A Word on Social Media Conduct and Caution

If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest in the world with a population of over 300 million users, and is the fastest growing demographic for the over 35 crowd. LinkedIn, at 7.7 million joiners a month, or a new person joining every second, is exploding with the economic downturn and business people looking to connect. Whether you are a savvy networker, senior executive, late adopter (from that pressure from pesky friends) or just exploring your options (6.1 million are perusers) it’s time to be aware of some rules and warnings.

With this level of exposure, and the potential for each of us who jump on the social media band wagon, we cannot get too comfortable behind the safety of our keyboards. There is a certain decorum and mindfulness we should follow; just as if we were meeting new people at a party.

(Well, in this case, one really big cocktail party with a few jerks who crash it.)

Although studies show that most people connect with those they already know, the web is still a place to be mindful of our personal and company reputation. There are strategies to apply in order to be seen as a connection of value to the communities you deal with. There are also rules of etiquette to follow in order to reap the benefits derived from the many hours we spent building our networks. Think of this as your social media R.O.I (Return on investment.)

Do Your Homework

Before you sign up for anything, listen. Go to the popular sites and read others posts, articles, comments, tweets (http://search.twitter.com/) and profiles. It will quickly be glaringly obvious between the “polished and the poor.” Below are the basic “webonalities,” annoyances and suggestions to give you good game once you decide which groups you are going to connect and build with.

The Snip: Some personalities can be completely misunderstood in the digital format, sounding curt and impatient. (I mean how many smiley faces can we add anyway?) Also, avoid the one line emails. Use a greeting and always sign off.

Mr. No introduction: Would you just start dumping your information into a person you just met face-to-face without introducing yourself? Talk and promote yourself without regard for those around you? Ask for favors? We have all met one of these and it’s no fun. Don’t be that person.

The Mute: Comment back to people who leave comments for you. Would you stand there ignoring someone who was talking to you in the company break room?

The One Side Guy: Explore other people’s blogs, posts, articles, who explore yours.  Take an interest in others and who knows – you might just learn something or connect with a new friend. Promote yourself, but help promote others too. This is the 60/40 rule. Mix it up. Don’t have time?  then do a quick click. If it looks interesting bookmark it for later.

Check Me Out: No one wants to see a photo of you kneeling with a beer, your dog and your shirt off. Ever. Google images will find these. They will not go away. Post with your reputation in mind.

The Free Info Sucker: This is my personal biggest pet- peeve. People who ask for “advice” (AKA – free consulting on how to do exactly what you do) and somewhere in your snake brain you give them a nugget and you never hear back. A week later they have all your “advice” on their website. It is OK to help others with recommendations and support, or even give some secrets away – but be careful.

The Slick Spammer – Don’t disguise your spam as an email saying “I think we have some “synergies” – please let me know the best time to call you.”  Don’t be sneaky – tell people what you’re intentions are. Also, don’t post simply “great post” in someone’s comment box and then add 1000 random links hoping for search optimization.

The Rager – There are always one of these on a comment stream, the angry guy with a huge chip on his shoulder looking for a fight. If you don’t like the direction of a chat, either be constructive or walk away. Don’t write terrible things on someone’s Facebook wall for all 45, 098 of their “friends” to see, then block them either. Send a private note or cool off.

The User: If you are blogging or posting about someone else, email them asking if it is OK, and tell where they will be featured and add a link to their site. Also, if you like an article you read, it only takes a split second to click an icon and send it on. Use StumbleUpon, Delicious, Google Reader Shared Items, or Friendfeed, to name a few. This is when re-gifting is nice.

Anonymous Shy Guy: Use an avatar or picture. It lets people know you’re perhaps human.

The Hipster: Even though you may understand that social media is valuable because it’s genuine and spontaneous, be mindful of older generations. My “over 60” friend blames her age and says people of her generation are not familiar or necessarily comfortable engaging in online fragmented discussions.

The Micro: Do not email like you are texting. No one wants to see “C U 2NT” in an email. Different environments equal different actions. This is akin to pulling out an egg salad sandwich on an airplane. You are not in the kitchen. They sort of have one, but it is not yours.

