Digitize and keep your audience involved

SHN San Francisco, the Broadway touring platform for San Francisco, is doing something new and digital with the usual dance party that occurs at the end of the musical HAIR, which is currently playing in San Francisco. SHNSF decided to record the parties and make them available online for patrons to enjoy and share. Patrons can share videos, tag themselves in specific moments of the videos, and comment on the videos (and comments are posted to Facebook). The website also includes easy to use links for buying tickets.

SHN obviously knows how to get the word out, and its tactics are keeping patrons involved online, which keeps SHN on their minds until the next touring show comes around.

How have you used the internet and other digital methods? Do you have any specific tactics for keeping your audience involved?

Lessons from Chick-fil-A: Utilizing tricks and treats

I love Chick-fil-A. Not only do they have great food, but they have great marketing and public relations, as well.

The Chick-fil near Biola University (where I graduated from in May) took advantage of the youth demographic by reaching out to University students with special deals and events. The La Habra Chick-fil-A also has regular special deals for all customers and sends them out via text message if you sign up. One special deal involves giving away free food with the purchase of a large soda on rainy days.

For Halloween, this Chick-fil-A held a costume party for children. Photos were posted on Facebook for voting. What better way is there to reach out to families than to give them the chance to brag about their kids?

What special deals or events do you use to draw customers in?

A Social Media Cheat Sheet

Visit Sociable Blog (the original provider of this graphic) for the accompanying article.

Hollywood Bowl Part 2: How Open Should We Be With Social Media vs. Copyright

My recent troubles with the Hollywood Bowl (which I wrote about yesterday) have led me to wonder how relevant and important copyright rules are these days. They're greatly needed in a lot of ways, but when it comes to allowing photos and video at, say, the Hollywood Bowl, or allowing people to tweet and Facebook from their phones at a performance (like Broadway/L.A. recently did for a performance of Shrek the musical), should we allow it or should we say no no? Or maybe we could just beat them to it?


The way things are so open today, it's probably a good idea to have some leniency. And if you beat the customer to it by providing your own media (i.e. videos, photos, etc), maybe people won't be as inclined to break the rules. So point number 3 from yesterday's post is Get Involved and Be Modern!


There's a similar controversy over whether fans should be able to write fan fiction because fan fiction infringes on copyright.

Thoughts? What is your opinion on the great copyright versus social media "war"?

When does offering personalization go too far?

Can personalization go too far?

MySpace offers a lot of options for personalizing your page, but to the point where it became cluttered, flashy, and immature.

Facebook offers applications and games. At one point, they had separate pages for users - on for information and one for applications and boxes (think "What Disney character are you?" quizzes). Facebook, too, becomes easily cluttered.

Twitter offers personalization for one solid background with a set layout for everything else.

Google+ has very little style personalization and a lot of informational personalization right now.

Who has the right idea? How much should a customer be allowed to personalize their options?

Chat in the Google Facebook Wars: Facebook announces Facebook Skype Video Chat

It seems that some of the Google+ versus Facebook wars is revolving around effective chatting (video or text). Facebook announced today that it will partner with Skype to offer group and video chat.

Personally, I use Skype for video chat - not Google. And I don't chat very often on Facebook.

Do you want all your chat functions in one place combined with your social media? Or do you prefer to keep them separate?

Some pluses (and minuses) of Google+

Now that Google+ is allowing most anyone to sign up, I've had a chance to explore the new social network and find I like it much better than Facebook. Despite its name, however, it does have a few minuses that Google will likely fix as it adds features and changes to what is now the early, experimental version. It's already looking like they plan on adding gaming abilities.

But with the possibility of new features like games and applications, you have to wonder how Google+ will succeed if it decides to copy Facebook rather than capitalizing on what makes it unique.

That said, here are a few pluses and minuses of the current version of Google+:

+ Google+ is integrated with Gmail and all other Google functions. When you're logged in, the bar at the top of the page includes the typical "Web, Images, Gmail, etc" options, but there's also a section on the right of the bar that sends you notifications and allows you to view and access your profile and settings. So you can access your email and notifications, and you can post links and status updates - all on the same web page. This is the biggest plus for me.

+ Adding on to the previous plus, Google+ has a thing called "Sparks" that is similar to Google News. You add an interest to Sparks that will show up in your side bar and can click on it to view the latest news and web articles on that topic.

+ Its concept of easily arranging friends into "circles" is unique and fun

- When you invite people from you gmail address book by putting them in a circle, they show up in your circle whether they've accepted your invite and joined Google+ or not.

+It has a unique, clean look

- But it may lose that when it starts adding more features

+ It allows you to edit photos

+ It has video chat capabilities

+ Like other social media sharing methods, it allows you to share by giving you the ability to give a +1 to stories and other information/postings on the Internet, and it also provides a column in your account to view everything that you have given a +1 to.

+ It also has a column for Buzz posts

- Not that anyone ever uses Buzz. I only have one friend who uses it, and everything I post is automatically coming from Facebook and Twitter

- Posts are separated from Buzz and +1. The organization here is unclear, and since I already have all my Facebook and Twitter posts coming to Buzz, why bother reposting? Well, because otherwise I won't show up in people's streams.

- There's no ability to post from your phone, unless you have a smart phone and download the app for that. The webpage labels "SMS" as "coming soon."

- There's no way to connect Facebook and Twitter to your regular posts.

+ In a way, it combines Facebook with LinkedIn by automatically using your professional Google profile.

