MackCollier.com

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#Blogchat schedule for 10-3 with special co-host @CopyBlogger!

As most of you know, Brian Clark, AKA @Copyblogger will be co-hosting Sunday nite’s #Blogchat.  Brian’s session will cover “How to Create Compelling Content For Your Blog”.

As I try to do with our co-hosts, I wanted to give Brian’s #Blogchat a bit more structure cause I know so many of you want to interact with Brian.

So for the 1st 30 mins of #Blogchat, we’ll talk about the content itself, how to make it more interesting and engaging.  And definitely touch on doing so in the context of what you are trying to accomplish with that content.

Then for the 2nd 30 mins, we’ll talk more about improving your post’s headlines and SEO.  To those points, Brian has a fan-damn-tastic series at CopyBlogger called Magnetic Headlines that I would advise everyone to check out before #Blogchat.  Brian’s advice has really helped me improve my headline writing.  Also, I wanted to point out a service that Brian offers called Scribe.  Scribe makes it all but idiot-proof to improve the SEO of your blog posts.  You can learn more about the service and its prices here.  Oh and if you want to ask Brian questions about using Scribe during the 2nd half of #Blogchat, absolutely feel free!

BTW if you are new to #Blogchat, here is the FAQ on it.

See everyone at 8pm Central on Sunday!

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Ford CMO Jim Farley: Social media leading to ‘massive cost savings’ for Ford

How cool is this?  My friend Kaitlyn, who works for Ogilvy, wrangled some time with Ford CMO Jim Farley at the Paris Auto Show to answer a few questions about how the automaker uses social media.  So she reached out to me and a few other people to see if we wanted to ask Jim a question.  Of course I did, and Kaitlyn collected all the questions and then got Jim to answer them on video, and here it is:

Isn’t that awesome? My question to Jim was “Are there any areas that Ford can point to where social media has either lowered business costs, or improved existing processes?”

Here is Jim’s answer: “What happens is, by launching the vehicle early, getting people involved in talking about the new global Focus or the new Fiesta is the US before it goes on sale, we can lower the amount of traditional advertising we do after the vehicle goes on sale.  That’s where the massive cost savings have been.  I’ll give you an example; On the Fiesta Movement, we had higher unaided nameplate awareness than Fit or Yaris, and we spent 10 cents on the dollar, than a traditional tv ad campaign.  So by starting earlier and using social media to spread the word about the new product, we’re really reducing the amount of traditional advertising we have to spend.”

This is something that I think often gets overlooked in the whole ‘how do we tell if social media is working?’ debate.  There’s two ways that social media can ultimately help a business:

1 – Generate sales

2 – Lower business costs

As Jim explains above, social media is lowering the amount of money that Ford has to spend on traditional advertising.  That’s money that can then be spent on product development, customer service, and other areas that improves the quality of the product, as well as customer satisfaction.  Which ultimately…increases sales.  So this is another example of social media working indirectly.

And thanks to Kaitlyn for setting this up, and thanks to Mr. Farley for answering our questions.

This is a classic example of a wonderful blogger outreach.  Kaitlyn reached out to a small group of marketing and social media bloggers, with extremely targeted, exclusive and RELEVANT content (Hey marketing/social media blogger, want to ask Ford’s CMO a question about how Ford uses Social Media?  Ummmm…..YES!!!!).  I’ve been getting pitched by publicists and agencies and bloggers, etc, for 5 years now, and Kaitlyn is by far the best at what she does.  She rarely pitches me, but when she does, it’s always a story or content that’s extremely relevant to my readership, and I jump all over it.

And since the outreach is so well-done, I want to promote it here to share it with you.  Not just for the content itself (amazing takeaways from Jim on how Ford is utilizing social media, wasn’t it?), but I can also share what Kaitlyn did as an example of what a successful blogger outreach looks like.  Kaitlyn had established relationships with everyone she pitched, she knew who they were, and what type of content they were interested in.  That’s why she rocks.

Besides being a great example of blogger outreach done right, what else can your company learn from this?  What Kaitlyn did here is she found a way to get Jim involved in creating social content.  While it would be great if the top executives at a major company like Ford could devote time every day to interacting with customers directly via social media, it’s just not realistic.  So Kaitlyn found a way to spend a few minutes with Jim, and get him to answer some questions via video.  That content can then be placed on Ford’s YouTube Channel, or embedded in a blog post on a company blog, or more easily shared via social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  The point is, Ford’s CMO might not have time today to get on Twitter and answer customer questions directly, but Ford and Kaitlyn found a way to get him involved in a capacity that makes sense for him.

Thanks again to Jim for answering our questions, and Kaitlyn for setting this up.  BTW as an aside, if a company is using social media tools to engage with you, doesn’t that improve your perception of the company, at least on some small level?  Granted, this video alone isn’t going to convince me to buy a Focus today, but as a result of Jim taking the time to answer my question, I now have a slightly better impression of the company, versus their competitors.

UPDATE: Scott Monty left a fabulous comment and I wanted to add it here so everyone could see it: “There’s no need for time to tell – we’ve already demonstrated that it worked for the Fiesta. We had a higher level of awareness for the subcompact than for vehicles we had in the market for 2-3 years; we collected over 125,000 hand-raisers who indicated they wanted to learn more when the car became available; and the conversion of reservations to sales was 10X higher than our traditional conversion rate.

All before we began any major media efforts toward the launch of the Fiesta.”

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Twitter is growing like a weed again, thanks to…..mobile?

Twitter has seen an additional 40 million users since April.  That’s huge, but the interesting point is that usage among mobile devices like tablets and smartphones seems to be driving the majority of the growth.

Since April, Twitter has also seen a 62% jump in mobile traffic, and that coincides with it launching its own mobile version of its site.

Here’s another interesting stat: 83% of Millenials sleep with their smartphone within arm’s reach.  Makes sense, as many use it as an alarm clock, as do I.

The point is, people love their mobile devices, and many people that own one have it with them at almost all times.  And as CK shares, half the planet has a mobile phone.

Half the planet.

So I think this poses two interesting questions moving forward:

1 – How well do your existing social media efforts translate to mobile devices? Is your blog/site optimized for viewing on mobile devices?  Are you tracking mobile traffic patterns for your blog/site?  You should be.

2 – Will certain social media tools benefit more if usage continues to move to mobile?  This bears watching, for example, Twitter’s basic functionality is very similar to texting, which is well suited to mobile phones.  Tools that have more intricate functionality might not fare as well in the transition to mobile.

What do you think?  Have you been tracking your site’s mobile traffic?  Have you tried loading your blog on mobile devices to see how it looks?  Have you thought about what impact mobile growth among your customers will have on your existing social media efforts?  What are we missing?

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#Blogchat Schedule for October

If you missed last nite’s #Blogchat, here is the transcript.

I’ve been so excited about the lineup for October that I could barely wait till today to get this post up!  We’ll have TWO amazing co-hosts plus #Blogchat will have its first sponsor!  Here’s the lineup:

October 3rd – Brian Clark (@CopyBlogger) Co-Host on “How to Create Compelling Content For Your Blog”.  Brian will teach us how to create content that is not only search engine-friendly, but that also engages our readers.  And he will also show us how to improve our headline writing, including making them more interesting, but also consider SEO implications and making them more ‘shareable’ on social sites.  Brian is an absolute genius at improving boring headlines, as well as creating more interesting content.  I cannot wait to have him join us so we can learn from him!

October 10th – SPONSORED #Blogchat – Grant Griffiths (@GrantGriffiths) from Headway Themes will join us to discuss “How to Choose a Template For Your Blog”.  This will be the first sponsored #Blogchat, and it will be broken into 2 parts.  The first 30 mins will focus on discussing which elements you should consider when choosing a blog template.  Then in the 2nd 30 mins, we’ll discuss if you should go with a free blog template, or if you should purchase a premium template such as the one Headway offers.  This would be the perfect opportunity for #Blogchat participants to learn more about what premium blog templates offer, and to ask Grant any questions you have about Headway, such as its price, features, and support.  Or if you’re undecided if you should stick with a free template or go with a premium, we’ll try to help you decide!