The Foreword Guy: How did those emails I sent to my ex end up in my entire friends and family’s in box? I rest my case.

One word; be careful.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the rules of advertising, branding and marketing have changed. Advertising used to rely on interrupting people to get them to notice the message. It was one-way, all about selling and based on limited life campaigns. But there are new rules now, new delivery systems, tools,  and  new segmented audiences as we are not speaking to the masses anymore.  Uploading company information onto YouTube and sharing information on numerous social media sites is almost effortless once you build content. With the click of an icon your brand can now be launched on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, as a RSS feed or any number of iPhones, blogs or bookmarking sites. With a bit of time and some professional help, anyone can create a quality video for marketing a message quickly and to a large number of potential new customers.

What we are seeing through the new social media is a shift toward transparency and humanness with the web transforming the rules. People are responding to videos with humor, instruction, tips, news, DIY, interviews, caught-on-tape bits, music, documentation and education- all with the ability to interface with a corporation with a real face. A company video is a great social media tool that simply breaks down the barriers between consumer and brand.

Survey Says

CNN.com released a new survey announcing that video noticeably increases the popularity of any company. With the introduction of video marketing, it has been vital to have web video in order to remain competitive. Companies are just now accepting the truth -  from small operations to large, that the online video ad is the backbone of sales. A report entitled “Frames of Reference: Online Video Advertising?” was recently published by the Online Publishers Association (OPA). This report revealed an astounding 80% jump in video viewership. Also visitors who viewed the online video, around 46% took some action. According to the same report, around 22% of viewers visited the related website, 26% searched for more information, 15% visited the company and 12% purchased that specific product. Look at it this way, without this – your sales would be down 12%.

Going Viral

Your company video on viral steroids is everyone’s gold standard, however I believe you need a dash of creativity and a simple clever edge to make it big. This is clearly superseding stuffy self promoting ads and sales pitches.Take the viral YouTube smash hit (pun intended) “Will It Blend” as an example of simple authenticity and quirkiness. That video has received over 3.8 million views since its online inception in 2006. Now the company has created over 90 “Will it Blend” videos, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OmpnfL5PCw) receiving tens of millions of views. Their most popular video is where a new iPhone is blended into a pile of dust.  All to show in a clever yet simple way, how strong that gosh darn blender really is. From marbles to golf balls and soda cans, Utah-based Blendtec has blended the seemingly impossible.  (Plus it’s cool because this is something we would be in trouble for doing as kids.) The company, which makes blenders for consumer and commercial use, has increased its sales into the millions while gaining brand recognition that’s really priceless.

It’s a Wrap

It’s not cheating to look at the successes of those who came before you along with tips on what makes a good company video. Here are a few.

•      Hire a professional for high quality digital footage, lighting and audio.
•      Don’t be long long-winded, get to the point
•      Be CREATIVE. Use a story board.
•      BRANDING. What will your viewer remember about the video?
•      Express what problems your business solves.
•      Avoid “Cookie-Cutter” style video
•      Tell it to sell it in a 10 second or less.
•      Have your company president star in the video. People buy people.
•      Reveal who you are, what you’ve created and how it works.

Keep in mind, visual walk-throughs and Q& A panels can be a great advantage for customer service. Videos of your company at trade show events, snippets of public presentations at conferences, receiving awards in the community or engaging with the media can quickly establish your company’s reputation and build value. And don’t forget the effectiveness of private videos for use in management and new employee training, in store promotion, lobby TV, and as links in news releases and case studies.

These video marketing ideas are the “work-hard-and-save” stories with happy endings in a new shift going into the digital world. Will it be you? How do you plan to use social media in 2010?

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Submitted for your approval, the following case study:

The companies Rockler and Woodcraft offer an interesting comparison involving Twitter.  Both companies are stalwarts in the woodworking industry, roughly the same size, have similar web sites, and both started tweeting almost a year ago (Rockler began in December 2008,  Woodcraft got started in January of 2009).  However, it is in their Twitter strategies that we see a huge difference.

