Besides the traditional activities that you have been executing all these years, here are a fresh bunch of social media ideas by platform to boost event results (please share more tips in the comments below):

Main content hub (or Blog)

• Create a microsite or dedicated landing page for the event with all the relevant information. This should be built several months before the event if possible.
• Publish blog posts about the event but more importantly around the main topics to make it more engaging. Remember that there will be a lot of people that are not aware of the event, so if you focus on providing valuable what’s-in-it-for-the-audience content, many will feel identified with certain problems and feel  that the event is a must.
• Consider using Tumblr.com. If you’re short of time, Tumblr could help you launch a blog as landing plage for the event. You can easily publish videos and photos during the event straight from your mobile, on the go.
• Implement a chat widget for live chat. We use Zopim.com. It will give you powerful, real-time insights and the ability to chat with people that have questions before and during the event for instance.

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Foursquare

Email Marketing

YouTube, FlickR, Slideshare

The problem with that approach is that it limits the view and results by having the company/ brand in the center or stage with as many people as possible “watching the show”. Then, those of us that successfully become “aware” of brand X wonder: “Is this what we want to see? Am I interested?”. As a result, many people would either stay or disengage and leave.

But…

What happens to the huge awareness opportunity that a company gets by becoming “aware” of each one of the members of their community? What would happen if more companies would stop rocking for a second and made an effort to learn about those folks in the front row, and continue with the rest? Wouldn’t the audience be prepared to give them real-time feedback? Wouldn’t the brand/company be in a better position to show on stage great stuff that their audience is dying to see?

Awareness can’t be unidirectional. Our friend, Dale Carnegie would say: “The world is full of people that are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual that unselfishly tries to serve others has enormous advantage. He has little competition…”

Now, let’s take these results as a starting point.

I realised that even though most of these supermarkets have a social media “presence”, none of them are using it in creative ways as an avenue to gain a bigger piece of the conversation out there.  This point becomes even more important now, since all these brands are about to face the busiest month of the year with Christmas and New Year.

I’m going to share with you (Supermarkets) two ways in which you can be remarkable for the entire month of December and become the most talked about supermarket. What I’ll also do is a follow up post close to the end of 2010, with the updated version of the graphic above (mentions per brand) and check out the difference. In other words, we’ll see if any of these supermarkets made an effort to beat Tesco (And Tesco made an effort to stay at the top).
Ready for the challenge?

Location, location, location

People go to your supermarket every day, week and month. That’s a huge advantage, therefore you need to capitalise on that, especially with gelocation becoming so popular and so many people owning smart phones (iPhones, Androids).

Here’s the idea: Besides using the old-fashioned in-store announcement, i.e. “We remind all customers that our dairy products have a 20% off this months, etc“, make announcements that encourage people inside the supermarket to tell their friends what’s going on and make them want to come too! How about that?
So the idea would be to launch a December promo where you will announce a discount or giveaway every HOUR.  Example of speaker announcement: “Do you have a smart phone? Check into Foursquare and send it to Twitter with the hashtag #itsfun (come up with your own short branded one). The first two people to do that will get XXX price or 70% off  XX special brand” (It must be something attractive).
The beauty of this tactic is that people have to really be in the store because they never know when the announcement will be made. In other words, users can’t just cheat by checking in from outside your supermarket

If your brand is stronger on Facebook, do it with Facebook Places. In this case it turns more visual since your Facebook check in allows you now to include a picture. So part of the deal would be to check in through Facebook Places and include a photo of your favourite product. The first one, or first two to do it, will get it at 50% off or maybe for free. Not bad!

Bonus: Placing a few signs strategically across the stores, announcing that you offer Free Wi-Fi it should be a nice winner!
If you organise this idea well, and advertise it correctly (spreading the word so people know what will happen during December in your supermarket) it will make it easier to take a nice piece of the conversation away from your competitors and have a lot of customers from other supermarkets come to yours!

Engaging Photo and Video content

If your supermarket is in the Stone Age and still doesn’t allow pictures or video inside the stores, please get over it and grow your brand! If you don’t do it, your competitor will and with that, a nice piece of your market share will go too. Not cool huh?

Work on one BIG Christmas giveaway by making people submit a picture of their favourite product or brand through a Facebook App (customised tab) on your Facebook page (You cannot run promotions on your Wall unless you use an application). The beauty of doing it through an app is that it has better chances of going viral. It’s also easier to measure results. You’re more in control too.
I you don’t want your developer to build an application from scratch, you can also benefit from Facebook for Marketing solutions such as Wild Fire App. Very useful.

Have your customers send you creative photos and/or videos inside the supermarket. They would submit this as a link. Then you can have a dedicated page on your site with a gallery of either all or the best photos and videos sent by your customers. You can choose the criteria you want but idealy the best one/s or most creative would get that BIG Christmas giveaway.
This step will contribute to building a stronger community and will capture the attention of many new visitors.

I have more ideas but these two should get you going. Are you ready? Do you have more ideas? Leave a comment below!

While eating there last Sunday, I came up with some ideas on how could the brand take a huge step, using social networks. I also checked their website and, to my surprise, I realised that they are not using social media yet. So, what’s the big deal?

Let’s start first by having a look at their current situation:

• The website looks OK but it’s not integrated with social tools
• They have recently released a cool iPhone app
• Only a few Wagamama restaurants in Australia and New Zealand are trying Twitter
• There’s a Wagamama Facebook page with over 30,000 fans. Believe it or not, that’s abandoned. They only made one post back in March 2008

Here we go with some cool ideas…

The food

You can tell that people have fun when they eat there. Wagamama’s food is at the centre of the story, however, those of you that went to the restaurant will realise that they have sort of an open kitchen where you see all the cooks performing their art.

My first question was: why does this brand not have a YouTube channel? So the idea consists on placing a few flat screens above the kitchen bar and show live all the cool stuff that’s going on in the Woks. Also, I was impressed to see all the videos that customers shoot inside the restaurant!

The staff

There’s no doubt that the cooks and waiting staff are heroes in this play. You have to see the orchestration and great service that these folks deliver. So far they are not being featured but they could make into the YouTube channel and FlickR photo album of the brand in the following way:

• Cooks can present daily of weekly, the “dish of the day” and show how they look to drive more people insane about Asian food.
• Waiters can introduce themselves and feature some team-building activities (I perceive a great team spirit when I’m there)
• Why not having a cook and waiter/tress of the month and feature them like a movie star?
• Cooks can do short videos featuring themselves as well and include the links on the Wagamama Cookbook!

The conversation

There’s a lot going on here that the brand is not capitalising on. It’s very simple to spot great conversation and loads of compliments in platforms such as Twitter and Facebook (Go to their search bars and type the word “Wagamama”). Is it worth as a brand to talk with your audience? You bet.

The Placemats

First thing you see when you sit at the table are this paper place-mats. Also, waiters your them to write down your dish numbers. As you see there’s no signs of social media here so the idea would be to invite their audience to engage and participate. For example they could include all special offers/dishes of the week and include a hashtag to each so people can spread the word about it and later on would be a lot simpler to track it. Hashtags are great to spark conversations. They generate a lot of curiosity sometimes.

The location

This is an obvious one, however, Wagamama are not using geolocation either. By embracing Facebook Places (especially now that Facebook are testing Popular Places) and at least Foursquare they could really connect with those checking-in ( real time as well) and why not offer special deals. My idea was to include a screen dedicated to check-ins and see them all coming as a waterfall.

These are some simple ideas that came to my head in a 25-minute lunch. Imagine all the great ideas that Wagamama customers could come up with in general… Huge opportunity for the brand.

What ideas would you add?

09/11/10 Update: It’s nice to see that this blog post took Wagamama’s conversation to the peak of the month

“The strategies you suggest are fantastic for retail businesses Fred. True ‘out of the box’ thinking. However, I’d like to lay down a challenge to you!

Can, and if so how, professional services businesses (and independent consultants in particular) leverage social media marketing? In many cases the work we do for our clients is confidential. Often-times our ‘products’ are customised interventions or solutions for particular situations (unlike, say a website, where people can seek out examples of your work). Referrals tend to be based on reputation, relationships and are usually of the ‘word-of-mouth’ variety. Also many of our clients, particularly those in the public sector, probably would not like to see their names floating around on SM platforms.”

Now, can professional services businesses leverage social media marketing? The answer is:  Absolutely yes!! Social media is all about relationships and word-of-mouth so that’s a great match already.

I understand some work and names might be confidential, or that the products could be customised solutions and that the client might be the government… but if that’s the problem, why focus on leveraging social media from such a tough angle? There’re so many other fronts to capitalise on!

Some consultants might say that their clients “are not online” (not sure to what extent that is right). More likely in the next 2 to 5 years most of their clients will be online. The question is, do we focus on building an online reputation now or in the future? Lead generation nowadays is much more about “being found” than going out and hunting.

Personal branding is a  HUGE priority  that anybody in the professional services field should have. Typical phrases such as “…with more than 10 years of experience in the industry” are no longer enough. There’s got to be something really relevant that as a consultant you  should be able to do to capitalise on the present and the future. Let’s have a look at five great examples:

1. Interact with your network

Most of you already heard of main social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. The good news is that you don’t have to adopt all of them in one shot but it’s crucial to get started with LinkedIn for instance. Just think about all the projects that you worked on, all the presentations given, recommendations received, etc, etc… where is the record of all this? Why not keep an online point of reference for all this fantastic work!!

Ask yourself the following: how big is your phone book? How many business contacts do you have? 200, 500? Now, how many of those contacts do you keep in touch with or more importantly, do you know what are they up to? Unless you leverage the power of a business platform such as LinkedIn, you won’t be able to stay in touch and learn from your network.

Before you go to a business meeting, networking event, tradeshow, visit a new client, etc, people will either Google your name or look you up on LinkedIn. If your profile doesn’t come up or show anything interesting, you will be missing several business opportunities. Trust me.

2. Build a home base

Many of you have heard already about blogging. Unfortunately, many business professionals believe that it’s not something for them or that their audience won’t read them. Blogs are already part of the future folks and you must embrace this practice as soon as you can.

If you are really good and knowledgeable, write about it. Share what you know and more people will find you! You would be surprised how many people search in Google for what you offer! (including people in the government) Not kidding you. Go to the Google Keyword tool and enjoy
Take your business blog as if you were the owner of a newspaper. You are free to publish anything you want with the difference that your valuable information will not be only available to 3,000 or 10,000 individuals but the entire world!

3. Make a deeper impact

Video is the most engaging way of communication. Maybe you’re not very good at writting blog posts, then share what you know in front of a camera for instance.
Below, there’re two examples of busisness consultans that use video to promote their services and recommend others.
Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement: include branding in their videos, improve the image/sound quality, practice more, etc. However, the point is: these individuals dared to try something new to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

The truth is that nobody has to be Steven Spielberg to adopt video. It’s as simple as grabbing your €100 camera, setting it up on video mode and later uploading that video onto YouTube

4. Reach farther

How do you offer or deliver your professional advice? Do you visit your clients or they come to you? What about neither?
You can reach out to hundreds (why not thousands) of people from your own country and abroad offering webinars (online seminars/sessions). We currently use Gotowebinar.com technology. It’s very affordable and it’s a fantastic business tool that is expanding our opportunities incredibly. There are several webinar and online meeting tools out there. We leveraged LinkedIn a few months ago to ask other professionals like you what would be the best option, so feel free to flick through the answers here.
After each webinar, we compile all the material, including the full recording and we make it available in our blog so more people find us and can also benefit from the information.

5. Be creative

If you think that video is cool, then explore the huge opportunity for business professionals behind “LIVE stream”. There are a few platforms out there like Justin TV and Qik but I recommend Ustream.tv

This is like having your own TV station folks! For example, bring your laptop to any of your presentations, connect a good webcam and point it at you. Then press “broadcast” and offer your talk to whoever wants to join you around the world! The idea is that you promote any of these events so more relevant people click on that link and can follow your expertise and chat with you LIVE from their own computers as if they were there.

If the information is confidential, then don’t share it, but as we mentioned…why focus on what we cannot do?
Leverage these tools, share what you can, be original, flexible, dare to try different things and to think outside the box. There are brilliant opportunities for business professionals in social media.

What are your thoughts? Will you try any of these tools?

Best,

Fred

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The following are two recent examples that immediately sparked in my head a cool bunch of social media ideas for business:

Formal Menswear

Two weeks ago, I was looking for a nice suit for my wedding. Since I did not have a strong refference about where to go, I googled a few good spots to visit. First thing I realised is  how bad all the websites in this trade where. It took me a bit but finally got a nice deal. Over there, the manager told me that they had a lot of their suits & tuxes over at a trade event that day…

Here’re three ideas on how to make your formal menswear business different (and better):

1. The LIVE experience:  That day, the shop and the stand over at the trade show where very busy. Get two webcams and broadcast LIVE what’s going on in both places! Anyone coming in the shop will know that your company is “busy” doing business at an important event (They may even go there to see more!). Over at the trade show, then can see that your shop is “real”.
2. Build an offline database: Provide the option for people walking in the shop to leave their details (email, Twitter, Facebook) to stay in touch, share great offers and build your online community almost effortless! With this strategy, you’ll realise that a big percentage of your online community are people that have visited your shop already! That is priceless.
3. How do I look? After trying different suits, do we remember how all of them looked?  The simplest way to go about that is to take a few pictures (anyone has a digital camera these days!) and share them later with the prospect/customer. Even further: with the customer’s authorisation, you could share those pics (LIVE would be more interesting) and ask your community which one looked better. This task, could be easily done immediately with a multimedia mobile, uploading content instantly. Many companies struggle to come up with good content. This would take a bit of time (or almost no time from a mobile) and you would be pumping fresh, engaging content everyday to Twitter and your Facebook page!
   You can also go the pro-way with Nedap machines in your store to share how you look

The barber shop

I recently got a voucher for an old style, hot towel shave. Besides mentioning the obvious: it was fantastic!! I walked out of the shop thinking… “there’re so many simple things that could be done”.

Here’re four ideas on how to make your barber shop different (and better):

1. Build an offline database: Same as the previous example, collect email, Twitter and/or Facebook contacat details. Again, this is one of the easiest ways to strongly develop your community.
2. How do I look? Why not taking  “before” and “after” photos? and sending then by email/twitter/Facebook  with a nice template to your customers? I guarantee you, you’ll get a smile/laugh out of them and very likely, they’ll share it with their friends, colleagues and family. More people than now, will know your barber shop Also, if you take these pics with a multimedia mobile, the effort is almost “zero” and with your customer’s permission, you can share those before/after pics on social networks. I bet you’ll spark some conversations…
3. Making the slow day, a BIG day: In every shop, there’s a slow day during the week. Here’s the idea: Choose a good topic. A very simple, attractive and interesting one… those that you have with customers while you cut their hair!! Then, invite someone that could really add value to that topic and then, record a 30 minute chat with your customer (with permission of course) while cutting the hair. If you want to video-record it, even better!!! (people can get a taste also of what your shop looks like) You will be creating a series of weekly podcasts “…at the barber”.  Not only this approach will make your business unique, it also holds a cool story that could be interesting for great PR!
4. Share the experience: If your barber shop is already different by offering hot towel shaves for instance, how can you share this story so more people come by or folks like me, feel curious and go for a treat?
   Use the email database and your community on Twitter and Facebook to share pics of your shop in action! Again, with customers’ permission, get those before/after pics up there, share the series of weekly podcast and invite your customers to bring a photo or video camera,  in case they want to keep a record of the luxurious treat You will come accross these people…. Have a look

In the following weeks we’ll create a Wiki with social media marketing ideas by business category in which all you can share yours!! Stand by.

In the meantime, what do you think about the above ideas? What would you include?

Best,

Fred

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We’d like to share with you an overview of our 2010 social media strategy. It’s a good opportunity to help you start with your own plan, give you some ideas or at least point you in the right direction
We are absolutely open to suggestions so remember to leave your comment at the end of the post!!

Blogging

Focus: Build authority / Expand community /  Increase US & UK readership / spark conversations / *Networking / Improve search engine rankings

* This year we’ll choose to read and comment on 10 blogs: 5 will be to follow trends and stay up to date, the other 5 will be strictly for business networking.

Blog topics (Tip: Define categories first)

Reviews, Video tips, Internet marketing, Social media

Blog’s ideas sandbox:

Ask on LinkedIn Q&A, Read other blogs (listen)/ reblog, Reviews (books, events, apps, etc), Web trends/ Search / video tips

Characteristics

• Frequency: Twice a week
• Posts must offer value
• Must include images and/or video
• Time allocated per post (research, writing, marketing) = 2 to 3 hours

Blog post Marketing

• Include relevant trackbacks in the post
• Send tweets throughout the week to promote the content
• Bookmark: delicious.com, bookmarks.yahoo.com, stumbleupon.com
• Submit post to: Bizsugar.com, Digg.com and Reddit.com
• Send post only to relevant LinkedIn groups and “follow” articles (this way you’ll be notified if someone makes a comment so you can follow up)
• Submit blog feed to 5/10 RSS news feeds weekly

Video & Photo content

Photos will be uploaded to FlickR and Facebook (automatic to Twitter).
Videos will be uploaded to You Tube / Tube Mogul, then Facebook (automatic to Twitter).

Subscribe to Channelship’s You Tube channel

Facebook

Focus: Share engaging photo and video content / Build authority / Expand community /  Increase US & UK fans/ multiply interactions / Networking / Company-Industry communications

Building the community

• Friend relevant contacts from Twitter and LinkedIn (profile)
• Pump good photo and video content
• Listen: reply to any question or comment ASAP. Keep the conversation
• Interact: Make comments / “like” status updates
• Facebook ads campaign: targeted to people in marketing and communications

Time allocated: 4 to 6 hours weekly

Twitter

Focus: Share helpful-engaging links / Listen to random and selected conversations / Build authority / Expand US & UK community/ increase conversations / Networking / Company-Industry communications

Building the community

• Follow contacts from LinkedIn
• Follow back relevant contacts
• Follow people especially traditional marketing and communications
• Proactively do Q&A
• Chit-chat
• Share GOOD stuff! try to always include a link to good content

Time allocated: 6 to 8 hours weekly

LinkedIn

Focus: Share helpful-engaging status updates / Build authority / Expand US & UK network/ increase group interactions / Business networking / Company-Industry communications / Increase business opportunities

Building the community

• Follow contacts also on Twitter
• Join US/UK strategic groups
• Send blog posts only to relevant groups and “follow” the article.
• Read groups’ digest and engage in relevant threads.
• LinkedIn Q&A: offer value answering selected questions. Ask industry questions also.
• Keep personal/business information and LinkedIn apps on profile up to date.

Time allocated: 6 to 8 hours weekly

Email Marketing

Focus: Share helpful-engaging content/ Build authority / Expand US & UK awareness/ increase business opportunities / Company-Industry communications / webinars main promotional tool

• Platform: Mailchimp
• Grow email database using website, webinars and offline networking.
• Segment database!!! (don’t send every single person the same information!)
• Newsletter will contain three topics: best blog post/s, Great tips or social media case study and invitation to monthly webinar
• Frequency: Once a month

Time allocated: 5 to 10 hours monthly (depending on the campaign)

Have you found the strategy useful? Go ahead, and share below what worked for you last year or how can this strategy be improved!!

Best,

Fred

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Over the past few months we’ve been working closely with our clients covering different social media aspects. There are plenty of factors to consider regarding the hows, dos, don’ts and understanding the possibilities and challenging implications around social media.

Based on the usual concerns, we thought it’d be helpful to work on a quick SWOT analysis of social media as an information vehicle for any company. It’s be great if you could leave your comment below so we can work on a final, more official version of this SWOT. Thanks in advance!

Here they come:

Strengths:

• Direct contact with audience (almost like face-to-face)
• Allows for conversations (deeper engagement and relationship building with audience)
• Somewhat more measurable than other traditional channels e.g. Url shortening / Web Analytics / Twitter Apps that tell you about followers/activity/ level of engagement, Facebook & You Tube Insights, etc)
• Leverage of reaching more and more people with less effort thanks to technology (i.e. spreading the word).
• Cost-effective in the sense most of the platforms are free. They just demand time.
• It is a channel in continuous change and improvement
• Human factor: Your brand becomes more HUMAN (i.e there are REAL PEOPLE behind your Twitter, Bebo, LinkedIn, Facebook account)
• Build strong, long term relationships through online social networking, at a faster pace than just relying on traditional face-to-face networking

Weaknesses:

• Effort vs results: Even if it is more measurable than other channels, it is  difficult (especially for small business operations) to balance the effort put on social media against the results obtained.
• Very personal: To ensure you get the best out of social media as a channel, these efforts should handled by individuals who understand the company (i.e Watch out if you are going to outsource these efforts)
• Ever-changing environment: Because the channel is in continuous change/improvement, this means that companies have to adapt effectively and promptly.
• Consistency: Engaging with your audience at a direct level means more efforts in terms of keeping a consistent message/ corporate image (e.g You may get away with not advertising in one month on the radio, but if you develop a following online, you just can’t disappear all of a sudden.)
• Making up for mistakes: The time-frame to correct errors that affect your audience is less. Because you are heavily exposed, your company has to take action more promptly than if you weren’t (especially if people are having conversations about your brand, you will have to engage and clarify)

Opportunities:

• Being present where stuff happens: People (b2c or b2b) research for products and services online and value more the opinion of other individuals than whatever a company may say about their own offer. If your company is present in an interactive environment like social media, the opportunities for engagement, conversion and most importantly clarification of doubts regarding your brand, are countless! Think about connecting with people that already want your product, but also recovering unsure prospects and building a relationship with them.
• Developing a following/ audience that auto-nurtures itself: Your efforts in Social media, together with the effort of your following may mean that your audience become your best sales people
• Talent coming your way effortless: Because of the possibilities of exposure that Social Media allows for, interacting here, may mean that future talent (in the shape of employees, partners or, you-name-it) will come your way through the power of connecting online!

• Reach out to certain groups that traditional media didn’t allow you to:  Because Social media is for everyone, sooner or later you’ll come across people you never though of as your client. This opens the doors to building new relationships but also to valuable feedback that can help you develop your products or services more intelligently.

Threats:

• In the loop: Heavy brand exposure (for the good or the bad)
• Espionage? Your competitors are more likely to know what you are up to
• Besides trial and error: Your “Social media officers” have to remain human. While this is an opportunity it is also a threat because during conversations humans can make mistakes and your following will notice.
• The giants are close: Other stronger competitors that will be in social media too may result in your efforts having to double in order to reach out to your audience.
• Consumers DO judge: Your mistakes are noticed and the consumer WILL expose you. Get ready for prompt action.
• And happily ever after? Access to continuous information and direct contact with brands sometimes means less faithful customers:

  If good service meant a customer for life in the past, now it is not enough.

  All your retention efforts through social media, may mean nothing if your audience engages with you competitor all of a sudden for whatever reason. (Dog-eat-dog environment)

• How happy are your employees? You have to accept that your employees’ skills are more exposed: Either if they blog/facebook or have a strong LinkedIn profile, their own views are out there for headhunters to take them away from you. Value the good people. Also, as everything gets more and more social, this means that employees may talk about your brand online, for the good or the bad.

So what do you think? Help us improve this social media SWOT by leaving a comment below and sharing the post.

Later,

Facundo

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