It has been months since we have put a post on our blog. Not because we didn’t have anything to SHARE or celebrate as there is plenty of that, but rather because the demands of prioritizing as we continue to grow as a company – became our main focus.

As mentioned over the last year, I joined the millions of adults who faced the “unplanned” reality of a parent facing significant illness and the change to their lives and mine was monumental.

I think we all believe we can do it all and when reality hits you – sometimes we need to rethink “what doing it all means“. For me it has meant being the best daughter I could be first. Second it meant helping our clients understand, create and implement social/digital strategy and tactics to meet their business objectives and establish meaningful relationships with their customers.

Some may perceive this absence – to be a lack of savvy or klout for us as a business or a company. Others may have thought we dropped out of the game. Neither could be further from the truth! Marketing guru Scott Stratten often tweets on Twitter as @unmarketing -  the idea that one is better to post nothing on a blog, then to post something that is not of value.

What is amazing about substance – is that we began this blog in November 2008. That was almost 4 years ago and right out of the gate I began writing about social media and digital strategy. At that time, all the clients I visited were curious to listen to what I had to say – but none of them were ready to take the chance and test it out. The information over that span of time shared on our blog and website is now relevant and used by many companies and businesses to meet their objectives and establish honest and true relationships with their customers. Funny, that it is now a mandate for all businesses to be engaging social media as a marketing strategy – for success!

From that perspective, the content, opinions, ideas and many examples from the many posts over an almost four year period are well worth the read! We encourage you to look back and see what we had to say then and see how that information matches up to your goals and needs now.

As the summer comes to a close – we look forward to once again becoming engaged and active by continuing to lead the way with ideas, opinions and new styles of engaging and encouraging you – to leverage social media and digital channels to meet your business objectives.

Thanks always for all your support!

Best Nicole

This legitimizes the power and success of social media and re-enforces for all businesses – it is time to get into the game. It also points to many other big companies, Canada’s major retailer The Bay is rumored to be looking at an IPO for the fall. But how are these retailers leveraging the power of social media – as they step into the future in their marketing and continue to engage  their customers?

Everywhere you turn, analysts, media guru’s and business consultants are coming out to talk about social media. The retail industry is just beginning to jump into the foray. I think what is lost on so many businesses – but vital for these retailers is the understanding and skill of linking total communications – to their digital strategy using social media. They all began and continue offline to market to their customers with flyers, magazine inserts, pop -(point of sale) signage in-store, radio and television commercials. Those retailers who have a long history – take with them their brand identity and recognition via these marketing vehicles. As more retailers look to transfer that online traffic to their stores – they need to clearly understand how their customer  wants to communicate in the digital space. Then link their traditional marketing efforts to that digital strategy – seamlessly.

Social media is about engagement. These companies began their engagement with customers offline. Where the message for execution is being lost for many businesses is – that social media communities are extensions of what has and does happen in the real world.  Social media is a way to personally engage and build a one one on one relationship with your customer. The real success and skill comes from mirroring that traditional relationship with your company and brand and moving it online. What were the positive results and transactions you had with your customers offline?

Finding influencers in your target market and creating discussions, sharing ideas, expertise and taking their ideas and expertise to be shared with others in your community is where the success is going to be greatest. Remembering where you started and having a seamless pathway for your customers to travel – using the tools that are familiar and easily available to them, is taking that total communications purpose and making sure that you are making the transition with ease and comfort.

So where to start? Almost everyone has a Facebook page and coming behind Facebook many have a Twitter account. Almost all businesses have a website and from there they can use a multitude of ways to guide their customers in the way they want to communicate. Understanding the total communications pathway and leveraging that path to engage via social media will ensure nobody gets left behind!

Best Nicole

I was thinking about our small boutique agency. As we continue to grow and create successful campaigns for our clients, we work to carve out a space for those companies who greatly desire our skill, expertise, creative tech skills & bandwidth -while meeting and exceeding their objectives. Yes and keeping the money in their pockets with low cost innovation and implementation and high returns. Some believe the more “likers” and followers you have the better success you will be – yet they forget that it is quality not quantity you want via information and engagement. There is today no accident that your neighbor, former high school teacher, doctor, dentist and boss former & current are all on Facebook. (Yes we may all want to take an extra minute to review our privacy settings) It means that all the brands you can think of, businesses, products and services know we are all there too and they are looking for new marcom partners and business advisers to help them reach all of us. Both online and offline. It will be those such as ourselves with a wealth of award winning traditional talent and  savvy experiential technical talent – who clearly understand and can translate that user experience – on an array of platforms, that will help you knock it out of the park- in reaching that customer in the place you desire to have them go.

