Now it’s 2010, and social media is embedded in the daily functions of our lives. Businesses check their media feeds while they have their first cup of coffee. News stories are now being broken on Twitter before a reporter can reach the scene. People are meeting in person through social media connections (Tweetups and Facebook events). Let’s not forget that people are also constantly connected to the internet through their cellphones, computer or laptop.
If social media is still just a silly trend in your mind, you’re probably behind the curve. My marketing professor told me, “In the business world, only the fastest survive.” He’s absolutely right. If you can’t stay current, then you’ll become obsolete.

Swim Fast or Die

If these people were blogs, you'd want to be THAT guy.

Blogging. This phenomenon is for sure here to stay and we have advanced past the time of calling blogs just a trend. They are now essential tools in building brand awareness. Blogs provide opportunities to speak directly to audiences engaged in the brand already. Speaking to audiences in their own terms is one of the best ways to explain what your brand is all about.

So what’s the point of blogging?

Visiting a website can tell you lots about a brand. But not everything. And not a lot of the things you really want to know. If you want to KNOW the brand, the voices behind it and the issues that are important to it, a blog is where it’s at. You might find the beginning threads of what you want to know on an official website but digging deeper into a brand requires reading more.

Do us a favor: Just Keep it Simple

If you are blogging for your brand, you don’t want people to have to dig TOO deep. (Or else they probably won’t do any digging at all and move on to the next brand, next blog and not remember yours). It is important to also find ways to keep your old blogs memorable too. Remember that unbelievably awesome blog you wrote a month ago? Well there are a lot of ways to keep that work relevant and entice readers to check it out again. It also has to be easy to read. Establishing your blog and engaging people in what you have to say isn’t always easy though. If it was easy, then brand awareness would be simple and we would all know EVERYTHNG about ALL the brands we use and want.

Write TO your audience, not AT them…

In order for people to follow your blog, they have to have that basic interest in what you’re talking about. You have to know your audience too. Who is actually reading this stuff? Well, you have to know in order to write to them. Some of the best bloggers out there will tell you that branding is all about how you speak to your readers. Having a conversation with your reader is the best way to keep them engaged but also to keep YOU memorable. There are a lot of great articles out there, to help us figure out how to talk to potential clients.

Blogging allows you to literally write your own definition of what your brand represents. By showing people what you are interested in and what’s important to you, you build a personal relationship with them. Successful branding is not easy. This we know. But what we also know is how to create that brand dialogue and it starts with building a relationship.

Where are you?… what are you doing?… twitter made it popular, and if that didn’t make our current online sociali-sphere (made that up) a stalker’s heaven, location-based social networking just up the ante.

Almost every smart phone out today has some sort of Geo location capability. Whether it’s through an integrated GPS (real GPS) or estimating your location based on your nearest cell tower (Fake GPS), “They” know where you are at all times. Clever business guys took advantage of this fact, threw in a map and created the phenomenon of location-based social networking. It is estimated that by 2013, three of the major location-based social networking players will account for over 3.3 billion dollars in revenue! That’s a lot of cheddar. The fascinating thing is that analysts are speculating that this is just the beginning.

Imagine a world where businesses are fully tuned in to the where-a-bouts and geographic buying patterns of its consumers. Where brands can track and influence people in places where it was only possible to assume they would be. Have you seen “Minority Report”? No? good time to go watch it… Yes, that’s where I think it’s going. Companies will take the cookie cutter messages they threw up (I don’t mean vomit even though it’s close), on a billboard and make it feel more personal to you. I have been seeing more and more digital billboards on my daily commutes. Just imagine… you’re going down the street, you look up, and the billboard in front of you says, “Hey [insert name here], wanna party like it’s 1999?…Prince tickets on sale now”. Click, buy, done… I just bought Prince tickets. Join me.

Location-based social networking means more than just informing stalkers of your where-a-bouts, or a new tool that wives and girlfriends can add to their “check up” repertoire. For businesses it will create a whole new dimension of selling, less wasted money on making an ass out of you and…well, themselves.

Want to check out a good list of location-based social networks? Click Here. corner6Labs doesn’t actually officially endorse any of them…although Travis, our VP of Sales, seems to be a 4-Square junkie. Word of advice…don’t try to steal his “Mayor-ship” he is very possessive of them and rather competitive.

Happy Stalking!

BTW, are you going to the June 18th “Nothing But Net” event put on by the Magnus Media Group? We are! Send us a quick note on twitter to let us know you will be there. We will even say hi and buy you a big Junkie drink!

