The Caffeinated Blog

Whole Lotta Link Love, Black Friday Edition

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and didn't get too full on turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc ad nauseam.  I also hope you're staying safe and looking out for your fellow shopper amidst all the craziness that is Black Friday - remember, no one has to die over a DVD player.

If you haven't been up since the literal crack of dawn and braving the cold weather and long lines at your favorite department store, then you may be more interested in what retailers are doing online to earn your holiday shopping dollars.  Here are just a few social media and campaigns and community initiatives some major retailers have launched:

• Amazon has unveiled a "Holiday Customer Review Team", consisting of its most active reviewers (read: real customers) and designed to help Amazon customers find gifts.  The team reviews and recommends products, as well as provides money-saving tips for holiday shopping.
• Facebook users give and receive "virtual gifts" to each other every day - some to support causes, others just for the fun of it.  Dell, eBay, and Sephora have each launched their own virtual gift campaigns on Facebook for the holidays, which they hope will drive traffic to their respective Facebook fan pages (which promote real products) and websites.
• JCPenney has chosen the holiday shopping season to jump onto the social media bandwagon, launching a viral marketing campaign on Youtube and Facebook called "Beware of the Doghouse".  Apparently, the Facebook page allows women to "put their significant other in the 'Doghouse' for bad gift choices" (hmmm, smacks a bit of the recent Motrin ad debacle to me).  They may be redeeming themselves, however, with their newly-launched presence on Twitter (@askjcp).
• Before you do your holiday cyber shopping, don't discount the value of blogs and online tools to help you find the best deals.  Check out this great post over at Gather listing some deal tracking tools and widgets you can use, as well as this post at BuzzLogic about how blogs can help you save money on electronics this holiday season.

One more thing today - don't forget to vote in the Open Web Awards!  Round 1 voting ends at 11:59 EST this Sunday, November 30th.  Vote below for your favorite social media and web 2.0 sites while you still have time!

It’s Called Social Media – So Why Aren’t You Using a Social Media News Release?

Guest post this week by Danny Brown of Press Release PR

The press release as we know it is over 100 years old. Released in 1906, it depicted the tale of a rail crash involving the Pennsylvania Railroad. Since then, very little has changed as far as press releases go, with the exception of the introduction of the search engine optimized press release.

Until now.

The social media news release (or social media press release, depending on who you’re talking to) is the natural evolution of the staid old press release. It takes advantage of every positive aspect that Web 2.0 and social media has to offer. So why are so few businesses and PR professionals using it?

Wondering what a social media news release looks like?  Here's a template as created by Shift Communications.

Fear of the Unknown

The main reason can be attributed less to the news release itself, and more to the medium it embraces – social media. According to figures from leading digital analysts comScore, less than half the businesses in North America have any kind of tangible online presence, never mind a social media one.

This includes marketing, public relations and advertising companies – the very ones that should be promoting social media to their clients. With this kind of apathy, perhaps it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that the social media news release hasn’t really taken off. Yet.

Stepping Stones

Thankfully, some companies do get it. Brand names like Ford and McDonalds are embracing social media fully and are seeing the benefits of it. This includes promoting their latest news or service with a social media release. The benefits are obvious:

• Embedded video offering visually stimulating promo videos
• Interactivity for consumers and the target audience to leave comments and feedback, offering instant reaction to a campaign
• Building brand loyalty through interaction
• The ability to offer full multimedia slides to convey the message
• RSS and blog pick ups, ensuring the widest distribution possible

This ability for interaction on both sides, as well as the ease in which a social media news release can be amended, is resulting in the format becoming more popular. PR agencies can work from a template while clients can have more of a say in how they’re promoted.

Complement, Not Supplement

Perhaps another reason the social media release has yet to achieve its full potential is that too many companies – PR agencies and clients – are using it incorrectly. Previously, a press release was seen as the main push for any promotional campaign to get behind. This viewpoint has, perhaps naturally, carried over to social media news releases.

This isn’t what they’re for.

For a social media news release to offer its true benefits, it should only be part of a campaign, not the focal point of it.

• If your company website has a newsroom, place the release there
• Post the release on your company blog. Don’t have one – why not?
• Use social media newsrooms like PitchEngine to host your release
• Run traditional print or search engine optimized press releases alongside the social media version to maximize effect
• Link from your online release to your social media one
• Use social media tools like Twitter, Digg and Stumbleupon to drive traffic

At the end of the day, a social media news release is only as good as the people who are using it. Understand what it has to offer and how to use it effectively and you’ll soon see its benefits. If you don’t, you can be sure your competitors soon will.

