Archive for November, 2008
Ask the Social Media Guy: Explain Twitter
Friday, November 28th, 2008Q:
What the heck am I supposed to do on Twitter?
A:
Answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. That would be the obvious reply, but I can tell you’re looking for a little more than that.
Start out by posting a few things: links to things you find interesting or relevant (use tinyurl.com). Make sure your profile is complete, and definitely include a link in your bio so others can get an idea of who you are. Once you’ve set up the basics, start following people you find interesting, or who’d you’d like to keep in touch with.
Then talk to them. They might help you find your next spouse, job, favorite pizza place, or BFF. You can even scoop the traditional media on breaking news stories—use twitter search and look up #mumbai to see Twitter own CNN.
Basically, it’s about talking to people. In the social media world, that’s sort of the point.
There are as many takes on twittering as there are people using the service. Here are a few things that actual twits (not an insult) have to add about using twitter:
“I use it to keep in touch with some of my favorite people and some industry and other folks who have interesting things to say.”
“To tell jokes that would otherwise go untold. To connect with my peers. To connect with my fans.”
“I see a lot of people self promote with websites and links to their blogs.”
“I’m using it to take over the world. That’s not going so well.”
“I use it to connect with customers. To thank the happy people and try to help the angry ones.”
Before you hop on the bandwagon, just remember that social media applications are like college classes in three ways:
1: You only get out of them what you put into them.
2: You can skip a few and still make the grade.
3: If you skip all of them, you fail.
Have a Q for us? Shoot it over to askus@springcreekgroup.com
Ask the Social Media Guy: How do I know I’ve “made it”?
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008Q:
How do I know I’ve “made it” in social media?
A:
You can measure your traffic, your brand’s awareness, your sales, your number of friends or followers, your Google rank, your expenses, or your share of whatever. You can count your ad-sense income or your blog-related appearances on Larry King Live. All of those measurements can help you see if you’re attracting attention or customers, but the true measure of social media success is the Velveteen Rabbit test.
Yes, it’s one of the most depressing kids’ stories ever: A boy gets a nasty disease and so his family has to burn almost all of his clothes, bedding, and toys. The Velveteen Rabbit, one of the boy’s favorite stuffed animals, is a labeled a biohazard and doomed to burn.
While waiting to go up in flames, the rabbit contemplates his situation and concludes that because he was loved, he’s real and his existence was not in vain—that because someone cared about him, he won’t be truly destroyed when the flames melt his polyester insides and his glass eyes crack apart. I told you it was a depressing read.
So: Are you loved online? Does your brand (personal or corporate) matter to anyone out there in the cloud? If you are, and it does, then you have “made it” in the realm of social media.
Search your brand’s links and references to see what people are saying. If no one’s saying anything, you’re seriously toast. If people are talking about your brand, congratulations: You’re a real brand, and you’re not going to go down in flames just yet. And even if you vanish today, Google will find you tomorrow.
Velveteen Rabbit test: If you matter to someone online: you’ve made your mark online.
The worst thing is to not exist.
The best thing is to matter to everyone.
Just ask the rabbit.
Have a Q for us? Shoot it over to askus@springcreekgroup.com
Columbus Dispatch – A Twitter Over Youths
Thursday, November 20th, 2008Tracy Turner at the Columbus Dispatch has an interesting piece about how the old-school restaurant chain Bob Evans is adding to its traditional – and safe – marketing plan. The company is creating a Facebook presence, and relying on a group of Ohio University students to help them out.
We thank the Dispatch for thinking of us and soliciting our advice on why Bob Evans should get involved with Social Media. It’s not often that we get calls from Ohio newspapers, but we’re happy to provide any insight we can, no matter what area of the country the questions come from.
Marketing On the Chopping Block, Tips for Survival
Friday, November 14th, 2008Spring Creek Group’s Clay McDaniel has another article posted at Adotas. This week’s piece, Marketing On the Chopping Block, Tips for Survival, explains how marketers can keep their jobs in a declining economy, where budgets are disappearing into the night. Feel free to add your own comments.
More People are Starting to Understand the Power of Social Media
Thursday, November 13th, 2008As a group that specializes in social media marketing, there’s nothing more satisfying to us than when someone sees the light and realizes the tremendous possibilities that an effective use of social media can offer a business. Frank Reed over at Marketing Pilgrim has not only done just that in his recount of events taking place at this year’s PubCon, but he’s also laid out some pretty essential guidelines for avoiding ineffective social media marketing. It’s definitely worth a look.
Frank Reed gets it. He understands that social media is no longer something confined solely to the younger generation, that its importance to businesses should not be underestimated, and that its potential is just beginning to be tapped into.
“This is going to be very interesting,” he writes. We think so too, Frank.
A Case Study About Social Media and Controversial Uses of the Word “All”
Monday, November 10th, 2008At Spring Creek Group, we love case studies. They are the easiest way to explain to clients (and future clients) why social media is important and such an influential way to start actual online conversations. So imagine our pleasure when we were able to turn the case study microscope upon ourselves, after an unexpected opportunity was thrust upon us by someone we have never met.
