All posts tagged Social Media

I’ll Be Checking In For Christmas

By | November 23/11 By | December 22, 2011

If you’re not already on a holiday break, you’re probably headed for one soon. Heading home for the holidays often means catching up with old friends and visiting old haunts – and if you’re like me, you’ll be using a check-in service such as FourSquare to keep track of places you visit, find out where your friends are, unlock on-the-spot deals, and hopefully earn a “badge” or two along the way.

Things have just gotten interesting in the location-based social media game. Foursquare has been the dominating service since its inception in 2009, but Facebook just made a move for a serious play at competing in the space with its purchase and integration of Foursquare competitor Gowalla.

So what does this mean for us as consumers and marketers? Imagine this: you’re meeting with your high school friend at the restaurant you spent many late nights in high school, and your phone alerts you that there’s a new craft beer bar nearby. And bonus – they’re offering a buy 1 get 1 free deal for first-time customers (which they can track thanks to location-based check-in services)! So you suggest it to your friend, and it turns out that he’s a regular there. You all walk over to the bar for a drink, and on checking in find out that your buddy is the Mayor of the bar, which earns him a half-price pitcher. Score! Plus, two of your other highschool friends saw your check-in on Facebook and stopped by the bar to see you. Thanks to the check-in service, you got a few half-price beverages, discovered a new favorite hangout whenever you visit home, and saw some friends who may not have already known you’re in town. On the bar’s side of things, they earned a new fan and a few extra customers that night – all for the price of a couple beers.

Location-based marketing is going to be a major player in 2012. How can it benefit your business?
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Marketing Jam Session

By | November 23/11 By | August 25, 2010

Combining folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, jazz, and rock, they created an improvisational sound experience unlike any other. They performed at Woodstock. One of their rag tag crew was the inspiration for a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor. And they recognized the power of community before a tweet was anything more than an onomatopoeia for bird talk.

Yep, I’m talking about the Grateful Dead.

Over the weekend, I started reading Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead: What Every Business Can Learn from the Most Iconic Band in History. (The Kindle version – something I’ll obsess about in another blog perhaps). The story is told by a couple of Deadheads and marketing gurus – Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott. While following the lead of a psychedelic band may seem like a risk for corporate types, the Grateful Dead developed an innovative approach to marketing that is now called social media. (And they did it without today’s instant message technology.)

Interesting and quick reading, I recommend you dust off the albums (or download a few tunes), grab a pint of Cherry Garcia, and dip into this book for some marketing inspiration.

Susan Lawson-Dawson – avid reader & rocker!
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Nurture Your Prospects

By | November 23/11 By | August 2, 2010

So, let’s say your marketing efforts have worked. You have generated a ton of prospects. You are a superstar and are admired by your peers within your organization. Now what? Prospects are all at different stages in the buying process and need to be handled differently. If a prospect is ready to buy, you may want to contact them regularly…maybe once a week. If another prospect is interested but not ready, sending helpful information or an article each month will keep you on their radar screen. You also may want to send them an invitation to an event or to a helpful link on your site. Check out this article that spells it all out. I think it is excellent.

Bill small2 – Bill

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The Fastest Way to Increase Your Google Ranking

By | November 23/11 By | May 25, 2010

how-to-poseThis article was forwarded to me recently and I thought it was pretty good! Businesses in Dayton Ohio and pretty much anywhere or any size will benefit. Go to: The Fastest Way to Increase Your Google Ranking | Social Media Examiner.
Bill small2 – Bill

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Dayton AMA

By | November 23/11 By | April 19, 2010

I went to an AMA meeting at Carillon Park last week. The topic was “The Future Role of Marketing in the Organization”. While we were surrounded by the sounds of change at Carillon around us (hammers, saws, lights flickering, etc…), we were also discussing the changes happening in marketing! Two things that struck me, one was the concept of convergence. Integrating traditional forms of marketing (direct mail, brochures, radio, TV) with newer forms (social media, Web site, inbound marketing, landing pages, PURLS, SEO, email). the mix and what channels you use depends on your target markets!

Bill small2 – Bill

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Five Tips to Clean Up Your Marketing

By | November 23/11 By | April 5, 2010

Marketing need polish? Here are a few tips that will blast away the dust bunnies and generate leads and get clean results.

1. It’s All About Them
Ask your target markets for their wants and needs. Their concerns are the fuel for your marketing efforts and future solutions.

2. Scrub-A-Dub-Dub
Get all of your marketing materials and promotions together and give them a good scrubbing! From your business cards to your Web site, make sure all are focused on customers needs first, not just describing your products and services.

3. Load up on the Right Blend
Where do your prospects get the information they need? Load up online with Inbound, value driven marketing on your Web site and connect your clients and prospects to your content through social networks. Integrate and follow up with conventional print collateral to secure the order.

4. Murky Must Go
Wimpy or weak graphics, identity and marketing materials will get ignored or trashed. Messaging has to stand out, focused, helpful and with a great call to action.

5. Shining Stars
Personalized offers and messaging with email, variable printing and pURLs (personalized URLs) have been proven stars. The closer you get to 1:1 marketing, the higher your success rate.

