MindComet

The sore thumb approach to social media

Getting noticed paves the way for progress. It opens doors. This is true in love, work and almost any other activity in life, including social media.

It’s easy to be a “me too”. I’m guilty of it. The problem is, “me too’s” don’t get noticed. You need to stick out, like a sore thumb.

So ask yourself, what do you have to offer that is unique to you? What sets you apart?

The answer to that question is your social media strategy.

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 08, 2009

Elementary my dear Watson….spammers

The blogosphere is a stir about Seth Godin’s latest undertaking, Brands in Public. Words like brandjacking and blackmail are being spoken in the breath as Godin.

Love it or hate it, I fear that Brands in Public could be doomed from the start due to one simple, yet omnipresent force on the Internet, spammers.

From the looks of it, Brands in Public appears to be a keyword-based aggregate, which are ripe for exploitation by spammers…and trust me they will come. Seth Godin, marketing genius, will work his voodoo and push these pages to the tops of the search engines. He has to, otherwise he can’t demand the monthly fee he’s looking to leech from brands. Once these pages hit the first pages in Google, it will be no time before they’re targeted by spammers and rendered useless by links to porn sites and cheap Viagra (just like Twitter’s Trending Topics).

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Sep. 24, 2009

Injecting social media into your organization

Do you want to know what the hot topics are in marketing circles? Ask the business development person at an agency. Field enough leads, and you begin to see some recurring trends. Currently, about nine out of every ten marketing leads involve some interest in social media—awesome news for someone trying to sell social media, right? Well, yes and no. Despite the frequent interest in social media from organizations, selling social media isn’t getting easier. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

So what’s the problem? Marketers are lining up for social media projects. It should be easy, right?

Wrong. The opportunity may be there, however, nine times out of ten, the concept hasn’t been completely sold internally. Helping the marketing team get buy off from key stakeholders and decision makers is the first step. This can be challenging to say the least. Marketers are generally already in tune with social media and use it. They’ve had a good solid two years of news trickling in through blogs and industry publications which all support the notion of social media as an effective marketing tool. Start venturing outside of marketing and you’ll find that this doesn’t hold true. And as the age of a person goes up, social media tends to become increasingly foreign.

So, we’re essentially being tasked with selling the business application of social media to stakeholders that, quite often, aren’t even participating in social media casually. It’s kinda like selling cake to a person who’s never eaten before.

Education is the first step

This whole process would be a much softer sell if people had previous experience that they could relate to. Here are a couple of ideas for bringing social media into your organization.

Offer social media education brown bag lunches - Pick one tool, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, blogging, or whatever. Explain the tool and show relevant examples of use. Is your CEO attending the brown bag? Go ahead and put together examples that show other CEOs using social media for business purposes. The proof’s in the puddding.

Create a social media reverse mentorship program - I personally love this one. Rest assured that the younger members on your team get social media and are using it regularly. Go ahead and pair them up with someone on your management team in a reverse mentorship program. For the junior team member, this role could be a great honor and provide them with an opportunity to shine. For your leadership team, this would be a great way to quickly get “on board” a crucial business trend.

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Sep. 18, 2009

Market with your four walls

It’s no secret, MindComet sells social media strategy as a service. Organizations come to us, not knowing where and how to start using social marketing effectively. We educate and help them, generally in exchange for money. But today, we’re giving away a freebie. It’s a very basic, two-fold strategy that, in my opinion, is one of the most effective strategies a business can employ.

Part one: Market with your four walls.

Four-walls marketing is not a new concept, yet it is really simple. If you can consistently deliver a unique and memorable experience to your customers, they WILL market for you. Top restaurants have been doing this for years. Do you think that the Cleveland-based chef and restauranteur, Michael Symon, spends significant amounts of money advertising his flagship restaurant Lola? No, his guests do his marketing for him - By the way, if you’re ever in Cleveland you MUST dine there. It is amazing - see what I mean?

So ask yourself, is your customer experience unique? Are you delivering something, whether it be a product, experience, or customer service, that you can reliably say you’re doing better, and not just marginally better, than your competition? Work on this until you can emphatically say yes, then move on to part two.

Part two: Encourage or ask your customers to talk about you on social media channels.

If you’re doing part one right, then you’re guests will already be talking about you to their friends. However, you’re goal is to have them talking about you in a public forum, like social media. Don’t be bashful, strike up conversations with your happy customers and see if they use social media. If so, ask them to post reviews on sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs. Sometimes people just need a little nudge and I guarantee that a good number of them will be happy to do it.

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 26, 2009

Death of the dog and pony show?

Besides heading up MindComet’s media department, I also oversee the entire technology group. Technology is where my roots are. In that particular role, I’ve made more than a few software/service purchasing decisions…which means sitting through multiple demos given by sales people all claiming to have the best product. Invariably, everyone always says their product is the best. But, how can this be?

It can’t.

As a purchaser, I know that they’re not all equal, despite the claims. Once you’ve heard three people say their product is the best, rest assured that two of the presentations you’ve heard are dog and pony shows (look, I understand. It’s sales. Going in saying, “sure my competitor’s product kicks our ass, but…“, isn’t a winning formula for hitting quotas). It’s my job to spend hours wading through sales speak to find out exactly who’s the “nuts” and who’s not. It can be tough.

Cue social media.

The internet and social media are now the great equalizer. Establishing a relationship is no longer a guessing game. Questions like is their product reliable, how’s their customer service, and are their other customers happy can be answered before signing a contract. Just put your ear to the ground and listen in customer communities. Ask past and current customers questions about the product on social platforms. They’re generally very honest…sometimes brutally honest.

According to a blog post on eMarketer, only 17% of people trust advertisers. The majority of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations by friends and family. While many of the people you engage in social media are relative strangers, it’s valuable feedback that can contribute to your decision. Personally, I strive for a decent sampling of feedback and look for patterns. What was the overall sentiment about the product? How did people generally feel about the level of customer service?

Do you research products independently on social media platforms before making a purchase?

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 08, 2009

Social media for the underdog

Is social media best suited for big brands? Logic would tell you that it is. It’s easier for celebrities to make a big splash in social media versus the average Joe. They have equity in their name. It’s easy for them to attract lots of followers and broadcast their message. When it comes to business the same holds true. Big brands have brand equity. Establishing a presence is not that hard. But what if you’re a small brand that wants to sell cars in Orlando or are a Realty brokerage looking for potential buyers? Should you really care about sheer numbers or should you be interested in smart, targeted usage that produces real results?

A recent post on the eMarketer blog cites that more than 260,000 small businesses in the US and Canada are utilizing social media for business purposes.

The graph is interesting in that advertising and maintaining profile (awareness) are less prominent reasons for participating in social media than the smart and highly targeted activities like customer service and professional networking.

And what types of platforms are businesses utilizing for their social media activities?

Social networking is by far the most prevalent with niche/industry communities and job sites close behind.

So what is the lesson here?

Social media can apply to small business. However “wide-net” strategies that aim for national and global awareness should be avoided. Use social media to forge new relationships and strengthen existing customer relationships through hyper-targeted conversations.

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 04, 2009

YouTube is not a failure

An interesting article piece of pundrity appeared recently in Time Magazine entitled "The 10 Biggest Tech Failures of the Last Decade". Included are some not so surprising "failures" and one that has sparked quite the stir in the blogosphere. Technology pundit Douglas McIntyre has decided to declare YouTube a failure.

His reason? The inability of YouTube to effectively monetize the platform. While this is true, I don't think this justifies its inclusion into his list.

Doesn't YouTube deserve some credit for being a disruptive, game changing technology? It is, and forever will be, THE seminal video sharing site that paved the way for an american video sharing culture. They gave us that "first hit" and now we're hooked. In a recent blog post by eMarketer, they report that 72% of US internet users watch video clips monthly. That makes it bigger than blogging or social networking.

Simply put, YouTube has forever altered our culture and the way we communicate.

Note: It's my opinion that Douglas McIntyre intentionally included YouTube for the purposes of sparking a debate and ultimately driving traffic to his article and site 24/7 WALL ST.

View Comments

Posted by Jeremy Hilton on May. 28, 2009