Tag: Social media

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Brett Favre In Minnesota Vikings Uniform On Sp...
Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

Christopher Penn wrote, “Look for the Lesson” the other day on Escape Velocity’s blog. It’s kind of like serendipitous gleaning. As Penn illustrated, “how much can you learn about innovation from pizza dough?”

The Brett Favre debacle has me grieving as a sports fan. The spider web of trouble for Favre and the Vikings seems to get bigger and uglier by the day (big boost for Deadspin, for sure). But rather than wallow in my sorrow, I thought I’d take a critical look at how Favre fell from grace and see if I can cross-pollinate this a little to social media. Here are three lessons on social media strategy we can learn from Mr. Favre.

via socialmediatoday.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link if you’re interested in learning the 3 lessons…

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via flowtown.com

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For only $1.99 in the iTunes Store you can pick up Confession, a new application sanctioned by the Catholic Church. You’re still encouraged to go sit in the box and confess all of your sins for absolution — the app doesn’t replace that, but it does supplement the experience and make it more accessible at all hours. It was only a matter of time: During his World Communications Address last year, Pope Benedict XVI blessed social media and encouraged his flock to “interact with the digital world in service of the faith.”

So, how does the app work? It leads you through an “Examination of Conscience” to help you figure out what your real sins are — and not just by retreading your run of the mill 10 Commandments. The sinful suggestions the app offers are inventive and even age appropriate.

An example given by iPhone is, “I think my cousin is hot, but I’d never go there because it’s socially unacceptable…” OK.

The app also guides you through the format and prayers for confession so that you won’t get all tongue tied and amnesic when sitting before a collared absolver. In addition, it lets you vote on “Sinner” or “Saint” categories, just to keep things interesting. God forbid we should get bored while being wiped clean.

If you are worried about all your personal sins being viewed in cyberspace, fear not — the app customizes each user’s list and is password protected for privacy. Once you go to confession, your nefarious revelations are wiped away. So you can text your heart out on your first draft, and then decide how you want to edit your transgressions for the spoken word — all in the service of making the “big reveal” a little less ominous.

via theatlantic.com

Forgive me iPhone for I have sinned. My last confession was 37 years ago…

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One of the world’s most revered cultures and religious histories has been threatened with death and extinction in Tibet for decades at the hands of the authoritarian Chinese government; Groupon’s Super Bowl advertisement about Tibet (above) was based on a joke drastically reducing the seriousness of that suffering. Not all hope is lost, the ad says, because at least there are still refugees that will cook discounted food for White people! Many people on Twitter reacted very negatively to the ad. This is my best explanation why it was offensive. Not everyone agrees – we’ve got a debate going in comments below which we invite you to participate in.

via readwriteweb.com

Imagine spending $3 million dollars to wreck your brand. What did you think about the commercial?

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Facebook, Inc.
Image via Wikipedia

A recent study by Business.com said that 83% of respondents said that Facebook is their favorite social media tool for reaching customers and no wonder — when Facebook recently passed 350 million members after gaining 250 million members since August 2008 [yes, that’s right — the Facebook ‘nation’ is larger than the United States and growing at an incredible rate] it became clear that if someone was online, you’d probably find them in Facebook…

Yet, as a social media consultant I see so much confusion around the topic of personal profiles, groups, and [fan]pages that I thought it might be time to share THE single best post I’ve found on the topic and share some of the practical experience I’ve gained over the past year working extensively with people and brands in Facebook. I agree with internet marketing expert Dan Zarella when he says “If I could give you only one piece of Facebook marketing advice, it would be: People have profiles. Brands have pages.” He goes on to say…

Social networking profiles represent people. From your Facebook profile, you declare personal relationships, grow your network by manually accepting friend requests, and discover other people in your network to add as friends. Your Facebook profile includes facts about you including your favorite movies, what schools you went to, and your favorite quotes.

Your brand isn’t a person. It doesn’t have a favorite quote or book. You can’t friend a brand, and it certainly can’t friend you back. Brands don’t have friends. Brands have fans. Fans have discussions about your brands, share news about them, and share information about your brands with others.” Source: On Facebook, People Have Profiles, Brands Have Pages.

