The Golden Rules of Social Media

November 23, 2009 at 6:30 pm (Social Media Tips)
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We here at Ballywho Interactive are committed to educating everybody we come in contact with about the do’s and don’ts of social media networking. And we’re convinced that folks probably SHOULD be required to get a license before operating such dangerous vehicles as Twitter or MySpace. But until that happens, we offer this, our list of the 7 Golden Rules of Social Media, an attempt at creating commandments that every tweeter, blogger and active web traveler among us should commit to memory and follow.

 

  • I will not allow my children to make a Facebook or Twitter page for my business.
    You wouldn’t hand over your car keys to the eight-year-old, would you? Heck, most of us wouldn’t hand them over to the eight-year-old’s babysitter! Then why would you even consider letting your kid build your business web page or social media profile? Let kids be kids and you stick to managing your own business’s brand or let a professional marketer handle it for you.
  • I will have a plan for how I will feed social media every day with RELEVANT content.
    So you think you’re just going to pop out there for a few minutes every day and talk about this or that and then go about the rest of your daily business? WRONG. Have a roadmap in place as to how you’re going to introduce your business to the marketplace via social media and a loose but laid out plan of tentative topics you want to talk about and maybe even questions you want to pose to learn more about the community you’re reaching out to about your products or services. But most of all, make your content matter to the audience reading it and not just you.

  • I will not use a platform or messaging that does not fit with my brand proposition.
    Do you know where your customers are hanging out? Then that’s where you want to be. Don’t just assume if Facebook is the latest and greatest social media site that this is the destination for you. Take into account your own brand and your target audience, and it’s very possible that another social media site would be better suited for you.
  • I will not be selfish or boring.
    So you’d like people to come back to your blog or Facebook page again and again, right? Then don’t put them to sleep! Give folks something interesting to read. What do people in your target demographic seek online? Are you trying to reach moms? Find interesting articles, research or offers related to saving money for a household or to raising kids. Trying to tap into college-students? Look for helpful information about moving out or starting a new career. Provide meaningful, fun or insightful news your audience can use, and they will return for more.
  • I will understand what social media can and can’t do for my business.
    Know why you’re venturing into this world in the first place. You can certainly grow leads, nurture positive word of mouth and support growing your brand, but don’t confuse a little free publicity with your new advertising strategy. You can’t expect social media networking to replace all of your other marketing and promotional efforts. Be clear on the purpose of your content.
  • I will not start and stop but stay engaged.
    This is true of any long-term marketing strategy. Social media is about establishing a presence, creating a dialogue and taking part in the two-way conversation, not talking at the marketplace but talking WITH the marketplace. You’ve got to appear to your followers as someone who stays on top of things related to your field, your products and your community. The moment you shut down, folks will move on. If you don’t have the resources to keep up with it, find someone who can help you do this.
  • I will think before I post.
    Some of us can barely abide by the ‘think before you speak’ adage. You’d expect this would be easier, but it isn’t. We get emotional – excited, angry, anxious, stressed out, amused and shocked – and we cannot wait to share this with the world, and what do you know? This social media outlet is the perfect way to express that. EXCEPT when you’re a business owner. If this is your professional social media presence, you owe it to your brand, your company, your employees and in some cases your investors, to pull the reins a bit and consider what you’re writing before you hit send. Do you really want to risk losing potential business with a desirable segment of the marketplace just so you can share your opinion on last night’s mayoral race? Think before you post and stick to the subject of why you’re networking via social media in the first place. You’ll be coasting before you know it!

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Yes, Social Media Can Deliver Leads

November 17, 2009 at 8:51 pm (Social Media Tips)
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Still not convinced that social media marketing translates into cold, hard cash? You’re not alone in your skepticism. Many businesses as they wade out into the social media pool quickly learn that there are a number of directions they can swim and then realize, ‘Crap, we forgot the floaties.’  Figuring out which direction will lead to the most potentially profitable opportunities is the tricky part. But there are a few things you can do to help support these efforts to generate sales lead using sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

