febrero 9, 2010

7 Ways to Promote Your Offline Event Using Social Media

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm. She blogs at The Marketing Eggspert Blog, and teaches marketing courses at Marketing EggSchool. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

We all know about Tweetups and online events, but what about events that you didn’t specifically invite the Twitterati to attend? Conferences, meetings and parties are all events that might not have started online, but which can definitely benefit from online promotion and mention.

Leverage your offline event with some smart social media marketing. Here are seven ways you can maximize exposure of your event using online tools.

1. Blog About It

Before, during and after your event, blog about it. Blogging beforehand can alert others about your event and encourage them to learn more or register to attend. Live blogging during your event can create buzz and excitement for those who were unable to attend (and provide them a snippet of what they missed, which will encourage them to look for your next event). Blogging after can provide a recap, as well as info on upcoming events.

SXSW attendee Allen Stern liveblogged several sessions at the 2009 event. His blog posts are little more than notes from the presentation, but they do a good job of relaying the highlights to readers quickly.

2. Post Photos on Flickr

Everyone loves seeing photos of themselves (as long as they’re flattering). By posting photos of your event on Flickr and tagging them with people’s names, you can generate interest in your event from the people who attended and those who follow them on various social media channels.

BlogHer posts photos from its conferences and events both in the header on its website and in its Flickr stream. It invites participants to upload their own photos from the events into the Flickr stream, which encourages interaction.

3. Put it on Facebook

You can also post the photos and tag them on Facebook. The added benefit of doing so on Facebook is that when you tag someone, it appears on their wall. Anyone who is a friend of someone you tagged can see the photo. The idea is that it will lead them to want to learn more about the event (because hey, they want their photo put on Facebook from a cool local event too). Note that you’ll only be able to tag people that you’re connected to.

If your event or company has a Facebook Page, you can include highlights from the event, like quotes from keynotes, activities, awards or even faux pas from speakers.

For even more interaction, visit the profiles of those that attended and leave custom comments: “Hope you got that wine stain out of your blouse. Sorry about that!” “Great comment you made at the keynote presentation!” Etc.

The Wine Conference, an annual event held in Houston, posts updates on the conference to its Facebook Page. Here the event posts logos for its sponsors, photos from events, and blog links about the conference.

4. Post Photos to Twitpic

Twitpic is a great tool that allows you to take a photo with your phone or camera and upload it directly (via a shortened URL) to Twitter. Anyone following you on Twitter will see your tweet and the link to the photo, and can click to view it.

During your event, what better way to show those not in attendance what they’re missing than by taking photos and sending them in real time? Save your hi-resolution photos to be processed later, but upload snapshots from your phone instantly to create a sense of visual livestreaming as the event is underway.

5. Tweet the Event

Don’t overlook the best real-time tool in social media for your event. Sending tweets out to your followers is a great way to keep everyone updated on what’s happening. Whether it’s an awards show where you can share the winners before journalists write about them, or a conference where you can tweet soundbites, Twitter is a great tool for connecting people online and offline to your event.

Make sure your organization or business doesn’t have legal objections to you tweeting from the event. If the event covers trade secrets or other sensitive stuff, you may be entangled in more legal issues than you can shake a stick at if you’re not careful. The NFL banned tweeting from football events this season, for example, and is imposing fines for those that violate the ban.

6. Use Hashtags

The easiest way to track tweets and other mentions of your events on social media platforms is to ask all participants to use a # with a designated keyword or phrase when discussing it.

For example, in 2009, BlogWorld New Media Expo used the hashtag #bwe09 on Twitter to track all mentions of it. Many presentations used this hashtag or one relating to a particular topic as a way to field questions and comments during the presentations. For those unable to attend, following the hashtag was a great way to stay updated on soundbites from the conference.

7. Livestream Your Event

If your event is a conference or educational platform, consider livestreaming it via web video. Using services like Justin.tv or Ustream.tv, you can broadcast your event live over the Internet. This helps expand your audience and interact with them, even if they are not present in person at your event.

Wrapping it Up

Remember that you can get the most out of online promotion if you start long before the event. Map out a strategy that includes what you will do prior to the event, during, and after. Ask employees and attendees to assist you by posting their own take on the event through their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr accounts. Make it as easy as possible for anyone to share their content and photos of your event online.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- 5 Levels of Effective Communication in the Social Media Age
– Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting
– The Tao of Tweeting
– How Social Media Has Changed Us
– 5 Tips for Building Lasting Online Friendships
– 4 Steps for Effective Online Networking

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Twitpic, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: blogging, BLOGS, business, event planning, Events, facebook, flickr, justin.tv, List, Lists, live blogging, livestream, livestreaming, MARKETING, small business, social media, social networks, twitter, ustream

Rundes

enero 26, 2010

The Maturation of Social Media ROI

Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks, and author of the upcoming book, Engage. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

The debate over measuring social media investment inspired many brands to cannonball into popular social networks and join the proverbial conversation without a plan or strategic objectives defined. At the same time, the lack of ROI standards unnerved many executives, preventing any form of experimentation until their questions and concerns were addressed.

