I had the opportunity to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit recently, and wanted to share a few of my observations. In addition to being part of the SocialGrow team, I’m on the Board of Directors for WOMMA, and so I always look forward to attending this conference, to hang out and learn from the best and the brightest (and the most curious) in the Word of Mouth Marketing space.

Integrating Social Media into a company’s marketing plan has been a challenge, but because of the proliferation of tools that can track a company’s online buzz, and directly measure the impact of Social Marketing programs, the “C-Suite” is becoming more and more anxious to use Social Media to grow their business.



 The conference started off with a bang, as Harvard Business Review released the December 2010 issue, featuring “Social Media and the New Rules of Branding” on its cover. There’s never been more attention paid to “Social Media,” and every company big or small is focused on using Facebook and Twitter and other Social Media tools to create or tap into conversations with their customers.



 In place of attending the event, or trying to read my scribbled notes, the WOMMA staff hired Paula Hanson, a “Graphic Recorder” from Chart-Magic to take notes during many of the sessions.

Facebook’s Paul Ollinger gave an inspiring session about the “Identity Web.” He outlined the keys to creating a successful presence on Facebook: 1) Index your brand on the “Who” web. 2) Build authentic networks (something SocialGrow makes a lot easier); and 3) Develop Long-term Relationships. Along the way, he gave examples of firms like Oreo and Starbucks who have followed this model to build trust around their brand.


 



 The Kitchen Sisters from NPR shared the importance of Storytelling. The stressed the importance of stories to keep your audience, or your customers, paying attention to your message. One of the important points they made was to “put a face on your story.” Connecting with people directly, with Facebook, Linked In, or other Social Networks gives you the chance to know your customer, and for them to put a face on you, and your brand. And SocialGrow makes it easy to connect with partners, clients, and customers.



The team from Ben & Jerry’s spoke about programs they’ve done using Social Media. For their extremely popular “Free Cone Day,” they relied heavily on Social Networks to get the word out. But more than just getting the message out, they wanted to develop relationships via Twitter, monitoring followers, Tweeting during their Summer Sampling Tour, and connecting directly with their most avid customers. Does your marketing program have a Word of Mouth component? Do you use tools like SocialGrow to connect with customers and participate in conversations they’re having about your brand or product?



There was a lot more that was shared, but the key issue in making Word of Mouth profitable is connecting with your customers, making sure your message is “Talkable.” What are your customers saying? Where are they saying it? Have you shared your thoughts with them? Have you listened to what they’re saying?



 For more on WOMMA, and the 2010 WOMMA Summit, go to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association website.



See you at the next conference!

At the March Web Innovators Group meeting here in Boston, it really hit me how our engaging people on social networks, by sharing what we know and what we are doing in social media, has had an incredibly positive impact for SocialGrow’s brand awareness and recognition in the real-world.



I felt like everyone at the event had seen Jennie White’s “5 Startups Who Are Killing it on Twitter” article she had published earlier that day, so immediately recognized SocialGrow on my nametag and knew who I was. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that before at an event. Everyone wanted to know more about our software application, and how we’re using Twitter to reach out to potential users. We all know how much easier it is to talk about your company, your brand, and your products with someone when they have read something about you online. Especially with a product that does something which hasn’t been done before, social media gives you real-time feedback to help you explain the unique value of your product in a way that traditional advertising cannot.



Jennie’s article was not our first online recognition, however, we’ve also been named one of MassHighTech’s “5 Startups You Should Follow”, and Microsoft’s global BizSpark Startup of the Day. SocialGrow’s participation in Microsoft’s BizSpark Startup program, has further enabled us to connect and engage with our potential users online.



So how can a tech startup, and for that matter, ANY new company use social networks and online social media marketing “introduce” themselves to their target customers and help those customers to understand their brand’s unique value?



1. Hire a great CMO, who is both strategic and hands-on. You need someone who deeply understands not just marketing in general, but social media marketing in particular. SocialGrow’s CMO Ken Herron started engaging potential users online months before we launched our Alpha release, and has steadily worked his way up Kent Huffman’s Systemic Marketing’s “Top CMOs on Twitter” list.



2. Freely and generously share your expertise in your blog posts, Twitter streams, Facebook Fan pages, comments on others peoples’ blog posts, and MeetUp groups. Don’t forget to take advantage of any PR opportunities you see at Peter Shankman’s HARO.



3. Share your content so as to maximize its SEO and potential for virality, by being sure to include keywords which will help people to find what you’ve written. Required reading for all of us how to increase the effectiveness of our inbound marketing efforts are: HubSpot, David Meerman Scott, and Dan Zarrella.



4. Share “link love” with the people who you believe to be the best in your field (as I did in tip number 3 above), and they may share it back with you through their tweets and posts.



5. Continually create and share quality content. On Twitter, post at least 3 times a day, and on your blog, post at least once a week.



6. Actively participate in in-person networking events, proactively seeking out and introducing yourself to the other participants. At the last LaunchCamp Boston event, I made it a point to seek out Jeff Cutler, Joselin Mane, and Jason Evanish. Don’t be afraid to sit in the front row, as I did in Scott Kirsner and Wade Roush’s session on PR.



7. Hire a great designer to visualize your brand’s identity. SocialGrow’s logo was designed to communicate the concept of healthy, positive growth, and we use it everywhere so people will instantly know when it’s us talking.



8. Finally, pay it forward. All new companies need help. If you can help a fellow startup with introductions, feedback, or simply being a good beta tester to help them to improve their product, then do it. You will not only make new friends, but learn things which will help your business along the way. Then when you need help yourself, and you will, you’ll have these people in your network. We all want to be successful!



Learn more about SocialGrow, and our milestones to date on our Crunchbase profile.



How have YOU used online social networking to increase your company’s brand awareness? I look forward to your comments!



Last night, people were talking about Twitter (people always seem to be talking about Twitter around me…), and a friend asked, “You have over 15,000 followers. Can you share the ’secret’ so I can do the same for my [start-up] company?”



He seemed a little disappointed when I told him there really isn’t a secret to engaging with people on Twitter. As many smart people have already said, you listen, you create, and you communicate. I took a look at his Twitter account, and gave him a list of steps I recommended he take to better engage with his target audience. Looking at the list again this morning, I wanted to write it up and share it with you [below].



Ken’s List of 10 Steps to Engaging Your Target Audience on Twitter



1. Look Hard at Your Twitter Handle

While you want your Twitter handle to be as short as possible [so it doesn't eat into the 140 characters when people retweet your posts], be sure that it strongly relates to the name you use in your marketing communications so that it not only helps your SEO, but immediately identifies your Twitter account for both existing and new customers.



2. Use Your Own Photo

While many people are more comfortable using their company’s logo than their own photo, keep in mind that on Twitter people are still engaging with other people, even if they are representing brands.



3. Design a FANTASTIC “Tweetback”

Your Twitter background is the place to showcase not only your company’s logo, but to clearly articulate your brand’s unique value, story, and contact information. Design (or have designed) a compelling, brand-appropriate background. Check out http://twitterbackgroundsgallery.com/ for ideas and inspiration. And don’t forget to include the specific call to action you want people to take!



4. Share, Don’t Spam

People seem to forget that Twitter is inbound marketing (http://blog.hubspot.com/), and not outbound marketing. Why would anyone want to follow a never-ending stream of sales pitches? Focus on tweeting valuable [preferably your own original] content which shares your brand-appropriate expertise of greatest interest to your target audience. Think about the 1 in 10 rule — limit your direct marketing pitches to no more than 1 out of every 10 of your tweets.



5. Think 120

Limit the length of your tweets to no more than 120 characters (less is obviously better). While Twitter’s limit is 140 characters, if you use all of them, you make it harder for people to retweet your posts with their comments. You should also be retweeting your followers’ best tweets, and ALWAYS thanking them by name when they retweet your tweets.



6. Tweet at Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

Tweet 3-5 times a day, throughout the day, minimally in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening.



7. Use Multimedia

Think multimedia when you tweet. A mix of brand-appropriate photos, audio, and videos are more interesting for your followers than all text tweets.



8. Create Twitter Lists

Create brand-appropriate Twitter Lists to recognize and promote your followers.



9. Follow Great People

While you should obviously be following everyone who is talking about your company, your brands, and your products; you also want to follow people who are talking about your competitors, and the problems, needs, and wants your product or service solves. I have heard differing views on this, but as a company, I choose to follow back everyone [who's not a spammer, bot, or in a business inappropriate to my brand] who expresses an interest in SocialGrow.



10. Use the SocialGrow Application!

Following my own 1 in 10 rule, sign up now for the SocialGrow application at http://socialgrow.com! Launching soon, SocialGrow makes it easier to connect with people you don’t know, and faster to connect with people you do. Note that SocialGrow has a great consulting division should you need more help with using Twitter, effectively using other social networks, or creating an integrated social-media-inclusive marketing and communications strategy for your business or organization. Please feel free to contact me directly with your questions on ken.herron [@] socialgrow.com.

Boston’s Largest Network of Technology Investors, named after the city’s historic public meeting grounds, CommonAngels is a group of 75 leading private investors and several dozen limited partners in two co-investment funds. They have rich expertise in over 58 specific sectors and finance the region’s most innovative high-tech ventures with a focus on capital efficiency: Series A rounds of $500K-$5M with total capital less than $20M.



- Marsh (President)

Let us know which logos you love, which logos you hate, and which logos just make you scratch your head.



99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.



Read what the media  has to say about about them.



- Ken (CMO)

In advance of the launch of our new company’s website, and, as you can see, in advance of our even having a logo, welcome to the SocialGrow™ company blog!



SocialGrow™ helps individuals and organizations around the world realize the benefits of social networks.



SocialGrow’s flagship product, the SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application, enables people of all technical levels to quickly and easily grow their professional and/or personal online social networks. The SocialGrow™ Web and Mobile Phone Software Application also enables both small and large social networks around the world to rapidly grow their memberships.



SocialGrow’s Consulting division, SocialGrow™ Consulting, researches, analyzes, and makes recommendations on social networking strategies.



SocialGrow’s Professional Services division, SocialGrow™ Professional Services, manages social networks.



SocialGrow’s vision is to realize the human side of what our technology enables — new connections between people that might not have otherwise happened. Finding a new job after a year of unemployment. Finding the love of your life after a break-up that left you thinking you’d never meet anyone. Finding a huge customer when you didn’t know whether your business would survive. Each new connection truly has the potential to be life-changing. Our application enables growth, not just the number of people one has in their multiple online networks, but the value received from the richness of having a large, diverse network.



SocialGrow™ was founded in 2009 by industry veterans Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury.