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Professional Uses of Social Media Recap

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Laurie Dillon Schalk did a seminar Dec 3, 09 for the Rapport community at the National Yacht Club in Toronto, on professional uses of social media. It started with an educating introduction into the rise of social media, the different types of platforms like social networking vs media sites, vs social bookmarking, vs blogs and podcasts, wikis and communities.

Where the Magic Happens.

Laurie talked about the idea of your visible network (friends and colleagues) and your invisible network (their friends and colleagues). This is often where the magic lies in social networking – the hidden opportunities for business, jobs, friends and ideas happen become much easier to find. Just by sharing information on a social media platform, you have much more opportunity for being heard by this invisible network.

Laurie then went on to talk about the major advances in the internet and software development that has lead to this fairly recent explosion, but what’s most interesting to me is how I can help my clients use it to expand their reach, build their brand and sales.

Where to Focus Your Social Media Efforts

The vehicle you use depends on business and marketing objectives, customer experience, purchasing decision cycle or criteria, where your target market hangs out and your organizational readiness. Though social media is often touted as ‘free’ it is a marketing effort and takes someone’s time. If you are going to use one, choose which and make a real go of it – just like networking in real life. Pick the venue you like best and be willing to devote time and effort to it, to build a presence and relationships.

The numbers and demographics of people getting involved are changing daily and staggering. Keep in mind when you are generating content that 24% of social media users are creators with 73% being spectators with critics, collectors, joiners and inactives in between. That means there’s a lot of room to become known as an expert.

Remember, it’s More Than Just Twitter

When most people hear the words ‘social media’ they automatically think of the big three: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and Laurie gave tips on optimizing them. But, remember that social media includes things like blogs, wikipedia, web-based collaboration and YouTube – anywhere people can share information/media with the masses. There’s a lot available to help you manage and analyze the effectiveness of all this, like MailChimp and Google Analytics – to really build your business.

Social Media as Part of All-inclusive Marketing

One of the most important things to remember is that engaging in any kind of social media on a professional level is an extension of your brand. It should be considered as an integrated part of your marketing efforts, and held to the same standards of consistency and continual experience we encourage with our marketing maps. Where you have the opportunity to decorate (like a Twitter background) make sure it fits in with your brand colours, imagery, etc. If it’s mostly around information sharing, decide on your voice and stay loyal to your brand character. Your approach, your purpose should be considered before diving in. Any weak link in your marketing map detracts from the rest.

Tags: All-inclusive Marketing, brand character, graphic design, seminar, social media, Toronto
Posted in All-inclusive Marketing, Never Stop Learning | No Comments »

Learning the Essential Message Techniques

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Why I signed up to be an Essential Message Consoachant

As many who know us have become aware, Rapport has evolved beyond simply providing great design. I want to make sure we’re doing the things for our clients that will get them the best results, the best return for their efforts and investment. That includes drilling down to the thing that they do better than any of their competition. I’ve had the privilege of working with clients who’ve done this with experts like the boys at Blueprint (www.theblueprint.ca) and Michel Neray of Essential Message (www.essentialmessage.com) and the results were amazing. That thing, that differentiator provides the platform for truly inspired branding and all other executions to come.

I was just thinking ‘I’d love to be able to do what Michel does’ when the Essential Message offered a program to teach the method and philosophy to professionals to use in their businesses. I’m about half way through the course and loving it!

A process fit for Rapport

The reason I like it is because it’s a well-developed process that I can mold into my own as I get more practiced. It has a consistent philosophy I identify with. There are exercises that test each other’s results out; clearing away the less effective ideas or backing up the really strong ones. I’ve already started using some of the exercises with great results!

More formally, when ready I’ll most often be doing the ‘Corporate Intensive’ sessions with our clients, which has many different ways to proceed, depending on that specific situation. It provides something tangible and measurable to use along with my natural intuition.

