11 Social media marketing predictions for 2013

By Phil Gerbyshak and Friends

11 Things You Need To Know

About Social Media in 2013

THE FINE PRINT

All contents copyright © 2013 by Make it Great Institute, LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this document or the related files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. For more information about the author and this eBook at milwaukeesocialmedia.com

Book and cover design by Shannon Miles. (shannonmiles.com)

1

http://milwaukeesocialmedia.com/

http://shannonmiles.com/

11 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2013

1

Contents

Introduction p. 3

Aaron Biebert p. 4 Berni Xiong p. 7 Carol Roth p. 10 Catherine Morgan p. 12

Colin Deval p. 14 Gini Dietrich p. 16 Jeannie Walters p. 18 Jesse Petersen p. 20 Jonathan Brewer p. 21 Mallie Hart p. 24 Phil Gerbyshak p. 26 Ron McDaniel p. 28 About Phil p. 30 About MKESM p. 31

2


2

AN INTRODUCTION

What's on tap for the year ahead in marketing and social media? Rather than try to make predictions on my own, I asked a lot of other smart people what they thought, and boy, did they come up with some interesting stuff. Some of the things these folks came up with include:

Native advertising The end of the silver bullet social media plan Even more relationship marketing Video being impossible to ignore

And more. Much more. In an effort to give you even more value, we said there would only be 11 experts, but we added 1 more so you'd have 1 a month for an entire year. My thoughts can be found at the end of this eBook. I hope you learn as much as I did from reading what everyone else had to say. And I hope many of these predictions come true, either this year, or in the near future, because they are helpful changes for business who really care about their customers. And it will mean the death of the impersonal, transaction based businesses we all love to hate. To your success in 2013 and beyond, Phil Gerbyshak Chief Connections Officer Milwaukee Social Media And your curator for this eBook

3



3

AARON BIEBERT Big changes are coming…. The use of video marketing will continue to grow in 2013 as mobile device usage grows. CNET reports that 17.4 million tablets and smartphones were activated on Christmas Day 2012. One day. Those people are off to surf the web on smaller screens and study after study shows that mobile users prefer video over text for getting their information.

Video and YouTube, the main video social network, are going to be hard to ignore.

If you’ve been building a base of loyal subscribers, excellent, because the competition is going to heat up as more and more businesses join the party. Luckily, it’s the #2 search engine in the world (owned by the #1 search engine in the world) and is now integrated into Google+ and their 100 Million monthly users. It’s a lot easier to comment, like, and share activities on YouTube than it was last year. As more people use YouTube, there will be more eyeballs in 2013 for those who produce great content.

2013 is the year when social media begins costing

small businesses more than their time. Facebook is undeniably an important part of the social graph, but with changes to the EdgeRank system, all the fans of your business page are worth less unless you pay to promote your posts. The system works pretty well, but will it ever end? Looks like Facebook has learned how to make money. As more businesses promote their posts, the cost will go up. Then Instagram will follow.

2013 Will Brin

g C

ha

ng

es O

n th

e A

tten

tion

Era

Atte

ntio

n Era

Ch

an

ge

4


4

Other networks like Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Google+ don’t play games with the feed of updates yet), but as more people join them, the clutter will compel more businesses to take advantage of the advertising services that YouTube and Twitter are now offering. Google+ is the only network planning to be ad free in the foreseeable future. This will make some people switch over as our Facebook feeds become flooded by posts from long forgotten business pages and our friends paying $7 to promote a picture of their new outfit. Blogging will die in 2013. Just kidding.

Blogging isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, for businesses and their marketing leaders, blogging is a smart way to centralize your online presence and earn attention from current and future customers. If you’re producing good content (articles, videos, infographics, etc.), you need a blog. Own your own social network. Get a blog. When you do, make sure it has a good comment and subscription system.

Real influence is back in 2013.

Klout is dead. Long live Klout. While the self-‐anointed measurement of online influence (Klout.com) seems still going to use big data to find and collaborate with real influencers to get the word out. As people become more overwhelmed with all the networks, updates, and stuff coming at them, they will continue to follow people they trust. That trust and attention will be worth lots of money.

