Keeping up with the Joneses is never easy — especially if the Joneses can outwork you, outspend you, and shout louder than you can.  And if you’re vying for attention in a crowded online market, things aren’t getting any easier.

Craig Newmark (who’s best known as the founder of Craigslist) and his CraigConnects staff recently completed a survey of the social media habits of nonprofits.  They compiled their findings into a comprehensive (and colorful) infographic.

One of their observations in particular really jumped out at us:

Out of 21 organizations we spoke with, only 1 does not have a designated social media person — neither part- nor full-time.

This means 20 of the 21 top nonprofits in the social media realm are paying at least one person to work part-time on their inbound marketing efforts.  Some employ more than one person.  Some employ those people full-time. And all of them want to ensure that their investments lead to results, so they’re willing to spend more money and allocate more resources toward reaching their organization’s goals.

Can you?

If not, here are five off-the-wall tips for maximizing the usefulness of your own inbound marketing — whether you’re competing against the social efforts of part-timers, full-timers, or an army of rabid devotees…

1. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Does your competition have a robust online presence? Engage with them wherever they are. Comment on their media. Exchange ideas. Leverage their investments. There’s no rule that say you can’t play nice together — especially if you share a common goal.

2. Take a stand. Perhaps you’re afraid you might alienate some of your audience by speaking out in favor of — or against — a certain issue. But while you could potentially drive some supporters away by leaning in one direction, the audience that does agree with you is likely to become even more vocal — and loyal — to your brand because they’ll realize you have even more in common than they thought.

3. Set something free. Sure, you want to protect your brand, your logo, your intellectual property, your secret recipes and your client mailing list. But we bet there’s also some other, less vital aspect of your company, your expertise, or your collective media library that your supporters — or even complete strangers who could become supporters — would love to have access to (and make use of). Are you familiar with Creative Commons? Is there any part of your vast media empire which you could release to the public under a Creative Commons license? The resulting goodwill and media buzz may buy you the kind of karma and publicity that you can’t normally afford otherwise.

4. Break something. The inbound marketing world is filled with best practices and case studies that could trap you into believing there’s only one “best” way to do something.  A best time of day to tweet… an optimal length for YouTube videos… a preferred salutation in your email newsletters… Our advice? Sometimes, you need to ignore all that. Completely. In fact, do the exact opposite. Because the only way to innovate — and to get people talking about you — is to not do what everyone else is doing.

5. Get vital. Life is short, and not everyone can afford to spend an hour of their time being pitched by you. Some can’t even afford two minutes.  So boil down your value proposition.

If you only had three seconds to get someone’s attention and drive them to take action on your behalf, what’s the one thing they would need to know in order to make a decision? Start with that piece of information and build out from there. Everything else, as beautiful as it may be, is incidental. But by connecting with your audience on a basic, primal level, you can short-circuit the need to convince them of your value and you can immediately begin fulfilling their needs — and your own.

Need help building a marketing process that drives traffic, leads, and sales?  Give us a call.

One of the dangers of inbound marketing is that it can drive people away from your brand just as easily as it can attract them to you.

How?  Easy.

1) Use demographic data to determine who your target audience is (or who you want them to be).

2) Create marketing content that attracts and unifies your target demographic around a certain self-image while simultaneously beating everyone else over the head that your brand is not for them.

For example, the new diet drink Dr. Pepper Ten made waves when their ad campaign sought to alienate women (or men who aren’t “manly” enough to drink it).  This is similar to an earlier campaign that Pepsi launched for its AMP energy drink, which was also accused of being sexist.

“You need to be edgy and highly creative to get noticed, and tying in something to stir debate is a tactic that is used to get attention,” says Derrick Daye, managing partner of Rochester, New York–based brand consultancy The Blake Project. The danger for the brand, Daye says, is that the drink may become associated with this message, risking AMP’s image not as an energy drink but as a brand that “beats down women.”

Compare these campaigns with those from Old Spice or Dos Equis and you start to notice a subtle difference: while the latter examples are still humorous depictions of what it means to be a “real” man, they make their point with comical exaggerations of competence, rather than pure sexuality or a “no-girls-allowed” treehouse mentality.  They win new fans by including their audience in their fantasies, rather than trying to alienate “undesirable” visitors.

In a world where information (and self-identifying markets) spread at the speed of a single click, marketing campaigns that misuse sex and identity as dividing lines rather than unifiers run a serious risk of being stigmatized by everyone who isn’t in their target market — and even the ones who are, since few people will naturally want to identify themselves with a brand that’s known to offend.

If the trick, then, is to be “edgy” without being offensive, we wonder what customers (and critics) will think of Moosejaw’s MoosejawXRAY app, which lets browsers of their digital clothing catalog see through the clothes and check out what the models are (or aren’t) wearing underneath.

It seems a curious choice for Moosejaw to want to draw their customers’ attention away from the clothes themselves.  And the app certainly runs the risk of branding Moosejaw as an outdoor company that’s more interested in what happens indoors.  (Wink, wink.)  But will all that extra attention actually sell more parkas?  Or is it a poorly-designed strategy that will quickly be forgotten — and, maybe, for the best?

Want a better inbound marketing strategy? We can help!

We’re very excited to let you know of the publication of our first eBook, entitled, “Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail: 9 Ways to Save Money, Launch Sooner, and Dramatically Boost the Effectiveness of Your Website.” It focuses on nonprofits, but its lessons apply more broadly.

Even if this isn’t of interest to you currently, perhaps you have friends that can benefit. It would be great if you’d send them a link.

We wrote the eBook in response to a clear need. In the last year we’ve been asked many times for a follow-up to our extremely popular blog post, “8 Great Questions to Answer Before Starting a Web Design Project.”

A lot of you let us know that the blog post is really useful, but you wish it went deeper. Our nonprofit friends, in particular, have pressed us for more. From that kernel, this eBook was born.

Read on for an excerpt.

Congratulations! You’re about to save a lot of time and money.

You’ve decided it’s time for your nonprofit to design a new website.

• You’re repositioning the organization
• You’re launching a new fundraising initiative
• You’re merging with another nonprofit
• You want your site to more interactive for your audience
• You want your site to better integrate with social media
• Your current site lacks personality, is poorly organized, and difficult to use

Whatever the reasons, our goal is to help you embark upon your project prepared and with your eyes wide open. Without question, you’re about to make a big investment, and unfortunately, all too often a new website doesn’t live up to its potential.

Whether you plan to hire a digital agency or a freelance designer, you can do a lot yourself to prepare, save money, and increase your odds of success.

This eBook will walk you through the things you’re going to have to figure out to have a successful website — one that actually does something to help your organization achieve its important mission.

We hope you’ll find it helpful the next time you are considering a new website, and if you need further strategic guidance, help with an online marketing plan, design assistance, or technical expertise, you know where to find us.

This post, slightly adapted, was first published on the blog of the American Marketing Association of Baltimore.

Many of our readers are marketing professionals. As a professional, you’re likely at the forefront of marketing.

Sure, you and I understand how effective marketing looks quite different in 2011 than it did in 2001 – a topic we cover at length on this blog. But what do you do if your pointy-hair boss just doesn’t get it?

