VISIT OUR BLOG: 5 BILLION MINUTES

Archive for July, 2009



Jen Cieslak

07/31/2009

2 Legit 2 Quit
12:14 pm by Jen Cieslak

Hip hop legend. Reality TV star. Oversized-pant pioneer. Social Media and marketing expert?

Yes, it’s true — MC Hammer has emerged from the depths of music television has-beens as an Ivy League social media strategist and national business lecturer.

Hammer (@mchammer) is this summer’s keynote speaker at the Gravity Summit Social Media Marketing for Business conference at the Harvard Faculty Club.

“Speakers invited to participate at Gravity Summit events are selected based on industry expertise and thought-leadership,” says Beverly Macy, CEO of Gravity Summit. “We are delighted Hammer has agreed to provide his unique insights into social media marketing strategies and know our business audience will benefit greatly from his marketing savvy and social media expertise.”

Earlier this year, Hammer participated in social media panel discussions at the Harvard Business School and Stanford University. At Stanford He said that yes, he will tweet trivial information like what he’s having for breakfast. But he also bets that his followers will be buying him lunch because of their relationship.

For a music star who’d all but disappeared a few years ago, that sounds like great ROI.

Watch a portion of the MC Hammer Stanford panel discussion here.

No Comments

Jen Cieslak

07/24/2009

Staying relevant to boost offline dollars
02:56 pm by Jen Cieslak

We’ve all gotten our fair share of those “batch-and-blast” e-mail messages from charities or politicians, sports teams or pharmaceutical companies. And a new study by US Email Trends and Benchmarks says we’ve all deleted our fair share.

These batch-and-blast messages are pushing some new content or project or promotion you don’t care about. They’re filling your inbox too frequently. And they’re failing to reach a huge percentage of their core audience because of it.

“Today’s consumer has limited tolerance for irrelevant messages, so targeted campaigns are clearly more successful than the batch-and-blast approach,” the study says.

The trends also show that when e-mail marketing is done well, the campaign will mean offline dollars for your company. A related Global Consumer Email study found that more than half of North American consumers made an offline purchase because of an email message. Numbers were slightly down in Europe at 39 percent, but almost two thirds of consumers polled in the Asia Pacific region made an offline purchase because of an email.

“While batch-and-blast messaging may seem appealing,” says Meghan Keane at econsultancy.com, “being sensitive to consumer preferences can pay off in spades, even if those messages go out to fewer people.”

E-mail marketing has the ability to harness a massive group of consumers, but you need to do it smartly.

According to US Email Trends and Benchmarks: “To effectively execute a permission-based email marketing program, it is important to incorporate consumer preferences such as frequency of communication, channel of communication and format as well as behavioral and other consumer data.”

Quick tip: Research finds that messages delivered between 10AM and 2PM convert more often.

No Comments

Maura DeBartoli

07/13/2009

SEO and You: Your Keyword to One-Upping
06:12 pm by Maura DeBartoli


In a New York Times article, journalist Steve Lohr wrote,

“So far, the news media are gingerly stepping into the field of ‘search engine optimization.’ It is a booming business, estimated at $1.25 billion in revenue worldwide last year, and projected to more than double this year.

The search-engine ‘bots’ that crawl the Web are increasingly influential, delivering 30 percent or more of the traffic … And traffic means readers and advertisers, at a time when the mainstream media is desperately trying to make a living on the Web.”

Think of Google as a big, global phone directory. If you have the biggest ad on the page for a particular topic, and you are the first listed, you are most likely going to get responses and calls. The same thing works for websites and blogs. Give Google (or Yahoo! or Bing, or any search engine for that matter) something to look at – get noticed. Have you ever continued to search past the first, say, two or three result pages? Not too many people do. Chances are that if what a consumer is looking for does not pop up and scream, “Hey, click me! I look like a credible website that Google ranks pretty high!” the Web goers will simply choose a different search keyword(s). The dominant Google, pretty much controls the exchange of businesses and knowledge of, on the web.

A successful post has got search engine optimization in mind. Including relevant key phrases in the blog title, tags, the header and body text allows search engines to determine the purpose or topic of your site and the posts within it. (This is the part where searchers will decide to click or not after briefly reading the small sample text displayed, provided by the search engine).

Moreover, you ultimately want your audience to be talking and saying positive things about your product or service. (Cough… social media… eh hem). There are many ways that SEO can be beneficial to your company or organization. So let’s not get picked last in gym class this time around, and really start moving forward with the help of search engine marketing.

No Comments

Brian Michael

07/13/2009

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Online Campaign
12:02 pm by Brian Michael

This past week baseball fans from around the world voted for players to make the final spot on their respective league’s roster. All told, 68 million votes were cast. Shane Victorino, the winner of the National League roster spot, received over 15 millions votes. He narrowly edged out Pablo Sandoval who had the support of both his San Francisco and Venezuela fan bases. Our friend John McCain backed another losing effort in his endorsement of the third-place finisher, Arizona’s Mark Reynolds.

In the American League, Brandon Inge of Detroit benefited from the “Bran Torino” alliance formed with Victorino supporters. Both Inge and Victorino were in second place in the early stages of voting when their campaigns teamed up to support each other.

Fans were allowed to vote an unlimited amount of times for both a National League and American League representative; they only needed to submit their name, age, email address, and a challenge-response question consisting of 5 squwiggly numbers. MLB teased fans throughout the 4 days of voting by releasing percentage results and claiming different players overtook the lead each night.

This is a win-win situation in online engagement. MLB is collecting millions of email addresses from people who more than happy to give them. It played on civic and national pride to give people incentive to participate and provided tangible results. MLB also offered a rudimentary widget to help the campaigns go viral and it did. Blogs, local organizations and even governments got involved to support the GOTV effort.

For all the hype surrounding last week’s campaign, the entire idea (voting for an All-Star spot) and functionality (an online poll) contrived by MLB remained very simple. Yet it was one of the most effective methods to engage people online and build an email list.

No Comments

Jen Cieslak

07/10/2009

E-mail marketing: building a village
12:33 pm by Jen Cieslak

It takes a village to build a social networking/ marketing campaign, and according to senior director at StrongMail Systems, social e-mails are just as integral to that effort as social media sites. She suggests treating social e-mails as a community of consumers who can also help you spread your company’s message — not just a list of e-mail addresses in your contact list.

Some of Trivunovic’s recommendations for a successful e-mail marketing campaign include:

1. Include coupons or redemption codes, especially in tough economic times.

2. Appeal to the audience’s motivations: make your content interesting enough that people want to share and forward your message along.

3. Just spit it out: be clear and concise. If you want people to forward an e-mail, tell them why they should.

4. Oh, the sense of community: Treat people like people. If you can appeal to the diverse needs of your audience, you’ll be more likely to see them share your message with their like-minded peers.

5. Make it fun and engaging. No matter how serious your cause, people need some light-hearted content to keep them interested. Good news is a good thing that people want to share.

Read Trivunovic’s blog in full at E-mail Insider.

No Comments

Jen Cieslak

07/01/2009

Five keys to connecting with your demographic
12:46 pm by Jen Cieslak

Ryan Sholin, Director of News Innovation at Publish2, wrote this week that main-stream journalists should strive for authenticity above all else when using social media. He suggests that authenticity is even more important than authority, reliability or popularity (though I imagine those rank high on the importance level, too).

Sholin’s five keys to authenticity also apply to businesses using social media for marketing purposes.   

1. Be Human
2. Be Honest
3. Be Aware
4. Be Everywhere
5. Show Your Work

Sholin explained these through the filter of main-stream media, but it’s equally useful to examine these keys if you run a small business, political campaign or non-profit organization.

1. Be Human:
An emotional connection is key to any successful advertising or marketing campaign. That could be as simple as figuring out what your audience wants and catering to that need. Lots of things establish a connection with an audience — humor, compassion, a humanizing story, or just an everyday moment your consumer can relate to. People want to feel involved and invested in your organization, and it’s your job to make that happen. Social media is one of the easiest ways to do just that.

2. Be Honest:
In March, a study showed that adults age 18-44 are far more likely to use Twitter than adults just a few years older. But you also can count on those 18-44-year-olds generating word-of-mouth exposure. Think about your demographic and identify the importance of social media in their lives. Be honest about your company’s expectations for social media. Make sure you dedicate enough time to see your expectations met, and hopefully exceeded.

3. Be Aware:
Educate yourself and your staff about the social media available to you, concentrating on platforms that benefit your company most. Once you’re involved in social media, stay on top of things. If customers send you a message through Twitter or Facebook, you want to reply in a timely fashion. And (this gets back to Key #1) make them feel cared-for, important and involved, and they will keep coming back!

4. Be Everywhere:
This one’s tough. Sometimes you don’t want to be everywhere. You want to be selective in the social media platforms you use, and you don’t want to overwhelm customers, donors or constituents with a ton of messages. So be everywhere you need to be. Maintain enough visibility to keep your base feeling like they are a core part of your community.

5. Show your work:
You’re proud of the work you do in and for the community. Social media is a great way to show it off. Once you’ve established that intimate connection with your target audience, they will be hungry to learn more about the work you do. Show it off. And if you can make a pitch in 140 characters or fewer, you’re ahead of the game.

To read Ryan Sholin’s social media tips for journalists, visit his blog at Invisible Thinking.

No Comments