Creative Agency Secrets

Which social media tools are appropriate (and easy) for newcomers?

I had a very interesting session working remotely (backstory on remote consulting) with Prosper Consulting and Simon Ibson, the MD.

He is quite new to social media as a business development tool and we discussed the places that I use to promote my blog as a means to help him navigate and research the possible places he could do the same with the new website which isn't quite ready… (Story of my life!)And so I started with the places that my professional profile is listed:
Facebook
Plaxo Pulse
Linked In
FriendFeed/RebeccaCaroe
Twitter

Facebook occupies a curious cross-border place in my toolkit because I principally use it for friends and family but there are some great groups I belong to hosted there which are clearly work not play.  I favour the groups "London Girl Geek Dinners ", "BIMA British Interactive Media Association " and "What I saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution " as really active with new items posted regularly which really interest me.
Plaxo is a surrogate Friendfeed but has more professional contacts in there.  I use Friendfeed to funnel stuff into my Alert Thingy stream which is a great way of posting to Twitter and it has a tinyurl plugin that really works!

And then there are aggregator sites where I can set up the RSS feed from this blog to send stuff over automatically.  This is a fabulous service, if (and only if) the site has got itself a good audience and is well-managed.
UTalkMarketing
Marcom Professional
Marketing Services Talk

Ragan

Of these, MArcom Professional set up by Philip Sheldrake is my favourite.  It has a better range of comment and is less 'managed'.  I used to check in to Ragan a lot but it's very US oriented and mainly aimed at PR folk, which I'm not.  Plus, I loathe the weekly email from Utalk but haven't managed to unsubscribe from it.  Maybe I dream that one day they'll pick up one of my posts to print…

And so how should you work out the places that your profile (corporate or personal) should be online?

My suggestion is to start with Linked In because you really can't go wrong there.  Take a look around the people you know on there and start an active campaign to connect to the ones you know.  If you have the energy, also ask for recommendations for those you've worked for.

In order to find sites that may be helpful for you try this checklist

1. Go to Technorati.com and use a key word search that describes what your company does
2. Read the blogs it lists and sign up to read a few that seem a) prolific b) have good, informed commentary c) post regularly d) score highly on the Technorati Authority score
3. Search Google or Yahoo for the same key word + 'blog' or 'news' (that'll filter out your competitors' websites)
4. Repeat step 2 and find those who write well.  Sign up to read…

As far as the others go, take a month to regularly read what's on them from people you know (ask someone to let you log in to their feed / pulse stream).  You can also ask your trusted colleagues and clients which they use and / or know about. And make your own mind up.

Simon was curious about what copyright I chose to exercise on this blog.  I told him that I publish it all under the Creative Commons license - detail on creative commons.

Simon recommended two books to me. Alan Weiss' "Million Dollar Consulting" and "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug  

Prosper Consulting is a talent acquisition specialist that works hard on building long term relationships with client companies, delivers recruitment solutions and doesn't work on success fees.  And so if you want to hire top talent and don't want to be spending percentages of their salary on the agency, check out Prosper Consulting .  

Rachel Clarke introduced me to Christian Payne who had the idea of hosting the first Geek festival.  I have been running the Vann Summer Fest in a field behind my mum's house for the past 7 years with Grant Craies, William Heath, Ruth Kennedy, Al Kennedy and Aliya Saleem.  We have agreed to bolt Geeknbury onto the fest - starting one day earlier and then seamlessly blending inbto the family fun.

Come down - bring your geek / biz dev / web 2.0 ideas and let's have some fun!

Details on Christian's blog  

I received a quesiton from a Business development Director of a well-known identity and branding agency who works with social enterprise and government organisations.

We don’t use outside consultants, but the ‘Enterprise 2.0’ is an area of interest. Most agencies seem to be setting up blogs as a way of presenting the agency culture and having open dialogue. What are your thoughts?
Ben

And so I wrote him this reply.  What do you think?

