Tag Archives: Marketing

BCAMA Vision Conference 2009 Notes

Posted on by
9

Today I had the privilege of attending the BCAMA Vision 2009 Conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver. It was a fantastic event with excellent speakers.

I thought I would post my notes here for anyone to reference. Some may not make as much sense as others, but there are some key takeaways I found that I’ll share at the end of the point-form notes for each speaker.

Speaker #1: Ken Schmidt

Former Communications Director, Harley Davidson Motor Company, Leading Fortune 500 Consultant
Topic: Revving up Customers to Make the Big Noise

  • In 1900 people could choose 2 modes of transportation: horse or bicycle
  • Harley Davidson was born with a vision to adding a motor to a bicycle
  • At the same time, Ford was building the first cars
  • Bad guys ended up using cars; police ended up using motorcycles
  • Big ideas were missed at that time: 1) Motorcyclists liked to gather together, and 2) Groups of motorbikes attracted a crowd
  • Motorcycle races became one of the world’s biggest sporting events – racers would go over 100mph with no brakes
  • Only Harley-Davidson and Indian survived the depression
  • Used the downtime to play with colours and stylistic changes
  • During WWII all Harley-Davidson bikes were built to support allied troops in the war effort
  • After the war, soldiers who had used motorbikes in the war wanted to ride them for fun
  • Pilots were also drawn to riding
  • An elite group of flyers were called the “Hell’s Angels” – after the war they focused on motorbikes and started removing all unnecessary parts from their bikes i.e. mufflers (called chopping = choppers)
  • Media determined that motorcyclists were to be feared
  • Harley-Davidson had always tried to have a brand reputation based on being clean-cut, simple and useful. They tried too hard to show a clean image.
  • Honda then appeared on the scene with very good quality bikes and a slogan of “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”. Millions bought Honda bikes.
  • By 1985 Harley-Davidson could barely sell 30,000 bikes worldwide
  • The media then basically printed Harley-Davidson’s obituary by telling Americans they could get better quality from overseas
  • The best way to make change is to simplify. Don’t make it more complicated.
  • Harley-Davidson was not creating demand. They were focused only on product: Creating a great product
  • Standard operating procedure, as a rule of thumb, is wrong and shortsighted. Don’t do things the same way everyone else is doing things.
  • At that time, Harley-Davidson came out with the world’s first V-twin engine – the first new bike engine in 20 years. Media jumped all over it and it graced the covers of all industry magazines but people were still not buying.
  • Only tried and true Harley riders were still buying.
  • Quality message had no impact because the entire industry was high quality
  • Everything they’d done had failed; what would they need to change?
  • There was no such thing as a motorbike test ride at that time so they decided they’d take truckloads of bikes to where blue collar guys were congregating and let anyone who was fit enough to ride one take a bike for a spin.
  • While they were on the road at these events they talked to people. Loyal customers were upset at where the company had gotten to – the brink of bankruptcy – and wanted answers. Over that time they developed some answers to the questions so they could have those conversations.
  • Each test ride was an opportunity for market research, so they asked the question, “What do we need to change to make you want to buy it?”
  • Every single answer was something to do with customization – handlebars higher, wider, further forward, further back, lower seat, higher seat etc.
  • The key was customization. Ask the customer what they want, build it, then sell it to them.
  • The 1986 Harley-Davidson parts catalogue was 56 pages; it is now 1500 pages.
  • Customers enjoy giving suggestions; people want to be listened to. They want to be important to you. They want to be heard
  • People want someone to do something special for them.
  • All things are equal to someone who doesn’t own your product yet
  • Every employee models the behaviour of their leaders
  • People need to be nurtured and made to feel special
  • Create a great culture; people need to love their jobs
  • People support what they feel they helped to create (employees and customers)
  • Harley-Davidson then started a Harley Owner’s Group club – a social club that gets together at their home dealership. There were chapters all over North America.
  • Customers and staff were becoming friends
  • Word of mouth ->advocated -> ambassadors
  • We go where our friends tell us to go
  • We are an invisible species; all of us want to be noticed. Look at me I’m important.
  • A new Harley-Davidson slogan was created: “We don’t care how everyone else does it.”
  • What are you willing to do differently today than you did yesterday?
  • Sales in 1985 were 30,000 bikes; in 1989 they sold out at 70,000 bikes and in 2005 sold 320,000 bikes.

Key Take-Aways

It’s about customization. People want something that’s cusomized for them and they want to be a part of the process. They want to know their ideas are not only heard, but found to be valuable and implemented. People take ownership over things they are involved in creating; they want to be on the inside. If you involve them in the processes, they will be loyal to the outcome. This applies not only to consumers but to employees. People model the behaviour of their superiors, so if you have a behavioural problem, it’s quite possibly a top-down problem. If you lead by example and embody the corporate culture, people will follow suit and create success.

Speaker #2: Brad Gamble

Senior Director of Marketing, McDonald’s Canada
Topic: still lovin’ it

  • In 2001 sales were trending down within restaurants; sales growth was coming only from new restaurants.
  • McDonald’s was operating under the philosophy of “build it and they will come”

What needed to change?

  • They needed to increase sales at each location; they needed to be more customer-focused; they needed to build a rock-solid foundation; they needed to ensure the right organizational structure
  • and they needed to make their brand more relevant.
  • Growth comes from being better, not bigger.
  • Five drivers of superior customer satisfaction: people, products, place, price, promotion
  • New products were brought in: salads, angus burger, ciabatta buns, sandwiches etc.
  • New décor that was more inviting “come and stay a while” feel
  • Those 5 drivers would be the way to achieving enduring profitable growth

What were the results?

  • 6 straight years of same store growth
  • 25% increase in guests served; now 58M daily
  • In 2008, same store sales growth was 7%

Building Brand & Retail Energy

  • Surprise and delight the consumer
  • Challenges: navigating new and ever-shifting landscape; consumers are equal partners in brand formation; raised bar on flexibility and transparency; everything moves at the speed of light; your brand is global
  • How do you build a true relationship? Create a connection, an intimate bond. Be relevant – trends, build on emotive connectivity. Become their favourite. Make them say, “I like what they offer.”
  • Think like a brand; act like a retailer. Provide retail solutions that fit their needs.
  • Internal – perfect execution, commitment to improvement, engaged staff, collaboration at all levels
  • External – all touch points must reinforce brand vision: design, menu, packaging etc. Positive talk value = personal endorsement ->brand loyalty. Do the unexpected
  • Surprise and delight = Retail Energy
  • Transform brand ‘friends’ into brand ‘lovers’
  • Cannot create enduring profitable growth by discounting
  • No one touch point will do it; it’s a process

Key Take-Aways

I didn’t particularly care for this presentation. Don’t get me wrong, I can see how McDonald’s is a very high profile brand that has worked very hard to grow and maintain market share in an ever-fragmented world, but I felt it was a bit self-congratulatory. If there were any take-aways for me they were change, evolve, stay relevant.

Where I think McDonald’s does do a fantastic job is in their commitment to operational excellence and consistency. Having said that, as I sat with an old colleague of mine we couldn’t help but notice the brand new coffee cup they have just rolled out (which they left for each delegate) is non-recyclable and has a cute little drawing on it showing it should go in the garbage can. That kind of rubbed us both the wrong way in this age of environmental responsibility. I also have a hard time getting on board with marketing that aims to sell food products that have made a huge impact on the North American population’s obesity epidemic, but that’s a whole different discussion I guess.

Speaker #3: Jim Carroll

Futurist & Marketing Trend Consultant to Fortune 500
Topic: Innovation in the High Velocity Economy
Jim Carroll’s Website
Jim Carroll on Twitter

  • Cell phones, blackberries, iphones to become the credit card of the future
  • People are looking for inspiration; we need to know things are getting better
  • Broadcast and entertainment industries are changing rapidly
  • Location intelligent professionals; technology is being used to create competitive advantage e.g. using google earth to do market research and target communications by house size
  • For people completing science degrees and trades, ½ of what is learned in 1st year is obsolete by the time they graduate. Technology is changing that fast.
  • Product lifecycles are significantly reduced. The typical digital camera has a product lifecycle of just 3 months before it will be rendered obsolete by the next development.
  • The world is evolving. How do we respond fast?!
  • Regular ongoing terrorism in the press – economy, layoffs, stock market, mortgage crisis, swine flu etc.
  • We have been here before; recessions are not new.
  • We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years and underestimate the changes that will occur in the next 10.
  • What can we predict with 100% certainty? Economic growth. We just don’t know when.
  • When do we innovate? Now or once the economy starts to rebound?
  • We have to innovate, change and adapt faster than we’ve ever done this before in order to survive.
  • The time to innovate, change and explore new opportunity is NOW.

Future Trends & Opportunity

  • Relentless focus on growth; find a new growth opportunity every day – business or personal
  • Need an ability to respond faster to market change; business cycles are way faster than they used to be e.g. a new video game launch produces 55-75% of it’s profit within the first 4-5 days of launch. Everything MUST be in order.
  • Ask, “Are we seeing increased signs of velocity in our business? Are we able to respond as fast as the velocity change?
  • How?” 1) Faster time to market, 2) Rapid ingestion of new technologies/methodologies, 3) Rapid refocusing of resources for opportunity or threat, 4) Operational excellence
  • Customer service is more important than EVER
  • Response to volatility
  • How do I structure my team? How do we transition products, image and experience to remain relevant? Evolve product, image and experience.
  • Brand image will be continually refreshed and re-enforced at every touch-point
  • Hyperconnectivity. Experience will be far more engaging
  • Rapid experimentation with price and product mix with operational excellence
  • We’re going to increasingly take our digital lifestyles outdoors
  • The world is a global idea factory – look around
  • There’s a changing source of innovation from North America to Asia
  • Leading R&D is taking place in India and China
  • A shift from corporate R&D to open R&D – global ideas machine. Open source. Crowdsourced?
  • Smaller organizations work faster and accelerate development
  • There’s a shift from hidden innovation to public innovation
  • Re-orienting our creativity will allow us to move faster and respond quicker
  • Brands are like people: they get stuck. They resist change and become irrelevant. They have lost touch with their core essence.
  • Your brand is not what you say it is; it is what THEY say it is
  • It costs substantially more to maintain brand relevance today; interactivity is the most significant part of brand image
  • Invest heavily in experiential capital – take the risk to try something out
  • Experiential capital = we’re not sure what’s right but we’re investing anyway
  • Don’t wait until the economy picks up

Ten Steps

  1. Observe
  2. Think
  3. Change
  4. Dare
  5. Banish (banish idea killing)
  6. Try
  7. Question
  8. Grow
  9. Do
  10. Enjoy!
  • Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century

Key Take-Aways

I loved this session. Even thought the key take-aways seem quite simple, it was a very inspiring presentation. It made me feel like I’m on the right track with my goals and philosophies. So here’s what I got from this: Now is the time to innovate. Evolve your brand. Move towards mobile. Connect. Engage. Try new things. Keep learning and changing.

Speaker #4: Richard Bartrem

Vice-President, Culture and Communication, WestJet
Topic: Five Secrets to Success

  • Airline industry is tough – net loss of 14B over the last 58 years. It has not made money.
  • 63 Canadian airlines have gone under in the history of passenger airlines
  • In the mid 90’s, WestJet’s founders looked at Southwest Airlines and wondered why no one was using that business model in Canada; they visited and studied them and learned.
  • There are 7800 WestJetters (employees), 1200 unsolicited resumes received weekly, 270000 guests per week, 4,150,000 cookies consumed each year.
  • The coldest day ever for TAC (turn around crew) was -54C
  • Management and executive help out with TAC at Christmas
  • They have had 432 marriage proposals on board WestJet flights
  • All new staff get a 3-hour presentation from the company President and various VP’s
  • Hire intelligent people and then empower them to decide where they can be loose with the rules and where they should be tight with the rules
  • Their fastest ever aircraft turn time is 6 minutes. Every WestJetter traveling on any plane whether for work or pleasure cleans up the plane before deplaning – including management and exec.

WestJet’s Paradigm Shift

  • New way to price fares – simple with few rules, cost structure allowed massive reductions and breakthrough pricing; competition unsure how to react
  • The right language – Team Leaders (vs. Supervisors), People (vs. Employees), Promises (vs. Policies), Guests (vs. Passengers)
  • Unique culture of care – understanding what your people need to succeed: 1) appreciation, 2) sympathy to personal problems, and 3) feeling “in” on things
  • All employees have a mission/vision/values statement on their lanyard at all times and refer to them during the decision making process
  • Their culture supports a great guest experience, which delivers great business results
  • “We succeed because I care” – mantra of all WestJetters

The 5 Secrets:

1. We Care to Plan – Culture Department
Create a remarkable experience – CARE Department (execution arm of Culture Department). For every WestJetter who has a death in the family, new baby, marriage, graduation or special moment, each receives a hand-signed card from the President and all VPs.

