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!
BLOGGING YOUR BRAND: ARE YOU POSTING ENOUGH?
Whenever I work with a company who complains that they don’t get enough traffic, my first question is “How often do you post?” Because if it’s not at least once a week, then you’re not posting enough. No one routinely checks websites that never change. If you establish a pattern of new content cropping up every week (more than that is even better), people will learn to check your blog more often, bringing you more traffic. Keep it somewhat unpredictable though, that way you keep your readers on their toes.
If you don’t know what to write, look through your inbox. Do you consistently get the same questions over and over about a particular product or service from your customers? Your blog is a perfect place to spotlight that with an informative and useful post. Take a look at your analytics: does one of your main keywords need a rankings boost? Create a blog post with optimized links and anchor text back to your website. If you have an interesting take on a current event related to your industry (i.e. a software company’s opinion on the iPad) that’s a great topic too. You have a lot to say, but you may not have considered blogging as a marketing/PR channel for your brand. That should change.
If you simply haven’t got the time each week to sit down and blog, consider writing a few posts in one sitting and then using your Content Management System (what you use to manage your self-hosted blog, but we’ll get to that) to schedule the posts and stagger out the days they actually publish. That way your readers keep coming back all month long for new content, even if it only took you one morning’s work. If you’re just not the writing type, consider an audio podcast or video blog/vlog. These mediums can be used to great effect and can easily go viral if the content behind them is solid. Get creative! Post consistently on your company blog and new visitors and potential clients are sure to come your way.
BLOGGING YOUR BRAND, PART 1: WHY BOTHER BLOGGING?
One of the easiest ways for your company to enter the social media sphere is through establishing and maintaining a company blog. This is an excellent communication channel between you and your customers, your investors, or the general public. In a rapidly shrinking world, thought leadership is the most important product you have. With a company blog, you control the tone, topics, and style of your company’s voice online in a way you can’t with a third-party site like Facebook or Twitter, an important consideration for image-conscious industries like law and finance.
While they require regular attention, don’t be intimidated by starting a company blog. A good post should be about 250 words, and in that short span of text you have opportunities for optimized links for SEO, viral content possibilities for Social Media, and new material for increased traffic. Blogging adds humanity to an otherwise stuffy, static corporate website, and generates goodwill toward your brand because readers connect with your company.
Google loves blogs. In an effort to provide users with the best search results Google will often rank blog posts and news articles higher, equating their time-sensitive nature with having the most relevant and up-to-date information. If you write more, Google will notice and index your site more often, improving your rankings. There are so many benefits to starting a blog that the effort to maintain it should only be a minor consideration. However, social media is a marriage, so be prepared to stick with your blog once you start.
This series will look at how you can start your corporate blog, but will also incorporate tips to improve current corporate blogs and hopefully answer some questions you might have about your own company blog. If you have a question you’d like covered, please feel free to contact us.
GEO-TARGETED SOCIAL MEDIA
If Twitter was the social media platform of 2009, Foursquare may very well be the social media platform of 2010. It hasn’t quite hit its tipping point yet, but I’m predicting that 2010 is going to be the year of geo-targeted social media.
What is geo-targeted social media?
When you use this new type of social media, it factors your current location into a social media platform. As with other platforms, you develop a network of friends, but in this situation, your location plays a large part in your interaction. The probable leader in this field, Foursquare, is primarily used on the iPhone or other smart phone device. Foursquare notes your current location, and then displays nearby businesses. You can then “check in” to those businesses, earning points and badges, especially if your friends have recently visited those locations as well.
You can use geo-targeted social media to develop a large network of friends who enjoy the same sort of location and activities. When you walk into a coffee shop, for instance, you can see which of your friends have been to this coffee shop recently. You can find out which visitors frequent the shop, even if they aren’t your friends — yet. You may learn that someone likes the same coffee shops, clubs, bars, etc., and request to become friends. If you are in a new city, you can look up nearby places recommended by your friends. You can even play games, such as treasure hunts, by going to different locations that your friends have marked or suggested. All and all, the concept is to utilize your location in your social interactions.
How does this relate to your business?
Using geo-targeted social media, businesses can set up different rewards or incentives for customers to come to their locations. Consider this scenario: A Foursquare user checks their account on their phone, and sees that your business is nearby. Then they notice that you’ve given them a special incentive to visit, be it an in-store discount or a badge on Foursquare or other geo-targeted platform. You’ve just plugged into their social life, and most likely gained a visitor. It’s exciting and fun for the user, and a great opportunity for businesses to interact directly with potential customers nearby!