  • Always remember the most important rule of them all as you interact with others through social media marketing: focus on building relationships first and generating business later. I know, I know, you’re saying ‘that goes completely against the whole message of this blog which is to use social media to make money’ but there’s an even more sacred rule in sales that goes something like this (and I know you’ve heard it): people do business with people they know and like. So yes, be genuine and be active, and as you build mutually beneficial relationships, the leads will follow.
  • Set up your own special group of friends/followers/tweeple (whatever you want to call them) and invite your best prospects to be a part of this group. It will give you a more direct and welcomed opportunity to interact, seek their feedback and share your good business news as it happens. But be sure to give back in return. Too many people establish groups that become one-sided pages for horn-honking. Spread some kudos-sharing about your group members and nurture this special community carefully. You could quite possibly have lifelong customers in your hands.
  • Offer help whenever you can and that means knowledge, too, folks. I’m not suggesting that everybody suddenly go pro bono with their services but there’s an intrinsic value to assisting fellow business owners in your marketplace. For one thing, it’s nice to see another member of the business community succeed because one success can often spill over to its neighbors. And secondly, it just makes you feel good. Okay, I’m getting all warm and fuzzy on you and I know this comes unexpectedly in a blog of all places, but it really does make you feel good as a business person to know that you’ve helped another professional succeed because of your resources. And who knows when you might be in a similar position and need to turn to your marketplace for a little back-scratching yourself?

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Some Serious Buzz Generating at Cadillac

November 9, 2009 at 10:23 pm (Social Media Tips)

Have you been out there voting? You know, on your favorite local woman zooming around the Bay area in her Cadillac… This recent marketing promotion has been one of the best local examples of using social media to draw interest to a product since perhaps the Save the Tortillas campaign we blogged about recently. (http://chiefballywho.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/social-media-saves-the-tortillas%e2%80%a6literally/)

A recent story in the Times broke down the inspiration for this hip GM promotion (http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/cadillac-aims-twitter-campaign-at-influential-women/1044681) but essentially, the crux behind it is this: women pay attention to other women. So Cadillac’s got a local ladies in the Tampa and Orlando markets (and in this case, Tampa extends to South Florida including Venice and Sarasota) getting behind the wheel of a new Cadillac SRX for a week and blogging about the experience. How does this help GM? Aah, the SOCIAL aspect of it is the amazingly simple yet effective piece of the equation. Each woman taking part is competing against each other to drive the most web traffic to their blog page. Whatever woman scores the most unique visitors to her page during the week wins $500 for the charity of her choice. So the more they use their own Twitter and Facebook profiles, LinkedIn, any of them… the better chance they have of getting friends, followers, tweeps, etc. to stop by their SRX page and count as a unique visitor.

Kudos to Cadillac! For finding an ingenious way to use social media to raise curiosity and interest in a new product, for bringing Twitter into the conversation with their prospective customers and most of all, for attaching a strong philanthropic element to their marketing campaign. Sure, they are essentially getting a community to do their advertising for them but not without giving back to the community. And by introducing a community campaign that supports local non-profits, it propelled members of these organizations to help further along the mission, too.

If you want to follow the latest blogging contenders, go to www.srxdrivingforce.com.

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Balloon Boy Watch and Other Communitweeting

November 3, 2009 at 7:02 pm (Social Media Tips)
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There’s a new phenomenon sweeping the nation. Have you heard? I’m sure you have. Heck, you’ve probably even taken part. I like to call it communitweeting.

Think back to a time many many moons ago…What were you doing when you heard about the little girl falling into the well? Who were you sitting with when you watched the white Ford Bronco speeding down a California highway pursued by police on TV? And where were you when you first learned the twin towers were hit? Different times – different decades, in fact – and different media available to cover this news…and to follow it.

Now imagine all of those events in the age of Twitter and YouTube. You have to wonder how many different videos might be available of 9-11, for instance, if all of us eight years ago were walking citizen reporters then as we’ve become now.

Recent news headlines continue to show us how social media can bring people together with one common interest, cause or goal. Think of what we’ve experienced together as one communitweeting universe just this year along.