Danny Brown is the owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He is a blog partner of the iEntry and WebProNews business network and a contributor to the Dad-o-Matic project.

Hiring a Content Manager? Here are the Top 5 Skills to Look For

As more companies are realizing the value of content marketing and blogging, they are also realizing the benefit of having a full-time content manager on staff.  Content managers can not only write and edit content; but develop the strategies and processes involved in a full-fledged content marketing plan. 

The diverse and extensive tasks involved in a content management role are not necessarily best suited to a marketing manager, assistant, or intern as just an additional responsibility.  A content manager should have full responsibility over the content on your company’s website – from strategy to implementation, and from conception to publication.  They have a special mix of skills, knowledge, and experience that goes far beyond just marketing, tech, or writing by alone.

If you are planning to hire a full-time content manager, here is a list of those top skills that you should look for during your hiring process:

1. Strong writing and editing:  And not just for any audience – for an online audience.  A content manager should be able to write content that is “scannable” so visitors can easily pick out the information important to them.  Look for blog writing or online content writing experience, and ask for several writing samples so you can evaluate spelling, grammar, and writing style (very important – writing style indicates what the “voice” of your blog or content will be).



2. Project/team management capabilities:  The content management process can be likened to project management – managing the what, when, where, why, and how of your website’s content.  A content manager is responsible for content strategy, publication schedules, and possibly a team consisting of other writers, a web designer and/or developer, and even a dedicated marketing coordinator.



3. Online/content marketing knowledge: In order to create a content strategy, build content that engages, and determine what works, a content manager should have experience with online marketing principles like audience targeting, identifying metrics, basic market research, data analyzation, copywriting, community building, and social media.  While the content manager may not be solely responsible for marketing and promotion, it will help to have that crucial knowledge in order to work successfully with a marketing team.



4. Tech/web savvy: Let me preface this by saying that I’ve seen too many content manager job postings that describe more of a web dev role than anything else.  The company wants advanced experience with HTML, Javascript, CSS, Ajax, etc. along with experience using every content management system on the market.  While I agree that having these advanced technical skills (in addition to writing and marketing) is beneficial, I also think that just having knowledge of basic HTML and image editors and the ability to learn new web tools quickly is plenty.
   
   What about content management systems?  Again, these can be learned quickly by the right candidate.  You should be looking for savvy when it comes to web and content tools more than extensive programming or web design experience.



5. Knowledge of site usability/navigability best practices:  Part of what can make or break content on a site is how visitors are able to access, read, and share it.  A content manager should be able to work with your designer and developer to determine how to display content for best usability, accessibility, and navigability.

I asked a few of my friends in content management, writing, and online marketing what their thoughts are on this topic, and I received a lot of insightful responses (so many, in fact, that I couldn't include them all here - so check out more at LinkedIn.

Newt Barrett, author of Get Content. Get Customers and Content Marketing Today blog: "A business should think of a content manager just as a magazine or newspaper thinks of an editor. As my old boss, Pat McGovern of technology publishing pioneer, IDG, always said, “Our job is to make our readers successful.” The same mission should apply to every business in the 21st century with a single change--replace ’readers’ with ’customers.’

Therefore, a content manager must have all of the sensibilities of a great editor. An editor must have a deep understanding of his audience and be able to shape information into articles that resonate with that audience. A content manager must be able to do essentially the same thing. He must first understand the toughest problems his customers face and the kinds of solutions they are seeking. He must then translate all of the internal body of knowledge from his company into content that becomes must reading for their target customers.

I believe that without the mindset of an editor all the other technical skills and background are relatively meaningless."

Mayra Ruiz-McPherson, independent marketing strategist and author of the Marketing Misfit blog:

• "Strong copywriting skills aid in the development of strong headlines and sub-headlines that can influence, engage and educate reader on the main ideas of content on a page without having to actually read it.
• The ability to coordinate, collaborate and cooperate with others in a dynamic team environment where web project requirements change rapidly is an essential detail to web content development.
• Sound and basic formatting practices reduce the risks of buggy text layouts, weird symbols, spacings and characters and unwanted code kinks that so often negatively impact our web publishing efforts with delays in cumbersome formatting and typography clean up. Moreover, the web environment is a highly technical ambiance, therefore a content manager of any kind must have a decent grasp of working in a variety of web-based tools and graphical user interfaces (GUIs).
• The ability to inform, engage, lure, entice and excite a fan-base, prospects, members of a brand community or existing customers requires a content manager to have ample marketing-speak know how for integrating communications across a variety of web media."