Woodcraft has used Twitter almost extensively as an advertising component.  Nearly every tweet they put forth is pushing a sale, discount, or product line for emphasis.  They rarely receive any tweets from their followers.

Meanwhile, Rockler has used Twitter as an opportunity to engage its customers and followers.  Roughly 80% of its tweets are NON-COMMERCIAL.  They ask questions of their followers (i.e. what is the best music to put to wordworking?)  and respond to questions or comments that are posed to the company (which occurs many times every day).

The results:  Rockler has more than three times as many followers as Woodcraft (2500-800).

So, what can we take from this?   By being more engaged with the customer and finding ways to keep their tweets interesting, Rockler has developed a much bigger and more involved following.  When they do tweet about their products and/or sales, they are reaching a significantly larger audience and more interested audience than Woodcraft does.  If every message is pushing a product, it is too easy for the followers to dismiss the company’s tweets as spam.

It should be noted that without access to the accounting books, it is impossible to say definitively which company is seeing a bigger return from Twitter.  Yet, it is probably safe to say that any salesperson in the world would take the much larger and more captivated audience over the opposite.

Social media is looking more and more like a viable business model every day, but it is important to never forget the social aspect of it…or your customers might forget you.

-EW

Pubcon is the Las Vegas conference that deals with Web Marketing, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Web Tools, and every intersection of the aforementioned.  For three days, we spent 8 hours going from session to session to get advice and interact with some of the biggest names in the industry (Matt Cutts, the exalted one himself from Google, was in attendance).

So what did I learn in my time in Vegas? Good question. Contrary to what may be popular belief, it had nothing to do with a roulette wheel, the sports book (although I am kicking myself for not laying down $50 on the Spurs over the Mavericks), or how to spot a lady of the evening along the Strip. No, my new knowledge is more boring, but applicable to the job that I do. First, I learned that Beacon is well ahead of the curve on many industry practices. With only six months here, I expected to get a bit overwhelmed with new knowledge and competitors’ insights. Instead, I saw that many presenters were reinforcing practices that we already do (i.e. extensive keyword analysis) and many of our competitors were asking questions that I could have answered with ease.

On the new information front, I did get exposure to some programs, such as Majestic, that I have not been using that I am itching to try moving forward.  In addition, while they may not be practices directly suggested by the speakers, I was able to step away from some of my standard techniques and look at how I can introduce some new items with my current clients.  Sometimes, one can get so wrapped up in SEO that he forgets that it is a means to an end, not the end itself. I have some great ideas that will be very applicable for some of the companies I work with heading into the winter season.

Overall, it was a very worthwhile trip.  I am looking forward to going back next year.  Next time, I will remember to bet on the Spurs.

(logo courtesy of pubcon)

- EW

I returned from the AspDotNetStorefront Developer’s conference in July with lots of exciting news about the upcoming release of AspDotNetStorefront ML Version 9, entitled “Ashland” (apparently a city in Ohio, near their headquarters).  Though no official release date has been publicized (Beta release was 10/7/09), my inside sources tell me mid to late November.

Here’s what’s in “store” (pun intended!):

• ERP synchronization– real-time integration with third-party and back office applications
• Enhanced Kit product layout– the older versions had kind of a clumsy kit interface; this one is much nicer user experience and Ajax-based.  Allows for images for kit options and toolbox .NET controls.
• Multi-Store– allows a single database and common administrators to manage products of multiple domains/stores.  Ideal for stores with up to 100,000 products, 10-20,000 entities and 200-300 orders per day
• Configurable URL-rewrites– Allows URL to be customized for search engine optimization purposes
• Entity page sorting– ability for visitor to sort category/department/manufacturer listing pages
• Adhoc WYSIWYG report generator in Admin
• Ajax-based mini cart
• Support for postal codes formatted by countries other than U.S.
• Support for versioning and nesting topic pages
• Coupon start dates and product exclusions
• Page-level, role-based security in Admin
• Direct integration with Avalara Tax Service and Velaro Chat Service

Click here to read more about Beacon Technologies’ support and development with AspDotNetStorefront and be sure to contact us for more info on how we can help you create a top-notch ecommerce site!