Attention Des Moines: June 30th is Social Media Day

June 22, 2012 By Rob Wormley Leave a Comment

Social Media Day is fast approaching! Have you heard about it? It’s an event that Mashable has been heavily promoting for the last few months—and now it’s only about a week away. Here’s how Mashable describes the event in a post on their site:

“On Saturday, June 30, digital enthusiasts will hold meetups across the globe to celebrate the one thing that unites us and keeps us in constant contact: social media.

Whether you’re an obsessed Instagram photographer, an endless Pinterest pinner or a ten-times-an-hour tweeter, Social Media Day is a time to recognize the digital revolution that has changed how we live” (Source).

How You Can Participate:

Here are a few suggestions from Mashable about how to get involved in Social Media Day:

Sign up to attend or organize your own event on the Mashable Meetup Everywhere page.
Use the #smday hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and any other social network of your choice.
Find your Mashable Meetup community here.

How Des Moines Is Celebrating:

If you’re like us and you live in the great city of Des Moines, here’s how you can celebrate:

Attend the meetup: http://www.meetup.com/Mashable/Des-Moines-IA/
Visit http://socialmediadaydsm.com and learn more about how Des Moines is celebrating.
Set an appointment with our good friends at CreateWOWmarketing to have a video shot and produced for you (FOR FREE) about how the Des Moines social media environment has changed your life (They’ll post it to the blog, give it to you to post on YOUR websites and broadcast them ALL on June 30th for Mashable’s Social Media day).
Or just send your own video to ZipBang@SocialMediaDayDSM.com.

Learn more by watching the video below:

We hope you will be able to celebrate the day with us and everyone else who is passionate about social media!

For more information, visit: http://socialmediadaydsm.com.

Rob Wormley

As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.

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Filed Under: Branding, News, Social Media, Social Media is for EVERYONE!, Social Media News Tagged With: des moines social media company, social media day, social media iowa, social media marketing services

Selective Hearing And Social Media

April 3, 2012 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

We’re all familiar with the term ‘selective hearing’. It essentially means you only hear what you want to hear. This means that anyone choosing to apply this concept to their lives has a sort of filter blocking out the things that might annoy them, offend them or, even worse, bore them. This idea has been applied to every form of communication that has ever existed, and guess what???

Selective Hearing Applies To Social Media!

For the most part this isn’t literal in social media which is why I want to make a slight amendment to the term and call it “Selective Processing”. Your fans and customers are selectively choosing which messages they will process and they’re basing their decisions off more than just the content you’re providing.

There is very little original content online. What I mean by that is there will always be a similar blog post or tweet or Facebook update to yours, so your mission is to break through all of the selective processing filters people have up. Here are a few ways to do that.

1. Rely on visual obscurity - Don’t default to generic stock photos. Make connections between your content and the visual you use but don’t be obvious about it. If you show someone what they expect to see they will skip right over you.

2. Brush up on your non-regional diction – There are a million ways to say almost anything so don’t just regurgitate a popular title to share an article. Come up with a unique combination of words to present your content in a more appealing way. Go for puns, alliteration and any other grammatical tools you can think of to really CRAFT your messages.

3. Be brutally honest - This is a little tricky because people who don’t agree with your opinion might look right over you, or they might take the time to respond. Some people are scared about being confronted on social media but I recommend embracing a little confrontation from time to time. Maintain your civility, of course, and make solid points. Don’t ever tell someone that their opinion is wrong but don’t be afraid to stand by your opinions. These are sometimes the conversations that attract the most attention and inspire the most engagement.

Have you been breaking through all of your fans and customers selective filters? Download our complimentary Ebook on the 5 Biggest Mistakes You’re Making on Social Media and find out.

Mike Bal

Hi, I studied advertising, I have a passion for creativity and I love working in social media. I try to write about the combination of traditional marketing, branding, and advertising strategies that can apply and work affectively with social media. I also enjoy music, batman and life.

It’s Time To Socialize Your Brand

February 15, 2012 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

There’s not a business out there that can afford to wait any longer. Your customers are using social media and so are other influencers in your industry.