First, some basic facts

•     78% of Internet users conduct product research online [i]
•     46% of daily searches are for information on products or services [ii]
•     There are more than 3 billion Google searches per day [iii]
•     33% of US consumers spend three or more hours per day online [iv]
•     More than half of all Internet users read blogs at least monthly [v]
•     In 2010, 90% of Internet users visited a social network every month [vi]
•     One out of every eight minutes online is spent on Facebook [vii]
•     The average budget spent on company blogs and social media has nearly doubled in the last two years [viii]
•     74% of marketers identify content marketing as more effective than traditional advertising at generating ROI [ix]

Online marketing that works

You wouldn’t choose to advertise on TV by displaying a static print ad for 30 seconds. So why do so many companies use email as if it’s direct mail, banner advertising as if it’s a print ad, or focus on one-off promotions and sales online?

You certainly can build awareness this way, but it’s not the kind that sticks. New media requires new methods.

In practice, this means we should create lots of useful content that educates, empowers, or entertains. It means we should have an active, consistent, search engine-optimized blog. It means we should participate, in a human way, in social media, and should keep tabs on what’s being written online about our brands. It means we should promote our biggest fans even more than we do our own products.

These are the tactics that engender deeper relationships and build trust and loyalty over time. After all, people want to do business with others they know, like, and trust.

Some call this approach “Content Marketing.” Others name it “Inbound Marketing.” Whatever we call it, simply put, it’s the best way to build loyalty and grow our companies.

If you’re already doing this, consider this article a validation of your approach.

How to convince your boss you’re a marketing genius

But what if you know all of this, and the problem is that you can’t convince your boss? What if he “just doesn’t get it?”

For you, my friend, I present eight things you can tell your boss to help wake him up.

1. More sales. Content marketing increases web traffic, generates sales leads, and grows your business. Companies that blog get 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages.[x]

2. Industry expert. Would you like the trust and credibility you get as an “industry expert?” Industry experts can never be commodities. They add extra value and have pricing power.

3. Targeted, measurable, trackable. Great content, positioned correctly, is found and enjoyed by your customers and warm leads at just the right moment. You can actually measure that. Can you say that about your last radio spot? Do you even know how many leads or sales it generated, or who even heard it?

4. Wanted. Your audience is overwhelmed and increasingly skeptical of advertising. They don’t want their family dinners interrupted by your telemarketers or their mailboxes filled with junk mail that they’re just going to throw away anyway. They got DVRs specifically to skip commercials.

Instead, make it as easy as possible for your potential customers to find highly useful and relevant content on their own timetables. They’ll actually thank you for it.

5. Assets. Thanks to Google and social media, great content can deliver traffic and sales leads long after it’s published. Not so for ads.

6. Less expensive. According to a study performed by HubSpot, a company that provides a popular software platform for inbound marketing, inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional marketing. You can take that to the bank.

7. Reclaim the sales cycle. The sales cycle has lengthened, but your sales team’s role in it has diminished. By the time potential buyers speak with you, they often know more about your products or services than you do. They are aware of what people are saying about you in the online echo chamber, good or bad.

Are they seeing rants and complaints (Comcast, Delta)? Or raves and recommendations (Zappos, JetBlue)?

8. Really smart people agree. Let your boss know that Jim Stengel, the former Global Marketing Officer for Procter & Gamble, agrees with you:

“What we really need is a mindset shift that will make us relevant to today’s consumers, a mindset shift from ‘telling and selling’ to building relationships.”

Even the biggest ad agencies agree these days, which shows how mainstream this approach has become. Craig Davis, Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide at J. Walter Thompson, the 4th largest ad agency in the world, stated:

“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.”

If all else fails…

And if all that still doesn’t work, have your boss give me a call. I can be quite convincing.

[i] Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2010

[ii] SRI, October 2010

[iii] Search Engine Land, February 2010

[iv] The Media Audit, October 2010

[v] eMarketer, August 2010

[vi] ComScore, February 2011

[vii] ComScore, February 2011

[viii] HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing Report, 2011

[ix] King Fish Media, 2009 Study of Marketing, Media and Measurement

[x] HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing Report, 2011

Some rights reserved by Peter Kaminski (http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterkaminski/)

Let’s say you’re driving to the mall and, while you’re stopped at a red light, something bright and colorful catches your eye. You look across the street and see a giant inflated gorilla balloon, surrounded by multicolored streamers, all billowing from the roof of a mattress outlet store.

And, of course, you immediately think to yourself, “I need a mattress, now.”

Right?

Well… probably not.

At best, that gorilla balloon might draw your attention to the fact that there is a mattress store at that intersection.  But unless you’re already in the market for a new mattress, you probably don’t think you need one now, and seeing a giant inflated gorilla isn’t going to change your mind.

So why do mattress stores (and used car lots, and thrift stores, and antique shops, and…) use garish outdoor displays to get your attention?

Because buying a new mattress isn’t the kind of thing you think about.  Either you need one, or you don’t.  But by drawing your attention to the fact that they exist, a mattress outlet store can plant the seed that you may need a new mattress someday soon.  That gorilla doesn’t earn his living today; he earns it a month or a year from now, when you finally buy that new mattress you started subconsciously considering while you were stopped at that intersection.

Inbound marketing is a lot like that inflatable gorilla.  It may not pay off today, because your audience may only just be noticing that you exist.  It could take days, weeks or months of exposure to your message — and your purpose — for an observer to become a customer of your business or a supporter of your cause.






But because inbound marketing takes place across everyone’s social media channels on a regular basis, it has the power to generate immediate feedback.  Your videos, tweets, blog posts, photos and status updates are an ongoing opportunity to develop a real-time dialogue between you and your audience.

Meanwhile, a giant inflatable gorilla can’t talk. And, unless it comes unmoored from your roof, it can’t move, either.

Your digital marketing efforts should be focused on bringing your audience to you, but if they’re limited to taking place solely on your own website (or inside your own “walled garden“), they’ll only work for the people who are already looking for you in the first place, or the ones who stumble in by accident. In that sense, they really are inflatable gorillas, tied down in one spot and hoping to get noticed by the people zooming by.

Are you creating messages that travel?  Are you sparking dialogues and creating impressions that last longer than a passing glimpse?

If not, why are you chaining your ideas down?

Wondering how to create messages that move?  We can help.
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Don’t miss another post!

No, not that time she insisted you should be paranoid about tagging photos of yourself at “all the wrong parties,” or how you should never let strangers know that you aren’t home.  (Although, hey, be smart.)

She was right about asking other people for help.

See, when you were a kid and you couldn’t accomplish something at school, your mother didn’t tell you to give up, did she?

No, she told you to ask for help.  Maybe from a teacher, maybe from a classmate, but always to focus on improving, rather than quitting.

It turns out your mom was right about that — and the smartest nonprofits on Facebook are the ones who remembered what their mothers told them.

What do we mean?

Check out this list of 11 Gorgeous (and Strategic!) Facebook Landing Pages for Nonprofits.  Notice a recurring theme?

Most of them ask their visitors for help immediately.






They know you’re busy and distracted when you’re online, so you may not have time for a dazzling slideshow or a funny joke.  They also know that the work they do is serious business, and they can’t do it without you.  So this mix of imperative and communal reliance results in them doing something most of us have been taught to do all along, but which we sometimes forget when we put on our business hats:

They ask for help.

Clearly.  Explicitly.  And with a direct call to action that allows their visitors to get involved and make a difference right from the very first click.

