22 Claves para lograr el éxito en Social Media

Social Media ha sido parte de la vida de cualquier usuario de internet por los últimos 2-4 años. Foros, blogs, chats, email, comunidades; las conversaciones han estado sucediendo por años, y ahora se trasladaron a los canales cómo Facebook, Twitter, YouTube y LinkedIn.

Para los que trabajan en mercadeo, esta traslación de las conversaciones pudiese llegar a ser abrumadora. Hace unos días leí una frase de un publicista que decía: “Por años le escupimos a los consumidores, ahora ellos nos están escupiendo de vuelta… y nosotros tenemos que escuchar”.
Desde los inicios de la publicidad, cerca de los años 1.900s cuando la gente de P&G comenzó a pagarle a las líneas de ferrocarriles para que sirvieran sus pasteles hechos con Crisco, o los libros de cocina que regalaban dónde todas las recetas estaban elaboradas con Crisco; los marketeros se han acostumbrado a irrumpir y las organizaciones se han optimizado para este enfoque.
Se crearon puestos de gerentes de marcas y agencias de publicidad, empresas de mediciones y focus groups y un sin fin de técnicas para lograr institucionalizar la fijación al marketing interruptivo; este enfoque le permitió a las empresas grandes hacerse más grandes y dominantes.
La buena noticia es que no tiene que ser tan abrumador para los comunicadores, sin en vez de enfocarse en las herramienta, las tendencias y los canales, lo hacen en los objetivos y los consumidores, desarrollar una estrategia de marketing en social media es más fácil de lo que crees:

Para triunfar en social media tienes que:
Tener una visión multicanal integrada
Pensar y trabajar centrado en el cliente
Entender que los consumidores son los que deciden dónde, cómo y cuándo se conectan contigo
Ver marketing como un diálogo
Entender que social media marketing fortalece todo el marketing
Saber que todas las interacciones en social media son distintas y que cada una de ellas es única
Dejar de hablar de tus “fans”, “followers” y “friends” y comenzar a hablar de las “personas”
Poder ver a todos como clientes, incluyendo tus empleados
Escuchar, medir, monitorear y actuar
Definir las métricas para poder medirlas
Entender como se viste el “éxito” para poder obtenerlo
Preparar y educar a tus empleados
Educar a los ejecutivos
Entender el rol que juega social media dentro del ciclo de vida de una cliente
Hablar el mismo idioma que tus consumidores
Pensar en los siguientes términos: valor, relaciones, conversaciones
Estar comprometido
Poder llegarle a tus consumidores
Trasladarte de conexiones a relaciones
Ir más allá del círculo tradicional de influencia (familiares y amigos)
Ser humano
Aportar valor
Social media marketing está enfocado a acoplarte con los consumidores, no hay ningún secreto ni programación especial para que lo puedas lograr. La única condición especial que tienes que tener es la capacidad de desaprender todo lo que te han inculcado sobre interrumpir, para darle paso a un nuevo aprendizaje: pedir permiso.

Fuente: smlatam

Cambio Estructural y Redes Sociales 2.0

Alfonso Cornejo Álvarez

http://mx.hsmglobal.com/notas/58326-cambio-estructural-y-redes-sociales-20

La revista TIME te nombró a ti el hombre del año en 2006 (You). Compañías están dejando de invertir grandes fortunas en mensajes publicitarios y ahora están haciendo uso de creativos videos de aficionados, realizados con cámaras caseras y una Laptop con acceso a Internet. Por Alfonso Cornejo Álvarez

Siguiendo con la tendencia que inició hace algunos años, seguimos viendo aparecer nuevas empresas que descubren oportunidades de servicios no atendidos, con soluciones simples, pero apoyadas por la poderosa y cada día más fortalecida plataforma de internet.

Jóvenes recién egresados que encuentran las puertas cerradas en empresas gobernadas por los paradigmas del siglo pasado y que sin otra opción comienzan a convertirse en los emprendedores de la empresa del Siglo XXI.

Después de todo no debe extrañarnos la transformación global que estamos observando; vivimos hora el despegue en su parte exponencial de la “quinta ola”, obedeciendo al modelo de los “Ciclos de Kondratiev”, que nos menciona que a partir de la revolución Industrial, hemos pasado por cuatro diferentes olas de desarrollo económico. Estamos dejando atrás la ola de la fabricación en masa, la organización burocrática y el petróleo.

La ola actual es la de la tecnología: redes sociales, internet, empresas basadas en tecnología, hardware y software. Estamos ahora en el siglo del conocimiento, que día a día se está acumulando y organizando, y puede ser accesado gratis gracias a la internet. Esta segunda ola de empresas de internet ha generado una verdadera revolución de las comunicaciones sin precedentes. Por primera vez en la historia de la humanidad, desaparecen casi literalmente obstáculos como la distancia y el tiempo, al poder virtualizar las comunicaciones, el trabajo y la coordinación de grupos.

Esta nueva época permite la colaboración y sincronización tanto de equipos de trabajo, como de grupos de intereses comunes. De ahora en adelante estar conectados en red todo el tiempo será la norma. Estas prestaciones que nos ofrece la nueva era permite también conocer información a tiempo real de lo que pasa en el entorno; qué hace la gente, qué lee, qué compra. La información está a la mano y ya no requiere costosos estudios de mercado para interpretarla, ahora podemos comprender el mundo en tiempo real, gracias a sitios que organizan la información para usuarios y visitantes.

