CaliberPulse

Our social media team recently participated in a highly successful Twitter chat and wanted to pass along a few thoughts of using Twitter chats to increase your professional development, customer service, community relations and most importantly your business objectives.

They say “repetition is the mother of education.” In the pursuit of educating an audience and creating brand awareness and loyalty, your story must be told. Due to declining media outlets and staff, the best way to get your story told--the way you want to tell it, on a regular basis--is to tell it yourself. Become your own publisher via newsletters, blogs and social media platforms to relay a brand message, voice, personality and customer focus to loyal and potential clients on a regular basis.

When delivering a branded message, the goal is to reinforce the image of your company or client. Using a consistent set of graphics, layout choices, and color palette in messaging reassures the receiver that what they are receiving is genuine and the message can be trusted. The simplest way to reinforce a brand online is to use the company's logo. Using a brand’s logo throughout the company’s social media and website helps to establish an official presence, even if the overall look and feel of the sites are ultimately dictated by the social sites. Using consistent branding via website, Facebook and Twitter pages emphasizes to visitors that what they are experiencing is an authentic message that can be trusted. So, what happens when one of those messaging venues suddenly strips away the look and feel of the brand?

Over the last decade, marketers have focused on moms as the primary shopper and decision-maker of most households. With the emergence of mommy bloggers and followers coinciding with an unabashed admission of female buying power, more marketing and PR professionals began focusing campaigns on these consumers. Where did this leave dads? Some dads report feeling ignored by brand ad campaigns. A recent Yahoo study about dad consumers is turning heads and should influence some retail marketers to expand their target audiences. Some of the misconceptions that researchers found about dads are: 1. Dads don’t do housework. 2. Dads aren’t interested in retail shopping. 3. Dads don’t sway spending on household products. 4. Dads don’t share brand choices with peers. 5. Dads don’t do brand research.

We hate to break it to you, but the days of “Dear Media Outlet” with an attached press release are long gone. Generalized follow-up emails to journalists are quickly deleted. In today’s world of public relations, the traditional pitch to journalists is becoming outdated altogether. Now that social media and blogging have consumed our online agendas, PR specialists must take this into consideration. If you haven’t already heard, participation via social networking is the new pitch. Likewise, creating a personal pitch that will catch a blogger’s attention is the key to successfully sharing your news. If executed correctly, not only will your story get published, but your credibility among the blogger community will undoubtedly increase. PR practitioners have come to realize that bloggers can be some of the best and most responsive sources, when the pitch and follow-up are implemented genuinely and strategically. Every PR professional has his or her own unique process for creating a great pitch, but there are certain guidelines for pitching to bloggers, in particular, that tend to yield the most successfully receptive results.

In December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising (now including blogging and microblogging). These guidelines are intended to ensure that consumers are made aware if third-party endorsements are influenced by advertisers and marketers. Translation: blogging and micro-blogging evangelists (including celebrity spokespeople) must reveal that they have received free products or incentives of any kind that may have influenced a positive endorsement of a brand or product.

I attended the BOLO 2010 conference organized by AgencySide. BOLO’s mission is to help agencies profit with new digital marketing technologies. I was as impressed by the attendees I met - mostly agency principals or management- as by the speakers and sessions that addressed many of the technologies our firm is now recommending to clients. The marketing and advertising industry will experience more change in the next 5 years than it has in the past 50 years. It is imperative to keep ahead of the changes while continuing to follow classic, solid business practices. Below are my top ten takeaways from the conference.

It’s been an evolutionary year for social media. Many new trends and facts have been published that may help you shape your 2010 marketing and PR plan. We have included a sampling of these facts and our recommendations on how you can use them when developing your 2011 plan. FACT: 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content. Source: Social Media Revolution 2 Video, based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

Face-to-face encounters with other human beings are easily avoided with all the new technology we have at our fingertips. Given how easy it is these days to keep up with business acquaintances and colleagues by e-mail and social media, the traditional methods of engaging with professionals in your industry have taken a back seat. However, tradeshows, once the most direct way that companies engaged with and targeted new customers, are still an important part of any marketing strategy and should not be overlooked. A new study by Oxford Economics USA shows how a dollar invested in business travel, returned a $12.50 increase in revenue and $3.80 in new profits. With that reinforcement in mind, plan your next industry show with a strategy. Check out these “11 Trade Show Strategies to Boost ROI” to get the most out of your time and investment.

Whoa! Before you ask Janet in Accounting to blog about the firm’s terrific service or you give a sample of your miracle product to cousin Ernie in the hopes that he will post an oh-wow comment on Facebook, pay heed to the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines. Don’t let the regulations catch you by surprise or the FTC could slap a $10,000 per day fine if it finds you making and not immediately yanking unlawful claims. What the FTC considers “advertising” may be a surprise.

Cool post at SlipperyBrick.com! According to the blog, Cyclist Lance Armstrong has returned to the 2009 Tour de France to raise awareness of his Livestrong Campaign. And to cheer him on, Livestrong and Nike teamed up with DeepLocal and StandardRobot to create this robot that paints messages on the Tour de France path. The best part? You can send your own message of encouragement!

As social media continues to dominate marketing, media and PR conversations, I keep getting the same question. It's a fun tool, but what's it really have to do with business? In a nutshell: There are conversations taking place about your company/business. Whether those conversations take place in the men's room, at the watercooler, at the customer service counter or online, shouldn't you know what people are saying about you?