In 2010, we’re entering a new era of social media marketing — one based on information, rationalization, and resolve.

Business leaders simply need clarity in a time of abundant options and scarcity of experience. As many of us can attest, we report to executives who have no desire to measure intangible credos rooted in transparency and authenticity. In the end, they simply want to calculate the return on investment and associate social media programs with real-world business performance metrics.

Over the years, our exploration and experience has redefined the traditional metrics and created hybrid models that will prove critical to modern business practices and help companies effectively compete for the future.

Early ROI Adaptations

Where the “I” in ROI represents investment, marketers have also explored ancillary elements to address the socialization of media, marketing, and the resulting dynamics of engagement.

Adaptations included:

Return on Engagement: The duration of time spent either in conversation or interacting with social objects, and in turn, what transpired that’s worthy of measurement.

Return on Participation: The metric tied to measuring and valuing the time spent participating in social media through conversations or the creation of social objects.

Return on Involvement: Similar to participation, marketers explored touchpoints for documenting states of interaction and tied metrics and potential return of each.

Return on Attention: In the attention economy, we assess the means to seize attention, hold it, and measure the response.

Return on Trust: A variant on measuring customer loyalty and the likelihood for referrals, a trust barometer establishes the state of trust earned in social media engagement and the prospect of generating advocacy and how it impacts future business.

But as we progress through the ten stages of social media integration, our views and techniques mature into more sophisticated strategies.

For many businesses, the case for new metrics can’t be made until we have an intrinsic understanding of how social media engagement affects us at every level. It’s not as simple as counting subscribers, followers, fans, conversation volume, reach, or traffic. While the size of the corporate social graph is a reflection of our participation behavior, it is not symbolic of brand stature, resonance, loyalty, advocacy, nor is it an indicator of business performance.

The Need for New Scrutiny

In 2010, social media endeavors are often still thought of as “pilot programs,” launched to steer a brand toward perceived relevance. Budgets, for the most part, are borrowed from other divisions to fund the largely experimental programs. Where that money goes and comes from depends largely on the social media champions who push for this experimentation from the inside.

In many cases however, new programs are introduced without an integrated strategy. Money is allocated from existing programs. If we’re going to take away from something, we should determine whether or not we’re justified to do so.

According to a 2009 study performed by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, 84% of professionals in a variety of industries reported that they do not measure ROI.

In 2010, executives are demanding scrutiny, evaluation, and interpretation. Even though new media is transforming organizations from the inside out, what is constant is the need to apply performance indicators to our work.

The Business of Social Media

The CFO, CEO, and CMO of any organization would be remiss if they did not account for spending and resource allocation for social media.

MarketingProfs recently published a study by Bazaarvoice and the CMO Club that revealed the true expectation of chief marketing officers. The bottom line: They want measurable results from social media.

However, the study found that the exact implications of social media still evade CMOs.

- 53% are unsure about their return on Twitter

- 50% are unable to assess the value of LinkedIn or industry blogs

Most importantly, about 15% believe there is no ROI associated with Twitter, and just over 10% cannot glean ROI from LinkedIn or Facebook.

I believe this is the direct result of a disconnect between social media activity and a clearly defined end game. We must establish what we want to measure before we engage. By doing so, we can answer the questions, “what is it that we want to change, improve, accomplish, incite, etc?”

Defining a clear strategy can help us reach our social media goals, including:

– Sales
– Registrations
– Referrals
– Links (the currency of the social web)
– Votes
– Reduction in costs and processes
– Decrease in customer issues
– Lead generation
– Conversion
– Reduced sale cycles
– Inbound activity

Customer Insight

Customer ratings and reviews rose to the top of useful marketing feedback, as they delivered tangible ROI insight. In 2009, 80% of respondents reported that customer stories and suggestions shape products and services. As a result, brands earn the trust and loyalty of their customers by listening and responding.

