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Intuit’s social media campaign drives conversion on par with its transaction sites

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

This is worth repeating.

Intuit drives conversion with social media on par with its transaction sites.

If anyone continues to doubt the influence of social media on sales, this is the time to acknowledge the value. Oh, and remember, BTW, it’s still basically free. Unlike traditional or pay-per-click advertising, for the most part, the only real cost is the time of staff or an outsourced team to create, manage and monitor the messages.

How did they do this? Kira Wampler, Principal of Ant’s Eye View and formerly of Intuit, described the process at the August Social Media Breakfast Seattle meeting, saying that it all started by word of mouth. Once they had a track record, they demonstrated it to develop partnerships that took it all further.

What was the compelling word of mouth message? Helpful engagement.

Identify the Pain Points of your Prospects

Intuit asked businesses to describe their biggest challenge and how they solved it. As the program grew to over 1.2 million visits and 2000 stories, they partnered with bloggers. Leads were more valuable than the average.

Responding to a common desire for businesses to be noticed, Intuit built a program called Love A Local Business, to award small business grants. They also employ a widget to extend their message across retail sites increasing traffic 360%. A whopping 40% of traffic votes…

Reputation Management Is So Worthwhile

Incredibly, they found they could reduce the negative messages. When they started into a new venue, such as Facebook, they typically found that negative messaging made up 65% to total sentiment. With careful attention to their audience, they reduced negative sentiment by 30%.

Two great suggestions Kira had for the audience:

Make sure all your social media URLs are entered into your website analytics. Analysis from this data will help you share your interpretations with your management and drive the next decisions for your efforts.
Survey your customers to see where in the purchasing process they might use social media. Are they reading online reviews? Encourage them to post one for you.

Time Management is Possible

One of the biggest objections I’ve heard to getting into is how much time it can take. At Intuit, the management takes about 4 hours a week by one employee. They prioritized social media starting with the most impactful, Amazon’s reviews. Once your social media sites and management tools are all set up, the day-to-day can be very productive for a focused individual.

How do you make social media management work? Find the right response to your target’s pain points, be helpful, track your messages in a focused manner and you too might see social media success that matches or beats your paid advertising campaign.

You can watch the entire talk at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8840696.

Tags: Amazon, Ant’s Eye View, Intuit, Love A Local Business, reputation management, Social Media Breakfast Seattle, social media management, web analytics
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking | No Comments »

How is your company using social media?

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

By Karen Miller

Like most people, when I saw the Wheat Thins TV ad where they delivered a year’s worth of Wheat Thins to a consumer, I was amused and intrigued by what they were doing. Of course, I went to their website, Facebook page and Twitter to see what was happening. And, they were listening to their fans and communicating with them!

Over and over it has been said that social media is all about communicating. Companies like Wheat Thins are using social media to their advantage. They are giving out coupons on Facebook, delivering Wheat Thins to those on Twitter and making product announcements on both. But this is only one example of a company using social media to their advantage.

Staples, Chase, Pepsi all have some interesting campaigns using social media that involve interaction with their consumers. The Pepsi Refresh campaign has used social media to donate millions of dollars to local and national charities. Instead of advertising on the Super Bowl this year, they are using social media sites to give away those advertising dollars to the charities. They are gaining product recognition and building brand loyalty as well as being “socially responsible.”

Chase did a similar campaign for Community Giving and Staples engages their consumers by asking questions, talking about donating to schools, showing sale items, etc. The key is engaging and communicating. Make sure you are doing both with your social media but most importantly take time to listen to your consumers.

How is your company using social media to their advantage? And what companies do you think are uniquely using social media?

Tags: advertising, Chase, Facebook, Nabisco, Pepsi, social media, Staples, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wheat Thins
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media and Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments »

Full Disclosure – FTC Updated Guidelines include Social Media

Friday, August 13th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

The FTC updated its guidelines for advertisers last year with regard to testimonials and endorsements to incorporate the impact of the new emerging technologies. Of key concern was the trend by bloggers to promote items without acknowledging payment, product or other compensation.

Why is this important?

“…both advertisers and endorsers may be liable for false or unsubstantiated claims made in an endorsement – or for failure to disclose material connections between the advertiser and endorsers. The revised Guides also make it clear that celebrities have a duty to disclose their relationships with advertisers when making endorsements outside the context of traditional ads, such as on talk shows or in social media,” according to the FTC’s release.

Each blogger, personality and affiliate needs to make these disclosures, remembering that by doing so they can show due diligence and demonstration their credibility to build and retain their reputation. Advertisers must monitor communications about their brand to make sure their employees, agents, contractors and talent all comply. For advertisers, it’s not only about reputation, but the costs in time and litigation to defend false claims.

