This mindset from my perspective – is sure to provide you with a way to connect not only your target market – but also connect all of the social networks that you participate. You can  ensure that you include all of the different types of communicators in a way that is authentic and true to them. I came across an article today that talks about a bakery business, that has done just that. They have connected several of the social networks they participate – so that they include everyone – where they  most like to reside. Clever. The article comes from a blog Marketingsherpa and is written by Adam T Sutton. The company Panna Dolce is located in Chicago, Ill. For all you dessert lovers out there, they specialize in macaroons!

The results are pretty impressive. They say that “The team estimates 35% of ecommerce sales come from referral traffic from social networks. That number jumped to about 50% during Valentine’s Day. Also, the team’s work is earning them valuable business contacts.”

If you think about it – it really comes back to the basics. Some people love to text or email. Others like to communicate via social networks and then there are those like me – that still like to pick up the phone. I know myself I tend to try and communicate with people in the way they like to engage – for ease of connection and relationship building too. Many businesses have yet to grasp this multi pronged approach. How many ways are you engaging with your customers?

Best Nicole

When working in social media, many marketers stick to a few areas, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Justin Greis, Owner, Panna Dolce, chose a broader approach.

The Chicago-based French maracron, cookie and brownie bakery relaunched in December 2009 after perfecting their macron recipe for five years. Now, they have a blog and also work in Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr, YouTube and other networks.

“We don’t discriminate,” says Greis. “We found there are different types of people who connect through different types of networks, and the more we’re connected and linked up through a central hub, which ends up being our blog and our ecommerce site, the better.”

Amazingly, Panna Dolce’s three-member team is able to keep content fresh in all these networks while maintaining their business. They do so, in part, by connecting as many accounts as possible, so a blog post becomes a tweet, a video becomes a Facebook update, and so on.

“We haven’t seen a lot of interaction on our blogs. But when you link your blog to Facebook, when you like it to Twitter, when you link it to YouTube and Vimeo, you connect with people the way they want to be connected to — and that is absolutely essential.”

The team also generates content by partnering with and writing about relevant sites, as well as covering their own:
o Charity work
o New flavor launches
o Events attended
o Press mentions

The team’s website, powered by Volusion, enables shoppers to share links to their product pages, further increasing their content on the  networks.

All this work is paying off. The team estimates 35% of ecommerce sales come from referral traffic from social networks. That number jumped to about 50% during Valentine’s Day. Also, the team’s work is earning them valuable business contacts.

“We’ve had several offers from big retail department stores that are tasting our products right now to see if they want to pick them up. We’ve had a lot of interest from bigger boutique grocery stores…All of those contacts were made through [online social networks].”

This post and video from Retails Big Blog by Ellen Davis, VP and NRF spokesperson, is brilliant. It focuses on one of social media’s most important tools—and substantiates the opening to this post— that for the majority of people, this tool is becoming a conduit to engage your customers in ways that have not yet been leveraged. Best Buy is leading the way by acknowledging through this video that they realize and see this as a tremendous business opportunity.

If mobile is not on your company’s radar, this video is sure to change your mind!
Best Nicole

Benson, senior director of interactive marketing at Best Buy, began her presentation at the Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference by asking people to swap cell phones with the person sitting next to them. There was a lot (and, I mean, a LOT) of hesitation, but most people followed directions. Then we were asked to trade phones with another person close by. More hesitation ensued, but most people obliged.

At my table, I ended up holding the BlackBerry of a guy I’d never met and he (gasp!) was cradling my iPhone. It made me cringe. This short exercise was a powerful reminder to me – and, likely, many other attendees – of the personal value we place on our mobile devices.

What does mobile mean to Best Buy? A tremendous business opportunity. Best Buy debuted a video during Benson’s presentation about the value of mobile – not only on Best Buy’s employees, but also on the company. Take four minutes to watch this and you’ll realize, this is a company that gets it.

Mashable.com has a post, written by Soren Gordhamer, that is titled “7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media.” Gordhamer says “Many of us are on both sides of this relationship— sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation.” His article is a good tool to use with actionable tips on improving your networking skills.

