Justin G. Roy

Recently, I came across a post by Celeste Wroblewski, vice president of external relations at Donors Forum in Illinois on Getting Attention blog titled Less Is More! – Uncommon Advice from a Nonprofit Social Media Enthusiast.

Wroblewski brings up some very valid points for the use of time in social media but does focus a bit more on the traditional billboard marketing strategy rather than stepping out of your comfort zone, realizing and understanding that today’s consumer is demanding a much different experience with your brand (yes, a nonprofit is a brand). It goes without saying that social media (online branding and marketing) is not a fad, it’s here to stay, and the delay in acceptance only puts your competitors that much further ahead.

Moving into a more donor-based brand, isn’t the purpose to share your mission, open your arms, and educate your different constituents? You do not have to share that you recently got a coffee or saw a plane, but what about opening your gates a little to let folks know what goes on in your office on a daily basis? If something funny happened that day, share it. Let your current and [just as important] potential future donors get to know you as a human.

Let’s not forget (and I am not going to explore it today) the additional search results that come from participation on social networking sites. Can your brand afford not to create additional pages of search results?

I wanted to share my response to the article and ask for your opinion:

My response:
There are some great points brought up in the post above, in regards to sometimes flooding the online waves and I wanted to thank, Celeste for posting!

I do agree on the “rules” or accepted numbers challenge above; there really is not any “proven” magic number on how many blogs, posts, comments, tweets, or what-have-you. When you see interesting posts or information that you think your followers would like to read – post it. If you don’t then do not retweet something or post just to cross it off your list. Everybody’s following and their habits are different than another’s, so experiment and find out what works best for you in regards to building your followers/friends/readers/etc.

I am curious, however, why a nonprofit would go out onto any of these social networks if they are not going to be active? Simply being present is not enough for any online branding and marketing (aka social media) strategy. Would you attend a networking event and sit in the corner, choosing one person (based on the numbers), walk up to them and announce your good news, then walk away?

Any good strategy/plan would understand and touch upon the importance of building your audience (your target market), engaging your audience, building links and traffic to your site, and having a call to action. It’s time to throw away the billboard mentality and truly understand what online marketing and branding (social media) really is.

Time (free or spent) is absolutely an ongoing challenge for any brand (yes, nonprofits are brands too), adding in the question of who is responsible for social media. Some larger brands have resources to assign and most small(er) businesses don’t. When I speak to small business owners, I often remind them that it is just as important to “work” for your own business and don’t loose sight of that. If you allocate 10 hours a week to marketing then fit social media and engagement strategy in there.

I am really curious to hear others thoughts on this, knowing that I may be standing alone in left field. However, just as we embrace the ability to say what we feel we also need to embrace the possibility of standing alone.

What are your thoughts?

Last week I posted about being approached by Barbara Talisman from Talisman Associates to comment and contribute on her blog, Talisman Thinking Out loud, to a blog post she was at the time writing on social media connections. A wonderful (I might be biased) post came out of our conversations and interviews and was divided into two parts; it was pretty long as one and I think Barbara forgot how much I like to talk and how difficult it is to interrupt/cut me off when I get going.

(Click here to read Part 1)

The two major questions we talked about for Part 2 of the post, included:

• What does looking at someone’s website or blog tell you about them?
• Does it matter if they represent a company v. personal brand?

Remember with whatever web (2.0 or have we decided on 3.0 yet) era we are in it’s important to remember that our main source of information is the world wide web. World Wide.

How do you, or your brand, want to be portrayed? As somebody who understands the need to claim their space online and engage with their visitors or somebody who half-you-know-what their strategy?

Click here to read Part 2!

Honestly, it’s 2010 and if you do not have a URL for me to browse to you have lost me. You do not need to be a technical genius to build your own website on Go Daddy (or any of the others) or a blog-website combo on WordPress. If you really cannot build one, ask your network and barter with your strengths – somebody once offered me a home cooked meal (with her family) in exchange for help setting up a WordPress site (the meal/deal was amazing).

I was recently approached by Barbara Talisman from Talisman Associates to comment and contribute on her blog, Talisman Thinking Out loud, to a blog post she [was at the time] recently wrote on evaluating your social media connections.

The first three questions we addressed (the next set will be posted next week):

• What makes a good person to follow on Twitter or how to determine who to follow v. block?
• How can you tell if someone on Twitter is legit – coming from a place of honesty, truth or knowledge?
• Does having a lot of followers and tweeting a lot mean you have something to say?

In today’s follow me – watch me – please engage with me world it’s important for everybody (regardless of industry) to understand their strategy, understand who and what their brand is, and communicate properly. Insert integrated communications.

Rather than repost the entire article, please visit the blog: Click here to read the post!

Could I be any more behind? Sorry!

So back in March the Worcester Business Journal published a very nice article highlighting yours truly on my position with Nichols College as their Director of Social Media.

Social what?

Trust me, it’s more than being on Facebook all day. It’s online branding, online marketing, digital communications, digital applications, and social networking. I am responsible for making sure the college is found online and dominates the competition. Though I am aware my outlook and strategy here is more inline with the corporate world I truly belive higher education needs to think of themselves more as a brand.

How do we brand ourselves? Who is our competition?

Well, I will say this – the concentration is filling the first three pages of search engines with at least 18 keywords and key phrases in 18 months. (I think my favorite numbers are 3 and 18)

How will I do this? Oh, a number of ways. Subscribe to this blog (look to the right on the sidebar – or scroll up and look to the right) by email or simply use the RSS feed to find out.

What? Give away my secrets?

If you just thought that (or said it out loud) prepare to rethink 2010. It’s not the internet age anymore, it’s the age of open source, open communication, and sharing. I’ll let you know what I am doing, where I am positing and going. Mimic it if you want. Contact me with any questions (hint – click contact tab)

Oh, wait, I veered way off subject here. So here is the link to the Worcester Business Journal (WBJ) article.

Click here to read the article.

Corporate robot was managing their online and social marketing strategy in a space where consumers turn to talk with human beings.

If you are on Twitter, have a strategy.        If you are on Facebook, have a strategy.        If you are online, have a strategy.

Common theme today is strategy and the dire need for one, whether you are online for personal reasons or online for professional purposes. Perhaps this should be filed as a rant, or perhaps should not be written at all; however, I enjoy writing what I am thinking.

So where is this coming from? A conversation with an extremely friendly gentleman who I sat next to on my Southwest flight last week.

I settled into my normal (or however normal it can be) routine when I fly Southwest and turned to my row-mate to say hello and learn more about him; a flight in conversation is a much better use of time than a flight watching a movie. We ended up talking for the majority of the flight about social media, but more as he knew social media and believed social media was: twitter.

We started with a crash-course (our flight was only 2 hours long, and I tend to be long-winded) in how Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogging, etc are simply platforms to engage with business partners, current customers, potential partnerships and customers, and build brand awareness. Then we moved onto Twitter. Unfortunately his experience with Twitter was with, what I would call, billboarding and viewed Twitter as an advertising tool (billboarding) to push content onto the online world, push their message to customers online, and simply convert their offline marketing strategy with their online marketing strategy.

He was, after all, a consumer at that point AND part of a brand who wanted to push their content in the online world.

Fast forward about three months, and he convinced his company to go social media and begin their journey with Twitter and Facebook. Three months after their launch the company was trying to figure out why their Twitter followers were low and their Facebook FanPage was not growing at the same rate of others. Unfortunately they are not the first, only, nor last brand to experience this.

Thirty minutes and a coffee after landing – and the availability to connect to the internet – it was very clear what happened. I will share a bullet list of what went wrong:

• Company had a lack of strategy
• Company had a lack of understanding of platforms available
• Spaghetti approach – they threw everything onto the wall and see what sticks BUT never had conversations
• Employees engaged and spearheading the campaign had limited knowledge of online branding
• Assuming offline strategy would convert easily online based on limited exposure

What went correctly:

• Company knew the importance of social media and thought it imperative for their presence online
• Company had produced some wonderful content to share online (articles, press releases, highlights)
• Employees involved did not give up, were trying to learn and reach out, and truly believed in their company (I hope they do receive special recognition)

Where did this bring us? In the end of the day, the company had great content they were pushing into the online space but never talked with (or responded to) their followers and customers. The company did not have any metrics in place to judge and measure their success with social media.

Corporate robot was managing their online and social marketing strategy in a space where consumers turn to talk with human beings.

My suggested changes to their approach were simple, easy to change in the short-term, and would yield them some quick turn around. There certainly is more this company can explore, but until the responsibility is taken upon (or delegated) to oversee the social media strategy, step one is a giant step in the right direction.

If you are not aware, Google provides a free service to businesses, and their locations, to create a business listing that is similar to the phone book.

A few of the features include,

• List your company name, address, contact information, and website.
• List your hours of operation (easy to change if you are a seasonal company).
• Create coupons and special deals.
• Display company logo, pictures, and links.
• And more….

It takes about 5-10 minutes to set up (if you have all information necessary) and requires minimal (if any) maintenance unless something changes. Check out JG Social Media Listing!

Click here to go to Google Local Business Center.