According to the MarketingProfs study, CMOs will have more opportunities to engage with user-generated content in 2010, with many reporting:

– A 400% increase in use of Twitter comments to inform decisions about products and services

- A 59% increase in the use of customer ratings and reviews

- A 24% increase in use of social media for pre-sales Q&A

Monetizing Social Media

Social media metrics will be increasingly tied to revenue in 2010. To what extent seems to vary according to CMOs. The study indicates:

– 80% predict upwards of 5%

- 15% optimistically hope for 5-10%

In 2009, those companies that aligned social media investments with revenue estimates:

– 5% or less revenue tied to social in 2009 foresee an increase of an additional 5% in 2010

- 6-10% of revenue stemming from social media is expected to increase more than 10%

- Those with greater revenues resulting from social engagement expect an escalation of revenue derived from social at 20%

Companies like Dell are not only tracking the impact of social media on revenue, but expanding lessons learned across the entire organization. According to Dell’s Lionel Menchaca:

“Our @DellOutlet is now close to 1.5 million followers on Twitter, and back in June we indicated that @DellOutlet earned $3 million in revenue from Twitter. Today it’s not just Dell Outlet having success connecting with customers on Twitter. In total, Dell’s global reach on Twitter has resulted in more than $6.5 million in revenue. In fact our Brazilian and Canadian accounts are growing rapidly too –- and it was Canadian tweeters who asked to make sure Dell Canada came online to Twitter. Dell Canada responded because the team heard our customers. In less than a year, @DellnoBrasil has already generated nearly $800,000 in product revenues. Similarly, @DellHomeSalesCA has surpassed $150,000 and is increasing at notable pace.”

The Forecast for Metrics in 2010

Earlier we mentioned generic forms of social media metrics. The survey revealed that indeed, 89% of CMOs tracked the impact of social media by traffic, page views, and the size of their social graph or communities. However, 2010 is the year that social media graduates from experimentation to strategic implementation, with direct ties to specific measurable performance indicators.

In 2010, CMOs will seek to establish a connection between social media and business goals. The study documents the adoption of three metrics:

- 333% surge in tracking revenue

- 174% escalation in monitoring conversion

- 150% increase in measuring average order value

A Call To Action

Defining the “R” in ROI is where we need to focus, as it relates to our business goals and performance indicators specifically. Even though much of social media is free, we do know the cost of engagement as it relates to employees, time, equipment, and opportunity cost (what they’re not focusing on or accomplishing while engaging in social media). Tying those costs to the results will reveal a formula for assessing the “I” as investment.

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the profit and loss. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future.

More business resources from Mashable:

- The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
– HOW TO: Use Social Media to Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
– HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
– 9 Great Document Collaboration Tools for Teams
– 5 New Year’s Resolutions for SMBs
– HOW TO: Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry
– 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, Petrovich9, Daft_Lion_Studio, pavlen

Reviews: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: business, entrepreneurship, facebook, linkedin, List, Lists, ROI, small business, social media, social networks, strategy, twitter

Leah Betancourt

noviembre 10, 2009

How Social Media is Taking the News Local

Any news organization’s web site can get a story picked up by popular sites such as Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Digg, or even Fark, resulting in a bump in page views. But that’s a traffic anomaly. A key metric media companies want to grow is their local audience, because local traffic is where the money is.

“Local advertising pays the bills in most cases and local advertisers want to reach people who can actually come to their stores,” said Serra Media CEO Mark Briggs, author of “Journalism 2.0,” and the upcoming book “Journalism Next,” in an e-mail interview. “And, as national news has become a commodity, local news is the differentiating factor most local news operations are emphasizing these days. Or, at least they should be.”

Local media companies are working with social media tools and user-generated content contributors to expand their local reach.

“I sense an inevitability is setting in with media companies with regard to social media. Those that thought … it was a fad that would quickly fade away are beginning to resolve themselves to the cold reality that social media is here to stay and will have to play a role in news coverage and audience building for a long time to come,” Briggs said.

The “Unbrand” Approach

Attracting local audiences can be a matter of launching a new, separately branded site with a targeted topic or geographic reach.

That’s what the Chicago Tribune Media Group did in August, when it launched ChicagoNow, a local blog hub dubbed a “new web site created by Chicagoans for Chicagoans.”

Bill Adee, editor for digital media for the Chicago Tribune, told me the Tribune has a huge local audience but there are certain areas they don’t index well. With ChicagoNow, he said, they wanted to focus on blogs, topics and people that visitors don’t get from ChicagoTribune.com. The site has just over 120 local blogs so far and Adee said the Tribune uses its other brands to promote the new site and its bloggers.

For example, he pointed out that if the Tribune’s cable TV station needs an expert on the Chicago Transit authority, they have one. “That’s something we can offer that a lot of other properties can’t,” he said.

ChicagoNow bloggers are paid $5 per 1,000 local page views, according to Adee, who said they focus their bloggers on Facebook and Twitter and encourage them to comment on other ChicagoNow blogs. About every month or so the site hosts a party so everyone can meet the new bloggers. The site had 1 million unique visitors in September and 45% were local — double what they expected to have at this point in the site’s development and they’ve hit every page view goal so far, he said.

“I think it’s gone beyond my wildest dreams so far,” he said.

Neighborhood News Coverage

Early last year, journalists Cory Bergman and his wife, Kate, started a Seattle-area neighborhood network of news blogs called Next Door Media, which won the Online News Association’s first Community Collaboration award in 2009.

