Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

In a crisis, you need to move fast.

You need to communicate what you know, even if what you have to tell people is, “We honestly don’t know.”

The comfy, safe idea of communicating by committee and parsing every word for weeks has got to go out of the window.

Mostly, though, just follow some advice from U.S. General George S. Patton….

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

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After a whirlwind week in Manhattan at the East Coast version of New Media Expo/NMX presented by BlogWorld (NMX is the new name for BlogWorld & New Media Expo) here are a few takeaways that you may find useful:

** From our Tourism Currents and Culinary Media Network panel about press trips and fam (familiarization) tours — destinations are opening up to bringing bloggers, podcasters and other online publishers on press trips, but there are still lots of questions about how to connect with bloggers and what makes us different from print-only writers.

We told the audience to start with their own local tourism organizations, that they may need to educate those people about online content and not to worry if they never thought of themselves as a “travel blogger” – every niche blogger/podcaster can find a destination that’s a good fit….food, birding, microbrewing, parenting, crafting….whatever an online publisher’s expertise, there’s a destination that fits.

The gap that needs to be filled is educating DMOs (destination marketing organizations) about how to work with online publishers – including the local bloggers right under their noses – and educating the online publishers that DMOs and CVBs (Convention and Visitors Bureaus) exist and are a possible content partner.

** From Chris Penn’s solo presentation on social ROI and measurement — be able to define, “What are the most valuable actions that someone could take when they come to my site?” Then, define your desired outcomes and measure via analytics whether people are actually doing those things. If they aren’t, adjust.

I liked Chris’ advice to “create routines around your practices;” a daily recipe for content across all channels, and consider how they all tie together and support each other.

Here’s a direct link to his presentation on SlideShare: Your Digital Marketing ROI

** Speaker advice from me after one egregious session: Not knowing your audience annoys everyone.  Filling the first part of your presentation with slides about “why social media is important and awesome” is a waste when you’re speaking at Blog – doggone – WORLD.

Hey, we GOT it already.

Also, when you keep saying “leverage influencers” to an audience of influencers, we want to smack you. We’re humans, not just objects of your crowbar “leveraging” initiatives.

** Expo floor advice from me: Here’s a hipster move that makes you look like a schmuck….the giveaway t-shirts from France-based blogging platform Overblog that said, “I’m on @Overblog, Bitch!”

Really.

Apparently it’s based on the “I’m CEO, bitch!” that was on one of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s early business cards. Yep, I’m always recommending Zuckerberg as the essence of maturity and social savvy.

As a woman, I do wonder why some think it’s cute to say, “bitch.”  Why is it never “bastard?” Or “dickhead?” Or even nonsexist “asshole?”

Eye roll. Moving on….

** I truly enjoyed Jay Baer’s session on 12 things you must do if you are serious about blogging, especially his self-deprecating opening line that “It’s actually scary to speak about blogging at BlogWorld” because the room is full of people who really know the topic.

I’ve embedded his slide deck below, but here are my favorites:

Number One: Be Patient. He said, “It was exactly 3 years before I made my first nickel” directly from his blog (it was from a sponsorship.) Also, “You can’t eat pageviews” so don’t get so obsessed about traffic numbers. You want the RIGHT traffic.

Number Two: Be Specific. He said, “You have to be somebody’s favorite blog” and “Say to yourself, ‘This is the blog for ______.” Know what you are about, and “everything” isn’t the answer very often.

For people who worry about giving away their “secret sauce” on a blog: “Giving someone a list of ingredients doesn’t make him/her a chef.”

Number Ten: Keep Score. Know what you want from your blog, and measure the data/analytics to ensure you’re getting there. If not, change what you’re doing.

He said, “There is no shortage of data points, but only some of them matter….even if you don’t sell directly online, there are behaviors that matter to your business/organization. Measure them.” For a destination marketing example, measure the number of visits to your newsletter landing page and the number of conversions, in addition to how people find that page.

Direct link to Jay’s presentation if you can’t see the slides below: http://www.slideshare.net/jaybaer/12-imperative-must-dos-for-the-serious-blogger

Summary of the Wrap-up

Finally:  I’ve known NMX BlogWorld co-founder Rick Calvert a long time. He’s a stand-up guy who rolls up his sleeves and answers questions in Facebook Groups, blog posts, on Twitter and in person.

