Social Media | Kyle Chowning

Five Steps to Collecting & Using Business Cards Effectively

By Kyle Chowning 3 Comments

Stacked in my drawer are dozens, if not hundreds of business cards that I’ve collected over the years. Perhaps you have the same quandry as I do: what do I do with all of those cards?

If you’re like me, you don’t dare throw them away. After all, you might need one of them some day. But, the problem is, most likely, you don’t have a clue when and where you met those people. All you know is that somehow, you have their card. Good, but not helpful.

Jeff Pulver, co-founder of the Vonage Internet phone company and creator of the VON and 140 conferences, has an expression that you absolutely must take to heart:

“We live or die on our database.”

The days of just collecting business cards are over. It’s time to do change our ways and actually put them to good use.

Here are five steps to collecting and using business cards effectively:

Context – Take a moment to immediately write on the back of the card, the event and details of your conversation. If you promised to follow up, write that down too.
Storage – While at the event, be sure you store the card in a secure place: preferably your wallet, purse or notebook pocket. Avoid putting them in your clothes pockets. It’s almost a guarantee that you’ll lose them.
Review – Once your back at your desk, review the cards for context and action points. You’ll want to be sure you do this within 24-48 hours of making a connection. Also, a quick email follow up, or better yet, a handwritten note is a nice touch.
Address Book: Take the time to input each contact into your address book. You can do this manually or using one of those nifty business card scanners. Don’t forget to insert your contextual notes too.
LinkedIn & Connect. You now hold in your hands the currency for connecting to people on LinkedIn: an email address. Do a quick search and LinkedIn.com and request to connect with your new contact. Be sure to erase the generic note and write something related to your meet and greet. Including details will be a good reminder of who you are and why you’re asking to connect.

If you look at your stack and get overwhelmed about the amount of time it’s going to take to get through it, consider breaking it down into daily segments. If you started each day processing 10 cards, you’ll get through your stack in no time.

Chances are, reviewing each card will jolt your memory and you’ll be able to remember when and what you were discussing during the business card exchange. Be sure to include details in your follow up or LinkedIn connect message. People always appreciate it when you recall details: personal or professional. The extra time it takes to do so will always be worth it.

Has LinkedIn.com proved to be helpful for you? If so, how?

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Leadership, Social Media Tagged With: business cards, jeff pulver, linkedin, social media

Eight Things I Learned at Social Fresh Charlotte

By Kyle Chowning 10 Comments

Today, I joined a couple hundred of my new closest socmed Charlotte friends for an all day conference called Social Fresh. Established and ran by former Charlottean, Jason Keath, this six-session event was packed full of topics that ranged from community development to corporate social policy.

I really enjoyed the conference, mainly because it was small and intimate. I met a lot of new people like @jakrose, @yarby, @benjamingetz, @CaseyLBrewton, @MCDolphens, @GenevieveJooste, @Mysticle, @arsbars, @RichTucker, @waynesutton and many, many more. The size of this conference makes it one of the most approachable, memorable and fun conferences I’ve attended in a long time. If you get a chance to attend a Social Fresh event in the future, do yourself a favor and go.

As I mentioned, a lot was talked about during the event, but I walked away with eight key takeaways that I thought I would share with you.

Remember “You don’t need a social media strategy. You need a brand strategy that leverages social media.” —Chris Kirubi, Chairman of Coca Cola Nairobi
You/me, we need to be paying much more attention to #LinkedIn
Being there before the sale is marketing…at the sale is sales…after the sale is service. —@gregcangialosi
Social media is a beast. The beast must be fed and it’s food is content. —@gregcangialosi (One of my favorite quotes of the day)
Communicate internal social media policies frequently. Make it precise, efficient & frequent —@DavidBThomas
Marketing in the socmed space requires more people than you think. —@bwdumars
Quality, (story and creative) is more important with web video because it stands alone and has to be good enough to get noticed.
and finally…
Seriously, bacon gum balls are the best thing I never want to eat again. Thanks @masstransmit

To top it off, here are some new online resources that I found out about today:

glassdoor.com —an inside look at what companies are paying their employees
socialmediagovernance.com —A fantastic source for guiding social media use within your company
Radian6.com – listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web

Did you go to Social Fresh or have you been to a social media conference lately? If so, what was one thing you learned? Leave you thoughts in the comments below.

