THINKing — from PR vet and mentor Harry Hoover.

adcharlotte — the largest advertising and creative archive in Charlotte.

DesignCharlotte — from “the hip, the happening, the frisky, the funky, the foolish, the cool, the geeks that don’t drool.”

new media lisa — from Lisa Hoffman, social media queen.

Obsessed with Conformity — longer-form creativity insight from smashcommunications.

A Kickin’ Blog — from Fred Sexton, the man behind Mouse and Man.

Web Business Freedom — from social media and PR guru Brandon Uttley.

Baffington and Sellers — bloggings from the venerable “thought leader in the industry of marketing.”

Bad Idea Racing — not a marketing blog, but a brilliant lesson in self-promotion from Charlotte “unprofessional cyclist” and bike messenger Rich Dillen.

Success stories regarding how larger companies and established brands are gaining a presence in social media outlets are abundant.  Within Facebook, for example, users are showing affinity for nostalgic brands and companies in the Groups and Pages function - and, likewise, their friends are jumping on the bandwagon.  This offers these groups the opportunity to have people opt-in to their information.

But what about the smaller business?  How can you complement your marketing, promotional and PR efforts with social media?  Much has been written on that subject, and here are just a few blog posts that offer great overviews on getting started:

25 Ways to Create Your Social Media Footprint Today

Adding Social Features to Your Web Site

The Ultimate Small Business Twitter List

Four-step Approach to a Social Media Plan

Social Media How Tos: The Essentials You Need To Get Started

Social Media Best Practices

1893 World's Fair - Chicago

Master landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New York’s Central Park as well as the grounds of George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore House and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, liked to talk to strangers while crisscrossing the country by train to check on work in progress.

In June 1893, on a trip to Asheville, NC, from Chicago, Olmstead quizzed fellow passengers about their intentions to attend the recently opened World’s Fair.

Most everyone said they planned to attend the Fair, but gave a variety of excuses regarding why they hadn’t gone just yet. People feared a looming economic crisis and the coming summer heat, he learned. Probing further, he uncovered a common fear of being “fleeced unmercifully” in the wild western streets of Chicago by hoteliers, restaurateurs, and even the Fair itself.

Writing back to other Fair directors, Olmstead pled for urgency in making early improvements that would be fodder for the stories people took back home:

“This is the advertising now most important to be developed; that of high-strung, contagious enthusiasm, growing from actual excellence: the question being not whether people shall be satisfied, but how much they shall be carried away with admiration, and infect others by their unexpected enjoyment of what they have found.”

Strategic marketing communications planning is a process that allows an organization and its communications partners to make good decisions regarding what is said within various communications tactics, how it is said, why it is said, to whom it is said, and when this messaging is deployed.

It’s always customer or audience focused, meaning it allows the organization to take the customers’ or audiences’ point of view by asking key questions:

Is strategic planning a strict mandatory?  No.  Oftentimes, tactics are tactics and can be accomplished well with knowledge already acquired.  But when the big picture looms in a tough market it can be an invaluable source for all communications elements.  More on how it can happen to come.

A better use of time and resources, writes Mininni, is to get clear, usable feedback from customers:

Getting consumer feedback is a vital aspect of conducting an internal audit. Spending time, capital, and human resources on this exercise, if done thoroughly, is never fruitless. Never a waste of money. It’s the best bang for your marketing buck.

In fact, the results may surprise some executives and lead them back to reinstituting those products, those policies, and those brand values that made them successful in the first place.

What they mean is that you sell your expertise and experience along with the thing that you deliver to them. There’s a couple of reasons for this, I think.

One, your product, whether it’s a logo, a marketing plan, or a legal document, has more value in the eyes of your customer if they understand that there’s a process behind it and that you, as expert, know this process inside and out.

Secondly, process can be a safety net for your product as well. If your customer doesn’t like your product, take them through the process for how you got from point to point to the product. You may not change their mind on the product, but you’ll start a dialog. If they’re astute, they will ask questions and point things out as you retrace your steps that will help you with round two of revisions.

Todd Henry, in a recent Accidental Creative podcast talks about process versus product in terms of creative individuals and their managers, and how if each will look to the process, better results can be had for the entire team - the same scenario as above.

For managers, Todd points out the need to understand that process and product are often one and the same in the mind of a creative individual. If you don’t like what you’re getting, ask them to take you through their process and (tactfully) point out along the way where they can think differently. Likewise, Todd calls on the creative to constantly promote their process so that coworkers, bosses or clients don’t “get lost in the product.”

Selling services is selling people - primarily yourself and secondarily your firm as a group of diverse people with a similar, cohesive goal. So, where do you start building that brand and planting the seeds that grow the elusive word-of-mouth success?

Start with your cube neighbors. Do they know what you’re about and what you’re doing? Can your employees, associates, partners, accountant, attorney, and current customers recite your elevator pitch? Are you staying in contact with them with news, developments, accomplishments? It’s a captive audience and they can be your biggest advocate.

Don’t set off the BS alarm. Start with talking in plain English, everywhere. On your website, in written and oral communications, in your collateral material. Buzzwords are for you and your comrades. The people don’t get them and glaze over when you use them. Not a good thing.

This is the first step to what James Gilmore and Joseph Pine term “exceptional authenticity” in their book Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want. Gilmore and Pine remind service providers in particular that “people tend to perceive as authentic that which is done exceptionally well, executed individually and extraordinarily by someone demonstrating human care.”

Become that helpful, smart coworker. Be a thought leader in your area of expertise and give away your ideas at every turn. Become an expert and the media, other influencers, and eventually the right customers will stop by your cube and form a line.

Use the web as a forum for raising your stature. Blog, write and distribute white papers and case studies about what you’re doing. Speak at events. Call reporters back within five minutes when they do call you.

Tell your story until your voice fails - or until you are promoted. Individual self-promotion and professional services self-promotion is essentially the same thing. The key is creating and refining efficiency in your message - meaning discovering and developing your spiel, then creating all the fun stuff - logos, taglines, websites, printed materials, ads and press releases.

1. Paid too much.
2. Do too little.
3. Find only problems they can fix.
4. Find ways to charge you (travel, time, etc.).
5. Don’t understand my business, or don’t listen.
6. Only have their solutions, regardless of my problem.
7. Consultant jokes are always top of mind: What does a consultant do when they see light at the end of the tunnel? Sell more tunnel.

There were a couple more jokes; send me an e-mail with the standard disclaimer and I will repeat them.

The point here? Don’t embrace the stereotype if you’re a consultant, or if you’re perceived to be one.