Mobile Search: Urgency and the Distraction Factor
What’s the main reason we perform web searches on our smartphones?
Urgency.
There’s some sort of information we need, immediately.
We want our news instantly, and our shopping, too.
Once we get the info we’re looking for, we’re motivated to take action. If it’s related to shopping we’ll buy something, right then and there, via our smartphone, or, if it’s a local search, we’re likely go to the place we just found online to make an in-store transaction.
Simple, right? Indeed, however, for companies and organizations there’s more to it.
From a business standpoint, the best way to capitalize on this user behavior is to understand how people search, and buy, while on a smartphone. Don’t assume it’s the same as happens while surfing the web via a desktop computer. Because it’s not.
A new report by Google and Ipsos OTX MediaCT, called the Mobile Movement, Understanding Smartphone Users offers insights into our smartphone habits. The study polled more than 5000 smartphone owners about their smartphone usage in general, and shopping habits, in particular.
The ubiquity of smartphones in our everyday lives
The study looked into general smartphone usage. Here are some of its findings:
Where do you use your smartphone?
93% home
87% on-the-go, commuting or walking
77% in a store
73% in a restaurant
72% work
66% at a social gathering
54% café or coffee shop
53% doctor’s office
50% airport
32% library
29% school
What media related activities do you do while also using your smartphone
44% listen to music
33% watch TV
29% use the internet on a computer
27% play video games
22% read newspaper or magazine
16% read a book
What activities do you do while using a smartphone
59% wait (in line at the market, at a doctor’s office, for a bus, etc.)
48% eat
44% shop
40% socialize/entertain
39% use the bathroom
27% cook or do household chores
20% drive a vehicle
17% walk my dog
14% pump gas
13% play sports or exercise
8% take a shower or bath
Design your mobile website for multitasking
Basically, the majority of us will use our smartphone just about anywhere we can get a signal. And when we’re goin’ mobile we’re usually multitasking. Our minds are only paying partial attention to our phone activity.
This has serious consequences for a business’ mobile web presence — one of the top ones being, your mobile site should be streamlined to readily enable users to find what they want, and complete tasks, in as few steps as possible. And yes, this is true for any website, but it’s even more critical in the mobile format.
You want a site where after someone clicks through to it from search results, the most important info is viewable at a glance. For one good example see how Burger King does it. And better still, the Burger King web server recognizes when a user is on a smartphone and automatically delivers the mobile site version:
As opposed to this, from Coca Cola, which serves up about a ¾ version of its main website just like you’d get through a desktop computer. Note, some items on the lower right corner don’t even show up if you’re using an iPhone. Seriously Coke, you should know better:
Mobile phone as personal shopping assistant
Of course, it’s no surprise to find out smartphones are used much like a mini netbook computer — after all, that is what they are, albeit one that has a phone attached to it. When in shopping mode a smartphone is our handy-dandy combination phone book, GPS, online catalog and price comparison device. Of the 5000-plus people who participated in the Mobile Movement study:
74% used a smartphone to make a purchase
70% used a smartphone while shopping in a store
27% bought something via a mobile website
22% bought a product or service through an app
After finding that local info via a smartphone users were ready to swing into action:
61% called a business
59% visited a business
58% looked up business on a map or got directions
54% visited the website of a business
36% made a purchase from a business online
22% recommended a business/service to someone
20% read or wrote a review about a business
19% marked or added a business to my favorite list
Mobile search and sharing
These stats are a good indicator of how important it is for a business to optimize for local search. Also, it’s interesting to see how many users are recommending a business or service, writing a review or adding a business as a favorite. This is part of a growing trend where we want our web experience to be more personal and social. That’s why you want to make it easy for people to share and like your site.
For businesses the signal is coming in loud and clear: the time is now for mobile.
- Deni Kasrel
Have you seen good or bad examples of mobile websites? What are they? Your comments welcome.
Tips For Making Videos That Are Doggone Good
It’s cliché marketing advice to suggest that you “think out of the box” in order to “cut through the clutter.” Maybe so — still, it’s good advice.
Of course the trick is in the doing. How do you come up with a creative idea that sets you apart from the crowd?
I’ll answer by showing, rather than telling. Watch this video, Husky Dog Sings with iPad Better than Bieber!, which has more than 2 million views and serves to illustrate how you can break out of the pack.
Can you really learn marketing tricks from a dog?
How does this video cut through the clutter? Let’s count the ways…
1. The video falls into a favored category. Videos of pets doing a cool tricks are incredibly popular. Right from the get-go, this one plays to the crowd in the space in which it’s offered — in this case, YouTube.
2. It has a catchy keyword rich title. The video is named Husky Dog Sings with iPad Better than Bieber! This title is clever on its own, and if you parse it out, between “dog sings,” “iPad” and “Bieber” you’re picking up on a few popular keywords for web searches.
Including the words iPad and Bieber helps attract viewers who are ultimately searching for something quite different than what this video is about, yet plenty of people may click on the link in their search results just because the video sounds like it could be fun to watch. Random entertainment opportunities are one of the many aspects that make the web experience special.
3. There’s no obvious sales pitch. There’s an embedded hat-tip at the end of the video for LaDiDa, an iPhone app. The app is not by the person who made Husky Dog Sings, so this mention appears to be just a nod to the technology that helps make its concept work in the first place.
Meanwhile, there is a direct sales component here. Under the video screen (when viewed on the YouTube site) there’s a link to Mishka on iTunes. Turns out, this singing dog is named Mishka, and she has her own iTunes single.
Click on the link to video’s creator, Matt Gardea, identified on YouYube as gardea23, and you go to Mishka The Talking Husky’s YouTube channel. Here’s where you see that Mishka is a canine celebrity. Her channel has more than 84,000 subscribers. 
She’s been featured on news media throughout the world and she has a thriving Facebook page, Twitter account and line of clothing.
One channel feeds into the other and if you read the posts to Facebook or Twitter you’ll note there’s plenty of personality behind it all.
4. The tone is homegrown. Husky Dog Sings vibe is warm and welcoming. Mishka’s owners are clearly out to promote their pet, however, they go about it in a friendly down-to-earth way. Most any dog owner can relate to Matt’s friendly encouragement of Mishka as he repeatedly says “good girl” to coach the husky through her duet with the iPad.
5. This is the real deal. Social media presents a particular kind of environment where hard-sell flashy marketing falls out of favor. After all, being pushy isn’t social. You want to be real, and this video is genuine. When Mishka is doing her thing, a child and another dog briefly enter the picture. There’s no attempt to hide this extraneous action, which only adds to our amusement.
More tricks to come?
This is one cool trick. It’s warm and cozy yet also a pretty slick package. In late December Mishka tweeted that there’s more in store:
Hmm, wonder what she’s got up her paws.
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think? Your comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Recommended Reading: Real-Time Marketing & PR
You know how they say time is money? Well, these days it’s your reputation, too.
With an always-on 24/7 internet, if you’re in the news in a negative way, you must respond immediately.
There’s little time to plod though a carefully measured crises communications plan while a story races across the web — where videos go viral and Twitter unleashes a torrent of messages in mere seconds.
It’s time for your marketing and PR to get real
If that thought puts you on edge, or you doubt it’s true, then you could be in for a rude awakening. Or, you can get up to speed by reading Real-Time Marketing and PR
Just as he did in his groundbreaking The New Rules of Marketing and PR
How NOT to engage in real-time PR
Anyone with access to the web can publish content. This so-easy-anyone-can-do-it circumstance sets up a scenario where, Scott says, “consumers set the pace. Left to their own devices, they imagine all sorts of things. They take unpredictable initiatives.”
One example of an imaginative consumer initiative is seen in a tale Scott recounts about Dave Carroll, a musician whose guitar got busted up by United Airlines baggage carriers. Carroll tried to get United to own up to the misdeed, but the company wouldn’t budge. So Carroll took to the web, with a video he created called United Breaks Guitars. The video went viral, news outlets and the blogosphere jumped on the story and Carroll’s plight attracted international attention.
United took a huge public relations hit, all because it would not properly respond to one customer.
Scott gives a blow-by-blow run-down of how the whole thing played out. He fills in all kinds of side details and breaks down the trajectory of the various ways the story shot across the mediaverse.
Monitoring, mobile, and real-time guidelines
United got it wrong, however the book also provides ample examples of companies that got it right by thoughtfully engaging in real-time communications. Time and again, Scott reinforces how paying attention pays off.