Too often, inbound marketing may seem like a shell game.  “Getting people’s attention is good,” you might be told, “but don’t ask for the sell immediately.  Make your website sticky.  Make sure people have a reason to return.  Hook them for the long haul, and build a community around your brand.”  And so on.

And yes, these are sound strategies for the long term.  They lead to loyalty and longevity, and they help you cultivate brand ambassadors, evangelists and increased sales and donations.

But not everyone has the time to stick around for too long.  Some people want to make a difference now.

And that’s why your online presence needs both a short and long-term strategy, so supporters with varying levels of time and resources can all find a way to contribute in a manner that suits their own needs.

So make sure your organization’s inbound marketing efforts give people the ability to make a difference immediately, not just eventually. (Your mother would be proud.)

Need help with your online strategy?  Just ask!

Your business lives and dies by the number of qualified leads (or potential customers) you can find.

Is your business already generating enough leads? If you’re anything like most of the business owners and executives I speak with, the answer is no.

What would it do for your business growth if your website was providing you with a consistently increasing flow of qualified leads? Or with lead intelligence that can help you decide where to best spend your sales efforts?

First, let me be clear what I mean by “leads.” I’m talking about people you actually have enough information about that you can market to them. Some anonymous person who has read some copy on your website is not a lead — she’s a visitor. Visitors are great, no doubt. But an effective website, at the least, converts visitors into actual leads.






In the world of sales there are “hunters” (those who seek out qualified leads), “farmers” (those who nurture leads, moving them closer to being ready to buy), and “closers.” Closing business is a tough thing to scale, especially for businesses that absolutely require the touch of a human being (i.e. professional services) to close the deal. But your website, if designed properly, can become one of your best hunters and farmers, and can make it dramatically easier for you to close business.

A business website should be, first and foremost, a lead generation tool. Obviously there are exceptions, but generally speaking, anything else is a waste of its potential.

If your website is more of a glorified brochure than a real sales tool, consider doing these nine things:

1. Move your website onto a content management system (CMS)

A CMS is important for you to be able to update your website’s content on a regular basis. Without one, you’re beholden to your web developer for every content update, creating an expensive bottleneck in a world where speed is important.

-> See Also: You Need a Content Management System. Why Not Open Source?

2. Perform keyword research

Find a large volume of relevant, low-competition, high-value keywords that you can rank for on search engines. Think about “the long tail.”

Did you know that, according to NetMarketShare and MarketingSherpa, 57% of Internet users search the web every single day and 70% of search engine clicks are on the organic listings (not the paid ones?) But, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.

->See also: 9 Steps to Balanced Search Engine Optimization

3. Optimize your existing content for search engines AND for people

Sure, you want to increase your website traffic from search engines. But don’t do this at the expense of traffic-to-lead conversion. Remember, it’s not Googlebot you have to convert, it’s real people.

->See also: Writing Content For Your Audience AND Google

4. Blog regularly

Two to three times per week is great, if you can. The more you blog, the more targeted traffic you’ll generate.

According to HubSpot, B-to-B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month on average than those that don’t. B-to-C companies that blog do even better, with 88% more leads.

->See also: Blogging is For Closers

5. Create offers

Offers are the primary carrot by which you’ll convert visitors into leads. In this context, an offer is pretty much anything your audience finds valuable enough that they’d provide their contact information.

Content offers on a website should educate your prospects and help them get smarter about what they need. By providing them with this advice, they will come to understand how your products or services could potentially fill that need. They should also map to different stages of your sales process, so that leads generated can be nurtured accordingly.

At the top of the funnel, your offers can be something educational and related, but not directly about your products or services. Examples include contests, e-books, give-aways, or white papers. For instance, if you want to attract CPAs as customers, you could create an e-book titled, “5 Ways CPAs Can Become More Profitable.”

But remember that the vast majority of website visitors are “just passing through.” They’re not ready to buy — at least not yet. You want to stay top of mind for when they are ready, and you want to help move them down your sales funnel.

Once you’ve captured a new lead, continue to provide them with offers. Once they are more aware of you and the value you provide, you can entice them with something that both educates and introduces your products or service smore directly. Examples include webinars, case studies, or fact sheets.

Finally, for who have read your e-book and participated in your webinar are prime candidates to become customers. For them, consider creating a “closing” offer — something that gets the lead on the phone. For example, a free consultation could work well for those who are almost ready to buy. Remember, a free consultation is time intensive for you and should be saved for your strongest leads.

->See also: How Online Media Can Boost Your Offline Sales

6. Optimize landing pages and calls-to-action

Develop highly targeted landing pages that are specifically designed for lead conversion. Remove all distractions and make sure your landing pages focus entirely on getting the site visitor to take the action you want (fill out a form, download your offer, etc.) Link to your landing pages with strong calls-to-action that drive visitor-to-lead conversions. Your calls-to-actions should use compelling headlines to attract interest. Need examples of great “call-to-action” headlines? Go check out the latest version of Cosmo.

->See also: Steve Jobs, Hurricane Irene and the Secrets of Better Website Traffic

7. Improve visibility through social media

93% of US adult Internet users are on Facebook. Marketers who spent 6 hours a week or more using social media and engaging/sharing content on it saw 52% more leads than those who did not. Companies that use Twitter average double the amount of leads per month that those that do not.

Having active social media accounts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn is no longer a “nice to have” — it’s a “must have.” Social media is an effective way to not only create exposure for your business online, but it is a proven way to significantly engage with prospects and generate leads.

->See also: Why Should Anyone Follow Your Brand on Facebook?

8. Nurture your leads

According to Forrester Research, companies that excel at lead nurturing are able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead.

Automated lead nurturing can be set up through a drip email campaign. When a website visitor registers for a free offer, she’s automatically registered to receive a series of emails with additional content and offers. Lead nurturing keeps you “front of mind” over time, encourages your leads to come back to your site and re-engage, helps you to better understand what appeals to your leads, and provides great lead intelligence that can be directly used in your sales efforts.

9. Track and analyze everything

Everything discussed here is trackable and should be measured against your goals. A website is interactive; a billboard is not.  A website’s impact on your business can be measured; the impact of a billboard — or a print ad, or a TV ad — still has to be guessed at. If you can’t track it, don’t do it. Tracking and analyzing your marketing efforts is what allows you to get better and make the right investments.

->See also: Don’t Get Distracted By the Wrong Metrics

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Some rights reserved by Orin Zebest

At Abstract Edge, we study all kinds of social marketing campaigns — from companies, non-profits, artists and more.  While we’ve seen campaigns big and small, cast wide and extremely focused, there are some universal tips that apply to any strategy you’re planning for your new customer outreach.

Often, it all boils down to getting the little things right.

Here are three examples of common sense outreach tips that your brand would be wise to adopt.

Don’t Blackmail Your Visitors

If you’re judging your inbound marketing success solely on metrics like your number of Facebook fans, you may be tempted to lock up certain key information by making it accessible only to people who “like” your page.   While that might seem logical, it can actually backfire on you.

That’s because the casual visitors who find your page may not yet know enough about you, and they may interpret the act of “liking” you just to find out basic information (like your location or your business hours) as a bait-and-switch tactic that could leave them vulnerable to future marketing spam.  (Or, worse, they may like you once and then never interact with you again, which damages your edgerank.)