In the past – the key to audience targeting was focused on assigning people to demographics such as age, gender and location. While this info. is still vital – with so much data available to us now and the idea that understanding that data first- before going forward with that “knock it out of the park campaign” means much success in the campaigns you create.

“Targeting can be and is much more dynamic and can gauge your interests and preferences.” Ever notice that the ads on Facebook and Twitter, the suggested people to follow and things that relate to what you like and care about are truly on par just for you? It is this behavioral targeting that is now the future of where the internet and your marketing and communications is going both offline and online.

Mashable.com has a great article from a week ago that speaks to this very topic. Lauren Drell writes about 4 Ways That Behavioral Targeting is Changing the Web. It is a brilliant article that I encourage all of you who are looking to better understand and target your customers to read.

Drell gives a great explanation of how this works for those that are not yet familiar -“Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf. (Though one interviewee, ContextWeb, targets based on content and not cookies.) Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected.”

Companies that are paying attention to this understanding and moving towards  behavioral targeting with their data – through their advertising- can’t help but to expect more success and engagement by people who have indicated on the web what their preferences are and that they would be interested in YOUR product and or service. Of course this detailed data collection can be more costly, but the sales conversion rate of targeting to the correct buyer is sure to offset this cost. The viral advantage grows as well – as those accurately targeted customers- then SHARE those products , your products – with prequalified friends, family and colleagues.

Viva the future.

Best Nicole

Normally I post a link to articles that touch me or incite something that I wanted to talk about and share with our readers. For today I am going to post an article that I though was important as more businesses focus on how to market to women. Most of us are familiar with TED Talks. I have posted many of them on this blog over the last few yrs.  Engage Boomers: Media Posts rss feed from today – had a beautiful article written by Stephen Riley who attended the most recent TED Talks. What got me was the line “What Boomer Women Look Like” and the subsequent overview of some of the world’s most powerful women and how they reflect accomplishment – not reflected as a targeted age group – but rather as women making a grand difference around the globe – and as Riley writes “creating goals with a purpose.”

As more businesses strategically plan and leverage social media tools, as a way to market their products and services – women play a huge role - not only as decision makers and consumers, but also in helping you create and SHARE your goals and purpose. This new dynamic is about finding ways to create an experience – that incites the recipient of that experience – to take the action you intended them to make.

Best Nicole

What TED Can Teach Us About Marketing To Women

I recently attended the annual TED Conference, which gathers attendees each year to hear cutting-edge scientists, inspiring artists, and global reformers give their own versions of the famous 18-minute “TED Talks.” You have probably seen (or been sent) some TED Talks yourself; all the talks I saw will soon be available to see and share.

As I made my way home after four days of these mind-blowing presentations, I started focusing on some underlying themes. One of those themes was the portrait TED painted (through its speakers) of Baby Boomer women and the true meaning of “aspiration.”

I also found myself wondering how these themes will be discussed at this year’s M2W Conference on April 13-14 in Chicago. M2W may not have as many inventors at TED, but it features a lot of speakers and attendees who think about marketing to women of all ages.

What Great Boomer Women Look Like

Most of the women speakers at TED were themselves Baby Boomers, and they reflected a wide array of female accomplishment:

• Indra Nooyi, the 55-year old chairman and CEO of Pepsico, explained Pepsi’s new mission statement: “Performance with Purpose.” On the “purpose” side of that equation, she told the story of the “Pepsi Refresh Project,”, where millions of citizens have nominated and voted for non-profit groups to receive grants from funds that Pepsi would have otherwise spent on commercials.

• Edith Widder, 60, a biologist, conservationist, and deep-sea explorer, told us about her decades-long fascination with bio-illuminescence, the property that lets an infinite variety of deep-sea creatures produce light. Widder’s lifelong passion has changed the way we see and protect 99% of living space on earth that takes place below the ocean’s surface.

• Julie Taymor, 58 and the creator of “The Lion King,” identified her own creative impulse with an experience at the edge of an active New Zealand volcano, then compared that experience to the inferno she finds herself in now as the producer of Broadway’s disaster-prone “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

• Amina Az-Zubair, a Nigerian reformer, told her own story growing up in a more prosperous Nigeria and now delivering meaningful results as she oversees a $1 billion investment in education to improve the lives of 70 million Nigerians who live in poverty.

