360DigitalInfluence

Last week, I attended a webinar from WOMMA where WOMMA General Counsel Tony DiResta discussed the importance of disclosure across social media. This conversation normally focuses on brand-blogger relationships but the same best practices and government guidelines may also affect your Facebook Page.

Here are five things to keep in mind about your brand and disclosure on Facebook.

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When SXSW, one of the largest gatherings of minds and enthusiasts in the digital world, didn’t feature more than a handful of panels on the intersection between health and social media - an “unconference” event called SXSH sprung up to fill the void. Yesterday that event came together in Austin and included speakers and pioneers in using social media to communicate for health issues in regional hospitals, government agencies, health insurers, nonprofits, epatients and pharma companies. Just about every part of the healthcare world had some sort of voice in the discussion as everyone gathered to share ideas on how the industry as a whole might use social media more effectively by building greater trust.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.
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How can brands leverage social media to drive sales and lead generation?

While social media spending is on the rise for both B2B and B2C companies, many brands are still realizing the full potential of online engagement for business development and lead generation.  Next week, I’ll be presenting ideas to the Silicon Valley Capital Club on how brands can best leverage the social web to drive word of mouth buzz and, ultimately, sales opportunities.

Below, I’ve provided a sneak peek into the insights I plan to cover, however, I’d welcome your feedback and stories as to where your organization experiences the greatest online business development success:
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Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference termed as the “era of discontinuity.” With a ballooning population, growing Internet penetration, arguably the largest mobile phone market on earth and an entrepreneurial culture - India is at once a bewildering and maturing market for all things social. On the streets of India, word of mouth marketing and old school lessons are actively driving commerce. In businesses, the hot topics are similar to what they are in the US or elsewhere … how can your brand reach consumers who are increasingly placing their attention elsewhere and getting progressively better at ignoring you.

On answer that has risen to some level of prominence in India is the use of celebrities in marketing. You could argue that celebrities are popular everywhere in the world, but in a country that release more films in an average week than most countries do in an entire year, the rules are slightly different. In India it is not uncommon to see a Bollywood star’s face on everything from facial tissues to pens. Celebrity is used to connote trust, and in a culture with many different socio-economic classes (they even have names), the only way that marketers can often reach across these levels is with celebrities that many people recognize.

In an illuminating panel filled with journalists, filmmakers, marketers, creative directors and one celebrity (Bollywood Actor Vivek Oberoi) the conversation turned to a in-depth discussion of the role of celebrity in marketing in India and whether it was indeed a necessity, or whether it has become a “crutch” for the lazy marketer who doesn’t want to do any real work so they just hire a celebrity and consider their marketing efforts complete. Here were some of the biggest takeaways that the conversation raised for me:

1. Understand the difference between talent and celebrity. When you hire an actor to play a part in an ad, you are hiring them as “talent.” When you get a celebrity, you are hiring them to bring their personal brand to your product or service and serve as a spokesperson of sorts. The first key is to know the difference and not confuse the two.

2. Start with an idea, not a celebrity. Often a marketing strategy starts by selecting the celebrity the team will work with and then an idea is built around that choice. This method is backwards and results in marketing that lacks strategic vision and often fails to resonate. To do better, you need to have a strong creative idea … then find the celebrity that best fits that idea.

3. Build on the personal brand of a celebrity. Vivek Oberoi raised many intelligent points about the celebrity point of view when it comes to marketing (something we don’t often hear). He understands his personal brand and what resonates positively or negatively with it. As a result, he chooses personally not to do tobacco or alcohol related advertising. Many other celebrities lack those same principles and simply go where the biggest dollars tempt them. The best marketing will be something builds on the personal brand that a celebrity has built, instead of ignoring or countering it.

4. Use real people too. Thankfully, the point did emerge from the panel that there may be times where you don’t NEED a celebrity. There is a power of real people to connect with one another that can be missing with celebrity focused campaigns and for a growing number of brands in India taking this real approach is working well and shouldn’t be discounted.

This Facebook Friday is dedicated to the Little Guy: the one-man communications team, the small business owner, or the intern for a non-profit who just got assigned Facebook (I’ve been there). So here’s to you, Little Guy, and because you make Facebook awesome, here are six easy and (almost) free tips for your “little” Facebook page. And you Big Guys can learn a thing or two as well.
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Live events play a critical role to engage consumers with a brand or product thru out the life of a campaign. The challenge with events is they are usually bound by geography, size of venue and of course cost. Many brands use social media to extend the reach of events with roving reporters who are live tweeting, creating hashtags for people to follow and posting twitpics.