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: chris kirubi, greg cangialosi, jason keath, linkedin, masstransmit, social fresh, social fresh charlotte, social media

How Nashville businesses can help flood victims using Foursquare

By Kyle Chowning 4 Comments

If you are a business in Nashville looking for ways to contribute to the relief from to the #nashvillefloods this past weekend, the new geolocation social networking app, Foursquare, may be an easy way to facilitate your contributions.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a relatively new social networking tool that gives people the ability to “check-in” at all kinds of places: cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices—you name it. Think of it as an easy way of telling other users where you are.

As a local business owner, Foursquare provides you the ability to reward loyalty. Marketing says that it’s far easier and cheaper to market to your existing customer than it is a new one. So, Foursquare now provides you the opportunity to identify and reward returning customers by offering them “Specials,” which are discounts and prizes you can offer your loyal customers when they check-in at your venue. Each venue also has a Mayor—someone who has checked into your business the most in the past 60 days. (I’ve provided a full list of “specials” that Foursquare provides below.)

There are lots of benefits of using Foursquare, but the biggest is the ability that the app brings of putting a name and a face with your contribution. Not for marketing reasons per se, but because it helps you, the business, connect with the people who are in need.

Example

Let’s say that Merridee’s in downtown Franklin, TN wants to give away a 500 loaves of bread during the month of May. One way to facilitate this would be to set up a “Check-in Special” with Foursquare so that every time someone check’s in, they are notified of the offer and are given the opportunity to get, or give away, their free loaf of bread. It’s as easy as that.

The Benefits

There are two main reasons why Merridee’s, the business, could benefit from using Foursquare to facilitate their donation:

They leverage the power of social networking to spread the word, thus, lowering cost of time and resources used in their efforts
Using Foursquare’s robust analytics, they would be able to see impact of the effort, both from a reach and loyalty standpoint

The Risk

The reality is, Foursquare is relatively new and not a lot of people or businesses are aware or are using it yet. You may end up answering more questions about Foursquare, than giving away bread.

The Benefit

Beyond the goal of distributing 500 loaves of bread into a community that desperately needs assistance, you’ve taken the first step towards identifying and rewarding those people who love and support your business.

My Recommendation

If you’re up for new ways to connect with your loyal customers, you can’t go wrong with this approach. It makes sense on so many levels. As more and more business grab a hold of the power and potential of Foursquare, there will be a momentum and, eventually, an expectation that you’ll be a participant in this space.

In the end, Foursquare is a fast and effective way to reward real-time loyalty. Furthermore, it will help you personalize your service, know your customers better and continue to reward them, again and again, for being patrons of your business.

Here’s a quick list of the types of specials that Foursquare is currently offering:

Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor? It’s your single most loyal customer.
Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins.
Example: Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!
Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
Example: Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: foursquare, foursquare business uses, merridees franklin tn, nashville flood

10 Best Practices for Social Media Success

By Kyle Chowning 5 Comments

In my new job, I do a lot of research specifically on the 18-34 “Millennial” demographic. If you’re targeting the same demographic, you are well aware the social media is playing a strong roll in your strategies. The good news is, social media isn’t waning one bit. In fact, it’s on the rise. The question isn’t should you market in the social space, but how? eMarketer.com recently release an article that offered their 10 best practices for social media success. These are so good that I wanted to share them with you. My thoughts are [italicized]:

Don’t think social media, think social marketing. – Social marketing is more about empowering, organizing and training select staff members to engage on social platforms—and building a corporate social presence—than it is about paid media placements.
Know your objectives first—then develop your social strategy. – Broadly speaking, the most important objectives relate to creating deeper relationships with customers and branding.
Recognize the secret ingredient: trust – Clearly, marketers see an opportunity to leverage this peer-to-peer trust factor by participating in and influencing social conversations taking place on the Web. But the way in which they do that is critical. The first step toward earning trust with consumers, as in any relationship, is to listen. [If you haven't read Chris Brogan's Trust Agents yet, do it soon.]
Listening comes first. [When @ComcastCares entered the Twitter space, they did so by listening first. It wasn't until they understood the medium and how their customers were using it, that they actually went public. Planning and preparation are key to success in the social space.]
Don’t just barge into a conversation: Add value. [In fact, nothing will get you ignored faster.]
Be authentic, transparent and humble. [Social media is about conversation. It's not a platform.]
Recruit from your core: the brand enthusiasts who already love you. – Digital communities allow marketers to both find these coveted consumers (through listening) and empower them to share a brand story with many others.
Target the coveted influentials. – Some consumers have more clout than others. These so-called influentials, representing about 10% of the population, according to Keller Fay Group, have an undue influence on others because of their extensive digital networks and perceived expertise in particular areas. Keller Fay believes that influentials are 130% more likely than others to talk about brands on any given day.
Adopt a long-term/real-time approach. As blogger and social media expert Joe Jaffe has frequently said, “[Social media] marketing is not campaign; it’s a commitment.”
Integrate social media with other online and offline communications. Social media represents another stream of touchpoints for the marketer, but they are most valuable when integrated with other consumer activities, from search and e-mail to watching videos and reading news online.

Whether you are a brand, or someone trying to figure out how to engage with people inside the social media sphere, this is a great list to go by.

What are your social media best practices?

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: emarketer, joe jaffe, millennials, research

How to swap Twitter Usernames without losing Followers

By Kyle Chowning 10 Comments

Earlier last week, I made the move from using my Twitter username “chownage” to “kylechowning.” As to why, my main motivation is because people will know me before they’ll know chownage. Moreover, there are SEO (search engine optimization) benefits and overall, it just makes it easier for people to recall and reference.

After making the change, I got a few questions asking me how I did it and if there were any negative ramifications from doing so. The short answer is, it was easy and there weren’t any problems. However, the challenge that I encountered was that I had already registered the “kylechowning” username a year or so ago and there were pre-existing friends on that account. Because I didn’t want to start from scratch on either accounts, I had to get creative on making the swap.

By the way, if your new username of choice is not already taken, here are simple instructions on how to change your username. These instructions focus on swapping usernames of two currently existing accounts.

The following steps use the example of changing my main account chownage to kylechowning.

Log in to Twitter
In the upper right hand navigation bar, click Settings
Change Username from chownage to chownage2 – This will temporarily free up your current username
Log out of Twitter
Log in to your other Twitter account; in this case, kylechowning
Click Settings
Change Username from kylechowning to chownage – Now the username kylechowning is available
Log out of Twitter
Log in to Twitter using your chownage2 settings
Click Settings
Change Username from chownage2 to kylechowning

And your done! Due to the way that Twitter has setup the usernames, you don’t have to change anything within Twitter. All references to your name will change in non-cached Twitter feeds.

If you’ve integrated your Twitter account with any social networks or blogs, you’ll need to change your username so your updates are posted. Finally, don’t forget to change your settings on your favorite Twitter app(s).

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: twitter

5 Keys to Building Forever-Followers—Chris Brogan Style

By Kyle Chowning 18 Comments

Yesterday, I had the spontaneous opportunity to attend the Author’s Way event and see social media “typist” Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) talk about his perspective and approach on all things social media. He also dived into the heart of his new book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (Amazon link).

A lot was said over the course of four hours and I took about six pages of notes. However, there were five things that I walked away with that have brought a paradigm shift in my thinking of social media.

Prepare to have your mind changed:

1) The more things you can create and giveaway, the more you will get back in rewards
Seth Godin says that value comes in execution, not in your ideas. It’s a loud call to stop hording and start giving. Chris said that he posts 98% of his ideas and thoughts online. The other 2% are unique to his clients. Furthermore, he stated that 75% of his leads, ie: income, come from something he’s said online.

2) To increase your Twitter influence, be helpful
Chris suggested that you utilize a 12:1 tweet ratio; for every 12 times you retweet, promote, talk about, or push someone else, talk about yourself once. How do you do that? Http://search.twitter.com is the best place to get started. Identify your interest, find what people are saying about it and enter the conversation. In return you’ll create trust which gives you social capital which increases your value and influence.

3) Twitter is a business winning tool
This is for the naysayer business owners and CEO’s. Being active on Twitter is like sharing a meal, playing 18 holes or a face-to-face meeting. Not one of those functions will seal the deal by themselves, but when used together you’ll create a winning outcome. Chris gave the example of Frank, an employee at Comcast who started @comcastcares on Twitter. One year later, Frank now manages a team of ten people who are dedicated to servicing Comcast customers on Twitter alone. Personally, I’ve used this team on at least four times. On two of those occasions, we troubleshooted and scheduled an appointment via Twitter. I never had to call or email. Now that’s a way to keep my business.