Bill small2 – Bill

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Social Media: $8 Million for Haiti…and Growing

By | November 23/11 By | January 18, 2010

The Red Cross reports that $10 donations from cellphone texting to help with relief efforts in Haiti has hit the 8 million dollar mark as of 1/15/10 and it is growing. The power to help has never been easier. This is a milestone in fundraising for the amount and the speed in which the money was donated. The campaign was spread through various means, including popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook. I am sure fundraisers in Dayton have taken notice. Will we need still need ushers at church on Sunday to make the collection or will we text in our “gifts”? Look for more and more uses for your phone soon.

Bill small2 – Bill
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The Stuff of 2009: The Most-Read, Most Downloaded, Most Watched at MarketingProfs : MarketingProfs

By | November 23/11 By | January 5, 2010

1. What do we do with Social Media? Last year was clearly a year that marketers began to pay attention to Social Media in a big way, and began to explore in earnest what Twitter, Facebook, and the like can do for brands and business. In other words, social media has evolved from the passionate early adopters to the mainstream marketing agenda of the CMO. Many of the content categories covered here are clearly dominated by social media, both from a strategic angle Jason Baer’s “Putting the Why Before the How” was the top seminar of 2009 as well as tactical how to use Facebook was a theme across many content categories.

2. How can we do more with less? 2009 was the year of the Great Recession. So it’s no surprise that marketers were also looking for ways to maximize their budgets. Jonathan Kranz’s two-part story on 10 high-impact, low-budget marketing ideas was a clear winner last year, and one of the most-read Get to the Po!nt quick-read newsletters was on that topic. Of course, looking to do more with less also made marketers curious about what free social media tools were capable of. See No. 1, above.

3. Two words: Digital marketing. Online was a key driver of marketing in 2009, at least for our readers. Even in a newly social world where Twitter and Facebook are the brightest and newest toys, things like email, landing pages, and website conversion remain the backbone of digital marketing. It’ll be interesting, in 2010, to see increasing convergence of social tools with the rest of the digital toolkit.

via The Stuff of 2009: The Most-Read, Most Downloaded, Most Watched at MarketingProfs : MarketingProfs.

Bill small2 – Bill
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URLs: Smaller is Better

By | November 23/11 By | January 4, 2010

I just received a looong broken up link in a personal email to register for an event. Needless to say it did not work and I did not have the time to piece it back together. Using long URL links in personal email is so old school (in a bad way). Short URLs are kind of required in tweets. Basically shortened URLs using free online services shows you respect your client’s and prospects time…and email windows. I use bit.ly on a regular basis. You can also use tinyURL.

Here is an example:

Original: http://www.livecrunch.com/2009/02/25/top-10-tiny-short-url-service-generators/

Shortened: http://bit.ly/259hN5

Sooo much nicer!

Links in formatted email is a whole different ballgame. More on that later…

Bill small2 – Bill

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Social Media Seminar Report

By | November 23/11 By | October 23, 2009

On Tuesday I attended SummitUp, a social media seminar that was pretty good. If you didn’t go, I put together the reader’s digest version of the morning session.

Kevin Dugan: What’s your Story? Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Success
Kevin’s presentation was about the power of storytelling. People love stories. They are easier to remember than facts! Stories are wrapped in emotion and are waaaay easier to remember. That’s right emotion. We need to share these personalized stories.
A few examples:
http://www.wecanliveunited.org/: Individual stories of how the United Way has affected them in Cincy. Read a few…they are hard to forget.
http://www.sharpieuncapped.com: Enabled users to tell their own stories with sharpie markers on everything.
Bestbuy: Asked employees and consumers how they could make their stores better. They listened and made the updates…and sales increased.

Artie Isaac: Social Media as a Vehicle for Creativity http://artieisaac.com/
Artie was very entertaining. He outlined how society and mass media has drowned us in entertainment and content. Social media also has a flood of mindless content. What’s the fix?…us. Each one of us needs to turn off the TV and reach deep inside to express our individual, unique creativity. Artie’s suggestions were simple: get sleep, breathe, make a to-don’t list, make a to-do list, try new things once a week, make time for the things that are important to you and write two pages each morning. Quality is good for you (and business).

Brian LeCount: Stop the Social Media Noise: Can You Grow Your Business Faster with a Blog?
Brian put the whole social media explosion in perspective. The media and the geeks love to go on and on about Twitter, tweets, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friends, and Fans…but at the end of the day it’s all about search. It’s what people are doing online more than anything. Using Blogs to get search results, works.

Bob Garfield: No, Tuesday’s No Good. Let Me Get Back to You After the Apocalypse
This guy was scary. Bob outlined the continued decline of traditional media, from networks to newspapers. If traditional media is doomed, now what? Well we just gotta listen much better to our customers and prospects. Let them tell us what matters most.

Lunch: The veggie lasagna and fancy brownie were stand outs. Nothing left on my plate. I washed it all down with curiously small cups of coffee.

Here is the link to the event: http://www.summitup.org/

Jen from our office did afternoon duty.

Sharpie Lamborghini

Sharpie Lamborghini
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