Two years ago I wrote a post entitled So How Much Will a Social Media Strategy Cost, which was designed to give businesses and organizations an idea of how much they should expect to pay consultants and agencies for basic social media marketing services.  As you might expect, that post was insanely popular, so I followed it up with How Much Does Social Media Cost Companies in 2011 last year, and now this year those prices are being updated again with this post.  For all three, these prices are taken from published rates found online, as well as what other agencies and consultants have told me they charge for these services.

In general, both posts in 2010 and 2011 were designed to give companies basic price information around the most common services, such as setup and execution of a blog, Twitter and Facebook page, as well as basic Social Media Training.  In the comments of both posts, many of you mentioned that there were additional areas that you would like to see addressed in the future.

With that in mind, I reached out specifically to some friends and fellow consultants that offer Social Media Marketing services to their clients either as independents, or as part of an agency (their own, or someone else’s).  I would like to thank the following experts for helping me by giving me their rates for these services so I could have the most accurate price information(And on short-notice during the Holidays!):

Jason Falls, Tom Martin, Jay Baer, Tamar Weinberg, Nick Westergaard, Mitch Canter, Lisa Petrilli, David Griner, Drew McLellan, Bobby Rettew, DJ Waldow, Jennifer Kane and Kary Delaria.  If you have any questions about these services or need to hire a consultant or agency to help you with your Social Media Marketing efforts, please email me and I will be happy to work with you, or refer you to one or more of these fine people.  Also, please click their names to visit their blog/site and learn more about their services.

Before I get to the prices, I wanted to talk a bit about how the area of Social Media Consulting has changed over the last few years.  In 2008 and 2009, Social Media Consultants were in fairly high demand, especially the more well-known and established ones.  Companies were realizing that they needed to start using Social Media as a way to listen to and connect with their customers, yet they had little to no idea how to do so.  Enter the Social Media Consultant.  A shift in marketing philosophy by many companies created a real demand for professionals that could create and execute social media strategies for companies.

By 2010 and 2011, most companies began to understand that Social Media wasn’t simply a fad, and it was a business necessity that they needed to address via hiring.  Many companies, especially larger brands, hired Social Media Managers, and then entire Social Media Marketing teams.  This shift had a profound impact on the area of Social Media Consulting in two ways:

1 – Many of these companies hired existing Social Media Consultants to be their Social Media Managers and fill their Social Media Marketing teams.  Companies like Radian 6 and Edelman PR aggressively hired independent consultants as well as professionals at other agencies to build and compliment their own Social Media Marketing teams.

2 – Many of these companies stopped (or slowed in) hiring Social Media Consultants for execution work, instead giving that to their in-house team.  The successful consultants and agencies today are usually the ones that adapted the quickest to this change.

As a result, the average Social Media Consultant today is doing less execution work, and is spending more time actually consulting with and training companies on how to use Social Media properly.  Diversification is a good thing.

Now, on with the prices.  As with last year’s post, for every service I am providing a range, as well as a Most Charge distinction.  In general, the fees associated with setup of basic social media tools like a company blog, Twitter or Facebook page have gone down.  On the other hand, rates for comprehensive Social Media Strategy auditing, creation and training services have generally increased.

In general, smaller businesses and non-profits can expect to pay prices that are closer to the low end of the price range, while large companies and organizations will probably see their quoted rates closer to the top end of the range.

Also, when looking at rates for monthly content curation and management of individual social media tools, remember that the more content the consultant/agency has to curate and create/edit for you, the higher the rates.  Likewise, if you can handle the content creation and just need training and some light editing, then your rates will usually be lower.

Here’s the prices:

Blog

Custom design and template creation – $1,000 – $5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000 

Writing/Editing Content for the blog plus ongoing training – $500-$4,000 a month (Assume 1-2 posts a week at this rate)

Most Charge – $1,000-$3,000

Ghostwriting blog posts – $50-$500 per

Most Charge – $75-$200 per

Twitter

Account Setup - $500-$2,000

Most Charge – $500-$1,000 

Ongoing Account Management and Training – $500-$3,000 a month (For this service, the more content you need provided for you, the higher the fees)

Most Charge – $500-$1,500 a month

Facebook

Initial Page Setup – $500-$2,500

Most Charge – $500-$1,500

Monthly Content Management and Curation – $500-$3,000 a month 

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000 a month

Facebook Promotion Creation

Short-Term (1-3 months) Contest, including branding for the app, limited promotion on other channels such as Facebook and Twitter to promote the contest.  Fee doesn’t include prize and Facebook Ads to promote – $1,500-$20,000

Long-Term (3-6 months) Contest, including above, more elaborate promotion based on client’s needs – $25,000-$75,000

Note: These are the ‘Big Three’ tools when it comes to Social Media for business, and many consultants and agencies will offer companies a package deal on setting up and maintaining all three.  For other tools such as Google Plus, Pinterest, MySpace (yes many entertainment and music-related businesses especially still use it) and others, assume that rates in general will be consistent for what you could expect to pay for similar services with Facebook or Twitter.

