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Feb 11

Gain Loyalty by Protecting Your Network

February 11, 2010 • 3 Comments • Other Social Networks

It’s nice to have a lot of contacts. I like the idea of knowing a go-to person for just about everything and that the fact that we know each other makes us more accountable to each other.

There is something you notice when you start meeting a lot of people indiscriminately though. You open yourself up to what I call “toxic networks”. These are people who always manage to ask you or your network for favors but offer none in return. Or my favorite technique–they’ll give you a favor even though you didn’t ask for one and then expect that they can ask you for whatever they want. It’s like they are some sort of New York City window washer at a street light.

I don’t think people intend to impose. They often do not see that when they ask you for something that is easy for you but hard for them, they could be one of 50 people doing just that at that very moment. It’s not cool that it pans out this way but that’s just life.

So how do you protect against this?

1.) Don’t “network” for volume–network for quality. Having one good designer in your network is worth more than eight mediocre ones.
2.) Slow and steady wins the race. Network through existing networks you trust. Good people tend to attract good people.
3.) “Big” doesn’t mean quality. Some successful people I know also seem to ask for the most and give the least. It’s irritating but the way of the world sometimes.
4.) Don’t be afraid to cut someone off. The time you spend with people who drag you down could be spent with people who are actually quality.
5.) Don’t think of what a person means to you. Think of what that person means to your network. If you are ashamed to introduce someone to others, they are not worth your time.
6.) If you initiate a favor with someone, don’t be that window washer expecting a favor in return. Help people because you want to support something good. Then it’s easy to feel positive about life.

Introducing two people into what is a mutually beneficial relationship is a very satisfying feat. Introducing a good person to what I would call a succubus is not. I’ve done a bit of both in my time. Keep good company, play smart instead of fast, and you won’t have anything to worry about.

3 Comments
Dec 31

The Marketing Weapon of Choice for 2010: Listening

December 31, 2009 • 3 Comments • Online Marketing

engage
Hugh MacLeod’s delivery is a little more um, to the point than mine would be. Some people need the message spelled out in black and white.

When a company first starts using social media, it’s like watching someone’s dad play with his first video camera. They seem to share everything in an attempt to “engage” just to show some results. That’s not a judgment, mind you. Everyone has to start somewhere and it’s just counterproductive to be mean about it.

The most powerful thing you can use social media for is listening. “Engaging” your audience without fully understanding who they are and how they relate to you is not engaging at all–it is as irritating as the ad that won’t stop blinking on the blog you are reading.

It is easier than you think to make people to want and need your product. Use tools like Tweetdeck, Google Alerts, RSS, Radian6, Community Insights or ScoutLabs and listen. Track terms in your industry, follow the players who are thought leaders in your space. Understand the current issues occurring in your industry. Create a product that goes above and beyond to solve these issues while not creating lots of other issues. Then show people your product. You can use an ad, a social media guru, whatever. The medium isn’t nearly as important as the message, which is “We are solving these issues you have.”

Listening and then acting upon what people need is far more powerful than any “engaging” you can do. I predict the companies that do it best will win out in 2010.

3 Comments
Dec 04

Be Bobby Fisher Instead of the One Hit Wonder in Your Marketing Campaigns

December 4, 2009 • 5 Comments • Online Marketing

marketing chess movesMarketing is like a chess game. You need to set things up first before you can get your big wins.

That’s why I genuinely don’t focus on numbers until numbers are needed. I focus on what the late and great Elvis would say, “Taking Care of Business.”

The question we as marketers should not always be “What can I do to get more customers or traffic?” This is an instant gratification response. It feels great to log into Analytics and see that spike, but it isn’t necessarily going to last. The question should be “What messaging should we put across to make our company more sustainable and therefore profitable in the future?”

Think about it: if I put out one message that gets me 500 customers, great. That’s 500 customers I didn’t have before. BUT, if I put out a message that gets me the passionate lead architect or designer I needed to make my product great, that person has the potential of getting me thousands if not millions of customers with a fraction of the work. My message in a small, obscure community could get me one big investor who helps save my company. Who cares if only five people saw one particular message?

Each marketing message shouldn’t be about bringing in masses. It can be used to bring in employees, investors, partners, company cheerleaders who essentially do the selling for you, or press fanboys. You’re just communicating. As in chess, a big bold move too soon can make you vulnerable to attack from your enemy. Setting up the pieces first means you are in a better position to let numbers drive themselves.

5 Comments
Mar 19

Why People Aren’t Spending Money

March 19, 2009 • 1 Comment • Politics and Current Events

We are in a recession. People aren’t spending money. They aren’t taking risks. We are wondering when everything is going to bottom out even worse.

