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

febrero 8, 2010

5 Insightful TED Talks on Social Media

The 2010 Technology Entertainment Design conference will be kicking off tomorrow in Long Beach, California, bringing the leading minds of many fields together to talk shop about innovation, change, and what the future holds.

As social media has become a game changer for industries across the board, you can bet the experts at this year’s TED conference will have their sights set on peeling back the hype and getting at the core of what social technology has in store for this year and beyond.

Perhaps the best part of the TED conferences is that videos of the talks are archived and free to view right on the organization’s website. Given the wealth of insight we’re sure to see tomorrow, we thought we’d whet your appetite by highlighting a few recent and exceptional talks from TED’s past, with a focus on social media.

1. Alexis Ohanian: How To Make a Splash in Social Media

We’ll start things off with a real-life social media parable about how the biggest and most effective forces on the web usually take shape by accident. Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com tells the quick and hilarious story of how the social web provided some unexpected help to Greenpeace in halting the Japanese whaling industry. Internet marketers take note: The meme is all powerful, and it cannot be controlled.

2. Clay Shirky: How Social Media Can Make History

In this talk, consultant, professor and author Clay Shirky discusses the unprecedented immediacy of real-time citizen journalism made possible by social media and the nearly ubiquitous access to mobile web technologies. From the election crisis in Iran to the massive earthquake that shook China in May of 2008, Shirky discusses how media is made on the ground, as-it-happens, via the social web.

3. Evan Williams: Listening to Twitter Users

With a couple of anecdotes building the ultimate social media case study, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams discusses how a little side project called Twitter became a game-changing phenomenon with the help and input of the very users who made the service a success. From innovative marketing uses to core functionality, Williams provides the evidence for what we knew all along: Users know best.

4. Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet Enables Intimacy

As social media changes our social lives, speculation has abounded for years on how the web may be disconnecting us from intimate interactions in favor of meaningless quests to rack up followers and “friends.” Not so, says Stefana Broadbent, who explains that social networks function the same way online as they do in real life. While we may have lots of friends, we only really communicate regularly and meaningfully with a handful of them, and social technologies like e-mail, texting, and tweeting allow us to do so more often across time and space.

5. Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead

From professional sports mascots to balloon animal makers, some communities are so extremely niche that they could only properly thrive on the Internet. So argues blogger and author Seth Godin, who believes that our revolutionary new connectedness has brought human culture back to its roots, and that tribes (groups of people mobilized around a shared interest) are the present and future of all web content.

What are your favorite TED talks about social media? Which did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Reviews: Iran , Twitter, reddit.com

Tags: future, List, Lists, social media, social networks, technology, TED, TED Talks, twitter, video

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