Key trends

1. How not if
2. TV on everything and social on everything
3. Location based marketing will continue to grow
4. Social cultures will evolve out of social use
5. Social CRM will move mainstream
6. India is rising
7. A return to engagement
8. Rewards versus contests
9. Filters will dampen the noise
10. Social networks will become more fluid and mobile
11. Corporate social intranets

Potential pitfalls

1. App overload
2. Lack of conversation management
3. No policy, training or identity management
4. Lack of true internal social culture
5. Domestic focus and culture
6. Competitors get better at local, mobile and intimacy
7. No follow-up after the contests (see engagement)
8. Hard push back for no engagement

Hiring a social media manager, social media coordinator, chief tweeter or whatever you might call it is a challenging endeavor. There are many brands which have experienced great success and many who have also shot the foot off of their brand on the internet. Social media is not a department or a cubicle, it represents the most powerful word of mouth (or word of mouse) channels that have ever existed. Too many organizations aren’t strategic about who they hire internally or how they intend on implementing social media and integrating it into their business processes. Today’s podcast covers four major areas you need to look at (there are many more) before hiring.

Social Media Tools and Networks are a significant force that is growing. We cannot afford to avoid using them. The truth is in the numbers:

•Facebook: 800 Million People
•Linkedin: 100 Million Professionals representing every company on the Fortune 500
•Twitter: 250 million status updates per day and Twitter search is now the second most used search engine on the planet
•Youtube: 2 Billion Views Per Day

A recent study released by AirPlus International Travel on business travelers has a also cited a significant spike in social media use and stated the following:

“83 percent of respondents indicated they participate in social media sites this year, as compared to 77 percent last year. When delving into specific platforms, LinkedIn users, which held virtually steady in 2009 (58 percent) and 2010 (59 percent), jumped to 74 percent this year. Facebook also grew from a low of 45 percent in 2009 to 55 percent in 2010 and to 62 percent this year.” – Travelpulse.com

This all adds up to one important conclusion. It’s not a question of whether or not your customer uses social media or social networks. The question is are you fully prepared to profit from it?

Progressive marketers such as the Palms Resort and Casino in Las Vegas have seen the rise of the social customer and have responded proactively. Using the industry leading social media influence ranking index Klout.com the Palms will upgrade and roll-out the red carpet for big influencers. They also provide some basic perks for those of us that are social regardless if we rank high – a thank-you for connecting with them socially. Palms calls it their “Klout Klub.”

Before using social media we need to understand some core principles:

#1) Social Media messaging is not produced solely by a marketing team.

Expand marketing roles to everyone possible, taking the number of marketing messages and multiplying them significantly online. In addition to this realize that any customer facing staff need to be well versed in your Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare promotions. Nothing is worse than investing in a brilliant online marketing campaign that your front office doesn’t deliver on.

#2) Provide social media training to all staff.

More important than training on the tools is training on the principles of using the tools. There is a specific etiquette to engaging people in each of the major networks.

#3) Have a social media policy and process that outlines how to engage customers online, and how to deal with influencers in-person.

This should include guidance on how to deal with negativity, social events, and clients. Important note: If your guidelines are too stringent and you take the fun out of Twitter or blogging don’t be surprised if your efforts fall flat.

#4) Listen and Engage in Real-time

Social media is about listening, community, adding value and entertaining people. It’s about a dialogue. It is a two-way communications medium. “Talking at” people or “blasting updates” is not true engagement and it’s not good for your brand either. The biggest opportunity in social media in in the “now.” It’s about instantly engaging the influencer who has announced to Twitter that they are in your lobby, or thanking the person who took the time to check-in on Foursquare while attending a conference at your hotel. That instant feedback and dialogue is what builds brands and lets the customer you care on a very personal level.

#5) Get Local

Every hotel group should have a Twitter and Facebook account but I don’t believe that you should stop at a nationally operated profiles. Go the next step and empower your front line marketing and sales teams to engage with customers on a local level using Twitter, Facebook and any other platforms your customers use. This will give you an advantage over marketing generalists that have not gone hyper-local with their social media efforts.

This blog post was adapted from an article written for the Cdn Hotels Marketing & Sales Executives.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years. He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down. When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. (http://socialized.me)

The panel I sat on was on “Technology Implementation over the last 20 years in our schools. The panelists were: Michael Goldberg, Economist, Marty Keast, President of the School Division for Pearson Education, Linda Fabi, Director of Education for the Waterloo District School Board and the panel was kicked off by a very engaging and insightful talk by Thomas Greaves.

Thomas who is the co-author of “America’s Digital Schools” spearheaded an in-depth research project called Project Red, of which he shared key findings with us. They did an in-depth study of 997 schools (K-12) in the USA and looked at 136 different variables in regards to technology and it’s impact on student engagement, drop rates and even the positive economic impacts and savings associated with schools that are digital.

The schools that had some or all of the above 9 factors implemented effectively outperformed comparable schools that had not embraced technology. Very few schools (I believe only 1 if my notes are correct) apply all 9 strategically and comprehensively.

The one thing that really stood out for me is that fact that students that were allowed to regularly use search and social media in the classroom outperformed those that didn’t. One big question from the audience of over 100 school superintendents, directors and technology partners is: “Where a how do we start with social media?”

My thoughts would be to do the following: (which is expanded upon in this podcast):

#1) Start with a social media policy for district staff from senior executives to principles and teachers. Then expand that to a policy for students, volunteers, parents and any other stakeholders.

#2) Have a series on initial buy-in sessions for staff at all level to help see the scope of social media and it’s impact and relevance in education. This is vital as so many people have varied knowledge and assumptions about social communications. The biggest barrier to implementation is often misinformation and/or politics.

#3) Put together a step by step strategy to implement social media at the school board level. (If leadership isn’t using it how can they tell principals and teachers to do it?

#4) Collaboratively work with Principals and Teachers to build an implementation plan at the school level. (Start with a few pilot schools)

#5) Each plan should involve training in both policy, the rules of engagement, online learning best practices, and in the key tools used by today’s digital citizens (including but not limited to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and social search/monitoring) Some of this training can be done by student leaders.

#6) Develop curriculum to help get students social media literate. This educational component must address online etiquette, safety, and the value of collaboration and positive social communications.

#7) Reward collaborators and contributors at all levels.

There is a lot more to this process but the key opportunity and core ingredient for success in using social media for learning is the bi-directional communications and collaborations. It’s no longer about talking at kids in the classroom, it’s about engaging them in two-way dialogue and creating an environment where a network of students (and their teachers) can learn together through networked intelligence.

One statement that was made over and over was that collectively the computing power of smartphones that people bring to school far out-powers what is in the average school computer inventory/labs. The educational environment of the very near future is highly networked, always on, and very mobile. Those organizations that apply all 9 Factors indicated above can prosper in this new environment.

I decided instead of just replying in the comments section that I would take the time to respond in the form of a podcast. Why? It’s so vital to understand the role of psychology and community in Guerrilla Marketing.

I also think it’s important to establish that Guerrilla Marketing is well defined, and it’s body of wisdom and definition that is widely accepted and used by over 20 million readers of the Guerrilla Marketing Series of books. Some people will take pieces of the body of wisdom and use them to suit their outlook on marketing but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In addition to this just because you slap the term guerrilla on a book, blog post or marketing campaign it doesn’t make it guerrilla.

Here are the facts:

1. The term “guerrilla marketing” was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson and popularized by his best selling book that was released in 1983. Guerrilla Marketing uses unconventional means to achieve conventional goals,  it relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. (We added community on-top of time, energy and imagination for Guerrilla Social Media Marketing because of the vital role it plays in social media marketing).
2. Since then over 20,000,000 (that’s twenty million) books have been sold and read in Jay Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing series of books making it the #1 best selling series of marketing books in history. Jay’s definition is the original and most widely accepted definition and grows by 1million readers and fans per year.
3. Guerrilla’s apply and use the 19 Guerrilla Marketing Secrets (Principles).

Instead of paraphrasing why true guerrillas must understand and depend on psychology, I have posted in Jay’s own (timeless) words the importance:

Guerrilla marketing does not rely on guesswork because wrong guesses are so darned expensive. Instead, it relies upon psychology as much as possible. Psychology used to be a body of theories. Today, many of those theories have been debunked while others have been transformed into laws, actual laws of human behavior. Guerrillas lean on these laws because they want certainty to be a hallmark of their marketing.

There are 15 things that all guerrillas know about psychology as marketing is slowly transforming from guesswork into science:

1. Purchase decisisons are made in the unconscious mind. People may say the words consciously, but they process the data in their unconscious.
2. We now know how to access the unconscious mind. The way to do it is with repetition. Put these two thoughts together — purchase decisions are made in the unconscious, and you can access the unconscious with repetition, and you begin to understand the entire process of marketing.
3. People are either left-brained or right-brained. Left-brained people respond to sequential, logical reasons and love marketing that gives ten reasons to buy. Right-brained people respond to emotional, aesthetic appeals and love marketing that looks stunning and tugs at heartstrings. Guerrillas are sure to hit both left and right-brained people.
4. Businesses that succeed are those that form two bonds with all customers: the human bond and the business bond. The stronger the human bond, the stronger the business bond. Connect up as two human beings before you connect up as buyer and seller.
5. All marketing has two messages — the stated message and the metamessage. The stated message is what you say. The metamessage, often stronger than the stated message, is what your marketing looks like, feels like, where it appears, what size it is, and how professional it appears.
6. If you’re interested in increasing your share of market, the way to do it is to first increase your share of mind. If you go only for the share of market, don’t expect much customer loyalty — or even many customers.
7. There are two schools of marketing hard at work in America these days — Freudian marketing, which is based on Sigmund Freud’s work and aims for a change of attitude — and Skinnerian marketing, based on B.F. Skinner’s proof of the power of behavior modification. Which does a guerrilla choose? Both. Guerrillas constantly implant attitudes while peppering their prospects with special offers that require instant action.
8. During a recession, the tactics that generate sales are: leaning on current customers, enlarging the size of each transaction, offering a guarantee, and showing that high prices are an assurance against making a purchase mistake — something nobody wants to do during a recession.
9. Realize that people hate taking the hard step of buying something, so guerrillas use soft steps to make the hard step a little easier. Soft steps include things like free consultations, free seminars, brochures, videos, demonstrations, and free samples.
10. Full color marketing materials increase retention by 57% and increase inclination to buy by 41%. And the cost of full-color drops dramatically if you tell the printer you have the patience to wait for a gang run.
11. Use as much non-verbal communication as you can. There are only about 250,000 commonly-used words in the English language, but there are 600,000 non-verbal gestures. They are more potent than the spoken words.
12. You can gain guerrilla marketing power if you blend customer insight with product insight. The more your insight, the better your marketing.
13. The way guerrillas view their marketing is as an opportunity to help their customers succeed. If you do the same, your profits will show it.
14. A key to successful marketing is making each of your customers feel a special way. The way they should feel is unique. Not easy, but necessary.
15. It is essential that you constantly feel a sense of dissatisfaction with your marketing and try to improve it without changing your identity. This personality trait will fare you well in the marketing wars.

So I have a challenge when someone (for their own self-interest) tries to redefine Guerrilla Marketing. Add to it? Great! Innovate? Great! But don’t negate, shrink, or dilute it. Back off. It is a timeless body of wisdom that has grown to be mainstream but it is more relevant than today than it was 20 years ago. It works, it’s simple, and it’s time tested.

Guerrilla Marketing is a body of wisdom and movement. It’s bigger and more important than campaigns, tricks, or tactics. To learn more about the book that started the movement (and continues to grow daily and globally). You can visit http://gmarketing.com.

Have a listen to the podcast and tell me what you think!

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We talked about how you can take one blog post and repurpose it in at least seven different ways.  Patrick shared with us a few simple tips, that can build a MASSIVE online identity while working less than most of our competitors competitors.

We also covered some important social media how-to’s:

1. Five places to get great content ideas.
2. Seven ways to repurpose your content online.
3. The reality behind blogs, content and getting found online.
4. The three-part “winning formula” for social media success.

For more information on Patrick’s book and a free gift visit http://www.80shortcuts.com/gifts

Here are the slides to go with the presentation:

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years. He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down. When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Today’s podcast is a little different than most. It outlines the upcoming Social Media Week in Vancouver that my team and I at Socialized! are putting together (with some massive help from our community, sponsors and our advisory board). I will posting a full text outline of this as well on the Social Media Week Vancouver blog shortly. In the meantime, have a listen and if you’re anywhere near Vancouver we would really like to have you attend, sponsor or even speak.

The question of course is what makes someone influential? Should we look at the Klout score of the people they interact with? Possibly the number of important bloggers that write about them? Or is it simply how viral or broad their message gets shared? As a guerrilla social media marketer I measure success in profit and net-action or results. For this podcast I want to focus on a section right out of our Social Media Rules of Engagement training module. Here is the basis for what we consider influential:

John C. Maxwell said it best when he said “Leadership is Influence.”

