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May 23 2010

Day 2 of Trust Agents: How to Overcome Fear

In the second of several video clips from the Q&A during the Women Tech Council meeting, Trust Agents Chris Brogan and Julien Smith discuss how to overcome fear and some other ideas for you to think about. I love how they take on any question whether related to social media or not. These responses in particular helped me better understand Chris and Julien as people.

Julien recommends embracing the uncomfortable and teaching your mind to overcome certain things. He says to give in to the desires of your future self (the one that is already better than your present self) and make decisions based on him or her.

Chris breaks “fear” down in categories such as the business fear of having to let employees go because he didn’t make his numbers, not knowing how to do a job (the difference between men and women), and not having a college degree.

In the context of social media and face-to-face events, there is still a lot of uncertainty associated with bringing social networking platforms, technologies and methodologies into the marketing mix. There is fear around privacy, investment of time, costs, negative comments, loss of control, lack of expertise, exposure, difficulty measuring ROI, and the risk of failure in such a transparent environment. After all, not only were we put in the hot seat by the recession, some of us were burned beyond recognition (lost jobs, companies out of business, marketing strategies obsolete).

Here are some of observations about the event industry and how to use social media more effectively to overcome our fears.

Stop speculating. Organizations have been accustomed to short term returns. If you invest X amount of dollars in audience promotion or booth sales, you will get X number of attendees and exhibitors for this year’s event. Social media success requires a long-term, sustained, and creative investment of time, energy and money without the expectation of immediate return. It requires that someone in the organization be working the social media levers all day every day and never asking the question, “how long will this take?” Instead they should be asking the question, “what can I do to help my customers today?” The result will be less fear (it’s more comfortable to help), more loyalty.

Quit trying to force twenty pounds of old school sales and marketing into a five pound social media bag. I see event industry companies and show organizers on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook every day selling their wares the old way on a new channel. I recently witnessed an individual on my #eventprofs Twitter “channel” being drummed out of there (by group consensus) because she was continuously selling her educational program and not contributing in any other way. There is an underlying mindset, philosophy, and liberalism of thought that underpins social media behavior. Organizations need to learn the rules of the road to prevent the much scarier scenario of driving off a cliff.

Stop the faux “I feel your pain” efforts. Over the years, I’ve written about exhibitor advisory boards and volunteer committees formed by organizations in an effort to get “feedback” from their customers. It’s a great idea on paper. In reality the same groups that allow these committees to “contribute” also restrict them from having any power to effect change. Second, the members of the committee are usually the large exhibitors, the biggest sponsors and the companies with the most “value” to the organization. They don’t necessarily represent the broader constituency.  Social media channels can empower customers, provide honest feedback, and represent a broad customer base more effectively than committees. When the community knows you have their back, they respond with increased loyalty.

Community first. Brand later. The reason why so many organizations are playing catch up in social media is that they are still trying to form a community around their brand. They soon learn that the only time their community members are jazzed about their brand is when they are at the show, being wined, dined and entertained. What about the rest of the year? Companies need to use social media strategies year round. Having a strong community helps companies overcome the fear of social media in so many ways–loyal, trusted customers ready and willing to offer honest feedback, promote their brand, and guide their continuous improvement is invaluable.

Be more human. (Yes I stole this from Chris Brogan). Be open to smaller group interaction. Stop marketing to thousands of people at once and try talking to only six people at once (I stole that from Mitch Joel). Maybe scale back the mega-events. Here’s what’s happening in the events industry. Attendees who are unhappy with boring speakers, the lack of personalization at large conferences, the same meeting formats over and over, and feeling like a number (thanks again Chris) are having tweetups, creating their own meetings (eventcamp) and burning up the Twittersphere talking about how to fix broken conferences and trade shows. Smart organizations will attempt to use social media to understand why this is happening and improve their own products.

Be very afraid. Be very afraid to overcome your fear? Yes. Here’s how. RD Whitney of Tarsus Online Media told me that one of the things that keeps him up at night is putting resources, time, and energy into creating a great event only to have the community siphoned off by some “guy” in his underwear at the kitchen table blogging about the same subject and getting people to listen. Wisely, RD uses social media to remain vigilant and ultimately mitigate his fear because either there isn’t anyone doing a better job than he is (the goal) or he figures out how to work with the underwear bloggers that have new and interesting ideas to support his community.

The Takeaway: In the end, these observations all point to the same mandate for overcoming the fear of social media–Listen, learn, and evolve or your customers will do it without you.

Are you afraid of anything?

Written by Michelle · Categorized: Archives, Perspectives · Tagged: Brogan, Events, Featured, Julien Smith, Michelle Bruno, social media strategy, Trust Agents

May 18 2010

Day 1 of Trust Agents: How to Fail/Succeed at Blogging

I had the pleasure (for the first time) of hearing the Trust Agents Chris Brogan and Julien Smith together on the same stage during the Women Tech Council meeting last week. During the Q&A Session, I captured some video (I’m a writer not a videographer) on their responses to questions from the audience. These are relevant topics for the event industry as well as the business community in general. Here’s what they said about blogging failure and success and some other tidbits for you to think about.

In the video, Julien mentions a blog post he did about the “Six Pixels of Separation” blog by Mitch Joel (another excellent speaker at the conference). It illustrates Julien’s approach toward blogging and growing a large community. As the blog comments indicate, this approach isn’t for everyone but it’s something for event organizers and event technology developers to think about if “more qualified eyeballs” is a goal for your blogs.

Chris Brogan offers some more good advice in the video like:

  • Make sure you have a great “About Me” page
  • Use a real picture (no cartoons or Simpsons’ likenesses)
  • Be sure to include a call to action in your post
  • Make your posts “meaty” but brief
  • Don’t write about your products
  • Write about subjects that can help people

Here are some other things to think about:

Joyce McKee of the Lets Talk Trade Shows blog developed a Webinar called “Is There a Blog in Your Future?” It is an excellent tutorial on blogging. Joyce also recommends grading your blog using Alexa rankings and the free information you can get from grader.com. “My blog score was in the 30’s a while back and now is 95.26 – not bad!  And that was due to posting more frequently,” she says.

At Fork in the Road, I’ve learned a couple of helpful things about good content, increasing my search engine rankings, and what I have observed from really good blogs like Midcourse Corrections, Engage 365, Event Coup, Social Fishing, McCurry’s Corner, Interactive Meeting Technology, Corbin Ball’s Tech Talk, and several others and in our industry such as:

  • Don’t hire an intern to blog for you unless they are technically good writers AND know your industry. I would rather read great content than great writing.
  • If you’re going to moderate comments (which I highly recommend) be quick about approving the good ones. People that comment want to see the fruits of their labors right away.
  • Always comment back to those who comment on your blog. It’s a dialogue.
  • Tie your blog electronically into your Twitter and Face Book accounts so you get automatic updates there.
  • Interlink to other posts in your blog. Google really likes this.
  • Put Google Analytics code in your blog for a fun and free way to see whether you’re getting traction with your community.
  • Write for a particular audience. In the writing world, we call them “personas.” Create a typical reader profile (Joe is a 38 year-old event organizer who loves reading about social media but doesn’t have the expertise to put it into practice, etc.). Refer to your profile when you are writing. If Joe would find it interesting, it’s probably a winning post.
  • Don’t blog just to talk out loud and grab search engine love. Plan your posts. Make them relevant and add a little humor.

There is lot’s more content coming from the Trust Agents.What do you event industry bloggers think? What has worked for you?

Written by Michelle · Categorized: Archives, Strategy · Tagged: Brogan, Featured, Julien Smith, Michelle Bruno, social media strategy, Trust Agents

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