Tell us about your network and some of the things that you have learned to best utilize your network for 2010.

Best Nicole

Social media allows us to discover, connect, and engage with new people of interest. While most people are open to new connections and receiving messages from people they don’t know, there is a fine line between reaching out and “spamming.” The challenge is to make a connection clearly and effectively without wasting people’s time.

Many of us are on both sides of this relationship — sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation. To help navigate these waters a little better, I’ve outlined seven key lessons for improving your social networking skills.

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1. Find a Person’s Preferred Communication Channel

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If you want to contact someone you have never communicated with before, do some research. Find the person’s preferred communication channel. If they have a website, check out their contact page and see if they encourage people to contact them in a particular way, and follow their suggestion.

It also helps to discover what level of participation they have on various social networks (Twitter (), Facebook (), YouTube ()) to see which places may be best to engage them. When is the last time they posted on Twitter or Facebook? Do they respond to the @replies they receive on Twitter or comments on a Facebook page? Get a sense of their preferred means of communication, and make contact where they are.

Lesson: Go where they are.

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2. Say Just Enough

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This cannot be emphasized enough, and it is probably my toughest challenge. In the age of social media, we may be able to get the attention of more people, but we get it for a much shorter amount of time. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make, is that they send long e-mails or social media messages explaining all the reasons they want to connect. You are likely have not earned not earned the five minutes of the recipient’s time that it will take to read that message.

Brevity is built right into Twitter, making it a great platform for making a first connection. However, if you use other channels, keep it simple. If there are 700 words you eventually want to get across, include only 50 in the first contact. Let the person choose if he or she would like more. You can fill in the rest later. I prefer a less complete 50 words than 700 words that tell me more than I need to know.

Lesson: Less is more.

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3. Don’t Expect a Response

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I often see e-mails with phrases like “Please respond,” or “please get back to me.” Unless it is an old friend or a colleague, if you are contacting someone new, you are not entitled to a response. If the person wants to get back to you, he or she will. It is much better to say “If this is not of interest, feel no need to get back to me.”

At times I hear people complain because they reached out to someone and never heard back. The fact is most people do not have the time to get back to everyone who contacts them to say, “not interested.” Open a door without adding pressure. There may be times to follow-up, of course, but don’t do so with resentment or frustration.

Lesson: Say what you need to and then let it go.

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4. Clarify Early

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This may seem like common sense, but don’t wait for the last line of your message to say that you want to meet for lunch, or ask your contact if he’d like to speak at an event. Put it right up front. If he cannot provide what you’re looking for, he’ll know sooner rather than later, and will appreciate you for it.

Lesson: Say it up front.

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5. What You Want is Not the Point

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You may think that what you want is a phone call or lunch meeting to discuss your big idea. But communication is more than any one project or meeting. What you really want is an authentic connection.

In a very real way, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the person is interested in discussing your project idea. What matters is whether you are making a connection.

If you focus on the relationship more than the specific request, and the person has a pleasant experience reading your opening communication, it is likely the door will remain open for possible collaboration in the future, and the next e-mail you send will more likely be fruitful.

Lesson: No one knows what the future may hold, so make the moment count. Ensure the door stays open, even if no one is walking through it right now.

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6. Be Open Without Needing

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Needy never goes over well. Statements like “I really need to talk to you,” or “it is essential that we speak,” show your general insecurity. There is a huge difference between being open to collaboration and “needing” it.

Do not make contact until you find that place in yourself that is totally comfortable with any outcome, including a strong “no” or no response at all. Only then can you make authentic contact. When you do, openness rather than need will come through in your words.

Lesson: Speak from openness rather than need.

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7. Give Space

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The key questions people have when someone new reaches out to them, particularly those who are quite busy, are “Do I have time to bring this person into my network? How much time will they take?”

Therefore, it is generally not helpful to send too many e-mails. Doing this may send the signal that you are going to take a lot of the recipient’s time and send numerous e-mails every day, and communicating with you will take great effort.

Instead, give communication some space. Unless something is very timely, let a bit of time pass before sending a response. Let communication have some breathing room. Once there is some level of trust, you can experiment with more immediate information exchange.