1. Find a large enough group of people to talk to. Marketers are always looking for new segments to penetrate with their products and blogs are a great channel to communicate with them.  For example, if you sell executive suites to small businesses, you will probably want to target prospects based on geography and perhaps service firms. That will give you a large group of people to talk to but this group will probably be composed of several smaller groups with similar interest, so don’t stop there.
2. Learn what is unique about each smaller group. Within that larger segment you should create a variety of content that speaks to what is unique to each one do those smaller groups. Following the example above, it could be interesting to create content that talks about the importance of first impressions, the role of branding in finding new clients, the most successful stock investments strategies or the latest high-end entertainment events in the area.
3. Share with them and build trust. We all know that people like free samples, gifts, give away, free content, free research, extras or free trials. Use those to start building your brand and relationship with them.  Once you have built that trust and created that first impression, it is really hard to lose it – unless you really screw it. When blogging for sales you must honestly want to share knowledge and tips without expecting something back immediately, you must have patience.
4. Be patient and keep sharing. This is key as the game has changed for marketers and sales people, if you go aggressively for the sale without really knowing where the prospect is in the purchasing process, you will create a lot of enemies that could have been clients down the road. More than 95% of your blog’s visitors will not be ready to buy so you must be softer and broader with your message to appeal to a larger group that is most likely looking to simply educate themselves. However, make sure to make it easy for those that are shopping to contact you or purchase online.
5. Embrace your visitors and their networks. As people comment on your posts, bookmark them, share them on social networks and subscribe to your blog, make a task for you to develop each one of those relationships and ideally try to take them offline if appropriate. Don’t try to sell them until they are ready and ask more about your product or services. Developing those relationships will also help you reach a much larger audience than you can reach yourself.
6. Keep improving your sources. The content that you put in your blog is the fuel that will get your lead generation machine going, so make sure to create an editorial calendar and follow it religiously. If you have trouble coming up with your own thoughts or ideas, you can comment on research reports, studies, do book reviews, interview other experts, etc. Don’t ever run out of gas.

Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Search Engine Optimization has been a cat & mouse game since its inception, marketer and web masters spent their time figuring out how to game search engine algorithms to only find out that these sites kept evolving and coming up with new criteria. The beauty of this game has been that it has evolved in the direction of making results more and more like what you would find on an offline search for a product or service. The difference though is that looking for an accountant offline could take you days or weeks to find a good one. You would probably look for one on the yellow pages, then ask your friends if they knew one, then interview several, than ask for references, to end up probably working with one that worked with someone you trust.  However, online you can do this in a matter of minutes or seconds. Product or service searches on Google (using their filters, social search features and Google buzz) or searches on Facebook (which can also be filtered for friends) will, if not already, complete the entire search and selection process.

So, the questions are: How do you optimize your web presence? How do you embrace word of mouth and user generated content around your brand? How do you grow a network built on trust and reputation? In a few words, and you can watch the presentation below to get more details, the answer is three-fold.

First, you want to establish an editorial calendar because it will help you increase content quantity, quality and your will get more subscribers. Do simple math, more content + better quality = better search engine ranking. Add a little of smart marketing and you will get more readership and that will drive more subscribers (or potential customers)

Second, become a publishing warehouse as it will help you get your target audience in the format and timing that they prefer the most. Take the topic for the day, week, month, whatever your reality is and put in your “content development process” to create blog posts, articles, presentations, tweets, white papers, questions, videos, podcasts, etc. or whatever your target audience respond best.

Third, leverage personal branding to distribute content to networks built on trust and reputation. As stated on a previous blog employees can become a great channel to distribute your content.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Employees and their families are online and using social media related sites more than ever before (I assume I don’t need to give a stat on this to make the point) and they like to share personal and professional content with their networks. The beauty is that these networks are built on trust, reputation, friendship and real business relationships. Therefore, they listen to what each other has to say making it a great word of mouth channel for a brand. However, many companies are still concerned that access to social media sites while at work could be a source of loss in productivity…well, let me say that the next outlook version integrates with Facebook and other social media tools and most of them have mobile devices. So, I would say that corporate mind-set will have to change much like it did 15 years ago when email came up. Next are six simple ways to start embracing employee social media activities to boost your marketing target reach while retaining employees.

1. Set expectations and boundaries: Define how social media can help align employees with your business and marketing goals and what the objectives are for social media. Then be specific on what the expectations, implications and limitations are for employees. Clearly and frequently communicate this to them to make sure they are aware and accountable for their actions, but don’t force them into social media and make sure that they don’t feel that they have to do it.
2. Educate them: Create a program to coach them on the benefits and limitations of each tool for social and professional purposes.  Show them examples of what to do and what not to do. Do it frequently and embrace knowledge sharing amongst themselves. Encourage employees to try it and find their own social media style.
3. Invite them to participate: Share with them all your news, campaigns, events, promotions, offers, etc. and ask them to share them with their networks. But don’t stop there, make them part of it by asking them to provide content and help in the creation of these initiatives
4. Use incentives: Contest are great, I recommend setting up daily, weekly or monthly contest to rewards those that participate the most or help reach the goals of the initiative at hand.
5. Give them feedback: This is key, no one knows how they are doing and how they can improve if they don’t get any feedback. Give them metrics, comments, ideas and feedback in general on how they are helping the company. They need to know the consequences and implications (positive and negative) of their actions to improve them, correct them or embrace them.
6. Embrace their ideas: Social media is all about user-generated content and participation, so companies must incorporate employees ideas into their programs. Employees are the ones closer to the customers and prospects and understand better than anyone else what make prospects and customer click or engage. Create the appropriate mechanisms to incorporate their social media ideas.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

6 divided by 2 ways to start the fixing process.