Of course, you can’t react in real-time unless you readily know what’s being said. For that to happen you must monitor and analyze media outlets all across the web. With so many venues, in both traditional and ever-increasing new media spheres, this can be daunting. Scott clues you in on how to turn it into a manageable task and offers a handy list of free tools such as Google Alerts, Blogpulse, Technorati and Twingly, and service providers like Attentio, Brandwatch, Cision, Radian6, Sysomos and Visible Technologies.
There’s advice for how to leverage the fastest growing real-time market: mobile, where location-based services such as Foursquare, Layar, and Mobile Spinach enable you to provide customers with instant gratification exactly where and when they want it.
There are tips on how to engage on Twitter (the big-time in real-time), ideas for how to integrate real-time tactics into your sales and customer service efforts, plus an in-depth section on how to develop effective real-time communications policies—also known as social media guidelines.
An insider tells it like it is
All of this comes from a guy who spent most of his career in the online news business. This is an insider, telling it like it is, in lively, and sometimes good-humored, fashion.
It’s all downright practical. When delving into how to responsibly respond to online stories and social chatter about your company, Scott says: “Some people are plain crazy, and you don’t want to get dragged into dialogue with a psycho.”
Even in the real-time world, you must exercise good judgment. Scott’s book provides plenty of ideas for how your good judgment can help grow your business. Now.
- Deni Kasrel
Comments anyone? Please share your thoughts.
Clara Shih On Ambient Intimacy and Appvertising
If you want to know how tapping into social networks can help your business, then touch base with Clara Shih. After all, she wrote The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate (2nd Edition)
I recently enjoyed a conversation with Clara. My prior post, How Social Networks Are Changing How We Do Business, features Part 1 of our conversation, and here’s Part 2, where we get into things like ambient intimacy, appvertising and how Clara wisely decided not to go with the book title originally suggested by her publisher.
Interview with Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era, Part 2:
Much your book talks about how businesses can use social networks to gain more information about customers or prospects, and their connections. But it can also work in the other direction. Customers may use social networks to decide whether they want to do business with you. They may want you or your business to have a referral or a seal of approval from someone they know.
Clara: Yeah, I see it going in that direction. It happens to me all the time, with people that haven’t bought my book, they’ll go to my page and they’ll see two of their friends are already a fan of the page and it helps them make up their mind… It’s really interesting.
That’s the most important thing to keep in mind for understanding social media. Because once you get this then everything else is easy. All the tactics you can pick up, and they’re changing all the time because Facebook and Twitter are always changing. But this is a fundamental paradigm shift that’s changing and creating these new business practices.
If you were to encapsulate the paradigm shift how you describe it?
Clara: It’s the idea of ambient intimacy. People sharing more about themselves than they ever have before. There are implications for business development, marketing and targeted advertising.
One of big challenges many businesses have with social media is that it’s 24/7, but most businesses don’t operate 24/7. So they run up against issues with time resource allocation and providing an adequate response. Do you have suggestions to help a business manage its social media presence?
Clara: Well the first thing to consider is that people are talking about your company 24/7 whether or not you’re on social media or not. So better to be there and to be monitoring than be in blissful ignorance.
Beyond that I think in terms of setting the expectation of timeliness. And I’ve seen this — companies will have something on their Twitter or Facebook page that says, if we don’t get back to you in 72 hours or whatever the timeframe is — put out what to expect, so everyone is on the same page.
You hear a lot about how in social media you can’t do the hard sell, you have to do the soft sell. But people know why you’re on there — your purpose is ultimately to sell, if you’re a business.
Clara: It is ultimately to sell. And that’s OK if you acknowledge it. But it’s also to show that you care about people.
Right you can vicariously create tighter connections. Still, a customer can always write an email if they want to get in touch with a company Yet there’s something different about expressing yourself through social media.
Clara: It’s very subtle psychological things — like seeing your profile picture next to a comment you made on a businesses page… it makes you feel important. Like you have a voice. And I think people really resonate with that and people are drawn to that. Because you feel heard. Your comment is public. People can link back to your profile and possibly interact with you and like or comment on your comment.
In your book you talk about appvertising. I don’t know how many companies are aware of it, or the benefits. Would you mind giving a brief overview how companies can be smart with it?
Clara: Sure. Appvertising came about when Facebook started opening their platform to other developers to create applications on Facebook. And the idea is that with traditional advertising you get only that split second to interact with the audience. People basically see your ad and they decide to click or they don’t.
