BarnRaisers

The meaning of this well-known maxim is clear: Some extra planning time upfront avoids a lot of uplanned time undoing and redoing mistakes.

The application to the internet is especially relevant, because once something is out there, it stays there, even if you abandon it, and time commitments to social media are very real.

With many available resources, there’s never been a better time to take this counsel to heart.  Here’s the “Measure Twice, Cut Once” Guide to Social Media with the available tools for those looking to build.

• CONTENT REALLY IS KING:  This may sound like a cliche but, if you can’t start with a passion to tell your story (or your business’s or brand’s) and convince your audience (with the content you bring) you do it better than anyone else, think again about starting.
• LISTEN:  Identify the topics, key words and phrases you’re going to talk about.  Investigate who uses them and how.  Learn from your colleagues and competitors.  There are many available tools.  Starting at 30,000 feet, there’s Google Trends.  Then, be notified daily of news with Google Alerts on primary keywords.  If you want to go where people say the most, which is usually blogs and consumer reviews, some great blog search engines are: 1. Google Blogsearch, 2. Technorati, and 3. Alltop. From there, social networks searches at Twitter Search and Facebook Search are good resources.  In addition to social media, it’s also valuable to see how these keywords and phrases rank with the online tools available for Search Engine Optimization but we’ll save that topic for another blog. 
• CONNECT: Look for the conversations (quantity and quality).  Determine where you will find others who share your interests and values.  For example, we recently did some listening for a company that makes women’s over-the-counter contraceptives.  We found the phrase, “birth control,” to be a magnet on blogs for passionate discussions with women looking for information on choices and product options.  But, we found on Facebook, this same phrase revealed groups that were cheap dating services with questionable content.  Same keywords.  Where would you want to place your client’s business?.
• BUILD:  Create your social media presence.  My advice is to be grounded in a blog because it’s where most of your content comes from, most of your measurement are and benefits to your business are big.  Start with an  ”open source” blogging platforms; one with a great selection of templates, design and custom features.  My favorite is WordPress, which Google owes.  They also have many plug-ins, widgets and the functionality and updates are advanced.  Regardless of the platform, the benefits of blogging are:  97% of businesses that blog have higher search rankings; 55% drive more visitors to their web site and 44% report increased revenues due to their blog.  Connect your social networks to your blog.  Customize background for social networks wherever possible.  Twitter has a helpful feature called Twitter Themeleon.
• BUILD-IN MEASUREMENTS AND ANALYTICS:  Equip your blog/website with Google Analytics.  Equip your blogposts with Social Network widgets and plug-ins to allow for Sharing and Re-Tweeting.  Use Short Links for your blogposts to publish on social networks for outreach.  Add a social network sharing feature like Add This so other can share with their networks. The combination of these tools allows you to measure: 1) Who’s coming to your site, 2) where they’re coming from, 3) how long they’re staying, 4) what they doing while they’re there, 5) where they go after they leave and 6) how many share your information with their friends/networks.  That’s more information than store owners know from customers who walk through their doors. 
• RECOGNIZE OTHERS (MORE OFTEN THAN YOURSELF):  A paradox of social media is, by recognizing the work of your peers (and sometime competitors), you draw greater attention to yourself.   Comment on the blogs of others, Share and Re-Tweet their work with some brief words on why it’s valuable to you.  Put a Blogroll on your blog to show where you go.  This step is relatively easy to do but it is also easy to forget to do, regularly.  
• MAKE IMPROVEMENTS:  Learn and put the learning to use.  Examine what your readers want, what builds audience involvement and what drives further engagement.  For example, I have one blog on this page with over 90 comments.  Another with 0.  I thought they offered equal value in writing them but, obviously, readers told be different.  That doesn’t mean I won’t write about what is meaningful to me but I have to understand the balance of what readers want and why.

I know many people reading this blog may use many of these tools, if not all and more.  But I thought it was worth putting down because I didn’t know about them when I started.  People like Chris Brogan, Amber Nusland, Jason Falls, Mack Collier, Mike Volpe at Hubspot and Mike Stelzner at Social Media Examiner helped me “Measure Twice, Cut Once.”

Social media promotes a culture of sharing so a refresher is worthwhile, occasionally, to help guide others.  Can you think of others tools or advice worth considering that has helped you “Measure Twice, Cut Once?”

You can’t swing a cat these days without hitting someone talking about the Old Spice commercials featuring the dashing, shirtless former NFL wide receiver, Isiah Mustafa.  The commercial, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” has been viewed on YouTube 15,535,845 times.  It proves the viewership potential for advertisers with social media and, most important, shows Old Spice’s connectedness and relevance to its target audience.

It also reminds me of the social media campaign for Blendtec blenders, featuring the cloaked CEO and everyman, Tom Dickson.  The commercials, “iPhone” and “iPad,” have been viewed roughly 8,000,000 times each.  Blendtec achieved a 500-to-1 ROI from this effort.

Developed so consumers watch and like so much they put on social networks for others to watch, these social media commercials are generating reach that rivals paid mass media.  You might think, based on this criteria, it’s better quality reach too.  If for some reason you’ve been living under a digital rock, you can view them at the bottom of this blog.

I don’t want to suggest rules or a formula to great creative but I can’t help but notice some similarities between these two campaigns.  Here are 5 best practices of social media commercials:

1. REINVENT THE RULES: Both begin as “talking head” commercials, the oldest and most basic commercial form, but then take this “tried and true” approach and turn it into something you’ve never seen before.
2. LIVE COMFORTABLY OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE:  Both presenters seem right at home and willing to take risks in situations that would cause much embarrassment to most of us.
3. GIVE A NOD TO TECHNOLOGY: Early Blendec commercials blended broom handles and golf balls.  But, when they started blending iPhone and iPads, viewership took off to the mega-millions.  For Old Spice, references to social networks and Tweets from Alyssa Milano have helped the interest and pass-along value spiral upward and upward.
4. CREATE LEGS TO THE IDEA, IMMEDIATELY:  Both benefit from multiple executions right off the bat making us appreciate the breath and commitment to the idea and looking forward to what comes next.
5. ENTERTAIN AS YOU SELL:   When consumers choose to look for you instead of you chasing them, there’s a new value exchange. 

I don’t know about you but I look forward to many more social media commercials.  I would think advertisers would too.  Do you see similarities between these efforts?  Can you think of other best practices?

The Wall Street Journal reported last week, in looking at the glass as half full or half empty, most of us see the economy as half empty.

Is it time for a Social Media Stimulus Plan?   Here are the facts why.

CONSUMERS AREN”T SPENDING AND BRAND LOYALTY HAS ERODED

• 59% of consumer still rate the economy as “poor;” 73% describe their sentiments as pessimistic
• Under $50K, 79% of consumers are cutting back on spending
• Between $50K-$100K, 73% are cutting back
• Over $100K, 66% are cutting back
• Less than 50% now buy “the brand I want most” when they shop
• 42% cite “unemployment/job security” as a primary concern followed by “rising prices” at 33%

ONLINE SPENDING IS GROWING FASTER THAN OFFLINE

• 8.1% of retail sales now occur online – double what is was 7 years ago
• Online sales are growing +80% faster than offline sales
• 60% of consumers say the internet is more important in making buying decisions; up +56% from a year ago
• Sales at all major retailers, even brick and mortar companies, are growing online:  Amazon (+19%), Apple (+25%), Best Buy (+7%), Home Depot (+3%), Lowe’s (+5%), Macy (+4%), Sears (+6%), Staples (+5%), Wal-Mart (+3%)

PEOPLE WHO USE SOCIAL MEDIA SPEND MORE MONEY AND TIME ONLINE

• Facebook and Twitter users spend 1.5X more time online than average internet users
• People who spend time on Facebook and Twitter spend 2X more money online than people who don’t use these networks
• Heavy online buyers spent $592 on average in Q1 2010
• More people are spending more time on Facebook; it accounts for 8.0% of the time consumers are online
• 23% of Twitter users use the service for retail purposes
• Cost per thousand impressions on social media are $0.55 versus $2.55 for paid online advertising

COMPANIES WHO USE SOCIAL MEDIA INCREASE THEIR PROFILES AND SALES

• 97% of companies report a blog improves their search ranking
• 55% say a blog increases site visitations
• 45% have gotten revenue from their blog
• 36% of companies see an increase in positive perceptions fom their blog
• Companies from Dell, Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Blendtec and AJ Bombers now have great social media case studies, particularly in the area of innovation, customer service and sales

Sources: comScore, U.S. Department of Commerce, Nielsen, Harris Interactive

A rising tide lifts all boats.  If spending continues to move online and people who use social media spend more, shouldn’t our administration take a hard look at the segment likely to lift us out of a bad economy the fastest; the one with the greatest likelihood to impact positive change?

Our administration has the experience too.  Let’s not forget, when Barrack Obama was campaigning, he used social media and it raised 87% of the funds he put to work to help get elected.

Wouldn’t you like to see the glass as half full again?

I’m seeing more companies find value in blogs.  That’s good news, especially considering these facts for companies that have blogs:

• 36% see an increase in positive perceptions
• 46% say they have gotten revenue from their blog
• 55% report increased visitors to the web site
• 97% have improved search rankings
• And since 95% of people spend less than 5 minute on a web site and view less than 5 pages, most people actually get to know a company better from a blog than a web site

Sources: comScore and HubSpot

So how do you begin?  Get everyone at your company on the same page?  Make sure there is alignment on goals, content and schedules for posting.  I’ve found a brief for the company blog is a good idea.  

Working at ad agencies for a good number of years, the creative brief was the foundation for any ad campaign.  Since a blog represents the voice of a company, shouldn’t a company have a brief before they begin blogging? 

The company blog begins a conversation and, hopefully, a long-term relationship.  A CEO of a major CPG company told me the company blog requires “soft hands,” not only to capture the essense of a brand or company (like the ad brief), but to define conversations.

Here is the brief for the company blog with a few “for instances” to help you along. 

• WHAT IS THE BUSINESS OBJECTIVE? (e.g. demonstrate accessibility, build 1-on-1 relationships, handle crisis management) 
• WHO IS THE READER? (e.g. consumers in general, customers, heavy users, business customers, employees)
• WHAT IS THE INTEREST THEY ALL SHARE? (This is the “insight” part.  Hint: it’s not your product; it’s what’s important in readers lives - e.g. love well prepared meals, support enviromonmental causes, want personal touch with customer service)
• HOW DOES YOUR COMPANY/BRAND MEET THIS SHARED INTEREST? (This is the proof and transparency part; not only that your company/brand delivers on these interests in real, tangible ways but you understand their lives) 
• WHAT IS THE VOICE OF YOUR COMPANY/BRAND? (This is what’s behind your company/brand; its core values and beliefs. (see “The ‘Be’s’ Behind Your Social Media Brand” 4 blogs down for additional advice)
• WHAT ACTION DO YOU WANT YOUR READERS TO TAKE? (e.g. ask us a question, tell us your opinion, go to an event, visit our store and let us show you our appreciation.  A blog can do a lot of heavy lifting for a company.  Business results and ROI are highly measurable)

There are important adminstration requirements to the company blog – What are expectations, measurements and reporting?  Who is the company blog champion to handle topics, scheduling and comments? What is handled internally versus outsourced?

But, like anything worth doing, my belief is the company blog if done right is likely to have one of the highest returns on investment of anything your company does.  If you don’t belief me, just refer to the facts at the top of this blog.

Would you include any other key questions for your company blog?

A first rule of blogging is to be helpful.  A second rule is if you need help ask for it.  Hopefully, in this blog, I can accomplish both.

A friend of mine has done very well in life. He has an important job, loving family and lives in a great town.  His daughter has a rare disease called Rasmussen’s Encephalitis.

Rasmussen’s Encephalitis is a rare, chronic inflammatory disease that affects one hemisphere of the brain.  It occurs in children under the age of 15 and is characterized by frequent and severe seizures, loss of motor skills and speech, paralysis on one side of the body and mental deterioration.  After the the first 8 to 12 months, most individuals with Rasmussen’s Encephalitis enter a phase of permanent, but stable, neurological deficits.

While this could tear anyone apart, in my friend’s case, it made him stronger.   He’s dedicated his life to a solution by founding the RE Children’s Project to increase awareness of Rasmussen’s Encephalitis (RE) and to support scientific research for a cure. The organization supports research toward the recovery process following hemisphrectomy surgery, a life altering surgery that is the only known “cure” for the disease.

I’ve offered to do what I can to raise awareness through social media.

I know first hand how powerful social media is in health care.  For conditions like Multiple Sclerosis and Epilepsy, patient communities on Facebook and Twitter offer support to one another with member numbering in the 10′s of thousands.  Studies in countries around the world have proven social support from patients with similar health conditions actually results in better health outcomes.

But for rare disease like Rasmussen’s Encephalitis, community creation is more difficult because there are less people to rely on for support.  There are valuable videos on YouTube.  One (below), less than 2 minutes, is factual and hopeful.

So I thought what if the blogging community and Twitter, the micro-blogging community, could help out.  What if, when you read this blog, you just re-tweet it.  In your re-tweet, you ask the next reader to re-tweet it.  If one person did this and so did the next person and so on, pretty soon, we would generate greater awareness of Rasmussen’s Encephalitis and the chances of finding a cure would be that much more likely.

What do you say?  The re-tweet button is at the top of the blog.  After all, it’s called social media for a reason.

According to Social Media Examiner (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com), the top three social media questions people ask are:

1. How do I measure social media return on investment?
2. What are the social media marketing best practices?
3. How do I manage my time with social media?

Here’s a the roadmap: 2 hours/day X 60 days = social media ROI.

It’s my experience but, more importantly, a conclusion reached at an SAS and AMA webinar last week led by John Bastone and Chris Brogan (http://www.chrisbrogan.com).  John and Chris challenged the popular excuse there is no pure sense of ROI with social media saying:  If you put  in 2 hours/day for 60 days, you’ll see social media’s return on investment.

Here’s why:

• HIGHLY MEASURABLE:  With standard analytics, you can measure: 1) LEADS: Social media traffic to your web site and/or store and how many share your news with others 2) CONVERSION: What actions they take on on your site and/or at the store and 3) RETENTION/LOYALTY: If they come back and repeat their activity.  These are the standard metrics for benchmarking return on investment.
• SUCCESS COMES FROM LISTENING, CONNECTING AND PUBLISHING:  These spell out the dynamics, time commitments and activities that build a following, momentum and results.  But they don’t occur unless the activities are performed continuously.  In any 2 hour period, you should spend 30 minutes listening, 60 minutes connecting and 30 minutes publishing.  A common mistake companies make is to use social media as an outlet for press releases.  Bad idea.  This creates the impression your brand is impersonal and not listening or willing to connect.
• STARTS WITH PITCHING IN: Conversations are occurring about your brand and category as we speak.  Search them out on Google, Yahoo, Technorati, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and you will quickly see where most happen - blogs, online communities or social networks. Then, pitch in and join. You’ll quickly find where you get the most bang for your buck so you can spend time on what’s working and pull back on what’s not.
• MADE FOR ROI: If you’ve defined your business goals, (e.g. increase sales of X%, generate new subscriptions of Y%), there should be NO reason why you can’t now look at your business pre and post, relate it to activities, identify strong performers, apply measurements above and have an ROI – robust with as much data and analytics as you like.

With the learning, you can improve or “optimize” the process for even better results in the next 60 days.

One other piece of advice to help with connecting with your customers.  Talk about your customers’ interests before you talk about your product.  Content about customers always draws more customers than content about your product.  Pretty soon, they’ll start generating content for you to help you manage your time and investment.

2 hours and 60 days may seem like a little or a lot depending on your perspective.  I’m not aware of a marketing channel that does it more expediently or is more transparent.

I hope this gives you a helpful perspective and demystifies some often asked questions.  If it doesn’t, I hope you’ll let me know.

The New Music Seminar is rolling across the country this year.  It might not have come up on your radar screen, but it came up on mine.  The seminar’s creator and producer, Tom Silverman, founder of Tommy Boy Records, is a friend from college.

Tom (on the left) made a seminal contribution to hip hop when he discovered Grandmaster Flash and recorded the hip hop classic, Planet Rock; then came Queen Latifah and Naughty by Nature and others.

The purpose of the New Music Seminar, which began in 1981, is to give aspiring artist in all music genres the knowledge and tools they need to succeed in the music business which, according to Tom, is in a period of profound change.  No longer do new artists need to focus their time, attention and energy on getting signed by a record label and the slim chance they will be funded and made into a star.

Today, record labels rarely take chances on new artists.  Instead, digital technology, the internet and social media now make it possible, sometimes even free, for artists to do it themselves.  Wikipedia covers the history of the New Music Seminar in detail at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Music_Seminar

More people want to become professional musicians than ever.  In fact, the number of records from new artists has risen from 79,000 in 2007, to over 110,000 in 2008, to an estimated 145,000 in 2009 – almost double in 2 years.  Although competition has increased significantly, online tools are so readily available, if someone has 1000 loyal fans and tours throughout the year, they can now make a living doing what they love.  But the key to doing what you love, according to Tom, is you’ve got to know your fans.

Anyone who owns or manages a business or brand, or is thinking of starting one, can benefit from this lesson in the music business; especially if you thought you needed to focus time and attention blasting the word out to as many people as you can.

How well do you know your 1000 most loyal fans?

The New Music Seminar is rolling into New York City from July 19-21.  For more information, go to: http://www.newmusicseminar.com/blog

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Stamford CT Tuesday night (4/27) from 6pm to 9 pm, we’d welcome you to an “advanced” social media workshop at UCONN.  Here are the directions  http://www.stamford.uconn.edu/visitors.htm

When we were asked by US Small Business Administration to do an ”advanced” social media workshop, we thought:  What is “advanced” social media anyway?  Someone who has built up thousands of fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter? A brand with a You Tube video viewed by millions? A business using proprietary social networking technology, widgets and apps?

This didn’t do it.  We defined it as:  A business or brand that has used social media to the benefit of their bottom line; saw clear business growth, proved an ROI, communicated consistently with their customers and, as a result, has the know how, insights and understanding to do it again and again.

When we thought about in these terms, a lot of case studies came to mind.  Some from business owners who happened to be our friends, colleagues and clients.  We thought it would be more interesting for them to tell you what social media did for their brands.  Here’s the list of brands that will be discussed:

1. AJ Bombers – A  burger joint in Milwaukee WI
2. Vitamin Water – I guess you know this one
3. Forever Verdant – A services company for environmentally friendly living
4. Bloomberg Marketing/Diva Marketing – A top social media and marketing consultancy and top 20 blog according to Forbes
5. Real Women on Health – A health and wellness community for Baby Boomer women
6. HubSpot - An inbound marketing solutions company to grow traffic, leads and sales

For AJ Bombers and Diva Marketing, owners Joe Sorge and Toby Bloomberg will be live (courtesy of Skype) from Milwaukee WI and Atlanta GA.  After all, it’s called social media for a reason.

If it’s nearby for you, we’d love to have you.  There is a $25 fee; $35 for two.  It doesn’t go to us (or the presenters) but back to the US Small Business Administration.  We and they believe social media is a competitive advantage for small businesses who play a vital role in our economic recovery.  And we’d rather see our administration spend money on small businesses, not big banks.

It’s our 2nd of 2 workshops at UCONN this spring.  The 1st was a “beginners” workshop.  What is social media for “beginners?”  That’s a much easier question and that presentation is below.

What are net promoters? Consumers who rate products on the internet?  Mommy Bloggers? People who Tweets about brands on Twitter? Fans on Facebook? Hold that thought.

For students of relationship marketing and CRM, net promoters are the driving force of Fred Reichheld’s book, The Ultimate Question. Fred studied and surveyed the customers of 100′s of companies and came to a singular conclusion: The most admired and profitable companies are the ones with the greatest percentage of net promoters – people who enthusiastically answer in the affirmative the question, ”How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”

Fred developed the Net Promoter Score (NPS).  The NPS is the percentage of people who are “promoters” of a company minus the   “passives” and “detractors” (NPS = P – D).  Reichheld’s work is known for its statistical significance and high correlation with business success.  In 2006, the companies with the highest NPS were:

• USAA (82%)
• HomeBanc (81%)
• Harley-Davidson (81%)
• Costco (79%)
• Amazon.com (73%)
• Chick-fil-A (72%)
• eBay (71%)

By 2008, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, in Groundswell, delivered research showing 80% of people rate and review products favorably on the internet and their social networks. If companies with an NPS of 80% rank among the highest in Reichheld’s work, Li and Bernoff’s research is particularly good news for businesses and brands.

It means companies that use interactive ratings are reviews are likely to have a higher NPS, be more admired and have greater profitability. Li and Bernoff’s research also showed:

• 76% of customers use online reviews to make purchases
• 96% of sites that have them say they are an effective merchandising tactic
• Only 25% of e-commerce sites have them now

So, from Reichheld’s, Li’s and Bernoff’s viewpoints, we’re in the “net promoters era.”  If your company isn’t taking advantage of it, shouldn’t it be?

This quote comes from Jim Farley, Group VP of Marketing at Ford, who this year moved 25% of his marketing budget out of traditional media and into digital marketing and social media.  According to Jim, when new products like the Ford Fiesta are pivotal to company growth,  “the company must rely on others to tell the story.”  That’s Jim’s company up in the left and his constituents on the right.  Who would you trust?  For Ann Handley’s full interview with Jim, go to  http://ow.ly/1n3g9O

In a related move,  Pepsi, for the first time in 23 years, did not have commercials on the Super Bowl. Instead, the company is spending $20 million on a social media campaign called, The Pepsi Refresh Project, where users give ideas to Pepsi for ways to refresh their communities.

Maybe these moves reflect the facts that:

• 90% of all purchase decisions begin online
• 75% of people shop online before they buy offline
• 85% are looking for an independent review
• They have an average of 130 friends on Facebook; an average of 127 followers on Twitter
• Positive perceptions of a company increase by 36% if there’s a blog on their website
• 14% of people trust advertising
• Only 18% of TV ad campaign ever generate a positive return on investment

I think Pepsi’s Super Bowl commercials are some of the most iconic advertising, ever, and believe their effectiveness was probably much greater than average.  I was sorry and sad to see them exit the Super Bowl, altogether.

But, for those 86% who don’t trust advertising, now they hear about Pepsi from who they do trust, their friends.