This post isn't about bashing email. We've been seeing some great results in the last few months with email. Specifically, better open rates, better click throughs, and better conversions into sales (although this isn't always trackable for every situation - we have been tracking it with some projects). One clear take away is that email works best when it is integrated with social and mobile. While the year of mobile hasn't arrived yet, and I doubt that 2010 is the year either, including mobile works well with the early adopter demographic for work that we've done recently.

When I look at these numbers, it isn't hard to see the truth - even in the behavior of people I know. I can connect with some people much more easily via Facebook direct messages or chats than I can via email, phone or text message. Social does offer so many platforms, lots of content, and it has an organic feel that email never came close to.

We're not ditching email. In fact, we're doing more. But it makes budgeting more for social easier. ;)

Duncan Alney is the President of Firebelly Marketing.

birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

Twitter is a great tool for conversations, building community, finding brand advocates and reading the latest news. That’s why celebrities, athletes, your competitors—and hopefully you—are on Twitter.

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

In just one day, we’ll all be sitting in front of Ev Williams and Biz Stone as they announce Twitter’s new Facebook Connect competitor, @anywhere.  

This is Twitter’s big statement in the developer ecosystem, stating that they are shifting from a script and backend-focused model of developer integration, to a very front-end, javascript-centered focus that centers around any brand or developer’s own site.  However, I’m worried that Twitter may actually be focusing too much on developers, considering their audience of large brands.

I wondered, just after @anywhere was announced at South-by-Soutwest in Austin, TX, how similar @anywhere would be to Facebook Connect.  Facebook Connect, a Javascript-focused set of libraries that sits on top of any website, enables just about any brand manager, marketer, or even developer from the new to the very advanced to simply copy and paste a piece of code and have it immediately create widgets that integrate tightly with the Facebook environment.  With Facebook Connect also comes a tag language, called FBML (I wrote the book for O’Reilly about it), which enables HTML-like tags to be placed anywhere on a website and also get similar functionality.  So basically, no Javascript knowledge is required.  Know how to write a little HTML?  You can integrate Facebook Connect into your website.  At least that’s the message Facebook wants to send to Marketers and Brand Managers (and it’s true how simple it is).

Twitter seems to have the same audience in mind for their @anywhere platform.  After just launching an Ad platform, you can bet more Enterprise features are about to be announced very likely at Twitter’s Chirp conference along with developer tie-ins to those features.  Twitter wants the brands just as bad as Facebook does.  Running a site that targets Brands, I know first hands that the Brands are where the money is.  Enterprise, and contractual relationships with big companies and brands is big money in this industry.  Twitter wants to be on each and every one of these major websites – that’s why they’re launching @anywhere.

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

It’s no secret that social media marketing is the most powerful business-building tool on the planet.  Now any business can directly reach customers, anytime and anyplace.

To take your social media marketing to the max, here are hot social media tips direct from 12 of the top industry masters. You’re going to want to model their priceless advice:

#1: Engage Your Facebook Fans With Questions

“Discussions are the currency of Facebook.  When your fans engage, your fan page comes up in their feed regularly.  A great way to get your fans active is to end each status update with a question.  You can add your own comments to get the ball rolling.  Do your best to respond to fan questions as promptly as possible to keep the discussion alive.” Mari Smith, author of Facebook Marketing


Asking engaging questions gets your fans involved, as seen on this fan page.

#2: ‘Listen’ to Know What to ‘Say’

“The way to make a connection is to talk about what people want to hear.  No-cost and low-cost listening tools help you ‘grow bigger ears’ and then apply what you’ve learned from listening to improve your sales, your service or your future products.  That’s the single most important thing you can do with social media tools.  Free tools: blogsearch.google.com and icerocket.com.  Fee-based tools: radian6.com and scoutlabs.com.” Chris Brogan, author of Social Media 101
IceRocket allows you to track blogs, Twitter and other social media sites for activity based on any date range.

#3: Use Video to Turn Company Mistakes Into Gold

“Even customer service errors present a powerful relationship opportunity.  Create a 2-minute video apology, post it on Viddler and tweet about it as a real-time response.  Give thanks, admit the mistake, apologize, and then WOW your customer to turn the situation around.” Ramon De Leon, Operating partner of a six-store Domino’s Pizza franchise.
Watch as Ramon De Leon uses video to turn a company error into a golden customer opportunity.

#4: Leverage YouTube’s Keyword Power

“In February 2010, Americans conducted 9.9 billion ‘expanded search queries’ on Google, 3.6 billion on YouTube, and 2.5 billion on Yahoo! But YouTube users are searching for video content, so they’re less likely to look for something to buy on YouTube than they are on Google.  That’s why I use YouTube keyword tool to get new keyword ideas instead of the Google AdWords keyword tool.  Use your keyword discoveries to optimize your video pages for YouTube users.” Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day The YouTube keyword tool allows you to capture YouTube users with popular search terms.

#5: Promote SMS Campaigns on Facebook and Twitter

“One hundred million users access Facebook from their mobile phones.  So you want to be promoting your text campaigns there and on Twitter.  Send messages that encourage people to text your keyword and sign up for your mobile coupon or get on your alert list.  Example: ‘For weekly mobile marketing tips Text KIMDUSHINSKI to 95495.  Message & Data Rates May Apply.’” Kim Dushinski, author of Mobile Marketing Handbook

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

Plenty has been written about the pros and cons of employees engaging in social media at work, officially or unofficially. Plenty of people have gained and lost jobs through the judicious or indiscrete usage of social media and new media, but by and large, most corporations haven’t truly accepted full employee participation in new media. Here’s a slightly different perspective on personal brand, personal blogs, and corporate success:

Personal brand is absolutely essential to future corporate success, at least from a marketing perspective.

Here’s why. If you have employees who are already engaged in new media – blogging, podcasting, social channels – then they likely already have and belong to other communities. Some of their interests overlap with their coworkers, but not many. If we drew a Venn diagram (you remember these from school, yes? Logic class?) of the various personal networks and interests of your employees, you’d get something that looks like this:

That tiny little wedge in the middle is the intersection of personal and corporate networks. Companies that force their employees to rigorously keep personal and professional separate or even require employees not to participate in personal media creation outside of work create and get access to only that tiny little wedge in the middle, and nothing else.

Now imagine that a company, instead of discouraging or trivializing employees’ personal brands, encouraged them to actively grow their own networks, to use and leverage social media and new media to the best of their abilities. Imagine a company so forward-thinking that each employee had their own powerful personal brand and the freedom to express it (as long as said employees weren’t doing anything materially harmful in public).

What would that company’s reach be? Well, instead of the tiny intersection in the middle of those three networks in the chart above, the company’s effective reach would be the sum, the union of all the networks. Each employee’s personal network would contribute to the effective reach of the whole network.

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

There's always a lot going on in the social marketing space. I've scoured my favorite tweets from this week to present you with 5 news items or blog posts that I wouldn't want you to miss: 1. How To Salvage Your Brand On Facebook: Lessons For Nestle By Rohit Bhargava If you haven't seen it by now, the Nestle brand* has run into a bit of a brand crisis on Facebook thanks to a combination of a coordinated attack from Greenpeace and missteps from the brand in communicating with consumers through the social media environment. This is another great example of the type of crisis that we have seen in many companies that ultimately helps to awaken their entire teams to the power of social media and how it may require a different type of thinking. Firebelly Memo: It's always a good idea to develop and include both a "proactive" and "reactive" response program as part of your social marketing strategy. 2. Facebook To Release A “Like” Button For the Whole Darn Internet By Michael Arrington One of the new features we’ve been hearing about is the extension of Facebook Connect and the Facebook API to allow publishers to add a “Like” button to any piece of content on their site. Sound trivial? It isn’t. This is likely part of Facebook’s Open Graph API project that will incentivize third party sites to interact deeply with Facebook by sharing content and associated metadata. Read the rest of the article at Firebelly. birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid social media marketing and online lead generation concepts, strategies and tactics. Please email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

Sure, social media takes a lot of time.  Merging Facebook, Twitter and all the other social media options can be challenging.  But what if you could cut that time down significantly by cross-leveraging content? Too many companies are reinventing the content wheel for every social outpost they maintain. A better approach is to create a content ecosystem that allows you to repurpose and cascade your best information. Instead of a series of self-contained initiatives, build yourself a content ladder. Here are 5 steps to get there:

#1: Understand Taxonomy

If you want a new pair of glasses, the Yellow Pages is a frustrating neighborhood. Look under “G” for “glasses.” Not found. Look under “E” for “eyeglasses.” Nope. Only when you look under “O” for “optometrists” do you find what you need. It’s an example of an industry with poor understanding of taxonomy—the words and phrases used to describe products and services. Read the entire article on Social Media Examiner. If your business needs assistance understanding the benefits of Social Media and implementing solid Social Media Marketing and Optimization concepts, strategies and tactics, contact Chris Isaac at birdbathBUZZ – cisaac@birdbathbuzz.com Cheers!

By Kent Huffman.

