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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Best Ideas Of The Week

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Friday seems like a good time to reflect.

That’s what this new feature on the Matterhorn blog is about. Pat and I are online a lot, of course. And we stumble on some pretty cool stuff throughout the course of a week.

There’s a lot of things that we see that we’d like to write whole posts about. So we do. But other things don’t fit for one reason or another (usually a time shortage). That’s what the Best Ideas Of The Week is for.

Enjoy…

“This I Believe” is an amazing series of short radio essays from people across the spectrum of American life, many famous, some not. Here’s one by movie and TV producer Brian Grazer about leaving your comfort zone. And surfing.

One of our favorite thinkers and marketers, Seth Godin released an ebook called “What Matters Now”. It’s available for free download, and is the kind of thing you really want to share with as many people as you can.

We’re big believers in quality content, partly because of Joe Pulizzi (@JuntaJoe on Twitter). He’s been writing about how to use content strategically for a long time on his blog. This week, he posted a list of 100 predictions for 2010 on content marketing and social media. These are thoughts from some of the best and brightest; it’s well worth a look.

If you’re an iphone user, you probably need the type-’n-walk app. Amazing that this didn’t come out earlier.

18 minutes well spent is a big deal in the age of the internet two-point-whatever. Robert Ballard, an oceanic explorer with too many discoveries to name, gives a fascinating talk about the new age of ocean exploration, and how much left there is to know about 3/4 of the planet. It’s the kind of thinking that gets you thinking.

Finally, if you’ve never heard John Henry Faulks’ Christmas story, you owe it to yourself to gather up your loved ones and have a listen.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Matterhorn.

Tags: business relationships, content, dec_14, Digital Marketing, marketing strategy, Pat Strader, Social Media
Posted in Digital Marketing, Partnership, Social Media | No Comments »

Google Social Search – The Possibilities?

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Heard of Google Social Search?

If you haven’t, you most likely will soon. That is, unless you’re one of the few who doesn’t care about your Google search traffic.

If you don’t think social media has an impact on your search engine rankings, guess again. Google Social Search was an experiment released in late October. If you’re following it, you know that in the last day or two it’s been essentially shut-down.

Still, it’s naive to think it is not coming.

There has been speculation about this for some time, going back to Business Week’s mention of a patent filing in September of 2008. Jordan Kasteler and others have been postulating its implications over the past few months.

What does this all mean? Well, from my perspective, the Google Social Search Experiment, along with the sandbox-play Google Caffeine (the much discussed algorithm update) is the first iteration of a real organic social search engine in play.

If you aren’t familiar with either, just read the links in the above paragraph.

What’s This Mean To You?
Well, essentially it solidifies what many have been saying for a long time. If you’re not actively participating in the social media sphere, you’re going to be playing catch up.

Your potential customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections. Your past customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections.

Which don’t include you (but do include your competitors).

Ready to begin building and solidifying those relationships now? Or do you want to keep barking about your awesomeness and hot deals?

Some Questions I Have
I think it remains to be seen how this all shakes out. The implications for users, businesses, and marketers is huge. I don’t think this can be overstated.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be fascinating. Google social profile optimization? Businesses afforded Google profiles? Or will it simply pull from Google Local? How good will the algorithm be at sniffing out quality vs. quantity of connections?

The answers are forthcoming. It’s just a matter of “when”. Which is a good thing- we have lots of questions.

Tags: google social search
Posted in Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media | No Comments »

Crafting Your Social Media Policy

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Do you have a social media policy?

If you said, yes, I applaud you, here is a list of others like you for comparison. If you’re like most of us, you made one of those, “I know I should say yes, but I can’t” faces.

Don’t worry. If you don’t have one, you aren’t alone. Not by a long shot.

However, as social media becomes a bigger and more important part of your overall marketing efforts, you’ll need one. It’s required, got it?

Why A Social Media Policy?
One of the big concerns of brands that use social media marketing is the fact that there’s “no control”.

The fact is, you can’t ever control what others say about your brand. And you never have. You can however, manage what you say about your brand. Surprisingly, that’s a problem for some.

Creating your social media policy doesn’t need to be an exercise in formality. It’s simply a guide, with parameters. Not micro-management on paper.

What Can A Social Media Policy Do?
There are tons of positives from creating and adhering to a social media marketing policy:

Identify the basic questions of who, what, where and when
Identify hot-button topics and create appropriate plans of action
Establish a planned response for emergencies, anticipated or otherwise
Eliminate the inaction that is often caused by uncertainty
Establish training protocol

Let’s use sports as an example. Success in sports is predicated by proper evaluation, planning, and execution. If you are leading your social team, think like a coach. Evaluate your personnel, game plan, teach the fundamentals, and prepare for anything.

Then teach your team. It’s going to establish the who, what, and when of your organization, and provide a guide for everyone to refer to. And you’ll have a plan for when all hell breaks loose.

