Confessions of a world traveler

magritte

Eric Fletcher posted a tweet saying, “World traveller @treypennington…” At first, I was a tad embarrassed, then I embraced his reference. This IS an incredible time and I am grateful for the amazing adventure life is. I’m even more thankful for the fuel powering this adventure.

tweet

No doubt most of us think of places when we hear “world traveler,” as in Big Ben or the London Eye in London or the Eiffel Tower, River Senn, or Notre Dame in Paris. All are fantastic places and places I’ve been able to see this year. Still, there’s something else that makes those places so memorable…

London is a romantic, history-rich place with ample venues for catching up with Gemma, Caroline, Luke, Dickie, Eric, Drew, Gabrielle and many other friends. Paris is home to Loic, Thibault, Maxim, and Michelle. Devon is home territory for Scott, Andrew, John, and a whole host of people who are friends.

My journeys abroad take me face-to-face with friends—friends I met and got to know first on social media (primarily Twitter). The fuel for my “world travels” is the people of social media.

magritte-golconde

Social media opens doors to new friends all over the place. To experience the true hidden treasure in social media, it’s vital to take advantage of opportunities to get face-to-face. Social media can fuel the initial connections and the ongoing connections; face-to-face adds immeasurable richness to the experience.

Social media not only opens the doors to new friends, it also paves the road to opportunities usually limited to folks called celebrities. For instance, because of connections and interactions facilitated by social media, I’ll spend time with Seth Godin in New York and with Zig Ziglar in Orlando…all this month and then again with Chris Brogan in Memphis next month.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I’m a celebrity or an important person? Hardly. The point is, I’m an average person who’s having an extraordinary experience because of new friends all around the world. The tools that connected me with those friends are readily available to you. That means you have what you need to discover the open doors to whatever adventure you want.

Those of us who enjoy what can be accomplished through social media often spend a lot of time actually talking about the media. The media is fascinating. The adventure begins, though, not with the media, but with people it connects you with.

My adventure, and joy in life, is finding new friends, being with them long enough to catch a vision of their hidden treasure, help them see it and then encourage them and help them grasp it to do something.

Your adventure is probably something entirely different. You, for instance, may want to get people to consume resources with minimal impact on the environment: there are brilliant people doing unbelievably cool things around your adventure…they just probably aren’t hanging out at your local coffee shop or pub. They probably are hanging out online…and sharing what they’re learning (check out what Norway is doing about storing the CO2 deep under the sea, for instance).

Whatever your dream adventure is, there are probably whole communities of people already gathering online to talk about it. Why not jump in online and watch for your opportunity to get face-to-face with them?

Trey Pennington

Conversations, Relationships & Renaming Social Media

There are, no doubt, a few good reasons for some business endeavors — in particular, professional service enterprises — to have concerns over the use of social media. For example, lawyers, doctors and accountants cannot be perceived to be offering legal, medical or tax advice in any media marketing context — social or otherwise.

I believe every concern I’ve heard can be addressed; but I’ll also cop to believing the benefits of conversations with clients and targets far outweigh concerns — provided, of course, ethical and regulatory issues are appropriately addressed.

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Humanize Your Marketing With Buyer Personas

Buyer Persona development may just be the most important element in a content marketing strategy. Having a deeper, more personal understanding of your customers leads to content creation that not only builds trust, but also demonstrates your willingness to spend the necessary time to learn the actual circumstances that affect your customers.

With well-defined buyer personas, your content suddenly becomes for *someone* versus *everyone*. And that makes all the difference when trying to build a relationship with your customers through your content marketing strategy.

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How to make sure your stuff POPS!

“Help! I’m drowning!”

You probably felt that way about information overload BEFORE you added social media to your daily routine. Now you, me and everyone else are drowning in a swirling sea of data, appeals, ads, options, opt-ins, opt-outs and so many pop-up screens we’re all pooped-out. The problem is, as business owners and leaders, we still have to communicate and connect.

