Social Media Content Marketing

In Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film The Birds , a town is paralyzed when birds viciously attack unsuspecting citizens. A remake of sorts is being done online and it's called The Tweets. Designed to give the common man a voice to be heard, Twitter has now become a loaded gun for politicians and celebrities with which to shoot their feet. Everyday, bad tweets seem be pecking their way into the media creating more havoc and ill-will than promotion. Certainly some are bigger offenders than others, but it's not just the orange-crested loons making bad tweets. It's companies too. So what's a bad tweet and how do you rebound from them? Think of Twitter as a ticker tape to the world. It's a great way to quickly communicate with customers, vendors, fans, etc. Recently a well known marketing automation company released a tweet with "four-letter" words. It was trying to stand out with a catchy play on words, maybe appeal to a younger crowd I suppos...

Photo: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228029 Social media best practices is often the topic of my column which is syndicated by several news services and tweeted to millions of readers. I've written two eBooks on social media best practices, and companies large and small hire me to create complex social media strategies and execute their plans. My newest client - the 19-year-old founder of Campus Thrift, ( www.campusthrift.com ) a new, online thrift store where only college students can buy and sell used goods - isn't much impressed with any of this experience.  Then again, she also happens to be my daughter... Like it or not, there is a generational gap that exists in the social media world, and it only seems to be widening. You're always going to to roll your eyes at the generation before you who did not grow up with that new technology - bet it the horseless carriage or SnapChat.  According to a social media demographic study last year in Business Insider ...

Social media lessons we can all learn from the most outspoken, opinionated, yet fascinating Presidential candidate. If you were slapped by a stranger, would you turn and run, restrain them, or hit back?  For many of us raised in and around New York City, a slap is returned with a closed fist to the jaw. Not fighting fair? The attitude is, if you make an unprovoked or unfair hit we will hit you much harder. This transcends socioeconomic class. Perhaps it's why one time New York City Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt would speak softly and carry that big stick. The same applies to verbal slapping which has moved for the most part from the streets to the Web. Twitter seems to be the arena of choice where tweets fly quickly with stinging jabs.  A football player disses a rival team; a rapper calls out another for not having street creds. The retorts that are often crude, inflammatory, libelous even - but good fodder for our reality-obsessed public that relishes these...

The best way to keep momentum in your company's social media efforts is to become a social media nutritionist and change the way you're consuming content. "Eat many small meals throughout the day" is the mantra of many a nutritionist when teaching clients on how to keep their metabolism going.  Your body is like a locomotive gaining momentum and energy from the frequent small feedings. Social media I will tell you works the same way. I've written about the importance of regular blogging, press releases, tweets but creating relevant content on a regular schedule isn't easy. It's not that we're lazy, it's that -- OK - we are lazy, or busy, or just fresh out of ideas. But that's unacceptable. The reason these lapses occur is because most  people write only when things need to be written and postpone it as long as possible ( remember college term papers?) But for those of us who make a living through writing know that writer...

There is money to be made in social media. But it's not being made where you'd think -- or at least where I thought. The bulk of the money is being made by companies and individuals selling services to other companies and individuals with the hopes of making money in social media. Confused? Me too. Thanks to social media, the days of the banner ads as revenue generators are behind us.  Pricing was based on traditional print advertising, but used visitors rather than subscribers as the benchmark. Then when tracking became available, advertisers charged by viewership or "eyeballs", And that morphed into click-throughs,  and later into conversions. To be honest, I don't think they were a good investment once the novelty wore off. Today, I am never quicker with a click then to shut those pop in ads for newsletter subscriptions et al. You still see banner ads (mostly on mobile) but online ads were replaced with search engine ads and corresponding landing pages...

Are emoticons making social media communicating easier or easier to avoid real emotions? How do you feel about emoticons? Well, maybe I should first ask, did you now that those punctuation marks that look like faces on their sides actually had a name? And that they have different names for the style type depending upon the expression orientation and where in the world they were developed or what software you're using? There's even documentation on the first known use of the original smiley-face emoticon and a kickstarter for an emoji keyboard . But like casual Fridays and Holiday parties , those collection of silly faces have become an accepted part of business communications despite their non-business like nature. It seems that emotion icons, (better known by the portmanteau emoticon ), and their pictograph close cousin emoji are part of every communication, built into email clients, Facebook, and many other platforms. Some applications will even turn your...

Full disclosure: Every thing I've written has had at least one comma or apostrophe out of place... Maybe a letter or word omitted in haste when meeting a tight deadline. I'm not proud of the fact, but it goes with the territory. It's not that I'm careless, or couldn't care less as it were, but like many writers I "see" the finished product in my head. I've always known about this shortcoming and praise copy editors as unsung heroes who make us better while preserving the sanctity of the written word in our increasingly video-obsessed society.  Like the make up artists and camera operators are to the actor, editors and copy editors make us writers look good -- or at least better. ( Heck, I even married my copy editor years ago, and not surprisingly, my column and scripts haven't read so messy since we split .)  So in short, writers need copy editors and we should all strive to be grammatically correct when we speak and write. Copy e...

Good news: you created a company page on Facebook for your new business! Bad news? The novelty is gone. Nobody cares anymore. No really. Well I certainly don't, and not  because I'm a cantankerous curmudgeon. It's because I know what will happen when I do. Liking one page means Facebook "thinks" you'd like similar pages, so it's algorithm bombards you with similar page suggestions. And the real reason we "Liked" most pages in the first place is "likely" out of guilt. Friends, exes, work associates, work friends who became exes -- oh who cares! Just click the button and help the person get free publicity and some mojo going. That's just my point: it doesn't help that either. Being social media savvy, I try to explain this to those in my life but it never ends well. (OK the cantankerous curmudgeon plays into it as well). The mistake companies make (be they large or small) is concentrate on sending the page to coworkers,...

New England. Seattle. What a game that was! Yes I said was . No, this article wasn't posted a week early. It's in fact timed perfectly because it's not about the big game, it's about the social media game around scheduled events. Good luck getting your post noticed nonetheless your message received next Monday morning. The Web will be overflowing with Facebook posts, Tweets, Instagrams, blogs, and commentary on the successes, failures, bad calls, and great plays of Super Bowl 49 ( Sorry. English Major here. I don't do Roman Numerals ). But today, rather than my words getting lost in a sea of Monday morning social media mayhem, you're reading this Super Bowl themed article. I've got your attention and you'll listen to what I've got to offer. Touchdown, and the extra point is good. First rule in social media event strategy is say it first . You can run the risk of saying the wrong thing, but that can be avoided if you've got t...

If your career path has taken extreme detours, will an accurate and honest LinkedIn profile actually hurt your career instead of help it? As much as people like those "3 Reasons Why.." and "The Top 10 Ways..." articles, this is not one of them. This is about only one topic. One message in fact that I received from an old friend the other day regarding LinkedIn. He reads my articles and posed what I thought was a rather interesting challenge: "You seem to have this whole LinkedIn thing figured out," he said. "But I don't. In fact, I think being on LinkedIn is actually hurting my career -- not helping it. I'm actually planning on deleting my account. I'm going to call you tomorrow and want to see if you can convince me otherwise." Challenge accepted. I see articles every week on LinkedIn about improving or enhancing your profile, to generate leads, to increase your network, to get hired, to avoid getting fired, but t...

Facebook revealed this week that it will be tagging news items from " The Onion " as satire as it has received many complaints from members confused the style of humor. This announcement comes just days after Facebook's decision to begin charging a $9.99 monthly subscription fee for  membership beginning in September for its satire-challenged members. OK. The part about the social networking king charging was satire about satire. But Facebook, like many free websites are not joking about looking for innovative ways to monetize. And it's been a tough road to hoe and t he road just installed toll booths . But I always know a short cut. I make a large majority of purchases online, so I don't begrudge any website trying to monetize its efforts. But when you start off as free, it's difficult not to mention risky to start charging for your intangible services. Their remuneration is paid in data. Our information currency. But security issues and pr...

You've probably read a lot about it in the news this week, so let me finally address the event:  I am about to hit the 500+ connections milestone on LinkedIn, and frankly the business world is abuzz about it. At least that's what LinkedIn would have me to believe. The business networking site has done a great job at making a name for itself as an Internet standard, mentioned routinely in the same breath with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Now, any article you read usually offers the LinkedIn share button, but being an aggregated news source is just a caveat of the business professional powerhouse that it has become. But LinkedIn has achieved much more than being the online Rolodex replacement that it had set out to be when it was first founded.But it's done so by redefining its own rules.  I don't remember when I joined LinkedIn, but it was early on, and earlier then most anybody I know. Being an early adopter is part of the job description for an Int...

Yet another nail salon opened up in my neighborhood. I think that makes 20 in a three block radius. Like many men, a "nail salon" for me is a hot shower and a nail clipper that my Dad gave me 20 years ago. In my book, if the nails are trimmed neat and clean, then I've done my job. I don't begrudge anyone -- man or woman -- who patronize these establishments. But for me, color on the tips of my fingers and toes is way down on my priority list. Just ahead of starting a wasp circus. I walk by the new nail salon sometimes four times a day. And if I see the proprietor in the window I'll smile and nod.  Yesterday I introduced myself and welcomed her to the neighborhood so it came as a surprise when she looked at me contritely and did not introduce herself.  Instead of shaking my hand, she grabbed my hand without saying a word not to shake it but to examine it. "You need a manicure," she said. "Come inside now my girls need t...

Have you made a post, shared a photo, or commented on one of your social networks that you later regretted? If you answered, "no," then you're doing it wrong. It means you're not posting enough. We all have regrets in life, and I'm willing to bet it's more what you haven't done than did. If you're in social media, you've got to be in all the way. Not that there's anything wrong with reserving comments. I think there are many people who post far too much -- or more to the point, far too much uninteresting junk. No one's ever gone to a comedy show and complained "He was great, but he made me laugh too much." Like wearing yoga pants, everyone has the right to post, not everyone should . However, if you answered "yes" to the question, then congratulations are in order. Not for your poor choices, but for your decision to take chances and recognize your mistakes. Most successful people do both. When I post, I do ...

If your marketing department hasn't gotten the results you expected from your social networking by now, it probably never will. It's not their fault. It's just the wrong channel. I'm a digital marketing consultant who spend his days as a social media strategist, write a syndicated column on social media, have authored social media best practices eBooks, and by some standards, am a pioneer in social media. And I consider myself a social media student as you can't be much of an expert on what's been around for such a short time. So it always puzzles me when a client reaches a frustration level with the results, or rather the lack thereof, that they are achieving from their efforts. They'll say: "I've got my Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages up. And I'm paying some kid to write content and post and tweet and blog and...I'm not seeing anything."  Sound familiar? Measuring ROI on social media certainly is possible though since there...

I'm not trying to spit in anybody's facebook, but you can spend all the time, resources, and tweet equity you want on a social media campaign but if your sales team isn't on board, your efforts will be compromised and results will be social mediocre. There has been a shift created by social media and the sales process greater than the valuation of Bitcoin or any stock. I have found that great salespeople share some common traits -- desire to change is usually not one of them.  Marketers love change; salespeople often loathe it and understandably so. Once you analyze the market, find a process, establish a routine, and identify pain points and value adds that works, you stick with them. New opportunities are great, so if it's a new product or flavor of ice cream they can sell it all day. But if it's a change to the menu, they'll balk. Social media is more than a new flavor, and it's more than the cherry on top; it's a whole new course. And that...

Last night while watching baseball, it hit me. The idea for my column, not the ball. I'm so spontaneous I just then decided to write about my spontaneity. Like how I recently moved across the country. I purchased the tickets on a Monday, arrived the next day 2,300 miles West. I had been living in the same apartment for seven years. But right before I moved, something wonderful happened. I reached to flick on the bedroom light switch and it was gone. Not from the wall, but from my memory. My subconscious chose to delete that bit of information from my RAM to make room as it would soon be as obsolete as a floppy disk with Netscape Navigator. And that was the first of my cerebral cleansing with no juicing required. Each day I purged more and more from the mailman's name to -- well see? I already forgot what else I forgot. Social media marketers strive to flip that light switch on permanently so they are always top of mind. Better, strive to get your posts...

"Social media" this!  #blahblahblah. Mark it on your calendar. By this time next year, I predict social media will be gone. And not just from my life.  Have you been reading all those stories having to do with social media fatigue?  There's been a plethora of personal accounts of people swearing off sharing, demonizing their digital dillydallying, repenting from the sins of all things posted. But anything with this much hype is bound to get backlash. Our society tends to demonize anything that gets too popular.   But this is not one of those bashing articles. I'm here to tell you social media is not an evil religious cult -- though I bet Satan hates those requests for Candy Crush Saga as much as the next guy.   Nor do I believe social media is addictive like nicotine. Like Mark Twain and smoking, I think quitting Facebook is easy, I've done it a thousand times -- I learned the first time I quit Facebook though, that wasn't the right approach. H...

"It's true. I didn't read this. I didn't even bother to read the title before I shared it. In fact, you've already read more of the article than I ever will. That's because many Twitter retweets are done digitally through robots.  Or maybe a service found the phrase "social media" and it "Liked" it under my Facebook profile. I wonder if the author named the article what he did to prove a point?" He did.  Last week, I was checking statistics to see who had retweeted my last article on wanting social media to be less narcissistic . (The irony of that last statement is not lost on me, but I digress.) The great thing about Facebook, Twitter and other social networks is that nearly everything can be tracked and traced. I was pleased to see marketers, other business professionals, as well as plain ol' regular folks, had liked the article enough to share it with others.  But as I continued perusing the list, I spotted a ton of ph...

  What is Zen and the Art of Social Media Sushi? Patience, grasshopper.  Put down your Facebook and Twitter posting software for a moment and I will explain. Famous, recognizable people can be seen all over Los Angeles. In the neighborhood I live, I recognize one every day. But when I walk into my favorite Japanese restaurant for a quick bite, you would think Elvis had entered the building -- when he was alive, I mean.  Few writers are so recognizable that they fall into celebrity status -- and I am certainly not one of those. Nor are writers often big spenders -- not exactly the highest paying profession in the world. But tonight the chef came out of the kitchen just to shake my hand. The new hostess and server introduced themselves. The manager bowed. And last night I just walked by and the owner waived wildly when he saw me. There seems to be are as many Japanese restaurants in L.A. as there are celebrities, but to my Japanese restaurant, I am royalty. A true c...