March 31, 2011 By 1 Comment

3 Communications Tools You Shouldn’t Be Ignoring

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Productivity is a key part of running an integrated online marketing campaign whether you’re a pro or doing it yourself.

The tools that are constantly open on my Mac tools, along with the universally popular Evernote, are:

Brainstorming & Clarity

Curio is perhaps not the most well-known tool in my list but it’s absolutely wonderful. A cross between a project organizer, mind-mapping space and notebook, it’s a great thinking space to work in.

With the ability to include outlines, notes, mind-maps, images, hyperlinks, audio files, I can play with my ideas to my hearts content.

Recently I used a mind-map to generate ideas for an ebook I’m working on, the outliner to plan each section of the book, and another space to collect sources.

Because Curio is particularly suited to working with a Mac trackpad your work space is easy to navigate and drag yourself around.

The learning curve is a little steep because there’s not really many applications like it, but it’s definitely worth the time digging deeper into the possibilities of Curio. I suppose in the good old days I did all my thinking on a piece of paper or in a notebook.

The standard edition costs 99 USD and the professional version, which I use, 149 USD. The academic license is just 69 USD.

Curio 2 [Read more...]

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March 29, 2011 By 2 Comments

The One Online Marketing Tactic You Need – Now

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It doesn’t matter how much you intend to achieve with your online marketing if you’re not actively producing the work that’s necessary to even give a shot at succeeding.

Hopes and dreams will not help you achieve your goals; you need to develop an online marketing strategy with clearly spelt out, actionable tasks. If not, the risk is that you’ll either lose focus – constantly chatting on Twitter – or wander off topic in your blogging.

Actionable Plans

It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo consultant, a small business or the member of a marketing team, it’s vital that you have a set of tactics to put into practice each day. For example, let’s say you’ve decided that publishing a business blog is a key strategy to increasing your presence in Google (search engine optimziation) and and demonstrating expertise. Deciding on the tactic isn’t enough. You have to follow through, or you’re simply kidding yourself.

Why not try something like this:

Rather than writing when and if motivation and inspiration strikes, schedule your blog topics for a month at a time. I find the best way of doing this is to write 25 titles in a spreadsheet, identifying what aspect of my target audience each post is meant to appeal to. Then when I open up my computer at a designated time, inspiration is prompted by the title or notes that I’ve made for that post.

business blog topics

If your sole job is marketing and communications it’s obviously easier to schedule specific time for content creation like this than if you’re a consultant jugging marketing alongside your actual job. Nevertheless, even a busy small business can create online content efficiently if adequate time is regularly set aside for producing the work. [Read more...]

Filed Under: blogging, communication strategy, productivity Tagged With: , , ,
October 25, 2010 By 21 Comments

Do Your B2B Communications Bore?

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On Thursday night last week I scuttled off to talk B2B communications and social media to a bunch of people who work for a B2B company that have twelve offices throughout Sweden. After showing them how social media represents a paradigm shift in the way we communicate, I looked at examples of how other companies working within B2B convey their sense of personality and key competences on the web.

Facebook, Blogs or Twitter?

As I was talking all things social, the majority of my presentation looked at how other businesses use social communications channels in the B2B space.

Looking at a rather dry selection of B2B communications on corporate websites, I complained about how much they were lacking in personality and then contrasted them with a few examples I like including my friends at Arment Dietrich.

I chose to showcase Gini’s sites because they do two things that B2Bs can really learn from. They both

  • show personality and
  • build trust and credibility.

Personality

What I like most about Arment Dietrich’s blog, corporate site, and Facebook page is that they ooze personality. Particularly that of CEO, Gini Dietrich.

On the blog there’s a weekly vlog that shows Gini – cycling gear and all, or maybe a hotel backdrop – answering a crowdsourced question from the Facebook Page. For example:

As I’ve written before, this kind of B2B communications gesture shows that the people that run a company are approachable.
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July 5, 2010 By 6 Comments

5 Reasons You Should Follow Us on Twitter

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Have you actually sat down and thought about why your customers should follow you on twitter? I mean really thought about it!

I’ve seen stacks of businesses jump on Twitter in the hope that’s it’s a gravy train, but although they’re tweeting away I’d like to know what they think they’re getting, and what they’re really getting.

Define Your Goals

As with any online communications activity, you’ve got to have an idea where you want to end up. What is this great new shiny online communications tool allow you to do?

Are you on Twitter to:

  • drive people to your blog?
  • make connections with potential customers?
  • monitor what others are saying about you?
  • use it as a channel to provide customer support?
  • manage a crisis?

The list could go on…

Deliver

Once you’ve worked out why you’re on Twitter, it’s imperative that you deliver on your promise.

If Twitter is a channel you use for instant customer feedback, for example, you have to monitor it pretty much all the time. Even on weekends. Don’t just take my word for it; Shel Holtz’s interview with Christian Gunning, director of Corporate Communications for Boingo, a WiFi service provider in the US demonstrates just how important it is to keep up with Twitter on weekends.

So what about me?

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May 12, 2010 By 18 Comments

Web Visibility, Social Media and Online Communications Training

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It’s been a very intense week (six months?) for me and I’m just coming down off the back of my third communications training session since Friday. The focus of all my talks has been communicating online and working with content. Or to put it another way, I’ve talked til I’m hoarse about social media, content and engineering presence and web visibility.

It’s been tough, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed discussing things with some very talented scientists, administrators, and students.

No, I haven’t heard of social media

Of the 75 people or so I talked to, just a very small handful are active on Twitter (hello Sibel !). The vast majority had Facebook accounts. No one admitted to being on MySpace, and absolutely no one had heard of Formspring.me. About half were under 30 and the rest were somewhere between 30 and 50.

For all our talk in the marcom sector of social media marketing, content marketing, web visibility and the “new rules” of PR, it’s very clear that these issues are new to so many people – even those that are interested in increasing their web visibility.

Yes, they might understand how it works when you show them slides of how social media and content marketing being used in the B2B and B2C sectors, and follow what you’re saying. It is, however, a different step entirely to expect them to easily pick up what’s happening and implement the strategies and techniques that those of us that work with content marketing often take for granted.

Content Marketing and Web visibility for Beginners

The most frequent question that comes up when you talk about content marketing to an audience of “normal” people – i.e. non-content marketers! – is: “How will I find time to produce all this content? I have a life!”
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February 18, 2010 By 6 Comments

Social Media Fails to Inspire Norwegian Managers

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A recent report suggests 6 out of 10 Norwegian managers don’t believe social media sites like Facebook are any use to their business.

Echoing Annika Lidne’s comments yesterday that Swedish businesses could learn from how international businesses are using social media, it seems our Norwegian neighbours aren’t exactly oozing enthusiasm for social media as part of their online communications strategy.

norge

Social media is a great way to engage people across a country


Manpower asked 750 senior Norwegian managers about their attitude towards social media.

  • 21 percent thought social media might benefit branding,
  • 14 percent reckoned it could help recruitment,

and only a mere 11 percent thought it would improve co-operation and communication in the workplace.

Start-ups Interested in New Media

After talking in Oslo a couple of weeks ago my impression was that there’s plenty of interest amongst small businesses and start-ups, but that businesses are unsure where to start. Several people asked me about where there were courses they could take or the kinds of books they should read.

Norway, like Sweden, has fabulous online framework and is incredibly reliant on the Net given that it can be so difficult getting around the country to meet customers face-to-face because of the landscape.

It surprises me, then, that there’s not more enthusiasm from senior managers about the way in which social media could benefit businesses.

As I’m booked to speak about online communications and how Facebook and Twitter are likely to impact businesses in the future in Oslo on June 3, I’m curious to know more about how things are in my neighbouring country.

If you have any experience or thoughts about where things are going in Norway, do get in touch either in the comments or please connect with me on Twitter.

Image:Flickr

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February 17, 2010 By 14 Comments

Annika Lidne talks Social Media and Online Communications

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I wanted to go Swedish with this week’s Online Communications interview and I immediately thought of Annika Lidne, CEO of Disruptive Media.

annika-lidne

Annika Lidne (photo: Björn Falkevik)

Annika is one of the most well-known people in the social media industry in Stockholm / Sweden.

I first came across her when I attended one of the Disruptive Media events she organised last year.

As well as being a very knowledgeable and popular figure inside the industry, advising large companies and organisations about social media and digital business, she’s also a very passionate and eloquent speaker about social media and online communication.

Each month Annika also organises the Stockholm Social Media Club that meets for a Friday lunch and networking get-together.

The next Disruptive Media conference is on Social Cash and takes place on March 25 in Stockholm. I hope to see you there!

Jon: One of the courses you offer through Disruptive Media is “How to Create a Successful Blog”. What do you think makes a successful business blog ? And is there anything that Swedish business bloggers are doing differently that people can learn from? Examples?

Annika: Successful blogs are like any other successful content; interesting, relevant and entertaining. To be successful in a business setting, you also have to be useful, very up-to-date and on-topic. The problems many corporate bloggers face are over-selling and over-promotion. Instead of thinking what is interesting for your readers, you want to promote what is interesting for your company.

To make your company blog rise above the level of every other company blog you have to move from just writing about your company, to writing about the topic of your niche i.e. report news and user cases from the area your company works in (Well, unless you are Google. Then you can get away with being very company-centric!) .

I can’t really think of any advice gathered from Swedish business blogs, per se. It’s more the reverse: Swedish business bloggers can learn much from international business blogs on how to select a niche and promote your blog.

Jon: A lot of Swedish businesses are increasingly active on Twitter and Facebook. Some post in English, others Swedish. How would you describe how we’re using these channels in Sweden? or Stockholm? Any trends you’re seeing? Is this a possible route for Swedish businesses to make international connections ? And how do they best achieve this?

Annika: Right now, ordinary Swedes haven’t discovered Twitter. They are on Facebook. But, if you want to connect with journalists, politicians and other people involved in the media, Twitter is a good service. More and more companies and organisations are on Twitter so I think we will see an increased adaption from the general public, especially with the live Twingly channels from the Swedish semi-finals to the European Song Contest and the upcoming Swedish general election. Twitter is getting a lot of media attention right now.

I think that Twitter can be a great tool for Swedish businesses to make international contacts, especially for start-ups in the fields of IT, Web, and Media. If you’re selling industry production, however, I think it’s harder because the audience isn’t there in the same way. But to make worthwhile contacts, you have to start by reaching out through Twitter, reading that person’s or company’s blog, starting a dialogue and then perhaps meet up at a conference.
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