I read a ton of business-related books.  If it has to do with branding, retail, or Starbucks, there’s a good chance I’ll read it.  A friend of mine recently recommended that I check out “The Trump Card,” Ivanka Trump’s first book.

To be clear, I’m a huge fan of Ivanka.  I admire her professionalism and passion for the real estate industry.  Many people will argue that her privileged upbringing undoubtedly helped her in her career, but I’m a firm believer that you are in charge of your own destiny.  After all, you have to be pretty darn intelligent and disciplined to get into Wharton.

So eagerly, I picked up “The Trump Card” at the local library one afternoon.  I enjoyed many aspects of the book, particularly the chapters that discussed the important of building relationships.  This is a subject Ivanka is clearly well-versed in, and I commend her for making the most of her connections.

She’s also not afraid to get dirty…literally.  In fact, if you follow her on Twitter (@IvankaTrump), she often posts pictures of herself at various job site locations.  In “The Trump Card,” Ivanka discussed how she always knew from a young age that she wanted to build things, so it’s no surprise that she’s now spending her days wearing a hard hat.

The cover of "The Trump Card." Image via Simon & Schuster.

I started thinking about how these principles could be applied to social media and public relations.  If you’ve worked in PR long enough, you know it’s not a glamorous field.  In fact, a lot of time is spent “blocking and tackling,” (a phrase we often use at Doe-Anderson) reaching out to reporters and bloggers, staying on their radar and keeping them up-to-date on what’s going on with our clients.  And yes, sometimes, we even have to roll up our sleeves and get a little dirty. (If you’ve ever put together hundreds of media kits, or worked at a special event, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.)

Cultivating relationships, in my opinion, is what social media and public relations are all about.  This isn’t an easy task but with a little time and patience, you can start to build those important connections.  The old adage “You get what you give” rings true as well.  We often tell our clients that they’ve got to communicate with their customers and engage in conversations with them.

Good, old-fashioned hard work never goes out of style and is certainly the key to having a successful social media or PR campaign.  And like Ivanka Trump, you can be professional and polished while doing it.

Image taken from Ivanka's Twitter account.

Several years ago, online shopping was still a novelty.  Now, it’s safe to say that most of the world has embraced e-tailing.  In fact, online retailers earned $27 billion this past holiday season.   It’s not a surprise that many retailers are using social media to communicate with consumers. 

One of my favorite local boutiques, General Eccentric, uses their Facebook page to post new shipments of clothing and accessories.  The store is known for constantly updating their merchandise, and what better way than the world’s largest networking site to let their customers know when super cute summer dresses are in?

Chambray dress from General Eccentric's Facebook page

Macy’s has introduced a very cool interactive feature that capitalizes on our obsession with finding the perfect outfit. The Macy’s Fashion Director allows the user to choose from a variety of apparel, shoes and accessories to create a virtual “look.”  Nicole Fischelis, Macy’s group vice president/fashion director said, “It gives our customers the unique opportunity to create their own fashion story.”

Fort Wayne, Indiana-based handbag designer Vera Bradley does an excellent job of using Twitter as a way to converse with their customers.   In 2009, they introduced their “Frill” line, which caters to its growing youth consumer base.  I suspect that’s one reason that the company took to Twitter—to reach out to this all-important demographic.

Frill bag by Club Vera via Flickr

While online shopping will never take the place of visiting a department store, it has certainly made browsing for hooded sandals a lot easier.

Image via Wikipedia

In every industry there are challenges to entering the social space, but nothing can be more stringent than the banking industry. However, if they’re willing to work through these challenges, there are banks that are using social media effectively.

In every industry there are trendsetters. Here are a few ways how banks are using social media.

Customer Service
Bank of America uses their Twitter channel as part of their customer service program. Recently, I had an issue with an account that I had there and they were more than helpful in making sure my issue was resolved.

SunTrust Bank is another bank that uses their Twitter account as an extension of their customer service.

