Facebook Fan Page Best Practices
June 20, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
I have been managing a couple of brand’s fan pages directly for some time – Savvy Cellar Wines (which I’m a Co-Owner of) for over two years and Organic Wine Review (which was video blog launched last year). My consulting practice SmokeJumper Strategy is increasing being called upon to assist software and Internet companies with their social media and marketing strategy, which inevitably includes Facebook. I was also recently asked by Facebook to become an Advisor to their Local product and marketing efforts.
During this time, I’ve experimented with many aspects of managing a fan page for a small & local businesses: from times to post, different media types and observing and measuring what types of posts seem to drive social interaction. Along the way, we’ve managed to grow our fan base (now at 2,100), hopefully engage them in a positive way and taken advantage of the advances Facebook has engineered into their tools and apps for fan pages, their advertising platform and their analytics to measure audiences and responses to actions.
Social Marketing Best Practices | A Planning Checklist
April 29, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
As I worked through assessing a new client’s existing social marketing efforts, I turned my attention to assembling a set of best practices to rate them against. In preliminary search of existing data on the subject, I was pleased to find one of my clients, Marketo a leader in B2B marketing automation, had published a practical guide to social media marketing: The Definitive Guide to B2B Social Media.
Within section 2 of the guide, “Laying the Foundation”, there is a very practical checklist outlining what a company must be prepared to undertake in order to market using social media effectively. I have taken that list and extended some of the concepts, added a couple more and simplified others.
The result is a Social Marketing Best Practices Planning Checklist.
1) Establish clear goals for social marketing.
- Be specific.
- Keep objectives in mind for every initiative executed.
How SEO Can Drive Non-SEO Marketing
April 4, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
A year ago I was asked by a friend and former colleague of mine, who is now a Partner at a prominent Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm, to come be the lead speaker at a “Marketing Meetup” they were hosting. It seems that many of the companies that the firm had invested in were struggling with (or at least hesitating) to take advantage of online marketing (e.g. search engine optimization, search engine marketing, email marketing, blogging, social media, etc.).
How Marketing Changed in the 2000’s
I was recently reflecting on that session and thought it would be interesting to go back and see what, if anything had changed in my perspective. When I gave the talk, I did my best to provide some context of how marketing had changed during the last decade (or at least back to when my former colleague was pushing product out the door for Netscape Communications).
- Access to media, thought leaders and influencers was somewhat limited and pre-defined by the traditional bounds of print (and even early online) publications and the relationships that Public Relations (PR) professionals had with the media whose coverage they sought. Read more
Fanminder | 5 Questions for Paul Rosenfeld & Tracy Grover
I met Paul Rosenfeld last year when he came to pitch Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop before it opened in Mountain View, CA on the merits of his new mobile marketing service called Fanminder. Always being one to extend and try new things and wanting to dip our toe into the mobile world, I said yes (plus Paul is very passionate and convincing). He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fanminder. He spent about 15 years working for two of the best companies catering to small businesses — American Express and Intuit. At American Express Paul helped lead its first gift card program for merchants and worked in the Small Business Services division. At Intuit, he was General Manager QuickBooks Merchant Account Service; QuickBooks Online Edition; and led development of the FinanceWorks online banking suite.
Tracy Grover is Co-Founder and COO of Fanminder. Most recently, Tracy was Vice President of Product Management for AccountNow. Previously she served as Director of Marketing for LoopNet, which automates online marketing tools for small real estate businesses to help them compete with the big guys. Before that Tracy built, launched, and marketed online banking solutions for small businesses (for Bank of America & Silicon Valley Bank), a secure mobile application used by doctors & public officials (Certicom) and the first mass market online credit card, NextCard.
I recently sat down with Paul and Tracy and fired off 5 questions for them . . . .
1) What was the genesis of Fanminder?
Paul: Tracy and I started Fanminder literally in the teeth of the recession, in October 2008. We had very good paying jobs – I was the Chief Marketing Officer and Tracy was the VP Product Management for a local start-up. We saw how all the larger, Fortune-sized retailers were rushing into mobile and social marketing but when we “walked down main street” we didn’t see any local businesses doing anything.
Yelp’s Douchebaggery Issue
January 3, 2011 by admin · 5 Comments
Yelp has a douche bag issue. This is not new. But a recent experience made me think about it in a new light.
Savvy Cellar Wines, a local wine bar located in Silicon Valley that my wife runs, has been relatively active with social media: facebook, twitter, location-based services, review sites, etc. In theory, I believe that social media and the act of putting publishing tools into the hands of the masses is a good thing. However there are aberrations and, in practice, the theoretical ideal is sometimes not achieved – businesses can being unjustifiably vilified by anonymous (or semi-anonymous people), left with little recourse. Let’s walk through a humorous example. (Warning: some of the language is colorful and not for the proper or feint of heart.)