Cada quien puede aportar, cada quien puede tener sus cinco minutos de fama, y con suerte hasta generar una idea ganadora de un millón de dólares. Aquí radica la verdadera ventaja de la ola que actualmente vivimos, como lo mencionaba la revista TIME: ahora tú tienes la capacidad de convertir tu talento en valor. Tu área de trabajo será relativamente sencilla pero poderosa. Una computadora con acceso a internet, con gran cantidad de software de código abierto para darle forma a ideas, generar proyectos, ofrecer servicios a distancia o poner una tienda virtual.

Sin duda estamos siendo parte del despertar de la nueva organización con forma de red: ágil, esbelta y con capacidad de auto organizarse según el tipo de tareas requeridas, sin embargo, como toda era de transformación, aún con toda esta gran cantidad de nuevos servicios tecnológicos, estamos viendo sólo el principio. Tardaremos tiempo en distinguir con claridad los patrones que darán forma definitiva a este Siglo XXI, pero por lo pronto, dejemos atrás lo que ya no funciona y abramos la puerta a la creatividad, innovación y el descubrimiento de nuestro lugar en el futuro.

"Social Media Manager" ¿o rol de la gerencia de marketing?

Lo primero que pensé cuando vi esta entrada de @gabycastellanos fue que todo Social Media Community Manager 2.0 Expert y tal tiene que leerla. Lo iba a decir tal cual en Twitter, pero después me di cuenta de que prefería además complementar con algunas ideas:

La humanidad está pasando una etapa revolucionaria en lo que refiere a medios. La información, el periodismo, la publicidad, la educación, el mercadeo, las relaciones interpersonales, la política, todo está siendo afectado por una de las tecnologías más disruptivas que el hombre ha conocido: la Internet.

Podemos hablar de lo "2.0", inteligencia social, web semántica y muchas otras facetas, pero todas son parte de un cambio fundamental en la sociedad cuyos alcances creo estamos recién dimensionando.

Consecuentemente, no hay oficio alguno –especialmente tratándose de ámbitos comunicacionales– que no requiera adaptarse a lo que está pasando.

Es cierto que por fenómenos de des-tercerización, des-intermediación y por la línea directa que ahora se tiene con usuarios, el gerente de medios sociales puede ser un puesto nuevo en algunas organizaciones, especialmente las más pequeñas. Pero propongo que se trata de la evolución natural del gerente de marcadeo o marketing.

¿Por qué? Porque las redes sociales son crecientemente la manera más efectiva de comunicar con los usuarios, tanto para propagar oferta de un producto como para configurar ofrecimientos futuros.

El mismo concepto es aplicable en el caso de agencias de publicidad o departamentos de mercadeo, el "social media analyst" debe ser la persona que ya se encarga de estudios, el "social media planner" el planificador de medios existente, y así.

Gaby plantea –muy acertadamente– que falta claridad respecto de este tema, y hace una larga enumeración de lo que los llamados a empleos esperan y lo que deberían saber y hacer quienes lo ejerzan los puestos:

Entre ellas resumo y destaco:

• Facilitar conversación en espacios donde la marca está presente, gatillar e intervenir dicha conversación por parte de la organización.
• Evaluar e interpretar tendencias, ánimos y opiniones para crear informar internamente y crear sinergia con áreas de la organización.
• Educar y evangelizar al interior de la institución sobre la participación en dichos espacios y su inclusión en el quehacer de la organización.
• Mi humilde crítica o aporte a lo que muestra Gaby es q no usemos un término en otro idioma para algo que se puede decir perfectamente en el nuestro, y si bien podríamos hablar de un analista, estratega, planificador o gerente de medios sociales, insisto en que en vez de crear puestos y nombres nuevos se trata de roles que deben ser asumidos cuánto antes por quienes ya forman parte de cada organization.

Dicho todo eso, recomiendo la entrada de Gaby, sin duda una interesante lectura, y es sólo la primera parte.

http://blog.canal.cl/2010/07/social-media-community-manager.html

28 Reasons Why The CEO Is Afraid Of Social Media

I talk everyday to clients who want a new website and want to be found online, but the word Social Media doesn’t even enter the conversation and isn’t included in the initial brief. They do know what Social Media is, but they have all these reasons and excuses about why they shouldn’t be integrating it into their company website and include it in their marketing strategy.
So here are 28 reasons some companies aren’t using Social Media.

• It is detrimental to employee productivity
• It could damage the company’s reputation
• Security risk
• Fear of the unknown
• We already have information overload
• Don’t know enough about it
• So much of what’s discussed online is shallow and we have real work to do
• We don’t have the time or resources to contribute and moderate
• Our customers don’t use it
• Traditional media is still bigger, we will use Social Media when it is more mainstream
• It doesn’t fit into current structures
• No guaranteed results
• The tools to measure and analyze Social Media aren’t mature enough yet
• We are in B2B and who wants to hear about our boring product on a blog or twitter
• We will lose control of our brand and image
• Upper management won’t provide support
• Waiting on ROI (return on investment) with facts and figures
• We are afraid of making a mistake
• Lack of experience
• Ignorance
• Unwilling to be transparent
• Confusion
• No money
• No expertise
• Lack of leadership
• Terrified of feedback and truth
• The “newness” of it, going to wait.
• High degree of skepticism

So they are some of the reasons and excuses… so “How do you convince a CEO to enter the 21st century and implement internet marketing?”
 
http://jeffbullas.com/2009/08/08/28-reasons-why-the-ceo-is-afraid-of-social-media/

Las marcas fallan en contenido y relaciones en redes sociales

A pesar de que se está reconociendo cada vez más la importancia del diálogo con el usuario en redes sociales y de la información de valor, un estudio demuestra que son muchas las marcas que aunque tiene la intención de hacerlo, no lo hacen de forma disciplinada y en consecuencia no ofrecen contenido atractivo ni construyen relaciones en la red.