One example of a company that isn’t afraid to share its secrets with fans and non-fans alike is Pittsburgh’s Scarehouse, one of the country’s top-rated haunted houses.  A visit to the Scarehouse Facebook page gives you all the information you need — whether you’re a fan or not — including their reviews, hours of operation, links to their website, and a video that showcases some of their most delicious frights.  And if you really like the Scarehouse enough to become a fan, they let you in on all their “making of” goodies through the year, as an ongoing reward that keeps you interested long after Halloween is over.

LESSON: Give the people what they need, but reward the people who ask for more.

Minimal Is the New Everything

There’s a constant urge to “be everywhere” in social media, because you don’t want to miss a chance to connect with your audience wherever they may (prefer to) be.  But the truth is, sometimes, less is more.

D Center Baltimore, a social organization focused on better living through better design, uses a Tumblr blog for their homepage.  They do outreach via a Twitter account and a Facebook group.  Compared to more robust options like WordPress blogs, YouTube channels and Facebook fan pages, these tools are easy to update without requiring much knowledge of coding, formatting, etc.  That means they’re easy for anyone to use, they save time, and they purposely limit the options and distractions that could complicate delivery of a simple, timely message.

LESSON: Know the difference between “doing enough” and “trying to do too much.”  One method spreads your message; the other thins your resources.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Speaking of simplicity, the Twitter account for GOOD, which is an organization dedicated to positive news and social change, rarely tweets anything that isn’t a direct link to their own articles.  But that doesn’t mean their account is being piloted by robots.

On the contrary, they use their Twitter background to list the Twitter handles of their contributors.  Thus, while the GOOD Twitter account serves as a news feed otherwise uncluttered by conversation, fans of their content are still invited to engage with the content creators themselves within their own personal channels.

LESSON: There’s more than one way to create a connection with your audience — and it doesn’t all have to happen in the same place.

Want more tips?  Subscribe to our email list; we share some of our best ideas there!

Some rights reserved by CCAC North Library (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccacnorthlib/)

Last night I attended an event with 40 or so other marketers put on by the American Marketing Association of Baltimore.

Matt Doud, founder of Baltimore-based ad agency Planit Advertising, led a discussion about lessons learned in the ad agency world over the past decade.

Three key points stuck with me:

1. Advertising (or marketing) is storytelling.
2. Specifically, it’s about telling the right story to the right person at the right time.
3. As a storyteller, you must focus on the needs of your audience. This will determine the appropriate channels (TV, direct mail, social media, etc.) for any particular story.

These eternal truths also help to explain why inbound marketing is so powerful. Inbound marketing, when done correctly, tells your audience the stories that matter to them at the time and place of their choosing, about the products and services they need, want, or choose to support.

But is inbound marketing just as formidable for nonprofits? Absolutely. And here’s why:

1) Inbound Marketing Jump-starts Awareness

Most nonprofits want their organization or cause to become widely known. With greater reach comes a greater ability to do good in the world. People can’t become participants, donors, members, or evangelists if they don’t know your organization exists.

Traditional awareness campaigns can be expensive. Really expensive. In fact, they’re out of reach for most nonprofits — especially if you want to cast a wide net.

But inbound marketing typically isn’t as expensive. In a 2010 study, inbound marketing software provider Hubspot determined that the average cost per “lead” is 60% lower with inbound marketing as opposed to traditional “outbound” marketing.

The same study also showed that organizations that blog (an important component of inbound marketing) get 55% more visitors to their websites. Regular blogging leads to better search engine placement, more sharing on social networks, and a greater number of links from other websites.

2) Inbound Marketing Builds Your Constituent Database

Getting all that new traffic is great, but if you know nothing about your website visitors, you can’t be nearly as proactive in growing your organization. Provide people with a reason to be willing (and even happy) to give you their name and email address, at the very least.

Then, create well-designed landing pages on your website with compelling offers and strong calls-to-action. By obtaining ever more information about your audience, your outreach efforts will be much more powerful and effective.

3) Inbound Marketing Inspires Higher Levels of Engagement

It takes a lot more commitment for someone to become a large campaign donor than to simply re-share your content on Facebook. But a lasting and growing commitment can be fostered over time — and inbound marketing channels can help.

Once people have voluntarily added themselves to your database, you can begin to tailor programs, events, and content to them, which will prompt and inspire those individuals to become increasingly active members of your community.

Eternal Truth

Tell the stories that showcase your organization, but make sure you’re telling the right story to the right person at the right time and place. That’s exactly what inbound marketing does so well, helping you to achieve your goals in a more cost-effective way.

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Sounds great! I’d like to discuss an inbound marketing program for my organization. How can I reach you?

(Wait… I’m feeling a little confused about what “Inbound Marketing” is. Can you please explain?)

Maybe you can list a dozen reasons why your company should do more inbound marketing.  But even though you know you should take action, you may still be paralyzed by one big question:

“Where do we start?”

If your brand doesn’t already have a social media presence, you might wonder where to start. Facebook? YouTube? Somewhere else?

If you do have a digital presence, you might not be sure how best to grow it.

And even if you have a healthy online following, you may not know whether or not it’s actually helping you reach your long-term goals.

So relax.

Let’s get back to basics and make sure your inbound marketing base is a stable one.

For starters, Nonprofit Tech 2.0 offers 5 Ways to Grow Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Fan Base.  These range from the obvious (“Add social media icons to your website”) to the crafty (“Tag other nonprofits in your status updates,” which can increase awareness and initiate conversations with like-minded organizations).






While those tips are crafted with Facebook in mind, the methodology applies to any social media channel you start exploring:

• Establish a presence
• Engage your peers
• Make sure your pre-existing audience knows where they can find you

You wouldn’t start selling a new product and not tell your customers, would you?  This same logic applies to your digital presence: if they don’t know you have one, your audience can’t engage with you there.

In addition to those tips, we’d like to share five of our own:

• Find your brand’s voice.  Will you be friendly, casual and conversational?  Official, clear and concise?  Funny?  Helpful?  Educational?  Thought-provoking?  (Hint: regardless of your tone, you want to speak in the first person (“We’re so excited to…”), not the third (“Brand X is excited to announce…”).  Social media is about speaking with people, not at them.
• Start small.  You don’t need to tweet 100 times a week or post a new YouTube video every day.  Trying to be too active can overwhelm you, paralyze you, or burn you out on a tool before you’ve gotten the hang of it.
• Keep it simple.  The easier your message is to understand, the greater its chances of being liked, shared and acted upon.
• Think in pictures.  Photos are the most popular updates on Facebook.
• Be responsive.  Letting people know that your brand has a social profile is important, but if they engage you there and you don’t respond, you’ve missed an opportunity to make a meaningful connection with your customers.  Worse, they might think you’re not serious about this whole “personal” thing, and they’ll suspect you’re trying to infiltrate their private social channels with more marketing-speak — and that kind of activity is worse than not being active at all.

Sounds simple, right?  It is.  And from there, you can start building your inbound marketing strategy in a logical direction.

Want more help launching your inbound marketing?  That’s one of the things we do best.

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Maybe your sales are up.  Maybe you have a few new Facebook fans or YouTube subscribers.  Maybe people are tweeting positive vibes about your brand.

