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.

As a function of our partnership with email marketing solutions provider ExactTarget, we’ve been in attendance at the 2010 Partner Summit.

Panel Discussion at ExactTarget Partner Summit 2010

I was only able to attend day two, as I was finishing up some critical work in the office on the first day. But day two had some outstanding sessions and a lot of opportunities to meet and talk with some of the smartest people around.

The highlight for me was the “Best Practices in Building a Professional Service Practice” discussion panel, which featured bright minds like Scott Rhodes of Razorfish and Chris Thornton of Definition 6 among others. The discussion touched on many of the pains and struggles we’re dealing with in growing a small company into an enterprise-level agency.

Morgan Stewart, Director of Research and Strategy at ExactTarget, also gave a great talk about the strengths and weaknesses of various digital communication platforms, either alone or in concert. He presented some good research highlights to illustrate his points.

At the risk of getting a crick in my neck from patting my own back, his session was all old hat to me. It seems like we read the same research and articles. But for many of their smaller business partners I’m sure there was some revelatory information.

As with any conference, it’s not all talking heads and poster sessions. It’s also about some good networking parties, and ExactTarget definitely scored high marks. The day one evening event (which I was able to attend) was a swanky affair at Andretti Autosport. Great food, open bar, and open access to actual race cars. I even introduced myself to Michael Andretti. Great stuff.

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This vendor is solving a problem--no sunglasses. (Image via Wikipedia)

The problem with digital marketing is that of itself it doesn’t solve anything. Without proper planning and identifying goals and objectives, digital marketing is just burning money.

The solution isn’t “We need to be on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.” The solution starts with identifying the business problem you need to solve. A business problem is a living, breathing entity with a mind all its own, and your desired outcome is dependent upon the perceptions and habits of real human beings. As such, problems need to be treated as unique individuals.

• Do you need to own organic search for your vertical?
• Do you need to manage negative sentiment?
• Do you need to increase conversions?

All these come down to winning hearts and minds, but the approaches and platforms required by each are quite different. Without proper strategic planning you’re herding cats.

Ask the best salesperson you know, and they’ll tell you when they really started making money was the day they stopped selling and started helping people solve problems.

Problem solving sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But there are some simple principles you can employ as you develop your strategy that can help.

First, ask yourself if the problem you’ve identified is the right problem to solve. You may look at your e-commerce website’s lackluster conversion numbers and decide that the problem is with your pricing. But before you set about cost-cutting measures to drive down prices, start by looking at the website itself. Is there a clear, prominent call to action like a big “Buy Now!” button? The problem you need to address may be with the site’s user interface.

Second, consider the opportunities that are created by the problem. In the above example, one step you may take to correct the problematic UI is to look more closely at your site analytics. In delving more deeply into these numbers than the mere number of site visits and bounce rate, you may discover a vital demographic or source of traffic of which you were previously unaware. So solving the sales problem may open up new marketing doors.

Above all, stay positive. Digital marketing is ever-evolving. Just as your newly-launched website is never really finished, your marketing priorities continue shift and adjust as you learn more and more about your business and its place in the world.

Had a great time this morning with the Indiana Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s session on “The New Normal”.

I got to present with Slingshot SEO’s Jeremy Dearringer (a genius) and Kevin Bailey (also a genius). Also, Rodger Johnson from YourPRGuy was there, the Global Director of PR from Cook Medical, the head of PR from the NCAA, and several other amazing speakers. Lots of bright folks, I was way out of my league.  : ) Honored to even be in the same room with them.

Wow.

My topic today was the “how” behind social media. I went over several different tools, including one of our favorites at Raidious, Radian6. When I got back to my office, I found an email from Radian6 talking about their new product launch which was very exciting, and which I wrote about over on SocialMediaRisk.com. You should check it out – game changer for large enterprise.

If you were in today’s session and you have more questions for me, please email me or leave a comment. Great audience today, really enjoyed the event. Thanks Hoosier PRSA and Indiana Chamber of Commerce!

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Recently I had the opportunity to present a workshop at the Social Media Bootcamp presented by the Indiana chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. I was asked to give a session called “Blogging 101” targeted at public relations professionals who are transitioning from sending out media releases to generating blog posts for their clients.

Other speakers were: Kristofer Karol, National Sports Journalism Center; Eric Deckers, Pro Blog Services; and Chad Richards, Firebelly Marketing. My particular session was attended by about 40 public relations and communications folks, most of whom were new to the blogging world. It was a bit of a whirlwind session, packing a lot of information into 90 minutes including a hands-on blogging exercise.

If you are a marketing, communications, or PR professional in Indiana and you’re not already a member, I highly suggest looking into it. The Hoosier chapter of the PRSA are smart folks, real movers and shakers.

The Hoosier PRSA Blog has a nice wrap-up, and you can view my slides on Slideshare, but of course it’s not the same as seeing it live and in person.

If your organization is interested in having me out to speak about blogging or other social media topics at your brown-bag luncheon, conference or event, get in touch and we’ll talk about it.

Image courtesy the Matchbook Museum

As the old saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The advent of smartphones has fostered the idea of putting brands in the customer’s pocket.

Or has it?

In my usual puttering around the recesses of the web looking for I-don’t-know-what, I ran across the Matchbook Museum–an online gallery of old promotional matchbooks. For those too young to remember the days when physicians endorsed cigarette brands and everybody smoked (or those who haven’t watched Mad Men), it was common for businesses to give out matchbooks imprinted with their logo and some sort of brand message.

In poking around the Matchbook Museum, I found a brand I recognized: Kroger, a supermarket chain located in the Midwest. Their entry in the canon of carcinogen-inhaling enablement can be found here, encouraging customers to “strike a friendship with Kroger” and promoting their “Top Value” coupon stamps.