El reto no es sencillo, pues hay todavía mucha discusión de que tipo de colaboradores y de que forma deben de participar las empresas en redes sociales, pues se requiere tanto de un conocimiento profundo de la marca, su filosofía, sus reglas, productos y servicios, como de la habilidad para manejar estas nuevas herramientas. Lo más razonable parece ser que sea un grupo de personas, tanto de expertos en redes sociales, como de aquellos que tienen una imagen clara de la imagen corporativa que quieren proyectar al mundo, los que participen en estos proyectos.

En un estudio realizado por EPiServer, especialistas en plataformas de comunidades en línea, apenas 80 marcas líderes estudiadas están incorporando en su estrategia elementos que contribuyan a la construcción de comunidades, como blogs, en sus sitios web destinados a relacionarse con sus consumidores, por supuesto menos están haciendo uso de los medios sociales.

Esta lenta actividad por parte de las marcas, contrasta con lo que ocurre en los medios de comunicación social, en donde la discusión sobre las marcas, las recomendaciones, buenas y malas y el potencial de creación de lealtad y afinidad con comunidades fluye con vigor entre los consumidores potenciales.

En mayo la empresa UK Online Measuremente Company (UKOM) dio a conocer que la creación de redes sociales y blogs es la actividad en línea más popular , contabilizando 27% y mostrando un impresionante crecimiento pues apenas en el 2007 esta actividad era del 9%

Éstos son algunos de los números presentados en el reporte de EPiServer:

- Sólo un tercio (34 % ) presentaba algún tipo de comunidad en su página web .

- Mientras que los blogs estaban presentes en 40 % de los sitios , sólo el 39 % recibieron información actualizada.

- Sólo el 19% de los sitios web con blogs promueven a éstos últimos

- Sólo el 15 % de las empresas anuncian sus cuentas de Twitter directamente en su página web y sólo el 19 % llaman la atención sobre una página de fans en Facebook.

- 34 % de los sitios web permite a un visitante a "compartir" el contenido en una red social,

- Sólo el 44 % de las empresas con una comunidad inician una conversación con los visitantes o usuarios.

La mercadotecnia en redes sociales es sin duda una estrategia que debe tener cualquier empresa, de cualquier tamaño, simplemente por el hecho de que es un modo muy adecuado para mantenerse en contacto con sus clientes potenciales, dales a conocer lo que hacen y sobre todo escuchar lo que sus consumidores piensan. Tarde o temprano veremos como la mayoría de las empresas irán corrigiendo estos números…o dejarán de existir.

 

http://gustavoguerrero.blogspot.com/2010/07/las-marcas-fallan-en-contenido-y.html?goback=%2Egde_1810100_news_143972556

México, con un pie en las redes sociales

Los mexicanos entran a la web para revisar su correo, pero cada vez usan más aplicaciones sociales; en países como España y Estados Unidos, la actividad en redes sociales ya superó al e-mail.

Los sitios surgidos de la Web 2.0, como Facebook, ganarán mucha popularidad este año.

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (CNNExpansión.com) — Cuando se conectan a Internet, usuarios de países como Brasil, España o Estados Unidos prefieren visitar una red social o un blog antes que revisar su correo electrónico, según un estudio de Nielsen Online.

México está algunos pasos atrás, pues la actividad favorita de los internautas sigue siendo enviar y recibir correos, según el estudio de Consumo de Medios Digitales realizado por el Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) México.

En 2008, sólo 13% de los 23.7 millones de internautas que existen en México, entraron a redes sociales o blogs cada vez que se conectaron a Internet e invirtieron 11.4 minutos en dicha actividad; mientras que el 78% de ellos revisaron su correo, de acuerdo con datos del organismo.

Sin embargo, el IAB asegura que la popularidad de las redes sociales está subiendo.

“No va a sobrepasar al correo electrónico, pero me atrevo a decir que superará la descarga de música en Internet”, dijo Bianca W. Loew, Directora de IAB México.

Según el estudio ‘Digital Outlook 2009’, desarrollado por Razorfish, una firma de investigación de mercados, “éste va a ser el año en que hasta tu tío te va a invitar a ser su amigo en Facebook”.

Esta herramienta es reconocida como una de las aplicaciones más fuertes de la web 2.0, cuya tecnología permite a los usuarios crear contenidos y compartirlos, explica Pablo Pozo, director de Mercadotecnia de IAB México.

Visitar redes sociales y blogs es la sexta actividad de interés en los mexicanos, mientras que ya es la cuarta de brasileños, españoles y estadounidenses.

Los jóvenes mexicanos de entre 19 y 25 años, son quienes más se comunican por estas herramientas, según la IAB, aunque cada vez son más las personas de distintos grupos de edad que se inscriben a redes sociales y blogs.

