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That great quote by Ertha Kitt really sums up what living a fulfilled life is all about. Learning new things and seeking knowledge on what we already think we know gives our lives meaning and anyone who is at the top of their game will tell you that “learning” is a big key to their success.

If I had to break down how I spend my day I would have to attribute at least 60% of it to research, discovering new, better ways to do things, learning something new for my business and for my clients.

The top producers in every industry advocate learning as much as possible and to continue to seek new and innovative ways to improve productivity, customer service, product development and every other aspect of your business.

It’s actually really easy to spot the people that are not interested in learning something new. They’re the ones, in the meeting, you  know the ones? The ones who poo poo new ideas or have a million excuses on why something won’t work. Or the ones who say they’ve tried that and it didn’t work at their last job. Ya, I think the word we use for them is cynical.

I put together Social Media Canada in order to express the things I’ve learned from others and share them with my readers. If spending 6 hours figuring out how to put together a blog or gather targetted Twitter followers can be condensed into a post that will save someone that time, I’m keen to do it.

In the same spirit I am also very happy to help promote events that could help people improve their business.

To that end I want to mention the SES Conference and Expo taking place in Toronto June 13-15, 2011. You can get all the info on their site or you can read this quick synopsis I’ve put together to save you the time. (see? see what i did there? 😉

Ok, SES is basically a place where you can learn all about search engine strategies which is a super large topic that encompasses stuff like search engine optimization, ppc, how to optimize your web page for search etc etc.

I would have loved to attend an event like this. If I still lived in Toronto I’d be in like Flynn. It’s 3 days that could save you months of research if you were to try to figure it all out yourself, online.

If you’re interested in getting into web marketing, site building, SEO or just want to improve your skill set, you’re likely to get a great deal out of this conference.

Let me know if you’re going. I’d love to have someone report back after the event and let us know how it went (and whether its worth it to attend in other cities)

As social media strategists and specialists we spend a great deal of our time speaking to people about the benefits of social media in today’s terms. We talk about return on investment (ad infinitum), engagement, authenticity, transparency, 2 way communication, social media vs marketing etc.

Very soon that conversation is going to evolve and it’s going to do it in the blink of an eye. It’s happening already.

The new arm of social media is social commerce and you can bet your donkey (insert synonym here) that if you’re not addressing social commerce now you are doing your clients a disservice.

For years we’ve all been going on and on about the power of the internet to reach people. Recently this awesome social media phenomenon has caused us all to get a glimpse at that power first-hand. When you look at examples of how “the little guy” has taken on huge corporations and won through the use of social media like youtube, you start to see just how powerful this tool is.

Take Dave Carroll for example. Dave is a musician and a pretty good one. While on a flight from Halifax to Nebraska with a stop at Chicago’s O’Hare, Dave noticed the baggage handlers were tossing his Taylor guitar around. Let’s just say Dave was pissed. So much so, after receiving no satisfaction from customer “service”, that he wrote a song. A song that has received international acclaim and over 10 million hits!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!

Because of stories like this, every single social media service is trying to figure out a way to capture these 10 million eyeballs and sell them something. We’re calling that Social Commerce now. It’s the new black.

The trick is that all those marketing people with “20 years experience” have to forget everything they know about marketing. They have to forget to try to sell something and have to learn how to engage someone. (See what I did there? I went from a “thing” to a “one”. If you’re starting to see a pattern, whew!)

I was watching Erik Qualman recently. He’s a pretty smart guy and he’s a few steps ahead of the rest of us when it comes to this social commerce stuff.  He points out that we, as humans, have our hierarchy of needs (he didn’t make that up, it’s a real thing 😉 Survival, Security and Socialization top the list.

We’re social. 78% of us will believe the recommendation of a friend. We’d rather have our friends do the market research and just tell us what the best product is. (maybe we’re also a bit lazy?) Anyway, having a pal tell us what they love about a product or service holds infinitely more weight than a billboard.

I’m sure you’ve seen the little QR Code symbols on everything lately. In some cases you can scan that code with your smart phone and see how many of your friends bought that product and what they think of it. Think of it as targeted (to your friends) market research. How cool is that?

It’s great. There’s no question. However, businesses who decide to use this technology have to be pretty dang sure that they have a firm grip on their brand both online and off.

