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Leveraging Social Media Partnerships for Your Event

2012 January 26
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by Kari Rippetoe

As we’ve worked with more and more events over the last couple of years, we’ve come to realize the importance of building lasting relationships that provide promotional value to everyone involved. Don’t get me wrong, everything we do is about building lasting and valuable relationships through social media with people who can help spread the word. But we’ve taken that a step further with our event clients by building cross-promotional partnerships on their behalf – what we call Social Media Partnerships.

What are Social Media Partnerships and how can they be valuable to your event? They provide a way for you to team up with a company or organization to create mutually-beneficial social media marketing opportunities. Many events (like conferences and trade shows) have sponsors and media partners who help promote the event to their audiences in a variety of ways – such as banners, offers and promotions, and coverage. By adding a Social Media Partnership level, you can create additional opportunities for promotion of your event through social media channels – not just Twitter or Facebook, but via groups, blogs, forums, newsletters and online communities. There’s incredible potential in Social Media Partnerships to reach hundreds or even thousands of prospective attendees through partner networks.

What to look for in a Social Media Partner:

  1. Relevance: Look for blogs, online communities, or associations with the most potential to reach your audience. Conduct research for those discussing or championing topics covered at your event.Social Media Partnerships
  2. Reach: Vet prospective partners based on how many of the right people they’re reaching. Find out how many newsletter subscribers, blog readers, group members and social network followers they have (Twitter, Facebook, etc).
  3. Opportunity: Identify as many different opportunities a partner can offer to promote your event. Can they write a blog post, tweet, post to their Facebook page, or run a banner? How about including a mention in their next newsletter or podcast?

How can you leverage Social Media Partnerships for your event?

A Social Media Partnership is about building a mutually-beneficial relationship with the partnering company or organization, while getting as much promotional value as possible from the partnership. We work with our event clients to put together an agreement that outlines exactly what both sides will be providing and receiving. If you already have a trade and barter agreement for other marketing and media partnerships, it will provide a good template for a Social Media Partnership agreement. The main difference, however, will be the inclusion of social media promotion and exposure.

Here are a few strategies you can use:

  • Co-branding opportunities: Offer logo exposure on your event website and in onsite printed materials (such as show programs and signage) as a Social Media Partner, while your Partner runs a banner or logo on their website. A high-profile, credible Partner will lend brand equity to your event and raise its profile through their endorsement. You can also give your Partners exposure through your Facebook page, or even by adding their videos to your event’s YouTube playlist.
  • Exclusive offers and discounts: Remember, a Partnership will need to provide value to the Partner and to their readers or members. For instance, you could give them an exclusive discount code to offer their communities online.
  • Contests and promotions: Provide a free pass to your event for your Partner to give away through a contest on their website or via Twitter. Here’s a great example of a giveaway held on CodeBetter, an online community for web developers and programmers. Through a partnership with our client, Visual Studio Live!, they gave away a pass to attend a conference and even chipped in money for travel expenses!
  • Social capital: Leverage your Partner’s social networks by asking for tweets, posts on their Facebook page, or through their LinkedIn group (if they have one). Provide them with tweets and trackable links they can use (like a campaign tracking URL to your website shortened through a service like Bitly).
  • Email communications: Ask for a mention for your event in your Partner’s next newsletter before the event, or even for a dedicated promotional email sent to their list (where you agree to provide them with the HTML content).
  • Coverage: Provide your Partner with a press pass to attend your event and cover it for their blog or publication. This will result in even more exposure both during and after your event!
  • Onsite advertising opportunities: If it’s appropriate for your Partner and space is available, offer a small booth space to them so they can get in front of your attendees. Another option may be to provide them space in the press room for their marketing materials.

Do you currently leverage social media relationships for event partnerships? If so, how? Tell us how it’s working for you!

from → Business Development, Events, Events & Conferences, How-Tos, Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Tips & Best Practices

Why Mobile Marketing Will be Essential in 2012

2011 December 23
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by Kari Rippetoe

mobile marketing 2012You’ve probably read at least 100 blog posts listing the big marketing and social media trends for 2012 (our 5 social media trends included) – I know I have. It’s that annual tradition that starts around October and continues right into January – lists of tools to use, companies to watch, everything you should be thinking about when it comes to marketing in the new year. And a lot of what you’re reading isn’t necessarily new stuff; but they are things that will grow and become more popular, and therefore, should be worthy of your attention and consideration.

