Aligned Marketing Blog

An often-overlooked step in the process is the first one, which is the easiest one: Claim your brand name on every platform. Open at least one account on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc., under your company name and brand names. Claim your online real estate before someone else does. That’s really important so I’ll wait…there’s a very reason I made you do that.

The reason is squatters. Squatters will steal your brand names and either block you from your own names or, worse, begin posting as you and potentially do significant damage to your brand. So claim your space now and thank me later.

Most of the platforms have specific rules about squatting and many will help you reclaim your rightful names, but not all. To some it’s just a platform and whatever happens, well, happens. There are numerous examples of names being claimed and even abused. Look at this screenshot from Twitter carefully:

Pfizer’s real Twitter account is @pfizer_news. The guy, I won’t name him because I don’t want to help him and I don’t support this kind of pirating, has the Pfizer name. He doesn’t appear to be malicious but neither is he flattering. Don’t you want your online representation to be flattering? If you’re Pfizer don’t you want to control your own name?

If someone is only casually paying attention, which happens a lot on Twitter, wouldn’t it be easy for them to think this was Pfizer’s official account?

Here’s a shortcut to claiming your name. There are services, such as KnowEm, that you can pay to secure your name on hundreds of social media sites. It’s a good way to secure your name even on platforms you have no intention of using without having to do all the grunt-work yourself.

Finally, after you’ve secured your name go to each one and complete your profile. I know it’s a pain but the search engines are now indexing the social media platforms so this is a quick and easy way to support your brand and increase traffic to your (official) website.

It really boils down to two choices, you claim it or someone else will. So what’s it gonna be?

Steve

800-707-9150

In case you want your message exposed to millions of people, Aligned Marketing does social media and video.

Steve
803-810-3180
800-707-9150

Social Media To-Do List

You may be confused about social media (SM), many business people are. There are literally hundreds of social media sites and sorting through them seems impossible. There’s Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, etc., and then there’s the ones with unusual names,  StumbleUpon or Posterous, to name two. No doubt, there are too many for a non-professional to evaluate and, since most SM sites are awash with non-customers for most businesses, why would anyone in a traditional marketing role take the time to review all those communities. So what should marketing professionals do about social media? Here’s my take:

1. Target your activities:

Information overload saps efficiency and limits productivity, that’s why many of us hate email. Take the time to investigate the top 25-50 social media sites and see if your company, your products, your competitors or your key industry words are prominent. Do a generic Google search for the same terms (company, product, competitors and you) just to see if you’ve missed anything. If any of the social media networks you evaluate have activity around your company, products or competitors, then join and monitor those networks. This approach let’s you focus on what’s important and weed out most of the “social media noise.”

2. Know who is talking about your brand:

You need to know who’s talking about you online and social media is the perfect mechanism. There are companies, such as Aligned Marketing (yes, that’s a shameless plug), that can break down the demographics of the people talking about your brand by gender, age and geography. If the demographics match your target audience then, again, you’ll need to pay close attention to those conversations and be ready to engage quickly, which brings us to the next point.

3. Engage the conversation:

It’s better to be proactive than it is to be reactive. Joining the online conversation allows you to speak directly with your target audience, your customers and your detractors. You can monitor the conversation. You can’t manage the conversation, per se, but you can insert your own perspective and, hopefully, influence the direction of the conversation. Engaging gives you the opportunity to react, share your side and, perhaps, steer a negative comment into a customer service success story before it becomes a trend.

4. Reporting:

Use your social media research and the available tools to capture relevant information. Organize that information and use traditional reporting tools, such as charts, graphs and PowerPoint, to combine both qualitative and quantitative analysis, to inform your organization. As the data increases you may find that even your most ardent critics will realize that spending a portion of your marketing budget to monitor online conversations is wise.

I may be wrong but, like it or not, I don’t think this stuff is going away anytime soon.

Steve

A number of people I've talked to recently don't understand all the fuss around social media. What is it? Why is it growing so fast? Do I/we need to be engaged?

Briefly, here's my take:

People use social media for three primary reasons:

1. To acquire knowledge, which is why content is so critical and key to both your personal and your professional brand. This is also the driver behind the proliferation of blogs.
2. To see what other people are doing and buying, which is the basis of sites such as Digg, which is really a recommendation service.
3. To connect with other people, which is a basic human need and the foundation of Facebook’s (and other's) success.

The proliferation and success of social media is driven by three factors:

1. Trust: Many surveys have documented that people trust “someone like me” more than any other source. Moms trust Moms and car nuts trust car nuts, it's how we humans are wired. For the first time our peer’s opinions are more accessible to us than the wisdom of experts and propaganda of sellers.
2. Online access: No matter how unusual or obscure the topic, we know we can find a lot of information - details, perspectives, and context - online. At any given time, there are probably thousands of people online discussing the merits of various screw drivers, for example.
3. Confidence: It’s all about how we enter the decision-making process. We are less willing to make decisions without a great deal of information. Since the information and recommendations are relatively free, it would be nonsensical for us to do otherwise.

