Smart Marketing

Godin Inspires

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Seth Godin is a constant source of inspiration. I know I'm not alone in thinking that. He has just written a new book called "Poke the Box" which doesn't surprise me because Seth writes a lot of books. But this one sounds interesting on many levels. He has decided to try to re-construct the publishing paradigm by doing it himself in conjunction with Amazon and by packaging the book in a way that encourages you to give a copy to others. It is always great to hear or watch Seth speak and I just watched a recent video interview with him that I highly recommend you check out. Yes you'll hear him talk about the book, but keep watching because he'll really make you think about your "job" and your place in the world. Check it out.

http://bit.ly/uSJblB

Facebook Crisis, What to Do

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Every now and then I get asked about what to do if a brand's fans and customers get angry and start using Facebook to vent. Crisis management in social media takes some concentration. No, things don't just blow over. Nor should you necessarily want that to happen. You could lose a lot of customers very quickly. Today Social Media Examiner posted a really good and concise roadmap with how to deal with a Facebook crisis. I've reposted it here and definitely check them out if you haven't before; SME is one of the best resources for small, medium, and large businesses looking for social media marketing advice.

7 Tips for Dealing With Upset Facebook Fans

By Jim Belosic
Published August 30, 2011

What do you do when you’ve just received a less-than-complimentary Facebook wall post from someone who likes your business (or used to, so it seems)?

The customer could have a simple complaint, or be so upset he’s gone on the offensive, making sure you and the rest of your community knows he’s angry.

Your next steps are key to retaining not only the business of the angry customer, but the business of other fans who like your page as well.

#1: Respond no matter what

It’s vitally important that the complaints and issues your fans pose on your wall are addressed. Inactivity on your part will appear as though you’re trying to ignore the issue and sweep it under the rug. Being unresponsive does nothing more than incite more anger and increase the chance the user will come back with even more angry wall posts.

Moreover, your community can see that angry post. If you don’t reply, it appears as though you are unconcerned with customer support, which can be detrimental to your reputation.

A response that illustrates respect and understanding for customers’ concerns will indicate your intention to rectify any problems. By addressing this upset fan, Newegg is demonstrating that they value their fans’ opinions—even the negative ones.

An upset fan who promises to shop Newegg less frequently still receives prompt, respectful customer service.

#2: Be patient and understanding

In dealing with upset fans, you must remember that you are closer to your industry, products and services than they are. What may seem like basic, common knowledge to you is often foreign to the end user.

Take a step back and put yourself in your customer’s shoes. This can go a long way in understanding why he or she is frustrated. It may not be your company’s fault that the customer is upset.

Whether or not the fault lies on your end, a simple apology will go a long way in keeping the customer’s business. Instead of trying to figure out where the blame lies, turn upset fans into loyal customers by making their experience better.

#3: Contact the Customer Privately

Sending a private message or email to the customer opens up more options for you to address his or her complaints. The goal here is to extend some sort of token letting the customer know you’re sorry he or she is dissatisfied with your company, and you’re willing to make it right. Whether that’s offering the number of the manager’s direct phone line or a discount off the next purchase, moving the conversation from public to private allows you to give the customer a personal touch that signals you care.

However, offering things like direct lines and special discounts publicly can lead to other people creating problems just to get that special treatment, so it’s best to keep these practices off the wall.

While Hayneedle’s customer shown below isn’t visibly upset about the damaged order, Hayneedle handles the situation perfectly, and contacts the customer privately to resolve the issue.

Hayneedle moves conversation with a customer from the Facebook wall to private messages to better help the customer.

#4: Consider asking the fan to remove the post

Say you’ve discussed the issue privately, any problems have been straightened out, and the faultfinder is, once again, your happy customer.

While your wall is an integral part of your web presence, the customer may be unaware of how important it really is to your reputation. If he or she is satisfied with the resolution you’ve reached and grateful for the time you’ve spent making things right, there’s nothing wrong with privately asking the person to remove the post. Most of the time, he or she will remove the angry wall post.

#5: Respond back to the original post

As a general rule, you, the Facebook page admin, should not remove negative posts. Not everyone is going to have a glowing review of your product or company. Social media users know this, and if they see nothing but positive comments, they’ll assume your company is deleting the bad comments.

If you don’t feel comfortable asking your customer to remove the post, you do have the option of publicly responding back to that post. Express happiness in the resolution you’ve reached and thankfulness for her business. Even a negative post can be a good thing, as long as the last comment is positive. Your reputation among your community will soar when they see how well you take care of your customers.

Zappos is shown below addressing a negative comment. The helpful attitude effectively nullifies any poor reflection on Zappos or their services.

Zappos responds quickly with understanding and a desire to create a better experience for their upset fan.

#6: Let your community respond

Letting your community respond for you is really the end result of all the earlier steps. It requires copious time, energy and patience with your fans, and a fantastic product. After you’ve engaged with your fans for a period of time by answering questions and offering support, you’ll notice that your fans will be more active on your page, even to the point of assisting each other.

What’s great about getting this community support is that there’s a genuine credibility when fans endorse your business for you. They become your eager virtual support agents, answering questions and solving problems before you have a chance to. But this is a level you can only achieve if you’ve nurtured and supported your community.

The Pampered Chef has built a fantastic online community of users who love the product so much, and who have been given such great support themselves, peers will answer each other’s questions before The Pampered Chef has to respond.

An outpouring of community support is the direct result of The Pampered Chef's top-notch customer service.

#7: The Last Resort

If the offended party is unreceptive to your customer service attempts, blatantly hostile and only active in your community to start arguments, banning the individual is a last-resort option. And anyone leveling expletives or racial slurs against your staff or fans should be banned. Your staff and your fans don’t deserve to be subjected to the abuse, and in the end, they will respect you more because you took the initiative.

Museum of Me

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:51:00 +0000

I get asked all the time what is my favorite thing I've seen from a brand on Facebook. My answer is always, Intel's Museum of Me. The idea of taking the content on your profile and putting it into a creative display isn't new. But the manner with which this particular initiative was displayed is gorgeous.

So of course, we always want to know who is behind such a great execution. I was just pointed to this story which I'm sharing below which will explain, enlighten, and hopefully inspire.

The Making of Museum of Me
In the first week of June, a new Facebook application called Museum of Me captured the attention of more than 2.5 million people and surprised the people and the company that created it. And it all started with a simple sketch on a napkin.

During a time when celebrities and businesses around the world are clamoring to grab the attention of consumers through Facebook, the Museum of Me broke through the noise by taking what people care about dearly, and letting them create their own personalized story in a visual way.

The Museum of Me was created by an Intel marketing team in Hong Kong working with a boutique advertising agency in Japan, and it's reportedly become one of the top 12 most popular museums in the world judging by the numbers.

Stephanie Gan, an advertising and digital programs manager at Intel, said the experience became an overnight sensation that spread socially around the world as millions of people were curious enough to go off and create a personalized virtual museum of their life. It was supposed to launch officially on June 1 but the team did a test pilot on May 31. Within 5 minutes, there were 36 likes. Within 5 days, there were 1 million hits.

"We just had the Facebook 'Like' button on the site and it took off through the power of what people were experiencing," Gan said.

"It spread quickly through word of mouth via social networks, largely Facebook, but also Twitter and YouTube," she said. "The first thing we saw came from a person in Madrid, who tweeted about the video we posted to YouTube."

Next, people in Japan were tweeting the link to Museum of Me. Then New York, California and Brazil. Press and analysts covering social networking and computing trends weighed in, which contributed to the buzz.

Museum of Me pulls information from your Facebook page to create a virtual museum of your digital life. Photos, videos and friends are presented as pieces of art, displayed randomly as if in a museum or art gallery.

CNET called it a "really neat tool that does a fine job of collecting all the information from your Facebook page and doling it out in a fun exhibit." The Wall Street Journal's Tech Europe blog labeled it "a slick use of Facebook's social graph and for creating what will certainly be a viral product."

It struck an emotional chord with people, according to Jayant Murty, the director of Intel's brand strategy in Asia.

"Images trigger memories and those memories can be very, very personal," said Murty. "People go back to photo albums to reminisce on the past and tell stories about our past. These are things we do in our everyday lives. We just found a way to pull this together into an online experience."

"Ultimately, the Museum of Me taps into one's narcissism and private experiences in an intensely social and networked world," Murty said.

Like any new and successful idea, the concept for The Museum of Me sprang from humble beginnings. The idea began with rough sketches drawn on cocktail napkins.

"Earlier this year at our big International Sales and Marketing Conference, our team wanted to quickly share the concept and idea of the project with our corporate colleagues, since we had the chance to meet up with them," says Murty. "We didn't have any writing material on us at the time, so we grabbed napkins from the bar, crowded around tables and sketched our ideas out!"

Not everyone was convinced once it went live, and the initial flood of visitors strained the servers gathering data for all these personal museums through the cloud.

Mashable called the experience "a bit creepy … it seems a bit like you've passed on," and BetaBeat pointed out "that the very personal nature of this information makes the context in which it sits extremely important" in a post titled "Intel's Museum of Me Features Dead Friends and Ex-Lovers."

One person said "I don't want to end up on a wall" below an image that his "friend" shared on Facebook from the Museum of Me experience.

Murty said there is a level of privacy built into the experience and that one of the big "aha" moments for him was when his team figured out how they would approach the sharing aspect.

"We created the Museum of Me with the intention of it being a personal, private experience," said Murty. "Holding steadfast to the view that this is a private experience in a public environment was probably the best decision we made."

Creating the Exhibit

After whittling down their ideas into a concept, Murty and Gan knew they were on to something big, but nobody expected it to become so popular once it went live.

"We took the idea of Museum of Me and started to share it around inside Intel when it was still in very early sketches," said Murty. "It was really back-of-the-napkin stage, but even in that early phase virtually everyone said, 'Wow, that's interesting!' And that's not a response we encounter here all the time."

According to Gan, the aim was to make something thrilling and emotional then equate it the performance and visual experience of Intel's 2nd generation of Core processors. The company markets these with the tagline "Visually Smart" to highlight built-in graphics and media capabilities.

"We are not 'in your face' about Core i5 or Intel branding," she said. "First you have the experience and then at the end we flash the brand badge. This is a better way for us to create an emotional connection."

Projector Inc., the agency in Japan, suggested they create music that would play inside Museum of Me. So they worked with artist Takagi Masakatsu, a Japanese composer who solicited more than 400 different recorded voices from his Twitter followers. Those voices were woven into the Museum of Me's musical score.

When it was finished, it represented a compelling new way to share people's digital lives. Becky Brown, who heads up Intel's social media center of excellence, said it was evident pretty quickly that more capacity was needed as the word spread.

"This thing just took off," said Brown. "We were watching comments on our fan page, and some people were saying things were lagging, and that that's how we knew we needed to add more server capacity."

Rather than this being an entirely new idea however, Murty sees it as triangulating and processing a variety of insights.

"Very often great ideas are ones in which people draw on two or three parallel sources of inspiration," he said. "The fact is, the pieces of the puzzle were there. It is just that we assembled them with the help of the talented people."

- This article reprinted from Intel's Free Press blog: http://intel.ly/otA5O8

Job Hunting

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Over the years I've written about how to get an edge when looking for a job. It's a subject of interest for me partially out of a life-long fear of not having a job and respect for those who go after careers that fill them with passion. I was lucky enough to know what I wanted to do when I was just a kid. I was driven to learn and ultimately build my own business. I also was very specific about what I wanted to do and mapped out a path to get there.

When I speak at universities, I always recommend that students do internships, connect with people in business, and when they interview to really go for it. I often say, odds are you are going to lose, so if you lose, lose big!

Today my friend Brad sent me a great article about Tristan Walker from Foursquare. I've met Tristan several times and he is infectious. When he speaks about Foursquare you really believe they are going to change the world. At the bottom of this post, I've dropped in a video of Tristan explaining new Foursquare innovations to me and Brad at this year's SXSW conference. But first I want to share with you this article. If you are wondering how people land those very desirable jobs at companies like Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or wherever you may want to work, take some notes on how Tristan did it.

This Email Got One Stanford Student A Huge Job At Foursquare

CEMA Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone who saw me speak today at the CEMA (Corporate Event Marketing Association) conference. I had a great time and as promised, here are the links to some of the things I referenced in my presentation along with the whole presentation which is embedded at the bottom of this post.

The presentation I gave is based on what I call "Social Media Now" where I share my philosophy on how to help you focus your social media efforts.

Okay, here is the Pecha Kucha (remember, it was broken into 3 parts: innovations, brands, and resources.

BRANDS
Pecha Kucha

INNOVATIONS

1. Location Based Social - Foursquare, Facebook "Places," Gowalla, Loopt, MyTown, etc. Yes it's all the rage. Just understand that this is the tip of the iceberg. Soon when you are walking by a store your phone will buzz and offer you a coupon if you come inside.

2. Social Commerce / Social Shopping - This is your Groupon, Yelp, Gilt Group, Living Social. Flash sales that entice you to try new retailers at a tremendous discount.

3. Social Gaming - Farmville, Mafia Wars - People love playing games. We're seeing extensions of this now with apps like SCVNGR that turn your shopping and traveling into a game. Again, people love games!

4. Mobile - We've been waiting for the mobile explosion for years. Thank Apple for tipping it over with the iPhone and now Google's Android software. Everything we do online is headed towards mobile.

5. QR Codes - These black and white (sometimes color) graphics are popping up all over the place. On posters, websites, magazine ads. You can view these through an app for your phone (just search "QR Code Readers" on your iPhone, Android phone, etc. and you'll find them for free). They lead you to websites, videos, deals, coupons, etc. You can change the information whenever you want it without changing the QR Code.

6. Video - Pay attention to video. You've got YouTube as the leader, but you have new extensions showing up such as UStream which is live video streaming. I recently watched Zappos do their company meeting live on Ustream.

7. Digital and Social Immersion - Merge radio frequency identification (RFID) with smartphones and social networking and you complete the loop of total immersion in connectedness. Example: EpicMix. See what they are doing at Vail ski resorts and you’ll get it. Your ski pass is embedded with a unique ID. It knows where you are, how many miles you’ve skied, it tells you where your friends are, and it provides a platform to add photos and video. You unlock badges that automatically update to your Facebook page. You don’t need to do anything. Imagine the extensions to shopping, dining, and travel.

8. Square - This device helps everyone become a vendor. It's a little device that hooks onto you iPhone and you can then swipe a credit card. It even enables your customer to sign your phone with their finger to get a proper signature and if requested, will send you your receipt by email.

1Brands

9. Delta - This is both an innovation in technology and an innovative brand. Commerce is coming to Facebook and we'll soon be able to buy things right on Facebook. No need to leave. Delta is one of the first companies to embrace this concept and enables you to purchase your flight right on Facebook.

10. Levis - Last year Facebook created OpenGraph which enabled website to embed Facebook right into their sites. Now you can experience Facebook when you are not on Facebook. A great example of this is on Levis.com. Go to the "Friends Store" and you can see what your friends think of those 501 skinny jeans.

11. Starbucks - One of the leading brands utilizing social media. They have done a number of things in social media, but my favorite was the creation of MyStarbucksIdea.com which is a website created to crowdsource new ideas from customers and employees. Over 100 ideas have come to life and tens of thousands of people have participated in creating and voting on ideas.

12. Also from Starbucks, they recently embraced the concept of Near Field Communication (NFC) which enables a person to pay for their coffee with their phone. No need to bring your wallet, just have the barista scan your Starbucks app.

13. Bose - Great example of customer service via Twitter

14. Mountain Dew - Marketing and Market Research, crowdsourced their new flavor from their community via Facebook, Twitter, video, and more.

15. Old Spice - Direct response via YouTube as a result of people Tweeting, blogging, and Talking on Facebook about the ad campaign. Sales reportedly increased 106% during the month of the campaign.

RESOURCES

16. Blogs and Newsletters that help me stay on top of innovations in social media, specifically geared towards the small and medium business include: Social Media Examiner, Media Bistro, iMedia Connection. Specifically I recommend Social Media Examiner, every day they publish articles specific to how you can use Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. to help enhance your business.

17. Blogs and Newsletters that help me stay on top of new technologies, specifically new apps, new websites, and new social networks include: Tech Crunch, Mashable, and Read, Write, Web

18. Web tools to help you see what people are saying about you (we often call these "Reputation Management" tools) include: [Free] Search.Twitter.com (for Twitter search), Ice Rocket and Blog Pulse (to search blogs and message boards), and [Paid] Radian6 (for sentiment analysis too).

19. Facebook Management Platforms. There are many companies now that help you manage your Facebook pages, blogs, and Twitter. This can be especially helpful if you are a major brand and you need to manage hundreds of thousands of fans and you want to add new features on a regular basis without having to constantly pay to build new apps. These include: Buddy Media, Context Optional, Vitrue, Involver, and Hoot Suite (Hoot Suite is free where the others all cost several thousands of dollars - Hoot Suite is also not as advanced as the others and is more about managing conversations than adding new features and apps).