He didn’t say leadership is a good idea, a vision or a title. He said influence. Influence can be defined for our purposes as causing someone to take action (internally as and personal growth or externally as in doing something). So we can imply the following:

Influence = Action

Following are some examples of action:

• Message gets passed on
• Get linked to
• Changing or molding views
• Registering and attending events
• Solving problems
• Getting feedback
• Listening and creating brand and relationships
• Generating dialogue
• Getting press
• Capturing an e-mail address or contact info

There are many more. The important factor here is to go beyond the Klout score mentality and realize that people are not an algorithm. I check my Klout on a regular basis, but it’s value of the actions we create determine if we are truly influential. So to summarize this:

Leadership = Influence = High Value Action

The Seven Sins of Social Media Citizens

1. Entertaining Rumor
2. Forgetting Where You Started
3. Joining Community Solely for Personal Growth
4. Disengaged Once We Are Launched
5. Repurposing Without Credit
6. Using Your Voice to Bully Other Opinions
7. Building Blockades Offline (Being a two-faced Tweeter)

I have broke most of these rules (it was a learning process) and they were hard lessons. Hopefully this podcast will help you shorten your learning curve. Did I miss anything?

If you don’t want it on the internet – DON’T DO IT – and if you do it and it ends up on the internet it’s not the crowd’s fault or the the social media communities fault — the responsibility is yours. This goes for executives, public figures and teenagers at a riot. We are humble today or we will be humbled tomorrow.

What are your thoughts?

“When mission is clear abundance will appear.”

This is a vital statement and principle. I discuss it in greater depth in my podcast today.

If you want to start reading thebook on your iPad in the next 5 minutes you can always pick up a copy at the iTunes store.

Buy the Book

1. Social Media Fact: @Banff_Squirrel has more Twitter followers than most marketing experts.
2. Social Media Tip: Content is not King [or Queen ] Connection rapport and trust are today’s currencies.
3. Social Media Tip: build the community, contribute to others success, be authentic and people will line up to help you as well.
4. Social Media Tip: treat likes, followers, and connections on any network like gold. Those are votes of trust and confidence.
5. Social Media Tip: Contrast keeps the conversation fresh. Vary your update and blog formats. Use multiple media to engage.
6. Any social media activity that involves deception, trademark or copyright infringement isn’t guerrilla marketing. It’s lazy marketing.
7. Social Media Tip: it’s not old versus new media — it’s about integrating the right media for the right market.
8. Social Media Tip: In the “Thank-you Economy” don’t outsource or automate your thank-you’s.
9. Social Media Tip: People will read your Tweets and blog posts in the context of their goals and needs. See through their eyes.
10. Social Media Tip: Social media marketing is not a fad. BUT social media consultants now need deeper business knowledge.
11. Social Media Tip: Blogging is not dead, but recycling content and cut-and-paste mentalities are getting old.
12. Social Media Tip: social media strategy needs to be in-line with your business culture and integrated with your business processes.
13. Social Media Tip: Having a Twitter account is like having a telephone. It’s just a tool. How are you going to use it to win?
14. Social Media Tip: Being an early adopter is not enough. You need to evolve with your market and the tools to stay relevant.
15. Social Media Tip: Your rules of engagement will be in context with your goals and your target market’s culture/etiquette.
16. Social Media Tip: Activity doesn’t equal profitability. Activity that builds relationships = mindshare = walletshare. Build relationships.
17. Want to increase the number of people that follow you back on Twitter? Try taking an interest in them. Marketing is a conversation.
18. Social Media Tip: All of the engagement and trust you have built evaporates when your community finds out you outsource your conversations.
19. Social Media Tip: You can go it alone, brave the storms and reach great heights by yourself. BUT half the joy is in bringing people with you
20. Social Media Tip: hiring the wrong social media help can be worse than not doing it. Be prepared. Assess them & where you are starting from
21. Leadership Tip: You don’t need to make someone else irrelevant to raise your profile. In fact you’re usually only hurting your brand.
22. Remember it’s not a about blogging, Twitter, Facebook or the next great thing. It’s how you use it. Wisdom comes from mistakes. Experiment.
23. Social Media Tip: You are never too popular to be humble. In fact no matter who you are eventually the web will humble you
24. Being on a path of integrity isn’t a one time choice. It’s a lifetime of commitment and daily decisions.
25. Social Media Tip: Use hootsuite to flag DM’s from other people in Twitter for future follow-up. They can often get buried.
26. Social Media Tip: Subscribe to your twitter searches as RSS feeds in your feed reader so that you only have to do the search once…ever.
27. Social Media Trend: Community building skills are becoming more important than pitching or selling.
28. Good things come to those wait — but they’re usually the things left behind by those who hustle. Giddy up!
29. Social media monitoring is vital. The opportunity is in engaging at the right time with the right person on the right topic.
30. Leadership Tip: You can never lose by investing in good people. Err on the side of generosity. It will pay in efficiency and loyalty.
31. Social Media Tip: Educate and equip all staff to be social… it provides less headache and greater ROI than policing them.
32. Social Media Tip: The longer you try to contain social media use to one department the further behind you will be from the marketplace.
33. Good publicity is about doing the right thing and getting the word out. Integrity is about doing the right thing when no one is looking.
34. Social Media Tip: If you are more aware of the community gossip than you are of the community needs then you’re going the wrong direction.
35. Social Media Tip: Stop seeking recognition from the cool kids… instead strive to be significant to the/your community
36. Social Media Tip: The more open we are with other people the more willing they are to share with us.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Today’s podcast was inspired by a couple of conversations I have had recently. The recurring issue is people and organizations revamping their websites (some spending thousands and thousands of dollars) and not having a social media strategy before doing so. Many sites are built by well meaning developers or agencies that haven’t considered what a truly social site and blog are.

I personally think organizations should have a plan, strategy and spec their sites to be social and easily adaptable to new social media tools and trends (and not cost huge amounts of money in the process). Have a listen to my podcast and let me know your thoughts on this.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Today I will talk about three things that will help you rise above the crowd:

1. Consistency
2. Niche and Nano-marketing
3. Connecting (Connection is King. Content is secondary)

This is day 5 of my 30 day podcasting challenge. I will be posting a new podcast everyday for the next 30 days. If you would like to contribute as a guest on the show e-mail me shane@socialized.me. Otherwise a comment, tweet or Facebook share would be greatly appreciated.

Today’s podcast

I cover it briefly in the podcast but here’s my thoughts on Shankman’s statements. It’s been a full week since the post but people keep emailing me asking my opinion on his blog post. (On a side note: nice work on Peter’s part for all the traffic generated).

Here’s my response to a client:

Instead of becoming a best seller like Guy Kawasaki he feels he needs to put down the entire industry to prove his superiority.

There are good and bad accountants, lawyers, authors, sales trainers, digital agencies and Apple “experts” out there. Shankman points out the obvious: be a good marketer, be customer service orientated, don’t misspell stuff, don’t let an intern do your social media. But you do need to help your team effectively socialize… and many of the social media disaster stories we read about every week come from companies that went it alone and didn’t get mentorship or study bast practices that already exist.

Social media is just a tool, you do need a strategy, an understanding of your customer and yes it should be integrated into multiple departments and with the rest of your business, marketing and customer service strategy. (Integration was one of the parts of your assessment).

I do not have a lot of love or time for people giving bad, ill-informed advice and misleading people or as Guy calls it
“Enchanting Gullible People.” There are a lot of clueless experts out there selling useless crap. On the other hand people like Shankman who want to group everyone and everything into on pile and suggest they should be burned to death really helps no one.

The bottom line: marketing and sales success principles will prevail… but the platforms for engagement have changed and customer tolerance for pitching or in-authentic engagement has decreased. We are in a new era with new opportunities (and new risks).

Have a listen to today’s podcast rant and let me know what you think!

Here’s an excerpt from her bio:

Jessica Northey, SocialMediologist
(Social=Friendly, Media=Form of Communication, Ology=Study Of)

Tucson Native Jessica Northey is taking over Country Music and Radio one Tweet at a time. Specializing in, using Social Media when you ARE the brand, breaking new artists and strategic use of Social Media for Broadcasting; her optimization techniques are being implemented at top stations across the nation, and her writings/methods instructional material for various programs from Real Estate to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

She is a Social Media, Broadcasting, Country and Music Blogger/Writer, Nationally Recognized Speaker, On-Air Personality, Daily Columnist for AllAccess.com, the web’s largest radio and music industry community, who owns Social Media boutique firm Finger Candy Media, LLC.

Having a personal network of over 140,000 followers and a second order influence of over 4 million she is consistently ranked in the top 100 most influential people on Twitter (in the world) according to TwitterGrader.com and in the October Issue of Fast Company Magazine was shown as one of the most influential people on Social Media ranking at 109.

This is day 3 of my 30 day podcasting challenge. I will be posting a new podcast everyday for the next 30 days. If you would like to contribute as a guest on the show e-mail me shane@socialized.me. Otherwise a comment, tweet or Facebook share would be greatly appreciated.

I asked Stephen to come on the show to discuss best practices in the area of outsourcing and the technology needed to lead virtual teams.

I have had a number of inquiries from my tech and social media brethren about how to present on stage. Some are gentle questions like “how many slides should I have for a one hour presentation?” to outright pleas for help such as “I’m terrified of audiences over 20 people, how do I present our new iPhone app at this conference?”

Geeks (science or tech savvy and knowledgeable folks who get turned on by pixels, pings, microchips, biology, chemistry, APIs etc.) tend to struggle with presentations, yet if they master the art they can have a massive impact on their business and career (think Steve Jobs or David Suzuki).

Too many people think content is king. Connection is king. Unless you can connect with your audience and engage them effectively your geek speak will mean very little to them. Today’s podcast covers a few insights on better stage presentations.

[This is day one of my 30 day podcasting challenge, I will be posting a new podcast everyday for the next month, drop by, make a comment or share a link to the podcast you posted today).

I then looked at my roster of podcasts and realized that I have much more to share. The podcasting seems to happen after the client work, proposals, research, books etc. BUT it has been a major driving force in my business and I have been less than generous with my listeners. I should be giving you way more in the form of interviews, strategy and just sharing the things I’m learning everyday.

I decided to publicy make myself accountable and also ask for your help. Starting today I will be doing 30 podcasts over 30 days.  I would also like to challenge you to contribute in a few ways:

1. If you’re a podcaster – take the challenge with me. Start sharing more of your knowledge more often today.
2. If you are an author, subject matter expert or are having success using social media for business, community building or charity — reach out to me and lets get you on the show TODAY.
3. If you’re a listener, Twitter connection, LinkedIn associate or Facebook friend take a moment to listen to the podcasts, submit your questions, share what you like and let me know what you think. Heckle me if you feel like it!

That’s it. Thanks for coming along this journey with me. I hope you enjoy the show. (I am posting two podcasts today just to get a head start — come back in an hour!)

Shane Gibson
Chief Social Officer
Socialized! Ltd.
http://socialized.me
Blog: http://www.closingbigger.net
Got iTunes? Click here to subscribe our Podcast!: http://tinyurl.com/itunes-sales-podcast
Follow Shane on Twitter: http://twitter.com/shanegibson

You say you want to use social media to engage, grow your business and build community. You say you care… BUT WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU. Why you ask?

• You say you care but you rarely follow anyone back on Twitter that follows you
• You say you care on Twitter and Facebook but you send us back to the customer call center – you know… the one that started the problem in the first place.
• You say you care but you rarely say thank you when we say good things about you on our blog
• You say you care but your senior executives have never actually ever Tweeted or posted anything to Facebook, it’s obvious they think it’s below them
• You say you care but your Facebook page is full of links to your marketing materials and events and isn’t about how you can help me
• You say you care but even when I comment on your Facebook updates or blog posts you never comment back – you just keep score.
• You say you care but you got me interested in what you had to say on your blog and then you stopped posting
• You say you care but you make me wait days before my blog comments are approved – I’m long gone by then
• You say you care but even when I like your content it’s hard to share, you make me cut, paste, shrink urls and even write the headlines to your content
• You say you care but your onsite staff don’t even know you have a Facebook contest, FourSquare mayor or a Twitter account. They think I’m speaking a foreign language.
• You say you care that today’s consumer uses social media to communicate, build community and make connections – but your actions say YOU DON’T.

Dear Big Brands – marketing is a conversation now. Social media has opened up the channels for communication, collaboration, and customer interaction. We are not waiting for you to get involved in the conversation. It is already happening.

