Social media in an interesting paradox. With the global reach of the internet and the ability to “headline read” through streams, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and the other 250,000 plus platform sites, one can stay connected yet be a observer at the same time.

I am now connected to thousands of people and if I choose, I can reach out and digitally connect with any of them at my disposal. The connection is global, no longer I am restricted to an isolated world of one local community.

Powerful tools and truly astonishing if you think the democratization of media, influence, advertising and opinion.

Like anything else in this life, you will only get out of social media what you put into it. Like a plant, if your network is not watered and nourished, it will shrivel up and die.

Those who want to leverage the power of the network, need to water their social gardens on a regular basis.

I was with a small business owner yesterday and he clearly has not become educated on the power of social media yet but is smart enough to jump in and start. He told me in the meeting that someone asked him why his company was on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace and he told them frankly, ” I am not sure yet, but these are the current platforms of communication and I better stay connected”.

Stay connected. Water your network each day.

As always, connect with you later.

I  stay very close to what is happening in technology/marketing/sales automation as it’s my business and profession.

Several industry analysts are now looking past the Social Media platforms of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others as if they were dead already. I am not sure how they can look past these tremendous successes for the next big thing when Twitter does not even have 5 million active users.  hmmm.

There are more than 250,000 social media sites on the Internet. Social media and Internet marketing changes week to week and the only advice I give my clients now is be prepared to possibly never arrive at a final destination. This entire space is changing so rapidly that I dont think there is a person roaming the earth who know where this is going.

With that said, here are a few recommendations:

1. Be prepared to be nimble.
2. Pick nimble technology;a database platform, websites  CRM, marketing automation that does not care what the latest craze is for traffic. Make sure you can change content and approach on a dime.
3. Hire, either in house or maintain a relationship with experts that are doing “it”. What ever the “it” is. You will make yourself crazy trying to keep up
4. Join the community. Pick user groups and peer groups who are dealing with the same challenges. You cant do it alone.
5. Take action. Don’t wait until everyone else is doing it or the right systems are in place. You will get left behind.

We are living in exciting times for change in attention connections with our customers, partners and prospects.   I have a client that I told last fall, “action over perfection”. Don’t wait for the one hub to come where you can maintain control, it does not exist anymore.

Connect with you later.

Until now, most companies have considered their Customer Relationship Management systems  (CRM) as a separate system from their website, Internet marketing, social media and communication with their prospects, customers and partners.

Those days are gone.

Dont have a fence in your organization.

Your CRM strategy and resulting systems should be driving the design of your website, your social media, your Internet marketing and all communications with your stake holders. The overload of information we all receive each day, the result is the attention span of customers is so short these days, your organization needs a database and automated sequences to manage the process of communicating with your customers.

Our world is changing so fast with the tools of communication rapidly evolving (social media,text messaging, lexicon survelance, brand monitoring, etc) that you can not place your bets on any one form of communication medium as “the channel” to reach your clients. You need to segment your clients, refine focus your message and select the tools to delivery that targeted message.

At the heart of all this is your CRM database and the technology exists to integrate every communication into complete customer interaction history that can be tracked. You can drive your sales and marketing blind without the data and facts.

Smart companies who stay ahead of the competition will have their CRM system driving and tracking every communication with your customers.

Some questions to ask your team:

1. Is my website a integrated with my CRM and is this integration two way to both push and pull content?
2. Is my content integrated? Meaning all content is driving customers and partners to a sale, regardless of the medium?
3. Does my current customer database include a field for social media ID’s and addresses? ( Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc)
4. Am I using my CRM system to push communication to and from my social media presence?

If you  are going to attract and maintain the Attention Connection™ of your prospects and make them a customer for life, you will need a CRM system that is driving it all.

Stay connected and have a great weekend! Spring is here.

Have we come full circle back to Morse Code?

Good question to ponder now that the world of Short Message Service (SMS) has become all the rage with text messaging.  Twitter is based on the 140 character message that is rocketed out to your cell phone or email to keep you hyper connected.

Talk to a person under the age of 25 and their chosen platform of communication is SMS. My 14 year old daughter sent and received over 8,400 SMS text messages last month. Holy smokes!

Does “C U at 8″ mean anything to you?

How about “@analytixman loves the #nuggets win”?

If you are scratching your head at the two messages above, you may need to put away your 8 track tapes and tune into the world of Morse Code marketing and communications. You will need to learn the protocol and language. We live in the attention deficit disorder world (ADD) and people are now choosing short burst communications. Society has reverted back to Morse Code so to speak, except it’s us doing the tapping and we don’t have to go to the post office or train station to get the message, it follows us globally.

What does this mean for marketing and communication?

1. You are going to need to be expert short burst content writers - if you only have 140 characters to get the communication going, you need to be good at getting your messages across fast.
2. Your emails will need to be short too - Shorten our emails so that your entire message can be read in a single frame of a notebook computer screen or even better a hand-held device.  You don’t want people to scroll to get your message.
   
3. Communicate  in a world of high volume short burst communications – I don’t think the Dan Kennedy world of dumping everything you know in one page and hoping people will have enough attention span to read it will fly anymore. You need a drip system and send short burst, effect communications frequently.
4. Drop the graphics to the end of your message – Send out your wonderful graphics but they can not lead your communications. On my blackberry, I hate messages that have some huge image I have to scroll past to get the communication.  Leave the pretty stuff at the bottom. No one loves your logo more than you.

A word of caution, shorting a crummy message and sending it more frequently will just make you become noise that is tuned out.

Re think your content; be concise, be relevant, be top of mind, hit the reticular activator.

The building and sustaining of Attention Connection™ is more important than ever.

Connect with U later.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Those old enough to remember the 1980 famous Stanley Kubrick film from the Stephen King novel The Shining starring Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, remember these were the words the crazed the  frustrated writer Jack typed over and over as he crossed the threshold into madness.

Have I turned into Jack? Am I all work and no play because I prefer less numbers of personal tweets?

Yesterday I posted a blog about sharing personal information as status updates. I referenced Jeremiah Owyang, Internet Analyst who works for Forrester as an example of someone I truly respect and follow but I was not so keen on the detail of some of his personal updates.  In fairness to anyone I would write about (which is rare, as I stick to strategy, process, content and technology), I gave Jeremiah the heads up in an email. With 39,000+ followers on Twitter, a great blog site and a guessed avalanche of email volume, I thought my communication might just be glossed over or missed because of sheer volume Jeremiah gets each day.

Surprising, Jeremiah not only read my email, he commented on my blog and then posted a Tweet and authored a blog about the topic of ” How much should we share?’

The tweets and blogs set off a a great discussion with many followers and readers contributing to conversation. The results were mixed and you can judge by reading both comment sections yourself however, there are trends and interesting observations to be shared for anyone using social media streams.

1. Social media is a powerful medium that is truly undefined. There are no protocol rules.  It was suggested maybe a new protocol of #P be used on Titter to identify personal tweets.
2. Those commenting on both blogs tended to be OK with a balance and blend of business and personal tweets or stream updates
3. It was pointed out that Facebook tends to be used more for personal networks and Twitter for business. I agree.
4. Many suggested using two twitter accounts, one for personal, one for business. Not a bad idea but I hate the thought of managing another focal point of social media.
5. Grouping Tweets would be nice on one account on an outbound basis. this way personal and business could be separated.
6. Social media is swift, powerful and influence can be enormous and impactful. I run a boutique consulting firm based in Denver and my blog is intended for my client base as a library of thoughts to help them when they cross the bridge to implementing an Attention Connection™ System. My normal readership hovers around 225 readers. Thanks to the interactions yesterday, my readership shot to over 1685 for the blog post, I had more than 100 twitter direct messages and I picked up more than 100 followers on Twitter and many  new subscribers to my blog. A powerful connection to an internet person of influence.  A lesson we all can learn from.

A point I forgot to make clear yesterday to Jeremiah is I don’t mind some personal tweets but I don’t want to see true professionals be tuned out because they are now lumped into the same bucket with the attention hounds who call themselves celebrities.

I think its sad state of the world that actors and sports personalities are the top followed people on Twitter and their contribution to the world is so shallow compared to people like Jeremiah, and countless others who are contributing each day. I want to hear their contributions. Not what some shallow fool had for lunch.   I wont even mention their names or link to the attention hounds  as it makes my stomach turn. You know who they are.

When it comes to reading stream posts about what someone ate for lunch, there is only one guy I care to hear about what he ate and that is a client and friend of mine, Shawn Phillips. If you have not met Shawn, you should. He is 45 years old, a body that is ripped as a Greek God and a true expert on nutrition and health. He has authored several books, has the best performance fast food and will be featured in the May 2009 edition of Success Magazine.  Now there is someone who is worth hearing about what he eats and drinks!

Ok, so maybe it’s true, I am all work and no play. So hear it goes… a personal drop.

I spent the evening watching my 10 year old son Beck play basketball last night. I had nothing to eat while doing it and sat by no one interesting other than Joe’s dad.

Ok, that did not hurt too much. Maybe I can try it again tomorrow. Hmmm.

Keep the conversation going, leverage social media to it’s fullest.  Post what you want, be happy and be relevant to some.

Until next time, stay connected.

Our family dog of choice is Tootsie, the Bassett Hound. She is a lovable 18 month old Bassett with a deep bellowing bark. For a dog that is all of 12 inches tall and 35 pounds, her thunderous bark sounds like a dog three times her size.

Tootsie stands at the glass front door and barks at things that are interesting or troublesome to her.  I tell my kids it’s her version of social media. The trouble is, the barking gets to be annoying when it’s just the neighbor’s cat who sits on the fence for hours at a time.  Tootsie’s barking and growling drives us nuts when it’s about nothing.

Last night during family home evening, (our dedicated family time), Tootsie began barking and was disrupting the reading we were doing together. My son Alec looked out the door to see what she was barking at and  a red fox was standing on the front lawn. Wow, Tootsie was barking about something important. Nice. We all enjoyed the sight  of the fox, something we would have missed if Tootsie did not alert us. We almost missed her important communication because we have become desensitized to her barking.

