Small Businesses and Social Media Fails

It would be better to be excellent at a few things, than ok at everything. This is how social media works. Small businesses do not have the man power it takes to handle 20 different social media sites. If the owner/founder/manager is updating the social media sites, he/she should stick to one to three things that they could excel at. Don't do a Pinterest account just to post 30 things in one day and then never post again, that isn't helping your company. It is best to be active daily on all sites you put your organization into. If you dip your pen into a bunch of inks, it is going to smear across the page. Do Facebook, Twitter and possibly a blog really well in order to draw in fans. Post every day, post often, and respond to your comments and fans. It is best to communicate with the public through social media sites, not just shout news and updates at them without any responses...pretty soon, people will stop listening. Look at this article from social media today as an example:

"I’ve Done Social Media and it Doesn’t Work"As a social media manager, I’ve heard many clients say these exact words. It took a while but I have now learned how to hear those words without laughing. It’s the whole concept that social media is something to be “done,” like it’s the end result of a process. Social Media isn’t a thing to be done. It’s just a part of a process of business promotion that includes of advertising, marketing, communication and most importantly, creating relationships. In the business world, social media can be a great tool to use to promote your products and services. Social media sites can help you build relationships with potential customers, increase the responsiveness and effectiveness of your customer service and find new and creative ways to generate more sales.  For the small business owner, social media can be especially effective if approached in the right way.For the small business, social media needs to be about the conversation between their business and its customers, or potential customers and building a level of trust and loyalty.  In their rush to do social, there are some fundamental errors that many small businesses make when they initiate a social media strategy to further their business. The initial mistake occurs when they use social media to showcase their own products and services and fail to connect with other business or their customers. In order to succeed using social media, social media must be used as one of the strategies to increase business. Take note of the following truths:

Social Media Isn’t QuickAs a small business owner, time is money and typically, there isn't a large marketing budget to go around. The first mistake many small business owners make when starting a social media campaign is thinking that because of the numbers – 900 million on Facebook, 200 million of Twitter – social media is a quick fix. As a result, the small business owner often gets excited about the potential of social media. They sign up on various social networking platforms, they post and tweet and get a few followers. They toot (or tweet) their own horn and can’t figure out why their company hasn’t gone viral yet.  They fail to realize that social media is a long-term process that should be integrated into their overall marketing strategy.

Social Media Is About Listening to Your AudienceWhen a small business owner creates a social media plan focusing solely on marketing and sales, they have totally missed the boat. The key word in social media is, of course, social. While an end result of a complete social media and marketing strategy is about increasing your business and, ultimately, sales, it needs to start with a conversation. No one goes on a social media site to be talked at, sold to or to see constant advertisements. While there is nothing wrong with a bit of self-promotion, it’s a mistake to spend the majority of your time promoting yourself and your business. As an entrepreneur, it is up to you to listen to your customers instead of just sending out messages all the time. Listening to your audience, responding and providing them with excellent service and value is the best way to create a strong and loyal following who will, in turn, promote your business for you.

Check out the entire article here. 
-Courtney

The meaning of social media shuffle

There is recently a lot of debate as to who, what, where, and when is the most popular social media outlet. As the world went from Myspace to Facebook, and now Twitter emerging from the ranks, there are always different ways to communicate information through social media.

From businesses to celebrities, the opportunities are endless. Seizing this opportunity is important to PR because the likelihood of someone seeing the information you put out into the world. If you don't put out information into social media, that is not to say that your business or company etc. will not be successful or popular, but the likely hood is increased significantly.

To put it in perspective these stats represent the number of users for each social media outlet:

Youtube - 100 million monthly viewers

Facebook - more than 500 million users

Twitter - over 150 million users

Recently when reading in “Engage” I came across a section in Chapter 6 that discussed “Yelp” which is a site in which businesses are reviewed and there is an iPhone app that allows you to see the reviews and the nearest of that business to you. Whether you are looking for restaurants, nail salons, car washes, or even a plumber, Yelp has listed the companies that are involved. It is really a great opportunity to get your businesses’ name out there and promote through social media. It is upsetting when going through and browsing Yelp when I found that some of my favorite restaurants and stores were not on Yelp. Businesses need to seize the opportunities that they are given through social media. I know that some older generations are having a harder time keeping up with the changing pace of the Internet, but it’s useless when they don’t use these opportunities. So businesses need to keep up with this “social media shuffle” that is constantly changing and updating. These are major components to a successful business in today’s world.

Evolving Social Media in Sports

With Social Media emerging from all corners of media outlets, there is one industry that is only benefiting from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. Sports, with all of their millions of annual advertising dollars spent, they can't help but keep their hands out of social media. Their are lots of ways to promote sports, and with so many of the fans looking to get involved, the interest is already there and does not need to be created like many other industries. When it comes to just about anything else and social media, PR professionals are always looking for ways to create interest and find frequent users of their social media sites. All sports have an pretty substantial following of fans, from people who religiously watch on television to season ticket holders, no matter what there are always groups of loyal followers. Although reaching out to their social media needs is another issue all together. You have to find people that are using facebook, twitter, foursquare, and smart phones to reach out to, but the possibilities are endless on the creative end of promoting sports teams or even athletic programs at many colleges or major sporting events.

http://www.jasonfpeck.com/2009/04/23/10-reasons-why-sports-organizations-should-use-twitter/

Myspace and Facebook fan pages are the father of the modern social media world. Any team will have a fan page and they will regularly update Twitter accounts, but it's the ones with good interaction that set them apart from others. Now with a lot of attendance at sports functions, its a good idea to use foursquare and get people at the event more involved. At the recent 2010 FIFA World Cup, they kept very up-to-date social media in order to try and get people involved. From having people check into games with Foursquare to constant Twitter and Facebook feeds during games, the tournament, each team, and most of the players did a very good job of posting updates and information about the events going on.

http://mashable.com/2010/06/11/world-cup-evolution/

Although there are many positive ways to use social media in the sports industry, many negatives have risen. Some professional players have received fines for Twittering during games and some professional teams have banned the use of social media completely. Although there are many things that go into social media, for now it is a positive outlet for the world to get involved. With a technology generation and devoted sports lovers on the rise, there are only opportunities to be explored.

Social Media from Beyond

There are a surprising number of people using social media these days; the number grows significantly everyday all over the world. With the whole world getting online and older generations going digital, there comes a time when your online life will live on even when you don’t. That’s right, folks, now you can have your social media world taken care of after you pass on. Although most people don’t like to think about death, there are emerging companies who will take care of your social media world once death occurs. They have all of your “digital assets,” from social networks, blogs, e-mails, financial accounts, and other Internet properties you might have. This takes a great amount of trust to allow someone to have your online identity to say the least so most sites charge a fee for their services. With most of these sites being safe and secure, they allow one trusted person that will get all of your information from passwords to account numbers and they are able to cancel/move/delete your online world.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/social-media-after-death/

There is also a company that allows people to write letters, make videos, and send pictures to your loved ones after you have passed on. There is a code given to one person and when that code is typed in after you die, the emails are sent out as a last goodbye. The companies name is “The Great Goodbye” and the problem they are running into is getting people to accept what they do as a company and actually have people sign up.

There are a lot of issues in this world with getting people to think about death. Getting people to sign up and not think of it as too “off the wall” has been a PR challenge for these companies. If these companies keep pretending like it’s no big deal, then maybe the world will come around also. As for me, I’ll stick to clinging to my youth and leave my Facebook to deactivate after one year of no use.

Lil Weezy Sends His Thanx, From Prison

When celebrities use social media, it comes as no surprise when it makes them more popular, it usually makes the news, and they are usually just trying to simply keep in touch with fans. There are a lot of people that seem to keep their social media updated by their public relations people, but then there are lots of celebrities who do a brilliant job at updating their own Twitter/Facebook/etc. Ashton Kutcher is one great example of this with his constant personal Twitter feeds. The famous rapper, Lil Wayne, was one of these celebs with his Facebook and Twitter constantly being updated personally.

During his last stint in jail however, he didn’t want to loose touch with his fans while he was gone for 7 months. He and his publicist came up with the plan to write a blog from prison. Since it is obviously not possible to keep up with a blog with no internet access, “Weezy” as he is sometimes called, wrote letters to an online marketing person at his label. The blog is called WeezyThanxYou.com and it thanks his fans for staying loyal through all of his trials and tribulations. He also answers questions from fans and does an excellent job of staying in touch with them. Celebrities/singers/actors are no doubt much more famous once they go to prison, but most go and try to keep the story quiet. Lil Wayne decided to go a different direction by not only embracing the fact that he was in prison, but also telling the entire world wide web about his troubles.

This “bad boy” of rap has been in prison before, and honestly it never helped his image in the past. However this past stint in prison made him one of the most famous musical artists to ever go to prison. As he was already considered in the top 5 of greatest rappers of all time, this surprisingly helped him image, as he seemed to appreciate his fans and in the process he gained even more fans. Also with an album release during the 7 months in prison, his popularity has grown exponentially. So well played Lil Wayne, a great PR move for yourself, even when you are not an equal citizen to 98% of your fans. Just maybe if you try to stay out of prison, you won’t have to do things to bring up your dwindling image from behind bars.

http://mashable.com/2010/04/03/lil-wayne-blog/

Here Comes the Bride, Tweeting Down the Aisle

There are lots of different ways to incorporate social media into wedding preparation and the wedding day. For most weddings it starts from the moment you say, “Yes!” (hopefully) to your fiancé/partner. I cannot count the times that I’ve seen young girls updating a Facebook status “I’m engaged! Steve (or whoever) proposed!!! I’m so happy…” and then they upload a photo of the ring on her finger. This is becoming a great way to get the word out, so you can get the news out to most of your friends in one short status update. Now it’s time to move past the engagement to the really fun part, the planning, parties, and the actual day of your wedding.

A good place to start with social media is to create a wedding blog. TheKnot.com is a good place to go and is very popular right now. Your first post will include some dating history and the actual engagement, I would hope that someone would not create a wedding blog before he pops the question! With photos and a place to sign into the blog for guests is such a great way for people to wish you well in your future life. Your posts should include planning processes, engagement party pictures and details, which’s in the wedding parties, and the details for the actual day.

Moving on to the much more active stuff like Twitter and Facebook, this is a great way to send out details for stuff. Maybe someone has planned a wedding shower for the bride and her friends, a great way to send out invites or reminders would be utilizing Facebook Events. Also send out information on a bachelor or bachelorette party through Facebook messages. Definitely make a wedding album on your Facebook posting photos from engagement photos to engagement parties to a few fun and crazy bachelor party photos.

The final part of social media for your wedding is the actual day of your wedding. The ceremony is completely off limits and made to be special and stay technology free, other than maybe later on uploading a video from the ceremony. The reception is a great way to connect your guests and even update people who aren’t there. A Twitter master at the wedding using a special wedding hashtag (Example: #BrianandMelissasWedding) for your guests to use so that they can tweet about your wedding and later you can see what your guests were saying about your special day. The twitter master will tweet updates on what is happening or upload photos to Facebook throughout the reception for others who aren’t there to see. As the world is changing and utilizing social media even more, your wedding should not be excluded.

Taco Bueno Twitter Encounter

Recently I had a strange encounter with a tweet I sent out, my friends were tweeting about going to Taco Bueno and how good it is compared to Taco bell, so I tweeted back:
@mljordan08 @mollyst I found a long, thick, black hair in my taco bueno and can never go back.. :(

never expecting to get any sort of reaction I forgot about the tweet and went on with my life, well sometime later I get a tweet back from the Taco Bueno (Welcome to Taco Bueno's Official Twitter page, your new home for all things Bueno - promotion, offers, contest, whatever you're hungry for! http://www.tacobueno.com) twitter saying:@courtney_lee89 Thank you for letting us know. Is this the location in Lubbock? We will forward your post to their Operations Manager.

I had a moment of amazement as I had never encountered something like this. I tweeted back a thank you and what location it was. Our PR and social media class had always covered using social media to respond to clients, but I had never experienced it first hand. This whole experience really turned my opinion of Taco Bueno around and the chances of me going back were raised significantly. Now I realize the whole experience is gross and probably not something people want to hear about, but I found it amazing that a post I made about a company, without tagging them...I get a response from. It inspired me to do some research and I started to look up fast food restaurants around Lubbock and this is what I found:

@enargins I am sorry for your inconvenience. Send us a note to PopeyesCommunications@Popeyes.com or give us a call at 1-877-POPEYES.

This is great that people are responding, but then I decided to do a little experiment, a few weeks ago I got food poisoning from a Sonic in Merkel, Texas. So I decided to Tweet about, a little late I realize, but I wanted to see if they had a reaction. This time I even tagged them in my Tweet: @sonicdrive_in thanks for the food poisoning sonic, made for a horrible night...




then I waited for a response. I figured it wouldn't take too long, because they respond to people's tweets every hour it looked like. Not 10 minutes later I hear back from them in a message on Twitter, it read:sonicdrive_in very sorry to hear about that. Which location did you visit?

I responded and I was glad to know that people are looking out for me. It's looking like Twitter is the end of comment cards, complaints, and hotlines. Just tweet about a bad experience and it will all be taken care of! As social media keeps changing our world, I think it just keeps getting easier for us all to live!

Event Planning-Tweeting into a successful event!

Social media and event management is a field that I am greatly interested in and I am also looking at how it can influence my life in the future, as event planning is a possible career choice for myself. There have been a lot of events that involve Facebook or Twitter exclusive invites. There’s also room to grow in event planning, as blogs could be a great way to keep track of things that have gone on in the planning process. Social media also gives a lot of ways to keep attendees updated on stuff.Perhaps you are planning a convention that will be 4 days long with different seminars and speakers on a variety of subjects and lunch provided. A good way to get the people attending involved and excited about things is to use social media to publicize what will be happening at the convention. From Twittering about the speakers or blogging about seminars and maybe connected websites so that if someone wants more background on a speaker then, it’s an easier route than looking at all different individual Google searches for different things that will be going on. As times change, it no longer is suffice to just mail out what will be offered at a convention with a piece of paper listing different speakers. People what things they can explore and look into more in-depth once they see something they like and are interested in.These articles allows event planners to see how they can grow and change with social media and help their event through social media sites:

http://mashable.com/2009/04/29/events-social-media/

Foursquare has lots of room to grow in Event Planning as ideas get expanded and the site is developed greatly. As I browse different articles, I have run into promotions via Foursquare that allows people to win prizes. With a promotion of “Check into the Convention on Foursquare and you are immediately entered in a Blue-Ray DVD Player.” This is a huge opportunity for event planning because now your event is not only happening currently, but you are getting people there excited and involved while they might have some down-time throughout the four day convention. There are also sites that allow people to post pictures and with a convention page on a social media site, people can then post pictures on the site to allow others to see, you may even draw in more attendants in the next year if they see how fun this year’s convention was.

My Guide to Offline Promoting for Social Media

Well everyone knows that when you have a Twitter, Facebook, Blog, Foursquare, LinkedIn, etc. it's easy to drive traffic that is already using those mediums. However, how can someone drive traffic when they aren't online advertising all the time. After recently reading an article on Mashable.com, I found it very interesting the ways they thought of in advertising their social media even when someone is not online. I expanded on a few and thought of some myself. I'm making this "My Guide to Offline Promotions for Social Media".

1. Print Ads

Making a print ad in a local newspaper is one way of promoting anything, however it is becoming prevalent to place your social media information in ads. Adding your twitter name, tell people to check out your facebook, blog, iPhone app, etc. If you mention it in places that people are already looking, then its easier to promote.

2. QR Codes

These codes are another great way to drive traffic. As many people speculate that mobile social media is the future of social media, QR codes are a great way for people to get involved with their phone, scanning the code on their phone and then pulling up websites, pictures, or whatever the code might lead to. These codes can be placed on anything, posters, t-shirts, cups, magazines

, or restaurant to-go bags.

3. Twitter Bumper Stickers

Bumper stickers with Twitter names on them are becoming more and more popular also. A company called BumperTwit creates a bumper ad with your @TwitterName for only $7! Car wraps are also very popular, painting your car as your advertisement also works!

4. Wearing Your Social Media

T-shirts, hats, caps, jackets with social media on them is such a great idea. Some people are even wearing whiteboards around their necks with different creative messages about their Twitter, Facebook, or blogs.

5. Business Cards

Making a bus

iness card is always a good plan, however making the backside social medi

a friendly is a good way to let people know that you are using social media.

But how do people know that they should go visit your social media sites? Making promotions and special offers only available to those who got the names of your social media sites from your offline promotions is a great incentive for people. They are more inclined to actually be proactive about it and visit your sites!

http://mashable.com/2010/11/14/social-media-promotion/

No Longer Go To Concerts To Meet People With The Same Taste In Music

I am the biggest fan of Apple products from my MacBook computer, my iPhone, my Apple TV, and the iPad I'm getting next week for my birthday. I know it’s probably not healthy to be this obsessed with Apple products, but I feel like with my level of dedication, there is no turning back at this point. So when Apple decided to announce a new social networking site on iTunes, I couldn’t help but get involved.

Ping is a social networking site for music where you can discuss anything from your favorite kinds of music, what your friends are listening to, talking about, or even downloading. There have been sites that exclusively allow people to reconnect with old classmates, update statuses, tell people where you are, and now to discuss music. The music industry is vastly growing and changing, so now Ping is going to change social media for music. You can follow your friends and your favorite artists. Your profile can have everything from personal information just like regular social media sites to your favorite music, what you are listening to and what pages you follow. Ping is a great way for music to get out, if you hear something on your friends page that you like, you can download it in one simple click. They also have iPhone and iTouch apps so that you can use Ping on the go. Ping also lets you know when your favorite artists are playing concerts nearby and you can buy tickets directly through Live Nation. It also serves as your music information station, with a one-stop shop of seeing what is most popular with other fans and by clicking any album you can learn more. Ping is going to change the way people communicate about music, and it’s all very exciting with the online music becoming more and more popular!

Crowdsourcing Movies

As I always say, social media is changing the way we live our lives, so why would one of the highest grossing industries be left out, the Movie Industry. As so many promotions go into getting hype up about movies there are a lot of ways that people are promoting movies nowadays that are really getting creative. Crowdsourcing is also becoming very popular, it entails fans having to vote on whether or not movies will make I it into a certain town. If enough people vote on the movie from a certain town, it will be shown in their city. This has been happening again and again, however if too many movies use it, it may become worn out and overused. People will be less likely to go vote for movies if every movie is crowdsourcing.


Paranormal Activity is a popular movie that crowdsourced for it’s premiere, it ended up having over 1,000,000 requests to play in different places. Once it came out it became so popular, it was shown in 52 countries and grossed $193 million on a $15 thousand budget. Catfish is a movie that was crowdsourced until it’s release in September. This movie was widely promoted online and on facebook, but is also about a facebook romance. It ended up grossing up to $1.7 million. By making these films not come to every theater, it makes people want to see these movies evenmore. Even the Academy Award winning film Precious was not shown in all theaters. It helped to make the movie a lot more popular. Fans requesting online for films to be shown in their towns are a great way to create excitement about films about also making the fans feel involved. Facebook is changing the way promotions and public relations is heading, even in the movie industry.