October 17th – Shannon Paul (@ShannonPaul)  Co-Host on “How to Respond to Comments on Your Company Blog”. Shannon has one of the most extensive corporate social media backgrounds on the planet.  Before taking on her current role as Social Media Manager for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, she helped shape the social media strategies for WeSeed and the Detroit Red Wings.  She’ll be joining us to tackle a topic she’s been successfully dealing with for years, how companies should handle and respond to comments on their blog.  She just wrote a fabulous post detailing how to handle this, with a bonus slideshare deck!

October 24th – TBA

October 31st – OPEN MIC ON HALLOWEEN! Holy crap this might be more awesomeness than I can stand.  We’ll have to have some fun with this, maybe show up in our favorite monster avatars?  Hmmmm….let me think on this.

Seriously, is that one incredible line-up, or what?  Now I wanted to close with a word on sponsors and co-hosts.  If your company is interested in sponsoring a future #Blogchat, then please check out this page for more information.  The 2nd Sunday of every month is reserved for sponsorship, with November the 14th being the first available slot.  All sponsorship slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis.  If you want to reserve a slot, you’ll need to contact me at least 2 weeks before the slot you want, so we can get your payment processed, plus I want at least a week prior to properly promote your sponsored #Blogchat.  The link above has more information on topic matter, but for the most part, I am looking for topics that will promote your company/offerings, but that also address topics that #Blogchat participants need help with.  Check out the topic for this month’s sponsored #Blogchat above, as an example of what I am talking about.  And also think about ways that your sponsorship could also benefit #Blogchat participants.  Maybe a 10% off coupon, or a trial subscription to your site/service.  If your sponsorship creates value for #Blogchat participants, then it will benefit you by creating goodwill with and positive reviews from #Blogchat participants.

Now, as for Co-Hosts.  As #Blogchat has grown in popularity in the last few months, a lot of people have started asking me if they could co-host a #Blogchat.  Moving forward, #Blogchat will have one co-host a month, on the 1st Sunday of every month.  Currently, I have November’s co-host booked (And it’s another amazing co-host, I can’t wait to share who it is!), and am talking to a couple of people about co-hosting in December and January of next year.  So if you are interested in co-hosting, please understand that we’ll need to come up with a blogging topic that you can teach on that makes sense for the #Blogchat audience, and also understand that the earliest you could join as co-host would probably be January of 2011.

That’s it! Once again, thank y’all SO much for coming every week to #Blogchat!  The bar just keeps getting higher but I think we’ll have an awesome November in store for y’all as well 😉

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Study Says Twitter Tops Facebook, Email in Creating Advocates and Sales

A new study by ExactTarget claims that people that follow a brand on Twitter are more likely to buy that brand’s products than people that ‘Like’ a brand on Facebook, or that subscribe to its email newsletter.  The same study also found that Twitter followers were more likely to recommend a brand to their friends than Facebook users or Email subscribers.

And I found this quote interesting from the EMarketer article (linked above):

These factors make Twitter followers attractive to marketers, but as the ExactTarget report notes, because of Twitter’s much smaller user base just 3% of US internet users follow a brand through the microblogging service. Those who do follow brands on Twitter are likely to be influencers in general, while Facebook users are more like the average consumer.

Interesting perspective, and I think there could be some truth to more ‘influencers’ being on Twitter than Facebook, at least by percentage.

So do you agree with this study?  Are Twitter users more likely to influence your purchasing decisions, or is it Facebook or Email, or another tool?  Or is it not about the tools, or rather which tools your network uses?

What do you think?  When you need an opinion on a new movie or restaurant, for example, do you turn to Twitter or Facebook?  Or elsewhere?

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Would you follow your customers to prison?

Last week in Dallas I led a workshop at #Optsum called Think Like a Rockstar, that looked at how rockstars connect with their customers and turn them into fans.  And what companies can learn from rockstars in cultivating their own brand advocates.  I included several examples of how rockstars connect with and embrace their fans.

But a couple of days ago I realized that I left out one of the best examples of a rockstar embracing his fans.

By the late 1960s, Johnny Cash’s career was on its downward slide.  His constant problems with drugs, as well as the fading popularity of country music, had conspired against Cash to leave his star shining at a flicker of what it had once been.  That’s when fate intervened in 1968 in the form of a California prison.

In 1955, Cash recorded the song “Folsom Prison Blues’, a song that was immediately popular with inmates across the country.  In fact, many of them would write to Cash asking him to perform at their prison, and Cash actually did this several times over the next decade.

“John looks as mean as they do, and they identify with him”, Cash’s wife June would later explain.

Still, a decade later by 1968, Cash’s career needed a jumpstart before it drifted away.  This was when Cash made the bold move of requesting that his label allow him to perform another prison concert, but this time he suggested that the label record the concert as an album.  His label at the time, Columbia, agreed, and Cash along with The Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three as well as June, went to California to rehearse for the trip.

One of the main focuses of the rehearsal time was to learn a song called Greystone Chapel, a song written by Folsom inmate Glen Sherley.  Cash performed two sets at Folsom Prison on the morning of January 13th, 1968.  Both sets closed with Greystone Chapel, and featured Cash performing for hours just a few feet away from hundreds of screaming fans, some of who also happened to be murderers.

Yet when this concert was released to the public, it instantly became a huge success.  The energy at the prison on that day was electric, and Cash fed off that and gave the performance of his career.  The performance and album revitalized Cash’s career, and resulted in what many rock historians view as one of the greatest performances of all-time.  All this happened because Johnny Cash was willing to embrace his fans, even if it meant going to prison to do so.

But companies aren’t always so willing to embrace their fans if they don’t approve of their behavior.

In 2006, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz became the darlings of the internet with a series of videos where they dropped Mentos candies into Diet Coke, then filmed the geysers that resulted.  The videos went viral and brought instant internet fame to Grobe and Voltz, and sparked imitators all across the world to start buying Mentos and Diet Coke for their own ‘experiments’.

But the two companies that make Mentos and Diet Coke had decidedly different reactions to this sudden fanfare.  While Mentos completely embraced this playful activity (and the surge in visibility that it gave their candy), Coke all but chided their customers for ‘playing’ with their product, when they should be drinking it.  Eventually, Coke realized that their customers weren’t going to stop ‘playing’ with Coke, and tried to launch their own version of these videos in the form of a contest on their own site.  Of course, the popularity of this move paled in comparison to the original videos created by Grobe and Voltz.

Yet on the other hand, Mentos scored a big payday as a result of the videos, seeing sales spike 20% in 2006, the largest such increase for the company at the time.  Mentos realized that ultimately their customers were buying and enjoying their product, so they embraced them for doing so.

How far would your company go to embrace its fans?

Pic via Flickr user PearlyV

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#Optsum Review: Social Media isn’t the only cool kid in town anymore

At one point on Thursday during her session at Optimization Summits in Dallas, CK mentioned a type of technology and how marketers could utilize it effectively.  Then she mentioned another, and the audience was so enthralled that an hour-long discussion on just these tools commenced.

Was she talking Twitter?  Facebook?  Blogs? Hell no, she was talking QR codes and Geo-Fencing.

Want more? Chris Penn was talking email marketing, Geno Church was talking creating customer evangelist movements. Even those of us that did discuss social media, did so in the context of combining it with other areas.  Jason Falls talked about improving the SEO of your company blog, I talked about learning from rockstars to use social media to cultivate brand advocates.

This is one of the things I loved about #Optsum, Tami put together a stellar speaking lineup.  Yes, I am probably biased since I am friends with most of these speakers, but I learned something new in EVERY session I sat in.  And you have to remember that most of these speakers I had already heard before.  But they brought something completely new to the table for attendees, and gave them a completely new way of thinking about improving their marketing efforts.  In fact I would rank the speaking lineup at this event on par with Social South 2009 and the first Digital Marketing Mixer in 2008 as being the best group of speakers at any event I’ve attended.

The sessions were all engaging, and the speakers made a point of getting the audience involved.  Most of the sessions were fairly well-attended, even though there were up to 8 tracks available for some slots.  More on that in a moment.

The content was top-notch, and the speakers were excellent.  At the end of the day, that’s probably the most important factor in determining if an event was worth your time.

Here are the things I didn’t like about #Optsum, and I want to mention these to help other event planners in organizing similar events.  But I should point out that Tami has been interacting with attendees and based on their feedback, will likely improve most or all of these points for the next event.  Which is another reason why Tami rocks!

First, #Optsum was running alongside Brainstorming, which is a much larger event aimed primarily at the Apartment industry.  #Optsum usually had 4 tracks going at once, and if Brainstorming did as well (as it did for much of Thurs), then attendees had to choose between EIGHT tracks, assuming they bought tickets to both.  I noticed higher attendance in the sessions on Friday, and I am sure this factored into it.

Second, I hated the layout of the hotel.  It was absolutely huge, so big that it covered two adjacent blocks.  Which meant that knowing that the session you wanted to go to was on the 1st floor wasn’t enough, you also needed to know which side of the street on the 1st floor it was!  Which made for a LOT of running around.  And the directions posted in the hotel weren’t very helpful and the maps were very hard to read.  This wasn’t really Tami’s fault, it was a byproduct of the Sheraton just being too damn big and confusing.

Other than those two areas, the event itself was wonderful and at $500 or so for admission, it was an absolute steal of a bargain for attendees for 2 days of learning.  And I have to say that Tami and her team did a fabulous job working with me as a speaker to get me to the event on time, on coordinating all my travel, and everything.  In fact it was probably the best experience I have had so far with event organizers.

Below is the deck from my Think Like a Rockstar workshop.  I was proud to say that the session was very well-received, and the deck itself was the biggest I’ve ever made.  If you attended, thank you SO much for doing so, I was thrilled with the turnout, I believe the room was full by the time the session got started.

All in all, I would heartily recommend #Optsum to anyone that is considering it, and if Tami asks me to speak at the next one, I would accept in a second.  It was a wonderfully informative and valuable event, and I honestly didn’t hear one negative word about any of the speakers or sessions, which is actually quite rare.

If you attended #Optsum, what did you think?

View more presentations from Mack Collier.

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The difference between a customer and a fan…

Depends on the company.  More importantly, it depends on how the company views the person that buys their products.

On Friday I’ll be conducting a workshop at #Optsum that will center on one key question: Why do rockstars have ‘fans’ while companies have ‘customers’? Because at the end of the day, both groups are making a product that is being sold to people.  But when we go to categorize those people, we think of rockstars as almost always having fans, and we almost always think of companies as having customers.  Not fans.

Why?  Do rockstars simply have a natural advantage in that they are selling a type of product that somehow makes it easier for them to have fans instead of customers?  Perhaps to a degree, but at the same time companies Fiskars that sell products like scissors and products like WD-40 also have evangelists.  So ‘it’s the type of product’ doesn’t tell the whole story.

I think what matters far more than the type of product, is how the company views its customers.  Most rockstars have fans and most rockstars view their fans as people that they love and WANT to embrace.  While many companies want to keep their customers at arm’s length.  Some companies seem to even take an adversarial tone toward their customers.

I think rockstars feed off interaction with their fans, while many companies fear interacting with their customers.  I’ll talk more about what I think that is in Dallas this week, and I’ll share my slide deck here on next week.

But I wanted to give you that something to think about.  How does your company view its customers?  How do you think your customers view you?  If that perception was more positive on both ends, could those customers then become fans?

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How to rawk that next social media conference

This week I am heading to Dallas for my second #Optsum conference.  I led a workshop at the one in March, and will be doing so again this week.  I absolutely LOVE speaking at and attending social media/marketing conferences like this one, and I wanted to share some tips that I’ve picked up over the last 3 years:

1 – When in doubt, dress casually.  Social media conferences are notorious for having very relaxed dress codes.  Some, like SXSW, consider attendees to be a bit overdressed if they aren’t in a tee-shirt and jeans.  Now if you are a speaker, you might want to spring for a sports coat, but even then a dress shirt for guys is about as dressy as it gets.  But above all else, wear comfortable clothing.  If you are comfortable in jeans, then wear jeans.  And make SURE you wear comfortable shoes.

2 – Pack all the gadgets you need and remember chargers/batteries!  Nothing sucks worse than arriving at your first big social media conference, then realizing you left your Flip at home.  Or scrambling to find a charger for your cell phone cause you didn’t bring yours.

3 – Confirm the location of the event and bring the address and telephone numbers with you.  This sounds like a no-brainer, but never assume anything.  For example, at one event I was speaking at, the event was at ‘The Hilton Downtown’.  Well guess what, turns out there were TWO Hiltons downtown, and I didn’t know which one.  Thankfully, my Twitter friends bailed me out while I was on the shuttle 😉

4 – Plan out the sessions you want to attend.  Figure out what your schedule will look like, and keep checking the event website to confirm the schedule.  Almost every event I have attended/spoken at has had at least one major schedule change in the week or two leading up to the event.  Which sucks when the schedule has changed to put your two ‘must attend’ sessions opposite each other in the same time slot.

5 – Check to see if the event has a meetup/tweetup the nite before it starts and ATTEND IT.  I am very disappointed that I won’t arrive in Dallas this week till Thurs afternoon, because I will miss the Tweetup happening the nite before.  As a speaker, I love tweetups because it’s a great way for me to connect with attendees and learn more about them and what they are expecting from my session.  As an attendee, it’s a chance for you to network with your fellow attendees, but also to connect with the speakers before the event.

6 – Do your best to figure out who will be at the event.  Almost all events will tell you who will be speaking, and some will also share the attendees.  Know who will be there, so you can figure out who you want/need to connect with outside of the sessions.  For example, I’ve already figured out that there are a few people at #Optsum that I need to connect with about work projects, so I am going to schedule time with them.  And there are a few friends I definitely want to catch up with.  So figure out who you need to connect with, and this might cut into the number of sessions you can attend, so it’s also a good idea to prioritize the sessions in order of importance for you.

7 – Download any session materials beforehand.  Check with the event’s website, some of the speakers will share materials beforehand that they’ll want you to reference during their session.  Doesn’t hurt to check the website before leaving and make sure you have everything you need.

8 – Follow the Twitter hashtag for the event before/during/after you arrive.  This is a great way for me, as a speaker, to tell what the mood of the attendees is.  Are the speakers great or a dud?  What do they like or dislike about the venue itself?  All this helps me plan my session.  And for attendees, it helps you to know beforehand if there are only 2 power outlets per room 😉

During the sessions, you can use Twitter to discuss the sessions as they are happening.  Although I honestly don’t do this as much as I used to.  You can carry on the conversation after the event ends, as well.

9 – Make SURE you get your questions answered.  If you going to spend a thousand or so to attend an event, then you deserve to get your money’s worth, right?  Ask that question during the session, or if you are an introvert (like me), ask the speaker out in the hallway.

10 – Have fun and introduce yourself!  Again, as an introvert I have a big problem with this, but it really is a good idea to connect with everyone you can.  And the more you connect with everyone, the easier it is to enjoy the rest of the event.  Who knows, you might even meet a future business partner!

So those are my tips, those of you that attend social media events often, what are your best tips?  What did I miss?

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#Blogchat schedule for 9-12 and some updates

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that tonite’s #Blogchat topic will be ‘Writing For Yourself vs Writing for Your Blog’s Readers’.  This topic was suggested by @WriterChanelle, so thank you!  In recent weeks I’ve tried to give a bit more structure to the #Blogchat topics, but with this one I’m going to just throw it out there and we’ll see where everyone takes it.

Also, I wanted to update you on a couple of #Blogchat items.  First, some of you have been interacting with the Twitter account @BlogchatNews.  This is an account that I started to let users know of news about #Blogchat, but I want to also use this account to better highlight #Blogchat-related posts and also posts from #Blogchat regulars.  And unfortunately, with my trying to build my consulting business, I just don’t have as much time as I would like to devote to #Blogchat and its community.  So my sister, @Beth_Collier is going to help me by managing the @BlogchatNews account.  I will be helping her as I can, but for the most part she will be the one interacting with you.  She’s doing a great job and is honestly an even friendlier person than I am, so all of you will love her!

So that’s it for now, and please, if you have any questions or ideas for how I can improve the #Blogchat experience for you, please leave a comment here, or connect with Beth or I on Twitter.  I hope to have a big announcement soon on the #Blogchat schedule for October, including a couple of awesome co-hosts, and hopefully our first #Blogchat sponsor!  See everyone tonite at 8pm Central!