Mint Social / Social Media Marketing - Online Branding

On February 11th, Matt O’Brien of Mint Social presented at the Traverse City Chamber of Commerce on using social media marketing to grow your business online. In this segment Matt O’Brien discusses the Mint Social viral marketing strategy that leverages web video and Google’s universal search to achieve multiple rankings in Google and drive traffic to call to action web pages. The concept of being HuntedIn was also discussed.

Seminar Topic: Show Me the Money –The Direct Line to Revenue with Social
Date and Location: February 11th @ SkySong Scottsdale, AZ
Registration: Click here
Description: A Live Event from World Webinar Network…

Show Me the Money
–The Direct Line to Revenue with Social Media

There is a lot of talk about social media tools.
Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging, You Tube….
But what does it all mean?
How do these “places to be and things to do” actually lead to more revenue?
How about clients? And what are the opportunities?
Where do you even start? And how are you going to get it all done?

Start here!
Start now!

Let World Webinar Network show you the way. With “Show Me the Money”:

• DEVELOP your Social Media ACTION BUSINESS PLAN for 2009
• LEARN which TOOLS are the BEST FOR YOUR BUSINESS
• APPLY THE FIVE ESSENTIAL DISCIPLINES of Social Media

When: Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Time: 4:30 - 6:30 PM
Location: ASU SkySong
1475 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, Arizona
(SE corner of McDowell and Scottsdale Road)

Cost: $55 (bring a friend — buy two tickets, second ticket is $30)
Contact: Dave Cooke 602.903.2074 or dcooke@srgroup-llc.com

If you are a business owner or business executive looking for the strategic
and tactical answers to all the social media buzz, this event is for you.
World Webinar Network is Phoenix\’s premier educational and consulting
resource for social media. We’ve help hundreds of Arizona’s finest business leaders with impactful educational tools and tips.

“Show Me the Money” is our most comprehensive, informative, take action event that we’ve offered. We hope you can join us!
Start Time: 4:30pm
Date: 2009-02-11
End Time: 6:30pm

Title: Social Media Marketing Workshop/Webinar
Location: Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce 202 E Grandview Pkwy Traverse City, MI 49684
Link out: Click here
Description: SAVE THE DATE
What: Social Media Marketing Workshop/Webinar
When: January 28, 9-11:30AM
Where: TC Area Chamber of Commerce
Featured Educator: Matt O\’Brien, Social Media Marketing Expert

MORE INFO: Candie Conat, Sara Harding and I realized that we wanted to learn more about utilizing social media marketing web sites for business purposes (think Linkedin and Facebook). That said, we tapped into a known resource and asked if he would be interested in helping us learn more. This is not a workshop to learn how to chat or keep in touch with friends…we are going to learn how to use these sites/networks to enhance our businesses. Because we all realize how important this type of on-line network marketing is becoming…we wanted to invite you to join us. If you are interested, please save the date on your calendar and let us know ASAP that you would like to be included in the actual invite for this webinar

MUST HAVES:
-Attendees must arrive for the workshop at 9AM sharp with a working laptop.
-The workshop will start promptly at 9:30AM so arriving early allows everyone to connect to the Chamber\’s wireless network BEFORE it begins .

COST: We are negotiating this and will send an emailed update by Monday, January 19th. Our intent is that Matt\’s fees will be amortized across the group equally. We are not interested in \”making money\” on this event - only providing a forum for others who are interested to learn along with us.

We are limited to 25 participants so if you\’re interested, reply now!
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-01-28
End Time: 11:30am

After a long hiatus from blogging for myself, I am back with some information for the sales professional. Yes, social media can be a distraction but it can make you work less (4 Hour Work Week style) and make you more money than ever before. Yes, you may have heard this in a seminar that got you fired up but you did not execute on the plan. Or, maybe you did and are getting some results but maybe have not taken it to the next level. In the event you are looking to work less and make more money (I do not know anyone that will disagree with this thinking), here are some ideas to put into action:

1. Revisit LinkedIn - With over 33 million users and now getting 1 million users every 2 weeks (up from 1million every 4 weeks earlier this year), your prospects are here. Better yet, if you have a blog and have powerpoints that you publish on SlideShare.net, you have a license to promote your services in your profile and be the hunted in social media.

2. Get Active in Twitter - I now use twitter to update all my social media profiles like Facebook, FastPitchNetworking.com, my blog, Plaxo and many more. Better yet, Twitter is a great tool to find people and businesses that you have things in common with…common ground is the basis for long tern relationships. A great example is a friend of mine started following (hunted) a CEO on Twitter he wanted to land as a client. He suggested a great Sushi place to him because he learns from Twitter this CEO loves sushi and a few months later, there are working together.

3. MRSS - Wikipedia says: Media RSS (MRSS) is an RSS dialect used for syndicating multimedia files (audio, video, image) in RSS feeds. It was designed in 2004 by Yahoo! and the Media RSS community, and adds several enhancements to RSS enclosures. Mint Social created 10 videos for a client from a 1 hour interview, researched the most relevant terms and optimized the content before we syndicated it to 50 of the top video and blog websites like YouTube, Revver, Viddler, etc. and generated thousands of views within the first month and created stacked (multiple) rankings in the search engines for over 20 of our targeted terms. Request a a copy of this case study by completing the form at the end of this post.

Social media marketing is really about listening to the conversation going on about your market, identifying the key players and competitors and engaging in the conversation. Everyone loves to ask the question, what is the ROI on social media. Well, one of the best sources online that you can subscribe to is LinkToYourWorld.com for great information on social media. They did such a great job of answering this question, here is an except from the article titled “What is The ROI for Social Media?”

How and Why Do You Measure Relationships?
Any good sales person will tell you their number one objective is building relationships over time. Yet few if any company bothers to measure the cost of building relationships rather they measure the results of relationships. Measuring the results doesn’t tell you “how to build effective relations” or “which methods create the best relations.”

Relationships come from human experiences, not corporate spin and hyped promises. Human relationships are measured by trust, sincerity and common values. If you want a return on social media then focus on conversations that build lasting relationships based on value exchanged and create great experiences. Why is ROI so important? Because that is all you know how to manage. Get it?

Great stuff. So, get engaged in social media, especially if you are a sales professional and make your life easier. Here is a parting tip to think about. If you lose your job, you take with you your social media network. If you have 500 people in your network associated with your expertise and industry, do you think another company in that space would be interested in your network?

Request a case study below on Social Media Marketing Success Stories

cforms contact form by delicious:days

World Webinar Network WWN presents Social Networking for businesses webinar by Matthew O’Brien of Mint Social on September 11, 2008. This social marketing webinar details using social networks like LinkedIn and Fast Pitch! to market your business online. For more information on upcoming social media marketing webinars and seminars, visit WWN www.WorldWebinarNetwork.com.

After two successful seminars with close to 200 business owners and entrepreneurs in attendance, the World Webinar Network (WWN) announces the launch of their hands on social media marketing webinars and hands on training workshops. Social media experts will be leading these hour and a half sessions on how to grow your business online using social media. These workshops are a result of  seminar attendees demanding that the great information presented gets implements as fast as possible.WWN is providing 5 workshop starting September 11th through October 7th that can be attended live (in person) and are also available online via a live webcast. If you would like to attend one or all of these workshop in person, all you need is register online and bring a laptop to plug in at SkySong and you will have the experts there to work with you one on one. You can also attend via webcast from the comfort of your own home (or office).

Live Hands on Workshops and Webinars. Get help from the experts on how to implement social media marketing into your business:

• Generate leads and new business online
• Automate your online marketing
• Build immediate credibility to close business faster!

Our Calendar of Live Workshops and Webinars (5:30pm-7pm). Click below to sign up:

• 9/11/08 - Using Social Networks to Grow Your Business
• 9/16/08 - Blogging for Beginners
• 9/23/08 - Twitter and Other Microblogging Tools
• 9/25/08 - Podcasting for Beginners
• 10/7/08 - How to Create Videos with Social Media
• 10/14/08- Using Photos in Social Media

Upcoming Social Marketing Seminar for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs (at SkySong)

• 10/8/08 – WWN and Club E Present Social Media for Entrepreneurs SEMINAR…sign up today (4:30-6:30)

Register for the seminar at www.WorldWebinarNetwork.com

We look forward to seeing you there.

Now that I have my online profiles positioned properly and have grown my network in LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, FastPitchNetworking.com and Twitter.com , I have now become the new term in sales…the hunted. The traditional CONCEPT OF THE HUNTER AND FARMER no longer provides the full picture for all types of sales people. Let’s introduce the top of the food chain when it comes to sales…the hunted. This updated term describes how businesses seek out the experts and utilize social networks to find the “perceived” best in class companies and individuals to work with. You get hunted and sought out for your expertise.

Some of my former managers used to call inbound leads “Blue Birds” and “Riding the Gravy Train”.  Now, social networks can be set up to create a constant flow of inbound, qualifies leads. This is what we now call being “The Hunted”. To be the hunted there are three significant things that need to be in place:

1. A strong network that businesses can use to hunt you down (referrals and recommendations from your network are key)
2. Well positioned profiles and syndicated content that defines you as “The Expert” and not a “jack of all trades, master of none”.
3. Making it easy for “the hunters” to get in contact with “The  Hunted”.

