Write Speak Sell » Social Media

Selling Social Media to Management

Jeannette Paladino — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:43:19 +0000

My daily “Social Media Examiner” was delivered to my email box, as usual, this morning. The lead article is “9 Ways to Sell Social Media to the Boss,” by Ekaterina Walter,
a social media strategist at Intel. These are really valuable tips that are working for one of the corporate leaders in social media, Intel. I urge you to read the article in full but here is a summary of her main points:

Display current conversations
Don’t leave out competitor’s information
Show your industry peers’ successes and failures
Use data
Start small
Do risk analysis and contingency planning
Seek outside help
Create guidelines and enable your employees
Stay on course

How is your company doing?

Guidelines for Write Speak Sell Guest Blog Posts

Jeannette Paladino — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:00:59 +0000

[tweetmeme]I’ve been thinking that I should establish guidelines for guest posts on my blog, and have been tooling around the web and reading the guidelines of other folks who accept guest blogs. I wrote about this earlier and said I’d be drawing up a list of guidelines, so here they are.

It’s not that I’m such a big shot that people are clamoring to write for me and I’m holding them off with a stick. No, it’s more that I want to avoid miscommunications or hurt feelings when I receive a guest post (which I most likely have requested) and it’s not quite right for my blog.

These are not engraved in stone, so I’d appreciate your suggestions. Here goes:

The post needs to align with my brand: business writing that sells. Is your blog relevant to my audience? I reserve the right to make exceptions. Sometimes a piece is so good, even if it’s a little off the subject, that I’ll run with it.
It should be from 300-600 words with an image supplied by the author.
It needs to be well written (I know this seems obvious) and grammatically correct.
Every guest post by definition is self-promoting but it can’t be an outright sales pitch.
No affiliate links.
Internal links should be limited to your own blog and to sources that support the article’s main points.
My preference is for an original article. I’m agreeable to posting blogs that were previously published if they are chock full of information that would benefit my readers. But I need to know in advance so I can indicate the original source of the blog. The blog can’t infringe on anyone else’s copyrighted material.
If I use a guest post, which links back to the author’s site, I’d appreciate a link back to my site.
The author’s bio should be about 50 words with a link back to the writer’s site. It will go at the bottom of the post with a possible comment by me.
If a guest post on my site receives comments, then the author should respond to each one. It’s only common courtesy
It would be hard to think I wouldn’t publish a post because it doesn’t meet my criteria, but I do need to reserve that right.

So, what do you think? Anything to add?

Wow. Website Grader Gives My Blog a Top Ranking

Jeannette Paladino — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:00:06 +0000

Website Grader is a HubSpot program and gives your site an overall grade. Today I received an email from the company that said: “Your Website Grade improved by 4 points, from 93 to 97.” That means writespeaksell.com scores higher than 97% of the 2,646,608 websites that have been ranked so far.

Now I’m going for a grade of 100! Don’t know if I’ll make it, but I’m ready to try, with the help of my blogging buddies and my loyal readers.

Here is what the program analyzes:

Content: blogs, Google indexed pages and readability level
Optimization: metadata, headings, images, and interior page analysis
Promotion: how you rank on social media sites

As I read through the report, I also found that my Alexa Traffic Rank is in the top 6.38% of all websites. Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings.

Why is This Important to My Readers?

I’m feeling pretty good about my rankings. But here’s what’s important: apparently my content is helping my readers to solve a problem, learn something new or share my perspective on a current event. That’s my real goal: to provide value to people who take some of their precious time to visit my blog.

I’m blogging and writing for a living – having rebranded myself early last year as a Business Writer. I had held senior marketing communications positions with major corporations and agencies. But I felt it was time to re-invent myself. The world of social media was opening up and I wanted to be part of the action. I walked through the door into the blogosphere and I haven’t looked back.

I’m hooked. I love discovering new subjects to explore and I am very happy, dear readers, that you are visiting with me and enjoying what I have to say.

Thank you.

Get the Most out of Guest Blogs with Some Practical Guidelines

Jeannette Paladino — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:00:05 +0000

[tweetmeme]I don’t know about you, but I’m writing more guest blogs and inviting more people to write guest blogs for my site. It has happened sort of organically, but I’m also aware that it helps SEO if you link to another blog or they link to you.

So, if I’m going to continue to ask for guest posts, I need to create some guidelines for writers so that there are no misunderstandings or hurt feelings. Just as important, I need to be more strategic in asking for columns that align with my brand and are providing useful information for my readers. In turn, I need to be sure that I’m not saving the best for my own blog, but offering content-rich posts for other blogs.

Here are several sets of guidelines that I liked after a search of the web. I’ll pick out a few good tips from each to share in this post and you can go in and read them if you like.

Danny Brown. He actually set down some rules for when you write guest posts but they are just as relevant for your guest writers. Under “Make it Great” he asks these very relevant questions:

Would I be happy posting this on my own blog?
Is this the best this post can possibly be on this topic?
Am I being relevant to the audience of the blog I’m posting on?

The Bloggers Bulletin. This is a LinkedIn subgroup of The Blog Zone. I actually write guest posts for the group and these tips come from a post by Karen Fleeting.

Check the article writer’s credentials. Can they write?
Set the bar. The blog must be up to your quality standards.
Edit. Correct grammar and spell-check.
Ask for a link. You’re linking the post to their blog; ask for one in return.

Business.Gov. I was surprised, and delighted, to learn that the U.S. Small Business Administration accepts guest blogs for its Industry Word Guest Blog (this is something I will definitely check out). They have quite a few guidelines, and here are a few:

Avoid posting spam, pornography, offensive content, excessive spelling/grammatical errors or profanity.
Bloggers will offer unique advice and insight that is informational and apolitical in nature.
Bloggers agree to reply to comments. (this one is a must)

I’ll be writing up my guidelines soon. Leave a comment if you’d like me to send them to you. And I’d be interested in guest blog guidelines from my readers, too.

Word of Mouth (WOM) is Hot. Or, the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Jeannette Paladino — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:52:58 +0000

[tweetmeme]Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing is the newest buzzword, so it seems. Michael Stelzner devoted a column to it in Social Media Examiner today when reviewing location-based social networks like Foursquare. And no less an authority than McKinsey, the consulting firm, has carried two articles about WOM in recent months.

Social networks are providing a natural platform for marketers to try out coupons, contests and giveaways to generate buzz and sales. You’d think that they had invented something brand new.

Word of Mouth (WOM) the new buzzword

I’d like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the woman who virtually invented WOM, or viral marketing, way before the Internet enabled legions of communities on Twitter and Facebook to spread news around the world at the speed of sound.

Viral Marketing

In the 1980s, Linda Pezzano got the assignment to promote an obscure board game, called Trivial Pursuit. Linda was a friend, and before her untimely death in 1999, she showed me a presentation that she gave at marketing forums about how she reinvented the way games are marketed through viral marketing. Selchow & Righter, which bought the rights from the Canadian inventor, couldn’t afford traditional advertising. On a PR budget of $40,000 (about $88,000 today), Linda developed a program that generated sales of 1 million sets in the first year – an astounding and unimaginable number – without a penny spent on advertising.

The Story of How She Did It

What she did then is commonplace now, so let me tell you the story of how she did it. Linda convinced the company to let her send the game to the 70+ Hollywood stars mentioned in the game, such as Gregory Peck, James Mason and Pat Boone who liked playing it so much they sent her letters of thanks, which she then proceeded to use in her promotions. She also sent teaser mailings to 1,800 top buyers who would be attending the industry’s major trade show, the 1983 New York Toy Fair. She also sent sets to radio talk show hosts and staged game-playing events at parks, bars, restaurants and ski clubs to get WOM going. The rest, as they say, is history, with Trivial Pursuit becoming one of the most successful board games ever launched.

I just want to point out that many of the marketing techniques in use today in social media aren’t new. We are standing on the shoulders of pioneers like Linda Pezzano, in viral marketing, John Caples in direct marketing, and Edward L. Bernays, long recognized as the “father of public relations.” They achieved great things without the Internet, proving that original ideas are still the currency of successful marketing campaigns.