Danny Brown, Managing Director of Press Release PR and PR blogger: "I'd say the simplest answer is it's all in the marketing and using that in each facet of content management:

• Editing pieces so they're attractive to read
• Organizing key pieces over filler
• Understanding SEO and what will work best for each area, not just an overall hit
• Someone who knows the system well and is pro-active at making sure other users are just as comfortable

I guess you could say a good content manager is someone who would make a good mother!"

Sarah Z. Cordell, writer and communications expert: "Attention to detail, ability to set and adhere to deadlines, intimate knowledge of company style, obsessive organization skills, excellent people skills, ability to multi-task."

James Robinson, Marketing Manager Business Link at Exemplas Group: "A strong personality which translates into an interesting and distinct 'voice'. This means that you end up with memorable content that people want to read. Most people can learn CMS skills; look for the skills you can't teach easily if you want your content read and remembered."

What do you think makes a good content manager, and what skills and experience would you look for in hiring one?

Whole Lotta Link Love Friday, November 21

It's Friday, and we're one week away from the biggest shopping day of the year: Black Friday.  As retailers scramble to prepare for the holiday shopping onslaught, they're also looking at new ways to engage customers during this economic downturn (wow, that sounds like an understatement!).

Here are a few articles worth reading that may help as you prepare for holiday shoppers:

1. Twitter is fat becoming a powerful tool for many companies to communicate with customers...but is it right for your business?  Sarah Worsham at Sazbean lists some of the questions you should consider before creating your Twitter presence.
2. In my latest post about using social media to generate holiday sales, I listed using Twitter for customer service.  Jetblue uses it successfully, so can you?  David Carter talks about the value of using social media for customer service.
3. Dev Basu talks about how you can super charge your online marketing efforts for the holiday season over at Search Engine Journal.
4. For many online customers, sharing of personal information is the biggest concern consumers have when shopping online.  Here are some tips for addressing that concern and holding on to your customers this holiday season.
5. If you just can't get enough of social media OR the 12 Days of Christmas, then you're gonna love what Danny Brown came up with.

Using Social Media to Drive Holiday Sales

This year more than any other, social media is going to play a huge part in driving holiday sales.  According to a recent survey from ecommerce consulting firm Guidance, 30 percent of online shoppers say that the best way to find bargains and discounts is through shared links, comments, or social sites.

And if that’s not enough to get you on the social media bandwagon, another recent survey found that a whopping 85 percent of consumers want to interact with companies through social media platforms.

That’s right – your customers are waiting for you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites.  But they’re the ones driving the sale – not you.  In order to effectively use social media this holiday season, you must build a community around your brand and products and engage members in a meaningful way.  Give your customers something of value (like Papa John’s is doing), interact with them and help them (like Zappos), and allow them to share their own ideas (like Epicurious does on their own website).

So, how can re/etailers use social media to engage customers and drive sales this holiday season?  I asked the LinkedIn community to get a few ideas, and I came up with a few of my own to provide you with a bit of pre-Black Friday inspiration:

• Create a Facebook page and post special discounts and valuable content (like how-to videos, recipes, tips and advice) for fans.

• Get on Twitter.  Use it to answer customer service questions, share product specials/discounts, and links to valuable content (like how-to videos, recipes, tips and advice).

• Have a holiday-themed contest for sharing creative photos or videos via your Facebook page and give away a shopping spree.

• User-generated content can be excellent content.  Interact with your Facebook fans with opportunities to write on your wall – their letters to Santa, holiday wishes, holiday tips and advice.

• Partner with a charity and donate a percentage of proceeds from online sales to that charity.  Promote via Facebook, Twitter, and your website.  Develop a widget for others to post on their blogs.

• Develop holiday-themed “how-to” videos and post on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and/or MonkeySee (a video site specifically for how-to videos).

• Develop a wishlist and gift suggestion widget and/or Facebook app that people can customize, share, and post on their blogs or Facebook page (creates links directly to products on your site!).

• Is your business involved in local community efforts?  Make sure to take photos at events and post them to your website and/or Flickr.  Share your photos via Facebook and Twitter as well.

• Having an in-store event?  Promote it via Facebook events, or create a Meetup group for your store.

