Half-day Social Media 101 seminars available free of charge to associations, nonprofits and government entities

The emergence of social media has had a dramatic impact on the public relations industry. According to a trend report from Netpop Research LLC, there are 40 million active social network users in the U.S., and social networking has grown 93 percent since 2006. And if you’re reading this blog, you’ve already changed these percentages.

We are excited to announce a new GroundFloor Social Media (GFsM) workshop series aimed at helping Colorado-based associations, nonprofits and government entities leverage social media in their marketing and fundraising campaigns. Called “Social Media: Getting in on the Ground Floor,” the series will offer personalized social media training and education at no cost. Yes, they are for free! Well, at least for the first 20 guests that register in their respective category.

Most nonprofits and government organizations know social media is one way to further boost their marketing and fundraising campaigns. However, as we all know, limited budgets often make it difficult to try nontraditional campaigns. These workshops will provide these organizations with the knowledge and know-how to increase their social media presence.

We developed our Social Media 101 workshop series to help educate organizations about the social media universe and provide them with a step-by-step guide on how to start and maintain their own social media campaigns. In these sessions, our team of social media junkies will help attendees gain a basic understanding of the different social media mediums and learn how to engage customers, employees and supporters through social media.

These half-day seminars will be taught by our GFsM team and will cover everything from Twitter to Facebook to Blogs.

Here’s the scoop. Organizations interested in participating must submit an online application which is available at http://www.groundfloormedia.com/. The workshops will be held at GroundFloor Media and are limited to 20 guests. Dates can be found on our site.

And if you don’t walk away with some new social media superpowers, then you should demand your money back… or not.

And you call yourself an expert??

Caroline McCarthy has a great post today on CNet's "the social" blog called Marketing: Social media's hidden bubble. Her post details the plight of the infamous "Social Media Expert". (Yes, we've all met a few.) Caroline reminds us how these experts enjoyed a sudden rise to fame in 2008 as companies and agencies everywhere scrambled to hire their social media savior. Now it seems these same experts are struggling to find employment and keep their expert status among a society of much more socially-savvy folks. I agree with Caroline that the "Social Media Expert" is quickly heading the way of the dodo, however I'd argue that there are a number of companies who need guidance through the social media universe from a strategic perspective. As Caroline says, almost 50% of social media marketing campaigns fail. The difference in the 50% that do succeed? In my opinion it's strategy. When it comes to social media, you can't afford to throw 10 million spitballs at the wall and see what sticks. Where are the conversations that matter to your business taking place? What is the tone of those conversations and who's leading the discussions? In order to have a successful social media campaign you have to start with the basics and then build a sound strategy that maps to your objectives. If you need help figuring out your social media strategy, find someone with strong social media experience who understands your business and how a smart, strategic social media campaign can help your business grow.

Being an expert on something is great, but how can you be an expert on something that is changing every 3 seconds and is different for every single company?

It Takes a Team to Blog

Many of GroundFloor Media's clients either have a blog or are ready to dip their toes in the blogging waters. We consistently explain to clients that maintaining a blog is similar to maintaining an editorial calendar for a newspaper or your internal newsletter. It takes a team of people to keep a blog relevant, interesting and up-to-date. Seth Godin's blog post, "Death of a personal blog?" makes some great points along those same lines. I hope you enjoy it... http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!
~Ramonna

Award-winning Campaigns

I have to take a minute to brag… We were recently awarded the 2008 Grand Gold Leaf Award and 2008 Nonprofit Project of the Year Award from the Colorado Healthcare Communicators for work conducted on behalf of our clients, The Children’s Hospital and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, respectively. I was on the Colorado Healthcare Communicators board for five years and never even saw a Grand Gold Leaf. As one of our clients put it, “The strength and quality of our partnership was on full display at the ceremony with the wonderful acknowledgement by our peer professionals.”

Not only did GroundFloor Media and The Children’s Hospital receive the Grand Gold Leaf Award for the campaign, “The Children’s Hospital Makes 111 Miracles Happen,” but this campaign also received a Gold Leaf Award in the media relations category. This campaign consisted of an aggressive, proactive local and regional media relations strategy during The Children’s Hospital’s move to its new state-of-the-art facility at I-225 and Colfax in September 2007.