En México, la tendencia de colaboración social en Internet tiene mucho campo de acción, sobretodo cuando es el segundo país con más cibernautas en Latinoamérica según la Asociación Mexicana de Internet (AMIPCI), sólo después de Brasil, donde las actividades sociales online son más frecuentes.

Aunque las redes sociales todavía no son el hito de los mexicanos, un estudio de la AMIPCI revela que la mayoría conoce las herramientas. Según el documento, más del 77% de los internautas mexicanos han leído un blog y 66% de ellos han participado de una red social.

http://www.cnnexpansion.com/tecnologia/2009/04/08/mexico-con-un-pie-en-las-redes-sociales

10 Tips for Creating an Ad Agency Blog for New Business

The following 10 tips are my suggestions for creating an ad agency new blog with the objective of generating inbound new business leads while simultaneously building social media capabilities and credibility:

1. I recommend that you do not incorporate your blog into your agency’s website

Online inbound lead generation is like fishing. We want to fish for a particular fish (your target audience) with a particular bait (an appealing positioning that differentiates your agency from the rest) and fish away from the boat (the agency’s Website) so that we don’t scare away the fish.

Most agency blogs look to corporate and less personal. If it is tied into your agency’s website and branding, it is immediately constricted and has no room to breathe and grow. It’s okay for your agency’s Website to show its diversity of clients but a blog has to have a specific target audience.

The Website is your online brochure, the place where capabilities, credentials and the work reside. The blog will compel you to focus your agency more narrowly without the risk. You wont be throwing the baby out with the bath water. You will still generate a diversity of clients the way you’ve done it in the past, through personal referrals and recommendations. But the blog allows you to go fishing for the fish that is the best fit for your agency.

2. The agency’s blog should be reflective of its principals

You have to remember that social media is about people, not an entity. Don’t hide behind the vail of the agency, be the face for the agency. Again,people want to work with people they know, trust and like.

Your agency needs a face and for most small to mid-sized agencies, that face needs to be the agency principal(s).

From my experience working with prospective clients of, small to mid-sized agencies, they always are interested in the chemistry with and oversight of the agency owners. You are the visionary of the agency. The only way you are going to “get” social media is to participate. If it isn’t a priority for you it wont be for your agency.

Also, keep in mind that the agency principals are the least likely to leave the agency. If you lose a staff member who you’ve allowed to be the face of the agency through social media, you lose your equity and a significant portion of your audience.

3. Keep the design simple

The more people you involve in this process the more chance you will have a bottle neck that slows and most probably stops the process. I personally know of an agency that literally took 5 months just to create their blog’s header. Another instance we couldn’t get a password from an IT guy because he didn’t want to email it and wasn’t available to talk by phone for a week!

Keep the people involved to a minimum. Remember that content is king. It is the fuel for the engine and don’t let anything inhibit generating the content.

I would suggest to start out utilizing WordPress, TypePad, Blogger blog platforms. My favorite is WordPress. You can create a blog in minutes rather than days, weeks or months. It will be a constantly evolving process and its important that you keep the process moving.

You can easily add pages, navigation, graphics without help from your IT department or much assistance from the creative staff. You should be able to have your blog up and running in a matter of minutes not hours, days, weeks or months. Keep the design clean, simple and easy to navigate. Stay focused on delivering the beneficial content.

The site needs to be more personal and less corporate. Let it reflect your personality. Keep from including your agencies logo. The agency should reside in the background. A great example of this philosophy, Edward Boches’s blog, creativity_unbound.

A side note: be sure that you own your domain. Instead of www.fuelingnewbusiness.wordpress.com I own the domain www.fuelingnewbusiness.com. That way I can change platforms without losing my traffic.

4. Make your target audience crystal clear

I write specifically to small to mid-size ad agency principals. She-conomy’s audience is male advertisers who should be marketing to women, Blue Collar Branding has a focus on marketers of manufacturers who want to reach blue collar workers. For your blog to be successful, keep you target audience in mind. You don’t want traffic for traffics sake, you want targeted traffic. This not only will help your SEO but also when you repurpose content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

5. Before you begin to write learn to listen

Please remember this: reading fuels your writing. A great time saver for your reading is to use an RSS Reader. My suggestion would be to sign up for Google Reader. The key is to find sources for great content and have that content flow to you instead of you constantly having to search for it. Google Reader allows you to easily organize all of your online reading. It is very efficient.

Learn about social media etiquette, understand the importance of transparency and motive when using this emerging media but remember this one rule, there are no rules when it comes to social media. It is still evolving and we are pioneers within the space when it comes to marketing and advertising within this channel.

Chris Brogan was a huge help to me when I first started blogging. Here are a few of his articles that will be of help to you too: 10 Best Resource Articles for Ad Agency Blogs.

Watch your blogs analytics, it will help to fine tune the appeal of your writing. Always look to your readers, what they care about and respond to.

I’m 53 and if I can do this so can you. It’s my experience that is much easier taking a baby boomer through this process who has advertising and marketing experience rather than someone much younger who understands the new communications tools better. You can get up to speed overall much quicker.

Just don’t forget to bring your marketing mind and personal networking skills into this space. It’s just another communication channel.

6. Write Concisely

People read online differently than they do print. They usually don’t read word-for-word, they scan.

Nielsen Norman Group ’s research found that 79 percent of their test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word.

