There are no words ...

Have you ever seen an uglier pair of feet?

This past Sunday, I did something really cool. I walked in high heels down a busy MacArthur Blvd. in Irving, Texas, for all the world to see. It was an enlightening experience.

I was joined by about 50 other guys, too. Why did we do it? It was part of an event my church’s men’s group put together called “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes.” The premise was to build awareness of the amazingly huge issue of sex trafficking in America, especially timely since the Super Bowl is in town. You can watch video and learn more about it here at Irving Bible Church’s website.

Yeah, I got my tight roll on!

On a personal note, this was something I’m really proud I did. It’s such a small thing to do for such a big problem. Ever since watching the Love146 video during Geno Church‘s presentation at Optimization Summit last March, I’ve been extremely disgusted with the rampant problem of sex trafficking. And I’m proud to go to a church where the men’s group has a similar disgust.

But this is a blog focused on marketing, communication and leadership, so I wanted to extract some key takeaways that came from strutting my stuff down MacArthur. These are random but relevant. I bet you can even come up with some other lessons.

1. Doing remarkable things matters. Yes, I’m about to jump on the Purple Cow bandwagon (which is the equivalent of playing Stairway to Heaven in a guitar store), but it really does apply here. Something remarkable is something worth remarking about. People talk about remarkable stuff. Yes, my group could, should and has prayed over the issue of sex trafficking. Which is a very ordinary church thing to do (and necessary). But 50 guys walking down a busy street in high heels is extraordinary. It’s remarkable. Drivers I’m sure have talked about it. I know I’ve talked about it. That’s the whole point.
2. Sometimes your target isn’t your target. You could make a strong case that the “target audience” for this lil’ stunt was the drivers on MacArthur. Maybe even the media. But I think the group most moved by it were the 50 men who walked. We’ve now all got a special and freakish bond. We have a tangible reminder of the problem of sex trafficking and that we’re trying to do something about it. And I bet when something else comes up to support efforts against this horrible act, this group of 50 will be the first to jump in. Remember that sometimes your campaigns are just as much about uniting your internal team and your evangelists as it is about building awareness.
3. Stories, tone and method matter. You could easily share the stats and facts about sex trafficking and think that they alone would be enough to move us all to action. They should be; the numbers are overwhelming. But they aren’t. Stats and facts may people nod their heads. Stories make people do something, feel something. Like this video from Love146. You can’t watch this and not get extremely pissed off about this whole situation.
4. Social media really does help. To expand on point #2 here, sometimes your target is to get people involved (like me) who will then share it online. People who will blog about it, tweet it out and post pictures on Facebook. People who will fan the flame. Like my man Fred (@helpmefred), who tweeted quite a bit about the event. Social media isn’t the end-all, be-all, but it comes in handy with stuff like this. I bet even a few of you share this post and keep it going (hint, hint; wink, wink).

What else is missing? What lessons would you add?

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You’ve heard me rave about Optimization Summit before. It’s undoubtedly the best conference I’ve been to on web marketing. Put on by MultiFamily Pro, the organizers somehow find a way to bring together some of the biggest names in social media and marketing today for a two-day collection of two-hour workshops that leave your brain waving a white flag and your idea cup overflowing.

After foaming at the mouth over my first Optimization Summit experience in March 2010, I was extremely eager to get September’s Round 2 under my belt. Not only did I know I was about to experience Dallas’ best kept marketing secret, but I was also privileged enough to present at this installment (check out my How I Stopped Hating Twitter presentation now).

I’ll spare you the gratuitous summaries and dig right into the details. The only hat tip I’ll throw out there is to Christopher S. Penn. I didn’t catch his workshop this time around (only because I caught him last time – here are his slides), but I must say the highlight of the event for me was just hanging with him at the TweetUp on Wednesday night, and then unexpectedly having him sit in on my Twitter presentation and filling in the many gaps. Having listened to his podcast religiously for at least the last 18 months, it was a surreal honor to get to pick his brain in person. Thanks, Chris.

Without further adieu, here are the highlights of the workshops I did attend:

Brian Solis – the Conversation Prism, Looking Inside the Glass of Social Media. I’d heard of Brian Solis before, and knew he was on the A-list of social media aficionados these days. But I had never really dug into his stuff. What I most appreciated about his presentation was that is was basically a blueprint for how to organize your social media strategy at a corporate level. This always sounds simple, but I’ve learned that doing it is extremely overwhelming. Probably more than any other speaker I’ve heard, he truly knows how to implement this “social stuff” within companies, which is a very specific (and rare) skill set. I also gotta say I almost interrupted Brian’s talk with laughter when I read @OhSoCynthia’s tweet that he looked like Gordon Gekko. Quite true.