Without writing “screeds” my view is that a blog is a good way to start if you want to present the ‘personality’ of the agency to the outside world.  However, deciding to do it and doing it well and consistently are two different things.  You need to be the type of organisation who has the desire to show off in public a bit in order to keep the momentum of a blog going – and you also have to be able to write interesting stuff.  Many firms struggle to do both of these.

There are other simple social media tools that can be quicker than blogging and easier to maintain – but the same two rules I mention above apply.

Having said that, it is very hard to stand out in a crowded marketplace especially when the market for your services is changing.  But the opportunities for working with ‘social conscience’ organisations are rising.  Which should be good for you.

I note the Google page rank on your site is pretty low 3/10 for your home page.  Adding a blog which is not built in flash, may help improve your SEO as well as enable you to promote appropriate search terms to capitalise on your strong brand heritage.  Think of it as amplification for your corporate “voice” online.

So that’s my free advice for you.  Sad you don’t work with outside consultants – but call me if you want to talk further.
 

I have written before about ways and means of doing this for yourself.

the simplest method is a Google Alert for your brand name (and any obvious mis-spellings).

But have a look at these alternatives

Bloppy
Co.mments

Bloppy juust tracks web posts and comments

Tired of losing track of the comments you wrote on blogs you like? Missing comments from other users? So was I! But fear no more. Now you can receive notifications on your email of new comments on your favorite blog posts! 

Co.mments also tracks posts but calls them 'conversations'

co.mments helps you stay on top of the conversation by keeping you updated of new comments. Just bookmark, track and follow.  

I've been online with Twitter for a few months now and here are 5 top tips on how to use it

1. Find top bloggers in your space and follow them.  Read the links they post - you often get the scoop early and can be commenter #1
2. Browse your favourite bloggers and see who follows them and browse their Twitter home pages and see who follows them - good for finding new interesting folk you didn't previously know
3. Tweet your blog posts and 'advertise' them online quickly via Twitter to get early readers who follow Tweets more regularly than Bloglines
4. Use tinyURL where possible to save characters
5. Always thank followers - and if you know them, follow them.  if you don't know them, read their home page, browas as in #2 above and decide if you like their stuff before following.

Steve Gillmore has written a neat summary of Twitter's progress and how he has used it during a live podcast with some uber-bloggers.

And a couple more because I thought of them….

6.  Don't write direct messages to anyone unless you REALLY know them

7.  [for non-US users] Turn off the SMS messages for days when you are at the computer - save up those rationed 250 SMS messages

8.  Watch out!  Twitter is compelling…. you'll get hooked ;-) 

Later… Found I am one of only 45 people following the BBC Radio 4's morning Today Programme on Twitter @todaytrial ….. interesting they only follow other BBC programme twitter sites and so NO Chance of dialogue…. which might enhance the programme….. they do read out the odd email during the show. 

Jonny just published the video he did of me on YouTube.

He's going to do a mash-up map showing where his interviewees came from to SXSW in Austin. 

Brave Lloyd and his motley crew met this morning to ‘prototype’ the London Social Media Cafe idea that’s been discussed a bit.  The idea is Space to Meet : Socialise : Work.  that’s it.

we met in the unlikely attic of a Baptist Church in Bloomsbury - fantastic group…
and we discussed the key things needed to make the project fly:

• governance and organisational structure
• location and space
• money
• constituency
• Projects to do there

I joined the governance / money group….

we need….

1. legal / accountancy advice about how to structure the entity [any offers?]
2. We think we know some funders / sponsors who want to get (PR, Branding in the space, sponsor an event, meet the members, opportunity to understand social media, be within the buzz)
3. space - short let offices, lease-endings and possibly approved squatting rights
4. Business plan for our vision and values, statement of aims.   

that’s it for now… a Google Group has been set up.  Join if you want to contribute.

One of the keys to improving your publicity ‘reach’ online is enabling the search engines to index your site.

the key ones are MSN, Yahoo and Google. 

