What is the best way for a social media consultant to help his client on Facebook?

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 9th, 2010 | Comments home title

I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with my boyz over at Marketpath about what the best strategy is when you’re a social media consultant helping your client with Facebook. John Kohlmeyer had a great post about it the other day.

Let me just assert something real quick…

The fastest and easiest way to get lots of fans for your business is to find someone (or hire someone) who has a ton of friends and have them invite all their friends to fan the business… and this has a tendency to piss people off.

Here’s the reason it pisses people off…

When someone friends you on Facebook, they are giving you permission to stay in contact with them. If I promote a client’s fan page simply because they are paying me to do so, it takes advantage of that permission. People hate being taken advantage of.

So what place does the consultant have on Facebook???

The consultant’s ONLY job should be to educate his client, lead by example, inspire action, and have an open phone line so the client can call for technical support.

Listen, because this is important. Social media is an amazing marketing tool. It encourages people to talk to you, and about you (hopefully in a positive light), and it does a great job of getting you exposure.

The problem is that once you stop being authentic… which is just a fancy way of saying, once you start promoting things with an ulterior motive, the personal brand of the consultant, as well as the brand of the client starts to get damaged.

The consultant can draw a map and show the way, but the client is the only one that can build a lasting brand.

Full Disclosure:

I’m not saying I haven’t leveraged my friends on Facebook to get fans for clients in the past, because that would be a lie. I have engaged in these practices myself and I’m seeing the error in my ways. I vow from this point on to only engage in authentic behavior on Facebook.

Help Wanted – Tribeswell is offering a Paid Internship

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 4th, 2010 | Comments home title

Well friends, the time has come. Tribeswell has grown too big for me to handle everything myself, but is still too small to hire a full-time employee. That means that I need an intern!

I’m prepared to offer one lucky IU student the chance of a lifetime… a PAID internship. I need someone willing to work 10-15 hours per week to assist me with web development, graphic design, and social network management.

Ideal candidate will possess the following qualities.

Student at Indiana University studying Informatics, Computer Science, Telecom, Graphic Design or similar.
Excellent knowledge of HTML/CSS
Working knowledge of Wordpress
Excellent Photoshop/Illustrator skills
Marketing background is a plus but not required
Regular user of Facebook, Twitter, or other social network
Self-starter, motivated, good worker, etc.

Please contact me via email if you or someone you know is interested. colin@tribeswell.com

3 Most Annoying things about Wordpress and the Plugins that Fix Them

Posted by Colin Clark on Mar 2nd, 2010 | Comments home title

Wordpress is definitely a fantastic content management solution for lots of different web applications, but one thing that it lacks is comprehensive control over the navigation menu.

Luckily, there are a few simple plugins that make it a lot easier to set your navigation just the way you want it.

It is a total pain to get navigation menus in the right order. Luckily their is a plugin called ‘my page order’ that provides a drag and drop interface to quickly and easily change the order of the pages in your menu. Much easier than entering page orders manually on each page.
What if you want to link a menu item to an erroneous URL? Let’s say you want to have a menu item that links to another website? There is a plugin called ‘page links to’ that provides an easy form on each page that lets you link it anywhere you want.
What if you want to exclude a page from your website’s navigation menu? Whenever you add a page to wordpress, it will typically be added to the navigation menu. Some themes have added functionality that allows you to exclude pages by post id, but this is still kind of a pain. I use a plugin called ‘exclude pages from navigation’ which adds a checkbox to each page that makes it really easy to tell wordpress if you want it in the navigation.

Marketing Truths to Live By

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 17th, 2010 | Comments home title

What can be measured can be improved.
More eyeballs is not always better.
Sales are the ultimate metric.
Vision is more important than tactics.
Luck is Labor Under Correct Knowledge.
Marketing is an investment in yourself.
Different is usually better.
Belief is more important than strategy.
Attention is a valuable asset.
Trust is the ultimate asset.

Tune In to the Secrets of Real Business Leaders (startupprofessionals.com)
Ways to make your marketing more personalized? (startups.com)
Your Business Is Worthless if It Depends on You (ducttapemarketing.com)

When Marketing Makes Things SO Much Better

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 12th, 2010 | Comments home title

Which tastes better, Coco-Coal or generic brand cola?

Does Coke really taste better?

Which is better for doing everyday computing, a 15 inch top-of-the-line Macbook Pro, or an off-brand machine running Windows XP.

Would the average user know the difference if it weren’t for marketing?

Here’s my point… Every industry and every product has a brand. Whether you like it or not, you’re either name-brand, generic brand, or somewhere in between.

And believe it or not, you do have control over how people view your brand, and it’s not just about how much you charge compared to your competition.

There are dozens of factors that influence how people see your brand. Here are some things to consider.

Is your brand consistent visually? Do you have standard colors that you use on signage, business cards, and other marketing materials? Do you have standard fonts? Believe it or not, these visuals work on a subtle level to reinforce awareness in your brand.
Is your message consistent? Enjoy, Coke. Nike, Just Do It. iPod, 1000 Songs in Your Pocket. Mazda, Zoom Zoom. You remember these slogans, because these companies have consistently driven them home. Just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t be just as consistent in your branding.
Do you have a clear customer service mission? I don’t like the term ‘mission statement’ because I feel it is a bit vague. I prefer the term ‘customer service mission’. This is how you define how you and your employees serve customers. Everyone in your organization should be aware of this mission.
Do you have a consistent communications plan? Are you on Twitter, Facebook, TV, or Radio? Do you put a lot of stock into email marketing? There is no right or wrong way to get the message out, but it is extremely important that you are effectively reaching your target market on a regular basis.

