For smaller organizations and businesses, brand awareness can be one of the greatest marketing challenges. After all, increasing brand awareness has traditionally meant spending money on advertising. And buying media isn’t cheap.

Volume up

Originally uploaded by mikelao26

Of course, these days, with social media marketing, brand awareness can be achieved without spending money on advertising, though you may have to spend money on getting your social media content created and posted. However a blog post last infinitely-those magazine ads are good until the magazine lands in the trash can.

So, from my forthcoming online version of the Social Media Marketing Journey workshop, here are 5 social media tactics for increasing brand awareness:

1. Social Media Monitoring + Commenting - Find out where the conversations are online that are relevant to your product or service, and get involved.

2. Blogging + SEO - When you combine the power of Wordpress plugins such as the All-In-One SEO pack with the ability to literally “share” your expertise (with share widgets) while building relationships online, I think the blog is one of the best social media marketing tactics one can employ to increase brand awareness.

3. Crowdsourcing - While crowdsourcing generally begins with people who are already aware of your brand, it spreads if you mix it up with other tactics, like having a contest built around reader votes.

4. Branded widgets - Granted there might be some coding that has to happen to create your own widget, but create a widget that is unique and useful, and you can end up in all kinds of places online.

5. Blog trackbacks - While trackbacks can be a little tricky, they can be a great way to get some extra awareness out there regarding your blog, especially if pinging back to high traffic blogs.

These are just a few of the social media marketing tactics I’ll discuss in my online version of The Social Media Road Trip Workshop which I’m currently working on. Let me know if interested by leaving a message here.

I started working a ton of hours in July for a local client and really felt too overwhelmed to blog through the summer. Plus I had some other stuff going on in my life. I should have given an update on my blog to at least fill you in, but I really didn’t plan to be away from here so long.

Parmiter Antiques Southsea Luggage

Originally uploaded by geishaboy500

Then at the end of October, I went to work full-time for the headquarters of a global non-profit in their marketing communications department as a copywriter. Very excited about it and love the new gig.

Anyway, my goal for 2010 is to get back on track with regular blogging as my life is settling down again. Thanks for coming back to my blog.

Showing off my copywriting skills a bit

Sometimes, I think we can get all caught up in the seriousness of information exchange and such with social media marketing and using all the buzz words like “Listening” and “Conversations.”

So the promo image I created above (thanks to a great photo by Jimmy_Joe on Flickr) is my little exercise this morning to lighten things up a bit as I’m working on my presentation, “The Social Media Marketing Journey” to document my social media marketing process for clients and prospects. I guess this is me being “Transparent” and “Authentic.”

-Kevin McIntosh

Kevin McIntosh has 20 years marketing and branding experience. He shows companies how to use branding and social media to build digital word-of-mouth. He lives in the Nashville market.

Photo by kevindooley

Summary:

Business Is More Competitive Than Ever

Customers Are Spending More Time With Social Media

64% Of Best In Class Companies Plan To Spend More On Social Media Marketing In 2009 Than In 2008

To Compete, Businesses Must Take A Fresh Look At Their Marketing Strategies And Channels

Today I was in the small town where I grew up. I come here about once every 6 weeks or so. For some reason, the only place I wanted to visit today was the city park where all the baseball fields are located.

I first stopped at the park on the hill. That’s where it all started. Farm League. I played on that diamond from ages 6 until about age 10. It seemed so big back then. Today, it just seemed like a small yard.

Down the hill from that is the town’s Little League diamond. That’s where I played until age 13. It’s a bigger park of course.

And then right across from that is the big park. The Pony League and Colt League field. That’s where I played until I retired from baseball at the ripe old age of 16.

As I thought about the three parks being so close together, what amazed me was the differences in the level of play from one field to the next. The level of competition kept getting tougher and tougher each year.

As boys, we were all getting more skilled at the game. We were developing our hand-eye coordination as well as our abilities to focus on the game. We were getting stronger each year.

By Pony League and Colt League, we were starting to develop our muscles and strength, so we were hitting balls 3 times the distance that we could hit them in Farm League. And the pitches were coming at us about 3 to 6 times faster, I’d guess.

So the bats we swung were bigger and heavier. Even the basic design in some of the aluminum bats was changing.

Business: It’s A Whole New Ball Game

Those 3 baseball fields remind me of business and marketing. It’s more competitive now than ever. The competition is getting stronger. And the speed at which things happen is faster than ever.

And just like it would have been naive for me to have used the same equipment in Colt League or to have relied on the same basic strategies that I had relied on in Farm League, I think it’s just as naive for businesses today to simply rely on the same marketing tools and strategies that they’ve relied on in the past. Sooner or later, you have to roll out some new equipment and strategies.

The world is changing. That world includes the people who are your customers and your competitors.

Your customers and your competition are relying more and more on different types of media than they were even 2 years ago. In particular, they’re spending more time with social media.

According to a recent study titled, “The ROI On Social Media Marketing” by The Aberdeen Group, 63% of best-in-class companies plan to increase their spending on social media marketing in 2009. Those are businesses that realize the game is changing.

Twitter for example was just launched in the spring of 2007. Today, it’s growing by leaps and bounds. Businesses are starting to realize the importance of Twitter as a marketing channel. With a 600% growth rate in 2008, Twitter now has around 4M-5M users, 70% of whom joined in 2008. And an estimated 5-10 thousand new Twitter accounts are opened per day

Facebook just added its 200th million user. Mind you, Facebook has been around only since it began as a college project back in 2003. And the world is gaining Internet access at a fast pace, as well, a 342 percent increase from 2000-2008, as over 1.6 billion people now have Internet access.

Please don’t make the mistake of assuming that everyone on Facebook or Twitter is in their twenties or younger. 45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older. You’ll now find everyone from engineers to doctors on both of these social networks.

What are people doing on these networks? They’re having conversations related to brands, business and much more. As you may have seen, they’re having a lot of trivial conversations. But they’re also having a lot of meaningful conversations. They’re sharing ideas and information. They’re asking others for product and service recommendations.

Businesses that want to compete realize that when the game changes, they have to change with it. That doesn’t mean waiting for the economy to get to a point where the same old strategies and marketing channels will work like they used to. But rather, going where the conversations are taking place, listening, engaging and connecting. Now.

It’s a whole new game. The question is, are you willing to step up to the plate and think differently about your marketing?

-Kevin McIntosh

Kevin McIntosh has 20 years experience in marketing and branding. He has worked on the marketing campaigns of over a hundred brands including over a dozen Fortune 500 brands. He shows businesses how to differentiate from their competition through a combination of traditional and new media channels.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve likely been hearing more and more about Twitter lately.

Janis Krums became the world’s most famous Twitter user a few weeks back by “tweeting” the first photos of the US Air Flight 1549 resting in the Hudson from his iPhone.

Lance Armstrong made headlines by posting his tweet on Twitter when his bike was stolen a couple of weeks ago. His tweet asked for help from the Twittersphere in locating the champ’s one-of-a-kind bicycle.

And CNN was quoting from the tweets of the US congressmen a couple nights ago during President Obama’s address to the nation.

Twitter Growth Stats as of Q4 2008

According to a recent study by Hubspot, Twitter is growing like wildfire.

• 600% growth rate in 2008
• 4M-5M users
• 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008
• An estimated 5-10 thousand new Twitter accounts are opened per day

Who will you find on Twitter?

Celebrities: Lance Armstrong, Natalie Grant, oh and President Borack Obama

Tech geeks: Including a teenage tech blogger with over 10,000 followers

Entrepreneurs: Founders of major dot coms (including Twitter’s founder)

Plus: Housewives, college students, MD’s, professors, musicians, real estate investors, pilots, nurses, high school coaches, ministers, plus much more.

What do people talk about on Twitter?

The simple answer: Everything. That’s the overall thing that Twitter has going for it.

From sports and politics to technology and personal finance everything is up for discussion on Twitter. No topic is off-topic because Twitter users can search each other by topic. It’s almost like Twitter is its own world wide web.

Why Is Twitter So Popular?

Beyond the wide open topic possibilities, I think Twitter is popular because of its multi-functional capabilities all at a great price – FREE.

It can be used for searching topics, social networking, photo-sharing, rss reading, direct messaging, link sharing, and social bookmarking. The fact that Twitter is accessible via mobile phones, is also helping it grow in popularity.

And since Twitter is all about community and relationships, its becoming one of the most important marketing tools on the Internet.

Why Do I Think Twitter Could Become One Of The Most Important Internet Marketing Tools Ever?

Well, obviously the growth rate is the main indicator. But also it’s who is on Twitter. This isn’t just a bunch of college students. The majority of Twitter users I’m seeing and as noted above are early adapters. That means professionals. High achievers. Entrepreneurs.

Also, every week, perhaps every day even, new apps are being developed specifically for Twitter. These apps include tools that add to Twitter’s functionality or simplify it.

Plus, Twitter has recently received another $30 million in venture capital. That’s a lot of money to throw at something without a lot of potential.

So What Will Twitter Mean For Your Brand?

Twitter is a way for your brand to connect with the people in your audience who fall into the early adapters crowd. And as it continues to grow, it may become as common for people to use Twitter as it is for them to use Google.

By monitoring Twitter, you can be alerted to certain conversations that are taking place that would be of interest to your brand. You can know when someone is talking about your brand. If a customer is complaining about your brand, you can immediately be alerted and respond back asking, “How can I help?”

And Twitter users love to re-tweet. That means if you post a message to Twitter that people like, they’ll re-post it so their friends can see it. A great tweet can get passed around over and over.

The key to marketing success on Twitter is understanding that marketing on Twitter is not the same as traditional online marketing. Twitter has a netiquette all its own. But if you learn the rules, implementing Twitter into your brand’s marketing strategy could put you far ahead of your competition in terms of online relationship building.

Oh, and if you haven’t found a reason to get on Twitter yet, the fact that someone can hijack your brand and misrepresent your brand is one reason to check out Twitter today. You can alert Twitter to the problem, but unless you do, they are not actively policing for the problem. And if someone just happens to have the same name as your brand, guess what, they’ll get to keep your Twitter name.

Twitter is changing the way people communicate online. And it’s changing the way brands like yours can communicate with them as well.

Well, since I live in the Nashville area and I work with social media marketing, I thought it would be interesting to see how many brands that are based in Nashville are represented on Twitter.

So here are the Nashville-based brands that I’ve found that appear to have an official Twitter account, (it can be hard to tell sometimes as brands can be hijacked on Twitter) and the ones that don’t. My methodology for tracking down the brands on Twitter was to run a Twitter search looking for the brand name mentions. And then to look for a “branded” account. So this is all unscientific, you might say. If I’ve missed your brand, let me know.

So here’s the rundown of

NASHVILLE BRANDS AND OFFICIAL TWITTER PRESENCE

Gibson Guitars – Yes @gibsonlifestyle
Farm and Tractor Supply -Can’t find
Great American Country – Can’t find
Country Music Television (CMT) – Can’t find
Captain D’s – Yes, @captainds
Logan’s Roadhouse – Can’t find
Cracker Barrel Restaurants – Yes, @crackerbarrel
O’Charleys Restaurants – Can’t find
Griffin Technology – Yes, @griffintech
Nissan USA – Can’t find (there is are individual Nissan dealers and foreign Nissan groups represented)
Old Time Pottery – Can’t find
Gabriel Shocks – Can’t find
Budget Brakes – Can’t find
Bridgestone-Firestone – Can’t find
Dollar General – Yes @dollargeneral (but appears to be a squatter account)
Barrett Firearms – Can’t find
Sony Records – Can’t find
Warner Records – Can’t find but their site suggests there is
Nashville Predators – Yes @Predators (see reader comment below)
Tennessee Titans – Can’t find anything “offficial” but several fan/blogger accounts
Gaylord – Yes, @GaylordHotels
Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau – Yes @visitmusiccity

Obviously not a lot of Nashville based brands on Twitter yet. Though I am seeing a fair amount of people talking about many of these brands.

Have I left out a brand? Or did I miss your brand’s Twitter account somehow? Please let me know and let me know the Twitter account, only if it’s an official brand account.

Thanks.

A Sign Of The Times

Originally uploaded by ZenTraveler

As I’ve mentioned in my earlier post, “When Wolves Knock At The Door,” recessions have a way of thinning the herd. And now we’re seeing major brands in trouble.

And while certain brand categories will fare better than others during these troubling economic times, I think it’s pretty safe to say there are going to be a lot more brands in trouble. The way I see it, if some of our favorite brands are in trouble, then what will become of the brands that weren’t that strong even in good times?

We’re in an economic crisis. And it’s interesting to see how people react in a crisis. Here are 3 possible kinds of mistakes I believe marketers will make in this recession in reaction to the crisis:

1.You’ll stay in your comfort zone.

An economic crisis is very uncomfortable, to say the least. So what happens? People will try to offset the stress by maintaining their comfort zones any way they can. So marketers will continue to work with the same ad agencies and other advisers, even though, there are better options out there.

You’ll continue to use traditional media rather than consider generating digital word-of-mouth through social media channels. Why? Because it’s comfortable. Anything that’s unknown seems too risky. You have found routines that give you security and until now, a certain amount of predictability. It’s during times like these, that people are looking for any comfort zone they can find. You may not understand why you should rock the boat. But if you don’t rock the boat, it just might sink anyway.

Meanwhile your competition may be getting a foothold in social media. They’re seeking out new branding strategies while making product and service innovations. And if your customers like what the competition has to offer, they just might jump.

2. You’ll freeze up.

You know you need to do things differently, but you can’t make a decision about what to do. It can happen in big companies and small ones. They get caught up in paralysis by analysis. There’s a lot of talk about “We need to do something,” but you’re not doing it. Meanwhile your competitors are already at work creating new marketing and plotting to steal market share.

3. You’ll live in denial.

While some sectors such as housing and the automobile industry were the first to get body-slammed in this recession, the fallout may be more gradual for some other brand categories. Do you have a plan in place when for when you do start to feel the pinch? Or will you simply wait until that happens to figure out what to do? I believe that the best time to prepare for a crisis is before it happens.

I know there are other ways marketers mess up during a recession, and may blog on them later. But I think for now, there’s plenty right here to think about.

–Kevin McIntosh

Circuit City going out of business

Originally uploaded by F33

In my recent blog post, 5 Marketing Questions To Ask In A Recession, I discussed how October 2008 changed everything. Business is now more competitive than ever. As a result, most every business out there will have to re-think their marketing. Most will also have to improve their products and services. Because recessions like the one we’re looking at right now have a cruel way of thinning the herd.

We’re now seeing brands suffer that we never dreamed would. Most notable, the 3 major automobile manufacturers, who are now relying on the US government to bail them out. Circuit City has declared bankruptcy and is closing all of its 567 stores. Even Microsoft announced today that they’ll be laying off 5,000 employees, the first massive layoff in the company’s 34-year history. These are just a few examples.

While marketing isn’t the only reason some of our largest brands have suffered, I do believe in many cases it has played a role. Obviously business strategy has played a major role, as well.

But now, the playing field has changed for just about everyone. And competition is heating up.

All of this reminds me of a game we played in my copywriting course in college. The game was called “Knock-Knock.”

The way the game worked was, we all had to line up outside the classroom door. Then one by one, we’d knock on the door. Our professor would crack the door open. At that point, each student would have to say why the professor should open the door. And the professor wouldn’t let us in until we  came up with a good reason.

I now understand and appreciate that game more than ever. It was a very simple yet effective demonstration of how marketing really works.

Right now, you’re probably having more trouble getting into some doors. Or perhaps you’re already on the inside, but you feel the pressure of trying to stay there because you know others are now knocking to get in and take your place.

Your relationships with your clients and customers may have kept you where you are for some time now. But when times get tough, relationships will get sacrificed for the bottom line. As the saying goes, “Nothing personal, it’s just business.”

As I’ve said before, October 2008 changed everything.

Are you developing the right kind of marketing strategies and brand messages that will push your business to the other side of this recession? Are you implementing social media strategies to create digital word-of-mouth for your brand? Are you giving your audience a reason to open the door that is better than the reason you had last year?

If not, you might want to get serious about your plan for 2009. Because you can bet that someday soon there will be wolves knocking on your clients’ doors.

–Kevin McIntosh

The White House Website

The site features a form where visitors can interact with the Office of Public Liason. Also featured is The Briefing Room where the President’s weekly video address can be viewed.

There are some excellent slide shows including a collection of portraits of the US Presidents as well as a slide show of the presidents’ pets.

The site will be supervised by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House and one of the people who will be contributing to the blog.

–Kevin McIntosh