With Facebook apps, instead of giving people a onetime offer, you’re engaging them with a game or some sort of other application that they would want to come back to again and again. You can brand those games. You can sponsor applications, or you can build your own applications that really touch upon your core business and be able to deepen your relationship with a customer and engage with a customer over a longer period of time than you would with traditional advertising.
How do you do it so you’re not just creating a commercial that just happens to be a game? Even though that is essentially what appvertising is.
Clara: The key part is the branding is more subtle. One of my favorite examples is, there’s a General Mills brand called Cacadian Farms, where they promote organic foods. If you play Farmville you can buy blueberry seeds from Cascadian Farms that are all organic, non-genetically modified blueberries. That’s a fun way to engage; people are getting exposed to the Cascadian brand, and it’s good for the players because it’s good for their farm.
Still, companies must be careful about what apps they’re in and how they choose to be in that space, right?
Clara: It’s very important to find out with the apps, are they really reaching the core audience that they want to reach? There was a big controversy about a year back where Offerpal partnered with Netflix. The idea was if you were playing Texas HoldEm inside of Facebook you could throw out an offer for a 30-day trial to Netflix in exchange for chips. They got a ton of response because that’s a really popular application and people wanted the virtual chips. The problem was the end-value to Netflix was ultimately very low, because these people all cancelled within a few days. They weren’t interested in Netflix; they just wanted the chips.
As an advertiser and as a business you really have to think about are you achieving the goal that you want to achieve? How much will this interest last? Is it a short-term win or is it really a long-term gain where you can acquire these users?
OK, last question: Why call your book The Facebook Era; even the first edition is about a lot more than just Facebook.
Clara: I’ll tell you something funny; my publisher wanted me to call it the MySpace Era, because at the time MySpace was significantly bigger. I just thought there was something about Facebook that was different. It was really the first social network that encouraged us and supported us in reflecting and extending our real world networks, versus trying to replace those real-world relationships. There’s something that’s just much more lasting and more inherently valuable about basing it on true identity and true relationships.
And we continue to call it The Facebook Era because Facebook is still the largest and fastest growing social network, not only here in the U.S., but worldwide… I believe that no matter where you are in the world you want to be connected, and often times that includes people in your county and beyond, and that’s the deal with Facebook.
Thanks, Clara
Many thanks to Clara for being so generous with her time and thoughts. She gives us plenty to ponder.
Now, if you want to get social with Clara, visit the Facebook Era’s Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter at @clarashih
- Deni Kasrel
Related post
Recommended Reading: The Facebook Era
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )How Social Networks Are Changing How We Do Business
Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era
When Clara Shih set out to write a second edition of her bestselling book, The Facebook Era, she had her hands full trying to keep up with all the changes happening in the social media sphere, especially among the big three: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So much so, Clara had to change the publish date of the new book just to keep current.
The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate (2nd Edition)
Clara did more than just touch-up the first edition: She added case studies, new chapters and a bunch of guest-written expert opinion sidebars.
All About Using Social Networks for Business
It’s all geared to helping businesses and entrepreneurs learn how to tap into social networks to market, sell and innovate.
Clara has plenty of first-hand knowledge in this regard — she created the first business application on Facebook (Faceconnector), which integrates Facebook with Salesforce.com. More recently, Clara started Hearsay Labs, a provider of social customer relationship management software.
I enjoyed both Facebook Era editions (yes, I read the second one cover to cover, too). And so it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to chat with Clara, to talk about her new book as well as the social media landscape in general.
Interview with Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era: Part 1
We had a nice long conversation, enough that it makes for a nice two-parter on this blog.
Here in Part 1 we discuss how Facebook and other networks are altering fundamental social norms.
You used social media to help determine some of the content of the book. Can you elaborate on how that process worked out?
Clara: The innovation in social media is happening from the bottom up. It’s happening in the groundswell from these grassroots initiatives that people are taking for their organization and their companies and in their personal lives. I really wanted to source these ideas and these best practices directly from the innovators in the space. And so I used my Twitter handle and my Facebook page as well as my personal Facebook profile to ask people what their ideas were. What were the things they were living and experiencing themselves? And I had a phenomenal response. A lot of the best material in the book came from people that I interacted with on Facebook and Twitter.
Are these people you knew?
