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How Social Media Blends With Cause-Related Marketing

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Credit: World Hunger Relief Campaign

Everyone ought to have a pet cause or perhaps you work for a not-for-profit where all your attention lies. What’s the role social media is playing in your attention-getting campaigns?

Yesterday, Geoff Livingston invited me to a tweet bomb. Having never really heard of one, although it was easy to get the purpose, I heartily agreed to support World Hunger Relief, From Hunger to Hope, for children in poverty and malnourishment throughout the world in tandem with World Food Day today.

Today’s tweet bomb is 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in all time zones at #HungerToHope in honor of World Food Day sponsored by Razoo and Yum! Brands.

When I clicked the link to see what resources were available, I saw an entire blogger resource kit with:

  • Sample tweets
  • A Twibbon
  • Details for a blog post
  • Hashtags and timing
  • Images from Flickr
  • Facebook cover image for timeline
  • Social media buttons
  • Full campaign website
  • Fact sheet
  • Logos

When I saw the kit, I was surprised Geoff hadn’t asked for a blog post, so I volunteered. I also just scheduled about eight tweets to run on two Twitter accounts during the scheduled time of the tweet bomb.

How Social Media Works

Let’s review what just happened above…

1. Geoff and I are in social media marketing; we know one another through the Interwebz. He comments on my blog, I comment on his blog. I bought his book, Marketing in The Round with Gini Dietrich.

2. That gives Geoff the opportunity and comfort to ask his blogger peer network to help support a cause. I do it all the time and have done so with Danny Brown and his 12for12K, and for Shonali Burke to support UNHCR, and we bought blue keys. It was a highly successful campaign, as well.

3. Geoff didn’t ask for a blog post, but I knew that would help the campaign. I’m asking for your consideration to help World Hunger with tweets and even a few of your pennies.

Those who manage causes cannot ignore bloggers’ influence or social media networking. A tweet bomb is a perfectly easy way to showcase an issue and even create a trending topic (which is likely exactly what #HungerToHope is aiming for).

When you decide to incorporate social media into a campaign on any scale, pay close attention to the blogger resource kit; it’s exactly what I needed to write this post with ALL the detail at my fingertips.

So, today’s ask is for you to support World Food Day with tweets, pennies, posts, or a nod in the direction of your favorite charitable cause.

Chief Marketer Social Marketing 2012 Survey Results

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Chief Marketer is one of my faves for reading about topics oriented to B-to-B social media marketing (what I do) and tips and tricks of the trade. A survey of brand marketers was just released, and I was invited to share feedback about responses by B-t0-B marketers and B-to-C marketers…we should all be saying B-to-P by now, eh?

The Chief Marketer 2012 Social Marketing Survey showed a number of interesting findings, and I detail a few in this quickie video of Soulati Media On The Street (taken with the iPhone 4S, holding the camera flipped my way and standing in my bright yellow and red kitchen — that was all for Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia who just went smartphone on us!).

What I don’t detail is the following:

56% of brand marketers surveyed said social media is “complex to measure.” 

Why is that? My question in response you’ll need to hear in the video, actually. (Heh.)

By a factor of 3, brand marketers said they would reduce engagement on Facebook next year (I sorta garbled that in the video, so I explain it better here).

This is fascinating, and I can leave it up to the Facebook marketers and trainers to determine a really smart answer, but here’s my deduction:

Facebook has made its own life complex and thus ours.

With 1 billion registered users (1/3 of the world’s population), the little U.S. company struggling on the stock market, is still trying to ace mobile. Along the way, it bought Instagram and then launched Camera (what’s the difference?), introduced Timelines and now Collections, has privacy issues and advertising data malarkey — no wonder the medium is complex for brand marketers still stuck measuring with likes and shares (that’s old).

LinkedIn remains a favorite for B-to-B marketers at 85% adoption while B-to-C marketers are only engaging there 39% (of respondents polled).

Google+ is a critical channel for local visibility and organic search, yet most of the marketers surveyed yawned at this medium. I encourage everyone to claim their brand identity!

If you want to see the really long version of my video (12 minutes), you can click here. Otherwise, take a peek with me right now:

 

Any thoughts, Friends?

This has been the 11th installment of Soulati Media On  The Street! Thanks for watching!

Triberr Meets Influence

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ALT="Influence on Triberr, a tribe image, Soulati Media"We’re in the post social media adoption phase. Guess what? We’re also in the post Triberr adoption phase, too. If you’re a blogger and you’re not engaged on Triberr, well, you kinda missed the train; it left. (Kidding, there’s still time to jump on!)

