Foxwood Online Marketing

The American Identity According to Social Media (Infographic)

I saw an interesting infographic.  It is from Hasai, a social media marketing firm.  While I am always tuned in to news about social media, it is becoming more mainstream.  For example news shows like Meet the Press have a regular feature showing a big screen with comments on issues of the day.  It also becomes more mainstream when stories like Congressman Weiner, you know the "Peter Tweeter" as Jay Leno calls him, sent pictures of his genitals on Twitter.  But the infographic below does a good job of highlighting some statistics which are interesting.  For example almost half of all bloggers are from the US.  And on a per capita basis North Dakota and New Jersey residents are the most connected.  My view is that social media offer an outlet for social communication.  In the 50s and 60s people got out more and socialized in person.  With TV, we socialized through the lives of the on-screen personalities and even today 77% report that they use social media to share their love of a show.  The more people hide away in their homes and apartments the more they seem to need socialization in another format.  I'm not sure what this is doing to society but as social media applications become more advanced it will be interesting to see the impact on face-to-face interactions.  I wonder how long it will be before someone will invent a robot that provides companionship eliminating the need for person-to-person interaction completely.  Hopefully that will be a long time coming...

 

Social Media Life After Death

I discovered there is a growing industry dedicated to dealing with a person's online content after they die.  At first it conjures up images of reading someone's online thoughts just after a tragic accident.  But there is value to this concept.  First, a good video on the background concept:

My 100th Blog Post

This is my 100th blog post!  My first was released October 19, 2009.  I started out talking a lot about online marketing and technology but soon started dropping in some personal stories and almost always included some opinion.  I put them into 14 categories and listed them below with the most current listed first in each category.  There are links (underlined) to the ones I think are the best but you can go to the site and enter the title words in the search box just under my picture to find any of the 99 if you wish to read them.  Here goes.

 

Business (8)

How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Media Budgets

ROI Perspectives of Social Media

Online Advertising Forecast Up 11% in 2010

Should I Do A Blog or Newsletter?

The Business Model (This was an attempt at a video post; and not very good)

6 Great Reasons for a SMB to Follow Internet Marketing Industry News

How Web-Savy Are Seniors?

Losing Your Website Domain Name-A Near Disaster

 

 

Blogging (4) - About blogging

Mashable is 5 Years Old

6 Reasons Why Bloggers Are Moving to the Front at Fashion Show

The State of Blogosphere

Blog, Blog, Blog and Blog (my first)

 

 

Customer Service (5) - Issues that show good or bad customer service

Apple's iPhone 4 Problems

United Breaks Guitars (View the video, it's hilarious and a catchy tune)

My Take on the iPad

Comcast Is Listening But Not Answering

HP's Racist Computer

 

 

Education (2) - Articles on the best and worst of what's happening in education

Higher Education:  How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids (If you have a kid facing college you need to check this out)

Mark Zuckerberg Gives $100M for Education in Newark

 

 

InfoGraphics/Videos (12) - The format delivers a huge amount of information in an entertaining style.  The Twitter one was one of the first I noticed and best.

Is Social Media Ruining Students?

The Best of April Fools Day 2011

The Value of Being LinkedIn

January 28th was Data Privacy Day

Update on Groupon

Top 25 Most Viewed Videos On YouTube as of July 31, 2010

The Latest InfoGraphics and Video on the Interenet & Social Media

Incredible video on Internet Statistics

Online Metrics

If You Printed Twitter 

 

 

Music (5) - I do live in Nashville after all so it was inevitable.  The Indie Music post details the new go-to-market model for music.

4 Conclusions on the Impact of Digital Natives on Music

What if Napster Had Never Been Invented?

Nashville is the Silicon Valley of the Music Business

Indie Music and Online Marketing

A Possible Nashville Success Story for MusikPitch (this guy has become my friend)

 

 

Marketing (11) -  I claim Marketing Technologist as my title and The Wow Factor video has a research-based formula that's very interesting and can help anyone.

 New Job Title - Marketing Technologist

 My Take on QR Codes ( I think this is some my best interpretation of market opportunities)

 2 Business Lessons I Learned from the Grassland Community

 Online Marketing Delivers Cost-Effective and Measurable Results

 Will Groupon Become the Next Hot Social Media? (This was from January of 2010)

 Pepsi Breaks 23 Year Super Bowl Streak to Invest in Online Community

 Permission Marketing (This is about the Seth Godin book)

 The Wow Factor (This is really unique)

 B2B Marketers Will Increase Online Marketing Spending in 2010

 Enhance Your Marketing Resume

 Online Marketing VS Visitors Bureau

 

 

Opinion (13) - Let me know if you think my tornado strategy makes sense or I am crazy.

 Tornadoes VS Hurricanes VS Software Bugs:  A Comparison

Has Social Media Innovation Ended?  I Say No

Contribution Value Versus Feel-Good Value for Charities

Why Doesn't the US Government Do Something About WikiLeaks?

Why the Republicans Should Support Defense Cuts

What Can Be Learned from the Chilean Miner's Rescue

Net Neutrality - Blah, Blah, Blah

My Favorite Blogs

Super Bowl Thoughts (This is where I say Payton Manning will not be considered the best quarterback of all time)

Not My 2010 Prediction; My Request

Another Reason Why Google Will Kill Microsoft

The New Velocity of Life and Are We Competitive (one of the best technology videos I have ever seen)

10 Personal Branding Predictions for 2010

 

 

Personal (6) -These really have nothing to do with business. 

Why I Love Country Music (this post has in my opinion one of the best music videos ever and I have seen all the Lady Gaga videos).

The Nashville Flood May 2010 (I think this is my best written post)

Lessons Learned on How to Deal with Car Repairs

My Visit to Asheville (Guys will appreciate this)

My Weekend in Stone Mountain

Thanksgiving (my 2nd best written post)

 

 

Religion (3) - In spite of my sending the last one to my priest, he still does not blog.

6 Social Media Tips for Churches

3 Things You Should Know About Islam (this video has resulted in roughly 50 hours of further study)

Pope Tells Priests to Blog

 

 

Sociology (7) - The Digital Natives concept is referenced more in other posts than any other.  I think you'll like the joke post.

Internet Usage Among Generations Has One Alarming Trend

Study Shows Reading Slower on iPad & Kindle but Satisfaction Higher

Privacy Discussed on Russian Television

Digital Natives (This made a significant impact on me)

4 Possible Positives of the Kaiser Study on Media Use by 8-18 Year-Olds

Study Reveals Brain's Different Reaction to Surfing Versus Searching

The World's Funniest Joke

 

 

Social Media (5) - About the business end of Social Media

New Social Media Value Chart for Marketing

How Web 2.0 Is Having A Positive Impact in Our Lives - A Perspective

How Is Social Media Use Affecting Our Lives?

Facebook Celebrates 500 Million Users

Despite the Recession, 94% of Enterprises Continue to Invest in Social Media

 

 

Technology (14) - My Sci-Fi theory of how the Jeopardy incident will be a milestone in the history of how machines conquer man.

New Tool helps Tone Down Emotion in Email

Man VS Machine on Jeopardy - A Milestone of Human Elimination (Having been a life=long fan of sciene fiction, I am proud of my sci-fi story line)

End of an Era, Kodachrome Film Is No More (this post is historic even if I do say myself)

Survey Results on Cell Phone Service & Some Tips

Web 2.0 Summit

Prop 19 (California Marijuana) Would Have Passed on the Internet

Credit Card 2.0 Wins DEMO Award of $1M (if you are a techology buff you'll like this one)

Google Announces Realtime Search Ability

Experts Say We Will Be Working in the Cloud by 2020

Website VS Blog:  Which Is Better?

2 of the Top 5 Supercomputers in the World Are in Tennessee (as a Tennessean native, this was pretty cool to know our state has a claim to a high-tech benchmark)

Google Search Tips Video

Google CEO at Gartner IT Expo

Google Search Tips

 

 

Social Media for Kids (4) -There are lots of sites that have security as opposed to Facebook

Social Media Monitoring for Parents

The Case for Social Media in Schools

Update on Facebook Security Concerns

Nashville Area Parents Create Safe Social Media Site for Their Kids (This resulted in a relationship with the developers of this applications)

 

 

So at this occasion after 99 posts, what have I learned?  I have learned how to take a concept and search the internet for supporting documentation and images.  I have learned to take data or opinion of some sort and add my perspective and interpretation to the data.  I have found that while having to face the inevitable deadline that rather than dread it, I look forward to it as a challenge.  I have taken an infographic for example and converted it into a viable post even though frankly I started out to 'phone it in' that day.  But most of all I have found in writing a blog that is both an outlet to express opinions AND a mechanism to offset the effects of multi-tasking which most of us have internalized as a way of life.  So I will continue to blog even though the subjects may change.  Because I like it... 

 

 

 

Is Social Media Ruining Students?

 

  
Here is another interesting infographic.  This one comes from Education Database Online Blog.  I like this approach.  It takes survey results and makes a case for both a positive and negative outcome.  I also like that it leaves it up to the student to take this information as input to come to their own conclusion.  Finally I like that they boil down the analysis to 3 questions:

1. Does it affect student’s grades?
2. How will using social media effect your college life experience?
3. What effect does social media have on the emotional health of students?

Here's my take.  First, social media is use

The Value of Being LinkedIn [Infographic]

There is a great infographic on LinkedIn created by MBA Online:

Has Social Media Innovation Ended? I Say No

I read an interesting opinion piece.  The premise was that all cycles of innovation at some point must come to an end and that we have reached that point with social media.  The examples cited were of the automobile and toaster.  The key to any debate like this depends upon an acceptable definition of a threshold over which we can declare that innovation has occurred.  I will endeavor to qualify that threshold as well as make a case that I believe more innovation will occur in the arena of social media.

 

This is Charles H. Duell, he was the Commissioner of the US Patent and Trademark office who purportedly said in 1899 that, "Everything that can be invented has been invented".

 

 

 

 

I investigated several sources for the definition of innovation but decided to spare you that noise.  For this discussion, and I would argue for most all questions of innovation, that there are 2 criteria for the claim of innovation:  1) a significant impact on human life, and,  2) a significant number of people who are impacted by the innovation.  OK so there could be lots of argument over significant impact and number but I defer to the final authority in cases of definition, the Supreme Court , when deciding on pornography; that is 'you will know it when you see it'.

New Social Media Value Chart for Marketing

I really like infographics.  This one is from CMO.com and 97th Floor.  You probably will need to click on the PDF link below the chart to be able to see the details and to print you would need an 8 1/2 X 14 piece of paper and a lot of ink.  But it really makes a great reference tool.  For the marketing folks the difference between the categories 'Traffic to Your Site' versus 'SEO' (Search Engine Optimization) is the former is the effect of a visitor to your social media site clicking on a link to your website, versus increasing the number of your sites with social media included in a search engine (Google) search result.

How Web 2.0 Is Having A Positive Impact in Our Lives - A Perspective

The reason I am writing this post is an example of the point I am trying to make.  That is, what some call Web 2.0 and some categorize as Social Media, is making an impact in our lives.  I started out reading an opinion piece on how Social Media is making the writer's life better by allowing him to know the mundane happenings of his 10 year-old while he is travelling on business.  Within the article was a reference to a very long and well-researched article that appeared in the New Yorker on how the internet gets inside us (a must read for anyone in an online industry).  At the end of the original article I saw a related article on Why Social Media Is Bringing Back Our Grandparents Values.  Within the comments of this article I found a reference to a university paper on how today's Social Media role is strongly aligned with the New England Town Meeting concept of democracy by Alexis DeTocqueville in the mid-1830s.  And of course there are countless articles on how Social Media has contributed to the ongoing coordinated protests in Northern Africa and the middle east.

6 Social Media Marketing Tips for Churches

I am involved in several activities that either are centered on being a Catholic, as part of one of the 2 parishes I am a member, the Nashville Area Catholic Business League, or associated charities that I provide some social media tips and training to from time to time.  As a result of this experience plus being in the digital marketing business, I have come to some conclusions about how churches can use digital marketing/social media as an outreach vehicle.

Bulletins - I grew up a Baptist and am now a Catholic but I assume the standard means to communicate activities as well as share the Word is through the weekly bulletin.  One parish estimates $18K per year for paper and ink.  So why not (1) post it to your website in a printable/readable form, and/or, (2) send it via email?  DO NOT force your members, simply put an ongoing notice in your bulletin on how to sign up.  Over time you simply adjust the number printed down, as acceptance grows. 

Here's a couple of hints.  Send the bulletins out before the service.  The optimum is 24 hours before the first service.  It will also foster interest if members are aware of an activity before attending the service.  Make sure you convert it to a PDF and in standard paper size.  While you may print in a large size and fold it to save paper, you should be able to save it in a version that would print at home without any effort.  When you create the content use colors.  While you print in black & white to save money, your online version will be accepted more if colors are used and often you don't have to do anything as photographs and logos will already be in color.  If you email it and you use email software (more later) you should have a separate mailing list for the bulletin.  This would permit choice for newsletter items, bulletins, or both while reducing the risk of the member un-subscribing to one and being un-subscribed to both.  Finally if you want to increase usage insert hotlinks for the online version for added depth and reference.

The advantages are not only to reduce expenses, but you should increase activity participation through better communication, increased viewing for those who could not attend service or who only attend periodically, and increased following for those who have moved away and still want to keep up.

Email Software - In addition to being able to have an address book specific for the weekly bulletin, there are huge gains in communications available through email software.  While some members may not be interested or have access to email, the majority of your members will.  You can send details of specific events upcoming that can include hotlinks to more information or even to register.  You can permit your ministries to use it for communicating to their members.  For example large groups like the men's club can communicate to their members through a specific directory.  

Here are some hints.  You may start out using Google Mail for free.  Or you may go right to email software.  You might ask some neighbor churches what they use or use this review to help you decide.  Be sure to only send emails to those who have "opted in" or chosen to participate.  You should have a prime in your office and a process for deciding which requests are accepted.  You need to be very careful to manage the number of emails you send out lest you will get lots of "un-subscribes".  While you may save some money if you use this to reduce bulletin printing expenses, normally this is an adjunct and though inexpensive, will need to be budgeted.  You will also need to ensure you have a trained office person ongoing.  For advanced churches you can use email blasts to request giving for special needs such as the recent Nashville area floods.  The optimum would be to have a PayPal type plug-in on your website so you can provide the details in the email and then link to the page to give. 

Social Media - According to the protestent group LifeWay, 81% of churches who average 500 or more in attendance use Facebook.  You can use Facebook as a means to post everything you can do with email or the bulletin, include pictures, articles, and even video.  And you may be able to find a member who is willing to keep your Facebook fanpage up to date pro bono or as a part-time member of your staff.  However my view of the optimum use of social media is to target communications to your youth.  They live and breathe social media and many will have smart phones.  Depending on staff resources and ability, you can engage your youth in their language using their media.  You can tweet references to appropriate quotes from media personnel, set up a specific group on Facebook to permit an open dialogue, or you could even use creative ideas such as Foursquare to give prizes for the member who "checks in" at events the most and becomes the 'mayor' in your church.  There are also a number of church related social media aggregator packages that permit posting to multiple social media tools and specific tools such as neighborhood mapping so members can see which neighbors also attend their church.  Here is a 3 1/2 minute demo for SoChurch: 

 

Blog - This may seem too advanced for the average church.  But churches actually have content that is well suited to blogging.  You may have weekly thoughts, daily prayers, bulletin messages, or even sermons/homilies that are already in document format.  That is they are in an application already on someone's computer.  If someone on the staff simply pastes these in a blog, you have a post.  You can also post video from any digital movie camera of events, choir specials, or special services.  The blog format permits storing of past posts in a search-able format that will become a huge source of inspirational content over time.  Also keep in mind that 75% of blog posts are read in email format.  And just to show this is not only my idea, read one of my posts titled, "Pope Tells Priests to Blog". 

Website - I'm not going to say much here as my assumption is you already have a website.  I will only say to consider linking to your new social media activities as well as leveraging successful media to enhance your outreach.  For example there is a Catholics Come Home organization that professionally creates videos to help.  Check out this 1 minute "commercial":

 

Staff - Finally you need to make sure you have the staff that can learn and manage these technologies.  However, do not expect them to have these requisite skills.  My suggestion is to look to your membership for volunteers to help you decide which tools, in what order, and how you are going to train the staff personnel who will manage them.  Don't be surprised if you get youth who are the subject matter experts and, oh by the way, this is another way to get at this target group.....

 

How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Media Budgets

I saw an interesting study by the Altimeter Group.  If you are a small to medium business you might ask why should I care what corporations are doing?  Because in many cases they are your competition and because they have the scale to leverage investment, discipline to measure, and specialized labor to optimize any program.  In other words, you can learn from them.  One of the wonders of the internet age for business is that small businesses can in many cases look just as big as giant corporations through digital media. 

So what are the key findings?  First I like that they call social media 'social business'.  They are not interested in having lots of followers if it doesn't convert to ROI.  I can't tell you how many small businesses there are that think because they have a website or Facebook Fan Page that they are in the game.  They have no ideas on how to measure ROI from either dollars or time invested whereas they would not hesitate to run the calculations should the purchase of equipment be involved.  So lesson number 1 is treat social media investment as you would any investment.

An important perspective from this report is to categorize yourself in terms of maturity.  While based on corporations, the following chart may be useful for even the smallest firm in measuring their maturity level with regard to investment strategy.  Click on it to engarge the image.

Another finding from the study that I think applies to small businesses is training.  Corporations will increase spending on staff yet investment on training and education will be low.  Keep in mind that within a small business there is no more significant investment than the time it takes to work on social media.  The lesson here is to get the education/training necessary to optimize the time investment.  "Ready, Fire, Aim" though common is not a good business strategy.

The next lesson that can apply to small businesses is to leverage what they call the 'social graph'; that is don't use social media like advertising and only look one way to the customer.  The more successful firms use social media to listen and create conversations with customers.

Finally based on my 20+ years as a marketing technologist in large corporations, I came to the conclusion from the study that even small businesses need to integrate social media into the overall technology and processes.  Integrate input from customers, have content from the social media sites integrated with your website which helps SEO.  If you have a Customer Relationship Management application, figure a way to integrate customer input from social media.  And finally don't relegate social media to a single person in the firm.  For it to work the responsibility, input, monitoring, and strategy must be spread across all appropriate members of the firm, even if it's only a handful.  For example, if a customer complains on a social media site about how long it took for an order to arrive, whether or not it was placed online, have the shipping/operations person answer the customer for optimal learning and customer satisfaction.

Following is the 23 chart summary of the report.  I suggest you read through it and draw your own conclusions on how to proceed with social media as a way to increase sales and profits by learning from corporations. Click on the 'full' option for full screen size viewing.

How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets