Ken Mueller Sparks Google+ v. Facebook Debate

Ken Mueller wrote a very open letter to Mark Zuckerberg requesting that Facebook stop tweaking their newsfeed algorithm and let users shape their own experience.  I personally think Mueller makes some great arguments as to why this is a win-win situation for everyone - users, businesses, Facebook, etc - and I encourage you to read the letter in it's entirety.

What sparked the latest flare up in the Google+ v. Facebook debate was a post by Mueller in the comments section of his blog.  Mueller said, "I still think you can do a lot more on FB due to the sheer number of people. My clients' customers aren't on G+, at least not as regular users. And they don't want to be. Most people, I think, still want to be on FB."

People went on to comment that their client base was engaging just fine on Google+, an article was written supporting Google+ over Facebook as the social media marketing platform of the future (Google Plus vs Facebook: Why G+ Should Dominate Your 2014 Marketing Strategy), and debate among social media specialists sparked anew.  

What I can't understand is why anyone would suggest that Google+ dominate your 2014 social media marketing strategy.  We call it a "marketing mix" for a reason!  

Mueller never goes so far as to say that Google+ isn't a strong platform, he merely says he isn't going to abandon Facebook because his clients' target audience is more engaged on Facebook than Google+. 

I can related to that!  My experience with Google+ has been very challenging to say the least.  Although I have many friends who are registered with the G+ platform, most of them continue to use only Facebook to connect with each other.  

Even still, as a marketing professional with some knowledge of search engine optimization, I think it's pretty intuitive that Google will favor Google+ engagement in it's search engine results pages.  In fact, there is already proof that this happens, some of which is mentioned in the Google Plus v. Facebook article.  I encourage my clients to incorporate Google+ into a robust integrated marketing social media strategy that includes other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  With a holistic marketing strategy in place, we see the greatest return on our 

6 Tips for Successful Email Marketing

Email Marketing can be a quick way to reach out to a large group of people when it's done appropriately.  As with all digital marketing, email marketing requires a clear set of goals, strategy for achieving the goals and a plan for measuring success.  If something isn't working, make changes and measure again.  

If you're struggling to find success with your email marketing campaign, here are six best practices for email marketing:

1. Take the time to format a nice template for your recurring email marketing efforts.  Not only will it help your readers identify what you're communicating - monthly newsletter, industry alert, etc. - it will also reinforce your brand's professionalism. 
2. Graphics and formatting will only go so far, content generation is the key to successful email marketing campaigns.   Your audience wants to receive information that's interesting, useful and relevant to them.  If you email campaign isn't successful, it's probably not because of your formatting, graphics or the time of day you sent your message.  In the words of Seth Godin, "Don't waste time looking for a better pencil--learn to write better."
3. If you have to choose between having "Dear [name]" on your emails or not having personalized emails at all, go without the personalization.  There is nothing that turns readers off faster than seeing your sloppiness and laziness in the very first line.  If you're not willing to take the time to go through your list and check the contact information for every individual it's unlikely your readers are going to spend the time to read your email.
4. Avoid fancy HTML images and use text in your emails wherever possible.  Yes, the HTML looks very polished, but your readers have to download the images in order to see what you're trying to communicate.  Create content that is easy to digest and doesn't require work on the part of your readers.  Additionally, if you're going to archive your work online, text is SEO friendly whereas graphics need to be properly tagged to appeal to search engines.
5. Before you ask me to do something for you, ask yourself if it's fun, if it's worth my time and if I'm going to being compensated appropriately.  It's unlikely you'll get a high rate of participation if the answer to two out of those three questions is "no". 
6. Set expectations about how often your readers are going to hear from you and what you're going to say, but most importantly, live up to those expectations.  If you're publishing a monthly newsletter, send it on the same day of each month, e.g. (the first Wednesday, Second Tuesday, etc.).  If you're sending out a security alert email, have a criteria for how serious something needs to be before you send message out.  

Find The Right Voice For Your Brand

As a millennial, I have been crafting my image on social media for longer than I've been of legal US drinking age.  Finding the right voice for a brand comes relatively easily for me, and there are a couple of things you think about to help you find the right voice for your brand.

