Social media marketing is a much more complex animal than most people seem to think. You cannot just do a bit of it and think it will achieve your goals. In truth, for it to work it has to be a full on social media campaign. Like a well orchestrated symphony, if one part is missing or off key, it will fall flat.

All the tools of Social Media are but pieces of the larger puzzle. Some are to build buzz, some are to spark interest and build tribes, some are used to give deeper information and yet others are best used as a clear call to action. Then there are tools like Twitter and Foursquare that serve to provide the constant beat of jungle drums in the background to keep the movement alive.

Let’s break one down. In our example we are marketing an event to showcase our business.

First off, get your information ready for  your blogsite.Big, splashy, information rich with links and details aplenty. This is in essence, the home base for your media campaign. But don’t launch it all yet, just tease it.Put a lead generator on the page to gather email addresses. “Be the first to know more”

Next you should start teasing it on your FB and Twitter. Lay it out and start building excitement. Put up tweets and status updates saying that “You won’t believe what we have in store for you.” Then start leaking details. You have to do this frequently and you can’t stop. In your symphony, this is your base line. Mind you, you can’t just keep retweeting the same thing over and over. Change the notes. Every thing should link back to the page on your website.

Now that you have tweaked everyones curiosity, roll out the full content on your blog/website. Start getting into buzz building detail on FB. “Just met with {caterer} for a tasting and OMG the food will be fabulous!” “What do you think about our signature cocktail {name}?” “Just saw the mock-ups from {florist}. Wow, just Wow”

Everyone of those vendors needs to be in on the campaign, even if you have to write the content and set up the tweets for them. This is a multipronged attack and it all has to work in unison to achieve it’s goals.

Now you send out the email blast. You send it, your vendors send it and you track your response. The email should match the page on your website and it simply must limit the number of reservations accepted and a time frame. The more scarse and coveted you make the tickets the faster they will sell.

Now you and all of your vendors should be posting updates on their blog helping to build the excitement.

One week later, send the next email blast. In fact, do two. On would go to the people that opened the first but did not respond. Say something along the lines of “Don’t miss the boat” or “Last chance to register”. the other email should go to the people that did not open the first one. Your subject line has got to make their mouth water.

Don’t forget to keep up that baseline of Twitter and FB. On Twitter you should start thanking people for registering. “@{name} I’m so glad you are coming! Can’t wait to see you.” “Dear friend of {company name} @{name} just registered. I can’t wait for you all to meet her.” Put those names out there and make it a social event.

Keep this thing running until the event starts and beyond. Heck, Tweet the event. Those that missed it won’t miss your next one.

Yep, it’s a lot of work. If you look at the alternative of using traditional media you are looking a a massive spend in money instead of time. If this is important to you, take a fraction of what you are saving by not doing traditional media and hire some one to orchestrate the campaign. Money well spent.

or you could just wing it. LOL yeah right.

I met with a friend last week that needed some advice on promoting an upcoming event. We talked about the time frame (very short), we talked about what they were doing already(great event, some advertising, no social media) and what they hoped to get out of the event.

In the course of an hour we tossed around ideas and looked at some possibilities. By the time we were done I thought that we had laid out a fairly comprehensive plan. The thing was, it needed to be implemented almost immediately. Now, yesterday if possible.

I still haven’t seen one word on social media. Not. One.

This needed to be mobilized by all the people that are involved in it. By getting everyone  involved, setting them all up to update automatically and letting it roll, it should have been an easy thing to do.

Sometimes, when you have a lot riding on your PR and marketing and your hands are already full running your business, it just makes sense to hire someone to do it for you.

I have been following the articles over on eWedNews concerning the demise of the formal wear industry. So, you know me, I started looking at their marketing.

First question: What marketing? Why isn’t there a gorgeous man in a gorgeous tux in every bridal gown ad? Isn’t there usually a groom at most occasions to wear a bridal gown?.

Second, the ad I do see most is the Men’s Wearhouse ad that speaks directly to men. Pffffft! If you want men to wear tuxedos you have to pitch the brides.