Examples, Links and Reading

Dave Fleet on Social Media Policy
Working example – Intel Social Media Policy
PR Squared – Guidelines and Templates
107 Working Examples

Mistakes can and will happen. However, if you have the fundamentals ingrained, you’ll be much more apt for consistent success.

Tags: Social Media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Claim Your Real Estate, Before Someone Else Does

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Domain names and user names are the real estate of the digital world.

Though the mad-dash for domain names has long passed, the social media explosion has once again rekindled thoughts of the land rush of 1889.

Replacing homestead parcels are user names across the seemingly endless supply of social outposts.

No matter what stage you may occupy in the process of utilizing social media tools, you need to claim your real estate. User names related to your company and your brands might not have an immediate use now, but it very well could down the road.

More importantly, you wouldn’t want misrepresentation of you or your business just because you didn’t take the time to secure your real estate.

Don’t Be Conceited
Not long ago, I had a conversation with an online marketing representative for one of the most widely-known names/brands in the gourmet food world. I had reached out to make them aware of some unclaimed real estate that was being utilized by fans.

To my dismay, I was given a bit of attitude and told, “We don’t have time to go around and claim all of those”. Instead of claiming real estate and protecting a brand name, they would instead send their legal team out to handle any cases that popped up.

Does that seem like a good plan to you?

Mark your territory.
The process can appear daunting. There is no shortage of social sites, where you can lay claim to user names, in fact it is quite staggering. Example: this Mashable article lists 350 social networking sites, and it was written in October of 2007!

There are a number of ways to find available user names, or to find where yours is already taken. One example is namechk, another usernamz.

A service that we use with almost every project will also allow you to register user names for a fee. Knowem (affiliate URL) will check against 120 different social sites, and for a fee, will register them, allowing you to cover a great deal of ground in very little time.

Go…Now
Claiming user names is part of strategy. It’s smart. It allows you to hold real estate, which you can use when your strategy dictates. Claim now, before it’s too late.

Tags: Social Media, user names
Posted in Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Need Something to Read? Take Some Time to Learn

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Placing importance on learning and education has been an important part of my life. I didn’t really have a choice; Both of my Grandmother’s were teachers. My Grandfather, a principal. Likewise for my mother and father….and countless other family members.

Learning and education, are on-going. It never has a true conclusion, and now more than ever, those in marketing need to study and learn from one another. Some learn from reading, some from watching, some from experience.

In compiling this list for some of our partners, I thought best to be nice…and share.

Let me know what you think and what should be added…and I will continue to bolt-on more of my other favorites.

Blogs:
Just a handful for you to throw into your reader, skewed towards social media, also take a look at our blog roll. (psst…its over there ->>> )

Social Media Today: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/

Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

Scott Monty – Ford: http://www.scottmonty.com/

Online Marketing Blog, (PR and Social): http://www.toprankblog.com/

Here are two strong lists for you to decide what appeals to you specifically: The Ad Age Power 150, and Top Rank Big List.

Social Media Explorer
More solid, social media information.

Books: (yes..of course these ARE affiliate links!)
Groundswell – Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff
If you are familiar with Forrester, you know what this is. If not, this book will help you wrap your head around the changes in marketing, and the emergence of social.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR – David Meerman Scott
A must read for those that still are not convinced that marketing is/has changed.

Call to Action – Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg
One of my all-time favorite marketing books. I have read, and re-read this one…and I think you should too.

Social Media is a Cocktail Party – Jim Tobin, Lisa Braziel
A good, easy (and quick) read to get you thinking about implementation and strategy.

Trust Agents – Chris Brogan
I have not even completed this book, but am recommending it. So far, a great read…some great stories to really help make the points have meaning.

Tags: marketing blogs, marketing books
Posted in Digital Marketing, Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Any Business Can Use Social Media: A Case Study

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

If you think you can’t participate in social media, you’re wrong.

But don’t feel bad. I was right there with you for a while. Not in thinking that you couldn’t participate; just that it wouldn’t be worthwhile.

But I have three examples to share from today. Between them, they prove that any business -any business- can participate in social media and make it work for them. Meaning, they can generate and participate in conversations that people are having about them.

The first comes from an interesting meme on Twitter. When graphic designer Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, he began to deal with it by trying to make fun of what is a very serious situation: he started to blame his cancer for everything that went wrong. Ever.

Lost keys? Blame Drew’s cancer. Toast a little too dark? Blame Drew’s cancer. Long story short- He and some friends started to spread it around and it took off. Soon they partnered with the Livestrong Foundation, and they’re hoping to raise money by having others repeat the message.

So, I sent my (unfortunately snarky) tweet out to the world with the tag #blamedrewscancer, and I blamed Precious Moments on Drew’s cancer.

I have a dry-bordering-on-dark sense of humor. Recognizing that, @preciousmoment responded to me that she would take the blame, since it was for a good cause.

I was (kind of) shocked. The graceful way that they accepted someone (me) making a little bit of fun at their expense is social media at it’s finest. Their response was the textbook example of how to enter the conversation.

