@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Traditional Marketing

Publishing: A New E Book Revolution?

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Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book

The popularity of e books is undeniable. According to the BBC, the use of e books in the UK has quadrupled in 2010. What started with Amazon’s Kindle and continued with other publisher producing their own version, like Nook from Barnes and Noble, has gotten a tremendous push with the introduction of the iPad and the smartphone apps. Now you can have all your reading material on one portable device that can play videos as well.

Most of the e books still look like books, letters on a page, flipped with a drag of the finger, except the children’s books which have become somewhat interactive, as paper children books have been. Apparently it is easy for 3 year olds to figure out the interactive buttons on the iPad.

How about fully interactive books for adults? That is what Mike Matas presented at a TED conference in Long Beach, CA. in March 2011.  The young developer, who while at Apple, helped design the user interface and artwork of leading Apple products, has shown a demonstration of the first full length interactive book for the iPad.  The company he co-founded with Melcher Media, Push Pop Press, has presented a book called “Our Choice” by Al Gore, a sequel to “An inconvenient Truth”.

This is a book that takes advantage of everything today’s technology has to offer. It starts as a regular written page, with pictures. You can choose which page you want to see by scoring fast through the pages at the bottom. When you want to look closely at the pictures, you can pinch them out of their place and see them full screen. Then you pinch them down and put them back into the book.

The innovation continues when those pictures become narrated videos, which open and close instantly, without loading time. “Our Choice” has over one hour of documentary and interactive animation material throughout the book. Pinch it closed and put it back on the page, or keep it at the bottom for later view. All the photos are narrated as well. Some of them have interactive maps. And while it is playing you can scale it down and continue reading, you can zoom out and see where in the world the photo has been taken etc. You want to find more information about a statistic you read? Swipe right ahead to Google Earth and see how it will impacts different parts of the world, country by country. It has real interactive infographics, and an actual interaction that has been seen on the iPhone and iPad. When you blow on the side of the screen, it moves a wind turbine on screen that shows how much electri city is produced by the wind you are creating. In short – it makes the book come alive with all pertinent information about the subject, and a lot of interesting facts.

And the books are really portable. You can start reading at home on an iPad and continue where you left off on your iPhone, with all those wonderful features on a small screen.

Can you image how much fun reading and learning can be? Many smaller charter schools are already introducing tablets in their classrooms. How long will it be before the students backpacks will be thin and easy to carry?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-RvzXGH2Y]

 

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Social Media Can Change Lives, For Better or For Worse

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At this point, there can truly be no doubt about the fact that social media can and does change lives. It may not always be for the good, such as in the case of more than a handful of people who claim that status post on Facebook cost them their jobs.

Facebook Fail

Ashley Johnson, waitress at a pizza restaurant in uptown Charlotte N.C. found herself immensely frustrated when a couple came in for lunch and stayed three hours, which in turn forced her to work far beyond her usual quitting time. They also left her a tip she found offensive. Johnson did what many folks seem to do lately, she ran home and ranted out her frustrations on her Facebook page.

Unfortunately, like an increasing number of other random employees around the globe, she found out that the things you say on social networks, can and very well may, come back to haunt you. Managers at her company called her in to show her a copy of her Facebook page with the offending comments and explained to her that she was being fired for violating the policy that requires employees to never speak disparagingly about the company or its customers.

Then they notified her that she had also violated another policy that states that casting the company in negative light on social networks is cause for termination.  Does your company have this policy?

Twitter Triumphs

There are also many stories like those of Kevin Smith, not to be confused with Director Kevin Smith, who found a great job through his moderate and initially half-hearted Twitter efforts.

He wasn’t just looking for another job, there were plenty of those, he was looking for a better job. Freely admitting that he was usually slow to latch onto social medias, Twitter felt a bit different. Kevin openly admits that his first efforts on Twitter were little more than a bit of pathetic whining on the internet in 140 characters or less. However, he also quickly realized that whining into the world wide web wasn’t likely to help him better his position in life.

As many months of job applications, interviews, and trolling job boards went by without the results he was looking for, he began to notice a pleasant trend on Twitter. People of all kinds with a variety of influences, who had the same interest as he did, willingly followed him on Twitter, even through his whiney blurbs.