1. Define your target audience - Are you talking to men, women, children, or a combination of all three?  Do you want your brand to appeal to males, females or both?  Do you want to target people in a specific geographic location?
2. Set your tone - Are you having a serious conversation or is your brand lighthearted?  Even if you're dealing with sensitive or professional issues, it's good to try to lighten the mood in a tasteful and appropriate way when you can.
3. Provide value - fans of your brand do not want to hear you talk about how great you are on your social media platforms just like you don't want to hear your friends brag about how great they are.  If you think you might be getting annoying, take a step back and evaluate your brand.  Are you posting interesting, relevant industry information?  Useful tips?  Short cuts?  How To videos?  Make your social media platforms a place that your target audience wants to go.
4. Treat your fans like friends - No, you should not (in most cases) offer to take your social media followers out to happy hour.  But you should talk to them in the same way that you'd talk to your friends, in an authentic and genuine way.  
5. Be consistent - all of your posts should sound like they are coming from the same person... the persona of your brand!  You want your fans to know what to expect when they come to your social media platforms so be sure that your team knows the brand's voice so everyone is working toward the same cause.  

If you follow these five steps you'll be well on your way to creating a voice that reflects the personality and values of your brand that will help drive engagement with your fans.

Promoting the Brand Called "You"

I'll admit it, I struggle to promote my personal brand, which is pretty ironic when I think about how well versed I am in digital and social media marketing.

I'm told this is a struggle many millennials experience because we grew up hearing how special we were and received far too many "participation trophies."  We use digital media - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. - on a daily if not hourly basis for all kinds of mundane announcements and yet we keep the really important stuff offline... and I'm guilty of this just as much as the next person. 

I started this blog as a way to comment on the digital media trends I experience in my professional life and I have yet to share this blog on my Facebook or Twitter for fear of making myself look stupid in front of my peers.  Yes, I know that if I don't invest in me and share my posts, nobody else will either.  I'm caught in a lack of confidence catch-twenty-two.

Luckily, I was catching up on Six Pixels of Separation podcasts and came across Mitch Joel's conversation with Dan Schawbel, the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding - a Gen Y research and consulting firm. He has authored two bestselling business books, Me 2.0 and the recently published, Promote Yourself - The New Rules For Career Success. Dan is also a contributor for Time and Forbes magazine, as well as being a sought-after media pundit on the topic of personal branding and Gen Y.

Dan is an authority on the practice of self-promotion and everything he mentioned in the podcast resonated with me so much so that I purchased both of his books on my nook as soon as I reached my computer.  Stay tuned for the reviews!

8 Tips To Maximize Your Facebook ROI

Some businesses are social media marketing mavens while others are scrambling to catch up.  Facebook recently put together a list of eight best practices they find most successful local businesses are doing on Facebook.  Although the tips were probably written for B2C social media, almost all of these tips can be used for larger companies and 2-7 even apply to B2B marketing strategies, so take a look at these tips and good luck in your Facebook marketing!

Eight Things Successful Businesses Do on Facebook

How To Use Social Media At A Tradeshow

Scott Monty posted five tips from trade show product supplier Display Wizard to help readers succeed at their next trade show.  Read the entire blog here.

The Five Tips:

1. Use Facebook and Twitter to build anticipation
2. Promote your competition using social media
3. Comment on blog posts and news stories
4. Reach out to bloggers and journalists
5. Contact attendees via Twitter and LinkedIn

It's Not Personal

Seth Godin blogged a very valuable thing to remember when you're pitching yourself, your product or your services: it's not personal.  

Read his blog post, What "no" means.  

The SEO Guide to Google's Hummingbird

Search Engine Journal posted a very cool infographic detailing how to craft content for Google's Hummingbird algorithm that will help search engine optimization efforts be successful.

You can see their original post here: How to Thrill Google Hummingbird: The SEO’s Guide 

Transparency

Marketing is so often a game of deception - we try to make things look better than they are or make people feel a certain way to elicit a response.  

That's all good and well, but there has to be transparency for there to be success.  

Mitch Joel posted on his Six Pixels of Separation blog this week about the the need for transparency between agencies and brands regarding money.  His post, How much does it cost?, brings up lots of good points, but my favorite is the point about transparency.

"It sounds like bitterness, but it's really about transparency. 

This isn't about procurement or sour grapes, it's about a healthy and transparent partnership because that's what the best brand/agency relationships look like. If you're hiding what the true value of the work is from the beginning, the relationship starts out in a deficit. This is the marketing business. In business, all parties should be clear on how the process will unfold, who the participants in the competition are and what the prize will be for the winner at the end. This shell game of fishing for ideas, creative and strategy with no commitment to following through on the mandate is a thorn in the side of the marketing industry that doesn't need to be there. Things have, sadly, progressed to the point where agencies are putting weeks against a competitive pitch to only uncover that the project has been shelved, budget wasn't allocated or the brand was simply kicking some tires to see if a better solution was out there. 

