Saturday, May 30, 2009
10 tips for building brand communities
Excellent article. 10 Tips for Building Brand Communities. It really underscores how communications in marketing is no longer just top down -- it's a dialog. Twitter has taught us so much about this in a really short space of time, and it's a truly exciting time for a brand to build a brand community and learn from their users. There has been no time when the tools have been so readily available to brands. The only thing standing between a brand and embracing this wave is their readiness -- and their courage -- to do so.
Nerds Rule -- for this teen
I am fascinated that the Vlogbrothers are one of my 13-year old daughter's favorite channels on YouTube. These guys are seriously nerdy. She falls over laughing watching them. You never can tell, can you? Love it.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Social media marketing showing growth and optimism
According to this eMarketer article "Will Digital Marketing Prove Profitable," the economy is driving marketers to show measurable ROI for their marketing efforts, and is also driving them online to social media marketing tactics. Marketers believe that social media marketing will show better ROI than more traditional tactics -- outdoors, TV, radio, print. 22% of the marketers surveyed said they'd be moving dollars online.
See eMarketer for more information. (Subscription required for in depth reports.)
See eMarketer for more information. (Subscription required for in depth reports.)
"I've heard of them" -- the value of being well-known name
Reading Seth Godin's blog post "On becoming a household name." So much of what we try to do in marketing is to build brand awareness so that when a user comes to the decision-making point, they say "I'll go with the one I've heard of." I think the idea of running banner ad campaigns that are all about pushing your name, and not necessary about getting clicks, is intriguing and worth testing.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
eMarketer: How people share online video
Just finished reading a report from eMarketer about future of sharing video online. You can find the full article here: http://www.emarketer.com. (Subscription required. (c) eMarketer Inc.)
The study cited statistics that indicate that online video in the US is now as big as network TV.
The study notes that the age of online video viewers trends younger: 82% of teens (16-to-17-year-olds) and young adults (18 to 24) streamed video, compared with 73% of Generation X (25 to 34) and 65% of older boomers (55 to 64) who said they watched.
Younger people will educate older generations how to watch, where to watch, and what's worth watching online. The day is coming soon when my family will look at our television as merely a big screen monitor attached to our computer. We already use it that way a great deal.
The study cited statistics that indicate that online video in the US is now as big as network TV.
The study notes that the age of online video viewers trends younger: 82% of teens (16-to-17-year-olds) and young adults (18 to 24) streamed video, compared with 73% of Generation X (25 to 34) and 65% of older boomers (55 to 64) who said they watched.
Younger people will educate older generations how to watch, where to watch, and what's worth watching online. The day is coming soon when my family will look at our television as merely a big screen monitor attached to our computer. We already use it that way a great deal.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
"Only" 8% of teens watch TV online" Only?
Just finished reading this report from The Hollywood Reporter: a survey about teen TV watching habits you can read here. The report states that "only" 8% of teens say they watch TV online." But I honestly think this summary of the report is weirdly skewed to send a "calm down, TV industry" message. TV watching online is an inevitable tsunami of behavior, and saying it's going to happen slowly is flying in the face of everything we've all seen in Internet behavior over the past 10 years.
Here's a quote:
About 8% of respondents who watch repurposed TV online (18% among teens) said they watch TV less often. Indeed, just 3% of adults (compared to 4% last year) said they would consider disconnecting their TV service to watch exclusively online.
It seems to me that's a notably significant portion of this audience who is watching TV less often. I need to get my hands on the report, because this summary appears contradictory and confusing.
Update to this post: see my second post about how online TV just as big as network TV. Don't bury your head in the sands, network TV. This is coming!
Here's a quote:
About 8% of respondents who watch repurposed TV online (18% among teens) said they watch TV less often. Indeed, just 3% of adults (compared to 4% last year) said they would consider disconnecting their TV service to watch exclusively online.
It seems to me that's a notably significant portion of this audience who is watching TV less often. I need to get my hands on the report, because this summary appears contradictory and confusing.
Update to this post: see my second post about how online TV just as big as network TV. Don't bury your head in the sands, network TV. This is coming!
Friday, May 22, 2009
Need a seriously good belly laugh?
I just love podcasts. And the BBC, I think, has some of the best out there. A new one I just 'discovered' is Friday Night Comedy Night. You can discover it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fricomedy.
Do yourself a favor and subscribe. You may miss some of the jokes in America, due to the references to such delightful political clowns as Boris Johnson and (better known) Gordon Brown. But nonetheless, it's worth it. It's the kind of show that the creakingly un-funny "Wait, wait ... don't tell me" on NPR tries to be, and fails hopelessly.
Last night as I drove home down 280, I seriously needed cheering up. I listened to the latest show and was actually roaring with laughter. Thank you Sandi Toksvig.
