Shannon's thoughts on marketing, public relations, social technology, entrepreneurship and other things

Necessity
Work?
I don't have to work.
I don't have to do nothing
but eat, drink, stay black, and die.
This little old furnished room's
so small I can't whip a cat
without getting fur in my mouth
and my landlady's so old
her features is all run together
and God knows she sure can overcharge-
Which is why I reckon I *does*
have to work after all.
--Langston Hughes
Montage of a Dream Deferred, 1951

As Langston wrote 60 years ago, there are very few "have to's" in life; however, in business there are a great number of "need to's."

You need to market your business.
You don't have to have a Facebook page (Gasp!).

You need to find your customers.
You don't have to have a Twitter account (Get out!).

You need to generate revenue.
You don't even have to have a website (Blasphemy!).

There are a number of "old school" marketing tactics you can employ for your business. None of them are better or worse than any other, all of them require different levels of commitment and resources and all have been successful in one form or another. It is a question of which one(s) will work for you, not which one(s) you have to do. 

Some "Old School" Marketing Tactics

• transportation advertising (signs on buses and at bus stops)
• posters, flyers and postcards
• radio, television and print advertising
• movie advertising
• newsletter and program advertising
• referral and word-of-mouth
• incentive programs
• sponsorships
• networking
• billboards
• promotional items
• tradeshow exhibitions

These are a few methods for getting your message out; however, the best marketing campaign is the one that works for you in meeting your business objective. Before you begin expending valuable marketing resources, consider the following:

What is the goal of my marketing campaign?
Do I want to generate revenue, increase brand awareness or intimidate my competitors?
What marketing tactics are my competitors using?
What are the direct (capital) and indirect (time) costs?
Who is going to manage the campaign?
How long will the campaign last or run?
How will I know if the campaign is working?
What do success and failure look like?
Is the campaign going to reach my target audience?

However you decide to market yourself, remember, the only silver bullets are time and consistency.

Social media marketing is more than setting up a blog, updating your Facebook status and tweeting your organization's latest news. Doing those few activities are only the beginning to truly delving into social marketing. The organizations that "get it," understand the key concept of listening. They listen to their customers...all of them.

• What are your customers saying about your brand and products?
• Where are your customers saying things, which sites, platforms and technologies are they using?
• What are your customers saying to each other about your services?
• How does what they are saying about your brand compare to what they are saying about your competitors' brands?

Posting, updating, tweeting and connecting is no different than robocalling, direct mailing or advertising if you aren't listening to what your customers are saying via Twitter, Facebook, blog comments, etc. Otherwise your organization is just pushing out information you think your customers want via different channels.

Social media marketing requires listening to your customers, responding, listening, responding, listening, responding and so on and so on. Does this process sound familiar? It is called a conversation. Yes, organizations must engage their customers in conversations; it is the essence of social media marketing. However, conversations are only the beginning of the process. The goal is to develop relationships with your customers as a way to solidify brand loyalty.

A few things to remember as you begin to have conversations with your customers:

A sub-par product is a sub-par product, regardless of how wonderful your blog is --> be prepared to receive the good, bad and ugly about your brand
Once you open the listening floodgates, you can't close them --> be prepared to manage the conversations
Social media probably won't be *the* marketing silver bullet for your product --> be prepared to integrate your traditional and social marketing tactics

Nugget of knowledge: Remember the three P's, plan for success, prepare for the unexpected and produce your best work.

Is your organization a good listener?
Does it have processes in place to hear and respond to your customers?

This is short, sweet and to the point, let's go:

1. Boost your SEO by spending the little bit of money required to purchase your domain --> once you have it, it's yours


2. Ask open-ended questions and request comments at the end of your blog post --> see the bottom of this post


3. Write about something other than your organization, your products and your services --> remember, it isn't always about you


4. Mix up your type of posts: long posts, shorter posts, lists, videos, interviews, audio, polls, photos, testimonials, reviews, etc. --> mixing the format keeps your readers interested


5. Have your blog posts go to your other online properties --> whether someone reads it on your Facebook page or goes to the URL, they're reading it


6. Bring in guest bloggers and be a guest blogger


7. Participate in other online and IRL social networks: Twitter chats, networking events, blog commemorative days, meetups and tweetups --> constantly work for new readers


8. Have your blog as part of your email signature, most services allow for hyperlinking --> easiest way to increase passive traffic


9. List your blog on your business card, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile and your Twitter bio --> let people know where to find you


10. Regularly read and leave valuable comments on other blogs in your niche, such as "nice post, have you considered...," "I disagree because..." or "these are additional resources..." -->conversation, conversation, conversation

What techniques have you used to increase your blog traffic?
What seemed like a good idea to increase your blog traffic, but turned out not to be?

Additional resources:
Blogging Basics 101
Mack Collier

Questions marketing professionals are asking and the answers they need to remember:

When did social marketing become a young people's profession?
Marketing professionals have adapted to new technologies for centuries from print to radio to television to web, and they will adopt social technology.

When did experience become the antithesis of creativity, ingenuity and inspiration?
Thinking outside of the box begins with experienced people who know what it means to be in the box.

When did working harder become better than working smarter?
Experience teaches people to prioritize, manage and delegate to efficiently and effectively reach objectives.

The perception of social techology as the marketing pervue of the young is understandable. Facebook was started in a college dorm room and former Twitter CEO Evan Williams, isn't yet 40 years old. However, the reality is experience is the best teacher. Experience teaches self discipline, decorum and humility, all of which are the foundations to successful marketing and PR campaigns, regardless of the medium or platform.

