Spyder Trap’s first Lunch and Learn featured Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Before I go into some thoughts on SEO, I must talk about how cool this lunch and learn series can be. Personally, I know little about email marketing, web design, or web development. By taking time to teach each other everything we do, it strengthens each employee and gives everyone a better understanding of what everyone does.

I have found it very interesting to hear and participate in such a great amount of discussion around SEO as of late. Looking back to a year ago, all the talk within the online marketing world was social media, social media, SOCIAL MEDIA!!! It was the end all, be all for online marketers. If you said social media in a presentation, or in a one-on-one conversation, you were applauded.

A year later, here we are discussing SEO, not social media. While social media appeared to be the new, shiny toy, SEO has been the steady presence for years in the online marketing puzzle. People seemed to have forgotten the importance of SEO, especially for local and small businesses. I have enjoyed the resurgence of SEO in the online marketing conversation.

After promoting this on Facebook and Twitter, we received a lot of positive feedback, including people who would like to attend outside of our group. We will keep all of you posted on when the next lunch and learn will be. Thank you for the interest and support!

Stay tuned every Wednesday for another video posted to our Online Marketing Blog, Facebook Fanpage , and YouTube channel!

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Most marketers have studied or at least heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (to the right) but few have related it to more current marketing efforts such as social media. As you read this post keep in mind that although technology evolves, people’s basic needs remain the same.

First, the premise: For the purpose of this post, I will keep my analysis related to social media. In some respect, Maslow’s theory explains the massive draw and assimilation to social media channels. The top three most psychologically complex needs are all easily obtained using social media (Self-actualization, esteem, love/belonging). Some people I suppose receive all five, but for the most part, social media allows for the authentic release of creativity, esteem personified by the ability to become a thought leader and, of course, belonging and contributing to a community is all at your fingertips.

The application: How can we use this information to become better social media marketers? Well, first understanding what people are seeking from a physiological standpoint empowers us to better optimize our marketing channels, messaging and calls to action in order to evoke a desired response. For example, creating channels for people to collaborate not only with your brand but one another might be considered an essential need for your audience. The theory is basic enough yet the application is often lost in the shuffle of day-to-day activities.

Comments and reviews are all means to connecting with your consumer at a higher level. Creating compelling copy and messaging to appeal to people on an emotional level help to create a deeper bond between your brand and your brand’s consumers. More advanced opportunities are found in attracting like minded or like needed people while exposing them to your messaging.

With this application in mind, below are several basic emotion evoking tips that apply not only to social media channels but also apply to general marketing practices.

1. Facilitate – Allow people to creatively participate with your marketing efforts. Encourage and ask for opinions, feedback and collaboration
2. Be Authentic – No auto DMs! People are looking for real human connections, whether they are on the computer, phone or in person
3. Respond- Being heard and having one’s ideas validated by others is a basic need that all people share

What do you think about this analysis and application? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

“We are very pleased that Mike has accepted our invitation,” said ADA Board President Chuck Halstenson. “Mike’s expertise in online marketing and social media adds a dimension to the board that will increase our visibility in many new and exciting ways.”

“It’s an honor to join an organization that has helped so many,” said Rynchek. “I am confident that together we can do even more by expanding the organization’s use of online communications tools including social media and online fundraising tactics.”

As Marketing Communications Chair, Mike has overall responsibility for the promotion of the Association’s Stop Diabetes^SM movement by coordinating and integrating marketing and communications efforts for all local activities including revenue-generating events, mission-delivery activities, and general awareness and outreach events.

An important poll recently conducted by JupiterResearch and Verse Group identified the top two priorities of marketing executives:

1.  Achieving measurable ROI on their marketing spends, and

2.  Integrating online and traditional media.

For those of us in the online marketing trenches everyday, this is not really news.   The fact that marketing executives are keying on ROI and the importance of online media confirms online marketing is quickly achieving equal status as traditional marketing vehicles.

As recently as Q1, our sales team noted that closing sales often required a bit of coaching with regard to how online marketing could achieve objectives for our clients.  As these clients tested the online marketing waters they quickly realized that the major advantages of online marketing goes beyond reach, frequency and GRP.  Online marketing offers trackability and therefore accountability.

Today, more and more of  our clients are integrating online marketing with traditional efforts, be it with email strategies, brand monitoring, sponsored search, or even website development.

Why would any marketing manager or media planner not consider online marketing media as equal to traditional media? Is it because it requires specialized knowledge?  Is it because some are afraid to leave their comfort zone?   What’s your take?  Can any company flourish without incorporating online media into their overall marketing plans?

