Oct 28
Love0

Branding: Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

By Communications

Let’s just get this out of the way, first: I have a dog named after a Battlestar Galactica character. A bit of nerdishness exists on my turf. We’re not as bad as Dwight Schrute, however, who, as a fictional character, has a personal brand that is easy to define.

Dwight’s topics are, pretty consistently, bears, beets and Battlestar Galactica.

 

If someone were to imitate you, what three topics would they identify as “you” and your personal brand?

If you don’t know, or you aren’t sure, you might want to ask the guy at the next desk — I bet he knows.

Oct 27
Love0

How I Jumped into Charlottesville With Both Feet (or the story of a 50+ year old Twitterer)

By Social Media

Today’s guest post comes from Liz Finkelstein, a Twitter user and engaged community member. This is her story about she harnessed the power of a social network.

As I was getting ready to put my house in New York on the market so I would be able to move to the Charlottesville area, I suddenly felt panicky about the fact that I knew hardly

Liz Finkelstein, @emarieg on Twitter

anyone there. I had met a few of my new neighbors, but outside of that I knew nobody. This was a bit frightening for me. I had grown up and lived in the same five mile radius for almost all of my life. This move was going to be monumental, psychologically speaking.

Coincidentally, about this same time, I had been hearing a lot of talk about Twitter. It didn’t sound all that interesting to me, but there was SO much talk about it that I began to wonder what the big deal was. I began to poke around Twitter and started, as most folks do, following a couple of celebrities. It wasn’t all that interesting (the celebrities), but I found the vehicle of Twitter pretty fascinating. Trying to get your point across in 140 characters was a word game which appealed to me.

As the date of my move approached it suddenly dawned on me that I knew nobody in Charlottesville. I had spent the last 50 years in the same place and ran into folks that had known me since I was baby on a regular basis. Everyone was familiar to me. The cashiers at the supermarket, the tellers at the bank, the teachers and administrators at the schools, the families who had spent generations in the same locale. I was about to step into space without a net by moving 350 miles away. Whatever was I thinking?

And so, one night while I was reading my Twitter feed I played around with the search feature and found residents of C’ville who were chatting on Twitter. I followed the feeds for a bit and began to get to know the Twitterers. Well, I began to get a sense of their personalities, at least. And, I liked them! I gravitated toward the people with a great sense of humor and I uncovered an interesting range of individuals who were great writers and had a great sense of fun! I began to follow those who made me laugh and gradually began to interject myself into their conversations and daily comings and goings online.

A YEAR later, (selling my house in NY turned out to take SO much longer than I anticipated) I had grown quite fond of many of the people whose lives I read about on a daily basis in my Twitter feed and when I moved myself and my husband into our new home, not only did I have a house and view that was beyond my dreams, but I had stepped into a community that welcomed me with a smile as a friend instead of a stranger. Having spent so long chatting with me on Twitter made me a familiar soul and I didn’t need to start from “scratch” in making my way into the community. In my first months in town I had already had a group of people who smiled at me when they saw me approaching – and that makes a really big difference when you are new. Instead of feeling alone I felt like I was home.

I never anticipated how important Twitter would become in my life, but I am certainly glad I stumbled into it and explored. Hooray for Twitter!

 

Oct 26
Love0

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
Love0

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
Love0

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?