Get To The Grapes

I am not usually one for jumping on the bandwagon of every new social media platform released.  In fact, there are some popular sites such as Foursquare that I personally have no need for.   I can update my friends on things going on in my life just fine on Facebook and for marketing and business updates LinkedIn and Twitter work great.  But Foursquare just plain creeps me out.  There are however, occasions when a new platform comes out that I go crazy over.  A few months back I discovered Spotify and music listening will never be the same for me.  Most recently, I discovered Pinterest which is down-right genius! For those that have not been introduced, Pinterest is a platform for sharing images that inspire you visually with ideas on organization, wedding planning, home décor, cooking, planning your child’s birthday party and the list goes on.  I can and have spent many hours perusing and pinning fabulous things to my personal boards.

So, how does this fabulous new tool apply to businesses? From my vantage point, if your product can be used to inspire women in any way, you have a place on Pinterest.  I can see a place for every type of business to share images from stylish brands to personal trainers, chefs, wedding planners, photographers, restaurants, hotels, authors etc.  So, how do you get started and what are some of the “rules” on Pinterest? I would like to share an article that will give you some tips to get started from Mashable, a fantastic group of social media thought leaders. The article, entitled, Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips will give you a great start to thinking about Pinterest from the vantage point of socially connecting consumers to your brand.  After reading this post you should have some great ideas on how your business can connect with women on the fabulous platform.

With the mainstream use of social media, it’s not shocking that more and more brands are leveraging this movement by establishing a social media presence through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.  But what is shocking is how some of these brands are going about doing it.  Social media is an incredibly powerful tool that can make or break a brand.  Yet, many companies are underestimating this power and putting the control into the hands of interns.  INTERNS! 

While interns can be a great asset to your company, they are learning. They are not experts. If you had a million dollar advertising budget, would you rely on an intern to make sound recommendations?  If you needed creative for that advertising campaign, would you hire any intern with InDesign software to develop a campaign that reflects your brand and message?  Probably not.  For some reason, because the tools and platforms are free, many companies underestimate the power of social media.  Just like with the other tools in the marketing mix, you need to hire trained professionals to manage and represent your brand. 

Check out this article from PRDaily.com on the four reasons the PR team should handle social media.  Do you agree or disagree?

 http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10554.aspx.

What key traits make up a successful social media influencer?   Forbes lists them as the following:

#1. Being active in a large number of channels

#2. Creating and maintaining a high quality network

#3. Frequency of participation

Social media is social after all, which means you need to get intimately involved, engaged and well connected. See entire article here.

So just who are the top social media influencers? According to Forbes, they include:

Name                                    Total Audience (Followers)

Chris Brogan 193,999

Ann Handley 111,619

Gary Vaynerchuk 906,833

Robert Scoble 220,062

Scott Stratten 108,497

Reg Saddler 151,673

Jason Falls 45,859

Scott Monty 63,436

Mari Smith 127,973

Pam Moore 66,618

I’ve included only the total follower numbers, but PeekAnalytics measures not only the size of the consumer audience, but their quality in terms of their network size, social participation and their ability to spread a message further. Thus, the table summarizes pull, total audience, identified consumer count, and consumer ratio.

And one of my favorites, for obvious reasons… Gary Vaynerchuk

There is much talk about the amazing impact social media can have on your brand and business, but equally important is knowing what social media can’t do. Social media can’t:

• Substitute for marketing strategy.
• Succeed without top management buy-in.
• Be viewed as a short-term project.
• Produce meaningful, measurable results quickly.
• Be done in-house by the vast majority of companies.
• Provide a quick fix to the bottom line or a tarnished reputation.
• Be done without a realistic budget.
• Guarantee sales or influence.
• Be done by “kids” who “understand social innately”
• Replace PR

Want more details, read full article here.

Social media usage may have reached a tipping point, according to a new report from, The Pew Internet and American Life Project.

It’s true, grandma did create a Facebook account to see her grandchildren.  However, it isn’t just grandma anymore who is frequenting social media sites.  More and more baby boomers are jumping on the social bandwagon-both personally and professionally.  Social media is finally starting to mature…

“The graying of social networking sites continues…said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Research Center. “While seniors are testing the waters, many Baby Boomers are beginning to make a trip to the social media pool part of their daily routine.”

Fully 65 percent of adult internet users now say they use a social networking site like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 61 percent one year ago. This marks the first time in Pew Internet surveys that 50 percent of all adults use social networking sites.

Among the Boomer-aged segment of internet users ages 50-64, social networking site usage on a typical day grew a significant 60 percent (from 20% to 32%).

Consumer behavior continues to evolve and it’s continuing to evolve at every age range.  So no matter who your target audience or what your selling, social media should be considered an integral part of your media mix.

Source

Last week we traveled to visit one of our clients, a national brand in the luxury home products category, for a Social Media Training with the executives.  The half-day training session was designed to share with our client an updated report on the landscape of Social Media.  Although the VP of Sales & Marketing understands clearly the significant power of Social Media, we also needed to share examples of how high-end brands are capitalizing on the new “word of mouth on steroids” and how that is relating to sales.  Part of my responsibility within the training was to share case studies and to talk about measurement.  We shared that the return in Social Media is not just direct sales, which the program should drive, the return may be an increase in brand equity, fidelity and loyalty or increased brand perception, as shown in the chart below provided by w3haus.

However, we did share some impressive stats on how companies have directly tied sales to their Social Media efforts and the data was music to the client’s ears.  As reported by blogger Radha Giri, here are some examples of how major brands are harnessing the power of Social Media to drive sales:

• Southwest Airlines @SouthwestAir: Southwest Airlines attributes more than $1 million in additional ticket sales to its presence on Twitter.
• Marriott: Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott’s blog.
• Dell @DellOutlet: Dell Outlet made more than $6.5M sale through its Twitter presence..
• Naked Pizza @NakedPizza: 68.60% of total dollar sales for Naked Pizza came from customers who said they are “calling from twitter”.
• Blendtec: Increased sales 5x by running the humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube.

So, how can you apply what these major brands have done successfully? If your products can’t be purchased online, how can you make your sales cycle more social? If you’re not measuring the success of your Social Media efforts, what reason is there for executives to invest socially? Remember that although making true engagement and connections online is the key to social media, your efforts should move the needle!

I am frequently asked what the “#” symbol means when proceeding words like Public Relations, Social Media or NY Yankees. The # symbol you see throughout social media sites like Twitter is called a Hashtag.  A Hashtag is a tag (or keyword) embedded in a message posted on Twitter, consisting of a word or phrase prefixed with a hash sign. (i.e #publicrelations, #socialmedia, #NYyankees). Hashtags are used to categorize tweets so that they are seen easily when an end-user enters a Twitter Search.  When clicking on the hashtag you are able to view all of the tweets that include that same tag. This makes searching a specific topic easy! See below for some examples of how public relations and marketing professionals are using hashtags on Twitter.

Hashtags can be placed anywhere in a tweet and can even be used for fun and trending sayings, topics or events. A word to the wise, be careful not to go overboard with hashtags.  I would recommend using no more then 3 hashtags in a single tweet.  You want to avoid your tweet resembling Spam. For additional information and best practices visit the Twitter Fan Wiki on Hastags.

I recently read a 10 part series on Corporate Social Media Don’ts on Forbes.com. I chose the 7 most important “Don’ts” and expanded upon each tip with a “Do”. As more and more companies implement social media as part of their marketing strategy many don’t understand the positive and negative implications of their social media program.  All too often businesses overlook the key steps and unspoken “rules” that can make or break their program.

• Don’t Over-Market or Over-Sell; Do Be Social – People want to connect with people behind the brand. Treat your audience as if you are connecting with them face to face. Building quality fans/followers will serve your brand better than simply focusing on the quantity of fans/followers.

• Don’t Act Like a Robot; Do Show a Human Face -  Think of social media as you would a networking or social event your attending 24/7.  The last thing you would do is introduce yourself and then take up the entire conversation with a sales pitch about how great your product/service is.  Humanize your brand by providing ideas and honest interaction.  Don’t forget to have a little fun too!

• Don’t Forget to Engage: Do Hold Conversations - Loyal and engaged fans and followers are worth a lot more then “lurkers”. Be sure to reach out and hold conversations with your audience. Don’t be afraid to ask them what they like and think. Talk about topics that are of interest to your audience even if the topic has nothing to do with your brand.

• Don’t Establish and Abandon; Do Know When to Leave – Do not join a social network and leave it stagnant. Be sure to engage and build conversation every day if you want to build loyalty. If you are not going to fully participate, exit completely. Not using social media platforms the way they are designed to use can have a negative effect on your business. Your brand will look uncommitted and unprofessional. Also, don’t be too quick to join the next “up and coming” social media platform unless it fits your overall social media strategy and brand focus.

• Don’t Let the “Interns” Handle Your Social Media Presence; Do Hand it to the Experts – This is key – You wouldn’t give the responsibility of running your advertising and marketing campaign to your intern, so do not put your online presence in the hands of your support staff. Entrust your online identity to professional marketers and PR professionals and you will see the difference.

• Be a Thought Leader! - Be innovative. Take some risks. Be a leader; both in the content you issue and the strategies you use in social media.

Social media can add great value to your marketing and public relations program.  If you are unsure how to incorporate social media as part of your overall strategy, reach out to industry experts for help on developing a social media plan for your business. You will be glad you did

If you have not already guessed, as a Social Media Strategist I am a huge fan of social media and technology. I teach it, I write about it and I develop business strategies around it. In fact, no matter where I am or what I am doing, I can log in to my computer, iPad or iPhone to check email, Facebook and Twitter for the latest news, industry trends and to stay up to date on what my friends, family and business network is up to. I generally prefer email, text messages and online communication as it fits my hectic schedule and allows me to prioritize and multi-task. However I, like so many others, forget real people need real connection.

I strongly believe that even in today’s fast-paced wired world, in-person meetings are a key ingredient to establishing and maintaining relationships and an essential part of being productive. Looking back, my strongest professional and personal relationships developed through in-person and hands-on connection.  Without taking the time to cultivate these relationships, I believe I would not be where I am today.

This week’s social media tip: Turn off your computer, put your phone down and go out. Shake some hands, schedule lunch dates and attend some good old-fashioned networking events. You will be glad you did.

Do you log into Facebook from you cell phone? Were you aware all of the contacts you have stored in your cell phone show up on your Facebook’s friends list? The phonebook, now called Contacts has been around for awhile, but recently received attention after rumors began to spread claiming these numbers could be viewed by other Facebook users. Other Facebook users cannot see your stored phone numbers for your Facebook friends, but you can when accessing your account. In an effort to streamline communications and (once again) place Facebook in line for being the only platform you need to communicate with all your contacts online, the social media giant has taken the approach of creating a phonebook for its users.  The phonebook includes numbers that 1) you may have synced from your phone or 2) your friends have chosen to share with you via Facebook.

For reference, here is Facebook’s recent response to those rumors suggesting stored phone numbers can be seen by everyone:

“Rumors claiming that your phone contacts are visible to everyone on Facebook are false. Our Contacts list, formerly called Phonebook, has existed for a long time. The phone numbers listed there were either added by your friends themselves and made visible to you, or you have previously synced your phone contacts with Facebook. Just like on your phone, only you can see these numbers.”

Want to see how many of your contacts you have numbers for? Connect to your Facebook account, go to the top right of the screen and click on ACCOUNT. Click EDIT FRIENDS on the left side of the screen and then click CONTACTS.

Picture Source: Huffington Post

Convenient? Perhaps. Intrusive? Maybe. Whatever your comfort level, should you wish to remove this feature, you can take the following steps:  1) From the list of contacts, click on REMOVE ALL YOUR IMPORTED CONTACTS and follow the instructions. As an FYI, removed contacts will be re-imported automatically unless you turn off syncing. To turn off syncing, go to your phone’s Facebook App, click on FRIENDS and go to the SYNC feature (for iPhone users, this is located in the box with the arrow at the top right).

Follow these steps and you shouldn’t see any of your personal stored contacts on your Facebook’s Contact list.

What Facebook Privacy concerns do you have?