The Ups and Downs

The twists and turns of independent consulting right now are dramatic and severe. One day we are absolutely essential and urgent RFP’s flow in. The next we are as unnecessary as can be. The hot and cold nature of clients can throw even the most stable consultant into a tizzy. I’ve had clients pepper me with questions until both they and I are blue in the face. And then come back for another round. I’ve had potential clients ask me for proposals only to tell me my services won’t be necessary and sitting back and watching them institute every single one of my ideas.

As more and more companies get familiar with social media and convince themselves they need to engage, the temperature and intensity of client interactions and pitches is heightening. And so much as independent strategists like myself desire this, there are some pitfalls to watch out for.

Most of all is the tendency to react to quickly to client overtures. Personally, I get way too excited by consults that go well. I even get excited by meetings that don’t go so well. This a form of arrogance that needs to be tempered. Because people on the bleeding edge of social media interaction, those that are well-informed of trends and developments in the social space, who know how to use the tools, who have programs worked out ahead of time for their clients, believe themselves to be more than necessary. And you know what, in a way we are. But just because we feel this way, doesn’t meant the rest of the world does, especially those that we are pitching.

Yes its true that many managers and those holding the purse strings are taking social media much more seriously than they were even a few short months ago. I spent most of the fall explaining to potential clients why they need to engage with social media. I no longer need to do that. Great! But with this added businesses comes another level of scrutiny that social media marketers need to adjust to. We are often faced with people who only have a tentative grasp of the issues and the tendency is for people to act like they know more then they do. It then requires time for us to parse through exactly what we are dealing with.

The Twists and Turns

The twists and turns that social media marketing can take are varied. I’ve had consultancies start with a specific set of goals in mind only to find two weeks in I am knee deep in issues that were never on the table. Often this is because clients don’t have the necessary infrastructure to carry out our pre-approved goals. This is one of the most fraught situations to face because everything gets pushed back, and then the client, often looking for reasons to believe you aren’t worth the trouble, time or money, can point to lack of progress. It’s not fair, but life never is! And we are the ones who have to shoulder the burden, because after all, we work for the client. It’s their dime.

The rapid nature of social media marketing, and the entire world online forces strategists to constantly be on their toes. Not only do we need to effectively service our current clients, we have to perform due diligence on future projects, pitch new clients. On top of all that we have to remain completely up to date with developments in the social space.

What new apps or applications or social networks are launching?

How will these effect my current or future clients? What about client’s that have already been serviced? Do we have to go back to those clients and ensure that they are up to date with these new developments.

For instance, right now I am watching the controversy over Facebook, which I wrote about yesterday, and how it may effect marketing on social networks. At the exact moment that many of the businesses I know are getting ready to finally engage Facebook in a serious way, it may be that Facebook is on its way out. Yes that is exactly how serious this controversy is. Facebook may be on its way out. And right now businesses are out there making plans to dominate what could very well be a defunct or at the least a highly compromised service.

In short, social media is a roller coaster ride of emotions and actions. The best we can hope for is to hold on tight, trust in the integrity of the system we have in place, and even try to have a little fun! Throw your hands up in the air! I know that after a tough couple of weeks here I am pledged to try , sit back, trust in the integrity of the system I have built over the past 9 months, and simply enjoy the ride.

Image Courtesy of flatluigi on Flickr

Yeah look. I love Foursquare, I use it every single day. I love “checking-into” locations all over town, seeing who has been there, who the Mayor is, and especially the tips people leave around town. Whenever I hit a new restaurant, the tips are particularly helpful in successfully navigating a new menu. If enough people tell me the Truffle Mac and Cheese is a can’t miss, guess what? I’m getting the Mac and Cheese. I’ve even been known to leave some funny, snarky tips around town to let people know that I’m around having fun, with them and the service itself. Foursquare is getting the most press out of any social-internet company and, they’ve just celebrated both their 1-year anniversary and their 1 million user mark.

Which is why I am befuddled at some of the partnerships and directions the young company seems to be taking. I am not sure if it is due to their tremendous growth, both in users and internally, or the ridiculous expectations that everyone seems to have, but Foursquare doesn’t seem to know what its doing. I wish they would just tell us. Isn’t the hallmark of the social web supposed to be that everything is open and transparent, authentic and honest? Is that only for the users of these services but not for the companies that enable us?

One could look at Twitter’s own recent missteps and see them as either corporate incompetence or growth pangs. As startups progress from edgy outsiders with visionary and benevolent goals to corporate behemoths with investors who require a return, all companies must struggle with this tension. Simply witness Google’s own struggles to maintain their corporate ethos of “Don’t Be Evil,” with issues of security and privacy breaches. Of course, Google has seen the error of its previous actions and decided to end cooperating with the Chinese government over Google’s user information.

Foursquare needs a similar self-correction. And soon. I understand that user-growth is still the primary objective down at Foursquare HQ but I still think they are missing out in filling important holes. So many venues still have yet to hear about Foursquare let alone start implementing specials or utilizing the dashboard. And this is where their revenue, if there ever is to be any, is going to come from.

And yet, Foursquare has seemed more interested in high-profile partnerships with big media and luxury brands like The New York Times, Bravo, VH1, Marc Jacobs and now Jimmy Choo:

Using location-based social media tool Foursquare, Choo has created a real-time “treasure” hunt around London. The concept behind the promotion? Over the next few weeks, one pair of Jimmy Choo trainers will “use” Foursquare to check-in at points around London and send real-time updates so participants can locate them. The trainers can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook. Those who reach the venue in time to catch the Choos will be able to keep them.

What is the point of this garbage? Do they really think this is the way to go mainstream? Or are they simply interested in amassing a roster of $10k a month branding entanglements just because they can? I really don’t understand this, of course, I’m not that smart. But I am interested.

I am interested because I think incentivizing both people and businesses is they to Foursquare’s growth and its success. But that’s not where they are directing their energy. I’ve worked with businesses who have tried multiple times to get their specials on Foursquare. The customer service is basically non-existent. One client got a message saying they were simply overwhelmed and were having technical issues uploading all the new specials and deals. The risk in this is that even if you can get venues interested enough to take the time to offer specials and deals to Foursquare’s own users, by making it extremely hard to do so, they are only alienating their future business partners.

Eventually, Foursquare will want to share in the revenue streams they are directing towards local businesses. Not concentrating on those relationships now is going to cost them, mightily, later.

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Businesses and brands don’t need Social Media PR. Let PR firms handle PR, both traditional and social. Businesses that are struggling to find the time, energy or resources to begin engaging social media need to get caught up quickly.

What businesses need most right now is Social Media Boot Camp. They need a quick and intensive consultation and training in social media. They need someone to come in and sit down with them for a series of conversations so that they can make informed decisions about what their business needs out of social media.

They need someone to listen to the story of their business from start to finish. Where are they now? Where have they been? How did they get there? What do they want? What do they need? Who are they?

Then, they need to begin training. They need to get an overview of social media, from soup to nuts, how it started, how its developed, where it is now, and of course, where its going. They need to talk about all the areas that social media overlaps with: PR and marketing, customer service, IT and technology, branding even human resources.

Then, they need to craft a plan together integrating the results from the series of conversations. That plan needs to be managed by the consultant with the business owner or manager heavily involved on a day-to-day basis. Meeting once a week just isn’t going to cut it. Too much to cover, and if you only have a month, you need to get things done. Businesses need to see results. And they should. If you stretch a social media consulting arrangement over a period of months, the business owners don’t see the results. And they lose the immediacy of having to devote time and resources now. Why would they? When they have 3 months ahead of them.

It just doesn’t work.

So I am changing how I work. I am still very happy to help a firm with their social PR needs, but the real value I can provide is in providing firms a jump start into the world of social media. Spend a month with me and you’ll be ready. You’ll have a new website and a blog. You’ll have Foursquare specials. You’ll understand how Google, Yelp, Chow, Citysearch fit into your business and how you can take control of your online presence.

You’ll have a sophisticated listening and monitoring system in place so that you can track the conversations, both good and bad, your brand is generating.

You’ll have the essentials of a social media marketing campaign, with a blog, a Facebook account, Twitter, YouTube channel.

You’ll have a content marketing strategy in place for the next 3 months.