On my radio show, Social Media Professor, I spoke with someone who can help: Sam Horn. Sam is someone who knows how to make product names, taglines and headlines POP! She assures us we “don’t have to have an MBA or a multimillion-dollar budget to create one-of-a-kind ideas, products, and messages. All you need is the POP! Process: a fun, fascinating, and strategic approach for making your message purposeful, original, and pithy—to generate instant intrigue and word-of-mouth buzz.”

POP book cover
POP book cover

Hear the Social Media Professor interview with Sam Horn on BlogTalkRadio.

Subscribe to the Social Media Professor Podcast on iTunes.

Sam Horn: Twitter | Web

Jumpstart your naming brainstorm with a prefix, suffix and root chart.

Brogan: Why he’s Worth It

OK: All the hype about Brogan making money off the social media world: First of all, I am glad to know that we are all in social media to ultimately develop revenue (OK, not everybody but I admit most). Of course it’s mostly about meeting people and establishing relationships that lead to engagement. Bottom line is this—tweeting is a waste of time if you can’t show your company or boss how you are helping to contribute results. It’s not what’s on your virtual resume or “footprint” that counts—it is what you contribute to your team. REVENUE rules. You would think in this economy people would “get it” and it continues to amaze me that some people feel entitled to their jobs! >> FAIL. If you are not generating revenue, adding monetary value to your organization, you should re-think things. Gone are the days of cushy corporate 9-5 jobs. The re-set button has been pushed and we are never returning to what was. The new world is tough and getting tougher. Cheers to those who can add value, be helpful and monetize—fairly—their work. Chris Brogan is one of them. I know recently he’s been criticized about this but I can tell you, he is –to me—an innovative businessman. He’s awesome, geeky, smart, fun and accessible—but remember, he’s in it to build a business and I respect him for it. As a small business owner, I get it, support it and have been around long enough to know that change is the ONE thing we count on. Just because someone starts out in one place doesn’t mean they stay there. Today’s businesses that succeed are flexible, dynamic and open to new. Chris Brogan is evolving as we all are and that’s the fun part about any business.

Social Media 101: Chris Brogan’s new book: I love it. It boils down great ideas, Chris’ own experiences, tools he likes, tools he’s not sure about, his opinions on things, examples of folks he respects, the list goes on. Businesses can learn tons from this new book. Some good points: Twitter is a great way to promote your business blog and links; Photo Share rocks; Clients and how to involve them on your blog; The importance of Strategy (one of my favorite words); Specific uses of social media for industries like real estate, banking, etc.; Blogging tips including good examples for titles (the importance of brevity). GET THE BOOK. You’ll love it if you get what I meanJ

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree: I have had the pleasure of contacting Chris to invite him to Memphis May 6th to speak to Memphis businesses on how social media gives everyone a big voice. In planning our event (check my website for registration/info) I have had the great pleasure of working with Diane Brogan—his booking agent and Mom. All I can say is that she is a wonderful person, a joy to work with. We have had phone conversations and some e-mail exchanges. I haven’t even had to talk to Chris yet (although I look forward to it). It is evident to me that family is most important to the Brogan crew and I think that’s the coolest thing of all. I have tweeted recently that #DianeRocks and she does. If every other speaker I’ve booked had been so easy/fun. Thanks Diane! Maybe Chris will get to be the honorary Peabody Hotel Duckmaster while he’s here in our River City!

Cool People coming to #BroganMemphis: We have 14 (and counting) cool Tweeps flying to Memphis for the May 6th event. Soon I will list them all as we’re still compiling the list!!! From Canada to PA to NYC to MO…the CMO crew is coming in. What a huge tribute to Chris and to the Power of Twitter. This idea came to me while talking with Twitter friends Glen Gilmore (aka @TrendTracker) and Anne Gallaher (aka @AnneDGallaher) and with their encouragement, my being on Twitter and Chris Brogan talking back to me (imagine that)…here we are! Thanks to all our sponsors: FedEx, Peabody, Pinnacle Airlines, JudyMac Team, The Memphis Daily News…we’re going to “trend on Twitter with the Power Tweeters” in May! Join us if you can. My website has all details at www.howell-marketing.com

Thanks for reading this! I look forward to your comments and any questions you may have. Rock on!

Amy Howell

In search of the smorganization

The concept of smorganization was born out of my desire to find one word to first grab the attention and then communicate the dramatic changes to organizations of all types which are currently underway facilitated by social media.

Most have still not grasped the depth or realized the breadth of the communications revolution happening around us, but it is real, it is impactful and once these titanic forces are positively focused by forward thinking leaders within the organizations of the world, smorganization can and will take us to a better place.

So smorganization in its’ simplest interpretation is Social Media Organization or just smorganization, a one word conglomeration representing what in its’ entirety is a complex and rapidly evolving transformation process.

Social media organizations will be in a continuous listening and communication mode with all stakeholders both internal and external, monitoring the employee and customer experiences they create and the feedback and ideas they generate creating an ongoing improvement continuum.

But smorganization is not just a noun, it is very importantly also a verb and this transition and those organizations which survive it, will be led by visionary leaders who learn how to work with their people, customers, suppliers and communities to continuously smorganize and resmorganize themselves effectively based on feedback, goals and always with a sustainable action orientation.

These same channels of internal/external listening and communicating will also fuel these entities as they truly strive to become Learning Organizations as depicted by Peter Senge in his book Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.

New systems which support the People, Processes and Projects each organization needs to deliver on their goals will have to be developed connecting all three of these critically important features in order to co-ordinate, create and maintain the harmonious movement and growth of smorganizations as they proceed towards delivering on their mandate.

Emerging models of leadership based on using the above approaches will allow leadership teams to “lead from the middle” making decisions based on the best available knowledge and participation from both within and outside the organization.

The tools and approaches necessary to build or convert companies into social media organizations are already at hand and some firms have already begun to embrace these with amazing results. Our desire going forward is that smorganizations at all levels and functions within society will emerge leading to a new vibrancy of human engagement and achievement.

Jeff Ashcroft

The 5 Ws and How To Build your Social Brand

What’s in a name? Everything, when it’s your personal brand; and perception is reality in the virtual world.

Your name in the socially-networked universe defines your brand — your essence, what you stand for, your reputation and your three second BLINK, all in 140 characters or less!

So, how do you differentiate and elevate your personal brand, your on-line identity, in a social world teeming with thousands, no millions, of individuals calling out to be heard?

Warrior Photo

For proof of the bottom-line importance of asserting your personal brand you need look no further than:

• A recent poll* of 2600 North American Hiring Managers that revealed 45% of those surveyed use social media background checks to vet prospective employees; and

• 35% of respondents said they’d found something social that caused them NOT to hire the candidate. *Careerbuilder.com

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Social CRM: Top Priority for CMOs

Not a week goes by without the publication of findings from another study or survey confirming the growing reach of Social Media channels. Latest in this series is findings by NielsenWire. As per this study, “global consumers spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year”. This study further highlights that “Consumers in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively” (for more see this link).

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Pizza Throwdown puts Domino’s Pizza Turnaround to the test

They called it the “Pizza Turnaround.”

pizza taster

The Bazaarvoice Pizza ThrowdownTaste tests and focus groups had execs at Domino’s Pizza cringing as unhappy pizzaphiles gave brutally honest feedback on the taste of their pizza. Domino’s executives had a choice to make: go about their business – as many brands would – or learn from this negative feedback and change their 50 year old recipe.

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Social Media and its impact upon Reunions

If you take time to look around, you will see that Social Media is being discussed and/or utilized almost every place you look. So as I was thinking about all of this the other day, I began to wonder what impact Social Media will have on high school or college reunions in the coming years.

It is my thinking that the past objective and main reason for wanting to attend such reunions has been to — “catch up” with old classmates and friends and to rekindle old relationships.

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