media: Now An International Force To Be Reckoned With

Even stodgy politicians across the globe have come to recognize that sites like Facebook & Twitter are forces to be reckoned with; the uprising in Cairo is just the latest example. Now that everyone is literally "twiddling their thumbs" on their mobile phones, it's increasingly more important to have a social media policy in your employee handbook. In fact sometimes fiction & reality go hand in hand so just to prove a point, one of the central themes in a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy was whether or not "tweeting" about the surgery underway should be permitted in the operating room. The chief of staff's concern of course was liability n the event that surgery was not a success.

What Topics Might Be Covered In This Policy

I have been thinking about this topic for a while now but I have to give credit where credit is due to author Karen Klein for "inking it" first. So what might be covered in this particular policy? The list could be long & would undoubtedly vary from company to company but here are just a few topics to contemplate:

•  Privacy issues-theirs & the company's
•  Posting on the job [about non-business related issues] or checking personal social media sites
•  Creating posts that have some direct effect on individuals in the company or that may have an effect on the company's brand, products, or other in-house issues
• Revealing proprietary practices of your employer either directly or indirectly
• Misrepresenting the views of a company
• Writing anything that reflects poorly on company or brand that may lead to a loss in revenue 

No Cost-benefit Analysis Required

I could continue but it should be apparent that there is no need to do a cost-benefit analysis to see that for most any company, NOT having a social media policy which would serve as protection for both the employer & the employee alike is a potentially expensive risk that is simply not worth taking.

 

Line of the Week 7-04-2010

This week's line of the week belongs to New York Times tech columnist David  Pogue. Noting that in his role as a public speaker he has found that only a mere quarter of his audience generally knows about social media especially sites like Facebook & Twitter. Noting that they kind of "snuck up on us," he realistically wondered how would people know because:

"...The government never mailed fliers to every household explaining what it’s all about..."

After all, our population is not comprised of 95% of people under the age of 25! The whole notion motivated him to write a social media primer article called: For Those Facebook Left Behind. For those of us who are digitally fluent, it's hard to believe that people aren't aware of these social media sites but then not everyone lives in techno-meccas like NY & CA. More likely than not if you are reading this blog post, the article isn't exactly required reading for you but possibly for someone you know & love; It's a very handy article & an excellent place to start.

 

How to Blog For Business: A Recipe For A Business Blog

As many of you know, I've been blogging for a while now but much to my surprise many clients & even some friends are still resistant to using blogging as a marketing tool for their business. For some it's due to a lack of understanding of how to use social media for marketing, for others, it's time, & for a few, it's just plain old fear of the unknown. It's for all of these reasons that when I found the following "recipe" for a business blog on one of my favorite marketing sites written by the folks at Hubspot, I thought sharing it would help relieve some of the concerns cited above.

How to Bake a Delicious, Content-Filled Blog 

INGREDIENTS

1 blogger (preferably someone passionate about content production)
1 RSS reader  (set up and containing blogs related to your industry)
1 URL  (with Typepad or Blogspot accounts removed and discarded)
Blog Analytics, installed
2 cups Social Media
1 cup SEO
1 Image, iconic and captivating
Blog Post Titles, Engaging
3-10 Meta Keywords, Researched
1 Meta Description containing 1 Keyword Phrase
Call-To-Action, Attractive and Mixed with a Compelling Offer
A whole lot of patience (don’t worry if you bake it, they will come)

Recipe For a Business Blog was reprinted with permission by the folks at Hubspot. For more information on this blog & the services at Hubspot go to http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5336/how-to-bake-a-blog-recipe-for-business-blogging-success.aspx

 

Social Media Marketing: It's Always The Little Things

In the last several months I have written a lot about marketing & social media. One of my absolute favorite examples of an effective marketing campaign [and therefore one I have written about before] through social media is the "Pink Glove Dance," a video starring the doctors, nurses, researchers, & allied personnel in a hospital in Portland, Oregon. Great stuff or so I thought. Until today I thought it was a marketing campaign for the hospital. In reality, it was a marketing campaign for Medline Gloves & their launch of a new product line: pink gloves. Now all of this makes perfect sense with one critical exception, there's no clear mention of the Medline name anywhere. As a result, this has become a successful campaign for the hospital but I'm not so sure about Medline.

