Reputations Event Featuring Keynote Speaker Chris Brogan at Best Buy Headquarters in MPLS

I'm writing this blog post at the Minnesota Business, Reputations event with Chris Brogan as the keynote speaker. If you would like to follow the conversation for this event on twitter you can visit the hashtag #broganmpls. The panelists are Beth LaBreche CEO of LaBreche, Gabby Nelson Director of External Relations and Social Media, at Select Comfort, Paula Prahl Senior VP of Communications and Public Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility at Best Buy, and Brian Vanderah who does Customer Operations Supervision for QBP.

The majority of this post is going to be of some of my favorite quotes during the event and my personal feedback. I look forward to reading YOUR feedback.

"Marketers like to hear themselves talk and don't care what I'm thinking." -- Chris Brogan Are you a marketer? What can you do to start paying attention and be a more helpful customer service partner for your company. Helping people is going to help your company. Just look at Comcast or Zappos, I say their company name and have instant customer service. If I'm looking for a place to live in MPLS there are two people on twitter that will probably respond to me (I say probably because their is no guarantee). So what do you do? How can you connect your customers to solutions? Who are you? After you figure that out, try to be realistic and be helpful in ways that you would want. Some thing you CAN offer are unnecessary.

"The customer is not an idiot, she's your wife." --Brogan I love this quote because it is true. Your customer is your best friend, significant other and neighbor. Do you yell at your friends with weird branding slogans? Probably not. Think conversation, be appropriate, be relevant. "Helpful trumps marketing. I'm trying to impart wisdom, but I believe in sugar with medicine. Listening. Connecting. Publishing. Listening is the secret sauce. Don't bother stuffing old shit down new pipes." -- Chris Brogan

"Listen at the point of need." --Chris Brogan Then treat EVERYONE like VIP. Doesn't mean you have to be all things to all people it just means if you are the knight in shining armor when someone is looking for your product or service then they are probably going become loyal to you in the future. The last few times I've been on trips and bored I've turned to social media and found hotels (like brogan), found events to visit, and new people to tweetup with. Think of what you would say online if you where looking for you. Then respond as a human, not as a robot.

"If you make money for the company you are working with, they wont kick you to the curb as fast." --Chris Brogan Meaning if you say you do social media, don't just walk the walk. Be prepared to show ROI. If you aren't ready for that, then don't take their money. Figure out your goals, your brand, your customer service and then be prepared for happy and angry customers online. Then help your client find new customers.

"Start finding people who aren't in your vertical and then connect with them as well. The Dunbar number is you can't connect with more then 150 people at one time. How do you beat that? By knowing more people then who you work with, connecting with locals and verticals outside of the usual. Then talk about them, not about you."--Chris Brogan Do you have more then 150 followers on social media? How do you "keep up with the conversation"? I use lists to separate different types of followers for different types of conversations. I answer questions that I get asked a lot via my blog and YouTube. To get to know new people I follow them via text message (on Twitter) for 2 weeks at a time up to 15 people. Following people on my phone gives me the opportunity to follow up with people in real time. I also follow clients on my phone so that I can help guide them and try to prevent potentially embarrassing etiquette snafus. What do you do?

My favorite quote: "In social media if I go to shake your hand, don't stick your tongue down my throat." --Chris Brogan I love this quote and have read it in his blog before. It means if you join the conversation and I'm trying to say hello and slowly get to know you, don't market to me like you do via T.V. Be human and don't just try to force your company and products at me. Try to help your customers. Listen to your customers. Respond to them.  "If you write about yourself, who cares, but if you write about others they will come and talk." People like talking about themselves. "The more you talk about other people, the more awesome you are. Promote other people 12 times as much as you talk about yourselves." --Chris Brogan

"We don't only use one brand, we are not mutually exclusive." -- Chris Brogan Understand that your competitors exist and that you may not always be the best choice. Think Macy's in the classical Chrismas story, Miracle on 34th st. they referred people to their competitor and still had clients. In fact that nice gesture made brand evangelists. Also think progressive auto insurance, they do this. Progressive will give you their prices and the prices of their competitors as an added value. What value can you add? How are you helping your clients or prospects? Make their lives EASIER. "You're here to be a participant, not wrangle in the brand. Equip your community." -- Chris Brogan talking about Chris Grams from Red Hat. 

Thank you to Chris Brogan and the awesome panel for coming to Best Buy today to talk about Social Media and Reputations.

As always you are more then welcome to use any of my content, repost it, rewrite it, and broadcast it all I ask is that you link back to where you found it (http://interactivemedias.blogspot.com)

I would also love to hear YOUR comments, questions or concerns of my posts and reviews! What do you think, its ok if our opinions don't match up! Leave a comment or let me know what you would like to learn more about and maybe it will become my next blog post or video blog.

Also don't forget to subscribe to my video tutorials (on youtube or itunes) as well as subscribe to my blog posts on here so you can have the latest web tips, tricks and book reviews delivered directly to your inbox!


Thanks for reading!

--Desarae A. Veit
Agency Couture

How YOU Can Control Your Online Brand/Position/Message via Social Media to Achieve the Most Impact

In Chris Brogan's post, What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding, he quoted Dan Schawbel “Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others.” I'd like to expand on his post; Especially after receiving the following question from an unnamed prospect, "how do you direct, if not control, brand position/persona/messages on each platform/channel of social media and emarketing with the easiest, yet most impact?"

Perfect You. Perfect Your Brand.

Chris Brogan unknowingly answers part of this question in the same post by saying, "You see, the very best brands in the world do something not addressed in the above definition. They work on perfecting a product/service, and then owning distribution... ...The focus of conversations about branding is quite often about telling people what your product is about, or making sure people know who/what you are/represent." Please note that no where in that quote does Chris Brogan tell you that you can control the conversation. He is talking about perfecting your brand. Your brand is what your company does, who they portray, the customer service, the distribution, the packaging and the way you carry yourself. Step 1. to looking good online is looking good offline.

Who do you want to be? What is your Voice?
Answering the tough questions


Maria Duron wrote a post on her personal branding blog, How Your Personal Brand Handles Multiple Hats, and in that post she addresses a question asked at one of her speeches. “I have many roles, hats if you will.  Does that mean I should have an online profile for each?” asked an attendee at the fifth annual Massachusetts Conference for Women. Maria began by responding, "If you have many hats, then I highly recommend that you determine what your five prominent and consistent brand attributes are that you have inside you – under that hat, if you will. You are still you. You are the consistent and the constant person that plays in each of these roles.  What is it you deliver?  What makes you unique?" Maria is asking you who you think you are. I can say the same for your brand. I want to know who you think you want to work with, who is your target? I almost always start my consultations with similar questions. My questions are trying to determine goals, a voice for the brand, a design style, and who the audience is. Remember your audience isn't always who you think or hope they are. If your dream audience is virtually extinct, your business will probably be there soon too. Step 2. to "controlling your brand" online or offline is to knowing who you are and being yourself. You can be everything to all people. Take a stand.

Dear Control Freaks, Know that You Can't Control EVERYTHING (Why You Can't Control Social Media)

Sorry to pop any dream bubbles, but not everything in life can be controlled. If social media is the proverbial virtual cocktail party, then think of it like a conversation. Yes, I know that this parable is nearly cliche and over used at this point, but social media IS a conversation. Social media is a conversation you can walk away from, at any time (minus a few addicts who may need a patch or intervention). Like many conversations if you do something embarrassing the conversation may go sour. If you leave a bad conversation it doesn't stop the chatter and if you don't show up for the conversation people may still gossip about you. America is still a free country, so you can't serve us all cease and desist orders for talking about your mishaps. Disappearing is only going to kill your brand. So my best advice is to keep it classy, show up, join in and when you trip and fall be ready to pick yourself up and reinvent yourself. We are human, brands are run by humans and while they can seem surreal and glamorous the people behind them ARE occasionally going to mess up. Do your best to prepare for all possibilities, be humble enough to apologize, and realize YOU CAN'T CONTROL SOCIAL MEDIA.

Shit, I'm freaking out. I've lost control. Now what?

Isn't it a little bit of a relief for you to know that the weight of the world isn't on your shoulders? You're in good company I like to have things in their place. I wish I could know what was going on at all times, and love to play miss fix it.

Fortunately I know better then to try though and over the years have calmed down and laid back a little. Not much clearly because I'm still a work-o-holic who doesn't like not knowing where things where put away but with social media I've realized a few things. I know with social media that I will never be able to be involved in EVERY conversation.