As these speakers rolled across my memory, I thought of the portrait they painted of what it means to be a Boomer woman in the U.S. and the world. I saw passions and qualities that we hear about from women but rarely see reflected in any advertisement. Those qualities include:

• An entrepreneurial spirit that is about doing well by doing good

• A reforming instinct

• A creative passion that never gives up

• Knowledge and wisdom that come from years of careful observation

Marketers always talk about what it presenting “aspirational” models for consumers. In the case of Boomer women, that usually means presenting them models who have no wrinkles or grey hair. Yet, the TED Talks I heard reminded me that aspiration can take many forms, and marketers who want to reach women over 50 should also recognize and celebrate the values these remarkable women exhibited: accomplishment borne from a lifelong passion, the wisdom gained from experience and a desire to make the world a better place.

If you remind Boomer women that you recognize these (among other) aspirations in them, you will make it a lot easier for them to help you achieve Pepsi’s goal of performance with purpose.

As we work to gear up with new campaigns for our clients in 2011 – using a digitally ahead- total communications outlook – leveraging tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube do and can work - not only for consumer engagement but to increase sales too! In a great article posted on Brandchannel.com – Going Social: Brands Large and Small Must Adapt to Social Media in 2011, Author Barry Silverstein says” Going social will demand a whole new level of consumer responsiveness from brand marketers – and a whole new way of looking at lead generation and qualifications process. Those who rise to that challenge will have the distinct advantage over their competitors in 2011. Click here to read more of this article.

For us the proof is always in the case studies and examples of success to show how powerful something can become. Everyone by now is familiar with the Old Spice campaign. That campaign garnered 140 million views on Twitter, an increase of Facebook fans of 2700% and 1.2 million Facebook fans. Sales rose 107%, according to Neilsen Data. You can’t get better than that. Here’s a link to a video from CREATIVITY that provides a case study for you to see how it worked so well.

The famed agency Weiden Kennedy knocked it out of the park with this one. What are you gonna do?

Best Nicole

Best Nicole and the BCAD Group Team

Search in the world of technology is the main driver and source of revenue for all of us looking to build our visibility online. “As a marketing strategy, SEO is used to increase a site’s relevance. The SEO recognizes how search organics work and what people are searching for. It also initiates efforts to include unique content to a site to ensure that its content is easily indexed by search engine robots, making it more appealing to users.”

As this year winds down it is important to reflect and see what the past year’s successes, failures, tragedy’s and challenges were- in order to help plan and build enthusiasm, goals and growth for the year ahead. I came across this video via Google Zeitgeist 2010 that provides you with a great overview of the top searches in 2010 around the globe. Great way to get the juices flowing as we all plan to search on in 2011.

2010 in Review

Re-live top events and moments from 2010 from around the globe through search, images, and video.

Enjoy!

Best Nicole

When you begin to engage your community it will be come clear within the community – the ways to which your” likers” or community members  love to share information. It may even be in ways that will go outside or beyond the products and services that – you focused your community building on. Finding creative ways to allow these most important customers – to be able to engage others, share their lives, ideas, opinions and interests  -will allow and encourage others to share back. You create a real human association as well – when you are now allowing those who use and love your products most – to be your marketing spokes people. Lets not forget the opportunity to increase sales with people who are so eager to share themselves with others and learn new things in a place that you opened up to them. You also get to learn by listening to this burgeoning community you are building and find out what people love, dislike and are truly interested in – as it relates to your products and services, as well as the customers who are passionate about what you do and want to connect with others with similar interests.

It is no surprise that many companies are now using Facebook as a platform to build communities and engage their customers. 250 million people go on Facebook everyday! There is a wonderful post I came across today – that led to this article from my favorite social media site Mashable.com. It features 5 valuable online community marketing lessons from Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese. This article is written by Sarah Kessler. The community called “The Real Women of Philadelphia” is led by Paula Deen, as their celebrity brand ambassador. Results have exceeded expectation in community size goals, community engagement and sales. Better yet by letting this community build and form on its own – a whole group of women have found ways to engage and support one another far beyond cream cheese!

All good relationships are about listening, sharing and working together to build value to each person in that relationship. By letting your community take charge – you open the doors to some magical opportunities for both the community and your brand!

