I did a search for Don Cornelius, creator of Soul Train, on Google. At the top of the search results, there’s a note that tells me here are 20 personal results, or 20 links or posts that mention Don Cornelius by people in my Google+ circles.

If I click on personal results, I see the full search results list, but with the personal links at the top of the list. Holy smokes! That means that the Washington Post article on Don Cornelius, which was previously at the top of the page, just got overtaken by a link on nerdist.com because someone I follow and interact with a lot posted that link on his Google+ page!

This is just another example of how Google is heavily favoring its Google+ social network and another giant reason to:

• Create a Google+ page
• Encourage social sharing of your content across all social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google+), but especially Google+

A study by Nielsen back in 2009 found that 90% of people 25,000 people surveyed “trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.” This makes intuitive sense. Think of all the people in your Facebook network who ask for recommendations for a contractor, camera or pediatrician. And consider the crazy, huge influence of mommy and wedding bloggers.

So, what’s your social sharing strategy? It could be as simple as making sure there is a Share This link on all of your articles, meetings and products. Or you could actively ask your customers and members to recommend your products and service to their networks in your e-mails, tweets, and e-newsletters.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve no doubt read about, heard about and discussed the SOPA blackout that’s happening all over the Web. Web giant Wikipedia has gone dark to protest SOPA and PIPA, while others like Craigslist, Google, Wired, WordPress and dozens of other sites have put prominent messaging and graphics that clearly show opposition to the proposed legislation. Wired and WordPress show large portions of their home pages blacked out as if they have been censored.

Wow. Let’s just stop and consider the reach of these Web site giants.

Google is ranked by Alexa as the number 1 site in the US and is visited by half of ALL global Internet users daily. So at least half of us today got messaging from Google about SOPA and PIPA. If you use the search tool embedded in your browser, you missed the black censor bar over the Google logo and the simple plea to: Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!, but the Google logo is still blacked out in the top left corner of all pages.

If you ignored Google’s censor logo and call to action, you probably did a search on Google and found a link to Wikipedia, which was blacked out for the day (just the English version). Alexa says Wikipedia is the 6th most popular site on the Web, so millions of us didn’t get to use Wikipedia to look up names, places and things.

If you were looking for a job, car or apartment today, you probably went to Craigslist, the 9th most popular site in the US. Although Craigslist did not go completely dark, an intro page urges everyone to oppose SOPA and PIPA.

And oh yeah, even though Facebook and Twitter didn’t join the dozens of sites that participated in the SOPA blackout, the conversations on these sites were dominated by SOPA and PIPA.

And then of course, there was the overwhelming coverage about the SOPA blackout by mainstream press, alternative press and bloggers.

All of this means that today, January 18, I would bet that the vast majority of American got some kind of exposure to SOPA and PIPA, most of it negative. And if just a fraction of the millions of Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit, Wired, WordPress (and on and on) users took action and contacted their representatives and Senators, today was a very busy day on Capitol Hill.

That’s one heck of a grassroots movement. How about you? How many sites did you visit that had some mention or call to action re: SOPA and PIPA? Did you contact your representative in Congress?

This totally makes sense to me. When I find something new, cool, interesting, amazing or whatever, I immediately post it to Facebook and Twitter (increasingly, Google + as well, but more on that in a future blog post).  And I rely on my network of friends, co-workers, clients and business colleagues to find out about other new, cool, interesting and amazing things.

So I got to thinking. If social sharing is an important means by which we (again, the collective “we”) learn about new sites, we can’t and shouldn’t leave this sharing to chance. Sure, most websites now have a ShareThis widget, but is this enough? I say no. I think every organization needs a social sharing strategy that includes the following:

• What you want people to share. Do you want visitors to share your home page? Individual articles? Donation pages?
• How you want people to share. Do you want visitors to send an e-mail, post to their social networks, save to their social bookmarking pages, all of the above?
• Regular review of analytics to find out what and how people are sharing links on your site. Be sure to review your usage reports, ShareThis account and other reports to find out what’s popular, how people are sharing, and learn why certaini articles or posts generate activity.
• Design and CSS guidelines that make your site shareable. For example, if you share a link on Facebook, Facebook automatically indexes the images and allows you to cycle through the images and select one to include with the link. If your organization logo is set up as a background image in your CSS or the logo is not whole, your logo can’t be included in the link.
• Calls to action to encourage sharing. While many of us will share our favorite links on our own, other won’t unless prompted, so I think it’s important to have calls to action to encourage sharing. It’s also a good idea to test calls to action on a regular basis to find out which calls to action work best.

The design and front-end team at Matrix Group has developed a set of guidelines for setting up web pages so that titles are complete and the proper images are included in links. Be sure to test the shareability of your site on a regular basis and address issues with your web design or maintenance team.

How about you?  What’s your platform of choice for sharing links?

My answer is this: post about that one topic but change the perspective, voice and interactions depending on the platform.

Say your organization is pushing for a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill. You could issue a policy statement and repeat that statement across all platforms. A more effective strategy would be to:

• Post the policy statement on the website. This policy statement will likely have a formal tone and reflect the position of the entire organization.
• Write a press release on the policy statement and send it to your media list. This, too, will have a more formal tone.
• Post links to the policy statement on Twitter, but with differing headlines, highlighting different aspects of your policy. You could also post third party stories, facts and figures that support your position; in this instance, you would be curating relevant content to bolster your position.
• Feature interviews with members and customers talking about why they support (or oppose) the proposed legislation on YouTube and your blog. These interviews will feature member perspective in their own voices.
• Have the CEO write a blog post about why the issue is important to the industry and members. The tone of the blog post should be conversational and personal.

If you are promoting a new publication or report, you could:

• Feature the publication in your online store and what’s new section of your website. These descriptions should be compelling but more formal.
• Post an audio excerpt on your YouTube channel and iTunes. The excerpt could be done by the author.
• Post key findings and highlights to Twitter. The most effective tweets are thought-provoking and compelling.
• Feature the publication on Facebook and sponsor a discussion with the author for a 7-day period. A discussion will allow a dialogue about the issue and foster a different kind of member interaction.

Finally, if you are marketing a convention or event, you could:

• Mail a 4-color brochure with full meeting information.
• Mail and e-mail postcards (e-cards) that showcase the different benefits of attending the event. The tone of these pieces should be urgent and compelling.
• Tweet conference news (number of exhibitors, confirmation of keynote speakers, etc.) and third party news that highlight the importance of the issues to be covered at the event
• You could test different calls to action in e-mails and posts. Some calls to action could focus on benefits, some could inspire fear, while others could discuss opportunities.
• Feature YouTube interviews or presentation highlights from the featured speakers.
• Offer a hosted discussion with the speakers for a 7-day period on Facebook.

Our jobs as marketers are so much harder because we are marketing to multiple generations, there is no one platform that allows us to reach all audiences, and people are motivated by different things. Having a layered messaging strategy that utilizes the capabilities of each platform and features different perspectives and voices will help you reach and connect with your audiences better.

How about you? How are you marketing your products and services? And how does your message or approach change with each platform? What’s working?

Why so late to the YouTube game? As I’ve explained before in previous blog posts and webinars, I believe that it’s important to create a layered experience across different media. In other words, don’t just post the same stuff to Facebook, Twitter, your website, YouTube, your blog, etc. Have an overall strategy, but take advantage of each site’s capabilities and culture to maximize followers across all platforms.

Until recently, we didn’t have a clear idea of how we wanted to incorporate YouTube into our marketing, sales and client engagement strategy. We had videos from Matrix Group staff events, but we had reserved our Facebook page for information and posts about the project we’re working on and corporate culture. I didn’t want to use YouTube as another place to promote corporate culture. And until we hired a new Marketing Coordinator, we didn’t have the bandwidth to staff an active YouTube channel properly.

But this past week, we launched The Matrix Minute, which is a series of interviews with in-house and outside experts who discuss web technologies, mobile technologies, social media, design and web development. Occasionally, we’ll feature local CEOs who will talk about leadership and what their organizations are doing to stay relevant and vibrant.

Here’s how the Matrix Minute fits into our overall sales and marketing strategy:

• As a company, we’re extremely committed to ongoing education for staff and clients so content-rich interviews make sense for us.
• It’s a way to showcase the expertise we have within the staff.
• It’s a way to leverage the expertise of our clients and partners.
• It’s a way to continue demonstrating thought leadership.
• We get to show off our video production capabilities.
• YouTube is owned by Google and Google favors keyword-rich videos and descriptions so the channel is good for search engine optimization (SEO).
• It’s a way to layer YouTube into our strategy in a way that’s new and different from what we’re doing on our website and social media.

The Matrix Minute has also been a lot of fun.  So far, I’ve been doing all of the interviews and I’m learning a ton. Ray Stankiewicz, New Biz Manager at Matrix Group, is the producer and Melissa Bader, Designer at Matrix Group, does the video editing.

We’ve got a half dozen interviews already online. For example, Jill Foster of Live Your Talk talks about videoblogging. Jennell Evans of Strategic Interactions shares her tips for managing remote teams. And Sherrie Bakshi of Matrix Group talks about why 2011 is the year to start a corporate blog.

BTW, we call it The Matrix Minute, but the interviews are usually 2-3 minutes long. 1 minute just didn’t provide enough time for a meaningful interview and Matrix Minutes sounded goofy.

I hope you’ll check us out on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/MatrixGroup) and you’ll rate, comment and subscribe. Tell us what you think of our latest initiative!

For every 100 youth who join scouting

• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save a life
• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save his own life
• 18 will develop hobbies that will last throughout their adult life
• and on and on

Who are Boy Scouts?

• 72% of Rhodes Scholars
• 65% of the US Congress
• 65% of male college graduates
• 26 of the first 29 astronauts were Boy Scouts
• and on and on

Wow. With statistics like that, I’m keeping my son in Boy Scouts forever and I’m giving them money every year!

Here’s another compelling statistic I heard recently. I’m a member of Vistage, which is a membership organization for CEOs. Vistage says that their member companies consistently outperform non-member companies. Based on the coaching and resources I get from Vistage, I believe it. Vistage is a big commitment of time and money, but totally worth it.

How about you? What compelling statistics or facts can you share with your prospects to make them join your organization, become a customer or donate money?

• If you’re an accrediting body, can you point to the top organizations that are accredited and how accredited companies have better safety/graduation/success rates?
• If you’re a trade association, can you point to the top companies in the field that are members, your legislative record, and the success rate of your companies?
• If you’re a professional society, can you point to the job rate and salary levels of your members, your contributions to the profession, and your profession’s rank as a top career?
• If you’re a charity, can you point to your success in changing systemic problems?

In thinking again about the Boy Scouts, what was effective about the pitch was this: I wasn’t being sold on the activities of the Boy Scouts, I was being sold on the outcome. The message was clear: Enroll your son in Boy Scouts and this is what he can become. I’m sold.

It seems everyone is hawking a good deal lately.

A recent article in the Vancouver Sun reports that “frugality (is) the top consumer trend in 2011.” After this long recession and with many people still feeling uncertain about the economy, it only makes sense that we’re all trying to make our dollar go further by looking out for sales and coupons.

