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.

What do you think of incentive items?

iPad 2 A Worthy Giveaway?

Guess what? You know more than you think, it’s just that there is so much you can do, it may seem overwhelming. So let’s start with a few basic questions and get you to an action plan you can use.

First up, timing. Is your business seasonal or cyclical? If so, ramp up marketing efforts when it makes sense. No one advertises Christmas in March for a reason. But think of timing, when does it make the most sense to try to reach your customers.  Here’s a good example of how not to plan timing – think of your college reaching out for a few dollars from you as an alum – now, you like them, you want to give, you know the value. But they call on a Sunday night at 6:30pm… wrong time and they lose you.  Think about timing.

Next up, direct or indirect. Now you have two main options when taking action, you can reach people directly or indirectly. Think of it this way, do you want to ask them directly for their business or are they unavailable for direct access?  If it’s a more direct approach, what does your target audience respond best to and when? What are 3 tactics you think can directly reach your audience and influence their purchase or sale?  Is it radio ads? Twitter? Facebook? An online ad? An event sponsorship? A tradeshow? Email marketing? Of the 3 tactics you selected are you able to implement them well? If you can only send one tweet, don’t expect a run at your store. If you want radio but can’t afford to create a radio ad, well then you’ll need to find another tactic.  But what if your customer isn’t available directly to you? Or what if you want to surround your customer with your brand?  Indirect actions allow you to reach influencers that can help persuade your customers to take action. A good analogy? Direct is like you telling someone how great you are and asking them on a date. Indirect is getting all your friends to talk to them about how great you are and then they want you to ask for a date.

No matter what action you take, it’s called your “marketing mix” which is just our industry speak for the different ways you market to your target audiences.

To help you with this step, grab a piece of paper and a pen, you know old-school style. Now make divide it in thirds and write 30-days, 60-days, 90-days in each section. Now list what you CAN do realistically in the next 90 days.

Every company has a visual story to tell. Every. Single. One. And this year, we want you to start thinking of how to share your company, your talent, your product, your services through video.  We’re not talking ads (honestly who watches anything for the ads, except for the Super Bowl) we’re talking about you creating a compelling visual snapshot that share something different with your customers or clients.  Why? Two great reasons: 1) YouTube is the second largest destination for search on the whole web; and 2) according to Forrester Research, video indexes at a rate 50 times higher than text. 

First, grab a smart phone with a video feature or grab a Flip camera for about $120.  And since this whole series is about easy ways to get started, you’ll be happy to know that Flip cameras don’t require software or video training/editing skills. It’s all right there in the camera with it’s own easy steps. Videos for the web don’t need to be broadcast quality, they only need to be good for your web-based audience. Most videos that do well are short, say less than 2 minutes, so keep it in mind when creating your video. (By all means, if you have the cash, make it Oscar-worthy!)

Now, let’s get you started on YouTube in 5 easy steps approach:

1. Go to www.youtube.com and create an account

2. Click on the yellow “Upload” button on the right hand side, select video file.

3. On the new screen, press the button to “Upload Video File”

     a. Locate the file on your hard drive and select

     b. Now YouTube will start the upload

     c. Video cannot be longer than 10 minutes

4. While video is uploading, scroll down to add the

     a. Title – Use keywords that matter, think of how you’d search

     b. Description – Use keywords but be clear about what people will see

     c. Tags – Enter a listing of keywords related to the vide

     d. Category – Select the category which most closely matches your video

     e. Privacy – you’ll want to select Public for most videos

5. Now click on “Save Changes”

     a. You’ll see a message on the new screen that reads, “Success…”

     b. After the video is done loading, you’ll see a “Live” message and your video is now posted.

What makes great video? Share your expertise, answer a question, show a customer event, demonstrate a product, showcase your new offices and more. It’s about showing your customers something more than what they’d get from reading text. For example, if you’re a tire shop, share a short video on how to check the pressure in your tires. It’s a lot easier to see how to do it than how to read it in the car manual.