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers.

Best Nicole

Asking kitchen-savvy women to not only invent their own dishes, but also shoot, edit and upload videos to a contest website seems like a recipe for disaster. But when Kraft invited women to do just that in its latest online promotional campaign for Philadelphia Cream Cheese, it got about 5,600 more responses than the 400 it set as its goal. With Paula Deen at its helm, what was intended to be a one-year campaign blossomed into a thriving social network of more than 30,000 women.

“When it was all laid on the table, I couldn’t believe the opportunity. I had to pass on an ‘attagirl’ or a boost to more women out there,” explained Paula Deen at a recent promotional luncheon.

When someone seated at a nearby table reminded Deen that the campaign has also been successful in selling more cream cheese, she looked sarcastically surprised. “It did? I hadn’t even thought of that!” she said.

The truth is that the The Real Women of Philadelphia helped sell quite a bit more cream cheese — 5% more, as of August. As a branded social network, The Real Women of Philadelphia is about as successful as the cream-cheese-infused French Apple Cake that swept the dessert video competition. These four aspects contributed to the campaign’s sweet success:

1. Leverage an Existing Community

There are arguably few personalities who could represent cream cheese with more gusto, and Paula Deen’s large fan base was likely to already be cooking with cream cheese. By advertising the Real Women of Philadelphia campaign on Paula Deen’s website and having Paula Deen star in ads on other media, Kraft was able to reach an existing community of the women it wanted to speak to. EQAL, the company that beat out companies like ABC and Yahoo for the opportunity to produce the campaign in partnership with Digitas, referred to Paula Deen’s role as the “igniter.”

2. Create a Reason for Users to Create Content

Even with Paula Deen as an ambassador, it’s hard to imagine that the campaign would have had much success as, let’s say, a social network feature on the Philadelphia Cream Cheese website. The competitive aspect was and is crucial to the success. For the first iteration of the contest, women submitted instructional videos about their invented cream cheese recipes. Sixteen finalists were chosen and flown to Savannah for a live webcast competition, hosted by Paula Deen, that determined the four women who would become “hosts” for the next iteration of the competition and win $25,000. Currently these four hosts are accepting submissions for the cookbook that Kraft will create using 80 of the best recipes from the community, recipes from the four hosts, and Paula Deen recipes. Every day the hosts choose a winning recipe from the community, which earns its author $500.

Because women have invested themselves in creating content for these contests, they feel more ownership of the site and are more likely to visit frequently. Greg Goodfried, the co-founder and COO of EQAL, says that it’s important to have some motive for people to create content on a branded social network. This motive doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition, but it needs to be strong enough to spark the community.

3. Focus on Community Content, Not Your Content

Between videos of Paula Deen and vidoes starring the four hosts, the EQAL team has produced more than 50 videos for the site. But they are careful to keep the spotlight on the user-generated content. During the initial competition, for instance, the homepage featured select submissions. One main feature of the site is a gallery of community recipe submissions, and the team will post especially impressive contributions from the community on the LoveMyPhilly Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“There was a really great sense that the content people were sending in was the main attraction and made them feel like stars, and it made people thoroughly engaged,” Goodfried says.

4. Step Aside

When Kraft launched the campaign, the company wasn’t sure what to expect.

“I think originally we thought that they would talk a lot about food, a lot about the competition,” Goodfried says. “[We thought] there might be a little bit of competitive component to it, and they would just all be excited about the opportunity to win.”

When the women started talking about their personal lives, it surprised the community’s architects. At one point, a woman mentioned that she couldn’t afford a dress for her daughter’s school dance. Other women in the community offered to ship their own grown daughters’ dresses to her. One woman offered to make a dress. Another woman who wasn’t sure how to use a video editing program mailed her raw video submission to another member of the community who had volunteered to edit it.

Instead of trying to divert these discussions back toward cream cheese, EQAL decided to let the community shape the site. When the managers saw the conversations shaping around individuals lives, they added a weekly “spotlight” post in which they profile a community member that has been nominated or shared something interesting on the site. When forum topics popped up that were unrelated to Kraft, cheese, or food, they let them be. The tools on the site allowed women to create a robust profile, privately message each other, and participate in whatever way they wanted. By letting the members shape the community, Kraft was able to build a stronger one.

“These incredible personal connections that extended beyond food, beyond cooking, beyond anything related to the competition just occurred,” Goodfried says. “There are substantial numbers of women that we have talked to that have way more friends on Real Women of Philadelphia than they have on Facebook.”

