Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

Thank you, Mom.

Both my mother (a long-time journalist) and I are members of the AWC (Association for Women in Communications.)

This year, Mom noticed that there was a new category, Personal Blogs, in the Online Media section of AWC’s annual Clarion communications awards.

She encouraged me to enter this blog in competition for a Clarion.

Like a good Mom, she then followed up just before the deadline to ensure I’d entered. I’d totally forgotten, of course, and had to race off to the post office to mail in my paperwork.

So, it was pretty cool to attend the 2011 AWC National Conference in Tulsa with Mom last month, have her in the room when I spoke with Maria Henneberry about more effective webinars, and then turn around and win the Clarion for Sheila’s Guide.

Thank you to all of my readers for your support since I launched the blog in September 2008, and thanks, Mom, for always encouraging me to excel.

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I recently went against my own rules about working for free, but the result was winning a contest, connecting with a probable client and confirming in my own head that getting started with any organization’s social media strategy is actually pretty simple.

Here’s the story….

Every year, I always make time to go to SOBCon – a “think tank” event. It’s all about businesses, communities and customers, online and off and the attendees are some incredible people.  Founded by my friends Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker, the main conference is in Chicago (it’s April 29 – May 1 in 2011) and there’s also a smaller one in Colorado.

The Set-Up

One of the sponsors is Carlsen Resources, Inc (CRI), an executive search firm in global media and telecommunications. In fall 2010 they supported a SOBCon social media strategy contest:

“The prize? A FREE trip to our flagship event, SOBCon 2011 in Chicago!  (registration, 3 night’s hotel, air up to $750)

The contest? Propose, in 500 words or less, a Social Media strategy for Carlsen Resources.

How will the winner be selected? A team at Carlsen Resources will review and determine which proposal best suits their business. The SOBCon social media team will act in an advisory role only.”

Carlsen wants to connect with their market AND do a better job of reaching out to those who spend time on the social Web, particularly younger people. Pretty straightforward, and similar to the goals of many organizations these days who “know they need to do something besides having a website.”

I was reluctant to spend valuable time on this project without a paycheck at the other end – heck, I’m even doing a webinar about avoiding “brain-picking” as a freelancer/entrepreneur – but was intrigued by the deceptively simple premise and the opportunity to have my conference expenses covered. SOBCon is an amazing value, but it’s not cheap.

The Strategic Approach & Framework

Since I normally don’t work in the executive recruiting industry, the contest offered an opportunity to do some higher level thinking; to see if I could take a simple framework that I use with Tourism Currents, and apply it outside of our normal focus on tourism, hospitality and economic development.

The strategy?

It all boils down to four very basic questions:

1) Who is the market for Carlsen?

2) What sort of people are their customers?

3) Where are they right now on the social Web (and where might they go in the near future?)

4)  How can Carlsen best engage with them there?

That’s it. Anyone can ask these questions of any person or organization that wants to establish a presence using social media.

The value I brought was in knowing the organization (I did my homework to learn as much as I could about Carlsen and about their market) AND knowing the cultures of the different social media spaces to determine the best fit, which comes from spending one hell of a lot of time online since I started a family travel blog in early 2006.

The Recommendation

So, what did I recommend?  Drumroll….

A much more wide-ranging and effective company presence on LinkedIn, and that they start a high-level blog about C-suite issues in their market and industries of interest.

Yep, that’s it. That’s what makes sense for their market, and would make the best use of their time and brainpower.

To some people, these may seem to be absurdly simple ideas, but anyone who knows what they’re doing knows that a lot goes into creating an “effective presence” on LinkedIn, and a TON of effort goes into a really solid blog that hits C-suite issues.

At some point, a Facebook Page for the business would be good (I did point out that one of their competitors has a lively Page) and then a Twitter account plus participation in industry-related chats like #TNL, #CareerChat and #LeadershipChat.

BUT….only when it makes sense for reaching their market and only if they have the time and commitment to making the content on all channels absolutely top-notch.

Thanks so much to Carlsen for sponsoring SOBCon and financially supporting my participation in one of my very favorite events.

(Update:  Wow, had to come back and add these Mack Collier thoughts on How to Fix a Broken Social Media Strategy – he reminds his readers that strategy comes first, then the tactics (social media channels) to implement that strategy. He also suggests ways to measure your impact and success/failure. Great post, Mack!)

