An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

So many smart people - speakers as well as attendees - packed two days full of content on email, search and social media marketing.

The recaps below came from speakers as well as attendees. Can you guess who was in which group?

Sonny Gill on Affirmation and Testing: Last year was People and Passion… click to read what Sonny has to say about this year.

Eric Hoffman on his Digital Marketing Mixer experience: “yeah I know, Swine flu whatever – there were people in white coats here so I felt safe”

Matthew T. Grant on The Long and Short of the Digital Marketing Mixer: Five high level themes from the conference [definitely worth taking a look at - great insights from Grant!]

Michael Brito on Lessons Learned: Get it straight from the horse’s mouth - what did Brito learn?

Jay Baer on 33 Hot Social Media Marketing Tips and Eight Killer Quotes: He crowdsourced his beard. ‘Nuff said.

Mack Collier on Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer Recap: Mack gives you a little sumptin’ sumptin’ to help you see the value of this event.

Thanks to Marketing Profs for inviting me to this year’s Digital Marketing Mixer, (re)connecting me with friends, and putting on a great show full of learnings, case studies, tips and discussions.

The action at Marketing Profs Digital Mixer didn’t stop. From an early morning breakfast discussing Twitter with Leigh Duncan-Durst to two moderated sessions to discuss: (1) various uses of Twitter for brands like Marketing Profs and Best Buy; (2) community building through social media.

The rate of responsiveness for Best Buy’s Twitter team was amazing - during the session, one of the attendees tweeted something about Best Buy and minutes, if not seconds later, had a response from Best Buy. This in-person, real time demo made us laugh. Marketing Prof’s Twitter evolution also highly interested me - from Ann Handley just tweeting on her own to having a more formal policy or structure demonstrated that social media use isn’t static. What one does today, how one applies various tools will change over time, as it should. Business needs and goals change as new information develops and social media strategy should evolve to take those changes into consideration.

The conference closed with the Mixologists recapping and reviewing tips and tactics that attendees could take home with them. Highlights include:

• KEYWORDS for SEARCH because people are searching! 4-5 search terms should give them your product if they are looking for it!
• Community membership is a privilege, not a right
• 80/20 rule for content - personal vs. brand for personal Twitter or brand vs. personal for brand Twitter. However, make sure the content has value for your audience
• Lawyers speak their own language - legalese. Lawyers’ risk aversion is in service to their clients, so have in-house counsel discuss social media policy development with peer enterprises
• Have a plan - know why you use the tools you use and how you use them
• Tactics without a strategy is like doing nothing, or passing up opportunity while incurring costs. If you’re looking for an analogy, tactics without a strategy is like a steering wheel without a car. Maybe it’s like a public transportation system without any stops.

Was Mom wrong with her advice: “Don’t talk to strangers?”

Ann Handley in her opening talk contradicted Mom, reminding us that we should go out of our comfort zone and talk to strangers and learn from each other.

Go forth and learn we did -

From “The Magic Combination of Rich Content and Social Media Can Land You On ‘Page One’ of Google”

If you think about creating great content - if you build it, will they come? Maybe if you make it easy for them - the “crazy viral” content doesn’t have many barriers to access. A registration form is an example of a barrier for your users. When creating content, also think about usability - something that is easy to consume, read and share will be so, especially if the content is quality.

Different media types serve different purposes. Of course, you might want to collect email, contact information and names. If you explain why you ask for that personal information to share survey results, you might realize response rates as high as 95% as Michael Stelzner did, the author of Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged.

Some other quick tips:

• Develop relationships with key influences before you need to make an ask - hint - offer interesting, unique insight or value.
• Think about your signal to noise ratio - what content should be open and public, and what should be more private?
• Retweet buttons or links that allow people to share your content
• Video tools to use may be Screenflow for those who use Mac and Camtasia for those who use Windows
• Check out Sexy Bookmarks if you use wordpress

Life moves quickly, at the speed of Real Time. So what about business - how can business engage in real time? How Big Brands Engage in Real Time Conversations with Customers provided case studies of how both B2B and B2C brands leveraged online interactions to develop relationships with their customers.

• Hansen’s soda used Twitter in conjunction with street teams to grow their brand
• Intel used social media to discover the desire for the Ajay Bhat t-shirt from the Ajay Bhat commercial.

However, incentive-based contests are great for launching programs and products, not for building sustainable relationships. Social media is like a long term relationship, not casual dating. Speaking of relationships, what do you do when you screw up? You can address problems by figuring out what the problem is and addressing it. Apologize for your mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

Have we moved past the it’s-about-the-conversation/it’s-about-the-community chant? Social Media Measurement: Metrics, Impact, and Value addressed how we can measure our efforts in social media.

After a brief talk by Amber Naslund (available on slideshare) about what metrics to track and how to make meaning of so we can drive the ultimate metric.

While you can automate data gathering and visualizations, you can’t automate insight and analysis. Research will inform which social networks to participate in and lack of success provides opportunity to get customer feedback about the type of content they want to see.