This makes it a tough transition for copywriters who tend to be clever and fluff up the copy. Make your posts scannable by:

Being brief, give your readers the Readers Digest version, the executive summary. Do the work on their behalf

Dividing up copy into shorter paragraphs

Using bullet points or numbered lists

Using compelling subheads, quotations, bold, italics, etc, so readers can scan for the information they need

These are a couple of additional articles to help with your online writing:

How do users read on the web? They don’t … they scan

6 Writing Tips to Make Your Ad Agency’s Blog Effective for New Business

7. Jump start traffic to your blog to accelerate lead generation

“Build it and they will come,” is not the answer to generate traffic to your agency’s blog. You must employ proactive tactics to create awareness and interest among prospective clients. The more traffic that you can generate, from among your target audience, the more inbound new business leads that will follow.

The strategic use of Twitter and eNewsletters can significantly bump up targeted traffic to your blog in a short period of time. I have consistentlyrepurposed my blog’s content through Twitter and my eNewsletter.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking, if I’ve written it everyone must have read it.

Twitter has been the leading traffic generator to my blog for over 2 years. I have a schedule for repurposing my blog 500 + posts into two different Twitter accounts that regenerate this content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to 35,000 + followers.

My eNewsletter is sent out every other week to a data base of over 10,000 email addresses. The copy for the eNewsletter comes from my blog posts. It takes literally 10 to 15 minutes to create and send. That allows it to be maintainable even when I’m at my busiest.

Through these two tactics alone I can get 100% return on my time investment from writing my posts.

Here are some quick tips to help generate traffic to your blog:

Publish posts frequently. I would encourage you to post at least 3 times and preferably 5 times per week.

Write evergreen for your posts to have a long shelf life and a good return for your time investment.

Syndicate your new posts to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Add your blog link to your email signature.

Use a program like Social Oomph to repurpose your blogs older content through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Add a Share Button at the bottom of your posts to allow them to be easily promoted by others to through their personal networks.

Provide subscription options for your blog such as through email or an RSS Feed such a Feedburner.

Identify key words you want to dominate in Google search and consistently use them in your posts titles.

One thing to not do that will impact traffic. Don’t sell! The moment you start to sell on your blog is when you will most likely LOSE your audience.

Don’t forget SEO. Identify the key words you want to dominate and consistently use them in your posts titles to accelerate your rankings in search engines such as Google.

I’ve written more extensively regarding three services that are extremely helpful in “jump-starting” traffic to your blog: The List, Social Oomph and Basecamp.

8. Create resources for blog post ideas

Because I know who my target audience is, I have identified the categories that I’m going to write to, coming up with blog posts ideas is not difficult. From my experience, the narrower your focus the easier it is to find things to write about.

As I mentioned earlier, reading fuels writing. When I’m reading in the mornings, using Google Reader and scanning through hundreds of posts and articles I have filtered directly to me, I find a few that catch my eye. So that I don’t become distracted while reading, I use a tool called Press This, that will place the interesting posts/article title, URL link and synopsis into a draft posts in WordPress. When I write, I can go to my draft posts and work from there. The last time I checked I had over 240 draft posts that will eventually be published.

I also keep a Word document on my laptop’s desktop with a running list of ideas. Checking through the list I have over 100 possible topics, subjects, examples, tools, tips, current trends, resources, etc. Here are 50 Blog Post Ideas to get you going.

9. Be focused and consistent

It is as simple as planning the work and following the plan. I start out each day knowing who is my target audience. I write consistently to the stated purpose of my blog which is, “fueling ad agency new business through social media.” I make irrelevant material relevant to my readers. I do the work on their behalf. I’m consistent with my timing and religiously follow a regular posting schedule of 5 posts per week.

I follow a daily ritual to keep me on track and consistent. I start every day with my strategic reading. My homepage in FireFox is my Google Reader. I open it before I will dare to open my first email because if I open the first email, my day is done.

I also enjoy getting a leg-up for the week by having 2 to 3 posts finished by Sunday afternoon of most weekends. These are preset to publish on different days of the week and I’ll write the other two posts before the week is up. My readers can be assured of finding fresh content.

That doesn’t mean that you are providing all original content for each post that you write. I usually recommend that one post per week be original content, other blog post are highlighting other information, resources, research that will be of help to your target audience.

10. To keep up you must have the right mindset

We will experience more change in our industry in the next five years than we have in the previous 50.

“How do you keep up?” That is one of the most common questions I’m asked from agency CEOs and executives when I conduct “New Business Through Social Media” workshops around the country.

One of the main reasons agency principals haven’t been as inclined to participate in social media is that they are already over extended with little time for anything additional in their professional or personal lives.

When they make time to participate and understand social, is when they’ve finally relented, it isn’t going to go away. What will make the social media pill easier to swallow is the understanding the multiplicity of benefits it provides.

Social media only becomes a priority when you understand the multiplicity of benefits generated from it to you and your agency.

Before you brush off participation, understand the multiplicity of benefits for your efforts through writing an agency blog:

I’ve helped to create over 55 agency blogs and have found it to be a great agency branding tool. A lot of agencies are in a perpetual state of branding their agency. A blog helps them to answer the tough questions and provides a way to be more narrowly focused without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

A blog is worth doing if only for this one big benefit, professional enrichment. It provides a system for you to stay ahead of the learning curve in communications technologies and in front of where your clients and prospective clients. A position of leadership. Thought leadership.

