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UPDATE:
As of September 1, 2010, Twitter has nuked functions like this from orbit. I now recommend you download and install the paid TweetAdder software that does substantially the same thing but is compliant with Twitter’s OAuth protocols.
The old post is kept below only for historical purposes.
The Online Marketer’s Web Strategy
I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the MarketingProfs conference over the past two days, and it was a phenomenal conference, full of lots of good ideas. However, one thing stood out among the various discussions that I wanted to make a point about. There is a definite structure and strategy to online marketing that you need to follow to improve your likelihood of success.
During a number of sessions, folks were talking about all the social media stuff available to marketers, about how to choose and how to get started. Social media was the buzzword at the conference.. Social media is sexy. Social media is the hot new thing.
Social media comes LAST, gang.
That’s right, last.
What comes first?
You first must have CONTENT. Something worth talking about. If you want to be in social media, the social part is conversation and discussion. If you have nothing worth talking about – and nothing worth others talking about you – then any effort you put into social media will largely be a waste of time.
Once you’ve got content, USER INTERFACE comes next. Make a web site that’s attractive, easy to navigate, easy to find stuff on. Hire a professional designer or information architect to help you with this if you’re not so good at it, or use a proven templating system. Whatever you do, focus on putting your content into an easily managed format that is a pleasure to use. Make sure you have at least one way of converting a visitor into a database entry somehow, whether it’s a simple mailing list, or a complex lead generation system.
If you’re marketing online, you’re marketing with a web site. Do your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION next. Make sure your web sites validate with W3C standards, at least minimally. Make sure you optimize your sites, build some links, do all the basics. Check out Hubspot’s Web Site Grader for a great starter tool. When you set up profiles on other social networks, make sure you link back to your web site, always. SEO is all about capturing passive traffic, capturing people who are looking for your content.
Only after you’ve completed the steps of great content, user interface, and search engine optimization are you ready to dive into social media. There’s no way you can win the road race if your car is lacking tires and an engine. Content, UI, and SEO are the basics you MUST have in place prior to diving into social media, or else you’ll be wasting time, energy, and the limited slice of attention your audience is giving you – and they won’t give you again.
Photo credit: CC Chapman
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For fun, I logged into Twitter tonight and checked the followers page. To my great surprise, it seems as though about half of the people I thought I was following are not, so it’s an evening of re-syncing Twitter to follow friends old and new who I thought I was in sync with.
The scale of it almost makes me think that Twitter did a database rollback of some kind. Very strange.
I’m also taking the Chris Brogan philosophy of Twitter following, too. Unless you’re an obvious spambot, I’ll follow back whether or not I think you’ve got anything of value to say. This is the surest way to de-fuse the criticism that I follow some and not others (and yes, some people have actually said that!) – by devaluing my Twitterstream to near uselessness, I achieve equality of everyone’s voice. No one’s voice is greater than anyone else’s, because I can’t hear any of it. Not that I could anyway, with Twitter’s reliability being in the toilet lately.
Short summary: if you suddenly got a notice saying I was following you, this is why – re-syncing Twitter.
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Reality is a harsh mistress.
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I got a hilariously off topic pitch from a PR firm today to the Financial Aid Podcast.
“Financial Aid Podcast Feature Topic – New Proposal Offers Free Cell Phone Headsets To Motorists Ticketed Under New Cell Phone Ban Law”
Christopher,
Here’s some information for a timely and interesting feature topic. The release below details how one company is launching a creative way to help educate motorists about the new hands free cell phone bans being implemented in more and more states nationally.
We would be happy to arrange interviews help in any other way further. If there is someone better to send this to can you please forward this to him/her or provide me with the contact information? Thanks and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Name withheld to prevent accidentally promoting this firm
I’m not sure where to begin evisceration.
First, the journalism outlet – the Financial Aid Podcast – is an internet radio show about financial aid. Has nothing to do with driving, cars, telephony, headsets, mobile phones, or hands free cell phone legislation. This isn’t just off-topic, it’s off-industry.
Second, how did you even find out about me? Yeah, I’m on lists like HelpAReporter.com and such, but if you’re pitching based on that subscriber list, Shankman’s going to toast your ass.
Third, when I read the actual release out of morbid curiosity, you as a PR firm missed the point of your client’s release. It’s actually an interesting story of sorts – the company is doing some cool stuff that might be worth talking about, instead of the generic, bland copy you sent along as a cover letter to the release. You need to hire a better copywriter.
I’d be tempted to add the PR firm’s address to the PR spammers’ wiki, but honestly, I don’t want to give ANY ink to the firm, positive or negative, and I kind of actually want to keep getting their press releases, just to see what additional, wildly off-topic releases they send to me. They’ll never get published, but at least they’re good for a laugh.