Breathe
20. Now relax - www.donothingfor2minutes.com - Believe it or not, there is a website where you can go and do nothing for 2 minutes. No seriously, you need to do nothing or you FAIL!

And below is my full presentation if you want to see that too.

CEMA Conference Presentation

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and if you saw my presentation and have any comments, please feel free to leave them here or email me at LarryW@Fanscape.com.

What is the Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:41:00 +0000

Taking a trip down memory lane and asking, "What is the Internet?" Katie vs. Ben.

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I'm a Brand, What Should I Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:44:00 +0000

I just wrote a quick thought down and gave it to The Marketing Arm agency's Share Blog. Check out their blog HERE and I've pasted it in below as well...

Q: You blogged recently about the importance of answering the “Why do I care?” question when developing social media campaigns. What are some examples of brands doing a good job of providing their customers with something of value?

A: There is a mad rush right now to get more people to “Like” you on Facebook. Success is being measured as how many fans you have and not necessarily on how much those fans are actually engaging with your brand. There are plenty of ways to get people to “Like” you. You can give them free stuff like Starbucks did originally with their ice cream and like Einstein’s Bagels did with a morning bagel and cream cheese. You can use other platforms to drive “Likes” like Bing did by giving people Farmville cash when they “Liked” Microsoft’s Bing Facebook page. And then there are a host of underground spam merchants that will guarantee you “Likes” for pennies a piece. But getting fans is only part of the strategy, keeping them there is much more important. And challenging!

So what should you do? Simply put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. What would you want to see? What would make you come back again after you got your free stuff or were drawn there by a promotion or piece of exclusive content?

There is a lot of noise out there. The typical person only “Likes” a handful of brands. They have so much going on in their lives and they are engaging with their friends multiple times of day on Facebook, so if you are a brand, you really need to stand out. Some of the brands that are doing a great job with this:

Skittles – For Skittles, it’s all about weird content. Turns out there are about 18 Million who like to watch and interact with like-minded weirdos.

Starbucks – Yes, they are the leaders in social media, but why is that? Because they listen to their customers. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said that last year’s growth was largely due to the fact that they actually listened to their customers and that social media was a huge part of that.

GameStop – A year ago they didn’t have a Facebook page. Now they have 2.5 Million fans and one of the most active Facebook pages of any retailer. Why? Because they have video game fanatics running their social media properties. If you want to see game trailers first, reminisce about games of yore, or get to meet the people that make the biggest games, then you visit every day.

Mountain Dew – Dew drinkers love to live on the edge. They are young passionate action sports fans. Once a year Mountain Dew introduces a new flavor and when they do, they turn to their Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube fans to help them create every element from choosing the flavor to actually making the television commercials. There are few brands that give this kind of power to their fans.

Now step back. What are your favorite products? Why would you follow them on Facebook or Twitter? What could that bar of soap, that denim jean manufacturer, that potato chip maker do for you that would make you come back over and over?

That’s where you start.

Random Acts of Kindness

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:13:00 +0000

In August, Fanscape will celebrate our thirteenth year in business. We started as a viral marketing company centered around helping musicians connect with their fans, and we've grown into a social media marketing agency focused on helping major brands connect with their customers.

There wasn't a MySpace or a Facebook back in the early days. Nor was their eCommerce or Email / CRM marketing. Most music artists just communicated with their fans from the stage and only a handful kept up fan clubs through traditional mail.

The idea we had at Fanscape was to take the mailing list sheets that artists often left at the merchandise counter and actually enter the information into a database (something that rarely happened). Our theory was that if we could keep track of the fans and actually communicate with them, you could tell them when the next album was coming out or when there would be another show in their town. All the research showed that the reason people didn't buy a new album or come to a show was because they didn't know about it. Our goal was to create a deeper bond between artists and their fans.

Here was another theory we had. What if you surprised fans with something no one else could get? Access! Our very first client was an extremely popular punk rock band from Seattle called, MxPx. Their fan base was rabid. When they toured, they would sell out every show. We helped build their database into the hundreds of thousands. We also created a paid subscription fan club where one of the special privileges was that as a member, you were always guaranteed to get a ticket to the show, even if it was sold out. About a year in, we had this idea; what if when you pick up your tickets, we surprised you with a backstage pass? We tried this in one city and you should have seen the fans faces when they picked up their tickets and realized they would actually get to meet the band. As you can imagine, the word spread and membership to the fan club doubled seemingly overnight.

We've tried to repeat this over the years and we still work it into many of the creative concepts for our brand marketing campaigns. Providing value to your customer is the key to great Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Always step back and put yourself into the shoes of the customer you are trying to reach and ask this question, "why would I care?" Why should they chose you over a competitor? Random acts of kindness go a long way in answering that question and creating a better bond between you and your customer.

My Presentation Today

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Hi Everyone. This blog post is specifically geared towards the people who saw me speak today at the Rutgers Business School, 2011 Ethical Leadership Conference. I wanted to make sure that you could both view a copy of my presentation as well as get the links for everything I referenced. Thank you very much for listening to me speak and please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any questions.

Larry Weintraub
LarryW@Fanscape.com
(323) 785-7750

The whole presentation is embedded at the bottom of this post. Here are the links to some of the things I referenced in my presentation along with some added information.

During the presentation I told you about a handful of resources or items to check out. Those include:

The Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) video that I showed. Here are the links to both the most recent one (the one I showed) and its predecessor:
Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) - http://bit.ly/eG0vGV
Social Media Revolution - http://bit.ly/eHOAoD

Twitter.com - I recommended that you sign up and "follow" 10 - 20 people. Just listen, don't feel a need to speak. I really just want you to see how news gets delivered to you in this medium. When you go to Twitter.com, they actually have a link called, "Who to Follow" that can help you locate people you may want to follow based on your interest. Definitely start there. Also, when you click on that link, there is a search bar and you can just pop in the names of people you might know of that are on Twitter.

MyStarbucksIdea.com - This is the site that Starbucks built to help source new ideas for free from their customers and their employees.

Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) - WOMMA.org - The organization that guides social media agencies and word-of-mouth-marketing agencies with ethics and policies. The direct link to the Code of Conduct is: http://womma.org/ethics/code/

Socialgovernance.com - The site to find social media policies. The direct link to that list of policies is: http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php. You'll find over 160 policies here and you can even search by industry.

Intel's Social Media Guidelines Policy - I recommended that you check this one policy out specifically because it's fairly short and covers a lot of the bases. - http://intel.ly/intelpolicy

Pecha Kucha

INNOVATIONS

2. Social Commerce / Social Shopping - This is your Groupon, Yelp, Gilt Group, Living Social. Flash sales that entice you to try new retailers at a tremendous discount.

4. Mobile - We've been waiting for the mobile explosion for years. Thank Apple for tipping it over with the iPhone and now Google's Android software. Everything we do online is headed towards mobile.

Brands

11. Dr Scholl's for Her - Good example of social media best practices, ethics, and social policies in this Facebook page.

12. Starbucks - They lead in social media. They recently embraced the concept of Near Field Communication (NFC) which enables a person to pay for their coffee with their phone. Just have the barista scan your Starbucks app.

13. Bose - Great customer service via Twitter

14. Mountain Dew - Marketing and Market Research, crowdsourced their new flavor from their community via Facebook, Twitter, video, and more.

15. Old Spice - Direct response via YouTube as a result of people Tweeting, blogging, and Talking on Facebook about the ad campaign. Sales reportedly increased 106% during the month of the campaign.

RESOURCES

And below is my full presentation if you want to see that too.

Rutgers Ethical Leadership Conference

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and if you saw my presentation and have any comments, please feel free to leave them here or email me at LarryW@Fanscape.com.

Is Social Media Making Us Less Social

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:54:00 +0000

Today I had lunch with my father. During our meal he became the second person in one day to tell me that he worried that social networking might be making us less social as human beings. And tonight something happened. I looked at my Facebook page and counted nearly 200 people wishing me a Happy Birthday. Last year I wrote a blog post on the same day as today and expressed how happy I was to see nearly 100 birthday wishes. So in one year the number has doubled. And my Facebook friends have not grown that much percentage-wise because I've become far pickier about who I accept.

