The first was from Inc. Magazine. The article praised the value of  “the designer who codes” as a “new breed of tech experts.”  I had to re-read the piece several times to see if it actually said what I thought it did.  The premise is that the best user experience comes from team members that understand what it takes to create both the intuitive design and the robust back end technology to make it happen. My beef isn’t with the concept. That’s dead on. It’s the fact that somehow it’s the coolest new thing to roll down the highway, when it’s been at the core of what Trivera has been doing for 16 years.

From the very beginning everyone on our team has understood that results-producing web sites are about creating relationships that build trust and result in a transaction. A critical component is to make sure that the technology doesn’t get in the way, but rather, transparently re-enforces the brand experience between the company and the customer. That kind of interactivity requires the “smart design” and “creative technology” that have actually been our tagline all along.

The other article trumpeted a “new” idea called responsive web design, which it defined as an approach that proposes that a web site’s design should respond to a user’s environment and behavior, based on the platform, orientation and screen size.

New? Really?

For some reason, now that there are iPads and Smartphones, we suddenly must now pay unique and individual attention to what  visitors should see and experience when they come to a site. And while Web developers are playing “stupid HTML tricks” now to make sure the design looks perfect in every device possible, again, they’re missing a bigger point. Truly responsive web design is based on more than just the device being used to view the site.

Over 16 years, I’ve met with hundreds of prospects and clients to discuss what they need to do take meaningful advantage of the Web.  As I talk about our approach,  I recite the mantra that I’ve used from day 1:

Every single web-based contact point needs to be created with the following 5 considerations:

1. Who is coming?
2. How did they get there?
3. What did they expect to find?
4. What did they use to access it?
5. What does it need to do to encourage and facilitate a transaction as quickly and easily as possible?

I’ve said it a million times. Even though it’s at the heart of our unique selling proposition, it sometimes becomes just recitation. But the other day as I went through the list, a prospect stopped me. He grabbed a pen, took out a piece of paper and said: “Can you repeat those, please?”

It’s not rocket science, so why does it seem so revolutionary? Because so much of the web over the past 16 years has been “about the art.’  Pretty pictures. Built in Flash. Incompatible with many browsers and devices. Limited in functionality due to lack of technical expertise. It’s been created by agencies who view index.html as a new canvas that can’t wait to be the vehicle for their next wonderfully creative expression. Who needs concepts like usability, intuitive navigation, conversion funnels when it’s really all about the art?

I’m not diminishing the power of great graphical presentation, but a tepid economy is forcing businesses to demand measurable results for their marketing. For too many years businesses have laughed at the axiom: “Half my marketing money is well spent, the other half is totally wasted, but I just can’t figure which is which,” and then went on to pay marketing firms and advertising agencies huge sums of money for campaigns that favored creativity over measurability, and art over ROI.

The fact that everything that happens on the web is measurable is causing marketing gurus finally to see the light. But those of us who have been shining that light for over a decade and a half are saying it’s about time.  Since that January day in 1996 when we opened our doors as one of Milwaukee’s very first web development companies and introduced “web sites with vision,” we have focused on delivering demonstrable, measurable, and improvable value for our clients. It  is…and always has been…about knowing exactly what the client’s goals and visitor expectations are, and making sure that the design and technology work together intelligently to meet them both.

From our first e-commerce-enabled web site in 1997 and our first mobile website in 1999, “responsive web” has been at the core of what we do. What’s now being called responsive design isn’t just the next shiny object. It’s “Smart Design and Creative Technology” that has differentiated us from our competition these past sixteen years, and is what will keep us leading the pack for the next sixteen.

On February 2, 2012, I’ll be presenting “Managing Social Marketing” at the Metropolitan Builders Association Business Management Symposium at their headquarters in Waukesha. The event is open to members and non-members. Details and registration information can be found on the MBA Site.

The following week, on February 9th, I will be presenting “Twitter: Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tool?” at the Sales Progress 2012 Kickoff held at the Milwaukee Athletic Club. The event also includes other seminars, followed by a large networking session, and free soda and food.  The event is free, but registration is required. Details are here.

Later in the month, I’ll be presenting “Getting to the Top in Google – Your Blueprint for Search Engine Success” at the Wisconsin Association of Home Builders 2012 Builders’ Conference, at the Chula Vista Resort in Wisconsin Dells. The event runs February 22-24, 2012, with Tom’s presentation kicking things off first thing on the morning of the 22nd. The event is open to members and non-members. Details and registration can be found at the WHBA site.

Watch for more opportunities to hear me and other Trivera team members speak and present at events throughout the Midwest in 2012.

My contribution to the book is “5 Procedures to Resuscitate your Website.”  Other sections of the book deal with topics from marketing to management.

I was honored to be considered one of the smart Milwaukee business people chosen to contribute to the project.  Trivera has always been a fan and partner of Clear Verve founder and president Christina Steder. To be a part of this project with her and so many other local business heroes was a no brainer.

The e-book is full of ideas for businesses to implement over the coming year, and the site where the e-book can be downloaded also provides readers with the opportunity to receive monthly emails with tips to help maintain their momentum.

The e-book is available for download for free at www.100Ways2012.com. Sign up for the email tips is also available by clicking on the Continued Success tab.

After 2 years of frequent and extended down times, poor support and clients calling us to solve problems we couldn’t fix, we decided to set up our own hosting operation. We’ve been hosting our client sites ever since.

Occasionally, we have a new client who wants to host with a large, cheap, national commodity hosting company. We explain to them why it’s unwise to put their website somewhere with slow load times, poor (or non-existent) support, chronic downtime and/or a value proposition of being the hosting provider whose commercials tease you with a chance to see Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels naked. They usually see the light and let us host it.

But, lately, we’ve been seeing another growing trend. Clients who proudly tell us they’re going to host the site themselves. The effort is always driven by an internal IT person with one of several predictable motives, none of which include an objective decision to put the site on the best hosting service possible.

