Business, Relevance and Passion, Marketing, Small Business No comments yet

How To Completely Piss Off The Public

By on April 17th, 2012

<sarcasm>

First, be a public agency. One funded by public money and responsible for public information, services and monies. Ensure your organization is in a position of power and authority over the lives of said public, making the public therefore dependent upon you and your information to accomplish required tasks or duties.

Then, and this is vital, make sure your extensive labyrinth of a website is navel-gazing at its bureaucratic best. DO NOT, under any circumstances, attempt to organize information based on how the users, the pitiful plebs who are the public, might actually search for it. Don’t employ breadcrumbs or other visual navigational cues. Don’t seek to put the user, the customer, the public, the reason you exist at all, first in your decision-making process.

You should end up with something like this:

Try to make the navigation choice that the public actually wants, “Where To File,” ambiguous. Do they mean physically where to go to file? Do they mean where to mail my return once it’s done? Do they mean where to go to find someone to help me file or prepare my return? Keeping them guessing keeps them on your site longer.

Don’t bother, ever, to do anything as mundane as looking at common search terms or phrases and checking to see if your site’s content matches them or delivers the information the public is seeking. After all, mystery is the heart of any good romance between a governmental agency and the public it “serves” (air bunnies on purpose there).

Your goal? End up with top Google searches serving results like this:

 

Note the first organic result is from 2009. And the only result from the IRS, our agency in question here, is not applicable. With quotes, “Where do I mail my tax return” and without the year in the search still nets a first page without a single IRS result.

So if you, too, want to completely piss off the public (or your public in particular), it’s simple. Be like the IRS. After all, Honeybadger don’t care about the public.

</sarcasm> 

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Business, Relevance and Passion, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media No comments yet

Relevant Content Matters. Or So I’ve Been Saying…

By on March 30th, 2012

Evidently, I’ve been saying it often since I started writing this blog almost three years ago. The above graphic is a wordle created from the rss feed of my blog. There’s no way to date-limit or post-limit the data pulled… what’s in the feed, or what you enter into a text block provided (handy if you want to dissect a post, an essay, a book, get crafty with your kids’ names) is what you get.

It’s a great “gut check” for whether or not you’re walking the talk. I did a wordle gut check for the blog about 18 months ago, and it’s markedly different in some important ways. It was more focused on community. On blogging, people and audience. Back in September of 2010, I was writing about those topics because many businesses and brands were just beginning to embrace blogging and were trying to figure out how it fit into online communities, audiences and ultimately, how they could use it to better connect with customers, who are of course, people first. For the past year, though, my focus has shifted from why businesses should be in conversation with their customers to what they ought to be talking about, sharing, building and why. Hence the keywords in this wordle are relevant social content. 

How do you go about being relevant to your audience? Hopefully you’re spending some time online and offline in the places your hoped for audience of prospects gathers. Hopefully you’re diligently trying to figure out what they do there, what they want from that channel of communication. Hopefully you’re looking at communication as a two-way street and I don’t just mean someone commenting on your blog post or liking your Facebook status update. Customers also communicate by their dollars, their time, their attention, by email, by online reviews to sites you don’t own, by word of mouth… to be relevant, you need to be delivering what people want, where they want it, when they want it, how they want it, and be prepared to hear them and respond if they have questions, comments, feedback, ideas, criticisms or kudos.

Given the “Search Together” idea that Google has recently implemented, using your social graph, your physical location and your past web history to personalize your search results, relevance is so much more than keywords on your website. If there are no conversations about you, with you, around your space…. you’ll struggle with the personalized search results based on the social graph.

How do you define relevance? How do you engage and converse and be socially present as a brand or business?

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Business, Relevance and Passion, Marketing, Social Media, Writing 3 comments

The New Five Ws… Or How to Produce Relevant Content That Isn’t Crap

By on March 16th, 2012

Filtering happens everywhere everyday.

I spoke yesterday to a great crowd at Social Media Tulsa 2012 about social relevance and how we use our social networks to filter the huge amount of content we come into contact with online every day. Often, the filtering is happening in ways we don’t see or recognize like when Facebook chooses what to show in your newsfeed because of what you’ve interacted with in the past. Or when Google show you personalized search results because of who you’re connected to on Twitter or other social nets. The big ideas, though, concerned blowing up the myth that content is king. Relevant content is king, queen and probably even the court jester as required. And I’m not talking about just making sure your content is SEO friendly or keyword rich. Content can be keyworded to death and still be crap. In fact, is usually IS crap.

Relevance doesn’t mean “how do I get people to find what I’m selling / sharing / writing about on my google ad-heavy website?” Relevance means how do we organzine, judge and interact with information online. How do users determine what is relevant? They evaluate the following:

  • Who did it come from? (my best friend, a business colleague, my old friend from high school, a random Twitter follower)
  • Where did I find it? (Which social channel, which news site, which blog, which portal or website?)
  • What is the context? (Is there an obvious slant or spin?…  Note, how much credence this point is given directly depends on number 4)
  • How important is this to me (how much do I care about the accuracy of the information?)

Users make those judgements quickly when evaluating search results or evaluating content on a site. Relevant content ticks all the boxes…. it’s from a source they trust or value, it exists in an expected or trusted channel or site, the context makes sense or resonates with the user, and the accuracy isn’t suspect. Then… you have a shot at getting that bit of content noticed and possibly retained.

You must know who your intended audience is. You must spend some time thinking about where they go online for what different types of content. Delivering dating advice via LinkedIn might not be the best channel choice, for instance. The context may not be relevant for what the audience is seeking from that site at that time. It isn’t enough to know who, demographically, hangs out where. To be relevant, you have to figure out why they go where they go and what they want to accomplish while there.

Then, you can start to create content that matters. That is relevant to your intended audience. Now it’s time to look at those old stand-bys of journalistic writing – the 5 Ws – except with a social relevance twist.

  1. Who are you writing for?
  2. Where do they hang out online?
  3. What do they do there? (how much time, what kinds of interactions, what kind of environment)
  4. When do they seek out your type of content? (When in the sales cycle? What time of day? What kind of life experience or problem or moment tends to prompt seeking out your content?)
  5. Why YOU? How can you be the relevant choice?
  6. and How can you deliver what they want?

Now you’re ready to write or shoot or create content that matters. And if you follow the above, you’ll see very quickly why you should go, right now, and turn off your autopost from Facebook to Twitter.

See the slides from the presentation here. 

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Business, Relevance and Passion, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media 20 comments

Win A Free Social Media Tulsa Conference Registration #smtulsa

By on March 6th, 2012

Cupcake Sundae? Why yes. Yes, indeed.

Yes, that’s right… comment on this post and you can win. I’d love to make you all do something like tell me your pain points in PR or tell me what you most hope to learn from the conference, but because I really like you (I do!) I’m just going to ask you to comment with something you like, too. Favorite color, favorite food, favorite book, favorite movie, favorite martini or drink… you get the idea.

One commenter is going to get their conference registration paid for in full. I’ll let random.org pick the winner (probably, unless I really, really like someone’s comment) and the giveaway will close on Friday, noon.

PS… if you don’t win, or don’t want to wait to see, you can register now. There are a few early-bird rate tickets still left last time I checked, and using my name “Mandy” as a promo code will save you even more.

Flickr image credit.

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Business, Relevance and Passion, Small Business, Social Media No comments yet

Relevance Is The Big Idea

By on March 1st, 2012

And I’m looking forward to sharing why I think that, what it means to you and your business, brand, or big idea, and how it’s more, well, relevant than you know.

I’ll be speaking again this year at the Social Media Tulsa Conference. And I hope you’ll be joining me, Liz Strauss, Becky McCray, Cheryl Lawson and a host of others who will share the real deal. This isn’t “How to do Twitter” in other words… it’s all about the ideas and tools that are driving businesses, ideas and people forward.

If you want to register, go to the eventbrite site and use “Mandy” as the promotional code. You’ll get a nice discount. But do it before March 8th!

 

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Personal Journeys, Small Business, Social Media No comments yet

Is it Anti-Social Media?

By on February 29th, 2012

This interview, done a few days earlier with me, my son James and his girlfriend Kelli, talks about some of the good and bad. I’d embed it directly, but the Fox23.com site doesn’t allow it. Sorry about that. But I’ll wait while you watch it… it’s a short segment.

What do you think? Is it Anti-social?

James and Kelli on their mobile devices while Frank Wiley Jr. of Fox23 in Tulsa shoots a tease for the story they produced.

For my part, I think communicating face to face AND digitally are both critical skills teens, and adults for that matter, need to master. I use shorthand when I text, but very rarely when I tweet, because to me the mediums are different and I make my living in part by writing. How I write out loud, on Twitter and on Facebook (and on my blog!) matters. I tend to text only my family, friends, and sometimes clients for a specific purpose (already here for our meeting, found a table!) but that communication isn’t public, per se.

NOT teaching teens and young adults how to do successfully communicate digitally both for their own benefit and for the benefit or at the wish of their eventual employers is doing them a disservice. In all likelihood, my kid is going to be working somewhere in a few years with a social media policy and an expectation that he’s connected to the larger world in some way other than just via email. If he doesn’t understand the “rules” of social sharing and building human connections without building resentment or creating stalkers, I’ve failed him. He needs to learn to walk into a room, make eye-contact with someone, walk up and shake his or her hand, smile and introduce himself. And then he needs to know how to follow up via email and connect on appropriate social channels too.

I don’t think twitter and texting have killed our kids’ ability to write well any more than I think video game consoles, first hugely popular when I was a young teen, killed our ability to experience nature or interact with others. What kills kids’ ability to write well is a lack of writing assignments and a lack of standards that require their effort. And a lack of parental involvement with logical consequences for failure to perform… like turning off the data plan for the smartphone until the grades improve, or taking it away altogether. My parents used to restrict our time on the Atari if we messed up in school, and it was effective at keeping us focused on the right things, long term. I didn’t grow up to be an introverted basement-dweller living on day-old delivery pizza, and I don’t believe my social-media engaged son is going to grow up to be a narcissistic, emotionally-isolated, writing-challenged people user, either. But that’s just me…. what do you think? Is social media making our kids more anti-social?

Note… I’m on Pinterest and Intstagram, too, in case you’d like to be social on those platforms, too!

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Business, Relevance and Passion, Small Business, Social Media 4 comments

Pinterest – My New Obsession

By on January 19th, 2012

I’d done some reading, some evaluating, some equivocating… but I finally took the plunge and joined in the fun on Pinterest. Here are some things I’ve discovered:

It’s quiet and undemanding. It’s not about real-time conversation. It’s not really about conversation at all, actually. It IS about connections. It’s about inspiration, curation and obsession. Here are the things you’ll need to know to join in. (Note… it’s invite only. You can let me know you want an invite in the comments for quicker access, or you can enter your email address on the Pinterest.com homepage and one will show up in your inbox in a few days.)

Pinterest is a virtual “pin-board” not unlike the old-fashioned cork board you probably had in your bedroom as a teenager or may still have on your office wall (note image of mine). The difference is now you can have as many boards as you have diverse interests. On my account I have one for places I like to go, one for information I think is worth sharing, one for stuff that makes me smile, etc. Virtual wedding planning, home decor ideas, DIY home improvement, jewelry, crafts, fashion look books… all common boards.

But, the uses that intrigue me and make me think the now 4 million plus users of Pinterest are on to something are ones like these, posted by some of my Facebook friends when I asked them about the service:

  • It’s like being a contemporary art director of dreams. – Jennifer Luitwieler
  • “Mood Boards” for client projects. – Trisha Salas
  • Resource images for photography clients. I can add them to the collaborators on the album and both of us can add images, talk about what we like, don’t like etc. – Marty Coleman (a.k.a. The Napkin Dad)

Successful brands using Pinterest aren’t doing tons of pinning their own stuff. They’re doing lots of putting out eye-catching visuals on their websites and making it easy for users to pin them to their own boards. Each “pin” is embedded with the source link from the website, so it’s a referral engine for pins that go viral and get “re-pinned” to other user’s boards. Commenting is possible, and some people do, but the beauty of the service is, well, it’s beauty. It’s visual, visceral and always changing. You don’t have to comment or feel compelled to “keep up” with the flow. Viewing a board lets you quickly scan a wealth of content in one glance, and users can follow only select boards of others if they want to. For instance, I am not a home decor makeover freak or particularly crafty. I tend to not follow those kinds of boards though I may follow the same user’s “Books I Want to Read” board.

Ready to give it a whirl? I’ve pinned some good Pinterest articles to my Info To Share board, and I’d suggest following Collen Pence’s Pinterest info board, too.

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Marketing, Public Relations, Small Business 1 comment

Don’t Be a Follower

By on January 11th, 2012

iPhone Home ScreenAfter reading some of the tech coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show happening in Las Vegas this week, one thing stood out… following is more than a trend in social media. It’s the norm for big tech companies. The reviews of Windows 8, coming sometime soon to a PC near you, has a screen of tiles that you scroll through, “similar to what you find on a smartphone or tablet.” And what launched the initial touchscreen/swiping through icons for navigation trend? An Apple product, the iPhone.

The Tulsa World’s own Robert Evatt interviewed Tara Dunion, senior director of communications of the Consumer Electronics Association, the organizing body of CES, and she told him one of the big trends for product announcements and launches at CES this year is new ultrabooks. Evatt’s article mentioned that tech experts have characterized ultrabooks as similar to the MacBook Air — a product that is as powerful as a traditional laptop yet ultra thin and light.

Full disclosure: I own an iPhone, two iMacs and a MacBookPro. I am definitely an Apple fan. But this post isn’t about praising Apple. Not really. I just wonder where the other innovators are? It’s not enough to have the best iteration of the thing people already know they want… because you’re always going to be spending time and resources on incremental improvements to a known entity and directly competing with every other company out there trying to do the same thing.

Whatever field you’re in… don’t be just a follower. Don’t be the ones out there touting the latest “improvement” to someone else’s product or idea. Spend your time and R&D resources to develop what people need, even if they don’t know they want it yet. Find the problems. Find the pinch points. Figure out a fundamentally better way. Once the product or idea or service begins to take shape, marketing and PR are the tools to help your potential audience see what’s possible, not just what’s passable.

 



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				Crisis Communications – A PR Primer for The Rest Of Us
			

		


			


					By  on November 15th, 2011
			


	


	

	


	

	


		
I’ve seen this question several times in LinkedIn and other forums: “What would you do if Penn State were your client?” It’s similar to the ones that swirled for months during the BP oil spill in the gulf and the tense posturing that followed. And the answer is the same for both questions, and any other like them: “I don’t know, exactly, because I’m not on the inside, hearing the secrets, reading the face of the guy who has to go on camera, seeing the possibilities and the problems first hand. And I don’t know, more importantly, because I haven’t spent hours and hours researching, interviewing, formulating and preparing.”


So my advice is to stop wasting your time thinking about the crisis you aren’t called to handle, the one you’ll never need to walk through, and start thinking about the ones that might become your waking nightmare tomorrow. Or later today, for that matter. There are some things every single business owner should do, right now, to help prepare for the inevitable, and believe it or not, one of them is NOT putting a PR pro on retainer.


    

  1. Develop a set of “Who We Are” statements. This need not be a formal process or an official mission statement. The value of official mission statements varies inversely with the size of the company printing them on internal posters. But knowing what you stand for, really, and knowing your employees know it, feel it, live it, is crucial to avoiding many crisis in the first place. If your statements are just hollow words… either take a harder look at who you are, even if it’s painful or you don’t like what you see (you can change it going forward), or fire some people who aren’t rowing in the same direction.
    2. 

  2. Think deeply about your business environment. Categorize risks… do your employees travel by car to locations? To client’s offices or homes? Is your company in the business of advising people on a course of action that might affect their health, wealth, enjoyment or happiness? Are there regulations that change or may change that affect how you do business? Is employee turnover high? Do you have proprietary information that could be vulnerable? Make some notes about some of the possibilities, including ones that don’t seem all that likely, such as a high-profile client claiming your employee’s errant word of advice during a chance meeting at a local restaurant caused him to lose (face, millions, a bet…whatever). If there are vulnerabilities that can be fixed or addressed, do that. Have a meeting with your employees and explain the “always representing” aspect of today’s connected marketplace. Have a social media policy in place. Make sure insurance, handbooks, regulations and information are all up to date and appropriately structured or protected. Do some research into other companies similar to yours, in the same fields, and what crisis they’ve weathered… how well, in what ways, with what tools?
    3. 

  3. Get to know some key people in your local media, trade publications, or other venues, including bloggers, social media influencers, city councilors, etc. This is not an overnight thing and following someone on Twitter or connecting on Facebook is not “getting to know them.” You need to have someone who will take your call if a storm does hit and provide you a friendly, or at least neutral, opportunity to share your side of a story. Remember… sometimes it’s not an accusation or a lawsuit. Sometimes it’s a video posted to YouTube about your business practices or showing all the bit of grass your lawn company missed the last time they serviced an irate customer’s yard.
    4. 



Take a deep breath… when that YouTube video about the missed grass hits, and someone forwards it to you in an email, what then? How do you know when, or if, you should take action? How long, how much, how far? Those are the next things we’ll cover on the blog. In the meantime… what other prep work would you recommend?


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				Coming to Oklahoma — Women’s Empowerment Series business conference
			

		


			


					By  on October 5th, 2011
			


	


	

	


	

	


		
UPDATE: This conference is still coming to OK, but will be making its debut in the Spring of 2012 with a more intensive format and open to both men and women. Watch this updates as we firm details! — Mandy


 


The name is actually misleading, I think… because the conference isn’t really about getting all fired up because Yay! We’re Women! In Business!


It’s about teaching and sharing tools, ideas, methods and collective wisdom about being better in business as a woman. Whether that’s in your own business or as a team member in someone else’s company, the WES is about going further and accomplishing more through leadership, brand and marketing management, and business/entrepreneurship core concepts. The conference is a learning module format with an accompanying workbook. Less rah-rah, more brass tacks. The kind of thing that will help close the entrepreneurship gender gap.


Want to know more? The conference website is here. Register to attend here (and email me if you want a special discount code just for my network).


Hear Deborah, me, Angela Allmond, Joan Vasquez and Aprille Franks talk about some of these issues.


And I hope to see you October 29th in Oklahoma City!


 


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