The best thing I’ve learned

My biggest take-away so far is that it seems like most people don’t dig very deep, say the top thing that comes to mind, or describe a benefit – all of which means they say the same thing as everyone else. The second biggest thing is that the root of most of these statements is often something the client does so naturally they don’t even realize that it means something, that it’s interesting. And, this core value can be uncovered with relentless questioning like ‘how’ and ‘what’ – getting specific.

Sometimes, clients have an idea what their differentiator is, they just have no idea how to explain it. I have a couple of those types coming up I’m really excited about.

Just as that statement core value is compelling to our clients’ prospects, it’s also really inspiring to the creative team here, it gives us something to sink our teeth into.

Tags: Essential Message, Michel Neray, Speaker, Toronto
Posted in Never Stop Learning | No Comments »

Getting Your Marketing Done

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Throughout my years in business I have noticed some clients have more difficulty than others in getting their marketing done. What seems like a small bit of feedback takes months. One in particular teases me and himself for my having to nag him regularly for feedback or direction. I asked him just today what holds him up most and he said it’s partially lack of time (the most common reason) but also that some things push him out of his comfort zone. The best thing you can do in both of these common cases is schedule it in and ask for help. Here are some tips on how to do that.

Take Charge of Time.

Looking at even small marketing tasks can seem quite daunting when you’re busy. But, if you plan it out, even a little, it’ll make your life easier – and remember, you don’t have to do it all in one week.

It’s a common catch 22: when you’re really busy, you don’t have time to market so you don’t fill the funnel. When existing work comes to an end, you’re then scrambling for more, often performing emergency/reactive manoeuvres that aren’t so well thought out. Marketing is something that needs to be done constantly, regardless of business activity so scheduling over time is very useful.

Once you’ve decided on major goals, break them into smaller tasks and spread them out over the year, assigning them to specific people. Make them actions you/they can realistically commit to, knowing you have lots of other stuff to do as well. For regular things (like newsletters) create a process or check list for it so you aren’t reinventing the wheel each time. Schedule it in like any other work or meeting.

Ask For Help.

Once you get beyond a certain size, you can’t do it alone due to the time commitment and expertise needed. For example, many Rapport clients start out intending to write their own newsletters – to save money or they think it should come from them. They then find they have no time or it’s too difficult to pull an article out of thin air when not a professional writer. So, after several months there’s no newsletter, no repeat touch-point getting to their audience = missed opportunities. I shared with clients that I too was finding it hard to get Rapport’s newsletter done, so I assigned our writer Beth to do it. She still needs information from me or the rest of the team but acquires it in small, painless chunks then presents me with a complete newsletter ready to put in our template. Plus, with a little research, it’s easy for Beth to pull articles out of thin air because that’s what she does. Now Beth does newsletters for many of our clients too.

Free Marketing Help

Another tip is to get someone internal to help. They could create/manage your marketing calendar, complete small tasks for you and make sure things get done. It doesn’t have to be all you.

When you’re the big kahuna and responsible for a lot of things like the work, sales, client management, etc, it’s easy to push marketing efforts aside. When it’s part of someone’s job, what they’re paid for (internal or external) they are waaaaay less likely to push it aside.

Use Your Experts, Your Way.

I find the way and level at which clients want to interact with us varies from extremes. One may say ‘I completely trust you, I have no time for this stuff, just do it’ while others may want to be really involved in every minute detail, talk everything through, etc. Both are fine.

People who’ve never hired someone in this field may have no idea how to proceed. Or, they’ve had very different experiences. A simple example: client is all stressed out and says ‘I have no idea what we should blank blank blank’ in the very first meeting. I tell them they don’t have to figure that out, it’s my job – that’s what they pay me the big bucks for. ‘Oh’, they say looking relieved.