So there is a definite argument here against what my dad said today. Thanks to social media, specifically Facebook, I just had a lot of people, and yes, I do know most if not all of them, say hello and wish me a great day. The majority of which I haven't spoken to in years. I even struck up some great conversations and reminisced about fantastic events in my life. All of which wouldn't have happened without Facebook. I still would have gotten a dozen phone calls or so, but I have to admit, I feel really special today. A lot of people went out of their way to write me a note. And I loved writing them all back to thank them.

So no, social media doesn't make us less social, it makes us more social. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes. And for all of you who told me to have a great day, know that I did in fact have a great day!

Ronald Reagan Invented Foursquare...

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 21:46:00 +0000

...and other things I learned at SXSW.

How is that for a headline? It is a quote from mega new media/tech publisher and conference guru, Tim O'Reilly during a one-on-one interview he did with Jason Calacanis on Friday at this year's SXSW conference. O'Reilly told the story of how the government/military GPS program was made public during Reagan's presidency paving the way for today's location-based maps and corresponding applications.

I'm a longtime veteran of SXSW Music, but only a sophomore at SXSW Interactive. This year's SXSWi was incredible with attendance surging between 15,000 - 20,000 attendees. A collection of techies, brands, nerds, hipsters, and foodies came together to learn, meet, eat, and drink.

This year's standout technology was group messaging with GroupMe and Beluga leading the charge. The idea here is that you invite a small group of friends to follow and interact with you, thus avoiding all the clutter and keeping tabs on just the specific people you are most interested in hearing from. That said, plenty of people were using last year's darlings Foursquare and year before favorite Twitter to communicate where they were and what they were doing.

Celebrities were abound with sightings of Ashton Kutcher, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Pee Wee Herman stopping by parties, panels, and the IFC Crossroads House for interviews.

Also standing out were some significant brand activations. Chevy was cutting into the local cab business by providing attendees with free rides in their Volts and other new cars, AT&T supplied much-needed phone recharge centers, and Pepsi had the largest party zone featuring Foursquare-sponsored four square tournaments and plenty of free PepsiMax.

Panels were spread out amongst numerous venues and standouts were AT&T's head of social media Chris Baccus explaining the complexities of handling customer complaints via Facebook and Twitter, R/GA's top brass advising on how to avoid your brand becoming obsolete and Wieden+Kennedy presenting the Old Spice case study to a packed room that left hundreds turned away at the door.

While the dense crowds at the Driskill and Four Season hotels made business meetings a challenge, there was still a lot of networking getting done. Despite the occasional feeling of claustrophobia and exhaustion, SXSW continues to be the most informative and fun conference of the year.

Social Giving for Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:44:00 +0000

A few weeks back I shared a note about LivingSocial's Amazon deal. My intention was less about sharing a great deal, and more about demonstrating the volume of redemption taking place in this new social commerce space. Yesterday LivingSocial went global. In a great way. Their offer (which has been extended for a two day period vs the normal 24 hours) is a 100% match of your $5 donation to the Red Cross on behalf of the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. As of the time I'm writing this, LivingSocial members have given nearly $900,000 and with the matching contribution, they are on their way to $2 Million. One of the best deals yet!

Technology and Social Media Predictions for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Forgive me if you've already seen my predictions for where technology is headed this year, but if you haven't, they are below. I worked on these last week and first uploaded to my company blog and then published them in my company newsletter yesterday. Let me know if you agree or disagree...

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At the beginning and end of each year, recaps of the previous year are always prevalent. Lists of best songs, movies, and books are the norm in blogs, newspapers, and magazines. So too are predictions of what is to come, especially in the technology and marketing/advertising space. At Fanscape, we also have our opinions about what we expect to see in the coming year. What we’ve compiled here is a list of our predictions along with a few others we’ve seen that we completely agree with.

1. Smartphones as common as the toaster. 2011 is the year smartphones take over. With an expectation of smartphones nearing 50% penetration in the US, Verizon adding the iPhone, and tablets taking over, we’re all going to be walking, talking, emailing, playing, and sharing while we chew gum. Mobile extensions to your social marketing plans are a must. Optimize your messaging for iPhone, iPad, Galaxy, Blackberry, Droid, et al.

2. Companies will integrate social feedback into their decision making process. In 2011, we will see a growing number of companies finally go beyond using social channels merely for building awareness and providing support. Expect to see a rise in companies who, by end of year, will be recognized for socially-informed innovation, customer focus and work environment, much like Zappos and Amazon were a few years back. (Predicted by Ravit Lichtenberg on Read, Write, Web)

3. Social Commerce. People like their Facebook, that’s where they spend most of their time online. Facebook would prefer you didn’t leave. So, why not buy all your stuff right there? Right now on Facebook you can book your Delta Airlines flight and buy your buddy a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. We’re definitely going to see more of this transactional business directly on Facebook this year. And then we’ll start seeing it in other social platforms, not to mention on our phones.

4. Website Evolution. Websites will continue to become more social. Should I have a website or should I just be on Facebook? You need both. In fact, you need to be in more places: LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress/Tumblr/Posterous. And this list will grow. Start by making your website more social. Integrate Facebook open graph; allow people to “like” and rate the content on your website. Overarching plan: give people a reason to return or else they’ll grab your store hours or client list and never come back.

5. Groupon: here today… Prediction is that we’ll burn out on the current incarnation by year’s end. But that doesn’t mean it is going away. Let’s call it what it is, the digital version of the guy with the sandwich board handing out flyers. Retailers have more opportunities to drive people into their stores than ever before. Ask a retailer if they liked their Groupon (and similar) experience and about half will say no. Consider this a brilliant innovation or a retail marketing disrupter, but we’ll see more of this. Google wasn’t going to spend a fortune buying Groupon for their health. This is the evolution of targeted advertising. Foursquare had you check in, Groupon had you buy a deal, expect a merging of the two: meet your friends at the local bar, the whole table gets a discount. Reward the loyal and those who return, not just the lookie loos.

6. The Digital Talent Pool The real talent—the ones you really want—are entrepreneurial and creative, and they’re not waiting around in your lobby to get a job. They’re trying it on their own. Media outlets will find future talent on YouTube, iTunes, or other popular audio/video on-demand sites like BlogTalkRadio. NBC Universal announced an initiative last week where they will select 20 popular “tweeters” in each market to create content for their websites, broadcast segments, and other distribution channels. (- Jessica Northey on Social Media Today)

7. Video, not just for looking at babies and cats. YouTube is the number 4 most viewed website and guess who just cracked the top 20? Netflix. (per Alexa) Most of the sites on the rest of the list serve up plenty of video too (Facebook, Yahoo!, CNN, etc.). Pay attention to sites like eHow and Howcast if you want to know how to build a table, bake a cake, or change a car battery. People like visuals. Show and tell is easier than ever and again, it’s what people want. And going back to mobile, people can watch this on the go now too.

8. Digital and Social immersion. Merge radio frequency identification (RFID) with smartphones and social networking and you complete the loop of total immersion in connectedness. One word: EpicMix. See what they are doing at Vail ski resorts and you’ll get it. Your ski pass is embedded with a unique ID. It knows where you are, how many miles you’ve skied, it tells you where your friends are, and it provides a platform to add photos and video. You unlock badges that automatically update to your Facebook page. You don’t need to do anything. Imagine the extensions to shopping, dining, and travel.

9. Cause Marketing. Expect brands to integrate a little extra feel good into their strategies. Over the last two years charity started at home, but we’re starting to loosen our purse strings a little bit. When it’s apples to apples, we’ll lean towards the more socially conscious product. And technology is making this easy through things like text donations for NPR podcasts and fundraising apps such as kickstarter. Remember this term too: Crowdfunding.

10. Social Search. We put this at the end because it really started last year. We just don’t believe everyone quite understands it yet. At least not its implications for brands and their products. Realize that when people now have conversations about you via open social networks (i.e. Twitter – for the moment), that filters into the search query. Immediately. So when you are looking up where to buy a barbecue, you’ll see real time conversations about the exact same thing!

Innovations and honorable mentions, a.k.a. things to keep an eye on this year: Quora, Social Scrapbooking, Social news on your tablet (e.g. Flipboard), near field communication (i.e. mobile payments, mobile ticketing, QR code reading, etc.), entertainment check-in apps (e.g. GetGlue, Philo, Miso), and of course, web-enabled televisions.

Amazon Gift Card on Living Social

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 21:07:00 +0000

If you haven’t already picked up your Amazon gift card from LivingSocial, you really should. Right now they are over 750,000 redemptions.

I had a dinner with some friends last night and explained to them what LivingSocial/Groupon was all about. (see that note below) Then today this too-good-to-be-true offer came in which just emphasized my point on why people love these companies.

