Tips for Juggling Social Media Content Creation

So you have a strategic social media plan—maybe you’ve even launched a Facebook page and created a Twitter account. This is an exciting and important step forward for many companies. However, now the question is, “how are we going to create enough content to keep it dynamic?” Below are four tips for keeping you sane, and your followers interested.

1. Plan Ahead: Yes social media moves quickly, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sit down to plan out evergreen posts for the week, month or quarter ahead. Brainstorm topics with your team and chart out posts with links, statistics, open-ended questions and third-party references to educate your target audience about your product/services and industry as a whole.
2. Have Ample Backup: People get sick and go on vacation. Those same rules apply to the person(s) overseeing your company’s social media properties. Therefore, it is critical that at least one other person in the organization is trained on how to log on, post content and respond to issues if they arise when the main point of contact for social media isn’t around. This backup person can be internal, or external if you are working with a public relations or marketing agency. You should also familiarize yourself with social media scheduling tools to schedule automated posts when needed – Hootsuite and CoTweet are just two examples of platforms that make it extremely easy to schedule content in advance.
3. Switch it Up: Social media content does not only mean relying on the written word. At GroundFloor Media, some of our Facebook posts that receive the most attention are often pictures of team members doing something fun (like stalking the cupcake truck) or links to fun happenings around town (such as summer concerts at Red Rock Amphitheatre). Don’t be afraid to show your personality and keep it simple when appropriate! 
4. Monitor and Adjust: There are plenty of free social media monitoring tools (Klout, Social Mention, and Facebook Insights) that make it easier to track the engagement levels of your company and its social media followers. Don’t be afraid to adjust your content creation strategy based on what patterns you start observing. Do Facebook pictures generate lots of comments from your fans? Allocate more resources to capturing fun and unexpected photos on behalf of your company throughout the week. Do your fans use Twitter to ask questions rather than Facebook? Consider using Twitter as more of a customer service platform than a place to push out evergreen content. Bottom line – keep tweaking your content strategy to meet the needs of your audiences.

What other suggestions do you have for making social media content creation manageable?

~Alexis

New Study: Social Media Marketing Spends to Increase

According to a new study from Mashable and Effie Worldwide, 70 percent of marketers plan to increase their social media spend by 10 percent or more this year. Read the full Mashable article here.

While this is promising news for the communications and advertising world, it immediately made me think, “with more money comes greater responsibility.”

Almost everyone who touches social media is still grappling with how best to measure and quantify the ROI of these programs. Can you put a dollar value on a Facebook fan? What is a Facebook “Like” and a retweet on Twitter really worth? At a Red Door Interactive digital measurement panel I attended last week, Nancy Koons, senior web analyst at Vail Resorts, made a comment that really resonated with me. She said that at Vail Resorts there is an internal acceptance that the numerical data collected from the corporation’s social media usage does not account for the unseen, intangible strategic value of social networking for the brand. For a company of their size, I thought it was exciting and noteworthy that the executives still see the value of social media even though a pie chart may say otherwise.

I believe it is our industry’s responsibility to marry the quantitative with the qualitative in order to help our clients understand how their investment in social media is impacting their brand – be it brand awareness, customer engagement or reputation management. If we collectively fail as an industry to demonstrate success in a manner that resonates with the marketers and executives who are willing to invest in the digital world, we may never have the opportunity to identify just how powerful social media can be for connecting brands with end-users.

TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event

There has been a lot of TED activity in the Denver area over the past two weeks. On April 7, TEDxMileHigh hosted its first event, gathering more than 1,700 TEDsters at the Ellie Caulkins’ Opera House. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear and the way we think about diversity in our community, “inspired citizenship” was the theme of evening.

MC Alex Bogusky challenged everyone in attendance to draw inspiration from the speakers – who all hailed from Colorado – and take at least one inspired action out into the community.

Specifically, Libby Burky of SAME Café (stop by the Denver café on Colfax Avenue between Vine & Race streets) gave me the most to think about. An acronym for “So All May Eat” and part of the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, SAME Café offers a “pay what you think is fair” model for fresh, organic cuisine. SAME encourages healthy eating for individuals of all backgrounds – if a diner does not have sufficient money to leave, they are encouraged to exchange an hour of service for their meal, often working side-by-side in the kitchen with community volunteers.

As soon as the weather stays warm, the team from GroundFloor Media looks forward to grabbing B-Cycles and heading down to SAME Café for a group lunch. Stay tuned!

However, the power of TED didn’t end there. Last week, the University of Denver hosted the third TEDxDU Salon event of the year, featuring a diverse lineup of student speakers, who personified the fearlessness and intelligence that have become a hallmark of TED.

Andrew Steward delivered a hearth-wrenching talk about his personal battle with mental illness, challenging established beliefs, and reinforcing the value of family. Throughout his battle, Andrew has rarely been alone, but his family has often been ostracized and abandoned throughout the ordeal.

The stigma of mental illness is real and Andrew was raw as he shared his story for the first time outside one-on-one conversations. His fortitude in battling his illness was eclipsed by the strength of character that he demonstrated in getting on stage last night. His goal? Not TED fame – but to encourage us to think differently about mental illness.

Andrew is one of more than a dozen speakers who are scheduled to speak during the TEDxDU annual conference on May 13. The sold-out event will turn the global TED spotlight on Colorado yet again to celebrate “radical collaboration” – to co-create, co-inspire and co-change the world. Check out the live streaming video at TEDxDU.com.

Honestly, I’m relatively new to TED. I often find myself balancing my overall enthusiasm for TED with the need to listen to each speaker with a critical ear. Some are better than others – go figure – but each shares a passion for “ideas worth sharing”. I enjoy being part of a common sense of connection across cities, countries and continents. And, at 10 to 20 minutes per TED Talk, TED makes it easy to find inspiration and carry a small part of its message into my day-to-day world.

Please let us know - what's your favorite TED Talk? Post comments below.


Full disclosure: TEDxDU is a client of GroundFloor Media.

Making Sense of Location-based Marketing for Your Business Needs

Foursquare, check! Gowalla, check! Facebook Places, Yelp and Scvngr, check (check and check)! It’s exhausting just thinking about all the different platforms that now exist for checking in at various locations, sharing tips and chasing deals – and now imagine this abundance of choices from the perspective of a consumer who is trying to interact with your brand or service.

Jason Dempsey from Moxie Interactive offered some important reminders about successful location-based marketing in his recent “The Introductory Guide to Location-Based Marketing” article for ClickZ.

In addition to agreeing with his “keep it simple” approach, I’d add that it is critical to limit the number of barriers to entry for any sort of deal/contest that requires interaction on one of these platforms. For example, if you have to check in at a store and upload a video of yourself and “like” the store on Facebook in order to be entered to win something, the prize better be worth all that effort. Otherwise, you are probably better off rewarding your tech savvy customers immediately upon check in (mobile = instant gratification) and then also sharing helpful content with them as a secondary perk to keep them coming back for more. For example, I’d love if Anthropologie rewarded me with a discount on a new spring dress after checking in on Foursquare and then gave me a link to a short YouTube video with tips on the different ways to wear the dress all summer long (yes, I am a shopaholic).

Have you tried incorporating location-based platforms into your marketing plan? What worked, what didn’t, and will you try it again? We’d love to hear about your own experiences and/or share links to other articles and blogs about location-based marketing that you find interesting.

~Alexis

The1stMovement Visits GroundFloor Media

Corey Hayes and Dave Schell from The1stMovement's Denver office visited GroundFloor Media on Friday to talk about how digital - specifically mobile - can work together with public relations to create an integrated and exciting campaign experience for customers. Watch the two-part video series on our YouTube channel to learn more - and let us know what you think!

Part One



Part Two

Are You an Influencer? Am I an Influencer?

I read about the term “influencer” daily. I probably use the term at least once a day myself. But who is an influencer in 2011 and what does it mean for our traditional and non-traditional PR practice here at GroundFloor Media?

If I knew the exact answer, I bet I’d be rich. Or maybe at least I’d have a book deal.

I personally believe that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all influencer. The person who can move the needle for a national food chain is completely different from the person who can positively impact the way people perceive and talk about a professional services company. The food industry influencer could be a nutritionist, turned blogger, turned author, turned national morning show correspondent. The professional services influencer could be a former analyst who is now on the speaking and networking circuit for his or her industry. And for me, putting the pieces of this influencer puzzle together for our clients is half the fun of influencer relations.

Not everyone with a blog or a Twitter account should automatically be given the powerful title of an influencer. I’m not arguing that at all. There seems to be a new tool every day to help us measure the reach of such influencers – Klout, Radian 6, Sysomos, GroupHigh, and so on. It takes tools like these, and a healthy dose of research combined with a bit of common sense and a little luck, to find the one trait that all influencers should have – a loyal following of people who inherently trust this person and look to them for honesty above all else.

Take Hungry-Girl for example. Lisa Lillien has built an incredible brand and name for herself among women who want to make healthier choices without sacrificing a lot of time, money or energy in their quest to lose weight and get fit. I met Lisa in a professional setting years ago—she had a website, a newsletter and big aspirations. Fast forward a few years and she has multiple books, national tours, countless national TV segments under her belt, and an intensely loyal following that yields incredible results for the brands she gets behind. Was she an influencer when we first met? A lot of people might have argued no. Are they kicking themselves today? You bet.

There is no simple formula (that I know of) for how to approach influencer relations. But that shouldn’t stop you from going after it and making it work for your brand or service. Yesterday’s New York Times food critic is today’s Lisa Lillien. Don’t miss the opportunity to build these relationships before they pass you by!

~Alexis

Tales of Twitter and Houdini

At first, the news of a poisonous Egyptian cobra going missing from the Reptile House at the Bronx Zoo was concerning to a few, namely the employees. But maybe we all needed a little distraction from the news of unrest in Libya, the ongoing nuclear meltdown in Japan, and the general doom and gloom around the worsening U. S. economy and rising gas prices. After a colleague shared the Twitter feeds with me, I became captivated by a 20-inch snake.

As you have heard by now, it wasn't just any snake -- it was a poisonous Egyptian cobra that could kill in less than 15 minutes.

As the story goes, a zoo employee noticed the poisonous predator was missing from its enclosure in the Reptile House, and zoo officials closed the exhibit on March. 25.

After a weeklong search, the snake was found safe and unhurt inside the Reptile House on March 31.

During its hiatus, some industrious and comedic person began impersonating the snake, tweeting about life in the Big Apple. In less than a week, Bronx Zoo's Cobra had more than 230,000 followers. As we work with our clients to expand their reach among target audiences through social media platforms like Twitter, what we wouldn't give to achieve that kind of reach in such a short period of time.

Some of my favorite tweets:
• On top of the Empire State Building! All the people look like little mice down there. Delicious little mice. #snakeonthetown

• If you see a bag of peanuts inexplicably moving along the ground at Yankee Stadium today. Just ignore it. It's probably nothing.

Soon news of the snake's whereabouts and adventures in New York City were being covered by late night TV personalities Jon Stewart and David Letterman, newspapers and nightly news. That's the power of social media and how a story goes viral and enters mainstream media.

Now that the roaming reptile is safely back in its enclosure in the Reptile House, the zoo is sponsoring a contest to name the snake. In the world of public relations, that's how you maintain momentum and keep a story alive.

-- Barb Jones