Clara: What does it mean to know someone these days? I mean, many of them I’ve never met — they’ve connected with me and they’re following me on Twitter and vice versa and now I feel like I do have a relationship.
The idea of what is a “friend” changes a lot in these contemporary times.
Clara: That’s really at the heart of everything that I write about. I mean, yes, there are a lot of business implications, but at the heart of it is human relationships and how we interact with each other and connect with each other. How we connect with our customers. And that drives all the business use cases and opportunities.
One of the reasons I was so enthusiastic about your first edition is that you really delved into a human part, the sociology, the social ethos — whatever you want to call it — and then applying that to social networks and the new social norms, as you refer to them in your second edition. You explain it so clearly. So how important is it understand these social norms when, as a business, you’re engaging in this context?
Clara: I think it’s the most important thing you can do. Understanding human behavior and how your customers and clients think. What makes them happy? That’s really the key to success for any business. Regardless of what product or service you may have.
In the last 13 years the internet gave us tremendous efficiency between buyers and sellers and giving everyone access to information. But as Jim McCann [founder of 1-800-Flowers.com] writes about in the forward to this book, the efficiency came at a great price. Oftentimes what we sacrificed was human connection. The feeling that customers had that they were actually special and valued by your company.
The great thing about social networks is the idea that we can regain some of that connection, without losing any of the efficiency. We can still connect to large groups of people. We can still market to and prospect to large group of people. But because there’s more information about people and relationships and connections we can still have that bond and invest in that customer loyalty.
Right, and on the flip side, it humanizes a business, too. Companies can seem like monoliths, even if they’re small, if you don’t have any communication with what appears to be a real person.
Clara: Exactly. And there’s nothing like putting a human face around a big company. Especially if it’s one that people don’t traditionally find very sexy. That just changes the whole set of interactions. We’ve seen great examples like Frank [Eliason] at Comcast, to show someone who really cares and be the face of a large institutional brand.
So whether you’re working externally with your customers, or internally with your employees, it’s human nature to want to connect with people and facilitating that process makes way for better business.
In your book you talk about how seemingly non-important details – for instance someone says they play soccer — can end up making a difference between how people interact with one another and possibly be a factor in how a business deal happens.
Clara: People are always looking for common ground. Especially when you meet someone new. You’re trying to figure out if this person is trustworthy and whether you want to do business with them. Whatever business you’re in, people always prefer to do business with people they know and like. And they refuse to do business with people they don’t trust. And so to the extent that Facebook can help you see similar interests, hobbies, and friends. That carries a lot of weight in being able to establish trust.
Right, but five years ago people didn’t have that ability and yet business still occurred. Do you think that it will change, such that it will be incumbent on someone to be participating in this way, even with business people, on this level? How do you see it evolving?
Clara: I think we’re seeing it already. Because before five years ago, it was 15 years ago where we didn’t have the internet. And certainly before there was online a lot of business got done for a long time… and we see these technology cycles: first the mainframe, then the personal computer, then the internet and now the social web, where it doesn’t happen all at once, but certainly for many industries, it can give you a huge leg up to understand this new communication and technology paradigm and use it as an additional way to get customer connection and loyalty.
Stay tuned for Part 2
There’s more, folks: My next post will be Part 2 of our conversation about The Facebook Era.
Meanwhile, if you want to social network with Clara, why not visit the Facebook Era’s Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter at @clarashih
Related posts on this blog
Recommended Reading: The Facebook Era
Business Podcasting Tips From Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Talks
Podcasting offers an easy way to be heard in the marketplace.
It’s on-demand subscription-based audio content that lets you grab someone’s ear.
Of course holding onto that ear takes finesse.
Just spouting marketing messages doesn’t cut it. Then it’s an infomercial, and who’s going to subscribe to that?
You must make it worth someone’s while to pay attention to what you have to say.
Interview with Toby Bloomberg, host of the podcast series Diva Marketing Talks
It takes skill to pull off a successful podcast, and one person does it well is marketing maven Toby Bloomberg, host of Diva Marketing Talks, a podcast series about social media marketing.
Toby recently shared some of her podcasting tips with me, about the art of being a good moderator and how to create podcasts that reach out and touch customers in a meaningful way. Here are excerpts from our conversation:
Can you describe your concept for Diva Marketing Talks?
