I spent a couple of years branding and marketing high end real estate before the real estate crash. And, it is really fun to see the brand for this community build organically. It is so different than what we did in creating the brand the client wanted and then shaping the community around it. In this case, the community, without possibly even intending it, is creating its own brand based on the desires of the people in the community.

This spring we had neighbors who were renting while looking for a home to buy. They extended their lease several times because they were determined to buy their new home in EagleVail. This summer I saw an aquaintence in the area three times in one day. When I asked her if she had moved here from Edwards she replied, “No, but we should.” EagleVail has become a really great community for families and locals, and I am sure it is on its way to becoming an even better place for locals and families to live.

It shouldn’t surprise me that the first advertisement that has ever, really ever, blown me away came from Tony Hsieh and Zappos. I think I am a good marketer. I’ve managed some really great branding projects. I understand target markets. I “get” social media and understand how to integrate it with other marketing channels. I have some beautiful and effective work in my portfolio that I am really proud of. I have NEVER ever been blown away by an ad like I just was with the new Zappos ad in Real Simple Magazine. They did so many things right, and it wasn’t that they took out six pages with a gate fold. But that they did it strategically and integrated so many channels while grabbing the attention of their target market.

Earlier this week I received my Real Simple Magazine in the mail. I’m busy and just haven’t had time to make magazine reading a priority in recent months, so I didn’t rush to read it. I’ve run out of good books to read at bedtime and remembered I had it in my bag so got it out and was flipping through when I came across an ad with my name on it, literally. I have a unique name so it stopped me dead in my tracks. What is this? Is this customized to me? It has to be.

Okay, then my mind goes into the technical questions only someone in the print industry would ask. How did they do this? Magazines are printed on huge web presses on humugeous rolls of paper that get folded into a big group of pages and then trimmed and typically sent out to be bound. There is no way to customize an ad to print an individual’s name on it on a web press. So, they printed that page of the ad on the outside of one of the signatures (group of pages) and then ran that through another print press to customize names on the ad. WOW–That had to be expensive. Could that ever pay off? And they did a gate fold right next to it. That isn’t cheap either. What is Zappos thinking spending so much on a print ad? So maybe I have a unique perspective on this. I start babbling about it to my husband. He thinks it is pretty cool too, but goes back to reading his book a couple of minutes later.

I’m still staring at the ad and realize I haven’t even opened up the gate fold yet. I open it up. It is interesting. Definitely targeting the mom demographic with paper doll cut out clothes. Now I realize there are some cut out doll clothing pieces missing in the closet in the gate fold, so I turn the next page. There are two more pages to this ad and wow does it include a lot more. Did I just say wow again? There’s a QR code to take you to a video featuring Zappos.com style expert. What? Zappos has a style expert? I read Tony’s book, “Delivering Happiness” and there was no mention of a style expert. And why does a shoe company that also carries accessories need a style expert?

But wait. There’s also a sweepstakes through Twitter, apparently known as Tweet Sweeps with a call to action to tweet @ZapposStyle with #zapposcloset hashtag to win a $2500 Zappos shopping spree. But then I notice that each of the missing pieces on the last two pages of the ad have the logos and brands of each piece. Zappos just plugged all of their preferred suppliers and quite possibly got them to help offset the cost of this super duper expensive ad.

They have managed to really creatively tie together so many marketing channels and techniques:

• Print Advertising
• Online Video
• Variable Data Printing
• QR Code personalized with the Zappos logo
• Social Media
• Co-op advertising

QR code, Twitter, Tweet Sweeps, video and co-oping. The new Zappos ad integrates it all while grabbing your attention. Sorry, I did get excited and make notes on the ad that you will have to excuse.

Zappos is positioning themselves as a style resource, a one stop shop to purchase every key piece that you need for your seasonal wardrobe. If this works, they may have also just changed the way we shop. Not just meaning shopping online. I would speculate that many of us every day working moms who don’t have personal shoppers, go out and buy a couple of pieces that we need at a time. And, we may see something else we like and impulse buy along the way. But Zappos is suggesting to us that we plan our seasonal wardrobe and go to them for advice on pieces to go with something we may already have. I love it!

The one question I have about their strategy was whether Twitter was the right social media channel, over Facebook which is more mainstream. But, perhaps. Twitter does have the influencers. It will be interesting to see if they can make trending topic. Okay, two questions. How many every day working moms know what a QR code is for and actually have a QR reader on their phone? I do, but I am also a marketer, and I haven’t bothered to utilize it yet to watch the video. Better do that so that I can also comment on the video. It was worth the 2-3 minutes of my time, and had a couple of good tips.

So, who is the mind behind this brilliant ad. Is Mullen, Zappo’s agency, responsible? It looks like it based on a little research. But interesting that for the last ad campaign they sent previews to major media and don’t seem to have for this one. This ad isn’t quite as sexy or brazen as the previous campaign, but in my opinion they nailed it.

What do you think? Did the ad impress you as much as it did me? Will it be effective?

I am an extremely bottom line driven marketer. My non-profit background makes me extremely conscious of ROI. So, I have to wonder if this could possibly pay off for Zappos in sales. I don’t know. It will be interesting to see. But it certainly was a really great first step to reposition themselves as a style expert and kick them out of the shoe store niche into a much wider market. Clearly more than shoes!

Our favorites include:

bit.ly: allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Several of these services exist, but this is our favorite.

Klout: tracks influence across the social web.

Listorious: A directory of twitter lists, so you can find interesting ones.

BuZZom: Help in managing your Twitter lists.

BlastFollow: Finding followers by conversation (= hashtags)

TrueTwit: Designed to help you * Verify people from robots * Avoid Twitter spam * Save time managing your followers

TwitPic: Share photos on Twitter by posting them to a site and tweeting a link to it.

TweetDeck: A browser and management tool for Twitter. See everything you want in one window.

Twitalyzer: Social Media analytics application.

Stupid Fight: Just for fun, you can compare whose followers are dumber.

Newbie

We followed anyone we knew, or who came to our attention through top lists or other posts, or who followed us. We were very excited whenever someone followed us, and a bit nervous as to whether we were saying something of value so that they would keep on listening. We were able to listen to everything that each of our followers had to say. We were able to read the bios, last few tweets and visit the website of everyone before following them back. And, we followed everyone back unless they appeared to be a porn or spam suspect. During this stage we found some great people to follow who continue to inform us on new trends and technology platforms.

Novice

We were following enough people that we couldn’t read all of their tweets and had information overload. We wondered, how do you sort through all of this? So we started being more selective in whom we followed back. We only followed back if that person had said something recently that was of specific interest to us. We probably missed out on a few good people here.

Interactor & Realist

We started responding to people via direct message, and having conversations. We realized that there is a perceived value to the number of followers that you have and that following back is a gesture of thanks for the follow. And, around this time Twitter came out with lists. We also discovered TweetDeck (and a few other Twitter tools). Now we could go back to our philosophy of following everyone who found us interesting enough to follow (except suspect spam and porn accounts) and organize the information in a way to sort through it. We do not read every tweet from every person that we follow, but we do read most tweets from people on our lists, and we check the main stream and add people we find interesting to lists as they say something of interest to us.

We discovered that there were some spammers who slipped through the cracks. These people would follow us, not because they were interested in what we had to say but with the hope that we would follow us back. Then when we did, they would unfollow us.  Not nice. So, we found some tools to clean up our lists every week or so. We unfollow and block those folks.

We have attended conferences, webinars and made new connections through those. Hash tags provide a great tool for following conversations and learning from others who have similar interests. It also enables you to revisit a conversation and continue it after the fact.

We’ve shared our knowledge, and gained new knowledge. We’ve also garnered some other random information. I have a new taco recipe that I am looking forward to trying out thanks to a conversation with a fellow tweep.

What will the next stage of our Twitter experience be? What are your thoughts? Have you dealt with following differently? Leave us a comment or let us know at www.twitter.com/KaleidosMktg.

And, just for fun, here the link to a funny list–the 46 stages of twitter.

UGC has many benefits:

• Rich keywords for SEO that your marketing department may not have thought of
• Additional and fresh content for SEO
• A reason for users to drive traffic to your site
• Community development and participation chain extension: Users who contribute content to your site have an investment and are more engaged
• Reduction in customer support/ service calls and expenses
• Product development. If you can create an engaged community of users, they can help you improve and develop products.

