11/12/2009
Just Thoughts for a Friday the 13th afternoon ...
Over the past few years I've asked hundreds of people what they thought social media meant.
- Duncan Wardle's, VP Global PR for Disney, response was typical of most. - "Creating dialog with consumers."
Spent the last 2 days at social media events in Atlanta. Blogwell,
complements of Gaspedal, and Atlanta Interactive Marketing, sponsored
by an alphabet soup of Atlanta marketing groups: AiMA, AMA, AAC, BMA,
PMA. The format for both was case studies which always makes for great
learnings. I had the opportunity to see work from some big brands in a space that we mash-up and simply call "social media."
Although fun and creative, several of the strategies shared were not traditional social media in the sense that Duncan described. Let's call them Consumer Engaged Digital Events. The goal didn't seem to be for people from the brand to develop relationships with their customers but to provide a playground for customers to upload their own media photos, videos. Of course there was the proverbial for popularity voting and social bookmarks included.
Although these elaborate campaigns wrapped around peer-to-peer available conversations options, social media channels like Facebook and Twitter were used more as a vehicle to present messaging than conversations. Social media tools became the back drop to play against not the focal point. Think of it as putting social media in the role of as a support character. 
Are these mash-up or hybrid campaigns "social media?" Are they digital WOM? Are they new media advertising campaigns? Does it matter?
Just Thoughts for a Friday the 13th afternoon ...
Consumer Engaged Digital Events
Nikon D500
Honda Musical Road
2010 Olympic Advertisers
Tide
11/03/2009
A thought inspired by too much Halloween candy.
From social media networks to blogs, widgets, tweets and hot mobile apps marketers are faced with more choices than we ever could have imagined.
It seems every day brings a new shiny toy to try .. and to confuse. Add a few traditional tactics .. PR, email, advertising and search and the job becomes overwhelming. Overlay that with an internal structure where functions are silo-ed by departments and you have a frightening disjointed marketing program.
One of the benefits that social media brings to the enterprise is a critical need to ensure cross functional communication systems are in place. As we're seeing social media does not live only in PR or Marketing or Customer Service.
Over the next few days let's take a dive into creating a Social Media Marketing Plan. The first step is to align internal stakholders and understand the landscape. What I call the P-I-E-C-E conversation is a process that helps develop a foundation for The Social Enterprise and sets the stage for developing an integrated marketing plan.
PIECE Conversation
Step 1: Prepare: educational component. as it relates to social media: competitive analysis, customer activity, industry trends
Step 2: Invite people who perceive they have a stake: C-suite, marketing, legal, technology, customer service
Step 4: Encourage people to talk openly
Step 5: Confirm and prioritize issues (including objectives/goals)
Step 6: Engage next steps create a Red Flag Memo
10/30/2009
Friday
Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to
lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
In the spirit of David Letterman's Top Ten ...
13. A zillion landing page blogs are pretending to be social media .. take off the mask and you find a search strategy built on a blog platform
12. A comment that lists a company name instead of a person is likely looking for link treats not a relationship.
11. Facebook "fan" pages with posts lifted from corporate brochures and press releases is just another tricky search strategy.
10. Nondisclosure of paid posts or reviews of comp'ed products services comes with tricks of its own .. a big fat FTC fine Make sure you are up to date on the law or your compensation treat will pay for your legal fees.
9. The trick is on the Twitter automatic followers .. no one cares about you - BOO!
8. No @s in your Tweet stream is a sign that you 1. have few friends to play with or 2. don't know how to share treats with others.
7. Not linking to sources sites or including RT (re-tweet @s) is another signal that you don't know how to play well with others.
6. Barbs on the "Back Channel" that don't help move the conversation along in a win-win for the audience and speaker is a clue that you want all the candy for yourself.
5. Not listening to your customers' who take time to express their pleasure and concerns in the social world is a sad trick for both customer and company.
4. Not building social enterprise processes to ensure the impact of social media lessons are shared across multiple departments is like not sharing your Halloween candy.
3. Emphasizing measurements that don't align with your objectives and goals are like getting socks instead of candy.
2. Discounting the relationships you build and networks that you (and your customers) participate in are as real and valuable as any offline is like wearing the same costume year after year after year.
And the Number One Reason To Halloween Toilet Paper A Social Media Strategy ...
1. Forgetting to say "thank you" to your customers, employees, fans and friends who shared their Halloween candy with you.
Max and I wish you a Halloween filled with lots of treats and few tricks!
09/06/2009
Dos
1. Do understand that social media marketing is most effective when it is an authentic, transparent dialogue and not a vehicle to push promotional messaging.
2. Do take the time to listen to the unfiltered voices of your customers and people who are engaged in digital conversations about your brand before you jump into the game.
3. Do give social media the respect it is due as a credible marketing strategy and develop a plan that includes goals, objectives, success measures and a value-added content direction.
4. Do realize that resources will have to be dedicated including time, money and most significantly human capital.
5. Do understand the benefits, as well as the limitations, of the tools or tactics such as blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc before creating your initiative.
Don’ts
1. Don’t assume social media marketing is silver bullet which will transform a poor quality product or service into a super brand.
2. Don’t launch a social media marketing plan unless your organization (including management, PR, legal, etc.) understands the risks, as well as, the rewards and has defined its social media direction because social media will change business dynamics.
3. Don’t launch a social media strategy unless you have processes in place such as internal communication plans to field information to the appropriate departments for resolution.
4. Don’t place a person in charge to oversee the initiative who does not understand the impact of the culture of social media (honesty, transparency, authenticity) and has a spirit of generosity.
5. Don’t start a social media marketing strategy unless you want your organization to be perceived as innovative, customer-centric and forward thinking.
Bonus: Social media marketing is a work in progress! Keep in mind - There are as many opinions as there are experts. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
06/24/2009
The best quote from the aima (Atlanta Interactive Marketing Assoc) June meeting last night was from Carl Warner, JWT/Atlanta who told us what a Marine general had to say about social media.
- "Web 2.0 is undisciplined theater."
Seems the agency had briefed the General (the Marines are a client) on social media. My sense is that Carl was a little disappointed in the General's response. Not me! I would have jumped up and hugged the General (Is it against protocol to hug a Marine general?) and said, "Yes! Sir, that was brilliant! You get it. Social media is undisciplined. It is messy. It is coloring outside of the lines."
I would have then expanded our discussion to what are "social media conversations." We'd probably talk about in social media conversations, as in any conversation, there are the people who initiate the discussion and those who respond. Conversations (including videos, photos and podcasts) that are started by civilians might not be nice and neat. In fact they may even be passionate. Who knows who will say what or when or how .. yes, General - very undisciplined. But when you think about it most conversations with friends are spontaneous and don't follow predetermined rules (except perhaps a few rules of etiquette).
Then I'd ask the General to look at social media conversations from the view of an organization or a brand or in this case the Marines. I'm betting he'd be pleased to know there can be .. should be .. some structure to participating in the conversation. That means planning. Strategy is something that I'm sure the good General understands well.
We'd go on to talk about the conversations that take place in the public "parks and spaces" of the internet say on Twitter or Facebook or MySpace versus those that happen in his digital home .. say a blog or community built by the Marines. Although house rules can't be imposed in public gathering places, just as you have expectations for guests visiting your home or office, it is acceptable to have a few guidelines for your online visitors. I'd point him to this post where he could see some great examples of corporate blogging/social media guidelines.
Along the way I'm sure we'd discuss how a strategic direction for his Marines who participate in online conversations would begin with some guidelines. We'd talk about the "brand values" and the love that the Marines have for the Marines. We'd talk about how even in a world that appears to be chaotic there can be some structure and at the same time authenticity. We'd talk about why the Marines would even want to be part of this untamed world.
I'm betting we'd come to the same conclusions that many business owner, CMOs, brand managers have when it comes to social media. At the end of the post or tweet or podcast or vlog or social network it's about the relationships we build and nurture with our customers which leads to achieving the purpose of the business or non profit or the Marines. To bring that full circle .. that can not be done without knowing where you are going. Yes, General the social world is indeed undisciplined but if you use social media as a marketing strategy that becomes more manageable with a strategic overlay.
06/12/2009
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
In the world of social media Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have taken center stage. Our old friend .. the 
blog .. seems to be relegated to a role in the chorus. Of course social networks can play an important part in social media marketing, however, the platform is not Yours. It will never be Yours. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and every community on Ning could go away tomorrow. All of your contacts, all of your content could blow away like dandelion seeds in the wind.
Blogs, (that you serve yourself) are always Yours (at least until the server crashes or a hacker blows up your site). #BringBackTheBlog is an occasional series on Diva Marketing that highlights some of the great work in the blogosphere.
Blogs do take more time and care than a 140 character tweet or a Facebook wall post. The challenge becomes updating with relevant, interesting content. According to Nettie Harsock, "Conversational content is the base ingredient to any blog truly thriving and engaging a community long-term." Nettie offers 5 Tips For Conversational Content.
Fard Johnmar HealthCareVox has been writing smart posts about healthcare in social media since 2006. His recent post is a great example of building content from other sources, In his post about media consumption habits of e-patients he incorporates findings from the Pew Social Life of Health Information study. By the way did you know that although people are looking for medical information online, including peer reviews, less than 40% use social networks like Facebook and only only 12% are currently taking advantage of Twitter?
Unlike an article written in main stream media, social media provides an opportunity to tell your stories when you want, how you want, without the filter of a reporter or editor. While business story telling follows a similar format to those you read as a kid, there are a few differences. Katya Andresen Getting To The Point, provides us how-to direction including a story telling check list.
When it comes to story telling blog posts that end in marketing lessons no one does it better than Ann Handley - Annarchy. Ann's talent for creating stories about simple every day happenings in her life not only engages us but endears us to her. Word of caution .. don't enter the world of Annarchy unless you have a few spare moments.
When we think of blog posts we usually think of T-E-X-T. However, since blogs are websites and anything you can include in a website you can incorporate into a blog post think photos and videos. Paul Chaney's, The Social Media Handyman, use of video interviews is an excellent example of the versatility of blog content. Paul does one - two minute interviews at the 140 Twitter Conference.
Read more in the all tweet book - Social Media Marketing GPS #smgps - Chapter 6 Tactics Second interviews with Yvonne DiVita and Julie Squires about blogs
06/08/2009
"We are moving from technology-centric applications to people-centric applications that conform to our relationships and identities. The social graph is enabling a new Web experience that will transform the way we work, learn, and interact across every aspect of our lives." Clara Shih, the Facebook Era
I agree with Clara Shih, and think that the Facebook Era is one of the smartest books about social networks. However, although it is technology that proples the experience the reason social media works is actually very simple. At its heart it's people connecting with each other, telling their stories, sharing their lives. What you share depends on your comfort level of giving pieces of yourself to your digital network.
When those stories and experiences involve brands, organizations, service then it becomes part of "social media marketing." The stories that are tweeted or blogged or put on a Facebook page are exposed to your expanded network. Through digital word-of-mouth your opinions may influence the purchase behavior of people you don't even know.
Sooo .. let me tell you a story. - Today I arrived in a small town in Pennsylvania - Johnstown to speak about social m
edia at PA Development Center's Annual Conference (waves to Elyse Harvey who was wonderful to work with on this project!). I dropped Max off at the vets (with instructions for extra walks and doggie ice cream treats) at 10a and after a long day of travel from ATL to IAD to JST I walked into the Holiday Inn at 6:30p .. famished.
Now I must admit my expectations of Harrigan's Restaurant at the Holiday Inn was .. well .. not very high. In fact, I tried to find another place to eat. Went so far as to do a few Urban Spoon shakes which turned up pretty much only fast food. Sometimes you turn a corner and are delightfully surprised. The venue itself was inviting, Lori, my waitress or is the pc term 'server?' was awesome and most importantly the food was excellent.
To help demonstrate social media and stories for the workshop Lori graciously agreed to have her photo posted, with the amazing dessert tray, on Twitter, Facebook and Diva Marketing. Next time you're in Johnstown, PA head to the Harrigans and ask for Lori .. I promise you won't be disappointed.
Where will this go? Who in my social media network will see a post, tweet or Facebook page? Will the post or tweet make its way into someone's search for Johnstown restaurants or Harrigans? Will Lori make a few extra tips?
So what is great social media marketing? It's all about the stories and the people and the beat goes on and on and on and on ....
05/22/2009
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
This post was inspired by Mark Story, Where Online Intersects With Offline. Mark is running a series on Mondays he's calling #blogmonday. With all the chatter about social networks and widgets and videos and podcasts and apps and tweets and gizmos (oh that's the next Big thing) the traditional blog has gotten lost in the digital maze. So I thought I'd use Friday Fun from time to time to #BringBackTheBlog by highlighting some of the great work that continues to be done in the blogosphere.
Seems only fitting that the first up should be Mark Story's post - Help Doug Haslam Ride. Blogs are wonderful social vehicles to tell from the heart stories and also to raise awareness for causes. In this post we learn about Dougn Haslam who is riding in the Pan Mass Challenge to raise money for the Jimmy Fund. Through his post Mark gives us a peak into his life as a dad and shows us some of the values that are important to him -helping others. Follow the Jimmy Fund on Twitter.
Sidebar: The Jimmy Fund is a Boston-based nonproft supporting the Dana Farber Cancer Institute that helps children and adults.
Mary Schmidt's posts on Marketing Troubleshooter always make me think. She's smart, witty and quick to the draw proving that blog posts don't always have to be long to position yourself as a thought leader. In her post The price is a surprising happiness to you Mary combines two complex marketing topics - price and email marketing .. and makes her point about both.
It has always amused me and confused me that marketers think no Believe that marketing is vastly different from business-to-business, business-to-consumer, products and services. While there are of course challenges within verticals and sectors the principles of marketing and relating to people's needs remains the same. Francois Gossieaux, Emergence Marketing, addresses that issue in his post about social media communities - B2B and B2C communities - no difference, it’s all about h2h. Francois uses his blog post to present his point of view including a few examples.
I'm going to let you in on my new secret. Shh! If you tell anyone Max might have to howl at you .. he never bites. Mommy blogs. (I'm not a mom so I don't frequently hang out in that blogosphere village though I do pop by to visit friends like Geek Mommy, Mom-101, MomInTheCity.) Remember this is #bringbacktheblog post so I'm talking blogs not necessarily "influencers" .. thought a great mom blog will often be home to a women who is sought after by marketers. Some of the best designed blogs are coming from this 'village' of the blogopshere.
My new favorite is Cool Mom Picks - a multiple author blog led by Liz Gumbinner and Kristen Chase. The branding is clean and consistent and the writing fun and engaging. Take a look at the side nav bars that are used not just for sponsorship ads but for value content. You'll find links to guides and internal content pages .. brilliant!
Sidebar: If you do want to know more about Moms Influencers catch the Diva Marketing Talks podcast where Liz Gumbinner and Susan Getgood join me to dish about Blogger Relations. It's a fun show with lots of great information.
05/19/2009
Pop a Cork For The New Diva Marketing Blog. Five years today - May 19, 2004 - that was the head line I wrote for the first post on Diva Marketing.
As my story goes .. I launched Diva Marketing as an experiment because my friend Dana VanDen Heuvel told me I couldn't talk about blogs in workshops I was conducting unless I was active in the space. I pretty much told Dana he was daft. I mean I can talk about any marketing strategy if I understand what it's about. Dana said blogs were different and in order to establish credibility I had to participate in this thing called a "converstation."
What did I really need with a blog .. I had a website!? However I did want to understand the logistics so I launched Diva Marketing. I quickly realized that the website with the funny name was not like any other marketing strategy I knew. Dana was right to "get it" you had to roll your sleeves up and dive in .. watching from the sidelines wasn't going to cut it.
Thanks to you .. five years later the experiment is still around. Diva Marketing turned into not only a learning playground but a labor of love and one of the first blog brands. 
Who would have thought?
Thanks to you .. for enriching my life. If anyone had told me that some of my dearest friends would live oceans and miles way in India, Europe, Australia, Canada as well as across the country from NYC to St. Louis to San Diego and just around the corner in Atlanta too .. no way Girlfriend would I have believed that one!
Thanks to you .. for impacting my personal and business life and for the opportunity to work with marketers all over the States helping them understand that the importance of blogs/social media.
Here are a few of the Looking Back Lessons that I share with you today.
11 Looking Back Lessons About Social Media Marketing
1. Opening the doors and windows to allow your employees to hear the unfiltered voices of your customers can bring unexpected insights leading to stronger brands, new products/services ideas even more responsive customer service.
2. Management's trust in their employees to represent the brand value in an authentic but respectful manner is the foundation of a social media strategy. This may mean different hiring values and more transparency in the strategic direction of the company.
3. Traveling the social media marketing road alone, without a someone who understand the culture of the "villages" where you want to engage, can do more harm than good.
4. Social media gives more than it takes if you're willing to come out from your walled garden and engage with your customers. No eating M&Ms behind the 2-way mirror .. it's a time for sharing your candy.
5. You can set house rules for blogs and social networking communities and still be "real."
6. People want to know they matter. Social media creates ways to show your customers you care about their concerns and feelings.
7. To succeed social media must be given the same respect and made accountable just as any other marketing strategy. Set strategy that includes: goals, execution expectations of your staff, measures of success.
8. Measures of success may be different from traditional marketing, especially direct response .. but it's okay to view success differently.
9. You can color outside the lines and take risks to try new ways to do it .. IF you stay true to your brand, are transparent, authentic, honest and believe in the conversations you are starting.
10. You don't have to do every thing at once. Review social media tactics with the view point of how they can support your goals. Start with your "digital home" and build out from there. For some organizations that may be Facebook, for others a blog and for some Twitter or ... you fill in the blank. What can you do within your current enterprise's culture and resources of human capital, time and money?
11. Social media puts the heart and soul into marketing.The real power behind social media is in building and nurturing relationships.
Help Me Celebrate Year Five!
There should be a way to pop a cork on a bottle of champagne when a blog turns five. There should be a special way to celebrate a milestone in the digital world. So what should we do?
Tossing this back to you. Drop your ideas in comments I have presents for the folks whose ideas we use - the soon to be released book, Ignore Everyone, by Hugh MacLeod gapingvoid and perhaps some Johnny Depp inspired brownies and 
a pink boa!
- "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun." Katharine Hepburn
02/13/2009
Last Valentine's Day I asked a few marketers how to develop great business relationships. The responses were insightful and smart.
With so much of our time spent in the online world I wondered how people were developing digital relationships. I posted on Diva Marketing and sent off a tweet asking ..
What is your "secret" to building digital relationships through social media?
It seems appropriate that the response are a Valentine's Day post. My heartfelt thanks to the people who responded to my question and agreed to share their "secrets" with you.
10 Secrets to Building Digital Relationships
1. Be Yourself
2. Integrity is important
3. Generosity is a mind set that you make happen by adding value.
4. Play nicely with each other.
5. Keep in touch on a consistent basis and be responsive.
6. Listening is critical .. it is not all about you.
7. People want to feel that they matter and you value the relationship.
8. It takes time to develop relationships in the offline or digital world. Finding a new best friend in one tweet is rare.
9. People may feel they know you even though they don't actively participate with you in a conversation. Take care what you say.
10. Simple is some times the best direction.
Susan Cartier Liebel, Build A Solo Practice, LLC Solo Practice University - You absolutely have to be yourself and do so with integrity. Be generous with your information and always play nice. It is very easy to get so comfortable in your online relationships you forget there are many who still don't know you but are listening. Be cognizant of your reputation at all times because they are made or destroyed online.
Brandy Nagel, Marketing With No Money - Say exactly what you mean. Try everything once. Focus on what works with your natural beat.
Sunny Cervantes, Confessions Of A Marketing Addict - I keep in touch with my virtual friends and business associates regularly and constantly.
Donna Lynes-Miller Delicious Destinations GourmetStation - Relevant content & don't over do it!
Bryan Person BryanPerson.com LiveWorld - My best tip is to link to and direct people to the good work of others online.
Chris Brogan, chrisbrogan.com - Be human, be helpful, and give more than you get.
Katie Paine, KD PAINE - Always be yourself, your usual mulit-dimensional, multi-faceted, fascinating to some, annoying to others, self. Whether you're responding or posting, be true to the values that make you a human. What would be even more interesting is to measure the relationships that people purport to have ..
Dana VanDen Heuvel, MarketingSavant - I believe that part of social media relationship building is about the mindset you take into the relationship. I love to help people. I have consistently found that if I approach social media connections with the mentality of "how can I be useful here", the relationship always starts out on the right foot.
Jeff Pontes, Strategy Social - Be real, contribute to the conversation and provide something of value. Give more than you take. Social media can be used to shamelessly promote oneself or it can be used to provide and gain real value.
Aerocles - @aerocles - Define yourself through your posts. Anyone can retweet or post a link to a cnn article, but sharing information that isn't readily accessible to everyone is way to both demonstrate your value and illustrate an aspect of your personality
Bill Flitter, Pheedo - Listen, listen, listen. We all have an agenda and non is more important then the colleagues and friends I connect with.
Julie Squires - Marketing Snacks - Here a little, there a little in the context of a low information diet.
Janet Lee Johnson The Art of Marketing - Being honestly engaged in social media (by using it myself) and completely transparent about relationships (sponsorships, etc.) are key to success. You have to give to get, and to be "in" the digital realm to have and build relationships. I'm surprised constantly at the naivete of "emerging" participants who expect instant success.
Eric Doyle, Eric Doyle on Facebook - Be yourself -- just like in the offline world.
Kami Huyse, Communication Overtones - There is no real secret, except to say that people like to be valued. So, I try to value them by commenting in their blogs, linking to them on Twitter, replying to their comments and being available when asked.
Richard Binhammer, aka Richardatdell/Around the Web with Richardtadell - Listen, learn, converse and connect
C.B. Whittemore, Flooring The Consumer - Humbleness of responsiveness: being truthful, earnest and passionate about what you discuss on your platform, and welcoming interaction however it takes place [which means responding promptly] - something you do magnificently!
Marc Meyer, Direct Marketing Observations - The secret is there is no secret. The same things that apply in the offline world work in the digital. Being real and being you always works best. We have a saying in the offline world when referring to certain people and that is "that someone is good people", and that means that the person is just a good person; and you'd be surprised how well that translates in the digital world. I think the other secret if there has to be one, is that people need to leave the "take" mentality at the door when they login. In other words, you dont always have to be "on" and marketing, or pushing your message- you'd be surprised how much can be accomplished by just being the real you. The giving you, the honest you. the you that we always hope to encounter...
What is your "secret" to building digital relationships?
