Blah Blah Blah

I never used to be a believer in the adage that “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” I graduated with a degree in education, after all, and now part of my job is conducting client training in digital best practices.

I have officially Changed My Mind, and it’s all the so-called “experts” that led me to do so.

Look, I get it: blog post titles are good linkbait. People like simple, short lists of things they can do immediately. But today I counted no fewer than 50 articles in my Google Reader with headlines beginning with phrases like “3 Easy Steps” or “5 Habits” or “10 Secrets,” all purporting to wield some great knowledge about social media in particular and online content in general.

While I’m sure the pagerank for these blogs is great, and they’re highly trafficked and highly commented leading to an enormous ego stroke for the authors, I’ll let you in on a little secret: They all said the same thing.

Actually, they didn’t, but they all blurred together in an acidic whirl of blah blah blah. My “Technology” folder in Google Reader is starting to look like a classic Ren and Stimpy background.

Because I’m a curmudgeon like that, I’m going to slash all their tires and let you in on the biggest secret of digital media; the secret none of these shaman will tell you, lest their careers, speaking engagements and book deals go the way of the dodo:

Be interesting, relevant, and valuable.

The end. Period. Insert fork.

Yes, you have to monitor and measure and all that jazz. Those are just the tools of the trade and we’ve all got the same bucket of Legos to play with. But if you’re interesting, relevant, and valuable, you’ll see return in spades.

If over time your interesting, relevant, valuable content about your product doesn’t lead to anything, your product probably sucked anyway. Or maybe someone else did it better. Whatever. The point is, a salient reason to keep coming back and keep buying, paired with quality offerings, is the whole shooting match.

Now stop reading so many blogs and start making things interesting (and relevant and valuable).

Two quickies:

Featured Post

My Venture Pad

A post from the Raidious blog is currently featured on the front page of My Venture Pad. Matt’s post “Three Things I’ve Learned Working at a Startup” apparently warranted some attention.

We appreciate the inclusion on a site we read often. It’s always nice to have someone else check out your work and find some value in it. My Venture Pad is a really useful site with lots of great posts and resources for small business and networking.

Raidious Death Wish

BC's Raidious Death Cycle

Our director of platforms, Brian “BC” “Silent T” Conradt, just fulfilled his dream of owning a motorcycle. He promises to wear his helmet.

While we think he’s a little crazy, he did manage to find a bike in Raidious Orange. Now it just needs a logo and a Twitter profile.

That’s all. Happy Friday!

Our CEO and fearless leader Taulbee Jackson always says if you can’t offer a solution, don’t complain about a problem.

As most mothers did, my mother always told me if I couldn’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

My grandmother probably said it best: “If you keep mouthing off like that, a bigger boy’s going to pop you one.”

Perhaps JetBlue was privy to the advice of all three and, in the online flap surrounding the epic bailout of a frustrated flight attendant, chose to say nothing. It was a full two days before the company acknowledged the incident on their blog.

“While we can’t discuss the details of what is an ongoing investigation, plenty of others have already formed opinions on the matter. Like, the entire Internet.”

Zing!

I absolutely loved the humanity behind this post. A little bit of friendly ribbing goes a long way in my book. But the bigger message here was more important:

JetBlue tacitly admitted they couldn’t hope to control the online wildfire, and didn’t plan to try.

The story became bigger than the company itself, and any kind of real-time damage control would come off contrived and defensive.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I don’t think so.

My initial reaction to their silence was to wonder why they didn’t swoop into guardrail mode and turn that internet frown upside down. How about taking the opportunity for a little public give-and-take on airline safety procedures? In keeping with their usual humorous tone, maybe something akin to, “Our flight attendants take the safety demonstrations really seriously.”

I was not alone in this sentiment; the general consensus among social media marketing mavens like Michael Levine and Conor Brady was that JetBlue’s silence was deadly.

But as more details emerged and the story progressed into an investigation and possible legal ramifications, JetBlue showed better instincts than I. They kept it under their hats for a couple of days/news cycles, then laid waste to the room with their clever, brief retort.

With all the social media tools at their disposal, they chose a simple, direct, and wittily self-deprecating approach. Their response showed that just because you have the ability to say something (and say it all over the damn place), that doesn’t mean you should.

Maybe I should’ve paid more heed to my grandmother; it sure seems JetBlue did.

Let me know

What do you think? Was my grandma right? Or did JetBlue just get lucky? Or do you just want to hear more of my grandma’s sage witticisms? Let me hear it in the comments.

Corporate Blogging for Dummies

Run, don’t walk, to your favorite local bookstore and pick up a copy of our good friend Doug Karr’s new book, “Corporate Blogging for Dummies.”

(Okay, you could also click to your favorite online bookseller.)

Trust us, you need this book. And it’s not just because we at Raidious are in the book on pages 126 and 127 (not that we were looking or anything).

Doug, proprietor of DK New Media and the Marketing Tech Blog, is a brilliant and insightful thinker and doer in the field of online marketing. We just got our shipment from Amazon, and we can’t wait to dive in to read all he has to say.

(Full disclosure: Matt Chandler and Ryan Smith of Raidious are contributing writers on Marketing Tech Blog.)

New Raidious Training Service

Matt Chandler

If you’re a smaller business without the resources to hire writers to blog about your services and engage in social media, that’s no reason not to do it yourself.

If you need help getting your blog started, understanding the tricks and techniques of social media, or learning how to use the right tools to accomplish your online marketing goals, Raidious can help.

We offer a variety of seminars and sessions on topics including:

• writing for the web,
• best practices,
• creating a social media marketing plan,
• social media for crisis communications,

and more.

These sessions can be conducted on- or off-site, and are delivered by the personable and engaging Matt Chandler, an emerging thought leader in the field and skilled trainer.

A little about Matt:

• Content Architect and Lead Trainer for Raidious
• background in elementary and secondary education
• over 10 years’ experience managing online content for enterprise organizations including NYU Langone Medical Center and Community Health Network
• member of the Information Architecture Institute and the American Advertising Federation
• guest lecturer for groups including the Public Relations Society of America and Butler University
• featured guest blogger on Social Medial Today and Marketing Tech Blog
• regular guest on Sirius Satellite Radio.

And if you ask nicely he might bring George Benson along with him.

Get in touch with us for more information.

So you are now all set up on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Awesome! Now there is a new network joining the mix, and it has quickly become one of the big ones: Foursquare. What is it? Where is going?

Foursquare is a location-based social networking system that is starting to spread like wildfire. The platform has a ton of possibilities moving forward. Restaurants, bars, and clubs are already on board, posting coupons and incentives for customers to check in at their locations.

Ready to jump on the Foursquare train? Here are a few tips for how to get started:

Start a Foursquare account, and start checking-in on your phone. Let’s be honest, it is a fun network to play around with, and droves of people are starting to use the app in cities both large and small.

Is your business consumer based? Start offering incentives for customers to check-in at your location. I have personally utilized a few free appetizer incentives myself, and I have seen some great retail deals around the local mall. Your customers will see your special offers in a pop up on their screen when they are near your location, so the app helps drive people to your location, or at least prompt them to take a look.

If you are in charge of multiple locations, make sure you log on and claim them. As Foursquare grows, so will the number of people trying to claim businesses that do not belong to them.

Foursquare is still new. Most businesses are still trying to figure out how it can benefit them, but it is a social media tool that millions of people are joining. It can’t hurt to get involved. Like a social media campaign, take time to strategize how you want to utilize the tool, and execute.

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Fan pages are all the rage today for businesses both large and small. My experience has been that personal pages can be just as powerful, and even more so in most cases. The key is finding a balance between your personal life and your business life with your online presence.

Sales people and entrepreneurs have an incredibly powerful tool at their disposal in a platform like Facebook. You can connect to hundreds or even thousands of potential customers, and even make those people active advocates for your cause … if you know how to communicate to them.

You see, people love dogs and kids. Photos of little Sally and Fido playing in the back yard are great for drawing friends, family, and acquaintances to your page, but that’s not going to do much for your business. Following that post up with a post about your new latest and greatest company news can lead to something more profitable.

Balance is the most important part of social media marketing. Everyone hates the sales guy who follows you around the showroom floor. Do not become that guy online.

It says it all right there in the first word, “social” media. In order to communicate effectively, and build relationships online, you have to be social. No one likes the guy that talks shop 24/7.

In order to keep your audience interested, find a balance between your personal content, and promoting your business online.

Last week we had the opportunity to travel to Seattle, WA, to work on a video project for the Finish Line Youth Foundation. We visited Camp Eyabsut (“to rise above anything”), a week-long camp for burn victims between the ages of five and 17 sponsored by the Northwest Burn Foundation. We also spent a day at Neighborhood Bike Works before returning to Indianapolis to talk with folks at Windsor Village Park.

Each of these programs benefits underserved children by providing education, activities and resources designed to increase self-esteem and teach leadership. On the trip were director and content architect Matt Chandler, producer Kindari O’Connor, and director of photography Larry Ladig. Joining us in Seattle was local sound engineer Matt Sheldon.

It was a fantastic trip to say the least. All of the kids were smart and fantastic, and really left an impression on us. Hopefully the work we did–and the final project–will serve to increase the donations to the client’s charitable arm so they can continue to fund great organizations like the ones we talked with.

We managed to shoot some behind-the-scenes footage at Camp Eyabsut.

And then here are some random photos from all three days of shooting.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Every so often I’ll have a client approach me about buying followers on Twitter, or advertising on Facebook. I’m sure there are a few organizations that would benefit from these tactics, but I’ve never been a part of one.

Content draws interest, not the number of subscribers.

It truly does not matter if you have 100 or one million followers. The only thing that matters is that you are creating and communicating your message in a unique way to those who are paying attention. The better the content, the more traffic you are going to generate. Building a huge base with no content just leads to a bunch of people who do not care about what you are saying.

One million followers who do not care about you is worth nothing; 100 followers who will actively advocate for you is priceless.

How do you generate this content? Well, that’s another post. If you are new to the social media business world, start with researching what your competitors are doing. Learn what is working and what is not.

Social media platforms are the ultimate capitalistic form of marketing: open competition for any and all to see what kind of tactics are being used by the competition. The key is understanding what is working and what is not. The one fail-safe in all of this chaos is content.

In this business it is just as important to learn about what others are doing as it is to be working on your own projects. Therefore I am constantly searching platforms and watching how others are developing content.

One of my favorite quotes is from the TV show The West Wing, in which a speech writer says that “good writers borrow from other writers, and great writers just flat out steal from them.”

This could not be more true with social media marketing. Learn what content works, create it, and watch your numbers grow.

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This past Saturday, June 26, we at Raidious celebrated our first anniversary as a company.

The folks at Hirons & Company were kind enough to donate their suite at Victory Field so we could enjoy food, drinks, and some fine baseball courtesy of the Indianapolis Indians.

A good time was had by all. Just watch the video for proof.