Lesson: Focus on thoughtful instead of continual contact.

It all begins with finding ways to start that conversation. Media Post Insider, one of the trade publications  I read daily, has written a post with 3 great ideas that outline how you can get that conversation started— today. Darrah MacLean, the author of the post, suggests that “in our status-update-obsessed culture, people want to have their opinions heard and valued. By being a good listener, you plant the seeds of loyalty.”

Don’t put off today what you need to do for tomorrow. There is no time like the present!

Best Nicole

When was the last time you asked your subscriber base to share their thoughts? Three months ago? Six months ago? 12 months ago? Never? (Say it isn’t so.) Staying current with your audience keeps you grounded in reality. It helps you know what’s really going on, not just what you “think” is going on.

In our status-update-obsessed culture, people want to have their opinions heard and valued. By being a good listener, you plant the seeds of loyalty. As you take a look at your plans for 2010, you might want to add in one (or all three) of the strategies below to help get the conversation started.

1) Survey Says. 2009 resolutions are history, but 2010 resolutions are just getting started. So, how will you do things differently this year? Better yet, how do your subscribers want you to do things differently? There’s no way to know for certain unless you ask. With your customers fresh off their holiday shopping sprees, now is the perfect time to tap into their online and in-store shopping experiences. To encourage participation, consider throwing in an incentive for taking a survey, as Moosejaw did. Another idea would be to tap into your Facebook fanbase and Twitter followers. Simply post a link to your hosted version of the survey email

2) Product Reviews. More and more consumers are turning to product reviews to help them make their purchasing decisions. Why not make a 2010 resolution to show your site’s product reviews some love. Zappos and Sephora get fancy by dynamically populating their review requests with photos of recently purchased products. An even fancier bonus would be the ability to post my recent product review and product shot to my Facebook page! To launch their product review push, Lululemon introduced a “we heart feedback” campaign in the middle of December. While we could debate the timing of the messaging, the branding of it is really inspiring.

(Sidebar: Adding a little copy like “Purchase this item for someone else? Forward this email so we can get their feedback.” is a great solve for when the product review email goes to the purchaser vs. the gift recipient.)

3) Preferences Please. As we move more towards personalizing content and creating meaningful social experiences, we’re going to have to put our preference centers and profile modules to work. Take Sephora, for example. I’ve heard from many sources that they truly use their preference center to help customize emails for subscribers. After receiving this Beauty Insider Update email, I now realize why I get the generic versions” I never filled out my beauty profile! I’ll be excited to see how my email experience changes now that I’ve given them all kinds of details to work with. Taking the update request a step further, Piperlime includes a preference center message in each and every email. Now that’s dedication.

What are you doing right to ensure your ecommerce success?

Best Nicole

During her keynote this morning, Forrester’s Sucharita Mulpuru outlined why e-commerce is “the bright side of retail” and what, specifically, it’s been doing right.

“How is it that web retailers have managed to outperform so many other sectors?” she asked. “The easy answer is that we have lower prices or smaller bases to work with, but I think those are cheap shots…not to mention outright wrong.”

Here are the six things Mulpuru says online retailers have done right:

1) Reset their goals. Times have changed, she said, and companies realized that “to arrive alive at the end of this downturn was the best way to grow in the long run.”

2) Redefined their competition. From McDonald’s venture into coffee to Netflix’s focus on long-term growth, retailers are taking a close look at their competition and a new approach to what’s next. “While bricks and mortar is fighting the competition in the rear-view mirror, the competition is looking years ahead,” she said.

3) Respected IT. Web retailers spend seven percent of revenues on IT, while retail as a whole spends about two percent, she said. “The delta really lies in the innovation within e-commerce, enabling people to pay online without credit cards or zoom,” she said. “We cannot understate the value of making these investments.”

4) Reinforced their partners. Consumers are brand-loyal and love their favorite manufacturers, she said. “Manufacturers realize the web is a bonanza, and the web empowers them.” By her estimates, about a third of e-commerce spend is generated directly on manufacturer’s websites or is closely influenced by them, so “smart manufacturers realize it’s important to do things like offer an extended assortment or provide value-added content.”

