Results...One key measurement for Social Media

RESULTS were certainly a common area of interest/concern as it relates to Social Media. How to measure results is a widely discussed topic among Social Media Experts (if there truly are any), Marketing, PR, Communications Groups, etc. This discussion will be going on throughout all of 2010 and probably beyond. After all, measurable results are still a widely discussed topic for most forms of traditional media. We can’t say we have a definitive answer for the standards by which to measure success for this new form of marketing. But we can say is that one traditional marketing result consistently ranked high by accomplished users of social media is – WORD-of-MOUTH.

Why? Because Word-of-Mouth marketing is so “universally understood” and “universally accepted” that everyone “gets it” and what it means and how it works. That is a great place to start the discussion on results. And here’s the kicker, it’s not incidental. Social media is ALL ABOUT Word-of-Mouth. It is about “connecting” and getting people to “follow” what you do. To take an interest in you and your product/service, and then “talk about” you and what you are doing. This is the true power of Social Media.

So how do you measure Word-of-Mouth today? Guess what, the same as you’ve been doing all along. Nothing has changed with the advent of Social Media marketing. The only differences are the tools you use to deliver the marketing messages and the ways you track how people found you. And the best part is that even if you aren’t that good at tracking where all your Word-of-Mouth referrals came from, do you really care that much if your revenues and profit are rising? Didn’t think so.

Word-of-Mouth...Comfortable and Valuable

Let’s face it, in a world of complexity and increasing competition, the one area everyone seems to agree on is that if they had more Word-of-Mouth they would be more successful.  End of story.  But in this “new world” of recession, increased competition, and new competitors, this is harder and harder to achieve.

Traditional media says to do more “mass mailing” or more “broadcast messaging” to announce your message to broader and bigger audiences. This just doesn’t work like it used to. Almost every form of traditional media is bleeding “red ink” and seeing massive declines in advertisers. The return to users of traditional media is falling rapidly – and more every day. When 25 of 26 major newspapers are showing a significant decline in ad revenues (and many other sources of traditional media are showing similar declines) you get the picture pretty quick.

But the one constant in all of this is Word-of-Mouth. It remains as the pinnacle that everyone wants to achieve. So we asked the question of hundreds of Business Leaders, “If you could increase your Word-of-Mouth by 2X, or 3X or even 5X and do it at half the cost, would you be interested in how that worked?” Of course, the resounding response was YES. Welcome to the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

Word-of-Mouth on STEROIDS

From our consulting experience and countless engagements with CEOs and Executives, it is unanimous that Word-of-Mouth is the “most sought after” source of generating new business. OK, so maybe we didn’t have to do a ton of research just to state the obvious. But somebody had to say it – because most companies have forgotten about the basics and the power of Word-of-Mouth marketing.

It also has one other HUGE benefit – ZERO Cost-of-sale. That’s right, if you have customers coming to you from Word-of-Mouth, your direct cost to attract that customer is Zero, nada, zilch. Your customer base is doing all the work for you and “escorting” (figuratively or literally) your best customers to your door – and you don’t have to pay a cent for that sale. Staggering thought isn’t it. It reminds me of the speech Allan Greenspan gave years ago when he said, “Americans have forgotten about the power of compound interest.” Same concept, we forgot about the most basic and yet most powerful form of marketing available to any business – Word-of-Mouth.

So the BIG QUESTION we get asked frequently is, “How can I get more word-of-mouth?” And the BIG ANSWER is Social Media. Having a Social Media Strategy that focuses on building Word-of-Mouth is the best way we have seen to truly capture the power of social media and get the bang for the buck out of this new approach to marketing.

The true value of Social Media is developing a strategy to get “Word-of-Mouth on STEROIDS” for your company. The tools don’t matter, they will be continually evolving and changing rapidly (thank heavens). What does matter is to understand the basics of marketing, so you can increase the number of people saying positive things about your company when talking to other potential customers (as fast and as many as possible) for the lowest cost possible. We think this is what will separate the “winners” from the “losers” in business and define the leaders in an industry. Do you agree?