Just like laundry, social media measurement only gets harder the longer you wait. Some free listening or measurement tools to investigate:

• socialmention
• backtype
• netvibes
• search.twitter.com
• GOOG Alerts
• boardtracker

If you’re really geeky, look at various APIs and RSS tools and pull together an iGoogle or Yahoo Pipes dashboard. Filtrbox also provides a more robust free social media monitoring tool than Google Alerts.

After packing my brain so full of information, it  felt like both carry-ons packed under the seatback in front of me, it was time for some leiderhosen and chatting in real life with those I’ve chatted with online for a year or more.

I haven’t been blogging here as much as I’d like to. However, I started a food p0rn blog that I regularly post to.

I’ve also been traveling quite a bit - from an amazing inaugural year at Social South in Birmingham, Alabama to my regular trips to Seattle, this month finds me turning another year older and (hopefully!) another year wiser.

This month, I’ll be in:

The Bay Area: I’ll be visiting my little sister and attending CAR EXPO in San Jose, where I’ll be meeting with DocuSign users and potential users to answer any questions they might have about electronic signature, paperless transactions, or just give out hugs.

Washington, D.C.: I’ll be visiting with a very cool nonprofit, Disaster Accountability Project. They have some great initiatives planned for the coming year, so keep an eye on them. After my experience evacuating from Hurricane Katrina, I’m inspired to work with such a motivated, committed and inspiring group.

Chicago: I’ve never been to Chicago, but I’m excited for my first time. I’ll be attending Marketing Profs’ Digital Marketing Mixer, Oct 21 - 22, and blogging with some good friends of mine, Mack Collier and Paul Chaney. Digital Marketing Mixer provides a wealth of programming. From one-on-one sessions, discussion groups, and more, you can learn how to see even more results for your digital marketing program.

If you register with the discount code “DMBLG” you’ll get $200 off the conference pass. For every pass you buy with the discount code “DMBLG” I’ll donate $100 to Disaster Accountability Project.

You get insight from amazing, talented marketers and Disaster Accountability Project gets donations… everyone wins!

About a year ago, Richard Thompson Ford published The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse. It’s definitely worth reading and thinking about. Ford makes the distinction that accusations of racial discrimination (1) distracts from serious racial injustices, and (2) confuses social conflict with bigotry, diminishing the meaning behind charges of bigotry. 

This morning, I read an article, “Pretty Women Can Be Hard to be Friends With” that got me thinking about Ford again:

That stuff made me feel terrible most of the time and I don’t want anyone knowing what that’s like. Instead, I try to be kind to every person, regardless of how popular/attractive/smart they are, and not be a brownnoser, ever.

It’s striking to me, though, how not being a kiss-up has ruined my friendships with some very pretty women. In fact, my only friendship Titanics have happened when I’ve stood up to extraordinarily beautiful women and lost out. “The Pretty Girl” wanted me to play by her rules; I didn’t want to do it, so Pretty Girl read me the friendship riot act and ditched me. Forever.

Um, REALLY?!? The author offers up only anecdotal evidence. Correlation does not imply causation and statements such as these only serve to reinforce stereotypes. After I read the article, I realized that sometimes, people act entitled, are rude, self absorbed or narcissistic. 

Why be friends with people who treat you badly? Each individual can only control him or herself, not anyone else. Just flip the bit and get rid of those who don’t add to your life. If Ms. Pretty treats people poorly and you don’t tolerate it, you don’t need to have Ms. Pretty in your life. That’s ok. Those who allow Ms. Pretty to treat them terribly - that’s their choice. It doesn’t affect you. 

Focusing on looks detracts from the actual problem - rude behavior. It’s not about the pretty. Focusing on the superficial detracts from the actual substantive issue at hand.

Then yes.

Earlier this week, Danielle Morrill and I gave a talk about Twitter to a group of entrepreneurs in Seattle. I wanted them to take away that the social value and the business value of Twitter went hand in hand. I also approach Twitter as a channel to find brand-evangelists, discover opportunities to help others, and share useful information. As a data nerd, I like to attach metrics to pretty much everything.

Some quick metrics to take away from Twitter include # of following to # of followers. The closer those numbers are to 1:1, the more likely it suggests reciprocal relationships, assuming that those you’re following are following you back and vice versa. DocuSign has nearly a 1:1 ratio of those it follows to those who follow it:

DocuSign's Twitter Metrics 368:374

Tweetstats, from Damon Cortesi, generates a lovely graph that tells you how many @replies you tweet (indicating conversation) and to whom you interact with the most.

DocuSign Replies ~ 61% of its tweets

In the Twitter Talk, one of the attendees said:

This is a way for me to broadcast what my company is doing

Um, share. Absolutely Twitter is a way to share what your company is doing. Why? Because people (potential customers, users, employees) care. However, they don’t care if your only interest is one way data flow. They want to know that the feedback they’re giving you is going somewhere, being considered, and possibly having an impact.