4) Think like they do
It’s not good enough to throw your thoughts out there, you have to find out what people are saying, what words they are saying it with and look for those conversations. Chris brought up an example of a hosting company that wanted to find new clients online. Rather than searching for “hosting” or “web hosting” they looked for phrases like “server is down.” Whenever that phrase was used, the company would reply with an offer for three free months of web hosting. New clients came rolling in.

5) Winning is table stakes for the next game
This is a point that I felt like Chris couldn’t stress enough. The implications were multi-fold: A) Never start from nothing. B) Build off of and on previous successes. Why is this important? If you don’t connect with your followers on a personal level, they won’t care to follow you when you move on to the next game.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with some things he said that stood out and were helpful:

Why don’t kids use Twitter? They already have a social life.
Be everywhere—create and maintain bonds
If you sit still in business, you’ll get stuck in business
Structure yourself to always be in front of opportunities so you can give them away

There were so many other great things said. If you want to hear it all, I encourage you to buy the DVD and his book. Between the two, you’ll be set.

Thanks Chris for coming to Nashville. This was very helpful!

Did any of the above change your social media paradigm?

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: authors way, blog hosting services, brogan, building, chowning, chris, chris brogan, comcast, followers, forever, keys, kyle, online social networking, real time web, social capital, social media, social media paradigm shifts, trust agents, twitter, web 2.0, world wide web

Five Blogs I Recommend

By Kyle Chowning 3 Comments

Lately, I’ve been uninspired to write here due to a variety of reasons. So rather than trying to come up with something creative, I thought I would take advantage of the Google Reader Trend statistics and share with you the top five blogs that I’ve been reading over the past 30 days.

If you’re a Google Reader user as well, you can access this same data by clicking on the “Trends” link in your navigation area.

Okay, here we go:

#1 Macworld – I am a Mac enthusiast and I find that Macworld offers one of the most comprehensive feeds for Mac related news, software and products. I read 25% of their posts.

#2 Advertising Age – Makes sense…I’m a marketing guy at heart and this is one of the ways that I stay tuned into what’s happening in my market. However, just tonight, I found Mediaweek which is a promising read as well. I read 25% of their posts.

#3 FlowerDust.net (Anne Jackson) – Anne’s blog is a new favorite. She is the author of Mad Church Disease, a book dedicated to helping those in ministry, vocational or volunteer, steer clear from burnout—which is a MAJOR problem. One of the reasons that I, and many others, enjoy reading her blog is that she is one of the most honest bloggers out there. Seriously, it stretches even me. Check it out. I read 100% of her posts.

#4 Nielsen Wire – I just recently found this blog. It’s written by the fine folks at Nielsen and it is FULL of great articles about what’s going on in our culture. Topics include, but aren’t limited to: TV, technology, trends, economy, and much more. Did you know that just over 1/3 of American’s have an HDTV and the average person watches 153 hours of TV a month? Yeah, that kind of stuff. It’s a must-read for me. I read 19% of their posts.

#5 Without Wax (Pete Wilson) – Pete is also a new favorite. He is the senior pastor at Cross Point church here in Nashville and is one of the more forward thinking pastors I know when it comes to how to use media, technology and the Bible, all in one blog post. He’s building a great community of thinkers, believers and activists at Cross Point and on his blog. I read 94% of his posts.

So there you have it. Five blogs that I read regularly that I think you might enjoy. Feel free to share with me some of your favs in the comment section. I’m always looking to expand my horizons.

Share and Enjoy

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: advertising age, anne jackson, cross point church, flowerdust, google reader, macworld, mad church disease, media week, Motiveight, nielsen wire, pete wilson, without wax

Email Newsletter

About Me

Let’s Connect

Highly Recommended

Recent Posts

Disclaimer

Has LinkedIn.com proved to be helpful for you? If so, how?

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

What is Foursquare?

Example

The Benefits

The Risk

The Benefit

My Recommendation

Share and Enjoy

The question is, what do you think? What are your practices?

Share and Enjoy

What are your social media best practices?

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy

Email Newsletter

About Me

Let’s Connect

Popular Posts

Highly Recommended

Recommended Friends

Tags

Recent Posts

Disclaimer