As he began to become more involved in a Ruby programming language following on Twitter, he noticed that a notable player, and fellow Ruby enthusiast that worked for a nearby company, was on his list. Checking into the company and finding a resounding message, he felt a bit of hope. He followed his followers lead to their company website and sent in his resume.

After a bit of impatient waiting, he shot a message to his Twitter friend to ask if his resume had been received. He was a bit upset to find out it had not been. So while he sent in his second copy, his Twitter friend ran to the office of the person who received resumes to make sure it went through. This time it did, and thereby began his relationship with his current company.

He learned an interesting thing after being hired. Many companies now search out the social media input of future prospective employees. Although Kevin’s rants had been lighthearted and nowhere offensive in nature, you may now have an idea of how a negative social media influence or character, may have prevented one more opportunity, and likely with Kevin none-the-wiser. However, the hiring manager did say that having interacted with Kevin over Twitter for months before hiring him, also made it feel a lot more like hiring a friend than a literal stranger.

The Jury is Out

Actually, they are just about to be sequestered in the case of Casey Anthony, a Florida mother who is charged with the murder of her young daughter. Heard about it? Most people have. Although the story itself would have certainly drawn national media attention, the fact that almost three years later the case, and the discussion of it, is still carried on daily on sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, as well as full emotionally charged discussions on just about every news post since the story began, has been an ever-present cause of concern for Anthony’s legal team.

Although it is certainly unlikely to be the last case in which the line of questioning for potential jurors include such queries as:

  1. Do you use YouTube?
  2. Do you have a Facebook account? Do you ever post status updates?

The Anthony case has been a virally charged one from the start, but any potential alteration in the flow of the court hearing due to social media interruptions such as jurors posting Facebook statuses or tweeting opinions on this case is unlikely. Because of the large investment the state of Florida has in this case, many aim to see that social media does not enter into the courtroom, at least not without permission. It seems that most understand how one slight slip may cause justice to lose on a technicality once again.

Has this Changed Our Human Make-up?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your glass-half-full/half-empty outlook, people haven’t changed entirely that much. Even before base media such as radio and television, people still wanted to be heard, to share their messages, and their stories. They just did so in books, magazines, and newsprint.

If you could remove the chatter and noise of our 21st century culture, you may also find that marketing and advertising hasn’t changed all that much either.  What has changed is how we are exposed to them. Obviously, from the previous stories, we also know that social media and its resulting benefits or its detriments are almost entirely up to us. So while social media certainly hasn’t changed the fact that we want to succeed, make our marks, and leave the world a better place for our children, it has certainly changed the format in which we have the voice to do so, each and every one of us.

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LinkedIn IPO: LinkedIn Hits the Stock Market

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As I mentioned in a previous post on the social networking site LinkedIn, this business based site allows users to connect to past, present, or future business contacts in effort to exchange ideas, knowledge, or perhaps even new opportunities. It also helps users to build a working portfolio that is supported by the very companies, or the leaders of the companies, that are listed on your LinkedIn profile.

One of the best available sites for career recruiting and networking, increasingly more and more often, it has become less unusual for prospective employers to ask for a link to a LinkedIn account than ever before.

Stock Market Stalled

At an initial public offering of LinkedIn stock, shares were priced at $45 on Wednesday night, by the time the stock market opened this morning, the stocks had risen to $83 per share. Within just a few hours, LinkedIn (LNKD) stocks had risen by 131% to be $104.02. This brings the current value of LinkedIn to over $9 billion dollars.

This offering of 7.84 million shares is hands-down, the biggest net IPO since GOOG, or Google, went public in the summer of 2004. This goes to further show that somewhere lurks an immense group of investors who believe that smart money rest in social networking. One firm reports that LinkedIn may now be the most expensive stock in the country. With a current price that is around 275 times more than its earnings in the last four quarters, this certainly indicates that those groups of investors may, in fact, be right on target.

Sign of the Social Media/Networking Times?

As the LinkedIn IPO is being gauged for effectiveness by other social networking giants such as Facebook, Groupon and other similar social networking sites, others believe the IPO has also been controversial as many on Wall Street as well as those in Silicon Valley believe that some investors have been taken in by an Internet bubble.

Some investors are simply just confused about how we should value any companies that are debuting online. Although others, like IPO analyst like Scott Sweet, say that LinkedIn’s spectacular market debut was a great sign for other social networking companies.

Who Uses LinkedIn?

