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Posted by admin on May 18, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I’m honored to be asked by the good folks at the Las Vegas chapter of the AIGA (Professional Organization for Design) to be a panelist for an upcoming Social Media Panel Discussion.
- Check out the LV AIGA’s Group Page on Facebook here.
- Check out the LV AIGA’s website here.
Here’s the info from the RSVP Page. (<– Do it!)
Social Media Smucktard Cindy Waters discusses social ROI and how to navigate through the sh*t storm. Plus an allstar panel to discuss the future of all things PR & Web technology featuring
Paul Chamberlain – VP Interactive of BRAINtrust
Nate Ludens – Interactive Marketing at Stations Casinos
Jackie Zlatanovski - VP Marketing at Circus Circus Hotel Casino
Cindy Waters – Media Strategies at The OutCast Agency
moderated by Kendall Hardin
The panel we will be address:
- Why do you use social media? Does it cause your target audience to buy stuff from you or use your services?
- What is your business model for social media? Branding, e-commerce, research, customer retention, lead generation?
- How do you calculate or measure ROI? What success metric do you use?
- Is there an ROI Cycle?
- What resources do you (or your client) devote to social media?
- How has social media helped/hindered your company’s growth?
- What trends do you see developing in audience buying habits?
- Pros and Cons for Social Media
- Mobile Computing? Should You Embrace It?
- What defines a SUCCESSFUL social media campaign?
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Posted by admin on April 15, 2011 at 7:51 am
Testing new wordpress app. So far it’s cool – handy. Seems limited. Learning curve kicking in. Almost like texting. Let’s find some rich media and links…
Really loving this article. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/151/mayhem-on-madison-avenue.html
Linking is difficult. App crashed on me once. Auto correct still giving me fits a little. 2.5 stars. Might use this app. Might tend to be faster to go get my laptop or just post on Facebook. Stay tuned.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on March 12, 2011 at 10:40 am
This is the stuff that really gets me excited about social media for businesses, ladies and gents.
Those who know me are probably pretty tired of hearing that I’m a “butts in the seats” guy. (Translation: results guy). I have designed and sent millions (literally) of printed mailers over the last 10 years for many Las Vegas and regional companies. A “successful” campaign was pretty subjective, but it boiled down to: Did anyone show up for the event? Well, mission accomplished. Design six more. Repeat.
That way of thinking seems to be going the way of dot matrix printers, brick-sized cell phones, dialup, and dinosaurs. Check out the analytics that facebook released this week and see the latest way my old stand by phrase, “butts in the seats,” is being redefined. Matt Schlicht from Prezi.com did a nice job of translating the new changes so you can explain it to your boss.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on February 27, 2011 at 10:19 pm
The other night, I was reading a really wonderful blog post by the great Chris Brogan, titled An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette. It really got me thinking, and here’s what’s missing: a guide for bigger companies using Social Media. Here’s a start.
- It’s okay to use a logo. In this case, you’re not a person, you’re a company. I’m fairly certain your followers know this. There are exceptions, but for the most part, you’re the virtual “face of the company,” and it’s a huge responsibility. You represent all of your co-workers, bosses and shareholders. Many very good corporate entities are doing social media very well “disguised” as logos. Here in Las Vegas, the Wynn does a great job on twitter, and they do social media by committee. You see it sometimes by the ^Initials at the end of the tweets. Totally cool with everyone I know.
- Respect traditional public relations. If you can, buddy-up with a PR pro or take a class. The fundamentals of crisis control, patiently waiting for stories to develop, tone, and strategy cross over to social media more than many of the nu-social media experts care to admit.
- Be appropriate. Don’t tell jokes or do #FollowFridays if you’re a police department or a doctor’s office. Please?
- Be helpful. Corporations are on twitter and facebook to put money in the bank. Just because they’re using social media doesn’t mean they don’t want your dough. The best ones embrace the personality of the company. They allow creativity to shine and have some fun while keeping relevant ideas in readers’ minds that relate to the company at hand. A corporate account such as Ford or Nike tweeting about having a slice of pizza or what they’re watching on TV (from the corporate avatar) is just weird, I think. Be cool to people and you’ll build relationships – it sounds tacky, but that’s the name of the game.”The less you be a dbag, and if you treat people like humans, the more you’ll get done and succeed.” – @ManyaS – friend and experienced business twitter guru.