2. We Care to Share
Employees share purchase plan. Owners try harder; over 80% of WestJetters are shareholders. Profit share parties – their people have earned over $155M in profit share since inception – twice yearly party where a % of profit is divided amongst WestJetters

3. We Care to (REALLY) Listen
Listen to their people: culture connection, tech talks, airport visits, test ideas – uniforms, commercials, snacks on planes etc.
Listen to guests: e.g. every commercial is tested with guests and WestJetters before going to market

4. We Care to Design
Design all experiences and processes to 1) make sure our WestJetters can be proud and successful, and 2) ensure our guests are getting value in everything we do
WestJet Care-antee

5. We Care to Celebrate and Have Fun
Profit share, kudos, birthday parties, new destination launches, incorporating family, fun is part of the fabric of our culture

Key Take-Aways

Wow. WestJet really leads the pack when it comes to treating people well – looking at people in a way that is so fundamentally different than how traditional business looks at people. This session got me thinking about how engaging people online is really just an easy way to build relationships and talk about stuff. When that stuff is business it’s a win for the company. Again, it’s all about people – people being made to feel special. People going out of their way to create great experiences, people being encouraged to share questions, concerns and suggestions and being really heard. It will become absolutely imperative if it isn’t already.

Speaker #5: Brian Scudamore

President & CEO, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
Topic: Corporate Culture Turns Local Entrepreneur into Awarded International Brand

  • A company is a group of people; a brand is a group of people working together towards a common vision
  • You can never compromise on the quality of people
  • Business became boring because he had no vision
  • Print the picture, tell the story, get everyone on board. Don’t worry about the how, just look to the vision
  • Tough times are the impetus for change; innovate now
  • All new employees read the story before doing anything else; they need to be on board
  • Always know what you stand for – what you’re about
  • If you don’t have a vision, how will you get there? How will you know where ‘there’ is?
  • You can’t motivate people; you can inspire them to take action
  • They use a “Can You Imagine” wall of ideas. You can add your idea to the vision and it can be a really big dream, but you have to put your name to it and it’s there permanently.
  • It’s all about people; at one point in the early days, he fired his entire staff of 11 people and started over.
  • “It’s all about people” became an accountability statement; it’s what they stand for
  • People don’t fail; systems do
  • Know your values. Values are who you already are, what you’re about.
  • Systems are results by design
  • Communication was the #1 problem during growth.
  • Every day they have a 10:55am huddle – good news from the field, celebration of successes, new business intelligence, update from one department (different each time), Q&A, good news and then a group cheer (teambuilding)
  • Systemize your priorities. Every employee should have top 3 priorities for each week and adhere to them; don’t give in to the pressure to complete less important tasks because they’re easier

Key Take-Aways

You need to have a vision. You need to make that vision public. You need to paint the picture, tell the story, work towards the vision. Imagine it. Believe. Know where you’re going and make sure everything you’re doing is advancing that goal. Everyone has to share the vision because it is all about the people.

The Yahoo! Big Idea Chair: Panel Discussion

Kerry Munro, General Manager, Yahoo! Canada
Ken Wong, Acclaimed business professor, author, strategist
Maggie Fox, CEO and Founder of Social Media Group (Maggie on Twitter)
Clare Meridew, VP Creative Director Interactive, GREY Canada

Intro from Kerry Munro:

  • Why do companies not have ratings and reviews on their websites? That shows a lack of interest in your customers and a lack of engagement with them

Initial statements from Maggie Fox:

  • Origins of social media: connecting with people who share like interests
  • You need to know what you want to accomplish with social media for it to be effective
    Ex. Yamaha corporate blog explained the 8month recall process which, in turn, significantly reduced negative online buzz
  • Social Media press releases can net huge returns as they did for Ford. Give people the tools to share your information with the right info and images.
  • Social media is not cheap; it’s only slightly cheaper than face to face

Statements & opposition from Ken Wong:

  • Opposing view of social media use – parable: Everyone agrees it’s important to be in top physical condition; we all know how to obtain top physical condition; we have not all committed to do that.
  • How to market in a recession:
    1) Do NOT cut price
    2) Do NOT cut spending
  • 30-40% of companies will cut marketing spend in the face of a recession to justify price cuts
  • What this tells us is that CEO’s believe marketing is a business expense, which means it must be made up this year. It’s not seen as an investment in the future.
  • If we make a promise and don’t keep it, it’s a lie. Marketing has to impact operations.
  • Hold steady with budgets and plans; the economy will begin to pick up in 2 quarters (plus a lag for unemployment, which is the last thing to be reversed)

Intro and Show & Tell from Clare Meridew

General Panel Discussion:

  • What’s Hot? Social responsibility/cause marketing, recession marketing (making things cheaper, last longer etc), mobile, personalization
  • Where are we going? Screens merging, there will be one single platform, content will be (even more) personalized, pay for performance?
  • Answer the question “How are you creating value?”
  • Traditional segmentation is useless
  • Average Facebook user is mid-30’s; fastest growing segment is women over 55
  • How do we buy media now if stereotypes/demographics don’t work anymore?
  • You need an insight channel; get the information from the web but do something with it
  • There is so much insight to be gained but you need to implement change as a result.
  • You must have the right person on the ground to implement corporate social media engagement; they need support, budget and staff
  • We need to retrain marketing teams – universities don’t teach marketing well at all i.e. most students will receive 90 minutes on market segmentation when it’s one of the most important concepts
  • We make excuses for the brands that ‘get it’ i.e. WestJet, 1-800-GOT-JUNK… because it’s too hard, too daunting, too challenging and calls for change
  • If frugal is the new black, blatant materialism is not going to cut it
  • Back to the original question: why aren’t you putting your customer service surveys online?
  • Negative feedback is generally self-moderated by the community of loyal brand enthusiasts; it’s an opportunity to address a legitimate customer service concern.

Conclusion

Over all I was really happy with the event. I left with a really great feeling about much of what I’ve already started doing in my business life. Now I want to create a Jerry McGuire style manifesto that’s either going to inspire a leap into the future, or it’ll have me looking for a new job :D

Best Small Business Posts from im.seeking.balance

Posted on by
1
Photo: _ES on Flickr

Photo: _ES on Flickr

I have been re-evaluating my blog as of late. Forgive me for having paid you less attention than you deserve. I have been balancing work and family as usual but I have also been giving Urban Shore some much-needed love because I really feel like my community needs a home online. Anyway, I’ve been re-thinking a little bit about what I put here… at im.seeking.balance. I have decided to do a little less writing but, hopefully, make things a little more relevant, useful or insightful.

This is my home online.

This is where I share my knowledge, my thoughts and struggles, things I’ve learned, things I most certainly haven’t learned, things that make me think and things that make me laugh. But for those of you who have come to know my blog through your business interests, I have put together a bit of an index of some of my most popular business posts, and some that are less popular but I want to share nonetheless.

I do hope you’ll find something you can use. Please let me know if you have any questions you’d like to ask; I’m happy to accept topic suggestions! Thanks for reading and for sharing with me.

Selling Tips from a Buyer’s Perspective

Posted on by
6
Photo: zzzack on Flickr

Photo: zzzack on Flickr

In my job I buy stuff every day.

I buy media advertising. I buy printing services. I buy other production services. I buy website development and computer equipment. I buy software and promotional gadgets. Sometimes I giggle at the fact that I get to go to work every day and spend other peoples’ money… But the truth is I have to spend it wisely. And I have to keep my objectives in mind.

And if you’re selling, you need to keep my objectives in mind too.

Obviously how you sell will vary based on what you’re selling, but here are a few ways I think you could make me feel like you care about my business. Caring about how I make buying decisions will go a long way towards improving your sales success.

Know who you’re looking for

If you call my company and don’t know who you’re looking for, even by title or position, you may get transferred to a few people. It happens. We have different people responsible for PR, Events & Sponsorship, Marketing, Retail etc. and sometimes there is overlap and I’m sure this is the case at other medium to large businesses. You either need to do a little digging and find out who you may need to talk to ahead of time or, at the very least, be very explicit with the Receptionist or Guest Services Agent that may answer your call so they know to whom your call should be forwarded.

If you get transferred a couple of times, keep your cool. It’s sort of like buttering up your parents before asking for the car keys. If you get angry with the person you’re trying to sell to, it’s not likely they’re even going to hear what you have to say. They’re going to hear the tone in your voice. No one wants to be told off and then pitched.

Please give those poor junior staff a break and assume they are trying their best to get you put through to the right person.

Know about my company

You don’t need to know every facet of our business, but know what we do as it pertains to what you’re selling. A simple Google search will turn up a vast amount of info on most companies. It’s so hard to say here what you should know; I’m much more inclined to write a list of examples of unpreparedness.

If you are selling advertising, know who my audience is. If you don’t know, phone me with the intention of finding out first, not selling me on your ad space regardless.

If you are selling social media consulting services, make sure my company doesn’t have a larger social media presence than your social media agency.

If you are selling hotel affiliate marketing for instance, know that my company, despite being a ‘resort’ does not actually own or operate a hotel or other accommmodations on site. Knowing the business name is not enough to pitch.

On that note, make sure you do know the business name.

It’s odd that when I tell people my email address – m evans at companyname dot com – I get people asking, “Could you spell that, please?” I’m sorry, what? It’s my company name. You need to know that before you call.

Be prepared to email a sales package

I don’t mean this to sound rude at all, but I get a lot of people trying to sell me a lot of stuff. Make my life easier by being ready to email me all the relevant details. This goes back to knowing what business I’m in and what I’m already doing.

Relevancy depends on knowing.

This should not be a giant form email filled with links to your company website; I can’t take the time to browse through. I like a nice PDF attachment – even a couple of them – with your company background, what you do, how you can benefit my company, any deadlines I need to be aware of, and unless you’re trying to sell me something really big i.e. >$20K, your rates. Please give me your rates.

Be persistent with a hint of thick skin

I have ongoing relationships with people who have been trying to sell me stuff for a long time. Publications who really think I should be advertising with them; website who really want me to list there; printers who really want my business… there are sales people I’ve been speaking with for years but have yet to buy from. Now, that’s the extreme case, but I don’t mind talking to them and hearing them out when they tell me about updates to their product or company because I know they’re interested in finding a real fit and developing a relationship with me and my company.

You need to be persistent but not overbearing. I admit you may need to speak to me many times before I’ll feel confident enough in you or your business to align my brand with yours.

Leaving voicemail messages

Effective voicemail messages are essential. You need to leave some information about why you’re calling. Simply leaving a name and phone number is not a good idea, especially if followed by an abrupt, “I would appreciate a return call.” Click. You wouldn’t speak to someone face to face like that, so it’s best not to speak like that in a voicemail.

Give me a quick rundown of what you’re calling about and let me know what you’re looking for from me. Are you asking for time to meet? My email address so you can send me a package? Are you asking if I have any interest? Please ensure you say precisely what you mean.

If you say, “Feel free to give me a call back if this is something you think you might be interested in,” I will only call if I’m interested. Please don’t take offense if I don’t call; I’m doing precisely what you asked of me. If you want a call back, say so: “I’d love an opportunity to discuss this further. Please call me at … If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up with you next week/month/Tuesday” or whatever. Then do follow up if you don’t hear from me.

The follow up goes along with the persistence I mentioned earlier. Do be persistent, but please be kind. If you can only be bothered to phone me once or twice and expect to close a sale, sorry. Maybe I need more hand holding than that.

Putting it all together

I really do want to hear about good opportunities that will benefit my company. I want to know about new publications, new printing methods, innovative technologies, your photography portfolio, etc. I want to see all these things, but I only have time to look at what’s really relevant.

  1. Know who to contact: Even just call a customer service rep, receptionist or someone with the title you think you might want. Then ask some questions. You can say “I have a product that I really think can benefit you, but I want to make sure I get it to the right person…” and go from there. Most people will be only too happy to help you find who you need.
  2. Know my company: Check out my company website, do a Google search, check a Google Blog search, Twitter Search or a combination of these. Know what I sell and to whom I sell it before you put together your pitch.
  3. Prepare your pitch: Customize your pitch based on what you find out in step 2. Send me info that’s relevant to my business and my objectives. If you don’t know, call me and ask me first. Phone up and ask for some time – it may be immediately it may mean scheduling a longer phone call for another day – but I would rather you ask me for some time and ask some questions first so you can figure out what part of what you’re selling will benefit me. Then when you do call to pitch me, be prepared to send over the custom pitch by email. I need time to mull it over and discuss it with other members of my team. I don’t tend to make decisions alone.
  4. Be persistent: Your priorities and my priorities are vastly different. Please be understanding and do call back if you haven’t heard back from me. Keep in touch. Send me updates about what you’re doing. I work on a one-year planning cycle. Just because I am not buying this year doesn’t mean I won’t plan it in for next.
  5. Leave effective messages: This really doesn’t only apply to voicemail, but to email as well. Make sure you give enough information that I don’t have to dig for more. You want me to know about your product; please do tell me the parts that will benefit me, and let me know what you’re looking for as a response from me. Please be very clear about your expectations of me.

Now let’s do business.

A word about logos and file types

Posted on by
3
Annie Mole on Flickr

Image: Annie Mole on Flickr

Can we talk about logos for a moment?

If you’re in business, you need to understand your logo, know what it should look like, and be prepared to use it in everything you do. I want you to understand different file types and what they might be used for.

Because you want your logo to represent your company everywhere, it needs to be able to go anywhere.

Now, if you haven’t yet designed a logo or wordmark, great – you can take these ideas into account when you do. It will make life much easier for your designers and/or suppliers. If you’ve already developed one, make sure your designer provides you with guidelines for use and a few varieties to use under different circumstances.

Be prepared for different coloured backgrounds

Your logo needs to represent you just as well on a black background as it does on a white background. Further, if you can make it work on a coloured background, all the better. Often times, you can’t simply take a coloured logo and place it on black. Does your logo reverse out in white? What does that look like? Do some colours remain?

What if your logo is blue and red, but someone wants to include your logo on top of a photo of blue sky? Is there enough contrast between the blue of your logo and the blue of the sky?

Global BC has done exactly what I’m recommending here:

globalbc-logo-versions

I recommend having the following files to choose from:

  • Full colour logo for use on standard white background
  • Black and white logo for use when a) printing with only black ink or b) to use on light colours
  • A reverse and/or partial-colour logo for use on a black or dark colour background (Global BC above has both)

Note: If you choose to greyscale your colour logo for use when printing only in black, that’s fine. Just make sure it’s a conscious choice. I’d recommend using an all-black version instead as you get more punch. It’s more eye-catching.

Colours and various production processes

Different production methods require different processes.

Print Production

Kofoed on Flickr

Photo: Kofoed on Flickr

Print production may use standard Pantone Matching System (often referred to as a Pantone or PMS) colours or CMYK Process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black inks blended to create almost every single colour of the rainbow – referred to as 4-colour process). When a logo is developed the designer will typically use Pantone colours to create a specific shade that would, ideally, be unchanged across all mediums. Pantone is a type of ink, so from press to press, location to location, the colour doesn’t change. Process colours can change as the blends of the 4 colours can vary slightly.

If you have a colour logo, you need to know the Pantone colours it was created to be.

You should always have a digital version of your logos in their original Pantones. Your designer should also create you one with the closest possble combination of CMYK values to match the original Pantone as closely as possible. Yes, you could just use Illustrator or Photoshop to convert the files, and if you didn’t have one created in CMYK that’s your only option, but the CMYK recipes in the Pantone books aren’t always the best fit. Regardless, you should have a version in Pantones and a version in CMYK values for printing.

Sometimes you hear about 2 colour printing, or 3 colour printing. This is a process of printing that uses only pantone colours to create something. You might use 2 or 3 colour printing to create company letterhead or other stationery. If your logo is 2 PMS colours and black, you can use 3 colour printing – your two PMS colours and Pantone Black. Then, you have consistency every single time.

Alternatively, when you get into printing full colour books or brochures, you may choose to use 5 or 6 colour printing, which is usually CMYK process colours (4 colours), plus one or two pantone colours to get your identity exact regardless of what’s going on in the photos and what corrections need making on the press.

Digital Production

Editor B on Flickr

Photo: Editor B on Flickr

For web, TV or photograph quality reproduction, you’ll need your logo in RGB format. That’s Red, Green and Blue pixels. This is less precise because the appearance will often change based on what peoples’ screens and TVs are set to display. However, when printing photograph quality, you can do your best to ensure a colour match by having a proof run. When using your brand identity you want the closest match possible. Coca-cola won’t settle for their red being any less than perfect every single time and you shouldn’t either.

Here is the colour information Global BC provides to anyone using their logo. They do actually have a specific RGB value as well as Pantone and CMYK versions:

globalbc-logo-colours

What about embroidery? Or vinyl decals? In those cases, you’ll need to select each colour yourself using the closest possible match to your Pantone colours. Ask your embroiderer for their thread colour books or your sign supplier for their vinyl samples to select the closest match.

About vector art and file types

What is a vector file anyway?

Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics.

Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphics, which is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images.[1] There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice, and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice. There are times when both formats come together. An understanding of the advantages and limitations of each technology and the relationship between them is most likely to result in efficient and effective use of tools. [Wikipedia]

Vector files can be expanded exponentially; they’re not limited by resolution or size.

Here’s Kashi’s logo:

kashi-logo-vector

kashi-logo-vector-selectedYou can tell it’s a vector file because all the individual lines and curves can be selected.

You NEED to have vector art readily available to you. In fact, you can’t possibly have a Pantone version of your logo without it being vector art. You need a vector graphic to create cut vinyl; you need a vector graphic to embroider something. You need vector graphics to easily create background-free gif files (so that groovy gradient background on your website or blog actually shows up behind your logo) or place in multi-layered photoshop files (without your graphic designer having to do way more work at your expense).

Please ensure you always have vector files ready to send out to your suppliers. A vector file is typically an Illustrator (.AI or .EPS) file though it could have been created in another format. Please note – saving something as .EPS in Photoshop or Illustrator will not make it a vector file. You need the original.

JPEG or TIFF files are fine for use in print, provided they’re at least  300 DPI at final output size. FYI any file that is only a few kb in size is NOT appropriate for printing. A JPEG file may not be as good as a TIFF of the same size if it is significantly compressed. Whenever you’re printing anything on paper or some other substrate, you should go straight to your vector art.

JPEG or GIF files in RGB colour are used for web or TV. When sending your files out for external production, send the highest resolution size possible and let the person doing the production set the size (resolution will always be 72 DPI for screen output, but size will vary based on how much of the screen they want your logo to take up).

A few don’ts…

  • Don’t save a JPEG file as an .EPS file and send it out when asked for vector art.
  • Don’t ever send a logo embedded in a Word file. You’ll look foolish.
  • Don’t use raster image (or photograph) in your logo or wordmark because it can’t be a vector ever. You will not necessarily be able to use it for certain large format production. If Richard Branson offers you the opportunity to throw your logo on the side of his plane, you won’t be able to make it happen.
  • Don’t keep the very very latest Adobe CS4 file versions only – not everyone has the latest software package as soon as it comes out, so you want a version that is compatible with 2 or 3 previous versions.
  • Don’t let anyone stretch or skew your logo. Not even a little. If you don’t look out for it, no one else will.

A recap about logos, colours and file types

You want to have 3 or 4 versions of your logo for use on different coloured backgrounds. You want each of those 3 or 4 versions to be able to be used in Pantone ink, CMYK process and RGB colours. You want the original vector art at your disposal. That’s it, really.

If anyone has anything else to add, feel free. Obviously there are a million more details on every one of these topics, but I think everyone in business needs to know and understand how their own corporate identity is being used.

Your logo is a key component to creating and establishing an impactful brand. Make sure you’re getting it out there and using it wisely. When you have questions, ask them. It’s your brand; it’s who you are and what you stand for.