For the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Division, we received the Nonprofit Project of the Year Award and a Gold Leaf Award in the new media category for the What If? Colorado social media campaign, which was comprised of both traditional and non-traditional public relations components, including a reality competition.

I’m extremely proud of our team members at GroundFloor Media and have to commend them publicly for continually generating fresh, strategic ideas to help our clients meet their marketing and business objectives!

Religion, Politics and Burritos

Two topics we’ve all been taught to avoid in business meetings and casual conversations are religion and politics. But when GroundFloor Media looked for a way for Qdoba Mexican Grill to enter the world of social media, we decided to enter a conversation already taking place, rather than trying to create a new one. And what better topic to enter than one about the upcoming election?

That’s how TasteBudPolitics.com was born, and nearly 100,000 unique visits later, it seems to be a great strategy. Qdoba’s campaign is a nonpartisan look at 1) how Mexican foods describe people’s personalities – or Q-dentities – and 2) which candidates and issues are important to those people who take the personality quiz.

Personally, I find it fascinating how closely the national Taste Bud Politics results have tracked with national voter polls. And I find it extremely interesting that the only Q-dentity that supports John McCain more than Barack Obama on the national front is the “chips & salsa” group and that, based on analysis conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Mc Cain is a chips & salsa personality. There are a couple of great articles about consumer product marketing campaigns that are playing on the election; if you’re interested see Joy Davis’ article in the Rocky Mountain News (http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/25/companies-rev-up-ballot-games/) and Mike Beirne’s article in Adweek (http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/esearch/e3i6d1955ff988810b8dcab2f3399bcf90e).

No matter your Q-dentity or your political party, I urge you to get out and vote! In Colorado, you can vote early in a variety of locations through Friday. To find your early voting polling place, contact your County Election Officials (http://www.elections.colorado.gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=147).

Top 100 PR, Marketing, Advertising and Social Media Blogs

Get ready to start bookmarking... Our friends at Spotlight Ideas just posted a list of the top 100 blogs related to PR, marketing, social media and advertising. While the GFM Glog did not make the cut (don't worry, I'm not bitter), there are a number of great blogs listed that I highly recommend you add to your own blogroll or at least, to your IE favorites. All the biggies are included (i.e., Seth Godin, AdRants), but there are a couple of less notorious ones that I would also recommend, including Customers Rock!, Make the Logo Bigger and the Diva Marketing Blog.

You can check out the entire list here.

Enjoy!

Social Networks Get Down to Business

There has been a lot of discussion recently about whether B2B companies are really utilizing social media to grow their businesses. Given the fact that social media is about, well, socializing, it's a valid question. According to a new report released by eMarketer, the answer is a resounding yes. According to the report:

As the number of business users of social networks continues to increase, advertising expenditures will rise, too. In the US this year, advertisers will spend $40 million to reach a business audience on online social networks, and that is just the beginning. According to eMarketer projections, that ad spending will reach $210 million in 2012.

"As compelling as the ad growth is, marketers will spend far more over the next few years to create and manage their own social networks for business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors," says Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the new report, B2B Marketing on Social Networks: Engaging the Business Audience. "These business networks will serve a range of purposes, from improving customer communication and collaboration to aiding product development."

A clear sign of the revolution in business thinking and behavior is the popularity of LinkedIn—the most widely known professional social network—where the audience has more than doubled in the past year, and the rise of additional business-oriented networks, including a raft of networks aimed at verticals.

Personally, I've witnessed numerous companies successfully leverage social media to help them build their customer base and reach new audiences - especially with blogs and creating their own social networking groups. It will be interesting to watch this trend continue.

Get Connected: Three Speakers - Three Great Points of View

Last week GroundFloor Media hosted the latest in its Get Connected series, this time focused on the emerging world of social media. The three guest speakers included Tara Anderson from Lijit (http://www.lijit.com/), Tiffany Childs from Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/), and James Clark from Room 214 (http://www.room214.com/).

Tara, Tiffany and James provided insight and answered questions about social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and other technologies that are quickly staking their importance as communications outlets for public relations professionals. The insight shared at the meeting was insightful and had it not been for a necessary stopping point, I think we might still be chatting about best practices, tips and tricks for keeping up with these exciting new outlets! Briefly, here are the top tips given by each of the panelists as parting words for the event attendees:

• Tara suggested that anyone dabbling in social media, particularly those representing a company, don't act robotic. Be yourself!


• Tiffany had two great tips. Since people are talking about you, you might as well listen. And, she suggested that in the case of a negative review or posting or article, you step back, calm down and think your response through before you send it. In the world of social media, a hasty, heated response is likely to be cut and pasted faster than you can say "Whoops!"
  
• James suggested updating your contact book and starting to connect with your friends, family and colleagues through social media. The more you participate in social media on a personal level, the more savvy you'll become and soon it will become a natural part of your business practice.

The New Look of Facebook: Love it or hate it?

I've gotten a lot of questions in recent weeks about Facebook's new user design. (If you haven't seen it yet, just log into your usual account through this URL.) To be honest, I'm still processing how I feel about it. I applaud Facebook for keeping things simple and clean and not being wooed by splashy bubbles or cheesy graphics. This was (and still is) one of my biggest reasons for switching from MySpace to Facebook in the first place. I also like that my profile is now spread across multiple tabs instead of one ridiculously long page that requires about 30 minutes to scroll through. At the same time, I'm a creature of habit and I've really gotten comfortable with the old/current user interface. I know it's cliche, but I have to wonder... why fix it if it ain't that broke?

I'd love to hear what you guys think about the new design. Love it? Hate it? Still deciding like me?

And if you find yourself stumbling around the new design, Laurence John just did a blog post on www.makeuseof.com called "Finding your way around the new Facebook. He has a pretty strong opinion about the design, but also highlights the points you won't want to miss.

YELP! (No I didn't just cut myself, I've joined a new online community!)

Several months ago I attended a PR conference for GroundFloor Media client Morton's The Steakhouse. One of the sessions focused on social media, and one of the speakers was Andrea from Yelp.com, an online community where people can review almost anything in their local community (think restaurants, salons, shops - even banks and museums). I have to admit that when the session kicked off I had never even heard of Yelp.com and I was still just dipping my toe into the social media pool. But - after hearing Andrea speak I was intrigued and earlier this month I set up my own Yelp account.

After only a few weeks in the Yelp community I am Yelping every chance I get! To date I've Yelped about restaurants, my dog's veterinarian, local shops that I adore and even landmarks in New York City including Ellis Island and The Top of the Rock! And, beyond what I can share with others, what I'm learning from the Yelp community is tremendous. I've already established some new Yelp friends, determined that I live smack dab between the two best restaurants in Denver for fried chicken (hello, larger pant size), and I'm starting to dive a little deeper into the social media pool which is fantastically refreshing!

See here for a link to my personal Yelp reviews. Whether you decide to become a Yelper or simply want to lurk around on Yelp to find the best fried chicken in your neighborhood, I suggest that you give Yelp a try. Enjoy!

Recent reviews by Carissa M.

What's this?

Small Businesses and Social Networks

When people find out that we have a social media practice at GroundFloor Media, their first question almost always concerns social networking. Should I be using social networks to market my business? If so, which ones? And once I'm on a social network, how do I use it to attract new customers?

All good questions and a recent Forbes.com article offers some good advice for small business owners who are pondering taking the social networking plunge.

Be sure to check out the slide show on how to build your social network too.

Customer Service at its Finest

I love Seth Godin's blog, and his recent post about customer service is definitely worth sharing.

Enjoy...

When you least expect it.

I sent in a t-shirt order to Customlink a few weeks ago. Three days later, I got a note from someone named Lori that said, "Hi Seth,I noticed that you have designed shirts that appear to be for a charity event. If that’s the case, CustomInk would love to make a small donation to your team or to the charity itself on your behalf. Please let me know if your order is for one of these events. If you would like us to pitch in and support your cause, please include information about your charity event, a link if you have one or the organization’s name if there is no link to a team web page."

That's it. No policy, no standard operating procedure, no promise in advance. Just plain generosity.
It turns out that Customink does this as a matter of course, regardless of whether the customer has a blog or not. They don't do it as an inducement, they just do it.

Formula: The value of a perk is inversely related to the expectation of that perk.

Have a great Independence Day!

~Ramonna

HARO Happy Hour

Last weekend I had the pleasure of meeting the illustrious Peter Shankman in person. He was kind enough to host a public relations gathering Saturday night while he was in Denver. I’m happy to report that Peter is as witty as his e-mails suggest, and he is a genuinely nice person. The Denver-ites had a lovely time playing pool and sipping cocktails at the Wynkoop Brewing Company. If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the photos at http://tinyurl.com/6ekdlz. While you’re there, you can become a fan of HARO (Help a Reporter Out), too! All of the PR folks I know rave about the leads they get from this free service from Peter.
~Ramonna

One Last Post About Online Viral Video...

Yes, I've written about online viral video twice in the past three weeks, but I can't help it. Blame it on Gatorade and NewTeeVee, not me. I've already admitted hundreds of posts ago that I was addicted to social media and yes, viral video is a big part of that addiction. So here is one last fix that I'd like to share with you and then I promise to switch to a new drug of choice (Twitter perhaps?).

Our friends at NPR's Talk of the Nation just did a great show focused on online viral video. Called Behind the Viral Video: What's Fake, What's Real, host Neal Conan and his guests explore how videos like the Gatorade one are able to become to popular. Take a listen here. It's about 30 minutes long, but it's worth it.

Okay, now I'm off to viral video rehab.

Gatorade Gets it Right

A couple weeks ago I did a post entitled "Viral Video Done Right". In that post, I talked about NewTeeVee blogger Liz Shannon Miller and her thoughts about what makes a successful viral video campaign. With Liz's thoughts in mind, I'd like to share another example of a viral video that I believe deserves some serious kudos.

If you haven't seen it yet, take a peek below:



Though you wouldn't necessarily know it just by watching it once, this video was done by Gatorade. (If you watch it again you'll see the Gatorade bottle by her feet.) Supposedly the original version included some text referring to Gatorade, but subsequent versions have lost the ad copy and it's now running like wildfire across the Internet.

Great job, Gatorade. Proof again that in order to be viral, keep your focus on entertainment, not necessarily marketing.

Digital media and marketing... the love affair continues

According to a recent survey by PRWeek and MS&L Marketing, the use of digital and social media in marketing campaigns is on the rise. Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the last five years (or doing PR for a really old-school type company), this information shouldn't surprise you in the least. In fact, it's kind of like me telling you that kids' desire for pizza is on the rise. However, if you dig a little deeper into the results (which PRWeek does here along with some great case studies), you might find yourself raising an eyebrow or at least feeling vindicated. For example:

Of the survey respondents, 75.4% expect spending for digital/online initiatives to increase, compared to 42.5% for direct marketing spend, 36.5% for PR budgets, and 32.5% for ad budgets.

Check out the ad and PR numbers. Interesting, no? Mark Hass, CEO of MS&L, attributes the percentages to the kind of interaction or conversation that marketers are having nowadays with their customers. [Note: I'm paraphrasing here.] Imagine advertising being a monologue and traditional PR being a dialogue. More and more marketers are realizing that digital media enables them to engage in a multi-logue with their target audience. Totally makes sense to me.

Here's another interesting tidbit from the survey:

When asked which disciplines would be most likely to be cut if forced to do so because of economic conditions, digital was the least likely with only 11.1% of respondents noting that they'd cut budgets for those initiatives. Advertising was the most likely to be cut (58.3%), followed by point-of-sale marketing (55.6%), direct marketing (41.3%), and PR (35.3%).

PRWeek attributes these figures to the flexibility digital media offers marketers - especially in a shaky economic environment. Gone are the days of a six-month media buy that requires up-front payment. Digital media enables marketers to make changes on the fly and gather specific metrics.

The bottomline? The love affair between digital media and marketing still seems pretty steamy.

Check out the full article and download a copy of the report here.

Viral Video Done Right

I'm a big fan of the blog NewTeeVee.com. If you haven't visited it before, it offers a great perspective on the online video industry - part video critic, part industry reporter and almost always entertaining and newsworthy. Whenever a GroundFloor Media client mentions that they're interested in producing an online viral video, I always point them to NewTeeVee for a good dose of online video realism.

Last week, NewTeeVee blogger Liz Shannon Miller posted a great example of "Viral Marketing Done Right". The video shows an impromtu musical number at an airport and only briefly mentions the actual advertiser (lastminute.com).

"What makes it so effective?" asks Liz. In her own words..."Three things:

1. It doesn’t lie. While the video does not state up front what product it’s advertising, it doesn’t claim to be “found footage,” or an amateur recording, or anything other than what it is. In fact, it makes a big deal of mentioning up front that the production was put together by a large team of professionals. At the end, the lastminute.com text pops up, clear as anything. It isn’t exactly straightforward, but there’s no attempt at deception.
2. It’s really fun to watch. The performers are talented, the songwriting is tolerable and the hidden cameras do a great job of catching the surprised looks of those watching. I was more entertained by these three minutes than I was by the entirety of Chris Columbus’s Rent.
3. It’s relevant to the product being advertised. By capturing the looks on people’s faces as they’re ambushed by live performance, the ad is a poignant reminder of the joy of the theater. Lastminute.com is a ticket-selling service, and the swift URL drop at the end of the video connects the message to the product."

Social Media... In Plain English

Thanks to Scott Monty's Social Media blog, I just discovered Common Craft's "in plain English" digital shorts. If you haven't seen one yet, stop whatever you're doing and go check out their Web site. Using a format they call "Paperworks", the smarties at Common Craft explain subjects (mostly related to social media) "in plain English" using short, unique and understandable videos. For example, "Podcasting in plain English", "Twitter in plain English", etc. And the best part? They share them on YouTube for free. They also offer downloadable versions that are licensed for the workplace.

Here is one of my faves. "Social Media in Plain English"




Love it.

An Oscar-Worthy Promotion

Over the holiday weekend I was one of the millions of movie-goers who patiently waited in line to see "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Since I had been eagerly awaiting its release for months, I was all too happy to be consumed by all the pre-release hype... and there seemed to be no shortage of it. For the entire week leading up to its debut it was almost impossible to avoid Indy - reviews, sneak peeks, trailers, banner ads and countless appearances by the stars on every show from Good Morning America to SNL. It was obvious that Paramount was going to exhaust every possible marketing avenue and surprise, social media was no exception.

According to ClickZ, "Starting Wednesday morning, Paramount offered Facebook users a chance to send their friends a small digital version of Indy's iconic brown hat as a "virtual gift." While some gifts require a $1 fee, the Fedora was offered as a free sponsored gift from the studio. The Fedoras became available at 4:30am on Wednesday morning, the day before the movie hit theaters. By 3pm, all 250,000 had sold out."

And it didn't end there...

"Each Fedora gift provided a link to the movie's Facebook page, where fans could find local showings, read other users' reviews, post messages, download widgets and other applications, and view stills from the film's production. The page also included a space for users to upload videos and photos of their own, including an instructional video on "How to Crack a Whip Like Indy" and the infamous Annie Leibovitz Vanity Fair photos of Miley Cryus with a brown Fedora superimposed on her head. Paramount also ran a series of display ads on Facebook pointing users to the page. As of Thursday afternoon, the page had more than 62,000 fans."

Promoting movies on social networks is nothing new, but Paramount's campaign was impressive. They knew the buzz was building and did a great job cultivating it through the social networks with fairly straightforward viral tactics.

In my opinion, Indy came up a little short during this installment, but I still enjoyed seeing him crack his whip and make his trademark one-liners. Regardless, I have to commend Paramount on a great promotional performance. (Although I'm still waiting for my friend request from Indy to arrive.)

Struggling with measuring your online marketing initiatives?

In recent months, I've heard a number of marketers express frustration with the task of gathering solid and relevant metrics for measuring their online marketing initiatives. While it seems to be the most popular tool, Google Analytics is often times the target of our clients' ire. In a recent article in AdAge, Google's new 'Analytics Evangelist' offers up his own opinions about how marketers should be measuring their online programs. He's not shy about using the word "sucks" when referring to traditional measurement methods and he makes an interesting plea for marketers to focus more on the "why" of their online marketing campaigns. If you're one of the many who often find themselves cursing Google Analytics, it's worth the read.