If you’re thinking about hosting your own corporate web presence, and have your IT guys insisting  that you can, or even should, host it internally, you’ll want to ask them these 8 questions to determine whether that’s the direction to go:

1.) Does your internal hosting solution include guaranteed power backup capabilities?

We’re not talking about a little consumer level APC battery backup, but a system that automatically flips to batteries and/or generators with private fuel contracts that assure your site will remain up without any interruption, even in the event of a power failure that lasts for days. Or weeks.

2.) Are they willing, able and available to provide the service and support a website requires?

That doesn’t mean just 8am-5pm on weekdays. Real website support means someone who is available 24/7/365 to immediately respond to phone calls or emailed issues related to outages and other server problem. It means having those phone numbers and email addresses on every page of your website. It also means a commitment not to let those problems wait till it’s convenient to fix them, but a proficiency, willingness and dedication to restore a crashed server within 20 minutes, no matter when it happens.

3.) Do they understand everything necessary about making a hosting environment PCI-DSS compliant?

This means knowing when to update all the hosting infrastructure-specific packages (OS, Web server, Database, compilers and platforms, SSL handling, etc.) , and understanding what is necessary to protect credit card and other critical personal information.

4.) Are they so confident in their security expertise that they are comfortable providing a potential backdoor to your company’s entire internal network to the world? 

There are armies of hackers, crackers, pirates and other miscreants who pride themselves on being superior to your IT people when it comes to web security. They scour the web with bots and spiders to find vulnerable systems they know they can exploit, and when they find them, they tunnel in as far as they can go… not just stopping at your site, but also taking advantage of typical network infrastructure to gain access to your data. All of it. Are your guys absolutely certain that your systems would be safe?

5.) Do they know how to stop or, better yet, prevent a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS)?

The solution to having your site bombarded and overloaded with thousands or millions of hits from IP addresses all over the world is not doing an emergency Google search when it happens to figure out how to make it stop.  By the time you find your answer, your site, your server and your network may already be suffering damage from which it might not ever recover.

6.) Does your network connection provide redundancy in its connection to the web?

We’re not talking about dual T-1′s coming in through the same pipe, but rather redundant physical connections from multiple physical entry points to your building, each providing a different path to the Internet backbone to eliminate site outages to portions of the country in the event of a main trunk outage on any one of them.

7.) Does your connection provide the necessary dedicated bandwidth that websites need today?

With thousands of site visitors these days with broadband speeds of 20, 30 or 50 MBPS, one or even two T-1′s aren’t enough.

8.) Is it really worth it to make your company pay more for the development just so you can host it internally?

Your web developers are more efficient when they don’t have to develop your site in an unfamiliar, improperly equipped and potentially misconfigured environment, and have to deal with a server administrator that’s not familiar with their needs. Your cost to develop the site will be more if it’s hosted at your company.

So what if you ask your IT guys the above 8 questions, and they say “yes” or “yes, we can” to all of them? Ask them this one:

9.) Can you do all of this as a budget line item of less than a couple hundred bucks a month?

Even if your IT staff and internal hosting infrastructure is capable of the above, you need to ask yourself if it’s worth the expense. Add it all up. Can you really get all of this for anything close to the couple hundred dollars a month for a virtual dedicated server fully managed by your web development vendor, and even less for a site in a shared hosting environment in the same facility?

The logic is simple. Let your IT people focus on maintaining your internal network infrastructure and security and leave your website hosting to the guys who do it for a living, and have been for a long time. It’s too important to do anything less.

Initiated as a consumer-oriented technology, social media is increasingly being leveraged as a powerful, low-cost tool for enterprises to drive business objectives such as enhanced customer interaction, greater brand recognition and more effective employee recruitment. While social media affords enterprises many potential benefits, information risk professionals are concerned about its inherent risks such as data leakage, malware propagation and privacy infringement. Enterprises seeking to integrate social media into their business strategy must adopt a cross-functional, strategic approach that addresses risks, impacts and mitigation steps, along with appropriate governance and assurance measures.

To educate professionals on the topic, I did my presentation the Risky Business of Social Media for the Kettle Moraine chapter of the The Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) on Wednesday November 16, 2011 at 2:30pm.

Event was LIVE  in BROOKFIELD, broadcast remotely to MADISON and the FOX VALLEY and available virtually to members via WEBEX.

The Powerpoint for the presentation can be found here.

This is a big one… I usually do my Social Media Overview that has about 20 minutes on Twitter. From time to time  I do a one hour Twitter seminar, and always run out of time. This time, I get 2 full hours. Everything from tools to tactics and beyond:

•     Creating your Profile
•     Monitoring your Space
•     Building your Flock
•     Engaging your Twibe
•     Establishing your Cred
•     Marketing your Stuff

If you own or manage a small business, or are responsible for your company’s marketing, you can’t afford to miss this.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Continental Breakfast included at 7:30 a.m.
Seminar: 8:00-10:00 a.m.
Research Park/Wauwatosa Chamber
10437 Innovation Drive
Classroom 121
Wauwatosa

Chamber Member Price: $20
Community Member Price: $30

YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER

Sign up here, or call call the UWM School of Continuing Education at 414-227-3098

See the entire article and photos here

I say “Hogwash! “

You may think the information contained in a bad video may be helpful enough to the viewer that they’ll overlook bad production. I say this over and over: your brand is not your logo, it’s the promise of an experience. Everything you do either reinforces or erodes that brand. And simply put, bad video erodes your brand.

If you MUST create your own video, make sure that it reinforces your brand with these pointers:

1. Length. Video should be no more than 15 minutes with opening and closing credits. You’ll likely be posting your videos to YouTube as a part of both a storage/delivery solution and a component of viral distribution and 15 minutes is the maximum length YouTube will accept. If the topic cannot be completely covered in 15 minutes, create a series with 15 minute parts. Remember the Chinese proverb that says “The truth can be told in few words.”  Understand that attention spans are short and the longer the video is, the less likely that people will stay engaged all the way through.

