We all saw Heineken burst on the scene earlier in the year with being one of the first brands to utilize those cool video ads in the bottom-right corner of your screen on Facebook.  Now it looks like they’re taking their partnership with Facebook one step further with the Heineken Social Tree.  The video gives a cool overview on the project, but to see the real power, check it out yourself.  I’m not sure if you see the possibilities for similar offshoots to this, but if you don’t, I’m not telling you.  The ideas are mine

So you’ve just started your business.  You’ve got your savings, loan, government handouts, etc., and a dream to make money.  I’m surprised at the amount of people who immediately think their top priority is a social media plan.  I realize this is industry specific, but unless your industry is providing social media services (a suspect business in itself, and I’ll explain why in a future post), I don’t see how it should even be in the top 5 of things that should concern you as a small business. (EDIT: I suppose some sort of public speaker or someone on a quest to Internet fame could prioritize this)

This is not to say that social media is not something to pay attention to, there are just far more important things to deal with.  The foremost (and arguably 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-most) important aspect is generating sales.  I have personally seen few examples of a tweet resulting in direct sales.  Sales should always be at the forefront of your business as without sales, your business is not a business…it’s a hobby.  Unless you’re really good at writing grants, that doesn’t cut it.

What I have seen, is Twitter building brand and establishing a presence so that people are aware of your existence.  In a short, free advertising.  Unfortunately, nothing is ever free and the time it takes you (even if you just schedule a bunch of updates) is not worth the time for most business owners.  In the time it takes for you to create (or even schedule) your updates, read what’s up with your followers, and interact with them, think of how your time could have been dedicated elsewhere into actions such as project management, sales, or account/relationship management.

You can outsource project and account management, but, theoretically, nobody will ever be able to sell your business as well as you can.  Whether it’s going into a coral of other hungry business people called a ‘networking session’, or having a beer with someone you have a genuine (potential money-making) connection with, as the face of your organization, you’re better off utilizing that face instead of a keyboard.

I would never excuse doing something like sales or account management to update my social media.  Again, I have spoken with far too many people who prioritize their social media presence higher than the most important things a business can have.  Your social media is not a priority, it doesn’t make people give you money.  It can make people be slightly aware of you so they don’t slam the door in your face, but it is definitely not a substitute.  It may be the way this company started, but I do not believe there will ever be a substitute to pounding the pavement and speaking to people.

I waste my time sometimes. It pains me to admit it, but I am not as efficient as I can be.  It is times like this that I update my social media.  I only do so enough to remain in people’s sight and minds, and on my downtime as a leisure activity.  Also, as Denote grows, we are beginning to have others manage our social media for us (we are assembling an AMAZING team by the way).  I believe after nearly 3 years, that we are also at a point where we can benefit from emphasizing brand awareness and it is time to take our organization to the next plateau.

Denote is not yet at a place where we can benefit from a comprehensive social media strategy, but our client experience has taught us that after a certain size, it’s a worthwhile investment.  Large brands, politicians, charities, events.  These are all great examples of types of organizations that can benefit greatly from engaging an audience on platforms on the web (You could probably defeat me in a debate over politics though).  When you get to the point where you’re large enough that you can sustain the costs of a comprehensive social media strategy, call us and we’d be happy to develop one for you.  Until then, call us and we’d be happy to help you out as much as we can anyway.  We’d love to find enough work for us to do that we don’t have to feel guilty just charging you for social media.

What do you think?  Is social media a waste of your time? (Think hard before answering that one!) Has social media directly made you money?  What industry are you in?  I’d love to learn!

I had absolutely no intention of ever turning my blog into a tips and tricks page by any means.  There are far too many blogs that do that and I was hoping to offer a bit more of a macro look at what is going on than deal with minor items.  In a way, I’m doing a similar cop-out on this one but, what can I say, things have gotten busy.  More than that, I was actually a bit perplexed by this one recently and actually found it fairly difficult to figure out, or find information on, what was up with a Facebook page we were managing for a client.

The main rub came when dealing with a Facebook page for a fairly prominent client we are working with. I started to notice that several of the comments were turning out in different shades of grey and the coloring was slightly darker on some posts.  After some research, I found that these darker shaded posts are having been marked as spam. You can easily unmark comments as spam by clicking the marking in the top right corner of the post and choosing to reveal it or not.  My favourite feature of it is that the post is still visible to page administrators and the original user.  This allows those in control to see the comment, but none of the other page fans.  For controlling what type of message is shown, this is an awesome (albeit justifiably sneaky) way of keeping the message positive and handling negative feedback in a discrete manner.  Honestly, I wish this worked for my own Facebook profile…I might post things a bit more.

Now, I’m not the only admin on the account (you can appreciate the client likes to retain SOME control over their content ), but I do not believe that they have been marking people as spam. As such, I’m left to believe that either Facebook itself is using some sort of algorithm to determine what is spam, Facebook admins are monitoring the page, or the page’s fans are vigilant in protecting the Facebook page.  I’m sincerely hoping for the latter as that means our user engagement has succeeded beyond our expectations, but I also have an inkling that the Facebook machine is flexing it’s muscles.

With that said, I hope I’ve, at most, got you interested in the level of buzz we can create for you or your brand, and at the least, informed you on why your content comments look like grey-scale piano keys.

What does anyone else think?  Is Facebook taking control? Am I crazy? Or is Denote Communications just that awesome at what we do?

My thoughts are all of the above!

Took this from the Mashable front page

A few days ago, was contacted by the CBC to comment on the new changes Facebook is going through and how it would affect both business and consumer.  While I’m flattered that I was looked to because of my company, Denote Communications, I couldn’t help but wonder what qualifies as being an expert in this field.  I’m pretty sure we each personally know at least 3 people who tout themselves as Social Media Gurus, Mavens, Ninjas, or some other ‘hip’ term for Expert.  Take a look to your Twitter feed and you’ll likely see even more.  I know I see a handful following me, my advertising agency, or my magazine,  on Twitter on a daily basis.  I often wonder for how many people it is an actual job, or a hobby.

Yes, social media is important for brand recognition, customer loyalty, and creating a meaningful connection with your customers.  I’ve read the Mashable articles that get tweeted at me by would-be Twitter experts and self-proclaimed content DJs…they never end.  With all the articles stating how ad agencies are drastically increasing budgets in social media and reducing in print, you need to be very careful to recognize whether you are the correct type of company that can benefit from social media in a worthwhile manner, or that your company is in the right stage to do this.

The goal is to have an article (or a series) on my beefs with social media over the next week where I can vent more on some people’s blindness.

Do you feel that maybe I’m the blind one?  Do you share my pain?  Comment below and lets have a conversation.  Don’t leave me alone out here.

Of course I’m not talking about. A.J., but his wife Karen Burnett. With The Blue Jay Hunter already confirming that she is a fox, the more attractive Burnett will be sadly missed. While her husband’s contract entitled her to 8 limo trips from Baltimore to Toronto a season, it’ll be interesting to see if the New York signing had more to do with location than the dollar signs.

Though I’m totally speculating, I would say whatever her career may be, it’ll likely be furthered with the glitz and glamor of NYC as opposed to Baltimore. If she’s staying in Baltimore, a move to New York will be a lot easier a commute by going from the 9 hour drive to Toronto to a 3 hour drive to New York.

Oh and by the way, here’s an interesting Facebook profile for members, and even more interesting public profile (complete with friends, service, product, and political fandom). It appears she’s a big fan of Obama, partying, and Mark Finkenstaedt Photography. Refresh the public profile and the friends list changes to reveal even more friends and family of the Burnett clan. Such wonderful information is publicly available on the Internet.

It’s not to say that A.J. was a horrible pitcher, but he never lived up to his potential in Toronto, he seemed like he hated being here, and he was constantly injured. Though I think the Jays would be a better team with A.J., I don’t think he would’ve stayed for a price that made sense. With the Yankees paying him $82.5 million over 5 years, I think there’s a lot of room for downside given his injury prone past. Baseball Think Factory has an interesting quick projection on his stats for next season and I personally think that performance can be achieved at a lower price. They also interestingly note that Burnett has been unable to have a season as good as even an “Average” Mike Mussina season.

I think the Jays have a nice stable of young guns in their system and can put together a competitive team without Burnett, but with injuries having already taken their toll on the Jays’ rotation, the Jays will need to come up with something this off-season…unless they just plan to write this one off (a likely situation).