I may never be able to memorize all of my followers names or respond to every message that mentions me. Bless Brogan and Tony from Zappos.. someday they will have to explain to me how many of their interns it takes to keep that well oiled twitter machine of theirs running. I'm guessing lots of interns or less sleep. I'd never thought of their statistics, but as Brogan pointed out to me.. if only 1% of his followers chat with him daily that's still 1,000 people.

Tools to help you know what's being said about you and your brand.

The closest thing you may get to "controlling the conversation" is doing reputation management. Knowing your product, trying not to mess it up and piss people off, be nice and then track the conversation. Their are tools that will help you do this like ReputationHQ, Radian6, Techrigy, Google Alerts, a slew of Wordpress tools, bit.ly and many more. ReputationHQ, Radian6, Techrigy will help you track sentiment (whether or not people are happy or mad). Their are many tools to help you track if your name was mentioned but Google Alerts is FREE. Bit.ly and Google Analytics will help you track how many people visit your website (and are also FREE).

Planning ahead for talking online.

Once you've determined who you want to be, what you want to sell, how you are going to get there (strategy), let go of some of the control, and set up your tools the next step is to respond. Be prepared with an online strategy. Don't just plan on winging it. Figure out what you want to say if someone is mad. Try to plan ahead for the questions people might ask you. If someone calls with an angry customer service issue note the question and plan ahead for next time. I have most of my clients meet with one of our social media lawyers to discuss planning ahead and building an online policy. This policy should cover anything you would consider not classy or stupid. This may seem silly to you but what you think is stupid your buddy may think it's funny. So save your company, your brand and your reputation and don't assume that your staff is all on the same page as you in regard to how you want to portray your brand's voice. Teresa Thompson's example of this are the people who thought it would be funny to take pictures of themselves in kitchen sinks at restaurants and then put those pictures online. In hine-site we think this was dumb, they apparently didn't think so. I'm not saying you need to tell your staff not to hop in sinks and take photos of themselves, but you may want to consider mentioning personal photos, liquor, foul language and the way they might respond to a distraught client.

Do you think I'm right or wrong? Am I at least on the right track in your opinion? Do you think that you can control the conversation? Do you like to manipulate how people think of you online? If you have a better answer to this question or think I'm completely off my reservation, let me know in the comments or on my twitter. I always love to hear from you and know who's reading.

First photo is Chris Brogan and DesaraeV by JoelECarlson
Photo Credit (hats) hedonaut 
Photo Credit (bubble gum) pag asa
Photo Credits (weight of the world) Vagamundos
Photo Credits (tools) JanneM 
Photo Credits (draft) icedtia 


As always you are more then welcome to use any of my content, repost it, rewrite it, and broadcast it all I ask is that you link back to where you found it (http://interactivemedias.blogspot.com)

I would also love to hear YOUR comments, questions or concerns of my posts and reviews! What do you think, its ok if our opinions don't match up! Leave a comment or let me know what you would like to learn more about and maybe it will become my next blog post or video blog.

Also don't forget to subscribe to my video tutorials (on youtube or itunes) as well as subscribe to my blog posts on here so you can have the latest web tips, tricks and book reviews delivered directly to your inbox!


Thanks for reading!

--Desarae A. Veit
Agency Couture

What Happens in Vegas Stays on Facebook - xox the Social Media Nerderoty

I'm sure many of you know how much I love Chris Brogan's writing. He is an intelligent speaker, savvy with his social media presence, an articulate writer/blogger, and great at explaining how we all should re-humanize our business strategies.

This post really has nothing to do with Vegas.

The post title is just a quote, I really love and have heard before, but Chris uses it in the video I posted above. Watch the video. Then let's chat about your online strategy.

• What are you doing that is working for you? 
• What have you seen that other people do?
• What confuses you about online marketing?
• What do you think people are doing wrong?
  

As always you are more then welcome to use any of my content, repost it, rewrite it, and broadcast it all I ask is that you link back to where you found it (http://interactivemedias.blogspot.com)

I would also love to hear YOUR comments, questions or concerns of my posts and reviews! What do you think, its ok if our opinions don't match up! Leave a comment or let me know what you would like to learn more about and maybe it will become my next blog post or video blog.

Also don't forget to subscribe to my video tutorials (on youtube or itunes) as well as subscribe to my blog posts on here so you can have the latest web tips, tricks and book reviews delivered directly to your inbox!


Thanks for reading!

--Desarae A. Veit
Agency Couture