Social Media

Is Social Media Marketing Right for Your Business?

Posted by Beau in Social Media | 2 Comments

When talking to small business owners and entrepreneurs, one of the most common questions I get is, “How should I use social media? I’ve heard it’s a good thing, but I don’t understand how it could work for my particular business.”

Before I try to answer that question, I think it’s important to say that social media marketing may not be the best route for your business. Just because it works for some businesses doesn’t mean it’s a fit for everybody, and trying to force a social media strategy on your particular business could result in a lot of wasted time and effort, not to mention frustration.

Who Doesn’t Need Social Media?

Again, this is a tough question to answer in a general sense, but here are a few things I’ve noticed that seem to make social media marketing an uphill battle:

  • Your business or industry is one people just aren’t really interested in talking about. Honestly, if you sell ball bearings, it’s going to be tough to find people interested in talking about them. However, a company like Blendtech has done an amazing job of getting people interested in a relatively unsexy product like blenders by being funny and creative with their “Will it Blend?” videos. Can you do something creative and interesting with yours?
  • You’re only interested in short-term, immediate sales impact. Social media is great at building brands, making connections, and creating customer loyalty. It’s not necessarily great as a sales tool, with a few notable exceptions. If you’re counting on social media to start bringing in huge sales from day one (or even 100), you’re likely to be disappointed.
  • You’re primarily interested in social media as a way to “get your message out there.” While this is something that good social media marketing can do, it’s only a small piece of the pie, and could end up turning some people off. Social media is about two-way conversations and listening to what your potential market has to say. If you ignore the listening and community-building aspects of social media, you’ll probably find your message falling on deaf ears.

What Your Business Can Get Out of Social Media

Even though social media isn’t a magic bullet or a miracle cure for what ails your business, there are a lot of potential benefits to your business if it’s done right (and with the right mindset):

  • A more loyal and interested audience- If you treat people with respect and interact with them in valuable, interesting ways, it can do wonders for how people see your brand. Instead of being just a commodity, your business can take on an air of friendliness, authority, and value that would have taken years of effort and thousands of dollars in branding work to accomplish in the past.
  • Market research that blows away focus groups- Focus groups and surveys are of questionable value, at best, because people are inclined to tell you what you want to hear, or agree with others in the group so they fit in. However, if you do a good job of “actively listening” (i.e., paying close attention to conversations & communities, and watching trends in your industry), you can learn what people really think and feel when they think the business isn’t watching.
  • Getting a leg up on your competition- Recently, I was watching my Twitter stream, and noticed a really influential guy in my industry stating that he wished a competitor of ours that he was using offered a certain feature, and that it was really limiting his business. I quickly replied that the company I work for has that feature, and that I’d be happy to answer any other questions he had. After a few tweets back and forth, he ended up bringing his product over to our company, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in extra sales for us, and huge headache relief for him. Everybody came out a winner. Best of all, if your competition isn’t using social media yet, you control the conversation in your industry and are free to go after everyone who needs your product or service.
  • Proactive customer support- One of the most important things you can do with social media, in my opinion, is address problems or questions your customers or market have out in the open. I know some companies are afraid to engage with angry customers in the open, but hey, they’re already complaining. Isn’t it better to get to tell your side of the story, or give them a solution, right out in the open where everyone can see it? It makes you look like a company who cares and tries hard to support their products. Just leaving a negative comment about your company out in the open for everyone to see is much worse, and if you can turn an angry customer into a happy one (which I’ve seen happen many times on Twitter), even better!

I hope that’s given you some ideas of how social media might be right for you, or even how it might not. The important things to remember are that if you’re going to do it, don’t do it halfway, and always know beforehand what it is you’re looking to accomplish.

Don’t just participate in social media for your business because you think you “should.” Do it because you want to learn, or talk to your customers and market more openly, or tell everyone how great your company is. Have goals and strategies going in, and you’ll be a lot more likely to get great results.

Why Foursquare Could Be Huge

Posted by Beau in Social Media | 1 Comment

Foursquare LogoIn the social media world, Foursquare has been a hot topic of discussion lately, as well as something of a lightning rod. People seem to either totally love it or totally hate it, with little middle ground.

In case you’re not familiar with it, Foursquare is a location-based app that runs on smartphones like the iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry. Unlike some other location-based apps like Yelp that are primarily about reviews and finding specific kinds of businesses you might like based on where you’re at, Foursquare is more of a game (and I don’t mean this in a bad way). You can add friends to your list, and then when you visit businesses or locations, you “check in” and notify your Foursquare friends and/or Twitter & Facebook.

Connecting with friends is nothing new, but the Foursquare designers were pretty brilliant in that they made the whole app essentially a contest. Whoever checks in the most at a particular location becomes the recognized “mayor,” which, depending on the place, might give you some benefits. For example, some bars and restaurants give away free drinks or food to the mayor. This gives people a reason to compete to become the mayor of that spot.

You also get points for checking in, so you can compete with your friends to see who goes out the most and does the most exciting stuff, and you can also unlock some fun “badges” based on where you’ve checked in and how often. For example, I was pretty surprised and amused when I unlocked the “Bender” badge during a trip to Las Vegas recently for going out 4 nights in a row. There are lots of fun badges they’ve recently added, related to stuff like karaoke, what night you’re going out, if there are members of the opposite sex there, etc.

