Metzger Business

August 27, 2009

Social Media options what works

Filed under: Big Business,Intranet,Marketing,Musings,Small Business,Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 6:58 am

In this series of blogs I will be examining the various social media strategies and the social media tools that support them. I’ll be examining companies that are using the strategies, looking at why a particular strategy might have been chosen and discussing the success of the strategy. All of these companies and strategies are marketing/PR campaigns.

My goal is to write a case study for each of the social media tools and explain what strategies were applied to make the tool successful for the company applying the tool and strategy.

Here are the Social Media Tools we’ll examine.
Blogging
Bookmarking/tagging
Content Aggregation
Crowdsourcing
Microblogginng
Mashups
Online video
Photo Sharing
Podcasting
Social Networks ie. Facebook, Linkedin
VIrtual Worlds
Widgets
Wikis

I’m going to pick companies that have successfully applied these tools and attempt to define and explain the strategies they have applied. Since I want to be impartial I’ll pick the companies from a list that was compiled by Peter Kim in September 2008 of Social Media Examples. The list contains over 300 companies and the tools they are applying. You can find the article here A List of Social Media Marketing Examples.

Look for the first case study early next week.

August 19, 2009

Tweet Strategy, Conversion, and Measurement

Filed under: Small Business — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 6:30 pm

I went to visit my Chiropractor today. We traded for some services so occasionally we discuss business. I brought up his tweet strategy and asked if he had any idea if what he has been doing on Twitter is helping out. Answer – “Not Really.”

Hmmm. I say “Let’s examine this and see if we can develop a strategy that will allow you to measure your success and hopefully build your practice.” So after some discussion here is the strategy and requirements we came up with. These requirements are fairly general so they can be applied to any business. The strategy is simple so it too can be applied to any business. Try it use the measurements and you will find success on Twitter and maybe some more conversions. By the way this strategy can be used in Facebook or any other social networking site that broadcasts statuses.

1) Tweet Positive uplifting tweets that enhance your brand. Use a twitter sentence structure that follows the format what’s the Problem, What to do, positive result. i.e. work got you stressed out, get adjusted now, sleep great tonight – vist me to find out more http://bit.ly/123456

2) We also provided an action for the user at the end of the tweet. By the way the above tweet still leaves me 28 characters to play with.

3) Notice that I use a bit.ly url. There is 1 very important reason to use a URL shortening service and that is to measure how many people clicked on your link. The second reason is to save space. So now I have a measurement to see how successful my tweet was. Using bit.ly is easy by the way simply login and enter the URL you want shortened. Actually it’s slightly more complicated then that but I’ll cover this in another post.

4) So by now you must be asking what is the URL going to and why. AHHHH. The landing page, conversion page or squeeze page (I hate the term squeeze page!). This is a simple page that has a form for the person to fill out. This should not be a long sales page in this case. A chiropractor is a professional and shouldn’t dropt to the sleazy level that many long form sales letters drop to. In this case we’re offering a free telephone consultation. The page should briefly follow the same format as the tweets Explain problems, how chiropractic can help, what the results will be and offer the free consult. The objective is to generate a warm lead. The doc can now follow up with the potential patient.

The form should be simple and to the point. It should collect the person’s name, email, and phone. The email should be used only as a single contact unless otherwise stated. This is not a news letter sign up it is a lead generation form for already hot prospects.

5) Measure, Measure, Measure. The tweets, the click troughs’, the page visits, the page conversions. Tweak and Repeat.

Good luck this is a simple but effective strategy.

August 17, 2009

Google AdWords – On the Radio?

Filed under: Marketing,Small Business — Tags: , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 10:25 pm

Google has started an add campaign on the radio to encourage people to advertise with Google. I have never previously heard any advertising for Google outside of the web and certainly not for their service. This is likely an early sign that BING is beginning to hurt their ad revenue. Non the less AdWords can be a very powerful tool for a business that does not have front page placement in the natural search results. I’ve put together a short video explaining how to sign up for AdWords and how to use it effectively to drive traffic to your site. The campaign I demonstrate is for local businesses that want to drive local traffic to their sites for advertising purposes.

Sign up Process
YouTube Preview Image

Create Local Ad

YouTube Preview Image
The remainder of the process simply sets up your billing preferences. Because I don’t intend to create this add I did not complete this process but you have 2 options in the billing process. Option 1 lets you post pay or pay after the ad has run and Option 2 allows you to pre-pay the add. Option 2 was added recently to help control costs. Google will never spend more than what you have in the account if you pre-pay the ads. This second option was added after complaints and law suits because of Google over billing customers budgets.