I don’t know how it happened, but last night I was watching CSPAN while the president and CEO of Toyota defended the Toyota brand in front of congress. While I was emphatically un-impressed by some of the representatives of congress and their professionalism towards the matter, I must say that I felt quite the opposite of Akio Tayoda, president and CEO of Toyota. IMO, he was very poised and professional while addressing what I thought were disrespectful and despicable “I am running for re-election” questioning from some member of the congressional panel. As a “marketer” who so often deals with PR issues our clients face, it begs the question of how do companies get themselves out of a PR mess.

The way I look at it, your brand is like being married…as a guy, sometimes you are just going to forget a birthday or a valentines day, unless you are one of “those guys”. There are times when you may have to work your way back off the couch.

#1 . Gain empathy

Like many [insert number here] step programs, the first and foremost step is to gain the empathy of your audience by recognizing that you are aware of the problem at hand. What this does is establish an emotional connection with your audience that helps you to gain their attention for what you have to say next. Usually, depending on the audience, people want to know that you care about their feelings and “admitting guilt” is a way of saying “I don’t want to bullshit you.” However, don’t be all negative, highlight the good of your brand without being obnoxious.

#2. Road map to regaining trust

Now that people know you are aware of the problem, the next step is to patch things up. This can be done by establishing a road map to making things better. “Over the next [insert realistic period here], we will address your concerns by [insert steps here].” This establishes a clear goal for your audience on which to measure your performance. People consciously and subconsciously love to compare so playing to that tendency will be in your benefit. The pressure here comes with hitting those goals and this leads me to my last point…

#3. Be transparent with your actions

Fixing the issues you are having in a black box may fix the issue, but it will not fix your audience’s perception. With this in mind, if you become transparent with the steps you are taking to fix the issues, then your audience will see that you are committed to regaining their trust which will in turn play on their empathy.

Of course, in PR there are many steps to helping a brand in mayday, and each solution may have its own approach. Can anyone say Tiger Woods?

Don’t just read… contribute. What’s your take on the matter?

As a marketer, I have been waiting for analysis of search engine effectiveness to include measures for user relevance and the power of the communications to establish connections.  I am encouraged because that finally seems to be happening. According to Dwamian Mcleish and Jose Guerra, SEO is passé; the new term should be Content Search Optimization (CSO). Communications specialists like me should be cheered because the system has finally begun to catch up with what we always knew.

Graphic designers have similar concerns to those of content providers.  They believe that attractive, easily navigated sites will increase the power of the organization’s web presence. Unfortunately, the traditional measures by search engines do not include many metrics for these factors.  In fact, only recently have search engines begun to read flash so designers were cautioned not to use those impressive graphics.

Similarly, search engine rankings required that content developers integrate as many key words as possible in the copy but also keep it short. This is not useful to the reader however, because target audiences expect messages to respond to their need.  Packing search terms into the text does not add value for the reader.  It was just another way of gaming the system to increase visibility of the website on the Internet.

The goal of the search engine is to provide highly relevant, easily accessible information to the consumer. Consumers will benefit as organizations begin to realize that the easy measures are not enough anymore.   As the website owner, attracting visitors through high page ranks is about helping them find you but it is also about delivering value once they are there.  Overall, you increase your rankings if you build that trust over time.  At the Branding SIG for the DFW AMA on February 2nd, Dwamian said that the search engines are beginning to develop measures that incorporate content relevance into the rankings.  It cannot happen too soon.

“The Sahara plays tricks on the eyes of its travelers. As the desert sun beats down on the sand, heat waves rise from the ground. Light bends as it passes through the superheated air, painting illusory pictures on the horizon. To thirsty travelers moving through the Sahara, it often appears as if an oasis looms in the distance. However, as the voyagers journey on, the oasis proves to be nothing more than a mirage.”

An organization that wants to effectively help its clients succeed, it must act like an inspirational leader and avoid any marketing programs that are not a true reflection of their value proposition and benefits.  The increasing adoption of social media make these attributes more relevant than ever before because it is harder and harder for organizations to control the marketing and communications channels. Here is a recommendation based on the 5 attributes from the article on how to approach your marketing communication efforts in 2010 (I had to add one of my own, I like things in six):

1. Attitude of Service – Always deliver valuable content to your prospects and customers for free
2. Affirmation – Clients look for expertise and thought leadership, but instead of telling them how great your are or how much you know as an organization, be humble and share ideas and tips on how to leverage resources and assets that they may already have an expertise.
3. Attentiveness – Ask for feedback, thoughts and comments. Listen to what prospects have to say and act on their message
4. Availability – Take care of your customers, don’t take them fro granted. Be there for them, let them know that your available and be proactive in engaging in conversations with them
5. Authenticity – Trust is key to any lasting and fruitful relationship, make sure that you are honest on every message and action.
6. Accountable (this is mine) – Take responsibility for your actions or the lack of thereof. This shows you care and that you want to build a long relationship with your clients.

Exito

Jose Guerra
Principal