Do yourself a favor and subscribe. You may miss some of the jokes in America, due to the references to such delightful political clowns as Boris Johnson and (better known) Gordon Brown. But nonetheless, it's worth it. It's the kind of show that the creakingly un-funny "Wait, wait ... don't tell me" on NPR tries to be, and fails hopelessly.
Last night as I drove home down 280, I seriously needed cheering up. I listened to the latest show and was actually roaring with laughter. Thank you Sandi Toksvig.
Are you tweeting too hard?
... then you may appear on this site: http://tweetingtoohard.com.
I spent an amused 15 minutes trolling the site. What a lot of self-important people there are out there. Can't you hear yourselves?!
Note to self: humility is a good thing.
Trouble with the site is that even if you log in, you can't enter your own tweets. I have a couple of Tweeters in mind that I'd dearly love to submit. Crushingly disappointed I can't!
I spent an amused 15 minutes trolling the site. What a lot of self-important people there are out there. Can't you hear yourselves?!
Note to self: humility is a good thing.
Trouble with the site is that even if you log in, you can't enter your own tweets. I have a couple of Tweeters in mind that I'd dearly love to submit. Crushingly disappointed I can't!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Seth Godin Rocks!
I was first introduced to Seth Godin's work by one of my all-time-favorite people Guy Kawasaki. (I know. I'm not alone in that crowd.) I read his book Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers. He has many other books, and when I have time (yeah right) I'll read others.
I read his blog when I can. Today I read a truly winning article that made me laugh and made me think. What a great combination. Called "Can You Change Anything?" it offers a list of 45 things you can do to get out of your rut. Awesome.
His list reminded me of a very interesting management team exercise I experienced a few years back. The company I worked for a few years back was in something of a mental rut. We felt we needed to rethink how we were approaching the market for our product. So we embarked on a day-long exercise with small group breakouts, large wall post-its and lots of healthy debate.
Two exercises stick in my mind:
I read his blog when I can. Today I read a truly winning article that made me laugh and made me think. What a great combination. Called "Can You Change Anything?" it offers a list of 45 things you can do to get out of your rut. Awesome.
His list reminded me of a very interesting management team exercise I experienced a few years back. The company I worked for a few years back was in something of a mental rut. We felt we needed to rethink how we were approaching the market for our product. So we embarked on a day-long exercise with small group breakouts, large wall post-its and lots of healthy debate.
Two exercises stick in my mind:
- What strategies and tactics would you employ if you had unlimited budget? Sometimes you find that released from the burden of thinking about what it'll cost, great ideas that actually don't cost much show up unexpectedly.
- Turn everything upside down. (e.g., global vs. local; or older demographics vs. younger demographics) So whatever you're doing now, consider the polar opposite approach.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Effective versus Measurable: Evaluating Marketing Tactics
I work in very budget constrained times. I am constantly looking for new ways to get the word out that are low cost, but remain effective. But sometimes the easy, cheap methods of getting the word out are really hard to measure. And the ones that cost money are measurable. Tricky situation. But just because something is hard to measure, it should not be a reason to devalue its effectiveness and thus ignore it. Sometimes you just have to do it.
In the 'old days' marketing was much more 'top down.' You used direct mail, paid advertising, email marketing and later paid search to get the word out. But life isn't top down any more. Thankfully. It's much more fun being a marketer now! Everyone is an influencer. You need to give them the tools to get your message out there.
But before you embark on any of these tactics, ensure that your strategy is totally solid. Now is not the time to experiment in the dark. Segment your audience so you understand the most valuable and profitable targets. Use the data you have available to understand what's worked in the past, and what hasn't. Study your competition and learn from their weaknesses and mistakes. In all your tactics, be completely clear of your goal, your audience, your message. Be consistent and stick with it until you can clearly measure results. Then, tweak and adjust to fine-tune.
1. Advertising
Clearly this is highly measurable and target-able. But network advertising doesn't offer the creativity and effectiveness that we're looking for. It's not inviting your audience to be a part of your conversation. However, see another post here about ideas for using advertising not to build clicks, but to build brand recognition.
2. Press releases
These aren't exactly cheap. Well, I guess that depends on your budget perspective. But you obviously have to pay an agency/writer, get the release on the wire, and target your follow up. It's not easy to measure results, but you can certainly measure the hits you get on the various search engines, and thus calculate potential readers. Don't, however, be lured into the 'spray and pray' method of press outreach. Target the writers who speak to the audience you are reaching. Use your press release merely as your news hook. The real value is in the conversation you'll have with that writer one-on-one.
3. Social network profiles
You can measure your friends, the visits to your social network profiles, the numbers of discussions and comments. If you're clever with your parameter tracking in something like Google Analytics you can measure clicks from specific posts or articles. But the real measurements are hard to quantify. Regardless, having a lively, personal, interesting and regularly updating social network profile on MySpace and Facebook is vitally important to ensuring your brand is effectively represented. Ensure that anyone who goes to your social network profile will learn something new about you and your brand. Something they'll want to share.
4. SEO campaigns
Both measurable and effective. Measurable in the sense that you should clearly be able to see changes in your traffic to your site if you have decent tracking at your end of the clickstream. Effective because if you do a good job of ensuring your site content is well indexed and follows all the plethora of SEO rules, then someone looking for what you offer should be easily able to find you. During our recent campaign with the wondrous Lady GaGa, searching for "lady gaga photos" during the campaign resulted in Photobucket as the #2 result in Google, right after Google's own image search (which was also full of Photobucket images). Great traffic spikes resulted.
5. Corporate blog
A well documented corporate blog is highly effective: the press find you, and read backgrounds on you and your stories. The terms in your blog should be well indexed through SEO. However, if it's hard to measure effectiveness. Even if you only get a few thousand visitors to your corporate blog a day, those are still a few thousand people who are getting a back story, and who can potentially pass along what they have found.
6. Schmoozing the blogosphere and twitosphere
In an ideal world, you have a full time community manager whose job it is to continually engage bloggers and tweeters who may be interested in your proposition. Each tweeter or blogger who tells their audience about you and your product has a huge multiple effect. Even if it's hard to measure it is a highly effective way to get the word out at low cost.
In the 'old days' marketing was much more 'top down.' You used direct mail, paid advertising, email marketing and later paid search to get the word out. But life isn't top down any more. Thankfully. It's much more fun being a marketer now! Everyone is an influencer. You need to give them the tools to get your message out there.
But before you embark on any of these tactics, ensure that your strategy is totally solid. Now is not the time to experiment in the dark. Segment your audience so you understand the most valuable and profitable targets. Use the data you have available to understand what's worked in the past, and what hasn't. Study your competition and learn from their weaknesses and mistakes. In all your tactics, be completely clear of your goal, your audience, your message. Be consistent and stick with it until you can clearly measure results. Then, tweak and adjust to fine-tune.
1. Advertising
Clearly this is highly measurable and target-able. But network advertising doesn't offer the creativity and effectiveness that we're looking for. It's not inviting your audience to be a part of your conversation. However, see another post here about ideas for using advertising not to build clicks, but to build brand recognition.
2. Press releases
These aren't exactly cheap. Well, I guess that depends on your budget perspective. But you obviously have to pay an agency/writer, get the release on the wire, and target your follow up. It's not easy to measure results, but you can certainly measure the hits you get on the various search engines, and thus calculate potential readers. Don't, however, be lured into the 'spray and pray' method of press outreach. Target the writers who speak to the audience you are reaching. Use your press release merely as your news hook. The real value is in the conversation you'll have with that writer one-on-one.
3. Social network profiles
You can measure your friends, the visits to your social network profiles, the numbers of discussions and comments. If you're clever with your parameter tracking in something like Google Analytics you can measure clicks from specific posts or articles. But the real measurements are hard to quantify. Regardless, having a lively, personal, interesting and regularly updating social network profile on MySpace and Facebook is vitally important to ensuring your brand is effectively represented. Ensure that anyone who goes to your social network profile will learn something new about you and your brand. Something they'll want to share.
4. SEO campaigns
Both measurable and effective. Measurable in the sense that you should clearly be able to see changes in your traffic to your site if you have decent tracking at your end of the clickstream. Effective because if you do a good job of ensuring your site content is well indexed and follows all the plethora of SEO rules, then someone looking for what you offer should be easily able to find you. During our recent campaign with the wondrous Lady GaGa, searching for "lady gaga photos" during the campaign resulted in Photobucket as the #2 result in Google, right after Google's own image search (which was also full of Photobucket images). Great traffic spikes resulted.
5. Corporate blog
A well documented corporate blog is highly effective: the press find you, and read backgrounds on you and your stories. The terms in your blog should be well indexed through SEO. However, if it's hard to measure effectiveness. Even if you only get a few thousand visitors to your corporate blog a day, those are still a few thousand people who are getting a back story, and who can potentially pass along what they have found.
6. Schmoozing the blogosphere and twitosphere
In an ideal world, you have a full time community manager whose job it is to continually engage bloggers and tweeters who may be interested in your proposition. Each tweeter or blogger who tells their audience about you and your product has a huge multiple effect. Even if it's hard to measure it is a highly effective way to get the word out at low cost.
Awkward Family Photos -- fabulously viral
I have had this site shared with me five or six times in the past two weeks. It's hysterical and weirdly compelling. Take a look. http://www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Driving traffic and building awareness in budget-challenged times
I seem a lot of this in my job. How to do more with less. Without hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even a small percentage of that, to fill the awareness/consideration end of the marketing funnel, how do you introduce new people to your service?