There is heaps more to spreading your videos around, but for now, create the visual and get started. Send us a link!

(Oh and the irony, we should have made this post a video. So noted.)

It’s already mid-January and on your to-do list was to get started with Twitter. It’s not too late – that’s the nice thing with social media – it’s rarely, if ever to late.  Twitter is a short-messaging platform with great reach to audiences, in fact, according to the research more than 51% of Twitter users will follow a brand or company. Twitter works on multiple levels and has far-reaching benefits. But let’s save the sales pitch and just help you get started. Here’s your step-by-step approach to setting up and to starting to tweet:

1. Go to www.twitter.com

2. Register as a new user

     a. You’ll need a Twitter user name (and yes you can change it later) so keep it simple and avoid punctuation or complicated spellings if possible

     b. You need a 100×10 image (also called an avatar)

     c. You need a bio – 140 characters; key words matter (searchability), if as you’re representing your company, state it (transparency) and finally, caution: this is public

NOTE ON MOBILE:  You can check Twitter and send Tweets from your mobile phone. In fact, many people use Twitter exclusively from mobile phones. On the home page of Twitter are options for downloads at the bottom of the page.  E.g. For the iPhone, HootSuite or Tweetdeck are free options and both are very easy to use; simply download and install from the Apps Store.

What Do I Say?

Now that is the real question isn’t it? The best way to think of what to post is: What has your attention right now?  While Twitter asks you, “what’s happening?” that’s not necessarily the right question to consider.  Describing, sharing, or posting what has your attention is a bit more specific, and quite honestly, interesting.

Tweets tend to fall into three categories: personal, conversational, and promotional.  Almost all successful people on Twitter blend these three categories.

How Do I Tweet?

1. To post a “tweet” simply enter in your 140 characters and hit update

2. If you need to include a URL, use http://bit.ly to save space

3. If you “re-tweet” someone else’s post, start it with RT @theirname

4. If you want to direct message (DM) someone simply exchange the “@” for a “d”

5. If you reply to someone, simply go to the right of their post and you’ll see an arrow icon, click on it. 

     a. this leads you to an update box that has @theirname in the box

     b. this is considered an “open conversation”

     c. take it to DM if you go to more than 3 back-and-forths, otherwise we’re all just eavesdropping

A few notes on etiquette:

• Understand this is social media and not broadcast media (or think of it as no one likes someone who only talks about themselves)
• Do not send off 20 tweets in a row or send tbd tweets – you can lose followers
• If you post someone else’s tweet, include the RT and credit in your post
• If you and another person have more than 3 replies on the same topic, take it offline or to email
• Some text-speak is common, such as “IMHO” (in my humble opinion)
• All of this is in a public domain – heed proper caution

Now there is a lot more to Twitter, but this will get you set up and get you started. There is lots of help out there to help explain how to follow people, the etiquette and the lingo to Twitter. But for now, just get started. And be sure to follow us at www.twitter.com/cloudspark.

In the New Year, you wanted to start a blog for your business or for fun, but you can’t seem to decide on WordPress and you just want to get started. Welcome to the land of so-simple-it’s-like-email and it’s called Posterous.

I like Posterous because of its simplicity, but also because it takes away the technical queasiness when you want to share a video or a photo album. It’s like having your tech-savvy friend take your email and make it a cool post.  It really is that simple, so let’s get started. Here are your step-by-step instructions on how to get started with Posterous:

1. Go to www.posterous.com and create an account.

     a. You’ll get a confirmation email from Posterous asking you to confirm your account.

2. After you sign in, you’ll be taken to the page below and asked to email your first post to the email address post@posterous.com

3. It’s perfectly normal to send a simple first-post such as an introduction

     E.g. This is James with MyBusiness. I’ll be sharing more about X, X, and X.  If you have questions, comments, or ideas for posting, feel free to email me at james(at)mycompany(dot)com. You can also include a photo of your business or other image or video.

