The Social Capitalist

HORROR STORY! When a company created hashtag goes incredibly bad

by social-capitalist on January 25, 2012

So perhaps you’re already heard this or maybe you have not but the McDonalds Hashtag #McDstories was created with the intention of getting people to share their good experiences with McDonalds. However, turns out that there are a lot of bad stories people can share as well.

LESSON: before you try to create your own company/brand hashtag to ‘engage’ your customers, you might want to create a worst-case scenario in your mind as to how it could backfire.

In this case, I don’t think Rick Wion, or whomever came up with this grand idea was thinking when they launched this push for engagement with the hashtag.

But, thanks to Rick, now we all know how critical it is to take the following steps when coming up with a brand engagement hashtag strategy:

1. Make the hashtag short enough (ideally 8 characters or less) – this always holds true.
2. Make the hashtag make sense for what you’re trying to communicate. There are plenty of good examples of this, just take a look at things that consistently are trending on twitter.
3. Think of the worst case scenario it could create. For example, #mcdstories – I’m sure a lot of people have had bad things happen to their food. WIth that many locations, something’s gotta give.

So, at the end of the day, thank you Rick for helping us out with this lesson.

Fore more coverage, for those of you who aren’t aware, see below.

Went from this:

To This:

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Top 3 Things I’ve Seen Selling Social Media Monitoring Software in 2011

by social-capitalist on December 29, 2011

If you’ve been a reader, my guess is that you’ve been wondering why I’ve been on such a long hiatus. Well, I’ve been working a lot really close in the field of social media monitoring- selling the stuff actually. And so, I have had the opportunity to get a very clear picture on what it is that companies and brands are actually trying to do with social media.

Over the course of the year, I have spoken with decision makers at over 200 companies- mostly small – medium sized businesses ( sampling of companies that make up the majority of our North American economy) about what they’re doing with social media, what their goals are, what they’re trying to accomplish and how social media monitoring can help them.

Here are the top things I’ve seen in 2011 about where the average medium sized businesses stand when it comes to social media.

Business are 1.5 Years Behind Their Customers

While consumers are ahead of the curve, many businesses are dramatically lagging behind to understand the new insights.

This isn’t to say that businesses aren’t catching on to the fact that it’s important to listen to the conversation online. I think they know this by now and if they do not, they’re probably in trouble to be left behind. Nevertheless, people as individuals are very ahead of the curve when it comes to participation on social media and businesses too scared in their efforts to embrace new media are falling behind with every tweet unheard.

I think that the majority of this is because many business don’t know where to begin or what to do first and there are too many self proclaimed social media experts out there that have never worked in a corporation long enough to understand how businesses really think and function. The combination just makes it hard to get anything done as they can’t rely on their other or understand each other to make some decisions that will work going forward.

The basic point here is this:

No matter what you or your company is selling – your customers are out there and they are talking about you. There is a wold of data out there to help you understand how to reach and engage with these customers better, faster, more effectively and businesses are about 1.5 years on average to make that leap from the time they realize their customers are online.

No Significant Difference in Adoption Between B2B’s and B2C’s but B2B’s Care Twice As Much About Data

The interesting thing I’ve found though is that there is really no significant gap in b2b vs. b2c’s incorporating social media into their mix internally. Only on the external does it seem that social media is important more-so to b2c’s for obvious reasons but this isn’t the case as I’ve spoken with many b2b’s that are equally, if not more-so, emphasizing the importance of social media. Moreover, for some reason,

b2b’s appear twice as likely to emphasize data points on which to make social media strategic decisions.

From conversations with both b2b’s and b2c’s, I’ve found that b2b’s place much more emphasize in tactfully spending their marketing dollars where it seems like b2c’s are literally flying on a whim in many cases and relying on outside agencies to know their customers better than they do and just handle their social media for them – literally. They’ll spend hundreds of thousands just to pass off the task to have someone else be their brand essence for them at a b2c which just blows my mind. My theory is that it’s due to panic because it became much more obvious for b2c’s to make a move on social and get engaged however it’s unfortunate because sustainable growth means knowing your customers inside and out, not paying an outside firm to do it for you….