Anyway …. Key takeaways:

• You are responsible for building the bridges to connect your people.
• 72% of companies claim they have a social media strategy.
• We are the champions for change internally. Cheerleaders eventually hit the glass ceiling. We report to someone who doesn’t really care about transparency or authenticity. (Love these statements, and solidifies my approach even more on moving the box). 
• Nobody has the answers; you have to get the info you need.
• Take the time to do a social media audit. The tips Brian gave here are absolute gold, and too overwhelming for this simple post. But the light bulb went on for me at this point.
• Participation is marketing. In other words, just the fact that you’re involved in some of these channels is in and of itself a marketing position/brand element.
• No one wants to call your 800 number anymore. Don’t force it.
• ROI doesn’t mean Return On Ignorance.

Jay Ehret and Eric Brown – Transformational Branding. I missed both Eric and Jay at the last OptSum, so I was eager to sit in on their workshop this time around. It definitely didn’t disappoint. First, they went old school and had no Powerpoint slides (gasp!). Then Jay had the audacity to ask us to shut our laptops (gasp! gasp!), while Eric disagreed. But I followed Jay’s orders, and I’m actually glad I did. Of everyone who presented, these guys probably took the idea of “workshop” to heart the most. This was an extremely hands-on, interactive workshop. My hunch is that Jay probably does workshops like this over a much longer span of time normally, but the duo did a nice job of making the most of the two-hour slot. Some memorable moments include …

• Literally rearranging the furniture in the room, making the point that most companies simply move around the same ol’ stuff in their branding efforts, where transformational brands recategorize themselves.
• Using Jay’s deck of specialized cards to force us to pick only the three main values to position our brand on (a wonderful exercise on focusing and limiting your efforts)
• Listening to Eric’s stories of how Urbane Apartments has truly recategorized themselves in the industry, and getting the chance to ask him follow-up questions about it.
• Learning how Jay encourages clients to come up with a metaphor to represent their brand (e.g., love is a battlefield, Acme Chiropractic is a revolution, etc.) to help bring it to life in every way possible. For the exercise, I somehow came up with “Angry Jesus” as my metaphor for the brand in mind, which I think missed the mark. But it stuck, for sure.
• At one point, I was sitting with three folks from the multifamily industry and we were asked to determine the unspoken rules of that industry. It was fun watching those entrenched in the apartment management area struggle to think up what the rules were, and then I just started blasting certain rules simply by thinking back to the days when I lived in an apartment (like why do you raise my rent every time my lease is up, or why can’t I grill on my patio). Good times.

Check out this Power to the Small Business Podcast episode that captures much of Jay’s and Eric’s workshop.

Jason Falls – Practical SEO for Corporate Blogs: I missed the first part of Jason’s talk, but I enjoyed four hours of his training at the last OptSum, so I’m probably OK there. I also didn’t take notes during his section, so this recap may be a little light. However, I still got a lot out of the half I did catch. A mantra with Jason, it seems, is that we need to wake up and realize the majority of our traffic to our blogs has never been there before, and they probably won’t ever come back. That sounds pretty obvious, but when you really let it sink in, you realize it drastically affects your blogging strategy. Or as Jason so eloquently puts it, “Cut the bull and blog with purpose.” It’s something that’s got me thinking quite a bit about Marketing In Progress, to be honest, as this blog is certainly no exception.

I also enjoyed picking up some of the links to some of Jason’s favorite tools, like Scribe SEO (which I use and love), as well as Compendium (which I’m still not exactly clear on, but it sounds cool). I’m also looking forward to Jason’s latest project, ExploringSocialMedia.com, as, just based on his description, sounds like a great resource for direct sellers I work with who are looking for basic social media training.

Here’s a link to Jason’s presentation on practical SEO.

