This is going to be fun as many of you, including myself, have so many questions about driving Registrations, interest and buzz around your Events.

As a baseline for this post, I am asked so many times, how do we do this? I hear things like “I can’t get anyone to register for my Event” or “I can’t seem to get people interested in our Events”. I get it, and hopefully this may help you to generate buzz, awareness and registrations for your Events.I assume you have some experience of the tools I am mentioning here, and if not, let me know and I can guide you on who can help.

I have also provided this as sections, with some explanation as to why you would want to do this.

——-

Reason: Pre-Event Plan

Influencers typically talk about a few subjects passionately. They have also built a very tight community that want to hear about the topic they speak on. They also listen to these Influencers as an expert, and what they say is taken as credible most of the time, because they have built themselves up as a trusted source.

1. Finding the Influencer

- Find the Influencers who talk about your keywords, products or services as well as Competitors.
- If you don’t know your keywords, use your Brand or Competitors names into Google’s Keyword Tool
- Look on Listorious, type in the keyword and see who comes up as a prominent person who discusses this topic
- Look at their Twitter Profile, go to their website they have in their Bio, click and look to see what type of Community they have built. Is there engagement? Are people commenting about the topic or keywords? If so, put them on the list of Influencers.
- Repeat this process by “Followers” on Listorious to see who may have the reach of an audience that follow them that may be close to your topic

2. Connecting with the Influencers

- Look at the Communities they have conversations, such as LinkedIn Groups, Twitter and Facebook Like Pages
- Connect with them in these Communities
- Mention to them in these communities that you are now connected, with something of interest around the topic or keyword
- Become a RSS Subscriber or Email List Subscriber to show the love
- Retweet their content around your topic or keyword that your audience will find useful
- Share information you find helpful that they may share with their audience, such as White Papers, articles or Blog posts you have written

3. Motivating the Influencers

- Once the Influencer has some idea of who you are, and because you followed the steps above, consider sending the Influencer a trial or a product with no expectation of getting anything in return or requesting it either
- If your product is good and adds value, they may just write about it to their Community
- If you are really lucky, they may push this to their Social Networks and get you even more buzz

4. Building Buzz and Interest

- Take advantage of the content that you, your company, or the Speakers have written to generate buzz and allow the audience to understand more as they decide whether they should spend their dough with your Event or someone else’s.
- Make a Outreach Plan that outlines what content you or others have that would be of interest to highlight the Event
- Ask questions, like on LinkedIn Groups, within the Groups that are on topic around the Event about what they want to know about the topic
- Post the links to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and LinkedIn Groups
- Create a LinkedIn Event and send to your connections asking them to send to theirs
- Look for anyone who has ReTweeted your links, possible Influencers here
- Create 1-3 minute Infomercials around the topics or speakers that will be at the event to give the audience a preview of the speaker, their style and quality of their work and upload to YouTube and SlideShare
- Mention Influencers on Twitter with a link to special “VIP” only pre-Event stuff so they can talk about it with their Community
- Create Hashtags for the Event and place on any posts, updates that are related to the Event
- Setup a Listening Channel on your favorite tool, such as Seesmic, HootSuite that are focused around the topics and engage with the audience to share some of this content with them-they may share with their audience
- Create a list that you can easily refer to with links, Twitter Profiles of the Speakers for easy reference
- Create Teaser Videos, and Slideshare presentations of the Speakers so the audience has a chance to get to know them
- So many more ways to build buzz

——-

Reason: During the Event

During the Event there are great ways to drive traffic to your site, hashtags and build awareness. By leveraging the Social Tools available, and a few creative ways to get the content, you may just get to #1 position on search engines if you do it right. The point here is to discover the many ways you can think about how to generate links, mentions, friends and new connections.

