While Spin Sucks won’t write posts about what we learned at BlogWorld until next week, plenty of our fellow attendees and speakers already have published their thoughts and opinions about the three day event.

It was an interesting trip, to be sure. From no WiFi and no cell phone coverage at a blogging event to meeting people you’ve developed relationships with online and sharing many laughs, everyone had different experiences to share.

There is something here for everyone from strategy and using Facebook to developing face-to-face relationships and sex. Continue Reading »

I spoke last night at the Lake County Social Networking event that’s put on every month by Tim McDonald. If you live in the Chicago area and don’t already know about these events, check them out. Tim does a phenomenal job of making it fun and relaxed, but also informative and valuable.

Not my point. My point is that we talked a little bit about what we were hearing coming out of SXSW (not a lot, other than Holler and Google Circles) and it reminded me of something I saw that I think is pretty incredible.

First, enter Len Kendall. Len is a friend IRL and on Facebook and, as he was getting ready to go to Austin, he posted a photo of several moleskins and felt tip pens and I thought, “Huh. He still takes notes.”

What I didn’t know is this: He does more than take notes. He is super, super talented. So talented, in fact, he draws his notes.

Continue Reading »

Yesterday I moderated a social media monitoring and measuring panel for PRSA Chicago. Amber Naslund from Radian6, Brandon Noel from AllState, and Ian Sohn from Ogilvy 360 Digital were the panelists…and they were really good!

We talked a lot about both monitoring and measuring social media, but one of the points that kept coming up was “how do I sell this to my executive team, including our general counsel?”

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about that very topic and you can read it here, but I thought yesterday had some great material to add to the conversation.

* Do an analysis of what your competition is doing and show that to your executive team. It’s pretty amazing what happens when you show the CEO that his/her competition is using social media successfully. Suddenly you no longer have to sell the idea!

* Create not just share of voice or volume share charts, but also share of conversation to show the c-suite that social media is not only driving traffic (eyeballs) but also that it’s contributing to the conversation, in terms of referrals or recommendations. Companies such as Radian6 can help you with this, pretty inexpensively.

* Go to the Arment Dietrich Delicious page, where we’ve bookmarked social media policies for all types of businesses. Download the ones most like your company and share them with your general counsel.

* Demonstrate your knowledge of how social media affects the entire company, including human resources, customer service, marketing, communication, sales, and the executive team. Show case studies on how each department, even if they’re not using social media directly, benefit from the company’s use of it…from a dollars and cents position.

* Provide the executive team with a real analysis of how social media will increase sales. This happens through increased online sales, better and qualified leads, a referral network from your community, and/or sampling.

* Know which buttons make your executives excited and use those to your advantage. Some CEOs are egomaniacs (did I say some? I mean most!) and think seeing their name in lights is going to help increase sales. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. But if you can help create an expert of your chief executive through the social media channels, show him/her how it will benefit the business, as well as stroke their ego.

* Be prepared. Have a plan. Develop a strategy. And don’t forget the benchmarks. It’s OK if your benchmark is zero or if you have to create a new benchmark that has never been there before. Just make sure you have something, with goals for increasing in 30 days, 90 days, six months, and a year.

What other ideas do you have? What has/has not worked for you?