Traditional Marketing Funnel
Marketing Value Trades
If you have something to offer, trade. Trade promotional units, emails, blog posts, your technology, know how for promotion in return. At Photobucket, we have been promoted by #1 air time radio hosts, FOX TV shows, many music bands, even the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Barack Obama. Build a tiered trade system that you can measure. Estimate what it would cost to have your value sponsored or sold, and get value in kind.
Partner Placements
Partner programs, where you trade what you have for promotion on your partner sites, even if no money changes hands work. If partners integrate with your technology or content, work with them to promote it to their users, do PR outreach, and share the love. If they have marketing dollars to spend, so much the better. Leverage their budget to your mutual benefit.
Viral Promotions
Many blog words have been spent trying to unlock the key to what makes something viral. If you have the approach to build viral-sharing into your property from the very beginning, you're in with a better chance. But it's very hard to know what's going to take off. We all have viral envy. I often look at viral campaigns and think how easy it looks, and how hard it actually is to do. But keep trying. No one will fault you for trying, and failing. Just keep trying. But do look a the failed campaigns that uncovered the PR or Ad Agency schills, and avoid the most obvious pitfalls. See another blog post here, "what makes a message viral?" and "what do great viral videos have in common?"
Word of Mouth
Build word-of-mouth into everything from the beginning. "Share this with a friend" options should always be part of your site. Look to see what people are talking about, and if it's absolutely relevant to your product, join the conversation. (If you're not relevant, you'll be outed as @spam right away.) Build conversations wherever you go. If you can build forums, even crowd-sourced ones, do so. Respond to blog comments. Build your Twitter presence. All these help. They sometimes feel slow to get going, but get going they will.
Traditional Marketing Funnel
(I am not trying to analyze the appropriateness of a traditional marketing funnel in the social media world. That's the subject of a separate post, to come. But suffice to say that we have to drive awareness and consideration of your product or service, regardless.)
Marketing Value Trades
If you have something to offer, trade. Trade promotional units, emails, blog posts, your technology, know how for promotion in return. At Photobucket, we have been promoted by #1 air time radio hosts, FOX TV shows, many music bands, even the Presidential Inaugural Committee for Barack Obama. Build a tiered trade system that you can measure. Estimate what it would cost to have your value sponsored or sold, and get value in kind.
Partner Placements
Partner programs, where you trade what you have for promotion on your partner sites, even if no money changes hands work. If partners integrate with your technology or content, work with them to promote it to their users, do PR outreach, and share the love. If they have marketing dollars to spend, so much the better. Leverage their budget to your mutual benefit.
Viral Promotions
Many blog words have been spent trying to unlock the key to what makes something viral. If you have the approach to build viral-sharing into your property from the very beginning, you're in with a better chance. But it's very hard to know what's going to take off. We all have viral envy. I often look at viral campaigns and think how easy it looks, and how hard it actually is to do. But keep trying. No one will fault you for trying, and failing. Just keep trying. But do look a the failed campaigns that uncovered the PR or Ad Agency schills, and avoid the most obvious pitfalls. See another blog post here, "what makes a message viral?" and "what do great viral videos have in common?"
Word of Mouth
Build word-of-mouth into everything from the beginning. "Share this with a friend" options should always be part of your site. Look to see what people are talking about, and if it's absolutely relevant to your product, join the conversation. (If you're not relevant, you'll be outed as @spam right away.) Build conversations wherever you go. If you can build forums, even crowd-sourced ones, do so. Respond to blog comments. Build your Twitter presence. All these help. They sometimes feel slow to get going, but get going they will.
How to choose the right PR firm for your company
I have learned a little over the past years about how to go about selecting a PR firm. I thought it would be useful to myself, and possibly others, to outline what I have learned.
1. Set Goals
Without PR goals for yourself, how on earth do you expect to choose a firm?
Before you do anything else, agree on your goals for PR. Do you want your PR to:
Some firms are good at real business/old fashioned journalism. Others specialize in consumer social media outreach and blogs. There are many specialities. Consider firms that specialize in areas related to your goals. It's highly probable that your goals year one are different than your goals year three, in which case a new firm is likely to be needed. But remember the speciality needs to match your goal.
2. Snoop the ecosystem
Who is always getting press? Who is doing it well? Find out who their firm is! If they are your competition, you may likely run into conflicts of interest. But still try. If they are a larger firm, they may be able to support you by separating your team from your competitor's team. Though that doesn't always work. If they are a smaller firm, they will not be able to support you honestly.
If you can find a company that's getting great press from a related, and complementary product then it's a win. When I selected Lewis PR for Photobucket's early days, I liked how they were handling press for Second Life, at that time a huge Internet darling. I hadn't heard of Lewis PR, but I certainly had heard of this particular client of theirs, and that was a good recommendation.