5. Kodak moments

- Setup Photo slots during your event with some of the speakers for the attendees. Many are too shy to just go up and ask, so create the environment that makes it easy. Think about this one for a moment… they take a picture, share it with their friends-awareness.
- Take your cameras and phones with you at all times, never know when a good moment is to take a picture with one of the Influencers you reached out to shows up at the event
- Post these pictures to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, PhotoBucket, and your website or blogs with mentions of who is in the pictures. Don’t just take a picture, ask them whats going on now in their world, what’s new in their business and write it down for your future post, tweet or articles
- Tag these pictures in Facebook
- Post them to TwitPic if you use an iPhone
- Make sure you keep them in some way so that you can easily reference these when you get back to the office and use these to reference on blog posts, tweets, articles, etc…

6. Flip Camera Crazy

- I will assume you have prepared some questions for the Speakers and attendees prior to the Event, so you are ready when the time comes
- Videos are a great way to drive content that your audience likes.
- Interview the Speakers for some insights about the Event, what they like and their excitement about the event
- Ask attendees to give testimonials about the speaker, the event and what they loved about it
- Write Blog Posts about the Speaking Event, highlights of the Event and then add in these testimonials from the attendees-people love testimonials and the search engines love video content
- Add the videos to your Event or Company Channel on YouTube for reference about future events. Remember that people use these as Ratings and Reviews of buying decisions.

7. Tweet and be Tweeted

- Send the attendees a Guide prior to the Event that shares the hashtags you will be using, the place where you will post updates and a place where they can share their comments or opinions about the Event
- Use the hashtag during the Event
- Mention the Influencers during the Event around their topic with interesting tidbits they may like to share with their audience
- Mention the Speakers

——-

Reason: Post Event

In order to maximize the entire budget that you spent to have this Event, you want to get the most bang for your buck. Keep the buzz going by engaging the audience and people who wanted to attend but couldn’t with these ideas:

8. Emails-yeah they still work

- Be sure to send follow up emails to all attendees with a Wrap-Up collection of presentations in case they were in the bathroom and missed some great tips
- Have the Speakers send emails with Post Event follow up homework, if appropriate, that keeps the learning experience going – the audience will love you for this and see value
- Ask them to join you on Social Networks and be sure to include this in all the emails to drive followers and friends to the brand
- Encourage the attendees to take part in feedback survey’s wherever possible in case you missed anyone with the Flip Camera. This will help you understand how to build a better experience next time
- Ask them what they want or missed and see if you can deliver this to them-true Word of Mouth marketing here as they share this with their network of influence

9. Survey Says

- Encourage the attendees to take part in feedback survey’s wherever possible in case you missed anyone with the Flip Camera. This will help you understand how to build a better experience next time
- See who is willing to share their thoughts on possible Research, many of the attendees have vast expertise in the field you invited them to hear about-ask and you shall receive

10. Measure and Refine

- If you truly did all the steps above, you should have an incredible amount of information to use for the next Event-listen to the audience’s feedback
- Create an ROI to show the Boss, that includes metrics like a) ReTweets by Influencers b) Unsolicited mentions of the Brand or Event c) Reposts by Influenecrs, Speakers or attendees x their RSS Subscribers or Traffic
- Look at what went right and what went wrong and how you can address these issues for an even better Event next time
- Thank all of the people who had anything to do with the success of the Event
- Get the senior leadership team to send an email or a post or mention on a Social Network about how thankful they were to get the feedback and experience from the attendees and speakers-this tactic will show that it’s not just the marketing group that does Events, but Management is involved as well

I now this was a long one, but today alone I had 3 people ask and 1 that I offered help on pushing an Event. Do you need help in getting ROI out of your limited budgets-I can help.

Did I hit the mark here, did you learn anything new? Please comment below and let me know your thoughts.

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In looking through Direct Messages over the past few months, and not really seeing an increase of targeted uses of DM’s, I thought a view to the Top 10 ways I see to use DM’s was in order.

So, as you read this, please add in what you see out there in  Twitterville on the creative Direct Messages that stop you in your tracks, make you click and take an action so that everyone reading can learn more on this topic. I see so many abuses of the DM function it’s scary.

So, here we go:

1.

Sending automated DM’s to somone that has nothing to do with them makes me think you are (wait-you are) a spammer. This strategy of DM’ing everyone who follows you with a link to your crappy products, or to become a Fan on Facebook (oh I mean Like) actually puts you in a less influential position with your audience that has chosen to follow you. Do some homework if you are going to automate your DM’s with specific keywords that only send relevant DM’s to those who match these keywords. To find those keywords look at your Brand DNA, heck just think of what you actually sell and provide and start with that first. Remember, nobody cares about you only what you can do to help them solve their business challenges.

2.