5) Reacted to people power. Over half of retailers who participated in the State of Retailing Online have engaged in social media, though 66% say return is unclear and half of companies say they are just doing it because everyone else is. That said, about a third of online retailers say social marketing initiatives have helped them grow their business. “Companies that have found value in social marketing have found value in the ways that companies find value in market research,” she said. “Social media is an opportunity to engage in customers in a way that helps you over a period of time.”

6. Recognized the mobility revolution. “If there was one product that was recession-proof, it was the iPhone,” she said. “And companies that certainly recognized that were a step ahead of others.” While the number of consumers accessing the Internet through mobile devices is growing, it remains relatively small, she said, but those people are actually buying through their mobile devices. If you’re too focused on email to think about mobile, Mulpuru offered a caveat: more seniors use email than Gen Yers, who are too busy texting, she said. “Email is web retailers’ best friend, but it’s not the future.”

Best Nicole 

Six months ago, Brianna Karp found herself living in an old truck and camper she inherited after the suicide of a father she barely knew.

On Monday, her life became a 21st century fairytale when she turned her blog about homelessness into a plum internship for the fashion bible Elle magazine.

This is a story about love and Twitter, hope and the relative safety of a Walmart parking lot. Bri is our star, but there’s also Matt, her trans-Atlantic boyfriend who found her on the streets of Orange County, Calif., as she wrote about her predicament at girlsguidetohomelessness.com.

And there’s E. Jean Carroll, a popular advice columnist for Elle who reached out with a $150-a-month job after Bri touched her in a letter, signing off Homeless, But Not Hopeless.

But to Bri and Matt, it’s also a story about thousands of other smart, skilled, can-do people who recently had work and real addresses but don’t any more.

“So inaccurate is the public perception of homelessness that the world cries foul when a homeless person is seen with a mobile phone or an iPod or heaven forbid, a laptop,” Matt said. “Homeless people don’t use the Internet, they don’t write blogs, they’re not webmasters and they don’t use Twitter. They are alcoholics, they are substance abusers, they are illiterate. They don’t work. They sure as hell don’t have the right to fall in love. Do they?”

Matthew Barnes, 36, and Brianna Karp, 24, are none of those bad things, some of those good things and did just that.

Karp left her emotionally unstable mother at age 18, later landing as an executive assistant at Kelley Blue Book’s headquarters in Irvine, Calif. When she was laid off in July 2008, she lived on temp work and unemployment benefits until she couldn’t afford to keep her $1,500-a-month, 600-square-foot cottage in Costa Mesa.

“I had a few hundred dollars left,” Karp said. “I had been working a very decent job earning about $50,000 a year. But I couldn’t keep relying on finding a new job. I moved in with my mother and her husband for a month or two, but it didn’t work out. It was tense.”

On Feb. 26, she took advantage of a Walmart policy allowing owners of recreational vehicles to use some of their store parking lots for overnight stays, heading for one in Brea with her Mastiff, Fezzik. And she blogged from Starbucks while she continued to search for work, buying $5 cards each month that entitled her to sip coffee and soak up unlimited Wi-Fi.

“I was unassuming and well dressed and I didn’t bother anyone,” she said. “It’s a great resource when you’re homeless. It’s invaluable. They were always happy to see me.”

She rolled out her resume at the rate of 30 or 40 each day, picking up a little more temp work, living at Walmart in the 30-foot camper with no heat, running water or means to cook. She wrote as a way to stay in touch with the world. Soon, other homeless people were leaving comments on her blog, telling their stories and cheering her on.

“I was definitely surprised just how many homeless and former homeless people are online and using social media to seek opportunities,” Karp said.

One of them was Barnes, a Brit who was living in Huntly, Scotland, and became homeless after his marriage fell apart and he lost his job. He, too, was running a blog — homelesstales.com.

In March, Barnes found Karp on Twitter promoting her writing: “Tips for surviving homelessness. You may be homeless, but you do not need to be a bum!” she tweeted. He was her first follower. She, he said, “seemed courageous and levelheaded but also a little frightened and certainly vulnerable. She was also adorably cute with the prettiest eyes, though it was to be a while before I expressed this opinion to her.”

