Participation is Marketing

Participation is Marketing

Participation is Marketing

Brian Solis said, “Participation is marketing.” This has never been truer than with social media marketing. We cannot market unless we participate and being there and showing up is actually just one part of the success model.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter said in a TedX talk called the Six Keys to Leading Positive Change, that the keys all include “ups.” They are:
1. Show Up
2. Speak Up (Use the power of voice to shape and influence others’ thinking)
3. Look Up
4. Team Up (Partners matter)
5. Never Give Up (Everything looks like failure in the middle)
6. Lift Others Up (Find your inner Nelson Mandela)

Nelson Mandela. Participation is Marketing.

All of the above keys embody participation. If you’re just dipping your toe in the ocean of social networks and social media marketing, jump in, because in my humble opinion, learning through experience is the only way to learn.

Proximity is Better than Place in the P’s of Marketing

Proximity - location based systems provide convenience

Proximity, ie. Location, location, location

Although very similar to Place, in origin of the word, proximity is important in social media marketing because of our evolution to being consumers of smart phones, and mobile devices. With Social Mobile Local (SoMoLo) comes many check-in applications where people can share their exact location and thereby vote for products and venues based on their visit to a particular store, restaurant or other venue.

Proximity indicates where you are located in the world, whether near or far and allows for marketers to effectively create value for you based on your physical and geographic location.

Proximity has opened up a whole new way of marketing for local businesses including those brave enough to try group buying coupon/deal services like Groupon, LivingSocial, Bloomspot, and Yipit (to name only a few). Proximity is about place, but it’s not about the marketer wanting to have the product on the shelf at eye-level. It’s about reaching out to people who are already nearby or who have friends nearby, providing value in the form of convenience and connection. It’s about reaching people where they are, ie. adding value instead of paying for placement.

How are you using proximity and SoLoMo in your business?

Passion is not a pitfall

Passion is P Number 3

“Hire for passion, train for skills,” is a quote I heard on a recent Social Media Examiner podcast. The people that are the most passionate about what they do are the ones we remember most; they are also the most prolific and usually the most profitable.

What would happen if you hired a social media manager who was your number one fan? Passion is admirable, charming and inspiring. It’s positive, decisive and purposeful. It’s about pleasure and growth through pain. That love and obsession with something is what pulls us through the hard times and leads to pure happiness and ultimate satisfaction.

You won’t find a more driven and determined person than that person who is most passionate about your (or their own) brand, business or project and success.

So, look for passion first, then train them or collaborate with them to reach your goals. And if you’re thinking along the lines of volunteers or brand influencers, seek the most passionate there as well. It’s not only sex that pays!

Mad Scientist with passion

What gets you up in the morning?

Marketing with Social Media Means 4 P Shift

4 P’s of Marketing Make Way for 7 P’s of Social Media

In traditional marketing schools, there are 4 P’s in marketing. These are product, price, place and promotion. In the 20th century these were followed as rules and guidelines for marketing anything and the marketer with an acute understanding of the 4 P’s generally succeeded in achieving his/her marketing goals.

The four P’s may also be translated into solution based approach known by the mnemonic, SIVA, i.e.

Product = Solution
Promotion = Information
Price = Value
Place = Access (Distribution)

Social Media Marketing expert Brian Solis recently posted an article about the 5th and 6th P’s in marketing. He believes these are People and Purpose. I agree that these are very accurate additions in in the twenty tens, however I think the shift is much bigger than simply adding these two.

Positioning may be the seventh P in the traditional (older) marketing world. In social media marketing, however, positioning stands for messaging, which can sometimes be frowned upon. Positioning or messaging in marketing has connotations of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the stigma of false advertising.

And conversely to Brian at the risk of rattling off several words that being with the letter P, I think the following seven words beginning with P provide a useful picture of the philosophy of social media. I believe we have shifted from the 4 P’s (Product, Promotion, Price, and Place) to the following:

People
Purpose
Passion
Proximity
Participation
Partnerships
Promises

The 4 P Shift in Marketing

We start with People as people are the most important component in any marketing campaign.
In social media marketing, as in life and all marketing, nothing happens without people. Gary Vaynerchuck once said “The people in your life make the world better. People are literally the best thing in the world.” If there are no people to see/hear/respond, there is no promotion.

With the onset of “world of mouth” media, yes that’s not a typo; all people now have a voice and a purpose to share what is most valuable to each of them. Social networks facilitate the human need to connect and share, breaking all previous barriers of place, making the world smaller and giving people courage to participate at their own levels.

The shift from traditional marketing to word-of-mouth marketing is an evolution from a broadcast to the masses sales-like approach to one that is much more focused on community, tribes, followers, fans and connections. Social media marketing is about People first and foremost and people with a purpose.

The next six posts will explore the rest of the new P’s in the context of Social Media Marketing. Please feel free to add your comments below.

Speaking Social Strategy

I am honored to be speaking at two business organizations and teaching several classes on social media marketing strategy for SF State University’s College of Extended Learning’s Social Media Marketing Program over the next month. If you’re looking to learn a little more about social media marketing and how to develop a winning strategy, I hope you’ll consider joining me at one of the following events:

On Tuesday, May 22, I speak at the NorCal BMA, Business Marketing Association’s Marketing Roundtable in Palo Alto. The topic is Strategic Thinking for Social Media Marketing and should start your Tuesday off nicely since it will be jam-packed with juicy worms for those early birds.

The Introduction to Social Media Marketing: The Power of Community class starts on June 4th and usually sells out, so make sure you register soon. The classes are on the evening of Monday June 4th and June 11th and all day on Saturday June 16th. We cover social media marketing basics, what it means to be a community manager, developing your social media strategy and successful and failed implementations of social media marketing.  This class is part of the Social Media Marketing Certificate program and is the kick-off course for students seeking a certificate, but it’s most definitely open to everyone.

On Thursday June 7th I will be presenting at WIC (Women In Consulting).  This is a four-hour workshop on how to Master the Art of  Strategic Social Media Marketing for consultants marketing their own businesses as well as marketing consultants, implementing marketing strategy for their clients. I’m excited to be collaborating with Women In Consulting as the organization has several veteran marketers and consultant members and is a great opportunity for in person social networking.

On Wednesday June 13th, we kick off the Social Media Marketing Intensive: Strategies, Campaigns and Measurement at SF State’s downtown campus in San Francisco. This is a three-day workshop including Day 1: Strategic Social Media Marketing, Day 2: Social Media Campaigns: Best Practices, and Day 3: Social Media Metrics and Performance Measurement. I teach Day 1 and the supremely talented and my co-advisor of the Social Media Marketing program, Avery Horzewski is teaching Day 2. Then we tag-teach the Measurement class on Day 3. It should be a fun and collaborative intensive lens into social media marketing, how to develop your strategy, campaign building best practices and tips for measuring your social media marketing efforts for constant improvement.

I’m very excited to have all of these engagements and looking forward to discussing ways to keep your audiences engaged. Since the topic is social media, it’s sure to be fun for all and well, super social.

Are you planning to attend any of the presentations or classes? If so, do you have anything specific you are hoping to learn? Please let us know by commenting below. Thanks!

Tweet Worthy = Tworthy on Twitter

Twitter Tips

What’s tweet worthy, or tweetable in your world? Since tweeting became mainstream in 2011 and even for many years before that, techies have been inventing new t(w)erms related to Twitter. I tweet (post) to my tweeps (Twitter followers) several times a day and there are several tw words that have been used to brand new Twitter related products.

Twitalyzer, for analyzing your Tweet stream, Tweet This, a bookmarklet for sharing posts on through Twitter, Twitteriffic, a Twitter client, Tweety, another Twitter client, Tweetdeck, a Twitter client/app for pro Tweeters, Twellow, a place to connect with other Twitter users, Twitzip, a zip code based Twitter messaging service, and the list goes on and on.

One of the most valuable things about Twitter for me is the knowledge sharing. People share links to interesting and unique content on Twitter all the time and we have definitely entered our teenage years in the era of content curation on the social net. While surfing around and finding tweetable content, I like to call posts that are tweet worthy, “Tworthy.” Please forgive me for adding to the Tw lexicon, but certain sites, articles, video and Pinterest boards are certainly more tworthy than others.

What’s your most tworthy post? Is your tweet retweetable? And what’s your favorite twitter related t(w)erm? Please tweet about it with the hashtag #tworthy or add a comment below. Tweet on, Tweetsters!

8 Social Media Trends for 2012

Social media continued to gain popularity in 2011 and will grow even more in 2012. If you haven’t caught the social media bug yet, 2012 may be your year! Below are some of the trends we expect to see in the next 12 months.

Happy connecting!

1. Google+ is the new kid on the block

The latest big idea from Google and major social network on the scene, Google will continue expanding Google+ in 2012 and plans to integrate the social network with many of their other properties such as SEO, Reader, AdWords, and YouTube.

Though most social media users still spend the majority of their time on Facebook currently, it’s a good idea to create personal profiles and business pages on Google+ now so that you’ll be one step ahead while interest in Google+ continues to grow. Furthermore good implementation of your Google+ page can produce search engine ranking benefits.

2. Facebook on it’s own timeline

While Google+ is giving Facebook a run for its money, Facebook is projected to reach 1 billion users in 2012 (via dreamgrow.com). We’ve seen major changes with Facebook since Google+ entered the scene, not least of which is Timeline. This new profile format encourages users to “live their lives via Facebook” and use the social network as a virtual scrapbook. Although introduced a year ago, timeline is yet to be implemented on all personal profiles. You still have a choice. However, to remain competitive in 2012, Facebook will be releasing Timeline for brand pages and introducing mobile ads. Additionally, Facebook’s 2011 purchase of Gowalla is expected to result in some 2012 enhancements to Timeline. (This links up with the Geolocation trend as described below.) Mobile meets local meets social meets viral.

3. Twitter keeps on tweeting

While 2011 was the year of the URL shortener, 2012 will be the year of advertising. We are used to seeing sponsored tweets, but expect to see increasingly prominent ads on Twitter this year.

Additionally in 2012, Twitter will continue to be an important part of the world news landscape. In 2011 we saw microblogging play a major role in sharing news about Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, and the 2012 presidential election will make Twitter usage even more mainstream.

4. Aggregators keep getting better: Buffer and Crowdbooster

While technology becomes more advanced across social media, Twitter aggregators are making excellent gains as well. Buffer, an aggregator that schedules your tweets based on when your followers are most likely to see them, is now offering ifttt (if this then that). The ifttt service allows you to specify an action (such as favoriting a tweet) that will then trigger another action (such as retweeting said favorited tweet). There are many combinations that can be used with this technology so it is definitely worth a try! Buffer also allows users to email tweets via your phone or iPad.

Crowdbooster, another scheduling tool, provides a chart with data regarding your most successful tweets. With impressions on one axis and retweets on another, you have the ability to view total reach of your tweets. Pretty cool!

Crowdbooster Chart

5. Pinterest – Yes, pin your interests!

Interest in Pinterest grew immensely in 2011. By allowing you to “pin your interests” with images you find online, Pinterest is blazing the trail for an even more image-centric social media landscape. Additionally, Pinterest is leading the way in the transition from long form curation (such as tweets) to push-button curation. Much more popular with women than men, because of it’s wide usage for planning weddings and looking at fashion, Pinterest is a niche network competing in some ways with the likes of Stumble Upon.

As Pinterest continues to gain steam in 2012, more and more brands will sign on as well. Expect to see more “Pin It” buttons next to the “Like” buttons you see across the web.

6. YouTube – the number 2 search engine

Using video to get the point across (whether you are an individual or a business) will become even more prevalent in 2012. With 4 billion daily views on YouTube, why not put yourself out there? YouTube videos are very sharable on practically every platform and 57% of internet users surveyed by Yahoo say they watch videos daily. People will be online to watch videos even more in 2012, so now is the time to get in the game.

7. Geolocation – “I am here, are you near?”

Social will be even more local in 2012 with services such as Foursquare expanding their offerings and geo-deals such as Scoutmob becoming more and more popular. Users can already add their location to tweets and Facebook posts, so expect to see more and more connection between location and social media in 2012.

8. Infographics

While certainly on the scene in 2010, infographics became even more ubiquitous in 2011. Practically anything can be expressed via infographics these days and soon visual.ly will be providing a service that lets you easily build your own infographics. There are already several such tools available.

Infographics will be used more and more to display data. It’s easier to learn from a colorful picture than three paragraphs of statistics, right?

We’ll be back soon with 2012 trends in search, so stay tuned!

In the meantime what are your thoughts about social media trends for 2012? Please add your comments. Thanks!

Google AdWords Certified

This is a belated announcement, but never-the-less important. We are proud to say that our very own Cariwyl Hebert is a Google AdWords Certified specialist. In order to achieve Google AdWords Certification one must study a series of lessons and then take a rigorous exam. Cariwyl passed the exam with flying colors and is our in-house AdWords specialist. We’re very proud of Cariwyl and very pleased to be able to offer this qualification to our valued clients.

If you are in need of Google AdWords assistance, please give us a call at 415.305.6403. Thank you!

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