3. List your goals for PR
Related to (1) above, but in more detail. Define at least 5 top goals for your first year of engagement with your PR firm. Think: if you can achieve these goals within the first year of engagement, I'll be a happy client.
Some goals may be very specific: get on the back page of the "USA Today Money section", and "Get read about by Rupert Murdoch."
Or they may be slightly less specific: get into the "how to column" of 6 major national Sunday papers, or get a detailed article on the top 10 mommy blogs.
Whatever you choose, your PR firm will love that you are being specific, not vague.
And by the way, I gave those two goals (USA Today and Rupert Murdoch, among others) to Lewis PR for Photobucket when I hired them. They delivered. I was happy.
4. Cold call, or write to the PR firms you have shortlisted in (2) above.
Unbelievably, some firms don't call back. Strike one. Actually, strike OUT. If you know someone who can introduce you, great. But frankly, they should have their act together enough to call and email you back promptly even if you're not introduced and don't know anyone there.
5. Telephone interview (brief)
Just see if there's a conflict of interest, and see if you like their general reaction to you. Also check that they could potentially take on your workload. Some of the smaller firms may be too busy to give you the love you deserve. Though in today's climate, that's highly unlikely.
6. Write to the PR firms that make it through (4) and (5) with your goals
As listed in (3) above. Then set up a longer phone interview to discuss those goals. This is a killer step: if they don't speak to your goals, don't bother seeing them face-to-face. I recall specifically stating in goals that I was not interested in guerrilla PR marketing ploys. I was then regaled with exactly that. Did you not read my email? Again, using the Lewis PR example, Morgan McClintock of Lewis PR not only talked to my goals, but offered insights I hadn't thought of. I learned something about my company from talking to him. Joy.
Don't be lead down the budget path yet. They don't yet need to know your budget. You need to know how, and if, they can meet your goals.
7. Finally, face-to-face
Hopefully you're down to three firms by this time. Only now do you need to spend face-to-face time. Here are some deal breakers:
Finally, don't choose a firm without specifically meeting your potential account representative. Don't be taken in by the 'bait and switch.' The bait and switch is where you meet the fabulous PR guru at the top who can do all the name-dropping, fall in love, and then get a 22-year old school leaver on your account. Sorry. That doesn't work.
The person dialing for you needs to know their stuff, and you should be able to ask for someone good. You should know in advance who is going to be calling journalists on your behalf.
Find out how often they would meet you face-to-face and on the phone. I think weekly status calls is great, and at least a one month face-to-face. At that point, I'm happy to go to their space. I want them to spend their hourly time working for me, not driving to see me.
9. Budget planning
Before you finally marry the firm, make some agreements:
1. Set Goals
Without PR goals for yourself, how on earth do you expect to choose a firm?
Before you do anything else, agree on your goals for PR. Do you want your PR to:
- Build awareness among a specific audience -- be sure to clearly define that audience (customers, partners, brands, developers, business leaders)
- Drive traffic to your site (same question as above -- for what audience?)
- Get developers to build apps on your platform
- Get partners to integrate with your site, technology, API
- Get acquired by someone bigger and richer than you
- and so on....
Some firms are good at real business/old fashioned journalism. Others specialize in consumer social media outreach and blogs. There are many specialities. Consider firms that specialize in areas related to your goals. It's highly probable that your goals year one are different than your goals year three, in which case a new firm is likely to be needed. But remember the speciality needs to match your goal.
2. Snoop the ecosystem
Who is always getting press? Who is doing it well? Find out who their firm is! If they are your competition, you may likely run into conflicts of interest. But still try. If they are a larger firm, they may be able to support you by separating your team from your competitor's team. Though that doesn't always work. If they are a smaller firm, they will not be able to support you honestly.
If you can find a company that's getting great press from a related, and complementary product then it's a win. When I selected Lewis PR for Photobucket's early days, I liked how they were handling press for Second Life, at that time a huge Internet darling. I hadn't heard of Lewis PR, but I certainly had heard of this particular client of theirs, and that was a good recommendation.
3. List your goals for PR
Related to (1) above, but in more detail. Define at least 5 top goals for your first year of engagement with your PR firm. Think: if you can achieve these goals within the first year of engagement, I'll be a happy client.
Some goals may be very specific: get on the back page of the "USA Today Money section", and "Get read about by Rupert Murdoch."
Or they may be slightly less specific: get into the "how to column" of 6 major national Sunday papers, or get a detailed article on the top 10 mommy blogs.
Whatever you choose, your PR firm will love that you are being specific, not vague.
And by the way, I gave those two goals (USA Today and Rupert Murdoch, among others) to Lewis PR for Photobucket when I hired them. They delivered. I was happy.