Education
ING Direct has built a fan base on their Facebook page to over 15,000 fans. They currently are using their fan page to educate their community with helpful and relevant financial tips.

Promotion
Citibank, a part of Citigroup is using their social presence on Facebook to promote their foundation and their blog.

Building Community
SunTrust Bank which is headquartered in Atlanta Georgia is using their Facebook fan page to bring awareness of their community involvement, as well as provide an opportunity for their fans to communicate their needs. Their fans have shown positive feedback regarding SunTrust’s exceptional customer service and community building initiatives.

In addition to the tactics listed above, banks such as Wells Fargo have incorporated financial podcasts to inform and educate.

I think that you’ll see within the next 6-12 months more banks become more active in the social space, as they address their concerns with compliance related issues and as they adopt a standard social policy across the banking industry.

Is your bank using social media? How has it been beneficial to you as a customer?

You would think that we would be past the fear of negativity in the social space, but we are still hearing of brands and companies that are concerned with the possibilities of people speaking negative about them on social media platforms. It usually is a huge eye opener when they see that people are already talking.

img courtesy sxc

Accept that Negative Comments will Happen
The first thing to accept is that negative conversation will happen. In a sterile world no one would every speak badly of any individual or company, but in the real world people gravitate to negativity. Accepting that your company or brand will not be exempt is the first step in handling potential negative comments from your consumers.

Have a Plan in Place
While you can’t control when negative comments will happen, you can have a plan in place to deal with them when they do. Usually, the larger you are as a consumer brand, the more prone you are to be called out. That being said, if you’re a small brand you are not exempt from negative comments either. The first step is to create an escalation plan, like the United States Air Force has provided for their social media managers. This plan will put you further down the road versus having nothing in place at all.

Make sure you know who’s going to respond, how you’re going to respond, as well as the course of action that you’ll take if there is more than one occurrence by the same individual. Your customized escalation plan will make it easier for the social media manager, as well as ease the worries of those that work in compliance.

Respond Quickly
The worst thing you could do is not respond. The longer you avoid it the greater the chances of the fire burning out of control. Make sure you include in your plan a respond strategy regarding timing. You’ll be glad you did, not to mention your customers would appreciate and respect a timely response.

When you accept the inevitable and have a plan in place, embracing negativity will no longer be a fear factor, but just another part of your communication strategy.

If you’re considering implementing social media as part of your marketing portfolio don’t let the fear of negativity keep you from endless opportunities.

Ah, Derby.  Before I moved to Louisville, I had never seen a city so crazy about a single sporting event.  I’m originally from Bloomington, Indiana and sure, we love our basketball, but nothing can compare to the whirlwind that is the Kentucky Derby.  

Without a doubt, social media has altered the way we live our lives, and definitely how we watch sports.  Take figure skating, for example.  As a journalist who covers the sport regularly, I’ve seen firsthand how blogs and sites like Twitter have changed the sport.  During the World Championships in March of last year, I followed several key reporters who were covering the event. Since there wasn’t a major network broadcasting the competition like in years past, I relied on Twitter to get updates and scores.  

Reporters are Tweeting about conditions at the horse track, who’s running well and who’s not, and other important factors to know before placing a bet.  (By the way, Eskendereya is the early favorite to win, in case you were wondering.) I learned about I Want Revenge being scratched just before the start of Derby day on Twitter as well. 

The annual Running of the Roses has gone digital. Image by photog1966 via Flickr.

Image by joeimel via Flickr

The key to healthy living is making sure you exercise and eat a healthy diet. It would be great if we could maintain our shape and health by just eating sweets all the time, but we know it doesn’t work that way.

Developing a digital strategy is like eating healthy. It requires incorporating a multi-facet approach to communicating your message.

Here are a few things you should considering adding to your digital cookbook.

Social Media
The solution isn’t trying to locate the new and shinny tool. It’s finding out what community your customers are hanging out in and then going and creating listening and conversation channels there. Keep in mind that social media is… social. That means it’s conversational. This is the secret to what makes it effective.