Sincerely,

Shane Gibson

@ShaneGibson
(On behalf of all of us)

1. Social media tip: life is an experiment. Be willing to make mistakes, challenge your own assumptions and break the mold to win.
2. Social Media Tip: It’s not social if the result isn’t about building relationships, trust or community.
3. Social Media Steps: 1: Have a goal. 2: Know your market. 3: Monitor & Listen. 4: Identify Needs 5: Create Focused Content & Conversation.
4. Social Media Tip: You can’t buy trust and you can’t outsource authenticity.
5. Social Media Tip: the customer is operating in real-time. Socialize your whole team so you can too!
6. Social Media Tip: Always go back to the basics. If you’re no longer getting the results you want, look at what you stopped doing.
7. Social Media Tip: The numbers mean very little. A small group of passionate people is and always has been a majority.
8. Leadership Tip: The quest for knowledge for the sake of empowering those around us is one of the most powerful intents in leadership.
9. Leadership Tip: Don’t let your Ego separate you from other people. We are more alike than we are different.
10. Sales Tip: treat mid-month with as much urgency as month end and your year end will look a lot better.
11. Social Media Tip: it’s okay to make mistakes — but remedy them quickly — apologize and then move on
12. Social Media Tip: it’s never too late to say thank-you. Reach out a acknowledge those in your community who make a difference.
13. Social Media Tip: People don’t care about your marketing tweets until they know how much you care about them.

1. Have a custom background that tells what you do and who you are
2. Have a complete bio with keywords that people search for
3. When you follow people, find something to comment on or ask a relevant question to let them know you’re there and are conversational and community focused
4. Make sure your Twitter profile is recognizable and real. Photos of celebrities, cartoons or logos tend to get less follow-backs than a profile with a real smiling human face.
5. Follow people who recently followed your competitors
6. Follow people who are complaining about your competitors
7. Follow-back those that follow you. Many will un-follow after a period of time if you do not follow-back. Avoid following spammers, pornbots or anything that doesn’t resonate with your values or personal brand of course.
8. Look at your competitors public lists and follow those that are relevant
9. If you’re a local business use Twitter local search to find people talking about your business, industry or community and follow them (remember to interact)
10. Search for relevant industry #hash tags ( ie #scrm #rechat #bieber or whatever your target market talks about) follow those people, then as per #3 – reach out and communicate.
11. Use relevant #hash tags on topics, conferences, and issues and attract more followers
12. Search Twellow.com for regional influencers and follow them
13. Search Twellow.com for industry specific or topic specific people and follow them
14. Register for Twellow.com and fill in the expanded profile and bio section, you will show up in more searches.
15. Change your Twitter bio from time to time to attract new markets through search
16. Put your Twitter address on your business card, brochures and any other printed material you give out
17. Have a decal designed and put your Twitter address on the back of your laptop (I have had a number of new and interesting followers and it’s a good ice-breaker at coffee shops and airports)
18. Finish all of your blog posts with a short bio that suggests people follow you in Twitter
19. When making comments on blogs, many ask for a web address – give your Twitter address instead
20. Have a prominent Twitter badge displayed on every page of your site and/or blog that links to your profile
21. Let your Facebook and Linkedin connections know you’re on Twitter and ask them to connect.
22. In Linkedin Groups (relevant ones) ask members as a topic discussion to share Twitter profiles with each other and suggest you also connect on Twitter.
23. In a tasteful non-spam format let anyone on email lists, meetup groups YOU operate and other online groups that you’re on Twitter and would love to connect. This is often done best as a side-note or footnote in a regular Meetup update or email newsletter blast. Emails and updates titled “Follow me on Twitter” are generally considered bad form.
24. Target regional (all regions your market to) influencers (not necessarily Twitter superstars) on Twitter and put them on a private list. Monitor their discussions and updates and pro-actively have relevant discussions, RT (Re-Tweet or Share) their updates and promote things they are promoting. After a period of time they will take notice, often following you and even sharing your content with their network.
25. Follow anyone who retweets your content and thank them (except of course spambots)
26. Use backtweets.com to find out who is linking to sites of interest or competitor sites. Follow those people and apply #3 again.
27. Host a #Tweetup in your community or at a conference.
28. Attend #Tweetups in your community (What is a Tweetup? Watch Here)
29. If you can type fast and well offer to Liveblog and live tweet an event
30. Guest blog on key sites
31. Write for magazines, newspapers (online or print) and get your Twitter ID into the footer.
32. Start a Twitter Tribe. A group of non-competing people who Tweet each others content. This can be formal or informal but all members usually benefit from increased Klout, reach and followers. (not to mention blog traffic)
33. Make sure your Twitter handle is on all relevant Keynote or PowerPoint presentations.
34. At the beginning of any public presentation let everyone know it’s okay to get out their smartphones and Tweet to the world.
35. If you sell packaged goods or products get your Twitter handle on those packages!
36. Have contests rewarding those who Tweet about you, keep it simple and don’t make following mandatory
37. If you have a physical business location or retail store/restaurant/lounge/pub etc. have a “We are social” poster that shares your social site URLS (Don’t just use the logos)
38. Use QR codes in print materials and on presentations that Link to your Twitter account or a page with all of your social ID’s [This one will take you to my Google Profile]
    
39. Put your Twitter handle on your nametag at Meetups and conferences
40. Put your Twitter handle on your contact info for your VCard, Bump application (for Iphone) etc.
41. Link to your Twitter account at the beginning of any video descriptions on YouTube, Vimeo Etc.
42. If you do a podcast or produce video put it on your splash page or mention it in your intro and extro.
43. Create public Twitter lists of great people in specific industry or interest segments. They will often follow you back as a result
44. Tweet to different time zones. I typically Tweet between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm on weekdays. That means I miss showing up in a lot of searches on Twitter during my off hours. To appeal to markets like India or Europe I schedule Tweets in Hootsuite to be posted while I’m sleeping. I also devote a night a month to staying up late and chatting with my buddies in India, South Africa and Europe. This conversation also increases followers.
45. Using local search start conversations with people in your immediate area who share things of interest. It doesn’t have to be about business, it could be a common interest in art, hiking, food etc. This will often result in a follow-back.
46. Reply quickly. Often people will follow us, then ask a question or make a comment. To build rapport and maintain momentum respond and interact as soon as possible. These means checking Twitter more than once a day and taking time to respond in a personal authentic way. When we ignore people’s questions or take too long to reply they may unfollow or never follow us in protest.
47. “Follow me on Twitter” with a link in your email signature
48. You can custom program “Tweet-this” buttons to include your Twitter address in the title of the Tweet (when people click on the button). This makes it easier to find your fans and gets your Twitter handle more exposure online.
49. Follow the 90/10 rule. Twitter is about engagement, people who might follow you and only see marketing links and no-conversation will most likely think you’re not watching or don’t care about what they say. Keep your stream about community, conversation and connection 90% of the time and Tweet about business, blogs, marketing etc. 10% of the time.
50. Follow people who retweet your competitors or content similar to the content you produce and once again apply step 3.
51. Create and share awesome, unique content via Twitter tips,  links to blogs, videos etc. This will get retweeted, shared and increase your following
52. Pay it forward. Get your friends, clients, staff and associates on Twitter and coach on how to use Twitter. They can become your biggest allies and fans.

Shane Gibson (@ShaneGibson) is a sales and social media speaker who has addressed over 100,000 people on stages on three continents over the past 15 years.  He is also co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down.  When he’s not speaking or Tweeting he is in the social media trenches working with his clients as Chief Social Officer for Socialized! Ltd. a social media agency and training organization.

Monitoring conversations is great – but getting involved in the conversation and being a thought leader is where the true opportunity is. Having a Social CRM strategy is vital, we need to help our sales team understand how to socialize online. Today’s podcast talks about some of the pro-active components that should be included in that strategy.

In my opinion your end goal must be to fully socialize most of your departments from HR to sales, marketing and even the senior executives in the company. What are your thoughts?

There are also brilliant people and awesome brands that don’t realize that their persona is actually hiding the great things about them. Today’s podcast focuses on why we need to build the person, build the organization and forget the veneer.

Thought leaders create community, build other leaders, and create unique content that speaks to and helps specific markets. Today’s podcast (direct download here or via iTunes here) discusses thought leadership and it’s importance to marketing, leadership and even your career.

Here’s a SlideShare embed of the model:

As for those that don’t like the term “Thought Leadership” here’s my challenge to you: find me an easy to understand, non-geek or non-tech speak definition that has global appeal and I will gladly use it.

As for the rest of us. Thought leadership is a process of becoming, not an event or clever blog post.  Here are a few of my favorite modern day business thought leaders:

• Jeremiah Owyang
• Jay Conrad Levinson
• Arrianna Huffington
• Tim O’Reilly
• Charlene Li
• John C. Maxwell
• Rob Cottingham
• Bruce Philp

Let me know who your favorite thought leaders are.

Today I had the great opportunity to once again have Bruce Philp author of the Consumer Republic on my social media podcast. I was so inspired by our conversation I actually reworked my Socialized! Lunch presentation today to include some very important thoughts that Bruce shared about the future of brands and the true power consumers now hold in their hands.

The idea for this podcast discussion really came from a couple of tweets I posted about Groupon’s recent off-color marketing tactics and my disappointment that their response and handling of comments and complaints seemed to be more about sanitizing and denying versus engagement and authentic apologies. (Still not happy with Groupon’s Super Bowl Ads this was the icing on the cake) Bruce’s question to me at that point was; “what if consumers become discouraged and no longer engage?” (because of this type of corporate response online.) I invited Bruce back on the show to talk about the “Consumer Republic” and answer this important question.

During the podcast the conversation quickly turned toward so-called social media experts bloggers etc. who are often the first to criticize a brand, but personally don’t walk their talk in regards to engagement or even responding to blog comments and tweets.  (I’ve been personally guilty more than once of not returning an email or a phone call due to huge volumes of in-bound tweets and inquiries.)

Have a listen to the podcast and let me know what your thoughts are on the subject. A huge thanks to Bruce Philp for logging on and having the conversation as well.

I first met Guy Kawasaki at an Olympic Tweetup here in Vancouver a little over a year. My co-author Jay Conrad Levinson had already filled me in on guy, and Jay may have even used the work “enchanting” when he described Guy. He seems to arrive and light up a room and make everyone around him feel at ease, when guy speaks about marketing and leadership business leaders listen. When Guerrilla Social Media Marketing was being written Guy was #1 on our list as the person to write the foreword, and we were absolutely honored to have him do so. He is a true guerrilla marketer and his use of Twitter and the creation of his site Alltop.com make him a social media thought leader and innovator. He also is an Apple Fellow and the driving force behind the creation of the Apple Fanboy many decades ago (a movement which is still in full force).

With Guy’s new book Enchantment being released today I responded to Guy’s announcement and asked him to do a podcast interview. In the interview we discuss:

• Enchanting brands
• Social media marketing
• Enchanting today’s worker
• How to resist enchantment
• and the difference between enchanting brands like Apple and Zappos and mainstream run-of-the-mill brands

Below is an “Enchantment Info Graphic” to accompany the podcast:

This is a process we developed working with our clients at Socialized! and it takes an inventory of the following:

1. Your existing website: Is it socialized with a blog, integrated with the major social networks and well optimized for search engines?
2. Your social profiles: Are you maximizing the use of the major social sites that are relevant to your audience. This entails not just creating content but having relevant conversations and engaging?
3. Social Media Policy: Do you have a personal or corporate social media policy that fosters a social culture and creates accountability?
4. Social Media Plan: Do you have a strategic plan for launching and sustaining focused social media communications.
5. Trained staff: Is your team trained in the rules of engagement and in the technical aspects of the tools they will use?
6. Integration: Silo? Online/Offline? Bi-directional?: What best describes your social media use. If only one person or one department is using it then you will be faced with bottlenecks and a one dimensional communications strategy.
7. Metrics, Monitoring and Measurement?: Are you using social media monitoring tools like Twitter Search, Post Rank, Google Alerts etc. to find business intelligence, identify stakeholders and get involved in the conversation.

Today’s Podcast is focused on part 1 of the assessment: Your Socialized Site or Blog and asks 12 major questions (covered in the podcast)

The most important thing to realize here is that most of the questions are focused on how you are using your blog and site. Some of it focuses on basic functionality but most is about the application. I will be posting Part 2 “Your Social Profiles Assessment” in the next few days.

This month’s event was focused on  “5 Steps to Maximize Your Organization’s ROI in Social Media”

Following are the presentation slides:

For those who attended that want further assistance in developing and managing your social media presence please email Anthony directly at anthony@socialized.me.

Following are links to sites that were mentioned in the presentation:

Forbes insights The Rise of the Digital C-Suite

Social Media ROI (Podcast)

Engagementdb.com

Hootsuite

Postrank Analytics

The Ford Story

Meetup

Vancouver Tweetup

Social Media Calendar

Kasufunding (Social Fund Raising System)

Make-a-Wish BC

CMA BC Blog

1. Social Media Tip: free is great BUT charge for things, people will appreciate them more and you will attract a different market.
2. Social Media Tip: Want to increase ROI? Have a well-trained sales team handling leads and inquiries. You still need to close the deal.
3. Social Media Tip: LinkedIn is about trusted networks connecting with trusted networks. It’s not a “friending” game.
4. Social Media Tip: Twitter is a marketing tool, networking tool, prospecting tool, research tool… it all depends on how you use/mis-use it
5. Social Media Tip: Many marketers don’t see social media as a revolutionary tool but part of the marketing mix. It can be if it’s applied effectively. Innovate
6. Social Media Tip: Having senior level buy-in is vital if you want to fully maximize your organization’s social media ROI.
7. Social Media Tip: If the major conference you are going to doesn’t have a #hashtag or a tweetup start them both and make more connections.
8. Social Media Tip: stakeholder engagement has it’s ebbs and flows, don’t be discourage, stick with the plan.
9. Social Media Tip: People care more about other people than things or brands. Use social media to tell stories and humanize your business.
10. Social Media Tip: Continually search for new social media platforms – they will expose you to new markets and business intelligence.
11. Social Media Tip: human curators are more important than others. People are trying to sort through all of the noise.
12. Social Media Tip: Consistency is important but being relevant and adding value with your content is equally as important.
13. Social Media Tip: If you can influence just one person negatively or positively you are a leader. Watch your intent.
14. Social Media Tip: Stop trying to control your employees and own their tweets. Instead win their hearts and work on your culture.
15. Social Media Tip: social media is evolving. Make sure your behaviors, tools, and rules of engagement keeping pace.
16. Social Media Tip: There’s more to social media than content. Strategy, etiquette, listening, relevance are vital.
17. Social Media Tip: Train your team and develop a socialized culture. Leverage your brand story through building community.

1. Social Media Calendar Sample Template (podcast, pdf and doc download)
2. Rules for Ford Social Media Engagement are Simple and Clear
3. What is Different About Guerrilla Social Media Marketing?
4. Sales and Social Media – Should You Let Your Sales Team Post Content Using Social Media? (podcast)
5. Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Secret #19 -  Implement (Video)
6. 10 Best Practices for Social Media in Social Causes
7. Why Social Media in the C-Suite is Vital
8. How the World’s #1 Online Building Supply Company Uses Social Media
9. 12 Social Media Tips <140 Characters
10. Guerrilla Social Media Marketing – Traditional Sites versus Social Sites
11. Podcast – Helping Sales People Get Smarter with Digital Assistants and Technology (podcast)
12. 12 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters (pt 2)

Thanks for all of your support in 2010. I’m looking forward to what 2011 has in store for the social media space.

PostRank Topblogs 2009 – #101 in Social Media

1. Social Media Tip: You can tweet until you are blue in the face – until you develop intimacy you’re not maximizing your ROI
2. Sales and Social Media Tip: sales and social media are not longer two separate processes or activities.
3. Social Media Tip: Before responding to your critics look at their social graph. Their context is as important as their comments.
4. Social Media Tip: Nothing happens until someone tweets something.
5. Social Media Tip: Titles that help you lose credibility in social media: certified, guru, ninja, rockstar, expert #behumble
6. Social Media Tip: Stay curious and you will stay current.
7. Social Media Tip: engagement starts with genuine sincere empathy and intent
8. Social Media Tip: Listening is not enough. Responding is not enough. Adding value constantly builds your brand.
9. Social Media Tip: Have an integrated marketing plan that includes social media. All media work better augmented.
10. Social Media Tip: Commit to your brand, it’s a promise. Constant changing and redirection confuses your customers.
11. Social Media Tip: It only takes two to make a tribe, and it takes a whole tribe to make a leader.
12. Social Media Tip: Only the community can ordain us a leader. Titles like Expert, Thought Leader or Guru aren’t ones we give ourselves.
13. Social Media Tip: evolving with your market is key, but growth can also be painful and challenging. Be prepared.
14. Social Media Tip: Being transparent has it’s downsides, make sure you can walk your talk. You’re always on stage.
15. Social Media Tip: Leadership is about vision and influence. Those with a vision bigger than themselves will have the most influence.
16. Social Media Tip: You dont have to like or use every tool to be successful.
17. Social Media Tip: Invest in training all of your staff in social media tools and principles. Social media belongs to everyone
18. Social Media Tip: Observe expected etiquette as you move between groups or discussions…even on the same network.
19. Social Media Tip: Leadership is also not about followers. Leadership is about influence, trust, and action.

1. Social Media Tip: Focus on what you love and those who love the content you create.
2. Social Media Tip: A single tweet may not create a best friend but it’s a doorway to many new relationships.
3. Guerrilla Social Media Tip: Nano-marketing is not just about hyper-segmentation – it’s the process of developing intimacy with people.
4. Social Media Tip: Social media monitoring isn’t for keeping score it’s for deepening engagement. #scrm
5. Social Media Tip: Social media monitoring allows you to have the right conversation with the right person at the right time. #scrm
6. Social Media Tip: Engagement is great BUT sustained engagement will maximize ROI.
7. Social Media Tip: Being the signal not the noise also means with more attention you will have more critics. It’s a sign of success.
8. Social Media Tip: Your blog is for both creating and aggregating content and conversations. It’s part of an ecosystem.
9. Social Media Tip: While marketing online creates profits, leadership can create legacy. Think short and long-term.
10. Social Media Tip: Mobile and location based tools are growing in importance and effectiveness. Invest in learning about them.
11. Social Media Tip: When writing your 2011 business plan see social media as part of the mix – there are applications in most departments.

Here’s what the book site says about the book:

Consumer Republic
Using brands to get what you want, make corporations behave, and maybe even save the world.

Consumer Republic is premised on the uncomfortable truth that brands give consumers power over the marketplace that is essentially political. Brands make corporations accountable for their actions and, especially now, they give those corporations something valuable to lose if they fail us. Consumer Republic faces consumers with that power, explains how we got it, and then shows how the choices we make at the cash register can change our own lives, the way that corporations go to market and, ultimately, our entire way of life. Just as an engaged citizen is essential to an effective democracy, so an engaged consumer is the key to a sustainable free market, says Consumer Republic. My new book is a challenge to all of us who consume to vote with our money… and to marketers to be ready for a future in which they will face their customers eye to eye.

 

Here’s the info on events:

November 17th 2010 – Guerrilla Social Media Marketing – Toronto, ON Hosted by The Toronto Board of Trade – Media Sponsor Techvibes.com

Details:

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing;
TURN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING EFFORTS INTO PROFITABLE GUERRILLA CONQUESTS

In today’s dynamic market environment, it’s important to differentiate your business and capture the attention of your audience. Join Shane Gibson, co-author of Guerrilla Social Media Marketing and Sociable! to learn how to ensure your business stands out from the crowd.

This unique session will offer you insight into:

* The top ten attributes of a guerrilla social media marketer
* How to tap into large influential networks online and offline
* The power of nano-casting and nano-marketing
* How to develop and manage a social media marketing campaign
* Five strategies to help you maximize social media ROI

Click here to register for this event
Address:
Radisson Hotel Toronto East
55 Hallcrown Place
Toronto, ON
M2J 4R1
For more information, click here to download the event PDF.

November 22nd 2010 – Calgary Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Book Launch and Social Mixer. Media Sponsor Techvibes.com

Details:

If you want to know what happens when Guerrilla Marketing meets Social Media please join us in Calgary’s business and social media community for a unique book launch event and social mixer hosted by Shane Gibson, author of the new book Guerrilla Social Media Marketing.

Register on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170754506275099&index=1

Register on EventBrite: http://guerrillamarketingcalgary.eventbrite.com/

November 25th 2010 – Vancouver Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Book Launch and Social Mixer – Media Sponsor Techvibes.com

Details:

If you want to know what happens when Guerrilla Marketing meets Social Media please join us in Vancouver’s business and social media community for a unique book launch event and social mixer hosted by Shane Gibson, author of the new book Guerrilla Social Media Marketing.

Register on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137198492998189

hRegister on EventBrite: http://guerrillamarketingvancouver.eventbrite.com

For sponsorship, media and volunteer details please contact:

Rina Chong
Facebook: Rinaisan Angel
Mobile: 604.561.8908

Email: rinakbi@gmail.com
Twitter: @rinachong/@shanegibson

Important note: We are looking for Meetup.com organizers and Tweetup hosts for more launch party events in Calgary, Vancouver, Regina, Montreal, Halifax and Toronto (GTA). Send us an email or a tweet if you’re interested in helping or hosting an event.

November 29th, Toronto, ON – Shane Gibson speaks on Guerrilla Social Media Marketing at the Real Estate Marketing Summit

This one-day educational conference has been designed by Realtors® and for Realtors® who want to grow their business online.

Realtors® are also eligible to earn 3 CE credits during the conference!

Mortgage brokers, lawyers, accountants, service providers and other real estate professionals and are also welcome to participate to better understand how online and social media marketing can be used to grow their business.

Register and read more by clicking here.

Here’s the Ford Social Media Policy:

Rules for Ford Social Media Engagement

At Ford Motor Company, our social media strategy involves connecting our consumers with our employees in the digital space whenever possible, and providing value to them in the process. As a result, we have specific rules for online engagement, which, amongst other variables, involves abiding by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics.
Ford will:

• Always request that our social media influencers be transparent and disclose their relationship, as well as anything they’ve received as a result of that relationship with Ford
• Insist on honesty of opinion. We want both positive and negative reviews of our vehicles
• Offer influencers engaging experiences that are worth talking about. We won’t be cutting and pasting press releases into e-mails in hopes someone will post them
• Always carefully target our outreach to ensure that we aren’t “spamming” anyone with unwanted messages
• Listen carefully to suggestions and concerns
• Compensate influencers for consulting or other duties they do for Ford. This compensation will solely be for their time as an advisor and will not include an expectation that they will write about the project – favorably or unfavorably
• Apologize quickly for any mistakes we make. No one is perfect and we are sure that we will make a misstep in our efforts to engage with the social web, but we will be sure to learn from our mistakes
• Share this policy with all influencers we work with

The more straight forward and easy to understand a social media policy is, the easier it is to follow and abide by. Do you have a social media policy for your own social media and social networking activities? What do you think of Ford’s?

Update: See a visual of the Ford Social Media Policy Here.

An excerpt from “Guerrilla Social Media Marketing” by Shane Gibson and Jay Conrad Levinson:

What is an authentic guerrilla brand?

• It makes promises and statements that can be backed up today, tomorrow and indefinitely.
• It is customer-focused and sells and markets to the customer what they need and want.
• It is consistent, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in any geography or language.
• It doesn’t take shortcuts for short-term gain; the guerrilla brand builds customers for life.
• It is, however, fallible; all brands have imperfections and weaknesses, and a guerrilla brand does not shovel these things under the rug. It takes feedback and improves the customer experience.
• It is accessible. No executives are in an ivory tower; no labyrinths have been built to keep out the unhappy customer.
• It is focused on a distinct area of true competency and expertise, and that is why people gravitate to the guerrilla brand.

Join our Facebook Page:

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Official Page | Promote Your Page Too

I posed this same question to Jeff Booth CEO of Builddirect.com and here was the answer he gave me:

“Social media is not really about B2C or B2B it’s about P2P or person-to-person communications and adding value.”  – Jeff Booth CEO Builddirect.com (the worlds largest online wholesaler of building supplies.)

The reality is that the majority of decision makers or their direct influencers use the web to find information on a vendor and the individual employees they are dealing with. I have compiled a short list of resources and blogs that you may find useful in deciding is social media marketing will work for your organization.

Here are some statistics and quotes regarding social media in the commercial space:

…69% of B2B buyers use social networks “primarily for business networking and development.” (About.com)

…Stereotypes may have C-level executives delegating research to others, but the study reveals that 53% prefer to search the Web and locate information themselves. – Google and Forbes Insights Study (2009)

Social media is not a separate silo or discipline, in fact, companies in the Business-to-Business space like Builddirect.com, Oracle, SAP, Intel, Accenture, GE, and Siemens have found that is most effective when integrated with existing sales and marketing processes. They also have found it has given them a significant advantage over their less socially engaged competitors. (An entire engagement study can be found at http://engagementdb.com )

B2B Social Media Reading and Resources:

1. Video: “Vital Statistics for B2B Marketers”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXQdy-22TXM“
2. 20 Support Cases for Using Social Media in B2B Marketing” http://www.savvyb2bmarketing.com/blog/entry/122161/20-support-cases-for-using-social-media-in-b2b-marketing
3. “A fascinating B2B Social Media Success Story” http://businessesgrow.com/2010/06/20/a-fascinating-hardcore-b2b-social-media-success
4. “5 B2B Social Media Success Stories” http://blog.marketo.com/blog/2010/05/b2b-social-media-success.html
5. “30 B2B Social Media Resources” http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6379/30-Awesome-B2B-Social-Media-Resources.aspx
6. “The Definitive Case for B2B Social Media Marketing” – Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com/1665075/the-definitive-case-for-b2b-social-media-marketing
7. “7 Reasons Why Social Media is for Sales” – http://bettercloser.com/7-reasons-social-media-sales/

Today’s podcast is about the importance of a social media calendar for individuals and organizations. I have also provides a social media calendar template that Jay Levinson and I developed for Guerrilla Social Media Marketing.

Have a listen, download the sample social media calendar and then let me know how it works for you.

Download the sample Social Media Calendar (WORD) and Social Media Calendar (PDF)

Social Media Calendar

Jack recently helped Michael Tedham find and buy a new house. Mike is a successful marketing and promotions manager for the Granville Entertainment Group. Mike also has 1957 Facebook friends. So when Jack delivered great service, Mike didn’t just tell a couple people… he told 2000.