Mobile is one of those trends. It’s been listed on many a marketing trend list for 2012. Mobile marketing has been around for a few years and has gained momentum since the advent of the iPhone; but why is it suddenly the hot marketing platform for 2012?

To start, here are some stats from Mobithinking.com, which we talked about at a recent Foundation Center DC seminar on social media trends for 2012:

  • 90% of mobile phone users interact with it daily.
  • 85% of handsets will be able to access the mobile web by the end of 2011.
  • Smartphones will overtake “feature” phones (those handsets that allow for calling and texting only) in 2012. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore those using feature phones – still a big segment of your customers and prospects.

Another stat that shows the importance of mobile: many mobile users are mobile-only – 25% of mobile Web users in the US, in fact. They rarely use their desktop, laptop, or even tablet device (although that last one could change significantly over the next couple of years).

Mobile marketing can be implemented in a number of ways, including:

  • Making your website mobile-friendly or creating a mobile version: Perhaps easier said than done, but there are a number of low- and no-cost tools out there to help you if you don’t have the web design and development resources to do it for you. Google also launched a free tool for building a mobile landing page this year.
  • Developing a mobile app: Again, resources for building a mobile app may be an issue; but tools such as AppMakr can help you build your own – no coding required. There are lots of mobile app building tools out there, both free and paid, and this exhaustive list will help you choose the one right for you.
  • Using QR codes: This is one of the easiest ways to get into mobile marketing. QR codes are most effective in offline places like print and signage – where people only need to scan the code with their phones to easilyQR Code access your content. QR codes are easy to create using free tools like Delivr or even URL shortener Bitly, and can direct people to any content you want – like your mobile-friendly website, a product information page, or a video.
  • Leveraging location-based services: If you have a physical location (like a retail store or event of some sort) establish a presence on a location-based service like Foursquare. It’s free and a great way to get people interacting with your business or organization through their phones. You can also offer check-in specials and provide tips on your page to help your customers (such as staff favorites, off-the-menu items or secret discounts).
  • Launching an SMS text campaign: I don’t know about you, but I see more people texting than talking on their phones! Texting campaigns can be a bit more time- and labor-intensive to collect mobile phone numbers, plus it can get expensive depending on the size of your database and provider rates. But, check out tools like TextMarks (their ad-supported Lite version is free) and EZTexting for some relatively low-cost options.

How you use mobile marketing all comes down to what will be the best fit for your business or organization. A location-based service may not make the best sense for an online-only e-commerce site, but a mobile app may help customers choose the best product to buy. Determine what goals you want to achieve with mobile marketing, then look at what other similar businesses and organizations are doing for ideas.

Do you you plan on adding mobile to your marketing mix in 2012?

from → Marketing, Mobile, Tools, Uncategorized

What is Social Media Optimization?

2011 November 30
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by Kari Rippetoe

Bryan Haines of About Online Business/Hosting recently interviewed me on social media optimization. This is an excerpt from his post. You can read the full interview here. 

Bryan: To get started, maybe you can clarify: What is social media optimization?

Kari: Social media optimization (SMO) is basically optimizing your website and content to be as socially-shareable as possible. How easy is it for people to share your content via social media, and how present are you on social media so people can connect with you.

Bryan: How does social media optimization (SMO) differ from search engine optimization (SEO)?

Kari: SEO is a method by which you optimize your website content so it can be easily found in search engines. But, SMO factors greatly into your search engine visibility. As I mentioned before, SMO is about making it easy for people to share your content. Valuable and shareable content continues to be king – and how much your content is shared is becoming an important factor when it comes to search engine rankings. Run any search on Google and you see a +1 button on every result – a +1 for a certain result is a recommendation, increasing that site’s exposure. Any links you share within Google+ are also picked up in Google search results. So, while SMO is different from SEO, it’s also an important SEO strategy.

Bryan: What components are involved to properly optimize a site for social media?

Kari: I think the foundation of SMO is to create content that people will value and share. But what will people value? Listen to and monitor social media channels to find out what people are sharing and what they want to learn. Then, give them what they want. Use this data as a basis for creating content that will help them.

Secondly, it’s important to make sharing easy. Do your blog posts have social sharing buttons in an easy-to-spot place? Do you provide ways for videos, slide presentations and other documents to be embedded?

