I recently read Jim Kukral’s book, Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue. The book is a page-turner to say the least. Jim discusses great case studies of companies that have stepped out of their comfort zone with off-the wall ideas you won’t believe! But, they worked, taking businesses from non-existent to successful, recognizable brands. The book is also comforting in a way, as Jim discusses a lot of timeless marketing tactics that have been in use for years, things that should be engrained in every marketing professional’s mind and utilized by all business owners.

Sarah: In chapter 1, Attention Marketing, you list some other things besides cash that can be considered revenue including; subscribers, e-mail sign-ups, leads, Twitter followers and Facebook friends, etc. Do you ever get any push back on this? I know a lot of CEO’s would beg to differ on that.

Jim Kukral: Sure, there’s always push back from people who don’t want to believe that “business as usual” is changing. People hate change, so they “poo-poo” new things. But there’s no denying that change is here, and CEO’s better start investing in getting attention for their social media channels and other Internet efforts. Look, there’s a reason that Redbox spent millions of dollars, one dollar at a time, to get over 3.5 million people to simply just “like” their Facebook page. Why? Because the cost of acquiring 3.5 million potential customers at a buck a piece is insanely low. I used to own a search engine marketing firm and we paid between $25-75 typically for a lead. Not a client. A lead! Big firms like Redbox and McDonalds and Starbucks, and even smaller businesses like Great Lakes Brewery here in Cleveland, Ohio, they all understand that you have to be where your customers are, speaking to them how they want to be spoken too. Deny these facts at your own peril.

Sarah: How has your book contributed to your success as both an individual and a business owner?

Jim: The day my book came out, I’ll admit it, I raised my fees. And you know what? I got 3-times the amount of business I did before then. Personally and professionally, producing a piece of content that is 75,000 words plus was an amazing experience that has taught me that writing books is something I want to continue to do. I have 6 books in the works right now, and another 20 in my head to be written over the next 3-years or so, give or take. Ha!

Sarah: I look forward to reading all of them! Would you say that your book and attention-getting tactics is for every size and type of business? Or are there some businesses that should stick to safe, black and white messaging?

Jim: As Matthew Lesko (the question mark guy) said in my book to me, “Nobody remembers the middle”. If you’re a business owner and you’re in the middle, if you’re like your competitors, and nobody is talking about you, and sales are flat, and leads are down and nobody is walking into your retail location… whatever. If those things are happening, then what in the heck do you have to lose by moving from the middle to the edges? Because people remember the edges, not the middle. Go ahead and stick with your safe, black and white messaging and that may continue to work well for you. But do not be surprised when a competitor comes out of the bushes and eats your lunch and drinks your milkshake.

Sarah: Please don’t drink my milkshake! In Chapter 6, From Idea to Success in Eight Hours, you talk about a website you created about the Cleveland Browns having a bad season and playing on Christmas Eve. The website was to get fans to boycott the game. It caught the attention of a TV station, which sent a crew to your kitchen! Was the story real? Did you really organize a protest and get fans to boycott the game?

Jim: That story is 1,000% real. I had a TV crew in my kitchen that night. I have the video news story to prove it. I never actually did go protest. Never planned to. The entire concept was an exorcise to see if I could manipulate the media, and it worked. The point wasn’t to fool them or waste their time or anything like that. It was simply to see if it could be done. Why? Because anyone can do it, if you do it right. I have tried many other things like that since, and one tip I can give you that I’ve learned is, make sure you choose a slow news day. I tried to do another thing once on some other day only to realize that that morning the Feds had arrested the County Commissioner and every single news crew and producer in town was covering that story. Try again another day.

Sarah: Some online marketing books are outdated within months of being published. While Attention does cover online marketing tactics, it seems you cover a lot of traditional tactics as well, in fact you have a chapter titled Getting Attention the Old-Fashioned Way. Old school marketers are constantly being pushed to adopt new online marketing tactics. Would you turn the tables and say that online marketers should also learn traditional marketing too?

Jim: I specifically didn’t fill Attention! with stories about things that wouldn’t be relevant years, or weeks later. I wrote a timeless marketing book I think. One filled with advice and stories that can be read 10 or 20 years from now that will still over practical advice. To your point, yes, new-school marketers absolutely need to learn how to adopt old-school marketing techniques. There was marketing going on before the Internet people. Sometimes I think that the new breed of marketers don’t realize that. Of course, some of the things that used to work well in the past don’t work anymore either. Remember when magazines and radio and TV would try to sell you a “branding campaign”? They’d want you to commit to two years of running your ad consistently and tell you that “your brand message will creep into the minds of your customers over time”, even though they couldn’t specifically target the exact audience we needed either.. Ok, fine, and that kinda worked, although it was and is still too expensive. Now we’ve got ways to go direct to our potential customers. I can run a Facebook ad down to a woman who lives within 10 miles of my zip code, who’s been to college, who likes Oprah, is Catholic and is between the age of 35-60. If that’s my perfect customer, I’m going all-in to get my message in front of her.