Yesterday we were lazy, now we have to survive...

It was only a little over a year ago when being “fat and happy” was the way of life and people and their businesses were living the “good life”, like with Dany Mitchell, pictured with me, from Trattoria Mitchelli's. Today, those same people are trying to survive – my how the world has changed and changed all of us. But there is a silver lining to this…

The silver lining is called INNOVATION. When your back is against the wall you have two choices, flee or fight – been that way ever since the caveman. Those that flee disappear and go out of business – we’ve all seen that from small businesses to big banks and even bigger companies. They lived a life of “fat and happy” for so long they forgot about creativity and innovation. They are gone now. The world has been purging itself from these for the past 18 months.

Enter social media – the new (and inexpensive) way to add to creativity and boost innovation. How, you might ask, can social media boost innovation? Lots of ways. Let me give you one thought to get your juices flowing. Remember all those products you might have designed, built or even thought of but decided that to go into full production, put together a marketing campaign and materials and figure out a way to sell it was way too expensive and risky? What if you could “test the market” for your product before you ever had to do any of that stuff. You can today.

Today you can throw a product (or pre-launched) product into the internet airwaves through social media and get immediate reaction from people all over the world. Heck, you can even put it out there for people to order and if they order it, you can then go into production and build it. And with social media, you get to do that for little to no cost because the tools you use are FREE. Now you can do a test launch like a Proctor and Gamble and spend virtually nothing. How cool is that!

And if people start talking about it, you get the power of Word-of-Mouth to help you accelerate the conversation and the comments so you know exactly what people are thinking, wanting and looking for before you ever started production. You just created the ability to conduct “mini-focus groups” in real time to direct your development efforts to be in direct alignment with what your customers are willing to buy right now! The world has changed…

Foundation for building "Word-of-Mouth on Steroids"

Word-of-Mouth has its roots in developing trusted relationships with people so you feel no only comfortable, but obligated to refer or recommend someone. People don’t spread the word about organizations and people that are “mediocre” or “average” or “the norm.” No, they spread the word about those that are unique, honest, authentic, and trustworthy and have gone the extra mile to make their experience truly memorable and “referable.”

Ask yourself a simple question, “When my customers interact with us, are they left feeling passionate about the way they were treated to tell someone on their own?” If not, this is a great place to start looking at what you are doing to build “deeper” and stronger relationships with your primary “megaphone” – your customers.

Social media gives your customers the “megaphone” to say whatever they want to say through various tools, like facebook, twitter, blogs or a host of other tools. And you can’t do anything about it. They tell their friends, family, and virtually anyone that will listen. They just want to be heard.

Building trusted relationships is still in vogue – even more so today than ever before. Today, with the help of social media, they can simply tell their “followers” faster and in more volume than ever before. It’s our job, as business owners and leaders, to arm them with great experiences to blast over their megaphones. Experiences still lead to relationships – good or bad. But the customer is in control and it is their voice that the audience wants to hear and will believe.

Social Media for Executives (our brand) evolves...

You, our audience of followers, readers, and advocates, has connected with us as SOCIAL MEDIA FOR EXECUTIVES for the past year during our “evangelist speaking tour” talking to CEOs, Business Owners, and other Top Executives. We were on a mission. That mission was to educate and share the message about the “Revolution” called Social Media and how it was going to change the world. We think we were successful in both educating and motivating business leaders.

Over 700 Business Leaders heard our message over the past 12 months. From that they learned, they shared and they questioned what Social Media is and how it could impact their businesses. We learned as well from listening to all of you and many others throughout the year.

From those countless conversations, we came away with a very clear and glaring conclusion. Social Media for Social Media sake isn’t going to solve the key business issues facing the leaders today. No one needs another “time suck” to come into their organization. They are already stretched thinner than ever before and need to generate revenue. These are different times.

The common thread running through all this was that they “needed more customers spreading the word about them to other prospective customers so they could increase their sales with lower marketing costs.” Wow – tough order, but a reality. Traditional media and marketing is all but dead and buried in many cases so that isn’t going to help them achieve this need and stay in business.

