Marketing-Gimbal

Eating My Own Social Media Dog Food-My First Ebook

So I’ve finally taken a page out of David Meerman Scott's playbook and developed an ebook. But we didn’t do an ebook for the sake of doing an ebook. We actually had a few marketing challenges. How does a growing software security company like Lumension Security establish a thought leadership position around its brand and raise the security discussion across the CXO suite. An ebook seemed like a perfect solution for the following reasons:

1.       We could communicate a more strategic message

2.       We could use this vehicle to start a conversation with bloggers, and other communities relevant to our message

3.       We could make it viral and extend our message for little cost

4.       We could leverage our communications investment to drive a PR campaign around our message

5.       We could add in rich media to add new dimension to our message and increase our content relevancy across various communities and search engines

In developing the ebook we put some investment into it. We worked on our message, we hired a professional writer, we interviewed customers and analysts, we utilized secondary research and we had a designer add the finishing touches. We also wanted to add rich media to the ebook. Why not take advantage of the digital platform to have rich media embedded into the ebook. So we did a series of videos related to key ebook topics.

  

There was extensive debate over registration and if we should put the ebook behind a registration all. I took a page out of David Meerman Scott’s playbook and said no to registration. Can you believe it? A marketing guy saying no to inquiry generation, especially an old school marketing guy like me. We did this as we wanted the ebook to be accessed without any barriers or friction. Again to go back to our goals. Our goal was not a demand gen goal, but rather a thought leadership and messaging  goal. So why add barriers to the message getting out.

We did however want to ensure we leveraged as many opportunities as possible to get our message and relevance enhanced. For example we created a YouTube channel and this is where we host our ebook videos. Our ebook videos actually pull from our YouTube channel. As the videos are played our video on content gains more relevance on YouTube and Google. We also embedded the same videos on our website so our web now has rich media and our SEO gains additional relevance. We created a special video with our CEO just on the topics within the book and this already has 156 views in one week on our channel without any launch of the ebook itself. Okay so it’s not 1M, but its more than 1.

We did a prelaunch of our eBook to bloggers first and then did a soft launch within our company newsletter. Our official launch doesn’t start until next week. Again no request for bloggers to post or comment just wanted to share our message and thoughts.

We will be doing a social media release next week, and will include the html code to a special ebook badge should people want to place the ebook on their blog or web page. It’s a great content offer and we want people to share it and use it. In fact we even placed a Creative Commons license on the ebook. We will also tie into a extensive communications campaign through the 3^rd QTR and leverage our CEO to expound on his message. It the tie in of social media and traditional communications is where a little new school meets some old school. But who cares if it’s great content lets leverage all our channels more effectively.

Our metrics are # of downloads, # of blog posts, # of interviews, # of mentions. The metrics tend to be more towards the communication side of the house as this initiative was really about the message getting out and not demand generation.

So there we are. We focused on creating a conversation, we’re reaching out, we’re web centric, we didn’t use registration pages, and we created a powerful message vehicle for not a huge amount of investment. In fact there is no media investment within the ebook. Stay Tuned and Nuff Said.

Web 2.0 Vaults Unkown Candidate Onto Presidential Stage

A great example of viral video that takes a page out of mass customization. Funny, timely and personalized. All the hall mark ingredients for great viral marketing. I think PalTalk has hit one out of the park with this viral marketing effort. Nuff Said.

 

 

A Map To The Ever Changing World of Social Media

The world of social media marketing is filled with jargon laden, fast speaking techno socialites who utter the newest social media website as if you are a complete idiot if you haven’t heard of it.

Social media sites, and services are multiplying faster than a heard of rabbits with more added each day. For those of us that have to focus on delivering actionable results to a demanding set of stakeholders the landscape of social media, and how it could or should be leveraged in your marketing programs is a dynamic environment to say the least.

I’ve always liked to have a map of this dynamic landscape to better understand the tools, communities and channels when building a social media strategy. Brian Solis who is a Principal of FutureWorks, and Jesse Thomas of JESS3 worked together to create a new graphic that does an excellent job in helping to put into context the multitude of social media tools and communities. It’s called the Conversation Prisim.

It’s a great resource for the pragmatic marketer. Nuff Said.

We Need 50 Ways to Measure the Impact of Social Media Marketing

Measuring the impact, or dare I say it, the ROI of a social media campaign is a growing topic of interest in many marketing departments in terms of how to measure the  impact-roi of social media campaigns.

I recently listened to a pod cast of a marketer laud his viral video campaign where he placed banner advertisements on the landing page as a great success. In fact he stated that the metric was “eyeballs” and then said after 1.4M page views they got 44 leads.

Now is the term “lead” used in the context of BANT or a registered inquiry? The hard part is after taking the cost of the agency and video production into account and let’s assume he converts 50% of the 44 leads into opportunities and let’s say that the win rate was 50% so he gets 6 deals. Is demand generation the goal of social media?

After listening to this podcast I thought I felt like I had found an old school marketer who was trying to be trendy by throwing the term “social media campaign” around. I’m not sure that I would walk in front of a CEO and tout Social Media in the context of demand generation, and/or eyeballs. Is this really the metric for social media marketing efforts?

I don’t think so.  Rather I think social media is for supporting a conversation with the brand. If you agree with this than perhaps we need new types of capabilities to measure the sentiment of the conversation and how this is trending across many different types of social media networks.

I was looking on the Collective Intellect website. Collective Intellect is a company that is developing a set of analytical tools to determine the impact of Social Media on your company, your brands, your reputation, your image. While I can’t say if what they are doing today is truly unique, I do think they are headed in the right direction. Companies need to start monitoring the conversation about their brand and understand the sentiment and then engage.

On the Collective Intellect web site they had pasted a prior post from  Chris Brogan on 50 Ways for Marketers to start using social media. It’s such a great list I have reposted it here as well.

However I’ll call on the great thinkers in social media marketing to start pondering what are 50 ways to measure the impact of social media marketing investments, and how to use this insight to improve the communication. Nuff Said.

 

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too. “

Social Media Continues Evolution. Marketers Take Note

I was pursuing through Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and came across a post he had that featured a recent bit of research regarding social media or as Universal Mcann calls it “Wave 3”. In this latest round of Universial Mcann research they call attention to several trends noted by the following statistics:

• Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development. If you are online you are using social media

• Asian markets are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region

• All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves

– Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration

in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3

• 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating

and sharing content

– 55% of users have uploaded photos

– 22% of users have uploaded videos

• The widget economy is real

– 23% of social network users have installed an application

– 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates

• Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media– 73% have read a blog

• The blogsphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide– The number one thing to blog about is personal life and family

• China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers, more than the US

and Western Europe combined

• Social media impacts your brands reputation

– 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog

– 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

view presentation (tags: socialmedia research social media)

 

Universal Mcann makes a poignant note in their statement:

“Social media is an important shift, as it summarizes the importance of interaction, the consumer and the community. The term emphasizes the idea that as a collective it can have as much impact as any traditional media platform. In truth, to claim social media as “new” is slightly misleading. From the beginning, the internet was founded on message boards, chat rooms and peer to peer communication. What has changed is the mass involvement that modern social platforms inspire.”

 

To that point social media has been around as long as humanity has been around. The friction in the communication between and across large numbers of people has been removed and this is fueling the a requirement that we as marketers must accept, adapt to and embrace in our daily actions. Nuff Said.

 

I’ve Been a Bad Blogger, But I’ve Started Several Social Media Initiatives In The Last 90 Days

Father, I’ve sinned. It has been over one month since my last blog post. Truth be told there may be something to the perception that if you have time to blog…you have too much time. Since March I have taken on a new job with a small, but rapidly growing software company known as Lumension Security.

From day one I said that we need to start the conversation and leverage social media. Easy thing to say, another thing to actually do it. So now faced with the daunting question of how one actually gets started in practicing what you what you preach, we came up with a plan that is short and very simple.

1.       Get Rich Media Going. At the start of March there we’re less than 5 videos on You Tube. Now we have over 20 promoting our thought leadership. The company has so much to say about the hot topics going on in security that we needed to capture this, but in a richer format ala video. Here’s an example of one of our video’s

 

Here’s a tip in getting rich media going for not a lot of money. Connect with your local news channels and get in touch with some of the videographers. Most of these guys are freelance and always looking for a way to get some steady income going…you can get up and running and actually get a production quality like you paid 3x for it.

2.       Start a You Tube Channel. This has got to be one of the easiest ways to open the aperture in getting the syndication and conversation started.  We even branded our You Tube Channel and already have several subscribers plus triple video views.

3.       Get a Facebook Page Up. You cant imagine the # of employees, and partners on Facebook. We have syndicated our events, our new rich media videos and have over 33 members of our company page.  I know its not the hundreds or thousands that some have but its 33 more people in our network than we had in March. Will Facebook make us social media gurus. No, but it helps educate the management as to how communication is changing, and that is key for future initiatives. In addition Facebook in many ways is the HR intranet for small and even big companies. Use it to communicate internally as well as externally. Many times it’s your internal communications that will make you or break you.

4.       Get a Linked in Page. It’s the next step and easy to do. Linked In is piloting these pages and it will undoubtedly improve. Why Linked In..it’s really one of the best places to recruit new talent from, especially if your small.

5.       Get an E-Book: Folks there is no excuse not to have an e-book. I took the lead from David over at Web Ink Now and launched an ebook initiative from day 1. We’re getting ready to launch it any day now and I’ll release it here first.

6.       Get A Blog. I know this should have been first but we have a few issues within our content management system and I didn’t want to delay getting other initiatives in execution. We are starting a blog in the next month and I’m excited at this opportunity. In addition we are identifying 1-2 corporate bloggers to begin an outreach and start conversations elsewhere. In addition we have also identified 10-20 of what we consider to be highly influential bloggers that we would like to engage with more frequently.

7.       Social Media Release Kit: We are now going to build a social media communications release kit to provide syndicated content and outreach for bloggers and other community sites.

8.       Communication Agencies. We’re reviewing our agencies at the moment to see what level of social media understanding they have and how this relates to metrics. I will say that while the lingo is great across Pr firms the metrics still are focused on production and not the measure of conversation quality. I believe that you need a PR firm in this day and age that really understands the change in how PR is done in the networked world.

9.       PR-Web. Start syndicating your communications releases on PR Web. Our reads have increased, inquires from releases have gone up and hits to our web site have increased. If your not syndicating via Pr Web you’re not helping your efforts.

I know its not where we need to be but we have started a lot of initiatives in the past 90 days and I’m lucky that I have a team that’s willing to try new things. We hope to have a redesigned customer community in 2009, and even discussing how we can capture more customer driven innovation.

Why the immediate focus. I won’t bore you with how it’s the new way things are done, and all the great things to be had in starting a conversation. The reality is I don’t have a large budget and I need new ways of thinking of how we can get our message out and build closer relationships with influencers and customers. Social media is the great equalizer between big and small today.

If any of you have additional ideas, throw them my way. I need all the help and ideas I can get. Nuff said.

Personal Online Branding: 5 Questions With Dan Schawbel, Personal Branding Expert

1. Dan, a lot of old school marketers like myself are not really savvy on personal online branding. Could you explain what personal branding is and why it’s important to folks like me (40+ something)?

Personal branding is how we market ourselves to others.  At the end of last year, I assembled a global team of experts to collaborate on a single and consistent definition of personal branding in a single wiki.  To me, one of the most significant parts of this lengthy definition is “to achieve a specific goal” because there are far too many individuals who constantly shift their brand, without having a firm grasp on the direction they want to head in.  Personal branding is about empowerment, becoming distinct in your field and commanding respect from others.  It’s about emotionally and intellectually connecting with other people and forming concrete relationships.

Personal branding is important to everyone that want’s to succeed on the highest level.  We all have personal brands, but most people don’t realize it or capitalize on their own strengths.  Personal branding will not solve your problems if you are lazy or want to live an average life (which is OK).  I see this concept being used a lot for authors, consultants and executives, who almost have no choice but to step foot into the topic because they are representing their company or are their own company.

2. What are some of the basic steps I need to do to start building a personal online brand?

1.      Register yourname.com (domain) on BiteDomains.com or another hosting service to protect your brand from others that share the same name.

2.      Claim your FULL name no the most popular social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

3.      If you are 40+, you are probably an expert in your field or are passionate around something.  Start a blog based around this topic on Wordpress.com or Typepad.com, which are both “beginner” blog services.

4.      Network with other blog or website owners that you have genuine interest in and exchange links or posts with them.

5.      Post 2-3 times per week and comment on other blogs.

3. Do I have to build a personal website or have a blog to have a personal brand??

A lot of people say “your blog is your brand,” which is completely false, unless it’s the only website on the internet with your name on it.  If you have a Facebook profile, a blog, a traditional website, a write-up in the Boston Globe and 100 comments on blogs, then the combined sum of your presence is your eBrand (or online personal brand).  Some people choose to form their brands solely in the comment sections of blogs, while others develop a blog based on their expertise.  As long as you have a strategy and goal in mind, and have the passion to back that up, then I see no reason for anyone to not be successful.

Again, we all have personal brands; just not everyone has viewed yours.

4. What are some of the things I should do or not do in managing my personal online brand?

When you’re online, I think it’s important to establish a method for monitoring your reputation.  Set a Google alert for your name, as well as your topic by subscribing through RSS.  Get a feed reader (I recommend Google’s) use that to centralize your subscriptions.  Also, go to Technorati.com and set the same feed alert by searching on your name and subscribing. 

You can control what Google says about you if you start a blog and have presence on social networks.  This becomes increasingly more difficult if you have a common name like Michael Smith.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks have a high PageRank, so they tend to rank high in search engines and therefore when someone Google’s your name, you can control your eBrand.

You want to be authentic and transparent online, which includes admitting mistakes and being honest with your readers.  Anything you say and do is cataloged in Google, so decide which face you want to show to the world.  I typically tell the younger generation to stay away from party pictures on Facebook. 

5. Can you recommend any resources to go to and learn more about building a personal online brand?

My blog has become a central hub for all things personal branding at www.personalbrandingblog.com.  I also publish a quarterly magazine on the topic and give away free sample issues at www.personalbrandingsample.com.  My other recommendations include my friend Neil Patel’s blog www.quicksprout.com, as well as Maria Elena Duran’s blog at www.medbuzz.wordpress.com.  If you want to learn more about blogging, there is Darren’s blog at www.problogger.net and Anna Farmery will teach you how to be authentic at http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com. 

The Power Of Nurturing

In the age of fast-paced multi-touch campaigns that can be executed with the touch of button, we sometimes forget that we have a massive amount of potential prospecting data sitting our marketing databases. Prospects and potentially customers that have not been touched in years by us.

In the networked age of communications, and the power of word of mouth, we need to remember to think of nurture marketing as well. I know that many companies have a nurture-marketing program and I bet that most of them are the monthly newsletter. While there is nothing wrong with a monthly newsletter, as long as it provides relevant value added content, we also need to think of multi-touch nurturing campaigns as well.

Why Should We Nurture?

Here some interesting statistics from the Nurture Institute:

·        According to a US Government study 70% of customer defections are due to nothing ore than a general feeling of indifference from their supplier

·        An internal employee will drop a prospect after 2 contacts when 13 or more may be required. 

·        90% of leads are discarded without contact

·        19% of leads are ready to buy within 90 days

·        21% of leads are ready to buy within 12 months

·        14% of leads are ready to buy 12 – 24 months post-contract (up-sell)

·        25% of leads are ready to buy 24 months or more of post-contracts

Why not nurture, should be the real question. A Nurture program can expand your brand, and position your company as trusted experts in your field if you provide truly valuable content. You can attain a position of leadership through education in a well-rounded nurturing program. A solid multi-touch nurturing program can improve your overall conversion rates as part of your campaign. For example:

From a post in the Marketo Blog and referencing a study by Rain Today, we find that only 10-20% of a marketing campaign’s sales “leads” (I assume BANTS Qualified here) are ready to be passed to sales. Upwards of 50% of the leads generated require further nurturing, and about 25% of all leads are not qualified in a given campaign.

This means that half or more of all potential leads that generate in our marketing campaigns require further nurturing.

The ROI of Nurturing

If 50% of all leads need additional nurturing than I think the ROI potential is clear. Let’s take a look at the nurturing tactic of newsletters and how one company, HP, took it to the next level and impacts over $100M in revenue according to the Forrester B2B Email Marketing Best Practices Study. What makes the HP newsletter program unique is that it is developed from a deep understanding of their prospects, and customers and is highly customized and has been optimized through rigorous testing over the years. Some interesting facts:

n      HP tailors content to user interest with 54 different versions of the newsletter each month;

n      HP focuses on segmentation and serving up dynamic content based on user profiles.

n      HP delivers real value to their audience by focusing on tips for improving usage of the products versus cross-sell upsell promotions.

So its just good marketing and good business to get a programmatic nurtur marketing program started. Speaking of that I need to go bust some heads as I’m still waiting for mine to start. Nuff Said….

I'm Getting Bored Of Facebook

I think the video says it all

Nuff Said

Too Old of School Meets New School: The Plight of BMW in the Age of Social Networking

As many of you who read this blog know that I like to point out how things have not really changed in marketing, only that the tools have enabled the core principles of marketing to be deployed more efficiently. I recently came across an excellent example where a traditional old line business that represents one of the world’s most prestigious brands wound up in a blogosphere “poop” storm.

It seems that one savvy social networker Mr. Ken Tanisaka came across an auto listing in EBay for a BMW M3. The auction was posted by a BMW Dealer in Nebraska with a low price reserve price. Well Ken met the reserve, and was the only bidder and won the car. The next time the phone rang it was the dealer in Nebraska reneging on the deal.

Ken did what any self respecting 21^st century lad would do. He went to the M3 user forum and posted about his experience on EBay and the dealer in Nebraska. Well that ignited a blogosphere “poop” storm. One thing that hasn’t changed in the age of social networking is the need for good lawyer which Ken got. The lawyer called the dealer, and after all the hoopla of bad press the dealer agreed to a negotiated settlement. End of story right? WRONG!

When Ken called the dealership the sales manager refused to honor the deal as Ken had “failed to stop the bad press”. Hence my title “Too old of school meets new school. The poor sales manager actually thinks Ken can go into the social net and stop the bad press. Maybe the sales manager should have thought of that before placing a bogus auction on Ebay?

As far as I know Ken has not received his car and his lawyer has now contacted BMW of North America where we can only hope that they get someone more knowledgeable about the customer experience, and the power of social networking. Nuff Said.