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Lots of social about social . . .

Friday, May 7th, 2010 by John Mallen

. . . Social media, that is. Interesting as I listened Wednesday night in on a presentation by Ric Dragon and Ric opens with his recommendations, the makings of recipes in a social media cookbook. I’m taken by the questions from the 32 people in the room here at the SUNY Ulster Business Resource Center and the dialogue back and forth among them, Ric and two members of his team, Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy and Etela Ivkovic. The event was sponsored but SCORE.

Each of the ingredients in the recipe for successful social media communicating triggers enthusiastic discussion. Here’s how Ric says to start:

Take up Google Reader and follow 10 blogs. Use Twitter and follow 10 individuals, sign onto Facebook and follow 25. Go to LinkedIn and follow another 10… and now – just this week – says you can follow companies. Make sure to create profiles in your social media sites and in doing so it’s good to have a folder of images so you have neat pictures of yourself in easy reach. Ric’s Recommendations, in a far more formal version, appear in this blog.

But what is really interesting are the discussions and there are lots and lots of conversations buzzing through the room. “I want concrete social media tools,” says one audience member, echoing a sense of the buzz in the room. Atta boy, Ric. What’s going on is the prowess of social media is making headline and people are listening, and they really need to learn how to use the media.

“How do you find in Twitter people you are sincerely interested in following?” Early on, in the old days of Twitter, says Ric, if you wanted to find followers you would find people and elect to follow them, and in doing so you’d build up your following. But Twitter rapidly became far more vast then friends following friends. Some people have 10,000 followers, and says Ric many of that number are not paying attention. For today, Ric suggests we begin by searching for terms or phrases of interest to you, such as “Hudson Valley.” You will identify people you want to follow. Another way is to find people you respect and follow their followers, and a third approach would be to identify authorities – for example, authors – and develop lists of these topic centered experts. You can then elect to follow people on the list.

How do I get social media on my smart phone? Go to the app store or go online and access the social media site’s mobile phone. “My best suggestion,” says another in the audience, is “go to the AT&T store and ask them how to do what you want to do? There is this skinny little guy there and he’ll take your phone in hand and do it for you free!”

Google Universe

To a lot of the questions, Ric recommends what he calls “The Google Universe. “I like all things Google.” Google profile; Google Reader where you can read blogs and also follow people; and Google Local. It’s a freebee; go to Google with your browser, select Google Maps, and then, add your business. It’s important so long as you yourself are your business, even if you don’t have consumer traffic. The Dragon Search team jumps in with more concrete advice: “You have to verify, and your response will be followed with a postcard from Google or phone call from them.” Then you can go in and edit it. Then ask your clients to post reviews of your localized listing.”

Blogging

Write a blog per week. Blogging is the meat and potatoes of social media. The best for people in business is for you to host your blog on your Website. Second, say the Dragon Search Marketing experts: use Wordpress – the broadest app being used in blogging today. But if you don’t know what you are doing and are scared, try Google’s Blogger. “It’s a great deal for $10.”

And comment on blogs. Think about adding relevant comments to others’ blogs. Maybe the blog missed a point, and this can be your chance to augment. Good practice: Post a blog. Then go to your Twitter account and write that you just posted. Go out to other blogs of similar themes and mention that you just posted a blog covering the same address.

Goals

It’s important to start with goals and objectives. Examples would be to use social media to sell more product. Then you can ask what are some of the objectives, such as to build an audience of people who we can dialogue with, the audience who will potentially make a purchase, down to the evangelists.

Other points:

Panoramio is great for geo tagging photos. It’s like Flckr, but you can post pictures to your profile and you can place geographical location for this.

Use Facebook to add a Fan Page for your business. The Fan Page is built from your personal Facebook page. Then you ask your friends to go to your fan page. There is a solid business reason for Facebook in business. “ We think we are selling our service or product, but we are actually selling our passion, emotion,” Claudia said.

“What is social media but having conversations. You cannot just go out and promote, “says Etela Ivkovic, who with Claudia is part of the Dragon Search Marketing team.

