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Entries in blogs (7)

Friday
16Oct2009
DateFriday, October 16, 2009

Likeminded in Milwaukee

AuthorJennifer Ryan | Comment2 Comments

This morning, Bader Rutter brought our local social media relationships into “real life.” As with any blind date, we did what any modern gal would do — we brought a friend.

Your fearless social media mavens Colleen Grams and I headed to Milwaukee’s East Side for coffee at Rochambo where we met with other professionals for a lively discussion. Likemind is exactly what it sounds like — a group of like-minded people having coffee and talking. There are 35 Likemind groups in cities across the United States as well as groups in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia.

In today’s Milwaukee’s Likemind session, we discussed how to best navigate the increasingly tricky waters of personal versus professional social media. Some highlights:

  • The featured speaker, Phil Gerbyshak, shared his experience balancing his day job in technology with his career as an author and blogger.
  • Of course, Jeff Larche, gave us all some great advice and examples of how it can all work together for one, honest experience. He recommended Penelope Trunk’s blog for good and over-the-top examples in one place.
  • Jamey Shiels’ own blog is a great experiment in personal/professional balance where you can read about how and why he moved to Wordpress, another topic we discussed over coffee today.

What was it like to meet our online friends offline? We found that the people we follow virtually actually look and sound exactly the same in real life — any good brand should aim for that type of consistency.

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Wednesday
02Sep2009
DateWednesday, September 2, 2009

Most important social media tool: Listening

AuthorJohn Gilbert | Comment2 Comments

I have a whiteboard in my office where I keep track of our client to-do’s as well as upcoming meetings and engagements. Out of eight items on the list right now, seven are related to the buzz-worthy topic of social media. As you well know, plenty of content exists today on the subject — books, articles, tweets, YouTube videos, Wikipedia entries, you name it.

Because of this trend, many of our clients are eager to know more: “What is it? Where do I start? How do I apply these principles in our markets? What kind of results can I expect?”

But before we map out a social media plan as part of a larger marketing communications effort, our strategic counsel holds that the first step in any social media engagement should always be listening.

Why listen?

  • To identify who’s talking about our companies, brands, products and services
  • To discover what they’re saying
  • To learn how influential they are
  • To see how fast the word is spreading (or if it’s spreading)
  • To add value to competitive research
  • To better inform our communications plans moving forward

To be sure you’re going about this the right way, there are a plethora of free tools that can help you identify a broad range of conversation levels — TweetScan, BackType, BoardReader, BlogPulse, Google Insights, Technorati, and Google Trends to name a few.

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Monday
17Aug2009
DateMonday, August 17, 2009

Is the death of the corporate Web site near?

AuthorJohn Gilbert | CommentPost a Comment

There’s been considerable discussion over the last year or so about the concept of “killing” the corporate Web site. What the heck does that mean, anyway? There are still plenty of companies out there that haven’t established their first beach head on the Web, and now there’s talk about those very same Web sites being obsolete?

These discussions are centered on the very prominent theme in 2009 of social media. The public’s perception of a company’s products and services is heavily influenced by conversations taking place outside the walls of the company.

You can no longer rely on a single asset to provide the online voice for your organization if you expect it to compete with the potentially high levels of “chatter” (some voices in a void, some heavily influential) in the social media ecosystem. The impact and utility of that single corporate Web site — if used alone — may be smaller than you think.

The thinking behind this is that for many, the traditional corporate Web presence is a relatively static, frozen-in-time snapshot of an organization.

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Tuesday
14Jul2009
DateTuesday, July 14, 2009

Digital marketing lesson from Sir Alex

AuthorGrant Thekan | Comment2 Comments

(Photo courtesy Austino Suide)Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a soccer fanatic. I still play after 30 years, albeit a bit slower in the over 30 league on Friday nights.

The team I follow is Manchester United. Okay, so it is not too hard to be a fan as, after all, they are one of the most successful teams in the world lead by the most successful coach, Sir Alex Ferguson. I recently read a book about him called, Sir Alex: The Story of 21 Remarkable Years at United. I couldn’t help but relate some of his experience managing one of the world’s biggest sports brands with digital marketing.

I walked away with one key message from the book — focus. An unrelenting focus, specifically on winning, is what has made Sir Alex a success. The David Beckhams and the Christiano Ronaldos will come and go but his tight focus on winning is constant. This has meant ignoring or eliminating the distractions, like star players, that even slightly get in the way of focusing on the ultimate goal.

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Monday
22Jun2009
DateMonday, June 22, 2009

Marcom A to Z — A for Associated Press

AuthorAnna Baxter Kirk | CommentPost a Comment

A client recently asked if the Associated Press has gained influence and prominence as a result of shrinking newsroom budgets and staffs at media outlets across the country, and what effect that might have on our PR strategy. Here’s my response.

Like most businesses, media outlets have seen income drop in the last year. With fewer companies funding large advertising programs, and consumers and businesses getting their news via non-traditional sources such as online news sites, blogs, etc., outlets have balanced the budget by cutting staff (along with other fixes: decreasing the size of their print format, providing content only online, closing all together). To keep papers full, they’ve secured additional content from the AP and other syndicated sources.

Undeniably, the AP’s influence has grown. Look at any daily newspaper’s Web site or Yahoo! News — chock full of AP articles. So what effect might this have on your PR strategy?

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Friday
12Jun2009
DateFriday, June 12, 2009

Sharing your story through social media

AuthorRobin Duranleau | Comment1 Comment

Many people mistakenly believe the only people using Twitter and Facebook are teenagers, college kids and celebrities who desperately want to be trend-setters and thought-provokers. While these audiences are heavy users of these mega-social media outlets, don’t let the stereotypes fool you. If you get on the sites and do some digging, you might be surprised who you find.

For example, Gilmer Dairy Farm, located in Lamar County, Alabama, is not only in the business of milking cows, but is also an avid tweeter and blogger. The dairy’s tweets range in content, from updates on putting the cows out to pasture, to promoting June Dairy Month, to joining other tweeples (as they are called) in a weekly discussion about agriculture (#agchat). A recent blog post addressed the current economic situation the dairy industry is facing, and demonstrated the farm’s dedication to providing healthy products for our country — no matter what obstacles they may be facing.

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Monday
25May2009
DateMonday, May 25, 2009

The corporate awakening toward social media

AuthorJohn Gilbert | CommentPost a Comment

The exponential rise in interest in social media is pressuring businesses to sit up and pay attention. And it’s happening fast. Not only is there a significant number of mainstream media reporting on this phenomenon, but it seems the lion’s share of bloggers and micro-bloggers with their sights trained on corporate America are also espousing the virtues of facilitating a dialogue with customers.

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