Here’s the part where it really gets good…

“Profiles are for People. At this point in Facebook’s community’s development, you do not want to keep a profile if you are a brand. Keeping a brand profile is a surefire way to come across as totally out-of-touch. And worse, even if you were to pull off a successful corporate profile, Facebook has been known to suspend profiles for “too much marketing activity.”

Groups are for People. Groups really aren’t suitable for a serious marketing effort. They originally were created as a place for like-minded people to communicate outside of their immediate network and never were intended for brand use. There is very little time and energy required to make one and consequently, users do not value them as much as pages. How many I-lost-my-cellphone-so-I-need-all-your-numbers-again groups have you been invited to?

Pages are for Brands. After setting up a page for your brand on Facebook, use applications to pull in content from your blog and Twitter account (you do have those too right?) to keep your page full of fresh, frequently updated information. Resist the urge to turn your page into a watered-down version of your website. Include some offers, media or conversation on Facebook that does not appear anywhere else. Retail brands like Victoria’s Secret are especially talented at this. I recommend viewing their Victoria’s Secret Pink Facebook page and see how their brand interacts with fans.” Source: On Facebook, People Have Profiles, Brands Have Pages.

Hopefully, that clears everything up from a strategy perspective. Now, a few of my favorite tactics for those who have read this far…

The phrase ‘fan page’ is a misnomer and needs to be addressed. Facebook calls them PAGES, plain and simple, but people refer to them as ‘fan pages’ because they have to ‘become a fan’ to interact with the brand — the correct terminology, however, is ‘page‘. Frequently, when working with someone who wants to become a thought leader, I’ll get a statement like “Well, I’m just a _______ [business owner, politician, teacher, etc. – insert thought leadership role here] — I don’t have any fans. My advice to you? Get over it! Why? Because if you are attempting to create any kind of thought leadership position that evokes a response from people, you have become a brand and brands have fans. When Facebook gives you the ability to build a page [which is really a free mini-website] in the middle of the biggest social media group in the universe, they’re doing you a huge favor!

I recently spoke to a LinkedIn group in Green Bay on the topic of “Facebook for Fun and Profit”. At the time, I advocated using a Facebook primarily as an outpost for your website in order to draw people in. Good strategy, yes, but here’s the part I missed: a Facebook page may be all the website an entrepreneur or organization needs in the beginning! Why? Try these reasons…

  • Facebook pages are indexed by Google so the content is searchable; group pages are also searchable, but many Facebook application such as Social RSS only work with Pages, not groups — groups are not good tools for BRANDS
  • Facebook pages are visible to non-Facebook members [they just can’t become fans or interact with the brand or other fans if they are not a member]
  • You can assign your own url to a Facebook page; see http://e1evation.org
  • Facebook page urls can be modified to something more manageable and referenceable to the outside world; see http://facebook.com/skittles. You cannot do this with groups.
  • Facebook pages are highly customizable; see http://facebook.com/victoriassecret. You cannot do this with groups.

As I read back over the five bullet points, it occurs to me that the primary value of groups is for INTERNAL communications within an organization while pages are EXTERNAL. I think that about sums it up but if you’re still confused, leave a comment or contact me and we’ll get you straightened out!

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Go to the source to read the article: blog.hubspot.com

LinkedIn is an important part of a balanced social media diet — especially here in Northeast Wisconsin! Comment below or ‘connect’ above so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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For small businesses, looking “big” online isn’t so much about appearing as a large company when they’re not. Its about being a big resource for prospects and customers.  As the popularity of content marketing and brands as publishers heats up with large companies, many small businesses still have the advantage of being nimble and adaptive to new ways of engaging customers.  That ability to experiment and implement quickly as well as creatively can be a big advantage.

Here are a few ways small businesses can use content marketing in combination with some SEO and Social Media Smarts to be a “bigger” resource for their  online customers.

via toprankblog.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source if you’re looking for good ideas that will help a small business establish a thought leadership position. Comment below or ‘connect’ above so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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via communityorganizer20.com

Becoming a subject matter expert can be easier than you think — you can get started by using Google Reader to create a virtual newspaper to track your trusted sources. Comment below or ‘connect’ above so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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via communityorganizer20.com