  • In what created the greatest web traffic jam ever, people across the world watched on their phones and computers the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States, and social media commentators both for and against their newly elected chief executive found a new way to interact with the White House, too. It didn’t hurt that the Prez insisted on his own Blackberry, too.
  • Many Tweeters created a unified online stance by changing their profile pictures to green in protest of Iran’s treatment of political demonstrators. The death of Iranian onlooker Neda Soltan, whose tragic image via a spectator’s YouTube video generated poignant international conversation, became symbolic of the region’s political unrest.
  • Fans joined in both a global mourning and celebration of life and music as the first news of the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson began to post across the Internet.
  • And very recently, millions across the country watched on their phones, laptops and TVs as a 6-year-old boy sailed across the skies in a runaway helium balloon (or so we thought at the time) as tweeters compared the bizarre Balloon Boy news story to James & the Giant Peach or Disney’s Up. Thankfully, he was found alive and well and hiding in his attic. But for that 90 minutes the world was collectively riveted and bewildered.

To those who insist social media is a passing fad, we argue this: we don’t doubt that like most technology trends, social media will evolve into yet another platform, and perhaps under a completely new guise. But for now and for a while to come, we here at Ballywho Interactive see many more potential communitweeting experiences still to share together.

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Elissa Nauful Plumley: Shows where she stands – Tampa Bay Business Journal:

October 30, 2009 at 8:30 pm (Uncategorized)

Elissa Nauful Plumley: Shows where she stands – Tampa Bay Business Journal:.

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Twitter Tricks & Treats

October 28, 2009 at 1:16 am (Social Media Tips)
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Sure, you may have finally gathered the courage to go out and explore the Twitterverse, but have you armed yourself with the basic tricks to maximize your reach and value? Anytime you’re in the mood to tweet, be sure to incorporate this handful of helpful Twitter tools.

 

  • TweetStats (www.tweetstats.com) – One of the most popular and utilized tools, this site enables people to analyze the tweeting trends for themselves or any username by month, by hour or even over a particular timeframe. Examining reply stats and topic trends can help you gain a better sense of what people are most interested in talking about.
  • Retweetist (www.retweetist.com) – This site highlights folks in the Twitterverse who are re-tweeted the most (that is, their updates are forwarded most often by their followers). It can be extremely valuable from a marketing standpoint in helping you identify key thought leaders whom you may wish to reach to spread the word about your own product or company.
  • Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) – We’ve done cartwheels time and time again for this great time management lifesaver! Weed through the vast amount of tweets for everyone you follow and prioritize the tweeple whose updates you simply can’t afford to miss.
  • SocialToo (www.socialtoo.com) – Ever want to reach out to all of your followers with a survey? You can with this powerful tool that also provides daily update summaries of all of the people you follow and auto-follow functionality.
  • TwitterCounter (www.twittercounter.com) – Track and chart the growth of your username (or other usernames’) number of followers over any given timeframe – and get this! It’ll even predict future growth based on previous data trends. How cool is that!
  • Tweet Later (www.tweetlater.com) – Truly the greatest time management tweet tool of them all… want to make sure that the moment you launch that new product a tweet goes out to everybody? Schedule it ahead of time or heck, how about a countdown series of tweets on the hour?
  • TwitterMail (www.twittermail.com) – Have you always thought ‘boy, it would sure be easier if I could tweet via email?’ Well, you can, using this handy dedicated email tool. You can even respond to @replies to your tweets!

 

There are so many different Twitter applications available to help you save time updating and monitor the people you wish to follow more efficiently. This short list only scratches the surface of what’s out there (more to come in a future blog!)

 

The key to successful micro-blogging is to find ways to make your update time more productive and the conversation, more meaningful, and spend those minutes saved getting to really know the folks out there in the great, big, wonderful Twitterverse.

 

Happy tweeting, all!

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Facebook Friend Requests: Can You Just Say No?

October 20, 2009 at 1:13 am (Social Media Tips)
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Here’s a question for you: how many Facebook friends do you have? And how many of them are actually friends?

 

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

What happens to many of us as we set up our social media profiles is we have every intention of keeping our online circles limited to close friends, family and possibly our immediate co-workers. Instead, we’re approached by people we never would have invited into our little world – classmates hoping to catch up after many years, former co-workers or business contacts looking to reconnect and probably the most confounding of all, people we may meet in our networking travels and possibly do limited business with who now want to be “our friend.”

 

Many of us are torn over these decisions – do we accept the friend request, limit what the person sees of our updates or simply click on ignore and pray for the best? We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or worst of all, burn any bridges or potential bridges particularly if there’s prospective business in your future. But at the same time, do I really want Johnny Smith, my one-time real estate agent reading my deep personal thoughts about Michael Buble or learning of my bad shopping habits?

