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The time has come

Yes, everyone. It's time. Time for this little intern to spread her wings and fly from Firebelly (or be pushed out of the next unexpectedly by Duncan. You choose the visual you prefer!) and venture back into the world where commoners don't understand social media and all of the opportunities it presents; back into the world where aren't thinking about what they need to Tweet or how they can update their status every second of every day; back to a world where I must defend my social media obsession and repeatedly explain why it's so important to thrive as a functioning human being in this computer-driven day-in-age. I have been so spoiled here at Firebelly and learned so much. 

What have I learned? Can I write a novel to answer this question? No? Well, then I'll summarize a few of the major things:

Social media is a conversation, not a lecture: As I've written in a previous blog, social media can't work as a marketing tool if there's no response. You can tweet or update your status all you want about what's coming up next or something new going on at your company, but if you don't respond to comments/advice/feedback from your followers/friends, they'll lose interest. They won't feel connected to you or your company, which is a major purpose of social media marketing. So respond. Be interactive. Take the time to reply to at least one response each day. It will pay off in loyal followers and more personal communication between producer and consumer.

Video is an extremely effective marketing tool: People read and comprehend. They see and comprehend. If they can do both at one time, that's most effective for the company marketing to people. Studies show that people remember 10 percent of what they see, 20 percent of what they hear and 50 percent of what they see and hear. Utilize that statistic by registering for a Youtube page and updating it frequently. Furthermore, people recall 80 percent of what they see, hear and do. So if you can make your videos interactive (i.e. instructing them to click links, get up and do this, anything at all interactive), your videos will be the most effective they can be towards your marketing goal.

Twitter is a legit obsession: Yeah, yeah, I know everyone said this about Facebook, Myspace and every other social media networking Web site that's out there and will be out there in the future. However, Twitter is a rare breed. When you learn how to use it properly, you can't live without it. My TweetDeck is my best friend. As a news junkie, I visit at least 10 news-based Web sites daily. Because I follow them on Twitter, TweetDeck allows me to collect all of those sites' updates in one place and have them fed to me as they are updated. It's pure heaven! I also RT people consistently as a way of giving mad props to someone's thought or Internet find. On the marketing side, #hashtags make searching for what your customers are talking about extremely simple. Learn how to use Twitter to your marketing advantage. You won't regret the time (and/or money, since time is money, as smart business people say) spent on the effort.

Lastly, and most importantly, I learned I love social media and wish to continue working with it in the future. Based on how popular it is now, I don't think that wish will be difficult to grant. I will be continuing my interning life in New York City this summer at an organization that is in the rookie stages of incorporating social media into its marketing strategy. I know I will take the lessons I learned at Firebelly to help that currently small component of the organization to grow into a driving force (like a heard of cattle, right Duncan?)
I send so many thanks to Duncan and the rest of the Firebelly team for allowing me so many opportunities and being so willing to teach me everything they know in the short time I was here. I hope to continue writing/editing/blogging/social media'ing for them in the future.

Alyson (@ Twitter)

Everyone knows about Twitter. Many are tweeting instead of —
or in addition to — texting. (If you aren’t, please check it out so you’re in the know.
You can’t fight social media. It’s bigger than all of us).

Twitter is such a phenomenon that morning talk shows have
started covering the social media networking Web site because, as crazy as it
seems, people in the morning show target market are interested. Yes, that means retirees and stay-at-home parents have moved into the realm of social media with college students and recent college grads. (The “Today
Show” did a detailed piece last week, if you’re interested in checking out a
summary of the service.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

But that’s not really the point of this post. The point is
that despite Twitter’s ever-increasing popularity  — Compete.com sets the site at third in ranking of largest
social networks behind Myspace and Facebook at roughly 6 million users in
February 2009 — the company is not yet turning a profit.

Why? In the “About Us” section of Twitter’s homepage, an
answer to the question “How do you make money from Twitter?” is listed. To
paraphrase, the statements says the company has received many offers but wants
to concentrate more on developing user services. “While our business model is
in a research phase, we spend more money than we make,” the answer states.