If you as a business have a web site that promotes your business but you do not rank high in the search engines then running local ads with Google AdWords is an extremely effective strategy.

August 13, 2009

Social Media part of the College graduate DNA

Filed under: Big Business,Social Media — Tags: , , , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 10:24 am

Kids that are entering the work force this year have been using social media in one form or another since they started high school. They grew up with MySpace always being a part of their vocabulary. The iPhone came out during their freshman year of college. Twitter to this generation is a tool for older folks although I think that’s changing. Theses kids have posted video’s to the web of teachers talking on the phone in class. They have recorded phone calls where parents have lost it and posted the audio. They know how easy it is to use multimedia and integrated it with social media to get buzz, publicity, notoriety, and make things happen. This group completed homework assignments through social network platforms and have even used it to cheat, although cheating will be considered collaboration now that they are in the work force.

So what does this mean for business? The younger workforce will continue to be more and more comfortable with social media, and building online brands, and collaborating together online. While some of the older generation does not feel you get to know people through social media, this generation knows that you are who you project yourself to be. This trait of projecting personalities can be very valuable to businesses if they take the opportunity to cultivate the values they want their employees to project. If your business wants to project honesty, commitment, hard work it’s very easy to do and a benefit to projecting these values through social media is that the values often manifest themselves in real life. It’s hard to project one set of values and live by another. I know personally I’ve become a much better person because of my projections.

The additional value collaborative tools provide is the ability to maximize the employee knowledge base. Collaboration through micro-blogging allows the community to see status on all projects that are currently in progress and provides the opportunity to provide input if the community has expertise to provide. Of course there need to be policies in place so that these tools are not abused but most people at work use the tools for work and if the larger community is using the tools correctly then they will police and moderate the community for you.

Finally on individual projects tools such as wiki’s provide the ability for a team to collaborate on documentation, decisions, and email like communication that should be captured via a company knowledge base. Tracking these communications via a wiki allows for the companies knowledge capital to be centralized and available. Now anyone can see why a decision was made even years later. This process allows future decisions to be better informed and made with all detail necessary. The best wiki tools search all attached documents as well as standard wiki pages and they allow you to convert or attach emails, documents, spread sheets and presentations to the wiki. This provides truly powerful knowledge content management and the new workforce is not only comfortable with it but will demand it from their employers.

Don’t forget that providing these tools helps to raise the moral of your work force by provide better communication and delivering on their expectations. Moving to Enterprise 2.0 technologies is no longer an option but a necessity. It’s only a matter of time if you haven’t started the process already.

August 12, 2009

Client Integrations

Filed under: Big Business — Tags: , , , , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 11:25 am

There are many service companies out there that have to do client integrations so that they can best serve their clients. So what should I expect in the way of support as a client and how easy should a company make it for me to integrate?

Let’s start from the beginning. The Sales Process:
During the sales process the service company should know what types of questions to ask so they can recommend the most efficient and effective way to integrate with your company. They should already have a profile of companies that are similar in size, function, industry, technology infrastructure and revenue so they know how to recommend integration. I know I know you’re special and different and so is everyone else. For that matter so is every project I have ever work on yet somehow they always get developed through the same processes even if it’s agile, XP, or some other methodology. In the end the methodology is always get the requirements, design, build and test. So as I was saying the service company should know approximately where you will fit into their integration process. The service company should be able to explain why you fit into that integration level and approximately how much effort it will be to integrate with them based on past experience. Obviously they should also be able to explain the benefits of the integration to your organization.

Once there is agreement to move forward with the service the sales person will begin gathering a pre-defined set of data. Ideally this information will be written down on a nice check list that can be presented to the customer with definitions of the needed information and a short explanation of why the information is needed. If the service company has this information put together in this manor then you know they really have their stuff together.

The next step in the process will be for the sales person to bring back the information collected from the customer to the integration team and review what is needed for the specific customer as well as finalize on the decision of which integration is appropriate for the customer. The integration team will then put together the standard set of documentation pertaining to the defined integration level including project plans, technical documentation, communications plan, and any other supporting documentation.

It is now time to schedule a meeting with the customer and their development team. All documentation should have been provided and reviewed before the meeting begins. The goal of the meeting should be to answer any questions about the integration and build plans for implementation. There obviously may be other meetings and discussions along the way to facilitate the process but this outlines a smooth and well established path to integration.

