Wildfire Effect (WE) Social Media and Transmedia Consulting

Part of a much too short talk offered by the Vancouver-Business-Marketing-Entrepreneur Meetup

I felt that it was better to take notes for the attendees and post them here.  Welcome, all that came. I hope you found the meetup offered everything you needed.

1)Choose your Network carefully
Ask yourself where are your LOYAL customers? Strengthen your relationship with them.

• You can ask them directly- This is the easiest.
• Search engines are a simple 1st step
• Social network search engines time consuming, but sites exist that let you check multiple sites from an email or name.  Sites like finding-people.com or 123people.com

2)Create a Social media Schedule
The key is to update your social network regularly so look long term, what can you commit to.  How will you remember. Consistancy will help develop trust.  Trust will lead to more people in your social network.

• The key tool you need is a Pencil and a datebook….Ok many of us do not remember what  the a pencil looks and prefer something digital.
• If it is a status update on Twitter, Facebook or Myspace perhaps pre-scheduling will be the answer .  Look to dashboards like  Hootesuite.com or Tweetdeck.com
• If it is a blog post, planing ahead will help you collect material in small spots of time, writing and   saving drafts for until you are ready to post them works too.

3)  Become an influencer
I make this point because everyone talks about influencers, everyone wants to be an influencer but not everyone knows how.   You do this by responding in a timely manner, my remembering important event, by thanking, my offering key content.  How do you track all of this well, the key is to bring it to one place in order to respond efficiently.

• Dashboards might be the key
• polular content is aggregated on sites like popurls.com or create your own with netvibes.com
• Do you like email, nutshell.com will bring status updates into your inbox.
• You can use a tool like  Gist.com to aggregate all of the status updates and email your clients are on and what they are talking about .  This will make it easier to remember key points that will make your conversation with your customers one they will remember  and tell others  about.

4)  Cross market
It is important that you make it as easy as possible for you clients or customers to join your network.  They can not join what they do not know about…

• Wisestamp.com will let you add your social networks and a link in your email signiture.
• Sharethis.com will provide a button that you can add to your website or blog
• Mailchimp.com is one on many newsletter products that will add a button in your email campaigns to bring people to where you want them to go.

5)  Aim to Entertain
The  net is complex, and there are alot of options out there so think… how can I keep the attention, how can I make it fun.

• Keep it short, everyone is busy, update often but make it short. Can you link to someone who says it better … simply?  Don’t overlook video sites like youtube.com and vimeo.com, it has alot of rich content that entertains.  And the search engines on google are getting smarter. Type exactly what you want. Try : “Youtube: Learn Knit <1 minute” if you don’t believe me.
• Is there a game?  Simple things make a big difference? offer points, badges, you can create badge for your website at freshbadge.com amoung others.
• Anything that gets your audience to interact with you, be creative.  I just met a project manager at inspiradogames.com that is developing a game that will connect the values of the WWF  in a  game players over social networks.  It is not running yet, but I have an eye on them.
• The Sky is the limit.  Comment and I will share some of my favorites.

6)  Tie yourself to Traditional Media
Lets make it easy, your marketing campaigns need to have a social network tie in, and only your imagination can limit you.  TV, Radio, Print Ads, Support media… how can this bring your clients back to your social networks – why not you have already paid for them.

• If they are already out in the world, try a geolocation game like scavngr.com or foursquare.com
• If it is a TV teaser, can you continue the story on with a video on your social network?
• When print ad prime real estate being so expensive, a social media icon can speak for for you.  If your clients see this icon and are on the network – they know how to find you.
• The world becoming mobile, the internet is never far away.  Can you get a designer to create an QR code or mobile app[more complicated] to interact with your campaigns.

7)  Choose your words, represent your Brand
I feel this one is the most essential.  You know your Brand, you know your vision statement, you know your company values.  Which words or phrases can you use to help build the community that want to start that conversationwith you.

Step one:  Generate or find the key phrases you want to be known for.

• Is it a bit Wordy? reduce the ambiguity by feeding these words into the gobbledygook.grader.com what comes out into the report is what you need to stay away from and what words you are intuitively emphasizing- are found in the word cloud generated.
• Using Google Adwords keywords suggestions  to see how your brand phrase is being searched on the internet.
• The words you emphasis, are great for adding meaning to your posts, in your bios and profiles or to use to target new prospects and the right ones to on social networks.

Remember, the best and only way to Kickstart your social network is to start so dive in, have fun.

….And invite me, I will support your efforts….that is unless you Spam me, and that is a whole new topic.