If your competitors aren’t on social media yet, they soon will be.

Your brand is what your customer expects at any touch point they have with your business. Your customer service reps, your product, the package it comes in, the ads you run, and even the executives who run your company, all represent your brand. Those expectations have already started to be developed by the decisions you’ve made so far, but now your customer doesn’t just want to hear about you, they want to talk to you.

Social media has given your customers a chance to get to know you and they can’t wait! Leading brands like Skittles and Sharpie have developed unique personalities on social media to help enhance the relationships they have with their customers and the rest of the business world isn’t far behind. So, you know you need to be talking to your customers through social media but you have no idea what to say and, even worse, no idea how to say it. Fear not!

We have a few social media branding tips to help.

1. Define Your Brand’s Personality – Once you have a clear definition of who your brand is, you will have a better understanding of what it would say. Would it make jokes? Does it love kittens?

2. Discover Your Brand’s Interests – Let’s make it easy. You want your brand to be your customer’s most trusted confidant, so you should have similar interests to your customer’s to help strengthen the relationship. Talk about topics that are relevant and interesting to your customers and talk about them like they’re relevant and interesting to you.

3. Develop Your Brand’s Voice – The more sharing or “talking” you do, the more you will see patterns in your word choice, your phrasing, and even your punctuation appear. Your fans and customers will get used to these patterns as well so make sure you stick to them.

Once you get through these basic steps it will become second nature to communicate on behalf of your brand. It may seem like you have a second personality hiding inside of your head, it’s not insanity, it’s smart branding. There have never been more or better opportunities for you to connect with your customers on such a personal level. Your connection leads to a relationship and with that comes loyalty which is one of the most valuable assets your company can have, but the hardest to gain.

Click Here to get The Essential Step-By-Step Guide To Internet Marketing E-book and learn more strategies to help your brand succeed online.

Mike Bal

4.5 Ways To Be More Interesting | Social Media Tips

January 12, 2012 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

Being successful in social media depends on several things. You need to be relevant to your fans and customers. You should always be available in case they need your immediate attention, or if they feel like they need your immediate attention. You should be engaging so your fans don’t feel like they’re talking to a wall. And you should be interesting.

Being interesting isn’t as easy as it would seem. Successful brands like Skittles can be interesting by posting a question about a unicorn, but that won’t work for the majority of businesses in social media. The brands that haven’t formed a niche or style for their social voice are left teetering between “good content” and “interesting content”. Unfortunately they aren’t always the same thing.

The downside to playing it safe and providing strictly relevant information is that it really doesn’t give people a reason to be loyal to you. They MIGHT start to rely on you as a source or a curator but that doesn’t attach them to your brand. They aren’t hearing your voice they are simply seeing what you’re seeing. This is where being interesting can help. A quick witty comment on the end of a or a picture attached to a valuable status update can make all the difference in the world. Here are a few things that will help you be more interesting and as a result attach more fans to your brand.

1. Find New Sources – It’s great to have a list of places you can rely on for good and relevant information but don’t go to them too often. If you share from the same sources on a regular basis at turns you into a stepping stone instead of an interesting and valuable brand. Try to make it a goal to something NEW to share from a NEW source every day.

2. Give The World A Bit Of Attitude – People have already started to train themselves to ignore regurgitated content. The same headlines are streaming over and over again on all social media channels so it will take a little something extra to grab their attention. I suggest adding your opinion with a bit of attitude. Even if people disagree you will have obtained their attention.

3. Change It Up – You don’t have to attach a link to everything you share. Not every blog post has to be in five paragraph format. We call it social MEDIA for a reason. Find videos, pictures, infographics and quotes that are interesting and relevant to your brand and your customers/fans. All of the social media channels are becoming more media friendly so don’t be shy.

4. Throw A Curve Ball – You can still share something that has nothing to do with your business or brand. Your fans are real people who have personalities outside of their occupations. Share viral content, share feel good moments, share things that make you laugh, share incredible images, Share! Share! Share! Your brand’s personality has a human side too. If it doesn’t, it needs to get one.

