How to Market a Real Time Event

 

by Chris Brogan

Always a URL. Always

If you’re going to wire up people and connect them to an event in the real world, you need a web page of some kind or another. People need all the details. They need some kind of intangible tangible that they can pass around to point out what’s what. Give them a web page.

If it’s just a one-off, use an event system like Eventbrite. If you’re going to do this over and over, consider setting up pages on your own website of choice, and then maybe double-up with an Eventbrite to manage the signup.

 

Extend onto Event Sites

Here’s where you can really get things moving. If you want this event to really spread, use sites like Upcoming.org and Eventful, to name a few. If you’ve got a Facebook group, put up an event notification there. If you’ve got a LinkedIn group, and the event matches, put it up there, too.

 

Status, Status, Status

Without being “that guy” (and never forget, I mean this for either gender), mentioning your event is easy across your Twitter, your Facebook, your LinkedIn status, and all the other social sites that make sense to promote. A word of caution: this gets close to what feels like carpet-bombing, so go gently. In fact, out in front of such a promotional effort, make sure you’re doing your good deeds and promoting others, and sharing other good information. People don’t like a tireless self-promoter, but they don’t mind someone who shares the good stuff, even when some of it’s their own.

 

Email Marketing

Do you maintain an email list? Don’t forget to drop a gentle note of your event into there, too. Again, the goal is subtlety and just a gentle pointer to your URL.

 

Flickr and YouTube

Want to amp up your event’s pre-buzz as well as give it some love on the day of the event? Here are two things: use photos and videos for pre-event invites and promos. Then, encourage people to take photos and videos AT the event. If at all possible, make it easy for the folks who might be into making media to have something to take photos and make movies about. (A side note: if you’re bothering to throw an event with a lot of web presence, use a tag – metadata – to denote the event, for people’s blog posts, for Flickr and YouTube, and for Twitter. For instance, we’ll use #trustsummit for our event in NYC.)

 

Blog Posts Matter

You can do much worse than to find local bloggers and bloggers who care about the subject matter to cover the event, should they find it useful. If you’ve a budget to do so, invite some to attend in exchange for blogging anything that might be of interest to them. Realize that in the new world, bloggers are rarely obligated to do whatever you ask, and yet, if you make it interesting and worthwhile, folks love to tell a story.

Getting a few posts out about the event ahead of time, and/or after give you a lot more traction and appreciation before and after. Again, make sure the event’s worthy of coverage. If it’s just a straight product pitch or the like, that’s tricky to justify.

 

Twitter on the Day Of the Event

To me, Twitter’s the magic sauce in making your NEXT event really light up. It’s too late for your event by the time folks start tweeting about it, but it’s a great way to really warm up your future events. If people are tweeting that they’re having a fun time, that they’re learning, that there are still a few hours to get down to the event and have fun, magic can happy. That’s why Twitter’s the Serendipity Engine.

 

 

I’m often asked how businesses can use social media. In separate conversations, the National Electrical Supply Association (NAED) and the Industrial Supply Association (ISA), think GE and 3M, respectively, are asking that very question. Collectively the two organizations represent approximately  $300B of our economy. Neither has an answer to the question, so I gave their representatives a glimpse of mine.

Social media is really nothing more than an online reflection of the offline world. The offline process that leads up to a sale; "know me, like me, trust me," also applies to the online world of social media. Sales happen at the end of that process in both worlds.

That sounds simple because it is. What’s striking is how many people get it terribly wrong. Instead of taking the time to get involved in an online community, much as any good business person would if they joined the local Chamber of Commerce, most people rush to the Close. They broadcast their sales pitch out randomly, hoping to hit a target. What a total waste of energy, not to mention the damage done to your brand.

When they don’t hit a target, they blame the medium, the technology. “I tried social media and it didn‘t work.” That’s a crock but it is easier than blaming themselves. It’s easier than doing the hard work involved and dedicating the time to do truly join a community and contribute real value. It’s easier than being a responsible citizen.

Responsibilities are serious business. Avoiding your responsibilities to build trust in the community, which is that you are doing if you just throw out your pitch randomly, means you are a spammer. Spammer is an ugly word in our wired-up world. So ugly that in it’s most literal sense, it’s illegal. Most of us have software installed on our computers to block these cretins.

Opening accounts on social sites such as LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and the others for the single purpose of promoting yourself is a bad strategy. Get involved! Become an active member of the community. Provide value. Give good advice and engage with a servant’s heart. Keep the conversation going on the forum itself, don’t try to divert members to your site, your self-interest. Wait until you’re asked.

