Archive for June 2009
Three Parts of a Social Media Marketer
Gary Vaynerchuck
I got all Twittery on the topic of Social Media Marketers this morning, there is a group of people that seem to be considered more popular, even an Elite, as Social Media Marketers. I know the definition is not clearly defined because personalities seem to play a large role in the who’s who of these networks anyway. I think there are three parts to being a Social Media Marketer. You might call these three parts the recipe for Weblebrity (new word coming to a dictionary near you) as someone coined a while back. I’m not trying to start a who’s better than the other war, but I am curious what these people have that appeals to you as your favorite SM Marketer.
Would you consider Gary Vaynerchuck a Social Media Marketer, Promoter or Ambassador? I would entertain that Gary is a motivational speaker, his enthusiasm carries him a long way. You probably know him as the Wine Guy from tv.winelibrary.com with his regular viral videos.
Gary Vaynerchuck has captured attention with his pioneering, multi-faceted approach to personal branding and business. After utilizing traditional advertising techniques to build his family’s local wine business into a national industry leader, Gary rapidly leveraged social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine. As his viewership swelled to over 80,000 a day, doors opened to a book deal, several national TV appearances, and a flurry of speaking engagements around the world. Gary’s dual identity as both business guru and wine guy has made him the “Social Media Sommelier.” (taken from his site)
There is no doubt that Gary is a force to be reckoned with and he has made the most of his efforts to buy the New York Jets NFL Football Club, only time will tell. His focus is clear and makes no excuses as he is CRUSHING IT!
On Twitter I asked if Gary and Chris Brogan were a Marketers, Promoter or Ambassadors? Could they just be popular dynamic personalities.
Here’s a few responses:
Randy Haddock (a musician blogger) says of Gary Vaynerchuck, “Ambassador to both marketing and promotion and does it brilliantly, He’s very knowledgeable, personable, and approachable. He cares about every single viewer/reader he has and builds relationship”.
Chris Herbert of MI6 Agency, Would Chris Brogan be considered a Social Media Promoter, Marketer or Ambassador? Answer: Yes!
Lisa Hoffmann of New Media Lisa says, “Everything is a personality contest, Owen. Everything. Well, everything involving other human beings”.
There are many, many Social Media Marketers that you don’t hear of because they aren’t as high profile or don’t spend as much time in Social Networks as some do to be noticed. I’m not that popular but I spend considerable hours in a day on some Social Media Networks talking, asking questions, writing articles or ranting about Auto-DM’s in Twitter. I love to help people with Social Media Marketing and I love to talk about technology’s and how they will impact society. Does that make me a Social Media Marketer? Maybe, but that has yet to be determined 🙂
Chris Brogan
How about Chris Brogan, he has an incredible following and is loved by many, here is his BIO taken from his site. Chris is a long time Blogger and is all about community and social media. As president of New Marketing Labs, my role is to build and execute strategies for companies seeking to engage their community via the social web. We focus on four core areas: listening, content marketing, community management, and outreach programs. Acting as a hybrid social media PR/communications organization, New Marketing Labs extends your other channels into the new world of the web.
I also operate the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences, a series of events dedicated to educating businesses on the potential of Internet marketing and communications and featuring the brightest practitioners available. We run several single day Inbound Marketing Bootcamp events all over the US as well.
Scott Stratten
Then there is my Canadian favorite Scott Stratten, a sharp young man that seems to be addicted to Twitter. He is very witty and his work on Twitter is always interesting not to mention funny. Who is Scott Stratten? Well….Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing, a firm that works with business owners to help them become customer magnets. He uses proven methods of successful marketing to increase awareness and sales both within a company’s current customer base and new ones. He recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Fast Company and his articles have been published all over the world.
Mack Collier
Mack Collier is another person who is very sharp in the marketing game and uses Twitter as if it was an extension of himself. Mack Collier is a social media consultant, trainer and speaker. He has been actively immersed in social media since 2005, he has helped advise, teach and consult businesses of all sizes on how they can better connect with their customers via these amazing tools and sites.
Kris Colvin
Kris Colvin doesn’t claim to be a marketing person, she describes herself as a designer. I just love her spirit, she is very engaging and enjoyable, she has alot of energy and frankly practices the law of attraction by being exactly who she was designed to be. Personally, I think she’s pretty sharp in the marketing sector too.
Kristi has been creating business communications since 1993 for leading software organizations and small-to-medium size start-up companies. A foundation in print design and retail visual merchandising, led to web site design, user interface design (gui design + information architecture + branding + usability) and she specializes in making product and brand experiences better for users and customers.
Olivier Blanchard
Olivier Blanchard, The Brand Builder – he’s not as flashy as Gary Vaynerchuck but is very engaging, he has a deep understanding of what Social Media is, he knows exactly what the metrics and indicators are and should be in this marketing environment. Plus he makes great non-threatening, personable videos made easy to understand. I follow Olivier because he relates to me and I truly enjoy his perspective. I think he even likes wine 🙂
He explains himself on his site as BrandBuilder Marketing’s principal and senior strategist, I help companies significantly increase their marketing ROI, foster both broader and deeper engagement with their customers, establish leadership in their markets and expand to new ones.
He also helps companies and their marketing partners establish effective social media programs and integrate them into every facet of their business, from Public Relations, reputation management and market research to Human Resources and Customer Support.
Each one of these great people have all three parts of being Social Media Marketer 1.) Marketing Knowledge 2.) They are Entertainer’s and possess 3.) A dynamic personality. Those three components add up to people that are, savvy, have brand and trust. Don’t take my word for it, follow them, watch, listen and learn.
I’ve had the privilege of listening to and engaging with some of these brilliant minds, bantering back and forth on the topic of Social Media Marketing and ROI (Return On Investment). I’m grateful for their time to share, they have allowed me to get to know them a little bit even if it’s just at 140 Characters at a time. I follow all them and highly recommend each one of them to you, be sure to follow them on Twitter.
Do you agree, do you know others not mentioned here, then please let me know by leaving a comment.
- Current
-
- President at New Marketing Labs
- cofounder PodCamp at PodCamp.org
- Publisher, Speaker, and Trainer at [chrisbrogan.com]
- Recommended
-
125 people have recommended Chris - Connections
-
500+ connections - Industry
- Marketing and Advertising
- Websites
Chris Brogan’s Summary
As president of New Marketing Labs, my role is to build and execute strategies for companies seeking to engage their community via the social web. We focus on four core areas: listening, content marketing, community management, and outreach programs. Acting as a hybrid social media PR/communications organization, New Marketing Labs extends your other channels into the new world of the web.
I also operate the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences, a series of events dedicated to educating businesses on the potential of Internet marketing and communications and featuring the brightest practitioners available. We run several single day Inbound Marketing Bootcamp events all over the US as well.
I.T. Decisions – Who Makes Them In Your Organization?
How are I.T. Decisions made in your business or organization? Who makes those decisions? One of the challenges with non-technical upper management decision makers getting involved is, it’s usually about them wanting a particular toy or functionality. I.T. decisions are based on one or a select group of people because they are the bosses and get what they want or it’s in the name of getting something done. I have found that making technology decisions in that fashion usually cripples your ability to shift gears down the road, you end up implementing the wrong solution and you spend two to three times the dollars fixing the problem later. What you do today matters, do all you can to prevent it and do the painful work of finding a more rational solution if you can. Oh ya, whenever possible avoid database conversions as it will add to the scope of the project(s).
On your journey to make things easier for you, collect and database all business processes in your organization and weight them for measurement, then consult all subject matter experts in the organization to ensure by-in before you go off finding a solution. Remember, it’s not who wants it or what kind of technology that’s the issue, what’s paramount is knowing what your organization needs. Which means you have a good understanding of the company you work for and it’s systems.
Another thing to consider, what is the perceived value your business or organization has on Information Technology and the Systems it uses to organize data. If your new prospect or management team doesn’t understand the value of technology, you now have an educational task on your hands.
Another challenge business owners have is discerning who they should trust, there are so many EXPERTS out there confusing and complicating the problem. There are key questions that can be asked to qualify the said consultant to assist you and your organization with technology strategies but that’s another article.
The point is, organizations handcuff themselves by allowing only non-technology people to make long term technology decisions. That’s not all bad but it’s not wise to have 100% of all I.T. decisions made by them in isolation. In most cases they will invest in something and then hand it off to the I.T. department with a note attached, ” Make this work with our systems”. They know what they want the system to do and or what they want to have happen. They don’t understand how existing systems work and what they will or won’t work with, at the core, non-technology people are unable to see and know where technology is going, what may solve problems in 3-5 years…don’t worry most of us don’t, but, technology people know how and where to find out. They understand the order in which you should proceed, they understand what you have and what you should look for in solutions.