Alexa gives LinkedIn an impressive global ranking of 17 with around 14% of their referrals coming from search engines. Most users are females between the ages of 25 and 64 who are highly educated and more often than not are browsing from home. The site is listed under the Social Networking category.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTZ8Hpg1Zgc]

 

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The PR State of Facebook

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In a few days in Silicon Valley there were some rather unusual ideas, stories, and news articles, pitched that insinuated that Google was invading their users’ privacy. PR agency Burson-Marsteller, even offered to assist a highly influential blogger write an Anti-Google op-ed, promising him it would be posted in places like The Huffington Post or The Washington Post.

Not ignorant of their own share of privacy or security shortcomings, they were likely none-too-happy when Burson’s offer fell apart as the blogger turned him down, then publicly posted the emails in which Burton had asked him for assistance in publicly maligning Google. Subsequently, this failure to communicate was compounded as USA Today latched onto the story and accused Burton of launching a “whisper campaign” about Google on the behalf of a client that was unnamed.

In a world of instant coverage on any type of event, those very elements on which Facebook thrives upon, it is quite difficult to understand how anyone at Facebook thought that it would be a remotely good idea, or one that was kept a tight secret. Is this a sure sign that Facebook executives are worried about recent Google social marketing elements such as the +1 system? Will their willingness to execute black hat behaviors cost them enough users to matter? Unlikely, but it has likely done irreparable damage to their reputation, at least for now.

Google?

Since many users may actually have seen or suffered from privacy issues from Google themselves. As usual, in most situations, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle of both sides. The problem is, Google has said very little about the incident and as of yet has made no public comment about the failed campaign. In a way, this could also lend the some weight to the original plan by bringing Google privacy issues even more into the public eye.

The real problem is that now that Facebook has made such an irrational and hasty decision that will likely cause them to suffer from some form of back lash, and any real issues that Google may need to address, could have been brought to light a bit more properly, will fall to the wayside as most publicity outlets and news releases will report it and spin it as the story in which Facebook failed in an underhanded campaign to publicly bash another company.

Love-Hate Relationship

Facebook’s most recent PR plan to smear Google was an embarrassment and failure on more than a public relations scale.

In the internet advertising world, Facebook seems to be on the losing end in effective marketing and product branding. If you monitor Facebook regularly, you know it is not uncommon to see someone ranting, raving, and railing at Facebook for some imagined, or even a realistic slight. A week or two later they are back, having forgiven and forgotten their source of displeasure, or at least enough to continue to use Facebook.

As Facebook has begun to integrate itself into everything from daily deal websites to major retail chain, we have largely come to depend on it as our go-to log-in integration of choice. This is predominately because Facebook integration sites will auto-complete most of the information that will commonly be required to complete a new registration for a website’s products or services. Users would certainly be frustrated and disappointed if Facebooks PR flog affected their Facebook experience.

Will Users Boycott Facebook?

Many groups openly boycott websites that make immoral or illegal decisions. However, just as many points above prove, it would be quite difficult to boycott a large interactive element of our social media usage, most certainly Facebook that so many now use for advertising, entertainment, social network, or even just chatting with long distance relatives.

 Of course there are a few obvious boycotting methods, anything from ceasing to use Facebook, refusal to integrate other programs and remove already integrated applications from your Facebook account, and even simply deleting your account.

PR on Facebook

Facebook has already proven to be an effective method of PR for a few businesses.

  • AT&T
  • Microsoft
  • WordPress
  • Coca-Cola
  • The New York Times

Although likely the best representation of the shortlist, many other smaller businesses have also found great advantage to applying Facebook capabilities for better consumer interaction.

Business Promotion

Facebook has proven a very handy tool in managing membership relationships for fans of your products, or even groups related to your business. This is a very cost effective tool for group, member, or fan management that will allow users to create events calendars, or even just supply other leads and information that could provide additional networking benefits for those same consumers.

Facebook Connect

Adding this handy tool allows users to quickly register with your website by allowing them to approve Facebook integration. This easy option is highly encouraging for those who may not want to spend time filling out many fields, even those who have interest in your brand.

Brand Affinity

One of the most important public relations elements that can be satisfied via Facebook. If you have a product or service that directly, or even indirectly meets a need and connects a user to their Facebook presence. With the text and visuals you have the ability to provide for easy viewing, this can be a great beginning in building the brand awareness that can be invaluable to your business.

 

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Innovative ways Professional PR People are Using Social Media

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Social Media has become part of every serious advertising campaign, and most PR people have been using it on a daily basis; following and engaging in conversations on different media platforms, checking what the competition is doing and sharing news and information about their products.

Besides the usual advice of how to engage your followers on Twitter: use a friendly tone, answer quickly, make Twitter a place where you give prizes and announce competitions, it is interesting to see what the professionals do to take advantage of what the market has to offer.  What causes their blood pressure to go up and what can we, small business owners, learn from them?

Here are a few tips: –

  • Pay attention to the news. Events happening around the world might trigger some reaction and connection in your mind. Try to tie these events to your product or service. Examples? A celebrity (Elizabeth Taylor) passes away. Is there a way you can tie it in to your clothes line? Jewelry? Make Up? Look at what the New York Public Library is doing, which makes it the number one library on Twitter and Facebook. When JD Salinger passed away, they tweeted many of his quotes and linked them to the corresponding books in the library. Newsweek, NPR Fresh Air and other news sites used the Library tweets and mentioned them as the source.

 

  • Find Freelancers to Tweet for you. Use social Media to find the right people. Example: the tourism department of Rwanda wanted people to tweet for them to increase their visibility as a vacation destination. They started a contest on Twitter for people to get an all-paid visit to Rwanda in exchange for tweets about their visit. More than 80 people joined the contest and 3 won. They posted 448 tweets which were visible to 1.5 million people.

 

  • Create an influencer network. Some PR agencies are using social media to deliver a complete network of influencers as a package deal to their clients – A group of bloggers, opinionated and media savvy who use the product and write about it. They can also be used as a test group for new products. Look at what Child’s Play PR did with a network of Moms.

 

  • The immediacy of social media offers PR people an opportunity to insert themselves when news somehow related to them is posted, just like it happened in SXSW Interactive Festival. They secured coverage on behalf of their clients by showing up at events via Twitter. They have abandoned e mail or phone calls as a favorite means of communication.

 

  • Use mainstay advertisement to increase twitter visibility. Freed Maxick, an accounting firm, used billboards in late 2009 to display updates from the company’s tweets in real time. In 2010 they did it with Facebook as well. That drove many people to follow them on Twitter and made them a reputable company that gives up to date, accurate information.

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Meetup: Social Networking On & Off the Web

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Meetup is a social gathering site that helps to organize groups for local events, interest, and shared educational opportunities. Meetup’s major goal is to encourage people to understand that they can change their world, indeed our whole world, by organizing into groups that can be powerful enough to make great differences.

Who Uses Meetup?

Ranked #462 globally, the cities of San Diego and Denver show particularly high viewer numbers. Although it is used in countries like the UK and Canada, 70% of Meetup’s site visitors are located in the U.S. where its traffic rank is #129. Most common users are women from ages 35 to 64 with some college education. Most of these average users tend to browse from work.

People from all walks, niches, communities, and can and do use Meetup. Meetup can help:

  • To find others in your local area who share similar interest
  • To provide forums where users can learn, teach, and share
  • To encourage users to make friends and have fun
  • To teach that groups can be a powerful aspect for the common person to rise up, stand up, unite and help to make a difference on a local or global level

Meetup has 4.6 million monthly visitors with 3.9 million registered users. It helps to organize 80,000 meetings per month involving 37,000 local groups. Meetup provides coverage for over 3,500 topics and interests, in 4,000 cities, in 100 countries.

What is a Meetup Group?

Users can register with Meetup and begin to set up their own groups meetings. Users most commonly will initiate a Meetup group by posting a set date and time for a Meetup. Popular Meetup group topics are interest are:

  • Hiking
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Knitting
  • Moms
  • Poker
  • Travel
  • Writers

The topics are virtually endless and only restricted to the imagination of its creator. Meetup’s goal is to make sure that although users can benefit greatly from communication, education and integration provided by the internet on a regular basis, face-to-face interaction can provide many benefits that online communications cannot.

Major Meetups

This week a major Meetup group will be sponsored by the International Game Developer’s Association in Chicago. This group will help to get to help participate in problem-solving and chapter run events that are available in the United States as well as Internationally. Group members will also have access to literally thousands of highly talented members of various elements of the game development industry.

There are many small businesses that use Meetup for brainstorming better ideas for their businesses, and just as many Meetup groups involved in being active, health conscious or other aspects of the many non-profit agencies that use Meetup for real time group events.

Average Meetup Groups

Average metropolitan areas such as Richmond, Virginia commonly have around 2,000 Meetup groups functioning on site at any given time. However, larger major cities such as New York and Los Angeles have a significantly higher tally of between 6 and 9 thousand functioning groups.

It is notable too that many Meetup groups get their start on Meetup’s site itself. It is not uncommon for groups to originate, build and expand on Meetup for anywhere between six and eleven months before taking to a face-to-face setting.

 

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Online Ad Spending Expected to Increase

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The online advertising industry hit a new high in 2010 with ad revenue topping the 26 billion dollar mark. After a falling in 2009, performance based-spending on forms of search advertising and digital display ads began to lead the way.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that online ad revenue increased by around 15% to the 2010 mark of $26 billion, up from the $22.6 billion from 2009. Other important elements of their 2010 ad revenue report include:

  • In addition to record numbers for the entire year, ad revenue reached a record quarterly high in the fourth quarter of 2010.
  • Search Ad revenue was the most popular format chosen and it alone represents 46% of revenue. Additionally, it achieved an overall 12% growth for the year.
  • With a 142% increase in the fourth quarter alone, Sponsorship ads received the highest growth with an 88% increase.
  • US Mobile ad revenue seen an increase of between $550 and $650 million.
  • Display advertising, including banners and display ads, digital video commercials, rich media and sponsorships continued to see growth with a nearly 10 billion dollar increase over 2009 numbers.

Top Display Ad Networks

Digital display networks are growing swiftly in popularity for small and large businesses. Ad display advertising can offer a company the opportunity to communicate directly with consumers who are interested in their products and services in addition to potential earnings just from advertising revenue.

Several display ad networks tend to reach far more users than others.

  • Yahoo’s network reaches more U.S. users than any others with high reaching numbers at 85.9%.
  • AOL Advertising leads an extremely close second at 85.7%.
  • Google’s own Ad Network comes in with 82.7%.

Other leading display networks include:

  • ValueClick
  • Turn Media
  • 24/7 Real Media
  • AdBrite
  • Collective Network
  • Specific Media
  • Microsoft

With five constructive quarters behind us, online advertising revenue expenditure is likely to continue to break previous financial marker milestones. If last year’s overall ad revenue profits are any sign of impending trends, display network advertising may be making its way into the advertising campaigns of many new businesses.

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Writing a Great Press Release

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Press Releases are a crucial part of marketing, in fact they are one of the few traditional marketing tools that have flourished in the new media or Digital Brand Age. There are six major types of press releases.

  • General News
  • Event
  • Launch
  • Staff or Executive Announcement
  • Expert Positioning
  • Product

Each of these press releases may have differentiating information, but should take one single overall format. And while it is important to be certain that your press release will help to boost your company’s search engine rankings, it is also critical to consider what will happen once people do find and read your press or news releases.

Creating Your Press Release

Many elements in the creation of the press release are very important.

Title Creation

Above all, you need to make sure the title is compelling. This is what draws the reader in and drives them to continue to read past the first sentence. It is good practice to be sure your title supplies a question that would appeal to those whom your marketing efforts target.

Subheadings

Subheadings or bullet points provides visual breaks in the content. Although some readers may not be bothered by massive chunks of text that contain many sentences, most readers can quickly become overwhelmed by the ‘job’ that reading five hundred words in a few paragraphs may be.

Body Content

Create the strongest lead paragraph you can formulate. Try to remember the five important W’s that should be incorporated into the first two paragraphs.

  • Who
  • What
  • When
  • Why
  • Where

Try to make these two paragraphs read to a viewer so that even if they do not continue to read beyond this point, they understand the general idea of the press release.

Supply quotes and statistics. Depending on the direction your press release is taking, gather related quotes from company engineers, experts in the industry or even customers who have tried, and enjoyed your products or services. Select the most shining example that you have.

Boilerplate

The last part, or the last few sentences of your press release can sometimes be referred to as the boilerplate. The text used here should be very standard and for this reason could be used on any other press releases regardless of their nature. This information always immediately precedes the use of  # # # which signals the end of a press release.

This informative selection of text should include the contact information or instructions on how or where you can get more information on the news, product or service behind the press release itself. Phone contacts, physical location and website information are all common elements of the boilerplate.

Before setting your press release in stone by submitting it online or even to a physical news source, be sure you have reviewed it and while doing so keep an eye out for common mistakes in press releases.

  1. It should never exceed one page and a half. Even if you have much more to say, this size of press release is fairly large. The ideal press release will fit on one digital document or one sheet of paper.
  2. Avoid writing in singular or plural. Stick to a third party, neutral source point-of-view.
  3. Use reader-friendly English, not tech jargon understood by only a few.
  4. Do not use overly hyped language in your press release. Phrases such as breaking news, most unique, the best are all considerably generic terms that may turn your viewers off instead of compel them to read on.
  5. Most important aspects of the press release are in the first two or three paragraphs.
  6. Always include a means to reach a live contact.
  7. Proofread and edit for typos or other grammatical issues.

All of these elements are important in creating a press release that can provide coverage for your news and information on your company’s products or services in one tight article.

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Why Every Small Business Should Go Online

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Why a Small Business should go Online: Ways Your Offline Business Can Benefit from an Online Presence

Although it may be hard for some of the ‘old timers’ regardless of age, to understand how much it can be of benefit, there is no doubt that it would be a very rare offline business that could not benefit from an online web presence.

Here are a few ways a business owner could benefit immediately.

Broader Target Market

Obviously, advertising on the internet is going to bring in a much larger geographical market than remaining offline and using offline advertising methods such as billboards, newspapers and local discount promotions. Custom product orders online can rake in big money for businesses in most any niche.

No Need to Rely on Foot Traffic

One of the biggest killers of business can be the lack of foot traffic on location. A bad location even for the best business can sometimes spell big trouble. Opening up your digital foot traffic is the same as opening any other flood gate, you never know exactly how much is going to flow in, but it will definitely be a lot more than simple location traffic generates.

This can be an incredible benefit for seasonal businesses. Does your business sell pool accessories in middle America? If so your foot traffic likely grinds to a halt in the winter months. Fortunately, people in Florida and other southern states as well as the lower west coast can still enjoy summer-like temperatures year round. This means putting your business online will turn your company from a seasonal entity, to a year-round production.

Affiliate Marketing

The best way to understand affiliate marketing for those who are entirely unfamiliar is to imagine having a full-time salesperson to sell your products for you, 24/7/365. Although these affiliates will likely work on a commission basis, you should also have the option to choose a flat rate per sale that should meet your profit-loss requirement needs.

Ease of Communication

Although some who do not use computers often may be intimidated by communications with users via online methods there is nothing to fill. Regardless of the rumors, the internet is not full of ranting loonies anymore than anywhere else is, and you are likely to have good communications with your online users, since they are going to be coming to you, for the product or service you have to offer. Not to mention that this eliminates loads of sales pressure as well.

Permanent Business Card

Your website will serve as a permanent business card. Permanent in the fact that it is there, once set up, forever. However, your website can always be updated or upgraded at will and the only limitations you are likely to deal with are those of your own imagination.

A business owner can also provide much of their products and services information on their web site which will greatly reduce their need to continually repeat the same product pricing or services options.

Paperless

This should be enough said. It is paperless. Forget the rainforests if you like, but removing your paper needs from your business will save more money per year than you may think. Many customers are now satisfied with paper billing. This also gives you an additional option of paperless advertising in such forms as email campaigns.

Automatic Statistics

One of the greatest things about getting a new website is the ability to set it up to track any and all of your traffic. This can give business owners a whole new perspective on who is browsing their wares and from where.

Optional Revenue

Once you have a site that generates traffic, you may have other options to increase your income outside of selling your products or services. Selling banners and other links on websites are common methods for networking as well as generating money simply for owning a well traveled site.

Related Past Blogs:

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Sneak Peak: Digital Brand Marketing 411: Educate, Embrace, Brand

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So, the internet is flooded with 101 courses, be it Social Media 101, SEO 101, Digital 101, SEM 101 and so on. The shocking part is that we are well beyond Freshman year, perhaps now it’s time for an advanced course.

This is a book in progress and the purpose of this post is to get feedback and support from fellow professionals who will have the chance to help shape its final publication.

Educate, Embrace, Brand

If training programs are a natural part of any induction to new employment, then should we not use this time to maximize the experience both professionally and personally?

Imagine a company that spends time introducing its new employees to Social Media during the training, helps them set up accounts, teaches them etiquette and the role that each different social media has both in personal and professional communication, even if it is at the most basic level.

That same company now embraces its new employees, like a press release, announcing their employment on the company’s Facebook page, twitter accounts, foursquare and more. At stage one, the companies’ own Social Media, has just gone viral with opportunity that has yet to be realized by corporations.

Educating and supporting an employee’s personal brand with the company would touch every contact that the employee has on a regular basis (i.e. profile pictures that resemble something like a baseball card with the team name, or in this case, the company name). The natural progression of Social Media would give the brand a reach and repetition beyond traditional marketing campaigns (This is not even considering the value for professional outreach to clients, service providers and more).

Features, Benefits & Pitfalls

“This section will be the core of the book”

Why?

The ability to control your brand has been lost for some time.  The introduction of reviews, facebook, twitter and more have shifted the spectrum. The current chain of command climate, has corporations and their brands operating as spectators or participants at best.

Your employees are already doing it! A claim like “When John/Joan made that racist, sexist, ageist, etc. etc. comment on facebook, it was not endorsed or supported by [insert company name]”. That’s a PR nightmare, because we all know s/he works for you and now your associated with the people you surround yourself with, or in this case employ.

Already employees are engaging or starting to engage in social media.  In most cases, the biggest threats come from those that will not let you into their social network.  Social Media demands a proactive approach or a great damage control team and understanding stockholders. The best way to understand what your employees are doing on social media is to be an active participant and take a stake in it.

The Coca-Cola Example:

In 2006, The Coca-Cola Company stated that 71,000 people worked for that company.  Imagine what that means in the way of networks if Coca-Cola Educated, Embraced and Branded their people!

If each employee averaged a modest 100 unique Facebook Friends, that’s a reach of 7,100,000 people that will directly see the company name, product or message at least once, if not on a repetitive basis. Take a minimal assumption that 10% of them may do something that others find worthy of sharing in their networks just once in a month and you just doubled your direct impact to a whopping 14 million direct touches with your brand, product or message.  That’s 14 Million a month based on just one touch. We are more than likely talking about a more realistic value of about 30 Million at least once and most of them more than once. How much would you spend to reach 30 Million people? Remembering you have to do it with someone they know and possibly trust or value.

The influence for the book:

Social Media has transformed the way we do business, “This is a massive socio-economic shift that is fundamentally changing the way consumers and companies communicate and interact with each other”, Erik Qualman (Socialnomics, 2010).

Is this True?

I believe that Erik Qualman is correct. However, what most are missing is that we are still stuck in the entry level courses or just fulfilling our general education requirements and the time to be undecided is at an end.

Companies continue to adjust to the trend that Social Media dictates on how consumers spend. Their reactive state has paralyzed them, and no one has taken a moment to stop, think and produce a proactive campaign or policy.

Social Media 101 was the introduction of Away Messages, Chat rooms and Buddy lists. Social Media in the 200’s was all about the personal networks we build.  Whereas, Social Media 300’s have been a consistent battle to generate ROI for business and balance the separation of personal and professional.

Social Media in the 400’s (Senior Year) will be the race towards the podium. The first to Educate, Embrace and Brand will be the Valedictorian. This senior year has some big potential leaders that are laying the ground work. However,  there’s not a single corporation in that list!

The Preview

This is a part of the conceptual work of my book that will be released in 2011. This post is to introduce the concept and ideas of the power behind Social Media that has yet to be realized by corporations. I specifically target corporations because small business owners all across America are already transitioning into this next stage.  Stating “separation” as the key to a business or professional image is proving everyday in small business to be false.

The Naysayers

Some will be quick to jump at the hesitation of individuals to cross the personal and professional barrier, as much as, the companies they work for. However, social media has already crossed those barriers. For those that wish to continue to try and separate the two on a continual basis, Mark Zuckerberg has already covered that for them. That is why education is the first step in this process. There is no one way to accomplish this goal.  Like fire, we can get burned, but without embracing fire we would be hard pressed to stay warm or protected. Companies, Businesses and Organizations are made of people and now more than ever its harder to hide who we, or they are, it’s just a matter of time.

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