It may not be sexy, but it’s what sells…

Posted on by
5
Laffy4k on Flickr

Photo: Laffy4k on Flickr

Amber Naslund, over at Altitude Branding, blogged yesterday about “Real Work Isn’t Sexy.” Oh how true that is.

I just finished my first outside-my-day-job consulting project. It was more of a testing ground for me to figure out some new tools, find out what challenges I may face when selling myself as a consultant and building a portfolio of case studies to present to future clients.

The first thing I noticed was that almost everything that needed doing on an immediate basis was implementation.

First, I had to help my friend get his business current, digitally speaking. He needed a new website and he needed to digitize his contact list (think written address book); he needed a way for people to sign up to receive information from him via email. He needed to ensure people can watch his videos online without having to download a 50+MB file to their machine to do so. After all, he sells entertainment. That is his business. If people can’t preview it, he’s got nothing.

It is only now that all of that is in place, however quickly and inexpensively it was done, that he is ready to have me help him look at future strategy, customization, driving awareness etc. But just getting him current took real dirty, non-sexy implementation work.

Even a new site on a free wordpress.com theme took copying all his existing web content over to the new platform. It took setting up his URL and DNS and it took formatting images and video. It took uploading mp3 files and linking them up. It took revisions to his graphics in the creation of a new banner and wordmark, and it took setting up the widgets ordering the pages.

Digitizing his contact list was an even more arduous process. Manually populating excel spreadsheets with the required data is not on my list of favourite evening activities. While someone else did that initial data entry work, when it came time to uploading the files to his newly implemented email management tool I found the “name” was all one field vs. first name and last name, so I manually separated them… another hour or two. But that hour or two was quicker for me to just go ahead and get it done rather than look for someone who wanted a couple hours of admin work yada yada.

Having a well rounded skill set as a social media marketer is a good idea. Even as a marketer in the general sense, it’s a good idea to be able to manipulate graphic files, layouts, web pages etc. Experience with Adobe Creative Suite, html coding, Office suite, and any other software packages you can get to know will only serve you well.

You don’t want a conversation to go like this:

Client: So I need a new website, can you build it?

You: No, but I can hire someone to do it for you and I can help with managing the build from a best-practices perspective. There’s the guy I know who is fantastic and has an awesome client list. I’ll set up a meeting with him.

Client: Oh, okay. I’d also like it to look different than it does now… like a new identity, sort of. Maybe a new logo and colour scheme… Can you do that?

You: No. You need a graphic designer, but I know a really good one. Hey, I also think you should optimize all your photos so they don’t take so long to load on your site.

Client: Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. Can you do that?

You: Um, no.

Client: So, you do what, exactly?

Awkward.

I think it’s important to remember that it’s the doing that clients need. Especially when it comes to small business. Larger companies probably have some resources to handle some of the doing, and maybe that’s where you want to focus your efforts entirely. In fact, that may be where there is more money available anyway. Small business, on the other hand, needs someone to help with realistic implementations that will drive leads and sales. Bottom line.

Even the longer term strategy of this current project will require even more doing: a custom theme, adwords, blog tagging and editing for SEO (and teaching him to do this himself), monitoring…

If you’re like me, and you have a heart for small businesses having equal opportunity for harnessing the power of the internet in their marketing efforts, a little hands-on skill goes a long way… even if it means an hour or two of data entry every now and again.

Motrin outrages mothers with latest ad campaign

Posted on by
3

Oh it’s going to be a bad day in the office for the folks at Motrin brand on Monday. Whoever thought their latest ad would be a good idea may have seriously done some damage.

I don’t know exactly when this new homepage video went live, but it’s 10pm pacific on Saturday evening and moms all over Twitter are outraged about it… so much so that #motrinmoms has jumped to #2 trending topic on Twitter Search.

I don’t consider myself an attachment parenting advocate, but I sure did use a sling to carry around my son. It’s convenient, and good for baby. Motrin has probably managed to offend just about any mom who chooses to watch this video or who has ever used a carrier of any type citing baby wearing “makes me look like an official mom”… what?!

Here you can see the full transcript of the audio.

Here you can see screen shots from Motrin’s home page.

Or, you can watch this video response from Instinctparenting:

Or read this blog about it.

I don’t suspect the ad will be there much longer, but this just goes to show how terribly wrong marketing can go and how social media can take it there.

The people have a voice; and the collective can be louder than we ever dreamed.

EDIT/ADDITION (November 16th):
Now you can watch the video on YouTube (for when it gets pulled from the Motrin home page):

Corporate Marketing & Social Media Brain Freeze

Posted on by
4
striatic on Flickr

Photo: striatic on Flickr

I am the first to admit I’m into the internet. I have always verged on a little nerdy and somewhat socially awkward in my younger days. I can do face to face, particularly for business, but I’m much more comfortable in my jamies behind a keyboard. I like talking to people, interacting, and learning from people like the ever-so-amazing Gary Vaynerchuk and Social Media guru Chris Brogan. I love knowing what is going on in the world around me, and the internet and today’s technology provides a way to learn and interact with far more people in a day than you ever could in real life.

Oh and by the way, the internet IS real life in 2008. We’re no longer talking to ‘anonymous’.

When I first started working in the marketing department for Grouse Mountain, it was 1999. The state of technology was vastly different than it is now. My favourite memory that makes me laugh, and maybe cry a little, is that we had only a few email accounts and not everyone could have their own. If I wanted to send an email I had to get up and kick the administrator off her computer, sit down and send it. Then I was at her mercy to let me know if I got a response. Funny to think back about it now.

Today, the situation is very different; I’m connected 24/7.

I started diving head-long into social media when I returned to work after my maternity leave in February 2007. I had been a forum junkie since about 2002, spending a huge amount of time in places like karateforums.com, coolrunning.com, weightwatchers.ca, familylife.com and justmommies.com. When I went back to work I was determined to seek out all the best places online in order to figure out who was where and what they were talking about. I signed up to MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn… I now have accounts I don’t even remember creating. I’m pretty much connected to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc. all day long and even have to use two different browsers to stay logged in to two Google accounts. I have corporate accounts and personal accounts and the list goes on… and the lines blur…

My newest fascination is WordPress; I wish I hadn’t taken so long to discover it.

I switched this blog to it a couple of months ago and have built a new one now for UrbanShore.ca – my new pet project. I’ve also built one for Whistler Water and have one that I’m building for a friend. I also have a really exciting new wordpress site in the works for Grouse Mountain’s terrain park community that will launch very shortly.

Anyway, all this is to say I sometimes feel like my brain is going to explode. I would hazzard a guess I’m not the only one working with Social Media that is feeling this way, but I think if we’re not careful and place some limits on its use, we could easily integrate it to unhealthy levels. Who knows? Maybe I’m already there.

