Social Media – Page 3

Broadcasting equals less Engagement

January 25, 2011 by Raul Colon

255658719_1113bbdc97_z — Photo Credit: Flickr

Many business accounts are constantly Broadcasting their sales, accomplishments, product features, company news, and anything they can find about themselves that appears to be interesting to them. When people broadcast a message it is mainly to attract the masses not focusing on quality. Something I have found through social media is that the more you broadcast the less interaction you get.

I have outlined the reasons why some twitter business users end up broadcasting and end up with little or no interactions.

Self-Promoting products, services, and company

Many twitter business users that are new to twitter create accounts and immediately start sending messages about there products, services, and other information relevant to company and interests. I have even seen a few that go after users and beg or harass them to follow them.

Most of these users also lack interaction with other users. On the other side they feel that everyone should learn about there company but they don’t take the time to learn about the others. They fail greatly in not looking for the interests of their community and clients.

Sharing Accomplishments

It is human nature to feel you need to be recognized for your accomplishments. A good example of people that want to be recognized are the so called Social Media Experts which share a collection of names such as Guru, Evangelist, Kings, and Queen. One of the terms still up for grabs is “Swami” for those of you who want to make the recommendation to these experts feel free to recommend it to them. They are constantly bragging that they have a certain klout score or have to announce how many followers they just gained. What they don’t realize is that other people take there perspective they really don’t care about how many followers you have they are to worried about their own.

Let other people share your accomplishments you will get better results. If you feel like sharing something find a polite way to share it but don’t bombard your users with your constant accomplishments.

Hoarding Followers

When I started using twitter I confused it with other social networks. I remember when I used ICQ in the late 90’s where my objective was trying to get in contact with as much people possible just to be able to keep multiple conversations all the time.

Twitter is a micro-blogging portal very different from others in social media. It is key that you earn your following and focus on quality of contacts. The more interested your followers are to your tweets the more probable is that they can be advocates of your message or thoughts (and maybe later on your company and services).

Always look for contacts that have things in common. Many people start adding people randomly in hopes to get someone to follow them back. Even if they follow you most people might not even read your tweets. By interacting with the people you have and really taking care of your audience you will start building a community that will be well worth waiting for your follower count to rise organically.

More Attention

There are no many ways to call attention to yourself. But something you need to keep in mind is that you can do it in a negative or a positive way. People that try to hard end up sharing a negative image. When you are using twitter and/or other social media platforms it should be with the purpose of establishing relationships. To increase the opportunities to establish those relationships you should do a great job at projecting a clean and positive image.

If you need some help on getting attention to attract clients in a positive way @jimkukral’sAttention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue.

In what ways do you interact with your online communities?

How are you going to increase interaction and eliminate Broadcasting?

Social Media for Digital Artists

January 24, 2011 by Raul Colon

Guest Post by : @ricklipsett

Some time ago, my friend Joseph Garrahan told me that we should create a blog for our Digital Artists Collective: UNDOdigital. At the time I was somewhat unaware of the potential that Social Media had. I had a personal page in Facebook, and one in Myspace for UNDOdigital (which I almost never updated) but that was about it. I did not realize that Social Media could have such a positive impact (if managed well) on our Artists Collective.

Today, I can honestly say that social media works. After we created the blog, and posted a few articles, I was afraid that no one was reading. Our message was getting nowhere. The few that knew us were the only ones reading. I wanted to make sure more people knew what we were up to, so after much inner-battles, I opened up a Twitter account.

The rest came soon afterwards. As I write this, our Twitter @UNDODigital has 263 followers, our Facebook Page (Facebook.com/UNDOdigital) page shows 202 likes, plus the RSS followers of the blog (35), casual visitors, etc… I know that some of our Twitter followers also follow us on Facebook, but not all. Actually the majority of our Facebook fans are NOT on Twitter. This is without counting our YouTube followers or the people who have listened to our podcasts on Audiofarm(Audiofarm.org/UNDOdigital).