Looking for insights into building community on Facebook? Look no further! Debra Arkanese has you covered. She says “I was talking about Facebook with someone at a conference last week when he said, “yeah, but Facebook isn’t really engaging. When Pages get too big, it’s not really a community.” There’s a lot of truth to that. The Facebook platform makes it difficult because a Page does not offer cross-conversations, so conversations become silos. A Facebook Page is a community, but it is usually a loosely-tied community of lurkers and inactives who don’t have the opportunity to interact with each other or the Page often enough. I think of my colleague’s comment as a challenge: I believe that you can create community within a Facebook Page, but it takes a lot of work, discovery, and dedication.” You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source if you want the rest of the story…

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via engadget.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source if you’re interested…

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AGCO

AgWired, the social media voice of the agriculture industry reports that AGCO, one of the world’s largest agricultural equipment manufacturers, is effectively using social media to stimulate sales in a down economy…

AGCO is providing a great example of how to integrate social media and networking into their communications strategy and to learn more about what they’re doing I spoke with Sue Otten, Director, Corporate Communications & Brand Communications Worldwide. In our conversation we talk about why the company has invested in very active social communications channels. Sue says that it’s a great way to “learn” from their customers and target a new demographic too. Source: AgWired » Blog Archives » AGCO Shows How To Go Social

Want to know their secret?

One of the recommendations Sue makes is to not be afraid to get started with social media. She says that there are some great consultants out there who can help you too. I’ll use this opportunity to make a little plug for Todd Lohenry with e1evation, Inc. who has worked with AGCO. Source: AgWired » Blog Archives » AGCO Shows How To Go Social

Their social media effort is powered by e1evation and Envano — straight outta Wisconsin! Using the same free, open source tools that are available to every entrepreneur, AGCO is rocking the ag world using social media. Comment, call or use the contact form to talk about how you, too, can effectively leverage social media for your marketing efforts…

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According to a study by the out of home company, smartphones have altered the potential value of outdoor advertising because consumers are increasingly likely to act upon commercial messages while outdoors.

The study argues that brands must review how they use outdoor advertising to keep up with consumers likely to access the internet from mobile devices more than desktop commuters in two years.

CBS Outdoor carried out a Europe wide study into how people interact, engage and view outdoor advertising and the impact that smartphones and mobile internet devices have on advertising strategies.

Antonio Alonso, CEO of CBS Outdoor International, says: “The way people relate to outdoor will continue to evolve. Savvy advertisers know that dead time on journeys is being filled by the use of mobile, shaping a world where people can react instantly to commercial messages when they are on the move.

“With outdoor advertising there is a growing opportunity to leverage this new mobile power to reach people on the path to purchase.”

The report adds that there is also an opportunity for brands to enhance their communications by integrating their outdoor advertising strategies with location-based social media services such as FourSquare and Facebook Places, which provide an opportunity for consumers to interact with outdoor media while they are on the move.

via marketingweek.co.uk

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Go to the source: insidefacebook.com

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via mashable.com

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Image representing Alltop as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

As a father of 6, parental analogies are always close at hand for me. It’s why I sometimes say that clients are like children in that when you see them take the things you teach them and they make it their own and excel, you can’t help but burst with pride. Recently, the AGCO blog was included in the agriculture feed at Alltop, the internet’s best source for news aggregation, becoming the only Farm Equipment manufacturer to do so…

AGCO’s success should rightly be credited to Jamy Johnson, a budding online community manager and social media practitioner who took the time to embrace the ‘e1evation workflow’ and make it her own. Last month, their blog had over 10,000 visits and it’s rapidly becoming a key factor in lifting the corporate website to new heights in search and traffic rankings as well…

Kudos to Jamy’s manager Sue Otten who had the courage to embrace social media in the ag space before ag social media was cool! If Jamy and Sue can rise to the top using “good, fast, and cheap” social media tools for agriculture, imagine what you can do in your industry!

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Image representing LinkedIn as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

Boasting 90 million users, LinkedIn is one of the social media titans. For business professionals, it has become an essential tool for staying connected to their business network.

But for companies, there’s been little reason to pay attention to their presence there. LinkedIn has been about individuals, not organizations. LinkedIn Companies existed, but offered little in the way of functionality. That has now changed.

In November, LinkedIn quietly introduced an upgrade to LinkedIn Companies that makes it both a critical and powerful tool for managing your company’s digital presence (especially if you market B2B).

Here’s a primer to help you plan and make the most of some of the powerful new features on LinkedIn Companies.

via mashable.com

Follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to know more…

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