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working in new media

Confessions of a social media manager

by Ian Greenleigh on October 21, 2010 · 5 comments

Flickr photo credit: Ela2007

Imagine, if you will, the following scene. Forget for a second that I’m not Catholic.

Me: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been since…well, I’ve never confessed.”

Priest: “What is it my child?”

Me: “Well, a long time ago, way back in 2008, I doubted the power of…of…I can’t say it.”

Priest: “You’ve come this far. Now tell me.”

Me: “I doubted the power of social media.”

I instantly burst into flames. Fade out.

I wasn’t a true believer from the beginning. True belief tends to freak me out a bit. I saw a lot of people making a lot of money on something they were claiming was the next big thing—and oh, by the way, they can teach you about it for a price. Looking at it that way, I’m not so embarrassed that I wasn’t fully convinced of the power of social.

Gradually, however, I learned to ignore the affiliate-types, the self-proclaimed gurus and the rest of the loudmouths. I focused on the true value of the conversations people were having online. I focused on the access social media afforded, in a completely unprecedented, almost shocking way, to individuals of every stripe. I maintained what I thought was an appropriate amount of realism regarding the effectiveness of social marketing in the form of skepticism. I still do.

But here’s what changed. Until roughly two years ago, I was convinced there were still some business that could not benefit from a well-executed social media strategy. Some companies, I thought, still can’t get anything out of social. I would play a fun little game in my head, wherein I would try to imagine a business that had little to no chance with social, and then I would try to make up a strategy—playing devil’s advocate to myself (I know this sounds entirely schizophrenic). And, until about a year ago, my favorite scenario to ruminate on involved the tack and feed shop near my childhood home. That, boys and girls, was the business for which I would always come up empty. More on this after I acknowledge the inspiration for this post.

Scott Stratten

UnMarketing, by Scott Stratten, is the first official selection of the Bazaarvoice Marketing Book Club, and I’m loving it so far. Chapter 19 deals with localized Twitter marketing, something I’ve had a fair amount of experience with. Stratten conducts a thought exercise, almost eerily similar to mine, to demonstrate how a fictional Toronto pizza place might profit from going social. Here’s a killer example of how he’s able to distill core concepts into tangible steps (and he’s funny, to boot!):

By putting “near: Toronto” beside your keyword, you will see all the tweets from people who listed in their profile location that they are in Toronto. So now the person who tweets “I want pizza” can now be found geographically.

(…)

This isn’t an excuse to start replying to everyone on this list to say “Come use us! We rulez teh universe! LOLZ!” Reply to some people, say something like, “Heya, we could help you out! Let us know, hope you feel better soon!”

Marin Tack and Feed, in Fairfax, CA, was (unfairly) made a victim of this mental exercise again and again because it was a challenge—the challenge, because I couldn’t answer the question people in our business hear on an almost daily basis: “What’s the social media play?” In 2008, I answered the question. Here’s the quick, updated version:

  • Twitter searches will be slim pickins’ but you should still set up columns in Tweetdeck for things like:
    • “horseback near: ‘fairfax, ca’”
    • Ranch* near:”fairfax, ca”  within:50km
    • “party ideas” near:”fairfax, ca” within:50km
  • Encourage your customers to follow you on Twitter, but don’t leave them hanging—make sure that once they do, you start talking with them, helping to promote their content, being a good social media citizen in general. They’ll return the favor.
  • Start a blog (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?). You already go to equestrian events, so start blogging about them. The owners are all competitive riders, so they have a depth of expertise that would work perfectly on a blog. Write about horseback riding in general, so that you rank well on Google for terms like “horseback riding Marin”.
  • Create a Facebook page, and again, make sure you keep it lively. Post 3rd party content about horseback riding, maintain an event calendar, do whatever it takes to keep it from being a ghost town.

I’m just scratching the surface above, but my point is that I’ve seen the light, so to speak. Most businesses will still fail with social media due to poor planning, lack of measurement, lack of commitment and a host of other reasons. But I no longer believe that there are certain categories, verticals or specialties that can’t find value from well-orchestrated efforts.

What are some of the social media revelations that you’ve had?

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Should social media marketing expertise be certified?

by Ian Greenleigh on October 13, 2010 · 4 comments

Is this the next class of social media experts? (Flickr credit: Herkie)

A few nights ago, I stumbled upon a profile of Josh Kaufman, founder of PersonalMBA.com. I wasn’t familiar with his story or work, but I was intrigued by his assertion that business schools, “”teach many worthless, outdated, even outright damaging concepts and practices.” MBA programs, it seems, are largely unable (or unwilling) to keep up with our ever-shifting business climate. These supposedly bad teachings are too firmly entrenched and prevalent to merit the tuitions students now pay for them, and anything of value that does get taught can just as easily be learned outside of the lecture halls. Formal education, as the argument goes, has nothing on relevant experience.

I’m in no place to confirm or refute this claim, but I can see why it has legs. And as I’m prone to comparing apples to oranges, I began thinking about the legitimacy and value of a formal social media education.

First, yes they exist. I saw an ad the other day for an Advanced Social Media Certificate from the University of San Francisco. A quick search revealed several other such programs, including…

…an MA in Social Media from Birmingham City University in the UK

…a four year degree in Interactive Web Technology Management from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

…a Social Media and Web 2.0 program at UC Irvine

…a Social Media Marketing Certificate from the University of Nevada, Reno

Are we seeing something akin to the anti-MBA movement, but for the opposite reasons? In other words:

  • (Flickr photos credit: mringlein)

    People are speaking out against traditional MBA programs because they’re, well, too traditional, lack modern currency, built on long-abandoned premises, etc.

  • Are people speaking out against social media programs at otherwise-traditional schools because the space is simply too new, lacking in universal standards, not studied in an academically-rigorous way, etc. ?

I think so. And I understand the sentiment. But I’d ask opponents of formalized social media education:

  • At what point does a field become program-worthy?
  • At what point does knowledge of a subject merit certification, whether by diploma or official certification?

In Exploring the 4 Eras of Thought Development, Wilkie and Moore point out that the establishment of Marketing as a distinct academic discipline occurred during the “Founding the Field Era,” from 1900-1920. This is the first time we saw “courses with marketing in the title”. But traditional marketing had existed since at least 60 years before its academic recognition. Key excerpts from the Wikipedia marketing timeline:

  • 1836: first paid advertising in a newspaper (in France)
  • 1864: earliest recorded use of the telegraph for mass unsolicited spam
  • 1867: earliest recorded billboard rentals
  • 1880s: early examples of trademarks as branding
  • 1905: the University of Pennsylvania offered a course in “The Marketing of Products”
  • 1908: Harvard Business School opens
  • 1922: radio advertising commences

(Flickr credit: Max Sparber)

To say that ideas develop faster these days is an almost-comical understatement. We no longer need to wait 60 years before we can study something. Just think of the body of literature out there on social media already—I’ll venture a guess that within a few years or less, the total amount written about social media will exceed the total amount ever written about marketing. We have access, for free, to nearly all of it. But that doesn’t mean we can possibly process it, or even a fraction of it, in a meaningful, productive way. Remember, we’re also living in the era of the Exaflood.

I think there’s a space to be filled with a formalized social media education. Just like all education, there will be terrible programs, excellent programs and everything in between. The quality of the educators will also vary wildly. Even the best institutions have the occasional bad professor.

Yes, there will also be the equivalent of diploma mills. Just as surely, there will also be trusted industry experts like Olivier Blanchard to expose them. As with all education, the ability to make informed choices will fundamentally determine what a student gets out of it—“buyer beware” will still be the name of the game.

What do you think? Are we ready for social media degrees and official certification? If not, when will we be ready?

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On sucking it up for social media success

by Ian Greenleigh on September 30, 2010 · 4 comments

Social snobbery is lame. (Flickr credit: illuminaut)

Every so often, you hear something that is just so contrarian—so radically counterintuitive—you assume it must be true without really weighing its veracity against the alternative you once took for granted. Sometime last year, I started believing, if only for an instant, that work and passion were somehow mutually exclusive in the “real world”. Yeah, I was wrong (see: dream job). But I think I know now the tiny sliver of truth I was picking up on then.

The way people talk about social media, you’d think they took public speaking lessons from Double Rainbow Guy. The language we use is often vague, but just as often it seems almost freakishly optimistic.  Others notice this, too. There are even scripts to remove “excessive exclamation points” from your web experience (!!!). So when I first heard people discussing how one could earn a healthy income for their work in something as cool as social, the skeptic in me stirred to life. Turns out it was a false alarm, but an appropriate reaction. Over that last year, I’ve realized that anyone that tells you real work can’t possibly be fun, that the work that matters is boring, chose the wrong career.

At the same time, I’ve become annoyed by people that idealize work in social media as something sacred or fulfilling in a way other professions aren’t. Awesome jobs are still jobs. Go to any social media conference filled with people like me, and you’ll hear things like:

  • Don’t publish any content you wouldn’t read yourself!
  • The best content wins in the end!
  • Just be yourself!

I won’t dismiss any of these guidelines outright. Each has its own wisdom, and I almost always side with those who preach quality over quantity. But most of us in social media aren’t in it strictly as a matter of self-fulfillment—we work for someone else, whether it’s our boss or our clients. And as such, we have our orders. We’re to generate leads. We’re to bolster customer loyalty. We’re to meet our deadlines.

Any one of these orders may require that we do things that conflict with our social media “values,” the best practices we accept, or even the things we preach as speakers. You might think list posts are gimmicky, for instance, but if that’s what’s getting qualified prospects to enter your company’s pipeline, you’d better write them. You might not personally like what your coworker handed you for editing, but if it’s the kind of content that helps your company meet its social goals, you’ll need to hit that publish button eventually.

If you’re lucky enough to work in social media, don’t turn your nose up at those that “don’t get it”. You have an awesome job (remember how bad you wanted it?) and you need to perform, not worry about the artistic purity of your work. Let passion fuel excellence, not elitism.

Suck it up!

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Which Facebook Ad Will Employers Like Best?

by Ian Greenleigh on February 24, 2010 · 12 comments

If you’ve already read about my success using Facebook ads in my job search, you know that the ad on the left, below, has generated a terrific amount of qualified leads and interest from top managers, employees with inside hiring knowledge–even C-levels. However, I’ve had some feedback indicating that it’s in heavy circulation on the profiles of the same users and is becoming less and less effective. Overexposure to the same content may be leading to diminishing returns. I don’t like diminishing returns.

Starting today, I’m implementing an A/B test using the same targeting and budget ($10/day) to see if a fresh look, new headline and slightly altered copy will improve the flow and quality of inbound contacts. The ads below will appear with equal frequency.


A

B

  • Which do you think will perform better?
  • Why?
  • Share your prediction by leaving a comment below!

Every tweet, Digg, Facebook share, comment and link to this post gets me closer to finding that killer job! Thanks for all your support.

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How I’m Using Facebook Ads to Find My Dream Job

by Ian Greenleigh on February 20, 2010 · 28 comments

Update: I did it. I found a job using Facebook. Ads were the key to my job-hunting success, and I explain below and in future posts how you can find a job using Facebook, just like I did.

Writing this post may very well hurt my chances of finding the perfect job. I’m willing to take that risk because, being somewhat of an optimist, I’m inclined to think that by sharing my story here I’m ultimately helping myself and many others in similar situations. If what I’ve done becomes a bit less novel because others start similar campaigns, so be it.  Here it goes…

My ad!

First, I didn’t invent the idea of using a Facebook ad to market myself to employers, and I don’t know who did. But on January 16, 2010, the social media stars aligned for me and I caught this post mentioned on Twitter. I read it, bookmarked it, and it didn’t cross my mind again until a month later, when I started to get serious about finding a job in the new media space that actually paid. I was freelancing for my friend Chris Johnson at the time, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

I knew enough from my last few job searches that the normal means of finding work wouldn’t cut it, especially if one wants to work on the bleeding edge of new media, as I do. I’ve got a blog (you’re on it). I’ve got a loyal and supportive Twitter following. I’ve got the references. So do 10,000 other Austinites, most of them just as hungry for the same (perhaps imagined) dream job.

Having handled several Facebook ad campaigns for the clients and companies I’ve worked for, I knew that it was a great way to get serious traffic at an entirely reasonable cost-per-click. I pulled up the post about Grant Turck’s ad and went to work.

Online ads are only as effective as the landing pages they link to, so I tackled this first. With brevity in mind, I created one that was ad-specific, included compelling quotes about my expertise, a catchy first sentence, and a “Top 5 Reasons to hire me” list followed by my resume.

Next, I put my ad together. I emulated Grant’s ad, since it worked for him so well, but added my own touches. The most unique and appealing thing about me in relation to new media is my nomination for the 2010 Texas Social Media Award (drop by and leave a comment, if you like). Naturally, I lead with it. Everything else was straightforward. Tell people what you’re looking for (“a job in new media”) and include a call to action that gets them to click (“Can you help?). Throw in a nice picture of yourself, and you’ve got your ad.

Click to leave a comment on my nomination!

As important as the copy in the ad is, the targeting—which elevates Facebook above other avenues of online self-promotion—is even more crucial. So who did I want my smiling face in front of? People of influence, upper management and executive types. Basically, those having the power to hire people easily and create positions for them if none exist yet. Keep in mind the fact that Facebook does not currently allow for targeting based on position or industry, unless someone has included their position or industry in their profiles “Interests” section. Enough of them do, trust me. This is a glimpse at how I broke it down:

People…

Mosaïques de cibles (Targets mosaic)

photo credit: luc legay

  • who live in the United States
  • who live within 25 miles of Austin, TX
  • between the ages of 25 and 55 inclusive
  • who like advertising, advertising manager, branding, ceo, community building, corporate recruiter, director marketing, director sales marketing, founder ceo, human resources, marketing coordinator, marketing director, marketing executive, vice president marketing…(many more)
  • who graduated from college

I also threw in the name of a company I really want to work for, Bazaarvoice (more on that later). After putting my targeting list together, Facebook came up with a suggested bid of around 60 cents per click, so I set it to exactly that. Turns out, I’ve paid an average of 43 cents a click, so the whole experience has been much more affordable than I anticipated. I’ve spent $85.65 since 2/08, but I would have spent triple this or more for the results I’ve encountered.

So here they are, so far:

I’ve received an average of one email or relevant comment on my blog per day. Some of them are well-wishers; some of them offer constructive criticism—for both types of input I have no problem paying 43 cents per instance, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll only include leads and meeting requests here.

  • The first legitimate job lead I received was actually from someone at Bazaarvoice, but it was for an incredible position at the interactive branch of a well-known sporting goods company. He liked my creative approach, and this new contact graciously introduced me to the hiring manager for the position. I held a phone interview earlier this week, which went well, but I haven’t yet heard back.
  • The second lead I received was from another employee of Bazaarvoice, who encouraged me by way of blog comment to apply to the open Social Media Manager position at her company. By that time, I had actually already applied and had been screened out! I let her know that I appreciated the lead and asked her to keep me in mind should anything similar open up.
  • The next day, I got a promising comment from a small business owner in the digital space. He wanted to discuss sending clients my way, I assume for consulting. I’ve since followed up, but haven’t heard back. Of course, I’ve put another follow-up on my calendar.
  • My fourth inbound contact has turned into a consulting client already. He is the CEO of a local SEO company with a national presence, and he reached out because of the unique tack of my self promotion. I’ll be helping his firm find additional clients using new media hubs like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
  • Another direct e-mail, and I practically do a double take when I see who it’s from. Absent his permission, I’ll just say it’s from a well-known, local CEO in new media with a high-profile client base. He’s traveling at the moment, but wants to get coffee when he gets back. We’ve got it scheduled, and I’m excited and honored to meet him.
  • As if to prove how effective company-by-company targeting is with Facebook, a recruiter from Bazaarvoice sends me a message to set up a time to talk about the position I had already applied for. She saw my ad, read a bit of my blog and thought she’d reach out. It looks like they’ve since found a fit for that position, but it felt good to be considered nonetheless.
  • I’ve signed an NDA already with the next person to reach out, but it’s a very promising direction. Very cool potential gig.

That’s it, for now! Now tell me, would you have spent $80 for the interactions above? I’m incredibly happy with my ROI thus far.

But I’m not going to stop looking; I’ve made that mistake before.

No matter how successful this ad becomes, I invite all contacts, no matter what they have to say. I’m not a job-hunting innovator; I just stumbled onto Grant Turck’s amazing idea and decided to borrow it and apply a few tweaks. I might be the first one to do it in Austin (not even sure if that’s true), but my hope here is that others read this and get hip to this winning technique.

If you’re an employer looking for sharp talent, please take a look at my qualifications, and feel free to contact me at 512-751-3978 or igreenleigh@gmail.com .

If you’re a job seeker, and would like to chat about my methods, I’d love to hear from you as well.

Good luck!

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