Monthly Archives: September 2009
Ragan Communications Social Media Strategy Webinar
On Tuesday, I have the honor of hosting a social media strategy Webinar for Ragan Communications. For those that may not be familiar, Ragan is a site that offers up a variety of communications insight. Aside from some great free content, they also have a solid membership program that provides access to in-depth articles along with job listings, research reports and discounts on Webinars, conferences and workshops.
It’s not to late to sign up for Tuesday’s Webinar, which you can register for here. I’m also including the presentation below off of my Slideshare space.
-Scott
Making the Most of Marketing @mentions on Facebook
A couple weeks ago, Facebook officially launched a status update reply feature that mirrors @replies on Twitter. Now typing the “@” symbol into your Facebook status box followed by typing a friend, group or page name will prompt a drop down menu that allows you to select who you would like to tag in your update.
Why is This Feature Important?
Similar to how you would tag a friend in a posted photo or video on Facebook as a way of notifying that person’s network, the new tagging feature allows you to do the same with status updates. Note that when you do tag someone in an update, the update will also post directly to the wall of your friend, group or page that is tagged.
Given that there are now 300 million users on Facebook versus about 20 million on Twitter, this feature will likely take some time for the majority of users to adopt and use regularly. From a listening standpoint, this means that brands will need to continue to carefully monitor any groups and fan pages for tagged updates. The benefit to this feature for brands is that it now provides an easy way to streamline advocate support and conversation for those that may use Facebook for customer response.
How Can a Marketer Take Advantage of @mentions?
This feature certainly opens up some new doors for creative marketing. One option would be for a brand to use the Static FBML application to design a custom landing page on their fan page. This landing page can house some type of giveaway that prompts users to take the following action:
1. Become a fan of the page
2. Take some type of desired action (vote, register, submit information for a giveaway, etc.)
3. Post a status update tagging the brand’s page (note, a user has to first be a fan to be able to tag a page) to enter some type of prize giveaway. Since all tagged updates will post to the brand’s wall, a brand can easily track who is participating.
Having the brand provide sample copy for a user to post would also help facilitate the status update step. Example:
@verizon I just took part in Verizon’s free phone Friday giveaway. Check it out yourself – www.budurl.com/FreeVerizonPhone
The other benefit of using this feature on Facebook is that it allows you to have a longer status update than on Twitter.
Overall, using this simple outreach tactic will help build your fan base and also enable you to capitalize on word of mouth outreach to a user’s network.
Are you planning to take advantage of @mentions for your PR or marketing efforts? Feel free to share some ideas below.
-Scott
Effective Social Media Content Relies on Creativity
Next to relationship building and networking, one aspect of social media that I greatly appreciate is the way that it helps facilitate content creation regardless of skill level.
Whether we’re talking about blogging platforms, social networks, photo or video sharing sites, the foundation for hosting and distributing content has been the anchor to engaging millions in the social Web.
Technological advancements have of course played a huge role in this process as well. For example, at the turn of the Millennium, creating, editing and distributing video was still a fairly complicated process. Jump ahead to 2009 where a $250-$300 investment in a Flip or Powershot camera (my new weapon of choice) allows anyone to capture HD video footage. Beyond just capturing footage, the editing and distribution portions of video creation have been simplified through easy-to-use programs such as iMovie and free video sharing sites such as YouTube.
You should feel confident in your own content creation skills, seeing that I threw together this little recap of my trip with friends to Scandinavia in just over an hour.
Where does this leave us as PR/Marketing pros?
Creativity.
When you remove the technological barriers, the key to strong Web content relies on creativity. Anyone can go out and start a blog, develop a Facebook page, tweet or buy a nice camera and learn to shoot photos or video. The difference is how you use these tools creatively and effectively to accomplish your strategic goals.
Having thorough knowledge of tool capability is important as tools and technology have limitations. But remember, your ideas don’t have limitations. Start with ideas and find a way to make it work. I promise, there is a way.
-Scott
