Bad Twitter advice from Advertising Age

It’s disappointing that David Berkowitz (representing the venerable Advertising Age – i.e., someone who should know better) would tell you, in one breath, that the single most important thing you can do when jumping into Social Media for business is to “establish your goals,” and then in the next breath tell you that the one person you should follow on Twitter  is Shaquille O’Neal.

Now Shaq may indeed be a Twitter super-user, and he might even coin more words than Seth Godin. But recommending him as your one must-follow was a waste of an opportunity to give real, sound advice.

The person you should follow on Twitter, if you’re a business owner and really only have time to follow one, is the person in your industry who has taken the time to become a resource for others. This person:

• Posts a ton of links to relevant reading material
• Re-tweets useful stuff – not fluff
• Engages with those who reply to them
• Follows proportionally to their followers
• Blogs passionately about the industry and links out when appropriate to their own incredible blog

Having established that setting goals is “the most important thing” you can do when getting into social media, I’d say that the second most important thing you should do is make sure you’re not wasting your time by connecting with people who can’t help you meet them.

Alternative uses for Foursquare

Now that the new social app Foursquare is available worldwide, I’ve been giving it a try here in Des Moines. With Foursquare, I “check in” by texting a message to the service when I arrive at various destinations and collect points for my check-ins. (Eventually I could be appointed Mayor of a place I visit often. This is the only reason I even tried Foursquare in the first place.)

The purpose of this app is to let my friends know where I am while I’m out gallavanting around, so they can join me for a drink or a meal, and learn more (through tips) about why I like the places I patronize.

The problem is, the people I’m acquainted with who are most likely to be reading my updates are not the people who are usually wondering on a Saturday night, “Where the heck is Janet? I MUST go where Janet is and hang out!” So, this may ultimately end up being one of those situations where I finally just admit I’m not the target market, and accept defeat.

Unless I can find some valuable alternate use for Foursquare – not altogether unlikely, given that I once dismissed Twitter with a “talk to the hand” flourish, only to find that later it had morphed into an incredibly valuable business and personal connectivity tool.

So here, with a hopeful eye on the future of Foursquare, are a few alternate uses for this latest bit of “I don’t get it.”

1. If you’re a professional with clients, or have friends who own businesses, you can earn brownie points by listing them as venues and then checking in. (You’re welcome, @Sambetti’s! And yes, I meant it about the onion rings.)
2. Easy way to fake a day of outside sales calls when you’re really laying on a chaise lounge at home with an umbrella drink in your hand. (Aside: Foursquare needs a plug-in that lets you schedule auto-checkins to really be useful in this situation.)
3. Useful tool for savvy burglars who can estimate, based on your latest check-in, how much time they have to ransack your house.
4. Quick way to notify loved ones that Captain Sulley has safely landed your plane (i.e., “Just checked in @Hudson River.”)
5. What, too soon?

Happiness is a new job

It looks like my “smart questions” strategy may have paid off. Or at least, there’s something very good to be said about having a chance encounter in a parking lot! I’m very pleased to report that last week I accepted a position as Account Executive with a local advertising agency/marketing firm, and am no longer job-hunting. This was quite literally a chance conversation with someone who casually asked how I was doing, and when I reported on my job search she told me about an opportunity she was thinking of offering. We both got very enthusiastic about the prospect of working together. I worked for a short time as a freelancer on a test project, and was offered and accepted the full-time position in the midst of that work.

The position will be a great opportunity to put to work all of my project management skills, and to learn a thing or two about agency life and methods – no doubt it’s changed somewhat in the 23 years since I last worked in that environment!

Does your marketing have credibility with your 'locals'?

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because I really wish I’d never dismantled that blog in the first place

Maureen Rogers’s underlying point begs a really important question: do you have credibility with the “locals”? I once saw a beautiful photograph of our skyline at night, complete with a full, golden moon. Trouble was, given the vantage point from which the photo had to have been taken, the moon’s placement was physically impossible – it just doesn’t travel in that part of the sky. Most likely the out-of-towners who were the target audience of this marketinrg piece would never know the difference. It was I, the lifelong local, who knew.

I think the same can be said about your existing vs. prospective customers. Prospects, generally, will believe what you show and tell them – they’ve got no reason to doubt you. But what would happen if they talked to one of your existing customers? Will your marketing claims be affirmed by those who know you well, your “locals”? Here are a few tips to ensure that they will:

1. Ask. And by that I mean, ask the locals. Do a quick survey (free or cheap online at www.surveymonkey.com) among existing customers, asking questions about your key marketing messages. You don’t have to provide actual ad copy – just give them some key ideas to consider. And then ask, “Which of these most accurately describes our business?” Or “…most accurately describes how you feel about us?” Be sure to give an “other” for them to contribute their own ideas.

2. Test. Invite a few “locals” in for an ad testing session. This needn’t be expensive – just host them in a meeting space at your location (or even someplace more creative) and maybe provide a couple large pizzas. Show them some ad concepts or just some taglines you’re considering, and let them talk. Even cheaper: Post the info to your blog and shoot some emails to a few favorite “locals,” inviting them to comment.

3. Revise. Based on the feedback you get from your locals, how can you revise your message or rewrite your tagline so it communicates well and resonates with them? Remember, these are the messages that they will affirm about you if asked. That’s why they’re important. Sometimes it’s not what you think about yourself that’s important, it’s what your customers think about you that can open up new prospect markets.

Add your own ideas here – what is the value of knowing that your “locals” will back you up on your marketing claims? How important to your business is this concept of “credibility among the locals”?

Interview strategy: prepare smart questions to ask

Had a job interview that went very well this week – I enjoyed talking with the individual who would be my boss, and the position sounded like an interesting combination of project-oriented marketing work, oversight and enhancement of some ongoing advertising programs, and a little administrative support for the small office. The level of autonomy in decision-making, the largely self-directed work, and the healthy marketing budget were all very promising.

The interview itself was an opportunity to put into practice some valuable advice I’d gleaned from recently reading the book 101 Dynamite Questions to Ask at Your Job Interview by Richard Fein. I’ve known forever that it’s a bad idea to not have prepared questions to ask the interviewer, and I’m determined to find a position that’s a good fit for me personally as well as professionally. But how to formulate my questions, and how to determine which questions to ask?

Fein’s book provides a way to break down the job, the company and its industry into distinct segments, and craft questions that will reveal information you can use to make an informed decision should an offer come your way.

For example, as a marketing professional I’m concerned with the company’s level of openness to new marketing channels. I’m personally enthusiastic about exploring online social media channels as marketing tools. So, one of my questions was designed to tell me what’s currently working for them (“What is presently the marketing channel that brings you the most new business?”), and the follow-up would tell me if they were open to new ideas (“What new channels would you be willing to explore to gain more prospects?”). The answers to these questions were very encouraging: the owner named their most productive marketing channel and stated that he would like me to formalize a program for mining that channel more effectively. When asked about new channels, he essentially said, “I’m open to whatever you come up with.” 

Of course, I also wanted to ask about the salary range for the position, but Fein had advised that this question was premature in a first interview. So I approached it another way: because the position also involved a small amount of office support, I asked about the “growth plan” for the job: “Where do you envision it in two years’ time, and how it fits into the company structure?”  I also asked whether he perceived it as an entry-level job, or whether he was seeking a more strategic, experienced marketing person. Again the answers to these were encouraging.

Other good things about this job: a low-stress commute and a small-office atmosphere that relies on committed team players to function smoothly. I hope to be called back for a second interview.

Special thanks to Action Print!

Would like to take a moment to thank my good friend Dan Hansen at Action Print, an awesome local commercial offset and digital printer who donated production of my new networking cards! I’ll be using these not only to directly network with folks who might be seeking a marketing director for their own company, but also for those who might be able to refer me to interested colleagues.

The cards direct people to this website, and on the back they contain my contact information and ‘elevator pitch.’ The pitch says, “A creative, strategic, internet-savvy marketing professional and multi-tasker with strong communication skills, seeking to lead a dynamic company, association or non-profit organization in effective use of internal and external communication tools.”

Thanks, Dan, for making this investment in a friend’s career!

Getting distracted and getting back on track

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because it can help readers better understand my approach to business communication.

One of my personal obsessions is genealogy – the study and discovery of my family tree. I began my journey in the spring of 1997, just a few months after my mother had passed away unexpectedly. For me, genealogy is the perfect blend of research and outdoor exploration: rooting out the names and dates of critical life events for my ancestors, connecting with far-flung cousins (some of whom possessed precious antique family photographs!), pouring over brittle old documents in the basements of historic county courthouses, wandering through cemeteries large and small in search of a stone with a familiar name.

I learned one of the core lessons of genealogy very early on – and I think it’s a lesson that also applies to small business marketing: put simply, it’s easy to get distracted. In a moment, you can wander off the main path (looking for direct blood-line ancestors) and start down any number of secondary trails that lead to aunts, uncles, cousins, skeletons-in-closet, or even just historical context.

For small business owners, the main marketing path should always lead to the retention of existing customers and the attraction of new customers. Things like learning how to use a page layout program, or writing better copy, or understanding the psychology of consumer purchasing, are really secondary trails.

Granted, they’re inviting trails – made moreso by books and tools that promise to make it easy, to deliver “professional marketing materials from your desktop with one click,” to present you with that golden nugget that will open a floodgate to success. But probably the biggest challenge facing small business owners is figuring out how far to wander down one of those secondary trails, and when to step back onto the main path where actual progress is made.

In genealogy, I step back onto the main trail by keeping a list of the current questions that will lead me to someone’s parents, because “new parents” mean another branch has been added to the tree.

In business, your marketing treatment (or marketing plan, if you’ve gone that far) should be the primary path. It gives you direction, it reminds you what the goals are, and it gives you a point to which you can always return if you veer off course. What tools do you use to guide yourself back to the main path when you fear you’ve spent too much time on a secondary trail? What secondary trails have been most valuable to you? Which ones do you wish you hadn’t wasted time pursuing?

Photo from the Flickr stream of tonyaustin.

Lessons from lost opportunity

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because it can help readers better understand my approach to business communication.

In 1996, I launched the website for my creative services company, then called The Ad Shop Plus. It was my “showpiece” web development effort, bringing together my very best (at the time) strategic, creative, planning and design skills.

One day I was browsing through an issue of Home Office Computing magazine, and saw that they were seeking nominations for a column called “Sites We Like” in which they would offer up the websites of small and home-based businesses as examples of good web strategy. I submitted my site for consideration and went about my life.

Over the next few months I decided that my business name was too limiting (possibly even hokey) and did not accurately reflect my range of professional services. I prepared to change the name to Green & Company Creative Services. I had a name-change plan, a budget and a timeline in place, and a new website all ready to launch, when I got the call from HOC. That’s right, I was one month away from changing my name (from redefining my business!) and they wanted to feature my old identity.

My options were to decline the feature, since my company info would be completely different by the time the magazine hit the stands and re-submit the new site for future consideration; or, to hold off my name change until after the article had run and reap the rewards of free publicity in a major magazine that targeted my small business clientele.

I chose the former. I thanked the reporter profusely for her interest and told her I would let her know when my new site launched. I followed up a few weeks later with a personal note to her, giving her the new URL, but I never heard another word.

I realized pretty quickly what I had sacrificed: An opportunity to establish credibility in web development on a national scale, in front of an audience I truly needed to reach, for the chance to shed my old identity a few months sooner. I now believe that this was a major mistake. It certainly took the joy out of using that cool new letterhead I’d designed.

I tell this story because good lessons sometimes come from our less-than-stellar moments, and because it illustrates why agility is so important. I was small enough to be nimble – to veer off the name-change course just long enough to grab a HUGE fistful of credible publicity – but I was blinded by the notion of sticking to my plan. And in so doing, lost a golden opportunity to grow my business.

Your business is a Jack Russell Terrier

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because it can help readers better understand my approach to business communication.

Have you ever watched canine agility trials? Your business should be just like that – fast, nimble, always moving forward. Maybe even a beef-flavored biscuit for you at the finish.

So what’s holding you back? Probably some well-meaning people, whose advice you’ve sought because they are Experts in Their Field. They’re telling you that you have to have a plan before you can do any marketing. And since marketing plans are based on time-consuming research, you haven’t gotten around to doing any. And so you don’t have a plan, so you aren’t doing any marketing.

Well here’s a news flash: You don’t have to have a full-blown plan to do your marketing. If you can define some basic elements, you can establish a lean, simple document that allows plenty of flexibility while still serving to keep you on track. In video production, we called this basic document a treatment, and it was used to make sure everyone understood the parameters of a given project. As applied to your marketing, your treatment should include information about:

* Your audience
* Your brand
* Your creative strategy
* Your budget

With your treatment in place, you can consider yourself free of the shackles of the formal marketing plan. You’re suddenly fast, nimble, and moving forward. You’re on a marketing agility course. You’re the Jack Russell Terrier of marketing!

Now – what’s a marketing idea you’ve wanted to try, but refrained because you didn’t have a plan?

Photo at caninecoalition.com.

3 best tips for a better resume

I always felt that I did a pretty good job of capturing my work experience into resume format, but certainly over the years I’ve learned that “best practices” can change as the needs of employers – and the search tools available to them – evolve. Here are three tweaks I’ve made recently that I think have really improved the way I present myself on paper to potential employers:

Tailor the resume to the employer
This means reading the job description carefully for each position you’re interested in, and taking steps to show how your past experiences are connected to that specific position. For me, it’s not enough to have one resume for the position of Marketing Director and another for the position of Social Media Strategist – though that’s a good start. Instead, I’m tailoring the document to each individual employer based on the needs they’ve outlined in their individual job descriptions. For example I might put my achievements for each past position in a different order to highlight what’s most relevant based on the job description. Obviously, the cover letter is tailored to each employer too, not just in terms of the identified recipient, but also in the content of the letter itself.

Focus on Accomplishments
Speaking of past achievements, I’ve learned that it makes a huge difference if you take the opportunity to focus on the results of your work rather than your job responsibilities. In my present position as Executive Director of a small non-profit membership organization, I’ve grown membership by 30 percent; in past positions I’ve proven my ability to strategically grow website traffic from x to y. These achievements receive top billing because they are significant and show measurable results.

Use Keywords
With the advent of electronic search tools such as online resume databases, it’s more important than ever to think like an employer and use words in your resume that the employer will use when searching for candidates. With some search tools, your resume may actually be ranked in the search results according to the number of keyword matches it contains when compared with other candidates. CareerPerfect.com has a good article to help you identify the parts of the resume where keywords fit naturally.

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