Production Blog Reviews

Don’t Let Strategy Be An Excuse

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Don’t Let Strategy Be An Excuse This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Marketer extraordinaire Lee Odden sent me an email the other day asking my opinion on the question – Does social strategy need to come before tactics? It was an appeal that went out to any number of folks that write about this kind of stuff. I pondered the question for a moment and found myself thinking – well, really this is a trick question, but then I put it aside. Lee’s impressive roster of responses and very tweetable post – Social Media Strategy Before Tactics is a very worthwhile read. Because I didn’t get around to responding I get the benefit of reading what most of the responses contained before crafting my own, but I certainly found myself compelled to write this after a read of the post. (In fact, the rest of this post won’t make much sense without checking our Lee’s post first.) As I guessed would be the case, all but a few of the many responses said about the same thing – strategy must come first, it’s like a destination without a map, building a house with no blueprint, wandering in the dark without a light, blah, blah, blah. Of course you should have a strategy before you employ any tactic, I don’t care what the subject social media or horseshoes, but this same warmed over line being put there by every marketer charged with taking up the social banner isn’t helping anyone. Before you start to assume I’m taking pot shots out of context let me say two things – I’m as guilty as anyone of falling into this trap, I know most of the people in the post and know they are very smart folks who have tons to add to the total body of this work. All I’m saying is that if we keep telling people they need strategy, but can’t tell them how to get one, we may do more harm than good. See, here’s what I’ve discovered over the years of working with small business. Most strategy is guessing and while you need to start there, your strategy isn’t worth much until you get out there and throw some tactics at it, listen to the real world and and then change your strategy to meet reality. If you sit around trying to create reality in your garage you’ll never be right. There is no real linear approach to this stuff except in blog posts and keynote presentation. In my experience there is no way to create a social media strategy that’s more than a guess without tactical experimentation – so, I say get out there and do something. Don’t let strategy, or your lack of a clear one today, stop you from biting off some tactic to throw into the stew. Strategy, the kind that disrupts entire industries, changes brands and informs cultures, is messy, messy stuff to create. Image credit: timlewisnm Related Posts: Strategy Before Tactics Stop Wasting Your Time With Social Media What's So Scary About Marketing Strategy? Need a New Strategy? Ask New Questions. Weekend Favs September Twenty Seven Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Don’t Let Strategy Be An Excuse

God goes viral in new UCC online marketing campaign – Washington Post (blog)

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

God goes viral in new UCC online marketing campaign Washington Post (blog) This time, a more wired church is using its 60000 email newsletter subscribers and 31000 Facebook fans in order to jump-start a viral social networking ... and more

Document, Delegate, Dominate

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Share Document, Delegate, Dominate This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Mostly I write about marketing here so when I seem to stray off topic you can bet it’s related to growing a small business and sometimes that takes getting your house in order so you can effectively market. The most common reason business owners tell me they can’t get around to marketing, particularly some of the newer social tactics, is time. They’re already working 80 hours and week and can’t seem to find the time to squeeze more stuff in. While I get that completely I would also suggest, from experience, that you must find ways to create systems and processes that allow you to effectively delegate most of what you do today if you are to have any shot at growing a business that helps you get what you want out of life. Plain and simple, your business will suck the life out of you if you allow yourself to stay buried in the doing it work of making it, fixing it, shipping it. The secret to getting yourself high enough out of the routine and focused on the strategic, the marketing, the innovation, is to document and delegate your success systems. I know that sounds really boring, kind of like creating an operations manual, but if you don’t do it nothing will change – or worse yet, you’ll abdicate work to others and risk sinking your brand completely. Much of the success of your business may reside in the heads of your key employees. So, what happens when they leave? Do they take your processes with them or do you have them documented in a way that others can quickly learn? Want to hire as you grow? I wonder how much time you’ll save training that next employee with a set of documented routines in place? Documenting the functional processes of your business doesn’t have to be painful or complicated. Taking a couple simple steps and making them part of your routine may be all it takes. Once you get in the habit, you’ll reap the rewards long-term. Create a functional org chart - even if you don’t have people for boxes you have the boxes so identify all the functions in your business List the processes – start making lists of all the processes needed by each function (this will grow and change but get the biggies down) Start creating checklists – process documentation can be as simple as a list of five things to check off, don’t over complicate this Create an online manual – use wiki technology like Central Desktop that allows you to create and organize your success manual from your web browser Get the entire team in – get everyone working in your business to contribute their processes and get in the habit of documenting as they go You’ll need to trim and adjust your manual from time to time, but simply starting down this path is going to show you what a freeing step this is. And, when it comes time to sell your business your documented processes will be one of the most valuable assets you have to offer. Related Posts: The Technology of Delegation Naming Your Stuff Makes It Feel More Important Offer Proof With Checklists 5 Questions You Should Ask Every Customer Successful Marketing Requires Behavior Change Powered by Contextual Related Posts Like this post? Share it with others

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Document, Delegate, Dominate

Top VCs Debate Rising Startup Valuations [Video] – Washington Post

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Top VCs Debate Rising Startup Valuations [Video] Washington Post He uses Greylock's investment in Facebook at a $500 million valuation as an example. At the time a lot of people said they were crazy. ... and more

Q&A: Personal vs. Professional Branding in Social MEdia

Posted by cgseo under Social Media

Dan Schwabel is not only a personal branding expert, he’s someone I’ve come to know and respect over the years…and definitely someone I consider a friend.  We recently sat down to discuss Engage and the resulting interaction culminated in a wonderful discussion that explored the state of professional and personal branding in the era of new media. How do you define “Engage” and do you believe that people and business that fail to engage will seek to exist in the next decade? Engage was inspired by the original Social Media Manifesto published in June 2007. At the time, the manifesto served as a rallying cry for businesses to embrace the new world of participatory media in order to earn attention and ultimately relevance in democratized and highly influential online societies. As people were and are becoming increasingly selective about where they discover and share information, consumers are also expanding their social networks (or social graphs) and changing how they form and maintain alliances online. In the middle of the essay, I summarized the transformation of business landscapes and the ability to connect with customers and influencers as undeniable, wrapped around three simple, but resonating words that were intended to serve as marching orders, “Engage or die.” If we do not participate and eventually lead online interaction related to our business, then we are walking a path toward oblivion. Consumers, regardless of industry, have choices and if we’re not top of mind where and when they’re seeking information and direction, then we are absent and forgettable. “Engage or die” became the prevailing mantra of not only the essay, but also the social business movement and honestly, it is truer today than it was three years ago. To this day, it continues to inspire champions and it was also the inspiration for this book. As you can imagine, those words might not attract potential readers in a positive light. The message, and the book overall, is incredibly helpful and motivating and as such, the essence of the title was representative in one word and one word only, “engage.” Over the next decade, everything changes and while the realization that transformation is inevitable, it will only gather unstoppable momentum. The true value of this book is that it minimizes public experimentation and guesswork and helps businesses, of all shapes, sizes, and industries, to answer their own questions as well as the questions they didn’t know to ask. It’s designed to expedite meaningful and effective engagement strategies and escalate the brand within all communities of influence online and offline. What does Engage mean to you as a personal brand? What’s in play right now is something so profound that we are only on the verge of realizing its true impact and potential. The path that many of us are on today however, places us on a collision course between our personal and professional brands as well as the brands we ultimately represent. Social media requires us to engage transparently and as such, the networks and corresponding social graphs that we’re forming blur the lines between who we are to friends and family, peers and professional contacts, and also those we hope to reach on behalf of our business. Our attention is finite and it’s increasingly thinning to a point of diminishing returns. We, along with those who follow our online updates, will become selective in those we follow tomorrow, focusing our streams into curated and discerning channels of material contacts and information. Think about it this way, if you’re the admin for a Facebook Fan Page on behalf of your brand, you usually interact with a captive audience, and as an admin, people see and hear the “voice” and avatar personifying the brand. But in order to grow the community, we have to attract attention where it’s focused, which means engaging in outside communities as well. When you do so however, you lose the “brand” facade and are now participating as the brand “you.” Now your streams start to cross as those who follow you may or may not be interested in the promotional updates that hit their news feed. Engage tackles this subject as it teaches us how to effectively embrace “multiple personality order” to maintain strategic presences for our personal and professional brands and the relationships that are important to each. You recently rebranded your blog from “PR 2.0″ to “Brian Solis.” Can you go over the repositioning? Do you feel that after carving out your niche, you can go for the “more general audience”? Also, if you wanted to shake the “PR 2.0″ branding, would it even be possible? How does this decision impact your core audience of PR practitioners? This is a topic that is heartfelt and one that continues to unfold daily. PR 2.0 was an overnight success over a decade in the making and that’s not something everyone realizes as it is just now starting to get traction. As such, new PR is gaining awareness among the decision makers who can lead the communications industry toward significance and prosperity. However, the true story is the shift from PR to public relations and this crusade was captured in my last book with Deirdre Breakenridge , Putting the Public Back in Public Relations – a book that is a must read for anyone in PR or marketing communications. Everything is changing. PR is also undergoing a renaissance much like service, marketing, advertising and all disciplines affected by conversational and participatory media. PR is also a topic that is debated in minefields. and I believe that in order to truly transform businesses from a position of introspection to one of an outward view, and in turn, bring about change from the outside in, PR, for the most part, does not travel freely on paths to executive offices, the boardroom, nor marketplaces. While internal groundswells are triggering responses across middle management, my goal is to bring both ends to the middle, evoking a reaction among leaders to accelerate change from the top down. If it’s one thing we’re learning is that everything contributes to public relations and this is why social media and strategic and meaningful engagement becomes paramount to the future of any business. Everyone on the front lines within social networks as well as those responsible for the creation and dissemination of social objects are now part of the public relations team. As a result, this becomes so much bigger than PR 2.0. This is now about the personification of a brand and its culture and the ability to connect it to those who can benefit from the interaction and alliance. My work is dedicated to every aspect of business to contribute to the socialization of the brand and every touch point that connects companies, audiences, influencers, and consumers. This is now the minimum ante for businesses to compete for market and mind share today and in the future. Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter , LinkedIn , Tumblr , Google Buzz , Facebook — Please consider reading my brand new book , Enga ge ! — Image Credit: Shutterstock (edited)

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Q&A: Personal vs. Professional Branding in Social MEdia