Blogging is Story Telling in Disguise

Brian Meeks — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:00:16 +0000

A Story

[tweetmeme]A few months back I was telling a story to my parents. It is one I have told many times, and my father especially enjoys it. A good friend of mine, who is nicknamed “Gretel,” was an avid community supporter and always attended the town council meetings. Lisbon, Iowa, is a small community of several thousand. He never missed a meeting. That is until one day he had a work conflict and there wasn’t any way he could change his schedule.

Brian Meeks

The next day, when walking through town, people kept congratulating him. He didn’t know what for. Nobody would tell him either. The people of Lisbon did enjoy seeing his confused look. It took him half the day, but eventually he discovered that there had been a discussion, the mayor had resigned, and by the end of the meeting, he had been elected Mayor, mostly because he wasn’t there to stop it.

My Dad always chuckles at this story and I enjoy telling it. But I had told it so many times, I wasn’t sure if all my facts were straight, or if I had made most of it up. So I called ‘Gretel’ and told him that I had been telling a story, of which he was the principal subject, but I couldn’t remember if it was true. So I told him the story, just as I had told it, and he laughed.

“Sadly, that is an accurate account. I served my one term, was done, and now know better than to miss a meeting.”

We both laughed.

Why I Love Stories

A blog post is a story in disguise

I tell this story, because it popped into my head when reading a friend’s blog. I really enjoy telling a story. I am not sure when I started to become a story teller, probably back in the mid-80’s when I got to know a group of friends who were all great story tellers, Gretel being one of the best.

Samuel L. Clemens, or as some would better know him, Mark Twain, told a great story. In fact, a 64-page handwritten manuscript of his just sold for $242,500, at auction. J.K. Rowling knows how to weave a tale. I know that when her books came out, I stood in line to get my copy and then spent the whole next day reading until I was done. (The last book took two days)

Stories have value and have been told throughout history. It is how we pass on pearls of wisdom. Stories can teach, they are able to persuade, and, if done well, they can motivate and uplift. If one names a human emotion, one can find a story which brings it out in each of us.

This is why I have found blogging to be such fun. I get to tell a story, every day, and there are no limits to what one can do, when crafting a tale. In one of my favorite blog pieces, entitled, My Days as a Ninja, not only did I travel back in time, but, when I was there, I had a Bosch circular saw. I am not above anachronisms in my writing, in fact, I thrive on them.

Earlier today I read a post which talked about blogging and how it can be difficult to think of material. I have to admit that in the 187 blog pieces (both my own and as a guest blogger), I have had a case of writer’s block. When I say “a case,” I truly mean singular. In nearly six months of writing nearly 900 words per day, I have only been stumped once, and it was more a case of being in a foul mood than being out of ideas. I ended up writing something anyway. I think it might have been a piece about how stumped I was, but I can’t remember, and I am way too lazy to go back and find it. The point is I got through it.

Cat story

And I guess that is the point of this blog post. If you blog, and who doesn’t anymore, then don’t worry about what to write about, just try to think of a story you would like to share. If you were sitting in a pub, with a glass of port and an attractive someone, what might you say to keep her engaged?

We all have stories. They are buried deep in us, waiting for that trigger which causes them to bubble to the surface. If the flirty lass in the pub mentioned sports, it would remind me of a story, if she said she liked animals, then I would tell a tale of “Harley the Cat,” if she wanted to talk about how cute she thought I was, then I would let her continue.

If you feel like you are getting stumped, then let your imagination take over. Picture yourself somewhere else and doing something you enjoy with people you feel comfortable with. Are you talking about politics? Maybe a discussion about wine has started? If you do this, I am sure the old light bulb will turn on. Whatever the topic, I bet you have a story, and then you will have your next blog piece.

***

I write a blog at Extremely Average. Mostly I write about my adventures in woodworking, but on occasion I delve into photography, social media, or just go crazy and write some fiction. Obviously I have trouble focusing. I make my living managing customer relations and social media for Preferred Vendor, in the HR and Recruiting industry. So basically, I do this all day long, every day. I love it. I am thrilled to be asked to write a guest blog piece on Jeannette’s blog. On a personal note, I like tennis, golf, woodworking, blogging, thinking about woodworking while I golf and then writing about it in my blog. I also like cheese and think that monkey and glockenspiel are two really funny words. If you play me in Scrabble, be aware that I know my ‘Q’ words which don’t require a “u.”