Their ANSWER: Increase WORD-OF-MOUTH any way they can. It is the most powerful way to market at the lowest cost. We heard it and got it. And through the past number of months, we “evolved” our entire consulting approach and product offerings in Social Media to encompass this core principal.

We are now WOM10.com. This is short for Word-of-Mouth to the 10th power – a very big number that signifies putting Word-of-Mouth “on Steroids” and accelerating this within an organization. Our goal - help organizations create a strategy and drive rapid execution to build massive Word-of-Mouth - creating significant “Followers” and “Advocates” to help spread the word. This is what we do.

Social Media truly is Word-of-Mouth to the TENTH Power

When we first launched our seminars, we were convinced that education about the tools of Social Media was the core message. As time progressed and the market martured, we came to realize that social media is really an accelerator channel for the most effective form of marketing – Word-of-Mouth. Thus, we now emphasize the real value of these new tools for business.

With these new social media tools, Word-of-Mouth is literally rocket fuel driven. Word-of-mouth thrives on authenticity, personal passion, experience-sharing and more. These communication characteristics are the very same as those fueling social media’s popularity. Social media thrives on the genuine. And it is thriving against filtered, sterilized, generic messaging put out by impersonal corporations…..and other groups.

The other key aspect that Word-of-mouth thrives on is building Trusted Relationships that leads to Engagement and Advocacy.  Social media, when set up and designed correctly, can be a massive weapon to helping you and your organization build more trust and build deeper and stronger relationships.  We no longer live in a WEB 2.0 world of "broadcast messaging" - we live in a WEB 3.0 world of building trusted relationships and social media leading to creating strong advocates.


In a nutshell, it is all about "getting more of the 'right' people talking about you more - proactively."  That is at the heart of Word-of-Mouth on STEROIDS...

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments:

Blaine Millet
blaine@wom10.com
425/260.6264

Social Media presentation at The Harbor Club

We are sharing our message with Tait Lane from Cornerstone Wealth Management.

Why Social Media Fails...

For quite a while now Clay and I have talked about why many organizations are struggling with seeing even modest "results" from their use of social media. One of the key reasons to us is that most marketers (over 80% from our experience) really don't "understand" social media and as such are using it incorrectly.

Social media was designed to be all about the "pull" - giving your audience something compelling enough where they would want to "pull" this information because of its value to them in their life or business. Traditional marketing is all about "push" - how can I shove more ads, offers and information at you in hopes that you will buy our product or service. This is a fundamental shift in communications and marketing and, unfortunately, most marketers don't get it.

This was summarized in a great interview on CNN that I wanted to share with you - I think you will get the point and the message after watching. This should definitely be shared - it isn't about how much more you can push - it is becoming compelling enough to be "pulled" by your audience.
Feel free to share this post with anyone in marketing you know and want to help understand this fundamental shift. Let me know what you think as well.

Great group at El Gaucho learning social media...

We want to thank both Dennis Brislawn and Tom Lofton from the law firm, Brislawn Lofton PLLC, for co-sponsoring us to speak to a group of their clients and friends - what a great group of people. We also want to thank David Scherling, General Manager at El Gaucho in Bellevue for hosting the event and making it truly special and memorable with their incredible lunch specials.

We had the opportunity to share the story of how Social Media is changing the face of business and is a "Revolution" that is upon us. We know we are in the "evangelist" category at this point with our message but we are very passionate about wanting others to hear it and recognize the impact it will have on their business today and into the future. No longer is this just something to "learn about" - it is something every business "has to embrace" to compete going forward.

As part of the session, we had the opportunity to meet a number of great business leaders and business owners, such as Jen Harper from Jen Harper Real Estate. She clearly "gets it" and is anxious to engage in social media to provide exceptional value and benefits to her "followers" and clients - way to go Jen!