Social media strategists and specialists are going to have be very careful in how they introduce social commerce to their clients. As with social media, there are tons of ways to mess it up. (ask United airlines)

So while social commerce is coming, and coming at break-neck speed, don’t fall into the frenzy that has given social media some bad press. This is where strategic thinking, research and an iron-clad grip on the value proposition of the company and their customer service is going to be key.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be researching some of the best, and worst, social commerce engagement examples. Stay tuned!

As always I expect a certain amount of backlash for using a controversial word “nipples” (in case you missed it) in the title of this post but my chill, laid-back, westcoast attitude thinks “meh, if it gets people to the content and that content helps them figure something out that’s not working in their own campaign, I’ve succeeded.”

So, before you get all bent out of shape about the title, read this piece, digest the info, offer up some constructive, useful, value-added advice in your comments. Saying “I don’t agree” makes you sound like a twerp and offers nothing to the reader. Think “value” when posting please.

I was running this morning with a friend of mine who owns a very popular brick and mortar company in our town. They, like so many other businesses, have appointed a member of their staff to take care of the social media marketing.

As the owner, she is un-involved with the process and wasn’t able to tell me what the appointee did on Twitter or Facebook. She just knew that her staff member was “using social media”.

Now, to be fair, they have had some success. They post daily and have 255 members on their FB page which isn’t too bad considering the size of the town.

From a marketing standpoint they’re doing ok. From a social media standpoint they have not even scratched the surface of the medium.

A strategist doesn’t just randomly post stuff to Facebook and Twitter and hope to attract the right people. With every new client a strategist is charged with the task of determining the demographic, identifying what they want to know/learn etc. Finding out what they’re talking about online. Where do they spend their money? What do they get from the site when they visit? Do they share information they’ve found with others? What are the competition doing and are they successfully engaging clients?

The list of questions goes on for quite some time. I would go so far as to say that the collection of data on the user is as important in social media as it is in traditional marketing. If you were to walk into an ad agency today and ask who’s buying counter-top composting machines (assuming they advertise for the company that sells them of course) they would be able to tell you, accurately, who their target market is.

The problem with a willy-nilly social media campaign is that the net is too big. Just putting out random information without identifying the market means that you hit people who don’t care what you’re doing. While that might sound ok, there’s a chance that, in doing so, you’re annoying people and since social media is a two-way conversation those annoyed people may just decide to lash out.

On the flip side, knowing who you’re selling to can be a great advantage in the marketplace. If I’m selling composting machines and I know that my biggest market are yuppies who live in the city I need to put information on my site that appeals to them. For example maybe I would have a blog article about how some big cities are using unique ways to deal with their waste. Or how Vancouver, BC has a Green Cities Initiative to become the greenest city on earth by 2020. Those are, quite likely, articles that would appeal to someone who is composting.

Strategically, knowing the demographic offers up a bunch of other advantages. A good example is Facebook. If you want to hit the 18-30 crowd you should probably post at 7pm or 8pm when they’re online. There are plenty of studies available online that will allow you to determine the best times to post to social media to get the most eyeballs in your desired demographic.

So, if you work at, or own a company that has assigned a staff member to “do” social media take a moment and find out how engaged your online community is. Are they commenting on your posts? Are they suggesting interesting articles? Are they re-tweeting, re-posting, re-marking to what you’re putting out there? If not then you may want to start thinking about bringing in a strategist that can help you on your way to significantly more engagement.

A really great way to determine this without putting a lot of effort into the process initially is simply ask yourself “are we providing value to the people visiting our website?” If the answer is no then you definitely need to speak to a strategist BEFORE you go it alone.

It may be an unfortunate commentary on society that including words like “moron” and “idiot” in the title of a post garner considerably more traffic than words like “success” and “charity” but it is a fact. Using controversial images works well too!

In the several articles I have submitted to Social Media Today I have found varying degrees of success. While my articles all provide constructive, useful information for anyone in the business of social media or anyone thinking about launching a campaign, I have found that the #1 way to get my articles read is to be somewhat controversial in the headline.

So, in the interest of continuing to provide value to the people that read my posts I offer you the top 5 ways to get your articles read.