From a note on Mike’s Facebook page here’s his tongue-in-cheek tribute to Jack Bernard:

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 6:46pm

Why Jack Bernard is the best realtor in the world.

In this note: Jack Bernard (notes), Tina Sharp

1.) He is a ginger, but somehow has a sole intact.
2.) He doesn’t drive a BMW convertible.
3.) He doesn’t use spray tan.
4.) He stops at Starbucks before he picks you up.
5.) It’s really fun to say ‘JACK ATTACK!’
6.) He is EXTREMELY knowledgable.
7.) He is an EXTREMELY good teacher.
8.) He takes about a second to understand what you are looking for, and finds it.
9.) He doesn’t care if you are hung over, and keeps the stereo down if you are.
10.) DId I mention he somehow retained his soul?

Thats 10 reasons, and I could name about a million other. Tina and my experience purchasing our first home has had several set backs, but NONE were by fault of Jack, and he helped us through every single one of them. Anybody out there looking to buy, be it your first place, or 50th, Jack is amazing, and I will never buy another place without him.

Kudos Jack…. Kudos

jack attack!

Since late 2009 Jay Conrad Levinson and I have been working on our new book Guerrilla Social Media Marketing. It’s the latest in the Guerrilla Marketing series of books, the top selling marketing series of books of all time (20 million copies sold). I know Jay personally and when the opportunity came up to write the book I jumped at it. It wasn’t until 1/2 way through the book did I realize the magnitude of the opportunity (and the work entailed in living up to the Guerrilla Marketing brand).

You can order it here or join the Facebook page here.

In the meantime I thought I would share the foreword written by Guy Kawasaki of Alltop.com:

How to Become a Social Media Guerrilla

I first met Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of guerrilla marketing, when I interviewed him in early 90s. I met Shane Gibson at an Olympic Hockey Tweetup in Vancouver, Canada. When Shane told me that he and Jay were working in this latest volume of the Guerrilla Marketing series about social media, he captivated my interest because the two are a match made in heaven.

Alltop owes its success to social-media guerrilla marketing. We used Twitter and Facebook to create Alltop evangelists, galvanize our supporters and critics, and generate page views and brand awareness. We also tapped community and built multiple nano-casts of content for the nano-markets that Jay and Shane talk about in this book.

The combination of the social media and guerrilla marketing enables entrepreneurs to level the playing field in their industry. Capitalizing on social media is not just about using them as tools but taking matters beyond this and making them guerrilla-marketing weapons.

Jay and Shane have crafted a comprehensive guide for the marketer, entrepreneur, or executive that is serious about profiting from social media. The challenges that people face in social media are:

• What tools to use and how to use them profitably.
• Finding and engaging profitable target markets.
• How to build community and then raving fans.
• What and how to measure ROI.

This book answers all these issues. It’s not an easy path; it will take discipline, tenacity, and creativity. For those who are willing to pay this price, Jay and Shane have provided the ultimate roadmap needed to achieve your goal.

Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Today’s podcast is not about some of these global examples but a very local one I had the privilege to be part of. In a 24 hour period Anthony Caridi of KasuFunding.com and I along with a very committed social media community here in Vancouver raised over $12,000 for the Make a Wish Foundation. Almost 100% of the donations came from Twitter or FaceBook connections.

Here are 10 things we discovered that worked (some of them we implemented and others we will implement next time):

1)   Organize your collateral material early for each stakeholder group

2)   Make your content easy to share, cut and paste

3)   Integrate the offline with the online and get influencer buy-in early

4)   Have multiple platforms for RSVP’ing for events

5)   Get donors with big lists and big reach to not just cut a check but use that influence and reach to promote your cause

6)   Contact people individually and ask them to do something easy

7)   Use a fundraising platform like KasuFunding.com that makes it easy for people to Tweet, share and forward information about the cause.

8)   Work close with the Charity

9)   If you are a charity leverage your stakeholder groups when social media marketing instead of using internal resources

10)  Keep your message really simple.

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Special Thanks to:

Social media is not just another tool. It can be, but it’s a lot more for those organizations that embrace it. The challenge is it’s also not just about learning a new technology, it’s about changing the way we communicate with customers, stakeholders and staff.

This is a corporate cultural change, it’s also about embracing one of the most powerful word of mouth tools ever invented. There are huge inherent risks and opportunities presented by this. For that reason social media or online engagement initiatives in general have to be driven by the C-suite, the people who can hold others accountable and sponsor change in their organization.

In today’s social media podcast I talk about the following:

1. Senior executives and their need for buy-in
2. What and who to invest in
3. The importance of a corporate social media policy
4. How soft steps lead to ROI
5. Why most social media marketing fails:

• Lack of a goal
• Poorly defined market
• No listening
• No real launch plan
• Quitting too soon

The bottom-line is that social media is too important to compartmentalize or see as a pet project.What do you think?

.tel: This is a new domain name extension but it’s more than just another domain. Yourname.tel, Yourproduct.tel and yourcompany.tel are vital guerrilla tools. A .tel domain is driven by a proprietary software that integrates a variety of SmartPhone and web based applications. Embedded in the .tel are your contact details and key information. With a click of a button your prospects can immediately download your contact information into their address book or cellular phone. George Moen CEO of Blenz Coffee has a business card with no phone numbers, addresses or e-mail on it. It simply says GeorgeMoen.tel.

What the .tel network is building is worlds biggest phone book that dynamically integrates into websites and applications. Anytime you update your contact details in your .tel dashboard it automatically updates all of the other sites and the Smartphone applications. How many times have you been somewhere and forgot your business cards? Now you can simply tell people to visit yourname.tel, yourproduct.tel or yourcompany.tel, and most people will find that easy to remember and easy to do.

Copyright 2010 Jay Conrad Levinson, Shane Gibson and Entrepreneur Press

Guerrillas need to constantly feed their community and connections with value added content. They also need to keep up to date with specific industries and niche markets to remain competitive. Alltop’s always current and up-to-date news and blog feeds are a great source of guerrilla intelligence and content.

Traditional Websites versus Social Sites

Copyright 2010 Jay Conrad Levinson Shane Gibson and Entrepreneur Press

So I have my People Friday booked up. I’m visiting with my co-author Stephen Jagger, then meeting with a long time client, and then I will be meeting with George Moen of Blenz Coffee. Most of these conversations and interactions could be handled online via a wiki / chat collaboration BUT there’s huge value to looking someone in the eye and taking the time to let them know how they have impacted you. If at all possible today… get offline in person with someone you have rapport with online and see if you can add depth to that relationship.

Have a great Friday,

Shane

Social media, particularly my blogging, Twitter and YouTube activity has brought me clients from three continents that include a number of Fortune 500 clients and major government organizations. So I’m a big believer, and this stuff works. Over the years here’s some things I have done that don’t work, things that many people can relate to:

• I have hit Twitter instead of writing a proposal, it was for procrastination and fun, not for business or community building.
• I have engaged in conversations that are off topic, not anywhere near my target market and spent hours on such conversations.
• I have written numerous blog entries with no real goal or over reaching theme.
• I have ripped, thumped and chastised newbies for their ignorance or blatant spam (which is also usually due to ignorance) and hurt my own credibility.
• I have started, stopped, started again and then quit on blogging and podcasting. This cost me readers momentum and business opportunities as well as trust.
• I have done another dozen things wrong at least (See Twitpics gone wrong part 1 and part 2)

Why do I share this? We’re all guilty of taking a good business tool and wasting time and resources. It can be cell phones calls for personal reasons, or business lunches that are really an excuse to cocktail it up etc. Executives and decisions makers are quick to blame the tools – the reality is we should blame the people, and blame management for not teaching and driving best practices.

Here are 10 hard questions you need to ask about your social media use:

1. Have you started your social media marketing with a solid goal, plan, and monthly calendar that keeps you on message?
2. Do you abuse your social media voice and constantly bash competitors or suppliers before you try less public options?
3. Do you hop on Facebook or Twitter when there are more business critical and urgent revenue opportunities pressing?
4. Do you have a well-defined target market that you listen to and talk with – or are you mass broadcasting and hoping someone will hear?
5. Have you researched or been trained in social media use or does your company train staff before letting them run rough-shot with your brand?
6. If you have several staff, have you assigned a junior in-experienced person to manage your brand online versus a tenured strategic thinker?
7. Are you using multiple social media or just the ones you are comfortable with?
8. Are you consistent with your activity and your messaging?
9. Is your personal social graph putting you at risk (are there pictures, information or behavior that could hurt your brand?)
10. Are you involving your whole team and opening up multiple channels for client communication or is your marketing department hoarding your social media voice?

These are just a few hard questions. There are many more. If you want to succeed and get an ROI out of social media you will need to ask these questions, and constantly check in to make sure you stay on the path.

What questions do you ask? How are you auditing your social media use?

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These are the wrong questions. Lets use a guerrilla analogy: What’s the best weapon for combat? The answer is: You need more than one weapon, you need multiple weapons, multiple approaches and a lot of redundancy and back-up.

Lets step back from “social media marketing” and talk about marketing. We know that the best marketing campaigns use a variety of media and messages. BMW doesn’t just use billboards, they use e-mail, micro-sites, online video, direct mail and also encourage user generated content on some of their more social sites. Starbucks is much the same.

The message here is this:

Stop falling in love with social media tools, start falling in love with your customer

Starbucks, BMW, Ford, Comcast and many other successful social media marketers are customer engagement focused. They surround their customers online with multiple opportunities from multiple media to learn, connect and engage. It takes time, frequency of contact and a lot value added interactions to become top of mind with your customer.

EngagementDB.com a project by Altimeter Group and WetPaint studied the web’s top brands and looked at the impact of using multiple media and channels versus being a one-weapon marketer. Without exception the brands that used multiple media and channels had greater and faster engagement levels. These brands also happened to be more profitable than the others. This is probably not due to social media use but the fact that they are progressive and strategic at all levels in their businesses.

Here’s your take-away:

1. Fall in love with your customer, interact with them in multiple channels and add value. Focus on them, not the tools.
2. Have an over reaching plan and goal that drives your content creation and interaction
3. Use all of your social media tools, search marketing and offline marketing in tandem and with the same focus.
4. Stay on message, stay consistent, and continually engage

What are your thoughts on this? Have you found that multiple media helps you engage faster and more effectively?

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]]> http://www.closingbigger.net/2010/04/facebook-twitter-blogging-seo-%e2%80%93-which-one-is-right-for-you/feed/ 24 http://www.closingbigger.net/2010/04/guerrilla-social-media-marketing-excerpt/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=guerrilla-social-media-marketing-excerpt http://www.closingbigger.net/2010/04/guerrilla-social-media-marketing-excerpt/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:24:16 +0000 Shane Gibson http://www.closingbigger.net/?p=676 This is another (unedited) excerpt from Guerrilla Social Media Marketing a new book by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shane Gibson set for release in September 2010.

Engagement pages are designed to capture hearts and minds, not just e-mail addresses.

Traditional internet marketers rely heavily on controlling the behavior of their visitors. This means reducing options and choices. What is commonly referred to as a squeeze page is a good example of this. Squeeze pages usually are completely void of navigation buttons or links to other pages or websites, and give the visitor one of two choices: to read the marketing copy and then make a choice to either fill in their personal information and give consent or to leave. Although this will capture a percentage of visitors who are ready, willing or able to buy or give consent right now, it also repels visitors who could have become good clients if they had only been engaged in a credible manner.

Engagement pages have some similarities to a squeeze page, in that their purpose is also to gain consent and generate subscribers. The difference is: the engagement page offers the visitor multiple options, mediums and pathways to learn more about how the guerrilla’s business can benefit and add value to the visitor’s life or business. It also provides multiple subscription options.

As a reader what are your thoughts on this? Do you use landing pages or engagement pages? What is your impression or sentiment toward organizations that funnel you into squeeze pages?

Guerrillas know that social media and social networks are bi-directional communications tools. Most of your competitors will be stingy with their real level of interaction and conversations with the marketplace. Chat more, contribute more, and listen more than your competitors.

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing – Copyright 2010 Jay Conrad Levinson – Shane Gibson & Entrepreneur Press

A guerrilla positioning story tells your specific niche the following:

1. What your corporate values are and what you represent
2. What you offer and specifically what business you are in
3. What makes you unique, and distinct
4. What you do better than anyone else
5. Who loves to do business with you (your target markets)

Guerrillas position through stories and conversations

The first step in positioning through social media is to get to know your audience intimately. Commonly referred to as social media monitoring tools, guerrilla intelligence tools allow you to sort through the millions of possible blog posts, Tweets, and videos honing in on relevant conversations by your target market. Once this target market has been identified, and their true needs, wants, communications style and culture has been determined then the conversation begins. It’s not a sales pitch, it’s a series of questions, value added content, and engaging conversations using multiple social media. Over time each of these little interactions forms and tells your positioning story. How you answer questions, share information and produce content must be consistent with your brand and the positioning story you want to tell.

