SOCIAL MEDIAA view from inside the industry

Mark Graham, RIGHTSLEEVE.COM

Mark Graham

• Founder of Distributor, RIGHTSLEEVE.COM

• Technology enabled distributorship

• I am one of you

#NALC2010

@RIGHTSLEEVE

Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 Million

• Radio – 38 years• TV – 13 years• Internet – 4 years• iPod – 3 years• Facebook – 2 years

Source: Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman

Throughout this presentation …

I want you to keep 3 things in mind

#1. The immutable law of sales

People buy from people they like

#2. Our biggest challenge

Buyers struggle to see the difference

between us

#3. Buying behaviour

People trust their friends more than

institutions

In the next 90 minutes …

1. Why invest in social media?2. Success stories3. What you can do, starting now

A Social Media Primer

• Social media consists of online conversations between real people - customers, employees, vendors - using websites or online platforms.

Image credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/2945559128

Why invest in social media?

New way of engaging clients

Point of Differentiation

Builds Trust

Cost Effective

Communication Tool of Next Generation

Distribution platform for your content

Thought Leadership in your Niche

Success Stories

Customer Service

Damage Control

Lead Generation/Recommendations

The New How Shirt w/ Wearing Instructions• Yes, it’s true, no one really needs another t-shirt. But we do wear logos, designs we care about.

And we often wear things that embody our values.

• So I recently decided to order t-shirts for the #NewHow movement. The process itself was entirely a process of collaboration.  Let me share it.

• First, I reached out to a person I have only met a few times in person but stay regularly in contact with on Twitter, @missrogue. Having watched her do a #karaoke tour across the US last year, I figured she had to know something about swag vendors. And because I really do still have a day job I wanted to find the vendor to work with, and go fast. No surprise, 5 minutes later, I got an introduction to Mark Graham at #RightSleeve. Within hours, I had a reasonable quote, options to pursue and a rough schedule that would let me take shirts to my #fidelity talk on innovation. Mark uses email like I do — highly efficient, asynchronous conversation to let us move faster and truly do high-baud work.

• But at that point, I still hadn’t decided what I wanted the design to be. So I emailed a collaborator and asked him something simple like, “thoughts?” and got back a very fast note that set the theme of the shirt: I am the New How. Which I liked. I asked to see the designs in context with the shirts and color choices. When I got drafts (from RIGHTSLEEVE), I simply forwarded to the #Rubicon team and a few other folks and asked for feedback. 5-10 minutes later, I had what I needed. Decisions were made. Order placed. Literally, the whole process probably took me a total of 30-45 minutes to do. And all in 5 minute increments. That’s a vendor and an extended set of collaborators I want to work with.

Talk about an emotional connection!

Audience = 57,500 people

Cost = zero

Turning Customers into Fans

Market Positioning

“Bridging the gap between all generations of Promotional Product professionals”

Facebook Groups done right

Real Time Feedback (Good)

Real Time Feedback (Not so Good)

Contests

Recruiting Tool

Content is King

Visibility

What you can do now

• Locate your customers/competitors • Interview a customer and post the content

online• Start practicing to find your “voice”• Setup profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube• Create a video (Microsoft MovieMaker, Apple

Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Flip Video)• Write about stuff that interests you• Join the conversation• Be patient … and authentic

BE WARNED! Social Media is not for

everyone.• People will sniff out the fakers. Be authentic.

• Be aware of the time commitment

• Ensure your marketing is not out of sync.

• You don’t want a meatball sundae

A meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas.

The meatballs are the foundation, the things we need (and sometimeswant). These are the commodities that so many businesses are builton.

The sundae toppings (hot fudge and the like) are the New Marketing,the social networks, Google, blogs and fancy stuff that make people allexcited.

The challenge most organizations face: they try to mix them. Theyattempt to slap new marketing onto old and end up with nothing but afailed website.

Excerpt from Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae

Resources • Tara Hunt The Whuffie Factor• Chris Anderson The Long Tail• Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody• Joel Comm Twitter Power• Mitch Joel Six Pixels of Separation• Mashable www.mashable.com• ReadWriteWeb

www.readwriteweb.com

@RIGHTSLEEVE