Which brings us to the Old Spice Man. If you haven’t caught this bit of viral brilliance then you have been living in a cave. What started as an ad on the Super Bowl transformed itself into a social media phenomenon with the Old Spice man responding to tweets in YouTube video spots. Brilliant social media marketing, but that isn’t the point I want to make.

*pause for random opportunity to include gratuitous half naked hunky guy video

This is: 80% of the purchases made in the US are made by women. The Old Spice campaign is aimed at women. Yes it is a product for men, so are tuxedos. However, body wash isn’t something that most men think about, neither are tuxedos. They are both something women think about. Whether it is a wife or partner that does the shopping and decides which body wash to buy or a bride deciding what to dress the men in the wedding party in, it is the women that make the decision. That is why you need to pitch to her.

Seriously, do you really think that an ad with a hunky half naked man was created to appeal to MEN? I didn’t think so. But what happens to the single guy that sees his date pay attention to said hunky half naked guy? He is going to pick up that product thinking that he may get her to pay that kind of attention to him. Either way, it was the woman’s influence that drove the sale.

Back to formal wear. If you want men to start wearing tuxedos, you are going to have to sell women on the idea first.

Say for instance, when the most recent Bond movie came out, why wasn’t there a tie in with how sexy Daniel Craig looked in formal wear? I mean come on, he had on a tux in the poster for Casino Royale!!! Sexy man> sexily dressed. Pitch perfect for a campaign directed at women.

Here is another, I ran across a couple of beach wedding pictures that had the bride in a traditional formal gown and the groom in cargo shorts and a bowling shirt. How about a picture like that with the tag line, “Don’t you deserve better?” Maybe if the tuxedo manufacturers produced a line specifically for the beach weddings, after all the gown manufacturers have.

Back to the gown ads. Those ads I do see in magazines with men in tuxedos usually have him looking disaffected and women fawning over him. That is pitching to men. Let’s turn it around, how about have him looking on adoringly at her? Every girl is crazy about a sharp dressed man, but on her wedding day the last thing she wants is all of her bridesmaids fawning over her new hubs. The better story is “Look at this gorgeous man that only has eyes for me.”

More important than the end user of your product, think about who is most likely to influence that purchase. That’s where you aim the pitch.

Yep, more proof that Facebook is still a good bet. The above title is from a Media Post Study released 7/7/10.

Here is the juicy quote:

Showing the degree to which Facebook has become the gateway to the greater Web, nearly half — 48% — of all respondents now claim to get more news through Facebook than from traditional news outlets.

In addition, shedding new light on the dynamics of female social networking behavior, 50% of respondents believe they could rely on a “Facebook friend” for their help in a crisis; while 46% say it’s okay to be Facebook friends with someone they don’t like in real life.

Read the whole article for yourself

Tomorrow I’ll have some things your can do to spice up your Facebook page.

There seems to be a huge push by certain people in the wedding marketing industry this week to convince you to abandon Facebook as a marketing tool and put all your eggs in the Twitter basket. Hmmm, where is this coming from.

On Tuesday Lienne Stevens of Splendid Communications posted this article about the supposed mass exodus from Facebook.

Then today I found this press release from two bright lights saying…

Most wedding professionals should spend less time blogging and on Facebook, and reallocate this time to building a business presence within the wedding Twittersphere

I Call Bullshit!

bullshit_detector

One of the things that has gotten me where I am today is the massive amounts of data I ingest everyday. I analyze information from sources both within and outside of the wedding industry. Well, just let me tell you, what I have read above just didn’t ring true with I am seeing.

And here’s why…

It has always been my position that if you look at your twitter followers that you would find that the majority of your followers are fellow wedding professionals. In fact, I even say this in my seminars and in my blog. Apparently, it isn’t just me. I posted an article earlier this week siting the very interesting infographic that NearlyWeds had posted regarding Twitter followers. NearlyWed did the math folks. They are self described as a bunch of geeks, I trust their data.