Marketing generalists need to know the basics of social marketing in order to stay current, keep up their skills and remain marketable in a tough economy. New people in the industry should consider expanding their knowledge beyond social to expand their skillset and be competitive. Marketing campaigns, especially based in the social space, require cross-functional cooperation across the organization to be effective.

Nugget of knowledge: Communication + Collaboration = Campaign Success

Calling a thing by its proper name is typically easy: car, house, dog, elephant, desk, tree and so on. Often it only takes a simple and discreet correction if the thing is incorrectly identified. However, with the proliferation of social technology, and the subsequent plethora of developers, early adopters, power-users and "experts," this category of thing has gotten mislabeled and become confusing, especially to the newbie.

Social (adj.), “pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations” Thus all of your online social activities should center on “friendly companionship or relations.”

Social technology – web-based tools and platforms used for social purposes, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

Social network – followers, fans, friends and connections developed and maintaned on social platforms

Social media – user-generated content -- composition, video, photograph or spoken word -- created for and disseminated via social platforms

Social marketing – process of creating customer interest in a product via social technology

Information is power!

The word cloud is brought to you by Wordle.

Every Sunday at 9:00 pm (ET), Mack Collier hosts #blogchat on Twitter, which utilizes the micro-blog's platform to harness the collective intelligence of the Twitterverse. This past week, Mack's guest was Chris Brogan, who shared learnings and best practices on the topic "How to Use Other Social Media Sites to Improve Your Blog."

In 60 minutes, Chris dropped several social media nuggets of knowledge (nok), some of them are below*. You can read the full transcript here.

#blogchat - one thing #NOT to do is use LinkedIn only for Business, FB only for fun, etc.
 
#blogchat Remember this: the goal of using networks to enhance your blog is to thread your ideas into other like-minded streams. (nok)

#blogchat The #1 social network you're neglecting: email marketing. 93% of people opt into a daily brand relationship via email.

#blogchat: @fianxu - interesting question. Blogs can be more freeform. Books should stick to one thesis. Blogs-to-magazines, more true.

#blogchat (@MackCollier) - outposts are off-main-site places, like Twitter, like FB, like LinkedIn, like forums.
#blogchat I recommend spending 50% of your social time on outposts, making relationships, prospecting, building connections. (nok)
#blogchat Then, because those places are the outpost and not the home base, put the occasional "conversion" fork in there, to invite them (nok)
#blogchat by "conversion fork," I mean a gentle invitation to your home base. Nothing too spammy. Certainly nothing overly repetitive.

#blogchat @CoachKarenG - no. Frequency certainly doesn't improve open rates. #RELEVANCE improves open rates. (nok)

#blogchat Promoting your own stuff over and over again is lame. Promote others 12x to ever[y] 1x of your own stuff.
#blogchat - @MackCollier - outposts is about meeting with people on neutral ground, where THEY are, vs always trying to make them come in. (nok)
#blogchat When I say promote others 12/1 over your own stuff, I mean on Twitter. Like, when @JasonFalls has a killer post, promote IT, not u
 
#blogchat If you're looking to build from outposts, do good things for others on those outposts. Write referrals in LinkedIn, ...
#blogchat Do good things elsewhere. Promote great causes on Facebook. Do TONS of not-promoting-you stuff with no hope or ask of reciprocity.
#blogchat Want more readers? Stop writing about yourself, except as a way to relate to others. Give THEM new tools to succeed. (nok)

#blogchat Ask yourself this: what's the GOAL of your blog. And don't lie. Sales? "Thought leadership?" A channel? Media property? (nok)

What nuggets of knowledge would you add?
Which nuggets are you interested in learning more about?

Additional information:
Mack Collier's blog
Chris Brogan's blog
Jason Falls' blog

*These tweets are taken out of context and reading the transcript is recommended to receive complete understanding of Chris Brogran's tweets and the full value of the #blogchat.

The amount of time and level of consistency you put into something is directly proportional to your results: part time effort will get you part time return.

• It is with time and consistency that children move from crawling to walking;
• It is with time and consistency that small savings become golden parachutes;
• And, it is with time and consistency that businesses grow from start-ups to household brands.

How many articles have you read on the concepts of passion, determination, focus, etc.? Two often over-looked concepts are time and consistency. They are the little talked about twin towers of power for success. This principle rings true throughout every area of your business, lead generation, sales, marketing and so on.

In marketing, all of your activities require time to work and consistency to build brand recognition to generate a response, be it sending direct mail, attending networking events or buying advertising. Doing any of these activities once, or even sporadically, won't net you the results you want. Direct mail has be to sent multiple times of year to be effective, you have to introduce yourself to people a few times to be remembered and your advertising will be a waste of money if not regularly repeated. And social media can be a waste of your most valuable resource -- your time -- if done hurriedly and irregularly.

• Blogging requires time and consistency to build and maintain a readership. It takes time for readers to find you and trust what you're posting.
• You must consistently blog in order to become a reliable and dependable source of information.
• It is better to not have a Facebook page, then to have one that is out-of-date, rarely updated or neglected, as it can go against the brand you are building.
• A Twitter stream filled with re-tweets, entries selling your services/products or other unengaging messages, such as quotes, will get a lot of bots following you.

You get the point: time and consistency are your allies, use them to grow your brand and better your business.

Additional resources:
Michelle Tennant Nicholson, chief creative officer, Wasabi Publicity: Using Social Networks To Get Publicity
Bonnie Landau, Simple Web Toolbox: Collaborative Blogging For Those Short on Time