Send a DM after you have looked at the Twitterers Profile. As you look at their Profile, find things in common, work or personal that will cause a reaction to the User. If they fall within your highly targeted keywords, their Blog talks about the same things your Brand sells or produces, then build a relationship with them. I have been doing this since day 1 of my time on Twitter. Guess what happened? I have built my Influencer network to over 26,000, having been asked to speak on shows like Friday night with Warren Whitlock, at Speaking Events just a few weeks ago with Jason Falls and projects that resulted in ongoing revenue for my firm. It works just like that but takes a little time to do it right.

3.

Send a DM after they posted something that you found useful, or very creative. If the user normally pushes out links to their blog post, be sure that after you have read it, send them a note once you have commented on their site with some added value links that they may reference on their next post.

4.

Send a DM around a hidden valuable link to content that matches what they do and adds value to their day-use that research that you so handily put together around your keywords that I showed you how to do, send them links that they may not have seen before. Look for things that they may share with their CEO’s or upper management around their competition. Wow, now we are getting somewhere. Watch for the responses. Look for others in their lists that are with the company and send them the note to. Really started to get the hang of this DM thing now hey?

5.

Ask a question after you have researched them that only they can answer. Be sure there is value in what you send, such as a Tip that may bring something to their business or a how-to-tip on helping them understand something they are discussing. After looking at their stream in Twitter, look for things you can answer, sort of like LinkedIn Answers. Look for posts on StumbleUpon or Alltop.com that can bring content they may need to run their business. This is meant to be a friendly, sharing environment not a sounding board for your messages only.

6.

Sending names of other Influencers that user may or should know. This is something I rarely see done so there are no bad examples only what I feel you should do. So let’s look at how this would work. You have identified the Influencer(s) that you want to build a relationship with first. Next, you have read their stream and understand what they discuss, how they share and engage with their audience in conversation. You have also researched other Influencers that match the profiles of the target relationship User you want to Influence with your messages by sending them people in a DM that they may want to know. Of course you may have to look to see who they are following or are friends with first, which may take some time but well worth it. Even if they are following this person, they may not have mentioned them in conversation but may want to. Now we are “connecting the dots” and building value in relationships.

7.

Offer the user something that they cannot get anywhere else. Be sure this is on-topic with their keywords. Be sure it’s something that only they get, unique to the Influencer. Create a bit.ly for this link, a landing page that’s meant only for them. Watch your bit.ly to see if they clicked on it. Keep an eye on how this works. Only use it one time, and if the test doesn’t work, no worries, go back to adding value to their day by steps 1-6, rinse, repeat but be sure that it’s great stuff you send.

8.

If you have a product that you can send a sample to the Influencer, do that. Be sure to personalize everything you can on the package and the sample, if possible. Look at how many send Chris Brogan T-Shirts, Books, Liquor and other items for his review. Follow up with a DM that let’s them know you are sending a package. Look for a response or question about it. Take the conversation off-line, which normally happens. I have sent Chris DM’s and, he responded because I added value to something that I saw, a project or a discussion that he may have been having. Guess what? He responded with a nice note back. He also let me know when things were off topic by gently saying that there was no fit or by not replying-I got the message.

9.

Offer to help the user work through a problem they are focused on and have made public in their stream. It doesn’t hurt because at this point you know that you must be on topic, be on time and be clear about what you are asking. Many people are very responsive to DM’s when they are helpful, and remember what Zig Ziglar said many years ago “Help enough people get what they want, and you will get what you want”. Warren Whitlock and I just talked about this Friday on his Blog Talk Radio Show Friday night.

10.

Determine synergies across their organization and yours. Look at their website to see if what you do may be an area that you see a fit in, to partner. Complimentary services or clients that you could work on together to bring a powerful solution. Look for ways that you can drive revenue to them by sending referrals-seems old school but missed opportunities lie everywhere (heads up Sales people). If sales hasn’t built a Listening Dashboard yet, please do. Marketing should listen for their keywords but maybe of higher importance, look for those partnering opportunities around business strategies could prove powerful.

So there it is. I believe that these strategies will certainly help drive you closer to becoming a non-spammer. As for all the spammers out there, take note. No one cares about your product or service. Think about what this activity of spamming actually does – diminishes your Brand currency when done wrong. Does more damage than good, and the more you send, the worst it gets. The farther you push the farther away your audience will put you away from building the relationships.