Needless to say, business are still figuring out what to do with this animal and how to incorporate it into the marketing mix and business. The key mistake I’ve found is that companies are treating it as a separate animal in the marketing mix when really its a compliment to everything a business does…which leads me to my next point.

Companies Need to Stop Treating Social As a Separate Animal & Get Holistic about Looking At Social

From my experience talking with hundreds of decision makers at hundreds of different companies, I’ve found that more than 90% of these companies STILL want to compartmentalize social media.

Newsflash: Your Customers (businesses or consumers) don’t work that way, so you need to adapt now.

The truth is, every department needs to get an understanding as to WHY listening on social media is important to them. The best way to make this happen in an organization is through stories and data to back them up. The only way to do this is with the help of technology and someone who knows how to use the technology. Certain social media monitoring technologies can sort through all the data that’s out there and provide you with insights that are relevant to all your organizations departments and business functions: HR, IT, Support, Finance, Business Development, Sales and of course Marketing, Communications, PR and so on.

My Advice? Get the data you need from a social media monitoring provider. You can work with me if you’re not sure where to start and then form a pannel from each of your departments to get together once at the beginning of the year to analyze the data and do quarterly reviews on what they’re learning. As an organization, you must work together and take a holistic approach to social media as it will interact with every department – of course some more than others but in matters of the customer – it is always better to over-understand and over-communicate what is happening with your fans and buyers internally. This over-understanding of the business across departments will be what defines or destroys your organization over time.

Many more insights to come so please be sure to SUBSCRIBE to this blog and follow me on Twitter.

Last but not least, one litter disclaimer- I am by no means in this blog post calling out any specific clients or prospects I’ve worked with in the least. In Sales you of course have the opportunity to receive hundreds of No’s before you receive a Yes and so I’d like to call attention to any clients that I’ve worked with – you know who you are – because you are ahead of the game and are the outliers of this study from my working with you Thank you for the opportunity and I assure all clients and prospects that I will never give away any big hints to the companies I’m working with or without in any way.

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Why SEO Gurus Got Slapped In The Face

by webmaster on July 30, 2010

Article first published as Why SEO Gurus Got Slapped in the Face by Technorati.

It felt like only yesterday when SEO gurus ran the search world.

There they were, charging hundreds an hour while they poked around on their computers, analyzing keywords, calculating algorithms and directing cheaper labor overseas to conduct their link building projects — all with the belief that these tactics were the only thing needed to gain top rankings on Google.

Once upon a time, that's all that was needed to rank high on Google.

Flash forward to today and now SEO "gurus" who once killed it on the search scene, are scratching their heads and screaming at their offshore partners.

News flash: your tactics are now considered spam.

It could be said that social media hit mainstream about four years ago. Around that same time, all hell broke lose. Facebook's flood gates opened to everyone; YouTube was crawling to the top of Alexa; and, everyone wanted to know what Ashton Kutcher ate for lunch on Twitter. Once everyone else started to care about what everyone else was saying, search started to listen.

Of course search engines started listening to the massive amounts of conversations and user generated content created online, which is called real-time search.

That content has answers and we're all just searching for answers anyway aren't we? Who better to trust than Kim Kardashian or your best best friend from high school on Facebook? (slight sarcasm).

Nevertheless, social is now important for search marketing and the agenda of Search Engine Strategies (SES) SF 2010 is a reflection of that.

SES is a global conference held annually in cities around the world. Less than a month away is SES San Francisco, which starts August 16th. While previous years conferences have focused primarily on SEO, SEM, PPC strategies for search, the focus more recently has shifted to social media. But why?

Social media is playing a huge factor at SES this year, according to Byron Gordon from SEO-PR.com. This has nothing to do with social media as a buzz word or a fad. It has to do with the undeniable fact that search has changed, dramatically and quickly. One minute you are showing up on the first page for keywords with their queries, the next minute, Google ignores you as spammer. Why? Too much SEO and too little SMO (social media optimization).