Shashi Bellamkonda – Using Social Media to Connect with Customers: Shashi was a new name for me, so he was an extremely pleasant surprise. Christopher S. Penn had suggested him the night before at the TweetUp (“he’s really smart”), so that was enough of an endorsement for me. Plus he works at Network Solutions, so he must know his stuff. It was an excellent extension from Solis’ keynote presentation, as Shashi drilled into getting the right people in your organization on social media, and shared some of the logistical steps to make that happen. And he’s an extremely nice guy – I really enjoyed meeting him. Some great takeaways:

• Integrate your social media channels in traditional service processes.
• More interactions = higher positive impact. Granted, quality interactions are the goal, but even just quantity of interaction can boost positive impact.
• Consumers are consuming streams. Be a part of the streams your customers are in.
• The gap now between a journalist and a reader is a tweet away.
• The human connections are still what count. The tools just make connecting more efficient. (This was a top 3 sound byte for me from the conference. Such a clear and concise way to put everything in its place)
• There are different facets of social media: monitoring, buzz, crises response, action and inbound customer. More times than not, the same person can’t effectively do all of this. Stop thinking of having a single social media point person.
• Take the time to provide informal training for a wide audience within your company to get buy-in and excitement.
• Shashi also shared a scroll of great links, which I’ll probably share in an upcoming mash-up of all the links I jotted down at OptSum.

Christina “CK” Kerley and Mack Collier – Social Media Optimization and Mobile Media Opportunities: First, it was great to meet CK in person. If you could bottle her up and sell her, the need for coffee would lower significantly. More than that, she really knows her stuff. She and Mack (more on him below) held an extremely informal Q&A that ended up centering around mobile and all that implies. Mobile is so out of my league it’s not even funny, so I felt like I was drinking from the firehose during this chat, but it was good stuff. And there were some really smart people in the room. My notes were limited, but the effect was huge. I left convinced I’ve got to get up to speed on mobile … fast.  A few notes I managed to jot down while on the verge of brain explosion:

• 

  Christina "CK" Kerley and Brett Duncan (me)

  QR Codes (Quick Response) is where a ton of opportunity is in mobile right now. If you don’t know anything about it, start learning.

• The best thing you can do right now is get a mobile website done. Buy your .mobi domain pronto.
• Start having internal discussions on what truly makes sense for mobile. Do you need an app, or just a mobile site?
• There was a lot of back and forth over being an early adopter over letting someone else figure it out and jumping in then. My pal Gio even chimed in remotely via Twitter and advised foregoing the early adoption and letting the game come to you. Hmmm …..

Here’s a link to CK’s presentation on mobile marketing.

Mike Merrill – Social Media ROI in the real world: It’s easy to take for granted the studly greatness that’s right in your backyard. That’s what’s tempting to do with Mike Merrill. He’s President of Social Media Club of Dallas, Ignite Dallas organizer and Director of Marketing for ReachLocal. You could tell yourself, “Ah, I can catch him another time since he’s a local.” I fortunately didn’t succumb to this ill-advised logic, as I found his presentation nicely filled in a lot of gaps that other presentations were leaving out. Namely, how do you make money doing all of this stuff (or rather, how do you keep from wasting it)? Probably what struck me most was to treat social media like any other marketing channel and measure it from the hairs on your head to the hairs on your toes. Mike’s presentation walks you through how to think about doing this. Some takeaways for me:

• Free is perceived as no value. Therefore, the so-called no-cost tools of social media can be seen as low value from those who don’t know better.
• Never forget the total lifetime value of a customer, as this is the number that you must keep in mind with social media. Don’t just measure their first, direct purchase based on your efforts, but consider all of them.
• Traffic means nothing if it doesn’t convert.
• You’ll probably have a hard time accurately measuring forecasted ROI of your social media efforts before you start using the tools. You should invest in using the tools for at least six months and take real data to help you determine long-term ROI.
• I loved how Mike added quotes on his slides that were ready to be retweeted. I thought that was a great way to encourage tweeting while also calling out the big ideas.
• Mike was also kind enough to not got he full two hours just because he had that much time. So he cut it off once he was done. Which meant I could catch the last half of Mack Collier’s presentation ….

Here’s Mike’s presentation on social media ROI.

Mack Collier – Think Like a Rockstar: My promise to myself going into this OptSum was to not attend workshops from folks whose workshops I attended at the March OptSum. Which means I missed what I’m sure were great presentations by Christopher S. Penn, Geno Church, Erica Campbell and the first half of Jason Falls’ presentation. It also meant I thought I was going to miss out on Mack’s presentation. But when Mike’s presentation went short, it opened up the doors to catch the last part of Mack’s presentation. I won’t go into much detail since I just recently recapped his March presentation. What I will say is that I had a chance this time around to talk to Mack a little more, and I gotta say, he’s just great to be around. Even though he is himself a rockstar of marketing these days, he’s completely approachable and welcoming. I love his presentation style (along with that thick southern accent), and his humble willingness to simply do whatever (he served as chief mic stand during his panel with CK).