I think that most people are looking for savings and value everywhere: when they’re shopping for clothes, booking travel, buying software, or registering for meetings. How does frugality affect your organization and what are you going to do about it? Here are some ideas:

• Offer more for the same price. If you’re loathe to discount, I don’t blame you. But since most people are looking for a deal or extra value, what extra thing can you offer? Last year, when we announced the Matrix Group webinar series, we offered four webinars for the price of three to people who registered for the entire series. It worked really well for us because we got a lot of registrations to all four events and clients got a deal.
• Create lightning deals. Most organizations offer an early bird registration fee. But what if you offered a steeper discount during just one day? Market the heck out of the deal, create some buzz and capture registrations early in the game. I call this the groupon strategy (I’m going to get sued for saying this, hope not).
• Offer discounts for PR. When I got my haircut at Salon DeZen the other day, the stylist offered me 10% off my bill if I checked into Yelp. Owner Maria Burns knows that a check-in or a great review are worth way more than the few dollars off she’s giving away.
• Create social deals. This idea isn’t new. In fact, it’s a classic campaign: refer a new member, registrant or purchaser and get a discount off your next bill. Encourage your clients and members to register for a meeting as a group and give them a break.

I have a feeling that frugality is going to get even more chic and popular. How will YOUR organization take advantage of this trend? What’s your discount/value strategy? What’s worked for you?

I did it! I finally became a Mayor on Foursquare!

Foursquare crowns you Mayor of a location when you’ve checked in from that location more than anyone else. So I decided to make it a personal quest to become Mayor of Rustico, a restaurant in Alexandria that I enjoy and visit fairly regularly. So for the past couple of months, I scheduled all of my lunch meetings at Rustico, and even took my family there a couple of times. About ten days ago, I finally unseated the current Mayor to become Mayor. Woo hoo!

But here’s the rub: aside from getting a congratulations message from Foursquare and a crown in my profile, being Mayor gave me nothing. I told my waitress when I became Mayor and she looked at me like I was nuts. Ditto the manager. Where other venues offer Mayors something special, I didn’t even get a thank you for promoting the resturant to my Foursquare and Twitter followers for the past few months.  Many establishments, especially restaurants now offer “specials” to Mayors and people who check in xx number of times; it’s a great way to encourage people to come, to foster loyalty and spread the word about your company. When a friend called to invite my family to dinner at Rustico, he asked if being Mayor made it easier to get a reservation and I just snorted. Ha! I wish! Not even a free soda!

So I began to wonder if the folks at Rustico are even aware of Foursquare, Foursquare specials, and Mayors! I visited the Rustico website; no familiar links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. I did manage to find Rustico on Twitter, but the page is not customized, there’s not even a description! Their Facebook page has 3 fans and no status updates. Okay, so it’s looking like Rustico hasn’t yet developed a solid social networking plan.

I don’t believe every business should be on the Web and every social networking platform; it’s just not realistic, practical or even necessary. What I do believe, however, is that every business should have a listening strategy so that they can know if and when their business is being mentioned or discussed in a significant way on specific platforms. Does Rustico even know that hundreds of people are “checking in” to Rustico on Foursquare and Facebook places each week? Gosh, it takes just minutes to set up Google Alerts and Twitter searches.

Imagine this: you set-up a Google alert so you’re notified when your business is mentioned on the Web. You notice lots of mentions on a specific social network. You check it out, learn more, maybe invest in ads or specials. Foursquare, for example, has a primer for businesses on how to use Foursquare to encourage more business.

As for me, I recently lost the title of Mayor of Rustico but I’m not upset. I’m gunning for Mayor of another restaurant that I KNOW offers specials to its Mayors.

How about you? Are you on Foursquare? Have you managed to become Mayor? Did you get anything special for it?

Getting lots of fans and interactions is the holy grail of Facebook marketing. The more people “like” your page, “like” your posts, click through to your offers, comment and otherwise interact with your page, the more likely they are to become loyal fans and customers.

So how do you increase likes and interactions on your Facebook page? Here are my top tips, based on the experiences of the Matrix Group marketing team.

• Give your Facebook updates an authentic voice. What most people love about Facebook is the fact that they’re reading their friends’ thoughts and comments in near real-time.  And these comments are not written in corporate-speak; they read and sound the way people talk, like they’re having a conversation with you.  Your company’s Facebook posts should probably not be too casual, but they should sound less like a press release, and more like a comment from a friend or colleague.
• Don’t just RSS your news items or blog posts. I’ve said this before but if all you’re doing is republishing headlines from your website or blog, you’re not giving people an incentive to follow you on on Facebook because the information is the same.
• Don’t automatically post your Twitter updates to your Facebook page. Why?  Because you’re probably chattier on Twitter than you are on Facebook and chatty people and companies dominate Facebook streams, so fans are more likely to right-click and press Hide.  Besides, on Twitter, all you get is 140 characters; you get more words on Facebook, why not use them?
• Make your posts stand out by adding photos and videos. You know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  It’s definitely true on Facebook and it’ s not surprising.  Most people scan their Facebook streams and a photo or video will catch people’s attention much more than a plain text status update.
• Ask for feedback. I’m always amazed that the simple act of soliciting feedback often results in feedback.  Funny how that works.  Heck you don’t even need to ask for serious feedback.  Ask your fans what color to paint your office walls; or ask them to comment on your holiday menu.
• Spark a debate. If you’re comfortable doing so, posting about topics that generate a little heat are great for interactions.  But always keep the language appropriate.
• Use Facebook apps to add interactive features to your Facebook page. For example, you could create a custom tab, sponsor a contest, or host a game.
• Offer exclusive benefits to your followers. Last holiday season, Snapfish offered a daily discount on its Facebook page that generated lots of interest, clicks and comments. I know because I could see the activity and I certainly checked the Snapfish Facebook page regularly for deals!
• Test, test, test. My marketing team is always playing around on our Facebook page to see what time of day is best for posting, the types of messages that generate interactions and ultimately sales, and how to wordsmith updates to generate the highest number of interactions.

Here are some good resources on Facebook marketing and interactions:

• Zimply Zesty has 7 ways to increase interactions.
• A study by Vitrue found that morning posts are more effective, users are more active at the top of the hour and weekdays are busiest.
• Smart Passive Income has some great how-to videos on how to create and customize your Facebook page.

How about you? What tactics have you used to increase interactions on your Facebook page?  Please share your stories!

I was researching an organization last week and visited their website, blog and social media pages.

So did I decide to “follow” the organization on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  Absolutely not. Since I had already subscribed to the blog RSS feed, I didn’t feel compelled to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  Why add clutter to my social media streams with information I can already get elsewhere?

I know it’s tempting to set-up pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms and populate them with posts from your blog or press room.  We’re all busy and most communications and marketing departments are stretched thin.  But posting the same information across platforms isn’t doing your organization any good. Why?

• By posting headlines that meet the least common denominator across platforms (probably Twitter, with its 140 character limit), you miss out on functionality offered by the other platforms.  For example, Facebook lets you post longer updates, upload photos and videos, include links, host discussions, etc.
• You don’t give your target audiences a reason to follow or fan you across platforms.  Just imagine this.  If you post complementary but different content across platforms, your clients, prospects and supporters might just follow you on multiple platforms, giving your company an incredible voice with those individuals.
• If you’re posting headlines from your news room, you’re not offering people the authentic, personal voice we’ve come to expect on the social media pages.

Here’s what we do at Matrix Group:

• Our website showcases our products, services, clients, portfolio, news and webinars.
• This blog, which is authored by me, Joanna, the CEO, features my thoughts and commentary on social media, marketing, communications, strategy, customer service, trends and gadgets.  This blog DOES feature website launches at the bottom of each page.
• Our Twitter page showcases our work and clients, but the majority of the tweets are about industry news, trends, how-to articles, and case studies.  Twitter will tell you who we are and what we’re reading.  We’re pretty chatty on Twitter; we post updates multiple times a day.
• Our Facebook page also showcases our work and clients, but we also post photos and updates about happenings in the company, including trainings, parties, fun events, etc.  Facebook will tell you a lot about who we are as a company and our culture.  For example, our staff pumpkin carving contest was featured on our Facebook page.  We’re less chatty on Facebook, just updating a few times a week.
• Our Flickr page is home to our photo library of company events, while our Facebook page has the “best of” photos.
• Our YouTube channel is a work in progress and will soon feature short interviews with senior staff about their areas of expertise, including branding, the user experience, software development and security.

As you can see, our various pages are all designed to showcase our expertise, clients and work but the user experience on each platform has been carefully crafted to take advantage of that platform’s capabilities.  And while the website is clearly a marketing channel for the company, we’re not very sales-y on our social media pages, focusing instead on posting useful and interesting links.

How about you?  How are you creating an integrated use experience across your company’s social media pages?  What’s working for you?

A recent article in Ad Age explores how some of the top consumer brands have Facebook pages with a fan base and interactions that far outstrip that of their official Web sites. Starbucks has 12.9M fans; Coke has nearly 11M fans; Oreo has 8.9M fans.  Of the companies in the article, only Starbucks has steadily increasing Web traffic.

All of this got me thinking:  What happens when an organization’s blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social media page gets more traffic than the official Web site? Is this the ultimate goal for marketers?  Is traffic on a social media site worth as much as traffic on a company Web site?  Does this increased traffic ultimately lead to more customers and sales?

I have clients who worry about redirecting traffic to social media pages, for fear of losing control over the conversations, not owning the Web property, or that the interactions are not quite official enough.  Others hold their social media stats in the highest regard.  Most of us  wonder what it really means when somebody chooses to “like” our fan pages.

How to make sense of all this?  Here are some thoughts:

• If your Facebook page is getting increased traffic and interactions, while traffic on your regular Web site is on the decline, ask yourself, “What is it about my Facebook page that’s working?  What’s making people “like” us, click through to articles and comment?  What are the lessons for content and opportunities for interaction on our official Web site?”
• Your goal should be to have your Web site, Facebook page, Twitter page, blog, e-mail campaigns, microsites, etc., all be part of an integrated strategy where each Web property is complementing the others and encouraging cross traffic.
• Ultimately, the goal should be conversions, whether that means more sales, more subscribers, more members or more donations.  Your goals should never be about traffic on specific platforms; that’s just a tactic.
• You need a way to track the effectiveness of followers, likes, clicks and fans across the different platforms.  Use tracking codes, cookies and marketing codes to determine which platforms are really helping your business to thrive.

Getting back to Matrix Group, here’s what we’ve learned:

• Traffic to our Web site has not declined.  On the contrary, traffic has increased as we have expanded our social media efforts.
• Our most valuable interactions still come from the Web site, where visitors get a chance to look at our work AND, most importantly, make a decision to call or e-mail us for more information or request a proposal.  We get several, high quality leads from our Request Information form every week!
• Our social media pages have proven to be valuable outlets for showcasing our work, sharing tips and resources with a wider audience, and demonstrating our expertise.
• The social media pages have also been a terrific way for clients, prospects and job applicants to make inquiries, give us feedback and comment on our work.

How about you?  What trends are you seeing across your Web and social media pages?  How do you value fans and interactions on Facebook and other social media sites?

• How Long Should Your Posts Be? We suggest that each post be no more than 4-6 paragraphs.  If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back.  But you want enough length to be able to cover a topic with enough substance.

• Create Visual Interest. Although followers follow blogs for their content, we believe that your posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting.  If nothing else, use formatting to make your content skimmable.

• Align Posts With Your Keyword/SEO Strategy. While I’m a firm believer that you can’t force keywords into headlines, do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.

• Create Compelling Introductions. Think about it.  You make a decision about whether or not to open an e-mail or click on an article in your RSS reader based on the title and opening paragraph.  So make your blog post introductions compelling to encourage clicks.

• Do Allow Comments. We understand that many organizations are reluctant to allow comments on their blogs for fear of obnoxious or irrelevant comments.  On the other hand, social media and blogging are all about user-generated content and user engagement.  Comments are a great way to solicit feedback, find out what critics are saying and respond to them, and let your community advocate for you.  In addition, most blogs (like this one) usually don’t inspire negative reactions, so why not just allow comments directly?  You can always delete offensive or spam-y posts.