It’s my task as the account manager to determine their preferred interaction style as well as to educate them on what we intend to actually do for them so we both know what to expect from each other. However, it’s also okay to change tacks midstream. The client I mentioned earlier usually likes to get very involved and have deep discussions, but today he said ‘you know what, this is out of my comfort zone, you figure it out and make a recommendation’ – which is what I would do for most clients. Speak up and ask for more help if needed.

Also, let them do their thing. Back to the newsletter example; Beth writes articles (and more) for a living – it’s easy for her. We have clients who ask us to create websites with content management systems, then ask us to make all changes for them anyway because it’s just easier, they don’t have the time. Let your experts do what they do best while you do what you do best and most easily.

When you are paying experts to do work for you, use them to their full potential. You should also feel comfortable saying how you want to work, talking things through with them, questioning ideas and solutions, asking for more or less help, or for things to be done differently.

Tags: All-inclusive Marketing, graphic des, graphic design, Marketing, priorities, time-management, Toronto
Posted in Business Growth and Change | No Comments »

Finding Clarity

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

At Rapport we do a brand positioning session where we ask clients a number of questions about what they actually do, their ideal clients, how they find them, their goals, what makes them different. We go through lists of words that describe them and settle on some top choices. From this we go away and work on a bunch of tag lines , present several options and collaborate. Then, work on the positioning statement.

The Purpose of a Positioning Statement

The positioning statement is meant for internal use. It’s the place where we at Rapport, the client and all key players agree on how the company is going to be talked about; the angles to take, the tone. It often reflects goals to strive for, if not already there. It’s the bedrock of everything going forward – the website, all design and marketing tools.

I find it really interesting when we do this exercise with clients and it actually leads to them rethinking their business and what they’re trying to do. It’s a snag for us in the project process when these revelations actually stop things in their tracks, but it’s definitely the right thing to do.

Uncovering What You Really Do

We had a client who’s in the business of buying and selling. When we started this session he was focussed on the buying aspect, so much that the URL he bought which he wanted us to brand had “buying” in it. Not just that, it was all based around people finding him with Google. Once we went through the session we discovered two things that stopped the process. First, although buyers are more likely to be looking for him through the internet, the real money-maker is selling and that’s the part of his business he really wants to grow. Second, he doesn’t meet his clients through Google. He’s in a business that is personal, based on face-time and trust.

We changed the plan and decided to base the branding and tag line on him as the key face of the business. Meanwhile, he’s digesting the revelation and rethinking what he really wants to do. We’ll be working on how to market him soon. In the meantime he needs business cards.

Clarity in Larger Organizations = Unity

It’s also a great process for partners, new or not. Sometimes they aren’t aware at all until they start talking that they haven’t been on the same page for years. “I tell people we do this.” “I thought our ideal client was manufacturing, not service industry.” or “W e’re not warm and compliant, we’re no non sense and straight-forward.” At the very least, it can be harder to agree on the basics I listed above. At most, the partners need to go away and reassess their relationship, come to agreement on major issues.

Wow. We don’t mean to throw a monkey wrench into anyone’s plans, but these kinds of issues are best resolved before getting too far, wasting money on branding or marketing that doesn’t work. We’re just glad we could help.

Tags: All-inclusive Marketing, graphic design, Rapport, Toronto, websites
Posted in Business Growth and Change | No Comments »

Do I Still Need a Traditional Website?

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

I have a colleague who I have coffee with when he’s in Toronto. Recently he told me how although he had been skeptical about blog ROI, once he started one the traffic to his company website went from a few a week to hundreds a day. Wow – what a great result! Then he said ‘we don’t need a real website anymore and took it down.’ This was my introduction to this new phenomena: completely replacing all forms of traditional marketing tools with social media. I think it’s a mistake.

Skittles Tried It

Skittles is one big social media smorgasbord with their main navigation linking away but keeping the navigation present – kind of cool. ‘Products’ links to wikipedia, ‘Chatter’ to Twitter, ‘Friends’ to Facebook, Media to Flickr and YouTube. There’s none of the usual corporate/product information. It was a bold move and is being discussed.