All of that is a good thing, right?  Well, sure.

But how do you really know if your inbound marketing is working?

Beth Kanter, a longtime champion of social integration in the nonprofit world, makes a compelling case for thinking differently about the ROI (return on investment) of your digital media.  Instead of focusing on the return, Kanter advocates measuring the change.

As Kanter explains:

ROI is as an acronym for a business term, Return on Investment.   It was created in the 1920s as a financial measure developed by DuPont and used by Alfred Sloan to make General Motors manageable.  It is a flow chart that calculates business performance taking into account not only whether the company had a profit, but whether that profit was good enough relative to the assets it took to generate it.  Over those 90 years, the chart has been polished, refined and so deeply embedded in business thinking that Wall Street views it as the only legitimate means of measuring business performance.

Should we be using an industrial measurement model in a digitally networked  age?  Should nonprofits use a narrow ROI definition in their quest to improve program results? Why not apply a “Theory of Change” method?

Good question.  And your answer depends on your real reason for getting social.

Are you focused on fundraising, merchandising or sales?

Do you want to increase public awareness of a specific cause or situation?

Does your media need to inspire your donors, your volunteers, and even your own employees?

If you can articulate what your true goals are, and you can identify how far (or close) you are to achieving them, you can more clearly see all the ways your social outreach efforts can help you achieve those goals in ways that go beyond simple metrics.

We often refer to this online outreach as inbound marketing, but the truth is, engaging with your customers and supporters goes deeper than simply “marketing” to them.  What you’re really doing is building a community with a shared purpose.

Whether you’re a for-profit business or a not-for-profit organization, your reason for existing isn’t just to be profitable or solvent; it’s to delight your “customers”, solve their problems and enrich their lives.  And engaging with them through a wide variety of social channels is what helps you build the legacy of your brand, one message at a time.

For example, Apple may be a computer company, but the world’s reaction to the passing of Steve Jobs has proven that the impact his ideas and products have had on the planet run far deeper than motherboards and touchscreens.  His customers — and even his detractors — view Apple as a lifestyle company, and the decisions Apple makes, from pricing to presentation, reinforce that perception.

How clear is your company’s vision?  And how can your social outreach bring you closer to the people, the accomplishments, and the change that you’re truly passionate about?

Need help focusing your company’s vision?  We can help.

Earlier this week, we stumbled across this Facebook ad from Waldorf Ford and Dodge, a car dealership in Maryland that’s using Facebook and YouTube to attract new customers.  But they’re not just using these channels to boost their page views and get more attention; they’re actively trying to solve their customers’ problems, reduce likely obstacles to a car purchase, and create a friendly bond between the brand and the potential purchaser.

Here’s one of their videos, in which they try to demystify some of the acronyms and jargon you find in most car sales brochures:

On the surface, this video may seem simple, but Waldorf’s big-picture approach to inbound marketing, we bet, is really paying off.

Why?

• This video is part of an ongoing weekly video series.
• They’ve created recurring characters who star in their videos.
• They use humor to find common ground with their customers.
• They’re not afraid to poke fun at their own industry.
• The information they provide is actually useful.

Most importantly, this video is a conversation-starter.  They’re not expecting it to directly sell cars.

Their real goal with this kind of social advertising is to convince prospective car buyers that they’re a dealership worth visiting in person.  That’s where the sale will be made.  And while you’ll probably shop around when you’re in the market for a new car, Waldorf thinks you’re more likely to buy from a dealership that comes across as a friend.

Also, it’s worth noting that while we found this video through a Facebook ad, that ad doesn’t actually drive traffic to Waldorf’s Facebook page.  Instead, clicking the ad takes you to Waldorf’s YouTube channel.  Perhaps Waldorf is betting that showing you a wide array of videos in one place is the best way to convert visitors to buyers, rather than anchoring you to a Facebook page that you may never see again.

What do you think? Is Waldorf Ford and Dodge creating valuable media that supports their long-term sales goals? How it does make you think about them as a brand?

DISCLAIMER: Waldorf Ford and Dodge is not (and never has been) a client of Abstract Edge, nor did we create any of their media. We found them entirely by accident, through what we presume was a geographically-targeted Facebook ad.

Want to create media that supports your sales goals? Ask us; we can help!

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“I love Brand X!”

If you were the CMO at Brand X, wouldn’t you love to see a steady stream of that exact sentiment being shared by your customers online?

Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen.

Not that people don’t say good things about brands and products online.  Often, they do — and maybe they even say them about your brand — but they don’t usually say it like that.  Instead, you’re more likely to see good (and bad) observations like this.  And this.  And this.

Getting customer feedback through social media networks can be a key component of your inbound marketing and customer relations strategy.  And knowing what they’re saying about you — and how they’re saying it — is imperative for keeping up with the conversation.

But what do you wish your customers were saying about you?  Here’s a tip for deconstructing your customer’s opinions and figuring out what they really want, so you can give it to them.

Better Tweeting with Michael Jordan

When Michael Jordan was playing in the NBA and changing the world’s idea of what a basketball player could be, he had a lot of tools at his disposal: talent, fearlessness, drive, athleticism, determination.  But he also had the ability to visualize his own success by picturing himself playing well, which gave him a mental blueprint of how he should be performing on the court.

Go ahead – try it. Picture a stream of positive sentiments from your customers. What do they look like?  What are your customers saying about you — and what is inspiring them to take that action?

“Brand X has the best customer service I’ve ever seen, because they ___!”

“Car X is the only car I’ll ever buy, because ___.”

“Whenever my friends are in town, I make sure we go to Restaurant X because ___.”

“I always donate to Non-Profit X because ___.”

Once you know what your ideal positive sentiments look like, you can start to understand what experiences your customers would need to have with your brand in order to want to say those things about you, and share those opinions with their friends (and strangers) online.

Use Customer Rants to Your Advantage

If there’s no such thing as bad publicity, then there’s also no such thing as bad customer sentiment.  Sure, you’d rather not see mentions like “Brand X is the worst company I’ve ever dealt with!” or “Beer X tastes like cat vomit,” but they happen, and your natural response is to want to make those mentions disappear.

But you can’t wish them away.  They’ll only disappear when the reason for their existence ceases to exist.

“Rental Company X never has the cars I want!”

“Cereal X goes from dry to soggy before I even put the milk away!”

“I would rather watch at home than see a Sports Team X game in person because ___.”

When your customers are complaining, they’re clearly telling you what they want from you.  In this case, you have a tangible blueprint for improving their experience and their long-term sentiment about your company.  And while you may not always be able to win back customers you’ve lost, you can act on their suggestions to ensure that future customers don’t feel the same way.

Next time you’re monitoring what your customers are saying about you online, make sure you do more than just measure their love (or hate) for your brand.  By understanding why they feel that way, you can make them feel better — and if they already feel great, maybe it’s because you engineered their experience that way on purpose.

As Stephen R. Covey wrote in his best seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Good advice.

Need help steering the ship of public sentiment?  We do that, and more.  Give us a call.

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Did you just find another link you can’t wait to share on Twitter?

Do you have a product you think your Facebook fans would love to see?

Are you convinced that your YouTube subscribers are waiting breathlessly for your next clip?

WAIT!

Whether you tweet for yourself, your company, or as part of a team-based branding strategy, here are 6 questions to help ensure your inbound marketing efforts are being underpinned by a sound social strategy.