The situation: As a leading Social Media agency, Spring Creek Group is sometimes asked to comment on industry events or trends. Our CEO, Clay McDaniel, is our appointed spokesperson. It’s usually a good opportunity for him to comment in an established media publication, part of the “mainstream media” if you will.
Clay’s recent post at DMNews included the phrase, “We’re all spending plenty of time in our social network accounts,” a fairly innocuous phrase that nevertheless set the social media wildfires ablaze. Over at Bly.com, professional copywriter Bob Bly took particular offense with the word “all” and provided the following response,
“I for one spend NO time on the social network sites — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn — where I have accounts. So Clay is wrong….There are very few instances where “all” — which in Clay’s statement is synonymous with “everyone” — can be safely used.”
Now Bob Bly is an established copywriter, and technically he is right. In a strictly literal sense, the use of extreme words such as “all,” “never,” or “no time” should rarely be used. But instead of arguing semantics, let’s follow the social media train, which is far much more interesting.
Unlike a read-only advertisement, this conversation doesn’t end with Bly’s criticism on his blog. And if there’s any form of online media more conversational than the actual blog post, it’s the post’s comment thread, where Clay gets criticized once again, from a poster named Brian who complains,
“That’s the general problem with the Social Networking crowd. They surround themselves with each other, so it appears to them that everyone is doing it. And once you think that everyone is doing something that thing suddenly seems to be really important.”
The complainer has taken Bly’s specific technical argument and taken a broader brush to slam social media professionals in general. This is the fear of big corporations, who are scared of social media because of what a random blogger or commenter might say about their product. Advertising is positive, while social media invites criticism. And that rightly frightens people who are managing marketing campaigns for lousy products. But marketers sometimes forget that when someone who doesn’t fully understand your product criticizes it, you are just as likely to have an evangelist come to defend you with a much stronger and relevant argument.
Such is the case here, where a champion of Social Media pops up and politely criticizes Bob Bly for being out of touch with today’s environment. Michael Foreman writes on his blog (which includes a trackback to Bly.com),
…If you follow (Bly’s) blog, you know he hails from a time before web 2.0. He’s skeptical of social media trends…So why have accounts on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn if you never check them?… I think a little old school bias shows through his statement. Even big business and law enforcement are turning to sites like Twitter for feedback and communications. And the last election demonstrates the raw power of social networking. (See MoveOn.org, and more recently Change.gov, Obama’s new transition site.) No, you don’t need to be plugged-in 24/7, or get a Facebook account because it’s ‘cool’ as one comment on the post suggested. But we live in an age of paperless newspapers, iPhone apps, viral marketing, cloud computing and an increasingly mobile workforce. It’s good to log in every now and then.”
So let’s track this:
- Clay McDaniel contributes to an article on DMNews.com.
- Bob Bly criticizes the article and writes disparagingly about Clay Daniel (sic).
- Clay is then both attacked and defended by Bly.com readers.
- A thoughtful response is posted at ByMichaelForeman.com, who judging by his blog, may be the most interesting read out of all of us.
- And then of course the story comes full circle back to the Spring Creek Group blog.
The Conclusion: We think this is a pretty interesting example of how social media really is a conversation that leads to other conversations, and much more powerful than a “read-only” piece that you view once and then forget. We can’t put an ROI number on it, but at least eight people engaged in the conversation, across at least four pieces of online real estate, and many more people had opinions that they didn’t bother to write down. Can you say the same thing about a brochure?
Epilogue: For the record, Clay McDaniel apologizes for his use of the word “ALL,” and to prove his apology is genuine, refuses to say it will “NEVER” happen again.
Will Social Networks Replace Email?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Technology continually changes our means of communication. There was actually a time when mail was written on paper and men delivered these messages by foot, horseback or even train. Then email came, and in less than 15 years, was transformed from something you did on AOL to a vital and necessary business communications tool.
Now, will social networks supplant email? Spring Creek Group’s Clay McDaniel debates Sean O’Neill on this subject at DMNews.com.
How Will President Obama Use Social Networks to Make Change Happen?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008“Presidential Candidate” Obama was a master of using the Internet to generate money and fan support. Rather than ignoring young voters who couldn’t afford campaign donations, he encouraged them to evangelize on his behalf, an effort that has earned him a new address in Washington D.C.From something as simple as soliciting donations through a tremendous amount of emails to his supporters, to something as complex as recruiting Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to create his own social media networking site (myBarackObama.com), it’s apparent that the president-elect certainly understands the impact and influence that the social media ecosystem holds.
So here are some of the questions on our minds at Spring Creek Group, now that he’s built this network.
- Where will it go from here? Will it simply be a fundraising tool, or will this social media network be used as a means of continuously engaging and informing the electorate?
- Now that he’s proved he can use the power of Social Networking to get people to political events and voting booths, how will he leverage this medium to get them actively engaged in community efforts?
- Since he doesn’t have to ask me for money now, what kind of emails or communication will we receive from him or his staff each every week?
President Obama has already announced Change.gov. If you were him, how would you use social media channels to keep your fans involved with the process of government?