Of course, if I were this PR firm’s client, I might be questioning the ROI of using this firm. Just sayin…
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I just got the Financial Aid Podcast approved for a beta of Woopra.
Oh. my. goodness.
This really is web analytics porn. There’s no better way to describe just how neat this is.
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Hat tip to Mashable – I found the Zemanta plugin for WordPress, which is just astonishing. It suggests contextually relevant content from around the web for your blog, all in a useful little sidebar.
Let’s say I’m blogging about Sallie Mae, my archrival. Just by putting those words in my post, their corporate logo and various content on the web appears in the sidebar. Or JP Morgan Chase. Or Citibank.
Add a couple more clicks, and you’re adding blog posts, too. Got an Amazon book recommendation, like Made to Stick by the Heath brothers? Zemanta will let you build links with your affiliate ID with just a couple of clicks.
DAMN cool.
Social Media and Business Ethics
Prior to my involvement in social media and new media, customers were exactly that – just customers. Rows in a database, indexed by various criteria, points of data making a beautiful line, so to speak. As an online business, my company, the Student Loan Network, never had to really deal with customers all that much, since almost all transactions were digital, almost all were automated, and almost all were without incident. Having a customer base that was a complete commodity also made business decisions relatively easy – send newsletters and notices X number of times a month, accept X percentage unsubscribe rates, calculate X percentage revenue from the clickstream.
To be perfectly candid, we never really had to think about the customer as a human being.
Sure, we said we did, just like everyone else, but if you had asked me off the top of my head to name three customers without opening a SQL command line, I’d have given you a blank look.
Social media changed all that. From the day I got my first piece of feedback as a podcaster, social media changed how I, and how the Student Loan Network, interacts with its customers. Suddenly, at the other end of the command line output, there were human beings I knew by name, and even call friends. I’ve had lunch with a few.
More importantly, when I go to write a newsletter, a blog post, or an episode of the Financial Aid Podcast, I have to consciously think about what level of quality I’m creating, about what value I’m creating, because it’s no longer just about percentage clicks from the clickstream, it’s about making sure that when Ricky, Fernando, Leah, Nolan, James, and many others get the content I create, they get some value out of it.
Sure, some days will be better than others, but I know that personally knowing customers makes a huge difference in how you approach your business. Being friends with customers radically changes how you do business, because ultimately, if you’re a person of sound ethics and morals, you don’t willfully screw your friends over. It’s the same general concept as requiring the children of elected officials to serve in the infantry of a country’s armed forces – there are real, personal consequences to every decision you make.
This is one of the many upsides of social media – the ability to transform your business into a human enterprise again, if you’re willing to be adventurous and take the risk of letting employees truly and openly communicate with customers and develop real relationships.
It’s hurricane season beginning today. A bunch of folks are predicting above-average activity, meaning more hurricanes than average.
We’re already at 4/gallon for gasoline.
How much would gasoline go up if we get another Katrina?
Gas before Katrina was in the2.25 range. Then it leaped to 3,3.50 in places before the markets resumed normal operation. An increase of 36%, give or take.
A similar increase today would put gasoline at $6 or so, assuming it would be available.
So this is the time of year to take the 5 gallon gas can to the local gas station, fill it up, and add a gas stabilizer to keep the fuel usable during longer periods of storage. In a Toyota Prius, 5 gallons will get you from Boston to Montreal or New York City – enough to get out of Dodge if things got unpleasant.
What are you doing to prepare for a potentially above-average activity hurricane season?
I saw this article in USA Today – community colleges, many of which are commuter schools, are cutting classes, typically on Fridays, to help students save money on gas.
Here’s the question I have: why wouldn’t professors start assigning distance learning opportunities in class? Let’s say you’re taking a course on biology, an intro course. Instead of having a Friday class, instead of canceling a Friday class, the professor assigns MIT Professor Dr. Graham Walker’s Introduction to Biology lecture from iTunesU as the guest lecture of the week. Students would still be responsible for the contents of the lecture and its contents would be fair game for exams.
Now, I know what some folks will say – community college students aren’t necessarily the most affluent students around, nor are they all likely to have high speed Internet access. Instead of a textbook, or in addition to a textbook, include the 149 iPod nano, and have a few computers in the classroom with the content pre-loaded. Students without a home computer and broadband can sync their iPods in class or after class for the distance learning day.
With gasoline at4/gallon and so much good, free content online, the case for distance learning to substitute for lecture-style classes grows stronger by the day.
