Never Mind Marketing

As most sophisticated marketers know by now, performance advertising on Facebook is significantly different from search engine marketing. While SEM is fundamentally keyword-targeted, meaning advertisers bid on keywords, Facebook Ads is fundamentally profile-targeted, meaning advertisers bid on people. As a result, the ad copy, call to action, and graphics need to be rethought and re-designed for the “people-targeted” Facebook world – not just copied and pasted from your Google AdWords campaign.

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Facebook ads allow for Location Targeting, Keyword Targeting, Connection & Group Targeting, Age and Gender Targeting, Birthday Targeting, Education Targeting, Workplace, and Language Targeting

Hillel Fuld (you can follow him here) posted a fantastic article about the basics of Twitter. Included in his article was a handy reference guide to Twitter terminology. Here are the terms you need to know in order to make use of Twitter in the most efficient way:

1. Reply (@): Twitter has a every unique replying feature. Whenever a person’s name is preceded by a @ symbol, that means that the sentence (tweet) that follows is directed at them. So if you are using Twitter on the Web, and you want to reply to someone, simply type @ and then their name, then type the reply.
2. DM (D): A term you are sure to see in people’s tweets is “DM”. It stands for Direct Message. This is like email for all intents and purposes. Only you can see your DMs. As opposed to replies and regular tweets, DMs are completely private. This feature is used if you want to write something privately to someone, but more importantly, if you are writing something that your followers will not find interesting. One of the more annoying things on Twitter in my opinion, is when people have long threaded conversations, and you as their followers have to see it all. Not only does it not interest you most of the time, but the whole concept of viewing threads on Twitter still has a lot of room for improvemt. It is quite challenging to really understand an entire conversation from beginning to end using Twitter. So stick to DMs if you are replying more than twice to someone.
3. Retweet (RT): Retweeting is one of those things that can make or break your Twitter experience. Let me try to explain it to you in simple terms. If someone tweets something that interests you and you feel it would interest your readers, you retweet it for your readers. What it does is basically quotes that person’s tweet and gives them the credit, so people can see the tweet and then choose to follow that person. It is pretty much parallel to forwarding an email. The original person who tweeted might have 50 followers so only 50 people are exposed to the tweet. Whereas you might have 5,000 followers and by retweeting it, you increase that person’s exposure and distribute the tweet you felt was interesting. However, retweeting is really much more than that, it serves a purpose much more important than forwarding a tweet. It contributes to the entire concept of the Twitter community. You share someone else’s wisdom, and they will in turn share yours. Sharing, promoting (people), and distributing is what it is all about. I would love to perform an experiment and see how someone does on Twitter without tweeting one single thing and just retweeting other people’s interesting tweets. I am sure they would have themselves a very respectable Twitter network in a very short period of time.
4. Hashtag (#): Hashtags are a pretty simple concept that really enhance the Twitter experience. They enable easy categorization of tweets for effective future searching. That means that if for example, you are tweeting about the iPhone, you simply insert a # before the word iPhone. Anyone who then searches hashtags.org or Twitter search, for the #iPhone term, will come up with your tweet as well as all tweets on the subject. Hashtags actually add a lot of fun to Twitter. For example, someone came up with the hashtag#fiddme, I am not sure why it was not named #feedme, but basically if you are eating something good or that looks nice, you can take a picture of it, tweet it and include that hashtag for people to be able to see a lot of interesting foods being consumed by Twitterers all over the world. Why do I need that? You don’t, but it is fun. Another hashtag is#Followfriday. This is one that you do need if you want to really get ahead in the twitterverse. Every Friday, you recommend some good people to follow and include the #Followfriday symbol. I have found many great people using this tool, and like RTing, it enhances the twitter experience by building strong and  mutual Twitter relationships.
5. Twitpic: This tool enables you to share pictures with your followers. Not much more to say about it besides upload a picture to Twitpic, uncheck the box that tweets it automatically for you (annoying), copy the URL, write something about the picture in Twitter, then paste the URL for your followers to see. I do not need to tell you how many words a picture is worth, so sometimes it is helpful to stop telling and start showing.
6. URL Shorteners: This is something you might see in tweets and become very confused. So let me explain it to you. Since Twitter only allows you 140 characters, it is not the most effective way of tweeting if you are going to share a link with your followers that is 70 characters long. By the way, I did not think links deserved their own bullet, but you should share links often on Twitter, and not just write random thoughts. People like to read articles and posts, and not just hear your thoughts on certain matters. Anyway, back to URL shorteners. There are endless sites that offer this service. It enables you to share a long link with your followers and still have room for your thoughts about the link you are sharing. The most common and easiest of them in my opinion is TinyURL, but there are so many to choose from, including Digg’s own shortening service. The important thing is to use one, and not waste space on a URL, does not really matter which one you use.
7. Tweetdeck: Before I explain, I have to warn you that there are many people who disagree with me about this Twitter tool and prefer others like Twhirl, although I have to say, I do not understand those people. Tweetdeck is the most popular, sophisticated, effective, and useful 3rd party Twitter application out there. If you can only install one Twitter application, Tweetdeck should be it. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I would say the greatness of Tweetdeck is that it automates all the above points in a very simple interface. You can reply, DM, retweet, shorten a URL, and share a Twitpic without ever leaving Tweetdeck. The newest version also includes a cool feature that when replying to a tweet with a hashtag, the hashtag is automatically generated in your reply. I could go on for hours about the greatness of Tweetdeck, but I will just name some awesome features offered by Tweetdeck:

• Facebook Integration: You can now share your tweets with your Facebook friends if you choose by simply selecting a checkbox near the Tweetdeck tweet box.
• Twitscoop: This cool feature enables you to  see the trending topics on Twitter. So if Gmail is down, chances are everyone is talking about it, you can then read what people are saying and share your thoughts with people you do not follow.
• Twitter Search: It is as it sounds. No need to leave Tweetdeck to search for certain tweets, you can just open another column that will notify you when someone tweets about your search term.
• Groups: This is one those features that after using it, I do not understand how I got along before it. If you are following over 1,000 people, how can you possibly read everything? You can’t! So you create a group of the people that generally tweet interesting things and follow only that column. It makes the Twitter experience so much easier.

8. TwitterFon: I would love to somehow check the correlation between Twitter users and iPhone owners. Judging by the frequent iPhone trend on Twitter, a lot of Twitterers use iPhones, so I thought I would let you know which iPhone Twitter app has all the competition beat, hands down. Twitterfon is the number one iPhone app for Twitter in my opinion. I am not going to go into the detailed comparison between Twitterfon and Tweetie, you can read that here. What I will tell you is the fact that Twitterfon notifies you of new tweets, replies, and DMs makes it the app for me, period.

9.   Topify: I have discussed Topify before, so I will just say that it is one of the most useful Twitter services out there. It replaces the annoying and useless Twitter emails you get when someone follows you, with a useful and informative email. It also allows you to follow back by replying to the email. Topify also enables you to reply to a DM via email and the best part is that the developers really listen to customer feedback and improve the service accordingly and consistently.

10.   Wefollow: I have also discussed this service before, so I will tell you that when my wife joined Twitter, this is the first place I showed her. WeFollow is the best and most  effective way of finding people to follow. It is a Twitter directory based on tags people give themselves, and is organized in a very user-friendly way to enable you to build yourself a quality Twitter network in a very short period of time.

Jeff Bezos shares his business tip ‘Short List’ … and it’s short. Great tips by Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos

News has just broken that Amazon.com has purchased hot ecommerce up-and-comer Zappos for $880 million (or about 10 million Amazon.com shares).

The post by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is here

Even today, with Twitter mentioned in mainstream media daily, many top executives – including marketing execs – are confused or uncertain on how to effectively utilize Twitter to market their business or service.

Twitter, the popular “micro-blogging” tool, is not just a service that allows every-day-Joes the opportunity to share irrelevant stories about their day (read: “going to the gym”), but a great tool to increase both revenues and brand awareness for executives.

Here are some tips to get the most out of Twitter:

BUILD YOUR FOLLOWING
The first step, naturally, is to have an audience. Celebrities and politicians alike have embraced the micro-blogging phenomenon, leading to its permanent fixture in pop culture. Political campaigns have used Twitter to mobilize armies of supporters, raise funds, and spread the political message.

BUILD YOUR BRAND
There is a delicate balance between being open and honest and revealing too much on Twitter. I tell my clients, “be authentic, not transparent”. Your following will appreciate your authenticity more than your over-sharing.

DIRECT COMMUNICATION
Aside from authentic communication, nothing builds a loyal, dedicated following like direct communication. Several large corporations are able to search (in real time) for their brand and address problems immediately. Never before has a company had such access to their customers. Traditional media houses do not allow for such instant communication to attend to their customer’s needs.

PROVIDE VALUABLE CONTENT
Rather than constantly selling your products, constantly provide great content. Get over the fact that everything produced by your brand is proprietary. In the age of instant access, users have become accustomed to free content (this is both good and bad). The more useful content you give away, the more attention you will gain.

DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE
Twitter is a great vehicle to generate visitors to your company website (or Facebook Fan Page), where you can convert them into customers. Useful content, direct and authentic communication only builds your creditability online and in turn, your brand as a whole.

SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Twitter is potentially the most effective way for marketing communication to turn to marketing wildfire. In recent history, many stories break, are confirmed, and become widespread on Twitter before mainstream media has even heard about it. Your brand can use that type of potential to announce major product launches or other industry news.

MARKET RESEARCH
Never before has any industry had such a measuring tool for any brand or product. Monitor Twitter for your name, brand, products, and competition for a real sense of how your clients view things.

CONVERSATIONS
Twitter is real-time, meaning you have thousands of potential customers and followers standing in your preverbal lobby waiting to hear what you have to say – likewise, they expect you to listen to them. Chat and engage with your followers in a consistent “voice”.

FREE ADVERTISING
Today, people are bombarded with THOUSANDS of advertisements a day. Twitter allows you to reach people who are actively interested in learning more about your brand. This attentive ‘Army of Few But Loyal’ is more valuable than a billboard passively seen by millions

BONUS: FOLLOW OTHER EXECS
Here is a list of other CEOs using Twitter. Follow as many of them as you can to learn how they use it. Take what you like, and leave what you don’t. Not all of them are perfect – in fact, there is no “perfect” way to use Twitter. It is still in the early stages of finding its identity.

EXTRA BONUS: PROMOTE OTHERS
It doesn’t make much “traditional advertising sense”, but Twitter isn’t traditional advertising. Media has change with the introduction of ‘Social Networking’. Use your platform to promote your followers, colleagues, and partners. A ratio of 3:1 is preferred. Social media is not about promoting yourself as it is celebrating the “social” interaction between individuals and brands.

See you on Twitter!

Shaun Nestor is a social media consultant and founder of Never Mind Marketing. He is passionate about helping small- and locally-owned businesses use the power of social networking to build their brand. Follow him on Twitter or on Facebook

A reminder to think outside the box when creating advertising campaigns:

Unfortunately, I see it too often; passionate business owners overwhelmed by the constant demands of owning or running a business. Running a business can actually get in the way of running a business!

I have put together some thoughts and key gems of information I have found useful over the years to help you run your business rather than the business run you.

KEEP THE PLAIN THINGS THE MAIN THINGS
Remember why you went into business? I’ll bet it wasn’t to have the most Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, or hits to a website. I’ll bet you didn’t worry about quarterly taxes, phone book ads, networking groups, or product packaging. Rather, you had a passion for something you did well. From creating crafts to helping people have better skin, you got into business because of a passion.

Step back and write down WHY you went into business. Make this the element your business revolves around.

ESTABLISH CORE VALUES
What is important to you in business? What are values you want evident in your daily operations? Individuals or small companies often avoid core values because they are unnecessarily made too complex. In actuality, they are simple. Make a list of four or five characteristics or goals you have for your business. Core values can range from “Meet 2 new people a day”, “Give away one sample to a needy client”, “Leadership Development”, or “Work above reproach”.

When starting any new business venture, I identify the key values (it could be a word, a short sentence, or a paragraph), type them out, print on nice cardstock, and frame it. These values then sit on my desk or office wall as a constant reminder. When I was faced with difficult decisions, I refer to them for guidance.

For an entire year, the value guiding one of my companies was “Build Relationships”, (Warning: this is a VERY broad value) in everything we did, it was to build and grow employee, customer, vender, and community relationships.

NETWORK. YOUR WAY
Business networking has been bastardized. There is a very real, and a very unfortunate, reason that I refuse to attend or be a part of 99% of business networking groups. Networking, at its core, is about relationships. People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. Too many network-attendees have forgotten that sales do not come from forcing a product down the throat of others; sales come from building a reputable connection with others.

If traditional networking groups have left a bad taste in your mouth, don’t give up on it altogether. Instead, call up a business owner with similar clients, or something you have an interest in. Buy them coffee and get to know them. Ask about their business, how they got started, their perfect client, etc. In return, share a little about your business. Don’t sell them anything, just talk to them.

This relaxed atmosphere does not lend itself to “Buy My Stuff Now” marketing, but rather facilitates relational-networking. I guarantee that person will remember you for years after your meeting.

TO-DO, TO-DO, TO-DO
One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received tackles the “To-Do List”. The list that keeps us awake at night, never gets shorter, and – eventually – gets abandoned in the dark abyss of offices everywhere.

The advice I received was: keep 2 lists.

What? How does that help me!?

They explained, keep two lists. One for “Today (or “Current Project”) and one for “Long-Term Goals & Ideas”. Ah! It seemed so logical.

Think about how often you have gone to bed discouraged that you didn’t finish everything on your list. But how many of those tasks needed to be finished today? Maybe you did 5, 6, or 7 small things, but are dreading the big ones – break it up! Break up huge projects into smaller tasks.

I jot down ideas for businesses that may never come to fruition, those ideas and tasks used to take up room on my “To-Do” list, now I am okay knowing that they don’t need to get done today and don’t discourage me from attacking the “Today List”

YOU CAN’T DO EVERYTHING – AND THAT IS OK
I hate payroll. Hate it. I hate adding everything up, inputting data into QuickBooks, managing new tax tables, etc. I hated it so much I would avoid going into the office on Thursday before payday. It actually crippled my desire to do other work – the work I loved!

It took me awhile to realize that my effort to save money was actually costing me more. I didn’t hire a bookkeeper because of the added expense to my young company, but I didn’t factor the time I was spending 1) avoiding work, 2) managing payroll, and 3) staying educated on new rules, etc.

I worked out a deal with my bookkeeper to exchange services – they were ecstatic to get free and discounted samples and I was relieved to not have to touch QuickBooks again!

Who can you exchange services for to lighten your load?

BONUS: ASK FOR HELP
There are thousands of business owners out there, and most of them are willing to help others. If you are truly stumped, ask for help.

What tips would you suggest for those struggling with running their business?

This is huge; I couldn’t decide whether to write about it or add it to my page first!

Facebook continues to extend outside the walls of its social network. The latest Facebook Labs: Facebook Fan Boxes, which lets Facebook Page admins embed the latest activity from their Page on their own website.

This is great for businesses and brands who want to tie their Facebook presence to their off-FB website.

Page admins now see an “Add Fan Box to your site” link on their page.

Just cut and paste the code into their website, which will then display a widget containing that page’s latest updates, and pictures of fans.

The best feature of this, however, is that visitors to the website can instantly become a fan of a Facebook Page.

This is huge; expect to see these boxes popping up all over the web.

Facebook has become a significant player in event planning, I mean, I stopped using services like Evite long ago. Facebook Events are easier and all of my friends are already on it.

Facebook now gives users the option of including their event in the News Feed. The point? Now friends can easily RSVP for events without being specifically invited.

“Who wants to go to lunch” 12:30pm – 1:30pm, Wednesday, July 8th.

Facebook says that the new tool allows gives you the best of both worlds—the ability to use features of the Events application while still publishing the event in the news feed.

Thoughts?

Overwhelmed by social networking? Confused by tweets, links, Fan Pages, and how to effectively listen to your customers?

You have reason to worry.

Honestly, marketing has not seen this type of shift since the introduction of advertising on the radio.

Shaun Nestor, a leading authority in using social media tools to advertise business, says, “Using social media is a powerful way to set yourself apart from your competition. Your customers are looking for you, but are you visible?”

Nestor, who has consulted hundreds of small businesses to help shape their marketing campaigns, says, “Conversations about brands are no longer one-way; they are absolutely two-way. The problem is, most brands are uneducated and not engaged in the conversation.”

Further, he says “not only is it now necessary for businesses to be visible to their customers, but they must open their ears and listen to the buzz – or criticism – being discussed.” Likewise, it has never been easier for brands to hear the voice of their customers. People are eager to be a part of the conversation; they want their voice heard, and they are turning to social media outlets to speak their mind.

In this changing time of marketing, Nestor says it is more important for brands to listen rather than speak. “My grandmother said, ‘God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.’” The same goes for social marketing, he says, “listen twice as much as you speak.”

Social networking is one of the fastest growing areas of marketing, unfortunately most companies – big and small – don’t understand how to utilize it; let alone succeed with it.
Shaun Nestor, Social Media Consultant
Never Mind Marketing

What are you doing to stay in front of your customers?

Contact Shaun today to formulate a plan to use social networking tools to broadcast your message. Your brand may depend on it.

Nestor also runs the Never Mind Network, an interactive members-only forum that he moderates discussions about social networking and effective online advertising. Sign up at www.nevermindmarketing.com/members/signup.php