El Gaucho Social Media seminar with Kirkland City Councilman

We are getting great questions from Bob Sternoff from Kirkland City Council – way to go Bob. This posting is occurring real-time in our Social Media seminar as we demonstrate how easy it is to use Outlook to post to the blog with a photo and with an embedded link (in the body of the post).

El Gaucho treats group to seminar on Social Media

We are having a great experience and eating delightful food with a couple of guys who are social media authorities (without tattoos).

This is a post to demonstrate how easy it is to post diretly to a blog using e-mail -- this case the message is being sent from Outlook

Enjoying the company of Thrify Parking at the Harbor Club

Sandy from Thrifty Parking is learning about  Social Media and the power to change business.

 

 

Seminar at the Harbor Club in Seattle

We are at The Harbor Club with some great business leaders enjoying the story of Social Media.

 

 

Rotary rocks...

Vince Armfield wrote and excellent post about how Kirkland Rotary is really helping the community.

 

 

Thank you Shirlaws Coaching...

Clay and I just wanted to thank Shirlaws Coaching in Seattle for hosting a wonderful event at the Meydenbauer Center last Wednesday afternoon. We had the privilege of being their guest speakers for their "Catch the First Wave" event. What an incredible event - thank you for inviting is to speak.

We especially want to thank Emile Haddie and Kristina Bass, two of Shirlaws coaches that are located in Seattle. They organized the event and worked very hard to put together a flawless program - nicely done. Without them the orchestration of many moving parts could never have come together.

We also want to thank CEO, Eric Bergen (@ericbergen), Chairman, Adrian Bray (@adrianbray) and Marc Johnstone, who spoke on the changing economic climate and how organizations can capitalize on coming out of the recovery. He illustrated this nicely with a number of graphics, including exposing us to the "Recovery Equation" as part of his presentation.

For those of you that either didn't know about it or couldn't attend, don't miss the next one coming up in the next month. You can contact Shirlaws and register - hope to see you there. Don't miss out on catching the "second" wave just because you missed the first one.

Social Media - "Nice to Have" or "Have to Have"

The beauty of being focused on helping CEOs, Business Leaders and other Top Executives get engaged with Social Media is that you get to hear some great comments and you get asked some great questions. This is one of the best learning experiences I have ever had for understanding what goes on in the minds of leaders.

One question that we are frequently asked and is certainly "top of mind" for leaders is, "Is Social Media really something I "have to have" or is it just something that is just "nice to have" from a business perspective?" GREAT QUESTION and one that should be asked.

I can tell you one thing for certain. If it doesn't have a way to drive sales, improve awareness and increase customer and/or employee loyalty, don't waste your time. Regardless of the "hype", Social Media will take some time - the amount depends on how good your strategy is and how well it is executed - more on this in another post.

If you had asked me this question a year or two ago, I would have given you a different answer than I would now. Today, for most businesses and organizations, it is fast becoming (or is already) a "Have to Have" to help build their business. Why? If you could have 12 people in a room for 90 minutes and deliver over 400,000 impressions for less than $1,000, would you do it? Almost everyone would jump at the chance, especially considering how expensive traditional media is and how little reach and impact it is delivering. This is not only possible, it is happening on a regular basis RIGHT NOW.

With the current economic state and the massive decline in return on traditional media, Social Media has clearly moved into the "Have to Have" category for the majority of organizations.Here would be the question we would ask you instead. Is your traditional media delivering higher return, more inquiries and better results than you have gotten in previous years? If so, then our recommendation would be to ignore Social Media for the time being. If it isn't, time to rethink what is really "Have to Have" and "Nice to Have" - traditional media or Social Media.

GOOD NEWS for Our Readers...

I have some good news for those of you that read our blog on a regular basis. As many of you know, we are guest speaking at a Shirlaws Coaching event this coming WEDNESDAY, September 30th at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue. Now for the BEST NEWS...

As guest speakers, they have given us "speakers passes" to the event, "Catch The First Wave". We only have 10 PASSES. We want to offer them to those who read our blog and call me (425-260-6264), e-mail (blaine@someexec.com) me or twitter me (@BlaineMillet) and you will get into the event at NO COST. Now that's a great deal for those who follow us.

This event will feature one of their experts, Marc Johnstone, speaking on the current economy and how they see it now starting to turn around. As part of their presentation, they will talk about how to "take advantage" of this turnaround NOW and be better prepared for 2010. It is a great message and one I would encourage you to hear.

In addition, we have the opportunity to spend some time talking about "How Social Media can improve your Business" - which links very nicely into their message of getting on board early to dominate your competition. I hope you get to take advantage of this special event and offer...

Blog post with pictures and links

This is a new blog entry from our great group at the Harbor Club – we had the pleasure of meeting Will and Jessica from Premier Periodontics.

A NEW Experience - Thanks Zino

I arrived at 6:30am last Thursday morning, September 17th at The Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle to get set up for the the Zino Society annual Zillionare event - their biggest event of the year.

As usual, it was slated to be a fast paced, information packed and lively session where 28 entrepreneurs with a variety of newly created products meets investors - with the hopes that something will strike a chord between the two and another success story is born. That is the format and venue for the Zino Zillionaire event. Oh yes, and of course we can't forget that Zino awards its own $100,000 split between the top tech and non-tech winners - very nice.

Only this year there was something different about to take place. The introduction of Social Media - specifically twitter. We have been working with Cathi Hatch, founder and CEO of Zino Society, for several months now, helping her get engaged and active. Our hats off to her - she is a "natural blogger" and has embraced Social Media for her entire organization. She has always been known as "leading edge" so this just fits her style and that of Zino.

Cathi asked Clay and I to set up and run the Social Media component for the event - specifically managing the twitter feeds. This was a NEW EXPERIENCE for us with such a large audience (over 200 people) in such a fast paced environment - very exciting. We're happy to say we pulled it off and everyone was fascinated by the twitter messages being flashed on the screen. It was exciting and definitely put Zino ahead of the curve with being creative, innovative and ahead of the pack in using Social Media to communicate to a very large group inside and outside an event. Thank you Cathi and everyone at Zino for allowing us to work with you on this and to demonstrate the power of twitter and Social Media in a true business setting. We'll be back next year...

"Taste and Tweet" Thank you...

Clay and I just wanted to say THANK YOU to Shona Milne for such a nice write-up on what we try to accomplish with our "Taste and Tweet" events - fun and building "buzz" for companies. Shona, we could NOT have said it better - in fact, we could never have summarized and described it better than you did.

Grand Cru Wine Shop and Bar was a great host and went out of their way to take care of the "Taste and Tweet" participants. Rob Reichel, one of the owners and General Manager of the wine bar kept things moving and the "tasters" constantly engaged with great wine selections as well as a nice variety of foods. We appreciate the opportunity to "experience" Grand Cru and your hospitality.

The often missed "Secret" to Blogging

I have been reading a number of articles, blog posts, twitter and other content on what others think is the "secret to successful blogging" and I am shocked! Most are missing the biggest value of blogging.

Most believe that if you have something to say and it can't be said in 140 characters (twitter and facebook and others) that you should have a blog. They would be correct - it is the cornerstone to Social Media and the primary place you can use to "write in paragraphs" about what you have to say. No argument so far. It is an absolutely perfect venue for sharing your great insights, experiences, thoughts and knowledge about certain things (content).

However, blogging isn't ONLY about "content" - it is about the "dialog" that goes with the content. Unfortunately, most of us are not "rock stars" and as such don't have an audience of thousands or millions hanging on the next thing we write (at least not yet). We are pretty much normal people with something of interest to say to others that have similar interests or needs for the same information.

Blogging is a cornerstone to "social media" - which means its social. Social by definition means we interact and become "social" with one another. But being "social" means we have to "interact" with someone else. Thus, the BIGGEST advantage of blogging isn't only spewing great content to your audience, its creating a meaningful "dialog" that brings your blog TO LIFE!

When you are able to provide meaningful content AND receive comments and discussions from your readers - YOU HAVE ARRIVED and become an extremely valuable blogger. So next time you read a blog, check to see if anyone is commenting. If they have commenting turned off, they either "don't get it" or they are one of those "rock stars" - like a Seth Godin in marketing. For the rest of us, keep writing and keep asking for the "dialog" and create the interactivity that blogging was really designed to offer - and maybe you too will become the next "social media rock star."

Seize the Moment - ACT NOW...

I was on a call the other day with Shirlaws Coaching team and Jane Jordan-Meier from the Bay Area discussing how we are going to use Social Media with thier clients to help them grow in this economy. Following the meeting, Jane sent me a link to a blog post, "Too Big to Start" by PR Squared. This was such a timely post, I wanted to share it with you.

The focus of the post is all about "speed to market" and how small and middle-market businesses have a HUGE opportunity if they can just ACT NOW! Before Social Media, big business had the advantage because they had such large communication and marketing budgets. With the down turn in the economy and the introduction of Social Media, now smaller businesses can compete on equal footing with these behemoths. The world has changed...

With Social Media, the tools are the SAME COST to both small businesses as well as the behemoths - FREE. The competitive advantage and victory will go to the organization with the ability to use and execute quickly to help build stronger and deeper relationships. Right now, big business is tied up in their underwear and forming committees to try and figure out how to execute. This is creating a tremendous opportunity for small and middle-market companies - they can ACT QUICKLY and use the component of SPEED to create a significant advantage.

This is the time to STRIKE if you are a smaller business. ACT NOW, get a solid Social Media Strategy so you can "get in the game" and start building the relationships that the bigger companies can't capture today. Even if you aren't perfect, get started - that is more important than waiting until everything is perfect. This advantage won't be here forever. As we like to say, "If you aren't the Lead Dog, the view is always the same" - you get to choose your view...

Shirlaws Seminar

We just wanted to thank Kristina Katayama Bass and Emile Haddad from Shirlaws Coaching for having us speak to their group of distribution partners and friends. This was a great group of over 30 people that were not only interested in Social Media, but were armed with some awesome questions about how this could really help them in their businesses.

One of the guests, David from Insurance Resource Group was a "willing subject" as we demonstrated how easy it is to create a blog post directly out of Outlook – great picture David. Thanks for being such a cooperative example for everyone to see.

Shirlaws Coaching is an international strategy and coaching firm that has a great history behind them. They have dominated in the UK and Australia and are bringing their expertise to the US and spreading rapidly. We are honored to be associated with them. If you are interested in learning more, they have a great event on September 30th where we will be speaking again along with Marc Johnstone, a recognized expert in the economy and how it is progressing. More to come on this event - I would highly recommend attending.

Thank you Michelle...

Today I just wanted to thank Michelle Bomberger for allowing me to "guest post" on her blog, Equinox Business Law Group. She had asked me to put together a post talking about why having a STRATEGY is so important in this fast moving revolution we call Social Media.

The post I wrote, "Social Media Strategy: Where to Start" was a preview to what she has asked me to speak on at her Equinox Focus event: "Social Media: Strategy and Brand Identity", which happens on August 26th at the 0/8 Seafood Grill in Bellevue. If you can stop by, please let me know - would be great to see you.

This will be a great seminar to combine the discussion of strategy with that of brand identity and the legal aspects of social media - such as what rights you have as a contributor to social media sites. Should be an interesting discussion.

For those of you interested in discussing this ahead of time, I would love to get your comments on what you think about the legal issues surrounding First Amendment rights and Social Media - contributing and commenting. Please leave a comment if you have an opinion on this - one way or the other. Thanks.

Again, thank you Michelle for allowing me to contribute to your session and your discussion - I know the session will be very thought provoking.

In Social Media, STRATEGY rules...

Social Media is clearly the "darling" of conversation in many circles today. Why? Without getting into lots of stats and details, its really pretty simple. The tools are free, the press is looking for anything to write about that might keep them alive and traditional media is declining faster than the stock market did last fall. Enough reasons to get your attention? You bet.

But what this has caused is a huge tidal wave of interest in the "tools" of social media such as facebook, or myspace or even LinkedIn as people reach out to connect with friends and colleagues. And you can't ignore the most recent phenomenon to take over the airwaves, twitter. Whatever the "tool" is that's grabbing your attention, the key is that it is grabbing your attention.

PUT ON THE BRAKES! The gold is not in the "tools" - it is in the STRATEGY. And this was so eloquently described in a recent blog post by one of the most respected marketing minds of the day, Seth Godin. In his post, "When tactics drown out strategy," he shares why STRATEGY is the cornerstone of social media success. I have been trying to share this message for a very long time. So when I see a recognized expert such as Seth (and someone who has been at it even longer than I have) saying the same thing, it is worth sharing.

With all this attention in the media and everywhere else, people are worried about “getting left behind” so people and businesses are jumping in like lemmings off the top of the cliff. “If I don’t do something I am going to miss the revolution” is the battle cry of the day. My advice remains the same, do it RIGHT, be SMART and get yourself a STRATEGY before you play. If you follow this recipe, you will “enhance” your brand with these super powerful tools rather than embarrass yourself.

The Revolution reaches the New York Times

We've been announcing the social media-driven business communications revolution for nearly a year, and we're pleased that the New York Times has finally noticed it's arrival. For nearly a year, we've touted the combination of Twitter and a blog as the most effective and affordable marketing tools for small-to-medium businesses. Let's face it, when the communication tools are "faster, cheaper, and deeper", then the game shifts dramatically. These new communication forms reward agility, personality, and heartfelt communications -- this benefits small businesses not faceless corporations. The ripples from these changes will be felt for some time as the traditional media forms continue to shrink, shrivel, and, in many cases, disappear.

By all means, read this New York Times article about Social Media and some of the ways they see it benefittiong the Mom and Pop operators. The article is well written and the points are right on the money. The revolution is in its early stages, so we will continue to offer our seminars: Social Media for Business Executives/Owners. As with all communications, the message is the key. We continue to emphasize that nearly every business can benefit from the FREE tools known as Social Media, but you should not be cheap in your approach.

We encourage you to "Get it right the first time" -- Start with a plan, a message, and a strategy to enhance your brand. Then use the free tools to delivery your message using effective "social media speak". Social Media is very fast as well as low cost. You can be outperforming your website in a week -- that's right, we can open the curtains and reveal to you the "faster, cheaper, and deeper" marketing offered by Social Media. Don't be late to the Revolution!

Colleen's shameless plug

Here is a post with pictures and links...

We have the privilege of having Eric from Shirlaws with us to share the message of social media.

 

 

This is a new post

I am here at the Harbor Club having a wonderful time with lots of very interesting and insightful people.l

 

 

FREE Social Media Seminar - First 5 get to attend!!

Today might be your lucky day. Tomorrow morning, July 22nd, at 7:30am at The Harbor Club in Bellevue, we are giving one of our 2-hour Seminars, SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LEADERS AND BUSINESSES - sharing our insights into what Social Media means for business managers and leaders.

We've just had a group of executives notify us that a crisis came up in their business and are now unable to make it tomorrow. The good news is they paid and are willing to allow us to fill their spots with others. So, if you are available and one of the FIRST 5 to Direct Message me on twitter (@blainemillet) or send me an e-mail (blaine@someexec.com), you win a spot. We'll be providing a continental breakfast and free parking in the Symetra building, where The Harbor Club is located.

If you are a lucky winner, you can skip the payment process when you register. Good luck and we hope to see you tomorrow morning.

You may be on top of this rapidly emerging form of business communications, or you may need to be introduced to this “Social Media Revolution”. Tomorrow’s seminar will give you just that – a good introduction of Social Media, strategies for using its tools, and ways businesses can market themselves for little or no cost. And when it is used correctly, it can change your business faster and with more impact than anything I’ve seen in years.

Blaine

Yodio - El Gaucho Bellevue - Directions to the hidden gem

Who speaks for your company -- CEO or intern?

In our seminars we run across many companies who assume that young people are social media experts. We are the first to acknowledge that many young people are effective users of social media for their social lives, but we also note that most of them have given little thought on how to use these same social tools for business communications. And very, very, very few of these youthful digital natives have experience being effective users of social media for a business. And their strategic outlook is woefully lacking.



An article about Pizza Hut and its "twintern" prompted me to write this post. It raises some good points to consider. "As more people join Twitter, its marketing potential is becoming more obvious to businesses. Pizza Hut is not the only company that has tasked an intern with diving in. The trade-off: With the assignment comes a branded megaphone and the power to produce a public relations disaster."



My point -- do your best to avoid trashing your brand. Our core point in our "Social Media for Executives" seminar is that social media enables you to communicate faster, cheaper, and deeper than traditional media. Take this social media stuff seriously. Combining rocket-fueled communications power with inexperienced youth cries out for supervision; however our experience suggests that top management's attention is too often elsewhere -- where their comfort level is much higher. Thus the 33 year old marketing person is the supervisor, and frankly our experience suggests that the marketing person in their 30's is the biggest barrier to successfully embracing social media. This age group completely missed the social media revolution -- they were already out of college when facebook and MySpace came along. Thes marketers ose in their 30's are typically clueless and insecure when it comes to social media. Tough choice between the intern and the marketing person in their 30's -- we've lived in this social media world for several years as business executives, and we offer the strategic business point of view to fellow CEOs. There should be no doubt about the answer to the question -- Who Speaks for your Company -- the CEO or an intern?

We wanted to share photos on Twitter

As we were preparing for the first ever Taste and Tweet event at El Gaucho Bellevue, we realized that it would be nice to share photos from the event. We'd seen a number of ways to embed photos in tweets, but we'd never been serious in our observations.

We selected some of the most popular to test drive. They included: pic.im, mypic.me, twitpic.com, yfrog.com. We looked home pages of the following but did not give them a test drive: pixelpipe.com, tweetphoto.com, twitsnaps.com, snaptweet.com (We would welcome your comments on any of these untested services.)

To cut to the results quickly: we chose to use pic.im for our photos. And we are very pleased that we did. Our testing notes - good image size, allows comments, includes STATS. Supports iPhone to Twitter (pic.im/website/iphone )

mypic.me -- did not fly with us, because it did not support photo names with spaces, no stats, and no commenting

twitpic -- offered direct post to Twitter which is good. Also accepted commenting. Didn't care for the advertising that came with the service

yfrog.com -- allowed comments, allowed sharing, and gave a fairly good sized photo display; however the resolution was not very good in full screen display. But at least they allowed full screen display.

Just a note as CEO of Yodio, we store photos in the size submitted. So 8 MB photos blow your socks off when shown in our full screen mode. We're disappointed to see services like yfrog.com who take a compressed version of a photo and then push it to a blurry full screen display. We'd like to see photo quality benefitting from the full screen.

You can see the pic.im links in the posting history for @ElGauchoBell or @TasteandTweet.

The pic.im metrics for viewing were real time and very good. Pic.im proved very user-friendly at the Taste and Tweet even when the users were under pressure, and we appreciated the tracking results as the photos were RT'd (re-tweeted). It gets thumbs up from us.

Added note: The pic.im is associated with the URL shortener tr.im which we tried and really liked. tr.im offers a nice option for customizing your shortened URL.

Session hosted by Zino Society

Today we are presenting to a very special group of people, sponsored by Zino Society and hosted by Davis Wright Tremaine – we sincerely appreciate their “forward thinking” and vision to the future for getting engaged in Social Media. Stay tuned, big things will be coming out of both organizations in the area of Social Media.

Two of our attendees, Brad Toner and his son Justin, from Conover Insurance, are pictured here listening, learning and enjoying (hopefully), the “2 Suits, No Tats, All Business” guys (us). Thank you for attending.