2. Subject matter. The goal is not to cram as much information into 15 minutes as you can. Online video is more compelling if the idea is simple. People are easily distracted when watching a video, so you can’t try to put too much into one. Try to convey one or two ideas at the most. Begin by telling people what you’re going to tell them. Then tell them, ideally using 3 points. Finally, tell them what you told them. Remember, you may be the expert, but the focus of the message is not you, it’s the viewer. They have a situation, a question, a problem or a curiosity, and you have the solution. Communicate that solution to them clearly, genuinely and enthusiastically. You’ll keep their attention, earn their appreciation and potentially win their business.

3. Content. If it’s about your brand, content should always be family-friendly.  You never know when a prospective customer will have a little one on their lap or looking over their shoulder, so make sure your content and language is appropriate for viewers of any age.  Don’t disparage other products, services, people or organizations, and don’t make inappropriate comments about age, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity. Don’t advocate for any political organization or party or promote or recruit for any religious denomination. And don’t demean any of them either.

4. On-camera Presence. You are the authority. The way you come across needs to re-enforce that. If you’re not comfortable, it will show, and your viewers will be uncomfortable, too. You’ll undermine your own credibility. Practice to work on eliminating the “umms” and “uhhhs” so you sound confident and professional.

Then practice again, focusing on the camera. Unless you need to look at something you’re demonstrating, don’t let your eyes wander anywhere else but directly into the lens. If you’re going to be sitting in the video, sit on a chair that doesn’t swivel and practice to avoid squirming. If you’re standing,  practice to keep from rocking back and forth.

Practice enough times so that you’re not just reading copy, but actually communicating the information in a personal and conversational manner.

Practice, practice, practice.

5. Audio. Nothing screams “unprofessional” like a cheap microphone feet away from the speaker. Invest in a good clip-on microphone. Try to eliminate any distracting ambient room noise. If you’re shooting outside, make sure your microphone has a windscreen. If you’ll have more than one person speaking, try to provide a microphone for each individual, and ensure that everyone’s audio level is equal.

Your message is important. Do all you can to make it easy to hear so it can be understood.

6. Lighting. Lighting is critical. Digital video can’t have enough light. But if you’re shooting outside, try to do it on a slightly overcast day. Bright sunlight causes shadows and makes you squint.  Some cloudiness eliminates both.

If you’re shooting indoors, several lights aimed at the walls and ceiling will light you without blinding you, casting harsh shadows or reflecting off your face. Construction site lights actually work well if you’re on a budget.

7. Camera. Create your video in High Definition (720p or 1080i, ideally recorded at 29.97 or 24 frames per second). Even cheap video cameras (and even many still cameras) these days are capable of shooting video with that resolution. Don’t get cute with someone shooting while constantly moving around you, zooming in and out or circling you. This isn’t MTV. Use a tripod, and put the camera close enough so you are the predominant image.

8. Stills slides and Edits. While not necessary, still pictures or slides with information  can be added. They are a good way to set a scene or help with transitions. But beware of video editing programs. If you don’t already know how to use them correctly, they can be a huge time suck. Keep your edits simple. Use edits primarily to remove extraneous and unnecessary footage, not to add wild transitions or effects. Less is more.

9. Music. Use background music only for scenes where you’ll be demonstrating something without narration or commentary. A music bed under the entire video will likely detract from your message and make it seem more like a commercial. You must have the author’s and composer’s permission to use any copy written music in your video. Don’t think that using your favorite smooth jazz instrumental won’t get you in trouble. Within minutes of your upload to YouTube, you’ll be getting a warning from them about copyright violation. Yeah, they find out almost immediately.

A big list, I know. But if your ultimate goal for creating a video is to position your brand as one based on quality and commitment to excellence, sweating the details on the production will be critical.  If the above list is overwhelming and intimidating, your limited time will be better spent maintaining your focus on your product or service and leaving the video to the pros.  But if you think you have an aptitude in this area, and are willing to heed the advice you may still be able to produce brand re-enforcing media yourself. While production values won’t rival those you see on TV it may still be good enough.  If you’re OK with your brand being represented by a happy medium, it doesn’t take expensive equipment, just a little attention to detail. At least it won’t be an embarrassment.

If you’re a business owner or decision maker in the Milwaukee Area, join me for this event:

The leading Social Media firm in Southeastern Wisconsin is teaming up with the newest hotel in Menomonee Falls to help local businesses take advantage of the Social Media phenomenon. Trivera Interactive presents “Jumpstarting Your Business with Social Media”, Thursday, July 14th from 4 to 6pm at the new Radissson Hotel, Main Street and Hwy 45, in Menomonee Falls.

The two hour event, begins in the Radisson Ballroom with Trivera President and author Tom Snyder presenting: “Social Media – Fun and Games or Powerful Business Tool.” Snyder is a regular speaker on the topic of Social Media and Web marketing at events like the Biz Times Biz Tech Expo, Metropolitan Builders Association, Social Media Breakfast, the Nonbox Winter Marketing Summit, and many other trade group and association events. The presentation will cover how to develop your strategy to determine which Social Media tools present the greatest chance for success, and then giving a brief overview of the most common uses of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube and more.

Following the presentation, Snyder and other local experts will be on hand in the RBG Bar and Grill Restaurant, also at the New Radisson, for an hour to provide hands-on training and one on one Q&A.

Since 1996, Trivera Interactive has been helping businesses leverage the power of Web and Social Media. Clients include Mitchell International Airport, Usinger’s, Potawatomi Bingo Casino, Regal Ware, Frabill, the Metropolitan Builders Association, ZBB Energy and dozens of others. In 2009 Trivera’s Social media University, Milwaukee’s first large Social Media Training event drew 400 attendees. Trivera President is also the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to real-Time Marketing using Foursqaure, published by Penguin Books and available at Amazon.com

The brand-new Radisson Hotel Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin is proud to offer beautiful, urban-design accommodations near Milwaukee. Fully committed to guest satisfaction, the hotel features an array of outstanding amenities and services including complimentary Wi-Fi access, a Business Center, an on-site Fitness Center, a heated indoor pool and whirlpool, meeting facilities, and on-site dining and room service. The Radisson is just minutes from downtown Menomonee Falls and only 14 miles from Milwaukee’s city center.

The event is free and open to all local businesses. Cash bar, appetizers and food will be available for purchase. For more information go to http://www.trivera.com/jumpstart

Those articles come from blogs, email newsletters and forums and are specifically chosen to help you become better at what you do, and show up about once an hour between 9am and 5pm, Monday through Friday. Whether you’re a small business owner, Web developer, marketing professional, or just a student of the digital world, the articles I link to are specifically, and strategically selected to give you a few nuggets of helpful wisdom in a quick read (or scan).

Part of my daily regimen is an early morning check of my RSS feeds, industry newsletters and a few quirky and obscure Web sites to find informational resources for myself. Of the hundred or so articles I see, and the 20 or 30 I read, I pick the 7 or 8 that really represent the cream of the crop and share them with my Twitter followers. The common denominator is that they’re short, well written, accurate, organized, timely and helpful. I often re-write the headline if I think I can better communicate the benefit of the information and improve the likelihood that people will go read them. And I use Hootsuite to shorten the URL and schedule them to trickle out during the day rather than deluge everyone with a flood of information all at once.

Some critics have questioned why I do it, pointing out that they can get all of this in their own RSS feed. But I know from my own daily exercise that, because anyone can blog, much of what fills the blogosphere is poorly written, filled with errors, or both. I’ve earned the trust of my followers to be the filter that only allows the best of the best.

The evidence shows that I must be doing something right.  In addition to shortening long URLS and allowing me to schedule my posts, Hootsuite allows me to measure metrics. Since I began doing this and keeping track a little over 2 years ago, over 81,000 people have clicked through to read what I’ve posted. And by even being able to see which articles are the most clicked on, it allows me to fine tune the choice of articles to make sure that I’m tweeting the types of content that people find most helpful.

The good news is that you don’t even have to be on Twitter to benefit from the articles. Bookmark this link and just my tweets with shortened links will show up in your browser. If you have an RSS reader, add this feed to it, and the articles will show up there.

Since we’ve been in business, it’s been my goal raise the level of the Web intelligence of the market. I don’t have the time to blog as often as I’d like, and even when I do, someone else has probably already blogged about my topic before. But the combination of these articles and my blogs (which also end up in these Tweets and feeds), seem to be doing a great job of educating the market. In addition to making followers smarter, it also establishes me as an authority without having to spend hours a week writing my own blogs, which is a tactic we also recommend to some of our clients.

The world of the Web is changing rapidly. Web 1.0 is giving way to Web 2.0. While many of my tips are focused on Social Media, I still link to articles on Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing and making your site successful. But there’s no doubt where the market is headed, and by following my posts, you can be equipped with the information you need to ride the wave.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the most clicked through article ever is You’re doing Social Media. That’s good. But not Mobile? Uh-oh…

—-

Tom Snyder is Founder, President and CEO of Trivera Interactive, a Midwest New Media firm. Tom is a Web guy, wine snob, music junkie, Ex-Milwaukee Radio Guy, HDTV expert, and political wonk.

Details are here

Updated:

PowerPoint Presentation is here!

First it’s a tactic, not a strategy…which I say not to be smart alec, but rather to impress the need to know your overall marketing strategy first, and then choose your tactics. Once you know your goals, objectives and target audience, then you can choose a tactic that will help you achieve those goals and objectives.

If you’ve just started your Twitter profile and have no followers, before you ask the question “who?” first ask “what?”

Ask yourself what you need to Tweet about that will make your target audience WANT to follow you. Get busy…even if you have no followers, yet…and start posting those tweets. When you follow someone and they wonder who you are, they’ll check out your profile. You’ll only have one chance to make a good first impression. So make sure that your profile is visually designed to communicate your brand identity, and filled out with a bio that describes your value proposition, and links to your site (or a page in your site that would be a compelling landing page for people coming from Twitter). But even more important, you want them to see a list of your recent Tweets. If there are a bunch and they’re authentic, transparent, interesting, compelling and of value, they’re more likely to follow you back.

So how do you choose who to follow hoping they’ll follow you back?

I always have my clients start first with the media echo chamber. Traditional media hasn’t died yet, and still has influence. Getting a local media outlet to follow you increases your chance of getting press coverage. I created a list of local media on Twitter for my clients in Milwaukee, and we look through the list and have them follow those outlets that give them the greatest chance of interest. To find a media list, simply do a search for media outlet you know by name in your community on twitter, and look for the “listed” link on their profile. You’ll find a bunch of lists with other media outlets. Pick and choose strategically to follow the ones consistent with your brand and your target demographics.

Next find local influencers. For instance, if you’re a Wine Shop, identify and follow the people who tweet about wine and wine tasting events. Don’t just follow, REALLY follow. See what they’re tweeting about, and who they’re engaging in conversations with. Follow those people too. Is there a wine tasting or food event? See who’s talking it up in advance. Follow them. The day of the event, if there’s a hashtag, see who’s tweeting the hashtag. Follow them.

But that still isn’t enough to assure that you’ll get follow backs. Begin to engage them. You’re the expert, right? Ask them their opinions. Share information with them. Make recommendations. The relationship that develops will create its own network. Continue to extend that network by watching the followers of those in that network. Follow them. Engage. Expand. Repeat.

If you think all you need to do is start a Twitter profile, and follow millions of people hoping for follow backs, you’ll not only fail to get meaningful results, but you’re missing the point of Twitter entirely.

Social Media is about relationships. And that takes more effort than just a click of a “follow” button.

Details are here

Update: My Powerpoint presentation is available here.

1. The 9 WORST Ways to Use Facebook for Business
2. Why the CEO doesn’t care about your Twitter follower count
3. 10 Reasons You’re Not Getting Followers on Twitter
4. Great infographics: How to lose friends and alienate followers
5. Facebook Page Redesign: All You Need to Know
6. The 7 stages of a social media blunder
7. 10 reasons NOT to be on Twitter.
8. 5 Things You Should Never Say While Negotiating
9. Social Media – The entrepreneur’s new biggest pain point..
10. 7 grammatical errors you can sometimes ignore (and I do regularly)

Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this RSS feed to get 5-10 great tips a day to help your business compete in the digital world.

1. The 9 WORST Ways to Use Facebook for Business
2. 10 cool social networking features that you may not know
3. 10 reasons you need to wake up earlier (Bonus: 6 tips for actually doing it)
4. 10 buzzwords SM consultants need to stop using right now!
5. 5 key tips for a successful Social Media Content Strategy
6. 11 certainties about your brand’s reputation
7. 9 easy steps to add Twitter to your PR mix
8. 6 reasons why you’re not getting more followers on Twitter
9. 7 Reasons Why Your Posts Aren’t Getting Retweeted
10. Facebook Marketing: 10 Tips on Better Fan Pages

Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this RSS feed to get 5-10 great tips a day to help your business compete in the digital world.

1. The 9 WORST Ways to Use Facebook for Business
2. How Twitter Can Improve Your SEO
3. My book? On Amazon.com?!? Sweet! The Complete Idiot’s Mini Guide to Real-time Marketing with Foursquare.
4. Top 10 communication tips of 2010
5. 10 Cool social networking features that you may not know
6. The Secret Weapon for Social Media Success – My article in this week’s BizTimes
7. 10 things to toss before the end of 2010
8. 10 SEO Tactics every Facebook page owner should know
9. People always ask me who nails it with Social Media. Answer has always been Dell. This shows why.
10. 6 things new PR pros need to know

Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this RSS feed to get 5-10 great tips a day to help your business compete in the digital world.

Foursquare is a website that allows members to use their mobile devices and smart phones to “check in” wherever they go, and if they wish, Tweet about it or post it to their Facebook page. While originally a way for people to hook up with their friends, Foursquare’s point system and badge awards turned it into a game. It wasn’t long before businesses started to figure out how to use it to drive traffic to their locations by offering special prices and other promotions to people who checked in at their locations.

About the new e-book, Penguin says: Social media marketing is here in force and is the wave of the future. Using it wisely can mean big profits — with little expense. But marketing in real-time on Foursquare.com is unlike other social media, and can be both confusing and daunting. Fear no more! The Complete Idiot’s Mini Guide to Real-time Marketing with Foursquare gives you everything you need to know to make marketing on this website popular and profitable. In this invaluable guide, you’ll learn about creating and managing your venue, superusers, badges, creating specials, and finding customers — all the basics for a great Foursquare marketing campaign and so much more!

The Complete Idiot’s Mini Guide to Real-Time Marketing takes you through the steps to get you familiar with the site, make sure your location is “check-in”-ready, helps you create specials, measure and improve upon your success, and even offers a few case studies of several successful businesses who have used Foursquare to make their cash registers ring.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Real-Time Marketing is only $1.99 and is available for the Kindle at Amazon.com or for the Nook at BarnesandNoble.com

1. Want an idea of how far the web has come? Best Buy’s original web site in 1996

2. The 9 WORST Ways to Use Facebook for Business

3. 50 office-speak phrases that have GOT to go

4. 12 types of social media experts

5. 10 secrets of how the Facebook news feed works

6. Five Ways Businesses Ruin Twitter for the Rest of Us

7. 6 tips for using hashtags for events

8. Five Ways Twitter Can Help You Conquer Distraction

9. 7 things to do when the media get it wrong

10. People have been asking, today I tell you: Why I’ve Dumped Tweetdeck for Mixero

Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this RSS feed to get 5-10 great tips a day to help your business compete in the digital world.

1. The 9 WORST Ways to Use Facebook for Business

2. 8 Ways to Not Get ReTweeted

3. 8 social media trends to watch in 2011

4. Absolutely everything you need to know to win usability arguments

5. 7 Image Search Tools That Will Change Your Life

6. People have been asking, today I tell you: Why I’ve Dumped Tweetdeck for Mixero

7. 10 Sure-Fire Ways To Alienate Your Brand Evangelists

8. 7 Places to Find Free, Legal Images for the Web

9. 10 secrets of how the Facebook news feed works

10. 3 Problems that Make Me Leave Your Blog in 3 Seconds

Follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this RSS feed to get 5-10 great tips a day to help your business compete in the digital world.

The power of Social Media comes from the personal brand that is being built by an author, and the benefit a corporate brand derives by having that person engage an audience in the Social Media community.

But what if the real voice and face of your brand is just too busy to participate?

My company has been the online services partner for one of our area’s most visible brands for nearly a decade and a half. While they know their brand better than anyone else, we know their brand in the online space as well as, if not better than they do. If they could afford to pay me enough to leave the company I own and be on their payroll, I’m probably the most qualified person to BE them in the Social Media sphere.  But they can’t, and so we work with them as a vendor.

For blogging, we  told them that unless it was actually the corporate face of the brand who’s doing the blogging, they really shouldn’t do it. A ghost-written blog is not a blog… it’s really PR and needs to be renamed as such and moved to the appropriate area of the site. And so we used an integrated installation of WordPress on their site to post their press releases, giving them the RSS benefits of a blog, but clearly labeling it as “The News” and not a blog.

However, as an already popular location on Foursquare, not being on Twitter or Facebook wasn’t an option for them. That put me in a weird position. Having developed their Social Media strategy, voice, rules and roles, and needing to accommodate their lack of time and internal resources, we decided to make Twitter a co-effort. Initially, I posted each Tweet, but only after their review and sign off. It was a clumsy process with some of them taking several back and forth edits prior to posting. However, that process resulted in an even better understanding for us, and an educational process for them. Eventually they realized it was just easier for them to post themselves, and a year later, we’ve gotten them to actually be doing all the Tweeting and Facebooking themselves. We still continue to monitor for brand mentions and let them know when they need to respond to something. But we showed them how to monitor, and they usually are finding things to post or Tweet about just as fast as we would have.  We still help them develop Social Media based promotions, and take care of the Web and housekeeping aspects of the strategy, but for the most part, they have become pretty much self sufficient.

It was a difficult path, because initially, it could have been regarded as a violation of the authenticity and transparency that Social Media requires. But the alternative was a brand eroding silence in the Twitter-sphere and on Facebook.

It’s a tough decision that many are faced with: outsource or not participate. But because not participating is not an option, this creative approach may be the only solution available.

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Just before I began, someone in the audience dug up the tired old charge about Social Media having no real ROI. I began my presentation by agreeing that it’s hard to calculate, but decided to let my own experience speak for itself. That look back follows.

Last year at this time, we had just wrapped up our Social Media University, a full day event dedicated to educating the market on Social Media. It was the largest event of its type in Milwaukee history and the first Milwaukee event sponsored by market newcomer Southwest Airlines. Best Buy, Time Warner and other major names also sponsored it. It sold out before the event to the tune of nearly 400 tickets (advertised almost exclusively via Social Media).  Because it was such a market changer, the plan was to have another one. But its own success got in the way.

The event so impressed the marketing people who were in attendance from RegalWare that they moved their Web and interactive to Trivera. In addition to having Trivera develop the Social Media strategy for one of their new brands, they also had us redevelop their corporate Web site, and currently are working with us on a full brand rollout for a new division.

The word spread around the marketplace that we were credible Social Media guys, and two major political candidates hired us to develop the Social Media Strategies for their campaigns.

I was also invited to speak at the NonBox 2010 Winter Marketing Summit at the Eisner Museum as the area’s “Social Media Guru” (a term I hate because it makes me think I should be wearing saffron robes as a I speak).  In the audience was the marketing team from Potawatomi Bingo Casino. As a result, a subsequent relationship developed on Twitter. That relationship shortly led to Trivera taking over the hosting for the entire Paysbig.com web presence and migrating it to a new Content Management System. We’ve been talking to them about their Social Media strategy, and once we get past a few other large web projects for them, that will be the next project on our plate.

Long time client Mitchell International Airport finally got on board and agreed to have us develop and help them execute their Social Media strategy, including  Twitter, Facebook, brand monitoring and now Foursquare.

Our newfound visibility in the market in that arena also led to several other clients having us get them set up in Social Media. We’re not sure if it was our Social Media presence, the fact that we’ve been around for over 14 years or both, but a huge influx of new Web 1.0 business has also come our way, with over a dozen large projects working their way through our pipeline.  We’ve had to hire new employees to help us handle a workload as large as we had during the dot-com boom.

Even though I had been writing articles for the Trivera website since 1997, I had never really called it a blog. But I jumped on the bandwagon and started triveraguy.com as my official blog. Shortly thereafter, my blogs started getting picked up by Social Media Today, and a recent one I wrote on Media, Social Media and the Milwaukee summer flood of 2010 got 5,200 page views, 400 retweets and remained on the homepage of that site as one of the top articles there for nearly a week.

But the coolest thing that happened came via a professor and guest panelist on Fox news and CNN who I got to know solely through Twitter. She’s become one of the few professional contacts I also am friends with on FaceBook. Late this Spring, after having gotten to know me and reading my blog, she asked me if I wanted to write a book. It turns out her agent was looking for someone to write a book about Social Media for a major publisher. He got me in touch with the publisher, and without going through all the twists and turns, last Friday I submitted my manuscript to Penguin Books for the first in their new series of e-books: “The Complete Idiot’s Mini Guide to Real-time Marketing using Foursquare,” to be released on Amazon and B&N later this year.

Whew!

So, what has been the ROI over the past year on our use of Social Media? I haven’t a clue.  But it’s like my friend Augie Ray says”: “There’s an ROI on wearing pants. I can’t calculate it, but I know it’s a whole lot higher when I wear them to work than if I don’t.”

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I ask because, unlike the criticism of the web, this time they could be right!

Friends in the Social Media universe know me as Triveraguy (my profile name on Twitter). But, back in the 70′s, another Social Media “community” knew me as Grouchy Bear.

The medium was CB, or “citizen’s band” radio.  The radios themselves had both a receive and transmit function, allowing anyone to engage in short blast broadcast conversations with other people who also had one.  Originally used almost exclusively by the over-the-road truck driving community, it spread to include just regular folks, some using mobile devices, others using desktop units.  The general communication happened on channel 19, where a constant cacophony of messages filled the airwaves… everything from truck drivers warning of speed traps or drunk drivers, stalled motorists asking for assistance, truck stops inviting drivers to their business or regular people just talking about such inane topics as where they were (your “10-20″) and what they were doing. As groups of friends and followers formed, other sideband channels  became the gathering places for those communities. “Lower Channel 15″ was the hangout for me, Bird Lady, Lannon Rich and at least a  dozen others whose handles I’ve long forgotten.

The CB community used its own nomenclature…an almost secret code language…that longtimers helped create, and caused newbies to have to monitor for awhile before they dared to jump in and actively participate.

Community “leaders” emerged who organized meetups to allow all these people who had never met each other face to face to see the other folks behind the handles. Connections were made, and relationships were built.  I even met a great guy I ended up hiring and we are friends to this day.

Non CBers just thought we were all nuts, but we were convinced everyone needed to be using CB radio. And our nearly evangelistic fervor drove our “non-enlightened” friends, neighbors and relatives crazy. But then CB radio started to show up in the consciousness of mainstream America. The movie “Smokey and The Bandit” hit the theaters and was a huge hit.  C.W. McCall’s song “Convoy” made the top of the charts and produced a movie of the same name.  And there were the popular TV shows like “Movin’ On” and “The Dukes of Hazzard” that glorified the whole CB lifestyle. We had arrived, and we knew it would only be a matter of time before we took over the world.

If you’re one of us who are active in Social Media, I’m sure you see the stunning parallels. The reason I “get” Social Media is because, for me it really is just another stop in a series of subcultures that began with the hippie subculture of the 60′s and early 70′s, and after the CB radio adventure, went on to other religious, business and technological subcultures and has now culminated in Social Media. If you’ve ever been a part of a large multi-level marketing, religious or hobby-based subculture, you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say every one of them has so many of the same characteristics as Social Media, it’s scary.

But all good things come to an end. In rare cases, subcultures grow and become so mainstream that they stop being subcultures and become part of the fabric of the culture at large. Others sink into insignificance and obscurity. Often it’s because people move on with their lives. Sometimes, the technology that makes it possible gets trumped by something new. Frequently the whole subculture simultaneously has a “what were we thinking?” epiphany and it dies from mass exodus.

Universal acceptance for the CB subculture never materialized. It ended up being just another fad that exploded for a time, but eventually returned to its roots, still being used to this day, but almost solely by truckers.

So what ultimately happens to the Social Media subculture? Its fans believe Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and all the others will be like the Web and leapfrog into mass acceptance and live happily ever after.  But, we’ve already seen MySpace begin to lose its luster. While nearly half of all Americans have a Facebook profile,  Twitter’s penetration is still significantly smaller, and according to Forrester Research, only 1% use check-in services regularly. With a business impact that’s tinier than its zealots are willing to admit,  its insider lingo, club-like characteristics, evangelistic fervor and the fact that in most markets, the Social Media community is only large enough to support the one or two businesses that are trotted out by the media as the “examples of success,” the jury may still be out.

You could always tell a CBer by the long antenna on his car, truck or house. One of our clients told us the other day that she could tell us Twitter people because of the antennae that we have growing out of our own heads!

So all irrational exuberance aside,  what do you think history predicts is next on the horizon for Social Media? Is Social Media headed for a “10-7” or will the future be “clean and green with the shiny side up and the greasy side down?”

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Oh yeah, and local TV covered it too.

The coverage I’m talking about was Twitter, as the community that provides the content for that Social Media outlet shifted into high gear. In so doing, it inadvertently became  a competitor..and facilitator…of one local TV station’s position as “Breaking News Leader.”

One of the big stories of the night was that of a huge sinkhole on Milwaukee’s East Side that swallowed a Cadillac Escalade. The local news carried the story, but the first media report didn’t come from a TV news crew. It came from a “reporter” named “@matt_is_a_nerd” who scooped all the other media outlets at 7:08 with his Tweet:

Before the local news was able to scramble their trucks to go set up a live shot, Twitterer “@theGlenn” published the first photo:

Minutes later,  @Mike_Thiel twitpic’ed the photo of the actual SUV in the hole that has since gone viral:

That photo ended up on all the local TV stations and by the next morning, even NBC’s Today Show was showing it. Other photos, including the now famous back door shot at AJ Bombers with three feet of water visible through the glass showed up on TV. But unlike broadcast TV and its “push to the masses” model, the viral buzz on Twitter gave people the opportunity to participate in the stories…sharing the stories with their own “take” attached, and in the case of the AJ Bombers photos creating a meme where people were encouraged to use their Photoshop skills to modify the photo to include various objects in the water behind the door. Entries included mermaids, turtles, oil leaks and other aquatic creatures.

As they always do, the local TV stations did an awesome job covering the news and human interest stories. Weathermen with the cool graphics, remote crews, cameras mounted on their towers and the access the media has to officials available for phone interviews gave them the edge that even Social Media couldn’t provide. But with a base of tens of thousands of “citizen reporters,” this storm demonstrated the new paradigm of Social Media as a bona fide news source, almost like the old teletype news wires that printed out stories from organizations like Associate Press and United Press International for anchors and reporters to “rip and read” on air.

Twitter, however, did more than just act as a news feed to TV stations. It also provided an amazing service to its members by being a news feed and information source to its own community. News of flooded basements spread and was responded to by people with generators and pumps, willing to brave the elements and come out and help.

A viral concern over the safety of local Twitter favorite @bootyp almost developed into a search party after these two Tweets:

She eventually arrived home safely, but not without dozens of posts expressing concern while everyone waited and worried to find out how that prime-time drama would end.

And just as Social Media provided the Local TV stations with content for their broadcast, a case of reciprocation also emerged as a local TV news anchor actually became an impromptu Twitter Anchor. @SusanKim4 provided her own news blurbs, infobits, and interacted with the community via Twitter throughout the night  just like she does every morning on the Wake-up News show on the local NBC affiliate.

In between on-air interviews with the local Media, the staff at Milwaukee Mitchell Airport was busy as people used Twitter not only to monitor conditions as the airport closed, reopened and closed again, but also assumed that they were there to answer individual questions:

@MitchellAirport is there a bus from Chicago midway to Mitchell airport. My @southwestair fly stranded here

@MitchellAirport is it possible to drive to the airport at this time…and is the airport closed to access from departing passengers?

@MitchellAirport what is the airport doing to get the water off the runway?

Dear @MitchellAirport Please open long enough for my husband to come in from Canada. We miss him. Sincerely, samdham.

Mitchell Airport actually became a trending topic on Twitter as even the local news media began to rely on their Twitter posts as their “official” statements with queries like this:

@MitchellAirport How are the ground (supersaver) lots looking? What will travelers return to?  @wisn12news

Eventually the waters subsided, but coverage still dominated and cross-pollinated both spheres the next day, further blurring the lines that separate traditional Electronic Media and Social Media. Life returned to normal. But will the relationship between New Media and Old Media ever go back to the way it was before?

As mobile devices become more powerful, and Social Media becomes more ubiquitous, one wonders where the trajectory will lead. Will it be further convergence and greater synergy, or will Social Media eventually overtake Traditional Media as the source of information for our society?  What are your thoughts?

As a disclaimer, I still use Hootsuite to schedule those Tweets with links to articles and blogs to be spread out over a full day instead of all going at the same time. I also prefer Hootsuite‘s ht.ly shortener so I can measure clickthroughs, but hate how much desktop real estate it takes up. But for day-to-day ongoing monitoring and management of my Twitter account, Mixero pretty much runs on my laptop 24/7.

Like Tweetdeck, Mixero runs on Adobe Air. Unlike Tweetdeck (and Hootsuite), Mixero gives you much better control over your desktop. While Mixero doesn’t have some of the functionality of Tweetdeck (or Hootsuite), it more than makes up for it by making all the functionality most users need simpler, cleaner and taking up less space on your desktop.

The first thing you’ll appreciate about Mixero is the way it runs in the background when you’re engaged in other tasks. “Avatar mode” takes all the information you need…multiple accounts, groups, and new messages, replies and DMs and puts it in a semi-transparent one inch wide column at the edge of your desktop.

New messages in any groups/lists or channels are notated by means of an orange highlight with the number of new messages displayed. Mentions and Direct Messages also are highlighted, and a simple mouseover shows you the most recent message. Settings allow you to have it play a sound if you want to be notified of new posts, but the colored highlights are enough notice for me (and don’t drive my dogs crazy like the sounds do).

Anytime you want to expand a group/list, or see all your mentions or DM’s, you simply click on any of the icons, and Mixero expands to a solid mode, but still only takes of section of the desktop. The column contains messages that take up significantly less space than either Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.  A column that displays only 5 messages in either of those displays 9-10 in Mixero.

Every expanded column allows you to filter the results by keyword, by users…by clicking on small avatars, all displayed at the top of the column…or both. You can also filter results by  whether they contain replies, mark all as read, and display only the unread ones.

Each message contains a user avatar, and if the post is part of a conversation, icons display the other posts in that conversation as a small pop up. If the post itself contains a link to a photo, the photo displays in  small pop-up. Other functionality available in each post includes single click  reply, reply all, Retweet (classic or Twitter style adjustable in settings), Direct Message, mark as a favorite, translate from a foreign language, block user and report as spam.

Clicking on any person’s name displays their time line in a full column, and tabs at the top allow you switch from time line to display of all tweets between you and them, and a profile display (with a notes field so you can add your own info about them). You can easily follow (or unfollow) from the profile view. Adding that person to a fully synchronized Mixero group/Twitter list is as simple as clicking on the list name. Several intuitive hot spots allow you to double click and go directly to the function you’d expect it to on the Twitter.com interface.

Mixero had groups before Twitter had lists, and in recent versions added full synchronization of its groups with Twitter public and private lists. Mixero’s handling of groups is just one of several outstanding features that you can access when you expand the right panel.  Also included in those options are channels (fully customized searches), followed lists, trending topics, and chats.  The “contacts” column shows all your follows, sorted by group, with any ungrouped follows in a separate group a the bottom. Adding follows into a group is simple and you can select or even upload unique avatars for your groups to make them easy to spot when you add them to your main column.

There are a million other features, but the last big difference between Mixero and the others are the detachable, re-sizable columns. If you’re the type that doesn’t want to manage Twitter via a small column on the edge of your screen, you can choose, detach, drag, re-size and even stack whichever columns you choose to take up as much, or as little space as you want.  As you fill your desktop, you’ll be amazed at the number and variety of tweets. Here’s a view of my typical full screen (sized at 1440 x 900). Compared with a full screen view of Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, I can’t believe that anyone would be content with the comparative lack of visible, manageable Tweets.

As big  a fan of Tweetdeck as I was, I’ve downloaded Tweetdeck updates several times since switching to Mixero, but each time I open it up, I’m immediately struck by just how much better Mixero is.  As I mentioned previously, I still use Hootsuite, but if Mixero ever adds scheduled, measurable Tweets, I’ll be saying to goodbye to Hootsuite like I did to Tweetdeck.

Mixero still may not be your cup of tea. With a plethora of Twitter tools available, finding one that you’re comfortable with may result in a search that also includes Seesmic, PeopleBrowsr, Statuzer and a few others. But you owe it to yourself to at least check out Mixero.

Like the others, Mixero is free and available for download at Mixero.com. Be sure to watch the video (and read their blog) to get a tutorial on all the features.

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Although Social Media is now a mainstream phenomenon, I’ve been participating in the “Social” Web since the days when online communities were nothing but DOS text on a black screen over a 14.4 modem. While the land rush is now on to sign up for MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare profiles, I was among the first to participate in all of them.

So, you’re probably thinking if I’m such an early adopter, why did it take me so long to create my own blog?

I actually have been blogging since 1996. It just wasn’t called that. My monthly email newsletter for my company was called Websight Insight, and every issue had two or three articles on Web marketing best practices. After it was sent to the mailing list, the articles became a part of our Web site. Those have continued all along, and eventually became a part of the WordPress installation for news and articles in a new site we developed a few years ago.

But I still never had my very own blog, at my very own domain name… until now.

Still not sure that floods of people will be here to read what I have to say. I have approximately 6,000 followers on Twitter who have clicked through 37,000 times on links I’ve promoted to other people’s blogs. So maybe I can drive some folks to my own stuff. While all of my content between 1997 and 2001 got lost due to several site redesigns and migrations, I’m confident that what is here will be of value to people trying to figure out how digital media fits into their business strategy…matter of fact as I’m going through the archives to add all my content to this blog, I’m thinking much of it is actually pretty darn good if I say so myself. Even the really old stuff.

So do with this thing what people in the Social Media world do…Delicious it, Digg It, Reddit it, StumbleUpon it, Bookmark it, Tweet it, Wave it, Buzz it, Fark it, Fave it, comment on it, snag the RSS feed,  but most important, I hope you do with the information what some “fans” have been doing for 14 years: read it and use it help your business.

And let me know what else I can do for you or a topic I can cover.

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