Last week I had the delightful opportunity to present on two panels at Search Engine Strategies in New York City (#sesny).  Beth Harte, my colleague here at Serengeti Communications presented as well, our John Lynch, also of Serengeti Communications was live blogging on both Endless Plain and Take It In House some of the great sessions the conference had to offer.

I get a lot of questions after the sessions, as does Beth, some of these questions pertain to certain aspects of our presentations and we just don’t have the time to bring up the slides again.  So in the effort of sharing some of our knowledge with our audience we like to upload some of our presentations to SlideShare to give you a bit of understanding around the conversations going on in Social Media Marketing.  You can get the basic of understanding from just the slides, but if you were present for the panels, likely these will make more sense and refresh your memory.

Social Media 101 – The Basics

This was a solo presentation I did about the basics of social media.  The who, the what, the how.  Very top level, very 101.  I presented this from the standpoint of the audience knowing that social media is out there, its hot, and its likely something a marketing department should know about.  There’s some do & don’t tips as well as things to keep in mind.  This basic presentation can give marketers an idea of just how involved developing a social media strategy is and it’s not something to step into lightly.

Speaking Geek:  Introducing Your Social Media Ideas to Your IT Department

On this panel it was all about speaking geek to your IT people.  The other panelists took the approach of search and ppc and discussing it to their IT departments.  My presentation was how to approach your IT team about the social media tactics you want to implement.  Bringing your IT department in early is key to success, they can tell you if what you want to do can be done or maybe help you find a work around.

Later this week Beth Harte will be placing her presentation out on slide share as well, and it will be available on our Endless Plain property.

Fear.

Almost every company has it when they take one look at what’s going on in social media. The question is whether you embrace it or run from it.

Fear of the unknown, of what “could” happen stops a lot of companies right in their tracks. It also has them making a lot of crazy decisions when it comes to their own internal social media policies.

There’s two pieces to fear in social media that can really hold a company back from being successful with their online marketing strategies. The first piece is being afraid of what your employees are doing online. This fear causes companies to restrict access to the internet. At Search Engine Strategies in New York yesterday, keynote speaker David Meerman Scott said that 25% of companies restrict their employees access to the internet. Instead of looking at it as an asset, these companies are fearful of what “could” happen.

The second piece is fear of what people are saying in these social media communities, fear of them getting the message wrong or saying something bad. They site this as their reason for not getting involved with social media, or taking an approach of “telling” their customers online things, instead of listening and engaging. They are fearful of how customers are engaging with their products because they want it to be all about those carefully crafted and fine tuned messages they put out.

At yesterday’s keynote David Meerman Scott pointed out one company that wasn’t afraid of “loosing control” during his keynote. Let’s face it, toilets aren’t sexy, toilets are pretty darn boring, you don’t think about them and you really don’t see them in commercials on TV. They are really more like a commodity, they are something you need to have and that’s that.

Toilet manufacturer CWS decided to just “loose control” and have some fun and created a commercial which went viral on YouTube. Not only did it go viral, but it managed to change the perception around their products and it has helped to increase their sales.

If a toilet manufacturer can loose control and find success in social media, I think it goes to show that just about anyone can.  You just need to “loose the fear”.

There is so much buzz and hype around social media, it’s hard to determine if/when social media has real proven  success for a business. Well, we have found the perfect case study for you! Mari Luangrath owner of Chicago’s well-known and loved gourmet cupcake bakery, Foiled Cupcakes, uses ONLY social media to market and, yes grow, her business. [Updated: By the way, check out what Mari's fans have to say about her cupcakes and finding her via social media!]

Beth Harte:  Mari, you are a successful entrepreneur and on your third adventure with Foiled Cupcakes, a gourmet cupcake bakery serving Chicago. When it comes to marketing your business, how has using social media helped you to brand and grow Foiled Cupcakes? 

