A defining characteristic of Twitter has long been the 140 character limit. A challenge for many to create a cohesive story, users frequently turned to numbered tweets, external links, and smartly edited graphics to convey their points across this platform. When Twitter announced a switch to 280 characters for all on Nov 7th – everything changed.
The Autumn event season is upon us, and the Delightful team is attending and supporting client events around the globe. We love the opportunity to work with companies to amplify and extend the impact of their event marketing through social media and video.
Event amplification allows clients to get more from the significant investment they make in event sponsorship and attendance. It brings the valuable content shared at an event to a larger audience, optimizing it for people “outside the room”.
It also helps to increase the visibility of the personal brands of the leaders and speakers that travel sometimes vast distances to stand on stage and impart their knowledge.
In the final of 10 installments of our Personal Branding Strategy Series I want to encourage you to use social media for personal branding, to be “social by design”.
I first heard the phrase from Carolyn Everson, my former big boss at Microsoft Advertising and now Head of Global Advertising Solutions at Facebook. Adapted from the industry cry for brands to be “digital by design”, Carolyn’s morphing of the expression is the perfect discipline for the busy professional of today.
Here are a few ideas of what it means to be “social by design”:
Getting your social infrastructure right
I talk about it in detail in the post on How to Optimize Your Personal Brand Online, but this is about making sure your social profiles – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. – are set up properly so you’re half way to success. Your profiles need to be discoverable, they need to have the right security settings activated and it needs to be easy for someone to interact with you, understand immediately what you are about, and share whatever you are trying to get out there.
We are beside ourselves with delight to announce that we’ve won our first ever industry award from the Content Marketing Institute for the Best Use of Technology as Part of a Content Marketing Program for the role we played in the creation and execution of the Majestic in Space Campaign.
The prestigious Content Marketing Awards received over 1000 entries and in our final category, we were up against the likes of such mighty brands as Salesforce and FedEx!
Our quest, in partnership with our fine clients at Majestic.com and the crew at Made In Space, to 3D print a data visualization of “The Internet” on the International Space Station had been about 2 years in the making (astronauts move pretty slowly you see!) and so this accolade really is the icing on the space cake of what has been a thrilling year for us.
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the first ever Sysomos Summit in Raleigh, NC. The summit was full of beneficial sessions, and I was thrilled to have the chance to learn from industry leaders at Coca-Cola, Facebook, Google, etc. on the current state, and the future of social media marketing.
Peter Heffring, CEO of Sysomos, kicked off the summit by addressing the challenge all marketers are facing in nowadays. With 2 million news articles published and 5 billion posts shared on Facebook per day, not only are customers are overwhelmed, but also marketers. Peter used an excellent analogy to describe the situation – a lot of us are stuck in the hunter/gatherer mode, in which we, as marketers, are collecting a huge amount of data, but are not turning them into insight that will help us take further action.
A recent study from Microsoft shows that human attention span is now 8 seconds, shorter than goldfish! So how can marketers get themselves out of the hunter/gatherer mode and take action to win customers’ attention?
By reviewing the huge pile of notes I took during the summit, my conclusion is that:
Data Insights + Being Human = Wins Your Customers in Their Moments
Next week I’ll be joining an illustrious panel to discuss the US election and I have been asked to talk specifically about how digital and social media is affecting the potential outcome.
I wrote about it a bit more in this article: BABC Pre-Election Breakfast Discussion in Seattle on my personal blog but thought our Delightful followers would like to know in case you’re in Seattle next week!
Register here: Pre-Election Breakfast BABC
Hope to see you there!
Mel
2016: Facebook is the first social media to integrate VR in any user daily browsing.
What does that really mean? For the first time, users can easily share 360 photos to Facebook, making content and views more immersive and creative to the masses.
The best part: taking a photo and sharing it is actually pretty simple!
Now that you have crafted your personal brand statement, begun to analyze your competitors, and started to reengineer your digital presence, let’s talk about choosing the right social channel to capture your story and make your personal brand shine.
While publishing across platforms (and linking them together!) is a great way to build your online presence, depending on your niche and professional goals, having a specific focus on the right one can positively elevate the experience your audience and peers have with your personal brand and increase the all important engagement.
Every social channel has its own distinguishing features, from preference of content, to audience size and their attention span, tone and scope. Think about which channel your target audience is on, leverage how active and engaged they are based on data like audience demographics and traffic generation, and then choose the best platform for YOU and your personal brand.
Last week, Simply Measured, one of the leading social media analytics companies out there, hosted their first annual conference =LIFT in Seattle. The 1-day conference provided marketers with a lot of insight on the latest industry trends, benchmarks, and best practices on social media marketing.
The keynote speech delivered by Nate Elliott, VP & Principal Analyst Serving B2C Marketing Professionals at Forrester Research, was a great kick-off of the event. We were so impressed by the data and insights from his talk we wanted to share them with you.
Technology and Measurement are the Biggest Challenges for Social Media Marketers
Social media is bigger than ever before. From 2014, both agency fees for social media and social media advertising spend have been increasing and will continue to increase. About 9.6 billion dollars will be spent on social media in 2015 as Forrester predicts.
(Slide credit: Nate Elliot from Forrester at =LIFT)
Social selling is definitely a vibrant buzzword in the 2015 business world. Businesses, large and small, are trying to jump on the social selling bandwagon in fear of missing out.
Social selling is not just about helping your sales reps set up their social profiles and start pitching people on social media. It requires a comprehensive plan and deliberate strategies and tactics to deliver successful results.
A recent study from Forrester shows that a large number of sales and marketing professionals don’t know how to get started with a formal social selling program.
Let’s suppose you’ve recognized the value of social selling, persuaded your stakeholders it’s a great idea, and are ready to get started with a solid plan, here are 8 steps to help you build a winning social selling program:
It’s obvious that the ultimate goal for any social selling programs would be generating more sales. However, for a winning social selling program, the goal needs to be more specific and scalable.
The Forrester study recommends marketers to think about customers’ purchase circle and functions of social media when setting the goals for a social selling program:
