Saturday, August 27, 2011
Social Media Marketing Class - Week 2
Readings/Preparation
The goal of this week is to begin thinking about what makes for effective social media marketing. First of all, read through the series of interviews I did with a group of people about how they use social media for marketing. The people on this list are involved in a wide range of activities. As you read the words of this diverse group, try to look beyond the differences for common themes regarding how social media can be used effectively for marketing.
Next, read through the first week's posts on your classmates blogs. Links to the blogs will be posted as the week 1 assignment is turned in (hence, the importance of turning in on time).Look at what your classmates say, what resources they found and linked to, the examples they posted, and their comments about the examples. Do your classmates posts seem in agreement with the interviews or in disagreement?
Then do some online research to see what the "experts" say about effective social media marketing. I say "experts" because there are many folks out their claiming to be "experts" trying to sell their seminars or consulting services. That being said, you can find a lot of good information online about how to be effective with social media marketing. For any site you use, you should evaluate its reliability. Again, consider whether what you read confirms or conflicts with the other things you have read.
Lastly, look at examples of organizations using social media for marketing: look at one or two examples in 3 or so different social media sites... i.e. all your examples should not be from facebook. Do the examples seem effective or not? Why?
Assignment
After you have done all the readings/preparatory activities, create a blog entry that lists 5 or so general guidelines for what makes for effective social media marketing. You can either specify things to do, or things to avoid doing. Support each item on your list with a few links to resources you found in the readings/preparatory activities. Upload the url of the blog entry you created to Angel
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Social Media Marketing Interviews - Carrie Scully - Public Relations
MZ: Describe what projects/organizations/activities you have marketed using social networking?
Carrie Scully: My clients include: a leading global truck manufacturer, a number of local Cleveland restaurants and bars and a national consumer products corporation.
MZ: What social media sites have you used for marketing?
Carrie Scully: I have used LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursquare, Quora, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Ustream, flickr, Yelp, Ning, MeetUp, and blogs
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been most effective?
Carrie Scully: Most effective for items are what I would describe as information that organically comes from us: contests, landing pages, photo albums, polls and feedback.
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been least effective?
Carrie Scully: For the major truck manufacturer, because it has three globally recognized brands that are highly technical in nature, customer service has been a bit of a challenge, but we are working on polishing that process off.
MZ: What is the most important thing social media marketing provides that traditional marketing doesn’t?
Carrie Scully: It provides a direct two way(or group) conversation with the ability to share information. Traditional marketing is a one way channel.
MZ: Have you experienced any drawbacks using social media for marketing?
Carrie Scully: Social Media is an open forum that allows for open conversation, in which negative comments and such can go viral. While I have never experienced this snowball effect, I do keep an eye out for it. Also, monitoring external mentions of big brands is a huge undertaking.
MZ: How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts?
Carrie Scully: By reviewing both inbound analytics and feedback directly related to the outbound messages and outside mentions of the brands untied to the profiles or messages themselves.
MZ: What is the one most important quality necessary for a successful social media marketing plan?
Carrie Scully: Content is king - but it has to be brief. It must be interactive and timely. Multimedia can be valuable. Content calendar that is at least 2-3 months out.
MZ: What is the one most critical thing to avoid when using social media marketing?
Carrie Scully: Social Media Marketing must be interactive and timely to be effective. One cannot allow an organization's Social Media to be not interactive or not timely.
MZ: Do you have any other advice for an individual or organization attempting to use social media marketing?:
Carrie Scully: Use management platforms such as HootSuite. Use landing page applications such as Pagemodo and Wildfire. Use SocialMentions.com for external monitoring purposes (free service) or Radian6(pay for service). Be transparent, timely, proactive and helpful. Final note: Engage. Engage. Engage.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Social Media Marketing Class - Project
Introduction
Any project that is not trivial requires planning. It is my experience that this is where many projects fail. Skilled people can work very hard and still create something ineffective if it was not understood from the start what needed to be done. Therefore, in this and all of my courses, I stress planning. Planning does not require that every detail be worked out in advance, and, to be sure, plans need reworked and changed as a project evolves. However, those working on a project must have a clear idea of the goals of the project, or their efforts will likely be wasted.Your Project
For your project, you will create a Marketing Plan for Lorain County Community College's Business Division. The project will be done in two phases - the Rough Draft and the Completed Version. See syllabus for due dates. Here is some information about LCCC's Business Division. For this assignment, I will be considered as the representative for the Business Division, so ask me any questions - through any of the communication methods listed for this class. For this assignment, the deadlines will be more strictly enforced.Marketing Plan - Format
Use the following template for your Marketing Plan. You will need to write a paper (.doc, .docx, .rtf, Google Docs, or .pdf format) and create a slideware presentation (.ppt, .pptx, or Google Docs).For your presentation, assume the presentation will be accompanying a speaker - although in an online class, you won't actually present it. Review standards for good presentation design.