Video

Total to shoot, produce and edit video – $500 – $30,000 (Note:  Obviously, the complexity and length of the video plays a huge role in the final cost.  If you want custom animation, several scenes and a 30-minute video, obviously that’s going to cost far more than a simple, 2-minute one-on-one video.  One expert told me that they charge $1,000 per minute of finished product.)

Social Media Strategy 

Social Media Monitoring (Note – Number of keywords/phrases tracked here has a big impact on fees.  More costs more.):

Setup – $500-$5,000

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Ongoing Reports and Advisement – $500-$7,500 a month

Most Charge – $1,000-$2,000

Social Media Strategy Audit (Examine existing Social Media Strategy and give detailed recommendations on what strategy should look like moving forward, with instructions on how to measure results) – $2,000-$25,000

Most Charge – $5,000-$10,000

Social Media Strategy Creation and Integration with Existing Marketing Efforts (Note – Most consultants and agencies will require that this service be married to a Social Media Strategy Audit, as they will then create the strategy recommended in the audit) – $10,000-$30,000

Most Charge – $10,000-$15,000

Social Media Training and Consulting

Hourly Training/Consulting – $50-$500 an hour

Most Charge – $100-$250 an hour

Note: These rates are for 1 hour of work.  If you can commit to a certain number of hours a month, for example, consultants and agencies will almost always give you a discount.

Social Media Workshops(All fees exclude travel and are for ON-SITE Workshops, not online):

Half-Day (Up to 4 hours): $500-$7,500

Most Charge – $2,000-$3,500

Full-Day (6-8 hours): $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge – $4,000-$6,000

Note: Keep in mind that these rates represent a significant amount of training and content creation time.  So if you pay a consultant $5,000 for a day-long workshop, that consultant might have spent 20 or 30 hours creating that workshop.  So the prep time has to be considered in addition to the actual time delivering the workshop when looking at fees.

Rates to Hire a Social Media Speaker

Individual session (Up to 90 minutes, usually 1 hour): $1,000-$5,000

Most Charge: $2,000-$3,000

Keynote: $1,000-$15,000

Most Charge: $5,000-$10,000

All rates exclude travel.

Finally, I wanted to close with some advice on choosing a Social Media Consultant.  First, before you begin the process of hiring a Social Media Consultant, you need to address a few areas:

• Figure out what you want to accomplish via Social Media.  Do you want to generate sales?  Increase brand awareness?  Establish thought leadership for your CEO or company?  Connect with donors?  Giving some thought to what you want to accomplish via your social media efforts will make the rest of the process smoother.
• What are your human resources?  How many people can work on your social media efforts?  If you have a team of 10 at the ready, then the amount of assistance you will need is far less than if you are the only person for your company that will be handling your social media efforts.  Know how many people can work on your social media efforts and how much time they can devote, because if you plan on executing a Social Media Strategy that will require a team of 5, and you only have 2, that shortcoming will have to be addressed either through hiring, or outsourcing to the agency/consultant.  Either way, it costs you money.
• How long is your project going to be?  You probably can’t pin this down exactly without talking to the consultant first, but it helps to give some thought to this.

When you contact a consultant or agency, they should be asking you questions as well.  They should want to know why you want to use social media, what are you trying to accomplish.  If they try to give you prices or push you toward using a particular tool without asking you questions, that is a red flag.  They really can’t give you prices until they know more about your company, your resources, and what you are wanting to accomplish.  Even if you contact them and tell them you need prices on creating and launching a blog, they should still ask you some questions to determine if you do need a blog to reach your intended business goals for your social media strategy.

As always, I hope this helps you in creating your Social Media budgets for 2012.  If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment.

If your company is like most around the country, you’ve probably been planning your marketing and communication efforts for 2012 for a while now.  To help you get a leg-up on these efforts, I wanted to give y’all some special discounts on some of my Social Media Marketing consulting services!  Please note, these prices are only valid through the end of 2011 and good to companies based in the continential United States.

1 – Social Media Strategy Audit: This service easily pays for itself by giving your company a solid foundation for its Social Media Marketing Strategy.  If your company is currently using Social Media, this audit will evaluate your existing efforts.  If your company is looking to get started using Social Media, this audit will recommend what your Social Media Strategy should look like.

The Social Media Strategy Audit is a two-month project.  You will be given the audit in the form of a report (usually 15-25 pages), and after you are given the report, we’ll schedule a 1-hour phone call to discuss my findings and recommendations so that you know exactly how to proceed.

I’ve created a separate page that tells you exactly what is included in the Social Media Strategy Audit.  Please understand that additionally, this service comes with a guarantee that you will be pleased with the results!  Normally, the price of this service is $7,500, split into 3 payments.  You will receive the report along with an invoice for the 3rd and final payment.

If you are not satisfied with the report, you don’t make the final payment.  As I said, this service is normally $7,500, but through the end of 2011, I am lowering the price to $6,000!  And yes, it still includes the guarantee!  You’ll make 3 payments of $2,000, and if you aren’t satisfied with the report, you don’t make the final payment!

Price for the Social Media Strategy Audit (Through 12-31-2011): $7,500 $6,000!

Please email me to reserve one of the 2 available slots for this service.  Payments can be made via Google Checkout or PayPal.

2 – Blog Strategy Audit: This is similar to the Social Media Strategy Audit service, but focuses strictly on your company’s blogging efforts and strategy.    You will be given the audit in the form of a report (usually 15-25 pages), and after you are given the report, we’ll schedule a 1-hour phone call to discuss my findings and recommendations so that you know exactly how to proceed.

You can get more information on exactly what is included in the Blog Strategy Audit by clicking here.

Please understand that additionally, this service comes with a guarantee that you will be pleased with the results!  Normally, the price of this service is $5,000, split into 3 payments.  You will receive the report along with an invoice for the 3rd and final payment.

If you are not satisfied with the report, you don’t make the final payment.  As I said, this service is normally $5,000, but through the end of 2011, I am lowering the price to $4,500!  And yes, it still includes the guarantee!  You’ll make 3 payments of $1,500, and if you aren’t satisfied with the report, you don’t make the final payment!

Price for the Blog Media Strategy Audit (Through 12-31-2011): $5,000 $4,500!

Please email me to reserve one of the 2 available slots for this service.  Payments can be made via Google Checkout or PayPal.

3 – Monthly 1-Hour Phone Consultations for January – March: Get your Social Media Marketing Strategy off on the right foot in 2012 with a monthly hour-long phone consultation!  You’ll be given a 1-hour phone consultation each month for the 1st 3 months in 2012.  We can use this time to discuss your existing Social Media efforts, or to help you flesh out how you can get your Social Media efforts off the ground!

Normally, 1-hour consultations are $250.00 each, but you can get this package of 3 calls for only $500.00 (Through 12-31-2011)!  Please email me to reserve this package at the discounted rate of $500.00.

4 – THE WORKS! – This is only for 1 company or organization that is serious about using Social Media effectively to connect with its customers/donors/clients.  I can only offer ONE of these custom packages.  Here’s everything you will get:

• The Social Media Strategy Audit as listed in Service #1.
• A quarterly, on-site full-day workshop and training session with your team.  I’ll spend up to 8 hours in one day, on-site working directly with your team to help them improve their Social Media efforts.  We’ll tackle whatever areas your team needs the most help with, be it content creation, understanding Social Media analytics, building community, whatever you need.  FOUR on-site, full-day training sessions are included.  Client will be expensed for travel (flight plus 2 nights hotel per trip).
• Up to 10 hours per month of consulting time.  We can use this on whatever you need, be it continued training for your team, assistance with executing existing projects, whatever you need help with.

Total Price for this Year-Long Package is $35,000.00.  I can only offer one company or organization this package at this price, and this price is only valid till 12-31-11.  Each of these services priced individually totals over $50,000, so this package price is discounted over 33%!

If you are interested in purchasing this package, please email me.  For this package only, a $10,000.00 retainer is required, with 10 additional payments of $2,500 each.

Have any other ideas for how we can work together?  Please email me!

Geno Church tapping into the mindset of far too many marketers at the FIRE Sessions

The company found Social Media and thought it was glorious to see, “I can use this tool to help them talk about me!”

I saw this update on Facebook from Toby: ‘BIG pr agency VIP “our job is no longer control in social media; job is to arm fans with talking points to spread wom thru their social graph.” Sigh Is the “social” of social media gone forever?’

When I saw this, I realized that this thought had been bubbling up with me for a while: Most companies aren’t trying to leverage how their customers use social media to better understand them, they are trying to leverage how their customers use social media to create a new promotional channel for the company.  I noticed during last Friday’s Blog World keynote with Ford’s CMO Jim Farley that he kept talking about how powerful social media was because it let Ford spread its message through its customers.  I heard similar stories in other sessions and from other companies.

Good companies/organizations of Planet Earth, please understand that the promise of social media isn’t that it will let customers tell your story, but it will help you to better understand their’s.

At the Live #Blogchat at the FIRE Sessions in September, John Moore made a fabulous point: “In a way, it can be so easy and yet so difficult to engage with customers using social media.  Easy meaning it’s a tool we all have at out disposal to use.  Big companies, small companies, they’re using the same tools.  This allows you to scale the conversation, but just because you can scale the conversation, doesn’t mean you should scale the conversation.  The theme we have here today is ‘Let’s Get Dirty’, meaning hands-on…Doing it dirty, getting dirty is going in and understanding the passion and motivations behind the individual that is tweeting, blogging, updating, whatever….The ‘Easy’ part is the blast, the difficult part is to get your hands dirty, getting hands-on, and getting to know people.  That takes time.  Social media, for many of us, makes us lazy….Social media is so easy, but yet so difficult.  We’re losing the personal touches of getting our hands dirty and taking the time to truly and individually connect on a personal level.”

