THINKing

5 Best Posts - January 2010

We had some very popular posts in January - some old and some new. I thought I’d share them with you.

1. 8 Ways To Use Twitter Lists
2. Twittering Journalists
3. Be Relevant
4. When Billboards Go Bad
5. 7 Ways To Kickstart Your 2010 Marketing 

What’s your favorite?

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8 Ways To Use Twitter Lists

UPDATE: We just launched our Fortune 100 Twitter list. Feel free to follow it or any of our lists mentioned below.

We talked recently about the Twitter lists set up by My Creative Team. Are you using Twitter lists? Tell us about it.

We now have a Twittering Media Outlet List, a Twittering US Journalist List, and a Twittering Canadian Journalist List. Because Hootsuite - our favorite Twitter appliance - now allows you to import your lists, we also set up a Social Media List of our favorites in that category.

We have found a number of ways to utilize Twitter lists. Let’s take a couple of minutes to think about the how-tos of lists.

1. Experts. We established our social media list for the purpose of following experts in this milieu.

2. Social media monitoring. There’s a good piece on this at Fresh Networks‘ blog.

3. Industry news monitoring. We have set up the Twittering Media Outlets list to keep up with breaking news. You also could set up niche news monitoring lists, as we are going to do for our client, Camstar Systems, so we can keep up-to-date on topics such as manufacturing execution and quality management.

4. Employees. A number of businesses, ranging from Mashable to the New York Times, have set up employee lists. This could be a good customer service tool for your company, particularly if you work for a Fortune 1000 size firm.

5. Promote Causes. NonProfit Tech 2.0 has a post about how to use Twitter lists for promoting non-profits and causes.

6. Geo-Specific Lists. My Creative Team has been listed in a number of Charlotte, NC-area Twitter lists, like this one. This is a good way to keep up with what’s happening where you live, or where you used to live.

7. News Sources. Poynter Online has a solid post telling journalists how to use Twitter lists to help streamline their jobs.  Mashable also has a piece on how journalists are using Twitter lists.

8. Job Search.  Looking for a job? Set up a list of companies for which you would like to work, so you can get a sense of the corporate culture. Add executive search contacts to the list so you can discover what jobs are available.

Those are just a few ways to use Twitter lists. Got other ideas?

Oh, before you set up your own list, there may already be one out there. Check Listorious, the directory of Twitter lists.   Here’s one we found about job searches.

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Top Content 2009 Edition

In case you missed some of our most read content this year, below is a sample of the top posts of 2009. Is your favorite here?

Twittering Journalists

Customer Retention Strategies

When Billboards Go Bad

Twitter: Time Waster Or Cool Tool?

Branding Lessons From Santa

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Twitter Lists: Twittering Journalists

Finally, Twitter is offering a lists function. None too soon.If you need more info on Twitter lists, Mashable is a good resource.

We set up the My Creative Team Twittering Journalist wiki last year in order to develop a directory of journalists who were using Twitter. This was not an ideal solution, but it was good enough at that time. With the new Twitter list, we can move that wiki online. This makes it easier on everyone to follow twittering journalists.

We have established a USA Twittering Journalist List and a Canada Twittering Journalist List. They are not yet complete, but feel free to begin following them, and let us know if there are other journalists you are following who should be on the list. Next on our agenda, media outlets using Twitter.

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Social Media Confuses Businesses

It seems businesses of all sizes are conflicted about how to use social media effectively. In a recent CitiBank/GfK Roper study, about 75 percent of small businesses said that social networks are not working for them.  On the other side of the equation, Gartner says that most Fortune 1000 companies will delve into social media by 2010 but more than half of them will fail.

First of all, small businesses may not clearly understand how social media can help them. Nor, do they know how to measure the impact of social networks.  For instance, friending a brand may not always result in immediate sales. So, the small business reporting that social media doesn’t work is probably not giving the program sufficient time to develop.

Additionally, like businesses of all sizes, small businesses have trouble focusing their efforts. They want to jump into Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter all at once. Now, I believe in utilizing all three of these networks, as does Paul Chaney. However, small businesses should pick one platform that makes the most sense for their customers and master that one before adding another one.

And most of them don’t have the necessary resources to make the most of social media.

We’ve written about this often: strategy should drive tactics, no matter what type of business you run or what type of program you are planning to implement.

Duck Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch agrees that the most successful organizations approach social media with a strategic bent. According to Jantsch,

It’s about connecting, not automation. The best companies are using the latest communication tools not for automation or as “just another tactic,” but to truly connect and create relationships with customers.

Are you having any luck with your social media forays? Wade into the discussion and let us know.

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Links 7/20/2009

A detached retina has kept me sidelined for about a week, but the eyesight is getting better. So, here are a few things I’m trying to read with fuzzy vision:

10 Fundamentals of Good Writing -  Why have companies lost their voice? The biggest reason is fear. Good communication can’t thrive where every word is second-guessed and scrubbed of all meaning. We’ve got to get back to good writing, and it’s up to communication executives like you to make it happen.

Twitter Generates $48 Million Monthly In Media Coverage -  What are  Twitter mentions worth? According to news-monitoring service VMS, a cool $48 million over the past 30 days. (That’s half of what Microsoft plans to spend marketing its biggest product launch of the year, Bing.)

