social marketing

> Trying to promote books on Facebook is as pointless as trying to buy
> groceries in a church. It’s just not there. Been there, done that. Don’t
> waste your time. You can’t put “likes” in the bank.

OMG, failure certainly speaks louder than success.

Promoting as in marketing books with the immediate goal of selling books on Facebook is not how it works. This is not a direct marketing method of communication.

That’s simply not the right way to approach the use of these instant publishing technologies.

Think about what results in people taking action and sharing on Facebook.

They read and/or see something short, sweet, and incredibly thought provoking. They may comment on it if it’s worthy of comment. And they may share it if it’s value packed and worthy of sharing with others.

It’s a filtration process. The cream rises to the top.

Notice that only the really good noteworthy and excellent ideas and knowledge are passed on from person to person.

If you are going to intentionally and strategically use these technologies, you simply have to focus on creating messages that are worth sharing.

The Bottom Line: Quality and excellence is what triggers action.

I harp on this all the time. If you learn how to turn people on first, THEN you get to leverage the technologies to repeat the message and trigger the actions you want to happen.

Leave a trail of tasty intellectual candy and people will keep on taking bites and eventually want to buy the whole bag.

You can leverage, maximize and benefit from posting good, positive, enthusiastic, entertaining, and educational information.

You can see your ideas shared if what you post is truly noteworthy ideas, writing, photos, and helpful support every chance you get with every post you make.

You cannot just believe you are good. You must BE REALLY GOOD. In fact, other people must find what you shared to be so good, they are driven to share that incredible goodness with others.

This is real time public relations. You want to learn how to do this with Facebook, and every other media (= prime media, Internet media and yes, now even social media) you try to get published in.

If you write something that is really, really good, people will share it. But you have to learn how to create and make use of micro marcom.

I’ve been studying and developing successful strategies that people utilize for micro-marcom (micro marketing communications) for a while now. The media are masters at this.

The best way to use FB and other technologies is to make use of little tiny galvanizing nuggets of clarity.

You see the tweets in their headlines on Google News, in newspaper headlines, and in chyrons on TV. They hint of stories that will be dramatic, personal, achievement in the face of adversity plus humor. You can see these headlines are designed to be Attention Grabbing Short Phrases, with a link to get you to sit through “the rest of the story”. Study these tweets and you’ll see they basically fall into one of the following seven categories:

Problem Identified
Problem Warning
Problem Solved
Someone in Trouble
Someone Saved or Rescued
Something Bad Happened
Something Good Happened

If you are going to use Facebook and all these media to promote, you will be most successful if you stay as personal as you are talking to your best friends and giving them your very, very best.

And you have to be quick about it. You can provide a link so they can get more goodness, and by golly it had better be as good as you said it is!

This way the image and impression you create is always helpful, educational, fun, entertaining, and worthwhile.

You can choose to create a personal brand that people always want to enjoy, and that results in people sharing what you offer, because it is simply so good.

When they like what you do, they will act to get more of you.

Malcolm Gladwell triggered an avalanche of protests and howls from social media lovers for his analysis and commentary of social media in his article in the New Yorker magazine.

Here the links to the original October 4, 2010 article in The New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1

This one goes to Mike Isaac’s tech column in Forbes

http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/10/20/malcolm-gladwells-response-to-critics-of-his-social-media-piece/?boxes=techchannelblogs

Here is Twitter founder Biz Stone’s response in The Atlantic magazine.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/10/exclusive-biz-stone-on-twitter-and-activism/64772

And for my own history of rants and raves on the subject of social media and the difficulties of communicating meaningfully with people:

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-media

Hey, if it works for you, do it. If it doesn’t, do something else, and figure out what works.

Fascinating article in the January 2010 issue of The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel by lawyers Gonzalo E. Mon and Christopher M. Loeffler, of the DC law firm Kelley Drye & Warren. The article describes and interprets the detailed promotion guidelines issued by Facebook in November 2009.

Facebook Issues New Guidelines For Running Promotions On Its Platform

http://www.metrocorpcounsel.com/current.php?artType=view&artMonth=January&artYear=2010&EntryNo=10520

If you conduct promotions on Facebook, then you should really read this article and make sure you also take a look at the Facebook guidelines themselves to make sure you don’t go astray of laws and regulations as well as Facebook policies.

On November 19th, 2009 I had a wonderful time being interviewed for Authors Access with Victor R. Volkman and Irene Watson about whether Press Releases are still revelant to marketing and promoting books.

We covered a wide-range of talking points, including:

* So What Exactly Is A News Release?

* Why Is This So Hard To Do? What Makes This So Special?

* So What Exactly Do Media People Look For When They Receive A News Release?

* So What Do You Need To Do To Write A News Release That Really Works & Truly Gets Media Attention?

* How do you know when you’re ready?

* What Specifically Should Authors Do To Create This Galvanizing Candy ­This Magic Script.

* What is the Magic Formula (DPAA+H)? (“Dramatic Personal Achievement in the face of Adversity, plus a little Humor”)

* Which Are Better For Authors To Aim At – Book Reviews Or Feature Stories & Why?

* How do you know when you achieve success with a news release?

* So once you have a trash proof news release, what do you do with it

Download the free Authors Access podcast interview free at:

http://authorsaccess.com/archives/164
A pdf file that summarizes all the talking points is also available here:

Are News Releases Effective for Marketing Your Book? http://www.directcontactpr.com/files/files/arepressreleasesaneffectiveway.pdf

The Trash Proof News Releases is available as a free ebook at Smashwords:

Trash Proof News Releases

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/5921

If you write what you think is a trash proof news release, send it to me and I’ll send you my extra two bits!

Paul@DirectContactPR.com

One person on the publishing and promoting list at Yahoo posted the following message:

> “For any of those that are still questioning the importance and/or value of Social Media, check out the stats in this video…”

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Another person responded:

> “Those who pooh-pooh it are going to be the ones running to catch up.”

———

Social media rah rah sis boom bah.

Yes you may think it’s cool you can text with your iPod and splatter words all across other people’s machines everywhere.

But if you are in business, social media is more than just tweeting and facebooking. Social media Is not a quick fix for sales or marketing success. It’s not something that you can start tomorrow and go to the bank with a smile on your face in two weeks.

Social media is a specialized set of communications technologies and tools and tactics that can be used to improve how you communicate with people who use these technologies.

They can only help you generate profits if you use them to communicate meaningfully with your particular pool of interested clients, prospects and customers if this is how they communicate and make decisions.

Even getting followers is no guarantee that you will be able to turn them into raving fans and paying customers. You need to learn what to say and how to say it to get people interested and then you need to keep them interested.

The numbers of people using these technologies follows the adoption curves of all sorts of technologies that have spread into use before. This should not be a surprise at all. The past 50 years have seen all sorts of devices come and go. Phones, TV’s, faxes, computers, email, PDA’s, now iPods.

Now the online technologies have diversified. First there was the Internet, then there were news search engines, mailing lists, discussion groups, forums, blogs, audio, then satellite radio, video, and now social media technologies.

The ways to communicate with people continues to evolve and get smaller, faster, and easier to use.

But each technology has special communications requirements. Each requires training, practice and skill if you are going to use the technologies to persuade people to take action.

So the real question is can you use these technologies and use them well?

Regardless of the technology you use, you need to focus on your message. This is because your message is how you connect with the mind of the person who receives the message.

So what are you saying?

Do you have a purpose and a goal of triggering action?

Does your message trigger interest?

Are you giving value? Are you truly making a favorable impression? Are you making people laugh, cry, jump for joy or cringe? Do you achieve emotional and intellectual engagement?

Do your individual messages or even the suite of message you send over time result trigger people to action? Do you see sufficient numbers of people investigate you, your products and services? Do enough people make a decision to buy what you sell so that you can operate your company?

Where do people go after you persuade them to take a step your direction? Do your landing pages result in favorable response? Do you see sufficient conversion to sales?

Then when you finally get a customer, do you really deliver something of value? Is your product and service and performance of sufficient quality to achieve sales and positive reviews? Will the personal satisfaction people experience result in them spreading the word for you?

You have to have something worthwhile to offer in the first place.

Social media is a suite of tools that you can use *if* you take the time and put in the energy to develop the relationships with the people on the other end of the messages. You need to think out how all the tools you use interact to develop interest, satisfy needs, build credibility and trust.

And sell product.

Would you believe, that to date, the statistics and studies continue to show that base level income and profits in most companies continues to be derived from the old fashioned conventional methods of communicating and marketing?

The social media is an expense that comes as an addition to all the alternative technologies that are available for people to use. It takes money, time, skill, and expertise to operate these like any other of the technologies businesses use. Which technologies and which communications tactics and systems produce the income and profits that allow a company to survive and thrive have to be developed, determined and managed.

But no matter what technologies you use to communicate with your target audience, the message is perhaps the most crucial decision you can make.

The good old person to person “How can I help you?” is about the best place to start.

I wrote a few more posts about the ROI of Twitter a few months ago. If you’re interested, you can find them at my blog – here’s the link on the tag social marketing:

http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-marketing

Why does social media marketing suck and what can you do about it?

Interesting Article at the Kansas City Examiner titled Social Media Marketing Sucks… If You Do It Wrong by Dustin Riedisel

My comments:

Social media are a special type of communication technology and they too, like all other communication technologies (email fax, street mail and even Tweets), have special requirements.

The goal is to have a meaningful communication with a real person on the receiving end. The message is what matters. The real value to the recipient is what matters. You can’t use any communication technology to trigger or motivate action without figuring out the magic words first.

This in fact, is what I call, the miracle of the microcosm, since in this nation of 300 million technology and media indoctrinated people, you can learn what it takes to turn people on anywhere. This is what expert PR and marketing copywriters are really for.

And once you do figure out what you can say that turns people on (no matter where you are) then and only then can you use technology as a force multiplier, to generate the actions you want people to take, wherever they are.

Read more on social media marketing ROI here http://blog.directcontactpr.com/public/category/social-marketing/

Interesting post over at PR Squared titled The Dual Future of the News Release

I don’t believe that social media news releases are all that earthshaking or special or that it will replace every other MarCom method out there. I view SM news releases as another tool in the arsenal that represents yet another choice in how we reach out and communicate with people.

I still see that prime media matters a lot to clients. They want results and if SM can help produce results that’s fine. It’s the results that matter to clients. How you get them and the ROI you produce is what matters to clients.

To me, the SM news release is just the newest technology with specialized format requirements to come along. The technology you use is a factor because it influences the format of your message.

But it’s secondary to learning and proving that the words you place in that MarCom format are indeed words that will produce the action you want whether it be sales, attendance at an event, donations, name recognition, or political action.

Just because you use SM as a way to transmit the message won’t help you if what you place in the SM news release is boring, text heavy, laden with hype or simply is commercial advertising.

The biggest challenge is to figure out what you can say and do to really turn people on in the first place.

That’s what I focus on when i work with clients. That’s because unless you say something or write something that will turn people on, nothing you do with your message will matter.

My belief is that the technology doesn’t matter at all until you learn how to talk so people will listen and act. That’s true even no matter what people read, watch or listen to.

We live in a world where most people have serious attention deficit disorders most of the time. They are under so much stress it takes extraordinary communications skill to communicate meaningfully.

It even more critical when people base their decisions on snippets, slices, blinks and tweets.

Of course, once you do create galvanizing messages, then you can use all the conventional news release, online Internet and SM technologies as a force multiplier to spread the message and duplicate the action you get.

My post yesterday triggered a lot of discussion including worried cries from lots of Twitter afficianodos. Sorry, I didn’t want to dampen your enthusiasm or blind devotion.

It’s that pesky ROI question that I’m wanting to focus on specifically and strategically.

If you are getting ROI and it’s worth your while, then keep doing it. I want to see facts and data and learn how people do it profitably.

I would like to see what you say, understand who you say it to, and what happens specifically and over what period of time. I’d like to learn the connections to your landing pages and your fees to see how the ROI is generated.

My experience and that of many many many repeat many many many of my clients, invest time and energy and even create huge numbers of followers and even they see very little for it in terms of real ROI. Oh a few do, but very few indeed.

I think there are many reasons for this.

First is that the ability to communicate meaningfully so that you persuade and achieve action is very limited by Twitters brevity and that no matter what you give, getting through to people so that you achieve action is really hard.

Second, I think that at least in lots of businesses, successful people do not make decisions that entail or rely on or are even remotely influenced by what they can learn from Twitter conversations.

Sure, there are success stories and they are galvanizing. But they are actually rare. The data on ROI for bread and butter people and businesses is lacking.

Personally, I don’t mind Twitter at all. To me it is another tool in the arsenal. Like all the others, the technology has special communications requirements.

Some people don’t want to look at it as a marketing tool. They say to me “I don’t get it”. It’s just for communicating with people.

I think they are missing my point. Clients want to use it as a marketing tool. It’s a given fact. So it is the use of the tool for marketing that I want to focus on.

There are many people who think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. Obviously, there are people who are growing up using these technologies, and even building their lifestyles, and their livelihoods and incomes and the way they communicate with their clients around the technologies they use. To them, Twitter is just a wonderful extension of what they do and feel.

Like it or not, there are plenty of people who do use it and with text messaging and the ease of use on cell phones and blackberries, it is important to keep your options open. My kids use it. My doctor doesn’t. I do sometimes. Some people live and breathe on their iPods. They may have nothing better to do with their time.

I like being able to search and ascertain who’s talking about what. Although it has limits and doesn’t compare to the Internet for quality content and reliable detailed information searches for real problem solving data or information.

It’s a great tool for finding out “what’s happening” and searching for news and following real time events. Put in the word ‘tornado’ and you’ll find out exactly what’s touching down where and within seconds of it happening.

It has a valuable function for businesses who monitor what people say or who need to respond to a crisis.

All these things are true and all it takes is money and take time and effort and skill.

So I’m not giving up on it at all. I’m not averse to using it.

My questions are how much money, how much time, and what skills?

I am a scientist and a former attorney and a consultant who seeks to provide service and value. I think in terms of systematic processes to achieve success. The processes have to be capable of being reproduced for me to recommend them to clients and to teach with them.

So my search is for valid guidelines and tactics. Hence, what I hope for is not hope and hype, but statistically proven tactics with some documentation of the ROI.

I’m looking for guidelines in how to use it wisely and what messages work best for what purposes.

That’s my point. To measure the ROI with Twitter is very difficult. It varies phenomenally.

The number of followers to me is a dubious metric. You can develop a following and be in communications with thousands of people. You can tweet to them three times a day or three times a week.

But does it produce sales? Does the time and effort and money you invest yield a net income and is it worthwhile?

That is the question I want to focus on.

The time it takes to do this well competes with other income producing activities you can be doing. How you spend your time is a choice you make.

I am very cognizant of the power of targeted communications. The right message in front of the right people can be truly amazing. I do this with media day in day out.

But what if the people you reach using Twitter don’t react in a way that lets you profit from the time effort you invest in it.

You have to determine that yourself.

I want people to succeed when they use Twitter or any other medium of communication.

I see that people have to be careful though that they don’t replace productive income producing activities, with less income producing activities. That’s one of the risks here.

My recommendation is to track exactly what you do and make an objective determination and compare it to other dedicated marketing activities that produce sales.

Decide based on the income data.

If it works do more of it. That’s common sense.

But if you find it’s eating up your time and the hits don’t ripen into sales and ROI, then perhaps you should do something else.

If you spend just half an hour a day on Twitter, you’ve made a decision that results in you giving 15 hours a month to it. Are you making ten dollars an hour for your time? Did you by any chance just lose 15 hours at $100 an hour doing that?

That’s the type of choice I face.

Like it or not, much to the dismay of those who have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, lots of people are finding out that Twitter can be a demanding time eater, and it may produce very little in the way of tangible and reliable income.

In fact, it can take them away from other proven activities that are needed to produce income that they rely on.

Everyone has to make the choice for themselves and decide how to spend time that produces income.

I think that given how difficult it is to survive and make an income these days, it is really important for people to document what they really experience carefully, so that they can make good sound decisions.

That’s what I’m really interested in. Hard data. Not theory. Fact.

How much time do you need to invest to develop a following?

How do you really reach the people who really matter to your business?

How do you communicate with them?

These are simple but important questions.

The number of dollars per unit time expended is something more interesting to me since I can compare it directly to how I spend time and the income I presently receive.

The way I spend that time is very important since I can compare it to how I know I spend my time now and the income I presently receive for that conduct.

What messages are best for what purpose is also a subject I’m very interested in because I can compare it to how I communicate now and what income those communications produce for me.

That’s what I’m after.

I think it would help others to find out these things as well.

People are asking lots of questions about using Twitter, particularly as a marketing tool and as a tool for PR.

The biggest challenge I see about using Twitter as a marketing tool is trying to get an answer to the following question:

What ROI am I going to get out using Twitter and why?

The ROI people receive from participating in Twitter is an open question. Some people get lots of tangible ROI and many don’t.

If you are an Oprah or an Ashton Kutcher, you may have a million followers. You can cultivate and perpetuate brand image by being a fun enjoyable person with your tweets.

Each one only follows a handful of people. That’s not conversation, it’s performing.

How much time do you think they really spend Tweeting and looking at other people’s Tweets?

Twitter is seen as a conversational medium and it takes time, effort and care to develop and cultivate relationships.

If the celebrities are using Twitter, is it because it will have a positive effect on their ROI? Look at how that happens.

Can you develop meaningful relationships with people on Twitter? Apparently so. Some people do anyway.

Can these relationships produce ROI?

Maybe. Some people may be able to mine the relationships and produce ROI but for most people that I know, this is not the case.

Is it because no one is really listening? Text message communications not all that easy to make motivational or galvanizing. Headlines in articles, news releases and the subject lines of email messages present many of the same daunting challenges. Look at the latest string of Tweets from anyone and see if what they say impresses you enough to spend lots of time each day keeping up with what they are saying.

120 to 140 characters with a snip link and say something of helpful, funny or useful with real value you may get someone to click on the link.

The same one liner may be forwarded.

You won’t sell product or services simply by tweeting three times a day if what you tweet is sales talk and links to your web site.

You may get friends and get followers if you post helpful or valuable information.

Tracking sales from individual tweets is going to be pretty difficult. Tracking traffic from Tweets may be easier.

Will it be worth the time and effort compared to other things that you can do with your time, energy, and money available for marketing?

Maybe. Maybe not. It depends what you do and what you receive from your Twitter efforts as compared to other things you are doing.

You can target using Twitter search and find people who have mentioned a keyword in their Tweets. Is this really a great targeting tool? Are you reaching people who are truly receptive to a direct message from you.

If what you posted had real value and if it helps people, then they may be grateful. They may spread the word to other. They may help you build a reputation for that value. Yes, it may bring new people to your site and you’ll get some ROI.

But is ROI you receive from this attenuated pathway really based on your Twitter post? Or is it because of the value in what you’ve created independent of your Twitter post.

Did you need Twitter to connect with someone to help them? Can you use all sorts of other methods of communication to meaningfully connect with people?

Is Twitter as valuable say as a regular phone call? A web seminar? A detailed post to a forum? An article in a trade publication? An interview on radio or TV? A podcast interview or an interview on Sirius satellite radio?

The answers may depend on who you are, what you do, and what you can give to others, and then of course, in what you have that brings you income that Twitter people will buy.

I believe that if you focus on the creation of real value then you won’t necessarily need to use Twitter at all.

In fact, unless you create something of real value in the first place, it won’t matter no matter what technology you use to communicate with people.

The quality product or service is the most important thing you need to focus on first and foremost.

Of course, if you do create something truly re-markable, other people will do all the talking for you anyway.

There are good reasons why companies need to be on Twitter and follow what people are saying, and even converse once an issue or even a crisis erupts.

But is it worth the time, effort and money it takes to be on Twitter for small businesses?

Maybe. It depends on you, your product, your services, and on the value of the relationships and the quality of the communications you have with the people you need to produce your income.

If you can have meaningful little tiny snippet text communications that relate directly to the mental factors that determine or influence sales decisions in your target audience then maybe Twitter is for you.

If on the other hand little tiny snippet text message communications don’t cut it, then maybe you don’t need to be using Twitter at all.

Connecting in a caring way.

You can write an email. You can write an article. You can write a news release. You can create a script for an interview.

You can now send it out and try to get people to pay attention to you.

You can post it on web sites and make it available to millions of people who are searching using key words. That’s the idea. They search and they find you.

Will anyone pay any attention to you?

Not unless you care and they realize it.

There 20,000 people posting on blogs every hour. There are millions of people and businesses updating their web sites every day.

There are millions of people twittering away merrily with their little snippets of ‘wassup’ messages.

Are they connecting with you in a caring way?

Which ones actually get through to you? Which ones do you pay attention to?

Our newly elected President Barrack Obama knows how to connect.

I just signed up to be a follower on his Twitter account.

Within minutes I received the following email message:

“Hi, pjkrupin (pjkrupin).

Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Barack Obama’s profile here:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama

Best,

Twitter

Can you believe it? The President of the United States is following my updates on Twitter.

In fact as of today, he’s following more people than are following him.

He’s following 166,088 people, and he has 144,000 followers.

He (or someone on his staff) is listening to more people than there are people listening to him, at least on Twitter.

This is amazing to me. This gives me a unique online experience.

He’s connected with me and he says he cares.

Try it yourself. Sing up at http://twitter.com/BarackObama

See how you feel when you get that message that says, “Barack Obama (BarackObama) is now following your updates on Twitter.”

What an example to emulate.