 

One way you can minimize some of the struggles of Facebook friendships is to build more than one profile. Maybe you have one specifically associated with your career or company, another for your family and yet another for your workplace. Or if that gets to confusing, send your friends to your MySpace page, your business contacts to your LinkedIn profile and those in-between folks to a Facebook page. Keep in mind that people searching for you may still send friend requests to join your little personal group, but if you have a separate professional profile available, you can reject with a comment that recommends they follow you elsewhere. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least you can stay in each other’s orbits without these not-quite-close-friends getting a little too close to your personal business.

 

Then there’s the dilemma about friending your kids. Ask yourself: is this a genuine opportunity to connect and share information or photos or am I snooping on my kids? And do I really want my kids reading all of my own business or drooling observations about hunky Hugh Jackman? Whether or not to friend really comes down to how old are your children and what is the nature of your relationship? Tweens or teenagers? College students? Married with kids of their own? Be honest and put yourself in their shoes. Is this Facebook friendship a good thing or should you really not ‘go there’ for all parties involved?

 

No matter how many profiles you establish, always keep in mind that relationships evolve, and the person you allow in your circle today may drift away tomorrow so be somewhat cautious of what you share regardless of which profile – personal or professional. When in doubt, if some matter might be just a little too personal to share with the masses, send a private message through the Facebook or MySpace mail feature. You can still send to multiple friends just like a standard email and then you ensure that a message you may not want to be posted or commented on by uninvolved parties stays between those it affects.

 

So enjoy your budding friendships and unexpected reunions with long lost loves, favorite classmates or teachers, and past bosses and co-workers, but keep those friends in their appropriate circles so you don’t compromise yourself or your work. And as with anything else said online, think before you type.

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Tweeting by the Sidelines? You Make the Call!

October 13, 2009 at 1:54 am (Uncategorized)
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The sports world’s been rocked again. No, not about an illegal dog fighting ring or alleged abuse this time…it’s much more scandalous than any of that. It’s about – gasp! – athlete tweeting! Cue the infamous Psycho film score here.

 

Yes, it’s true. College athletes and pro athletes alike are being talked to about their extracurricular activities and this time, it involves their social media dalliance. Teams are slapping wrists and setting a new set of rules for social media: no tweeting so many hours before the game, no giving away any secret game plan info and for Pete’s sake, no tweeting in the huddle!

 

Okay, we added this last one, but that’s probably next.

 

Recently, Jim Leavitt, football coach for Tampa’s University of South Florida, announced his own decision to stop tweeting after a few players’ Twitter updates just minutes before a game were brought to his attention (http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2009/09/09/usfs-leavitt-signs-off-twitter/). While the coach didn’t formally implement a new tweeting policy for the players themselves, he said he certainly didn’t condone their actions.

 

The NFL did take a stand and formally issued its own social media policy (http://www.tsn.ca/nfl/story/?id=286848), that players, coaches and team operational personnel were allowed to use sites like Twitter and Facebook 90 minutes before games and after regular post-game press conferences but not during the games. The league still does not allow league officials and officiating department personnel to take part in social media and continues to ban play-by-play reporting on social media platforms.

 

It’s an interesting twist with social media and the role it can play in professional and collegiate sports. After all, Twitter has become a tremendous recruiting tool for talent scouts across sports (http://www.coloradoavalanchecares.com/columns/recruiting/how-twitter-is-changing-the-face-of-recruiting/)  and many teams have latched on to social media especially as a way to grow and nurture faltering fan bases, given the struggle to fill stadiums and avoid mandatory TV blackouts (http://www.buffalonews.com/494/story/771980.html). The debate continues, because while it pays to let the fans in, how far do you crack open the door – this wide or THIIIIISSSS wide?

 

What do you think about professional sports and social media? Should it be a case of church and state or is there room for some co-mingling in this highly interactive, highly lucrative international industry?

