Kyle Lacy, Social Media - Indianapolis

10 Tips for a Great Video Blog

I am a regular contributor to Smaller Indiana. FYI (I am Obsessed with it too). I was reading through some of the blog posts and found a great one by Ellen Dunnigan called Really? That’s Your Company Video?. Ellen owns a public speaking and support company call Accent on Business and her tips are brilliant. I added three on the end to make 10.

Ellen’s 7 Tips to a Great Video

1. “Shakey Cam” may be good for personal videos to friends and family, especially if you and they are young(ish). Not so much for business. Seriously, think about that. Do you want your business partners, clients, colleagues to see you that way? Do you want them to see how little you prepared for your oh-so-important message to them? Put some preparation into it. And if your paid professional videographer insists that you try “shakey cam” (or a digital camera on top of your computer screen, or loud noise in the background, or poor lighting) because it’s all the rage…find a new professional who really has your best interests in mind.
2. Position some lights on your face. Around you. Above you. Not in sight of the camera, but on you or your product. We want to see you if you’re talking to us.
3. Smile. Having a deadpan look doesn’t allow your personality to come through. Remember, in your video blog you are selling you.
4. Look at us. I mean, look into the camera. Pretend your audience is right there in the camera. Don’t look at your assistant who is off camera and to the left. The eyes are the window to the soul. When you look at me, I’m more likely to believe you. Better said, looking to the left or right or down is almost always seen as disingenuous. If you’re telling your staff that you appreciate them and they’re the best, but you won’t look at them (through the camera), they won’t believe you – nor will your customers.
5. Keep your head straight. Stand up straight. Sit up straight. Casual, yes. Sloppy or stiff, no. Use gestures to support your message.
6. Be professional. Don’t dance around, wag your index finger at the camera, make faces, or use poor grammar. And you’re not a nighttime talk show host, so don’t move into the camera like you’re seriously invading your viewer’s space.
7. And, one more item, be mindful of what’s behind and around you. Find a contrasting (and fairly blank) wall; well-painted or stained wood might be nice. Not too much background please, but a small picture or company name might be okay. Make sure you’re not in front of broken or crooked miniblinds, or a white wall (you’ll look washed out), or that there’s a flower pot or something else just above your head. Try not to have others who are not on a microphone talk or yell in the background.

Kyle’s 3 Add On Tips

1. Write Down a brief synopsis on what you want to talk about. I received this advice from Erik Deckers and have used it. It will keep you from stuttering and saying “um.”

2. Use an HD camera if you are going to start doing a video blog or company video. I use the Flip MINO HD. This will keep your videos looking crisp. I also recommend using Vimeo as a video upload site. You get some AWESOME quality.

3. Always write something underneath your video blog post. Gary Vaynerchuk does this and you should too. This helps if people cannot upload your video (whether from a mobile phone or a terrible blog reader). They get a synopsis of what the video is about.

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What I am Reading This Sunday: January 4 2009

There are times when I would rather not write a post and it is usually on Sunday. So I thought I would list some blogs I have been skimming today and I have found really useful.

1. Ribeezie: Social Media Tirage

2. Holly Hoffman: Do Your Job Like It’s Your Business

3.Erik Deckers: : IRS Demands Their Five Cents, Reluctant to Pay Four Cent Refund

4. Douglas Karr: Mobile Marketing Strategies Launching in 2009

5. Rouge Puppet: Old School.. Does Not Rule

6. Jacob Leffer: Eight and a Half Minute Audience Engagement

The 4 Customer Types of Social Media

Happy 2009. Okay. Now that we got that over with.. Let’s dive into something of more importance… Social Media Marketing for your Small Business! YAY!

Jason Baer has a great post over at Convince and Convert called the 7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy. The post is brilliant for the small business owner wanting to get more involved in social media.

Why is his post brilliant?

It talks more about the internal business development than what TOOLS you should be using.

I am all for using Twitter, Plaxo, Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIN but if you don’t have the traditional elements of your company connected… you are going to fail.

In the post he lists the third step in the seven step process as: Where is the Audience Cyclically? This explains that there are four different relationship patterns inherent in the promotion of your company.

Awareness: Maybe heard of you.

Interest: Heard of you. Visited your Site. No Purchases

Action: Made a single purchase

Advocacy: Raving Brand Lunatics. (Jackpot)

I decided to re-name them and go over how they fit into the overall social media marketing strategy.

Jason suggested that you should only pick two of the 4 Customer Profiles listed above when you are planning your social media strategy. I can agree with the fact that two is more than enough but I would suggest picking only one for your social media marketing strategy.

Why Pick Only One?

If you have planned your SM strategy correctly it is a part of your overall marketing strategy. You only have a limited amount of time and resources to fully promote your business. If you can use SM marketing to only target ONE of the groups… the strategy will be stronger and more effective.

This is especially true for beginners in the world of social media. One is enough for now.

Next up we will be talking about how to target each of the groups.

Social Media of 2009 - Keep An Open Mind

I am always try to browse 123 Social Media and there was a great post by Barry Hurd called Social Media Benefits - Marketing Comes With a Warning Label. In the post Barry talks about the disconnect between Customer Engagement and Customer Service in the graph shown on this page. There is also a huge dissconnect between business owners and the use of social media marketing.

The entire graph makes a lot of sense except for the bottom of the graph where Customer Service is listed at 17.5%.

We could go into an entire post about the benefits of Social Media to customer service but I wanted to focus on what Barry was talking about in his post.

The Concept of Having An Open Mind with Social Media

As you can tell by the graph, customer engagement is the top reason why Marketing Executives would use Social Media Marketing. I have been preaching this ever since I started my blog. Social Media is very much a “brand development” tool for small business. It is hard to use Social Media for lead generation sources (though it is starting to shift towards the positive on this subject).

As we enter 2009, marketers of all shapes and sizes need to be more open to the idea of adding an element of social media into their marketing mix. With the Internet growing and sites like Facebook and Myspace churning millions upon millions of people daily, it is the time to start focusing on using this medium of promotion.

So why is it hard for marketers to have an open mind about social media?

It isn’t fully explained!

Marketers and Social Media Mavens need to work together in order to focus on a workable model for ROI and brand development on the Internet. Both parties need an open mind to work together in order to keep the “Integrity” of the tool while building a tangible benefit.

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Social Media Trends of 2009

I found this via Jon at Spatially Relevant.

Trendsspotting had a great post on Christmas eve called Influencers, Predictions slides collection. Issue 1. Social Media Trends 2009. You can view the Slideshare

I wanted to re-post and share it because it is a wonderful breakdown of the future of social media.

Social Media Marketing is about Emotion not Automation

Doug Karr at the Marketing Tech Blog has a post this morning called You Know Your a Smippy When…

Before we get started into the Smippy world. I’ve known Doug for quite awhile and would count him as THE one that helped me get into social media specifically blogging. I pretty much take everything Doug says as fact and trust his judgment without fault. He is def. one of my SM mentors.

Part of his post is a rebuttal against my Twitter Auto DM Petition.

Now… I am not going to take offense to the Smippy comment. I actually think it is pretty hilarious. The beauty of social media is that you can freely express your opinions and other people have the right to disagree.

There is one thing I am NOT against and that is social media marketing. My company’s future is built off the concept that you can use social media for brand exposure, as well as, increased sales. Though I think there is a fine line with taking a marketing medium and bastardizing it by setting up direct responses without any regards to the person on the other end.

I’m going to cite an article by Seth Godin called  The Rapid Growth (and destruction) and Growth of Marketing.

Social media, it turns out, isn’t about aggregating audiences so you can yell at them about the junk you want to sell. Social media, in fact, is a basic human need, revealed digitally online. We want to be connected, to make a difference, to matter, to be missed. We want to belong, and yes, we want to be led.

The business owners and marketers that were focused in mass marketing in the past try to systematize processes, “How can we take this tool and automate it to get the most BANG for the BUCK?” When you use Twitter Auto DMs you are not respecting the fact that I chose to follow you. I don’t want to know about your new e-book. I will find it on my own if you were that compelling to follow in the first place.

Any product that automates social media tools is slowly sucking the personality out of your brand (personal or corporate). You cannot try and automate a tool that is rooted in permission based marketing.

If you aren’t taking the time to personally thank people for following you…

Aren’t you just collecting another mailing list?

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My Twitter Auto DM Petition. Sign up!

I am not a huge fan of Auto DMs. To be honest with you I hate them. There are a few times when Auto DMs on Twitter should be used but most of the time the answer is no. I wanted to start a Twitter Auto DM petition.

Reasons Why You Would Sign

1. You find Auto DMs completely void of personality.

2. You find Auto DMs are not genuine.

3. You just dislike Auto DMs in general.

Sign below in the comment form if you dislike Auto DMs. Steal the logo and put it on your page. Spread the wealth. Spread the info.

Or if you completely disagree with what WE are doing..

That works too.

Sign below in the comment form.

Rant: When an Internet Company Kills Your Biz. It’s Your Fault.

I have never really been a fan of Godaddy. I don’t really enjoy anything about their site and they always seem to try and sell me things I don’t need. That has been my past feelings about the hosting and domain website. Recently, my focus has shifted slightly.