You’ll have the tools in place to measure your success.

You’ll have the confidence that you have done the right thing for your business by taking control of your destiny and the future success of your business.

You’ll finally prepared to leverage social media.

Image Source: Jayel Aheram on Flickr

They come fast and furious out of the gate. Even as a professional it can be hard to keep track of all the new services targeting small businesses using social media. It’s no surprise that when I go and brief clients and give consultations, they have yet to hear about many of the services, let alone started planning how to use them. To that end, I’ve assembled a quick list of the new services that businesses should be paying attention to.

1. Foursquare: The king of them all, at least for the time being. Foursquare’s power is in its simplicity. It is a geo-location mobile application for iPhone’s and other smartphones (like Google’s Droid and the Palm). The opportunity for businesses on foursquare is tremendous because for the first time you can target customers as close to the Point-of-Sale as possible. Foursqaure enables businesses to offer specials and discounts, which people are made aware when they “check-in” on Foursquare whenever they are nearby. The ROI for businesses is still pretty shallow, I’ve implemented Foursquare services with several clients and its certainly a work in progress. But Foursquare is closing in on a million users and has reached critical mass. The company is staffing up quickly and will be working hard to monetize it, which means helping businesses bring in more customers using their service.
2. Groupon: A group buying service that lets businesses make fantastic offers available to Groupon’s enormous database. They started in Chicago but have branched out to over 20 cities. Groupon is very powerful and there are tons of case studies available proving it with testimonials from business owners. Word to the wise though, Groupon takes 50% of all business they generate so rather than being a profit center, its best seen as an occasional marketing tool to attract new customers which you can hopefully retain. I am urging my clients to at least give Groupon a chance to work their magic. And the they’ve embedded a great gaming quality into their service. In fact, their coupons only go into effect if a certain number of people
3. Social Mention: A really great and free tool that businesses (or anyone else for that matter) can use to track their brand, or their clients’ brands (Hello PR FIRMS!) mentions all over the social web, whether its google, Twitter, blogs. A really wonderful tool that, although far from perfect, still provides great value. Business owners should get comfortable with it now and check in a few times a week. It takes all of 30 seconds to bring up hundreds of your results. Listening is perhaps the most important stage for late adopters. You’ve missed out on the first wave of social media adoption. So what! Frankly, a lot of businesses are better off waiting on the sidelines. Social mention is a great listening tool and will show you what you need to know, and just how many conversations revolve around your business. From there, its a hope, skip and jump to understanding how your brand is perceived and by whom.

These are just a few and I’ll be doing a few more of these posts. Stay tuned because business is changing and the tools of social media are forcing that change. Are you ready to evolve?

Where are we?

Brands and businesses of every sort are jumping all over social media, starting Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and blogs. Restaurants are experimenting with guerilla videos, Foursquare is blowing up, Groupon is worth over a billion dollars leveraging the group buying power inherent on the web.

It’s all happened very quickly. Just 7 months ago I was pitching clients who weren’t sold on the need for social media marketing. They were curious, they were interested but they were mostly just fishing. I complained then. I was ahead of the market I was serving. Most of my time was spending explaining and introducing social media rather than on creative ways to leverage it.

For the most part that has all changed.

I no longer have to do as many introductions, I don’t need to explain the various networks and the purpose they serve (Twitter for conversation, Facebook for size, Foursquare for location/ mobile). What I now have to do is help clients find the time, the bandwidth, in today’s parlance.

It isn’t easy. I’ve just ended a relationship with a client because they couldn’t find the time. There were lots of legitimate reasons why they couldn’t. One being that their business was so strong that they were confronted with the choice of whether to spend time social media or serving their customers. Honestly, I choose business over me anytime.

But this presents us with a new problem, albeit a positive one. If your business is so strong that you can’t serve both your current ones, and your futures ones, which is basically what social media marketing comes down to, than you need to hire. Most companies with the budgets have fallen upon community managers to do this.

What Does a Community Manager Do?

They are working from within your brand managing the Twitter account, penning, editing and uploading the blog posts and other content you are delivering, and generally synchronizing your brand across the social network channels you’ve chosen to employ. It’s a full-time job, and one that will be increasingly important moving forward. Because they’ll be the ones in your organization plugged into the conversation and trends developing online, they’ll need to be clued in to most of the creative decisions and directions. They’ll need to filter that into their work online.