Wired just came out with an edition explaining why the economy caved. I honestly didn’t read it, but it had a bunch of complex formulas on the front.

Here’s my big fancy philosophical theory:
When companies exploit both their workforce and their customers, it hurts everyone.

Take the music industry. Major record labels often pay artists very little money for a hectic lifestyle. If an artist isn’t smart and doesn’t buy the rights to his or her songs or make money on tour, the label makes a lot of money for a little work and the artist makes a little money of a lot of work.

In this equation, do people really care that much about stealing the music if they know they will go to the musician’s tour, which is the big money maker for them?

Take shoe companies. The label makes a lot of money off a little work, and the makers of the shoe are often in very poor conditions for very little money. I understand economies of scale and realize it can be better to work in a factory than a rice paddy. But when my shoes are $110 and I realize that a company spent $3 on the materials and $30 to market it to me, is it really true that we get what we pay for?

And if a company treats me poorly and I connect with someone else who has the same experience, why do I want to go back? I’M NOT PROFIT MARGIN FOR YOUR INVESTORS. I am the person who ultimately pays your bills.

The internet teaches us that you don’t always get what you pay for. Instead of going to Macy’s to buy a necklace, I can go to eBay and pay a fraction of the price from the eBay seller in China who made it. Instead of going to a major record label, I can find a musician on Pandora for free and then I can pay that musician directly instead of having a record label muck it up by trying to appeal to the biggest audience possible.

The world doesn’t have time or money for large bureaucracies. With many points of refined connections, we can act much faster and more effectively than a bureaucracy. In order for America to get out of this recession, we are going to have to embrace and nurture this new model instead of propping up broken business models. A company’s long-term worth and value to society is not its stock price. It is only its worth to its customers. Enron, AIG, GM, Ford, Sun, and just about every other fledgling corporation teach us that.

So choose wisely in this new economy. Your customers will talk about you. They will do the selling for you. If you neglect them or the employees who produce for them, you could end up in a host of trouble.

1 Comment
Jan 18

Danica Patrick GoDaddy Ads Reflect the Sad State of Women’s Athletics

January 18, 2009 • 16 Comments • Online Marketing

It took almost fifteen years to finally figure out that there are men out there who like educated and powerful women. It’s something I still struggle with to this day. What is my role? Am I a future trophy wife or should I be running a marketing firm? Men are often expected to get a job and make money, but as a woman, being too engaged in my career (and risk being a bad parent if I have children) or too engaged in my family (and risk getting divorced and having outdated career skills) seems like a liability either way.

What I do know is that women are not empowered at all if they are merely sexual objects. Women are indeed sexual creatures, but not to the extent that our society portrays them. To be seen as merely an object for men’s jollies is frankly really boring and wasteful of all the talent women have to offer.

That is why I get really irritated with Danica Patrick’s decision to play into GoDaddy’s misogynistic marketing campaign. Here is a women who broke into a man’s sport, something that few women have ever done. She’s actually resented in the Indy car circuit because she has so many endorsements, but has actually only won one race. Indy racing is actually quite difficult as it requires extreme concentration and endurance. GoDaddy could be highlighting her training and story, but instead, they’d rather slap her in a shower with another woman.

Growing up as a tennis player, I admired Steffi Graf more than I did Anna Kournikova or Gabby Sabatini. Why? Because although Steffi wasn’t considered the most gorgeous person, she was a winner, over and over and over again. She won more singles Grand Slams than any other woman in history. Hate them if you want, but the Williams sisters worked their way out of Compton to be two of the most dominant tennis players alive. They will be able to look back and say they left a legacy behind.

On the other hand, will Danica Patrick be able to say this? Or will she say, “I would have won more races had I spent more time training and racing and less earning Bob Parsons money by objectifying myself”. Will she be able to say that she inspired generations of women to pursue careers in male dominated sports and career fields that interest them, or will she perpetuate the stereotype that there are certain things that women “just shouldn’t do”?

16 Comments
Jan 08

Why Celebrities Should Take Social Media Seriously

January 8, 2009 • 10 Comments • Social Media and Society

We saw that Britney Spears’s Twitter got hacked. We follow Lance Armstrong’s workouts and Schwartzenegger’s budgets. I even blogged about John Cleese, because he’s a friggin genius.

Right now, much of traditional media doesn’t care about internet media. They don’t see it as a money making medium and compared to movies in particular, it isn’t yet. Frankly, I think it’s because advertisers put too much stake in click throughs and not enough in branding, which is why they buy ads on TV. They also don’t appreciate that the majority of journalists have admitted to taking stories from blogs so it is important to appeal to the early adopters who blog.

It is imperative that celebrities use online media to manage their reputations…period. Say disaster strikes. A budding new actor who happens to be married is snapped in a photo with a cute blond. The photo is broadcast on TMZ and in the Star the next day. With social media, celebrities can speak directly to the public and say, “Hold on there, she was my wife’s interior decorator”. And then that wife can say, “Yes, it’s true”. TMZ would never publish that because controversy sells. By staying ahead of the game and speaking directly to journalists, bloggers, and the general public, the situation is diffused quite easily.

Social media takes out the middleman which is traditional media. It gives you more audiences and more interesting perspectives since just about every traditional journalist is in New York or LA, but online media is not. Celebrities can promote themselves as much or as little as the please, in any way they see fit and to the audience. The slow, expensive filter that is traditional media is no longer the only means for spreading word about projects and it certainly doesn’t tap into the diehard fans the way online media does.

Why else is it important? For the same reason that the first thing you should buy when you launch a career or a business, you should buy your name as your domain name with all of its extensions. By snatching up profiles on all the major social networks, you are protecting your brand from impostors. You are reserving the right to use that profile at a later time. Considering traditional journalists are continually getting fired and social networks like Twitter and Facebook are constantly on this rise, this is becoming more and more important.

What is the most compelling reason to use social media? Because it humanizes a celebrity. It’s the reason we read “People” and watch behind the scenes. We want to know the people behind the character. Social media doesn’t rely on journalists to do this and it is a two-way street instead of one-way communication. The prospects for how this communication can affect art are immeasurable.

10 Comments
Jan 07

Seven Things You Probably Did Not Know About Me

January 7, 2009 • 2 Comments • Meet People in Austin

Apparently Sara Dornsife, a partner of crime of mine here in Austin, feels either 1.) ridiculously compelled to pass along chain blog posts or 2.) thinks you should know more about me. I’m voting for #1 but humoring you anyway.

So here goes:

1.) I’m the youngest of seven kids. My parents were Catholic and apparently glutton for punishment. I have three sisters and three brothers. I like to think they stopped only when they finally got it right.

2.) My dad was in the Air Force, which meant my family moved around a lot. I’m surprised my parents didn’t completely forget one of us somewhere.

3.) While at Dell, I was notorious for a being on the other line of a man calling in to buy a computer so he could “look at porn”. I figured he could use a fair amount of RAM and a good processor as well as a nice monitor. The call was recorded and the managers all laughed while listening to it.

4.) In college, I was a bit of a hippie and bought my clothes at resale shops aside from underwear and socks. I soon gave up after writing a senior thesis on sweatshop labor and realizing that being a Nike laborer is a lot nicer than working all day in a rice paddy.

5.) I was interviewed by Ananda on MTV. The crowning achievement of my career.

6.) My boyfriend is from another country. Oooh, who is he?

7.) I love writing six real facts about me and one fake one and making you guess which one is a lie.

So now, so the blogosphere really gets to know each other, I’m passing this on. Hugh MacLeod, Cody Marx Bailey, Alex Jones, Ryan Joy, Ed Schipul, Giovanni Gallucci, and Mike Chapman, it’s your turn.

2 Comments
Jan 05

Everything I Learned About Marketing I Learned from my Garden

January 5, 2009 • 5 Comments • Online Marketing

One day I went to Home Depot and found a yellow rose bush for five bucks. Most traditional roses do very poorly in Austin because we don’t get the rain they need and it gets too hot for them. For five bucks though, I couldn’t resist.

I did some research on the variety and figured it would last through the spring, but that I’d have to trim back for summer. No worries. Unlike many roses in the United States that are cross bred for their looks at the expense of their smell, this rose had a sweet aroma that struck you every time you passed by. Worth the risk.

I gave it rose food, plenty of water, and put it in a good spot with just the right amount of sun. And sure enough, I had a huge yellow rose bush that all my neighbors loved. It was every Texan’s dream.

So how does this relate to marketing campaigns?

Preparation is key. Before you plant anything, you want to make sure the soil is the right pH for the plant. You should lay down some compost to enrich the soil. I’ve seen products launched before they were ready and the result is a disaster. You can try to be agile, but if people already have it in their minds that your product sucks, you could be doomed. Or at least, having to work a lot harder than you should have to be.

Some businesses will be doomed from the start if you don’t know where to put them. English roses are beautiful. I’d be an idiot to put English roses in Austin because we get a fraction of the rain they get. I’d really be stupid to put it out in full sun and somewhere far from me where I couldn’t water it easily. Where are you marketing your company? Are you putting it in the right target audience? Putting a company in an inappropriate spot is just wrong, because everyone else in that company is working hard to build the product, and you are squandering it by not putting it out there to the people who want it.

Certain businesses need certain elements to grow. Roses generally need very acidic soil. They generally do best with rose food. Are you supporting your team properly? Do they have the tools and knowledge they need? Do your customers have the information they need to differentiate your product from someone else’s?

Don’t be lazy. If you clip roses back, they grow back stronger. If you water them regularly, you get better results. Having a routine helps you figure out what you’ve done and what you need to do. This could be checking analytics, reading blogs, or sending newsletters.

Plant at the right time, and diversify. Yesterday I ate a salad from the lettuce I’m growing in the side yard. I want to plant zucchini, but you just don’t plant zucchini when its cold. It just doesn’t get what it needs when it needs it and it can’t take the frost. If you have to wait to launch a campaign for the right moment, wait. It could give you exponentially better results.

Don’t grow what you don’t understand. If I moved, you better believe I’d be studying up on my zone before wasting my money on plants. Home Depot makes a fortune off of people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a perennial and an annual. These people pick based on “what is pretty”. If all the bloggers are talking about an industry, don’t just decide you want to do marketing for that company because “it’s shiny”. You could end up with nothing but a pile of dead snapdragons in your yard and a huge balance on your Home Depot card.

Be prepared for the worst. I was out of town and it snowed out of nowhere. My neighbor, who shares the plot with me, didn’t cover my basil and I lost all of it. I should have told him to watch out for it but was not anticipating such wacky weather. Sometimes disaster strikes when you least suspect it. That’s why it’s important to know every objection for why someone would buy your product before you go in. It’s also important to have a strategy if your budget gets cut. Bad things will happen.

Pick and maintain relationships with your partners, affiliates, employees and any alliances wisely. Why is that rose bush dead now? Because I moved out of my ex-boyfriend’s house, and he purposely killed it. The little boys across the street would have no more random roses to deliver to their mother. :( One person can really poison a campaign if they want to.

And most importantly, if you don’t like it or can’t grow to like it, don’t grow it. It doesn’t matter if you have a great spot for a particular type of bush. If you don’t like that bush, don’t grow it. By working for a company whose products you don’t believe in, your campaigns will never be as good as those done for a company you love. Remember that.

5 Comments
Jan 02

Help Build a Water Project in Africa, $2 at a Time

January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment • Social Media for Social Good

Laura Fitton is a blogger who always seems to be picking up good causes to champion. Today I saw no exception as she is trying to raise money to build a water project in Africa.

OK, it’s really messed up that there are people on the same earth as us who don’t have the basic necessity of clean water so they can properly function. Come on, now.

(Steps off soapbox) But you knew that already, right?

If you’d like to be awesome by helping, donate at least $2 to this cause. If you tweet it out by just following these directions, TipJoy will match up to $10,000. Sweet.

And just to let you know, often when people like Laura put themselves out there by championing a cause, they tend to get a lot of people who see that they actually care about something who then ask them for more help for other causes. And when you put yourself out there and you see people coming to you for more help instead of with help, it just breaks your heart. As the Bible says, “The harvest is plenty but the workers are few”. Remember that.

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Dec 29

Results of the NameCheap Twitter Trivia Contest

December 29, 2008 • 4 Comments • Twitter

Social media tools are free, but that doesn’t mean that you can get something from nothing. Whether you are spending time or money, social media marketing requires investment, just like growing food or building apps or anything else in life.

That’s why I was so happy to hear that Richard Kirkendall, the CEO of NameCheap and a client of mine, was interested in giving away free domains in a trivia contest on Twitter. I added the element of overall winners to it and a tracking page, wrote the questions, and worked on the automation of the questions with the CTO, and we were on our way. Essentially, @namecheap asked a trivia question in Twitter every hour on the hour. To win a free domain, you have to answer “@namecheap (answer). The fastest to answer as well as two players and random get $9.69 automatically put into a NameCheap account that they have to set up to play. Since Twitter has an API, it’s all integrated. The people who answered the most correctly won iPods.

What were the results?

  • Over 4,000 followers gained in less than one month. We got dozens of comments from people who loved the contest and might win a Shorty Award in the Tech category.
  • Mentions in Mashable, Yahoo News, Domain Name News, and over 30 pages of Google results with bloggers mentioning it from all around the world. The contest generated 131 backlinks to one page, which went from a PR 0 to a PR 5 in one month. I have no idea how many backlinks it generated for the homepage, but I imagine it was more than 131.
  • Over a 10% increase in traffic with 47% increase in new visitors.
  • 20% increase in new customers. This is not a startup, but a company that has been around since 2000.

    • It cost Richard some domains he might have not sold anyway, the price of a couple of press releases, a few people’s monthly salaries and four iPods. Bloggers are on Twitter. Do things on Twitter that get bloggers talking about you and you get backlinks without spending a fortune on paid links.

    4 Comments
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