WELL PLAYED: LANGUAGE THAT RETAINS LEADS
Eric and I are both acquaintances of Brian Massey, the Austin-based e-mail marketing expert who bills himself as The Conversion Scientist. Since we met at PubCon, I’d received email updates from him. It had been a while since I’d gotten any conversion tips from Brian, but I just figured he was busy.
One day, Brian sends out an update noting his absence:
This summer I’ve generated some of the best content ever on the things that make business websites generate more leads and sales… it’s just been a great summer. Through writing, audio and video, I’ve laid out some of my most useful and actionable work, all of it online and all of it open to everyone.
The problem is, I didn’t tell you about it. I haven’t sent out an email all summer.
That was September 7. Brian soon rectified this situation in a big way- I was getting something new from Brian nearly every day, and it was making me crazy. I had to say something, so I hit him up on Twitter.
He responded with concern:
We chatted back and forth for awhile, I assured him it wasn’t the quality of the content, but the frequency of the emails that was bothering me.
And then, the master stroke:
Sliiiiick. Super slick. Because my gut reaction to this tweet took me from being crabby about getting too much of a good thing to saying “whoa there. I’m on the what? I don’t want to quit being special.” I wanted to stay on the -personal- list. Who cares how many people are on it, it’s the -personal- list, and I want to be on it. With one phrase, I felt like an insider. Why would I want to defect to the weekly email when I’m on the good list? The one that must get the best, most timely information, otherwise why even have a special, personal list? That settles it, I am gonna stay on that list and that is THAT.
I’d forgotten about all the email; it wasn’t about email anymore- I felt valued, and I wanted to stay that way. It wasn’t until the next day or so that it really sunk in how precise and effortless the language was there- Brian retained a potential lead with one well-crafted sentence. It’s a trick he’s employed more than once- a recent email about an upcoming conference where he’d be speaking included the line “I’m not supposed to share [a discount code], but, hey, you are a personal acquaintance.” “Acquaintance” sounds professional, but “personal” adds warmth without being phony- a far better option than acting like the members of your mailing list are your buddies. Brian Massey, through his actions, taught me a powerful lesson in captivating an audience and retaining a lead.
Well played, Brian. Well played.
IS AUTOMATION BLACK HAT SEO?
Is automation Black Hat SEO? well I will let you decide. But this is a great interview with social media expert Giovanni Gallucci and Dallas social media speaker J.R. Atkins. Just a FYI: Globe Runner SEO does not condone or employ black hat practices for their clients. Sites that employ black hat SEO techniques have been known to be penalized by Google, even de-listed, so proceed with caution.
Transcription
JR: Hey this is JR Atkins we’re at OpenCamp today and I’m with Giovanni Gallucci and Gio’s gonna give us a few tips that he mentioned in his talk this morning that were three sites that we might find useful in a black hat-oriented SEO
Gio: oh it’s so not black hat…..it’s blackhat.
JR: So tell us like…Tube Toolbox
Gio: Yeah so actually these are applications that, if you go to tubetoolbox.com you can download this application and basically tube toolbox is a swiss army knife for YouTube. It allows you to go in and find videos similar to the videos you have, find users who find those videos and comment on them, it allows you also to go in and do messaging in bulk instead of going in one at a time for messaging with people so there’s so much stuff that this thing does, I mean I literally use this tool every single day on several machines for different clients so like I said in there, if you’re not doing video, I don’t know why you’re not doing video and you can figure out a way to integrate video not matter what your business is, and you’ve gotta get out there and get smart and use tools like Tube Toolbox that make your life so much easier. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get through that learning curve it makes your life so much easier with online video.
JR: Next one was Bookmarking Demon.
Gio: Bookmarking Demon is similar to Tube toolbox but it’s for Social Bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious and StumbleUpon, Mixx and things like that. You go and plug in all your usernames and passwords for yourself, if you have employees that are part of your social media campaign or other affiliates that you work with, you plug in all their authentication information and then you go in and create a list of your search engine optimized titles and descriptions and links for the things you want to promote, you click a button and walk away and bookmarking demon will randomly go through and bookmark these sites for you. The reason why this stuff is so important is that these let you stay within the terms of service of the platforms you’re working with, and it also looks more natural than if you just sat down for 40 minutes bookmarking all these sites. It looks spammy so it’s really important that you’re using something that runs in the background and waits three minutes and updates something then waits eight minutes then updates something because then the platforms don’t get angry with you for just overloading their system all at once and it sits there and does that work for you while you’re off doing other things so you’re billing here, billing there.