Influence is a hot button. Many of us on the ‘sphere who have been blogging for more than two years were around with the launch of Triberr, and, boy, did the sparks fly with anti-sentiment. Perhaps DannyBrown will come back and join the tribes again? He was one who withdrew. Erica Allison said, no, then she said yes; hmm, I think that’s a flip-flop, right John Kerry?

Seriously, though, the inspiration for this post came directly from the horse himself. I spoke awhile with Triberr founder Dino Dogan yesterday. Dino and Dan Cristo and the gang are hosting TribeUp NYC in September, and the passion for that project is us. Yes, we bloggers who belong to tribes on Triberr. While I don’t know  Triberr’s mission statement, it’s pretty simple to say it’s all about being a resource for bloggers globally; to deliver tools and resources to take blogging to new heights and bring those of us who toil daily to keep our blogs alive along for the ride.

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More Fast Company Social Media Cover Story Disappointment

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Credit: Jayme Soulati

By now, you’ve seen the Fast Company cover story, with tongue in cheek and not in check, about social media being “kinda” sexy. It’s the tonality and a few other things in question for me. If you’re late to the party; it’s not too late to see it here.

I wrote about this Monday and wasn’t happy or unsurprised that PR is getting short shrift at the mahogany table (said Barrett Rossie in blog comments) by others in the digital space AND Fast Company.

What gave me pause when reading the story start to finish was the entire tonality of the piece as well as one word choice in particular by a Fast Company staff writer, I presume (there are no bylines for the featured tips and secrets).

In comments Monday, Geoff Reiner, of Clarity for The Boss, and I were chatting about the disappointment with that kind of sub-quality wording, IMHO.

People who read Red Head Writing know and expect her to use this language in all of her post, something I’d never do and gasp upon reading a blog like the link provided. If you don’t like it, “her house, her rules,” as she always shares.

While it doesn’t sit well with me ALL the time (I’ve been known to use the f-bomb for emphasis in an adjectival sense), what bothered me about Fast Company was my stupid expectation, the props I ALWAYS give that publication, and subsequent let down as a result.

Fast Company Poor Editing

Here’s the passage; you can be the editorial judge:

“So how does a brand be intimate with a person? It’s a major mindfucker. Brands want Facebook ads to look more like the rest of their stuff; to put this new thing in an old shape.” (Fast Company, Insider’s Secret No. 2, Facebook to Ad Creatives: Help! Please!, September 2012)

So, the crux of the matter is the following, and Jenn Whinnem also raised a great point about journos and bloggers related to respectability and credibility:

Should nationally published magazines be upheld to greater standards than professional bloggers? Is the tone of this cover piece the way Fast Company itself gets invited to the table as a content marketer/blogger (thanks Ralph Dopping for that thought)?

I laud this publication every week in blog posts because I relish its content for its ability to generate blog fodder and mojo for me as a professional blogger. This cover piece on social media, although providing great inspiration for many a blogger, isn’t what I had in mind.

What say you?

Promote Safe Blogging; Report Blogger Abuse

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When I write a blog post, I welcome everyone to my house to read, comment, debate, negate, laugh, cajole, banter, and share in the ‘raderie I’ve created in this amazing community.

Everyone regardless of creed, color, age, religion, gender, profession, alien status (Howie!) or other is invited. We carry on in a friendly manner, exchanging hugs and kisses along the way as well as highly professional discourse. Rarely is there an offensive comment in the midst.

Apparently, this is not the norm in some places. A person in this community posted a comment on one of my posts in the last several weeks that made me shudder. She, a Muslem, was called a “terrorist” on someone’s blog she visited and asked never to return. If that’s not enough, the blogger proceeded to attack her blog and make a mess in comments and elsewhere trying to create havoc.  Regardless of her experience, she continues to keep a positive attitude with forward momentum.

For anyone who has been the subject of a racist or religious profiling blogger/commenter, I want to apologize to you. I naively write in the comfort of my home and in the company I keep, and I had no earthly clue this was happening. It saddens me to have ignorant people mistreat others and not suffer consequence.

Here are several resources to report such behavior on the blogosphere. If anyone is privy to or the victim of hateful accusations, racism or other ethnic or religious profiling, these organizations share some steps on how to respond. The first step is logical – blacklisting, but there is more recourse:

Report Hate on Social Networking Sites

Youth Web Online

Blogger policy on reporting abuse

Other policies are also available on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and other sites. Don’t allow a cyber-hate experience to go unnoticed; at least file a report and inform your communities. Get professional counsel on the best way to go about managing the experience, too.

Who might have something to add here? I’m not expert in managing such situations, nor do I have professional training. The resources on the web are slim pickings, too. Share some?