Types of UGC that can be incorporated into your site:

• Blog comments and conversations
• Twitter/ Facebook streams
• Ratings & Reviews
• Forums (Ask & Answer type platforms)
• Wishlists
• Photo & Video Galleries
• Polls & Surveys
• “Like” buttons

Invite to Pimp Your Blog

A great recent example I witnessed of using a blog (and Twitter) to create UGC and engagement was from someone I follow on Twitter, social media strategist Danny Brown. Danny sent out a tweet inviting his followers to shamelessly promote their blog. I hadn’t read Danny’s blog until he gave me this opportunity. He gained a new follower (probably many) out of the invitation. He introduced his community to each other’s interests and blogs. He drove traffic (and links—key for SEO) to his site and created conversations (172 comments to date) with people. You can see this example at http://dannybrown.me/2010/02/18/an-invite-to-pimp-your-blog/.

A few thoughts/ quotes published on Twitter #SBS2010:

• Having an exit strategy is not necessarily the goal of having a business @rushkoff
• Real social: not extension of a brand mythology, it’s reconnecting people who care about the product. @rushkoff
• To determine who “owns” social media in an organization, ask who owns the customer relationship. @charleneli
• How do you scale social? You’ve got to create your own groundswell @charleneli
• We are re-writing how our entire company does business at Citi @jpunishill
• Do not underestimate the amount of time you will have to spend evangelizing @jpunishill
• Scientific tests show conforming is more important than correctness @katenieder
• Focus on what you want people to do vs. what you don’t want them to do @KateNieder
• Recommendations from friends; other peoples’ opinions online most trust advertsing @jackiehuba
• Every brand community has 1%’ers – advocates, experts, gurus, mavens – know them and nurture them. @jackiehuba
• Give them something to join – they want to know what’s in it for them…not what’s in it for you. @jackiehuba
• Social media will guide your company if you let it @comcastcares
• Earn the right to sell on social media…. Service must come first” @comcastcares
• The further you get from tech companies the less adoption of social technologies. Yet IT is not actively engaged. @dHinchcliffe
• Counter-intuitive rule of social – the more control you give up, the more you get back @dHinchcliffe
• 80% of shoppers seek out reviews before they buy / 90% of people write reviews to help others @samdecker
• In order to drive change you have to “peacock” and “woodpecker” (verbs) Get their attention and be incessant @samdecker
• Companies never engaged customers because it was too easy to ignore. Today that is not the case.  @SamDecker
• Business thrive on the network when they adapt to the network (not the other way around) @monstro
• Social puts customer service at the front of the business chain @monstro
• Management’s job is not to prevent risk, but to be sure we can recover if/when we fail @monstro
• We need to be building relationships not just conversations @jhagel
• Identify passionate people in your org and put them in the pain points in the business @jhagel
• Move companies from high castle walls to sponges @monstro
• HiPPO “Highest Paid Person’s Opinion @karenmcgrane
• Don’t assume users will do what you want them to @karenmcgrane
• The main reason enterprise social fails is a lack of content strategy. @karenmcgrane
  
• Adding Web 2.0 tools to your Web 1.0 website won’t solve your problems. @karenmcgrane
• The value proposition of Social Business is not being realized by Enterprise because there is no content strategy. @KarenMcGrane
• We use Social Media to acquire new customers and keep the ones we have… Oh, and to make money. @ttaxchristine
• Trust is cheaper than control. @LeeBryant
• Social behaviors are contagious, whether negative or positive @LeeBryant

Slides from the event that are already online:

• Emerging Social Business Strategies in 2010 | Social Business Summit 2010
• “Work like the Network” for the Social Business Summit 2010

Congratulations to the Dachis Group for creating and executing a successful and valuable event! And, my hats off to all of the the phenomenal speakers who managed to pack a ton of information into a short time frame and keep us all engaged and entertained all day long!

1. Start with small steps
   1. Put a website infastructure in place that has a content management system (CMS) and that will allow for growth.
   2. Start a blog.
2. Get a presence
   1. Set up a Facebook page, and a plan for updates to that page that may include a RSS of your blog to the notes page. Facebook recently surpassed Yahoo as the #2 site in the US.
   2. Set up a LinkedIn company page and a RSS feed to your blog.
   3. We have not regularly encouraged implementing a Twitter account because of the time required, but if you have the staff time it should be considered. Recent estimates put Twitter at 75M active users.
   4. There are many other social media platforms that may be appropriate for specific businesses, too many for us to include. You can contact me directly at lmoore@kaleidosmarketing.com for additional suggestions.
3. Promote that presence
   1. Use existing marketing channels (website, brochures & e-mails) to send customers to your social media profiles and to build your follower and fan base. Use social media profiles to send people to your website and add new people to e-mail distribution lists.
4. Monitor & listen
   1. Set up Google alerts to see what is being said about your company, and be prepared to respond when appropriate.
   2. Set a regular schedule to search Twitter, Yelp and other sites relevant to your business for mentions of your business.

With all of this said, there are organizations who we have discouraged from setting up and dedicating valuable time and resources to a social media presence. Anyone can game the system and build up a follower/ fan base. But if those people aren’t real, or aren’t listening then your efforts are a waste. You must have leaders, staff members, volunteers or customers who are at least joiners and wiling to help get the word out.

You also need to understand and determine what your goals of these efforts are so that they can be measured. Do you want to drive traffic to your site, increase sales, bolster your reputation?

Now that we have provided a generic outline, we want to identify organizations that typically have inactive, spectator and joiner demographics who have pulled off more sophisticated social business executions. We have an example to share below and please share any examples you may have with us on Twitter @KaleidosMktg.

Last week we witnessed what we thought was a very appropriate, successful and innovative use and implementation of social media by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In general, classical music has a demographic that falls into a higher age range, and tends to be less active online. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announced their 2010/11 season via live webcast. Invitations were sent out not only through social media networks, but also via e-mail to a broad audience. Two media professionals led interviews of the Music Director and Concert Master, while an ASO musician acted as social media moderator and selected questions from Twitter and Facebook to ask interviewees. Classical music organizations have put forth great efforts to lower the barrier between the musicians and audience through pre-concert talks and similar activities. This live webcast with questions submitted by the viewers achieved this same goal. And, I didn’t have to be in Atlanta to participate. I could watch from my home office in Austin, Texas. This was an advanced tactic that integrated social with live streaming. I don’t have inside knowledge of what the goals or success of this event, but do take my hat off to this creative tactic coming from a classical music organization. We hoe it was a success!

• Jeff Dachis, Dachis Group, Opening and Welcome
• Doug Rushkoff, The People’s Business
• Charlene Li, Altimeter Group, Making The Case For Open Leadership
• Jamie Punishill, Citibank, Operationalizing Social Business
• Kate Niederhoffer, Dachis Group, Classic Rocks, Corporate Culture
• Jackie Huba, Ants Eye View, Engaging The One Percenters
• Frank Eliason, Comcast, Social Business and Cultural Change
• Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Company, Emerging Social Business Strategies in 2010
• Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice, Creating Customer Oxygen
• Rick Maynard, KFC, The Secret Recipe For Social Business Success
• Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction, Work Like The Network
• Karen McGrane, Bond Art + Science, UX Will Make Or Break Social Business
• Stowe Boyd, /Message, Publicy and the Erosion of Privacy
• Christine Morrison, Intuit Turbo Tax
• Lee Bryant, Headshift, Humanising the Enterprise

There should be around 75 attendees, so a smaller group condusive to conversation. The goal for the summit is to provide and engage in creating a composite picture of the “state of Social Business,” i.e. what’s important now and what’s happening next. We will post our thoughts and any insights gained from the event in a blog post after the event. Do you have any thoughts or questions about the current state and future of social business? Let us know at www.twitter.com/KaleidosMktg (@KaleidosMktg) and we’ll do our best to report back on it.

There’s already been some good conversation and previews around Twitter hashtag #SBS2010, and we’ve found some new interesting folks to follow on Twitter. (Thanks @zackolantern!) Hope to meet you all next week!

The authors define groundswell as: “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than traditional institutions like corporations.” This could be an interchangeable definition with social media, except that social media is not a trend and it is not going away. It is the buzz now, and in five years it will not be the buzz anymore, but rather an integral part of your business plan.

Li and Bernoff go on to classify people into the following technographics profiles: inactives, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics and creators. By determining which profiles your customers or target audience falls into, you can narrow down the social media technologies that may be most useful to your business. There are many technologies out there, and more are being developed every day, so it is important to find the ones that will work best with your culture and business model. These technologies can not only be used to drive business and to improve product development, but also to improve your internal business processes. The book includes case studies and how ROI can be calculated from those efforts.