Not much talk about this out there around a DM strategy, but with so much opportunity to use this functionality the right way, I see a shift needed here for business. What do you think?

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What a great time with Warren Whitlock this past Friday on Blog Talk Radio.

Lots of information shared, and I look forward to being on another show soon. Warren is a very down to earth guy, and explains Social Media in layman’s terms which helps everyone.

I share thoughts on Measurement, as well as the role we play to build relationships online. Take a listen and let me know what your thoughts are.

Thanks Warren, you get this stuff, which is to say I look forward to learning more from you.




Please share your comments and visit Warren’s Facebook Page to engage in the conversations.

AIPMM Conference May 24, 25 and 26 in San Jose, CA
Register here: http://pmecwest.com/price/
More Information about the Event here: http://pmecwest.com/

This is going to be a great Event, and… you just may see me coming out in full Gansta Gear, with the Black Eyed Peas jamming and I just may dance.

So what the heck is this? Again with the process, not another one. Well, this time you may want to take a close look at how you (and your customers and prospects) value the process in which you engage them with your messaging and content.

Here are a few of the yin and yang issues you are facing today – I assume that you are , and if not, click out now because you are doing everything right, sales are flying and your Marketing and Sales team is doing High Fives in the lunch room everyday as you walk by to thank them for increasing the revenues. The CFO comes by to say thank you with a big Gift Card to whatever, sales people come by to hug you and if that’s your case, call me cause I want to hear how you are doing this. Heck I will even write a post about how well you are doing and get this to all the Influencers within my circle of trust to give you free, much needed buzz about how great you are. (Did I just say that out loud-yep).

As part of our process, and client work, plus having the Business Development numbers and scars that validate this process, tells us that customers today buy in a much different manner than ever before. Let’s look at what issues and cause could be in a little more depth, as all I have to do is look at my Inbox after opting into someone’s white paper or content, then getting a call as soon as I hit the submit button (You know who you are):

Issue: Your wonderfully crafted White Paper, that everyone loves so much, isn’t getting the interest that you thought it would. Traffic isn’t being realized at what you projected based on the (perceived) value. No one is joining the email opt in. Bounce rates are very high in contrast to other articles, or white papers you have written that seemingly are of less value (perceived).

Cause: Your messaging doesn’t match what your audience is talking about in conversations. People don’t perceive your Brand to match the messaging you sent out on Social Network Platforms (Twitter, Facebook). You focus is on the product and not what the customers reasons they buy from your company.

Solve: Look at your messaging, your Brand DNA and the gap between what people are talking about in and around your Industry and Competitors keywords to determine the gaps, or misalignment of your messaging to the conversations. Interview your customers, find out why they buy (Need help? Click Product180.com and tell Steve I sent you) and look at the keywords they say about you-not what you think your brand is. Let the audience tell you what they like by getting comments and feedback from the smart questions you ask in an open manner-don’t worry they will let you know.

Take a look at the Sales Enablement Pyramid here:

Let me explain what this thing actually means.

Low Value:

So you listen to the conversations in and around your keywords. You develop outbound marketing and email programs (content, sharing of other content, like presentations on Slideshare, white papers on Box.net) and proceed to push these out to your social networks of followers and supposed friends. The difference is when things don’t happen like you expect, you get confused and stumble to tell the boss what the reasons for failure are-mainly because you don’t know. Let me try to give you some help here in understanding what may be affecting the poor results.

• Your audience’s perception that you are still talking about your products and services in the same old manner of push, it’s all about us marketing, leaves no appetite in today’s ninja marketing.

• You haven’t “Valued” your content, meaning that what your audience may see as valuable, may not be what you see as valuable

• Your social behavior is not in line with how the audience wants to buy

• You sent the email or message out to your social networks, someone clicked on the content to download it, gave their information, got the content and your CRM program sent a happy as can be email to your patiently waiting sales dude. He immediately picked up the phone and called the responder, only to get a what the… response because it scared the crap out of the prospect with the light speed at which sales engaged a “I don’t even know if I like you or your crappy products and services yet-I just wanted the content and I haven’t even had a moment to read the title yet” response from a possible pissed off prospect.

