I teach three classes at San Francisco State’s Integrated Marketing Program in the College of Extended Learning. This semester my Maximizing Search Engines class was the subject of a photo shoot. The class was a lot of fun despite the photographer and the ad turned out quite well too. A client called me on Monday morning to say they saw me in the San Francisco Chronicle. A nice surprise. I would have missed it had they not called. The newspaper was very thin, but the ad is sharp and arrogantly I think I look quite good. The students in the inset are all rock stars too. Here’s a photo I took with my iPhone:
I do love teaching. I learn so much from my students and it’s so fun to teach about things that are en vogue today. Don’t get me wrong, I believe search engine marketing and social media are where every company should be putting the majority of their marketing budgets, I just think it’s a bit ironic that the ad is in the newspaper when my classes are all about online marketing. Then again we’re promoting the Integrated Marketing Program and integrated means integrating online and offline, so as they say, “All ink is good ink,” and especially when you’re in print.
Do join us at the information session on May 13th. I’ll be there in person, which is after all the absolute best way to connect socially.
One of the reasons why social media is different from traditional marketing methods is that is something you have to start and participate in for the long term. It’s not like an ad campaign, where you sprint to get the creative, messaging and production complete before placing the ad on television, radio or in a print publication. Instead it is a marathon where you continuously engage with customers and advocates both about your brand and also by adding value to the community.
When you start a blog it’s for the long haul, in other words, it’s a commitment that you have continue to post great content to your readers for the rest of the blog’s life. It may not be something you pay for with money, but you will certainly be paying for it with sweat equity and/or your staff’s time.
Just like in the marathon, you will hit the wall where you feel you have nothing more interesting to say. That’s when you need to push your hardest and go the extra distance and just get another post out. If you’re struggling to find something to say, talk about someone else. The social media industry mantra is to talk about other people twelve times more than you talk about yourself. Why? Because you’re adding value to your community. Sharing what you like about other people shows your fans and followers more about who you are and it also leaves them feeling like you care about them. And that, my friends is the ultimate goal. Care about your community, because it cares about you.
I recently read Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It Vook which I purchased through Vook.com. I highly recommend the new Vook platform (and thanks to the amazing Cariwyl of Salon97.org for turning me on to it). The guy (Gary Vaynerchuck) is dynamic to say the least. He puts the P in Passion and is just an inspiration to watch. The best part about him is that he started from nothing and is now a multi-millionaire with several businesses including WineLibrary.com, WineLibrary.tv and VaynerMedia and he is still humble to boot! You go Gary V, you’re my man and I’m a fan. Thanks for keeping it real, sharing your passion, drive and knowledge. And thanks for caring enough to help anyone who is willing, to simply try.
I was just referred to this blog titled “Social Media Will Change Your Business” from one of my favorite Facebook contacts. She’s not really a friend and I don’t even remember how I am connected to her, but she posts really great quotes on Facebook and I am inspired daily. Thank you @claudiaguzman who I just today discovered that you are on Twitter. I’m really going to enjoy following you on Twitter too.
The blog (and introductory video) mentioned above, was last updated in February 2008. Yes, that’s a long time ago, but the story was first published in 2005 and the post is still receiving comments. That’s the power of the long tail. Post something once and it may just live on forever. If it’s on the web, people can find it, link to it, share it and help it spread. This is a great example of that and also the power of crowd sourcing.
I’m not usually one to complain publicly about issues, but I think LinkedIn is missing a huge opportunity to improve user experience here.
Why LinkedIn Polls are Useless:
There is no way to share the poll to get feedback from your own network.
There is no way to share the poll on other social networks to solicit feedback
LinkedIn is not interested in fixing the issue.
So you have a business and you’re doing your due diligence and collecting feedback about your product or industry. LinkedIn seems like a good place to ask people for feedback because you’ve started building you network and there are people in it who may offer valuable opinions to your questions. You see a link to a poll that someone in your network has posted and because you’re like me and enjoy experimenting and learning by experience, you’re intrigued by the idea of creating your own poll on LinkedIn to see what kind of response you can get. So you set up the poll, which is really simple. Great job, LinkedIn, no problems there.
However, when you try to link to your handy dandy new poll to share it, you find you that the only share link that LinkedIn provides is one to the poll results. Well what good is that if no-one can find your poll and you can’t share it via Twitter, Facebook, your blog or other favorite social network? That’s right, a big fat zero! Thanks LinkedIn, you just lost my interest in this application.
So I wrote to LinkedIn customer support explaining that they are a little behind the times in this share economy that we live in today and suggested that they create a way for people to share the poll question screen with their network and provide a link to share this on other networks and here’s the response I received in return:
—-
Thread Response
(LinkedIn – Katie)
03/01/2010 02:04 PM
Dear Susan,
Thank you for contacting LinkedIn Customer Support.
The functionality described is not available.
Have a great day and thank you for being a valued member of our LinkedIn community!
Katie
LinkedIn Customer Support
—
Auto-Response
02/26/2010 02:11 PM
LinkedIn has received your question. A service professional will review and respond to your inquiry as quickly as possible. Thank you!
Check out our free Learning Center (http://learn.linkedin.com/training) offering learn at your own pace e-learning modules and free classes.
Search our online Customer Service Center (http://linkedin.custhelp.com) for LinkedIn FAQ topics.
—
Customer (Susan Barnes)
02/26/2010 02:11 PM
I would love to be able to share a poll that I create on LinkedIn with my other social networks so that I can get maximum reach and responses on the poll. Why don’t you make this easy?