Brands may think that this makes them smarter at the marketing game, but look at the overall results and costs for that effort? Sadly, this strategy seems like a lose/lose for all parties."

I firmly believe that transparency among partners is the only way to succeed in business.  If you want people to trust you, you have to be trustworthy.  Honesty between you and your vendor partners is the only way to ensure they will have your back and promote you.

Avoiding Project Apocalypse

Seth Godin's blog post today, The three toxic stooges of the project apocalypse, really resonated with me.  Seth names the three components that contribute to project failure: over promising, under sharing and lack of polish.

I cannot agree more with the first two components: over promising and under sharing or lack of communication are fatal to projects.

In my experience, people who excel at managing expectations and have strong communication skills tend to be good project managers because they minimize the chance for disappointment.

In my own career I have often been faced with the unpleasant task of bringing a team - or my boss - back to reality.  This is probably partly because I have been a part of companies that aren't well versed in digital and social media marketing, and so the constraining resources are less obvious to those around me.

It comes back to under promising and over delivering, which is an easy way to manage expectations.  When you under promise just a bit and communicate clearly what your objectives are, your clients are more likely to have realistic expectations for their project.  It also gives you just a bit of wiggle room to impress your clients, which tends to make them happy.  And happy clients are usual return customers who are more likely to refer you new business.

Don't Become a Victim of Change

Times are changing for businesses, Mitch Joel posted The Future Of Digital 2013.  The internet, social media and a multitude of other advancements in technology have changed the way companies interact with their reality.

It's too bad that businesses cling to the past and don't adopt and use these new tools to their advantage.  I suppose it's natural to stick to what we know, but when that happens at the expense of the success of a business it's inexcusable.  

When we fail to adapt to our changing environment, we run the risk of becoming a victim of the change.  

I experienced this firsthand as the telecommunications industry moved away from digital communications and into Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications.  Even though the entire industry saw the writing on the wall, not everyone acted in time.  The telecom dealers who didn't prepare for the shift from immediate income to recurring revenue found themselves in a squeeze as their upfront payments dwindled faster than they could build their recurring income.

The Importance of Google+

Don't take my word for it, check out Mitch Joel's radio clip posted on the Six Pixels of Separation blog on Monday:

Google + Is Still More Important Than Most People Realize

How Google's Hummingbird Impacts Social Media Marketers

Jeff Bullas posted a very concise explanation for how Google's recent Hummingbird algorithm update is going to impact social media marketers.

Check it out here: How does Google’s Hummingbird Update Impact Social Media Marketers?
Hummingbird isn't something to ignore.  It sounds like it's now more imperative than ever that we make Google+ a strong component of our social media strategy.

How to Increase Engagement on Twitter in One Easy Step

Twitter has announced that it is adding image previews!

As with all social media platforms, twitter is adding more rich media to it's feed.  Instead of having to expand tweets to see media, Twitter has now announced a new feature where media that can be viewed directly in the stream without clicking to view.

Sometimes we forget that Twitter is more than 140 characters, but it's beneficial to increase our use of rich media on Twitter.

On social media platforms, posts with rich media have significantly higher engagement metrics than text-only posts.  On Twitter, this could equate to more retweets, shares, favorites and mentions.

This is not an excuse to get media happy - you don't need to include graphics and video in every tweet just as you don't need to post photos and videos every time you update your Facebook status.  What it does mean, is that a strategic use of rich media in your Twitter strategy can be very beneficial in amplifying your message and getting your brand more recognition.

Don't Let Loyalty Breed Complacency

Too often marketing professionals brag about brand loyalty without defining what loyalty means.

Seth Godin brought up the Two kinds of loyalty in one of his blogs this week.  

Seth makes a strong argument that the loyalty we're all striving for is the identity loyalty which comes from satisfied customers.  This loyalty makes clients ambassadors of your brand and these clients are so committed to your relationship they identify themselves as a patron of your product or service.  These are people who aren't even tempted to shop around for another vendor.  Examples of this kind of brand loyalty are Apple, Nike or (to a lesser degree) Lululemon.  