As you’re developing ideas and strategy for external social media marketing, don’t forget your own website in the process.  Everything you do should be promoted on your site as a means for customers to interact with you during the holidays.  Useful content should be displayed prominently on your site, and you should also make sure every product and content page gives visitors the ability to share links to those pages via email, Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.

What are some of the ways you're using social media for your business during the holidays?

Vote NOW in the Open Web Awards

Millions of you submitted nominations (well, nearly), and round one of voting for the Open Web Awards is now open! You have until 11:59pm EST on November 30th to vote - so vote early and often!  View the rules here.

17 Tools for Monitoring Your Company's Online Reputation

Before social media sites cames along, online reputation monitoring meant scouring through pages of search results, product review sites, and online forums.  The tools available consisted of, well, Google. 

Now, with the proliferation of social media sites has come a wide range of tools to help companies monitor reputation across those sites and rest of the web.  Google is still one of the best tools at your disposal; but now only paints part of your company's online reputation picture.

I've put together this list of 17 free tools you can use to monitor your company's reputation across different areas of online media (news, forums, blogs, social sites, product reviews, and more).

General Reputation Monitoring Sites

• Vanno: Newly-launched Vanno calls itself "The Company Reputation Index".  It's a social platform where the community submits news stories, blog posts, videos, and other bits they find around the web about companies.  Through Vanno's voting system, a "reputation index" is quantified for each company.
• Serph: Search for any company, product, or name on Serph, and you'll be presented with the  latest buzz from around the web.  And when I say latest - each result is labeled with the date it was posted.  
  

News

• Google News Alerts: You probably already know about Google Alerts; but if you don't already use them to monitor mentions of your company, product, or name, then now is the time to start.  You can set up alerts for mentions across all of the web, or for just Google News.
• Technorati: Like Serph, you can search Technorati for just about anything and receive results from around the web.  Tabs organize results into posts, blogs, photos, and videos.  The most important part about Technorati are the Authority ratings, so you can focus on stories from publishers that have more authority.
• Searchles: A social search engine of sorts, Searchles has a number of large communities formed around content.  And lots of it - all posted by and shared amongst the Searchles community. 

Forums

• Omgili: Online forums aren't dead yet - they're hotbeds of information about companies and products.  Omgili helps you search through the thousands of forums out there to find the information you're most concerned about.
• Board Reader: Like Omgili, Board Reader is a forum search engine; however, it also searches through videos posted in forums, Twitter conversations, and even IMDB.

Blogs

• Google Blog Alerts: As mentioned before, you can set up alerts for across the web, or (in this case) just blogs.
• co.mments: Set up a free account at co.mments, and you can bookmark and track comments posted on blogs.  You can track your bookmarked blog conversations on your co.mments tracking page, or subscribe to an RSS feed.
• BlogPulse Conversation Tracker: BlogPulse's tool allows you to track the full breadth of a conversation from one keyword or link.  You'll see several levels of conversation, starting with original seed posts and digging deeper into posts that have sprouted from those.
• Trendpedia: Not only can you to search the blogosphere for company or product mentions; but also compare buzz trends with mentions of your competitor.  You're presented with a graph, and you can click on any part of it to view posts from a certain date.

Social Sites

• Twist: New Twitter tools seem to pop up every day, including trending tools that harness tweet-versations so you can see buzz trends.  Twist allows you to compare mentions of several different topics and view recent tweets about each one.
• Tweet Scan: At the outset, Tweet Scan looks just like the sort of results you would get by using Twitter's own search platform; however, you can also sign up for Tweet Scan and set up email alerts, install Tweet Scan search on your browser, and even download an archive of your own tweets.
• monitter: View real-time (yes, constantly updated) conversations on Twitter for up to three different topics.  You can even search within a specific geographic region that you set.
• Joongel: Joongel is an aggregated search platform...with a difference.  Search any category of online media for a company or product name, including social sites, photo sites, videos, Q&A sites, shopping sites, and more.

Product Review Sites

• Omgili Product Review Search: Omgili is more than just a forum search engine - they also have a product review search platform, which scours product review sites across the web for your product or company.
• Epinions: This product review site has been around for a long time and has thousands of  reviews for a huge range of products. 

What are some of the tools you've used to monitor your company's online reputation?

Whole Lotta Link Love, November 15

I'm posting this week's edition of Whole Lotta Link Love a day late - I'm sorry.  I got just a little bit busy yesterday and got home late (I know, not an excuse).  Better late than never (at least, that's what I keep telling myself); but I will deliver on time (Fridays) from now on - promise!

