All Posts By

Marijean

Marijean Oldham (Jaggers), a social media specialist and public relations professional, is president and CEO of Jaggers Communications LLC, a strategic communications firm based in Charlottesville, Va.

Oct 26
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12 Things to Do On LinkedIn Today, Instead of Sitting around Picking Your Nose

By Communications, Social Media

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I hate nose-pickers. If I see someone picking their nose in public, I will tweet about it, tell you where I am and what this person looks like. I am the Nose Picking Police. I don’t know why nose picking is so popular, but it clearly is. By the way; note to nose picking drivers everywhere — WE CAN SEE YOU. Here are 12 things to do today to further your career and improve your online profile using LinkedIn, instead of sitting around picking your nose.

  1. Upload your e-mail contacts from all sources.
  2. Get your profile to 100% by completing all of your information and adding a photo (of your face . . . and a recent shot.)
  3. Develop a keyword-rich professional headline — the headline is NOT your title but should be searchable phrases to attract people to you.
  4. Rename the default Website and Blog settings to personalized names including the name of your company and what it is that you do.
  5. Add your Twitter account and the Tweets application — follow your connections on Twitter.
  6. Write a recommendation for a colleague, partner or friend (and hope they return the favor).
  7. Google thyself — do you like what you see when your LinkedIn profile shows up in Google results?
  8. Delete connections you’ve accepted that are with people with whom you don’t truly have a business relationship.
  9. Add your skills to your profile.
  10. Join a group that interests you.
  11. Manage how often you get updates or notifications (I have it set up so I don’t get ANY notifications — preferring to log in to the site and see what’s new there.)
  12. Write updates regularly, sharing articles of interest, blog posts and upcoming events.

Look out nose pickers — I’m watching you.

More helpful LinkedIn advice.

 

Oct 24
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Zombies and Marketing: How to Make Use of the Walking Dead to Boost Business

By Communications, Media

Zombies are hot. Vampires and werewolves are yesterday’s news. If you’re a marketer, or own a consumer business, you may not be giving a lot of thought to zombies.

Photo credit: Yahoo advertising blog

THIS MAY BE A HUGE MISTAKE.

Westlake Ace Hardware stores in Omaha has brilliantly optioned zombies to help boost sales, offering a Zombie Preparedness Center.

The Centers for Disease Control, let’s face it — not an organization known for its sense of humor — has formed a Zombie Task Force, as a vehicle for education on crisis response and preparedness as well as bioterrorism.

Danger. Zombies. Run! Is a 5K event taking place in Charlottesville (and other versions of it happen in cities all over the country) mixing the zombie craze with fitness. Not to be outdone, our local ice park is hosting Danger. Zombies. On Ice. 

Could you be using zombies in your marketing efforts? How? Here are some ideas:

  • Create a news release announcing your preparedness plan for the zombie apocalypse;
  • Design a service for zombies-only (dry cleaners? hair salons?) and announce special offers for the undead;
  • Own a shoe store? What are the best shoes to outrun a zombie in? Or, if you’re a member of the walking dead, what shoes will hold up to your tireless trudging in search of people to eat?
  • If you have a restaurant, consider a special zombie menu featuring brains; and
  • Hire a few zombies to entertain customers (or scare them to death) —  not recommended if your customers are primarily children.

Don’t wait — the zombie timeline runs from now till Halloween, otherwise the trend may be, well, dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 21
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WTF? Friday: What is Klout, Anyway?

By Social Media

You may have clout, but do you have Klout?

A good tool for measuring influence and paying attention to your content and engagement is Klout.com. From the site:

“The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

• True Reach: How many people you influence

• Amplification: How much you influence them

• Network Impact: The influence of your network”

What I like about Klout is its comprehensiveness; the ability to connect multiple platforms to enhance an individual’s impact and the feedback it gives, allowing the user to learn about the kind of influence they are affecting, and the individuals who both influence the user and whom the user influences.

Using my own Klout profile as an example . . .

My score has been just below 70 for some time. I’m not complaining — 69 is a great Klout score since the total possible is 100. The only user I know that has a score of 100 is Justin Bieber. I don’t want to have anything in common with Justin Bieber, so there you go.

Klout tells me this:

  • I am a “curator” generating actions and discussions with nearly every message;
  • I influence more than 1,000 users with my content; this is my “true reach;”
  • I have a high percentage of content amplified; that is, my tweets and updates are shared often; and
  • I generate a high level of engagement from other influencers.

As a “curator” the site says this about my style of engagement:

You highlight the most interesting people and find the best content on the web and share it to a wide audience. You are a critical information source to your network. You have an amazing ability to filter massive amounts of content to surface the nuggets that your audience truly care about. Your hard work is very much appreciated.

Why thank you, Klout! You look very pretty today. Did you get a haircut?

I love Klout and the way it helps my clients’ businesses stay on message and measure the success of their social engagement. What’s YOUR Klout score?

Oct 20
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Social Media Questions from the Field

By Social Media

I have been doing a lot of public speaking lately — and that’s great — because it’s something I really enjoy. One reason I like it is that it generates a lot of questions and keeps me on my toes, answering those questions on the spot. Here’s a sampling of some of the questions I responded to yesterday.

  • Should we be blogging every day? Every day is a great, although probably unrealistic goal. Shoot for three times a week. 
  • What do you think about QR codes? Funny you should ask. 
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/Marijean/status/126043437496680448″]

Here’s my issue with QR codes — conceptually they’re great. They are an efficient way of transmitting information using a smartphone. There are creative ways to use them effectively and some good ideas for their application. My problem is this: the execution of the use of QR codes is so often poor that I’ve become jaded and reluctant to use them. I’m hoping this changes, or that there’s greater adoption and better examples of their use — otherwise, I’d just as soon see them replaced by something else. 

  •  How can we use Facebook as a group? Think of it as your internal communications vehicle. Is it your new company newsletter? Is it a forum for discussion about company topics and industry news? Create an editorial calendar of topics to share and generate consistency to get the conversation rolling. 
  • Can we use Google+ as a business? Nope, sorry. You can use it as individuals, however.
  • Is there a way to update in one place and have it show up on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Sure, that’s what Tweetdeck and Hootsuite do; I like Tweetdeck, myself.
  • Is it OK to blog off topic? Well sure, once in awhile, to make it personal and to keep things interesting. I submit, as an example, my friend Ken’s video below which really isn’t on his main topic, which is social media, and yet does a great job of letting the audience get to know Ken. 

Are you still here? After THAT?

Awesome.

I love answering questions about social media, so share yours here in the comments and I’ll follow up with another post.

Oct 18
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Social Media Lesson #14: Mind Your Web Site

By Communications

See this?

 

 

 

 

This is a screenshot of “Client D”‘s web site when viewed in Chrome. The site looks the same way when viewed on a smartphone.

In fact, “Client D”‘s web site only looked “right” in Internet Explorer . . . and the worst of it was . . . the client didn’t even know this.

Today’s social media assignment is simple — but what it reveals may not be. Look at your website in a variety of browsers, in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome . . . and on a smartphone or two. Do you like what you see? Is it useful? Is it WHAT YOU WANT YOUR CUSTOMERS TO SEE?

The great news is that “Client D” will be launching a brand, new fabulous web site in just a few days . . .

It’s important. Mind your web site.