Sarah: Regarding bonus items, you say that they should be related to the original product or to your business. But, it seems many companies just want to get people’s darned attention! So throwing in an iTunes gift card or Amazon gift card is often a tactic because people are already familiar with Apple and Amazon. Are there instances when that would be appropriate?

Jim: Well, a bonus item is an add-on to help increase a sales conversion ratio. Yes, it should be designed so that it adds value to the main product/service offering. In fact, I’ve found that if you make the bonus item more valuable than the main offering, you can get more people to purchase because, well, they just have to have it. I would say that using gift cards is a great strategy for promotional efforts like asking people to take a survey or something, but I wouldn’t necessarily use them as bonus items to a product or service I was selling.

Sarah: Throughout the book, you cover crazy, out of the box things people have done to make money. For example, the college student who sold 1 million pixels on a webpage for $1 a pixel. What is your suggestion for companies who have to report to higher-ups and boards of directors? It isn’t likely that these ideas are going to get approved without a really good persuasive argument with some statistics thrown in there.

Jim: Most big businesses operate in “don’t screw up” mode. Why? Because nobody wants to get fired. They’ve built a culture  from the top around that meme. They teach their employees to just do their job and not take chances, because if they do, and it goes poorly, then they’re going to lose their job. As an entrepreneur, I simply cannot grasp why anyone would want to live their life that way, afraid to be creative or try anything new because “I’m going to get in trouble”. But, I get it, times are tough and people need to keep their jobs and play the “I’m not going to do anything to get fired” game.

I will say this. In my opinion, if you have great ideas and you work for a company that won’t embrace them, you have two clear choices. 1. Go find a new job/boss who is willing to try them. 2. Quit and do them yourself and see what happens. Or just do them in your spare time away from work. I’ve always said, Doers gets what they want, and everyone else gets what they get.

Sarah: I am happy to say I have a boss who is open to most, if not all ideas, certainly makes our jobs easier and more fun! I was an at event the other night and the presenter said his company was on Twitter, but not Facebook because they weren’t prepared for it yet. He said they wanted to get Twitter right and then move onto Facebook and other channels. What would you say to him or to other businesses that are hesitant to embrace social media or to move beyond one type?

Jim: I get the cautious feeling from a lot of people when diving into new things, especially social stuff. I’m a believer you can’t force anyone into doing anything they don’t want to do until they are ready to do it. It just won’t work. If that’s what that person believes, there’s nothing I can so or do to convince them otherwise. Of course, we can try. I would show them case studies with results of other similar businesses doing it and hopefully that would spur them on to making up their mind to do it faster.

Jim Kukral writes and markets books, and he wants to help you do the same. You can read more about Jim at his blog No Publisher Needed, and you can find his book marketing services at Digital Book Launch.

What is the craziest thing you or someone you know has done to get attention for business?

Sarah Moraes

Sarah Moraes, Marketing Manager, heads the tactical planning and implementation of cross-platform marketing activities for Vertical Measures including; blogging, social media marketing, webinars, content marketing, email marketing and promotions. In addition, she published the Local Search Marketing for Business How-To-Guide, a part of the Vertical Measures How-To-Guide Series.

+Sarah Moraes

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In this interview with Jason Falls, we talk about his business, a recent book he co-authored with Erik Deckers, No Bullshit Social Media, the All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing, and why he’s been referred to as the biggest social media douche bag.

Jason Falls is the owner and co-author of Social Media Explorer, a leading platform for insights, opinion and learning around the world of social media marketing, online communications, conversational marketing, digital marketing, public relations, community building and branding. Jason is a leading educator, public speaker and thinker in the world of digital marketing and social media.

Sarah: The title of your book is well, rated PG-13? It seems you mean business! How did you decide on this title?

Jason: The “No Bullshit” approach has always sort of been my M.O. I’m from a very small town that conditioned me to always be skeptical of the big city folks and the lines they were handing me. I’m also a fairly simple thinker … not unintelligent, mind you, but I try to take complexities out of things because at the end of the day they just confuse me and everyone else. So when we’re talking about strategy, communications and social media, I try to distill out the nonsense and the unnecessary so people learning from me can understand it more clearly. When the idea of a book came about, there was no question what the title should be. I’m the “No B.S.” guy. It’s gotta be that!

Sarah: I appreciate that approach as many people tend to over complicate things in our industry, when in fact social media and Internet marketing are not widely understood subjects. When discussing reputation management, you give an example of a company that finds a problem and fixes it before a crisis, then they address the media about it. In a situation like that, what if they had never addressed the media and just pretended it never happened? I mean, no customers were harmed so what’s the point of bringing attention to it?

