How do social media tools work within your marketing plan?  Have you thought of how to integrate Twitter into your public relations strategy?  Is your employer brand reflected properly on LinkedIn?  Can social media augment all of these practices?

All very valid questions…

At this week’s Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau Social Media Marketing Workshop hosted by Love Scott and Associates, I led off the discussion with an overview of social media tools and how they integrate into a well planned marketing strategy.  Two other speakers, Claire Celsi ( @ClaireCelsi ), from The Public Relations Project and Ben Stone ( @BenStone ) from RPO Consulting took the helm after me to discuss social media as it integrates with Public Relations and Human Resources, respectively.

For over four hours we took turns stating our case for (and against) social media in traditional corporate marketing, PR, and HR environments.  There was tremendous engagement from a very curious audience and the conversations lasted long past the scheduled 12:pm adjournment.

But when it was time to come back to my office and decompress from the presentations, I thought to myself, “What would ‘C’ level decision-makers need to understand about social media as it applies to their brand?”

And then I thought of this:

“There’s a conversation going on about your brand.  Are you listening?”

(feed readers and Facebookers, click here to watch the video)

…and that was just about 30% of what I found through my Twitter feed, 12 hours before to immediately after the workshop.

It’s time to sit up and start paying attention.  If you’re not using social media to AT LEAST monitor the conversations going on about your brand, then you’re already out of the game.

Here are five simple takeaways from the marketing segment of the workshop:

1. Traditional broadcast marketing has been augmented with social media marketing, creating an online conversation about your brand.  You must be there to take part in the conversation.
2. Social Media Marketing is about building community AROUND your brand.
3. Strategic planning is needed to integrate social media tools with a company’s comprehensive marketing plan.
4. Social media marketing is measurable, but you need to have goals to measure against.
5. Social media marketing should not be taken lightly. Finding a marketing partner that understands how the social media tools can integrate your marketing is imperative.

Has your company started integrating social media into its every day marketing, PR or HR strategies?  How well are you listening?

Food for thought.

Keep Cooking (community-driven conversations)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Fact: Newspapers can’t survive unless they change the paradigm in which they practice. Customers, including yours truly, are jumping ship for digital media content that is more up-to-date, accessible and relevant. Long lost are the days when newspapers produced engaging content and – in turn – sold ad space to generate revenue to support what (once) was a tremendous source of public information.

Why?

Newsgathering has shifted from being a passive act—tell me a story—to a proactive one—answer my question.

According to journalism.org,

“…Pew Research Center survey. The figures for almost every traditional media platform are now at historic lows. For instance, the number of Americans who said they read a newspaper “yesterday” has fallen by 40% since the 1990s—to 34%. The number of people who watched the nightly network newscasts yesterday has fallen even further—by half—to 29%. Radio news is at 35%. Regular readership of weekly news magazines is down to 12%.”

So, what does that mean for us? Where is that 40% going to get their news?

Blogs, baby. Blogs! Not to mention podcasts, vlogs and heavy-handed translations of traditional media to online, user-driven sites, and micro-sites.

With that, yesterday, I ran across this story: On January 27th, Joshua Karp (follow on Twitter: @theprintedblog) will be launching a twice-daily free print newspaper in Chicago, San Francisco and later in New York City. The content he will be publishing will be solely from BLOGS!

“So what,” you say, “Nothing novel there?” Hold on. Joshua has a little twist for you.

His intent is to aggregate local content from blogs and print them in tabloid form in time for the morning and evening commutes… The advertising - focused to reach targeted, local audiences - supports the newspaper (of course). It will also include classifieds (of course).

From Joshua’s venture, The Printed Blog web site:

“The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, The Printed Blog publishes hundreds or even thousands of highly-localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them. The papers are distributed to neighborhood pickup points in A.M. and P.M. editions, and will incorporate rapid turnaround reader comments.

… As our society moves towards individualized information, The Printed Blog has the courage to respect our readers. We recognize the value of what individuals have to say, we publish the information they create, and provide them with the information they demand.”

News = information relevant to the people. When traditional news sources become irrelevant, or self-serving, people go to their community for relevance.

I’m interested in Joshua’s new venture. The online community will drive content. Readership will be driven by the local community. Advertising will benefit from a more targeted audience. Hmmmm…Where can this go wrong? Market? Content? Commuters? Advertisers? Classifieds?

Can you combine the past with the present? Why not just keep it all online? Why take it to press?

What do you think? Take a look at his formula and give me your thoughts.

Until Next time…

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
- The Brand Chef

After 25 Years? Can you believe it?

It’s scary out there. As we’ve seen, even locally, Editorial Cartoonist, Brian Duffy (a rock star in my eyes) was let go last week, causing quite a buzz in the local blogosphere and Twitter. Below is a re-post from The Daily Cartoonist with an interview with Duffy from our local NBC affiliate.

Former Des Moines Register editorial cartoonist Brian Duffy was escorted out of the newspaper’s building after learning that his job was being eliminated in a cost cutting (slashing?) move by the paper’s parent company Gannett. He was not allowed to return to his office to collect his personal belongings, he says in an interview with the local television station. Duffy worked for the newspaper for 25 years, and as he recollects, never missed a deadline.

Here’s the interview.

What do you do when the economy threatens to jeopardize the standards you have come to trust? Has your company felt the pinch, like Duffy and The Des Moines Register? How, from a business perspective, have you chosen to deal with it? How, from a personal perspective, have you chosen to deal with it? Does the approach differ?

It’s scary out there. Look and plan forward. Work on stabilizing existing relationships. And always strive to foster new, exciting ones.

God Bless.

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Thank you to The Daily Cartoonist and Alan Gardner for the original post.