Vaynerchuk illustrated the necessity of this message when he asked the nearly full ballroom of attendees, “How many of you think Twitter is stupid?” and half of them raised their hands. Then similar numbers raised their hands to say they once thought cellphones and the Internet itself were stupid, but all admitted they use both today.

The arguments people are having about social media today are the same ones they had about those now-ubiquitous developments just 10 to 15 years ago, Vaynerchuk said. And arguing instead of getting on board is just a waste of time, he said. “Innovation doesn’t care about anyone,” it just flows on and will run you over if you don’t jump on and ride the wave.

It also isn’t helpful to disparage social media when you haven’t even tried it out. “I love it when people have a whole lot to say about Facebook and Twitter and they don’t even have an account,” said Vaynerchuk. “Shut your mouth!”

All business owners, he said, are just in one business: the attention business. Today, people’s attention is fragmented and harder than ever to capture. To get it, you have to use new methods and strategies; you have to use social media.

“People aren’t looking at billboards, they aren’t even looking at the freakin’ road anymore,” said Vaynerchuk, who admitted to using traditional advertising in the past and explained he believes it is grossly overpriced today.

Companies had it easy when they could take a broad-sweeping approach with billboards, newspaper ads and television commercials, but today, businesses have to work harder to reach out to individuals, Vaynerchuk explained. We’ve gone back to a small-town way of doing things, where the way you treat individual customers matters because they are going to tell others about the experience they’ve had with your business.

“We’re living in an era where word-of-mouth is on steroids,” he said. People aren’t just talking to their neighbors and the folks they run into around town; they’re talking to the world via social media.

If you’re finally ready to get your business on social media, take a deep breath and try to relax with the help of these four simple tips from Vaynerchuk.

• Don’t worry about what you’re going to say; just get started and build from there.
• Don’t focus on trying to win new customers, but instead on treating your existing customers well so you can keep them and inspire them to endorse your business.
• Don’t obsess about ROI. There’s a certain amount of serendipity in word-of-mouth marketing, and the numbers don’t always tell the full story.
• Don’t ignore what people are saying on Twitter. It’s a great source of information about what consumers like, think and do.

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Gary Vaynerchuk explains why small-business owners need to stop debating social media and start using it originally published by SmartBlogs

Facebook is like a very big party, where you know everyone already. But Google+ is a smaller, more intimate party filled with people you don’t know yet — but who have interesting things to say on a variety of topics. If Facebook is for friends and family, Twitter is for sharing thoughts and opinions and LinkedIn is for self-promotion — then Google+ is for talking about things you’re most passionate about with new and exciting people.

But diving into this party can be daunting. Kawasaki gave attendees some of his top tips on getting more out of Google+.

• Post about your passions. Instead of promoting yourself or talking about the day-to-day aspects of your life, post about topics you really care about as a way of generating conversation. Keep your posts short and to the point.
• Comments are key. Responding to posts and engaging with commenters is the heart of Google+ networking. Respond to everyone who comments on your posts, and give Plus Mentions to all commenters. Comment on the posts of people you find interesting as a way of introducing yourself — but be sure to do so in a way that cuts to the chase and adds value. The plug-in “Replies and More for Google+” can make this much easier. Don’t get sucked into long arguments with negative commenters. Respond three times, then move on.
• Photos are a must. Photos make your posts more visually engaging, but when you’re sharing content from other sites, the associated photo won’t always be properly formatted. Take the time to make sure the photo looks good on Google+ — or if you’re stuck for a good image to go with your post, check out Wikimedia.
• Don’t look clueless. Asking someone for the reason he or she stopped following you or announcing that you’ve stopped following someone is an easy way to look like a fool on Google+. Posting too many self-promotional items and posing as an expert are other sure-fire ways to turn off potential followers.

If you truly want to master Google+, check out Kawasaki’s e-book “What the Plus!” for more tips and strategies.

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How Guy Kawasaki gets the party started on Google+ originally published by SmartBlogs

Highlights of Lazerow’s talk:

A brief history of marketing

Lazerow broke down the history of marketing into three buckets: Before 1996, 1996 to 2003 and 2003 to present. It’s no coincidence, he noted, that 2003 is close to when Facebook launched. He analyzed each era through the role of paid, owned and earned media. (Forrester offers an explainer of these terms.)

