Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

It is inevitable that I end up explaining the evolution of the web several times a week. Whether with clients, prospects, peers, family or friends, the web and social media have hit a point of intersection where advertisers and consumers are now in the same dialog. Even Googling and facebooking are terms my seven year old uses regularly.

In times past, the “mother-in-law test” as I called it (no offense, Grandma C.), was a litmus test to determine how simple an idea was. I would just ask, “Would your mother-in-law get that idea?” If the answer was “No.”, then the concept was either bad or overcomplicated. Well, here is my “mother-in-law test” for the state of marketing on the web today, so tell me if I have passed my own test. Read the rest of this entry »

Marketing reporting and performance tracking seems like it would be the foundation for any marketing program.  But as we talked with clients, prospects, and attendees at many conferences this fall, we find that with all of the marketing options today, many people stand there like a deer in the headlights when asked how they are tracking results.

Not tracking marketing performance is like being on the PGA Tour and not keeping score.  You just can’t compete and win without doing it.

Here is a list of six tools for your consideration. Let me preface by saying we define what tools we will use at the beginning of each campaign and these only represent a few that we leverage most often.  Also, not everything is easily tracked in one solution, so we often take reports from various formats and pull up our old-school friend, Microsoft Excel, to build custom dashboards based on the client’s specific data views.
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Good thing inbound marketing and social media have no selling season.

As the holiday season approaches, the prime selling season for real estate and many other industries is winding down. Now that your Fall marketing push is coming to a close, it seems natural to take it easy in December and January with your traditional outbound marketing efforts. But what about your inbound marketing efforts?  Fewer prospects may be showing up at your sales office during the winter months, but it doesn’t mean they are not doing their homework online. If a prospect visits your Website, you’d better look alive if you want to be on their short list for consideration.

Here are some things you can do to “Winterize” your website and maximize your opportunities online to be in good shape when the selling season rolls back around next Spring. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed how many free productivity tools are available online? Do you use any of them? These tools have totally changed how I accomplish day to day tasks and how I use the internet in general. There are hundreds of great tools out there, but here is a list of 10 free tools that will hopefully help you in some way. Check them out and let me know what you think.

1. StumbleUpon.com
You can use SU many different ways, but here is the general idea. You download and install the free SU toolbar and let them know your general interests by completing a quick form. When you click the “Stumble” button, SU randomly sends you to a new site recommended by other folks with similar interests. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, good question. And the answer is, maybe. We still believe that the core of any successful marketing campaign is Marketing Relevance, that meaningful connection between your product and your prospect or customer. So even in the age of blogs and tweets there is no silver bullet as we all have the same marketing channels, but our products have different benefits to different audiences.

We start first with do you know your product and do you know your prospect?  Have you narrowed your messaging down to one single battle cry? If so, lets talk about if there is an opportunity to leverage social media. If not, then the cart is way before the horse and lets talk about your market position and how we create a compelling reason to buy.

Let’s assume that you have the positioning thing covered.  Now, are we clear on the meaning of Social Media and Web 2.0 initiatives?  Here is our brief take on it. The Web 2.0 phenom was predicted years ago and was based on the guiding principal that giving is more powerful than taking. That getting like-minded people together from an offline community and providing an online platform would create an opportunity for an exchange of thoughts and ideas. In the beginning, this was via online forums and community groups and many marketers strayed from the idea of giving up control of their brand on a platform that they can’t always patrol. As communities grew, more people joined. As more people joined, more people contributed.  As more people contributed these community portals took shape.  Before too long, something else happened. Instead of people talking in specific communities, they started speaking on their own, own their own sites or blogs. Now the topics were personally relevant and happened independently of established communities. Now the power was in the hands of the individuals.

Over time, blogs took over content, and communities became social networks. These networks started connecting relationships: past, present and future. The relationships began to blossom and people started connecting again. Sharing community, experiences and thoughts. But not just surface level thoughts like cocktail party chatter but thoughts with unique flavor and personality. Thoughts with personal relevance and intrigue that really connected people through transparency and life stories. And these thoughts have become real time and broadcasted to the world instantly. So now through Twitter and facebook we all know all things about all of our relationships all of the time. It’s like we are our own interactive news channel and the world is our audience. But instead the monologue of traditional media, we now have a dialog.

So, do you need to be using Social Media? The answer is still maybe. Maybe if you have an existing offline community that may want to congregate online. A customer base? A prospect database? A group of like-minded individuals that share a similar interest or affinity? If so, are they online already?  Do they use social networks already? And how? Do they post photos, watch videos and contribute to blogs? Passively participate from the sidelines?  Or still think Twitter is a bird from a Bugs Bunny cartoon?

I am not sure where the sources are for this but it is a great social media video I found posted on Facebook by Amy Wood (http://www.carolinascw.com/theribbit) that really begins to quantify the power of social media. We still talk to too many clients, friends, and even peers that question the longevity of the social media platform but I think this should make everyone realize it is here to stay.  If you have any other great stats please share those as well, and their sources.

We just concluded an alumni awareness effort last week for Furman University called http://www.DoNotCallMeAtDinner.com that leveraged database marketing and social media to create a new approach to alumni relations. Although all of the results are not yet tallied, we had some insights that we wanted to go ahead and share.

The campaign was designed to create alumni awareness and increase participation with Furman University alumni while raising funds through online donations. Like most universities, Furman has a Spring Call-a-Thon that yields predictable results but is perceived as an annoyance to many donors. This year the approach was to attack that philosophy head-on and promise not to call alumni at dinner if they made an online gift by May 15, 2009. A parody of the famous Apple/PC television spots was used to help drive home this point.

The success of the campaign was measured on the increased participation from the 90s and 2000s classes of alumni that have historically had lower participation rates in traditional campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

It is hard to have a personal or professional conversation these days without facebook or twitter coming up.  In an effort to keep my message short and sweet, or twitter-style, I thought this would be an easy way to share how these sites have become part of my daily grind and why.  Please share you comments and I will continue to add to my initial list over time.

Ok, so where do I start with this stuff?

Facebook.com – Connect with 37 years of friends and family, remember how many things we all have in common and hope they remember me as a marketer.

LinkedIn.com – Connect with professional peers, share networks and share ideas. Stay current with industry news, trends and other’s unique perspectives.

Twitter.com – Connect, listen, share, and converse in real time with the great minds of people that I have no other way of reaching.

Delicious.com – Bookmark content I like. See how many others like it. See what else they like. No folders, tags keep it all simple to find when I need it.

Flickr.com – Photos are just cool to look at. But as you use these SM tools, it is a great place to post your images so you can feed them to other sites.

My Blog – Keeps me sharp and keeps me thinking. Makes me form solid opinions and I always try to provide value to the readers. I do not do it enough.

Other’s Blogs – I am a skimmer. I skim for stories, perspectives, research and inspiration. From house wives to CEO’s, everyone has great stories to share.

Everyone’s impressed by social media and its impact on society. Advertisers and marketers have taken notice of the phenomenon, and are hurriedly devising ways to take advantage of this low-cost method of reaching highly targeted audiences. So can social media impact non-profits in a positive way? If results of a recent effort from Hill Mullikin and Safe Harbor are any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

Safe Harbor, Inc. is a private, non-profit agency that provides safe shelter, a 24-hour crisis line and emergency services for victims of domestic violence in upstate South Carolina. They originally approached Cara Sanders Robb, Senior Art Director at Hill Mullikin, in the hopes of updating their identity and getting some design help with their collateral and website.

They received that help, and much more. Read the rest of this entry »