First off I want to illustrate my point about headlines. The following are the articles I’ve submitted to SMT in the order they were submitted.

How Social Media Will Save the Human Race (941 reads – my first article submission)

She said “I think Facebook is just stupid” (2141 reads)

Hey Big Business! You’re About to Lose Your Market Share! (427 reads 🙁

Can a Multinational Company Succeed in Social Media (1,774 reads)

Social Media ROI for Idiots (19,876 reads!!!!!) FIRST CONTROVERSIAL TITLE.

Social Media Means Certain Death to the Greed is Good Paradigm (2816 reads)

How a Homeless Guy Named Patrick Taught Me About Social Media (3711 reads)

It’s Not Your CEO’s Fault He’s a Social Media Moron (12,735!) 2ND CONTROVERSIAL TITLE.

#1: The best way to attract people to read your work is to have a controversial title. Inserting words like “moron” and “idiot” seem to spark people’s curiosity and show that you write in the vernacular of your audience.

Often considered the father of modern marketing and advertising, David Olgilvy was quoted as saying: “I don’t know the rules of grammar…If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.”

That point works for both the title and the body of the article. Write like you speak and people will want to read your work. Which brings us to…

#2: Once someone has clicked on your article you have to be able to deliver the goods. If gathering clicks is your only goal then the title is fine (lame but fine) but if you really and truly want to provide people with something of value make sure you do so in your article.

A couple of really great ways to do this is to provide links to external information where they can find out more. i.e. I hyper-linked readers of this article to David Olgilvy because, as marketers, they may be interested in him.

The easier it is you make for someone to find information the more valuable you are to them.

Part of #2 is knowing your demographic. Who are you writing for? Is it the C-level execs? The marketing department? The Administrative Assistant? The small business owner? All of these require a different strategy so make sure you know who you want to read your work before you decide how you’re going to present it.

#3: Be authentic. If you’re writing for this site chances are you’re doing so to increase business to your own website or to garner some online attention for your brand. If you are able to provide value while doing that don’t lie about your motives. If you think that your own site can provide even more, useful info then link to it. There’s no shame in giving away good knowledge for the benefit of others. If you reach 200 people and one becomes a client that’s 1 more than you had yesterday and you may have helped 199 others.

#4: Don’t poach. (or, be honest) Look, if you come across an article online or in a magazine that you really think will help others make sure you give credit where it’s due. You could likely get away with passing things off as your own but why? How would that further your business or your reputation? However, if you find something sharable and interesting and you para-phrase it and promote the original post or article you look like a rock star!

#5: ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS PROVIDE VALUE. If you’ve read any of my other posts this is the thing I iterate and reiterate. You have to think about your audience and what they want to learn. When in doubt ask yourself if what you’re about to say will provide value to the reader. If the answer is no do a bit of research and find out how you can value-add to it. If you can’t find a way, ditch it for something else.

Once you create a name for yourself as someone who knows their stuff the views will follow.

Good luck with your writing. I’m happy to comment or read what you’ve done and offer advice or if you have something to add to these 5 points I’d love to have you do so. You can read this and all of my Social Media articles on my site Social Media Canada. (a shameless plug for my own company 🙂

Hey all you RSS subscribers out there. Just a reminder to hit up my Facebook page and “like” it. That way you can share content and help people increase their business through social media!
Like Social Media Management on Facebook today! 🙂

“I can’t get my C-level exec team to buy into social media.”

It seems that this has become the mantra for so many businesses, particularly Fortune 100 businesses who ought to know better.

Here’s the problem. Social Media, as a genre, has been claimed by the marketing department at most companies. As they do with most marketing initiatives the C-levels let those marketers take the ball and run with it. If they succeed then super and if they fail then it’s really the marketing department’s gig and not the fault of any corporate policy.

That’s how things have been done forever. A great CEO will surround him/herself with great C-level execs in each department then give them the leeway to run their department as they see fit. Its worked this way forever so why doesn’t it work with social media?

Can you guess?

How about the fact that social media is not a one-way campaign? Rather than a company spouting off about what they do, why they do it better than others etc, a good social media campaign creates a dialogue between the company and its customers/clients. Meaning, everyone at that company has to be on the same page, iterating the same message.

Advertising campaigns can be run independently for each department because they talk “at” the audience but once a campaign is created for the social media space it’s talking “with” the audience and the voice coming from the company has to be consistent across all channels.

The great irony about the lack of buy-in from C-levels is the fact that the marketing department rarely tries to get the executives engaged in social media. Whether they feel it’s the role of their department to create and execute the campaign or they feel that the C-levels are too busy matters less than the fact that, without C-level involvement, a company will never see the true benefits of social media.

So, how do you convince them to take social media seriously? That’s a tough one. Most C-levels will scroll down to the bottom line to determine effectiveness of any campaign but what many don’t realize is that the bottom line definitions have changed with this new-fangled internet technology. All of the old measurements are moot and an entirely new dictionary is being written around ROI and brand success.

Part of the discussion has to come from tapping into members of the exec team’s passion for what they do. After all, most people do not get to the top of the corporate ladder without some sort of belief in the company they’re working for.

Find out why they love the company. Find out what they want people to know about the brand. Ask them what they tell people at cocktail parties or business luncheons. Getting to the root of their own, personal opinions about what they do and why will help move them toward understanding what social media can do for the company.

If you can successfully engage the C-level executives of your company in the power of social media to promote your brand you will get a complete top/down engagement throughout the ranks. If the bosses are doing it, everyone will do it too.

That kind of solidarity brings with it great results and a strong corporate business model.

Alternatively, as marketing department members, you can just keep going it alone and hoping that you get the kind of engagement that will allow you to keep your jobs.

Choose wisely Young Skywalker for failing to keep up is a marketers worst sin. Good luck!

Almost everyone in business has heard the name Ivan Boesky. The character of Gordon Gecko in Wall Street was loosely based on him and his Greed is Good philosophy of business and life.

There’s no arguing that Boesky was good at what he did. He was that guy who’d go in and take over failing companies, fire everyone, re-structure then sell at enormous profit. There was very little room for emotion or even humanity in the actions of his company. 

He was one of the first businessmen to attain celebrity status as he preached his Greed is Good mantra to generations of business students all eager to lap up anything that would give them that killer edge.

There are still people in business today who live by this philosophy. They believe that chasing down the almighty buck is the American dream and shouldn’t be trifled with. 

Hey, how’s that workin’ out for you Don Blankenship, CEO at Massey Energy?

Lucky for us there is a new business model in town. One that considers Boesky’s 20 year old attitude to be not only antiquated but actually contrary to our nature as human beings.

In his book, Born to Be Good, social scientist Dacher Keltner has researched just what the Greed is Good paradigm has done to generations of people. How we have been raised to believe that attaining that competitive edge by disregarding the needs of our fellow man (woman) would ultimately lead to success.

Instead Keltner suggest that a “meaningful life” is akin to a successful life and that our lives cannot have meaning without some part of us thinking of the greater good. 

Ok, now that the groundwork is there I’ll let you in on how Keltner’s book and some Darwin-ist philosophy have come together to create a new business model that will make Boesky-type success look so reprehensible that no one in their right mind would seek it out. 

Here’s how it all comes together. According to Keltner, if you want to be successful in business and in life, you will need to stop thinking about “what’s in it for me?” and start thinking about “what can I do for you?”. In serving the greater good you will develop an authenticity that is missing from the greed model. Your customers will trust you to steer them in the right direction. You will create a stronger bond that will, in turn, create a larger return customer base. 

So where does Darwin come in? Keltner contends that most historians and social scientists have missed a major point that Darwin brought to light; we, as humans, are ultimately sympathetic beings. We want to help others and, when we do, we feel good. We feel fulfilled, we feel successful and appreciative and are…wait for it…HAPPY.

I know it sounds a bit hippy-esque but anyone that says they don’t want to be happy is lying. No one wants to be miserable and happy people do more for society.  

The great thing about social media and its application is that in order to play in the social media sandbox one must leave the greed is good idea behind. No one cares how great you say your company is. No one cares how many cars you sold. The “toot your own horn” era is over, at least in the online space.

If your site is not providing value to your visitors, authentic value, then you are not going to keep them there or get them back. But your competition will. You can bet on it. 

As consumers continue to use the internet for their number one source of information, authenticity and accountability will be held in the highest regard. Making sure your social media game plan encompasses that will be the difference between a successful campaign and a lame one like, I dunno, BP?