Since Twitter isn’t jumping on the cash train after two
years of operation, other Web sites are. If you snooze, you lose, right? Well,
I’m not sure Twitter is losing anything — the company was recently predicted to
be worth $250 million — but it will be wise for the company to team up with
these sites once they get their money-making plan up and running.

German start-up Magpie & Friends would be a great partner. The company recently began paying Twitter users for
the right to sell ads in their tweets. Advertisers typically pay $13 per ad,
and registered users get a cut of the check for lending out their tweets. To
make the money, Magpie collects a series of keywords that advertisers would
want to associate with their ads, like iPhone or NCAA. The advertisers then bid
on those words. The winning bidders’ ads are paired up with a registered
Twitter users’ message streams, and VOILA! The ad is seen by the users’
followers. Money is made. All is content in capitalism.

Social media blog Mashable is also
cashing in on Twitter but in a different way. The blog recently began
soliciting brans like JetBlue and MailChimp to pay to have their tweets
featured on its Web site alongside the normal banner ads.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the company is already
keeping an eye on sites like Magpie and Mashable as it prepares to launch a
fee-based service later this year. And collaboration is very much in the
picture. 

“We want to work with those companies that are already
making an effort,” Stone told The Wall
Street Journal.

But until that time, Twitter is taking small steps in the
right revenue direction. In a recent interview with “Media Money” of CNBC,
Twitter CEO Evan Williams said his company plans to work with its larger
corporate users, like Zappos.com and The
New York Times, to “make it more valuable for them in a way that also
benefits users.”


Just this week, ExecTweets, a Web
site that posts tweets of the nation’s top business executives, announced it is
giving Twitter its first taste of revenue. The Web site is putting display ads
on posts from business execs and giving a cut of the revenue to Twitter.

What do you think is next on Twitter’s revenue plan? How
will they turn a profit when the service is free? Will users be willing to pay? 

Alyson (@ Twitter)

Interview with Brian Halligan, CEO, HubSpot

Recently spoke with Brian Halligan, CEO, HubSpot. HubSpot is an internet marketing company and their product is B2B Inbound Marketing Software that helps their client attract more visitors using SEO, social media and blogs, as well as, capture more leads with landing pages, lead intelligence and marketing analytics. Whew what a mouthful! What’s even more interesting is we’re working with HubSpot on one of a project.

Both Brian’s presentation (which I’d watched earlier) and our interview (which you can watch below) confirmed my strong beliefs in content. Its clear that companies that are leading in the search race are producers of great content. Great content includes copy, photography or illustrations, video, and applications. Good content can be on your website, your blog, and on other places on the web with links back. Brian actually believes in “remarkable content” (coined in this context by Seth Godin who coins everything that already exists with cool little phrases) which is content that people dig (pun only slightly intended) so much that they are compelled to remark on it. Yeah I know you didn’t really need the explanation.

So, while I believe there is a place for paid search, invest in good content FIRST. Whether its on your website, blog or social media assets. Doesn’t matter. If you know what you’re doing, write it up, get some photos, get some video, develop an application. And if you’ve got chops – develop it yourself, if not, hire a professional. Remember your content is a reflection of who you are!

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz

Interview with Jamie Smith, Engine Ready

Talked with Jamie Smith from Engine Ready recently (sorry about the spotty video. This was recorded on the fly with a flip and not our normal video crew). Anyway, here are the 4 components of a successful paid search strategy

Visibility
Make sure your campaign have visibility with your target audiences.

Ad creative
Ensure that you have the right keywords and that you’ve tested and are measuring the click through rates.

Continuity
You’ll be amazed how many times landing pages have no keyword continuity with the ad creative.

Conversion
Measure the conversions! Look at conversions by campaigns and dig deeper into what is generating the best results.

And make sure you measure these key performance indicators – impressions, click through rate and conversion rate.

So at the end of the day, these are pretty intuitive. Testing is obviously key and measuring by the hour! There are a lot of "haters" when it comes to paid search marketing. I think there is a time and place for a paid strategy especially when your organic strategy isn’t where it needs to be yet.

- Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz