Turntable.fm

A web, and now mobile, app that allows users to act as DJs within virtual dance clubs (“rooms”).

Social: Interaction among the DJs and the audience plays a key role in each room’s popularity, as the members can chat with one another and the crowd has the opportunity to rate each song played on a scale from “Lame” to “Awesome” (“Lame” songs are skipped).

Copy: Keep it short. Facebook pages are flooded with text, so keep yours short and to the point. Your words should be punchy, and include a clear call to action. If you want your target audience to “Like” your page, ask.

Image: Make it evocative. When casually surveyed, 100 percent of my colleagues recalled a Living Social ad that used a giant cupcake as its image. People are naturally drawn to images that create a desire. For example: eating (food), caring (babies and cuddly animals), escaping (palm trees and white sand beaches), etc. Think about the need that your brand/campaign calls to mind, then find an image that will clearly convey a solution to this need.

Targeting: Cast a wide net. Sure, it’s important to narrow your audience by desired location and other demographic information, but get creative when it comes to the “likes” section. If you are trying to reach software developers, try searching beyond the job title by adding hobbies (e.g., robots) as “like” qualifiers. Searching for people based on job titles alone will limit your reach to those who choose to disclose their profession on Facebook. Because Facebook is positioned as a social network, users are more likely to share their hobbies than to state their profession. Also, people are likely to have multiple hobbies, but not multiple professions. The more creative you get with your targeting, the more likely you are to reach your audience.

Monitoring: Keep track of your ad’s performance and make changes as needed. If your click-through rate is lower than desired, try swapping images or changing copy. If your bid isn’t yielding enough impressions, increase it. Another great aspect of Facebook ads is the ability to change them at any point during a campaign. Use this to your advantage.

Have you experienced success with a Facebook ad campaign? To what do you attribute this success? I would love to hear your thoughts. Share your comments below.

*For a guide on the basics of creating Facebook ads, click here: http://www.facebook.com/ads/best_practices.php/.

It’s time to establish a monitoring policy, which will provide you and your team with the roadmap for how to react when a blogger trashes your brand, who responds to brand-bashing on Twitter and ways to keep track of brand mentions for ROI purposes.

Below are a few suggestions for setting your social media policy.

Step one: assign a team
Establish roles based on the size of your company and the available monitoring budget. My dream team would cover data analysis, response writing and recap reporting. Data analysis to sort and classify mentions, response writing for mentions deemed action items and recap reporting to bring the rest of the team/company stakeholders up to date on how your brand is being mentioned on social channels. This ensures that all mentions received are read and properly shared, both internally and externally.

Step two: develop response rules
Decide what types of mentions your company will respond to, and which it will ignore. The goal of social media monitoring should be to find opportunities to engage with your customers and ways of bringing a sense of humanity to your brand. This is best accomplished by responding to mentions that offer an opportunity for customer service and/or networking.

Here are some examples of social media mentions, and how I would recommend responding:

@CompanyX: “Your company #$%^.”

No response. Responding to inflammatory remarks without context is likely to result in further brand bashing. For more on how CMD views this topic, please see Darcie Meihoff’s post, “Make Love, Not (Flame) Wars.”

@CompanyX: “Your product *&!#&  because I’ve had it for two days and it’s already broken.”

Respond with an offer of customer service and attempt to take the conversation offline. Viewers of the comment, and your response, will see that your company is making an effort to rectify the situation.

“Company X makes a great product—highly recommended.”

Respond with a thank you and follow up with a question asking why the author feels the product is great. This response offers the opportunity for consumer insight by eliciting details that customers value about your product, and the potential for brand amplification in another mention.

Step three: adhere to your policy
There will be times when you will be tempted to delete a negative comment posted to your blog, but if it’s been established that only inflammatory or irrelevant remarks are removed, deleting this comment could lead to your brand being seen as wishy-washy—or worse. Stick to your guns and follow your own guidelines. You’ll be better off in the long run.

What other guidelines make for a successful social media monitoring policy?

Often the quickest route to clear communication with your audience is through conversation—simple, right? However, we spend a lot of time brainstorming, idea-bouncing and generally overthinking our communication efforts. Instead, we should be asking our audience directly how they would like to engage with us. You’ll be surprised at how eager your audience will be to share their preferences. In addition to formulating a strategy that aligns with the wants and needs of your audience, you will also gain a deeper level of connection as your audience sees that you value their opinions and are making changes according to their preferences.

Here are a few ideas for polling your audience:
• Add a poll to your newsletter
• Pose a question to your Twitter or Facebook followers
• Set up a quick and simple survey using a tool like SurveyMonkey

Most importantly, measure the results from your polling efforts and report your findings to your audience. Make changes to accommodate their preferences, even if the changes are small—baby steps are OK. Showing that you are listening will give your audience a reason to talk to you, and thus engage with your brand.

What are some steps you’ve taken to survey your audience? How did they work out for you?

Photo credit: Cameron Browne, cameronbrowne.com.

With nearly 90 percent* of adults on the Internet using email, sending electronic messages is one of the easiest ways to reach out to potential customers. To do so effectively, however, you must grab their attention immediately with a strong, active subject line. Otherwise, all of that great information within the body of the email will be wasted. In short, email subject lines must stop readers in their tracks.

Here are a few tips we use at CMD to create attention-getting subject lines:

• Read news headlines and popular Twitter users for inspiration: Ever notice how headline news writers and great tweets have the uncanny ability to grab your attention effortlessly in just a few words and characters? That’s what you should strive for.
• Avoid SPAM language: Terms like “win” “save” and “hi” may send your message straight to the junk folder. For example, instead of saying “Enter to Win a Vacation,” say “CMD Wants to Send You to Hawaii.” For your reference, here’s a list of over 200 SPAM words and phrases to avoid.
• Use power words: Whether it’s a call to action or a report of action, the lively tone of the subject line will move readers to open your email. For example, instead of writing “Google, Facebook Don’t See Eye-to-Eye,” write “Google Fights Back against Facebook.”
• Think numerically: Using numbers, like “Six Tips for Becoming a Better Communicator,” will let potential readers know what to expect from your email. Plus, having a set number implies a set length, which is inviting—especially in the age of information overload.
• Make words count: Odds are if your subject line rambles on, your readers will trail off. No matter the length of your subject line, make each word pull its weight. Remember, if you succeed in convincing the reader to open your message, you have the entire body of the email to fill with details.

What exactly does an effective subject line look like? Here are some examples that grabbed my attention:
• Appealing to curiosity, from the Smart Brief on Social Media: “Dispelling the No. 1 social-media myth”
• Listing the most provocative headlines of the day’s news, from AdAge Global: “U.K. election ad airbrushed; Pepsi is now Pesi in Spanish; 8 Things Foreigners Get Wrong About China”
• Posing an interesting question, from Real Simple: “What Would You Give Up for a Free Hour?”

With these basic tips, you can put together compelling subject lines that get results. Remember, your target audience will never get to the juicy content you’ve created if the subject line doesn’t pique their curiosity. Nor will they see the email if the terms in the subject line send the letter straight to the junk folder.

*From the Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data/Online-Activites-Total.aspx

Muraoka argued that social media isn’t about conversion, it’s about engagement. He discussed the mismatch in expectation and reality that often accompanies traditional paid metrics when social media is included in a media campaign. Often companies will continue to measure the success of a campaign by looking for increased conversion and click-through rates when social media is added, but the real value lies in the increased conversation social media creates between your target and your brand.

Muraoka also worked hard to dispel the myth that all social media is free, and reminded attendees that, in order to effectively add social media to a campaign, social and paid elements must be complementary. For example, you can make social and paid media work together by placing paid spots on sites and channels that are also conversation hubs for your brand. It’s also important to maintain a unified message, and voice, in both paid and social media efforts.

To see Muraoka’s entire presentation please see the video below, and visit SlideShare to take a closer look at his PowerPoint slides.

Other panelists included Christopher Mike of Rocket XL, Hallie Janssen of Anvil Media, Kevin Tate of StepChange, Kent Schnepp of EngineWorks and Scott Hendison of Search Commander.

Each panelist delivered their top tips for running an optimized social media campaign. The key takeaways of the night were:
• Know your brand and set reasonable social media expectations; if you’re not Coca-Cola, you’re not likely to get 1 million Facebook fans
• Use search-friendly keywords everywhere you enter content (e.g. Facebook profile, Twitter Bio, Usernames, etc.)
• Facebook fans and group members are the new “cold call” list; engage with your fans and group members to create meaningful relationships
• Tools can be your best friend as you manage your reputation online. Check out FriendFeed and COcomment for one-stop social media account management

Our attendees hailed from newspaper, magazine, radio and TV outlets. Despite diverse reporting methods, everyone in attendance agreed that they were curious about how Twitter could bring attention to their work. Some attendees were toe dippers—they had set up accounts, tweeted a few times, then lost interest and left their Twitter pages as virtual ghost towns; some were semi-enthusiasts—participating frequently in two-way communication on Twitter; some were holdouts—skeptical about how useful Twitter really can be: who cares “what you’re doing”; but the majority of the group were spectators, aka consumers —using Twitter as a stream of news.

Our audience was well aware that Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that now boasts over 21 million users, and that staying relevant means knowing something about it. At the same time, most of them didn’t know the intricacies of being a successful member of the Twitter community. I overheard one frustrated user say, “I’m tweeting out into space, but I don’t know who’s seeing my tweets. I would like to figure out who to follow and how to get followers.” At that point, we introduced tools that could help this editor track URL clicks and measure the value of his tweets for his audience.

The PR team also educated the group on everything from creating a strong profile to the ins and outs of gaining influential followers. Every pen in the room was active as we gave overviews of the Twitter tools that we find most valuable. In the end, we hoped to instill that openness is the key to being a respected member of the Twitter community. As one of our attendees expressed, “Twitter gives viewers a chance to get to know journalists on a more personal level, and that will lead to exclusive content from loyal followers.”

Here are some other tips we shared during the seminar:

1. Secure your username now. Protect it like you would a domain name.

2. Make your profile count. Add a picture, bio and relevant links. Have a personality.

3. If multiple users are tweeting on behalf of your company or publication, set up a sidebar with bios for each contributor.

4. Be selective about who you follow. Choose only those who provide value to you.

Overall, it was a great event and we were thrilled at the turnout from our journalist audience and hope to do more of these special sessions in the future.

You may be thinking, “Hold the phone, why can’t I jump on the social media gravy train to conversions and sales?” The answers are a), social media is an excellent complement to a traditional media campaign, but it won’t necessarily get the results you’re looking for on its own, and b), it’s not as cheap, quick and successful as most people think it is. There are examples, such as @comcastcares (http://bit.ly/aXU6V), where social media is highly effective on its own, but it’s been our experience that it is not the single solution to the majority of the business problems our clients are trying to solve with their media interaction. And, by no means should a brand use social media just to use it.

Paid media maintains some undeniable benefits. Historically it’s been the only way to guarantee exposure of your ads, and paid media also offers the opportunity to track not just click rates but also click throughs, view throughs, page views and conversions. Social media metrics are still evolving, and it’s difficult to accurately measure reach and impressions of these campaigns. (For more information regarding social media monitoring, please see Darcie Meihoff’s post: “Social Media Monitoring for Your Company’s Online ‘Health’.”)

Social media has great potential to support traditional media campaigns. For instance, when people talk about your brand in the social media realm (e.g. on Twitter), it’s in a conversational way, versus the forced messaging of traditional advertising—the audience shapes the conversation. The more a brand tries to control the social media conversation, the less impact the message will carry. Rely on brand evangelists to help guide the conversation. You may have negative conversations pop up, but chances are they’re going on already (via phone, TV, letters to the editor, etc.)—trash talking is by no means exclusive to social media. The beauty of social media is that you have the opportunity to respond to your criticizer directly, if you so choose. As demonstrated by @comcastcares, facing your critics can have seriously powerful, and positive, repercussions.

Going forward with your next media buy, make social and traditional media work together to drive traffic. Social media can make display advertising more memorable, and using paid search to link to relevant content will guide the target to your site.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when creating your media plan:

1. Over-targeting can lead to missed opportunities. There is value in a wide-reaching campaign.
2. Remember that there is still value in traditional media—it’s worked for decades.
3. Expand your focus beyond the click, and include the value of impressions and visibility.
4. Be cautious when determining measurement—not all traditional metrics have a digital equivalent.
5. Social and traditional media are not interchangeable—they complement each other.
6. Keep an eye on the changing dynamic between traditional and social media.

Related sites to visit:
1. www.mediapost.com
2. www.adage.com/mediaworks
3. www.imediaconnection.com