My company has been designing a new web site for a local Indianapolis company. They have had some trouble with some IT companies in the past and just hired a new company called KSM Business Technology here in Indianapolis. Needless to say it has been a little hectic trying to find the information for the hosting of their site.

Here is how my conversation went with the new company.

Briiinnnngggg.. Briiiiiinnnnnnnnggg.. Briiiinnnnnnggggg. click.
Him: “Hullo?”
Me: “Is this —–?”
Him: “Yah.”
Me: “ummm..Can you help me with ______ account?”
Him: “I don’t know.. I think _____ handles that one.”
Me: “……. I’m trying to upload a new site for one of your clients and I can’t get a hold of anyone to give me hosting information.”
Him: “Hold on………………………………………………”
Him. “We don’t control the hosting on that account. That is done by ______. Did you call him”
Me: “Yes. 4 times”
Him: “Well. Did you leave a message?”
Me: “Yes. 4 Times”
Him: “Well… Try again. After we were bought out he is the only one that controls hosting on some of our account.”
Me. “….Great”

I was furious. Not only did “him” sound like he had just taken a bucket of grease and swallowed it but he didn’t give a crap about what I needed and apparently neither did the company that owned the hosting, Digitech. Do you think I will ever use that company? For anything? No. Guess who is going to hear about it? Everyone in INDIANAPOLIS.

I called Godaddy and was picked up in the first 2 mins of the call. The girl on the other end spent 20 mins helping me try and find out where the site was hosted. She actually tried to find where the IP was routed. GoDaddy wasn’t getting the business from me but genuinely wanted to help me.

I still have not received a call from the guy that controls hosting for this website.

When you (the local company) can not give the quality of customer service that a massive global company can master….. you are screwed.

And when you go out of business…

You can blame it on the economy. You can blame it on bad employees. You can even blame it on a server crash.

But guess what? A multi-billion dollar company just worked their butt off to gain my business and you didn’t… THAT is the problem.

Social Media Marketing and the Advancement of Word-of-Mouth

I felt bad this morning because I didn’t spend time on a comment. Shoot. So here it goes.

Mark Juleen had left an excellent question on my post: Controlling Word of Mouth Marketing Using Social Media and I hadn’t spent the time to TRULY reply to his question. Here is his question:

Kyle,

I like to think that WOM and Social Media are one and the same. As I have dived into social media over the past few months I’ve come to realize that from a marketing perspective social media marketing is basically just an evolution of WOM. While there can be good old interruption “marketing” with banner ads and such on blogs, facebook, etc., what we’re seeing with users leaving reviews on Yelp!, becoming a fan of a product on Facebook, or blogging about their best or worst experiences with a brand or product is the evolution of WOM.

Now more than ever companies need to focus on WOM marketing in my opinion. This includes social media and the conversations about your brand online.

Thanks for sharing Kyle. Enjoy your day.

Mj

It made sense to me the first time I read the comment. Once I had read it over a couple of times I realized that it was a little deeper than what I expected.

I had been separating the two marketing philosophies as two different instances. In reality, social media is just a regeneration of word-of-mouth marketing (or at least it is quickly moving that way). So… when Mark says, “I’ve come to realize that from a marketing perspective social media marketing is basically just an evolution of WOM,” I do completely agree with him.

Social Media and the Internet have completely changed the way marketing is approached. You now have to KNOW your customer. You have to connect on a deeper level with your customer.

What do you think? Is Social Media just another form of Word-of-Mouth advancement? Is Social Media just the tool for other marketing philosophies to use?

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Two Rules of the New Web: Be Simple and Be Sticky

Mark Evans had a great blog a couple of days ago called Is Anyone Paying Attention? Talk about some great everyday life visuals to relate to the transitioning of the web from cluttered to de-cluttered. I’m pretty sure I either just made up the term “de-cluttered” or someone said it to me sometime. All of that aside, Mark has a line in his post that was funny and hit me hard at the same time.

The lack of attention is troubling but, ironically, no one seems to be paying much attention to it.

The millennial generation is slowly seeping into the workforce and using productivity tools more often than not. Mark was right when he said online services and websites have one shot to get the attention of the over-used and over-supplied public.

You have ONE shot. ONE.. Numero UNO. Single.

Just one shot to catch the attention of the consuming public. Simple and Sticky. That’s our creed. That should be everyones creed.

Make your website as simple as you possibly can. Use good, smart design to untangle the maze of sales content and information you want to display and put up what gets attention. You have less than 10 seconds to capute MY attention.

Are you going to stick me to a message or push me towards a competitor?