• Your Blog Needs a Marketing Plan. It’s simply not true that if you build a blog, they will come.  Not anymore at least, what with the huge volume of sites and blogs online these days.  Be sure to create a promotional strategy for your blog that includes: promotions in traditional outlets, featuring on your Web site and social media pages, commenting on other blogs, and encouraging your members/customers/house e-mail list to follow and subscribe.

• Review Your Usage Reports Regularly. As with anything worth doing, if you don’t measure your progress, how will you know if blogging is worth doing?  Be sure to check your Google Analytics or other usage report package regularly.  And don’t forget your RSS statistics; how many people are signed-up for your RSS feed or e-mail updates?

How about you?  What are your favorite blogging tips? What has worked for you?  And why do you blog?

• What Are Your Goals? The most important thing is to align your blog’s goals with your organization’s goals. Are you trying to engage your target audiences?  Influence?  Foster specific actions?  Your goals should be measurable so that, at the end of the day, you know if your blog is a success.

• Who Should Blog? Shaun and I believe that anyone can blog, but for most organizations, you need people who have a 20,000 foot view of the industry or issues, enjoys writing (or is paired with someone who enjoys writing and is a good writer to boot), and is committed to pumping out content on a regular basis.

• What Should You Blog About? This is the $64,000 question!  Ultimately, you need a mission statement for your blog that guides your content strategy.  We grouped blog posts into the categories.  In practice, most blogs employ a variety of blog post types to keep readers engaged.
  • Hot items/News – These posts tend to cover what’s new in the industry, breaking news, etc.
  • Strategy/Commentary – These posts try to provide a perspective on specific issues and usually aim to persuade readers to take a certain point of view.
  • Trends - These posts report on market trends, trending topics, research and statistics.
  • How-To Guides – These posts are often a combination of text and video and aim to provide users with a practical guide to doing something specific.

• How Often Should You Blog? Shaun and I agreed that you should blog at least once a week; twice a week is gravy.  Blogging once a month, in our opinion, is not often enough to connect with your followers regularly.  On the other hand,  blogging too often (one blog we referenced had a single blogger who posted a dozen times a day) can exhaust your readers.  There are exceptions, of course.  Tech blogs, product review blogs, and magazine blogs often have posts throughout the day, but these blogs often function more like news blogs than thought platforms for organizations or leaders.

Okay, so this is Part One.  In Part Two of Blogging Best Practices, I’ll discuss how to write content that encourages participation, what we think about allowing comments on blogs, and how to promote your blog.

In the meantime, I’d love to know about your blogging success stories.  What has worked for you?  Do you agree or disagree with the best practices that Shaun and I outlined above?

The Background

Matrix Group has had a Facebook fan page for a couple of years now and we had been slowly building up our fan base. We did all the usual things to generate new fans: we let our customers know about our Facebook page, we linked to it from our Web site and blog, we asked staff to invite their friends to “like” us, we included the link in staff e-mail signatures, and we asked our Twitter followers to fan us.

I had recently read an article about how the Weekly World News got to 40,310 fans in 4 days (up from 3,244 fans!) and got inspired to launch our own campaign.  Weekly World News offered an exclusive video, they changed their ad daily, they did A/B testing on their ads and they leveraged their huge user base.  But what kind of incentive could we offer?  Unlike Snapfish, the photo printing site, which recently offered a coupon for a free 8 x 10 photo collage for “liking” its fan page, Matrix Group doesn’t have products to offer.  And we don’t have a customer base of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

The Campaign

We decided to use good, old-fashioned corporate philanthropy to incentivize people to “like” us.  The campaign was incredibly simple:  we would donate $10 to a specific charity for every new fan we got between June 21 and June 30.  We selected the National Park Foundation’s (NPF) Disaster Recovery Fund in the Gulf to be recipient of our campaign.  NPF is a Matrix Group client and the entire Matrix Group staff, like the rest of the country, is upset about the Gulf oil spill.  Selecting this fund only made sense for us.  BTW, we put a time limit on the campaign because we know that people are more likely to act when they have a deadline; hence the June 30 end date for the campaign.

We promoted the heck out of the campaign over the past 10 days:

• We posted regular updates to our Facebook fan page
• We tweeted regularly about the campaign
• We asked our staff and friends to update their Facebook and Twitter pages
• We actively asked for retweets
• NPF promoted the campaign to its Facebook followers
• We promoted the campaign on our Web site

The end result is that we’ve exceeded our goal of 500 fans and we’ve raised nearly $3,000 for a good cause. BTW, in case you’re interested, funds raised by the NPF Disaster Recovery Fund until September 1st will go to National Park Service efforts in the Gulf Coast region including park enhancements, education and environmental monitoring.  No funds will go towards mitigating BP’s responsibilities.

How about you?  What are you dong to generate fans for your Facebook page?  What kind of campaigns have you launched?  And with what results?  Please share your experiences!

Have you ever noticed how long these Web addresses are?  Ever wonder why these URL are so long?

The answer is simple: tracking codes. Tracking codes are strings of text added to the end of a URL that let you track the source of a click.  For example, if your organization has an e-mail newsletter and you want to know how many people click on the links in your e-mails, you add tracking codes to the URLs.  Your usage tracking software will almost always treat the URLs with the tracking codes as unique from the same URLs without the tracking codes.  So, when looking at your usage reports, you can look at usage overall to specific pages and then figure out how much of the traffic came from the e-mail newsletter.

If you usage Google Analytics for usage tracking, Google has a terrific URL builder that create properly formatted tracking codes to track the source of clicks, specific campaigns, even the duration of your campaign.  Here’s an example of how it works:

Let’s take the URL to my recent blog post on magazine subscriptions on the iPad.  The URL looks like this if I navigate directly to it:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/

When my marketing team promotes this blog post e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, etc., we use the Google URL builder to add tracking codes.  Here’s a sample URL:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SM&utm_campaign=blog

If you look at the codes closely, you’ll easily decipher that the source is Twitter, the medium is SM (social media, as opposed to e-mail or a banner ad) and the campaign is blog (as opposed to events, news, jobs, etc.).  On a regular basis, we filter our usage reports in Google Analytics to see how many clicks we’re getting to the blog post from our posts on Twitter, as opposed to direct traffic and traffic from other sources.

Oh, btw, since these URLs are crazy long, I use a URL shortener service like TinyURL or Bit.ly to keep my links manageable on sites like Twitter.  I don’t bother shortening the URL when I’m posting links on Facebook, Amplify or this blog.

Bottom line?  Tracking codes are key to tracking the success of your outbound marketing campaigns.  I recommend never linking to pages on your Web site without some type of tracking code.

How about you?  Are you using tracking codes in your campaigns?  What services are you using?  How are tracking codes helping your measure the success of your campaigns?

A recent article in Ad Age Daily tries to explain why we should expect to pay more for online subscriptions on the iPad.  According to Ad Age, we should expect to pay $4.99 for an issue of TIME, Popular Science, Maxim, Popular Photography, Sound and Vision, Transworld Skateboarding and Islands because publishers are suffering, there are fewer tablet PC owners, and magazines are still burdened by their huge editorial costs.

But here’s the rub: I purchased an issue of TIME for $4.99 and discovered that the content was the same as my print issue!  C’mon, TIME.  I pay about $0.50 for a print issue, but you want me to pay $4.99 for the same thing!  If you’re going to charge me a whole lot more, I expect a different experience and additional content I can’t get elsewhere.

This reminds me of publishers that put up PDF versions of their print publications and post them to the Web site.  It’s easy to do and gets the job done.  Problem is, the Web is a different medium from print.  Have you ever tried to read a PDF of a print magazine?  Try going from page 2 to page 36 on a Web browser.  Try reading a two-column page that scrolls up and down past two screens on a monitor.    And now companies are putting out software that will take print files and convert them to iPad apps!  Once again, ignoring the usability and user experience capabilities of the device and merely re-purposing content.  How does this create value?

If publishers hope to create valuable new content on the Web and hope that we readers will be willing to pay a premium for it, they need to give us great content and a user experience that matches the capabilities of the device. On the iPad, give me additional content, HD videos, podcasts, interactive apps that take advantage of the iPad touch technology, and on and on.

So, am I really going to ever pay $4.99 for an issue of a magazine in the future?  Realistically?  Probably not.  But I would be willing to pay for another subscription to the same magazine if I got additional value, and not just the prepackaged stuff we’re getting now.

How about you?  What’s your take on publishers putting out content across platforms and devices?

More and more of my clients are making the decision to eliminate their print magazines and newsletters.

All of this makes sense to me.  I get most of my information via e-mail these days, and I’m subscribed to dozens of newsletters via e-mail and RSS.  And in an effort to minimize the “piles” at home, I have canceled all but a few paper subscriptions.

But I got to thinking:  Am I ready to ditch ALL of my paper subscriptions? Am I ready to cancel my print subscriptions to my favorite magazines, namely TIME, Smithsonian and Stanford magazines?

Here’s my concern about all digital publications:  it’s easy to ignore an e-mail newsletter as just another e-mail in the hundreds I get every day.  Consider this:  when my copy of TIME magazine arrives on Saturday, it ends up in my “to read” pile. This pile gets shuffled around from dining room table to coffee table to bedroom side table.  Each issue sticks around until I read or skim it, then toss.  But here’s what happens with some of my e-mail subscriptions:  if I have the time, I read them on the spot.  If I don’t have the time, I may leave them in my inbox or move them to a “read” folder for later reading.  Trouble is, with the flood of e-mail that I get, I rarely get to my e-mail read pile. And sometimes, in an attempt to gain back control of my inbox, I delete a huge group of e-mail newsletters and start over.

Ugh, so much for the future of publishing.  What is the balance that content organizations should try to achieve between print and digital?  And if digital is your only future, how do you ensure delivery and readership? I have some thoughts:

• As with everything, it’s important to consider the audiences for your e-mail alerts and publications.  Who are they?  What are they looking to you to provide?  How do they want to consume the content?
• Is it even an option to mail a publication out to customers, if they so request?  If not, then you better be able to rely on compelling headlines, great writing, a great opt-in list, and good design to get readers to read your e-mails on the spot. (Hmmm… come to think of it, printed pieces need the same things to be successful.)
• Be sure to embed open and clickthrough tracking in your e-mail campaigns. While you’ll never know if people are reading your printed pieces, you can and should benchmark online usage over time using tracking codes.
• Test, test, test. Figure out the best day for sending e-mails to your audience, which topics generate the most interest, and which headlines result in the most traffic.

One final thought.  I think that the iPad (and similar devices) could revolutionize how we consume content.  While I won’t skim an entire issue of TIME on my laptop, I will read or skim an entire issue on my iPad.  Why?  It turns out that the iPad lets me browse online content the same way I read my printed magazines: on the couch or in bed.  And if I get used to this, I will likely cancel my print subscriptions and opt instead for the digital versions of my favorite magazines.  Which I think would be a win for publishers because they will still get subscription revenue AND they can track my reading habits.

How about you?  Have you ditched your print subscriptions? How do you manage the flood of e-mail newsletters coming your way?

Here’s an example of an all Flash site that is annoying and borderline useless. I was scheduling lunch with a friend, who asked me to recommend a restaurant and send him the physical and Web addresses. No problem, right? Wrong.

Check out the Web site for Kora in Crystal City - http://www.korarestaurant.com/ The Web site is pretty, but if you’re trying to get an address and send it to a friend, it’s not user-friendly at all!