But, most of us know what Skittles are. What if you landed on a site like this and had no idea what they do or who they are? B2B companies are in a much different boat than popular candy.

The Risks of Going All Social Media All the Time

Since my intro to this notion I’ve encountered several websites that are essentially big blogs or portals to social media sites and I experienced confusion. There was one person who was promoting himself as one thing and when I checked out his website I had no idea what he actually did. It was disorienting and I never actually found any ‘services’ or description of what he did. It was just reams of random information. I eventually clued in via his tagline what he did, sort of, which was different from what he promoted himself as. Other sites have had regular navigation, but the home page content was still very confusing because it was all blog posts. Another I looked at today was so blog-like in grass roots design that I thought it was broken and I was looking at the default site chart. It was his navigation. I also had to scroll past a lot of text to even find any sort of navigation.

Blogs and other social media vehicles are wonderfully valuable assets to a marketing toolkit. They are a great way to build content, community, Google ranking and demonstrate your genius by providing useful information. However, I don’t think the above is a good approach for two main reasons. One, I believe all companies still need basic traditional marketing tools like websites and business cards to look legitimate. Two, this approach defies all the basics of usability and conversion.

Looking Legit

I’ve had clients who, for many reasons, have asked ‘do I really need an address on my business card?’ I always encouraged them to include one because there’s something suspicious about companies that don’t have one. Without, it invokes the idea that you’re a fly-by-night or working out of your mom’s basement. Maybe you are, or close to it and are wonderfully successful. However, when wooing new clients, especially any larger than you, an address implies a sense of brick and mortar, of longevity, professionalism, dependability. I feel the same about websites. They need to include basic information about your company, along with your brilliant insights and generous information sharing.

Keep a Level of Professionalism

The blog look is also amateurish in presentation, as it should be – on the blog. Although content is king, websites still need to be ‘designed’ to look professional. It should be consistent with the rest of your branding. Additional benefits of professional design are if it’s easy/attractive to look at, engaging, if visitors identify with the images it makes, the user experience is much more pleasant and they’ll probably stay longer. A professional look with organized type, images and colour versus a wall of black text. Hmmm.

Some of the basics of usability are to make information really easy to find and fast to get to. People have no patience anymore. When they arrive at your website they need to see something engaging and a short blurb with the basics of what you do to let them know they are in the right place and entice them to keep clicking. Traffic analysis repeatedly shows that when visitors arrive at a site with a lot of text and too many navigation links to choose from they are overwhelmed and leave. This is how I feel when I arrive at the type of sites I mentioned above. Especially when it’s all blog entries – it’s like joining in a conversation halfway through and being totally confused when I just wanted to find basic information.

The basics rules still apply: 5–9 main navigation items with short, sweet and concise copy especially on the home page. People also like threes, so three special links directly to the top things visitors are likely to be looking for works very well. This may be a duplicate of a main navigation tab or a specific page they’ll also find in your sub-navigation, but it helps them get there fast and adds visual interest to the site. One of them can be your blog.

Think of your home page like a first date: don’t give too much information or ask for too much commitment up front. Let them get to know you a little first. But, do make it easy to get to that fabulous content.

Tags: all-inclu, All-inclusive Marketing, blogs, social media, Toronto, traditional marketing
Posted in Business Growth and Change | 10 Comments »

How is Social Media Effecting Brand Value?

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

A friend forwarded an article to me called the ‘The Trouble with Brands’ looking at why there’s a huge difference between the way consumers and financial markets valued brands. One of the reasons cited is that because of social media people are inundated with so many brands that the playing field is diluted and consumers are much harder to impress – it takes greater creativity. I can see that. It is a good article, though long, and I’m paraphrasing.

However, I think there’s more to the difference between consumer’s and financial markets’ valuing of brands due to the affects of social media.

How Has Social Media Affected Brand Value?