So it’s only appropriate that Cmp.ly, aptly named for advertisers, bloggers, affiliates and celebrities who want to be compliant with these guidelines, should provide a service to note in documents, sites and social media the relationship between the author or celebrity and advertisers.

It’s a simple system and reminds me of the Creative Commons system which offers a variety of copyright options. The author can choose a disclosure and generate the appropriate badge to use on websites. From Diggcomm’s release:

Cmp.ly provides six standard disclosures that are intended to cover all material connection disclosures. Each disclosure is identified using a number as follows:

CMP.ly/0 – No connection, unpaid, my own opinions
CMP.ly/1 – Based upon a review copy
CMP.ly/2 – Given a sample by vendor/agency/brand
CMP.ly/3 – Paid post – cash payment or other compensation
CMP.ly/4 – Employee/shareholder/business relationship
CMP.ly/5 – Custom Disclosure

For ad agencies with multiple accounts, there is a complete set of tools to create disclosure policies and “badges” for each campaign. Bloggers and affiliates must review and accept the advertiser policies prior to joining the program. Advertisers and agencies can then monitor an audit trail of activities.

An affiliate, for instance, running ads with landing pages, blogs, and sites to promote products for a share of the sale will want to use the following badge:

For the occasion of this blog post where no monetary or other consideration has been paid, I would use the following badge:

Whether advertisers, bloggers, and affiliates choose Cmp.ly or any other method of sharing their disclosures, these need to be made in a public way to protect the reputations of all concerned. Bloggers want to keep their audience, advertisers want to keep consumers and stay out of litigation, and affiliates want to keep the money rolling in. While it’s one more step in the creative process, it’s a valuable one.

So go forth and disclose. Herewith, is ours:

Disclosure Text : I have not received any compensation for writing this content and I have no material connection to the brands, topics and/or products that are mentioned herein.

@social_dynamics

Tags: blog endorsements, Blogging, FTC guidelines bloggers
Posted in Articles, Blogging, How To, Technology | No Comments »

Social Media Coverage of Texas Rangers Auction – Live Blogs and Tweets

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

By Sharon Hill

Starting at 9:30 on August 4^th, I peek in to see the news on the Texas Rangers Baseball Auction. In case you are not a baseball fan, this is the first major league baseball team to be auctioned since 1933. We are talking about a $500,000,000+ auction!

Watching the Live Blog from a Courtroom in Fort Worth at CBS11’ site. Technology is provided by CoveritLive.

Plenty of up-to-the-minute tweets too. Yahoo’s twitter updates provide a great feed of the current tweets:

CBS11 has a live blog which allows for comments and polls. Funniest comment from Let’s the Games Begin: “Will they sing the National Anthem before the proceedings begin? After that, will someone in the courtroom please yell out “PLAY BALL!”

Another one talks about making a bobblehead of the judge. (Bobbleheads are considered to be prized possessions by many.)

At 4PM CBS11 posted: CBS 11 News: 7600 readers total today. 3000 active right now. Woo-Hoo!

CBS 11 Newsroom: @EFW, we’re feeling the same things a lot of you are– anxious, a little tense, excited, and tired. But running this blog has been a blast all day long. We live for this breaking news stuff, but talking to all of you like this adds another dimension to it. It’s cool! And we will use this system a lot more often in the future.

The next morning it was announced that The Nolan Ryan/Chuck Greenburg Group won the bid and now own the Texas Rangers.

Well after midnight, Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks Owner who conceded) tweeted to his social networking followers the following tip of the cap to Greenberg, Ryan and fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth area: “Congrats Chuck and Nolan. Go Rangers!”

Isn’t technology fun?

@social_dynamics

Tags: live blog, live blogging, major league baseball, Tweeting, Twitter
Posted in Blogging, Social Media and Social Networking, Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

Get Blog Subscribers by Email – the Easy Way

Friday, June 4th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

If you are doing your blog in WordPress, here’s an easy way to offer your blog posts to your readers automatically and one that they might prefer: email.

Denise Wakeman, author of Build a Better Blog, took a survey and learned that half of us still prefer to sign up for blog posts by email. The other half like to use Readers like Google to receive favorite feeds.

Those choosing blogs for business choose to receive email 12 times more often than by RSS feed, according to Hubspot (http://j.mp/b1nuij).