1. What’s your real, measurable goal?

Are your efforts ultimately being judged according to how many units you sell?  How many page views you generate?  How much online chatter you generate?  If you don’t know where you’re aiming, you don’t know if you’re hitting the target.

2. What kinds of messages generate the most feedback?

Not everything you create will resonate with your audience, but some status updates are stickier than others.  Do your fans and followers respond more to questions and polls, or by commenting on photos and videos?  Understanding their interaction habits will help you feed them the kinds of information they’re hungriest for.

3. Which of your media gets shared the most — and by whom?

Your fans and followers have their own fans and followers, too.  Are you giving them information that they can use to become trusted influencers and curators among their own audiences?  Do you know who your superfans are?  Do you know what they’re most likely to pass along to their audiences?

4. What’s your policy on controversy?

Hot button issues can get clicks, but there’s a fine line between joining the conversation and alienating potential customers, partners or fans.  Do you want to push that envelope, or are you better off playing it safe?

5. Actually, what’s your social media policy, period?

Do you know what you can and can’t say in the name of your employer or your client?  (If not, you should figure that out ASAP.)

6. What is your competition doing?

Is the information they share catching fire with their audience?  Are there gaps in their strategy that you could be filing?  There’s always room for multiple brands to share information within the same channels, but if your competition is doing it right — or wrong — you should be paying attention (and taking notes).

Wondering if you’re doing it right? Ask us; we can help you do inbound marketing better.

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(Looking for “Is Google Rewarding People Who ‘Buy’ Friends?” Click here.)

In a recent column titled “How Brands Should Think About Facebook,” Advertising Age’s Jack Neff makes the case that Facebook is more useful as a brand loyalty tool than it is for attracting new customers.  Depending on your brand’s goals and your audience’s Facebook habits, he may be right.

As he notes:

Research by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research finds 84% of a typical brand’s Facebook fans are existing customers.

And if that’s the case, then 84% of a brand’s Facebook time is going to be spent making happy customers happier, rather than delighting total strangers.

But what Neff’s article really got us thinking about was the difference between a wink and a kiss, and why Facebook is so good at helping brands score one kind of love but not always the other.

Just Because I Like You, That Doesn’t Mean I Care

Have you ever heard of EdgeRank?

It’s the method Facebook uses to determine just how much the things you say matter to the people you say them to.  (Think of it as Facebook’s version of the algorithm Google uses to figure out how high your website turns up during searches.)

Your brand’s Facebook fan page may have 1000 fans, but if those fans never engage with your page’s content beyond that initial “like,” they’ll be less and less likely to see the content you share on that page.  In the world of Facebook, your EdgeRank can strengthen or weaken like a muscle.  But unlike traditional exercise, the growth of that muscle isn’t really up to you; it’s up to the engagement habits of your audience.

This means the more often people click on, comment on, “like” and share your fan page’s content, the more relevant Facebook thinks your content is, and your EdgeRank goes up.  And that means your fans in general — and your most active fans in particular — are more likely to see your content show up in their “Top News” feed.

Conversely, the more often you post content to your fan page that doesn’t ring up comments, “likes” and shares, the more irrelevant Facebook thinks your page is, and the less likely your fans are to see your content even if they expect to.

Winks Are Easy, But Kisses Are When It Counts

Getting someone to “like” your Facebook fan page is the easy part.  It only requires them to notice you, and find you momentarily interesting enough to click a button once.  It’s a wink from a passerby who may never expect to see you again.

But activity?  That matters.

The fans who find your content compelling enough to form an opinion about it, who want to answer your questions and share your videos, photos, coupons, freebies, etc.?  Those are the ones who want to see you on a regular basis — and they’re the ones who will see you in their news feed.  Because they care, and their actions prove it.

So the real measure of a Facebook fan page’s success isn’t in the number of fans, but the number of actively engaged fans.  (In fact, having too many unengaged fans can actually drive your EdgeRank down, which means all those flirtatious winks are working against you.)

Who knew Facebook — a tool that was built by a guy whose previous success was a website where college students could rate pictures of co-eds — would eventually mature into a tool that rewards long-term commitment?

Maybe social media is growing up after all…

Need a Facebook chaperone? We manage inbound marketing that matters. Contact us.

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Last week, the world was on fire with amazing news. Earthquakes in Virginia!!! Steve Jobs retires!!! Hurricane Irene is coming!!! HURRICANE IRENE IS HERE!!!

And while the general public obsessed over those stories (or tried to ignore them so they could get some actual work done), a vast swath of social marketers were salivating.  Why?  Because they’ve been trained to look for angles on breaking news and pop culture stories that can help drag attention toward their own brands and products.

The good news is, you can do it too.

But should you?

Let’s find out.

Steve Jobs: A Man for All Reasons

On Tuesday, the east coast was shaken by a 5.8 tremor.  But when Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple, the whole world trembled in awe at the passing of an era.  Jobs is one of the only CEOs in the world who has groupies, much less style groupies.  But that makes sense, because during his tenure at the helm, he’s built Apple into a lifestyle brand, rather than a technology company.

This is also why news sources and blogs of all kinds were quick to pounce on the Jobs story and find their own self-serving angle, because they know that Steve Jobs is a traffic magnet.  Hence, we’re treated to articles like…

• Steve Jobs Has Transformed Your Life (PC World)
• The Best Keynotes by Steve Jobs (Business Insider)
• Steve Jobs’s Advice for Entrepreneurs (Entrepreneur)
• How Steve Jobs Changed the Art of the Pitch (Ad Week)
• The Steve Jobs Business Formula (and Why It Works) (Read Write Web)

… and so on.

Is this kind of headline-hitching opportunistic? Absolutely.

Does it work?

Probably.  But that really depends on your goals.

What [POPULAR SUBJECT] Can Teach You About [A SERVICE WE OFFER]

The above formula is a guaranteed traffic booster, because people are always interested in two things:

• currently (or perpetually) popular headline topics, and
• improving their own skills / knowledge

This is why headlines like “What Osama bin Laden Can Teach Financial Advisers” seem at once ghoulishly tacky and deviously genius, and why we see so many of them online.  Because while people may not be searching for you online, if you can hitch your landing page to someone else’s star, you just might reap the benefits.

But this approach really works best when you want to boost your general traffic, rather than attracting highly-targeted leads.

That’s because the “spectacle” aspect of these headlines means they’re going to attract rubberneckers, cultural tourists, and people in desperate need of something to share on their own social media channels.  And while some of that traffic may be useful to you, most of it won’t because it’s too imprecise.  (Unless you’re in the eyeballs-for-advertisers game, in which case, these headlines will serve you incredibly well.)

And Yet, There’s a Silver Lining!

While these kinds of headlines and posts may grab attention and boost traffic, they also improve audience learning and comprehension.  Think of them as the equivalent of a word problem at the end of an algebra lesson: they reframe the basic principles of a statement into something the audience can relate to, while using terminology and anecdotes that are more likely to be remembered in the short (and maybe even the long) run.

So, while we’d never deter anyone from piggybacking the zeitgeist, we’d also caution a balanced approach.  Lean too far in the direction of spectacle and your brand starts to shift in a similar direction, and that may not match your ultimate business goals.