The Social Media Canada site is dedicated to helping people figure out what they need to create a social media strategy. All of the elements are there, for free, for anyone. The result of giving away this information is a consistently increasing client-base. 

Some companies are still have trouble understanding the return on investment of a well-run social media campaign. In an effort to take into account short attention spans and a general lack of interest in changing hard and fast attitudes we’ve put together a quick, and easy, piece here to show how social media not only gives a great return on investment, it now surpasses most traditional media.

Traditional ROI is calculated: ROI = (revenue – investment) / Investment * 100.

Or: ROI = (∆ revenue – investment) / Investment * 100. Where, for those of you who have forgotten grade 9 math, ∆ revenue means “change in revenue”.

Ok, so that’s how companies have traditionally determined if the cash they’re shelling out for an ad campaign is worth the effort. Investment takes into account the hours to create the campaign and airtime and anything else that costs them money. They then deduct that from whatever sales they can attribute to that particular campaign.

The 2nd formula is a bit smarter because it’s easier to quantify the campaign’s success if you know what your sales were before you began.

Now that we’ve got that sorted we can move on to social media. While the formula doesn’t change a whole lot there are a bunch of new parameters that can be included to determine the return on investment. Stuff that you don’t get with the traditional model.

Social media ROI can be calculated in a ton of different ways. Check this out:

ROI = (revenue – investment) + targeted engagement (new clients) / investment * 100. How many new leads has the campaign established? You can make a case for traditional campaigns doing this too but since social media is highly targeted you’re more likely to get qualified leads from your social media.

or this one…

ROI = (revenue – investment) + employee retention / investment * 100. Engaged employees are more profitable, productive and less likely to leave their jobs. How much does it cost to train a new employee?

According to the Gallup G12 poll there is a direct correlation between employee and engagement and retention. The same poll correlates employee satisfaction with customer satisfaction and loyalty. The “idiot” explanation of that is; If you’re employees like your company and business practices so will your customers. Duh!

how about this one…

ROI = (revenue – investment) + customer engagement and idea generation / investment * 100.

Take the Old Spice campaign for example. Old Spice saw a 2700% increase in Twitter followers, 800% increase in Facebook fan page visits and 300% increase in traffic to the brand website and countless paradys, but most importantly sales of its Body Wash more than doubled!

Other companies have had similar success when they engage their customers. Engagement builds incredible customer loyalty and brand awareness but also gives users a sense that they’re dealing with a real company, with real values and real people.

and finally, my personal favourite…

ROI = (revenue – investment) + social good / investment * 100. This is my favourite because, for so many years, big business has focused only on their bottom line. Even the companies that have philanthropic endevours built into their business model have had little success in translating that to ROI

If you still don’t get it maybe social media isn’t for you. If the company you work for doesn’t see the value in engaging employees and customers, developing new sales opportunities, reaching target markets and doing some social good then perhaps they should stick with traditional media like TV. After all, no none is using their PVR and skipping all the commercials. Are they?

It was pointed out to me, by a reader, that while many of my articles strongly advocate getting buy in from the entire company for any social media campaign, I have yet to explain how that might be done.

Well, this article is about to change all that!

Anyone who has done any research on putting together a social media strategy knows that, without top-down engagement, the campaign is quite likely to be fraught with pitfalls.

In established, larger companies, there is often a culture that doesn’t make a lot of room for change. “We’ve done it this way for years and it works well, why change now?” It is this attitude that can break a social media campaign before it even begins. The world is changing at break-neck speed and failure to adapt is going to keep companies with that philosophy out of the loop.

So, how do you get the CEO on down to champion social media? I want to say “it’s easy, just show them the ROI.” but that’s not really the case. ROI, in a traditional sense, is much easier to accept. i.e. We spend $X on this ad and our revenues increase by $Y amount. With social media it’s gaged differently, but have no fear, I have a nifty chart that will help you explain how ROI in this game works.

The most important aspect of getting the exec team to buy in to the social media philosophy is to get them psyched about it. There are a number of ways to do that depending on the sort of company you’re dealing with.

The first thing you’ll need is a detailed plan. Executives love a plan! The plan needs to include how much it will cost as well as what the company has to gain from the strategy.

