BlogWorld Expo 2011, LA
I’m headed to Los Angeles to take in the Blogworld & New Media Expo next week! This conference is going to be “off the hook” in grand style. I was invited to speak on a topic I have written about before on this blog…Shoestring Video and a topic I’ve presented at numerous other conferences. This event is coined as “The World’s Largest Social Media Event” and will feature 275+ Speakers and a tradeshow. I am so excited to be a part of the fun this year.
My session is called “You May Not Win an Oscar, But Your Videos Won’t Stink, Either” and I think that title pretty much sums it up for the most part. The session is really a “HOW-TO” and a “WHAT-DO-I-NEED” type of session. I’ll layout the basics and pass along some knowledge (from experience) that will enable you to take your online video up a few notches quickly.
Key Points
1. Shoestring video equipment “shopping list” and what to look for
2. Planning your shots, when to shoot and simple lighting techniques
3. Time-saving video production techniques
My session is a part of a larger Tourism Track at BlogWorld and I honored to be among some of the coolest cats in the industry. If you’re in the area be sure to stop by. If you’re gonna be there let me know what you’d like to hear about! I am tweaking my presentation every single day! For instance, today I just picked up a new GoPro Hero HD2 camera and am already finding new uses for it in my shoestring equipment arsenal. We’ll talk about it all during the session!
If you can’t make it be sure to follow the #BWELA on Twitter!
There’s nothing more frustrating than starting something and not seeing growth. The problem isn’t Facebook, it that most of the time we focus too much on ourselves and not enough on the greater community at large. Being a successful social marketer for your business requires you to be an engaged social marketer within the greater community.
We have all seen those pitchy Facebook pages, or streams of non-stop blatant and nauseating advertising messages disguised as “genuine” conversation. These types of posts often receive little or no response. Consumers these days are increasingly savvy. They know B.S. when they see it. Maybe your pages are not growing because you are guilty of not being “genuine” enough? To be genuine, you simply have to stop being a robot. Online it’s all about interaction
So how can you ramp up the interaction rate of your business Facebook page to foster growth? Here are a few tips:
Don’t forget to “like” other pages as your page and customize your “Featured Likes” under your “Edit Page” options. We all have partners and stakeholders so be sure to put them front and center. You’re allowed five featured likes. Use at least three of them for your most important partners and leave a couple open to randomly rotate among your entire “likes” list.
Share! Don’t be a selfish self-promoter! Share content from others too. The share button is a powerful tool in building relationships and providing topical content to your followers.
Keep an eye on your newsfeed even when you’re signed in as a page! If you find something interesting “share” it. Chances are others will find it interesting too and the original author will think you are cool beans.
LIKE! Like and comment on the content of others. Spread some love! It puts your name in front of more people and it tells people that you are listening. What comes around goes around. Show a little love, get a little love.
Comment on and “like” the post comments that people contribute to your page. Again, it shows that you are listening and appreciate the attention that your fans are giving you. If a comment requires a response…respond. It is kind of like rewarding good behavior. It makes people feel good and encourages future interaction.
You see, by dedicating a little more time to engagement you’re tapping into a huge pool of people who will start doing some of the marketing for you. It’s not just “playing” around on Facebook. It’s marketing. Simply put, social media is word-of-mouth advertising.
Recently, the Fargo-Moorhead Convention & Visitors Bureau (FM CVB) marked the 15th anniversary of the release of the film ‘FARGO” by creating a full-scale replica of the infamous wood chipper and brought the actual movie prop to the community for “The Wood Chipper in Fargo” exhibit. To promote the exhibit, we created a presence online with a Facebook page [hyperlink:http://www.facebook.com/FargoMoorhead#!/thewoodchipper]. In just a few months, the Facebook page has grown to more than 7,000 fans, and is growing at approximately 1,000 new fans a month. We’ve also seen a true “real world” impact. Walk in visitors to the F-M Visitor Center are up more than 30 percent in the months following the installation of the exhibit and launch of our social media efforts. The “Wood Chipper Community” is extremely engaged and responsive too. But, let me assure you it didn’t happen all by itself. It took dedication to our fans and continued efforts of outreach and interaction to foster this healthy and vibrant online community.
You can do the same for your business. All you have to do is get involved in the conversation, reward your audience for their participation and spread the love.
I think both new and old forms of coupons and saving will be more successful in the coming years, but is one more practical than the other?
There has been a lot of talk lately about coupons and couponing (is that a made up word?). Having worked with the Pitch Anything McGraw Hill book, I have learned there are dozens of books about to be released on the subject of coupons and savings. No joke. Clipping coupons is about to become the norm for a large group of people. Except few people actually clip coupons anymore with the Internet around.
So all this raises the question, should a company provide an ongoing assortment of coupon codes or blow their whole load in a one day sale like Groupon?
I have to admit there is something addictive and sexy about a Groupon in a way that reminds be of woot.com. But Groupon has its limits such as location and the number of discounts it provides on a given day. In the booming metropolis of Fargo we don’t get Groupon deals, so the next closest Groupon list I could find to subscribe to was Minneapolis a few hundred miles away. I do admit I look at the deals but have never committed mostly due to not eating Chinese frequently in a city 3oo miles away, oh well.
Lately, I have heard that Groupon’s sales team suggests businesses being listed on their site up their prices considerably before posting the deal so they are not really out any money in the promotion. Now after reading that article and seeing the Groupon deals float through my inbox, I began to think that in fact the prices are inflated and most of the deals I would never need. I want camping gear, not cakes!
This makes me think that Groupon is fun and cheeky but not really for me as I have yet to use them once, although the skydiving deal looked enticing.
Now this leads to normal coupon sites and the ability to either copy and paste a code or print it out to redeem. I myself use these kinds of codes frequently. How else can you bear buying another domain through Godaddy’s check out cart if you don’t it get for 50% off?! I still see a need for coupon sites and coupon codes, but can a company innovate and change the way we shop?
For instance, if the site Harry and David produced a Harry and David coupon code (which they do, non affiliate) can they change the way people shop? The reason people love Groupons is due to the fact that it’s like the lottery and every morning the new, next, better deal will be waiting in their inboxes. This forms a community and a group of people talking about the next latest greatest thing.
But for an average online retailer not on the Groupon hit list, is there a way to catch the same zeal?
The first thing a company would have to do is get people talking about your product preferably on your terms (ie. social media, blogs, Facebook and Twitter). Then they would have to segment their followers into groups that like the same thing such as: organic lawn care vs dog tricks. There is no law that says one user can’t be in two different groups, by the way 
With this segmenting and creating specials or deals, businesses and coupon sites could offer me more of the coupons and discounts I want. You know how Amazon starts blasting you with emails when you check out a product like a Netbook? They are trying to get me to purchase a netbook through them after looking up some info about netbooks. Except the only problem is, I was only showing a friend the different netbooks and I have no intention of buying one myself. So now I am being spammed for being a good friend.
What if, when you bought something you not only wanted but often buy such as Coke from the grocery store, your favorite coupon site automatically sent you monthly coupons for your next shopping trip or notified you of a killer 2-4-1 case sale going to take place next week? Now that is something I would want.
I don’t want to think as a shopper/consumer, I just want to know of the best deals for frequently purchased items and have them automatically sent to me. The first site/company/app to nail this will have a walk off homer in my book.
What are your thoughts? Do you use coupons? What is your favorite coupon site? Does Groupon really suck?
*img source: http://www.momsneedtoknow.com/printable-coupons-2/
I get a lot of searches for different industries looking for useful marketing ideas. One of the terms I see show up now and again is Bank Marketing Ideas. I can’t help but wonder how fierce the competition in the banking industry is. The whole banking system is set up cleverly to make a lot of money. That is, if you have customers.
Every bank needs a sign
Whoever implemented the first digital time / temperature sign at a bank was a genius. That person deserves a medal. I mean really, they do. Every day on the way to and from work you look to see the time and outdoor temperature. It just so happens you also see the name of the bank displaying the sign, reinforcing its brand recognition.
Although, displaying the time in military time (where the day starts at 00:00 and ends at 23:59) and the temperature in Celsius (most Americans don’t know what that is) would be a more unconventional marketing idea. That would cause people to stop and think for a second. That would be reason enough for someone to talk about what they just saw. The effects might be minimal, but you never know. It would be fun to watch people drive by staring at the sign (with your brand on it).
To go even further, why not put up a daily trivia question? Or a random daily fact. People might even drive by your bank every day just to read the trivia question!
Free money
People love free money, almost as much as they love air. In Seth Godin’s book, Free Prizes, he told a bank advertising manager to slip a few $100s into the ATM. People would talk then. Mission accomplished.
Imagine someone pulls up to the ATM at midnight on a Saturday on his way to the next watering hole and he requests $40 and gets $120 instead. Would he go to the bar and promptly tell everyone? How much would you want to bet the bar clears out and a mass of people start withdrawing from that machine? I am willing to bet that each $50-100 you put in the pile to replace a $20 would be redeemed in the astronomical charges implemented at the only machine in town dispensing cash at 4 a.m. on a Saturday.
Stop with the fees already
Banks charge way too many fees, for everything. In a room with 100 people in it, not one would suggest otherwise. Set yourself apart from the crowd and stop charging fees. Maybe you opt out of fees and opt into advertising services like credit help, financial counseling or long-term planning and management of money. Perhaps you break all the rules and say no one will ever be charged a fee so long as they accept advertisements about these great services you can offer them.
What kind of marketing idea generator said its OK to add random fees to a bunch of different accounts and then promptly remove them with no questions asked when a customer asks what they are for? I mean, if the person whose job it is to dispense and receive monies can simply remove the fee on a whim, that fee should not be there. But I am willing to bet that people are happy when those fees are removed and do not report the devious nature of the fee to others. On the other hand, all of those people who don’t know how to check their accounts or balance checkbooks simply get feed to death.
Please upgrade your website
If Mint.com can offer a free budgeting service and attract thousands of people by crunching numbers and displaying them in charts, so can you. Mint.com makes money by referring people to credit card and mortgage companies. I would use a budgeting service if my bank offered it. A lot of the people who use my bank would too. Other people who don’t use my bank would consider switching or opt in to the free service because of the reputable brand. The problem with Mint.com is that it is not a Wells Fargo, US Bank or JP Morgan. Imagine how many people would be willing to give you a platform to help market other products and services to others. Remember it is always good to promote your competition as long at it is on your terms.
Invest in the community
If your bank supports a nonprofit or charity people can relate to, then you will have more customers just because people want to believe they are part of a good cause. People are emotional. Stories of helping others and photos of people in need play to our emotions and we want to help. Not only that, but once something has reached our emotions, we remember it. If your bank donates a percentage to schools, homeless shelters or dog rescue, potential customers will remember you and maybe even switch to your banking services. And I mean really donate, not just donate a lump sum and then spend twice as much telling everyone about it.
For example, how about using the save your change program to match donations to a school? Some banks have the save your change program where if you spend $2.12 on something they round up to $3 and put the .88 in a savings account for you. For every individual participant, save the change adds up to about $200-300 a year in savings. If my bank offered to match that savings from my save the change participation and donate it all to a local school, animal shelter or whatever, I would probably do it, gladly. I can just picture schools rallying all the parents to switch banks and sign up for your save the change and donate program.
Give out candy and dog treats
My girlfriend always talks about it whenever she goes through a drive-thru of any kind and the person at the window gives her dog a treat. Her cat was even offered a treat once. Kids love to go to the bank with Mom and Dad if they get a piece of candy from the teller. Use this idea and expand on it because adults like free treats too. Maybe on Fridays, everyone or selected people who use the drive-thru get a $5 gas card or a coupon for a free coffee. Or maybe they are offered a special such as a savings account with no minimum balance or the interest waved from their credit card for one month. Or maybe every single person who goes through the drive-thru gets a piece of Godiva chocolate no matter what day it is. People like to be surprised for the better, not that they just incurred $300 in overdraft fees. Use your imagination.
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How to Create Share Worthy Content and Viral Campaigns for Social Media
This is a guest post written by Patrick Meninga of Make Money With No Work.
Does your social media strategy consist of integrating Facebook “like” buttons on your website?
Most people will hesitantly agree that this is pretty much the case, so let’s dig deeper for a moment.
Promoting your business should always include some form of content planning.
The goal is to publish content on your website that invites your site visitors to share it with others and help spread your message in a viral fashion.
Social media sharing is one of the end results, but we can shape this process by focusing on our content creation process.
If you want people to share your message, then build better stuff to begin with! Let’s look at a few different ways that we can do that.
Use existing data to point you in the right direction
Your website should already have some clues as to what type of content is a winner for your audience. Look in your Analytics package and sort to see your top content by pageviews or visits.
You might ask yourself a few questions about the top 20 articles, such as:
When you are planning out future content, consider what your audience has responded to in the past, and use that as a guide to create more “winners.”
Promote, test, measure, repeat
Creating share-worthy content should become an iterative process for you.
This means that you are going to consciously create new content with the goal of surpassing the performance of older content. What you choose to measure is up to you based on the goals of your promotional strategy, so you may be judging your content based on the number of reader comments, number of Facebook likes, or whatever the case may be.
But each new piece of content should seek to set a new record when measured against your older content. If it fails to do so, then you have learned something, and you can then try something else.
If it succeeds, then you are onto something, and you should run with your idea and see if you can create more “winners.”
The web makes it very easy to test and measure success in this manner, so take advantage of the lessons you are learning when your audience responds (or does not respond) to your new content.
This testing process is important because eventually you can use this information to create custom content that you know will do well with your audience. You can then be more confident that any dollars spent promoting such content will be well spent, and your whole marketing strategy will become much more effective. You will create less content in the future that fails to engage your audience.
Crafting share-worthy content for your website
So how do you get started creating share-worthy content?
Start with your users, your audience. What is their most burning desire? What do they most want in the world, based on the fact that they are visiting your website?
Start with that hypothetical “burning desire” in the mind of your audience, and then work backward.
Special attention should be given to the headline of your content, as that is where much of the “share-ability” comes from.
One strategy is to start with your headline, make a huge promise to your audience, and then write an amazing article that actually delivers on that promise.
For example, your headlines might be things such as:
“How to Double Your Social Media Engagement in 30 Days or Less”
“Use this Simple Social Media Trick to Double Your Website Traffic Overnight”
“How to Write Articles that Sell Themselves and Spread Like a Virus”
“10 Steps to Building a Social Media Following that Has a Positive Impact on Your Business”
Using the iterative testing process, you might brainstorm several dozen of these headlines, then get together with your team and pick out the top five.
Then, carefully write and polish an article for each headline, making sure to test the response that you get from your audience.
I recommend that you focus on delivering real value to your audience with such articles rather than aiming for hype or sensationalism. That way, your articles will stand the test of time and continue to deliver real value and engage your audience for longer periods of time.
Successful social media starts with conscious content planning
There are thousands of cheap tricks and gimmicks when it comes to social media promotion, but a strong campaign starts with careful planning.
Start with your audience in mind and create genuinely valuable content that makes a big promise using a catchy headline.
Over-deliver with your article and then carefully measure the results of your content based on the metrics that are most important to you.
Keep brainstorming new content ideas and headlines, then test new content you create against your existing data.
Constantly refine your content offering based on the response and engagement. Continue to test and to measure new content until you have reached your social media goals.