However, if you become the world’s greatest headline hitcher and your general traffic explodes as a result, here’s a tip: maybe that’s the business you should really be in.

And if you need help finding traffic that actually wants your products and services, you’re in luck; we do that.

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One of the biggest challenges companies face when they decide to produce original promotional content is… how?

Not in terms of process, because it’s easy to find the right personnel or hire the right agency to create media that drives traffic, interest and sales.  But where’s the hook?

Actually, you might be sitting on it.

When I used to film the web sitcom Something to Be Desired, we would sometimes film segments in a radio station that was housed under the same roof as the TV studio where Mister Rogers Neighborhood was filmed.  Every shoot, we’d walk right past the tree, the castle and the carousel from The Land of Make Believe.  One day, it occurred to us that we were standing right next to something an entire generation would probably think of as magical, and we’d grown so used to it that we’d already tuned it out.

Most of us have lived with our own stories for so long, we sometimes forget what makes those stories interesting in the first place.  Instead of tapping into our most valuable storytelling resource — our own experiences — people and brands often try to shift the focus away from themselves and onto something they’ve invented from scratch, which seems interesting mostly because it’s new to them.

And that can work.  But so can telling your best old stories to new audiences who’ve never heard them before, and who can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

Here are some tips to help you better appreciate the content goldmine you keep trying to ignore: yourself.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times…

Either way, it was probably a great story.

Your past successes (and failures) come replete with lessons learned and advice for others, and shared wisdom is always worth listening to.

Whether you’re explaining why something worked well or how it failed completely, you’re both providing a helpful service and giving your audience a window into your own personality (and, occasionally, your flaws and quirks).  The former is why people will listen once; the latter is why they’ll relate to you and want to keep coming back for more.

Stop Pretending Your Employees Don’t Have Lives

A two-person company has twice as many great stories to tell as a sole proprietor does.

That’s because each of your employees has a story to tell.  Some have quite a few.  Maybe one of them is incredibly good at something unusual.  Maybe one of them once saved your brand from the brink of total collapse.  Maybe one of them can bench press 400 pounds, or eat 20 hotdogs in a row, or once met Frank Capra at a barber shop in Queens.

You’ll never know if you don’t ask.  And your audience will never know if your team doesn’t have a chance to tell.

Spilling the Secret Sauce

Christopher Penn wrote a smart blog post about the fallacy of basing your business model on a “secret ingredient,” because if the only thing separating you from your competition is a mysterious herb or spice, you’re just a few lucky guesses away from obsolescence.  But while that may hold true for businesses, secrets are still great fuel for stories — especially when they’re being revealed.

Audience love surprises, and they’ll spend large chunks of their lives trying to solve invented mysteries.  So when you pull back the curtain on your own process and show people how it really works, you not only gain respect from those who’ll seek to emulate your success, but you actually take ownership of a story that could destroy you if someone else started telling it.

Show and Tell (and Prove)

If I like a certain brand of coffee, I might feel even better about it if I knew that the beans were being picked under fair trade provisions.  And while that brand can tell me it’s adhering to those regulations, showing me works best of all.

What parts of your process would your customers love to see in person?  What claims are you making that a little visual evidence might help sell?  What events and experiences do you take for granted because you encounter them every workday, but your audience will almost never have a chance to experience firsthand?

Starting to Think of Some Great Stories Yet?

Good.

Now tap into your social marketing channels and get those stories in front of the people who most need to hear them:

Everyone who isn’t you.

And if you need a hand with that part, let us know.  We can help.

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Last month, a bizarre turn of events led to me getting interviewed on the CBC about Twitter.  (Speaking of which, you can follow me on Twitter here, and follow Abstract Edge here.)

The interview, on the CBC’s Connect with Mark Kelley, was spurred by the five year anniversary of the launch of Twitter.  You can see the interview here, starting around the 42 minute mark.  And while the questions Kelley asked were focused on the personal side of Twitter, there are lessons here for your business as well.

Let’s revisit the interview with our business hats on and see what Mark Kelley’s questions can teach us about the inbound marketing side of social media.

Cutting Through the Noise

Twitter has grown exponentially over its first five years, which prompted an observation from Mark Kelley that there can’t possibly be that much interesting information out there when compared to all the pointless “what I had for breakfast” tweets.

This is true…  mostly.

As I said in the interview, there’s no limit to what we can share online, which means people can and will share everything.  There’s also no guidebook for what we should (or shouldn’t) share, so nothing’s off limits unless common sense (or job security) suggests otherwise.

The catch is, “interesting” is in the eye of the beholder.  And when people start to share information that falls outside the established norms, that “unusual” information becomes interesting by default.  This means the less a message sounds like an ad or a stale news headline, the more likely it is to catch someone’s eye.

So… how interesting is your company? Or, as Seth Godin likes to ask, where’s your “purple cow?”

Business Lesson #1: Your “approved’ corporate messaging is now in direct competition with “unauthorized” content being created by everyone else.  With competition growing every day, your contributions must stand out or they’ll get lost in the shuffle.

Does Increasing the Volume Weaken the Signal?

Kelley also touched on the danger of drowning out the media that does matter by creating too much noise.

As he put it, once you have the sheer volume of tweets that we do now, do the tweets themselves lose any relevance or resonance if they’re left adrift in an ocean of information?

Broadly speaking? Absolutely.

But, like importance, “relevance” is also subjective, since what’s relevant to you (or to your customers) may not be relevant to me.

The good news is, the more media everyone creates (and the greater the risk of the “good stuff” getting lost at sea), the more motivation readers and viewers have to seek out the information that most matters to them.  Not only does this mean that deservedly popular information will keep getting repeated by all who consider it relevant (so you’re less likely to miss it), but it also means that “niche” information about less mainstream topics is being actively sought out by the people who most care about it.

Is your company serving a specific niche?  How easy is it for the people who may want your information to find it?

Business Lesson #2: Don’t try to aim your messaging at everyone, because the attention competition is too vast.  But DO give anyone who is interested in your information a reason to share it with THEIR audience, which presumably overlaps with yours.

Your Brand Is Now Reflective

It’s not just about you anymore.  (Although, if you’re lucky, it is about you some of the time.)

As we’ve established, Twitter (in particular, and social media in general) rewards those who share interesting, relevant information with the audiences who seek it and want to re-share it themselves. And while some of that information may be about your company, your products or your value proposition, most of it won’t be — even if it’s coming from you.

This is because social media’s “secret sauce” is the way it allows users to get a personal glimpse of the people they interact with.

For example, you may follow your favorite author on Twitter because you like her work, but if all she ever tweeted were links to web stores where you could buy her books, you’d unfollow her immediately because you’d process her tweets as a hard sell (or, worse, spam).

Worst of all, you might suspect she was somehow less human simply because she wasn’t accepting the unspoken opportunity social media offers its users, to reveal something more personal about themselves than traditional ads ever did.

What industry is your company part of?  Where are your headquarters located?  What charities or causes are you passionate about?  What extracurricular accomplishments have your employees achieved?  What is it like to work at your company? All of this, and more, is fertile ground for starting conversations with your audience.  Doing so helps to build a social bond with them that extends beyond the subtle request to buy from you that each tweet implies.

Business Lesson #3: There’s more to your company than just a storefront.  Let your social presence reflect the sum total of everything that’s wonderful about your brand, rather than just the price tag.

