Social Media and You

A circus is the best metaphor for the state of social media marketing currently.

There are three rings, of course, for the Big Three platforms; endlessly entertaining feats of technical acrobatics, and the madly inventive clowns keeping us entranced. There are the marketing fillies and stallions; blogging monkeys; elephantine Amazons and Wikipedias; and spammy mice scuttling everywhere.

The circus scene boggles a kid’s mind. Interfacing with the web, we’re all kids at a circus. Many of us, much of the time, fall into P.T. Barnum’s famous ‘sucker’ classification, letting the lures and wiles of the circus substitute for true productivity.

Drilling down to what is authentically relevant and useful to your particular situation requires patience, skill, and experience.

Often people contact me wanting a blog or Facebook Business Page or website because other people have told them they should have one. But they have no idea how to use these tools; they don’t know what they don’t know about social media; and just like circus-goers, they’re reacting to the press of the crowd rather than looking out for their best interests.

Want to start up your online marketing? Get a professional to help you. Don’t run away with the circus.

In the ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ category, kudos to Starbucks for innovations that might impress any marketing mastermind. Get a load of this article about the launch of Starbucks’ own  Digital Network.

Their concept – offering a select (and hotly popular) set of internet picks, free for the taking when on site (when they’d usually cost the viewer at least some pittance) –  is brilliant. It’s a marketing gimmick, a free plastic toy to beat all and to please all, as well. As the cited article’s author says, “Imagine a customer-only network chock full of ‘In Network’ freebies that you can ONLY get while on ‘location’ …  Free access to premium news sites such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, free iTunes downloads, and for the kids free access to Nick Jr. games that typically require monthly fees.”

Talk about no-brainers. The cheap and easy value-add boosts Starbucks’ appeal astronomically. This is at least as phenomenal as Facebook Places, IMHO, though it approaches the wooing of customers from a different angle. While Facebook Places distinguishes a business establishment through its visits from individuals, the Starbucks initiative wins customers through the irresistibly of its personality.

A fascinating dichotomy, n’est-ce-pas?

One thing about the web and social media: you have to continuously be ready to try new things.

Dealing with changes has become a challenge for my old bones. Still, I know flexibility is of the essence.  (Yoga is a great way to stay in shape for it, by the way.)

Participating with the likes of Facebook will drive you straight to hell’s precipice in terms of adapting to change. Not to mention endless innovations at any site you frequent, or tool you use, search engine technology, or whatever, will keep you spinning.

Building websites is especially demanding of your flexibility factor. Can you instantly comprehend your client’s tastes, needs, and options,  making intelligent recommendations in those areas based on your client’s completely individual situation juxtaposed upon the immense array of available resources?

It’s all about being nimble, and light, refining your practice into increasingly skilled listening, so that your product on behalf of the client can be efficiently created and targeted.

The internet challenges us, big time. Not everyone is up to its demands, and no one is up to its demands all the time.  Sigh. No sense trying to be perfect, I guess. Just go with the flow.

So what do you think of Facebook’s switch to narrower tab pages? Heretofore, we could use a 700+ pixel-wide table and our tabs showed as simple pages without sidebars. As of next Monday, sidebars will show on either side of every 520 pixel-wide tab page.

Facebook mumbles something about how this will make navigation easier, but obviously it’s to increase their available ad space, right? I’m wondering why this isn’t being discussed; perhaps you can enlighten me.

Fact is, it’s a little disturbing that Facebook feels compelled to change the rules on us so often. I’m not opposed to change, but from a marketing and public relations standpoint, I’m beginning to think Facebook is dangerously pushing their luck.

The news lately has talked about a phenomenon in corporate economics in which an organization is too big to fail. Does Facebook count itself amongst these behemoths?

Certainly, reputation loudly proclaims that the company – particularly its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg – couldn’t care less about the software’s users. Considering that we pay nary a cent for using it, we can hardly complain. And Facebook substitutes are not easy to imagine.

It’s fascinating how the tail is wagging the dog, don’t you think?

Yesterday was spent in a mad scramble to fix a broken blog. When I initially installed it for my client, I had suspicions; and gosh durn it, they proved warranted when I discovered last Friday that the theme was kaput. Which meant that Saturday was devoted to blog renovation, instead of shopping and gardening. You can guess my mood as I approached the task.

Online, as in every other area of life, maintenance is foundational. A boss I had in a non-profit organization eons ago pointed out that what you need in an organization is first, a janitor; and second, a person to write the janitor’s pay check.

And today, Sunday, I spent some time refurbishing my own websites, checking links, straightening up, improving. It had been a couple of months since I’d visited them.

I’m also working on a Facebook Business Page idea, and keeping up with my personal page there, as well as Twitter, LinkedIn group discussions, and a couple forums where I like to participate.