4. Next, go back to your Manage page and select Settings this is the place you can add an avatar (photo), your name and professional contact information.

5. You can also change the background theme

     a. Go to My Posterous at the top of the page

     b. It will take you to your personal page

     c. At the top, select the “Posterous” button, it will expand and from there you can select Themes.

     d. Choose a background theme that suits you.

     e. Save changes at the end

6. You can post anytime by emailing post@posterous.com

    a. Common things to post include: Answers to commonly asked questions, New information on new services or products, Examples of good work or innovations working for clients, Photos of new offerings, Photos of teams in action, Videos related to your work, products, services,  

Monitor

Posterous allows you to receive auto-notifications when people comment, link, or respond to your post.

1. Under Manage, look for the Notifications option under Settings. 

       a. It’s a good idea to set up notifications around posts, links, comments.

2. If someone responds with a question, it’s a good idea to reply right there on the post so that others can read the answer as well.

Can I Comment on Post?

Posterous offers full commenting capability with the ability to enable anonymous comments as well as require Posterous, Facebook, or Twitter authentication. See the Commenting and Posting section of Settings from your Manage page.

Spreading the Post

This is one of the best features of Posterous, it will automatically help you spread your blog posts to other social networks.

1. Under Manage, you can select AutoPost

     a. This pulls up a menu of other social sites

2. You can select your posts to be automatically shared with other sites, for example, on Twitter

     a. This saves you from having to remember to share your good thoughts with other social sites, Posterous will do this automatically for you.

3. Be sure to save changes at the end

Posterous really is this simple. So if you’ve thought about creating a blog, but have stopped short because you thought it’d take too much time, well not any more. If you can send an email, you can blog.  You can always find answers on “how-to” at http://help.posterous.com/. Now send us a link!

It’s a New Year, and we want help you know how to take the basic steps in social media. So this whole month, we’re going to post a how-to social media series: Get Started.  Most of us procrastinate until we get past the first step and learn how easy it can be.

So we’re starting here, in WordPress, one of the most popular blogging and web platforms around.  If you’re considering a new website for your business or your blog, it’s the platform we recommend.  But once you’ve got the site, how do you create a new post?  Here are 8 easy step-by-step instructions on how to post on your WordPress blog/page:

1. Go to http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/wp-admin/edit.php

2. Enter the username and password

3. When you get to the homepage, look on the left side, click on Posts, Click on Add New

a. Now you’ll see the page where you’re going to enter your content

                i. Enter your headline (think keywords here and keep it as short as possible)

ii. Enter the body of your copy (It’s a good idea to write it in Word and spell check it)

b.  If you want to add any visual or attachment:

i. Click on the icon at the top of the place where you put in the body of content, you’ll see “Upload/Insert” and a few icons

First icon is for a photo

Second icon is for a video

Third icon is for music

Fourth icon is for “media” which could be a PDF or other file

(Okay, you’ve got the content in – great!)

4. Right hand side of the page, enter in the Post Tags

a. These are your keywords, so think search engine kind of phrases here

5. Under Tags, you’ll see Categories

a. Select as many of the categories as this post applies to, e.g. events

(You’re nearly all done)

6. At the top right is the Publish section, y ou can “Preview” the post to see how it looks

7. You can publish “Now”

a. Or you can pick a previous date, time or future date, time

8. Ready? Click “Publish”

Ta-da! That’s the easy basics, it really is that simple. Now send us your first post. Or send us feedback on a few steps you might add in the mix.

When describing the thing you’ve built for the last five years, you’d be amazed at how tricky it can be.  When I started CloudSpark in 2005, I was determined to work with clients I believed in and to create work that was focused on building our clients’ brands and bottom lines. Nearly as important to me, I struck out to create a new kind of agency.

I started as a solo practioner – taking on clients and work, partnering with other talented solo practioners or freelancers when the work required it.  With hard work, clients I called partners, and a few well-placed risks that earned us accolades, I found more work than I could handle. I leaped over the hurdle and made a hire.  Now a couple of years later, we’re rockin’ it as a small team, and I’m focused on creating a better agency experience for my team of Sparks and for our clients.

But I kept running into the same barrier – how do I characterize my agency in an industry that loves to categorize (and rank) itself around size and affiliation?  I’m no longer a true solo practioner. We’re not a boutique PR agency, that label is typically used when an agency specializes in one industry. We’re not an independent agency which has a huge variance in team size, but really could be any agency that’s not part of the eight largest agencies in our industry.  And well, the term agency, just seemed too generic…like a bad sweater some relative sent you that’s a size too big. And scratchy. 

So what are we?

We’re a microagency.  We’re a small core team of experienced, deeply talented, and hard-working communications professionals.  We scale up by bringing in freelancers or experts as needed to serve our clients.  We’re not tethered to a single address, instead choosing to work virtually.  When we need to, we meet on a regular basis at a beautiful office in an upscale  glass and steel building in a nice part of town.

I’ve spent the past month testing out the label with my team, but also with people I meet. It seemed to intrigue them and just as importantly, it seemed ‘right’ to me. So today, I’m putting ink to paper, pixels to screen, and declaring it for the world to know: we’re a microagency.

The debate on privacy in the social space took another huge leap this past week. The Wall Street Journal’s ran an in-depth, investigative series titled, “What They Know.”  The eye-pooping, jaw-dropping insights in the series (here, here and it continues here) left little doubt that your digital footprint is easier to track and identify than you might realize. But The Wall Street Journal has a big staff, time to investigate, and an editorial directive to find the story.

What could a person like me find out about, say, some people they met at recent networking events?

From a recent handful of business cards I gathered at a networking event, I poked around on social networking sites to see just what people reveal about them to the rest of the world – without cookies, spyware, or other data-gathering tricks. This was a simple search to see just how much I could learn about four people.  What’s surprising is that I found a lot of details that I’m not certain these four folks know just how much they’ve put out there. Among the details, I learned:

• where they went to college
• where they went to high school
• how old they are
• where they live
• where they were born
• what nationality they are
• what religion they are
• everywhere they’ve ever worked
• how many kids they have (I even got to see photos and videos)
• what their spouses do for a living
• who they voted for in recent elections
• what their primary hobbies are
• what movies they had recently seen
• what bands/music they like
• what books they’ve read in recent months
• what restaurants they’ve been to in the last month
• and where they’re traveling to right now

Remember, this was just me, looking at public info they’ve posted on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others. 

So what are you opening revealing about yourself? Perhaps more than you know.

You’ve heard about Twitter right? You join about 87% of Americans who’ve heard of it, but maybe you’re part of the 93% who haven’t ventured to try it for personal or for business.  While there are lots of case studies to show innovate ways to use Twitter and proof it leads to sales, you just don’t know how to start or if you should.  You’re not alone.

We frequently present on Twitter for business. It’s so important to help people get started, especially businesses, that Twitter posts a Twitter for Business Guide on its homepage.  But before you get there, let us help you with the first steps. 

This presentation was given at Atlanta’s Freelancer’s Forum last week.  While a lot of learning happened off the screen, these are the basic steps to get start in and understand more about the world’s most popular short-message platform.

Let us know if it helped you!

As a dedicated team, we consider ourselves fortunate to work with entrepreneurs who take their ideas, apply labor, mix it with passion, and strive to bring new ideas, products and services to the world. We’re fond of people who decided to ‘go out on a limb’ because something inside drove them to step outside of the expected and journey to the unknown.

So for you – our valued and inspirational clients – we offer this quote from Goethe, written in the early 1800s. Consider it a note from an esteemed philosopher echoing from the past hearkening to you today asking you to keep your commitment to be bold.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Thank you for the opportunity to be part of your passion.