JR: OK, last one was TweetAdder.
Gio: same thing, guess what? for twitter! The biggest thing I use Tweetadder for is to look for local users on twitter- I work with a lot of hyperlocal businesses like onehere is youplusdallas.com and we really focus on people in the dallas/ft. worth area that’re looking for things like entertainment and nightlife and restaurants and things like that so I’ll go on TweetAdder, look for names and look for keywords I wanna search on but putting in a zip code to only find people within 50 miles of the central business district in dallas. Then I can take those people, add them to the company account instead of going out there and randomly following anyone on Twitter talking about sushi and then you find out that 90% of your users are in Canada or outside the state of Texas, where we’re at right now, TweetAdder is another one of those tools that allows you to be really efficient, really focused and a lot cleaner about the way you go and do marketing because before these tools were around you kinda went out there and you threw whatever you could against the wall and would walk away, and that’s not good for anybody, it’s a waste of time for your clients, a waste of time for you as a specialist and for the users that are getting messages that aren’t targeted so it’s a waste of their time. You need to go in there and invest in these tools so when someone in dallas mentions a restaurant in dallas and they get something from us they’re like “oh theres an association there, maybe i actually want to follow them” and not some mechanic up in canada who’s complaining about a bad hamburger that he just went and ate.
JR: Well thank you for your time I know all these are $100 or less and if you want more go to GlobeRunnerSEO.com we’ll keep the videos coming.
SECRETS OF SEO TRAFFIC FROM YELP
I got to attend OpenCamp this weekend- a conference in Addison dedicated to developers, bloggers, Social Media and all things internet. Of course it’s always great to share knowledge with like-minded professionals, but I would have to say one of the highlights of the conference was talking to Nikki Bonds, aka Yelper Nikkanore and Yelp Employee Extraordinaire, who writes the Dallas Weekly Yelp Newsletter. I love the newsletter because every week there’s a new subject- the last one was about who has the best potatoes in town– but Nikki herself combs through all the listings on Yelp to find the best companies to showcase in the email. So of course I had to ask- how does a business find its way into the inboxes of thousands of DFW Yelp members?
Nikki works with a different theme each week, but some repeat- for example, in the past there’s been “spa week” and “drinks week” that come back from year to year. But Nikki goes for both mainstream choices and destinations off the beaten path, so don’t be concerned that your mom & pop operation won’t find its audience. Make yourself easy to find with great descriptions including key words and terms.
The main thing is to have a fully fleshed-out profile- Nikki looks for profiles with correct, complete information about the venue, quality pictures, and good reviews. So taking the time to really complete a business’s Yelp profile and encourage your patrons to post reviews can pay off in big traffic increases when Yelp takes note. So go ahead and Yelp away!
WELL PLAYED: OLD SPICE AND THE SCENT OF SUCCESS
I can’t refresh my Twhirl/Tweetdeck/Twhatever without seeing people rave about Old Spice today.
My favorite commercials as of late have been the Old Spice “Man your man could smell like” ads, starring Isaiah Mustafa as The Old Spice Man. And he’s the BEST.
The ads are hilarious and great on their own, but today Old Spice started filming Isaiah responding to YouTube commenters, celebrities, Twitter followers and prominent bloggers with individual videos, all of them around 30 seconds apiece. Some of the best:
So many things work about the video series- the Old Spice guy is consistently funny, the writing is snappy, he’s not hard to look at, etc. But let’s talk about efficiency here- Old Spice is uploading a new video response from the Old Spice guy a few times an hour. Same guy, same background, every time. Really, it’s only limited by the time it takes to find a question, craft a witty response, and record an acceptable take. With preparation, you could create dozens of these videos in a day. Less than a day. Old Spice Man made a response video to a tweet from Lisa Barone within a matter of hours. That’s efficiency. That’s brilliant marketing.
By creating these individual responses, they’ve come up with the viral ad version of microblogging. It’s taking a public conversation and making it a party line. These videos have made Old Spice the most-viewed YouTube channel today AND the #4 most-subscribed channel of all time. Before this campaign, Old Spice was just my grandfather’s brand. Now they’ve come roaring back to relevance in a big way, and our belly laughs are all the better for it.