Check your Wordpress theme to locate this widget. Here’s what it looks like in your widget choices:

Here’s how it will look on your site in one of your columns:

Review your email subscribers and download your list in a .CSV format. You will also have control to remove subscribers from your list. Look under your Blog Stats navigation tab.

You have the flexibility to modify the copy used in the Sign Up box:

Read the entire document at: http://en.support.wordpress.com/blog-subscriptions.

Enjoy the easy way to connect with more of your audience while letting them have it their way!

@social_dynamics

Tags: blog subscription by email, Business Blogs, Denise Wakeman, Hubspot, RSS, widget, WordPress
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Email, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Technical | No Comments »

Permanent Record

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

By Sharon Hill

Most of us know what a Permanent Record is regarding school transcripts. Has the internet and social media become the business version of a Permanent Record?

Recently I was looking up a business and came across a complaint – from March 2007. In addition, a client has a posting on a complaint site that goes back to August 2008.

Some of the sites allow for a rebuttal. Satisfied customers may also write in about their experiences. Unfortunately, the complaint is what shows up in the search engines synopsis, not the positive responses or a rebuttal.

Many of these complaint sites are legally protected by Communications Decency Act of 1996 which in summary states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

One such site in order to keep a working history of the individual or company, does not allow the author to remove the original complaint. I would assume the author could write another post if the issue was resolved. Of course, just because an issue is resolved doesn’t mean it never happened.

These types of sites provide the framework and platform for folks to let others know of their dissatisfaction. In other cases, folks may just want to vent and can be somewhat over-the-top.

I have used these types of sites myself when checking out a company and I have thought about writing up a company or two as well. Knowing that my comments are going to become a Permanent Record causes me to pause, as it should. What if the employee/owner was just having a bad day? What kind of business is it and does it lend itself to more complaints and dissatisfaction? Were my expectations in line with the cost of the service?

Make no mistake rude is rude and misrepresenting information, especially for personal gain, is just wrong. Back in the day complaints were made face-to-face or in written form. Most knew that without a name the complaint had little impact on the business. The internet allows for anonymous (first name, user name only, screen name) complaints with no requirement that it be a fair representation of the issue.

More on this subject regarding social media sites next time.

@social_dynamics

Tags: business complaints, complaint sites, Internet, social media
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Websites | No Comments »

Advice to Small Business on Social Media – Part 2

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

Where do businesses do all this Social Media connecting?

Cookie crumbs should be left wherever your users are talking plus wherever you hope to find them. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook are a good starting point. Each offers a different audience. Twitter is for news and great for customer service. LinkedIn is for business networking. Facebook Fan Pages have become special places to give fans and customers discounts, special offers and a sense of a preferred status. Google and Yahoo offer Profile placement and there will be continual jockeying for position by offering more services. More networks will pop up or be gobbled up. Staying tuned to your prospects conversations will guide you to additional opportunities.

Other ANCHORS:

LinkedIn: Consider this part of the preparatory part that makes the first nice impression. Work on your LinkedIn Profile to tell your story in the first person. Be personable. This is not your father’s resume. Make yourself approachable to other members who would look to you for information based on the expertise you display. I share this advice a lot: Building out your LinkedIn Profile.

Next: ask for a Recommendation of your services by at least one person. Over time, try to get a 360 review from folks who have worked for you, those that you have worked for, colleagues, vendors and other members of your organizations.

Build a LinkedIn Company Profile and MOST IMPORTANTLY, put terms in Specialties that prospects would search on to find your services. Here are some guidelines: Building out your Company LinkedIN Profile. With a recommendation and keywords in Specialties on the Company Profile, you now become a Service Provider and can be discovered by millions.

Facebook Fan Page: 6.8% of all business Internet traffic goes to Facebook. Business can no longer ignore the impact and should take advantage to find their fan base where they interact. As the #2 site in traffic rank, Facebook gives a boost in search results to any business.

You have several choices of the kind of page. Choosing Local Business will let you provide hours and parking and is somewhat limited. Brand, product or organization lets you give more of a profile of your business. Community and Group pages are generally Stage 3 efforts

Create a Facebook Page

Twitter: Super for building a base to direct to Facebook or a blog or shopping cart. Twitter is used to manage reputations and customer service issues. Steady, regular communication, again with just a few minutes a day, will build relationships and convert to sales. You can build a presence in just minutes. Include a bio and image with link to website or blog. Search on topics related to your industry and “lurk” or “listen” to conversations. As appropriate, reply. Retweet others to caption the attention of other visitors. It’s the content of your conversations that will attract followers.

I would add a 6^th Strategy to Mari’s list. Continue to learn. You’ll find others whose posts you like. Ask them questions. You’ll need some tools to manage this process. Those tend to be selected as a personal preference. Services that make it easy to schedule posts, shorten URLs will save you time. There are lots of choices and just a search away.

My last advice to encourage businesses to just get started. However small, make that first step. And then another. Just keeping leaving crumbs all over with great information and point them back in your direction. Enjoy the process. It’s rewarding in so many ways!

@social_dynamics

Tags: Facebook Fan Page, LinkedIn Company Profile, Mari Smith, social media for business, social media objectives, social media strategy, Twitter
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, How To, LinkedIn, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments »

Advice to Small Business on Social Media – Part 1

Monday, May 10th, 2010

By Jan Carroza

Small businesses can take advantage of the exciting interaction that social media can offer while overcoming the concern of time constraints, misconceptions and the sense of overwhelm that cause inertia. Tackle social media in 3 stages with 6 great strategies.

Manage Your Expectations

Be patient. My advice to any business is not to expect tons of sales right out the gate. Social media is about building relationships of trust which lead to actions. While I have seen tremendous reaction in just hours, in general businesses should think of each communication as another cookie crumb with the possibility of being found by someone who will follow your trail. Each communication gives a business an opportunity to ENGAGE. I can’t stress this enough. Eventually, each business can have benchmarks tracking results to know that x number of communications yielded y in sales.

A lot has been written about businesses pitching soliloquies. Companies, agencies and PR firms have been dropping the ball here. Social media is about INTERACTION. Businesses must make a CONNECTION. That means starting a conversation or reacting to one. That’s why social media marketing might take more time than traditional advertising.

Don’t be overwhelmed with what you don’t know. Even the experts don’t know everything. We are all trying to run as fast as we can to keep up with new opportunities and new technologies.

Don’t be afraid this will consume your time. Can you spare 10 or 30 minutes a day? That’s enough to get you started. If you like the results, you’ll find more time if you want to.

Plan for three Stages to your experience.

Stage 1) Preparatory–
Set your Objectives. To make those cookies, you have to have a kitchen where you can pull out and measure the ingredients and an oven to bake them in. You need to prepare the places where you want actions to take place: the website, a blog, social media and networking places, and the like. Sign up, observe and participate on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Learn from the mistakes others make in formatting, links and typos.

Stage 2) Mix a Small Batch-
While you are getting familiar on this learning curve, just take small bites so you can increase your chances of some early results from your time invested. Choose 3-5 venues to start with. You’ll look back at how much you learned in a short time. Be patient.

Stage 3) Expand the Kitchen-
Add more venues. Answer questions on LinkedIn. Learn about Bookmarking to share and repeat your communications and continue to drop more crumbs in more places.

I love @MariSmith’s 5 strategies:

1)   Objective
2)   Design
3)   Content
4)   Promotion
5)   Engagement

Start by outlining your Objectives for doing social media. What are you trying to do? Get new prospects, sales, donations, information and/or managing a reputation. Keep these in mind so you don’t stray too far. Your goals will drive your strategies and choices you make in terms of places you develop your presence and in what priorities. You want to make the biggest impact for the least amount of effort. For instance, if you have products that you can show with images or video, then YouTube would be one of the early channels to add and post. There are lots of places to put video. So you don’t get overwhelmed, you start with a large one and add others in Stage 3. Same goes for images. You might start with Flickr to begin with and add more later.

Prioritize your goals for using social media. Are you providing customer service? Finding new prospects? Managing your reputation? Rank these requirements.

Focus your social media efforts to achieve these goals. If you’re handling customer service, monitor Twitter and Facebook for comments about your company and your competitors. If you dedicate a few minutes a day to monitoring and replying, you will begin a significant step forward into the limelight. Look for questions to answer and other blogs where you can post interesting, informative comments. Your signature will direct interested parties back to you.

Start with just a few things. The ones that make the most sense for your Objectives. If you want to drive actions to a website, adding a blog to your website is the biggest single recommendation to generate new content to attract prospects and persuade visitors to buy. That should be an ANCHOR. Something you give great and frequent attention to. A blog post can be a daily or weekly event that is a short discussion meant to drive at least one strong point home. One post might take just 10 minutes to write.

Check back this week for:

Where do businesses do all this Social Media connecting?

@social_dynamics

Tags: Facebook Fan Page, LinkedIn Company Profile, Mari Smith, social media for business, social media objectives, social media strategy, Twitter
Posted in Articles, Blogging, Facebook, How To, Local business, Social Media and Social Networking, Twitter | No Comments »

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