A Fond Farewell

Ironically, I'm writing this blog post to inform you that in the foreseeable future you should not expect any further blog posts here. If you are looking for social media resources, I highly recommend you subscribe to Jive Talks  and Thoroughly Modern Marketing. Both of which I regularly contribute content to.

That being said, I'd like to explain this decision. Time has really flown by since the start of 2012. I looked at my blog about a week ago and realized how few posts I've made this year, which brought me to the conclusion that it is time face the music and admit that I don't have the time to keep this blog going.

Thus far, 2012 has turned out to be the busiest and best year of my life. Back in March, I joined the Board of Directors for the Portland Female Executives (PDXfX) as the Communications Director.  In May, I became the Associate Social Media Editor for Thoroughly Modern Marketing. I also had the opportunity to speak at InnoTech Oregon. In June, I did my first keynote at the June PDXfX event. In July, I left my job at Integra Telecom to be the Enterprise Community Manager at Jive Software, which has been nothing short of an amazing experience. Throughout, I've been teaching courses in social media marketing for Spokane Falls Community College.

Outside of work, I've been doing a lot of traveling, camping, hiking, and socializing. I've also managed to collect a fair amount of photos. I thought I'd share a few of the photos of things I was doing this past summer instead of writing my blog ;)


May...

I moved out of my apartment into a lovely Villa with my boyfriend, David.

June...

Camped at Kalaloch with my favorite men, David and Jesse. Climbed trees and overcame my fear of heights.

Visited my hometown Spokane to attend a wedding, see my parents, and teach my friend Meicha to skip rocks at Bowl and Pitcher.

July...

Watched my first Timbers game. Said goodbye to a great coworker and friend as we both changed jobs.

Camped at Hoh River with the newly weds, Chae and Tony. Camped at Cougar Rock (Mt. Rainier) for David's birthday. Visited the Chinese Gardens in Portland with my amazing mother.

August...

A time of festivals and tours in Portland. Fremont Festival, Bite of Oregon, and Brewvana.

Hiked at Ellowa falls with our wonderful neighbors, Daena and Oliver.

Traveled to Palo Alto, CA for work. Got to see the beautiful office there and watch my manager deliver a fantastic keynote.

All in all, it has been an exciting summer. I look forward to many more adventures. Unfortunately, that means a trade off with my blogging here.

3 Key Components of Corporate Social Media Policies

With the recent spike in lawsuits regarding employees and social media, it is critical that your company has a clear and effective social media policy for employees. At the bare minimum, your corporate policy needs to include the following three components to help guide employees and prevent a potential media frenzy over an employee social media posting:

Profiles

For social media accounts where you opt to identify yourself as a [company name] employee and plan to use it in a professional capacity, you should always go by your real name to make it easy for professional connections to locate and connect with you online and offline. It is also advisable to include a professional headshot photo to help establish a potential connection with people and confirm that they have found the correct person.

Disclaimers

If you choose to publish social media content from a publicly viewable account in your personal capacity, you are likely to be seen as a representative of [company name]. In particular, if you publish social media content regarding anything industry or company related, you must include a content disclaimer to avoid having your opinions seen as a company stance. It is not unusual for journalists to quote a tweet or post by an employee when writing an article. Hence, including a disclaimer is essential to help avoid inaccurate or unwanted coverage. In the event that you will be regularly posting about topics that are industry or company related, you will want to include the disclaimer in your profile description, so that you do not need to add a separate disclaimer to each post you make.

Sample Disclaimers:

• Opinions are my own and do not represent [company name].
• Thoughts and opinions do not represent [company name]'s positions or opinions.

Be aware that disclaiming your opinions does not relinquish your responsibility to be socially professional.

Handling Mistakes

If you make a posting mistake, admit to the mistake and take full responsibility for the error. Be upfront, and be quick with your correction. When possible, remove posts or updates immediately and post the correction. If you are posting to a blog, you may choose to modify an earlier post; just make it clear that you have done so and why.

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Does your company have a clear social media policy?

Targeting With Personas Part II - Example

Example: Software Company

Imagine a marketing manager for a software company that sells single-sign on software (password management software) in a B2C market.The marketing manager has developed four personas:

• CEO, Executives, Managers (CEO)
• New Internet User (New)
• College Student (Student)
• Professional in the Tech Industry (Yuppie)

Next, the marketing manager must gather the relevant demographic information, assess the needs of each group, and consider which situational triggers may cause them to buy the product. After some research, the following information is discovered about the target market:

Four hypothetical personas.

