Posts Tagged ‘Internet’
Do You Promote Your Blog Everyday?
I’ve been thinking about how much time a person or company should spend on Marketing / Promoting their Blog. Is everything you do on your Blog considered Marketing and or Promoting? I mean everyday you do things like branding, PR, adding content and making sure your name (company name / brand) is everywhere. Is there ever a time when marketing what you sell or do is too much marketing? I can’t imagine an executive ever saying we are advertising to much, we have our name out there too much we have saturated the marketplace with our Brand. If you do have someone like that, he or she probably won’t be there very long. I would rather have the problem of too much business and too much awareness than not enough.
Some of the tasks involved in marketing & PR today are changing subtly, because the rules are changing, now that Social Media has become mainstream you can’t just set it and leave it. You have to listen more than you do anything in todays new marketing environment. So, how much time should you spend listening? More than you are probably willing to spend time doing I’ll bet. If you aren’t willing to listen, how will you know what to do? How will you know when to do it?
So I keep asking myself, how much time should I spend doing PR & Marketing my blog? I think you should invest more time listening and then figuring out how you can solve what you just heard that day. So, do you market your blog everyday? How much time do you alot for that task?
Do you promote your blog everyday? I would love your input so please leave a comment below.
Two Key Factors To Your Social Media Success
Technology is growing at an exponential rate; we truly have no way of keeping up via traditional means when it comes to tracking. Organizations struggle to stay focused, struggle to maintain, and struggle to provide systems and services that meet their business objectives. The shift in how business gets done is making it more and more difficult to maintain profit margins and business lifestyles that most are accustom to.
Today’s I.T. Strategic Planning is shedding its skin and taking on a new look and meaning. Ramping up I.T. staff is no longer the norm; reducing I.T. Teams and virtualization is; it allows organizations to be more financially responsible. CIO’s have a tougher time justifying their existence, the role is becoming more and more extinct, and is easily handled without the large investment in overhead. As much as it pains me to say that, I have to accept the new landscape of how Information Technology is implemented and managed. There’s still a need for CIO’s in large organizations but new companies are building streamlined teams, technology allows for startups to have fewer management roles. This new model allows for higher profits and less management of people.
Customer service is making a huge shift in what it means, Customer Service or Support is NOT fixing or adding a new feature, it is about Communication and Solving problems. This gap is hurting far too many businesses, they need to pay attention and listen to what their customers are saying about them, what they want from them.
Small businesses are literally taking a fetal position when it comes to understanding the change taking place, that the Internet is empowering the individual rather than the large organization. The power of the person has been lifted to a level no one saw coming, all because of the Internet. The Internet is the game changer; the Internet was and is clearly misunderstood by the smaller Mom & Pop businesses. The Internet solved the problem of digital distribution, this is an Access Based Economy where we click to get. The transition for small business can be easy to most difficult, undertsanding technology or how technology will help them is the key.
If there ever was a need in your local marketplace it’s helping those small business understand that they won’t be able to continue as they have and enjoy the life they hoped to build when they opened the doors. More importantly, those business owners need to learn about humility, be willing to say they don’t understand and do indeed need help with the Internet. Most small business owners had an Entrepreneurial Seizure, they thought because they knew how to do the work they knew how to run a business. I recommend reading Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
Today a couple of things scream for attention in my humble opinion:
1. Listening – Listen to what is being said about your brand and or business.
2. Filtering Content is more important than creating it.
Listening & Filtering Content are two key factors to your Social Media success, small & big businesses at large still haven’t grasped these two concepts with any kind of clarity.
We are in an Extreme Reputation Economy, popularity is becoming a Social Capital, and it will be as valuable as real money in the coming months if it hasn’t happened already. How you present yourself, your product, and your business will generate a reputation, take the time to craft your reputation.
What do you think?
Should CIO's Own The Corporate Social Media Policy?