The interaction with your prospects is priceless. If you really want to know what your prospective clients obstacles are and become a thought leader, then write a blog.

The old saying is true, ”you don’t know what you know until you write it down.” Writing a blog will help you become a much better communicator.

For every prospective client you reach you will have 10 brand advocates who will promote you and your agency through their own personal networks.

Learn to create a strong appeal for your agency. A blog will help you to stop using agency speak and speak in a language that resonance with your target audience. It will teach you how to generate an appealing message.

Nuevos iconos de la confianza

En el mundo globalizado, nuevo paradigma de la conexión entre semejantes y el conocimiento compartido para despistar sobre el libre movimiento de capitales, que es lo que importa, los nuevos generadores de confianza son marcas asociadas a las nuevas tecnologías y la innovación. Sonidos cool, que nos parecen un síntoma de modernidad, una señal de que este mundo avanza desde su rancia terquedad en la deriva hacia el egoismo y las miradas al ombligo propio. Lo dice un estudio de Zogby International cuyas conclusiones también aseguran que los medios de comunicación tradicionales, también tradicionalmente depositarios de la confianza de millones para guiarlos en su opinión diaria, han sido desbancados por Google, Apple o Microsoft, e incluso Facebook y Twitter. Está ocurriendo en el hogar del líder del mundo libre, patria unida gobernada por Barack Obama, en la que sus habitantes comienzan a confiar más en lo que les cuenta su vecino en la red social de turno que en el columnista habitual.

Por supuesto, no todo es de color de rosa para los negocios nativos de Internet. La privacidad es una de las mayores preocupaciones para los ciudadanos de Estados Unidos (al menos de los 2.100 que componen la muestra). Casos como la acumulación de datos sobre las redes wifi que los coches de Google Street View iban recopilando a su paso por las calles de todo el mundo, no han contribuido precisamente a tranquilizar al personal.

El escueto 8% entre los adultos (baja al 6% entre los más jóvenes), que declaran tener confianza en los medios de comunicación, ya no puede calificarse de toque de atención serio. Es una llamada al orden en toda regla. La prensa ha – hemos – incurrido en demasiados errores durante los últimos tiempos. La alineación sistemática con unos u otros resortes del poder, está haciendo que los ciudadanos comiencen a ver a los medios como una prolongación de las opciones políticias a las que votan, pero de las que desconfían. La dependencia casi vital entre política y periodismo ha terminado por desdibujar una línea roja que ahora, más que recta, parece una carretera de montaña.

Con la llegada de la web 2.0, los emisores de información se multiplicaron por millones y la elección sobre de quién recibirla se complicó de la noche a la mañana. Pero la sociedad aprende rápido. Confiamos en lo que tenemos más cerca, en la recomendación de un amigo que nunca nos ha buscado por interés, en el criterio de un familiar que conocemos a fondo por su naturaleza investigadora e inconformista. El ascenso de Facebook y Twitter o Apple, Google y Microsoft, no es un milagro de eso que llaman branding. Es la demostración empírica de que la comunicación tradicional, las inversiones millonarias en publicidad o la carga diaria contra las redacciones de los medios para ver una noticia de la marca en las páginas del diario ya no son la fórmula mágica para el éxito. Ahora, el boca a boca o el consejo desinteresado de los cercanos, son el elemento diferenciador, y las redes sociales el catalizador perfecto para una nueva forma de atraer al cliente. Sin prisas. Quizás por ello, y con perdón por el autobombo, una de las mayores fuentes de tráfico en cuartopoder sean las redes sociales. En definitiva, un nuevo espacio para estar más alerta y saber que, de la noche a la mañana, nuestros propios errores pueden llevarnos al ostracismo, y no habrá campaña publicitaria que lo remedie.

http://www.cuartopoder.es/blogymedio/los-nuevos-iconos-de-la-confianza/713

Marketing on line

Claves del Nuevo Marketing - EAE

View more presentations from Clavesnuevomarketing.

Most Marketers Use Social Media, But are New to It

A majority of marketers are using social media in their marketing efforts, but most have only been using it for a few months or less, according to a new survey from SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Nine in 10 Marketers Use Social Media Findings of the “2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report” indicate that nine in 10 marketers (91%) are currently using social media as part of their marketing efforts. Small businesses were slightly more likely to be using social media.

Experience Growing, But Still Low A significant combined 65% of marketers have either just started using social media (22%) or only been using it for a few months (43%). Another 31% have been using social media for a few years, up from 23% in 2009. Tellingly, only 3% of marketers have no experience with social media but plan to use it, while 0% of marketers have no experience with social media and no plans to use it. More B2B companies have been using social media longer (79.5% reported months or more) than their B2C counterparts (68.7% indicated months or longer).

Most Marketers Use Social Media at Least Six Hours Weekly A combined 56% of marketers use social media for six hours or more a week, and 30% use it for 11 hours or more on a weekly basis. It’s interesting to note that a combined 12.5% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media. The largest group used social media one to 5 hours per week (about 38%). Forty-three percent of people in this group are spending four to five hours per week on social media activities. Three quarters (76%) of marketers are spending at least four hours each week on their social media marketing efforts. More Experience Equals More Usage There is a direct relationship between how long marketers have been using social media and their weekly time commitment.

For people just beginning with social media, the median weekly time commitment was one hour per week. However, for marketers who have been doing this for a few months or longer, the median jumps to 10 hours per week.