Having said that, I also want to say that I still believe that Facebook is your better bet and here is my backup on that.

Check out this article on eMarketer.

Here are the juicy quotes:

Unsurprisingly, despite Facebook’s growing appeal to older users, 18- to 34-year-olds spend the most time on the site per week, at 8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online.

And this:

In Q1 2010, comScore found that the visitors who spent the most time on Facebook also spent the most money online. Targeting users who not only spend large amounts of time on the site but also devote a large proportion of their total online activity to the social network could translate to going after the most lucrative portion of the audience.

I have to tell you, I still think Facebook is a good bet. People are still using it to connect, not just to play Farmville. As long as your target market’s friends are on there, your target market will be there to connect and keep up with their tribe.

The other aspect of Facebook that works in my mind is the “peer pressure”, if your tribe Friends something, you will be prompted to Friend it as well. It is word of mouth marketing on a whole new level. One thing that Facebook does very well is to read your tribe and use that data to make recommendations. You may not like it on a privacy level, but on a marketing level, I’m not going to pass it up.

If you have ever been to one of my seminars on Social Media then you know that one of the things I recommend is that you take a look at who your followers really are. I have long suspected that most of the phenomenal growth in followers and friends is with other wedding professionals. Stated simply. it isn’t brides-to-be following you, it is most likely other wedding pros. Finally someone has done the heavy lifting to prove the point. Many thanks to bloggers at NearlyWed Blog for this fab infographic. Go read the whole article, it’s fascinating.

Well now, what does that mean? Should you bail on Twitter? For me, that is exactly where I want to be because my primary clients are wedding professionals, but what about you? If you are thinking about Twitter as a marketing tool how much time should you be investing in it  if it isn’t attracting clients? Twitter and building your network of like minded professionals isn’t with out merit. Networking is always valuable, but it isn’t the be all to end all in marketing. Don’t get me wrong, I have made some lovely friends because of Twitter, none of them brides. I go back to the question, how much time are you spending tweeting and are you thinking you are marketing? Well, you aren’t marketing, but you are building your personal brand. If a potential client want to know more about you it’s out there for them to find. (Do I need to remind you how search savvy today’s brides are?) Be careful what you say on social media. I suspect that the same is true if you sort through your friends on Facebook. Facebook however may just be a much smarter place to be. I’ll give you some more of the how’s and whys on that one in an in-depth look later this month.

In a recent post I asked the question, Why Do You Blog? And I followed it up by trying to explain that the best way to blog is to be yourself. I want to elaborate on that and why I feel that way.

So many n00b bloggers get hung up on getting every word perfect, on making everyone like them, of having something for everyone. What they end up with is a bland, generic almost corporate”been run through legal first” boring blog.  That’s not what engages customers.

What engages customers is when they can relate to you. They engage when they have a sense of who the person writing is, what they believe and how they think. If you concentrate too much on making it perfect or not offending anyone you are not going to show your personality.

OK, so you don’t want to offend anyone. Well, in the real world that isn’t going to happen. Not everyone is going to ‘get’ you or like you. That’s just the way it is.

Blogs are a marketing tool for most of us. Marketing is about client attraction. Client attraction isn’t just about numbers, or attracting everyone. Client attraction should be about attracting the customers that are the best ft for you.

Reread those last 3 paragraphs.

So if you write from the heart, there is a good chance you are going to offend someone. Guess what. They weren’t your client any way. Your goal with your blog should be to attract the clients that are a good fit.  I have written about refining your target market enough that by now you should know that not every bride is your bride.

The best way to attract ‘your’ bride is to let them know who you are.

Let’s take an example:  Offbeat Bride. Now I can just about guarantee that some of the content is going to offend some people; especially traditionalists.  Guess what, she has one of the loyalist followings out there. Oh, I’m sure it isn’t as big as Style Me Pretty of Wedding Bee, but baby, they will defend that site to the end. That is what you want from your followers; evangelical loyalty.

Vanilla may be the most popular flavor by the number of gallons sold, but it isn’t a flavor that will get you off the couch in the middle of the night.

You can’t be all things to all people. If you are true to yourself and your passions, you will attract the people that are like minded. Those are the people that are going to become your clients.

We don’t sell widgets that can be prepackaged and commoditized. We are in a creative field and as such, people hire us as much because they like the way we view the world as for the product itself.  The only truly unique selling point that you have, that no one can take away or copy is you.

If your blog is too cut and dried, too sanitized, you aren’t showing readers the one thing that will make them come back for more: Your unique view of the world, warts and all.

Trust me, I’ve taken my share of hits from people that don’t agree or like my point of view. Too bad, don’t read my posts. What my followers know is that they will always get my honest opinion. They know that I am never going to pull any punches. They know that I am genuinely who I say I am.

That is what your clients want to

Reading this mornings article on eWedNews, Fairy dust, Feel-good Advertising and Marketing is no Longer working, as Reality Sets In got me thinking about the what and why of how you need to change your advertising to keep relevant.

Here is what I am seeing with brides and GenY in general today. They are all about mobility and portability. If they can’t take the media with them, they are less likely to use it. No longer do they need to be chained to their PC or even laptop.

This quote from the June 24, 2010 Research Brief from the Center for Media Research paints the picture.

• Rising power of mobility and devices: Advances in technology are expected to see increasingly converged, multi-functional mobile devices come of age as a consumption platform by the end of 2011. By 2014, US mobile Internet access subscribers are projected to increase to 96.1 million, a 40% CAGR from 2009.
• Growing dominance of Internet experience over all content consumption: Increasingly, the consumer has moved beyond thinking of the Internet as an end in itself, and expects all forms of media to embed the convenience, immediacy and interactivity of the Internet. People are already consuming magazines and newspapers on Internet-enabled tablets, and streaming personalized music services in preference to buying physical CDs.

Another thing I am seeing is the localization factor. Bridal marketing for most of us has always worked best when it is local. Brides look to the national media for idea, but to local for vendors.

The third change is sparked by this desire for portability. There is a building resurgence in local bridal print media.

How do you use this information?

Here are some steps I think you should look at.

1. Make sure that your web presence is in tip top shape. Your website is fully optimized for search, is user friendly, is updated AT LEAST weekly, is fully integrated with social media and is cell phone compatible.

2. Look at your local publications.

• How well distributed are they? Find out where, how and how many
• Does the content and other advertisers match your business?
• How good is their electronic tie in? Do they have a great, interactive website and are they taking full advantage of social media? Simply having their magazine online is no longer enough. Does their site work to build an active local community of brides?
• What other marketing opportunities to they align themselves with? ie: Bridal shows, TV & Radio

3. If, and only if, you are looking to expand your market nationally or you are trying to pull in destination brides, look at the top wedding blogs like Style Me Pretty to invest in banner ads. This is a big spend and results more in brand identity than direct sales, but may be worth it if you have the extra coin to invest on an ongoing basis.

You have to keep on top of this stuff, my friends.

I want to further explore the Real-time Review trend and its effect on the wedding industry and customer service.

Real-time review is by definition, hair trigger. Suppose you are sitting in a restaurant and it seems to be taking a long time for your food to arrive, so you tweet your displeasure.  That tweet is read in real time. What if one of your followers reads it and decides to head to a different restaurant to avoid the slow service?  Later, when your food arrives the waiter explains that the reason for the delay is that he took one look at your steak and knew it was not the way you had ordered it and had Chef recook it. Rather than the bad customer service you thought you were getting, you were really being well taken care of. Hmmm, you hair trigger tweet still cost them a customer. Come to think of it, did you even bother to tweet an update? If not, since twitter is searchable, you may do much more damage than just that one customer.

Here is a great video example from Gary Vaynerchuk

That may be an extreme example but look at it in the light of the highly charged emotions that surround all things wedding. Once upon a time, you had some leeway. Today you don’t.

You have all had customers that you had to calm or manage or cajole at some point in your relationship. You probable ended up making them happy-happy before it was all over. The problem is that in the new reality of real time review you may not get the chance to do that before they have drug your name and reputation through the mud. One miscue and they whip out their cellphone and tell the world; no chance for you to fix it if it even needs fixing.

Time was when bridal salons biggest fear about cellphones was the camera in the dressing room. Suppose now she is in there tweeting away about how she thinks you are mean for not letting her play dress up to her heart’s content? Never mind that the very next dress you bring in is the one and the tears of joy start to flow.

Suppose you are 20 minutes late delivering the cake even though it is still hours before the reception. If your bride is edgy to begin with she could have done a lot of damage to your reputation in those 20 minutes.

Time was that your biggest concern was a post at some point after the wedding if something displeased a client. “After the wedding” means that you have undoubtedly already done the backflips and somersaults needed to make your client happy and to repair, remake, refit, recover, rewhatever to make sure their day was perfect. With realtime review you have lost that cushion.

Here is a little story that a florist friend of mine told me. She had dropped off the personal flowers in the bride’s room and moved into the church to decorate it, then on to the parish hall to decorate the reception. Before she left, she stopped back by the bride’s room to remove the boxes she had used to deliver them. The bride’s mother was upset, claiming that the florist had forgotten the boutonnières. She hadn’t. She pulled back the corner of the tissue paper in the box to reveal two packages of lovely boutonnières the mother hadn’t bothered to look for or ask about. I wonder just what was tweeted in that hour?  Scary, isn’t it?

Now, more than ever before you have one shot and one shot only to make your clients happy. If you customer service and more importantly, your client communication isn’t top notch you may be in for a shock. Oh, and you might want to keep track of what is being said about you online in real time.

I know that if you are smart enough to be a Think subscriber then you are already all over social media. The question is how smartly are you using it?

I was reviewing the marketing of a wonderful new consulting client recently and what struck me was that even though she had all the pieces of a great social media campaign they weren’t in place.  OK Christine, what the heck does that mean? Well it means that they were there but they weren’t working as a team.  Think of it this way, you can see a lovely collection of stars in the heavens, but until you connect the dots they are just random points of light. Draw the lines and you suddenly see that they are the constellation Orion and tell a powerful story.

D had a great Facebook page, Twitter, a blog, YouTube videos and a website but they weren’t connected.  She was putting in a lot more time and effort than she had to and still not getting the results she could have.  Just like the stars, when all your social media is aligned it can have almost magical powers.

So here is what I counseled her to do…

• Get a plan for Twitter. Rather than just random bits, develop a repeating theme that your followers would look forward to hearing. I don’t want to give away my suggestions to her, but to get an idea look at how @foodimentary publishes food trivia bits every morning. Another good example is @GuyKawasaki, he publishes mostly just links to very cool news stories. Both of these two have a pattern to which you can relate. Also, neither are pitching anything; no spam here.
• Use an application like TweetLater to load a bunch of tweets to post on future dates or times.
• Be more systematic with your blog. Keep a tiny journal with you or use your phone to keep ideas for blog posts. Once a week sit down and write a few posts and set the publishing dates to post over the next week.
• Use an application like Twitter Feed to automatically tweet each new blog post.
• Set it up so your Tweets automatically post to your Facebook page.
• Now, the big one…show links to all of your SM channels on the homepage of your website and you have closed the circle. All of your stars are aligned. From you homepage, your visitors can catch up on the collected wisdom you have Tweeted,  open YouTube to see all of your videos in one place, view all your connections on Facebook even  while they are subscribing to your blog. WooHoo! Orion has never shown so brightly.

By taking the time to setup a plan and a system you have freed yourself from the tedium and constant pressure to post, post, post.  Each piece of the puzzle helps to populate the other.  Your followers on one now have easy access to all of your wisdom on all your many channels.

Social media is an important tool once you know how to use it to your advantage.