• In the earliest marketing era, traditional paid media dominated. Think print ads, radio, etc.
• With the rise of AOL and the Internet, by 1996, brands were investing in their own channels such as websites and e-mail marketing channels. Paid media remained a big player, and earned media was still a mere blip on the radar.
• With the rise of social media, brands looked to harness the power of earned media, or word-of-mouth marketing, allowing customers and advocates to amplify their message through platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With so many brands recognizing the power of these channels, earned media has taken its spot at the table with paid and owned.

A shift in spend

While paid media still dominates overall marketing spend, it is projected to remain flat in the coming years, Lazerow said. Instead, marketers are shifting their budgets toward advancing their owned channels (websites, blogs) and focusing more on the boost solid content can provide through earned media. When brands produce content worth reading and sharing, they will be rewarded.

The Facebook impact

Facebook is clearly a main focus when companies think about earned media, and Lazerow said recent changes to the platform have huge implications for marketers. The new Facebook creates a clear link between all three types of media and especially increases the relationship between paid and earned. Beyond the introduction of Timeline to brand pages, content publishers can make media buys to ensure their content appears in their followers’ timelines. Through media buys, content can show up in as many as 75% of a brand page’s followers’ timelines. Lazerow equated that to the e-mail open rate jumping from the existing 16% to 75%, pointing out the huge implications that would have for even the most advanced marketers.

How are you combining earned, owned and paid media in your own marketing efforts?

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A brief history of marketing — and why the new Facebook matters originally published by SmartBlogs

During the South By Southwest panel “Harvesting Consumer Content from the Social Web,” technology journalist Jolie O’Dell led marketing professionals AJ Vaynerchuk, Edward Boches, Farrah Bostic and Jeff Janer in a discussion of how the expression of intent is changing how consumers and brands use social media.

Too often, brands use social media to market to demographics rather than interests. The idea of grouping one’s personal interests into easily readable and well-displayed collections has been popularized by the hot social-networking site Pinterest. Applications such as GetGlue and even Foursquare can also provide accurate displays of what sparks a user’s interest. These platforms are opening doors for markers to tap not only a person’s social connections but also interest graph.

Because many of these platforms are in their early stages, here are a few tips the panelists recommended for mastering them and getting a sense of your audience’s interest graph.

1. Learn to market to your audience. Sounds simple, right? But the problem most brands have is that they “spray and pray” with their content. They put loads of content on the social Web and figure that if at least one thing resonates with one person, they’ve connected. Not the case. Use your data to learn, make your content shareable, and from those results, figure out what to do next.
2. Use recognizable characters or trendy ideas to promote your brand. Use what your audience is already talking about as a starting point for your own conversations. For instance, the TV show “Mad Men” is huge, in particular the vintage ’60s style of the characters on the show. A clothing store could take that trend and create a board on Pinterest titled “The Looks of Mad Men” and use items from its stock to imitate the look. This gives audience members a hip way to connect to the brand and some fresh ideas they might actually be interested in running with.
3. Measure and track everything you do on these platforms. Otherwise, you’re going to make the same mistakes and alienate your audience repeatedly. Know what subjects interest your audience members the most, what inspires them to associate with your brand and be brand ambassadors, and provide them with true utility.

The key to tapping your audience’s interest graph is being a leader: a thought leader, a concept leader and a content leader. Know what your fans like, and give them increasingly more of that. Create do-it-yourself campaigns, get funky, have fun — but always remember to look back at what your audience did and didn’t like and cater all future campaigns to that data.

Constance Aguilar is a social media strategist and account manager at Abbi Public Relations, where she oversees client strategy on both social media channels and through traditional media relations as well as event producing. You can follow her on Twitter@ConnieAguilar and read her blog posts at The Abbi Agency Blog.

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From #SXSW: Are you catering to your audience’s interest graph? originally published by SmartBlogs

At a South by Southwest Interactive Festival session, Liz Strauss, Eric Swayne, Petri Darby, Matt Ridings and Ford Motor’s Craig Daitch pledged to lay bare this difficult topic. While I would have loved to get some hands-on examples of how to work with this often-dodged topic, I got no such answers. The name of the panel, “What’s So [Bleeping] Hard About Social ROI?,” was a little misleading — yet there was a ring of truth to it — because the session seemed to be a roundup of all of the reasons its so “bleeping” hard to find ROI and not a substantive session on how to actually grapple with this thorny issue. Lots of comments on Twitter agreed.