• It took me 5 minutes to find the address.  It’s not on the home page, nor under Hours and Directions.  It’s under Contact Us and Reservations.
• Because the site is entirely in Flash, I couldn’t copy the address and paste into the e-mail I was sending my friend.
• I also could not copy and paste the address into Google maps so that I could send my friend directions from Reston.
• Forget being able to bookmark specific pages because the URL never changes in the single Flash file for the entire site. So I couldn’t send my friend the URL of a menu page.  Aaaargh.
• Oh yeah, you can’t print Flash pages either unless print-friendly pages have been specifically created; most designers don’t bother.  So if you want to print Kora’s Hours and Directions page, you’re out of luck.

Since I’m lazy and did not want to re-type the address, I simply went to Google, typed “Kora Arlington, VA” and got a link to a map and directions from Google maps.  God bless Google.

I’m sure Kora paid good money for its beautiful, all Flash site, but I bet it’s a pain to update and it’s not very accommodating for visitors who just want to copy and paste an address.  Good grief!

How about you?  Got your own rants against an all Flash site?  Post links and comments!

• My friend Tanya runs a blog called NitpickyConsumer.com.  Tanya blogs about good and bad customer service, companies that don’t seem to care, companies that just don’t get it.
• This disillusioned Dell customer created a Dear Dell rant on YouTube that has garnered over 32,000 views and nearly 1,600 comments!
• Check this one out.  Dave Caroll wrote a song and created a video about United Airlines breaking his guitar.  The video has been viewed over 8 million and generated nearly 43,000 ratings (average 5 stars).  Ouch.
• And don’t forget the millions of updates that subscribers to various social networks fire off every day about their experiences.  Many are about lousy customer service.  Do a search on Twitter for “comcast sucks” or “verizon sucks” and you’ll never run out of tweets.

As marketers, we’re always trying to position or brand our companies.  But Harvard Business Review says “your brand is no longer your own” because anyone can go online and talk about your company and its offerings. And when our family, friends and colleagues talk, we listen.  A recent survey sponsored by Tealeaf.com found that “74% of online adults said negative comments read online have an influence on whether they will do business with a company.”  Wow.

What’s a business to do? My recommendations:

• Adopt an aggressive listening strategy so you know what’s being said about your company, by whom and on what platform.  Tune your Google alerts, Twitter searches and other social searches.
• Become nimble with your social networking strategy and toolkit so that you can respond quickly in the event of social media storm or viral campaign gone crazy.
• Make it easy for customers to give you feedback directly so that they don’t feel that their only recourse is to go online and rant.  And for God’s sake, take the calls and the e-mails and respond to them!

How about you?  Got a favorite customer service blog or video?  How do you voice your complaints and rants when a company has treated you badly?

Ugh, so what’s an advertiser to do?

This morning, I had the pleasure of seeing Dave Nelsen, President of Dialog, talk about social media for business.  While discussing YouTube, Dave showed us a video that he called “the future of advertising.”  The T-Mobile Dance is a 2:41 minute video of commuters at Liverpool Station in England dancing their hearts out.  As more and more people join in, onlookers snap photos, take video and share the experience with their friends through their T-Mobile phones, of course.

Dave made the point that this video represents the future of advertising because:

• The company got me to willingly watch a loooong ad. This would never happen on TV!
• Because YouTube allows comments, over 16,000 people have commented on this video, creating incredible buzz and feedback for the company.
• The video was so successful that T-Mobile created a YouTube channel for its “Life’s for Sharing” campaign.  Fans can even create their own videos and T-Mobile posts the best of the bunch.  There’s a video of a Korean baby singing Hey Jude and a singer jamming from atop a bus. How’s that for a user-generated content strategy?

And it’s not just large companies that are using YouTube to promote their products. My 5-year old son eagerly watches what are essentially product ads from a company called Trains Galore on their YouTube Channel. My husband Maki loves the YouTube channel of Ten-Tec, Inc., a manufacturer of high quality radio equipment for amateur radio operators.

These small retailers likely don’t have big budgets for advertising, but they have clearly found a following on YouTube.  This video advertising wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains has gotten nearly 300,000 views and 50 comments!

All of this is not to say that the future of advertising is YouTube.  But YouTube represents an incredibly flexible way that companies are promoting their products through inspired creative, a viral strategy, and a user-generate content strategy.

How about you?  How are you using social media to promote your company?  What’s your YouTube strategy?

This got me to thinking.  What are all the ways, big and little, that we make it difficult for our customers and potential customers to do business with us? Consider these examples.

• A few years ago, my husband and I were shopping around for a mortgage.  I called three bankers.  One was only available between 7am and 3pm.  Another sent me 20 pages to fill out about our assets.  The third asked me when it would be convenient to call (7pm), asked me to send bank and 401(k) statements so that he could fill out all the paperwork.  Guess who got the business?  At that point, I knew each banker would give us a competitive rate, but Craig Miller from BF Saul made it easy for us to work with him.
• During the planning for our office move, I called several vendors about office furniture systems.  One never called back.  One asked me to send her the architect’s drawings and information on what we wanted (I didn’t yet know what we wanted so I didn’t call back.)  The third, Michelle Ferrari from Office Images, offered to come by with catalogs, look at the architect’s drawings with me and discuss our needs.  There was no contest.
• I called a company to get a reference for someone applying for a job at Matrix Group.  It took me 3 tries before I could figure out how to leave a message in the general mailbox.  I couldn’t even imagine calling as a prospective customer.
• I’ve had a relationship with Insurance Designers for a very long time.  Every time I have a question, I call or e-mail Neal or Wendy Cohen and they get back to me promptly.  One time, Matrix Group was applying for some new type of insurance and Neal’s office sent over a very long questionnaire, which I couldnot figure out.  I called Neal and he said, “don’t worry about it, let’s fill it out over the phone.”  I love the guy.
• I was looking for a specific Thomas the Tank Engine train for my son and I found it for less money (than Amazon) on a small retailer site.  I had questions about the train (because a certain 5-year old had a specific request) but, for the life of me, I could not find a phone number on the Web site.  I gave up, ordered the product from Amazon and prayed that I had ordered the right thing.
• I love that live chat is available on so many retail sites these days.  I can get my question answered asap, place my order and be on my way.

The lessons for all of us who sell products or services?

• Make it easy for our customers and prospective customers to contact us the way they feel comfortable doing so (phone, fax, e-mail, Web form, smoke signal).
• When a customer calls your office, make it easy to navigate the automated attendant voice mail system.  Better yet, have a human answer the call, find out the caller’s need and route the call to the right person.
• Call people back (yeah, I know, this one’s a no brainer).
• Don’t put too many any obstacles in the way of you sending a quote and closing the deal. I’m legendary in the office for not being quite human before 9am, but if a customer wants to do a call at 7am, I’ll be on the line at 6:55am.  I’ll be in my PJs, but I’ll be on the line.

As a CEO, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier to say “yes” to Matrix Group.  We sometimes stumble, but for me, the important thing is to constantly look for ways to make life better for Matrix Group clients.

How about you?  What site or retailer do you love to do business with and why?  And who makes it impossible to do business with them?  Got any horror stories?

What do you do if you make candy, most of your sales in grocery stores are from the checkout lane, and RFID is poised to eliminate checkout lanes?

I attended the holiday reception of the Grocery Manufacturers Association earlier this week.  In addition to mingling with GMA staff and other sister association staff, I got to meet reps from several GMA members, including Tom from The Hershey Company.  I told Tom that Matrix Group has got to be the biggest buyer of the dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses (the dark chocolate kisses are wrapped in purple foil).  Purple kisses are a staple at nearly every Matrix Group meeting because a) they’re purple and b) meetings always run better when there’s chocolate involved.

Tom reported that Hershey’s chocolate is doing well because even during (or perhaps because of) the recession, chocolate is an indulgence most people can afford.  I asked him what’s new in the business of candy/chocolate marketing and he said candy makers are in for a rough ride in the next few years because the grocery store user experience is changing dramatically. Consider this:

• Most candy sales in grocery stores come from the checkout line. Why? Because most people avoid the candy aisle, especially if they’re moms with kids.  So the checkout line becomes the most important place to market candy.
• Grocery stores have been experimenting for years with self-checkout.  Shoppers Food Warehouse has had self-checkout for years.  Tom says we should expect self-check-out to be more common in the future.
• Even with self-checkout, there’s a check-out lane.  BUT, RFID promises an end to the checkout lane as we know it. Last year, for example, Microsoft announced a digital grocery cart that lets shoppers access grocery lists created at home, receive targeted coupons, and scan products as they go into the cart.  With the digital shopping cart, the checkout lane becomes a payment lane; no more waiting, no more scanning.

Yikes and wow!  So if you’re The Hershey Company, Mars or Wrigley, what do you do?  What kind of R&D and marketing initiatives do you start developing now — for the day when checkout lanes are gone forever or at least changed dramatically?

As I thought about candy makers, I realized that grocery stores and manufacturers have been significantly affected by the decline of another industry:  newspapers. Think about it.  Newspapers(especially the Sunday supplement) used to be the way consumers learned about store sales and coupons.  With fewer people subscribing to newspapers, how do they promote their products and promotions? Today, there are zillions of Web sites and mobile apps that will tell you about in-store promotions, offer you coupons and even comparison shop for you. Great for consumers, but a confusing landscape for marketers, for sure.

Finally, if candy makers are being affected by the demise of the checkout lane, what happens to the tabloids and magazines? I think the only time I pick up Southern Living or People is when I’m in the checkout line and passing time.  Ugh, another blow to the publishing industry.  (Hmmm…. did I really admit to my blog readers that I read People?)

How about you?  What technologies on the horizon could significantly impact your business?  And what are you doing about it?

Finally, do you buy candy in the checkout lane?  How will your candy purchases change if and when checkout lanes disappear?  Inquiring minds want to know…

So how do you customize your Twitter profile page to maximize followers? Here are my top tips:

• Make sure you fill out your name so it’s searchable. This sounds so simple, but consider this:  The Humane Society of the United States is @humanesociety, but the profile name is listed as HSUS.  If you use the Find People search on Twitter and type Humane Society, the HSUS page does not come up because the Twitter search only searches the Name field, NOT the username.  A better name would have been Humane Society of the US.
• Fill out the Bio and Web site fields. This is a perfect opportunity to link your Twitter page to your company Web site or blog AND provide a short elevator speech.  The bio and URL add perspective and credibility.  You can be formal, you can be clever, or you can be funny in the bio field.  Check out other bios for good ideas.  I like @pmohara and @neagle.  In addition, I hear from many, many people that if someone has not provided a bio or URL, they are much less likely to follow that person.
• Upload a thumbnail photo, image or logo. If you’re tweeting as a person, your followers can associate your tweets with a photo.  If you’re tweeting as a company, you get another opportunity to display your logo on your followers’ tweet streams.
• If you are in the Web, design, marketing, tech or social media business, then I highly recommend uploading a custom background. Otherwise, use one of the backgrounds available in the Twitter gallery to make your page stand out.  The background is another opportunity to provide information about your organizaton, list your services and passions, and have a call to action/contact information.  I love @adamplitt,   @alexslemonade, and @discover_police.

How about you?   What are some of your favorite Twitter pages?  Do you agree that you are less likely to follow someone if they don’t have the name, Web site and bio fields filled in?

I actually hear it all the time from friends, family and clients: why can’t this (insert name of site here) work like Amazon?  Okay, forget for a moment that that Amazon has spent tens of millions on their site.  Here’s what I’ve come to expect from Amazon and would love it if other e-tailers followed suit.

• Much as I hate to think that my shopping patterns can be predicted by a computer, the personalization on Amazon rocks. Yep, the site pushes all kinds of merchandise on me via e-mail and the Web site, but it’s not crap if I’m even mildly interested.  I’ve been introduced to new bands and authors, and I love that the related items often lead me to what I’m really looking for.
• Amazon fulfillment is lightning fast. I placed three orders on Black Friday and they all arrived Monday morning.  Meanwhile, another retailer tells me I have to wait 7-10 days for regular shipping.  7-10 days, are you kidding?  What are the people in the warehouse doing?
• Amazon embraces user-generated content. I rely on the reviews and ratings from my fellow consumers, esp. fellow moms.  And I’ve used lists created by Amazon customers for great gift recommendations for family and friends.
• Amazon does a great job of communicating the status of my order. I get an e-mail when I place the order and another one when the order ships.  I’ve never left guessing about where the heck my stuff is, and I have handy links that let me check on the order directly.

Some of my other favorite retailers embrace a lot of the practices above.  I think Land’s End does a particularly good job, as does Snapfish.  The smaller retailers, not so much.  Do I do a lot of my shopping on Amazon?  You bet, and the superior user experience on the Web site is the reason why.

Does your company have an online store?  How can you make the user experience more like Amazon?

What on earth does the Miss Universe pageant have to do with running a business?

Well, it turns out that if you run a business long enough, no matter how successful you, there are times when you don’t take home the prize.  I can remember deals where we came soooo close to winning the account, but ultimately, we came in second place, or 1st runner up.

But unlike a Miss Universe pageant, the 1st runner up in business often has a good chance of taking the prize when:  the first choice can’t deliver, the client’s needs outpace the capabilities of the selected vendor, or a change in staffing triggers a review of the account and the contracts.

When Matrix Group comes in second, yes, it totally sucks, but here’s what we try and do:

• We ask for a debrief so that we can learn why we didn’t win the account. We learn a lot from these debriefs and the prospects know that we care about their feedback.
• We ask the prospect if they’d like to stay on our list and continue receiving news about our launches and webinars, and sign-up for our RSS feeds, blog or social media pages.  This strategy allows us to keep in touch with the prospect with little effort and in a non sales-y way.
• We ask the prospect to please keep us in mind for future projects; this lets the prospect know that we’re not upset (even if we are), that we still want to do business with them, and the door is always open.
• We check back every six months or so and monitor the site to find out when the new site goes online.  If we don’t see the site launching according to the scheduled timetable, we drop an e-mail or check-in with a phone call.

Matrix Group has been a proud 1st runner up that ended up taking the crown in many, many instances.  We landed the Catholic Charities account over nine years ago when the first vendor stumbled; we still have the account today.  Just this week, I heard from a prospect from 2005 that had selected another firm for their redesign; the redesign is still not done and they’ve selected Matrix Group to finish the work!

How about you?  Has your company come in second (1st runner up) and then taken the prize?  What strategies do you use to take the prize away from Miss Universe?  Finally, do you ever watch the Miss Universe pageant and would you ever admit to it?

In e-commerce lingo, my Snapfish shopping cart was abandoned because I left the site without completing the order.  Some of my clients consider it creepy to let their customers know that they know about the abandoned carts.  But here was a non-creepy, really helpful e-mail from Snapfish that prompted me to complete my order!  What made the e-mail reminder successful?

• The cute photo of a girl next to the large caption that reads “Did you forget something?” Yes, the girl looks like she just realized that she forgot something and she’s got a hilarious expression on her face.
• The friendly, personalized message.
• The links to complete my order and forgot password.

The Snapfish e-mail reminded of an e-mail I received from a newsletter publisher some time back.  I was trying to reduce the number of e-mails I receive and unsubscribed from one of their newsletters.  Instead of a regular confirmation e-mail, I got a message that said something like “We’re just crushed that you’ve decided to unsubscribe from our newsletter.  We’re wringing our hands and wondering what we did wrong…” The e-mail was hilarious and so well written that I promptly re-subscribed because in addition to serving up a funny message, they reminded me of the benefits of their newsletter.

Both of these companies remind me that providing customer services doesn’t have to staid or dry. We can talk like real people in our messages, we can express emotion, and we can use humor to get the point across.  Heck, our message will probably stand out in crowded e-mail inboxes full of jargon and marketing speak.

How about you? Received any fabulous customer service e-mails recently? Received any that made you laugh or angry?

Since then, I’ve made made pasta, soup, cakes and cheesecake from recipes on boxes, cans and cartons.  For the most part, the recipes have been excellent and pretty easy to make.  I know, it’s really  low brow to cook food from recipes on cans and boxes.  In fact, I can’t believe I’m admitting to this on my blog, so please pretend you heard me say that all my recipes are from my Gourmet cookbook.  But here’s what I have learned: if you are a manufacturer of a food product, it’s in your best interest to have a really, really good recipe on your packaging. I bet the folks at Quaker Oats spent a lot of time on that chicken barley chili recipe because it was going to be printed on millions of boxes and, for a lot of people, that recipe was going to be their introduction to barley!

So what does a recipe on a box have to teach us about marketing?  Just this: that the first interaction potential customers have with your company had better be really, really good. Here are some examples:

• If you’re a Web design company, your Web site and the sample projects in your portfolio need to represent your best work.
• If you have a book to sell, the first chapter that you offer for free should be an amazing read.
• If you have a newsletter or magazine, the sample issue should be your best ever.
• If you have an ice cream shop, the free sample should be the best flavor, not the excess inventory.
• If you have a conference to market, showcase the sessions with an amazing video of one of the speakers.
• If you’re a graphic designer, your business card should stand out.
• If you’re a writer, your Web site, cover letter and proposal need to be perfectly free of grammatical errors and typos.

Because my first barley dish was great, I’m now a barley lover.  I buy barley regularly and hunt for new recipes in cookbooks and online.  That free, sample recipe on the side of the box made a lifetime customer out of me.

How about you?  What are you selling and how are you presenting your product or service in the best light with a sample of your work?

Here are some sample cards that demonstrate what we were trying to achieve.

Here’s my card.  The front is purple so it’s easy to find on a cluttered desk or stack o cards.  The corners are curved because Alex says the Matrix Group brand is curvey, node-y.  The prominent elements are my name and title and the company Web address.  You’ll also notice that my card has all the ways you can contact me:  phone, fax, e-mail, blog and Twitter.

Here’s Maki’s card.  The general format of the card is mostly the same, but Maki’s card has his PGP key ID, which is a public key encryption that allows anyone to send an encrypted e-mail to Maki; only Maki has the decryption key.  You’ll also notice that Maki has two titles: one in English and one in Japanese.  Everyone at Matrix can have a serious title, a fun title or both. Maki’s fun title is Shogun of Lunch in Japanese.  Other fun titles at the company are: Digital Cowboy, Idea Launcher, Master Juggler/Cat Herder, .NET Rock Star, Go To Guru, Server Sensei and Marketing Maven.

Here’s Sumner’s card.  Sumner’s card is most like everyone else’s card.  He’s got contact information (phone, fax, e-mail) and simply a fun title.  Because Sumner is a longtime Linux contributor and he programs in Python on a Linux system, he’s a Penguin Tamer.  Tux the penguin is the Linux mascot, fyi.

Here’s the back of our business card.  The full Matrix Group logo is displayed prominently, along with our tagline: Strategy. Execution. Results.  You’ll also notice that we list the URLs for our Twitter and Facebook pages. Finally, while the front of the business card is smooth, the back of the card is uncoated and white, so that it’s easy to write a message. I’m famous for writing notes on the backs of business cards that I give away.  I write things like “met at ZZZ conference, call about Web design RFP” or “call for lunch.”

I have to admit that the process of redesigning our cards was a bit tortuous, especially since every person had the option of adding a fun title and several of us have a different front.  However, we think the new cards are pretty snazzy and consider them to be bold, mini-brochures for the company.

How about you?  What does your business card say about you or your company? Do you think we were successful with our card redesign?

In addition, I recommend against blasting the same message across the different platforms.  Instead, I urge clients to create a layered approach that uses each platform according to its strengths and capabilities.  Here are some examples:

Example #1: Trade Association Wants to Promote a Conference

• Create a microsite for the conference that contains information about the conference, the venue, the program and speakers, and benefits to attendees
• Use Twitter to broadcast conference updates and deadlines, industry news and statistics
• Post photos from the previous year’s conference to Flickr
• Use a Facebook fan page to feature program and speakers, host discussions about conference topics, and allow attendees to interact with experts
• Host a blog where conference organizers can blog news before the conference; during the conference, assign members to blog about the sessions

Example #2: Shoe Boutique Wants to Increase Traffic to Bricks and Mortar Store During the Holiday Season

• Send a holiday postcard to the mailing list; offer a discount and feature a really hot shoe
• Send blast e-mails every few weeks with featured shoes, gift giving tips, and a discount coupon
• On Twitter, tweet about new arrivals, secret shopping discount codes, fashion tips, and cool shoe sightings
• Host a blog and comment on the hottest looks of the season, discuss fashion trends, and offer fashion advice
• On Facebook, create a fun Facebook quiz about shoes (e.g., what your favorite shoe says about you, what’s your favorite shoe this season?), post photos from events at the store, and feature shoes paired with outfits

Note that on the social networking platforms, it’s important to offer advice, share links, and report on industry news and trends and NOT just market your company and offerings.  By participating in the social networks as a provider of content (not advertising), your organization becomes a friends and an advisor, worthy of following.

How about you?  How is your organization integrating social media into traditional marketing campaigns?  How is your message and content different on each platform?  With what results?

You can read a nice recap of the panel on the Solutions are Power blog, but here were my take-aways:

• Your customers, prospects, staff and potential staff are increasingly using social media and they expect your business to have a presence on the most popular platforms.
• We need to view social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook as vehicles for marketing, customer service, prospecting and conversation.
• But businesses should not view social networks as just another place to advertise. Social networkers (you, me and anyone with an account) are both suppliers and consumers of content. In order for businesses to thrive in the social media environment, they, too, must be suppliers and consumers of content.  In other words, companies and brands must interact with customers and prospects by engaging in a two-way dialogue.
• The vast majority of Americans’ initial interactions with companies and brands online, so we all better have a great online presence that tells our story, focuses on benefits, and talks to our customers and prospects in a natural, real way.
• When in doubt about where our prospects are and what content will interest them, all we have to do is ask.

What I loved about the panel was the diversity of our backgrounds and perspectives.  The panel consisted of:

• Jill Foster of DC Media Makers and Women Grow Business served as the moderator
• Danilo Bogdanovic of Loudoun Scene is a Realtor and social media consultant
• Terri Holly of Creative Marketing Solutions is a social media consultant and coach
• Brent Leary of CRM Essentials covered the data and CRM (customer relationship management side of the equation)
• Me, Joanna Pineda of Matrix Group International representing an interactive agency

If you were at the Grow Smart Biz conference, what did you think of the conference?  How are you integrating traditional marketing with social media?

The planners of Grow Smart Biz have assembled a powerhouse group of speakers and panelists, which is not unusual for a conference.  What is new is this: the planners have actively engaged the speakers in promoting the conference through their blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. In essence, the conference hosts are tapping into the vast networks of the speakers to promote the event. So, when Jill Foster, editor of the Women Grow Business blog and social media expert, tweets or blogs, the event is marketed to her over 3,000 followers.  So, if you’ve got big names keynoting at your next convention, why not ask them to update their status and give your event a boost?

I’m also seeing event planners and registration sites encourage attendees to update their status when they purchase tickets. I purchased a ticket to an event recently.  On the thank you page, there was a link to “Tweet This” and “Update Your Facebook” status.  Since so many of us update our statuses so frequently and share what we’re reading, the movies we’re seeing, the concert we’re attending, etc., it only makes sense that we would want to share with our friends and network that we are attending an upcoming meeting or event.  By doing so, we’re helping to promote the event to our networks and followers.

So, for all you meeting and event planners out there, how are you using your attendees and speakers to encourage more attendance and participation in your events? How can you leverage the vast networks of your direct audience to reach new and untapped audiences?

P.S. I hope to see you at the Grow Smart Biz conference next week. The conference will not just be about social media. The speakers and panels will also focus on: how to grow your business in the current economy, tactics for securing financing for your small business, ways to kick start your marketing activities.  And if you use the promotion code OFFER100,  you’ll get $150 off $299 registration fee!

Me:  Good morning, I want to order a birthday cake with the Thomas design.
HT staff:  Sorry, we don’t have Thomas cakes.
Me:  But you have a Thomas cake on display in your bakery section.
HT staff:  Sorry, we don’t have Thomas cakes.  I think that display is old.
Me:  I saw Thomas cakes in your catalog.
HT staff:  I haven’t seen the catalog lately.
Me:  Okay, I guess I’ll call Costco.

Lucky for Harris Teeter, I am a big fan of the store and was not to be deterred.  I went to the store, found a manager, showed him the Thomas cake on display and asked if I could please order it.  Yep, he was happy to take my order, especially since Thomas cakes are expensive!  I told him that I had called the store a few days earlier and the person said HT didn’t make Thomas cakes.  The manager apologized and said that perhaps the person I spoke with was new or didn’t know about the special order cakes.

Yikes!  How many sales has HT lost because of this bakery guy?  Could this happen in your company? I know this kind of “revenue leakage” has happened in my organization!

A few years ago, one of my Project Managers was telling me about a call she had just completed with a client.  The client wanted to know if we could help with an online voting system.  The Project Manager explained that Matrix Group did not do online voting.  You can imagine my jaw dropping at this; the conversation went something like this:

Me:  Um, why did you tell the client we don’t do online voting?
PM:  I don’t know of any voting projects we’ve done and my team hasn’t worked on any.
Me:  Uh, but you’ve only been here less than a year and you manage 1 of 4 teams.  How do you know that the other teams haven’t done online voting or that perhaps we’ve done online voting in the past?
PM:  Oh, I didn’t think of that.  Sorry.
Me:  Let me call the client and see what I can do.  (tearing my hair out)

Here were my take-aways from this exchange, reinforced every day by interactions with folks like the Harris Teeter bakery dude:

• We can’t funnel all calls to “trained” salespeople so it’s important that every person in the company what the company does. Clients and prospects talk to staff at all levels at Matrix Group and they ask them all kinds of questions, so staff need to know what Matrix Group does.
• This training needs to be reinforced regularly and staff need concrete examples they can relate to.  We do a lot of sharing at Project Manager meetings, staff meetings, and designer/developer/front-end developer meetings.
• Staff need to understand in broad terms what we do and don’t do. For example, we cover a lot of territory when it comes to Web, but we definitely don’t manage internal networks and e-mail servers.
• Staff should know when to say yes, when to say no, and when to say “let me check.”
• We store information about our projects on the company intranet, searchable by client, keyword, category and date range. I try  to remind staff that this resource is available and a must-use tool.

How about you?  What kind of revenue leakage is happening in your firm?  What are you doing about it?

So last night, I paid $1.99 for the Police’s Synchronicity.  I love this song.  I loved the album when it came out.  I even saw the Police in concert for this tour.  So I was happy to shell out $2 to be able to sing one of my favorite Police songs.

Then it hit me:  I’ve paid for Synchronicity four times:

• When the album first came out, I bought the LP.
• Then I bought the cassette so I could have it in my dorm room in college (yeah, I know, I’m dating myself).
• When I started my CD collection, I of course bought Synchronicity on CD.
• Last night, I paid for Synchronicity so I can do my best Sting imitation while playing Rock Band.

I can think of a couple dozen other songs and albums that I’ve paid for multiple times as technology has advanced and I “had to have” a favorite song collection in the new format.  When it comes to videos, the same thing has happened.  I’ve paid for Harry Potter in Full Screen format, Wide Screen format and Blu-Ray.

I wish I could pay one fee, add myself to a master database, and be able to download my songs and movies in different formats, but I guess that’s not a sustainable model for musicians, music labels and the movie houses.  Or is it?  If more and more of our music and videos are being purchased on demand from Web sites like iTunes and Amazon, will the platform really matter much in the future?

Oh well.  I just wonder how many more times I’ll purchase Synchronicity, Stop Making Sense, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, yada, yada.

This is a topic that comes up a lot at Matrix Group. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic formula for calculating ROI on social media activities. Mashable says that you can measure the ROI in two ways:

• Qualitative – Are you part of the conversation in your industry? Are you able to demonstrate that you or your organization is a thought leader? Is social media able to help you build better relationships  with your target audiences?
• Quantitative – Look to your usage reports, RSS subscriptions, e-mail opt-ins, e-commerce sales and registrations to see if social media is increasing traffic and transactions.

At Matrix Group, our social media initiatives include: a blogging strategy (this blog and participating in other blogs like WomenGrowBusiness), Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.  Here are the metrics we use to track ROI:

Qualitative Metrics

• Are prospects, clients and candidates mentioning our social media activities?
• Are our clients and prospects interacting with us on the different platforms?
• Are we getting mentioned?
• Do clients and prospects see us as a leader in our field?
• Do clients and prospects reference articles and posts from our Web sites?
• Are we getting recognized in industry and trade publications?

In this area, I’m honored that I made the Washingtonian’s list of Top 100 Techies and SmartCEO’s list of top 50 CEOs in the DC area.  In addition, we’re getting lots of mentions and clients are referring to our social media pages on a regular basis.

Quantitative Metrics:

• Number of followers on Twitter, fans on Facebook, subscribers to our RSS feeds, and opt-ins to our e-mail lists.  This metric is important because these numbers represent the people who are willingly allowing us to communicate with them.
• Increase in traffic to our Web site and this blog. We’ve seen a steady increase in traffic to our sites as we beef and promote our content.  Interestingly enough, traffic to this blog recently outpaced traffic to the Web site, largely because of referrals from Google and social media sites, esp. Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.  We use Google Analytics, Webtrends and FeedBurner for these statistics.
• Number of interactions, including comments on the blog, retweets and direct messages, and comments in Facebook.  Over the past year, we’ve seen a steady increase in these interactions as we gain followers.

Ultimately, where the rubber meets the road is whether or not we are getting leads and converting prospects to clients. Over the past year, here is what we have seen:

• We are getting 2-3 high quality leads per week from our Web site where we were getting 2-3 leads per month in the past.
• Traffic on our Web site and blog has tripled in the past 12 months.
• Twitter and Facebook are two of the top five referrers of traffic to our site.
• At least three clients in the past three months told us that they believe Matrix Group to be a thought leader in the interactive space for associations and non-profits.
• We closed our last fiscal year up 10% over last year.

No matter how you track it, we’re getting a positive return on our social media and that’s worth blogging about.  How about you?  Are you tracking the ROI of your social media activities?  What’s been your experience?

We asked each person how they would explain their job or company to:

• Their spouse
• A high school student
• A neighbor
• A member of the press
• A Fortune 100 CEO

As expected, we got a wide variety of answers.  Surprisingly, the best responses were from people trying to explain their business to a high school student. How can this be?  I think it’s because when talking to a student, we avoid jargon, we use analogies, and we try to explain the most meaningful aspects of our work.

The next time your organization tries to craft or update its elevator speech, imagine yourself talking to different types of people, with different levels of knowledge about your industry, and varying levels of experience with your organization.    Give it a shot and please report back on the results.  If you can, give me examples of the elevators speeches you come up with.

Tom says that whales are like large companies and we all know that large companies usually buy from other large firms because they:

• Are perceived as having more resources
• Have a more well-known brand and reputation
• Speak the language of whales
• Represent less risk and more security

We’ve heard it before: “nobody gets fired for picking (fill in large company name).”  So how is a small business supposed to compete against the big guys? Tom says that large companies pick small companies when they are looking for an advantage in their business, specifically:

• Innovative solutions that are usually  not associated with larger, bureaucratic companies
• Access to the brightest talent
• Speed and nimbleness
• Knowledge of a niche market
• A relationship with a company where they’re not just another customer

Ultimately, small businesses can only the land the big sales when:

• Executive management is involved in the sales process because whales will only talk to senior staff
• Someone on the customer side believes the small business can help them move the needle in their business in a big way

My favorite quote from Tom:  “People only buy what they can safely sell to others, or defend if challenged. Our job as whale hunters is to equip and train the buyers to defend themselves from the attacks that will come later.”

Landing a whale obviously has financial benefits to a small firm.  But there are other, intangible benefits:  attracting other whales, attracting the best staff, and transforming your company because whales require and demand a different level of staffing and service.

Who’s ready to go whale hunting?

It’s Election Day in Alexandria, VA.

Low voter turnout, especially for a non-Presidential race, is nothing new. Mid-term elections are notorious for having low voter turnout. Evidently, the millions who turned out for the 2008 Presidential race that elected President Obama have tuned out again and  are skipping local elections.

Know what I think?  Election Day needs a marketing plan. We market our meetings, conventions, products, and tradeshows.  I say that we need to deploy some of the tactics we use to get people to attend a tradeshow, register on a Web site or buy a product and get people to the polling stations!  Here are some of my ideas:

• Create a sweepstakes. Every person who votes is entered into a contest to win $10, $100, $10,000 or whatever amount is available.  The dollar value doesn’t matter; the excitement of a sweepstakes is what counts.

• Give out points for voting. We all love gold stars.  My polling station should have my voter record and give me a gold star for consistent voting.  A bell should ring when a longtime voter checks in.  I should get a $25 Starbucks card for a perfect voting record in the last 24 years.

• Voting should be fun. Let’s face it.  We all want to be entertained.  Why not have the local school bands perform at the polling stations?  We should have stand-up comics making fun of the candidates. Let’s have  magicians entertain the folks waiting in line.

• There should be food. I bring chocolate to every meeting.  Why?  Because food (especially chocolate) seems to make my meetings go more smoothly.  If I want staff to attend a seminar, I have lunch brought in.  Food works!  Even if you make me pay for it, let me buy hot dogs, coffee, hot chocolate, candy, donuts, whatever at the polling station.

• Make voting part of a quest. Can we make learning about the candidates and issues and voting be part of a large, game-like quest?  Let’s create candidate Web sites that have clues, hand out more clues at the voting booth, and give out rewards for completing the quest.

Ridiculous, you say?  Perhaps, but we deploy these types of tactics every day and they help companies and organizations market their products and services successfully.

Can we at least have food during the June primary?

• Status updates (aka What’s on your mind?) are definitely posting to the organization’s Wall and showing up on fans’ streams. Fans can indicate if they like a post, they can comment, and they can share the update.

• Only native Facebook applications are showing up on fan’s streams. In the past, we brought in photos and videos from Flickr and YouTube via RSS.  You can still do this today, but these updates do NOT show up in fan’s streams.  For example, if you want your fans to know that you posted a new photo album, you have to use the native Facebook application.

• Sending an update to fans does NOT trigger an e-mail. Instead, these updates show up in fan’s Inboxes, in the Updates tab.  These updates also exist in View Updates in the left navigation of the company pages, but only if you click More.  It took us forever to figure this out and I’m convinced that nobody is reading our updates because they have no idea these updates exist.

• Suggest to Friends sends a personal e-mail from your personal Facebook page. A company can’t actually send invitations to fans to people who are NOT fans, but individuals can send a recommendation to their friends.

