I sat down with Peter and his team and we talked about various ways to use digital channels to increase the public’s awareness of the gift certificates offered by Oasis Spa. I presented a framework that Doug had introduced to me called “The Hub & Spoke Model”. I had used variations on this technique in the past but never this specific model. Let me say that it is effective – you should try it. But I added a twist that makes it even more effective. More on that in a bit.

Jeremiah Owyang has written an excellent article on various models that companies use for organizing social media. In his blog post, he presents 5 models but concludes that the Hub & Spoke model is the one most often used by companies.

The idea is to pick a central location (or hub) and focus all marketing and communications efforts to that central spot. When I teach marketing concepts we call this “Integrated Marketing Communications”.

I like the model but it lacks action, direction, movement, or flow – all the components just sit there. To me an effective model for marketing and for social media should point or direct people toward a certain goal. Or to put it another way, there should be a call to action. As you can see in the model above, there is no real call to action 0r at least it isn’t obvious.

Being a true marketer and wanting my customer to be successful, I changed the model. As you can see below, the campaign that we developed for Oasis Spa is built on the structure of the Hub & Spoke model but with a difference. The “hub” is a Facebook landing page with various communications channels driving people to the hub – e-Newsletters, Calgary’s Twitter community, Radio, LinkedIn, Facebook ads, Google AdWords, and potentially a video on YouTube.

But the campaign needed a purpose or an objective; some type of action. We considered the objective of increasing Likes on the Facebook page but for a holiday season marketing campaign that objective didn’t seem like enough. We wanted to meet Peter’s objective which was lots of sales and many happy customers. As a result, we modified the model by adding another circle in the lower right corner. We wanted to show that we people should land on the Facebook but then move to an e-commerce page where they could actually order a gift certificate.

One channel that proved to be very effective was involving others in the YYC social media community. The following people blogged, tweeted and posted on Facebook:

• Marie-Eve Mayrand – @MeMay2 – http://bloomingmarketing.com/oasis-spa-calgary
• Randy Milanovic – @Kayak360 – www.kayakcreative.ca/blog/bid/105123/Holiday-Online-Marketing-Campaign-for-Oasis-Spa-Facebook-Style
• Crystal Tost – @RemaxCalgary – www.calgarylistings.com/oasis-spa-calgary
• Al Dhalla and Doug Wagner  – @Doug_Sunwapta – http://blog.sunwaptasolutions.com/weblog/2011/11/buying-attention-in-social-media-does-it-work.html
• Mike Nelson – @sabrecaptain
• Linda Trinh – @RentClickCgy
• Cidnee Stephen @CidneeStephen
• Deepa Acharya – @TheDeepster
• Ryan Kelly – LinkedIn
• Tom Hanger – @TomHanger
• Toni Guffei – @ToniRoni
• Susan Rutherford
• Christina Burnside – http://graysacademyesl.com

The campaign was wildly successful. By December 24th, hundreds of people had purchased online and thousands had visited Oasis Spa to buy certificates in person.

Now that the infrastructure has been developed we are looking forward to Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and maybe even Father’s Day.

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

1. What is the best time to post? Weekends and off-peak hours. Saturdays and Sundays were the best days for interaction, while Thursdays had the lowest interaction rates. The best time of day to post was during 6:00pm-5:00am.

2. How many times should I post per day? As many times as you want. Study shows that with each post made throughout the day, interaction rate drops for each subsequent post. However, Facebook EdgeRank highly weights recency in posts, so if an admin doesn’t post frequently their fans may never see their posts.

3. What type of content elicits the most interaction? Photos by far have the highest interaction rate, which is 200% higher than the lowest, links. Photos are followed by status messages. Links are the most frequently posted content but have the lowest interaction rate.

4. Should I ask fans to Like and Comment on my posts? Yes! Asking to Like increases interaction by 216%. So for Facebook page admins, using call-to-action is definitely an effective way significantly boost your interaction rate.

5. Should I ask my fans questions? Questions don’t increase interaction rate, but they do increase commenting rate. Make sure to ask fans to answer your questions with a comment. But, asking questions also helps.

6. How long should my status messages be? Posts from about 40 to 140 characters are most common, but lengthy Facebook status updates show higher interaction rates than shorter ones. Don’t be afraid to share longer stories with your fans.

7. How long do my posts last in the Newsfeed? 50% of clicks happen within 1 hour, 90% happen within 9 hours.

The whole study is published online and downloadable as a PDF. Were any of the results surprising? Please share any additional tips you might have!

Doug wrote and excellent summary of the session in his regular column with The Star Phoenix.

A quick quote in Doug’s own voice, “This week I had the privilege of helping put on a social media seminar for First Nations communicators. Representatives from the Siksika Nation and the Piikani Nation, both in Alberta, were in attendance at our Social Media Strategy for First Nations “Quickinar.” Jeff Nelson, my partner in producing Quickinars, and I received much help in producing this seminar from Wayne Courchene, a social media success story in his own right.”

Doug also mentioned our collaborator, Wayne Courchene. We would not have been able to host this event without Wayne’s effort, guidence and connections. We are grateful. Wayne writes a blog of his own at: Iskote.

In Doug’s article he quotes some of the case studies that we reviewed including:

• AFN Chief Shawn Atleo and his blog at nationalchief.blogspot.com
• Excellent videos by various students encouraging others to vote: http://firstnationhelp.com/
• The Alberta Saskatchewan First Nations Metis Nations page on Facebook with over 14,000 Likes
• Two tourism sites developed around First Nations culture: Wanuskewin Heritage Park in Saskatchewan and Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump in Alberta (great video on this site)
• A Facebook page created by Nechi Training, Research & Health Promotions Institute
• Self-described Urban Native Girl Lisa Charleyboy has a fabulous blog that was “born out of a love for writing, fashion, film, beauty, pop culture and all things Indigenous.” Lisacharleyboy.com

But don’t let me steal Doug’s thunder, have a look at the article which was also published on Social Media Today.

As mentioned in a previous post, Article: Liberal leadership social media monitor: No runaway successes, Gillian is following the Liberal leadership race in BC. The BC Liberals will choose new leader on February 26th.

The main question of the article is wondering if the use of social media will have an impact on the various candidate’s campaigns.

I’m not involved in politics very much but something tells me that the situation in BC is different. On one hand Naheed Nenshi was aiming for the mayor’s chair in a race open and visible to the general public.  What he needed was lots of people voting for him and one way to do that is create buzz and chatter on social networks. For him it worked well.

In contrast, the audience (voters) of the BC Liberal leadership race is restricted to party members. This is a finite audience, who may not want the debate to be open to the public arena. As a result, one might question the value of using social media as a communication channel to engage and influence voters.

There may be another way, however, to use social media to help move the goal posts (my compliments to Reuters for the photo). In addition to courting existing Liberal party members, a leadership candidate could set an objective to increase new memberships with the implicit understanding that these new members would vote for them. According to my local contacts this is in fact the strategy used by Alberta Liberal leader, David Swann who won leadership in December 2008.

If recruiting new members is one of the objectives then I would say using social network may work, quite well in fact. With this in mind, the channels may include:

• A website that encourages sharing on social media channels
• An email sign-up option with regular updates sent by email
• A YouTube channel with videos on the candidate’s background and policies
• A Facebook page that has a inviting Welcome tab and a call to action
• A campaign on Twitter to reach out to those who are active on Twitter and interested in the Liberal party
• A blog with regular updates on topics that are relevant to potential new members
• A discussion on LinkedIn on the leadership race (this assumes that the candidate has over 500 local connections; otherwise there aren’t enough people to hold a discussion)
• Potentially, an iPhone app that gives regular updates to those who are interested

In other words, if a leadership candidate is serious then they should open up the avenues to share, communicate, discuss, debate and interact. If the objective is to increase membership sales, then using social media will help!

That’s my 2 cents worth. Thanks Gillian for the quote.

• Company’s can’t stop their employees from talking about them via Social media outlets. They can though, put a plan and policy in place to deal with it.
• Treat the Social web the same way you would treat a product. I don’t entirely agree with this. What about companies that don’t have products? We would have a tough time convincing the oil change place down the street to pay attention to what their employees about them on Facebook. However for larger companies, I would agree.
• Are you hiring the right people? Are you hiring people that will represent you online? I suppose this is something that company’s need to consider now. This is an interesting shift in perspective that has taken place in the last few years.

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

Last November we hosted our first seminar on Online Marketing Strategy in 6 Hours. It was sold out and a tremendous success. So much so that we are offering this seminar again – re-titled as Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours.

The topics and dates for these new sessions are:

• Quickinar: Tweet Like a Pro in under 3 Hours on January 21
• Quickinar: Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours on Monday, January 31
• Quickinar: Lights, Camera, YouTube Action in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 10
• Quickinar: Facebook Business Page in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 17
• Quickinar: Kick Your Blog Up a Notch in under 3 Hours on Thursday, February 24
• Quickinar: Social Media Strategy in 6 Hours on Friday, March 25

As you will notice we are calling these sessions, Quickinars. This is a name that we came up with to emphasize that these are short, intense seminars that focus on relevant topics. Right now we are focusing on providing social media training for the Calgary market – we may expand.

We hope that you find these seminars useful and valuable. For the entire list of seminars and more details look at our Quickinars page on Eventbrite.

If you have questions please email me, jeff.nelson@anduro.com or call me (403) 410-3803.

Hope to see you at one of the sessions.