He’s also a visionary who is pushing social communications into the future.  Even better, his organization now owns the TBEX travel blogging events worldwide, so I get to be around him even more.

Get to know Rick, and get yourself to an NMX BlogWorld event as soon as you can.

The next NMX?  January 6 – 8, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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An interview in the business section of my local paper featured strategist Peter Kim discussing business and social media.

Nothing in it was particularly new or striking unless, frankly, one has not been paying attention to recent seismic shifts in communications, but the final Q and A bothered me….

Q from the reporter: Does Austin have potential to become a social media hub?

A from Mr. Kim: Austin businesses were definitely early pioneers in the social space. Bazaarvoice and Pluck were helping companies connect with online users before the phrase “social media” was in vogue. But far and away, Austin’s most powerful global door opener is SXSW Interactive. Around the world, that’s one of the first things people mention when they find out I’m from Austin. We could easily leverage that recognition and our local talent to become the social media capital of the world.

In my view, no one location should endeavor to be “social media capital of the world.”

That’s like saying you want to be the Email Capital of the World.

The Telephone Capital of the World  (smart words from Liz Strauss on social business, “In any sentence that uses the term ‘social media,’ you should be able take out that term and replace it with ‘telephone,’ and the sentence should still make sense.”)

The Pen Capital of the World….actually that used to be Birmingham in the UK….here’s the Pen Room Museum about it….Squirrel!!

ANYWAY.

Social communication is far more than tools like Twitter, Facebook or blogs;  it is also a culture and a set of expectations.

Open. Public. Full of comment boxes. Sharing. Visual through images and video. Worldwide. Not particularly interested in hierarchy. Collaborative. Willing to take public feedback even when it is negative. Responsive. Linking. Connecting. Listening. Increasingly mobile. Fast.

It is a way of thinking and a way of communicating, and it is rapidly becoming the norm. If it is not your town’s norm right now, it will be.

Every town. Everywhere.

That – rather than the latest Facebook design change or other twaddle – is what people need to come to grips with and understand and prepare for, and they need to do it sooner rather than later.

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There’s a lot of buzz about the infographic to the left that shows many of the different social media marketing-related tools and services that have sprung up in the last few years.

Note:  it is missing Pinterest and Foodspotting, and possibly others.

Some say that the image demonstrates how “insane” and “ludicrously complex” it is to be a marketer these days.

I say that it’s not much different from the horrified squawking we heard when Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas created the original big, scary social media Conversation Prism infographic in August 2008.

To see the big picture in all this, stick with the forest and not the trees. That infographic is a bunch of trees.

Focus on the Fundamentals

Yes, there are a lot more moving parts in the communications world today beyond print, TV and radio, but that does not change the fundamental questions and actions for destination marketing or ANY sort of marketing, which are….

“Where is my market spending its time, and how are they making decisions about travel [or whatever is your focus]?” and then making sure you are both present where they are, and visible as an option in their decision-making process.

That is not new, but the speed with which you must flex to emerging communications platforms is new; the rapid growth of Pinterest and social mobile photography sharing like Instagram and Foodspotting are cases in point.

Don’t let new toys distract you from keeping your eye on the ball, however.

I hardly spend any time on Google+, for example, (in fact I think Google+ will fail) because my market is not there. Further, Google has a crummy track record with social, and their corporate DNA hasn’t changed since Buzz, Wave, Sidewiki, Knol, etc. all bombed.

What IS Google good at? Search.

I’ve acknowledged that current reality by thoroughly filling out both personal and business profiles on G+ purely for SEO purposes, and occasionally I post something on G+ just for drill. I will not let myself get sidetracked fiddling with something that is useless to my work.

Social Media Complexity & the ROI Bugaboo

Another response I heard about the graphic: “This shows why ROI is hard to prove.” Hmmm, not really.

The standard ROI mathematical formula has not changed; it is still Investment Gains minus Cost of Investment, divided by Cost of Investment.

Whether you use one of the infographic’s tools or all of them, you cannot measure Gains – your investment bringing positive results – or decide whether those results are worth the cost you must pay unless you first establish goals to achieve, and then choose metrics/KPIs to track to see if you’re achieving those goals.

The need to have goals, and metrics to measure progress toward goals, is not changed by some scary-looking pile of social media tools and platforms.

And no;  raw numbers of Facebook Page or Twitter followers do not prove anything except perhaps the ROI of an elementary school education – we can successfully count!  :)

Sorry, But Suck It Up

It is our J-O-B job to stay up to speed in our profession.  To do that for social media, find scouts and mentors who can alert you to potentially important developments, track of-the-moment info via conference and chat Twitter hashtags and go where the geeks are both online and offline to keep up.

If you looked at the infographic above and hardly recognized any of the services, that means you need a better way to stay plugged in to social communications developments, because there aren’t many surprises up there.

Sorry to sound harsh, but there it is.

None of us know everything….it’s the ones who know what they don’t know, and then hustle to intelligently keep filling those knowledge gaps, who will succeed in our complex world.

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I hear this a lot: “My organization/association/industry doesn’t really use social media, but maybe we should. Can you come speak to our group about it?”

When I hear that, it’s akin to waving a red cape in front of a bull, because that is like saying to me:

“My organization/association/industry doesn’t really do any networking, or professional development, or lead generation, or marketing, or training, or Search Engine Optimization but maybe we should….what do you think?”

AAAGGHH.

OK, I’m back. I’m over it.

First, semantics. The term “social media” is too limiting – I’d rather use “social communications” or “the social web” – but then no one would know what I’m talking about.

So, if I can’t change the phrase, I want to change the perception of it.

Social media is a tool (only one of many tools!) that can help tremendously with basic business and organizational functions like networking, communications, professional development, etc.

Strategy – Planning – Execution

When I prepare one of these presentations, I start at the top by talking about how to set up a broad-brush social media / social communications strategy, which for me boils down to asking four very basic questions:

1) Who is the market, or who are the customers/members?

2) What sort of people are those customers or members? (Sometimes it helps to create a composite person, a persona, to represent a typical customer.  For a tourism organization, it’s identifying your ideal visitor.)

3) Where is that market active right now on the social web (and where might they go in the near future?)

4)  How can your particular organization or business best engage with them where they are right now?

That’s it. Really. No magic beans.

Once you’ve nailed that down, then do four more things to implement that strategy:

1)  Go where your market is, and observe/listen to what they’re talking about.

2)  Based on where they are active and what they’re talking about, set up your system to engage. If your market is only really busy on LinkedIn, then fine, decide how you wish to incorporate LinkedIn activities into your overall communications strategy. When you set up your system, do not forget to establish goals. What do you want to get out of this engagement?

3)  Now, engage. Answer questions. Provide resources. Be helpful. Leave comments. Do not broadcast the usual corporate gobbledygook - it doesn’t work in social media. ENGAGE.

4)  Monitor and measure the effectiveness of your efforts. This is how you determine the ROI (Return on Investment) of your time, energy and any money you spend. Remember how you set goals two steps ago? When you set a goal, you must decide the metrics you’ll use to measure whether you’re achieving the goal or not.

I know, DUH, right?  Well, I wouldn’t lay it all out like this if I didn’t see so many who don’t do some or all of it.

Overcoming Skepticism

Now that the audience is (hopefully) convinced that even social media requires some basic strategizing and thought, I then try to “make it real” for their particular industry.

For me to be believable to audiences who think that social media is something that other industries do, but oh no, not their industry, I need to show them real examples of real people in their industry getting real value out of social media.

To do that, I go off and find the online places where their industry peers are hanging out.

**  Blogs. I go to Alltop.com and type in some industry keywords. For a recent presentation to the Austin chapter of the SMPS (Society of Marketing Professional Services) I wanted blogs relating to their clientele in A/E/C (Architecture/Engineering/Construction) so I tried “construction,” “building,” “civil engineering” and “architecture.”

That brought back the Construction, Masonry, Plumbing, Architecture and Engineering channels. Some had better blogs and news feeds than others, but it got SMPS started in seeing who’s exchanging what kind of information in their line of work. Here’s the Faith Technologies Electrical Contractor blog, for example.

**  LinkedIn.  I go to LinkedIn and look for Groups related to both the markets and the professional associations for my audience. For the SMPS, I showed them the A/E/C LinkedIn Group and a LinkedIn Answers construction-related discussion.

**  Facebook. I go to Facebook and a few search engines and again search industry-related keywords. For the SMPS, I liked the Sloan Valve Company Facebook Page, “Delivering pioneered products for the complete restroom solution.” Yes, toilets on Facebook. Huzzah!

….and so on, through all the major social media channels plus a few extras that I can usually find.

I love the moment when the audience’s eyes bug out at the possibilities  :)  but that’s when I remind them to only spend time and effort in a way that makes sense for their strategy and implementation plan.

Below is my slide deck for SMPS; note that many of the slide info bullets are hyperlinked. Here’s the direct link to the A/E/C marketing preso on SlideShare if you can’t see the embed box.

How do YOU convince skeptics?

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In today’s world of free, easy-to-use networking tools with worldwide reach, associations and other fee-based groups (like a member-based DMO) must prove their value over and over to those who pay membership dues.

I was acutely conscious of this when I joined the AWC (Association for Women in Communications) National Board of Directors in the fall of 2011;  I asked the Board to let me see how we could use social media tools to foster a better, more valued sense of AWC community at the national level.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to start an #awcchat on Twitter.

Those of you who know me, know that I’m a big fan of Twitter, where I’ve been @SheilaS  since September 2007.

It’s one of the most powerful professional development tools I’ve ever encountered, particularly because of the regularly scheduled Twitter chats on many different topics. For my own business, #tourismchat is invaluable. The US National Trust for Historic Preservation runs #builtheritage. For farmers, ranchers and rural people, it’s #agchat. For bloggers it’s #blogchat. And so on….

I wanted a place to discuss general communications issues, and I wanted it to involve not only AWC chapters and members, but anyone who wanted to participate. By making it an open chat, it could not only nurture the current AWC community, but might also draw new members and make people more aware of us.

The Board agreed, so I canvassed the people I know who run chats, got some advice and set up an @AWCchat Twitter account as a first step.

[For the rest of this post, please see The Best Hour of Your Week: #awcchat on Twitter on the AWC Austin blog, and thanks for your interest!]

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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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This week we are mailing out our first family holiday letter in ages.

I used to do this every single year.  I won’t say like clockwork, because when I got around to sending them was pretty loose. One year when I was in Japan on Navy shipboard duty, I think I finally launched the last batch sometime in early February, prompting one recipient to write back, “What is this – some strange Asian custom?”

Even if I didn’t hear back from people, I sent them anyway, because it was very important to me to keep connecting and I knew they were probably getting them, which was enough. One year, I lost track of a high school friend, so I found and called his Mom to get his address. I was relentless.

Then, life and email and Facebook and blogging happened and it was all too much. Even when my husband would present me with a good draft each year, I just couldn’t get it together. I like to send a photo and that also became a hassle to get one to my admittedly ridiculous standards, with all of us in it and with all of our eyes open.

But, something was missing by not sending a hard copy greeting every year.  I live with Web ephemera every day – it’s my living and I love it – but it can disappear and be forgotten. You have to boot it up to look at it.

Friends deserve something that takes more effort and that lasts for a long time, is DRM-free and can’t be remotely deleted from their Kindle.

This year, we gaggled together for family portraits by the wonderful Austin photographer Korey Howell, I grabbed my husband’s letter draft and actually did something with it, and once we overcame an initially screwed-up printing run – hey, your printer rollers leave lines, Mr. Office Supply Megachain – it felt wonderful to put stamps on those upper right envelope corners.

Out the door they went to the mailbox up the street….the first 14.  We usually send around 50, so I have a lot more work to do, but I’m enjoying it and I promise to get it all finished well before February.

I’ll still see those friends on Facebook and elsewhere online, but it feels good to be a correspondence switch-hitter.

Update:  I also ordered some interesting cards from the Metropolitan Museum of Art online store so we’ll be ready for 2011. Now’s the time to stock up!

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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 G 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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One of my favorite thinkers in the social media, tech and tourism arena is Canadian consultant Todd Lucier.

We’ve only met in person a few times, but our heads are always locked in agreement on issues like the connection between mobile technology and tourism and the need for video content in your destination marketing.

Todd popped this video rant up on his site (direct link to it on Vimeo) and I think it’s a great way to illustrate his passion for dragging recalcitrant towns and businesses into understanding WHY they need to wake up to people’s desire to have simple Web access when they travel.

This Week in Tourism, November 19 – 2010 from Blue Canoe Video on Vimeo.

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