Unfortunately, too often we mistake loyalty of convenience for identity loyalty.  I might even argue that in our busy professional lives, we consider loyalty of convenience "good enough" and get back to the grind stone rather than perfect our marketing mix.  Why do we let second tier loyalty breed complacency?  Because it's difficult to obtain identity loyalty.

Identity marketing doesn't just mean the marketing team is doing their job, it means the brand is delivering.  If the customer service department drops the ball or the installation team makes a mistake, it's going to affect brand loyalty.  And so much of the sales cycle is out of the marketing team's hands.  When all that you do is vulnerable to the effort of others, it's tough to remain motivated.  

How to Choose the Right Social Media for B2B Marketing

So your company wants to start a social media marketing program, that's great.  Have you thought about which platforms you'll include?  The order that you'll launch them?

It's not as easy as drawing straws, there should be a method to your madness.

The best social network for B2B marketing depends on the following factors:

1. The audience of the social site

2. Your target audience

3. Type of content on the social site

4. The purpose of the social site

5. The tone of the social site

Read an in-depth analysis of each of the leading social media networks to evaluate their features and suitability here.

LinkedIn Takes A Village

LinkedIn is the one social media platform you need to get your whole company behind.  Everything else can be handled by one person if necessary, but LinkedIn is most successful if you have several experts engaged on behalf of your brand.

When you have multiple employees on board, you can divide and conquer the most influential groups within your industry.  Each person can do their best to respond to questions and prove the value of the brand for a few hours each week.  

Every person posting insightful, thought provoking content exponentially increases the perceived professionalism and credibility of the brand.

For this reason, LinkedIn in the social media platform that needs a team of employees supporting it and implementing the strategy.

B2B and B2C Digital Marketing

I dream of working on the B2C side of marketing some day.  I would love to engage with fans who are emotionally invested in a brand and act as ambassadors and evangelists. 

A huge portion of the social media strategy I studied during my training was based on B2C marketing, which is thought to be more successful and more profitable than B2C social media marketing.  For this reason, many businesses and marketers shy away from B2B social media.

B2B marketing is actually pretty neat.  I rarely have irate clients posting hateful messages on our social media platforms and there is a lot less engagement with our fan base in general making it much easier to manage the customer service part of social media marketing.  And the engagement I do see is very positive and insightful since I am posting thought provoking industry information and not photos of puppies and kittens.

I approach B2B marketing much the same way I approach B2C marketing - provide worthwhile, useful content to people who are interested in the same products, services, lifestyle, etc. as our target audience.

The major difference from B2C marketing, is that I see less impact when I offer discounts and purchase incentives.  I'm not saying those things are impossible, I just have to reach out to business owners and clients to make those offers worthwhile and not all of my fans business owners let alone clients.  

  

Difficult Clients

I have never voluntarily ended a business relationship with a client because they were too difficult from a project management standpoint.

I have heard stories that separating and discarding bad clients from your CRM, you will be able to focus more time and energy on maintaining the good clients that you have.

Seth Godin has some experience in this arena so I invite you to check out his blog post, Unreasonable Clients, to hear his story.

Google Hummingbird FAQs by Danny Sullivan

Google announced this week that they had launched a major renovation to their algorithm last month.  The new algorithm is called Hummingbird and it has marketing professionals and search engine optimization (SEO) experts a bit anxious to see how the digital marketing industry will be effected by the changes.

Danny Sullivan posted a great blog answering the frequently asked questions about Hummingbird that is worth reading if you are even remotely associated with digital marketing.  

Seth Godin's Three Questions for Any Marketing Team

Seth Godin says there are three questions you should ask your marketing team:

Who are you trying to reach?

Why do they decide to support us?

What do you need to do to make it happen more frequently?

I might argue that you should also add in there, is it worth the effort?  It's important to measure the results and make sure that the benefits are worth the costs.

It's especially important when resources are limited, as is the case with many sales and marketing teams.

There's More Where That Came From

I was listening to Six Pixels of Separation, and this week Mitch Joel published an interview with Michael Hyatt, the author of Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Thomas Nelson). His book is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller, and recently, Forbes magazine named Michael one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencers of 2013.

Michael mentions in the podcast that often his clients want to give something away for free, but save their best work to be paid for.  The example he gives is someone who wants to publish a free e-book, but save their best material for the print book.  Michael says the reality is people don't want something for free unless it has value, and if it has value then free or not they will want to engage with your content.  

