Social networking with social media: netiquette

While I was speaking at the Women's Entrepreneur Network in Chicago, the organizer Roberta M Coleman noted social networking is like a cocktail party. Indeed, one can meet and greet with numerous organizations and visit sites of their interest. Just like a cocktail party, there are some rules to not royally messing up at meeting and liaising with your potential partner/consumer/associate online. 

What if you're not familiar with the online space generally? Well, if you're reading this blog then you're definitely on your way. What some social media gurus recommended to me as a solopreneur was simply start saying something online. Then work out how consumers, stakeholders and other industry actors react.

 

Take it a step further when you're creating and executing a social media campaign. Whereas traditional media campaigns were one-sided, today's advertising require far more interaction and soft skills. It's these same 'soft skills' you use networking that you also need while running a social media campaign. More specifically, where's the line between personality and the traditional, corporate 'one-way conversation'? 

Crowdsourcing rocks

This is the non-monetary, slightly less cohesive, decentralized New York City version of the The T-Mobile dance-off that happened on 16 January 2009 in London. The beauty of flashmobs as such is the greater chance of spreading the word to potential consumers (or potential environmentalists). In another blog, I'll talk about the CarrotMob--using crowdsourcing for sustainability.

The importance of drawing crowds was noted in Jeff Howe's, "Crowdsourcing: why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business" (2008). I was actually really glad to see that Howe was also blogging on the same Amazon site that sells his books. 

I'm actually going to contact Jeff to see his opinions on the future of crowdsourcing and possibly CarrotMobing?

Viral marketing: T-Mobile dance @ Liverpool Station, London

What a brilliant idea from T-Mobile UK. In several days, over 1 million people have seen the ad. It definitely made an impression on me! Over the course of the dance, you couldn't be too sure who was paid by T-Mobile and who was just having a great time. I've made excuses to continue to re-watch it. 

The beauty is this video was shown on TV and paralleled on YouTube. Great way to start conversations about T-Mobile offline and online.

Eco PR 2.0

Environmentally-focused PR companies, indeed a host of companies have the opportunity to use multi-media platforms to communicate for a host of reasons. 

Indeed, at the heart of communications is increasing brand awareness and offline conversations around particular products or services. The benefits of using multi-media platforms for communications campaigns are increases in search engine optimization and generally online and offline sales of different products or services. 

As noted in a previous blog, PR 2.0 has sizable influence on the way consumers are communicating and participating in everything from world events to their next pair of shoes. 

What are the numbers? Facebook has 130 million active users monthly [1], Myspace at 120 million active users monthly [2], Twitter at around 3 million messages per day [3]; Wordpress and Blogger at around 340 million unique visitors monthly [4, 5], 25+ million on StumbleUpon and Digg [6] and Google with 140+ million visitors monthly [7]. 

And let's face it; if you don't appear in Google results, you hardly exist. On the other hand, if you rank among the highest on search engines, you're far more likely to succeed than another company without the same qualities. 

What we need is some examples of how Eco PR 2.0 practically works against such a diagram (taken from FredCavazza.net).

Bibliography

[1] "Facebook crosses 130 million global active users..." URL: http://is.gd/gydF

[2] With 110 million in January 2008, I'm projecting circa 120 million active users at the current going rate of social networking development. This is a safe estimate, as web strategist Jeremiah Owyang put Myspace growth at around 300,000 new people per day. 

Original source: "From Myspace to YourSpace", 21 January 2008, NYT. URL: http://is.gd/gyfb

[3] Arrington, Michael. "End of speculation: the real twitter usage numbers", 29 April 2008. Tech Crunch. URL: http://id.gd.aad

[4] Wordpress has 120-160 million unique visitors monthly with 30 million blog posts. 

Work, Henry. "The state of wordpress 2008: awesome growth", 16 August 2008. Tech Crunch. URL: http://is.gd/gB5p

[5] Blogger has around 221 million unique visitors monthly.

Schonfeld, Erick. "Top social media sites of 2008", 31 December 2008. Tech Crunch. URL: http://is.gd/ej0j

[6] Digg has around 21 million unique visitors monthly, StumbleUpon at 1.2 million (and Fark at 1.4 million)

"Top 10 social bookmarking sites with stats", 8 October 2008, SMMGuru.com. URL: http://is.gd/gBif

[7] Google is number one most visited "online property" with 144 million visitors

"comScore media matrix ranks top 50 U.S. web properties for September 2008", 17 October 2008. comScore. URL: http://is.gd/4mAO

SEO

Search Engine Optimization, according to the reputable SEOmoz.org is, 'the active practice of... improving internal and external aspects to increase the sites' traffic from search engines'. Why is this important? As noted in the last post, there are thousands of visitors to search engines hourly. Ranking increases unique visits which pushes the site further up the search list.

Although I'm new to SEO, I attended an SEO event in Chicago where professionals in the field made some great recommendations about where to start. Thanks to 

Seven steps can increase SEO says SEOmoz.org:

1. Understand why SEO is important

• ie. possibility of increasing your traffic by hundreds or thousands immediately
  

2. Consider how search engines operate 

• Don't hinder search engines finding you; use keywords to stop 'speedbumps' or 'walls' from search spiders
• Increase trust and popularity through mutual links (.edu, .gov, media sites like NYTimes.com better than .com or .net)

3. Keyword search (meta and title tags, too)

• Engines rate relevance and popularity (among other indices); is your site an industry best?
  

4. Critically optimize important components

• Brainstorm, survey around consumers description of your product or service
• Google Analytics can give you a picture of where your current viewership lies, consider which terms visitors use to describe and find your website

5. Ensure a traffic-worthy site (Great content!)

• Make it pretty; sleek design and well orchestrated information is like music while shopping (it's more comfortable and alluring)
• Ask followers their thoughts. Few visitors recommend friends to visit a boring website; further, fewer visitors will stay on your website if it's something uninteresting

6. Increase site popularity 

• Mutually-beneficial link to increase traffic on both site
• Place your name, link and twitter name on as many relevant sites as you can find

7. Craft a policy

• Policies are essential because they ensure you continue to improve in line with your website or blog goal
• For small companies, this might be a social media strategy which is part of the communications strategy

8. Keep up with it

• Your online branding is equally important to offline marketing. Use it to create conversations
• Search spiders will lower your rank if you don't update your information regularly
• Suggestion: add RSS to your website, there are even companies that syndicate feed for your company or organization

Viral Marketing: Worlds Best Job

If you've been keeping up with news, you might have noticed the incredibly timely "best job in the world" opportunity on a Queensland island off the southeast coast of Australia. 

This is a fabulous piece of viral marketing that I just wanted to note had all the qualities of being spread across a wide audience. Firstly, even active environmentalists cannot say much about travel, although it consumes tonnes of carbon. You might even be hard pressed to find someone who dislikes traveling. Secondly, the timing is perfect. The United States and Europe is cold and snowy, which makes people especially susceptible to dreams of living abroad. Thirdly, the campaign was simple and delightful; who wouldn't like to pass their friends an opportunity of a lifetime?

The potential applicant will be paid 150,000 Australian dollars (105,000 US dollars) "to explore the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel and generally live the Queensland lifestyle." The successful applicant will live rent-free in a multi-million dollar home complete with plunge pool and golf buggy. 

Applications are taken until 22 February and eleven shortlisted candidates will be flown to Hamilton Island in early May for the final selection process. The six month contract will commence on 1 July. 

Conversations: importance of 'talk pieces'

Like suduku that Seth Godin spoke of at the Ted conference in 2003, companies love when consumers talk positively about their wares to many of there friends. Word of mouth advertising is important for small and medium sized businesses but must also be recognized among large enterprises, too. 

That's what PR and marketer's work hard to create conversations and 'talk pieces'.  These are stories, pictures and marketing campaigns which create attention around obnoxious, hopefully interesting advertising around particular products or services. 

One great example of an effective 'talk piece' is the new Dentyne advertisements on subways in Chicago and New York. One could not stop staring at the ad and it created quite a stir both inside and outside the train. It almost seemed like the company wanted more to evoke interest than brand placement. Might you consider Dentyne the next time you hug? Maybe.

But it's also great to consider: who wants to buy your product or service? Why do they want to buy it? What makes your product or service noteworthy? 

For environmentally and socially conscious companies, having the triple bottom line is remarkable and noteworthy. Looking forward, the next post will delve into whether and how environmentally and socially-minded PR might challenge normal 'talk pieces'.

PR 2.0 Conversation Tools

As the world changes so too do web 2.0 tools. As a tweeter (carbonoutreach) and advocate for web innovation, I like to base communications strategies on what can increase search engine optimization. Of course, SEO likely grows organically among online conversations, but more importantly PR 2.0 should enable and help facilitate these online conversations. 

Especially where you might weave offline events, products and services to online communities and groups. Key, here, is the offline marketing weaving into and creating another platform for PR 2.0. Without the essential offline component, campaigns don't offer as good brand retention awareness. 

This, according to Integrated Media Measurement Inc. in June 2008, is true based on samples of consumers who were more likely to buy a product or service of companies using multi-media marketing campaigns. 

The below video is of Seth Godin, who illustrated the importance of creating stories around your product, but also enabling 'remarkable' and noteworthy conversations. This is true--both online and offline. 

The case for PR 2.0

Public relations and marketing are two of the most fundamental components of selling products and services. Sales creates profits. In this tough economic and environmental climate, creating a profitable enterprise is a no brainer.

What kind of marketing produces results? This, invariably, depends on your audience and objectives. For example,NBC created a multi-media platform (TV, online and mobile video) to promote and show the 2008 Beijing Olympics. According to Nick Johnson, VP of Multimedia Sales, consumers who saw TV ads had 35 percent brand recall versus 46 percent with web and TV. NBC Research President, Alan Wurtzel noted, "the internet fueled interest," with the largest audience in Olympics history--over 114+ million viewers.

Some interesting statistics: there are around 130 million active facebook users monthly, 120 million active myspace users monthly, 3+ million twitter messages per day, 6.5 visitors and 35 million new blog posts on Wordpress, around 30 million new blog posts on Blogger, 50+ million montly viewers on Digg and StumbleUpon and 60+ million visitors to Google monthly. 

So what about time use; how much time are people spending online? What about television? According to the Nielsen Media Research of July 2008, the average American watches around 127 hours per month, with internet use at 27 hours per month. The report also notes, "Despite rapid adoption of [other forms of media], commercial television is alive and well." While television is king, audiences are expecting to find the same subjects online; if you cannot Google it, it doesn't exist.

What about more traditional forms of media including newspapers and magazines? According to the Pew Research Center in 2008, the internet surpassed printed publications as source of news with 40-59 percent receiving their information online and around 60-70 percent (depending on age) via television. 

Pew Research also found the Beijing Olympics was one of the top 15 stories of 2008, watched very closely by 35 percent of respondents. 

Of course, traditional print media is still utilized. However, it seems a less traditional mix of all three forms of media (print, television and internet) could create a multi-faceted campaign to connect both offline and online conversations.