Jenny Schmitt bio:
Jenny-Rebecca Schmitt is a veteran public relations and marketing professional, trainer and sought-after public speaker. Her 15-year marketing and communications career includes experience in the fields of sports marketing, nonprofit marketing, healthcare communications, and public relations.
This week, while driving back from a social media conference I heard a radio ad from a furniture store offering a free tablet with a purchase of $999. It got me thinking back to the days when banks gave away toasters. Or to the current tchotchke giveaways that come in conference bags and in exhibit booths. While I wouldn’t mind a new tablet, or a new pen, or a light-up toy car, it’d make more sense if these giveaways were better tied to the value/message/benefits of the brand.Sure, an iPad giveaway might bring you traffic, it might get you RTs or tweets, or Facebook postings, it might get foot traffic to your booth or store, but what is the message you share and what is the longer term value?
Can you see the thought cloud: “Every time they use the tablet/pen/toy, they’ll think of us and that good feeling will transfer back to the brand and increase our sales.” If it sounds ridiculous, it is.
If you’re going to have an incentive item, a giveaway, find a way to make it meaningful, memorable, and valuable. Here’s a short list of ideas:
For a smartphone or tablet, preload your company’s app onto the tablet or load a welcome screen (can’t do that without corrupting the packaging, capture the email address and send an immediate email after winning and send them a value-add for the device).
For gift cards, either ask if they have a way to personalize the card, or add a company sticker but don’t stop there (there’s no value here yet). If it’s a coffee gift card, invite them to join you for an informal meeting. If it’s an iTunes card, send them your company’s playlist or the podcasts that you find valuable. If it’s an Amazon gift card, include a recommended reading list of books that you’ve found most valuable to your business.
Guess what? Your cheap booth giveaways, don’t have to be meaningless. Tie in a benefit of your product to the giveaway. For example, consider giving away a portion of the product, a small sample of what you sell. Imagine if Mercedes-Benz giveaways were a sample of the leather used in their cars that was a car key holder. Every time you put your current car keys away, every time you felt that leather, you’d be reminded of the aspiration to own a Mercedes.
I still can’t figure how banks ever tied value to toasters, and I can’t think of how I’ll feel like I got more value/quality after spending a grand at a furniture store by walking out with a new tablet in my hands.
We’re big fans of TED and thankful they share the videos from their incredible roster of speakers. This talk from Nicholas Christakis discusses the influence of our vast social networks of friends, family, co-workers and more. He tracks how a wide variety of traits — from happiness to obesity — can spread from person to person, showing how your location in the network might impact your life in ways you don’t even know. After watching the video, we were left with two questions: what’s the influence of our own network? are we even aware of its influence on us?
What do you think? What’s the influence of your network?
We originally created a list of a dozen upcoming social media conferences and events in Atlanta. Since that posting more than a month ago, we updated, revised and added to the list ending up with 17 events. Rather than continuing to update a dated post, enjoy this fresh post with the 13 upcoming social media conferences and events, from today to the end of the year, happening here in the ATL.
If you are coming to any of these conferences or headed to Atlanta for the first time, let’s be social and connect while you’re here. And the * notation? Consider it a disclaimer because we’ll be presenting.
(Know about a conference we missed? Send us an email and let us know.)
Inspired by Mashable’s 100 Upcoming Social Media and Technology Conferences list, we cracked open our planners and decided where we could invest our time in learning this fall. We decided on a few national conferences, opted for a few marketing, technology, and PR meetings, but when we got to the topic of social media, we were nearly crushed with the options. While we’d like to go to BlogWorld and APPNation, we needed to consider just how much time we could spend out of the office and our carbon footprint (Jenny’s traveling to speak in Houston at IS Conference and in San Diego at LavaCon). To save on time, we considered only social media conferences and events in Atlanta. To our surprise, we found a dozen* (this post started as 12, but with your input, it’s now at 17) social media conferences and meetings in Atlanta happening before the calendar flips to the new year. What’d we find? Take a look:
While we’re narrowing down our options, reviewing speakers, and the value we’d get for our time out of the office, tell us how you decide on what conferences to attend? If you are coming to any of these conferences or headed to Atlanta for the first time, let’s be social and connect while you’re here. (Know about a conference we missed? Send us an email and let us know.)
*Thanks to Scott Lockhart (@scott_regator) for sending us the info on Mashable’s Atlanta event on Sept. 30; to Lane Bailey for sending us info about REBarCamp on Oct. 1; to Brandy Nagel (@benang) for the info on TedxPeachtree; to Stephen Boyd for sharing more about the digital/social media track at the IABC conference.
Have you ever been to a moderated panel presentation only to be let down by panelists who seem to be paralyzed? Has that panelist ever been you?
Fear no more – we’ve created 12 tips to help you be a successful, confident and memorable panelist, rockin’ it with your very own name tent. Look below and takeaway tips that allow you to bring value and expertise without being “sales-y,” repetitive or, quite honestly, predictable. (And if you’re the moderator, check out these great tips here and here.) Now panelist, read on: Read the rest of this entry »
This fall, I’ll be speaking at LavaCon in San Diego on generations and the social experience. The popular conference is focused heavily on the digital and social media experience. The way they phrase it, they’re focused ‘on how to develop, manage and publish digital content that enhances the customer experience, reduces production costs and promotes your online brand.’ Who’d the conference really for? Marketers, public relations pros, brand managers, project managers and anyone with a hankering to learn more about making digital and social media work well for their brand.
And here’s the better part: you can save $50 off of registration by using the discount code CLOUDSPARK. Register by July 9 and take advantage of early registration rates. (Psst, wanna know what we’re doing with our $50? Sneak a peek!)
If you decide to go, let us know, we’d love to meet up in beautiful San Diego.
