8 Things to Get Your Staff Prepared for a Social 2012

December 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

Although social media has got a lot of traction in 2011, there’s still such a long way to go. More and more companies are asking questions about it and what it means, not just for marketing and communications, but also employees across the board.

For companies that have decided to go down the social route in 2012, you might want to start thinking about how you are going to:

  1. develop an action plan that shows exactly what they plan to accomplish with social media in 2012
  2. get staff thinking creatively about what they can share on social media that might benefit the business
  3. make staff aware of some of the things that can go wrong with social media
  4. identify the person (or people) on your team who are responsible for handling a social media firestorm should something go wrong
  5. improve staff’s creative skills; for example, why not start the New Year with a training day looking at how video can be used to build better connections with customers
  6. pinpoint the social platforms you’re most likely to connect with your target audience
  7. decide on the metrics you are going to track to ensure you’re investment in social media pays off
  8. agree on a social media policy to ensure you’re all set on what’s acceptable and what’s not

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How Not to Succeed on Twitter

November 9, 2011 By 19 Comments

Twitter fail

Having taught a communications class about Twitter recently, I’ve learned a lot about how fledgling marketers can struggle to approach this social media channel in the right way.

In response, here are some tips to ensure you DON’T succeed with Twitter.

1) Post only 6 tweets in 2 weeks.
2) Only follow people who are an exact match for your target audience and no one else.
3) Ignore Twitter Search for weeks.
4) Follow only those that follow you.
5) Monitor your stream and mentions but ignore words related to your business, location or services.
6) Invest your time in ONLY tweeting links to your own landing pages.
7) Tweet 10 links to your landing pages every hour. Every day. Every week.
8) Ignore the opportunity to schedule tweets with apps like HootSuite. After all, who reads Twitter when you’re asleep?
9) Never RT anyone unless they mention you.
10) Talk just about your business, and no one else’s.
11) Talk about anything except your products or services.
12) Forget to post pictures.
13) Pipe your twitter stream with exactly the same content you post on Facebook and nothing else.
14) Check your mentions one a week.
15) Never ask questions.
16) Never answer other tweeps’ questions.
17) Figure your audience will find you; you don’t have to go looking.
18) Automatically DM everyone who follows you.
19) Auto DM new followers with a link to your *must have* ebook. [Read more...]

Filed Under: communication strategy, social media Tagged With: , ,

Delivering Results with Strategy, Not Social Media

November 3, 2011 By 12 Comments

marketing strategy

I‘m coordinating the marketing of an event for a client that takes place at the end of the month. My goal is to fill the place.

Now social media is a big part of this: I’m running a digital marketing campaign which includes Facebook, Twitter, a blog and a podcast. Between now and the date of this event there’ll be a lot of online and offline activity.

As a business you may well have an event (or product launch) coming up. The thing is that if you’re a newbie at using social media to promote a key date in your business schedule, there is absolutely no point going out there and just “going for it” online.

From the outset you have to define your goal(s) – in my case, filling the event with qualified leads.

It’s from this starting point that you should outline your content marketing strategy for the campaign. I find it easiest to open up a spreadsheet and plot the dates between the start and climax of the campaign.

Next up, I plot out the content that’s necessary during the campaign: for example, blog posts on certain days, tweets, video, and audio.

There is absolutely no point in starting the campaign by broadcasting. Shouting out “Hey, we’re having a bash. Come along!” won’t generate that much interest. Not unless you have a very loyal bunch of followers. [Read more...]

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Is Your Marketing Magical?

August 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What are you doing to ensure you stand out from the crowd online? Are you making your online content so magical that customers or prospects leave your site or social media presence feeling you’re someone special?


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My Son Doesn’t Get He’s Being Used Online

July 28, 2011 By 43 Comments

Mr Teen (left) and his co-worker

I returned from my vacation in France to discover that my very own Mr Teen’s summer job sucked. Big time.

He loves it, of course, like all teens do. But I hate it. I bloody hate it.

I hate the fact that our local Stockholm mall thinks it’s okay to put 18 year-old boys outside its store dressed only in swim shorts and sunblock in order to lock punters into the store. I hate that it’s using his image to generate Facebook Likes with pictures and videos.

Conning the Innocent

Sure, Mr Teen thinks he’s well paid; he’s nonchalant about showing his admittedly impressive abs in public for an hourly rate. And he’s flattered by the interest shown by modeling agencies and the promise of casting events in London and New York.

But I’m worried. I’m worried that his identity is casually being consumed by a clothes company’s social media marketing.

Yesterday, the store posted a video of Mr Teen on their website and Facebook Page. Lots of people commented and even more tried to friend him. Sweden’s a small country and word gets around.

The football club he plays for think it’s great they have an increasingly public face and Mr Teen himself has proudly shown us (some of) the feedback and responses he’s got.

What worries me is that despite growing up with a mother who has a PhD in Feminist Theory, and a very media savvy father, he’s been seduced by a few thousand kronor and the attention he’s getting because his employer is happy to promote him to increase their social media profile online. [Read more...]

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How to Survive the Death of Facebook

June 15, 2011 By 18 Comments

Facebook1 1

Whilst rumours of Facebook’s demise might be a little premature, the report this week that it has lost six million users (155.2 million to 149.4 million) in recent weeks in the US could be a sign that Facebook mania is perhaps on the wain.

For businesses who have jumped en masse onto the social platform and invested in the channel and not really seen any tangible results, this might signal that it’s time to panic! Or alternatively, isn’t it time to consider redistributing resources into other online marketing & communications efforts.

Here are 3 things your business might consider to cope with the possible/probably death of Facebook:

Create Brilliant Business Blog Content

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: one of the best ways of connecting with potential clients in the B2B space is to create meaningful online content. Putting a video tutorial on how to get the most out of your product up on Youtube and then embedding it in your business blog is just as useful as Facebook. Sure, Facebook might have been one place to promote it, but there are others. Like Twitter. Like Google Search.

Invest in Video Content

Talking of online video, why not put all that energy and presence you’ve been putting into Facebook into creating more quality content on YouTube. Monitoring your Wall isn’t necessarily particularly effective when you can actually be spending time developing resources that deliver real and meaningful value. [Read more...]

Filed Under: communication strategy, content marketing, podcasting Tagged With: , , , ,