Here’s a look at his Think Like a Rockstar presentation.

So there you have it – my September 2010 OptSum experience. The only thing left to say is that I really enjoyed catching up with familiar faces (even if it had only been familiar via Twitter) and meeting some new folks.

Were you at OptSum? What was your favorite part?

—-

Some other OptSum reviews:

• Joy Kennelly’s Review
• Social Media Isn’t the Only Cool Kid in Town Anymore (Mack Collier)
• Mariam Shahab’s Review
• The Week I Hung Out with Rock Stars (Jill McFarland – a great read)
• Flickr Slide Show via Duncan Alney
• How I Went From Small Business Social Media Marketing Confusion to Clarity in Just Two Days (Small Business Divas – thanks for the chocolate!)

Photo credit above: Details at optimizationsummits.com/ (cc) Shashi Bellamkonda www.shashi.name Social Media SwamiNetwork Solutions

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If we happened to meet at Optimization Summit, thanks for checking this out. I love OptSum – great stuff.

Anyway, if this is your first time here, here are some helpful links:

1. My “How I Stopped Hating Twitter” presentation.
2. Some of my “good stuff” on marketing.
3. My Move the Box presentation, which I first gave at Ignite Dallas in March 2010.

I’d love to hear your impressions on OptSum – your favorite presentations, a-ha moments, and all that good stuff. Just leave it in the comments.

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So here’s the deal:

Optimization Summit is next week (Sept. 16-17) in Dallas, and I’ve got three complimentary tickets I need to give away that the good folks putting on the event have bestowed upon me.

If you think you’re the best choice for one of these tickets, I just need you to tell me why in the comments. Who are you looking forward to hearing from? What seminars do you think you need the most? Stuff like that. The only catch if you get them is you need to tweet and blog about it either during or after the event. Pretty easy, huh?

If you’ve read my recaps of the previous Optimization Summit, you know I absolutely love it. It’s a great marketing conference. This one features Brian Solis, Christopher S. Penn, Jason Falls, Mack Collier, Jay Ehret, Geno Church and many, MANY other marketing luminaries.

So leave your comment below and I’ll pick the winners late Friday night (Sept. 10). And if you don’t get the tickets, I still have a killer discount code that gets you 60% off the price. Just click here.

OK – lemme hear from ya (and make it good!). And follow along at Twitter: #OptSum.

P.S – The tickets are took! Thanks for the comments.  (9/13/10)

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OK, I confess: I’m way behind on getting these updates live on the site. Sorry, but that’s just how it goes. Regardless, here’s the next installment of my Optimization Summit 2010 recap.

As stacked as the lineup was as Optimization Summit, I was still contemplating my own attendance until I heard that Christopher S. Penn was going to be there. I think the story goes something like Blue Sky Factory originally planned on sending someone else, but then Chris got stuck with all the road trips shortly after coming on board with the company. I’m glad it worked out that way, cuz the minute I heard about it, I started looking for ways to get to OptSum.

Chris covers more ground per mile than pretty much anyone else you can hear in the space. To use his own words, he really knows how to “get the most juice out of each squeeze.” With that said, it seems like most people in this “space” seems to note one area of what Chris does time after time (including Jason Falls at OptSum): he knows how to take lots of seemingly unrelated ideas and technologies, mix them up, and make them somehow work together and make sense. On top of that, I had a chance to spend a few minutes chatting with Chris, and then swapping a few emails afterward. I must say, the guy walks his talk. He was extremely helpful with a few questions I had.

If you’re not familiar with Christopher S. Penn, it’s hard to make a case of having your hand on the pulse of today’s marketing landscape. Check his out personal site, his marketing podcast Marketing Over Coffee, and his “day job” work with Blue Sky Factory.

In true form, Chris shared his ideas on making the most of your email marketing. However, as I looked back through my notes, it seems like most points really resonate regardless of the channel. With that said, I think it may be best to simply list out the points and offer up my own reactions or additions. You can also find the entire deck at the Blue Sky Factory blog. In addition, he pointed us toward the free download of The Ultimate Guide to Email.

Tips on Better Email Marketing

• The ROI of email marketing is $43.62. According to the Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you get $43.62 back. Christopher mentions that this figure assumes you don’t suck at email marketing. Of course, you have to go even further to find out what the return is for you. This is a great number to have in your back pocket to underscore the importance of email marketing done well, but it should in no way be something you base your own forecasting on. Be sure you get the ROI of your email marketing. Obviously there are so many variables that affect this number that using the industry average could be one of the worst things to do.
• “Customer Retention” is a horrible phrase. Christopher described how this phrase implies that customers are running away in droves, and our jobs is to play cowboy and somehow wrangle them in and lead them down the trail. Instead, how do we attract, convert and energize?
• Good email marketing = RTTV. To succeed with email, follow these simple principles: make it relevant, timely, targeted and valuable. My guess is that it’s the two Ts where we go astray most often.
• CAN-SPAM doesn’t matter. Chris brought up the great point that email service providers (ESPs) have much more stringent guidelines for a ‘proper email’ than does CAN-SPAM. Know the law (details here), but more importantly, get to know the ESPs.
• Add everyone to your list. Your database is everything. Chris mentioned how he adds people to his email list with whom he connects on LinkedIn and other sites. He just makes it clear in his profile. I’d never considered this before, but it makes sense.
• Take what you can get. The key to good email marketing is to provide valuable content. However, as Chris pointed out, there’s tons of free and valuable content already out there. Don’t feel like you’ve got to create it all yourself. Go find it and just share it. You’ll still be seen as the valuable part of the equation because you’re the one who brought it to the table.
• Highlight your unsubscribe button. Too many people think clicking the unsubscribe button is the worst thing that can happen when someone reads your email, so they hide it at the bottom. Actually, the worst thing that can happen is that someone clicks the “Spam” button in their email provider. If someone wants to unsubscribe, let them do it. Make it obvious. Why do you want them reading your newsletter anyway?
• Use your fan page to build your list. Chris gave the example of how he’s helped the Boston Martial Arts Center use their Facebook Fan Page to build their list. He said the results have been amazing. Check it out for yourself.
• Segment and optimize. I’m not even going to try to remember everything Chris brought up on this topic alone. But he did say that you should constantly be testing and segmenting and then building a landing page that corresponds specifically with each call to action from your email. So many of us know this, yet so few of us do it. It’s tedious and a discipline.

This workshop was jam-packed with so much great stuff. Be sure to watch it online and get into the details of it. I plan to watch it again; I know I missed a ton of it the first time around.

Thanks so much to Chris. It was a true pleasure to meet him, and his valuable insights still over-delivered, even though my expectation were already high.

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This is yet another installment of my Optimization Summit recap.

After about six hours of high-level strategic thinking focused on the use of social media, I was ready for some real workshop-style nuts and bolts. In came Andy Beal to the rescue. His workshop, Social Media Monitoring, offered up some very specific tips on using some of today’s tools to know what’s really going on out there. Andy wrote Radically Transparent (a book about online reputation management) and is the editor of MarketingPilgrim.com. He’s also the founder of a new social media monitoring tool, Trackur.

Andy spent some time at the beginning of his workshop explaining why it’s important to monitor. His reasons included the list below:

• Reputation management
• Measure success of campaigns
• Decentralized customer service
• Spy on your competition
• Track industry news
• Improve press and blogger relations
• SEO

Andy passed along this excellent graphic that captures everything you should consider monitoring with social media.

Essential Monitoring Tools

Andy then went on to share what he considers to be the most relevant tools and resources when it comes to keeping a handle on social media. It captures a major theme I left with, which is that social media monitoring tools and similar services are cropping up at an amazing pace. To think that you can keep up with and truly know them all is completely unreasonable. I’m convinced it really comes down to picking the few that you’re comfortable with, which could mean the real differentiating factor is in user interface; many of them seem to measure the same stuff.

Here’s Andy’s list of essential tools for social media monitoring:

• Google Alerts: to monitor a specific page, use this: site:domain.com search term
• Bloglines: a great place to dive into newer blogs and more obscure places online that Alerts may overlook.
• Twitter search: a true must-use tool these days.
• Keotag: this is a pretty nifty resource that allows you to easily search many different platforms at once. You can also download OPML files to batch together lots of feeds.
• NetVibes: Andy suggested this can be a great free dashboard for your monitoring efforts.
• Web Analytics

Andy was quick to point out that it’s not for a lack of tools where we all fail with our monitoring efforts, but it’s in what we do once we have the data. I’m often guilty of gathering data which I know is valuable, and then doing nothing with it or about it. Andy preached that you have to know who’s responsible to make this data available, specifically mentioning R&D, Sales and Marketing by name. Among all the other cool insights you can get out of social media monitoring, you can quickly spot changing sentiment regarding your brand, and you can quickly react by altering your marketing and PR messaging.