Jason: While there are certainly situations where not every little thing needs to be shared publicly, I think a situation like that shows that a company has something to hide. It’s a transparency issue. I’d rather know, as a customer, the company was out in front of it, prevented it from happening and then let me know they were on the ball than the alternative. It’s just one of those ethical situations that smells bad. If it stinks, then something is wrong. Don’t do it that way … in most cases.

But I think the overall point we tried to make in the book is that the best type of crisis communications happens before crises ever occur. By having a transparent and honest relationship with your stakeholders, cultivating relationships over time but also anticipating crisis situations and knowing what you’d would say just in case, then when one happens you’re prepared. There’s not a crisis communications professional in the world who would recommend not being prepared for a crisis. By building relationships over time when they’re not happening, you’re stakeholders are more bought in to their relationship with you when one does happen. They will react differently than they would to a big corporate thing that they don’t have a relationship with.

Sarah: Be proactive, not reactive! The recent passing of an American icon, Steve Jobs, filled people’s social media feeds instantly and continued onto blogs and online news sites in the following days. Not only were there personal condolences, but it also seemed some businesses saw it as an opportunity, for example an email with Steve Jobs in the subject hit people’s inboxes, although there was nothing about Jobs in the content of the email. What is a business’s responsibility to address current events such as this? If they don’t do something, are they insensitive? If they do, are they trying to capitalize on a tragedy?

Jason: Any attempt, even veiled, to profit (whether through money, traffic, attention, etc.) off of Steve Jobs’s or anyone else’s death, is shameful. I was sickened by the blogs and media sites that immediately came out with “Top 10 Steve Jobs Lessons” and “How To Think Like Steve Jobs” posts. In fact, my fellow authors on Social Media Explorer expressed interest in all of us (I have 12 writers) chiming in a tribute post telling people what Steve Jobs or his work meant to us or what we learned from him. I resisted because I didn’t want to pull in cheap traffic as a result of his death.

But what made it make sense for me was that we were genuinely paying tribute to the man and helping our audience understand his impact. It was respectful and not gratuitous. We weren’t trying to game a system or drive traffic or anything. Just paying our respects. He taught the world to “Think Different,” and in a way that’s the mantra of our editorial mission at Social Media Explorer. So I felt good on what we landed on.

Reacting to pop culture, current events and what-not is a perfectly fine and even smart way to capture your audience’s attention or even drive more eyeballs to what you do. But there’s a line of decorum you just shouldn’t cross and being gratuitous about the wave — posting several Jobs-related posts, etc. — kinda seems in poor taste to me.

Sarah: Excellent point and most people are becoming more aware of that line of decorum and can tell the difference between the two sides of it. Which is worse: having a social media presence but not engaging or responding to customers OR not having any social media presence at all?

Jason: Flip a coin. I’d probably go with having one but not engaging or responding to customers because it just underlines the point that you don’t give damn about them. At least if you don’t have a presence they can assume you’re just ignorant, not disrespectful.

Sarah: Fair enough! How has your book contributed to your success both as an individual and a business owner?

Jason: A lot of that has yet to be determined, but having a book published with your name on it opens doors that might not have been opened before. I was recently asked to conduct a seminar with several large, enterprise companies through a chamber of commerce. I would guess that without a published book, that might not have happened. That, and my mother-in-law actually thinks I do something that must be important now.

As a business owner, I think it’s just some cake icing on the credibility issue. Even though I have 15 years experience in marketing and public relations, led the interactive efforts at a national advertising agency and have consulted with Fortune 100 clients on down, I still have always been labeled a “blogger.” Now, I’m an “author.” Fair or not, there’s a difference in public perception of those terms.

Sarah: It is all about pleasing the mother-in-law! Happy wife/mother-in law, happy life! You give an example of Domino’s gathering feedback from it’s customers through forms on pizza boxes and advertising they are soliciting feedback openly. But, you go on to say even if the company doesn’t make those requested changes, customers will still appreciate being a part of the research and development. I challenge you! If customers are taking the time to give their feedback, I assume they’ll keep an out to see those changes happen. Might this approach backfire eventually?

Jason: Only in the rarest of circumstances. I think most consumers are smart enough to know that Domino’s (or any company) can’t please everyone. Feedback taken is at least giving them a voice. If the feedback isn’t implemented, unless the feedback is both common and given in an outcry level of intensity, most people will chalk it up to the company deciding on a more popular choice or option. Most consumers just want to be heard and that’s often enough.

But if a group of consumers collectively voices a concern and that concern is fairly common, the yes – the company had better be listening and acting. We also used the example of Target’s poorly constructed advertisement with their logo unfortunately placed under a prone woman with her legs spread. The company at first responded to bloggers with, “We only respond to real media,” or similar. When the overwhelming outcry held the company in check, they recounted and embraced a more holistic media relations policy. In a situation like that, not listening would have backfired.

Sarah: As Principle of Social Media Explorer, what difficult situations have you encountered with clients as far as social media adoption, willingness to share information and engage? Have you had any clients you have failed at convincing?

Jason: I have had three clients in the last three years that have gotten 3-6 months in to an engagement and decided to walk away because they either weren’t comfortable with my recommendations, weren’t confident with their ability to change their habits to accommodate those recommendations or they just thought social media was a magic bullet and would lead to millions in revenue overnight. We’re still at the early onset of many companies having any degree of comfort with social marketing. Education is the number one, two and three task of any agency, firm or consultant working with a company or brand, even years after all this market shift began to occur. While I do think most large companies are emerging from the sandbox and beginning to think about social media strategically rather than just as tactical experimentation, most clients I’ve dealt with are still lacking in education, confidence and understanding of the nature of social marketing versus traditional means. Have I had clients I’ve failed to convince? Sure. And there will be more. I’m learning more everyday about mitigating their fears and complaints, but they’re still going to be there.

Sarah: Yes, I certainly agree that education is key. Over the next few years, I think we will see social media marketing increasingly being offered as a course at universities and as that generation enters the workforce, social media will be more widely adopted in large companies. Would you mind sharing something personal about yourself? What is your favorite hobby? If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? Anything!

Jason: Before I started advising clients on social media a few years ago, my personal blog was a compilation of narrative fiction and non-fiction that would, at best, be Rated R. I have a strange sense of humor and write stories that bring that out sometimes. One day, I’ll pull together my fiction short stories together and publish them. But I’ll need to be financially secure then. Clients will read them and stay as far away from me as possible. Heh.

Sarah: Well I look forward to reading your stories when you do decide to publish them! In a video interview by Tom Martin, according to some of your peers, including David Meerman Scott, Jason Keath, Justin Levy, Ann Handley, CC Chapman, Amber Naslund, Brian Clark, and Lee Odden, the consensus was that you are the biggest social media douche bag. Why is that?

Jason: Because Tom Martin asked me that question first … back in February of 2011. He asked who I thought the biggest social media douchebag was. I paused for a moment, looked at the camera and said, “Me.” He thought it was so funny that he then went around and got others to say me on purpose as a joke. Then he used them all to drive some attention to his Talking With Tom series. I was in on the joke all along and thought it was playful fun. If anyone took it seriously, they need to relax and get a sense of humor.

Honestly, it’s also my way of flipping my nose at all the idiots who ramble on, complaining about social media gurus, experts and douche bags. The truth is that people who whine about them are just worried they’ll take their clients away. Focus on doing good work, remember that we all had to fake it until we make it at some point and that the only people who don’t complain about the douche bags are clients. They’re too smart to hire bad advisors. And if they do, they learn and move on. Why rattle on about it. Shut up and do good work. You don’t know how good or bad the ones you’re pointing a finger at are and whining about them looks bad on the rest of us. I’ve been introduced as an “expert” and a “guru” before … neither label I’d apply to myself. But when I am introduced as such, there’s always someone in the audience who remembers some one whining about the “gurus” and thinks I’m not credible. So just can it. It’s not productive. I’m a guru/expert/douche bag if it will bring some end to the relentless noise complaining about them.

Thanks so much, Jason! To hear more from Jason, follow him @JasonFalls.

Sarah Moraes

Sarah Moraes, Marketing Manager, heads the tactical planning and implementation of cross-platform marketing activities for Vertical Measures including; blogging, social media marketing, webinars, content marketing, email marketing and promotions. In addition, she published the Local Search Marketing for Business How-To-Guide, a part of the Vertical Measures How-To-Guide Series.

+Sarah Moraes

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We’re in book mode over here at Vertical Measures. It’s like when you pick up a new hobby and all of a sudden you’re immersed in a whole new world. I am reaching out some fellow authors to discuss what being an author has meant for them and their business. Brian Solis is a busy guy and I am extremely grateful he took the time to speak with me about Engage, Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web and a few of his other projects. Let’s jump right in!

Sarah: This is the updated version of Engage or Die! What are the main events in social media that have occurred since the last version?

Brian: The difference between Engage 1 and Engage 2 is less about events or technologies and more about the presentation of information for a different group of professionals interested in social media. Engage 1 offered a deep dive into the evolution of social media and how its impact on business grew more profound over time. Social science also played a larger role in Engage 1 where I explained why people raced to social networks and how their connections changed shape and how they expanded over time. This was important as it explained how brands could expect to engage based on the needs of their consumers.

When I was asked if there was anything I wanted to change before the release of the book in paperback, I opted to make it a meaningful update rather than push the same content out there. I listened over the course of a year to the experiences people had with Engage and also other books. I took that feedback and focused the content of the new book on helping strategists develop an infrastructure for social media and design programs that were quite literally more engaging. I also focused on how social media could be tracked to demonstrate momentum and success within the organization to grow the size and scope of social media within the organization.

Sarah: Many authors just hope their book sells, but it’s great to hear you monitored the experience readers were having with your book and incorporated your findings into your new book. The foreword was written by a pretty well-known celebrity, Ashton Kutcher! What is your relationship with Ashton and how have you worked together?

Brian: I had the opportunity to work with Ashton’s company Katalyst over the years where we partnered on creative social media campaigns for some of the world’s leading brands, organizations, and of course celebrities. To this day, I still see Ashton and the team at Katalyst. They really are quite brilliant.

Sarah: Humor, good looks and intelligence, Ashton is the total package! OK sorry my inner teenage girl just revealed herself for a moment. Katalyst is indeed a company to watch as it was named one of the Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. In the introduction to your book, you say “The truth is that social media may very well cease to exist as a category one day.” What?! Can you expand on this?

Brian: Social media is but a chapter in the ongoing development of new media. At some point, social media becomes pervasive and will likely represent an everyday layer on top of the web as we know it. Soon new media will force us to think about how to engage within online channels in ways that might be social in nature, but designed to facilitate new experiences such as augmented reality, gamefication, etc.

Sarah: Makes sense. We currently see social media as a separate channel, where in the future it will be integrated into everything. Your bio reads: “A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture.” What are the current emerging trends and what do you predict will be the next “big thing” in new media?

Brian: You’ll have to read my new book, “The End of Business as Usual.”

In all seriousness, social media is maturing. Think about how companies engage in social media today and how they measure activity. It’s only just the beginning. Technology, metrics, consumer needs and expectations, will force businesses to rethink their approach. As a result, strategies, engagement programs, and metrics for success will only become more sophisticated. The next big thing is nothing short of the reexamination of business models and the role customers play in the evolution of business.

Sarah: “Social media is about speaking with, not “at” people.” Can you highlight some companies and specific cases of superb engagement?

Brian: In the book, I talk about the importance of engagement and risks of talking “at” people. Part of the problem is that brands only know one language, marketing speak. I think back to a cartoon a friend of mine Hugh MacLeod (@gapingvoid) once published. It said something like this, “If you talked the way advertisers talk to people, you’d get punched in the face.” Businesses know how to talk at people very well. Even in their current social media programs, they’re more antisocial than social in how they engage with people. Antisocial is defined as going against the norms or rules of society and that’s just what social networks are…online societies. It takes more than a conversation, it takes value time and time again.

Sarah: Wow, that sure does put things into perspective. You have to imagine that you’re actually having a real conversation with someone. Were you concerned at all about publishing a book in such an ever-changing industry? Will you continue to publish new versions of Engage?

Brian: This is a good question as I didn’t really foresee the development of Engage 2 when Engage 1 was on the market. I haven’t really thought about whether or not there will be a version 3 yet. I intentionally focused less on the tools and more on the business case for effective social media engagement. There are no shortages of great books out there that focus on how to use the tools and networks for business. Instead, I brought it up a few levels to help businesses make more meaningful connections with their customers.

Now, this strategy isn’t timeline, but it’s slowly evolving and this is the time to show how social media is impacting traditional business philosophies and frameworks.

Thanks for sharing with us! You can find all of Brian Solis’s books on Amazon.

Sarah Moraes

Sarah Moraes, Marketing Manager, heads the tactical planning and implementation of cross-platform marketing activities for Vertical Measures including; blogging, social media marketing, webinars, content marketing, email marketing and promotions. In addition, she published the Local Search Marketing for Business How-To-Guide, a part of the Vertical Measures How-To-Guide Series.

+Sarah Moraes

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We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lori Santa Maria, the Marketing Manager for 3TV, AZFamily.com. In this interview, she shares with us her experiences and tips for engaging your audience with social media marketing. Lori is an avid and entertaining Twitter user, follow her @losama.

Let’s jump right into it!

Krys: Do you recommend different social media strategies for different types of companies (like retail versus business-to-business), and can you give some examples?

Lori: This is a great question and we’re unique because we’re in the business-to-business and business to consumer business. Our advertising is business to business and our news service is business to consumer.

I do recommend a different social media strategy for each as every business has a different target market and different goals they want to meet and therefore need a custom social media strategy to meet those goals. A business-to-business company such as a printing service might want to include LinkedIn (a business-related social networking site) as part of their strategy to research contacts of different companies in their geographic area. Using LinkedIn may be easier to find contacts than say creating a Facebook account and trying to find owners of a company Facebook fan/brand page.

For our Internet (azfamily.com) and TV (3TV & CW6) Account Executives LinkedIn is a great tool to research companies and find that common person they know to get a meeting and therefore try to sell our services (commercials, internet elements) to those businesses.

It takes time to find out what works best for your network and as long as you’re genuine, your network will stick with you through the trial and errors.

A retail outlet such as Out of Africa Wildlife Park that is targeting family consumers would need a different strategy and different mediums than business-to-business. Out of Africa does a great job on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube talking about the park features, showing videos of the park, taking photos of and sharing interesting facts about the animals and distributing discount offers to visit the Park. Facebook advertising would be a great addition to this strategy in an effort to specifically target people with kids.

The 3TV and azfamily.com business to consumer strategy is similar to Out of Africa except our target is much broader. We’re in the business of breaking and delivering news so we want a large active fan base to interact with. Our strategy would include multiple accounts across multiple platforms in an effort to dig up and deliver news to a broad reach.

Krys: Great recommendations, Lori. It’s so important to make sure you’re sending the right message to the right audience and to not lump everyone together. What do you tell companies doing social media who feel they’ve “run out of ideas” for things to post?

Lori: Research. Have Fun. Experiment. Research – I think it’s important to research competitors and see what others are doing. I also recommend researching big brand names that are not even in your category. Find ideas that you like and twist that idea to work for your product or service. Have Fun – sometimes you have to step away and just have some fun, some of the best ideas come when you’re not working or trying to come up with the next big idea. Experiment- don’t be afraid to try new things. The beauty of Internet is that everything is measurable. If you’re not getting the response you want, scrap it and try something new. It takes time to find out what works best for your network and as long as you’re genuine, your network will stick with you through the trial and errors.

Krys: I think many companies forget to have fun. Social media is supposed to be casual, a place where your audience can feel comfortable expressing themselves and engage with people, not just the company. In your experience, what are the most successful posts in terms of getting a lot of comments or replies, in other words, a lot of engaging dialogue?

Lori: Our most popular posts are the good morning posts with a really simple question like, “Are you a morning person or night owl?” It’s a good way to start the day and the question is so simple people don’t have to think about it. It’s a quick answer. Our other popular posts are big or controversial news stories where people want to share their opinions. And, believe it or not… weather photos! I know it’s always hot but our online friends take and share the most amazing photos on our Facebook walls. When there’s a dust storm or monsoon, the photos increase.

Krys: Yes! This last big dust storm made for some amazing photos. What kinds of posts get the most “likes” or positive, happy feedback?

Lori: We (3TV) have a lot of fun posting behind the scenes photos. Gina Maravilla and Javier Soto are probably the best at doing this in the morning. The fun photos spark a lot of fun comments.

Krys: What things should we absolutely avoid in terms of social media posts and tweets?

Lori: TMI! Ha, ha… no one wants to know your personal business and relationship problems so keep that out. I would say avoid anything you wouldn’t want shared and living online forever. Think before you post because once it’s shared it’s on the Web for a very long time. I love the example of the Streisand Effect.

Krys: The recent flubs from Kenneth Cole and Entenmann’s come to mind. Sometimes it’s a little too easy to post before you think.

Final question! How do you turn a fan or follower into a customer, and how do you track that?

Since we’re in the business of delivering news, it’s important to track our fan base and active users on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook we can look at the analytics to see who keeps coming back to interact. On Twitter, it’s a little harder; we have to look at RT, DMs and mentions. We love having big numbers but we really like to focus on activity. It’s important to us to know that our fan base isn’t “Liking” and leaving. We try to deliver relevant news, interact and provide feedback as soon as we can. It’s always a work in progress as there’s always room for improvement and trying new ideas. Another important measurement for us is tracking referral traffic to our website, azfamily.com.

Social media is a constantly evolving space. I was recently on a webinar with Jay Baer and one of the things he said that really resonated with me regarding strategy was “If you don’t adapt and try new things, then your strategy is playing catch-up.” Certainly never abandon what’s working, but you can’t have a fear of change with social media. Thank you Lori, for spending time with us.

Sarah Moraes

Sarah Moraes, Marketing Manager, heads the tactical planning and implementation of cross-platform marketing activities for Vertical Measures including; blogging, social media marketing, webinars, content marketing, email marketing and promotions. In addition, she published the Local Search Marketing for Business How-To-Guide, a part of the Vertical Measures How-To-Guide Series.

+Sarah Moraes

Website – Twitter – Facebook – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Social Media Expert Interview with Brian Solis
2. Social Media Marketing Expert Interview with Jay Baer
3. Social Media Marketing Expert Interview with Chris Voss

Here at Vertical Measures, we are gearing up for Jay Baer’s upcoming webinar which we are proudly hosting on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 8:30AM- 9:30AM PDT. He’ll demonstrate his 7 step process for cutting through the tools and technology and creating sound, effective social media strategies that are sustainable long-term on Thu, Jul 14, 2011 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM PDT. In preparation, I thought I’d strike up some conversation in the social media starting with today’s expert interview with Tina Wilson, the Director of Organic Search Practice at Mediative where her current passion is social media optimization; building community and brand awareness via services like Twitter, Digg, YouTube, Stumbleupon and Facebook.

Elise Redlin-Cook: For anyone who may be hesitant to get involved in social media – how would you describe the benefits of social media marketing?

Tina Wilson: Social Media can be a tough sell since many organizations are just beginning to seriously adopt traditional search engine marketing, but I would start by pointing out that a social media presence is not something you can control. You can choose not to have a website or not to engage in a search marketing campaign, but you may already have an active Social Media presence and not even know it. That’s not really a benefit, but it is a reality that organizations should be aware of.

As to the benefits of Social Media, there are many, but here are the most compelling:

• There is an organic search placement (SEO) advantage in a strong and well designed Social Media campaign
• Social Media offers an opportunity for direct customer engagement with both brand critics and brand advocates that can increase loyalty and trust; in some cases even the harshest critics can converted to strong brand advocates
• Social Media strengthens customer service efforts and has a humanizing effect on both brand and company
• Social Media acts as free and real time market research with the ability to easily track current online sentiment for your brand and for the competition
• Social Media can be used to bring immediate attention to products and offerings in a real-time, interactive format and within a more personalized environment
• Social Media is an immediate and effective tool for damage control when negative publicity rears its ugly head both online and offline

Elise: Great advice. So, how do you determine which social media channels are most important for a particular business?

Tina: In this sense Social Media is no different than any other marketing effort. When deciding which social platforms to focus on the first things to think about are target audience and market demographics. Sometimes Twitter should be monitored but not engaged with, LinkedIn is not for casual marketing of any kind, Groupon is more suitable for product or service oriented companies, FourSquare requires some real creativity and commitment as a marketing medium, and YouTube and Flickr don’t always make sense for an organization… even Facebook is not for everyone. Knowing your existing and target demographics helps narrow the field of focus.

The next thing to think about is investment, both in terms of time and money. Social Media doesn’t have to be expensive but some areas are cheaper to engage than others. Also, modifying your existing site to support your Social Media presence can have price tag. If the Social Media budget is small then you need to look at platforms that can make effective use of existing site content and collateral, or that can be easily integrated with other marketing efforts. If the time an organization can commit to managing their Social Media presence is low then you want to focus on platforms that require less frequent monitoring and interaction. It is important to remember that Social Media is not a “field of dreams” – you can’t just “build it and they will come” – in Social Media you have to actively play on the field to generate interest.

As important as which platform to adopt is whether or not an organization is ready to make a commitment to Social Media. Budget, ownership and access to content all need to be in place before jumping into Social Media. Social Media is an online culture built on interactivity and sharing content, if you don’t have content to promote, or the budget to create it, you may struggle in the space. Likewise, Social Media needs to be actively maintained meaning you need an in-house person or an agency tasked with owning your Social Media monitoring and interaction. Entering Social Media unprepared can be worse than not being there at all.

Elise: Can you think of any brands that are doing it right and that those of us with interest could follow to learn from?

Tina: This one is a matter of opinion but I like what Candies (the shoe company) is doing in the space right now. Candies is using Facebook to get its customer base to vote on their next ad campaign. It is simple and not too expensive but it encourages consumer engagement while acting as a free focus group, a great no-frills use of the space. They aren’t the first to use Facebook as a focus group, Dominos Pizza did it last year when it revamped its pizza recipe, and Ford did it when it released its 2011 Ford Explorer online rather than at a car show, but initiatives like these really speak to what Social Media is all about – positive engagement and creative interaction.

It is important to remember that Social Media is not a “field of dreams” – you can’t just “build it and they will come” – in Social Media you have to actively play on the field to generate interest.

My absolute favorite use of Facebook recently has been by companies giving money to charity. Southwest Airlines (Make a Wish), Kellogg’s (Feeding America), Kohl’s (20 US schools) and Target (St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital) all used Facebook pages to raise and distribute funding to needy charities.

I’m also a fan of what The Gap did with Groupon last year. I think it put Groupon on the map and it certainly earned The Gap some serious Social Media street-cred. The Gap’s early adoption of FourSquare to offer discounts to customers as soon as they checked into a store was also interesting. Even though it wasn’t innovative or new at the time they were among the first major brands to use location based marketing via Social Media.

Without a doubt the Old Spice campaign of 2010 was an amazing integrated use of traditional marketing and Social Media that went beyond viral. It used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube along with TV in a way that had not been seen before. That campaign was such a success that it even got attention from celebs like Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan, who jumped into the mix with their own video responses, and spawned countless YouTube spoofs. The custom YouTube video answers to fan tweets took the Old Spice campaign to an unprecedented level of Social Media marketing. We still see that first campaign mimicked today, for example the current Dairy Queen TV commercials (also on YouTube) have a definite Old Spice feel.

Of course, Zappos is an old favorite when pointing out how a company can do Twitter right, and CNN had a bit of PR coup in 2009 when it went up against avid-Twitterer Ashton Kutcher in a race to 1-million followers.

Elise: We often hear about brands that have taken social media by storm, but can you think of any instances of brands with major social media fails?

I’d rather not single any one company out with this; instead I’d prefer to comment on what not to do in Social Media:

• Don’t be argumentative; debate is fine, aggressive assertion is not
• Don’t be too reactive to negative comments or situations; on the flip side, don’t ignore major slip-ups hoping they will go away
• Don’t have a one-sided conversation, Social Media is not traditional soap-box advertising and interaction is key
• Don’t over-automate your presence, some automation is OK but you should not rely on a feed to keep your Social Media presence active
• Don’t try too hard and don’t go into it trying to orchestrate a viral campaign, things go viral naturally and content that is too contrived doesn’t do so well in Social Media
• Don’t be too repetitive; recycling the same 20 pieces of content just isn’t sustainable and savvy Social Media users will catch on fast
• Don’t leave your Social Media activity to just anybody in your organization, some of the biggest Social Media messes have been caused by people speaking out of turn on behalf of a company
• Don’t try to control the personal Social Media activities of employees but do have a Social Media policy in place where company expectations are known; the most you should do to control your brand among employees’ personal Social Media profiles is by limiting company association or comments
• The biggest don’t… Don’t underestimate the reach and power of Social Media. I use the Vancouver Stanley Cup riots as an example, even though that one is not about marketing, since it shows just how prevalent Social Media has become in daily life. In looking to identify people who broke the law during those riots Social Media rallied with Facebook groups and Tumblr streams and police collected 1-million photos and 1,000 hours of video – and those are just the images that were willingly handed over or mined from Social Media, there are probably many more that never made it to police. The lesson here, Social Media is everywhere and anything a person or a company does can easily end up in that sphere, often in real-time as it is happening (Just ask Jet Blue or Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines)

Elise: We all have a favorite source or two of trusted information on different topics. Who are your sources for information on social media?

Tina: For information about Social Media I tend to go straight to the source… Social Media. I find my best information by scanning Twitter or from the Social Media focused groups I belong to on LinkedIn. I also like Mashable, Social Media Explorer, The Brand Builder Blog, and I read both Lee Odden’s Top Rank and Brian Solis’ blog religiously.

Elise: What role does social media optimization play in an overall SEO program?

Tina: An increasingly important one… Social Media is no longer just about brand exposure and consumer interaction, it now has an impact on search visibility. When Social Media first started catching on the SEO value was mostly indirect in that users shared links that may then be noted on blogs or articles across the web; in that sense Social Media used to be a link baiting technique. SEOs have suspected for some time that the search engines were using Social Media as an authority signal for organic rankings and in December 2010 both Google and Bing confirmed that Social Media did indeed have direct implications for SEO. Since then the SEO value of a Social Media presence has only increased. For one, we know that when Social Media users with “authority” share links via a platform like Twitter or Facebook the engines see this as verification of their value to web users and factor the signal into organic rankings. With additional information now being collected via Facebook and Google +1, and the concept of “social search” becoming more sophisticated and refined it is safe to say that the importance of Social Media to organic search marketing efforts will continue to grow.

Elise: What are some of your favorite tools for measuring the SEO impact of social media efforts?

Tina: I am curious to see how the new Google Analytics Social Engagement Reporting will work because I think that could be a great tool, but as it stands right now I can’t really say I have any favorites. I like to monitor Social Media manually wherever possible setting up a dashboard of sorts with bookmarks of advanced search pages and email alerts. For very large sites or for more in depth analysis this approach won’t work, in which case you need something more robust. Radian6 is like a Cadillac of Social Media monitoring tools but I really like the user-friendly interfaces of Webfluenz, Social Report, Viral Heat and Trackur.

Elise Redlin-Cook

Elise is the Content & Marketing Manager at Vertical Measures, an internet marketing company in sunny Arizona providing services ranging from content marketing, to social media marketing, link building, and advanced SEO. She’s fully immersed herself into the world of content marketing and content strategy and is the managing editor of this blog.

Website – Twitter – More Posts

Related posts:

1. Social Media Marketing Expert Interview with Jay Baer
2. Social Media Expert Interview with Brian Solis
3. Social Media Marketing Expert Interview with Chris Voss