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Redefining Twitter Influence For Business ROI

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Credit: Facebook.com

There’s been a lot of discussion on every blog that’s any blog about influence. The latest national story by Advertising Age on The Influencers and a complementary story, “Your Followers are No Measure of Your Influence” about whether Twitter drives influence or not, have prompted lots of banter online.

The Twitter story is more about why your number of followers, how many lists you’re on and how many times your tweets are RT’ed have nothing to do with influence and more to do with popularity.

One thing is for sure; Advertising Age caters to the multi-gazillion dollar corporations that produce the iconic brands we consume. What of the mid-sized market of companies with equally successful specialty products catering to all of us, as well? When they read a story like this, are they running the 100-yard dash away from Twitter to the safety of Facebook? YouTube? Yelp?

I’m here to tell you, business owners, do not pass go; go directly to Twitter and engage. There are common threads in every marketing department, but each company brings a unique culture with its model. When you re-define “influence” to suit your business’s acceptable ROI, Twitter can help reap the benefits.

  • Define “influence.” The Ad Age story seeks that influencer who can tweet 140 and cause multitudes to make a purchase. This Holy Grail ought to be re-defined for mid-sized businesses  to encompass brand awareness, search marketing, location-based marketing services, prospecting for new customers, and executing creative marketing never before attempted.
  • It’s an art form. Twitter is more than “social” media. Rarely anyone understands how you can communicate in 140 characters until you do. It’s an art form, and it doesn’t include texting abbreviations either. The “social media” vernacular should be adjusted to get people away from the frivolity of the experience. I suggest  “online engagement marketing;” this lends a more professional and strategic bent to the experience.
  • You have control. Behind the Twitter numbers (as listed in paragraph one) is an entire discussion around influence. You can control your followers and you can specialize your stream by industry and topic. Only after you engage long term will you be astute enough to mold your stream into a long list of sales prospects. Mind you, sales will happen AFTER you create community.
  • Link Love and Traffic. Google now indexes tweets. You can build a Google alert for the name of your company or product, and when referenced on Twitter via link love, you’ll begin to see how to define your measurement and success.  Twitter is the easiest way to direct traffic via links to promote corporate blogs, promotions, location-based marketing programs and products. Twitter directs link love to blogs, Facebook, Yelp, Groupon, Quora, and it helps with Klout and Twinfluence scores.
  • Pushing sales. While marketers in mega corporations are being required to prove ROI from online engagement marketing, a mid-sized or smaller business can be more flexible in showing a return and eventually sales. Twitter is an untapped sales channel for smaller businesses and when it bears fruit, it’s worthy of repetition and longer-term investment.
  • Not a one off. Everyone says this over and over again – social media is part of the marketing mix. Twitter or Facebook are not one offs; you cannot execute either one as a stand-alone strategy without incorporating these tactics into an integrated marketing program.

If you are a mid-sized or small business and have already been executing online engagement marketing as part of your integrated marketing program with no success, here are several thoughts to consider:

  • Take a look at how you’re measuring success; is it simply oriented to sales, or are there other positive metrics contributing to filling the sales pipeline?
  • Who’s on your team?  Is one marketer trying to function as marketing, public relations, social media, and advertising? Change that in a hurry!
  • Consider an outside consultant who wears the hat of strategist and tactician along with a keen business orientation. Such a consultant ought to be able to blend public relations directly into the greater marketing mix seamlessly. (Give me a shout, and we can further discuss these options.)

Meanwhile…do not pass go, business owner! Go directly to Twitter.

Which Smartphone is Right for You?

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Credit: Marketing Charts

In the last month, I’ve owned the Droid 2 with Verizon, the Samsung Captivate and Blackberry Torch with ATT. Hands down, the Blackberry Torch is the better Smartphone, and here’s why.

  • As a professional, I depend on the capability of my mobile device to deliver emails fast and furious. My Blackberry Curve always delivered emails ahead of Microsoft Outlook.
  • The Torch is not as heavy as the Droid 2 and heavier than the Captivate. It’s durable and can withstand a drop to the floor for sure. By the way, it comes in red!
  • The battery power for the Samsung Captivate stunk; I did not survive a day at Disney World without the juice disappearing. Try finding an outlet at Disney; when you see one, let me know and I’ll map it for my next visit.
  • The screen on the Torch does not come in vivid color as the Samsung; nor does it need to. I’m not on the Blackberry to watch movies, browse unnecessarily, or tap the apps. In fact, it’s nice to have some basic apps like Foursquare, maps, Twitter, and Facebook. But, there’s no way I’m going to read my Kindle on my mobile device.
  • Loading email on the Torch was a cinch. For the Droid 2, I loaded my work email in seconds, but a client’s email account never loaded until after 3 unsuccessful calls to Verizon tech support. On the Samsung, I never did get that client account to load and it caused problems for me during vacation.
  • The Blackberry emails were simple to load because Blackberry remembered my account information from my previous Blackberry Curve.
  • How many apps do you really need to tap on your mobile device? If you have an iPod Touch, you’re tapping them there along with music; if you have a tablet device, you’re certainly tapping them there, too and perhaps getting emails. So, the phone you choose doesn’t necessarily need all those juice-defying apps and whistles.

I’m back to Blackberry and staying put.

AirTran New Year’s Day PR Debacle

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Disney Epcot 2011 New Year's Celebration by Soulati Media, Inc.

On New Year’s Day 2011, I arrived at the Orlando Airport anticipating a smooth travel day after a five-day vacation at Disney World; we were tired and ready to be home. To my chagrin, our flight to Baltimore via AirTran was delayed, not cancelled, due to the absence of one flight attendant. We were told flight crews had been partying as it was New Year’s Eve, and they didn’t want to come to work. (REALLY? What an unprofessional and poor public relations message to passengers.)

After two hours waiting, scurrying to get on standby for the direct flight and then resolved to spend the night in the airport with my child (it’ll be an adventure, honey, really), the terminal erupted in W00Ts; the errant flight attendant showed up to work (or some replacement).

When we arrived in Baltimore and experienced yet another delay on the next leg of the journey, we learned there were, unofficially, 40 Airtran pilots and 200 flight attendants who had walked out on New Year’s Day. Flights nation-wide were disrupted – either cancelled or delayed. Passengers in terminals since 4 a.m. were on the fringe of a nervous breakdown.

The Baltimore-Boston folks received $100 travel vouchers (as if they’d ever travel the airline again) and had to wait for the Montego Bay pilots to arrive internationally, transfer to domestic, and fly them home. Luckily for me, we only arrived one hour late to our destination, but the in between was stressful.

To make sense of this public relations debacle, I asked two of my best pals, Flight Attendant Kimberly Sutherland and Tim Adams, a high-end pipefitter for a local union, to help me understand the perspective from the airline employees:

  • Kimberly was shocked when I informed her AirTran personnel suggested its crews were hung over. Then she explained it was probably a walkout due to contract negotiations. AirTran is allegedly merging with Southwest airlines, although that merger has not been finalized. I searched around for news bulletins of the New Year’s Day walkout and was surprised to find nothing I could tap.
  • Tim shared his passion for his union and echoed my thoughts on the bad public relations move by AirTran. He said unions don’t create bad public relations; in fact, they try to uphold a professional image. Tim’s communicated his appreciation for his brotherhood loudly and clearly along with pride for his expertise and profession. While all unions are different, he said, the pipefitters local strives to uphold its credibility.

What it always boils down to is the almighty dollar when it comes to union negotiations. Regardless, consumers, and passengers in this case, will always suffer so someone gets paid more.

As for public relations and the AirTran image, well, I think you can form your own idea of what a poor move that was on New Year’s Day 2011 for future business.

Launching SMB Collective

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It’s officially a domain, yet nothing is there. As a strategist, the ideas are flowing too quickly to capture. So, this stream of conscious requires a whoa-Bessy from y’all to add the Internet marketing expertise and more strategic input.

To recap, last week was an amazing rapid-fire barnburner to alter Soulati-TUDE! into SMB Chat Forum, registered now on wthashtag as #SMBChat, and morphing into SMB Chat Collective turned SMB Collective. (Thanks, @JennWhinnem and @GinaKayRe for hashtag and naming, respectively.)

Big discussion from a variety of amazing tweeps helped push the idea into fruition, prompted by Neicole Crepeau of Coherent Interactive. Contributors along the way are Michelle Quillin of New England MultiMedia and Gregg Morris of storytelling fame. Jon Buscall is a major help; you’ll see how below.

A designer I use, Glen Moyes, immediately suggested registering the domain (this I knew to do) and launching the blog elsewhere, away from Soulati Media and apart from Soulati-TUDE! After we discussed it further, I saw the light, and registered the domain (something Neicole suggested early on).

The brand, SMB Collective, implies so much:

  • A collection of SMB experts offering commentary about all things pertaining to business. I can see immediately the need for how-tos on blogging and Internet marketing musts (ala what Jon Buscall  of Sweden has been sharing with me).
  • Home to many guest posters each with a perspective from some corner of the world or vertical that provides fodder for our own blogs to comment and link in parallel with cross-pollination of ideas and content.
  • A collection of resources for SMBs from all walks of life to interact with some of the best and least-known social media practitioners in the industry who offer a wealth of skills and capabilities.
  • A location for SMBs to tap and hire a virtual team with all the expertise to promote, position and run a business anyone could imagine needing. To see common opinions and perspectives come alive on this blog (similar to Mark Schaefer’s extremely engaging and global-encompassing blog {grow}) would enable the interaction and community that make social media so rich.

I share all of this because this is a strategy in the making. Perhaps you’re in the position of “just launch it already, Jayme” (me, too), but the intricacies of all the moving parts and the ability to speak out loud and garner feedback are what’s making me use this social media forum to secure consensus and confidence in a concept. Consensus is very required, as this endeavor ideally is going to include guest posts from a variety of tweeps.

So, thanks, everyone, for the expertise and commentary this past week or so. Everyone is helping to shape an idea that is now more real than it was yesterday.

Follow-Up: SMB Chat Forum

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An intellectual team of tweeps I know have been helping formulate an idea rapid fire to launch a forum for SMBs that allows small and medium businesses to opine about topics relating to business operations, national issues affecting business owners, education about topics we specialize in, and so much more.

This week has been the jazziest for me. With incredible brainstorming done via Twitter and on this blog (you can see Wednesday’s post “Planning to SMB Facebook” with its amazing comments) and an even more solidifying conversation with Neicole Crepeau (with whom this nugget originated), this is a final follow-up to evolution of this idea.

The fast unfolding of this concept (resulting in a decision to make this blog home to #SMBChat) was stymied by discussion around the consequence of switching blog focus and key words that would inevitably harm search engine rankings. Befuddled in my PR mind, I could not understand what the big dang hooha is about rankings and search marketing for this blog.

Several expert comments by Neicole, Michelle Quillin and Gregg Morris suggested not to turn this blog into something that diminishes traffic and rankings for public relations and social media (themes I write about) or to write half about these themes and half about SMBs.

I remained baffled, and here’s why:

This blog ain’t got no traffic(!), and, if it does, it’s sure hidden from me. Soulati-TUDE! is 100 posts old; has perhaps four subscribers from maybe an all-time high of 12; targets SMB topics a goodly amount of time with an educational bent; is written by a PR agency practitioner of 26 years (that’s me) who pings on a plethora of topics to position and brand as a thought leader.

I understand why Gregg Morris who themes on storytelling could not diminish his rankings with something like this; he’s all over that key word and works hard to maintain his presence and position.

I understand why Neicole Crepeau at Coherent Interactive needs to keep her key words focused on Web sites, design, digital interaction, and social media. That’s where her niche is.

But, guys, I’m in PR!! Public relations is ubiquitous. My world spans every industry and business sector. I deliver strategy, critical thinking, problem solving and solutions. I ping across verticals like a ball on a rubber band attached to a paddle. I offer business counsel for SMBs, large corporations and non-profits. I develop content and allow the experts to optimize it. After 26 years in this field, I can take the risk of a few ranking points while creating a mash up of public relations, social media, SMBs, health care, education, immigration, financial reform and whatever the mood strikes.

Everyone I meet on Twitter is a SMB; we are not engaging and creating community with corporate biggies and Fortune companies, are we? Look at your stream; who among them are global corporate execs?

The goal for #SMBChat Forum is to create community of like-minded folks frustrated with issues that affect our businesses so we can share opinions, perspectives, solutions, and support.  Perhaps along the way we can tackle tough issues, stake a claim on our own plat of the Internet and foster harmony at the same time. With guest posts from a variety of folks with differing views and businesses from all corners of the globe, we can do just that.

Perhaps I can rename the blog with a tagline to be Soulati-TUDE! Home of #SMBChat Forum (or the Big Whopper).

If I find a consistent voice oriented to the issues that plague us, isn’t that the most critical component?