Finally, Andy spend the last portion of his workshop walking us through a demo of his new program, Trackur. Andy was gracious enough to give us 30 day trials of the premium version, and I’m just now starting to dig into it. I don’t have a lot of experience with other social media monitoring tools (I know, shame on me!), but this one seems pretty simple and yet still robust. A real attractive part is that there is a free version, and the premium version is not near as hefty as some of the better known tools on the market.

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This is one of many installments in my Optimization Summit recap, which took place March 23 -24, 2010, in Dallas, Texas.

After starting the conference off with making sure I was clear on the makings of a movement, I moved into a two-part, four hour workshop focused on how strategy, measurement and ROI all come together for social media. The workshop was led by Jason Falls, creator of SocialMediaExplorer.com. Jason had a lot of things going for him from the beginning for me. First, he’s a fellow Kentucky boy. Second, he’s had to have had two of the coolest jobs in the world: those being handling marketing and social media for both Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark. I also quickly appreciated his to-the-point demeanor and his unapologetic style for making said point.

With that said, he did apologize often for what he felt was a lot of him “talkboxing” from the front of the room, but I actually liked the presentation. Yes, anytime you talk about strategy, it can sound a little familiar and general, but it’s necessary. The reason people talk so much about strategy is because so few of us actually use it and plan. So I walked out of this four-hour marathon with a very clear framework for how to plan the right way, whether it has to do with social media or not.

Without further adieu, here are the big takeaways I received from Jason’s presentation, with my own comments following:

• If you don’t know why you need social media, then you can’t use it effectively. Jason stressed that you have to have a grip on what the tools are good at facilitating, and then figure out if that method will help you with your specific plan. Of course, if you don’t have a plan, then you try everything and have no way of knowing if it’s working or not, because you have nothing to measure against.
• Create your goals, then measurable objectives, then strategies to meet the objectives, then tactics to accomplish the strategies. Sounds kinda basic, huh? Well, I don’t know what it was, but hearing it laid out so succinctly made a light bulb sparkle above my head and then pull out a hammer and crack my skull, screaming, “You thick-headed idiot, you still don’t do it this way!” I daresay too many times we start at the wrong end, focusing on the tactics and hoping that the “doing” will help us figure it all out as we go. I’ll admit, there are certain (low-level) instances where this might be true, but not for the big stuff. Spending your time in planning is worth whatever pain or delays it may cause.
• Goals must be singular (there are no “ands” in goals). Jason explained that you must make goals singular, because next you have to figure out the objectives, strategies and tactics to accomplish them. So, for example, you can’t create a goal like “We must increase recruiting and sales.” You rather must create two goals: “We must increase recruiting. We must increase sales.” Then, you can create objectives, strategies and tactics specifically to increase recruiting, and another set to increase sales.
• Objectives must ….
  • Be measurable and specific
  • Indicate a target audience
  • List a realistic level of attainment (and realize it’s just a benchmark, and does not determine success or failure)
  • Have a deadline.
  • Point to one of three things:
    • Outputs
    • Outtakes
    • Outcomes
• Strategies cannot be built in a day. Too many of us either a) underestimate the time needed to fully think through our strategies, or b) forget to do it the right way and therefore squeeze it into our already crammed timelines.
• Social media is just a spoke in the wheel. As Jason talked through the nuts and bolts of true strategic planning, the idea of starting with “we’ve gotta start using social media” became dumber and dumber. Accept social media as a means to an end. Which means you need to figure out that end first. Too many people are giving it silver bullet status when they don’t know how to use the gun and they don’t have a target to aim for.
• Build appreciation. Jason shared that the goal for his personal use of social media is to elicit the response of “I really appreciate Jason Falls because he …..” He used the example of tweeting useful links out on a regular basis.
• Some great consumer insight tools Jason mentioned during his presentation:
  • Ask customers (Easiest and most important)
  • Pew Internet and American Life Project
  • Forrester Research
  • Emarketer.com
  • Compete
  • Quantcast
  • Traditional Companies (Nielsen)
  • Social Media Tools and Companies
    • SocialMention.com
    • Sysomos
    • Radian6
    • Google Alerts
    • ViralHeat.com
    • PeopleBrowsr
    • HubSpot
    • Visible Technologies
    • Cymfony
    • ScoutLabs
    • Trackur.com
• Conversation doesn’t ring the cash register. Jason warned us that he was going to give the social media hippies a hard time. While we could all make the case that conversation may indirectly lead to ringing cash registers, his quote of Eric Brown of Urbane apartments captured a mantra we must all keep top of mind: “Did we rent more apartments? If not, the practice of social media marketing is just a hobby.”
• Helping people buy. The average person on social media is not a social media purist. So don’t get too caught up in the philosophy of using the tool. While hard-selling on social media is frowned upon, it doesn’t mean that selling can’t occur. In Chris Heuer’s words, “Remember, it’s not about selling, but helping people buy.”
• 80% of corporate blog traffic is not part of your “community.” According to the Compendium Blogware Corporate Blog study of December 2009, 80% of a company’s blog traffic is landing on a specific post via search. So they don’t hang around to interact with fellow fans, and they usually don’t come back. They get what they were looking for and then they’re gone. So, don’t ignore the faithful 20%, but don’t overlook the majority. Plan, build and write accordingly.
• ROI is a term of corporate fear. ROI is only important if money is your goal. The answer to ‘what did I get?’ is ‘what were you trying to get?’ ROI is a business metric, not a media metric. Jason advised that ROI must be measured across the entire marketing plan, not a single slice.

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This is part of my extensive recap of the Optmization Summit in Dallas on March 23-24, 2010.

There were so many good workshops at OptSum happening concurrently that I almost felt I needed to apologize to some of the speakers for not making their seminars, only because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing another seminar that was happening at the same time. So my strategy for the week was to simply go see the speakers I was familiar with and trust that their topics would apply. Of course, even this strategy bit me square in the hind cheeks because I still missed John Jantsch (although I did buy a book), Mark Roberge of HubSpot, Giovanni Galucci, Jay Ehret and Eric Brown (who I wasn’t familiar with before the conference but it became clear that he’s yet another worthy wizard to keep up with).

But I was familiar with Brains on Fire, and had heard of Geno Church. So my first workshop was an easy choice. As I looked around the room and saw such marketing luminaries as Mack Collier, Christopher S. Penn, Duncan Alney and Lionel Menchaca, I knew I had surely made a good choice.

My limited but albeit impressionable exposure to Brains on Fire in the past is mostly due to Spike Jones. I heard Spike speak at a Direct Selling Association back in 2005 or 2006 (where, ironically, the main topic of discussion before Spike spoke was how to chorale disgruntled bloggers. Suffice it to say that was not his topic), and then began reading more of him and his fellow colleagues at Brains on Fire. My minute exposure to the Brains on Fire crew has left me with this impression: there are lots of companies out there right now waxing poetic about storytelling; Brains on Fire actually does it and does it well. They literally are masters of clarifying the story and then finding the most effective ways to tell it. Geno Church only confirmed this half-baked impression for me.

Social Media Agnosticism

Right away, Geno made one thing clear: “I am a social media agnostic.” I think it’s interesting that 2010 is becoming the year where people are realizing that, well, it’s people that still make the difference in social media. In other words, social media can be a means to an end, but those who succeed in this space are only using the tools to drive more connections and interactions between real people. Geno talked quite a bit about how we’re “getting lost in the tactics.” And what else would you expect from a true storyteller.

Geno spent a good portion of his time pulling examples from two clients: Fiskars Scissors and Best Buy Musical Instruments. First, let me say that I had no idea Best Buy had a musical instrument department. Being a musician, Geno at the least can tell his client that his speech made a potential customer aware. In addition, Geno showed how something as mundane and ordinary as a pair of scissors can actually tell a great story and fuel a thriving community.  Geno used these examples to show the differences between a movement and a campaign.

The Makings of a Movement

With that said, here are my key takeaways from Geno’s workshop, paired with my own thoughts and reactions:

1. 90% of Word of Mouth Marketing still occurs offline. I’m not surprised by the principle behind this, but I am shocked by the lopsided stat. It only supports the idea that our online efforts work best when they introduce us to more friends and fans, which then hopefully sparks an offline relationship of some sort.
2. Campaigns have a beginning and end; movements go on as long as the community wants it to. I think it’s also important to realize most campaigns make a big splash at the beginning, whereas movements sometimes start with a groundswell.
3. Campaigns are created; movements evolve.
4. Campaigns have a switch; movements have a volume knob. This visualization is one of the big three takeaways I had from Geno’s talk. This one will stick with me because I think it does such a great job at capturing the biggest difference between a movement and a campaign.
5. Movements are built on passion. To restate the obvious, if there is no passion, there is no movement. Too many companies try to force a movement out of something that no one cares about.
6. Movements begin with the first conversation. Here’s a question: should companies try to be a part of that first conversation, or try to find the first conversation?
7. Movements have inspirational leadership. Geno had a supporting point that “passion cannot be made; influence can.” This is one of those statements that sounded OK when I first heard, but as it marinated in my feeble brain, it became more and more profound. Realize that influence is as good as it gets when it comes to what you can nurture and create. Too many of us are trying to spark passion, when we really have no ability to do it.
8. Movements have a barrier of entry. Geno made a point that people who can jump right into the movement can easily jump right out. It’s important to require some skins in the game before you’re a welcome member of the group. It assures that you’re getting people who are passionate about the movement and more likely to fan the flame.
9. Movements empower people with knowledge.
10. Movements have powerful identities.
11. Movements encourage ownership. Are you OK if members of your movement mess with your logo? Make it their own? You kinda have to be (because they’re going to do it anyway). Even if it’s misguided ownership, you still need to encourage it rather than squash it. In Geno’s words, “Build it like it’ll live forever; build it like you’ll run out of money tomorrow. “
12. Movements make advocates and members feel like rock stars. Mack Collier’s presentation was completely how to make this come to life, so more on that soon.
13. Movements live online AND offline. I would daresay if it doesn’t live in both places, then it’s not a movement. Movements should transcend distribution channels. Geno added a stat that is quite compelling, in that Fiskateers share Fiskars with eight to 10 people per month.
14. Movements get results.

Clearly, this seminar was crammed with great info. The amazing thing is Geno went on to share some stats and figures that really showed how these movements create incredible results.

One story Geno told was about Love 146, a non-profit organization with the mission of ending child sex slavery and exploitation. The Love 146 video says everything, and it almost brought me to tears. As moving as the video was, Geno extracted an excellent marketing truth: your identity can spark your storytelling. Once you’ve seen the Love 146 video, this makes sense. How can your name and identity get people to ask you tell your story?

A big thanks to Geno for an amazing workshop, and for sticking around the entire conference and attending workshops yourself.

Next up: Jason Falls. Be sure to read all of my Optimization Summit reviews as they go live.

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My brain hurts.

I spent the past two days sitting at the feet of several social media studs and stallions, and my cerebellum is literally throbbing. And it somehow all happened at a conference targeted for property managers, of all things.

Multifamily Pro hosted a truly all-star event in Dallas this week known as Optimization Summit. The format featured four to five two-hour workshops at a time, featuring topics on branding to pricing to SEO to email marketing to social media planning. Held at the Sheraton, the relatively small group (my guess is around 200 folks, yes?) were treated to learning and insights like I’ve never seen at a conference. Huge kudos to Tami and the Multifamily Pro team for pulling this off.

So here’s my plan: since it would be a horrible idea for me to cram all of my ideas into a single blog post, I’ll spend the next week sprinkling in my takeaways from the workshops I attended, which included ….

1. Geno Church: People are the Killer App
2. Jason Falls: Social Media Strategy, Measurement and ROI
3. Andy Beal: Social Media Monitoring Tools
4. Christopher S. Penn: Email Marketing and Customer Retention
5. Mack Collier: Think Like a Rockstar
6. Erica Campbell: Video and Photo Sharing for Optimal Growth

As the posts go live, the text above will be linked, so at least keep an eye on this page. Or, just subscribe to the blog and be lazy.

All in all, this Dallas conference was truly way more than I expected.  If you were there, what was your biggest takeaway?

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Let’s face it: Dallas is not the “early adopter” of metro areas. Most big cities beat us to the punch. With that said, there’s a nice little groundswell of activity in the works right now around social media and marketing. These upcoming events in the Dallas area are proof.

Social Media Events in Dallas (Spring 2010)

1. Ignite Dallas – March 3: Ignite is hitting DFW for the first time. This should be a pretty cool event. I’m honored to actually be on of the 16 speakers on tap.
2. Social Media Club Dallas March Tweetup – March 10: This club is really starting to grow. Check out Social Media Club Dallas for more info.
3. Jason Falls at Social Media Club monthly meeting – March 23.
   
4. Optimization Summit Dallas – March 23 -24: This event is gonna be freakin’ unbelievable. Giovanni Galucci, John Jantsch, Mack Collier and lots of others.
5. PubCon Dallas – April 13-15: The mothership of all things search and social?

Do you know of any other events coming to Dallas soon?

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