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I Have a Website and a Facebook Page, Am I a "Social Business"?

2012-02-01T19:51:15Z

We’re all aware of social media and the impact it has had on how we market our service or product and value to customers. The ability to deliver real-time marketing messages, at low or no cost via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social platforms has enticed businesses to embrace social technology for a large percentage of their outreach endeavors, and has changed the entire marketing and advertising landscape.

Today, most businesses have done the work to embrace and brand themselves via social media. As a result of this shift, savvy companies are applying their social media technology and experience to streamline many of their internal programs and optimize organizational transparency. This evolution is what is known as Social Business. The Social Media Examiner reports “Social business is not a trend; it’s a forced evolution. A social business deals with the internal transformation of an organization and addresses key factors such as organizational dynamics, culture, internal communications, governance, training, employee activation and much more.”

“Organizations need to get smarter, acquire new technologies, intelligence, talent and motivation to become more open and transparent. They need to create processes and establish governance models that protect the organization, yet empower their employees.”

By investing in and applying social media to the business structure, internal and customer communications are eased, and equally important, visible by key departments within the organization. Employees are enabled to chat freely and quickly with each other, management, and key departments. Customer and product issues are responded to and resolved immediately before they become problematic. Marketing and Development teams gain valuable insight from internal teams and customers.

The ultimate result of adapting social business technology is cost savings. A social business sees impressive reductions in time to market, greater product development success, increased productivity, as well as improved customer and employee satisfaction.

How can your business streamline communications and processes utilizing social networking technology? What communities can you activate to become raving fans of your products or services? What do you need to know to become a social business?

C7group is proud to present the 2012 Business Thought Leadership Webcast Series featuring foremost experts with leading perspectives about the social tools, technology and changing workflow in business today. Registration is FREE.

2012 BUSINESS THOUGHT LEADERSHIP WEBCAST SERIES FEATURED PRESENTERS (AS OF FEB 1, 2012):

Jason Falls, Founder, Social Media Explorer
February 7, 2012 – 10:00 a.m. PST
Moving the Needle: Using Social Media to Advance Your Business
Jason Falls will discuss developing a strategic plan for social media, case studies of companies using social media for business purposes and tying the “conversation” with the “conversion”.

Euan Semple, Director, Voice and euansemple.com
Thursday, February 23 – 3:00 p.m. PST
The New “Business as Usual”
Euan Semple will talk about about driving business by leveraging social media to change culture, re-design workflow and grow profit.

Halelly Azulay, CEO, TalentGrow
Tuesday, March 6 – 9:00 a.m. PST
Social Learning and Employee Development
Halelly Azulay will discuss the realities of employee development, leveraging social networking and media for learner-driven, learner-generated learning

Jon Ferrara, CEO, Nimble
Wednesday, March 21 – 10:00 a.m. PST
Social Media and Sales Relationships
Jon Ferrara will offer tips about how to work as an effective team by tracking and managing contacts, prospects, and activities. Specifically, how to maximize marketing impact, make more revenue in less time and the benefits of unified communication.

You can Register at www.learnsocialbusiness.com.

Do you have thoughts or questions you’d like our featured presenters to answer? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter @C7group!

You can also email learn@c7group.com if you have a request or recommendation for thought leaders that should be a part of the 2012 Business Thought Leadership Webcast Series.

Disclosure: I am a marketing consultant for C7 Group.

Marketing is Not Enough: Social Media 3.0

2011-11-01T22:23:31Z

It’s time for business to overcome the fractured, narrow view of social media as only a marketing channel or a public relations campaign. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn have taught us the value of social networking platforms on a global scale. Businesses fueled by the hype and the excitement to "get online" and drive sales have created a "tools-first, strategy later," environment. The result? Some success stories and just as many social media disasters.

In order to avoid this tool trap, businesses need to get latest information about how to maximize processes, analytics and tools available to get ready (systemic social business strategy), aim (integrated methodology), and to fire (take action) using social technology in productive and profitable ways. To that end, C7group is hosting a session at the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce on December 9, 2011 addressing this topic. This session will transform the vision for business leadership from using social media tools to understanding how social business will:

Reduce time in meetings and duplicated tasks
Increase sales, customer satisfaction and customer retention
Improve employee collaboration

Topics Covered and Questions Answered:

Does your business need social media or not? What is the difference between social business and social marketing?
Where do we invest? How do we measure?
What are internal and external communities?
Do we need them?
What is social media policy?
How do we implement guidance and governance for social business? How do we avoid a social media crisis?
Where does mobile technology fit?
How do we choose from the thousands of social technology tools and platforms available?
Change is constant. How do we decide what makes sense now?

In the era of social business, external marketing will always play a role, but it's the tip of the iceberg. Moving forward, the true opportunity is about scaling and operationalizing social technology as an integrated layer that's woven into the fabric of business.

Agenda:

8:00 am - Networking and Continental Breakfast
9:00 am - Program Begins
11:30 am - Networking Lunch
12:30 pm - Program Resumes
2:30 pm - Wrap up Q&A

Presenters and Speakers:
Jeff Marmins, Founder and Managing Partner of C7group. A management consulting firm specializing in social business strategy. Jeff works with companies to engage and communicate with customers and employees through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies. He is one of the original pioneers in helping to apply web technologies to solve business problems. He is a founding Director of the Social Media Club, Sacramento Chapter. Having applied social technologies in business since their invention, the news media seeks him out regularly for his insights. The Business Journal, Sacramento Bee, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, trade magazines and newsletters have featured or quoted Jeff as a social networking and technology thought leader.

Additional speaker announcements pending confirmation.

Disclosure: I am the Vice President, Communications at C7group.

Social media biz success: All a function of brute force

2011-06-03T14:40:02Z

98 percent of the people using social media do not know what they are doing, but the 2 percent who do know what they are doing are rapidly expanding their businesses and making money.

That’s the message from, Patrick Schwerdtfeger, an author and new media marketing guru, who spoke this week to a group of about 40 small business people at the Sacramento Speakers Network.

“Most people practice trial and error and fail their way to Success,” Schwerdtfeger says. The ground floor method is to attempt campaigns, and see what happens.”

Schwerdtfeger, 40, a native of Ottawa, Canada now based in the Bay Area, spoke to the group the very day his new book – titled “Marketing Shortcuts for the Self Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility & Crush your Competition – came off the presses.

Wearing a navy blue suit, light blue tie and an engaging ear-to-ear grin, he wowed the standing-room only crowd at the Doubletree Hotel with stories of companies or individuals who did something unique in the “raging river” of social media that went viral and drew thousands of eyeballs to their product or project.

Schwerdtfeger singled out campaigns where people did fairly simple things that earned attention. The first was a case study on the new Wizardly World of Harry Potter Theme Park. The vice president of media marketing of Universal Orlando Resorts invited seven bloggers, who all write for Harry Potter fans, to an exclusive on-line midnight preview of the theme park. The seven bloggers wrote about the park and lots of their followers re-posted their stories on their own blogs, Facebook pages or tweeted about it on Twitter. Within 24 hours the “exclusive” scoop for seven fan bloggers grew to over 350 million.

Bringing it home, he suggested that business owners build their online identity via a blog and connect that blog to Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites. Nobody will be listening unless your content is shared. There are thousands of article directories to link your blog to. If blogging becomes too boring, record a podcast and post your idea to iTunes, then after that post several videos where you are demonstrating what you are remarkably good at and post the link to YouTube. Schwerdtfeger credits the numerous videos linked to his blog as the interface that brought About.com and then eventually Wiley to agree to publish his book.

“Learn to demonstrate your expertise in the midst of a raging river,” he says. The river being the infinite number of conversations going on in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other popular social media networks.

He also pointed out other examples, Dave Carroll, a musician from Nebraska who got ticked off when United Airlines baggage handlers broke his beloved Taylor Guitar and then the company refused to accept responsibility. He wrote a song about it then posted it to YouTube “United Breaks Guitars” – which has been viewed 10, 467,000 times.

Another inexpensive way to increase awareness and build expertise is to provide a free pdf e-book on your site. He pointed to Dr. Helaine Smith’s blog. She provides a free eBook on her blog called “Healthy Mouth, Healthy Sex.” Providing something free gives an incentive for readers to come to your site. You can even place a limited time offer like a 10 percent discount for services if people provide comments on your Facebook.

Another example is Naked Pizza in New Orleans who gave 10 percent discount to customers ordered a pizza by tweeting Naked Pizza.

As for reverse marketing, Jet Blue he says has people doing searches on their competition finding people unhappy with their current airline service, and tweets a response providing a slightly better alternative in real time.

Overall, social media networking provides the ability for your product to expand the frame. For instance if you are selling wine jelly, it’s not just about selling wine jelly. It’s about selling the benefits and privileges that goes with buying that product. On Facebook, you can offer a tour of the winery where that wine jelly is made, provide pairings, options for other uses for the product, and then take photos of the participants who may agree to be tagged so they can share the product with their friends on Facebook. At that point, it’s not just wine jelly. It is an experience to be shared.

Robert P. Weaver, a Folsom CPA, was inspired by the lecture and plans to “provide useful content to his site.”

While members of the audience reacted enthusiastically to Schwerdtfeger’s presentation, some were not sure how his lessons would apply to their businesses.

“It’s a great idea but probably not for me,” Colleen Watters, a Roseville attorney who specializes in estate planning.

Others like, Susan Rueppel, already practice some of Schwerdtfeger’s tips and are eager to utilize more.
Rueppel, who describes herself as a “chief intuition officer” of her Midtown business devoted to helping people and firms “create a bigger vision and have a clear path forward.”

Sacramento Speaker Network regularly meets on the first Wednesday of the month with the next meeting is July 6 at 6:30pm at the Doubletree Hotel. The speaker will be Donna Hartley, a DC-10 plane crash survivor.

Sacramento Facebookers racing to win $100,000 grant to fight hunger

2010-12-30T03:50:47Z

As part of its 2010 Holiday campaign focused on fighting hunger, Walmart launched a Facebook campaign that invites fans to select the communities that will receive $1.5 million in grants. By visiting the campaign website and "liking" a community via their Facebook account, people influence which communities will receive the funds. The community with the most "likes" will receive $1 million to fight hunger; the next 5 highest scoring communities will receive $100,000 each.

Why is this news? Because Sacramento is in now in 6th place which earns a $100,000 grant! With less than 48 hours remaining in the race, Sacramento's social media influencers are campaigning to keep Sacramento in 6th place or better.

Using social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, the word is spreading rapidly throughout the region. An event on Facebook has even been created to help people tell all of their Facebook friends about the campaign.

Unlike other social media campaigns that only focus on raising awareness about issues, this campaign awards grant money to the top 7 regions. Fresno, which has a significant lead over all the other regions, is likely to win the $1 million grant and Bakersfield and Sacramento are currently in 5th & 6th place which earns grant awards of $100,000 each. However, Sacramento, Grand Rapids and Charleston are running a very tight race, currently in 6th, 7th & 8th places respectively. Sacramento will need to increase its social media efforts to hold 6th place.

Sacramento Press readers can help the campaign by visiting the website and "liking" our region. Anyone who has a Facebook account can participate. There is no charge to "Like" or vote; just click on the community of your choice. You do not need to "Like" Walmart in order to participate The campaign ends on 12/31/2010 at midnight EST.

Intermediate Google workshop Dec. 15

2009-12-10T19:10:49Z

Thanks to all of you who came to the Media Panel at the Urban Hive Wednesday night!

We have another engaging event scheduled for next week. Jeff Marmins, who taught our last Facebook workshop, will be leading the Google event titled, "Get Google in your Social Media Mix." Jeff is the creator of Social Media Path and partnership director of Social Media Club Sacramento.

The event will be at the Sacramento Press office Dec. 15 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Jeff will discuss how to condense all of the social media sites you post to into one application on Google, successfully use RSS feeds and answer your specific questions.

This workshop is designed for intermediate Google users. If you'd like a beginner workshop, please email journalism@sacramentopress.com and if there are enough people, we can put together a separate beginner workshop.

Our office is located at 431 I St., Suite 107 in the Amtrak station. We are in the same building complex as Starbucks. If you are facing Starbucks, go around the building to the left and you'll see our Sac Press sign out front.

We recommend you find parking on the street, bike or take light rail, as the Amtrak parking lot charges $1.50 per half hour and we cannot cover the cost of parking. If you take light rail, we will give you two passes when you get here - one to cover your trip here and one to cover your trip back.

Please RSVP by emailing journalism@sacramentopress.com.

If you have any trouble finding our office, you can give us a call at (916) 443-5403.

Thanks, and we hope to see you there.

Social Media for the Social Good—Non-profits Explore New Methods of Outreach

2009-11-20T04:17:59Z

Three local non-profit organizations were featured in a Sacramento Social Media Club panel on Tuesday evening hosted by the Sacramento State College of Continuing Education. The panel included Celia Cortez, Projects and Event Manager for the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Jordan Blair, Board Member for River City Food Bank; and Jon Benorden, Program Coordinator for the Center for AIDS Research, Education and Service (CARES). Lesley Miller, Media Director for 3Fold Communication, also sat on the panel. Moderator Josh Morgan, principal at Morgan/Dorado and program director for the Sacramento Social Media Club, focused the discussion on how non-profits are using social media to educate, engage, and build lasting relationships with their communities.

Facebook was the unanimous point of entry into social media for all three organizations. Cortez said the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber selected Facebook because it was the most popular platform among their member organizations; Blair choose Facebook for River City Food Bank because it is the platform upon which he spends the most time. “Facebook provides an easy way for people to connect with causes and non-profits thanks to its one-click ‘become a fan’ feature, “commented Morgan. River City Food Bank, where many of their long-term contributors are past retirement age, is finding that Facebook helps them to engage with the next generation of donors. However some of their loyal supporters are stepping out into social media as well; an 85 year old volunteer joined Facebook just so he could “friend” the River city Food Bank. Benorden said that their “old school” supporters are beginning to mesh with the new people they’ve engaged through their group & page on Facebook but that CARES still has a long way to go.

Both the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and CARES are also using Twitter to promote their organizations and causes. Miller said 3Fold encourages their clients to cross post on multiple social media platforms to increase the traffic among all the sites. For example, use Twitter to remind people the organization is on Facebook or create an event on Yelp and ask people to write a review. I frequently use Twitter to drive traffic to SARTA.org’s website or LinkedIn group where more detailed membership and event information is available.

CARES created both a group page and a fan page for its campaign “Are You the Difference” which strives to eliminate new cases of HIV in the Sacramento region by 2015. Benorden plans to expand the campaign to include other platforms like Flickr and YouTube. On YouTube, CARES wants to personalize and promote their campaign by featuring user generated videos about how individuals can be or are the difference in eliminating new cases of HIV.

The biggest challenge for all of the organizations is finding the time to manage and maintain their social media accounts. Cortez shared that she uses cross posting tools to lessen the amount of time she spends managing each platform the Hispanic Chamber employs. Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic were mentioned as free services for managing multiple accounts and platforms and Radian6 was recommended as a new professional service for this purpose. Benorden prefers to uniquely post to Facebook and Twitter to keep variety in the CARES messages, but he sticks to a common theme. Blair, who in addition to his responsibilities as a board member of the River City Food Bank works a full time job, schedules time on his weekly calendar to tend to his social media chores. When asked if a volunteer could handle the job, the general consensus among the panelists was that most volunteers and interns do not have enough depth or experience with the organization or its causes to determine social media platform content or to respond to questions and remarks received by followers and friends on the sites. For CARES, sensitivity to and experience with HIV/AIDS is a must for anyone representing the organization on its social media platforms.

The panel wrapped up with a discussion on event promotion using Facebook ads and other tools. All of the organizations are considering using Facebook ads and River City Food Bank has budgeted money for this purpose next year. Benorden pointed out that even if no one clicks through an “Are You the Difference” ad, if enough information is included about the campaign, there is value in people seeing the ad multiple times. Miller said 3Fold advises their clients to put nearly as much energy into post event promotion as they do pre event. Blair followed this advice after a recent River City Food Bank fundraiser, uploading event photos long into the night. The post event promotion is a valuable investment in the success of future events and helps those who attend feel more part of the organization—especially if they are featured in a photo!

After the panel ended, participants informally exchanged ideas on how they are using social media and also had a chance to meet the panelists and ask more questions. The event was live tweeted by volunteer Ira Cohen on behalf of @SMCSac using the hashtag #smcsac. The venue provided by Sacramento State College of Continuing Education is well equipped for meetings and seminars and the Senior Program Coordinator, Toni Ramirez shared that the college is considering offering courses on social media in the future.

Social Media Club, an international non-profit organization, brings together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. The Sacramento chapter was founded in March of 2009 by local users of social media. Free events are normally held on the third Tuesday of each month, but in December, the group is planning a Holiday Party or “holitweetup” in partnership with SacTweetUp on December 10 at Hot Italian in midtown. In January, the normal schedule of monthly panels will resume. For information about the Sacramento Social Media Club and its events, join their groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.

Photgraphs by Marie Young Photography. For more photos of this event visit her Facebook Page

Sacramento Social Media Club Leadership Team:

Julie Berge, Angela D'Arcy, Laura Good, Suzanne Hopkins, Ronnie Ledesma, Jeff Marmins, Josh Morgan

Finding God on Facebook

2009-11-16T19:42:28Z

Some say God is everywhere but last month, we discovered that social media is everywhere too—even in our churches! On October 20, 2009, the Sacramento Social Media Club held a panel discussion on the use of social media by local churches. The event, “Pray for Social Media”, was hosted by The Sacramento Press, and was moderated by Jeff Marmins of Social Media Path and partnership director for the Sacramento Social Media Club. Panelists included Josh Trevino from the Parish Council of St. Anna Greek Orthodox Church in Roseville; Robert Mees, Director of Evangelism at Sierra Baptist Church in Pioneer in Amador County and CJ Alvarado, Director of Communications and Technology at Bayside Church in Granite Bay.

I was posting live tweets during the event, and was joined by several other tweeting guests in reaching over 50,000 followers on Twitter (Sacramento Social Media club uses the hashtag #smcsac to live tweet all of our events).

In what could have been subtitled “Finding God on Facebook,” panelists agreed that the most active use of social media in their churches is individual members connecting with each other on Facebook which allows them to share more about lives than they could from the pew. Members, they said, are using Facebook to build a stronger internal community.

While none of the churches represented reported having an official social media strategy yet, Bayside Church developed and implemented a campaign to introduce their staff of about 75 people to Web 2.0. Alvarado, their communications and technology director, is charged with the church’s presence online, which primarily centers on their website and “listening” to online dialogue to “improve the church experience.” Mees, from Sierra Baptist Church, said that “internal relationships are growing organically on Facebook”, and Trevino said that at St. Anna, "the church blog is the most effective social media tool being used."

Where the speakers differed most was on the issue of how to use social media for outreach and evangelism. Both Alvarado and Trevino said that face-to-face dialogue is essential. “The single best way to evangelize is through the example of a life lived,” said Trevino. Alvarado commented that there is not a big difference in how he approaches evangelism in person versus online--“It’s always permission based.” Mees articulated a vision for using social media to be present in more lives. “In a world where church members either have no significant relationships outside the church, or segregate their Christian and non-Christian friends,” he said, “all of their friends, churched and unchurched, wind up as their friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, and contacts on LinkedIn.” All three panelists agreed that spiritual dialogue was important, but Mees was a strong proponent of using of social media to initiate that discussion. Mees said "social media is an effective tool in building relationships that enable spiritual discussions to take place both online and off."

Following the moderated panel discussion, the audience was invited to ask questions. Several wondered if any of the congregations have people tweeting in church. Alvarado answered that Bayside has experimented with tweeting and texting during conferences but not during church service. A question about how the churches monitor their congregation’s online activity led to a discussion about how church youth have embraced Web 2.0. Mees shared that the teens in his church bring their computers and use Google to check facts during youth bible study. The teens are also using Facebook groups to communicate events and to “go deeper” using the discussion features.

After the official program ended, many of the attendees stayed to engage the panelists in additional questions and discussions. There was a tremendous amount of passion around the topic of using social media to share the message of the churches. At my small church, Grace Fellowship Church of San Andreas, we recently created a Facebook Page. We are hoping this outreach tool helps us to better connect with our community. How is your church using social media?

Social Media Club brings together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. The Sacramento chapter was founded in March of 2009 by local users of social media. Free events are held on the third Tuesday of each month. "Social Media for the Social Good" is the topic of the November 17 event hosted by Sacramento State College of Continuing Education from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Local non profits River City Food Bank, CARES and the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will share how they are using social media to educate, engage, and build lasting relationships with their communities. For information about the Sacramento Social Media Club, join their groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.

About the author: Laura Good is a member of the all volunteer leadership team for Sacramento Social Media Club. Follow her on Twitter at @goodlaura. She is also director of programs and operations for SARTA.

Sacramento Social Media Club Hosts Crime Fighters for Online Safety Forum

2009-08-20T07:00:23Z

Police converged on a ballroom in a downtown hotel Tuesday night, but there wasn’t a crime in progress. “Social Crime” was the topic of Tuesday evening’s Sacramento Social Media Club event hosted by The Citizen Hotel in Downtown Sacramento. Representatives from local law enforcement shared how their organizations are using social media tools to prevent crime, improve community outreach, and even take down predators.

Josh Morgan of Morgan/Dorado Public Relations and programming director for the Sacramento Social Media Club presented a “101” on Facebook Privacy. He explained how Friends Lists on Facebook can be used to limit information connections can see on your profile. Josh, for example, uses a list called “Not People” for businesses he “friends” and excludes that list from seeing family photos and other personal information. More information about Facebook Privacy settings is available at Facebook’s Help Center and Josh's presentation is available on SlideShare.

Detective James Carden of the Fairfield Police Department introduced the “#1 Friend“ program which recommends that children, tweens and teens “friend” the Fairfield Police Department on MySpace and set them as their #1 Friend. Adding the Fairfield Police Department as #1 Friend lets visitors to the child's page know that parents are involved and monitoring their child's online activity and that this family has a direct link to the police department and will report any inappropriate or unwanted contact. Read more about the #1 Friend program on the Cops 2.0 blog site. Detective Carden also shared a “true crime” story about luring a predator to a fake MySpace account which resulted in an arrest.

Mike Belcher, Director of the University of the Pacific’s Public Safety Department, explained how his department uses social media tools, including Facebook and Twitter, to improve student safety and to enhance community outreach. Pacific is only one of two private universities in California with sworn police officers. Social networking and communication sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are used to monitor student events, share information on crime prevention, and stop inaccurate rumors on campus by providing timely accurate information. Recently, the department began using Nixle, a free service that allows subscribers to receive trusted, up-to-the-minute neighborhood information from local police departments, city and municipal governments, and their local agencies through SMS, web, and email distribution.

Social Media Club brings together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. The Sacramento chapter was founded in March of 2009 by local users of social media. Events are held on the Third Tuesday of each month. Social Media in the Classroom is the topic for the September 15 event hosted by The Urban Hive in Midtown Sacramento from 6:30-8:30 p.m.. The keynote speaker is Steve Hargadon, Elluminate's Social Learning Consultant, the director of the K12 Open Technologies Initiative at the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), and the founder of the Classroom 2.0 social network. For information about the Sacramento Social Media Club, join their groups on Facebook or LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.

About the author: Laura Good is a member of the all volunteer leadership team for Sacramento Social Media Club. Follow her on Twitter at @goodlaura.