John’s right.  The promise of Social Media for many companies is that it provides them with a new promotional channel to reach their customers.  Or better still, to connect with their customers and help them promote the brand.  There is a shift in the idea of embracing a brand’s advocates, but as I told Toby on Facebook, what brands need to understand is that their advocates don’t love them for their talking points.  There is some common thread that runs through the brand, that binds them.  Figuring out what those ties are and truly understanding your advocates takes digging and work.

The great promise of social media is that it can help brands better communicate with, and understand their customers.  With a higher level of understanding comes more effective and efficient communication, which leads to even more understanding between the brand and its customers.  At some point, both groups begin to trust the other a bit, and that’s when advocacy on behalf of the customers can come into play.  The end result is the brand can use social media to better understand its customers, to build trust and advocacy with them, and improve their marketing and communication efforts, making them more efficient and saving the brand money.  All while improving customer satisfaction, growing customer retention rates and lowering customer acquisition costs.

Or companies can go on thinking that the beauty of social media is that it allows them to use their customers to RT their press release.

I am totally piggybacking on Marcus’ post over at Spin Sucks, but this is a question I have been pondering for a LONG time.

The two most popular posts so far this year (by a mile) are this post on How Much Social Media Costs in 2011, and this one on How Much Social Media Costs in 2010.  Also, three of the top 7 keywords that send search traffic to this blog are associated with the price of social media services.  So I only have to look at my Google Analytics to tell that there is a HUGE interest in the price of social media services.

And yet, most social media and/or marketing consultants don’t list their prices.  Or if they do, this information is usually buried on their site, in doing research for both of the above posts on the price of social media services, I found several ‘name’ consultants that did have prices for their services, but it was like hunting on their site for a needle in a haystack to find the numbers.  It seems that the few consultants that do quote prices are quoting prices that are so far and above what most of their peers charge that it seems to simply draw ridicule from their peers.  Which might be the plan, cause it also draws a lot of attention to their prices!

I did start listing prices for my Social Media Strategy and Blogging Strategy Audits, but that’s really all I have solid prices down for.  And I also offer a Satisfaction guarantee on both, which is something else I am experimenting with.

But really I want to know what y’all think about this issue.  And I can completely see both sides:  I can see why it would be better to list prices, but I can also see why it would be hard/impossible to quote exact prices for some services.  And to further stump me, I have very good friends and business professionals that have told me I should absolutely list my prices, and others that tell me I absolutely should not!

What do you think?  Should every consultant/agency list prices for their services, or nothing?  If you are a consultant or work for an agency, what’s your policy?

Should consultants list what they charge for social media and marketing services on their site?  Yes or no?

One of the ‘problems’ I am running into when I talk to event organizers and potential sponsors about doing a LIVE #Blogchat is that it’s sometimes difficult for them to understand what a LIVE version of a Twitter chat would look like.  I try telling them that a buncha smart people get in a room and talk to each other, but somehow that still doesn’t get the point across very well  Thankfully, Chris and his team from Huddle Productions created a short video with footage from the LIVE #Blogchat that Dell sponsored last week prior to the start of its #DellCAP event.  This should give you a better idea of what a LIVE #Blogchat is like (Hint: Smartitude galore!):

If you are interested in learning more information about adding a live #Blogchat to your existing event, or in sponsoring one, click here.

The second area I wanted to point your attention to is an update I am making to my consulting services.  For a couple of years now, I have been offering Social Media Strategy Audits to clients.  This service has proven to be very popular so I’ve decided to begin offering Blog Strategy Audits to clients as well.  For many companies, a blog is the only social media tool they are using, so for these companies, a Blog Strategy Audit makes more sense.  Both of these audits will analyze what the company’s competition is doing, as well as assess how the client is currently using blogging/social media, and give them a blueprint and recommendations on what they should do moving forward.  And perhaps most importantly, both audits will include a section on how to measure the results of your strategy.  So I’m not only going to tell you exactly what your strategy should look like, but I’m also going to show you exactly how to measure your efforts.  This is a key area that’s often missing from most blogging/social media strategies.

Both the Social Media Strategy Audit and the Blog Strategy Audit are two-month projects.  For each, you’ll make three payments: You will be billed for the first payment when you agree to purchase the audit, and I must have this payment before I can begin work on your audit.  At the end of the first month, you will be billed for the second payment, and I must have this payment before I can deliver the finished audit.  At the end of the second month, the finished audit will be delivered, along with a bill for the third and final payment.

The price and billing schedule for each audit is:

Social Media Strategy Audit – Price is $7,500.00.  You will be billed in three equal payments of $2,500.00.

Blog Strategy Audit – Price is $5,000.00.  You will be billed in three payments of $1,600.00, $1,700.00 and $1,700.00.

Now, the big change I am making to these services is that as of now, I am adding a guarantee to both of these audits.  Note that above it states that you will be billed for three payments, and that for each audit, you will receive the finished audit, along with a bill for the final payment.  When you receive the finished audit and if you are not satisfied with the audit, then you do not have to make the third and final payment.  I *only* want you to make that third and final payment if you are thrilled with the audit.

I often ask my close friends to give me advice on my work, and to be honest, when I told them that I was thinking of adding this guarantee to these audits, most of them did not think it was a good idea.  As they correctly pointed out, if the client is under no obligation to make the final payment, then why would they?  But I am ok with that.  Because I want companies to understand that I am willing to take that risk because I believe in the quality of the work I will produce for them.

So if your company is interested in either service, please click here for more information on the Social Media Strategy Audit, and click here for more information on the Blog Strategy Audit.  And if you have any additional questions about either audit, or about Live #Blogchat, please do email me.

PS: If you want your blog to be considered for one of the three review slots for this Sunday’s #Blogchat, please leave a comment on this post!

My first recollections of getting ‘online’ are in the late 1980s, and local electronic BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems).  These were basically where someone would turn their computer into a network where others could call into it with a modem, and we could chat with each other, post messages, etc.  Extremely basic functionality, ‘graphics’, etc, and again, reserved to a very small local packet of people.  The great thing about BBSes was you got to meet local people, and we’d occasionally have ‘meetups’ which of course was the forerunner to the Tweetups we have today.

As the late 80s turned into the early 90s, those BBSes started linking to one another.  I could get on one BBS, and go to a special forum and see messages from another BBS in Denver.  Then the messages we were leaving there, would be sent to the BBS in Denver.  So a very crude form of online communication and network beyond just the one BBS was developing.  Of course, CompuServe had been around since the early 80s, and then Prodigy in the early 90s, and of course AOL in the mid 90s.  These ‘online services’ marked a way for people around the country, and even around the globe, to more easily connect with each other.  The internet itself was becoming more widely used, and websites started popping up like Kudzu in the South.

Which began to mark a change in how people got their information.  No longer did you have to watch CNN to get the latest news, now you could go directly to CNN’s website and get the latest news at a time that was convenient to you.  So as such, we began to talk about news, events, and companies online.  We still didn’t have the best tools to organize and connect with each other, but still, word of mouth was no longer reserved for the offline world only.

Then around a decade or so ago, blogs started popping up among the early adopters.  By 2004 and 2005, blogs were becoming more well-known, and growing in popularity by leaps and bounds.  By 2007, Technorati was tracking over 70 million blogs.  In 2006 we got YouTube and Twitter, and a year later the ‘social media kids’ discovered a social networking site that had already been popular on college campuses for a few years called ‘Facebook’.

As social media tools gave us the ability to quickly and easily create and distribute online content, we began to hear a debate about which was more important: online ‘word of mouse’, or offline word of mouth?  The ‘social media’ camp often argues that social media is the ‘wave of the future’, and that every is headed online.  The people that favor offline word of mouth will point to studies that suggest that 90% of word of mouth still happens offline, and that it trumps social media.

To me, this debate over which is ‘better’, ‘word of mouse’ or ‘word of mouth’ misses two key points:

1 – Both online and offline conversations and experiences feed INTO each other.  Look at your own experiences: How often have you been with friends and discussed something you read online?  Or how often have you gone on a trip, and taken a ton of pictures that you shared with your friends on Facebook as soon as you got home?  The line between our offline and online experiences is blurring.  We can no longer separate the content and conversations we have online with those we have offline.  For most of us, they are feeding into each other, and as a result, both our online and offline activities are richer.

2 – Mobile is greatly accelerating the blurring between online and offline.  Remember the title of this post is the THREE pillars of modern customer communication?  Mobile is the third pillar.  Think about what’s on your smartphone, on mine right now I have an app that lets me access Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, even my WordPress blog if I want.  Add in a camera, a video player, and I have all the tools necessary to link the online content that I and others create, to the offline world that I am in right now.  Note above how I mentioned you could take pictures from a trip then upload them to Flickr when you get back home?  With the proper mobile device, you can cut out the middle man, and take pictures right there, and immediately upload them straight to Twitter or Facebook, all from your smartphone.

The line between what is our offline and our online experiences is blurring and will soon disappear.  It’s pointless to think about which one of these three is the most important, as each is feeding into the other.

Look at this picture.  In terms of this post, Online or Social Media would be the locomotive.  It pulls the load behind it, which is Offline Word of Mouth.  Sometimes the load gets enough momentum that it can even push the locomotive.  They both work together.  But the tracks are mobile.  Mobile makes it much easier for the locomotive to pull the load, and for the load to move because it has the nice smooth tracks under it, instead of a rocky and uneven terrain.

All three work together to create something bigger than the individual parts.  Your company has to understand that your customers are likely going to use all three channels to get, share, create, and distribute content.  There’s no ‘winner’ among these three, they are all on the same team.

So I was on Twitter late Friday night, and I saw this tweet from @AmandaPalmer.  It got my interest, so I did some checking.  I found dozens of tweets from Amanda’s fans either gushing about her and thanking her for letting them attend the secret show, or those that were angry that they missed it.

From Amanda’s blog, here’s how the secret show was set up:

p.s. for those of you who were waiting on more info about the SECRET-BOSTON-AREA-SHOW next saturday, we put together a little contest. if you wanna come, we’re picking about 50 lucky people who’re gonna join in on our crazy little loft party in arlington, and it’s your LAST CHANCE TO ENTER. get in on this shizzle NOW:

* head over to my profile on GetGlue. you can find it right here:http://getglue.com/recording_artists/amanda_palmer
- don’t have a GetGlue profile, yet? it takes about 20 seconds and you can do so athttp://getglue.com/signup (they also have an app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Blackberry, and Android – you can sign up on those, too)
* “Check-in” and tell us your favorite AFP-related concert memory, starting with something along the lines of I really want to see Amanda on tour this summer http://bit.ly/AFPtour or My favorite AFP-concert memory was…
- feel free to get creative about how you say that you wanna come, just make sure to include a link to the tour page
- if you haven’t ever seen me or the dolls or evelyn evelyn live, post a link to your favorite live YouTube or Vimeo clip and tell us why you’re excited to (hopefully) come
- bonus points for cross-posting to Twitter and Facebook, and for clicking “Favorite” on AFP (and other AFP-related stuff like The Dolls, Evelyn Evelyn, 8in8, etc)

and that’s it. any questions? post HERE and sean’ll get back to you, asap. we’ll be going through and contacting winners throughout tonight and tomorrow, getting e-mail addresses so that we can get your name for the guestlist, and know where to tell you the location of the show.

 

So Amanda created a free show for her biggest fans, with the requirement for getting in being that her biggest fans would have to share why they loved Amanda.  Which is something they were already doing anyway.  The lucky fans that got to attend were then treated to an amazing show, and they now love Amanda even more.  The fans that didn’t make the show are now extremely jealous of the ones that did, but still love Amanda for going out of her way to connect with her fans.

Attention big companies: You usually make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.

I will once again go back to that wonderful quote from Steve Knox:

Think about what Amanda did here.  She didn’t use social media as a channel to generate sales, or connect with new customers.  She used social media to embrace her biggest fans, and give them a reason to love her even more.  Totally flies in the face of what most companies try to do, which is generate sales from new customers.  Instead, Amanda said she was going to create something totally amazing that customers want, but she not only wasn’t going to charge for it, she was going to give it to her existing customers.

This is why we don’t call these people ‘Amanda’s customers’, we call them ‘Amanda’s fans‘.  The next time Amanda has a paying gig, her fans that attended this show will be even more likely to pay to attend (because they love Amanda even more now) and they will be more likely to encourage their friends to come with them (because they want their friends to love Amanda like they do).  Amanda has created a way to embrace her biggest fans, and to let them do her ‘marketing’ for her.

Why is it that companies can’t get this?

To be fair, some companies are trying.  Ford recently had an event where they flew in influential bloggers to spend a day with them.  The focus was on Ford and its products, but there was also live entertainment and interesting speakers such as Malcolm Gladwell.  That’s definitely not the same as Amanda’s secret show, I think the focus with Forward with Ford was ‘how can we show you what we are doing and get you to like us more?’ while the focus with Amanda’s show was ‘how can I show you how much I love you?’

Which is a big reason why I think rockstars have fans, and companies have customers.  Because most companies view the relationship with their customers as being transactional, while most rockstars view the relationship with their fans as being emotional.

Companies, if you want to be successful, follow Amanda’s approach: Find a way to connect with your biggest advocates, and delight them.  Don’t worry about selling anything to them, create something amazing for them, and then watch as they take the initiative and promote you and maybe even gush about you to their friends and networks.  The end result is that you’ll get those sales you wanted to begin with, but the added bonus will be that you’ll also create a way to excite and delight your biggest advocates in the process.

Again, y’all make this ‘marketing’ stuff a lot harder than it has to be.

It seems that a lot of people are wanting to copy the efforts of popular bloggers.  They want to figure out how to be the next Chris Brogan or Mashable or Jessica Northey.  I wanted to talk about why I think that’s wrong, but first I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite bloggers (and people).

The first is Gini Dietrich.  I’m sure most of you know and love Gini and her blog, Spin Sucks.  Gini is sharp as a tack, but what I love about her writing is that its business-oriented, but personal at the same time.  Even when she is talking business, she still writes in a way that makes you think you are listening to your best friend tell you how their weekend was.  Everyone loves her writing and her style, which is exactly why she has such a passionate community of readers.  She posts almost every day, usually TWICE a day if you count guest posts on Spin Sucks, and she averages dozens of comments on her posts.  Gini’s readers love her, and as she clarified in a post here, her readers are driving business to her.

The other person I wanted to point you toward is CK.  In contrast to Gini’s 2 days a day and dozens of comments a post, CK posts about twice a month, and gets about 1-2 comments per post.  But what CK also does is have a laser-sharp focus with the content she creates via her blog, and elsewhere.  Don’t believe me?  Google ‘B2B Mobile Marketing’ and see how many of the results on the 1st page are content that CK has created.

The point here is, both Gini and CK (and you both should know each other, BTW, consider this an introduction!) have created a content strategy that works for them.  Too many of us try to replicate what is already working for someone else.  That’s THEIR strategy.  We all need to come up with our own path and our own voice.  Look at Gini, she has created a wonderful community on her blog, and that community is helping to drive business for her.  On the flipside, CK is breaking one of the biggest ‘rules’ of successful business blogging: She’s only posting once or twice a month.  But it works for her because every post is optimized and helps her expand her online footprint in the B2B marketing space.

Think about this especially if you are a solopreneur.  You are completely responsible for your blogging strategy, so you have to consider what works for YOU more than what works for anyone else.  You can and SHOULD draw inspiration from other bloggers, and you should be aware of what’s working for them.  But you should NEVER attempt to copy someone else’s strategy and approach if it’s not right for you.

Here’s a personal example:  When I started blogging in 2005, everything I read about successful blogging said to blog like Seth Godin does.  Short, quick, to the point.  Write your post as if it’s an executive summary, because no one has the patience or attention span to read more than that.

I want to tell y’all, it took me FOUR DAYS to write my very first blog post.  Because I agonized over that post for 3 days and 23 hours and 30 mins because I had no idea how in the hell I was going to condense my first blog post down to 3 paragraphs.  Finally, I said ‘screw it!’ and wrote the post *I* wanted to write, in 30 mins.  As soon as I accepted that the ‘blogging rule’ about proper post length didn’t work for me, I wrote the post I wanted to write.

And that’s made all the difference.  The beauty of blogging is that it gives us all a way to share our voice.  I told my friends at the Live #Blogchat at the B2B Forum this, but I honestly believe that most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for.  I fear that too many bloggers feel that their posts will only be popular or ‘work’ if they mimic the way a particular blogger writes.  Five years ago when I started blogging there was no David Armano or Beth Harte or Shannon Paul that I could learn from.  And no doubt they were inspired by other bloggers, but they also found their own voice and their own blogging path.

If you are losing your passion and excitement for blogging, if could simply be because you are trying to walk someone else’s path, instead of your own.

A few months ago I received a package from Klout and TBS that was a promotional effort for the cable network’s show Are We There Yet?  Yesterday, I received another package from Klout, this time promoting TNT’s new series Falling Skies.  I wanted to share with you what I got, and my thoughts on the effort.

The picture above is what the contents of the box looked like upon opening.  There was also a manilla envelope as soon as I opened the box.  Here’s everything that was included in the kit:

Contents of the Falling Skies Alien Survival Kit I received from Klout and TNT

At the top left we have a canteen, with ’2nd Mass’ on it.  To the right of it is a map of Boston (I assume this is where the series is set), then a 2nd Mass hat.  At the bottom left is a simple backpack with Falling Skies logo on the inside under the flap, along with a letter explaining what the kit is about.  Next we have a working compass, and finally at the bottom right there is what appears to be a child’s drawing of the aliens, dated June 19th.

The first thing I wanted to do was compare the contents of this kit to what I received from TBS and Klout for Are We There Yet?  Remember that promotion simply included a Sony PSP with a 30-second commercial for the show.  It essentially felt like TBS was giving me a cool toy hoping I would start watching and blogging/tweeting about Are We There Yet? as a result.

With this Alien Survival Kit from Falling Skies, the contents help to immerse me in the story.  It positions it as if I am a character in the show, and I am trying to survive.  And now I have a survival kit that’s going to help me.  I think this kit does a far better job of building my interest in watching Falling Skies, than the TBS kit did in tempting me to watch Are We There Yet?  And I am guessing the cost of the Falling Skies kit was at most half what the Sony PSP cost TBS.

Additionally, Falling Skies is trying to leverage social media and especially Twitter to build buzz in the show.  The note I received with the kit included these instructions: “Here’s some gear to get you started.  Remember, you must follow the twitter handle @2ndMass to receive weekly intel including Falling Skies sneak-peek videos and interactive activites.  We will continue to send supplies as resources become available.

Retweet or talk about these experiences, episodes of the show and anything else Falling Skies related using the hashtag #fsincentivized to move up the rank.

You’ll track your progress on the Falling Skies: An Army of Influence leaderboard page at www.fallingskies.com/armyofinfluence. The top influencer at the end of this challenge will win a walk-role on an episode of Falling Skies, premiering Sunday, June 19 at 9/8c on TNT.”

And as you can see, the @2ndMass account is trying to involve twitter users in the storyline, and they are responding:

I love how TNT is trying to use Twitter to involve users in the storyline and connect with viewers.  I was blogging about the need for television shows to do this freaking four years ago, and I hope Falling Skies will finally be an example that uses Twitter to expand the FUN of the show for its viewers and fans.

So I really like this kit.  I think it’s got a ‘coolness’ factor and helps get influencers excited about the show.  Plus the call to actions around connecting on Twitter is nicely done.  Now having said that, there’s a few thing that I didn’t like about the kit that I’d like to point out:

1 – The kit arrived yesterday, June the 22nd.  That’s 3 days after the premiere of Falling Skies.  To me, it would have made much more sense to deliver these packages at least a week ago, to help build interest in the premiere.

2 – I wasn’t given any digital content to promote the show. This is a BIG mistake, IMO.  What I think TNT should have done was include a Falling Skies jump drive that included at least a short video from Noah Wylie’s character explaining why I am getting the kit, why I am important to the resistance, whatever.  And they could have included several pictures I could use in my blog posts and also, they should have included a copy of the premiere, so I could watch it.  Doing so would have somewhat negated the fact that the kit didn’t arrive until after the premiere.

3 – This is a minor quibble, but the logo for Falling Skies isn’t visible on the backpack when it is closed, the flap covers it up.  I would have put the logo on the outside, so that way people are more likely to ask me where I got it, then I can tell them the story about receiving the kit, how to follow the show on Twitter, etc.

Overall, I think this kit does a pretty good job of building interest in the show.  Note again, that TNT positioned the content of the kit as a way to involve me in the storyline, and I think that’s far more effective than simply giving me a toy hoping I will blog/tweet about the show.

And I’ll say again, there is a HUGE amount of untapped potential for networks to connect directly with its show’s viewers via Twitter.  As I blogged about a few weeks ago, TNT could easily start a #fallingskies Twitter chat to connect with viewers, and give them a chance to connect with each other.

If you received the same kit, what did you think of it?  If you’ve been following how TNT is using Twitter, to connect with Falling Skies fans, what do you think of its efforts?

Note: Klout gave me this kit for free, and I was under no obligation to blog/tweet/mention its contents, and my getting the kit wasn’t dependent on my ever mentioning it.

For the last two months during #Blogchat we’ve had one week where we reviewed blogs from #Blogchat participants.  The most common complaint about the 7 blogs we’ve reviewed so far is ‘I don’t know what the blog’s focus is’.  This is a BIG problem for a lot of bloggers, but it’s one you need to overcome if you want to truly have a successful blog.  Here’s 5 steps to getting you past this roadblock:

1 – Figure out who you are writing for.  It all starts here.  Once you figure out who you are writing for, then your content strategy to reach that audience will fall into place.  For example, I am writing this blog for companies that want to learn more about how they can successfully use social media to connect with their customers.  That’s my primary audience.

Your primary audience could be potential employers, potential clients, or your friends and family.  But whoever it is, YOU need to figure it out, because if you don’t know who you are writing for, you can best bet that your readers won’t.  And you need to pick something more concrete than ‘people that want to read my stuff’.

2 – Pick your title and tagline.  After you’ve decided who you are writing for, then look at your blog’s title and tagline.  You might not be able to do much with the title, but your tagline should explain exactly what your blog is about.  Note that mine is ‘What are you doing?  Helping companies understand the ‘social’ part of social media.’  That tells them exactly what they are getting into.

3 – Use the 3-second rule.  If someone that doesn’t know you arrives on your blog, how long will it take them to figure out what the blog is about?  If it takes longer than 3 seconds, assume they will leave.  This again, is where the tagline can really help you, because when we arrive at a new blog, we immediately look for the blog’s title/tagline, and then any pictures.  If we are confused by the title/tagline, and don’t see any pictures of the blogger, we will probably leave.

4 – Keep your sidebars clean. On a lot of the blogs we’ve reviewed so far, the sidebars have been a hot mess.  In fact on some, the fancy widgets etc are actually throwing off the formatting of the entire blog.

When it comes to the sidebars, think about how the content/information/widgets you put there will help you reach your blog’s goals.  You will have a TON of options for adding stuff to the sidebar(s), but that doesn’t mean you should.  Less is often more when it comes to sidebars.  Remember, the content is the star of the blog, don’t make it take a backseat to flashy widgets and such on the sidebar.

5 – Be careful with ads on your blog.  A lot of bloggers think that they aren’t a ‘pro’ blogger until they have ads on their blog.  Or that they won’t be viewed as being a ‘serious’ blogger without ads.  Horse-hockey, ads take up space that could be given to content that could help your readers.  Period, so don’t make that tradeoff unless those ads are worth your time, and that of your readers.  Remember, the purpose of ads on a blog is to ultimately ENHANCE the experience of the blogger AND the reader.  If the ads aren’t making you any money, and aren’t relevant to the reader, then they are a total waste of time.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have ads on your blog, but I am saying you should only keep them if they make sense for both you and your readers.

So there are 5 quick tips for bringing clarity and focus to your blogging efforts.  If you only follow one, PLEASE pay attention to #1 and decide who you are blogging for.  Everything else will flow from that.

Those of you that had your blog reviewed at #Blogchat, what am I missing?  Or what advice do you have for someone looking to add focus and clarity to their blog?