So Today...

Social media has given brands the ability to harness the power of large groups to spread the word about their products quickly. When a product is released, a discount is revealed, or an event introduced, a brand can now sit back and let their followers spread the word around in cyber space.

However, most brands are working on an integrated marketing level, where they are simultaneously launching TV, Print, Newspaper, and Magazine advertisements in conjunction with their online social media marketing campaigns. This causes some issues when a brand wants to assess the success of each individual marketing effort.

In order to properly assess where leads are coming from for a new product, brands should consciously put steps in place to gather data from their followers and new customers. This can be as simple as adding a ‘how’d you find us’ feature on the product purchase page, or as intense as developing custom IP address analytics and digging through data.

No matter what technique is used, it is important to implement a system to help determine lead generation. This will help marketers assess the potential of using social media to spread the word. Don’t forget, social media marketing, as with other forms of marketing, creates more touch points. What the customers do after they are exposed to your product is out of your control. Manage your touch points, measure your results. This will help you succeed in social media marketing.

So today… As you all know twitter has opened the professional, college, and even high school athlete to his community and fans. While this is great for fans that love to give their number one players support through their seasons, there is also a downside to it.

We can all agree that there is no holding back for some online users in terms of their vulgar language on twitter, Facebook, and especially YouTube. So when a player doesn’t perform as he was “supposed” to, there is no doubt that the criticism from crazed fans is going to explode on the social networking sites.

But how do you let an athlete know the fastest way that you disapprove with his play? Twitter. Like it really matters to me what you have to say about how I performed, that’s why there is a difference between real fans and bandwagon fans. In this article I found, Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson deleted his Twitter account after receiving a massive amount of “abusive messages… within just two hours of setting up his account.”

The way I see it, if you are a professional athlete and you understand what hard work is, what your abilities are, and that your teammates need you, there is absolutely no reason to worry about what any outside fan says about you on twitter. If you are a well-known athlete, you will have a lot of followers. 

While some of them may want to mention how bad you are, there are others that will show you support. Worse case scenario for Gibson was to take his twitter down, now if he were ever to consider getting back on again it might get even worse. My only take on this whole twitter debacle, is that if you want something like a twitter account for reaching out to your fans, expect criticism. Some of the best athletes get it every day, but all it ends up doing is giving you more drive to proving all those doubters wrong. 

So today… I thought about how managing more than one social media account can be beneficial and not so good for others. While most brands like to show their unique side and personality, most of them do not have somebody that is specifically covering their social media marketing.

Outsourcing your social media marketing is the probably the most efficient way to handle the situation, however there are a few problems the client can run in to. For example, if someone manages more than 2 or 3 accounts, how much of that content will sound the same? That all depends on the industry I think. While it is good to have someone covering one specific industry, I think it can also hurt them in certain ways.

If you have three clients that all talk about the same products, events, and news… how do you choose which client gets the best content first? You don’t. You have to treat each process like the other one doesn’t exist. The perk of staying in the same industry is evident. You understand where and what to look for online, you are able to connect with the right hashtags, and follow and link up with the right people. All these things alone can help the brand you are handling become a industry leader over time.

At the end of the day we have to be professional in what we do. Understand that the client is trying to accomplish something and carry that out. Whether it’s selling/promoting a product, event, or just their company. Ensure that the presence you are maintaining is always fresh, in the client’s best interest, and something that they would actually talk about.

So today… I really wanted to discuss a topic that has been ever so daunting to actually write about since I hate bit***** about things, but I came across this article that kind of puts things in to perspective and leaves me to believe that there other people out there who feel exactly like me. There is this “Narcissistic” culture that is slowly growing on social networking sites that is quite frankly ruining the whole point behind the experience. While we all use our Facebook and Twitter for different reasons, I am so freaking tired of hearing about what is happening in your life 20 times a day on my newsfeed.

e.g.

“OMG, You guys lOOk soooo cute ToGeThER!!! 

 “People of South Padre… Be ready for the craziest group of girls you’ve ever seen this spring break!!” 

 “I’ve like had the worst day EVERRRRR! First my garage door wouldn’t open, and then my car wouldn’t turn on! Then my freaking teacher gave us a Pop Quiz… Like what is she thinking?? “

First of all, you guys are probably not the craziest group to ever go to South Padre. They have about 18,000 college kids there every day during spring break and you would have to be pretty ridiculous to accomplish that. I realize that you think your friend and her new boyfriend look cute together, but are the 3 exclamation points and every other capitalized letter really necessary? Who even writes like that? It took me 5 seconds longer just write that out. Then of course the complaining about your day so far… Please stop. Nobody, and I mean nobody cares.

Tom Dunlap’s article in PC World title “Social Media Overload: Help!” claims that we are getting away from what social networks are good for and abusing those things. “The role that social networks now play in our lives is so important that they can’t be ignored indefinitely. They help us keep pace with our peers, network for jobs, and even remain socially active offline… Recently the Facebook and Twitter culture has pushed these people to post what they’re doing or thinking or photographing 10 times a day. It’s as though they’re in some kind of competition of the absurd.” 

This ‘all about me’ culture is really ruining the experience we used to have. I like using Facebook to maintain my friendship with my college friends here and back home. I like tweeting every now then and following people and things I am interested in. A while back ago you could get on your newsfeed and check out what’s going on in your network, now it’s cluttered up by people sharing their tweets in their Facebook status (Why did you get a twitter then?)