Take the time to comment and vote on other people’s content. Visit other people’s blogs and “RT” (retweet) good information, Friend those you know or who have similar interests as you and call-out the spammers. Finally, rather than quantity you should seek quality.

In other words focus your efforts on the social sites you are going to be involved in and sites that contain a group of people who can relate to your content and perspective. Don’t submit an article on postpartum depression to a social network convened around Fantasy Football.

As is always the case, to reap the rewards you must do the work. Everyone, as I taught my two boys, pays List Price for success.

Add value to the community and the community will reciprocate.

Steve

800-707-9150

#1 Googlenation

Google continues to expand its online dominance.

In early December Google announced five new services:

• Near instant voice translation – Language translation via mobile phones. This is all new but Google expects to have the major languages available in 2010.
• Customized suggestions based on location – While you type a search term into you mobile phone Google will pre-populate terms based on your location. That can come in handy if you’re in an unfamiliar location and looking for a restaurant, theater or retail store.
• Product search with local inventory – See who is selling what near you and whether or not they have any in stock right now. Amazing!
• Near Me Now – Android owners will get local results ranked by user ratings.
• Google Goggles – Also for Android owners, Goggles is a visual search. Watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4

Google docs, think free Office applications, and Google Wave expand their reach. The applications are free. Doc programs are very good and Wave is an excellent collaboration tool. Once you start using them, it’s hard to stop. They’re that good.

Real Time Search includes social media in search results. If something happens in the world Twitter may be a better source of news than CNN, which was the case following the Iranian election.

#2 Video explodes

YouTube is the second most searched online property behind Google and in front of Yahoo. Whether you want to learn how to use software, film a videoblog, repair a deck or bust through writer’s block, there’s a video that can help you.

Smart marketers will use online video to get their message out. More online video libraries, premium content subscription services, and increased advertising bandwidth will result in more online video ads.

New entrants will join the club currently dominated by YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, MetaCafe and Hulu.

#3 More Mobile

In a September 2009 survey, eMarketer respondents anticipated an increase in mobile ad spending to $593M in 2010, up 43%! As more companies attempt to engage an always-on-the-go population mobile applications and investments will explode.

Personal Apps, such as the one I’m building for iPhone users, will automatically configure your website, blog, etc. for mobile readers. This will become a high-growth business and eventually incorporate the already popular Apps that allow mobile users to interact with Social Media, our next trend.

#4 Social Media

Twitter’s popularity may have peaked in 2009.  2010 will be the year more companies learn how to make Twitter, and other social media, work for business. If you disagree, that’s fine. Maybe you can explain why Google has invested so heavily in Local Search?
Customer service won’t shift entirely to Social Media but smart companies will understand that a quick post on Twitter to an unhappy customer that solves their problem is a competitive advantage over phone trees, automated messages and being placed on interminable hold. Reliability will have to be addressed but the speed and cost of social media already give them the upper hand.

#5 Convergence

The offline worlds of television and movie playing devices, for example, and the online will converge. You can already buy DVD and Blue Ray players that connect directly to the web and provide access to movie trailers, games, and search. Televisions with access to NetFlix, Blockbusters and other online video providers are coming this year.

#6 Cheap

Google Docs, iPhone App, Twitter and YouTube can all be useful business tools and are free, as are blogs from WordPress, Blogger, Blogspot and many others. Through Skype I have video conferencing capabilities through my Mac and unlimited calling for $30.00 a year. What’s your phone bill? Do you have video conferencing capabilities in your office?

Picture editing software, customer relations management programs, email marketing tools and a myriad of other productivity tools are available online and many of them are free or ridiculously inexpensive.

#7 Mish-mash

Copywriting, search engine optimization, tools that add more leverage to social media will all continue to grow in their importance and utility. Websites that can't be found are just pointless expenses and sites that lack purpose and focus are not much better. More companies will catch up with those facts. And writing that was exceptional for a brochure may not be adequate for a website, which works best with strategically placed keywords throughout.

What did I miss?

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

 

On Monday we learned that About.com forecast Twitter to reach 26 million users (15.5% of adult internet users) by 2010, taught you how open your own Twitter account and discussed being a good Twitizen. Today you’ll learn how to:

How can you locate the right people to Follow? Here are some tools:

• Wefollow (http://wefollow.com) lists the Twitter people –Tweeps, Twits or Tweople – with the most Followers by tag usage. Think of a tag as a subject, such as music or news.Follow the people with the most Followers in the subjects that matter to you.
  
• Twellow (http://www.twellow.com) is “a search directory of people by area of expertise, profession or other attribute listed in personal profiles. Use the same Follow tactic here as you did with Wefollow.
  
• Nearby Tweets (http://nearbytweets.com) is a very cool tool because it lets you find other Twits in your, or some other, geography. Personal note: I walked into an event in my home town and the first person I introduced myself to said, “Oh, I know you, I Follow you on Twitter.” It was cool. We both started laughing. The lesson: Follow people close to your home or work.
  
• Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) allows you to search the Twittersphere for keywords or topics and is an excellent way to find like-minded people, potential clients or business partners to Follow.
• Listorious (http://www.listorious.com) was explained in detail in my November 4 post (http://tinyurl.com/yal4ay5) so just let me say, it’s a super directory of lists on Twitter and I highly recommend you use it to locate people to Follow.

How you get people to Follow you:

• The first tip is a no-brainer: Provide good content. Post (Tweet) content that is interesting, useful and/or entertaining and your followship will grow.
• The second tip is to make sure your profile is well written, your page design is well executed and, in general, you treat your Twitter account as a marketing tool. Most people prefer to know the people they Follow and your online presence is your introduction, the beginning of knowing you.
• List your Twitter account on your website, blog, all of your social media accounts, email signature and printed materials, if you have them, and provide a link to your Twitter account whenever possible.
• Pick a tweet-niche and stick to it since it is, in effect, your online brand. Most of my tweets are about business communication and using technology in digital marketing. However, I also throw in a few posts about current events, sports and fun stuff, such videos, to show the lighter side of my personality.
• Since most of the people you Follow will Follow you in return, using the previously mentioned tools will drive your Follower number up is a great way to increase Followers.
• Retweet (RT) the people you want following you. Most Twitters review their list of RT’s and if you are helping them spread their message it’s likely they will Follow you out of courtesy/reciprocity.

How you can locate topics to Tweet and Retweet:

• Follow your passions. If, like me, you enjoy social media, current events and fun-stuff, then post about those topics.
• Visit websites that have great content and either comment (tweet) about what you read or RT articles, posts and videos.
• Here are the sites I visit often for content.
  • Google (http://www.google.com) is my #1 source. When a topic strikes my fancy, I Google it to learn more and that often spurs a post.
  • The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/home-page). WSJ is right in my wheelhouse as far as business reporting, quality writing and politics. I think the online subscriptions is, like, $69.00 a year.
  • YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) is my #2 source. I’m always amazed at what is available on YouTube. There’s a video on almost every subject imaginable and a lot of them are either hysterical or surprisingly informative.
• For information about technology and what technology marvel is coming next I visit:
  • Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com)
  • CNET (http://www.cnet.com)
  • TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com)
  • Alltop (http://alltop.com) is an online magazine rack where you can pick up great information, current thinking, well-written articles and post about almost any subject.
  • There are a lot of great blogs and blogger directories online. Here are the ones I use the most:
    • Mashable (http://www.mashable.com) is a blog dedicated to social networking news and events.
    • Copyblogger (http://www.copyblogger.com) promotes itself as a site for “copywriting tips for online success” and, in my view, it delivers.
    • Problogger (www.problogger.net) helps “bloggers add income streams to their blogs.”
    • The Bloggers’ Bulletin (http://www.thebloggersbulletin.org) is an excellent source for “Tips, Tools and News on Blogging!” (Yes, this is shameless self-promotion since I’m a contributor. So sue me. Check it out, I think you’ll agree that the team is producing good content and helping a lot of people get started blogging.)

Final thought on behalf of all bloggers, most of us put a lot of time and energy into our blogs. We take this stuff seriously. So tell us how we’re doing? Is this information useful? What else would you like us to report on, discuss or teach? If you’re not comfortable making public comments, send me an email at shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com. I’d really like to hear from you.

It’s Wednesday, the only one this week. Do something remarkable!

Steve

Opening your account:

• Visit: http://www.twitter.com

• Create your account. You’ll need to create a unique username (see next bullet) and password, and have to enter your email address. These can all be changed.

• Unless you’re a major corporation, if this account will be used to promote your business I highly recommend using some form of your name since the Twittersphere is social media – an online conversation amongst people.

• Create your fill-in-the-blanks Bio. Give this some thought, especially if you’re using this account for business.

• You can upload your picture, or a picture/image, which I highly recommend.  Note, the file can’t be larger than 700k and since the default window is square, a square image works best, at least in my opinion.

• There is a Default background, or you can create your own. There are several free templates online. (Short commercial: Contact me at shartkopf@aligned-marketing.com if you want my design team to develop a custom page for you or your business.)

Twitter terms you should know:

• Tweep or Twit is someone who uses Twitter.

• Tweet is a message. Messages must be shorter than 140 characters, which is why many refer to twitter as a micro-blogging tool.

• Follower is a person (tweep) who has chosen to track (follow) your tweets.

• Short URL refers to one of the many tools you can use to shorten long urls and, thereby, tweet them without exceeding the 140-character limit. I use the “TinyURL Generator” Add-on for Firefox.

• Re-Tweet or RT means resending another twit’s tweet. As you can imagine, this is huge in the Twittersphere because it is a form of viral marketing.

• DM is short for direct message. A DM is a private tweet to a specific twit. (Okay, even I have to admit, that sounded weird.)

• If you want to send a tweep to a specific person simply insert “@” before that person’s Twitter name and it will be sent directly to them. Note, it will be visible to all so, as with anything in the ether, be careful what you say.

 

How to be a good Twitizen:

• Be friendly and open to others.

• Don’t be put off by all the spam, let it roll off your back.

• Similarly, don’t spam or sell constantly, it’s a form of harassment.

• Limit your tweets (I tweet 5-10 a day) and pause between tweets.

• Be funny but understand one person’s joke can be another’s insult.

• Mix your business/cause tweets with pleasant, fun or interesting tweets.

• ReTweet often but only if you genuinely think the tweets merits recycling.

 

On Wednesday’s post we’ll teach you:

• How you can find people to Follow.

• How to find people to Follow you.

• How to locate tweet topics and items to retweet.

 

Remember, this is the only Monday you’ll get this week so enjoy it and do something remarkable!

Steve

Are you getting frustrated with Twitter? Is so you're not alone.

 

I use Twitter a lot and am often frustrated by the lack of quality content. Most tweeting is just babble and self-promotion. Help may be on the way.

 

To help solve the problem, Twitter recently launched Lists, which is a tool that allows you to group the people you follow into categories,. The benefit is you can reduce the number of people you truly want follow and avoid the noise created by those that, for whatever reason, are included in you officially Follow. You can now drill down into the conversations/news that matters to you. Here’s a summary of the benefits I see with Lists:

1. Saves You Time.
Someone else has already discovered the best people to Follow for your keyword. As you scan the lists you’ll notice that many of them include the same people. That’s ok,. That means the crowd has spoken and a consensus was reached.

2. Keep Control Over Your Followers.
You don’t have to actually Follow all the people on a list.  You can just follow a list and dive in occasionally to see what people on your list are tweeting about and then go back to your main feed to see what everyone you are Following are tweeting about. In the end, you actually gain more control. That’s huge, I Follow over 1,000 people and have over 1,000 Following me, there’s no way I can keep up all the Tweets.

3. Keep Your Lists Public or Private
You can create your own lists and set them up as either public or private. There will be times and topics where you want to create your own list. For example, I’m going to create a list of tweople in the Lake Wylie, (SC) area.

4. New Application is Awesome – Listorious
There’s a complimentary service that just came out called Listorious. Listorious aggregates the best lists from everyone who has created a list and, then, lets you use them as a resource. It’s very cool! It was created by Sawhorse Media in New York City and has over 6.5 million lists already. You simply type in a word such as “news,” for example, and the tool delivers you the best lists.

5. What else? Increase Followers
I use Listorious and Lists to search for people I want to Follow and, as you would expect, once I started Following all these great people they started Following me. In addition, a bunch of other people, some good and some not-so-good, started Following me back. Here's the data: In three days I went from about 875 Followers to 1,167 and the quality of those new Followers is much better than is typically found with other Twitter tools.

Some of my favorites Lists are:
Linkers: http://listorious.com/palafo/linkers
Thought Leaders: http://listorious.com/kitson/thought-leaders
New Media: http://listorious.com/palafo/newmedia
Great Content: http://listorious.com/Jason_Pollock/great-content
Blogging: http://listorious.com/bloggersblog/blogging
Marketing: http://listorious.com/dannysullivan/marketing

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