Almost Half of Global Marketers Use SocNets Close to half of global marketers currently use social media in their marketing efforts, according to a recent study from marketing technology provider Unica. Reflecting the rapid explosion in the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter among consumers, a combined 80% of marketers currently use social media or plan to in the future. Forty-seven percent of marketers currently use social media. Another 23% plan to use it in the next 12 months, and 10% plan to use it in more than 12 months. Only 11% have no plans to use social media, and 9% are not sure.

In addition, comparing US and Canadian marketers with their European counterparts, the study reveals that a much higher percentage of marketers in North America (58%) currently use social media than marketers in Europe (34%).

About the Survey: SocialMediaExaminer.com surveyed 1,898 respondents, of which 98% were business owners or employees, 1% were students and 1% unemployed, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email during a five-day period in January 2010.

Build Your Brand a Social Content Ladder in 5 Steps

April 6th, 2010
Written By: Jay Baer

Sure, social media takes a lot of time, but probably not as much time as you think.

Too many companies and organizations are reinventing the content wheel for every social outpost they maintain. A better approach is to create a content ecosystem that allows you to repurpose and cascade your best information.

Instead of a series of self-contained initiatives, build yourself a content ladder.

Here are 5 steps to get there:

1. Understand Taxonomy

If you want a new pair of glasses, the Yellow Pages is a frustrating neighborhood. Look under “G” for “glasses.” Not found. Look under “E” for “eye glasses.” Nope. Only when you look under “O” for “optometrists” do you find what you need. It’s an example of an industry with poor understanding of taxonomy – the words and phrases used to describe products and services.

Taxonomy is incredibly important in social media because it’s the most direct link between the worlds of social and search marketing. Remember, your most important customer is Google, and your content ladder needs to maximize your chances for search success.

When creating and promoting social content, include specific, relevant keywords and search phrases wherever possible. (This is especially important now that Google and Bing are incorporating social content into real-time search results).

Find keywords and search phrases to include in these four places:

Google Analytics (or whatever Web site analytics program you’re using)

Look at your keywords report to find phrases that are driving traffic to your site. I recommend using a mixture of your Top 25 phrases and some that are highly relevant to your business, but perhaps aren’t sending as much traffic as you’d like at present.

Social Mention (or a paid social media listening package like Radian6, if you have one)

Go to www.socialmention.com and search for your company or product name (in quotes), and set the pull-down to “all.” You’ll then see a search results page that shows a comprehensive list of places you’ve been mentioned on the social Web.

On the left hand side, you’ll see a keywords chart that lists common terms associated with your name in social media. Consider adding some of these to your list if they differ from your analytics results.

Twitter Lists

How your company or product are referred to in consumer-created Twitter lists can yield important taxonomy insights.

Go to your Twitter account, and click on “listed” next to your followers count, and see how the lists that include your Twitter account are named. Consider including some of these phrases to your master keyword list.

Incorporate your phrases into your social content wherever possible, but only when relevant. Nobody appreciates keyword spam on the social Web.

2. Seek Content Inspiration

Creating successful social media content isn’t just status updates. Take your top keywords (including your company name, product name, etc.) and search for them on Google, Bing, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and SocialMention.

What shows up in these search results? How much photo and video content appears? Content from your competitors? From fans? You’ll be amazed at how many content-creation ideas this simple exercise can generate.

3. Understand Your Frequency Schema

The key to a content ladder is organizing your rungs. Your scenario may of course vary, but for illustration purposes let’s assume you have a Twitter account, Facebook fan page, blog, and email newsletter.

To create an efficient ladder, you must understand the comparative publishing schedules that you typically employ for each of these outposts. Ordered from most frequent publication to least, let’s assume that your program looks like this:

• Twitter (5x/day)
• Facebook (2x/day)
• Blog (3x/week)
• Email (1x/week)

Create your own integrated frequency schedule to better understand how your outposts interrelate.

4. Test & Track
Create a piece of content (remember to include your key phrases), and post it to the first rung in the ladder (Twitter, in this case) Use a tracking system (I prefer bit.ly) to determine how popular that specific piece of content was with your audience.

Remember however, that many factors influence popularity at the individual content piece level. Don’t make assumptions – test them. Vary time of day, day of week, phrasing, link placement, and other options, and thoroughly document your results.

Social media scientist Dan Zarrella has some excellent research on social content best practices.

5. Tweak and Repurpose
The content pieces that are most successful on the first rung of your ladder should be appropriately tweaked and redeployed on the second rung of your ladder (Facebook).

Test and track content success on Facebook using bit.ly (or number of likes and comments), and add the most effective content pieces to the next rung on the ladder (blog). Note that as you move down the ladder, your repurposing will be more complex – a blog post requires substantially more content than a Facebook update in most cases.

If a piece of content is successful on your blog (measured by visits as determined by Google Analytics, perhaps), add it to the next rung – your email newsletter.

By understanding how your various social outposts can work together at the content level, you can develop meaningful efficiencies. Also, because a sprinkling of the content included in the lower rungs of your ladder has already proven successful on higher rungs, the relevancy and popularity of your content should increase for most fans/readers/subscribers.

Of course, this content ladder approach assumes that you do not have the exact same audience for each of your social outlets, and I believe that to be an entirely realistic assumption. You may have some overlap (especially with Facebook and Twitter), but consumption of status updates and consumption of blog posts and email newsletters are meaningfully different activities, and attract different groups of fans.