Guerrilla Social Media Marketing – Copyright 2010 Jay Conrad Levinson – Shane Gibson & Entrepreneur Press

Truth:

Marketing is the truth made fascinating. Guerrilla social media marketing is about using all of the tools available to tell your fascinating brand story in a way that drives trust, consent and profits. With that said, guerrillas tell the truth and they tell the whole truth. With social media networks and platforms the millions of people that inhabit them quickly detect lies or half-truths. Misinformation or false pretenses can be profitable in the short-term but over the long term not telling the truth will destroy the customer’s trust, credibility and ultimately your fragile reputation.

Copyright 2010 -  Jay Conrad Levinson, Shane Gibson and Entrepreneur Press

#6) Free and Variable

It is important to use free digital give away’s that have real value and customer benefits. Then of course we need a variety of paid options to upgrade to. One size fits all doesn’t work anymore, people want very personalized options tailored to their particular taste and desires.

Lego.com effectively applies the concept of free and variable and is profiting greatly from it. Using soft steps to gradually build consent from the customer is a key guerrilla strategy. Starting with free and highly interactive games kids and adults alike quickly develop a loyalty and positive association to the Lego brand and the toys in the game. There’s not one, two or ten games; there are dozens with varying complexity and appeal.

Of course the real winner is the free Lego DesignByMe downloadable software. This digital design software allows the user to virtually build Lego models using thousands of Lego pieces that are stored in it’s database.  The user can rotate a 3D model in any direction adding pieces, color and functionality and also calculate the exact cost of building and purchasing the model they have built. Once they are happy with their unique design, which fits their personal budget they then can even design a custom box cover and packaging. Lego will put all the pieces in the customer-designed box, complete with instructions to help the customer put together their model in real life and then they ship it to them directly from the factory.

The software has a social aspect as well, allowing members to add friends, and also share and vote on designs. There’s also several ways users can share their designs with friends and family who may want to purchase the custom Lego for them as a gift.

Free digital give away’s build trust and allow the customer to experience our brand without risk. With trust we can garner consent to communicate and market to them. Variable customized options make it easier for customers to purchase and re-purchase. In the case of LEGO there’s always a new, exciting model to be purchased because the options are limitless.

Copyright 2010 Shane Gibson, Jay Conrad Levinson and Entrepreneur Press

Although we invited the world, most people were local that attended; I have never seen a Tweetup of this size in Vancouver where everyone came out to connect in person. What the Olympics has done is give us Vancouverites a reason to relax, connect more often and have more fun. What was great of course is that Canada won (sorry my Swiss friends) and Guy Kawasaki the most Tweeted about personality online showed up after the game to say hello. Over all it was a fantastic demonstration of how social media and virtual connections can create real community and real relationships. For more Tweetups in Vancouver visit “VancouverTweetup.”

Victory Goal Video (by @jlate)

O’Canada Video (by @jlate)

Photos

The Fashion Police Were Obviously Not Present

Mitch Baldwin of Social Media Club Vancouver at the Caprice

Marc McPherson @marcmcpherson from Builddirect.com

Vancouver's Social Media Community Tweeting Up for Team Canada

@jason_baker @guykawasaki @shanegibson and friends

@cybelenegris & @guykawasaki

Shane Gibson is co-author of Sociable! How Social Media is Turning Sales and Marketing Upside-down and is an active member of the Vancouver Board of Trade and Social Media Club Vancouver. Learn more about Shane at http://ShaneGibson.tel or follow him on Twitter @ShaneGibson.

Thanks You!

PHOTOS:

Have you seen the pictures from the launch party?

You can see them here – http://www.facebook.com/SociableBook

We will have a video from the event shortly, watch http://www.sociablebook.com for it!

Do you have photos you took at the party? We would love to see them, just upload them to our Facebook Fan Page
http://www.facebook.com/SociableBook

BUY SOCIABLE!

Didn’t Get A Chance To Buy Your Copy of Sociable! ??

You can buy Sociable! at:

Amazon.com – http://bit.ly/9OoplU

Hager Books – 2176 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver, BC – 604-263-9412

Bulk Purchases -  http://www.sociablebook.com/BuyTheBook.ubr

SPONSORS:
The Sociable! Launch Party could not of happened without our sponsors.  A big thanks to:

Event Sponsor:
Amuse Consulting  – http://www.amuseconsulting.ca

Media Sponsors:
TechVibes – http://www.techvibes.com (marketing support)
6SMarketing – http://www.6SMarketing.com (marketing support)
Jeremy Lim – http://www.jeremylim.ca (photographer)
FreyBurg Media – http://www.freyburgmedia.com (video)

Cruiser Tables:
HootSuite – http://www.HootSuite.com
SplitMango – http://www.SplitMango.com
Mobio – http://www.mobioid.com/
SiTek – http://www.sitek.com
Kaerus – http://www.kaerus.ca
JustTheBill – http://www.justthebill.com

SPEAKING:
To hire Stephen and/or Shane to speak at your next conference or event please contact us at http://www.sociablebook.com

Thanks again so much for your support!!

It was a really fantastic night and we could not have done it with out you all.

Sincerely,

Steve and Shane
http://www.sociablebook.com
http://twitter.com/sociablebook
http://www.twitter.com/sjagger
http://www.twitter.com/shanegibson

1. Stay curious and you will stay current.
2. Momentum is hard to build and easy to lose. When things start to rock… ride the wave and keep pushing.
3. Have a goal or theme and build a monthly calendar around your social media activities
4. Crowdsourcing still requires leadership to take ideas and turn them into action. Don’t just create fans, equip leaders.
5. Fresh valuable content beats perfect outdated content every time. Use tools that help you publish easy and fast.
6. Understand tools like friendfeed, tumblr, and ping.fm. They can help you syndicate your messaging for maximum reach.
7. search engine optimization helps people find you. Integrate an SEO plan with your social media plan.
8. Have a set of guidelines and a social media training program for your staff to ensure that you maximize results.
9. Being transparent has it’s downsides, make sure you can walk your talk. You’re always on stage.
10. Evaluate your strategy as if you were looking through your customers eyes. Ask “So What?” a lot
11. “There is no failure only feedback” – @fredshadian
12. Create spaces (Ning, Buddypress etc.) for communities to form. Creating positive community is great for business.

Amacus

Today’s podcast is with sales technology thought leader John Cousineau who is President of Innovative Information the creators of Amacus.  John and I have had a number of coffee chats and debates around why and how to use technology and social media to improve sales performance and customer experience. The nexus of sales and social media seems to be happening in the CRM and Social CRM space.  The question is it happening fast enough and making things more efficient or is it just giving sales people more buttons and buzzwords to worry about.

1. Improve the way you use 5 tools 10% each. Cumulatively it will have a big effect.
2. Easy access to tools like blogging raises the bar for those who want to lead, lots of competition.
3. Take massive action when you see a trend that may have large growth potential. You won’t win them all… but one will do.
4. The best medium is the one your customer likes, use multiple media.
5. There will be platforms you visit and platforms you call home. Make sure you own your home.
6. Be open to feedback, be open to being wrong. Defensiveness isn’t all that social.
7. Hone in on and focus on engaging people. Help multiply each other’s vision.
8. When teaching people talk in variable rules and principles not universal ones. Nothing is forever…things move fast.
9. Many people will quit, shun and criticize social media marketing when they realize it’s actually about leadership.
10. Dear Agency/Marketer/Sales Guy, if we wanted marketing and pitching we’d watch TV.
11. If you keep changing your message you will keep starting over. Experimenting with your strategic brand is not good.
12. Social media works better when it’s incorporated holistically with your entire set of marketing tools.
13. Before listening to someone’s social media tips or advice use social search to verify their credibility.
14. Leadership is influence (John Maxwell) and influence is measured based upon the change and action we create.
15. Use Twitter lists to let people know you’re listening.
16. Consistency, conviction, passion and focus are needed to see a social media plan succeed.
17. Best short-cut for results: focus on people, relationships, & psychology not gimmicks and clicks.
18. Not listening to your customer = Brandicide (Brand Homicide) do you have a social media listening strategy?
19. Once you find a conversation about your brand encourage it to spread by creating and hosting places for dialogue.
20. Social listening strategy comes before social media content strategy.
21. Most social media efforts are abandoned long before their results can be measured.
22. Integrate your tools in your marketing but also measure the effectiveness of each tool individually.
23. Social Media Trend: More people realizing that social media success is about leadership not technology.
24. Social Media Trend: Simultaneous translation in mirco-blogging and collaboration platforms.
25. Social Media Trend: Mobile social apps aggregating multiple social networks and media into one place.
26. Aggregate your client and prospect list and develop nano-casts for each nano-segment.
27. Social media can be used for retaining, developing and prospecting clients, all aspects of the sales cycle.
28. Get out of your industry vacuum when building strategy. Look for SMM concepts that can be adapted.
29. Want to make good connections? Make value added, thoughtful comments on their blog.
30. Teach your clients about social media, help them get online. It creates more dialogue opportunities.
31. Make it real at least twice a week. Meet offline in person with contacts.
32. Research and test the latest platforms but don’t go down the rabbit hole.
33. Teach people the principles of leadership before teaching them how to use Twitter or blogs.
34. Meetup.com is best used for community events. Using it just to promote your product or company will have minimal results.
35. Your great idea or blog post, is being written in 10 different languages by other people right now.
36. Any system or company bent on being exclusive versus inclusive will fail.
37. nstead of writing headlines write engagement lines.
38. As a leader, make the journey look fun & share your joy. People will want to follow the path.
39. “Nothing happens until someone tweets something.”
40. Being a thought leader is just as much about selfless contribution as it is about unique dialogue.
41. You don’t have to like or use every tool to be successful.
42. Social Media Trend: Brands now need to think global social etiquette when planning their social media strategy.
43. Unique, brief sound bytes produced consistently can yield great results.
44. Once in a while ask your FB and Twitter friends for help. See who steps up. This will tell you a lot.
45. Make a list of people who support you online. Develop a strategy to reciprocate.
46. Use your experience in social media to predict areas of growth in new regions and niches. Then pay it forward.
47. You may be awesome blogger but does the world know? SEO, social networks, offline promotions are needed.
48. Make your events that you promote about the community. Education and collaboration trump pitches.
49. “Think what’s in it for me?” from your target market’s perspective.
50. Using more than one channel / stream shortens your brand engagement curve.
51. Defining your target market and goals is easy, engaging them is the challenge.
52. The numbers are exciting but they’re just numbers until you make it real and build good relationships.
53. Engagement is not just about listening; it’s about empathy, rapport, and making people feel heard.
54. Engagement is the goal, social media are the tools.
55. Thank people who comment on your blog via e-mail or twitter. Let them know you’re listening.
56. Search engine optimization can help you rapidly grow your network and connections. Get good at it.
57. Develop a list of your top connections/influencers and make sure you’re connected on multiple networks.
58. There is a Trend: Condensed writing, short videos all getting shorter.
59. Blogging tip. Pick a theme or topic for the month. Plan 7-10 blog entries that build up to 1 core message, event, or action.
60. Have a series of steps planned and measured to track and develop relationships.
61. One of your final steps in the social media sales process is to connect offline, on the phone, or at least one on one virtually.
62. Use http://www.backtype.com/ to search blog comments about you, your blog or a topic.
63. Social media is too new for Gurus. We’re all amateurs! That’s what makes it fun and open.
64. Social Media Phases: Adoption, Population, Pollination, Aggregation, Splintering, Commercializing, and Globalizing.
65. Social media is here to stay and has more relevance and power everyday.
66. Embracing and understanding how to use social media is a core life skill, leadership skill and career building skill.
67. Social media is social. It’s about helping people connect to people using technology, it embodies truly what the internet was intended for.
68. Social media is not just about technology, it’s a new way of leading, thinking, and connecting with other people.
69. Social media belongs to all of us. An ordinary consumer, a front line employee, a political activist in Iran all have access and a voice.
70. You need different messaging for client retention than you do for attraction.
71. Statistics tend to be a history lesson. Growth and human behavior are rarely linear. Listen to customers and staff.
72. Use social listening tools: http://www.collecta.com/ http://www.twitority.com/ http://socialmention.com/ http://www.twazzup.com/
73. Develop a social media policy and set of guidelines to keep your team on track and on message.
74. You can force someone to be social, you can only give them the tools and training.
75. Worry less about selling and more about connecting and rapport.
76. Read Free the Future of a Radical Price before launching your next marketing campaign.
77. Read “Ignore Everybody” by Hugh Macleod if you want to tap into your social media creativity.
78. Spend time each day promoting and contributing to another blogger’s success.
79. What works for you now will only keep working until it is no longer unique. Keep innovating.
80. Polish your work too long and someone will move first with a less perfect work but they’ll get the credit. Publish first.
81. One day we will look back at “social media” as a buzz word. But the best practices will still be in use.
82. Seeing someone as a competitor is old economy, seeing them as a peer and a fusion partner is key.
83. Talk and listen to small nodes or groups of people in your larger niche network. Niche broadcasting is not enough.
84. Contribution, help and kindness are your social currencies which can get you access to great people and great networks.
85. Want to implement your social media plan fast? Think collaboration not committee
86. All the details, plans and tools don’t mean much unless you understand people.
87. A sense of curiosity and willingness to experiment can lead to some positive serendipitous discoveries.
88. Stop focusing on being a social media rock star, focus on building a community and a list.
89. Develop an understanding of the Long Tail http://longtail.com Think variable not universal when building strategy. Nano-casting and the “Long Tail” are key.”
90. Types of social media ROI include: improved staff engagement, quicker response to business challenges, increased frequency contact with clients.
91. Social Media results could also be: increased revenue, more customer data, increased store (real world) traffic, press, improved customer service.
92. Looking to hire a social media expert? Look for proof that they have done more than just build traffic and followers.
93. Words to use in a social media job posting: track record, business experience, well networked, project management experience.
94. There is a lot of hype. Look for truth, verify information and execute with dependable tools and strategies.
95. Use give away’s that have real value with a variety of paid options to upgrade to. Think customization and options.
96. Permission to connect has put the power in the consumers’ hands. Seek and then treat that permission like gold.
97. When I join your facebook page, give you my e-mail or follow you on twitter those are examples of “permission to connect”
98. Some people like lengthy whitepapers, others learn best through video, audio or text updates. Use variety.
99. Measure engagement levels, revenues, value added interactions. Big numbers in views and traffic can lie.
100. Bad customer feedback is a branding opportunity if you handle it right.
101. If you can’t be relevant, at least be entertaining!
102. Visit sites outside of your industry and interest areas for new ideas.
103. Constantly look for ways to contribute and you will never run out of marketing leverage.
104. Social Media should be integrated or synced with other marketing activities.
105. Social media is not rocket science. Forget the big words and focus on listening and connecting intimately.
106. It’s kind of like dating. Don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date.
107. Your goal is to become referable; to become credible, and to build a following through value added interactions.
108. It is not about getting referrals; it is about becoming referable.
109. There are many ways to get followers. A good question to ask is: “How do I create quality connections on Twitter?”
110. Ning.com is a great social networking tool. What it enables you to do is create your own private network for anything.
111. Pay it forward. Teach people about social media and they’ll tell other people about you.
112. Resist the temptation to fill your Facebook friends inboxes with daily marketing. They will tune you out.
113. Break long blog posts into a series of short-posts, it will increase your page views and be more engaging (except this one of course)
114. It’s personal reputation and brand building that makes us approachable, people want the real deal.
115. When you’re reaching out to thought leaders in the social space you need to tap into their motivations.
116. Pre-scheduled tweets and blog posts can help you reach audiences in different time zones.
117. Use http://www.tubemogul.com to distribute video to Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo etc. all at once.
118. Use http://hootsuite.com to manage multiple twitter accounts and schedule tweets into the future.
119. It feels great to know people are listening to us and that they care. Let your customers know you’re listening.
120. If done right social media will become a part of your business process not a separate addition.
121. Spend at least as much time listening as you do broadcasting.
122. It’s called “social media” for a reason. Be prepared to interact consistently.
123. You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
124. Losing followers is okay, measure the engagement level of who is still here to see how you are doing.
125. Have a goal, measure results, measurement provides feedback and improvement.
126. The internet has always been about helping people connect to people (@nickusborne)
127. Pay it forward. Help, teach. guide and be patient with people new to the scene. [Tweet This Tip]
128. Study people who are credible with the type of clients you want to attract. Model their strategy.
129. Marketers aren’t always synonymous with community builders, traffic and followers isn’t always equal to credibility.
130. If you’re an old school e-mail marketer or pitch artist, there’s some habits you will need to unlearn.
131. Before you start your campaign define your market and their pains.
132. Everyone and every company gets off message once in a while. Refocus and learn from it.
133. Leaders of large “Tribes” need to have thick skin and a tolerance for noise.
134. Continually tweak and update your Linkedin profile, your network will be notified.
135. Social media is changing so quickly that if you stop too long to smell the roses you’ll be out of touch.
136. Try a new platform each month, video blogging, FaceBook, tumblr etc. Curiosity can lead to great discoveries.
137. You can’t make a robot network for you at a party, why do you think they can do it for you on the web?
138. Some un-follows are strategic. People want to know if you’re really listening.
139. You can’t please everyone. But know who you are trying to connect with. Get in sync with your audience.
140. http://www.ping.fm updates FaceBook, Brightkite, Twitter, tumblr and Linkedin statuses all at once
141. Focus on a specific theme in your social media for extended periods of time
142. Your blog is your home base, all social media should feed your home base
143. Social media is 90 % contribution and connection 10 % marketing and sales
144. Social media belongs to the people, they get to make the rules not the marketer
145. Have a social media policy for your company. Help your people be effective and on message
146. Promote other people’s dreams. It builds community, loyalty and brand for you
147. “Marketing is a process not an event”- @jaylevinson Blog, tweet and talk about solutions to people’s pains and challenges
148. Social media tools like twitter are listening tools more than they are broadcasting tools.
149. Nano-cast to many small niches instead of broadcasting to everyone.
150. Learn to break up large blog entries into many smaller entries. It’s more user friendly
151. Take time each month to update your major social media profiles, use key words that your prospects would search for
152. Use social search like http://search.twitter.com and http://blogsearch.google.com to listen to your customers
153. Each social network has it’s own etiquette FaceBook type behavior doesn’t work on  LinkedIn
154. Answer people’s comments on your blog, or @ replies in Twitter. Social media leadership is about bi-directional communication.
155. Think twice, click once.
156. Take it off-line, book in person meetings or hold events for your online social media contacts
157. Use an assortment of tools, it geometrically multiplies efforts
158. Always be asking where are we going? What is the next Twitter or FaceBook going to be?
159. Use a mixture of content on your blogs, top 10 lists, photos, video, audio, guest bloggers, and polls…