Cory Bergman said in an e-mail interview that about 80% of their stories come from their neighbors and what they post in the blogs’ forums, comments, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. Experienced journalists who live in the neighborhood cover stories they find via those methods, using traditional journalism skills to gather and confirm information. When the stories are posted to the blogs, a hat tip is given to the user who originated the idea.

“In essence, we’re providing a layer of journalism over an empowered community. It’s a neighborhood answer service, rooted in journalism,” he said. Bergman said when it comes to breaking news, because the writers live in the neighborhoods they cover, they often beat traditional local news media to the scene. When a house fire broke out recently, they received seven e-mails and two photos in 15 minutes, he said.

He also added that Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in helping Next Door Media get the word out about their sites, especially as they expand to new neighborhoods. MyBallard.com gets 600,000 monthly page views and 50,000 unique users and 95% of the traffic is from Seattle, which is “significantly higher than an average local news site and the engagement numbers are off the charts,” he said.

The company’s success is two-fold, according to Bergman. Editors care about their communities and go the extra mile to provide local news coverage that traditional media companies are increasingly unable to cover, he said, and also the site is not afraid to trust its neighborhoods.

He pointed out that launching successful sites isn’t easy and recommends news organizations partner with promising neighborhood sites rather than competing with them.

“Hyperlocal is a lot of work. There’s no magic formula. We’ve invested a lot of time in covering stories, attending community meetings and introducing ourselves to just about everyone. It’s about people and relationships and trust, not just code. It takes patience, which is rare quality these days,” he said.

Going Viral Locally

Internet memes can spread fast using social media, and news topics are no exception. What started out as crowdsourcing for a news story morphed into a local meme in the Twin Cities when WCCO-TV reporter Jason DeRusha, asked his followers on Twitter how someone gets an official day designated for them. He tweeted: “It’s National Cheesecake Day. How do you get a ‘day’ anyway? Good Question at 10. (Anyone have power to declare DeRusha Day?).”

That’s when the meme began. DeRusha didn’t anticipate how quickly the “DeRusha Day” movement would snowball. A Twitter user started a #DeRushaDay hashtag, and then someone created a poster, another person launched a web site and someone else started online petition devoted to the cause, which were all tweeted about. The end result? Sept. 21 was officially proclaimed DeRusha Day by the mayor’s office and a party marked the event.

So the viral nature of social media inadvertently spread among Twin Citians an idea that was closely tied to WCCO’s brand. How can others duplicate this success? Certainly going where your readers/listeners and viewers are is a start. Then you must regularly engage with locals in that social media space in a two-way conversation, rather than simply push out content. In DeRusha’s case, he uses social media in the story gathering process, often talking about the stories he works on and getting feedback from fans and followers. On TV he invites viewers to go to his blog and then discusses news stories there with them.

“I’m really interested in closing the loop between online fans, who follow me in the process, and TV viewers,” he said. “How do I get those web people to tune into the TV at ten? I try to put those people on TV. That seems to help.”

John Daenzer, WCCO’s director of new media, said in an e-mail interview the station’s use of social media has absolutely helped grow its local online audience. “We wouldn’t be as aggressive as we are about engaging in all sorts of social media if we thought otherwise. And we work very hard to ensure that when we use social media we’re not just pumping out promotional garbage. We also want to participate in the conversation and give folks new ways to connect with each other,” he said.

Facebook referrals to WCCO.com surged 1,287% in August and 1,082% in September over the same period last year, according to Daenzer’s data. Twitter referrals for August were up 1,029% over August 2008.

Keeping a Local Focus

Austin-American Statesman social media editor Robert Quigley has been the voice behind @statesman on Twitter since 2008. He also tweets for @hookemfans, the Twitter account for the Statesman’s football fan site Hookem.com, which relies heavily on aggregation and social media.

“Growing local audience is our local bread and butter,” Quigley said in an e-mail interview. “Our marketing department, through ads you can find on YouTube and many other campaigns, has been highlighting the work we’ve been doing online and in print. We’re making sure we understand and are serving that community through Statesman.com and Austin360.com.”

He keeps a focus on quality local content. His consistent highlighting of Statesman’s content, engagement in dialogue with the audience and crowdsourcing is also paying off. Facebook and Twitter are both in the top 10 in referring traffic to the newspaper’s sites, according to Quigley, who tweets about every 45 minutes Monday through Friday, but tweets more often when news is happening. He also typically updates the Statesman’s Facebook Fan page a few times a day with stories, photo galleries or videos.

Quigley said newspapers and other corporate brands should use social media as a two-way communication tool. “I follow back most people who follow us, which I think shows a level of engagement (and allows me to receive news tips privately through direct messages),” he said.