Bryan: What role does SMO play in online reputation management?

Kari: It plays a huge role! Actively staying on top of your social media presence by updating it with relevant content (your own and from others), making your content easily shareable, and engaging with other people will help you build and maintain a positive online reputation.

Bryan: It seems like every day there is a new network being launched. And they are becoming much more specific. How can a business owner know where to direct their efforts?

Kari: Social networking fatigue can be a big pitfall, and it can be difficult for marketers and business owners to figure out where they should be. Basically, they should direct their efforts where it makes the most sense. Don’t feel like you should be everywhere in social media just because it’s new and available. Do some research to find where your prospects and customers are hanging out – this may even include surveying them to find out what social networks they use.

Read the rest of Kari’s interview here!

 

 

 

 

 

from → Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips & Best Practices

Google+ Pages for Business Launches: First Thoughts

2011 November 8
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by Kari Rippetoe

Since Google+ first launched in June, the question on the minds of many people (especially those of us in the social media “biz”) was when they would launch a platform for businesses to compete with Facebook pages. Google sure didn’t wait long. Less than 2 weeks after announcing that Google+ Pages would be launched in November, they rolled it out in rather quick fashion – within just a day. Sure, it was slightly haphazard (this page led many to believe they could create their page, when in fact it hadn’t been rolled out to them yet); but Google really didn’t muck around.

We’ve created a Google+ Page for Tuvel Communications, so I’ll be playing around with it a bit more in the coming days. I talked about Google+ as a big social media trend to watch in 2012 at a recent seminar we gave, and even though it’s still early days, I’m excited to see what the future will bring for business pages. Google still has some work to do, though.

I really like the idea of being able to share content with targeted Circles of people, which really brings content and marketing relevancy to a new level in social media. If you were able to get your customers on Google+ and then add them to Circles based on their purchases, interests, industry, etc., you’d have a strong content delivery platform at your fingertips. Not to mention the ability to create Hangouts (basically live video chats) with your circles.

I’ve noticed that a business cannot add people to a Circle until they’ve added the business first, which I think is a bit of a speedbump. The Google+ crowd is still very much comprised of early adopters, so businesses have to clear two hurdles in order to deliver content to their customers – first, getting them on Google+, and second, getting them to add the business to a Circle. A third potential hurdle is getting people to actually use Google+ once they’re on it. Social media fatigue might cause many to wonder why they need to join yet another social network, and it won’t be just so a business can bombard them with more marketing messages. As Google+ grows, marketers will begin to figure out how to best utilize Google+ Pages and deliver value to their customers in a new way.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Google+ Pages will become the next big social network that brands and businesses must be a part of, or is Facebook too much to compete with?

from → Community Building & Management, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Technology, Tools

Presentation from “Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012″

2011 November 1
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by Kari Rippetoe

We gave 2 seminars today at the Foundation Center-Washington called Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012 - the first time they’ve held 2 sessions on one of their technology seminars in one day. The attendees were very inquisitive and we had some great interactions with them! In fact, a few of the questions that were asked will make for some interesting blog posts – so stay tuned for those in the very near future.

Here is the presentation we gave, including a full appendix of tools (with links) we discussed. Big thanks to everyone at the Foundation Center (Pat, Laura and Jereme) who helped to make it happen!

 

Doing More With Less: Social Media Trends and Tips for 2012

from → Associations, Blogger Outreach & Relations, Community Building & Management, Events, How-Tos, Influence, Marketing, Non-profits, Nonprofits, online community building, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Tips & Best Practices, Tools

5 Social Media Trends to Look Out For in 2012

2011 October 21
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by Kari Rippetoe

Tuvel’s managing director, Mitch Arnowitz, and I will be presenting a seminar on November 1st at the Foundation Center DC entitled Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012. Naturally, as we head into the last quarter of 2011, thoughts will begin turning to trends and what to expect in social media in 2012 – and especially in the nonprofit and association sector, marketing plans will also be focused on making the most of what social media has to offer with smaller budgets. I don’t usually speculate on future trends, as many social media bloggers and thought leaders tend to do. But for this seminar, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what we might see in 2012 – and how organizations can best utilize those without breaking the bank.

In my opinion, there’s really nothing new under the sun; new trends tend to be a rehashing/reimagining of old trends (think the resurgence of 80s fashion and culture trends over the last 5 years). But when it comes to social media, what I’ve found is that trends focus more on innovation and improvement. We’ve been experimenting with social media for a few years now, and we’ll continue to do so – but with more experience and knowledge, better data and more useful tools. Social media trends are based on taking what we already have and making it better in some way.