He goes on to say that creativity doesn't work in a scarcity model, it's an abundance model.  The more you create the more creative you will become.  If you think you only have one great idea, you're dead wrong.  The ideas will keep flowing once you get them out on the table or onto paper.  

You have to believe there's more where that came from.

When I Grow Up

Tomorrow is my birthday, we don't need to go into how old I'll be.  

I ran across an interesting blog post by Seth Godin and find it very appropriate as I reflect on growing up... maybe I was destined to be in marketing all along.  

I didn't know what I wanted to be when I was growing up, in fact I would argue that until about 4 years ago I was still trying to figure it out.  Even now, there is one thing that drives me professionally - I want to make a difference.  

It's what motivated me to go to school at night and learn as much about marketing as I could while I was employed as an inside sales representative.  

It's what drives me now, as I grow social media strategies for businesses that don't have someone with the skills, knowledge or experience than I have.  

I want to make a difference. 

Fight Club

Here's a new take on the very popular "Everything I Need To Know About Social Media I Learned In Kindergarten" post.

For your entertainment:

Everything I Know About Social Media, I Learned From Fight Club.

Side Note: I don't actually like Fight Club.

Successful Brands Use Social Media For Discovery Not Transaction

A good portion of my day is spent building brand awareness and loyalty on social media channels.  As businesses market in spaces that consumers use to interact with their friends and families in a very real and honest way, it's important to know what is too much.

I have always approached this task with the utmost respect for the brand's followers and target audience - if you're following a technology company I'm not going to post information about diapers and formula!

Peter Shankman was a guest of Mitch Joel's on Six Pixels of Separation back in June of this year, and Peter makes the astute observation that the most successful brands are those that use social media as a method of discovery rather than conversion.  He makes the claim that in social media, discovery and transaction are further apart and we need to accept that.  We are setting ourselves up for failure if we try to think direct response in social media will be the same as direct response in other channels which leads consumers directly into the sales funnel.

Most people aren't going to find it convenient to shop directly from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn because they aren't using those platforms for commerce.  By contrast, Pinterest does very well directing leads into the sales funnel because Pinterest's platform has embraced e-commerce and the shopping element of social media.

Peter's data shows that very few people come directly from a social activity into a commerce activity, and an even smaller percentage of normal of those folks will engage in commerce when they come through that path.  The interesting outlier is that sometimes, when people do engage in commerce through social media channels, they are more valuable transactions than when they come through other paths.

Mitch goes on to make a very interesting point that I have struggled with in my own career - how do you measure the consumer who interacts with your brand on social networks but purchases in an unrelated web browsing session or buys in person?

The attribution of these sales are lost to social media even though it may have played a large roll in the sales cycle.

Balancing Story and Selling in Social Media

Guest Blog by Marlena Ryan

I got into my job because I’m a writer. Not only do I not have a marketing degree. I kind of loathe marketers. I think of them as phonies. Professionals adept at playing a good mind game. And I like to think that writers are the opposite. Writers are good listeners, honest, and exacting.

However, both of these are generalizations. Marketers are not the devil and writers are not saints. And since I’m a social media community manager for music clients it’s important that I walk the line between providing figurative value and monetary value. (Which is like the most market-y sentence ever. I blame my boss… he likes that line)

But what I mean by that double speak is, I try to make my social pages compelling to a reader but also keep in mind that my company is paid to make fans buy more albums and tour tickets. I keep the balance by creating a social strategy that can balance these sometimes competing interests. The three main tactics I employ are:

1) Develop Narrative Tactics

For every client, my fellow community managers and I develop 20-30 social creative tactics. Creative tactics are tailored to a brand. We think about the audience and what they would engage with on social. For example, for a country music boy band, we include Pinterest inspiration quotes based on the band’s lyrics and acoustic performance series.

2) Geo-Targeting and Smart-Urling

For all our music clients, we use smart urls and geo-targeting to generate ticket and album sales. Geo-Targeting on Facebook is great because you can “guard” posts to hit certain markets you specify without inundating other fans with tour dates that aren’t near them. Smart urls help you see if all that geo-targeting is successful and if an album is making an impact with certain online retailers. We create smart urls for each ticket link and online retailer so we can track the click through rate for our analytics.

It’s not sexy, but like I said, it’s a balance and extremely important to remember we’re getting paid to sell records and tour tickets.

3) Social Graphics

The main differentiation between my company and the competition is our design team. Our in-house designers create gorgeous social skins, cover photos on Facebook and other social channels, and unique social graphics… like lyric cards and fan story graphics, our graphics set our pages apart with a look and feel completely different from other brands and artists.