4. Cold call, or write to the PR firms you have shortlisted in (2) above.
Unbelievably, some firms don't call back. Strike one. Actually, strike OUT. If you know someone who can introduce you, great. But frankly, they should have their act together enough to call and email you back promptly even if you're not introduced and don't know anyone there.
5. Telephone interview (brief)
Just see if there's a conflict of interest, and see if you like their general reaction to you. Also check that they could potentially take on your workload. Some of the smaller firms may be too busy to give you the love you deserve. Though in today's climate, that's highly unlikely.
6. Write to the PR firms that make it through (4) and (5) with your goals
As listed in (3) above. Then set up a longer phone interview to discuss those goals. This is a killer step: if they don't speak to your goals, don't bother seeing them face-to-face. I recall specifically stating in goals that I was not interested in guerrilla PR marketing ploys. I was then regaled with exactly that. Did you not read my email? Again, using the Lewis PR example, Morgan McClintock of Lewis PR not only talked to my goals, but offered insights I hadn't thought of. I learned something about my company from talking to him. Joy.
Don't be lead down the budget path yet. They don't yet need to know your budget. You need to know how, and if, they can meet your goals.
7. Finally, face-to-face
Hopefully you're down to three firms by this time. Only now do you need to spend face-to-face time. Here are some deal breakers:
- Are they willing to come to your space? They should be.
- Do they bring 100 people? You only need to meet the people who will work directly on your account
- Do they speak to your goals? At this point, you should expect a preliminary idea of how they'd approach reaching the goals you have generously outlined for them; if they don't, and they haven't done their homework, they don't care and should be thrown out.
- They should also look to help you define a reasonable budget, with what would be included and excluded
Finally, don't choose a firm without specifically meeting your potential account representative. Don't be taken in by the 'bait and switch.' The bait and switch is where you meet the fabulous PR guru at the top who can do all the name-dropping, fall in love, and then get a 22-year old school leaver on your account. Sorry. That doesn't work.
The person dialing for you needs to know their stuff, and you should be able to ask for someone good. You should know in advance who is going to be calling journalists on your behalf.
Find out how often they would meet you face-to-face and on the phone. I think weekly status calls is great, and at least a one month face-to-face. At that point, I'm happy to go to their space. I want them to spend their hourly time working for me, not driving to see me.
9. Budget planning
Before you finally marry the firm, make some agreements:
- 30-day opt out ideal; not every PR firm likes this
- agree how they spend your retainer; I caution against weekly clippings. Do that yourself with Google Alerts. Spend your money on something real, not gathering of weekly emails
- I also caution against expensive blog monitors too. Unless of course you have lots of money to spend. But who does?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
tweetmeme -- what's popular when
tweetmeme is my new toy for watching what's going on in the Twitosphere. http://tweetmeme.com/. It allows you to watch for any terms and get stats for the last day, week and month. I particularly like the categories, where you can see which Twitter topics are recently popular.
If you search for something like #RPattz -- a recent trending topic as today is the boy's 23rd birthday -- you can find out which of the millions of inane tweets about Robert Pattinson were the most popular. This is the most useful feature, I think, of the site.
If you search for something like #RPattz -- a recent trending topic as today is the boy's 23rd birthday -- you can find out which of the millions of inane tweets about Robert Pattinson were the most popular. This is the most useful feature, I think, of the site.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
What do the top tweeters tweet about?
If you're interested in finding out what the top tweeters tweet, go here: http://100twt.com/. Dave Winer of Scripting News wrote this app that shows you just what they're tweeting. It's a very mixed bag. Stephen Fry is still my favorite (@stephenfry). Maybe because he makes me nostalgic for England. What a sap I am.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Are Twitter celebrities "real"?
Here's a site, just dedicated to figuring out if Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc. celebrities are real. Or not. http://valebrity.com/.
The site has rather a lengthy procedure you have to go through to make sure that you're "real." See it here: http://valebrity.com/tag/getadded/. So now you can find out if you're really talking to that beautiful Brazilian model, or some kid in middle America typing on her behalf. Creepy.
Jeez. You just don't know what's real any more do you?
The site has rather a lengthy procedure you have to go through to make sure that you're "real." See it here: http://valebrity.com/tag/getadded/. So now you can find out if you're really talking to that beautiful Brazilian model, or some kid in middle America typing on her behalf. Creepy.
Jeez. You just don't know what's real any more do you?
Monday, May 4, 2009
What makes a message viral?
My favorite part of this article is the reference to NOLS, as I'm sending my daughter to NOLS this summer.
What makes a message viral? It's an opportunity to share something cool, interesting, money saving, life saving, fun, funny. It makes the messenger feel useful, knowledgeable, powerful.
What message can your brand share that will make your brand messengers feel that way?
What makes a message viral? It's an opportunity to share something cool, interesting, money saving, life saving, fun, funny. It makes the messenger feel useful, knowledgeable, powerful.
