How Twitter Landed The Contract

By Matt on December 24th, 2011 / Social Networking / Leave a comment

Many people struggle finding value in Twitter. I’m about to tell you how Twitter landed an elderly couple in Wisconsin a multi-thousand dollar contract to provide catering services to a telecomm corporation.

In June of 2011, I started a local food blog where friends and I review local restaurants. The site has grown steadily now receiving hundreds of visits per day from people looking for restaurant information in a metro area of 100,000 residents. We have spent zero dollars on advertising. Our launch strategy was a guerrilla chalking campaign around the city. Today we have over 200 quality followers on our social platforms and many more finding us via Google. As our following and credibility have increased, so have our opportunities to exert real influence.

We received a tweet from an executive of Midwestern telecommunications company. He asked us a simple question:

“We need a company that can provide 500 bratwursts and grill them. Recommendations?”

Being the foodie I am, I knew of a great catering company. Within minutes of receiving the tweet I called up Bob’s Catering and asked if they could accommodate this request. He said yes and I told them to expect a call that day from the customer.

I tweeted back to this executive within 15 minutes:

“Bob’s Catering in Hatley. Great food and great pricing. Highly recommend.”

I called Bob, said they could handle it. Told him to expect your call. Bobscatering.net

Within a couple hours I get another tweet stating they booked Bob’s Catering while thanking me for the recommendation. This is a perfect example of how business is changing today.

Bob’s Catering didn’t spend thousands on billboards, newspaper ads or radio time. They rely on word of mouth and their reputation builds with each customer they provide superior service to. Bob’s cook some mean food and provide old-school service like their parents taught them to do. The owners of Bob’s Catering is an elderly couple in their 70′s. They never even heard of Twitter in all likelihood, yet that’s what brought them in a large contract in the off-season.

Companies and individuals are relying more on user recommendations and online reviews more than costly mass-advertising campaigns. This story is a perfect example.

Is your company monitoring bloggers, review sites or Twitter? Being active in the online communities that matter to your business a must these days.

What .XXX Domains Have Shown Us

By Matt on December 11th, 2011 / SEO / Leave a comment

It’s Not About The Porn

ICANN has done all they can to try and wrangle the pornography industry as of late, but what this really has done is illustrate the importance of your virtual presence. Kingpins were expected to rush into buying all the major .xxx domains with obvious sexual references. While this did happen, what is more important is what institutions like the University of Kansas did with .xxx domains.

Kansas University snapped up domains like KUgirls.xxx and others that centered around their brand. They didn’t want students or others snapping up domains and using them in an inappropriate manner that could negatively reflect on KU. This is the bigger story of the week. Fortune 500 companies, colleges and even private individuals purchased domains just to protect themselves rather than to try and capitalize on the new domain extensions.

This showcases the importance of branding on the Internet. You have to be proactive at monitoring your brand and protecting it. The couple thousand dollars companies are spending snapping up .xxx domains is money well spent. The cost of dealing with a public relations nightmare in terms of of paying your crisis management team, not to mention the almost irreversible damage to your brand, is much greater than the $2000-$3000 spent on being proactive instead of reactive.

Are you being proactive with your companies brand? Are you grabbing domain variations? Snapping up usernames on new platforms even if you don’t plan on being active on that platform? These are the things you must do to insulate your brand from the Internet’s copious amounts of trolls. If you’re not, start now!

Student 2012: In Focus

By Matt on December 5th, 2011 / Higher Education / Leave a comment

Universities are scrambling to under the changes to today’s students compared to the past. The last two generations have gone under radical transformations compared to previous generations. They have changed and widened the gap on differences faster than any other time in history. Universities. They’ve been around for centuries. How do they cope with these new expectations and warp speed technology has pushed us into.

Bricks and mortar universities are historically large, bureaucratic institutions where innovation comes slow and there is resistance to major change. We now live in the era of change. Not only do we live in the era of change, the changes are coming faster than they ever have in modern history. Schools attach to flashy Facebook badges and saying they are on Twitter. Students only find RSS driven dribble that no students cares about. There is no caring or backing to their online presence.

What is the definition of insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Education as an institution cannot afford to abide to the definition of insanity. It’s a new dawn and the sun is shining brightly. Never has there been so much information readily accessible to anyone with a telephone line or fiber optic cable.

This is only the beginning. The amount of data being consumed is only accelerating. Information is the business that universities are engaged in. I ask myself why universities aren’t more engaged in this information revolution. The first step is being more agile and creating a culture that fosters change and encourages creativity. Without the proper culture, no real change can occur. This is something that must be created over years, not months.

So what happens when educational institutions ignore this cultural shift? They will be irrelevant. Universities cannot afford to ignore this shift in our younger generations. If they ignore what is happening right in front of them, they may only have a few decades left of being a sought after educational institution. Some have already recognized the shift and are jumping to the forefront, while others may not find out till it’s too late.

What side of the fence will your Alma mater be on?

How Culture Relates To Social Media

By Matt on November 14th, 2011 / Social Networking / Leave a comment

It’s All About People

I recently started at a local company as an Art Assistant in which there is a strong customer focus. This company drives the message home that the customer is always right, treat them as if they were the only customer we had. I can’t tell you how much I agree with this corporate culture.

Companies who don’t have the correct culture in place cannot thrive with social media. You need to instill transparency, honesty and genuine caring at all levels of the organization. If you do not, you won’t reap the maximum amount of benefits out of your social media efforts as you could. To understand why this is true, you need to understand social media.

Number 1: Caring – Social media is simply relationship building. Never before have corporations had the ability to develop personal relationships with their customer base, let alone get real-time feedback and interaction. If your company doesn’t value the customer in the first place, you’ll likely just end up using Facebook and Twitter like broadcast platforms seeing limited success. You have to instill caring throughout all levels of your culture, you have to. If you don’t care, you will suffer.

Number 2: Honesty – Some companies have a real hard time admitting when their wrong (ahem, Beyond Petroleum). You’re going to make mistakes, there are going to be PR nightmares somewhere in your future. You can’t stop it and you cannot bury it. No amount of money or public relations teams can bury negatives surrounding your brand anymore. Instead, you need to admit the mistake and show that you genuinely care how it affected your customers and what you’re doing to fix it. You best not bullshit your customers. People have great B.S. detectors. They will know if it’s a carefully crafted speech with no emotion and meaning behind it. If you think you should only be brutally honest and admit your mistakes in the most extreme circumstances go back to Number 1.

Number 3: Transparency – Transparency is the name of the game in social media. People don’t want to see heavily scripted content or “staged” photos. They want to see what is really going on, who are the real faces behind the voices on the phone. Showcase your employees, put a face and story to your brand. There are companies who hide behind their logo for everything, that’s just not as useful as it once was. Get faces out in front and have them put your companies best foot forward.

If you can follow these three simple principles I promise you will get much more out of your social media campaigns.

What The Occupy Revolution Says About Social Media

By Matt on October 7th, 2011 / Social Networking / Leave a comment

We are living in unprecedented times here in the United States of America. A revolution seems to be stirring across the country all fueled by the occupation of Wall Street. It all started when a small group of students decided to pitch tents on Wall Street in disgust to corporate greed and the 2oo8 collapse of the economy. The occupation went largely ignored by mainstream media for the first week, only to be picked up when large amounts arrests and alleged incidents of civil rights violations began leaking out. How can these protests gain so much national steam when corporate media largely ignore them? Quite simply, the Internet.

You may have seen this YouTube video floating around Facebook or your e-mail inbox in early September.

That is one thing you won’t see attributed in the media, it’s the group known as “Anonymous” that really can be credited with starting this groundswell. They used social media, chat rooms and simple e-mail to alert the public to their intent and encouraged others to join. Two weeks later and look where it’s at now.