Your paper should include the following sections. Your presentation should summarize the highlights and need not contain every section.
- Objectives - List at least 3 specific objectives that LCCC's Business Division would want to achieve via their Social Media Marketing
- Target Audience Groups - List at least 3 different groups of people the Social Media Marketing would be geared towards
- Review of Social Media of Similar Organizations - Review and document what similar organizations are doing regarding Social Media Marketing
- Relevant Goals of Target Audiences - What do you feel the target audiences hope to achieve through interacting with LCCC's Business Division's Social Media... include 2 goals for each group
- Proposed Content - identify which Social Media channels should be used. For each channel describe:
- who would create posts
- how often posts would be created
- general description of content included
- how the content aligns with LCCC Business Division's objectives
- how content aligns with Target Audience Goals
- anticipated issues
- Proposed policies concerning Transparency, etc - suggest policies concerning what should be posted/what should not be posted, how to handle negative comments and other issues relating to transparency
- Metrics - how should LCCC's Business Division measure whether their Social Media Market efforts are effective - be specific
Marketing Plan - Rough Draft
For the rough draft, you will turn in a draft of your marketing plan. For the rough draft, you do not need to turn in the slide presentation, just the paper. You will then be assigned another student's paper to peer review and offer feedback. You will post your rough draft to the drop box. I will email you someone else's draft. You will email the other student your feedback and upload your feedback to the peer review drop box. See the syllabus for due dates.| Component | Poor | Fair | Good |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rough Draft | 0-3 points: 0-2 sections of the plan addressed in adequate detail | 4-6 points: 3-4 sections of the plan addressed in adequate detail | 7-10 points: 5-7 sections of the plan addressed in adequate detail. |
| Peer Review | 0-1 points: Review not done, or inadequate in most respects | 2-3 points: Review is vague, incomplete or lacking in insight | 4-5 points: Review is insightful, detailed, specific and complete |
Marketing Plan - Completed
Here is the rubric:| Component | Poor | Fair | Good |
|---|---|---|---|
| Objectives | 0 points: missing or vague | 1 points: incomplete or vague | 2 points: complete and specific |
| Target Audiences | 0 points: missing or vague | 1 points: incomplete or vague | 2 points: complete and specific |
| Review of Social Media of Similar Organizations | 0 points: missing or vague | 1-2 points: incomplete or vague | 3 points: complete and specific |
| Relevant Goals of Target Audiences | 0 points: missing or vague | 1-2 points: incomplete or vague | 3 points: complete and specific |
| Proposed Content | 0-1 points: missing or vague | 2-3 points: incomplete or vague | 4-5 points: complete and specific |
| Proposed policies concerning Transparency, etc | 0 points: missing or vague | 1-2 points: incomplete or vague | 3 points: complete and specific |
| Metrics | 0 points: missing or vague | 1 points: incomplete or vague | 2 points: complete and specific |
| Presentation | 0-1 points: missing - lacking in content and poorly designed | 2-3 points:good content or good design | 4-5 points: good content, good design |
It is possible ideas from your Marketing Plan will be used!
I will create a video describing the project in more detail in the upcoming weeks.
The books: Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day and Social Media is a Cocktail Party, were useful in developing this assignment
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Social Media Marketing Class - Week 1
Welcome
Welcome to the class. Here is a short video describing some aspects of the class. The volume is low - my apologies.
It is very likely that all of us are at least somewhat familiar with some aspects of Social Media. This first week, our focus will be on examining Social Media in more detail. It is important for us though, to have a solid understanding of the technical and social factors at work that have given rise to Social Media.
Person of the Year
Since 1927, Time Magazine has selected the Person of the Year (formerly titled Man of the Year.)
"TIME's Person of the Year is bestowed by the editors on the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year. Source
The winners are a prestigious group that includes: Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mohandas Gandhi. Source
Two of recent winners are quite curious:
These awards are emblematic of the power and potential of Social Media in many aspects of life. Read through the articles about the awards to get a greater sense of just what the power of Social Media is. While different Social Media platforms were created for different reasons, as the use of Social Media has grown, organizations have sought to use it as a marketing tool to promote their efforts. In this course, we will explore the use of Social Media in Marketing.
Background
The following provide some background information on the technologies and social factors at work in Social Media.
A great starting point is to read this article about Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is sort of an umbrella term that describes how the web has evolved. It deals with both the evolving technology and the changing mindset.
Here are some videos, which discuss Social Media, and its influence, in an entertaining manner. One focuses on blogs which is relevant to the first Homework Assignment.
Assignment
Create a blog using any of the sites available including blogger, wordpress, tumblr or any other blogging platform. You will be using this blog in your Homework Assignments this week and in future weeks. Creating a blog is fairly straightforward; please ask if you have any questions. Be aware, your blog will be available to the general public on the internet, be careful with your privacy. My suggestion is that you use your first name and last initial on the blog.
After you create your blog, I want you to research on the web and find resources about Social Media Marketing. Then, create a post to your blog similar to this post, except focused on Social Media Marketing. I do not expect you to create a video as I have done - though you are welcome to if you wish. I do expect you to have identified a few reliable resources on the subject, and create an entry that combines a summary of what you have found, your own thoughts and links to these links. When you have completed the entry, post the url of your blog to the drop box in Angel (our CMS).
Your blog entry should include:
- Links to sources about Social Media Marketing
- A summary in your own words about what you found
- Some examples of how organizations use social media for marketing - your thoughts on the examples - Do you the organizations are effective in their use of Social Media? not effective? why?
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Social Media Marketing Interviews - David Gutowski - writer
MZ: Describe what projects/organizations/activities you have marketed using social networking?
David Gutowski: I promote my blog, Largehearted Boy, my monthly Brooklyn reading series Largehearted Lit, and my freelance writing through social media.
MZ: What social media sites have you used for marketing?
David Gutowski: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, MySpace
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been most effective?
David Gutowski: Utilizing Twitter and Facebook has made the most difference. For years I avoided both, but as they became pervasive I realized that they were invaluable in keeping up my website's onion presence.
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been least effective?
David Gutowski: I have given up on MySpace. I generate almost no traffic from the site, and even at the height of its popularity the user interface didn't engender traffic or interaction.
MZ: What is the most important thing social media marketing provides that traditional marketing doesn’t?
David Gutowski: Immediate contact. Whenever I want, I can reach out to a significant portion of my website's readers (and vice versa).
MZ: Have you experienced any drawbacks using social media for marketing?
David Gutowski: Social media can be a time sink, especially Twitter and Facebook. Focus is important, or you can get lost in the details.
MZ: How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts?
David Gutowski: Quantifying social media's effects on my website's traffic is difficult, but I use Google Analytics and other tools to attempt to gauge effectiveness.
MZ: What is the one most important quality necessary for a successful social media marketing plan?
David Gutowski: There has to be a human touch. Automating press release dispersal to social media is easy, but without the human interaction, these are easily ignored..
MZ: What is the one most critical thing to avoid when using social media marketing?
David Gutowski: Self-promotion for self-promotion's sake. A brand is the relationship between the product and the individual, you have to nurture that instead of making it a one-way conversation.
MZ: Do you have any other advice for an individual or organization attempting to use social media marketing?
David Gutowski: Social media is a two-way interaction. The most effective people and brands on Twitter (@amandapalmer, @jonathancoulton, and others) interact genuinely with their followers.
Social Media Marketing Interviews - Bob Peck - artist
MZ: Describe what projects/organizations/activities you have marketed using social networking?
Bob Peck: Myself/my artwork
MZ: What social media sites have you used for marketing?
Bob Peck: Myspace, Facebook, Dripbook, 12ozprophet
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been most effective?
Bob Peck: Showing recent paintings and keeping fans informed about my shows as well as the goofy day-to-day events.
MZ: What aspect(s) of your social media marketing has/have been least effective?
Bob Peck: Online contests.
MZ: What is the most important thing social media marketing provides that traditional marketing doesn’t?
Bob Peck: Instant and up to the minute information.
MZ: Have you experienced any drawbacks using social media for marketing?
Bob Peck: Sometimes I fee like I give my audience "too much" and don't keep them coming back for more as much as I should be.
MZ: How do you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts?
Bob Peck: By feedback given on my work through the sites used.
MZ: What is the one most important quality necessary for a successful social media marketing plan?
Bob Peck: Be real. Be yourself. The consumer/fan base has had enough sugar-coated crap.
MZ: What is the one most critical thing to avoid when using social media marketing?
Bob Peck: Watch what you say in/to one group. It can quickly spread to others!
MZ: Do you have any other advice for an individual or organization attempting to use social media marketing?
Bob Peck: Have fun with it. Be interesting and show your individuality. Be sure to check out my work at www.wakemewhenimprofound.com