What message can your brand share that will make your brand messengers feel that way?
Getting starting with corporate social media marketing
There are dozens, no hundreds, and probably thousands of decent articles about how corporate brands should get started with social media marketing. This article may, or may not, bring you something new. For me, it reflects a little of what I have learned about how brands can start thinking about managing their marketing funnel online through social media.
Your social media marketing strategy is different to, or rather an adjunct of, your general integrated marketing strategy. The latter is about awareness building and demand generation and likely involves time-limited specific campaigns like product launches or specific awareness campaigns.
Your social media marketing strategy is an umbrella strategy. It should be included as a part of all the integrated marketing campaigns you do, and it should be an on-going evergreen strategy.
Here are some discussion points.
1. All brands can be social
How can you be social? Start a conversation with your customers. Do it through a blog, a Twitter, an online forum, a social marketing page. Make sure it's staffed by YOUR staff. Not your agency staff. You need to learn this stuff.
2. Start with Twitter and expand from there
Twitter is an easy way to get started. And get started you must. I have another post on this blog about how to get started with Twitter. Commit to being on there every single day -- including weekends. Choose one, or two, people as the official Tweeters and have them agree from the start on their approach, voice, strategy and the most interesting things to tweet about with your brand.
3. Be clear about your message
What is the message you want shared about your brand? Be clear from the start, and be consistent. Your message is not only your brand's core value, but also your brand's personality. Are you fun, irreverent, serious, youthful, crazy, honest? And what is the cornerstone message you want to keep coming back to?
4. Determine your investment in your social marketing program
You can spend a fortune on an agency to help you. Or, you can kick it off by getting out there and getting started yourself.
Bring in an agency when you don't have the resources to manage and implement your campaign. But don't leave all the strategy and key learnings to your agency. You have to have formed an opinion yourself and determined a good approach yourself. Don't pay the agency for this work up front. They are there to validate, fine-tune, and reflect.
I strongly recommend at least one in-house staff person having hands-on involvement in all aspects of your social media presence. That way you are investing in your own corporate knowledgebase, not in your agency's knowledgebase. Don't abdicate all these important tasks to an agency. If you feel you don't know enough, hire a knowledgeable person to teach you and do the work. Much more valuable in the long term.
Don't start with 'what will it cost?' Start with what you want to achieve, how you can measure it, how you can get your feet wet with little or no cost.
Remember, there is a risk to being outside the conversation. Jump in and learn to swim.
5. Selling up to management
How do you convince management to participate when they may not have a clue what social media marketing is? Further reason to get started internally first and gain key learnings. "We wouldn't have known this without having done that." Show value and engagement in small ways, and then extrapolate value beyond that initial engagement.
Show off what your competition is doing in this area. Or, if they haven't arrived there, show off cool things that related brands are doing. These things are very hard to measure in terms of strict ROI. It'll take months to get something off the ground. If your management is very reticent, try to kick off with things that are low-risk and low-cost. There is no fee to start a Facebook fan page and a Twitter stream, so that's a good place to start. Begin writing your own corporate blog, without publishing it, to show what posts might look like. Again, with a tool like Blogger there is no cost to get started.
Your social media marketing strategy is different to, or rather an adjunct of, your general integrated marketing strategy. The latter is about awareness building and demand generation and likely involves time-limited specific campaigns like product launches or specific awareness campaigns.
Your social media marketing strategy is an umbrella strategy. It should be included as a part of all the integrated marketing campaigns you do, and it should be an on-going evergreen strategy.
Here are some discussion points.
1. All brands can be social
How can you be social? Start a conversation with your customers. Do it through a blog, a Twitter, an online forum, a social marketing page. Make sure it's staffed by YOUR staff. Not your agency staff. You need to learn this stuff.
2. Start with Twitter and expand from there
Twitter is an easy way to get started. And get started you must. I have another post on this blog about how to get started with Twitter. Commit to being on there every single day -- including weekends. Choose one, or two, people as the official Tweeters and have them agree from the start on their approach, voice, strategy and the most interesting things to tweet about with your brand.
3. Be clear about your message
What is the message you want shared about your brand? Be clear from the start, and be consistent. Your message is not only your brand's core value, but also your brand's personality. Are you fun, irreverent, serious, youthful, crazy, honest? And what is the cornerstone message you want to keep coming back to?
4. Determine your investment in your social marketing program
You can spend a fortune on an agency to help you. Or, you can kick it off by getting out there and getting started yourself.
Bring in an agency when you don't have the resources to manage and implement your campaign. But don't leave all the strategy and key learnings to your agency. You have to have formed an opinion yourself and determined a good approach yourself. Don't pay the agency for this work up front. They are there to validate, fine-tune, and reflect.
