Thanks, watradehub.comWant to be a real, live, in-the-flesh Social Media Marketer Extraordinaire? Start with these steps. Seriously.
The Daily Dose of Advice comes from Scott Stratten, UnMarketing himself.
“Reminder to take 5 minutes to reply to others today. Engage. Interact. Build.”
But how, really, truly, do you DO that? And can you invest only 5 minutes and make connections?
Well, yes. And no. We went with 10 minutes, you may want 15 or 20 or 30. But 2011 is all about small steps toward big things. So here goes.
1. Set the e.ggtimer. We said that you can learn from the big boys here, and there’s no bigger boy in the world of lifestyle redesign than Tim Ferriss. He’s the guy who first tipped us onto the timer. It is awesome for two reasons: (1) simplicity and (2) keeping you on task. We recommend you set it for 10 Minutes.
2. Begin surfing. We recommend you do this BEFORE looking at emails but AFTER getting your daily fix of Facebook and Twitter. Why? You want to get some mental cues from what you’ve seen on those sites – but you don’t want to make this reliant on what work is clogging your inbox.
Huh? Well, there are folks we are friends with on Facebook and connected with on Twitter who aren’t world famous. That’s part of the mission here. Learn from the Big Boys, but connect with the others, too.
3. Comment if you have something to add. We hit up a couple sites upon the recommendations of friends and contacts. On Quora, which is getting a tremendous amount of buzz, we had, well, nothing to add. Yet. But the standout site from Danny Brown got us thinking. And commenting.
4. Keep track.Chris Brogan recommends a spreadsheet or a Google Doc or a CRM program. Awesome.
Is that it?
Well, this should be part of a daily ritual. ESPECIALLY if you want to make real connections with real people.
The economy blows. Job seekers find no one is hiring. Small shops like Area 224 keep plowing along, trying to get past the roadblocks. But Life Doesn’t Suck.
Really. It Doesn’t.
I, for one, am taking stock in a year full of new business relationships, enhanced connections, hatchets buried.
Skills sharpened.
We all know someone who focuses on the greener grass next door, or the other guy or gal who got promoted, or the person who got the job. Don’t be that person.
(c) 2010, Area 224We’re far from the “Must Read” status with our blog and website – but we have gotten some decent traffic this year, and it has led to business. Some tips on being readable…
First of all, read others. If you’re in the business of asking for people to visit your blog – or read your book – you need to give. That means spend some time looking for interesting things.
Doesn’t totally matter what business you’re in, or where you’re looking. But take some time to read other blogs. Which brings us to the next thing…
Comment. This will not only make you cool, it will enable you to connect with more people – bloggers, business folks, potential tweetup attendees, whatever.
There isn’t a rule of thumb – see our post yesterday on “You’re Doing It Wrong” – so just go with the flow. Seriously, if you find something you agree vehemently with, comment on it. If you find something you disagree with, comment on it.
Be Prolific. You need to write OFTEN. Daily? Maybe that’s too frequent for you. Weekly? That’s not frequent enough.
This third point leads to questions about “finding your voice” – and specifically whether you need to find your voice before blogging. I cry bulls**t. The best way to find your voice is to start blogging. Start writing.
We have had a point this year — blog often about topics that are in the vein of business communications, social media, startups, and the intersection of thinking, planning, strategy and getting stuff done. To some, we’ve been all over the map – but it has helped us find our voice AND given rise to the concept of Holistic Social Media – which became much, much clearer in the past few weeks.
Final Thought: Don’t Call Them Ramblings. Not everyone can write easily. But the last thing you want to do is tell people your blog is “a bunch of ramblings.” They may be good ramblings, but the quickest turnoff for this reporter is a blog with ramblings from a [insert age group] living in [insert city] trying to [insert industry where you want to make a name for yourself].
Trying to figure out why Dave from Area 224 is obsessed with Canadian Indie Rock? So was Dave…until…
At some point, you’ll start to figure out what exactly defines you. Then you become the target customer, and you want to discover more stuff like what defines you. Like this, from Constantines.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30yEWwQEYIk
So this video got us thinking: why them? How did we “discover” them?
Well, it actually goes back to these guys: Arkells.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFrTZe-wQPI
Who we discovered when we saw them, in Chicago, opening for these guys: Tokyo Police Club.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1yS7Jnq7qw
Which leads us back to our Holistic Social Media concept.
Here’s that photo again – my, this is a rather visual post, no?
(c) 2010, Area 224
See how “your business” is in the middle? Well, in the case of these three bands, replace the word “music” in the middle circle.
Then make it bigger, and tilt the other circles around…
Inbound Marketing FTW.
These guys have a presence on the social networks, there are blogs from their record labels, and there is a tiny bit of concert-oriented geo-sharing going on.
And, since we link above to the Twitter accounts of all three, you can see that there’s SOME Twitter activity.
But the winner, here, is video. AND the keywords associated with the videos – specifically on YouTube.
And the recommendations attached TO the videos – of other songs to check out.
AND THE COMMENTS.
In-between the obligatory “Justin Bieber” comments (positive and negative), you can find other recommendations. “I heard these guys live, but you should also check out Constantines.”
So, is there a “Right Way” to do Holistic Social Media?
The Canadian Indie Rock acts we’ve mentioned today are there on all the platforms – but the product seals the deal. There’s no right way – but having something that people like as the core of your business – That. Is. Vital.
Love to think back to that time two years ago when Area 224 was just getting rolling as a marketing consultancy. Back when we were having tons of meetings with tons of businesses and trying to find out what was on everyone’s minds.
The everyone we met with on this particular day was the Chief of Sales for a B2B Concern. (Again, protecting the innocent here.)
This particular person (may have been a man, may have been a woman; protecting the innocent) wanted to buy a “solution.” “Viral marketing,” said s/he, “will solve our problems.”
And…what are those particular problems?
The long silence was deafening.
Seems the CEO had seen a video on YouTube and thought “we should do that.”
Seriously.
The knee-jerk response, two years later, from the C-suite, seems to be “Social Media will solve our problems.”
This possibly brings about the opportunity for us to help you – or for another top-notch marketing consultancy to help you. BUT not before you figure out what the problems are.
What business problem are you attempting to solve?
Dave from Area 224 used to work for a very smart guy who abhorred busy work. And, in the “pre-social media epoch” (right before the YouTube era), he’d ask the above question all the time. Saved us a lot of busy work, but also saved the organization a lot of wasted effort on things that just didn’t make strategic sense.
Your job – as a marketing executive, as a C-suite aspirant, as the guy or gal who needs to translate all this stuff for the bosses (or for yourselves if you’re one of the bosses) – is to ask these questions first. And here’s a little how-to guide.
Why are we doing this? Doesn’t quite matter what the “this” is – could be a video campaign, could be getting the boss on Twitter, could be blogging. The objectives for each could be radically different. You want a video so the CEO can show how passionate s/he is about the business so that your startup can raise its next round of capital. You need to Tweet because it’s the most laser-focused way to reach the 15 influencers you have targeted for relationship building. Your blog has to be launched because you have a network of people who can write insanely well and you want to be the centerpiece of a budding community.
What will happen if we don’t do this? Seriously – you need to think about the alternatives. You may even have to negotiate with your bosses.
Roger Fisher and William Ury wrote a best-seller called “Getting to Yes,” and they coined the term “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement,” or “BATNA.” Consider the BATNA in your social media planning.
If we don’t get social with our marketing – will our competitors do that? If our competitors do that, will they be able to effectively tell the story that we can tell better? Will they win market share if they beat us to the market?
It might be likely that your competitors are NOT in the position to win lots of eyeballs and market share. It might even be likely that, while they focus on “social,” your focus on product excellence, or distribution channels, or fine-tuning your message could be the best thing for your business.
Upshot: Insert Social Media Here at your own peril – and not without some serious thinking and planning first.
