Social Media Revolution

Tools for Your Online Fans are a Slam Dunk!

Everyone knows the value of word of mouth marketing. It’s a concept as old as dirt, but not something most businesses know how to embrace. The social Web is a great avenue to allow the people that know and love you (aka, your Citizen Marketers) to promote your business in a fun way.

Citizen Marketers are basically customer evangelists. These are people who will generate media (primarily online) on behalf of products, services, companies, or anything/one who inspires them.

In order to generate a posse of Citizen Marketers you need to make sure you’re ready for them. You need to provide them with a tool kit that allows them to easily promote you. Oh – and this goes without saying – you’d better make sure you DON’T pay them. First of all, most don’t like to get paid. Once you pay them they feel like they’re an “employee” and now promoting you is an obligation as opposed to a personal desire.

Below are some tips for generating and keeping Citizen Marketers:

1. Post Community Guidelines: If you have an online community, blog or other social site – make sure you post a “Communities Guidelines” section where you spell out the guidelines for posting/sharing on your site. I personally like Flickr’s guidelines.
2. Seed Your Community with Love: Seed your community with people who already know and love you – and you only need 15-25 to get things going. This group will set the tone for your community. They’ll also take pride in ownership of your community and police it for you – so when/if someone talks crap about you or your products, they will be the first to stand up for you.
3. Reward your Citizen Marketers: Do this in ways that make sense for your business (remember, no money!). For example, provide free samples of your products to this group, ask them to talk about your product on your site, blog, community, etc. Invite them to grand openings, product launches, product research sessions, etc. They need to feel their contributions are valuable.
4. Transparency is Paramount: It’s extremely important to be transparent and authentic. It’s important other potential citizens (customers) don’t think you’re paying people to say great things about you. That’s not a slam dunk, that’s more like a body check! Honesty is the best policy my friends!
5. Provide them with a Toolkit: Just like you would give a sales person a toolkit, you should do the same with your Citizen Marketers. Examples include, sharing your company goals with them, provide them with the embed code so they can easily share your videos and widgets on their own social sites, share results with them – let them know their efforts are paying off!
6. Be ALIRT: By this I mean, Ask, Listen, Implement, Respond and Thank. This needs to be a 2-way relationship. Don’t just take, take, take from this group – you’ll piss them off and they’ll drop out of the game. Ask them what they think, listen carefully to what they say and repeat back so they’re sure your heard them correctly (this can be done on or offline by the way), Respond to their needs. Make sure you’re interacting with them and responding to any questions they have. Ignoring this group is the kiss of death. And lastly, Thank them in as many ways you that can think of!
7. Part of Your Team: This may be one of the most important tips of all – Citizen Marketers need to feel the love. They need to feel they’re part of your team and not some separate entity that you use and abuse.  Invite them to meet new clients with you, share challenges, successes and results with them, promote them (and by this I mean, feature them on your community, or write about them in your blog). This is money in the emotional bank for Citizen Marketers.

Have fun!

Solar Storm Warning is looming…

Apparently, the most intense solar maximum in fifty years – is coming! According to the Science & NASA site – The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.

In 1958 the northern lights could be seen as far as Rome – and reports indicate that it lit up the sky so brightly that people could read a newspaper outside in the night!

Wikipedia describes a Solar Max as: “Solar maximum is contrasted with solar minimum. Solar Maximum is the period when the sun’s magnetic field lines are the most distorted due to the magnetic field on the solar equator rotating at a slightly faster pace than the solar poles. The sun takes about 11 years to go from one solar maximum to another and 22 years to complete a full cycle (where the magnetic vharge on the poles is the same.”

This is fascinating and scary at the same time.There’s also a documentary film about this called Solarmax. Below is the documentary broken up into 4 parts…

Part 1 of 4
Part 2 of 4
Part 3 of 4
Part 4 of 4

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Designing for the Social Web, Joshua Porter

I’m currently reading Designing for the Social Web – by Joshua Porter. He’s done a nice job of explaining the psychology behind why and how people interact online – as well as how to build social applications to enhance the “ask” to the consumer (which by the way, we now call “citizens” or “collaborators”).

Here’s a link to Joshua’s blog: http://bokardo.com/ (by the way, Joshua, if you’re listening – you should promote buying your book from Powell’s Books (headquartered in Portland, OR – they are an awesome company and put Amazon to shame when it comes to social and environmental advocacy. They are huge supporters of their local community and invest in clean energy – there’s my 2 cents!).

Click Joshua’s photo to read more about him.

Let me know what you all think of the book…

Top 10 Reasons Start-ups Fail

Having started my own Web 2.0 company – and then having to dissolve it 2 years later – I learned a ton about what to do and what not to do in a start-up environment. Developed partly for therapy, and partly because of my eagerness to share this wisdom with fellow first-time entrepreneurs. There are obviously several other reasons why start-ups fail, but these are the ones I resonate with the most. Please feel free to add to the list…

It’s coming – the Eugene CarrotMob…

Stay tuned – the eugene carrotmob is coming – and pass this on…

Geeks and Geezers Survey: Social Media links Youth and Young at Heart

Yet another survey indicating the need for businesses to embrace social media tools – especially those trying to reach a market between the ages of 18-44.  You can download this report for free at the Success Performance Solutions site.

Some of the survey highlights are:

• More than 50% of all respondents have opened accounts on LinkedIn, a business social networking site.
• LinkedIn participation seems to be a site frequented more by 4-year college and higher graduates than high school and technical grads; Facebook enjoys a more universal appeal regardless of education.
• Only eighteen percent of respondents 55 years and older have a Twitter account but more than 25 percent of Gen X and Gen Y college graduates have one.
• Downloading music from the Internet seems to be an activity shared by young and old alike: 62 percent of pre-1945 respondents said yes to downloading music, just slightly less than the 68 percent of the 44 year old and younger crowd.
• YouTube by far had the most universal appeal with 76 percent of all respondents watching videos on this multimedia site.

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10 Minutes of Start-up Fame in the Willamette Valley

Everybody deserves to experience “10 Minutes of Start-up Fame.” Any entrepreneur wanting the opportunity to pitch their Big Idea to a group of fellow entrepreneurs, investors and service providers should attend the Smart-ups events.

The next Smart-ups event is Thursday, April 23rd at the Valley River Inn in Eugene, Oregon. Be sure to bring your business cards and enter for a chance to deliver a 5-minute pitch to the Smart-ups audeince, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.

Got Green MBA?

A friend of mine – Paul Hannam – is helping lead a new “Green MBA” program at the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management in San Diego. Paul is also the chairman of Bright Green Talent (the world leader in helping recruit and place green executives in careers focused on positively impacting the world.)

Below is his video about the Green MBA program. Let me know what you think…

Supporting Entrepreneurs in Your Community

Last month (March 25) I attended the Jefferson Grapevine event in Medford, OR. The Jefferson Grapevine is a network created by SOREDI (Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development Inc.). The Jefferson Grapevine “celebrates the spirit of entrepreneurship in Southern Oregon providing a unique and powerful forum where leaders of growing businesses can network with fellow entrepreneurs, key advisors, business professionals, and qualified funding sources.”

I’ve had the pleasure of attending a couple of their events this year as part of my role as regional coordinator with the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network. Their most recent event showcased Roger Akers as their keynote speaker. Akers is the founder and managing partner of Akers Capital in Sacramento, CA. Akers Capital manages Pac West Technology Fund I, LP, an investment partnership that invests in emerging technology companies in the Northwest and Northern California.

Akers is a successful angel investor and spoke about how he and his team helped stimulate an entrepreneurial movement in the Sacramento area. His talk was so refreshing on many levels. He indicated that when they initiated this effort in Sacramento they had 600 start-ups express interest – which was surprising to most people. The common theme among these 600 businesses was their lack of ability to find mentors/advisors and funding from accredited investors. This is the same challenge many of the entrepreneurs I meet experience in their own communities – myself included!

I’ve had 33 start-ups come to me in the last 3 months seeking mentors, educational opportunities, expert service providers and of course – funding! I’m sure this is a challenge in many small to mid-size communities throughout the Nation. Knowing that entrepreneurs and innovators are key to stimulating an economy, Akers’s talk could not have come at a better time for me – or for Oregon-based start-ups.

Akers provided the following overview for what it takes for a community to rally around their innovators and entrepreneurs:

• Gain an understanding of the local market size of start-up businesses.
• Put a support mechanism in place for providing mentors, advisors, and educational and funding opportunities (i.e. OEN, Smart-ups, Jefferson Grapevine, Central Oregon Pub Talks).
• Develop a public awareness campaign to educate the public about how entrepreneurs are the fabric of the region’s economic development. Show how entrepreneurs bring value to your community.
• Engage your local university – including the tech transfer department. Tie this department in with efforts happening outside the universities.
• Build a capitol network that is diverse in its make-up and trained on how to support local new ventures.
• Engage service providers who support emerging growth-oriented businesses – including, lawyers, accountants, bankers and insurance providers.
• Celebrate the successes of your local entrepreneurs!

I realize many of these points seem simple; however implementing them simultaneously, gaining support from the appropriate organizations, and keeping the momentum going can be the challenge.

It’s organizations like the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (based in Portland), the Jefferson Grapevine (based in Medford), Smart-ups (based in Eugene), and the Central Oregon Pub-Talk (based in Bend) that foster the growth of entrepreneurs and investors. Please reach out and support these organizations in a way that’s appropriate for you.

Thanks again to Roger Akers for donating his time to visit the Jefferson Grapevine and share his knowledge and experience with smaller communities working to foster their own entrepreneurial efforts. Kudos goes out to Ron Fox, executive director at SOREDI, and his team for hosting Roger at their recent Grapevine event. Excellent program!