4.5. Maintain Conversations – As I mentioned before, your opinions go a long way when it comes to being interesting. Find other brands or people and comment or reply to what they are sharing. Don’t leave a quick “Thanks for sharing” and call it a day. Read what they want you to read and give them some well thought out feedback. This is only half of a tip because SOCIAL media implies that you are being social but we see a lot of people out there who seem to have no interest in the social aspect of it all.

Feel free to shoot me and questions or thoughts on Twitter or post it up on our Facebook page.

Mike Bal

A Look At the Growth of Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

September 1, 2011 By Kelsey Jones 1 Comment

In general, (some) people are coming to the realization that social media is not a fad, but it’s here to stay. What the skeptics and those on the fence also need to understand is that social media is constantly changing. It is growing, diversifying and becoming an integral part of our lives – business, networking, social and personal.

Take a look at this infographic (pulled from Huffington Post) and see for yourself!

Source: The Growth of Social Media: An Infographic

Kelsey Jones

Social Media enthusiast who loves reading about and experimenting with the newest forms of communication. I'm a news and political junkie who loves advocacy work, the Green Bay Packers and working in this fast-paced environment.

Filed Under: Infographics, Social Media, Social Media News Tagged With: des moines social media company, One social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing company, social media services

Social Media For Personal Use vs. Business Use

August 10, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg 1 Comment

On our weekly show yesterday, The Social Truth, we talked for a little while on the differences between using social media personally and using it for your business/brand. Unfortunately, due to some technical issues, the show was not recorded, so I thought I’d give you a short recap of what we talked about.

I’ve personally encountered a lot of people recently who have been thrust into doing their employer’s social media because 1) they are young and 2) they know a little bit more than the next person. This is all well and good, except that most people’s understanding of social media comes from how they’ve used the various networks personally.

The reality, however, is that using social media for your business or brand has a few key differences that must be taken into account. If you are using the exact same strategies (if you have a strategy at all), you are missing out on the full power of using the social world for your marketing purposes.

The highlights:

Content
- Personal. Here, it’s okay to simply share the old Twitter mantra “What are you doing?”. Your family, friends and coworkers may in fact be interested simply in what you’re up to that night. And they are definitely interested in pictures of your kids, kittens and kite-flying afternoons.
- Business. This is all about sharing content and giving value. Most of your updates will include links, or little nuggets of wisdom related to your industry. That’s why they are coming to you.

Networks
- Personal. Stick with what you like. Think of it more like a hobby. Love making videos? Dive in to YouTube, and try out Twitter later on. Are you a photographer? Stick to Flickr for now, and try out YouTube later. Don’t feel obligated to be on everything.
- Business. Have a footprint on all the channels you can reasonably handle. Obviously you don’t want to be overloaded, but you want to reach your intended audience where they are, and they probably aren’t all in one spot. We especially advocate for the Big 5: blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Facebook specifically
- Personal. You don’t have to reach out much. Here it’s okay to simply be a consumer and digest all the posts coming your way. Put smiley faces and “lols” on everything you like.
- Business. Get familiar with applications. You can literally do just about anything within a Facebook page that you’re able to do on a standard website. If you didn’t know that, you’re already behind. Do some research and know what they do. Also be intentional about reaching out and adding comments to other pages that add value to the people reading.

Consistency
- Personal. It’s not crucial that you’re posting every single day multiple times. I am one who has a love-hate relationship with social media. Yesterday, for instance, I forgot to tweet altogether, and I get paid to do social media (Yikes! Am I fired?). At the end of the day, though, my friends/family/followers will come back to me because they have a real relationship with me.
- Business. Consistency is crucial. If you’re not posting every day, your audience is finding a similar company who is. I guarantee it. There are tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite that allow you to do this if you have to be out for a few days. Make it a priority to share fresh content at least once or twice every single day.