Also, I just caught this article in Mediapost which explains this even more. i.e. Amazon is more invested than just this deal of the day!

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LivingSocial Hits Jackpot with Amazon Deal

Posted January 19th, 2011 at 12:56 pm by Gavin O'Malley

It looks like Groupon rival LivingSocial hit it big this week after offering members a $20 Amazon gift card for $10. “In just the first few hours of the sale, users have already purchased over 243,000 coupons,” reports ReadWriteWeb. How did LivingSocial land such a sweat deal? Well, as you may recall, Amazon invested $175 million into the startup in December. As such, Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Jeremy Lew calls this week’s deal “the first step of operational integration from that investment.” According to ReadWriteWeb, “Some are predicting the deal is on a course to outperform the previous blockbuster daily deal, when Groupon offered $25 off a $50 purchase at the Gap.” That resulted in some $13 million worth of coupons being sold. With nearly a day left to go, the LivingSocial deal had already sold over $2 million worth of coupons Wednesday morning. The final sales figure likely means little to Amazon, which is more interested in marketing the LivingSocial brand. Indeed, with Amazon’s help, it’s not hard to imagine LivingSocial achieving Groupon-like heights.

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From: Larry Weintraub
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 12:01 PM
To: My Friends
Subject: FW: 50% Off Amazon.com Gift Card

Last night at dinner we had a conversation about Groupon / LivingSocial. Today this came in from LivingSocial. $20 gift card for $10 from Amazon. No expiration date, limit one.

On a typical day and a typical deal, LivingSocial or Groupon will get anywhere form 300 – 3,000 people to buy one of these offers. Today’s offer from LivingSocial is already over 650,000 and will probably hit 1 million today. So, if you wonder why Google was prepared to pay nearly $6 Billion for Groupon (which they declined and I bet we see a similar offer coming soon for LivingSocial), now you know why. They will do $20 Million in business today alone. Doesn’t mean they are profitable, just gives you an idea of how big these things are.

By the way, I recommend you sign up to LivingSocial today and get this deal. It only lasts til the end of the day and then it’s gone. You can unsubscribe after that if you don’t want to get emails every day from them. But hek, it’s $10 free to spend at Amazon.

Larry

Free Books From Google

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 19:53:00 +0000

In a long-anticipated move into the e-book market, Google has officially launched its massive e-bookstore, bringing more than 3 million books, many of which are available free of charge, to any device that has app capabilities or has a web browser.

But what makes Google E-books better than those already dominating the space such as Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple? We’ve compiled the top 5 reasons why Google E-Books is changing up the game.

Free Material
Everybody loves getting something for nothing. Google E-books provides you with roughly three million books free of charge. Google E-books has the largest selection of public domain titles, allowing users to download tons of noteworthy titles without spending a penny.

Cross Platform Support
Google E-books supports any type of device that has access to a web browser. Instead of requiring users to purchase the titles through a single online store to read only on compatible readers, Google E-books allows customers to not only buy books from their own store, but also from any other online vendor that sells books in either PDF or EPUB formats. These downloads are then read by any device that has web browsing capabilities. Google E-Books works cross-platform with computer web browsers, smartphones with the Google eBook reader app, and eReader devices such as the iPad, Nook, Kobo eReader, and Aluratek eBook.

Automatic Syncing
Cross-platform usage would be pointless if nothing synced up. As you read your books on your computer, Android, iPhone, or iPad devices, Google E-Books will automatically sync across all platforms. If you begin reading in the morning on your iPad, you will be able to pick up right where you left off on your Android or iPhone device on your way to work.

Impressive List of Publishers
Google E-Books may have just launched, but nearly 4,000 publishers are already providing the store with content. Of these 4,000 publishers, almost all of the major players have jumped on board including Macmillan, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette just to name a few.

A New Approach
Google’s approach to the e-book phenomenon is different from those already dominating the space. Because of the way Google decided to take on the challenge, they’ve created a brand new ecosystem which makes both retailers and affiliates, as well as publishers, all part of the e-book selling process for the very first time.

[Co-authored with Jonathan Menager and previously published on Fanscape's Digitally Approved blog]

New Facebook Profiles

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 20:46:00 +0000

Just days after the official rollout of the overhauled Facebook Messaging platform, another new and dramatic change has been released on the Facebook website; an updated social profile.

Unlike the updated Facebook Messaging service which is only available to those who receive an invite, the updated Facebook profile is available right now to anyone who wants it. To do so, simply follow this link and click the green button at the top to activate it.

In a recent Facebook blog update, the changes to the Facebook Profile page were described in great detail. To save you some time, here is the gist of what they said:

What’s new?
In a nutshell, the updated Facebook profiles are getting a completely new look along with a few new features that will not only make them more functional and easier to read, but also easier to update. This major overhaul can be broken down into three main parts.

1. Profile Summary
A brief synopsis of each person will now appear at the top of their new profile page and will include things such as where you work, who you’re in a relationship with, where you go to school, what you’re studying, and if you can speak any other languages. The brief summary explains who you are, and below that is a collection of photos you are recently tagged in that shows what you’ve been up to lately. These are all things that Facebook considers “conversation starters” and aims to provide you with a little background about the person you’re looking at.

2. Featured Friends
This is one of the more interesting updates to the Facebook profile. It allows you to feature friends on the newly created sidebar that displays your friends list. To date, the only time you could really single a relationship out was when you accepted a relationship request with a significant other. Now, Facebook gives you the opportunity to split up your friends list into different categories, such as colleagues at work, peers at school, family members, or just the friends you are closer with.

3. Interface Changes
Several of the interface changes will probably seem strange and hard to navigate at first, due largely to the fact that a lot of info has either moved positions or been removed all together. The tabs that were once at the top have changed to links on the left, and your friends are now separated by groups on in the left hand side of your profile. As more and more people opt in for the new profile change, you should get used to this positioning and it shouldn’t be a problem.

One of the more useful updates to the overhauled interface, however, would be the addition of infinite scroll. Instead of having to click a link at the bottom of the profile to “see more”, as users keep scrolling down the page keeps loading more content.

In the end, the overall point of the profile overhaul was to enable users to update more often and to do so easier. It looks like they've done just that.

For more information about the changes made to the Facebook profiles and a brief blurb about how it can help assist advertisers, check out Charlene Li’s write up here. If you are interested in a photo walkthrough of the new changes as well as a short promotional video, check out this Mashable post.

[Co-authored with Jonathan Menager and previously published on Fanscape's Digitally Approved blog]

Facebook Messages Made Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:34:00 +0000

Recently Facebook announced its new Facebook Messages platform. The long-anticipated product, which was originally thought to be a Facebook email service, turns out to not be an email service at all but rather a complete reimaging of conversational messaging. Modeled after Facebook Chat, Facebook Messages is comprised of three core components: seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history, and the social inbox.

Seamless Messaging
The seamless messaging system provides users with a simple way to keep in constant contact with each other and carry on a conversation – in real time. This is different from email because the Facebook Message system is modeled after Facebook Chat. Facebook removed the subject line and encourages users to communicate with each other as if it were a verbal conversation. Users can send messages back and forth seamlessly and pick up conversations right where they left off.

Cross-Platform Conversation History
Once you’ve signed up to use the free Facebook Messages platform, you’ll be given an @Facebook.com email address. When you access your account, all conversations that take place going forward, whether they be via email, text messages, instant messaging, Twitter updates, and Facebook posts (just for starters), will record in one seamless stream. You will have a complete conversation history no matter where the conversation took place.

The Social Inbox
The new social inbox is intended to stay clean, spam-free, and well organized. When you log on to your Facebook Messages account, the only messages you’ll see are messages from your friends and their friends. That’s it. You’ll have the ability to adjust your privacy settings to determine exactly what you see and will have the ability to filter everything you don’t want to bounce back or save into a folder called, “Other.”

Facebook Messages is rolling out slowly and is currently available to users on an invitation-only basis. It’s too early to tell just how successful it will be, but the screen shots and promotional video seems promising. Will this be a game changer? We’ll soon see.

(For more information on Facebook messages, including a promotional video about the new features, as well as a slide show with a Facebook Messages walkthrough check out this article on Mashable.Com.)

[Co-authored with Jonathan Menager and previously published on Fanscape's Digitally Approved blog]

Where did I go?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 02:34:00 +0000

I've been away from my blog for too long. Too much travel, too much stuff got in the way. Not a good excuse, but the truth.

I thought about my blog a lot over the past couple of months. I really started to wonder what it's all about. Who is it for? Who reads it? Is it just a vanity thing for me?