So, that being said, I’ve come up with 5 trends that I think will be major areas of innovation and improvement in 2012. What I want to know, however, are your thoughts. What do you see as major social media trends in the coming year?

  • Mobile, mobile, mobile: Mobile has been on the lips of marketers for a few years now, but with the smartphone market booming (it’s expected that smartphones will overtake “feature phones” in the US in 2012), it will be talked about even more. The “mobile-friendliness” of your brand will become increasingly important for reaching customers and prospects, and will cover everything from making your website more mobile-friendly and/or developing mobile apps, to using QR codes to deliver information and utilizing location-based services.
  • Influencers: Lots of talk in 2011 about that nebulous concept of “influence” and what exactly is considered influential in social media – Klout has certainly attracted lots of attention (positive and negative) with the idea of quantifying influence as well. We’ll start to see more talk about the role influencers play in social media marketing, as well as the importance of identifying and reaching out to them to build valuable relationships for your organization – including the development of more tools to help you do that.
  • The rise of content curation: For a while now, there has been an emphasis on creating valuable content to share via social media channels; however, with tools and services like Paper.li and Storify becoming popular, we’ll see increasing importance put on curating content. Success in social media and content marketing will partly rely on the ability to leverage the collective knowledge of your communities to deliver value. This is important for building strong social media communities and engaging customers and prospects in a way that makes it less about you – and more about them.
  • Crowdsourcing: This is something that many brands and organizations have leveraged successfully in some way for a couple of years now, but in the same vein as content curation, leveraging the collective knowledge of your community will become even more important. We’ll see growth of this concept and see it adopted across more industries in 2012.
  • Quality over quantity: Brands will always put a huge emphasis on reach and how many people see their messages through social media; but we’ll see the rise of social networks like Google+ that allow for greater targeting and more focus – not just broadcasting to the masses, but talking with the right people.

I’d love to hear what you think – please let me know in the comments below!

from → Associations, Blogger Outreach & Relations, Influence, Marketing, Non-profits, Nonprofits, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn’s New Features: 2 BIG Missed Opportunities

2011 October 13
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by Kari Rippetoe

LinkedIn New FeaturesI’ve been very excited to see the new features LinkedIn is rolling out for companies. For a long time, they were missing the social media boat in so many ways in an effort to stay true to it’s business networking and job search roots. In the past year, they’ve made strides at creating a more social hub for members, and now their latest features aim to increase value to marketers and brands. But my question is: why have they been so slow on the uptake?

While I’m not complaining about their latest changes for the better, I think there are still major missed opportunities:

  • Make company pages more dynamic: We have apps for profiles, why not apps for company pages? As LinkedIn continues to build and roll out new features for company pages, they should think about ways to make them more dynamic and spotlight content such as videos, presentations and upcoming events.
  • Pay as much attention to event pages as they are to companies and individual profiles: Not much has been done to change the way event pages work on LinkedIn. Perhaps this has to do with a lack of traffic to those pages – members just don’t use them as much as other areas of the website. However, therein lies an opportunity to make them more interactive and valuable to event organizers, marketers and event attendees alike.  Ways this could be done include embedded videos, Twitter streams, links to event social outposts, and even discussions from a related event group on LinkedIn. Also, why not allow event page admins to send messages to those who have RSVP’d – with the ability to segment by who’s attending and who’s interested, industry, even title.

Perhaps with LinkedIn’s new Certified Developer Program we’ll begin to see changes like these come down the pike. What do you think and what do you want to see on LinkedIn?

from → Events, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tools, Uncategorized

SEMINAR: Doing More With Less – Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012

2011 September 22
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by Kari Rippetoe

Foundation CenterWe’re excited to be giving a seminar on Tuesday, November 1 from 10am-12pm entitled Doing More With Less: Social Media Tips and Trends for 2012, taking place at the Foundation Center-Washington, DC!

Promoting your organization and mobilizing your members can be daunting, especially with a limited budget. But it doesn’t have to be that way – social media provides organizations with opportunities to do more with less and make the most of marketing dollars. Presented in partnership with the Foundation Center, the seminar will examine some of the upcoming social media trends and provide you with tips, tricks and tools to help you develop and deliver your 2012 plan.

UPDATE Oct. 22
The morning seminar from 10am-12pm is full, but due to popular demand an afternoon seminar has been added! Register here for the overflow session from 1pm-3pm.

from → Associations, Community Building & Management, Events, Marketing, Non-profits, Nonprofits, Shameless self promotion, Social Media Marketing, Tips & Best Practices, Tuvel Communications

2012: The Year of Living Dangerously with Social Media

2011 September 15
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by Kari Rippetoe

Why are companies and organizations still so afraid of social media?

They seem to understand why they should be using social media – they’ve been presented with all the business cases, case studies and marketing plans to prove its worth. Now there seems to be a major aversion to actually diving in and utilizing social media in the best possible way for the brand – not as a broadcast channel, but as an engagement channel. Now that they’re on social media, they really have no idea what to do with it.

Here are my responses to the two biggest fears I’ve heard:

What if it doesn’t work?

You could say that about any marketing your company does. Has that stopped you from launching that email campaign? How about print campaigns? While the cost of social media isn’t free, it can certainly cost you a heckuva lot less than some of the other marketing you do – so if fear of a direct mail campaign not working didn’t stop you from spending bucketloads of precious marketing budget on it, then why is this same fear stopping you from launching your social media effort?

Perhaps it’s more of a fear of the unknown – something that’s experimental and new versus tried and true. I read a really interesting article in The Conversation on CIPR about PR’s schizophrenic attitude to creativity. Andrew Smith cited recent research from Cornell University that points up key reasons why there’s a general bias against creativity:

  • Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
  • People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical — tried and true.
  • Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.

So the business case for social media may have been made, but actually implementing new and creative ideas for using it presents a roadblock for many people. It’s understandably difficult for us as humans to do things outside of our comfort zone; but if we were always afraid of something not working, nothing would ever get done. For companies to succeed in social media, they have to step outside of what is safe. Don’t be afraid to try something new – if it doesn’t work, learn from it and try something different.

What if someone says something bad?

Leslie White wrote a great post over at the SocialFishing Blog that addressed this very fear. A lack of control is what drives it – many companies and organizations feel that they have to steer the message in a very calculated way, all the time. They feel like social media will give people a platform to say anything they want about the brand, and they can’t control that. NEWSFLASH: those conversations are already happening, but you’ve been too wrapped up in your “message” to see it. Sure, there are negative things being said; but guess what – there are positive things being said too. By your customers and members.

So, no, you can’t control the conversation on social media; but, as Leslie White puts it, “social media gives us many ways to try to influence it.” Instead of ignoring negativity or avoiding social media completely, there are steps you can take to influence the conversation:

  1. Religiously monitor mentions of your company, brand and products on social media.
  2. Create a plan of action for dealing with negative comments, based on what you’ve monitored (and for funneling those comments to appropriate channels). Here’s an oldie (but still goodie) blog post I wrote a few years ago on dealing with negative feedback in a positive way.
  3. Create a plan for engaging and empowering the people who are making positive comments – they are your customer brand evangelists.
  4. Use everything you’ve found to make improvements  – negative feedback is still good feedback.

Let’s make 2012 the year of living “dangerously” – stop being afraid of social media and start thinking of how it can work for you, not against you.

from → Marketing, PR, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips & Best Practices

What We’re Reading, Sept. 9th

2011 September 9
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by Kari Rippetoe

I don’t want this to be the “9/11 Edition” of What We’re Reading, but I just wanted to share with you two posts I’ve read that I thought were interesting and insightful. I highly recommend sharing these with your communities as well.

  • 9/11 and the Promise of Community from Inkling Media – with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up this weekend, I can’t help but think to myself how close we as a nation grew in the aftermath of those events, as well as what it might have been like if social media like Twitter and Facebook were around then. It would’ve unfolded in a much different way. Ken was in NYC when it happened, and has his own story about the community effect he witnessed.
  • 9/11/01: Where Were You? from the Feeding America Blog – we’re all thinking about this (many have been ever since it happened). Feeding America has put together this touching and introspective collection of memories from its national office staff.

And for something a bit more lighthearted, a video of the Freddie Mercury Google Doodle celebrating what would’ve been his 65th birthday – we here at Tuvel are definitely fans!

from → Articles, Community, Links, Music, Social Media, Uncategorized, What We're Reading

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