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Face to Face with Social Media

October 8, 2009 at 7:33 am (Social Media Tips)

Everybody’s doing it…in their businesses, in their social circles, in their communities. Even the biggest naysayers of social media are finding themselves trekking out to sites like Twitter and Facebook for the first time. Some folks argue that social media is taking human interaction out of the global conversation as partnerships are forged over websites rather than handshakes. But if that were the case, why are so many avid social media enthusiasts flocking to join social media clubs, attend community tweet-ups and take part in tastecasts? It was only a matter of time before people immersed in online dialogue would need a little real-life, old-fashioned human contact.

 

So are you game for a little clubbing? That’s right, social media clubs. As if the lay-it-all-out-there nature of social media isn’t SOCIAL enough. Now the latest phenomenon to sweep the nation is the organization of these online conversationalists into traditional clubs– by state, by region, by city! Social Media Club Hawaii, Social Media Club South Florida, Social Media Club Sydney, Australia! Local chapters, local meetings, real interaction tied to a virtual medium. What a concept!

 

But nothing’s grown faster in popularity than the new networking sensation, the tweetup – the only networking function on the planet where a floppy adhesive nametag with your Twitter name holds significantly more value than a traditional business card! You can stay in the know on the latest tweet-up events being held across the country – all over the world – by following the official Tweetup page. And for those here in the Tampa Bay area, you’ve even got an opportunity to try out a tweet-up this week as the Saint PeteTweets cross over the bridge for a tweet-up being hosted by the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center Friday, October 9.

 

Maybe you’ve got a sweet spot for following foodies or discussing the art of fine wine or dining. Tastecasting might be just the thing for you. Tastecasters connect with a local restaurant and set up an evening of meeting up with other food lovers, sampling signature dishes on the menu and sharing observations about the experience with followers through blogs and microblogs. Much like experiencing social media, once you whet your appetite with tastecasting, you’ll likely head back for seconds.

 

So don’t let social media fool you. While some folks might maintain that it promotes a solitary, impersonal means of reaching out to the community, there are plenty of face-to-face opportunities to put a living, breathing, human being with an avatar!

 

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Everybody Thinks They’re an Expert

October 6, 2009 at 12:08 pm (Social Media Tips)
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We’re starting to see a new trend emerging. Here at Ballywho we get really concerned for businesses when we see stuff like this floating up to the surface. Consider this blog a public service announcement and warning. As Social Media continues to be the buzz phrase being bantered around in business and social circles, a new breed of so-called experts are lining up to teach you everything you’d ever want to know about social media. You’ve probably noticed these folks out there hawking their know-how. Some have legitimate marketing backgrounds and solid branding experience. Others appear to be part of this frightening new line of thinking that if you can send a tweet, than surely you must be able to teach others how to brand and market their businesses with social media.

 

Um, no, we beg to differ with that argument. After all, we know plenty of teenagers who can out-text us in a duel and leave us surrendering on our knees with serious carpal tunnel pain. But we wouldn’t want any of them necessarily planning our marketing program or ad campaigns. Just because someone is familiar with a medium, does not make them an expert, and just because someone knows how to use a tool skillfully does not mean they have a strategy.

 

It’s one thing to teach others how to enter the world of social media and navigate it. It’s quite another to claim that you can guide business leaders and entrepreneurs to super-size their business using Facebook or MySpace. Heck, should their business even be relying on either of these sites? After all, and we know we’re repeating ourselves here, but we can’t stress this enough: not every social media site is appropriate for every kind of business. An experienced marketing strategist is not only going to provide business owners with the knowledge and resources to build meaningful, relevant content, she’ll have a custom plan and metrics in place to back it up and measure its success for the client.

 

So before you embark on any new social media 101 learning adventure, particularly one that requires a serious investment beyond a book purchase on Amazon.com, be sure to ask four very important questions before committing yourself:

 

  • What is the professional background and experience of the social media “expert?”
  • How extensive is that person’s own use of social media marketing to promote his/her own business or other businesses and organizations?
  • What is your purpose for attending? Do you simply want to introduce yourself to basic concepts or are you looking for a specific plan or content services to launch your company’s social media profile?
  • And if you are seeking social media strategy and information about social media site strengths by business category, do you have evidence that this source can deliver it?

Social media can be an unbelievable tool to support your efforts to grow your business’s marketing program and especially to expand your reach in the marketplace. But be sure you know more about the experts who promise to lead the social media way, before you pack an apple for the teacher.

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