Anjuan Simmons
I felt it best to answer Anjuan’s statement of, ” CIO’s Should Own The Corporate Social Media Policy? ” here rather than on FaceBook, I’ve added a few other comments to. Anjuan touches on so many nerve endings in his article that I couldn’t bring myself to keep it short. : )
On the surface it would appear the CIO is a great candidate to be the owner of a Social Media Policy, but only on the surface. A few of the questions to be asking before assigning this responsibility are, who is responsible for crafting the consistent message of the organization? How is that message integrated into all communications, and who is responsible for executing it? Who is responsible for the metrics and tracking them? Who is responsible for the role of listening to who is saying what about an organization? I suspect not the CIO.
The CIO does own the Acceptable use or Internet Policy, so a Social Media Policy really isn’t necassary. This policy may be touched upon in a Non-Disclosure Agreement and or Code of Conduct document all staff must sign when hired. But not likely. Begging the question, isn’t that an HR responsibility?
Anyway, In the example of a Virus entering the organizations network via Facebook or any other Internet source is not a Social Media Policy issue. It’s not even an Internet Policy or Acceptable use policy issue, that would be assigning responsibility to the wrong place. It is however a security issue which is handled by the I.T. Manager’s Security & Network Administrator’s. It is already assumed that these virus attacks are going to happen and are common place anyway, the CIO only wants to know that the I.T. Manager’s Security & Network personal are looking after this problem before it happens. (That’s an assumption of course)
The CIO should however, recommend to Upper Executives a Social Media Team be formed and that they are in compliance with the Internet & Acceptable Use Policy. This team resides within the Marketing / PR Departments, not I.T. The Policy Monitoring should be entrusted to all Executives / Managers / Department Heads. To be completely honest, as a former CIO I wouldn’t want that job for all the tea in China; I am more interested in more high level issues, like where technology is going, how and what do we use it for, how does technology help us meet company goals, not worrying about violator’s & monitoring chatter.
The Tools: Again, as long as all departments and or staff follows the Internet & Acceptable Use Policy, I don’t care which tools they use. The department head’s might care, but I don’t. The role of the CIO is not to police or babysit, it is to ensure that the IT department is doing what the organization needs purely from a technical perspective. HR can monitor the Internet Policy as it’s probably packaged with the NDA and Code of Conduct anyway. I.T. will have monitoring software that can spit out reports for HR if needed, HR can then deal with the violating staff person and inform the head of I.T., NOT the CIO, unless a crime has been committed.
When it’s all said and done, the CIO is responsible for the technology needs of the organization and to see that technology align’s with the organizations business processes (needs). He is also tasked with educating executives and the organization as a whole on new technologies that may be of value or are being implemented. They may make a direct improvement to the bottom line or automate an existing process. Assuming the CIO get’s involved in the details or the tasks his Manger’s should be handling would be poor use of the CIO’s time.
The Internet Policy & Acceptable Use Policy will already have covered the Social Media aspect of the Internet, Social Media is not new, Instant Messaging and Blogging forced organizations to address these types environments years ago. What you say on the Internet could be a violation of the company Code of Conduct, NDA, Internet & Acceptable Use Policy.
I hope this helps, and I hope it makes you ask more questions, I love a good debate now and then, some of us will agree and many
will disagree but that’s OK. Thanks Anjuan for getting it started. Anjuan, you are on the right track, but remember, Social Media
is about giving up control and embracing ambiguity and sharing. Social Media is also the new CRM (Customer Relations Management). A seperate Policy for Social Media will be confusing and overlap the above mentioned Policy’s.
So, should CIO’s own the corporate Social Media Policy? My answer is….No.
For The Love of The Game
For many business is a game, the game has rules that attempt to make it a level playing field. The Internet is changing this game, the rules are being broken and the players are blowing big business away. Don’t kid yourself though, big business is catching on and they are making in roads where early adopters roamed untouched.