Medline: Marketing Success Or Failure

To be fair, their stated goal was to launch breast cancer awareness which this video does in a light-hearted & successful way. Furthermore, it is the kind of marketing where a soft touch is required. As a result, the hospital name is mentioned only twice and silently- at the very beginning & end, which of course would have been the perfect place for it to read something like "Medline Gloves with the assistance of Providence St Vincent Medical Center." Instead the viewer is left with the impression that this is a charitable & promotional video for the hospital alone because Medline is not mentioned in the title. To be completely accurate, they do focus on the Medline glove box in an early frame but the logo is too small to be noticed so the intended point of the shot is completely missed. In other words, while it may be a great breast cancer awareness video, as a tool to launch a product, in my view, it has failed miserably. The gloves look cute but do not necessarily look like a new product since I have seen colored gloves before. It was my assumption when I first saw the video that it was all a part of the "pinking of America" [in order to heighten breast cancer awareness]. Medline's role in this is lost completely, which is tragic because in every other way, it was brilliantly conceived & executed. Success or failure? See for yourself & tell me what you think? 

 

 

Using Social Media To Market Your Business

 

In an earlier post, I talked about intrusive vs. permission based marketing with the new trend focusing on permission-based marketing. The goal is to draw people to your site because they choose to be there instead of hassling them with cold calls, TV advertising, etc.  Permission based marketing is generally tied to information or something cool so people seek it out for themselves. While blogging is one way to initiate & join the larger conversation today there are other alternatives as well. This post will focus on using social media to promote your business.  Basically, your website is the central hub for introducing people to your business but it's just not enough by itself. Social media provides you with broader exposure in service of your website. It's important to note that this is not a "one-size-fits-all" method because some sites are more suited to some businesses than others. However, it's a great way to level the advertising playing field when competing with big budget companies for consumers.

Using Social Media To Build Relationships

By this time I don't think I need to say that Facebook & Twitter are among the hottest platforms so they represent golden opportunities to get the word out about your business and/or your product without spending anything other than your time. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is the 30-50 year old crowd reflecting a prime business target market. However, while those 2 sites are among the best known, they are just the tip of the iceberg. There are a slew of other free social media sites which will enable you to promote your business & it's products. Let me clarify something important here. These sites are NOT the place to give the "hard sell" for your business because as much as it hurts to hear it, no one cares about your business but you. Social media sites are places to introduce yourself, build relationships, establish credibility, & provide free information [always give before you get].  The time honored business adage that "people do business with those people that they know & trust" hasn't changed; the meeting ground has just been moved. This is something that simply cannot be emphasized enough." A great example of what's appropriate for these sites is a great clip put on YouTube by Medline & Providence St.Vincent Medical Center in order to promote breast cancer awareness. It contains everything a traditional PR/media pack would cover about the hospital expressed in an interesting & engaging way. You know what they say: "a picture is worth a thousand words!" It's also a great example of the newest trend in advertising: "social cause marketing." Today consumers are not only interested in the product but what the company stands for.

The Brass Tacks of Social Media Marketing

Not every site will suit every business. I have provided a picture below to give you a visual of the strategy I am talking about. The essential plan is designed to provide you with sales leads, which can in turn be nurtured into actual clients. Please note that I have used only a handful of social media sites for this basic graphic but there are many more out there so your company marketing wheel will very likely have more spokes.
   

 

    Social Media Marketing Wheel

To learn more about this strategy I would suggest reading just about anything written by Seth Godin or Guy Kuwasaki beginning with their blogs.
 

  

    
  

 

Is 'Privacy' Outdated Or Is It Just Your Privacy That's At Risk

Recently I read about an article concerning a very prominent figure on the tech scene today. It seems that after losing a legal battle where part of the settlement included that all court proceedings be published online, he balked because the paperwork included his parent's home address, his social security number, you know the kind of data most of us ordinary folk want to remain private. However, he lost & all that stuff had to be published anyway. Who was this person? I'm talking about Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook; the very same Mark Zuckerberg who according to a recent TechCrunch article said, "privacy is no longer a social norm." Whether this was meant [at least in part] as a kind of justification for why Facebook tried to restrict privacy controls as of December I can't say for certain. I have read other theories which haven't been sufficiently validated yet so I won't repeat them here Let me say that to be fair, Zuckerberg isn't the only one to talk about a move towards greater transparency on the web. Having said that, isn't it funny how people who maintain that privacy is outdated suddenly have a change of heart when it is their privacy on the line? Just askin'.

Line of the Week 12-06-09

This week's line of the week belongs to social media expert Dan Zarrella who in a webinar used his favorite line by gossip columnist Liz Smith to make a point about social media traffic. According to him, the kind of information most likely to go viral is news, that's all kinds of news, which is a critical piece of information when plotting a marketing strategy using social media. It's more potent than opinion or humor. About news he quoted Ms Smith as saying:

"...Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress..."

Ok, let me go on record as saying, I never thought of it quite that way!