Twitter is a one-to-many content sharing application. It’s like having a back-and-forth conversation in a public space. You are having a directed conversation that is indexed by Google and then searchable.

Starting social media with listening, understanding what the audience wants/needs and then generating content gets you to…

PARTICIPATION

If you aren’t comfortable with putting out, you should start by listening. Integrate feedback into product development, messaging, customer service…

Listening alone creates value for business. Actually participating enables you to create and realize even more value.

Session Whiteboard from flickr user ikkoskinen

RE BarCamp Phoenix starts in 36 hours or so and I noticed a new hashtag on Twitter #vendorrush

Dustin Luther, Jim Marks & Jay Thompson started a conversation last night about facilitation and organization.

Organized Session List vs Open White Board

With an organized session list, attendees have advance knowledge of topics covered and speakers know if they’ll be speaking about their topic. 

The open white board means that anyone can vy for a speaking slot to discuss whatever topic they want to learn more about or will be useful.

The potential problem? When the white board opens, attending vendors will rush for the white board to pitch or self-promote.   

As a BarCamper and someone with a professional relationship to one of the sponsors, DocuSign, I found the discussion interesting. 

BarCamps, as ad-hoc unconferences, embody a spirit of sharing and learning from others in an open environment. This sharing and learning likely includes discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

 Who goes to BarCamp? 

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. This includes vendors. Vendors can expect to share what they have with attendees so long as they recognize that attendees can also vote with their feet. Large events mean lots of people to learn from and share with.

Provide interesting, useful content in your session and you don’t have to worry about being that vendor.

 

 

save $199 w/ code "AnWith1N" before 4/30

Part of the value of social media is its connection to real life decision making and interactions. To that end, I’ll be speaking at Learn About Web (LAW) in Denver, CO September 14-15.

Craig Sutton of BrightWeb Marketing is the man behind LAW. I spoke at the first LAW in November ‘08 in Eastern Washington. This year, Craig is bringing LAW to Denver.

I first met Craig online, through Twitter, before meeting him in real life at LAW ‘08. Craig’s passion for helping people grow their business motivated him to start LAW, to help small/medium businesses learn how to be more effective online. 

LAW is a great conference for small/medium businesses that want to be more effective online. Tracks in social media, web design and search marketing will be taught by some of the best, including:

• Jennifer Laycock
• Jennifer Leggio
• Andrew Hyde
• Mack Collier
• Deb Robison
• Amber Naslund
• Thu An Bui
• Anita Campbell
• Beth Harte
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• Douglas Waltman II
• Gennefer Snowfield
• Matt McGee
• Tim Jackson
• Eric Elkins
• Liz Strauss
• Lucretia Pruitt

 
Come find us on Twitter and read what Mack Collier wrote about his experience at last year’s LAW. Join us in real life with the code on the badge (@AnWith1N) and you’ll save $199. I look forward to seeing you there!

CRAVE has invited Danielle Morrill and I to speak at this month’s Coffee Chat, called Twitter Talk.

Learn about how Twitter came into existence and how it fits with other social networking and social media services, such as Facebook, as branding tools. Even if you’ve never used a service like this before, discover the power and simplicity of sending short messages (140 characters or less) to a group of friends and followers interested in what you have to say. This talk will include discussion of how to create an engaged community on Twitter, how to develop an audience of relevant Twitter users, and how to share valuable information about your products and content in an appropriate fashion - often referred to as “Twitiquette” (Twitter etiquette). 

It’s this Sunday, 4/19, from 2-4pm, at Dreamclinic, 902 NE 65th, in Seattle. Register at Seattle 2.0 or on the CRAVE Web site.

Hope to see you there!

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

City planners must consider [insert core competency here]. How transportation systems work together, how traffic light systems work together or whatever it be, take your pick.

“City planners must…” polarizes; it pits the speaker against city planners. It implies that city planners don’t consider a core part of city planning. By choosing a position and stating a conclusion without stating the reasoning, does the speaker leave room for a positive interpretation for why something isn’t happening?

Polarizing statements are great - for some things. They’re effective to create controversy and to reinforce an us vs. them mindset. The us vs. them mindset is valuable for reinforcing group bonds at the expense of a them or other.

However, is this the best way? What if you look into the face of your enemy and you see yourself? Might that lead to a crisis of mission and perhaps even identity, as constructed on the (perhaps false) premise of an “other”?

Team Cohesion via Collaboration

What would be a better way to create team cohesion? Perhaps aligning your team around common goals and an understood mission. Fundamentally, the speaker above didn’t want city planners to consider how various transportation modalities worked together - she wanted to optimize transportation access for all community members.

Could collaboration help? YES! By stating a desired outcome and identifying action items necessary to achieve an outcome, the opportunity becomes about value creation, not finger pointing. The process is collaborative, not polarizing.

I’m sure city planners, as a group, want transportation systems to all work well together. I think the question should be: What challenges do planners face in creating a coherent transportation system in any given city?

What do you think the question should be?

image courtesy of Flickr user Atwater Village Newbie used under Creative Commons