- Unfortunately, as it is in its beginning stages, I currently only have two people to be sharing things with.

Chris Brogan has made a list of 50 possibilities regarding Google+. Check it out here.

What are your favorite Google+ features? Have you joined yet? Will it beat Facebook?

Lessons in branding from Social Media success and failure

One of the keys to successful branding is finding a niche and being the first in to do something unique in that niche. We've seen this develop in different social media outlets.

MySpace allowed you to personalize your page, and it acted as a great center for musicians and artists to promote their work. Unfortunately,

this was never capitalized on, and with the high risk of being hacked, as well as with the rise of Facebook, MySpace has lost its appeal, much like one of the earlier blogging websites, Xanga, lost its appeal when Blogger and Wordpress came around.

Facebook was a cleaner version of MySpace and included more information options. It focused on relationships, and it was successful.

Twitter made its mark by only allowing 140 characters and by owning the word "tweet" in the consumer's mind. It also brought about new ways of getting information out with hashtags, @ abilities, and mobile options.

Now, Google+ is attempting to do something similar by focusing on the idea of "circles," "sparks," and other unique terms. Google Buzz didn't work because it was too simple, too out of the way, far less convenient than Facebook. It didn't have a point. Google+ seems to offer easier organization of friends, and it offers the extra plus of the ability to edit photos.

Will Google+ succeed? There's no telling right now, as it is in its beginning stages. It definitely seems to offer some things Facebook does not offer. We'll just have to wait and see if it's unique enough to stand out as a first, rather than a rehashing of Facebook and Twitter. It's already had enough of a demand to warrant shutting down invites for the time being.

What are some other firsts in social networking?

E-mail versus Social Media

Which is more effective? E-mail or social media?

More and more people are saying e-mail is old and not worth using, but Hubspot pointed out in a recent post that the two are good partners in keeping customers active. This is why it is so essential to MAKE CUSTOMERS AWARE OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. In addition to using e-mail newsletters to promote your events and products, use e-mail to promote your accounts. I can't emphasize this enough. And you can always use your social media accounts to promote your e-mail list, as well.

What are the most important elements for a successful e-newsletter?

Social Media Revolution: Electronics Taking Over How We Do Things

Social media, electronics, the web.... they're taking over how we do things, even for kindergardeners. Watch this video for some thought-provoking statistics. If it doesn't convince you to use social media in your marketing tactics... well, then, you're lost.

Why do you think technology and social media are so popular? How have they changed the way you do business?

Glenn Beck's successful marketing tactics leading the way

HubSpot has a great article on the brilliant marketing of Glenn Beck's new online TV network.

My thoughts:

I agree completely with the article (plus I love Glenn Beck). I have friends who have been watching his FOX show on YouTube because they don't have the money for Cable, but this may be closer to home for them and more worth their money, especially with the convenience of having it on-demand.

Also - great thoughts on the disappearing gatekeepers. With online content, you can control things yourself - it's just a matter of using the right techniques to make sure you're not lost in the crowd.

Go here to read the full article.

The importance of mobile marketing

If you ever doubt the effectiveness of reaching your customers by mobile phone methods, check out Facebook's success. Facebook is very good at following trends to make itself grow. One of those trends it has recently expanded upon is the use of mobile apps. According to blogger Liz Gannes:

Facebook says it has more than 200 million active mobile users, who are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

Click on over to Liz Gannes' blog to read more about Facebook's most recent mobile methods.

Why Facebook's growth models the need for interactive marketing

Considering recent statistics that show Facebook continues to grow, I have to wonder, "Why? How do they do it? And how can I apply Facebook's success to my own marketing and public relations strategies?"

After all, no one ever says "MySpace me." MySpace has gained popularity with bands and other groups, but the major social network remains Facebook. Perhaps this is because Facebook never stays the same. While many have complained about the many changes in layout, the new layouts give users something new to get excited about. I only recently saw the movie The Social Network. In the movie, Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) mentions that his site will always be changing.

Change. The world is constantly changing, and we need to change with it, especially in our marketing and public relations strategies. But one more important lesson for marketers comes out of Facebook: the importance of interaction.

In the movie, The Social Network, Zuckerberg also says Facebook provides people with the opportunity to connect online, to learn about each other through status and relationship updates.

Such interaction has its downsides. An old professor of mine recently stopped using Facebook because he believed it negatively affected relationships by keeping people from interacting in person. His choice should come as a warning to marketers. Without genuine interaction, Facebook negatively impacts some of its users. It's up to you, as the representative of your company, to show that your company does genuinely care. The accusation that Facebook facilities fake relationships and keeps people away from real, personal relationships should make us work even harder to prevent that very thing from happening.

How do you increase interactions with customers and keep those interactions genuine?

2010 Facebook statistics: Facebook is growing... still

According to OnlineSchools.org, Facebook is still growing.

A few highlights of the below graphic:

• 1 of 13 people on the earth make up the 500,000,000 uses of Facebook
• About 28 percent of those people check their Facebook on mobile devices before they get out of bed (that should tell you something about the growing popularity of mobile devices and our need as marketers to take advantage of those devices)
• Liking "drugs" is up 1131.9 percent this year
• 57 percent of people talk to people more online than they do in real life (more than enough reason for a marketer to interact with customers both in person and online)
• 48 percent of young Americans say they find out about news through Facebook (in other words, make your company news and post that news on Facebook)