Our discussion started on Twitter after I sent Doug an article I read in the daily email from www.eMarketer.com called Social Media Comes up Short for Agency Prospecting.

Doug has a good point that using social media to sell tangibles (computers and books) is easier than selling intangibles like consulting and profession business services (legal and accounting). The part that we discussed on Twitter but not mentioned in the article is that although a company can’t “sell” services from social media platforms, it sure helps on the marketing side with credibility, interaction, community and support. In other words, companies that offer a service can still benefit hugely from a strong presence on social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. The strength comes from the marketing side not direct sales.

Great article, Doug. Keep them coming.

Today I received an email from Airmiles offering me 100 bonus reward miles if I spend $100 or more at Safeway before the end of October 2. Kudos to Safeway and Airmiles for creating a near perfect promotion.

Here are some of the features that I noticed:

• A direct email piece to someone who has opted in
• A reasonable offer of 100 Airmiles points that gets my attention
• A criteria for obtaining the reward – spending $100
• An element of urgency because the offer expires at the end of October 2nd – about 60 hours after the email was sent
• And an easy way to redeem the offer – just print it out and take it with me when I go shopping

What more can you ask for in a promotional offer? Not much.

Receiving these types of offers is fairly routine; I get these emails all the time. I’m a card carrying member of Airmiles and I often shop at Safeway, in part because I get Airmiles and also because Safeway is close by.

What seems to be a new feature in the email is the fact that I can see which of my friends Liked this specific offer on Facebook. Notice the arrow and circled area in the screen shot below. This is an interesting disclosure of information. On one hand it is no big deal. 17 of my friends thought this was a good offer and Liked the post. Cool, I might be interested in the offer because they are. Of course it is fun to see what other people are interested in and Like.

On the other hand, do I really want to know that they have an Airmiles card and that they shop at Safeway? In this case it seems innocuous. But it does feel like I’m on an old fashioned telephone party line where I can listen in on the conversations of everyone who is on the line. It is possible that at some point the disclosure of information could be in the territory of “too much information”.

I can think of a possible situation involving airlines (Westjet promotes Airmiles) and hotels (Best Western and Delta are both members of Airmiles) which could make for some interesting discussions between couples or even business associates. The implications between couples are obvious if one person is in a city and a hotel without the other’s knowledge. But a similar scenario could occur between a buyer and a seller. Imagine this situation:

One person is a potential buyer for a substantial purchase from a vendor. They connect on LinkedIn and because they hit it off well, they also become friends on Facebook. No issues so far. Then Airmiles sends out an email for Westjet offering a special promotion of Airmiles to a specific city. The buyer Likes the offer and clicks the button. The supplier receives the same email and notices that his potential vendor is planning to use Westjet to fly to another city. The city of destination happens to be the headquarters of a significant competitor. Now the buyer knows that the suppler is going to that city. Oops for the supplier – he may lose the relationship with the original buyer and may never get the deal with the potential buyer in the city of destination. Like I said, disclosure of “too much information”.

AllFaceBook also has a daily email which I have (shamelessly) signed up for. I find it interesting and sometimes valuable.

Some of the suggested ways to get better attention on Facebook include:

1. Ask Questions
2. Fill in the Blank Statements
3. Post Photos (and Videos)
4. Talk about the News
5. Ask for Likes
6. Talk about Facebook – who would have thought?
7. Celebrate Today

Enjoy AllFaceBook

Obviously, we are going to use social media platforms and techniques as a way to market the seminars. That makes sense to me and I should have kept my mouth shut. Instead, I put my foot in my mouth. I made the mistake of mentioning to Doug that I would jot down a list of what I’m doing.

Here’s the problem. Social media takes effort and time. Then on top of that I have now obligated myself to record what I’m doing. It’s like doing everything twice. Once again, I’m convinced that I’m not too smart. Oh well, here goes.

1. Eventbrite.com

The first thing we did was decide on a platform to manage the events. We looked at cvent mainly because they hosted a fantastic lunch in the Fall. But they wanted to lock us into a 2 year contract and Doug and I aren’t ready for that, yet. In addition, we had used Eventbrite for the workshop on November 29th and we liked it. It has a lot of features that we needed:

• Unique URLs for each event – http://quickinar-tweet-like-a-pro.eventbrite.com/
• Unique URL for a list of all events – http://quickinars.eventbrite.com/
• Ability to add multiple pricing options
• Ability to add discount codes
• Ability to save draft events and ability to publish an event, then switch back to draft
• Link to our account on PayPal so that it is easy for participants to purchase
• Include address and map of event location
• Some links to Social Media like Twitter and Facebook

Eventbrite has it all, so that is what we chose to go with. The one downside is that Eventbrite seems to be expensive. We are paying 2.9% on every ticket. Seems steep to me.

2. LinkedIn

Next I added all the seminars to LinkedIn under More / Events / Add an Event. My opinion, so far, is that this is totally useless. My guess is that there are millions of other events posted on LinkedIn and ours are just lost.

My next step will be to identify mavens (as popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point) who I’m connected to on LinkedIn and let them know about Quickinars. I have over 900 connections so I should be able to find a few mavens.

The issue I have is that when I’m sending the mavens a message I’ll probably use the link on Eventbrite not the “event” on LinkedIn. As I said, posting events on LinkedIn seems to be useless.

3. Blog Post

Yesterday, I created a post on our blog. See Quickinars – Short Business Seminars for Calgarians. We have quite a few subscribers to our blog so they will receive an email update.

4. Twitter

A quick summary of our blog posts are posted on Twitter via www.dlvr.it.

Dlvr.it is very slick and free.

A friend of mine, Sharon McIntyre, noticed that I had double entries on LinkedIn. I checked LinkedIn under Settings (hard to find) and noticed that my account was already linked to my Twitter account. And I had setup Dlvr.it to send summaries from our blog to my Twitter status. I tried explaining to Sharon that “double impressions” are a good thing but she didn’t buy it. So I deleted the link on Dlvr.it. Problem solved – I hope.

So I have a question. On Twitter it is easy to see a list of all your Tweets. But on LinkedIn where is the list of status updates?

Oh, I found a link but it is hard to find. Click on the “More” link under the “Share an update” field.

But you’re not done yet. Now you have to click on “See all of Jeff’s Activity”. Sometimes I’m convinced that LinkedIn is managed by idiots.

5. eNewsletter

Technically, eNewsletters are not really “social media”. However, emails and eNewsletters are not dead yet. So we decided to send an eNewsletter to Anduro’s list of subscribers. We use ConstantContact which creates a shortened URL of the eNewsletter. You can view it here: http://conta.cc/hEqNYC. So far the response has been very positive. We are encouraged.

6. Quickinars Website

Doug has started developing the website. You can see a draft version here: www.quickinars.com. We are also working on having a logo developed. More on this later.

That is as far as I’ve gotten so far. I’ll write another post in a few days.

Using Social Media to Market Events – Part 2

As a result, we had an objective (do the video) but this was one of those situations where we had no time, no media room, dysfunctional equipment, and no one to shoot the video.  Being 2 resourceful guys we improvised. We met at Mount Royal University, snagged a classroom, set up our cameras on a tripod, hammered out a script (very loose) and shot the video. Here is what we came up with. Enjoy.

They titled it “Is This Stamp-Worthy?”. Seth Godin did a blog post about the evolution to email marketing campaigns from mail outs. When companies still used physical mail-outs more readily than they do now, the marketing team would have to think twice about who they are going to send the mail to since it cost them per piece of mail. Now that email is essentially “free”, it is much easier to hit send.

His example was that he received an offer to buy diapers online from Drugstore.com. He explains, “I’ve never purchased diapers online, since my diaper purchases predate online diaper shopping and my hope is that I won’t be buying Depends for another fifty years or so!.”

This is now a completely irrelevant product for him but because email doesn’t really cost a company anything, he got the mail out anyways. Now he has become an un-subscribed customer!

So next time you think about sending out a big email blast, think about whether you would pay for the stamp that would have to go on the mail out!

The first email was related to an interview that CBC did with me. Dave Simms from CBC Television wanted my opinion on the Bing-Yahoo search story. The crux of the issue is whether or not the alliance will have an impact on Google search volume. My answer was No the merger will have minimal impact. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter will have more of an “impact” but realistically Google as a search medium will be with us for quite a few years. 70% of the searches worldwide go through Google. Actually, that is incorrect – my figures seem to be out of date. Market Share by NetApplication reports that Google has over 80% market share. Statcounter agrees. Wow.

We also sent out an email to announce our preview event on Wednesday, September 2 for IMC Vancouver. Avinash Kaushik from Google will be the keynote speaker. The conference will be fantastic and Anduro is helping to promote the conference by hosting an event here in Calgary a few weeks ahead of time. More about this in a future post.

Maybe we should have waited a bit before sending the second email. Today I received an email from a person I met a couple weeks ago at a business networking function wondering if it was “commonly accepted courtesy” to send a newsletter to someone without formally “opting-in”. This is an interesting question so I did some research and some thinking about what is ethical. Keep in mind that this event is explicitly a “networking function”.

One point of view by FutureQuest is that companies should have prospects opt-in if the email address is obtained from a business card. Technically this is probably correct but I’m not sure that this is practical or that it really makes a difference.

Another point of view that I like is expressed by Chip House. His post is titled: Business Card in Hand Doesn’t Mean Opt-in. Chip makes a differentiation between receiving a business card along with a handshake and receiving a card in a fishbowl. The former implies “opt-in” and the latter requires formal opt-in permission. I agree. Meeting someone, shaking their hand and getting a business card leads me to assume that I can phone the person, mail them a letter (even direct mail), fax them and send them an email – assuming that all those points of contact are on the business card.

Practically, I’m not sure how much difference it makes to get “opt-in permission”. Technically, we don’t have formal permission to send out the first email asking the person to opt-in.

My conclusion is that when I meet people at networking events I consider them business contacts who are interested in me, our company and what we are doing. I know I’m definitely interested in them and their company. So if you don’t want me to phone you or email you (tailor made or eNewsletter), then don’t give me your business card. But if you want to gain value from all the business contacts that we have in our company then we would love to have your business card and start a dialog with you.