Social media has changed the landscape and therefore the rules of PR and Marketing so much that, as I’ve heard it phrased by folks like @mikaelsandblom and @thornley around my yacht club entering this new world “you no longer own your brand.”

I think this split in valuing is also occurring because so many people are participating in public dialogues about brands. Most of us use the internet to research before we buy and find thousands of real people’s opinions and feedback. We used to just buy into whatever we were told by advertisers. Now we have much more information available to develop our own opinions. Regarding the discrepancy – perhaps the people behind ‘financial market valuing’ aren’t paying enough attention to the public and or simply using out-moded metrics.

Use it to Your Advantage

So what can brands do to protect or heighten their value with the public? (This also applies to less widely known brands like those in the B2B market). Get out there, get to know what people are saying and what matters to them. There are many stories that show brands who are interacting with their public in an authentic way are more highly thought of and respected. As a start, this means monitoring the internet for any comments on the brand and reacting immediately, especially when there’s a problem – you are more likely to garner support by responding and being open about it. This may also mean inviting dialogue and feedback on your own website without editing out the negative ones (obscene yes, negative no). Address any negatives in the same medium.

The internet moves very fast and there are other stories about brands practically self-destructing by not responding to blog posts and tweets fast enough. Pay attention, get involved.

A lot of the large brands are right in there using Twitter, Facebook, etc to build communities. They cannot control what people say about them but they can certainly make a difference in it. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Develop a Strategy First

For those not up to their elbows yet, remember that all blog posts, tweets, Facebook discussions, etc. initiated by or participated in by anything with your company’s name attached is an extension of your brand just like your printed materials and websites. My advice is to clearly define your brand for all expressions, then develop a strategy specifically for how to approach social media. For example, it would be a really bad reflection on Rapport’s brand – where we’re all about relationship building – if I tweeted complaints about a client.

Tags: All-inclusive Marketing, brand value, Rapport, social media, the new marketing and PR, Toronto
Posted in Big World Marketing | 1 Comment »

How to start incorporating social media.

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

When preparing for our Social Media seminar with Scott Stratten March ’09 I had to come up with a way to connect the idea with what we do – traditional marketing and design. In the end the answer was easy – social media is another execution of your brand that needs the same consistency and consideration as anything else. I want to help my clients navigate this new tool and find small ways to begin incorporating the ideas into their marketing tools.

Use Social Media As Well, Not Instead

While some social media enthusiasts who are really keen on it suggest businesses don’t need traditional websites or other tools anymore, I totally disagree. I believe a business still needs to have “brick and mortar” so to speak, for credibility and a means to find information. You still meet people in person so need business cards, etc.

However, incorporating social media and/or the driver behind it into your websites and other marketing tools is a great idea! The core of social media is sharing information. Therefore, those who provide help are received better than those who simply promote themselves. Many clients automatically want to put on their websites how long they’ve been in business, why they are so great and list all the services they provide. We are working with Rapport clients to change that focus to what the client gets out of it. Not services from X business, but benefits to their clients. We’re also encouraging them to provide useful tips and information with no strings attached, that help to demonstrate they know what they are talking about.

How Can You Use Social Networking?

For example, recruiting firms used to focus on full-time permanent placement, but as a reflection of the economy, they are looking to promote their contract placement services. A lot of their existing clients don’t even know they do this. Instead of sending an email blast saying ‘Hey, did you know we did contract placement, buy from us’, they could send one along the lines of ‘How to reduce overhead by using contract staff instead of full-timers.’ It could be a short article explaining the benefits, what to look out for, etc. The call to action would be, ‘If you have any questions about using contract staff, please call XXX.’ See what I mean? To go a step further, if you also had this article as a blog post, you could invite people to comment on it, tell their stories of contract placement.

Tags: All-inclusive Marketing, integrating social media, Toronto, websites
Posted in Business Growth and Change | 5 Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘Toronto’