Andiamo! - Social Media Marketing Blog

People don't even trust corporate blogs

We all know businesses have a huge trust issue. And it's not just their advertisements that are looked at with skepticism, their blogs are not believed either. According to a recent Forrester report, only 16% of people surveyed say they trust the information on business' blogs. It seems that just because it is 'social media' lots of businesses think they can crank out the same tired old marketing messages and gain instant credibility.

So many blogs are being used as a platform to shill product and for self promotion. If you want to get your blog noticed, valued and trusted, you have to add value. And if you are doing a little self promotion, own up to it! Put it in a 'shameless self promotion' category. And don't do it often.

So how do you use your corporate blog to actually connect with people and eventually build your business?

1. First, focus on value. Give people information they can use to build their business. Tips, tricks and insights.
2. Invite dialog. Blogs are best when there is active discussion around key topics
3. Do not censor. Allow all points of view, only censor for inflammatory language if you want, and completely off-topic comments.
4. Use your blog to address concerns or issues about your company. Respond to negative publicity.
5. Always, always be honest with your readers.
6. And be patient, it can take awhile for your blog to gain readership momentum. Hang in there, post as often as you can, respond to comments and keep it fresh.

For a great example of a successful, popular corporate blog, check out the VerticalResponse Blog. (Disclaimer: this is my wife Janine's company and she is the chief blogger). But don't just take my word for it, this blog has won numerous awards, and we can all learn from it!

Benefits of business blogging

In my previous post, I listed some reasons on why it makes good sense to start a corporate blog (in response to an Ad Age article recommending against it). Now here's some of the key benefits of blogging for your business:

Improved Search Engine Rankings

Google loves blogs - they are updated frequently and are content-rich. That means Google feeds on blogs, just slurps them up like crazy. This can result in your blog being highly ranked for search terms that you blog about. Hint: make sure to backlink - The more you link back to your corporate domain the better chance you have of getting ranked higher in the search engines. Make sure you link from keywords that are meaningful in your posts. For instance if one of your keywords is "social media analysis" then link back to a page on your site from that keyword!

Get a dialog going

The adage goes, 'people are talking about you whether you listen or not'. So in addition to actively monitoring blogs (there's that backlink example again!) and social networks for conversations about your company, it's important to take control and start a conversation yourself.

So what do you talk about? Well, lets start with what not to talk about - how great your product is, and all other sorts of sales pitches. You will turn people off before you even get a chance to develop a relationship with them. Note: If you do have a good reason to toot your own horn, categorize the post as 'shameless self promotion'.

Talk about: industry trends and news; company events, including upgrades or customer service information; and tips on how your audience can be more successful. And when people comment, address their comments quickly, whether the comment is positive or negative.

Work on establishing your blogging 'voice' and help build your company's personality.

Establish you & your company as industry experts

Establish Yourself as an Expert - Whenever our PR folks get a request from a publication about a topic to write about, they consult the blog first to see if there's anything already there. This proves to be a great time saver. If they do find something, they forward the blog post to the publication writer. In some cases that's all the publication needs for a reference, in others it's used as an example of the types of topics we can be interviewed, quoted and published on.

Remember as well that most journalists go online and visit blogs as a way to find interesting and insightful people to interview!

Manage your reputation 

Hey, no business can anticipate a potentially reputation-damaging experience. They can happen. So you need to manage your reputation online. Remember Dell Hell, the Kryptonite lock fiasco, or the Snickers anti-gay backlash? Well, those are big 'uns. But even more minor reputation issues can gain momentum quickly, especially if you give people the silent treatment. So make sure to address any type of negative sentiment about your brand, especially if it was caused by a product or service issue, and proactively post a response and resolution on your corporate blog. It let's people know you are aware and care, plus your post may be the first one that comes up in Google when someone searches. That means any negative posts get pushed down in the search results!

One more very important thing, try to blog regularly since the search engines favor timely posts. I'd recommend no less than 2x a month. Write down topics you want to blog about as soon as you think about them (they don't have to be this long) then sit down and start typing. Get ahead of the game and do 3-4 at once! And now it's time to heed my own advice in that area :)

Screenflow - Awesome Screencast S/W for Mac

We're probably pretty similar - juggling way too many tasks and never enough time to get them all done, or people to delegate them to. The joys of running a early-stage business, or just about any SMB! Actually just about any sized business when it gets right down to it.

So when it came time to record an online product tour for a new release of our social media analysis application, I looked around the office for the lucky person to delegate it to, and realized as busy as everyone was I could either contract it out, or do the DIY. And since 1) I didn't want to go to the time of training someone on our product before they could even begin writing a script and pulling together a demo and 2) I was impatient to get it done, I decided to jump in and learn something new. I had heard about Screenflow, so checked out the site, watched the Screenflow-based demo of the product, and dropped the $99 for the instant download.

Now I despise reading software instructions. So the online screencasts were excellent and I was literally up and running, creating a slick product tour within an hour or so. And it turned out being fun to boot. It is super easy to capture your webpages, add video (you don't need Garage Band), perform some edits and have a nice demo or tour in less time than you'd ever imagine. Apart from writing the script, I estimate it took about 6-8 hours to develop our tour. Is the tour perfect? No. But now that I know my way around Screenflow, I can easily go in and make improvements on the fly.

So if you are a Mac person in need of a screencasting or online demo tool, you have to check out Screenflow.

And for hosting, use blip.tv, free, fast hosting for your files!
 

Check Out 'Search Engine Marketing Journal'

We all know how powerful search engine marketing (SEM) is to drive brand awareness and more importantly leads and sales. A significant amount of Andiamo Systems' marketing budget is allocated to Google Adwords and to a lesser extent Yahoo! and MSN.

And increasingly, the realization of the tight connection between SEM and social media is becoming more obvious. For some brands and industries there are as many first page search engine results that are from blogs, forums and social networks as there are from traditional mainstream media. That's largely because search engines eat blogs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They are updated frequently, have lots of content and are typically well-formatted for easy SE crawling. So you need to make sure you have an understanding of how SEM can affect your business.

Which leads me to the Search Engine Marketing Journal (SEMJ). SEMJ is the first printed journal dedicated to the advancement of search engine marketing. What? A print pub about online marketing? Yep. Don't worry, they also have a great website. It is unique in that it is a peer-reviewed journal where anyone is free to contribute. All papers are screen by a team of editors (disclosure: I am Senior Editor) to ensure that the quality is top-notch, relevant and actionable for businesspeople to use.

These guys are leveraging the power of user-generated content to bring continually updated, and fresh information, always showing a unique perspective. Check them out!

Great example of listening & responding to blogs

As many of you know, especially you wine afficiandos out there, Robert Mondavi passed away a couple weeks ago on May 16. he was a revered man and truly left a lasting legacy in the wine industry.

Not surprisingly, there were hundreds of posts on message boards, forums and blogs from people lamenting the loss and offering best wishes to the family. But the next part is surprising:

The Robert Mondavi Family actually sent an email to everyone who had published or posted about Robert, thanking them for their thoughts and wishes.

How'd they do it? They monitored everyone that talked about them (using Andiamo Systems, but that's not the point of this article), recorded the information and email addresses and sent it out.

Why'd they do it? Out of sheer gratitude for the outpouring of emotions and kind wishes. But an unplanned side benefit of the family's response to all the well-wishers has been brand equity-building as many of the posters were shocked and thrilled that they took the time to read and respond in such a timely, kind way. This post is from the blog WINExpression:                                                                                                                                             
The lesson, even as it pertains to this very sad event: 1) Listen to what your customers are discussing in social media 2) Always learn from it 3) And when appropriate, respond. Whether it is in response to a product or service issue, or as in this case thanking them for a kind gesture. It puts a human face to a corporate entity. And people like that!

Use Social Media in a Tough Economy

Whether the US economy is actually in a recession or not, no one can argue that we're facing some tough times, and as marketers we should all be concerned about consumer spending. And when there are worries about spending, advertising budgets typically shrink. Sure, overall ad spending may show some strength with the 2008 Olympics and that other event...what is it...oh yeah, the election.

But if you are faced with this shrinking budget dilemma, it's time for you to consider using social media to get a great bang for the buck. Here's a couple things you should consider:

• Start blogging! If you have been waiting for a good reason to start, here it is! It's cheap!
• Participate on other targeted, popular blogs in your industry. Become known as a credible source or even an expert!
• Set up a Facebook page or start a Facebook group for your business
• And if you are feeling particlularly energetic, shoot a video for your business and put it on YouTube

Now, I am not recommending that social media marketing is the panacea for all your marketing challenges. There are no silver bullets (dang it!). You have to contact and communicate with your target customers throughout the purchase cycle.

Stats on the Power of Social Media

I just spoke at the VerticalResponse Spring Marketing Conference, about the power of social media and word of mouth marketing in affecting brand perception and purchase intent. Afterward, lots of people approached me and asked me to email them some of the statistics I discussed. They wanted to use these as ammunition to help get budgets for social media marketing. They really are powerful, so here's some of the most compelling:

• "59% of consumers consider customer reviews to be more valuable than 'expert' reviews." - BizRate
• "The are over 75,000 new blogs created each day, updated to the tune of over 1.2 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second." - Technorati
• "3/4 of consumers rate Word of Mouth as the #1 influencer of purchase intent." - Nielsen
• Facebook has 35 million uniques per month, and growing.
• MySpace has 69 million unique users per month
• More than 35 million US adults regularly share their opinions online about products and services. And that doesn't even count people who passively read these opinions without commenting.
• P&G recently stated that a social media campaign on Beinggirl.com was 4x as effective as TV ads.

So embrace social media and word of mouth marketing! I hope these help. Start your own blog, forum or Facebook group and participate on other social media venues. And most importantly do something positive that gets people talking about you on other blogs, forums, message boards and social networks.

How are you using social media in a clever or cost-effective way to reach your customers? Let us know!

Quick Tip to View Your Mention Count

Andiamo Systems provides 8 different reports to get a full understanding of the social media around your brands. And most reports are able to be viewed in various formats as well as downloaded to .CSV, XML or .TXT. That said, we've received a few questions about how to quickly get a very basic bit of information - "How do I quickly see a count summary of my mentions by week or month?"

Here's the best way to get this:

• First, select the 'Trends' report from the left navigation. It defaults to a daily line graph:

1. Then, select the date range you want
2. From the format drop down list, select 'Vertical Bar'
3. Select either weekly or monthly from the 'Show By' menu

And voilå:

You can mouse over any of the bars to get the exact count for that time period, and as always you can  click through to view all your mentions for that time period as well.

Play around with the different formats in the reports, you may find a format that better fits your needs than the defaults!

 

Netflix' Response to Negative PR

So Netflix' servers recently went down for 11 hours (ouch) which resulted in many of their customers experiencing delays in getting their DVDs. Sure, having your 'And There Will Be Blood' movie held up 1 day is  a pain, but fortunately DVDs are not a mission critical part of most people's lives. So, Netflix could have simply ignored the issue, banked on their positive brand image and moved on. I think most companies would have done just that. But those 'most companies' probably don't have as positive an image as Netflix, and that's just the point. Netflix has a culture of consumer-centricity and they take every opportunity to protect and build on it.

They took immediate action and sent out this email to their userbase:

I think this is great. They didn't over-think things, they admitted the screw-up and offered a discount to make up for the inconvenience. Sure, they could have offered an additional movie or some other gift instead, but the bottom line is they took immediate action. And this type of culture will win and keep loyal customers as well as spread positive word of mouth. Looking at comments on blogs like Hacking Netflix, most people agree.

So take a lesson - everyone is going to screw up. When it happens respond to it head-on, in a timely manner with no excuses. Whether you give a gift or not is not so much the issue!

My only knock? They didn't post anything on their own blog.

Negative comment about your brand? What to do!

It can be a real bummer when you read an online post that slams your brand. One of the first reactions is typically a defensive one - 'how dare he said that about me?'..'that is completely false, don't they know we just fixed that bug?' and so on. Since hundreds if not tens of thousands of people can read and jump onto that conversation, it's important to take action. So what should you do?

1. Take a deep breath and do not hastily respond out of anger or defensiveness. Due to the nature of the web, people use language and tone that may really overstate their real emotions.
2. But, do respond. A 'non response' can appear as an implicit admission of guilt and lack of a customer-centric brand.
3. Act quickly, bad news travels fast.
4. If necessary, circulate the negative news to appropriate people on your team, and get their feedback. Has customer support already talked with this person? Is product development aware of this issue? Does your PR team need to be aware?
5. Once you have the full picture, respond to the comment online. Use full disclosure here, no cloaking. State who you are, your relationship with the company and a concise, candid response to the situation. Letting people know you are actually listening to them, and that there feedback is important to you is a very powerful thing!
6. Make sure the response comes from the responsible person, not some support function.
7. Don't be sales-y in your response and don't make tons of excuses.
8. Post your entry on your own blog as well, telling your side of the story.
9. Keep an eye on the blog to see if your comment was posted. If not, try contacting the blogger to see if they saw your response. Although you can't control whether or not the blogger will post 'your side of the story' It's important to get it published.

A couple notes:

• If the comment is particularly nasty, you may want to contact the person  before submitting a comment in order to get more context into the issue, and the personality of the consumer.
• We've seen very reputation-damaging posts get diffused quickly by taking the actions above. We have also had several clients tell us that posting a timely, honest response can really help turn a frustrated customer around to a brand promoter!
• A side benefit of responding is due to the sequential nature of most blogs and forums. Newer content is placed above older (negative) content which other people will then see first. Your newer content will also come up higher is search engine results!
• Approaching bloggers on their own terms through comments and posts on your blog create a conversation where the issues can be discussed and explored in the open.
• We usually learn more from criticism than praise:)