Some terrific points were made — I will most certainly share — but more questions were asked than answers given. This left me a little disturbed, given how much preparation some of the presenters had. I think it could have been more hands-on with slides showing concrete examples. I wanted to get my proverbial hands dirty with a few calculations.

Here are the 10 best take-aways from this social media ROI session.

1. When social media is done well, it builds trust, which can be measured by the speed and reach of a campaign.
2. When in doubt, ask yourself, “What is the ROI on NOT engaging in social media?”
3. There isn’t one fancy social media measurement tool that delivers on everything.
4. Set clear goals for how you’ll track engagement.
5. Consider the time intervals you want to measure. For example, the Make-A-Wish Foundation looks at its social ROI on an annualized basis because its presence builds all year and then culminates in many year-end donations.
6. Be wary of oversimplifying by drawing a direct correlation from multifaceted information.
7. Create your own metrics, such as tonality, velocity and influence.
8. More than two-thirds of technology being implemented fails because “all those silos make the information useless.”
9. The big-picture strategy has got to filter down the ranks. (And I would add that measurable info also has to cycle back up to the big-picture people.)
10. All of your organization’s social media efforts should work in harmony. Human resources, recruiting, marketing, communications and sales should work together on an integrated strategy.

What do you think this panel missed in terms of social media ROI? Share your clear comments on this murky subject.

This post is by Lori Randall Stradtman, who designs WordPress websites and blogs about social media trends at Social Media Design and Social Media Examiner.

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From #SXSW: Do you still struggle with social media ROI? originally published by SmartBlogs

This, of course, is not breaking news. But it is really important. In the last few years, the world of technology has evolved rapidly, but the world of social media is actually stabilizing. There are tons of case studies. The things that work are being enhanced with innovations, and the ones that don’t are fading away. However, there really are no rules that everyone needs to live by, for better or worse.

For example, during the session “Food Trucks Share Social Media Tips,” the panel was asked whether it’s OK to outsource your social media voice — a topic that is often debated.

For Daniel Shemtob, owner and founder of The Lime Truck, the answer was yes. He has a blogger friend who does nearly all of the posting. But he made it clear that everything posted must be in his voice, and he reads closely all the posts and responses they get.

On the other hand, James DiSabatino, chief cheese griller (best title ever!) and co-owner of Boston’s Roxy’s Grilled Cheese, says he would never outsource his social media presence because he thinks it undermines the authenticity.

So who’s right? They both are, because each is doing what works for them.

Doing What Works for Your Business

Lisa Roundtree, associate professor at the University of Houston, led a great session entitled “Big Social Media Results at Small Organizations,” and she talked about how the established best practices are not always the ones driving success.

She laid out how many successful organizations don’t have a strategy, are not centralized or well trained, and don’t rely on metrics.

One such organization is GirlTrek, a Susan G. Komen–like walk that encourages African-American women to take a more active role in their own health. Girl Trek only posts to its Facebook page four or five times each month, instead of the daily posting best practice. But the community is so vibrant that the members keep the page active with their own stories on a daily basis.

Another great example is the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Conn. Even though the museum has been closed since June 2010 because of damage from a hurricane, it has managed to keep its social media presence thriving. Because museum staffers can’t run activities that help them reach their normal goal of driving traffic during construction, they show snippets of exhibits and video of the unpacking of new artifacts. They also share anecdotes from whatever data they have available and post it to their Facebook page and Twitter as “factoids.” As a result, they’ve gathered a following even when they have not been open, and increased the number of donors and members. They don’t follow any guidelines and are using their own unique circumstances to derive content.

So, what’s the big take-away?

While companies, experts and industry blogs can give you some great ideas, you know your business and your customers better than anyone else, so you really need to write your own rules. And this is great for small businesses. They are inherently unique and aren’t restricted by corporate regulations and policies that often dictate what bigger businesses say and how they say it. Plus, it’s more fun, and you might just even see some pretty big social media results.