- Leave the adspeak in your ads. Your company has an advertising budget, so let that do its job, and please don’t tweet like a radio commercial for a race. (Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!) My friends who tweet for companies always try to be helpful and cater to the people who want the updates. Hey, they already clicked follow or Like, right? My point? Quit dating and start mating.
- Be nimble when you’re wearing your Customer Service Representative hat. If someone has a problem with your business and took the time to tweet about it – it’s somewhat of a compliment. You want to take care of that customer as soon as possible. If you have a customer service center on email or phone, but not twitter – note it on your page or bio. (Do they use rotary phones, too? Just curious).
- Don’t delete negative posts. If I have to tell you this, go back to 2009 social media 101. There’s several great people to learn from. I started with the afore-mentioned Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents. Guy Kawasaki, Tony Hseih, and Gary Vaynerchuk all have awesome books to get you off on the right foot.
- Do some quick research when there’s someone calling you out, and be careful not to bite when you’re being baited. Hey, just because someone tweets, doesn’t make them customer of the year anymore. There are trolls on twitter that complain constantly in hopes of getting a free lunch. These creeps are on facebook, too. Block them if they’re a pain in the butt, and don’t be afraid to say no. Use caution, though – mob mentality is one rude response away. One interesting response (I haven’t tried it yet) would be to post a reply, while signed on as your business – on their personal facebook profile. Could be risky, but might help avoid the mob mentality. Let me get back to you on that one. Heh.
- Don’t be afraid to have multiple accounts. Managing more than one account isn’t difficult with the software available today. One CEO that I follow has one twitter handle where he can (and does) drop F-Bombs all day long. His company’s handle is much more businesslike. I follow both. If you have the content to back it up, create a help account, a sales account, one for media, etc.
NOTE: This post is a work in progress, so please check back and see how it develops. What did I miss? Was I way off target? Please feel free to comment and let’s discuss it. This doesn’t necessarily reflect my current employer’s opinions in any way.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on January 12, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Here’s a selfish little pet peeve of mine that I wish to see the death of in 2011: Internet Muscles.
I have used this phrase for a couple years now, and I have no idea if I’m the original person to coin the phrase, but it’s pretty self-explanatory. Some people are real tough-guys online, hiding behind anonymity or the “out there” that the internet provides. Newspapers and Facebook Pages really bring out this phenomenon. Here’s some examples:
1. I’m in a long line. Any line. A restaurant. A drive through. A grocery store. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. I tweet scathing words about it, I facebook it warning my friends not to ever come here. I Yelp! I’m proud that I can share this with the “out there” and face no real downside. Honestly, it’s a pot-shot and an ego trip. Who am I? Just a dude in line, right? Who are they? Some busy, underpaid, overworked folks with sore feet, most likely.
2. A fan (Okay, a “Like”) on Facebook. Say it’s a sports team. They’re changing goalies. They make a trade and lose my favorite player. We’re comment-makin’ fools! We’re all veteran team General Manger’s all of a sudden!
3. You comment on a news story. You get to lobby for whatever you support (truth or fiction) in the comments section under a controversial (or not) story. You know this lends ZERO credibility. Especially when you sign it “yousucknewswriterX” Real nice. Meet you after school at the flag pole, tough-guy.
Look, the game has changed. The expectations of “the other side” of social media has elevated. What? You have a problem? Companies are EXPECTED to be watching their feeds real time 24/7 to respond to a client or reader’s every need, no matter how small. Here’s what I think:
Change your game, too! Be polite when you tweet. Be understanding. Be HUMAN. Don’t flex your internet muscles.
Instead of whining incessantly online with your newfound power, have some respect. Could you do it as a DM? An email? Ask a question first. You never know, there could be someone working overtime just in case you have a problem at a given establishment. Or on vacation with his or her family, even. The company social media representatives take one for the team – just for you! They fight to give people the opportunity to… blindside them with complaints?! Yes, they do. Because the social media representatives at companies love what they do and the possibilities of being a part of this revolution in commerce and communication.
If you read traditional business media, you frequently hear about how challenging it can be for a company to integrate social media as a legitimate division to open up a real dialogue with you – the patron – to give you what you want- and more: Free meals, free tickets, free vacations, discounts, coupons, checkin specials, and on and on… Pretty nice folks, if you ask me.
So please, lose the juvenile, playground mentality and recognize when you’re flexing your Internet Muscles.
Happy New Year.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on October 29, 2010 at 4:52 am
Today’s prominent facebook-API message on every Hootsuite user’s dashboard was kind of a shocker to some, and quite a few comments I read today showed anger or frustration. There’s some lessons to be learned here, and I think Hootsuite’s going to be the one observing their users (us) learning the most.
On some minute level, I have to wonder if it’s a delayed power play from Facebook to sort of show 3rd party apps “who’s boss,” – or perhaps some 3rd parties cut some dev corners to get out a head start on the Social Media App game. This isn’t a hack on Hootsuite – I’m a big fan, and have been an advocate since it’s launch. Tweetdeck, Echofon, Tweetie for Mac, I’ve used them all. Every single one has glitches – the more social networks it operates, the more drama with API calls, the more down time. Chalk most of these up to growing pains. (Anyone all-too familiar with the Fail Whale?)
Lesson 1: You get what you pay for. When Hootsuite announced a few months ago that they were going to a pay model, the company was met with massive Boos and Jeers. Hootsuite retracted, and said they’d chill and develop a new strategy for their pay version. Well, today they showed corporate users (the freeloaders, specifically) that if they want Hootsuite to single-handedly operate a company’s Customer Relationship Management, they may actually want to invest a dime in it.
I wonder what would happen if a large corporation had a call center full of volunteers and donated phones… I digress….
Lesson 2 is for non-professional SM users. Just because you can post and schedule every update on facebook and twitter and your blog and LinkedIn and MySpace – doesn’t mean you should. When was the last time you actually logged into each of your social networks to post on each, individually?
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Posted by Nate Ludens on July 11, 2010 at 1:13 am
If you work in social media like I do, you probably see a lot of tweets, blogs, emails, mobile messages and status updates. We probably read more updates in a week than most people see in a year. Here’s six things I am seeing more and more often, and its kind of disturbing:
1. Wannabe media outlets - If you get your “BREAKING NEWS:” tweets from a fish bait shop or a seamstress, please be skeptical.
2. Google update – fed auto blog posts and auto tweets. Seriously?! You are the equivalent to roadside litter. (Forgive me for this: “Twitter Litter.”) Do you want to read a blog post from someone who never took one second to type even one letter?
3. twitter spammers - If you see a tweet from a profile with an account with a default avatar, 5078 followers that’s following 0, it’s most likely a bullshit account. In fact, I think twitter should restrict users with no avatar. Like, no RT function and a cap on followers until you enter a Captcha word. Or – better yet, make us users enter a captcha word at random sometimes. Like a DUI checkpoint, kinda.
4. facebook event update madness. I have said for a long time that facebook should overhaul their events functions. Again, more captcha, please. I’d love to see more targeting and less “Update All Fans” – but that would be a conflict for facebook, as they rely on event ads for revenue. Investing in more customization in free features probably goes against their bottom line.
5. Everyone’s an expert. The majority of SM experts are really sharp and I appreciate the hell out of them, but some aren’t practicing what they preach. Reduntant tweets for the same blog post? Isn’t this the same as sending me repeat email blasts? What about those who preach authenticity, yet schedule and cross-post (see #6) their tweets, sometimes 20 at a time?
6. Duplicate posts across networks. Some of my friends do this and it drives me kinda crazy. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter = all different animals with different uses. Mix it up a little, if you must cross-post. Honestly, when are people going to accept that LinkedIn is a virtual resumé. Would you attach a sheet of typed out tweets to your resumé? I didn’t think so.
What’s the most annoying new trend you’re seeing in Social Media, as the industry evolves?
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Posted by Nate on May 19, 2010 at 6:00 pm
One year after closing my creative services studio, and hearing about more and more layoffs in ad agencies and belly up studios like mine, I can’t help but to sometimes think about creative services as sort of a paralyzed industry. In my case, there were several reasons contributing to my studio’s demise: my inexperience, some poor judgement, some bad luck and probably more than all those combined: bad goddamn timing. But I’m not bitter. I’m evolving, and the rest of my industry should, too. Okay, maybe the creative services industry isn’t exactly dying, but it sure is starving – at best.
But I think I’ve been wrong. The industry isn’t paralyzed, it’s just changing – quickly. In a different era, advertising ROI wasn’t as prevalent and Agencies could staff up – becuase profits were high all around. Now, the temptation to use a smaller, less expensive company or a freelancer is great. Crowdsourced creative, template sites and stock houses are tempting to companies on tighter budgets – and sometimes they can work quite well. Sometimes they’re a disaster. The importance of quality photography and design in all areas of your campaign has never been more important. Advertise smarter, in other words.
Today’s advertising industry has expanded to encompass traditional print and brodcast mediums as well as the new engagement/experience driven marketplace, and I predict this should boost the creative services industry – and here’s how I think it will go down.
Quality control will be at the forefront of your strategy. Here’s why: Your product cannot “suck.” If it does, with poor ad placement or a bad – say – retail product, people will A) know and amplify the shortfalls via social networks; or worse B) not even see it and it will dissolve into obscurity. if you hire a lousy designer to make a lousy menu – someone will tweet about it, write a review on Yelp and post it on Facebook. Hire a lousy guy to design your brakes. Ask Toyota how that could go down. Hire a lousy designer to design your website, your business card, your menu, your packaging… all potential public or financial FAIL. This is why its so important to invest in good design, or suffer the consequences.
To summarize, companies must put their best foot forward at all times to get noticed and do it alongside a good creative professional team. Stakes are higher now than ever. After all, the new consumer is the media, and they’re still always right.
No pressure.
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Posted by Nate on May 1, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I have been involved in the “Facebook is Big Brother” privacy discussion about 5 times this week, and I’m frankly, bored with it. I understand the risks of saying this aloud on a blog – but I’m going to do it anyway: Lay off Facebook! Yeah, I said it.
There’s privacy risk involved in uploading anything to the web, akin to driving a car on a freeway. You see, it’s not up to Facebook to determine what’s on your profile so quit blaming them for that shot of you at your bachelorette party dancing on the bar. You uploaded it to the web, sister. Period.
Frankly, I think the integration of the “like” button on other sites is VERY cool. We’re in an era where peer reviews sell products moreso than ads. I think it’s helpful for us all to see who likes products, especially your friends. I’ll tap them for a review, increasingly holding product sellers accountable for having a good product. And regarding privacy – again – your user settings allow it.
Look, could Facebook turn off a few buttons on default? Sure they could – they may have to, if the government gets more involved. But, as I pointed out a few times this week via twitter, there’s no OPT in default Opt-Ins – by definition. They do encourage you to edit your privacy settings, which is pretty fantastic, considering what it meanst to their bottom line.
We live in a society that likes to “set it and forget it” when it comes to preferences online. Not anymore. Set ‘em! Change ‘em! Control your own data.
At the end of the day, Facebook is a company. Companies like to make money. No amount of people are going to change that. So, save the “Yeah, but they’re making money off our information!” argument. It doesn’t hold water. Do you think your TV watching habits, magazine subscriptions, web clicks, and credit scores aren’t being bought and sold? You bet they are! My wife and I had free diapers in the mailbox the day we arrived home from the hospital after my son was born. In years past, I’ve bought lists from the post office for direct mail pieces, targeting men who subscribe to certain magaines who own pools in a certain zip code. Companies buy and sell your data every day without your knowledge of it.
The two types of information carriers in existence are 1) pay for access (SIRIUS/XM Radio, Cable & Satellite TV) and 2) free and full of ads (terrestrial radio, Super Saver Newspapers by the door at the grocery store). This isn’t new. You can’t have a free information carrier without Ads – even MySpace has that figured out. Where MySpace screws up is sporting a nauseating user experience, which has helped Facebook flourish into the #1 visited site and more importantly – the 7-minutes-plus on average that people spend each visit. Facebook users are very lucky their Ads are not intrusive and even let you close an ad and ask why you closed it.
You’ve seen the groups “1,000,000 strong to say NO to paying for Facebook” and the like. It won’t happen as long as Facebook continues to evolve as an information carrier. Because they’ll sell ads. And – let me tell you – these are the most effective, super targeted advertising system in history. Because of the information YOU gave them.
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Posted by Nate on March 29, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Tonight I read on Allfacebook.com that facebook is upgrading the events function, along with some other sharing upgrades. I haven’t tried it yet, but here’s my take on this upgrade…
Good!
Since the latest interface upgrade a few monts ago, I think facebook’s events function got sort of swept under a rug ( even more than they were in the first place). What I mean is – there’s no nice little red alert button (some of my friends hate those, but I like ‘em) on the top navigation, or anywhere else. Currently, event updates won’t go to your inbox – or ever again to a wall except for the minute its created. No – they go to the menu on the left side of the page, under your inbox. Heck, even “I’m stuck in traffic” wall posts can relatively easily get 10,000 impressions in a weekend.
I’m looking forward to posting some new events later this week. I’ll follow up when I do with results.
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