Is There Brand Loyalty In A Recession? (myventurepad.com)
Start-ups need to invest in building brands, not just products (hardknoxlife.com)
Brands Response to Dying Consumer Love for Valentine’s Day (pamil-visions.net)

5 Ways Mid-Sized Brands Can Win with Social Media

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 8th, 2010 | Comments home title

Let’s say you’re an established regional brand. You’ve been in business 10 or 20 years and you operate from a fixed geographic area. You’re generally well-known by most people who use your kind of service, but you’d really like to increase your market share.

Here are some tips to help make that happen using electronic media.

Start with your database. Do you know who your best customers are? Are you working to increase permission with your best customers. Step one is definitely to put together a list of the biggest fans of your business or organization.
Consider a frequency strategy using email. If you’re not sending frequent email newsletters, you’re probably missing an opportunity. I use MailChimp, because it is a great value and has great features. Consider content that is of real value to your list. Frequency is important, but quality is key.
Create a facebook strategy for your employees. If you’ve got sales or customer service employees, they can be a great asset. Chances are they have great relationships with your customers already, so it’s not too big of a jump to allow them to friend customers on Facebook and post relevant content on their pages, providing they are comfortable doing this.
Get your business on Twitter. It might seem like Twitter is silly and you won’t understand it at first, but it’s a lot like other tools that don’t make sense at first, but become powerful once you learn to leverage them. Ask your customers if they’re using Twitter and engage with them there. It’s great PR.
Get a flexible website. I use wordpress for all my websites, because it makes it easy to incorporate my website into marketing initiatives, because I can easily change content, create signup forms, post blogs, etc. I realize that a new website is a substantial investment, but it is one that will yield a lot of dividends if you learn to leverage it effectively.

Obviously, there’s a lot more strategy that goes with these tools, but this is a great start.

Yes, Content is Still King

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 7th, 2010 | Comments home title

Johnnie Firari posted a blog on Smaller Indiana that I found interesting. It contemplates whether content is still king with the great explosion of content that is currently out there. He made some excellent points and I left this comment in response.

@garyvee is right. Content is valuable is you are the absolute best. The best way to be the best is to create an extremely narrow niche. The narrower the niche, the less competition.

Secondly, I think frequency is the most important factor with content. Short, frequent blasts of content (whether video, podcast, or text), allow viewers to check in with you more often, because it takes less time to consume.

The other half is that obviously content alone is not going to be enough. You’re going to have to couple your content with a distribution strategy.

I think the main argument that the ‘content is king’ crowd is making is that all the distribution in the world will be wasted on shoddy content that has little inherent value on its own.

30 Bloggers To Watch in 2010 (problogger.net)
Mashable has more influence than CNN on Twitter (inquisitr.com)
The Rise of the Content Class (techstartups.com)

3 Ways to Get Attention – Buy, Earn, or Steal

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 6th, 2010 | Comments home title

If you distill your job as a marketer down far enough, you really only have to do 2 things. First you have to create and define your message, and then you have to get that message in front of people.

When you start talking about getting your message in front of the right audience, you’re really talking about attention, which is essentially the most valuable commodity in the modern world.

3 Ways to Get Attention

1. You can earn it.

This is the kind of attention you get through permission marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, etc. It takes time, but attention earned is extremely valuable.

Any time you build a following through word of mouth you’re earning attention. You can also earn attention by creating amazing products worth talking about or by creating ideas that are so good they spread.

2. You can buy it.

You can buy advertising on TV, Radio, the web, billboards, magazines, or pretty much anywhere else. This kind of attention is great as long as the message matches the audience.

It is critical that you match your marketing message to the media outlet or much of your marketing spending will be wasted.

Examples…

Advertising a cooking tool on the Food Network.
Advertising email marketing software on a web design blog.
Advertising earbuds for runners in Runners World magazine
the list goes on and on…

You can steal it.

You steal attention when you send you enewsletter to people who didn’t ask for it. You steal attention when you put a popup on your website that the user didn’t expect. You steal attention when you buy a list from someone and spam the recipients.

Stealing is wrong. Stealing attention WILL damage your brand in the long run and is not a good investment.

Do People Believe Your Faceless Brand?

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 6th, 2010 | Comments home title

Yes… Probably.

One of the things that marketers seem to be talking about incessantly is that social media can ad a human face to big established brands.

I think this is a little misguided.

I’m not saying that big brands shouldn’t have a presence in social media, but I I don’t want to see social media taken over by a bunch of crappy commercials. Big brands need to understand the concept of an opt-in.

The real opportunity is for new unestablished brands to build a following. It is far cheaper and easier now to build a following than it has ever been in history.

The fact is, those who really believe that the time is now will win. I don’t care if the CEO of Pepsi is on Twitter. I’d be much more interested in the guy making organic specialty soda in his garage and selling it locally. That’s the guy who can get real ROI in his investment in social media.

So what about the people in the middle? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.

Golden Nuggets from Seth Godin

Posted by Colin Clark on Feb 2nd, 2010 | Comments home title

One of the reasons I love reading Seth Godin’s stuff is that he has this amazing ability to distill wisdom into really meaningful, short passages. Here’s one that he posted yesterday…

Busy does not equal important. Measured doesn’t mean mattered.

How awesome is that!? ‘Measured doesn’t mean mattered’. I absolutely love that. You could say that to any marketer and get a response. With as much wheel-spinning as a lot of us seem to do, it’s great to hear a line like that once in a while.

Recently I finally got around to reading ‘Permission Marketing‘. I know, I know, I should have read this one years ago, but I just now got around to it. The other day I found the most perfect line that really defines how we should be defining the scope of website design and function.

Every commercial website should be set up to accomplish one goal. Your Web site should be 100% focused on signing up strangers to give you permission to market to them.

Is there really anything else to say about that? This is really the essence of why you pay someone to build you a website in the first place, and should be the main consideration when choosing a web developer.