Because for now, even the brands that have chosen to engage social media in earnest, the most dangerous thing they can do is get on, and then immediately flame out. Psychologically they’ll beat themselves up for not taking advantage of the opportunity that they themselves identified. I’ve watched clients commit to social media and watch it nearly immediately fall of their radar. Putting it back on, while making plans for web design, mobile strategy, and general marketing is nearly impossible. And then the business ends up resenting me! Cause I am the harbinger of all this guilt! It makes it that much harder to get referral business and to be spoken of in the terms

This is so not where I want to be with a client. So I’ve got to get on about making plans to help clients better understand the time commitments necessary to make social media work.

Image Source:RobeRt Vega on Flickr

Update: It has come to my attention that I did not give proper credit yesterday in the following piece. Terroir’s social media engagement and success is, of course, a group effort. That being said, it really is the brainchild of Steven Solo, AKA Terroir Stickermeister AKA Creative Director of Terroir. Steven is a great guy and his success with the social media efforts need to be noted.

And in fact, it brings up a good point: that a businesses social media interaction, the one doing all the tweeting and linking and sharing on Facebook, the blogging etc, needs to come from someone intimately involved in the business. Interns? Meh. Your PR firm? Meh. I laid out some criterion in my post below about what defines a great social media presence and to me, the most important one is authenticity. How are you supposed to get authenticity from someone who isn’t part and parcel of a business. You are not. So, to Mr. Steven Solo, Terroir Stickermeister, and all around bad-ass and grotesque of awesomeness, I salute you sir. Keep up the good work. And for the love of Christ, would you start a blog already? With love, Z

I was recently talking with a new client about the abject failure of New York City restaurant’s to properly adopt social media marketing into their operations. The client asked me to name 1 restaurant that I thought was getting it right. I told him I couldn’t think of one that would meet my criteria for creating, maintaining and growing a social media presence. But I was wrong. There is one. It’s TerriorNY, the Twitter account associated with the restaurant Hearth and the wine bar Terroir, both in the East Village.

So What Is My Criteria?

Good question and I think it is important to say that in just the past few months, a lot of restaurants have begun to take very seriously social media marketing. It is showing, and I applaud their efforts. And should be noted that many of the Food Trucks have, almost from the get go, seamlessly negotiated the social landscape. Social media fits them more easily given the ephemeral nature of their operations, changing menus and locations and so forth. I can and will do another piece on the gradations of success in that community, but for now I am going to stick with brick and mortar operations.

Over the summer and into the fall, when I was just getting geared up in my business, chefs and restaurants taking advantage of social media were few and far between. In fact, it was far more likely that one would find chef’s tweeting. That fact was picked up in a rather delicious story in the New York Times recently, in an article about chef’s taking to Twitter in order to vent: about their suppliers, their bosses, their line cooks, and even other chefs.

In fact, the Times article speaks directly to one of the criteria that I use in judging the effectiveness and adoption of social media with regards to restaurants, authenticity. Chefs, of course, are known for their outspokenness, their obscurity. It’s one of the reasons they are chefs, working crazy hours, living bohemian lifestyles. The best chefs scream authenticity. They can’t help NOT be authentic, so give them a broadcast mechanism and it is no surprise when they garner a crowd.

But translating that kind of authenticity into the actual restaurant’s efforts is much harder to do. This is what Terrior has gotten so right. They are, in fact, setting the pace. Here are a few reasons why:

They Are Very Active

They are present, tweeting daily, even on weekends. This tells me that multiple people are managing the account, that they’ve effectively trained their staff in how and what to do, as well as the technology (no small feat in this business) and that they are having fun with it.

They Are Authentic

Tweets are both humorous and alternately serious and intellectual. Furthermore, anyone familiar with either Hearth, Terroir (or Insieme) knows that the brains behind these operations, Marco Canora and Paul Grieco, are incredibly passionate about what they do. But they’ve also let that passion come out in fun, engaging ways. I’ve spent hours reading through Terroir’s ridiculously awesome wine list. That thing belongs in a museum. It reeks of authenticity, of humor, of wit, of deep fucking love.