Josh Mendelsohn is senior product marketing manager at Constant Contact. In his role, he is focused on helping small businesses and nonprofits become successful using social media and e-mail marketing. You can follow Mendelsohn on Twitter @MendelJ2.

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From #SXSW: Why “best practices” aren’t always best for your business originally published by SmartBlogs

At the South by Southwest Interactive panel “Social Media Boundaries: Personal/Personnel Policy,” a group of nonprofit and technology professionals in the social media space discussed how they toe this line to an audience largely comprising community managers.

Major themes that developed from the discussion:

• Establish your stance on this situation early. As panelist Jess Main of the National Center for Media Engagement put it, “Do we tweet what we had for breakfast as an organization?” Decide upfront who will be the face of your organization’s community presence and how much personal information they will communicate to the audience. Brands with high-consumer touchpoints and strong brand affinity may be able to expand their connection to the audience by including personal touches, whereas companies that people may feel forced to interact with — such as one audience member’s example of an energy utility company — may not be able to create the same traction.
• But usually, some personal touch is needed. By keeping your organization’s social content strictly focused on internal priorities, you risk watering the content down so that it’s dry and boring. And that’s a missed opportunity. Panelist Debra Askanase said, “It’s very very very hard to be a rabid fan of any process.” By putting a personal spin to an enterprise account, you can reap rewards so long as the brand message comes out on top. Not surprisingly, every community will react differently, and the key is balance. In regards to community managers’ personal Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs, the mood of the session seemed in favor of the common practice of putting a disclaimer on your accounts that posts are yours — not your company’s — but you can also use this space to direct followers to official corporate accounts. And community managers shouldn’t feel obligated to accept personal friend requests from professional contacts.
• It takes a village. One community manager is never enough. Given the effort it takes to start and grow a following, you don’t want to leave that in one person’s power. Panel moderator Amy Sample Ward mentions that even community managers need to take a sick day, and there was also mention of an engaging community manager who went on maternity leave — and the company’s Twitter account sat idle for three months. Additionally, your community manager is not going to be an expert in every issue that comes out of the community, and thus other people need to be trained to handle issues that directly relate to their expertise.One audience member from OxFam said he created documentation for his backups to follow the company’s strategic focus on the “3 E’s: Educate, Entertain, Engage.”A recent example that exhibits the need for multiple, trained social media managers is the conversation around Planned Parenthood — which found itself overwhelmed with commentary from both supporters and detractors; a situation where just a single person could never keep up with the response level the organization was committed to.
• Remember that it’s still all about service. Just because you push out personal content and brand-amplifying messages, your community will still primarily look at your social presences as a place to come to for customer service needs. You need to be staffed and prepared to act on those requests.

Want to learn more? Check out this best-practices document provided by the panel.

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From #SXSW: For community managers, it’s always personal originally published by SmartBlogs

So how do you spearhead long-term and valuable relationships with your audience that pay off more than just collecting virtual fans? Here are some of Gottlieb’s tips.

• Market to a community of communities. People don’t always care about brands. It’s easier to get them to care about other community members and the interests that bind them together. Each community of customers is made up of small groups, and the most important people are the connectors in each group — the ones that sing your praises, interact on all levels and will cause others to support what you do. By creating ways for these communities to interact with each other using your brand (Nike’s Sparq is a perfect example) you become useful to and help them.
• Understand both your fans who “lean forward” and fans who “lean back.” Understanding fan behavior and what you can expect to get from each fan is an essential step. Fans that say something back and state their loyalty are your “lean forward” fans, while those who watch to see what they can get and simply consume content are your “lean back” fans. Most brands find they have more of the latter. Not all fans want to engage, and that’s OK. Learn to teach yourself or your boss that — and then see the value in all levels of fandom and work to provide content and campaigns that appeal to both types.
• Be ready for more than one relationship. In fact, be ready to engage multiple relationships at once and become sort of a polyamorous brand. Make sure you accomplish the different things your varying audience will want to see and interact with. They have to understand what your goal is; whether you’re trying to raise awareness for a cause, start a revolution or emphasize the importance of something, you must act around your goal on all social media channels. Then give a call to action, and make sure you’ve laid out the above statement enough to make that call one that’s answered. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask people to share it and get others involved. You need that in order to reach your main goal.

It’s important to understand who your audience is –your spectators and collectors and influencers — and engage all of them on their own level. Some want freebies and deals, so don’t count those out. Others look for interesting content and exclusive insights. And still others want to be driven to do more than watch and buy, they want something more meaningful. The future of the social Web consists of always-on strategies with many lightweight components. The key is to never forget what your fans want — if you can give that to them, they’ll be sure to give you what you want. For a great example of this, see the MasterCard Ballgame Campaign.

Constance Aguilar is a social media strategist and account manager at Abbi Public Relations, where she oversees client strategy on both social media channels and through traditional media relations as well as event producing. You can follow her on Twitter@ConnieAguilar and read her blog posts at The Abbi Agency Blog.

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From #SXSW: What do your fans really want from you? originally published by SmartBlogs

At the 2012 South by Southwest Interactive, a panel of food-truck owners and experts came together to discuss the intersection of social media and food trucks. The panel left the audience with some great insights on how food-truck operators utilize social tools and how other kinds of brands might relate to their efforts.

Here are several ways food trucks use social media to reach, connect and engage their audience.

1. Transparency: This is important for most brands. You want people to trust you, and in this day and age, they have to pretty much see your every move in order to do so; especially if you’re serving them a meal from a moving vehicle.

Owner and founder of the Southern California Seabirds food truck, Stephanie Morgan, explained that she uses social media platforms to show off photos of her staff, the truck and the sources of the food itself. She regularly checks in and tweets from the local farm where she buys most of her product. Being able to see where their food comes from, and in the Seabirds case, the story behind it, is essential to building her business.

Tip: People want to see more than the finished product. Showing (and not just telling) where things came from and even why you got them from there is important to earn your customers’ trust.

2. Offering info in real time: This point may not be applicable to all brands, but businesses that operate on day-to-day incomes should start focusing their communications and tactics on a day-to-day basis.

All of the food-truck owners on the panel, which included Morgan, James DiSabatino and Daniel Shemtob, said they use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to post their daily locations and constantly changing menus. In their experience, people look more to Facebook and Twitter for daily information more often than websites. And making even the simplest edits to websites isn’t as easy as making a Facebook update or tweet.

Tip: Give your customers things to get excited about that day, rather than in two weeks. Create a stir around your content in a way that causes people to look forward to your postings, not just stumble across them.

3. Cultivate communities: When food-truck owners master the two points above, they can start to cultivate communities and build true fans. They establish a rhythm for their customers to follow. Depending on what type of food they serve, they can also use social media to support a cause or spread awareness on what may be an “underrated” or “overlooked” style of food.

For instance, Seabirds owner Morgan can use her support of the vegan movement and the food she makes to cement herself in a specific community and build a following. Grilled cheese can do the same thing for connoisseurs of cheese or sandwich or just people who like their food on-the-go.

The best platforms for building communities may not always be Facebook or Twitter. The panel emphasized how important it was for them to communicate and engage with food blogs and forums. Tagging other businesses, movements, nonprofits and partners also helps to build a sense of community among your fans.

Tip: When your fans know who you are, what your business values are and who you support, they’re going to jump on the wagon and hold on tight, particularly when you make the effort to engage them.

4. Genuine tactics: All the owners reiterated one point: Don’t try and do everything when it comes to social media. Pick a few networks (for foodies, they suggest Facebook, Twitter and Yelp) and use them well. Try asking a few supporters if they have a Twitter handle and start by reaching out to them on the network first. If they tweet about you, find different ways to say thank you and make your interactions meaningful — such as asking for suggestions for next time or what they ordered, etc.

Tip: Use the “I saw you first” mentality. Never stop being appreciative of your supporters, and make sure you tell them so.

A few other small points that are worth squeezing in.