The idea behind promotional matchbooks was simple: every time a customer went for a match, they were presented with a company’s logo and a brief marketing message. This constant branding exposure implanted that message in their subconscious, much the way billboards, print ads and other traditional media advertising would. Kroger’s message was more warm and fuzzy than most: “Strike a friendship.” In addition to the clever double-entendre (“Strike.” Matches. Get it?), they were more than just a place to buy groceries: they were your friend.

Fast-forward half a century to a time (right now) when even 10-year-olds on the subway have an iPhone, Blackberry or some other digital communication device glued to their hands. Companies are seeking newer and ever more inventive ways to establish personal relationships with consumers. We even use “friend” as a verb, thanks to social sites like MySpace and Facebook.

Nike has updated this model with their “True City” app, which provides hyper-local, real-time information (currently available in six European cities, presumably with American markets to come). The app essentially competes with services like Yelp with crowdsourced information and recommendations on bars, restaurants, music and more–and of course tries to sell Nike shoes and apparel.

The argument of whether or not users want recommendations from an athletic shoe company on the closest place to get the best martinis is almost irrelevant. What they’re attempting is to connect fans of their products by enabling them to share lifestyle tips with each other. Who better to recommend the best chicken wings in your neighborhood than people who like the same shoes you do?

Again, the idea here is simple: put your brand in a customer’s pocket. Just like a grocery store chain has almost nothing to do with smoking a cigarette or lighting the pilot on your stove, an athletic shoe company is hardly related to attending a DJ night at the local nightspot. But the notion that the company is your ally in making your lifestyle choices and altruistically wants to bring like-minded people together–complete with push notifications–is the real power play.

In short, the technology has changed, but the message is the same. Companies are putting their brand in people’s faces at every available opportunity, and we can look to the past for inspiration in building the future of marketing.

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eMarketer recently published some great research on current trends in marketing spending for social media.

Social Media = Content

According to their report there was a 23% increase in social media spending excluding paid advertising, which is a great sign for a company like ours. What’s even better is they are projecting an additional 35% for this year.

This is a great indicator that marketers get it. In the online space, you can’t buy brand preference, loyalty, awareness or affinity: they must be earned.

That’s not to say paid online advertising doesn’t work; it is very effective if there is a clear call to action, conversion path and great creative. But it is difficult for advertising to accomplish what an authentic, humanistic engagement can accomplish as it relates to hearts and minds.

One of the issues eMarketer brings up is the difficulty in tracking the marketing spend due to the number of different budgets from which it comes. Is it advertising? Not really. Is it PR? Probably not. Is it coming from IT? Nope. The need for resources to drive the socialization of business is the reason we’re here, but we constantly find ourselves working with our clients to help them figure out where the budget should come from.

So what’s the answer? We usually tell clients it should come from their Media budget, as social engagement–while not free–is still much more efficient than a typical offline media buy.

For instance, for about the cost of a week on a mid-market radio station or a single half-page newspaper ad in a mid-tier market, we can proactively manage a brand’s presence across the entire internet.

We make, manage, monitor, moderate and measure the content we create across all your brand’s digital platforms and outposts. Reallocating just a small portion of the offline media budget allows brands to actively participate in and leverage social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, company blogs, websites, email programs, and even mobile devices.

We’d love to tell you more about it: contact us any time. Here is a link to eMarketer’s full report if you have an extra $695 and you’re really interested. In the meantime, ask yourself: where is your social media budget coming from?

UPDATE: I changed the title of this post, because I came up with a better one. Also, there is a discussion we started related to this over on our Facebook Fan Page if you’re interested.

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Back in September, I wrote this post regarding the definitions of Paid Media (what Ad Agencies do), Earned Media(what PR firms do) and Owned Media (what Raidious does).

Recently found this article from Forrester Research, apparently they’ve been looking into this. Good information!

Raidious is purpose built to manage owned media properties for large brands.

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In the past, there were basically two approaches to marketing services: earned media (PR) and paid media (advertising). More recently we’ve seen the rise of owned media.

What’s the difference? It’s mostly about Control.

Earned media: Getting someone else to provide content about you on a media platform they own and control. Also known as Public Relations.

Paid Media: Paying someone to include your message alongside their content, on media they own and control. Also known as Advertising.

Owned Media: Providing your own content on media platforms you own and control.

Raidious deals only with owned media – we help you provide the content for the media platforms you own and control – email, blogs, social media, web video, mobile devices, and more.

UPDATE: Recently found this article from Forrester Research, apparently they’ve been looking into this. Good information.

Monday and Tuesday of this week I had the opportunity to attend the Online Marketing, Media and Advertising global conference (presented by MediaPost) in New York City, a decidedly easy trip from our Brooklyn office.

In addition to attending a number of informative and insightful sessions with industry leaders, the conference was also a great chance to network with other digital marketing professionals.

I brought along the handy Flip Mino HD camera (which sparked as much conversation as did anything else) and did a few impromptu interviews with some of the folks I met. Among the people kind enough to talk on camera were:

• Ginny Musante, Trade Marketing, Entertainment & Devices, Microsoft Advertising
• Gary Klein, Founder/CEO, G. Klein & Associates
• Jennifer Osbon, Founder/CEO, Megaplayer
• Frederick Backman, Director, Media Development, FreeMedia Solutions

Their experiences ran the gamut from entrenched players with long histories to fresh-faced start-ups. Enjoy a small taste of a get-together of some of the sharpest marketing minds from all over the world.

Their goals were varied, but everyone I talked with was acutely aware of the expanding role of the two-way conversation in digital marketing.

(I want to) learn more about how to expand the conversation and turn digital outreach into lead generation that’s meaningful not only for our customers but also beneficial for our team in terms of sales.

– Ginny Musante, Microsoft Advertising