Here’s a recent presentation I did with fellow Social Media Club Niagara colleague, Robin McPherson, titled “How Twitter Changed Our Lives and What This Means For Your Business“.
Topics included:
- Top Twitter Strategies
- Best Practices (with examples)
- Tools and tips to increase @replies, RT, and click-throughs, and followers
- Tons of research, metrics, and resources on Twitter.
It pulls from real case studies, including our own experience. To advance slides on the presentation, just hover the mouse over the right-hand side of the displayed slide and click. Also, if you weren’t able to attend our the meeting in September, here is the video (see below).
About the Author:
Mitch Fanning is VP of Strategy & Business Development for Fruition Interactive, a professional member of Social Media Club, and founding member of Social Media Club Niagara. He’s spent 10 plus years working with businesses of all sizes, from global brands – to B2B companies – to some of Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100. Follow Mitch on his adventures in new media here at [mitchellfanning.com].
Isaiah Mustafa, The Old Spice Guy (Courtesy of YouTube)
It’s no secret online video is effective.
The reason is clear: video simply engages people in a way that static text and images cannot. There are dozens of studies (and recent examples) that show the power of video to boost customer interaction, encourage viral sharing, and build brand awareness.
One only has to go back a week ago to realize this fact. So, in honour of Isaiah Mustafa (The Old Spice Guy), here are my two all-time online video campaigns:
Enjoy!
The Old Spice Guy
Despite all the recent backlash, I’ve enjoyed this campaign from the beginning (disclosure: I happen to use Old Spice ).
After two days and an incredible 185 personal responses to fan queries on Old Spice‘s YouTube channel, actor Isaiah Mustafa signed off last Wednesday in what could be the most successful social media experiment to date.
The ‘real-time’ brand assault made Old Spice’s YouTube channel the most-viewed channel of the day and the fourth-most subscribed to date at the video sharing site and garnered an avalanche of awestruck media praise and sites including Mashable, Reddit, and Digg.
Will It Blend?
Small home appliance maker Blendtec’s first “Will it Blend” video featured a man in a lab coat turning a handful of glass marbles into dust using one of the company’s home blenders. That video has received million of views since it was put online in 2006.
The videos have certainly gotten a little more flashy since their debute, but the idea is essentially still the same simple formula: blender + common object (that you wouldn’t normally put in a blender) = viral video hit.
The Lesson
Why have these videos worked so well and had so much staying power? In no small part, it’s because they kept it fun, simple, and entertaining. Stodgy sales pitches don’t work on the web, but short, goofy, wacky, and unexpected almost always does.
How can you start using online video to make a real connection with your audience?
This is Mitch, on a horse…signing off
About the Author:
Mitch Fanning is the VP of Strategy & Business Development for Fruition Interactive. He’s spent 10+ years (and put in his 10,000 hours) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brands to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100. At any given moment, Mitch can be brainstorming ideas for a client, writing for various blogs he contributes to, or resting under a tree in a quiet vineyard with @treatqueendiva.
Many people spend their entire lives yearning for the Big Moment.
It’s like actors who only live for the Academy Awards, athletes who are obsessed with winning the gold medal, politicians who lust after the highest office.
Others want the perfect mate, the dream house, the Big Payday, and now thanks to the Fast Company Influence Project (Sorry, I’m not going to link to it) to be 2010’s Most Influential Person Online.
Individuals who have participated in this project seem to believe that if they obtain this title something magical will happen that will completely transform their lives. Once this “Big Moment” happens they’ll be better off. They’ll be influential.
Influence is not achieved this way.
Cultivating influence is a slow process. It takes time. Sure, you can make quick decisions, see fast results, optimize, and change things on the fly. However, real influence just takes time. You can’t start a blog and gain influence right away. It takes time to create content, find your voice, develop a community, and earn respect and trust.
You create influence by inspiring and enriching the lives of others. Influence comes from teaching others. By having meaningful conversations that educate based on the content you create online (text, audio, video, images). People then consume your content, comment on it, Digg it, share it, and encourage others to take part.
But more importantly, they’re better off (not you).
Instead of asking people to “click on your influence link” (courtesy of Fast Company), create something useful. Anything. Write a blog post, record one more podcast, produce a video. Visit someone’s web site / blog and tell them you appreciate their insights.
In other words, do what influential people do.
Create something great. Put in the time and commitment to providing your target audience with a unique experience. Listen to online conversations. Hang back and just listen to the flow of conversations. Then, when you’re ready, start adding value and push the conversation forward.
Influence isn’t a “project”. It’s not achieved in some magical “Big Moment”. Influence is created on a daily basis and lies in the smallest of moments, events, activities, interactions, and situations.
About the Author:
Mitch Fanning recently became VP of Strategy & Business Development for Fruition Interactive. He’s spent 10+ years (and put in his 10,000 hours) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brand (NBC.com, Nestle) to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100, creating, selling, implementing both traditional and digital marketing opt-in strategies.
At today’s Social Media Club Niagara meeting we’re exploring the topic of online community building. So in honor of the great panel we’ve got lined up who are:
I’m going to share my list of 38 bullet-proof community-building tips. For starters, I’m not going to get into the reasons why you need to build an online community.
I’m going to assume that for those of you who are reading this or attending tonight’s meeting you see the value in this. For those that don’t, ignore the following at your own peril. Feel free to repost all or any of this, but if you do, please give credit to this link.
I’ve broken them done into 3 categories: mind-set, foundation, social media. I’ve only given myself an hour do bang this off so here goes.
15. Forget about monetization and SEO (for now). However, if you must experiment with SEO (and you’re a complete “newbie”) this free 27-page report (affiliate link) by Copyblogger founder Brian Clark gives you a basic strategy for creating content that ranks well in search engines.
BUILD YOUR FOUNDATION
16. Build your team: Strategist, Community Manager, Legal, Privacy/Security, Employees. If you don’t have the resources see #2.
17. Educate yourself: Permission-based marketing, content creation, email, search, blogs, micro-blogs, podcasts, social networks, wikis, widgets, apps. Before you say “why this or why that” learn about all the available tools. The bell has rang, it’s back to school for you.
18. Listen: Join a club, start listening to what really smart people in the “space” are saying and doing, get yourself setup on Google Reader Pay attention.
19. Determine strategy: After listening and finding out where your customers play online decide on what you want to accomplish. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.
19. Build a home: Before you even think about Facebook or Twitter build your home. Your home is the hub where everyone comes to visit and chat. Your home could be a website with a community forum, a blog, video blog, landing page with social media integrated into it. Bottom line, it’s something you control (via hosting and branding), is relevant to your audience, can generate discussion, and be easily shared.
20. Be ready to put in the time: One thing that’s often overlooked when discussing community-building is the work that’s involved. It’s a slow process and takes work (but it’s worth it!). Get an egg timer and be disciplined with your time spent online as it can be addictive .
22. Adopt a company-wide publishing model: Change the way you think about content output. Start delivering content through multiple outputs and creators – tweets, photos, podcasts, content packages, etc. Instead of one output (you), there should be 5, 10, or even 20 pieces of content being created by multiple people (you, community manager, freelance writers, employees) at the same time. What if your entire company told your brand story?
23. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose: Too many companies reinvent the ‘content wheel’ for every content outpost they maintain. A better approach is to create a content ecosystem that allows you to repurpose and cascade your best information.
24. Be consistent with your content.
GET ‘SOCIAL‘
25. Choose a global user name for all social media channels (i.e. mitchfanning, your company name, NOT coolguy63). First impressions count.
26. Choose a good picture of yourself and keep the same picture for all profiles.
27. Before setting up any social media profile, go to other people’s blogs you follow and add to their conversation. Remember, using social is about having conversations. Does it really matter where they are started?
On Facebook Pages & Communities (compliments of Mari Smith)
28. Monitor your mentions: As part of your routine brand monitoring efforts, experiment with www.youropenbook.org, www.kurrently.com and Facebook’s own deep search feature to search for your various keywords and company name.
29. Appease the naysayers:Look for any negative mentions of your brand and, depending on the severity of the negativity, reach out to these individuals. See how you can listen to their complaint, take remedial action and turn them into fans.
30. Find your Super-fans: Email them on Facebook and/or search for them on other social media channels, and contact them as well. See how you can reward, incentivize and empower these individuals to become you super-fans.
31. Just follow Mari Smith – if anyone knows Facebook it’s her .
34. Just make money, then the boss won’t ask about ROI any more.
35. Your customers might not be on Twitter. Use rapleaf to find them.
36. Spamming us repeatedly is okay. We just unfollow you.
37. For more, read this post – 50 Power Twitter Tips by Chris Brogan . When it comes to Twitter, I like his approach. Just don’t tell him I said that.
38. Based on where your audience is and what they find useful, use as many social tools as you can manage properly with consistent, regular, and useful content creation (i.e. 1-2 blog posts per week, 5-10 tweets per day, 2-3 updates on Facebook). Re-purposing content will help in this process.
What have I missed?
Update: Here’s the video of the panel discussion (length approx: 24 min)
About the Author:
Mitch Fanning is an online marketing and social media practitioner. He’s spent 10+ years (and put in his 10,000 hours) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brand (NBC.com, Nestle) to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100, creating, selling, implementing both traditional and digital marketing opt-in strategies.
I recently went through this year’s “Fast Company 100 Most Creative People” List and was surprised (at first) to see Lady Gaga at the number #1 spot amongst the corporate CEOs and Internet start-up celebrities.
Now, before all the Little Monsters out there (a nickname Gaga gives to her die-hard fans) start sending me nasty emails, let me explain…
Like I said, I’m no Little Monster, but I admit over the past few years the ‘Lady’ known as Gaga has been ubiquitous.
Since her debut album, The Fame, was released in August of 2008 almost every time I flipped radio stations I heard either the song “Poker Face” or “Paparazzi” (or both).
It got a bit ridiculous.
What’s even more ridiculous (in a good way) is five years ago Lady Gaga (both the entertainer and the brand) didn’t exist. Then 19, Stefani Germanotta was waitressing and perfecting her craft in dingy New York clubs.
It’s obvious (now) she had bigger goals in mind.
The Lady and The Brand
Last year, those lofty goals were realized as Gaga became a global brand and phenomenon.
According to the write-up in Fast Company, some critics still feel she lacks originality and is nothing more than a carbon copy of Madonna’s ‘glitter-glam’ fashion with a dash of Alice Cooper’s ‘shock-rock’ antics.
Since I’m not a fan I wouldn’t know.
I am, however, impressed with her ability to navigate the digital and social landscape with ease as it pertains to her fans and business empire that was both built in record time and on a diversity of web platforms.
The Numbers
“No other artist commands the kind of attention that Gaga does, If she does something with your brand, it’s like bam! — a million eyeballs.” – Gabe McDonough, an exec at the ad agency DDB
Now 24, Gaga reigns over a brand that spans over music, the web, product design, and lucrative sponsorship deals.
Her army of ‘cult-like’ fans mimic her dance moves and sing her songs (can anyone say Grayson Chance) on YouTube, uploading 15,000-plus user-generated videos.
They also voraciously devour her content on Twitter, where as of June 7th, @ladygaga currently has over 4.3 million followers, and Facebook, where over 8 million people have declared themselves fans.
How She Did It
Sure it helps if you have talent and a bit of luck. No one is an overnight success, but here are 4 crucial steps Gaga took over the past 5 years to build an empire.
1. Be a Trailblazer
Lady Gaga made a name for herself with wild, theatrical, and often tongue-in-cheek “shock art” performances.
Risque? Maybe, but her crazy fashion sense was tailor-made to attract ‘eye-balls’. She was the most-Googled image of 2009.
Coincidence?
2. Engage Your Community (in real-time)
I often see brands enticing fans and followers with some “carrot-on-a-stick” only to forget about them once they’ve opted in to their social program.
Gaga doesn’t collect fans she engages them.
How?
On Twitter, she thanks her fans in real time and shows her appreciation by posting a photo of her tattoo that reads “Little Monsters” (again, her nickname for fans).
3. Create a Team of Trusted Advisors
In 2008, Gaga handpicked several friends to form a creative team that she calls ‘Haus of Gaga’. Together, they produce the ‘look-at-me’ fashions that define her concerts and her controversial videos, which drive a full 25% of the music site Vevo’s traffic.
“Bad Romance” alone has racked up some 200 million plays on YouTube; it’s the site’s No. 1 clip of all time.
4. Understand Your Audience (and show them you care)
When Virgin Mobile, a sponsor of Gaga’s U.S. tour, created a shrine to the Little Monsters (ladyvirgin.com) giving show tickets to fans who did community service, Gaga had two conditions that had to be met:
The shrine had to involve her fans and her causes.
She also wowed Polaroid CMO Jon Pollock in the boardroom by offering insights on digital strategy. Specifically, how to position Polaroid that would effectively reach her generation.
Impressed, Pollock asked Gaga to serve as creative director for a specialty line of Polaroid Imaging products (see official press release here).
The enthusiasm was mutual. Gaga proudly posted a photo of her “creative director” business card.
Today, it’s not enough to be just good at what you do.
Are you blazing your own trail? Are you compelling (enough)? Are you really engaging your customers? Do you understand them?
Original article in Fast Company written by: Dan Macsai
Mitch Fanning is an “available-for-hire” online marketing and social media practitioner. He runs three6media, a “new marketing” publishing and consulting firm that advises small to mid-sized businesses how to use content marketing and social media to encourage members of their target audience to become advocates and join their tribe of loyal repeat customers.
He’s spent 10+ years (and put in his 10,000 hours9) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brand (NBC.com, Nestle) to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100, creating, selling, implementing both traditional and digital marketing opt-in strategies.
Click here to contact Mitch directly. Or skip right through the garden and grab Mitch’s RSS Feed right here.
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