Blogging as the Centerpiece of a Company’s Social Media Strategy

Jeannette Paladino — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 20:29:19 +0000

[tweetmeme]I’ve been blogging about twice a week for well over a year now. I gave my first update last summer about why I blog. Write Speak Sell would become the focal point of my thoughts about communicating ideas, which is at the heart of what I have done professionally for over 30 years. It’s liberating to say what you really think and believe, while always being authentic.

A blog is the centerpiece of a company's social media strategy

Since then I’ve also come to believe that a blog is the centerpiece a company’s social media strategy, both internally and externally. The CEO is where it all starts. Wise leaders are using social media because that’s where their employees and customers are.

The CEO needs to be talking directly to the company’s stakeholders regularly with quick takes on new developments. A blog is the perfect vehicle because the nature of a blog is to be informal and for it to express the personality and communicate the authentic convictions of the writer.

A blog liberates the CEO from his ivory tower and into conversations with employees and customers in the social media communities they populate. This is a big culture change for most companies.

With a keystroke, the CEO can distribute her blog to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites where people are getting their information now days. She can be out there first with the news, before the rumors and misinformation start flying around the Internet. There isn’t time for a press release vetted by a dozen lawyers before it’s distributed. Everything is transparent now.

Employee Engagement

The CEO can profoundly influence the company’s future success when employees to buy into his vision. But employees can’t march in step with a CEO who doesn’t engage them in a two-way conversation about his goals for them and the company. If he does that, they can become the company’s most important brand advocates and commit to providing superior customer service.

Once again, I cite Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh as the pioneer. In his blog last year he wrote a piece, “Your Culture” In it he said, “It’s a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire by email or with tools like Twitter. The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.”

Good advice and a good example to follow.

They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano But When I Started to Play!

Jeannette Paladino — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:00:55 +0000

[tweetmeme]This is no doubt one of the most famous advertising headlines in history, written by the direct marketing expert John Caples in 1926. The ad was to solicit correspondence course students for the U. S. School of Music. The full-page ad was dense with copy – several hundred words filling the entire page. Then, as now, the debate raged about whether people will read long copy. Or, should copy be short and crisp? Fast forward to today: should blogs and other social media copy be short or long?

John Caples famous ad

Ads starting, “They laughed when….” are still being written. A few recent examples: “They Laughed When I Went To Buy Tax Liens, But When Those Checks Started Rolling In”, “They Laughed When He Ran Away From the Basket… Until He Sank the Three Pointer!” and “They Laughed When I Said There Was a Secret to Writing Good Headlines.”

Why was the Caples ad so successful and compelling and still being imitated? For starters, it uses one of the oldest tricks in the books – it teases you in. You want to learn what happened when he started to play. Did they stop laughing? Did people listen?

It also fed the desire of most people who wished they could play the piano like Chopin or Rachmaninov. Gradually, Caples reeled them so they could learn how to play right in their own homes.

So, we still need the answer to the question: when people today are collapsing under information overload, will they read long copy? Or is it necessary to feed readers with bite-size chunks of copy? Here is my answer: it depends. I know, that sounds like fence sitting.

Whatever Works

But what do your readers want to learn about the subject? Is it complex? Does it need more explanation than short copy allows? The answer to the question is to write as long as it takes to make your case. I was pleased that Copy Blogger wrote about this and came up with pretty much the same answer – whatever works.

Here is another recent point of view from Direct Creative Blog. I liked this a lot: “You should be interested in that part of the market who are interested in your products. These are the people seeking information and who will read your copy, even very long copy.”

I was reminded of that when I was in the market for a digital camera. All of a sudden I started noticing ads for digital cameras. They were always there, but I wasn’t in the market. When I decided I needed a new digital camera I read everything I could, even long copy, or especially long copy, because I wanted as much information as I could find before I made a decision to buy.

We do need to remember this: the difference in social media copy is that it is being read on a computer, most likely a laptop and more often on a smart phone. So the key points need to be “above the fold” to capture the reader’s attention. That is the reason Twitter limited messages to 140 characters because that’s about how many fit on the screen of a cell phone.

Well, I’ve written a lot make a point: use short copy when that’s all you need to make the sale. Use long copy when that’s what you need to make the sale. End of debate.

Turning Customers into Your Company’s Brand Advocates

Jeannette Paladino — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:00:36 +0000

[tweetmeme]Customers can become valuable brand advocates for your products and services, according to a McKinsey study. I’m a firm believer that companies can leverage their own employees on social networks to advocate for their brands and I’ve written about that. But the McKinsey study, “Four ways to get more value from digital marketing,” is convincing in its point of view that traditional advertising and point-of-sale promotions, one-way channels to customers, are losing potency to the power of interactive communications with customers who then become your brand advocates.

Viral marketing gains new customers

Not surprising. “Moving from a one-way, company-driven sales mentality to a two-way relationship with consumers requires core changes in the way marketers do business,” the study learned. Digital technology has changed the way consumers make purchasing decisions. Instead of asking friends and families for recommendations, consumers now read online reviews, compare features and prices on websites and discuss options on social networking sites. This is a golden opportunity for companies to find out what customers are looking for and to respond to their needs directly one-to-one.

The term “marketing to the one” became a buzzword a few years back. But now it has become a reality. Among leading companies that have leveraged this two-way conversation are Comcast, Dell and American Express. They constantly monitor what their customers are saying about their products and service. Smart companies are also revamping their websites and launching online promotions that engage their customers in a way that was impossible just a short time ago.

But most companies are, unfortunately, still mired in their old ways, spending most of their marketing spend on paid advertising reaching the many. Digital marketers reverse this, focusing on a smaller core of engaged people who spread their message.

Inspiring customers to help stretch your marketing budgets

Back to customers as brand advocates. Digital marketers let “customers do more of the heavy lifting as they decide what to look at, play with content and forward it to their online communities,” says McKinsey. I would call them brand advocates for the companies that treat them well and provide outstanding products and service.

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk, in his book “Crush It,” offers a powerful example of the effectiveness of viral marketing. For his wine business, he spent $7,500 to offer free shipping codes via three traditional advertising channels: a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike, direct mail, and radio. The billboard brought in 170 orders, radio 240, and direct mail 300+. Then, at no cost, he sent out a free shipping code via his Twitter account and received 1,700 orders in 48 hours. No doubt, many of his followers retweeted the offer to their friends. They became brand advocates for winelibrary.com.

Is your company engaging your employees and customers as brand advocates? I would love to hear your stories.

Is its New Social Media Director Important Enough for McDonald’s to Announce?

Jeannette Paladino — Fri, 14 May 2010 01:26:31 +0000

McDonald's has a new social media director

[tweetmeme]I’m not sure how I came upon the story first – about Rick Wion being appointed McDonald’s first Director of Social Media – but I thought it was great news because social media is so important now to every company and every human being, actually. So, after trolling around the web to read a few more stories about Mr. Wion, I decided to go to McDonald’s website to read its press release with the official announcement. Nada.

I tried searching his name, social media director, the name of his boss, combining them, and decoupling them. I found nothing (I hope McDonald’s corrects this impression if they read this and I’m wrong). I thought this would be a big deal for the company.

How important is a social media director in McDonald’s or any company? I would think it’s very important – but maybe I’m “into it” more I imagine other people to be. So I went to the trusty Google key word search tool and typed in “social media director.” Not enough data to measure. What? Isn’t social media the greatest thing to hit since the manual typewriter? Aren’t companies scrambling to attract beaucoup Facebook fans and Tweeps?

True, and I was relieved to find that Google shows 1,220,000 searches for “social media.” That’s a nice hefty number. But….that’s less than 1% of 307 million Americans (OK, we shouldn’t count new-born babies) who cared enough about social media to search the term last month.

I have visions of this very small tribe (thanks Seth) of social media maniacs who think they are part of a very large tribe in a world that revolves around pixels and blogs and Steve Jobs. Not so.

There are an awful lot of people who still own the first cell phone they ever bought, could give a hoot about social networks (165,000 searches) and wouldn’t know a tweep if they fell over one.

I’m still convinced that social media and the Internet are essential as a tool for commerce and for doing good. But it does surprise me how few true believers there are out there. The numbers look big, but social media is still an * for most people.