There are many reasons why C-level (CEO, CCO, CIO etc) executives don’t want to be part of social media; no time, fear of offending someone etc. However, if you can show the executives, in your strategy, that you can address these issues satisfactorily then you have won half the battle.

While creating the plan you also have to ask yourself “Can my CEO engage authentically?” Some can’t. Some C-level execs are just too wound up to think about the end user. That happens. If that’s the case you’ll have to work out a way that he/she can communicate with your client/customer in consistent, small doses. Small enough that the sentiment is true.

It may cost some brownie points but sometimes a gentle reminder to the heads of the company about company philosophy and core values is all it takes to get those execs to remember why they do what they do in the first place.

If social media is about humanizing the brand, the C-levels must be…well…human. If they cannot, or will not, engage with the client or customer then you probably have a problem. An executive team that has forgotten about providing value is one that will likely not see the value of social media.

If reminding them about the brand doesn’t work you can always try to point out the competitive edge social media gives any company. Perhaps pointing out successes a rival has had with particular social media engagement will work.

“Look at X company! Holy cow, that’s a message from the CEO on Facebook! And look at all the comments. Wow!” Most executives are in the position they’re in because they are very competitive. Use that to your advantage!

Ultimately the onus will be on whoever is the social media champion. If it’s the marketing department then they better do a great deal of research on the C-level execs to make sure they are able to approach them in a way that will make buy in a no brainer. Remember that humanizing the brand means using the humans behind the brand. Find the humanity in the exec team and find a way to leverage that to engage the clients and customers.

Some of my younger readers may not be familiar with this age-old euphemism often used as a gentle reminder to young, single women to keep their legs firmly closed before marriage. It’s probably not bandied about quite so much in this day and age as it was in the 50’s (not that I was around in the 50’s!!)

It’s the same with social media. So many people feel that they can get all the information they need to put together a successful social media campaign without going to the added expense of hiring a social media strategist to help them navigate through the process.

In some cases this might actually be true. For example, if you’re a very small business owner (1 employee…you) and you have a lot of time on your hands and you believe that you can put in the effort to grow your business as well as learn all the components of a great campaign, then maybe you don’t need someone to help you out.

That said, I’ve been in this business for a while and I learn something new every, single day. I wake up in the morning hoping to find some new tip or trick or strategy that will make me better at my job and that will add value to the services I provide for my clients. I spend a good part of my day plugged into the social media web of information. It’s my job.

I am focused on social media. I live it, I breath it and, much to my children’s chagrin, I am almost always connected in one way or another to some form of it.

There are sites all over the internet that will show you how to set up a campaign. They’ll give you the steps and the technical requirements of facebook, twitter, linked in etc. What they cannot give you is the personal customization that comes from hiring a pro.

In my post “If You Think All Social Media Campaigns are Created Equal, You’re Dreamin'” I explain how customization is imperative to success.

So while you can download a step-by-step guide to developing a social media campaign for your company you will find it much more difficult to find an ebook on how to customize a strategy for YOUR COMPANY.

I’ll tell you what though. As an act of good faith and value I will give you some really important tips on where to begin. Ready?

1. know your market/audience. I can’t iterate this enough. If you don’t know who to talk to and how to talk to them, you’ll fail. i.e. If you’re a skateboard company you’ll have an entirely different language to connect with your customers than if you are selling life insurance.

Demographics, geographical location, where they hang out (Facebook?), spending habits etc. There are many more parameters but this is a good place to start.

2. make sure you’re company name is branded across all social media sites. If your company is called ABC Company you want to make sure that when people search ABC Company you come up and not some kid, on a computer in Alaska.

3. Give away information. Yep, I said “give”. Information is value so the more of it you can give away the more engagement you’ll have from your audience.

4. Get everyone in your organization onboard. From the CEO to the mailroom, everyone should be promoting the brand online.

5. Make sure you have policies and procedures in place to govern how your company and it’s employees engage online. SUPER IMPORTANT! It costs a lot of money to replace an employee. Make sure they know what your social media expectations are from the get go. Or you may end up as one of these companies.

I think that’s enough for today. After all, you’re getting a lot of milk here and the cow is still standing out in the field. (too far with the analogy? 🙂