The majority of the comments I get are from people who run small businesses and are looking for advice on how to help them market their business. I need to pay attention to that, and from now on I will. I may sprinkle in some personal things along with some larger level things that I've learned from helping major companies embrace social media. But going forward I will try to concentrate on helping small businesses with my blog.

I've recently co-written some blog posts on my company blog that I'm going to copy into this blog. So keep an eye out over the next few days for some hopefully useful insight into what's going on with Facebook, Google, etc. that can hopefully help you understand how those outlets can help you in both your business and your life.

If you have questions, let me know. I'm happy to answer anything and hopefully you'll allow me to share that with everyone who reads my blog.

Law Enforcement International Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Hello to everyone that saw me speak today at the 2010 Law Enforcement Torch Run International Conference. In my presentation I referenced that you would be able to find all the things I highlighted in my "Pecha Kucha" part of my presentation.

This is only the second time I've given this speech and I'm still fine-tuning it. I tried to cater today's presentation towards fund raising rather than brand social media marketing, but the slides and the content were very similar to a speech I gave a couple of weeks ago, so if you browse this blog, you'll see a nearly identical description of slides and link to the overall presentation.

The presentation I gave is based on what I call "Social Media Now" where I share my philosophy on how to help you focus your social media efforts and drive sales as a result (or in this case fund raising, engagement, awareness to your charitable efforts). I've embedded the whole presentation at the bottom of this, but it may be a bit confusing without all my commentary. I'm one of those guys who hates lots of words in a Powerpoint presentation, so forgive me if it doesn't mean much to you. But this post is especially geared towards the people who saw me speak and wanted to know a little more.

Okay, here is the Pecha Kucha (remember, it was broken into 4 parts, 5 slides on each topic: Brands doing great work in social, Innovations in digital and social, Stats to help support why social is great for your company, and Resources to help you manage your social media marketing)...

BRANDS
1. Starbucks - Specifically MyStarbucksIdea.com

2. Bose - Great customer service via Twitter

3. Mountain Dew - Marketing and Market Research, crowdsourced their new flavor from their community via Facebook, Twitter, video, and more.

4. Old Spice - Direct response via YouTube as a result of people Tweeting, blogging, and Talking on Facebook about the ad campaign. Sales reportedly increased 106% during the month of the campaign.

5. Ford - Introduced the 2011 Ford Explorer via Facebook.

INNOVATIONS

6. Location Based Social - Foursquare, Facebook "Places," Gowalla, Loopt, MyTown, etc. Yes it's all the rage. Just understand that this is the tip of the iceberg. Soon when you are walking by a store your phone will buzz and offer you a coupon if you come inside.

7. Social Commerce / Social Shopping - This is your Groupon, Yelp, Gilt Group, Living Social. Flash sales that entice you to try new retailers at a tremendous discount.

8. Social Gaming - Farmville, Mafia Wars - People love playing games. We're seeing extensions of this now with apps like SCVNGR that turn your shopping and traveling into a game. Again, people love games!

9. Mobile - We've been waiting for the mobile explosion for years. Thank Apple for tipping it over with the iPhone and now Google's Android software. Everything we do online is headed towards mobile.

10. Video - Pay attention to video. You've got YouTube as the leader, but you have new extensions showing up such as UStream which is live video streaming. I recently watched Zappos do their company meeting live on Ustream.

STATS
11. Altimeter Group did a report that studied the top 100 Brands and found that the ones fully engaged in social media saw sales go up 18%. Brands on the bottom of the social utilization scale saw sales drop 6%.

12. Social Media Impacts Brands

72% Feel a stronger connection
68% Feel better served
74% Have a more positive image
70% More willing to engage

13. Social Media Impacts Brands

64% Improved opinion of company when friend interacts
52% Choose to fan/follow brand to help showcase their personality online

14. Facebook Stats - We all know that they're 500Million + users and that 1/2 their users login every day. We should also note that:
Facebook is quickly replacing Google as the #1 driver of traffic to websites

60% of fans are likely to recommend a brand after "liking" them
51% of FB fans are more likely to buy from the brands they follow

15. Infographic - Good infographic about how we consume and interact with media daily. We spend 9 hours a day watching tv, playing video games, Tweeting, on social networks, etc.

RESOURCES

17. Blogs and Newsletters that help me stay on top of new technologies, specifically new apps, new websites, and new social networks include: Tech Crunch, Mashable, and Read, Write, Web

18. Free web tools to help you see what people are saying about you (we often call these "Reputation Management" tools) include: Search.Twitter.com (for Twitter search), Ice Rocket and Blog Pulse (to search blogs and message boards)

19. Pay tools to help you see what people are saying. These also help determine the level of influence of the people talking about you and the positive/negative/neutral sentiment towards you. Prices range from $500 a month to many thousands. This is just a sampling, there are many companies doing this, but the ones I use and pay attention to most are Radian6, Social Radar, and Sysomos.

20. Facebook Management Platforms. There are many companies now that help you manage your Facebook pages, blogs, and Twitter. This can be especially helpful if you are a major brand and you need to manage hundreds of thousands of fans and you want to add new features on a regular basis without having to constantly pay to build new apps. These include: Buddy Media, Context Optional, Vitrue, Involver, and Hoot Suite (Hoot Suite is free where the others all cost several thousands of dollars - Hoot Suite is also not as advanced as the others and is more about managing conversations than adding new features and apps).

And below is my full presentation if you want to see that too.

Social Media Now Law Enforcement Pres

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and if you saw my presentation and have any comments, please feel free to leave them here or email me at LarryW@Fanscape.com.

Community Management

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:14:00 +0000

Ok, so you have your Facebook page up and running, your Tweeting from your Twitter account, you're blogging daily, and you have a website to run. And what about this Tumblr thing, and Foursquare, huh, Groupon??? Wait. Hold the presses. There is too much here. To run all of this stuff the right way would be a full time job.

Yep, it's true. It is quickly becoming a full time job running all the social media properties that can ultimately help you drive more business to your company. That job is called Community Management and the person running that position is the Community Manager. And right now there are only a handful of people doing it well. One of those truly gifted Community Managers is Amber Naslund. Amber not only oversees Community Management in her position as Vice-President of Social Strategy at leading social analytics company, Radian6, but she is also one of the big voices explaining the process and benefits of great Community Management. I saw Amber speak at SXSW this past March and was very impressed, I have been reading her blog, BrassTackThinking.com ever since. I asked Amber if she would be willing to answer some questions for our upcoming Fanscape newsletter and she graciously complied. You will see by reading her answers that she has tremendous insight and if you decide you'd like to read more, check out her blog.

Enjoy...

Amber Naslund

How would you define Community Management?

Well, the trick is that community management the way we're seeing it emerge isn't the same as just moderating the online forums of ten years ago. I always call it a hybrid role: it's part customer service, part sales, part communications, and all centered on fostering better communication between companies, their community (past, present and future customers), and their own people.

What are your guiding principles in great community management?

Listen first and always. Be humble and be helpful. Treat people with respect and professionalism. Be personable, friendly, and have a sense of humor. Always remember that you're in the business of connecting humans with each other. That takes a keen balance of information, personality, and the true passion to do what it takes to be an ambassador for every element of your brand. From the product to the people to the customers that drive your business.

In one blog post, you mentioned that community management is part of the lead cultivation process. How does a company approach this in the social space without coming off like a hard sell?

There are a number of things that go into this. First off, the culture of the organization has to want to reward and respect the value of relationships, not just transactions. Second, you need people in those roles that understand the nuance between being helpful and cultivating a relationship and shoving things down people's throats. At Radian6, we call it "listening for the point of need".

The idea there is that social media offers us unprecedented opportunity to be impeccable with our timing. If someone is tweeting about needing recommendations for a a realtor, realtors can easily be helpful by saying something as simple as "Hi, I'm Susan and a realtor. I'd be happy to help, or make a recommendation. Let me know."

In reality, if we're doing it right every part of the business is part of the lead cultivation process. Leads are nurtured through branding, through communication, through the community, and through how we treat people at every touchpoint around the sale. Before matters. After matters. Purchases are finite moments in time, but they're nurtured through all of the points in between the sales. Community management is really about putting the rest of that relationship in the spotlight.

What do you see as the key factors in evaluating the success of community engagement?

I think it's important to look at simple things, like whether awareness for the brand is increased through community efforts. Are people chattering, and what are they saying? Are they sharing your content, engaging in discussions with your team? I also believe it's important to be present where your community is. If they're saying nice things about you, be there and say thank you. If they're asking questions on your Facebook page, answer them. If your fans have created their own community or group to talk about your company or product, join them there and be part of the discussion.

