Creative Agency Secrets

Which social media tools are appropriate (and easy) for newcomers?

I had a very interesting session working remotely (backstory on remote consulting) with Prosper Consulting and Simon Ibson, the MD.

He is quite new to social media as a business development tool and we discussed the places that I use to promote my blog as a means to help him navigate and research the possible places he could do the same with the new website which isn't quite ready… (Story of my life!)And so I started with the places that my professional profile is listed:
Facebook
Plaxo Pulse
Linked In
FriendFeed/RebeccaCaroe
Twitter

Facebook occupies a curious cross-border place in my toolkit because I principally use it for friends and family but there are some great groups I belong to hosted there which are clearly work not play.  I favour the groups "London Girl Geek Dinners ", "BIMA British Interactive Media Association " and "What I saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution " as really active with new items posted regularly which really interest me.
Plaxo is a surrogate Friendfeed but has more professional contacts in there.  I use Friendfeed to funnel stuff into my Alert Thingy stream which is a great way of posting to Twitter and it has a tinyurl plugin that really works!

And then there are aggregator sites where I can set up the RSS feed from this blog to send stuff over automatically.  This is a fabulous service, if (and only if) the site has got itself a good audience and is well-managed.
UTalkMarketing
Marcom Professional
Marketing Services Talk

Ragan

Of these, MArcom Professional set up by Philip Sheldrake is my favourite.  It has a better range of comment and is less 'managed'.  I used to check in to Ragan a lot but it's very US oriented and mainly aimed at PR folk, which I'm not.  Plus, I loathe the weekly email from Utalk but haven't managed to unsubscribe from it.  Maybe I dream that one day they'll pick up one of my posts to print…

And so how should you work out the places that your profile (corporate or personal) should be online?

My suggestion is to start with Linked In because you really can't go wrong there.  Take a look around the people you know on there and start an active campaign to connect to the ones you know.  If you have the energy, also ask for recommendations for those you've worked for.

In order to find sites that may be helpful for you try this checklist

1. Go to Technorati.com and use a key word search that describes what your company does
2. Read the blogs it lists and sign up to read a few that seem a) prolific b) have good, informed commentary c) post regularly d) score highly on the Technorati Authority score
3. Search Google or Yahoo for the same key word + 'blog' or 'news' (that'll filter out your competitors' websites)
4. Repeat step 2 and find those who write well.  Sign up to read…

As far as the others go, take a month to regularly read what's on them from people you know (ask someone to let you log in to their feed / pulse stream).  You can also ask your trusted colleagues and clients which they use and / or know about. And make your own mind up.

Simon was curious about what copyright I chose to exercise on this blog.  I told him that I publish it all under the Creative Commons license - detail on creative commons.

Simon recommended two books to me. Alan Weiss' "Million Dollar Consulting" and "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug  

Prosper Consulting is a talent acquisition specialist that works hard on building long term relationships with client companies, delivers recruitment solutions and doesn't work on success fees.  And so if you want to hire top talent and don't want to be spending percentages of their salary on the agency, check out Prosper Consulting .  

One of my clients just got their very first email newsletter from a supplier. 

Oh my goodness, it is so DULL.  Here's the opening paragraphs

Welcome to the first edition of XYZ's Connections e-Newsletter, designed to provide timely information and tools to help your business run more efficiently.

The cornerstone of our first issue is exciting news about the global alignment of our organisation and the development of our powerful international processing platform, designed to help your business efficiently accommodate industry regulations and technological advancements.

 I have changed their name to protect the innocent and deadly communications advisor who must be surely about to lose his job for sending out such twaffle. 

Apart from being rather far behind the curve for newsletters (albeit sending it by email is vaguely 21st Century) This communication sucks. 

It's full of corproate-speak, management consultant catchphrases and has a TOTAL LACK of orientation around the customer.

Why would my client be interested in the "global alignment" of their organisation.  WIIFM? 

PS here's the text from the rest just to make you cringe further. The first sentence reminds me of a ghastly corporate mission statement written by Peter Jenner for Erdman Lewis while I worked there "Anticipating the needs our our clients, we bla bla bla…."

As we continue to add value to your business, we will provide you with industry-leading support and service. That is why each issue of Connections will connect you with valuable information about security, compliance and innovative solutions to help maximise your operational and financial efficiencies. We hope Connections helps you stay connected to your payments processing operations and the robust solutions XYZ offers.

Update on yesterday's post about using Facebook to promote your agency …..

I got an immediate auto reply crom ClickyMedia …

Dear Rebecca,

Many thanks for your enquiry! 

A member of our internet marketing consultancy team will be in touch with you
shortly to see how we can help you.

In the mean time we have attached a Case Study for you to read.

We look forward to speaking with you shortly.

Kind Regards,

Sending a case study was a nice touch!

And then 40 minutes later, a reply from the Managing Director - Oliver Yeates

 Thanks for your email.

We do indeed generate business from Facebook advertising and it is entirely down to the levels of targeting we use.  We have specifically selected individuals whose job title includes the keywords "marketing" - this is why you will have seen our ad.

Here at Clicky Media we like to practise what we preach and our ads have certainly introduced our services to a number of Marketing professionals.

As with many on-line marketing opportunities which are arising after the huge success of Google Ads, click prices are relatively cheap and as such a very attractive return on investment is available.  Afterall we only pay for clicks ad the brand awareness and association is something we cannot afford to miss.Feel free to use this email on your blog.

Doubly nice.  And permission given without being asked! (well it is in my email signature….).

And so there's a really simple brief if you want to use FB - target job titles.  And from the logos on their site, FB is clearly one of the target areas they specialise in.

Well done. 

I have returned to facebook recently (to organise our annual Fest and Geeknbury).  It works well.

I forget how many people use it still very intensively.  But, what struck me as interesting was the number of creative agencies advertisign their services there.  They must really believe that businesses with purchasing power employ individuals who use FB….

here's who I found:

ClickyMedia - geo-social marketing (whatever that is!) 

Adstorm - online marketing specialist 

Data2Doormat.com - direct marketing (whose site is offline from the link)

And yesterday I saw Creation Agency (well I think it was them, but the ad's not serving today) 

Well - does it work?

I emailed each agency and will let you know the answers. 

Rachel Clarke introduced me to Christian Payne who had the idea of hosting the first Geek festival.  I have been running the Vann Summer Fest in a field behind my mum's house for the past 7 years with Grant Craies, William Heath, Ruth Kennedy, Al Kennedy and Aliya Saleem.  We have agreed to bolt Geeknbury onto the fest - starting one day earlier and then seamlessly blending inbto the family fun.

Come down - bring your geek / biz dev / web 2.0 ideas and let's have some fun!

Details on Christian's blog  

Everyone’s heard of Management Consultant Bingo - but since it’s Friday, have some fun and make up new corporate-talk phrases yourself with the “Web Economy Bullshit Generator “. 

just type in some phrase from your latest strategy review document like ‘extend scalable supply-chains’ and hit the Make Bullshit button!  

again

and again…it keeps finding new ways to say what you don’t mean! 

I received a quesiton from a Business development Director of a well-known identity and branding agency who works with social enterprise and government organisations.

We don’t use outside consultants, but the ‘Enterprise 2.0’ is an area of interest. Most agencies seem to be setting up blogs as a way of presenting the agency culture and having open dialogue. What are your thoughts?
Ben

And so I wrote him this reply.  What do you think?

Without writing “screeds” my view is that a blog is a good way to start if you want to present the ‘personality’ of the agency to the outside world.  However, deciding to do it and doing it well and consistently are two different things.  You need to be the type of organisation who has the desire to show off in public a bit in order to keep the momentum of a blog going – and you also have to be able to write interesting stuff.  Many firms struggle to do both of these.

There are other simple social media tools that can be quicker than blogging and easier to maintain – but the same two rules I mention above apply.

Having said that, it is very hard to stand out in a crowded marketplace especially when the market for your services is changing.  But the opportunities for working with ‘social conscience’ organisations are rising.  Which should be good for you.

I note the Google page rank on your site is pretty low 3/10 for your home page.  Adding a blog which is not built in flash, may help improve your SEO as well as enable you to promote appropriate search terms to capitalise on your strong brand heritage.  Think of it as amplification for your corporate “voice” online.

So that’s my free advice for you.  Sad you don’t work with outside consultants – but call me if you want to talk further.
 

Many thanks to Mireira Fontbernat from Qik who has uploaded video of the three speakers this morning (and a little bit of me doing introductions).

Bloggers reactions: FreshNetworks' Helen Trim 

Charlie Robertson of Red Spider 

Quentin Boyes of Honeycomb Software  

Sadly the one of Andrew Howells of Zype didn't come out…. darn phone reception. 

Nice story fron the BBC with a suggestion that readers get involved in desiging the 'mascot' for the Olymnpics.

Including how to avoid gaffes like Atlanta and the london logo…. 

Great idea. 

Not really social media but definitely community participation….

But I HATE mascots.  Why else would people buy a souvenir if there wasnt a cuddly mascot image on it?

Thanks to Nico Macdonald for inviting me to chair two sessions at his Media Futures Conference next week.

I am going to be up there with Alex McKie and the guys from Plot…. Wicked! 

11.00:    Research in the real world – Alex McKie

11:30:      Meet the people formerly known as… users – Gill Wildman and Nick Durrant, Plot

He twittered it here 

Really looking forward to this.