They found out what I was talking about. They talked to me in lighthearted way about it. They left it there. And I always thought they were evil. Apparently not true.

The second example is from Chris Brogan’s blog post about Glynne Beer-Flavored Soap. Here’s a product that lots of folks might feel has no story to tell. Not true.

Glynne’s has a blog, a facebook fanpage, and a twitter account, all acting as different tools to talk to other people. Are they hard selling their soap over facebook? No. So what’s in it for them?

Community. People are talking about that they’re doing, who they are, what kind of people might like their products, how their soaps are made, health and hygene, and on and on. Why wouldn’t you, as a business, get involved in that?

Plus, they’re from Monkey Junction, NC. That’s worth starting a company just to say that you’re from there.

Finally, I saw (and participated in) a contest on Twitter today to win an Amazon Kindle from Shurguard Self Storage. This company rents storage space, and yet they successfully used social media to get people to talk about who they are.

Not that they’re boring. Or that they shouldn’t be using social media. Just the opposite. They have a story, too, and they’re just using new tools and techniques (combined with old ones- a contest) to tell it.

My point is that social media is not some huge, complex, confusing tech beast. It’s a collection of really great, mostly simple tools that you can use to have conversations with people.

That’s it. What conversations are you having?

Tags: business relationships, content, Social Media
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

The Symbiosis of Social and Mobile

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Symbiosis: a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups.

The tools we use to communicate and interact with each other have been in a perpetual state of evolution since the use of hieroglyphs more than 5,000 years ago. Those tools are now, just as they were then, shaped by the societal needs and resources.

While needs are much more loosely defined now than then (information on life-sustaining crops vs. text messages), the state of communication and interaction has been -and will continue to be- shaped by the needs and resources of society.

Today’s Needs and Resources

The resources: (1) vast amounts of data and locations in which to interact, (2) powerful communication tools (one form being mobile devices), and (3) a quickly expanding grid that connects these networks.

The needs: (1) the insatiable need to be continually connected to work, friends, social groups, and (2) sharing data (images, videos, status updates, etc).

I think the rapid growth of social media and the ubiquity of mobile devices are impossible to separate. As more individuals become connected, interaction with social media increases, which fuels the development of tools to facilitate quicker and easier connections.

It’s symbiosis.

Where This (Recently) Came From
Social media is not new. In fact, digital social interaction predates the modern internet as we know it. Usenet groups, message boards, and more paved the way for the tools which are perceived as the embodiment of social media (Twitter, Facebook and the like).

Mobile devices, which started as simple, humongous cellular phones, have a history dating to the early 1950′s. Text messaging, which can be dated to the early 1990′s, realized a very slow rate of adoption, steady growth, and then an incredible explosion.

It’s reasonable (and logical) to expect that these elements will continue to morph. Also, it’s difficult (at this time) to imagine that they will disappear. They’ll be different, for sure. But they’re not going away.

Mobile Coverage and Reach

According to Netpop Research mobile internet access has increased by 36% in the last year. And here’s a Guardian article that discusses global mobile use. This part sums it up:

“With 100,000 phone masts erected each year, the number of places with “no signal” is dwindling fast. “More than 90% of the global population now has access,” said Gabriel Solomon of mobile trade body GSMA.

The graph below represents predictions for cellular subscriptions from by SNL Kagan.

SNL Kagan Mobile Data

Text and Multimedia Mobile Messages

Here are some stats and references to back up the point:

USA Today – Exploding growth in mobile messaging – 1/12/2005

14 billion text mobile messages were sent domestically in 2003, with industry reports showing that mobile messaging reached 25 billion by the end of 2004.

Cellsigns Mobile Marketing Blog

More than 1 Trillion text messages sent/received in 2008. That is almost triple the messages compared to 2007 (363 Billion).
Average of more than 3.5 billion SMS messages per day.
15 Billion MMS messages reported in 2008 – up from 6 Billion in 2007.

The numbers offer a poignant look at mobile, from where it started to where it’s going. For in an in depth look, dig into this report from Cita – Wireless Association. The text is on the wall.

The Emergence of Social Networks
Can you think of a day recently when you haven’t heard or read something about Twitter or Facebook? Think about how you obtained breaking news, or kept up with friends and family five years ago. Three years ago. It’s changed a lot.

The share of adult internet users who have a profile on a social networking site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

Pew Research Center

pew-social-networks-growth-use-december-20081

Growth of Online Social Networks

As the number of people who are on social networks grows, the number of people accessing those networks regularly grows right along with it.

Social media has become a part of our culture. We keep up with friends, we keep up with news, we keep up with competitors and our customers literally around the clock. Enjoy breaking news? Friendfeed and Twitter were/are in many cases the sole method of communication for those involved in the unrest in Iran. These are just a few examples of the ways in which social media has permeated our daily lives.

Connection
It’s easy to see the similarity in growth between mobile and social. I think the two are connected; they’re depending on one another to grow. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

What do you think. Is there a direct connection between the two? Or just coincidence?

Tags: mobile devices, Social Media
Posted in Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

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