The Out-Smarts Blog and Podcast

Social media for marketing and business development is the hot topic on the networking circuit in Vancouver these days and today’s SMEI event was no exception. With expert panelists from BCIT and Oracle bringing their unique experiences in SM to the panel, the event proved to be insightful.

It started off with a brief intro to Web 2.0 described as being “Tech, Process and People - but most of all collaboration” then went on to a 101 of web 2.0 terms such as RSS, blogs, podcasts for the real newbies in the audience.

Once the panelists got started the true value of the event became apparent. Justin Kestelyn, Director of Development Programs at Oracle discussed their web 2.0 adoption and the benefits they have gained from using a more transparent strategy and involving their customers and partners more. He made a great point in that by involving their customers and allowing them to have a voice these invariably become evangelists at little or no cost to Oracle. He points out that Web 2.0 is an attitude, a new way of doing business and not just an Internet term.

Next up was Robert Duncan from BCIT whose presentation centred on LinkedIn as a means of developing relationships (a topic close to my heart). He focuses on LinkedIn in particular of the social networks available and has over 800 contacts that he uses extensively to spread awareness of what he is doing at BCIT and in his work with innovators. He pointed out that by joining groups in LinkedIn you have access to all other members of that group - a great way to extend your network further. Its easier to do business with people you already know something about.
The last panelist to get up was James Wells also from BCIT and a founder of Lendary Social Financing a company that uses web 2.0 technology to build trust online and to put investors in touch with entrepreneurs looking for money. “Word of mouth is vital to growing any business these days”, he pointed out - “go out and do it - if you fail you learn”.

The conclusion - if companies don’t embrace web 2.0 then they face failure or a steep catch up. It costs very little to adopt these technologies and the benefits in terms of buzz are profound.

Interesting to see Vancouver mega blogger Miss 604 there. I am looking forward to her take on proceedings too.

A while back it was the in thing to set up a web site that would act as a brochure, telling people who happened to visit what you have to offer. It was nothing better than a flyer in the mail. The days of the static web site done, finished, caput okay!

These days its all about interactivity and collaboration. Its easy to make websites more dynamic and to involve your audience rather than communicate at them. There are thousands of widgets out there to allow you to question is are you doing it? Go on - interact with us - you know you want to…..

An article on Collective Thoughts about raising your Twitter profile got me thinking about the social media wave that is upon us. The article discusses why Twitter is a viable marketing tool and how the writer went about increasing his Twitter profile in 30 days. It has many valid points and yes Twitter can be a great marketing tool but so can blogging, social networking, wiki’ing and forums - to mention but a few. If you spend time marketing in each and everyone of these as the buzz out there would suggest, you would have very little time to spend on actual revenue generation or traditional marketing efforts (woe betide you would do those).

Its important (as with any marketing project) to do some research and planning up front when considering these new collaborative web 2.0 technologies. Don’t just rush out and start Twittering your head off just because its the latest in thing. Take time to consider your client and determine whether they are Twittering. If they are then its great to use Twitter as a marketing tool but schedule the time you spend Tweeting and set goals so that you can monitor the effectiveness of your efforts. Same goes for the other Internet networking hubs, always ask yourself first and foremost if your customer is active in these and how they are using these technologies. Plan your marketing campaign up front: time spent, strategy, goals and measures. Otherwise you might find that you get to the end of the day and Twitter has sucked up all your time and nothing else on your list has been done. Take it from me I am talking from experience!.

The reasons to be cheerful have been bountiful this month as we traveled the virtual world. Links include everything from on line CRM to complete and utter whimsy and we have more reasons than usual for February:

Myplick - never battle with uploading a Powerpoint again.

Buzzshout - want to find out about the latest web technologies? Buzzshout is the place to go.

Highrise - simple on-line CRM to allow you to easily manage your contacts. Great if you’re just starting out but not so easy if your contacts aren’t in Outlook and your forced to manually upload.

Got vmail - this service helps you manage your calls, provides toll free numbers and an answering service.

NCIX - this one is bricks and mortar and online and its great to have an alternative to the cowboys at FutureShop and Best Buy.

meez - while away your Friday afternoon creating an avator for your social networking profiles. Mine is “so meez”.

Strutta - Vancouver is a buzz with the yet to be launched Strutta. Is it a bird, is it a plane? Who knows (our launch invite got lost in the mail) but rumor has it its something to do with online video and gaming.

An article in the Vancouver Sun’s business section today blazes the headline “Adults spend more time in cyberspace than teens”.

According to an Ipsos Reid poll conducted here in Canada, adults spend an average of 5 hours more online than teenagers doing everything from banking, shopping and booking holidays to socializing and playing games. So much for the Internet being the domain of the young. Even more interesting is that off those polled 70% of adults had participated in online social activities.

That should be reason enough to integrate social media marketing into your strategic plan and to spread awareness of your offering in this medium.

I had the pleasure this evening to present at an event co hosted by the Professional Women’s Network, the YWCA Mentoring Program and the Downtown Networking Association aimed at introducing mentors and mentees to professional growth strategies to help you realise career goals. My topic: “Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World”.

As promised, I am going to blog over the next few days about some of the issues I touched on at the event, the first of these being Internet networking hubs.

Internet networking hubs are great forums to expand your business network and extend your reach. Obviously those you use will depend on what it is you do. For example a photographer would likely use photo sites like Flickr to showcase their experience. Someone in the music industry is likely to benefit more from MySpace than Facebook. And a lawyer might is more likely to join a law forum than a web development forum. Its up to you which you choose but Internet networking hubs are great places to grow your on line network and in turn your business. Here the handout I gave out tonight:

Back by popular demand is our monthly reasons to be cheerful post where we share the new media discoveries we have made over the last month so that you too can feel the joy!

Process and operations have been a big focus lately - getting our shop in ship shape as it were so you’ll see a bit of a pattern in this month’s reasons - they all help us do business a little more effectively:

Toggl - allows you and your project managers to track their time effectively over the Net. Because its all done on-line it allows your managers to track their time even when they are at customer sites. Simple yet so powerful.

Ta-da Lists - our friends over at BlueLime Media tipped us off to this one. Here at Out-Smarts we are always writing lists for everything from sales targets and marketing to-do’s to lunches. Ta-da provides a great way to keep track of these on your desktop and to share them with colleagues. No excuses now for forgetting those 2008 resolutions.

BlogFuse - recently launched with their first app which makes it really easy for you to create a Facebook app based around your companies blog. In about 5 minutes (or so!) we were able to launch Out-Smarts first Facebook app using this sweet technology - thanks to the folks over in Kansas for that and also for their unparralleled support.

Reasons Archive:
Nov 2007
Oct 2007
Sept 07
Aug 07
Jul 07

Here for your Friday enjoyment is a funny little clip found on YouTube all about the social networking tech bubble.  Blog in the womb indeed!

1. Use Twitter to market to you audience (assuming your audience are Twits that is (or should that be Tweets?). It can be used for branding and networking effectively. Dosh dosh lists 17 more Twitter marketing applications and innovative Tweet uses.

2. Participate in the blogosphere. Find blogs pertaining to your industry or your target audience and get commenting. You would be amazed at how this can help spread the word.

3. Find out about new technologies that make it easier for people to do business with you - like Skype - the on-line phone service or that help you present your offering more effectively - like Flickr the photo site -  and make full use of them on your website.

4. Get creative with video clips about your company: make them quirky, funny or alternative and post on YouTube. You never know, this could be the next big meme.

5. If your not comfortable with writing blog comments or posts or are camera shy, why not consider a Podcasting your message. Its much easier than you think.

6. When you find interesting articles, pages or clips, share them with your others in your field. I Stumble but hear that Magnolia and Deli.cio.us are great for this too.

7. Join Facebook, MySpace or Linked In (or all three) and get networking. You know the old adage about a friend of a friend being your friend too: its so much easier to do business with people you’ve been referred to by a friend or colleague.

8. Use Internet advertising technologies such as AdWords or Facebook Social to reach and promote to the right audience.

9. Forums or chat rooms where your audience collaborate are great ways to get involved, join the conversation and establish expertise with a wider audience.

10. Get wiki with it. Join Wikipedia and share your knowledge (but be careful not to be blatantly corporate or your posts will just get deleted) with the global audience.

One of the best aspects of blogging is finding out where your audience comes from. Google analytics has a great mapping tool that allows you to view where your traffic is from at a glance (its especially useful if you are considering expansion into new territories) and I do love to check out the diverse locations of our visitors. We’re located in Vancouver BC and off course the bulk of our traffic comes from Canada but this blog attracts visitors from all over the world from Korea to South Africa, from Alaska to Australia.

Hello to you all!!!

There’s one anomaly in our traffic stats and that is the number of visits we get from the UK. You would think, given our proximity to the US that traffic from there would be second only to Canada but thats not the case at all, in fact we consistently get much more traffic from the UK than the US. This is a quandary I’ve been puzzling over for a while now. Could it be the writing style? Or Perhaps its because the content is more applicable to the UK market? Maybe you can tell from these musings that I am indeed a native of that windswept island?

Visitors from Slough, Iver and London - do us a favour and shed some light on this! Cheerio for now.