Toby: My concept is that since social media is a conversation, I don’t want to have to interview people. And the one-on-one thing, to me, is an interview. So I always have a least two guests, sometimes three.
What do you think makes for a good podcast moderator?
Toby: There are a few things that make for a good moderator. One is making sure you have a guest on who will share information and talk. Because the worst thing is to have someone on who just doesn’t talk. And you want to have someone who understands, in social media, they’re giving value-added information, not pitching their own company.
The second thing is to create an environment and atmosphere where they feel comfortable to talk.
And the third thing is to prep your guests for the show… I put questions together. I put concepts together and I give them to the guests and say, “Here’s our content direction. Whether or not we follow it depends on where the conversation goes, but here are the issues we’ll talk about.”
When it’s time for the show I’ll start off with a question and see where it goes. Sometimes it does turn into a real conversation. I will encourage people to talk to the other guests and to ask questions of me, so it has the feel of a conversation, instead of me interviewing two people.
What are some reasons a company might consider doing a podcast series?
Toby: A podcast is no different than an audio file that’s on the web. What makes it unique is that it has an RSS feed that gives you the ability to dump it into an MP3 player. And that little technology changes everything. It gives you the ability to do what people call “time transfer.” You can put it into your video or MP3 player — into your iPod your iPhone and iTunes — and listen to it whenever you want.
So that’s what makes podcasting so different and valuable. It’s that people aren’t tied to their computers any longer. They can listen to it wherever they want.
You can use podcasts to create thought leadership to build greater understanding and awareness of an organization or a topic. But it can also be used in other ways. For instance it can be used to train a sales force. You can do a podcast on product development, new product features, whatever. Give MP3 players to your sales force and they can listen whenever they want.
Another thing is take a cheap MP3 player — we’re not talking about iPods — load it up and give it away at trade shows.
What would be on those trade show podcasts — product information?
Toby: It can be product information. But it always has to be value-add. Because who’s going to listen to something about your new features or your latest widget? You can position it however you want. You can do a little show.
Is there any type of business that either does or doesn’t lend itself to podcasting?
Toby: You’re disseminating information. So if your target audience is comfortable listening to information in a given format, it will work. It really goes back to who your customers are… I think today we’re not looking at technology as much as information.
How can a business know what kind of information is of interest to their target audiences? How should they define their podcast strategy?
Toby: You just ask your customers what they want. Tell them you’re thinking of doing a podcast series and ask, “Is this something that you might want?” They’ll let you know. And they’ll tell you what they want to hear.
Especially in a B2B environment, where relationships are so critical, even more than B2C, it gives you a wonderful opportunity to touch base with customers that perhaps you haven’t talked to in a while.
So pick up the phone… Take a look at the customers that you’ve been wanting to develop stronger relationships with, or people you just missed closing a deal on. It would be great to go out to prospects and say, “We haven’t talked to you in a long time. This is what we’re thinking of doing. What would you like to hear?” It gives you an opportunity to open doors.
You can build a whole strategy behind that. Why not tag the podcast with “Thanks to Tom Jones at XYZ company for giving his input on this topic.” Thanking people in a public forum is always a nice thing to do. You don’t have to mention if they’re a client or not.
In your e-book Social Media Marketing GPS you note how podcasts can bring out your personality and create intimacy between the people behind a brand and its customers. How does that happen and why is that important?
Toby: Voice and tone add another dimension than text. Even if your company has a blog, or a Facebook page, or is tweeting, it brings you a little bit closer… And audio gives you the opportunity to add a different type of information.
When you write, and when you speak, your words come out differently. I think a good podcast forces you to talk in a conversational manner. So if you’re taking in a conversational manner people tend to relate to you as a person rather than as a company. The bottom line is people like to do business with people they like and this is one more way for somebody to get to know you.
Say a business makes a product that does not seem to present itself as being all that interesting. It’s some kind of widget. How do you make something that is not inherently fascinating into a podcast series?
Toby: You don’t, if it’s something that’s inherently boring. Like if it’s a widget that goes into another widget.
It’s like Intel Inside. Think of how brilliantly they positioned themselves. They knew that nobody wanted to talk about this little technology piece that went into computers, they positioned it as Intel Inside — this is what makes everything work. So perhaps isn’t going to be about the widget, because how much can you talk about the widget? Maybe it’s about trends in the industry.
What about allowing people to call into the show? Why might a company want to do that?
It gives people an opportunity to get information that they may not be able to have any other way. It gives you an opportunity to interact with potential customers. And if somebody has a really deep question, you can say, “Let’s take this offline and I’m happy to make sure you get the information.”
It’s one of those things that could go wild, depending on the company and the questions. If you’re doing it where you can tape the show you have the opportunity to edit. If you’re doing it live, obviously you don’t have that, so I think it takes a very skillful host. Because then you’re not only in the world of social media, really what it amounts to is you’re in the world of public radio.
OK, final question: If you were to give only one tip for businesses about podcasts, what would it be?
Toby: Make sure you understand the type of content your audience finds interesting and work around that. It’s Marketing 101.
But with any kind of social media we’re really diving outside of traditional marketing… It’s a sidestep. Sometimes it doesn’t necessarily relate to you product or service directly, but rather, tangentially.
That’s where I see a lot of companies miss the mark. When some people think being in social media means not being sales oriented, they think it means a softer sales pitch. But more than not, it means not even going in the sales direction, but making sure you have information that can support your customers in your particular industry… It is different than any other kind of marketing because it’s built on value-add.
Thanks, Toby
Many thanks to Toby Bloomberg for sharing her insights. If you want to keep up with Toby’s thoughts on a regular basis, subscribe to her Diva Marketing Blog, or follow her on Twitter at @tobydiva.
Meanwhile, other posts I’ve written that relate to Toby include:
Social Media Marketing GPS: A Creative Social Media Guide
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of Toby’s ideas about podcasting? Do you have more thoughts on the topic? Please share. Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Best Practices: Writing Press Releases for the Web
A press release posted on your website is not a press release. It’s an everybody release.
Seeing as we all seek out information by hitting the web – frequently using a search engine as our guide — you can bet people other than the press are discovering and reading your releases.
Most PR practitioners, however, still write press releases in a rigid format specifically aimed at reporters. It’s a style developed long before the web came into being and best suited to the printed page.
Press releases posted online should be in web style
News flash: Web content should be written for the way we read web content. Or rather, how we glance over web content. Studies show when we first hit a web page we scan it. Our eyes skip around looking for clues to see if the page has information we can use. If it takes too long to figure out we hop off and scan elsewhere.
This applies to all areas of a website. Including the press section.
Press releases as information, plain and simple
OK, this is not groundbreaking news: Jakob Nielson, a pioneer of web usability, has beaten this drum for years. He’s posted numerous articles on the subject, including How Users Read on the Web.
Still, even companies that follow good web style elsewhere on their website often disregard it in the press area.
That’s a mistake. Usability studies by Janice (Ginny) Redish — as noted in her excellent book Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works 
And so, with hat tips to Nielson and Redish, here’s a handy list of guidelines for writing press releases for the web.
Best Practices: Writing Press Releases for the Web
1. Write short paragraphs
Keep it concise. Nielson suggests having one idea per paragraph.
2. Increase scanability with subheads in bold type
Subheads give instant clues about the full content of the release. Readers can know right away if the content is of interest, or not. Suggested length for headings is eight words or less.
3. Break up information with bulleted or numbered lists
Bullets act as graphical elements that stand out from blocks of text. Our eyes are naturally and psychologically drawn to lists with brief chunks of information.
4. Display data in tables and graphs
It’s difficult to digest lots of data rendered in paragraph format. You’re better off putting this information into tables and graphs that are more readily understood.
5. Use the same template as other informational pages
As noted, the general public does not make a distinction between press releases and other useful web content. A press release should have the same look and feel as other informational pages on your website.
6. Include hyperlinks and external documents for additional information
Provide more value to a release by linking to other areas of your site with related information.
If you need to go into more depth with statistics or research findings, create and post documents with these details. Write the press release as a summary fact sheet and put links to these documents in the release.
7. Include keywords
Use language that appeals to your customer base. Put special emphasis on terms and phrases someone might use to find your product or service through a search engine, a.k.a. keywords.
8. Be mindful of who’s listed as the company contact
Typical press releases list the person in your public relations/communications department who wrote the release as the contact for additional information. But is this the right person to respond to queries from the general public? And what happens when this PR flack leaves your company? Do you go back and changes all the releases?
Once a release is posted on the web you may want to list your main PR office number, and identify it as such, to better field calls that come in response to the release.
- Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )
