Join us to hear David Murray discuss “De-Mystifying Social Media and How to Make Social Media work for Your Business.”
Date: Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Time: 7:30 AM — 9:00 AM
Ravinia Club
2 Ravinia Club Drive
Suite #100
Atlanta, GA 30346
David Murray (@DaveMurr) is the Social Web Communications Director for re:group (www.regroup.us), a fully integrated marketing and communications firm in Ann Arbor, MI and member of SEFF.
David has created fully integrated digital and social media campaigns in the health care, franchise, nonprofit, and both B2B and B2C sectors. David is a national speaker on digital communications and social media best practices. He is a published author on the subject.
Come, learn, and share your ideas with the group.
Bring your questions, too!
Advanced Reservations Are Required***
Deadline for Reservations is Friday, August 5th at 3 PM. Non-Members of SEFF and Guests Pay $15 per Breakfast Meeting.
May 24 – 26, 2011 – re:group will be heading to New York for Blog World and the Social Media Business Summit the world’s largest and most comprehensive new media and social media conference. re:group’s social media director, David Murray, will be speaking to business owners on building their content bubble. We have just been notified that our session is ranked in the top 50 sessions of this 250 session conference. This three day event is one of the biggest and best social media conferences happening to date. Follow #BWENY on Twitter. re:group will also be covering the event and posting updates to our website.
We just finished sponsoring the social media communications for FutureMidwest, and we are now looking forward to the next event.
Before we give away too many details, (though we gave a big hint in the title of this blog post) we should consider what really makes a digital conference stand out these days.
We attend a fair amount of events including some of the big ones like IFA and BlogWorld, to some of the smaller regional events like SOBcon and #unGeeked. All are excellent, but it can be tricky gauging where to drop your dollars. Make sure you ask organizers, speakers, and past attendees the following questions before making your conference decisions.
What’s the value? What is the goal and mission of the conference? If you can’t find an answer beyond, “teaching the latest trends in social media”, I’d look for another event.
What will you teach me? Conferences can be fun, but education should be your main objective for attending. What will you learn that you can’t find online or on someone’s blog?
What’s the take away? You can listen to all the great presentations you want, but that doesn’t mean you will know how or be able to integrate what is said into your current business strategy. The best events have their presenters provide takeaways so attendees have a better idea what to expect.
Will I make connections? Networking is great, but networking without a purpose is just standing around talking. Is there a speaker or attendee that can help you with your business? Can you offer an attendee something that will help theirs. Having business objectives while attending conferences isn’t a crime. It’s smart business.
All of this leads us to the above Twitter hashtag used in this post’s title: #unGeeked.
Last year we attended and covered #unGeeked Milwaukee. This was an event limited to about 200 people with a series of presenters who actually spoke with, not just to, the audience. This lead to a cultivation of ideas and brainstorming around a series of topics that included ROI, social media, marketing, content, publishing, branding, job search, and more. There was opportunity to connect with both speakers and attendees. The education and take away we received more than made up for the price of registration. And yes, the connections lead to both personal and business opportunities.
On May 12th re:group returns to #unGeeked. This time we will be in the heart of Chicago along with a fantastic lineup of speakers and thought leaders including Olivier Blanchard, Spike Jones, Barry Moltz, and more.
I’ll be leading a brainstorm session on a topic we are very passionate about here at re:group, content – Identifying Your Content Bubble. (Scroll down midway to read to full description). To get a better idea of what this means, check out the video at the top of this post. We’ll also be covering all the #unGeeked action on our Twitter channel and Facebook page.
There is still time to register, and your #unGeeked pass will include:
From MediaPost, some new insights into social media usage.
According to a new study by Social Media Examiner, prepared by Michael A. Stelzner, social media has gone mainstream. And for businesses it represents an unprecedented marketing opportunity that transcends traditional middlemen and connects companies directly with customers. Two years ago, businesses were uncertain about social media. Now it’s here to stay and companies are rapidly responding to new social media opportunities.
Major findings from this report contain insight into how marketers are currently using social media and their future plans:
90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business. One third of all social media marketers want to know how to monitor and measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media and integrate their social media activities. 58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week, and more than a third invest 11 or more hours weekly.
77% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube and video marketing, making it the top area marketers will invest in for 2011.
70% of marketers want to learn more about Facebook and 69% want to learn more about blogging.
The number-one advantage of social media marketing is generating more business exposure, as indicated by 88% of marketers. Increased traffic (72%) and improved search rankings (62%) were also major advantages.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order. Facebook has eclipsed Twitter to take the top spot since the 2010 study.
Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.
The overwhelming majority (93%) of respondents indicated they were employing social media for marketing purposes, and a significant 90% of marketers said that social media was important.
The self-employed (67%) and small business owners with 2 or more employees (66%) were more likely to strongly agree.
More B2B companies have been using social media longer than a year (52.6% reported 1 year or more) than their B2C counterparts (46.2% indicated 1 year or longer). In 2010, only 31% of marketers were using social media for 1 or more years. Now that number has grown to 50%.
58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 34% for 11 or more hours weekly. 15% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.
Those with more years of social media experience spend more time each week conducting social media activities. For example, 63% of people with 3 or more years of experience spend more than 10 hours a week doing social media activities. Only 41% of those with 1 to 3 years experience spend that much time.
Time Commitment For Social Media Marketing
There’s a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment. For people just beginning with social media, 59% spend 1 to 5 hours per week. However, for those who have been doing this for a few months or longer, most spend 6 hours or more per week on social media activities.
A significant 47% of marketers who have more than 3 years experience spend at least 16 hours per week focused on social media activities.
There’s a direct relationship between age and time spent on social media. The younger the marketer, the more time he or she spends on social media. People aged 20 to 29 years spend more time than other age groups using social media marketing (with 41% spending 11+ hours weekly), followed by 30- to 39-year-olds (37% spending 11+ hours per week). This is an increase over the 2010 study.
The number-one benefit of social media marketing is standing out in an increasingly noisy world. 88% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and subscribers was the second major benefit, with 72% reporting positive results.
Nearly two-thirds of marketers indicated a rise in search engine rankings was a benefit of social media marketing.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, with Facebook leading the pack. In 2010, Twitter was in first place with 88% and Facebook was close behind with 87%. Since 2010, Twitter lost 4%, LinkedIn lost 7% and Facebook gained 5%. In the 2009 study, only 77% of businesses were using Facebook.
The self-employed (80%) and owners of small businesses (78%) were more likely to use LinkedIn. Larger businesses were more likely to use YouTube or other video and less likely to use blogs (68%+).
At least 73% of marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube/video, blogs, Facebook and Twitter. A significant 86% said they have no plans to utilize MySpace or will reduce their efforts.
All of us here in the office are avid Linkedin users.
We comb our groups looking for conversations and new connections to make. Once in awhile we’ll plug something of our own, but our main objective is to answer other people’s questions and learn while we teach.
Not to brag, but combined, our office Linkedin network could probably populate a small city. We like to connect. It is what makes us good at what we do.
So it was a bit odd when this morning I looked at my profile and under “People You May Know” I saw Albert Einstein.
What?
Yeah, Albert Einstein. Suspicious I clicked to view the profile. Check out what I got:
Clever, no? Curious I refreshed the screen to find that more famous names would appear including J.R.R. Tolkien, Robin Hood, and Sherlock Holmes. Figuring this was a joke, I Googled “April Fools + Linkedin”. Sure enough an article from Huffington Post popped up explaining the gag.
I’m curious how many people will notice this. Sadly, it doesn’t look like anyone recommended Albert Einstein, but I’m hopeful he’ll write a recommendation for me.
We’ve stated this before many times, and it something we firmly believe. Social Media is not about media. It is about communication. How are you as a business or organization going to communicate to your audience? Notice we didn’t say market?
This is what social media is all about. QR codes are great. Facebook will eventually rule the planet, but we will always need to communicate, and communicate well with those we want to pay attention.
This is a reason my title is Director of Social Web Communications. We want to emphasize that we help and teach our clients to communicate in the digital landscape. And as a communications firm we are discovering that many industries are still tripping over the social media road bump. They still don’t understand what social media is and how social works.
The reality is that many organizations have to learn, or re-learn how to be social. This can’t be taught by simply setting up Twitter account or a blog for the client, and then walking away. Education is key.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words B2B and social media?
Is it LinkedIn? What about Facebook? We could can even throw in SalesForce in there too I bet.
Tools are usually top of mind when it comes to social media. However, there is a lot more to this space than just tools and tactics. Especially when it comes to B2B communications. Notice we didn’t say marketing?
B2B businesses can take full advantage of the social web, and can do so just as well as any B2C organization.
True the customer base may be smaller, but that doesn’t mean you can’t focus on brand loyalty. Yes Mr. B2B, company you have a brand, and loyalty is something social media can help you obtain and maintain. It really comes down to who you are connected with, and by connected we don’t mean through Linkedin or Twitter. Ask any good business person what the foundation of good business is, and they will say relationships. How many solid relationships have you built offline. What about online?
This is where social media rocks.
Social media is not a tool. It is a relationship builder. Jason Falls says it best, “B2B social media is still P2P social media. The P stands for people folks!”
Trust me, we understand the need to make a buck. That’s what we are in business for, right? Or is it? Perhaps the ROI we experience through our traditional and digital communications isn’t so connected to the dollar, but through the personal connections we make. I mean, without them, we wouldn’t be making money, period.