Email
Contrary to what some may say, email is not dead. As a matter of fact, it’s one thing that everyone online has in common. Utilize all opportunities to build your list and communicate to your community of subscribers. Give them a reason to subscribe and provide them with exclusive content. Educate and inform first, sell and promote second.

Mobile
Mobile is bigger than just smartphones. Think mobility. How people are consuming content is evolving quickly. Consumers want to be able to access content from anywhere. Whether that is from a smartphone, an iPad, or an netbook, consumers are emailing, sharing, producing content without being strapped to a location. In some cases even in real time.

At the very least, your web site should be able to be optimized to be viewed on a mobile device. From there you can begin to strategize whether or not mobile applications are part of your digital marketing plan.

Search Engine Optimization
If the search engines can’t find you, don’t expect a lot of traffic from Google, Yahoo or Bing. Making sure your web site has been optimized for organic search results is key to your digital strategy.

There are other components that can be added to your overall strategy, but these four things are foundational, as you communicate and engage your consumers.

It’s that time of year to clean up all your social profiles. Can you remember every place you’ve created an account? Are you still using them?

If you’re like everyone else, it’s so easy to sign up for an account for the latest tool and application. If you’re like me, you sign up for accounts to test services and review tools that could be useful both personally and for your clients. Unfortunately, what often happens is that you have s a trail of unused accounts tied to your screen name and email address.

It’s time to take out the digital trash!

Action List:
1. Take inventory of all social accounts, tools and applications
2. Delete all accounts that no longer provides any value.
3. Delete all test accounts

Image by melodramababs via Flickr

This is also the time of year to take the opportunity to “spruce up” all your active social profiles.

Social Media Scrub:
1. Update all bios and profiles
2. Update profile images and custom backgrounds
3. Test and update any links if needed
4. Delete “Friends, Followers and Spammers” who are no longer relevant to the conversation you are participating in.
5. Review and refresh your goals, content strategy and editorial calendar
6. Clean out all spam comments in your comment provider and CMS
7. Delete all “permissions” to Facebook and Twitter from the accounts that you are longer using.

Spring cleaning is never fun, but once you start you’ll be grateful for the clean slate. You’ll also discover a new-found energy and purpose to your social media goals and executions.

Since the core of what we do at Doe-Anderson is building relationships between consumers and brands, we thought it would be cool to use relationships as a theme. So in honor of Valentine’s Day, all this month we’ll be sharing 28 Days to Make People Fall in Love with Your Brand. We hope you enjoy it.

Do you remember when your first felt feelings for someone? You counted everything! You could recall phone conversations, how long you talked, and how many times they looked at you. You could quantify everything!

In social media counting everything is just as important.

As the shiny object syndrome begins to wear off, clients are demanding that their efforts in the social space is measured in a meaningful way. No longer is it just about, “joining the conversation” clients want to see tangle results. Most marketers expect the same type of measurement standards as they do with traditional media.

The more you’re able to provide data, the more comfortable the brand and CMO’s will be embracing the effectiveness of social media.

If your goals are clear and your social activity is built upon those goals, then you’ll be able to provide right data.

This data at the very least should include:
1. Friends
2. Followers
3. Mentions
4. Conversations
5. Content shared by friends and followers
6. Content distributed
7. Traffic
8. Pageviews

Depending on the goals, you may also need to measure conversations that led to to leads and sales.

If you’re wanting to integrate social media into your overall marketing strategy, make sure you don’t just settle for owning the tools. Make sure that at the end of the day you can measure your rate of success.

Everybody has an iPhone, and every corporation thinks they need to have an app! However, the real question is, "does your brand really need it?" With the increasing rise in popularity of the iPhone, its easy to think that the only way to reach the consumer is through the latest and hottest trend. Sounds good, but before you run off and spend thousands of dollars having an app designed for you, it would help to answer a few questions.