There are some quirks that come up from time to time and I hit one today…. I received an update notification that a blog post linking into my site from a contact I met for lunch in May 2007 had been checked by a search engine spider. 

Now that is S….L…..O…..W…. and obviously says a lot about your brand’s online presence and relevance.

And so here are 5  quick things you can do to speed up the linking process:
1 - Get an incoming link from a high-ranked blog
2 - Add Techorati Tags to your blog posts (see below….)  This ensures that Technorati is receiving tagging information from your source site and helps it to register your presence on the web
3 - Use feedburner as one of your site feeds (it comes free with most blogging software) And it automatically pings the relevant search engines for your
4 - Check how you are doing regularly - read your own site statistics and see where incoming visitors are arriving from.  Your site stats should list the search engines own spider programmes as well as real people
5 - Keep a check on yourself by setting a google alert for your blog name and running a regular Technorati check on your brand (everything in the known universe about….)

By contrast, a post on my rowing blog postd at 9.26 pm on Friday 28 September was indexed and the alert was back in my inbox by Sat 29/09/2007  at 01:04 am.  Four Hours.

These are things I enjoy and so do well.  I’ve done most of them many times and can give you references, if you need.

In no particular order….

1 - Mentoring and coaching anyone with business development responsibility or who has to collaborate with biz dev to do their job better and get results

2 - Moving the whole company to an Enterprise 2.0 operation.  This is a more open relationship with its customers and prospects though using web 2.0 techniques (for yourselves not clients) and creating the open culture internally that enables outsiders to recognise the ‘personality’ of the agency - bypassing traditional outbound communication methods

3 - Facilitating an away day for a client or your senior team

4 - Improving your new business methods and, particularly, pitching

5 - Running a training session on "New business for non-new biz people"

An interesting report from Immediate Future on brand profiles online and particularly in the social media space.

Most of the stats do little for me except to prove that online and offline brands are ranked differently…. yes, you do have to work the online space to get the profile there (doh!).

some nice insights.

LG, Kraft, Amazon and Reuters, who performed well across all social
media, have done poorly in the selected social networks. These brands
are currently not inspiring the creation of groups and therefore
conversations are minimal.

I like this…. the idea that you need to do your own promotion (I can’t really call it online PR becase the methods and media are so different) and that you brand presence needs to be driven.

Companies wanting to understand the conversation around their own brand
must go further than measure share of voice and sentiment. They must
delve deeper and isolate the buzz compared to influence. Influence not
only plays an important role as a way of converting buzz to impact, it
is also crucial to get a correct impression of the sentiment
surrounding a topic or brand.

Social media conversation is not only about the numbers. Social media in itself has influence.

not sure what this last sentence means…. it isn’t amplified in the report.

Agency.com’s recent research   (June 2007) shows that while only 8% of internet users in the UK (approximately 2.3 million people) actively upload content and reviews regularly, these 8% are hugely important for brands. This
is because their ability to influence other internet users is immense.
In essence, they are affecting the behaviour of millions and changing
how audiences inform opinions about brands, products and services.

It is this group that brands need to identify and influence. Brands
will need to charm advocates and inspire positive debate. Companies
that put strategies in place to rebut negative comment will need to
consider not just relevant communications, but customer service,
product value and business performance.

The influence of social media on a brand is relative to topic. In each
subject area for each brand, there will be different influencers,
different detractors and advocates. Determining the most influential blogger, forum member or network takes time and can, and does, frequently change.

Brands must pay attention because audiences instinctively turn to the
web for information. Search engines drive people straight to comment
and conversation, often bypassing a brand’s website and its marketing.
The influence of social media is crucial if brands are to survive their
ownership by audiences.

Great summary, Katy and you team have done us proud.  What was sad for me was that I have corresponded with you in the past and yet you didnt’ send me a link to this great work.

I got it from another blogger… Joined up marketing is still needed online as well as offline!