You can track those interactions, and then you can correlate them with the goals you have from a communication standpoint. Awareness: are more people talking about you and spreading the word, saying nice things, reflecting the way you want your brand represented? Sales: Are they buying stuff from you? Responding to what you're presenting? And loyalty: Are they repeating their purchases, deepening their relationships with you, referring others and endorsing your work?

You'll never be able to point to direct causality - our community engagement caused 1,000 people to buy from us - but our job should be to increase the likelihood of success in each part of that cycle.

What are some of the biggest challenges community managers face?

Social media isn't a 9-5 proposition, so neither is community management. The time it takes to engage with more and more people as your business grows can be a challenge. Along side that is scale; allocating the human and other resources in order to bring community management to the level it needs to be can be a challenge, especially in larger businesses. For smaller businesses, it's the idea that one or two people need to do everything related to communicating with their customers, so the social community is often a tradeoff - or should be - for other things that perhaps aren't working as well as they once did.

For bigger businesses, too, it's consistency. Having the platforms, people, processes in place to make sure that community engagement is a standard that everyone accepts and understands, but that allows for individual engagement at the speed and with the individuality that the social web requires. It's a bit of a shift in culture and thinking for many companies.

Community management - to really succeed in business long term - will have to be more of an ideal that everyone in the company embraces rather than a standalone job description. It's really part of everyone's job in some way or another.

Can you reference other companies and brands that do a great job with community management (based on your principals of great community management)?

Man, there are so many (some of which - full disclosure - are Radian6 customers). Cisco, Citrix Online, H&R Block, IDC Research, Avaya, Sweet Leaf Tea, ThinkGeek, Moosejaw, Microsoft's XBox team, Best Buy, Edelman Digital, Dell, Blackberry...the list goes on. And it's not exclusive to just B2C. Note the B2B companies in there. Social media was made for B2B.

Social Ad Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:01:00 +0000

Hello to everyone that saw me speak today at Media Bistro's Social Ad Summit. In my presentation I referenced that you would be able to find all the things I highlighted in my "Pecha Kucha" part of my presentation. If you were not there today and you are wondering what the hek I'm talking about, I gave a presentation today called, "Social Media Now" where I gave my philosophy on how to help you focus your social media efforts and drive sales as a result. I've embedded the whole presentation at the bottom of this, but it may be a bit confusing without all my commentary. I'm one of those guys who hates lots of words in a Powerpoint presentation, so forgive me if it doesn't mean much to you. But this post is especially geared towards the people who saw me speak and wanted to know a little more.

Okay, here is the Pecha Kucha (remember, it was broken into 4 parts, 5 slides on each topic: Brands doing great work in social, Innovations in digital and social, Stats to help support why social is great for your company, and Resources to help you manage your social media marketing)...

BRANDS
1. Starbucks - Specifically MyStarbucksIdea.com

2. Bose - Great customer service via Twitter

3. Mountain Dew - Marketing and Market Research, crowdsourced their new flavor from their community via Facebook, Twitter, video, and more.

4. Old Spice - Direct response via YouTube as a result of people Tweeting, blogging, and Talking on Facebook about the ad campaign. Sales reportedly increased 106% during the month of the campaign.

5. Ford - Introduced the 2011 Ford Explorer via Facebook.

INNOVATIONS

7. Social Commerce / Social Shopping - This is your Groupon, Yelp, Gilt Group, Living Social. Flash sales that entice you to try new retailers at a tremendous discount.

9. Mobile - We've been waiting for the mobile explosion for years. Thank Apple for tipping it over with the iPhone and now Google's Android software. Everything we do online is headed towards mobile.

12. Social Media Impacts Brands

72% Feel a stronger connection
68% Feel better served
74% Have a more positive image
70% More willing to engage

13. Social Media Impacts Brands

64% Improved opinion of company when friend interacts
52% Choose to fan/follow brand to help showcase their personality online

60% of fans are likely to recommend a brand after "liking" them
51% of FB fans are more likely to buy from the brands they follow

15. Infographic - Good infographic about how we consume and interact with media daily. We spend 9 hours a day watching tv, playing video games, Tweeting, on social networks, etc.

RESOURCES

17. Blogs and Newsletters that help me stay on top of new technologies, specifically new apps, new websites, and new social networks include: Tech Crunch, Mashable, and Read, Write, Web

18. Free web tools to help you see what people are saying about you (we often call these "Reputation Management" tools) include: Search.Twitter.com (for Twitter search), Ice Rocket and Blog Pulse (to search blogs and message boards)

19. Pay tools to help you see what people are saying. These also help determine the level of influence of the people talking about you and the positive/negative/neutral sentiment towards you. Prices range from $500 a month to many thousands. This is just a sampling, there are many companies doing this, but the ones I use and pay attention to most are Radian6, Social Radar, and Sysomos.

20. Facebook Management Platforms. There are many companies now that help you manage your Facebook pages, blogs, and Twitter. This can be especially helpful if you are a major brand and you need to manage hundreds of thousands of fans and you want to add new features on a regular basis without having to constantly pay to build new apps. These include: Buddy Media, Context Optional, Vitrue, Involver, and Hoot Suite (Hoot Suite is free where the others all cost several thousands of dollars - Hoot Suite is also not as advanced as the others and is more about managing conversations than adding new features and apps).

And below is my full presentation if you want to see that too.

Social Media Now Presentation

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this and if you saw my presentation and have any comments, please feel free to leave them here or email me at LarryW@Fanscape.com.

Travel Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:36:00 +0000

I'm way behind on my blogging. I have some great stuff to share, just can't find a minute to do it. Let's start with this interview I did for the Travel Smart Blog. If you run a business, read this. Yes it's geared toward the travel industry, but you can apply most if not all of these concepts to nearly any business. Enjoy...

An Inside Look At How Social Media Impacts The Travel Industry And Its Customers

As we continue to celebrate Social Media Week, I had the chance to interview Larry Weintraub, CEO and co-founder of Fanscape, a social media marketing agency. He was able to provide some great information about how the travel industry and its customers are being impacting by social media, which I’m happy to share with you here!

1. What is the best way for travel companies to measure ROI (Return On Investment) on their social media (SM) channels?

What works for one company does not always work for another. The real question is, what is important to you? If it is sales, then your ROI will be measured by how much revenue you generate from your social media channels. For example, if you are a hotel chain, you want to drive people to purchase rooms. But what you have to know is that if you simply push people to book rooms and you don’t engage them, you will be disappointed. You need to offer value. Value in the form of discounts, exclusives, inside information, special amenities, etc. Make it worth their while to come visit your social media channels. Do that, and you will see sales and your ROI will be properly measured as a result of your engagement and not by simply building a channel.

2. Are daily giveaways and incentives the only way for travel brands to attract new fans/followers?

No, not at all. The key is value. Daily giveaways and incentives are fun and do offer value. But let’s not forget about good communication. Your social media channels are an extension of you. If you are a travel professional, what makes you special? Usually it is because you have insight and knowledge that the average consumer doesn’t have themselves. You’ve been to all the places people want to go, you’ve stayed in all the hotels, taken cruises, rented cars. You know where to go, how to get there, and what to ask for. People love to travel, but they are often confused by offers or worried about making a bad decision that isn’t realized until they reach their destination. If you communicate well with your customers and potential customers, answer their questions and provide them with your insight, that can be more valuable than a daily giveaway. This connection to your audience will result in people telling others. Word of mouth is the number one reason people buy something or try something, provide value and people will tell their friends.

3. How can a hotel control the damage of an unhappy customer when his or her feedback is immediately published on a social media site?

What you hope is that if a person has a problem, they come to you first. Even if it is in a public forum such as a travel blog or your Facebook page. If they voice their concern in that public forum, then you need to address it quickly and show that you care. For example, if someone complains about their hotel room or the service they received, you need to respond to that person, again, in public, on the social media site they utilized, and say that you are truly upset that they had that experience and you are looking into it immediately. Ask them then to respond to you directly via email or phone and offer to discuss the issue. Once you have resolved the issue, post again to let all those who read the chain know that you spoke with this person, you fixed any issues that related specifically to your hotel, and that this is an isolated experience. This is not a guaranteed fix. There are those who participate in social media that cannot be appeased. All you can do is do your best. If you participate regularly and actively in your social networks and you respond to discussions about your property in other social forums such as TripAdvisor, then the audience there will know that you do really care about your customers. Others will tend to discount the lone noisemaker if you are consistent with your participation and compassionate with your customers.

4. Will we ever get to a point where travel companies no longer need full blown websites because their customers would prefer to book directly through Facebook and Twitter applications?

The short answer is no. You will always need a website. That website will most likely continue to evolve and become more and more social in nature. Meaning, most if not all websites will continue to evolve and many of the features of popular social networks such as Facebook and Twitter will become integrated into your website. Features such as sharing, commenting, uploading photos and videos, and many more. Facebook and Twitter are the current favorite places to socialize, but tomorrow there will be something else. This doesn’t mean that they are going away any time soon, it just means you will always have to update your profiles on many places, but the one consistent will be your website.

5. With so many exciting new networks popping up every day, what is the best way for companies to keep up and ultimately use all of these tools as new revenue drivers?

You only have so many hours in a day and your resources are not endless. You can’t chase every new thing that comes up. Sometimes you just have to wait a minute and see if something catches on. Not every company has to be a leader. In fact, most companies will choose not to lead and will watch to see if revenues are being generated by competitors or others in related fields. Identify a handful of companies that do similar things as you and a handful that you aspire to be, even if they are not directly in your industry. If you see them doing great things or you read about them making money as a result of new tools, then reach out to the makers of those new technologies and ask them how they can help you. If you then do decide to participate, try to make your offering better for your customers. This could be in the form of discounts, deals, or the sharing of really useful information. No one is going to criticize you for copying someone else. It’s just up to you to make it the best for your business and the people who utilize your service.

I'm Listening To...

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:21:00 +0000

It's Monday morning, ready to take on the world. I just put my Rhapsody playlist together and I've hit PLAY. For the next 9.2 hours, Larry Radio will be playing from my computer.

It's really eclectic. Got lots of pop music. I don't know what hit me, but pop music seems to be fueling me lately. And a lot of hip-hop pop at that. I'm loving the new Eminem album, Recovery. I've been a fan since the beginning, but I'd have to say this is his best album ever. Not taking anything away from the the Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, or Eminem Show albums, but this one is just pop single after pop single. All with an edge, but so Em.

Falling into the Indie Pop zone is Rogue Wave. Rogue Wave is one of those bands you've heard their songs, but you didn't know who it was. I don't know for sure, but I'd swear I've heard their song, "Good Morning (The Future)" as either the music bed to a television show or a car commercial. It's that catchy and recognizable. Trust me, listen to the first two songs on their album, Permalight and if you don't like those, then turn it off. But I bet you say, "I've heard that song!"

Just so you don't think I've gone soft, I do have some metal on the list. Avenged Sevenfold is one of my favorite bands from the past 5 years or so and this album, "Nightmare" is their best yet. Their drummer, The Rev died not too long ago, and you can feel the pain these guys feel in their lyrics on this album. The last song "Fiction" has this line: "So tell everybody, the ones who walk beside me, I hope you'll find your own way when I'm not with you" gives me goosebumps. I grew up loving bands like Iron Maiden and Guns N Roses and I love their reincarnations in bands like Coheed and Cambria and My Chemical Romance; that's why I love Avenged Sevenfold. [note: I couldn't find a streamable link for the entire album, I looked everywhere. The above link goes to the video for the song "Nightmare"]

Falling in the guilty pleasure zone is the new Katy Perry album, Teenage Dream. It may be pure bubble gum, but it's so good when you chew it. A plethora of hits, it shows what happens when you combine a good voice, great looks, and every great producer currently churning out chart toppers. I remember from my days in the music business that when a label gets behind an artist that has the goods, and then stacks the deck with the best songs money can buy, you get pop magic (Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Fergie). You know how many albums that you've bought where there was one good song and the rest was crap. This is not one of those. Again, I'm almost embarrassed to say I like this album, but it is fun, and we all need some fun. don't we?

I won't go into the same detail on the rest of what's on my playlist. I'll just list it here:

Jay-Z - Blueprint 3. Truly a fantastic album. The same way Eminem's new one is great, this latest Blueprint album from Jay-Z is full of hits and great duets. (also, attached to the album I added on a few T.I. songs like Swagga Like Us, Whatever You Want, Dead and Gone, and Live Your Life because they go so well with Bluprint 3) [The Jay-Z link above goes to a sampling of the biggest hits from Blueprint 3]

Taking Back Sunday - Live from Orensanz. I have a soft spot for these guys since I used to manage them. This is a quietly released album that is their version of "Unplugged" recorded at a synagogue in NY. With beautiful strings and one of the best vocal performances I've ever heard from Adam.

Silversun Pickups - Swoon - I'm still listening to this album nearly a year later. It actually keeps getting better and I've listened about 500 times now. I have a ritual where I put on "It's Nice to Know You Work Alone" really loud through my headphones before I give a presentation. It's like my fight song before I enter the ring.

Never Shout Never - Harmony. A few months ago I fell for the Owl City album. This is like that. Sweet music. I don't know what to compare it to really. Maybe if the Birds and Dashboard Confessional collided. Harmonica, acoustic guitar, and fun. One of my favorite albums ever is by The Format and it's called Dog Problems. I crave that album. Never Shout Never is a tease that whets my appetite and then I usually put Dog Problems on when it's over.

And finally, as I was looking for links to all of this fine music, I stumbled across a new Bad Religion song called, "The Resist Stance" which is fantastic. Now I need to hear more Bad Religion. Damn! I need to get to work.

The Format -

The Format | MySpace Music Videos

Bandwidth Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Last week I was in San Francisco and I was invited to speak at the Bandwidth conference. It was a treat because this conference is unlike others. Ashli Lewis runs it and this is my second time being asked to participate. Instead of hundreds of speakers and thousands of attendees, it was just a hundred or so people all together talking about challenges in music and technology. It actually felt like we were trying to find solutions rather than just speaking for the sake of hearing ourselves speak. Scott Perry, who publishes the New Music Tipsheet reported on the event and did a good job summarizing Bandwidth:

Kudos once again to Bandwidth for providing an amazing, intimate platform for bringing together a select group of thinkers & doers in the digital and music space to gather and connect in a way that you just don't find anywhere else. Anchored by a chat with Elektra founder Jac Holzman and filled with boardroom-sized sessions that covered numerous aspects of the digital space, I truly believe that Bandwidth (and Jim Lewi's Aspen Live conference) is the blueprint for the way conferences should bring together small groups under a larger umbrella, so that everyone involved are actual PARTICIPANTS, and not just attendees.

Scott points to the Aspen Live conference which was created a dozen years ago or so with a similar mission. Rather than panels, let's sit around in a circle and get all the people that care about music and actually do the work and see if we can solve some problems. Bandwidth is similar but it is less about the music business and more about technology's impact and influence on the music business.

I've said openly many times that the music business is broken and it will only be fixed by someone from the outside. Someone who doesn't understand the faux rules set up by the insiders. Bandwidth brought some of us from the old guard and merged them with the new guard. Did we fix the music business? No. Not by a long shot. Did we talk about ways to make it better that circumvent the "establishment?" Yes.

Ted Cohen, music/technology networker extraordinaire went around the room and asked this simple question: "do you ask permission or do you apologize?"

Luckily, it was a room full of apologizers.

Vote for My SXSW Panel

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Weintraub) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:51:00 +0000

I'll cut to the chase, vote for me HERE. What is this? Well, let me tell you.

I had such a good time at SXSW Interactive this year that I wanted to see if I could put together a panel that was both exciting and entertaining. No offense to the other panels, but I didn't want to just have a handful of talking heads discussing the benefits of social media or location-based marketing. Nope, when you leave my proposed panel, you'll have an understanding of where things are going and how they'll get paid for.

My thought is this: let's get down to the nitty gritty of making money in the new era of media. And who is the most honest new generation broadcaster? Adam Carolla. Ask Adam how much money he's making, exactly what it costs to produce his podcast, what mistakes he's made, what the next plan is, and he'll answer.

My vision for this discussion is part information and part Adam doing his show live... in Austin!

I know he doesn't have all the answers. But he's the closest thing we've seen to a new era of radio. And in a perfect world, we'll pull in some others who are figuring it out too like Adam Curry, Leo Laporte, and Kevin Rose.

And we'll have fun. Because all of these guys seem to have fun first and make money second. But they know that they need money to keep it going.

So please help make this panel a reality. I need your votes to make it past the next round.

If I get this panel off the ground, and you are not able to make it, I'll do everything in my power to get it recorded (or at least transcribed) so that everyone can learn even if you aren't there.

Thanks!