Well played, Old Spice. Well played
Getting Work In The Field Of Social Media
Do you know anyone who actually gets paid to update Facebook, Twitter and write a blog? Mindy Smith does. She works for David Hira, a professional speaker and magic entertainer. How did she find this fun job? That’s right, on Facebook. If you are looking for a job, read on to find out how you can follow in Mindy’s footsteps.
Looking for a “real job”
Though Mindy holds a degree in Sports Marketing from Texas Wesleyan University, like many recent college graduates, after graduation she continued to work at her college job, waiting tables.
In her spare time, Mindy looked for a “real job” on sites like Monster, Career Builder and Yahoo jobs. She also submitted her resumé to company sites even if they weren’t hiring. She mostly searched online, but did place a few phone calls to local businesses as well. Then she saw the posting on Facebook.
Mindy was connected to David Hira on Facebook. An accomplished corporate motivational speaker, David uses magic in his presentations, and belongs to the same magic club as Mindy’s dad—thus the connection. One day David commented that he was so busy he needed a second assistant. Mindy sent David her resumé, and let him know she could help him with marketing. After a conversation where Mindy also promoted her accounting experience and mentioned that she could use social media to market David’s business, the two began their working relationship.
Helping an Entrepreneur Utilize Social Media Marketing
Since David’s business is derived from word of mouth and referrals, social media is a perfect medium to encourage new business and communicate with clients. Though David is in the “over 40 crowd”, he has embraced social media as a communication tool and uses it very effectively. When Mindy began work, David already had a Facebook and Twitter account, but was mainly communicating with friends and fellow magicians. He wanted Mindy to move his social media usage from the “friends and family” mode into “social media marketing” in order to grow his business and improve customer service.
Blogging
Mindy now helps David to use social media more effectively. She’s encouraged him in writing his blog posts, explaining that his posts need to be from him (not her), in his words, should represent his ideas, and do not have to be fantastic as much as genuine. She’s also let him know he is not alone; she can help. As an example, when David is in a meeting, he can make a few notes on his iPhone and send them to Mindy, who can develop them into an article for the blog, newsletter, or both. This “back and forth” allows David to focus on the message and Mindy to focus on the tools, which include WordPress for the blog.
David has a Facebook account for personal use and another one for business, with quite a bit of crossover between the two. Though David does most of the updating needed, Mindy helps by suggesting content and recommending friends who can help build his fan base. Check out David Hira, Magician and Keynote Speaker.
David and Mindy are building a Twitter network of people, including people who know David well and audience members who have heard him speak. When David gets a new follower, Mindy makes sure to respond and see if David should follow the person, too. She also does a lot of searching and listening on Twitter and connecting with meeting and event planners.
To keep organized and on top of content, Mindy uses TweetDeck with the following columns: Motivational Speaker, Inspirational Speaker, Corporate Speaker, Direct Messages, and Mentions. Mindy and David keep Twitter fresh by posting David’s favorite quotes and “trash talking” with other magicians (which once led to a cook off in Austin due to the boasting between David and friends).
YouTube
Since David is an entertainer and keynote speaker, it’s natural that he would use video for promotion. It’s a wonderful medium for visitors to sample his work. “If you are a meeting planner, you can click on the ‘YouTube’ icon and see a quick video before contacting us about a booking,” says Mindy.
Flickr
Besides posting pictures on FaceBook, Mindy has added a Flickr account. She says, “Flickr has grown as an accepted place to search for pictures of keynote speakers and entertainers. To be effective in marketing, you have to go where your customer is.”
Newsletter
You may not think of a printed newsletter as social media, but the content in David’s newsletter ties in with the blog posts and updates on Facebook and Twitter. His newsletter formula for success consists of feature articles, favorite recipes, business recommendations, and business tips. By referencing the electronic version of the newsletter on the company website, David and Mindy extend the usefulness of the newsletter, and tie in to social media.
A great team
David and Mindy make a great team, blending the experience of an entertainer and speaker with the enthusiasm and social media awareness of a recent college graduate. By hiring youth and matching it with experience, they’ve come up with a winning combination. Whether you’re looking for a job, or looking for a way to leverage social media for your business, you’d do well to follow their example.
