Making a trip to the soda fountain fun

Terrior is is a French term used in wine making that loosely translates to “a sense of place.” It refers to the fact that the same chardonnay grapes grown in different vineyards (or even separate parts of the same vineyard) can produce noticeably different wines . . . → Read More: Think Local for Unique Content Marketing Opportunities]]>

Making a trip to the soda fountain fun

Terrior is is a French term used in wine making that loosely translates to “a sense of place.” It refers to the fact that the same chardonnay grapes grown in different vineyards (or even separate parts of the same vineyard) can produce noticeably different wines because each set of grapes will absorb different amounts of sunlight, minerals from the soil, and be subjected to unique weather in each region.

The concept of terrior offers tons of ideas for social media marketing. What makes where you live or work unique and fun?

• Is your corporate office a 100-year-old converted sugar plant/movie theater/train station?
• Do you offer a product/service/meal/experience that’s truly one of a kind (be honest)?
• Is Wrigley Field/Empire State Building/Eiffel Tower up the street from your office?
• Can you get awesome green chili/cheese steak sandwiches/clam chowder/barbecue ribs from the hole-in-the-wall restaurant in your neighborhood?

What unique places do people go out of their way to track down when they visit your hometown? Share those insider tips with us. That’s interesting stuff we’re not going to find in the guide book from the airport bookstore.

The Food Network has built its whole business around basic social concepts since its beginning in 1993.

Fans of different shows are often drawn to the host instead of what types of food they cook or how they cook it. I love Mario Batali because he comes across as knowledgeable and funny, . . . → Read More: Check Out “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” as a Social Media Case Study]]>

A Checklist of Must Eating

The Food Network has built its whole business around basic social concepts since its beginning in 1993.

Fans of different shows are often drawn to the host instead of what types of food they cook or how they cook it. I love Mario Batali because he comes across as knowledgeable and funny, in addition to the fact he’s the Italian cook (my favorite food). I am very confident that a night on the town with Mario would be the night to remember.

The Best Thing I Ever Ate is a wonderful case study on how the Food Network capitalizes on the appeal of their people instead of generic subject-specific content. The premise of the show is very simple. A number of the stars from different shows tell viewers about their favorite dishes and the places to find those dishes while sitting in front of a white background.

If you need inspiration about how to talk about your subject in an interesting way, check out a few episodes and listen carefully to how they talk about things.

They use specific and descriptive language. When each person talks about their favorite, they use very specific language to paint the picture of the awesomeness of each dish for you. They discuss textures, spices, cooking techniques and other details to give you a real idea of exactly what they love about their favorite.

They are full of confident passion. Each chef or host also seems to feel a responsibility to persuade you to do what ever it takes to experience their favorite place and dish as soon as possible. The passion they have for their favorite garlic noodles or wood-fired pizza is obvious and very contagious. Do you inspire people in your field like that?

The Best: After I screwed up as a kid and everything cooled down, my dad would always try to look for a lesson to be learned. It was a . . . → Read More: The Best of Times and Worst of Times: Nike Golf’s “Earl and Tiger” Ad]]> I have two takes on Tiger’s first new ad with Nike Golf after all that’s happened over the past six months. It’s a pretty even split for me.

The Best: After I screwed up as a kid and everything cooled down, my dad would always try to look for a lesson to be learned. It was a way to allow me close the book on messing up, dust myself off and move on. It’s powerful to listen to Tiger’s dad doing that same thing for him after he’s gone.

I also think it’s good that Tiger Woods finally looks human. Kind of tired and a little sad. He is no longer the tenacious winning machine of a few years ago in these 30 seconds.

The Worst: Earl is dead. Tiger messed up. Really, really badly. I know…let’s mash those two things together to pull on the ol’ heartstrings so we can keep selling Nike stuff!! I wouldn’t fault anyone who gets that “lawyer chasing after an ambulance” feeling from this ad.

If the users of Facebook were citizens of a country, all 400 million of them would make up the third largest nation on the planet. And with over 50% of them logging into the site every day, . . . → Read More: How to Market Your Business on Facebook]]>

Vintage Storefront from Vintage Collective

If the users of Facebook were citizens of a country, all 400 million of them would make up the third largest nation on the planet. And with over 50% of them logging into the site every day, developing a Facebook presence or maximizing your existing page is becoming an important part of the overall marketing mix for businesses of all sizes.

Not sure where to start? Here’s my two cents:

Create your personal profile: If’ you’ve not signed up for a personal account, visit www.facebook.com and create your personal profile right now. I can wait for a minute. If you’ve avoided joining for any number of reasons (privacy concerns, “I’m too old,” etc.) sorry…you need to see firsthand how the site works for the people you’re trying to reach. You don’t have to add tons of photos of your vacation or update your status every hour, but you do need to find your way around and the only way to do that is to jump in.

Now create your Fan page: While people have profiles, businesses and non-profits have fan pages. Because fan pages are public sites, make sure to fill out the requested information with as much detail as you can to get the attention of Google and other search engines. There are a number of smaller businesses using Facebook as a main web presence instead of building a stand-alone website.

Spread the word: Once 25 people become fans of your business, you can choose a custom URL for your page (www.facebook.com/YOURBRAND). Spend a minute thinking about your URL because you cannot change it once you pick one. When your custom URL is active, add that address to all of your customer facing contact information (business cards, email signatures, contact information on brochures, etc.).

Get to know the rules around contests: Facebook has set the bar fairly high for using their platform to promote contests and giveaways. Here are the rules straight from Facebook and here is a good take on translating the rules into plain English from 360 PR Blog.

Don’t SELL anything: Facebook marketing is a bit of a paradox. While people opt-in to receiving your content updates by clicking a button to become a fan of your page, aggressive marketing frequently does not work and can even damage your online reputation. Unsubscribing from your page is just as easy as was to become a fan, so make sure to keep things low pressure, fun and informative.

Share useful content: If you need to ease off the sales pitch to be successful, what should you do? Focus on delivering useful content for your fans. The content you share does not have to be original for Facebook (but some exclusive content now and then adds perceived value to being a fan of your page). Here are some possible content sources you can add to Facebook:

• Blog — If your business has a blog, you can easily repurpose that content by giving it a quick edit and manually reposting it or you can set up an RSS feed that automatically publishes new posts to Facebook.
• Twitter — Are you using Twitter as well? Again, there are a number of choices to republish your Twitter feed on your fan page. Make sure the option you choose to publish your tweets looks good in Facebook. Some Twitter RSS widgets include a lot of extra stuff that will clutter up your page.
• White papers — If you offer white papers on your main website or blog, those are great content offers to pass on to your Facebook audience.
• PowerPoint decks — If you have some presentations that can be understood without you having to talk me through things, consider signing up for www.slideshare.net and post your best talks as another perk for your fans.

Add photos and video: Always have a digital camera ready to capture stuff to share with your fans. Heading to a tradeshow? Post pictures of your booth once you’ve set up. Working a community event? Share some video highlights of the day. Photos and video will often be the content that receives the most views or comments from your fans.

Share other stuff you find online: If all this talk of creating content has you second guessing getting involved on Facebook, an easy shortcut is to share other content while you are taking time to create some of your own. If you’re an accountant, post a link to an interesting tax story from CNN/Money.com. If you run a landscaping business, share a YouTube video about how to keep your trees healthy between trimmings.

Get fans involved in content creation: Encourage fans to post pictures on your wall. Ask your community for feedback on existing products or invite them to give you their reactions to newer ideas that are still in development. And if a fan says or posts anything, make sure to reply as soon as you can. Especially if it’s negative. Other fans will be watching how you handle the occasional complaint.

What’s the return on investment? Great content is your ticket to the top of your fans’ consideration set.

If you were going to order a pizza for dinner tonight, which pizza places jump into your mind? Those pizzerias make up your pizza consideration set. And as the average Facebook user spends over up to 55 minutes a day on the site, the more you can become a welcome part of your fans’ Facebook network, the bigger piece of those fans’ consideration set you can capture.

Jason . . . → Read More: SyFy’s Ghost Hunters Offer a Great Social Media Case Study]]> If you’ve been thinking about getting started in social media but are not sure what to say, check out a few episodes of the SyFy Channel’s show Ghost Hunters for inspiration. Why? Because Jason, Grant and the rest of the TAPS crew are a great examples of being interesting by just creatively explaining what they do.

Jason and Grant are two Rhode Island plumbers who have turned their ghost hunting hobby into one of the most popular shows on cable television. All they do in each episode is conduct their investigation of different haunted locations and explain to the audience what they are doing as they try to capture proof of paranormal activity.

But what if you’re in a profession that isn’t as cool as paranormal investigation? I would say your success in blogging or social media depends on how you frame your content. Most people hire accountants because they don’t like to do accounting and if you focus on the mechanics of accounting, they will tune you out (unless they are fellow accountants).

But if your audience is made up of other business people and your content shows them how a trained accountant can save money, free up time in their day to focus on other priorities and protect them from an IRS audit, what you have to say suddenly becomes very interesting.

Highlights:

I’ve found that when businesses think about getting started in social media, a lot of time is spent debating and planning strategy.

Are we trying to build brand recognition? Is Twitter going to be a new customer service channel? Is the content for the Facebook page going to be . . . → Read More: Gary Vaynerchuk’s Secret to Social Media Success: Work Your A$$ Off]]>

Gary Vaynerchuk at Affiliate Summit West 2009 11

I’ve found that when businesses think about getting started in social media, a lot of time is spent debating and planning strategy.

Are we trying to build brand recognition? Is Twitter going to be a new customer service channel? Is the content for the Facebook page going to be strictly business or should we mix in some personal chit chat?

People want the answers to all these questions before diving in. Here’s the thing: before you can wow your fans, you’re going be awkward and goofy for a while as you figure stuff out.

So just get started. Today. Right now. Because the sooner you get the hang of things, the sooner you can actually knock all of your strategic goals out of the park.

But what if we are lousy? I think this little question is one of the main obstacles blocking more involvement in social media. Unfortunately the only way to get good at this stuff is to risk being bad at it for a while.

Case in point: Gary Vaynerchuk, the current reigning world champ of video blogging. Click here and here to get up to speed on who Gary is and why he’s so cool if you don’t know.

Why bring up Gary if he’s so awesome? He didn’t start out awesome. His first winelibrarytv.com video is a solid start but nothing spectacular.

You can see the glimmer of today’s superstar in this show but he’s clearly inexperienced talking to a camera. He’s not exactly sure what to say, but the desire to tell his story is obvious. Gary took his natural charisma, busted his hump cranking out content by doing a winelibrarytv.com episode almost EVERY SINGLE day since he started and is now a consultant, public speaker, author and all-around a$$ kicker.

As someone who’s been active with Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites on an almost daily basis since 2008 (to my wife’s sometime chagrin), I thought writing about what I’ve gotten out of my efforts would be a good blogging execise. (Tip of the hat to Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh as . . . → Read More: Ways Twitter Has Made Me A Better Person – I Notice More Cool Stuff]]>

Daisy Refraction by audreyjm529

As someone who’s been active with Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites on an almost daily basis since 2008 (to my wife’s sometime chagrin), I thought writing about what I’ve gotten out of my efforts would be a good blogging execise. (Tip of the hat to Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh as this post is my inspiration.)

First thing that comes to mind is social media has refined my “daily palate.” I notice more of the cool little details of life and have learned how to describe them in a way that’s (hopefully) interesting and helpful.

When people complain they don’t have anything to say online, I say aren’t paying much attention each day.  Here are two simple examples that provide great fodder for social media updates if you take a second to think about how to talk about them:

1. The last place you had lunch – I don’t give a #%!?! THAT you had lunch. What you had, whether it was tasty, the qualify of the service, if the specialty of the house is actually special, or a cool waiter to ask for are all things that could add value to my life the next time I’ve got to select a lunch time destination.
2. The last movie you watched – Again, THAT you watched a movie is not helpful or terribly interesting. What you thought of the plot (without blowing the ending), which actor surprised you with their performance, or a recommendation of another cool film by the same director are all things I could use as I surf through my Netflix account looking for the next movie to add to my queue.

Thinking about the “mundane” experiences we all have each day with this mindset has made me more involved in the present and I appreciate more of the simple details of my life.

I am sure Mr. Ogilvy would have loved all of the data that comes with online and social media marketing and the ability to get feedback straight from the customer.

Here is a piece of his . . . → Read More: David Ogilvy Talk on Direct Response Marketing]]> Interesting keynote from David Ogilvy for a direct response conference (I assume that is the context). I love the line about “…tasting blood.”

I am sure Mr. Ogilvy would have loved all of the data that comes with online and social media marketing and the ability to get feedback straight from the customer.

Here is a piece of his obituary from DIRECT Magazine:

According to Phillips, Ogilvy’s interest in DM stemmed from his background, which included working for George Gallup’s Audience Research Institute in Princeton, NJ.

“He was interested in measuring the results of advertising,” Phillips explains, adding that it is easier to measure results in DM than in general advertising.

Ogilvy also insisted on using research to create effective campaigns.

“He believed things that worked were the best kind of creative,” says Andi Emerson, founder of the John Caples International Awards.

My son is one month old. Having your first kid makes you think about a lot of stuff.

One of the biggest thoughts for most first-time parents is “How in the world are they putting me in charge of this little person?!” Insecurity and paranoia are large pieces of the joys . . . → Read More: Do You Inspire Confidence?]]>

Florence Nightengale monument in London, England

My son is one month old. Having your first kid makes you think about a lot of stuff.

One of the biggest thoughts for most first-time parents is “How in the world are they putting me in charge of this little person?!” Insecurity and paranoia are large pieces of the joys of being a new dad.

The boy was born at Sky Ridge Medical Center and the nursing staff was fantastic. They all had their own personalities and styles but everyone of them radiated a steady confidence and displayed genuine caring. This was a great thing to have as my wife and I wrapped our brains around the idea of being parents. Each nurse who helped us seemed to be 50 percent Navy SEAL, 50 percent coach/psychologist. I felt COMPLETELY confident in the advice and care we received during our stay.

Compare this experience to a trip to the local pharmacy a few days after we went home. I asked if the antihistamine my wife used before her pregnancy would still work because she was breastfeeding. The pharmacist wrinkled her brow, looked it up in a PDA and said “that should be fine” without out any enthusiasm.

Ummm…sorry. The correct answer to an anxious new dad when he asks you whether or not he may be poisoning his infant son by buying the product you sell is: “This will not be a problem at all. Your wife and boy will be fine if she takes this for her allergies. You have nothing to worry about.”  It would be a good idea to say this with all the authority and confidence you can muster too.

Make sure a potential client who comes to you for a new website, basement remodel, puppy for the kids, etc. leaves without any doubt they’ve made the right choice talking to you (even if they don’t choose you in the end).

Also, don’t forget that your current clients need to feel that working with you is still one of the best decisions they’ve made. Do they see your invoices as a continued investment in their success or an expense that could be cut if things get too tight?