• Where Facebook pages used to be fairly static pages, they are becoming more like blogs and Twitter.  Companies need to have a content strategy that covers what and when to post.

• It is darn near impossible to figure out your company’s Facebook page address. As near as we can tell, the addresses use this syntax: http://www.facebook.com/pages/company-name/number/.  For example, the Matrix Group Facebook page address is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matrix-Group-International-Inc/48658676723 Keep clicking on the profile link and the logo, remove extraneous referrer codes to figure out your Facebook page URL, and keep trying until you figure it out.

Here is more information about the new Facebook pages direct from Facebook.  How about you?  What has been your experience with the new Facebook pages?

Our communication/conversation strategy has several elements:

• Communication vehicles. We created an inventory of all the ways that we use to communicate with clients and prospects.  Our inventory includes: the Web site, e-mail newsletter list, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and e-mail discussion lists.

• Communication schedule. We have mapped out a schedule that delineates what we will post or send out every day, week, month, and quarter.  For example, we strive to tweet every day, update our Facebook page twice a week, and post new blog entries twice a week.

• Content strategy. We believe that it’s important to NOT post the same stuff across all channels.  For example, on the Matrix Group Twitter account, we tweet about association/non-profit news, how companies and organizations are using the Web and social networking in interesting ways, cool sites, Web standards, site and application launches, job openings, Matrix Group events, and fun stuff going on around the office.  My personal Twitter account (@jmpineda) is different; I will post personal updates, sites I love, business news and trends, cool gadgets, blog posts and Matrix Group events.  You’ll notice that there is overlap in what we tweet when it comes to Matrix Group; otherwise, what we tweet between the two accounts is very different.  That’s intentional; we want our followers to have a different experience on each Twitter account.

• Tone and voice. Our Creative Director, Alex, says tone and voice are very important, no matter what the vehicle, so we have guidelines for the writing across our sites and pages.  Our updates are always professional, not formal but not too casual either, friendly and warm.

• Engagement and response. Since we seek engagement across the different channels, we strive to respond to every single e-mail, blog comment, direct tweet, etc.  We may not get back to folks instantly, but inquiries and comments get responded to within a day or two.  For example, when someone asks a question on my blog, I post a comment AND I send a direct e-mail.

You’ll notice that we don’t have a separate social networking strategy.  Instead, we have integrated the social network sites into our overall communications plan. All of this is working for us.  Leads from the Web site have increased by several hundred percent, the quality of the leads is amazing, we are getting good candidates for our jobs, and clients are interacting with us in new and different ways.

How about you?  What content and communication strategies are working for your organization?

What does this mean? Well…

• Fans will interact with organizations the same way they interact with their friends. Updates from the org/company pages will be added to fans’ home pages.  Fans can view and comment on status updates, they will get notified when other people join a conversations, and they can view photo, videos and links.
• Organizations will be challenged to do more with their Facebook pages. The change to the new format is good and bad.  Good because companies can do more and have more engagement with their fans.  Bad because their Facebook pages will need more oversight and content.

The Matrix Group Facebook page was previously fairly static.  We posted events and pulled in news, blog posts and photos via RSS.  We didn’t want to overuse the “Send an Update to Fans” button too much, so we used the page to have a presence.  But now, our Facebook page just got a whole lot more dynamic.  We uploaded photos with captions, we’re posting status updates, and soon we’re going to post videos.  Just think, when we updated the Matrix Group status to say “congratulates International Assoc of Chiefs of Police for winning Best In Class for Discover Policing from the IMA. http://www.discoverpolicing.org/,” all of our fans’ home pages or status update pages got that post.  Pretty cool and I hope someone will comment on the site or the award.  So now we’ll use Facebook to create more of a dialogue, promote projects, share information about technology we’re playing with, give candidates a sense of what it’s like to work for us.

Here are some other Facebook pages that are now taking full advantage of the new Facebook page format.

• Stanford University has a great page.  Love the videos and all the comments.
• The National Park Foundation is using it fabulous collection of images to good use and even soliciting donations online.

My top tips for managing your new Facebook page:

• Post a status update, link, photo or video at least 2-3 times per week.  This will get your fans accustomed to hearing from you.
• Experiment with topics and messages to see what elicits comments and feedback from your fans.
• Make several people in your organization an admin on your Facebook account so that there is always someone tending the page.  (Select Edit page, then manage admins in the lower right of the page.)
• Have a content strategy so you are clear on the type and tone of updates, links, photos and videos you will use to populate the site.

Advertising Age says this change makes Facebook more like MySpace and Twitter and wonders “can brands be trusted to respect social (network) etiquette?”

Some call it ORM – Online Reputation Management – or the art of managing how you and your company are perceived online.  ORM starts with tracking mentions of your company on the Web, anywhere on the Web, in every nook and cranny.  So how do you that?  There are tools and services, but I like:

• Google Alerts.  Google lets you create e-mail alerts for keywords and phrases.  Every time Google indexes a new page with your keyword or phrase, you get an e-mail.
• Of course, you should also be checking how your company shows up in the main Google search and the Google blog search.
• Twitter search.  This is a real-time search of Twitter posts that Google doesn’t necessarily index and certainly not fast enough.  You can even create an RSS feed out of specific searches.

Ultimately, ORM should be part of your overall company branding strategy.  What do people think of when your company name is mentioned?  You need a strategy for getting the word out about your company, for distinguishing the company from competitors, and responding (or deciding when to do nothing) when negative things are said about your firm.

I was intrigued by this company – Online Reputation Management – which claims to “specialize in removing and suppressing all negative and unfavorable search results that can impinge on your online reputation.”  Hmmm… can anyone really do that?

I was amused by this story about Cash4Gold, which tried to bribe a blogger whose blog had unfavorable mentions of  the company and was turning up as one of the top search results in Google.  Talk about bad publicity.  Instead of suppressing the negative post, the blogger actually blogged about the e-mails from this poor company.  So this is the story of how NOT to kill a bad blog post.

Sometimes, the best way to kill a story is to bury it.  Unfortunately, things have a way of resurfacing on the Web.  If the information is wrong or misleading, you can and should file a complaint.  Otherwise, investing in some searh engine optimization will at least get your presumably accurate and positive company information higher up in the Google rankings.

It turns out that even churches have adopted new media, and in a big way (why am I surprised by this?). After doing a bunch of Google searches, I realized that not only have many churches created extensive Web sites, many now have sermons and readings online, and yes, many now stream services live.

A popular aggregator site is Streaming Faith. I am blown away by this site. You have to register but it’s free and once you login, a whole world is available to you. Every day and every hour, you can watch live streams of services; you can listen to podcasts; you can watch pre-recorded sermons; you can make a donation online to your favorite church; and you can watch music videos.  You can even browse a list of ministers and ministries.  The videos are streamed using Windows Media Player and you will be amazed at the quality of the video.

Even if you aren’t religious, aren’t Christian or don’t attend church, this site is noteworthy and worth a look.

The ensuing discussion was an interesting one. We decided that all talk of what we actually do aside (Web design, integration, content management, hosting, yada, yada), what ultimately makes a client a raving fan is whether or not they have certain experiences with us. Regardless of how much money they spend or the type of work they ask us to do, there are core customer experiences that are critical to a client’s happiness.

Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking non-stop about what constitutes an organization’s core customer experiences.  I analyzed my membership in the CEO organization Vistage.  Vistage offers members a number of services and benefits but the core experiences are: one on one coaching, world class speakers and issue processing with peers.  Ultimately, if I don’t feel satisfied that I am getting my money’s worth in all three areas, I’m probably not going to keep my membership.  In other words, no matter how good the Web site or the social events, if I am not supremely satisfied with my core experiences, I am going to bail.

I’ve been huddling with my team and working to define our core customer experiences.  (We must assume that clients want a fair price for our work, excellent work, and on time results.)  So far, we’ve come up with:

• Regular check-ins, during which we discuss how the Web  can contribute to upcoming events, campaigns, initiatives, etc.
• Visit to the Matrix Group office, which allows us to connect with clients better and lets clients meet team members.  It’s just plain harder to connect with a client who has never met the people working on their site.
• Annual review and assistance with annual Web budget, which we do at no charge and provides clients with a lot of value-added services.  Trouble is, not every client is interested in this service.
• Unsolicited ideas from a Director or higher, which shows clients we are proactive and understand their business well enough to give them new ideas.
• Attendance at Matrix Group seminars and trainings. We have clients who attend every single event, no matter what the topic!
• Hosting with Matrix Group, which means they have regular interactions with us on a variety of topics.

These all sound like good ideas, right?  And we should be engaging in every single one of them, with every single client.  But how do you “fund” regular check-ins and brainstorming for every client, including ones who aren’t doing a lot of business with you and/or who have very limited budgets?  And how do you get people to come to you when they’re busy, you’re always happy to come to them or they’re out of state?  Does this mean we can’t have a meaningful, relationship with clients who don’t host with us?

These are good questions, but over the next few months, we’ve pledged to identify the core Matrix Group customer experiences, get feedback from customers, come up with a systematic way of giving all clients more love, and make more of our clients raving fans.

How about you?  What customer experiences are core to your business?

Max days that it doesn’t matter what business you think you’re in, what matters is what business your prospects and clients think you’re in.  So I got to thinking.  I say that the Matrix Group’s mission is to use the latest Web technologies to help our clients “be better.” When I pitch clients and prospects, I sell them a solution and an outcome.  I want clients to tell us their goals and then we’ll work collaboratively with them to figure out what mix of products and services will let them achieve those goals in the fastest and least expensive way.

But what would my top 10 clients say if I asked them what Matrix Group does? I hope that on a good day, my best clients would say that we helped them:  reach more members, sell more products, run a better organization, educate more people about their issues, save time, save money, yada, yada.  But I bet a bunch would say that we are a Web design shop, some would say we’re a Web development firm, and still others probably see us a membership database company.  Is this is the brand identity that I want?  No, so what can I do about it?

Max says:

• Understand that branding is about the brand name AND brand identity. Brand identity is what’s connoted when they hear your brand name. It’s the business that your prospects and clients think you’re in.
• Communicate our brand with a common language that everyone in the organization uses. Apparently, most companies do a poor job at communicating their businesses because they have a poor message, staff don’t know what the message is, and everyone in the company describes it differently.
• Live the brand. Through our behavior, we need to live our brand values.  If we are focused on outcomes, then we need to lead with goals and have an effective way of measuring the outcome of our efforts.

How about you?  Are you actually in the business you think you’re in?

• Send out a special e-blast to your membership or customers. Be sure to highlight new features, new functionality, tips for navigation, links to popular pages, etc.
• Include an article in your newsletter or magazine. Consider a series of articles in the next few issues of your publication.  In each issue, focus on something different about the new site, e.g., the navigation, how to use the site search, how to manage their profile, etc.
• If you have a printed magazine or newsletter, put in a house ad that promotes the new site. Include a screen shot and list of new features and benefits.
• Ask your staff to update their e-mail signatures with a message and URL, e.g.,Visit the redesigned Matrix Group Web site – http://www.matrixgroup.net
• Ask staff to include a message about the new site in their voice mail message. For example, if your site now features online registration, ask the Meetings Department to promote the new feature in their outgoing messages.  During membership renewal time, be sure to remind members to check their profiles and pay their dues online.
• Ask staff to post a link to their Facebook and MySpace pages.
• Ask staff to tweet (post a link on Twitter) about the new site.
• Write an announcement describing the new site, features and benefits and link it from the front page as the top story during the launch month.
• Don’t forget the staff.  Send out an announcement to all staff describing why the Web site was redesigned, the process you went through, who helped, the new features, how the redesign benefits the organization, etc.

If you have other easy and inexpensive ways to promote your Web site, I’d love to hear about them!

So here’s the deal.  I wanted to send an e-mail and include a link to a page describing the cookies — that’s it, just the cookies.  Here is what I found (or didn’t find):

• The Girl Scouts site has a page on Girl Scout cookies.  The page makes a nice pitch for the program, but there wasn’t any information on the cookies!  I just wanted to know if there were any new cookies this year and make sure my favorites are still being made! At the bottom of the page is a link that simply says Cookies.  Turns out that this link goes to an FAQ page but the link doesn’t tell you that.  The FAQ page is full of helpful information, almost too much information, but still nothing about this year’s cookies!
• The Girl Scout Cookie site, as far as I can tell, only lets you enter your contact information so that it can be passed to a council in your area.
• God bless Google for leading me to Meet the Cookies, which describes the 2009 cookies — finally!  After visiting the Girl Scout Cookies site several times, I finally figure out that there is a link to Meet the Cookies in teeny text in the top left corner.  The page opens in a pop-up window so I can’t print the info; yeah, I can get around that, but a less Web-savvy person might not know how.
• Tell a Friend on the Girl Scout Cookies site doesn’t let me add a personal message.

It seems to me that the Girl Scouts Cookie site is stuck in the traditional model of selling cookies through your neighborhood Girl Scout, with all information coming from sweet Suzie Girl Scout.  But seriously, isn’t every mom and dad of a Girl Scout sending out e-mails to family and friends asking them to buy cookies?  If the Girl Scouts were smart, they would create a page just for those of us who want to use the Web and e-mail to market the cookies! Heck, why can’t I order online?  It’s 2009!

Okay, enough hammering on the Girl Scouts, who do a good job for millions of girls, after all.  Oh, and by the way, if you want to order Girl Scout cookies this year, my niece will gladly take your order.  Just send me an e-mail (jpineda-at-matrixgroup dot net) with what you want and how to get in touch with you.  Take your pick from this page:  Meet the Cookies.  My favorites are Tagalongs, Samoas and Thin Mints.  I’ve ordered some Dulce de Leche cookies, which are new this year, for good measure.  Cookies start arriving in January.  Yum!

I picked up the gingerbread train kit from Target, the manufacturer is Create a Treat, Ltd.  The cute box says: We want to hear from you, send a photo to myhouse@createatreat.com.

Now, I’m not one to send photos of my kid to various contests.  But I thought it would be fun to send a photo of our finished gingerbread train. So I sent a nice message with a nice story to myhouse@createatreat.com.  So what happened?  You guessed it: the message bounced back with this message:

The message you sent to createatreat.com/myhouse was rejected because it would exceed the quota for the mailbox.

Are you kidding me?  I sent two photos, each about 60K.  It’s not like I sent high resolution versions that were 4 MEG each.  I specifically resized the photos before sending the message.

So, Create a Treat screwed up three times:

1. They created a campaign but then didn’t have a large enough mailbox to support the e-mails; c’mon guys, gmail gives you 6 GIG of storage
2. They missed a great story that they could use on their Web site, marketing materials, yada, yada
3. They annoyed a mom who blogs (me!)

So retailers, if you launch a campaign where you solicit consumer feedback, please mean it and actually be prepared to receive it. At least act like you care.

• Japanese toilet – I’ve asked Santa for a Japanese toilet this year.  Japanese toilets have heated seats, front and back sprays (heated, too), blow dryers, and even music.  I cannot understand why they are not more popular here in the US!
• XO laptop – The OLPC (one laptop per child) movement works like this:  $400 pays for one laptop for you and one for a child in a developing country.  The laptop has a nice screen, terrific software for kids, and it’s virtually kid-proof (love the sealed keyboard).
• Nerf Vulcan Automatic Heavy Blaster – This is the biggest, baddest, Nerf gun ever.
• Yoda Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber – Harout got one and it looks, sounds and feels like the real thing; love the lightsaber hum!
• If you’re on the Dark side of the Force, you’ll love the Darth Maul double-sided lightsaber.
• Drobo storage device – This is a nifty storage device that lets you add drives as you need them; Maki loves the online calculator.
• Eden, the latest game from Pixel Junk for the PS3 – You’ll jump and swing through beautiful gardens; there’s no shooting in this game, but you’ll have to know your geometry and physics.
• iHome alarm clock – Works with your iPod, nuff said.
• Garmin and TomTom GPS systems; Maria added a free voice to her Tom Tom – Angus, the Scot – which makes getting directions super fun. You can also get Darth Vader, John Cleese and other famous voices.
• Broken image necklace – Yep, it’s a necklace with an image of a broken image on a Web page; perfect for the Web designer in your life.
• Clocky Robotic Alarm – This is for the person in your life who hates getting up, um, for the person who can’t get up in the morning.
• Micro R/C 4-Channel Flying Saucer – Palm-sized flying saucer for the X-Files fan in your life.
• Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers – Coffee table book with pretty pictures of old hardware.
• Ubuntu mug – For the true Linux fan in your life (fyi, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution).
• USB turntable – Hard core music lovers love vinyl records, right?
• Wii Fit – We got one a few months ago and love it; I love the cheeky reminders to keep moving.  I’m a Super Hula Hoop fan!
• Leapfrog Tag Reading System – CJ is getting one; he’ll love using the special pen to read the special books.
• Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium – This device lets you point at a constellation or planet and it will tell you what you’re looking at; works well only if you can see the stars.

How about you?  What are your favorite tech gifts this season?  What are you hoping Santa will give you?

I was recently interviewed by Jill Foster for the Network Solution blog on a variety of topics, including using social media for recruiting and what we’re doing here at Matrix Group to survive this hellish economy.

When our fiscal year ends next June, I want to be able to say that we were counter-trend and that our company grew, despite the recession.  Here are my top strategies for surviving this economic bloodbath.

• Stay close to our customers. We’re listening extra hard when customers give us feedback, request new services, and share their pain points.
• Keep marketing. I’m seeing my competitors cut back on their marketing efforts, but here at Matrix Group, we’ve expanded our sales and marketing staff, we’re doing more webinars, we’re using social media, and we’re looking at every opportunity.
• Manage vendor relationships. When the market crashed, one of my first calls was to our leasing company, whose President assured us that the credit crunch didn’t affect us and it’s business as usual.

Here’s a link to the Network Solutions blog post:
http://blog.networksolutions.com/tag/joanna-pineda/

And here are some great articles I found about thriving in this market.

• Southwest Airlines changing strategy for LaGuardia presence
• How to survive: market segmentation

Geek note: During the interview with Jill, she created a podcast using a service called Utterli. At the beginning of the conversation, Jill dialed a number on her mobile phone, talked into it, then handed the phone to me when it was my turn to comment. At the end of the conversation, Jill hung up and said, “okay, the podcast has been uploaded to my blog.” I was dumbfounded. Jill used her phone to create a podcast!

Note to self: create an Utterli account and create podcasts from the next conference I attend.

Second note to self: ask clients how we can combine our Web development services with Utterli to give them a more powerful blogging platform from their meetings and conventions. Any takers?

If you don’t know MarketingSherpa, you should.  MarketingSherpa is my favorite source for news, information, case studies, how-to guides — everything about online marketing.  MarketingSherpa e-mails are the few e-newsletters that I read in their entirety.  I pass the articles along to my staff and clients.  The knowledge in MarketingSherpa case studies is amazing, the writing is terrific, and the know-how is real.

I remember meeting Anne at an iBreakfast, a pitchfest hosted by Alan Brody back in 1999.  Anne had an idea to pitch, a marketing plan, no money, but a lot of passion and knowledge about online marketing and research.  MarketingSherpa became one of Matrix Group’s first dot com clients.  At first, we helped her develop her technical platform and prototypes so that she could show investors more than a business plan.

After Anne cashed in her 401(k), quit her day job and went full-time with MarketingSherpa, we developed her site for her.  We gave her a CMS, e-mail subscribe forms, e-mail boxes, and e-mail lists.  Her site was the biggest in our network and we learned a lot about how to manage and host mission-critical sites.

We lost MarketingSherpa as a client when Anne sold the company.  And now, Anne has stepped down from the company.  It feels like the end of an era.

Anne graciously thanked Matrix Group in her last blog post and I’m proud that we had a small part in helping her realize her dream and building the powerhouse research firm that MarketingSherpa is today.

I was pleased to see that Yahoo! has launched a Start Wearing Purple campaign. Even though the logo on the Yahoo Web site is red, it seems that purple has long been the company’s official color. Why purple? Yahoo says purple is associated with innovation and imagination.

Hmmm…. I always thought purple was associated with royalty and girl power, but hey, I’ll buy the innovation and imagination connection. Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO, says he “bleeds purple.” Hmmm…. even I’m not crazy enough to say stuff like that.

But seriously, the Start Wearing Purple site is fun. You can buy fun purple gear, check out a Flickr feed that features purple products, and read about purple pioneers. Yahoo even has a Purple Acts of Kindness program that provides grants to deserving community leaders.

Back to purple being the color of the season. Fashion Trendsetter says purple is one of the hot colors for Fall 2008. Crate & Barrel’s catalogs are featuring a slew of purple products, like this Radius pillow and a purple leather chair.  And check out the purple boots that Miley Cyrus wore at Disney’s “Concert of Hope.”

I ordered a pair Yahoo purple sneakers on the Start Wearing Purple site. I’ll be sure to post a photo when they arrive next week. In the meantime, take my advice and Yahoo’s — and start wearing purple.

I had a lot of time to think about the offer because everyone in front me willingly gave up their e-mail address and contact information. Me, it took about 30 seconds to realize that saving less than $5 on a pair of shoes worth $49.95 was NOT worth getting spam from a store I don’t visit often (even though the shoes were really cute).

My shopping experience went from bad to worse. At a kids’ clothing store, I waited in line as each mom was asked, “would you like to give us your e-mail address and get $250 worth of coupons, would you like to subscribe to this magazine for the discounted price of $20, yada, yada.” And I was amazed at how many people provided their phone number AND e-mail simply when asked! When it was my turn, I paid cash and said no thanks when asked for my phone number, address and e-mail.

So I got to thinking. What is my e-mail address worth and when am I willing to share it with a site or vendor?

I thought about all the sites I’ve visited recently that required registration; on most of these sites, I just clicked away because I wasn’t willing to provide my precious contact information.  On the other hand, I willingly provided my e-mail address to Nordstrom (one of my favorite retailers), Amazon, MarketingSherpa, the New York Times, Barnes & Noble and Epicurious. And yes, I actually like getting my weekly recipes from Epicurious and fashion updates from Nordstrom. I read my Sherpa e-mails and New York Times digests religiously. And I use the Barnes & Noble coupons that come via e-mail.

Bottom line for me: I have to already be a believer in your brand and content for me to give up my e-mail, and you can’t buy it from me for $5, not even $100.

Okay, I figure, I’m already a customer of the server software, why not register to get the Fact Sheet?  The registration process was two screens, then I was directed to the PDF of the Fact Sheet.  Guess what?  The fact sheet was nothing but a page and half of marketing fluff that was absolutely NOT worth me registering for it.  The Fact Sheet had no technical specs, no descriptions of the reports, and no pricing information.  It was totally useless.

I was so mad that when the e-mail confirmation came in, asking me to confirm my subscription to the WebTrends on Demand newsletter, I promptly deleted it.

For all you marketers out there, if you want me to register for your Fact Sheet, White Paper or Technical Requirements document, please make it worth my while.  Give me rich details, technical requirements, screen shots, customer testimonials, tips and pricing. Otherwise, I will delete your content in the future.  Worse, I may even put you on my spam list.