Trike Show: Phil Vega
August 14, 2009
The Trike Show with special guest Phil Vega!
In this episode of the “The Trike Show“, Justin is joined by local entrepreneur and creator of Joyride Cycles, Phil Vega. Listen to a great conversation about Phil’s story, mountain biking, social media and small business issues.
Trike Show: Tac Anderson
July 10, 2009
The Trike Show with special guest Tac Anderson!
In this episode of the “The Trike Show“, we will be joined by special guest Tac Anderson, social media guru at Waggener Edstrom. Listen in as we catch up with Tac, his move to Seattle, his new role at Waggener Edstrom, trends, and music.
4 C’s of Social Media
June 16, 2009
This our standard presentation for helping executive teams understand the rise and influence of social media. We discuss the conditions that created social media, various tools, then dive in to the 4 C’s of successful social media implementaiton - Culture, Content, Conversations, and Conversions. Available as a keynote or a workshop. Click here to schedule a session.
Podcast: Don’t Pee in Pool!
June 1, 2009
How social media is being polluted by ignorance, lazy people, and bad behavior!
In this free-wheeling, podcast-style webinar, Tricycle co-founders Justin Foster and John Hardesty have an unfiltered discussion on the various ways that the mass adoption of social media is “polluting the community pool”.
Listen to it, download it, and share with a friend!
One Candle
March 16, 2009
Image by luc legay via Flickr
Everyone that touches a brand influences the reputation and perceptions of that brand to the people around them – employees, customers, vendors, etc. - essentially the branding side of word-of-mouth. It has really always been this way. It has just been constricted by natural communication speed bumps – the size of the echo chamber, message control, media-driven perceptions, and more.
Today, there are two factors that have rapidly accelerated the influence of individuals:
- The rise of peer influence; where we trust someone like us more than the “expert” in the advertising. We don’t really care that 5 out of 6 dentists choose a toothpaste. 2 or 3 friends that swear by a product are much more influential.
- The impact of social media. This has created a state of hyper-connectivity; where news is driven by eye-witnesses and companies are transparent whether they like it or not. Social media has also dramatically increased the size of an individual’s influence – from just a hand-full of friends to potentially 1000s around the world.
What does this mean for the people in charge of marketing/communication/sales? It means that you are no longer buying mind share through advertising; you are “buying” influence through relationships. In essence, corporate brander/marketers need to learn how to treat each person that touches the brand as an influencer – similar to how PR works with the media.
This requires a change of thinking across the board; essentially moving from broadcasting messages to having conversations. However, the biggest change of thinking is how you deal with the faces of your brand – you and your employees. Considering the two factors mentioned above, employees have far greater influence on your brand than any other source; often even more than your customers. In essence, the collective candlepower of your employees is brighter and more sustainable than any advertising campaign. This thinking starts at the ownership/executive level. It continues on to every person in an organization, especially for those that are the daily “face” of the brand – salespeople, customer service, front-line employees, etc.
Outside of creating a culture of transparency and unity, the greatest tactical impact may be on how you implement and use social media. This is one of the reasons we believe that social media is ultimately a personal branding tool – especially the use of the hottest tools: Twitter and Facebook. Don’t believe us? Try these experiments:
- Set up a Facebook page for your company (using the new Facebook protocol for business pages). Set up a personal page for yourself and encourage your employees to use Facebook. See how many “friends” your corporate page receives vs. the personal pages. Further, compare new business opportunities and meaningful conversations between the two.
- Do the same for Twitter.
We are not recommending an “either/or” approach. We think you need a corporate and personal presence in social media. Our point is to just watch which one will be more effective. This exercise should show the necessity of investing more in your personal brand – and in the individual brands of your employees.
Now go talk to your IT department about allowing firewall access to Facebook and Twitter.
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Meet Your Neighbors
March 11, 2009
- The Conversationalists. These are the people that “get it”. They are using Twitter as a way to participate in and start conversations. They are typically social off-line as well. Of course, they are not doing this just for the grins. They realize that these conversations will lead to growing their brands and potentially selling more stuff. For corporate big brands we would include Zappos, Ford, H & R Block, and Southwest. (Check out this great article from Mashable.com - http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/).
- The N00Bs. These are the people that are new to Twitter and are making rookie mistakes. These mistakes include:
- Tweeting as a company, not a person. The bigger brands can get away with this because they already have a presence. Plus they don’t hide who the people are behind the brand.
- No photo, link, or incomplete bio. This is like walking around with a paper bag on your head and trying to introduce yourself.
- Letting your Following-to-Followers ratio get out of whack. If it is more than 2:1 Following v Followers, then you have some sort of digital body order. Or people aren’t following you back because you didn’t have a photo, link, etc as stated above.
- The Promoters. These are the people who see a large group of people and can’t help sell to them. They are the Twitter equivalent of door-to-door salespeople - or the people that put flyers under windshields. All they do is post tweets and links for promotional purposes. You can spot these people because they will be following several thousand people but only have a few followers. A sub-set of this crowd are those that obsess over their Twitter ranking.
- Black Hats - These are the spammers. The people that create bots that auto-follow based on key words, geography, etc. Twitter does a decent job of nailing these people (the “suspicious activity” screen you sometimes see).
Because Twitter is a conversation/word-of-mouth tool, it tends to purify itself from a combination of Twitter going after spammers and promoters - and members within Twitter blocking or calling out people who improperly use it.
“Don’t Pee in the Pool” Webinar
February 19, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009 from 10:00am - 11:00am (MST)
How social media is being polluted by ignorance, lazy people, and bad behavior!
In this free-wheeling, podcast-style webinar, Tricycle co-founders Justin Foster and John Hardesty have an unfiltered discussion on the various ways that the mass adoption of social media is “polluting the community pool”.
Especially targeted for small business owners, John and Justin cover a broad range of social media taboos, tips, and insights - including:
- The myth of “social media marketing”.
- 5 simple rules to live by.
- The “North Korea” approach to employee usage
- How marketing departments are the wrong department to implement social media
- 8 “Don’t Be That Guy/Girl” tips
REGISTER HERE!
It’s free, so spread the word.
5300 BC … or so.
January 22, 2009
Social media is ultimately about people - how we interact, communicate, build relationships, etc. In short, it is 6000+ plus years of human behavior with more efficient tools.
Why 6000 years? Give or a take a 1000 years, it was when human beings first started forming permanent communities. (If this sort of stuff fascinates you, learn more here.) The formation of communities became the catalyst for creating better and better communication tools (and more efficient ways of killing each other); a trend that continues today.
From this comes two consistent rules:
- People adapt and change, but core human behavior remains the same.
- Communication tools always become obsolete.
Purity
December 8, 2008
There has been a lot of talk recently that Social Media has “jumped the shark”; that promoters and pitchmen have co-opted social media. This might be the case with some industries or specific tools, but I’m not really worried about it.
The reason is simple - social media is a word-of-mouth tool. And word-of-mouth either “purifies” the tool - or finds a new one.
When testimonials started being faked, WOM went to YouTube.
When reviews could know longer be trusted, WOM went to user/community sites.
When traditional media started re-printing press releases, WOM went to blogs.
When MySpace become a promotional tool, WOM went to Facebook.
I believe WOM will purify social media rather than just find a new medium. This is largely due to the nature of social media; where the individual participants get to control who they talk to and how they interact. Brands and people that use social media just as a pitch machine will be rejected by audiences; often by the very tool that was used to “communicate” with them.
The biggest lesson that companies and marketers can learn is that this era of “new marketing” is not really about marketing at all. It is about people talking about the things they love (or hate). That’s why these rules of great brands are so important:
1. They have a purpose; and this purpose inspires the people attached to the brand.
2. They are driven by people – customers, employees, and stakeholders.
3. They grow because of legends; stories told by the people that drive the brand.
4. They are high-integrity organizations that are naturally transparent.
5. They respect heritage, but embrace the future – as such, they are always relevant.
In short, if you don’t purify your brand before participating in social media, WOM will do it for you.