You and your company should be a part of social media for many reasons but here are my top three:

1. We all know the power of the network, of networking. It is the best way to gain employment and, as mentioned, the primary way we now learn about products, services and what other people, people just like us, are doing. Social media allows you and your company to expand your network exponentially for little cost.
2. Your customers, peers, neighbors, superiors, and relatives (etc.) are already part of social networks so it's a good idea for you to join the conversation, express yourself and, frankly, monitor what's being said about you, your company, your products and services, as well as those of your competition. Why would you not want to listen to the most important people in your life, which on a personal level is family and on a professional level is your customers.
3. If growing your business, circle of friends and contacts, and expanding your influence are important to you then you need to be part of the social media revolution, because it's where all the people are.

Steve

The article below came from eMarketer. I'm re-posting it because I am pleasantly surprised at the number of Fortune 100 companies using Twitter, Facebook or blogging. There are literally hundreds of millions of people using social media so it's good to see large companies embracing the venue. After all, that's where the people are.

For smaller firms social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website and improve your search engine results.

Marketers Embrace Twitter over Facebook

 

AUGUST 14, 2009

 

“Follow me” replacing “friend me”?

 

Facebook may have recently passed MySpace as the most-visited social networking site in the US, but it’s facing stiff competition for the attention of social media marketers. By some metrics, Twitter is more popular in the marketing world.

 

Burson-Marsteller, in a July 2009 study of Fortune 100 companies, found that more companies had a presence on Twitter (54%) than on Facebook (29%).

 

 

 

According to the study, which looked at corporate blogs in addition to Twitter and Facebook profiles, about one-fifth of Fortune 100 firms only used one of the three channels. Those companies were overwhelmingly likely to choose Twitter (76%) over Facebook (14%) or blogging (10%).

 

Companies that used two of the three channels were most likely to have a blog plus a Twitter account (64%).

 

Burson-Marsteller found that these top companies were using Twitter for several purposes: company news, customer service, marketing promotions and employee recruitment.

 

Twitter is also beating out Facebook’s popularity among e-mail marketers. Email Data Source found that among the US e-mail campaigns it tracked, links to Twitter became more common than links to Facebook in March 2009.

 

 

Steve

Several people have commented on the number of people in my online social networks. I have over 400 people following me on Twitter, over 200 connections on LinkedIn and over 500 on Facebook, which my protégé, Zach Bigby, manages. (I have no idea who some of those people are…)

There are a lot of people with larger numbers but mine are larger than most of the people I know. So what?

That’s a great question because while we’ve all been trained to pay attention to “the numbers” in this instance the numbers are meaningless. It’s not about the number of people in your network, their titles, or anything of the sort. The purpose of a social network is productivity, just like any team.

When evaluating your social network team you need to ask yourself two basic questions. (1) What can your team accomplish and (2) what can I contribute?

My team is very good at helping people find employment and we are getting better at producing revenue for Aligned Marketing. I work very hard for my team and am always looking for ways to contribute and provide value. Feel free to contact me if you want proof.

My team is good at finding employment for others because we have thousands of people in the network if you count our respective organizations. On a day-to-day basis, we are responsible for producing billions of dollars in revenue, millions in earnings and we trust and respect one another. If someone on my team recommends “Joe” as a “solid guy” then my team believes Joe is a solid guy. That gives Joe an edge in the job market.

How did I create an effective team? It started by being honest, professional and helpful. Virtually anyone on my team knows they can contact anyone else on my team, for the most part, and receive an “honest, professional and helpful” response.

I’ve also noticed that while there are people on my team who are almost always helpful, there are some who offer help repeatedly but somehow can’t locate their round-to-it when it matters most. That’s unfortunate, but true.

My advice to you is pitch in, participate, and help others whenever possible. I know it takes time, everything of value takes time. In return, your team will help you when (not if) you need them. That’s how a productive team is built and how they operate. People tend to respond well to someone who they trust and can rely on when it matters most. This isn’t rocket science.

But let’s not be naïve. There are a lot of people who are takers. As the saying goes, they wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire. Those people are transparent and easily identifiable. I help them just as much as I would help anyone else.

Why? Because I believe it is the right thing to do. It is ingrained in my values. Besides, and this is where I may be naïve, I still believe that leading by example is the best way to lead. My goal is to coach them so one-day they will mature beyond a teenager-like sense of self and the unending glorious celebration of "ME." It’s a big world Bubba, and it’s not all about you.

Online and off, the person who gets the most out of a team is the person who is actively participating. It’s the alignment of being a good person, a good neighbor and a smart businessperson.

You can’t always contribute to every group on LinkedIn, for example, but how often can you be absent from the team before it no longer remembers or cares about you? This is voluntary. These teams do not have the obligation of family cementing it together.

Every time you ask your team for something try to contribute something of value back. It makes the team better and brings everyone closer together. The more you can leverage the contributions of your team, the more productive the team becomes, which makes others want to be part of your team.

When I worked at Square D I actually had two people come into my office, shut the door, and ask if they could join my team. When I asked them why they wanted to join my team they said, “you guys get stuff done and that’s really hard to do around here,” as it is at any large company. That wasn’t about me. That was about my team – Darren Torr, my boss Scott Harris, Bruce Whitbrodt and the senior management support I received from Bill Snyder, Ken Fairleigh and others.

Has anyone ever shut your door and asked to join your team?

Steve