The best part of this game, anyone can participate, but it’s not for the weak of heart and get rich quick schemers. If you come to play, be prepared to work hard, study hard, listen hard and search hard. You will need every ounce of passion & desire, all the smarts and energy you can muster up. Why? Because this game only tolerates those willing to pay the price, period. The game never ends, it’s 24/7 and it can last your entire life, do you have what it takes? Billy Chapel lasted 20 years and finished with his head held high, he paid the price, he had nothing left to leave on the field. Is that you? Are you willing to stay and carve out your place in the game?
One thing this game requires, a place you would call home base, a place where you go from and return to, the place where you build community and trust. I would highly recommend that you invest your time there, why, because everything on the Internet keeps changing and you could be left out in the cold. Your Blog or website only changes when you want it too, you don’t have control over the Internet and it’s content, so you best invest at home. If you want to survive and play at a high level you need to start at home, that’s rule #1 in the game.
If you don’t love the game you play hard, you won’t see it through, you won’t dig deep and work for your dreams. You have to do it for the love of the game.
The 3 P's of Social Media
I was working on a project today and found myself being distracted, sometimes you have these epiphany’s that give you a perspective you never had before right smack in the middle of working hard. You know what I’m talking about, the subconscious never stops, we day dream, we scheme, we plan and sometimes we get deep. So here it is, I stopped working to write this because it wouldn’t leave me alone!
The 3 P’s of Social Media
- Presence
- Placement
- Participation
Presence
It’s not that complicated, we do these three without giving them a second thought or give them the credit they deserve. We all have presence at some level or another here on the Internet, some are very influential through their presence and become high profile, maybe you. Each organization, group or person has a different strategy to ensure that presence. Some may even be misleading, but I like to believe most are honest and true to their mission and vision. Doing the right thing right, being honest, having integrity, the very things required to be of value and trust worthy. Without those qualities your presence could be damaged without you knowing about it.
I wrote about the three parts of a social media marketer back in June:
- Marketing Knowledge
- They are Entertainer’s
- A dynamic personality.
Those three components add up to people that are, savvy, have trust and brand. Don’t take my word for it, follow them, watch, listen and learn.
The 3 P’s are really a platform those three parts leverage, we could go deep six on characteristics and personality profiling but that’s not what this is about.
The dictionary’s definition of Presence:
– the state or fact of being present, as with others or in a place.
In order to be successful in anything you must have presence, you must be present, you have to show up! Showing up is 90% of success in my humble opinion. What you do with that presence sets you apart from everyone, why? There is only one you!
Placement
In order to have presence you have be present somewhere, to be seen or heard, that’s where placement play’s it’s role. It’s part of your strategy in building a presence, in your marketing efforts, and is the playing field to which your brand can have success in the top of mind awareness game.
The definition of Placement:
– the act of placing
– the state of being placed
Where do place your presence? The Internet is the platform that allows all players a level playing field, but not all understand the power of how to leverage the Internet. The Internet is home to a new thing called Social Media, to be frank, Social Media is old news really, it’s always been around under different names and activities. There are literally hundreds of Social Media Networks, you probably know many of them, Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, Tumblr, FriendFeed and so on. The principles of these networks are primarily the same, how you participate is the critical thing. Give considerable thought to how you present yourself, because it impacts your Social currency and only you can ensure that currency brings value.
Participation
The strategy is done and the presence component has been determined, also where that presence will be maximized, and now you have to heed the call to action…you have to participate. Without this action of participating you have a strategy going no where, it looks good on paper and that’s just where it will stay. Once you have determined placement, you will participate with consistency, persistence and deliver a message that is compelling and powerful.
The definition of Participation:
– the fact of taking part, as in some action or attempt: participation in a celebration
– an act or instance of participating.
Now I know you’re thinking these things are common sense and you are right. We do these things without thinking really, like breathing. The problem isn’t doing them, the problem is not giving these things the respect they deserve, they need their 15 minutes of fame. That’s what I’m doing here, oh sure you could probably explain this better than I but, this is my epiphany 🙂
Take inventory of your strategy and make sure you have given the 3 P’s it’s due attention.