I strongly recommend at least one in-house staff person having hands-on involvement in all aspects of your social media presence. That way you are investing in your own corporate knowledgebase, not in your agency's knowledgebase. Don't abdicate all these important tasks to an agency. If you feel you don't know enough, hire a knowledgeable person to teach you and do the work. Much more valuable in the long term.
Don't start with 'what will it cost?' Start with what you want to achieve, how you can measure it, how you can get your feet wet with little or no cost.
Remember, there is a risk to being outside the conversation. Jump in and learn to swim.
5. Selling up to management
How do you convince management to participate when they may not have a clue what social media marketing is? Further reason to get started internally first and gain key learnings. "We wouldn't have known this without having done that." Show value and engagement in small ways, and then extrapolate value beyond that initial engagement.
Show off what your competition is doing in this area. Or, if they haven't arrived there, show off cool things that related brands are doing. These things are very hard to measure in terms of strict ROI. It'll take months to get something off the ground. If your management is very reticent, try to kick off with things that are low-risk and low-cost. There is no fee to start a Facebook fan page and a Twitter stream, so that's a good place to start. Begin writing your own corporate blog, without publishing it, to show what posts might look like. Again, with a tool like Blogger there is no cost to get started.
How you can build your own creative genius
I am finding this article about Walt Disney's creative genius very interesting. More than putting it work to at work, I'm going to discuss it with my children. Combining their creative dreams with a healthy dose of reality is a lesson it's never too soon to learn.
Here's how you can use Disney's creative strategy:
1. Be a dreamer -- what are you trying to achieve? What excites you and inspires you? What's your passion?
2. Be a realist -- what resources do you need? What's your plan? What are the obstacles?
3. Be a critic -- How does it look? To you? Your customer? Your audience? Don't do this step too early and stymie your creativity. Sometimes it takes courage to be the dreamer, and the critic can make any dreamer feel their ideas are worthless.
Here's how you can use Disney's creative strategy:
1. Be a dreamer -- what are you trying to achieve? What excites you and inspires you? What's your passion?
2. Be a realist -- what resources do you need? What's your plan? What are the obstacles?
3. Be a critic -- How does it look? To you? Your customer? Your audience? Don't do this step too early and stymie your creativity. Sometimes it takes courage to be the dreamer, and the critic can make any dreamer feel their ideas are worthless.
What do great viral videos have in common?
Reading "What do great viral videos have in common?" It says they all great viral videos make you:
What this article is talking about is great viral brand videos. Not just great viral videos. Their analysis associates something (e.g. ease of use, overcoming of fears with the E-trade baby) with a brand. Great viral brand videos leave a positive association in your mind with that brand.
(Naturally this doesn't apply to, say the classic Evolution of Dance. Which is just plain fun and funny and a video you are happy to watch more than once. )
What do all these successful brand viral videos have in common in their approach to content?
They are a little racy (babies looking at the girl's backside and saying "shit"?) in the baby eTrade video.
They are funny and have a "how did they do that" component in Samsung's LED video. This one also has a somewhat tenuous link to Samsung itself. I wonder if anyone will remember the Samsung LED connection? But I love the Welsh accents and the participants have a cool nerd factor.
Another one from over the pond: the Cadbury's Eyebrow video. This one has the cute kids, as well as the "how did they do that" component. And it's particularly fun for those of us who can only cock one eyebrow, not two. (I can only wiggle one ear too. Call me inept.)
And here's a great one that makes you wonder how many of the people involved were shills, and how many were really dancing on the spur of the moment. The "life is sharing" message comes on quietly, and the theme is super fun in T-Mobile's dance video on Liverpool Street Station in London.
- Connect with you personally, and
- Want to share them with friends
What this article is talking about is great viral brand videos. Not just great viral videos. Their analysis associates something (e.g. ease of use, overcoming of fears with the E-trade baby) with a brand. Great viral brand videos leave a positive association in your mind with that brand.
(Naturally this doesn't apply to, say the classic Evolution of Dance. Which is just plain fun and funny and a video you are happy to watch more than once. )
What do all these successful brand viral videos have in common in their approach to content?
They are a little racy (babies looking at the girl's backside and saying "shit"?) in the baby eTrade video.
They are funny and have a "how did they do that" component in Samsung's LED video. This one also has a somewhat tenuous link to Samsung itself. I wonder if anyone will remember the Samsung LED connection? But I love the Welsh accents and the participants have a cool nerd factor.
Another one from over the pond: the Cadbury's Eyebrow video. This one has the cute kids, as well as the "how did they do that" component. And it's particularly fun for those of us who can only cock one eyebrow, not two. (I can only wiggle one ear too. Call me inept.)
And here's a great one that makes you wonder how many of the people involved were shills, and how many were really dancing on the spur of the moment. The "life is sharing" message comes on quietly, and the theme is super fun in T-Mobile's dance video on Liverpool Street Station in London.
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