5. Play a Supportive Role, Not a Director’s Role

If the creators of the social network can make it richer by getting out of the way, what are they supposed to do once the site launches?

In this case, they spent a lot of time helping women participate by fielding questions about editing and uploading videos. After a couple of weeks, other women in the community started answering these kinds of questions in the forums. But the role of the managers remained supportive.

“The only reason we build these sites is to encourage people to come to them to make content and submit content,” Goodfried says. “It’s not one-way where we’re just publishing things and people are coming and consuming it. We’re trying to start this spark of a conversation, this spark of community, and then encourage the community to be engaged.”

Most of us, even those of us who still do not have smart phones own phones that provide cameras, texting and email. We take those phones with us everywhere and use them as a beacon to stay connected, informed and give us the answers to the info. we need immediately. This simple deduction makes mobile a key player in how we live our lives day to day. For those that have a smart phone such as myself – apps are a key way to get information from brands, products and services we use and evangelize and keep customers  informed. In some cases these apps allow the purchase of products from a mobile device, other apps provide updates about sales, events, promotions and new product launches. It makes sense in the retail world that finding ways to leverage mobile commerce should be high on the marketing budget and strategy list.

There are some of the big brands that have mobile apps both in the retail world at large – but also in the fashion world which is directly related to our attached article. Where I think that retailers can really start to think big- is by utilizing all the ways they can leverage different types of mobile commerce including mobile websites and texting to enhance the customer experience.  Currently most retailers are still not interfacing with customers via their mobile phones in bricks and mortar locations. Most sales people are not using in-store mobile phones to share info. with customers, or using their computers to help customer take photos or share via text which is one of the largest uses for everyone.

Nordstrom’s has enhanced their customer ability to find product online and know where  and whether it is in stock .  Net a Porter the designer online fashion site allows you to purchase product from your mobile phone. Joe Fresh the stylish and economical fashion line featured in Canada’s grocery chain Loblaw’s uses their application to feature product, prices and style options in a fun way attached to store locations where looks can be found. Yet in-store experiences have still not been leveraged. As mentioned in our article free wi-fi is still not offered and many sales people are not thinking about the ways that they can leverage sharing, product colours or options that may not be offered at one location or available at another. What about helping a customer text products  to friends  -that can help them make a choice or decision to purchase? We are starting to see rewards for geo-location via mobile from companies like the Gap – who launched a contest for a free pair of jeans if you are one of the first 10,000 to check into Facebook Places on Friday.

As more people use their phone to manage all of their daily tasks – it be vital for retailers to think creatively on a variety of phone platforms – ways to communicate with customers in-store and out by the device that goes with them everywhere – allowing access to customers instantly and regularly. BNET features an article “How Fashion Brands Can Make the Most of M Commerce” authored by Lydia Dishman. The key for all retailers is not to just think in the world of apps  -but to think of how mobile commerce can best be used in the way their  target customer – is most likely to use their mobile device, integration of m commerce in-store and online and the engagement of employees that manage the sales in both of those venues.

Best Nicole

It took them a while to embrace e-commerce so it’s easy to forgive fashion brands and retailers for taking so long to use leverage smartphone technology to reach customers. But they won’t get a free pass for much longer. At a panel during WWD’s CEO Summit, savvy apparel retailers are having no trouble wrapping their heads (and dollars) around mobile-friendly sites and apps as a way to boost revenue and connect with consumers.

James Gardner, CEO and co-founder of CREATETHE GROUP, an interactive agency whose clients include Burberry, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Neiman Marcus (NM) and others told me:

Spending is higher on the web, but the mobile apps help brands reach the consumer wherever they are with their mobile device, and offer another engaging way to interact with the brands, strengthen brand loyalty and to offer a creative way for shoppers on the go to browse a brand at their own convenience via an iPhone, iPad or another connected device. This ultimately helps drive sales. While a consumer may spend a few minutes window shopping via a mobile app but may not make a purchase, that action helps convert more sales online and in-store.

Though the preponderance of purchases happen on the Web, Gardner asserts that two of CREATETHE GROUP’s largest luxury retailers average eight to nine percent of their total sales through mobile. Flash sale site Rue La La projects even bigger results with 20 percent of its sales expected to come through mobile by next year.