5 Vital Questions to Answer Before You Jump

1. What are your business goals?
2. What goods, products or services are you currently offering your consumers?
3. What would be the purpose for the consumer to have your app?
4. What advantage would the app give your brand?
5. Are your consumers using iPhones?
6. Is your current site optimized for mobile?

Often times, a good way to segment into a full blown iPhone app is to optimize your current site for mobile. Check out the Canadian Broadcasting Channel for a simple and well built mobile web site. You can even check out this site (thesocialenthusiast.com) on your mobile device to see it optimized for mobile.

The mobile site is a good way to allow your consumers to gather information, engage with your content and even purchase your products from your current web site. Some of the more popular content management systems have plugins that will optimize your web site to be viewed from a mobile device. With a little programming it can have the same branded feel as your web site.

While it would great to unveil your new iPhone app, you may want to start with a optimized mobile site. Monitor and measure your mobile activity and then build from there. After watching how your consumer is engaging your content from a mobile device, you can take that data and use it to plan the development of your iPhone app. 

What do you think, mobile app. or mobile web site?

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Todd Defren.  He’s been innovating social media as a corporate communications channel since well before social media became the marcomm flavor of the month.  I know of few professional marketers in social media who haven’t referred to his original social media newsroom PDF at some point.  

But I have to take exception to a recent post he’s written on how some agencies go about adding social media expertise to their service offerings.   

He makes a compelling point that integration is key–with which I fully agree.  But unless I’m missing something, his stance appears to be that having a dedicated internal team that specializes in digital communications and social media fluency is the equivalent of bolting a food processor onto a farm tractor and calling it a mobile raw food restaurant.

Say what? 

His point seems to be (as best I can make sense of it) that traditional agencies with no prior digital emphasis and no internal staff already fluent in corporate use of social media should transform their entire organization into a social media savvy agency.  

No word on exactly how an agency is supposed to pull that off without hiring a few folks that have some social media experience or allowing existing staff with at least the right aptitudes and skills to dedicate themselves to developing that experience and lead the efforts of integration.  

Also no word on how they should respond to their clients’ desire to begin engaging consumers in social media with an agency that they already trust while this magical (and presumably not instantaneous) transformation into a top-to-bottom social organization is taking place.  

He also says that charging clients an additional fee to provide social media strategy and execution in addition to traditional services is "greedy."  Because it’s not like we charge a bigger fee for clients who get both event management and media relations services from the agency.  Or require more hours per month because of the volume of the work we do for them.  

There’s also the question of “where’s the line?”  Say a journalist starts tweeting or becomes a freelance blogger.  Who now owns the relationship — is it OK that the “traditional” PR pro wants to maintain the relationship, even though the channel supposedly “belongs” to their peers in the Social Media Department?  This is an issue of RESPONSIBILITY.  

It’s interesting that he brings this up, since I ran into exactly this situation just last week.  I needed to contact a print journalist who also happens to be one of the most influential people on blogs and forums related to a topic related to one of my clients to get some insights on the online community for that topic.  How, oh how, did I solve this insurmountable difficulty?

I called the media relations person on the account, we had a friendly five minute conversation, and I contacted him with her blessing and introduction.  Apparently, neither of us needed to "own the relationship" with this guy to do our respective jobs.

I agree that integration is an important goal for agencies who want to offer both digital and traditional services. In fact, in my opinion, integration between traditional and digital/social is the biggest challenge facing advertising agencies and public relations firms right now.  That said, integration is an incredibly difficult process.  I have a hard time believing that there’s One True Way to get there.   If you’ve committed to a strategy to get there and you’re making progress, kudos to you, I say.   

Arguing that having a social media department is never a valid path to integration seems a little heavy handed to me.  As with almost anything, your mileage may vary.  But it’s working for us so far. 

What do you think? How would an agency go about injecting social media fluency at all levels without, you know, having some folks with a high degree of social media fluency around who have the dedicated time to devote to it?  Do you personally think it’s necessary for every person at a PR firm or advertising agency to be a digital adept? 

img courtesy tam_oliver on sxc