If you fast forward this concept of the hunted 5 or 10 years from today, it seems quite realistic that one or two top notch sales experts could replace an entire fleet of sales people by having 1 through 3 from above in place. If you hire “the hunted”, you can knowingly predict the results that this person can deliver, especially if they have worked in the same industry as your business. The hunted are essentially bringing a network that is dialed in and directly connected to your customer base and can bring immediate results from day one. It almost sounds too good to be true…but is it?

Well, to get to the level of the hunted you need to become the expert and there is no better way to do this than through social media marketing. An expert is well published in their niche market. The best way to do this is to have a blog that is set up as a publishing vehicle that syndicates this content to relevant marketing channels. A market channel is defined as a website of social network that is RSS enabled. It is all about the syndication of compelling content that is related to your niche market or area of expertise. Some of the best ways to mass market your information is through press releases, article submission, social networks, video networks and of course, search engines. Always overlooked are the profiles that you set up in social networks like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Fast Pitch!, Naymz.com, etc.

Take 5 minutes and look at one of your profiles on these networks. Cut and paste all of the content in your profile into a Word document and read it. Do you come across as the expert? Do you have the terms in your profile that make you easy to find?

This is an entirely new way to sell and one that becomes more service oriented. It goes without saying that this new sales model will enable businesses to focus more effort on managing the  business and building stronger relationships because less resources are directed at hunting for new business.

Additional resources on “The Hunted”:

- www.CompleteStrategery.com by Aaron Bare

- Setting up a Social Media Marketing Strategy to be The  Hunted by Matthew O’Brien

According to the June 23, 2008 issue of Businessweek, “the average knowledge worker has the attention span of a sparrow,” reports Maggie Jackson, author of Distraction. It gets worse…28% of the average U.S. worker’s day is lost to interruptions. This amounts to $650 billion in lost productivity. Can we blame this all on social media? Some say yes, but some say these workers are not leveraging this powerful online marketing force for their business, more for self serving needs. Here is why.

If you are in sales your number one goal is to bring in new business. Therefore, as a sales person, what are you doing to close new business. The options are:

1. Make cold calls (we all know this is the hard way and the long route to landing new business)

2. Networking - going to local events, meeting people, passing out business cards and giving your elevator pitch hoping you are presenting to a decision maker or someone that can get you in front of the decision maker.

3. Marketing - sending our newsletters (online and offline), promoting your services in ads (online and offline), direct mail, etc.

4. Referrals - hitting up who you know, customers and prospects to get warm leads (now we are getting close)

5. Social Networking through social media - this leverages all of the above and turns #1 from cold calls into warm leads…here is why.

People buy from who they know and trust and most often from people who they have gotten a referral from. Social media and specifically, social networking sites gives users the ability to leverage the connections and contacts of the people they know to:

1. Create warm leads

2. Establish trust quickly due to the introduction or connection from their extended network

3. Qualify prospects into customers faster than any other means of new business generation.

When you get a referral through a trusted connection, you immediately get past the who are you stage and immediately go to, can you help me grow my business, save me money or make my life easier from what you have to sell. This all makes sense but what does this have to do which social media killing our attention span? Simple, in this example of the sales person, they can use social media to connect with friends to reminisce about old times or leverage their friendship and the connections in their combined network to generate warm leads and eventually new business. Then, when the interruptions come in from social media, they can spiral one of two ways; in the right direction to generate new sales or alternatively add to the 28% of the work force being unproductive.

Let’s go one step further, social media has made it so that virtually anyone from the CEO on down is accessible. Case in point, yesterday I got a call from Michael Goodman of the AZ Sales Pros thanking me for filling in as a speaker on July 9th. As we continued talking he asked me a question about www.FastPitchNetworking.com on how he could use it for setting up a group to market and manage AZ Sales Pros network online. I was not sure of the answer so I used Fast Pitch’s instant messaging (IM) tool to contact Bill Jula, the CEO of Fast Pitch to get the answer. Not only did Bill respond but he and I engaged in a 15 minute IM session and I learned that their tool is a fit for what Michael is looking for and that there are discounts and additional benefits for associations like Michael’s group. I also got a chance to plug The World Webinar Network, a social marketing webinar company I helped start and that Bill (or someone from Fast Pitch) offered to be a speaker in one of our webinars. This all happened within 2 hours of Michael giving me a call…a social media distraction or a powerful sales and marketing tool for online businesses?

Oh, by the way, I have gotten two new customers in the last two months through Fast Pitch Networking from using their IM tool and these customers were inbound connection requests to learn more about my company.

“…while it is impossible to forecast the impact of a sustained downturn on corporate marketing budgets, one thing is for certain: conditions are going to be different for a while than they were.”

“Things that might have not been very powerful before a recession become very powerful in a recession,” says Bob Atkins, a vice president of Mercer Management Consulting in New York.”

These comments are certainly timely, or are they? Taken from Business 2.0 in an article titled Bear Opportunities written in April 17, 2001 by Jennifer Gilbert and Jane Hodges, you would think this was written yesterday. Needless to say a great article and here is the executive summary with a Mint Social twist:

What are the marketing tools to use in a recession?
- Customer Attraction
- Customer Retention
- Invest in your Brand

In 2001, social media marketing and social networks were in a raw and yet to be defined stage of existence. However, fast forward to 2008 and we are in the midst of learning how to apply the most cost effective marketing and advertising medium to our online businesses. Well, I must admit that the last year and a half has been filled with interesting dialog and education back and forth with those that know much less than me and those that know much more.

So where are we at? Social media works and it is the greatest act now tool to get people on board today (thanks to the scare tactics and sensationalism that the media in putting on this industry…and please keep it up).

Ok, you may be saying, “I have a blog and it gets some traffic but it is not impacting my business with leads or sales. “ The answer is syndication. Have you set up marketing channels in the top social media and networking sites on the Internet to market and brand your business? If the answer is no, I completely understand why you are not seeing encouraging results.

How to you get the most from social media marketing? Great question! Think of your blog as a syndication hub for your business (like your own associated press). Then, think in terms of marketing your business in the third person. Still not getting it? Think in terms of testimonials, case studies and third party endorsements from partners, vendors and customers. Now go back to your LinkedIn account and learn how they have designed their site and get you to build your profile to market yourself. (Actually, I have found Fast Pitch Networking to be a great lead generation and new business generation tool, maybe the best online.)

Ok, I got off track so let’s get back to the marketing tools for recession:
- Customer Attraction
- Customer Retention
- Investment in the Brand

If this story from 2001 wasn’t written for social media, it is now. Social media marketing is all about branding…inexpensive branding I might add. Now let’s look at the other two, attracting customers or we call it in social networking, building your online community and lastly, customer retention. Let’s talk about this. Social media is all about giving a voice to the customer and this scares the sh*t out of businesses. However, a company with its ear to the needs of the customers is practicing the best customer retention tactics that exist.

Get going with social media marketing and please get started on the right foot by enrolling an expert to help you. The great thing about marketing in this medium (social media) is that once the system is set up right, you can enroll idle resources and low cost added resources to make this a marketing machine that will grow your business.

Take away: get started on the right foot or you will channel energy and valuable resources in a direction that is not deliver the results you want.

So…something old, something new, something Mint Green designed to help you.

How can you get the least out of your blog marketing efforts? We let’s start with the things you should do to get the least results from your social media marketing:

1. Use boring titles in your blog posts that do not grab the interest of the potential reader like “The Sun is Hot in Summer”.

2. Talk about topic that no one is searching for like “shoe string shoe laces”.

3. Use one word keywords like “business” for tags in your post.

4. Use unpopular search terms in your title, blog post and in the tag to cut down on the organic search engine traffic and overall traffic potential (this helps you to overpay for unused server space).

5. Find content that you like online and copy it word for word in your blog post with no reference or link to the source. (Remember those school days of getting others to do your work.)

6. Talk about a topic that everyone knows about and repeat the same story details to not surprise your reader or have any element of controversy (think white bread).

7. Only talk about yourself and/or your business and only link to your own stuff (preferably one site so that Google knows you are nothing but a spam blog).

8. Buy an email list (the cheaper the better) and send some cheesy email out every day to the same list linking to your blog and company website. This will help to expedite getting blacklisted by all the online companies that matter.

9.  Buy links on spam blogs and sites associated with #8 above so you can have guilt by association from your link(s).

10. Openly bash your competition and anyone else for that matter over and over again so that you develop a predictable pattern for your posts.

OK, I have some more because I am having fun while drinking my beer (just changed from a New Belgium Skinny Dip to a PilsnerUrquell)…mmm, tasty!

11. Talk about something completely irrelevant to your blog post in the middle to throw people off track (oops I just did this one).

12. If using Wordpress, MovableType.com or other blog publishing tool that provide access to the meta data, keep these fields blank or make it different than what your post is about (like throwing in Brittney Spears).

13. Do not add images to your blog post and make your content one long continuous text block with no breaks (we all get intimidated by the novel War and Peace so why not make your blog post the same way).

14. Do not write posts on your blog and keep it empty.

15. Do not use social bookmarks like DIGG, Del.icio.us or Stumble Upon or feed your RSS into profile pages in the top social networking sites. In fact, if you have profile pages be sure to not update these or add links to your blog and company website.

I think this covers many of the top points to making your blog marketing and social media marketing efforts become search engine repellent. Have fun!