The most successful brands to convert will offer customers an array of ways to connect and shop. But you don’t necessarily need to rely on an app. Gardner tells me that mobile commerce enabled sites are more important.

While apps were a craze and a focus for 2008 and 2009, what quickly became important to CREATETHE GROUP’s clients is mobile commerce – and really making their sites accessible and shopable on all mobile devices including the iPhone and iPad that do not support Flash, because anyone can access a retailer’s site on their mobile device whether a branded app is available yet or not. The focus shifted away from apps to mobile commerce, and our most recent examples of mobile commerce enabled sites include Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, DKNY, and Juicy Couture. With these clients and others, we are in progress of the next level of optimizing mobile design and the checkout process.

If a brand has the resources to do it, developing an app can offer the potential customer a more robust way to shop remotely. David Yurman’s iPhone app for its timepiece collection allows users to browse collections, view detailed descriptions, make purchases through a personal shopper, and view product images in their actual size to see what the piece would look like on their wrist.

Smart brand managers would do well to begin incorporating location based services that go beyond a store locator. Nordstrom’s (JWN) recent inventory integration between stores and warehouse allowed shoppers to see what was available in nearby stores or shop online and pick up in the store. The initiative has made Nordstrom’s inventory turn at record-setting speeds (to 5.41 in 2009 from 4.84 in 2005) and improved margins on merchandise that would have languished on racks until marked below 50 percent.

There’s still plenty of room for improvement. Piers Fawkes, founder of trend research firm PSFK, believes retailers should encourage mobile phones in stores and provide free wi-fi for shoppers to enhance the browsing experience. Fawkes also suggests retailers to take control of their inventory cycles by synchronizing special discounts for groups.

You can encourage people to purchase when you want to move stock. You can also focus on your loyal consumers and reward them with group purchases. And you can test the popularity of new concepts or product ranges or brands before you make them.

One thing’s clear: if a multichannel shopper spends four times, on average, what a one-source shopper spends, fashion retailers who haven’t started developing mobile-friendly sites yet better get busy.

As I drove back to my office after the conference I realized – even with all the information available on this most important marketing shift and the SHARING we have done – there are many large and small companies – that are just getting started and are still unsure of how to ensure success.  I thought I would offer some ideas – that can be applied to any  social media marketing efforts to help garner immediate results as quickly as possible.

1. Most brands have established who they are product and service wise – but many have not allowed themselves to reveal their personality. By this I mean – you must be assessable and approachable. Encourage your visitors to share their ideas, opinions and provide feedback. You want to retract the traditional methods of talking at people or pushing information and facilitate a two way conversation that welcomes your participants, encourages them to talk with you and makes them feel so good they want to come back and share with others. Don’t forget your employees. They are your first and best brand ambassadors. Create rules and guidelines that fit your companies policies – but encourage them to talk about your business and galvanize your customers to join in with them.

2. Create information and content that can be shared! Make it fun and interesting. Ask questions and listen to the feedback and the content that gets passed along – as guidelines of what your audience enjoys and connects with. Be sure to be consistent and respond to any requests, questions and opinions so that your audience knows that you are listening as well as providing information. This will help add value to the online conversation for your entire community.

3. Acknowledge your brand ambassadors and community participants. Let them know how happy you are to have them supporting you. Be sure to respond to every comment, email, blog comment, Tweet or Facebook post. It is no different than how you would treat a friend. You don’t want them to think that you are ignoring them – all good relationships are built on taking time to nurture each person individually.

4. Continuity of marketing channels is key.  Integrating all of your marketing tools from your website, to your blog, email campaigns, in-store and offline campaigns and your online communities which might be microsites, Facebook and Twitter pages. All must be unified – sharing the same message but communicated in different ways. Like all of us we have different ways of communicating and taking the time to understand the way your target market likes to communicate- gives you have a much better chance of engaging them. Leverage your various sites to promote one another. So on your home page – you might include find us on Facebook and Twitter. Do the same on your Twitter and Facebook pages and provide links where they can easily access the way they would like to connect with you and share you with their communities.

5. Don’t look sideways. So many companies hear or read about businesses that have a gazillion fans on Twitter and decide that they should dive into Twitter hoping for the same results. It could be that your target market doesn’t use Twitter. You want to strategize and understand who and where YOUR customers are and meet them there. It is always great to know what your competition is doing and how they are communicating with their customers but remember – no two people or business are the same. Be true to who YOU are!

Best Nicole