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When I first entered the social media world I just had a profile on MySpace – which to be honest I wasn’t that great at keeping up with– now its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – exhausting to say the least.

I find myself adding “update online stuff” to my to-do list in order to find time to keep up with everything. That’s just updating, add in the time to keep up with others’ updates and comment on those and as an individual and you are looking a good chunk of your day.

When it comes to your business, if social media is not a priority it will, like any other low-priority item, fall behind. Making social media an action item and giving it priority is the only way to create a successful social media campaign. Make sure that you spend enough time interacting.

If you create a page and people begin to pay attention you need to keep their attention. Staying active (daily or weekly), even when you don’t have a lot to say, will keep viewers present and engaged for the times when you do have something to say.

After a long sabbatical from my Facebook page it took a while to get my friends to respond and pay attention again. After ignoring their comments and friend requests for so long, they had lost belief that I would respond and in turn their motivation to interact with me. I had to spend a lot of time earning back their attention.

 Keep your customers engaged. Update your page regularly. Work social media into your campaigns and your calendar making it an integral part of your marketing strategy.

If, for instance, you are doing a seasonal campaign incorporate your social media by changing the design or background image, focusing your posts on that theme, and by being creative, but making sure that your ideas are adding value for your customers.

Articles:

Fallon Launches Social Network Tracking Widget – this is an article about a tool, called Skimmer, that combines your Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Flickr and YouTube all in one place. You can download Skimmer here. I started using it yesterday and it works. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to see comments or post them. You see the status updates and tweets of your friends but you cannot post comments from Skimmer itself. You can click a link that will take you to the actual Facebook, Twitter, etc. page and then comment.

Twitter gets you fired in 140 characters or less

Guide to Twitter

KFC has a new promotion – it will fill the potholes of 5 US cities but they will be branded with the phrase: “Refreshed by KFC.”

This is part of their new push to sell people on the freshness of their food – you’ve probably seen the TV commercials talking about their fresh chicken that is prepared by a “cook” at each restaurant every day.

More from BrandWeek here.  How can the Rock River Valley get in the game? According to the piece, KFC sent letters to mayors outlining how the program will work.

I have no idea if any area mayors received the letter but my guess is KFC will keep the offer to some of the larger metro areas to take advantage of the PR residuals in the big media markets.

Are there any enterprising business owners out there who might take this idea and manipulate it to get the potholes in our area filled???? If so, drop me a line and we can work something up!

How do we create interest in what we are putting out there through social media outlets?

There are many different methods or practices that people deploy when it comes to social media. Celebs (or should we say their representatives) tend to show the “behind the scenes” look.

But who wants to know the boring details of my “behind the scenes” view – brushing my teeth, reading the paper, watching TV.

Although, businesses have more use for this type of communication. If you are going to be at an event or if something is happening at the business, “behind the scenes” communication can be useful and create a buzz. If you have a brand mascot you may consider updating your customers on what he/she is up to like Jack-in-the-Box did with their “Hang in their Jack” campaign.

Personally, I try to focus on what is interesting to my friends – milestones in my life, projects that I am working on, music or movies that I have recently reviewed, reminiscences of the past, etc. This method can also be useful for businesses - building brand recognition by adding milestones, current projects, and other “real-time” updates that keep the customer informed.

Provide your customers with posts that will interest them. Create links to articles related to your business (e.g. gardening, finance, etc.). Post questions that create discussion, giving them a chance to sound off and interact with your business. Offer them something they can use and that adds value to their lives.

A grocery store in the town where my uncle lives sends customers, who sign up, discount text message alerts to their cell phones such as, “Show this text tomorrow between 6am and 6pm and receive a free pack of XYZ-Brand hot dogs.” Is this something that you could use in your social media efforts?

Include social media in your marketing strategy. You want to make it part of your campaign. How can you use the various social media outlets to your advantage? Try using your email newsletter to link to your blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Linking from one source to another creates a network of resources for your clients.

Think through your campaigns carefully. Recently, Skittles attempted to open up the brand to consumer comments through social media. After posters began swearing on the site, proving very counterproductive for the family brand, many asked the question of what exactly social media can do for their business.  

According to Jim Sterne, an international consultant who focuses on measuring the value of the Web as a customer relations tool, the lessons learned from the Skittles incident are valuable to all businesses:

• Know Thy Customer
• Know Thy Brand
• Embrace Both
• Share Control
• Be Part of the Conversation – Don’t Abdicate

Consider these issues when entering into the world of social media.
Stay tuned for part three – Marketing Yourself in the World of Social Media – Time is of the Essence

When I first started my Facebook page, back in college, I thought of it as more “grown-up” than my profile on MySpace. I recently added a Twitter page and a LinkedIn profile to the mix and began asking myself, “What is the point of all of this?” The more I thought about it, the more I realized the importance of marketing yourself and your business.

As social media grows, people from all “categories” of my life have started to add me.
What was once just friends now includes family, coworkers, community contacts, former teachers, and politicians.

Any way you look at it, it becomes apparent that you need to think about what you are posting and what it says about you. It is important that you conduct yourself in a manner that is respectable to all who visit your page or follow your updates.

Consider this, you have a bad day at the office and you vent to your friends through a posting on Facebook. Next thing you know your update is showing on someone else’s page and someone that you may not even have on your friend list sees the post, comments on it, now the update is on their page and your boss scopes it. Uh oh, what now? No matter how hard you try to keep your profile or comments “private” there are no guarantees.

Make sure that you considered what you are saying online – would you say it to your grandmother, a coworker, a client, your child’s teacher? Be cautious about what you put out there because someone is almost always listening.

If you are a business owner this is even more of a priority. Marketing yourself online to customers and potential customers is very important. You want to make sure to keep your online communication professional just as you do in public. We sometimes lose track of the fact that online is in fact public.

Stay tuned for part two – Marketing Yourself in the World of Social Media – Creating Interest

Related Articles:

Rock River Valley officials learn value of social networking

Jurors’ online posts concern trial lawyers

Twitter continues to make its way into the marketer’s tool bag. Omniture has release a method for measuring brand activity that shows promise for managers looking to justify their time spent on Twitter. You can read about the new service here.

Bucking a trend that cuts across nearly every economic sector, cable TV executives are predicting growth during the recession.This trend will also help digital video recorder (DVR) providers like TiVo. In Wednesday’s piece reported by Reuters,  Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo, is bullish on his product.

The No. 1 reason why he’s right about the growth in cable, DVRs & entertainment streaming on the Internet (visit Hulu.com for a great business model): Staying home is cheaper.

More and more people are staying home, either because they’ve been laid off or they’re just trying to save money.

So what does that “Stay home” trend mean for local advertisers? 

1. TV is a great buy right now. More people are watching, particularly during the day which was previously reserved for a lot of mom-targeted advertising (and is cheaper than prime time programming).

2. There are plenty of opportunities for off-TV advertising – what about sponsoring an online stream of a show that hits your target audience?

3. DVRs extend your message. DVRs are popular with younger viewers and continue to grow in other segments of the population as well.

4. Think about what staying home means for your product or service. Home-cooked meals, gardening, crafts, family-focused games – all of these segments, if positioned correctly, will experience growth.

5. Don’t forget social  media. In lieu of gathering at the local bar or restaurant, many micro communities are gathering online instead. This is true locally too. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn. Start experimenting with these tools to get your company’s brand message in front of these users.

Kyla Lange Hart, co-founder and principal at Toniq, a brand strategy firm, who has focused her 20-year marketing career on developing evocative, visually driven brand programs, reiterates the need for value in her newest post to the Engage:Moms MediaPost Blog, Nothing Artificial:

This new set of consumer values will be responsive to:

• Truth and transparency
• Virtue-based attributes
• Ethically minded culture
• Good foundations
• Good value — not just a cheap or a good buy
• Local support — community involvement 

Read more on “Value” and today’s mothers here.

Do you suffer from Twitter Guilt & Twitter Remorse? These are two “syndromes” some prominent CEOs of national ad shops have felt lately, and most Tweeters will feel the same way these guys do about the app. (Click here to see the piece in Ad Age)

One great quote to keep in mind when you are tweeting, from Ian Schafer of Deep Focus:

“Basically, I treat every Tweet as if there was a flattering or unflattering photo of me broadcast on CNN and the words that I’m typing are right beneath it,” said Schafer, who joined Twitter about a year ago and has almost 2,000 followers. “I’ve probably deleted more Tweets than I’ve written.”

KMK Media Group, Inc. will provide live streaming video of Next Rockford’s Aldermanic Forum beginning at 6 pm tonight. Please use the link below to connect:
http://www.nextrockford.org/index.php?page=watch-aldermanic-forum

You have heard that “Value” is key in keeping your customers loyal in a tough economy, but what is value?

On the surface it is obvious; consumers want to feel that they paid a fair price for a quality product. Although, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the product must be on sale. According to Karlene Lukovitz, people are looking for “affordable luxuries”. This may include anything from home improvements, instead of buying a new home, to forgoing the theater and watching movies at home.

No matter what consumers are shopping for they are looking for trustworthy brands at affordable prices. If a brand can win loyalty by earning trust in these tough times they will be even more secure when things turn around.

Lukovitz says, “With consumer confidence at an historic low, brand trust is obviously extremely critical. Economic fear is creating an intense desire to feel secure that a product is not only affordably priced, but of reliable and durable quality.”

Creativity is also important in creating value. Think “Value” not just in terms of your customers but also in terms of your business. Is there something you can do to save money while providing value to your customers? Smaller packaging, recycling, donating a percentage of purchases to charity – these are just a few ideas that can help you add value to your business and create loyal customers.

“Providing consumers with options to give to charities through products they purchase is a win/win that will be remembered and foster ongoing brand loyalty,” Marcia Mogelonsky, Mintel Senior Research Analyst, from the article Quality, Creativity, Trust Are Keys To ‘New Normal’.

This practice can also give you strong ties to the community which can help in developing a relationship with customers and is no doubt a step in the right direction for gaining that much needed loyalty.

Here are some great pieces highlighting the need for “Value” in these tough times:

A Value Proposition by Cindy Harris

Quality, Creativity, Trust Are Keys To ‘New Normal’  by Karlene Lukovitz

Brand Keys: ‘Value’ Is New ‘Price’ In Customer Loyalty by Karl Greenberg 

The Rockford region’s advertising community gathered Tuesday night, March 10, at Rockford College for a gallery celebration of the annual ADDY advertising awards competition held by the American Advertising Federation (AAF) of Northern Illinois.  

The University of Wisconsin Whitewater won Best of Show with their “Women of Metal Project,” a catalog and exhibition announcement campaign designed by Renee Melton. 

Other best-of-show winners included the “Women of Metal Exhibition Brochure” (Best of Show for Print) and the “2008 Hospice TV Campaign” (Best of Show for Media) produced by Heinzeroth Marketing Group. Judge’s Choice Awards were given to Rockford Health System for their “Rockford Memorial Development Foundation Wishbook 2008,” Heinzeroth Marketing Group, for their “Belvedere New Product Brochure,” and Fetelli, for the “Foehr Group Brand Campaign.” 

“The ADDY Awards represent the best of the Rockford market’s best creative advertising,” says Lori Wallace, KMK Media Group and ADDY Chair of the AAF-Northern Illinois. “Our judges were impressed by the variety of work that was entered this year, as well as the quality of typography and photography produced here in Rockford.”  

Locally, a 3-judge panel awarded 9 Gold ADDY awards, 11 Silver ADDYs, and 12 Bronze ADDYs from a selection of 59 entries. Gold ADDY winners from Rockford advance to the AAF District 6 competition to be judged against ADDY winners from other ad clubs in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. District Gold ADDY winners move on to the National ADDY competition, June 6, in Washington D.C. 

About the ADDY AwardsSanctioned by the AAF, the ADDY Awards honor excellence in advertising and cultivate the highest creative standards in the industry. The competition begins at the local level with the 210 AAF member clubs nationwide, from which local winners proceed to 14 regional competitions, and those winners proceed to the national finals. The American Advertising (ADDY) Awards competition is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition for creative excellence.

The AAF Northern Illinois is the Rockford chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), “The Unifying Voice for Advertising.” Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AAF is the oldest advertising trade association representing over 50,000 professionals in the advertising industry in a national network of 200 ad clubs in communities across the country. www.niadfed.org

2009 ADDY Awards Winners 

ADVERTISING FOR THE ARTS & SCIENCES

 Gold ADDY® Award and Best of Show: Print Women of Metal Exhibition University of Wisconsin Whitewater Crossman Gallery 

Gold ADDY® Award Women of Metal Catalog University of Wisconsin Whitewater Crossman Gallery 

Gold ADDY® Award and BEST OF SHOW Women of Metal Project University of Wisconsin Whitewater Crossman Gallery COLLATERAL MATERIAL

Gold ADDY® Award Rockford Health System – Annual Report 2007Rockford Health System  

Silver ADDY® Award and Judge’s Choice Rockford Memorial Development Foundation – Wishbook 2008Rockford Health System  

Silver ADDY® Award Grow To Europe Stationery Package Heinzeroth Marketing Group AWT Business Solutions 

Silver ADDY® Award and Judge’s Choice Belvedere New Products Brochure Heinzeroth Marketing Group Belvedere Corporation 

Bronze ADDY® AwardButitta Stationery Package KMK Media Group Butitta Brothers Automotive 

Bronze ADDY® Award Discovery Center 2007 Annual Report Velasco & Associates Discovery Center Museum 

Bronze ADDY® Award Prairie State Legal Services Annual Appeal BrochureVelasco & Associates Prairie State Legal Services 

Bronze ADDY® Award The Arrojo Styling Chair Brochure Heinzeroth Marketing Group

Belvedere Corporation

Bronze ADDY® Award Altra Capabilities Brochure Heinzeroth Marketing Group Altra Industrial Motion 

CONSUMER OR TRADE PUBLICATION

 Silver ADDY® Award Ad series : Don’t let your product go unnoticedFetelli Franklin Display Group 

Bronze ADDY® Award Eclipse Glass Ad GrahamSpencer Eclipse, Inc. 

Bronze ADDY® Award Red Brand Horse Fence “Houdini” Ad Rick Wells Ltd. Keystone Steel & Wire Co. 

ELEMENTS OF ADVERTISING

Gold ADDY® Award Rock River Valley Blood Center IdentityGrahamSpencer Rock River Valley Blood Center 

INTERACTIVE MEDIA

 Gold ADDY® Award The essence of architecture is in the DetailsM45 Marketing Services SE/Coady Architects 

Silver ADDY® Award George Stranahan Phlog Website GrahamSpencer George Stranahan 

Silver ADDY® Award Winnebago County Forest Preserve District Microsite and E-NewsGrahamSpencer Winnebago County Forest Preserve District 

Bronze ADDY® Award NIBCA Website KMK Media Group Northern Illinois Building Contractors 

Bronze ADDY® Award Grow To Europe Website Heinzeroth Marketing Group AWT Business Solutions 

MIXED/MULTIPLE MEDIA

 Gold ADDY® Award and Judge’s Choice Foehr Group brand campaign Fetelli

Silver ADDY® Award Rockford Charter Schools – Raise Your Hand CampaignGrahamSpencer Rockford Charter Schools 

Silver ADDY® AwardAMCORE eStatement Campaign Rick Wells Ltd. AMCORE Bank 

Bronze ADDY® Award Rock River Valley Blood Center Regift CampaignGrahamSpencer Rock River Valley Blood Center 

NON-TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING

Bronze ADDY® Award Little City, Big Life Flag Movie GrahamSpencer City of Rockford / Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau 

PUBLIC SERVICE

 Gold ADDY® Award and Best of Show: Media 2008 Hospice TV Campaign Heinzeroth Marketing Group Northern Illinois Hospice and Grief Center 

Gold ADDY® Award 2008 Hospice Advertising Campaign Heinzeroth Marketing Group Northern Illinois Hospice and Grief Center 

Silver ADDY® Award 2008 Hospice Billboard Campaign Heinzeroth Marketing Group Northern Illinois Hospice and Grief Center 

TELEVISION

 Silver ADDY® Award Rockford Charter Schools – Raise Your Hand TV CommercialGrahamSpencer Rockford Charter Schools 

Silver ADDY® Award Rockford Health Physicians – I Love My Doctor TV CommericalsRockford Health System Rockford Health System 

Bronze ADDY® Award Rockford Career College – Change of Our OwnGrahamSpencer

Rockford Career College

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are the new go-to guy (or gal) for corporate CEOs, according to this piece in yesterday’s Ad Age.

Adrift in a sea of red ink with few safe harbors, CEOs are increasingly looking at their CMOs for guidance on how to cut marketing expenses strategically and how to position their organizations within a radically and rapidly changing marketplace.

Effective CMOs use both analytical and creative skills to further a company’s brand and position in the marketplace.

• Analytical skills are necessary to understand the “business” side of marketing . The best marketers speak the Chief Financial Officer’s lingo.
• Creative skills are still in demand too, as advertising is an inherently creative field. You can be strategic in your thinking and planning but if no one pays attention because your creative is not engaging, you’re wasting your resources.

The bottom line, according to Ad Age, is that marketers are finally getting their place at the Boardroom table, but they also need to realize that there’s much greater accountability that comes with that level of acceptance.

“Inflate Your Ego” at the ADDYs Tonight!

Please join American Advertising Federation-Northern Illinois as they host a special awards presentation honoring the best of Rockford’s creative advertising.

When? Tonight! Doors open at 6:30pm. Awards show at 8pm

Where? Rockford College, 5050 E. State Street, Blanch Walker Burpee Center, Regent’s Hall (2nd floor).

How Much? $35 per person

Doors open at 6:30pm with a gallery show displaying all the entries, music, hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. The awards presentation will begin at 8pm, with guest emcee Eric Wilson from WREX-TV. Cost for this special evening is $35 per person.

Everyone is invited.

For more information, visit the ADDY Award page here. You can pay online until noon today; after that, you can pay at the door.

Watch ADWire tomorrow for results!

Apparently a lot of villages, towns and cities are finding that empty spaces on a municipal building, watertower or even rooftop can bring in much-needed revenue to their cash-starved budgets.

Public-space ads are nothing new really – but what’s new are the ways in which some cities are leveraging them:

• Chicago is considering selling naming rights to “L” stops – the Target Fullerton Stop maybe?
• Houston leased the roof of a high school right next to its airport, so that the huge ad is seen by fliers as they take off and land.
• Some school districts are even permitting advertising on school buses.

Opponents argue that the visual clutter mars a community’s aesthetic. And that certainly is a valid concern, but given the deficit’s experienced these days by governments all over, shouldn’t public ad space at least be considered before cutting essential services?

Where could Rockford lease open space to advertisers? A couple of my thoughts:

• Aldeen Dam
• Billboards on the outside of the downtown parking structures
• Sidewalk graphics around the Metrocentre and other high-foot-traffic areas
• Lamppost banners along State Street, Riverside Blvd, Alpine Road

Other ideas? Send ‘em in and we’ll let City Hall know.

Click here for the complete piece in this week’s BrandWeek. 

One thing is certain in a recession (particularly in this one): We’re all in this together. There are few, if any, market segments that haven’t felt the recession nipping at their heels.

So let’s extend a helping hand to each other – this sentiment is the concept behind the Rockford Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Sustainability Conference on Wednesday, March 11, at the Clock Tower Resort & Conference Center.

This half-day session starts at 7:30 am with an opening keynote speech by Marc S. Schulman, president of The Eli’s Cheesecake Company. He’ll talk about how he’s led the company to one that produces 20,000 cheesecakes a day. (Hopefully he’ll bring some).

Then other regional experts to give guidance on sales, workforce, small-business finance, marketing and messaging and tax savings.

Registration is only $25 per person – you can register online here.

Even if this is unscientific, as a marketer this info is extremely valuable.

Read the data: http://brainz.org/completely-unscientific-yet-accurate-look-social-sites/ and discuss here.