Cinnabon Direct Mail. Mmmmmm. - (You have to register to read this).  Bakery chain Cinnabon is one company embracing direct mail over more tech-savvy channels and seeing customer acquisition rise as a result. The days of direct mail’s marketing dominance may be over, but don’t call it dead yet.

Customer Loyalty: How To Earn It. -  THINKing has written about the topic of customer retention often. There’s a saying in the business world: Customer acquisition is an investment, but profitability is built on customer retention. And with the economy in its current state, it’s more important than ever to keep the customers you have.

MasterCard Launches “Priceless” iPhone App - The Purchase, N.Y.-based company is introducing the “Priceless Picks” app, which gives consumers a location-based utility to find and share their favorite picks with others. Via the iPhone’s GPS technology, users can find shopping deals, entertainment options and dining venues based on the users’ current location or where they are going.  MasterCard is extending its “Priceless” catchphrase to a new iPhone application.

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Links - 7/10/2009

Here are a few things we’re reading today:

AP Works Toward Universal Online News Format -  The Associated Press, along with fellow non-profit The Media Standards Trust, unveiled a digital news “microformat” to effectively encapsulate the content and key meta-data of every news story online.

Bing’s Growth Accelerates - Microsoft is gaining ground with its search engine Bing, but Google still dominates the market. Microsoft’s Bing grabbed 5.25% of the U.S. Internet search market in the four weeks ending June 27, while Google captured 74% of the market, according to data released by Hitwise.

Evian’s Babies Take Internet By Storm -  Evian’s break-dancing babies have become an instant viral success — which is just how the bottled water company likes it, since there’s no TV media buy planned for the U.S. to support the new ad campaign, themed “Live young.”

Everything You Need To Know About Twitter You Learned From Your Grandmother -  Sure, it can help to utilize the growing number of Twitter tools available as well, but if your Twitter grade isn’t as high as you’d like it to be, you may want to take some tips from grandma.

I’m On Someone’s Media List -  THINKing has written about this before. Now, Rodger Johnson takes on the topic of PR people sending totally off-base pitches and news releases to bloggers and newspeople.

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Connect With My Creative Team

Are you connected with My Creative Team? Here are the ways to get and stay connected:

Facebook

Friendfeed

Think (our monthly enewsletter)

THINKing (RSS Feed)

Twitter

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Stand By Your Brand

With apologies to Tammy Wynette, who warbled the song, Stand By Your Man, now is the time to stand by your brand. If you don’t, someone could hijack it or do it irreparable harm.

Prior to the rise of the Internet, marketers had a reasonable amount of time to respond to misinformation being spread about their brands. That was in the day of the daily newspaper. Instantaneous digital communication now makes it imperative that you be ever vigilant to online conversation about your brand.

You can’t afford to ignore it. Blake Cahaill, senior vice president at Visible Technologies, speaks to this today in a column for Marketing Daily.

Mounting pressure to be the first to break a story, and garner the highest click-throughs on salacious headlines - coupled with the rapid decline of resources allocated to ensure fair and objective reporting - have enabled inaccurate and biased information to flood the Web, often leaving a lasting effect on both businesses and personal identity. 

Complicating this picture is the flood of people joining social networks. Twitter has grown by leaps and bonds recently, according to Mashable. And as OMMA points out in a recent story,

Facebook’s seen its 35-54 demo membership blow up by 276.4 percent between June 2008 and January 2009. The 55-and over contingent grew 194.3 percent in the same amount of time. In comparison, that ever-so-sought 18-24 group bounced just 20.6 percent. The total number of Facebook users aged 35-plus in October 2007 totaled just fewer than 845,000, while as of this past January, their combined might totals just less than 8 million - 18.9 percent of the total Facebook pie.

Boomers, if we are not happy with a brand, will talk about it anytime online or offline. You need to protect your reputation. It is a bankable asset that must be kept safe. So, take Tammy’s advice, stand by your brand.

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Get Social Fresh

I’m part of a group which is presenting a social media conference, Social Fresh, in Charlotte, Monday, August 24 at the Holiday Inn Center City. Consider this your invitation to attend. You can register here. Here’s what we have announced so far:

We are very excited announce our first round of speakers. From left to right above, Jim Deitzel of Rubbermaid, Keith Burtis of Best Buy, and Social Media evangelist Wayne Sutton, Laurie Smithwick of Kirtsy.com, Chris Harrington of @VoteWoz, and Social Media developer Mike Rundle. These experts and panel announcements can all now be found on our Content page. We have many other speakers in the works from Fortune 500 companies, hip new social media companies as well as social networking power houses.

This is a solid group of social media experts. If you want to learn about where technology is going and how social media can be harnessed for business purposes, then you need to attend.

Additionally, we are accepting sponsors for the event. If you are interested, please sign up here and we’ll get back to you to discuss our sponsorship packages.

Keep apprised of more announcements by following us on Twitter @sofresh.  Below is the rest of our contact information. Hope to see you at the first Social Fresh.

Links

Site - http://socialfresh.com
Tickets - http://sofreshclt.eventbrite.com
Twitter - @sofresh
Contact - info at socialfresh.com
Hashtag - #sofresh
LinkedIn - Fresh SM Pros
Facebook - Social Fresh Page

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