If you have questions feel free to contact me at: owen@owengreaves.com
Ray Kurzweil on How Technology Will Transform Us
Ray Kurzweil
The man who spurred me to write my eBook called ” The New Technology – The End of Mankind? – The Beginning”. It wasn’t his brilliance that got me, it was how convincing he was on where we are headed and how rapidly technology was advancing. This video clip will give you and snippet of how he sees things progressing.
Ray Kurzweil is an engineer who has radically advanced the fields of speech, text, and audio technology. He’s also one of our finest thinkers, revered for his dizzying — yet convincing — writing on the advance of technology, the limits of biology, and the future of the human species.
Ray Kurzweil’s latest graphs show that technology’s breakneck advances will only accelerate — recession or not. He unveils his new project, Singularity University, to study oncoming tech and guide it to benefit humanity.
SRCTec.ca – Sumas Regional Consortium for High Tech
The Sumas Regional Consortium for High Tech, (SRCTec), was founded in 2006 and is supported by key Regional strategic partnerships, including Chilliwack Economic Partners (CEPCO), City of Abbotsford and Community Futures for South Fraser.
The role of SRCTec is to actively attract technology companies to the Fraser Valley Region, which includes; the City of Abbotsford, City of Chilliwack and City of Mission, located just east of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SRCTec has exclusive responsibilities for economic and educational development specific to the high tech sector.
SRCTec will focus on attracting investment to the Region from the high tech sector including information technology, information services and telecommunications / wireless technology based firms.
SRCTec provides a single point of contact for the high tech industry, and a doorway to the comprehensive information and resources in the Region. High technology organizations will find that SRCTec understands their business, and that the Region has a range of advantages. This coupled with development factors will assist in establishing operational and research facilities.
SRCTec is a not-for-profit organization governed by an operating Board of Directors and supported by sponsors, the community, and our high calibre Advisory Board.
My disclaimer, I used the text from the SRCTec site, also, I’m on the Board of Directors and can’t promote this initiative enough 🙂
Your Break Even Point
I’m amazed how many business owners don’t know what the break even point is in there business. They can’t figure out why they are going backwards financially.
I have found over the years that most business owners spend most of there time in crisis management, which means they are not doing what’s truly important. They go to bed at night stressed out wondering how they are going to pay the light bill or cover payroll, why, because they allow crisis to control what, when and where they spend there precious time. To compound the issue, they don’t have a good grasp of which indicators they should be watching on a day-to-day basis. These indicators are different for each business but you will find some common denominators which apply to almost every business.
One of the big indicators is the break even point, it’s one of the numbers that can eat your lunch and kiss your girlfriend and have you wondering what the hell just happened. Before you know it you’re putting locks on the doors and you are out of business. How do you figure out what your break even point is, I’ll try to keep it simple.
The Equation:
To figure out your breakeven point, take your fixed costs, divided by your price, minus your variable costs. As an equation it looks like this:
Breakeven Point = Fixed Costs/(Unit Selling Price – Variable Costs)
This calculation will let you know how many units of a product you’ll need to sell to break even. Once you’ve reached that point, you’ve recovered all costs associated with producing your product (both variable and fixed).
Above the breakeven point, every additional unit sold increases profit by the amount of the unit contribution margin, which is defined as the amount each unit contributes to covering fixed costs and increasing profits. As an equation:
Unit Contribution Margin = Sales Price – Variable Costs
You could put this information into a spreadsheet to easily make adjustments as costs change over time, as well as play with different price options and easily calculate the resulting breakeven point. You could use a program such as Excel’s Goal Seek, if you wanted to give yourself a goal of a certain profit, say $1 million, and then work backwards to see how many units you would need to sell to hit that number.
This is one of those times where ignorance is not a defense, you probably should have covered this item in your business plan…what you say, I was supposed to do a business plan too! Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
Knowing this information will help you see a bigger picture so you can spend your time on important issues rather than every crisis that arises.
Now that you know your Break Even Point, what if I told you how to determine exactly how many additional customers it would take to realize a growth objective of $100,000 with your marketing dollars. Have you heard of The Magic Formula? Until next time.