What is the worst that can happen in social media? One day SUNY New Paltz lost all of its fans. Happened to one of our clients. You can store this, Facebook FBQL to bring up XML list of all your fans. You will have to ask all of them to return. How can this happen? On Facebook you can have more than one admin, and one could have deleted. Facebook will never send you an e-mail.

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Posted in Best Practices, Digital Influence, Hudson Valley, Marketing Communications, News & Thinking, Social Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Web 2.0, Web Seminar, blogging | No Comments »

GUI

Monday, February 22nd, 2010 by John Mallen

On Feb 19th my GUI — that’s digiterati for “graphic user interface” — blew out. The blow out was not on the part of that big HP screen at my desk.  It had to do with the enormous headache and frayed nerves triggered by a tsunami of SPAM and God knows what other malicious code I could not see, firing at minigun speed in the aftermath of changing from one ISP to another, making concentration on any one topic emotionally impossible!kingston-meetup-2

Let’s just say that by the time I arrived at The Beahive, kind of an open-source workspace operated by Chronogram in Kingston, N.Y., I was reverberating from an afternoon of swatting at spam like you’d flail at yellowjackets at a summer picnic.  Adding to the static, as I approached I was pleading with customer support to see if they could do something to jump start stalled Internet service on my iPhone.

“Okay, now just take a deep breath,” consoled Ric Dragon, one of the event organizers, a partner in our Web 2.0 initiatives at JMC , and a good friend.  Did that.  Once calmed, I found myself in what a chamber of commerce would call a ‘mixer,’  ready for diving into an evening of cyber-meetup disinhibition.  And from this time my  gratuitous observations follow.

–  People are social. There wasn’t much Web jargon among these digital cowboys and cowgirls.  Mostly it was a pleasant social meetup, providing  great opportunities to  catch up and meet new people.  If these attendees are at all representative of the ’social’ in the Social Web, then we’re in for more enrichment of the notion of community, especially when we get the opportunity to gather in person. Natural law: you cannot take people out of “social.”

–  When today’s business people gather you hear a Clinton-era redux, “It’s the economy!”  At least in the conversational circles I wove into and out of that was the case. Most participants were small business owners or independent contractors and consultants. While to a person, each represented a significant unique value proposition, the conversations frequently turned on the theme of the general economy.kingston-meetup

–  The notion of pricing pressure — downward — cuts across the professional disciplines. Clients are refusing to accept even the prices of the recent past.  They want them lowered and we’re doing that!   Personally, I hope this is not a theme suggesting that we are on the economic path of disinflation that has affected Japan for the past two decades. Alas, the lag on inflation (meaning inability of companies to get prices up) is a major theme in the current “Weekend Wall Street Journal.”  And it’s further expounded upon in a review of general economic and policy scenarios in “SuperCycles:  The New Economic Force Transforming Global Markets and Investment Strategy,” a book just out written by former Citi economist Arun Motianey.

–  Fixed office space is an endangered species. Witness those attending the meetup who are making Chronogram’s Beahive  their business base as a validation of this tenet. In the not too distant past, moving into business  entailed a search for an affordable office  with a respectable address. That seems to have given way to the challenge of finding a shared, though still respectable, home-base location, which is one step beyond the home office and one step below having significant overhead of, say, a leased space in the Acme Building. What we are seeing, and I sense at a more and more rapid clip, is the assembly of service groups comprising independent contractors, consultants, and contract employees.  Heck, we’re just providing professional service firm expertise on a formula that now represents a quarter of the American workforce — 26 percent of workers in non-standard jobs.