A couple last points. You want to make sure to clean up your own social media once you become in charge of business or branded accounts. Go ahead and delete some of those old college photos, and clean up the language as well. This doesn’t mean don’t have fun, it just means be a little more aware of what you are posting and the people who might see it.

You also want to make sure you have a strategy for jumping into social media for business use. Read some books and take a look at the companies who are doing it really well. Have defined goals and ways of measuring those goals, just like you would with any other marketing or advertising strategy.

Using social media for yourself may be intuitive, but it’s almost certainly not intuitive when you are doing it for a business or brand. If you have questions or comments, drop ‘em below…or find us on Facebook and Twitter as well!

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media for Small Business, social media marketing Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, small business social media, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

How Social Media Can Lead To Sales

July 26, 2011 By Rob Wormley 2 Comments

If there’s one common question that every business, brand, or organization new to social media has, it’s probably “how will using social media lead to sales?” It’s a fair question to ask. The problem with this question, however, lies in how it’s worded. What businesses new to social media should be asking is not “how will using social media lead to sales?”, but instead, “how can using social media lead to sales?”

It’s a slight difference, but here’s why the second question is a better question for business owners or brand executives to ask: it shows that they already understand the fact that creating a presence on social media sites doesn’t automatically lead to sales.

Unfortunately, most business owners just can’t seem to grasp this truth—that just joining social media sites isn’t a guarantee of even one new sale for a company. Developing a social media strategy for your business and joining social media sites are two very important steps to take, but if you want to actually start seeing real results—i.e. actual ROI—then you’re going to need to walk a lot further than you might have originally planned.

So with this new question in mind—”how can using social media lead to sales?”—what’s the answer? I’d be lying if I told you it was a simple “a + b + c = $$$” equation. There are a number of factors that play a part in whether or not your efforts on social media will actually lead to sales. To help you better understand what some of these factors are and how they work together, I’d like to share with you a chart that I like to call the social media equation. Here it is:

If the chart above looks complicated, it’s because it’s meant to. Because using social media to make sales isn’t as easy as a lot of people want it to be. It takes things like time, consistency, transparency, interaction, and value. It takes real work.

You may know that you have a good product that you think a lot of people could use, but if you can’t take the time to genuinely care about your followers and show them that you have a good, valuable product, you aren’t ready to be on social media.

No one wants to see a video on Facebook or a photo on Flickr that looks like an advertisement. No one wants to see the same “great deal” tweet ten times in one day.

If you decide to take the first steps to create a presence for your business on social media, it can lead to sales. It just takes time, effort, passion, dedication, authenticity, patience, and above all—a good product.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

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Filed Under: blogging, facebook, Social Media, social media marketing, Social Media News, Social Media Trends, twitter, YouTube Tagged With: blogging, business blog, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, joe soto, One social media, social media des moines, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media trends

3 Social Media Changes You Don’t Want to Miss

July 8, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg 1 Comment

As a social media company, it is our job to stay on top of all the fancy new stuff that pops up every 10 seconds or so in our industry. Most of these changes don’t really mean much to you, our readers – they are new startups working out glitches, back-end programs that make our jobs easier, or simply new ideas that haven’t quite reached critical mass yet.

The last couple weeks, however, have brought about 3 major news items that are worth sharing. The first is the release of Google+, a social network that is Google-based and is supposed to be a new rival for Facebook. The second is a trio of information bits from Facebook regarding their chat features. And finally, YouTube is in the works of redesigning their user experience, and the early results look promising.

1) Google+

Currently in Beta Mode with limited availability, Google+ seems to be aiming at being a simpler and more user-friendly social network. Friends are organized into “circles” such as work, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. The rumor is that it will be open to the public as of July 31. They will also be rolling out business profiles sometime in the next few months.

Pros:

Seamlessly integrates with other Google Apps, especially chat.
Has built-in video chat.
Organizes friends better than Facebook, making it easier to find the ones you’re truly interested in following.

Cons:

Yet another social network to share content on.
Not sure yet of how it competes in the social world with the giants that are already present.
Has yet to integrate things like events (Google Cal?) or collaborative work (Google Docs?).

2) Facebook Chat

Facebook held a live event viewed by thousands of people online to announce their latest upgrade. The Facebook Chat feature has long been known to be a little glitchy, and not as easy-to-use as Google Chat or Skype. They seem to be trying rather hard to fix that problem. Their trio of items to note:

Group chat: You can now add multiple people to a single chat box, making things like weekend planning a breeze.
Chat sidebar: depending on your browser size, you may now have a sidebar with a listing of your friends and the ability to chat with them right there, versus just that little box in the bottom right corner.
Video chat: This is the biggie. Facebook has partnered with Skype to bring video calling to any of your Facebook friends.

Pros

Group chat seems like an awesome feature and will be easy-to-use. This will make life much more simple for a lot of people and even businesses.
The ability to video chat without having to download a program is huge. You now have access to all your friends, versus just those with the Skype program.
They capitalized on the best video technology out there (Skype) instead of trying to create their own.
You can leave video voicemails when your call isn’t answered.

Cons

You still have to download a plugin, and it may not be user-friendly for those who aren’t tech-savvy.
Still no group video chatting – that really would have been icing on the cake. It will likely be a paid premium feature in the future.

3) YouTube Redesign – Codename “Cosmic Panda”

This change might be my personal favorite. Virtually since its inception, the site has looked a little clunky, and not very user-friendly. All of that is about to change with this update. The overall design is slick and clean, and makes navigating much more intuitive. To activate the update for your account, visit www.youtube.com/CosmicPanda.

Pros

It just looks and feels so much better. That’s a big pro in our book.
Playlists are organized neatly on the right side and can be seen at all times.
Channel stats such as subscribers and views are now easily visible on the rop right.
You can change the video size manually, putting the viewing experience totally in your control.
It is easier to scroll through videos of a selected channel.

Cons

The “Featured Video” seems to be lost, so the video that people see when they land on your channel is likely just the most recent upload.
That’s about it for now! We LOVE this update!

What do YOU think of all these changes? What pros and cons have you found? What are you most excited to start using? Chime in here on the blog, or over on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media, Social Media News, Social Media Trends, YouTube Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, small business social media, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media new jersey, social media Pennsylvania, social media Philadelphia, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

How To Put The Power of The Elevator Speech Effect To Work For You

June 1, 2011 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Every good business person needs to understand how to communicate ideas. Whether you’re speaking to a theater full of people, a room full of board executives, or even someone you meet in the elevator, you need to understand how to effectively present a compelling message— and it needs to be one that generates real results.

So how can you improve your speaking skills so much to the point where you could pitch an idea in less than 180 seconds? Here’s one way: read a great book that was recently released titled Small Message Big Impact. In the book, awarding-winning speaker Terri Sjodin outlines the tools and skills you need to perfect in order to master the art of the elevator speech effect. According to Sjodin, “an elevator speech is a brief presentation that introduces a product, service, philosophy or idea. Its general purpose is to intrigue and inspire a listener to want to hear more of the presenter’s complete proposition in the near future.”

If you’re serious about improving the effectiveness of your communication methods, I strongly recommend you read this new book:

To order YOUR copy of Small Message, Big Impact today, click here.

Learn more about Terri Sjodin:

Connect with her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter. Watch her videos on YouTube. Read her blog.

Joe Soto

Husband, Father, Entrepreneur, Social Media Strategist, Speaker, and always learning.

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Filed Under: blogging, News, Reading, Social Media, Social Media News Tagged With: des moines social media company, One social media, persuasion, small message big impact, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media services, speaking, terri sjodin

Des Moines Social Media Fair [PHOTOS]

May 27, 2011 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Last night I had the opportunity to attend and speak at a downtown Des Moines social media seminar organized by the Des Moines Social Club. I’d like to take some time to thank everyone who was able to attend, as well as the other professionals who spoke at the event. I’d also like to thank Laura Gaulke and the Des Moines Social Club for organizing the event. Here are some photos from last night: