Quiver & Quill

The recent Mortin issue underscored how powerful mommy bloggers are in influencing opinion. On twitter, blogger, and social networking profiles I have observed a tremendous outpouring of mom pride and affinity. In exploring this further, I came across MomForce  — a new service that connects employers and marketers to the mom experts for hire—they promise to help you “reach mom..with moms.”

I interviewed Jessica Smith, its founder, recently and have posted our discussion below:

Who should use MomForce.com?

Moms, Dads, anyone that has an authentic understanding of moms and who has marketing experience.  Companies that are targeting moms and want to successfully introduce their brand and establish brand loyalty in the “mom community”.

As a marketing agency, how can I use MomForce to communicate with mom’s in social networks?

MomForce.com gives agencies, start-ups, and large corporations the ability to bring an authentic voice to the social networks by hiring a social media and marketing savvy mom on either a project or long term basis. By doing this, you take away the megaphone of traditional marketing, the talking at a community and instead give them the ability to listen and to share…thus becoming a conversation.!

How are you marketing MomForce?

I’m marketing MomForce.com through word of mouth marketing, my 15 Days Series on my personal blog, JessicaKnows.com and through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

What do you wish more employers knew about MomForce?

That it is designed specifically for hiring social media and marketing savvy moms (and dads) to complement their existing marketing and PR efforts while allowing for little to no overhead and flexibility around the logistics of making it a win-win situation for both the company and the mom.

What is your background—how did you get involved in MomForce?

I have a BA Communications and 8 years in marketing, business development, and recruiting.  I was hired as Chief Mom Officer for Wishpot.com this past summer and quickly realized that there are so many moms that can add value through their authentic voice and understanding of how social media is changing the way moms access and share information.  I shared my vision of promoting this concept with Care.com’s Sheila Marcelo and together we hatched MomForce.com with the talented Care.com team.

Learn more about Jessica on her blog here and her LinkedIn profile here.

Share This

You may know what words your customers use to search for your products in Google…
but do you know what words your potential customers are using online?

Soon enough, marketers will identify prospects by phrases that indicate their intention to buy.
And once they have identified a potential customer on this basis, they’ll get their attention.
By following them on twitter.
If you’re on twitter asking for advice on what Christmas gift to buy, for example, expect a herd of marketers to start following…
And if you’re a marketer, what phrases will you follow?
Enter it here to see who you’ll find.

Share This

I recently interviewed Richard Shaffer, owner of Israeli Wine Direct. Tom Wark, wine expert and blogger, called Israeli Wine Direct “the kind of on-line wine store that should attract at least a glance, if not an order, from all those wine lovers that fancy themselves wine explorers and who revel in the diversity of what different places and people can do with the grape.”

Richard exemplifies a social media entrepreneur.  When he first began Israeli Wine Direct, he used his blog as a way to interview and gain access to Israeli wine experts. And once the business was established, social media has opened doors to new audiences.

His approach to marketing is personal. Wine lovers across America, including Guy Kawasaki, invite him into their home to pour Israeli wine for friends and families. Speak to Richard for 30 seconds and you’ll understand why he gets invited. His passion for wine is contagious, and he shares it on his company blog, Twitter, Friendfeed, YouTube and Facebook.

As his business becomes even more successful, I look forward to seeing how Richard’s enthusiasm will translate into creating a company culture with an even greater impact.

Check out our discussion below.

Share This

I attended the Project East Fashion Show that featured works from the famous designer Issey Miyake.
Hundreds of students and fashionable Bostonians attended.
Red Bull also attended with models wearing considerably less than those on the runway.
They handed out free drinks to the VIPS, were included in hundreds of fan photos and contributed to the uber-chic atmosphere.
A nice showing by team Red Bull.
For more on Red Bull, check out their presence on Flickr.

Share This

Vizu, a brand advertising measurement company, offers a free web widget that may interest you.
They enable you to put customizable polls on your site.
Toyota’s Open Road Blog is using it effectively to ask its readers what type of blog posts they would like to read.

Share This

I like Story Worldwide’s ad campaign on the Post Advertising blog.
It’s a simple ad, designed to arouse interest, and it succeeds.
As soon as you click on it, you’re transported from its plain black and white into a playful world of color.
If you have a minute, check out Story Worldwide.

Share This

Three social media presentations I’ve recently enjoyed.

Social Influence Marketing

Welcome to the Social World

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialproducts internet)

PR Bootcamp for Twitter

Ogilvy PR 360 DI Twitter Webinar

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: pr publicrelations)

International Social Media

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialmedia research)

What’s your favorite slideshare presentation on social media?

Share This

(Packed House at SMB10 by Bob Collins on Flickr)

The theme of Social Media Breakfast Boston 10 was “ Getting ROI Out of Social Media.”
HubSpot’s CEO Brian Halligan discussed their method for measuring how social media conversations translate into sales.
Marketers at the event suggested that hiring good content people is a more attractive alternative than buying advertising.
Matt Cutler, Vice President, Marketing & Analytics at Visible Measures, presented on the ROI of viral video.
Visible Measures has powerful tools for measuring viral impact, a database of millions of videos and criteria to evaluate what makes videos “go viral.”
Matt drew a comparison to how much Nike would have had to spend on TV commercials to create the same impact that one of their viral videos had (with 16M views).

He calculated that broadcast TV CPMs are apx. $25 and online video CPMs are apx. $50-75, and he created an estimate.
His formula needs to add one critical consideration: context.
Watching a viral video forwarded to me by a friend, posted in a favorite blog or on a social network is worth much more than a tv spot that interrupts my show.

Share This

What does the phrase “social media community” actually mean?

There are thousands of communities on many different platforms within social media, yet the single phrase persists.

Being apart of the social media community means several things to me:

Listening. To what your customers are saying about you and to see if your brand promise matches the brand experience.
Responding. There’s what you say and where you are saying it: whether it’s in a social media press release, your corporate blog, your Facebook page or bloggers’ comments.
Showing up. Attending events,  being visible in search with a social media footprint and paying attention.
Giving back. As Guy Kawasaki mentions, an important part of the social media community is helping others who cannot help you.

I recently asked my community on Twitter whether using Twitter is synonymous to being apart of the social media community. Here’s what they offered:

Robert Scoble wrote: “Do you say you are part of the telephone community cause you use a phone? So, why do that with social media? I’m just a human, not a SM’er.”

He raises an interesting point—just because someone uses a technology does not necessarily make them a part of a community. However, if the telephone were used only by 1/3 of 1% of the US population (like Twitter) and those who used it shared similar political and social ideas, and they often met up and celebrated the way they were using the telephone, I would call them a part of a community. Would you?

Share This

Retargeting is a type of online advertising tactic that identifies a visitor to your website and serves advertising to them once they leave via an ad network. Right now I am buying email marketing services for a client and visited several vendor websites.  Icontact was among them. After I visited their site, their ads were served to me on the New York Times and on MovieFone’s website. While my decision to buy will be made upon careful evaluation of their services versus their competitors, this retargeting campaign clearly made them top of mind.

Share This

I recently received an email from a good friend who is a model.
She asked me, and other friends, to vote for her as a model to win a trip to Paris.
The company sponsoring the trip, Kani, specializes in urban fashion.
My friend must have sent 100s of emails inviting her friends to this site.
Each one of her friends fits the profile of a Kani buyer.
While the marketing concepts isn’t new, it is effective.

How can you utilize this concept for your business?
Who can you feature? And what incentive can you provide to encourage them to involve their friends?

Share This

I was struck by Brian Solis’ Flickr photo that captures Obama winning the election. It is a photo of the TV, not a photo of the actual candidate. Nevertheless, it captures a moment. And not too long ago I thought of a ‘moment’ as being what people share with one another in person. Last night people on Twitter shared the election moment with one another; as if we were together in the same room feeling the same sense of tension and relief, experiencing the same catharsis.

Check out ZeFrank’s blog capturing the moments of the election.
His readers not only comment with their words, but with links to YouTube videos, Facebook entries.

Their comments are a colorful tribute to that night. Here are few examples:

1. “When they announced it, I heard firecrackers go off in my neighborhood. We poured champagne and toasted.
I stepped outside and heard a neighbor across the street go “Woooo!” “Woooo-hooo!” I called back. More firecrackers followed.”

2. “I was in Grant Park.
It was the nicest, politest, funnest rock concert EVER.
When CNN called it, we collectively lost our heads. 10PM. TEN. PM. After the nightmare of Bush v. Gore, to have it called so early, so decisively…
We were all crying.”

3. “My 12 year-old son and I were watching the electoral numbers break for Obama, when the door bell rang suddenly and repeatedly. I answered only to be greeted by a group neighborhood kids holding Obama signs that they’d swiped from other neighbor’s yards. They were cheering “O-BA-MA” like a band of political trick or treaters. My son immediately darted out to celebrate with them without even asking permission—it was wonderful.”

Where did you share your moment?

Share This

Here are a 10 snapshots I took over the last few weeks. I think number 6 is my favorite. Yours?

1. I took this at a social media event in Helsinki. I love the irony of sitting at a table of wonderful geeks, all of whom are being social online while not talking to one another.

2. That’s my friend Nicky. He’s an excellent photographer of the NYC young and beautiful. Check out his site here.

3. I was flying on the plane with two Marines on my left and this father and son on my right. The younger Marine says to the older Marine, “I haven’t seen my father in seven years. I write him sometimes. Sometimes he writes back. I hope to be a better father than that.”

4. This restaurant in New York knows how to use its Zagat endorsement to market itself.

5. An unappetizing look at McDonald’s NYC….I’m not lovin’ it.

6. Even McDonald’s can be beautiful in the right light. I’m lovin’ it.

7. I don’t understand this positioning statement. Don’t tell me what you’re not—tell me what you are.

8. The masses have spoken. And the masses want a whopper.

9. Obama fashion at Urban Outfitters

10. Of course, this was at a state fair.

I like this idea for a business blog: post 10 snapshots of your last few weeks – it’s one way to add a human touch to your content.

Share This

(The meaning of follow, by dhammza on Flickr)

When people follow you on Twitter how do you decide whether to follow them back?

Here are criteria I use:

• Your last three tweets made me laugh or think.
• I already know you, and/or read your blog.
• The link in your bio points somewhere interesting - not to a place I have to login to see
• I like your wallpaper, photo or your icon.
• You have sent me an @ reply with something interesting
• Following / follower ratio (no spammers thank you)
• Your bio is appealing
• Because I suddenly feel like it and will decide later if there’s a fit

I asked a few friends on Twitter the same question:

@bmanley:  For me, if they seem “techy” and don’t look “spamy”, I’ll follow.
@msjen:  I read their tweets if I don’t know them. If they are a good writer, funny & not shilling a product or service then I follow
@thehotiron:  I usually go ahead and follow, then see what I am following!
@JayNeely: @quiverandquill 1) Do I know them? 2) Do their tweets show we share interests? 3) Are they over-following? 4) Are they tweeting too much?
@BryanPerson: Check out that person’s profile/tweets and look for points in common: living area, tweet topics, profession, industry, etc.

How do you decide?

Share This

There are hundreds of tools for Twitter. There are my personal favorite.

Twellow

Find Twitter friends based on their interests. While it’s not comprehensive, it’s a great start.

Qwitter: Catching Twitter Quitters

Qwitter sends you an email when someone stops following you. Their website is brilliant because it shows exactly what they do.

Tweetstats

Simple stats for Twitter users

Deontee’s blog post: 47 top Twitter services

If you like comprehensive guides, you’ll love this list of Twitter tools.

Check out Brian Solis’ post for more Twitter tools.

Share This

Aaron Strout recently left Mzinga in an interesting way. He wrote this blog post that explained why he was leaving and reflected on his time with the company. It caught my attention, so I contacted Aaron to learn more about his background and business philosophy. The result was our robust conversation on social media marketing—how it works and why. Start by listening to minute 8:24 – 10 where Aaron discusses the criteria for social media marketing and suggests how to tie it into your business goals.

Share This

Check out this UK promotion aimed at bloggers. Berocca appeals to bloggers in three ways: their tone is perfect, they are offering exposure and a free blogger relief pack.

They feature bloggers’ blogs who register on its landing page, which is brilliant. Bloggers want to be recognized.
They also provide blogger relief packs, “containing a stress ball, usb ’stress’ button, bubble wrap key ring, ‘Dead Fred’ pen holder and a pack of Berocca.”

Notice that the emphasis of the page is on relieving bloggers, not on selling product.

I like how they have subtly invited bloggers to learn more about Berocca by clicking to do so. However, when you click on “Click here for more information about Berocca,” you are dumped onto the homepage—it’s like a date abruptly ending without a goodnight kiss.
They missed an opportunity to customize the message to bloggers and to speak to them in a more personal tone about their product.

Nevertheless, great idea and execution.

Share This

(Open Goal by dogfrog on Flickr)

I often see companies deciding on what they are doing before articulating what results they want to achieve.
They would save much time and money by identifying their desired outcomes first.

Not: We want to blog. Rather: In order to get invited to speak at more conferences, we are our asking our executives to blog.
Not: We are building a custom widget. Rather: To drive organic search results, we are building a custom widget.
Not: We are opening a twitter account. Rather: In order to find a new channel for product feedback, we are opening a twitter account.

Naming why you are doing something changes your approach to it.

Take a company that is ready to open a Twitter account to accomplish one of the points below:

• Find a new sales channel
• Help customers with questions about their product
• Understand if Twitter is a viable place to advertise
• Recruit employees
• Create strategic partnerships

The strategy a company would use to achieve one of these points differs from the one you would use for the others.
Next time you are identifying a new strategy, articulate the result you would like to achieve.
Even the most cutting edge strategies tend to support clear business objectives.

I wrote this post before listening to a podcast interview of Barry Judge, the CMO of BestBuy.
Barry makes many excellent points which offer a different perspective on the above, suggesting that while clear goals are important they should not prevent companies from experimenting.

Here’s my favorite quote from that interview:

“I think when you make yourself vulnerable, which is what I think you have to do to be interesting in the social media space, you gotta be interesting you gotta be vulnerable, you gotta be human, you gotta say things that a person would say, and I think that’s a very different approach from what companies have traditionally taken for the last 100 years.”

Can you make yourself vulnerable in a results driven environment?
Does the relentless pursuit for results preclude the risks associated with vulnerability?
That’s my question to Barry.

Share This

Social media creates both collaboration and exclusivity.

Collaboration with tools like tags, wikis, forums and comments.

And exclusivity with limited invites to new services and the attention we pay to those with great stats, and friends & followers.

Does collaboration and exclusivity apply differently to businesses online than to people?

I recently came across OGILVY’s profile on Twitter which prompted this question.

Ogilvy is one of the world’s most influential advertising and communication agencies, positioning themselves as 360 degree brand stewards.
I am surprised that more than 500 people follow them on Twitter, and they are following no one in return.

I am sure there are pros and cons to this.

On the pro side, they have a good amount of followers and the fact that they follow none of them may make them come across as exclusive (a core brand characteristic?).
They also don’t need to concern themselves with offending someone they don’t follow since they follow no one.

On the con side, their exclusive positioning may prevent them from meaningful collaborative opportunities—and may make people on Twitter perceive them negatively.

So, Ogilvy UK—what was your thought behind not following anyone?

I would ask you directly, but since you’re not following me, I can’t DM you.

If the subject of online exclusivity interests you, check out: A Small World &  RUE LA LA.

Share This

Should a brand build a single twitter account or ask each of its employees to build their own affiliated twitter accounts? It depends on the brand and why they are on twitter.

I will follow an employee’s affiliated twitter account if they have personality, or if they offer unique insight or access. Their actions do reflect on their company and impact my perceptions of it. In some situations, I have no interest in following an individual’s account. Take the online deal site Woot for example. I don’t care what their product manager had for lunch, I just want a good deal now.

I like Perkett PR’s approach to twitter. Their brand’s account features the picture of everyone who contributes to it. Each one also has individual accounts.

There are other more complicated considerations involved in creating employee-affiliated twitter accounts. Who owns the account? What happens to the goodwill and equity the employee created for your brand when she leaves the company?

In an ideal world, a brand would carefully select, train and celebrate its twitter brand evangelists. While their training would cover a code of conduct and key speaking points, it would also empower twitter brand evangelists to express their unique personality and willingness to help.

Until a brand can be sure that every person tweeting on its behalf exemplifies these qualities, I would stick with a single brand account.

Share This

Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot responded to my last blog entry by expressing this concern:

“I was very interested in the notion of linking one’s profile page on twitter to a specific/custom landing page on your primary website…My one concern would be: When visitors to a twitter profile click on the website link, are they expecting to learn more about the company/offering or more about the individual? Does the intermediate page just get in the way?”

My notion of a brand’s landing page for Twitter would feature the brand and the individuals that work there-not a single individual.

It would feature the more human qualities of a brand. For example, Flickr photos from a staff get together, funny quotes from the company’s leadership, cool or unusually things you could do with a product.

Take Hubspot for example, I would like to see pictures of Hubspot at social media events, links to blog entries that discuss Hubspot, some cool or little known facts about how to use Hubspot and podcasts and video interviews with the companies leadership. It would be great to capture testimonials from people using Twitter Grader and post their Twitter handle too. And as an added benefit, interview and feature some of your favorite people on twitter using Hubspot and what they love about it.

If I am in a personal relationship with a brand, which following a brand on twitter might just qualify as one, then I would like the brand’s profile to serve as a special doorway granting me access to a place that other regular customers do not have access to.

After all, I have expressed this interest, demonstrated by following you, that I want to engage–so don’t invite me to the same homepage that all of your customers go to–create a VIP section just for me. Show me you’re paying attention to me as closely as I’m paying attention to you.

Share This