They exchanged direct messages on Twitter, then e-mail, then instant messages. Eventually Barnes made his way to California and they shared the camper, she chasing work and he maintaining his blog.

But they had forgotten about something in the chaos of the day-to-day after Walmart kicked them off the property and they relocated to the backyard of a friend of a friend in Riverside, Calif.

Back in early April, Karp had run across a casting call for a reality show that was to feature executive assistants. She auditioned but froze due to nerves and felt she had missed the chance. A couple of days after the disaster, she e-mailed E. Jean as a lark, laying out her life and asking, “How does one get another shot when one screws up a job interview?”

Carroll put the letter and her response on askejean.com and in the August Elle, telling her e-mailer, “Miss Homeless, my dear: You don’t `get’ another shot. You take it.”

She offered Karp a telecommuting internship of four months, explaining, “You knocked me out with your courage and spirit,” and concluded: “At the end of the four months, if you don’t have a job and an awesome place to live, I will become YOUR intern.”

The offer went unanswered until Aug. 24, when Karp stumbled across a story about it on another Web site. Karp was frantic that she had once again missed out on a life-transforming opportunity, sure the magazine and the columnist had given up on hearing from her. She quickly e-mailed E. Jean her enthusiastic yes and found the offer was still good.

“I’m so stoked. I don’t care if she wants me to pick up her dog’s poop,” Karp said. “I’ve read her column for years.”

The internship amounts to an hour a day, six days a week so Karp can continue to search for work. Carroll hopes to use Karp to help answer e-mail from readers and sort the results of a survey about college students she conducted on Facebook.

Karp has also been invited to blog about her life and her future at elle.com for an undisclosed sum. Her first entry went up Monday with the headline: The New Face of Homelessness.

“You hear stories which break your heart, smash your heart up that you’ve got to see what you can do,” Carroll said. “This is certainly one tiny little thing, but I think her voice is a very important one, and it’s not heard. We’re going to try to get her on her feet.”

When someone’s mind is made up and they have a negative experience with you in any form, that experience can spread like wild fire. Today’s post from Marketing Prof’s “Get to the Point” is a perfect example. This post is spreading like wildfire across the internet as I write this. There is enough business out there for all of us. You never have to force anyone to do business with you or listen to what you have to say. Focus on the people who are dying to hear from you and have them spread that to other like minded people! The reward will be never ending!

Best Nicole

How’s This for Passing the Buck?

One year ago, Lynda Partner wrote—but did not publish—a blog post that eviscerated a software company for taking liberties with her email address, and then treating her complaint with stunning indifference. “Why publish it now, you ask? This week I got more spam from this same company,” she says. “It made me so angry that I dug up this post and I hope it gets wide distribution.”

It all began with an email, purportedly from the company’s CEO, that invited Partner to become an “ambassador” for the company, a role filled by “its biggest fans, best users, and closest friends.” There was only one problem: she had never heard of this CEO and couldn’t figure out why he had her email address.

“It took me a while,” she says, “but it turns out that when I opened a Web-hosting account recently, the hosting provider offered a free download of [the CEO's] software. I did not download it. So how did they get my email address?”

Partner wrote a brief note saying she never opted in to the company’s campaigns, and requesting confirmation that her email address had been removed from its list. The person who replied continued to insist she had downloaded the software and that the only way to stop receiving messages from his company was to cancel her account.

The result? Partner’s scalding post now travels the Internet.

The Po!nt: Use common sense. Pushy tactics like these are nothing more than self-destructive.

So many people feel that if they put up a facebook page and create a twitter account that they’re off to the races with a social media campaign that will lead them to an instant increase of their goals. (For some it may work, but even those people have a plan in mind in regards to how they connect their campaigns.) For most, an “increase of their goals” arguably means sales. As social media and social networking are now allowing consumers to take control—to have a voice and be able to choose to speak to, and with, the products, services and people they care about—there is no more hiding from this marketing channel. What truly makes this channel great is when you have a strategy that partners with the offline channels as well. Email is terrific. But what happens when that customer who received your email goes to your bricks and mortar business? If there is not a seamless integration and continuity of that online message (we all remember it takes 5 to 8 replays of the same message for it to resonate) you risk the chance that your message will be lost or never received.