Tom does talk about having imposed rules for our social networking sites, which I don’t agree with. A communist Facebook just doesn’t sound appealing. But please people, next time you comment or share a status with us, make sure it would be worthwhile for someone to read it. Oh and SpeLLinG ThINgs liKE ThIs… doesn’t really do you any good. You will need a job one day.

Big Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City 

So today… I started questioning priorities. Most people do have different priorities when it comes things that matter in their life, especially when we look at all the things that we like online. I am not the guy that will tell you what to follow or like with your social media accounts, you guys can make your own choice with that. I simply want to explain my reasoning on things that actually make a difference in people’s lives.

While we all see things every day pop up on our newsfeed talking about this and that fundraiser, some of us do tend to ignore them. Find something that is important to you and help out. Why do I bring this up? I personally believe that it is way more fun to ‘like’ non-profits on Facebook or follow what they do on twitter rather than a celebrity.

Think about it, when you follow a celebrity you don’t really have a connection to their purpose or cause. A non-profit organization gives you instant gratification. We are really helping them out because non-profits are the ones that can gain the most momentum with the use of social media. With more and more people exchanging information via status updates and tweets about the great things that are taking place in less fortunate people’s lives, it really does something to you.

Everyone wants to stay connected with someone or something that is changing the world for the better and making a difference in a community. ‘Like’ something that moves you, it will change your life… I promise.

So today… we run in to another encounter with the NCAA and their regulations. So the NCAA is saying that if you are a college student, you can not friend request a high school player and try to sway him to come play for your school through social media? Like really? There is absolutely no way they will be able to stop this.

First of all, High school athletes love getting more popular through twitter and Facebook. Why wouldn’t they? If you are getting recruited by a number of colleges, you are more than likely the stud at your high school. Opening up your network of friends and followers to the thousands is going to be an intriguing process for any 17 year old that has aspirations to make it big in college sports and beyond. 

“Rivers may be the most visible high school athlete in the nation with more than 18,000 Facebook fans, more than 23,000 Twitter followers and YouTube highlight clips that have been viewed nearly a million times. He has committed to the Blue Devils.”

The NCAA is so naïve to believe that a couple of college football or basketball fanatics can alter the decision making of an athlete from their dorm room desktop. This is just another one of those things where the NCAA tries to regulate something completely pointless. Especially by trying to put restrictions on harmless social media buzz that they will never be able to oversee let alone control. While I do agree that it could be a useful tool for coaches to contact players, going out and making sure it doesn’t happen is nearly impossible.

At the end of the day high school athletes are going to get contacted by numerous fans regardless of their presence in different social media outlets. Let’s be honest. If you are being contacted by fans from all over the country because of your athletic achievements while you are still in high school, you will probably not have a problem with that. If you do, then… you got another thing coming if you ever become great at what you do after high school. If you’re widely respected, and highly recruited, people will find a way to get in contact with you no matter what restrictions exist.

So Today… I really took the time to study this year’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael A Stelzner. I found this report really interesting. It talks a lot about how social media marketers are increasingly using different outlets like Twitter, Facebook, etc. to grow their brand online. After surveying 3300 social media marketers and figuring out what questions they want answered the most about social media marketing, Michael came up with a great report and a lot of answers. Some of his major findings that I found important included the fact that social media marketing takes a lot of time, something that I think most people overlook. Which is another reason why you should outsource your social media marketing if you have the budget to do so. Not only is it going to save you time, but it will let you focus on doing more important things like running your business effectively. Generating business exposure through social media is very important. This report stated that companies that had a good involvement in social media have increased their traffic (72%) and improved their search rankings (62%) online. While there are a lot of benefits to social media marketing, a lot of marketers do not gain this success over night. The report states, “A significant 58% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 34% for 11 or more hours weekly.” Experience is a major part of how long it takes someone to manage their brand through social media. Letting someone with experience help you manage your companies social media presence will allow you to grow faster and maintain other important marketing strategies in your business. If we have learned anything it is the fact that it’s a time consuming process if you want to do it right. One of the biggest benefits of social media is being able to separate yourself in this online world filled with distractions. Don’t bug out about what you need to do and how you are going to do it, seek guidance from someone who knows how. It will be your best investment yet. 

I was at a conference in Vegas at the beginning of this week that really changed my perspective on certain industries. While many companies attend conferences to learn more on how to manage their business better and develop strong relationships with their partners, some businesses go to get opened up to new ideas and marketing strategies. If you are the CEO of an organization, you have to ensure that you are always on top of new things that are changing in your industry or you will get left behind. Social media is one of those things. Technology and networking are changing so quickly these days that if you do not have a social media presence there will be some question marks raised. This week I saw a lot of companies that want to get involved with social media but seem too hesitant to do so.

I can understand their point of view, they do not want to pay someone to tweet for them or update statuses when they can do it themselves? But can they really do it themselves? They can try, but most companies do not succeed at doing so. While some have tried before, their lack of constant presence can really hurt them. I say leave it up to the professionals. There is a reason that there are experts out there that have social media strategies that have worked in the past and will work for you.  Most businesses are scared to lose their margin of profit because they do not want to lose money on something that isn’t giving them immediate results. At the same time however, they see other companies that have flourished due to their social media marketing and gained profit. So when it comes to getting on board with someone that knows what they are doing in social media, don’t hesitate, let them help you. While you may be investing a small amount right now, your investment will double and triple over time. Don’t get left behind, take that first step to a real social media strategy and let your brand grow online before it’s too late.