Terroir Supports The Community

They support the community of wine lovers and connoisseurs, retweeting other wine writers, blogs and relevant wine information more often than themselves. Here is where they really shine in comparison to their peers. Most restaurants just broadcast their specials, their happy hours, who is eating there. It’s kind of pathetic, but beyond that, it simply shows me, and others, I assure you, that they haven’t taken the time to learn anything about social media. They are simply importing traditional marketing techniques into a new platform. Huge fail!

Unafraid To Promote Their Offerings

TerroirNY effectively broadcasts their services. Their broadcast works precisely because it is NOT all they do. Social media is a dialogic platform; it is meant for conversation, not just one-way, top-down message delivery. Because Terroir is so effective at communing with their fans and followers, the space opens up for them to pimp their offerings. Recently, they’ve instituted a series of “Red Sauce Sundays,” weekly dinners at an attractive price point. They drew up a decent little graphic, posted in on their website, and bam they have content to share with their audience. They link it out a few times a week, but again, its limited.

Runner Ups

Now there are some runner-ups here that are worth a mention: Mermaid Inn NYC has recently made some huge efforts to negotiate social media marketing. They were running a very strange promotion for free meals every 50th follower they got. I hated it and thought it was crass. I am not sure but it seems as though they’ve canceled it. Good. Because what it told me was that all they were concerned about was getting more followers. People smarter than myself have discussed why follower counts don’t matter. If I was a restaurant in NYC, I would not be too concerned with getting more followers. I would be more concerned with getting the right followers. I would aim to get the 1000 best foodies, influencers, tastemakers, bloggers and other hospitality people following me. Not 10,000 randoms. So, bravo to Mermaid Inn for experimenting, for trying something, and from learning from the experience. It won’t be long until they continue to evolve.

I have been brutal in my treatment of Michael’s. They’ve been tweeting out all the celebs and other people I and no one else cares about for months. Totally ridiculous. Well, give credit where it is due, because it looks like they started a blog. Here is the link. Good for them, I hope they have a content strategy to go with it.

There are others, but for now, tell me what restaurants you think have really good social media marketing efforts. And tell me why. I’ll be happy to keep a rolling log and update the post accordingly.

The same conversation takes place. The same question asked each and every time.

The Scene: A small business owner and myself, sitting at a table or desk in their place of work. I am telling them how important blogging is. They just can’t get over the word itself. Blogging. Sounds so childish, so foolish. As if teenagers had performed a sit-in at Merriam-Webster and decided to play a giant prank on our language. Blog. Blawg. Blawg. Yech!

They: Why should I blog? What am I going to blog about? How do I even do it? Is it hard?

Me: You should blog because your current and future customers are reading blogs. They want to hear about you, about your business, about the going’s on here. They want to know who you are. They want to know if they should spend their money with you, tell their friends about you, evangelize on your behalf. They want you to give them a reason to patronize your business.

Me: What are you going to blog about? Anything you want! What do you love? What music do you listen to? What books are you reading? What motivates you? Where are you from? Where did you learn to do what you do? What is great about what you do, what no so great? What are your problems, your concerns?

They: Should I blog about my services, my products, my food?

Me: No! Blog about anything else. Tell your story, who are you, what motivates you? Just be honest and authentic, don’t try to make it sound professional, give them that human voice, warts and all. Let’s see the person behind the business. Blog about anything BUT your services. At least for awhile.

They: Sounds risky.

Me: It is risky!

They: Get out

Me: err. OK! good luck

They: Wait….

Me: err, yes?

They: Tell me more…

Me: (Cheshire grin)

Image Source: teamstickergiant on Flickr

The Art of the Pitch

One of the demands of social media marketing is that it be conducted in Real Time. We hear a lot about prioritizing kinetic over static. Because social media marketing is so new, and there are so many people actively (and passively) engaged in this new medium, its evolution is moving very quickly. Brands, businesses, agencies and the independent consultants, are all out there experimenting with their ideas, discarding poor performing ones and tailoring solutions to fit customer’s needs, capabilities and importantly, budgets. In this nascent stage of social media marketing, the evolution is fast and furious.

This manifests in a number of ways but today it has occurred to me to discuss how this evolution is effecting the primal act of social media marketing: The Pitch.

The marketing pitch is a curious beast. It is often a mix of overviews, education, entertainment, raw ideation, implementation, metrics, schedules and cost projections. I’ve probably written 50 pitches in the past 6 months. Each one is different. But just how different do they need to be?

The Authenticity of the Social Media Pitch

It is accepted wisdom now that authentic outreach is one of the hallmarks of effective social engagement. I believe that authenticity is here to stay. Therefore, the pitches that are created to land social media work have to reflect that authenticity. They cannot be standard fare. The tools and implementations may be roughly the same from client to client, but exact shape of each campaign requires a crisp tailoring, one that captures and encapsulates the specific needs, history, expectations and personality of that client.

It is on the last point that I believe social media marketers need to pay particular attention. Every client I have spoken to, pitched or worked with has widely different personalities. Some are fun and casual, others are more business-oriented and formal. Most everyone is somewhere in between. I don’t know what standard practice is in traditional media marketing, but for me, I require a good deal of face time with potential clients before I feel I can sit down and write something with them. I say with them, because even though they are not literally standing over my shoulder or sitting on my couch as I write, I basically operate as if the client is in the room. As if the details and particular angles my pitch takes on are part of the conversation that that client and I have already initiated.

So How Do You Tailor Your Pitches?

It is all about listening. When I go to meet with clients the first time. I bring nothing. No note pad, no phone, no recording devices. Since I am working primarily with restaurants, these meetings are taking place in the restaurants usually during the off hours. And because even in the off hours, in between lunch and dinner service for instance, restaurants are a buzz of activity, I get to see what kind of operation they run. Are the owners/ operators constantly being interrupted to deal with this or that crisis? Are they answering phone calls? Do they offer me coffee or a sampling from the menu? How focused are they? How excited or terrified do they appear?

I let people talk. And then I ask a few very simple questions. But the questions are rarely what they expect. It’s not about budgets or free time. I ask them about themselves. Who are they? Where do they come from? If they are a chef I ask them about their training, about where they’ve worked in the past. What styles have they cooked in? What languages do they know? What is their wine knowledge? Where have they eaten lately?

Again, the specific answers are not as important as the conversation. It is HOW people answer that is more important to me than what they answer. Of course, listening to both ends of the conversation is important, but the personality of the client comes out in their articulation of their answers.

A talented marketer will then and only then be able to custom tailor a pitch. One that speaks directly to and for their clients. Because social media marketing is about unearthing the latent authentic voice in many brands and businesses, the people behind the brand need to be activated to develop that voice. The process above leaves the marketer with more than enough stimulus to go back, look at their previous pitches, snatch this tool and that approach, and deliver something truly customized. A couple of in-depth conversations is more than enough to give you content for several months of a social media campaign. And of course, by then, you’ll know a whole lot more about each other. And that is when the real fun begins.

Image Source: artolog on Flickr

Social Media Marketing Isn’t Everything

Social media marketing has a huge disadvantage right now. We don’t know, or want to know, the values and methods of traditional media marketing. We think we’re the real deal. We can show real interaction and real metrics. Those traditional PR types have been goosing customers for a 100 years, but we’ve got the secret sauce. As long as people listen and act authentically.

I am somewhat guilty of the above thinking. I’ve worked in traditional marketing, in fact before I worked in high finance, I was a marketing specialist where traditional media was our primary focus and social networking was for college kids. And as I’ve returned to marketing, I tried to forget my past in marketing and everything I knew about traditional outreach; read: broadcasting.

But clients aren’t there yet. And even if I consider it a part of my job to bring them along into the lovely pastures of social media, I’ve also got to be able to work with them when they want to include traditional media. If I simply stomped my feet and said NO NO NO like a petulant child, I wouldn’t have many clients.

So How Do Social and Traditional Media Work Together?

Much better than I thought a few months ago actually. Recently, one of my clients got a big press mention in a certain newspaper of record. All the blog mentions and tweets meant nothing compared to being picked up in the way we were. But the method is important. The only reason we got the press mention that we did was because we had a consistently awesome social media strategy; an engaged and influential Twitter account, a righteous open-sourced and easily shareable blog and of course, great content.

This is how you can use social media to work with traditional media. But social media marketer need, and many already do know, that traditional media still has an outsize influence compared to tweets and page views. The audience is different, the tone is different. And yes, its OK to pop the champagne when a mainstream media outlet picks up your stories.

Should Social Media Marketers Do Traditional Marketing?

I could suspend the answer to this next question in lots of flowery language that somehow hides my real feelings. But to cut straight to the point, Yes, social strategists need to get familiar with the rules, protocols and metrics inherent in traditional marketing practices.

We aren’t used to promoting ourselves to gatekeepers, or influencers. Our philosophy is much more open than that. Take your project, put it out there, get the conversation going, and the press and attention and sales will flow from that. That is our ethos.

But that can still be our ethos and operating philosophy even if we dip our toes into traditional marketing’s waters. We need to develop contacts similar to traditional PR firms. We need to know how to get in touch, pitch and talk with traditional media players.

And here is the real value; everyone’s jobs are made easier by a strong social presence. We don’t have to continually pitch stories. We can ask journalists and bloggers and other tastemakers to follow us, to friend us, to receive our email updates. Then, we can go back to our real jobs of providing great content, of telling interesting, compelling stories and let the traditional media contacts get in touch with us when they see something they like.

If you build that system, and if you push wonderful content, they’ll be coming back to you more and more.

Image Source: Rabble Radio on Flickr

This post isn’t really about how to lure customers using social media as much as its about a far more important question, which is should you? I remember the first time I saw an advertisement that was not directed at me. It was a powerful experience because for the first time I realized how awful traditional marketing was.  And the only reason I could recognize this was because I was not the intended target. (For the record it was for a toy commercial.)

Market Customers Where They Are

So to return my initial question, Should you market yourself with social media? The answer is yes, of course you should. You are a business and that is not only what customers expect, but what they want. We want you to market us where WE hang out, on the channels and networks where we spend the majority of our time. Don’t take out ads in newspapers or magazines, people aren’t reading those anymore, if you hadn’t heard. Plus, those kinds of marketing efforts are expensive, and you don’t get the benefits of metrics. It’s basically a shot in the dark.

I recently had a conversation a very intelligent writer at a major magazine. He basically told me that some brands don’t care about metrics and are willing to spend the money to be in certain magazines as a way to build and/ or maintain a certain image. I buy that. Even though I think it is silly as hell because the money spent on those ads could be deployed elsewhere and do a lot more good. Or they could just be given to charity or back to investors or spent on improving customer service, etc.

Promotion Is One Tool, Not The Only Tool

Businesses should definitely be using social media to promote themselves, but only if its a part of a larger campaign and strategy of engagement, sharing, community building, conversation. If you are only on Twitter to talk about your happy hour specials, you are missing the whole point, and even if you do gain some customers that way, you are missing out on a whole lot more.

All businesses want more customers. And there is nothing wrong with it. I’ve seen some of the most successful restaurants and brands in the hospitality business absolutely agonize over whether or not to engage social media. This, above anything else, including the costs (small) and time (large) involved in social media engagement, is what shapes hospitality brands as shadows on places like Facebook and Twitter.

My message to my clients, both existing and potential, is simple.

1. Take the time to listen and observe what is going on in social networking.
2. Experiment with engaging using the knowledge you’ve gleaned from listening and watching.
3. Discover what works and doesn’t work for you, and pay attention to what the metrics are telling you. Don’t guess. Know.

Customers want to be marketed to. Especially sophisticated customers with discerning tastes. Those are the most high value customers of all, because they are the ones who when you make them feel at home, will get on their blogs and Twitter accounts, who will actually pick up the phone, and tell all their friends, family and acquaintances, just how wonderful your brand is.

Help us spend our money. But help us by offering real value. Talk WITH not AT us about your brand. Who are you? What do you do? Why should we care? Tell your stories, chronicle your narrative. Humanize yourself. The businesses that can do this will see a return on their investment unlike anything they’ve previously seen from their previous marketing efforts.

Image Source: Podknox on Flickr