I often get asked about how to keep online communities “engaged.” So, today, I found this fascinating quote:
TripAdvisor needs to keep reviewers reviewing, and an email message they sent to me suggests one way to do so. They don’t merely ask for more reviews but instead appeal to some of the motivations that Mass Influencers have for their social media activities. The TripAdvisor message takes away doubt about readership of reviews and implies that those who post reviews have an audience eager for more content. Here is what I received: Augie Ray, How Do You Keep Mass Influencers Engaged? An Example from TripAdvisor, Mar 2010
This article explains what works best–and what doesn’t–in getting people to talk about and share information about your product or service. It also goes into the mentality of your Web users, and why certain tactics work better than others. It’s a must-read for anyone struggling to keep customers engaged … and how to turn those customers into referrals! Take a look, and let me what you think!
Laura Roeder has taught me a lot over the past year, and I admire her greatly for how much she has been able to accomplish over the past few years. I subscribe to the “Dash” newsletter, which she runs, which is also linked to her Facebook community. The Facebook group allows people to extend the learning of her workshops and share results of what’s worked best using her methods.
Recently, Laura got a question about how much time she spends on various social media tasks. Her response is probably the best one I’ve ever heard.
The 2009 Small Business Survey found that social media adoption by small businesses has doubledfrom 12% to 24% in the last year, according to a study sponsored by Network Solutions® and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business.
The report also found that investments in Web sites and social media will be large growth areas in technology over the next 18 months. These changes are coming as small business owners try to be more innovative and successful in the marketplace.
Most often, social media is used for external marketing and engagement. Such as finding new customers, building awareness or staying engaged with customers.
Thirty-seven percent of small businesses still rely on traditional print advertising to get the word out. After advertising, the second-most popular form of marketing is e-mail (24%), followed by social media (19%).
Social media ranked about even with cold-calls (18%) and direct mail (17%), suggesting that small business owners have yet to discover the true potential of this technology. For example, the ability to collaborate with suppliers, partners, colleagues or staff.
Yet, this type of innovation is what separates the small business winners from the losers. Besides working capital, the authors found that marketing and innovation were the two largest indicators of small business success.
“There may be a vast untapped potential for using the medium to link members of the supply network, colleagues and staff to gain advantages in creativity and productivity. Such internal uses are harder to imagine and in their infancy, but have the potential to unleash a vast reservoir of creativity and joint problem solving as social media users grow exponentially. Examples of such uses are developing a new product or service, finding low cost resources, teaming to pursue business opportunities, or leveraging an expert source to solve a special problem.”
The 2009 Small Business Report goes into more detail about how the report was compiled, provides more detail on what characterizes a successful small business and provides a year-over-year Small Business Success Index. If you work with the small business community, it’s one of the most useful and fact-filled reports you’ll read all year.
Sometimes you need to replace something in your document that takes several keystrokes. In this video, I show you how to copy something to your keyboard, then how to use those clipboard contents in a global search and replace.
This tip has saved me hours and hours (and hours) of time!
What has been YOUR most useful Word 2007 tip ever? Leave a Comment to let me know!
“Being a Fan, Follower or Friend does not mean they opted in to have advertising blasted at them.”
– Michael Donnelly, Worldwide Interactive Marketing
Nearly six thousand times a day, people talk about why Coca-Cola is their brand. They do it with creative content that gets noticed and demonstrates an authentic LOVE for the brand. Some of these conversations are a natural outgrowth of Coca-Cola’s brand, others happen because Coke asks for it:
“Where have you had a Coke lately?”
“Coca-Cola invites you to upload a photo of the next Coke you drink.”
“Coca-Cola wants to know: What’s your favorite time of day to enjoy an ice-cold Coca-Cola?”
Coke’s brand managers track these conversations, finding the most-used word with “Coke” is “LOVE.” How do consumers come to “love” a brand?
Coke is one of the few brands that have been present throughout several generations, and will be for generations to come. It’s reliable. Dependable. Always there. Traveling to Indonesia, I went through Taiwan, then to Bali. Then to the island of Sumba. Then to rural villages, where livestock shares the road. In every stop, there was Coke. Then finally to a place too remote for electricity. Then even further to villages where currency takes the form of livestock and cigarettes. Coke has literally “painted the world red.” It’s natural that Coke will be where people are online as well.
Mr. Donnelly, the architect behind the world’s largest social media campaign, says that his team’s social media strategy is to put fans first. “Less about us, more about them.” As a result, Coke fans interact with the Coke brand and each other more than any other online brand. Donnelly says traditional marketing campaigns ”abandoned the audience” after completion. Campaigns based on sustainable relationships “leverage the existing audience and grow it for future use.”
To create even more highly compelling content, Coca-Cola will soon be embarking on a world “Expedition of Happiness,” taking a crew to 206 countries in one year to see first-hand how Coke brings happiness throughout the world. “We will be everywhere our consumers are in an authentic, member-of-the-community, non big brand way,” Donnelly said. He summarized Coke’s social media strategy this way:
Fish where the fish are
Integrate ‘common social solutions’ into existing campaigns (Facebook, Twitter)
Optimize functionality that already exists (Event invites)
Create new functionality, if needed (Web and iPhone apps)
Have clear principals to insure everyone and everything is aligned