Referrals, word of mouth, value, good products and good business all came way before social media showed up.
So don’t get so caught up in what you should do in social media. Instead, focus on:
How you are going to communicate
How you are going to show people what you do
How you will build relationships, not just leads
How you will maintain customer loyalty to your products and services
How you are going to get people to find you
How you are going to identify your marketing objectives
How you are going to be social
If you are in the Ann Arbor area this week, AnnArbor.com is hosting a FREE B2B expo this Thursday, March 10th at Washtenaw Community College.
This is a one day event focused on B2B success, economic development and entrepreneurship in Washtenaw County. A great program has been organized including presentations by Keystone Media, NEW, Power Marketing and Research, and more. You can view the entire schedule here: http://b2bexpo.annarbor.com/schedule.html.
We will also be participating on the panel discussion, Social Media: You Are Doing It, Now What?
Franchise owners are, by definition, local business people. They pride themselves on having a local presence, on being locally owned and operated. But when it comes to appearing to be local, well, that’s a different story.
Even though we know that local marketing, local listings and social media play a huge role in bringing in franchisee business, corporate marketing departments are often slow to adopt social media programs. There seem to be so many barriers for them, like who will run it, who will “approve” the content, do we have enough staff to take this on, what guidelines need to be put in place in terms of content, what about legal issues, and so on. And so on.
There has long been an argument about who owns the brand and who is responsible for social and digital communications. Is it the franchisor or the franchisee? Should franchisors have full autonomy over messaging? Or should individual franchises be in charge of their communication as it relates to the communities they serve? This is a heated ongoing discussion, and it appears there isn’t a clear cut answer. One thing is for sure, though. When corporate marketing stops caring about what their franchisees have to say about their local markets, franchisees stop caring about compliance.
One way to keep both happy is to communicate a central brand message through multiple digital media, while allowing individual franchisees the latitude to build their own social networks. Through templates for local websites, facebook pages, blogs, twitter and other vehicles, zees can engage their customers on a local level, and truly appear local instead of corporate.
Of course, both corporate and system want these outlets to appear professional – that’s why it’s good to invest in some upfront training. Seminars or webinars on how best to use social media, what works best in the digitial marketplace and how to keep a handle on it. If done well, these training sessions provide a great way to increase visibility and connect with customers.
We’ve been wondering about the fate of the coupon industry for the last couple of months.
After the success of Groupon, a lot of local retailers have launched similar product offers. AnnArbor.com has the “real deal”, ValPak recently launched a daily deal, and even some of the local media sites like CBS Detroit are getting involved. Then there’s DealGator, a similar deal engine like Groupon that searches all deal sites, and filters them based on your location and the kind of deals you want.
Since all of these local media guys have existing relationships with the businesses in the market, what does this mean for relevance of Groupon?
This raises the question if multiple coupon companies can survive in today’smarket with the same product offering?
This remains to be seen as Groupon competitors continue to pop up. Though Groupon still remains the leader of this space, the above pricing example leads one to wonder if Groupon will regret rejecting Google’s multi-billion offer. Another interesting insight is that businesses that sign up for these deals give away 35-45% of their profit to the site. Depending on the industry clients usually spend 5-10% of their profits on marketing or advertising.
If a competitor offered more favorable margins to a retailor, what’s to keep them from leaving Groupon? Would smaller niche businesses want to give up that large of a percentage? Could they even entertain that option?
This could be an advantage for local online deal-of-the-day competitors like Ann Arbor’s The Real Deal – focusing on the community aspect while offering niche retailers the opportunity to reach a larger audience.
It is probably still too early to tell. The digital coupon space could be the new retailer battleground, and it will be interesting to see how this space unfolds.
You pretty much have the pick of the litter when it comes to resources showing you how to “fully leverage the power of twitter.” There are plenty of guides, FAQs, eBooks, blogs, and experts all sharing their advice and tips. However, very few of these resources really dive into how and why Twitter is such a powerful tool.
Justin’s eBook offers professional testimonials on how Twitter has helped them build real connections, and how the ethics that govern our offline relationship influence the effectiveness of 140 characters. In short, you are given true insight on how Twitter really works, and how it can work for you.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I also provide some insight in Chapter 1: Ready to Shake Hands?
Forty six pages of Twitter best practices. Best part? It’s free. This eBook is available for download at no cost. You don’t have to sign up for anything either. Justin and all the contributors felt that what they learned through Twitter should be 100% accessible, and now you have the chance to learn from them.
Download this free eBook at www.embracingtwitter.com, and learn the “why” on why you should use Twitter.
Franchise owners are, by definition, local business people. They pride themselves on having a local presence, on being locally owned and operated. But when it comes to appearing to be local, well, that’s a different story.