I see the link to the results, but there is no link to share the actual poll.
Thanks,
Susan
—
In order to create a poll and share it with my LinkedIn network and other social communities, I am going to use something like Poll Daddy instead.
Here’s a good commentary on Social Media from the CEO of Radian6. Radian6 is a social media market research platform which enables you to listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web. Think comprehensive analytics for social media sites and tools for increasing engagement.
Radian6’s CEO Marcel Lebrun says that Social Media is bigger than TV. Why? Because it’s “the biggest change in business communication since the introduction of mass media.”
I’ve been making a few updates to my site today and was frustrated by not seeing the changes showing up immediately, in real-time, after saving. This is annoying to me, because I am used to clicking the save button in content management sites where changes are instant. So trial and error is my friend today and if you’re reading this, hopefully my trial and error will save you from having to do it in the future. After an hour or so of investigation, I discovered that if you are saving changes in widgets and/or files in the Appearance editor, the changes don’t show until you have published or updated a blog post. Eureka! So simple right? Right!
Well if you missed it, here it is again: If you are struggling to see a change you made in a widget or on in files in the editor under the Appearance tab, try publishing a new post or even just updating one of your previous posts. Then review the other change you were trying to make. You will see the changes take effect immediately.
For example, I was changing the text in sidebar.php and it wasn’t updating on the live site. Finally after posting something and publishing, the text changes in the sidebar showed. Another issue was that I was trying to format my mailing list sign up widget (a form created with Google Spreadsheets) and it wasn’t letting me control the scrollbars. Update a post and Voila! scrollbars are gone.
This must have something to do with the way WordPress handles posts versus pages. The “save” button in pages and widgets is almost like a save to draft, in that there is a slight delay before you see the changes. Publishing posts seems to publish the whole site, i.e. all changes that have been saved are now published to the LIVE public site.
Another problem solved. Now I just need to remember it for the next time I am making edits to widgets or in the editor. Hopefully this post will joggle my memory and yours.
Have you had any similar experiences with WordPress?
When you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. In fact it feels more like being on vacation. Last week I was on vacation in Salt Lake City Utah. I was snowboarding at a fabulous resort called Snowbird. Snowboarding Snowbird! Lucky me indeed!
I snowboarded for three days and then took a day off from vacation to get some work done. If work is work for you, you’re probably thinking I’m crazy, but if you really love what you do, you understand the meaning of work being fun. When work is fun and fulfilling it makes you smile, it’s motivating, it can make you laugh and feel happy. Admittedly I was a bit concerned that I enjoyed my day off from vacation so much, but then I looked at this video created by Click to Play Media and saw how happy this work makes me.
The video came out of an opportunity to consult with a very interesting start-up called iConfident. The make dental implant software to help dental professionals improve communication, build loyalty, and grow their practice. We looked at their website in terms of search engine optimization and discussed social media opportunities. Susby was collaborating with Click to Play Media who graciously produced this one minute video about Susby in the process. I think you can tell that how much fun it was. On days like this I really love my job.
BIG thank yous to Anna, Brad and Stephanie at Click to Play Media and also to Rob, Robbie and Karoline of iConfident for allowing us to shoot.
My advice to you if you’re not enjoying what you do: Find a way to play more. Do something that makes you smile, i.e. Do what you love, the money will follow. Connect, collaborate and start some conversations. The world revolves around relationships and communication and both are equally important.
Amidst all the iPad (or as some say “iBad”) hype, Google announced that it’s social search is now out of labs and in it’s infamous beta testing phase. Beta for Google means it’s available to you to use while they test it, but for most of us, that means it’s ready. Yes, they will continue tweaking it before it is out of Beta, but they have been known to have products in Beta for several years. Gmail being no exception.
A moving picture is worth more than a thousand words, so take a look at Google’s introduction to keeping the web as social as it is below. Otherwise, see Google’s blogpost – how social!
Is Google trying to get you out of Facebook and back onto their site? Please leave a comment.
Several posts ago I talked about LOVE being the secret to social media. Well Starbucks has been doing their L-Listening and came up with this response to the “Where the Hell Is Matt?” movie which took the web by storm a few years ago, and also the wild success of the T-Mob Dance videos where people break out in dance at random train stations to the thrilling surprise of commuters.
The game to be the most viral video on the net is on and all the big brands are playing. Did you see Coke’s Happiness Machine? It’s not show me the money in social media, it’s show me the LOVE!
Starbucks is really playing to win though, because they’re playing on your heart-strings too. If you watch the movie all the way to the end, they ask you to share it, because for every voice added they donate to Fighting Aids in Africa. How charitable! How giving. How… loving?
The companion (campaign) website is also executed with lots of love. Check out the photo gallery displaying the ultimate in interactivity and enabling people to share the love through various social loveworks, I mean social networks.
What do you think of this strategy? Is it getting overplayed? Are you still enamored? Are you still in-love? Please share the love… um, I mean your comments below.
P.S. Use red for LOVE and remember… Love is all you need. xoxox
Google recognizes the power of the social connectors (aka social media) by showing real-time search results including content from Facebook and Twitter. Google is unveiling the “Latest Results” which will show tweets from Twitter streams, updates from Facebook, answers from YahooAnswers and more. To me this indicates the power of real-time results. The freshest content and opinions are what searchers are interested in. Google obviously respects the power of the crowd and continues to believe in us. After all, we are the people who power Google. Google both serves us and we serve them by clicking on ads. It’s a symbiotic relationship. I wonder if they will start showing Aardvark results as well.