All this can be really overwhelming, I’m the first one to say it. It’s a full time job to keep up with all social media channels. I mean, not only do we add content to the blog, but we follow up through social media, email, word-of-mouth, etc…

By now, the usual person asks me: Is it worth it? What’s in it for you? Well, UNDOdigital is on its way to becoming Puerto Rico’s only/leading front for Digital Art. The more people we reach through our efforts, the closer that goal gets. Let’s say we wanted to invite people to one of our Art Shows. Normally, or rather, traditionally we would invest in some flyers and/or invitations. A catalog would also be on the works as well as many other print media to let people know of the event. We now, don’t have to kill a forest to let people know of us. Through our social sites, at the very least, 500 people (and counting) will know of it. Social media works by word-of-mouth, so you can be sure, many will re-tweet, re-send, forward, etc, etc…

Also if, say a few of our followers need to know something art-related, is more than likely that they will reach any of our 4 writers and start a conversation on the blog, or via any of the other social websites we participate in. This helps in posturing UNDOdigital as a knowledgeable community in our area of expertise: Art.

At first, we envisioned these efforts only to promote our shows. In the long run, we’ve seen how we can do more good, by promoting artists from our group and out of it, cultural/art related events, we share trends, give out wallpapers, talk about art topics, start discussions, interview artists, and so on. I guess you could say that we got in sync with what Social Media really is by accident, but we got there. We now, share like crazy.

Results. That is what you must be thinking now. Well internet is a very analytical medium. We, at UNDOdigital, know how many people have visited us, from where, which browser they use, which connection speed they use, how many links they clicked, which posts are they’re favorites, how many time our tweets have been clicked, and more. We have and know it all. This gives us complete control over what we achieve with these sites. Of course all of this is long term. After all, Social sites are like dating. And dating is a process.

About the Author

Rick Lipsett – http://www.ricklipsett.com is an Illustrator/Graphic Designer/Digital Artist. Co-Founder of UNDOdigital; Puertorican Digital Artists Community. Fan of blogs, social networks and Del Eses(http://myspace.com/deleses). You may find him on Twitter as: @ricklipsett.

Weekly Useful Blog Posts

January 23, 2011 by Raul Colon

I found these posts very interesting and would like to share them with you.

3 Ways to Capitalize on the Opportunity Economy – @ambercadabra Author of Now RevolutionThe NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social (amazon affiliate link) gives tips on communicating to potential customers and engaging with them via geo-location, questions, and customer interests.

MY FAVORITE QUESTION – @webby2001 does a great job by giving every brand manager, employee, business owner, or anyone involved in a company a great question.

“If [brand in question] were to go away tomorrow – to die (and I like to say ‘die,’ btw), and you had to deliver its eulogy, what would you say missed the most? What would make you genuinely sad?”

I think this question can be very useful for everyone that is trying to define where their brand is placed and get a better picture of what they do.

The New About Us Page Is a Social Beast – @ducttape author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide (amazon affiliate link) give some great ideas on how to create, edit, and/or enhance your about us page. Mentions a few tools that will make anyone’s About Us page very useful.

5 Reasons Why Homemade Onion Rings Are Like Original Content? – I am not the most objective on this one but I get asked on many occasions if it is ok to use other people’s content on your blog for business. I guess it could have not explained it better based on my interpretation of the book by @cc_chapman & @MarketingProfs Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)

9 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Apps for Small Business

Did you find any other posts that might be useful to our community?

A Corporations 1st Line of Defense in Social Media

January 21, 2011 by Raul Colon

Many companies are not familiar with the many risks Social Media present big and large companies. Last year I created a presentation on Corporate Social Media Guidelines and how to mitigate risks.

One of the topics where I have not seen any improvement has been in seeing policies and procedures revised to reflect better the current risks that every company is facing.

Like most companies when it comes to policies they create them to keep the auditor or regulators happy. However being an IT Auditor many years and still holding the Certified Information Systems Auditor “CISA” Certification to serve to a few long term clients I have seen how many companies can get away with it.

Regarding policies around Social Media I see how every day more companies have their hands tied when they are confronted with an employee or company representative misuses Social Media.