If social media were the only thing on my plate, maybe I would just get used to it, but it’s just a piece of my duties as a marketer and my life as a human being in 2008. I still have print ads, and signs, and brochures and documents and image requests and TV and videos and websites and planning and strategy to attend to. It’s actually the variety that keeps me loving my job, but it can tax the senses a little. Add to that the personal commitment to blogging outside of work and connecting with friends using social media and I really never leave my computer and mobile.

Such is my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How to promote your business or company on Facebook

Posted on by
Reply

Judging by the crowd of people sitting on the floor in the “How to Market Your Blog, Business & Brand on Facebook” session at BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2008, people want to know how to promote their business or company on Facebook.

Facebook is one of the world’s fastest growing social networking sites and facilitates some of the easiest, most comprehensive sharing strategies within any single online community. Here are some stats from the Facebook Wikipedia Page:

According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[69] ComScore reports that Facebook attracted 132.1 million unique visitors in June 2008, compared to MySpace, which attracted 117.6 million.[70]

According to Alexa, the website’s ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in terms of worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 5th.[71] Quantcast ranks the website 15th in US in terms of traffic,[72] and Compete.com ranks it 14th in US.[73] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, with 14 million uploaded daily.

Blogs, businesses and brands all want to get seen by those users. Today’s session from Shama Hyder on Facebook Fortunes (even if, as she admitted, the term came from Mari Smith) attracted a crowd. And Shama’s advice was good IF (and this if is HUGE) you ARE your company. If you and your company, business, brand etc. are one and the same, i.e. you are a public figure, artist, internet rockstar, performer, realtor, author or you own your own business that you never want to sell (along with its identity), everything Shama said is golden. Do it. Follow her advice.

***If, however, you are an employee of a company that you do not own and may not be a part of forever, I don’t recommend you do it.***

Companies can use Facebook as a complement to their online and offline marketing efforts in a number of ways. I’m going to outline some of the ways I use Facebook to facilitate sharing of information about my company by our most loyal of followers as well as how to use the built-in marketing tools Facebook provides. These methods have made Facebook my company’s #1 referring website since we launched the redesigned grousemountain.com last December.

A little disclosure so you understand the bigger picture for me: 50% of my traffic comes via search engines and 36% comes direct. Referring sites in total make up only 13% on average, so these numbers matter, but they’re not everything. Facebook is not referring the bulk of my traffic, but Grouse Mountain is an established business with a membership component so the majority of our customers already know where to find us. We have huge brand recognition within our industry. For smaller, newer or lesser-known companies, I think the interaction you can create with Facebook can be very valuable, and that goes beyond just click-through-rate.

Facebook tools that I’ll discuss include groups, fan pages, event listings, targeted social ads and share widgets. This is going to be a bit long, so please bear with me. Other tools that I’m less familiar with and will not discuss include marketplace listings, polls, applications and beacons.

Before I launch into what you need to know, I’ll start by saying join Facebook. Join as a human being. Upload a photo of yourself, put in a little information, go find your friends and family members and connect with them. It’s fun and you’ll like it. Now that I’ve said that, reconsider before friending everyone you’ve ever heard of or met for business purposes. Again, I’m saying this as an employee of a company. It’s not that I don’t want to connect with some of my business contacts, but I don’t want to share my personal life with everyone I know and I DO want somewhere to share my personal life with my friends. Not only that, but my friends don’t really care what I’m up to at work though most of them understand I will occasionally spam them with the latest thing I’m working on. They understand, though… they’re my friends. My real friends. Well, most of them are.

Building Facebook Groups for business conversations

Facebook Groups are mini communities centred around a specific topic. When you build a group, your personal profile is listed as the creator. This is where people will be able to see who you are and, if you’ve left your profile open at all, a little about you (more on profiles at the end). I think the best use of groups is for something that’s ongoing (best not to build a group for a one-time event – there are event listings for that) but maybe not your entire corporate identity.

Groups are great for specific promotions, products and shared experiences. One of the ways I have used Facebook Groups is with our Build Your Own Park project, where we decided to engage our terrain park riders to tell us what features they wanted to see in the park and how they thought it should be set up. For more ideas, just Google “innovative Facebook groups”.

Facebook Groups allow users to share without hesitation. They can blast it out to everyone on their friends list with one click. This is the fastest way to share info if the info is worthy of sharing. Groups include photos, posted items, discussion boards and walls; each item can be removed as the administrator sees fit or set to ‘admin only’, which means users can’t post items (that’s a strategic decision you need to make depending on your goals). They aren’t customizable with applications (yet) but allow for multiple editors and you can message all members direct to their inbox. The only downside here that I know of, is that groups are limited to 5000 members (that I didn’t know – heard it from Shama Hyder; my groups have been more niche than that so I’ve never reached the threshold).

Building Facebook Fan Pages promotes identities

Fan Pages are ideal for many companies, celebrity personalities or specific products or product lines. Two very important things to note with regards to fan pages:

1) People cannot share fan pages to their entire list of friends
Promoting a fan page is harder than a group – you need to put more effort into getting the word out. The only sharing mechanism is for posting to profile (where the item shows up under someone’s posted items) or sending to a friend as a message (it arrives at the friend’s inbox, but can only be sent to 10 friends at one time). And, while your friends will get a note in their news feed when you become a fan of any particular Fan Page, this sharing limitation makes Facebook Fan Pages much harder to grow.

2) Fan Pages include a mandatory ‘Reviews’ application
With the Reviews application, people are free to review your product and the reviews cannot be taken off a fan page. If no one reviews it, great, no reviews. If they do and they didn’t like your product, tough. You can, however, set the reviews to only show based on a person’s friends i.e. if I visit the page I see only reviews written by my friends but even when that option is exercised, I can always click ‘see all’ and get the rest if I want them.

Fan pages don’t limit membership and include discussion boards, a wall, posted items, photos, videos and many applications can now be added to fan pages, which makes them way more customizable. Also, if you’re a blogger or internet rockstar, or you have a corporate blog, you can use the Notes application to import each entry as a note so each time you post to your blog, your fan page gets updated. This is not an option with a group.

One of the benefits to larger companies that may have multiple administrators (or employee turnover, for that matter) is that when the administrator posts anything on the page it posts it from “Fan Page Name” instead of from your personal profile. If you have multiple people administering a page the fans can’t tell who did which part. This can be good or bad and I’ll leave it to you to weigh the pros and cons for your company. One point to note: If you comment on a note in your own Fan Page, the comment WILL show up from your personal profile. So when you write the note, it’s the corporate identity and when you write a comment on that note, it will show up as your own.