Whew. The internet demands omniscient presence, and a humongous load of interaction, content production, responsiveness.  Not to mention simple maintenance.  It’s no cakewalk.

Yet through it all – what an  immense privilege!

This article at SearchEngineLand.com brought a number of threads together for me. I’ve been railing against emailed newsletters for driving business because filters are so virulent that they bar a huge percent of your list from having the slightest inkling that you ever sent them anything.

On the other hand, a client recently said how happy she was with conversions after her email went out, even though the open rate was typically unimpressive.

When I suggested using text emails, linking to landing pages with intense focus on Calls To Action, my client asked, “You mean, no more education?” That’s not what I meant, of course, but finding the right mix is tricky.

The article says, “Conversion content marketing extends a content strategy with savvy but appropriate conversion optimization tactics and techniques.” This is important, because content without conversion defeats your business purposes.

The article places the onus squarely on the copywriter. While leaving an exit always available for the potential customer, copy must test and re-test, be flexible about formats, and continuously vet the target market. Working ‘vertically,’ that is, speaking as directly as possible to your customers through a variety of platforms and customized messages is today’s best practice.

I don’t profess to understand this, entirely, but I suspect it’s essential information and good guidance. Al Franken, Senator from Minnesota, urges us to protect our rights of free speech by enforcing net neutrality.

As Franken says, ” … telecommunications companies want to be able to set up a special high-speed lane just for the corporations that can pay for it. You won’t know why the internet retail behemoth loads faster than the mom-and-pop shop, but after a while you may get frustrated and do all of your shopping at the faster site.”

He concludes with, “Net neutrality may sound like a technical issue, but it’s the key to preserving the internet as we know it … ”

If this seems speculative and unlikely, consider another couple of news items from the past two days. The FBI is freaking out because their logo appears on Wikipedia.com. It’s illegal, they say, to duplicate their logo without their permission.

And then how about this story, in which the Saudis are blocking Blackberry service because it’s too permissive and could facilitate threats to reigning powers.

So, maybe it is necessary to defend our internet liberties. At least, let’s not take them for granted.

My son, who’s twenty-something and somewhat impulsive, recently ditched his Facebook account, saying he “wasn’t doing anything with it.”

In the short time I was connected to him there, I doted on his updates, of course. Pictures of my grandson,  recommended TED lectures, reports of outings and parties, comments to his posts from other family members.

He never updated much, but it was enough.

I miss him already.

Now, he’s my son, and our closeness has nothing to do with Facebook. I am using this situation as an example, however. He doesn’t know it, but seeing my son’s infrequent appearances on my News Page would make my day.

The moral of this story is that it’s advisable to think of your social media activities as objectively as possible. What you get out of online relationships is important, but always the primary reason for participating in social media is to increase trust – in you, or your business, or your ideas, or whatever. Trust is oxygen in cyberspace.

Other people come to depend on you being there. The quantity of your updates doesn’t matter at all, really, as long as we know you’re consistently there. If you go away, you disappear.

A solid definition of your ideal client is essential to online business success. But creating that definition is no slide.  Nonetheless, lately I’ve been on the brink of progress in that department.

Identifying your niche market, recognizing the sort of person who most relates to you and your business can be tricky. You might think your market is busy moms or people with dogs or investment bankers. But to be actually useful in marketing, your definition has to be far more specific.

And not just predictably specific. It’s not busy moms who live in Peoria and are under the age of 30. That stuff’s important, but not the key. The key is that your busy moms need a shoulder to cry on, or they need affordable diapers, or they need care for their aging parents.

Who they are is of interest, but what they need is bankable.

For me, the ideal client picture has been fuzzy. When I started in this biz, I thought it was okay to focus on ‘small businesses.’  So it’s been a long road from there. You get closer, over time, to a good working definition.

But it’s what you learn about yourself that’s mind blowing.

It’s been two weeks since ThoughtLead recorded The Influencer Project, but I finally had the chance to tune it in today.

Fun concept, informative even if you already know a lot about inbound marketing, and worth the 60 minutes if you are interested in brand building. Sixty thought leaders are each given 60 seconds to share their best tip on “Increasing Your Digital Influence.” Their tips for online success are varied and challenging.

While the worn-out theme of “being helpful” was dominant, there were other, more exciting and exacting viewpoints as well. The resulting collection amounts to a pile of gold.

Amongst admonishments to

• be consistent,
• develop multiple streams of influence,
• use video
• create great content,
• and focus on a niche,

there are other voices speaking of larger meanings.

One said that we used to debate, and digital influence allows us to dialog, instead. We used to compete; now we can value and admire. We used to seek to prevail; now we seek to engage.

But the coolest came from Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, who said, “self expression is the new entertainment.” Want to develop your influence digitally? Ask your peeps to express!