Many Social Media Policies

The first thing you have to understand before creating a First Line of Defense with Social Media is the concept of the multiple policies that need to be created to integrate with your environment. A list of the multiple policies that should be part of your 1st Line of Defense which I found at Social Media Explorer :

Employee Code of Conduct for

Online Communications
Company Representation in Online Communications

Employee

Blogging Disclosure Policy
Facebook Usage Policy
Personal Blog Policy
Personal Social Network Policy
Personal Twitter Policy
LinkedIn Policy

Corporate

Blogging Policy
Blog Use Policy
Blog Post Approval Process
Blog Commenting Policy
Facebook Brand Page Usage Policy
Facebook Public Comment/Messaging Policy
Twitter Account Policy
YouTube Policy
YouTube Public Comment Policy

Company Password Policy

I hope this list can serve as a guide for many and can be elaborated. I will be touching each and every policy in the next few posts so there can be more detail.

Is there one set of policies you have questions with?

Do you know of other policies you might need or have created?

A "Monster" Brand

January 19, 2011 by Raul Colon

Guest post by Dwight Santana (@slayerkun)

If you havent heard of Lady Gaga by now, you are living under a rock. This pop-star in the last Year has escalated into being one of the music industry’s most important celebrities. From the eyes of manyLady Gaga has exceeded their expectations.

Her first album, The Fame, is the best-selling debut album of 2009. Her single Just Dance has been viewed 87 million times on YouTube. Gaga’s tracks have clocked 20 million downloads this year. Poker Face, is the most downloaded track in the history of U.K. digital music.

With that stated, I’m no interested in giving you Lady Gaga’s background, I want to define what a “Monster” in Marketing she is.

After seeing footage and analyzing many of the stunts she gets away with, its necesary to remark that Lady Gaga directs and envisions every step of her life and career, before it is executed. Her understanding of marketing integrates well with her form of doing things making her effective in social media channels . A good example is the dress she used for the 2010 VMA Awards the infamous meat dress, she might have made it look conservative , but in reality she was literally wearing a meat dress. The meat dress became a #trending Topic online and generated a lot of buzz.

We also see why in 2010, 11,500 mainstream media articles mentioned her. This is impresive considering that she is still consider a new artist to many.

Her marketing is fueled by her fans, which have decided to fall in line with what she represents. Her fans or “Little Monsters” are responsible for carrying her brand. Last year in november Gaga posted a link to one of her own videos on fashion icon Alexander McQueen’s Web site.After a single tweet by Gaga, her rabid fans streamed in and crashed the site’s servers. Not many brands can acquire this influence over it’s fans in such a short period of time. Lady Gaga has manage to prove other that it can be done.

Her maketing translates into pure harvested loyalty, a few examples of how she does this are:

a) Give fans a name. Gaga actually doesn’t like the word fan so she calls them “little monsters” after her debut album “The Fame Monster” this way fans have a way to relate to each other, and feel special, like joining an exclusive club.

b) Making it something bigger than herself. Last year during a Tour, in the middle of a concert she stopped everything and recited a “Manifesto of Little Monsters” many of the fans see this as a dedication getting the point across that she is there because of them.

c) Establishing a connection. She connects with her “Little Monsters” with a signature stretch out “monster hand claw” its also the Little Monsters greeting.

d) She puts the spotlight on her fans making them feel like rock stars, one of the things she does on tour is to call a fan in the audience during the show, the fan screams out then cameras focus on him, and after being on the big screen, she invites him to have a drink after the show.

e) Social Media Influence , right now Gaga has around 7.5 million followers on her Twitter account and countless more on her requisite Facebook Page. She shares her personal life and connects with her fans, she tweeted before opening the Grammy Awards. She has also tweeted to her fans , about buying them pizza, for staying all night at line waiting for an alum signing.

These things show a good understanding in marketing. One great example is how she does not allow professional photographers to her concerts, but her fans are allow to capture pictures, and video so they can later upload via youtube. In my opinion that is just brilliant.

For the moment Gaga’s staying power is yet to be seen. But she is making a Tsunami in the music business, and showing a few the power of fandom, and how to sculpt a successful brand.

What other brands can we compare to Lady Gaga?

What can you do to get closer to your clients or fan base that would be unique to them?