The latter is more than likely your problem. So how do you solve this issue?

Medium Value:

As Marketers, we believe that as soon as someone raises their hand, it’s time to engage them with our oh so talented sales team to pounce and close a deal, when in fact no one has even said to. Marketing must own the relationship until such perceived value exists and the prospect has said, “got it-it’s now time to talk-I am ready or something to that affect”. Not only does sales engage too early, wasting way too many resources and dollars and pissing off potential long term clients,but more importantly extending sales cycles and reducing possible revenue potential. Remember the statistics of how many marketers are on the hot seats? Let’s look at how this stage can have a positive impact on how you market to prospects:

• Assuming that you have placed some value on your content, from low to high, and have talked with your customers and asked what they think is good and bad (Call Steve at Product180 if you have trouble with this) you now must be able to build some drip marketing programs that allow prospects to see the escalating value of how your business can solve their business challenges. (You did do the research on this right-if not call me or one of us Research geeks to find out how).

• Next step is to begin building your brand’s voice around this content. Meaning aligning your Brand messaging, what people are talking about and what they actually are searching for on the search engines. Once this alignment is baked into your messaging and content, you now have a chance at getting someones attention and obtaining better results. Oh forgot to mention, not pissing your prospects off with the annoying sales call.

• Once you have begun testing your new content and messaging strategy, look back at the differences in activities on your site, email list and cycle times to ensure that they are in fact increasing. Your audience is telling you what they want, how they want this delivered to them, and the manner in which they buy-just listen to them.

• Watch for engagement numbers to increase, comments and retweets and likes on your social platforms, and measure these with PostRank or some other tool. Look at the increasing numbers for times that people stay on your page measured with Google Analytics. Watch your Influencers who may share the content with their audience (Influencer Outreach on an upcoming post-if you care).

Remember, Marketing still owns the Buying Process at this point. Tell sales to go golfing and you will let them know when to contact the prospect-trust me, or just ask any of your customers, they will appreciate it.

High Value:

So, at this point, you have changed your messaging, your rules on outbound emails going to the salespeople to notify them that a hot prospect is on the hook to wait, and changed the way you go to market with your content. You have engaged your listeners, and are now seeing that wow, someone does like me-they even write back to me, how novel. It’s time to see how interested they really are, if they are willing to take the next step with you. At this point, it’s time to bring in the valuable content, things that help them overcome their challenges because you know from asking your customers, what their issues are and how your products and services have helped. It’s time to see if they will become loyalists, willing to take a test drive, demo, or trial offer of your product (please don’t write me with but my product has no trial – there are creative ways here to gauge their buying propensity).

• Send them information like a “Buyer’s Guide” that shows them what to look for when choosing vendors or products. Send them Research, that you had a 3rd party perform, or purchased or researched and put together to support your case. These unbiased “Guides” help them to make decisions around purchasing that give you the advantage. Why? Because you gave them the power of knowledge they didn’t have to go looking for, you saved them time, you made them look like a hero to their boss by being informed.

• Offer them a one-on-one discussion with some of your clients, using new ways to bring them referrals, and give the golfing salespeople a task to do while awaiting that red hot lead from marketing, by recording a video with the Flip Camera you gave them and get some video testimonials going. Now your adding value to the buyers decision process.

• Finally, have someone other than sales contact the prospect, say the CEO, by email or better by phone – talk about Purple Cows. Be warned, this may take some doing, but this is a solid strategy and one that shows the management team is in touch with their marketing efforts and wants to be engaged with their audience. Very powerful indeed.

Finally, send that email to the sales dudes, letting them know that you have a fully qualified lead here. One that has shown all signs of wanting to buy your product. By using automation in the prospect buying cycle and the cool tools that exist today to do this for you, you not only have a experience that you can go to them for referrals, but more loyal, happy customers who will become your loyalists and begin your word of mouse (thanks David Meerman Scott) program you have been dying to do for some time.

I know this was a long one, and probably a bit different in tone than you normally see from me (I spent time with Jason Falls a few weeks ago, so I have a little bit of the tell it like it is in me from that experience still). Let me know what you think, how this may work for you or if you see some holes or additions to this that I am missing. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings-you won’t.

Thanks

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Google changes it's name to Topeka

As I was working early this morning on a Proposal Deck, I fired up Safari to my home page, Google.com and was shocked to see that Google had officially changed it’s name to Topeka. Wow, the brand power this company has built changed it’s name? Could this be true or just an April Fool’s joke on all of us?

I believe Google could do much better here as stated by TechCrunch: Read More

You be the judge.

Think and comment about these questions:

• Do you think Google will lose market share to Yahoo!

• Did you see this and think “Is this a phishing scam”? (I certainly did)

• Was the first instinct to click the new Topeka logo? (I certainly did)

• Did you read the entire story about why Google changed it’s name to Topeka? (What a story)

• Does this mean that my email is now TMail? TopekaDocs? Check out their naming of the new areas.

Here is the post from the Official Google ooops, I mean Topeka Blog:

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(Portions reposted from Jason Falls at SocialMediaExplorer.com)

I’m excited to be speaking with the Central Virginia chapter of the American Marketing Association to present at Digital Marketing Summit on Wednesday, April 14 in Staunton, Va. As a local Virginian, this is going to be a really solid event – one look at the people I am presenting with and there’s no need to guess at the level of learning that will take place. (Some very Smart Folks)

When Jason called to ask me to be a part of this event, I of course was humbled to be asked and excited to take part. I look at this format here as a very open, ask the Speakers type of event and the future of Conferences. People want access to the people who work on Social Media Training and Projects and this event plans to deliver as we set out to answer many of your pressing questions, regarding Social, PR and Marketing.

The lineup for the Digital Marketing Summit includes:

• Jason Falls– CEO of Social Media Explorer and one of the most sought after Speakers in Social today
• Doug Meacham – CEO of Experience Matters and Multi-Channel Retail Strategist for IBM and fellow Virginian
• Katie Morse – Community Manager at Radian6 and digital marketing maven who loves Music
• Kipp Bodnar – Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot and B2B social media thought leader
• Greg Cangialosi – CEO of Blue Sky Factory and email marketing expert
• Me

The full lineup of topics can be found at the Central Virginia AMA site. If you are in or around Central Virginia (Staunton is near Charlottesville, but a reasonable drive from Richmond, Roanoke, Lynchburg and even the D.C. area), we would love to have you. Click the link below to register and join us for a day of networking, learning and more.

Click here to register

If you plan on coming, be sure to ask questions ahead of time to make this a truly engaging and learning experience. I will try to gather as many of the questions we get as possible before the event that we can use during the Q&A session.

As yet another week flies by, a number of things occurred to me. For starters, writing and how a 44 year old guy (your truly) who is caught between a balance of client work and blogging and the dynamics of balance.

I enjoy the freedom that blogging gives me as many of you probably do. No one says how to, what to or why to write – at least that’s my situation, yours may be different. What’s missing here is me-the real me.  Trying to hard to earn your respect and retweets, comments or increased google analytics metrics causes me to write mechanical not human.

So that all stops now.

Not because I want or need to instead, because the people I care about (that would be you) who take their precious time out of their hectic schedules to read my thoughts and you deserve to get the real me. A very close friend Product180 and colleague that I work with on projects mentioned this to me, stating “what I read and who I know doesn’t come across”. Another good friend Patrick O’Malley said something similar like “you’re a lot more personable in person than online”

My theme is that what people perceive online may not be the real you or your brand-maybe what you say about you or your brand isn’t what they think or feel about you. Steve Rankel from Product180 who creates “Killer Value Propositions” for clients basis his messaging strategies on what clients say about your brand, which usually varies wildly from what brands think they are or write about on their website.

So I have 2 questions for you:

1. Do you think my work here shows the real me, the human side and would that make a difference in our relationship?
2. Does your brand suffer from the same symptoms of this perception gap-who you think you are and why customers actually buy your products and services?

Let me know your thoughts here, as this is the new approach for me. I care about my readers and followers. I want you to get to see the real me, and make this a very agile environment for us to learn together. Oh and by the way, tomorrow’s post here will be a real step toward achieving this mission with my new website-think you will like this.

P.S. Thanks to those of you who (you know who you are) that gave me invaluable feedback on what you think I am online and the real me you know. We are always learning and growing through engagement, which humbles me everyday.