CEO, Executives, Managers (CEO)

• Age: 45
• Internet Experience: High
• Spending Habits: Strategic
• Trigger: Provide reasons to “upgrade”

New Internet User (New)

• Age: 16
• Internet Experience: Low
• Spending Habits: Shiny Object (things of interest at the time – parental support)
• Trigger: Educate to illustrate the need

College Student (Student)

• Age: 20
• Internet Experience: High
• Spending Habits: Shiny Object (things of interest at the time)
• Trigger: Discount

Professional in the Tech Industry (Yuppie)

• Age: 30
• Internet Experience: High
• Spending Habits: Strategic
• Trigger: Awareness

Based on these categorizations, it is possible to construct secondary target market personas. The Yuppies are the optimal target market. BUT if they’re already being bombarded by messages from the competition, it would be prudent to retarget the company’s messaging at secondary audiences. In this case, the company could gain market share with the students and CEOs through developing persona-specific messages.
For example, to target the CEOs, the message should be crafted to engender a need, which could be done through highlighting key product differentiators from the competition. Since students are missing the means (finances) to purchase the software, this hypothetical software company could offer coupons toward the students to lower the cost. A “buy-one-get-one-free” coupon would be one possible strategy, as would a discount for becoming a fan of the company’s Facebook page.

Let’s assume that after a few weeks the strategy to attract the student market is unsuccessful. This MAY mean that it is necessary to segment that secondary target audience even further. The following is an example of how this process could be accomplished:

Specifying the student persona even further.

 

The marketing manager can drill down even further within the optimal or secondary target audience but the key is to stop specifying when the cost of finding information is greater than the benefit to be gained by marketing uniquely to that subset. This will have to be weighed on a case-by-case basis depending on the available budget for market research and the profit from the offering.

Targeting With Personas Part I

Marketers routinely define intended audiences and craft messages tailored for those specific target markets. Social media has introduced a whole new set of powerful tools. It is now possible to easily locate where your target market hangs out on the social web and understand what they do there. As consequence, the most promising audiences (those with the need, interest, and means to purchase your product or service) are being saturated with messages. Your competitors ARE marketing to them, regardless of your industry.

The Challenge
Traditionally, marketers have focused almost exclusively on these prime target markets and for good reason—they are the folks most likely to buy your product or service. Breaking through the “clutter” to reach these optimal audiences presents are a real challenge for start-ups, small companies, and enterprises alike. There are always competitors with larger social media teams, better strategies, and more resources to spend on prime target audiences.

Naturally, primary target markets should remain a priority. But, when the risk of having your message lost in the crowd is significant, it is wise to also consider an alternative destination. The path less travelled. Like the wayfarer that encounters heavy traffic and chooses a desirable secondary endpoint instead, a marketer faced with overwhelming competition for a primary target market may find it efficacious to select a secondary target market. Although secondary target audiences are not optimal, they can still be quite lucrative. Less competition means more market share opportunities.

However, reaching any audience on the social web requires a high degree of precision. With traditional advertising, it was possible to take a broad approach. It was acceptable to share product information with everyone. In online communities, this practice is known as spamming. If you send the same message out through all of your social media properties, without consideration of the audience that participate on each platform, you will be deemed a spammer. Messages sent through social media have to be finely honed. These messages also need to be sent through the appropriate social platform or they risk being ignored completely. Worse yet, you risk having future messages being automatically ignored. Why risk your reputation? Avoid being seen as inconsiderate by tailoring your messaging.

The Solution

How can marketers reach secondary target markets and avoid being ignored? The answer is three-fold: (1) define the consumer landscape (target audience) in terms of personas, (2) determine the platforms where your intended audience participate, and (3) create tailored messages. To accomplish these tasks, it is necessary to define a few key terms:

1. Persona – According to Ian Lurie, in his book Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies, a typical persona definition includes:

• Demographics of the Persona: Average age, level of Internet expertise, and spending habits.
• Constraints: A persona’s technological limitations (type of Internet connection), a language barrier, or even vision impairment.
• Needs and Wants: What are the challenges facing this persona? What solutions do you offer that will turn this persona into a real-life customer?

1. Optimal Target Audience – Personas with a need, the means, and interest make up the optimal target audience.
2. Secondary Optimal Target Audience – Personas missing one of the three attributes (need, means, interest) are the secondary optimal target audience. As an example, a persona that is a member of the secondary optimal target audience might have the need and interest in your offering but lacks the means to purchase it.

Fortunately, many marketers may prematurely write off secondary target audiences, which provide a golden opportunity for the smart marketer to tap these overlooked customers.

In the next post (July 5), I will cover an example of how to use this venn diagram.

Video Interview at InnoTech Oregon about Social Media

Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach, 1st Edition (textbook)

After a lot of hard work, the first college textbook on social media marketing is now available. An overview:

Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach promises to be the seminal textbook in the field with its distinctive conceptual foundation and practical approach to developing successful social media marketing plans. A proven eight-step social media planning model provides students with a cumulative learning experience, showing them how to construct social media strategies that achieve desired marketing goals. These marketing goals shape the development of tailored social media strategies. Special attention is given to the most effective techniques for identifying targeted marketing on the social web, with emphasis on the creation of personas that represent the critical online market segments for a company. Students discover how to put these well-defined personas to work in selecting the optimal social media platforms for reaching an organization's marketing goals. Students are taught rules of engagement and social media ethics for behaving properly as marketers on the social web. With these guidelines in mind, the most productive marketing tactics for each type of major social media platform are examined in depth. These platform-specific tactics, along with all the proceeding material in the book, are brought together in the final chapter to create a comprehensive social media marketing plan, with detailed explanations and illustrations from a real world plan. Extensive consideration is given to monitoring, evaluating, and tuning the implementation of social media marketing initiatives. In addition, students are introduced to the most useful quantitative and qualitative social media measurements, along with various ways to estimate an organization's return on investment in social media marketing activities.

Want to know more? Pick up your copy here.

Meme Trend Illustrates Workforce Specialization

I don't usually follow internet meme trends. Recently, there is one meme trend that caught my eye. This trend caught my eye not just because it was funny but because I think it has a really accurate underlying message. The meme trend that caught my eye, as you may have guessed from the image, is the "What my friends think I do" meme. In addition to be humorous and fairly accurate, it conveys a trend of specialization in the workforce and the importance of it. Today, you could make this meme about just about every job because we are specializing to a point that most people don't know what we do (in some cases, even our bosses).

To illustrate what I mean, I've posted this meme (which I've adapted slightly from it's original form, Social Media Manager).

Looking become a social media marketer? Check out the Social Media Salary Guide

via http://mashable.com/2012/02/12/social-media-salary-infographic/

5 Social Media Productivity Tips

When is the last time you asked someone how things are going and didn’t get this response: “I’m so busy!” In fact, that is the only answer I think I’ve heard over the last two years.

Everyone is busy, including you. Instead of using “I’m busy” as an excuse (though true it may be) to let your social media profiles go untouched; try out a few of these tips to help make yourself more productive:

1. Make a Recurring Calendar Reminder – Set aside (and limit yourself) to 30 minutes every day to update your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. with just a quick post. Maybe that post is a link to an interesting article or a note about a restaurant you’re headed to. Regardless of what it is, make sure you’re posting regularly. Otherwise, what is the point of having an account? 
2. Quality Over Quantity – Set up Google Alerts for a topic that you care about. Post links to those articles for your friends and colleagues to read. This is a great way to ensure your content is valuable. 
3. Skim Quickly – Avoid rabbit holes when reading your timeline or newsfeed. Skim for the most interesting information and “Ctrl + Click” the links you’d like to go back to when you’re bored during your lunch hour. Oh, and remember to “Like” (on Facebook), “+1” (on Google+), or retweet (on Twitter) your favorite posts. ;) 
4. Install Apps on Your Phone – I’m going to go out on a limb and make the assumption that you, like the majority of the United States, have a smart phone. Install the app for each of the social media sites you have profiles on. This makes maintaining and updating your profiles a breeze. 
5. Respond When You See It – If someone comments on your page or tweets at you, respond when you see it. This ensures you’ll remember to respond and let’s face it, everyone loves a quick response.