I’m excited about what this year has to hold. While the big talk and focus is on Social Media ROI the real trend in my opinion is the realization that social media is a leadership tool. I’m looking forward to seeing many leaders amplify the good things they are doing in 2010 using social media. Happy New Year!

Download a free Chapter of Shane’s new book in PDF or MP3 Format.

10 Social Media Tips Under 140 Characters

1. When teaching people talk in variable rules and principles not universal ones. Nothing is forever…things move fast.
2. Many people will quit, shun and criticize social media marketing when they realize it’s actually about leadership.
3. Dear Agency/Marketer/Sales Guy, if we wanted marketing and pitching we’d watch TV.
4. If you keep changing your message you will keep starting over. Experimenting with your strategic brand is not good.
5. Social media works better when it’s incorporated holistically with your entire set of marketing tools.
6. Before listening to someone’s social media tips or advice use social search to verify their credibility.
7. Leadership is influence (John Maxwell) and influence is measured based upon the change and action we create.
8. Use Twitter lists to let people know you’re listening.
9. Consistency, conviction, passion and focus are needed to see a social media plan succeed.
10. Best short-cut for results: focus on people, relationships, & psychology not gimmicks and clicks.

10 Things That Will Not Change About Social Media in 2010

1. It’s about the conversation
2. It belongs to everyone
3. It can’t be controlled only lead
4. It works best integrated
5. It doesn’t fit in the marketing ROI box
6. It’s an investment
7. It’s never been about the tools but those who wield them
8. It’s not going away, it’s not a fad
9. Experimenting with your clients money is a bad idea
10. Success belongs to the storytellers

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I’m a big Hootsuite fan.  I interviewed Ryan Holmes CEO of Invoke Media (the company that made Hootsuite) a few months ago about the Twitter app and I’ve been a loyal user ever since.  It is a web based Twitter app, and actually if fully used to it’s capacity could be considered a Social CRM tool.   I use  Hootsuite to monitor 15 niches’ of clients, stakeholders, influencers and friends.  I also use the program to do A/B testing on headlines and research what time of day people respond best to my updates and links. The fact that I can now take this Twitter/Social CRM tool with me on my iPhone truly un-teathers me from the office and allows me to interact with my Twitter accounts, clients and core niche markets.  Expect more Tweets from me on the go now. The video is on the Hootsuite iPhone App:

Looking for a social media speaker for your next conference?

You can contact us or take a look at Shane Gibson’s bio.

I thought while we all wait I would give you a sneak peek into some of the personalities involved in the book.

Sociable! Media Leader #1: Kyle MacDonald (@oneredpaperclip):

Kyle wrote the foreword of the book. Here’s a great video on how Kyle traded one red paperclip for a house in one year:

Sociable Media Leader #2: Peter Aceto (@CEO_INGDirect):

Peter Aceto CEO of ING Direct Canada has brought a very transparent approach to leadership in banking.  We had the opportunity to interview Mr. Aceto for the book and have since cooperated with ING in a few progressive social media marketing activities such as their standing room only #tweetup at the ING Direct Café here in Vancouver. (You can check out the event photo’s here on flickr). Below is an example how Peter has used YouTube and FairFees.ca to directly connect with the marketplace. He’s also one of the top CEO Tweeters in Canada (Follow him here).

Sociable Media Leader #3: Scott Heiferman (@heif)

Scott Heiferman is the CEO of Meetup.com. Anyone who knows Stephen Jagger and I will know that we really love Meetup. With that said our interview with Scott really opened us up to Scott’s global vision for Meetup and the very local impacts it can have on community and individuals. Below is a recent slideshare (click play to hear the audio, the 18 minutes are worth a listen) from a presentation by Scott this week at the Personal Democracy Forum in Europe.

Book Update:

Listen to Chapter 1 as an mp3 (audio file) or…

Click below to download Chapter 1

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1. Social Media Thought: Not listening to your customer = Brandicide (Brand Homicide) do you have a social media listening strategy?
2. Social Media Tip: Once you find a conversation about your brand encourage it to spread by creating and hosting places for dialogue.
3. Social Media Tip: Social listening strategy comes before social media content strategy.
4. Social Media Tip: Most social media efforts are abandoned long before their results can be measured.
5. Social Media Tip: Integrate your tools in your marketing but also measure the effectiveness of each tool individually.
6. Social Media Trend: More people realizing that social media success is about leadership not technology.
7. Social Media Trend: simultaneous translation in mirco-blogging and collaboration platforms.
8. Social Media Trend: Mobile social apps aggregating multiple social networks and media into one place.
9. Social Media Tip: Aggregate your client and prospect list and develop nano-casts for each nano-segment.
10. Social Media Tip: Social media can be used for retaining, developing and prospecting clients, all aspects of the sales cycle.
11. Social Media Tip: Get out of your industry vacuum when building strategy. Look for SMM concepts that can be adapted.
12. Social Media Tip: Want to make good connections? Make value added, thoughtful comments on their blog.
13. Social Media Tip: teach your clients about social media, help them get online. It creates more dialogue opportunities.
14. Social Media Tip: Make it real at least twice a week. Meet offline in person with contacts.
15. Social Media Tip: Research and test the latest platforms but don’t go down the rabbit hole.
16. Social Media Tip: Teach people the principles of leadership before teaching them how to use Twitter or blogs.
17. Social Media Tip: Meetup.com is best used for community events. Using it just to promote your product or company will have minimal results.
18. Social Media Tip: Your great idea or blog post, is being written in 10 different languages by other people right now.
19. Social Media Tip: Any system or company bent on being exclusive versus inclusive will fail.
20. Social Media Tip: Instead of writing headlines write engagement lines.
21. Social Media Tip: As a leader, make the journey look fun & share your joy. People will want to follow the path.
22. Social Media saying: “Nothing happens until someone tweets something.”
23. Social Media Tip: Being a thought leader is just as much about selfless contribution as it is about unique dialogue.
24. Social Media Tip: You don’t have to like or use every tool to be successful.
25. Social Media Trend: Brands now need to think global social etiquette when planning their social media strategy.

Social Media Tips:

1. Unique, brief sound bytes produced consistently can yield great results.
2. Once in a while ask your FB and Twitter friends for help. See who steps up. This will tell you a lot.
3. Make a list of people who support you online. Develop a strategy to reciprocate.
4. Use your experience in social media to predict areas of growth in new regions and niches. Then pay it forward.
5. You may be awesome blogger but does the world know? SEO, social networks, offline promotions are needed.
6. Make your events that you promote about the community. Education and collaboration trump pitches.
7. “Think what’s in it for me?” from your target market’s perspective.
8. Using more than one channel / stream shortens your brand engagement curve.
9. Defining your target market and goals is easy, engaging them is the challenge.
10. The numbers are exciting but they’re just numbers until you make it real and build good relationships.
11. Engagement is not just about listening; it’s about empathy, rapport, and making people feel heard.
12. Engagement is the goal, social media are the tools.
13. Thank people who comment on your blog via e-mail or twitter. Let them know you’re listening.
14. Search engine optimization can help you rapidly grow your network and connections. Get good at it.
15. Develop a list of your top connections/influencers and make sure you’re connected on multiple networks.
16. There is a Trend: Condensed writing, short videos all getting shorter.
17. Blogging tip. Pick a theme or topic for the month. Plan 7-10 blog entries that build up to 1 core message, event, or action.
18. Have a series of steps planned and measured to track and develop relationships.
19. One of your final steps in the social media sales process is to connect offline, on the phone, or at least one on one virtually.