SEO and Social now need to work together. An SEO practitioner can no longer apply the same tactics to be a top rank without integration of social media as well. Further, the way people search, make decisions, and what they click on has change. In fact, there is very little discussion of paid search at this years SES San Francisco event.

There are some great topics and speakers to be discussed at the event. Agenda topics range from Introductory SEO or Social Media to in depth topics like Augmented Reality and Facebook.

What I do not see covered in depth however, is social search — a new way people are starting to search and make decisions about what to click on and even buy.

I would expect to see a full discussion period blocked out for this topic. While I do see mentions of the changes to search, etc. the face of social search in itself deserves more consideration at a search engine strategies conference.

Aren't the new strategies involving social to optimize search essentially what people expert to learn from attending? What do you think?

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Make Your User Experience Memorable With New Services

by webmaster on July 28, 2010

What makes a brand, site, product, or message stick with consumers? User experience. For one thing, neuromarketing studies show us that combining congruent messages connecting to different human senses increases the likelihood that people remember the interaction in a positive way. For instance, I remember fashion designer James Perse because the first time I saw his clothes they looked like they would be soft and nice to wear- then I touched them, and wow, that fabric was so soft it was unreal. Thus, I remembered that designer. The same thing applies with users on a site. Lets say you sell shoes, and someone visits your site for the first time being directed from a search engine. Lets say they find your site hard to navigate and annoying to shop and explore options- you can bet on the fact that they won’t spend much more time on your site and they’ll be heading straight to Zappos. Basically, you need to be real and honest about your site or blog. Who is visiting? What are they looking for? How can I make sure they find what they need and their questions are answered as quickly as possible? Adding value along every consumer touchpoint from site entrance, to search, to checkout will distinguish you.

One does not have to be a programing genius to make their site fun and interactive along consumer touch points. In fact, There are plenty of tools out there than can accomplish this for you. New service sites launch every other day that make these once hard to use technologies easy enough to use for the average joe.

For instance, ThinkLink, an interactive image tagging site just released to the public today. The service does one simple thing: allows you to easily identify things in an image. Sounds simple enough and a lot of site already do this but the difference is that its quick, you don’t need to be a user, and you can tag any image with anything and then embed the tagged image to your site. No redirects- just pure juice wherever you want it to go. For instance, Elle magazine online uses it on their Finland consumer site to point out images in a site so users can simply mouse over them for more information- this service was not so readily available for the novice blogger. You can also find a good example on HobbyPrincess.com

So, if you sell a product, run a consumer product based blog, or photo site and you do not already tag your images to optimize user experience- then you should get on that right away and check out ThinkLink. See how it can improve the experience for your visitors.

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Socialize, Swipe, Buy, Share, Socialize

by social-capitalist on July 8, 2010

Social Transaction Sharing Sites

These sites, apps, widgets, and what-nots fall into the social shopping category that is rapidly growing, gaining investors, market adoption, and changing the way consumers make decisions about what they buy, where and more. Essentially, with the swipe or a card or a simple mention, you can share with your network (or the world) what you just bought with your piece of plastic. After sharing it with the swipe of a card, you can talk about it, rate it, discuss the overall buying experience with anyone. You can share price so you can let people know whether or not they got ripped off or not. Essentially, these tools are amazing for consumers. For business and marketers, however, it depends on if you use them or ignore them…

Who to watch: Keep your eye on Swipely & Blippy. On May 11, 2010 Swipely received $7.5 in Series A funding. Swipely will compete hand in hand with Blippy, another social credit card transaction site, but the difference is user intent as implied by TechCrunch. While Blippy focuses more on digits, Swipely focuses on the transactions and products themselves. The consumer intent with Swipely is more to explore what their networks are buying to gain suggestions on where to buy. Blippy on the other hand appears to be more of a price gauge so consumers can make sure they are not paying too much when their neighbor paid half that price. Basically, the sites link to your credit/debit cards so that you can choose to share as much or as little about your purchases as you want with your social networks. Swipely’s focus is to add value to the transactions themselves by allowing networks and friends to share information about your purchases that is useful. Swipely will not show how much your spending but rather what you are getting.