Need to Make Sense of Social?

“Being social” may seem natural, but learning how to think socially in business isn’t always easy.

Fortunately, we can help.  (Just ask.)

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Let’s say a team of top scientists, who’ve been dedicated to the creation of the world’s most amazing new technology for the past twenty years, have finally released their brand-new invention to the world: a flying elephant!

The media jumps all over the story.  The early adopters rush out to buy, tame and dissect their very own flying elephants, and then they reverse-engineer them in order to create flying pigs, flying snakes and flying eggbeaters.  Someone you’ve never heard of becomes world-famous as The Flying Elephant Expert, and you probably buy his book, Flying Elephants for Dummies.

Suddenly, the world is abuzz about all the ways flying elephants have changed everything, forevermore.

And somewhere in this whole wild process, someone in your company walks into your office and insists that you absolutely, positively MUST buy a flying elephant for business use, right now.

“But why?” you ask.

“Because everyone else is doing it,” they say.  “And if we don’t, we’ll fall behind.  The truth is, we can’t afford NOT to have our own flying elephant!”

But there’s just one problem: Your company makes teacups.  So what the hell are you going to do with a flying elephant?

Well, let’s figure that out.

Your Guide to Buying a Flying Elephant

First, let’s be clear: not everyone needs a flying elephant.

Sure, you might want one, and your advisers might be telling you to get one, but unless you understand how a flying elephant is going to make your business better / faster / easier / more profitable, you shouldn’t buy one.  New technology is great, but not when you have to find an excuse to apply it.

Sometimes it can be hard to see all the ways new technology will change your business.  No one in 1960 could have predicted exactly how computers, cell phones and the Internet would revolutionize business in 2011, so investing in those technologies when they were considered “cutting-edge” would have been an inefficient use of operating capital for most companies.

But once that change can be understood, documented and proven, that “cutting-edge” technology becomes a little less risky and a lot more justifiable of an expense.  For example, having a Facebook fan page for your business in 2006 would have been cutting-edge, and potentially unprofitable, but having one in 2011 makes complete sense.

So, before you buy a flying elephant, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What are the alleged benefits of this new technology?

Yes, you may get an initial PR boost from being among the first companies in your field to have its own flying elephant.  But what else are you promised?  In what other ways will your daily process — and your bottom line — be improved?  (Are those improvements guaranteed?)

2. What existing aspects of our business process will this new technology replace… or complicate?

If you have a flying elephant, you may not need a delivery truck anymore… but you might need more padding around the teacup warehouse.  If you have a new online store, you may be able to save money on print advertising… but you might need more online security.  Look at both sides of that coin before you invest in the change.

3. How much time and effort will we need to spend on implementing this new technology?

Can your team afford to divert their attention from their existing tasks in order to feed and train your new flying elephant?  If they do, what existing tasks will need to be reassigned?  And will you need to hire new personnel to specialize in flying elephant care and maintenance, or can that be rolled into your daily workflow?

4. How soon can we expect this new technology to make our company better / more profitable?

The newer a technology is, the steeper the learning curve is, and the longer you can expect to wait before you see a return on your investment.

… and, most important of all:

5. Does acquiring this new technology bring us directly closer to our stated business goals?

If your company’s mission is to be “the industry leader in ___,” you may want a flying elephant as soon as one rolls off the assembly line.  But if your company is focused on “the best customer service,” or “the most cost-effective solutions,” a flying elephant might not directly improve your process — at least, not until all the bugs are worked out, and someone else releases a case study on the best (and worst) ways to implement it.

“Does Not a Flying Elephant by Any Other Name Still Sound as Awesome?”

With apologies to Shakespeare, it’s not just flying elephants that cause today’s CEOs, CMOs and other top decision-makers to get distracted.  Every day, another new technology makes headlines, and someone in your company has to decide whether or not this opportunity represents a positive disruption, a negative threat or simply doesn’t merit further attention.

Sometimes it’s too early to tell.  For example, Google just released their Facebook-killing Google+ service last week, and the early adopters are currently working overtime to understand exactly what this means for business, for society, and for the web (and the world) at large.

Does this mean your business needs to be on Google+?

That depends:

Does Google+ help you sell more teacups?

If you don’t know, ask someone who does.  And if you can’t find anyone who seems to know for sure, do yourself a favor:

Wait.

Eventually, you’ll know.  Or you’ll find someone who does.

But, in the meantime, you have teacups to sell.

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Last week, Mashable announced that Tumblr now serves more blogs than WordPress does. This was considered especially noteworthy because the 4 year-old Tumblr has achieved this lofty number in half the time it took the now 8 year-old WordPress.

For an industry that considers WordPress to be as ubiquitous as Heinz is to ketchup, this number could have caused the blog world to step back and rethink its own identity. More practically, it may have caused plenty of social marketing gurus to rethink their business practices.

But it shouldn’t. Here’s why:

Like apples and oranges, Tumblr and WordPress can’t really be directly compared.

For one thing, you can set up a Tumblr blog in the time it takes me to type this sentence. Tumblr is the fast food of blogging, which is why it’s not surprising that there would be more Tumblr blogs than WordPress blogs. They’re easier to launch, easier to update, and require less maintenance than traditional blogs do… but this also means that, by and large, they carry less weight (both Google-wise and reputation-wise) than traditional blogs do.

Tumblr blogs also don’t serve the same purpose as traditional blogs. While most blogs are built to share information and foster discussions, Tumblr is a quick, semi-stream of consciousness way for people to share links and photos that they find momentarily interesting. And while some brands are clearly pushing the boundaries of what you can expect from Tumblr, traditional blogs continue to serve as the cornerstones of the content-driven Internet.

Granted, this may change. In fact, it almost definitely will change.

Just like Facebook killed MySpace, and just like mobile apps are eroding our reliance on the static web, something will eventually kill blogs… and Tumblr… and every other social media tool that marketers deploy.

But they’re not dead yet.

In fact, business blogging is booming. So is static web usage. And MySpace is still releasing new features in the hopes of attracting new users.

However, if I were so inclined, I could also show you numbers that downplay the value of business blogging, prove that static web usage is plummeting and predict that MySpace will be dead by 2012.

And that’s why headlines and data by themselves aren’t enough information to base your decisions on, regardless of how often they’re retweeted. No matter what point you’re trying to make, you can always find the numbers that support your argument.

If you want to supercharge your brand’s online presence, you might think moving from WordPress to Tumblr is the smart move because Tumblr is growing fast. But, if you’re convinced that Tumblr is a waste of time, you could just as easily dredge up numbers that validate traditional blogs at the expense of Tumblr’s “fluff.”

Here’s what it all really means:

Nothing.

Not unless you have a reason to be tracking data and analyzing trends.

If your brand has goals and plans, it’s easy to make smart decisions based on your weighted evaluation of data because you’ll have benchmarks to compare those numbers against.

If you don’t, it’s easy to get confused by data and start making arbitrary decisions based on numbers instead of intentions because, in a vacuum, big numbers always look sexy.

Understanding which metrics matter to you — and what each tool in your toolbox is best used for — will save you time, money and sanity, even as the rest of the world is breathlessly stumbling over the next big headline… and the next… and the next…

Need help navigating all these numbers? Let Abstract Edge help you draw up your own personal road map for inbound marketing.