Look for my next article on how can Social Media and Enterprise 2.0 better faciliate this process.

August 11, 2009

Google Profile – Almost guaranteed 1st page search results

Filed under: Musings,Small Business — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 11:12 am

Today I wanted to discuss a technique that almost guarantees fist page search results when someone is searching for your name. This strategy is very valuable for individuals involved in sales.

Search for Kevin Metzger

Search for Kevin Metzger

To test the strategy I had to do a search for my name and as you can see I come up in 5 places on the first page of Google although none of the results go directly to my blog sites. The first result that is related to me is video results. I have some videos posted to YouTube so I come up when the user clicks on that page. The next site that shows me is a network that I maintain a profile on and sometime blog at. Then there is LinkedIn my radio show profile page and finally you see a picture of me at the very bottom of the search page. This picture and profile was created 2 minutes before I did this search. It was done on the Google Profile page and this is a very valuable tool.

If a searcher chooses to click on my profile they now have access to both my blog’s, my twitter profile page, my LinkedIn profile page, and my Facebook profile page. They can also see a personal bio I put together and some limited information about me. Here is a quick look at the profile page.

Kevin Metzger profile page

Kevin Metzger profile page

This page took 5 minutes to create and put me on Google’s front page with my picture in no time. If you think anyone will ever search for you and you want to be found. Then this is a simple strategy that you must follow to guarantee your spot on Google’s fist page. You can create your profile at Google Profiles. It’s as simple as filling out a form and following directions.

August 10, 2009

URL Shorteners: Does it matter which one I use?

Filed under: Small Business,Social Media — Tags: , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 11:13 am

There are many url shortening services available on the web. These services allow you as the consumer of the service to view statistics on click throughs. The service also provides an easy way to publish short urls when typing in Twitter or email so that the link will never get broken.

The problem with a url shorting services is what happens when they shut down. Any url’s that you have hosted with the service will no longer work and you will have to either fix the links or have many dead links to you web site. This weekend the URL shorting service tr.im declared that they would be closing. The URLs will be good through December at which time they will no longer work. So what should these users do? Who should they go with? And if you are a new to URL shortening then which service should you choose.

I personally like the bit.ly service. According to Tr.im in their press release this weekend the bit.ly service is said to be “anointed” by twitter as “the market winner.” It certainly has a large number of Twitter users, is easy to use, has been extended to work in word press blogs in conjunctions with Twitter Tools, and provides excellent data on click throughs. Additionally it will be around for quite a while.

Another good and seemingly permanent fixture is TinyURL.com. I have used tinyurl in the past but they do not provide the same statistical data bit.ly does. I like to know how many people click on my links. The other advantage of bit.ly is that when you log in you can see all previously shortened URL’s.

There are other URL shorteners out there but sticking with these two for now should ensure that you will not end up with dead links on your site.

August 7, 2009

How many ways can twitter be used

Filed under: Big Business,Intranet,Musings,Social Media — Tags: , , , , , — MetzgerBusiness @ 1:57 pm

One hundred and forty characters doesn’t give you much space but it sure as heck gives tons of flexibility. I’ve been a member of the Twitterverse for nearly 2 months now, actually longer so let me active member for 2 months. In that time I’ve learned that twitter is
1) The fastest news service on the planet
2) Incredible for personal branding.
3) An awesome research tool. – You can find the best most current and relevant information on virtually any topic.
4) Goofy – Twitter’s twitters are flat out funny.
5) Incredible market research in your local area or for that matter overall market research.
6) Great for company branding.
7) Might take over the world.
8) Drives traffic to your site like no other tool including all other social media forums.
9) Creates viral buzz about a product
10) And now flat out buy tweets from twitters – provided by services such as tweetroi and Izea.

As I was writing this article I just found a new twitter – You can now follow dead president John Quincy Adams brought to my attention by @stonepayton.

As a tool twitter is too public to provide corporations the ability to communicate internally. Even though you can set up private networks in twitter I’m not familiar enough with the security and I certainly wouldn’t recommend to my company that they use it for anything that we want to protect.

That said if a twitter like tool is set up internal to a company intranet, it can really be useful. Companies that want to share information about what employees are working on and even help teams become more cohesive will find incredible value in this tool that simply lets you write short sentences about “What are you doing now?” There are companies contemplating using twitter like tools to replace status reporting and others who will use it to find internal resources with answer to questions that come up in every day business.

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