All of these are great ways to extend the event but why not take coverage to the next level with a live broadcast? Creating a live show from an event is a great way to engage consumers and maximize your reach.

Solutions from Livestream and Ustream allow mobile broadcast stations to be set up from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. No Internet access? No problem. The Livepack from Livestream is a turnkey hardware solution for wireless live streaming at HD quality. This makes man on street coverage much easier as you can literally point the camera and go.

Recently we live broadcasted from an event. The concept was a behind the scenes sneak peak of a show with exclusive interviews from campaign spokes people and attendees. Our goal was to create new ways to extend reach of the event, engage with consumers not able to attend and drive action by getting people to tune in.

The results were excellent by comparison. The brand micro-site saw its single largest traffic day since it launched in November of 2009. Visitors tuned in for an average of 10 minutes, which is five times longer than an average day.

Not only did people tune into the broadcast from over 20 countries, 70% of them explored at least three additional pages within the site. The live coverage of the event coupled with active monitoring and engagement on twitter proved to be a great recipe for extending the event experience.

Before plugging your camera in and going live here are some tips for a successful live broadcast.

• Create a “Show” not a stream: Fully develop the story you want to tell with a mixture of live coverage and pre-recorded video. This requires more up front planning, pre recording of videos and more tightly incorporating segways to pre-recorded video.
• Promote across channels to build awareness of the show: Using email, social channels and engaging with online influencers played a huge role in the success of this online event.
• Encourage viewer participation by bringing them into the “show”: Another way to engage viewers in the live broadcast is to in create points of interaction with event goers and online viewers via twitter, Facebook or chat. A simple example of this would be a Q&A with attendees.
• No wifi – No show: In situations where you rely on a wifi connection it is essential to test each physical location the broadcast will air from. This will ensure there are no dead spots. For venues that do no provide wifi/wired capabilities you can also have lines dropped or secure a rental of the LiveStream Livepack.
• Poor lighting and sound can ruin a great effort: Having the right equipment can make or break the experience for your viewers. Plan ahead and be prepared to bring additional lighting especially if you are broadcasting indoors. The use of microphones will also significantly increase the audio quality for those tuning in.

Live broadcast are certainly not for every situation but can be a great way to maximize the investment in offline events.

We are a company of communicators. We embraced social media years ago as a new way to communicate for ourselves and, also, for our clients to push their business forward in new ways.We have always had a socila media policy to help our staff use social media productively.

The recent decision by Forrester to restrict their analyst/bloggers to publishing within the Forrester blog domain (vs. allowing them to publish personal blogs outside of Forrester and grow their personal brands that way), has kicked up a dust storm of opinions.  

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This week I participated in a Social Media Week New York panel “Putting the Social in CSR” along with Bonin Bough from Pepsico, Deb Berman from Just Means, and Chrysi Philalithes from (RED).  Its an extremely timely topic and one we have been thinking a lot about  from a number of different angles.  The great news?  Social media provides the media for corporations to leverage their Corporate Social Responsibility investments to yield greater fruit for both the customer and the beneficiary. continue reading

Facebook has undoubtedly become one of the most influential social media platforms a brand can leverage. It can be a powerful tool when used effectively and with corporations, non-profits, celebrities joining in on the fun, it is paramount that you find a way to stand out and be noticed. Setting up a Facebook page is a given, what matters now is your commitment to the value-exchange between you and your target audience. Taking the time to figure out how you can raise the bar and deliver a unique experience will set you apart from the rest. This post will tell you how to do it… continue reading

People hate Google Sidewiki. It’s an ugly word, but people hate Google Sidewiki. The internet is filled with frustration, angst, and incredulity of people who want to know a.) how to get rid of it and b.) how a company with a “Don’t Be Evil” mantra can look at themselves in the mirror after developing something that is so inarguably evil.

I love Google Sidewiki. It mixes the brand engagement of a Facebook Fan Page with the free speech of Twitter. I can now go to a brand’s website and tell future visitors how much I love a brand or how I think it could be better (constructive and fair, of course). If you had Google Sidewiki you could see how I recently sucked up to not only my boss, but also my boss’s boss. It’s great. continue reading