What’s it to US?

This trend makes word of mouth marketing less about what people are saying and more about what people are doing.

By making it quicker than ever to share with your friends what you just bought, for how much and where, these tools are essentially taking the talking out of word of mouth marketing and making it more about doing. The age old saying, “actions speak louder than words” is finally very true. Indeed, talk is cheap. This gives marketers something to think about especially if their former concerns where what people are saying on Yelp, review forums, discussion forums, While there are a number of potential business models that can and will probably pop up because of this trend, most of these social transaction sites are only accessible by invitation code. The thing to keep in mind for marketers and consumers alike is that social transaction sharing can be integrated throughout the consumer decision making process. While obviously, this will first impact the more socially savvy at first and then move throughout the adoption curve, the point to keep in mind as marketers and consumers is that this information will be available and it will impact decisions and ultimately, sales. Marketers can integrate a social transaction sharing strategy throughout their campaign to leverage this new trend. Meanwhile, consumers can benefit.

The true test of a good campaign for brands will be integration across consumer touch points along the decision making process. Are you using social technologies to become aware, generate interest, understanding, shape attitudes, affect purchases, and ultimately impact repeat purchases?

It has often been preached that social media technologies need to be incorporated thoughout the marketing mix and campaigns need to approach new technologies likewise.

Bookmark The Social Capitalist to stay up to date on social shopping trends.

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Why An In Store Mobile Strategy Can Help Save Your Retail Sales

by social-capitalist on June 24, 2010

Can an in store mobile strategy save your slumping retailer sales? In very well might. Smart retailers have shown that the integration of other technologies, such as smart phone bridge shopping apps, into the shopping experience keeps consumers in the store longer so they can buy more and improves their perceived shopping experience to keep them coming back. When retailers differentiate themselves with the integration of these cool new bridge apps, they pave the way for consumers to talk about their experience with their friends and do a lot of your word of mouth marketing work for you. Further, the new social mediums allow these opinions and experiences to travel faster and farther than ever before.

Earlier this month a great interview between Dave Sikora, Founder and Ceo of Digby, and Emarketer took place on the topic on mobile commerce.

The mobile channel is an in store differentiation opportunity.
Traditionally there have been 3 channels for retailers: catalog, physical storefront, and the website. Mobile today, however, is now arguably the 4th channel tying in all three.
Tying in mobile to the in store shopping experience can really keep people in the store longer and really engage with the consumer. Some examples of this include the scanner and how we can now scan barcodes and make purchases from our mobile device.
Bridge apps that are specifically designed to engage people in the store are going to become much more frequent.
There are two kinds of apps in this space: (1) The ones with no brand affinity like price comparison shopping apps; (2) The ones with brand affinity. Apps that let you check into the store (with brand affinity) can notify the retailer that you are there. The retailer can then alert the shopper of deals on particular products on their mobile device. The experience allows the retailer to create a more engaging and enjoyable experience.
Price comparison mobile apps have really been a threat to retailers. One way retailers can combat this threat is by negating these services to provide ” value over and above buying on price” according to Sikora. There are many ways and possibilities for retailers to do this. Some ideas include video feeds on certain products with the scan of a barcode.
The key is to always have your brand on the deck of their smartphone and have opportunities for the consumer to learn more and engage with your products instead of compare prices.

Conclusion, branded in store mobile apps offer a way to do 4 major things:

Integrate the rest of the channels (storefront, catalog, website) into one.
Engage the consumer with your brand.
Battle the other price comparison apps and reviews that pose a risk to your next sale opportunity.
Differentiate from the rest of the retailers.

For more articles on the social shopping and mobile stay connected with The Social Capitalist SMO Blog for updates by subscribing. Last but not least, if you are a retailer, be sure to download the GS1 WhitePaper on “Getting Your Retail Enviornment Ready for Mobile”. Find it on the post on differentiating by integrating mobile in store.