What Marketing Is Really All About

Boy, do I wish this were true... and that my life was really like Mad Men without the blatant sexism.

How Much Social Media Posting Is Too Much?

I came across a blog post by Mitch Joel today that has me a little worried.  Here's the beginning paragraph of the blog, Your Brand Is Tweeting Too Much:

"How much is too much Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest for a brand?

It's getting ugly out there. Brands and fellow agencies will often ask me the same question: how often should we be on _____________ (insert your favorite social media channel here)? In the past, research be damned, my response would typically be: so long as it's quality and your audience cares, shares and keeps on about it, don't listen to the research reports or what any pundit has to tell you. The unique pulse between and a brand and its consumers is highly personal and unique on a case-by-case basis.

I may be wrong."

Not only do I hold Mitch Joel among the most well respected digital marketing and social media marketing experts in the world, I shared his view about how frequently brands should post on their social media platforms.

All the points Mitch makes are very relevant - I certainly can't name one single friend I want to hear from 30 times a week, let alone a brand I want to have that much interaction with.

It's time to reign it in and be more judicious about my posting.  My biggest offense is without a doubt Twitter, and I ascribed to the idea that the rapidly updating feed on Twitter is more forgiving of message overload than some of the other social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Building a Podcast Audience

My favorite podcast is Six Pixels of Separation, the Twist Image Podcast, by Mitch Joel.  I love most of what Mitch and his guests have to say about marketing, and I can easily listen to Mitch's voice for 40-50 minutes at a time.  

Episode #368 went live at the end of July and Mitch had comedian Marc Maron on the show to discuss podcasting and building an audience.  

It's useful information that you can apply to all aspects of your social media marketing strategy.

Tend Your Gardens

Too often life is about creating things by a deadline, handing in the project and walking away.  It doesn't matter what happens after you deliver, whether your work is solid or comes apart at the seems with time.  Seth Godin calls this method of thinking: buildings. 

But that's not really what life is about.  Seth says a better way of thinking about projects is to equate them to gardens.  

Gardens are living, breathing and changing.  They have to be tended and nurtured and we have to be willing to switch up our game plan and strategy to roll with the punches.  

Just like projects. 

So many brands start social media programs without realizing that they are taking on a life-long project that will need to be nurtured, managed and tended regularly.  It takes a real commitment, there is no set it and forget it option with social media.

Gardens, not buildings, is an amazing post by Seth Godin, and he has some real gems... I seriously suggest you subscribe to his blog.

Social Media: Where Do I Start?

There's no simple recipe for social media success... well there is, but it's not really a secret and it's definitely not a shortcut.

When people ask me where they should start with their social media marketing plan, I tell them to find out where their audience is and start there.  If your clients are big Twitter users, your first social media platform should be Twitter.  If your target audience is engaged on Facebook, your first social media platform should be, you guessed it, Facebook.

It's not rocket science, but it can take a little leg work.  You can do a social media analysis to see where your competitors are online, what their presence is like, and then make a judgement call as to whether or not you want to go down the same path.  You should also research where your clients are congregating and take that into consideration.

Ultimately, you'll have to tweak your social media marketing mix so that it's always reaching the target audience you define.  You may find that one or more of the social media platforms you launch doesn't fit the needs of your clients, is a waste of your resources or just isn't a good platform for your brand's message.  In that case, it may be time to throw in the social media marketing towel.

Market Yourself using Social Media

Social media marketing isn't just for your business, it can be a great tool to help you market yourself.  Instead of trying to cram all of your accolades and achievements onto one eight and a half by eleven inch piece of paper, embrace a digital resume using LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has come a long way from being the social media platform for jobseekers and headhunters. Savvy professionals are embracing digital marketing for their own personal brand.  

Not only does LinkedIn store the text associated with your resume, it allows you to add rich media to as well.  My LinkedIn profile showcases PDF documents created by vendors to highlight excellent service provided to clients, YouTube video testimonials and recommendations from clients, vendors and coworkers. 

Creating a Successful Website

Seth Godin has a pretty great formula for putting together a successful website.

I wish I had his blog post, Q&A: What works for websites today?, to refer to when I was designing a website eighteen months ago.

It's really hard to juggle the aesthetics and the expectations of the client but what marketing professionals know is that our personal investment (and that of the brand) doesn't mean a thing.

What matters is what the people who visit your website think, and ultimately if you build a user-friendly site with rich, useful content you'll find success.

The Secret to Digital Marketing Success

The famous line from Field of Dreams applies to digital marketing success:

If you build it, they will come.

You have to continually create content that is interesting, useful and relevant to your audience.  Sometimes your content can be humorous and sometimes you can do some blatant self-promotion, but for the most part you need to provide your audience with information that's relevant to them and easy for them to digest.

And creating content isn't enough, because if content is king, then context is queen.

There's plenty of content out there in the ether that we never see.  Making the right content available to the right audience at the right time is the context that makes marketing successful.  There are so many platforms in digital marketing - websites, social media platforms, blogs, etc. - and it's important to pick the right context for your message so that it hits with the biggest impact.

How To Turn Customers Into Brand Ambassadors

Scott Monty is the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company. He has a very interesting personal blog, where he shares his perspectives on business, technology, communications, marketing and the vast changes in the industry that impact leadership.

This week's post is particularly important for people who are looking to cultivate brand ambassadors.  Scott says:

"A surprising number of people won’t take action based on TV ads, the progress of social business, WeChat is in the sites of Chinese telcos, measuring sponsorship effectiveness, the role of PR in sponsored content, the #2 concern of the C-suite and more, it’s This Week in Social Media."

Working For Free

To work for free, or not to work for free. 

To over-service, or not to over-service.

Nobody wants to give away their secret sauce for free, but if you give a little of it away along the path to securing new business is it worth it?

Mitch Joel seems to think so.  

In his Six Pixels of Separation blog post, You Should Work For Free. You Should Not Work For Free, he makes a statement I wholeheartedly agree with: 

I don't believe in working for free, but I sometimes do.

Social Media Really Is Like Kindergarten

I wish I knew the original source of Everything I Know About Social Media I Learned In Kindergarten.  This is not a new concept, and I did a lot of digging before I settled on a link to share.

This is the best list I could find:

All I Needed To Know About Social Media I Learned In Kindergarten: 15 Social Media Tips 

Social Media and Customer Service

Social Media opens up a lot of doors for feedback - feedback from clients, competitors, vendors and just about anybody using the same social media platform you are.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't embrace social media as a great marketing tool, but it does mean you need to include customer service in your strategy.  

Most unhappy clients want the same things:

• To feel listened to
• To be acknowledged
• To be responded to in a timely manner

Social media is a great tool for appeasing unhappy customers.  Brands recognize the complaint in a public forum, responses happen in real-time and customer service representatives can move off-channel to address the concerns personally and privately.

There is no way to avoid feedback on your social media channels, so prepare your team to handle responses as quickly and professionally as possible.  Everyone who is involved with your social media plan should be trained in crisis communications so they understand how issues should be handled and what the brand's stance is on various potential situations. 

Throwing in the Social Media Towel

Many brands are hopping on the social media bandwagon.  At first, social media marketing is new and exciting, so teams are likely to generate lots of content and new ideas during the launch phase of social media marketing.

The trouble is that as time goes by, content creation reaches a plateau and the appeal of social media marketing begins to wear off.

Social media marketers often suffer from writers block, building a list of followers and persisting when it feels they aren't making any headway.  The pressure of generating fresh content and staying top of mind with an audience can drain the motivation right out of the social media team.

That said, how do you know whether it's time to take a vacation or throw in the social media towel?

Here are three signs that you might need to throw in the social media towel:

You aren't posting anymore
One of the most important things to consider before starting a social media campaign is whether or not you'll be able to maintain a posting schedule.  Once you establish your following, they'll expect to hear from you on a regular basis.  If you find your social media strategy going stagnant, you either need to put in more effort or throw in the towel.

You're not succeeding 
There are lots of reasons you may not be succeeding - perhaps you're trying to promote your company, but nobody is buying what you're selling.  Obviously, if you've just launched your social media program you may need to give your efforts more time before you write them off.  If you've been at it for a while and you're still not seeing the results you want it's time to either switch up your strategy or throw in the towel.

You're too busy
Whether you're overwhelmed with new business or job creep is reducing the time you can devote to your social media program, you may reach a point where you just aren't able to find the time to sustain a successful social media program.  If your social media marketing strategy has become a chore rather than something you want to do, it's time to seriously evaluate the benefits and costs of your marketing efforts.  You have three choices: find the time yourself, delegate the responsibilities to someone else or abandon your social media program.