Themes aside, I enjoyed the people the most.  I also enjoyed the fried green beans with dipping sauce hors d’oeuvres, which was contributed by the husband of Claudia D’Arcy,  director of social media for Dragon Search, a top-drawer photographer finding success in covering events including weddings in New York City.  A mystery delivery of a great pie from Vincenzo Pizzeria & Restaurant across the street, added warmth. K.J. McIntyre,  the most charming, dedicated and committed professional in the area, was busy linking the unconnected with the connected. Chad Gomes from Port Ewen appeared, freshly emancipated, as a ready, willing and able entrepreneur.  Friend, former JMC team member and colleague Roger Rosenbaum was recounting tales about his great-looking son, smart as a whip, and ready for kindergarten next fall.kingston-meetup-3

Others appeared as well, all of them with Twitter handles:

@RicDragon, @McIntyreKJ, @DragonSearch, @Beahive , @FauxClaud, @designicu @SleepJunky, @theasphere, @jmcopenmic , @AmeriBag , @KJMRealtor, @sDialogue, @Etela, @b2engt , @McIntyreOn, @kpsourcerqueen, @JohnnyKickall, @bluehwyflaneur, @UlsterMadness, @digsart, @jenwdragon, @tomhoffay, @ivanlajara, @Ingwaem, @uccomptroller , @mediaman1, @MountainSean, @jenwdragon

And our very own hashtag: #HVMavens.

Oh, and as to the curse of the spam — I am assured the solution will be dropping Microsoft Exchange and migrating to Google. Google?  Yes, Google. Well if they are going to copy all the literature on earth, what’s to say they can’t keep all the spammers on earth at bay? Maybe Google can fix the economy too?

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Posted in Hudson Valley, News & Thinking, Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

JMC Team Profiles: Sandy Frinton

Thursday, February 18th, 2010 by John Mallen

I entered PR at the turning point. In the old system, public relations practitioners were heavily drawn from the ranks of the media. In the 1980s, that had begun to change. So when Sandy Frinton walked into JMC in 1998, she was an unusual representative of the PR candidates of the past. She was intent on crossing over to the other side, from journalism – then the business team at DowJones’ Times Herald-Record – to the world of PR with JMC.

Sandy Frinton

Sandy Frinton

Sandy, minted from SUNY University of Buffalo, began her career with the Register-Star in Hudson and then moved to the Daily Freeman in Kingston. She went to NYC for a stint as a textiles editor at Fairchild’s Home Furnishings News (HFN) in New York City before returning to business reporting in the Hudson Valley at the TH-R in Middletown.

She has been with JMC for more than 10 years, wearing one hat as director of media relations supporting most every client, and as account leader, currently for Polymer Group, Inc. (PGI) and the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), and also serves on the JMC team supporting Performance Fibers.

Something Old

Reminiscent of PR in the past, Sandy brings to public relations what so many once did – a deep respect for the working media steeped in a sense of shared mission.

In a recent conversation, it became clear, “I am a writer. I interview clients. I write their stories and I bring the stories to the media.”

To be very clear, Sandy does not see herself primarily as a salesperson selling stories to people in the media. “I see my role as being there to help the media whether it is providing a good news source when they are on deadline, providing a photo or graphic to add to their story, or preparing a bylined article on a timely topic.”

In a sense shared by many former media people now in PR, Sandy has two clients: first, the customer client who hires us and second, the media client with whom we share a professional stem – preparing stories.

“PR agencies need to maintain relationships with the media. We need them and they need us. When I call people in the media, I want to add value for them. I see the writing I do and what I bring from the client as helping the media people do their jobs,” Sandy says.

“I don’t like disappointing the media, as when clients back out of an interview they have committed to do,” this being one of the negative things about her job.

This PR professional has a relationship of trust and respect of the media. “My passion is in getting the story, finding journalists to accept the information and write it. I like having the relationship with the media people we work with. I connect with them as a fellow writer because I am excited about the story. I talk about a client story as a story I would like to write, and sometimes I do because newsrooms are so short staffed these days with cutbacks.”

Something New

Social media is today’s buzz. Coming from her journalistic roots, “I feel bad. The mainstream media is declining. Journalists are losing their jobs and not being treated well,” Sandy says.

“But there are a lot of good writers in the social media world. Young people are still being attracted to journalism for the same reasons we were but the shape of the industry is changing. It may begin with a blog or a newsletter. People are coming up with different ways of making a living because they have to.”

“The good writers in the social media world have become sources of real reliable news. They are part of the total media today and I respect them and the role they play.”

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Posted in Hudson Valley, News & Thinking, PR, Public Relations, Social Media, Team Profiles, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

What Are You About?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 by John Mallen

I just revisited a blog by Steve Rubel called “How the Leading Social Sites Describe Themselves” Steve’s piece is well worth the read. He observes that when one reads how major social Web sites describe themselves — Twitter, digg, Friendfeed and others — it would be difficult to tell them apart by simply relying on the descriptions themselves.

It’s an observation that applies too often in multiple segments and in many vehicles ranging from brochures and videos to ads and even exhibits — maybe especially exhibits.

One of the products most in demand from our marketing communications firm is the JMC Messaging Platform(TM). The platform takes shape as a document in which we distill the essential elements of a brand — things such as how it should be positioned in the minds of stakeholders, or what the value proposition is to a customer group.

But the first and most debated element in virtually every JMC Messaging Platform process that I have worked on is the definition of the business — how the organization describes itself. One would think that such a straightforward statement would be the simplest. Not so! It doesn’t seem to matter whether the organization is a closely held business or part of a multinational organization. When we meet with the leaders in our facilitated brand messaging workshop and begin with that fundamental question, most of the time it opens a lively debate.

When there is little debate, the reason is typically that an official milquetoast-like definition has been developed and the language is, as Rubel observed, so bland as to be meaningless.

No reason to delve into the organizational psychologies at work. That could take forever. But there is good reason to suggest that it does pay for the leaders of any organization to wrangle through a process of clarifying how the company or its brands describe or define themselves. If the message is muddled to those of us on the outside, how must it be to the people on the inside? And contrarily, if the people inside are clear about the definition of the organization, how much more likely are they to relate to and resonate with the publics that enable success?

I’m with Steve Rubel. Describe yourself! It’s job No.1 for any customer-facing activity.

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Posted in Best Practices, Branding, Corporate communications, Marketing, Marketing Communications, News & Thinking, Public Relations, Social Media, differentiation | 2 Comments »

Are Tactics Wagging your Marketing?

Thursday, September 17th, 2009 by John Mallen

I like how this article in yesterday’s Fast Company draws attention to the importance of the corporate brand ( where the corporate brand is needed) and reminds us that strategy not glitzy tactics should be guiding the marketing.  Tactics are great, but need to be marshalled toward an end.

” … With the growth of the Internet and social technology tools, personal branding activity and opportunities have exploded. On the other hand, in some ways, the arc of Web 1.0 to 2.0+ (not to mention this current economy) has seduced many marketers into being focused on tactics at the expense of strategy including branding. Hot media tactics often substitute for the “strategy.”

Thanks to Kevin Randall, Director of Brand Strategy & Research at  Movéo Integrated Branding for these words.  The remainder of the article is also a great primer on the  important elements of a brand.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing, Marketing Communications, News & Thinking, Social Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

When Customers are a Village

Monday, September 14th, 2009 by John Mallen

Christopher St., Greenwich Village by Beulah BettersworthI have just read a blog essay called “Finding Your Village of Customers” by Sonia Simone, senior editor at Copyblogger .  This is must reading for the micro-businesses among us.

Such firms, like my own, may have a global band of customers who not only know those who serve them, but delight in the relationship. She is spot on. In this space you really do listen to your customers, really understand them and respond to their needs — before you’re asked!  The village is your market, the regulars who love your offerings as well as the status of being a “regular,” like the Beacon Hill bar in TV’s “Cheers.”

Simone’s post is short, so I won’t go on except to summarize the key needs (besides listening, understanding and taking action). Every village needs:

“A leader. (That’s you.)

“A purpose. (That’s your market position or winning difference.) . . .

“And a place to come together.

“You might create a membership site for your best-loved customers. Or organize special conferences, user groups, and gatherings. You might build something as simple as a private online forum where your village can share their experiences — good and bad.

“But give your village a place to get together. To know you better, and know one another better. A place where everybody knows their name.”

And that’s one powerful way to use communications to amplify success. The “place” is likely one you develop on the Social Web.

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Posted in Best Practices, Business development, Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Earned Social Media

Friday, August 21st, 2009 by John Mallen

Social media marketing may be efficient, but it isn’t free.

I don’t know Len Stein, but I know he’s right about this: earned media – AKA “free media,” publicity, editorial coverage, garnered coverage, or placements – by whatever name is not free.

Len is the founder of Visibility Public Relations in New Rochelle, N.Y., about 100 miles south of our PR firm. His recent blog brings out several points.

Engineering mentions in the growing amount of media – mainstream media (MSM) + social media – has become the pursuit of brand managers and marketers, as well as traditional public relations people.  Indeed, the marketers are “rapidly leaving the orbit of ‘paid media’,” Stein observes.

The growing body of media possibilities is the sum of the MSM, where professional editors and producers generate the content, and social media, where the online conversation among individuals is the content. This can be good or not so good.

It’s good, really good, when your company or brand gets mentioned by a third party. It’s considered authentic and it’s delivered in context without interrupting the publics. Such exposure happens when people like us engineer the coverage or stimulate conversations among people online.

Coverage is not so good when a few among all those people connecting with one another start complaining about you or your product. Their conversations can go viral, with the effects damaging and the outfall very, very costly. When that occurs, the professional MSM journalists can even begin covering the viral conversation. Just take a look at the “Motrin moms” fiasco.

Unfortunately they drive the conversation. You don’t.

Taking the steps to effectively manage social media takes time, and time is money, whether it’s done by an agency that sends an invoice or by employees on your payroll. Even the CEO writing late at night.　

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Posted in Social Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Eclectic markets ideal for social marketing

Thursday, June 11th, 2009 by John Mallen

 I finally had the conversation. It was with Mike Thompson who for a number of years has been our organizational development coach. His firm is now called peoplesmartllc.  (The site is not fully running.)

These days Mike is breaking into new ground as colorful and as varied as his many interests. One of them is marketing and selling small crosses made by the homeless in Kentucky (who receive part of the sales price), with the cross being distributed to the U.S. military In Iraq and Afghanistan.

The whole initiative is run by Catholic Action Center,a non profit that has worked with the underserved and marginalized for the last 15 years. “Sometimes faith can be challenged when facing adversity. Sometimes a simple thought or promise that there are those who care can mean all the difference in the world,” the center says. They are right, I know, from being in a similar situation at another time.

But the cause (whle great) is not my point here.  Their marketing challege is my point. Bcause this was another one of those conversations which, as so happens frequently today, led me to strongly recommend that Mike and his team consider social media as a means of helping create and sustain buzz. It would be at a price they can afford (almost nothing)  and rise from the months of conference events they will attend  in which one-to-one connections with like-minded folk willtake place.  Like minded folks by the thousands with iPhonse, Facebook , and Twitter.
But  then come the questions. What is it? How does it work?  Why social media? I tried coacing back, explaining the dynamics of social media and slowly the light began to glow!
In eclectic markets whose members have distinctive interests, traditional marketing can be challenged to reach the 2 in 100 who share an interest. But the people who have an interest they are passionate about do connect with one another in person and on line.
We can ignite communities of interest with an awareness that flows from one conversation to another into a viral online babble of like minded members cross connecting across the country, across the world.  Soon  a trend is born that, in turn, energizes demand.

 Social marketing

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »

College Marketing - A Big Challenge

Monday, May 25th, 2009 by John Mallen
Sometimes there are no readily available elegant strategies for using communications to drive success.

That becomes abundantly clear in the case of college recruiting.

We have a fully empowered social-media equipped market comprising teens who shun most of the vehicles many of us think of as being new and cutting edge, like blogs and Twitter. They are deeply rooted to Facebook and texting as their preferred media.

Teens, the research tells us, don’t use mainstream media except maybe TV as background, don’t e-mail, and basically leave Twitter to adults. Their facebook activities and texting are confined to their circle of friends.

Of course parents and high-school advisors have influence — because many teas are driven to get into college — the right college. Of course they have tremendous on line resourcers including reference sites and digital match-making tools.

So how do admissions offices avoid producing messages the kids don’t pay attention to, and effectively reach out to their potential freshmen? It’s looking more and more like the answer is strategic buzz.

 

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Posted in Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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