July 24th, 2009

Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless. You can follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/KentHuffman

The Company

Greenlight360 describes itself as an “Internet television network” that will produce and air original episodic Internet TV and films. The startup is based in Boston and intends to provide a platform for emerging talent to gain exposure and monetize their art while providing great original television programming to their viewing audiences.

You may want to think of Greenlight360 as the next HBO or Showtime . . . but online.

The Challenge

With most startups, one of the main obstacles to success is the lack of brand awareness. Greenlight360 was no different.

Since it was to be primarily an online operation, Greenlight360 executives needed to create a buzz on the Internet. And they wanted to do it quickly. So they decided to focus on several hot social media platforms, including Twitter.

The Solution

Marci Reynolds, COO and VP of Sales & Marketing at Greenlight360, developed a carefully planned strategy to build a quality following on Twitter. Her approach began with creating “buyer personas”—detailed profiles of the targeted users—in order to accurately define the types of followers that Greenlight360 wanted to attract. Keeping those personas in mind, Reynolds identified a number of tweeters (using various tools such as TweepSearch.com, Twellow.com, and HootSuite.com), followed them, and read their tweets for several days.

She then began tweeting about topics that would be of interest to those same people, including publishing a variety of content written specifically for them. In addition to quality, relevant tweets, Reynolds ensured the content was sent on a regular basis: approximately 5-7 tweets each day. She also sent tweets at times where they would receive the most exposure, such as the coveted lunchtime slot: 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

The Results

Within 60 days, Greenlight360 had developed a loyal following of almost 600 quality people on Twitter and experienced a lift in Web site traffic originating from the content of the tweets and the company’s Twitter profile.

“I am very excited about the success we’ve experienced using Twitter. Our follower base is very targeted and continues to grow every day. Our content is re-tweeted on a regular basis. And, this past Friday, we had our highest number of #FollowFriday recommendations — five different Twitter users recommended us to their audiences,” said Reynolds. “Twitter has been a very effective tool in launching our new brand name online!”

“We have also learned a lot about our targeted audience through reading their tweets and understanding what content they find interesting and relevant,” Reynolds added. “We will continue to use Twitter as part of our pre-launch buzz strategy and to build momentum and television viewership post Web site launch.”

Kent Huffman, Advisory Associate at Social2B, said, “The process that Marci Reynolds developed and followed at Greenlight360 is identical to the process that I wrote about in my recent Social2B blog post. It’s straightforward and effective, and it can be applied to almost any situation on Twitter.”

Follow Marci Reynolds and Greenlight360 on Twitter.

Follow Kent Huffman and Social2B on Twitter.

I was recently asked – what is Social Media Marketing and Viral Marketing? How do I get started? I think it is important to start with basics, since there is a lot of ’sophisticated Internet advice out there’ and everyone these days is a social media ‘expert’. As a B2B marketer of many years, founder of Social2B, and a member of The CMO Club, I have the privilege of reviewing Social Media ‘case studies’ all day long – there are numerous successes and numerous failures. This may sound very basic, but it works every time. First, decide on your target audience, and match the product or a service to it. Most importantly, you have to decide what type of content value-add you are going to provide – without compelling content, you are D.O.A. That’s your biggest investment. Then, set up ‘listening channels’ – yes, you have to listen first, and observe, before doing anything. You have to understand (through online research), where your community lives, how they interact, behave, and respond. If your segmentation is already done for you, just get involved with this community. Or build your own, by being attractive, and sharing valuable information. Again, the emphasis is on content and value add. If you are an online retailer, help your customers by engaging them in a conversation about your products and post the results back to the community. If you are an exchange for caregivers and healthcare professionals, aggregate valuable, relevant, and up-to-date content on specific medical conditions. If you are a technology services company, show your clients through case studies and examples that you can do more with less, or how to use particular technologies to gain efficiencies and save money. You also have to ask yourself – “am I alone in this exercise, or do I have all major functions of MY organization behind me – CEO, Sales, Customer Service, Technology, etc.? You should discuss expectations and set up metrics to reach your goals. Otherwise, this will be a nice ‘team building exercise’ and your effort will be wasted. Once you answer the above, and use your own creative communications resources to address the content creation and distribution strategies, while building ’social infrastructure’ through tools, technology and transparency, you have to gradually get involved. And eventually evolve with the community. And at every step of the way, you listen, observe and ANALYZE. You should hire outside help (not an expensive proposition) to do it once with guidance and expertise (make sure the latter is present). Once you see the results, and you will see them, if done right, you can repeat the above method or adjust to your own. Social Media Marketing (with Viral component already built in) is part creative communications, part tools and technology, part marketing courage, and ALL analytics. If done right, not only will you be closer to your community, and get results, you will also earn their trust and improve your reputation.