WELL PLAYED: HOBBY LOBBY STREAMLINES MOBILE COUPONS
In this economy, coupons are coming back in a big way- popular websites like LivingSocial and Groupon offer one-day-only savings on things like spa packages, restaurants and tourist adventures, and iPhone app Yowza!! offers mobile coupons based on your location for stores like The Finish Line, Pier 1 Imports, and The Container Store. But it’s a hassle to get coupons in your email, then print them, then remember them when you go out, then remember them at the point of purchase. Groupon now offers an iPhone app, but you still have to buy the coupon to use it, thereby adding steps between downloading the coupon and making a purchase. Yowza!! coupons can only be used once or twice, unless it’s a department or store-wide discount, which would be available to everyone without a coupon, so what was the point?
Hobby Lobby, on the other hand, offers coupons directly from their mobile site. Since it only takes a four-digit code to get the discount, it’s unnecessary to print out the coupon before going to the store so purchasing decisions can be made on the fly. Plus, the coupon can be used several times, meaning people can go back to the store over and over again, increasing the likelihood of repeat purchases and improving customer retention. People can effortlessly bookmark the site into their mobile browser and keep checking back to see what new coupon is offered.
The website also offers their weekly sales flyer and geolocation, thereby streamlining the process from identifying the need to purchasing the product. There are very few steps between accessing the coupon, finding a way to use the coupon, and then making the purchase. It’s a well-designed system that ensures ease of use for the consumer and, thankfully, for the cashiers. There’s nothing to scan, no app to download. Hobby Lobby’s mobile coupons are easy to use, and offer significant savings with just a scroll of a thumb. Other retail outlets, especially coupon-friendly establishments such as grocery stores, would do well to mimic their system.
Well played, Hobby Lobby. Well played.
WELL PLAYED: REAL THREAD T-SHIRTS AND VIDEO DONE RIGHT
This is the first in a series of blog posts where we showcase companies doing great work with social marketing.
It’s not everyday you see truly educational material on YouTube, and I wasn’t expecting as much when I was researching screenprinting techniques, but when I came across video content from Orlando-based t-shirt printers Real Thread I was completely hooked on their content.
Real Thread prides themselves on being eco-friendly, using water-based printing methods. In a world where it’s cool to be green, one can easily set themselves apart by showing their commitment to environmentally sound business practices rather than merely talking about them. For example, their videos educating consumers about the differences between water-based and plastisol ink are highly informative, and the way they’ve demonstrated their discharge-print process shows their quality print techniques quickly and effectively.
Aside from being totally fascinating to fashionistas, their videos are well-edited and concise. They’ve taken complicated printing processes and condensed them into fun, informational clips that can be repurposed not only for sales, case studies and branding, but education too.
Take notes from Real Thread on how to create interesting and relevant video for your audience, but make sure to embed video content on your website rather than send them directly to YouTube for more effective conversions. High-quality video + a simple path to your company’s contact information = your business moving forward.
Well played, Real Thread. Well played.
NAVIGATING THE SPILL- WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM BP’S BLUNDERS
The news about BP’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been a hot topic since the Deep Horizon explosion on April 20th. The initial hope that BP would cap the gusher, which is spewing an estimated 12,000 to 150,000 gallons of crude into the ocean every day, has since faded. The ‘Top Kill’ effort failed. Every day brings new images of oily seagulls and tarballs on our beaches.
People started getting angry, and whether it was just BP executives being out of touch with social media or just holding their hands over their eyes until it’s over, the headlines about BP executives’ gaffes inundated Twitter: between BP CEO Tony Heyward saying he “wants his life back” rather than having to deal with the spill or BP Rep Randy Prescott saying “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp”, the satirical hashtag #bpcares has trended consistently, tacked on to people’s angry or sarcastic tweets about the oil spill or BP’s insufficient response.
The ringleader of these efforts seems to be “Leroy Stick”, the creator of the @BPGlobalPR parody twitter account. With 135,000 followers, @BPGlobalPR’s tweets are retweeted and favorited hundreds of times.
Selected works:
“The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct. #bpcares ”
“Safety is our primary concern. Well, profits, then safety. Oh, no- profits, image, then safety, but still- it’s right up there.”
“Please do NOT take or clean any oil you find on the beach. That is the property of British Petroleum and we WILL sue you.”
BP has tried to shut down this Twitter account, which sparked an outrage that Twitter described succinctly with a widely-retweeted quote from comedian Jimmy Fallon: “BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean.”
As Stick put it in his press release,
I’ve read a bunch of articles and blogs about this whole situation by publicists and marketing folk wondering what BP should do to save their brand from @BPGlobalPR. First of all, who cares? Second of all, what kind of business are you in? I’m trashing a company that is literally trashing the ocean, and these idiots are trying to figure out how to protect that company?….
Do you want to know what BP should do about me? Do you want to know what their PR strategy should be? They should fire everyone in their joke of a PR department, starting with all-star Anne Womack-Kolto and focus on actually fixing the problems at hand. Honestly, Cheney’s publicist? That’s too easy.
As a social media enthusiast, I have to agree with Stick. If you want to manage your PR online, trying to destroy other people’s dissent only creates more dissent. Twitter should be used for crowdsourcing public opinion of your brand, the rapid dissemination of company news, and engaging with your audience. One look at the real BP Twitter Account reveals one reply, and several RTs of tweets from government response initiatives, but no conversation. No outreach. No attempts to answer the angry or comfort the afflicted. BP is missing an opportunity here to polish their public image here simply by being transparent. People cry out because they want to be heard. If BP’s Public Relations team really used their Twitter account to engage, even with only 11,000 followers- if they made those 11,000 followers feel like they were listening, then millions more would listen too.
If BP wants to turn the tide of Twitter rage, they need to engage. As it stands, their reputation (and our ocean) may be an oily mess for years to come.
HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR NETWORKING
In the video, Eric goes over how to use Social media as part of your sales pipeline.
Transcription
Hi it’s Eric McGehearty with Globe Runner SEO today and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how to use social media for networking.Now, one thing I think is really critical is if you meet someone in person, how do you maximize that relationship? Social media is not just about online communication, it’s about developing relationships. So, here at Globe Runner SEO we actually offer social media training and we also offer social media sales training. I just wanted to show you a really brief overview of some of the concepts that a sales person could use for social media or a business owner could use their social media connections and how to maximize that relationship.
So let’s just go through them, I’ve drawn them out real quick, real, real simple. You meet someone in person. So, you meet, maybe you talk on the phone, maybe you meet them at a networking event, whatever it is. You meet, you connect, and generally for a business to business relationship I would recommend a LinkedIn connection. So you meet, connect, and then that’s going to lead you over here to communicate. So, meet, connect, communicate. Communicate through that LinkedIn connection, that’s going to lead them to your website, your blog, your twitter account, etc.
There are many, many more opportunities, maybe a Flickr account. All of those different opportunities to display your business, maybe a Powerpoint presentation on your LinkedIn account to display your concepts, what you do, and what you offer. So you meet, you connect, you communicate and now your potential understands what your business does and now they see you as more of a person because they get to read your background, your bio, your story and maybe see a link to your Facebook page and get to see your family a little bit.
They have now met you in person, they know a little bit about your background, and they know a little bit more about the proposition you are offering. Then you reach out to them again and your reconnect with them, hopefully in person again, or through online communication, email, etc. and eventually that will lead to a return be it a sale, a referral, a reputation build, or just an opportunity.
It could be a job opportunity, a business partnership or a business development opportunity.
So the general concept is that that first meeting, if it stays here, the odds of you guys maintaining that relationship are slim to none. If you can keep that relationship going and this process right here might be a process over a long period of time, but if you can keep that relationship going, through a social media connection, this is one of the best ways to stay up to date with your people.Now one thing that is great about once you’re connected on LinkedIn, if you are constantly updating your status with relevant, interesting information, then that status is going to feed out to all of your connections. So all of the people you meet in person are going to repeatedly see little notes from you and that is going to keep you on their minds. So when they do have a referral, they will remember you and not some other guy who didn’t connect with them. So that’s the value of social media, particularly in a networking situation. Really think about how to maximize these really big opportunities and they are really simple to do.
So if you’ve got your LinkedIn profile, make sure you have places to lead your potential customer to give them that info they need to have to understand your value proposition and then you can reconnect with them to lead to a sale, referral, reputation build, or business opportunity. Thanks so much, this was Eric McGehearty with Globe Runner SEO for more always visit our website at GlobeRunnerSEO.com. Thanks!