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Differentiating The Retail Shopping Experience By Integrating Mobile In Store

by social-capitalist on June 24, 2010

New bridge mobile apps and other technologies have made it possible to seriously differentiate oneself in the retail space. While some stores fall behind, other stores are kicking some in store shopping butt. There has been a lot written on the subject of the direction of mobile in the social shopping space but GS1 serves up some impressive services and a handy dandy whitepaper to get retailers acquainted with all the amazing things they can do to improve and further engage customers in the shopping experience.

There are a variety of ways retailers engage:

Mobile has allowed us to do the following with these interactions. These services are all things that most companies like GS1 serve up to retailers:

For more great information on different mobile services that you can integrate with mobile to create a more engaging shopping experience, consult Mobile in Retailer WhilePaper from GS1. Also, be sure to read the post on mobile and social shopping by subscribing to the Social Capitalist SMO Blog.

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16 Services to Sell Stuff Fast & The Secret Social Sauces That Make People Buy and Share

by social-capitalist on June 14, 2010

16 Services to_Sell_Faster & The Secret Social Sauces That Make People Buy & Share

View more presentations from socialcapitalist.

One of the best gauges of how well an economy is doing is by how much people are spending. So, when news comes out during a recession that consumer spending for the previous quarter was devastatingly lower than expected, retailers get worried and the outlook doesn’t look that great.

So when retail sales are looking low and the only places doing well are discount retailers, what is a small business or specialty shop or service provider to do? Start discounting. One way to discount but still grow your customer base is with social shopping and discount collective buying sites. Above is a presentation on some of the big collective buying sites with social integrations that can help you get more customers, move inventory, and help sales.

View more presentations from socialcapitalist.

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6 Ways to Better Engage Fans on Facebook

April 19, 2010 SMO

Facebook receives 6 Million page views per minute and has 400 Million users. If your not already engaging with your consumers on Facebook, your competitor is. If you already use Facebook for personal use than you are pretty familiar with what I’m talking about already. The following are a couple tips and ideas on ways [...]

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Is Facebook the New MySpace?

April 19, 2010 SMO

Facebook receives over 6 Million page views per minute. Its easy to see why brands and companies are flocking to create pages and engage with consumers. Nevertheless, this influx of marketers attempting to connect with Facebook’s 350 million users was bound to happen. The brands that get it, like Starbucks or H&M with their useful apps and pages, realize that social networks are not sales tools. They see that they actually have to add to the conversation, not distract from it. I do believe it was a good choice for Facebook to open up their platform for anyone to join and I don’t blame Facebook for “Life Insurance” wanting to be my friend. Instead, I blame marketers that just don’t get it trying to jump on the social media bandwagon.

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6 Biggest Challenges People Face Kickstarting A Social Media Marketing Strategy

April 20, 2010 SMO

What are the major challenges companies and individuals face trying to kickstart a social media marketing strategy? How can you overcome them? This article outlines the 6 biggest hurdles to getting started with a strong strategy and provides some helpful tips on how to overcome them. In a study by the Altimer Group, consulting firm, [...]

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How to Explain Social Media: 10 Tips in a Slideshow in Less Than 2 Minutes

April 20, 2010 SMO

Here is a presentation on Social Media Marketing from a non marketing perspective. Perhaps the insights might give you tips on how to better explain it to those around you that still don’t get it.

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(SMO) Social Media Optmization Explained

April 23, 2010 SMO

What is SMO (Social Media Optimization)? Why is it important? What should I do about it? This article gives you a solid baseline understanding of what social media optimization is and where the heck the term came from. Then it goes on to answer the questions you have about what to do with this new [...]

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The Critical Questions You Must Ask Before You Jump on The Social Media Bandwagon

April 23, 2010 SMO

So you realized that this social media thing is really not just a fad and you need to do something about it for the sake of your reputation or company. What if you get behind? Before you panic or do anything at all you must ask yourself the following questions. Failure to do so and [...]

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SMO Week of April 18, 2010

April 23, 2010 SMO

Top social media stories for the week of April 18, 2010. This is social media news that you can use. This series happens every Friday and will give you the best resources covering each story. The focus is on finding resources that not only cover the top stories but tell you what these stories mean for you.

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Why Defining Your Social Media Audience is Critical To SMO Success.

April 26, 2010 SMO

In the previous article, “Critical Questions You Must Ask Before Jumping on the Social Media Bandwagon, ” the Social Capitalist pointed out the some of the first and most critical questions to consider when defining and targeting social media audience. Identifying and defining your social media audience is critical to your SMO Strategy for two [...]

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How Much Time Should You Be Spending On Social Networks?

April 27, 2010 SMO

Whether you are an agency or your just a busy individual that wants to know how much time they should spend to plan their SMO strategy, these simple equations are very helpful to budget out how much time you should be spending on your social networks. I’ve come up with a couple equations that have [...]

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Give Me 13 Minutes and I’ll Give You The First Key To Social Media Optimization Success

April 28, 2010 SMO

credit for image goes to “listen to Me!” on Flickr . Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/metrojp/92038203/ Take thirteen minutes to read this article and I will give you the first key to social media optimization success- social audience targeting. Reading this will save you a century or wasted time and energy. After reading this article you will have [...]

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Is Facebook “Liking” the New Linking?

April 29, 2010 SMO

With 50,000 sites already adding Facebook’s like button and growing, Google has every reason to call some emergency meetings. Facebook’s Universal Like Button and Social Graph have only been around for about a week now and it is already starting to slap standard search in the face. Facebook’s calling this like button the “Social Link” [...]

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Social Marketing Stories May 2010

April 30, 2010 SMO

Overview of what went down in SMO this week from news, thought leaders, companies and more. New Social Media Data & Marketer Focus As the technology keeps changing and marketers keep trying to figure out the best ways to target social audiences and demonstrate ROI, we continue to grow our list of valuable data. Here [...]

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Free Simple Search Tool Every Social Media Professional Should Be Using for Facebook

May 3, 2010 SMO

What are Facebook’s 400 Million users saying about you? There is nothing more valuable than a word-of-mouth recommendation to a friend and a lot of these conversations are happening on Facebook. Find out what 400 Million Facebook users are saying about you, your company, brand, product or industry in real time. Moreover, find out how to use this free tool and the information on it for your social media marketing campaign. Keep reading.

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Google Social Search

May 5, 2010 SMO

Google Social Search is nothing new. It is a labs project with Google but be ready, because it will change word of mouth marketing, marketing in general and search forever. Watch and learn below: Summary: The impact of Google Social Search on the way people search, find information and make decisions. This is critical to [...]

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Beat Your SEO Competition With Social Search

May 7, 2010 SMO

Meet your new best friend, Google Social Search. This technology is not new but it can help you can a huge competitive advantage in search. Social Search relies on social media technologies and its users to deliver what your networks are saying around your queries. Is SMO the new SEO? How can you optimize social search to beat the competition? Read on.

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Give Me 6 Minutes And I’ll Give You The 2nd Key To Social Media Optimization Success

May 6, 2010 SMO

After reading the first key to smo success, we know the importance of choosing and targeting your social media audience. The key thing we needed to remember is that the best audience for your social media strategy is not always who you think it is. If you didn’t read the first key, it might help [...]

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How Smart Companies Use Social Media

May 7, 2010 SMO

Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of utilizing our ability to communicate and express something to achieve certain goals. Smart companies have been using social media for a variety of business functions and goals. Social media marketing strategies can be applied across functions to reach departmental goals. Many clients I work with will approach [...]

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Should Ecommerce Be Scared About Social Shopping?

May 11, 2010 SMO

Social shopping is here and 75% of customers seek advice from others when shopping online. Much of the technology to do what you see above is already there and it is available to us. I have never seen such a shopping experience in store but the most technically savvy shoppers can get almost everything they [...]

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Action Based Marketing is Making Talk Cheap

May 26, 2010 SABM

Social technologies are changing the way consumers make decisions. As social tools get more advanced and consumer adoption grows, our attention spans decrease and the focus shifts from “talking” to “doing”.

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