Don’t be a barking dog when it comes to communications to your network.

As a marketing/technologist practitioner who is deep in the tornado of what is happening in our world of technology, media, CRM and the internet, I follow a group of thought leaders from Gartner, Forrester, Seth Godin and others.  I read their blogs, follow their Tweets, and stay up on their insights as to where this world is going. I am trying to stay relevant to those I serve as clients.

One of my favorite internet analysts to follow is Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research. I have read his stuff for a long time. However Jeremiah has become a bit of a barking dog to me. (sorry Jeremiah, I still love you and Tootsie too).

Over the weekend through the use of Twitter, I was informed of places Jeremiah went, what was up with his dog, what he was eating, his review of a movie, etc. While some social media pundits argue we all need to show the human side of participants, the play by play is really just barking and watering down his message. I don’t care.  Feed me more insights on the internet!

I follow Jeremiah because he is an expert. I doubt we will ever be friends and not because Jeremiah is not a swell guy, or that I would not welcome his friendship, its just that life prohibits because of limited cycles me being friends with everyone.  The communication I want from Jeremiah is about the internet.

Thought leadership is gained and maintained often by the things we don’t say. Marketing or for that matter, any communication is not about volume, it’s about the quality.

Jeremiah has a quote I like ” A lot of hay and not many needles”.

I watch Tweets go by on Tweet Deck, wall posts on Facebook and sift through the hay for the needles.

The message I convey today is this; Attention Connection™ is  all about being relevant, timely and concise.  People will pay attention and remain connected to you when your communication is more than barking.

Be relevant in your communications and don’t let your customers, partners and network miss the beautiful red fox you bring them because you have barked too much.

Connect with you later.

For many people who have not made steps to use social media and automation to make money yet, they may be standing around scratching heads saying how do I do this?

It’s not that hard and here is a real live case study of social media at work.

My high school classmate is the manager of Cisero’s ( non Facebook Link) in Park City, Utah. I had not been in touch with this classmate in more than 20 years and Facebook was the connection.

Like most small businesses in the restaurant and nightclub business, they really did not have much more than a website that was a couple of pages of brochure ware.

About four months ago with prodding from a marketing friend (me) Cisero’s management  ventured out and put up Facebook page for the establishment.

Each week Cisero’s post the specials and announce events through Facebook broadcasts.  I get the notifications.

Now here is the take home message. I don’t live near Park City, I live in the Denver area. However, I do travel to Utah on business on a regular basis and the next time I am in Park City, I will be eating at Ciseros’. Why, because they have remained top of mind with me by simply keeping me in the loop.

There are dozens of options of places to eat in Park City but Cisero’s is my next stop because they are in my mind because they have stayed in touch.

This is a great example of low cost, high touch value of social media. The cost to set up the Facebook page, 15 minutes of time. The cost to transmit the message… another 5 minutes. Hard costs… well, zero.

Compare this cost to stay top of mind with me, a man who lives out of state? Printing, mailing, emailing, calls, TV ads… you get the picture.

Social media is powerful and you should be using it today.

As I always say; to get attention, you must pay attention.

Connect with you later.

I recently met with two clients who have clear hesitation  about Social Media and using it for their business.

The first client was a business to consumer company. He told me he had no interest in Facebook or Twitter.

The second client was a business to business play.

I looked both of them in the eye and asked them if they had phones at their business? Both men looked at me as if I just asked a stupid question.  Both answered a resounding; YES!

I then asked both men if they had cell phones, again, the response was the same. Yes, why of course you fool was the look on their faces.

Phones are a communication medium. I am sure there were people who at one time were afraid of their privacy because they have a phone and now a cell phone.

Social media is just a communication tool to promote your business. Its the way people have chosen to communicate in person and business. Nothing more, nothing less. Just  like a ringing phone, you can choose to not answer. Text messages, email, Tweets, and social communications don’t have to be answered either. Social media still is still rather permission based, just like your phone.

If you have not jumped on Social media and found a strategy to use it to communicate to your customers, you are just like the person who has no phone or cell phone, isolated.

Choose to be connected  as your competitors are. Get moving on social media.

Connect with you later.

The ground swell of social media is providing for the first time nearly instant connectivity. We now see the term, hyper connected being used for the first time.

Facebook, Twitter, My Space and a dozen other social platforms now dominate the landscape and it’s clear you must be able to be short, concise and relevant in your communications.

Three tips to help you avoid the super Attention Deficite Disorder (ADD) the world of marketing has now stepped into and will help you remain connected to your network.

1. Be relevant – provide value in your content and communications.

2. Be concise – Because of Twitter and wall posts, we have become quick to scan and bounce away if we don’t grab their attention.

3. Hit a hot button – Write communications that activate the reticular activator. Pull the reader out of the land slide of information.

Yesterday I received over 8,000 Tweets on Twitter. My Twitter network grows by a couple hundred every day. There is no way even the human brain can sort through all of that much information. It’s just overwhelming.

Stay connected by effective communication writing. It could be the most import skill you develop.

Connect with you later.