Foursquare Bender Badge

The Bender badge

It’s this aspect of fun that I think really sets Foursquare apart from other location-based apps and gives it serious potential to go viral. Many previous apps have focused on usefulness and the connection-making aspect of locations, but honestly, think about how many people just engage with the Internet or their smartphone for pure, goofy fun. It’s like people using potentially meaningful connectors like Facebook or Twitter to play Farmville or spread celebrity gossip at the speed of the Interwebs.

Fun Competition

Foursquare made a genius move by not ignoring people’s inherent competitiveness and desire to show off a little bit. I have to admit, I was pretty stoked when I became mayor of two pretty popular hangouts while in Vegas, especially since I don’t go out much at home! A little part of me will be disappointed when I get knocked off by a new mayor, even though I had to put almost no effort into getting that “position.”

Laziness

This is another key benefit of Foursquare- it takes almost no effort. I love using Yelp to try to find restaurants, but I’ve written exactly 0 reviews on it in the couple of years I’ve been using it. I’m a total leech. However, with Foursquare I can spend literally 2 seconds checking in when I get to a restaurant, and still get all of the enjoyment out of it.

Their very short “tips” people can write about places are a cool perk, too, since they’re minimal effort for a decent return. I’ve liked reading my friends’ tips about places I check in, even though they’re usually just one sentence.

Worthwhile Business Tie-ins

As I mentioned earlier, one of the coolest opportunities with Foursquare, and one which is underused so far, is the ability for businesses to reward Foursquare users and mayors. By offering coupons to people who check in at their location, or special perks for the mayor, brick-and-mortar businesses have a great opportunity to build some buzz around their business and create some loyal customers on the cheap. They also get their business name and location posted on Twitter & Facebook if people broadcast when they check in there, which could give them a big boost if the user has influence amongst their friends.

If I owned a bar, restaurant, or coffee shop, you can bet I’d be all over Foursquare. This interplay between users and business, in a way that is welcomed by the users, represents a great opportunity for growth and adoption. It’s still possible that other location-based apps like Gowalla and Loopt could overtake Foursquare in this space, but they’ve laid a great groundwork for it to really take off in 2010. I know I’ll be playing.

PS- If you want to be my friend on Foursquare, feel free to add me.

Update: Just a couple of days after writing this, I saw this NY Times article about how Foursquare is partnering with the Bravo TV channel to allow Bravo’s show personalities to give their tips and to-dos, let Foursquare users unlock unique badges, get coupons, and more. Could this be the push that takes Foursquare into the mainstream?

Great People, Places & Things from BlogWorld 2009

Posted by Beau in Social Media | 4 Comments

One of the best things about attending a conference like BlogWorld is that you get exposed to some amazing people you might never encounter otherwise, and learn about interesting sites, companies, and tools from the people who are already using them successfully. With that in mind, this post aims to share some of the cool resources and ideas I discovered this year, in the hopes that you’ll get something great out of them too.

People You Should Listen To

I’ll be listing everyone’s Twitter profile, since that’s usually the easiest way to connect with them, and I didn’t meet anyone there who wasn’t active on Twitter. If you’re at all interested in marketing and aren’t already, get on Twitter. Seriously.

Amber Naslund- Made some great points about managing corporate brand identity on social networks, and gave one of the most useful talks of BlogWorld on “Managing Your Social Media Time.” This talk was a real eye-opener for me (especially in my day job), and was a great example of how social media can be no-nonsense and results-oriented. You can check out the slideshow from her talk here, though without her talking you don’t get the full effect.

Margaret Francis- Really impressed me on the brand management panel as well. She obviously knows her stuff and had a lot to contribute.

Laura Fitton- Gave an extremely inspirational keynote about why you should recognize that you’re awesome and stop hiding it from other people. Her talk was a perfect way to kick off the event. Funny, entertaining, and has “been there, done that” herself.

Erika Neapoletano- Never actually met her in person at BlogWorld, but have been following her and reading her blog since then, and she’s got some hilarious and refreshing thoughts on marketing and writing. Well worth following.

Nathan Hangen- Nathan is a great writer, and teaches people the right way to get the most out of Twitter and their other Internet marketing efforts. He’s also a really nice guy, to boot!

Sites and Tools You Should Use

Social Mention- Like Google Alerts, but for social media. With Google Alerts becoming less useful and less accurate all the time, this is a great option for research and tracking.

NetVibes- Like iGoogle or other homepage tools, but on steroids. Follow a crazy variety of sources that are important to you on one page. It’s a great tool for listening in to conversations on the web.

Klout- A great tool for measuring your influence on Twitter, and seeing how your activity and influence stacks up against other people in your network.

Del.icio.us- Many of you are probably already using this, but if not, get an account now. Besides having totally portable bookmarks that don’t clutter up your browser, there’s the social bookmarking aspect. You can discover great new sites all the time, and help others do the same. One of the best information-gathering and discovery tools out there.

Slideshare- Share your slide presentations online, and check out those by people you find interesting. You can get some amazing free content from shows you didn’t attend, if you follow people who are presenting at shows.

Stuff You Should Read

The Awesomeness Manifesto- A treatise on why being awesome is more important than being innovative. Even if you think there’s nothing new under the sun (a topic I plan to write about soon) there’s still room to be awesome and make a big impact on the world.

279 Days to Overnight Success- Written by Chris Guillebeau (who I’d like for his name, if for no other reason), it talks about the hard work required to become an “overnight success” and how you can create your own success story.

Marketing Advice Worth Remembering

On social media for your business (from Amber Naslund’s session): You can’t possibly be everywhere at once, so pick 2 or 3 social media tools and stick to those. Ideally, they should be where your potential clients/customers are. Don’t bother chasing the bleeding edge of tech tools, go where people are already having conversations. The Top 5 tools where people are having conversations are: Forums & boards, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogs. Your audience may only use 1 or 2 of those, so do some research to find out which are being actively used and which to not bother with.

On the size of your audience: Don’t worry so much about how many followers or subscribers you have- worry about how those people engage with you. When you share something with them, do they take action, or are your efforts falling on deaf ears? Who cares if you have 5,000 followers on Twitter if nobody’s actually listening to you? It’s better to get real results from a small but dedicated audience than to have a huge following that doesn’t do anything for you.

On differentiating yourself and your business: No matter what your industry or niche, it’s tough to be the first to talk about the topic. This is true whether you blog about blogging, making money, being a mom, video games, whatever. You need to 1. find an angle or hook that makes your message somewhat unique and 2. let your personality shine through. Give people a reason to want to get to know you and like you. If that turns some people off, that’s OK. It’ll likely attract more people than it drives away… unless you’re just genuinely unlikable :)

On not reinventing the wheel: Ben Huh of Failblog gave a great talk about how they’ve grown their site to about 250 million pageviews a month. The most amazing thing, though, is that they’ve done it while hardly doing any internal development. Every aspect of their site uses somebody else’s technology, from their site platform (WordPress) to their video hosting (YouTube and Viddler), to their intranet (Google Docs) and much more. Almost all of their platform uses free tools, which makes it even more amazing. They realized early on that the likelihood they could build a better tool or piece of software than what someone else came up with is pretty low. Instead, they decided to let others handle the heavy lifting when it comes to the tools, and just stick to providing the content their users want. Stick to what you’re great at, and let others handle the rest.

There was a lot more I learned and other great people I met at the show, but I’ll cover some of those ideas in later posts. Be sure to subscribe if you’d like to hear more!

Thoughts on BlogWorld 2009

Posted by Beau in Social Media | Leave a comment

This was my second year attending BlogWorld, and looking over my notes to try to piece together some coherent advice for people who couldn’t attend, something quickly became clear to me: there’s no single right way of becoming successful online. However, there was a common piece of advice that was repeated in every session I attended. I’ll get to that in a bit.

For those of you haven’t attended before, the content of BlogWorld covers a wide variety of topics, including monetizing your blog, expanding your online influence in your niche, improving your site’s SEO, and designing a killer theme. There are also many sessions about specific topics in social media and video/podcasting.

When I first attended last year, the sheer amount of new knowledge and techniques being thrown around was pretty mind-blowing. I came out of the event with dozens of pages of notes on sites I needed to check out, services to try, and changes to make to my blogging efforts. This year, I came away with a few good ideas and some great new connections made, but I didn’t feel nearly the same sense of awe at what I’d learned. If you’ve never attended before, though, you must attend at some point. It’s one of the best conferences in any industry, and can do wonders for your business.

I think this lack of new surprises is probably just due to having been in the industry for another year and keeping a much closer eye on resources like Twitter than I did before last year’s event. However, I also think it’s because social media and blogging technologies have matured, and the truly useful tools and services like Twitter (honestly, I swear it is) have continued to grow while other flash-in-the-pan technologies of last year have fallen by the wayside or been relegated to a particular niche. At BlogWorld 2008, people were really excited about some exciting sites or products that just didn’t turn out to be that useful.

At this year’s BlogWorld, I heard plenty of conflicting advice on different panels, like whether to use Twitter for your business or not, whether (and how) to monetize your site, how much content to give away for free, and much more. The funny thing is that listening to each person make their case, I think they were all right in their assessments! It just really depends on how you personally want to do business, and what your goals are. Except in a few really rare cases, it’s probably possible to make any technique work in any niche.

One message that was common to everyone I heard speak, though, was this: You’ve got to seriously care about what you’re doing. If you’re only ever chasing after what you think will make you popular or rich, you’re far more likely to fail. I heard it in Laura Fitton’s great keynote, Ben Huh’s talk on How to Get Huge, and especially on the all-star panel of Internet Marketing for Smart People. Caring isn’t a guarantee of success, but it’ll make it more likely that you’ll be passionate about your business, that you’ll persevere when things don’t go well, and your caring will be appealing and infectious to other people. Your passion, and genuine willingness to form relationships with people in your niche, will go a long way to helping you be a success.

PS- If you were hoping for more details and specifics, I’ll post those separately soon.