• Most brands should implement the “bar rule” on their social media.. No politics, no religion. Keep it simple and lighthearted.
• Watch your grammar and spelling. When conducting social media on the go, you’re often using a phone. The auto-correct feature can be a killer; be careful and pay attention to detail.
• Use photos. People love photos and they also feature more prominently in the Facebook news feed. There’s more value in a picture, especially when it comes to showing off your food.
• Take liberties and do fun things. Do things that are personal and real, they’ll most likely end up benefiting your brand. Need inspiration for that last point? Look no further than the Seabirds intro to the crew video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Use your social media to build long-term brand value and make your customer feel connected to you. It’s not about discounts only, Groupon deals and using the platforms as billboards; have fun, be creative and try to make sure you’re giving your customers what you would want to experience if you were in their shoes.

Constance Aguilar is a social media strategist and account manager at Abbi Public Relations, where she oversees client strategy on both social media channels and through traditional media relations as well as event producing. You can follow her on Twitter@ConnieAguilar and read her blog posts at The Abbi Agency Blog.

Image credit: Geoff Livingston

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From #SXSW: What food-truck owners can teach you about social media originally published by SmartBlogs

1. Pictures posted on Twitter are still subject to copyright. The AFP v. Morel case involved pictures taken by Daniel Morel the day of the devastating Haitian earthquakes. Given the chaotic conditions, Morel devised an ingenious solution to limits on communicating with the outside world: He tweeted that he had pictures available for the media, and then posted the pictures to Twitpic, clearly marking them as copyrighted. While several media outlets purchased the photos from him, others used them without payment, authorization or attribution. Morel sued, and Agence France-Presse defended on the grounds that Morel had waived his copyright in the images by posting them on Twitter.

Not so, ruled the court. The text of individual tweets are generally not copyrightable, since their brevity, their focus on facts and ideas rather than expression, and lack of unique creativity fail to satisfy copyright requirements. But photos almost always satisfy those tests. The mere fact that Morel posted the pictures on Twitter does not amount to a waiver of copyright; moreover, AFP cannot rely on Twitter’s terms of service with its customer Morel to defeat his rights in the pictures.

Tip: Be careful when using any picture, even one widely circulated through Twitter or Facebook. If you use a photo, the best practice is to obtain express permission to use it, and at the very least do not use photos without proper attribution and links at a minimum.

2. The “Hot News” Doctrine is alive and well. The “Hot News” Doctrine stems from a 1918 Supreme Court case where AP sued another news service, INS, because it was stealing its content right out of AP stories. The Supreme Court found that while there is no copyright per se in “news,” it granted a brief, limited right to the AP because it researched, broke and reported compelling news stories. Some commentators had wondered whether the Hot News Doctrine could survive in an era of lightning fast news cycles and reporting by Twitter.

In TheFlyOnTheWall.com case, the court ruled that the site could not repost financial information from financial firms, as this was unfair competition. The question was whether the defendant is involved in aggregation, where they merely scrape other people’s information and content off the Web, or whether they engage in a “transformative” action by adding to or altering the content, for example, by analyzing and commenting on it. It is this transformative action that allows for a “fair use” exemption to the prohibition on using another’s copyrighted content.

Tip: Don’t just scrape content — instead transform content with your own unique creativity, and thereby avoid unfair competition or copyright violation claims.

3. E-personation is a dangerous game. Social media has often been used to comment upon, criticize or to make fun of certain people, such as the famous fake Steve Jobs blog. While such obvious parodies are probably still safe, plaintiffs are no longer limited to stalking and harassment laws when they believe detractors have gone to far, as three states, including California and Texas, have passed laws making e-personation a crime.

California law defines the act as, “knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person.” The threat of criminal action — in Texas the act is a felony — will cause a lot of people to re-evaluate trying such an approach. While these laws only protect individuals, corporations have had some success battling e-personation by suing for trademark dilution. The trademark laws are very protective of a company’s logos, names and other marks.

Tip: When dealing with criticism or parody of individuals, be careful not to “credibly impersonate” — so using the word “fake” offers a good deal of protection. When dealing with criticism or parody of a corporation, learn their trademarked logos and marks and try to avoid using them or at least transforming them so that you can argue that there is no consumer confusion, an element necessary under trademark law.

This post is by Stephen J. Easley, vice president for government affairs and general counsel of Heartland Networks, a wireless-infrastructure company, and an entertainment attorney representing clients such as the estate of Buddy Holly on intellectual property issues. He is attending his 26^th SXSW conference.

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From #SXSW: Why IP law still matters in a social media age originally published by SmartBlogs