The next question is always… Why such growth and how should companies best to take advantage of these amazing statistics? Any thoughts? More to come soon.

Twitter:
- From March 08 – 09 Twitter grew at a rate of 2,565 percent – Nielsen. (Ning was number 2 at 283 percent.)
- Roughly 2.4 billion Tweets… on average about 11 million per day and growing – Giga Tweet

YouTube:
- 300 million users worldwide – YouTube.com
- 14.8 billion video “views” as of January 2009 – Comscore
- 147 million U.S. Internet Users watched on average 101 videos per person in January 2009 – Comscore
- Roughly 43 percent market share of video viewing as of January 2009 – Comscore

Facebook:
- As of February 2009 Facebook has the highest monthly active users of any social media site. – Compete.com
- 200 million active users. (Currently closer to 225 million)
- 100 million users log into Facebook daily

With Facebook recently achieving 225 million active users, and Twitter – well, who really knows how big Twitter really is – firms are desperately trying to understand how to make social media work for them. Not only is the volume of users massive, so is the challenge of making sure you have a social media strategy in place. As Spyder Trap continues working with larger and larger organizations we are becoming very accustomed to taking a firm who has a fragmented approach to social media and creating an integrated social media strategy. Our task is to consider all stakeholders, business objectives, hearing all voices/pieces of information and molding a model that will accomplish those goals. As fellow Twitter friend Adam Kmiec of http://www.thekmiecs.com/ stated this morning… “You can’t pulse social media. It doesn’t turn on and them off.” In other words, any social media campaign needs a starting point and that starting point should be accompanied with a well thought out integrated strategy.

Below is a strategy and process I devised for a particular American clothing manufacturer with a similar issue to what I described above. After further thought and discussion, I began to think that both large and small firms could benefit from this guidance. I hope it helps.

Social Media Strategy Definition Process:

1. Discovery Meeting/Roundtable – Each department has a stake in the successful development and implementation of a social media campaign. Our goal is to fully understand and address each core-marketing objective of each department. Common questions to discuss during a discovery session are as follows:

1. What are your overall business objectives? What role does your online marketing play in your marketing mix, and what are you looking to achieve via an online marketing program?
2. With regards to your online marketing efforts, where are your biggest “pain points” and/or areas of greatest opportunity? How would you prioritize them? For example:
   • Reach – Are you attracting enough traffic via your paid/organic efforts? If not, what are your goals? What are the biggest barriers to success?
   • Engagement – Are visitors finding your online presence relevant and engaging? Are they coming back?
   • Conversion – Are you getting enough sales? Are the leads converting to sale?

3. Who are your key competitors? Brick and mortar institutions, click and mortar institutions, etc.?
4. What is your key competitive advantage / what “niche” do you serve?
5. What KPI’s (key performance indicators) do you use to measure your online performance? How are you tracking them?

2. Trend Identification – Upon completion of the discovery process, the next step is to complete an analysis of the data/comments/thoughts received and formulate it into and actionable social media strategy. Considerations during this phase of the process are as follows:

1. Matching the goals of the individual department with the overall business goals.
2. Understanding how the unique business units work together.
3. Understanding of how the different marketing channels work together to build the brand and ultimately drive sales.

3. Strategy Development – This is the culmination of the time spent identifying goals/objectives, the core business needs and the current brand presence in the social media universe. The output of this phase is an on-brand integrated social media strategy that meets the goals and objectives defined by the different business departments in the discovery phase. Considerations during this phase of the process are as follows:

1. Developing a strategy that is a progression into a full-blown social media campaign. Ex. Start with brand monitoring to make sure we have the consumer approach, language and messaging determined. Slowly work into more consumer engaging activities and promotions.
2. Developing a strategy that is both timely and cost effective as defined in the discovery phase.
3. This strategy must be trackable to the extent that the services and tactics will allow. Goal is to closely monitor key performance indicators (KPI’s) such as:
   • Impressions
   • Visits (landing page, microsite, website)
   • Conversions/Sales

4. Integrated Social Media Strategy – As illustrated below, through this process we began with a fragmented strategy and approach and concluded with an integrated social media campaign. Again, this campaign is designed to support and accomplish the goals and objectives of the business departments and the client’s overall brand.

What do you think? Was this helpful? Any thoughts or feedback to the process would be greatly appreciated.

Twitter announced yesterday that they have integrated the search functionality from Twitter Search into every user’s profile. Many people, including myself, were waiting for this day, where they could perform searches and find out what is happening now in real-time, right from their Twitter home page. With this technology being made freely and easily accessible to everyone, Twitter has taken another giant step in becoming a real-time search engine; providing something that Google simply can’t. According to the Twitter Blog, “With this newly launched feature, Twitter has become something unexpectedly important—a discovery engine for finding out what is happening right now.”

The new features of the integrated Twitter Search allow users to search for topics and conversations quickly, and it also allows users to save topics they tend to search for frequently. Being an avid hockey fan, I am constantly searching for #NHL, #hockey, #”minnesota wild”, and the list goes on and on. Now, I can simply save these searches, and with just one click I can get all the hockey news I can handle.

Twitter has also cleaned up the user’s experience. They have cleaned up the “home,” “@mentions,” and “direct messages” tabs, and also added the ability to collapse the “Trending Topics” and “Following” sections of the right hand column as well.

I would only assume this makes Twitter as a more viable tool to rival Google, but I want to know what you think: what does this new Twitter Search functionality mean for Twitter in the future?

Yesterday, news broke of a Pepsi promotion gone wrong which has sent social media sites, blogs and news sites into a buzz frenzy. Pepsi, a signature partner of the new Yankee stadium, formed the Pepsi/Yankee spotter program designed to reward loyal fans with Yankee tickets.

After receiving the article from Jason Sanquist @JasonSanquist via Twitter, I decided to turn the topic to local promotion guru and CEO of Promotional Marketing Insights Hal Stinchfield www.promotioninsights.com to get his thoughts on the failed promotion. Hal has over 30 years of marketing promotions experience including working with Pepsi to create and launch their Pepsi Stuff campaign.

What do you think? Was the buzz worth losing a couple loyal Pepsi drinkers or is this a promotional and public relationship nightmare? Video shot of the disappointed Pepsi crowd. Are these once loyal Pepsi fans gone for good or can their loyalty be restored?

Mike – There was clearly a strategic communications breakdown on behalf of Pepsi. Any idea what may have caused the breakdown?

Hal – When consumer promotions produce sub-optimal results, or cause a public relations nightmare (like the Pepsi/Yankees Spotter Promotion), it can usually be blamed on one of three categories: offer structure, offer communication or offer execution.

The Pepsi/Yankees offer has fallen flat in the category of offer communication. Consumers clearly thought that all ticket winners would be attending exhibition game on April 4th. The official rules, however, state that there are only 100 Exhibition Game tickets available (and randomly given out at that).

Mike – Do you believe the Pepsi/Yankees promotion was misleading?

Hal – So Pepsi may argue they were legally correct – what they failed to realize was that they were “consumerly” wrong. When a marketer thinks they have made their terms and conditions clear- and the consumer doesn’t see it that way- it is still the marketer’s error.

What Pepsi may have failed to realize is that even though their sweepstakes rules may have been legal, the Federal Trade Commission may well determine that if enough consumers believed they were misled, they (the FTC) could argue the promotion was deceptive- and that is illegal. Hey Pepsi – if you want to start doing consumer promotions right (not just legal) – give me a call.

A big thanks goes out to the following for making this post possible:
Hal Stinchfield – www.promotioninsights.com
Jason Sandquist – Twitter @JasonSandquist

Yesterday, AdAge wrote about Kraft ‘s DiGiorno brand is launching a flatbread pizza line, and they are planning on using Twitter to do so. DiGiorno will be searching for Twitter users known as “influencers,” then delivering food to tweetups that are attended by people they deem as influencers.

This is not the first time that a product has been used with social media. Some of you may remember when Ford gave away 100 cars for a few months to “influencers” with the hope that positive buzz would spread throughout the social media world and turn into revenue. What real return did Ford get from that campaign?

There are other questions to consider here:

1) What return is expected from the twitter part of their campaign? I have attended a few tweetups; the average attendance in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is around 40 twitter users. With the reach that Kraft and DiGiorno have, it is possible that more people would show up knowing food was provided. Even if 100 people show up to a tweetup, when does the idea show the ROI Kraft is looking for?

2) DiGiorno’s tagline: ‘It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno’. The whole point of the Twitter campaign is to deliver pizza to a tweetup. Does this go against their philosophy and how they have positioned their product?

3) How is Kraft determining who is an influencer? Kraft has hired Minneapolis-based agency Weber Shandwick to ‘reach out to the influential Twitter users who are willing to host tweetups in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Tom Moe, director of marketing for the DiGiorno brand, when talking about what makes an influential twitter user: “(that) is something we’re in the process of working out with the folks at Weber.” Am I considered an influential person on twitter because I have near 500 followers? DiGiorno and Weber Shandwick have an interesting task here.

Will the Twitter aspect of their campaign work? If this shows a high level of success, will other companies follow suit, sponsoring tweetups and other social media networking events?