5


5

Aaron Biebert is a director and executive producer at Attention Era Media, where he collaborates with remarkable brands and people to produce compelling videos and brand films for the modern world. He is a strong believer of both social media as the primary distribution channel for great content and sleeping as little as possible. He blogs at AttentionArea.com and is @Biebert on Twitter.

6

http://attentionera.com/

http://attentionera.com/

https://twitter.com/Biebert


6

BERNI X IONG

“Slow and steady wins the race,” is what I believe is in store for marketing and social media in 2013. While we hear so much about scaling and are bombarded by marketing ploys all over the interwebs telling you how to create passive income overnight, I believe that the brands that will stand the test of time will be ones that can continue to bring a human element to serve its customer base. Even if that means it will produce more work for the brand.

“I believe there is danger in businesses using social media as a means to automate

their customer engagement strategies.” A case in point is a recent experience I had with Adobe a few weeks ago. They auto-‐billed me for a service I didn’t want after failing to cancel my trial subscription. Five conversations with their customer support line in India, and seven days later, I finally got my request for a refund processed. As I’m writing this, I still have not received the returned funds in my bank account. It was less about the money and more about my desire to challenge Adobe to make things right. Their auto-‐billing felt like a scam. Their customer support phone number was buried on their site and nearly impossible to find. The looping customer support line kept me waiting for 20-‐minutes before reaching live help. What was already the most frustrating user experience became the worst customer service I’ve ever endured after being scolded by the live help like I was his child who hadn’t cleaned up her room.

Le

ad

ing

With

th

e H

um

an

To

uc

h

7


7

All I kept thinking was, “I’m never doing business with them again. I’m going to tell everyone how horrible Adobe is. I’d never treat customers like this!” And with that, I realized I had become disillusioned by the concept of “scaling” my business. I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with systematizing certain processes that could help me run a smarter business. However, the areas where we serve our customers should not be automated with social media or internet marketing trends. If we build automated systems like Adobe to remind customers how insignificant they are, we’ll lose our customers forever and damage the integrity of our brand. Even with social media engagement stronger than ever, we’ll see businesses bringing things back to the basics. Nobody wants an Adobe experience. Not as the vendor, nor the consumer. Most overnight successes have been doing good, hard work for over a decade before getting their big break. What has been their key differentiator?

Their human touch. With the human touch, they go on to do good, hard work that sustains the business even when social media trends (and one-‐hit wonder businesses) come and go. These savvy brands will optimize their marketing and customer engagement strategies with social media tools. But at the core of it all, they will lead with the human touch.

Slow and steady wins the race.

8


8

Berni Xiong (shUNG) is The Shin Kicking Life Spark for solopreneurs. When she’s not kicking shins, she writes about her journey from corporate to coaching at bernixiong.com.

9 9

http://www.bernixiong.com/

http://www.bernixiong.com/


9

CAROL ROTH As our worlds get more crowded with information competing for our attention, we become harder to reach (and, if I am a case study, retain less information as well).

Successful marketing in the coming year, for businesses of all sizes, will be more entrenched in relationships than ever before.

Creating lasting relationships with “spenders”, who are the biggest consumers of your products and services, as well as “senders”, who are the influencers that indirectly account for sales through brand advocacy, is the key to creating loyalty and growing your business going forward. If you want to take the “know, like and trust” concept to the next level to create the most loyalty, and ultimately sales, engage both your senders and spenders by making them feel cared for and important. This is truly a holistic approach that can be led with product functionality (think Apple), customer service (think Nordstrom), creating an affinity group or lifestyle association (think Harley-‐Davidson), creating an experience (think Trader Joe’s) or even by creating a bridge to the customer with ancillary products, services, content or experiences that are important to the customer (think food companies with time-‐saving recipes). If you are a small business, you have even more flexibility to do this, because you can truly get to know your customer. Build a loyalty or intimacy file where you store little tidbits about what your customers care about in their lives. Are they a NFL fan? Send them a bumper sticker at the start of the season or send them a message of congrats when their team wins a big game. This personal relationship building creates a strong bond.

Loyalty isn’t about a transaction, it is about the relationship. Marketing isn’t just about reaching your customer, it’s about making your customer feel important, but in whatever way resonates with him or her.

Loya

lty is Ab

ou

t the

Re

latio

nsh

ip

10


10

While it’s not easy because not all customers have the same wants or needs, if it were, everyone would be doing it already. This gives you a tremendous opportunity to stand apart from the competition, as nothing is more important to your business than solid, loyal customer relationships.

Carol Roth is a WGN Radio host, television contributor, recovering investment banker and bestselling author of The Entrepreneur Equation. You can find her on Twitter: @CarolJSRoth or on the web at CarolRoth.com.

11

https://twitter.com/CarolJSRoth

http://www.carolroth.com/


11

CATHERINE MORGAN

2013 – The Year People and Brands Actually Get It

I don’t know if I am looking into my crystal ball or coming up with a wish list. Phil asked me to contribute my predictions for marketing and social media so here are my best guesses – but know that I thought DOS was easy enough and that the “mouse” would never take off. #Fail

Social Media is Integrated My prediction (or hope) is that in 2013 businesses will no longer think of social media as a magic bullet. Social media is a set of tools, and which platform is appropriate for a business will vary. My hope is that social media strategy development will be integrated and not siloed.

A sound social media strategy needs to be incorporated into all aspects of planning – sales, marketing,

customer service, product/service development, etc. I hope that big brands (OK, all brands) will realize that social media is a conversation and can be an invaluable customer service tool. I hope brands will engage more than they broadcast. A brand can use social media as business intelligence to find out what their customers really want. Outstanding customer service will be a differentiator that will build raving fans who tell their friends. The opposite also will be true: Bad customer service will potentially be catastrophic. A brand cannot afford not to listen and engage, especially on Twitter because it is so public. One bad story can go viral in minutes and damage a solid reputation that took years to build. I hope that companies will empower their employees and train them to be brand ambassadors. Common sense is not all that common these days. Employees need to be given guidelines and at least some small amount of training. (Talk to Phil if your company needs this.)

The

Ye

ar P

eo

ple

an

d B

ran

ds

Ac

tua

lly G

et

It

12


12

Compelling Content Trumps Noise I hope businesses of all sizes realize that they need to provide valuable content in the form of blog posts, videos, audios – and actually a mix of all of these. Some people prefer to read. I usually prefer to watch videos. Businesses should meet people where they are. They need to create content that doesn’t waste people’s time. Educate! Entertain! Then the magic will happen. And remember, “Lord Google” smiles favorably on those who regularly update content.

Long-Form Sales Pages Go the Way of the Dodo

This really is on the wish list rather than a prediction. I sincerely hope that ugly sales pages with flashing red arrows, cheesy testimonials, and carpel-‐tunnel-‐inducing scrolling die a sudden death in an ice age where they no longer convert. Hey, a girl can hope!

Catherine Morgan is the founder of Point A to Point B Transitions Inc., a virtual provider of coaching services to individuals who are looking to grow consulting or coaching practices. She is a business consultant to consultants. She also works with professionals in career transition, helping them to find the right opportunities. Catherine has a deep background in the financial services and professional services industries with a focus on technology. She has been employed by KPMG, Arthur Andersen, and Deloitte. Through her own company she was a project employee for Protiviti, Navigant Consulting, and Resources Global. She has been coaching clients through job, life, and business transitions for more than 15 years. Twitter

13

http://pointatopointbtransitions.com/

http://pointatopointbtransitions.com/

https://twitter.com/PointA_PointB


13

COLIN DEVAL Take the "Eww, gross," out of turning your insides out. Your brand is out there. Its story is being built – like a massive community quilt – and that story is being expressed and filtered through the assumptions, understanding and interactions held and felt by any number of audiences or potential customers. That story is also being built internally, by your most valuable asset … the employees who can either become powerful advocates, or momentum sapping detractors. So ask yourself, if you're working to build and tell the story of your brand, are you also working to build and draw from the strength of your internal workforce, your base? And if you're not … why not? As more companies recognize the true value inherent in the evolving digital experience, more are going to understand that social media isn't all about broadcasting, "look at me, like me," links, opinions, contests or deals. For complex organizations touching multiple stakeholders and communities, there is an opportunity to build a connection with their brand by aligning their brand values as they exist internally with their story as it is being expressed externally.

Know yourself. Know what you stand for. Work to develop your brand story as it is expressed through the experience, goods and services you present to your public, but also the values through that stand with you. Your purpose. Your raison d'être. Give your employees the chance to help craft and express those values. Connect them to that brand at all touch points available to you, just as you would your external audience, and you'll create a strong internal fabric for your brand, building strength from the inside.

Turn

You

r Insid

es O

ut

14


14

Then, turn your insides out. Empower your internal audience to express themselves socially, to express their adoption of your brand values, and their ownership in your brand. Build a foundation for a socially engaged organization of brand ambassadors and you'll add significant value to your brand. It's a recipe the most successful companies and organizations recognize and one I think more will continue to adopt as they strive for ways to find and connect with their audience. Consider how that might manifest itself across the myriad tools available to you in the digital space. We’ll continue to develop new ways to interact with each other. There will always be a new tool. What won’t change is the human condition – the reasons we become interested in each other, and the reasons we want to come back for more. Give people a reason and you can turn that internal brand understanding, adoption and ownership into an external force of brand advocates singing your praises and building that quilt to welcome more and more into your community. How you do it is the fun part.

Colin Deval is a PR specialist and social strategist at Core Creative. Follow Colin on Twitter @colindeval.

15

http://www.corecreative.com/author/colindeval/

https://twitter.com/colindeval


15

GINI DIETRICH It's likely not going to come as a surprise to you to read nearly everyone knows how to click past banner ads, watch the required five seconds of an ad before skipping it to go on to a video, clicking out of pop-‐up ads, and fast forwarding through commercials during television programs. Combine that with the fact that we're spending more and more time on the social networks and 2013 proves to be an interesting time for marketers and communicators. Native advertising is a term you're going to hear a lot about this next year and it's going to affect how you create content. You already see some of this through Promoted Posts on Facebook and Sponsored Tweets on Twitter. And the lines between advertising, communications, and marketing blurs even more. Examples of Native Advertising Native advertising integrates high-‐quality content (what I'll refer to as pull marketing vs. push marketing of the traditional mediums) into the organic experience of a given platform. This means the content is so complementary to the user's experience on the platform, it doesn't interrupt the flow. People are willing to comment, like, and share because it feels like it belongs there. For instance, Jay Peak, a ski resort in Northern Vermont, asks skiers to tag Instagram photos that best exemplify what they love about the mountain. It's user-‐generated, visually compelling content. Of course, there has to be a separate strategy for native ads, themselves, but as communicators we have to think about how we create content that integrates with our brother disciplines.

N

ativ

e A

dve

rtisi

ng

will

Ma

tte

r in

201

3

16


16

Implement Native Advertising To implement native advertising, we have to think about a few things:

Do our users trust us? Does the brand have integrity online? Who is the best person (or team) to implement this? Do we need journalists, designers, and media buyers on our communications team? Should we outsource some of the content creation in order to keep things fresh consistently?

Too often, organizations use the social networks to push their messages out, like they're accustomed to doing through traditional methods. Native advertising requires a complete shift in thinking and it won't be easy... particularly with those clients or bosses who are used to leaving messages in the marketplace for a year or more. Today you can't leave a message out there for five minutes, let alone an entire year. Some of you may already be doing some education around how to be social and engaging on the social networks. Take that a step further in 2013 and implement native advertising into your communications programs.

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-‐based integrated marketing communication firm. She is the lead blogger at PR and marketing blog, Spin Sucks, co-‐author of Marketing In the Round, and co-‐host of Inside PR, a weekly podcast about communications and social media. Connect with her on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or LinkedIn

17

http://www.armentdietrich.com/

http://www.armentdietrich.com/

http://spinsucks.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Round-Multichannel-Approaches-Post-Social/dp/0789749173/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323447451&sr=8-1

http://www.insidepr.ca/

https://plus.google.com/105391637151401937333/posts

https://twitter.com/ginidietrich

https://www.facebook.com/ArmentDietrich

http://instagram.com/ginidietrich

http://pinterest.com/ginidietrich/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ginidietrich


17

JEANNIE WALTERS Customers will experiment with your competition

Barriers to switching from one service to another – whether it’s banking, CRM or the doctor you visit – are going away. Customers are selecting what works for them in the moment. Loyalty is going away. Your competitors are not always the big guys, either. They are the ones who are popping up when you are sleeping. With free trials and apps, your customers are not hesitating to check out the other guys even as they mark the “totally satisfied” box on your surveys.

They also will take their advice from their connected communities. Reviews will still be important, but it’s the less-‐public reviews within private communities online that will prove the most challenging or rewarding.

Participating within these social communities will be vital for any marketer.

Don’t consider this aspect of the experience as just service OR marketing – it must support both these functions in order to be effective.

Social will support your customer experience just like any customer service telephone number or web site does. Customers will share the good, bad, and ugly. Be aware of the indifferent. Apathy can be just as damaging as disappointment. Helping your customers share their feedback via social and rewarding those who do will continue to be a key part of loyalty. Customers who feel heard are more likely to stick with you when the competition comes calling. Building up your customer feedback strategies and response techniques should be part of any marketing or customer service plan for 2013.

Cu

stom

ers w

ill exp

erim

en

t with

you

r co

mp

etitio

n

18


18

Jeannie Walters is the Chief Customer Experience Investigator™ and founder of 360Connext, a Chicago-‐based consulting firm specializing in the cornerstones of customer experience: customer engagement, employee engagement and connections like social media. 360Connext serves mid-‐market companies and larger by helping them evaluate their true customer experience via proprietary CXI(R) methodologies. The evaluations always lead to improvements, which then lead to results like increased online conversions or loyalty. Walters now speaks, writes, consults and generally thinks about how the small experiences we have

each day – going to the bank, ordering online, tweeting – create the greater experience of our lives. She has worked with a wide range of organizations, including universities and prep schools, banks and credit unions, technology companies, some of the largest financial services companies in the world and countless entrepreneurs. Walters lives outside of Chicago with her husband Mike and their two young sons. As such, her current hobbies include cheering on distracted t-‐ball players and building impressive Lego villages.

19

http://360connext.com/

http://360connext.com/


19

JESSE PETERSEN Due to the massive movement of consumer and privacy watchdogs, I think we'll see Facebook lose some ground to Twitter and Google+ in 2013. The move will begin with the most active of tech-‐savvy people, mostly super geeks, niches that have a growing crowd on Google+, and solopreneurs. We've already seen reports of marketing reach on Facebook dropping as much as 40% since they began the promoted statuses, so expect more of that until it reaches a tipping point and people give up. As usual, marketing will go where the people go and people will follow normal patterns of early adopters, the masses, and then everyone's grandparents. Pinterest will spread to more guys -‐ somehow. I expect more PG-‐13 content coming soon as guys move to bury the food and crafts from their streams. Instagram and Twitter will have some growing pains over APIs. For 2013, expect at least one major newcomer to the social media landscape. One player that will cause everyone to add another button to their social plugins.

Jesse Petersen owns Petersen Media Group and has been loving and hating social media since 2007. He's currently mostly a Twitter guy now, @jpetersen, and uses Google+ for his photography and WordPress networking. He's known by his friends and clients as "the WordPress Go-‐To Guy," for which credit goes to Phil Gerbyshak. He and his wife, Kristin, live in Tampa, FL and are proud foster parents to wonderful children.

M

ark

etin

g W

ill G

o W

he

re t

he

Pe

op

le G

o

20

https://twitter.com/jpetersen

https://plus.google.com/114766171607995059456/posts


20

JONATHAN BREWER Before I begin my 2013 prediction on marketing, please allow me to just preach for a moment. There’s probably some research that has been done about this, but I’m going to go with what I’ve witnessed about marketing in the last 18 years of my life. There are 2 camps: the camp that starts everything by figuring out exactly how they will measure success, and the camp that ends with trying to figure out how they will tell their story about success, sometimes using data. I suppose one could say this is the difference between Direct Response Marketers and Awareness/Brand Marketers. I would argue, from experience that only Direct Marketing can be used on its own to achieve measurable success, but adding awareness marketing on top of direct marketing is a super punch combo. So where does “social media” fit into all of this? Social as a medium has a problem. It was birthed in a world where direct response marketing was getting easier and easier to do. It’s also a time where awareness marketing is controlling massive budgets. So what did we get? We got people who demanded the same sort of measurement tools and wanted to create messages that drive direct response to purchase in a social environment. People who wanted to treat the social channels like a banner ad, an infomercial, and a direct mail campaign. We also saw people arguing that there simply can’t be directly measurable ROI from social, because what is the ROI of telling your mom you love her or putting on your pants in the morning?

2013 is the year for this madness to stop. It’s the year we MUST begin to measure things that matter, even if it’s not the easiest thing to do. It’s time for the ROI folks to sit at the same table as the “putting on pants” folks, and come up with a plan. What defines a social success? It’s not likes. It’s not shares, and it’s not re-‐tweets and mentions. These are simply needles we move on a gauge in order to amplify our broadcasts cheaper (organically). We like to think these are the measurements that matter, but we can move these needles without

2013 is the

Yea

r For Th

is Ma

dn

ess to

Stop

21


21

accomplishing anything good for a brand. We’re measuring them because it’s the easiest thing to do. However, we can PAY MONEY to move these needles. These existing measurements should only be used as a general health meter and NOT something marketing defines as a WIN or a LOSS. So what should we be measuring in 2013? This is certainly dependent on your brand, but here are 4 quick examples to get you thinking: Number of times we get complained about – Word of mouth marketing is a powerful thing, so measuring where you’re at with the number of online complaints can help the entire organization. Fix this number, and squash the bad word of mouth. Number of thanks – If you’re in a business that has service, getting praised online is a great thing to gauge. Again, by working with the entire organization, and keeping an eye on the number of online thanks, improving this number will improve your organic word-‐of-‐mouth goodness. I’m here – seriously. Keep tabs on the number of times people tell you that they visited your brick-‐and-‐mortar. Trying to improve this number will get you to think about how your traditional marketing efforts are supporting your online efforts. Especially if they are different teams (maybe they should work together more often?) Tip: Think deep about this: This is more than just location-‐based check-‐ins. How can you encourage the consumer to announce their arrival or departure? I just bought – If revenue is an important thing, why not start measuring how many times people tell you or their friends they just bought from you. Measure this and you’ll start to focus on making it easier for people to tell your story for you. So I don’t know if that was as much of a prediction as it was a manifesto from me to all marketers, but I can say with confidence, if you want to keep increasing your budgets, you’re going to have to find better ways to define and measure success – up front.

22


22

As the Director of Awesome with BTC Revolutions, Brew is an expert in building communities that blend online and offline communications. As a constant learner, and a self-‐proclaimed “geek translator” and “destroyer of silos”, his passion is connecting like-‐minded people from various disciplines including HR, IT, Marketing, and Sales. You can follow Brew on Twitter @houseofbrew.

23

http://btcrevolutions.com/

https://twitter.com/houseofbrew


23

MALLIE HART It’s already happening. But I think we’re going to see a lot more of it, applied much more decisively, with little excuse and/or acceptance of those that don’t toe the line. What am I talking about? Social presence and connections created, managed and maintained with intent and purpose.

Social solutions and ideas that not only talk the talk, but also WALK that talk.

That’s what I predict we’ll see a lot of in 2013 and beyond. As I’ve stated, it’s already started. So, I’m not touting a new concept, nor can I take credit for the idea. Names, both big and small, within our industry have chosen to stand behind this idea and stand up to those that don’t give this idea the credence and cooperation it deserves. Accounts large and small have taken to heart the idea of connecting with intent and purpose. Connections and actual engagement aren’t commodities to be traded casually like gossip, nor can they be purchased and housed in a protective sleeve like baseball cards. Connections that lead to engagement and real relationships involve hard work, determination and intent to continue as one has begin, with the sharing of valuable and varied information from a variety of savvy sources, not just the big names. We’ve seen smaller brand owners stand up and say no to the bigger names that think gaming the system or outright violation of ToS is hunky dory because of that big name. We’ve seen smaller brands lead a charge to share valuable content, tools, tips and advice FOR FREE via blog posts and eBooks, rather than assuming this vital and already readily available information should require purchase after minimal edit and regurgitation. We’ve seen big names outed and ousted for fake follower counts, purchased “fans” and less than social practices. We’ve seen smaller names rise to the from the big names simply because they’ve rocked the status quo.

So

cia

l Me

dia

With

Inte

nt

an

d P

urp

ose

24


24

We’ve seen a rise of collective groups, groups willing to share great content – ideas, leading thoughts, top tips and best practices through multi-‐author blogs. These groups are concerned with the share and the social – with actual connection and engagement, not the glorified numbers like likes, followers, circles and more. I believe we’ll see more of this in 2013 and I’m thrilled.

When Mallie isn’t contemplating the creativity of her graphics design work at Go Creative Go!, she’s crafting creative social designs for her social media clients as the Media Barista and running the Social Solutions Collective. This coffee chugging, pretentious hipster music listening, book devouring, mountain biking social media enthusiast thinks there’s something creative to be found in each and every business and entrepreneur. Color connotation, word choice, alliteration and a canny ability to think themes are but a few of the weapons she holsters as part of her social design arsenal. The coffee pot is always on, the music is always blaring and there’s generally a snoring cat underfoot. Ahhhhhhhh…the recipe for chaos to some, but to Mallie? A recipe for creativity!

25

http://gocreativego.com/


25

PHIL GERBYSHAK Measuring What Matters: A Key to Success in 2013

You can buy 20,000 likes for your Facebook page for the low price of just $339.99. You can buy 10,000 Twitter followers for just $15. You can buy 1,000 LinkedIn connections for $99.99. Seriously. Just search for "Buy Facebook likes," "Buy Twitter followers" or "Buy LinkedIn connections" on your favorite search engine. These results were just the top results I found. There are literally thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of places you can increase your numbers on social media. Does that stop you from worrying so much about the number of fans, followers, or connections you have? It should. Here's the thing: If those are your metrics of success, you're measuring the wrong things. Instead of measuring those, measure something that matters. Instead of that, measure number of opted in e-‐mail subscribers. Better yet, measure the number of e-‐mail subscribers that have clicked a link (ANY link) in any of your e-‐mail newsletters. You haven't abandoned e-‐mail newsletters for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, have you?

Measure, measure, measure! How about measuring number of people who actually downloaded an eBook you sent out -‐ not just number of people who signed up to your free offer? Measure the number of actual contacts who have completed your profile, that if you asked them to be your friend on Facebook, connect with you on Facebook, or have a conversation with you, that would say YES! Measure the number of people who are walking through your doors when things aren't on special. When you don't have a special offer, a new product or new service. How does that compare to last year? That's a much more valuable metric.

Me

asu

ring

Wh

at M

atte

rs


26

Do you know what your cost per new customer is? Or your spend per existing customer? Or how long customers stay with your business? Or the lifetime value of a customer? If you know how long most customers stay with you, and how much they are worth to you in their lifetime, you can figure out what a good investment amount is to acquire a new customer -‐ and what is a waste of time and money. My point is not to inundate you with numbers. In fact, I hate numbers, and I hate metrics. To be more correct, I hate meaningless metrics, and meaningless numbers. But I love meaning. The more meaning I can give my numbers, the better story I can tell myself, to motivate me to focus on the right things for my business. So find the meaningful metrics. Focus on them. Obsess on them. And on your customers who really drive those metrics. That's really what matters most of all -‐ and it will matter more than ever in 2013. If you don't want to, just send your customers my way. I'll be happy to take care of them for you.

Phil Gerbyshak is the head social media strategist and chief connections officer at Milwaukee Social Media, in charge of working with organizations to create strategies and tactics to connect to their customers and prospects using social media. Basically, if you have social media needs, Phil and his team can fill them.

27

26



27

RON MCDANIEL Here at Buzzoodle, we have been helping many kinds of clients generate leads with better online content. A few years ago, the blog posts and articles did not need to be long or of the highest quality to generate good search engine traffic and generate steady leads. In 2013 we have really changed that approach.

Time for higher quality articles! The fact is, 2012 saw big changes to Google. While most of our clients remained high, the writing is on the wall for 2013 that you are going to need to produce higher quality articles and generate more backlinks from social media. The short articles can still work if you are not in a competitive niche or you are focusing solely on local search engine optimization. But for many people it is time to start thinking of themselves as full publishers and production companies. The good news is that this is easier today than ever. But it is going to take a real commitment to high quality content on a regular schedule. This is not realistic for many business owners. One thing we notice is making a comeback is Podcasting. It seems people are listening to these free podcasts in the car more and more, which gives you an entirely new avenue to develop relationships with people. And since newer cars are making it easy to stream these in, the distribution channel has gone from life support to booming again.

Leverage is also becoming more important in 2013. You need to be able to create one high quality piece and then be able to leverage that content across audio, video, e-‐magazines, blogging and social media. This does take some getting used to.

T

ake

a L

ea

p A

he

ad

of

the

Pa

ck

28


28

The best way to do this is to have a production team that can take your well thought out audio recording and convert it to video, post it in a podcast, get a transcript and post it, write it in a cleaner article format, write a summary post about the longer post and do nice images as covers and to accompany articles. Then you promote the core article and all the different variations on one or more social media sites including video sites, micro-‐blogging, blogs, Facebook and Google Plus. Not easy -‐ but a small group of people that know the complete strategy will be able to do incredible things with your high quality content. And ideally you only spent 20 minutes talking into a microphone. 2013 is the year that some people are going to leap ahead of the pack by leveraging much higher quality content and emerging channels to build a strong personal and corporate brand that will be hard to compete with if you are not willing to do more.

Ron McDaniel is CEO of Buzzoodle, a content marketing lead generation company. Ron is a national speaker and author and has helped 1,000's of people grow their businesses with advanced publishing techniques. To find out more about Ron, visit RonMcDaniel.com.

29

http://www.buzzoodle.com/

http://www.ronmcdaniel.com/


29

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: PHIL GERBYSHAK Phil Gerbyshak is the brain-‐child of the eBook, 11 Things Your Need To Know About Social Media in 2013. Phil is a professional speaker who travels around the world sharing his message about social media and connections with organizations and businesses of all sizes. He has published four books, including #TwitterWorks, focused on small businesses and the restaurant industry. When not traveling, Phil and his team at MKE Social Media work with small and medium sized business and getting them connected to their customers digitally. To connect with Phil personally, visit http://philgerbyshak.com or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/philgerb

MILWAUKEE SOCIAL MEDIA Social Strategy Maybe you already know that using a #hashtag about chocolate chip cookie recipes will get re-‐tweeted, but using social media without a strategy is a sure fire way to ensure you get no purposeful ROI. Is your Facebook page over 10 Likes, but you need a plan that’s lasting and scalable... Milwaukee Social Media is here to make you look good: we’ll work with you to create a strategy to meet your business goals, not just make you feel good about your social media accounts. Not only will feel great about yourself but you’re going to be a big deal when we’re done with you!

30




http://www.philgerbyshak.com/



https://twitter.com/philgerb


30

Graphic Design You’ve heard the famous saying, “first impressions matter more than ever.” Don’t believe what your momma told you: that’s a lie. Don’t get upset – we’re not calling your momma a liar, we’re just saying that when it comes to social media, potential customers judge you BEFORE you ever get in front of them. Within the online world, looks are every-‐ thing, and we’ll work with you to create graphics to match all desirable channels and remain consistent with the image you want to present to your customers. Marketing Execution You’re a smart business person: you know you need to do more, and do it more often, to market your company more efficiently. But you don’t have the time. Or the energy. Or the expertise. But you have the passion. And you’ve got a great company to promote. Let Milwaukee’s finest do the work for you, no interns here! Just trained professionals willing to put in the long hours and connect your business with your customers through social media channels, and reach the people you want as customers. We’re like your own little social media match-‐ maker: we’ll set up the people you want with people who want them, like you. Sounds like there’s a whole lotta love going around!

31