Here is map showing Occupy Facebook groups and pages. The red dots represent pages and the green groups. The larger the dot, the more people follow that particular page/group.

Click to Enlarge

It will continue to spread even faster now that MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews and others have devoted large amounts of airtime to the movement. Facebook is the main method of organization with Twitter fueling the real-time information push across large occupation areas. Checking out the @OccupyWallSt page, I noticed many messages discussing rumors and information that was filtering through word of mouth.

The biggest challenge the movement will face is information overload. When everyone has a voice, it’s very… democratic. The noise factor will increase ten-fold and the chance for misinformation increases drastically. Those are the challenges, but I shouldn’t need to tell you the positives of giving everyone a voice in the crowd. You have to take the bad with the good. It remains to be seen if communication begins to get filtered to a central location at these occupations; my gut tells me this will not happen. Whomever is in control of the Facebook and Twitter presence of any occupation wields an enormous amount of influence and power.

This is what the modern day newsroom looks like. It’s no longer Versace suits and $10,000 workstations. It’s college students and other young people with their $500 laptops and a pot of coffee. What is truly amazing is that this strikes fear into Rupert Murdoch and other media millionaires. They no longer dictate what gets attention and what doesn’t. Less than 20 young people organized a national movement and forced the corporate media to pay attention, a bit of role reversal you could say. But that is what makes this movement so unique and never before seen in the United States.

Not until now have we seen young people organize and use their Internet savviness to do it. We’ve seen small-scale versions similar to this, but nothing on a national scale. The young people who fuel the activism and organization are digital natives. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube while all new this past decade is like second nature to these 20-somethings. If the barons on Wall Street need one more thing to keep them up at night, the generation currently in our K-12 system utilize the Internet better and are more savvy than us. These digitally driven revolutions will not be slowing anytime soon. The only threat to this in the long term is the government trying to regulate the Internet and wielding their control over the bits and bytes flowing freely from network-to-network.

Grab a magnifying glass (computer) and watch the revolution, you’ll only see bits and pieces on network television or your local newspaper. Download, stream, tune in and watch it unfold in real-time online. The place where it all started.

UW-Stout Faces Digital Hail Storm

By Matt on October 3rd, 2011 / Higher Education / Leave a comment

New Age of Public Relations

The University of Wisconsin-Stout, my alma mater, has come under fire recently after controversial actions of the University Police and administration. It all started when a theater professor hung a poster containing some mildly threatening language on his door leading University Police to remove the poster. I won’t completely recount the actions by university officials here, but you can read more about it to give yourself more context:

The story quickly garnered buzz on the Internet when FIRE became involved. FIRE defines their mission as this:

The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities. These rights include freedom of speech, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience — the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity. FIRE’s core mission is to protect the unprotected and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.

After FIRE issued a press release the Interwebs began buzzing about peoples concern with UW-Stout’s action. Many feel that UW-Stout is engaging in censorship and denying the professor his constitutional right of freedom of speech. So how did UW-Stout respond to this criticism?

UW-Stout has done little to state their position and give reasoning behind their removal of the poster in the public sphere. Doug Mell, University Communications Director, did give statements to local news media on their position. The Chancellor’s office also composed a short e-mail to UW-Stout faculty, staff and students which you can read here. I haven’t seen anything on their official Facebook and Twitter accounts, no blogs or open letters posted on their website. There has been no presence on blogs which have been covering the story. Blogs like: Popehat, EthicsAlarm, The Huffington Post, Gawker, theOnion‘s AV Club and Reason.com. Even stars of the show Firefly (the show the poster centered around), Adam Baldwin and Nathan Fillion, have made comments on the actions of the university via Twitter. Conversations are evolving every day about the issue and the university continues to remain silent in terms of engaging the digital realm. Take a look at this chart which analyzes top words used in conjunction with “UW-Stout” on Twitter today:

Click to Enlarge

You can’t afford to ignore the digital sphere, especially when engaging in the conversation has never been easier. All this content being generated isn’t going anywhere. It will be read and shared at warp speed. It will be archived by Google for decades to come, if not indefinitely. When current and prospective students search for information on UW-Stout in the future they’ll likely find this content. You can’t hide, you can’t ignore it. It’s occurring whether you’re engaging it or not, so you might as well be in there addressing concerns and fostering honest discussion. I speculate there is one glaring reason that is not occurring.

UW-Stout stance seems to be dug in for the long haul. They made this decision and took the actions they did and now feel they have to stand behind that action. This is the wrong way to go about it. It’s hard to have effective public relations this day and age when you’re still committed to the wrong actions. Brands have become personalized with the advent of social media. People feel closer than ever to a logo. Now more than ever doing the right thing is the right thing. The days of public relations officials burying stories and public sediment are long gone. You can’t take that approach.

If UW-Stout wants to save face they should begin engaging alumni and others on Twitter, Blogs, Facebook etc. It’s part public relations and part marketing. Publicize UW-Stout’s intent to organize a university-wide open forum where students, faculty and administrators are encouraged to attend. Let members of the crowd speak to a panel including Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen, Chief of Police Lisa Walter, Professor James Miller and perhaps a few others. Listen to peoples voices and really consider what their concerns are. After a few days make a public statement in every possible way, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, press releases etc. that there was an overreaction and rush to action. Back your way out of this by doing the right things: fostering honest discussion, engaging the community you serve. If you do the right thing, public disdain and outrage would quickly subside and you turn a negative into an overwhelmingly positive.

I’d be a huge, huge fan of Chancellor Sorensen taping a YouTube apology and explanation similar to how Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle handled a public relations nightmare a few years ago. It really puts a face to the issue and that face should be Chancellor Sorensen, not any member of the communications department.

I hope my alma mater really considers a strategy to back their way out of this one. It’s my personal opinion that there was an overreaction by university officials. Having worked with UW-Stout for four years, I know they have the best intentions of providing a safe, secure and inviting campus enviornment. Calling university officials fascists is going too far, but I can understand the knee-jerk reaction by some when emotions run high. Please UW-Stout, don’t be afraid to admit you made a mistake. It will cause far more damage holding to your initial position then offering a simple apology and turning this negative into a learning experience and positive for everyone involved.

UW-Stout reversed their stance on this issue 24 hours after this blog was first published. They utilized Facebook and Twitter in their response. This was their first use of social media platforms on the issue. You can read their statement on this WEAU news story.

Matt graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in 2011 with a B.S. in Information & Communication Technologies. He spent three years as a Digital Media Specialist in the Student Life Services department during his undergraduate studies. You can contact him here.

Foursquare For Student Engagement: A Tool

By Matt on September 14th, 2011 / Higher Education / Leave a comment

College campuses are full of social networks that are interwoven. Even with all these networks interacting, there are still so many missed opportunities among students. One of the biggest concerns for universities nationwide is student engagement and retention. Universities are wondering, “How are we going to engage with our students to build an affinity for their studies, the campus and local community?” Quite simply, you need to engage them where they live.

Foursquare is rapidly becoming one of the places today’s students hang out. They are becoming more comfortable with the idea of checking in places and sharing their location. Universities can position themselves to take advantage of this behavior and engage students on a platform that is gaining traction.

A recent study on student engagement shows that exploring campus, being involved in organizations and attending athletic events all contribute towards higher student retention. The problem is students can only engage with things they know are there. So how do you reach today’s students? One word, technology.

Millennials today live their life one Tweet, Facebook post, blog or text message at a time. You can’t only count on visual marketing materials like posters and fliers around campus anymore. Students have their eyes glued to their phone let alone looking at your poster. You have to be engaged in the digital spaces where they communicate.

Foursquare is one of the latest you’ll want to be on. A major shift in 2010 was the integration of human data mixing in with our digital lives. When you begin mixing these two realms you can imagine the amount of possibilities. I headed the effort at the University of Wisconsin-Stout to incorporate Foursquare on-campus. It was well received and continued to grow as each month ticked by. Using specials and integrating the technology into department marketing efforts drove use even more. You cannot assume students will use a new technology platform without directing them towards it. Students can’t use what they don’t know exists. Small marketing efforts need to be used to make students aware of the platform and why it’s valuable as part of their communal experience on-campus.

Why Your School Needs An App

By Matt on July 19th, 2011 / Higher Education / Leave a comment

During my years at UW-Stout many things changed in technology. The landscape my freshman year was dramatically different than my senior year. It’s this blazing fast transformation speed that showcases the need for universities to be flexible on their technology presence. The biggest shift that occurred over my four years was the explosion of the app culture. Suddenly, there was an app for that!

Universities are havens for information. Whether it’s live events, campus maps, athletic schedules, dining menus, campus alerts. There is so much information pertaining to a captive audience in a very, very small locale. Students today are information consumers. This generation will consume more information in a matter of months than my grandparents will consume their entire life. Shoveling fliers and other traditional methods are becoming background noise and often go unnoticed. My alma mater had a large waste basket next to our mailbox area where students would toss all that “junk information.” It overflowed daily! These students search for information online, and more often using their mobile phones. Desktops are becoming rapidly extinct and laptops are even being seen as “too big.” Smartphones like the Apple iPhone and Android are becoming integral parts of students lives. Facebook, Twitter, phone calls, text messages, e-mail, weather forecasts, music libraries, online banking, gaming. If you can think of it, students are likely using their phone for it.

This graph illustrates that app usage among all age groups is on a large upswing. Its growth will continue to increase rapidly for the foreseeable future. There looks to be no signs of slowing down anytime soon. As this culture of apps and accessing important information becomes more mainstream, why doesn’t your university have an app yet? Are you going to be late to the party? I’d say you are unless you begin acting quick!

You could offer up these kinds of features in an app

Campus map
Events
Athletic Schedule
Points of interest
Visitors guide
Self-guided tour w/ podcast audio
Campus crime alerts
Job openings (on and off campus)

These are just some I came up with off the cuff, the possibilities are truly endless.

So what are you waiting for?

Why I Don't Like The World Cup

By Matt on July 10th, 2011 / Uncategorized / Leave a comment

I’ll be the first to admit I never liked soccer as a sport. Played it for a few years as a kid, but it’s just not for me. But with the World Cup ongoing, I was pressed on Twitter by @CitizenDino to a tweet I made about my disgust with the sport.

The only association I think of when it comes to soccer is Nike. Whether it’s soccer balls, kleets, shins, jerseys etc. Nike is one of the most reprehensible companies on the planet in my opinion. Nike has a long track record of sweatshops, poor quality standards and treating their workers unfairly. The university system to which I’m an alumnus just dumped Nike over labor concerns. I was happy see this happen! I shouldn’t need to get into these cases, they are fairly well known.

So why make the comment I did? Well that’s quite simple. Nike and a former U.S. women’s soccer player have used the sport to further sales. The Nike “swoosh” on every piece of the USA is not enough, we must now see it on players sports bras when the player was aware every camera in the stadium was on her. Of course it was denied by the player and Nike. After this famous photo that appeared in Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and others the sales of Nike sport’s bras skyrocketed by over a half-million units.

Let me clearly define the connection. A member of our national soccer team who had a contract with Nike who then exposed her Nike bra which spurred huge sales for the company. How many slave laborers needed to work overtime to make these after this media stunt? That’s being dramatic. However, I can’t support a sport with an enormously close connection to a company like Nike, especially when their contracted athletes pull goofy stunts (yanking their shirts off) to spur sales and work-load in third-world countries.

Blog

What .XXX Domains Have Shown Us

It’s Not About The Porn

Student 2012: In Focus

UW-Stout Faces Digital Hail Storm

New Age of Public Relations

Foursquare For Student Engagement: A Tool

Why Your School Needs An App

Why I Don't Like The World Cup

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