You can message all fans, but it goes in an area called ‘updates’ within the message centre (click on your inbox and you’ll see a tab for updates) rather than the actual message inbox, so it really comes in as a ‘marketing’ type message. That isn’t all bad, though, because most people only become a fan of companies and people they really want to hear from and, as many have said before me, people don’t want to be friends with companies anyway. When a new update is sent, the user gets a notification and link on their home page when they log in.

Using Facebook Event Listings to promote events

Event listings are exactly what they sound like. Use Facebook Event Listings to create and share event information surrounding a single date (I’m not a fan of using these for multi-day events because they don’t show up as “upcoming” once the start date passes). Events can be structured in such a way so you can show the invitation list, see how many people have been invited and who they are, how many people haven’t responded, how many people have RSVP’d yes and how many declines you get. People can share events to their entire list of friends or post to their own profile.

An example of an event listing on Facebook is The TechSet Presents: Poolside in Vegas though in this case they chose to show only ‘yes’ responses and ‘maybes’ (sometimes it’s better not to show how many people declined – again, a strategic decision). Events use photos, videos, posted items and walls and all of these items can also be removed or set to ‘admin only’. You can also set events to private, public, invite only or open so anyone can invite anyone else. Lots of options here.

Note: You can post an event as an individual or as a business with a Fan Page. If you post it from the Events link on your home page you will be considered the host. If you post it from within a Fan Page, the company/identity name will be the host.

Facebook’s targeted social ads are simple to use

Facebook has made placing ads so simple, anyone could do it. Now, it’s not appropriate for everyone, but most B2C companies can find value here. In fact, after this, I’ll probably devote an entire blog entry to targeted Facebook social ads. Very cool stuff.

Facebook ads are the small ads that appear on the right hand side of a person’s profile pages (see sample, right). With the new Facebook design, users are now served up two ads on almost every page they visit (except their home/news-feed page). Those ads are served up based on carefully selected targeting options; often they’re so well targeted I love getting them because they’re entirely relevant to me! With Facebook social ads you get a tiny headline (25 characters), a tiny photo (110 x 80px), and a very small space for copy (~135 characters with spaces). These need to be written with the precision and skill of text search ads, but Facebook gives you all the metrics to see which ones are more effective so you can switch out the less effective ones (though it doesn’t do it automatically like Google does).

You can target by geographic region, gender, age, marital status, education level, sexual orientation, workplace and keyword. Most of these are self-explanatory; workplace and keyword are very interesting. While I’ve never targeted ads based on workplace, this has huge implications for HR professionals and B2B companies. Many large organizations have Facebook networks devoted to their employees; these are part of the targeting criteria. For instance, you could target employees of Intel, Microsoft, Google, Buzzlogic, or any number of other organizations – there are hundreds to choose from.

Keyword targeting, however, is where you can fine tune after you get past all that demographic info. You can target people by any keyword they may have put in their profile, be it a favourite band, movie, sport, religion, book, interest, activity or cause. Anything anyone may have included in their profile is game. Furthermore, you can also add social actions to your ads: You can choose to have your ad served up, whenever possible, with a photo of a friend who is a fan.

Example: My Grouse Mountain ad is getting served up to Bob and Bob is friends with Joe. Joe is a fan of Grouse Mountain’s Fan Page. Because of that, Bob gets that ad with Joe’s photo and a note saying “Joe is a fan of Grouse Mountain”. That makes it all that much more relevant because now when Bob sees it he thinks “hey, Joe is a fan, let me check it out…” See how that works?

You can buy Facebook Social Ads on a CPC or CPM basis and even my most targeted campaigns have worked out to roughly $0.30/CPM or around the same per click. You set your daily maximum and your time parameters and start the campaign. I could also get into the whole strategy aroud where your ads are linking, but I won’t. I’ll just say I think in most cases I think it’s better to send the ad clicks to your website rather than your Facebook page, group or whatever.

Facebook Share widgets promote your web content

Finally, Facebook has a widget that’s easily added into any web page that allows a person to send the page to their profile as a posted item. I am going to start this section by saying I can’t find the share code on Facebook anymore… it seems they aren’t promoting this as an option any longer, however, it still works (probably because many have used it when it was promoted). They also, incidentally have a bookmark for this too. This code (pardon me if it’s messy – I’m not a coder), embedded in your page, will allow your customers to post the page to their profile:

And it will look and work like this:
HTML .fb_share_link {PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 20px; BACKGROUND: url(http://static.ak.facebook.com/images/share/facebook_share_icon.gif?57:26981) no-repeat left top; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 2px; HEIGHT: 16px}
Share on Facebook

Note: It can be a little trickier with a blog entry because the URL inside the code must be the exact code of the page you want to share, so presumably that’s the post permalink. You will need to either know exactly what that permalink is ahead of time to put it in there, or go back and edit it once the permalink is generated.

About Facebook Profiles and Privacy

You can control the privacy level on just about every item of your profile – your contact info, your ‘about’ info, your employment info, education info, interests, photo albums, videos etc. based on who you want to see what. As a corporate person who has a private life, I highly recommend you consider who can see what. Any portion of your profile that you leave open to everyone, or your network, or friends of friends can, well, be seen by those groups of people. You can pick and choose who can see what and I highly recommend you take some time to get to understand these privacy settings. I can’t begin to explain them all here. If business networking is important to you, leave a limited profile available to everyone and use the messaging feature to communicate. You don’t have to be friends with someone to message them back and forth, but if you’re not friends it’s harder to keep track of them – there isn’t a non-friends contact list option. Once you’ve set up whatever you want public (either entirely public to the world or public to your network/geographic location), set the rest to ‘friends only’. Then, when someone tags you in a photo at the bar or doing something you’d rather your business contacts didn’t see, there’s no fear. You can choose to have some stuff available to ‘friends of friends’ in case you want old friends to find you – education info for instance. You can choose to put your home address and telephone number on your profile and make it visible only to your friends or even to selected people. Again, so many options here so go and have a solid look through the privacy section – you’ll find it at the top right of every page you see.

With that, I’ll leave you to digest the above info. If anyone has any additional feedback, ideas, comments, or just wants to tell me they think I’m plain wrong, feel free to leave a comment. Alternatively, if you’d like me to go into further depth with any of the above topics, let me know and I’ll do that too. I’d love to hear from others who are using Facebook as well; I’m one of the crazy fans who leaves it open all day so I can see what’s going on there. At the same time, please don’t be offended if I don’t accept your friend request. As I said, I use Facebook almost exclusively for personal relationships, so if you’d like to connect professionally, please follow me @seeking_balance on Twitter (I’ll more than likely follow you back), connect with me on LinkedIn, or find my friendfeed and connect with me that way.