What do you think? Worth a try?

The Top Five Reasons Brands Fear Social Media

The Top Five Reasons Brands Fear Social Media


By Ayelet Noff

February 9, 2010

I’ve been in the social media space now for quite a few years and I meet with at least 5 companies each week who have understood the importance of utilizing social media for their businesses but are still afraid of entering their brands into the new media age.

What are they worried about? Here are the top five concerns that I’ve heard from executives and my response to them:

1) They’re afraid they’ll lose control of their brand and open themselves up to negative feedback.

en you open a business and start marketing your services and exposing your brand to others, people will start talking about your brand. And this is what you wanted right? This is why you exposed them to your brand in the first place. People are going to be talking about your brand no matter what.

The question is:Do you want to be a part of the dialogue or do you want to just play ostrich and ignore what people are saying? If a person is dissatisfied with your services, do you prefer he opens up this discussion in a “I hate ” group opened up by another hater or do you prefer that he come to your page and post the complaint there allowing you to respond appropriately and even perhaps win him back as a client?

Social media didn’t create the dissatisfied customer – it only allowed him a platform to express his frustration. If you don’t give him the stage to speak, he will do it elsewhere and believe me, it will cause a great deal more damage to your brand if you’re not there to respond and open to criticism.

When we speak of social media, we speak of conversational marketing – listening before selling, opening a dialogue with the user and not just throwing a blinking banner in his face. Brands need to make that switch in their heads and understand that social media is SOCIAL. Many conversations will be positive and you will have these nice messages recorded for everyone to see publicly – your bosses, your investors, your customers and potential customers:

Some conversations may be negative but these conversations should be seen as welcomed opportunities to regain customers. If you utilize social media effectively and are alert to what people are saying about you online, then you can also respond in a timely and intelligent manner. When you’re dazed and confused and too afraid to see what people may be saying about you, that’s when the conversation can get out of control and your branding and positioning can go out the window. Companies who understand social media know that by using social media they are increasing the number of positive responses to their brand and making sure to control and decrease the negative responses by showing people that they actually care about what they have to say.

2) They don’t understand it

Companies fear social media because they don’t understand what to do with it, what to talk about, who to turn to. They often time try to do it in-house without the appropriate guidance, fail miserably and then say that social media doesn’t work. Don’t hire your friend’s son who is very active on Facebook to do your marketing strategy for you. Just like you wouldn’t fix your car in-house or do your PR in-house, neither should you start doing social media on your own without having a social media guru at your side. And when I say guru, I mean someone who has had a good track record in creating successful social media campaigns for other companies in the past. Once you have such a guide at your side and you begin to understand what social media is all about, then you will not be afraid of it anymore and you will start to recognize the infinite number of amazing opportunities that social media will open your brand to.

3) The effectiveness of social media is hard to measure

Since social media is still in it’s diapers, it took a little while for tools tracking the ROI on social media campaigns to emerge, however today we have a suite of different tools that allow companies to track even the most minute details in the effectiveness of their social media campaigns.

Tools like Google Analytics which allow us to track the traffic coming into our site as well as where it’s coming from has existed for years. Google alerts which allow us to see the blog posts and other sites linking back to our site have also existed for a long time. And we are now seeing an influx of services that not only allow you to easily monitor what people are saying about your brand but also see who are the top influencers, opinion leaders in your industry and more. There are numerous services that allow you to see the top influencers on twitter such as: Twitter grader and twitter analytics services such as Twitalyzer . Facebook also provides its own insights to page admins and enables admins to view information regarding the demographics of their fans and also how many interactions, comments, wall posts, etc. were found on the page. The more we learn about social media, the more tools we get to measure it.

al media campaigns also allow us to target specific campaigns to specific niches like no other media today.

4) They’re afraid that employees will be on Facebook and twitter chatting all day.

Facebook today has around 350 million users. If Facebook was a nation, it would be the world’s third most populous after China and India. Your employees are there anyway. Why not utilize the fact that they are there to help your cause? When you need to spread the word on Facebook, why not enable your employees to help you or when you finally open that fan page on Facebook, why not allow your employees to become fans and encourage them to take part in your social media activities. Dell for example, who is well known for their great twitter strategy (a strategy which has earned them $6.5 million to date), has around 200 employees working its twitter account, responding to people.

In addition, not allowing your employees to have access to the vast amount of information that can be found on social networks as well as not enabling them to use these networks as research tools nor to network with people in the industry also puts your company at a great disadvantage to your competitors who do allow their employees (and even encourage them) to use social media tools.

5) Social media is costly.
This last fear is not only something that companies should not fear but it is also not true. If you consider the millions of people that you can reach using social media as opposed to the cost of buying an ad on TV or buying a banner, you’ll see that social media is one of the most cost efficient ways of reaching your target audience today.

To anyone who still thinks social media is a fad, WAKE UP. It’s not. Social media is here and it’s here to stay. If you took a look at the latest report that came out of Davos regarding social networks, you’ll see that Facebook is now the second most popular site on the internet after Google and that according to Nielsen since February 2009 people have been spending more time on social-networking sites than on e-mail, and the lead is getting bigger. The question for your brand is no longer whether to be there or not to be there. The question is WHEN will you be there and the longer you keep your head in the ground, the more you’ll lose touch with what’s happening out there in the real world.

Great Ostrich pic credit: http://blog.karmona.com/