1. I was pleasantly surprised to find that content marketing strategist extrordinaire, Newt Barrett, wrote a post on Content Marketing Today about my recent Facebook business case study.  Thanks Newt!  I was also surprised to find out that the subject of the case study, Dustin of Dustin Meyer photography, was contacted by Facebook this week for an interview.  All I have to say is...wow.
2. Speaking of Content Marketing Today, Joe Pulizzi (co-author with Newt on the book Get Content. Get Customers) wrote this valuable article on seven content marketing mistakes and how to avoid them.  Definitely worth a read.
3. Interested in using Facebook to promote your business?  Here's a comprehensive list of tools and tips to help you get started.
4. If you haven't seen the new blog from Problogger Darren Rowse called Twitip, then you must check it out.  It's packed with best-practice tips on using Twitter for both your business and yourself.
5. Blog carnivals are a great way to generate content for your blog and build incoming links.  Ann Smarty gives you some tips for starting your own blog carnival.
6. When participating in social media and online communities, you'll no doubt run into a few trolls along the way - but you can stop them.  Here's 5 ways.
7. What if Facebook was real life?  Check out this kind of scary (but hilarious) video:

Don't forget to vote in the Mashable Open Web Awards! This is your chance to nominate your favorite web 2.0 tool, app, website, plugin, or platform - so don't miss out. The nomination round ends tomorrow (Sunday, Nov. 16th) at 11:59pm. Vote now!

What is TMI in Social Media?

I had a great conversation yesterday with Liz Strauss on Twitter (so, I guess it was a “tweetversation”, right?  Anybody?).  The initial question from Liz was “Do you think that some / all / most people who use social media for business have an issue with behaving in unprofessional ways?”

Now, obviously people use social media for a wide range of reasons – not all business.  And I like to think that those of us using social media for business purposes are using it in the most professional way possible (for the medium, at least).  But has our definition of “professional” gone a bit lax since social media came along?  Are we just giving out too much information (TMI)?

So I responded to Liz with the following:

“I think the face of business has changed tremendously in this century - definition of ‘business-like’ is much different

“no excuse for people to act like jerks on Twitter or Facebook, but social media have made communication more casual”

And the conversation ensued:

Liz: In what way? To us or to offline folks as well?
Me: offline, we still (try) to act with decorum (at least, I like to hope so). I think that's human nature.
Me: although, social media has made the web much more conversational and transparent
Liz: Who decides what's *too casual*…when does it start working against us?

Hmmm…

Me: if you're using social media for business, then obviously your customers don't need to know what you're eating for lunch, etc.
Me: but the beauty of social media for business is conversing w/ your customers instead of marketing at them
Liz: I'm just wondering if it's getting too easy to get too casual without realizing it -- because we're all so used to being here.

Now back to my original question – has our definition of “professional” become more relaxed.  I asked Liz what her definition of “too casual” is:

Liz: to me "too casual" would be something that makes lots of folks who don't know me yet question my credibility solely on that.

This really made me think.  When we’re on a social media site like Twitter, what kind of things could we as business professionals say to lose credibility with our audience? 

Lots of people tweet about what they’re eating, watching on TV, and the other mundane details of their days; but where’s the line between engaging conversation and just TMI?  Tell me what you think!

Whole Lotta Link Love Friday, November 7: Election Edition

Photo Credit: debaird

OK, I skipped posting Whole Lotta Link Love last week.  Not only am I in the midst of moving (and much of it was done last Friday), but my parents were in town.  But this week has been exciting and historical, and I've been reading a lot of interesting takes on the part the Internet and social media have played in the election - so today's edition is packed with some of the top election-related social media links.

There were quite a few conflicting viewpoints about exactly how large social media's role was in the election:

1. BusinessWeek declared a victory for social media, and so did I...
2. ...while Andy Oram and Jennifer Leggio wanted a recount. 
3. Brian Clark at Copyblogger commented on the psychological phenomenon of social proof and the part it played in the election, as well as the part it plays in crafting effective marketing messages.
4. Josh Klein talks about a new project called Democratus, which will allow citizens to share their ideas and opinions with each other and and petition politicians for change.
5. Lastly, president-elect Barack Obama's website Change.gov seems to promise "open government" and lets you share your stories and ideas about change.

What's your opinion on social media's role in this election, future elections, and the upcoming administration?  Please comment below!