It is creating a strategy—a plan that includes your online, offline and in-store marketing channels—that will ensure that your message never gets lost. The post below from Marketing Profs, Get to the Point, gives you a few ways to see how this works.

What’s your plan?

Best Nicole

For too long, too many marketers have underestimated the value of email’s impact on offline retail,” say Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. If you focus entirely on generating online sales, they argue, you might be missing out on bricks-and-mortar opportunities. They’ve seen retailers use multichannel “noteworthy tactics” like these:

In-store discounts that are unavailable online. The pair cite an email offer from Betsey Johnson touting a special perk for in-store shoppers: a gift card worth at least $25 for those who spend $250 or more.

Images and copy that heighten the appeal of an in-store visit. “Apple reminds subscribers … of their great in-store service by including a picture of a blue-shirted expert alongside store offerings,” they say, “and also by using beautiful store photography to make subscribers eager to experience in-store shopping.”

Personalized invitations. Have your sales associates write personal emails with an invitation to a special in-store event. Nordstrom, for instance, did this when inviting its most loyal customers to a special sneak-peek ahead of an anniversary sale.

The Po!nt: Link your 2D and 3D. “Remember that there’s likely much overlap between your most loyal email subscribers and your loyal store visitors,” say Harmon and Madison. If you haven’t leveraged that crossover, try using strategies like these to help make it happen.

If you’ve been following my posts, you may have begun to recognize a familiar pattern. One that involves me wading daily through all sorts of trend reports, ezines, e-mails and blogs from every industry you can imagine. In my world, meetings never begin before noon (that’s if I have anything to say about it) and my morning kicks off with a potent cup of joe and a mountain of mail overflowing in my inbox.

Today, as I began to drink away the usual morning fog that always welcomes me, I saw a distinct pattern in the many emails that I searched through. It is clear…retailers are embracing social media to find new ways of getting the word out about their sales, promotions, products and services as the holiday season revs up into full gear.

The first and most interesting read was about NFLShop.com and it’s focus on advertising to women as we approach the holidays. Hoorah for the NFL!! I am a long-standing and proud Pittsburgh Steelers fan, so this was very exciting to hear. From an article in Mediaweek:

Instead of tapping into its predominantly male audience, the National Football League’s e-commerce arm will go after female shoppers, who make up the majority of the site’s business this time of year.

While the online shopping demographic usually skews 70 percent male and 30 percent female on NFLshop.com, around Christmas the numbers flip, said Bob O’Keefe, who oversees NFL Direct, the sports organization’s database of 25 million fans. Last year, 60 percent of the site’s shoppers were women during the holidays, per the company.

There is an ad that will be running on many of the major TV networks featuring a woman giving her husband his favorite jersey as a gift. This will be the first time NFLShop.com has run an ad during the holiday season.

There is already a fair bit of twittering, texting and e-mailing going on thanks to retailers and shoppers hyping sales and bargains. Social networking — be it through sites like Twitter or Facebook — is magnifying the seasonal gift-a-thon more than ever before.

From the MSNBC website:

At JCPenney’s Web site, for example, you can sign up for a wake-up call for the day after Thanksgiving, as well as get “helpful shopping tips” texted to your phone throughout the season. You may want to consider putting your phone on “vibrate” at work.

Sears is launching “Sears2go,” for cell phone users, who want to text in their orders, do product searches or find special offers.

Amazon.com, among others, is also happy to send you a text alert for its “daily deals,” if you’re not already getting bombarded with e-mails from the Internet giant, as well as other retailers. The company has also started a test version of Amazon Windowshop, a kind of 3-D experience where shoppers can sample movie trailers, music and audio book reviews.

It is clear that people want to be engaged! Building brand evangelism is now about companies taking advantage of all the social media tools they can to reach each and every individual customer one by one!

Happy Shopping.

Best Nicole