How to Hire a Social Media Marketing & PR Expert

Are you looking for someone to implement your new Social Media marketing strategy?  Here are some tips. First, I am not a social media expert. I am an advertising and public relations expert who specializes in event marketing with small budgets (under $250,000 annually).  That's my niche, and as such, I often have to learn, study, and implement new methods and media for my clients without the big budgets of hiring out.

There are top professionals in the business whose knowledge and expertise help Fortune 500 companies. If you have a large budget - hire one of these thought leaders and their company: Brian Solis, Dierdre Breakenridge, Lee Odden, David Meerman Scott, Kary Delaria, and Jennifer Kane. Why? because these are the people I read, follow, and whose seminars I attend. They are miles ahead of any one in your hometown unless these folks work in your town. They are ahead of any learning curve, and creating the next trend before it is ever reported. (I am currently reading "Engaged")

Most likely you wouldn't read this blog if you could afford them, so here is her second best step. Hire someone they recommend or that follows these thought leaders. It's easy to find out if your candidate knows anything about social media and in particular, the best strategies. Ask what they think of the thought leaders I've mentioned. Research the "expertise" of your prospective hire. Ask for their Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin and Slideshare identity. Ask about their blogs, white papers, and online press rooms.

Clues that your expert is just trying to cash-in on the social media hype:

• Twitter: Followers to Following ratio. Less than 66% a social media virgin ( following 1,000, followers 6), check out frequency and type of tweets. If all advertising for that "expert's" site, expert is a hack. Check out the experts I listed. Their ratios are closer more like 1000/1 followers. They've been doing it awhile and are followed for their "information." not ads.
• Facebook: Number of "likes" or fans, number of pages attributed to expert, fans, friends, likes of those. Again, check out posts for "shouting ads." Do they engage the reader or just shout like a marquee of unending specials
• YouTube: Videos and types of videos. (I'm a hack at this I admit. Gary Vaynerchuk and Steve Garfield those are the experts. For a good laugh and inspiration watch Web 2.0 from 2008.
• Slideshare: Does your expert have anything on slide share. Has this expert taught anyone else? If not, how will your company learn to manage their social media strategy?
• Website: None? Forget them. Simple, clean, easy to search, linked to social media. There's hope.
• Blog: Do they blog or ghost blog? Find examples of their work. See how they label or tag their blogs. Find out if anyone follows or comments to their blogs.

Do you currently have a marketing firm or consultant? Are they Social Media Literate? Are they willing to learn - they better be. Can they help you with the strategy and implementation in house? 

My clients and I work together. We don't have the big budgets - one client has a $80,000 annual budget to market an event that has to advertise to 3 major Southern California markets. One of those being the L.A./O.C. DMA where media buys are three times that of the regional market, and 5 to 10 times the local budget. To get results and 40,000 guests we have to leverage buys against sponsorships and promotions.

Our social media campaign last year doubled our website traffic and increased  Facebook Fans from 0 to 3600 in 5 months, 900 to 3600 in six weeks. We worked on it together - their staff and mine. And, we learned while doing. Another client has events 20 weekends a year and an advertising budget under $40,000. Without social media, e-blasts, and buy extensions these events would fail.  Yet there is no money to hire an expert. We again, learn by doing and do on the cheap. See Twitter.com/SocalWineCntry.

If your PR/Marketing  firm can do this for you, keep 'em. If they continue to use tired traditional campaigns, consider social media implementation is nothing more than creating a Facebook page and a regular e-blast. Dump 'em. Proper engagement of Social Media is a marketing strategy. While appearance on social networks is free - maintaining and engaging with the audience is not.

A quick course on PR/Marketing 2.0: (The following books I have read, tagged, highlighted, and devoured along with a plethora of Vocus/PRWeb Webinars - which by the way are mostly free).
"Engage! The Complete Guide for Brands & Business to Build,Cultivate and Measure Success in the New Web" by Brian Solis

"PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences" by Dierdre Breakenridge

"The New Rules of Marketing & PR" by David Meerman Scott

"Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day" by Dave Evans

"Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time" by Joel Comm

"Barack 2.0 Lessons for BusinessBarack Obama's Social Media " by Brent Leary and David Bullock (like him or not - it's what got the man elected.)

"Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR" by Brian Solis and Dierdre Breakenridge

"Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business" by Steve Garfield and David Meerman Scott

Integrate Social Networks & Traditional Media for Maximum Event Promotion

1. DEFINE CORE MARKET: What demographic age/income/marital status/psychographics dominate your current customer base. Be specific on age, income, psychographics, geographic (zip codes of residence), habits, and media preferences. Know their frequency of attendance and how much they spend.

 

2. DEFINE SECONDARY MARKET: The fringe market – older and younger age group. The older is the age group that will produce the most attrition, the younger age group you should woo into your event through specific venues and programs. 

• a. DETERMINE THE CURRENT MOST EFFECTIVE MEDIA/PROMOTIONS/PUBLICITY venues to use in promoting your event:
• b. Radio – match demographics/age/psychographics of radio station to your entertainment and venue offers.
• c. Television – Cable is most cost effective with many having broadband bundled packages that extend outside your geographic market on super networks or cross/market networks. If you can afford major networks go for it.
• d. Print – Magazines, Newspapers, Travel Sections, Food/Wine or Family editors that match your event market profile.
• e. Direct Mail 
• f. Billboard/Outdoor

 

3. DETERMINE WHICH SOCIAL NETWORKS HAVE THE MOST OF YOUR DEMOGRAPHIC: You don’t have to use everything, just the most effective for your market.  

• a. In the 35-54 age brackets currently Facebook is kicking every social network’s booty with a 276% growth in that age bracket for 2009.
• b. 75% of all global consumers actually “check-in” to a social network weekly.
• c. And remember that fringe market – 25-34 year olds using Facebook are doubling every six months, and the 55+ is growing at a 194.3% rate.
• d. Best Day to “share” on Facebook – Saturday. And since social networks are fluid and change rapidly, now you know this fact, it will most likely change within six months.
• e. Twitter 2009 median age 31, 47% are 18-34 year olds, 311% 35-49 year-olds
• f. Best Days to Tweet and be retweeted – Friday and Monday – but now that you know that – this too will change.
• g. Myspace media age 27
• h. Linkedin Median age 40
• i. This year 42% people 50 and older are posting status updates, 47% of the people between 50-64 are using social networks.

 

4. ESTABLISH A STRATEGY: It isn’t good enough to just “communicate” via Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and blogs – you have to become involved, “engage” as Brian Solis says, and create a relationship. The day of mass broadcasting a repetitive message and seeing results are fading with declining audiences, ratings, and readership. Today’s audience is more informed, more capable of digging to the bottom of an claim, and more willing to go the extra mile to uncover the truth. I keep telling my clients DON’T SHOUT at your fans and followers. Involve, engage, enrapt, inform, and interact. Your entire marketing campaign will require this technique. And it is a talent, a technique, and an acquired skill belonging to someone who knows how to communicate without shouting. Here are some tips:

 

• a. Ask for feedback:
• “What bands would you like to see on stage at our next Festival 
• “Would you like workshops and what kind at the next event?
•  “Would you be willing to spend more money for catered drinks and reserved seats or less money for Festival seating?”
• b. Ask for volunteers:
•  To work the event, form an advisory committee; help with office or social media communications.
• c. Create a contest or Sweepstakes:
• Be sure to follow rules of the social media – Twitter and Facebook will disable you for violating their rules.
• d. Create albums for photo and video uploads
• e. Offer information only available through Social Media:
• Ticket discounts
• Ticket bundles
• Special Incentives at sponsors
•  Traffic and Event Info during event
• Latest concert information

5. Tie the Social Media Strategy to your Traditional Media campaign:

•  Insist on links with other media to your social media pages and websites
• Involve the media in your contest or incentives
• Offer incentives for interactivity with the media’s social networks – this can increase your fans, “likes” or followers.

6. Assign a Team to monitor, communicate and oversee your Social Networks. This is a 24-hour operation requiring more than one person with Social Networking skills.

7. Give yourself plenty of time to plan, launch and integrate. This is not a Shoot, Ready, Aim media campaign. Errors made in social networks can go viral. Failure to communicate, or communicate poorly and you’ve done more harm to your event image than missing the Social Media boat completely.

The Grand Social Media Experiment - Final Report on Facebook Contest

For full transparency, I must admit there will be an epilogue to this report. I and my client began the Social Media Campaign in November. We did not know what it would do for ticket sales of the event. Our purpose was just to get the event word out, to connect with our volunteers and guests, and to help the public understand why a hot air balloon can't fly in hot windy air.

My company promotes the Temecula Valley Balloon and Wine Festival. (http://www.tvbwf.com/)  In its 27th year, this event is truly, if you know how to count people, cars and tickets, the biggest event in the Valley. 38,000 to 40,000 annually attend the event.

November 2009 I and the staff met to discuss the Social Media campaign and what we hoped to accomplish. First we wanted a nice Facebook Fan Page that we managed. There were several different fan pages out there, done by friends, volunteers and even bands that played at the Festival  previously.

So we deactivated them and began the Social Media Experiment with the sole goal of having all social media up and running by March 1, 2010. March 29 we would start a Facebook contest, teased by Twitter and our radio media partners. We started with zero fans and followers. By March 25 by working it part time on my part and the office staff we had 950 total fans, 270 visits in a week, and 3 wall posts in a week.

The contest ended May 9th and here are the results of the six week campaign:
We added an average of 200 fans a week, one weekend 650 fans.
We ended with 2,471 total fans. (net of 1521)
Wall posts ended at 301 for the final week of the contest (compared to 3)
Visits to the page were 1,649 for the final week, 1,090 the previous week. (six times more visits than when the contest started)

The Festival's fan page is still adding fans at the rate of 150 a week. Total fans 2,732.
There were 995 visits last week to the fan page so we are maintaining the momentum as we lead to the Festival next weekend.

We have also added Twitter followers at a steady rate (from 0 to 173) Twitter was not a priority. Within our community and demographics of the Festival Twitter is a misused and understood microblog. What the campaign did include, however, was following all of the wineries and performers at the 2010 event. This provided us additional audience of the Festival message that we may not have reached otherwise. Frequent Tweet backs to those we followed helped us find new friends.

Our Social Mention (http://www.socialmention.com/) quotient at this point (there is debate on its accuracy as it does pull up irrelevant sites) has a strength of 2, sentiment of 22 and passion of 27. While I understand what it all means, in the manner of social media, I don't know how it will translate to ticket sales. After all, that is what a marketing campaign, be it traditional, social or mixed, is all about. Sell the product. Cute and clever doesn't always sell. Just ask Joe Izusu and the Lizards of Bud. Then again, there is the Aflac Duck.

For the Festival, our goal was to have 10% of our normal audience as Fans on Facebook. Oh wait - Facebook changed that to "Like." (Gees - sometimes you geeks need to get a life.) It was also to reach more people with the complete Festival message. Remember when I mentioned Hot Air Balloons. Well, it never fails, in the 15 years of doing this event, and no matter what we write in a press release, put in the news, say on television, there will always be a handful of guests who walk into the Festival at 1 p.m. and complain that there are no hot air balloons.

Science 101 - HOT AIR RISES guys ... that is what we have been able to say to all of our Fans and followers, who have actually answered the critics on blogs other social media. They have reminded our guests that a Hot Air Balloon must have cool air to fly. And, if that is ALL we accomplish, it will be something that couldn't be done in 27 years of the event.

As for attendance and ticket sales, we will know on June 6th about 1 p.m. when the trickle into the Festival slows. I can say this much, on May 15 & 16, I was promoting another event in town, Western Days & Chili Cookoff. The budget for these Old Town events continues to shrink. It has been hacked and hacked again. Every time it gets hacked in down economies - it doesn't get blessed in good. While costs of promoting go up, the budget doesn't. I say this so you understand the limits of growing an event without money to promote it.  The attendances is always between 2,500 to 4,000 a day depending on the weather. 

Not this year. Whether it was the extremely clever radio commercial we produced on KFrog, the Westways article or the intense web promotion, with email blasts and social media, I truly can't say. But the event clearly doubled in size. Chili was sold out in an hour. The high noon gunfight crowd looked a bit like the Rod Run crowd. (http://www.temeculacalifornia.com/)

As the marketer and promoter, I'll say it was all of the above. If, however, we see an increase in attendance at the Festival where we can actually count tickets and attendance, I'll know social media marketing had a major impact.  Expect an epilogue.

PR 2.0 Is Here: Combine Traditional PR with Social Media for Heightened Results

Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 WorldA Step by Step Guide to Social Media Marketing and Web 2.0 OptimizationMarketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap between Seller and Buyer through Social Media Marketing

Social Media Scorecards and the Grand Social Media Experiment

Let me just say this. DON'T DO A CONTEST on Facebook for six weeks unless you have 4 people monitoring the contest pages at all times.  Of course that also depends on if you have 5 people playing, and a fan base of 80.  My client started with 1,100 fans. Our goal is 4,000 by the time of the event.  We're at 2,390 fans on Facebook today and we're about 30 days out from the Event. We are averaging an addition of 120 per week, with one weekend adding over 600 fans as part of the contest.

But how does this help us? Somewhere in my spare time I have found time to read yet another book on this new media that changes faster than the speed of sound. But it is Brian Solis' latest "Engage" and the last 20 pages of the book are on measuring your return on investment, knowing your "Social Influence" score or value and how different gurus are measuring the results.

We will measure results at the gate and cash register. But for now, we are seing and hearing the buzz of the event. Last week 102 links were made to our fan page -- they were all SPONSOR LINKS...giving our sponsors tremendous interactivity and exposure to our 2,390 loyal fans. There is a great free measurement site that has us with pretty high scores for posts and sentiment. The site also measures passion, although I don't know how. (Something else to read.)

And what I really found of great value, was the numerous categories of measurements, from links to news, to blogs and microblogs. Bottom line, I was able to find some news coverage on our event that hasn't popped up in any of my usual media audit services.

The site is socialmention.com. But while you dig through all this with me, you might want to tap into another little gem on the web ... an article "10 Social Media Monitoring Tools..." http://tiny.cc/mrt88.

And 4 people? Well we have one monitoring comments, another the points and me the entire game. All part time ... which means to pull it all together ... someone has to work it. That would be me. 7 a.m. to midnight and I'm anxious for this contest to be over. What I thought would take a few hours a day divided up between three people, became eight hours.  And that is the biggest lesson of learned from all of  this. Get lots of help, have someone write you an app to keep better track of things and make it easier.

There are lots of tools out there to use, but all are partial in the general scheme of a BIG CONTEST totally conducted on social media. Praying my nephew can figure out the app by next year.

Sorry for any typos -- I'm a bit brain dead.

Grand Social Media Experiment V -

Just an update - April 14th the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival had 1,244 Facebook Fans. Today, April 20th we have 2,019. We were adding 110 fans a week prior to our contest. It is a lot of work and I'm beat. Even with people monitoring the site, I watch it like a hawk for problems, complaints, discrepencies in points. It helps. We can answer questions, solve problems and help our Festival guests feel like guests and a part of the process.

This campaign could probably be done easier. I have utilized as much automated widgets and apps as possible - or that I know - or that doesn't cost money. What most folks don't get is the Festival is not a cash cow. Their mission is to promote the community, to spread the word of the valley's finest assets. Over the years of mini-ad budgets they have done a phenomenal job. In essence, they have branded the valley because you can go to conventions and say you are from Temecula. The reply is always the same "Oh you have that Balloon & Wine Festival."

For 27 years this event has promoted the valley. It's contributions to the growth of the wine region and community often go unheralded. I have friends who moved here because they attended a Balloon & Wine Festival. (I think it was the one where I had the grape stomping and waiter waitress contests in the dirt of home plate at the sports park.)

The message goes far-reaching. It is an internationl message. They have won marketing awards against 1400 other international events - and they have done it regularly at the IFEA convention. They compete against Kentucky Derby's, Miramar Air Shows, Rose Parades and major events with much bigger marketing budgets. And they still win. They still spread the word that the Temecula Valley is a great place to live, work, play and grow a business. And it takes 1,000 volunteers to pull this off. Kudos Festival! Someday you will get the Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. (Hint Hint)

Melody Brunsting first volunteered for the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival in 1986. She continued to provide her support and services until she was hired to promote the event in 1994. At that time their entire advertising and marketing budget was $10,000. Today, Melody is president of Melody's Ad Works, Inc., produces annual events in Old Town Temecula, promotes numerous events and non-profits, including the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival, Temecula Bluegrass Festival, Western Days, Hot Summer Nights and the Great Temecula Grape Drop on New Year's Eve. To see her events visit www.temeculacalifornia.com. To see more about Melody see www.melodysadworks.com

How's Your Fan Base Growing? Getting lots of visits on Facebook?

In two days, a client's Facebook fan page added over 500 fans, grew 44%, more than doubled the visits to the page and had more than 10x more posts. How?

With an interactive contest.

Read the Grand Social Media Experiement.  Here are the media tools I'm using: Facebook, Twitter, Pingfm, Blip.fm, Cotweet and Youtube.

There are lots of books out there ... but stay tuned with my day to day story and learn from my mistakes -- and hits.

Social Media Marketing and Events - the Grand Experiment IV

Okay the weekend is over and all of our contestants did a great job of sending Fans to the Festival Facebook page (Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival.)  In fact, where we were growing 100 to 150 a week we grew 500 over the weekend. That's 500 more people who will see the Festival updates, 500 more folks who have folks seeing their updates. A good long tail of the cat experiment.

The key now is the interaction, welcoming them and making them feel a part of this contest too. Always with social media the key is to engage with content and interaction.

We have more weekend projects for our contestants and remember, they are all going for a coveted campsite at the Festival. Plus this week they will be winning tickets at sponsor locations.

During the weekend, Vinnie, our spokesperson, posted a new video, has played around with his blipfm radio station, and basically kept a dialogue with the contestants.

Stay tuned.