Mari Luangrath: Social media fell into our laps, quite honestly. We launched our business primarily using Twitter without knowing a single thing about it. And by connecting with new people who found our story interesting, we haven’t had to use a single traditional marketing initiative yet. All of our business growth has happened organically via word of mouth referrals and online buzz. To date, 93 percent of our business has come from social media leads and we’ve surpassed our initial revenue target numbers by over 600 percent. 

BH: Even though you’re a bakery, you don’t have a storefront. Are you telling us that integrating a website with social media can help companies to still deliver personal service, get delicious cupcakes (AKA ‘product’) in people’s hands *AND* make money? 

ML: That’s correct. We operate without a storefront so we can focus our energy on personal service. I really do believe that’s what sets our business model apart from our competitors. We know every single one of our customers by name. We’ve probably had a good Twitter or Facebook conversation with them before they even call us. We have a relationship with them in which we’re invited to their corporate events, birthday parties, weddings, and girl’s nights. Because community and interpersonal relationships are at the very top of my personal value chain, I can’t imagine doing business any other way. 

BH: You have a bunch of followers and fans on Twitter and Facebook. And just like your cupcakes, I am guessing it’s about quality…not quantity, right? How can we get companies to recognize that? What’s your secret for using Twitter and Facebook? 

ML: It’s absolutely about quality. It’s easy to get a ton of Twitter followers the wrong way. But what good is that if there aren’t any business leads as a result? My personal opinion, based on my experiences, is that interaction with the community is key. You can tweet all day long. You can update your Facebook page all day long. But are people listening? They’ll listen if they know you care about them. So my personal mandate is that I reply to every single tweet and make a comment on every single post to our Facebook page. And once we interact, the community realizes that we care about their thoughts and opinions. And then they become engaged. 

BH: You’re a smart business owner…are you demanding social media ROI? How would you advise business owners to think about ROI in a way that doesn’t snuff the life out of their social media programs? 

ML: That’s a tricky question. There are no standards by which to measure ROI (yet) in social media. That said, I’m not sure there’s a magic formula for results, either. But the great thing about social media is that it’s very dynamic, fluid, and testable. Throw something out there and see if people respond. Like any marketing program, I always try to begin with the end in mind. What do we want to accomplish? Who is going to care about what we have to offer? We identify the answers to those questions then work backwards. And the other thing? We don’t spend a ton of time on it either. A Tweet or a Facebook status update are fleeting moments in most people’s eyes. Spending more than a minute or two figuring out what to write, in my opinion, is just a waste of time. Get it out there and see what happens. 

BH: Who doesn’t love a delicious cupcake, right? But I am willing bet that when it comes to marketing and selling you’ve encountered speed bumps along the way just like any other business. What strategies/tactics are you using to get folks to head on over to your website to order up some shiny happy goodness? 

ML: I’m not a big believer in push marketing. I just don’t think it works. It never works on me, and I’m actually more or less turned off by people who blast their message in my face. For us, it’s all about community. We get involved in conversations around pop culture, shoes, weather, chocolate, travel, music, or traffic. Those tend to be very relatable things across the board. We support other businesses and help bring awareness to charitable causes we believe in. And I’m pretty sure that it’s because we engage in conversations, people know who we are. Over 70 percent of our search words in Google have been “Foiled Cupcakes.” That means a lot, especially since nobody even heard of our company a year ago and we have spent exactly $0.00 on any sort of advertising or brand awareness campaign. 

In hindsight, the two things that were absolutely critical in helping us gain speed: 

1. Connecting with social influencers on Twitter in our target markets (the only real social networking platform we’ve used in which we’re able to interact with people we haven’t met yet.)
2. Making real life connections in person at networking events. Because refer people to companies they know, like, and trust, networking was absolutely key in making it all snap together for us. 

Final thoughts…All said and done, I think that social media is a great way to start a business. And it’s also a great addition to any business marketing plan. It doesn’t have to be a big time investment, and for the right personality it can be a lot of fun. Just be real and transparent. The community loves people like that.

* * * * * *

Thank you Mari for sharing your social media success with us. Now I want a cupcake!

Mari will be speaking at Search Engine Strategies NY (SES) on The Business Value of Social Media on March 25th. If you’re at SES, be sure to attend the session, it’s sure to please! 

[Images: Cupcakes, Foiled Cupcakes. Mari, ideaconference.org]

With Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York just right around the corner, I thought I’d tap into this year’s keynote David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” (in its second edition already!), “World Wide Rave,” “Cashing in with Content,” and “Eyeball Wars” to get his thoughts on recent marketing trends, marketing ROI (and the barriers it causes) and ‘true’ public relations. 

Beth Harte: MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) has been doing their Marketing Trends Report for three years and this year was the first time you were cited as a top marketing guru and “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” has shifted to a Top 7 resource (from a top 11 resource in 2009). With 70% of marketing executives stating they are planning a social media strategy it seems your message of unlearning traditional marketing practices is finally resonating. And yet, in the same report they cited social media as a top ‘buzz’ word they are tired of hearing about. What are you seeing as causes for this frustration? 

David Meerman Scott: The problem is definition. What does “social media” mean anyway?  

When I was writing The New Rules of Marketing & PR in 2006, I felt as if I was the only person who had identified the idea that marketing on the Web was fundamentally about understanding your buyers and publishing the valuable information (YouTube vides, blog posts, ebooks, and the like) that informs and educates. This was a radical idea at the time the book was released in 2007, and it was not without controversy, especially from traditional advertising people and public relations professionals.  

But then, slowly at first, an understanding started to build about the power of marketing and PR on the Web. Soon the incredible rise of social networking services like Facebook and Twitter created an environment where millions were exposed to what many were now calling “social media.” And then, in 2008, the revolution that is Web marketing and PR went mainstream. “Social media” as an idea was in full-blown hype mode throughout 2009 and into 2010, when thousands of instant-experts started talking about using social media for marketing and public relations purposes.  

The issue is that the self-proclaimed gurus spend way too much time talking about the individual tools (such as Twitter) and not enough about the practical aspects of what the tools can do as part of an overall company strategy. And when people hear about Twitter again and again in the same context as the phrase social media, no wonder they get a hangover. 

So, yes, “social media” is a buzzword that I am sometimes sick of hearing myself.  

It seemed to me that most so-called experts were just hyping the tools themselves. Sure Twitter is important. But what’s fundamentally more important is how marketers and public relations professionals need to evolve their mindset to be successful. Creating a Facebook page or jumping onto Twitter won’t transform your business. Changing your mindset to one of understanding buyers and publishing content on the Web will.  

BH: Marketing ROI is top of mind and yet it’s become a barrier to success at the same time. How can marketing executive and their teams learn to stop being stagnated by ROI barriers?  

DMS: A decade ago, I was vice president of marketing and PR for a NASDAQ-traded business-to-business technology company. We measured success in two ways. Our lead generation programs were measured via “sales leads:” the number of people who requested a white paper or who tossed a business card into a fishbowl at the trade show. Our public relations programs were measured via a PR clip book, a gathering of all the clippings of magazine and newspaper articles written about the company. The book represented a month’s worth of clippings and was usually bound for us by our PR agency. 

Sales leads and press clips were very common forms of measurement accepted by management in many B2B companies. Success—or failure—at a trade show was based on the number of people who stopped by the booth. And in a good month, our PR agency would proudly drop the clip book on a table to hear the “thud factor.” A deep, resonating boom was very, very good indeed. 

Fast forward to 2010. The Web gives everyone—not only B2B companies but also consumer brands, consultants, nonprofits, and even rock bands, churches, and colleges—a tremendous opportunity to reach people and engage them in new and different ways. Now we can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an e-book, a Facebook page.  

Those measurements, which seemed so great in an offline world, are wholly inadequate online. But what should we do instead?  

First of all, ask yourself: “How’s business?”

Next, forget about sales leads and ignore mainstream media clip books. Instead, focus on spreading your ideas. Here are some questions that can help you learn to measure: 

1. How many people are getting exposed to your ideas?
2. How many people are downloading your stuff?
3. How often are bloggers writing about you and your ideas?
4. (And what are those bloggers saying?)
5. Where are you appearing in search results for important phrases?
6. How many people are engaging with you and choosing to speak to you about your offerings?
7. Is revenue and profit growing?
8. Are customers happy?

BH: Somehow along the way PR professionals have lost sight of what ‘true’ PR is and have set their focus on the media. What quick steps can PR pros take to get back to the public relations roots of created mutually beneficial relationships with all of their publics (shareholders, stakeholders, communities, employees, etc.)? 

DMS: To paraphrase the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”  

Nowhere does this description mention the media!  

Somewhere along the line “public relations” became the same as “media relations.” What people need to realize is that these are different activities. Media relations, or working through journalists, is fine. Hey, who doesn’t want to be quoted in an important outlet? 

But there are so many other ways to hear attention.   

PR is about reaching your audience. There are many more ways to do that than just via the media: YouTube vides, blog posts, ebooks, charts, graphs, photos, a Twitter feed, a presence in Foursquare and so much more. 

* * * * * * *  

I’d like to thank David for his time to share his thoughts with our Social Conversations readers! I am a big fan of David’s, so it was an honor to get some of his time.

For many years David’s books, ebooks (FREE!), videos (also FREE!) and blog posts (still FREE!) have been an on-going inspiration and source of education for me as a marketing, PR and digital marketing professional. If you haven’t tapped into David’s books and generosity (all that FREE stuff I mentioned! Hint, hint…), I urge you to do so because it will change how you look at your current business, marketing and PR strategies – and I promise…for the better!

(Pssst!! See how that works?! David educates me, I buy his stuff, and then I evangelize him to others who in turn get educated, buy his stuff and then evangelize him. The cycle continues on and on and… Pretty simple, eh?)

Trust us when we say, that bite is truly avoidable! How? Understand your market (from their viewpoint) and plan well. 

It’s not enough to ‘think’ you know your market. While primary and secondary research tends to give marketers insight often both can be skewed or biased by asking questions that the researcher knows (in advance) will provide the answers required internally to make a case for releasing a new product, service or campaign. As for secondary research, we urge you to ask yourself two questions before using the findings: “What was the methodology and is it sound?” and “How do these research findings help the company sell more of ‘their’ products and services (i.e. is it self-serving)?” At the end of the day, the key is to understand your audience, especially where they live on-line and why/how they interact. Doing so will provide you with a true sense of the culture and community that might have developed.

Why plan? Well that should be obvious, but a lot of marketers still struggle with planning. In the social media space knowing the audience first and planning accordingly should be your top two priorities.

We have seen over and over examples of companies that may have missed the mark in both areas and as a result may have felt a bit of a social media bite (Southwest Air,  Tropicana, Pepsi, Motrin and more).

In time organizations will learn, hopefully, that doing social media to be cool or to push messaging just doesn’t work. Using social media as a channel is a legitimate marketing endeavor and it’s important to understand that the channel is full of people who hear you and talk back.

Now, I know what you are thinking… Social media might be dangerous for your brand. But in reality, you can’t stop people talking about your brand online. At the end of the day is a negative reaction in the social media space truly a bad thing? It’s can be an opportunity to turn around a situation that without social media you might never have known about. In the past you would have just lost a customer or ten (word of mouth is just as powerful as social media!).  If getting feedback helps a company learn what their market wants, identify their true evangelists and perhaps even develop new products/services is it worth it? Forrester thinks so.

What do you think? Time to take a few steps back before diving into social media without audience research and a smart plan?

[Image: www.natgeoprogramming.com]