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In a previous post, I wrote pretty frankly about how to reach out to bloggers, and what makes us crazy.

Since I still get this question a LOT, it might be time to revisit the issue. Because the answer is simple in concept but somewhat time-consuming and difficult to execute, many won’t follow through, but here we go….

The magic bullets are these, from the perspective of one who has been blogging on various topics for almost five years now:

1)  Interact with bloggers on their turf, which usually means their blog, at a minimum, but often now includes Twitter, possibly Facebook, YouTube or Flickr if they’re an avid photographer.  You “interact” by being yourself, and leaving thoughtful comments on some of their blog posts, or bantering on Twitter, or leaving a comment on a few of their Flickr photos that you like. Be where they are, in their online neighborhoods.

Heck, get some cred and start blogging yourself, like savvy PR, marketing and communications practitioners Kami Huyse, Jason Falls, Liz Strauss, Valeria Maltoni, Tom Martin, Shannon Paul and Aaron Strout.

Don’t just parachute in and out of my email IN box or you’ll get nothing but Delete out of me.

2)  Interact with bloggers offline at the events they like to attend; it’s why tech conferences matter to non-techies.

Consider BlogWorld and New Media Expo, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), BlissDom, SOBCon, BlogHer, travel bloggers at TBEX, the Midwest’s I_Blog Conference plus numerous lower-key gatherings like Social Media Breakfast or local tweetups, Social Media Clubs and hacker groups.

We do that social networking thing IRL (in real life) too.

3)  Build a human relationship BEFORE you start lobbing pitches. Good practitioners have always known this; the social Web doesn’t change the need to “dig your well before you’re thirsty.”

Brands, think long and hard about why you want to “join the conversation” and how you want to connect what you offer and your company’s values with those “influencers” (getting really tired of this hackneyed term) who have painstakingly built independent voices online.

Bloggers, think long and hard before you let your voice and your blog become just another marketing mouthpiece.  Look for mutually beneficial relationships. Pam Mandel built one with TravelWild and several bloggers connected with Gap Adventures as “Wanderers in Residence.”

Want to know the glamorous story of how online influencers got so much, er, influence?

By busting their tails for many hours….often for little or no money in return….back when everyone thought they were nutballs (including most brands)….to create great content, be a helpful resource and do the networking necessary to become known and yes, influential, in the space you now seek to enter.

Welcome to the salt mines; here’s your pick-axe.

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This was the generation that saw the Soviet Union launch the beach ball-sized Sputnik I spacecraft in 1957. That moment was a turning point in the life of then 10th-grader Homer Hickam, author of the book Rocket Boys and subsequent movie October Sky.

Sputnik motivated Hickam and an entire nation to embrace technology, kick-start the “space race” and put a man on the moon by 1969.

Boomers were the original geeks.

They watched the earliest television programming (including Star Trek starting in 1966) then bought the first color TVs.  They saw increasingly more sophisticated cars on the road, a telephone installed in every house and electricity delivered to every nook and cranny of the nation.

Their superb tech heritage is going by the wayside, however, as many are letting themselves be Sputnik’d….surprised and intimidated….by thumb-texting, Facebook-ing, tweeting younger folks.

There was a time when this generation led the way in technical prowess, and not just those in their 20′s and 30′s.  Grace Hopper was writing and creating the COBOL programming language in 1955, when she was 49 – which is my age right now.

Too often, I see my peers and older Boomers wave their hands helplessly about computers, smartphones, digital cameras and social media.

They say, “I’m not really a tech person” or “I don’t understand this stuff” or “I don’t want to mess with this. I’m too old, I guess.”

With their combination of life experience, perspective and tech-savvy history, they could run rings around all of the young punks.   Psychology Today says that:

“Baby Boomers are not the Luddites that some media critics seem to suggest, and in fact are very plugged in to technology adoption, something that marketing initiatives have yet to reflect.”

Good!

Show me more of these plugged-in folks, like boomer travel blogger Donna Hull, or business analyst Miss Dazey or communications wizard Connie Reece. Maybe the helpless hand-wavers I’m seeing are not the norm.

I’d love for that to be true.

We are excited to announce that doors are now open for another round of online classes at Tourism Currents.

There are usually three problems with most social media training:

• It is too basic and generic
• It is too advanced and nerdy
• ….or it is well-balanced, but not tailored to a specific industry

Tourism Currents is different. Here are more details about why we get straight to the heart of real tourism results.

My co-founder Becky McCray and I run a unique, high-energy learning community that is hyper-focused on teaching tourism and hospitality industry professionals how to use that big pile of social media tools (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) to more effectively tell the stories of their destinations and attractions.

We get specific about topics like how to use Twitter for fall foliage reports, how to use Facebook to promote your festival and what’s important for a successful blogger press trip/fam tour.

Compelling stories convince people to visit your town. The social Web is the ideal place to tell those stories (it’s made for the tourism little guy, too) and it connects with others who love and support you….we call them your “online champions network.”

Our courses help you make sense of it all.

They are organized to provide basic social media overview information to those who need it (through a quick Intro Workshop or a three-part All the Basics course) or more advanced how-to specifics to those who are ready for it through the three-part Results Multipliers class (which dives deep into unique destination marketing topics like mobile-friendly tours.)

If you are geared up to really make things happen for the long haul, the Tourism Currents six month Full Course combines the Basic and Multipliers, then throws in the Intro Workshop as a bonus.

Every course is a combination of multi-part lessons, exclusive videos with experts and a wrap-up printable checklist, plus there’s a member forum for detailed discussions.

We hope you’ll join us soon at Tourism Currents!

The Austin American-Statesman launched the Texas Social Media Awards last year, and I’m humbled to tell you that the 2010 award winners were just announced and I’m one of the awardees.

Thanks very much to the judges on the Statesman staff and to those who supported my nomination.

It is truly an honor to be recognized in such a constantly-changing space and with so many other fine people.

From the paper’s article about the Awards:

“In the year since the awards were first held, social media sites increasingly have become a part of daily life. ‘We’ve gone from people who were early adopters and having fun with the technology to people using it for business and nonprofits in ways I’ve never even thought of before,’ says American-Statesman social media editor Robert Quigley.”

I sincerely hope that my work in the social Web is helpful to the tourism and travel communities.

Take a gander at the list of awardees to appreciate the variety of folks, and allow me to give a special shout-out to a few of them….

1. Michelle Greer – last year’s overall winner and one of this year’s judges. A tireless advocate of using tech for worthy causes and an expert on cloud computing with Rackspace.
2. Jennifer Navarrete – A good friend and occasional business colleague, Jennifer is the driving force behind much of San Antonio’s tech scene, plus she’s a dynamite podcaster at (among other shows) Tech in Twenty.
3. Dara Quackenbush – Dara is a PR professor at Texas State, and I love watching how she brings her students into modern PR, done right. Here’s her class blog where they practice what they learn.
4. Jenn Dearing Davis and Hayes Davis – They tweet and tell us about good deals, on CheapTweet. They appreciate all of us on a budget. They are super-nice. Drawbacks = none.
5. Mando Rayo – He investigates the local taco scene, then blogs about it on Taco Journalism.  He told me that my best local taco joint is Juarez Mexican Bakery, and when Mando tells me where to go, I go. I eat. I’m happy.
6. Hugh MacLeod – He draws quirky cartoons at Gaping Void. He does marketing for a South African winery from his location in Alpine, Texas; hey, it’s the Web so it makes sense to me.

I’m thrilled to be in such company, and thanks again for your support.

We did it.

Our Tourism Currents online learning community launched on September 9 – Becky McCray and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

We’re offering a newsletter, monthly training lessons, exclusive video interviews with experts in the social media and tourism fields, a member’s Forum plus live hour-long video Q&A sessions.

These are the organizations and people that we think would find our membership site particularly helpful:

• Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs)
• Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs)
• State and city governments who do marketing and outreach related to tourism
• Main Street, historic preservation, heritage trail and historic highway organizations
• Parks, nature preserves, botanical gardens and other nature/outdoors-related attractions, including scenic byways
• Public Relations professionals who do tourism work
• Chambers of Commerce
• Those with niche focus like agritourism, culinary tourism, arts/culture, sports/adventure and educational travel
• Festival and event planners
• Attractions, museums, lodging etc. that depend upon tourist traffic

If you’d like to know more, go here to see if Tourism Currents is right for you.

Thanks for your support!

I attended an excellent Network in Austin “Netstorming” session this week (my first one since joining the paid membership community) and I listened carefully to our table facilitator, Amy Hardin of acSELLerate, to learn more about sales.

Do I know diddly about sales?  Nope, not much, which is precisely why I chose to sit at that table.

There is a language to learn – “funnel,” “conversion,” “revenue recognition,” “added value propositions,” “price sensitive,” etc.  Bonus….now I am better armed for playing Marketing Bingo.

There is a standard sales process – prospecting for clients, “qualifying” them as good targets,  demonstrating the value of your product and proposing it to them, closing the deal and setting up for repeat business.

When you are speaking to a large group of your target market, and you do a good job of presenting yourself and your expertise, your audience is a bunch of “ripe bananas” in terms of being open to a discussion with you about your product or service,  but you have to move fast to catch them at that ripeness point (within 24-48 hours, even faster if you can do it) to get wallets to open.

A lot of this seemed very rote, mechanistic and manipulative, and it left me feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

So, as I usually do with such a visceral reaction, I’ve sat around for a couple of days mentally poking at those feelings of discomfort.

Here’s what I think, and this of course assumes (duh) that you have an outstanding product, service or feature that you back to the hilt and believe in:

You Do Need A Sales Process

One of Amy’s “money quotes” from our discussion was that you….

“….must have a sales process, a plan. Just saying ‘I’ll do some networking and depend on word-of-mouth’ is NOT a sales process.”

Break down each of the steps.

Lay out very specifically how you want to go from finding clients to closing a sale with them.  As Amy says, “Get incredibly granular.”

How will you prospect for clients? Networking might be fine as a part of the Prospecting phase, but where are you networking, how are you networking and what do you do with the business cards or interaction that may result?

How do you follow up with prospects? How will you know when you find likely customers;  i.e., how will you qualify them as appropriate candidates to buy your product or service?  What are your customers’ pain points and how can your product or service solve their problems?

Newsflash – your ideas or service or product are great, but if you want to make money with that passion, you have to sell it to someone. You know, for money.

You Don’t Have To Bruise Your Bananas To Sell To Them

Closing a sale means that you have convinced someone that what you can do for them will solve their problems.  That’s a nice feeling.  It’s better than mechanistic banana-harvesting in my mind, but the fact is that it is easier to sell when you catch people at the right moment.

Me, for example.

I stood in CVS Pharmacy the other day looking at a Olay moisturizer that is, ahem, targeted to my 40+ age group.  I have other products in their line and I like them. The price was reasonable, but even better was a shelf coupon on the moisturizer that halved the price.

I was a ripe banana right then, honey. I bought that “hope in a jar” and was happy to do so. In sales parlance, it “met my value proposition” even though I’m very “price sensitive.”

If you’re like me, you’d prefer to see people as humans rather than ripe bananas, so inject humanity into your sales process.

Certainly you should have a plan – a mechanism – that helps you stay on track and know where you’re going, but never lose sight of your customers as people.  They are not simply fruit in your sales funnel, no matter how desperate you may be to sell stuff and make money and pay the light bill.

The best ripe banana customer is one who doesn’t mind being picked, because you’ve done a thorough and honest job of convincing them that you’re worth cracking open that wallet.

Does that help take some of the possible “ick” out of sales for you?

The process of moving all of my previous content over here was ridiculously easy (thank you, WordPress code gals and guys!) but I ought to stop while I’m ahead and get some sleep.

I haven’t yet sorted out the sidebar very well, so RSS subscriptions and email sign-ups are still rather a mess, but I’ll get it figured out.

You know how it is when you move to a new place, and all you want to do the first night is get the beds set up and made?

That’s where I am….tomorrow will be the pots and pans….

Welcome to Sheila Guides You To The Good Stuff,  where we’ll be talking about using the social Web (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for better travel, tourism and destination marketing and economic development.

This blog will be my new “home” for that topic, but right now it is a temporary placeholder for my WordPress.com blog of the same name.

I will move all of my other Sheila Guides…. content over here very soon, plus (I hope!) all of my RSS and email subscribers, too.  This is a self-hosted blog on BlueHost, which means I pay for it but get more features and control than the WordPress.com blog, which is free but has some limitations.

I will need that control when I launch a new business in September, Tourism Currents, with Becky McCray.

Moving Day is planned for either Monday or Tuesday, July 13 or 14, with the help of my WordPress guru friend Jennifer Navarrete.

I expect some broken crockery, smooshed boxes and empty rolls of packing tape laying about, so please excuse the mess!

Thanks,

Sheila Scarborough (who guides you to the good stuff)