Jay Levinson has sold over 20 million books on Guerrilla Marketing making him the top selling marketing author in history.

Jay Levinson shared with audience the 19 secrets of Guerrilla Marketing. In essence a formula for effectively executing this brilliant grass-roots type marketing. Guerrilla marketers measure success based upon profit, not sales volume, web traffic or how well a name is recognized. With my experience in Social Media and sales I thought I would share with you how you can use this formula to effectively execute a Guerrilla Social Media Marketing Campaign. I have shared these tips three at a time on my blog as series. Today I’m putting them all in one place.

According to Jay if you memorize these secrets, you will exceed your most optimistic expectations in business. All of these secrets end in “ent”:

1. Commitment – Mediocre will win over brilliant. The key lesson here is stay the course. Your social media efforts, whether it is blogging, video podcasts, twitter or a combination of these tools must be executed with a one to two year commitment. Stick with it, it will pay big.
2. Investment – Guerrilla marketing is a recession proof investment. It will pay better than any traditional financial investment. The key thing is you will need to invest in Social Media. This will come not in dollars but time, energy, ability, money, reputation
3. Consistent – Don’t change your identity. Brands, relationships, trust, and technology all take time for adoption and acceptance. Be consistent with your message and on-line social media identity.
4. Confident – You must be confident and instill confidence in the customer. Use social media to listen to your customers. Jay says, “Service is anything the customer wants it to be.” Listen! He goes on to say, “Quality is what customers get out of your product. “ This is great information that can help you provide specific, on topic, brilliant solutions to your target market’s pains.
5. Patient – Be patient. Be patient with yourself, it will take you time to master the Guerrilla Marketing “Weapons of Social Media.” Be patient as you build a community online, build roots and a foundation that will be un-shakable. Be patient with your target market, they will rush in to use and engage in social media, but they will do it in their time-frame.
6. Assortment of Weapons – Use a diversity of tools. Start with a blog or highly socially enabled site. Then use and master all of the major tools. You will identify over time which ones you have a talent for using, and which ones your market responds to best. Today these tools may include:
   • Blogging
   • Video Podcasting (YouTube, Viddler etc.)
   • FaceBook
   • Linkedin
   • Flickr
   • Twitter
   • Forums
   • Ning.com
   • Digg
   • StumbleUpon
   • FriendFeed
   • Google Profiles
   • Tumblr
   • Ubertor (for Realtors)
   • Meetup.com
7. Convenient – “Time is money is a lie. Time is life, don’t waste their time.” – Jay Levinson. This is critical, don’t make people work hard to find your information or consume the great content you create. Also don’t waste their time with 10 minute videos when you could say it in 3 minutes or even better, 3 Twitter tweets. Brevity is key in Guerrilla Social Media Marketing
8. Subsequent – Always know what’s next, don’t write an e-book, write a series of e-books. Don’t just solve one customer pain, be in search of the next big thing that can help those who are connected with you.
9. Amazement – “Tell stories because stories are not boring.” – People love stories, that’s why they follow you on Twitter, they are following the story of your personal brand at 140 characters at a time. Stories spark passion, get good at using social media to tell stories.
10. Measurement – Measure your success, use tools like Google Analytics to track the traffic and behavior of those arrive at your site as a result of your social media activities. Don’t just measure profits either. Look at happiness, education, network growth, and positive community impact these are all other forms of profit.
11. Involvement – Listen and engage, or even better give them platforms to communicate and share. Then jump into the conversation and let them know that you hear them. This could be building a Ning.com social network for people who are in your industry. It may be starting a new LinkedIn or FaceBook group. You can also use a tool like Meetup.com to get your online community to meet offline and cement relationships.
12. Dependent – “The guerrilla’s job is not to compete but to cooperate with other businesses. Market them in return for them marketing you. Set up tie-ins with others. Become dependent to market more and invest less.” Begin to blog, do interviews and profile your cooperative competitors online and many will reciprocate and help you grow your following and client base.
13. Armament – Arm yourself with all of the social media tools that your customer consumes or uses. Also find new markets through arming yourself with new social networks and mediums.
14. Consent – Permission is number one if you are going to be a Guerrilla Social Media marketer. Take time to build trust and relationships and never overstate or overstep your relationships online with pitches and unsolicited messaging.
15. Content – “Substance wins over style” Give real value, unique content and do it often with multiple social media weapons. If you want to dominate your marketplace using social media give more, and give more often. Your community and Google’s robots will reward you!
16. Augment – Augment your attack; audit yourself and your strategy constantly. The world of social media is growing by the millions of members every month. You have to stay up on the tools and on the demographics of each medium. NHL Superstar Wayne Gretzky attributes his success on the ice to always knowing where the hockey puck was going to be versus where it was in the moment. He was always ahead of the game. You need to be the same way in the social media space. Ask: “What’s next?”
17. Congruent – Make sure that all of your tools and messages work together. You should be layering each blog entry, twitter update, or FaceBook post like bricks in a building. They all are valuable but contribute to a greater masterpiece, your brand and reputation.
18. Experiment – You will have little failures before you have one big success. Constantly test and be curious about the psychology behind what motivates and engages your customers, prospects and the online communities you participate. Remember that penicillin and gun powder were both invented by accident. Have fun, be engaging and bold and most importantly observe everything.
19. Implement – The world belongs to those who are willing to implement. Put a solid marketing calendar together that includes core social media disciplines. Blog at least 3 times per week, update your Twitter status five or more times per day, spend at least 30 minutes a day pro-actively listening to your audience. Constantly devour information on how to hone your skills as a Guerrilla Social Media Marketer.

1.     Use http://www.backtype.com/ to search blog comments about you, your blog or a topic.

2.     Social media is too new for Gurus. We’re all amateurs! That’s what makes it fun and open.

3.     Social Media Phases: Adoption, Population, Pollination, Aggregation, Splintering, Commercializing, and Globalizing.

4.     Social media is here to stay and has more relevance and power everyday.

5.     Embracing and understanding how to use social media is a core life skill, leadership skill and career building skill.

6.     Social media is social. It’s about helping people connect to people using technology, it embodies truly what the internet was intended for.

7.     Social media is not just about technology, it’s a new way of leading, thinking, and connecting with other people.

8.     Social media belongs to all of us. An ordinary consumer, a front line employee, a political activist in Iran all have access and a voice.

9.     You need different messaging for client retention than you do for attraction.

10. Statistics tend to be a history lesson. Growth and human behavior are rarely linear. Listen to customers and staff.

11. Use social listening tools: http://www.collecta.com/ http://www.twitority.com/ http://socialmention.com/ http://www.twazzup.com/

12. Develop a social media policy and set of guidelines to keep your team on track and on message.

13. You can force someone to be social, you can only give them the tools and training.

14. Worry less about selling and more about connecting and rapport.

15. Read Free the Future of a Radical Price before launching your next marketing campaign.

16. Read “Ignore Everybody” by Hugh Macleod if you want to tap into your social media creativity.

17. Spend time each day promoting and contributing to another blogger’s success.

18. What works for you now will only keep working until it is no longer unique. Keep innovating.

To Donate the the Vancouver Food Bank Click here or the image below. Every bit helps!

Blogathon 2009 for Vancouver Food Bank

1. Polish your work too long and someone will move first with a less perfect work but they’ll get the credit. Publish first.
2. One day we will look back at “social media” as a buzz word. But the best practices will still be in use.
3. Seeing someone as a competitor is old economy, seeing them as a peer and a fusion partner is key.
4. Talk and listen to small nodes or groups of people in your larger niche network. Niche broadcasting is not enough.
5. Contribution, help and kindness are your social currencies which can get you access to great people and great networks.
6. Want to implement your social media plan fast? Think collaboration not committee
7. All the details, plans and tools don’t mean much unless you understand people.
8. A sense of curiosity and willingness to experiment can lead to some positive serendipitous discoveries.
9. Stop focusing on being a social media rock star, focus on building a community and a list.
10. Develop an understanding of the Long Tail http://longtail.com
11. Think variable not universal when building strategy. Nano-casting and the “Long Tail” are key.”
12. Types of social media ROI include: improved staff engagement, quicker response to business challenges, increased frequency contact with clients.
13. Social Media results could also be: increased revenue, more customer data, increased store (real world) traffic, press, improved customer service.
14. Looking to hire a social media expert? Look for proof that they have done more than just build traffic and followers.
15. Words to use in a social media job posting: track record, business experience, well networked, project management experience.
16. There is a lot of hype. Look for truth, verify information and execute with dependable tools and strategies.
17. Use give away’s that have real value with a variety of paid options to upgrade to. Think customization and options.
18. Permission to connect has put the power in the consumers’ hands. Seek and then treat that permission like gold.
19. When I join your facebook page, give you my e-mail or follow you on twitter those are examples of “permission to connect”
20. Some people like lengthy whitepapers, others learn best through video, audio or text updates. Use variety.

Like these Social Media Tips? You may want to pre-register to learn more about the new Book written by Stephen Jagger and I Sociable! due to be released this summer.

Some of these tips have been passed on dozens of times but I wanted to make sure they stayed permanently available by posting them to my blog. If you have any to add, please add them in the comments section of this post.

Here’s my 22 Social Media Tips:

1. Measure engagement levels, revenues, value added interactions. Big numbers in views and traffic can lie.
2. Bad customer feedback is a branding opportunity if you handle it right.
3. If you can’t be relevant, at least be entertaining!
4. Visit sites outside of your industry and interest areas for new ideas.
5. Constantly look for ways to contribute and you will never run out of marketing leverage.
6. Social Media should be integrated or synced with other marketing activities.
7. Social media is not rocket science. Forget the big words and focus on listening and connecting intimately.
8. It’s kind of like dating. Don’t ask someone to marry you on the first date.
9. Your goal is to become referable; to become credible, and to build a following through value added interactions.
10. It is not about getting referrals; it is about becoming referable.
11. There are many ways to get followers. A good question to ask is: “How do I create quality connections on Twitter?”
12. Ning.com is a great social networking tool. What it enables you to do is create your own private network for anything.
13. Pay it forward. Teach people about social media and they’ll tell other people about you.
14. Resist the temptation to fill your Facebook friends inboxes with daily marketing. They will tune you out.
15. Break long blog posts into a series of short-posts, it will increase your page views and be more engaging
16. It’s personal reputation and brand building that makes us approachable, people want the real deal.
17. When you’re reaching out to thought leaders in the social space you need to tap into their motivations.
18. Pre-scheduled tweets and blog posts can help you reach audiences in different time zones.
19. Use http://www.tubemogul.com to distribute video to Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo etc. all at once.
20. Use http://hootsuite.com to manage multiple twitter accounts and schedule tweets into the future.
21. It feels great to know people are listening to us and that they care. Let your customers know you’re listening.
22. If done right social media will become a part of your business process not a separate addition.

If you liked these tips, there’s a lot more where that came from in the new book Stephen Jagger and I are releasing this summer called Sociable! Sign up for updates and advance order opportunities below:

20 Social Media Tips:

1. Focus on a specific theme in your social media for extended periods of time
2. Your blog is your home base, all social media should feed your home base
3. Social media is 90 % contribution and connection 10 % marketing and sales
4. Social media belongs to the people, they get to make the rules not the marketer
5. Have a social media policy for your company. Help your people be effective and on message
6. Promote other people’s dreams. It builds community, loyalty and brand for you
7. “Marketing is a process not an event”- @jaylevinson
8. Blog, tweet and talk about solutions to people’s pains and challenges
9. Social media tools like twitter are listening tools more than they are broadcasting tools.
10. Nano-cast to many small niches instead of broadcasting to everyone.
11. Learn to break up large blog entries into many smaller entries. It’s more user friendly
12. Take time each month to update your major social media profiles, use key words that your prospects would search for
13. Use social search like http://search.twitter.com and http://blogsearch.google.com to listen to your customers
14. Each social network has it’s own etiquette FaceBook type behavior doesn’t work on  LinkedIn
15. Answer people’s comments on your blog, or @ replies in Twitter. Social media leadership is about bi-directional communication.
16. Think twice, click once.
17. Take it off-line, book in person meetings or hold events for your online social media contacts
18. Use an assortment of tools, it geometrically multiplies efforts
19. Always be asking where are we going? What is the next Twitter or FaceBook going to be?
20. Use a mixture of content on your blogs, top 10 lists, photos, video, audio, guest bloggers, and polls…

Register for updates on Sociable! Shane Gibson and Stephen Jagger’s new book to be released in June 2009.

Social Media Seminars with Shane Gibson.

Related Posts:

• Twitter tips for Sales People
• Social Media Phobia Why Executives Aren’t On board
• Succeed in Tough Times with Social Media