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• EmbeddedAnalytics (domainmacher.com)

Ok yes… I’m married with children so apologies to all those who are not. Hopefully this will shed some light on what you have to look forward to-kind of the good, bad and ugly tour here.

Let’s start with why I am even talking about this and why you should care enough not to click the back button.

In talking with clients over the past few months, many things have surfaced around what they can expect using Social, not what they will get as benefits, but what they can expect from their audience. This is why I decided to write this post. One of the rarely discussed topics is what people can expect when they begin engaging people in Social and what they didn’t expect to happen.

The Situation: “What do we do when people talk negative about our Brand”?

This question comes with many answers, many of which I relate to the title of this post. I relate this to a Marriage here as well as dealing with children. In a marriage you often have very predictable patterns and conversations. You know when things might turn out a certain way. You know when your questions may spark a certain answer. I also relate this scenario to how children sometimes act up and do things that were not what you would like them to do (My 2 never do this . This is also an area you need to plan for-when things go way different than you planned and someone says something bad about you or your Brand.

Then there are the times when you start a discussion and things just take a completely different turn, unexpectedly. You think uh oh-what just happened. That’s the part that you need to plan for and prepare your Brand for and where your team needs to have some kind of response plan in place. A good place to start is looking at how others are doing this and determine what are the extremes your Brand will be able to withstand pressure points in the discussions-both positive and negative remarks or comments.

The Benefits: “What people say about you is what you are”

When you encounter this situation and have not planned a response, it can be very nerve racking. People today have a way of open expression that didn’t exist for Brands as a consideration, thus no need for a plan. A one way push marketing message that had no risks. Not so anymore as we all know. You are going to hear things from people, most of which have a valid point about issues facing your organization at some level. So why do so many Brands just ignore this and want nothing but the good news about their company? It’s called “Denial”.

Instead of looking away, deleting bad comments, pushing negative articles down the search chain, why not look at these as a picture of what could really be wrong inside the organization? Take a look at the frequency keywords within the comments and begin to say hummm… maybe our Customer Service has an issue in that area. Maybe that person handling this department has an issue and not telling the real Brand story. Maybe it’s a mix of things that if fixed could provide a much better experience for customers. What a novel idea.

So the question here is simple. Have you looked at the what people say about your organization, negative and positive? What’s been your response to these negative comments or posts? More importantly, have you been able to glean any changes to the organization that resulted in revenue increases due to this analysis? Bottom line is that every Brand has something that needs fixing. No one is doing everything right all the time. This just may be one way to realize ROI much faster than the Share of Voice Charts you are so impressed with.

My feeling is that the smart companies are doing this (or will soon be forced to deal with it very soon).

Post your comments below on how you have seen Brands do a great job and those who could improve below for all to see.

What’s your experience?

What changes have you made?

Are you doing everything you can to take advantage of this open channel of communication?

Is your company being perceived the way you want to be?

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It’s time to discuss the one word that often is the differentiators between great plans and weak ones. I wanted to share a quick story about why I thought of writing this post (maybe it will bring up thoughts you can share as well in comments). After a trip to Miami for a pitch to a client on December 18th, I found myself airport bound for 12 hours, and a drive that was eventful to say the least. We had just been hammered with 18″ of snow a day before I was to come back home, and the roads were not yet paved.

Where I choose to live is on a quiet, 150 acre farm, that gives me the peace and quiet needed after so many miles of travel throughout the years. That night was different though, no roads were paved and the only path to getting back home and seeing my family was a 2.6 mile paved road with 2 tire tracks for guidance. I did try to make it in my 2 wheel drive vehicle but found out quickly that getting stuck was not an option, so I headed back to park my car at the local Market and proceed to the next phase of the journey.

As the clock clicked past 8pm, I knew that it would take me at least an hour to walk 2.6 miles, in 18″ of snow, with a briefcase (wasn’t about to leave my Mac PowerBook alone) and a strong mind to get home and see my family after 4 days of being away from them. I started out, down a very dark road, no cars, no noise, just the sound of snow under my feet, and my thoughts. So, nothing else to do but think.

All I could think about was getting home to my family, no matter the conditions. I would have walked 20 miles if I had to-this is what I am talking about here… Commitment. I committed to my family, to be home with them no matter what and I did just that. Through 2.6 miles of 18″ of snow, carrying a heavy briefcase, up hills of ice packed snow trails to get to my final destination. That’s what you have to do to make it in business today. You have to commit to a plan and then have the right people, resources and information to execute a plan. So let’s talk about what this really means.

Commitment. The very word sends varying thoughts and memories into peoples minds when they hear it, discuss it or are asked about it and really, Why Not? Just saying this is not nearly enough to run successful plans, in any area of your business. So lets look at what it actually means, in each area of our personal and business lives, per Wiki:

• Brand commitment refers to the strength of the relationship between consumers (or customers) and a particular brand (or service)

• Personal commitment, interaction dominated by obligations. These obligations may be mutual, or self-imposed, or explicitly stated, or may not. Distinction is often made between commitment as a member of an organization (such as a sporting team, a religion, or as an employee), and a personal commitment, which is often a pledge or promise to ones’ self for personal growth.

In each of these areas, commitment is clearly a “relationship” between something and someone, and fits well with our current efforts in Marketing today. Relationships take Commitment, pure and simple, its the sweat equity you put into it and receive from these efforts that make the difference between success and good enough Marketing Strategies. Companies today who ask me, in ways that dance around this term, hear our only answer: “you have to commit to this medium or it won’t work” period, end of story. Too many times leaders dance around this term of commitment in many areas within Marketing, Sales and Goal setting that result in blame and dissapointment from their employees and their managers when revenue and margin goals are missed.

Here’s the deal: Stop Blaming failures on the team and take the bull by the horns and commit to a strategy.

As the leader of your organization, how can you expect to have your team execute a successful plan when you clearly have one foot in the water and the other foot out? As with Plan, it has to be pushed from the top, no matter how big or small your organization is. If this belief comes from the leader it automatically has credibility, and your team wants to help you get it done and done right. When you half-ass it, guess what… you get half-ass results.

Here are some tips in formulating your Social and Online Strategy so you can commit to it:

• Research: Do it by the numbers not just what’s hot today

Have your Marketing Staff pull some easy research around conversations within your keywords, product sets, competition and industry to get a snap shot of what opportunities exist in your vertical and space.

Are there lots of conversations happening around your buzz words?

What networks, forums, or communities are discussing your Brand or Competition?

Are there specific Users that seem to be mentioning you or your Industry often that you can build relationships with?

• Review: Sit with your team and determine what this data tells you, what it may mean and what velocity looks like around these conversations.

Are the conversations happening very often?

Does the sentiment seem to be skewed to a positive or negative direction?

• Opportunities: Determine how involvement in a Social or Online Strategy would help achieve Financial Goals

Where are people discussing your Brand in Social Networks?

What are your Competitors doing in the space and what, if any success are they having?

In the Industry, who could you partner with, to build links to and from your site?

• Strategy: Creating a winning strategy utilizing this new medium

How would this integrate into your current Marketing Programs and Plans?

How can you leverage this medium to reduce costs while increasing marketing efficiencies?

What outside help do you need to put together a Strategy? (Be careful who you choose-I know some great folks who can help-as well as my company)

What are the Commitments needed company-wide to make this successful?

This is not meant (and please don’t write me to say that I have missed about 2,000 steps that we all in the space know) to be a plan or outline for a successful Social and Online Strategy by any stretch, however, its a brief list you need to review and know prior to jumping in the pool. The people I talk with on a daily and weekly basis know what’s involved to make a plan like this happen, and let me tell you, you won’t find this in an online book, e-book or some crafty Lead Magnet that you download.

There are so many things that go into a proven strategy like this, and you should at the least talk with someone who has proven their wares and has some scars (Mistakes) to show it before Committing to anything. Don’t be afraid to reach out to me or any you prefer, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or the 1000′s  of other Social Networks you may see or be involved with. We are a very helpful, sharing group that knows how to help your Brand get the details and research needed to make solid decisions about your Commitment to a strategy in Social and Online.

What are you going to commit to in this new decade and make your business the best that it can be, not just financially, but from all aspects such as, employee satisfaction, customer referrals, industry influencer’s who talk well about your Brand and what you are doing? And… the group of Social thought leaders, who tell stories about your commitment of how you did it.

I will cover more of this in the coming weeks of how you can develop a strategy, so look for these posts. Good luck and Happy New Year-welcome to 2010.

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